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

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===The opposite of one good idea can be ''another'' good idea===
===The opposite of one good idea can be ''another'' good idea===
The idea that there even ''is'' a single right answer, let alone that you ''know it'', hails from a profoundly deterministic, reductionist world view. If you subscribe to this view, and you believe you have the right answer, then ''any other answer is necessarily sub-optimal, therefore wrong, and therefore you are objectively justified in suppressing it''. The benign view (which Sutherland takes) is the “[[no-one got fired for hiring IBM]]” approach: I took the correct, rational path, I was objective, so ''[[I cannot be blamed should things go wrong]]''.  
The idea that there even ''is'' a single right answer, let alone that you ''know it'', hails from a profoundly [[deterministic]], [[reductionist]] world view. If you subscribe to this view, and you believe you have the right answer, then ''any other answer is necessarily sub-optimal, therefore wrong, and therefore you are objectively justified in suppressing it''. The benign view (which Sutherland takes) is the “[[no-one got fired for hiring IBM]]” approach: I took the correct, rational path, I was objective, so ''[[I can’t be blamed should things go wrong]]''.  


By the way, isn’t that a depressing, negative, glass-almost-empty disposition to take to your work? We are but actors, all the world’s a stage, we are but frozen in the starlight and determined by events; we cannot influence outcomes, so my dearest aspiration is ''not to be blamed''? Especially since, if you adopt this view, ''no-one can be blamed for anything anyway since the outcome of the universe in every particular was set in stone from the original singularity''? As Sutherland says, “that’s wonderful if you want to keep your job; if you want to have an original idea it’s potentially disastrous.”
But isn’t that a depressing, negative, glass-almost-empty disposition to take to your work? “We are but actors, all the world’s a stage, we are but frozen in the starlight and determined by events; we cannot influence outcomes, so our dearest aspiration is ''not to be blamed''”?  
 
Especially since, if you adopt this view, ''no-one can be blamed for ''anything'', anyway, since on a [[deterministic]] reading the outcome of the universe in every particular was set in stone from the original [[singularity]]''?  
 
As Sutherland says, “that’s wonderful if you want to keep your job; if you want to have an original idea it’s potentially disastrous.”


Is it 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]].
Is it 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]].
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Secondly, the proxy for the average, the median, is the ''[[Mediocre you|mediocre]]''.   
Secondly, the proxy for the average, the median, is the ''[[Mediocre you|mediocre]]''.   


Thirdly, on the presumption, right or wrong, that the average is where you find the most people, the average is the point every other bastard is targeting too. As {{author|Cixin Liu}} put it, “In the cosmos, no matter how fast you are, someone will be faster; no matter how slow you are, someone will be slower.”<ref>{{br|Death’s End}}, Part V.</ref> For our purposes, the average is the cosmos.
Thirdly, on the presumption, right or wrong, that the average is where you find the most people, the average is the point every other bastard is targeting too. As {{author|Cixin Liu}} put it, “In the cosmos, no matter how fast you are, someone will be faster; no matter how slow you are, someone will be slower.”<ref>{{br|Death’s End}}, Part V.</ref> For our purposes, the average is the cosmos. Per {{author|Anita Elberse}} there is a contraflow in the market system that militates against the long tail: the [[Blockbusters: Why Big Hits - and Big Risks - Are the Future of the Entertainment Business - Book Review|blockbuster effect]]: everyone is aiming at the volume end of their realistic segment of the market. (Elberse’s prescription is to go with it; Sutherland’s is to ''defy'' it.)


===Don’t be logical where everyone else is being logical===
===Don’t be logical when 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.
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.


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