Uncommon sense

Charlie Munger on uncommon sense…

Competence – you can only be trusted as competent if you clearly understand the limits of your competence. The great danger of experts is they forget the limits of their expertise – “it is better to trust a man of 130 IQ who thinks he is 125 IQ, than to trust a man of 180 IQ who thinks he is 200 IQ” Warren Buffett

Inverting – if you want to make life better, think of what you would do to make life worse. Charlie was an aviation meteorologist during WWII. His task was to give weather briefings to pilots. His role was unclear until he thought of the inverted perspective “if I wanted to kill pilots as a meteorologist, what could I do? Flying with iced wings, flying in conditions they will be unable to land.” This really clarified for him the important aspects of his role in keeping pilots alive. In our own lives, asking “how would I really make my life worse?” can be a valuable perspective on what really matters.

Collector – be a collector. How many collectors do you know who are unhappy? Identify things or experiences that you enjoy collecting and become a curator of your collections.

Integrate ideas between domains – most people focus on details within the idea (especially academics), few people look at the interaction between big ideas. That’s where there’s not much incentive in academics, but it’s very interesting for investing money.

Occam’s razor- go for simple… with a proviso that was initially shared by Einstein “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not more so” Einstein. Anywhere there is a “lollapalooza result” (Charlie’s term for a hugely positive and rapid outcome)… look for a confluence of causes. Academic experts find one cause. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are rarely just single causes for high impact outcomes.

The problems of Social science– all chemists can answer “where do the rules of chemistry not apply?” In the high temperature plasma state. how many social scientists can answer “if you want to sell more should you raise or lower the price?” Where does this rule not apply? 1 in 50 will say “luxury goods!” Many social scientists forget to think of the exceptional cases.

Update… a summary of this post in a #shorts video

More on Charlie Munger’s thinking process

Charlie Munger’s Inverse Thinking Process

Short term Happy vs Long term Fulfilled

Charlie Munger’s Inverse Thinking Process

I was watching a few Charlie Munger speeches recently – Warren Buffett’s partner in leading Berkshire Hathaway.

Charlie talks a lot about “Inverse Thinking”…

The Inverse Thinking Process

What is Inverse Thinking?  Charlie says it is helpful to turn a question on its head.  If you want to know what would improve the situation of India, ask what would make India worse?  You can apply this to most situations:  If you want to know what would improve your life, ask what would make your life worse?  If you want to know what would improve schools, ask what would make schools worse?

Charlie does provide his answer to how to make life worse.

Charlie’s Recipe for a Miserable Life

His answer:  The perfect path to a miserable failure of a life is combining:

  1. Sloth and
  2. Unreliability

Another of Charlie’s particular questions he asks himself is how to keep from fanatical ideology?  He sees that human beings are so open to self-deception that we must (yes even you) all be on the lookout for our own beliefs that have become fanatical.

Charlie’s Recipe to Keep From Fanaticism

Can you state the arguments against your position as well as your opposition?  If you can state the arguments against your position as effectively as the opposing camp, then you can allow yourself to feel that you are not being fanatical.

Charlie on the Danger of Perverse Incentives

Be careful about being in situations that motivate unhappy behaviour.  Are the incentives in the systems in which you operate motivating behaviours that make you a better person, or a worse person.  Be careful if you think your answer is “neutral”…

Charlie on the Danger of Perverse People

Don’t work for those who you do not admire.

Never.

It will damage you.

Charlie Munger speaking at USC Graduation

There is one random quote that stuck with me from Charlie:

“Hope is not necessary to persevere” Frederick the Great

There… those are my thoughts for this Sunday afternoon 😉  It is now time to head to the Camp Nou for FC Barcelona’s game against Espanyol…  key for the league, and the Barcelona derby!

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