How To Tell whether an Idea is Good or Bad?
How To Tell whether an Idea is Good or Bad?
A nugget from Nassim Taleb
Hello Friend!
Today I picked an insight from Nassim Taleb’s book “Antifragile”, which can help us tell whether an idea is Good (Robust / Useful) or whether is just Noise (Useless).
(Also, at the bottom of this newsletter I announce the launch of my new product YouTube Growth Map, which you can buy at a 50% discount for the next 2 days)
💡 Nugget
✦ Nassim Taleb:
“Consider the role of heuristic (rule-of-thumb) knowledge embedded in traditions. Simply, just as evolution operates on individuals, so does it act on these tacit, unexplainable rules of thumb transmitted through generations—what Karl Popper has called evolutionary epistemology. But let me change Popper’s idea ever so slightly (actually quite a bit): my take is that this evolution is not a competition between ideas, but between humans and systems based on such ideas. An idea does not survive because it is better than the competition, but rather because the person who holds it has survived! Accordingly, wisdom you learn from your grandmother should be vastly superior (empirically, hence scientifically) to what you get from a class in business school (and, of course, considerably cheaper). My sadness is that we have been moving farther and farther away from grandmothers.”
💭 Thoughts
This nugget gives me another good reason to keep doing this Newsletter and share timeless information, instead of news. I consider this to be the “Anti-Newsletter”. The older the idea, the more “lindy” it is and therefore the more objective/true it is!
The “Lindy Effect” states that for non-biological systems (e.g./ ideas, technology) the longer it has survived, the longer it will still survive (for the same amount of time, on average). So if it has already survived 10 years, it will still survive for another 10 years on average.Applied to Wealth…
Naval Ravikant explained how this applies to Wealth creation. He argues that once you get a solid foundation of understanding (through acquiring true knowledge) you are able to spot opportunities and learn anything you want at a fast speed.
Good design is timeless…
✦ Paul Graham:
“Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.”
- G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology
So what does Hardy mean when he says there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics? He means [that] if something is ugly, it can’t be the best solution. There must be a better one, and eventually someone else will discover it.
…
Good design is timeless”
(book: Hackers and Painters)
📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).
I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.
🤔 Why did I build this?
Well, as the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!
For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.
It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.
And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.
“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”
- Naval Ravikant
I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.
So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇
💥 Stuff I Loved
Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Julio xx
P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!