News - Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions

FIPS Releases New Edition of “First Principles Thinking Manual”

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 08:45:14 GMT

A. Verkerk & K. Grass (2024) First Principles Thinking Manual:

How to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Societal Challenges

Get Your Copy

Five years after the first edition, we are happy to announce a new edition of the First Principles Thinking Manual: How to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Societal Challenges .

Drawing on your feedback, a number of workshops and article contributions, this updated edition offers new theoretical insights and practical examples for anyone looking to apply first principles thinking in their work.

Available now on Amazon.com: First Principles Thinking Manual: How to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today's Societal Challenges: 9789090383927: Verkerk, Alexander, Grass, Kacper: Books

You can download a promo version HERE .

During the first five years, thousands of readers have downloaded and used the Manual in their problem-solving endeavours. Thank you for your support and we hope this new edition helps you solve your toughest challenges with fresh, innovative thinking!

About the Manual

First Principles Thinking (FPT) is a process to come up with new solutions and approaches by way of reverse-engineering societal challenges. It encourages you to critically question your assumptions about the challenge and break it down into basic components, after which you ask more critical questions that will surely inspire new ideas.

The fundamentals of FPT originate from Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle , who used reason to make sense of the world. FPT has been further developed throughout the years, and is nowadays still being practised to innovate and solve problems, for example by Lee Kuan Yew , Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos .

However, contemporary works on FPT have not gone much further than simply listing a few action steps, which leaves much open to the intuition and interpretation of the applicant. For those who would like some more guidance, the First Principles Thinking Manual outlines a 7-step process, additional insights and examples. In doing so, the manual also demonstratively applies each step to the challenge of ensuring sufficient access to fresh water for residents of Cape Town , after which it invites readers to do the same for their own challenge.

Anyone can be a first principles thinker: students and professors, scientists and scholars, policymakers and philosophers as well as entrepreneurs or professionals from all fields and walks of life. All that is necessary is a passion for a problem to be tackled, an open and inquisitive mindset and the dedication to commit until innovative solutions are produced. If you believe that these qualities describe you, then we invite you to begin your journey to become a first principles thinker.

PART 1 - INTRODUCTION
1.1. The history and development of first principles thinking
1.2. Famous first principles thinkers
1.3. Common traits of first principles thinkers
1.4. When to use first principles thinking
1.5. What are societal challenges?

PART 2 - FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING IN STEPS
2.1. Step I: Identify your objective
2.2. Step II: List the obstacles
2.3. Step III: Question your assumptions
2.4. Step IV: Uncover some first principles
2.5. Step V: Come up with new ideas
2.6. Step VI: Refine your ideas (optional)
2.7. Step VII: Select your solutions (optional)

PART 3 - FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING COMPARED TO OTHER APPROACHES
3.1. Analogical thinking
3.2. Analytical thinking
3.3. Design thinking
3.4. Lateral thinking
3.5. Computational thinking
3.6. Moonshot thinking
3.7. Hypothesis-based thinking
3.8. First principles in abductive, deductive and inductive reasoning

PART 4 - APPLICATIONS OF FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING
4.1. Individual level
4.2. Organisational level
4.3. Community level
4.4. Societal level
4.5. Research and education
4.6. First principles thinking in a team

PART 5 - FINAL REMARKS
5.1. Main lessons
5.2. Limitations (and how to deal with them)
5.3. Send us your feedback

PART 6 - ANNEXES
6.1. Key terms
6.2. Worksheets to apply steps 1-7 of first principles thinking
6.3. Summary overview of different approaches to problem-solving

PART 7 - REFERENCES

Testimonials from readers

The manual provides a clear framework to practice FPT. The case-study as an example was super helpful.
One of the things I love about the manual is the fact that it compiles research papers from different writers and thinkers using FPT.
It feels like you can apply FPT to all sorts of issues.

Available now on Amazon.com: First Principles Thinking Manual: How to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today's Societal Challenges: 9789090383927: Verkerk, Alexander, Grass, Kacper: Books

Using First Principles Thinking to Solve Our Hiring Heroes Problem in the United States

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 22:51:54 GMT

Photo by Unsplash

The challenge of reintegrating a nation-state’s military veteran back into its civilian workforce has persisted since the time of Caesar Augustus in Rome circa 13 BC. Therefore, it is time to innovate on this millennia-old communications problem and solve it, at least in the US, and First Principles Thinking is a time-tested problem-solving technique. The first step in applying the power of first principles thinking is to break the veteran hiring problem down into its seven fundamental elements, what Aristotle called first principles , to accurately define it. Then we can use five applicable philosophical razors to separate, i.e., shave off , our extant assumptions from the identified first principles to clear our clouded current thinking. Doing so then allows us to reassemble the first principles in a new way, creating an innovative solution to veteran hiring through first principles thinking, which we can implement, at least in the United States, using nine proven tools and techniques.

Keywords : Veterans, veteran hiring, veteran reintegration, United States

Millennia-Old Problem of Military Veteran Reintegration, i.e., Hiring

Nation-state programs to reintegrate their professional soldiers and sailors back into the civilian work force is a challenge that has persisted since Caesar Augustus in Rome circa 13 BC. While many factors contribute to this complex problem, a primary component of the challenge is that the technical experience of the profession of arms, when spoken about in military terms and concepts, correlates easily or directly into very few civilian occupations, if any. As such, generation after generation of military veterans continue to struggle to find and keep meaningful post-military service employment commensurate with their experience because they cannot communicate their valuable experience in terms and concepts that civilian hiring managers understand.

Problem Reduction

The challenge of veteran hiring has many components, which we will explore here. First, the process to transform a civilian into a warrior—Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine—at least in the United States and many related NATO countries, is immersive, strenuous, lasts for a couple of months to several years, and is based on a clear, cogent, exhaustive instruction manual delivered by senior, experienced professionals at arms. The Service Member’s service exit event, however, is only one to three days in length, covers multiple topics, devotes only one day to civilian job identification, preparation, hunting, networking, and technology usage, and may or may not be delivered by veterans, which means a shared sense of empathy, sympathy, and culture may be missing from the instruction. Additionally, in this short class, veterans, i.e., “vets”, are encouraged to Stop speaking military , write a targeted resume , c reate a LinkedIn profile, network , and find a mentor , all without any practical how-to tips provided. The assumption is that the vets have the same level of understanding and intuition about what these tools are and how to use them as the instructor.

Compounding these veteran components, two hiring manager-centric components enter the equation. The first is that it is highly statistically probable that the civilian hiring manager may not be or may not even know a vet, as only about five percent of the United States’ three hundred and eighty million citizens have ever served in a military uniform (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023). In fact, this veteran author has, on multiple occasions, had civilians thank him for his noble work with animals , misunderstanding his veteran status or vet title to be associated with another type of “vet”, a veterinarian. Additionally, exacerbating this lack of familiarity is Hollywood’s perpetuation of inaccurate myths and stereotypes about military members and veterans, which makes the vet population even more alien to them. Some of the most popular myths and stereotypes string together like this: all vets qualified on a weapon, that all of them carried, and that all of them used to shoot individuals or groups with, which gave them post-traumatic stress disorder, and they did so under orders, yelled at them constantly, so they must only know how to follow orders, because most of them are likely under-educated as well. These threads weave into a conclusionary narrative that vets cannot fit into a civilian workplace based on collaboration, high emotional intelligence, strong individuality, in a modern office setting, full of individuals and teams solving problems in sometimes stressful situations.

All these assumptions and challenges stem from a communications problem. Veterans do not do an effective job of communicating how their past experience translates into future capability, which is what the civilian hiring manager is listening for. And the civilian hiring managers do not understand how this unfamiliar military experience fits into their civilian work environment, which means they do not accurately value it. Therefore, the value of the veteran’s experience gets lost in the translation between the military and civilian work forces.

Millennia-Old Method of Reasoning; First Principles Thinking

The complexity of this veteran hiring problem is the result of these fundamental challenges coupled with millennia of assumptions made in the face of continually evolving work force needs, technological advances, laws, hiring practices, and continued labor specialization. It therefore warrants the diligent and deliberate application of first principles thinking. First principles thinking has been used to solve complex problems by many great minds for centuries (Clear, n.d.). It first requires the identification of this problem’s essential components, those base elements that Aristotle called “first principles” because they “are the first basis by which a thing is known”, so that we can then separate our first principles from the layers of assumptions (Aristotle, n.d.). Adding philosophical razors to our analysis can help us achieve this separation of first principles from assumptions, so that we can then reassemble them into a new solution; innovating on veteran hiring using the power of first principles thinking. To this end, the next section identifies and discusses the eight first principles of veteran hiring, and its following companion section identifies the five philosophical razors that we can use to ‘shave off’ these assumptions and complexity to ensure we are truly examining the problem’s first principles (Otto, 2022).

On First Principles

First principles are the fundamental elements of an issue or argument. We can find examples of them in physics, philosophy, language, geometry, and engineering. In physics, think about the relationship exposed when we decompose a molecule down to an atom, which is decomposed down to a nucleus, then a proton, to arrive at the molecule’s first element, the building blocks known as quarks and gluons. The US Department of Energy’s Office of Science defines “Quarks and gluons are the building blocks of protons and neutrons, which in turn are the building blocks of atomic nuclei” (U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.). Likewise, the philosophical first principle statements All humans age and You and I are humans , allow us to deduce, i.e., reason, that We age . Additionally, think of the first principles of language, which in the case of the English language are the twenty-six letters of its alphabet. These twenty-six letters can be arranged into thousands of words, which can be arranged into thousands of sentences, then paragraphs, then chapters, and finally books. Finally, to illustrate reasoning up from first principles, i.e., “first principles thinking”, think of a tank, a bicycle, a pair of skis, and a motorboat (Clear, n.d.). If we assembled them in a new innovative way, what vehicle would we create? Right. A snowmobile! This first principles thinking has been used to solve complex problems throughout the ages by great minds such as Aristotle, Euclid, Edison, Tesla, Boyd, and Musk (Pearson, 2017).

On Razors

In philosophy, like psychology, we have mental shortcuts we can use as simple tools to help us distill simplicity from complexity in our thinking (Duggan, 2018). And while psychology would call these mental shortcuts heuristics , in philosophy we call them razors (The Decision Lab, n.d.) . While dozens of razors exist, five of them are useful in helping us shave off assumptions in veteran hiring from our previously discussed first principles. In short, they are Occam’s, Hume’s, Hitchens’, and Duck’s razors, to which we will add Sagan’s Standard because it significantly enhances Hume’s razor in our analysis.

Occam’s razor states that if we are presented with two or more arguments that include all necessary data to describe the argument, position, or phenomenon, we should choose the simplest one as the proper explanation. Extending this notion of sufficient data or evidence to support an argument or position, we have Hume’s and Hitchens’ razors coupled with Sagan’s Standard. Hume asserted that causes must be sufficiently able to produce the effect assigned to them, meaning that the almost imperceptible wind created by a butterfly flapping its wings is not sufficient to explain a house-damaging forty-knot gust of wind (Elledge, 2023). Famous astronomer Carl Sagan extended Hume’s razor by stating his standard that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Life Lessons, 2019). Additionally, Hitchens used his razor to assert that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, and Hanlon argued to “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence or stupidity” (Elledge, 2023). And finally, the razor that binds the rest is the Duck test. Simply put, if the thing under consideration looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck. These five razors are essential in identifying the eight first principles of veteran hiring.

Innovative Modern Solution: Applying the Power of First Principles Thinking to Solve Military Veteran Hiring

Identifying the seven first principles of veteran hiring and separating them from the many assumptions surrounding this issue allows us to reassemble them into a new innovative solution to solve this persistent societal problem. These first principles are presented next, as is the solution we can innovate from them. Following that discussion, we then discuss the hardest part of any change, implementation.

Eight First Principles of Veteran Hiring

From this author’s own experience transitioning out of military service, conversing with tens of thousands of military members in transition and vets already transitioned over the past eight years, and successfully placing over twelve thousand of them into meaningful, lucrative post-service careers to enjoy post-military prosperity, the author has identified eight principles of veteran hiring.

The first and second first principles of veteran hiring are that management has four functions, which are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, and that management has several subsets , examples of which are Information Technology Management, Quality Management, Human Resources Management, Financial and Accounting Management, Sales and Marketing Management, and Production Management. The third first principle of veteran hiring is that vets have germane yet latent experience applicable in any civilian organization , because they have broad, deep experience solving complex, time-bound, resource-constrained problems; within large bureaucratic organizations rife with rules, regulations, customs, courtesies, norms, and SOPs; through a multitude of individuals, teams, bosses, peers, and subordinates. This problem-solving experience also means that they have the intangible skills of curiosity, responsibility, critical thinking, accountability, and commitment.

The fourth and fifth first principles of veteran hiring are that vets have two types of experience, general and specialized , and that vets have a high aptitude to learn highly specialized things fast . For example, most vets have general management experience running teams, shops, and ships’ departments, while doing technical things like operating and maintaining planes, tanks, and submarines. Moreover, they are given their occupations based on what occupations they test into, i.e., what they are capable of doing, as they enter their service (Military.com, 2012). They are then sent to a schoolhouse upon their entrance experience previously discussed, learn a very technical job quickly, and then are immediately sent to the field, flight line, or fleet to perform that occupation. These responsibilities often entail stakes as high as loss of limb or life on the line; theirs or others. This also contributes to a high aptitude for adapting to change fast, as they go from schoolhouse to command, to schoolhouse to command, and so on over their entire career. This means their cap acity for productivity and their ability to produce continually go up, which increases their overall capability .

The sixth principle is that all vets share at least a few common experiences , which forms a solid foundation of trust, capability, and productivity. Examples vets can draw from are stressful, physical inductions and orientations at schoolhouses, standing watches, qualifying on firearms, forming up into units which move from point A to point B in sharp unison, and getting “chow”, i.e., food. And when vets do not do these things exactly right, as one unit, they do a lot of physical exercise, a favorite modality being the ubiquitous push up. They also experience many medical shots, haircuts, inspections, and sleep deprivation.

They are bonded under duress, which blurs boundaries, and which brings us to our seventh and eighth first principles of veteran hiring, that vets make better helpers of vets and that vets do not like talking about themselves . While well intentioned, a non-vet helping a vet does not have full and complete empathy and sympathy, a shared intimate cultural bond is missing, and because vets are team and we oriented, not me oriented, talking about oneself and one’s accomplishments is discouraged. We always recognize that one of our teammates was better, faster, stronger, more capable, that the team is stronger than the individual, that there is always a higher headquarters, and that heroes we are not. Our heroes are the ones of us that did not come home with us.

Now that we have identified our problem as a communications problem, and identified and separated our eight first principles of veteran hiring from our assumptions using five razors, we are ready to innovate a new modern solution to an age-old problem and implement it through seven specific actions.

Applying the Power of First Principles Thinking to Veteran Hiring

Our innovative solution consists of first educating vets and civilian private and public employers, i.e. Corporate America, on the first principles of veteran hiring, then teaching vets “provable fluency” (Wright, 2020), and then teaching Corporate America military speak , which informs both parties in the communication exchange, allowing them to communicate more clearly what is needed by Corporate America, so it can be presented by the vet. Therefore, the communication problem is solved but needs specific solutions to be implemented, which is the next and final topic.

Conclusion

At least in the context of the US and NATO organizations that recruit, train, i.e. “ready”, retain, and reintegrate vets back into their work forces, Corporate America can learn the vets’ language of military leadership with five easy, cost-effective actions (see Figure 1 below). Candidates are recruited, then they are trained and deployed based on their aptitude, testing, and occupation training, then they’re developed over their tenures, and finally they’re reintegrated back into the civilian workforce, the focus of this paper. The following suggestions provide military service exit training to enhance reintegration.

Figure 1 . US Model of Veteran Creation (original figure)

First, their HR department personnel and managers can use the Department of Labor’s online tool O*Net to cross walk civilian and military occupations at the skills and competencies level to discern capability to perform now based on what the vet did in the past (Onet Center, n.d.). Second, the Society of Human Resources Managers (“SHRM”) offers online training and certification demonstrating an employer’s capabilities to attract, hire, and retain veterans (Veterans at Work, n.d.). Third and fourth, civilian hiring managers can hire translated, trained, and certified vets or have their current vet hires translated, trained, and certified by the author’s firm (Vets2PM, n.d.), and create understanding in your managers to understand vet resumes with the author’s book How To Speak Civilian Fluently! because it contains a “Cognate Crosswalk” (Wright, 2020), which are words similar in two languages, to help them translate on the fly during interview preparation. Fifth, companies can hire a prior-service vet-turned recruiter into their HR department to review and translate resumes. While implementation does take work, these activities open the candidate aperture by another eighteen million veterans according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor, 2023).

And vets can learn the language of Corporate America, which is management . First, corporations should have someone create a short “onboarding orientation video” outlining the company, its mission, industry, and customers, with support resources identified so the Vet knows where to go for which types of help when. Second, like your managers, provide your vets with a copy of How To Speak Civilian Fluently! because it extends the orientation and on-boarding experience at a low cost, because the vet reader gets a feel for what accounting, marketing and finance do, and what P&L , JIT , and OJT mean, and how org charts are used. Your civilian organization becomes more familiar to them, which makes them more autonomous and resilient, and more likely to stay. Third, ensure that your vet hires come with the Department of Labor Work Opportunity Tax credit, so you get the $9,6000.00 tax credit per vet hire for which you are eligible. Do not be one of the companies leaving their portion of the annual unclaimed $64 billion tax credits (Washburn, 2020).

And finally, fourth, SHRM suggests using situational or behavioral interview techniques that use open-ended questions to tease out their capabilities because veterans do not like talking about themselves, as it is counter to the organizational and team-based we culture. A situational interview “gives the interviewee a hypothetical scenario and focuses on a candidate's past experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills and abilities by asking the candidate to provide specific examples of how the candidate would respond given the situation described”, and behavioral interviews “focus on a candidate's past experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills and abilities by asking the candidate to provide specific examples of when he or she has demonstrated certain behaviors or skills as a means of predicting future behavior and performance” (SHRM, n.d.). For example, if you ask them what they did, they may say I ran a dining facility , or I ran an armory , or I was a machine gunner . However, these are examples of managers managing inventories, budgets, and PP&E for their organizations, while taking care of the people’s well-being, health, care, and professional development.

The popular STAR method is used in a behavioral interview to “objectively measure a potential employee’s past behaviors as a predictor of future result” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, n.d.). The popular STAR model may prove helpful to many hiring managers. They ask the candidate to tell them about a situation, task, action, and result produced in a past task or project. It demonstrates the vet’s capability and skills within the context of what problem occurred, what tasks the team performed, which of those actions were taken by the vet, and the results produced. Closed ended questions with no solicitation of situation to provide context will not uncover the value of the breadth and depth of experience the vet brings.

References

Aristotle. (n.d.). The Metaphysics .
Clear, J. (n.d.). First Principles: Elon Musk on the Power of Thinking for Yourself . James Clear. https://jamesclear.com/first-principles
Duggan, J. (2018). 5 Philosophical Razors to Help You Win Any Argument . Medium. https://medium.com/@jossduggan/5-sharp-philosophical-razors-to-help-you-win-any-argument-4c4b6177fcc0
Elledge, J. (2023). Some Philosophical Razors . The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. https://jonn.substack.com/p/some-philosophical-razors
Life Lessons. (2019). 9 Philosophical Razors You Need to Know . Critical Thinking. https://lifelessons.co/critical-thinking/philosophical-razors/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (n.d.). Using the STAR Method for Your Next Behavioral Interview (Worksheet Included) . Career Advising & Professional Development. https://capd.mit.edu/resources/the-star-method-for-behavioral-interviews/
Military.com. (2012). Your Military Job Can Depend On Your ASVAB Test Score . Military.Com. https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/asvab/asvab-scores-and-military-jobs.html
Onet Center. (n.d.). O*Net Resource Center . Onetcenter.Org. https://www.onetcenter.org/
Otto. (2022). Diversion: 5 Philosophical Razors For Critical Thinking That Will Shave Your Mind . Sharpologist. https://sharpologist.com/5-philosophical-razors-for-critical-thinking/
Pearson, T. (2017). The Truth about How Creativity Really Works . Medium. https://medium.com/the-mission/the-truth-about-how-creativity-really-works-46623efb6775
SHRM. (n.d.). Job Interview Questions . Shrm.Org. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/interview-questions/pages/default.aspx
The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Hanlon’s Razor . The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/hanlons-razor
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023). Economic News Release: Employment Situation of Veterans Summary . Economic Releases. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.nr0.htm
U.S. Department of Energy. (n.d.). DOE Explains...Quarks and Gluons . Office of Science. https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsquarks-and-gluons
U.S. Department of Labor. (2023). Employment Situation of Veterans — 2022 . https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/vet.pdf
Veterans at Work. (n.d.). SHRM Foundation Certificate Program . Veteransatwork.Org. https://www.veteransatwork.org/certificate/
Vets2PM. (n.d.). Lifetime Access to Proven Certification Training Corporate Talent Services . Vets2PM Post Military Prosperity. https://vets2pm.com/
Washburn, C. (2020). An Estimated $64.8 Billion in Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC) Go Unclaimed by Employers Each Year . Veteran Tax Credits. https://www.veterantaxcredits.com/white-paper/
Wright, E. A. (2020). How To Speak Civilian Fluently! Independently Published.

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Volume 3 / Issue 1)

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 09:32:32 GMT

The Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions is proud to present you with the third volume of the First Principles Thinking Review . In the spring of 2020, we launched this publication with the aim of creating a space to host an international and interdisciplinary conversation about tackling societal challenges with first principles thinking. Over the past several months, a number of returning and first-time authors from different backgrounds and walks of life have contributed their thought-provoking ideas to the Review. In the following pages, you will have access to a proposal for using first principles thinking to change the way we speak and think about world peace as well as a case study of how first principles can be applied to the field of marketing. Moreover, this issue includes a review of a recent book on the role that first principles thinking played in developing the United States’ political and legal framework shortly after its independence and an original article about how the problem-solving method was similarly applied in Singapore by its founding father. The issue concludes with an example of how first principles thinking can be used in a collaborative group setting.

You can download it HERE .

About this publication

The Review is divided into two sections. In the first section, Theory , our contributors seek to expand the area of knowledge related to first principles and the associated methodology itself. Here, history, philosophy and the exploration of other problem-solving methods come together in order to better our understanding of what exactly first principles thinking is and how it can be used. In the second section, Practice , our contributors investigate different ways of applying the first principles thinking method to societal challenges. This is where abstract ideas are turned into concrete proposals for overcoming real-world problems through first principles thinking.

The First Principles Thinking Review is the first of its kind with respect to its scope and focus. Although first principles thinking can be traced back to ancient times, surprisingly little has been done to develop its potential as a catalyst for societal innovation and progress. It is therefore the purpose of this publication to finally change that status quo. By dedicating the pages of the Review to create an outlet for interdisciplinary research and experimentation, the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions hopes to engage as many inquisitive minds as possible in the realization of this project. For this reason, we remain dedicated to the principles of open-access publication and encourage you, our reader, to share the content found herein and join our global network of first principles thinkers.

Call for submissions

For those readers who would like to see their ideas published in the next issue of the First Principles Thinking Review , please submit a draft article through the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions website, where the editorial guidelines are described in greater detail. In the event that you would like to make a contribution but are not sure of how to get an article off the ground, our editorial team welcomes unsolicited emails with rough ideas or topic proposals. Our editors are more than happy to work with you on developing such ideas into articles that can be published and shared with those who are in a position to help implement your ideas to solve the societal challenges you care about. We hope that the articles you find herein shall serve as a source of both inspiration for new ideas as well as the motivation that is necessary to make those ideas a reality.

“First Principles” by Thomas E. Ricks: A Book Review

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 13:51:10 GMT

Photo by Harrison Mitchell on Unsplash

This review article provides a brief summary and analysis of First Principles by Thomas E. Ricks, in which the author explores how classical philosophy and first principles thinking influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. The review also highlights how the author’s own political thinking draws on first principles and concludes by summarizing some of the strengths and shortcomings of his recent work.

Keywords : First principles thinking, political philosophy, United States history

Introduction

Published in 2020, First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country is the product of Thomas E. Ricks’ efforts to reconcile what the United States had become over the course of the Trump presidency with how it was designed to be under the leadership of the Founding Fathers. While the central theme of the book is an exploration of colonial classicism and the lessons that the American revolutionary generation learned from the great philosophers of European antiquity, the book also presents an examination of how the primary architects of the American political system employed first principles thinking, which Verkerk and Grass (2019) define as “a societal problem-solving method that rigorously questions assumptions to get to the truthful core [the first principles] of a challenge and from there come up with new solutions” (p. 1).

Although comparable approaches to analyzing statecraft through the lens of first principles thinking have been taken in other works, Ricks’ effort is commendable for its scope and magnitude. For example, Preston’s (2019) history of United States foreign relations begins with a chapter on first principles, but the analysis is limited only to the area of politics on which the book is based. More akin to Ricks’ work is Low’s (2021) exposition of how first principles thinking influenced Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and founding father, in his efforts to overcome the obstacles of nation-building following the country’s independence from Malaysia. Ricks’ work, however, is more extensive in that it examines several key figures of the American revolutionary generation and investigates not only how they applied first principles thinking but also what influenced them to adopt the classical problem-solving method in the first place. Moreover, it concludes with a thoughtful list of ideas for taking a first principles approach to overcoming some of the country’s contemporary political challenges.

Summary and analysis

The founding fathers

Ricks begins the book with a brief biographical account of the first four presidents of the United States, focusing particularly on their classical backgrounds and educations. George Washington was the only one who never attended university due to his pursuit of a military career but was nevertheless a great admirer of Cato, a conservative Roman senator who opposed Julius Caesar’s overthrow of the republican government. Unlike his predecessor, John Adams received a prestigious higher education at Harvard University, where he became inspired by the writings of Cicero, who was also a defender of republican values in the period preceding the establishment of the Roman Empire. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, was educated at the College of William and Mary and diverged from the Romanesque leanings of his peers by preferring to study Greek philosophy, particularly the works of Epicurus, whose religious skepticism and empirical approach to epistemology influenced many Enlightenment thinkers. Finally, a true product of the Enlightenment, James Madison received his education at Princeton University and was primarily attracted to contemporary philosophers like Montesquieu, from whom Madison and the other Founding Fathers adopted the ideas of separating governmental powers and creating a system of checks and balances.

The challenge of independence

In the second part of the book, Ricks investigates how the Founders applied their classical backgrounds to the challenge of leading the American colonies to independence and sovereignty. According to Ricks, it was Adams who argued that “the principles of the revolution […] were that all men are equal, and that power is delegated to leaders by the people” (p. 116). He drew on the example of ancient Greece to illustrate how the British had violated these principles in America, explaining that “the Greeks planted colonies, and neither demanded nor pretended any authority over them, but they became distinct independent commonwealths” (p. 116). Guided by this first principles approach, Jefferson accepted the responsibility of drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, finally presenting the document as a revolutionary manifesto that would sever America from the European monarchical tradition:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness (p. 299).

Though his first principles thinking enjoyed considerable success in the political arena, Adams was not a visionary on the battlefield. He advocated a short, violent war and frequently expressed his impatience with Washington, who employed a very different strategy. In fact, rather than searching for novel solutions to the military challenge from first principles, Washington instead took the analogical approach of adopting an innovative strategy developed by the Roman general Fabius in the Second Punic War against Hannibal’s Carthaginian army. As Ricks explains, “it is clear that there existed a strong strategic parallel between the circumstances of the ancient Roman situation and the American Revolution. In both cases, the defender was facing an invader from overseas who had to cross land and sea barriers in order to bring in additional supplies and troops. Those hurdles made attacking the invader’s supply lines and exhausting his troops an especially productive approach” because “supplies were harder for him to find, and replacements had to come from afar” (p. 156). Therefore, instead of facing the British with conventional military tactics—a strategy that would have almost certainly resulted in a quick victory for the better trained and equipped British regulars—the American militiamen adopted an early form of guerilla warfare that tired the British by stretching the conflict from 1775 to 1783.

Obstacles on the road to sovereignty

With the Declaration of Independence providing a normative foundation for the new country and the War of Independence finally won, all that was missing was a practical system of government to unite the thirteen former colonies into a sovereign state. One proposal was the Articles of Confederation, under which the former colonies would become sovereign states loosely organized under a weak central government. Uncertain whether this arrangement would be sufficiently robust to serve as a long-term solution, Madison became even more skeptical of the confederal model through Socratic questioning, a “truth-finding method that questions the validity of one’s beliefs and assumptions in a disciplined, rigorous and thoughtful manner” (Verkerk and Grass 2019, p. 12). Though he does not use the term “Socratic questioning” in his book, Ricks describes how Madison effectively applied this critical thinking exercise to uncover first principles related to the challenge at hand. He began by examining the problems of ancient Greek confederacies and inquired: “What had brought down ancient republics? What made them so fragile? Were there gaps between their theory and practice? Did they have inherent flaws that caused them to fail? Were these avoidable? Was Montesquieu correct in thinking that republics had to be small? If so, could American government be structured in a different way that would make it more sustainable?” (p. 183-184).

This initial exercise in Socratic questioning led Madison to embark on a quest for knowledge, during which he would travel to Europe and spend several years studying everything from political philosophy and natural history to travel books on China. The result of Madison’s tireless Socratic questioning and disciplined research to uncover the first principles of pragmatic statecraft was the Constitution that would become the supreme law of the United States of America. Quoting historian Noah Feldman, Ricks observes that Madison’s solution was truly an example of innovation through first principles thinking:

Aristotle in his Politics had already engaged in comparisons between different sorts of constitutional arrangements, and Montesquieu had tried to offer a general theory of the relationships between the "spirits” of different polities and the way they were organized. But as a systematic effort to identify the core working elements of all the confederacies known to have existed, Madison’s document was unprecedented (p. 184).

First principles or false principles?

Despite his clear admiration of Madison’s problem-solving skills, Ricks avoids extending his praises so far as to be blindly uncritical of him and the other Founding Fathers. He correctly points out the stark contradictions between the first principles manifested in the Declaration of Independence— “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—and the Constitution’s permission of slavery. According to Ricks, the grave error that would cause the unjustifiable suffering of generations of enslaved people, lead to a civil war, and result in social divisions that have plagued the country to the present day was the result of misguided analogical thinking. The Founding Fathers reasoned that, since the institution of slavery was present in the societies of ancient Greece and Rome, it could also be applied in the American context. This supposition, however, is an example of a false principle, “a scientifically unproven belief or assumption used as a norm to evaluate objects, behaviour and outcomes” (Verkerk and Grass 2019, p. 16). Unlike first principles, which are undeniably true and therefore universally applicable by definition, false principles can have detrimental consequences if incorrectly applied by analogy.

In their hasty application of slavery to the American legal system, the Founding Fathers overlooked some key issues that should have suggested that the ancient institution was not in fact a universally applicable first principle. For example, in the two millennia that had elapsed since the model societies of ancient Greece and Rome first institutionalized slavery, Western culture and its views on moral and ethical norms had progressively evolved, making the practice much more controversial and divisive than it had been in the past. Moreover, slaves in ancient Greek and Roman societies were oftentimes debtors or prisoners of war rather than people born into a certain ethnic group—as was the case with American slaves—and thus could be seen as products of economic inequality rather than racial supremacy. While economic inequality doubtlessly creates societal tensions, racial supremacy results in a caste system based on biological differences that is much more difficult to overcome even after the institution of slavery has been abolished. The Founding Fathers’ collective mistake of overlooking such issues in their analogical thinking ultimately resulted in what Ricks rightly refers to as “the blot on the constitution” and the new republic’s “fatal contradiction” (p. 201, 267).

First principles for the modern citizen

As his book is primarily directed towards an American audience, Ricks concludes it with a list of ten actionable ideas that he believes could help put the United States back on the track that, in his view, was originally intended by the Founding Fathers. As his epilogue reveals, Ricks’ own political thinking is heavily influenced by first principles:

I. Don’t panic

Concern and anxiety over the state of the union is not only normal but patriotic. It should come as a reassurance, however, that the Constitution was designed to be robust and flexible in times of political crises. Every era comes with its challenges, but Ricks reminds his readers that in spite of numerous obstacles it has stood the test of time.

II. Curtail campaign financing

Corporations are not people and therefore should not enjoy the right to make unrestricted campaign donations. Ricks argues that this practice, which has become a common aspect of the American political process, would have been denounced as corrupt and impermissible by the Founding Fathers.

III. Re-focus on the public good

Although the Constitution makes two explicit appeals for “the general welfare”, the United States is an outlier among developed countries in terms of its unequal access to public goods like healthcare and education. Ricks quotes Cicero’s assertion that “salus populi suprema lex esto”, or “welfare of the public is the supreme law”, when reminding his readers of the egalitarian spirit of the Founding Fathers.

IV. Promote, cultivate, and reward virtue in public life—but don’t count on it

The idea of civic virtue has two principal elements. The first is to be tolerant of fellow citizens whose opinions differ from one’s own, and the second is to be willing to serve one’s country without the expectation of reward. Fearing that there is a steady trend of decline in both of these principles in the United States, Ricks urges all Americans to reflect on their own civic virtue for the good of their communities and the country as a whole.

V. Respect our core institutions—and push them

There is a growing notion in the United States that government itself is the problem. Ricks dismisses such nihilistic thinking and argues instead that government is the essential medium for promoting the public good. It would be more constructive, he argues, for critics to produce their own definitions of the public good and then direct government towards those ends rather than advocating the abolition of a central government altogether.

VI. Wake up Congress

As the legislative branch of government, Congress was designed to balance the president’s executive powers. Despite its co-equal status, Ricks believes that a lack of energy in the House of Representatives and the Senate has resulted in Congress shying away from its rightful role as the voice of the people’s will. He encourages the election of more active and passionate lawmakers to fill the seats of Congress.

VII. Enrich the political vocabulary

It is common to hear terms like “liberty”, “freedom”, and “equality” in American political discourse, but Ricks suggests that the classic lexicon needs to be carefully re-evaluated before being applied to contemporary issues. What does it really mean to “make America great again”? What is national greatness? When was America great? Why is it no longer great? Such are the kinds of Socratic questions citizens should ask themselves before submitting to the appeal of popular campaign slogans.

VIII. Reclaim the definition of “un-American”

As a continuation of the exercise of Socratic questioning, citizens would also do well to reflect on what the Founding Fathers considered to be “American”. Would they have viewed immigration bans as American? Would they have considered canceling controversial public speakers to be an American practice? Ricks believes that the process of enriching the political vocabulary cannot be complete without taking this introspective step.

IX. Rehabilitate “happiness”

Though “the pursuit of happiness” is subject to endless interpretation, Ricks argues that the Founding Fathers would have rejected the hedonism and vanity that have resulted from modern consumer culture. Americans should instead pursue happiness in civic virtues like good citizenship.

X. Know your history

While most of Ricks’ ideas urge his readers to respect the Founding Fathers and emulate their approaches to citizenship and politics, the author does not fail to remind Americans of the consequences of following faulty historical examples. For this reason, he believes it is the duty of all citizens to know their history.

Conclusion

Ricks’ First Principles is a well-researched book that has much to offer its readers. It provides an accessible introduction to early American statecraft from the perspective of classical political philosophy without requiring extensive background knowledge on either subject. Moreover, in its presentation of the Founding Fathers’ use of first principles thinking to overcome the numerous challenges and obstacles of establishing a sovereign political system, the work serves as an excellent case study of this ancient problem-solving method. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it encourages readers to reflect critically on their own political beliefs and examine contemporary political issues from a first principles perspective. Indeed, it is a book of great value not only to students of civics, politics, or philosophy but to anyone who aspires to become a more conscious and engaged citizen.

For all its merits, however, the work falls short in serving as an introduction to first principles thinking itself. Though the Founding Fathers’ use of first principles thinking is easily recognizable to a reader already familiar with the method, Ricks fails to provide any background information on its Socratic and Aristotelian origins, essentially leaving readers with the impression that drawing on ancient principles alone constitutes first principles thinking. For the aforementioned reason, this review has drawn on conceptual definitions elaborated by Verkerk and Grass in First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges , which may serve as a useful methodological supplement to this and other case studies of first principles thinking.

References

Low, Z. (2021). The Role of First Principles Thinking in Singapore’s Nation-Building . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://www.innovativepolicysolutions.org/articles/the-role-of-first-principles-thinking-in-singapores-nation-building
Preston, A. (2019). American Foreign Relations: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford University Press.
Ricks, T. E. (2020). First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country . HarperCollins Publishers.
Verkerk, A., & Grass, K. (2019). First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16182.24642/1

First Principles Thinking as a Collaborative Effort to Bring Hope to a Troubled Neighbourhood

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 14:19:22 GMT

Photo by Marvin Meyer

This article presents the first principles thinking process as a collaborative effort undertaken by three problem-solvers from the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. In response to the challenge of improving living conditions in the Jan Luykenlaan neighbourhood of The Hague in the Netherlands, the team demonstrates how individually generated ideas can be synthesised in order to produce original approaches to achieving a common goal.

Keywords: brainstorming, first principles thinking, teamwork

Introduction

Early 2021, the municipal government of The Hague published a request for solutions to overcome some local, yet highly problematic, societal challenges (Startup in Residence Intergov, 2021). Specifically, criminal activities such as drug trafficking and illegal gambling in the Jan Luykenlaan neighbourhood have made the area an unpleasant and dangerous place to live for many residents. With people facing threats and intimidation from local criminals and police interventions proving ineffective in solving the chronic nature of the neighbourhood’s problems, many of Jan Luykenlaan’s residents have given up hope in restoring a sense of ownership over their community.

What follows is an exercise in first principles thinking in which three problem-solvers use the method to find solutions to the challenge of improving social conditions in The Hague’s Jan Luykenlaan neighbourhood. While normally employed individually, first principles thinking can also be performed as a collaborative effort. In this case, three problem-solvers from the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions with different backgrounds and areas of expertise use first principles thinking as a means of giving structure and direction to their search for innovative ideas.

Therefore, the process begins with a mutual brainstorming session to clearly identify a common objective to achieve as well as a common set of obstacles to overcome. With these steps taken together, the problem-solvers are then free to work independently to question their own assumptions, uncover first principles and come up with new solutions. With every step taken independently, each problem-solver’s path will inevitably begin to diverge from the others as personal biases and experiences shape the thinking process and produce original ideas. Finally, however, all the ideas produced independently are shared, synthesised and refined together before actionable solutions can be selected.

Step 1: Identify your objective

The municipal government of The Hague was clear in its desired objectives for this challenge. Its call for solutions requested ideas that could “offer residents some positivity and hope in this highly problematic environment”. While the project was mainly directed towards residents on the street, the initiative also welcomed solutions that would target “entrepreneurs who actively try to contribute to improving the living environment” (Startup in Residence Intergov, 2021). Therefore, the primary objectives of this project are:

To decrease criminal activity in the neighbourhood
To decrease nuisances for the living environment
To create a more attractive climate for local businesses

Given the broad nature of these objectives, the municipal government also stated that it would be willing to accept various kinds of solutions, such as physical or social interventions, under the condition that they could be implemented in the short term. The call for solutions did state, however, that covenants, policy documents, recommendations without applicable steps and major interventions in real estate or open space would be excluded from consideration.

Step 2: List the obstacles

The call for solutions also included a briefing on some of the existing obstacles that have impeded past efforts of improving conditions in the Jan Luykenlaan neighbourhood. As the problems of criminal activity and nuisance have been occurring in the area for over 15 years, the obstacles to overcoming them are quite deep and structural in nature. Specifically, the call for solutions highlights the following issues:

Low social capital and sense of ownership among residents
Threats and intimidation by business owners and their patrons
Lack of trust in the competence of the municipal government, police and other public institutions

By establishing three clearly defined objectives along with a common set of obstacles that stand in the way of achieving them, the team of problem-solvers has effectively created a framework that will provide a sense of structure and direction for the rest of the process. At this point, the problem-solvers begin to use these guidelines in order to pursue the subsequent three steps of the process independently: (3) question your assumptions, (4) identify some first principles and (5) come up with new solutions.

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker I

Alexander Verkerk focuses on the obstacles of there being intimidation as well as low ownership and social capital among residents.

Question your assumptions

In what situations does intimidation happen, or rarely happen?
What makes one own something?
What are elements of strong social capital?

Uncover some first principles

Intimidation (or crime in general) is less likely to happen when the physical environment is clean and not intimidating itself (World Bank, 2015). What is the opposite of intimidating? Approachable/undaunting (Word Hippo, n.d.). What embodies such characteristics? Children, pets, nature, bright objects.
Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property. Owners are typically able to name their belongings and write their names on them.
Social capital is strong when residents have shared values and/or a common purpose.

Come up with new ideas

How can we clean up the physical environment and add physical elements related to children, trees and lights? Place more street lights, trees and art (painting/statues) either made by children or depicting children/pets.
How can we enable residents and shop owners to name aspects within their neighbourhood? Simply allow them to actually name their streets and neighbourhood, and inscribe their names in tiles within the streets that physically make up their neighbourhood. If possible, have these inscriptions light up in the dark.
How can we identify and promote the shared values? Ask residents and inscribe them in the tiles as well. What joint activities can residents undertake with a common goal? Create a communal garden.

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker II

Kacper Grass focuses on targeting the obstacle of threats and intimidation by business owners by means of finding alternatives to existing public institutions and building social capital among residents.

Questions your assumptions

In order to better understand the nature of the issue, it is important to know exactly who is responsible for causing the troublesome noise and other disturbances. Although unruly business owners have been identified as the primary source of the problem, it is not clear whether these business owners are actually residents of Jan Luykenlaan themselves or if they commute from other neighbourhoods. Moreover, can it be said with certainty that all of the residents of Jan Luykenlaan are victims of the noise and disturbances caused by local businesses, or do some of them actually contribute to the problem by supporting troublesome establishments?

Finally, it would be useful to know whether there already exists some sort of platform through which the residents of Jan Luykenlaan could meet to discuss community issues without having to rely on the municipal government. Therefore, three preliminary assumptions worth clarifying are:

Are the troublesome business owners local residents or commuters?
Are all local residents victims of disturbances, or do some actually contribute to the problem?
Is there any kind of local platform for addressing community issues?

Uncover some first principles

Though businesses inevitably vary in their models and strategies, all businesses are dependent on their customers for profit. Therefore, it can be said with certainty that business owners will adapt to their customers’ demands if faced with the existential risk of losing their support. Relatedly, public awareness campaigns and reviews have an effect on at least some consumers’ decisions regarding businesses that either operate unethically or provide services that are inferior to those of their competition. Finally, public forums like American “town hall” meetings have proven to be cheap and inclusive ways of bringing community members together independently of public institutions. Thus, some first principles related to the challenge are:

Businesses are dependent on customers and will adapt to their demands.
Public awareness campaigns and reviews have an effect on consumers’ decisions.
Town hall meetings are an effective way of bringing community members together.

Come up with new ideas

If no platform for community dialogue exists in Jan Luykenlaan, then a town hall meeting could be organized in order to first determine the source of the problem: whether the noise and disturbances originate from local business owners and local customers or if they are caused by commuters from other parts of the city. This way, residents would be able to address their concerns directly with one another without having to rely on the municipal government to play the part of an intermediary, thus giving them a sense of ownership of the issue. Once the roots of the problem are identified, then the town hall meeting could be used to organize a “public awareness committee” of local volunteers who would be responsible for writing positive reviews of businesses that abide by volume and curfew regulations and negative reviews of those that violate such regulations. These reviews could then be disseminated in both local sources like a neighbourhood newspaper or a town hall bulletin board as well as more universal sources like the internet. In conclusion, two actionable solutions to tackle this challenge would be:

Hold a town hall meeting to determine the source of the issue.
Organize a committee to write positive and negative reviews for local businesses according to whether they abide by regulations.

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker III

Tom Kortenbach focuses on the assumptions that local residents lack a feeling of ownership over the neighbourhood, that nuisance and noise originate from the street and that local business owners are also neighbourhood residents.

Question your assumptions and uncover some first principles

In the description of the case, there are a few assumptions. Firstly, the case description mentions that the residents lack a feeling of ownership over the neighbourhood and the property in it. But can this be argued? It is true that there is more damage compared to other neighbourhoods in The Hague, however, this can also be because the municipality invests less in the neighbourhood. The statistics, however, show that the neighbourhood Moerwijk West has 7 incidents per 1000 inhabitants of destruction and crime against public order (Allecijfers, 2021a), compared to 6 incidents per 1000 inhabitants for the municipality of The Hague as a whole (Allecijfers, 2021b).

Secondly, it is mentioned that the nuisance is coming from the shops in the street. Is it, however, likely that it originates from there or could it be from something else as the disturbance is predominantly during the evening? A more likely place where this is coming from is cafes. Moreover, as some of the problems are illegal gambling and (sexual) intimidation, this is more likely to be coming from cafe customers who had a few alcoholic drinks.

Another important factor could be whether the shop and cafe owners are from the neighbourhood, as they are likely to have a smaller feeling of ownership for the public space when they are from a different part of the city. Likely they are not from the exact street as the shop, as it is a concentration of shops. Nonetheless, it is not possible to determine if the shop owners reside in the same street. However, for the customers of the shops it is likely to conclude that they are from the same neighbourhood, as there are many small concentrations of shops in the surroundings. For the customers of the cafes this is likely to be different, however, as there are less cafes in the surrounding area, therefore, people will probably travel for a longer distance to go to one.

Come up with new ideas

As we have come up with a few first principles, by assessing the assumptions presented in the case description, we are able to come up with new ideas to solve them.

The first solution could be to arrange more entertainment for teenagers and young adults (from 15 to ~25/30), so that they will not be too bored and start to misbehave or intoxicate themselves to have some fun.

Other solutions are more focussed on enforcement, such as to arrange earlier closing times for the bars and cafes, through permits, in order to not have people leaving intoxicated at a late time. Moreover, have neighbourhood residents patrol on the streets in order to talk to people that misbehave, and if that doesn’t work have a community police officer on the street at closing time of shops and cafes. Lastly, cameras could be installed for supervision, close to the shops and cafes, to observe the locations and intervene and identify when necessary.

Step 6 and 7: Refine and select your solutions (together)

Normally, according to the steps outlined in the First Principles Thinking Manual developed by FIPS, a first principles thinker would refine his or her ideas by doing another few rounds of asking additional questions and identifying first principles according to what’s important to the applicant (e.g. innovation, transparency, etc.). However, since this is a group exercise we thought it might be interesting to instead identify overlap and synergies between our ideas and see where that takes us. In doing so we identified two themes: ownership and behavioural change.

Ownership . First a participatory town hall meeting can be organised to get a better picture of how inhabitants perceive the problems, what values they would like to see in the neighbourhood and what joint activities they foresee for the neighbourhood at large (incl. youth). They would then also be asked who would like their name inscribed in the streets, and who would like to take part in a review committee or neighbourhood patrol. Alternatively, we could organise a first principles thinking exercise in smaller groups of inhabitants, each focusing on a different problem.

Behavioural change . To encourage behavioural change, we would first of all take into account the outcomes of the town hall meeting and follow up on it by installing a review committee and neighbourhood patrol, organising joint activities like a communal garden and inscribing names and values in the streets that light up at night. We could try that for a while and, if proven ineffective, see what can be done in terms of changing closing times for bars and cafes, installing safety cameras and placing more street lights, trees and colourful pieces of art.

Conclusion

The solutions produced in this collaborative exercise were largely exploratory ideas produced by problem-solvers from outside the context of the challenge. As it is the residents of Jan Luykenlaan who are most intimately connected to their neighbourhood, it would ultimately be up to them to decide which solutions would be feasible or even desirable to implement. It is very likely that, by employing first principles thinking as a collaborative effort, local problem-solvers would be able to come up with ideas that are most compatible with local circumstances and are most reflective of their needs.

Indeed, doing a first principles thinking exercise collaboratively seems to have a number of benefits. First, having different backgrounds and approaches to first principles thinking and the issue at hand can lead to a wider range of solutions. Second, having the chance to challenge each other’s assumptions and ideas can lead to more robust first principles and ideas. Third, doing the exercise together makes it more fun and less mentally challenging, for example because you can discuss if you get stuck somewhere in the process.

However, there can also be drawbacks. First, you need a common understanding of the challenge, objective and obstacles. Fine tuning this might take more time than diving into the steps right away on your own. As our example shows, even though we settled on the same obstacles, we each approached them from a different angle. Second, the ideas of each of the applicants may not always work well together, or even be contradictory. In such instances you have to work out a solution together. One way to do so would be to undertake a few additional rounds of first principles thinking to see how seemingly contradictory ideas could actually work together effectively or find out what ideas best withstand further scrutiny.

It should also be noted that while we went through steps 3 to 5 independently at first, it can be equally fruitful (and fun!) to approach these steps collectively by way of having a “Socratic dialogue”, as outlined in the First Principles Thinking Manual .

If you have found this article useful, the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions would be very interested to hear about your experiences using first principles thinking as an individual or in collaborative effort. Whether you are an instructor trying to get your students thinking outside the box, a manager trying to promote teamwork in the office or a private problem-solver trying to make a difference in your community, we encourage you to share your experiences with us. Moreover, if you would like to share those experiences with other innovative problem-solvers around the world, be sure to check out the submission guidelines and submit an article for publication on our website and in the First Principles Thinking Review !

References

Allecijfers. (2021a). Moerwijk west Den Haag. https://allecijfers.nl/buurt/moerwijk-west-den-haag/#criminaliteit
Allecijfers. (2021b). Den Haag. https://allecijfers.nl/gemeente/den-haag/
Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. (n.d.). Submit your article proposal. https://www.innovativepolicysolutions.org/submit-your-article
Startup in Residence Intergov. (2021). Hoe brengen we een lichtpuntje in een zware probleemstraat? https://intergov.startupinresidence.com/nl/den-haag/hoop-in-probleemstraat/brief
Verkerk, A., & Grass, K. (2019). First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://www.innovativepolicysolutions.org/first-principles-thinking/manual
Word Hippo. (n.d.). What is the opposite of intimidating? https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-opposite-of/intimidating.html
World Bank. (2015). Cleaner streets may be safer streets. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/06/09/por-que-las-calles-mas-limpias-pueden-ser-mas-seguras

Can First Principles Thinking Spur Creative Ideas About Peace?

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 15:57:27 GMT

Photo by Nelson Harding

Does the language we use to talk about peace prevent peace? Defining peace in terms of conflict and violence seems to restrict peace-related activities to matters requiring negotiation, conflict resolution and violence prevention, and to evoke delimited emotional responses. I sense that new ideas about peace could only come from a systematic, first principles approach to a topic that is accepted as a social good but rarely examined this way. Perhaps such an exercise would strip back the concept to reveal the root experiences, behaviors and emotions we point to when we say, ‘this is peace’. I hope that by identifying the first principles of peace it might generate creative ideas to enable a new perception of peace, beyond the absence of violence, and that could be used to effectively promote peace.

Keywords : First principles thinking, peace, conceptualization

Introduction

The way we currently think and talk in English about social peace connects the concept inextricably to violence, war, conflict and injustice, particularly in the fields of international peace research and theory. This view has been held by prominent peace researchers and theorists for decades: “What we intend is that the terms 'peace' and 'violence' be linked to each other such that 'peace' can be regarded as 'absence of violence’” (Galtung, 1969, p.167). Violence and injustice, in any form, is a societal challenge. Although intimidated by the scale of the topic of peace, I want to apply first principles thinking to the starting point of our thought framework: the language we use. I restrict my inquiry to the language of my own culture, English-speaking western democracies.

It seems to me that the current activities of peace, such as conflict resolution and the appeasement of violent offenders, are certainly individually necessary, but not jointly sufficient for social peace to prevail. I see a parallel with the observation of Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi in their paper, Positive Psychology: An Introduction (2000) in which they observe: “What psychologists have learned over 50 years is that the disease model does not move psychology closer to the prevention of [these] serious problems” (p.7). They propose an approach focused on the scientific study of the factors contributing to optimal human functioning and well-being to learn how human beings thrive and flourish. I wonder if the ‘disease model’ of violence and civil injustice I saw in current peace theory, research and teaching was having the same effect of “not moving us closer to the prevention of these serious problems”.

Because positive psychology is “the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions” (Gable & Haidt, 2005, p.103), I wonder about the possibilities for thriving, flourishing human communities that might remain unrealized while ever we talk and think about peace with reference to violence (Galtung, 1969). Violence is central to even the most innovative conceptualizations of peace, including the prominent theorist Galtung’s notion of “positive and negative peace”, where negative peace is the absence of violence or war, and positive peace is the integration of human society. It seems to me, as a member of the general public, that Galtung’s definition of positive peace as the integration of human society has been obscured by the more widely held definition of negative peace. Can new language for peace give new life to this vision of positive peace?

There is an unusual opportunity for mindset change now, particularly in digital content on peace-related websites, Facebook groups and other social media, and video platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. The English language had an early lead in online content and maintains dominance today (W3Techs, n.d.). By addressing the language of peace in a first principles thinking exercise, could creative ideas for framing peace independent of violence emerge and be widely disseminated, particularly online? Could creative ideas be generated for all aspects of peace?

If it is true that the way in which we currently talk and think about peace directs our behavior and emotional responses towards violence prevention and safety, it suggests that fear is the motivating factor. Although this paper is not the place for a discussion on the fight/flight/freeze responses of the parasympathetic nervous system, there is evidence that it has a direct impact on whether we feel threatened by others or safe in our social engagement (Porges, 2009). I wondered if it might be possible to think and talk about peace so that our peace behaviors are directed to those activities that promote positive social engagement rather than activities focused on fear-based defense responses. If that were possible, could peace eventually be defined by dictionaries, by ordinary people and peace ‘professionals’ alike, as a range of behaviors (and resulting emotions) motivated by social connection and not by social threat? Could that shift be of benefit to society? I believe it could.

We define, think, and talk about peace as a state of being to be achieved through the actions of conflict resolution, violence cessation and prevention. As influential peace educator Betty Reardon states, “I identify violence as the central problematic of peace education” (Reardon, 2015, p.55). In English, peace is a noun and not a verb, and is difficult if not impossible to imagine without reference to conflict, war and violence. As the old bumper sticker jokes, “Imagine Whirled Peas”. If we had new language for peace, would our imaginations and emotions be engaged differently? Would we generate new visual, conceptual, and linguistic metaphors to better communicate and teach peace? Could peace become a verb describing specific relationship behaviors unrelated to violence?

What is the objective?

My overarching goal is to improve the teaching of peace and the way it is communicated so that it centers on rebalancing social relationships at a far earlier point in the conflict dynamic than a focus on violence currently allows. I have a three-fold objective for this inquiry, centered on language and meaning:

To revitalize the language and meaning frameworks used in English to think and talk about social peace in order to enhance the peace community’s ability to teach and promote peace at all levels of society.
To bring about a mindset change within the peace community of practitioners, theorists, researchers, activists and lay people interested in promoting social peace.
To identify fundamental human relationship behaviors and emotions descriptive of the experience of peace.

What are the obstacles to this objective?

I identify eleven major obstacles to this compound objective:

Historical language for peace that refers to violence, war and conflict must be overcome if new ways of framing social peace as a distinct activity and experience of human flourishing are to be achieved because new frameworks of thought require new language.
The vocabulary we use to think and talk about peace is currently limited and must be enlarged to include the experience of peace in which violence is not included.
The current mindset must be open to change if we are to perceive peace as a fundamental human experience essential to maintaining positive relationships of mutual value.
The language that gives rise to the description of peace as primarily an emotionally subdued experience (calm, serenity, relief) must be overcome so that teaching and communication regarding peace is more emotionally accurate and engaging.
Western epistemological and philosophical traditions of peace which follow a cognitivist view of emotions that render social knowledge separate from bodily experience must change to permit a new embodied knowledge of peace.
The preponderance of current research and theory about peace which relies on rational and historical argument rather than on lived experience must be overcome if peace is to be positively reframed.
Language that signifies peace as a static state of being must be changed to correctly communicate peace as a teachable range of actions fundamental to recalibrating relationships of increasing mutual value.
Relegating peace to the domain of specialist practitioners must be overcome to bring peace into the day-to-day experience of ordinary relationships.
Visual and physiological metaphors for peace that do not include reference to human relationships (doves, olive branches, peace symbols) must be reframed/reinvented to communicate peace as a relationship-based experience.
The unexamined assumption that peace is simple, obvious and need not be challenged must be overcome to gain an accurate picture of the full experience of peace rather than what peace is not.
The focus of peace literature and research must shift from peace as a static temporary state between parties in disintegrated relationships (that is, relationships in which there is chronic and unresolved conflict, violence and is of diminishing mutual benefit to the parties) to peace as a set of dynamic characteristics of flourishing human relationships (that is, a set of characteristics or ways of relating to each other such that the relationship is of increasing mutual value to the parties involved).

Reduce the obstacles

Because peace is a large topic, it is obviously impossible to take on the entire problem of the possible negative consequences of a view of peace that is focused on violence, war and injustice. Despite narrowing the problem to the language and thinking used for peace in English-speaking western democracies, I have challenges in circumscribing the scope of my inquiry. It is necessary to reduce the number of obstacles, which I do based on the viewpoint of being a writer fascinated with the English language, a student of peace and conflict matters, a meditation teacher and conflict resolution professional, and a lay community member motivated to work for peace. I reduce the number of obstacles to 6 from my original 11:

The historical language of peace that refers to violence, war and conflict must be overcome if new ways of framing social peace as a distinct activity and experience of human flourishing are to be achieved.
Language that signifies peace as a static state of being must be changed to correctly communicate social peace as a teachable range of actions fundamental to recalibrating relationships of increasing mutual value.
Identifying peace as emotionally quiet, weak, naïve, and intrapersonal in nature must be overcome so that teaching and communication regarding social peace is more emotionally accurate of the life-enhancing qualities of peaceful relationships as well as more engaging, and more stimulating than violence.
Visual metaphors for peace that do not include reference to human relationships (for example, doves, olive branches, peace symbols) must be recreated in order to communicate peace as a synergistic relationship-based embodied experience.
Relegating peace to the domain of specialist practitioners focused on political conflict and injustice must be overcome to broaden the experience of peace to include all social relationships.
The continued focus within the culture of peace theorists, researchers and educators on peace as conceptually inextricable from violence is resistant to change and must be widened to overcome the current educational and research paradigm.

If these obstacles could be overcome, then conditions would prevail that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to achieve my objective of creating new language for peace, and for using the resulting new language and meaning to initiate a shift in the mindset of the general public as well as the community of professionals and activists working to promote social peace. It is a big ‘if’, given that entrenched cultural attitudes can be resistant to change, much less overcome, but I suspend disbelief and persevere with my first principles exercise. Next, I examine my assumptions.

What are the assumptions underlying each obstacle?

I list the assumptions that I think are underneath each obstacle and use Socratic questioning to examine those assumptions. I find this a challenging but very useful part of the process. It is challenging for me to engage in this process because so much of my own thinking about peace is largely reactive and related to my personal experience of interactions with colleagues in peace and justice activism, violence prevention, negotiation, conflict resolution, and restorative justice practice. In short, I realize that I have harbored many unexamined assumptions that I am now subjecting to systematic questioning for the first time. For example, this is the output of my questioning the assumptions I thought were underneath the first identified obstacle:

Obstacle #1: The historical language of peace that refers to violence, war and conflict must be overcome if new ways of framing social peace as a distinct activity and experience of human flourishing are to be achieved.

I assumed:

That the language we use to talk and think about peace has shaped our thinking . Does language shape the way we think? Do we think in language? Do we exclusively think in language rather than, say visual imagery, sound, kinesthetic experience? Do individual words in a language change in meaning over time, even if the word remains the same? Do historical definitions and meanings for peace carry over into the current thinking in the same way?
That peace activities have followed the accepted definition of peace and have therefore revolved around the linkage to violence/war/conflict. Do the activities of peace (making, building) always involve responses to violence and conflict? Is it possible to decouple peace from violence/war/conflict using the current language? Does talking about peace always mean talking about what peace is not?
That the historical meaning of peace in English, as the absence or cessation of war/conflict, started with the Latin word for peace, pax . Does the English word peace derive from the Latin pax? What are the etymological roots of the Latin word and could that be different from the Latin definition? Did that root word in any way influence the current definition of peace in English? What are the connotations of the Latin word that found their way into the English definition of peace?
That despite the long history of defining “peace as not war”, this definition hasn’t changed in any significant way in 2,000 years (since Pax Romana). Is this verifiable? Has the definition of peace in English changed from the way the Romans defined it? Can that definition be linked and dated to Pax Romana? What other definitions are there for the English word, peace?
That most people in the field believe that peace is a simple concept, needs no explanation and need not be challenged conceptually . Is this true? Is there evidence that peace researchers and theorists have never challenged the concept? Does peace require explanation? What evidence is there that the peace community shares a definition of peace based on unquestioned acceptance of the historical usage? What leading theorists and researchers have explicitly defined peace in the traditional way and stated that the definition is sufficient for their purposes, or insufficient? Do peace theorists usually define the word, peace? Is there any dissention in the peace community about the definition of the word?
That English dictionary definitions of peace reflect popular usage and meaning: peace is defined in terms of violence . Do compilers of dictionaries have criteria related to widespread usage before a word is added to a dictionary? Do dictionaries reflect the evolution in meaning of words based on common or published usage? How is this assessed? Do definitions of the word “peace” by influential peace theorists such as Galtung shape the general understanding of peace, in peace education, peace activism and among peace practitioners? And if so, what impact does this have on the general public understanding of peace?
That social peace is not currently viewed as a distinct activity and experience of human flourishing. Is there evidence of this in social psychology and other domains? What is meant by “human flourishing” in society? How are the activities and experiences of social peace currently viewed by peace researchers?

I continue to apply Socratic questioning to each of the assumptions I identified:

That most English-speaking people see the experience and processes of social/political peace as being distinct and different from that of intrapersonal spiritual peace.
That the conclusions and insights of peace theories and research remain in the domain of political peace and do not devolve to the domain of ordinary interpersonal relationships.
That for most people, peace carries connotations of utopian naivete, and that violence more truly reflects human nature.
That peace and violence (war, armed conflict, etc.) are categorical opposites and are both moral concepts.
That cultural concepts are subject to change in meaning over time.
That peace is a social value.
That emotion is a key source of motivation in the maintenance of social values.
That individualism (independence and uniqueness) is more prevalent in English-speaking western democracies than collectivism (duty to in group and maintaining harmony across groups and nations).

Questioning each assumption leads me to look for evidence to support or disqualify each assumption. This part of the exercise was very stimulating and led me to new research, some of which validated my observations and assumptions, and led directly to verifiable facts and fundamental truths, that is, first principles.

What first principles do I discover?

Humans use language to communicate socially and to think.
Language shapes the way we think and influences perceptual decisions (Boroditsky, 2011).
Mindsets, or the ways in which we think about something, directly impact the reality we experience (Crum & Langer, 2007).
Changing our mindsets can produce physiological, psychological and behavioral changes (Crum & Langer, 2007).
Peace has been defined with reference to conflict, war and social unrest for centuries (Roser, 2016).
Dictionary definitions reflect popular language usage.
Peace is defined as the absence of war or conflict; Peace is a noun in English (OED, n.d.).
Metaphorical understanding is grounded in basic human experience via conceptual metaphors (Lakoff, 2008).
Peace theories, research and practices are focused on the dynamics of war, conflict and violence (Galtung, 1969).
Google image searches for visual symbols and metaphors for peace do not portray human beings in relationship.
The behaviors and activities of peace relate to conflict resolution and violence prevention (Reardon, 2015).
Positive psychology is concerned with individual and group well-being and human flourishing (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Mutuality and reciprocity are components of healthy human relationships (Kane et al., 2012).
Cultures change, and with cultural change come shifts in concepts, language and attitude (Varnum & Grossmann, 2017).

What creative ideas are generated from the first principles?

I generate many creative ideas from these first principles by asking “how to” or “how can we” questions. For example, taking the first principle “Language shapes the way we think and influences perceptual decisions”, I ask: “How can we revitalize the language of peace so that we avoid reference to conflict (current usage: non-violent, anti-war, cease fire, conflict resolution, etc.)”. I conceive these ideas:

Examine the language we use to describe flourishing relationships and contrast it to the language of conflict resolution to find new language for peace.
Create new terms, if necessary, for those aspects of behavior causally related to maintaining flourishing relationships of mutual value.
Coin and publish new words to communicate the reframed meaning of peace as a transitive verb using the existing structures of English. For example, use the prefix en - to coin the verb ‘to enpeace’, in the same way that ‘to enjoy’ is the verb form of joy and ‘to encourage’ the verb form of courage.
Create new metaphors based on the physiological experience of peace, such as the rebalancing of the body (in dance, in sport etc.); Address the non-verbal aspects of the language of peace and create new visual metaphors and imagery for peace.

As I ask “How can we” questions of each first principle, further creative ideas develop:

Express the description and definition of the behaviors identified as peace terms of healthy relationships.
Frame peace activism and practice in terms of the dynamics of flourishing social relationships rather than the dynamics of social pathology (violence and injustice).
Describe what social behaviors to use in positive terms and refrain from using language that refers to unwanted social behaviors (violence, injustice).
Develop accurate physiological metaphors for peace that refer to the continuous rebalancing involved in flourishing relationships and that mirror the processes of homeostasis in living systems.
Identify physiological orientation and movement that relate to the exchange of positive energy in flourishing social relationships (rebalancing in dancing, skating, juggling, surfing, for example) that could form the foundation for new linguistic and visual metaphors for peace.
Challenge metaphor analysts to examine embodied metaphors for peace.
Engage artists and writers to generate new metaphors based on a reframed perception of social peace.
Invite social psychologists and other researchers to investigate self-similarity in the dynamics and scaling of social relationships.
Publish the research and experience of test subjects and researchers, specifically in English-speaking Western democracies, who have shifted their emotional and psychological responses to peace.
Promote anecdotal, individual and informal research and testing of shifts in responses to peace, and publish on social media group platforms to invite general public comment.
Reframe the traditional mindset of peace and test the results in a variety of stakeholder groups.
Enlist influencers on social media and in entertainment to popularize the emotional attractiveness and naturalness of peace without reference to violence or conflict.
Create platforms for holding conversations about the emotional experience of the activities of peace (podcasts, social media sites, entertainers, and visual artists).
Correlate and publish examples of where cultural attitudes have shifted regarding peace, drawing parallels with cultural attitude shifts in other areas such as marriage equality, gender fluidity, corporal punishment of children etc. This could illustrate how pro-social benefits (such as increased tolerance, understanding and compassion for others) can accrue from shifts in entrenched cultural attitudes about how we relate to each other.
Identify what human flourishing is in respect of healthy relationships and contrast that with pathology in relationships.
Publish content related to the 5 pillars of positive psychology, PERMA (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment) and show how each domain relates to peace (Seligman, 2012).
Create an analogy to PERMA for peace.
Frame peace activities as a continuum that describes human relationships with pathology at one end and flourishing at the other.
Frame conflict as a natural feature of human interaction, and as a necessary impetus to positive change when handled skillfully.
Demonstrate the constraints on a comprehensive view of peace that derive from a focus on violence and conflict.
Invite and challenge peace researchers and theorists to concentrate their research on peace in terms of human flourishing in societies.

Conclusion

To paraphrase Marcus Aurelius, could the problems of the language of peace contain the solution? I am encouraged by this exercise in first principles thinking to see how the solution might emerge from the current language and metaphor English speakers use for peace. Of course, I am now tempted to apply first principles thinking to other aspects of peace. I plan to start a non-profit organization to implement and stimulate creative ideas to promote peace around the world, and first principles thinking will be a cornerstone for generating new ideas.

References

Boroditsky, L. (2011). How Language Shapes Thought. Scientific American , 304 (2), 62-65.
Crum, A. J., & Langer, E. J. (2007). Mind-Set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect. Psychological Science , 18 (2), 165-171.
Gable, S., Haidt, J. (2005). What (and Why) Is Positive Psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9 (2), 103-110.
Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, Peace, and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research, 6 (3), 167-191.
Kane, H.S., McCall, C., Collins, N.L., Blascovich, J. (2012). Mere Presence Is Not Enough: Responsive Social Support in a Virtual World. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48 , 37-44.
Lakoff, G. (2008). The Neural Theory of Metaphor. In The Metaphor Handbook . UC Berkeley. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9n6745m6#main
OED. (n.d.). “Peace”. Oxford English Dictionary . https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/139215;jsessionid=3D71C19B08C3A67B34BF04C1F90C271F
Porges, S. (2009). The Polyvagal Theory: New Insights into Adaptive Reactions of the Autonomic Nervous System. Cleveland Clinical Journal of Medicine, 76 (2), 86-90.
Reardon, B. A. (2015). Human Rights Learning: Pedagogies and Politics of Peace. In Betty A. Reardon: A Pioneer in Education for Peace and Human Rights , 145-164. Springer, Cham.
Roser, M. (2016). War and Peace. Our World in Data . https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace
Seligman, M. (2012). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. Atria Books.
Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. In Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology , 279-298. Springer, Dordrecht.
Varnum, M. E., & Grossmann, I. (2017). Cultural Change: The How and the Why. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 12 (6), 956-972.
W3Techs. (n.d.) Usage Statistics of Content Languages for Websites. World Wide Web Technology Surveys . https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_language

The Role of First Principles Thinking in Singapore’s Nation-Building

Sat, 09 Oct 2021 18:19:43 GMT

Photo by Joshua Ang

Upon becoming an independent city-state in 1965, Singapore had to overcome the challenges of nation-building in a small but culturally and ethnically diverse territory. In his search for solutions, Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), the country’s founding father, employed first principles thinking as a societal problem-solving technique. By identifying three first principles at the root of his challenge, LKY was able to overcome the obstacles of nation-building and lay the foundations for a cohesive and prosperous society in Singapore.

Keywords : First principles thinking, Lee Kuan Yew, nation building, Singapore

Introduction

Design thinking, Agile, Business Model Canvas, and Jobs to be Done are just a few of the frameworks that are popularly used in many industries. First Principles Thinking (FPT) was one of those that I came across, but it stuck with me because of its elegance and efficacy of problem solving. It was made popular by Elon Musk with his famous example of solving the problem of the high cost of batteries at Tesla. He broke down the battery to its most basic material constituents and purchased them off the London Metal Exchange to reduce the cost to $80/kwh (vs $600/kwh). This was one of many examples that Musk uses FPT to solve, from Tesla to SpaceX. Most of the examples were specific to engineering and technical fields, so I parked FPT as a point of reference in my memory hoping to dust it off when I did have a technical problem to solve in future.

Months down the road I chanced upon a YouTube recommended video on an interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN featuring the late founding father of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) (CNN, 2008). In it, LKY talked about Singapore and how he transformed a relatively small low-income country into the modern metropolis that it is today. He briefly mentioned using FPT in formulating policy, and it instantly revived that dusty file parked in the corner of my brain. This piqued my interest because it was the first time I had heard of FPT being used in a non-technical situation, so wanted to learn more and perhaps share my findings with the rest of the world. My aim in this article is to explore the way LKY approached the social issues faced by Singapore during the early years of its development and see to what extent FPT played a role. In doing so I use the FPT framework provided in the First Principles Thinking Manual (Verkerk & Grass, 2019).

Lee Kuan Yew’s approach to FPT

LKY was born in 1923. He was a fourth-generation Singaporean whose great grandfather emigrated from Guangdong, China, in 1863. LKY was an extremely bright student in school, coming in top at every level. He graduated First Class at Cambridge Law in 1949 and went on to become a legal advisor to trade and student unions (Kuan Yew, 2000). And from here he moved on to start his political career. One striking feature of LKY was his pragmatic approach to every problem; he was not an ideological or dogmatic person. He did not work on a theory but rather asked, “what will make this work?”. If, after a series of such solutions, a certain approach worked, he would try to find out what the principle behind the solution was (Plate, 2010, p. 46-47).

LKY was tasked with building a nation

LKY came onto the scene during a crucial period in Singapore’s history when it was expelled from the Federation of Malaya (Malaysia presently) because of ideological differences. This meant that Singapore was to be independent and had to fend for itself without support. Singapore had a few immediate issues to tackle: mass unemployment, a lack of natural resources, housing shortages, neighboring country aggression, and withdrawal of military support from the British, just to name a few. LKY and his team had to plug the holes of a fragile Singapore in its early years of independence after 1965 so that they would not lead to the failure of the nascent state. He and his team had to set the right policies, and ultimately build a nation and economy that was without natural resources, limited to a small 700 sq km space, and consisting of a multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-religious society of low skill and education.

Obstacles to building a nation

In 1819 when the British bought Singapore from the Sultan of Johore (in Malaya), they made Singapore a key trading hub for the East India Company. Trade flourished with various races flocking to this port, living together in relative peace—the local Malays discussed ideas, published articles, Chinese merchants traded, and Indian Chettiars exchanged monies (Tai Song, 2019, p. 63). Apart from the rule of law and administration, the British generally left society to run on its own. However, after World War II, the social atmosphere started to shift. There was a rise in anti-colonial sentiment and a need to break away from British rule. This started Singapore on its journey toward independence with the need to form a common identity. The challenge lies with its heterogeneous population of various races and religions.

Singapore did not have the proper ingredients to build a national identity—a city state without “indigenous rootedness, civilizational lineage, or cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic homogeneity” (Tai Song, 2019, p. 118). Nor did it go through the “fire of war or revolution”, which put Singapore in a unique situation with no comparison or examples to emulate (Iqbal Latif & Leng Lee, 2015, p. 49). With such a challenge, how could LKY synergize a diverse group of people, motivate them to work towards the common good of a newly formed country, and create policies that best fit Singapore’s context?

LKY’s first principles

According to the book Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas , LKY raised 3 ‘first principles’, defined by Aristotle as the basis from which a thing is known, that contributed to his policy decisions. Although he did not use this term in his book, he did describe them as “fundamental human truths”. Using his observation, reading, arguing, and asking LKY postulated that (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 175):

Individuals strive for their success and their family
Different races have different abilities
Culture defines success

First principle 1: Individuals strive for their success and their family

In determining policies for welfare in Singapore, LKY had considered whether Singapore should adopt similar policies like that of Western welfare states, with cradle-to-grave benefits. It would prove costly, especially in the early years of development where Singapore just managed to escape the poverty line, but would also be beneficial to the citizens going through deprivation. One observation he shared was on Britain in the 1940s and 50s post-war period, where Britain was moving away from the hardships of war, and benefits such as food, clothes, housing were subsidised. However, in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the effects of this redistribution of wealth, not dependent on individual effort, resulted in a slowing economy and the lack of achievement and abundance became apparent (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 160). This hints to the fact that if the state took over the responsibility of individuals' needs and wants, it would also remove the motivation of individuals.

Another example he shared, closer to home, was about Chinese culture and history. The extended family network and clan who supported each other for survival, had existed for thousands of years during wars, famines, devastations and floods. There was no government agency to provide aid back then, so people only had their communities to help them. He also saw first-hand how that happened during World War II, when the Japanese occupied Singapore. If medicine was in short supply, immediate relatives, extended families and maybe very close friends were the only ones who could help.

This led him to the following first principle: the innate motivation of individuals was for their own personal success and that of their families and the government should support the traditional family units rather than take over that responsibility. If the government takes on the full responsibility like Britain from the 70s to 90s, the lack of motivation would lead to a less vibrant economy. To further add to this, he gave an example of Communist China, where the state “tried to dismantle families by separating them into communes, with husbands and wives sent to different parts of the country to work. It did not work and they admitted that it was wrong” (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 163).

Thus LKY was against welfare policies, even in the area of healthcare, so instead of a full subsidy for free healthcare for all like in some Western welfare societies, he adopted a co-share approach called Medisave, in which a part of a person's income goes toward a savings program that can be taken out at a later date for personal healthcare (Central Provident Fund Board, n.d.). This is Singapore’s version of welfare, where co-payment and shared responsibility continue to be the mainstay for the provision of public goods such as healthcare and other social services (Public Service Division, n.d.).

First principle 2: Different people and races have different abilities

As Singapore was a diverse multi-racial population, LKY believed that policy-making had to be tailored to fit this context. In this case, could a one-size-fits-all policy work in Singapore? In his early years at Cambridge, LKY was drawn “to the ideals of the British Fabians, a group of left-wing intellectuals at the vanguard of the Labour Party at the time”, who believed that inequality in society came largely from unequal opportunities. Hence, if differences in access to economic and social opportunities were removed, the gap between the rich and poor would also close (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 154).

In reality, he soon discovered, this was not the case. In the early stages of Singapore’s development in the 1950s and 60s, when the majority of the people were poor, uneducated, blue-collared workers and giving their children equal opportunities for education, Singapore was able to produce 60-70% of the best scholars from this group. However, over time as the overall population became educated, that proportion changed drastically, with the highly educated group which makes up about 20% of the population producing 70% of the scholars in Singapore (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 155). In other words, equal opportunities did produce positive outcomes initially but it reached a point where it no longer made a huge difference. Instead, it showed that the best and brightest only came from the top layer of society. This was also evident among the different races in Singapore, whose especially multi-racial society amplified ethnic achievement starkly.

When the book The Bell Curve was published in 1994 by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, it addressed the question of disparities in intellect among different races, and argued that some men or races were more endowed than others, which caused much criticism and condemnation, especially from the politically-correct intelligentsia. The findings from The Bell Curve did, however, not surprise LKY but simply validated his belief in the principle that not all men were created equally in ability. According to Murray and Herrnstein, their purpose for publishing the book was to be open with data collected and prevent misinformation and assumptions from spreading with regards to intelligence being purely environmental (Herrnstein & Murray, 1996, p. 350). Unfortunately, although most readers focus on the chapter in which their findings show a disparity between race and IQ, the central focus is actually on IQ across various social behaviours (e.g. poverty, schooling, family, crime etc.).

Long before The Bell Curve was published, and before Murray and Herrnstein’s attempts to confront the taboos that lead to ignorance in America, LKY already saw a potential problem if this potential misinformation was not addressed openly to the public. According to Fook Kwang et al. (2015), LKY argued that if Singapore followed the likes of America, and supposing we had hidden the assumed fact that not all men have equal abilities and IQ, then the less able or well-off would demand equal results. If he didn’t bring it out, his successors would face a problem of credibility. Because they can’t bring it out, they would say we’re trying to escape the responsibility. As such, LKY states, not to come to terms with this is to deceive yourself and be pursuing policies which would bring no good (p. 154). Based on his observation of examination results—and backed up later by evidence from The Bell Curve findings—LKY concluded the fundamental truth that not all people were given equal abilities, which meant unequal outcomes or results, even with equal opportunities.

So in formulating the policies for Singapore, he adopted a meritocratic system where the best and brightest, with the most ability and skill get drawn to the top rungs of society. This gave everyone an opportunity to compete on an equal level at the start, and then those who were competent would be rewarded and rise up in society (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 155). But what of the less abled in society? LKY and the founding team came up with policies to help bridge the education gap within the minority Malay community who were lagging behind national educational standards as well as professionally (Tan, 1995, p. 344). For instance, in the 1960s, the government provided free secondary and tertiary education, special bursaries and scholarships, as well as free textbooks and transport allowances to deserving individuals in the Malay community (Zahoor Ahmad, 1969). However, this did not help much since additionally the Malays did not share the similar cultural beliefs of success as initially thought, which leads to the other first principle raised by LKY: culture defines success.

First principle 3: Culture defines success

If genetics cannot be changed, could culture be tinkered and changed for the better? LKY wanted to create the right culture that would allow Singapore to succeed economically (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 179). LKY grappled with the question of why some people or societies were more skilled, hard-driving, and successful than others (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 171). He gave an example of how culture made an impression on him. During a state visit to Japan, where he was invited to dinner at a small hotel in an island province, a chef who served him performed a demonstration of peeling persimmons into beautiful shapes on a plate, with much pride and perfection. He later learnt that his position took 3-5 years of learning simple things, and only after 15 years does one become a chief chef. Similarly, even after Japan lost the war and the Japanese prisoners of war in Singapore had to clean the streets, they did it well without reluctance or humiliation; they took pride in their work (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 174).

Was nature (genetics) the cause of success as he had previously thought about with regards to race and ability? Or did nurture (culture) have a part to play? After all, with the previous example, Japanese society was relatively homogeneous in terms of culture and race. LKY shared his thoughts about this in a speech in Tokyo in 1967:

“I like to demarcate [...] the basis of the difference in the tempo […] East Asia, Korea, Japan, and mainland China […] were supposed to be Mahayana Buddhists. And then there is Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Ceylon, which are supposed to be Hinayana Buddhist. According to Hinayana Buddhist, if the bedbug disturbs you, you take your mattress and shake it off; there is that compassion not only for the human being but for the bedbug [...] But watching the Japanese over the years, I have not the slightest doubt that is not what they do...this makes some difference. [...] It is something deeper. It is part of the tempo, the way of life” (Kuan Yew, 1967).

At one time, LKY contended that as much as 80% was due to nature, but rather than be embroiled in the debate of nature vs nurture, he contended that there is no denying the fact that culture was a key determinant of the success of certain groups over the years (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 175). In Singapore’s case with various cultures, how would policy work, especially with respect to the Malay community who share different views? A sociologist by the name of Judith Djamour did a study on the Malay community in the 1940s and 50s and posited that the Chinese considered acquisition of wealth to be the goal in life, whereas the Malays valued the importance of easy and graceful living (Djamour, 1959). Another sociologist, Bryan Parkinson explained that this difference in value or culture is not irrational or that one culture is superior to the other, but rather that Chinese culture would lead to economic development more so than the Malay culture.

The desire to succeed is no less present in the Malay community than compared with others, but it is just that success means something different to them. “The Malays seem to regard success as doing what their forebears have approved and practised, but doing it as well as they can. Wealth and economic advancement are desired by the Malays, but not at the expense of renouncing utterly the traditions and the traditional occupations of their forefathers’ to which they have grown accustomed”. He concluded that criticizing this value would be reprehensible, but if values remain unchanged then so too will the economic advancement for them (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013, p. 10).

Knowing this, there were still attempts to bridge the gap by creating quotas for public housing, known today in Singapore as the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), with the purpose of intermingling races together so that by being in a more multiracial environment, Malay children would become more competitive and more striving (Housing and Development Board, n.d.; Kuan Yew, 1968). But in the back of his mind, LKY knew that the gap could not be bridged easily or in the near future. With this conclusion, he did not try to hide the issue but instead openly confronted it to the public and press. His purpose was to prevent any misunderstanding from happening, that this issue on race would have nothing to do with discrimination or lack of support. By openly discussing it, he believed he would get results, whereas if he were to sweep it under the carpet and not face up to the truth, it would lead to poor policies.

Singapore nowadays

As Singapore recently celebrated its 56th year as an independent country, much has changed since the policies LKY and the founding team had come up with.

Welfare in Singapore

In terms of social spending, the government health expenditure in Singapore in 2011 accounted for 1.34% of GDP, whereas in Japan and Korea, it accounted for approximately 8.32% and 3.82%, respectively with approximately 70-80% of Singaporeans obtaining their medical care within the public health system (Lee & Qian, 2017; Singapore Ministry of Health, n.d.). However, because of this co-sharing principle, access to healthcare is deeply dependent on regular income. This is especially true for individuals from low-income families, who may not get access to healthcare as swiftly if they are without a regular job due to the bureaucracy needed to apply for government support (You Yenn, 2019, p. 163-164).

Meritocratic culture

Seeing how this system of meritocracy has played out in Singapore over the past 56 years, the results speak for themselves. In 1965 the GDP per capita was $4,000 and to $54,000 in 2015 (World Bank, 2010). In a recent survey done by IPSOS on national identity, 85% of respondents said they were proud to be Singaporean, and Business Insider also ranked Singapore as one of the 19 most patriotic countries in the world (Business Insider, 2016; IPSOS, 2020). This is a considerable achievement for such a short and abrupt history without much of a natural unifying force behind its growth.

Of course, not all systems are perfect, and with meritocracy come certain negative externalities that can be seen in society. There is a culture of elitism and social divide not so much between races and religion but more along class lines: “On average, Singaporeans who live in public housing have fewer than one friend who lives in private housing. Additionally, those who attend elite schools also tend to have fewer friends in non-elite schools, and vice versa” (Global-is-Asian, 2018). This ingrained culture has led some to criticise the elitism that is prevalent in the community, which has also resulted in students defining their self-worth based on grades and having less interaction with students of other social classes (Phneah, n.d.).

How effective was LKY using FPT?

In this example, LKY did apply most of the FPT steps. He knew what his objective was (to build a nation), understood the obstacles before him (a heterogeneous society), and was aware of his assumptions and sought to uncover the fundamental truths behind the Singaporean society. However, he did not exactly create a novel solution. He also did not publicly question his assumptions, or they may not have been written down explicitly. In a purist sense, LKY did not follow FPT, as it is defined today, to the letter but definitely to the spirit.

Even though LKY was highly educated, he was a pragmatist and not one who just dabbles in theories. As he said, “A theory is an attractive proposition intellectually. What we faced was a real problem of human beings looking for work, to be paid, to buy their food, their clothes, their homes and to raise their children.” So his litmus test for theories was: Does it work? Does it bring benefits to the people (Fook Kwang et al., 2015, p. 109)? One could argue that the spirit of FPT stems from a scientific approach, void of bias with the ultimate aim of solving a problem, and based on this, LKY followed the spirit of FPT even though his solution was not unique.

Conclusion

Whilst LKY may not have followed FPT down the letter, as much as we may like, his policies, which were based on a number of first principles, have proven themselves over the years. In less than 60 years, Singapore has been transformed from a jumble of races doing their own things to a united republic. A famous saying written on an epitaph at St Paul’s Cathedral London by Christopher Wren, the architect who built it, can be applied to LKY’s achievements: “Si monumentum requiris circumspice,” translated as “If you would seek my monument, look around you.”

Although you won’t find a public monument of LKY in Singapore, you can certainly see his handiwork in the city and its people and in what Singapore has achieved in just over five decades. In a similar thread, I would like to think that FPT had some part to play in this, which proves that it stands the test of time and is an immutable principle beyond the context of science!

References

Business Insider. (2016). 19 Most Patriotic Countries in the World . https://www.businessinsider.com/yougov-19-most-patriotic-countries-in-the-world-2016-11#15-singapore-5
Central Provident Fund Board. (n.d.). MediSave . https://www.cpf.gov.sg/Members/Schemes/schemes/healthcare/medisave
CNN. (2008). Lee Kuan Yew - Interview with Fareed Zakaria . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLyPpUsNkAE
Djamour, J. (1959). Malay Kinship and Marriage in Singapore . Routledge.
Global-is-Asian. (2018). Meritocracy in Singapore: Solution or Problem? Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/gia/video/meritocracy-in-singapore-solution-or-problem
Han, F.W., Fernandez, W., & Tan, S. (2015). Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas . Marshall Cavendish.
Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1996). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life . Free Press.
Housing and Development Board. (n.d.). Ethnic Integration Policy and SPR Quota . https://www.hdb.gov.sg/residential/buying-a-flat/resale/eligibility/ethnic-integration-policy-and-spr-quota
IPSOS. (2020). Singaporeans on National Values and Identity . News & Polls. https://www.ipsos.com/en-sg/singaporeans-national-values-and-identity
Iqbal Latif, A., & Leng Lee, H. (Eds.). (2015). George Yeo on Bonsai, Banyan and the Tao . World Scientific Publishing Co.
Kuan Yew, L. (1967). Being a Hard Nation: Foreign Correspondents Association Dinner Speech .
Kuan Yew, L. (1968). The Difference Between the Malays and the Chinese: Southeast Asia Business Committee Meeting Dinner Speech .
Kuan Yew, L. (2000). From Third World to First . Marshall Cavendish.
Lee, S. A., & Qian, J. (2017). The Evolving Singaporean Welfare State. Social Policy and Administration , 51 (6), 916–939.
London School of Economics and Political Science. (2013). Monographs on Social Anthropology . HardPress Publishing.
Phneah, J. (n.d.). Why Elitism in Singapore Exists & How to Change It . https://www.jeraldinephneah.com/elitism-in-singapore/
Plate, T. (2010). Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew, Citizen Singapore: How to Build a Nation . Marshall Cavendish.
Public Service Division. (n.d.). Supporting Singaporeans and Ensuring No One Is Left Behind . https://www.psd.gov.sg/heartofpublicservice/our-institutions/supporting-singaporeans-and-ensuring-no-one-is-left-behind/
Singapore Ministry of Health. (n.d.). Resources & Statistics .
Tan, J. (1995). Joint Government-Malay Community Efforts to Improve Malay Educational Achievement in Singapore. Comparative Education , 31 (3), 339–353.
Tan, T.Y. (2019). The Idea of Singapore: Small and Unconstrained . World Scientific Publishing Co.
Verkerk, A., & Grass, K. (2019). First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/101291b2/files/uploaded/PROMO%20-%20First%20Principles%20Thinking%20Manual%20by%20FIPS.pdf
World Bank. (2010). GDP Per Capita - Singapore . https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?locations=SG
You Yenn, T. (2019). This Is What Inequality Looks Like . Ethos Books.
Zahoor Ahmad, B. H. F. H. (1969). Policies and Politics in Malay Education in Singapore 1951-1965 .

Using First Principles Thinking in Marketing: How I Generated Media Attention to Help Feed the Homeless

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 15:03:42 GMT

Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash

In this article, I expand on my experiences of using first principles thinking in the field of marketing (Ciriaco, 2020). I begin by comparing first principles thinking to reasoning by analogy before providing an outline of the method’s fundamental steps. I then share a personal case study that illustrates how first principles thinking helped me find a way to get a nonprofit organization TV coverage with zero budget. The article concludes with a discussion of when it is and is not most advantageous to use first principles thinking in your work.

Keywords : First principles thinking, reasoning by analogy, marketing solutions, non-profit

Introduction

Elon Musk uses first principles thinking to help him solve challenging problems. For someone who has built impressive companies, it’s worth exploring the framework that makes him create grand feats and applying it in marketing. So what is first principles thinking?

It’s a thought process which involves questioning assumptions about a problem and then boiling that problem down to its core. You then create solutions from there. A classic example is Elon Musk’s explanation on how to lower a battery pack from $600 per kilowatt hour to $80.

Most people assume batteries are expensive. They are if you buy them assembled. By using first principles thinking, you ask yourself “What’s a battery made of?” You find that it has cobalt, nickel, aluminium, carbon, etc. You then check the prices in the London Metal Exchange and find the parts only cost $80, a whopping 87% reduction.

Most people don’t think this way

The opposite of first principles thinking is reasoning by analogy. It’s a way of solving problems by using commonly held beliefs and assumptions. This way of thinking can be problematic. To illustrate, let’s say you are an aspiring digital marketer. You find an internet guru who sells a script he claims helped him close 100 clients. Hundreds of his students have also used it and have gotten great results.

Impressed, you buy the script and use it on your prospects. But then… crickets. It turns out, thousands of people, including your audiences, have already heard the same pitch from that script multiple times. The novelty effect wore off so it doesn’t work anymore. Reasoning by analogy made you think, “If they landed multiple clients using that script, then I will too,” and it turned out to be a wrong assumption.

One way to use first principles thinking in this situation is to take advantage of people’s desire for novelty, which activates the dopamine system when that desire has been met or when it is anticipated to be met. That’s a more solid footing for you to start on. Then, you can write multiple scripts that are novel.

So how do you use first principles thinking to make cutting-edge marketing solutions?

1) Question the assumptions about your problem

This is to avoid a blind leading the blind situation. It doesn’t help that we tend to imitate others. After all, seeing the masses do what we plan to do gives us validation that we are on the right track.

Take going to college for example. It’s a potential solution for one thing: financial freedom. The assumption is that going to college will automatically land you a good paying job. We know that’s not always entirely correct.

2) Find out the core of what you’re dealing

Let’s say you want to become a copywriter. You do some research and find the following tips:

Appeal to your audiences’ emotions.
Use simple words.
Make your sentences short and concise.
Move them away from pain and push them towards pleasure.

At the heart of those tips is a fundamental truth about becoming a copywriter: It’s not about writing fancy words. It’s about becoming a master persuader and influencer through words.

3) Build your solution around the core

Using the example above, you can develop your copywriting skills further by stepping outside the boundaries of the tips you initially found. Studying psychology, borrowing tactics from other disciplines, and experimenting are some things you can do to advance your skills.

The obstacles to using first principles thinking

It takes a lot of brain power to use first principles thinking. Our brain is an energy hogger so we use mental shortcuts such as using commonly held beliefs to save energy and avoid cognitive friction from thinking deeply. On top of that, we have to let go of our own biases which can be emotionally draining as well.

Also, criticism from the crowd can be an issue. After all, there are a lot of cases where first principles thinking means questioning others’ beliefs. And, when their beliefs are threatened, they will defend them like treasures. It’s one thing to come up with solutions from first principles; it’s another to have the courage to make it happen. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk's former business partner said it well: "Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius" (Slayback, 2014).

The rewards to using first principles thinking

It feels great to come up with cutting-edge solutions no one has ever thought of before. The case study below shows my own experience using first principles thinking in marketing. Being able to create high-impact solutions that are new and effective is no doubt satisfying.

Case study: How I got a nonprofit organization days of TV coverage with zero budget

I wanted to develop my marketing skills years ago so I offered to help a food bank for free. Their truck was falling apart and it was the only means they had to fetch food from restaurants. If it stopped functioning, a congregation of homeless people would be left without meals.

The goal was to spread the word about them, so I immediately thought of getting the local news stations involved. I avoided a reason by analogy approach which entailed cold calling and emailing a bunch of stations. After all, that was what everyone did.

So, I put on my first principles thinking hat. The first principles thinking “core” at play in this campaign involved sympathy. It’s a feeling that is baked in most people, so I used it as a lever in this campaign. These were the steps I took:

1) I explored the assumptions I had about this project

News stations will cover any story as long as it’s interesting.
If I reach out to them with a good story, they’ll run it.
The story I’m giving them is a good piece.

2) I debunked those assumptions

People send them stories all the time, so the competition for their attention can be fierce. If I emailed them, it will most likely get lost in the cacophony of messages they get everyday. Also, if I call them, I’ll have to pitch my story which I wasn’t very good at. On top of that, I was a nobody. No one in those stations would give me the time of day since I was a stranger.

3) Debunking those assumptions lead me to the fundamental problems I had to face

First, if I wanted them to cover my story, I had to package it in a way that was TV-worthy. I honestly didn’t have any criteria for what makes content TV-worthy. I was also a newbie in my digital marketing endeavors so I didn’t have the neuroscience background I shared in my previous example about novelty. I did, however, know that most people are capable of feeling sympathy, and the producers at the news stations are people . That’s where I based my strategy off of step 4. More on that later.

Second, I needed to cut through the noise of emails that flooded the TV stations’ inboxes. But, cutting through noise is the default action people would do. It could entail doing walk-ins or finding individuals in my network who could introduce me to a producer, which are difficult and time consuming. So I asked myself, “What if I created the noise?” That’s what I did.

4) I developed a solution that got the media’s attention

I first made a heart-warming video. I interviewed the volunteers and found that they used to be homeless and drug addicts. They turned their lives around thanks to the organization. If their truck broke down, they wouldn’t have the means to pick up food for the homeless and drug addicts. With such an angle, I was able to make a compelling video.

I then had to address the noise problem—the competition for the TV stations’ attention. I made a Facebook group consisting of volunteers and members of the food bank. I showed them the plan for the campaign along with the video I made.

To my surprise, the people I initially added to the group invited their friends and families as well. The numbers went from less than 10 to about 60 members overnight. A lot of them even started sharing the video because they couldn’t wait to get it out. That was a sign to me that we could flood the producers’ emails with our campaign.

Now, whether or not the producers would respond to the message was out of my control, but my hunch was that they wouldn’t be able to ignore a story requested by 60 different people all at once.

The plan was simple. I instructed the members of the group I created to send the video to TV stations as soon as I posted it online. I even compiled a list of contacts for them to reach out to. They didn’t have to pitch anything. The video itself would do the work. The results were awesome. At the end of the campaign, about 250 people shared the video and the stations ran the story multiple times.

When first principles thinking can be inappropriate and when to use it

As much as I love first principles thinking, it would be a mistake to share it as if it’s the only way to create cutting-edge marketing campaigns. In fact, there are drawbacks to using it. First of all, it takes a lot of time and brain power. In marketing, especially in the digital world, executing an idea as early as possible is needed so one can learn fast. This is especially true when you have a long list of ideas you have to test at a fast pace.

There are also tactics and strategies that are proven to work almost every time even though they are not new anymore. If time is limited, but you know a campaign will work, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. So when should you use first principles thinking? The simple answer is this: If your strategy and tactics aren’t working.

Conclusion

Thinking through analogies isn’t always bad, especially if they work. In fact, I do it all the time. I copy a lot of the tactics and strategies from the best marketers out there. But, it would be naive to not admit that copying and pasting can only go so far. It’s okay to borrow other people’s marketing solutions, but by using first principles thinking, we can become rogue thinkers—individuals who produce solutions that are new and effective.

References

Ciriaco, K. (2020). How to Use First Principles Thinking to Make Cutting-Edge Marketing Solutions. Klintciriaco.com. https://www.klintciriaco.com/first-principles/
Slayback, Z. (2014). The World According to Peter Thiel. On Breaking the Mold. https://medium.com/on-breaking-the-mold/the-world-according-to-peter-thiel-c99a19a8ece3

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Volume 2 / Issue 1)

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 21:04:22 GMT

The Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions is proud to present you with the second volume of the First Principles Thinking Review . In the spring of 2020, we launched this publication with the aim of creating a space to host an international and interdisciplinary conversation about tackling societal challenges with first principles thinking. Over the past several months, a number of returning and first-time authors from different backgrounds and walks of life have contributed their thought-provoking ideas to the Review . In the following pages, you will learn about the role of first principles in the scientific method and how they shape the process from coming up with possible explanations, or hypotheses, to generating theories. Furthermore, you will see how first principles thinking can be applied to a wide array of challenges, from fighting homelessness to evaluating business opportunities. Finally, you will be granted an exclusive preview of state-of-the-art research being conducted on first principles thinking as an innovation process.

You can download it HERE .

About this publication

Call for submissions

For those readers who would like to see their ideas published in the next issue of the First Principles Thinking Review , please submit a draft article through the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions website, where the editorial guidelines are described in greater length and detail. In the event that you would like to make a contribution but are not sure of how to get an article off the ground, our editorial team welcomes unsolicited emails with rough ideas or topic proposals. Our editors are more than happy to work with you on developing such ideas into articles that can be published and shared with those who are in a position to help implement your ideas to solve the societal challenges you care about. We hope that the articles you find herein shall serve as a source of both inspiration for new ideas as well as the motivation that is necessary to make those ideas a reality.

What I Discovered Writing a Thesis on First Principles Thinking: An Interview with Kmar Hachicha

Sun, 20 Jun 2021 11:27:04 GMT

Photo by Unsplash

In the following interview, Kmar Hachicha, a graduate student from the Technical University of Brunswick, offers the FIPS Team and its readers a unique insight into her novel research on first principles thinking as an innovation process. In the conversation that follows, she tells us about her thesis project, what she discovered as well as her experiences working with first principles thinking.

Can you tell us something about yourself?

I am Kmar Hachicha, 26 years old, and I’m a first principles thinker. I was born and raised in the beautiful country of Tunisia in north Africa. For my studies I moved to Germany in 2014. I studied Biotechnology in the bachelor, and I am currently doing my master in Bio- and Chemical Engineering.

I also volunteer as a trainer for soft skills and self-leadership. During my studies I worked as a student assistant in the laboratory, as a tutor for project and quality management and as a working student in an engineering company for 3D process flow simulation. I am very fascinated by the methods and tools that make every day’s work efficient and goal oriented like the pomodoro-method, or the pareto-principle or 4mat. I read in my free time about the theories concerning human interactions, communication and motivation. I like running and I love good food.

First principles thinking (FPT) is only one of several problem-solving methods. Why did you decide to focus your research specifically on FPT?

For a year I have been hearing about the innovation process first principles thinking and how it promises powerful solutions through the work based on the fundamentals of first principles. As a passionate person for methods this awakened my curiosity. Starting to read about it online and to watch videos and interviews on FPT I realized that except for First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges , published by the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions (FIPS), there are no further scientific studies and investigations on the process. Right away I saw the research gap and was determined to take the opportunity to contribute to the development and establishment of first principles thinking. At this point I want to thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sabine C. Langer from the Technical University of Brunswick, who is passionate about innovation and curious about innovation topics. She made it possible for me to write my project thesis on the subject and supported me all the way till the end.

What did your research process look like, and what did you discover?

In my student project thesis I offered interactive online workshops to students, in which they understand FPT and use it in the case study of reducing screen time on their phone, tablet, computer, TV, etc. after work. They worked through the objective of reducing screen time with FPT as a team of 3, adding me as a moderator. At first, I tried to gather every possible description of the process that was available. I then decided to choose the process steps of FIPS since it was the only process description that was detailed enough to be used in practice:

In the second step I expanded FPT with the goal of making it less exhausting. So instead of going through all seven steps of the process in a linear way, I added a twist. Originally in step 3 all the assumptions are going to be questioned all at once for all the obstacles. The same for step 4 with uncovering the first principles and in step 5 with coming up with the solutions. The change consists in the execution of the steps 3, 4 and 5 separately for each obstacle alone (red arrows in the flowchart below). So, for example, if the obstacle is no time to achieve your goals, you would first question if you really have no time. Then you would uncover the first principle(s) behind it, which could be that those goals don’t really interest you. And from this first principle(s) you come up with a solution or two like finding what really motivates you or booking a seminar with a life coach. Also, when trying to come up with solutions in step 5, it is recommended to use the previously uncovered first principles for the other assumptions and try to combine them for creating solutions.

Flowchart of the process of first principles thinking as investigated in my thesis research

Finally, I offered the workshops as a way of validation of the process of first principles thinking. The participants get to know each other, then discover the process and finally use it in a case study and evaluate it with the help of a survey. I discovered that each workshop leads to different solutions for the same case study. One of the solutions was creating a list with all the activities that could be done, because they realized as a first principle that they didn’t know what other possible activities they could do. Another solution was planning beforehand an appointment that occurs after the screen time so that the screen time is limited. I find this personally a proof of the ability of first principles thinking to create solutions that are diverse. Different solutions are developed based on the perceived obstacles and the people going through the process.

In my opinion there are two critical steps in the process of first principles thinking. The first is to take enough time to list all possible obstacles in step 2. If not all obstacles are listed, the solutions won’t be as powerful as they should be. Step 3 of questioning the assumptions is very challenging and crucial. It is the step that leads to uncovering the first principles. That’s why using all the possible techniques to question the assumptions and to be able to dive deep into each question, making the difference between a fake first principle or a real one, is highly important. It is challenging to find the right questions to ask to question the assumptions with the right facts and arguments. But it has to be done, otherwise the process isn’t successful. This step requires a lot of time, a sharp mind and questioning skills.

How did your participants evaluate FPT? Do you agree with their assessments of the advantages and disadvantages?

The participants find that the first principles thinking process is 91% innovative and develops new ideas. 88% of the participants said they would use the process to generate innovative solutions. The process of first principles thinking was shown to be structured and logical. They also found that the implementation of the process in an online setting was very fitting and efficient.

The participants expressed some fears and concerns about step 3 toward questioning the assumptions. They felt that they needed more guidance and methods to use first principles thinking on their own without the support of a moderator. Since questioning the assumptions is a very intensive step with a lot of thinking and analyzing, it gets hard in my opinion to do the thinking and keep an outsider overview on the quality of the questioning. Reaching a thinking blockage while questioning is easy to solve with the help of the moderator and hard when the person who's having the blockage is trying to find a way around it by him- or herself.

The adjustment with steps 3, 4 and 5 as a loop process for each assumption was seen as inefficient by some participants because the solutions sometimes repeated themselves. The repetition occurred through the discovery of further first principles in further process loops of step 3, 4 and 5 that only strengthen previously discovered first principles. I don’t agree with the participants on this point, but I see their point about the risk of repetition. Working each assumption separately has more benefits in my opinion. First, the participants focus only on one assumption and work through it till the end without being disturbed or stopping in order to work through another assumption. Second, the loop process in step 3, 4 and 5 enhances the satisfaction of the participants and their motivation. Creating solutions in between is like small success along the big first principles thinking process. This gives the participants the energy to keep going and keep doing the exhausting and extensive work of questioning the assumptions.

How do you believe that the FPT process could be improved? Would you recommend any modifications to a future edition of FIPS’ manual?

I believe that the possibility of the loop process for steps 3, 4 and 5 should be taken into consideration when working on a very complex challenge that would take days to solve. I believe this will keep the motivation and energy to go through all the assumptions lying behind the obstacles. To deal with repeated solutions or slightly different solutions, step 6 to refine the solutions can be dedicated to filter and merge the solutions.

For a further version of the FIPS manual, I suggest a guideline for step 3 with a list of possible methods and question clusters to use while questioning the assumptions. This would empower individuals to use first principles thinking frequently with less concerns or fears of not getting further if they meet a thinking blockage.

Do you think that you will continue to use FPT in the future? If so, how?

Since I got to know first principles thinking deeper and better, I have been using it daily. I am not using all seven steps of the process daily, but I adopted the thinking mechanism of first principles. Whenever I am confronted with a challenge, privately or at work, I think of the obstacles first. I ask myself or people around me: what is keeping us from achieving the goal? Then I start questioning this obstacle till I find the first principle (the fact that I can’t further question). Based on this discovery I try to develop a solution.

What I mostly learned out of this experience is that no matter what I think my obstacles are, there is always something else that lies behind them. The obstacles are usually only a shell or a mask that hides assumptions that need to be questioned.

References

Verkerk, A., & Grass, K. (2019). First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://www.innovativepolicysolutions.org/first-principles-thinking/manual

First Principles Thinking as a Tool to Come Up with Possible Explanations: How Were the Pyramids of Giza Built?

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 20:17:39 GMT

Photo by Hossam M. Omar

First principles thinking can be used for several purposes, ranging from coming up with innovative solutions to contextualising your research and making decisions. The potential of this technique is far reaching, but several of its applications are underexposed. This article provides you with practical insights on another way in which the technique can be helpful: generating potential explanations (hypotheses). The example of finding out how the pyramids of Giza were built is used for illustration purposes and may not always be underpinned by fully accurate assumptions.

Keywords : First principles thinking, hypothesis generation, explaining, pyramid building, Giza, Egypt

First principles thinking and generating hypotheses

Have you ever looked at the pyramids of Giza and wondered: how could such incredible structures be built around 4,500 years ago?

Many historians have immersed themselves into this question, and they have come up with several potential explanations for each of the challenges that needed to be overcome. One such challenge concerns the transportation of the pyramid’s material from nearby quarries to the pyramid’s construction site, as each block is estimated to weigh about 2,268 kilograms (2.5 tonnes) on average (Markings, 2017). How were they transported to the construction site?

I’m not sure what process historians followed to come up with hypotheses, but I can imagine that first principles thinking (FPT)—being a technique that guides you to systematically come up with new solutions by way of reverse-engineering a challenge into scientific fundamental truths and from there reasoning up to discover new solutions—could offer useful guidance for such an exercise. Instead of looking for solutions you look for hypotheses.

How exactly? By pretending to be a ‘first principles thinking’ pharaoh in Egypt around 2,500 BC with the ambition to build such a polyhedron-shaped mortuary temple in Giza. Once incarnated, we would follow a similar process as the first principles thinking steps outlined in the First Principles Thinking Manual (2019) to realise this ambition, while using the knowledge we now have in retrospect.

Note that this pharoah probably did not start from scratch, as pyramids such as the Bent Pyramid and Djoser's Step Pyramid were built earlier on, which in turn might also have been pre-dated by similar structures such as Mesopotamian ziggurats. However, let’s pretend the pharaoh and his architects wanted to create something new as opposed to copying existing structures.

Follow the first principles thinking steps

First principles thinking seems to be most suitable for concrete and demarcated challenges. So we'll have to break down the bigger challenge of building such a pyramid altogether into smaller challenges, such as transporting (components of) large stones from nearby quarries to the construction site. Now let’s apply the first principles thinking steps.

Step 1: Identify your objective

Transforming the challenge into an objective statement that captures what needs to be done, for whom and in which locality would look something like this:

Transport the building material from nearby quarries to the construction site in Giza.

Step 2: List the obstacles

The main obstacles in the way of the objective would be:

The stones are heavy.
The stone blocks need to be transported from quarries just outside the pyramid construction site.

Step 3: Question your assumptions

Now let’s question the assumptions underlying each obstacle by way of asking fundamental Socratic questions. This is a truth-finding method that questions the validity of one’s beliefs and assumptions in a disciplined, rigorous and thoughtful manner.

Are those stones really heavy? How much do they weigh exactly? How much deadweight can a human carry? How many people would it take? What animals are present to help out? What makes them heavy? Do they need to be carried at all? Is there an alternative? Could the weight temporarily be reduced for transportation? What are the stones made of exactly? Could these ingredients be decomposed and reassembled at the construction site? Is it really far away? How far away is it exactly by land, water, etc.? Can’t the departure point and destination meet halfway?

Step 4: Uncover some first principles

To get to the core of the obstacles—the very first principles—we need to try to answer these questions, ideally in a way that is supported by scientific evidence, but otherwise intuition or a search engine query will do for now.

Each stone weighs approximately 2,268 kilograms (nearly 2.5 tonnes) (Markings, 2017). A person in good physical condition could potentially lift about 210% of their body weight (Sifferman, 2017), let’s say about 160 kilograms (0.18 tonnes) of deadweight, and push or pull about 45 kilograms (0.045 tonnes) of horizontal force for a short period of time (Load Mover Inc, 2012). It would take at least 14 people to vertically pull up such a stone, or 56 people to push or pull such a stone, but probably more considering the additional weight caused by friction between the stones and surface. Lions and hippos were around at the time to potentially help out (Mark, 2016). Camels were only introduced many years after the pyramids were built (Saber,1998). Instead of quarrying and transporting the stones, they could be (partially) assembled using an early form of concrete: a mixture of limestone, clay, lime and water (Berninger & Rose, 2007). The stones were possibly quarried at the Giza Plateau (Ancient Egypt Research Associates, n.d.), which seems to be either at or within a few kilometers from the pyramid construction site.

Step 5: Come up with hypotheses

In a regular FPT exercise you would look at the first principles and ask how-questions to come up with new ideas, such as “How can we reduce the friction between stones and surface?”. If nothing comes to mind you could ask some more questions, such as “What creates friction exactly?”, and find that this is due to the roughness of the surfaces (this is another first principle). A logical how-question would then be: “How can we reduce such roughness?” And then think of the idea to polish the rough surfaces, lubricate them or create the possibility of rolling friction as opposed to sliding friction. “What materials did the Egyptians have at their disposal to make this happen?” Stones to polish, water to lubricate and tree logs to create rolling friction? Indeed, reducing friction can surely be (part of) a possible explanation.

The question “How could the components of a large stone necessary to build the pyramid be transported and then be assembled at the construction site?” might furthermore generate the idea to transport these ingredients in smaller quantities and then assemble them on site. However, knowing retroactively that the stones may indeed have consisted of different components that were cemented unnaturally, we can already confidently hypothesise that these stones were assembled on site, which actually makes the obstacles of the stones being heavy and located outside of the construction site. However, it is a plausible hypothesis nonetheless.

Our goal is achieved; we have arrived at two reasonable hypotheses:

The Egyptians used stones to polish, water to lubricate and tree logs to create rolling friction in order to ease transportation of the stone blocks.
The Egyptians brought limestone, clay, lime and water in smaller quantities and assembled them into building blocks on site.

Step 6: Validate your hypotheses

In a regular FPT exercise you would now refine your ideas. Something similar can be done in this context, namely assessing their plausibility by going through a few more rounds of FPT:

Where would the stones, water and logs to ease transportation come from exactly? How many logs and how much water would be necessary to help transport all of the large stones? Were they available in these quantities?
Would it be possible to extract smaller quantities of limestone, clay and water? How could these components be transported? How many rounds and people would be necessary? Did they need to cross rough terrain such as a river or hill?
Is there any evidence of construction and transportation practices, for example in the form of tomb paintings?

Ideally you would be able to get some answers (first principles) and select which hypotheses are most plausible, based on their practical feasibility and effectiveness to overcome the aforementioned obstacles. I will, however, stop here as I don’t have the resources to seek further answers.

Conclusion

This article presents an approach to hypothesis generation through the lens of first principles thinking. The key to this approach is to (1) turn an observed outcome or variable into an objective, after which you would (2) identify obstacles to achieve the objective, (3) question your assumptions regarding these obstacles, (4) answer these questions to identify first principles, (5) ask how-questions to come up with possible hypotheses and, finally, (6) validate your hypotheses by asking some more critical questions. As the illustration of pyramid building shows, this process has potential to result in some solid hypotheses, or elements thereof.

A search engine query actually showed that others had also come up with these hypotheses, alongside several others (Ammar, 2014). Did they use FPT? Perhaps in some way, as critical thinking and fact checking underlying traditional hypothesis generation is also fundamental to first principles thinking. Nevertheless, hopefully this article gave you some insights to structure your search for possible explanations, for example when your work or hobby involves empirical research (e.g. process tracing) or investigation (e.g. police work).

References

Ammar, H. (2014) Solved! How Ancient Egyptians moved massive pyramid stones . NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/solved-how-ancient-egyptians-moved-massive-pyramid-stones-n95171
Ancient Egypt Research Associates. (n.d.) The Great Pyramid quarry . AERA. http://www.aeraweb.org/gpmp-project/great-pyramid-quarry/
Load Mover Inc (2012) An explanation of force and labor power. Load Mover Inc. https://www.loadmoverinc.com/force-labor-power/
Mark (2016) Pets in Ancient Egypt. World History. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/875/pets-in-ancient-egypt/
Markings, S. (2017). How much did the pyramids weigh? Sciencing. https://sciencing.com/much-did-pyramids-weigh-7499289.html
Sifferman, J. (2017) How much should I be able to deadlift? Physical Living. https://physicalliving.com/how-much-should-i-be-able-to-deadlift/#:~:text=Advanced%20male%20lifters%20will%20deadlift,her%20body%20weight%2C%20on%20average
Saber, A. S. (1998) The camel in Ancient Egypt . Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting for Animal Production Under Arid Conditions, Vol. 1, 208-215. United Arab Emirates University. http://www.isocard.net/images/proceedings/FILEeaccdf0470981b4.pdf
Verkerk, A. & Grass, K. (2019) First principles thinking for societal problem-solving: A manual to generate innovative solutions to today’s challenges. Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. First Principles Thinking Manual (pdf download) - FIPS (innovativepolicysolutions.org)

Using First Principles Thinking to Evaluate Business Opportunities

Sat, 15 May 2021 19:52:20 GMT

Photo by Brooke Lark

The goal of this article is to demonstrate how First Principles Thinking can be a helpful tool in personal concerns. This article will use this problem-solving method to evaluate multi-level marketing business plans. The author uses an example from her own life as a template for how to apply First Principles Thinking as a critical analysis tool. This article also seeks to illustrate that individuals can customize First Principles Thinking for their own behavioral thinking. Concluding remarks will provide a methodically sound solution to the prospect of joining a multi-level marketing arrangement.

Keywords: multilevel marketing, business opportunity, work from home, direct sales

Money making opportunity or money taking certainty?

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. It’s one of life’s inevitabilities. Someone you know or perhaps even a perfect stranger will approach you with a business opportunity. These come in all shapes and sizes. You could be selling health supplements, trading in (crypto)currency, or providing financial services. For me, it was the latter.

I was sixteen and working part-time in a bridal shop. It was a fun job and my boss was really nice, so my enthusiasm for my job showed when I assisted customers. One customer, the father of a bride-to-be, said he liked my attitude and wanted to hire me for his business. We set a place and time to meet and he gave me his card. I didn’t smell anything fishy—he was wearing a suit and had business cards, after all. A real business guy doing real business things, I thought.

Similar situations are repeated countless times each day. Maybe a friend of your sister-in-law approached you about getting in on her great business selling leggings. Or someone you went to school with told you about how you too can make thousands a week (!) trading Bitcoin. Perhaps someone DMed you on Instagram, complimenting you on your style, and they want to collaborate with you for their make-up venture. In any event, there is almost always big money involved and freedom from the 9 to 5 grind.

The business model for these amazing opportunities invariably follows a similar outline—you purchase either goods or training from the person who presents this idea to you. You then need to either sell these goods or services to friends, family, or just whoever. You are also encouraged to share this amazing business opportunity with your friends and family so that they too can sell these products/services. The person from whom you bought them has another level above them in the purchasing chain, and above that another level, and so on until the top of this pyramid is reached. This business model is sometimes called direct-sales but is also known as multi-level marketing.

The promise to make serious cash can be seductive, especially now when so many of us are coping with reduced income and/or opportunity due to the pandemic. Furthermore, their claims seem legitimate at first look. They can show you graphs and charts (like the super legitimate businessman did to me) and they can testify to their own personal prosperity with this program. If the person telling you this is a close friend or family member, it can be even more alluring. After all, why would someone who knows you and cares about you lie to you? But…

Using First Principles Thinking as an analytical tool

But if all this was true there’d be a million more millionaires running around. By the process of deduction, we can tell that many of these claims are bogus. Let’s use First Principles Thinking (FPT) as a tool to evaluate these amazing business opportunities. We can use FPT to keep an open mind, systematically question our assumptions and use that to identify the core issue, and then come up with a new idea or an approach to the situation.

This article will present a step-by-step breakdown of the claim that you too can make big bucks with multi-level marketing. Instead of using FPT as a problem-solving process, we will use it as a critical analytical process. In doing so the questions asked/presented in each step may be somewhat different than how it is used in a problem-solving context. So, let’s get to it and take a closer look at the riches promised by multi-level marketing business opportunities.

What do I want to get out of this opportunity?

Although freedom from the grind and being your own boss are often showcased as benefits of these opportunities, financial gain is always at the heart. So, for our purposes, let’s identify “making a reasonable income from the business opportunity offered” as our objective. Reasonable income can vary from person to person and place to place, but for the sake of this article let’s say it would be what you would make if you put your time into an easily-attainable job with comparable hours. Something like serving at a restaurant or working at a drugstore. This could range from several hundred to several thousand a month, depending on your location and experience.

What questions do I need to ask?

Answering the following questions can help you to identify obstacles to reach your objective:

Take into account that you must almost always buy the stock/purchase training from the person offering you the opportunity. This is a cost and must be considered when calculating how much actual income you can receive. How much money do I need to invest in this? Why am I required to buy stock directly from this company as opposed to making my own choice for vendors? How much money will I make after my own costs?
Do you have the skills to make money from this? Are you a natural salesperson? Do you really understand how financial planning works?
How many clients/customers can you get? Do you really know enough people to sell thousands of dollars worth of product/services to? Do these people have the money to buy these products?

What are the underlying assumptions and first principles?

In my situation the assumption was “I am good at my job here at the bridal shop, so why shouldn’t I be good at this job?” That, I believe, is the assumption behind these business opportunities—the concept that you are competent and therefore you can make money with anything you try.

However, using FPT, we can do a little mini-rundown for this assumption. Why would I, a teenage girl who worked in a bridal shop, actually be in any way good at selling financial services? I have zero interest or experience in financial matters. Fundamental truth in this situation: I would probably not be good at this because, as mentioned, I have zero interest or skill set. Why does this seemingly professional business man want a teenage girl with zero experience?

As we can see FPT can be a branching system as well, especially when used as an analysis and not as a direct-problem solving tool. Now that we have, using my own experience as an example, uncovered a (just one though, there are potentially many, but we’d be here all day unraveling them all) first principle: I would not be good at this at all.

Asking more critical questions

Our first principle being that I would not be good at this leads into a crucial followup question: Why does this person want to share this amazing business opportunity with me? When considering this from a traditional commerce perspective, especially when the business is selling a product, it makes little sense. In the situation that it is a product, why doesn’t the company sell their product through either a retail outlet or their own website? Why are they using you as a middle man to sell this? Wouldn't they want to keep as much of the potential market for themselves? Why would they willingly divvy up their potential client pool?

Another way to perform this step is to compare it to real world examples. Look at successful businesses or entrepreneurs you know. Do they engage in this business model? Have you ever met anyone who became demonstrably wealthy from a model like this?

In my case, however, the question should be “why is the business professional recruiting a young woman who helps women try on big fluffy dresses to sell insurance?” Doubtlessly financial service firms do need to hire people to manage their clients and find new ones. But shouldn’t a legitimate business be recruiting qualified candidates? Why are qualified candidates eschewed in favor of seemingly naive teenagers?

What conclusions do we arrive at?

Let’s have a look at the two major points from the above sections:

Why are businesses using this model to sell their products?
Why are they recruiting people without experience or credentials to perform this service?

Firstly, if this was a good product at a good price, would they need a complicated multi-level distribution method to sell it? If this is a good product, why can’t it compete with comparable products in an open marketplace? Here we see a failure of the business model product idea—it does not pass the test of being an actual money-making opportunity because if it was a product with the potential to make money, the manufacturer/owner of the product would be selling it for themselves and keeping all the profit made as opposed to diffusing it through multiple levels. Instead of the product itself, you are likely to be the money-making opportunity.

Secondly, why are they recruiting people without experience or credentials to perform this service? Here it is because people with experience or credentials can discern that this is not a money-making opportunity nor a legitimate business model. I had no financial experience so during the meeting I just took for granted that what the business man was saying was true. But when he told me I’d need to pay a couple of hundred dollars for a training course and I’d be an independent contractor and not an actual employee, that’s when my natural suspicion clocked in.

Unlike many young people who would be successfully targeted by this not-a-real-business-man, I did have some business and employment experience. Both of my parents ran their own businesses so I was familiar with the basics of running a company, and I already had a few jobs prior to that. Perhaps he was hoping to catch a young person with zero experience, because people with experience will know this is not a legitimate business model. Employers pay you, you don’t pay employers.

Although more of a conclusion than a solution as we are using FPT as an analysis tool, using the above process we can reasonably be certain that the business opportunity presented to you, if it follows the multi-level marketing scheme, is not a good opportunity unless you have the skills and experience, but if you have the skills and experience you would still be better served by a different business model due to the restrictions on purchasing your stock.

Conclusion

We can use FPT to not only come up with solutions for large-scale problems and community concerns, but also to evaluate new situations on a personal level. FPT can be employed as an analytic process when presented with employment situations that you may be unfamiliar with. At the heart of this analytical process is continuing to ask critical questions to uncover the underlying assumptions and fundamental truths (first principles).

You may also have noticed that I interpret the process somewhat differently than my colleagues here at FIPS may do. FPT isn’t a ridgid rubric that you will be graded on. It is a tool to help you discern the logic within a situation, and like many tools the exact way that you apply it is up to personal preference and predisposition. So don’t be afraid to use FPT in a way that feels comfortable to you.

Finally, I do not mean to suggest that all business opportunities are bad ideas or predatory schemes. A friend or acquaintance may very well have an excellent, well-thought out business plan that they would like you to invest in. However, these business plans will generally not involve uplines and downlines, direct sales, contacting people out of the blue on social media, or trying to trick teenagers into thinking they should pay five hundred dollars to get a nonsense course in insurance sales.

First Principles Thinking Offers a Helping Hand to the Homeless Elderly in Tangier, Morocco

Sun, 02 May 2021 11:46:48 GMT

Photo by Mika on Unsplash

The Covid-19 pandemic has served as a reminder of the challenges faced not only by Morocco’s aging population but Moroccan society as a whole. This article addresses the issue of the country’s homeless senior citizens who struggle to survive on their own in the absence of proper support from their families or government programs. By drawing on my own experiences in the country and my knowledge of first principles thinking, this article aims to take a preliminary step in the search for solutions to this increasingly relevant challenge.

Keywords: first principles thinking, Morocco, social work

Introduction and objective

Morocco, like most African countries, has a society that enjoys collectivist thought and holds a set of values based on North African culture and oftentimes religion. The main premise of it all is that people take care of one another in a community. This especially applies to the elderly, who generally hold a certain status and respect in their communities. During my travels in the African country I noticed numerous seniors on the streets begging for money. This was a continued occurrence in the major cities that I have visited, meaning that there is indeed a problem that is not being addressed. I believe that diving deeper into this matter could be of benefit to those impoverished elderly that have been neglected by both Moroccan society and government. In this article, I draw on my own experiences in Morocco to examine how first principles thinking could be used to overcome the challenge of homelessness among Tangier’s senior population.

This article follows the first principles thinking process as outlined by the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions’ manual on first principles thinking (Verkerk & Grass, 2019). Therefore, having identified my objective, I will continue by first listing the obstacles that could prevent me from achieving it and then questioning my assumptions about those obstacles. Next, I will use my own experiences and prior knowledge about Morocco to uncover certain first principles on which to start building actionable solutions. At this point, it is important to note that in order to uncover true first principles, which must be scientifically supported facts, more empirical research on Morocco’s elderly population would have to be conducted. For this reason, what follows is an exploratory work whose aim is to uncover a possible path for future developments in this area.

Listing the obstacles

The following obstacles come into mind:

Lack of nursing homes or residences for senior citizens
Lack of funding for essentials such as food, clothes and medical aid
Lack of resources for sustainable projects directed at the elderly
Logistic difficulty of locating and collecting the elderly off the streets

Questioning my assumptions

Has Morocco become more of an individualist society?
Do families reject the elderly because they are poor themselves?
Are the elderly people begging on the streets of Tangier really homeless?
Does the local government already help the homeless elderly?
Is there no money to create senior citizen homes?

Uncovering the first principles

Regarding the question of whether Morocco has become more individualistic in a societal sense, I have to disagree. While it may seem that people do not feel any collective responsibility towards the elderly on the streets, I do not think it is because of selfishness or a lack of empathy. I believe that poverty in general makes people less generous than they would otherwise be, numbing the sense of duty towards others so that they can keep the small bits of resources that they have for themselves. On the other hand, however, I noticed through my travels that these elderly people do not tend to sit in any area that has been designated for the rich. This is mainly because security guards chase them away.

Continuing on that thought, families in financial problems usually do not kick their parents out of the house. In fact, about 96% of the country’s elderly population reportedly live with their families (El Masaiti, n.d.). That being said, there have nevertheless been instances in which having one more mouth to feed or taking care of a dependent elder could result in families rejecting them. Rather than taking care of them, the families invest whatever money they have in their children. This results in older people having to fend for themselves, living off whatever retirement money they are entitled to. Another problem is that some elderly leave on their own accord in order not to burden their children. This can also be seen in elderly people who choose to be admitted to nursing homes in the West. That kind of luxury, however, is only reserved for the affluent.

There is also the question of whether the elderly on the streets are actually homeless or just beg to supplement their small pensions, even though begging is considered a criminal offence in Morocco and can result in up to six months of imprisonment (Alternative Africa, 2019). According to a World Bank report, only 10% of the elderly over the age of 60 receive a pension in Morocco. The same report states that the elderly population is predicted to grow rapidly by the year 2060, which will inevitably put a considerable burden on the country’s already strained social security system (Angel-Urdinola et al., 2015). Figure 1 projects Morocco’s age demographics for the coming decades. Unfortunately there is little available data on elderly homelessness in Tangiers, so I will have to rely on my own empirical observations as evidence that it exists and will only worsen due to the aging population.

In the past, homeless shelters were not as widespread in Morocco as they may have been in many Western cities. However, since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several shelters have been built around the country (Gianaris, 2020). Tangier has been no exception, as similar shelters can now be found there as well. This goes to show that, although the Moroccan government is making progress in assisting its homeless population, many of the advances in this area are only recent developments.

With respect to the question of there being enough money to create senior citizen homes, I would say yes. If so many homeless shelters have been built in such a relatively short period of time to battle Covid-19, surely the necessary funds do exist. Therefore, the issue is a matter of prioritising these funds to set up projects that would be beneficial for both the state as well as the elderly population. However, at this point there is no guarantee that government funds will be made available for this cause.

Coming up with a new idea

In the event that further government funds are denied, there is always the alternative option of crowdfunding in the form of sadaqah , which is an Arabic term for donating money to a charitable cause or almsgiving. In Morocco it is common to see people working for mosques collecting money for maintenance and upkeep. If many people are happy to donate what they have for the benefit of the mosque, why not encourage them to do the same for the community’s elderly population? Instead of making one’s entire contribution for the benefit of a religious building that can be found in plenty of areas around the city, why not direct at least part of that money towards the construction of homes where the community’s elders could spend their final days with peace and dignity?

Refining my idea

How could we turn this idea into an actual working proposal, and how could we get the message across? I think that religious institutions should promote aiding the elderly as a worthy cause for people to donate their money to. The employment of various social media platforms, which are widely used throughout the country, could also help to spread the idea. But once the idea catches on and becomes accepted, the incentive for people to continue supporting the project needs to last. That is the main goal, it needs to last, and this can only be achieved with a continuous stream of government involvement. While public health centers already exist, the government should also support the construction of community homeless shelters in preparation for the country’s approaching demographic shift. With a rapidly growing elderly population, the numbers of homeless elderly are bound to increase as well. In order not to ease the burden on the public health system, it would be in the state’s best interest to begin supporting alternative, community-based means of taking care of the elderly population.

Implementation

In the initial stages it would be important to begin by gathering some capital through the use of crowdfunding, or sadaqah . From my personal experience, when there is a serious need or a worthy cause, people often respond quickly. Once funding is completed, the second stage would be to start building homeless shelters. To do so, one could team up with the Mohammed V Foundation, for example, which has considerable experience in building homeless shelters in Morocco. The project would consist of constructing two wings with nine rooms each, three beds per room, a bathhouse and a hostel (FM5, n.d.). However, I would replace the hostel with a medical room.

The third and final stage would be to organize volunteers, for example as an unconventional form of sadaqah , that are familiar with the city and know which seniors need help the most. These workers would have the task of reaching out to the homeless elderly and collecting them from the streets. As for medical assistance, collaboration with charitable organizations that offer free services in Tangier, such as the Escuela Capilla del Niño Jesús, would be a valuable asset (World Unite, n.d.). Finally, in order for the project to expand, additional teams would have to be organized in order to ensure the continuation of social media campaigns and crowdfunding efforts.

Conclusion

While my extensive experiences in Morocco lead me to believe that such a project for the benefit of Tangier’s elderly population would be both worthwhile and feasible to achieve, further research would have to be conducted in order to uncover more first principles related to this very pressing issue. Nevertheless, I hope that this proposal can serve a step on the path to creating a brighter future for Morocco’s aging population. I would go so far as to say it should be considered a human right to be able to spend one’s final moments in peace and dignity. There is still much work to be done in making that right a reality.

References

Alternative Africa. (2019). Morocco Launches DNA Test to Ascertain Relationship Between Beggars, “Their Children.” https://alternativeafrica.com/2019/07/20/moroccan-launches-dna-testing-to-ascertain-relationship-between-beggars-their-children/
Angel-Urdinola, D. F., El-Kadiri, F., & Pallares-Miralles, M. (2015). Morocco: Social Protection and Labor . http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/485991468190443363/pdf/103119-WP-P133498-Box394855B-PUBLIC-A2I-REQUEST-SPL-Morocco-Draft-Policy-Note-v12.pdf
El Masaiti, A. (n.d.). Nearly Half of Morocco’s Sick Elderly Can’t Pay for Healthcare. Morocco World News . https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2017/10/230279/nearly-half-of-moroccos-sick-elderly-cant-pay-for-healthcare/
FM5. (n.d.). Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity . https://www.fm5.ma/en#
Gianaris, K. (2020). Morocco Shelters Homeless Citizens Against COVID-19. Morocco World News . https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/04/300314/morocco-shelters-homeless-citizens-against-covid-19/
Verkerk, A., & Grass, K. (2019). First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving: A Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges . Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions. https://www.innovativepolicysolutions.org/first-principles-thinking/manual
World Bank (2015) Morocco, Social Protection and Labor Diagnostic, Draft. World Bank, based on UN country specific mortality tables . https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/23817/Morocco000Soci0d0labor000diagnostic.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
World Unite. (n.d.). Charitable Medical Centre and Nursing in Tangier . https://www.world-unite.de/en/internships-volunteering/morocco/charitable-medical-nursing-clinic-in-tangier.html

From First Principles to Theories: Revisiting the Scientific Method Through Abductive, Deductive, and Inductive Reasoning

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 07:45:02 GMT

Photo by www.esri.com

The aim of this article is to examine how first principles are developed into general theories by reviewing the roles that abduction, deduction, and induction play in the three primary steps of the scientific method: hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing, and theory generation. Kant’s democratic peace theory is first used to illustrate this process, and the example is subsequently extended to show the secondary level of scrutiny that theories must undergo before they can be applied to the empirical world. The article concludes by considering the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, particularly in the field of social sciences.

Keywords: first principles, theories, abduction, deduction, induction

Introduction

While the modern scientific method is often attributed to the revolution in human reason and rationality that swept across Europe in the age of Enlightenment, its individual steps had actually undergone one thousand years of development and refinement before they were finally assembled into a systematic process of inquiry by scholars between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was Aristotle who first distinguished between deductive reasoning, a top-down form of logic whereby conclusions are inferred from empirical observations and fundamental rules, and inductive reasoning, a bottom-up form of logic by which fundamental rules are extrapolated from conclusions based on empirical observations.

In the pursuit of solutions to real-world problems, both methods have been complementary to one another in that deduction allows the researcher to use fundamental rules, or first principles (as Aristotle refers to them), to reach specific conclusions that can later be used to produce generally applicable theories through induction. By repeating this endless process of rigorous scrutiny with the observable yet unexplained phenomena of the natural world, philosophers have been able to create an epistemological framework for human understanding that encompasses everything from Darwin’s theory of evolution in the natural sciences to Marx’s theory of revolution in the social sciences.

Deduction, induction, and first principles

Rene Descartes, a renowned advocate of deductive reasoning, explored the relationship between deduction and first principles. In his Principles of Philosophy , Descartes explains that first principles must possess two conditions. First, “they must be so clear and evident that the human mind […] cannot doubt of their truth” and second, “the knowledge of other things must be so dependent on them [that although] the principles themselves may indeed be known apart from what depends on them, the latter cannot […] be known apart from the former” (Lancaster University, 2003). Accordingly, it is necessary to deduce from those first principles the knowledge of that which depends on them, as “there may be nothing in the whole series of deductions which is not perfectly manifest” (Lancaster University, 2003).

Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Descartes, makes a similar observation. Referring to first principles as axioms, he notes that if a general axiom proves false, then all intermediate axioms deduced from it may be false as well. For this reason, in his Novum Organum , Bacon advocates proceeding “regularly and gradually from one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached till the last” (Simpson, n.d.). Therefore, through induction, “each step up the ladder of intellect is thoroughly tested by observation and experimentation before the next step is taken” and “each confirmed axiom becomes a foothold to a higher truth, with the most general axioms representing the last stage of the process” (Simpson, n.d.).

Abduction and the scientific method

It was not until Charles Sanders Peirce published Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis that the two ancient methods of reasoning were complemented by a more modern counterpart: abductive reasoning. Peirce’s approach was based on producing what he called a “case” (hypothesis) from a “result” (conclusion) and a “rule” (first principle). Figure 1 offers a comparative view of the three methods of reasoning as outlined in Peirce’s example of the bag of beans.

While abductive reasoning is the least logically secure of the three methods, it nevertheless facilitates making an inference about the best possible hypotheses to a research question given the limited information available to the researcher. The propositions produced through abduction can be tested subsequently through deduction, by which a valid “result” (conclusion) is inferred from the “case” (hypothesis) and the initial “rule” (first principle). Finally, induction can be used to generalize the products of the previous steps by extrapolating a universal “rule” (generalized first principle or theory) from a specific “result” (conclusion) and a “case” (hypothesis). In this way, the process of abduction-deduction-induction outlines the three basic steps of the scientific method: generating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and generalizing the results or conclusions of the research to generate a theory.

Kant’s democratic peace theory

Between the time Descartes and Bacon investigated deductive and inductive reasoning and the time Peirce introduced his method of deduction, Immanuel Kant laid the groundwork for what would come to be known as the democratic peace theory. In Perpetual Peace , Kant argues that it is reasonable for people to say that “there ought to be no war among us, for we want to make ourselves into a state; that is, we want to establish a supreme […] power which will reconcile our differences peacefully” (Ferraro, n.d.). In turn, it is also reasonable for the resulting state to say that “there ought to be no war between myself and other states” (Ferraro, n.d.). Therefore, if a group of people “can make itself a republic, which by its nature must be inclined to perpetual peace, this gives a fulcrum to the federation with other states so that they may adhere to it and thus secure freedom under the idea of the law of nations” (Ferraro, n.d.). As this federation of free republics grows, it will eventually expand to immerse the whole world in a league of democratic states that adheres to the universal law of nations, a perpetual peace.

Though Kant preceded Peirce and did not live to learn about abduction, the method can nevertheless be applied to the formation of Kant’s democratic peace theory. What follows is a step-by-step application of abductive, deductive, and inductive reasoning to the three steps of the scientific method—hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing, and theory generation—in the development of Kant’s democratic peace theory.

Based on the empirical observation that, even when left to their own devices, the majority of people do not behave aggressively with one another and tend to avoid violent conflict, Kant formulated the first principle that the majority of people would not vote for an aggressive war should they be given the choice. Furthermore, if the majority of people in a state would not vote for an aggressive war, then it can be concluded that two states governed by majority rule would avoid war with one another. Therefore, the first step of abductive reasoning leads to the hypothesis that there can be no war in a world composed entirely of democratic states.

In order to test the validity of the hypothesis generated through abduction, it is necessary to see if a logical conclusion can be inferred from its relationship to the original first principle. Indeed, if the majority of people would not vote for an aggressive war, then there can be no war in a democratic world. Thus, the second step of deduction produces a conclusion that is not only logically valid with respect to the hypothesis and first principle but is also empirically observable. Though by contemporary standards there may not have been any truly democratic states in Kant’s time, the advent of universal suffrage in the 20th century has produced a considerable community of liberal democracies that do indeed maintain peaceful relations with one another.

Finally, based on the conclusion deduced from the initial hypothesis, the third and final step of the scientific method aims to generalize the fundamental first principle in order to generate a universally applicable theory. Therefore, if it is already accepted that there can be no war in a democratic world because democracies avoid war with one another, then it can be induced that this is true because the majority of people would not vote for an aggressive war. At this point, the three-step process returns to the first principle with which it began. However, while the first principle was initially nothing more than an axiom based on the empirical observation of individual human behavior, through the scientific method it was developed into a theory that presents a framework for understanding international relations.

From generation to application

Following the first round of the scientific method, what started as a mere hypothesis about human nature is now proposed as a universal theory of global politics. However, before this novel theory can be applied to the empirical world, it should first undergo another round of scientific scrutiny to ensure that the underlying logic that supports it is indeed sound. This time, however, it is not necessary to begin with abductive reasoning as there is no need to generate new hypotheses. Instead, following the initial round of abduction-deduction-induction that led to the theory being generated, the researcher can return to deductive reasoning in order to test its validity on a macro level. Figure 2 outlines this second round of examination.

At this point, it is important to begin by reviewing all the initial facts, assumptions, and ideas that form the basis of the theory. In the context of Kant’s democratic peace theory, the researcher must ask fundamental questions that might undermine the generalization of the first principle: “Are all societies equally peaceful?” or “Do sociological variables like wealth and culture affect individuals’ likelihood of aggression?”. Moreover, it is crucial to have clear definitions of all the concepts that comprise the theory: “What are the qualifying characteristics of a democratic state?” and “What exactly is meant by an aggressive war?”. By subjecting the theory to such tests, the researcher attempts to reveal any weaknesses that might invalidate the theoretical framework as a whole. Only after this second round of scrutiny can the researcher consider the implications and expectations of the theory before it is ready to be reapplied to the empirical world.

Conclusion

Assuming that Kant’s democratic peace theory passes the second round of scrutiny unscathed, can it finally be treated as a scientific law in the same way as Newton’s law of gravity, for example? Like laws, theories are epistemologically valuable for their descriptive and explanatory nature. They help researchers understand how things are by making comprehensible connections between abstract concepts and the natural world, and they also help explain why things are by mapping the causal relationships between different phenomena. However, unlike laws, they lack an absolute predictive quality. While the first principle that the majority of people would not vote for an aggressive war may hold true today and is most likely to hold true in the foreseeable future, it cannot be said with certainty that it would hold true under all circumstances. A widespread conspiracy, disinformation campaigns, fear tactics, and manipulation of the democratic process could all plausibly contribute to a violation of this first principle. So far, however, Kant’s theory and the first principles on which it rests have given advocates of democratic government reason to be optimistic.

References

Bellucci, F., & Pietarinen, A.-V. (n.d.). Charles Sanders Peirce: Logic. In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . https://www.iep.utm.edu/peir-log/#SSH2bi
Ferraro, V. (n.d.). Immanuel Kant Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch . Mount Holyoke College. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm
Lancaster University. (2003). History of Philosophy in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Descartes’ “Principles of Philosophy”. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/211/Descartes'%20Principles.htm
Simpson, D. (n.d.). Francis Bacon (1561-1626). In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . https://iep.utm.edu/bacon/#SH2k
Toshkov, D. (2016). Research Design in Political Science (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Issue 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 11:42:22 GMT

The Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions is proud to present you with the second issue of the First Principles Thinking Review. In the spring of 2020, we launched this publication with the aim of creating a space to host an international and interdisciplinary conversation about tackling societal challenges with first principles thinking. Over the past several months, a number of returning and first-time authors from different backgrounds and walks of life have contributed their thought-provoking ideas to the Review. In the following pages, you will learn how first principles thinking led to the development of our organization and how it can help you in day-to-day decision-making. You will see how it can be applied to pressing societal challenges like tackling discriminatory language and incorporated into fields as diverse as nutrition and language education. We would now like to invite you to take a look for yourself.

You can download it HERE .

About this publication

The Review is divided into two sections. In the first section, Theory, our contributors seek to expand the area of knowledge related to first principles and the associated methodology itself. Here, history, philosophy and the exploration of other problem-solving methods come together in order to better our understanding of what exactly first principles thinking is and how it can be used. In the second section, Practice, our contributors investigate different ways of applying the first principles thinking method to societal challenges. This is where abstract ideas are turned into concrete proposals for overcoming real-world problems through first principles thinking.

The First Principles Thinking Review is the first of its kind with respect to its scope and focus. Although first principles thinking can be traced back to ancient times, surprisingly little has been done to develop its potential as a catalyst for societal innovation and progress. It is therefore the purpose of this publication to finally change that status quo. By dedicating the pages of the Review to create an outlet for interdisciplinary research and experimentation, the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions hopes to engage as many inquisitive minds as possible in the realization of this project. For this reason, we remain dedicated to the principles of open-access publication and encourage you, our reader, to share the content found herein and join our global network of first principles thinkers.

Call for submissions

For those readers who would like to see their ideas published in the next issue of the First Principles Thinking Review , please submit a draft article through the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions website, where the editorial guidelines are described in greater length and detail. In the event that you would like to make a contribution but are not sure of how to get an article off the ground, our editorial team welcomes unsolicited emails with rough ideas or topic proposals. Our editors are more than happy to work with you on developing such ideas into articles that can be published and shared with those who are in a position to help implement your ideas to solve the societal challenges you care about. We hope that the articles you find herein shall serve as a source of both inspiration for new ideas as well as the motivation that is necessary to make those ideas a reality.

First Principles of Instruction and English Language Examinations: Towards a Universal Approach to Language Education?

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 17:11:54 GMT

This exploratory work reviews the first principles of instruction and employs the theory as a means of analyzing the English language examinations administered by Trinity College London and Cambridge Assessment English. Such an analysis reveals the presence of first principles, or universal principles that underlie all effective instructional design theories, in each institution’s exam designs and, by extension, their respective instructional approaches. Concluding remarks present a discussion of these early findings and consider possible avenues for further research towards a more universal approach to language education through first principles.

Key words: Cambridge, ESL, first principles of instruction, language examinations, Trinity

Introduction

The aim of this essay is to continue applying Merrill’s (2002) first principles of instruction to the field of English as a second language (ESL) education by using them as a means of instructional approach analysis. Today, Trinity College London and Cambridge Assessment English are two of the most internationally recognized ESL institutions, providing English language instruction and level qualifications around the world. Although both institutions have been very successful in the field of ESL, their respective instructional approaches differ significantly. These differences, in turn, are reflected in the formats and contents of their respective level placement examinations. In an effort to uncover these differences more clearly, this essay treats the Trinity Integrated Skills in English (ISE) II and the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE) exams as mirrors that reflect their corresponding institutions’ instructional approaches. Both exams are ranked as B2, or upper-intermediate, level on the Common European Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale and so represent a crucial point on the ESL learner’s path to proficiency, as the advancement from the B1 to the B2 level is considered the most challenging step by many students and teachers alike.

What follows first is an introduction to Merrill’s theory and conceptual framework. The essay then continues to apply his first principles of instruction as a means of analyzing the Trinity and Cambridge instructional approaches through the lens of their respective B2-level exams. Finally, results of the analysis are discussed and suggestions for future research towards a more universal approach to ESL instruction are provided.

First principles of instruction and motivation

The first principles of instruction were pioneered by Merrill in an effort to uncover the universal principles that underlie all effective instructional design theories. According to his conceptual framework, a “ principle (basic method) is a relationship that is always true under appropriate conditions regardless of program of practice (variable method). A practice is a specific instructional activity. A program is an approach consisting of a set of prescribed practices” (p. 43). Therefore, the first principles identified by Merrill—task/problem-centered, activation, demonstration, application, and integration—affect all levels of learning from the bottom up, from the individual lesson plan or practice to the whole instructional approach or program. As Merrill’s theory is largely instructor-oriented, Keller (2008) further developed his first principles from the learner’s perspective, an effort that resulted in the first principles of motivation. Both sets of first principles are fully listed in Figure 1.

Ever since Merrill introduced his first principles of instruction, they have been applied broadly in numerous educational institutions as well as across various academic and vocational fields. One quantitative study of 464 students in 12 courses at an American university found that “when students agreed that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction […] they were about 5 times more likely to achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives and 26 times less likely to achieve low levels of mastery” (Frick et al., 2010, p. 2). Moreover, a qualitative study of five university professors’ experiences with the first principles of instruction revealed their successful application to the fields of family, consumer, and human development; marketing; nutrition and food science; as well as economics (Gardner, 2011). Though not extensively, Merrill’s theory has also been applied to ESL instruction. For example, Gunawardena (2019) demonstrated how first principles can be applied by teachers “to help students to develop routines of critical thinking in reading” (p. 44).

Trinity Integrated Skills in English II

Created to test the four basic linguistic skills in an integrated and fused way, the ISE exam promotes this concept by placing the candidate in simulated real-life situations that involve interactions with other English speakers. Every ISE exam consists of two modules: Reading & Writing, on the one hand, and Speaking & Listening on the other. While these modules are generally consistent across all ISE exams, their individual tasks are scaffolded according to the level.

The Reading & Writing module of the ISE II exam begins with two reading tasks, one long reading task and a multi-text reading task . These readings, in turn, are followed by two writing tasks: a reading into writing task in which the prompt is based on the information found in the previous multi-text reading and an extended writing task that is less guided and, therefore, more free and creative in nature. The subsequent Speaking & Listening module is divided into four tasks: (1) a topic task in which the candidate must present a topic of his or her interest from scratch, (2) a collaborative task in which the candidate must elicit information from the examiner in response to an issue presented in the prompt, (3) a conversation task in which the candidate must maintain a conversation in response to the examiner’s questions, and (4) an independent listening task in which the candidate must answer a question about an audio recording. For an outline of the Trinity ISE II format, refer to Annex 1. What follows is an analysis of how the Trinity exam format integrates Merrill’s first principles of instruction:

Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems . Although, as Merril points out, the term “problem” is understood differently among theorists, the task must be “representative [of what] the learner will encounter in the world” (p. 45). In this sense, the multi-text reading task promotes this principle. The candidate is given four texts of different nature (i.e. article, text message, statistical infographic, etc.). The task, therefore, encourages the candidates to find and connect information. Such a situation could easily occur when an English learner is at the museum or studying abroad, where information is presented in many diverse forms. On the other hand, the collaborative task in the Speaking & Listening module incorporates this principle as well. Here, the candidate is read an issue from a prompt to which he or she has to elicit further information in order to offer a final suggestion or recommendation. Thus, the task recreates a situation in which the English learner is asked for advice or needs to resolve a verbal problem that may occur in daily life.
Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge . Merril explains that by this principle, “learners are directed to recall, relate, describe or apply knowledge from [...] past experiences that can be used as a foundation for the new knowledge” (p. 46). The reading into writing task upholds this principle because it requires the candidate to elaborate a written response to a prompt based on information that was previously introduced in the reading module. This triggers an activation in which the candidate has to recycle past experiences from the reading in order to produce a written response.
New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner rather than merely being told . There is no task in the exam in which the “demonstration phase” is displayed, used, or otherwise promoted. Therefore, this principle is not adequately incorporated into the Trinity exam format.
Learners are required to apply their new knowledge or skill to solve problems . This principle is again present in the collaborative task . Here, the candidate must apply all of his or her knowledge and linguistic skills in order to successfully organize and convey his or her thoughts and feelings with respect to the topic presented. Hence, the learner is “required to solve a sequence of varied problems” (p. 49).
New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world . In Merril’s words, by this principle “learners are given an opportunity to publicly demonstrate their new knowledge or skill” (p. 50). This can again be found in the collaborative task , as the candidate has the chance to show, publicly, the naturalized skill of production. Moreover, the independent listening task also integrates this principle, since the candidate has to show and, therefore, publicly prove his or her ability not only to understand but also to discern the information that is required to successfully engage in the communicative process.

Of the 8 parts that comprise the Trinity ISE II exam, 4 parts incorporate Merrill’s first principles of instruction to some degree. Of these principles, all but one (principle 3) are represented in the exam. Since the instructional approach that corresponds to the exam is reflected in the exam design, it can be said that the Trinity approach to instruction reasonably “develops authentic communicative and transferable skills that are required for academic study and employability [...]”, bringing it closer to real-life situations (Trinity College London, 2020).

Cambridge First Certificate in English

Unlike its Trinity counterpart, the Cambridge FCE exam is divided into four independent modules, called papers: Reading & Use of English, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Besides the fact that each paper is presented separately, what is also noticeable is the inclusion of Use of English, which focuses specifically on grammar and vocabulary. This exam format is generally consistent in all intermediate and advanced Cambridge exams, with individual parts scaffolded appropriately for each level.

First, the Reading & Use of English paper has a total of eight parts: (1) a multiple-choice cloze in which the candidate must complete a text with the appropriate words, (2) an open cloze in which the candidate must add missing words to a text without any options available, (3) a word formation in which the candidate must complete sentences by appropriately modifying selected root words (i.e. noun to adverb), (4) key word transformations in which the candidate must rewrite an original sentence in an alternate form (i.e. active to passive voice), (5) a multiple choice reading in which the candidate must answer a series of comprehension questions about a text, (6) a gapped text reading in which the candidate must appropriately insert several sentences that have been removed from a text, and (7) a multiple matching reading in which the candidate is provided a series of statements and must identify which part of the text contains the corresponding information.

Next, the Writing paper is divided into a compulsory essay on a given prompt and a situationally based writing in which the candidate can choose to write either an article, an email/letter, a report, or a review. Then, the Listening paper consists of four parts: (1) a multiple choice in which the candidate must answer questions about a series of short monologues, (2) a sentence completion in which the candidate must complete statements about the listening with the appropriate missing words, (3) a multiple matching in which the candidate must connect a series of different speakers with their respective utterances, and (4) another multiple choice about an extended dialogue.

Finally, the Speaking paper also contains four parts: (1) an interview in which each candidate is asked to introduce him or herself, (2) a long turn in which each candidate must describe and and compare different images, (3) a collaborative task in which two or three candidates must reach a decision about an issue proposed by the examiner, and (4) a free discussion about the issues raised in the previous part. For an outline of the Cambridge FCE format, refer to Annex 2. What follows is an analysis of how the Cambridge exam format integrates Merrill’s first principles of instruction:

Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems . The collaborative task from the Speaking paper incorporates this principle by requiring students to reach a mutual decision regarding a prompt provided by the examiner. For example, the examiner might ask which development would be most effective in attracting tourists to the city before providing a list of five possible initiatives. By exchanging opinions, speculating together, and comparing pros and cons, the candidates effectively recreate a professional setting in which a decision on a multi-faceted topic must be reached through verbal communication.
Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge . The discussion that follows the collaborative task gives the candidates an opportunity to further elaborate and justify their opinions to the examiner. Although this section is loosely guided by questions posed by the examiner, the aim of the discussion is for candidates to express the full extent of their speaking skills and vocabulary based on the activation that took place in the preceding task.
New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner rather than merely being told . Merrill explains that this principle includes “demonstrations for procedures” as well “visualizations for processes” (p. 47). Such procedures and processes are the focus of the word formation part of the Reading & Use of English paper. In this part, the candidate would have to complete the following example sentence with an appropriate form of the root word “nourish”: “The old dog showed signs of neglect and _____.” The correct answer to this question would be “malnourishment”, which the candidate is expected to produce by following a process that consists of identifying the necessary part of speech (noun), choosing the appropriate noun suffix (-ment), deciding whether the noun should be positive or negative (negative), and choosing the appropriate negative prefix (-mal). In order for learners to be able to distinguish different parts of speech or positive and negative words, this process must be demonstrated repeatedly through numerous examples rather than just being told. Likewise, the candidate’s ability to complete this part of the exam depends on his or her capacity to demonstrate the process of word formation independently.
Learners are required to apply their new knowledge or skill to solve problems . This principle is present in the collaborative task of the Speaking paper, as it requires students to apply their verbal communication skills and prior knowledge of the pertinent vocabulary to solve a problem posed by the examiner.
New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world . Apart from the collaborative task , which requires the candidates to integrate previously acquired knowledge into the world of negotiation and decision-making, the interview part of the Speaking paper also reflects this principle. Here, candidates must present themselves to the examiner by answering personal questions with a level of formality that would be appropriate in a professional environment, thus integrating their knowledge into a real-world setting.

Of the 17 parts that comprise the Cambridge FCE exam, 4 parts incorporate Merrill’s first principles of instruction to some degree and all 5 principles are somehow represented in the exam. Since the instructional approach that corresponds to the exam is reflected in the exam design, it can be said that while the Cambridge approach to speaking does embrace several of the first principles, its approach to other language skills nevertheless fails to do so.

Discussion and conclusions

While Trinity incorporates the first principles of instruction into 4 of its 8 exam tasks, Cambridge does so in 4 of its 17 parts. Although all 5 principles can be found in the Cambridge exam format and only 4 can be found in Trinity, the first principles of instruction are significantly more present in the latter in proportion to the exam as a whole (50 percent of the tasks). As a result, the tasks in the Trinity exam format are much more integrated with one another and practical in their efforts to recreate real-world situations, while the Cambridge parts are generally separate with a heavy focus on theoretical aspects like grammar. In both exams, the Speaking module/paper—and the collaborative task in particular—incorporates the first principles of instruction most prominently.

In both exams, the collaborative tasks incorporate principles 1, 4, and 5 of Merrill’s theory. Although both tasks engage learners in solving real-world problems (principle 1), Trinity candidates face the task individually in a free exchange of ideas with the examiner, while Cambridge candidates undertake the task in pairs or groups of three within the structure of a prompt that the examiner presents to them. Although it cannot be stated conclusively, the less-structured and independent nature of the Trinity task could have a more positive impact on preparing learners for real-world communicative situations with native speakers than its Cambridge counterpart. With respect to the other two principles, which share a number of overlapping characteristics, both Trinity and Cambridge candidates must apply their new knowledge (principle 4) as well as publicly demonstrate and integrate their communicative skills (principle 5), regardless of whether they do the task independently or in groups.

In short, based on the two exam analyses, the Cambridge instructional approach incorporates more of the first principles of instruction than its Trinity counterpart. Yet, the first principles are more prevalent in the Trinity instructional approach as a whole. It should nevertheless be kept in mind that this study has been largely exploratory and should therefore be read as a first step on the path towards a more universal ESL instructional approach based on first principles. It is beyond the scope of this work to search for ways to incorporate more first principles into ESL instructional approaches. Further research should focus on doing this as well as integrating Keller’s first principles of motivation to make the learner’s perspective more represented in ESL instructional approaches. Moreover, other existing English exam models such as Aptis and TOEFL could be considered as future case studies. Although being less internationally popular than the two models proposed here, by applying Merril’s theory, they could open this exploratory study to a broader scope.

Bibliography

Frick, T. W., Chadha, R., Watson, C., & Zlatkovska, E. (2010). New Measures for Course Evaluation in Higher Education and their Relationships with Student Learning. Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, 1–12.

Gardner, J. L. (2011). How Award-winning Professors in Higher Education Use Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 8(5), 3–16.

Gunawardena, M. (2019). Pedagogies for Scaffolding Thinking in ESL. In L. Li (Ed.), Thinking Skills and Creativity in Second Language Education: Case Studies from International Perspectives (1st ed., pp. 42–57). Routledge.

Keller, J. M. (2008). First Principles of Motivation to Learn and e3-Learning. Distance Education, 29(2), 175–185.

Merrill, D. M. (2002). First Principles of Instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(3), 43–59.

Trinity College London. (2020). ISE - Integrated Skills in English Exams.

https://www.trinitycollege.com/qualifications/english-language/ISE

Annexes

First Principles Thinking as a Tool for Decision-Making

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 09:28:43 GMT

First principles thinking can be used for several purposes, ranging from coming up with innovative solutions, to deepening your understanding about a topic and contextualising your research. The potential of this technique is far reaching but several of its applications are underexposed. This article provides you with practical insights on another way in which the technique can be helpful: making decisions.

First principles thinking and decision-making

According to Lumen Learning (n.d.), decision-making refers to making choices among alternative courses of action. But what if you’re unhappy with the alternatives in front of you? To identify new alternatives or improve your current options you might want to approach the situation like a problem-solver, and a first principles thinker in particular.

You make about 35,000 decisions a day (Psychology Today, 2018): What radio channel do I listen to? And on what volume precisely? Will I give this Instagram photo a like? What about the next photo? Will I continue reading this article? Understandably, most decisions are taken on automatic pilot. But what if certain decisions are suboptimal or costly in the long-term?

In the following circumstances it might be worthwhile to embrace the guidance of first principles thinking:

When you make habitual decisions that are harmful or costly, for example pouring ketchup over your meals.
When you’re confronted to make a decision that others have not yet been confronted with, for example deciding on how to deal with an extraterrestrial invasion in your backyard.
When you’re confronted to make a decision that others have not yet made in a way that resulted in optimal success, for example how to contain the spread of an infectious disease at its source without frustrating the local economy.
When you’re dissatisfied with the quality and quantity of the decision options that are currently apparent to you, for example deciding on what profession to pursue when living in a small secluded village.
When you want to decide on how to best solve a concrete problem or achieve a concrete goal, especially those that others have failed at, for example diverting a tornado from its natural course.

If I were to make a decision based on first principles, this is what I would do: identify the problem that the decision aims to solve, break down what I think I know about the problem into basic scientific truths and reason up from there to discover new, hopefully more yielding, avenues. This way, first principles thinking would help get to the root of the issue we’re deciding on to discover approaches and decisions that we are unaware of at first.

Example: which car should I buy?

Below you find some steps that may help guide your decision-making process. The workings of first principles thinking are illustrated in the context of a decision that my friend was pondering: “Which car should I buy to commute from my new home in rural Sweden to my workplace in town?” Being a first principles thinker, I asked him why he feels that he needs a car. “Because my partner uses the one car we have to go to work in the opposite direction and leaves at a much earlier time”. “Why does that make you need another car?” He got hesitant to answer, and so our first principles thinking exercise began.

Step 1: Identify the problem and turn it into an objective

A rational decision-maker would probably compare different cars in terms of price, safety, looks, horsepower, etc. and make a decision based on what aspects he or she values most in a car.

While this approach can be useful when you have deliberately decided that buying a car is what you want, you can also take a step back and ask yourself what problem the decision would solve in the first place. Buying a car could, for example, solve the problem of not being able to travel in between home and work.

If you find that there is no problem or objective, it might not matter too much what decision you opt for or you might not even need to make a decision at all. If you did identify a problem, the first principles thinking method dictates you to transform it into an objective statement that concretely addresses what needs to be improved, for whom and in which locality, without demarcating it further than this. The objective for my friend would, for example, be:

Become able to get to work and back home on workdays.

Step 2: List your obstacles

As with any goal, there are always obstacles in the way. To identify them, ask yourself: What hinders this objective from not being achieved (yet), or what are the causes? I found it helpful to focus on the most important ones:

My work requires physical presence.

My work in the city is far away from my home.

There is no public transportation between my house and work.

Step 3: Question your assumptions

As with any first principles thinking exercise, you need to temporarily embrace that everything you think you know about each obstacle may be untrue. Asking ‘Socratic questions’ can help challenge these previously held beliefs:

Does my work truly require physical presence? Is work actually far from home? Is there really no public transportation? Why do I think that? What is the evidence?

Once you have let go of your assumptions we can move on to identifying first principles.

Step 4: Uncover some first principles

To get to the first basis from which a thing is known —the very first principles— you could ask fundamental questions that break down the obstacles:

First obstacle: My work requires physical presence

What concrete activities at work require my presence? How much time do these activities take? What is the yield of doing these activities? Are the activities worth buying a car for? Am I the only one who can perform these activities?

Second obstacle: My work is far away from my home

How far is work exactly, by road and by sky? How long does it take to get there by various means of transportation?

Third obstacle: There is no public transportation

What criteria need to be fulfilled for public transportation to be a viable option for the municipality and transport provider? What vehicles pass my house/neighbourhood, and how often? What criteria need to be fulfilled to get to work within 30 minutes? What existing vehicles fulfill these criteria? What do they cost? Do neighbours and coworkers also experience inconvenience from the absence of transportation?

If you have not done so already, try to answer and deduce as many questions as possible. In doing so, try to stick to facts as much as possible. An educated guess or a search engine query will most of the time do just fine at this stage.

First obstacle: My work requires physical presence

Internal meetings, which take about 10% of my time at work, require physical presence. Few of my interventions during these meetings are spontaneous. Although my input is well received, I am not convinced it is worth the costs of a car. Colleagues could be trained to do the activities requiring physical presence.

Second obstacle: My work is far away from my home

Work is located about 17 kilometres (10 miles) away by road and 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) by radius. To get there it takes about 17 minutes by car, 1 hour by bike and 3.5 hours on foot.

Third obstacle: There is no public transportation

The Swedish association for local governments gives some indicative answers: the minimal bus occupancy rate lies around 5 persons per vehicle, the minimal number of bus rides per inhabitant per year is 25 and the maximum costs per kilometre should not exceed 33 Swedish Crowns (€/$3.50) (Sverige Kommuner och Landsting, 2016.
About 25 close neighbours and 8 coworkers also experience inconvenience as a result of a lack of transportation.
In between 07-08h on weekdays, about 12 cars, 3 agricultural vehicles and 1 motorcycle pass my house. The transportation modality needs to be able to carry about 90 kilos (200 pounds); speed up to at least 40km/h (25 miles/h); be allowed on the road or in the sky; withstand rain, snow and wind; and be cheaper than a car.
These vehicles more or less fulfil the criteria: electric bike (€/$1,500) (Bikester, n.d.), moped (€/$1,500) (Köpenscooter Omdömen, n.d.), paramotor (€/$2,000) (Wikipedia, n.d.; Ebay, n.d.). Off road scooters like golf carts and quad bikes are not allowed on a regular public road (Transportstyrelsen, n.d.).

This foundational and semi-factual information consists of first principles.

Step 5: Come up with new ideas

To turn the first principles into innovative ideas, you could ask how-questions that link the first principles with the selected obstacles and try to answer them:

First obstacle: My work requires physical presence

How can we decrease the % of internal meetings I attend? Compress meetings to one day; swap meeting-intensive tasks with colleagues.
How can I contribute to meetings without being physically present? Email the input beforehand; ask a colleague to provide input on your behalf; join via video or telephone.

Second obstacle: My work is far away from my home

How can we decrease the distance? Create a shortcut; travel by air; flatten the road; make the road more bike-friendly; sleep at work during weekdays; open a satellite office closer to home; move closer to work; get a mobile home; start a new business from home.
How can we decrease the time it takes by modalities that are currently too slow? Put a motor on a bike or buy an electric bike; increase your physical endurance so that you can bike faster.

Third obstacle: There is no public transportation

How can we achieve a bus occupancy rate of 5 persons per bus? How can we achieve that residents take at least 25 bus rides per year? How can we make public transportation cheaper for the user than currently used modes of transportation? How can we ensure that the maximum costs per driven kilometre will not exceed 33 Swedish Crowns? First launch a questionnaire to see how many neighbours would use public transportation, how often and for which price?
How can we increase the population density of the village so that public transportation becomes a necessary or viable service? Attract real estate developers to build a residential flat or hospital.
How can we find out where the vehicles passing my house are going? How can we convince those going to the city to give me a lift? Try hitchhiking with a banner saying something like “FREE COFFEE in return for a ride to town” and try to make more permanent arrangements.
How can we build a vehicle that fulfills the criteria? Unsure.
How can we get an e-bike or paramotor? Simply order it online or make one yourself.
How can we legalise certain vehicles? Instal an additional strip of land for golfing/quadding next to the road where golf carts and quad bikes would be allowed.
How can we team-up with neighbours or coworkers that also struggle to get to the city? Write a letter to the municipality; buy one vehicle together for ‘vehicle pooling’; ask the company to provide a shuttle service for employees.

As you may have noticed, we only answered the questions that we could relatively easily find an answer or idea to.

What to do with all these possible decisions?

Now that you have multiple ideas you could do three things:

First , refine them, for example by setting the realisation of these ideas as your subgoal and, again, applying first principles thinking to come up with refined ideas to achieve it. For example:

Step 1: The goal is to make the company provide a shuttle service for employees.
Step 2: The main obstacle seems that this would cost the company money.
Step 3: The assumption to question here could be whether it really is costly; let’s suppose it doesn’t need to.
Step 4: The fundamental questions could then be: What are the cost components exactly? How much would this cost for each employee? A simple calculation (footnote 1) leads to the following first principle: It costs about 375 Crowns (€/$35) per employee per month for this system to operate.
Step 5: We could then ask: How can we make it beneficial for the employer to cover these costs? One idea that pops up is for the car to arrive at work a few minutes early and leave a few minutes late everyday. The additional minutes could be used by the employees to work overtime and compensate for the employer’s expenses. Each employee would need to work about 4.5 additional minutes every workday to make this work (footnote 2) . Now you have a concrete proposal.

Second , assess the potential of each idea against evaluation criteria that you or your surroundings find important, for example local laws, political reality, risks and feasibility. Whenever you’re about to drop an idea, for example because it appears to entail too many risks, you could first make it your goal to reduce these risks, and apply first principles thinking to do so.

Knowing that the employer values sustainability, she would probably not agree to pay for lease cars that run on ordinary petrol. After a quick first principles thinking exercise, a logical solution seems to be that they need to be electric cars and that employees would need to arrive about 10 minutes early and leave 10 minutes late to compensate for the costs of this pricier variant.

Third , when you have a few promising solutions, you could start implementing those solutions that seem most cost-effective, or individually necessary and/or jointly sufficient to achieve your objective.

The refined solution of carpooling seems to be quite cost-effective for my friend to commute to work. He could then decide to propose it to the employer.

For further guidance on refining and selecting your ideas, you could check out steps 6 and 7 of the First Principles Thinking Manual .

Conclusion

Indeed, instead of buying a Volvo V90, my friend will first try to realise some of the ideas presented above. Although most ideas are not extremely innovative, some of them are unlikely to be thought of without applying first principles thinking.

The far reaching potential of this method for innovative and realistic decision-making is attributable to the fact that it combines aspects of both creative and rational decision-making, at the very core of the issue in question.

As the example illustrates, the application of first principles thinking to a relatively simple decision with a straightforward underlying goal can become quite comprehensive. While this can make for a hefty mental challenge, it also provides for ample ingredients from which solutions can be generated; so use them!

You’ll see: the more often you apply first principles thinking to decision-making and problem-solving, the more intuitive the process gets, sometimes getting to great ideas even before you start to actively question your assumptions.

Footnotes

The cost components are about 2,500 Swedish Crowns (€/$250) per month for the lease and 500 Crowns for gasoline of two second hand five-seater cars, if the most efficient routes are taken. How much would it cost per person per month? A total of 2,500 plus 500 Crowns divided by 8 coworkers is 375 Crowns.
How many minutes do employees need to work per month to earn this? 375 Crowns divided by an average gross hourly salary of 260 Crowns is about 1.5 hours, or 90 minutes. 90 minutes divided by 20 workdays per month is 4.5 minutes.

References

Bikester. (n.d.). Elcycklar. https://www.bikester.se/cyklar/elcyklar/?srule=price-low-to-high&page=1&sz=48
Ebay. (n.d.). Paramotor. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=paramotor&_sacat=0
Lumen Learning. (n.d.). Understanding Decision Making. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/principlesmanagement/chapter/11-2-understanding-decision-making/
Köpenscooter Omdömen. (n.d.). Hemsidan. https://www.kopenscooter.nu/sv/
Eva Krockow (2018) How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/stretching-theory/201809/how-many-decisions-do-we-make-each-day
Sverige Kommuner och Landsting. (2016) Öppna jämförelser kollektivtrafik 2016. https://www.skane.se/Public/Protokoll/Regionala%20utvecklingsn%C3%A4mnden/2017-02-03/Verksamhetsinformation%20-%20regionala%20utvecklingsn%C3%A4mnden%202017-02-03/%C3%96ppna%20j%C3%A4mf%C3%B6relser%20kollektivtrafik%202016.pdf
Transportstyrelsen. (n.d.). Terrängmotorfordon. https://transportstyrelsen.se/sv/vagtrafik/Fordon/Fordonsregler/Terrangmotorfordon1/
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Paramotor. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramotor#:~:text=En%20paramotor%20%C3%A4r%20en%20motor,%C3%A5r%20(g%C3%A4ller%20endast%20SSFF).

How First Principles Thinking Can Raise Awareness about Color Sensitive Wording

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 13:28:54 GMT

The ‘dark web’: a clandestine part of the internet where illegal activity is conducted. ‘Black market’: like the ‘dark web’, the financial sector in which illicit goods and services are bought and sold. ‘Black magic’: supernatural practices associated with evil and sacrilege. ‘Dark comedy: a form of humor that makes fun of subject matter often considered taboo or inappropriate for mainstream entertainment. The list goes on. Such supremacy and oppression in language is exhausting when one has to pretend that the words heard or read do not insult, demean or otherwise erode the confidence of a group of people. It can be depleting to witness the way that language seems to protect certain groups of people while the words that are connected to some—particularly those with deeply toned skin—are degrading as a result of the negative connotations they evoke. This article delves into the issue of the negative use of ‘dark’ and ‘black’ in language and proposes a way of overcoming it by means of first principles thinking.

Introduction

Ferdinand de Saussure noted that “the meaning of the word ‘dark’ comes not from some intrinsic properties of the world, but from the word’s binary opposition to the word ‘light’. When this view is applied to the social world, the meanings, the mind, and ultimately the social world itself are shaped by the structure of language. Thus, structural linguistics does not focus on the existential world of people shaping their surroundings; instead all aspects of the social world are shaped by the structure of language” (Siraj, 2003, p. 16).

Historically, the usage of white positive speech and black negative speech has dominated many languages and dialects (The Culture C.O.-O.P., 2019). Though many historical forms of discrimination have been overcome, the issue of discriminatory language prevails. In daily conversations, as in the media, it is as if we are speaking into existence the idea that darkness is wrong instead of using language to promote human equality.

As a volunteer, servant of society and citizen of the world who wants to empower fellow citizens to become more conscious of their word choice, it is my hope that the following exercise in first principles thinking will encourage people to question both the deeply rooted fears of ‘darkness’ as well as become aware of language that negatively represents ‘blackness’.

Make people aware of the words they use

Ultimately, the objective of this exercise is to propose a way to make people aware that many phrases that reference ‘darkness’ or ‘blackness’ (i.e. dark web, black market, black magic, dark comedy, blacklists, dark fun, black sheep, blackmail, etc.) signal threat, fear or felonious activity. Such words reinforce stereotypes of the criminality or immorality of an entire cohort of society. Therefore, first and foremost, people’s awareness with respect to such structural language issues must be raised.

What are the obstacles to raising awareness?

Due to the historical prevalence of this issue, the list of obstacles that stand in the way of the stated objective is long and deeply ingrained. Social groups don’t recognize the effects, the many internal visualizations, or the mind-tricks that are at play in the psyche of millions. Responses to negative utterances are produced internally in the minds and bodies of the receivers of such concussive language, making it difficult for those producing and sending it to have the same experiences. This is a barrier in the creation of empathy with the receivers.

Other obstacles in overcoming this issue include:

It is deeply rooted in the language, both historically from a cultural perspective and structurally from a linguistic perspective.
People pretend that it is not a serious issue and that there are no energetic, psychological or emotional side effects of using divisive language.
People are uncomfortable to be confronted with their (conscious/unconscious) internal biases.
People who use such phrases might do so due to their association with their beliefs, their appreciation of art and their culture in general, thus making them less willing to re-examine their word choice.
People feel that they can disparage ‘darkness’ and ‘blackness’ because it is commonplace to do so in their communities.

Becoming aware of my own assumptions first

Before continuing with this exercise and attempting to overcome the stated obstacles, it is necessary to address a few questions regarding the different assumptions surrounding this issue. Namely:

Do all people of the world really want to acknowledge the humanity of others and do they desire to reduce the pain of fellow human beings?
Do people with lighter skin believe that those with more melanin are not as emotionally sensitive as they are?
Do people who produce negative utterances with respect to ‘darkness’ and ‘blackness’ do so unconsciously or because they believe that other people are less significant?
Can those who use such negative utterances be held accountable for their speech, or is our language dictated by an overarching hierarchy of power that is beyond the ability of the individual to control?
Was the white/black binary opposition created consciously? If not, then how could it have come about? Why do we approve of it today?

What are the first principles?

What words can be considered sensitive, exactly? Dark place/time, black market, dark pattern, dark web, blackmail, etc.

When are people audibly or visually exposed to repressive utterances? They are mostly exposed through listening, reading, speaking and viewing (Converse Willkomm, 2018).

What do people feel when they are confronted about their word choice? What chemical reaction is created when they are confronted? Unfortunately, a search engine query does not generate the necessary scientific answers, or first principles. By instead relying on experience and discussion with others, I would say that most people feel ashamed or personally attacked when confronted.

Eureka!

How can we raise awareness with such a list of color sensitive words? Create a database of color-sensitive phrases to serve as a resource for newspapers and other media outlets. Such a database could contain a list of phrases that make negative usage of ‘dark’ and ‘black’ as well as offer more color-neutral alternatives to such phrases.

How can we make people who read aware when they read loaded words? Based on the database, we could create an online application that highlights sensitive words within the text of a submission. Alternatively, we could request that newspapers and other media outlets highlight sensitive words for one week in an effort to spread awareness to their reader base.

How can we encourage amateur and professional speakers to engage in discussions that spark awareness? We could encourage debate organizations to make the topic a subject of deliberation. We could also encourage litigators to dialogue within legal Bar associations for and against the importance of impartiality in language.

In addition, based on the analysis, we could develop a website where anyone can find out how potentially insensitive forms of communication might be to a segment of people. Visitors could insert an article, a movie script or a website’s homepage and it would examine what percentage of the submitted content consists of criminally hued phrases, and whether, comparatively, the material is very, somewhat or not at all insensitive to people who share the pronoun depicted in the work. This tool and database could, for example, also be used to make news outlets or political parties aware of their insensitivities and offer them alternative phrases—before publishing their insensitivity score.

How can we confront someone without igniting the reaction of being ashamed or personally attacked? How can we confront someone without making them uncomfortable? We should show that person in a non-judgemental way that we also have feelings and that we have felt similarly as he or she has before.

Conclusion

The objective of this exercise in first principles thinking was to develop a set of actionable solutions to the issue of color sensitive wording. After clearly identifying the objective of making people aware of the many negative uses of ‘dark’ and ‘black’ in our language, the obstacles that stand in the way of reaching that objective were listed. Then, a step of self-reflection was taken in order to confront any personal assumptions that might interfere with objectivity. Finally, the issue itself was deconstructed to reveal the underlying first principles and a number of actionable solutions were proposed. While this set of solutions is only theoretical and not necessarily comprehensive, I hope that it is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

References

Converse Willkomm, A. (2018, July 12). Five Types of Communication. Drexel University Goodwin College of Professional Studies. https://drexel.edu/goodwin/professional-studies-blog/overview/2018/July/Five-types-of-communication/

Siraj. (2003). Post-Modernism Today: A Brief Introduction (1st ed.). Radical Publications.

The Culture C.O.-O.P. (2019). The Cost of Darkness. http://www.cultureco-op.com/the-cost-of-darkness

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in submissions published by FIPS reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views held by FIPS, the FIPS team or the authors' employer.

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The First Principles of Taking Responsibility for Your Health

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 15:20:05 GMT

It is one of the paradoxes of the twenty-first century. Approximately, 11 percent of the people on earth are undernourished (UN, 2020) , and 13 percent of the world population is suffering from obesity, often even in the same country (WHO, 2020b) . How is this problem growing and what are possible solutions to shrink it? The following article will examine the issue of nutrition and health, and attempt to uncover the obstacles, before reasoning to a possible solution for the issue at hand. In order to demarcate the area, this article will focus on the metropolitan area in the Netherlands called the Randstad. The area consists of the four largest cities of the country - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht - and all the smaller cities in between. This diverse region makes it quite representative for many urban areas in the world and will hopefully offer solutions that can be used elsewhere.

Introduction to the problem

The WHO even has classified the issue of obesity as an epidemic in 2017. Where in the past obesity was a ‘first world problem’, nowadays, the increase of overweight and obese people is 30% quicker in developing countries than in developed countries (WHO, 2020a) . In a post created by the World Bank, they argued that “as countries develop, diets diversify into more nutritious foods (though sometimes slowly ), but they also diversify into unhealthy foods like soft drinks” (Headey & Alderman, 2019) . One of the prevalent causes of this issue is because of the unequal distribution of commodities and wealth (WHO, 2020b) ; however, the issue of obesity also arises from an underlying problem: People do not take responsibility for their health by means of their nutrition, in the Randstad. All over the world, obesity is becoming a bigger problem by increasing the cases of noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes, heart diseases, strokes and cancer (WHO, 2020c) . Solving this issue cannot only assist in the eradication of hunger because of a better distribution of the existing nutrition, but also in the improvement of people’s health in general.

The ideal objective is that people take responsibility for their health by solely consuming nutrition that is beneficial to their health, for which we will use ‘an apricot’ as an example. For unhealthy nutrition, we will use ‘the muffin’ as an example. For readability purposes this article will not follow the first principles thinking steps to the letter. It will combine the identification of both the assumptions and first principles, which are derived from an obstacle, in one section. This way it will be less mechanical and easier for you to follow along to the solutions!

Obstacles that are blocking our objective

As first principles thinking dictates, in order to find promising solutions for this issue and to achieve the objective, we first have to uncover the obstacles that are in the way of our objective. When examining the issue, a few obstacles come to mind.

Unawareness

The first (1) obstacle I see is that perhaps people do not know what nutrition is (un)healthy for them. In the Netherlands, lessons about nutrition and the effects are not explicitly taught in primary or secondary school, aside from biology lessons (WUR, 2016) . Moreover, the Netherlands, and especially the metropolitan area of the Randstad, is very multicultural (CBS, 2019) . This means that if people do not depend on schools but their parents for information about nutrition, then there are many different perspectives and starting points to teach about nutrition and its health effects.

Cost effectiveness

The second (2) obstacle I see is that unhealthy nutrition is often cheaper than healthy nutrition, especially when you are not preparing it yourself. An example here is that a hamburger costs €1,- at a well-known fast-food chain, but a side salad is €1,95 (Snack Nieuws, 2016) . People do not only make a decision based on the nutritional value but also on the monetary value of the product, especially when they are not well off and need to make conscious decisions on what they spend their money on.

Time efficiency

Lastly (3), it is easier to prepare unhealthy nutrition compared to healthy nutrition. Often, unhealthy nutrition is easy to prepare because you only have to, for example, reheat it. However, this does not necessarily make it unhealthy because of the cooking method but because of the salts and sugars that are added to make it taste better.

With such a complex issue, there are likely to be many more obstacles in place, especially depending on the location that you are looking into the issue. However, for this article, the focus will be on the obstacles mentioned above. This will also help in following the line of reasoning.

Assumptions and first principles

These three obstacles lead me to take a look at my assumptions. Personally, I think the first obstacle - people do not know what nutrition is (un)healthy for them - has two different assumptions. The first one is that people are not interested in their health. The second assumption is that people think that nutrition has no effect on their health, which is, in my opinion, a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect (when people think they are more knowledgeable on a subject than they truly are, and act accordingly) (Kruger & Dunning, 2000) .

The first principle we can derive from the assumptions might be a bit obvious, but I think necessary to mention: people are not taught enough about the effects of nutrition on their health, in primary and secondary school. This first principle is for both the first and the second assumption because when people learn more about a subject, they often realize how much they do not know. We could dig deeper to why this is not in the school’s curricula, but for this exercise we will leave it here because it displays a good enough first principle to work with.

For the second obstacle - unhealthy nutrition is often cheaper than healthy nutrition – there are a few assumptions at hand. The first assumption I think is the obstacle itself. Is unhealthy nutrition really cheaper compared to healthy nutrition, or is it relatively cheaper? For example, one hamburger is as expensive as one or two pieces of vegetables, but do they both leave you as satisfied? Another example is that the actual costs of the nutrition might not be so high, but the taxes on the products are. Depending on the product, this way healthy nutrition can become more expensive than unhealthy nutrition.

Often, the cost of labor with healthy nutrition (the apricot) is higher, compared to unhealthy nutrition (the muffin). Often unhealthy nutrition has additional ingredients to enhance the flavor or smell, such as sugar, salt and fats (WHO, 2018) . This way the unhealthy nutrition is much easier to make in larger quantities because these added ingredients disguise the fact that the actual substance is not that great. With healthy nutrition, usually, they are hardly processed ingredients that take much time to cultivate, for example, a farmer growing its apples. A first principle we can take from these assumptions is that unhealthy nutrition is cheaper to make because of the possibility to make it in larger quantities with less labor.

The last obstacle - it is easier to prepare unhealthy nutrition compared to healthy nutrition – ties back into the previous obstacles [1] a bit. To me, it is a big assumption that unhealthy nutrition is easier to prepare than healthy nutrition. It is more likely that people simply do not know how to prepare food, which makes it easier to heat some unhealthy nutrition in the microwave or even order it to be delivered (as a majority of the take-out food is quite unhealthy). What is one of the key ingredients to cook your own food? Besides possessing some basic knowledge about cooking, most important is that they need time to do it. Especially the latter is something that people nowadays have a shortage of and/or are unwilling to spend on their nutrition as they are rushed with work, a social life, children and other duties. This causes people to take out more, and use prepared food that only has to be heated.

If we would go a bit deeper, we could wonder why people think it is less important to prepare yourself a healthy and nutritious meal, than for example to have a bigger social life or work more? In the West and especially in the Randstad, people are very focused on pursuing a career as quickly as possible and have very many friends, as the way of thinking is that then you are successful (and maybe even that then you will be happy). Moreover, because it is the most densely populated area of the Netherlands, there is ample possibility to take out different types of food (even some healthy ones). Lastly, housing is more expensive in the big cities, which often makes the kitchen very small and impractical. This all makes it less likely that people want to spend much time on cooking and more likely that they order or take-out food.

Conclusions from the analysis and possible solutions

So, what can we conclude from these obstacles and first principles that we have discovered and how can we work towards a solution? Here we make a division between what the government can do or what private people can do. For the government, the first solution to me would be that in the schools there should be a more structural focus in children’s education on the benefits of nutrition on health. By doing this, people would learn more about the topic, and gain more skills in order to cook their own food. Additionally, people would become more aware of the risks related to unhealthy eating habits, such as heart and vascular diseases.

Another major improvement would be that unhealthy nutrition is moneywise simply not the easiest option. This can be done by taxing for example nutrition with high sugar or fat quantities. The other way around, unprocessed healthy nutrition can be taxed less, which would make it cheaper compared to unhealthy nutrition. When people need to make a decision in their budget for what type of food they will buy, healthy nutrition should be the sensible option.

What people themselves living in the Randstad, or society at large, can do is being made aware that they do not necessarily need to choose between having a career and a good social life, and eating proper nutritious food. One solution would be if they buy healthier food when they do take out, another would be that they start cooking for friends because cooking is the best for other people, so it matches greatly with having a good social life!

References

CBS. (2019, August 30). Bevolking; geslacht, leeftijd en nationaliteit op 1 januari . Retrieved July 26, 2020, from CBS: ttps://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/03743/table?fromstatweb

Headey, D., & Alderman, H. (2019, July 23). The high price of healthy food … and the low price of unhealthy food . Retrieved July 26, 2020, from World Bank: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/high-price-healthy-food-and-low-price-unhealthy-food

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (2000, January). Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 (6), 1121-1134. Retrieved from Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"

Snack Nieuws. (2016, November 25). Dit is de complete prijslijst van McDonald’s . Retrieved July 26, 2020, from Snack Nieuws: https://www.snack-nieuws.nl/dit-is-de-complete-prijslijst-van-mcdonalds-2016/

UN. (2020, July 26). SDG 2 . Retrieved from Sustainable Development: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg2

WHO. (2018, June 1). Noncommunicable diseases . Retrieved from World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases

WHO. (2020, July 26). Obesity and Overweight . Retrieved from World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight

WHO. (2020a, July 26). Obesity . Retrieved from World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/health-topics/obesity#tab=tab_1

WHO. (2020b, July 26). Obesity . Retrieved from World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/health-topics/obesity#tab=tab_2

WUR. (2016, March 7). Voedingseducatie onmisbaar in het onderwijs . Retrieved July 26, 2020, from Wageningen University & Research: https://www.wur.nl/nl/nieuws/Voedingseducatie-onmisbaar-in-het-onderwijs.htm

FIPS is Built on First Principles

Sat, 16 May 2020 09:07:10 GMT

You may be somewhat familiar with the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions (FIPS) and its aspiration to act as an outlet for the theoretical development and practical application of first principles thinking, with the ultimate goal to contribute to tackling societal challenges. But how did we come into being? And how has first principles thinking (unknowingly) been playing a fundamental role in finding our niche? In this article you will learn about how we embraced two obstacles to tackling societal challenges that spurred our creation: (1) not all societal challenges have effective solutions yet, and (2) promising ideas do not always reach the right people.

Step 1 (identify your objective): Enable anyone to contribute to tackling societal challenges

When you look outside, read the news or talk to your friends, do you also observe numerous societal challenges you wish to be resolved? FIPS was founded in 2018 by a few friends who regularly discuss today's challenges in the world; from the displacement of Rohingyas in Myanmar to loneliness among the elderly in Denmark in times of COVID19-related restrictions. Like you, we wish to enable anyone to contribute to tackling such challenges. This would become our objective.

Step 2 (list your obstacles): I cannot come up with new solutions nor would anyone listen if I did

According to the first principles thinking method you should identify the obstacles that prevent you from achieving your objective. Although, at the time, we were not familiar with the method, we thought it would be a good idea to do exactly this. Expectedly, we identified a million obstacles as to why you and I struggle to contribute to tackling societal challenges. Instead of wanting to tackle them all, we began with two obstacles that we thought to be both meaningful and within our sphere of influence:

First, I cannot come up with new solutions. The challenges you see around you can appear intimidating, so we might think: “How could I, or anyone, ever mitigate climate change, world hunger, or the spread of a coronavirus? I surely need to be a creative genius and an expert on the challenge in question to be able to come up with new solutions.”

Second, I cannot get my ideas to reach people in a position to help tackle the challenge in question, nor would I be taken seriously if I could. “What should I do with my ideas? Will someone influential pick them up if I share them on Facebook? Would they even notice them if I simply sent my ideas via email?”

Step 3 (question your assumptions): Do I really need to be a creative genius or renowned expert?

What if I tell you that these obstacles may very well just be in your head, shaped by your personal assumptions? The next first principles thinking step aims to uncover and challenge these assumptions by asking so-called ‘Socratic Questions’. Basically, this means doubting everything you could possibly doubt so that you can continue your search for new ideas on a more factual basis and with an open mind.

Idea generation . With regard to the first obstacle, we asked ourselves questions such as: “Do I really need to be a creative genius or an expert? Why do I think that? Would I say yes if someone asked me to bet some money on it? Are there instances of ‘regular’ people coming up with amazing solutions?”

Idea delivery . With regard to the second obstacle, we asked similar questions: “Are there really no channels through which I can voice my ideas? Will they really not listen to me? What if this is wrong? Are there instances of ideas of ‘regular’ people reaching the implementation table?”

Acting stupid can be truly liberating.

Step 4 (discover your first principles): Systematic innovation through first principles thinking and idea delivery through an organisation

With an open mind we continued our search, with a layover in First Principles Town, where we tried to get to the fundamental truths of our obstacles. To identify these ‘first principles’, we answered the questions in the previous step and asked additional truth-seeking questions.

Idea generation. With regard to the first obstacle, we realised that you don’t need to be a creative genius or expert to come up with groundbreaking ideas. Numerous innovations have actually been accidental: matches were invented when chemist John Walke accidentally scraped a stick coated in chemicals across his hearth and found that it caught fire. We continued to wonder: “Does innovation always need to be accidental? Can innovation be forced? Is there perhaps an accessible and systematic approach to innovation?” When querying this question in a search engine we stumbled upon a first principle: indeed there are systematic approaches to problem-solving, among which, first principles thinking!

Idea delivery . Being somewhat familiar with first principles thinking, we embarked on the second obstacle and realised that chances are indeed quite small for your idea to get picked up by influential people. Again, we started to wonder: “Who do influential people listen to? What makes them listen?” We figured it could be helpful for one’s credibility if ideas are conveyed through an established organisation. We considered this a first principle to effective delivery.

Step 5 (come up with new ideas): Education and a cool logo

Then it was time to consider how these first principles can be used to overcome the selected obstacles by asking ‘how-questions’.

Idea generation . With regard to the first obstacle and associated first principle, we started asking how-questions: “How can we use first principles thinking to enable people to contribute to tackling societal challenges?” We figured they would have to be familiarised with the method.

Indeed, this is not really an idea that is ready for implementation yet, so we returned to the previous step in search for additional first principles. “When do people want to learn?” A quick query in our search engine led us to John Munro’s paper Motivating learning: Why do we learn? He found, among other factors, that people are more likely to learn when they can do so through different channels.

With this first principle in mind we continued asking how-questions. “How can we teach first principles thinking through various channels that are both attractive and accessible?” Naturally, the idea of creating various learning aids, ranging from a step-by-step manual and explanatory videos to an online course and real life workshops, emerged. After all, the more people actively apply this method the higher the chances are of producing groundbreaking ideas to tackle societal challenges.

Idea delivery . We confidentially embarked on the second obstacle and first principle, and again asked how-questions such as: “How can we create a credible organisation that people listen to?” A cool name, neat logo and fresh website could go a long way, we thought. And a registration at the chamber of commerce, obviously. At the same time we did not want to overdo it, so instead of calling ourselves an institute we settled on being a factory.

Step 6 (refine your ideas): Deliver ideas in the form of an invitation

Ideas are simply ideas until they become solutions. For an idea to evolve into a solution, it might help to take the context into account. And so we continued asking questions to make the ideas more concrete and tailored to the task at hand.

Idea generation . “What else can we do to make the learning aids more attractive? And how can we enthuse them to apply it to societal challenges?” This led us to refined ideas such as:

Enable learners to apply as they learn (for example by including a do-it-yourself section with empty text boxes in the manual)
Have editors work with learners to turn their learning output into an article for publication
Publish the articles on the website and in the First Principles Thinking Review
Deliver their articles to people who can actually help implement the ideas in practice
Give learners a first principles thinking certificate

Idea delivery . We also wanted to refine our ideas on effectively delivering ideas, so we asked: “What else can we do to effectively deliver our ideas? What kinds of texts, emails and documents do influential people read? What actually physically ends up at their desks?” Instead of querying this in our search engine to find answers (first principles) we thought of one ourselves: Invitations! And again we asked how-questions: “How can we deliver the ideas as an invitation?” Indeed, the answer is in the question itself. This led us to the following idea:

Deliver the ideas in the form of an invitation

Step 7 (select your solutions): Let’s just try and tweak!

Do these ideas actually enable anyone to contribute to tackling societal challenges? In isolation, probably not. Several other ingredients are necessary to have an impact, not to forget: dedicating your blood, sweat and tears!

Numerous other ideas were manufactured and new ones are still being added to our idea list. What we have been doing so far is simply trying ideas such as the ones presented in this article, asking users for feedback and continuing to tweak according to new insights, which would preferably be first principles.

Conclusion

Indeed, the birth of FIPS was no linear process: we occasionally switched between identifying first principles, generating ideas and refining them into potential solutions. In my experience this is actually quite typical of first principles thinking. Better yet, the fact that the steps can be followed fluidly is one of its main strengths!

What I furthermore found useful is that first principles thinking encouraged us to ask questions that have brought us closer to our current form and methods. While delivering ideas in the form of an invitation is not extremely innovative, it is definitely an idea worth exploring that we might not have come up with by way of a regular brainstorm. I am curious how first principles thinking will continue to guide us in our aspiration to enable anyone to contribute to tackling societal challenges.

If you have additional ideas on how we can advance our project, I’d be happy to hear them! Please let me know here: alexander.verkerk@innovativepolicysolutions.org

References

John Munro (n.d.) Motivating learning: Why do we learn? Published on ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=54c3fb99d039b1cd328b4633&assetKey=AS%3A273680519630849%401442261928601

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Issue 1)

Fri, 01 May 2020 18:07:26 GMT

In the last two years, the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions has come a long way: from producing solution reports on societal challenges and sending them to policymakers, to publishing our Manual to Generate Innovative Solutions to Today’s Challenges, to organizing training sessions for those interested in learning more about the philosophy and methodology that drives our organization: first principles thinking. Our most recent development is the publication of the First Principles Thinking Review, the first issue of which you have before you. It is our hope that through this publication, what initially began as a small brainstorming session on a little-known problem-solving method will develop into an international and interdisciplinary conversation about tackling societal challenges with first principles thinking.

You can download it HERE .

About this publication

The Review is divided into two sections. In the first section, Theory, our contributors seek to expand the area of knowledge related to first principles and the associated methodology itself. Here, history, philosophy and the exploration of other problem-solving methods come together in order to better our understanding of what exactly first principles thinking is and how it can be used. In the second section, Practice, our contributors investigate different ways of applying the first principles thinking method to societal challenges. This is where abstract ideas are turned into concrete proposals for overcoming real-world problems through first principles thinking.

Call for submissions

For those readers who would like to see their ideas published in the next issue of the First Principles Thinking Review, please submit a draft article through the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions website, where the editorial guidelines are described in greater length and detail. In the event that you would like to make a contribution but are not sure of how to get an article off the ground, our editorial team welcomes unsolicited emails with rough ideas or topic proposals. Our editors are more than happy to work with you on developing such ideas into articles that can be published and shared with those who are in a position to help implement your ideas to solve the societal challenges you care about. We hope that the articles you will find herein shall serve as a source of both inspiration for new ideas as well as the motiativation that is necessary to make those ideas a reality.

First Principles Cleaning My Street

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 09:23:43 GMT

First principles thinking has been championed by many throughout history, ranging from philosophers to business leaders, from politicians to scientists. My first reaction was “This is all nice and good… but what does it mean for me?”. After some discussion it became clear to me that aside from the more grandiose applications, it can offer some tools to rethink a situation. Below you find how I developed a new idea on how to deal with a very local issue, on a beer coaster in a bar whilst discussing the topic with my friend.

1. Identify your objective

I am a resident of a larger city in Western Europe. Personally, I care deeply about the environment and try to separate my garbage, reduce my CO2 emissions and try to purchase sustainable products. When I look at my street, however, I see more garbage than I would like, and this annoys me. This led me to question why it seemed as if I cared more about environmental issues than did my neighbours. After some deliberation the answer was not that I was somehow a better person as many of my contemporaries like to believe; in my view it is because I started to personally identify with these values. I see my actions to be part of a bigger objective and feel empowered that I can organise my life in such a way that it contributes to something that I believe to have intrinsic importance, namely a healthy environment. Other people might have different beliefs that take the forefront in how they act and therefore make different choices. As the amount of trash in my street still really bothers me, the objective that I identified is: to make sure that there is less trash in the street.

2. List your obstacles

As for the obstacles, I took a hard look at my street and which factors might contribute to the situation as it stands:

People throw too much trash in the street
The containers that are close by are often full
The municipality does not clean often enough
There are many people that come to my street as it is home to a large supermarket and a mosque

These factors combined all have a possible influence on the given situation in my view.

3. Question your assumptions

Everybody has assumptions, and since I am not perfect, so do I. In this more self-confronting step of the first principles thinking method, it is important to say them out loud (or write them down as I am doing at the moment). Assumptions sometimes get a bad reputation when they get confused with unjust stereotyping or ignorance. Assumptions might also bring you closer to a solution, or in other words: you could be right! Additionally, they can also bring you a step closer to solving a factor that you had not even considered before starting your thought experiment and creating the problem-solving domino that you are looking for. In my case, my assumptions were as follows:

People that walk through the street do not care for the street and how it looks
The municipality does not care for the street
The municipality does not have the funds to clean regularly
When one container is full, people put their trash next to it, resulting in it ending up in the street

4. Uncover your first principles

Visitors to the mosque and supermarket litter the most. According to the first principles thinking method, to get to the core of these assumptions, I started asking questions: Where does the litter come from? The street I live on is diverse in cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Generally speaking, however, there are three groups of people that live here: native people that have been living on the street for generations, students, and people with a migration background (often these people are Muslims and regular visitors of the mosque at the end of the street).

From my personal experience (which may be biased as I have previously mentioned), it is especially this last group that litters the most. In their defence, this group is also disproportionately represented as the mosque attracts Muslims from the wider region that might not even live in the neighbourhood. Regardless of the reasons, a first principle appears to be: visitors to the mosque contribute the most litter.

I continue my search for first principles: Why do those walking through the street not care for the street? While this is more of a hunch than based on actual facts, I feel that many pedestrians might not be as passionate about sustainability and do not judge their own actions accordingly. I probably should have asked additional ‘why’ questions, but for the purpose of carrying on with this exercise I will go on and consider this to be another first principle. So what do these pedestrians care about? The success of the mosque, perhaps? This could be a third first principle.

5. Come up with new ideas

I try to find a reasoned ideal world in order to confront it with the current situation. In my case, I believe that due to the restraints that be, people have to be inspired not to put their garbage next to the containers or casually throw it on the sidewalk. And so I start asking additional questions: How can we make visitors to the mosque care about the tidiness of the street? What can we do so that the mosque benefits from a clean street?

As previously established, I have very strong feelings about environmental concerns; but at the same time this might narrow my sight for the concerns of others, whose ideas and actions are based on an entirely different framework. As the mosque is the most significant magnet for people to visit my street, I want to move from blaming its visitors to making it part of the solution.

Like the people who frequently come and visit the mosque, I think that many people care deeply about both the building and what it represents. This resulted in my idea to financially compensate the mosque for the litter it collects. This way, people do not have to be convinced, as I have been, of the importance of environmental sustainability in the same way that I do not have to be convinced of their aspirations and beliefs. By linking the two concepts together, environmental sustainability and the success of the mosque, they can strengthen each other instead of being in conflict.

6. Refine your ideas

It is easy to lose oneself in the idea. How do we make this tangible, and how do we make sure it does not have negative side effects that could be prevented? First we have to discuss scale. Do we want the mosque to collect all of the trash? – Would that not result in people bringing entire garbage bags?

Maybe we should start with objects that are littered the most, can clearly be attributed to their functionality (objects that people bring with them regardless) and can easily be defined in the collection. After all, we do not want to target the wrong people, and we do not want legal discussions when collecting the trash and granting the compensation.

In my mind this results in disposable plastic bottles, as they fulfil all criteria. They are among the most littered objects, they are clearly brought by people to drink from on their way and they are easy to identify when collecting them.

Conclusion

First principles thinking can be used in both abstract and tangible situations. I tried to use its characteristics to critically evaluate a situation I personally would like to see solved. The idea that I came up with is not necessarily the solution that the world has been waiting for; maybe you disagree with its effectiveness, maybe it is too expensive, maybe it is based on the wrong assessment of the situation, etc. It did, however, help me to come up with an idea on how to improve a problem from which we can start a concrete discussion to move forward.

Was Parmenides the First of the First Principles Thinkers?

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 17:47:20 GMT

While first principles thinking is commonly associated with the writings of Aristotle and the teachings of Socrates, the contributions made by pre-Socratic philosophers remain either largely forgotten or ignored. This article traces the first recorded instance of first principles thinking at work to the thought-provoking questions posed by Parmenides a generation before Socrates.

What about Socrates and Aristotle?

Modern advocates of first principles thinking commonly attribute the methodology to the foundations laid down by Aristotle, who argued that no problem could be adequately solved before being deconstructed to reveal its underlying causes. Aristotle, in turn, was influenced by the method of Socratic questioning—a rigorous re-evaluation of one’s previously held assumptions—as passed down to him by his mentor Plato, who was himself a student of Socrates. According to most historical accounts, the roots of first principles thinking cannot be traced any further back, as many consider Socrates to be the absolute bedrock of all Western philosophy. Catherine Osborne, author of Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction , dismisses this view as historically inaccurate and intellectually negligent. Her critique of the all-too-common narrative adopted by many textbooks and school curricula, which simply depict Socrates as having invented reason and logic out of nothing, brings much needed attention to the generations of philosophers who actually came before Socrates and influenced his work. Particularly interesting were the questions of first principles raised by Parmenides.

Was a single element truly responsible for the origin of all matter?

Parmenides of Elea was born around the late sixth or early fifth century BCE, making him several decades older than Socrates. Though much of his work was lost after his death, what has been preserved shows Parmenides’ great interest in the subject of cosmology, the branch of astronomy primarily concerned with studying the origins of the universe. At the time, it was common to believe that a single element was responsible for the origin of all matter. For example, Thales—one of the earliest Greek philosophers on record—believed that the whole world floated on water and that all things somehow derived from it. Anaximander, who succeeded Thales, rejected the water hypothesis, arguing that the building blocks of the universe were something indefinite. Later, Anaximenes argued that air was the basic element, while Heraclitus (a contemporary of Parmenides) proposed that it was fire. Although these hypotheses may have been convenient, Parmenides argued for more intellectual rigour when searching for first principles.

The universe could neither have originated out of nothing...

In his poem On Nature , Parmenides establishes what would come to be known as the ‘way of truth’ by which he investigates the origin of something. Osborne explains:

The first option to consider is that what we now encounter perhaps arose from ‘non-being’: did what is come from ‘what is not’? ‘No,’ says Parminedes, ‘you should not think that, because you are not allowed to think or say “it is not”.’ A further consideration adds to the weight against this: ‘what could have made it happen?’ he asks, if it came from non-being? (Osborne 2004, p. 41-42)

Thus, Parmenides begins to re-evaluate the problem of origin by asking basic questions and re-examining what was already thought to be known. By doing so, he challenges and eliminates the possibility that the universe could have originated out of nothing. In a sense, his questioning can be compared to the analogy of the chicken and the egg. Could a chicken be spawned out of nothing? Certainly not. Osborne continues her analysis:

The second option… is that it arose from something that already had being, so that something besides what is there already arises from what is there before. This also, Parmenides suggests, is not to be allowed. (Osborne 2004, p. 42)

...Nor could the universe have originated out of something

To counter the argument that the universe could have originated out of nothing, Parmenides then proposes that it, in fact, originated out of something that had already existed before. Upon closer examination, however, this proposal leads back to the root of the problem. If the universe originated out of something, then what is the origin of that thing? Following the analogy of the chicken and the egg, if the chicken originated from the egg, then what was the origin of the egg? Certainly the egg could not have spawned itself. Osborne concludes:

And thirdly, he tells us that we are not to accept that what now is can cease to be... if something has a beginning or an end then at some point we have to say of it, not that it is, but that it is not, or is not right now (though it will be or was). (Osborne 2004, p. 42)

Although Parmenides never proposed an alternative to the prevailing belief that a single element served as the origin of the universe, his system of logical questioning introduced a paradigm shift that challenged the existing approaches to cosmology.

Parmenides deserves a branch on the genealogical tree of first principles thinking

By ruling out the idea that the universe originated from nothing and rejecting the idea that it comes from something, Parmenides’ way of truth led to the conclusion that the universe can have neither a beginning nor an end. This philosophical milestone came decades before Socratic questioning, a century before Aristotelian first principles thinking, and over two millennia before Einstein reached the same conclusion in his famous maxim “energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change from one form to another”.

Thus, if Aristotle is to be considered the father of first principles thinking and Socrates the grandfather, then Parmenides likewise deserves a branch on the genealogical tree. His approach to problem-solving focused on re-evaluating challenges by asking basic questions before jumping to hasty or convenient conclusions. What Osborne stresses in her work is that Parmenides would have warned against the dangers of looking for answers without first asking the right questions, a valuable lesson indeed for all problem-solvers thereafter. This is true not only for the abstract musings of ancient philosophers who sought to explain the origins of the universe, but likewise for contemporary problem-solvers who use first principles thinking in search of solutions to today’s societal challenges.

References

Osborne, C. (2004). Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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First Principles Thinking as a Tool for Researchers to Overcome the Challenge of Conceptualization

Sun, 22 Mar 2020 16:00:53 GMT

At the foundation of every scientific study must lie a clear definition of what is being studied. Such a definition of key concepts is reached through the process of conceptualization, to which there exist two main approaches: the classical (or first principles thinking) approach and the prototype (or analogical thinking) approach. Through the example of finding an adequate definition for the concept of ‘democracy’, both approaches to conceptualization are demonstrated in practice. This article compares the effectiveness of both approaches before proposing a model for the more rigorous and reliable first principles thinking approach.

The Challenge of Conceptualization

When one thinks of the names commonly associated with the first principles thinking method—not least the likes of Socrates or Aristotle—it is easy to believe that first principles thinking is a tool with which only the greatest of people can do the grandest of things. While it may be true that some of the most innovative minds in history have used first principles thinking to produce a number of groundbreaking and revolutionary ideas, one should not be intimidated by their precedent. In fact, if you are a researcher or have ever conducted a research project, then there exists a strong likelihood that you are also a first principles thinker. The only question is whether or not you are aware of it.

In any field of research, one of the initial tasks of the researcher is to clearly define the subject matter of his or her study, a process known as conceptualization. Dimiter Toshkov (2016) defines concepts as “the building blocks of scientific reasoning, and of human cognitions in general,” adding that they “are essential for core scientific activities such as theory formation, description, categorization, and causal inference” (p. 84). That being said, if a social science researcher were to conduct a study on democratic government, he or she would first have to begin by defining what exactly is meant by the concept of ‘democracy’. There are two main approaches to tackling this problematic challenge: first principles thinking or thinking by analogy.

The Classical Approach to Conceptualization

According to the so-called classical approach to conceptualization, “concepts have rule-based definitional structure,” meaning that they are “defined by a set of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions that delimit unambiguously what qualifies as [their] empirical realizations” (Toshkov 2016, 86). Simply stated, a concept’s definition is not effective unless it clearly outlines exactly what that concept is and what it is not. Following Aristotle’s explanation of a first principle as “the first basis from which a thing is known”, the researcher must begin by deconstructing the concept of democracy into its underlying first principles in order to be able to adequately define it (Irwin 1988, 3). What qualities must a state possess in order to be considered a democracy? In the view of German sociologist Dietrich Rueschemeyer and colleagues (1992), being a democracy entails:

[...] first, regular, free and fair elections of representatives with universal and equal suffrage; second, responsibility of the state apparatus to the elected parliament… ; and third, the freedoms of expression and association as well as the protection of individual rights against arbitrary state action. (p. 43)

Therefore, according to the conceptualization of Rueschemeyer et al., the underlying first principles of democracy are (1) governance through popular election, (2) subjection of the government to the will of the citizenry, and (3) protection of basic human rights and personal liberties. American sociologist Barrington Moore (1966) defines the development of democracy as:

[...] a long and certainly incomplete struggle to do three closely related things: to check arbitrary rulers, to replace arbitrary rules with just and rational ones, and to obtain a share for the underlying population for the making of rules. (p. 414)

Similarly to that of Rueschemeyer et al., Moore’s conceptualization of democracy rests on a set of three first principles. Specifically, those are (1) subjection of government to the will of the citizenry, (2) protection of basic human rights and personal liberties, and (3) governance through popular election. Finally, for the Swedish sociologist Göran Therborn (1977), a democracy is a regime that:

[...] has a representative government elected by an electorate consisting of the entire adult population, whose votes carry equal weight, and who are allowed to vote for any opinion without intimidation by the state apparatus. (p. 4)

A pattern is now becoming increasingly evident. Like Rueschemeyer et al. and Moore, Therborn deconstructs the concept of democracy into the first principles of (1) having a government that is subject to the will of the citizenry, (2) governance through popular election, and (3) protection of basic human rights and personal liberties. Based on this common set of first principles uncovered by deconstructing the three scholars’ respective views of democracy, the researcher can now begin to reconstruct a conceptualization of democracy that is concrete and precise. Figure 1 provides a comparison of each scholar’s first principles for the concept of democracy.

The question that remains is whether the resulting set of first principles can be considered appropriate and comprehensive. After all, the classical Greek conceptualization of democracy can be etymologically deconstructed into a single first principle: dēmos + kratia, which translates to ‘rule by the people’. In the 21st century, however, a conceptualization so broad as to permit slavery in a democratic state—as was the case in ancient Greece—would be considered too minimalistic by modern standards, putting into question whether just three first principles would be similarly insufficient. On the other hand, the researcher must likewise be careful not to let positive questioning be overtaken by normative considerations. While the researcher may view the state’s recognition of homosexual marriage as something that should be common in democracies, it would be very dangerous indeed to consider this a first principle of democratic government itself, as it would result in an extremely narrow set of cases of exemplary democracies around the world throughout human history.

The Prototype Approach to Conceptualization

In contrast to the classical approach, concepts under the prototype approach “are not defined by clear rules based on necessary and sufficient conditions but have a ‘family resemblance’ structure,” meaning that “an object is considered to belong to a concept if it sufficiently resembles a prototype member of this concept” (Toshkov 2016, 87). Returning to the challenge of conceptualizing democracy, the prototype approach would not require the researcher to deconstruct the concept in search of underlying first principles, but instead to find an ideal example of what a democracy should be to serve as a point of reference for analogical thinking. Unlike first principles thinking, which aims to solve challenges by first deconstructing them to their core elements, analogical thinking duplicates solutions applied to similar contexts. What country comes to mind when one says ‘democracy’?

When searching for an ideal example of a democracy to serve as a point of reference, one is likely to think of Sweden sooner than of El Salvador. The reason for this is that Sweden exemplifies many characteristics that are commonly associated with democratic government, such as economic development and political stability, whereas the high poverty and violent crime rates of El Salvador are commonly associated with undemocratic government. However, if economic development and political stability are to be considered characteristics essential to the concept of democracy then Saudi Arabia should qualify along with Sweden, when in fact it is an absolute monarchy while El Salvador is a presidential republic. With El Salvador unable to meet the democratic standards set by Sweden, thinking by analogy leaves the researcher not with a solid definition of democracy but with a merely superficial idea of what one should look like.

A Model for Conceptualization with First Principles

Figure 2 proposes a model for the process of conceptualization according to the classical approach, or by first principles thinking. The term refers to the word that represents the concept to be defined. In this case, the term ‘democracy’ is the label used to represent the abstract form of government that is the subject of the study. The initial step in the process is concept intension, or deconstructing the term to uncover the underlying first principles. Based on the views of the three sociologists that have been examined, possible first principles of democratic government are governance through popular election, subjection of the government to the will of the citizenry, and protection of basic human rights and personal liberties. Secondly, concept extension refers to finding cases that embody those first principles in the empirical world. Such cases of democracy would be Sweden and El Salvador, amongst others.

Naturally, one could argue that the inability of the Salvadoran government to protect its citizens from gang violence might undermine the first principle of protecting basic human rights and personal liberties. In a similar manner, chronic corruption and cronyism could be argued to undermine the first principles of governing through popular election or subjecting the government to the will of the citizenry. If such doubts arise, the process of conceptualization must be applied again in order to clearly define what exactly is meant by concepts like ‘human rights’, ‘personal liberties’, and ‘popular election’. Which rights are all humans entitled to? What liberties are inalienable to every individual in society? Who can and cannot vote in a popular election? Asking such questions is the key to deepening one’s own understanding of the initial concept of democracy and constructing a more solid conceptual framework on which to base one’s study.What is certain is that there always remain more first principles to be found. And it is by pursuing these first principles—by incorporating first principles thinking into his or her methodology—that the researcher can finally overcome the challenge of conceptualization.

References

Irwin, T. (1988). Aristotle’s First Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, B. (1966). The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.
Rueschemeyer, D., Huber Stephens, E., & Stephens, J. D. (1992). Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Therborn, G. (1977). The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy. New Left Review, 1(103), 3–41.
Toshkov, D. (2016). Research Design in Political Science (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

FIPS Releases its Manual 'First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving'

Sun, 20 Oct 2019 12:41:22 GMT

Get a Free Copy

In our aspiration to tailor first principles thinking to societal challenges and make it attractive for you to apply, we have crafted the manual 'First Principles Thinking for Societal Problem-Solving'. With 60 pages containing theoretical insights, practical examples and smart PDF boxes to write in, you learn and apply at the same time!

On the occassion of the one-year anniversary of the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions, we make it available free of charge until the end of November 2019! Better yet, we will send it to you. Just sign up for our newsletter and get your copy at our homepage: www.innovativepolicysolutions.org . If you'd like to see the promotional version first, you can download it here .

The Manual's Foreword

From its founding, the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions (FIPS) has seen itself as an international and inter-disciplinary working group, inclusive to all thinkers who are passionate about confronting societal challenges, no matter their academic or professional backgrounds. In fact, we believe that such a diversity in knowledge, skills and experience is necessary for addressing the complex challenges of an increasingly globalised and rapidly changing world. For innovative thinkers, no problem is off the agenda and no solution is off the table. Founded on these beliefs, and realising that traditional problem-solving methods alone are not always effective in confronting all of today’s societal challenges, FIPS first needed to be equipped with a set of appropriately innovative problem-solving tools to produce the solutions we wish to deliver to those in a position to implement them and bring about societal change. The tools adopted for this task came in the form of first principles thinking, an approach to problem-solving that, although rooted in centuries of philosophical thought, remains under-developed and under-valued in the various fields that constitute contemporary public policy.

First principles thinking, unlike other problem-solving methods that emphasise thinking by analogy or continuing the work of others, requires the problem-solver to question everything he or she knows about the problem at hand and start searching for solutions from scratch—from the very first principles. In order to apply first principles thinking to its own work with societal challenges, FIPS drew inspiration from a wide range of other methodologies and techniques to create a process for developing innovative solutions that was both practical and systematic. What follows is an actionable, step-by-step manual accessible to anyone who is passionate and serious about finding solutions to societal challenges, no matter how great or intimidating they may appear initially. The steps outlined in this manual are intended to illustrate an application of first principles thinking that has served us in our work, but they need not be regarded as a “recipe” to be accepted by all problem-solvers equally or applied to every societal challenge uniformly. As every person thinks and works differently, we encourage you to experiment with various applications of the information found in this manual and use it to find an approach to problem-solving that is most suitable for you.

That being said, neither creative genius nor prior experience with societal problem-solving are required in order to benefit from the contents of this manual, and there is no set profile for the successful first principles thinker. Indeed, first principles thinking can be mastered and applied by anyone: students and professors, scientists and scholars, policymakers and philosophers as well as entrepreneurs or professionals from all fields and walks of life. All that is necessary is a passion for a problem to be tackled, an open and inquisitive mindset, and the dedication to commit until innovative solutions are produced. If you believe that these qualities describe you, then we invite you to begin your journey to become a first principles thinker.

Who Uses First Principles Thinking and Why You Should Become One of Them

Sun, 12 May 2019 21:49:18 GMT

What is First Principles Thinking? When did it originate? Who can use it? And why is it such a big deal? Ever since Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of a number of highly innovative companies like Tesla and SpaceX, attributed First Principles Thinking to part of his entrepreneurial success, the problem-solving method has begun to experience a comeback. Nonetheless, despite its relative simplicity and versatile applicability, First Principles Thinking remains a concept merely skimmed over in philosophy classes or only briefly mentioned in business courses. In order to clarify some of the confusion surrounding the concept, this article outlines the history and development of First Principles Thinking from its philosophical foundations to its place at the forefront of modern problem-solving and innovation.

First Principles in Classical Antiquity

The first account of the methodical use of first principles as a problem-solving technique dates back to ancient Greece, when it was proposed by Aristotle in both the Metaphysics and the Physics. In the former, Aristotle defines first principles as “the first basis from which a thing is known,” while in the Physics he explains that “in the science of nature as elsewhere, we should try first to determine questions about the first principles” because the “proper direction of our road is from things better known and clear to us, to things that are clearer and better known by nature; for the things known to us are not the same as the things known unconditionally" (Irwin, 1988). In other words, by warning the problem-solver never to accept common knowledge unquestioningly, Aristotle makes an early reference to epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with understanding the nature of knowledge itself. How do we go about knowing things? How do we know what is true and what is false? How can we determine what is a practical solution and what is not? All these basic epistemological questions can only be answered by deconstructing what we already know—or what we think we know—into first principles.

While Aristotle’s work dealt largely with the theoretical notion of first principles, the method was notably applied in practice by his contemporary Euclid, whose groundbreaking mathematical treatise the Elements used an indispensable set of first principles to establish what today are considered fundamental geometrical proofs. Book I of the Elements begins by providing a number of relevant definitions to conceptualize the terminology—point, line, circle, etc.—that would be used to present five first principles, called postulates or axioms, which serve as the basis for all of his later proofs: 1) a straight line segment may be drawn from any given point to any other; 2) a straight line may be extended to any finite length; 3) a circle may be described with any given point as its center and any distance as its radius; 4) all right angles are congruent; and 5) if a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than two right angles ( Clark University, 1998 ). Understanding that these five principles are unconditionally true—and apparently not bothered by the fact that the last might be a bit difficult to read—Euclid was able to use them to prove hundreds of geometric propositions, perhaps most famously the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (a2 + b2 = c2).

From the Renaissance to Modernity

Though much of ancient philosophy was abandoned in the Medieval Ages, First Principles Thinking experienced a revival during the Renaissance, when René Descartes began to introduce foundationalism into the Western epistemological tradition. The foundationalism of Descartes, itself largely based on Aristotelian thought, argued for the justification of any commonly held beliefs with fundamental beliefs, or first principles. This methodological approach, also known as Cartesian doubt, had a profound impact on the development of the modern scientific method, which stresses the use of empirical trials and various forms of reasoning to either prove or reject hypotheses. Of these various forms of reasoning, inductive and deductive reasoning in particular exemplify the application of First Principles Thinking to reach conclusions. While the inductive approach relies on first principles in the form of specific observations to build general theories, deductive reasoning utilizes them to create a top-down system of logic in which specific conclusions are drawn from basic premises, as in the example: 1) All men are mortal; 2) Descartes is a man; therefore 3) Descartes is mortal.

As the Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment, new generations of philosophers continued to explore the use of first principles. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant contributed to the epistemological debate by analyzing the relationship between “a priori” knowledge, which is derived from nature, and “a posteriori” knowledge, which is acquired through experience (Kant, 1999). Kant’s work laid the groundwork for what would become the philosophical school of idealism, or the belief that all human knowledge is subjective and mentally constructed through experience. The idealist tradition was, in turn, inherited by the Romantic thinker Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose philosophical approaches had a profound impact on Karl Marx after the Industrial Revolution. Marx advocated the ideological employment of first principles as a tool for making political criticism and promoting class consciousness. In a letter to his colleague Arnold Ruge, titled A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing, Marx argues that when making an effective political criticism, “we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to" ( Marx, 1844 ).

First Principles in Practice

Although their value to the historical development of philosophical theory may be clear, how are first principles being used in practice in the 21st century? Returning to Elon Musk, he explains that “first principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world. You boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘What are we sure is true?’… and then reason up from there" ( Ranadive, 2017 ). Peter Thiel, who worked with Musk as a co-founder and first CEO of PayPal, adds that “because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative. Indeed, the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas" ( ibid ). Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, has also incorporated first principles into his business model, urging entrepreneurs to “resist proxies” like established processes or market research and instead strive towards more fundamental truths like real outcomes or customer needs ( ibid ). Like Bezos, Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, also discourages entrepreneurs from following established processes. Providing the anecdote of a software company he had started before Netflix, Hastings claims that there was a lack of innovation and creativity because his colleagues “were unable to adapt” due to “a bunch of people who valued following the process, rather than First Principles Thinking" ( Mejia, 2017 ).

The application of First Principles Thinking has no bounds. Wherever and whenever there are problems to be solved, one should always analyze the situation by first breaking down what is already known into fundamental truths. Only by understanding what is true unconditionally can a person hope to discover practical and innovative solutions to the task at hand. Whether that task is academic or professional, personal or political, there are always first principles from which one should begin to reconsider commonly held beliefs or re-evaluate existing precedents. In a world with no shortage of problems to solve, there is no time to waste repeating the same mistakes or waiting on someone else to take the initiative. First Principles Thinking is not only a tool of the philosopher or the CEO, but a method that can be employed by anyone who is passionate about a problem and serious about making a change. Therefore, if you are passionate about a problem, then First Principles Thinking is right for you. And if you are serious about making a change, then the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions is the place to turn your vision into reality.

References

Irwin, Terence. Aristotle’s First Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Clark University. “Euclid’s Elements.” Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, 1998. https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Marx, Karl. “For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge).” Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1844. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09-alt.htm
Ranadive, Ameet. “What Musk, Bezos, Thiel and Feynman Teach Us About First Principles.” Medium, April 2017. https://medium.com/@ameet/what-musk-bezos-thiel-and-feynman-teach-us-about-first-principles-261967d3e347
Mejia, Zameena. “Elon Musk and Reed Hastings Both Used This Ancient Mental Strategy to Grow Their Billion-Dollar Businesses.” CNBC, July 5, 2017. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/05/tesla-elon-musk-and-netflix-reed-hastings-use-this-mental-strategy.html .

How First Principles Thinking Can Turn the SDGs’ Good Practices into Best Practices

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 21:34:05 GMT

New goals to address sustainability concerns can have a global impact, but are felt locally for the most part. Because of the diverse nature of the issues that are targeted by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), First Principles Thinking is a very applicable thinking method to overcome assumptions, tackle the core issues, and lift them from good to best practices.

First Principles Thinking

First Principles Thinking is a problem-solving method that guides you with a few steps to abolish your assumptions and come up with innovative solutions. The first step pushes you to dig to the core of the issue by defining what you think the ideal situation should be, that is, when the problem is overcome or an aspiration is achieved. The second step focuses on investigating what are the main obstacles between now and your preferred situation. In step three you need to ask critical questions, such as why these obstacles are in place, and by doing this you can identify the fundamental truths underlying these issues. Moreover, these questions will prompt you to look beyond your assumptions regarding both the problem and potential solutions. In the last step, the answers to the previously asked questions help to make it clear as to what solutions there could be. What is crucial in this step is that you should not be hesitant when developing innovative solutions. By writing them down, you can make a distinction between quickly implementable solutions and long term out-of-the-box solutions.

The Sustainable Development Goals

The 17 SDGs, created as a follow-up to the eight Millennium Development Goals, are constructed to tackle an array of different global societal issues, such as “ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests” ( UN General Assembly, 2014 ). Many of these issues are very diverse and broad, with many actors involved. Because of the complexity of the issues, 169 targets have been created to have more concrete and manageable objectives ( UN, 2019 ). Yet even these condensed targets are still large problems. As explained in the previous paragraph, First Principles Thinking allows you to undertake problems because it assists you in establishing the core obstacles that need to be addressed in order to solve the greater issue, or in this case, the target. Subsequently, when the targets are met, the SDGs will be met as well. Therefore, First Principles Thinking should be employed to the process of problem-solving for the SDGs.

First Principles Thinking in practice

An example of tackling the targets of the SDGs is shown in the Solution Report created by the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions on increasing literacy rates among women in rural Mauritania. Solving this issue addresses SDG target 4.6: “By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy” ( UN, 2019 ). The Solution Report provides concrete examples to overcome some obstacles that people in rural areas of Mauritania face when trying to receive education. Examples of these obstacles are the distance to travel to a school, a lack of money to pay for books and lunch, and responsibilities to perform domestic labor. In order to overcome these challenges, FIPS came up with the idea of creating an educational radio channel, among other ideas, that allows them to learn while remaining close to home. This way they do not have to leave home for a longer time and are therefore able to eat at home and support the household. Through this method, obstacles such as the distance to a school and the lack of financial means are overcome, contributing to more equality and development among the population of Mauritania.

From good to best practices

In approaching these SDGs and targets, it is very important to determine exactly what it is that needs to be tackled. By applying First Principles Thinking to all targets, you are furthermore likely to discover ‘shortcuts’ to address multiple targets at once, as demonstrated by the Solution Report on female illiteracy in Mauritania.

The UN has called for good practices from the field to showcase the different solutions that have been created to achieve the targets. While there are multiple commendable initiatives taking place, I believe that First Principles Thinking could build upon existing efforts to produce even more innovative solutions to achieve the SDGs. Did you get inspired by this article? Sign up as a Contributor and try out yourself how you can use First Principles Thinking to tackle societal issues that you care about!

References

UN General Assembly. (2014, July 22). UN General Assembly’s Open Working Group proposes sustainable. Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/4538pressowg13.pdf
UN. (2019, February 26). Sustainable Development Goal 4. Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg4
UN. (2019, Februari 28). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

Ending World Hunger: Analogical vs. First Principles Thinking

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:30:06 GMT

What do you do when facing a problem? Do you first look to see how others have sought to tackle it? Then you’re probably an analogical thinker. Or do you try to think of new solutions instead? Then you might be a first principles thinker. In this series you will learn how First Principles Thinking differs from other techniques to solve real-world problems. Hopefully this will enable you to make an informed decision on how you deal with hurdles in your professional and personal life. In this article, First Principles Thinking takes on its biggest rival within societal problem-solving, being analogical thinking, to eradicate malnutrition.

Analogical thinking spreads innovative solutions

So, how would an analogical thinker approach the problem of malnourishment? Before answering this question you should first know that an analogy is a comparison between objects that highlights aspects in which they are thought to be similar. In turn, analogical problem-solving relies upon identifying analogies and ‘good practices’ before settling on a plan of attack ( Paul Bartha ). Most societal problem-solvers, such as policymakers, NGOs and donor agencies, traditionally employ analogical thinking to generate insights and formulate possible solutions to their problems at hand – with considerable success.

Take malnutrition in the lower-middle-income country of Bolivia. An analogical thinker would first search for similar cases that have managed to escape hunger, or never experienced it in the first place, and then then examine what has worked well and not so well in these instances. Subsequently, this person would apply the identified good practices to their situation with minor modifications to better serve the needs of their own unique situation. A good practice could, for example, be to import fertilisers to increase crop yield. Such practices have namely contributed to a 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourishment in lower-middle-income countries between 1992 and 2014 ( Hunger Notes ).

First principles thinking sparks innovative solutions

First principles thinkers like Aristotle and Elon Musk, on the other hand, would start identifying obstacles that undermine food security. Limited soil moisture retention is one such obstacle in realising a genetic diversity of cultivated plants.

How would you then go about getting to the core of this obstacle? By asking critical questions, that’s how, such as "how much water does a crop exactly need?" Your search engine will tell you that a lettuce crop, for example, needs about 300 millilitres of water during its growing period of 40 to 80 days, depending on the climate ( Sunshine Seedling Services ). This is what we call a first principle, which serves as a foundation from which new solutions can be discovered.

Oftentimes new solutions do not appear right away, but don’t give up! Just ask more follow-up questions, such as: "where does unabsorbed moisture go?" It turns out that it largely escapes as vapour to the atmosphere during the day ( FAO ). "So how can we prevent this moisture from evaporating?" Such lines of so-called 'Socratic questioning' help you get closer to the problem’s core as well as to new solutions. By now you may have thought of ‘drip irrigation’, which is a micro-irrigation system either above or below the soil surface that delivers water and nutrients directly to the crop’s roots zone, in the right amounts and at the right time for it to grow optimally – and with minimal water loss ( Netafim Irrigation ).

Drip irrigation, through the burying of unglazed clay pots that continually leak water among crops, actually goes back to ancient times ( Maddy Harland ) and has been refined throughout the years to today’s smart technological solutions that can monitor crops meticulously and apply different amounts of water to different parts of the same field, if need be ( Gold Standard ). This also demonstrates that once you have found an ingenious solution you should continue to ask critical questions and welcome new ideas for further improvement.

So, which one wins?

Before giving a final verdict, let’s compare the strengths and weaknesses of both methods. Analogical thinkers are inclined to accept widely held assumptions, for example that watering plants through surface irrigation is the most cost-efficient way to go ( Troy Peters ). They work with what they have and pose solutions that barely differ from one another, which is perfectly satisfactory in many instances when a concept has proven to work well. Today’s digital capabilities provide access to many useful international analogies and good practices, and you should make use of them.

However, what do you do when there are no analogies or when current practices are unsatisfactory? Then you might want to swap your analogies for first principles. First Principles Thinking, that is without analogy, namely encourages you to look beyond long-standing beliefs, and instead invites you to boil down a problem to its core by asking critical questions. This gives you a unique perspective on the nature of things and can inspire unique solutions, such as drip irrigation and cultured meat .

Enemies or best friends?

Contrary to what I said earlier, First Principles Thinking and analogical thinking can actually be best friends, and I propose the following mode of cooperation: to tackle a problem such as limited soil moisture retention, you should first put on your first principles thinker’s hat and invent drip irrigation, and then switch to being an analogical thinker to both disseminate this technology to similar contexts and teach farmers how to use it. When such an innovation is used excessively, however, unintended consequences may arise, such as soil degradation and groundwater contamination ( FAO ). In that case, you may need to switch back to first principles, and back again, to analogies. Unless you find a durable solution right away, be prepared to continue leapfrogging.

My final verdict

In my opinion, both approaches are crucial to achieve societal aspirations such as Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end global hunger. Unless you want to be a full-time innovator like us at the Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions, there is no need to always wear your first principles thinker’s hat, as there are adequate analogies for most things in life. However, once you have the feeling that a current approach is not satisfactory enough, you know what to do. Just have an open mind and keep asking critical questions to discover improvements, and when you do, remember that this is probably not the final panacea.

Would you like to learn more about first principles thinking? Then have a look at our manual, online course and workshop possibilities . Or would you like to write an article for publication on the technique? Then read the guidelines and send us your proposal. For questions and feedback, feel free to message Alexander Verkerk at alexander.verkerk@innovativepolicysolutions.org .

References

How to Increase Literacy among Women in Rural Mauritania?

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 23:43:25 GMT

The Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions is proud to announce the creation of our first Solution Report. In our premiere report we tackle the issue of female illiteracy in the rural areas of Mauritania. With less than half of the female population being able to read and write, this issue affects the women and families in a wide range of areas such as income, health, and representation in government. We have generated a solution report that has tailor-made answers to the challenges facing women and their families regarding education. This article will give you an idea as to both our internal processes as well as the obstacles identified while developing solutions.

Click here to see the full report .

What are the obstacles?

As previously mentioned, only around forty percent of women and girls in Mauritania can read and write. According to the Literacy Foundation , illiteracy has serious effects that range from societal issues like a lower national GDP growth rate and poor civic engagement to personal issues such as unemployment, precarious income situations, and poor healthcare choices. Female literacy is not just an educational issue - it intersects with economic, health, and civic concerns as well. Our team of Contributors and Editors identified three obstacles that prevent women from obtaining basic literacy skills:

Costs, such as books and lunch, which make education unaffordable
Traveling distance to school
The need to support their families in domestic work

Discovering solutions through First Principles Thinking

Using First Principles Thinking, we developed solutions to address the above obstacles, and we are excited to share these solutions. First Principles Thinking is a problem-solving technique that encourages you to look beyond established perspectives, assumptions and truths. Instead, it invites you to boil down obstacles to their fundamental truths in order to discover solutions from scratch. Five individuals from different parts of the world have used this method and asked questions like: “How can we reduce the travel distance or time it takes to travel? Do learners actually need to travel at all?” Such questions inspired them to come up with the following solutions:

Create an educational radio channel
Introduce mobile teachers
Combine madrasas with purposeful learning

The above solutions would reduce the amount of needed books, reduce the frequency of needing to meet with a teacher, and allow time to perform other duties as well.

What happens to the solutions?

Our Product Delivery team is currently reaching out to influential people who can consider the solutions in their plans towards increasing literacy rates in Mauritania. We’ll gladly keep you updated about the journey of this Solution Report .

References

https://www.fondationalphabetisation.org/en/causes-of-illiteracy/consequences-of-illiteracy/

How First Principles Thinking Is Revolutionising the Meat Industry

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 23:31:21 GMT

First Principles Thinking transforms obstacles into stepping stones on the path to new solutions. Many people have used this problem-solving method without being aware of it - you probably have done so as well. In this series you will learn about the power of First Principles Thinking by examining its application to real-world problems, even if the people involved didn’t know they were using this process. This article will take a look at a revolution within the meat industry.

The problem of meat consumption

Over the past seventy years, annual global meat consumption has increased six-fold, from 45 million tons per year in 1950 to 300 million tons today, and this number is expected to rise further. As a result, both environmental and animal welfare have suffered ( Slow Food ).

The solution of meat substitutes

One question first principles thinkers could ask themselves is why cultivate a whole chicken when only the breast and wings are eaten? Can this not be done more efficiently? As far back as 1931, Winston Churchill asked these exact questions in his book ‘Thoughts and Adventures’. Others have gone even further to ask what meat is actually made of. A quick query in your search engine will tell you that meat mainly contains proteins, and traces of iron and vitamin B12 ( FAO ). This a first principle . First principles are fundamental, proven facts that are accepted by the scientific community.

Now pretend that you are a first principles thinker. What follow-up question would you ask next? If you asked in what other sources we can find these components, you are on the right track of becoming an amazing problem-solver. It turns out that similar proteins are also found in various other sources such as plants, dairy, eggs, and fish but also in insects and fungi ( Better Health Channel ). Indeed, this is yet another first principle, which could very well have led to the creation of meat substitutes that are now widely available in supermarkets worldwide.

The solution of cultured meat

Others have taken Churchill’s question even further and managed to produce real meat without needing to breed, raise and slaughter animals. How? It began when the French Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Alexis Carrel, who spoke with Churchill about this, succeeded for the first time in 1936 to keep organs 'alive' outside the body for an indefinite period of time. At the time, however, the technology to cultivate and grow organs was nonexistent. It would not be until 2013 when Mosa Meat’s Chief Scientific Officer Mark Post unveiled the world’s first hamburger made through the growing of cow stem cells ( Mosa Meat ). The company is now lowering production costs and improving taste with the aim to enter the market by 2020 ( Trouw ).

With other companies also managing to artificially cultivate meat and with consumers in several countries (40-70%) indicating to be open to try cultured meat ( De Morgen ), the future of lab-grown meat looks very promising. On top of that, it should be noted that cultured meat can be produced in less than three weeks, whereas traditional beef production takes about three years from start to finish, according to Meatable , which a producer of cultured meat. The producer furthermore expects that this method will revolutionise the meat industry's impact on the environment and animal welfare while at the same time increasing food security for a growing world population ( Meatable ).

Try it yourself

And that’s the power of First Principles Thinking. Indeed, sometimes you need to ask multiple critical questions to identify the first principles necessary to discover innovative solutions. The fun thing is that anyone can do it. You don’t need to have professional work experience or be a creative genius to come up with creative solutions. Just have an open mind, ask critical questions and allow your intuition or search engine to do the rest.

Would you like to learn more about first principles thinking? Then have a look at our manual, online course and workshop possibilities . Or would you like to write an article for publication on the technique? Then read the guidelines and send us your proposal. For questions and feedback, feel free to message Alexander Verkerk at alexander.verkerk@innovativepolicysolutions.org .

Updated on 11 July 2021: If you want to learn more about the health benefits of eating a vegetarian diet, be sure to check out Better Health's complete guide: Health Benefits of Eating a Vegetarian Diet - Better Health

News - Factory for Innovative Policy Solutions

FIPS Releases New Edition of “First Principles Thinking Manual”

Get Your Copy

About the Manual

Contents

Testimonials from readers ﻿

Using First Principles Thinking to Solve Our Hiring Heroes Problem in the United States

Millennia-Old Problem of Military Veteran Reintegration, i.e., Hiring

Millennia-Old Method of Reasoning; First Principles Thinking

Innovative Modern Solution: Applying the Power of First Principles Thinking to Solve Military Veteran Hiring

Conclusion

References

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Volume 3 / Issue 1)

About this publication

Call for submissions

“First Principles” by Thomas E. Ricks: A Book Review

Introduction

Summary and analysis ﻿

First principles for the modern citizen

Conclusion

References ﻿

First Principles Thinking as a Collaborative Effort to Bring Hope to a Troubled Neighbourhood

Introduction

Step 1: Identify your objective

Step 2: List the obstacles ﻿

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker I

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker II

Steps 3-5: First principles thinker III

Step 6 and 7: Refine and select your solutions (together) ﻿

Conclusion

References

Can First Principles Thinking Spur Creative Ideas About Peace?

Introduction ﻿

What is the objective? ﻿

What are the obstacles to this objective? ﻿

Reduce the obstacles ﻿

What are the assumptions underlying each obstacle? ﻿

What first principles do I discover? ﻿

What creative ideas are generated from the first principles? ﻿

Conclusion ﻿

References ﻿

The Role of First Principles Thinking in Singapore’s Nation-Building

Introduction ﻿

Lee Kuan Yew’s approach to FPT ﻿

LKY was tasked with building a nation ﻿

Obstacles to building a nation ﻿

LKY’s first principles ﻿

Singapore nowadays ﻿

How effective was LKY using FPT? ﻿

Conclusion

References

Using First Principles Thinking in Marketing: How I Generated Media Attention to Help Feed the Homeless

Introduction

Most people don’t think this way

So how do you use first principles thinking to make cutting-edge marketing solutions?

Case study: How I got a nonprofit organization days of TV coverage with zero budget

When first principles thinking can be inappropriate and when to use it ﻿

Conclusion

References

FIPS Releases its First Principles Thinking Review (Volume 2 / Issue 1)

About this publication

Call for submissions

What I Discovered Writing a Thesis on First Principles Thinking: An Interview with Kmar Hachicha

Can you tell us something about yourself?

First principles thinking (FPT) is only one of several problem-solving methods. Why did you decide to focus your research specifically on FPT?

What did your research process look like, and what did you discover?

How did your participants evaluate FPT? Do you agree with their assessments of the advantages and disadvantages?

How do you believe that the FPT process could be improved? Would you recommend any modifications to a future edition of FIPS’ manual? ﻿

Do you think that you will continue to use FPT in the future? If so, how? ﻿

References

First Principles Thinking as a Tool to Come Up with Possible Explanations: How Were the Pyramids of Giza Built?

First principles thinking and generating hypotheses ﻿

Follow the first principles thinking steps

Conclusion

References

Using First Principles Thinking to Evaluate Business Opportunities

Money making opportunity or money taking certainty?

Using First Principles Thinking as an analytical tool

What do I want to get out of this opportunity?

What questions do I need to ask?

Testimonials from readers

Summary and analysis

References

Step 2: List the obstacles

Step 6 and 7: Refine and select your solutions (together)

Introduction

What is the objective?

What are the obstacles to this objective?

Reduce the obstacles

What are the assumptions underlying each obstacle?

What first principles do I discover?

What creative ideas are generated from the first principles?

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Lee Kuan Yew’s approach to FPT

LKY was tasked with building a nation

Obstacles to building a nation

LKY’s first principles

Singapore nowadays

How effective was LKY using FPT?

When first principles thinking can be inappropriate and when to use it

How do you believe that the FPT process could be improved? Would you recommend any modifications to a future edition of FIPS’ manual?

Do you think that you will continue to use FPT in the future? If so, how?

First principles thinking and generating hypotheses

What are the underlying assumptions and first principles?

Asking more critical questions

What conclusions do we arrive at?

Questioning my assumptions

Uncovering the first principles