Predicting the future is a random access process, but inventing the future is a serial process. Most of us (me included) engage with the future the wrong way around: predicting it serially as a narrative, inventing it random-access via spaghetti on the wall pseudo-experiments.
-
-
Invention: Don’t confuse experimentation with coin-tossing/dice-rolling iid trials. The power of an experiment is proportional to the length of the serial chain of linked hypotheses it is part of. A 2-link hypothesis chain is 4x more powerful than 2 parallel experiments.
Show this thread -
If you experimentally test a first stage and second stage rocket design, you have a launcher to orbit. If you test 2 first stage designs, you have 2 first stage designs. 2 half rockets. Serialized parlayed bets = create future. Parallel bets = futz around feeling futuristic.
Show this thread -
Somehow, agility and iteration have gotten conflated with *small* experiments or worse, *partial* experiments. The risk/return profile of an experiment is a product of the steps in longest chain. You can’t lower risk or increase returns by increasing number of first-steps.
Show this thread -
That approach is for people investing in the future rather than trying to invent it. Don’t invent like an investor or invest like an inventor unless you have O(n^2) resources, n=number of hypothesis *chains*
Show this thread -
I have no idea why I’m tweeting this shit. Yet another of my massively parallel idea explorations driven by misguided intuition that 100 tweets will somehow equal 1 blog post
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.