Set a precedent, and people will link to it as validation.
We must portray a new situation as similar to the precedent by stripping away context for correspondence (alignment).
We appeal to the prior decision because we consider logical consistency valid, a bedrock of fairness and justice.
Yet, every situation is unique in its specifics, and similarity is merely a heuristic. In this regard, popularity is as valid an appeal as precedence.
Tag: order
- Theme: Politics
the power of precedence
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1–2 minutes - Theme: Self
Life as a puzzle or a garden
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1–2 minutesWe tend to think if you remove a piece of your life it can be replaced with a new, more thoughtfully chosen priority.
But controlling life as a puzzle is a nightmare: pieces shrink, expand, and multiply when you are not looking.
We cannot trade portions of life. Life is rhizomatic and flowing: to remain living it needs boundaries and weeding, not rigidity.
- Theme: Self
Defenses: Closed-system vs, Open-system
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1–2 minutesA commonality of Amazon, Google, and Facebook is that they began not as defensive structures but as open structures.
The challenge is to remain at the top: fending off all comers consumes too many resources and promotes closed-system paranoia. Instead, create an open platform providing potential for everyone (even if serving them also harms them). Users will cling to the meager benefits, become advocates, and protect your platform for you.
- Theme: Systems
Bottom-up rationality to combat nonsense
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1–2 minutesContinued contradictions become nonsense: illogical, irrational closed systems perpetuated by mass-concensus, dogma, and momentum. The danger of engaging, even to critique, is to become corrupted (contradictory) yourself.
To avoid corruption, we must return to bottom-up rationality instead of top-down nonsense.
- Theme: Systems
Contradictions are System Alerts
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1–2 minutesFrustration at contradictions is an alert: the system is not serving us.
For instance: we have starvation amidst abundance. We are more connected than ever, yet people feel more alone and despondent.When a system’s goals are out of alignment, either the stated goals are lies, or the system is not built to accept adaptive feedback.
- Theme: Systems
Aim for the middle
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1–2 minutesAfter reading a social media article you agree with, studies show that it further polarizes you into your prior beliefs if offered the opposite point of view. The opposing extreme is too foreign and alien to draw you to the middle.
When you’re shooting for a target you do not aim for the edges (polarized views); you aim for the center. If you want the conversion to a thoughtful reality, aim for the center instead of radical evangelism.
- Theme: Self
The bravado subterfuge
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1–2 minutesRule of thumb: Confidence is not to be confused with competence.
Rule of thumb: the faster they tell you how good they are, the worse they really are.
Rule of thumb: the amount of verbal justification is proportional to the forthcoming errors and time repairing the errors. - Theme: Self
Rethinking politeness
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1–2 minutesPoliteness may be beneficial when navigating social systems, showing deference and respect, and reducing anxiety with decorum.
Yet it is also a set of protocols. It mediates personal interactions until you can no longer be sure exactly who somebody is: politeness can be a mask, disguising the real you. - Theme: Growth
The long-awaited payoff
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1–2 minutesThere are days when your accumulated foibles, your crafted predilections, and adherence to productive systems syncs up into a harmonious payoff. There are days where any request made of you feels effortless as you respond easily, flowing through the day.
And you realize you are pretty damn good at this life thing. - Theme: Systems
Methods make Followers
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1–2 minutesWe rely on method: we expect results and discovery without needing to understand. Simply follow the rules.
In building the “how to” checklist we democratize complex techniques and knowledge, but do not make innovators. We produce very good followers.