In the wilds of cause and effect

I think that all bots who are present at Habré’s people and, of course, UFOs on the ear, have such problems as corruption of officials, exhausted energy reserves, lack of margin, voiced by the Prime Minister regarding the activities of Mechel, and heaps of other problems of ours and not only of the state.
But these are only consequences, not causes. Do not rush to throw a stool at me - the topic is far from politics, although it has something to do with it.

Every day, I am increasingly convinced of the need to apply a systematic approach at any given moment in our lives, be it interpersonal relationships, preparing for the exam, launching a startup or designing a network. And if you carefully analyze most of our actions, you can easily notice that we already apply the systems approach mostly unconsciously, but in some conscious actions we are extremely irrational and not systemic, which is why we often receive some losses (and necessarily material). Also, most habra people (hopefully :) are prone to reflection and introspection, and I think each of us would have to catch myself thinking that if I acted differently, everything would work out, right? And why does it not happen? The answer is quite simple - irrationality, which we often attribute to human weaknesses (laziness, fear, self-justification, cognitive biases, etc.)

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I think it is no secret to anyone that the world is not the way we see it. We create and use ways of perceiving the world, which in most cases is quite good, because our nervous system is simply not designed for constant full perception of external stimuli. If we tried to perceive the world to the maximum as is, our brain would freeze, processing huge streams of continuously incoming information. Therefore, we always simplify the world by discarding information that is not meaningful in our opinion. Distortions of perception of reality are called cognitive biases .

Cognitive biases that we need to know in "face"

• Fear of losing money is a tendency to avoid spending, not a desire to earn income.
  

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  So it turns out that I often play in casinos, and mostly in blackjack . In order to win more than lose, I use a certain system, the necessary condition of which is the rigid execution of its prescriptions, the deviation from which is guaranteed to result in the loss of money. So, during the time I spent in the gambling halls I saw enough of the behavior of completely different people. Of all the players, hardly 5% are successful - those who unquestioningly follow rigid principles without reacting to allowable losses, the whole secret is that they are oriented on the result of many games, and not on local gain. And the remaining 95% are very sensitive to minor losses, which they are trying to compensate further (by an excessive increase in interest rates or by a departure from the setting system) and as a result lose even more.
• Tying is a tendency to rely on already known information.
  

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  To list the number of successful and popular resources in runet is unlikely to need many times to bend the fingers. There can be no talk of inertia (look at the number of Odnoklassniki or Contact questionnaires). The reason is not even that the existing ones implement all that we need, but the fact that most of the owners are trying to clone the functionality of successful projects, forgetting how much more could be done. But if you think well, then almost anyone who reads a topic can come up with a dozen of functions and services that we lack on the Web (don't you think that everything has been done before you?).
  At school and uni have learned, maybe a little work, tired, what to do next? Do you know how to program, draw, the Internet is our everything? The answer is freelance. Do not know how? Well, the trouble is not great, let's open our own business. And which one? Ah, here's a cool store on the next street - I'll open the same one. Familiar? And infinite and faceless “Coins” and “Saving Treasures”, boutiques and tents breed. But in the meantime, in our country, you can earn on everything where you don’t invest money - there will be a profit, and if you think carefully before that, you can easily become very rich.
• The value of costs incurred is the propensity to treat resources already spent as something more valuable than future costs.
  One well-known oil company spent a certain amount of money on the development of a not very good well. Then I explored a more advantageous place, but in order to develop it continues to work with the old one, spending more on development by an order of magnitude more than could be spent on a new one, taking into account the amount of oil produced.
• Prejudice regarding the result - an assessment of the decision taken on its result, and not in fact the decision itself.
  Chess. I make a move, giving the figure. The rival says (well, or thinks) that I have stepped (I mean, I made the wrong decision :), but with the next move I checkmate.
• Herding is a belief in what others believe.
  I don’t know the exact statistics, but I can confidently say that of my classmates hardly 5 part of them work in the specialty obtained at the university. The reason is that when choosing a profession, the majority is guided by some artificial criteria, such as popularity, fashion, prestige, and God knows what else. But when they graduate from institutions, they cannot find a specialized place or simply don’t like work (low wages for example). And if even in school they thought about it correctly, then this probably would not have happened.
  The circumstances of advancement in the people of the Windows Vista operating system forced the developers to conduct such an action. Selecting among volunteers, users especially negatively expressed in favor of the system, demonstrated the capabilities of the new Mojave OS under development. New liked and achieved high praise. And the bottom line is that under the name Mojave was hidden the usual Vista , which the volunteers did not recognize, because they themselves never used it.
• Preventing small numbers - making conclusions based on insufficient information.
  Considering a small sample of the set, we often make incorrect conclusions without even thinking about the non-representativeness of our sample. Having played several times on FOREX and having lost oneself in the dust, one of my friends still thinks that it is impossible to make money on FOREX at all, but this, as experience shows, is completely wrong.
• Prejudice regarding novelty - assessing newer data as more important.
  Here is an example of cockroaches out of my head. Until recently, I thought that doing freelancing is difficult or almost impossible to earn, the competition is too strong. And due to the fact that no one liked the quality ratio of my works with the required price, I stopped doing this, considering that my hands are too crooked for this, although everything was fine with this before freelancing attempts. But recently a customer came, and then another one, and the mood improved :).

The above prejudices have a very strong influence on perception, and as a result, on welfare. And getting rid of at least one of them, the chances of achieving success grow significantly.

And now what to do with all this?

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In general, it is necessary to get an advantage over circumstances. As NL Pepper says: “If something goes wrong with you, it means that you do something wrong!” And “overweight” is just an advantage. To obtain it, it is only necessary to synthesize a problem solving strategy, the essence of which is to analyze the problem as a system, identify its vulnerabilities and hack. In our case, for this we need to analyze a number of our successful actions and deeds, excluding those in which we can examine the signs of cognitive biases, and identify the general algorithm that we use in their execution. After that, when performing any work, be guided by it, which will eventually become the norm, and as a result, success, wealth, or something else desired.
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Algorithm

1. Formulation of goals, identifying problems that need to be addressed.

2. Statement of the problem, implying the analysis of the source data.

3. Decomposition of the main task into the simplest parts.

4. Formation of the strategy and tactics of the implementation of the simplest goals, what and how to do in order to arrive at an optimal solution with maximum efficiency.

5. Verification, which consists of analysis using debugging and verification tests designed to detect errors in the implementation strategy and source data, as well as in predicting the occurrence of problems and methods for their disposal.

6. Implementing a global strategy consisting of preparing resources and implementing a solution.

7. Achieving the goal and maintaining the result.

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As I wrote at the beginning, we often act completely systemically, and for the most part unconsciously. This is from that opera, that if the centipede thought about how she walks so without stumbling, she would not be able to take a step. Our task is to analyze such often unconscious successful system algorithms and try to apply them everywhere, and then perhaps difficult to solve problems will show a new facet of their own, not complexity, but simplicity of solution.

PS In conclusion, a couple of examples of ideas.
1. The problem. Several times a year I experience significant difficulties in finding rental housing. In RuNet there is no good service for finding rental and sold housing, with which we have huge problems in the country.
Decision. After analyzing possible visitors and users, we can conclude about a significant audience. After reviewing a dozen of such sites we compile a list of missing functionality and flaws. Make your own using the power of AJAX . Add flexibility to usability . You can monetize differently, ranging from collecting money from realtors for placing ads (while making it free for individuals) and ending with contextual advertising (I hate banners :).
2. The problem. The existing huge concentration of commodity flows in the metropolitan region brings about thoughts of gradual saturation, and as a result, the spread of flows to the regions. But logistics in the regions leaves much to be desired, and in the capital there is a pipe in general.
Decision. Logistics in such a large country is a very promising line of business. And as far as I know, is in its infancy. Having competently organized a logistics company, you can forget about the absence of clients, because now most of the large trading companies are taking measures to get rid of their logistics departments, giving logistics to outsourcing . After creation, it remains only to expand and improve the quality of services provided.

PPS Of course, it is impossible to outline a universal recipe for everyone and everything within the framework of one topic, but perhaps after reading all of the above, some will begin to understand themselves and their problems, and work out solutions for such a particular person. Successes to all!