Dwarkesh Patel: belief

Transcript context

…Tens of millions. No one knows how many people died in that thing. I think one of the takeaways for you. if you look at Chinese history over the course of all these different rebellions that go back hundreds of years, all these different wars they fought and you look and go, “Wow, millions of Chinese killing each other.” A mark of good strategy is not killing your own. So if the Chinese have been doing this for a long time, don't expect them to be great strategists, which isn't a happy thing, actually. It might mean they do crazy, stupid things that are so detrimental to themselves. Some final questions about studying history in general. So I studied computer science and I talk to a lot of people in these technical fields. Being around them, I think I have a sense of what it means to understand a technical field well. What does it mean to understand history or strategy well? In history, you have to do tremendous amounts of reading. And it's over a career. Also, publishing is really essential, not only do you give people the best ideas that you've encountered but it also forces you to really come to terms with what you do think and why. I feel after every book, whatever I was, I'm one-click better. You've probably got good eyesight, unlike me. If you go in for an eye appointment, the guy will go click, click, and go, is this one better or is this better? I feel like after a book, it's one better. Do I see 20-20 now? And after a year abroad, like I'm in England for a year, where I just get to think, read extensively, try to be open-minded, try to look for the unknown unknowns. What is it I'm completely missing? What is it that I'm totally wrong about? Being open to reassessing, “Ooh. I got that wrong.” So it has to do with reading extensively. If you're going to be studying other societies, you better read the language. I'm not particularly good at any of these languages, but I do try hard. And it's taken years for me to bungle my way through them as I do. But that's really essential. And too much of U.S. graduate education, particularly in political science, where they ask you very important questions for international relations and politics, they don't require them to have high-end linguistic skills. They should. And part of it is, if you learn a different language, you do kind of a mind-meld. If you learn Japanese, you have to learn all of these formality things and what's called Keigo. It's honorific Japanese. My Japanese is terrible, but learning as much as I've learned makes you realize part of how this hierarchical society works and you get a sense of how they think about things and they categorize stuff. So we're back at the opticians for this. If you do the language, you get a few more clicks.…

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