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In contemporary society—where, for example, the nuclear family has replaced the extended family—very few of us actually maintain 150 relationships. But we still have this primitive pattern imprinted on our brain, so we fill those open slots with whomever we have the most daily “contact”— even if that contact comes only from watching that person on television. Gossip, in its earlier forms, contained information that was critical to survival because, in clans of 150, what happened to anyone had a direct impact on everyone. But this backfires today. The reason we care so much about what happens to the likes of Lady Gaga is not because her shenanigans will ever impact our lives; rather because our brain doesn’t realize there’s a difference between rock stars we know about and relatives we know.
Abundance
Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler
The next production principle you can apply is to allow slack—a bit of looseness in your scheduling. Highway planners, for example, know that a freeway can handle an optimum number of vehicles. Having fewer cars means that the road is not being used at capacity. But at that optimum point, if just a few more cars are allowed to enter the traffic flow, everything comes to a crunching halt. With the new metering devices that control access during the rush hour, planners can get a fix on the right number. The same thing can be done for managerial work. There is an optimum degree of loading, with enough slack built in so that one unanticipated phone call will not ruin your schedule for the rest of the day. You need some slack.
High Output Management
Andrew S. Grove
Experts can only propose; elected leaders dispose. In fact, policymaking experts and elected leaders are almost never the same group, and it cannot be otherwise: there are simply not enough hours in the day for a legislator, even in a city council or a small US state (and much less for a president) to master all of the issues modern policymaking requires. This is why policymakers engage experts—the knowers—to advise them.
The Death of Expertise
Tom Nichols
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