Introduction
Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy
Josh Waitzkin
Part 1: Technique
Technique is the overarching principle
Other principles are subsets
It is how you get from A to B regardless of what A or B are
How rather than the What
You have the same capacity, the same techniques, that made great people great in their fields
Why do most people do most things wrong?
This is because most people don’t know the basics.
They don’t get the fundamentals right.
Because no immediate feedback is available in the world of ideas, most people get it wrong.
Compared to more engineering fields, feedbacks are faster.
How did you self-educated yourself in economics?
2007, Ron Paul
Internet, googling around
Mises Institute
Videos, papers
2 ways of economic reasoning
- Empiricist - all propositions up for evaluation
- Rationalist - some logically true propositions exist without need for evaluation
Start with the Austrian economics axiom: “humans act”
Then use logical deduction to deduce from there.
Then go to the standard literature
- Human Action
- Man, Economy, and State
- All works by Mises (like differences between Economic Theory and Economic History)
Mises University (Weeklong program)
Internship at the Foundation for Economic Education
Answering the questions: you studied economics from one point of view?
Austrian economics starts its discussion by discussing different points of views and showing how they’re wrong.
Paul Samuelson’s Economics
Problems with credentialing
Technique is like theory
It is more important than practice
Spend more time finding the right technique rather than practicing the wrong one
Dedicate time in accurately identifying superior methods for going from A to B
Do a survey of all the mutually exclusive claims out there (different schools of thought)
Then identify which is the objectively superior method in terms of efficiency and the basics
Use theory
Part 2: Efficiency
Getting from A to B with the least amount of energy required. While eliminating all unnecessary steps in the process.
Be aware of your own inefficiency.
Part 3: The Basics
The bread and butter core techniques you will be using 80-90% of the time
The trivium
- Input - Collect
- Process - Organize
- Output - Make use of
Survey
Choose a technique
Choose an efficient technique
Master the basics of the efficient technique
Understanding economics = understanding the basics of economics
Focus on the basics (90%) not the flashiness (10%).
If you’ve mastered the basics, you know when to break them.
References
School Sucks (Director). (2016, February 6). The 5 Principles of Learning Anything—Series Introduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BF_tGo1Gis