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I love that 40 years later, a prominent tech company leader still has yet to learn the lesson of this story.

• pjc50 4y ago
  People love reasoning things from first principles rather than learning.
  • sixstringtheory 4y ago
    Isn’t reasoning things from first principles exactly how you learn? I think what you meant was that people love learning lessons the hard and slow way instead of taking others’ word for it. I’m sort of conflicted on this. Yes, it is faster to take an expert’s word for it. But after a couple of human generations of that, do we actually lose understanding? I think we can only stand on the shoulders of giants standing on the shoulders of giants to some N giants until the whole acrobatic totem pole comes tumbling down. The game of telephone through the ages produces belief, not understanding. Another option is making giants more giant, but that is an even slower process than one person learning from first principles: humanity has to find a way for our brains to learn those principles faster. Maybe that will take millions of years of evolution. Or maybe something like neuralink will provide a shortcut so it only takes thousands of years.
  • _dain_ 4y ago
    people also love getting filthy fucking rich, how's that working out for you?