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The "mental models" stuff just seems like gobbledygook. Hadfield is giving regular kind of advice you read everywhere from Sun Tzu to John Wooden: - Don't

by dvt 7y ago

The "mental models" stuff just seems like gobbledygook. Hadfield is giving regular kind of advice you read everywhere from Sun Tzu to John Wooden: - Don't be selfish - Learn from your mistakes - Expect the unexpected - Etc. Doesn't really seem like Earth-shattering stuff.

mathgladiator 7y ago
It's not so much earth shattering stuff so much as confirmation. These are not easy lessons for many people due to various psychological factors and history. It helps push people in the right direction when the message is given by someone that they respect. An interesting part of leadership can be repetition, so this feels reasonable.
- baddox 7y ago
  Is this confirmation useful? Or stated another way, would you feel less confident about aphorisms like "don't be selfish" and "learn from your mistakes" if a famous astronaut said they were bad ideas?
  - mathgladiator 7y ago
    It all depends on the person, who they look up to, their history, their biases. A selfish person that values space travel may ignore all other sources of information, but the astronaut saying it may cause a moment of reflection. Now, is this ideal? No, we are a strange-strange species.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    I might be more confident of them if a famous billionaire said they were bad ideas...
themodelplumber 7y ago
There is a qualitative difference from model to model. I have a collection of hundreds of my own models, some of which are short and elegant, while others would print out into books easily (if edited down). It is rare indeed to find a non-obvious, useful mental model that can be boiled down to 5-10 words without losing significant leverage. However the _reason_ why they are boiled down to anything at all is due to a communications burden, such as that confronted while compiling mental models for publishing. That the author offers links to find out more is, I think, a reasonable effort at dealing with that problem. Let's say your friend asks you to summarize the value of _Jane Austen's_ works while you drive them home from the bookstore. You have been asked by your friend to build a mental model. How much reduction of your experience with the books is reasonable, and where does it lose leverage as a result of the reduction? Yet you have an opportunity to help someone make a great new discovery. This process can be very frustrating for the builder of the model. So while I appreciate a high-quality critique of a bad example of something, I have to say it seems like those examples are a bit reductionist and possibly unfair given the sheer number of mental models out there for examination, and the reasons for, or conditions under which they were selected for publishing or communication.

by dvt 7y ago

mathgladiator 7y ago

It's not so much earth shattering stuff so much as confirmation. These are not easy lessons for many people due to various psychological factors and history. It helps push people in the right direction when the message is given by someone that they respect. An interesting part of leadership can be repetition, so this feels reasonable.

baddox 7y ago
Is this confirmation useful? Or stated another way, would you feel less confident about aphorisms like "don't be selfish" and "learn from your mistakes" if a famous astronaut said they were bad ideas?
- mathgladiator 7y ago
  It all depends on the person, who they look up to, their history, their biases. A selfish person that values space travel may ignore all other sources of information, but the astronaut saying it may cause a moment of reflection. Now, is this ideal? No, we are a strange-strange species.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I might be more confident of them if a famous billionaire said they were bad ideas...

themodelplumber 7y ago

There is a qualitative difference from model to model. I have a collection of hundreds of my own models, some of which are short and elegant, while others would print out into books easily (if edited down). It is rare indeed to find a non-obvious, useful mental model that can be boiled down to 5-10 words without losing significant leverage. However the _reason_ why they are boiled down to anything at all is due to a communications burden, such as that confronted while compiling mental models for publishing. That the author offers links to find out more is, I think, a reasonable effort at dealing with that problem. Let's say your friend asks you to summarize the value of _Jane Austen's_ works while you drive them home from the bookstore. You have been asked by your friend to build a mental model. How much reduction of your experience with the books is reasonable, and where does it lose leverage as a result of the reduction? Yet you have an opportunity to help someone make a great new discovery. This process can be very frustrating for the builder of the model. So while I appreciate a high-quality critique of a bad example of something, I have to say it seems like those examples are a bit reductionist and possibly unfair given the sheer number of mental models out there for examination, and the reasons for, or conditions under which they were selected for publishing or communication.