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I hesitated a little bit before attempted to respond, because I think this subject returns often, maybe even too often. I am not saying this because I disagree

I hesitated a little bit before attempted to respond, because I think this subject returns often, maybe even too often. I am not saying this because I disagree with you. I am not saying this because I really disagree with the premise presented by author. I am simply not sure we can really add anything truly new. << Tldr: think carefully if you want to enable others to think carefully It is not a secret on what works in education. There is no real secret sauce. Some things are well known and apparent even to the casual observer, but, and it is not a small but, it does not pay the bills of the cottage industry that has grown around education. For example, it is easier to throw money at everything, but ensuring small class sizes, which dramatically affect long term outcomes. I am not cynical. At least in US, I do not understand how anyone can pretend anything else is true.

godelski 2y ago
I'm not sure I really disagree much. We both agree on the main part about the perverse incentives. But > I am simply not sure we can really add anything truly new. I do not like these types of attitudes. Defeatist (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting). Our world has progressed so we have strong evidence that we can add new things. Not only that, but we can make things better! It wasn't long ago people shit in a bucket and threw it out their window. While there's a lot of shit now I have no doubt things, in the long run, have improved. Even if things are worse now than 5 or 10 years, in the long run things improve. The other part is that just because you're a small cog in a large machine doesn't mean you can't change things. I very much understand this feeling and I think it's natural too! But the cog is needed, even if there's some redundancy. You don't have to be a giant cog to have impact. The reason so much goes wrong is also why this last part is true. Things exist in an unstable equilibrium, like an inverted pendulum. It takes little to throw things off balance (I can explain more if needed, with examples). Which is the very reason why small things matter. But there's observation bias and we can't forget. When things work smoothly we often don't think about it and all the little things that needed to go right to make that happen. But we do think when things go wrong. Of course we have this bias, because we want to relax and reduce cognitive load. But the world has gotten more complex and so we probably need to think about this more. It's becoming more important. Because as things get more complex low order approximations become less useful. It's the bitter curse of advancement. The bitter curse of adding new things. But I believe we can do it
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
  << Things exist in an unstable equilibrium, like an inverted pendulum. It takes little to throw things off balance (I can explain more if needed, with examples). I think it may not be a bad idea. I think I understand what you are referring to, but some examples would be great. << Defeatist (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting). I want to believe it is pragmatic, but I do take your points seriously and will do some self-reflection on it. I believe you are especially right about the ease with which we allow ourselves to reduce cognitive load.
  - godelski 2y ago
    > some examples would be great. Our modern world has resulted in many things being extremely complex. Many things these days require many steps to create and with each part of the process being dependent upon the previous one. Take something as simple as creating a nail. You got to mine the iron, gather the carbon. You got to transport the iron from the mine, to a ship, that travels across the world to go get processed and turned into iron, then transported again to get processed into steel, that steel is then sold to be reheated and reformed into the nail, which is then shipped across the world into a warehouse to your local home depot. There's so many steps missing from that, with like acquiring the tools to mine the materials, to even your car and the fact you need to repeat the whole process for all that including the hammer you will use to hit the nail. Suppose you have a process with many steps and each step has an error rate of 0.1% (99.9% success rate). If your process has 10 steps, your success rate is only 99%, but if 100 steps it is 90%, 200 it is 81.9%, and 500 steps and it is only 60%. You can probably see with the above that things are going to take thousands of steps. Most of this operates pretty well and there is redundancy built in. But there's a reason the whole world shuts down when a ship gets stuck in a canal. While most things aren't as critical of a choke point, but things aren't running on such efficiency that it can handle hard disruptions. Just see how quickly things fell apart in the pandemic. > I want to believe it is pragmatic I'm not sure what is pragmatic about it. That you can do nothing? You can't make things better? I'm not trying to say to go change the world for everyone and be someone they write about in history books. I'm saying focus on your local world, the things around you. You can definitely change that. I'm trying to say that by changing that that it does make a difference at the larger scale. The butterfly effect is a very real thing and it isn't all just doom and gloom.

godelski 2y ago

I'm not sure I really disagree much. We both agree on the main part about the perverse incentives. But > I am simply not sure we can really add anything truly new. I do not like these types of attitudes. Defeatist (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting). Our world has progressed so we have strong evidence that we can add new things. Not only that, but we can make things better! It wasn't long ago people shit in a bucket and threw it out their window. While there's a lot of shit now I have no doubt things, in the long run, have improved. Even if things are worse now than 5 or 10 years, in the long run things improve. The other part is that just because you're a small cog in a large machine doesn't mean you can't change things. I very much understand this feeling and I think it's natural too! But the cog is needed, even if there's some redundancy. You don't have to be a giant cog to have impact. The reason so much goes wrong is also why this last part is true. Things exist in an unstable equilibrium, like an inverted pendulum. It takes little to throw things off balance (I can explain more if needed, with examples). Which is the very reason why small things matter. But there's observation bias and we can't forget. When things work smoothly we often don't think about it and all the little things that needed to go right to make that happen. But we do think when things go wrong. Of course we have this bias, because we want to relax and reduce cognitive load. But the world has gotten more complex and so we probably need to think about this more. It's becoming more important. Because as things get more complex low order approximations become less useful. It's the bitter curse of advancement. The bitter curse of adding new things. But I believe we can do it

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
<< Things exist in an unstable equilibrium, like an inverted pendulum. It takes little to throw things off balance (I can explain more if needed, with examples). I think it may not be a bad idea. I think I understand what you are referring to, but some examples would be great. << Defeatist (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting). I want to believe it is pragmatic, but I do take your points seriously and will do some self-reflection on it. I believe you are especially right about the ease with which we allow ourselves to reduce cognitive load.
- godelski 2y ago
  > some examples would be great. Our modern world has resulted in many things being extremely complex. Many things these days require many steps to create and with each part of the process being dependent upon the previous one. Take something as simple as creating a nail. You got to mine the iron, gather the carbon. You got to transport the iron from the mine, to a ship, that travels across the world to go get processed and turned into iron, then transported again to get processed into steel, that steel is then sold to be reheated and reformed into the nail, which is then shipped across the world into a warehouse to your local home depot. There's so many steps missing from that, with like acquiring the tools to mine the materials, to even your car and the fact you need to repeat the whole process for all that including the hammer you will use to hit the nail. Suppose you have a process with many steps and each step has an error rate of 0.1% (99.9% success rate). If your process has 10 steps, your success rate is only 99%, but if 100 steps it is 90%, 200 it is 81.9%, and 500 steps and it is only 60%. You can probably see with the above that things are going to take thousands of steps. Most of this operates pretty well and there is redundancy built in. But there's a reason the whole world shuts down when a ship gets stuck in a canal. While most things aren't as critical of a choke point, but things aren't running on such efficiency that it can handle hard disruptions. Just see how quickly things fell apart in the pandemic. > I want to believe it is pragmatic I'm not sure what is pragmatic about it. That you can do nothing? You can't make things better? I'm not trying to say to go change the world for everyone and be someone they write about in history books. I'm saying focus on your local world, the things around you. You can definitely change that. I'm trying to say that by changing that that it does make a difference at the larger scale. The butterfly effect is a very real thing and it isn't all just doom and gloom.