All these questions which you raised I’ve been asking myself for a while now. I’m curious about where you got them from.
Here’s the paradoxical nature: While It’s important to work on big ambitious things (at least have that goal in mind), big things often start very small and without trying.
The inclination to only work on big things is known as the Nobel prize effect in science.
From You and Your Research by Richard Hamming:
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.
Highly recommend you read that essay as it as answers many of your questions.
In the end, it’s important to work with direction on big important problems and once a while distracting yourself with something seemingly useless as that might be the acorn you need for the oak.
Very well said. I do not plan on stopping doing any of the small things that I am doing, but be a little more conscious and cognizant of some of the bigger goals that I have for myself. I realized that I could spend my summer reading a 100 books or making a 100 songs, or use the same time to work on a more ambitious goal that I have for myself.
I am not attracted to the big problems because of their scale, but because of the intriguing process that goes behind solving them. I don't judge a problem's worth on how big or small it is, but on how much value I see in solving it, and how capable I am in solving it. As you said, all big things will have small and humble origins. And that is what I hope to do with the time I have this summer and hoping that the little acorns that I planted will grow into something bigger over time.
Thank you for sharing the Hamming essay, and keep sharing more insights.
“While capitalism puts no checks on the well-being of our ecosystem”
Capitalism doesn’t make decisions, people do.
Why do businesses seem to care about climate change now? Because it became the politically correct thing to do. That’s maybe too harsh. But really capitalism has certain incentives and people respond to them unless there are things we collectively decide to do or to not to do like consideration for CO2 emissions.
Ironically enough, if you want to “solve” climate change, capitalism will be the system to do it, and not other system.
Agreed. The book is about making Capitalism work for tackling Climate Change, which is an approach I want to understand more about. Historically, they have been seen on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they don't have to be.
"How do you align incentives?" That's the billion dollar question
All these questions which you raised I’ve been asking myself for a while now. I’m curious about where you got them from.
Here’s the paradoxical nature: While It’s important to work on big ambitious things (at least have that goal in mind), big things often start very small and without trying.
The inclination to only work on big things is known as the Nobel prize effect in science.
From You and Your Research by Richard Hamming:
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.
Highly recommend you read that essay as it as answers many of your questions.
In the end, it’s important to work with direction on big important problems and once a while distracting yourself with something seemingly useless as that might be the acorn you need for the oak.
Very well said. I do not plan on stopping doing any of the small things that I am doing, but be a little more conscious and cognizant of some of the bigger goals that I have for myself. I realized that I could spend my summer reading a 100 books or making a 100 songs, or use the same time to work on a more ambitious goal that I have for myself.
I am not attracted to the big problems because of their scale, but because of the intriguing process that goes behind solving them. I don't judge a problem's worth on how big or small it is, but on how much value I see in solving it, and how capable I am in solving it. As you said, all big things will have small and humble origins. And that is what I hope to do with the time I have this summer and hoping that the little acorns that I planted will grow into something bigger over time.
Thank you for sharing the Hamming essay, and keep sharing more insights.
“While capitalism puts no checks on the well-being of our ecosystem”
Capitalism doesn’t make decisions, people do.
Why do businesses seem to care about climate change now? Because it became the politically correct thing to do. That’s maybe too harsh. But really capitalism has certain incentives and people respond to them unless there are things we collectively decide to do or to not to do like consideration for CO2 emissions.
Ironically enough, if you want to “solve” climate change, capitalism will be the system to do it, and not other system.
Agreed. The book is about making Capitalism work for tackling Climate Change, which is an approach I want to understand more about. Historically, they have been seen on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they don't have to be.
"How do you align incentives?" That's the billion dollar question