19 Early Lessons From Covid-19

19 Early Lessons From Covid-19

We constantly underestimate compound growth. Both the good kind and the bad. Linear thinkers get bamboozled by an exponential world.

Steele Roddick
October 5, 2020
RemoteDials 411 is a weekly newsletter on remote sales jobs and tips.
  1. We constantly underestimate compound growth. Both the good kind and the bad. Linear thinkers get bamboozled by an exponential world.
  2. Much of the system has been optimized for efficiency, at the expense of resilience. Redundancy is wasteful when viewed through the lens of efficiency.
  3. We are all far more connected, through far fewer connections, than we tend to imagine. The world is a small town.
  4. Most things in life don’t matter much, yet we tend to give these trivial, unimportant, superficial things most of our time and attention. Sometimes all of it.
  5. Scarcity can trigger selfish instincts. Yet, hard times also bring out the best, most selfless versions of many. Both hoarders and heroes walk among us.
  6. Our environment largely determines our behaviour.
  7. Everyone wants the illusion of control. Doing absolutely nothing is hard. Often we will act to gain a sense of control, even when those actions do more harm than good.
  8. The further upstream we catch problems and take preventative steps, the better things go. Yet, we constantly wait until the urgency is too great, when it’s already too late.
  9. The idea that we can grow our way out of every problem is a mirage. Tradeoffs are inevitable and must be made whether we admit it or not.
  10. Acting on an idea that goes against the consensus is incredibly hard and requires an incredible amount of conviction. It’s also part of what makes great leaders great.
  11. Contributing is about making the whole of society greater than the sum of its parts.
  12. The future isn’t evenly distributed geographically. Sometimes a part of the world — a company, community, city or country — is months or years ahead, and the rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet.
  13. The future pivots on whether things are trending up or down, whether the transmission rate is greater or less than 1 in this case. The struggle is all about getting things to trend in the right direction, to make the passage of time your ally, not your enemy.
  14. If everyone actually optimizes for their long-term best interest, they tend to do right by society. But it only takes a few stupid short-term pleasure seekers to ruin the party for everyone.
  15. We underestimate the importance of the invisible. We put too much weight and attention on what we can see.
  16. We allow distance to impact moral judgements in a way that’s logically indefensible. Peter Singer pointed out long ago that we tend to think we all have a moral obligation to save a nearby drowning child, yet are more or less okay with everyone not doing more to save starving children who happen to be half a world away. Physical proximity should make no or little difference in theory, but in practice it’s massive.
  17. Reacting the right amount is hard. We tend to under, then over, react. Or underreact about some things and overreact about others. The line is hard to find.
  18. Weak or loose social ties like the kind you might have with a coffee shop barista, neighbour, server or cashier are more beneficial to our mental health than most of us realize.
  19. Life is filled with risks that are difficult if not impossible to accurately quantify.

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19 Early Lessons From Covid-19

We constantly underestimate compound growth. Both the good kind and the bad. Linear thinkers get bamboozled by an exponential world.

Steele Roddick
October 5, 2020
RemoteDials 411 is a weekly newsletter on remote sales jobs and tips.
  1. We constantly underestimate compound growth. Both the good kind and the bad. Linear thinkers get bamboozled by an exponential world.
  2. Much of the system has been optimized for efficiency, at the expense of resilience. Redundancy is wasteful when viewed through the lens of efficiency.
  3. We are all far more connected, through far fewer connections, than we tend to imagine. The world is a small town.
  4. Most things in life don’t matter much, yet we tend to give these trivial, unimportant, superficial things most of our time and attention. Sometimes all of it.
  5. Scarcity can trigger selfish instincts. Yet, hard times also bring out the best, most selfless versions of many. Both hoarders and heroes walk among us.
  6. Our environment largely determines our behaviour.
  7. Everyone wants the illusion of control. Doing absolutely nothing is hard. Often we will act to gain a sense of control, even when those actions do more harm than good.
  8. The further upstream we catch problems and take preventative steps, the better things go. Yet, we constantly wait until the urgency is too great, when it’s already too late.
  9. The idea that we can grow our way out of every problem is a mirage. Tradeoffs are inevitable and must be made whether we admit it or not.
  10. Acting on an idea that goes against the consensus is incredibly hard and requires an incredible amount of conviction. It’s also part of what makes great leaders great.
  11. Contributing is about making the whole of society greater than the sum of its parts.
  12. The future isn’t evenly distributed geographically. Sometimes a part of the world — a company, community, city or country — is months or years ahead, and the rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet.
  13. The future pivots on whether things are trending up or down, whether the transmission rate is greater or less than 1 in this case. The struggle is all about getting things to trend in the right direction, to make the passage of time your ally, not your enemy.
  14. If everyone actually optimizes for their long-term best interest, they tend to do right by society. But it only takes a few stupid short-term pleasure seekers to ruin the party for everyone.
  15. We underestimate the importance of the invisible. We put too much weight and attention on what we can see.
  16. We allow distance to impact moral judgements in a way that’s logically indefensible. Peter Singer pointed out long ago that we tend to think we all have a moral obligation to save a nearby drowning child, yet are more or less okay with everyone not doing more to save starving children who happen to be half a world away. Physical proximity should make no or little difference in theory, but in practice it’s massive.
  17. Reacting the right amount is hard. We tend to under, then over, react. Or underreact about some things and overreact about others. The line is hard to find.
  18. Weak or loose social ties like the kind you might have with a coffee shop barista, neighbour, server or cashier are more beneficial to our mental health than most of us realize.
  19. Life is filled with risks that are difficult if not impossible to accurately quantify.

Own your content, your audience, your experience and your SEO.

subscribe now

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in.

19 Early Lessons From Covid-19

June 19, 2020

19 Early Lessons From Covid-19

June 19, 2020
In
Philosophy
  1. We constantly underestimate compound growth. Both the good kind and the bad. Linear thinkers get bamboozled by an exponential world.
  2. Much of the system has been optimized for efficiency, at the expense of resilience. Redundancy is wasteful when viewed through the lens of efficiency.
  3. We are all far more connected, through far fewer connections, than we tend to imagine. The world is a small town.
  4. Most things in life don’t matter much, yet we tend to give these trivial, unimportant, superficial things most of our time and attention. Sometimes all of it.
  5. Scarcity can trigger selfish instincts. Yet, hard times also bring out the best, most selfless versions of many. Both hoarders and heroes walk among us.
  6. Our environment largely determines our behaviour.
  7. Everyone wants the illusion of control. Doing absolutely nothing is hard. Often we will act to gain a sense of control, even when those actions do more harm than good.
  8. The further upstream we catch problems and take preventative steps, the better things go. Yet, we constantly wait until the urgency is too great, when it’s already too late.
  9. The idea that we can grow our way out of every problem is a mirage. Tradeoffs are inevitable and must be made whether we admit it or not.
  10. Acting on an idea that goes against the consensus is incredibly hard and requires an incredible amount of conviction. It’s also part of what makes great leaders great.
  11. Contributing is about making the whole of society greater than the sum of its parts.
  12. The future isn’t evenly distributed geographically. Sometimes a part of the world — a company, community, city or country — is months or years ahead, and the rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet.
  13. The future pivots on whether things are trending up or down, whether the transmission rate is greater or less than 1 in this case. The struggle is all about getting things to trend in the right direction, to make the passage of time your ally, not your enemy.
  14. If everyone actually optimizes for their long-term best interest, they tend to do right by society. But it only takes a few stupid short-term pleasure seekers to ruin the party for everyone.
  15. We underestimate the importance of the invisible. We put too much weight and attention on what we can see.
  16. We allow distance to impact moral judgements in a way that’s logically indefensible. Peter Singer pointed out long ago that we tend to think we all have a moral obligation to save a nearby drowning child, yet are more or less okay with everyone not doing more to save starving children who happen to be half a world away. Physical proximity should make no or little difference in theory, but in practice it’s massive.
  17. Reacting the right amount is hard. We tend to under, then over, react. Or underreact about some things and overreact about others. The line is hard to find.
  18. Weak or loose social ties like the kind you might have with a coffee shop barista, neighbour, server or cashier are more beneficial to our mental health than most of us realize.
  19. Life is filled with risks that are difficult if not impossible to accurately quantify.
© 2020 Steele Roddick
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