and is not regularly the guiding principle of not hugely successful people?
Why the dichotomy? A principle can be used by different people with different abilities, leading to different levels of success, but still remain fundamentally flawed, leading to suboptimal achievement for both gifted and non-gifted people.
If a test regularly returns ‘you have cancer’ when I have cancer, and regularly returns ‘you have cancer’ when I don’t have cancer, it’s not a good test.
Similarly, if a principles guides people to be successful, and it guides people to be unsuccessful, it is not a good principle.
For example: it could be said that “eat food at least daily, drink water at least daily, and sleep daily or close to it” is a principle that hugely successful people follow. It is also a principle that not hugely successful people follow. Following this principle will not make me hugely successful.
I could just say “Pr(not successful | follows principle) needs to be low, otherwise base rate makes it meaningless”.
Why the dichotomy? A principle can be used by different people with different abilities, leading to different levels of success, but still remain fundamentally flawed, leading to suboptimal achievement for both gifted and non-gifted people.
Short term benefits vs long term benefits..
If a test regularly returns ‘you have cancer’ when I have cancer, and regularly returns ‘you have cancer’ when I don’t have cancer, it’s not a good test.
Similarly, if a principles guides people to be successful, and it guides people to be unsuccessful, it is not a good principle.
For example: it could be said that “eat food at least daily, drink water at least daily, and sleep daily or close to it” is a principle that hugely successful people follow. It is also a principle that not hugely successful people follow. Following this principle will not make me hugely successful.
I could just say “Pr(not successful | follows principle) needs to be low, otherwise base rate makes it meaningless”.