The lazy man's way to business success is simply to read the international pages of good quality newspapers, according to Crooked Timber.
Simple as it may sound, this is extremely useful advice, especially for geeks. I am often surprised to find that ostensbly intelligent and insightful geeks turn out to live in a tiny little bubble of culturally specific knowledge, for example taking the tenets of classical economics or liberal democracy as universals, rather than sets of ideas with a particular historical, cultural and (in some senses) geographical context.
It's amazing what you can learn about yourself by reading about others. I became addicted to broadsheet international coverage whilst at school and it has affected my life in profound and beneficial ways.
I sense Crooked Timber's advice was directed at one particular national group who are not known for their broad knowledge of the world, but I think it applies equally to all of us.
So true.
Uhm... generally I agree but I'm not sure it's that simple. The geek part I mean.
Many would say that those insights come from that peculiar view of the world, fruit of being free of the common customs and "protected" by that tiny bubble of cultural specific knowledge: taking glances at reality from angles that are not common, or popular, can lead to creative, insightful, sometime brilliant intuitions.
Sure - I'm all for that. The problem occurs when geeks have power over the real world, as we/you have now and also did during the last bubble, but it is a world they don't understand.
An example of what I mean is the way that certain culturally specific assumptions about freedom = free markets, or individualism vs collective responsibility are baked into much of what we do as if they are universal truths. Without reading the newspapers, it is easy to make mistakes like that.
Take your point on the value of bubble thinking for creativity and new perspectives tho' :-)