Are these great mental models book worth the time?
Second-Order Thinking
231–240 of 266 posts
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#232This article, and some of the comments here, seem to confuse "second-order" with "long-term". Long-term just means doing the same analysis far out into the future: "If I spend less on maintaining software product $LEGACY, I will save money. If I continue to do this, I will save more and more money by each passing month." Second-order means discovering neighbouring causal links. "If I spend less on maintaining softwar…
I am not particularily familiar with the connotation of the term second-order-thinking , but to me it implies the somewhat mathematical meaning of it. The first order might be some value (e.g. a voltage) and the second order might be the rate with which that voltage changes and the third the rate with which this rate changes etc. To me this implies that thinking on a higher order is somewhat about stepping back and v…
You’re mixing up derivatives (rate of change) and approximation (order).
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#233Surely this is just 'thinking', instead of acting on impulse or gut-feel. Second-order thinking is thinking about thinking. eg, If we have a decision to make, first order thinking is analyzing the situation and making the decision. Second order thinking is deciding how to go about analyzing the situation, how to arrive at a decision, how to measure the outcome, etc.
[deleted]
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, a lot of economics sound-bites are all about ignoring first order effects in favor of questionable second order effects. I'm mostly thinking here about deficit spending discussions, where it's popular to inject worry about second-order effects creating a drag on the economy, e.g., crowding out. Meanwhile, it completely ignores the fact that the first-order effects are almost always all positive for the ec…
Well, logically the second order negative effects of deficit spending must overcome the beneficial first and second order effects on large enough scales. Otherwise we could just deficit spend ourselves into perpetual prosperity.
There's a subtlety here, though. It should be obvious that too much deficit spending has negative second order effects overwhelming the first order ones. (An extreme form of this: imagine having the government trying to spend quintillions each year -- that's clearly not going to work without some massive inflation.)
It is not at all self-evident that the same is true for all deficit spending, even on an infinite time horizon.
Consider, for example, that central banks typically aim to have a ~2% rate of inflation in the long run. Given that, why would it be harmful to forever have a level of deficit spending that keeps the real value of the government debt constant in the long run? Or, ignoring inflation but assuming economic growth, that keeps the ratio of government debt to GDP constant in the long run? Why would that be harmful?
(Note: If the government was able to successfully run a balanced budget indefinitely[0], both of those quantities would approach 0 in the limit; some long-run government deficit spending is necessary to keep them constant.)
And yes: the stronger claim, which I also support, is that deficit spending is an important ingredient for our prosperity, because it acts as a sort of "prime mover" for pushing up society's overall level of wealth. (As usual, there's a balance to this. Too much of a good thing etc.)
[0] There's a lot of historical evidence which suggests that this is impossible anyway because it becomes self-defeating. Balanced budgets ultimately cause or at least contribute to recessions, which cause a budget deficit via reduced tax income and increased social services spending.
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
After subtracting the cost of the book, and time wasted times minimal wage, I highly suspect the average wealth generated by reading it is negative.
Have you read it? What were your criticisms.
I've read the marketing article posted to HN, and it sounds silly. First order ... second order ... same as all the other motivational nonsense.
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not particularily familiar with the connotation of the term second-order-thinking , but to me it implies the somewhat mathematical meaning of it. The first order might be some value (e.g. a voltage) and the second order might be the rate with which that voltage changes and the third the rate with which this rate changes etc. To me this implies that thinking on a higher order is somewhat about stepping back and v…
You are stepping back and looking how your decision consequences will impact the network of causes and consequences that exists on the real world. Root cause analysis is a different thing.
Which often involves second order effects.
A -> (caused) B
C -> D
When B and D occur (within a window) -> Error
It is that connection between B and D that needs to be discovered.
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#237Not sure why this article needs to reinforce antiquated social constructs like "sm*rt people" to get its point across. "Sm*rt People" are like 10x programmers- a fantasy formed to justify inequities derived from the hegemony we are are complicit in perpetuating. Nobody is sm*rt intrinsically, they simply have unfair access to experiences, resources, culture, education, and genetics that give them a temporally maximal average problem/solution response aptitude. You are not a sm*rt person or a d**b person, we are all just people, with completely equal capacity to do great or bad things. We must take great care to tolerate others and be sure to excise this cancer of bigoted, Black/white, exclusionary, non-nuanced, traditional thinking from our society. Bigots watch out, you are on the wrong side of history!
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#238This is not a new idea, there was a management fad in the nineties around understanding higher order effects and how they applied to businesses. The book everyone manager had to read back then was "The Fifth discipline" by an MIT professor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline
(It's actually a pretty interesting read, as far as management books go)
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#239this is a type of article and thinking that is appealing to people because its very easy to understand, and appears useful. theres no barrier to entry here because theres no corpus of knowledge required or demonstration of skill. just say something that sounds kind of coherent and simple, that probably reinforces what people already believe. it might seem overly negative to care about this. maybe it is. but this webs…
Conversely, there is a type of person who thinks everything worth knowing must require investment on behalf of the learner.
It's not surprising this type of person is very common among the highly educated: school indoctrinates us with this belief.
For these people everything is a struggle.
They may even miss opportunities to easily pick up simple but useful ideas or skills because they have a closed mindset.
Re: Second-Order Thinking
#240This article, and some of the comments here, seem to confuse "second-order" with "long-term". Long-term just means doing the same analysis far out into the future: "If I spend less on maintaining software product $LEGACY, I will save money. If I continue to do this, I will save more and more money by each passing month." Second-order means discovering neighbouring causal links. "If I spend less on maintaining softwar…
I think people just interpret "future" very differently. For some "future" does include your second and third paragraph, since it is also a potential causality down the line. For others, it's only first paragraph example. Future for some is a branching tree, for others just a linked list.
[deleted]