思考与写作theatlantic.com
许多“愚蠢”的事其实都有合理解释
A lot of “idiotic” things have reasonable explanations (2011)
2011 — 2020，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇《大西洋月刊》的文章以 Netflix 分拆 Qwikster 引发的舆论风波为例，指出很多看似“愚蠢”的商业决策背后其实有合理的原因——决策者往往掌握着外人看不到的信息和约束条件。文章提醒读者，在嘲笑别人是白痴之前，先想想为什么自己没有因此发财。
为什么经久不衰：它揭示了一种普遍的认知偏差：我们习惯用“愚蠢”或“邪恶”解释他人的决策，却忽略了信息不对称和运气的作用，这一教训在今天的网络讨论中依然适用。
HN 评论精选
看似荒唐的要求往往是精心设计的检验机制，用来发现没认真做事的人
我喜欢另一个类似的故事，关于著名的范·海伦乐队合同里“不许有棕色 M&M 巧克力豆”的条款：他们是第一支把超大型演出制作带到三线小城市的乐队，带着九辆十八轮卡车，而当时的标准最多三辆，场地经常出现承重不足、地板下陷等技术问题。合同技术部分写得像黄页一样厚，所以他们在其中埋了一个小测试：第 126 条写着“后台不得出现棕色 M&M，违者取消演出并全额赔偿”。如果我走到后台看到碗里有棕色 M&M，那就要彻查整个制作环节——保证会发现技术错误，因为他们根本没读合同。有时这甚至会威胁到人身安全。
GlenTheMachine查看英文原文
A similar story that I love regarding the infamous Van Halen brown M&M contract rider: “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say “Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes …” This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl … well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.” https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/
骂人白痴是归因错误，成功更多靠运气而非聪明
人们骂别人是白痴而不去理解他们如何犯错，是因为基本归因错误，我们都会这样。人的成功主要靠运气——机会、人脉、成长环境都是运气。有一种有害的倾向是用成功反推聪明：最明显的例子就是美国总统，他因为成功而深信自己聪明，但没几个理性的人会认为他是天才。而 spectrum 另一端，几十亿穷人中显然有无法摆脱处境的无名天才。我们都会犯错，但我们不去理解别人的错误，只骂他们是白痴；即使比成功者更聪明，我们也未必能成功。
BlackFly查看英文原文
People call people idiots instead of trying to understand how they made a mistake because of fundamental attribution error. We all do it. People are predominantly successful because of luck. Opportunity, connections, upbringing, all luck. Yes, you still need to make the right decision at the right time. There is a pernicious tendency to make a fallacious argument for intelligence because of success; that is, people become convinced of intelligence because of success. The most obvious example today is the president of the USA. He is convinced of his own intelligence because clearly he is one of the most successful people in the country. I don't think many reasonable people would argue for his genius. On the other end of the spectrum, it seems obvious to me that in the billions of poor people on this planet there is an unknown genius unable to escape his or her circumstances. We make mistakes. We don't try to understand the mistakes of others as we call them idiots. We are not necessarily capable of succeeding even if we are smarter than those that have.
用“他们就是坏”解释他人行为是另一种终结思考的懒惰归因
近几年另一种变体似乎统治了网络讨论：“某人做某事是因为他们邪恶（或富有）”。比如 HN 上关于隐私的讨论，常常被“公司做这个是因为想毁掉你的隐私”这类终结思考的评论带偏；Reddit 上则是“政客做某事是因为他们邪恶”。当动机不明确时，我通常是想进讨论弄清原因——但更多时候，我只是带着和作者一样的感受离开。
iEchoic查看英文原文
Another form of this that seems to have taken over online discussions in the last few years is “<person> did <thing> because they are evil” (or rich). As an example, I’ve noticed that privacy-related discussion on HN is often thought-terminated by comments that reduce down to “<company> is doing <perceived privacy-destroying thing> because they want to destroy your privacy”. On reddit, a common form of this is “<politician> is doing <something implausibly comic book villain-y> because they are evil”. When the motive isn’t clear, I often enter these discussions trying to learn more about why - but more often than not, I just leave feeling the same way as the author here.
被颠覆的公司每个决策都合理，问题在于度量了错误的指标
我听过克莱顿·克里斯坦森的一个重要观点：在位公司被小玩家颠覆，往往不是因为他们无能或决策糟糕——沿途的每个决定看起来都完全合理。克里斯坦森最终把它归结为度量问题：人们在度量错误的东西，因此在为错误的问题做优化。我认为这篇文章正确地指出 Hastings 不傻，只是因为处境而被逼进了死角。
joebadmo查看英文原文
One of the important points I've heard Clay Christensen make is that incumbent companies often get destroyed (disrupted) by small players not because they're incompetent, or even because they're making bad decisions. Each decision along the way seems perfectly rational. Christensen frames it ultimately as a problem of measurement, that people are measuring the wrong thing, therefore optimizing for or solving the wrong problem. I think this article correctly points out that Hastings isn't stupid, but he's in a tight spot, just because of the circumstances.
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