Unaffordable Philosophies

Or, it’s not true for you just because it’s true for someone else

The only writing advice I’ve ever given: write the book that nobody else can write. If there is a single person on Planet Earth who can write anything close to it, find a hobby. Generalise to every line you write. Those who don’t follow such a guideline are punished by ChatGPT.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

This is a powerful idea. But, the question is, can you afford it?

If you try to follow what Taleb is saying, most likely you’d never be able to write anything. And the only way to become a better writer is to actually write. This philosophy is so extreme that it’s paralysing.

Let’s look at another one from Naval Ravikant: “Earn with your mind, not your time.”

Just like Taleb, if you take Naval’s idea as it is, you’d most likely have to quit your job (where you earn with your time) and find ways to earn with your mind (i.e., live like a pauper while trying to search for “that one business idea”).

Truth be told, these are pithy abstractions. Powerful yes; true maybe; but pithy nonetheless. And if you blindly go by only what is being said, you’re bound to end up with misfortune.

Truly powerful and influential people, no matter how authentic they are, don’t necessarily belong to the world the rest of us belong to, and their ideas seldom apply to us directly.

A great quote that illustrates exactly what I’m trying to say is how Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk starts: “To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”

Now, I’ve nothing against anyone of these influential and highly successful personalities. Longtime readers know that I’m a huuuuge fan of Taleb and his writing (having read his books multiple times and having referred to him in my writing several times over the years.) And like most people, I find Naval’s clarity of thought and prose admiring, not to mention his terrific investment prowess.

But just because you think of someone highly doesn’t mean that you should also take whatever they say at face value. Their ideas are great, but living by them incurs a certain cost, which you may not necessarily be able to afford to pay.

During my school days, a favourite teacher of mine used to say, “Just because it’s written or just because someone said it doesn’t make it true. You have to find your own reason.” The same applies here as well. Just because an idea works for a 20yo who is just starting their career, it may not work for a 40yo who has a family and is neck-deep in debt. Everyone should find their own reasons.

The writer Rob Henderson has a theory he calls Luxury Beliefs. The central idea is this: “If people buy expensive luxury goods to showcase how well-off  they are, people also hold ‘expensive’ beliefs for the same reason.”

Now, the opinions Taleb, Naval, Musk, Thiel, Hoffman, and the likes hold may not necessary be Luxury Beliefs, but there’s a high chance they might be Unaffordable Philosophies.

While it’s important to acknowledge that highly powerful and influential individuals may not always express radical opinions (solely) to standout, and there might be a genuine belief in these ideas, it’s equally important to recognise that these godly notions might sometimes be too costly to be followed by mere mortals.

To take stock of these ideas completely, apart from considering what is being said, you also have to take into account what is not being said. Or more appropriately, what is being said elsewhere.

For example, Taleb has a disdain for charlatans, especially those who write without doing. According to Taleb, practitioners don’t write, they do. “The central problem is that birds rarely write more than ornithologists.”

Taleb would rather want you to focus on doing without writing, instead of the opposite. If you take care of the doing, the writing would eventually come. “This is what Seneca elected to do: he initially had a very active, adventurous life, followed by a philosophical withdrawal to write and meditate, rather than a “middle” combination of both. Many of the “doers” turned “thinkers” like Montaigne have done a serial barbell: pure action, then pure reflection.”

Taleb may not necessarily be discouraging you from writing. With so many “thought leaders” lurking around without any original thinking, Taleb’s rather asking you to set high standards for yourself. It’s better to not write than be a charlatan.

Similarly, Naval has a certain career advice: “Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learnt. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.”

If you can neither sell nor build, there’s a strong chance you don’t have any leverage. It would be utterly foolish of you to make an attempt to “earn with your mind.” Instead of actually focussing on pursuing your curiosity, you’d be going after whatever is hot right now, i.e., quitting your job to start a startup. This is not equivalent to taking risk. It’s part of the act of being foolish.

Ideas are generally formed because of some specific sets of beliefs (or agenda) which have been influenced by specific sets of circumstances (where someone grew up in, what books they read, what kind of friendships and life experiences they’ve had, what kind of jobs they did, etc.).

In the 19th century, when the bourgeois factory owners were exploiting the proletarian factory workers, Karl Marx proposed the idea of a utopian society where there’s “co-ownership” and no concept of social class — basically where nobody owns anything.

This is an honourable idea indeed (who wouldn’t want such a harmonious society), but it doesn’t necessarily mean one should set up the whole political system of a nation around it without considering other possible aspects of it.

Similarly, the idea of Bitcoin might be splendid. It does try to address certain shortcomings of fiat money. But it would be completely unwise to make it the official currency of a nation just because of that. It might be a good idea, but the price you’d have to pay to follow it would be humongous.

Despite being someone who shares “ideas” every week, I must advise you to treat all opinions, ideas, wisdom, and philosophies as heuristics instead of commandments, no matter who they are from.

Heuristics make things simple and easy to convey. But the main point of heuristics is that they are convenient, not perfect.

Here‘s what Taleb has to say about language: “Language is largely made to show-off, gossip, confuse people, delude them, charm them, seduce them, scare them, and exploit them. And, as a side effect, convey information. Just a side effect, you fools.”

He easily could have been talking about ideas, philosophies, opinions, points of view, hypotheses, postulations, etc.