Think for Yourself - Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence - Vikram Mansharamani
Summary
- Our time puts a lot of emphasis on experts. While valuable, we should not completely hand them the keys to major decisions in our life, but instead see them as a value resource, not a decision making device.
- As we face increasingly complex problems, siloed thinking and overly tight thinking becomes a disadvantage, similar to the 6 blind men encountering and elephant. Each has an accurate but wrong view of what is an elephant and only having an overview helps to put all the pieces together.
How I discovered it
- Not sure actually
How the book changed me
- This book has made clear what I always suspected - that while a valuable resource, we should not delegate all power to experts (including the internet!) Also there is increible power in having a good general knowlege of many things.
Details
- Specialist vs generalist? See the parable of the The fox knows many things the hedgehog only one thing
- Trying to make a choice? Beware of Analysis Paralysis
- Beware notifications! Too many notifications for modern workers reduces IQ
- One area where it is vital to think for yourself: The importance of choosing a life partner
- Be reasonable in thinking for yourself, because Ultimate optimization is impossible
- Our focus is limited - Inattentional blindness - the gorilla in the room
- Peter Principle - One rises to ones level of incompetence
- Dont let information assymetry intimidate you
- We are naturally obedient to authority
- Engage with those who have different views from yourself
- Metaknowlege - knowing what we know
- How did the expert reach his conclusion
- Steve Jobs course in typography informed later design for the mac