Nulla scientia ex ineptitudine
Those who study things the most understood them the least to start with. If you found mastery effortless, you're rarely going to study that thing carefully and rigorously. Normally, the lesson here is that if you're studying something you should try to surrender your casual mastery of the thing you are studying[1].
But there is a flip side. It means that most such careful studies of things are by people fumbling their way through the darkness, slowly picking up knowledge on their way. When you're studying something that was novel for the time like the Long Line, your work might be the first to explore the idea. Other times, it's like trying to find meaning in the initial stumbling of an infant as he learns to walk. Everyone's done it, but some struggle and others don't.
This has an unfortunate adverse selection bias for written material on a subject: Only the strugglers ever write about it. No one ever says "I learned to walk and it was easy". There are lots of things that humans are bad at, and so it's worth reading the ideas of people who struggle with them. But there are lots of things we are good at, and the great works in those fields are by the inept.
This pattern repeats itself on the Internet, where anyone can write, and few have learned something novel. The crucial thing here is that when the success rate is high, it's better to observe the winners than to take advice from the losers. Unfortunately, many of these groups are self-reinforcing. Some obvious examples are:
- Dating Advice: Universally provided by the chronically single to the single. Every year, millions succeed at this!
- Introspective Posts: Universally by those who find their minds impenetrable to themselves. Every day, many people wake up and handle their lives.
This is interesting because you're better off not reading the advice. Like those millions of people who have achieved casual mastery, you probably will too. Your chances of success are harmed by reading the works of fools.
Therefore the heuristic: if the success rate is high - then available written advice is likely counterproductive.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Some sports coaches have trouble with this since they were terrific players. They don't understand why so and so player can't receive the ball, turn and move right away or why they don't see the opportunity. The problem is that they have unconsciously mastered the sport.
