
Portable Ideas - llambda
http://raganwald.posterous.com/portable-ideas
======
te_platt
I thought this article sounded familiar but it took me a while to place it.
It's the parable of the sower, Matthew 13:3-8.

3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went
forth to sow;

4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and
devoured them up:

5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith
they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root,
they withered away.

7 And some fell among athorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:

8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an
hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

~~~
pilgrim689
I think this is the wrong analogy... The parable seems to say that if you
spread your seeds across many areas, it's bound to grow somewhere.

That would be a good analogy if the post was actually about spreading ideas in
as many bubbles as possible and hoping one bubble picks it up.

The post is actually about making 1 idea of high enough quality and insight
such that it can be transferred from one bubble (yours) to the next by the
"edges".

So you'd have to find a parable that speaks of getting a good seed and
planting it in your garden, in the hopes that the flower that grows from it
spreads its seeds to your neighbors!

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stcredzero
Fundamental ideas are portable ideas. Lisp didn't start out as a programming
language. It was an abstract model of computation. As an ex-Symbolics employee
friend of mine says, "Math never goes out of style."

Eschew what's popular and what gets attention. Seek the fundamental instead.
This is the difference between learning about Ruby because Rails is the
current big thing versus knowing enough to be interested in Ruby because it
embodies the objects+messages model and you find that beautiful. (And if you
value the objects+messages model because it was a big thing in academia at
some point, you are still missing the point!)

Programming has many of the features of "pop-culture" because the rate of
change in the field is faster than the rate of actual progress. Learn in-depth
the actual progress.

EDIT: Switched the positions of fundamental and portable, since fundamental =>
portable.

~~~
signalsignal
Everyone is some kind of fundamentalist, but people keep their ideas to
themselves to keep an even keel because inexperience in expression tends
towards bad outcomes. I have no scientific evidence for this, but this is my
amateur reasoning in observing the personal growth in others.

~~~
stcredzero
_Everyone is some kind of fundamentalist_

This is an awkward phrase, as the word "fundamentalist" carries anti-
intellectual baggage.

 _...inexperience in expression tends towards bad outcomes. I have no
scientific evidence for this..._

You now have one data point.

------
gfodor
This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you
run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen
in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S.

Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support
horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least
part of the reason for this is because those in power who want to enact these
policies have mastered the art of making them portable outside their own
extremist spheres. They do this by "attaching" these ideas to more innocent,
pure, and (generally) positive beliefs that are universally held by many
conservatives, if not all Americans: love of country, love of God, the fear of
harm to your children, belief in fairness, belief that hard work begets
success, belief in the benefits of family and community, and so on.

The magic that makes it possible for decent, loving, hard working people to
support things like torture is by making the idea of torture "portable" into
their worldview, by hanging it onto one or more of these core beliefs. If you
don't support torture, you're not protecting your children. If you support gay
marriage, you're laying the groundwork for families to unravel. It's all
bullshit, of course, but these are the root things people are being convinced
of: not that torture is good, or that gay marriage is evil (though it often
morphs into that), but that these things are natural conclusions based upon
beliefs you already have. It takes the work of an evil genius to figure out
how to connect these two things together and make them portable towards groups
of people who have otherwise innocent and positive beliefs, but we see it
happening every day.

~~~
kika
s/right wing propaganda/propaganda/gn

this is a basic principle of all propaganda, right wing, left wing, anti gay,
pro gay, white suprematism, black power, the list goes on.

Let's give these banks just a little trillion dollars or our country would
suffer. Let's burn just a few Jews in the furnace or they would sell our
country. Let's take all the money from the rich and kill them and make
everyone equal(ly poor). Let's bomb these Muslims into the Stone Age because
they threat our children. Let's help those Muslims kill Serbs or World
Democracy is in danger. Let's allow these morons squeeze our balls and tits or
our airplanes would fall from the skies.

It's just marketing, a way to sell the bad idea to people and make them feel
happy. It has nothing to do with right and left.

~~~
jkn
It's true this pattern of "Accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" has nothing to
do with left or right. However I don't think it applies to pro-gay propaganda,
because the whole point of the left-wing stance on this issue is that there is
nothing wrong with being gay in the first place.

Side note: the pattern "accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" is of course not
bad in itself, but rather when false assumptions are used to connect <wrong>
and <worse>...

~~~
kika
I stand corrected - being a liberal (in the original sense, not a leftist) I
used to consider all propaganda as bad. But there's indeed a 'good'
propaganda. Or at least 'not bad'.

------
mattvanhorn
Sounds to me like a cognitive escape velocity. An idea needs a certain amount
just to get out of your head, and an even larger velocity to get out of the
'bubble.' People encountering the idea can either increase or decrease its
velocity, like booster rockets. Now, I wonder if the escape velocity of a
given bubble, or the current velocity of a given idea are measurable in any
meaningful way, so that we could act to change them?

~~~
pitchups
Love the concept of "cognitive escape velocity" - a perfect example of a
portable idea that spans psychology, physics and social media!

------
erikpukinskis
_"If you write an angry rant about sexism in the workplace, it may never leave
the bubble. But a thoughtful piece may plant some ideas at the edge of the
bubble that will escape"_

I've been on Hacker News a while, and have noticed across many posts that
raganwald often writes well meaning, but sexist comments. He seems like a nice
guy, and I've actually considered writing him a polite email about it.

But I end up not doing it. For no other reason than _it's really hard and time
consuming_. When you criticize someone, it's understandably met with
resistance. And if you make any kind of rhetorical mistakes whatsoever, people
will take the opportunity to discount your entire position. It's a minefield.
And there's so much sexism in the world, there's not enough hours in the day
to write "portable" responses to all of it. Writing an "angry" blog post is
often as far as one can get.

And so while I appreciate raganwald's point, that it's incredibly powerful
when you can write a gentle, persuasive, portable argument.... I just don't
think that's enough of a strategy for us, _as a group_.

I think when someone calls you out on sexism, you have some responsibility to
wade through the anger and rhetorical mistakes and try to understand what
their beef is..

~~~
raganwald
I’m always interested in and grateful for criticism.

Feel free to make suggestions here if you think they will be instructive for
others as well as for me. If you prefer to make them privately, I’m
reg@braythwayt.com.

Sincere thanks in advance...

------
abraxasz
I will have to disagree. Or rather, I think that while some bubble are pretty
closed, some are very permeable. I'll take Hacker News for example.

Although some people complain about the fact that there are strong biases on
HN, I actually think that it is not that bad, and there are plenty of topics
on which the community is divided (on top of my mind: internet piracy is
acceptable vs bad, windows is a good tool vs it sucks, google is evil vs it is
awesome, linux will never be a good desktop environment vs it will, etc..).

I think that there is a distinction between bubbles that are created around
certain opinions (windows is bad + piracy is good + linux rocks) and bubbles
that are organized around values (I disagree with you but I like debating with
you + I like to learn about different subjects + etc..).

~~~
adrianhoward
I like using the word "genre" instead of "bubble" as a metaphor for this sort
of thing.

Genre's are useful - they act as a nice shortcut in the bookshop if you're
looking for a particular kind of book. But I never pop my head outside of the
SF section I'm going to be missing out on a lot of good reading and some
interesting outlooks on life.

------
adrianhoward
It's sometimes very hard to create "universally" portable ideas - the metaphor
or story that's going to get everybody to understand and communicate an idea.
You often need to bring people together a bit first so that all the groups can
actually see the common ground - even if they've not reached it yet.

For example - I have some fairly strong beliefs, based on the teams that I've
worked with, on how design/UX and development fit together. I've learned from
experience that I usually can't just jump to the "you need to play nice - look
at all the advantages" pitch. Instead I have a bunch of arguments and points
for developers, and a bunch of arguments and points for designers.

The talk I giving at the mostly developer GOTO Copenhagen next week is going
to be very different from the one I gave at UX Cambridge last year - because
of the audience not the ideas.

Once you nudge folk a little out of their comfort zone - then you can sell the
larger changes that either side would have initially rejected.

Keep looking for the portable ideas - they always help. But in the mean time
I'd also pay a lot of attention to why different groups reject ideas, and use
the knowledge you gain there to hone your presentation to that group.

(BTW for folk who've not already come across it "Resistance as a resource" is
a good read <http://dhemery.com/articles/resistance_as_a_resource/> )

------
digisth
An unstated principle embedded in the post, sometimes made elsewhere
(particularly in econ and political circles): change happens at the margins.

------
jayferd
Portable green ideas sleep furiously.

------
rmATinnovafy
Good points.

What does you mother think of this? I'd like to know her take on it, because
she is an amazing example of someone who lives in the edge of the bubble. A
black woman who became a programmer during the times when there were no women
or blacks can put some insight into how to build portable ideas.

------
wes-exp
How do you make an idea portable?

~~~
raganwald
I honestly don’t know!

Here are some of the things I’ve tried. First, I’ve tried writing parables.
Some of these seem very portable, but they also often annoy the people in the
bubble who already embrace the idea and want more practical insights or
advice. Nevertheless, parables have a way of side-stepping the logical critic
in people’s brains and appealing directly to their emotions. Sometimes that’s
a big win.

Second, I’ve tried to come up with sound bites. I’m not sure this is an
effective example, but off the top of my head: “Discrimination doesn’t scale.”
Sound bites are the refined sugar of ideas for good and for bad.

Third, I’ve tried to write without demonizing the people I disagree with. I
tried to portray “Ted” as well-meanininged but a little too caffeinated here:
[http://raganwald.posterous.com/bob-and-carol-and-ted-and-
ali...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/bob-and-carol-and-ted-and-alice). But I
think I blew it here: [http://raganwald.posterous.com/a-position-of-the-
highest-mor...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/a-position-of-the-highest-
moral-principle).

The truth is, I have no system or method for generating portable ideas, just
some observations that many portable ideas have certain characteristics in
common: They have emotional impact (tip 1), they are easy to remember (tip 2),
and they avoid being divisive (point 3).

YMMV.

~~~
stcredzero
_parables have a way of side-stepping the logical critic in people’s brains
and appealing directly to their emotions. Sometimes that’s a big win.

Second, I’ve tried to come up with sound bites...Sound bites are the refined
sugar of ideas for good and for bad._

As you note, those are equally applicable to ideas with and without substance.

 _The truth is, I have no system or method for generating portable ideas, just
some observations that many portable ideas have certain characteristics in
common: They have emotional impact (tip 1), they are easy to remember (tip 2),
and they avoid being divisive (point 3)._

I'd posit that looking for ways to popularize substantive ideas will produce
portable ones.

------
jes5199
as an alternative to "going viral", I know a company that's trying to "go
bacterial". Bacteria reproduce much more slowly than viruses - and yet they
still have a viable contagion curve, and are at least as ubiquitous in nature
as viruses.

