Today we're going to think about how to think fresh. Think as if you're solving a problem from a blank slate. To think in First Principles. And let's start in space, with rockets.
First Principles Thinking
The USSR, in 1961, were the first to put a man in space, and it was a massive propaganda victory. You need to understand the context. The USSR was in an ideological war with America. It was capitalism against communism. So that same year, the president John F. Kennedy made a proposal to send a man on the moon by the end of the decade. But really, it was a challenge to the USSR. Which ideology could achieve what had never been achieved before. In other words, who would be more successful. Massive budgets were unlocked and NASA started to work on rockets.
And I need to slip that in because I love this quote. But to get more support for his proposal, John F. Kennedy did a famous speech in 1962, and he said: "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard".
That always inspired me, as a person. Humanity should challenge itself to do things that are hard. Things that have never been done before. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Apparently Neil Armstrong came up with the sentence alone, and he meant to say one small step for a man to contrast the individual to the collective.
But anyways, let's return to the rockets. Nasa was not limited by budget. And as any engineer would know, it's very easy to create a design that is very complex, but it's very hard to develop a design that is very simple. It's always easier to add something new to fix a problem rather than changing was is already designed to give it another function, or more strength. But that's where the history lesson ends today. At the design of these rockets.
It's easier to create things that are complex than things that are simple
Now, let us fast forward to a few years ago. Rockets were designed the same way as in the 60's. They were still effective in doing what they had to do. However, their design had not changed much. It was too costly to design new rockets from scratch. After all, the experience from Nasa was to design rockets with unlimited budget.
And now, let's introduce a contention character in this story: Elon Musk. He popularized the idea of first principle thinking. But obviously, this way of think does not belong to anyone. Aristotle believed that knowledge should start from fundamental truths that cannot be deduced from anything else. René Descartes is famous for writing "Je pense, donc je suis", which was translated to "I think, therefore I am". It was an aim at creating this fundamental truth. Albert Einstein set aside existing theories and started from fundamental questions. But you get the idea now.
Before going deeper into first principle thinking, let's finish the story of the rockets. So Elon Musk challenged two ideas about rockets. First, their cost. Analysis the cost of the raw materials for rockets, he did not accept industry price tags. Second, he challenged the fact that rockets could not be reused. It was just how it was done. But with technology today, particularly system's control, that limitation of reusing a rocket was no longer one. And that's what SpaceX did. It redesigned rockets to be cheaper, using more recent technology, and making them reusable by having them flip back as they fall, stabilize themselves and land upright. That is a good example of first principle thinking.
So basically, first principle thinking is solving problems by going back to the foundation Instead of asking of "how is this usually done", or "how can we improve what we have"? You ask: "what is the essence of what we're trying to do and what should we do to get there?" Sometimes it will mean that you use what is already there, and sometimes you'll have to go in a completely new direction.
Most of us think in analogies. What that means is that we compare to what you can observe from what is already there to make an opinion on what to do. It's natural. More efficient as you don't have to think from scratch. But sometimes, we should stop to think from scratch. For example, if society tells us that successful people are hustlers, then you would think that becoming a hustler is the way to be successful. If you hear that successful people wake up at 5 am, run, do yoga, and then take a cold shower, you will think that this is what you need to be successful. But, let's stop for a minute and define success. Everyone is different, so would it make sense that the definition of success is different from one person to the other? Can we challenge the common definition of success? Could it be something else than monetary success? Having a high paying job, bringing your kids to Disneyland, having a big house. Maybe success is instead being a good parent. A good partner. A good friend. Having a fulfilling job that makes an impact that you want to see in the world. What if that was the definition of success? Then would it not be easier to be successful?
Every human is unique
Humans think in analogies
With first principle thinking, we challenge these assumptions and come up with our own definitions of what we really want to do, no what we are told to do. We challenge what is usually done. We challenge the default, and we try to think from scratch. But there is a distinction that I want to make. Thinking from scratch is not the same as building from scratch. You can think from scratch but still build with existing tools and parts.
So how do you apply first principles thinking? The first step is to clearly define what you are trying to achieve. What is you end vision without limitations and constraints? Then, you need to figure out what you need to do to achieve the end vision. Oftentimes we focus too much on constraints and change our end vision to fit the constraints. To think in first principles, you need to be able to see through these constraints, making them flexible rather than rigid. And this happens not just with rockets...
Take the education system for instance. It was inherited from the British empire. It assumes that standardized testing is the best way to educate people. But is that really true? What is the goal of the education system? To educate next generation so that they can build a better world and live good lives. There is learning that required for educating people. But does testing them through exams and assignments that are out of a 100% really the best way to do that? Hmm. We have all taken exams in our lives and we all know how stressful it can be, and how you can perform poorly when you're tired or sick or sad. So the evaluation doesn't really represent your actual learning. It's a proxy for it, and it aims to be standardized. Why is that? Because one goal of the current education system is to rank people. They want to know who are doing the best. But we all know that some really smart people did not do well in school. So what's the problem here? We don't foster creativity, personal growth and actual understanding. It values short-term memorization, which doesn't stick with time. Then what about what is taught? Does the education system teach about basic life skills, like mental health, and how to have healthy relationships? No, it doesn't because that's hard to evaluate, isn't it? The education system has lost it's vision and is focusing on it's constraints of having to evaluate students and rank them from worse to best.
It's similar for healthcare systems. Where there is free healthcare, the hospitals are constantly overcrowded. Where healthcare is not free, many people don't have enough to pay their hospital bills. Now look at their focus. The focus of hospitals now is treat illnesses when they appear. You only go to see the doctor when you are sick. But is that what healthcare should really be about? Should it not focus on having healthy people? Certainly that would bring less money into the hospitals if people were healthier. But that's another topic. What I want to stress here is that healthcare should be as much about prevention than treatment. But funny enough, when you look into traditional medicines, it was mostly about prevention. And I know about the argument that people are living longer than ever before. But to me, that is not a proof that the healthcare system as a whole works well. It is a proof that we have the technology to fix issues as they arise. But we're dealing with mental health crisis. What has the healthcare system have done for this? We prescribe pills. Another treatment approach to a problem, instead of focusing on prevention.
We reduce down mental health to oxytocin and dopamine. But just ask your grandparents, and they'll say we spend too much time in sitting in front of screens, and not enough time outside. Or that we spend too much time alone instead of in community. We should focus back into having healthy lifestyles, and that may mean to merge some part of the healthcare system with the education system to educate people on healthy lifestyles. And of course, I'm not saying that we should stop treating illnesses, but readjust the system to do what it is supposed to do. Before changing topic, I want to ask a couple questions. Why does being a doctor or nurse sometimes mean not being able to have a healthy lifestyle? What does that tell you about the healthcare system when the ones that support it are not able to be healthy?
I feel like it's time to start rethinking these systems from scratch. Rethinking how we can live our lives. Imagining that we're on another planet, having been tasked to rebuild society from scratch actually is good analogy for us at this moment. It is these thought experiments that can change our perspectives. And that's something that science fiction, of all things, does really well, because it doesn't have any limitations.
Now, an interesting question. What would we do about climate change if we didn't have any limitations? Think about it for second.
I'm sure that a lot of people would say that we would spend money to invest in sustainable energy, to force transition to electrics cars, to plant 10 billion trees. Or we would invest in a new technology to decarbonize the atmosphere. Basically, using technology to reduce carbon emissions. But let's challenge that assumption. Is technology enough? First world countries have all the technologies in the world, but they are who pollutes the most. Is the goal to reduce carbon emissions, to increase carbon storage, or something else? Could it be that the real problem is how much we consume? How much of our economy is built on extracting and throwing out? Let me end here for now, as we'll get back to climate change.
Let me wrap up by doing a recap on first principles thinking. It helps escape the saying "We've always done it this way" by replacing it by "this is the way that we want it done." It challenges the status quo of how we do things. It creates innovations and more effective solutions because it sees past constraints, allowing us to think with more originality. First principle thinking is why innovations get away from what is usually done. Let me give you a metaphor to remember more easily. Most people use the toolbox that they have inherited. A first principle thinker will build their own toolbox. Instead of asking "what can I build with the tools I have", they will ask "What tools do I need to build the things I want." For your personal life, start thinking about what assumptions you make about different aspects of your life. Things that you assume are the right way because that's "Just how it's done". Think about how you view success. About how you eat. About how you spend your time. And, for the purpose of this course, think about how you think.