"When you hear or read someone weaving their ideas into a beautiful mosaic of words, try to remember, they are almost certainly wrong." Respectfully, I don't think this is true, and I think that this kind of thinking makes people susceptible to grifters. Most people conflate the ability to understand and the ability to communicate. When we start to promote the idea that only smart people can communicate ideas simply, people will gravitate only toward simple explanations. Sometimes, a hard explanation is needed because discernment is hard and the world is a complex place.
I also think Occam's Razor is often misused. To quote from my own post when someone brought it up:
"Occam's razor is a tool that was developed to decide between similarly proven hypotheses. It says that all else being equal, the argument that derives the conclusion with the least premises wins. It is not a suggestion that simplicity in itself is the best criteria to decide whether something is good or not.
For a slightly clumsy example, consider that you have decided to go to a fancy restaurant and you want to get a great steak. But everything is expensive so you decide to get the cheapest steak. What you have done is pre-screened that all the steaks are good and then you get the cheapest one. It is a two step decision where cheapness is the deciding criteria in the second step. Whereas if you had decided you wanted a delicious steak and cheapness was how you would decide, you would end up eating something that tastes terrible.
Occam's Razor is similar in that it's a tool to be implied in the second of a two step process. After you have a set of equally rigorous outcomes, you should go with the one that got there with the least amount of fuss and complexity."
As a thought experiment, I'd be curious: in your asset management career, did you allocate based on who could explain things most thoroughly, or who could explain things most simply?
(And please, read this all in a tone of charity and respect, I really enjoy Infinite Loops.)
This is such a great essay. — it's so good it almost feels like complete fiction.
"When you hear or read someone weaving their ideas into a beautiful mosaic of words, try to remember, they are almost certainly wrong." Respectfully, I don't think this is true, and I think that this kind of thinking makes people susceptible to grifters. Most people conflate the ability to understand and the ability to communicate. When we start to promote the idea that only smart people can communicate ideas simply, people will gravitate only toward simple explanations. Sometimes, a hard explanation is needed because discernment is hard and the world is a complex place.
Someone brought your essay to my attention after I'd written something similar in the opposite direction you can find here: https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/simplicity-expertise-and-bullshit
I also think Occam's Razor is often misused. To quote from my own post when someone brought it up:
"Occam's razor is a tool that was developed to decide between similarly proven hypotheses. It says that all else being equal, the argument that derives the conclusion with the least premises wins. It is not a suggestion that simplicity in itself is the best criteria to decide whether something is good or not.
For a slightly clumsy example, consider that you have decided to go to a fancy restaurant and you want to get a great steak. But everything is expensive so you decide to get the cheapest steak. What you have done is pre-screened that all the steaks are good and then you get the cheapest one. It is a two step decision where cheapness is the deciding criteria in the second step. Whereas if you had decided you wanted a delicious steak and cheapness was how you would decide, you would end up eating something that tastes terrible.
Occam's Razor is similar in that it's a tool to be implied in the second of a two step process. After you have a set of equally rigorous outcomes, you should go with the one that got there with the least amount of fuss and complexity."
As a thought experiment, I'd be curious: in your asset management career, did you allocate based on who could explain things most thoroughly, or who could explain things most simply?
(And please, read this all in a tone of charity and respect, I really enjoy Infinite Loops.)
Hi Jim, if you want to do a guest post on "How Creators are using A.I. as Co-Creators Augmenting Their Creativity" on my Newsletter you'd be most welcome to. Here's is a bit of how it works: https://aisupremacy.substack.com/p/ai-supremacy-is-exploring-and-open - see other examples here https://aisupremacy.substack.com/s/guest-posts