Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? – three theories and a lot of evidence

November 10, 2023

As you may know, Sam Bankman-Fried ("SBF") was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He now faces the potential of more than 100 years in prison. I've been trying to figure out how someone who appears to believe deeply in the principles of effective altruism ("EA") could do what SBF did. It has been no surprise to me to see that the actions he was convicted of are nearly universally condemned by the EA community. Could it be that he did not actually believe in EA ideas despite p...

Improving your feed using the Law of Social Media Manifestation

November 7, 2023

Imagine you lived in a universe where whatever you give your attention to gets drawn to you. So, if you pay attention to cute dogs on the street, you'll soon be followed by cute dogs all the time. And if you pay attention to the angry guy muttering to himself, soon there will be angry mutterers all around you. This is similar to what new age spiritualism calls the Law of Attraction ("you attract into your life what you focus on"). This is not how the real universe works. But you know what ac...

Some Signs of Harmful or Untrustworthy Relationships

November 3, 2023

Image generated by Clearer Thinking team using Adobe Express

Coauthored with the Clearer Thinking team and cross-posted from the Clearer Thinking blog. We recently conducted qualitative research by crowd-sourcing over 100 open-ended responses to the question: "What signs do you look for that help you identify people who are likely to be untrustworthy or who are likely to hurt you if they become your close friend or partner?" We thought the answers contained some insights that may help you to identify people with whom it would be risky ...

How to make OpenAI’s ChatGPT/GPT-4 work better: my favorite custom instructions

October 25, 2023

I've done a bunch of experimentation with giving permanent custom instructions to ChatGPT/GPT-4. Below, I've included the set of custom instructions that seem to work the best for me. Feel free to use these instructions if you find them helpful (you can make them permanent so they get used with every prompt you send to GPT by adjusting your settings): -In your responses, channel the wisdom of the greatest minds that have ever lived, like [list whoever you think are the greatest minds...

People often ask – why do girls like bad boys? But do women like bad guys, or do they actually prefer “powerful good guys”?

October 25, 2023

People often talk about how women are attracted to "bad guys" and don't actually like the "nice guys," or they ask, "Why do girls like bad boys?" or "Why do girls like mean guys?" In my opinion, these views are based on misunderstandings of what is attractive. It's definitely true that some women are attracted to traits like narcissism, callousness, and manipulativeness (and some unusual women even go so far as to write letters to serial killers to get to know them). In my experience, though...

Human universals: 6 remarkable things I think are true of nearly all adults

October 20, 2023

Some remarkable things I suspect are true of nearly all adults: 1) We each hold some beliefs that are almost totally non-responsive to evidence involving some combination of our identity (who we are), our group, the nature of reality (e.g., God), or the nature of what’s good. Examples: • Many have an unshakable belief that they are good even as they harm the world (or believe they’re insufficient even though they’re altruistic and productive) • Most have an unshakable belief that t...

Don’t let justified terror or rage cause you to do immoral things

October 17, 2023

When extremely angry, or extremely wronged, or when one has undergone incredible suffering, or when filled with belief in one's righteous mission, it becomes very tempting for many people to ignore very strong moral norms. But that's also how so many others in the past made grave moral errors. Right now, it seems important to make an assertion that is so obvious that one shouldn’t have to say it: Even in a war, all militaries/armed groups should be very careful to avoid unnecessar...

What is Lightgassing? A way we harm people by validating their false beliefs

October 1, 2023

Gaslighting, where someone causes another person to doubt their sanity or senses, can cause psychological damage. There's an opposite thing, though, that can also be damaging. As far as I know, it has no name. I call it "lightgassing" (or "light gassing"). Here, I explain how lightgassing works. Lightgassing is when one person agrees with or validates another person's false beliefs or misconceptions in order to be supportive. Unlike gaslighting, a tactic of jerks and abusers,...

Eight ways you can validate someone’s emotions in a healthy way (and four strategies to avoid)

October 1, 2023

A lot of times, when people are upset, they want their friends and loved ones to "validate their feelings." I think there is a lot of confusion about what it really means to "validate feelings," and I also believe there are both healthy and unhealthy forms of doing this validation. Healthy vs. Unhealthy Emotional Validation I would say that the main difference between the healthy validation of emotions and the unhealthy version is that the healthy version is based on genuine c...

Five rules for good science (and how they can help you spot bad science)

September 22, 2023

I have a few rules that I aim to use when I run studies. By considering what it looks like when these rules are inverted, they also may help guide you in thinking about which studies are not reliable. (1) Don't use a net with big holes to catch a small fish That means you should use a large enough sample size (e.g., number of study participants) to reliably detect whatever effects you're looking for! (2) Don't use calculus to help you assemble IKEA furniture That means...