Looking at my own experience, the thing that motivated me to do things likely to fail is the expectation of getting other benefits, even if it failed. One such thing is “experience”, but it could also be “it’ll be fun” or “attempting will give you status even if you fail” or any number of other things.
Or, if there is feedback after relatively little effort (you find out after the first few chapters if people like it).
There’s just something about “work hard for an extended period of time with no feedback until you find out if you won, which is a binary event with low odds” that turns people off, I guess.
There’s just something about “work hard for an extended period of time with no feedback until you find out if you won, which is a binary event with low odds” that turns people off, I guess.
Indeed.
There is a Russian saying, which I am sure I have quoted before, that goes like this:
“It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room—especially if the cat is not there.”
If you are working on a difficult problem, and, after considerable effort, you have not yet solved it, it may be that the problem is simply quite difficult; more effort is required; you have not yet put in enough work. After more work—perhaps, much more work—you will solve it. You need only persevere.
Or, it may be that the problem is unsolvable. It may be that you will not, and cannot, ever solve it. It may be that the problem was ill-posed to begin with. All further work would be wasted, as all work to date has been wasted. You should abandon the task at once.
It is often difficult to tell which of these cases you are facing.
“How hard it is to obtain the truth is a key factor to consider when thinking about secrets. Easy truths are simply accepted conventions. Pretty much everybody knows them. On the other side of the spectrum are things that are impossible to figure out. These are mysteries, not secrets. Take superstring theory in physics, for instance. You can’t really design experiments to test it. The big criticism is that no one could ever actually figure it out. But is it just really hard? Or is it a fool’s errand? This distinction is important. Intermediate, difficult things are at least possible. Impossible things are not. Knowing the difference is the difference between pursuing lucrative ventures and guaranteed failure.”
This is an interesting enough point that I feel like we should have a shorthand for referring to it. I think the key is other benefits are of different kinds, and probably operate at different timescales.
If a two-factor market is resistant to changes because the Nash equilibrium is reinforced from multiple points, maybe we could call this two-factor compensation because it needs compensation of multiple types to motivate someone to persist in the face of bad odds.
Or we could make it more explicit, and call it something like multi-factor rewards, because you need to hit several variables in the reward function.
Looking at my own experience, the thing that motivated me to do things likely to fail is the expectation of getting other benefits, even if it failed. One such thing is “experience”, but it could also be “it’ll be fun” or “attempting will give you status even if you fail” or any number of other things.
Or, if there is feedback after relatively little effort (you find out after the first few chapters if people like it).
There’s just something about “work hard for an extended period of time with no feedback until you find out if you won, which is a binary event with low odds” that turns people off, I guess.
Indeed.
There is a Russian saying, which I am sure I have quoted before, that goes like this:
“It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room—especially if the cat is not there.”
If you are working on a difficult problem, and, after considerable effort, you have not yet solved it, it may be that the problem is simply quite difficult; more effort is required; you have not yet put in enough work. After more work—perhaps, much more work—you will solve it. You need only persevere.
Or, it may be that the problem is unsolvable. It may be that you will not, and cannot, ever solve it. It may be that the problem was ill-posed to begin with. All further work would be wasted, as all work to date has been wasted. You should abandon the task at once.
It is often difficult to tell which of these cases you are facing.
“How hard it is to obtain the truth is a key factor to consider when thinking about secrets. Easy truths are simply accepted conventions. Pretty much everybody knows them. On the other side of the spectrum are things that are impossible to figure out. These are mysteries, not secrets. Take superstring theory in physics, for instance. You can’t really design experiments to test it. The big criticism is that no one could ever actually figure it out. But is it just really hard? Or is it a fool’s errand? This distinction is important. Intermediate, difficult things are at least possible. Impossible things are not. Knowing the difference is the difference between pursuing lucrative ventures and guaranteed failure.”
- Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup—Class 11 Notes Essay—Secrets
This is an interesting enough point that I feel like we should have a shorthand for referring to it. I think the key is other benefits are of different kinds, and probably operate at different timescales.
If a two-factor market is resistant to changes because the Nash equilibrium is reinforced from multiple points, maybe we could call this two-factor compensation because it needs compensation of multiple types to motivate someone to persist in the face of bad odds.
Or we could make it more explicit, and call it something like multi-factor rewards, because you need to hit several variables in the reward function.