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Bias reduces noise—if you know <em>roughly</em> what to expect, then being biased by those expectations means you won’t get distracted by less relevant data points.

Bias is good

Article

If you haven’t heard of System 1 and System 2, you’ve probably heard one of its analogues. People who say ‘don’t let your amygdala hijack your frontal lobes’, or ‘get out of the sympathetic and into the parasympathetic nervous system’, or ‘something something vagus nerve’ are using pseudo-brain science to get at the same thing. But the thing everyone seems to have taken away from this book is the thing we always take away—System 1 stuff, a.k.a. bias is a bad thing. This is not what Kahneman was going for. Kahneman was trying to show us how both System 1 and System 2 have their place.
Bias reduces noise—if you know roughly what to expect, then being biased by those expectations means you won’t get distracted by less relevant data points.
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betterment gratification on-being-fruitful on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture thought-architecture wealth-architecture

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The ‘naming’ problem, where by naming something we feel we have explained it, the ‘language’ problem, where the words we use stop others from understanding, and the ‘question’ problem, where we fail to find the right questions, are common and funny.

There are no levels

Article

Today I want to tell a story. It’s one of my favourites. Certainly my favourite ‘when I was a consultant’ story. Hopefully, we’ll laugh a little, and then I’ll use it to point out three ‘problems’ that often get in the way of us solving other problems. I won’t really have a solution. I just think it’s amusing.
The ‘naming’ problem, where by naming something we feel we have explained it, the ‘language’ problem, where the words we use stop others from understanding, and the ‘question’ problem, where we fail to find the right questions, are common and funny.
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betterment gratification on-being-fruitful on-culture on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture

article

The ‘Great Man’ theory of history has the history of ideas moved forward by individuals. But by thinking of these as ‘Great Ideas’, or better ‘spirits’ of ideas, we’re encouraged to examine their motivations, which is surprisingly effective.

Great Spirits of History

Article

There’s this quote that floats around sometimes. It goes something like:‘If you don’t do the thinking, the thinking will be done for you’. This is usually presented like a bad thing, but really it’s often the only way to navigate the complexity of the world. Here’s one little tool for doing just that.
The ‘Great Man’ theory of history has the history of ideas moved forward by individuals. But by thinking of these as ‘Great Ideas’, or better ‘spirits’ of ideas, we’re encouraged to examine their motivations, which is surprisingly effective.
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betterment gratification on-(un)happiness on-culture on-politics-and-power on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture

article

AI alarmism thrives on speculative, worst-case scenarios, but our understanding of AI’s fundamentally alien nature and the complex forms of consciousness make me suspect that less stressful alternatives are equally plausible.

AI isn't that scary

Article

As a brain scientist, people often level questions at me about how worried we should be about the ‘rise of AI’. AIs are brain-like things, I study brains, people think I might have some ideas. I’m not really an AI person. But I do have some ideas, and since it keeps coming up, I thought I’d write them down. I’ll give you my usual counterpoints to the alarmist talking points. Then I’ll spend a bit of time talking about why I’m particularly not that worried about AI trying to kill us, from the perspective of someone who studies the brain.
AI alarmism thrives on speculative, worst-case scenarios, but our understanding of AI’s fundamentally alien nature and the complex forms of consciousness make me suspect that less stressful alternatives are equally plausible.
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betterment digital-architecture on-(un)happiness on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture

article

Fringe theories always seem to cluster together. It seems weird, but mainstream theories also do, we just don’t often examine them. Examining why different theory stacks arise reveals much about our biases, ideologies, and the influence of community-based knowledge.

Ideologies stack

Article

There’s a fairly well known observation that fringe or conspiracy theories ‘stack’. If I’m the kind of person who suspects we never landed on the moon, then others are much more likely to assume I harbour doubts about who shot JFK, or concern myself over the ‘real’ motives around the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But really, all theories ‘stack’ in a similar kind of way. Mainstream ones too. What I think makes these stacks interesting is looking at just what motivates these different stacks. When we compare those motivations to our own, we can learn something valuable about ourselves. Then we can learn more by asking why different stacks look different. Let me show you what I mean.
Fringe theories always seem to cluster together. It seems weird, but mainstream theories also do, we just don’t often examine them. Examining why different theory stacks arise reveals much about our biases, ideologies, and the influence of community-based knowledge.
Read this article

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betterment collective-architecture connection on-culture on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture
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