(2012-06-30) Rao Fertile Variables And Rich Moves

Venkatesh Rao on Fertile Variable-s and Rich Move-s. *Optimization is based on models, and this failure mode has to do with what you have left out of your model (either consciously or due to ignorance or a priori unknowability). If there are a couple of dozen relevant variables and you build a model that uses a half-dozen, then among those chosen variables, some will have more coupling to variables you’ve left out than others. Such variables serve as proxies for variables that aren’t represented in your model. I’ll overload a term used by statisticians in a somewhat related sense and call these variables fertile variables. Time is a typical example. Space is another. Money is a third, and particularly important because ideological opinions about it often blind people to its fertile nature. Physical Fitness is a fourth. Fertile variables feed powerful Pattern-s of action based on what I will call rich moves.

A move based primarily on manipulating a fertile variable while neglecting others is what I call a rich move. The prototypical example from which I derive the term is to decide you simply want to get rich, no matter how, and ignoring other aspects of a “well-rounded” life. This is because if you succeed in this “rich” move, other problems will tend to sort themselves out... Another example, if you are in the technology sector, is deciding to move to San Francisco. It moves one variable (or rather 2: latitude and longitude) without much thought to other variables like cost of living, closeness to markets and so forth.

The key to identifying and pursuing action patterns built around rich moves is to resist the temptation to maximize learning... Rich moves, rather than maximizing learning, herd the most variables into positive regions.* (Lifestyle Design)

In mental development, some (appreciative, not just manipulative) knowledge of college-level mathematics is a fertile variable. People who know a certain amount of mathematics in the right way, generally think better on all questions (Thinking Tools), including ones involving no mathematics (the pathology I pointed out at the start of this post is the sort of danger that mathematical knowledge can bring; the key is to develop an appreciative understanding of mathematics alongside a manipulative one). A fertile move for any student is to move to an environment with a lot of good mathematics in the environment. So educational settings that lack mathematics are dangerous.

I Commented to ask how a Rich Move is different from a heuristic or Rule Of Thumb. Rao replied.