Monetization Playbook #31—2nd, 3rd, 4th Order Thinking

What’s Your Order?

Machine learning algorithms are widely criticized–yet often provide excellent discovery of new, valuable material.

Yes–of course, there's also clickbait–but no one says you have to click!

But what is machine learning?

Are we all not machines?

Machines following a programmatic way of approaching the presented problems.

Such programs developed via socialization, education, innovation, and maybe even a dose of indoctrination.  

So how do you think further ahead of the next decision? Second-order, third-order, and fourth-order consequences.

Covid homeschooling–allowed me the time to discover the economic brilliance of Thomas Sowell.

His framework for rolling through the orders is simple, practical, and would have saved me a few painful life lessons too.

…I will do 'X.'

And then what will happen?

And what will that cause?

And what will that result in?

and then I'll be…

An example could be the difficult decision of whether or not to go to University.

…I will go to University.

And then I'll spend three years studying.

And this will cause me to forego on-the-job learning in favour of broader subject learning.

And that results in less industry-specific knowledge but more significant theoretical grounding

Answer One

And then I'll be able to climb the corporate ladder faster due to institutional preferences towards graduates. OR

Alternative Answer Two

But then I'll always play second fiddle to the institutional lifer who rose to the top by in-depth domain knowledge gained from working their way up.

This simple model helps you to generate two alternative fourth-order possibilities quickly.