I think now more than ever it's actually meta-epistemology that's valuable in making decisions. There are significant shifts in the technology landscapes that should make you question your heuristics about costs and tools and effort, yes. Also, there are significant shifts in the information landscapes, slightly less new ones in my opinion, that should make you question your trust in conventional wisdom, expertise, and what appears to you to be popular opinion. There are significant shifts in the relative levels of risk that should make you question your priorities, economically, politically, socially, and logistically. It is overwhelming for so much to change so fast and despite this unpredictability on the object level, I see people's meta-heuristics thrashing about in what seem to be pretty predictable ways. Some people are taking a reactionary posture and think we need to double down on our existing biases and shut down everything unfamiliar. Some people take an iconoclastic posture and say all extant knowledge is worthless and we should be maximally novelty-seeking. Needing to question and evolve and adapt our epistemology is... to be frank pretty obvious. The devil at this layer of abstraction is in the details just as it is elsewhere, in how to actually do this productively instead of flailing. Humility and balance is good advice, but it's so general as to basically be tautological. I think the best tools I've learned are about noticing my own momentum. Knowing the right level of friction to try a different approach rather than beat my head against a wall. Being able to tell that a new approach is going to work before it has completely worked. That is, to me, the challenge before most of us
It's really interesting where we draw the boundary of originality. That there is significant controversy about who originated the particular words of the serenity prayer surprised me, because I've always thought of that prayer as simply a particularly catchy rephrasing of the most well-remembered sections of Epictetus' Enchiridion
I think now more than ever it's actually meta-epistemology that's valuable in making decisions. There are significant shifts in the technology landscapes that should make you question your heuristics about costs and tools and effort, yes. Also, there are significant shifts in the information landscapes, slightly less new ones in my opinion, that should make you question your trust in conventional wisdom, expertise, and what appears to you to be popular opinion. There are significant shifts in the relative levels of risk that should make you question your priorities, economically, politically, socially, and logistically. It is overwhelming for so much to change so fast and despite this unpredictability on the object level, I see people's meta-heuristics thrashing about in what seem to be pretty predictable ways. Some people are taking a reactionary posture and think we need to double down on our existing biases and shut down everything unfamiliar. Some people take an iconoclastic posture and say all extant knowledge is worthless and we should be maximally novelty-seeking. Needing to question and evolve and adapt our epistemology is... to be frank pretty obvious. The devil at this layer of abstraction is in the details just as it is elsewhere, in how to actually do this productively instead of flailing. Humility and balance is good advice, but it's so general as to basically be tautological. I think the best tools I've learned are about noticing my own momentum. Knowing the right level of friction to try a different approach rather than beat my head against a wall. Being able to tell that a new approach is going to work before it has completely worked. That is, to me, the challenge before most of us
Worth it just for footnote 1 on the history of the serenity prayer
It's really interesting where we draw the boundary of originality. That there is significant controversy about who originated the particular words of the serenity prayer surprised me, because I've always thought of that prayer as simply a particularly catchy rephrasing of the most well-remembered sections of Epictetus' Enchiridion