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Tags: epistemology
Re-invent the wheel
“Don’t re-invent the wheel” is a phrase I heard many times in Sales. It was a call to copy what already works as a way to get the results without the (wasted) effort of inventing a good system from the ground up. In productivity and systems thinking, this can be a huge advantage which allows us to save time and pain by learning from other people’s mistakes.
What goes wrong is when this is applied to conceptual skills like thinking. Results (good ideas) from other people can help for a little bit, (particularly if we lack expertise) but it’s a huge barrier between the Imposter-syndrome people and becoming a real expert.
As Shopenhauer puts it in Do your own thinking when we lack the ability to work through these ideas ourselves and evaluate them at a deep level we won’t ever be able to iterate and create something better.