General and Surprising
19 hours ago
- The most valuable insights are both general and surprising, like F=ma, but this combination is rare.
- Most insights are either surprising without being general (gossip) or general without being surprising (platitudes).
- Moderately valuable insights come from adding a small amount of the missing quality: usually adding generality to gossip or adding novelty to general ideas.
- Focusing on general ideas and adding a small delta of novelty is a viable approach; a small novelty is often all you can achieve, but it can have a large multiplier effect.
- Don't be discouraged if your ideas seem similar to existing ones; 'not much new' is a real achievement for general ideas.
- The more general the ideas, the less you should worry about repeating yourself, as variation in repetition can yield that critical delta of novelty.
- Ideas beget ideas; a small novelty can lead to greater novelty if you persist.
- There is a significant difference between 'nothing new' and 'almost nothing new' when multiplied by the vast scope of the world.