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Touting “first principals” is a way of revealing “I’m too dumb to understand other people’s work.” Like if you can’t understand higher level concepts and have t

Touting “first principals” is a way of revealing “I’m too dumb to understand other people’s work.” Like if you can’t understand higher level concepts and have to start on your own from Euclid, it just means you aren’t very smart but think you can be another Maxwell just by thinkin’ real hard. It’s a joke.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Not necessarily. Other peoples' work can assume what "everyone knows"; starting from first principles can (sometimes) show up where that's the case. That doesn't mean you're not very smart; it means you're aware enough to know that some limitations that aren't real creep in to the body of knowledge of a field. Or it can be just arrogance. (In fact, even when it's reasonable, it probably also contains some arrogance...)
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  I am in agreement with you. The OP is overstated. I have heard Musk interviewed a few times. When asked to explain more about his phase "first principles", he usually talks about (paraphrase) "delete as many things as possible". It is an interesting way to think about project planning. At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right.
  - beeforpork 2y ago
    > At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right. No, this is a common fallacy. The main reason to get crazy rich and successful is statistics: be lucky. I.e., accidentally do the successful things. And usually starting rich helps, so you have the opportunities. Crazy success is not a measure for capability. There is no correlation. Yes, it is sad, so despite this, the fallacy is a great motivation for many.
meowkit 2y ago
Principles. Its about assuming most people operate on dogma and heuristics. This is extremely true in my opinion. By making this assumption, you dispel bad practices and behaviors that might have built up within an organization. Even more importantly you can reveal why certain chesterton’s fences exist.
- firstlunchables 2y ago
  [flagged]
- ameister14 2y ago
  Interestingly that is the exact opposite of the Chesterton's fence concept - it illustrates that it is much better to grasp the system as it exists before attempting to change it, as then you can learn why a Chesterton's fence exists without tearing it down.
- svnt 2y ago
  Which works in fields removed from non-human reality or consequences. For example, when creating financial derivatives or other forms of social engineering, where the substrate changes and nothing seems fixed. It falls to pieces when people with this mindset attempt to work up against the constraints of physics, or other unchanging limits. Those limits can be constructed on, and relied upon. Going back to first principles in these cases inevitably results in massive losses in the repetition of the uncountable quiet failure-corners of history. We will find out which one we are dealing with.
lmm 2y ago
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Physics has to work, organisational processes don't - Maxwell himself wouldn't have been able to understand the travel expense rules at some organisations I've seen, and the right response isn't always to try to reverse engineer what people were thinking when they came up with this crap, sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
  >Maxwell himself wouldn't have been able to understand the travel expense rules at some organisations I've seen, Or the tax code... >sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch. Many people don't understand this and are totally, fully incapable of understanding this simple concept, hence all the opposition
  - jodrellblank 2y ago
    Do you think it more likely that people are "incapable of understanding" or that people are intensely suspicious of what Musk's idea of a "reasonable tax code created from scratch" would be and how it would benefit Musk a lot more than everyone else? https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-tax-plan-wealthy-corporations-oil-billionaires-musk-1235107554/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum...
    - dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
      The former. My own personal view on taxes: (especially income and property tax) neither the rich nor the poor should ever pay them. So in my view it does not matter to whom it benefits the most - most likely it is going to benefit everybody musk included, I suspect though It will also mostly benefit the less well off people in society. Perhaps the most important question to ask is not who will gain - rather who stands to lose? My answer would be the career bureaucrats.
numpad0 2y ago
I'm echo chambering on this and one other comment[1], and starting to wonder if those guys are actually neurodivergent, autistic, whatever implies combination of entry-superhuman intelligence and unfortunate psycho-emotional development, or it's complete opposite and they're faking intelligence with vastly superior EQ, put aside pointlessness of taking IQ/EQ seriously. Because, I don't think Musk had ever shown issues understanding or even precisely manipulating people's sentiments with bare hands which some of us struggle even with tools, while also there being countless examples him showing lack of understanding of laws, order, code, all such brittle dehumanized systems in general. All his successes owes to his mastery of orchestrating humans as animals, not machines or humans as intelligent constructs. Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that? 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993901
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I think it's more to do with long eroded goodwill. I remember the early 10's when he was an internet darling and there was optimism on what he would deliver. Then some of that is simply artificially inflated hype by investors on Wall Street that need him to keep that persona so they can keep their money going up. He's long turned about face with that, but that goodwill can die really, really hard (only took until now for Wall Street to very slowly start pulling out). As we see with Donald Trump somehow being relevant some 4 decades after his celebrity fame for a national election. >Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that? My impression is that Musk knew to surround himself with good people. Be it coincidence, a Charisma check, or simply throwing cash at them, those people clearly did amazing things and he was the face of it all. This is more or less the opposite, and his crude behavior navigating government IMO could not have gone worse. He had at least 2 years to sow the seeds and he's instead taking "Drill Baby, Drill" a bit too seriously. I could be very wrong and underestimating him. But he feels more like someone who demands the spotlight, not a mastermind with a precise vision. Those good people are not around him anymore; Trump sure as hell doesn't have a vision past tax cuts for billionaires.
  - short_sells_poo 2y ago
    Another way of looking at it might be that the crowd who liked Musk in the 2010s is a tough audience. I was among them too - I liked what Musk (appeared) to stand for. Expanding mankind's reach, unafraid to take a task that previously was deemed "impossible" and pretending that with enough determination it can be achieved. All the while maintaining a bit of childish cheek and humor about things. I really liked both the vibe and the approach. It was the quintessential "young and starry eyed rich genius who is prepared to throw lots of money at moonshot ideas - if only to see what happens". But this audience is more diverse in it's views and is perhaps more willing to challenge it's idols and leaders. Keeping this audience on your side is a constant dialogue where you are constantly challenged and it's a symbiotic-adversarial relationship that results in a stronger whole. Only by getting challenged in a constructive discussion can truly great ideas be born. But this is hard work and in some sense annoying. Inevitably he gets surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, because these people butter his ego, and comes to realize that there's an audience around who will unquestionably eat up anything their leader says irrespective of it's truthfulness. An audience who doesn't care whether their leaders are good, just that the leader is on their side. And thus we find ourselves in the current situation, with an entire establishment in the US who will happily broadcast broad faced lies, but these lies are only for their own audience who believes them without question. Or they just don't care at all, because it's not about the truth, it's only about tribalism.
indoordin0saur 2y ago
It seems to have worked well for him many times.
dani__german 2y ago
considering the massive amount of (still often true) information at our fingertips, appealing to authorities that have proved themselves unreliable many times in recent memories is not the benefit one might initially think it is. "first principles" doesn't mean "go back to 2 + 2 and reinvent the rest of math".

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

Not necessarily. Other peoples' work can assume what "everyone knows"; starting from first principles can (sometimes) show up where that's the case. That doesn't mean you're not very smart; it means you're aware enough to know that some limitations that aren't real creep in to the body of knowledge of a field. Or it can be just arrogance. (In fact, even when it's reasonable, it probably also contains some arrogance...)

throwaway2037 2y ago
I am in agreement with you. The OP is overstated. I have heard Musk interviewed a few times. When asked to explain more about his phase "first principles", he usually talks about (paraphrase) "delete as many things as possible". It is an interesting way to think about project planning. At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right.
- beeforpork 2y ago
  > At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right. No, this is a common fallacy. The main reason to get crazy rich and successful is statistics: be lucky. I.e., accidentally do the successful things. And usually starting rich helps, so you have the opportunities. Crazy success is not a measure for capability. There is no correlation. Yes, it is sad, so despite this, the fallacy is a great motivation for many.

meowkit 2y ago

Principles. Its about assuming most people operate on dogma and heuristics. This is extremely true in my opinion. By making this assumption, you dispel bad practices and behaviors that might have built up within an organization. Even more importantly you can reveal why certain chesterton’s fences exist.

firstlunchables 2y ago
[flagged]
ameister14 2y ago
Interestingly that is the exact opposite of the Chesterton's fence concept - it illustrates that it is much better to grasp the system as it exists before attempting to change it, as then you can learn why a Chesterton's fence exists without tearing it down.
svnt 2y ago
Which works in fields removed from non-human reality or consequences. For example, when creating financial derivatives or other forms of social engineering, where the substrate changes and nothing seems fixed. It falls to pieces when people with this mindset attempt to work up against the constraints of physics, or other unchanging limits. Those limits can be constructed on, and relied upon. Going back to first principles in these cases inevitably results in massive losses in the repetition of the uncountable quiet failure-corners of history. We will find out which one we are dealing with.

lmm 2y ago

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Physics has to work, organisational processes don't - Maxwell himself wouldn't have been able to understand the travel expense rules at some organisations I've seen, and the right response isn't always to try to reverse engineer what people were thinking when they came up with this crap, sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch.

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>Maxwell himself wouldn't have been able to understand the travel expense rules at some organisations I've seen, Or the tax code... >sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch. Many people don't understand this and are totally, fully incapable of understanding this simple concept, hence all the opposition
- jodrellblank 2y ago
  Do you think it more likely that people are "incapable of understanding" or that people are intensely suspicious of what Musk's idea of a "reasonable tax code created from scratch" would be and how it would benefit Musk a lot more than everyone else? https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-tax-plan-wealthy-corporations-oil-billionaires-musk-1235107554/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum...
  - dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
    The former. My own personal view on taxes: (especially income and property tax) neither the rich nor the poor should ever pay them. So in my view it does not matter to whom it benefits the most - most likely it is going to benefit everybody musk included, I suspect though It will also mostly benefit the less well off people in society. Perhaps the most important question to ask is not who will gain - rather who stands to lose? My answer would be the career bureaucrats.

numpad0 2y ago

I'm echo chambering on this and one other comment[1], and starting to wonder if those guys are actually neurodivergent, autistic, whatever implies combination of entry-superhuman intelligence and unfortunate psycho-emotional development, or it's complete opposite and they're faking intelligence with vastly superior EQ, put aside pointlessness of taking IQ/EQ seriously. Because, I don't think Musk had ever shown issues understanding or even precisely manipulating people's sentiments with bare hands which some of us struggle even with tools, while also there being countless examples him showing lack of understanding of laws, order, code, all such brittle dehumanized systems in general. All his successes owes to his mastery of orchestrating humans as animals, not machines or humans as intelligent constructs. Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that? 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993901

johnnyanmac 2y ago
I think it's more to do with long eroded goodwill. I remember the early 10's when he was an internet darling and there was optimism on what he would deliver. Then some of that is simply artificially inflated hype by investors on Wall Street that need him to keep that persona so they can keep their money going up. He's long turned about face with that, but that goodwill can die really, really hard (only took until now for Wall Street to very slowly start pulling out). As we see with Donald Trump somehow being relevant some 4 decades after his celebrity fame for a national election. >Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that? My impression is that Musk knew to surround himself with good people. Be it coincidence, a Charisma check, or simply throwing cash at them, those people clearly did amazing things and he was the face of it all. This is more or less the opposite, and his crude behavior navigating government IMO could not have gone worse. He had at least 2 years to sow the seeds and he's instead taking "Drill Baby, Drill" a bit too seriously. I could be very wrong and underestimating him. But he feels more like someone who demands the spotlight, not a mastermind with a precise vision. Those good people are not around him anymore; Trump sure as hell doesn't have a vision past tax cuts for billionaires.
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  Another way of looking at it might be that the crowd who liked Musk in the 2010s is a tough audience. I was among them too - I liked what Musk (appeared) to stand for. Expanding mankind's reach, unafraid to take a task that previously was deemed "impossible" and pretending that with enough determination it can be achieved. All the while maintaining a bit of childish cheek and humor about things. I really liked both the vibe and the approach. It was the quintessential "young and starry eyed rich genius who is prepared to throw lots of money at moonshot ideas - if only to see what happens". But this audience is more diverse in it's views and is perhaps more willing to challenge it's idols and leaders. Keeping this audience on your side is a constant dialogue where you are constantly challenged and it's a symbiotic-adversarial relationship that results in a stronger whole. Only by getting challenged in a constructive discussion can truly great ideas be born. But this is hard work and in some sense annoying. Inevitably he gets surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, because these people butter his ego, and comes to realize that there's an audience around who will unquestionably eat up anything their leader says irrespective of it's truthfulness. An audience who doesn't care whether their leaders are good, just that the leader is on their side. And thus we find ourselves in the current situation, with an entire establishment in the US who will happily broadcast broad faced lies, but these lies are only for their own audience who believes them without question. Or they just don't care at all, because it's not about the truth, it's only about tribalism.

indoordin0saur 2y ago

It seems to have worked well for him many times.

dani__german 2y ago

considering the massive amount of (still often true) information at our fingertips, appealing to authorities that have proved themselves unreliable many times in recent memories is not the benefit one might initially think it is. "first principles" doesn't mean "go back to 2 + 2 and reinvent the rest of math".