How to Be an Expert in a Changing World

December 2014 If the world were static, we could have monotonically increasing confidence in our beliefs.

2014 年 12 月 如果世界是静态的，我们对自己信念的信心可能会单调增加。

The more (and more varied) experience a belief survived, the less likely it would be false.

一种信仰所经历的经历越多（也越多样化），它就越不可能是错误的。

Most people implicitly believe something like this about their opinions.

大多数人隐含地相信他们的观点是这样的。

And they're justified in doing so with opinions about things that don't change much, like human nature.

他们对那些不会发生太大变化的事物（例如人性）的看法这样做是合理的。

But you can't trust your opinions

但你不能相信你的意见

in the same way about things that change, which could include practically everything else.

对于变化的事物也是如此，这实际上可能包括其他一切。

When experts are wrong, it's often because they're experts on an earlier version of the world.

当专家犯错时，通常是因为他们是早期版本世界的专家。

Is it possible to avoid that?

有可能避免这种情况吗？

Can you protect yourself against obsolete beliefs?

你能保护自己免受过时信念的影响吗？

To some extent, yes.

在某种程度上，是的。

I spent almost a decade investing in early stage startups, and curiously enough protecting yourself against obsolete beliefs is exactly what you have to do

我花了近十年的时间投资早期初创公司，奇怪的是，保护自己免受过时信念的影响正是你必须做的

to succeed as a startup investor.

作为一名成功的初创投资者。

Most really good startup ideas look like bad ideas at first, and many of those look bad specifically because some change in the world just switched them from bad to good.

大多数真正好的创业想法一开始看起来都像坏主意，其中许多看起来很糟糕，特别是因为世界上的一些变化只是将它们从坏变成了好。

I spent a lot of time learning to recognize such ideas, and the techniques I used may be applicable to ideas in general.

我花了很多时间学习识别这些想法，而且我使用的技术可能适用于一般的想法。

The first step is to have an explicit belief in change.

第一步是对变革有明确的信念。

People who fall victim to a monotonically increasing confidence in their

人们对自己的信心单调地增加，成为受害者

opinions are implicitly concluding the world is static.

观点含蓄地得出世界是静态的结论。

If you consciously remind yourself it isn't, you start to look for change.

如果你有意识地提醒自己事实并非如此，你就会开始寻求改变。

Where should one look for it?

应该去哪里寻找呢？

Beyond the moderately useful generalization that human nature doesn't change much, the unfortunate fact is that change is hard to predict.

除了人性不会发生太大变化这一比较有用的概括之外，不幸的事实是变化很难预测。

This is largely a tautology but worth remembering all the same: change that matters usually comes from an unforeseen quarter.

这在很大程度上是同义反复，但仍然值得记住：重要的变化通常来自不可预见的方面。

So I don't even try to predict it.

所以我什至不尝试预测它。

When I get asked in interviews to predict the future, I always have to struggle to come up with something plausible-sounding on the fly, like a student who hasn't prepared for an exam.

当我在面试中被要求预测未来时，我总是不得不努力想出一些听起来似乎合理的东西，就像一个还没有准备考试的学生一样。

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