Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense: Difference between revisions

Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense (view source)

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+{{a|book review|}}
 {{author|Rory Sutherland}}’s ten rules, and how these translate into the [[JC]]’s messed up, post-structuralist view.
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 :It is not more rewarding to think that not only ''can'' you influence outcomes, but that ''this is your sacred quest''? [[Chatbot]]s cannot do this, folks. This is your [[spidey-sense]].
-*'''Don’t design for average''': Models which aggregate individuals into some kind of archetypal mean create a dead end. This is of a piece with Matthew Syed’s obdservaston about the fightercoc kpit designed for the average pilot, whcih turned out to fit no-one. Firstly the average may fit noone: the spatial average of all the positions on a sphere is no where near any of them. Secondly, the proxy for the average, the median, is the ''mediocre''.
+*'''Don’t design for average''': Models which aggregate individuals into some kind of archetypal mean create a dead end. This is of a piece with Matthew Syed’s observation about the fighter cockpit designed for the average pilot, which turned out to fit no one. Firstly the average may fit no one: the spatial average of all the positions on a sphere is nowhere near any of them. Secondly, the proxy for the average, the median, is the ''mediocre''.
-*'''Don’t be logical where everyone else is being logical''': This is a corollory of designing for the average. To be logical is to be predictable. To prioritise logic is to converge on the same spot that all your (logic-prioritising) competitors are converging, and leaving the rest of design-space to the unconventional thinkers. While you and your fellow bald men race to the bottom in a fight over the same comb, someone else is eating all the pudding you didn’t have the imagination to see. It is to see the world as [[mediocristan]], obeying a [[normal distribution]], and able to be navigated by probabilities, which are better calculated by machine than human.
+*'''Don’t be logical where everyone else is being logical''': This is a corollary of designing for the average. To be logical is to be predictable. To prioritise logic is to converge on the same spot that all your (logic-prioritising) competitors are converging, and leaving the rest of design-space to the unconventional thinkers. While you and your fellow bald men race to the bottom in a fight over the same comb, someone else is eating all the pudding you didn’t have the imagination to see. It is to see the world as [[mediocristan]], obeying a [[normal distribution]], and able to be navigated by probabilities, which are better calculated by machine than human.
 *'''Our expectation affects our experience''':
 *'''A flower is simply a weed with a marketing budget''': It is not about efficiency. Sometimes the very inefficiency is what marks out effectiveness.
-*'''Logic kills off magic''': People don't percieve the word objectively. So, address people’s perceptions of reality, not necessarily reality itself.
+*'''Logic kills off magic''': People don't perceive the word objectively. So, address people’s perceptions of reality, not necessarily reality itself.
-*'''A good guess which stands up to empirical obsewrvation is still science''': Random accidents can generate progress.
+*'''A good guess which stands up to empirical observation is still science''': Random accidents can generate progress. On which Sutherland invokes the impish figure of {{author|Paul Feyerabend}}
-*'''Test counterintuitive things because no-one else will''': See also [[no-one got fired for hiring IBM]]. Creat a small space where people can test things that don’t make sense. So, a [[Skunkworks]]. All the more reason if your competitors are too scasred to go there.
+*'''Test counterintuitive things because no-one else will''': See also [[no-one got fired for hiring IBM]]. Create a small space where people can test things that don’t make sense. So, a [[Skunkworks]]. All the more reason if your competitors are too scared to go there.
-*'''Solving problems using only rationality is like playing golf using only one club''': Rationality has uses; but it is a naive model of the world, and what it leaves might be more inmportant than what it leaves ''in''. The moment you say is “the way to solve the problem is like this ~” you have defined the problem in a way that allows only a very small solution set. There are lots of reasons beople behave as they do, and economic incentives only over a small part of them.
+*'''Solving problems using only rationality is like playing golf using only one club''': Rationality has its uses; but it is a naive model of the world, and what it leaves might be more important than what it leaves ''in''. The moment you say is “the way to solve the problem is like this ~” you have defined the problem in a way that allows only a very small solution set. There are lots of reasons people behave as they do, and economic incentives only over a small part of them.