120 Think Like A Freak

2

Are you asking the right question ? e.g. How can we improve our schools ? when you mean How can we improve kids skills ? - you see you built an assumption into the question that skill is only about schools Being systematic works ..see how the Japanese eating champion broke all records - 2 egs Abortion laws explain drop in US crime - religion correlates to a small difference in salary in Germany between Catholic and Protestant villages - ding a ling aren't such things over-simplistic ? - Another example - African Americans live shorter tham whites - why - they get 50% more hypertensin- why controversial theory is that slave owners selected saltier slaves , cos could stand journey better. ... hmm group populations are not equal,eg Japanese Americans might live longer still or have higher incomes , but principle is you treat people as individuals - Another example - ulcers correlation with stress - incentives the drugs industry was making $8bn/yr selling drugs ..did they have an incentive to not find the simple truth ..the myth was no bacteria could withstand stomach acids .. that is a strange thing ..surely someone knew that was not true. - - The Australian researcher found another correlation quite by chance ..rather than being systematic at first - In this market there do exist incentives to be honest not just make money - (what about climate change are there incentives ..seems most are to hype ..corps who want to avoid tax/fuel costs have an incentive to disprove ..seems to be that is like only small ? well all corps what to avoid that, but the most easy profits come from hyping ) Think like a child - sit on ideas 24hours - Think small - brick by brick approach ?? - small ideas can have big impacts eg checking kids eyes and giving glasses

Have Fun - expertise comes not from genius so much as PUTTING in the TIME.. so having fun is important Making use of fun - I had already thought why when I go in the COOP is it immediately obvious it's not ethical cos much of it's biz depends on people being addicted to lottery tix and alcoholics ..and shouldn't lottery ticket money be put back to the buyer so they win. - BY shear coincidence Freakonomics came up with a great solution Prize-linked savings PLS. You come in and put your £1 and it goes into your savings account, but it is the interest that goes into the lottery fund, which I few luky winners get. Lets play that out £1 a day= £200 a year, 5% interest gives you about £5/year imagine 100,000 customers ..so that's £500,000 in the prize fund..enough to pay 25 people £20,000 each ..ie 1 in 4000 people win - Whereas a lottery would have 100K x £200= £20m = £12m for the punters and £8m for the promoters, which is enough to pay 600 people £20,000 ... so that is 24 times more winners. (It's like the premium bonds, but regular saving) Idea : The COOP unethically makes much of it's money from lottery addicts, couldn't it run it's own premiumbond weekly saving scheme Freakonomics pg 98 1/2 Go into ways think better than adults..mostly cos not tunnel vision that misleads adults Incentives - it's not only money - find what someones motivation is - In proper tests going with th her was the biggest motivation ..hence sign "most people switch of the lights" is the most effective one - never right a sign tht suggests many people are breaking the law ..as it actuall encourages others to join that crowd

3

Change the Frame eg how the charity guaranteed not to ask a second time ..it became like a friend HFC-23 fuck up ..UN wanted to reduce amount of The strong greenhouse gas released. ...first UN paid people credits to destroy it. Result corps produced more to destroy Second UN ended the scheme : meaning corps have huge stocks they'll probably release. Net effect UN has paid out money and created more pollution. It's the bounty effect ..noticed when British gave a bounty on cobras the Indian peasant started farming them. Lesson .. you can't beat the market and trying to often changes the market in ways you didn't expect. People resent being manipulated ..well how to change alarmists ..incentivise them Cunning - On brown M&Ms rule was a cunning way to check if the venue had followed all the safety instructions see how it's a way of dividing the good from the bad - They postulate that that is what trial by ordeal is about, the guilty would rather plead guilty, the innocent will do it, but you rig it so they don't get hurt _ similary that's how Zappo shoes "pay you to resign" option works it seperates the loyal from the unloyal Other eg secret bullet factory told British to call before visits so beer could be put on ice eg2 Nigeria scam letters seem too obvious but what it is doing is filtering the smart from the dumb eg Their trap which told terrorists that terroists never buy insurance from their bank.

Persuading - It's difficult so avoid it - Intelligence confidence effect : extremists on either side of climate debate are more intelligent. - Make it a story ..featuring them How would you do this for Climate alarmism ? Good to Quit stupidity of following the Churchill spirit of never never quit, but often it is smart to quit..find the limit and move on to something more productive ..research that finds failure as quickly & cheaply as possible is good - eg of the corp that set up an office sweepstake as to whether a store would open on time. It correctly predicted failure even against the confident words of managers. premortem idea ..imagine what could go wrong before it does ..hang on that is the same as risk assessment we already use ..I've actually already heard all the stories at the end of the book probably on the podcast - The next book I have is Predictaly Irration by Dan Ariely the 2008 update ..but I haven't had time to look at it

a Stew Green opinion Out of the box thinking - from someone who was never in the box in the first place

moved from the USEFUL BLOG to the REALITY CHECK BLOG

<-- BACK

HOME

REALITY CHECK INDEX * USEFUL BLOG INDEX

note/comments

NEXT -->