Mental Models 101 - How To Make Better Decisions | George Mack

George MacGill of Social Chain has joined me. So, what are we talking about today, George?

Mental models, almost like recipes for, like, regular decision-making. If you can imagine, like, your consciousness is like, uh, the OS, like, mental models are just various sort of apps that you, like, plug in for, like, various decisions or situations that you find yourself in.

Mm-hmm.

So, on Instagram, you're scrolling through artificial lives that are meant to make yours look worse. Whereas walking round a hospital, you're looking at real lives who would do anything to change, like, positions with you. Let's say, for example, my life's an eight out of 10. When I'm on Instagram, I'm looking at 10 out of 10 lives, and I'm contrasting my eight out of 10 with a 10 out of 10, and feeling the minus two. The gaming industry is worth more than the music and entertainment industry combined, which is crazy, right? So, I'm immediately thinking, "The gaming industry have a greater understanding of human psychology better than anybody on the planet."

Can we do signal versus noise?

So, signal versus noise, like, how you go about establishing what's true and what's gonna be gone tomorrow. (branding flame whooshes)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. George MacGill of Social Chain has joined me. How are you?

I'm not too bad. How are you?

Very good. Thank you.

Yeah.

Georgemc on Insta'.

(laughs) Twitter. No, no, no.

Twitter. Still-

Yeah.

... not, not transferred across on Instagram yet?

No, no, no. Need to.

Yeah. I like it. So, what are we talking about today, George?

Um, so I guess we, it's more like a theme of what we've been chatting about for, like, the last six to nine months, right?

Mm-hmm.

Um, which is, like, mental models. Um, and how you sort of interpret that is, like, up to you. Like, I particularly got it from, like, Charlie Munger, um, like, Naval Ravikant, a few other thinkers about, like, almost, like, recipes for, like, regular decision-making. If you can imagine, like, your consciousness is like, uh, uh, like the OS, like, mental models are just various sort of apps that you, like, plug in for, like, various, um, decisions or situations that you find yourself in. And it's almost like this, I think Charlie Munger calls it, like, a lattice work, like, from all the big, like, disciplines, whether that's, like, physics, whether that's business, whether that's microeconomics. 'Cause what a lot of people do will just specialize and go, "Okay, I learn biology, and then that's all I do," and they just go deep on that subject. Whereas that whole, like, Tim Ferriss strategy of taking the, the 10% that covers 90% of it, like, from biology, like, whether it's, like, evolution, whether it's homeostasis, um, and then going into, like, microeconomics and looking at, like, game theory, like, race to the bottom. Taking all these strategies and then almost trying to apply them instead of having to deal with, like, the overwhelm of everyday life. That's how I sort of interpret it. But then I... Now, it's much looser and just anything where it's, like, an analogy that helps me, like, explain things-