The most insightful writing on decision-making has touched the problem of slowing down indirectly, focusing on how humans handle future uncertainty.
In the preface to Roberta Wohlstetter's classic book on Japan's Pearl Harbor attack, Thomas Schelling writes, "In planning we tend to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. A contingency we have not seriously considered looks strange. What looks strange is thought to be improbable. Therefore, what is improbable need not be considered seriously."
Contingencies dropped from consideration like that are former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 'unknown unknowns'. They are economist Frank Knight's 'immeasurable uncertainty' (as opposed to measurable uncertainty, i.e. risk), Nassim Taleb's 'black swans', or 'the inevitability of surprise' as German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz put it. Charles Perrow called it the 'normal accident' — the kind you can't predict. (p. 297)
"Intelligence is knowing when to think and act fast, and when to think and act slow."
Words from Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg.
The world keeps turning faster. It's an environment where our 'fast instincts' are easy to trigger when we decide something. Conclusions come more quickly, more often. But unknown uncertainties about the future still remain. That's exactly why we need to admit our limits, pause, and take time to think hard.
The author advises,
"The ability to think about slowing down is at the heart of the human condition. It is a gift and a tool we can use to examine our lives. Life may be a race against time. But if we overcome instinct, stop the clock, grasp and understand what we're doing now and why, life becomes richer. Wise decisions need deliberation, and deliberation requires pausing."
Exactly so.
What matters for us now is the wisdom to distinguish when to think and act fast from when to think and act slow.
" I've been subscribing to Ye Byung-il's Economic Notes for a good while now. It has given me really many insights helpful to my everyday life — about economics, self-development, and more. I'm always grateful. Hoping many people get to read it, I end up copying it onto my blog again today.
This mail was no exception. I'm currently working on an IoT-related product, and the key points are the ideal network method and the scope of 'smartness'.(The product's usability and the experiences it affords are set aside for now.)
1) — What served as insight this time:
The most striking line in this mail was Robert Sternberg's "Intelligence is knowing when to think and act fast, and when to think and act slow."
2) — What I already knew,
It suddenly reminded me — the breakthrough for robots that walk like humans came from motion toward imbalance, not balance.
사람처럼 걷는 로봇을 만들기까지에는 15년 가까운 노력이 있었다. 두 다리로 걷는 최초의 로봇은,1986년에 만들어졌다. 사람은 걸을 때, 절대로, 두 발을 동시에 땅에 딛고 있지 않는다는 사실이었다.
"지금까지의 로봇은 넘어지려고 할 때 되도록 넘어지지 않도록 제어해왔다. 하지만 우리는 넘어지려고 하면 그 방향으로 더 적극적으로 넘어지려고 해야 오히려 안정적으로 걸을 수 있다는 사실을 알았다. 이러한 역발상으로 제어시스템을 개발했다." (제2편 인간을 꿈꾼다 - 휴머노이드)
Source: Ye Byung-il's Economic Notes
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