[extropy-chat] Boredom in old age

[Max More]

At 10:10 AM 12/3/2003, Harvey wrote:

>I also just realized that I am a professional pessimist.

I shouldn't encourage you, but...

Delusions of Success: How Optimism Undermines Executives' Decisions
by Dan Lovallo; Daniel Kahneman
Harvard Business Review, Editor reviewed on 07/07/03, originally published 
on 07/01/03
http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO77031947495


>   As a security
>expert, auditor, debugger, investigator, hacker, etc., my job is to see the
>problems that no one else sees.  I literally get paid for, and spend 60
>hours per week trying to brainstorm how things can go wrong rather than how
>they can go right.  I see obvious flaws that everybody else seems oblivious
>to.  Other engineers explain how great their projects can be, whereas my job
>is to explain how horribly they can go wrong.  I really do not believe I am
>being unrealistically negative.  I really see real problems that everyone
>else ignores.  I am very good at my job.  However, it means that I see a
>much darker and more dangerous world where technology is not as stable as
>people think.

 From my review at the above URL:
"The pervasive human tendency for over-optimism – with all its costly 
consequences in business decisions – can be highly beneficial when confined 
to the right places. To the extent that your company can cleanly separate 
functions and positions that involve or shape decision-making and those 
that promote or guide action, optimism can be left untouched in the latter 
but not the former. As the authors note, an optimistic CFO is a disaster 
waiting to happen, but optimism in a sales force or in some aspects of R&D 
should be healthy."

[...]
Because we naturally adopt an “inside view” of the situation and decision 
to be made, we nevertheless greatly overestimate our chances of success. 
Economists are no help; those not well versed in the dark arts of 
behavioral finance will only feed our optimism with academic cocaine that 
explains all those hugely costly mistakes as risky but rational decisions. 
Lovallo and Kahneman will have none of this exculpatory nonsense. They 
locate the problem in several factors: A combination of cognitive biases 
including attribution errors, anchoring and competitor neglect, along with 
organizational pressures including stretch goals, discouragement of 
“disloyal” pessimism, and the pressure to present proposals in the best 
possible light in order to secure funding and support.

All is not lost. Lovallo and Kahneman explain how taking “the outside view” 
can counter endemic over-optimism. [...]

Some other pieces on this topic (linked from the above review):

Risk Taking: A Tale of Two Biases

Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming

Make Room for Gloom

Rationality: The Next Competitive Advantage

Why So Many People (Not You, Of Course) Made So Many Brain-Dead Investments 
(And How Not to Make Them Again)


>However, I think the enthusiasm of youth is automatic because things are new
>and different.

This accounts for much of it, no doubt. But some of it seems to be a matter 
of individual differences in temperament. As I close in on my 40th birthday 
I continue to find an enormous range of things fascinating. One of my 
biggest time management challenges is containing my interest in so many 
things. Age usually affects this part of temperament, probably by killing 
off dopamine neurons, etc. Anti-aging research will certainly need to 
tackle this aspect of degeneration.

>  Transhumanism used to be new and different.  But after being
>on these lists for over a decade, there aren't very many new ideas going
>around.  Older people also feel like they are running out of time.  Ten
>years ago, people were predicting the singularity, moon bases and
>immortality in a decade or two.  Now that we are half way there, the goals
>don't seem any closer, yet time is running out.

I don't recall anyone being optimistic about moon bases -- most of us have 
been unhappily aware of the slow progress with space technology. Other 
ideas *are* coming about -- idea futures, for example. It would be 
interesting to dig out the issue of Extropy that featured a range of 
predicted dates for various events. I recall that Eric Drexler had highly 
optimistic projections, but others looked to 100+ years for many of the 
items listed. I think I was somewhere in the middle. If anyone has the 
issue at hand along with an OCR scanner, it would provide some interesting 
data points.

Max



_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________