“Really all the best things in our lives compound with time and patience.”

EVERYTHING GOOD COMPOUNDS

Intelligence, health, relationships, love and money all compound over time. And while the external markers (medals, degrees, money) of success may draw your focus some of the time, the more time you spend doing the work the more your efforts will compound.

If your focus is on the external measures [what your friends, neighbors, or colleagues HAVE] you’re probably in trouble.

THE FINANCIALIZATION OF LIFE

It is dangerous how we have financialized everything. In order to determine the advisability of a particular policy (a drug approval for example), the federal government has calculated the value of a single human life. We are coming out of a pandemic where we made the decision to close down large swaths of the economy to hopefully save lives. There was an imbedded financial question… how many lives will we be saving and will saving that many lives justify the economic damage?

At the same time, we no longer just enjoy the artwork – we wonder how much the artwork is worth. It isn’t “My, looks at the beautiful painting.” It’s often “Can you believe that thing sold for $2.5 million?”

If the external marker is money, then success can be misconstrued as the gathering of more money rather than the testing and improvement of our best ideas in a marketplace of great ideas.

SOURCES OF SUCCESS

When economists pull apart the sources of success, they discover that the predominant variable in the vast majority of “success” is really luck. If Jeff Bezos was born in the 1700s or in sub-Saharan Africa, then he would not today be the wealthiest man o the planet.

When I am successful, it is because I am so smart and worked so hard. When I fail, it is because I was unlucky. The biggest bias we experience is our own Bias Blindness. We note that in theory we may actually be wrong about some things… but when asked, we can’t really pick something out that we are or have been wrong about. It is easy to see other’s bias, but it is nearly impossible to see our own.

BIAS IN THINKING

There are many biases. The three worst offenders are:

1. Bias Blindness
2. Confirmation Bias – we see what we want to see (in ourselves, in others, in the data, in experiences)
3. Overconfidence

“Information is cheap; meaning is expensive”

160 years ago, during the US Civil war, the armies of the North and South would march around looking for each other. If you had a hint of where the enemy might be, then you would have all kinds of advantages – surprise and preparation being the largest. 

Today, there is so much information that there is no way that anyone could process it all or even find it all to make an informed decision by the true weight of all the evidence. Information is everywhere, but knowledge is scarce and interpretation is critical.

The signal is difficult to find in a world of noise and once it is found it is difficult to synthesize into meaning and then action. Kahneman’s new book, when it comes out, gives weight to understanding the importance of the overwhelming noise. 

TRUTH

The only tool we have to battle the noise and break through to some form of Truth is the scientific method. But, Seawright wisely points to the Is/Ought distinction. The scientific method can tell us what is, but it cannot tell us what ought to be. Many of our deepest disagreements are expressed as disagreements about what is… but they are far more often a disagreement about ought. 

Experts disagree and they don’t themselves recognize that they are disagreeing re: ought. Because they spin what “is” with their own confirmation bias, they overstate and misapply their expertise in “is” to “ought.” When they maintain their confidence in an environment of declining probability (like “ought”) we cease to trust them.

WEALTH

Wealth is not inherently good or bad. What matters is how you acquire it and how you use it. 

So many truly wealthy people say they will give it all away… but then they wait until after they are dead to do so. Real credit lies with those who make the commitment and follow through during life (a la. MacKenzie Scott)

CAPITALISM

Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.

Putting his lawyer hat back on for the briefest moment, Bob talked about the changes in anti-trust law that has occurred over the last few decades. Historically, if either the consumer was damaged OR an entity had “monopoly” power, then anti-trust would come knocking. More recently, companies have been allowed to maintain near monopoly power IF, the consumer is not “damaged.”  

This is something that Congress could fix if they could only stop performing for the cameras and start doing the hard work of legislating.

Want to delve deeper? 

Check out the full Podcast here. Watch the video here.

Or check out Bob Seawright’s The Better Letter here or read the his book recommendations in the show notes.