Interesting stuff

  1. Listen to this discussion of Amsterdam’s on-again, off-again openness to new ideas and people.
  2. These guys make a non-trivial case for fascism arriving (with Trump and his minions) in the US. Listen in.
  3. Listen to this early case of Soviet (Russian) disinformation.
  4. Listen to this interesting discussion of the economics of the Indian constitution.
  5. Listen to the history of disco — or maybe just the song that launched the sound in the early 70s?
  6. Listen to this delightful conversation on the history, impact and “soul” of the Habsburgs.
  7. Listen to this conversation with Jessica Alba, action hero, mom and entrepreneur
  8. The takeover of the US and the rot economy. Listen in.
  9. The price of diamonds is crashing as lab diamond costs plunge. Good.

Review: Small is Beautiful

E.F. (Ernst Friedrich) Schumacher published Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered in 1973.

I read the book years ago [Whoops! Here’s my 2009 review, which is much shorter!] and even used it as “the text” for my microeconomics course ten years ago, but I had not re-read it for awhile. I’m glad that I did, as the book is (a) interesting and provocative (=you didn’t think of this) at the same time as (b) it makes a number of dated or mistaken assertions. So the book is a mix of enduring (never dying?) truth and provincial fetish.

The book has four parts: The Modern World, Resources, the Third World, and Organization and Ownership. In each we see a side of EFS’s thoughts, i.e., the modern world’s problem with wasteful consumption (in contrast with Buddhist satisfaction with quality), the over-use of non-renewable resources (coal, oil, nuclear) and under-emphasis on renewables (water, wood, people), and a “soft path” of development at an appropriate scale and technology — ideas that EFS borrowed directly from Gandhi’s ideas of Swadeshi (self-reliance) — in contrast with producing commodities on the frontiers of technology and scale to compete in global markets.

The main point of this book — and the reason that I find it so interesting — is that EFS does not directly criticize “large is ugly” over-consumption of vast quantities of goods and inputs. He instead argues that we should get our happiness from adding more quality to our lives. Put differently, he favors getting the most from limited means over consuming everything you can.

Such a change in perspective would require one of two changes of heart: Either “society” changes is preferences from quantity to quality or the government limits society’s consumption. The first change is bottom-up, voluntary, organic and slow in comparison to the second, but it is easier from a political perspective. The second change wold “fix everything, overnight,” but it’s hard to think of any examples of a government that limits consumption while remaining in power. (“We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.” — J-C. Junker, 2008.)


What about Bhutan? It’s pretty sustainable due to its natural resources and conservation policies but less than half of its 800,000 citizens (=Amsterdam’s population) are “happy’ — an important caveat for a Buddhist (!) country that pursues “Gross National Happiness” over GDP. 


Sale poster from 1908 (today, she’d have a phone in her hand)

So the book is thought-provoking, but not exactly taking the world by storm now… or in the 52 years since it was published. I’m a bit sad about that, because I think the book has a lot of wisdom, but consumption is popular (see 117 year old advert, left).

Let’s get into some of EFS’s observations:

  1. The world did not (and still does not) have enough resources to “bring the poor” up to the levels of rich consumption. We’re talking 14 times more energy per capita, and so on. EFS says it clearly: we can’t grow without limit, either due to resource constraints or the resulting pollution impact.
  2. EFS argues instead for cheap, small-scale production that humans can use creatively. He also warns that economists leave “free” goods (air, water, etc.) out of calculations that justify their consumption, which is NOT free!
  3. Buddhist economics is not just about prioritizing quality of quantity. It also takes work as a good thing, as a means of self-fulfillment, whereas mainstream economics takes it as a “bad” to be minimized (paradise is where everyone uses universal basic income to pay for 24/7 consumption).
  4. “Development,” then does not mean consuming as much as “obtaining the maximum of well being with a minimum of consumption” [p48]. This definition makes a lot of sense when you consider the resources involved in consumption and how those resources (non-renewable, but also renewables that are “mined”) are gone once we consume them. EFS makes the obvious but often forgotten point that we can only consume “income” from Nature. If we consume Nature itself, then we will permanently lose that income.
  5. EFS talks a lot about scale, which is why the book has Small in the title. Thus, he favors smaller-scale production and smaller markets that are shared by a smaller group of people who live in a smaller area. These ideas align with Gandhi’s notions even as they contradict basic economic recommendations of specialization, gains from trade and interlinking markets. I can see both sides on this debate, but I side with EFS at the moment, as I think we’ve gone too far with global drop-shipping, pollution exports, and supply chains that value cheap over cheerful.
  6. In Part II, EFS begins with Education, which is NOT the solution to everything but a mixed blessing. He uses the jargon of convergent problems that can be solved and divergent problems that cannot (taking roughly the same positions as “objective” and “subjective,” respectively) to point out that too much science and too little poetry can lead to an “education” that delivers material progress but spiritual death. It’s useful to remember at this point that the book came out at the height of hippie consciousness — just  before a majority of those hippies turned into yuppies of the “I’ve got mine, fuck you” variety.
  7. His next chapter — Land — highlights the contradiction of a farmer (“produce as much as possible, at the lowest cost”) who is also a human (“cherish the land that gives you life and joy”) — a schizophrenia that has only deepened since 1973. He goes on to lament the depopulation of rural areas as newly freed fired workers exchange their families and communities for wage slavery in the Satanic Mills.
  8. In Resources for Industry, EFS “does the math” to show how the world cannot possibly produce (and consume) at American levels, due to the fact that “five percent of the world’s population is consuming forty percent of the world’s resources.” Fair point.

By the way, it bears repeating that the sustainability (definition: “it can go on, indefinitely”) that we find in Nature emerges from an endless struggle for survival, as each species expands, evolves and fights and dies in a quest for the resources in various ecological niches. Humans have escaped that competition by taking space and life from other species. We are no longer held back by natural predators or threats. The only thing that would limit or stop us from dominating everything — we now control 95 percent of the Earth’s land biomass — is our conscious decision to limit ourselves. EFS and a few others have made that decision; the vast majority of the rich people (and would-be rich people) who should be making those decisions have not. Maybe that’s a collective action problem (if I don’t consume, you will), but that doesn’t make it any less of a failure — or a big step towards self-genocide.


  1. I was surprised to read so much in favor of coal (a local fuel to the UK, and thus “small”) and so much against nuclear (radioactive waste will kill us forever), but (a) I didn’t know that EFS worked for Coal Britain and (b) he didn’t know how dangerous GHG emissions would be to our survival. That said, he’s right to worry about the impacts of “more, cheaper energy” on our ecosystems and societies. Example: The Dutch used to heat one room with coal; when they found natural gas, they heated the entire home. They were probably healthier (indoor air pollution), but they were probably not happier (it’s transitional), and their “footprint” got way bigger!
  2. In Technology with a Human Face, EFS makes his case for “intermediate” technology that is appropriate for human hands (in size) and minds (in comprehension. He points out that the vast majority of workers do not actually make anything tangible. Many of us work with ideas, administration or management, with a good share in that group doing bullshit jobs that are even less meaningful. EFS says that our dependency on technology and complexity is not just unsustainable but also demeaning to our human spirit. He posits a “first law of economics” as “the amount of real leisure a society enjoys tends to be in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs” [p124]. He’s got a point [pdf].
  3. In Part III (Development), EFS explains (a) why employment is more important than output efficiency (agreed!) and (b) how poorer countries should embrace “intermediate technology” — rather than “high” technology — in order to employ as many locals as possible, making simple cheap products for other locals. Jane Jacobs (1969) explained why this is a good idea, in terms of learning-by-doing and expanding into under-appreciated niches (read my review).
  4. EFS is right to worry about rural areas dying as people migrate to cities in search of work. That’s why he (a) opposes aid from rich countries modeled on “do like us” and (b) suggests that rural areas are better served by businesses working with intermediate technology. (He doesn’t have a lot of good words for foreign aid workers.)
  5. In The Problem of Unemployment in India (a lecture that joins as a chapter), he further develops these themes, warning his audience against pursuing expensive capital-intensive factories over, say, planting trees. Everyone can work if the work matches their skills and education.
  6. In Part IV (Organization and Ownership), EFS returns to several important themes, i.e., the unpredictability of life (and thus need for flexibility), the value of scenarios over forecasts (since life is non-linear), and the need for decentralization (since top-down mostly fails). I agree with his repeated warnings against larger organizations, extra management layers, etc., since smaller groups are far more effective at organizing and implementing plans.
  7. In his chapters on Ownership, Socialization and New Patterns of Ownership, EFS argues against private ownership of larger enterprises, mostly due to (a) their concentration of financial power and (b) their pursuit of profit over other social values. I have issues with this view, since the private owner (+ shareholders) has a stronger incentive to innovate and create value (profits!) relative to a state-appointed manager. I agree with him about limiting market power as well as negative externalities, but abuses can also happen when the state runs things. A weak state would be bad at regulation as well as running a large enterprise. A strong state can do both, but “strong” does not mean “good” as far as citizens are concerned.
  8. He goes on to call for fifty percent public ownership of larger companies, to “represent the contribution of the public to the company’s success.” While I agree with his “you didn’t build that” point as well as the need to tax large profits, I worry (again!) about the State as owner deciding that a company should do X or not do Y. President Xi is trying to do a lot of this in China right now, and it seems he’s getting a lot more bureaucracy and bullshit and a lot less value added. OTOH, he doesn’t care about the private sector, so that may be a price he’s willing inflict on “his” people.
  9. He ends by repeating his call for less materialism and more prudence, i.e., to make the most of what you have without being greedy for more.

I give this book FIVE stars for its many provocative — and often right! — suggestions of how to live happily and sustainably on our fragile planet.


Here are all my reviews.

A citizen’s right to resources?

One of the greatest sources of corruption arises when politicians allocate mining rights for natural resources (NRs, e.g., oil, water, lithium, etc.) to their cronies. Such a system is corrupt due to the presence of “rents” — the arbitrary value associated with access or control of a scarce good.

In principle, the politician can sell access to the NRs in an open auction, where prices will get close to the rents that the winner gains access to.

Example: An oil field with 20 million barrels of oil of capacity and a cost of extraction of $300 million (fixed) and $10/bbl (variable). If oil is worth $100/bbl, then that field has an estimated revenue of $2 billion and costs of $300MM (fixed) + $200MM (variable), so a profit of $1.5 billion.

If the politicians give it to a friend for a “friend’s price” of $100MM, then the friend gets rents of $1.4 billion. Maybe that friend will thank the politician with a “gift” of a $100MM yacht or campaign contribution? Even still, fat profits.

An honest politician would have an open auction for the “exploitation rights” that might bring in $1.2 billion from the top bidder, meaning $300MM of profits to them (I’m ignoring risk and time, ofc.) and $1.1 billion MORE for the government — and the people.

And that where this post gets interesting. I think that politicians everywhere should directly pay citizens for their share of the value of the NRs that the politicians are managing on behalf of citizens. Alternatively, the politicians can give each citizen their share of the rights to the NRs, and citizens can decide to sell their share (getting paid) or not (leaving the oil in the ground or the trees standing) — both actions that are compatible with property rights.

The implications are clear: Higher prices and lower utilization would mean that NRs would cost more and last longer. Citizens would pay more attention if they were owners of NRs. Some may just take the money to live a better life, but others might say “you know, I don’t think I need $20 as much as I want to leave 200 trees intact.” (Forest concessions — in fact many NR concessions — cost very little!)

My one-handed conclusion is that citizens would better manage their NRs than the politicians who claim to work for them.

Interesting stuff

  1. Watch How Millionaire Bankers Actually Work
  2. Watch London (CA) vs Utrecht (NL) — how they both embraced cars but only one has returned to embracing people.
  3. If you — or someone you love — cares a “bit too much” about a conspiracy or two, then have them chat with this bot. It’s patient, uses facts and works with your views of the world.
  4. Bond yields are rising (=prices are falling) as supply of bonds (due to governments borrowing more to fund deficits) exceeds demand. I’ve been waiting for these signals to emerge as governments spend like drinken sailors. Where are all the MMT gurus now?
  5. New NL warming record: There has been no 24-hour period of sub zero temperatures… for 756 days.
  6. “L.A.’s nightmare should serve as a warning to other states: Climate change is crushing insurance markets[insured losses of $15 billion but uninsured losses 10x higher], and the solution is not to artificially lower premiums or rely on public options.” Prices must rise, but even higher prices won’t interest insurance companies that understand the difference between risk and uncertainty.
  7. “The global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from the catastrophic shocks of climate change….At 3C or more of heating by 2050, there could be more than 4 billion deaths, significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states, and extinction events… Economic predictions… that damages from global heating would be as low as 2% of global economic production for a 3C rise… are wrong because they ignore… tipping points, sea temperature rises, migration and conflict as a result of global heating… They are precisely wrong, rather than being roughly right.” Obviously, those losses will start to accrue well before 2070.
  8. An AMOC update: “In a dramatically cooler Britain [5-15C colder], when the winter storms come, higher sea levels mean that water surges in from the coast. The flooding is intense. The winds rip across roads, tearing down power lines. Those without battery storage are frequently cut off. Instead of the UK being a refuge for others escaping climate disruption, we might struggle to support even the population we have now.”
  9. No, Trump didn’t make $50 billion from his memecoin
  10. Watch this classic, compelling TED talk on how schools kill creativity

So I’m a misanthrope

I assume the worst… in people, events and so on. I think I do this as a defensive mechanism, to avoid negative surprises (I am very risk averse?). I think that I adopted this perspective due to a series of disappointments from my childhood (fire, divorce, cancer, etc.). I don’t think there’s much I can do about my perspective, but (a) it’s useful to tell it like it is and (b) I can see how my outlook has been changing — slowly — throughout the years, so it’s good to have a baseline.

Relative to me, my dad is (and Elinor Ostrom was) an optimist.

I used to say I was a realist, then I said I was a pessimist, but I think I’ve gone on further — in terms of definitions — to get to misanthrope, which is a really loaded term.

So let’s break it down, via wikipedia:

Misanthropy is traditionally defined as hatred or dislike of humankind. The word originated in the 17th century and has its roots in the Greek words μῖσος mīsos ‘hatred’ and ἄνθρωπος ānthropos ‘man, human’. In contemporary philosophy, the term is usually understood in a wider sense as a negative evaluation of humanity as a whole based on humanity’s vices and flaws. This negative evaluation can express itself in various forms, hatred being only one of them. In this sense, misanthropy has a cognitive component based on a negative assessment of humanity and is not just a blind rejection. Misanthropy is usually contrasted with philanthropy, which refers to the love of humankind and is linked to efforts to increase human well-being, for example, through good will, charitable aid, and donations. Both terms have a range of meanings and do not necessarily contradict each other. In this regard, the same person may be a misanthrope in one sense and a philanthrope in another sense.

One central aspect of all forms of misanthropy is that their target is not local but ubiquitous. This means that the negative attitude is not just directed at some individual persons or groups but at humanity as a whole. In this regard, misanthropy is different from other forms of negative discriminatory attitudes directed at a particular group of people. This distinguishes it from the intolerance exemplified by misogynists, misandrists, and racists, which hold a negative attitude toward women, men, or certain races.

I can get behind this definition, as I have experience in these related cliches:

  • “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”Lord Acton
  • “One person is never as stupid as a group of people. That’s why they have lynch mobs, not lynch individuals.” Ben Horowitz
  • You know what makes me happy? Watching my species destroy itself. I take it as a sport, as a kinda hobby, and I root for the complete destruction of this culture that we live in. I root for the underdogs. I root for Nature because on this planet at this time, Nature is the underdog.” — George Carlin

…and I particularly identify with the ecocide results of our mass behavior, our mass desire to consume more, for everyone to live above each other (a logical fallacy), to always and everywhere have more of everything. I will write more about these ideas in my review of Small is Beautiful, but I can safely say here that I really hate my species for destroying the miracles of Nature and evolution — the corals, the insects, the ecosystems and their many cycles of renewal, predator-prey, and other sustainable interactions.

…which leads to….

Human exceptionalism is the claim that human beings have unique importance and are exceptional compared to all other species. It is often based on the claim that they stand out because of their special capacities, like intelligence, rationality, and autonomy. In religious contexts, it is frequently explained in relation to a unique role that God foresaw for them or that they were created in God’s image. Human exceptionalism is usually combined with the claim that human well-being matters more than the well-being of other species. This line of thought can be used to draw various ethical conclusions. One is the claim that humans have the right to rule the planet and impose their will on other species. [I disagree, as humans broke the contract with God.] Another is that inflicting harm on other species may be morally acceptable if it is done with the purpose of promoting human well-being and excellence.

…[Misanthropes] hold that human beings are exceptional in a negative sense: given their destructive and harmful history, they are much worse than any other species.

Theorists in the field of deep ecology are also often critical of human exceptionalism and tend to favor a misanthropic perspective. Deep ecology is a philosophical and social movement that stresses the inherent value of nature and advocates a radical change in human behavior toward nature. 

These ideas are nearly identical to my own — I am totally upset and angry that we humans are not just destroying so many ecosystems and extincting so many species, but also that this destruction is (a) ruining so much of the beauty around us and (b) putting our own lives at risk (read this and this on climate chaos).

And I am not alone!

A core aspect of misanthropy is that its negative attitude toward humanity is based on human flaws. Various misanthropes have provided extensive lists of flaws, including cruelty, greed, selfishness, wastefulness, dogmatism, self-deception, and insensitivity to beauty… It is often held that moral flaws constitute the most serious case. 

Moral flaws are usually understood as tendencies to violate moral norms or as mistaken attitudes toward what is the good. They include cruelty, indifference to the suffering of others, selfishness, moral laziness, cowardice, injustice, greed, and ingratitude. The harm done because of these flaws can be divided into three categories: harm done directly to humans, harm done directly to other animals, and harm done indirectly to both humans and other animals by harming the environment. Examples of these categories include the Holocaust, factory farming of livestock, and pollution causing climate change. In this regard, it is not just relevant that human beings cause these forms of harm but also that they are morally responsible for them. This is based on the idea that they can understand the consequences of their actions and could act differently. However, they decide not to, for example, because they ignore the long-term well-being of others in order to get short-term personal benefits.

All of this is (a) pretty heavy stuff and (b) not exactly rocket science if you’ve been paying attention. (In my baby photo book, my mom helpfully pasted images of famous people who were shot in the year I was born — not the most enthusiastic endorsement, but my mom had a lot more to complain about in her, tragically short life.)

But I do think it’s good to “put a finger on” what you might see or feel about yourself and the world. I am doing that for myself here, and you should also be looking for ways to understand how your subjective views compare to those of your friends and family and the masses. Know thyself* is a good place to start if you want to reconcile your feelings with the people around you.**

Now, two more things. First, I want to compare my misanthropy (for all of humans, not excluding myself) with that of the play that made the idea so famous…

Molière’s play, “The Misanthrope or the Cantankerous Lover” was first performed in 1666. I read it while preparing this post, and it’s painful to “watch” Alceste (le misanthrope, himself) critiques every one except himself. He turns away those who would love him while he waits for another, but she is not interested because his ego demands that she follow him rather than engage in any sort of partnership. I can see how this play — even as it called attention to the terrible, mean games of the nobility — gave the term such a negative connotation, but I do not identify with Alceste.

Indeed, who would want to be called a “pessimist” or “misanthrope” when much nicer labels — “optimist” and “philanthrope” — exist? I am willing to take on these pejorative words — maybe to normalize them a bit — because I understand their meaning and how to apply them to oneself.***

Second, Terry Prachett created a perfect character for me to emulate while quoting Carlin: The librarian who was turned into an Orang-Utan, and decided that was just fine. From Sourcery (1988):

…but most of all he liked the way all the big questions of existence had suddenly resolved themselves into a vague interest in where his next banana was coming from. It wasn’t that he was unaware of the despair and nobility of the human condition. It was just that as far as he was concerned you could stuff it.

My one handed conclusion is that it’s better to pay more attention to bananas and less attention to human self-destruction.


* Here’s where I always quote Feynman’s response: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

** I’m very aware of the value and magic of group cooperation, but I tend to keep to myself when it comes to sports (swimming) or hobbies (woodworking). That said, I enjoy cooperating with other wood workers and sailors for now. In the future, I think I will go walkabout.

*** I’m also an “agnostic” (God’s existence is not worth discussing) and “migrant” (someone like me who intends to stay) — labels that are less popular than “believer” and “patriot”.

We need to listen

I recently received my Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO in Dutch), which “supports” the idea that I (a) know how to teach pretty well and (b) can help others improve their teaching.

This post is about ideas for improvement, which begins — IMO — with listening to others, i.e.,

  • Listen to how they discuss ideas and teaching methods (peers)
  • Listen to where they are confused, and thus where to put more time (students)
  • Listen to feedback on how to improve and/or what’s confusion (self-correction)

In all these modes, I am suggesting that you (or “one”) stops with what you know and starts with what others are saying. That’s not because they know better than you but because the essence of communication is the delivery of an idea rather than the sending of that idea.

One of my favorite sayings is “only connect.” This essay puts it into context, but I am taking my own meaning, i.e., that connection requires that the recipient understands the sender’s message (or meaning) as the sender would want to be understood. This dynamic is tricky because we often assume that people understand us when in fact they do not — at all or with 100 percent fidelity.

For example, you can watch this video, in which I react to what students (anonymously) said of me and my teaching. It provides a useful example of how important it is to “connect” a comment with a reply, one on one.

Connection is not easy, but it’s impossible if one is not listening!

I could end here, with good intentions, but I’d like to give an example that’s been on my mind for some time, e.g., the difference between traveling in the 1990s (when I was on the road for 5 years) and these days. The main difference is that travelers these days are connected tied to home and the internet by their phones. Which results in…

  • Less spontaneity because people are always making reservations and coordinating with others who are not in the room. It’s hard to get someone to go to a new place or stay longer if they “need to get somewhere.”
  • Fewer new friends and novel conversations because people are still mentally at home with friends and family, rather than talking to the people in front of them. Then they are able to “chat” with like-minded others on internet forums rather than engage with the diverse opinions of the people right in front of them. Obviously, you can put your phone down to make yourself available, but it’s not easy if everyone else is on their phone!
  • Less discovery because everyone is rushing towards the latest IG-hot spot and/or following the mass of reviews rather than (a) the advice for travelers right in front of them and/or (b) the idiosyncratic recommendations of locals, books and/or message boards.

The overall impact, which makes me sad, is that a traveler today has a harder time socializing on the road, which was the MOST exciting part of my travels in the 1990s. These days, I am not a solo traveler staying in hostels, so I am missing whatever scene is there now, so it may be better than I fear, but I am skeptical that it’s as good as in the old days. [Here’s a related discussion on Reddit]

That’s because people are not listening to each other as much as listening to whatever “the feed” is telling them :-\

Interesting stuff

  1. The Year in Climate Chaos shows just how messed up 2024 was, and how much worse 2025 will get.
  2. Related(?): “Some Economics of Global Warming” — a view from 1992.
  3. By 1900, 23 of the 25 largest U.S. cities, and 85 percent of all cities, used primarily lead service lines. Many local building codes also mandated that service lines must use lead pipes for construction.”
  4. Listen to the last episode (of 12) on The Power Broker… maybe after you’ve listened to the first 11?
  5. “It turns out that cryptocurrencies do have a very concrete use case. They are a technology that has latched on to, and then helped build, a culture that celebrates greed and speculation as virtues just as it embraces volatility.” In 2025 with Trump, I think we’re going to see a lot of “innovating” that will take cash from many, which will lead to (a) a worse reputation for some (all?) crypto, (b) calls for regulation, and (c) a lot of learning, gained at great cost.
  6. The average Dutch man was 165cm around 1870. The average height for both men and women rose by 15-18cm in the next 120 odd years (to 183 and 169cm, respectively), due to better nutrition, hygiene, social care and natural selection (tall men make tall babies?). Here’s more on nutrition. Fun fact: South Korean men are also about 20cm taller than 100 years ago.
  7. Listen to this update on academic fraud, and pay-to-publish [garbage] “open access” journals.
  8. Listen to Adam Grant on achieving greatness.
  9. A look at renewable energy from centuries ago, when Brits consumed 2% of what they do these days.
  10. Global temperatures are now 1.9C higher than the pre-Industrial age, which is around 25 years ahead of schedule our worst (and second-to-worst) fears. (They were +0.9C in 2015 and some sources claim they are now only getting over +1.0C, but there are disagreements over whether higher temps are “normal” or an “anomaly”.)
  11. Listen to Alain Bertaud on fixing sick cities.

Review: Think Again

I got this 2021 book after hearing an interview with its author, Adam Grant, who sounded really sensible… for a psychologist (I kid!)

Anyways, it was far better — in terms of insights and techniques — than I planned, so I made far too many notes. I will give the highlights below, but do also consider this book as an interesting companion to Supercommunicators (my review).

But before I go on, let me point you to three “cheat sheets” (now called “sketchnotes”?) that summaries some of the book’s major themes in pictures (and words — you still need to read!)

So, to the notes:

  1. Rethinking and unlearning is more important than raw intelligence. “When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.”
  2. Sometimes we need to confront our identity before we can rethink. “A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity….rethinking who you are appears to become mentally healthy—as long as you can tell a coherent story about how you got from past to present you.”
  3. Three modes: “We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents.”
  4. A better mode: “We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge… When second and third graders learned about “doing science” rather than “being scientists,” they were more excited about pursuing science. Becoming a scientist might seem out of reach, but the act of experimenting is something we can all try out. Even prekindergarten students express more interest in science when it’s presented as something we do rather than someone we are.”
  5. Entrepreneurs trained to think like scientists (hypothesis, test, analysis, update) made far more money than the control group because they were willing to discard old ways and try new ways of doing things.
  6. “Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns. And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs. [How?] One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.”
  7. “In preacher mode, changing our minds is a mark of moral weakness; in scientist mode, it’s a sign of intellectual integrity. In prosecutor mode, allowing ourselves to be persuaded is admitting defeat; in scientist mode, it’s a step toward the truth.”
  8. “People who scored the lowest on an emotional intelligence test weren’t just the most likely to overestimate their skills. They were also the most likely to dismiss their scores as inaccurate or irrelevant—and the least likely to invest in coaching or self-improvement… When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence.”
  9. Are you persistent or stubborn? “You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.”
  10. “Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe. Values are your core principles in life—they might be excellence and generosity, freedom and fairness, or security and integrity… You want the doctor whose identity is protecting health, the teacher whose identity is helping students learn, and the police chief whose identity is promoting safety and justice. When they define themselves by values rather than opinions, they buy themselves the flexibility to update their practices in light of new evidence.”
  11. “When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. Then keep track of your views so you can see when you were right, when you were wrong, and how your thinking has evolved. `I started out just wanting to prove myself,’ Jean-Pierre says. `Now I want to improve myself—to see how good I can get.'”
  12. “Relationship conflict is generally bad for performance, but some task conflict can be beneficial…. when it brings diversity of thought, preventing us from getting trapped in overconfidence cycles. It can help us stay humble, surface doubts, and make us curious about what we might be missing. That can lead us to think again, moving us closer to the truth without damaging our relationships.”
  13. “Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses… The ideal members of a challenge network are disagreeable, because they’re fearless about questioning the way things have always been done and holding us accountable for thinking again. There’s evidence that disagreeable people speak up more frequently—especially when leaders aren’t receptive—and foster more task conflict.”
  14. “Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.”
  15. This sentence reminds me of me: “Agreeableness is about seeking social harmony, not cognitive consensus. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Although I’m terrified of hurting other people’s feelings, when it comes to challenging their thoughts, I have no fear. In fact, when I argue with someone, it’s not a display of disrespect—it’s a sign of respect. It means I value their views enough to contest them. If their opinions didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t bother.”
  16. “Experiments show that simply framing a dispute as a debate rather than as a disagreement signals that you’re receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind, which in turn motivates the other person to share more information with you…When social scientists asked people why they favor particular policies on taxes, health care, or nuclear sanctions, they often doubled down on their convictions. Asking people to explain how those policies would work in practice—or how they’d explain them to an expert—activated a rethinking cycle.”
  17. “Skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense. Instead, they expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?” … We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them. Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites.”
  18. How to find common ground? Rather than attack the straw-man version of your opponent’s argument, state their “steel man” (strongest) points. When you agree with someone’s point, then you give them the chance to (a) agree with you and (b) question themselves.
  19. Don’t fight with the other person’s views, but treat the discussion like a dance in which you try to understand their emotion rather than fighting it. “In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the answer is “nothing,” then there’s no point in continuing the debate.”
  20. I have said that I have “strong opinions, weakly held.” I interpret this as a sign of willingness to change my mind, but some people react more to “strong” than “weakly” so it’s better to include uncertainty, i.e., “strong opinions, open to updates” (my words). More from AG: “An informed audience is going to spot the holes in our case anyway. We might as well get credit for having the humility to look for them, the foresight to spot them, and the integrity to acknowledge them”
  21. “Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell reflected. “From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” This reaction is known as the overview effect”
  22. How do you get rabid sports fans to stop attacking “the enemy”? Remind them of how arbitrary their anger is. (What if you were born in New York rather than Boston? Would you be a fucking idiot for supporting the Yankees?)
  23. “People gain humility when they reflect on how different circumstances could have led them to different beliefs. They might conclude that some of their past convictions had been too simplistic and begin to question some of their negative views. That doubt could leave them more curious about groups they’ve stereotyped, and they might end up discovering some unexpected commonalities.”
  24. “Motivational interviewing starts with an attitude of humility and curiosity. We don’t know what might motivate someone else to change, but we’re genuinely eager to find out. The goal isn’t to tell people what to do; it’s to help them break out of overconfidence cycles and see new possibilities. Our role is to hold up a mirror so they can see themselves more clearly, and then empower them to examine their beliefs and behaviors. That can activate a rethinking cycle, in which people approach their own views more scientifically. They develop more humility about their knowledge, doubt in their convictions, and curiosity about alternative points of view. The process of motivational interviewing involves three key techniques:
    • Asking open-ended questions
    • Engaging in reflective listening
    • Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change.”
  25. “When we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking. Yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen…Listening is a way of offering others our scarcest, most precious gift: our attention.”
  26. “Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is referencing a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments. When contemplating a change, many people are ambivalent—they have some reasons to consider it but also some reasons to stay the course. Miller and Rollnick suggest asking about and listening for change talk, and then posing some questions about why and how they might change.”
  27. “There’s a fourth technique of motivational interviewing, which is often recommended for the end of a conversation and for transition points: summarizing. The idea is to explain your understanding of other people’s reasons for change, to check on whether you’ve missed or misrepresented anything, and to inquire about their plans and possible next steps. The objective is not to be a leader or a follower, but a guide.” Also see “looping to understand” in my Supercommunicators review.
  28. Rather than present a dispute as right or wrong, black or white, allow for the reality of a middle ground, a gray area. “An antidote to this [0/1] proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism.”
  29. “The greater the distance between us and an adversary, the more likely we are to oversimplify their actual motives and invent explanations that stray far from their reality. What works is not perspective-taking but perspective-seeking: actually talking to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views.”
  30. “Many teachers don’t do enough to encourage students to question themselves and one another… extraordinary educators foster rethinking cycles by instilling intellectual humility, disseminating doubt, and cultivating curiosity.”
  31. “Some teachers send students out to interview people with whom they disagree. The focus is less on being right, and more on building the skills to consider different views and argue productively about them.”
  32. “Lectures… are not enough to develop students into lifelong learners. If you spend all of your school years being fed information and are never given the opportunity to question it, you won’t develop the tools for rethinking that you need in life.”
  33. Senior Penn students who wrote letters to their younger selves didn’t just give good advice; they had an excuse to re-think — and maybe change — some of their habits. “The students encouraged their younger selves to stay open to different majors, instead of declaring the first one that erased their uncertainty. To be less obsessed with grades, and more focused on relationships. To explore different career possibilities, rather than committing too soon to the one that promised the most pay or prestige.”
  34. “When students confront complex problems, they often feel confused. A teacher’s natural impulse is to rescue them as quickly as possible so they don’t feel lost or incompetent. Yet psychologists find that one of the hallmarks of an open mind is responding to confusion with curiosity and interest. One student put it eloquently: “I need time for my confusion.” Confusion can be a cue that there’s new territory to be explored or a fresh puzzle to be solved.”
  35. Do more than one draft… of a letter, an essay, a drawing, a jump. Drafts give us space to improve without putting pressure on doing it right or perfectly the first time. They also improve with each revision because we learn by doing. You can’t write a perfect final draft without a lot of imperfect earlier drafts.
  36. “We randomly assigned some managers to ask their teams for constructive criticism. [it didn’t go well] … Another group of managers shared their past experiences with receiving feedback and their future development goals. We advised them to tell their teams about a time when they benefited from constructive criticism and to identify the areas that they were working to improve now. By admitting some of their imperfections out loud, managers demonstrated that they could take it—and made a public commitment to remain open to feedback.”
  37. “It takes confident humility to admit that we’re a work in progress. It shows that we care more about improving ourselves than proving ourselves”
  38. “It isn’t until a high-stakes decision goes horribly wrong that people pause to reexamine their practices… When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment.” And that’s what happened to me (what I did) when my boat was sinking — doubled down, instead of stepping back. Since then, I have tried to step back more quickly from (a) perfection (90% of good enough) and (b) confidence (maybe I don’t know what I am doing… what do you think?)
  39. “Gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions, because they’re determined to do whatever it takes to reach the summit. There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.”
  40. Paraphrasing… “Career checkup questions can periodically activate rethinking cycles. Ask some key questions twice a year. When did you form the aspirations you’re currently pursuing, and how have you changed since then? Have you reached a learning plateau in your role or your workplace, and is it time to consider a pivot? A CC helps you maintain humility about you ability to predict the future, contemplate doubts, and stay curious enough about new possibilities or previously discarded ones.” 
  41. “Data suggesting that meaning is healthier than happiness, and that people who look for purpose in their work are more successful in pursuing their passions—and less likely to quit their jobs—than those who look for joy.”
  42. “Those only are happy,” philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, “who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”

[Adam’s] Bottom Line: “It takes humility to reconsider our past commitments, doubt to question our present decisions, and curiosity to reimagine our future plans. What we discover along the way can free us from the shackles of our familiar surroundings and our former selves. Rethinking liberates us to do more than update our knowledge and opinions—it’s a tool for leading a more fulfilling life.”

Here are 30 tips for thinking again [pdf]

I give this book FIVE stars. Don’t just read it — use it in your life.


Here are all my reviews.

Interesting stuff

  1. As water scarcity increases, people are getting creative about finding “new” water. In Athens, that means re-opening a 2,000 year old aqueduct.
  2. I “met” Pete the shipwright when he was working on Tally-Ho. Now he’s got his own YT channel about “rough and tough” ship restoration. Nice to see how working boats are handled, rather than just yachts.
  3. The Netherlands is introducing a heat index because that’s how CC will mess with us.
  4. Listen to How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War
  5. Waterless urinals use some interesting technology
  6. Listen to Why Industrial Policy Is (Almost) Always a Bad Idea
  7. Climate chaos is driving demand for weather derivatives to hedge risk.
  8. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, people are turning away from EVs as the government removes subsidies and Amsterdam — in a move that strikes straight in my boating budget — has reduced the discount on permits  for boats with electronic motors (against the price of permits for gasoline engines) from 70% in 2024 to 35% in 2025. That’s NOT how you encourage people to drive (or boat) green!

H/T to DL