写作与思考2020jacklimpert.com编辑精选
写作与叙事谬误（2018）
Writing and the narrative fallacy (2018)
导读
这篇文章借用贝索斯谈写作时提到的“叙事谬误”：人天生偏爱因果清晰、情节完整的简单故事，而真实世界往往混乱、随机、多因并存。对写作者来说，值得一读是因为它提醒我们：故事既是最好用的表达工具，也是最容易自欺和误导他人的工具，写作时要主动为复杂性留出位置。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
警惕把复杂现实压缩成单一因果的故事：先问自己“我漏掉了哪些不合情节的细节”。
- 02
与其硬把经历写成“旅程”或“战斗”，不如允许“一团乱麻”进入文本，混乱本身可以承载更多真实的复杂性。
- 03
不要用一个标签、一个身份或一个“坏人”解释全部现象，无论写人还是写事件都保留多面性。
- 04
好故事并不等于省略推理：先做足筛选与论证，否则事实和逻辑会从叙事的缝隙里漏出来，读者也会误读。
HN 评论精选
故事天生过度简化，写作者要警惕把人和人生压成单一标签或单一情节。
推荐 Tyler Cowen 的 TED 演讲《对简单故事保持怀疑》：当被要求描述自己的人生时，很少有人回答“一团乱麻”，而这是可能是最好的答案——混乱可以是解放性的、赋能的，能调动多种优势。但 51% 的人想说“我的人生是一段旅程”，11% 说“我的人生是一场战斗”，8% 说“我的人生是一部小说”，5% 说“我的人生是一出戏”。同样推荐 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 的《单一故事的危险》：听到“Sam 很穷”，我们就凭一个特征（甚至未必是决定性特征）构建出整个形象，失去了这个人和他人生的复杂性；就像只知道“Max 支持特朗普”，整个人就被简化成一个支持者。故事是多数人最容易的学习方式，但按其本性是刻意过度简化的，因此也是最容易有意或无意地骗过别人的方式。
stared查看英文原文
I like "Be suspicious of simple stories" TED Talk by Tyler Cowen (https://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_simple_stories): > Then asked to describe their lives, what is interesting is how few people said "mess". It's probably the best answer, I don't mean that in a bad way. "Mess" can be liberating, "mess" can be empowering, "mess" can be a way of drawing upon multiple strengths. But what people wanted to say was, "My life is a journey." 51% wanted to turn his or her life into a story. 11% said, "My life is a battle." Again, that is a kind of story. 8% said, "My life is a novel." 5% said, "My life is a play." In a similar vein, I recommend "The danger of a single story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story). For example, if we hear that "Sam is poor" we create a whole image based on one trait (which does even need to be a defining trait!) and lose the complexity of a human being and their life. (Side note: if we only know that "Max supports Trump", and the whole person becomes only a Trump supporter; it is very different from knowing Max in detail, when it is only one of his/her traits.) Yes, for most people stories are the easiest way to learn something. However, but their own nature they are intentionally oversimplified. So they are also the easiest way to fool others, intentionally or not.
阴谋论看似复杂，其实同样是偷懒的简化：把多因、随机的现实归咎于一个反派。
这个前提的反面也有意思：想想为解释新冠疫情而编织的那些极其复杂的叙事（5G、比尔·盖茨等等）。换个角度看，那些叙事其实也是一种简化——它们最终都归结为“都怪某个邪恶的富人或组织”，而更可能的真相是：自然和物质世界充满复杂性与随机性。
hairofadog查看英文原文
The mirror of this premise is also interesting; think, for example, of all the extremely complicated narratives woven to explain COVID-19 (5G, Bill Gates, etc.) On the other hand, maybe those narratives could also be considered a kind of simplification, which is to say they all boil down to "it's the fault of {fill in the blank evil rich person or organization}" as opposed to what's more likely to be the truth, which is that nature and the physical world are full of complexity and randomness.
好故事来自大量筛选与严谨推理，不能把“反叙事”当成省掉论证的借口。
塔勒布常让我觉得被高估了。叙事与时间之间的张力自古就有，两边都能论证。坚持时间与复杂性的人并不能在基本问题上获得豁免：如果故事讲错了，项目就会漏风，信息会泄漏，人会得到错误印象并朝相反方向走。你可以把这些错误归咎于随机性，但实际上是你跳过了严谨推理，让基本要素失效了。塔勒布说互不关联的想法会造出过度简化的故事，这恰恰忽略了故事本身的复杂性，以及做出好故事所需要的大量筛选工作。
friendlybus查看英文原文
Taleb repeatedly strikes me as over rated. The difference between narrative and time is as old as the gods and can easily be argued both ways. People who adhere to time and conplexity don't get a free pass on the fundamentals. The project will spring leaks if you get the story wrong. Information will slip out, people will get the wrong idea and go in opposite directions. You can blame those errors on randomness, but really you just let the basic elements fail by skipping good reasoning. Taleb's point about unconnected thoughts making an oversimplified story really misses the complexity in story and the massive filtering efforts that go into making good stories. He's pandering at best with these ideas.
用爵士乐队而非管弦乐队的比喻，说明真实过程是即兴应变而非照本宣科的完整剧本。
所以一家成功的公司更像一支顶尖爵士乐队：即兴地演完一整个连续不断的曲目，从不停止，间歇更换乐手，根据现场事件互相即兴；而不是一支按照阿波罗从奥林匹斯山传下的精修乐谱演奏的管弦乐队。
smitty1e查看英文原文
So a successful company acts closer to a top-notch jazz band that - improvises its way through a continuous set - never stops - swaps out players intermittently - improvises off of each other based upon events rather than being an orchestra operating off of some refined composition handed down from Apollo on mount Olympus.
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