5. Riff on Ambition 🔗
August 2, 2017
In which I propose measuring ambition in "baby equivalents" — open-ended commitments that, if successful, demand indefinite attention — and explore why we rationally lower our sights as we age, even when we're not losing.
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1/ So slightly more structured follow-on to this unstructured riff on ambition
I'm getting curious about psychology of shrinking horizons with age. 20% is learning limits, 20% adulting constraints, but 60% = mystery...
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2/ A good unit for ambition is "baby equivalents." We already talk figuratively of projects as "babies", so why not formalize intuition
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3/ It is traditional in the US today to measure babies in terms of how much they cost ($1 million for middle class baby through college)
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4/ But this is the wrong way around. Children are the measure of economics-priced things, not the other way around.
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5/ One child is basically a certain fraction of no-strings/no-preset-budget time/quality attention allocation for rest of life
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6/ Memetic children have higher infant mortality rate, but the principle is the same. I'd guess one childbirth (for men)= writing 3 books
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7/ Not all projects are ambition vehicles, or comparable to children. Close-ended projects with end date are not like children.
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8/ The reason a book is like a child is that if it succeeds enough, it is an indefinite demand on your attention
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9/ A flop book, or a mercenary/tactical book for which you have no ambitions beyond a seasonal fad harvest is like an child that dies young
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10/ More calibration. An ordinary startup is like 1 child. If it grows into unicorn, it's like 3-4 kids for the founder if they stay with it
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11/ Political ambitions I think are higher. A local election bid is like 1 child if you win. National-level is like 2. President=10
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12/ The trick to baby equivalent things is that if they succeed, they demand particular levels of attention/commitment for rest of life
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13/ So we actually bring the same kind of thinking to managing ambition as we do to child-rearing and ask similar questions
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14/ How much will it cost? Is it sick? Will it go to college? How many can I afford to have?
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15/ Answering my own q about why we lower sights through life in general if we're not winning egregiously, baby-economics provides answer
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16/ Merely making money is a close-ended problem to be solved, whether your horizon is the next month, the next year or retirement stash
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17/ A baby or baby-equivalent though is an open-ended commitment where it only makes sense if you are willing to plan for success
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18/ It is fine to view paychecks as just a close-ended way to pay bills. It's dumb not to wish a book to be open-ended success
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19/ Similarly, close-ended "3x flip in 2 years" startup logic doesn't work for same reason "have baby and kill it at age 3" doesn't work
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20/ So ambition is best understood as your personal process of budgeting for open-ended commitments through life, predicated on success
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21/ Fewer people found startups at 40 than 25 (though more who do succeed) same reason fewer people have kids late (bio clock aside)...
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22/ You rationally estimate that your available rest-of-life open-ended best-case attention budget for "one more kid" gets lower with age
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23/ So to summarize: measure your ambitions in baby-equivalent units and take on what you think you can actually raise if successful
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24/ Oh, and one more thing... the way you compute ambition is marginal, same as kids. "Can I afford 1 more kid?" is always the question.
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25/ PS: choosing not to have kids/being anti-natalist is familiar.There is also choosing to have no memetic kids/being memetic-anti-natalist
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26/ Okay I'm not done. Couple more points. First r/K selection applies to baby-equivs too. Deep invest in 1 or shallow invest in 10 babies?
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27/ And finally, there's male (sperm) and female (egg+incubation) cheap/costly attitudes towards kid-equiv projects.
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28/ Many of both genders bring "deadbeat dad" sensibilities to baby-equiv projects (monorail!). Doesn't work unless someone plays mom.