YouSaid · the spoken record

Sendhil Mullainathan

lines on the record: 96
first: 2021-02-02
most recent: 2021-02-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Days where or hours, whatever, where you are kind of marching slowly through time. And this, I just want to say this because it's related to your point. The irony of it is that when that's happening, you don't think to yourself, I've gotten more time. You're like, oh, this day is dragging.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's shocking how the flow, like if I told you, oh, Shane, I've invaded a little time machine. It lets you move forward faster or slower on the ocean of time. You'd be like, that just sounds stupid. But I have, it's called the mind. Like you yourself are floating through this thing faster or slower. And you don't really have any, and people think, and it's true, some of it is like this conversation is flowing, so time goes really fast. So some of it is that. It's external stimuli. But some of it is just internal. Like once you start, so we try to get people to do this moment a few times. You start becoming aware there are just.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's the most trivial thing in the world. Like when you think a minute has passed. Now, there's a couple of things we get out of this exercise when we get people to do that in the app. One thing we get out of the exercise is do this with your partner. The differences in how time feels Is amazing between people. So that's what the second thing we get out of this is do this over the course of a week, like five times.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the utility of it is what interests me most. One of the things I've been working on with. Psychologist Mike Norton and Beck Weeks, she's one of the co founders, is this app to help people reconceptualize how they see the world? And in there, we have this thing, it's called Peak. In there, we have this set of moments around time. So one moment around time, which I like, we call the moments because our little experiences that try to teach you things, but one moment that I have in there that I like, which is we're trying, let's not try it now to bore the viewers, listeners, is just to sit there, close your eyes, turn on your stopwatch. And when you think a minute has passed. Open”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the same amount of time was being spent, but time isn't spent. Like ultimately, time is not really a spending thing. It's only being spent as proportion to what the utility looks like during the use of it. And so I wouldn't say I spent time at this amazing play. No, I actually consumed the time at this amazing play. I mean, it's like I consumed it. I wish I could have more hours like that. I don't have the capacity. That's another layer that I think your story, which I certainly experience.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So time actually is an object whose value we have the capacity to make more valuable or less valuable. So why am I saying it in this context? What does a commute to work feel like? I mean, you know, work is fun, but you're commuting to work. Does a commute to like go out to eat at a nice restaurant feel like? Yeah, the commute's shitty, but you got something to look forward to. You're going with some friends, you get to chat. So it's not just even if I was commuting every day.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And how often will I commute to work? How often will I commute for fun so that the algebra starts to load up? But the other thing is if you think of the psychology of time, I think that's the one place where I'd say sometimes people make time into money, which is a good heuristic, but time doesn't operate like money. Time is a unit of object whose value can range from the negative to the positive, like huge values. Like, what is boredom? Boredom is when there's like negative value. You're waiting in line. You're like, I just want this to be over with. Give me a pill. So there, your value of time is negative. What is peak joy? Oh, I wish this moment could go on forever. So time, it's”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love that example. One thing that I might kind of add as a way to think about that example is that Oftentimes people think they're making money and space decisions like, oh, I got a bigger house, it'll cost a little bit more if I lived in the city, it'll cost blah, blah, blah. They vaguely in the back of their mind know they're also making a time decision. But in the choice in front of you, what's in front of you? It's like three bedrooms, you know, $1,000, two bedrooms. They're like, oh, I can get more space for the same amount of money. But the hidden object here is, so I love that. I actually had this decision. When I moved to Chicago, all the interesting things are downtown. My work is here in Hyde Park. It's like 30 minutes. Chicago is a terrible town to drive in, like anywhere. It's just traffic is bad. I was like, oh, everyone said, oh, you like to go out and do things. You should live downtown. And this is like an example of your, it's really digging into the opportunity cost. So I was like, oh, okay. But then I'd be commuting every day to work.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Psychologists sometimes used that phrase, which I like. It's how you've chosen to construe this decision leaves a lot of things out of there.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a bug, but it's also a feature because you couldn't possibly go about making your decisions in life working through every other or else. Like you're going to pay 20 bucks. You either want this thing or not. And so I think opportunity costs are the hidden consequences that are left outside of your frame, whether it's for money or time. It's those things that then are neglected because they're exactly not part of how you frame this problem. So I think part of for me more valuable than opportunity cost is to almost ask yourself what are the hidden alternatives that are or consequences that are being left out of this frame. And sometimes the answer is, look, I don't, you know, I know the $20 might have some other value. Fine. Just imagine another use of $20. That's at least one thing now you've brought from outside the frame into the frame. And I think there's a deeper lesson there than just opportunity costs. It's construal, I think.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How much will that dinner cost? Is the steak worth $20? I don't know if I'm using steak. I'm a vegetarian, but whatever. Is this a steak worth $20? The opportunity cost is the other things I could have spent the money on. But you'll notice in the frame, and this is why opportunity costs are so insidious, in the frame is the stakeholder $20. The other uses are not in that frame. It's not stake or whatever movie. Then there's no opportunity cost at stake or movie. It's all these choices where there is no or else. And the frame doesn't provide an or else. Now that's not a...”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, that is a good question. This takes me back some time. So let me try and then I want to hear your definition. I think I have a different definition today than I would five years ago or 10 years ago. For me, the opportunity cost is dictated by the hidden mental frame you have on the problem. Any decision you make, you are Quite a bit narrowing the world down to some very tiny little world. Opportunity cost is the thing that is left out of that frame. Because what you've decided is you said, should I go to dinner with my friends? How much will dinner cost? The opportunity cost is the fact that you've left undefined the other things you can do with your time, for example.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's perfect. In fact, that's such a crisp way of putting it because that's the reason I think overfitting is not a problem because it's the type one type 2 error. Yes, you can stay in this very narrow area. And, you know, the thing you were learned, it fits, it's fine, it's not overfitting. You can go out over here. You get a bunch of fits that are false. Whatever, but you find one which is outside the original domain and you're like, oh, it is. You're right. It's also what's super gratifying about a metaphor.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Notice a part of my mental process I had not yet been aware of. Now that's interesting because what that is, is it's not just an observational thing. You'll notice it opens doors to things you never thought of. So as an example, how many questions do you ask in a day? Are you median in that level? Should you be asking more? This is a form of noticing that generates other questions and other ideas and other thoughts. So I think of the next stage as this a you learn about an idea this way. You learn, okay, this is an idea that's useful. I can upload it. It has a practical decision implication. This is an idea that's generative. If I start doing this, other things open up in front of me. So it's almost like the next stage is the evaluation of this thing and trying to understand.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But to me, ideas are graded by how much depth they have in what's next. Let me give an example of an idea. Let me see if I can think one up on the fly, which has both noticing but also an endless capacity for generation. I'm spending a lot of time thinking now about metacognition, sort of, and I can tell you why. We can come back to what got me on this path. It was actually not what got me on this path was actually a study we did with people in the south side of Chicago, kids in the south side of Chicago. So it was actually a study on crime and totally different, but it's all about metacognition. So metacognition is the capacity or skill to become aware of one's own mental process. So on the one hand, it seems kind of obvious. But if you say, today I'm going to try to notice and simply just”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think once it's uploaded and it has the capacity to sort of notice, I think the next stage I often think of is, and this is where a lot of ideas fall short, a lot of ideas have recognition capacity, meaning you can see them in the world, but they don't have generation capacity. What I mean is once I've noticed this thing, so opportunity cost, once I've noticed this is an example of an opportunity cost that I'm neglecting. If you practice opportunity costs, you'll start noticing opportunity costs. But for an idea to be generative, it then has to have a what's next. Okay, I've now noticed it with opportunity cost, it has a straightforward next, which is, okay, now that you've noticed the opportunity cost, pay attention to it. So that's helpful.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did notice, and I think this is it, but is it that? Partly because we encounter these people who are almost just zealots about an idea, we think the big danger is being too into an idea. But as an uploader of an idea, we're not yet zealots. And we have to trust in ourselves that once it's uploaded, we have a good ecosystem in our mind. But the overfitting is, I think, actually a feature. I don't think it's a bug. It's part of the fun too. It's like, ooh, who knows if it's right, but this is another example of blank. And it doesn't matter if it's right. You're practicing your seeing skills.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is not to say they're not right. I mean, it's just a fact of the mind. There is a lot of racism, but that's a separate issue. It's just your mind is on high alert. And so what happens is when a new idea is trying to enter this ecosystem, it's competing against these highly active ideas. They're kind of blocking out the sun. So part of what you need to do is to just let them live for a bit. It's okay if they overfit because the goal of this mulling is not to get to accurate truth about the world. It's to practice this new idea and to let it be getting its own activation. Once it's big enough, it's like think of it as a greenhouse. Once the plant is grown in the greenhouse, then you put it into the wild. And there you have to trust all the other instincts you have, the other ideas that are active, that are going to be competing and say, you think it's that, you think it's that, or your usual capacity to say, yeah.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the first stage of learning is overfitting. I think you go when you have a new idea and you're trying to like upload it, so to speak, to use some crass computer science metaphor, when you're trying to upload it, I actually kind of lean into overfitting. Because think of it as there are ideas that have been so rehearsed, they are overactivated to find any, it's like being, think of this way. When you're in a bad relationship, a romantic relationship or a friendship, you're like on edge about some things. Oh, this is just another example of blank. Like there are ideas that are just top of mind that are looking to be instantiated. But in your regular life, you also have that. Like right now, people in the US have just, whether you're on the left or the right, they're on high alert for certain things, either as evidence of racism or evidence about it.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mental space. And he said, you know, as an economist, the exact same thing is true for the social world. Like you should be able to walk, a walk in the woods for you is a walk into a Starbucks. And you should be able to see things there that are different. Now, I ended up doing a lot of psychology, but I think whether it's psychology or economics, I think the same idea is what's so exciting about social science. It's like it arms you with ideas that you conceive refracted in just everyday life around you. So he was a big influence. And Thaler, of course, was a huge influence.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Instantiated in the world around me. A, that way of thinking was awesome. So that's a tool of thought I've kind of maintained for a long time. Like it's like, I kind of think it as what am I mulling right now? Like have a top of mind mulling thing and take that thing that you're mulling. And as you wander the world, like kind of keep activated. Like, is this an example of blank that I just learned about? Now, we tend to do this naturally, but because we tend to do it naturally, we think we don't need to work on it. But it's actually, it is a thing to work. It's just one of the many faculties of the mind that, yeah, it happens naturally. It doesn't mean it happens often enough. So that thing he did. But the other thing he did was he had this great phrase, I'm going to butcher it, but he talked about how, you know, as an economist, think of a botanist. Think of how a botanist walking in the woods is walking in a very different woods than you or I. Like, it's just different for them. Like, same physical space.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing writer, and he taught these classes. So one class he taught was called Applied Microeconomics. And it was a PhD class. I took it as an undergrad. But what made the class exceptional was until then I'd taken these PhD classes in economics, which are basically just math. And I was like, oh, this field is kind of like math. They just use math and they apply and that's it. But in this class, even though it was a PhD class, he did these cool exercises where he said, okay, every week you're going to have to go and find a thing in the world that this phenomenon applies to that no one else has written about. And I want you to write about it and how it fits or how it doesn't fit. And there was something terrifically interesting about navigating the world, but equipped with an idea, like a scavenger hunt of sort. How will I find this idea?”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. I was at math and computer science major, and I actually applied to the PhD, but I deferred the PhD in computer science to say, let me try this PhD in economics. So Thaler is amazing. The other person who really, it was both Thaler and this guy, Bob Frank, have you read any of Bob Frank's work?”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they put me in school. So I was like in school two years earlier as a result of this mango fiasco. And so I think it led to a lot of problems because when you're physically younger than everybody, you know, it's just not, you're not socially developing very well. So I was not socially well developed kid, I think is the best way of saying it. And grad school was probably the first time where, you know, that it's like one of those perception things, like percentages. Like the age difference of two years when you're like 12 is a lot. But by the time you hit 20, you know, 20 to 22, but they don't really make such a difference through undergrad, I didn't feel it as much in grad school. I really didn't feel it just felt like people say, oh, you're young, but we had all been equally developed or underdeveloped depending on your view on things. And that, yeah, so that part was nice.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The other thing that happened was they said, Yeah, there's probably going to be damage as a result of this, and we don't know what it is And so I didn't talk like literally like almost no talking for a long time. And so they thought that was the damage. Like they were like, oh, this is bad. This is the problem. Until like, what, I mean, I must have said a few words before this, but one of the first substantive things I said was apparently went up to my parents and I said when I was three, all my friends are now going to school because they were like two years older. I want to go to school. And they're like, wow, this kid doesn't say anything. He says this, whatever he says will do.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that in India, the floors are concrete. This will be important in a second. So apparently, while they were all gone, I had already, I pieced together that this was the word for mango, which they didn't know. So I still picture myself. I must have been tiny. I went and took a chair, pushed it. And then I climbed up on that chair. And like, I guess I couldn't reach the mango. So I must have climbed up on the edge of the chair, like the back to reach the mango. And I don't know whether I got it or not, but gravity being what it is. started falling. And I hit and my mom says she heard the worst thud in the world and she comes out and imagine what it must feel like when you're a mother. There's your kid blood everywhere on this concrete floor. Having hit like a concrete floor. So then they took me to the hospital. The doctors basically didn't know if I'd survive. And then I did survive, I guess. As we now know, spoiler.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was, when I was about, I don't know, 18 months, I guess let's call it one year old, 18, I don't remember, something in that age, we lived in Bangalore and my dad would bring home mangoes. Now, I don't know if you ever had an Indian mango, but like mangoes in India, especially during the right season. Oh, they are divine. So we bring home these mangoes. And I was this little kid. And I loved mangoes. Wherever he put the maggot and I grabbed them and no one was looking and I just like rip it open and start eating it like a baboon, I guess. And then they developed a system where they would put them somewhere and they'd say, oh, the mango is here. But I didn't speak for mango. But apparently I pieced together where it was. So if they said the mango is there, I'd like go to get it and take it. So then they developed another word for mango. It's a totally new word. And this time they had put it up on a mantle. And one fact you should know for this story.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, I was 20. I think I was. I couldn't drink in the US, it's 21. I was always ahead of my grade. Weirdly, I was actually ahead by one less. When I came here to the US, when I was in fourth grade in India, then I come here. And the U.S. has age restrictions, actually. And so they said you're too young to be in fourth grade. So I had this period where they put me back. And it was like all stuff I knew. And so I was still ahead of my grade. And it was painful. But the reason I actually ended up being so far ahead has nothing to do with like, oh, like he must have shown young promise. It had nothing to do with that. It was that.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good point. I do find that that's one thing I was just starting to work on, but I still find hard, which is it's protecting the ego. It's like I want to be much more comfortable having people tell me that idea is really dumb and here's why. It still hurts. Like at this point, and it's astonishing. It could be an incoming PhD student who's not even like, it's not just praise from people who I think it's anybody. And somehow it could be the person, a random person on a train. And they're like, really? I don't know. And I'm like, oh no. Like I feel that. It's shocking how much it affects you.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Love it. It's like a. I love that way of framing it. It's like a misguided form of hedging You're like, oh, I'm going to protect my downside risk. And you're kind of just staying in that middle because you know, you know, it's”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really brutal, and that's when you know it's like this tree has just enough time to grow because you've been bold, then things can attack it. And so that, I guess I call it the biorhythm of these two things and developing a sense of that biorhythm is often what I notice and ideas. I'm like, well, this was good, but why did you not like get even more bold on this bit? And why not just keep developing that? And then usually there's an answer like, oh, I don't know if that would sell or if that's realistic. Well, let's not worry about that. Let's first develop it. Then you can come back later and say, how do we make it something sellable? Maybe it's not. Like what do you lose? It's just an idea. You developed it. You saw it didn't work. Okay. Ideas are disposable. It's a great question because I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that's one of the general feedbacks that arise.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Develop a lot before bringing in the other side. And it's kind of this weird thing. It leads to ideas when you're stuck in this weird middle. It leads to this ideas that are neither bold nor are they particularly pragmatic. Like, because you're not, you don't have the discipline to be brutal on the pragmatic side, nor do the courage to be brutally bold. And it's like, I think people imagine that if you look at the timeline of their thinking, like if I could just plot it, I could attach something to your head. I think they imagine the way things should look is a nice balance of boldness and pragmatism at every minute or hour. But really, I think it works much more effectively to be bold for days and then switch on a dime and just be pragmatic for days because it's easier to get into the pragmatic groove and be really brutal and then easier to get into the boldness groove and be”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a really good question. I think one piece of feedback that I've noticed applies to many, many, you know, sometimes there are business ideas, sometimes there are ideas for research papers. It doesn't matter what the discipline is. One piece that I've noticed, and it goes back to our sort of creativity and filtration thing, is that many people, when they're exploring something new, get stuck in the middle. They don't let the novel part of the thing fully express itself because they're afraid that like that's too wild. But then they don't let the filtration part fully express itself. So one thing I often say to people is like, okay, let's call this offense and defense. You're stuck in this middle ground right now with your idea where you're sort of playing some offense. You're sort of playing some defense. Let's actually just let one side.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You mentioned X. Tell me more about X. Not everybody, but even people who start high level, a big fraction of them with a little bit of patience you can get them down to the specific kind of thing that is bothering them. And it's really hard because it's your instinct. Like every fighter instinct in you is to push back. It's like, no, no, no. That's not here. I've already thought of that or I haven't answered that. And you probably do. But that's not the point. You kind of just need to lean into it. It's very hard. Like I find it, I think I'm getting better, but I find it very hard, but rewarding when you do it well.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's both. And I think I've also kind of tried to be the reverse. How do I become the kind of person who's giving granular criticism? Like, how do I, or feedback, positive or negative? And it's shockingly hard. So you're definitely right. Picking people is a big part of it. But you'd be amazed with a little bit of guidance. Like part of it is leaning into the wind, which is really hard. When someone says, oh, I just don't think this will work. You kind of, and they're not giving anything granular. It's like you have to say, okay, I don't like hearing that. That's really painful, but I have to just like swallow and just say, okay, tell me why you think it won't work. And their first response, most notably, is some high-level thing. So you're like, okay, I have to sit here and let that wave pass me. That's going to be high level, whatever. And then you have to say, okay, is there something in their high-level thing that I can latch onto and say, oh.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not saying I have, but aspire to have that discipline to try to kind of not seek approval nor to have the reflexive mechanism to just say, well, it doesn't matter what they say. No, no, it does matter what they say. And how do you get that feedback?”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would trust the content of their criticism, meaning if they say, oh, this idea has this flaw, well, you're like, oh, okay, let me think about that flaw. Is it truly a flaw? What makes it a flaw? So there are a lot of people who you would have that. But most people don't do that. They give you the summary judgment. Oh, I think this is not a good idea. Oh, I think this, you know, there are very few people for whom you can trust their summary judgment. So I think for me, the first issue is trying to be very open to feedback and criticism, but trying to get the feedback and criticism down to something granular rather than this sort of, oh, I don't like it. Whereas every part of my personality really wants to say, you know, give me approval. Tell me you like it. Like that's what I want to hear. And so I think one filtration mechanism, I think, is architecting the social structure around you and having the discipline.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think of that quote all the time, other baboons. And so I think one of the filtration processes that's very basic and obvious is the other baboon problem. Like if you are doing something creative, you can't expect the other baboons to be like, that's great. On the other hand, you got to somehow take feedback. You don't want to be the insane person on an island who's like, this is it. I've got a perpetual motion machine. So part of what I think creating a filtration mechanism is actually creating the right social filtration. How do you decide which other baboons to listen to? How do you decide what about what they're telling you do you want to listen to? So for example, if you have an idea and there are a lot of people for whom”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things that for me I think helped with lack of filtration, I'll give you a couple of things. One very mundane. It's mundane, but it's fundamental, which is, you know, we're social animals. Actually, my favorite quote on this is Nick Eppley, a colleague of mine, has this awesome book, Mindwise, in which he quotes these two primatologists. They're a husband-wife pair, I think. They have been studied, they have studied baboons, I think, for their whole lives. And so they wrote a book with an awesome title, Baboon Metaphysics. In that book, he has a quote which is just awesome. Their quote is that no matter how you look at it, the problems of Bebloons can be solved. Other baboons”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As it is, and realize, well, you can't do this, you can't do that. The other wants to see the world without any constraints. And so I spend a lot of time on that internal tension. And so that was going to be the point of that eternal bank chapter.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You need the capacity to generate ideas, but you also need the capacity to filter ideas. And these processes are in such fundamental opposition. If you have a good filter, you can't generate ideas because the world is as it seems. Like if you're like, oh, that idea won't work, that idea won't work. You don't have that other capacity. If you have a good ideation, you don't have a good filter. So one of the things I've struggled with, and I know I love the way you think about sort of I call them tools of thought, you call them mental models. But when I think of tools of thought, for me, one of the tools of thought I've been spending a lot of time working on my whole career is how do you create ideation skills while also creating filtration skills? Because they just don't sit well together in your head. They don't like each other. Like one of them wants to see the world as...”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At least in this life, yeah, you need a proof of a debt certificate to withdraw. That's all we need. So, yeah, so if we can get that past the regulators, I think that's a good money making idea. The other story is a little more poignant. It's a story about like, actually, I had a lot. I had like written out like 20 of these. Because each of them I thought illustrated something about science. Like it's not just, oh, my dad is interesting. Like this story I thought illustrated something about creativity. Which is, I think a lot of people forget that creativity is the marrying of ideation and filtration.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And isn't that amazing? And I thought that would be a great title for a book about my dad, The Eternal Bank. Because it sort of has these, right? He has all these stories and so on. So that was one of the, I think what I learned from my dad many amongst many things is just, you know, I think a lot of people aspire to think outside the box, but my dad doesn't even know where the box is. Like he is just out. And he really instilled that in me in such an intuitive way that I never even kind of, I'm clearly not as creative as he is, but that somehow it's like to this day, I chafe at the box. Like I'm so not used to that.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, first of all, that's so far from anything I know anything, but I want to know where the story goes headed. So I said, okay, but why do you want to start a bank? I said, no, no, I've got a great idea. So, there are a lot of people who believe in reincarnation, right? I said, Yes, you know. So why should they go to the next life with nothing? So we'll start a bank. They give us a pin code. They deposit their money when they're reincarnated, if they're reincarnated, they come back, they give us the pin code, and they get their cash. Now, he says we win either way. Either we have definitive proof of reincarnation. That's a win in and of itself, or we have a lot of money from people who falsely believe in reincarnation.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my god, you know, for a while, I contemplated writing a book about my dad. And it was going to actually be a genuine book about my dad, meaning I thought it would be a great way to convey lessons from psychology and social science through my interactions with him because he has just an insane font of good ideas, but also mixed with bad ideas. So it just shows raw creativity at work. So my favorite of his ideas, which is going to be the title of the book, was this idea. He called me up one day. This is when I, you know, I graduated, I had my PhD. I was a professor and he calls me up in his opening line, his opening gambit is, so you're an economist, right? I'm like, well, at this point, this fact should be known to you. But I didn't like where this is going because I don't even know what my dad thinks an economist is. So he says, so you're an economist, right? I'm like, yes. He said, okay, I need your help opening a bank.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A person in my life, I just do not trust. Like, even though I spent a lot of time with this person, I just do not trust them. It's embarrassing to say, but I don't trust their motives. I don't trust them to follow through on anything. And that person is me. Like, you should not trust yourself. Like, every, and so decisions, it's like handing over bubble wrap to like a five-year-old. It's like, you know what's going to happen. So it's like well thought out rules have the property that they are ones that many parts of ourselves subscribe to. Poorly thought out rules, I think, don't have that property and are doomed, if not to failure, to misery at some level.”
2021-02-02 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #102 Sendhil Mullainathan: The Chaos Inside Us · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT