A Few Principles for Thinking Clearly
One of my favorite essays I wrote
this year was A Few Principles for Intellectual Freedom.
In that piece, I took scenes from
the life of the scientist James Lovelock to illustrate some principles for
pursuing a life of intellectual freedom. In this essay, I’d like to do
something similar with another inspirational character — the Czech-Canadian polymath Vaclav Smil.
Smil was a little-known academic
until he rose into public awareness thanks to Bill Gates. Gates has read all of
Smil’s books (there are over 30 of them) and goes as far as to say, “I learn
more by reading Vaclav Smil than just about anyone.”
Many of Smil’s books focus on
environmental themes such as population growth, climate change, and energy
transitions. These fields are rife with political bias and emotional reasoning,
but Smil manages to say important, interesting things in a way that is neither
deluded nor dogmatic.
Here are a few things I’m learning
from him on how to think clearly.
Read widely, with
maximum curiosity
As Philip Tetlock has shown in his
book Superforecasting, the clearest thinkers tend to be those
that draw from multiple disciplines. I call these people dragonfloxes — they can do many things
(like a fox) and also see the world in many ways (like dragonflies, which have many eyes).
Smil is a dragonflox. At age 74, he
continues to read 80+ books a year (while still finding the time to write up to
3 books in a single year):
“I’ve read about 80
books a year for the past 50 years. I come from cultural breeding. I don’t have
a cellphone. When you spend all your time checking your cellphone messages, or
updating your Facebook (of course I don’t have a Facebook page) then you don’t
have any time for reading.”
This habit of learning, it seems,
started when Smil was still a student:
“Smil completed his
undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University in Prague, where he took 35 classes a week, 10
months a year, for 5 years. “They taught me nature, from geology to clouds,”
Smil said. After graduation he refused to join the Communist party, undermining
his job prospects, though he found employment at a regional planning office.” (Wikipedia)
Put reality first and
theory last
Though I don’t know the details, I
find it interesting that Smil refused to join the Communist party as a student.
One problem with Marxism is that it puts too much faith in its model of how
history works. Marx thought that history moved in predictable phases,
converging on a paradise in the future where humans lived as equals.
Confusing models with reality is a cardinal sin of clear thinking. If you
believe too strongly in your models of the world, you can start to ignore
evidence that your model is wrong.
Smil is not a fan of models. When,
in the 1870s, the influential book The Limits to Growth used a
computer model to predict impending doom, Smil was skeptical.
“Smil was intrigued and
taught himself programming to re-create the model for himself. ‘I saw it was
utter nonsense,’ he recalls; the model was far too simple and easily skewed by
initial assumptions. He constructed a similar model of how carbon dioxide
emissions affect climate and found it similarly wanting. He understood the
physics of the greenhouse effect and the potential for a carbon dioxide buildup
to warm Earth, but models seemed too dependent on assumptions about things like
clouds. Ever since, he’s held models of all kinds in contempt. ‘I have
too much respect for reality,’ he says.“
If you look at history, it becomes
clear how easy it is for humans to fool themselves with faulty forecasts and
myth-driven theories. In the face of that, the only proper stance, I think, is intellectual humility.
Smil has humility. He refuses to
make long-term forecasts (because he knows they are useless) and instead
focuses only on saying what is worth saying:
“I never push anything
hard because I do not believe that any individual has all the solutions… I try
to illuminate complexities, raise concerns, and suggest some desirable tools
and sensible outcomes.”
This is the opposite of what many
pundits and political commentators do. People will always need certainty where
no certainty exists. In this sense, pundits and long-term forecasters are the
priests and faith healers of our time.
Those interested in the truth,
though, will have to learn to live with uncertainty.
Keep money and status
out of it
Another interesting thing about
Smil is that he has principles. In particular, you can tell he that he values
intellectual honesty far more than he values fame or material wealth.
Smil lives very simply, hates
interviews, and does not own a smartphone. And, despite his friendship with
Gates, Smil hasn’t done anything to, as marketers would say, to “leverage the
relationship”:
“…Gates has opened
doors for Smil: Swiss banks weren’t calling for his advice before. But they
keep the relationship pure. ‘I would never ask him for any favor — never ever,’ Smil says. ‘As simple as that.’”
In economics, there’s something
called Campbell’s law. The basic idea is that, when you reward people for a
particular measure — clicks, dollars, likes, etc. — people will find a way
to “game” the system.
The classic example of this
happened in India. The government offered rewards to people who caught and
killed snakes. Unexpected result: People started to breed more snakes
in order to get the rewards.
If college admissions require
essays, rich parents will pay essay-writers to write those essays. If
journalism is fueled by clicks, journalists are going to write sensationalist
clickbait. Of course, scientists and academics are in no way exempt.
This is the danger of getting paid
for your ideas: It’s easy to sell out or self-censor because you’re afraid of
(a) financial or (b) status pushback.
The cure — as far as I can tell — is to hold fame and
financial success in low regard. In fact, it might actually help to look down on
people who are interested in getting rich and getting ahead.
I don’t know if Smil does this
intentionally, but his intense privacy and frugal lifestyle seem to me like
signs that he is trying to protect his ability to think clearly.
Lately, I am trying to modify my
life in the same way. Until recently, I accepted monthly contributions of $100
on my Patreon page in exchange for a
monthly phone call. The money was nice, but I started to feel pressured to
cater to these donors. It found it hard to disagree with them or write things
that they might not like.
Manage
your identity
Y Combinator’s Paul Graham has an
excellent essay titled Keep Your Identity Small. The key idea is that the more a particular issue is
wrapped up in your identity, the harder it is for you to think clearly about
it.
It gets worse. When people are
exposed to evidence that contradicts their identities or tribal affiliations,
they’ll actually double down and become moreconfident in whatever
they believed. This is why it’s important, when trying to think clearly, to
avoid identifying with any particular tribe.
Take dietary advice. I find it
hilarious how the paleo, primal, keto, vegan, and vegetarian diet camps are
always quibbling about minor things when they share so many similarities (avoid
processed foods, eat vegetables, etc.).
Smil has a book titled Should We Eat
Meat? . In it, he
refuses to identify with any tribe and instead says that (a) it’s fine to eat meat
but (b) we shouldn’t eat too much of it.
Here he is in an interview:
“Meat eaters don’t like
me because I call for moderation, and vegetarians don’t like me because I say
there’s nothing wrong with eating meat. It’s part of our evolutionary heritage!
Meat has helped to make us what we are. Meat helps to make our big brains. The
problem is with eating 200 pounds of meat per capita per year. Eating
hamburgers every day. And steak. You know, you take some chicken breast, cut it
up into little cubes, and make a Chinese stew — three people can eat one chicken breast. When you cut meat into little pieces, as
they do in India, China, and Malaysia, all you need to eat is maybe like 40
pounds a year.”
Humans are tribal creatures, and I
don’t think we can fully escape the need to identify with a group.
If you have to choose a group,
though, I think the best thing to do is what Annie Duke suggests in her
book Thinking in Bets:
Identify with a group that values the truth.
Skin in the game
I’m not sure how related this is to
“clear thinking”, but another thing I find inspirational about Smil is how he
lives in accordance with the advice that he gives.
Some examples:
·
Smil lives in a modest
home, which he built to have 50% more insulation than your average home. The
furnace uses natural gas, and it is 97% efficient.
·
He eats meat, but only
an average of once a week, usually Asian-style in stir fried dishes.
·
He drives a Honda
civic, which he calls “the most reliable, most efficient, most miraculously
designed car.”
I suppose it’s like that old saying
of how chefs should eat their own cooking and architects should live in the
houses they build. If you’re going to give advice, then you better make sure
you live by it.
Some final thoughts
Somehow, I don’t think that Smil
would be happy to know that I wrote this essay. I probably got some things
wrong, and maybe he doesn’t see things the way that I see them.
Still, I think that this was worth
writing. Reading about Smil has encouraged me to re-organize my life. Perhaps
it provides some hints for you as well.
Charles Chu
Rethinking the obvious @ http://thepolymathproject.com
https://medium.com/the-polymath-project/a-few-principles-for-thinking-clearly-d18a74a2ebe9
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