In the most independent-minded people, the desire not to be told what to think is a positive force. It's not mere skepticism, but an active delight in ideas that subvert the conventional wisdom, the more counterintuitive the better.

the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet they cannot succeed as isolated individuals, either—that is anarchy. Instead, they require a seemingly con

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- How Chris thinks about writing outstanding explanations.

Following a curriculum, you build mental models by processing simple examples, and then those simple models filter reality so that you become blind to the subtleties of the more complex examples. This is sometimes called a knowledge shield.

To avoid knowledge shields the US military, when it does accelerated training programs, avoids sequential curr... See more