

You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World - keaneu
http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/nicholas-taleb-prediction-tech-future07-cx_nt_1015change.html?feed=rss_news

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pg
And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check
Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of
trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one
can't.

I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the
people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can
to some extent predict by recognizing those qualities. You can predict the
people, just not what the ideas will turn out to be. The title should have
been "You can't predict how the world will change."

~~~
kul
Hmm, I'd guess it's harder than that. Being energetic and determined may be a
necessary condition to change the world but it is not a sufficient condition.
There are plenty of energetic and determined people who won't change the
world.

Though, as far as one can predict, I bet determination is the best indicator
we can hope for.

~~~
pg
I didn't mean to imply that we can predict perfectly. No one could, since luck
is a factor. But we can narrow the field.

------
hga
"Random tinkering is the path to success."

This is of course why we're all using a neighborhood DC power station provided
by Edison Electric.

Nope, sorry, "random tinkering" will get you only so far.

Not so random tinkering can get you farther, it's no accident that about the
most popular handgun design in the USA was made by John Browning (the greatest
firearms design genius in history) and adopted by the US Army in 1911 (!).
(We're also still using his M2 .50 cal machine gun with no _real_ need to
replace it, just as there was no real reason to replace the M1911.)

But if you combine "random tinkering" with "European math" (i.e. Tesla and the
polyphase AC that Edison could not do the math for), now, there you _really_
have something.

When I read some histories of the founding concepts of MIT, it was very clear
they desired to meld these two powerful themes into something new, the motto
Mens et Manus (Mind and Hand) and the seal expressing this quite clearly.

And while I understand that a lot of you all who are focused on a niche that
richly rewards "random tinkering" don't think there's much value add to e.g.
the sorts of engineers that MIT turns out, I submit to you that you wouldn't
be here unless you were standing on the shoulders of the people who produced
artifacts like the transistor, the IC and TCP/IP (and maybe even ACID
databases :-), none of which were pure "random tinkering".

To recast this a bit, maybe look at it through Clayton Christensen's lens:

The transistor, IC and TCP/IP were all sustaining innovations, replacing the
tube, mechanically integrated modules and previous networking systems
respectively. Each dropped right into the place of their predecessors with the
usual teething pains, but represented qualitative improvements that in a while
were game changers.

What you are doing is disruptive innovation at its finest (read _The
Innovator's Dilemma_ for the full treatment).

There's a place for both, but I believe that while what one is working on
might strongly emphasize one or the other, one should be reasonably grounded
in both.

Otherwise you might find your lunch eaten by a disruptive innovation, or hit a
brick wall when you're in the sustaining axis and e.g. something doesn't scale
in an important way.

(And I thank keaneu for reminding why I dropped my subscription to _Forbes_ a
_long_ time ago (before SCO vs. The World). :-)

~~~
davidw
I don't think he's saying to just take a bumble-along happy go lucky approach,
with no rigor, training or mental discipline, but that you can't "sit down and
invent things" most of the time. Sure, you can point yourself in a direction,
but even then, you have to try, fiddle, experiment, and calibrate as you go
along, and you might even then arrive somewhere that you didn't set out to go,
if you're well placed to grab opportunities.

------
fleddermaus
Yah, who would have thought that a guy in the 1920's would write a master
thesis suggesting the idea that you could transfer information electronically
in 1's and 0's (claude E. Shannon).

What I find more interesting is that it wasn't the idea that took time to
develop, but the technology. Without people dreaming and working on ideas, we
wouldn't be where we are. The beauty of the night sky lies in the
constellations, not the indivdiual stars. If there was only one star, we'd get
bored, but individuals stars are fun to look at because they increase the
total beauty of the constellation.

So, if you want to change the world, shine like a star and belong to a
constellation.

The allure of a small business is that it is not entrenched in keeping the
status quo, but excitedly endeavoring to ask the next big question, "why the
hell not?"

------
samson
I hope an occult style following does not develop for this book. Much of what
he says in his book can be learned by going through David Hume's essay a "An
Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding" which is widely available and
surprisingly to say, an easier read then Taleb book.

As for this article the only interesting thing said to was "Ignore what you
were told by your college economics professor". I agree with this because
economist have this notion that theory comes before practice. Often you will
see abstract mathematical theories developed first, then secondly attempts to
execute then in the world afterwards. Common sense should tell anyone it is
the other way around.Successful execution preceeds any good theory.

This is essentially Taleb's point about trial and error, though if you follow
that point religiously you end up adopting the concept that theories are of no
worth at all, since everything can be reduced down to luck.

In the end even if that maybe true, I still think the idea of things being
reducable to luck is a wrong way to approach the challenges that you will face
with life. You start to say after this startup failed..."well i was just
unlucky", when in fact you should reflect and make sense of your mistakes,
rather then just playing it down to some mysterious luck hypothesis that you
had no way of influencing.

------
dpapathanasiou
Good quotes:

 _"...[people] cannot accept that skills and payoffs may have nothing to do
with one another."_

 _"We need more tinkering: uninhibited, aggressive, proud tinkering. We need
to make our own luck. We can be scared and worried about the future, or we can
look at it as a collection of happy surprises that lie outside the path of our
imagination."_

~~~
naivehs
"The high rate of failure in scientific research should be sufficient to
convince us of the lack of effectiveness in its design."

------
DanielBMarkham
This is good.

There is a role for randomness in every effort, but it needs to be understood.
There was another article on the list today about failing a lot to succeed.
Dedication and a great team will always overcome, but they will overcome only
if they fail quickly and explore the chaos and randomness of the problem
domain. At the risk of link-spamming, I wrote in my blog this morning about
the role that divergent thinking has on social networks.
[http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/10/do_you_want_m...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/10/do_you_want_mor.php)
I think Paul and others make the same point in regards to how it's better to
be in the valley than in Deluth -- you can harness the randomness better
there.

As hackers and analytical people, we've been brought up to feel like we should
take a direct path from point A to point B. But it never works like that in
the real world. Good solution-based thinking is divergent, and understands and
accepts that you're not following a recipe as much as you're playing a game of
chance -- but playing very cleverly!

------
vegashacker
dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24318>

------
edw519
There were so many times when I started a project with certain intent and the
final product was very different from what I had planned. Sometimes the
product was simply me - the person who I became through the process was now
able to take on many new things.

