"Poor Charlie's Almanac" notes 020

(1) Keep things simple

The player entrance to the Notre Dame football stadium reads "Fight like a champion today." I sometimes joke that the University of Nebraska's slogan is, "Don't forget to wear your helmet." Charlie and I are "don't forget to wear your helmet" kind of people. We like to simplify problems.

——Warren Buffett

Comment: Simple and more focused

(2) People can adapt to the changing judicial climate. They have their own methods. This has been the case in the past and will remain the case in the future.

My personal pet peeve is systems that make it easy to commit fraud.

Comment: A bad system cannot be controlled and cannot develop healthily.

(3) If the system is formulated by me, then workers’ compensation for work stress will be zero - not because the stress caused by work does not exist, but I think if work stress is allowed If you can get compensation, then the damage to society will be much worse than the situation where a few people are really injured due to work stress and cannot receive compensation.

I like the system of the Navy. If you're a captain in the Navy who works 24 hours a day and needs to go to bed, so you leave the ship in the hands of a very capable first mate in rough conditions, and he runs the ship aground - which is obviously not your fault - —They won't court-martial you, but your Navy career is over.

You might be saying, "That's too harsh. That's not what law school is like. That's not a legal proceeding." Well, the Navy model is much better than the law school model. The Navy's model really forces people to pay attention when circumstances are tough - because they know they will never be forgiven if something goes wrong.

Napoleon said he preferred more fortunate generals - he would not support a defeated general. Likewise, the Navy likes luckier captains.

Comment: Formulation of the system

(4) Master those principles that are obviously important and obviously correct. That's right...and then you have to delve into the principles that are obviously important but not in the textbook - and then you get a system.

Question: Yes. My question is related to the first step, how to determine which principles are obviously correct? To me, that's the more important question.

No, no. It's not as difficult as you said, you're exaggerating. People are easily influenced by the thoughts and actions of others, sometimes at a subconscious level. Do you find this difficult to understand?

Comment: Daotu heard the concept is not enough?

(5) Question: No. I can understand this.

That’s right. Then you can completely understand those principles. Take your time and take it one step at a time. Not as hard as you say...

Do you find the principle of operant conditioning—that people repeat their last successful activity—difficult to understand?

Question: I think there are a lot of things to master, and there are also a lot of reasonable contents. I feel like this system can get very complicated very quickly - there are so many different principles.

Well, if you're like me, you find it a bit complicated to be interesting. If you want to understand things effortlessly, maybe you should join some kind of cult that claims to have the answer to everything. I don't think that's a good idea. I think you have to accept that the world is just so complicated. Einstein once summed up this very well: "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not too simple."

I think the same is true for learning psychology. If there are 20 factors and they interact with each other, you have to learn to deal with them - because the world is so complex. But if you can solve the problem step by step with curiosity like Darwin did, you won't find it difficult. You'll be surprised how well you learn.

Comment: It’s not that simple

(6) Question: You just gave us three models you used. I was wondering where you found the other models. Second question, can you teach us a way to read psychology textbooks more easily? I'm not opposed to reading psychology textbooks, but it's very time-consuming.

There are not many types of subjects, and not many truly useful ideas. You'll have a lot of fun figuring them all out.

Furthermore, your grasp of those ideas will be stronger if you figure them out by trying them out yourself rather than memorizing them through someone else's recitation.

What’s more, the fun never runs out. The education I received was terribly wrong. I have never read any so-called modern Darwinist works. I have read a lot of miscellaneous books, but I have never read this kind of book. Last year it dawned on me that I was an idiot for not having even read about modern Darwinism, so I went back and, with the help of the great Oxford biologist Dawkins and others, I supplemented the stream knowledge.

I am in my seventies, and for me, it is absolutely a joy to understand the modern Darwinian synthesis. This theory is extremely beautiful and extremely correct. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy.

Comment: Once you accumulate enough time, you will understand.

(7) If Charlie gave a course on "Remedial Universal Wisdom" to law school students, this course would definitely include his "remedial universal wisdom" course consisting of mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering. Four Basic Disciplines”, as well as accounting, history, psychology, philosophy, statistics, biology and economics. In reality, it may take more than "three weeks or a month" to complete the course.

Comment: The impact of knowledge exchange and correlation

(8) If I were the czar of the law school - but of course the law school will not allow the czar to exist (they don’t even want the dean to have one) Too much power) - I will be offering a course called "Remedial Universal Wisdom" which will provide a lot of useful stuff, including a lot of psychology taught correctly. This course may only last three weeks or a month...

I think you should offer an interesting course - with some convincing examples and some useful principles - that will It'll be fun. I think this course will help you apply what you learned from law school.

People will frown upon this idea. “People don’t do stuff like this.” They may not like the irony in the course’s title—“Remedial Universal Wisdom.” But my name actually means "everyone should know". If you call it remedial, isn't that what you mean? "These principles are really basic and everyone should know them."

Such a course would be very interesting. There are too many examples to cite. I don't understand why people don't open. Maybe it’s because they didn’t want to teach it, so they didn’t teach it; but maybe they didn’t know how to teach it; maybe they didn’t understand what the course was.

But if you had a month to learn these basic principles taught through vivid examples before receiving a traditional law school education, your entire law school experience would be much more interesting. many. I think the education system as a whole will be much better. But no one was interested in offering such a course. Some law schools do teach beyond the textbook, but their methods often seem very clumsy in my opinion. In fact, psychology courses in American universities are pretty good. If you don’t believe me, take a look at those corporate finance courses. Modern portfolio investment theory? That's complete nonsense! What a surprise.

I don't know how this could happen. Both the natural sciences and engineering are taught very well. But outside of these fields, the situation in other disciplines is completely baffling - despite the fact that some researchers have very high IQs.

But, kids, how should schools change this stupid situation? The correct approach is not to ask an old capitalist in his seventies to tell senior students: "This is a bit of remedial universal wisdom." This is not a solution to the problem.

On the other hand, law schools inculcate some basic principles into students in the first month of their enrollment... Many legal principles are linked to other principles, and their relationship is inseparable . However, in their teaching, they did not point out that these legal principles are closely related to other important principles. This is ridiculous - absolutely ridiculous.

Why do we stipulate that judges cannot comment on cases that have not been in their hands? When I was in law school, teachers talked about this rule in class but did not relate it to important content in the undergraduate curriculum. It's really ridiculous not to state those reasons. The human brain needs reasons to understand things better.

You should hang reality on theoretical structures with justification. Only then can you become an effective thinker.

Comment: The connection between education disciplines

(9) As for teachers teaching students some principles but not giving reasons, or rarely explaining the reasons, that is a wrong approach !

Another reason I wanted to create a course that taught remedial universal wisdom was that it would force professors to reflect. These professors would be embarrassed if they were taught something that was obviously wrong and we corrected and emphasized it in a course called "Remedial Universal Wisdom." Professors who teach the wrong thing really have to defend themselves.

Is this idea crazy? It's probably a crazy idea to expect someone to create a class like this. However, if someone actually offered such a course, don't you think it would be very useful?

Question: I think it would be great to have a class like this. Unfortunately, by the time this course is offered, we will have already graduated. Your suggestion is to teach us by setting up a course. But beyond that, is there any way we can learn universal wisdom?

People always ask me if there is a shortcut to learning. Today I also try to provide you with some learning tips, but a lecture like this alone is not enough. The right thing to do would be to write a book.

I hope what I say will help you become more effective and better people. As for whether you will make a fortune, that is not my concern. But there are always people asking me: "Feed me everything you know." Of course, what they say is often like this: "Teach me how to get rich quickly without any effort. Not only do you want me to get rich quickly, but you also want me to get rich quickly." "The earth taught me."

(10) Let me explain why education is so bad now. Part of the problem lies in the disconnect between disciplines. For example, psychology is most useful when combined with principles from other disciplines. But if your professor doesn't understand the principles of other disciplines, he won't be able to accomplish this necessary integration.

However, if someone is proficient in other subjects and is committed to combining the principles of other subjects with psychology, how can he become a professor of psychology? Such a psychology professor tends to irritate his peers and superiors.

(11) But no matter which way of life you choose, I think you should try your best to absorb basic universal wisdom, otherwise you will make a big mistake, because secular wisdom can allow you to serve you better Others can help you serve yourself better and bring more fun to life. So if you have the ability to master it but don't, I think that's ridiculous. If you master universal wisdom, your life will become rich - not only in terms of money, but in other aspects as well.