Develop an Anti-Education + Find Your Specific Knowledge

Nugget from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Naval Ravikant

Hello Friend!

Today’s edition is based on Nassim Taleb’s idea of developing an Anti-Education, and we will also see how it leads to Naval Ravikant’s concept of “Specific Knowledge”.

Why is important to develop an Anti-Education and find your Specific Knowledge?

• As Nassim and Naval argue, if you only focus on formal education (from the Education System—Schools, University…) you will only learn things that are already “priced-in” (purely competitive) and you will be completely replaceable.

• Having a Specific Knowledge is important for developing an edge that will differentiate you and make you stand out from the crowd.

👤 Authors

💡Nugget

✦ Nassim Taleb:

[Formal] Education is not very good because—in high doses—selects for those who don't know how to handle uncertainty.

And this is why great scientists—like Darwin, Einstein…—are people who were not into the traditional Education System.

Simply because it kills creativity and all that stuff…

— — —

So when I was about 14 I decided to become a writer.

And I realized that if you stick to school… it narrows what you're going to know. And to be a writer you have to read a lot of books [you need a broad knowledge].

So I started reading wholesale and it saved me [from] the bad part of Education—where you have to read a certain number of books [which] narrows your education.

And then I developed very quickly an Anti-education.

I think the only way you can learn things is if you are autodidact.

"What I learn on my own I still remember." 
- Nassim Taleb (The Bed of Procrustes)

It allows you not just to have a breadth of things, but to focus on things that are really important to you—not to some second-rate person who teaches [at] High School.

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
- Mark Twain

"Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion." - Naval Ravikant

[Question from the interviewer, Bruce Oreck]

“But obviously in an engineered world, in a world that is so technically complicated… you’ve got to have some [formal] education?

[Nassim Taleb]

It's good to have a minimal [formal] education, but not to focus on school.

Because anything people teach you at school is useless already…

[That’s] one thing you learn as a trader: anything you're going to read on the newspaper—say the first 15 pages of the newspaper—is of absolutely no relevance to anything… It's already “priced in”. It's the same way to view [formal] education.

Apprenticeship—which is more tinkering, trial and error…—it’s vastly more important than [formal] education.

Video Clip → Nassim Taleb on developing an Anti-education

Nassim argues that anything you learn at school or read on the newspapers, is already "priced in" (so the potential profit is competed away).

The only way to generate superior returns is by developing your specific knowledge (by pursuing your genuine interests) or gain experience from apprenticeship.

"Extreme people get extreme results"
- Sam Altman

Let's now hear Naval Ravikant on the concept of "Specific Knowledge", which is the direct outcome of developing an Anti-education...

✦ Naval Ravikant:

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your curiosity.

— — —

Specific knowledge can’t be trained…

If you can be trained for it, if you can go to a class and learn specific knowledge, then somebody else can be trained for it too, and then we [Society] can mass-produce and mass-train people. Heck, we can even program computers to do it and eventually we can program robots to walk around doing it.

So, if that’s the case, then you’re extremely replaceable and all we [Society] have to pay you is the minimum wage that we have to pay you to get you to do it—when there are lots of other takers who can be trained to do it.

So really, your returns just devolve into your cost of training plus the return on investment on that training.

— — —

So, you really want to pick up specific knowledge.

You need your schooling, you need your training—to be able to capitalize on the best specific knowledge—but the part of it that you’re going to get paid for is the specific knowledge.

— — —

For example, someone who goes and gets a degree in psychology and then becomes a salesperson…

Well, if they were already a formidable salesperson, a high-grade salesmanship to begin with, then the psychology degree is leverage, it arms them and they do much better at sales.

But if they were always an introvert never very good at sales and they’re trying to use psychology to learn sales, they’re just not going to get that great at it.

— — —

So, specific knowledge is found much more by pursuing your innate talents, your genuine curiosity, and your passion. It’s not by going to school for whatever is the hottest job, it’s not for going into whatever field investors say is the hottest.

Video Clip → Naval Ravikant on Specific Knowledge

If you want to learn more about Specific Knowledge, check out the video I made:

📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).

I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.

🤔 Why did I build this?

Well, as the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!

For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.

It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.

And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.

“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”

- Naval Ravikant

I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.

So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇

💥 Stuff I Loved

Remarkable Clip → ⏳ 1:10:34 - 1:11:47 ⌛️

(the video automatically plays at the start of the Clip)

This particular clip was so insightful to me.

Ryan Holiday, author of many best-seller books on Stoicism, commented that the Stoics don’t have an indifference on things outside their control, they actually have a “preferred indifference”.

This means that even though they are indifferent with the outcomes, they do have a preference on them!

They certainly *want* a specific outcome, it’s just that they are not *attached* to it.

They have *desires* on things, but they are not *dependent* on them to be happy.

I think this concept of “preferred indifference” is super powerful, because it’s intrinsic to humans to have desires and expectations—and it’s very useful—but if we can also not be dependent on them, it’s like having the cake and eating it at the same time!

All upside, no downside!

“Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.”

- Marcus Aurelius

If you don’t know the trajectory of Winston Churchill before becoming PM of United Kingdom, you’ll find his story absolutely fascinating!

If we take Nassim Taleb’s quote:“You have a calibrated life when most of what you fear has the titillating prospect of adventure.” → Then Churchill’s life is one of the most calibrated I have ever come across—his extreme levels of boldness and confidence were super inspiring to me!

If you enjoyed this newsletter edition, consider fueling 🔥 my work with an absurdly massive (or small) donation ✨

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Julio xx

P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!