Writing
The Danger of Lessons from Experience
date
slug
the-danger-of-lessons-from-experience
author
status
Public
tags
Experience
summary
I think lessons from experience can be somewhat dangerous, and we must handle them with care
type
Post
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updatedAt
May 22, 2023 03:58 PM
categories
Writing
Opinion
Language
English
The lessons from experience have contributed to the quantitative improvement of human civilization. Our ability to learn from past experiences and even from those that we have never experienced, sets us apart from other species. And now, we have become the rulers of this planet, Earth.
However, I think lessons from experience can be somewhat dangerous, and we must handle them with care. These experiences include not only our own but also those of others, such as role models or benchmarking.
Pre-Commitment: Controlled System
I want to introduce the concept of a āControlled Systemā. A Controlled System is one in which we can recognize various variables that can affect the system. Examples include math and algorithm problems and laboratories that involve controlled variables.
In this post, I will discuss experiences and lessons derived from system that are not controlled systems, which Iāll refer to as Uncontrolled Systems. Examples of Uncontrolled Systems include lessons from incidents in life and business success.
Why Dangerous
1. Unclear Causality
In an uncontrolled system, we canāt identify the variables that contribute to incidents. There are nearly infinite variables in the system. Can we determine the causality behind Appleās success? Can we pinpoint the cause of someoneās cancer? Itās difficult to uncover the reasons why these incidents occurred.
2. Constant changing
Everything around you has been changing, is changing and will continue to changing. Todayās correct answer might be tomorrowās wrong answer. The lessons from the past arenāt guaranteed to work in present.
3. Survivorship Bias
We only can see successful companies. There may be many failed companies that acted like Apple, Google or Netflix, but we canāt recoginze them.
It is similar to alternative medicine. Some people say, āI overcame my cancer with this alternative medicine!ā. But the dead donāt speak.
4. Luck
How much do you think luck plays a role in business success? I think at least 80%. Not just in business success, I think luck plays a signficant part in almost everything.
Result: Kkondae
- Overconfidence
- Looking down on someoneās opinion or idea.
- Treating experience as a answer.
- Confirmation Bias
Better Approach: Not a lesson, just a fact
I hope readers donāt misunderstanding my opinion as āExperinece is nothingā or āLessons from experience are bad thingsā. My point is simply to maintain a healty skepticism about experiences.
The word ālessonā implies an answer or the correct thing. Why not treat experience not as a lesson but as a fact? Using experience as a basis of decision-making is not a problem. However, we should acknowledge that our decisions are based on educated guesses not definitive answer, and consider other possibilities.
Ā