This follows on from my previous post, which addressed “how to know stuff”; this part is analogous but addresses “how to do stuff”. The two are related.

Thank you to Max (the Australian human, not the Canadian human or the Australian dog) for this particular conversation!

  1. Everyone has a gizmo. A gizmo consists of gadgets. (If you played the video games of the Sid and Al’s Incredible Toons series in the mid-1990s, you’ll know roughly what I’m picturing.)
  2. Each gadget takes some input and produces some output. Examples of gadgets are particular skills or tools, intepreted broadly. The gizmo is simply the sum total of all of a person’s gadgets. Most people’s gizmos consist of thousands of gadgets.
  3. Gizmos are modular; you can swap out old gadgets for more efficient or effective gadgets.
  4. Here’s the fun bit: each gadget is itself made of smaller gadgets!
  5. Now, if you are on Earth with a mission, then your goal is basically to ensure that your gizmo is as efficient and effective at executing that mission is possible.
  6. E.g. my goal is to reduce as much suffering as I can. My gizmo has a systematic prioritisation gadget, a fisheries science gadget, a statistical programming gadget, a mental stamina gadget, and so on. Each of these gadgets are made of numerous smaller gadgets. My gizmo acts on the environment (e.g. opportunities, policy windows, and so on) and produces (hopefully!) a net decrease in the world’s suffering.
  7. Goals differ. If your deepest mission in life is to enjoy your family’s company or to meditate or to enjoy red wine or to comfort people experiencing grief (all extremely valid goals!), the best-suited gadgets have probably been in existence for many years. It might take some work to make sure they’re well-fitted in your gizmo and operating correctly, but they don’t receive updates too frequently.
  8. The more technical your goal, in either scientific, technological, or policy terms (and influencing policy or even getting filthy rich are, in practice, largely scientific and technical challenges), the more quickly the gadget boffins in the gadget R&D labs are inventing new, more efficient gadgets. In fact, the boffins have been on a bit of a tear lately!
  9. In that case, one must regularly check for new gadgets that would help the overall gizmo operate more effectively - and for new, smaller gadgets that themselves represent an improvement as part of a larger gadget…! Failure to do so means persisting with a suboptimal gadget and thus achieving less of your goal than you would otherwise.
  10. Environments differ - a gizmo is not the sole determinant of your success against your goal. One would be hard pressed to argue that humanity has achieved anything resembling equal opportunity.
  11. My gripe with the education system (this criticism is not new or unqiue): it equips students with many excellent gadgets that are genuinely indispensable (e.g. maths literacy; social skills; perseverance; understanding of democracy; the ability to test for statistical significance) but also many old, rusty gadgets (e.g. scientific models that are outdated; views about human biology that are no longer considered correct). At least students are sent out into the world with a serviceable gizmo. Is there a way to focus on the former gadgets and stop wasting everyone’s time on the latter gadgets?

Max (the Australian human) provides a counterargument by suggesting that I am underestimating the amount of value that school provides by providing knowledge that, if it’s not exactly cutting edge, nevertheless provides a great basis for further development. I suspect there is something to this counterargument—perhaps I’m falling into the curse of knowledge!