There Is A Sweet Spot For Thinking And Learning

Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed. – Charles M. Schulz

I started the year planning to read the news more often.

I think it might make more sense just to stop altogether for the next four or so years.

Intelligence officials talk about monitoring chatter, a measure of the volume of communications.

You can use this technique with news as well now.

What I mean is that you don’t need to read the news, you just need to monitor how much something is mentioned.

Ten years back I had to read what was going on to know about certain bits of regulation.

Now, I can tell what’s happening and if its good or bad by monitoring my LinkedIn feed – not reading anything because who has time for that and posts are getting longer and longer – but just glancing at and noting the number of posts on any particular topic.

And this leads to a problem – what can you trust?

Not the mainstream news – even though I think many journalists want to tell a good story they’re forced down to do things that get clicks and traffic.

That is, if they still have a job. Because AI will clearly do that better and faster and cheaper.

Well, faster and cheaper anyway.

And the rest of the Internet is a cesspool of opinions anyway.

The most you can do is notice the pros and cons of a topic and see how things turn out.

Let’s take AI as an example.

My feed is filled roughly equally with evangelists and haters.

The evangelists think this will change everything.

The haters think it’s buggy and slow and not useful.

Me? I think it comes down to people and what feels right to them.

You’re probably somewhere on a slope when it comes to your experience of technology.

You don’t really like it, it gets in the way of doing what you really want to do. You don’t want to wrestle with a computer, you just want to get things done but it feels like you’re going backwards.

You use it because you have to but it really makes no difference. You’re about as fast with a computer as you are with a pencil and paper. It doesn’t add anything but it doesn’t get in the way either.

Then there’s a sweet spot, where you get the technology and the technology works for you. It’s accessible and understandable and you can get things done fast and well.

Finally, there’s the point where the technology moves too quickly for you to understand. Some people get it, but the rest of us are left behind.

Hopefully by that time you’ve made enough money to retire.

I think there’s a place for technology that doesn’t require human input, that replaces the effort altogether and there are countless examples of how that makes life better and civilisation possible.

But technology for people has to be at a level that serves them – that helps them to think and do what they need to do.

The right technology for me to think and work is unlikely to be the right one for you.

What’s important is getting a technology stack set up that lets you get on and work on what makes you happy.

And, of course, sometimes you just need to learn how to use the technology in front of you so that you can get on with the work.

There is a sweet spot, the right slope downhill that is fun rather than fearful.

That’s what you need to find.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh