I like to think of myself as an original thinker. Creative. Outside the box. As I dig a bit into economics, I found myself thinking a bit more about that as well. See, economics is a complicated field. There's a lot of research going on, and math. PhD's trying to study issues. So why add my own thoughts to the mix?
I will say, first off, that creativity sometimes comes from unusual areas. And, perhaps, the interactions between people as well. Ideas sparking ideas. In college my ROTC class suggested we read Gates of Fire, a book about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. One of the things that struck me was a decision they made about which Spartans would go.
Yes, they picked experienced men. They also picked some newbies. At first that seemed odd - wouldn't you want the best of the best? But if you think about human dynamics, it makes sense. If you're confident everyone around you knows what to do, you can get complacent. Keeping an eye out for someone inexperienced can also help keep you more alert and aware. Plus, as they say, you really learn something when you have to teach it to someone else. The very act of going over the basics, explaining to someone what you've learned over the years...distilling the lessons of your hard won experience into something they can use...all of that helps you as well.
And there's a third element to it. New people means new ideas. Different perspectives. New people don't accept something 'because that's the way it is'. They may ask 'why' on things everyone else has been taking for granted.
I talk a lot about groupthink, and about why you need diversity of backgrounds as much as anything else. A meeting of economists who all have a PhD is a meeting of people who were all trained to think the same way, and probably won't even think about asking certain questions. How often in the last century have our 'best and brightest' wound up making bad decisions? Maybe we need to mix up our 'best and brightest' with a few people who have different experiences to draw on. This holds true for more than just economics. When I was in training for the human terrain system, most of our trainees were also militry. Some were not. It made me realize how much my military experience shaped my perspective, in the exact same way as so many of my fellow veterans. There are things we would all see through the lens of our experience. The same way, regardless of who was white or black, male or female. And we didn't even think about them, didn't have to think about them, until we had to explain some of those underlying assumptions to the pure civilians that were with us.
Thinking outside the box isn't magic. Or, well, it sort of is...but you can create the circumstances that make it more likely. And you can create circumstances that make it LESS likely.
I think part of what is required is sharing ideas, perspectives. (That's the benefit of a liberal arts education. You've got a broader spectrum of ideas to draw on. That's also the real concern about intellectual property rights. Yes...people should benefit from their ideas. But if we limit it too much we risk short-circuiting the flow of creativity.)
I also think you need a blend of experiences and backgrounds. Knowledgable people, yes. Experts in their fields. But you also need people who aren't expert at all.
I thought about qualifying that a bit. I do think critical thinking is important, particularly for those non-experts. But truthfully you can get the question that sparks an idea from anyone. Any time.
Footnote: In figuring out what to read on economics, I used my own critical thinking to rule out certain types of books. The funny thing about the one I'm currently reading - silly as I think the title is, and hokey as the writing style gets - is that the author captured almost perfectly what I was looking for. The book is called The Undercover Economist Strikes Back. The author says the book "is not a strident call for action, nor a searing list of people to blame for the crisis. (You can find plent of those elsewhere.) Nor is it the kind of popular economics book that offers practical ideas you can apply in your personal or business life. (You can find plenty of those elsewhere, too - including my previous books.) If it's insights into the workings of life at human scale that you're after, then quantitative easing will prove to be of about as much use to you as quantum physics.
...What I have to offer in the coming pages instead is a determined and practical minded poke-around under the hood of our economic system."
Here's my personal rule of thumb - proposed solutions are good tools to keep in your kitbag. They were developed for a reason, and in the right circumstances they will work. The trick is identifying those 'right circumstances', and determining whether the current situation fits that criteria. In certain circumstances, deregulation works. Lowering taxes works. In other circumstances? Not so much.
I want to know more about what tools are available, and how to know when to apply them.
I will say, first off, that creativity sometimes comes from unusual areas. And, perhaps, the interactions between people as well. Ideas sparking ideas. In college my ROTC class suggested we read Gates of Fire, a book about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. One of the things that struck me was a decision they made about which Spartans would go.
Yes, they picked experienced men. They also picked some newbies. At first that seemed odd - wouldn't you want the best of the best? But if you think about human dynamics, it makes sense. If you're confident everyone around you knows what to do, you can get complacent. Keeping an eye out for someone inexperienced can also help keep you more alert and aware. Plus, as they say, you really learn something when you have to teach it to someone else. The very act of going over the basics, explaining to someone what you've learned over the years...distilling the lessons of your hard won experience into something they can use...all of that helps you as well.
And there's a third element to it. New people means new ideas. Different perspectives. New people don't accept something 'because that's the way it is'. They may ask 'why' on things everyone else has been taking for granted.
I talk a lot about groupthink, and about why you need diversity of backgrounds as much as anything else. A meeting of economists who all have a PhD is a meeting of people who were all trained to think the same way, and probably won't even think about asking certain questions. How often in the last century have our 'best and brightest' wound up making bad decisions? Maybe we need to mix up our 'best and brightest' with a few people who have different experiences to draw on. This holds true for more than just economics. When I was in training for the human terrain system, most of our trainees were also militry. Some were not. It made me realize how much my military experience shaped my perspective, in the exact same way as so many of my fellow veterans. There are things we would all see through the lens of our experience. The same way, regardless of who was white or black, male or female. And we didn't even think about them, didn't have to think about them, until we had to explain some of those underlying assumptions to the pure civilians that were with us.
Thinking outside the box isn't magic. Or, well, it sort of is...but you can create the circumstances that make it more likely. And you can create circumstances that make it LESS likely.
I think part of what is required is sharing ideas, perspectives. (That's the benefit of a liberal arts education. You've got a broader spectrum of ideas to draw on. That's also the real concern about intellectual property rights. Yes...people should benefit from their ideas. But if we limit it too much we risk short-circuiting the flow of creativity.)
I also think you need a blend of experiences and backgrounds. Knowledgable people, yes. Experts in their fields. But you also need people who aren't expert at all.
I thought about qualifying that a bit. I do think critical thinking is important, particularly for those non-experts. But truthfully you can get the question that sparks an idea from anyone. Any time.
Footnote: In figuring out what to read on economics, I used my own critical thinking to rule out certain types of books. The funny thing about the one I'm currently reading - silly as I think the title is, and hokey as the writing style gets - is that the author captured almost perfectly what I was looking for. The book is called The Undercover Economist Strikes Back. The author says the book "is not a strident call for action, nor a searing list of people to blame for the crisis. (You can find plent of those elsewhere.) Nor is it the kind of popular economics book that offers practical ideas you can apply in your personal or business life. (You can find plenty of those elsewhere, too - including my previous books.) If it's insights into the workings of life at human scale that you're after, then quantitative easing will prove to be of about as much use to you as quantum physics.
...What I have to offer in the coming pages instead is a determined and practical minded poke-around under the hood of our economic system."
Here's my personal rule of thumb - proposed solutions are good tools to keep in your kitbag. They were developed for a reason, and in the right circumstances they will work. The trick is identifying those 'right circumstances', and determining whether the current situation fits that criteria. In certain circumstances, deregulation works. Lowering taxes works. In other circumstances? Not so much.
I want to know more about what tools are available, and how to know when to apply them.
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