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Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

#177: Aug. - Oct. 2021 (Non-Fiction)
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Mr. P

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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Your confidence is admirable. But we do not understand the implications of much of what we have done and no real research on the grabs scale of environmental manipulation has ever been done because it has been impossible.

Small scale experiments do not always imply large scale results. We can knee-jerk ourselves into a worse situation.

The algae scenario and evolution of whales... That might just be a bad analogy... Evolution is a loooong process. How long would that algae scenario take to make any real difference?
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Mr. P wrote:Your confidence is admirable.
In fact I fear the human race is likely to prove too stupid to address climate change and will sleepwalk into oblivion. Watching Hurricane Ida barrel toward New Orleans, it is clear the USA has no coherent understanding of national security, given the failure to do anything to mitigate such major climate risks. Marine cloud brightening is a readily available, simple, safe and low cost technology to reduce the intensity of ocean storms by reducing water temperature. It would pay for itself if funded by the insurance industry. The complete failure of any nation other than Australia to apply this basic method displays the incoherent and irrational attitude toward security problems that now prevails. That is a prime example of the importance of rethinking our priorities and values.
Mr. P wrote:But we do not understand the implications of much of what we have done and no real research on the grabs scale of environmental manipulation has ever been done because it has been impossible.
(‘grabs’ looks like a typo?) Research can be done at a theoretical level. The hypothesis is that pushing systems toward a cooler situation will generally be good, while allowing drift to a hotter system will be bad. Exactly how to do that requires field research. That looks pretty obvious, but the irrational opposition is impervious to logic.
Mr. P wrote: Small scale experiments do not always imply large scale results. We can knee-jerk ourselves into a worse situation.
It is essential to conduct experiments so we can assess the issues around scaling up, as this type of climate management is inevitably necessary, and should be planned not rushed. Unfortunately as the religious objections to the recent Scopex proposal showed, such rationality is marginal to public policy.
Mr. P wrote:
The algae scenario and evolution of whales... That might just be a bad analogy... Evolution is a loooong process. How long would that algae scenario take to make any real difference?
My view is that it would be physically possible for the planet to achieve net zero emissions by industrial algae production within twenty years, providing a trajectory to net negative emissions to return to Holocene stability by the end of the century.

After the marine dinosaurs were wiped out by the meteorite in Yucatan 65 million years ago, their ocean niche was empty. The ancestors of hippos living in rivers found they could gradually expand into salt water environments. Within a few million years they had evolved to fill the pelagic expanse of the world ocean, more than double the area of the continents. Mimicking that evolutionary path for algae farms at sea could be done in years if an Apollo Project style of urgency was applied.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Robert Tulip wrote:Page 28 contrasts scientific thinking, defined as humble rethinking, against overconfidence, where we validate our pride through fallacious and biased psychology. Science discovers through doubt and curiosity, through the humble cognisance of our own ignorance that enables wisdom.
Digging into the beginning of the book, the first thing I came to was the Mann Gulch fire. And oddly enough I had just been reading about that in Michael Lewis' fine book, "The Premonition" about the beginnings of the covid crisis and the difference between the response of those who were primed to look for threat and those bureaucrats who were primed for same ol, same ol'. (Yes, the same Michael Lewis of Moneyball and The Big Short.)

The group who had realized what a devastating effect a pandemic could have (reacting, as Lewis would have it, to George Bush, Jr. having read about the 1918 Spanish flu in the wake of 9/11 and allocating some money to study what could go wrong) had a culture of passing around bits of news, insight, concern, or just picking each other's brains on whatever problem they were dealing with (definitely a scientist's approach, in my view) and when someone ran some numbers on the likely numbers of infected individuals in the US in Feb 2020, after it was realized that it could be spread asymptomatically, they re-told the story of the Mann Gulch fire to convey the idea that the flames were on their way, just over the ridge, and would engulf the country before anybody in authority had moved to do a thing about it.
Robert Tulip wrote:This insight from Grant is deeply important for the morality and productivity of culture and politics. Conventional societies see the maintenance of a rigid social hierarchy as a key political objective. That means admitting error is to lose face – Napoleon’s dictum never to retract or retreat. Unlike prosecutors, politicians and preachers, scientists need a respectful, collaborative, inquisitive culture. By extending scientific method into all areas of society, leaders can affirm the value of a constantly questioning approach, promoting a far more democratic and inclusive world.
It is worth thinking about why a collaborative and inquisitive culture must be a respectful culture. There is an awful lot of gatekeeping in academic culture, and it threatens the possibilities for collaborative and inquisitive progress. When we consider how valuable it is to engage, one on one and thoughtfully, with those inclined to prefer their own conspiracy theories to any established consensus, we can recognize that the disrespect often starts at the center, where scientists are busy jockeying for influence and grant money and may be as resistant as anyone else to re-thinking.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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A general reflection.

My view is that the underlying evolution of morality is seeing the steady rise of evidence as a primary moral principle. Atheists observe there is no evidence for the existence of God. The 'woke' ideology objects to the rampant injustice in the world, citing abundant evidence. However, this whole process creates a psychological fallacy, namely that people claim their opinions are factual knowledge based on evidence, where in reality they are often subjective beliefs based on emotion.

This fallacy is immensely attractive, because it establishes a simple framework of good and evil, an implicit system of faith. It is far harder to logically examine all our assumptions against evidence than to accept a tribal loyalty as the basis of our beliefs. The ethical framework of evidence and logic as primary values can often lead to ideas that people across the political spectrum find unacceptable.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Page 30: When Apple engineers pitched to Steve Jobs to turn the iPod into a phone, Grant says his response was to snap “why the fuck would we want to do that? That is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” That certainly contradicts the legend of the brilliant farsighted innovator. In public he repeatedly said he would never make a phone. Such a response could have been expected to intimidate the advocates, but they re-pitched to him with a vision of continuity. Continuity within an organisation is absolutely essential to bring people around, combining evolution of strategy with stability of identity.

Everything else in your pocket as well as 20,000 songs. Still with the genetics of a computer company. The skill and will to open our minds.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Harry Marks wrote:.
Digging into the beginning of the book, the first thing I came to was the Mann Gulch fire. And oddly enough I had just been reading about that in Michael Lewis' fine book, "The Premonition" about the beginnings of the covid crisis and the difference between the response of those who were primed to look for threat and those bureaucrats who were primed for same ol, same ol'. (Yes, the same Michael Lewis of Moneyball and The Big Short.)

The group who had realized what a devastating effect a pandemic could have (reacting, as Lewis would have it, to George Bush, Jr. having read about the 1918 Spanish flu in the wake of 9/11 and allocating some money to study what could go wrong) had a culture of passing around bits of news, insight, concern, or just picking each other's brains on whatever problem they were dealing with (definitely a scientist's approach, in my view) and when someone ran some numbers on the likely numbers of infected individuals in the US in Feb 2020, after it was realized that it could be spread asymptomatically, they re-told the story of the Mann Gulch fire to convey the idea that the flames were on their way, just over the ridge, and would engulf the country before anybody in authority had moved to do a thing about it.
Robert Tulip wrote:This insight from Grant is deeply important for the morality and productivity of culture and politics. Conventional societies see the maintenance of a rigid social hierarchy as a key political objective. That means admitting error is to lose face – Napoleon’s dictum never to retract or retreat. Unlike prosecutors, politicians and preachers, scientists need a respectful, collaborative, inquisitive culture. By extending scientific method into all areas of society, leaders can affirm the value of a constantly questioning approach, promoting a far more democratic and inclusive world.
It is worth thinking about why a collaborative and inquisitive culture must be a respectful culture. There is an awful lot of gatekeeping in academic culture, and it threatens the possibilities for collaborative and inquisitive progress. When we consider how valuable it is to engage, one on one and thoughtfully, with those inclined to prefer their own conspiracy theories to any established consensus, we can recognize that the disrespect often starts at the center, where scientists are busy jockeying for influence and grant money and may be as resistant as anyone else to re-thinking.
Fareed Zakaria wrote an insightful column on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. A key fact for him is that the National Security Council met on the situation in that country 36 times since April 2021. What decisions were made by that body that has grown so large over the last 20 years? Apparently, none. What attempt was made to bring in information from the outside that might upset some of the ruling assumptions? Zakaria thinks the bureaucracy hunkered down, protecting turf that had political approval at the WH and Pentagon.

Grant said that companies don't make decisions, people do. That may be true in one sense, but in another sense the company or organization (perhaps especially in government--and academia?) exerts influence and sometimes control over individual thinking. Groupthink is real.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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Robert Tulip wrote:A general reflection.

My view is that the underlying evolution of morality is seeing the steady rise of evidence as a primary moral principle. Atheists observe there is no evidence for the existence of God. The 'woke' ideology objects to the rampant injustice in the world, citing abundant evidence. However, this whole process creates a psychological fallacy, namely that people claim their opinions are factual knowledge based on evidence, where in reality they are often subjective beliefs based on emotion.

This fallacy is immensely attractive, because it establishes a simple framework of good and evil, an implicit system of faith. It is far harder to logically examine all our assumptions against evidence than to accept a tribal loyalty as the basis of our beliefs. The ethical framework of evidence and logic as primary values can often lead to ideas that people across the political spectrum find unacceptable.
Evidence is surely A principle of morality (one of the commandments in Torah says that the rich man is as much entitled to just treatment under the law as the poor man is) but it is not THE principle of morality. I might argue it is a "red line" of morality. Anyone who knowingly goes against the evidence is in grave peril. I think the current state of tribalism in America is a signal of that peril, but it also represents a confusion of large truths. On the one hand there is traditional social organization and mores, and on the other there is the moral logic of reason. People who cannot square that circle may feel, with some justice, that the ends of promoting their vision of a sane and just society justify their means of choosing the attractive-sounding lie over the evidence.

But they would be wrong.
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Re: Ch. 1: Think Again by Adam Grant

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I "read" a lot of books while driving, and don't distinguish whether I've actually listened to it unless it's important (like a chart or map I couldn't see) This doesn't work as well for high fantasy because I have always looked at the maps and followed along.
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