The First Story They Hear
The Philosophy of Building Better: Chapter 5 - The Builder Must Learn from the Great Builders of the Past
“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.”
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Today, we continue our series of outlining the Philosophy of Building Better:
Chapter 2 - The Purpose of Building is to Further Human Flourishing
Chapter 5 - The Builder Must Learn from the Great Builders of the Past
Chapter 7 - The Better Builder Refuses to Ethically Compromise
In our series outlining the Philosophy of Building Better, we have demonstrated that we are all builders, that the fundamental purpose of building is human flourishing, and that there is an objectively correct way to build for a given context. Today, we will discuss the first concrete step you can take to actually putting this philosophy into action.
In our prior post, we discussed how there were four kinds of context that need to be taken into account as part of any building project.
First, the physical context of any act of building must be considered. Where the object of building exists or is interacted with within the world of matter. An example is the location of a house or the user interface for a software application,
Second, the builder must take into account the personal context. The human beings who are directly using or being impacted by what has been built. An example is the people living in the house or the users of a software application.
Third, the builder must consider the societal context. Similar to the personal context, how what is being built impacts those who may not be directly interacting with your product, but are impacted by its second or third order effects. An example are the neighbors of the people living in the house or the family members of the person using a software application.
Finally, there is the temporal context. This is the context that your building project sits within both looking backwards towards the past and attempting to peer through the opaque veil of the future.
In our previous exploration of context, we focused on the first three kinds of context but put off grappling with the temporal context of our building efforts. Given its complex nature, temporal context deserves special treatment. Not only is it the most difficult to understand and most time arduous to gather, but it is the context that is most commonly overlooked within acts of building.
This is especially tragic since one of the best tools for determining the correct approach to building is to learn from the great builders of the past. We sit at the forefront of thousands and thousands of years of human progress, and yet if we are not careful we will close our ears to the great conversation echoing throughout the millennia. If you are having trouble determining the right way to build, a good place to start is listening and learn from that discourse.
A helpful framework for conceptualizing the criticality of temporal context is the Lindy Effect.1 The Lindy effect is an observation that the longer something has withstood the test of time, the longer it is likely to persist. Time is unpredictable and for an idea or institution to survive its ravages, suggests that there is a resiliency that will allow it to continue to thrive. Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, takes this suggestion a step further and suggests that the staying power of something, allows you to make a prediction of how much longer it will be around in the future.
The best guess that you can make for a book that has been read for the last 20 years is that it will still be relevant in another 20 years, but for a book that has been read, discussed, and analyzed for 2,000 years the best prediction that you can make is that it will continue to be relevant in another 2,000 years.
The longer an idea has been around, the greater signal that there is an aspect to it that is worthwhile as irrelevant or wrong ideas simply don't survive. Now before you point out all the terrible ideas throughout history, it must be stated that the Lindy effect is not a foolproof axiom.
The Lindy effect is a powerful heuristic, but it is simply that: a heuristic.
Lindy is not destiny, but it is something that should be a powerful consideration for every builder.
When we discuss the importance of temporal context, Lindy becomes a lens through which we can help filter our ideas. When we are served two competing pieces of advice on how to build, one of which has been suggested by Steve Jobs and the other which has been suggested by Aristotle, Lindy would tell us that we should be careful before throwing Aristotle’s perspective out.
You may make the argument that Steve Jobs’ perspective is more relevant because circumstances have changed so much but, how relevant will his ideas be 20 or 40 years in the future? It is difficult to say. What we can have confidence in, is that if Aristotle’s greatest ideas are still relevant nearly 2,500 years after he came up with them, an additional few decades is unlikely to change that.
To be clear, I am sure that for a visionary like Steve Jobs, some of his ideas will stand the test of time. Just as any cursory reading of Aristotle will show that not all of his ideas have survived with the same potency.
The Lindy effect does not say to throw out all of Jobs’ ideas in favor of Aristotle’s. Instead what it suggests is that for those of Aristotle’s ideas that have lasted through the ages there is likely an aspect of them that points at some truth that has been stable throughout an unimaginable array of different circumstances.
The Lindy Effect isn’t a golden rule but it does help us understand the importance of learning from the great ideas of the past. If an area has stood the test of time there is a strong indication that there may be some facet of it that is worthwhile. As we attempt to become better builders, this is a powerful tool in our toolkit. History does us the favor of sifting through the infinitely many ideas that have ever existed and highlighting the ones that have risen to the top.
Does this mean those ideas are always right?
No.
But it does mean one should be careful before ever dismissing them out of hand.
These concepts shed light on our current circumstances. Fundamentally, this writing project is an implicit and explicit exercise in the belief that the Lindy effect is true as far as wisdom goes. That in order to build better today, we must learn from the accumulated wisdom of the past.
Let’s look at an example.
One of the most powerful patterns for builders is Aristotle’s concept of the Golden Mean.
As discussed in our previous chapter, Aristotle believed that there was an objectively correct approach to any given situation, but admitted that it wasn’t always easy to discern what that objectively correct approach was. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle finds that in most circumstances, what is called virtue is a mean in between two extremes. For example, courage is the appropriate level of fear for a given situation. An abundance of fear would be cowardice whereas an absence of fear would be foolhardiness. Aristotle’s prescription for a given circumstance is to look towards the middle of two potential extremes to find behavior that is likely to be the best path forward. This is not always strictly in the middle in a mathematical sense, just that the golden mean is likely to land somewhere in the neighborhood of the middle.
Aristotle admits that we all have natural proclivities towards one side or the other in a given set of circumstances, so his recommendation is to be aware of where you sit on the scale and actively overcorrect the direction that you are less naturally inclined.. For someone who is naturally foolhardy, a good way to approximate courage would be to be more cautious whereas for a natural coward, doing what may feel like foolhardiness will often lead to actions in close approximation of an appropriate level of courage.
This same concept can be applied to building. In our previous post, we discussed how better building entails resolving the competing forces within a given context. One way to do this is by leveraging Aristotle’s idea of the Golden Mean. Visualizing the conflict in terms of opposing forces can showcase the path forward through the point that brings the system into balance.
Imagine you are designing an application and you want to gather a user’s personal information in order to provide them with some valuable expanded functionality. On one extreme you could optimize completely for privacy and never even request the info. This ensures that a user’s need for privacy is respected fully, but it removes the possibility of them accessing the valuable features you have developed. On the other extreme, you could not give the users a choice and gather their personal information irrespective of their wishes. This would ensure that every user has access to the expanded functionality, but could risk ill-will from more privacy-inclined users.
The natural proclivity for the company in this situation would likely be to leverage everyone’s personal info to make the added functionality accessible. Given this, the resolving point in this system is likely to land somewhere on the spectrum between the two extremes but corrected away from the company’s natural proclivity. The pattern that resolves the forces in this system is a common one: clearly communicate the additional functionality you can provide with the personal information and give all users the opportunity to opt-in to sharing if they find the additional functionality worth the trade off.
Finding the appropriate point of leverage between the opposing forces is the only way to dissipate them, but finding that singular point where the forces are resolved isn’t always easy. It can be gained from learning from a wise person or looking at the wisdom of the crowds, or it can be approximated by knowing your natural tendencies and compensating appropriately.
The great builders of the past believed that there was a right way to build. That building better could be done and that it was worth striving for.
In our current age, this idea is more critical than ever before. This isn’t a suggestion that we must keep everything the same or return to some illusory past without examining it with a critical eye. Accepting anything simply because it is old would be foolish, but equally foolish would be to toss out an idea simply because it comes from antiquity.
We must learn from the ideas of the great builders of the past. The ideas that have stood the test of time and transcend the various circumstances they have been exposed to over hundreds or thousands of years. The better builder must take these ideas, critically evaluate them, and apply them to present circumstances where appropriate.
We build better by appreciating this temporal context in the same way that we appreciate the physical or societal contexts that face us. To do otherwise puts our every act of building at risk of being snared in the same avoidable pitfalls that have befallen countless others before us.
Let’s build better,
Erik
1 - The Lindy Effect traces its origins back to Lindy’s Delicatessen in New York City where the phenomenon was first proposed by comedians theorizing about how one might predict the longevity of different acts. The law was refined into its present form by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
The way I’ve always conceptualized it is by asking the question, “Why are all old comedians funny?”
The answer is simply that one does not survive long enough to become an older comedian unless they are a funny comedian.
Very much enjoy this post, Erik! Always something new to learn!