
How to Use Both Your Wits in a Startup - craigcannon
http://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-use-both-your-wits-in-a-startup/
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kirse
I started to read TFaS awhile back and quickly got bored of it, because the
conclusion was very obvious and needed no more explanation beyond the $1.10
example provided early on.

It became quite obvious that it's hopelessly impossible to eliminate the
myriad of nearly infinite biases we all have - something that has been
separately established by my own beliefs anyway (Jeremiah 17:9). Not to
mention there's a far easier way to limit bias in decision making: Ask a few
others for feedback (Proverbs 15:22).

What I find funny is that there is supposedly a "comprehensive" list of "20
Cognitive Biases", as if that somehow covers 90% of one's regular biases in
decision making. Everyone is biased in tens of thousands of particular ways
simply based on the seemingly infinite different combinations of limited life
experiences we have -- and many of those biases are unconscious, unintended,
and so subtle that they simply evade detection unless there was another to
point them out.

That's why I think it's better to live with bias, which is to say that I ask
myself if I'm making a decision that is biased toward love, grace, and
kindness. Use your precious "system 2" energy to bias yourself toward those
things. It's the same as recognizing counterfeit currency - a man doesn't
study the infinite possible counterfeits, he studies every detail of the
authentic bill. And through that training to bias himself toward what is
genuine, he gains the ability to immediately recognize the counterfeits.

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benhuh
Hey HN, this is Ben, the author.

Happy to answer or clarify any questions.

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domino
Besides "Thinking Fast and Slow", what are some good books you would
recommend?

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stephenbez
"Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions" by Gary Klein.

It talks about how experienced people can make higher quality decisions by
taking into account their intuition vs just trying to decide using logic.

[https://www.amazon.com/Sources-Power-People-Make-
Decisions/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Sources-Power-People-Make-
Decisions/dp/0262611465)

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jey
> Instead of eliminating our intuition, we should be learning to train our
> massive parallel System 2 to help aid the slower logical System 1 process.

This looks like a typo; "System 1" and "System 2" should be swapped.

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benhuh
Whoops! Thanks.

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triplesec
Is that fixed now? I remember getting this the wrong way round myself too.
It's not obvious either way which way it 'should' be, so it is a terrible
naming decision.

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jey
I think of "System 1" as the one that evolved first.

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sahrizv
I found the writeup valuable in terms of provoking deeper thought and
discussion.

However, I think perhaps the author is mixing up 'both wits' (logical vs
emotional thinking) with the two systems thinking from the TFaS book(intuitive
vs logical thinking), at least in the writeup.

I am more inclined to believe that intuition and logic based thought processes
are superior to one that has an emotional dimension, at least for running a
business.

As an example, I think if in the Cheezburger case the author was less
emotional, he would have responded rather than reacted to the perceived
threat- which is arguably a better way to deal with the situation.

Lack of affect(especially fear) is a defining quality of psychopathy, which
happens to be very common amongst CEOs [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace#C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace#Careers_with_highest_proportion_of_psychopaths)

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JofArnold
I find not following intuition leads to more regret than following it and
being wrong.

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hyperpallium
The intro calls emotional reasoning "logical reasoning". Fear is an emotion.

The problem with logic is it proceeds from facts. It doesn't account well for
unknowns, nor the "unknown unknowns".

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tejohnso
Crockford talks about this using the same reference material
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EANG8ZZbRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EANG8ZZbRs)

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benhuh
Cool. I'll take a look. They are excellent reference materials. :)

