
The "one pair of glasses" theory - raganwald
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/04/bob-metcalfe-and-one-pair-of-glasses.html
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johnrob
I've noticed this phenomenon in two friends, one who went to law school and
the other to business school. I've always bounced start up ideas off of these
guys, since well before they started their programs. All too predictably, the
law guy now tends to bring up legal issues first thing, and the biz guy pokes
holes in the financial model (both of these guys used to simply attack the
idea directly). It's their new pair of glasses at work.

~~~
Hexstream
Playing to your strengths is a tried and true strategy...

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raganwald
Once every three months or so FSJ says something that makes people laugh and
think (the rest of the time he settles for just making people laugh).

This one struck me as summing a well-known phenomenon up rather well, and with
a catchy phrase to go along with it.

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xlnt
I think it already had a catchy phrase: "If your only tool is a hammer, all
problems look like nails."

This phrase has the added benefit of explaining the point.

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michaelneale
Agreed. The FSJ thing takes a lot of words to say the same. Maybe its a bit of
a grab for credibility.

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DaniFong
Oftentimes judgment is clouded by prior experience as FSJ describes.

Unfortunately our dear fake Steve has setup a bit of a strawman. No core idea
is disputed, just the qualifications of those trying to approach the problem.

EnerNet and other negawatt proposals attack the same kind of inefficiencies in
power utilities as once plagued circuit switched telephone utilities. The two
problems are _actually analogous_ , which FSJ hasn't analyzed at all.

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smalter
eh, i think that one pair of glasses likely leads to cross-pollinization
across disciplines which does help us solve problems. in my world, negroponte
can bring his laptops to africa, some education expert will bring their
knowledge of teaching/classroom dynamics, etc, and all this will be brought to
bear on the problem of poverty. competition of ideas will lead to the
incorporation of good aspects of these theories and we'll be on our way. the
fact is that existing orthodox strategies in these fields have failed which is
why solutions from other disciplines are proposed.

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JulianMorrison
Sneering is not an argument, ad hominem circumstantial is not evidence. Fail.

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redorb
a statement my mentor said once

'People who have made money, think they are really smart in all areas...'

it applies here.

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nazgulnarsil
The fundamental fallacy of capitalism is that the monetization of an idea is
the only accurate measure of its worth.

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bayareaguy
Having not thought about it much before, I found the "Metcalfe's Law is
Wrong"[1] article more interesting.

[1] - <http://spectrum.ieee.org/print/4109>

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scott_s
I thought this idea was generally known as "when all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail."

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benreesman
or (with credit to Steve yegge) "when all you've got is c++, everything looks
like your thumb"

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LPTS
If your going to have one pair of glasses, it should be logic.

If you get two, make it logic and awareness of the immediacy of death.

Most of everything else will fall out of those two ways of looking at the
world.

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tyohn
I'm not sure logic will work for your "one pair of glasses". Logic won't help
you deal with people because people are rarely if ever logical. As far as
awareness of the immediacy of death; well I believe that death is simply part
of life - so that won't work for me. Although if you mean awareness of the
immediacy of death - as in Carpe Diem - I'm all with ya!

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Tichy
And how many pairs of glasses does mr fakesteve own? OK, he had one brilliant
idea: to pose as somebody else who is famous. Whoa, genius!!! It really dwarfs
inventing ethernet.

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rglullis
Ad Hominem, dude.

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michaelneale
True, but if you are going to go all AdHom on someone, Daniel Lyons/FSJ is
probably entirely fair game.

