A few months ago, I posted a reply on social media, with a comment that I called "Doug's Law #271".
"There’s a precursor event to every disaster, if anyone is paying sufficient attention." A friend, taking me seriously (big mistake) asked to read the other 270, which of course, didn't exist.
After a little thought, I decided it would be worthwhile to make a list of life lessons and insights. Some of these might seem cynical, obvious or trivial. As another friend often says, your mileage may vary. But for what it's worth, here's the list of Doug's Laws.
1) All human problems
can be solved with enough knowledge, money, social cooperation and time.
- Modified from David
Deutsch.
2) On a beach made of
white seashells, the dark shell is the prettiest. On a beach of dark seashells, the white one
is the prettiest. Beauty involves rarity.
The sunset is
beautiful because it is brief and different than the other colors of the day.
3) Objective truth
exists and is generally accessible to everyone.
4) Progressive
risk-taking always ends in disaster.
Examples of progressive risk-taking include, “We’ve taken
chances before, and it’s always worked out all right”, or “We have launched
successfully twenty-four times; what can go wrong?”, or “You didn’t get pregnant
the last time”.
You can fit a car through a narrower space than you expect
until you can’t.
You can go farther than you think on a tank of gas until you
can’t. This is especially important in
small airplanes. - FAA Accident
Report, circa 2009
5) You have to learn
to cooperate when paddling a canoe.
6) We should judge
God according to standards of reason and justice.
- Modified from David Deutsch.
7) The existence of
war causes me to question the existence of nations as an organizing principle
for humankind.
8) Kindness is best,
and most needed, when it is completely unexpected.
9) I live in the
Middle Ages, a time of war, disease, superstition and ignorance.
The Middle Ages will end when humankind is no longer
organized into nations, when infectious disease is conquered, when most people
no longer believe in religion and when education provides understanding,
instead of belief and knowledge.
10) Humans are a
uniquely improbable, intelligent and capable species with no known analogs in time
and space. There is no evidence of
another sentient and capable species in the 4.5 billion year history of
earth. There is no evidence of another
sentient species in the galaxy. We
should make the most of our abilities.
We have the opportunity to become something more than we are today.
11) It’s critically
important to know when the rules have changed.
Most Jews in 1930s
Europe didn’t realize that the rules had changed.
12) Three out of six
people are completely honest.
Two out of six will
bend the rules to their advantage.
One out of six
people will cheat.
- From
experience as an internal auditor, an unscientific sample.
13) The great ethical debate of the next century will be
what rights to give to sentient machines.
The great ethical debate of the following century will be
what rights to give to sentient humans.
14) Justice delayed
is injustice.
15) You can’t mop the
floor clean with dirty water or a dirty mop.
16) Ends and means
are the same. There are no good ends
achieved though bad means.
-
Modified from Jacob Bronowski.
17) No one is solely
responsible for their own success.
Everyone is helped by other people along the way, and by the schools and
institutions that enable them to succeed.
No business is solely responsible for its own success. Every business is only successful because
society has created a landscape of fair opportunity, physical and commercial
infrastructure and a legal framework that enable the business to succeed.
Successful individuals and businesses have a responsibility
to pay forward a portion of the profits of their success, so that others can also succeed.
18) Anything worth
doing requires practice.
19) You improve what you measure.
-
Ralph Dartez
20) You can’t write
unless you have something to say.
Decide what to
say before you write.
21) Say the most
important thing first.
-
Ed Buchwald
22) Anything you
write will be improved by an editor.
- Renee Frazee
23) If you don’t have
a better idea, it’s time to shut up.
24) Explanations
matter.
Science is a matter of finding explanations. An explanation is the identification,
observation, measurement and communication about some process that changes
physical reality. Explanations follow
the structure of language, with objects, actions and descriptive modifiers.
-
Synthesis and expansion after David Deutsch, Jacob Bronowski and Ed Buchwald.
25) Empiricism isn’t
science; it only works within the range of previous experience. A good explanation has reach; it works
outside the bounds of prior experience and extends to unexpected domains.
- Modified from David
Deutsch and Jacob Bronowksi.
26) People think and
identify in dualities: Pepsi or Coke, Communism or Democracy, mountains or
seashore, truth or falsehood, good or evil, Republican or Democrat. Reality is more complicated.
27) Scientists come
in two types, experimentalists and theoreticians. Consider Aristotle vs. Plato, Galileo vs.
Newton, Michelson vs. Einstein, Edison vs. Tesla. Neither can progress without the other.
28) I’ve noticed a
clear dichotomy in how people think. It
corresponds to whether they fit the “sensing” or “intuitive” types in the
Myers-Briggs personality system. The
sensing individual only believes what he’s seen and doesn’t look for underlying
causes. The intuitive individual seeks to
understand what he hasn’t seen and expects underlying causes. This distinction seems to represent the some
of the biggest differences in human outlook.
29) There is a
hierarchy in the ways that people comprehend the world: Belief, Knowledge and
Understanding. Belief and Knowledge fail
more often than Understanding.
30) People hate to
let go of knowledge they learned as a child.
31) Anyone or of
sufficient intelligence should be able to independently derive the golden rule.
Some animals are sufficiently intelligent. Some people are not.
32) People who don’t
give respect don’t deserve respect.
33) Democracy and
free enterprise only work in a society with high integrity and regard for
truth. This is concerning for the United States in 2020.
34) Rome didn’t fall
in a day.
35) Anyone who can’t
face the world without a gun is either a bully or a coward.
36) Being a manager
is largely about being a life counselor.
37) At any given
time, one out of ten people is in an existential crisis, and has told somebody
about it. Another one out of ten people
is in crisis but hasn’t told anyone yet.
38) Being a manager
is like being a custodian. You stay at
the office after everyone else has gone home and clean up the mess that people
made during the day.
39) Always learn the
name of the custodian and thank them by name.
40) Always greet
people by name.
41) People who think
like dogs make great employees.
People who
think like cats wind up in prison.
42) Every small child
is a genius in terms of learning, memory and creativity.
43) Every small child
instinctively understands that this moment will never come again.
44) Amateur music is
good training for life; you learn to appreciate the good notes and ignore the
bad ones.
45) It’s always
darkest just before you stub your toe and fall down the stairs.
46) People are at
their greatest risk of a tragic accident when they are on vacation or having fun.
47) The enjoyment of
a bit of food is often inversely proportional to its size.
48) Get rid of commas
and extra words whenever you can.
49) When you’re
hiking up a mountain, most of the way you can’t see the top.
50) Always minimize
the weight you are carrying when hiking.
You will enjoy the hike much more.
But in dry country, always carry enough water. You can make that a life metaphor if you
like.
51) It’s best to
start hiking uphill and come down on the way home.
Also, start biking, canoeing or kayaking into the wind, and
return with the wind at your back.
52) Always check the
gas when you start an engine.
53) People consciously and unconsciously signal their status to other people.
One of our strongest signals is gender identity.
54) Women usually wear mittens. Men usually wear gloves.
Nothing they say about it explains the dichotomy.
55) If it’s
important, write it down now.
56) The more hours I
spend outdoors, the better I sleep.
57) For every
proverb, there’s an equal and opposite proverb.
For every piece of advice, there’s an equal and opposite
piece of advice.
- Steve Robbins (son).
58) A good question
carries with it the key to its own solution.
– source unknown
59) When a reporter
asks you for a comment, they’ve already decided what you are going to say.
60) No reporter is
really your friend.
61) Propaganda
works. Confirmation bias is a very
powerful force. Confirmation bias
combined with propaganda forms a feedback loop leading to unreasonable denial
of truth.
62) Most people are
not interested in seeing both sides of an issue.
63) Most politicians
only know how to get elected and have no idea how to govern.
- Peggy
Robbins (Mom, b. 1926)
64) It is impossible
for a politician to remain completely independent of the interests of his
campaign donors. This is the reason for
campaign finance reform.
65) When there’s only
one way to say the truth, that’s how you have to say it.
66) Truth is necessarily
an approximation, operating over a given domain, and with a degree of
uncertainty. But uncertainty does not
mean falsehood. Objective truth (not absolute truth) exists.
67) Art is the
deliberate creation of something that produces an emotional response in another
person. Art is an intentional form of communication. Art requires an artist and an audience.
68) The personality
of a dog usually says something about the personality of its owner.
69) Everyone working
a full-time job deserves to earn a living wage.
A living wage is enough to comfortably raise a family.
70) A dog’s owner
will never understand that the dog’s behavior toward its family is different
than the dog’s behavior toward a stranger.
71) All cats are
alike, which is why tigers like to sit in boxes.
Since all cats
are alike, it’s worth remembering that the biggest cats would eat you.
72) Every database
has errors. The larger the database, the
more errors there are.
73) Every question
from a vice-president begins with “what” or “how”. Every question from the president begins with
“who”.
74) The potential
return from cutting costs is one-fold.
The potential return from growth is unlimited.
75) There is value in
redundancy. Redundancy provides
resiliency, optionality, innovation and quality control. These benefits usually outweigh the costs.
76) There is value in
diversity – of people, of systems, of approaches to problems. Like redundancy, diversity provides
resiliency, optionality, innovation and quality control.
77) Every system has
friction and inefficiencies. A rigorous
program of eliminating inefficiencies may impair the primary function of the
system.
78) The benefit of a
risk decision should first be weighed against the impact of the potential loss,
without regard to probability.
79) There’s a
precursor event to every disaster, if anyone is paying sufficient attention.
80) The most common
cause of failure for risk models is correlated risk. This was the cause of the financial crisis of
2008. The second most common cause is
neglected experience.
81) “You only think
you’ve found the endpoint.” – Vic
Beghini, President of Marathon Oil.
In any
distribution there’s always a possible realization beyond what you have
sampled.
In any
situation, it’s possible for things to be worse. (Note: Beghini was right.)
82) Variables in one
dimension have a normal distribution.
Variables in multiple dimensions (either physical dimensions or the
product of one-dimensional variables) have a skewed, log-normal
distribution. The greater the skew, the
more likely the variable is of a higher dimension.
83) Most real-world
distributions are log-normal in the middle, but distorted on the tails. Distribution tails may be truncated by
physical limits or fattened by some parameter outside of basic model.
84) No one can
properly assess very low probability or very high probability events. This is partly due to sampling theory and
partly due to uncertainty about distribution tails. Strategic planning for these events should
focus on scenarios rather than probabilities.
85) Nicholas Taleb’s
Black Swans represent events outside of the previous range of experience.
86) Truly random
events happen in streaks.
87) There are more
ways for things to go wrong than right.
This accounts for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (entropy), Murphy’s Law,
and Dostoevsky’s aphorism about happy and unhappy families.
88) It is in the
nature of the human brain to sometimes make mistakes. Thinking is a statistical process, involving
thousands of synapses modulating thousands of others. The process is generally correct, but not
always. – after Jacob Bronowski, Daniel Kahneman
89) Today’s
geologists will spend the first half of their careers trying to get carbon out
of the ground. We will spend the second
half of our careers trying to put it back.
- Me, circa 1990
90) Regarding Climate
Change, if we all do a little, we will only do a little. Large scale solutions are needed. -
modified from David MacKay
91) Climate Change
solutions need to be efficient (affordable) scalable and timely. As of today, no such solutions exist. - Dr.
Charles Hall, SUNY, circa 2009
More than a decade later, we are only a little closer to
efficient, scalable solutions, and we are running out of time.
92) Progress is non-linear,
advancing quickly after a breakthrough, but at a diminishing rate. In fifty years, we went from the Sopwith Camel
to the Boeing 747. Fifty years later, we’re
still using the 747. Maintaining the
pace of human progress requires breakthrough ideas.
93) Risk factors are
not all equal.
The risk on an oil prospect is calculated as the product of
several component risks – source rock, reservoir rock, seal, trap, and
timing. However, the risks are not of
equal scope. The lack of a source rock
condemns a basin; lack of reservoir, seal or poor timing condemns a play; lack
of a trap condemns only a prospect. Risk
factors occur in a natural hierarchy and should not be regarded as equal in
developing an exploration program.
94) The main
criterion for judging prospects should not be the chance of success on the
exploration well, but the probability that if the exploration well is
successful, the project will be successful.
Delineation risk should be managed during the prospect generation and selection
process.
95) A good prospect should
have five elements. These elements
constrain delineation and development risk.
(AKA Robbins’ Rules.)
> A prospect should be simple.
> A prospect should be big (enough to be
clearly economic if successful, and have a meaningful commercial impact to the
company).
> A prospect should be seismically visible.
> A prospect should have a laterally continuous
reservoir.
> A prospect should be developed according to a
conceptual model.
96) Every list in a
business presentation starts with the author’s personal agenda, followed by
several things that everybody knows and ends with the boss’s personal
dogma. (See list above.)
97) The productivity
and wealth of a nation depends on its energy usage and level of integrity.
Per capita GDP correlates very well with an index weighting
energy usage by 2/3 and integrity (from Transparency International) by 1/3.
98) Your reputation
is your most important asset.
- Steve Robbins (father, b. 1923)
99) No one can ever
take your education away from you.
- Steve Robbins (father, b. 1923)
100) Buying and
holding a low-cost stock index is the most effective investing strategy. This is due to several simple truths: 1) you
can’t time the market, 2) a broad portfolio performs best, 3) gains on held
stocks compound without tax, and 4) you will minimize management fees.
101) If you have an
investing idea but aren’t sure that you are right, do half of what you
originally considered. This prevents
inaction.
102) My grandfather
dropped out of school at fourteen and started a real estate business with his
older brother. He retired at the age of
89. He said that 75 years in real estate
had taught him three things.
1) Every house has cracks.
2) Every house eventually sells.
3) Something is only worth what someone else will pay you
for it.
When I became
older, I wondered if he meant this to be an analogy to people.
1) Every person has flaws.
2) There’s a suitable partner for every person.
3) Your value as a person is measured by what you provide to
others.
Values
Human values inform the decisions and behavior of
individuals and societies. There are
first-order core values, and second-order values which logically follow from
core values or the intersection of core values.
The following is a list of my values.
103) Empathy –
Kindness, Compassion, Human Understanding, Care, Generosity
104) Truth – Honesty,
Integrity, Accountability
105) Equity –
Fairness, Justice, Respect, Diversity, Human Dignity, Opportunity, Democracy,
Shared Prosperity
106) Service – Work
Ethic, Humility (do the little things),
Productivity (produce more than you consume).
107) Progress –
Science, Exploration, Technology, Physical Understanding, Globalism, Economic
Development, Social Development, Peace
108) Responsibility –
Ethics, Family, Community, Care and Provision for Future Generations, Care of
Nature for its own sake
109) Liberty –
Individual Freedom, Self-determination
110) Self-regard –
Courage, Reputation, Self-reliance, Challenge, Legacy
--
111) Values I Reject:
Faith, Patriotism, Nationalism,
Creativity
112) The creative
personality is one that looks on the world as fit for change, and on himself as
an instrument for change – Jacob Bronowski.
113) Creativity is a
deliberate process used by clever people to solve problems, or for the pure joy
of creation. There are m9any
similarities between technical creativity and artistic creativity.
114) Creativity
begins with deep expertise in a field.
115) The next step
involves reframing the problem or the paradigm.
A good question carries with it the key to its own solution (Law #54).
116) Creativity often
involves inversion of some part of the problem – or asking what would happen if
you try exactly the opposite of what you’ve been trying to do.
117) Visualize the
problem from different vantage points, or before and after a process.
118) Abstract thought
(visualization) should alternate with analytical thought (measurement and
calculation) in an iterative cycle.
119) Depending on the
problem, multiple solutions may be generated and evaluated before selecting an
optimal solution, by some criteria.
120) The creative
work may come as a single inspiration, or a set of incremental innovations.
121) The final step
of any creative process is the realization, through publication, construction
or performance of the creative enterprise. – Betty Edwards
Photography
122) Avoid
back-lighting. Put the subject of the
photo in the best light, and focus on the subject.
123) Try to achieve a
range of brightness in the subject.
124) Underexpose the
photo; never overexpose. For landscapes, set the light setting by focusing on
the sky.
125) Check the
background for distracting elements.
126) Check that the
horizon is horizontal.
127) Never put the
subject in the middle; follow the rule of thirds.
128) Direct movement,
facing and gaze toward the center of the photo.
129) In landscapes,
put an object in the foreground to create depth in the photo.
130) Find
complimentary colors.
131) Look for
patterns diverging or radiating from a point; look for repeating shapes or
patterns at different scales.
