Very high quality post, you made a great connection here between Shiller and Munger. Keep up the good work!

For my .02, being conventional is, by definition, thinking like everyone else. But who in academia or even in major organizations is looking for non-conventional behavior? I would suppose that it is far less than we are led to believe.

Remember, Darwin said that the species most likely to survive are not the strongest, but those most responsive to change. The organizations who are able to think flexibly and allow dissonance will probably fare best. However, it is harder than most think to buck our intrinsic psychology. Only those individuals and organizations who are deliberately aware of and attacking their narrow inbred tendencies will truly achieve independence of mind.

Very high quality post, you made a great connection here between Shiller and Munger. Keep up the good work!

For my .02, being conventional is, by definition, thinking like everyone else. But who in academia or even in major organizations is looking for non-conventional behavior? I would suppose that it is far less than we are led to believe.

Remember, Darwin said that the species most likely to survive are not the strongest, but those most responsive to change. The organizations who are able to think flexibly and allow dissonance will probably fare best. However, it is harder than most think to buck our intrinsic psychology. Only those individuals and organizations who are deliberately aware of and attacking their narrow inbred tendencies will truly achieve independence of mind.

Thanks for the link. I remember watching the video of that talk a while ago!

And I agree, it takes a really courageous person to speak out when their job is on the line. Those people are put in a tough spot since they don’t want to appear insubordinate. Maybe more organizations will realize the benefits behind having decisions openly discussed and debated.

Thanks for the link. I remember watching the video of that talk a while ago!

And I agree, it takes a really courageous person to speak out when their job is on the line. Those people are put in a tough spot since they don’t want to appear insubordinate. Maybe more organizations will realize the benefits behind having decisions openly discussed and debated.

I was interested to see that you worked Munger’s views on thinking and thought processes into this discussion. Good to have a link to that UCSB speech as well.

You might be interested in this video presentation Munger gave at Caltech in early 2008. We distilled a few key lessons from his talk and summarized them in this post (hope you enjoy it):

http://financetrends.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-from-charlie-munger.html

Back to your points on contrarianism; I think you uncovered a key point from Shiller’s article. The pressure to conform to the group is very strong, especially when one’s career/livelihood hangs in the balance.

I learned this myself when studying other examples of individuals who have voiced unconventional views or industry-shaking opinions. In some cases, it’s a lot easier for the self-employed individual or a professional outsider to go the other way and make a case for an unpopular scenario or contrarian viewpoint. They are not as affected by job pressures and the constant demand for group consensus from their peers/employers.

I was interested to see that you worked Munger’s views on thinking and thought processes into this discussion. Good to have a link to that UCSB speech as well.

You might be interested in this video presentation Munger gave at Caltech in early 2008. We distilled a few key lessons from his talk and summarized them in this post (hope you enjoy it):

http://financetrends.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-from-charlie-munger.html

Back to your points on contrarianism; I think you uncovered a key point from Shiller’s article. The pressure to conform to the group is very strong, especially when one’s career/livelihood hangs in the balance.

I learned this myself when studying other examples of individuals who have voiced unconventional views or industry-shaking opinions. In some cases, it’s a lot easier for the self-employed individual or a professional outsider to go the other way and make a case for an unpopular scenario or contrarian viewpoint. They are not as affected by job pressures and the constant demand for group consensus from their peers/employers.