Nearly all controversial issues (i.e., nuclear power, marijuana legalization, and minimum wage increases) have both benefits and drawbacks. Yet our brains resist seeing issues that way. It’s easy for us to believe that our side is fully right, and therefore that the other side is completely wrong. That’s typically what both our own side and the other is convinced of, and usually, we’re all mis...

What do people want more than anything else in the world? I explored this question by running two little studies across two different populations: mechanical turk (“mturk,” n=49, all U.S.) vs. my Facebook friends (“FB,” n=111, who tend to be in the U.S.) with different approaches, me hand categorizing written responses vs. participants selecting the category that best matches what they wrote u...

Possible solutions to a harmful situation you are in can usually be categorized into just four types. You can: Exit, Alter, React, or Reframe. To elaborate, if a situation is causing you harm, you can: (1) EXIT the situation so that it can’t harm you anymore. For instance, if you’re in a burning building, you can try to leave the building. (2) ALTER the nature or characteristics of t...

Personal freedom (often part of liberal and libertarian perspectives): (1) People seem better at understanding what is good for them, as individuals, than regulators are at figuring out what those same people need, so I think personal freedom to do what you like should be the default position unless there is a good reason to deviate from it. (2) I think it makes our society better, on avera...

100/0 rule - you should be 100% certain 0% of the time. 80/20 rule - 80% of output is caused by 20% of effort (not literally true, but true in spirit most of the time). 77/23 rule - the poorest 77% of the world’s population accounts for approximately 23% of the world’s income (GDP figures 2010) [1] 75/25 rule - not more than 25 percent of the total unlicensed seaman on board a documented...

Here's my list common differences between people that are so large that those at the extreme opposite ends of the trait (say, the 5th percentile vs. 95th percentile) have a very hard time understanding and relating to each other. What would you add to the list, and what am I getting wrong? Note: each of these examples is supposed to illustrate a somewhat extreme form of each trait for clarity ...

Part 1: LEARNING HACKS 1. Crowdsource improvements to ideas: when you come up with a new idea or are mulling over a complex idea and still find yourself uncertain or confused about it, post to Facebook explaining the idea, and explain that you're curious to hear what other people think about it, or whether they agree or disagree and why, or what their own theories about it are. Crowdso...

Here are ten subtle things it's easy to miss about yourself that you may find it valuable to pay mindful attention to: Your natural posture when sitting at your computer → this may affect how your body feels in 20 yearsWhere emotions manifest in your body (e.g., I feel anxiety in my chest and annoyance as a twinge in my face) → greater awareness here may help you more quickly and accurately id...

Suppose that humans one day (whether 20 or 200 years from now) create far more advanced technology, with power sufficient to reshape what the world is like, and even to determine what humanity becomes. If that comes to pass, we’re going to be in trouble unless we also reach a better understanding of our own values and resolve the inconsistencies in them. We don’t have sufficient clarity on our...

Do you tend to feel tired or 'out of it' midday? Do you not want to waste the rest of the day feeling like garbage? Try a Cool Reboot! It layers together six different techniques for feeling awake and only takes 30 minutes. Ingredients (all optional, skip any that you can't do now or don't like): - a very caffeinated beverage - a timer with an alarm (e.g., on your phone or alarm cl...