How to swim without drowning. How to live so as not to drown?

Lecturer: Andrey Gribov

At MIEM I studied with Sergei Alexandrovich Mitrofanov. This is one of the founders of VGTUIP and a talented teacher. He taught modeling, but in his lectures he told not only how to model the environment or any processes, but how to survive in general. And we will talk not so much about science as about its applied significance for your own life, about “how to live so as not to drown, and how to swim so as not to be drowned.”¹

Model and Solutions

In order not only to survive normally, but also to live well, you need two simple things that are actually very difficult:

• The first is to understand exactly what environment you are in at the current moment, and to have in your brain a picture of the world that is adequate to the world that surrounds you.
• The first is to understand exactly what environment you are in at the current moment, and to have in your brain a picture of the world that is adequate to the world that surrounds you.

The primordiality of creating an incorrect model of the world by propaganda

Why nobody? Plato has a fundamental work "On the State"², written about 2500 years ago, from which almost all thinkers of this subject then repelled. In this work, he says that any state needs guards, and when training "guards of the state", it is not necessary to tell them the whole truth. They do not need to know those myths where the gods quarreled among themselves and devoured the children of the opposing gods. Let the guards of the state think that all the gods are good, and then they will guard us well.

This "introductory" on how to properly educate children, students, etc., was laid down many years ago. And it has not gone away: everywhere students are brought up not as the students themselves need, but as needed by those who ordered it.

Here you need to be very careful. In our time (the period of 1970-1985) it was simple: we had a ruling communist ideology, and we read slogans from TV screens, from a huge number of posters: “The USSR is a stronghold of peace!” or “Moscow is the cleanest capital in the world!” It was then easier for us to understand that what was written was not entirely true. Now the propaganda works more intelligently, and the picture is not so much at odds with the image that you are given. Therefore, in order to understand where you are, you must first get vivid examples of inconsistency.

Example - Occupation of part of Iran in 1941

For example, how many of you read in a history textbook that in August 1941 our country occupied part of an adjacent state? Why do only a few know about it? After all, this was a very significant factor: a group of Soviet armies entered Northern Iran and occupied the territory almost to Tehran. It's not a few divisions or corps - it's an Army Group, three or four. (Note: look on the Internet how many people were involved in simply standing on some territory - not on ours, not on Russian, not to defend Moscow and other cities, but simply to protect what territory it is not clear). Most do not even understand: why?

You see that there is some very significant, important information that is not being given to you. In jurisprudence, there is the concept of “vice of will” - it arises not only as a result of direct deceit, but also as a result of failure to communicate significant information that can affect your picture of the worldview, your behavior and your decision-making.

Example - The feat of General Belov

Another example: how many of you know what role General Belov played in defending the city of Moscow from Nazi invaders? About who General Belov is, and how he defended the city of Moscow, is written in the memoirs of General Guderian.³

I will tell you what I have found out. General Zhukov was mainly engaged in the defense of the city of Moscow. Everyone knows about the "Marshal of Victory", a monument to him stands near the Kremlin, he is there on a horse, handsome and strong. And General Belov, to put it mildly, did not support him. No matter how many words there were about Stalin's repressions for dissent, nevertheless, points of view on questions of strategy were different. General Belov quite loudly asserted that General Zhukov was a bad military leader and did not know how to fight. All he can do is put a huge number of people to no avail, without completing the task. Of course, General Zhukov did not like General Belov for this and did not wish him anything good. And when the tank army of General Guderian began to attack Moscow from the south, General Zhukov ordered the cavalry corps of General Belov to stop this offensive and defeat the tank army of General Guderian.

Can you imagine what an army is and what a corps is? What is the ratio between them? And especially if the army is tank, and the cavalry corps? And if we take into account that the famous Guderian commanded the tank army? The real difference in strength was 10 to 1. But General Belov, commander of the cavalry corps, stopped, almost defeated Guderian's tank army and forced him to retreat from Serpukhov to Maloyaroslavets. Who tells us about this, as about an unprecedented feat? Almost nobody. And how did it happen? It's just that General Belov was a smart man. It is fundamentally important that the main value both in labor and in war is the mind of a person, and not the resources that he currently has: financial, industrial, land, military. If a person has intelligence, he can defeat any superior enemy forces.

How did General Belov reason? He watched the Germans fight and figured out their tactics. The Germans fought uncomplicatedly: they got up in the morning, drank coffee, waited until it cleared up, called in aircraft. Aviation had complete control over the air - it bombed our troops, primarily tanks and artillery, after which tanks drove up along the highway - ironed what was left, infantry drove up - dug in, and the next day was exactly the same.

General Belov, accordingly, waited for not very bright weather, and at night, along country roads, the cavalry corps without much noise (horses do not hum as loudly as tanks) carefully entered the rear to a depth of about 20 kilometers and attacked ... Well, which of you will he say that he attacked the corps of General Belov first of all? Which of you can answer this question? Canteen? Yes, I see a literate person who definitely had something to do with the Armed Forces. Well, since General Belov had a whole corps, they immediately attacked the food warehouses! On our side in 1941, the supply was very poor, the soldiers were hungry. First of all, they attacked food warehouses, got hold of food and schnapps, ate, “succumbed”. Well, a well-fed, and even well-fed Cossack is completely different from a hungry and sober Cossack, this is a completely different combat power.

The next "step" was already attacked by armories, because many had rifles, and this is not the best weapon. They seized the armories, and almost without exception armed with light and partially heavy machine guns.

Imagine: a cavalry division, very well “data”, and even with light machine guns, at night, from the west, attacks the sleeping German troops. There are pictures on the Internet in which Cossacks with machine guns on bears are galloping through the snow - this is approximately the same thing that the German combat guards saw at night somewhere near Serpukhov.

So, snowy weather, night, dark, some Cossacks with machine guns on something shaggy move around the field without shouting "hurrah". When a hundred meters remained, there were cries of "Hurrah" and firing from machine guns. What are the chances of a combat guard (a hundred people) against a corps? The Cossacks flew into the village, at a gallop threw grenades into the huts where the German soldiers were sleeping. Those who managed to jump out were clearly visible, they were in the light, and ours, on the contrary, attacked from the darkness. In general, the Germans were whipped enough.

After the second or third raid, General Belov also captured and destroyed fuel depots. And without gasoline, tanks cannot fight, on the contrary, they can quickly become a trophy, so Guderian had to urgently retreat to where there was fuel.

Thus, Guderian's tank army was defeated by the cavalry corps of General Belov. The source of information is Guderian's memoirs, in which he quite regularly mentions General Belov with an unkind word.⁴

Compare the picture of the world that I have described with the one we know from history books and TV. These pictures of the world are significantly different. And it would be nice if they differed only in wartime, they also differ quite significantly in peacetime. It depends on how adequately you represent the world around you, how well you will live and survive, how successful you will be.

I repeat, it is important to understand that making a decision is not the most difficult problem. The most difficult problem is to understand an adequate picture of the environment, to understand where you are and how true the information you have is.

Actual example from life – Kemerovo

Now in all newspapers, magazines, TV shows, on everyone's lips, the fire in Kemerovo is really a great tragedy, 70 people died. But last year alone, 7,782 people died in fires. We feel sorry for the people in Kemerovo - 70 people, but don't we feel sorry for the other 7700? What's wrong with them? And why did they die? Why? And for those who are older, the following thought arises: where did the fire department look? Everyone knows that firefighters regularly go to commercial organizations with checks. Why did they leave, left the violation unattended? Why wasn't this place closed? Maybe they took bribes? And if they took bribes, why haven't any of them been put in a cell yet? And in other cases, where 7,700 people died, why is it not heard that someone was imprisoned?

The questions that you will ask yourself will create your real world model and threat models. Because while you are still students, it is important for you to survive on your own, but then, when you all get married, it will be important for you to save your family, your children, so that they survive and do not get into a situation in which they can die. Therefore, it is important to independently create an objective picture of the world, not to take it only from TV, newspapers and textbooks, but to think independently about how and what works.

Model of the economic world from textbooks and from life

I received a technological education at MIEM - we were taught electronics, mainly military. And then perestroika began, and it turned out that everyone, and not just 10-20 old people in the Central Committee of the CPSU, should be involved in the economy. Few people knew what a real economy was, because we were taught in detail only two economic courses: the political economy of socialism and the political economy of capitalism. I remember, at a lecture, I asked the lecturer a question: why are there two different courses, if economic laws should operate in the same way in different fields? So I was almost expelled from the institute - well, I was an excellent student. The question turned out to be “politically incorrect”. True, there was also a short course "Economics of the Enterprise", but it mainly talked about the formation of costs and did not pay attention to profit.

Therefore, when life forced me to provide for my family, I had to open textbooks by foreign authors and read what they think about this topic abroad. I remember Samuelson, I had my first textbook - a thick one, a lot of interesting things, but I look at something, somehow it doesn’t “get along” with life. Then I read other textbooks, but I see that everything “does not stick”. I studied a lot of interesting textbooks on economics, and they all say “costs”, “equilibrium price”, “demand-supply”, how, what, where, where, etc. But I was already engaged in real business and I see that in life is not like that.

I came to the final conclusion about three years ago, when I began to investigate the surplus value in the tomato market. Tomatoes, it would seem, are a simple thing, but how is the surplus value formed there, where is the demand, where is the supply, where does the money come from? The numbers are very interesting. In the store during the season (September) they cost 150 rubles. The store received them for 110 rubles from the so-called “pickers”, who bring many items of goods to the store at once. This is in Moscow, and I sent my man to Krasnodar to find out the cost on the spot. He says: “I am in the Krasnodar region on the highway, there are boxes of tomatoes on the side of the road and you can buy for cash at 8 rubles per kilogram.” I understand that the difference between 110 and 8 turns out to be on the road between the city of Krasnodar and the city of Moscow. I ask: “Did you buy a couple of boxes there for yourself at 8?” He answers "No". I ask, “Well, why did you act so illiterately?”, And he replies: “Yes, whoever acted illiterately, you need to look twice more: I went to the field and bought 3 each.” Here is a real life, about which "comrade" Samuelson does not write something in his textbook. To be honest, I don't even know a textbook where this is written.

Therefore, when you build your life, proceed from the real model of the world, and it will tell you that you really need to deal not with the production of goods, but with logistics and distribution.

By the way, here's your homework: find out how much toothpaste costs when it leaves the factory, and compare how much it costs, respectively, in the store. And you will understand the percentage of logistics and distribution. So, if I tell you now that this is somewhere around half, no less, of the retail price, then tell me, have you seen an economics textbook where half of the text is devoted to logistics and distribution? It is unlikely that you will find an economics textbook where half of the text is devoted to logistics and distribution. I have not even heard of such textbooks, although, at the very least, I am 52 years old, I studied a lot of things in economics, and I also have a degree in economics.

Here is a simple model of the world that I just showed you, it contradicts the information that you draw from textbooks, and even from the media.

Media – SMRAD

By the way, to make it really easy for you to navigate in life, remember such an abbreviation as SMRAD. You are used to the fact that the media are the means of mass information, but in fact they are the means of mass advertising, agitation and disinformation

There is no such journalist or publisher who is interested in the correct picture of the world in your head. Exactly the opposite: he receives money from the advertiser. If he gets money from advertising Coca-Cola, he will not tell you how much sugar is there and how it affects the development of diabetes. He will tell you that this is a great drink, drink Coca-Cola - and you will have happiness in life. Or you see, for example, a Volkswagen advertisement in a magazine, which means that this magazine will not write about excess bad emissions into the atmosphere from a Volkswagen car, because it is not profitable for the publisher.

But how to translate the actual reality into an adequate model in your head?

For this, strange as it may sound to students, education is needed. Why? Because the head needs to be trained. If you want to train your muscles, take dumbbells and do a lot of exercise. If girls want to be beautiful, they regularly go to the hairdresser, do makeup, do fitness, count calories. And this is not twice a year, but every day for many, many years. And here is the same thing: in order to perceive an adequate picture of the world, you need to know a lot of both truthful and untruthful, you need to train your head so that it can perceive and “filter” information.

Let's analyze this using the example of such concepts as "good" and "evil"

• When a small child begins to speak, they do not say “good”, “bad”, they are taught in terms of “byaka”, “lyalya”.
• When he grows up a little, they begin to read the book “What is good, what is bad” to him. By the way, there are such words there: "... he points his finger into the book, this boy is well done, he is a good boy." The terminology is changing, the model of the world is slightly changing.
• When he grows up a little more, they begin to tell him what there is a law, a right, a state. The state determines the laws, there are moral norms, this is a different terminology, and the brain needs to work better.
• If he enters a law university, they will begin to tell him what procedural and substantive law is, how private law differs from public law, etc. This is already a different model of the world, it is impossible to explain to a small child what public law is and what private law is . Adults don't always understand this.
• If he graduates from the university and becomes a good lawyer, he will begin to speak with words like: “The Plenum of the Arbitration Board of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation banned vindication claims in substantive law of obligations.” Another language, another terminology, and in order to understand it, it is necessary to develop the brain for a long time. And if you try to speak this language with a small child, he will turn around and say: “Uncle, who are you talking to?” He won't understand anything. Or, for example, if you come to court and tell that this one is “bad”, and this one is “lyalya”, they won’t understand you either - they speak a different language there.

If we move to technology, let's say electronics, it's very easy to see this in student education

• If you're a freshman in college, you're told there's signal and there's noise. Noise must be discarded, the signal should be listened to.
• But when you graduate from university, you are told that noise is most often part of the signal or a distorted part of the signal. If someone gets a more serious education, goes to serve, for example, in secret troops who listen to noises, then he will see how the signal is determined by these noises.
• And the latest "technological squeak" is to listen to Big Data noises and determine the Big Data signal from them. Literally 5 years ago it was a dream, but now it is slowly starting to come true.

Look at how big the difference between world models is, and after all, no one has deceived anyone: it is simply impossible for a first-year student to explain how to get a Big Data signal from Big Data noise. He just can't understand it. Not because the brain is not capable of perceiving - no, you just need to train it in this area, then it will perceive complex information. But not before, that is, the process of education is simply necessary in order to perceive and correctly form a model of the world.

Examples from geometry and physics

When you were in school, everyone explained to you that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. But what if you are asked what is the sum of the angles in the triangle Moscow - Buenos Aires - Sydney? 180 will not be there, because this is no longer the geometry of Euclid, but the geometry of Lobachevsky on a ball, in which the sum of the angles in a triangle 180 appears only in exceptional cases. This does not mean that they tried to deceive someone and tell a lie, it’s just that it’s difficult and pointless for a child in the 4th grade to teach Lobachevsky’s geometry, Riemann’s geometry, explaining that the Earth is not only round, but also squeezed along the poles, and that’s it. considered to be very complex.

It's the same with physics: at school you were taught Newton's physics. We grew up a little and talked about quantum mechanics, but it does not coincide with Newton's physics. And then there is Einstein's theory of relativity - it also does not "beat" with either one or the other. This does not mean that you are being deceived, it means that people are trying to find some models of the world, and some forms correspond to these models in some parts.

If you ever get into experimental physics or chemistry, you will find what are called "points" and then you will try to find curves that describe where the next point will be. You will draw these curves and see if it hits or misses. Scientists say this: “If the point hit, then the theory works, and the point didn’t hit, then this theory does not work on this segment.”

Therefore, I once again urge you to study not in order to absorb some knowledge that you are given, but in order to comprehend it and understand how adequate it is to the environment. Maybe somehow adequate, and maybe somehow inadequate. Or maybe things are a little different. How much it coincides, it is difficult to immediately understand.

Reliable information is best obtained not from written sources, but from people. If you are interested in what is happening, for example, now in Ukraine, then it is better not to read the newspapers, but to call your friends who live there and ask how things really are. Another question is that a person can be caught competent, or maybe completely ignorant.

There are such laws of nature, knowing which, we can distinguish some of the false information..

Gauss theory

The law is so all-encompassing, whether you like it or not, it will work wherever you go. Gauss is a great scientist. He was a generalist, he worked in all branches that he came across: he was an astronomer, and a mathematician, and a physicist. He is widely known for having discovered (invented, found) the so-called theory of errors.⁵

Let's see where he got the Gauss curve from. Remember, at school in physics lessons you studied “liquid tension”, did you have such an experience? And Gauss attached the pipette to the stand and began to drip. And so, when he dripped, dripped, dripped, dripped, it turned out that the drops did not fall at the same point, but some a little to the right, some a little to the left. He decided that something was interfering: the wind was blowing, something else. He closed the window, closed the curtains, dripped again, and again the drops did not fall at the same point. No matter how much he did not eliminate all these external causes, no matter how many things he did, still the droplets did not fall at the same point. All the same, there was a so-called “distribution”: something to the right, something to the left, something strongly to the right, something strongly to the left, but it fell less to the side than to the middle

This is the Gaussian distribution, which is approximately, yes, approximately equal to E^-x2, and the whole nature is arranged according to this E^-x2. We want it, we do not want it, it is arranged that way.

And including the distribution of people in nature obeys this law. If we ask how many people are honest? Look at this picture and you can clearly see: a certain number of people are conditionally honest, while others are more honest, but there are fewer of them. There are people who never in their lives, even dying of hunger, will not take someone else's and will die of hunger, but there are very, very few of them.

If someone really wants to become a really smart person, then the theory of Gauss, the theory of normal distribution must be known.

On both sides of this picture, 6%. If we take the area, there is a so-called non-normal distribution. That is, the norm is 100% -12% 003d 88%, and 6% in each direction is what goes beyond the norm. In any human society, there are 6% of people who will not take someone else's, even if they die of hunger. And 6% of people who will steal in any situation, even if they do not need it. The most famous example in literature is Shura Balaganov from the Golden Calf, who stole a wallet with 42 kopecks, although he had 50 thousand in his pocket, which at that time was absolutely huge money.

This is how all life works: there will always be the same number of smart and stupid people. We want, we don't want. Both hardworking and lazy. If you look at the statistics, how many unemployed people are in the world, there are more than 6% of the unemployed in any country. Because 6% of people are antisocial individuals who will never work under any conditions, no matter how much money they are given. And the homeless will always be approximately in this volume. I have a friend from Australia who just came to visit and told a story. A bum lives in his block at a bus stop, and the municipality allocated an apartment to this bum. So this bum refuses to come into the apartment, he says, I want to live at the bus stop.

People who fall out of the norm, they are, and they will always be around you, pay attention. 6% of the people around you are exactly you. Of the 50 people in the audience, 3 people are definitely asocial. Maybe a little less, because not everyone came, not everyone was driven out, but those who wanted to came, but 6% are such people, there are definitely asocial personalities among you. And it also works in the opposite direction: 6% of people who move life forward, no matter what it costs them. They will be great scientists, businessmen, military leaders, but they will not be significantly more than 6% - they will be approximately this number.

An example of finding a lie in the "Declaration of the Rights and Freedoms of Man"

The fundamental American document "Declaration of the Rights and Freedoms of Man" says that all people are born equal, have equal rights from birth, etc. This is not true. 6% of people from birth have deviations that do not allow them to have equal rights with other people. These people, who have an IQ below 70 units, are called "morons", "nerds", "imbeciles" in medical language.

Morons exercise a certain number of rights themselves, but they are prohibited from working with explosives, having weapons, serving in the army and in municipal positions, and driving vehicles. But cretins and imbeciles cannot exercise any rights at all - only guardians can exercise them for them. That is, these people initially do not have rights, and you must understand that even if someone tells you, for example, the basic American law said that all people are initially equal.

So these same 6% from both sides, so you will always come across them in your life.

Some stupid people are written in the so-called Darwin Award. These are the people who died because of their stupidity. They acted so stupidly that they died.

For myself, I keep a list of people who did not die, but acted so stupidly that it is simply impossible to understand. For a long time, this list was topped by a justice of the peace from the city of St. Petersburg, who sentenced a Russian citizen from the Republic of Tuva to extradition to Tajikistan. And he wrote in an official document - the decision of the justice of the peace, that there is no such subject of the federation! He passed the exam and did not just get the position of justice of the peace. It's good that this Tuvan was caught at the border - he has a Russian passport, and he was sentenced to extradition to Tajikistan. It's true, it's not a joke, it's actually true. Recently, the “gentlemen” from Yakutsk took the lead, losing 9 tons of gold worth 22 billion rubles on the runway. They could not even steal them: they could not make it open over the taiga, they lost it in this strip.

What does it say? That the Gaussian theory is not wrong. This line will never end, there will always be some individual who will act in a way that you never guess in your life. Even Einstein said that there are two infinite things: the Universe and human stupidity. But about the universe, he says, I'm not sure. Therefore, according to Gaussian theory, anything can happen. Another thing is that not every 5 minutes, you still need to find a person who will do this.

In the opposite direction, the same thing, which is good. There will always be 6% of people who are abnormally smart. Gifted, talented, brilliant. Schopenhauer gave a good definition of the difference between talent and genius: “Talent is a person who hits a target that no one can hit, and a genius is a person who sees a target that no one sees.” Translated into technical language, talent is William Tell, who hits very accurately at close range, and genius is an over-the-horizon location device that sees a cruise missile flying far beyond the horizon.

There will always be a man of genius who, in a difficult situation, like General Belov, took and defeated the army of General Guderian, having only a cavalry corps. Obviously, he was a gifted, talented person. There will always be Perelman, who briefly, on 27 pages, will prove, for example, the Poincaré theorem. He, obviously, is not included in the norm - he did not go for a million dollars, he has a different model of the world in his head, he is not normal. It is important to understand that the word "abnormal" in terms of mathematics means a deviation from the standard. This does not mean that in a bad way, it may well be in a good way.

There was such a great scientist Bekhterev, who studied the brain, his grandson is now the head of the Brain Institute in St. Petersburg. So the grandson wrote the popular book "Brain against the brain." I highly recommend it, look at it, it is written in a very popular way, any student without special education can read and understand it, and literally on the first page it says that “any person with an increased desire to work and learn something is clearly out of the norm.” He is not a completely natural person, does not fall into the norm of 88% of the usual "normal", and is always different in some way.

If you look at this “wonder of nature” now in cryptocurrencies, Vitalik Buterin is indeed a guru in cryptography, but he is not oriented in life. Even if you just look at him, you can see that he clearly falls out of the norm. Therefore, you need to focus on such people only in the part in which they understand. It is wrong to act like Perelman in the financial field: if some resources were awarded, then these resources could at least help him in mastering mathematics in the future.

The second fundamental law, which students are not told much about, is Vilfredo Pareto's law

Why do you need to know about the 20/80 rule? Pareto discovered it by analyzing land ownership in Italy - 20% of Italians own 80% of the land. However, the rule works not only in this topic: whatever you do, this rule will be with you.

Any seller in any store, even a vegetable one, even an electronic one, will say that 20% of the assortment brings 80% of the revenue. Recently released the film "Founder" about McDonald's. It shows that the McDonald brothers took the usual menu of all eateries and chose 20% of the assortment that is ordered in 80% of cases. With this, they were able to automate their production and achieve the lowest price of dishes. Their network was originally called not "McDonald's", but "15/15", because they sold for 15 cents those hamburgers that all competitors had for 30 cents. They automated production because they reduced the range to the most demanded, and that is why they created such a profitable business.

Each of you has a device that meets the 20/80 rule - this device is called a "tablet". When Steve Jobs first invented the iPad, 94% of analysts, right in line with Gaussian theory, said that Steve Jobs would finally go bankrupt. Who needs a device that only has 20% of the features? It is inconvenient to neither count nor write on it, it only allows you to “surf” on the Internet and read mail. But analysts just didn't realize that those 20% of features typically take up 80% of users' time. That is why this device has become so popular, because 80% of the time a person uses an electronic device to do only 20% of the functions, so it is effective, it has become more efficient than a regular desktop or laptop. Fundamentally more efficient.

The 20/80 rule among humans works the same way. 20% of people do 80% of the work. It's a little strange to hear, but it's true. For example, rectors, vice-rectors, teachers will tell you that in any scientific institution, 20% of researchers write 80% of scientific articles. And 80% of all "fives" in your stream get 20% of students. And you will not be able to undo this either, even if you study hard, which I wish you all, you still cannot deceive sociology, and the Pareto rule cannot be deceived either. It is the rule of nature, the law of nature, there is no escape from it.

Relationship between Gauss theory and Pareto rule

Here is a picture of labor productivity, effects, results: under red is the result, and under blue is people. This blue triangle is 20% of the area under the Gaussian curve. And the red integral part is 80% of the red curve.

Proof of the inequality of people

Look what a huge difference. This suggests that the "Declaration of Human Rights" in the United States is not true. People are not equal not because they want to be unequal. Or maybe they don’t want to: someone wants to sit on the couch and not move anywhere, do nothing. Well, where will the result come from? Beer, chips, the World Cup... What are the results, what are you talking about? And someone wants to do something or learn something at this time: prepare for an exam, pass a colloquium.

People are different, and notice how much: the 20% doing 80% of the work has an efficiency of 4 - 80 to 20. The other 80%, giving only 20%, has an efficiency of 1/4. The difference between these groups of people is 16 times in terms of performance.

This is a fundamental question that you will always have to face in life. You will always have colleagues or employees who look the same, but differ by 16 times, regardless of what is written in the Declaration of Human Rights. Apparently, when this declaration was written, the Pareto law had not yet been invented, or they did not read it, or did not want to read it, or there were other tasks - to fool everyone else and say that everyone is equal. No, they are not equal.

It is very important that the Pareto distribution works within itself, it is recursive. Accordingly, if the Pareto distribution occurs within these groups, then the ratio 4/64 will be obtained first, and the next recursion will give the ratio 1/50, which any sociologist knows. The well-known thesis that 1% of Americans own half of America. This is a well-known thesis that the communists are fighting with all their might, they want to change it one way or another, but they will never succeed, because it is natural: someone is smarter, someone is more stupid. Someone loses 22 billion on the runway, and someone briefly proves the Poincaré theorem - people are different. And fight - don't fight, nothing will change: people will still be just like that and no other.

And the 1/50 rule within you will continue. One of you will do half of what all of you put together will do. It may sound harsh, but it is a real picture of the world.

Let's try to make sure of this: if during the fighting one company commander is killed, the combat capability of the company (about 100 people) drops by 2 times. That is why snipers kill officers. Combat efficiency is falling, because the officer directs where to attack - where there are no mines and where there is no fire, or, where, on the contrary, God forbid, you will have to run over the mines.

If, let's say, God forbid, they kill three more platoons - 4 people will be all together - the combat effectiveness will drop, respectively, 100% -64% = 36% will remain. Although there are 96 people out of 100 alive, the combat effectiveness drops much more sharply.

And now let's ask ourselves a question, what will happen if all the squad commanders, 9 more people are killed, in total 13 people in the company fail, what will happen? I asked the regular military, what will actually happen? Two said that there would be a herd of rams, and the third, an employee, it is true, a military procurator, said no, there would be no herd of rams, there would be an organized column of prisoners of war.

The 1/50 rule, corresponding to the 20/80 rule, the 4/64 rule, will always be there for you. And always, using this rule, you can find key people who can solve issues - they are in this or that position, they are not, but they can. Because nature, Darwin's theory has distributed them in such a way, Gauss's theory has distributed them in such a way, they can decide. But there will always be some people in the team who cannot achieve a result, and their ratio will be just that.

Here is what is very important: the differences between these people in performance. I have already told you that the difference between the groups is 20/80, it is 16 times. Accordingly, between people 1/50: one has a performance of 50, and the fifty worst performance has a score of 1. The difference is 2500 times! It seems that people are nearby, they seem to be equal in rights and all that, but no, they are not equal. And it is important that not only 1% makes half of the result, it is important to understand that half of all people give only 1% of the result. This is the same proletariat for whose rights certain people are fighting so hard. But these are senseless people: no matter how much you kick them, they will not give you any result. Trotsky did not just come up with the Labor Army, not because he wanted to kill everyone. But because really half of the people are those who are called "office plankton." And whatever you want to do, there will still be “office plankton” of them, and there will always be half of them. No matter how hard you try, sifted, did something else.

«Man is a rope between the animal and the superman»

So what does the 1/50 principle show us against the background of a Gaussian normal distribution? One of Nietzsche's fundamental sayings "Man is a rope between the animal and the superman."

This idea is very difficult to understand, and not everyone believes in it. Well, what does the rope between the animal and the superman mean?

For example, every girl wants to become a princess, queen, queen, but how much effort do you need to spend for this?! Fitness, hairdressing, makeup. And this needs to be done and a lot of effort must be spent! You have to climb this rope. Do not sit on the couch, but go jogging, move, study.

Accordingly, if young people want to become champions, they need to go in for sports for a very long time. My martial arts coach used to say that in order for a movement to work well, it must be done 10,000 times. 10 thousand times - he somehow empirically found this figure. I saw another comrade, he really was so stubborn. Every day he performed 400 hits at head level with full force on makiwara of all four types: may, mawashi, yoka, mikazuki. Somehow I decided: I will do 400 blows at full strength to the level of the head. At 70m, my leg just withered away, I barely finished up to 90 strokes, but then everything was fine, then I was limping for a week. It is necessary to have, frankly, willpower and desire to perform 400 hits every day. And indeed, if you do them, then you will obviously reach some serious heights.

I somehow saw the difference between an animal and a superman within one day in one area and in one city. Somehow I ended up in Rome, and the guide with whom I usually go on excursions was busy. Well, it's nonsense, it's business-like: let's get to St. Peter's Square now, there is an exchange of guides, we'll quickly take a guide, and they'll show us everything. I come there, people really come out, what language do you need? In Russian. And such a girl comes up, as I remember now, in pink slippers: what did you want to see? I say, yes, what will you show, but the pre-Christian era. She says: when was the pre-Christian era? You know, it was that rare case when I didn't even know what to say to her? And if it were somewhere, but at least in Moscow, I would ask: what year is it now in general, from what moment is it counted? And here you are standing on St. Peter's Square - it is in front of you, and right behind it is the Vatican. Well, I think the tour operator in Rome in St. Peter's Square, behind the Vatican, and does not know when the pre-Christian era. And I don’t even know what to answer, and confusion is evident on my face, and she says: you know, don’t pay attention, I may not know something, but I have a guide, she knows everything, but she can't today - she works with Natasha Koroleva and Tarzan.

And for some reason I doubted so much that it would turn out to be a good excursion, I came to the hotel, I said: listen, can you find a normal guide to show something? Yes, don't worry, it will arrive tomorrow morning. I say, but will there be something to know? And it’s somehow uncomfortable, I would like to know something myself, and not tell. They say yes, it will be.

The next day, a young man with glasses, Alessio Piccinini, came and said that he could lead tours in Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, well, of course, Italian, English, German, and other European languages. They are all similar, only he does not know the Finnish-Ugric group well: he can explain himself, but he cannot lead the tour. Therefore, if we are Finns or Hungarians, then not everything will be clear to us.

I thought: “If he says that, maybe he really knows something,” and I asked him about the Etruscans. And the Etruscans are a difficult topic even for Italians. So he opened his mouth, after about five hours we were only able to slow him down a little. How he began to talk about these Etruscans: and the Etruscan museum showed, about which the other guides do not know, and walked through it, told where they came from, where they went and what they did, how they looked, what houses they built.

Within one day, I came across people who differ in intelligence by 200 units.

If people differ in intelligence by at least 50 units, then they will no longer be able to communicate with each other. They will sincerely consider each other complete idiots.

I gave my last book two titles: the main one is Entrepreneur's Intellectual Capital, and the second one is How to Make a Billion. Very symbolic, I always look at who uses what name, who needs what: who needs to become smart, and who needs a billion for free. True, it never happens for free, and if it does, it is for a very short time.

You will always have to convey information to the interlocutor in some way. Not everyone will be at your level of intelligence, and if you have to communicate with the proletarians, you need to have a translator, or act as a translator yourself. That is, speaking in the language of computer science: in order to switch from an object-oriented language to assembler, it is necessary to drive it through the translator. Objective-oriented can have a line, and assembler can have several pages. Not everyone knows how to descend to such a level that they can go down and explain everything slowly step by step so that it can no longer be confused. Therefore, either you yourself learn to work as a translator, or you must have a person who can translate into other languages.

A real case from my life: when I was building a dacha, two hard workers from Moldova worked there. I once gave them a task: “The well was dug, but the lid has not yet been brought to it, put together a round lid with a diameter of 1.5 meters from the boards.” Come back, show. Do not believe it: a square of two by two meters, two pieces. They didn’t know the word “diameter”, they mixed it up and decided to make it with a margin so that it would definitely close. And the boards are square, it is more convenient to leave them with corners. Two pieces, because suddenly one will break. They think in their own way, in their own language, they have their own thought process. And in order to communicate with them, you need to understand how their thought process goes. This is the objective picture of the world.

You can come to people and say: the book is called "The Decameron". How many people know the translation of the word "decameron"? (Answer: “100 short stories.”) If Boccaccio had called the book “100 short stories, or the Decameron,” he would have had a different readership. "100 short stories" - of course, small stories, one by one we will quietly read them. And the Decameron - who knows what is written there, take it in your hands, what if there is something complicated there? It’s better not to take it, so few people read this book by Boccaccio - the name is “terrible”, not everyone knows what it will be about.

In Russian, this is called “the well-fed does not understand the hungry”, but not because that one is hungry, but this one is full, but because these people speak and think in different categories. Accordingly, if you want to easily navigate a wide range of people, you must know the languages of these people. There is the language of professors, there is the language of students. There is a language closer to children's - thieves, where instead of "byaka", "lyalya" they say "a specific kid" or "cheap fraer". It's close to "byaka-lala", just a little higher on the floor, but you need to be able to speak this language if you are going to communicate. If you are going to talk to a policeman, you need to talk about the level of public order in the territory under your jurisdiction. This is his language, and he will understand you, he will treat you in accordance with the respect that he usually has for people who know such a language.

Look at Zhvanetsky's Monologue of a Patriot. It shows in four minutes the language of the proletariat spoken by these people. If you want to talk to them, learn to talk in this language, they will not understand you in another.

Finally, I will give 3 statements from the army language, which is extremely simple, sharpened so that everyone understands it, but, unfortunately, not everyone understands it:

1. A straight line, bypassing the authorities, is shorter than a straight line, laid through it. If you do not understand this fundamental phrase, it is better to just remember it, it will help you all your life. Older people understand very well how much shorter the first straight line is than the second. This is the wisdom of life, it will come with time, and not immediately.
2. When I was a student, we had Major Schmidt at the military department, he taught simply, clearly: everything that sticks out of the trench will be shot fucking. We, stupid, then laughed at him, thought: martinet, why is he talking like that? And only when they got older, they began to understand that he was right. He leaned out of the trench a little, no matter where: in peacetime or wartime, if the head is not covered with a helmet, they will shoot right away. Those. Before jumping out, you need to think.
3. The last simple statement: I want to sleep, and I feel sorry for the Motherland.

These are simple sayings, but they will help you in life. Thank you for your attention.