Why?
The difficulty of going backwards from B to A
"WHY?" by annnna_ is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
There’s an old joke that project managers never become conspiracy theorists. At the risk of ruining the joke, let’s think about the truth that it captures. Conspiracy theorists often imagine that someone from a shadowy elite group makes an order, which is then executed almost perfectly by minions. Amateur researchers are then able to work backwards from the event to uncover what the secret order must have been. As we have seen, though, this seach for the hidden meaning behind current affairs is often hampered by ideological blinkers and other poor starting assumptions, as well as a poor choice of methodology. Dogmatic theorists often double down on their speculative narratives when faced with any criticism at all. They also tend to defend their stories with a sense of utter certainty.
If you spend any time with project managers (or entrepreneurs or engineers, for that matter), they will tell you just how hard it is to get from an order from the boss to perfect execution of an idea. Team members misunderstand instructions; get on each other’s nerves; and go off on tangents. Things that should work, don’t. Everything takes longer than it should. Things that shouldn’t break, do. Key people leave at the wrong time. The original idea turns out to be stupid. Something works, but causes lots of unintended consequences . The great Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz invented the concept of “friction” to cover everything that can go wrong on the path between A and B. Project managers know all about friction and it is for this reason that they will tend to scoff at any narrative that works on the assumption that a plan was perfectly executed. Starting with an event (B) and then going backwards to describe its cause (A) is always going to be problematic.
The Sharpen Your Axe project is based on developing a probabilistic approach to current affairs. We saw last week how the news media is a tool that we can use to ask the question “what has happened?” in the real world. At the same time, I urged readers to suspend judgement on why an event has happened. This is meant to buy us time for an unhurried and cautious exploration of possible causes. We should hold our opinions lightly and adjust them according to the evidence. Of couse, this is easier said than done, like “buy low and sell high.”
When we engage seriously with this approach, we should pay particular attention to unintended consequences, ideas inspiring action and intrinsic motivation (people doing things that they find satisfying rather than for external rewards). One example of intrinsic motivation would be a journalist getting annoyed by conspiracy theories, writing a book about a better approach and then giving it away for free on the internet. Sounds familiar? You can explore these ideas further in Chapter 11, which looks at an obscure meeting that really did change the world and explores the power of bottoms-up systems. If you missed previous entries, I have linked to all the previous blog posts above. Here are the links to Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine and Chapter Ten.
At the risk of being repetitive, I would like to thank everyone who has shared previous entries on social media or sent posts to people who could find the information useful. It is truly appreciated! If you could find a few seconds to share this content as well, it would be great. If this is the first blog post you have seen, please make sure that you subscribe so you get future editions in your inbox. We will look at anti-globalists next week. Also, please take a moment to check out my friend Johannes’ excellent book on how news reporters break stories. See you next Saturday!
Update (25 April 2021)
The full beta version is available here
[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.