Biological Thinking Intro: If you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?

I’m glad you asked that.

I’m a systems builder. I’ve always taken my inspiration from biological systems. While my peers were reading Knuth and Ritchie, I was reading Gregory Bateson, Stephen J Gould, EO Wilson and Franz de Waal.

One key insight from biological thinking is that inputs are good in a system only in a narrow range. Too much water and too little water will kill a plant. Too much food and too little food are both bad. Medicines have a low threshold of ineffectiveness and a high threshold of toxicity. My grandfather took strychnine as a blood pressure medicine. Critical vitamins can kill in both lack and excess.

Money is an input in a biological system. Too much and too little both trend towards toxicity…though in quite different ways.

The statement “if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich” is the precise logical equivalent of “if you’re so smart, why aren’t you fat!”

I point out in passing that I’m not poor.

Now the counter question. I’ve noticed a tendency among the rich to keep working to get rich. What’s up with that? No imagination?

To quote Baba Ram Dass when asked about quitting regular use of LSD, “When you get the answer, hang up the phone.”