Convincing Your Future Self

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 i...
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What is the REAL effect of circumcising men?

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

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...
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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 understan...
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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!
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Which Risks of Dying Are Worth Taking?

October 16, 2013
First, click here to figure out your chance of dying tomorrow. Is it worth taking a 1 in 100,000 chance of dying , in order to experience the novel thrill of sky diving? Is a 1 in 500,000 chance of death worth it to go bungee jumping? It's hard to know whether these risks are reasonable, because numbers like 100,000 or 500,000 feel so abstract to us. To think more clearly about these numbers, ...
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Do Your Methods Reliably Lead You to the Truth?

Do Your Methods Reliably Lead You to the Truth?
October 8, 2013
Would you be satisfied believing merely what it's trendy to believe? If so, you can adopt the beliefs of the people of your country, city, and friend group. But if you want to reliably have truer beliefs, you're going to have to use different methods than most people do. Selecting which "epistemic methods" to rely on may be one of the most important decisions you make. Your epistemic methods ma...
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Why We Overvalue What We No Longer Have: The Psychology of Loss

October 3, 2013
We over value the things we have, overreact when we can't have something anymore, and resist change. In other words, we hate loss. But because loss is frequent and inevitable, our hatred of it guarantees that we suffer. Let's take a look at the psychological mechanisms that make us act this way. The Endowment Effect Suppose that Nathan and Mae are two students at the same school. It is randomly...
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How Can We Explain Tiny Startups Crushing Huge Tech Companies?

September 24, 2013
Suppose that mega-corp, a large corporation, has hundreds of employees, hundreds of thousands of customers, tens of millions of dollars of cash, a recognized brand, and an experienced CEO. Tiny-upstart, on the other hand, is just two twenty-five year olds with an idea, no funding, no users and no business experience. If mega-corp and tiny-upstart are in the same line of business, then by any r...
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Make a Plan to Improve Your Life

September 20, 2013
Have you considered creating a plan to improve your life? If not, how about doing it right now? Or if you don't want to make one for yourself, you can use this one. A friend asked me to help him make a plan to become happier. He is already pretty happy, but thought he could be more so. What you see below is the general life improvement plan we came up with, which should apply to most people (pl...
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