41–50 of 143 posts
I call it S1 (simple 1, arrogant and ignorant) vs S2 (simple 2, which is elegant and informed), but I’ve only found it possible to attain S2 after navigating the complexity between these two points, which implies that I’m often guilty of S1 thinking as the genesis of getting to S2, if I have the sand for it.
And S3 is where you store all your memories.
The lack of second order thinking seems to be the essence of what ails modern medicine. "I have an infection!" "Time for antibiotics!" Don't bother to ask "And then what?" Some populations are given antibiotics so regularly that it isn't uncommon for them to develop antibiotic resistant infections and even lose their colon to E. Coli. We are given drugs with a multi page handout covering side effects, the doctors tak…
A significant amount of medical academia is definitely concerned with upstream causes, especially since a great deal of overall mortality these days is from cancers and heart disease, where impeding the upstream causes can have a large affect on overall mortality rates. This in some ways contrasts with a perspective where people fall ill primarily to infections and it is primarily the role of medicine to identify and…
Doctors used to be some of the best educated people in a community and you tended to see the same doctor for many years. They probably also saw your extended family. It wasn't uncommon for all the children and their cousins to be seen and treated at the same time, thereby putting a stop to an infection instead of it being passed round and round like seems to be fairly common these days.
I'm quite fond of this scene from Doc Hollywood:
The lack of second order thinking seems to be the essence of what ails modern medicine. "I have an infection!" "Time for antibiotics!" Don't bother to ask "And then what?" Some populations are given antibiotics so regularly that it isn't uncommon for them to develop antibiotic resistant infections and even lose their colon to E. Coli. We are given drugs with a multi page handout covering side effects, the doctors tak…
Second order thinking was thought further by Hans Jonas [1], a philosopher known for his contribution to environmentalism. In his book "The Imperative of Responsibility"[2] he argues that because of our technological breakthroughs (e.g. medicine) it's so easy to make impacts beyond your control that thinking through whatever you do has to become the core of a new ethic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jonas [2…
Sometimes, the bullish people that don't overthink things end up in far greater situation (through a rollercoaster) than if they just sat there and pondered about all the consequences.
Regarding less daily matters like foreign policy, I actually think this kind of second order thinking is a trap. It's the pride that goeth before the fall. It leads us to believe problems that are too complex, too variable and too opaque are within the grasp of our rationalim if only we think hard enough. Robert McNamara didn't advise Kennedy and LBJ deeper and deeper into the Vietnam war because he lacked second order thinking skills. He did so precisely because he had like 10th order thinking skills.
The lack of second order thinking seems to be the essence of what ails modern medicine. "I have an infection!" "Time for antibiotics!" Don't bother to ask "And then what?" Some populations are given antibiotics so regularly that it isn't uncommon for them to develop antibiotic resistant infections and even lose their colon to E. Coli. We are given drugs with a multi page handout covering side effects, the doctors tak…
Smart people get everyone else to bog themselves down with "second-order thinking" perpetually tying themselves in mental knots wondering endlessly "what happens next" and "should I or shouldn't I." That is because smart people that get shit done will not think twice, do the thing, and then quickly re-evaluate the results and proceed apace. Smart people that get shit done, outperform by actually executing. You can't…
The lack of second order thinking seems to be the essence of what ails modern medicine. "I have an infection!" "Time for antibiotics!" Don't bother to ask "And then what?" Some populations are given antibiotics so regularly that it isn't uncommon for them to develop antibiotic resistant infections and even lose their colon to E. Coli. We are given drugs with a multi page handout covering side effects, the doctors tak…