Join 📚 Josh Beckman's Highlights
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A surprising amount of executive time is spent cleaning up messes. Some of these messes are externally motivated, like a competitor launching a new product, but a surprising number are self-inflicted. At least half the self-inflicted messes that I’ve seen executives create are caused by unsympathetic or confusing communication, which you can easily prevent by testing your communication before widely broadcasting.
Internal Comms for Executives.
Irrational Exuberance
A useful way of thinking about persuasive techniques is how Scott Alexander frames them as either [asymmetric or symmetric](https://web.archive.org/web/20210531113605/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/24/guided-by-the-beauty-of-our-weapons/). An asymmetric weapon is only helpful if your point is correct – you will get frustrated quickly if you try to use the scientific method to prove that the earth is flat. However, speaking in a clear voice and being very handsome are symmetric. You don’t have to make a lick of sense to benefit from them. Narratives are symmetric.
The Narrative Fallacy
Ludicity
Once we started understanding writing as a mathematical object, our vocabulary for talking about ideas expanded in depth and precision. We could imagine new ideas and metaphors as mathematical constructs, and then conjure them into words, creating entirely new kinds of knowledge tools we could never have created with natural materials. Not only that, backed by our mathematical model of ideas, we could systematically explore the space of what’s possible to imagine.
Synthesizer for Thought
thesephist.com
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