{"id":996,"date":"2012-11-20T23:46:59","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T06:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dubinko.info\/blog\/?p=996"},"modified":"2012-11-20T23:46:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T06:46:59","slug":"hedgehogs-and-foxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubinko.info\/blog\/2012\/11\/hedgehogs-and-foxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedgehogs and Foxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Nate Sliver’s new book<\/a>, he mentions a classification system for experts, originally from Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock, along a spectrum of Fox <—> Hedgehog. (The nomenclature comes from an essay about Tolstoy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Hedgehogs are type A personalities who believe in Big Ideas. The are ideologues and go “all-in” on whatever they’re espousing. A great many pundits fall into this category.<\/p>\n

Foxes are scrappy creatures who believe in a plethora of little ideas and in taking different approaches toward a problem, and are more tolerant of nuance, uncertainty, complexity, and dissent.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of social situations (broadly construed) where hedgehogs seem to have the upper hand. Talking heads on TV are a huge example, but so are many fixtures in the tech world, Malcolm Gladwell, say. Most of the places I’ve worked at have at least a subtle hedgehog-bias toward hiring, promotions, and career development.<\/p>\n

To some degree, I think this stems from a lack of self-awareness. Brash pundits come across better on the big screen; they grab your attention and take a bold stand for sometihing–who wouldn’t like that? But if you take pause and think about what they’re saying or (horror) go back an measure their predictions after-the-fact, they don’t look nearly so good. Foxes are better at getting things right.<\/p>\n

It seems like we’ve just been through a phase of more-obnoxious-than-usual punditry, and I found this spectrum a useful way to look at things. How about you? Are you paying more attention to hedgehogs when you\u00c2\u00a0probably\u00c2\u00a0should be listening to the foxes?<\/p>\n

-m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Nate Sliver’s new book, he mentions a classification system for experts, originally from Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock, along a spectrum of Fox <—> Hedgehog. (The nomenclature comes from an essay about Tolstoy.) Hedgehogs are type A personalities who believe in Big Ideas. The are ideologues and go “all-in” on whatever they’re espousing. A great…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34,284,17],"tags":[555,1106,1107,1110,1105,1109,1108,294],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercialism","category-geekthoughts","category-trends","tag-analysis","tag-foxes","tag-hedgehogs","tag-listening","tag-natesilver","tag-punditry","tag-tolstoy","tag-understanding"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t