“Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; thus our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be ‘under arms.'” On War, Carl Von Clausewitz

I like the Bayesian notion that we must constantly be examining our hypotheses against new information. And, if we take it a bit outside the math context (where I am more comfortable), it is our job to find that data. Because as Steven Landsburg put it, under Bayes’ Law “everything that can be relevant is relevant.”

A theory about the world or who you want to be – combining Von Clausewitz and Bayes – is a bit like a battle strategy. It doesn’t mean anything until it comes under siege. The enemy nor the data cares much for your plans. Success requires a certain prescience, sure, but more crucially, it needs a general that closely monitors the feedback from all sources of information and consistently learns from them.

And I don’t mean this is in the generic “can you be flexible?” sense that everyone throws around. We’re talking objectively, can you monitor and track your actions empirically? How quickly can you rewrite your operating procedures? Which of your assumptions are firm and which can be shifted? Do you fear new information or do you welcome it? How active is your pursuit of challenging feedback? Have you identified the false positives so you can avoid them?

From Clausewitz, I am thinking that difference between someone who can launch and learn and someone who can’t isn’t so much a difference in skill level as it is of planes.

Turning Pro:

” …someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours-a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God-and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly-not miserably-knowing how to die.” Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Is knowing how to die any different from knowing how to live?

As the Oligarchs ruled Athens in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, a statesman named Theramenes was caught negotiating the struggle between democracy and tyranny. He gave a speech to the assembly decrying the brutalities of the ruling party – no moral judgment but rather that it was stupid and self-destructive to treat ones citizens as though they did not matter. Dictatorship or not, they ought not use violence as a solution to political problems. In what looked like one of those uniquely Greek moments where an issue is decided on the merits of its public explanation, he was overwhelmed with applause, the clear winner of his case. But when the jury went to deliberate, the ruling tyrant Critias ordered troops to shackle and remove him under a sentence of death.

As they dragged Theramenes through the streets, he screamed the injustice of Critias at every house and home. Him today, he cried, you tomorrow. When guard told him that he’d soon come to regret not silencing himself, he replied “Shall I not still suffer, if I do?” and continued to shame his peers for their inaction.

They handed him the hemlock, which he quickly downed – but not before pouring one out for his homies and saying “Here’s to that delightful fellow, Critias.” [1][2]

[1] A History of My Times, Xenophon (Penguin)

[2] Pour out a Little Liquor

UD: Pour One Out

I decided to put my money where my mouth was a little bit so I am now running FAIL DOGS

If you saw the site before, you can tell that I stripped off most of the advertising, I’m posting more often and doing all the stuff I tell all new bloggers to try.

It’s really fucking funny and you should subscribe. I am going to blow this thing up over the next few months. I’ll write about it here so we can talk about what works and what doesn’t. (This one’s the best)