Principles

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky

The Shirky Principle

Tell a wise person or else keep silent

Get very good at being corrected without getting offended

Do my expectations match my level of effort? Make sure that they do, and if they don’t, adjust one to match the other

I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will: I am completely powerless.

I can only make myself independent of the world – and so in a certain sense master it – by renouncing any influence on happenings