@vgr

Thought of a term I want to work out. Oblique Altruism, as an evil twin of Effective Altruism. Inspired by the core idea in John Kay’s book Obliquity, as well as the Ken Stanley/Joel Lehman book The Myth of the Objective. The first argues that for complex problems, going at it in an on-the-nose rarely works, but oblique strategies often work. The second argues that goal-directed action fails because it induces tunnel vision that prevents you from seeing serendipity and creative stepping stones. Kay’s book also cites the og synthesis Lindblom’s Science of Muddling Through, which argues that you get to creative strategies by “muddling through” with successive limited approximations (branch method) rather than rational-comprehensive calculation (root method). Muddling through leads to disjoint incrementalism. A third book reinforces the idea. William Duggan’s Strategic Intuition shows Napoleon’s famous abilities, properly understood, were basically obliquity. (1/2)

1 reply

1 recast

5 reactions