Comment by joe_the_user
3 years ago
Second-order thinking is the practice of not just considering the consequences of our decisions but also the consequences of those consequences. Everyone can manage first-order thinking, which is just considering the immediate anticipated result of an action. It’s simple and quick, usually requiring little effort. By comparison, second-order thinking is more complex and time-consuming.
This seems like an arbitrary distinction. Just any consequence is the product of a chain of events. Throw a rock to break a window? That can be roughly described by the sequence "flex muscles, aim at window, impart velocity to rock, hit window, break window" so you could say really simple things are "second order thinking".
Sure, the point "there's a benefit to thinking ahead" remains but the article seems to dress up simple things as deep epiphanies.
Edit: Also, Chesterton's fence itself is a deeper point. It's the "second order thinking" buzzterm that seems misplaced here.
> This seems like an arbitrary distinction.
Yes, it's like a dumb person trying to rationalize why a smart person made better decisions. The actual answer is that they considered more consequences, predicted consequences more accurately, and further into the future. But a dumb person not considering the infinitude of that situation might say "ahh it was the thing after the thing, if I just predicted one more step, I would have made the same decision".
When a person or thing is more intelligent than you, there's no way to distinguish one step ahead from n steps ahead. All you know is that they are making higher quality decisions. If you're doing second order thinking, you will be outsmarted by people doing third order thinking, and so on.