An obvious realization I had a few years ago, that helped me be less judgmental and more compassionate: you never know what kind of challenges a person is dealing with in their life, and their challenges could be much harder than you would ever imagine based on what you know of the person casually. It could be: a medical condition that significantly impacts their quality of life (but that they...

A practice I highly recommend, that few people have tried: keep a list of the most meaningful compliments people have given you, review it at periodic intervals, or when you could use a boost. Why discard these valuable things in the leaky waste bin we call memory?The flip side of this, of course, is: if you have a meaningful and genuine compliment to give, then don't forget to tell the person...

If there was a technique that might improve your life in just 5 minutes, would you use it? If so, why not give this one a try? Step 1: Write down a list of the three most significant problems in your life right now Example: The three biggest problems are - (1) I don't feel rested when I wake up (2) I worry too much (3) I need to make a difficult decision at work Step 2:&nb...

I ran a "Productive Disagreements" event last night, a new interactive format I've been working on where attendees practice structured disagreements on controversial topics in order to learn from each other and get experience accurately modeling other people's perspectives. Here are the materials, in case you want to run an event like this or just learn about the format: Part 1: Brief prese...

Feeling cheery about technology and optimistic about the future, but still confused by what exactly "Deep Learning" and "Quantum computing" mean? Here's your antidote: the Maximally Cynical Glossary of Technology Terms. Not to be taken too seriously :) A Android phones: the closest a company can get to making an iPhone while risking only a dozen lawsuits (see entry on “iPhones”) Artificial In...

A simple 2-minute social thought experiment for you: Note: I highly recommend that you don't just read this list of steps, but instead, that you actually do them! Reading these steps will not give you any benefit, but doing them might! Step 1 - Think for a moment about the person who is the best influence on you, or the person in your life you don't see that much that you most admire the...

I've noticed that a significant amount of friction is created among friends and in romantic relationships due to inaccurate models of how the human mind works, and due to unrealistic expectations of the brain. Usually, these involve assuming that someone did something that you don't like on purpose when it would be more accurate to say they did the thing automatically (and they may need signi...

The correlation coefficient as a gateway to radical skepticism:Suppose you calculate that two variables are moderately correlated. For instance, you find that self-reported happiness has a correlation r=0.32 with self-reported willpower, as I found in one of my studies. What are the possible explanations for (or causes of) this? A Causes B - Increasing A is a cause of increasing B but not...

It's surprising how often, in highly complex domains where we are trying to figure out what to do, an obvious or simple default can perform extremely well. This is sometimes even true when the defaults are clearly not optimal. Here are simple defaults in four complex domains that can be surprisingly hard to outperform: 1. Charity: give money to the poorest non-drug addicted people you c...

If you were redesigning high school education from scratch, what material would you include in the curriculum (assuming it's a well funded high school), that is generally not taught in high schools today? Some classes that I might want to include are: Thrive: staying happy and healthy. This could include:  Cognitive-behavioral therapy skills training (to help ward off depres...