Why do people not behave in their own self-interest?

March 19, 2017

Naively, one might assume that people do what it benefits them to do. In fact, that's an assumption commonly made in economics. Yet it's clear that our behavior is not always in our own self-interest. People frequently buy fake supplements, try drugs they know are highly addictive, eat things they know they'll later regret, drive away the people they love most, procrastinate on really important things, and so on. So why do we behave in these strange ways? Well, here's my list of reasons we ...

Better Formats For Group Interaction – Beyond Lectures, Group Discussions, Panels and Mixers

March 5, 2017

Nearly all large events use a combination of only these four simple formats for human interaction: lectures, group discussions, panels, and mixers. Yet there are more than 45 structured ways that groups of people who don't know each other can come together to interact, bond, learn, and help each other (see my full list at the bottom of this article, or click here for a spreadsheet version). Unfortunately, each of the four standard group interaction templates has significant flaws: Lecture ...

The Stories Democrats and Republicans Don’t Agree On

January 20, 2017

In efforts to encourage understanding and openness on Inauguration Day, we wrote a pair of simple, short essays. One is designed to capture the views of the majority of Clinton supporters, the other, the views of the majority of Trump supporters. We had 80 supporters from each group read the corresponding essay and rate whether they agreed or disagreed with each sentence, and whether they agreed with the essay overall. After adjustments based on the feedback we received, we published the two...

What Health Advice Is There a Consensus On?

January 16, 2017

What recommendations related to diet, nutrition and health seem to be universally agreed on by experts of nearly all stripes and schools of thought? Given the incredibly high levels of disagreement in these areas, and the poor quality of studies, it often seems like we know almost nothing. Below is my attempt (via a combination of brainstorming and crowdsourcing) to list what there does seem to be a high rate of consensus on. Please let me know if you notice any mistakes. Tentative L...

What Seemed Like Perfect Reasoning Utterly Failed

February 1, 2014

Does warm water sometimes freeze faster than cold water when placed in the same conditions? "Absolutely no way," I said, a mere minute after I heard the claim. "People sometimes claim that NASA faked the moon landing too," I thought to myself. I pointed out why this claim is impossible. As warm water cools it must eventually reach the same temperature that the cool water started at. From that point on, the warm water will behave just like the cool water, but it will have taken the warm water a ...

Convincing Your Future Self

January 31, 2014

You have control over yourself for the next eight seconds. Maybe even the next three minutes. Right now you can choose to go to the gym right now. Right now you can choose to start something difficult (but valuable) that you've been putting off for a long time. But right now you can't choose to go to the gym tomorrow. You definitely can't choose to quit your job a year from now. Because tomorrow if you don't feel like it, you're not going to go to the gym, regardless of what the you of today dec...

What is the REAL effect of circumcising men?

January 27, 2014

Those who grow up in the U.S. are often surprised to find out that in many European countries almost no men are circumcised. In the U.S., where the majority of men have had the procedure performed on them, it is pretty common to hear people say that foreskin is unclean, ugly, or even unhealthy. On the other hand, Europeans tend to find the idea of circumcision bizarre. "Why would you cut off a healthy part of your body?", they wonder. And "How would you feel about a culture that cut off their ch...

How much should you actually tip doormen in New York City for the holidays?

December 23, 2013

If you live in a building with doormen or doorwomen in New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc.), you are probably confused right now about how much you are expected to tip them for the holiday season. Nobody I've spoken to seems to really be confident in their answer to this and articles give conflicting advice on what a reasonable bonus is. That's why I made this little program to help solve the problem. Just click below, and answer a few quick questions in order to get an estimate of how muc...

When should you seek criticism?

December 11, 2013

A while ago I wrote a post about the incredible value of seeking criticism. Today, someone asked me how we should decide when to seek criticism. Or, as he put it, when should we expect other people to have a better understanding of us than we ourselves do? Here are some rules of thumb. It’s generally a good idea to seek criticism from others when: You care about having an accurate understanding of how others perceive you. It is easy to go for decades without realizing that your posture ma...

Contradictory Insight

November 7, 2013

I was recently having a conversation with Geoff A. and Jana G. about how to systematically generate surprising ideas. I then sat down and created this program with them based on our discussion. Take a minute to try it, and generate some insight that you've never considered before! Click here to run Contradictory Insight!