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All Essays

How do we make our group conversations better?
Three hypotheses to consider when a medical issue can’t be diagnosed
Breaking out of Futility Loops
Has every made-up anecdote already happened?
A major (overlooked) reason why smart people fall for stupid things
How are personality traits distributed in the most popular personality frameworks?
Squeeglee – a missing emotion word in English for when you experience something that’s cute
Conducting Instantaneous Experiments
What happens when your beliefs can’t change?
Companies shirking their responsibility to make AI text detectable
Run Your Own Organic No-Prep City Scavenger Hunt
Understanding the Landscape of Viewpoints on the Risks and Benefits of AI
Merlin: a tribute to a cat I love
Always Conduct the “Simplest Valid Analysis”
Creating more moments of attention
Four extremely bad ideas that have been popular
How heritable are human traits like personality, height, mental health, physical health, education, religiosity, and conservatism? (h^2 estimates)
Are happiness and well-being the only things that people value?
Categorizing types of beliefs: Valuable Truths, Bitter Pills, Philosophical Disorders and Helpful Falsehoods
How can big problems get solved?
How to spot real expertise
Three motivations for believing
The benefits and soul-crushing downsides of A.I. progress
In memory of Daniel Kahneman, who accelerated our understanding of the mind
Seven simple but effective methods for improving your connection with others
Does money buy happiness, according to science?
I’m an extreme non-credentialist – what about you?
Do we all have strange beliefs?
When Is Gossip Good?
How great is the U.S., really?
Think smarter about what’s “good”
Oversimplifiers vs. Difference Deniers: a dynamic regarding group differences that leads to rage and confusion
Understanding two of the weirdest theorems in math: Gödel’s incompleteness
Four reasons art is made – and how they shape the art world
Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? – three theories and a lot of evidence
Improving your feed using the Law of Social Media Manifestation
Some Signs of Harmful or Untrustworthy Relationships
How to make OpenAI’s ChatGPT/GPT-4 work better: my favorite custom instructions
People often ask – why do girls like bad boys? But do women like bad guys, or do they actually prefer “powerful good guys”?
Human universals: 6 remarkable things I think are true of nearly all adults
Don’t let justified terror or rage cause you to do immoral things
What is Lightgassing? A way we harm people by validating their false beliefs
Eight ways you can validate someone’s emotions in a healthy way (and four strategies to avoid)
Five rules for good science (and how they can help you spot bad science)
Three reasons to be cautious when reading data-driven “explanations”
How to avoid feeding anti-science sentiments
Dealing with chronic pain: it’s in the way you move
Paving the road to hell with good intentions: four examples of good actors screwing things up
Six fresh takes on wisdom to help you become wiser
Valuism and X: how Valuism sheds light on other domains – Part 5 of the sequence on Valuism
False Beliefs Held by Intellectual Giants
If you think technological progress is inevitable, you’re mistaken
What countries have the most billion-dollar startup companies per capita?
Seven of the greatest academic works of satire of all time
Five metaphorical tools to help you climb your personal mountains
Four types of “designers” for software start-ups
What would a robot value? An analogy for human values – part 4 of the Valuism sequence
My rules for making great spreadsheets (in Google Sheets or Excel)
Did That Treatment Actually Help You?
13 metaphors to give the flavor of why sufficiently advanced A.I. could be extremely dangerous
Problems with meta-analyses
Should Effective Altruists be Valuists instead of utilitarians? – part 3 in the Valuism sequence
You can’t buy back time once you’ve spent it
What to do when your values conflict? – part 2 in the Valuism sequence
Doing what you value as a life philosophy – an introduction to Valuism – part 1 in the Valuism sequence – what are intrinsic values and why do they matter?
How can you help friends or family members who are struggling with a mental health challenge?
Personality traits as continuous spectrums
Reflecting on your life principles
Demystifying p-values
A step-by-step process to get full text access to most scientific and academic articles and papers
Importance Hacking: a major (yet rarely-discussed) problem in science
Four forces that tend to promote or impede ethical behavior
Nine ways that text-generating AIs will probably change the world in the next ten years
Eight methods to make conversations with acquaintances more interesting
How can we look at the same dataset and come to wildly different conclusions?
Life, death, and a squirrel
Awkwardly Embracing Awkwardness
Arguments For and Against Longtermism
Tensions between moral anti-realism and effective altruism
On Emotionally Reactive Traits: a hidden cause of drama and ruined relationships
Understand how other people think: a theory of worldviews
Why do some people oppose Roe v. Wade?
Understanding Relationship Conflicts: Clashing Trauma
Can you have causation without correlation? (Surprisingly, yes)
Seven reasons why you could be defining a concept ineffectively
The enduring wisdom of a disabled man born into slavery nearly 2000 years ago
Why I changed my mind about courage
Ten theories for how to achieve true happiness (and useful resources for you to try them out)
Addressing some common misconceptions about rape and sexual assault
Podcast transcription services comparison
Wishing you a happy new year, in all its meanings
Human behavior makes more sense when you understand “Anchor Beliefs”
Is every action secretly selfish?
Replica Theory
The ten most important components of self-compassion
How do we predict high levels of success?
Important (present and future) real-world applications of academic philosophy
What Are All the Things That Humans Need?
Three big reasons we struggle to find the truth
Is Learning From Just One Data Point Possible?
Why is Confirmation Bias So Common?
Mistakes Made by Minds and Machines
Why “nature plus nurture” is sometimes the wrong way to think
Soldier Altruists vs. Scout Altruists
It can be shockingly hard just to understand three variables
Tricks for Getting Started on a Project When You’re Stuck
What’s helpful and what’s unhelpful about postmodernism, critical theory, and their current intellectual offshoots?
Twelve Recursive Explanations
Ten weird moral theories
What social policies are low-hanging fruit in the U.S.?
Difficult truths that are part of being human
Seven amazing things we take for granted most of the time, ordered from least to most weird
Eight ways you can get more enjoyment from the same activity
Intersecting advice from highly successful people
What’s the link between depression and anxiety?
Is altruism rational?
Philosophical questions that arise when we compare reality to our subjective experience of it
On How to Process Your Emotions
The Reciprocation Problem
Seek the Root: how to handle requests more effectively
These epistemic methods really want you to trust them
Our Human Games: games are everywhere, and they matter more than most people think
Could You Be in One of These 8 Psychological Traps?
Weird but potentially valuable new roles we could have in our society
Many global challenges arise due to collective action problems or incentive misalignment
Ten things we each personally can do to help democracy:
The Fourier transform of happiness
The many forms of belief
How resetting your psychological baseline can make your life better
Deepities and deepifuls
The Power of “Familiar Yet Different”
Responsibility Mindset
Principles of Prioritization
The three big strategies I see for combating climate change
An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Traits
Ten pros and cons of starting a startup
Hypothesis about America: people are coming to realize society is messed up
Society and civilization: possible future paths
11 Types of Thinkers and Intellectuals (a little framework)
How Ideology Eats Itself
Idea-Inducing Questions
An unsettling conversation with GPT-3
On Philosophical Disorders
50 “Laws” of Everything
Dealing with damage before it wrecks you
Bias based on facial attractiveness
On “superstimuli” and their dangers
Three Types of Nuanced Thinking
The Four States of Distress: how should you comfort a friend or loved one in need?
Coronavirus Precautions
A Guide to Programming Yourself
The Question Looping Process: how to build great products by asking the right questions
A good manager CARES: the five aspects of being a good team manager
Remaining Mysteries of the Universe
Reasons to Forgive
Conversation Etiquette – How Much to Talk
Which of these supervillains could become a world dictator?
The FIRE Framework: deciding when to trust your gut
The “seven realms of truth” framework
My Top-10 Weakly-Held Policy Perspectives
The formula for productivity – and what you can do with it
Meaningful Hypothetical Traditions
Four tiny parables about starting a company
Computer Keyboard Commands That Actually Save Time
The Relationship Between Personality and Life Satisfaction
Non-Fiction That’s Worth Reading
Facial self-awareness – a psychological difference
Eight common, slick-sounding claims that I think are misleading – and their clunky alternatives
How word choice subtly manipulates us
The many ways to make inferences
The Inner Why Technique
Stability vs Acceleration
How good is our sense of taste? Do we even know what we actually like?
The Tocayo Technique to remember the name of a person you just met
The Museum of Questioned Quality
Boiling the conversation
Incentive misalignment and conflicts of interest
Maybe you can justifiably believe you can change the world with the right conditions
Minimizing Cognitive Loads
A thought experiment about what you’d be truly capable of doing (if you had no choice)
Understanding the Scope of Human Morality
Predictors of Extreme Success
How to Identify ‘Hot Topics’ in Various Fields of Study
How to run self-experiments to improve your life
Non-fiction books as black boxes: they are more than their ideas
The Costs and Benefits of Guilds
The Many Models for Depression
The many possible causes of large, positive changes in the world
Anonymized Responses to Taboo Questions – A Social Experiment
Simple Advice on Being More Likeable
Psychological Outliers
Testing a Theory Without an Experiment
Disputes Over How to Use Statistics in the Real World
Controversial Issues – Good, Bad or Both?
What People Want Most
Thinking Through Harmful Situations
Thoughts on Common Political Perspectives
Rules That Add Up to 100
Psychological Gulfs
20 Super-Helpful Life Hacks
Subtle Introspection
16 Potentially-Dystopian Utopias
Cool Reboot for More Energy
Ten Useful Reframings
13 Ways Some Companies Make Money While Causing Harm
A Simple Trick for Eating Healthier
Tips for Productive Disagreements
Strategies for Improving Motion Sickness in Vehicles
The Impact of Indirect Punishments
How to Have a Better Experience on Facebook
Time(line) of your Life!
Coming to Terms with Mortality
47 Nearly Effortless Ways to be a Better Human Being
Preventable Personal Dangers
The Problem with Pseudo Work
Restaurants I wish Existed
Mind-Bending Probability Questions
Ways to be a Better Friend
Useful Methods for Optimizing Space
Vacation Memories
Trying New Things – Why to do it and Many Things to Try!
Design for Non-designers – 39 Principles for Designing Effective Interfaces
The Theories of Change List: Causes of Behavior Quickly Shifting in a Positive Direction
Psychological Immune Systems – the List
Amazing Possibilities in Virtual Reality
Guessing the Probability Distribution
Nature Versus Nurture – Can We Know For Certain?
The Poison-Cactus-Vampire-Ward Problem
How To Be A Better Public Speaker
A Common Problem with Debates
23 High-impact Ideas for Living Life Well
The Brain of Theseus – a thought experiment
Can mental disorders have benefits?
Who Are We Kind To, Who Do We Kill?
A Formula for Happiness
How Companies Can Cause Harm
Excessive Acquiescence
Misjudging Repeated Risk
Tough Questions about Utopia
The Value of the Unsaid Obvious
What if “Free Will” Isn’t Guaranteed?
What Makes a Game Fun?
The Problems with Product Ratings
Goals are Valuable and Dangerous
Everyone is Fighting a Great Battle
Memorializing Compliments
Three Problems, Three Solutions, and the First Step
Productive Disagreements – An Interactive Event Format
The Maximally Cynical Glossary of Technology Terms
Your Best and Worst Influence – a two-minute social thought experiment
Friction in Relationships from Misunderstanding the Mind
Correlation Coefficient as a Gateway to Skepticism
Redesigning High School from Scratch
Problem-Solving Techniques That Work For All Types of Challenges
Predicting Depression
Making Your Experience on Social Media Better
A simple way to estimate confidence intervals that most people don’t know about that can also be used to estimate sample sizes or as an alternative to power calculations
Extreme Interventions that are Sometimes Life-Changing
Why do people not behave in their own self-interest?
Better Formats For Group Interaction – Beyond Lectures, Group Discussions, Panels and Mixers
The Stories Democrats and Republicans Don’t Agree On
What Health Advice Is There a Consensus On?
What Seemed Like Perfect Reasoning Utterly Failed
Convincing Your Future Self
What is the REAL effect of circumcising men?
How much should you actually tip doormen in New York City for the holidays?
When should you seek criticism?
Contradictory Insight
Which Risks of Dying Are Worth Taking?
Do Your Methods Reliably Lead You to the Truth?
Why We Overvalue What We No Longer Have: The Psychology of Loss
How Can We Explain Tiny Startups Crushing Huge Tech Companies?
Make a Plan to Improve Your Life
Break Your Downward Emotional Spiral
Know Your Addictions
Seek Criticism
Accepting Your Error Rate
Planned Resolutions: meeting goals, rather than just making them
How Journalism Distorts Reality
Don’t Always Desire Your Desires
Getting Yourself To Act How You Know You Should
Making Really Hard Decisions
How to learn from mistakes
The Nine Causes of Disagreement
Wanting While Not Wanting
Do We Know Why We Act?
How Great We Are
Testing Too Many Hypotheses
Your Beliefs as a Temple
Surprised? Update your model.
Deconstructing Accomplishment
Human Symbiogenesis
If That Didn’t Solve Your Problems, Try Something Else
Finding Our False Beliefs
(Almost) Everything is Uncertain
Finding Good Relationships Faster
Predicting Using the Past
Eschew Obscure Words
Viewing Your Time As Money
Your Law Firm Does Not Have Your Incentives
Adapting Your Expectations for Friendship
Careful Analysis vs. Automatic Processing
Keeping Ideas at a Distance Using Probability
You Know That Worst Problem In Your Life? Go Fix It!
Demystifying the Magic Of Attraction
Fighting Against Your Counterproductive Inclinations
Reimagining What You Think You Want
Agencies Are Not Agents
Planning Your Life Based on Your Ideal Ordinary Week
Truth Discernment Can be a Super Power
Experts Are Expert But Not Necessarily In What You Think
Changing Your Life Using Habits
The Interplay Between Your Reason and Emotions
What’s So Special About Your Own Beliefs?
Some Things Are Only In Your Simulation
Still Living with the Emotions of our Ancestors
Do We Really Read Non-fiction to Learn?
Novel Ways of Carving Up Knowledge
Should We Trust Our Gut? – The Idealization of Intuition and Instinct
Genesis according to science: The Empirical Creation Story
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