Respect for elders compensates for our short-term memory. Nice idea. Traditions (which are societies habits [btw., connect it to chyba R: Hooked by Nir Eyal where he said that habits are a way for your mind to save energy]) do that in general.
How to handle complex (seemingly random) information if we shouldn't compress it?
Splitting it up into smaller parts? You can then test them more quickly. Also, smaller parts have less Black Swans, because you're simplifying less. So you can get an understanding of a complex thing by splitting it into less complex parts which you can understand and then combine them to understand the whole. It also relates to knowing the basics. Understanding the building blocks of the subject will make you less liable to oversimplification because you'll already have true parts of it. This also speaks to first principles thinking as a tool to splitting and getting to the truth.
Experimentation?
Using computers?
Finding answers from others, preferably elders or old books, because they're the repositories of complicated inductive learning which passed the test of time.
Giving it time—"procrastinating" on reaching conclusions—saying "I don't know" until it plays itself out or until you reach greater understanding by following the previous steps or until the unconscious connects the dots (link to time of slack and better decision making)
I must determine what motivation really is and how it relates to the trigger from R: Hooked by Nir Eyal and to the Why from Start with why and to the Emotion from the ELMR and to the Maslov's Pyramid of Needs and so on. What Maslow and Fogg talk about seems to be psychological motivation, which isn't rationalized. Rather, it's biological and we're largely unconscious of it. The Why from Start with why reminds a more rational value statement coming from our conscious mind. (maybe that's the thing that lets us rise above our biological imperative—procreation—and do what we consciously want?) But now I recall that the why usually comes from emotions, which mostly are irrational. I don't know. Explore the question: can we rise above our biological imperative—procreation—and have true free will—i.e., not be unconsciously motivated by biology but choose, independently, what we want to pursue?