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30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
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Several people told me my seasonal lists of 40 useful concepts are too long, and the
email limits seem to agree, so I’ve decided to cut them down to 30, which will allow
me to be more selective and trade quantity for quality.
1. Goodhart’s Law:
When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to be a good measure.
Since schools started to use test-scores as targets, they’ve gradually stopped teaching
kids how to live fulfilling lives, and now mainly teach them how to pass school tests
(See also: Campbell’s Law).
2. Hotelling's Law:
Rival products (burgers, pop songs, political parties) tend to grow more alike over
time, because creators copy more successful rivals to replicate their success and steal
their customers/audiences.
3. Herostratic Fame:
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
Many people would rather be hated than unknown. In Ancient Greece, Herostratus
burned down the Temple of Artemis purely so he’d be remembered. Now we have
“nuisance influencers” who stream themselves committing crimes and harassing
people purely for clout.
4. Segal’s Law:
“A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with 2 watches is never sure.”
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
—Epictetus
The most ignorant people are not those who know nothing, but those who know a
little, because a little knowledge grants the illusion of understanding, which kills
curiosity and closes the mind.
7. Parkinson's Law:
Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. No matter the size of the task, it will
often take precisely the amount of time you set aside to do it, because more time
means more deliberation & procrastination.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
The underlying principle, known as induced demand, applies to many other resources:
Software expands to fill memory (Wirth’s law), patients expand to fill hospital beds (Roemer's
law), energy consumption expands to meet supply (Jevon’s paradox), road congestion expands
to fill roads (Braess’ paradox).
9. Pareidolia:
We see whatever we look for.
For aeons, survival favored the paranoid—those able to discern a predator from the
vaguest outline. From these survivors we inherited hyperactive pattern-detection,
which once saved us from the lions, but now curses us to see them even in the skies.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
10. Safetyism:
After US schools banned peanuts because some kids had allergies, more kids
developed peanut allergies from lack of exposure. We’re increasingly protecting kids
from life, which only makes them more vulnerable to it. Too much safety is
dangerous.
11. Phronemophobia:
Wilson et al. (2014) found that people with nothing to do except think or give
themselves an electric shock would often choose the shock. Many of us are so eager
to avoid ourselves that we’d rather do something harmful than do nothing at all.
(Curiously, this bias also affects LLMs, and no one yet knows why.)
15. Nutpicking:
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
Online political debate mainly involves cherry-picking the most outlandish members
of the enemy side and presenting them as indicative in order to make the entire side
look crazy.
The culture war is essentially just each side sneering at the other side's lunatics.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
In other words, the best way to be less of an idiot is to treat yourself like one.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
When presented with two appeals for charity—one based on famine statistics and
one based on a single starving girl—people tend to donate much more to the girl.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
Our minds can’t grasp big numbers, so we navigate the world through stories, not
statistics. We’re moved by drama, not data.
The future seems like a different world, distant and infinite in capacity, so you stuff it
with plans and forget about it, passing the buck to your future self.
Trouble is, your future self tends to be a lot like you. So if you wouldn't want to do
something today, don't agree to do it next month.
And that’s it for now. I’ll have a post for paying subscribers out soon. Take care.
G.
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30/03/2024, 22:24 30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) - by Gurwinder
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31. Gurwinder Effect: When Gurwinder releases another list that blows your goddamn
mind and makes you question everything.
“The greatest difficulty of travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.” Alain de
Botton ( cousin to the “Yes Damn Effect” )
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