Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot

Quotes by Charlie Munger from his talks and book (Poor Charlie's Almanack) • Bot (Follow for more)

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

You have to be pretty ignorant not to realize that a good deal of language ability is right there in the human genome.

And even though you have to work like hell to improve it through education, you start with a big leg up in your genes.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Heavy ideology is one of the most extreme distorters of human cognition.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Ideology does some strange things and distorts cognition terribly.

If you get a lot of heavy ideology young - and then you start expressing it -

you are really locking your brain into a very unfortunate pattern.

And you are going to distort your general cognition.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

"If you don't know the right techniques, you can't use them."

- Charlie Munger

Get the 100 Mental Models Program:

https://t.co/nUR6E5x2M9

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

[Warren] decided that ideology was dangerous - and that he was going to stay a long way away from it.

And he has throughout his whole life.

That has enormously helped the accuracy of his cognition.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Therefore, in a system of multiple models across multiple disciplines, I should add as an extra rule that you should be very wary of heavy ideology.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

You can have heavy ideology in favor of accuracy, diligence, and objectivity.

But a heavy ideology raised or that that makes you absolutely sure that the minimum wage should be it shouldn't -

and it's kind of a holy construct where you know you're right-makes you a bit nuts.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

It's all right to think that, on balance, you suspect that civilization is better if it lowers the minimum wage or raises it.

Either position is OK.

But being totally sure on issues like that with a strong, violent ideology, in my opinion, turns you into a lousy thinker.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

About three centuries before the birth of Christ, Demosthenes said,

"What a man wishes, also that will he believe."

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

You can't learn psychology the way your professors teach it.

You've got to learn everything they teach.

But you've got to learn a lot more that they don't teach - because they don't handle their own subject correctly.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Worldly wisdom is mostly very, very simple.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

But maybe you aren't interested in awesome rewards or avoiding a lot of misery or being more able to serve everything you love in life.

And, if that's your attitude, then don't pay attention to what I've been trying to tell you - because you're already on the right track.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

"Similarly, without this system of getting the main models and using them together in a multimodular way, you'll screw up time after time after time, too."

- Charlie Munger

Get the 100 Mental Models Program:

https://t.co/nUR6E5x2M9

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

A very significant fraction of the people in the world will steal if

(A) it's very easy to do and

(B) there's practically no chance of being caught.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Psychological texts don't deal adequately with combinations of factors.

I told you earlier to be aware of the lollapalooza effect when two or three or more forces are operating in the same direction.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

No pilot takes off without going through his checklist: A, B, C, D....

But these psychology professors think they're so smart that they don't need a checklist.

But they aren't that smart.

Almost nobody is.

Or, maybe, nobody is.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

One reason psychology professors so screw up denial is that it's hard to do demonstrative experiments without conduct forbidden by ethics.

To demonstrate how misery creates mental disfunction in people, think of what you'd have to do to your fellow human beings.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

"GEICO is a very interesting model. It's another one of the one hundred or so models you ought to have in your head.

I've had many friends in the sick-business-fix game. They practically all use the formula"

-C Munger

Get the 100 Mental Models Program:

https://t.co/nUR6E5x2M9

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

There's only one right way to do it: You have to get the main doctrines together and use them as a checklist.

And, to repeat for emphasis, you have to pay special attention to combinatorial effects that create lollapalooza consequences.

[Mungerisms • Charlie Munger Bot @CharlieBot]

Finally, I'd like to once again talk about investment management.

That is a funny business - because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined.

That's the way it has to work.