This week's Commonplace post is about how I come up with new topics to write about ... and how you can steal that process for investigating career/life questions you want answered.
commoncog.com/blog/follow-yo
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How I come up with things to write about:
1. I have questions.
2. I investigate those questions.
3. I write up the answers.
(I also don't use a second brain, because I'm an idiot that way).
I ... suspect that I have 2-3 good years before I run out of questions!
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I think one question I get often is “how do you find books to construct reading programs around”, but the answer is really simple — you let your questions guide you.
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Some questions I’m currently investigating:
- why are most big companies in Asia conglomerates?
- what’s the current best thinking on luck vs skill?
- how does Charlie Munger use analogical thinking, and why is it so effective?
- what does skill in wicked domains look like?
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Analogical thinking is effective because it is how the brain works. An analogy is a model that you can pattern match the rest of the world to. If the analogy is good you can pattern match a lot of the world to it and you suddenly have a powerful easy to communicate model.
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Oh, I've got a list of primary sources to read on this topic, thanks to =]
Current hypotheses is that Munger's mental model schtick is actually 'analogical transfer of schemas.' There's a rich literature around that; my job is to dig there + read all his speeches.