Tim Harford

pluralism experience people place challenge discipline psychedel

“Pluralism matters because life is not worth living without new experiences - new people, new places, new challenges. But discipline matters too; we cannot simply treat life as a psychedelic trip through a series of novel sensations.”

― Tim Harford

life measure account economist

“There is much more to life than what gets measured in accounts. Even economists know that.”

― Tim Harford

university executive architecture money research campus

"Of course nobody cares what the people who actually do the work might want or need. Chief executives exult in bold architectural statements, and universities find it easier to raise money for new buildings than for research."

—Tim Harford

plan enemy failure adaption titanic

"There's nothing wrong with a plan, but remember Von Moltke's famous dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The danger is a plan that seduces us into thinking failure is impossible and adaptation is unnecessary - a kind of ‘Titanic' plan, unsinkable (until it hits the iceberg)."

― Tim Harford

design better world feedback loop

"We should not try to design a better world. We should make better feedback loops."

― Tim Harford

people economist better world

"People today dont become economists to make the world a better place."

― Tim Harford

british politician mislead lying lie

"British politicians used to be good at misleading people without actually lying."

― Tim Harford

complex system successful evolve trial error

"You show me a successful complex system, and I will show you a system that has evolved through trial and error."

― Tim Harford

success fix mistake right first time

"Success Comes Through Rapidly Fixing our Mistakes Rather than Getting Things Right the First Time."

― Tim Harford

plan contact enemy leader adapt

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy. What matters is how quickly the leader is able to adapt.”

― Tim Harford

dictator economy steal

“The dictator has to keep the economy functioning in order to keep stealing from it.”

― Tim Harford

evolution algorithm variation selection solution world change

“The evolutionary algorithm — of variation and selection, repeated — searches for solutions in a world where the problems keep changing, trying all sorts of variants and doing more of what works.”

― Tim Harford

failure innovation price pay

“Here’s the thing about failure in innovation: it’s a price worth paying.”

― Tim Harford

failure inevitable economy innovation

"Failure's inevitable. It happens all the time in a complex economy. And how did the economy produce all these amazing things that we have around us, computers and cell phones and so on? Well, the process was trial and error. There were a bunch of ideas, and the good ones grew and prospered, and the bad ones were pretty ruthlessly weeded out."

― Tim Harford

process learning failure discard

"If the whole process of learning from failure means discarding stuff that's not working, but in fact, our natural reaction is to keep going, to throw more money behind it, to throw more emotional energy behind it... that's a real problem."

― Tim Harford