On big, shiny ideas..............

 If you find yourself wondering how no one has thought of this before, that’s a warning sign. Chances are, there’s a quiet graveyard of leaders who learned something expensive that you haven’t yet uncovered. Go talk to them.

I’m pro-innovation. I believe in big ideas. But I’m skeptical of shiny ones—too clean, too theoretical, too detached from human realities. The best strategies are forged in constraint, humility, and patience. They’re honest about how many variables they’re trying to solve at once.

-Mike Sharrow, from here

via

Two humilities...........

 

Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages.  One is the scientific spirit of adventure—the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it—the humility of the intellect.  The other great heritage is Christian ethics—the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual—the humility of the spirit.

 

These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent.  But logic is not all; one needs one's heart to follow an idea.  If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to?  Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts God‑more, one who disbelieves in God?  Is the modern church a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts?  So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other?  Is this unavoidable?  How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid?  Is this not the central problem of our time?

-Richard Feynman, from this talk

Insuperable limits.............

 

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants. There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success”, to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

-Friedrich August von Hayek, from his 1974 Nobel Prize lecture

accepts......................

 

      Humility  is, above all, honesty.  True humility neither exaggerates nor minimizes, but accepts.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

secure.....................

Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exultation.  To be humble is not to make comparisons.  Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe.  It is—is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything.

-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings

the free efforts..............

 

The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society—a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

-F. A. Hayek, as he concludes this "The Pretense of Knowledge" lecture

Humilitism.................

 

.........................Can I get an Amen?

Humilitism says that an elite should consist of people who are aware of the limits of our ability to comprehend complex social systems.

Checking in......................

 

........................with Barry Ritholtz:

We spend too much time worrying about big, rare events, while ignoring the mundane everyday factors that are far more dangerous.

On a long enough timescale, everything is transitory.  As we work our way through the detritus and minutia of life, we should not lose sight of that.

Those who are least knowledgeable are often the most cocksure about their own skills, abilities, and beliefs.  This is an especially expensive error to make in trading and investing.

Once you recognize how little the experts (and the rest of us) know, you come to recognize how much humility investing requires.  Accept the wisdom of recognizing our collective ignorance, and you will soon see how much better off you will be then . . .

Success is an iterative process—we often overlook the misses, the almosts, the faceplants, and the failures that precede victory.

Whatever my views are about the economy, markets, my portfolio, etc., I am always ready to discard them as I amass sufficient evidence my beliefs are wrong.  "Strong opinions weakly held" means reversing your priors when necessary, cutting losses quickly, and never marrying any holding or belief system—ever.

Stoop.........................

 

As they were making their way out, they went through a narrow passage and Mather suddenly warned, "Stoop! Stoop!"  Franklin, not understanding the exhortation, bumped his head on a low beam.  As was his wont, Mather turned it into a homily" "Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high.  Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you will miss many hard thumps."

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

On humility...................

 

You have to remain humble in the markets, because karma has everyone’s address.

-Jared Dillian

consider.......................

 

Consider the stages of the search for understanding, with the first being the admission that progress is lacking on some important front.  This is humility as a precondition for revelation.

-Jordan B. Peterson

A proclamation...............................

 A Proclamation

 

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

 

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

 

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us—and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

 

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

 

Go. Washington

perfectly imperfect.....................

      America is great because the people who came before us and built this country were imperfect.  And they knew it.  Their obvious imperfections gave them humility. That is why they envisioned a country where no single imperfect person—or small group of imperfect people—would have all the power.  Instead, all of us—imperfect as we are—would come together and work on problems together and figure things out together.  While each and every one of us is imperfect, the final result of that democratic, constitutional process would achieve the most perfect solutions possible.

-Kristi Noem, Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland

On changing "reality".................

 Once one realizes the reality of reality’s vast and incomprehensible-in-its-concrete-details complexity, one is naturally humble about what one can do to ‘change’ reality. Schemes for using the coercive powers of government to achieve economic and social betterment are then naturally viewed with enormous skepticism. How do you know? How will you acquire the knowledge you must acquire if your scheme is to work as promised? Such questions are instinctively asked by the wise and stubbornly ignored by the schemers.

-Don Boudreaux, from this post

remember........................

 It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception is composed of others.

-attributed to John Holmes

image via APOD

In a perfect world...........................

 .............Policymakers would have more humility.

-Arnold Kling, as cut and pasted from here

Humility is always a good idea..............

 "I was very puzzled when a year ago so many people were so confident that inflation was transitory," he said. "There was so much we didn’t understand about the post-COVID inflation that humility would have been a good idea."

-as cut-and-pasted from here

endless............................

 You can and should be interested in everything, the Stoics taught, because you can and should learn wisdom from everything.  The more you experience, the more you learn, and, paradoxically, the more humbled you are by the endless amounts of knowledge that remain in front of you.

-Ryan Holiday, Lives Of The Stoics:  The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

Old friends..................

      Renias stops and turns to me, "Come, buti, it's your turn now," he says.

     He brings me to the front of the line and offers me the trail.  My job now will be to follow, and as we are close, Renias and Alex will look over the top of me into the brush ahead so that we don't come upon the lions without seeing them.  At the head of the trail, I feel the natural pressure of being thrown the ball in front of people I admire.

     Suddenly, I feel an old friend who has walked with me for years arise.  Each of us has these friends, mine is called self-doubt.  I have learned rather than to resist him, to invite him in, welcoming him as a teacher of humility.  Together we continue.  The first track, and then the next first track.

-Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide To Life

an intuition.........................

      What distinguishes the dark night from a depression is the fact that a person in the dark night normally has an intuition that these trials are going someplace.  One perceives at times the fruits of the dark night in one's changing perspectives such as the growth of a nonjudgmental attitude toward everyone, greater detachment from things and persons, humility, and trust in God.

-Thomas Keating, Intimacy With God