How Ideas Grow
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Saved by Paul Sturrock and
How Ideas Grow
If we want to accomplish our goals, we need thenarratives driving our actions to be accurate and useful. We also need other people to buy the narratives we believe in if we want to attract customers, investors, employees, or any other kind of partner. So it’s worth understanding where they come from and how they grow.
How Ideas Grow
If you just want to get by in life, it’s fine to rely on the default set of narratives that saturate your culture. But the more original and ambitious your goals are, the more you need world-class narrative skills: both on the buy and the sell side.
How Ideas Grow
“Having a shared set of narratives, concepts, and symbols is the basis, ultimately, for all culture — religious, national, ethnic, commercial, scientific, etc. How can you operate in biology if you’re not familiar with Darwin? How can you operate in tech if you’re not fluent in Aggregation Theory? You can’t. Even if you think the ideas are wrong, i... See more
How Ideas Grow
you have to find the environment where these reference points become common
Because network effects are an exponential function, it can feel as if not much is happening for a really long time even though you’re on the right path.
How Ideas Grow
Let’s say you buy that narratives have network effects. What can we do about it? How can we use this knowledge to help us on the buy side (having more useful narratives in our heads driving our actions) and on the sell side (making our narratives and ideas spread and gain network effects of their own)?
How Ideas Grow
Great question
So how can we get people to accept a new idea? Show how it is a natural extension of the things they already believe.
How Ideas Grow
This is the fundamental basis of narrative network effects: Without shared narratives, we can’t connect. And every time a narrative gets used, it’s reinforced and is that much more likely to be useful again in the future.
How Ideas Grow
Yes, but it also loses its power as it becomes less original. Unless it’s a very powerful narrative. In which case, where does that power come from.
Truth? Relevance? What else?
Every product we buy, every job we take, every relationship we have, and all the decisions we make are based on narratives—stories that explain how the world works and what’s going on in it. The narratives we believe determine our actions.
How Ideas Grow
So how can we get people to accept a new idea? Show how it is a natural extension of the things they already believe. Sure, evidence also helps, but no amount of evidence will make someone believe a story they’re skeptical of.