I want to write something about 6th grade logic vs 16th grade logic.
I was talking to someone, call them Alice, who works at a big well known company, call it Widget Corp. Widget Corp needs to advertise to hire people. They only advertise on Indeed and Google though.
Alice was telling me that she wants to explore some other channels (LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, etc.). But in order to do that, Widget Corp needs evidence that advertising on those channels would be cheap enough. They’re on a budget and really want to avoid spending money they don’t have to, you see.
But that’s really, really, Not How This Works. You can’t know whether other channels will be cheap enough if you don’t give it a shot. And you don’t have to spend a lot to “give it a shot”. You can spend, idk, $1,000 on a handful of different channels, see what results you get, and go from there. The potential that it proves to be a cheaper acquisition channel justifies the cost.
This is what I’ll call 6th grade logic. Meanwhile, Widget Corp has a tough interview process, testing you on what I’ll call 16th grade logic. And then on the job they have people apply that 16th grade logic on various analyses.
But that is premature, I say. First make sure that you’re applying the 6th grade logic correctly. Then, and only then, move on to 16th grade logic.
I wonder if this has any implications with xrisk stuff. There probably aren’t low hanging fruit at the level of 6th grade logic but I wonder whether there are at the level of, say, 12th grade logic and we’re spending too much time banging our heads on really difficult 22nd grade stuff.
Is “grade” of logic documented somewhere? The jumps from 6 to 12 to 16 to 22 confuse me, implying a lot more precision than I think is justified.
It’s an interesting puzzle why widgetco, who hires only competent logicians, is unable to apply logic to their hiring. My suspicion is that cost/effectiveness isn’t the true objection, and this is an isolated demand for rigor.
6th vs 16th grade logic
I want to write something about 6th grade logic vs 16th grade logic.
I was talking to someone, call them Alice, who works at a big well known company, call it Widget Corp. Widget Corp needs to advertise to hire people. They only advertise on Indeed and Google though.
Alice was telling me that she wants to explore some other channels (LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, etc.). But in order to do that, Widget Corp needs evidence that advertising on those channels would be cheap enough. They’re on a budget and really want to avoid spending money they don’t have to, you see.
But that’s really, really, Not How This Works. You can’t know whether other channels will be cheap enough if you don’t give it a shot. And you don’t have to spend a lot to “give it a shot”. You can spend, idk, $1,000 on a handful of different channels, see what results you get, and go from there. The potential that it proves to be a cheaper acquisition channel justifies the cost.
This is what I’ll call 6th grade logic. Meanwhile, Widget Corp has a tough interview process, testing you on what I’ll call 16th grade logic. And then on the job they have people apply that 16th grade logic on various analyses.
But that is premature, I say. First make sure that you’re applying the 6th grade logic correctly. Then, and only then, move on to 16th grade logic.
I wonder if this has any implications with xrisk stuff. There probably aren’t low hanging fruit at the level of 6th grade logic but I wonder whether there are at the level of, say, 12th grade logic and we’re spending too much time banging our heads on really difficult 22nd grade stuff.
Is “grade” of logic documented somewhere? The jumps from 6 to 12 to 16 to 22 confuse me, implying a lot more precision than I think is justified.
It’s an interesting puzzle why widgetco, who hires only competent logicians, is unable to apply logic to their hiring. My suspicion is that cost/effectiveness isn’t the true objection, and this is an isolated demand for rigor.
I was totally just making up numbers and didn’t mean to imply any sort of precision. Sorry for the confusion.