Mental Pivot #69: Difficulties, Aphorisms, Time
Scott Young looks at “desirable difficulties” in learning, a list of eponymous laws (e.g., Murphy’s Law), and the trade-offs that come from “making time”.
Before we get to this week’s selections, I want to let you know that I’ll be taking a break from the newsletter next week. The next edition of Mental Pivot will hit your inbox on April 1st.
Now onto this week's recommendations…
Thinking Tools:
Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Is Better for Learning: When learning a new subject or skill, we are frequently drawn to learning strategies that result in visible short-term improvements. However, there is a case to be made for “desirable difficulties”—actions that appear worse in the short-term, but yield better long-term outcomes. One example: testing. Is it better to reread course material or perform practice questions? Students favor rereading, but studies show that practice questions are far more effective.
Eponymous Laws of the Internet: Roger’s Bacon compiles a fun list of adages and aphorisms starting with Murphy’s Law and then moving into more obscure but equally illuminating principles like Brandolini’s Law (“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.”) and Cunningham’s Law (“The best way to get a correct answer to a posed question is to post the wrong answer and wait for someone to correct you.”). The author also published two followup posts on the topic: Eponymous Laws of Programming and Miscellaneous Eponymous Laws.
The Myth of Exponential Hypergrowth: Jason Cohen takes issue with the idea of exponential growth and offers a better, more accurate model for how viral companies like Facebook and Slack actually grow. It’s a good reminder that we sometimes employ terminology both broadly and thoughtlessly—thereby perpetuating flawed models of thinking.
No, You Won’t Make Time. Because You Can’t: A blunt exhortation that fitting something new into your schedule requires giving up or displacing something else. We don’t always like to think about trade-offs, but it’s important to acknowledge them.
Using the Goal Gradient Hypothesis to Help People Cross the Finish Line: “The goal gradient hypothesis posits that our efforts increase as we get closer to achieving a goal: when the reward is in sight, we feel incentivized to reach the finish line. Designers and decision-makers can effectively use goal gradients as a motivational tool.”
Reading Enrichment:
The Current Thing: Ben Thompson examines the marketplace of ideas and censorship: “it is very counter-intuitive to see how ‘bad’ ideas are, in fact, extremely valuable: not only do they highlight why the good ideas are better, but they also sometimes show that the ‘good’ ideas are, in fact, wrong.”
Me and My Truck: A Love Story: Poignant, evocative, and well-written. Christian Wallace reminisces about his life in West Texas, his beloved 2005 GMC Sierra, and the formative experiences from his childhood up to the present. It’s a love letter to a truck that’s about far more than a truck.
Why We Stopped Making Einsteins: “In turning education into a system of mass production, we created a superbly democratic system that made the majority of people…much better off. But we lost the most elegant and beautiful minds, those mental Stradivari, who were created via an artisanal process.”
The Video Essay Boom: Terry Nguyen spotlights the intellectual role that long-form video content on YouTube plays (especially in the lives of Gen-Z consumers). The format has flourished in the 2010s and, like written essays, are a way for authors to explore a topic—be it politics, cultural, historical—more deeply.
Odds & Ends:
Legal Concepts for Founders is an online handbook for startups based in the United States. It’s the kind of resource I wish I had when I founded my first C-corp in 2006. The reference includes info on corporations, registered agents, governance, equity, contracts, funding, hiring, and more. Useful.
Roland 50 Studio lets music-makers play with digital versions of classic Roland hardware, like the TR808 (one of the earliest drum machines that allowed customizable sequencing). For those who don’t know, Roland is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic music equipment (fwiw, I’ve used a Roland digital piano as my main practice instrument for the past 20 years or so). The company is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Population.io answers the question “what’s my place in the world population?” and “how long will I live?” Users input their birthdate, location, and sex (or something approximate if you’re rightfully uncomfortable sharing this info with an unknown website) and the tool generates a report showing where you stand among the world’s nearly 7.9 billion people. For instance, a 50-year-old female in the United States is older than 75% of the world’s population and has an estimated 36.4 years of life remaining. The site is a project of the World Data Lab, which runs a portfolio of tools including the World Poverty Clockand Water Scarcity Clock.
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