Obligatory new year post

2009 has been a pretty good year. I got back into university, and it is going rather well this time.

All in all I don't care much for the naughties.

Here's hoping the teens will be better.

[Note to self: fill this out with some more stuff as and when it occurs.]

A strange love: or how I learned to stop worrying and enjoy politics

I am interested in politics.

This is a matter of some concern.

The reason is simple: what goes on in Westminster is largely irrelevant to me and my life. I live in an advanced, socially stable, pluralistic liberal democracy. I have easy access to clean water, good housing, good food, healthcare, education, information, the company of others, culture, and the opportunity to pursue whatever idle desires may remain now that the problem of my personal comfort has largely been solved.

Politics, however, is a source of depression and irritation. There is so much wrong with how our political system works that observing it is like watching a man sweeping a dusty hall with the brush extension of a fully functional industrial-strength vacuum cleaner.

The costs of any possible, and hence marginal, improvements in my personal condition are so high that they outweigh the gains.

Spending more than £10.6 billion on an ID card system that might fractionally reduce the already miniscule probability of me dying in a terrorist attack is an act of such revolting waste and intellectual squalor that I am sick at the thought of it.

The act of vetoing the publication of the minutes of the meetings in which our government decided to embark on an illegal and murderous war (not to mention going to war in the first place) is one of cowardice, both political and primal.

There are better political systems out there. Ones that are more representative and more democratic. And yet we're stuck here with an absurd system of elected kingship.

Given the failure inherent in the Westminster of politics the rational response is to simply ignore the newspapers and blogs that discuss these remote phenomena and concentrate on things of genuine local importance, whatever they may be.

But I am, of course, not rational.

Given I cannot ignore this irrational interest in politics I can only ask the question:

Why am I interested in politics?

The stock answer is that I consider myself a responsible citizen and therefore ought to be aware of and engage in the democratic process. This is of course nonsense. The only duty of a citizen is to obey the law.

I suspect that the source of this political disease is similar to that of the unfathomable interest that some of my friends have in the game of association football. They, like me, lack the power to make any substantive changes to the rules of the game and who gets which job for which team, and frequently decry what they see as poor decisions on the part of those appointed, but ultimately it is the same impulse that leads them to read the sports pages just as I read the politics and business pages.

Chris Dillow comments on this idea of rational inattention of politics:

So, what would be wrong with someone who avoids, as far as possible, all political knowledge - they don’t buy a newspaper, ignore political websites, don’t watch TV news, turn off the radio when the news comes on, and so on?
The obvious answer is that paying attention to politics isn’t a matter of narrow utility maximizing. We should do so because virtue requires it. Being a good citizen requires us to follow politics.

But does it? There’s a long tradition of people shunning public life: monks, hermits, Voltaire advising us to cultivate our gardens, MacIntyre urging us to retreat into local communities. And what’s virtuous about wishing to impose one’s own ego and limited knowledge onto the rest of society?

Nor is it the case that ignorance about politics need, in principle, be associated with general ignorance or incuriosity. It’s perfectly possible in principle to be very informed and cultured on all sorts of matters whilst paying no attention to politics - just as one can be clever and cultivated whilst being ignorant about, say, fruit flies or medieval plainchant

Further: as Nassim Taleb argues in Fooled by Randomness politics is one of those areas of human endeavour where success has more to do with random luck than any exceptional, empirically measurable, skill. What Taleb says about corporate CEOs can be paraphrased for politicians:

Politicians are not administrators. [...] they are often "empty suits" [...] persons who are good at looking the part but nothing more. [...] what they have is skill in getting promoted within a political party rather than pure skills in making optimal decisions - we call that "political skill."

So not only do I lack the power to change things substantively, neither do most of the participants.

Another problem with politics is that most of it is filtered through what is written by journalists.

Taleb argues against listening to journalists' opinions on anything, as the skills required of a successful journalist are not those required of a good political scientist[1]:

A journalist is trained in methods to express himself rather that to plumb the depths of things - the selection process favors the most communicative, not necessarily the most knowledgeable.

To conclude. Politics is my idle entertainment. Just as some watch soap operas and others watch association football games, I watch Newsnight and read political blogs. It isn't all I do, of course, but at least it is explicable.

[1]: Taleb is also highly critical of the whole notion of "political science", but is even more critical of journalists, so I'll let that slide for a moment.

A mixed bag of economics

I took this test Are You an Austrian? The actual number of ticks for each economic tradition I got are as follows:

• Keynesian/Neoclassical: 10
• Chicago: 8
• Austrian: 5
• Socialism: 1
• Keynesian: 1

My score was 47/100. So I am nearly half Austrian. Who knew?

What to do, what to do?

My basic problem is that although I have every confidence that if I put my mind to it I can accomplish a great deal I'm not sure at this stage exactly what I want to do.

Although there are numerous avenues that may lead to remarkable achievements and Good Times I'm never sure if I want to dedicate the time and effort necessary to achieve and enjoy.

I worry that the time I spend not really doing anything is detracting from my enjoyment of life and from the time I could spend doing something useful. If I had some clear goal perhaps it would be different but I really don't.

I'm fairly happy with how things are at the moment but there is always going to be room for improvement.

A perfectionist trapped in an indolent's body

~In which a deep conflict of personality within our hero is discussed~

I am a perfectionist.

Given the choice I would love to do pursue this blogging lark properly. I would love to lovingly craft a lovely blog in WordPress or MoveableType or some such. I would love to lavish countless hours on CSS templates and plugins. I want to worry and obsess over tiny details of compatibility and stick little "certified CSS" or "XML validated" stickers all over my prospective palace of a personal portal.

Unfortunately I don't have the time. Amazingly I have other things to do.

Now this presents something of a quandary.

I am an indolent¹.

I believe that life is for living. I believe that civilization progresses by reducing the number of conscious operations required to accomplish a particular task. Laziness is a virtue that has catapulted a rather peculiar hairless ape into a position that is apparently unprecedented in the history of the known universe.

So on the one hand I have an obsessive desire to realise a given project, because craft is it's own reward.

And on the other hand I lack the inclination to dedicate my time and energy to something that doesn't appear to produce any clear reward beyond craft.

Therefore I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to shape up and show off. I need to become more actively self promotional and invest more time and energy in the content and quality of my blog postings.

Hopefully this will lead to a feedback loop in which feedback (hopefully constructive) leads to a greater desire on my part to invest time and energy in the enterprise of blogging.

~To be continued~


1: I'm aware this is an adjective but I am hereby coining it as a noun that refers to one who prefers efficient accomplishment over unproductive activity.

My reading list

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Rationale: I wasn't paying very close attention to Our Glorious Ally's Recent Imperial Adventures whilst it was happening. Partly this was because this sort of thing is difficult to piece together when you're reading it on a daily basis in the newspapers and partly because I was busy being a truculent teenager.

Anyway this seems to be the standard text on the subject and will hopefully give me a good grounding in What the Hell Happened.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin

Rationale: I enjoyed the discussion of theoretical physics in The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann, which was published in the early nineties, and I also enjoyed The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler. I really want to find out what's happened since, and what the current state of play is as regards Big Science.

This book was recommended to me by one of my physics teachers a few years ago, and at the time was being serialised in The Times. I skimmed through it a while back in a bookshop and was impressed by the tone and content.

Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers by James F. Shackelford

Rationale: this is one of the set textbooks for the course I am (if everything works out) starting in September (there will be a few of these to come).

Manufacturing Engineering and Technology by Serope Kalpakjian and Steven Schmid

Rationale: Again another set text. I want to have a vague familiarity with the course materials well before the course actually starts. The reason for this is that I learn best when presented with a fairly long runway. I also like the opportunity to become comfortable with a particular textbook layout before using it in earnest.

The End of Politics: New Labour and the Folly of Managerialism by Chris Dillow

Rationale: This book is much discussed by the likes of Alex Harrowell and Daniel Davis and Dillow's blog is quite superb. If his book is even half as interesting and engaging as his blog then this will be a worthwhile read.

The Hidden Family by Charles Stross

Rationale: I enjoyed the previous book in this series and since I finished it the sequence has been praised and commented on by Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman. Definitely not one to miss out on.

Foundations of Engineering by Mark T. Holtzapple

Rationale: Another set text!

Mathematics for Engineers: A Modern Interactive Approach by Anthony Croft

Rationale: And again.

Management for Engineers, Scientists and Technologists by John V. Chelsom

Rationale: Same again - nothing to see here.

Traders, Guns and Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives by Satyajit Das

Rationale: I've read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's books,The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, and enjoyed them immensely. However I would like a more in-depth and technical look at all the derivatives, investments, quantitative finance, mortgage-backed securities and other paraphernalia of the ongoing economic troubles.

This book seems to get high reviews and from the brief excerpt on Amazon seem to capture this particular facet of the Zeitgeist rather well.

The Accidental Pornographer: A Story About Having a Go - And Succeeding... in Failing by Gavin Griffiths

Rationale: After reading Paul Carr's enjoyable account of trying and sort of not-quite failing,Bringing Nothing To The Party , I sought out similarly themed books. This looks to be one such in which the eponymous pornographer protagonist tries and fails.

And as an additional bonus he apparently meets none other than my favourite business antihero Felix Dennis!

Against a Dark Background by Iain M Banks

Rationale: Well, I'm reading this at the moment so I've rather jumped the gun as far as rationale goes. It is a spectacularly florid book with titanic set pieces and more Big Dumb Objects than you can shake a space elevator at. Truth be told it could easily gain from content-trimming if you prefer tighter reads, but I've always enjoyed Banks' Banksishness so it's all puppy for the fat as far as I'm concerned.

My contribution

Opinions, in the wise words of Chris Dillow, are mere arseholes. Everyone has one but I don't want to hear them.

Now being as I have access to little special knowledge or empirical data not available to everyone else, and being as my thoughts are largely the opinions of other people this leaves me in something of a quandary.

What do I blog about? There are so many topics I need to learn more about before I am qualified to analyse the relevant data: what can I contribute?

The obvious answer is that I can simply ask questions.

Surprisingly few blogs concentrate on defining the terms of their own ignorance as opposed to ranting on about their opinions.

Therefore from now on I will concentrate on asking questions and attempting to come to conclusions.

Free flowing writing experiment #2

This is an experiment.

This is the second of what may eventually become a whole series of essays on the subject of writing, and specifically the writing process as perceived by one who writes.

I say "one who writes" as I am not ready to call myself a full writer, any more than I am ready to call myself a full blogger. Most of what I write down here is in the form of questions and idle wonderings. It is not opinion or comment or theorising. Inasmuch as it is an attempt to make sense of the world it is preliminary to all these.

I suspect the key part of the writing process I have yet to fully acquire is the process of refinement. I intend this series to be both an exploration and a trial, to see how I might develop this skill.

What do I mean by refinement?

Picture the raw input of any process. It could be labour or energy or earth or wood or clay. Now picture the process by which these commodities are converted into something more valuable.

In writing the valuable output is a well written piece. In writing the raw input is largely other writing, thoughts, ideas, experiences, other people, yourself, your beliefs and ponderings and habits and the minutiae of your daily life.

Inbetween the raw input and the valuable output there are several processes of refinement. I generally lack the patience or obsessive compulsion required to persue a writing project beyond a single iteration. This is a problem I am working on remedying.

This industrial process whereby the raw and unrefined output of my mind is distilled onto a page or screen is itself subdivided between drafts and even between the moment the words are instantiated in the real world and I travel back to the end of the sentance to remove them.

Someone, I think it was Terry Pratchett, said writing went something like that. You fill your mind with stuff and wait until it all bubbles over and you start writing. He then qualified it by pointing out that this didn't necessarily imply any kind of verbal diarrhea¹ and that the process of refinement was equally important.

If this is correct then blogging might not be such a good idea: you venting valuable material and not bothering to refine it.

Or perhaps it is good practice.

In any case I need to stem and control the flood of half formed ideas, plucking the nuggets prose out of the flow of verbiage.

The intention here is to explore how my writing process works.



1:Impossible to spell first time correctly. Also a good name for a blog. Verbal Diarrhea. Doubly annoying as the spell checker doesn't immediately identify my mangled attempt at spelling it correctly. Wouldn't it be good to have a blog that was called something like Verbal Diarrhea but was purposefully spelt incorrectly.

Perhaps I should write a list of good qualities to have in a blog title, but that would be time consuming and frankly rather beside the point. I'm sure it's already been done and better elsewhere.

Free flowing writing experiment

OK. I'll attempt to direct some thought into something coherent.

Perhaps writing is like a process of refinement. Like panning for gold. You read lots and lots of stuff and let it incubate and digest and assimilate and then you attempt to construct something legible and interesting out of the result.

Someone, I think it was Terry Pratchett, said writing went something like that. You fill your mind with stuff and wait until it all bubbles over and you start writing. He then qualified it by pointing out that this didn't necessarily imply any kind of verbal diarrhea 1 and that the process of refinement was equally important.

So perhaps having a blog is a mistake. Sure it builds up writing ability, but in fact it's blurting out valuable writing ore whilst at the same time not providing for the essential process of refinement.

I mean when it comes to writing an essay or a computer program or something where meaning is important and purpose both necessary and good you need to plan everything out beforehand.

I've always had difficulty with this mode of writing. I can write essays and whatnot but I always need some central scaffold on which to assemble the main core of meaning of the text. What I'm doing now is attempting to give some kind of suggestion as to the unmediated flow of thoughts and sentences that comes out of my mind as I think about something.

I need to stem and control the flood, plucking the nuggets of metaphor out of the flow of simile. Y'see that last bit made no sense as an analogy but I'd need to work at it. Also I'm writing as you speak in long clauses without any meaningful sentence structure. I could go back over this and build it into some kind of structured essay but what would be the point?

The intention here is to explore how my writing process works. This isn't even the first draft. I'm not trying to write anything here. I'm doing that thing the kid does from that film where he sees dead people.

This isn't intentionally post modern. There is meaning in the medium or whatever but it's meaningful in the way the noises animals make is meaningul. This is also lazy. What am I doing here? Constructing fine words in a pleasing manner? Hardly. This keyboard is really appalling. So buy a new one.



1:Impossible to spell first time correctly. Also a good name for a blog. Verbal Diarrhea. Doubly annoying as the spell checker doesn't immediately identify my mangled attempt at spelling it correctly. Wouldn't it be good to have a blog that was called something like Verbal Diarrhea but was purposefully spelt incorrectly.

Perhaps I should write a list of good qualities to have in a blog title, but that would be time consuming and frankly rather beside the point. I'm sure it's already been done and better elsewhere.

Potentially lengthy blogging interregnum

Some guy called Daniel Davis has written a much better blog than I. This is dispiriting but also reassuring. It means I won't be the guy who says good things but I have less responsibility if those good things result in a pyramid of skulls.

In the meantime I got into Warwick University to study systems engineering. This is a pretty awesome fact.

These things I *could* believe

I don't subscribe fully to any coherent political ideology (if indeed any political ideology can be truly coherent), but following is a brief list of things I'm beginning to suspect are true:

The free market is a powerful evolutionary system for generating Good Ideas.

Important policy decisions should be made on the basis of empirical study and rational thought

The rule of law applied equally to all is a Good Thing

Freedom of speech for everyone is a Good Thing

Political representation is a Good Thing

Individual negative freedom is a Good Thing

Agonistic pluralism is a Good Thing

Democratic nation states are a reasonably effective way of getting certain necessary jobs done

What consenting adults do with their time is not the business of anyone else

Privacy is important

All healthy human beings are fairly smart but not infallible or perfectly rational

Wars are complicated and always morally ambiguous

A large majority of healthy human beings possess a basic sense of fairness and morality

There can probably be no such thing as a genuine meritocracy

Equality is a Good Thing

Education is a Good Thing

Equality in education is an especially Good Thing

I might go through each of these and explain exactly why I think each of them.

Timewasting

Since I made a conscious decision to stop reading newspapers a la Taleb I've found that I spend more time reading blogs, most especially the Yorkshire Ranter, Stumbling and Mumbling, and DSquared.

In fact the amount of time I've freed up by reading fewer newspapers has been entirely consumed by additional blog reading.

My attention span seems to be subject to its own version of Jevon's Paradox. Increases in the efficiency and quality of my text consumption are immediately swallowed up by an overall increase in the amount of text consumed.

I would prefer to spend my time reading substantive literature, both novels and textbooks, rather than blogs. However because I spend so much of my time sitting in front of an Internet connected screen I inevitably end up getting distracted by them.

What is the best way to write blog posts?

The best way to write blog posts is to have a clear and specific point to make, and only to make one point per blog post.

If you want to make multiple points, or write a multifaceted argument on a particular subject what you are writing become what Stephen Fry calls a blessay.

From now on I will try to keep my posts short and interesting, rather than long and rambling.

Current areas of interest

Here's what I'm up to at the moment:

• Doing Open University Tutor Marked Assignments in "Data, Computing, and Information" and "Engineering the Future" courses.
• Learning how to program Python using Diving into Python and Thinking Like a Computer Scientist.
• Applying to go to university.
• Looking for a job.
• Creating a lengthy webcomic narrative.
• Blogging extensively.
• Reading The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker.
• Reading Four Laws that Drive the Universe by Peter Atkins.
• Reading Feersum Endjinn's by Iain M Banks.
  

A new peace with GTD

I have a problem.

I am currently 20 years old.

I am fortunate to be healthy, live in a Western liberal democracy, and not to have too many pressing concerns on my time.

Despite this I have a number of problems that I've been struggling to articulate for most of my life.

These problems are specified below. If you, the reader, are a prospective employer I exhort you to be aware that I am defining these problems that I might solve them and make myself a better person.

Here they are:

1. I am passive.
   
2. I will default to inaction if there is no clear alternative.
3. My attention span is short.
4. I am easily distracted.
5. I have difficulty organising and optimising my life.
   
6. My memory lets me down sometimes.

OK. So now they're out in the open - where do I go from here?

The answer that most readily springs to mind is to adopt the Getting Things Done lifestyle.

A discussion of GTD and it's founder, David Allen, can be found in this article on Wired Magazine.

As ever with the cultish fringe there is a suspiciously religious element to GTD that I'm, wary of. Not to mention the vast variety of tie-in products and money spinning items associated with it.

Fortunately there seem to be no end of easy, cheap implementations of the basic philosophy, including a rather splendid Moleskine-based project described in detail here.

However I have just taken the time to write down all the things I need to do. In no particular order and with no distinction made between their being big or small or important or unimportant.

This simple act has proven to be very cathartic. For the first time in a very long while (in fact, since I was on holiday in the summer) my mind seems calm and at peace.

All those nagging little tasks are still there. But now they are stored elsewhere and I can concentrate on getting things done.

I intend tomorrow to purchase a Moleskine notebook and begin living with GTD.

Watch this space.

Political engagement

Chastened by this post by the Yorkshire Ranter I wrote to my MP concerning Freedom of Information Order 2009, an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that would allow MPs expenses details to be kept secret. This is the content of the email I sent him:

Dear Mr Maples

I am writing concerning the Freedom of Information Order 2009 (described here: http://www.commonsleader.gov.uk/output/page2698.asp)

My understanding is that this Order will use the provision in section 82 of the Freedom of Information Act to allow an exemption for MPs and Lords so that they do not have to reveal details of their personal expenditure.

This seems to be in response to the FOI request concerning MPs expenses that has been compiled and is due for release.

My objections to the Freedom of Information Order 2009 are as follows:


1) It will mean that the large quantity of public money that has been spent collecting receipts will have been wasted.

2) As the FOI request concerns how taxpayer's money has been spent (and what you and your fellow MPs spent at John Lewis can hardly be considered secret for reasons of national security) we have a right to know.

3) It implies that parliament is uniquely privileged over other public sector bodies as to how it spends money.

4) It reflects badly on the reputation of the Houses of Parliament that MPs feel it is necessary to keep their expenditure details concealed.


It is my understanding that this Order needs two parliamentary votes, one in the Commons, one in the Lords, which are scheduled for Thursday the 22nd March.

I would be very grateful if you would consider the points above and choose to vote against this Freedom of Information Order.

yours sincerely


Thomas James

And now look what has happened:

On the 16th of May 2008 the High Court ruled that MPs’ expenses must be published under the Freedom of Information Act.

Tomorrow [[[i.e. today]]], MPs were going to vote on changing the law to keep their expenses secret after all, just before publication was due and after spending nearly a million of your pounds and seven months compiling the data.

However, after a tremendous response from you, with over 7,000 members on our Facebook group, 4,000 messages sent to MPs, help from Stephen Fry, and a helpful 4th Report of the House of Lords Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, it appears that the vote has been cancelled – Guardian, Times, BBC.

As President Obama said in his inauguration speech: “And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.”

Huzzah! The system works.

The cause of suffering

What exactly do I want?

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the answer to this question. It has a taste and a smell. It is emotive as only these sensations are, and as I cannot define it in words I find writing about my desires frustrating.

As ambiguous as the written word is in terms of formal logic it is still too constrictive to convey what I want.

All it can provide me with are vignettes: little scenes and doll-house models of what I desire. The following is one such scene:


We begin with the top floor of a high-ceiling converted warehouse in a dockland neighbourhood of a cosmopolitan Western city. The decor is minimal, the aesthetic oriented towards the pragmatic.

Large skylights flood the interior with light, tall pine shelves cling to the walls. The books balanced thereon are diverse in content. All are crisp and fresh of the printing press. Amongst them are reprints of classics, textbooks in diverse sciences and arts, design, cognitive psychology, economics, engineering, physics, biology, philosophy, ethics, law, craft, history, and business.

There are novels and compendium of stories and poems, again with the combination of disuse and overuse that characterises a consuming mind.

There is a tendency towards award-winners and critical acclaim amongst the volumes, as if someone had downloaded a list of everything that anyone had said was good and ordered them all in. This is a library for the reader, not the faux-intellectual, someone who wants to be exposed to ideas like a lab rat is exposed to germs.

Many of the books have been taken up and read and are left cast around the apartment, stuffed with notes and bookmarks, the dandruff of the mental dilettante.

The furniture has a utilitarian aspect to it. There is a virtually unused kitchen area and a dining area sans dining table. The core of the home seems to be a desk secreted in a shady corner: a tree sprouts screens and tablets, the roots formed with flat cables and wires trundling inward from ports in the nearby walls.

The chair in front of the desk is of a particular design, emphasising comfort and ergonomics. The keyboard is of high quality.

A few other notebook computers are scattered over the home, which is currently empty. It's occupant is out engaged in amusing and enjoyable pursuits. Not working, of course, but rather cultivating the art of life.

Wag the blog

Since I stopped reading newspapers I have replaced much of my procrastination reading Polly Toynbee's and Janet Daley's opinions on whatever with reading some of the following sci-tech/economics/SF blogs. They are no more or less well-informed than professional newspaper columnists but considerably more amusing:

• Stumbling and Mumbling by sometime stock-picker and author of this book Chris Dillow.
• The Yorkshire Ranter by some programmer and military history enthusiast Alex Harrowell.
• D-Squared Digest by some vaguely economic-type Daniel Davis.
• The Conscience of a Liberal by Nobel economics dude Paul Krugman.
• Jon Taplin's Blog by communications professor Jon Taplin.
• Ideas by David Friedman, author of this libertarian book.
  
• The War Nerd by a military history enthusiast from Fresno.
• Short Sharp Science by the good people at New Scientist magazine.
• Physorg by a load of people.
• The Early Days of a Better Nation by SF writer Ken MacLeod.
• Charlie's Diary by SF writer Charles Stross.
• Matamodern by nanotechnology theorist Eric Drexler.
• Bringing Nothing to the Party by raconteur Paul Carr.
• FuturePundit.
• What's Next: Top Trends.
• An American Redhead in London by, er, an American redhead in London.
• Futurismic by various people.
• Velcro City Tourist Board by Paul Raven.
  

I'm pretty sure that doing this goes against the spirit of my desire to read more actual books rather than irrelevant nonsense.

{No offense is implied to any of the above: I'm just saying at this stage in my life it would probably be better to focus on the profound and important rather than the trivial and up-to-the-minute}

*Sigh* --- I should really just avoid reading blogs altogether. It isn't educational, and doesn't improve my deep knowledge about anything.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Felix Dennis

In his answer to the recent Edge Question 2009 (What will change everything?) epistemiology philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb touches on a topic close to my heart [from Edge.org]:

People want advice on how to get rich –and pay for it. Now how not to go bust does not appear to be valid advice –yet given that over time only a minority of companies do not go bust, avoiding death is the best possible –and most robust --advice.

Taleb is fond of pointing out that the "how I did it" genre of business/entrepreneurship books is essentially useless as a source of business advice because all the writers (who he asserts consist entirely of successful, retired entrepreneurs) suffer from the survivorship bias - the only reason they're in a position to lecture anyone on how to succeed in business is they did not fail.

As huge numbers of business startups do fail and the defining component of success is not failing there is very little value to be gleaned from reading the memoirs of self-indulgent millionaires.

The exception is magazine entrepreneur Felix Dennis, owner of The Week and The First Post (both of which I have stopped reading on Taleb's advice).

The reason Dennis' book How to Get Rich was so disappointing to this reviewer was that the he found the book largely anecdotal [from the FT]:

...this book is not so much about how we could get rich as how Dennis did.

The author has the good taste to admit that you have to be a little lucky to get on the rich list - as well as brash and single-minded. Unfortunately, he also has enough bad taste to reprint some of his own poetry, most of which revolves around himself and his pots of money.

Dennis' poetry notwithstanding I found the book both highly general but also highlighted by a series of anecdotes that show just how lucky Dennis was.

His first big break was when he wrote an exclusive biography of a kung-fu practitioner Bruce Lee just before the star died in mysterious circumstances, resulting in a surge of public interest and demand just as Dennis published the book.

On another occasion when Dennis was flogging membership packs for the Bruce Lee fan club the packs were shown on TV by a journalist who felt they were bad value for money - as a result thousands more people bought them.

Yet another time it was discovered (as Dennis was en route to his Caribbean home of Mustique) that his publishing company was due to suffer a catastrophic cash-flow crisis. The discovery was due to a change in accounting software that highlighted the problem just in time to avert bankruptcy.

Dennis is entirely open that his success is in large part down to luck, but he also includes a very practical point: when it comes to getting rich, it's what you own that counts, not your prestige, not your job title, or personal power.

And Taleb is wrong to say that you don't get books that describe how not to start a business. Raconteur and new media whore Paul Carr does just that in his amusing and entertaining account of how he failed to become a wealthy and famous web tycoon entitled Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore.

I'm gradually coming to suspect that entrepreneurship is for suckers - if you really want to become happy, it's best to get a well-paying and reliable job that you enjoy.

Or better yet, rather than be a hacker, be a backer. Taleb mentions somewhere in The Black Swan that investors in companies make more money overall than individual entrepreneurs.

This is perhaps the story to take away from The Second Bounce of the Ball by Apax founder Ronald Cohen.

"Success," like most other abstract qualities, is largely subjective. Life is for living, not ferretting around for dollars and euros. As Brian Micklethwait writes in his essay What the Success Books Say:

Success means having a success attitude. Success means thinking successfully. Success means having, or cultivating, a "positive mental attitude"

Putting aside my nerdy and maladjusted obsession with the wealthy I care more about living elegantly and happily than mere money.

Finding Wisdom in the Mass

One of the problems with writing a blog is that when you get an idea for a post, an idea which may be the result of weeks of mental incubation (a la Hermann von Helmholtz's theory of the steps of discovery or James Webb Young's A Technique for Producing Ideas), you also find yourself tasked with the tedious chore of chasing down all the links, references, quotations, blog posts, magazine articles, or books that contributed to your idea and including them in your post as well.

The problem is similar to that of information overload: with so many possible sources of information and text, how do we know what to read? And how do you know what to include in your post?

Do you really have to include references to everything and anything that might have contributed to the idea in the text?

I can't surf the web for any length of time without discovering new websites that are well worth my while reading.

So what how do I allocate my time so as to achieve maximum utility?