Tuesday, November 3, 2020

How some models intertwine and interact, in short part 2

This text is a second part of two-part text that shows how models interact and intertwine. It is a short education for the relationships of the models. This text helps you to edit your latticework of mental models when you read the text with deep thought. Be ready to disagree with me and discard any failed assumptions I might have. Enjoy the text

System structures like interconnections set out the paths of least resistance. For example, politicians do what they promise to people who finance them instead of what they promise to voters. Politicians cannot get elected without financiers, but voters matter less. Evolution is a complex adaptive system which corrects itself through the path of least resistance. The more competitive the field of expertise, the better systems you need to have an edge. Strategy is not only a system, its execution requires several of them.


Feedback loops work in increasing the odds of correct predictions. Successful predictions require continuous processes with balancing loops which produce additional information to improve last predictions. The evolution works through continuous feedback loops. During the lifetime of species, feedback loops must compound the best effects of genes first, and the worst effects last.


Understanding the daily cycle helps in motivating people. Motivation is strongest during the morning and fades toward the evening. Understanding cycles gives an edge in many fields of expertise. Most people have no clue about the existence of a long-term socioeconomic cycle, and they do not understand there are different seasons.


Better skills produce simplicity. Useless energy-consumption diminishes. Better skills help you produce faster reactions when they are necessary. Many skills have natural cycles. Understanding them accelerates learning. Which gives better odds to create an edge. Feedback loops in performing measurable skills work with adjusting your results of previous performance to next one.

Motivation or its absence are reactions to internal or external factors. It can compound after successful repetitions during the practice. Motivation has not only daily cycles, it fluctuates in shorter ones. When the edge becomes abundant, motivation to maintain it can disappear. Motivating is easier when you use psychological tendencies as leverages.


Deliberate practice requires simplicity of the process. It focuses on improving one thing at a time and discard others. Performer needs to a feedback loop between him and the skilled authority that helps him react to flaws in action sequences during practice. Deliberate practice requires a strategy for a long-term development of the performer.


Creating an edge requires a permutation of several factors including talent transferred through genes and most components of the deliberate practice. Edge does not create compounding effects unless people cannot notice the contrast between the skills of a performer with an edge and one without it.


Evolution is a chain reaction which has developed living beings throughout billions of years. It improves biological traits with a minuscule compounding rate. Cultural evolution requires a critical mass of people to develop their norms and actions with mutual understanding. Most psychological biases are the products of slowly developing brains and faster developing environments.


Figuring out opportunity costs of each added option after their optimal number compounds the unwanted effects of the decision process. The same process requires skill when it bases on facts you cannot easily measure.


Working psychological tendencies are reactions to stimuli. They can create edges with skilled exploitation. You learn most of them from authority figures who provide them on purpose or accidentally from random stimuli. Skilled execution of a strategy requires understanding psychological tendencies of each stakeholder.


Excessive self-regard is one of the most common reasons you lose an edge. You forget to be humble and become overconfident about your skills compared to other people. The greater the edge becomes, the higher the odds that your ego grows too much. It is also one of the most common weaknesses smart people have.


The availability of simplified actions others execute helps you to eliminate complexity. Availability of the skilled actions affects your chances to become more skilled during moments without practice. The availability of the reminders about weaknesses has to be minimal. You can improve the execution of a strategy by increasing its availability to all stakeholders.


Social groups work better when the roles in them are simple and clear. Social proof often compounds, but the rate variations are high. The rates increase when perceived authorities spread the message. Sometimes the scarcity of the message strengthens it. This happens when a tight group shares the common delusion and others are against it.


Persuasion professionals can increase need to reciprocate by increasing your path of least resistance by compounding the value of favors or gifts. The availability of other people reciprocating the favor you got, strengthens your need to do the same. When you choose from two similar authorities, your choice is one who did more favors or gave better gifts.

Authority positions imply edges, no matter whether they are real. They are often antifragile. When somebody attacks their credibility, their followers´ beliefs strengthen. Your mind can create a perception of you becoming an authority when excessive self-regard strengthens your beliefs after lots of effort to understand the topic. Authority figures in groups sometimes use invented antiauthorities to strengthen their ideology.

Scarcity of an edge offers leverage to increase its effectiveness. Scarcity is one of the strongest enemies of willpower. It destroys attention effectively. When you feel that the advice from the authority is scarce, it strengthens his status. Abundance of advice inverts the effect. The same effects apply to the scarcity and abundance of status symbols.


The contrast between the current path of least resistance and the preferable new one must often be big enough for recognition, but so small it requires minimal willpower. The contrast between authorities can make a difference in their believability. It increases the perception of importance of the stronger one and destroys the credibility of the weaker.


When your decision-making system confronts its limits and your brain loses willpower with too many decisions during the daily cycle, each added decision increases the odds of undesirable outcomes. The odds of good decisions grow when you use checklists as leverage in complex situations.


Successful strategy cannot produce too many irreversible reactions for stakeholders. Focus on your edges and weaknesses of opponents when you create a strategy for competitions. Strategies evolve when they confront obstacles in execution. Strategies need social proof and authority figures to maximize their effectiveness to stakeholders. Execution of a strategy improves when all stakeholders use the same checklists to apply shared tactics.


Checklists simplify the execution of complex actions. Their use requires willpower and rationality unless you program them to intuition. Checklist is seldom useful when a power-law event strikes. They are useful components of personal systems. Checklists have to be available to your senses and mind. Use contrast to make each item on the list more available.

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