DISECONOMIES OF SCALE

Economies of scale, and in particular large countries, have many pros (negotiation leverage, coordination for defense, lower transaction costs, some economies of scale) but also many cons.

Here are some:

(thread, 1/12)
2/ LESS INNOVATION

Many separate entities can undertake many more experiments than a single large one, even though the large one has a larger budget.

In innovation, you just have to be right once.
2B/ Decentralized innovation allows for many experiments to be made, and capital to be allocated to what works rather than to what makes sense.

"The reason to avoid communism is not because it is inefficient, but because it tries to be too intelligent." – @rorysutherland
2C/ MORE FRAGILITY

Similarly, a fractal government can let its states and counties and cities implement many experiments and then do more of what works, instead of risking doing everything what makes sense but then fails.
2D/ In innovation, you just have to be right once; in risk management, you just have to be wrong at scale once.

Fractal governance systems are more resistant. Antifragile, even.
3/ SLOWER REACTION TO NEW INFORMATION

Another misconception: centralization makes communication faster.

No. It makes distribution of orders faster.
But making orders and implementing them take longer.
3B/ Governors have more complexity to decide upon.

The peripheries take time to interpret, prepare & implement orders they didn't make.

Hopefully, the pandemic showed this.
4/ WORSE DECISIONS

A misconception: the centralized can take better decisions, for it has more resources & more competent people

No.The centralized cannot understand the peripheries, so it only takes better decisions according to the criteria that the center knows & cares about
4B/ Centralization only looks efficient to the central observer.

(A point explained in luca-dellanna.com/what-will-we-h…)
5/ IN CONCLUSION

Yes, centralization has many economies of scale. But probably larger diseconomies of scale.
5B/ More importantly, a fractal approach can get most advantages of centralization without most of its disadvantages.

The center takes decisions that can only be implemented by the center (e.g. Defense), middle-levels take decisions that can only be implemented by them, etc.
5C/ Decisions should be taken at the lowest possible level – not the highest competent one.

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More from @DellAnnaLuca

26 Jan
FRONT-LOADING CLARITY

A common scenario at the office:
– The manager sets an unclear task
– The employee does it, but not well enough
– Because of the lack of clarity, the employee thinks he did it well enough
– Now the manager faces two options, both bad:

(Thread 1/7)
2/ Either the manager accepts how the employee did the task (sending the message that subpar performance is okay and lowering standards across the team),

Or he tells the employee he didn't deliver on an unclear objective, pissing him off and/or demotivating him.
3/ Lack of clarity is a problem that:
– Always comes to bite you back
– And you will have to address it at some point, willingly or unwillingly

Better to acknowledge it and front-load clarity.
Read 9 tweets
25 Jan
I wanted to clarify the quote below,

"Over the short term, consequences that apply beyond the short-term do not matter. Over the long term, they do."

as I received a few questions regarding it. In particular, some said it's a platitude. It isn't.

1/5

2/ In the quoted thread, I made the example of a skier participating to a championship made of 10 races.
3/ In a single race, the consequences of him breaking his knee are "just" that he loses that race.

Conversely, in a championship, the consequences of him breaking his knee during a race is that he loses that race AND ALL FOLLOWING ONES (because he cannot participate to them).
Read 5 tweets
25 Jan
In school, if you partially complete a checklist, you get partial points

In life, there are checklists that give full points if partially completed and others that give no points

Much frustration comes from misunderstanding the kind of list you're dealing with

(examples below)
2/ Example #1: a checklist for authorship success could be:
– have a great idea
– write it down clearly
– promote it effectively

Only having a great idea is not sufficient. Worse, because of the lack of any success, you might learn the wrong lesson that it's a bad idea.
3/ Example #2: the checklist to write the perfect book has probably a hundred items on it. And yet, it's possible to achieve great success by only completing well a few.

But some might think that because their book doesn't check all the marks it isn't ready.
Read 4 tweets
20 Jan
CROSSING THE IDEA CHASM, AND THE MONETIZATION CHASM

On how ideas spread, or fail to spread, and how the business models of "idea spreaders" influence that.

(thread, 1/10)
2/ Context: the Adoption Curve is an important idea (see below).

The term “chasm” refers to the difficulty that ideas and technologies have in jumping from early adopters to mainstream.

3/ A question some had is, why is there a chasm, if (in theory) people are distributed on the adoption curve as a continuous spectrum?
Read 10 tweets
18 Jan
HOW TO DELIVER MEMORABLE PRESENTATIONS

1/ If you need a script because you can't remember it, your audience won't remember your talk either.

2/ If you need to write it in the slides to remember it, your audience won't remember it either.

(thread)
3/ The purpose of presentations is to get the audience to do something. If it could have been a paper, it's not a good presentation.

If your presentation is not actionable, or actionable but not acted upon, it's near useless – at least for the audience.
4/ Your presentation won't be acted upon unless you get your audience to emotionally experience the benefits of acting during your presentation.

Show, surprise, let them try, let them experience emotions.
Use stories, visuals, interaction, breaking rules, role-playing.
Read 10 tweets
14 Jan
I broadly agree. I’d add that it’s not just about abundance but lack of potentially damaging stressors.

Example: if the SEC doesn’t do it job, than you can become the richest man of the world on top of a meme.

Not that abundance wasn’t necessary but that it wasn’t sufficient.
Also, abundance is a stressor that protects from damage from stressors; so the two points above are intertwined.
A question I’ve been spending time pondering is, do we benefit from a market of memes?

In part, yes: memes can be the bridge that crosses the chasm, making the impossible possible.

In part, no: fraud and “you can do it without substance” are memes too.
Read 6 tweets

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