Not Failing Is a Way to Fail

gadrian in #hive-150329 • 4 days ago

I've seen this way to express this concept by Amanda Askell, a PhD in... Philosophy, which, although it's a real thing, sounds kind of redundant since PhD translates to "Doctor in Philosophy". 🤔

She works as an AI researcher for Anthropic on Claude's character and personality, and I saw her in an interview by Lex Fridman talking mostly about Claude, Anthropic's generative AI model.

This topic was marginal in the discussion, but it inspired my post for today.

I've seen this concept expressed in different ways before. From Thomas Edison's famous quote after he finally invented the incandescent light bulbs, which lasted an impressive (at the time) 14.5 hours...

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

to more recent interpretations as "Failing Forward" in personal development (John C. Maxwell), most interpretations I've seen revolve around the need to fail in order to achieve success.

Sometimes AIs are surprising... This is an image for "complacency". A "man sitting on a rock in the middle of a serene lake" seems quite fitting for someone who doesn't want to disturb the status quo.

What Amanda Askell did was to flip this. Practically, by negating the whole sentence "failing is a way to succeed", you get "not failing is a way to fail".

This is equally powerful, if not more. Because no one wants to fail in what they are doing. But at the same time, enough people don't want to take chances. They are good with the situation they are in, they don't thrive to improve anything. In many cases this is because they are afraid of losing what they already have.

But we humans are explorers by nature. The hardships of life made some of us more cautious. And to explore means to take chances, which may succeed or fail.

I believe "not failing as a way to fail" is seen as complacency, as a cap we hit and don't want to push through. That's why it ends in failure. Because you don't thrive to be the best version of yourself.

I thought it was an interesting shift of the concept. What do you think?

Posted Using InLeo Alpha

#failing #success #exploring #complacency #proofofbrain #bbh

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josediccus 3 days ago

"not failing as a way to fail" is deep, and it takes some massive deep thinking to understand.
Failure is powerful, and sometimes I think we have to fail less than we succeed more to constantly keep taking risk. When people fail more than they succeed, they just become too careful

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gadrian 3 days ago

When people fail more than they succeed, they just become too careful

There is that too. It's fear of failure, and especially happens when failure may have consequences on the life of the people attempting different things, either financially or in the way people look at them after they fail.

I read somewhere that Thomas Edison was criticized and laughed at intensely while failing to produce this incandescent light bulb. But he persevered and eventually succeeded. Not everyone would be able to go through the same scrutiny while failing and keep going. Luckily, most people don't have to, but they can still "fail forward" in their quasi-anonymity.

"Not failing as a way to fail" is a way of saying people don't take the chances to live up to their potential. And that, in a way, is failing.

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jfang003 3 days ago

I think it's an interesting way to look at things. A lot of things experienced failure before it became something we can use. Mistakes are a common thing but what we can take away from it is important. Learning from it and succeeding after is important. I do agree that mistakes hurt though and we generally don't want to face it if we can avoid it.

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gadrian 3 days ago

Indeed. Avoiding mistakes is sometimes a protection mechanism, but one that prevents us from reaching a higher potential.

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relf87 3 days ago

I agree with this to a large extent. My view has always been not taking risks is actually a risk itself. I have seen so many people around me, fully satisfied putting their hard earn monies in bank deposits for 3% p.a. because they didn't want to risk losing a single dollar, when they could have bought in a S&P500 ETF or something.

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gadrian 3 days ago

My view has always been not taking risks is actually a risk itself.

That's another way to express that to not fail is a way to fail. Your example is very good, since there are many such people, practically paralyzed by fear. Some do not understand they are losing money in the bank, but others do, but are so afraid of the alternatives that they prefer to lose money to inflation than to take risk with a composite index ETF. Lack of financial literacy has a big role in these decisions too. They are afraid of what they don't understand.

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