= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Yes, we will consider your submission too.
Thanks!
What is the status of this contest? Has there been another submission since mine? If not, then I would like my submission re-considered.
If, in fact, the spirit of the contest was to accomplish something, then, in retrospect, the value of my submission should have increased. I knocked out the article in a matter of days (here we are now, many weeks later) and it received a net of 14 upvotes. It may not have met the initial standards of the judges, but in light of new evidence--specifically, that there has been zero submission since--I think my accomplishment deserves renewed consideration.
In response to
The Best Textbooks on Every Subject
Business: The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman.
I'm the author, so feel free to discount appropriately. However, the entire reason I wrote this book is because I spent years searching for a comprehensive introductory primer on business practice, and I couldn't find one - so I created it.
Business is a critically important subject for rationalists to learn, but most business books are either overly-narrow, shallow in useful content, or overly self-promotional. I've read thousands of them over the past six years, including textbooks.
Business schools typically fragment the topic into several disciplines, with little attempt to integrate them, so textbooks are usually worse than mainstream business books. It's possible to read business books for years (or graduate from business school) without ever forming a clear understanding of what businesses fundamentally are, or how they actually work.
If you're familiar with Charlie Munger's "mental model" approach to learning, you'll recognize the approach of The Personal MBA - identify and master the set of business-related mental models that will actually help you operate a real business successfully.
Because making good decisions requires rationality, and businesses are created by people, the book spend just as much time on evolutionary psychology, decision-making in the face of uncertainty, and anti-akrasia as it does on traditional business topics like marketing, sales, finance, etc.
Peter Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom is comparable, but extremely dry and overly focused on investment vs. actually running a business. The Munger biography Poor Charlie's Almanack contains some helpful details about Munger's philosophy and approach, but is not comprehensive.
If anyone has read another solid, comprehensive primer on general business practice, I'd love to know.
This book, or, to be accurate, the 20 or so pages I read, are terrible. For someone who prefers dense and thorough examinations of topics, The Personal MBA is cotton candy. It is viscerally pleasing, but it offers little to no sustenance. My advice: don't get an MBA or read this book.
The mistake I made was considering the author's appearance in this thread as strong evidence that his book would offer value to a rationalist. In fact, the author is a really good marketer whose book has little value to offer. Congratulations to him, however, since he got me to buy a brand-new copy of a book, something I rarely do.
In response to
Memory, Spaced Repetition and Life
Downloaded and set up with a couple of Divia's decks. How many decks do you recommend working through at one time? For reference, I'm currently doing one deck on the default settings, which works out to ~40 cards a day (20 new, ~20 review) and takes 5-7 minutes.
It depends on how much time you are willing to devote. I spend 0-3 minutes per day on the cognitive biases deck which allows me to spend the additional 17-30 minutes I have allocated for Anki working on the NVC deck, which is massive. I plan to add a spanish vocab deck soon.
I want to express my approval. You practiced the difficult discipline of taking some time to deliberate on something that clearly engaged your emotions strongly, and the yet more difficult art of actually changing your mind.
No upvote, though; a more advanced rationalist wouldn't get an upvote because they would have remembered to deliberate before expressing their first opinion.
I'm not asking for a Rationalist of the Month Award, just a measly upvote.
After some deliberation, I've decided to withdraw this request. I am content with my submission. I am also content not to receive the prize or any portion thereof.
OK, choose someone with 5k+ Karma who is willing to arbitrate (or I can choose someone if you prefer) and have them post here.
After some deliberation, I've decided to withdraw this request. I am content with my submission. I am also content not to receive the prize or any portion thereof.
I agree that changing the contest immediately following your submission negatively affects you. Basically you provided me with information about how this kind of contest would work and have not been compensated for it. Please note that you can still participate in the reworked contest. I'd like to address this, but feel moderately uncomfortable discussing this in public (not sure why), would you email me (my username at gmail) ?
I disagree that critiquing your submission in public gives you an especially unfair disadvantage since in the original contest there was a big first mover advantage and because you have personalized feedback about how to modify your submission.
I request arbitration and that it be done publicly.
In response to
[prize] Spaced Repetition literature review
Cross-commented from submission thread:
I think it is unfair of you to post a public critique of my submission since this is a contest. I have effectively been penalized for being first. Every submission that follows will have the benefit of seeing this critique.
I am also concerned that you have decided to change the contest format immediately following my submission. In my estimation, you had either already decided to change the format prior to my submission (clearly a major disadvantage to me), or you decided to change the format based on my submission, which, again, effectively penalizes me for being first.
Additionally, I request arbitration. I think this contest has been mismanaged to my detriment; as such, I am entitled to financial compensation.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Wow, Duke - that's a bit harsh.
It's true that the book is not densely written or overly technical - it was created for readers who are relatively new to business, and want to understand what's important as quickly as possible.
Not everyone wants what you want, and not everyone values what you value. For most readers, this is the first book they've ever read about how businesses actually operate. The worst thing I could possibly do is write in a way that sounds and feels like a textbook or academic journal.
I don't know you personally, but from the tone of your comment, it sounds like you're trying to signal that you're too sophisticated for the material. That may be true. Even so, categorical and unqualified statements like "terrible" / "cotton candy" / and "little value to offer" do a disservice to people who are in a better position to learn from this material than you are.
That said, I'll repeat my earlier comment: if you've read another solid, comprehensive primer on general business practice, I'd love to hear about it.
I think the title--and especially the subtitle, " Mastering the Art of Business,"--signals that the book will be a thorough examination of business principles. As well, I think that hocking your book in a thread called "The Best Textbooks on Every Subject" signals that the book will be, at least, textbook-like in range, complexity and information containment. You now call your book "not densely written or overly technical." I call it cotton candy.