I’d be interested to know: what is missing from my new list of causes of bad things and potential types of solutions? Thanks to those of you who commented on my prior version!

Causes of bad things in the world:

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1) EXTERNAL CAUSES

1i) Nature or evolution (e.g., malaria, cancer) -> Potential solutions: technological development, such as medical cures

1ii) Bad luck (e.g., landslides, earthquakes, droughts) -> charity, government programs providing social safety nets

1iii) Scarcity (e.g., insufficient food or water in an area) -> migration away from high scarcity areas, technological development to increase food production

—
2) FAILINGS OF HUMAN NATURE

2i) Highly selfish actions by non-evil people (e.g., some of the crimes that are committed, some of the manipulation that occurs) -> cultural norms discouraging selfishness, cultural norms to punish those taking highly selfish actions

2ii) Harmful actions taken in highly emotional, confused, or desperate mental states (e.g., crimes of passion, harmful, desperate reactions out of fear, harm caused during extreme mental illness) -> widely available and effective mental health treatment, widespread education/training related to mental health and emotional regulation

2iii) Well-intentioned ideologues who are convinced that their simple but wrong model of the world is the absolute truth (e.g., some of the genocides and wars, many harmful yet well-intentioned policies) -> rationality education/training, a robust culture of respectful disagreement and debate

2iv) Cognitive biases leading to actions with severe negative consequences (e.g., greatly misjudging whether a project will bring enough benefit to be worth the cost, excessive fear towards or devaluing of ‘othered’ outsiders leading to mistreatment or harm to outsiders, lack of preparation for likely occurrences that are not salient) -> rationality education/training, careful design of systems to counteract biases, strong moral norms of respect towards all, moral circle expansion

2v) Retaliation or revenge (e.g., cycles of retribution) -> a culture of forgiveness, effective dispute resolution methods and institutions, reliable enforcement of laws

2vi) Evil people acting alone (e.g., serial murder, child abuse) -> effective police forces, high crime clearance rates, enforcement of laws, scientific investigation into the root causes of evil

2vii) Evil people who rally supporters (e.g., some genocides and wars, some extractive government policies) -> strong norms around truth telling and social punishment for lying, a robust culture of respectful disagreement and debate, a culture of empathy toward and acceptance of those who are different than you, a well-educated and informed citizenry, scientific investigation into the root causes of evil, a strong constitution, a strong independent judiciary, strong norms around maintaining freedom and independence of thought

—
3) CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION AND INFORMATION

3i) Negative-sum competition (e.g., fighting over food when there isn’t enough to go around) -> technological innovation to increase abundance, thoroughly enforced laws forbidding negative-sum behaviors

3ii) Unintended side effects of actions that are not innately unethical (e.g., addiction caused by the invention of social media, new promising-seeming medical treatments that turn out to have horrendous side effects) -> a robust and low-transaction cost systems for those who were harmed to be compensated by those who caused the harm, hard to undermine enforced regulation requiring organizations to ameliorate harms once they have been identified

3iii) Collective action problems and negative externalities caused by individually reasonable behavior (e.g., pollution, climate change, overuse of resources) -> methods for assigning prices to negative externalities so that someone bears the cost, regulation to limit negative externalities

3iv) Prisoner’s dilemmas and difficulties of pre-commitment and coordination (e.g., arms races, such as with nuclear weapons) -> technology to facilitate coordination and simultaneous action, public projects by governments and private donors

What other broad causes of bad things or potential types of solutions am I missing?

This piece was first written on November 2, 2025, and first appeared on my website on November 17, 2025.

When you pay attention to one thing, there is an opportunity cost – you could be paying attention to something else, like one of your loved ones, a meaningful project, your source of income, or a hobby you love.

When you get sucked into a dumb argument online or read an upsetting news story (that will never lead you to take any kind of positive action), you’re consuming moments of attention that could be better used.

What is less obvious than that, though, is that we can create more moments of attention – because often we’re not doing anything in particular, or we’re just partially paying attention, or we’re letting our minds wander without attention in a pointless or stressful way (rather than in an interesting, relaxing, fun or helpful way).

We can create more moments of attention within our familiar activities to make them even better – like being more present with a loved one or new acquaintance, noticing more fully the delicious flavor of our food, or being more focused during our work (to get closer to peak performance).

Attention is what our life experiences are made of; it’s worth paying attention to what we pay attention to.

Or, as Sam Harris puts it: “How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives.”

This piece was first written on July 9, 2024, and first appeared on my website on September 9, 2024.

This is not how the real universe works. But you know what actually does work this way? Social media. Let’s call it the law of Social Media Manifestation: you manifest what you pay attention to.

On Facebook, cute animals follow me around because I like cute animal photos. On Twitter, I don’t hear many angry guys muttering because I don’t click on the mutterings of angry guys. I do, however, hear many interesting ideas because I click on and like them.

If your social media is hell, don’t forget the law of Social Media Manifestation: you manifest what you pay attention to. If you want your social media to be full of interesting ideas and not brimming with angry guy mutterings, click on the former, not the latter.

If the real world worked this way, we might think it would be a paradise (all we have to do is focus on good things, and then good things will be all around us). But what social media teaches us is that if the real world worked this way, many of us would end up in a nightmare. 

Fortunately, with social media, it’s a nightmare that’s pretty easy to wake up from. But it requires clicking and liking based on what your higher self wants you to see rather than what your lower self feels a compulsion to see.

This piece was first written on November 7, 2023, and first appeared on this site on November 29, 2023.

A. FOCUS

1. Attention: focus on every detail of the experience much more intently than normal.

Ex: with each bite, notice as much as you can about the flavor and texture

Ex: try to hear every distinct instrument in the music as it comes in and fades out

2. Savoring: try to extend and enhance enjoyable moments by using “metacognition” – become aware of how much you’re enjoying the thing and how great you feel it is, even as you’re experiencing it.

Ex: remind yourself what an awesome conversation this is that you’re having right now and how deeply connected you feel to your friend

Ex: notice what a cozy moment it is curled up on the couch under that blanket, and relish the fact that it is so cozy

B. COMPANY

3. Collaboration: team up with a person you really like and work together on that activity as a team.

Ex: join forces with your roommate to make the most delicious meal you can that maximizes your joint eating preferences

Ex: Help your friend with their errands, and then have them help you with yours

4. Obsession: do it with someone who DEEPLY loves that thing.

Ex: watch a movie for the first time with a person who absolutely adores it and has seen it ten times

Ex: have someone who is obsessed with bouldering give you your first lesson.

C. GAMES

5. Gamification: turn the activity into a game.

Ex: compete with others (or your own past record) and see how quickly you can complete a boring but necessary/useful task

Ex: use a system like habitica (https://bit.ly/3tzCwoh) to give yourself rewards/upgrades for doing things you know you should be doing anyway

6. Adventure: turn the activity into an adventure. You need (i) a well-chosen team that is up for anything, (ii) a goal that is challenging enough that the team could fail at it, and (iii) a setup that will (safely and consensually) push the boundaries or comfort zones of the group, or that has a substantial perception of risk but without any substantial danger (see Jon Levy’s The 2 AM Principle for great ideas about how to turn things into an adventure: https://amzn.to/39T9JmV).

Ex: you and your band of friends must make five new friends tonight and convince them all to go somewhere fun with you

Ex: you (a programmer) and your friends (a designer and a psychologist) have given yourself six weeks to create a new (simple) digital product of some kind and launch it, with the goal of getting 500 people to try it – if you get 500 users you’ve won, regardless of what happens after that

D. FRAMING

7. Novelty: find a way to do or experience that thing in a way you haven’t done so before.

Ex: instead of hanging out with friends on zoom, try it in VR or on http://gather.town

Ex: try eating your popcorn with chopsticks – “It’s like eating popcorn for the first time.” (as in Rob Smith’s cool study https://bit.ly/3cQFQpo)

8. Re-pricing: imagine that you spent $1000 on this experience and that it is rightly considered the very best of its kind in the world. Try to engage with the experience from that perspective.

Ex: imagine this is the most expensive glass of cranberry juice ever purchased, and drink it with tiny, tentative sips as you analyze the experience like a wine connoisseur

Ex: imagine that you paid $1000 to have this hour hanging out with your dog. What would you spend that hour doing? Okay, well, do it!

This piece was first written on February 7, 2021, and first appeared on this site on August 5, 2022.

Do you struggle to remember people’s names after you meet them? Do you have a penchant for weird tricks? If you answered “yes” to those questions, you’re a great candidate to use my three-part weird trick to remember people’s names. I call it the “Tocayo Technique.”

I find it very effective, though unfortunately, I still don’t have a habit of using it as often as I should.

Step 1: Intention – before the person tells you their name, set an intention of actually remembering it. It’s too easy to not really be listening when a person says their name or to not even TRY to remember it.

Step 2: Repetition – say the person’s name back immediately when you learn it (e.g., “Nice to meet you, Isadore”). This is, of course, useful for memory, but it can also help you figure out if you misheard their name. You can also repeat their name in your head if there is no opportunity to say it aloud.

Step 3: Visualize

Branch 1: If you are aware of any other person with that same name (e.g., a friend or acquaintance, or celebrity), then:

Commonality: take a few seconds to notice anything this person has in common with the person you think of who has the same name (e.g., maybe they share the same haircut, or both are very tall, or both work in software), and then…

Confrontation: imagine that same-name person (i.e., the person’s Tocayo) interacting with or confronting the person you just met.

(If you are one of the people who has no mental imagery, then, unfortunately, this last part may not work for you.)

Ideally, this imagined interaction should involve something specific or relevant to the person who shares this new acquaintance’s name, and it should be as freaky and weird as possible. Weirdness makes the visualization more memorable.

Branch 2: If you can’t think of anyone who shares that person’s name:

Association: Think of the words that first come to mind that sound the most like the component sounds in the person’s name, and visualize (for a few seconds) some kind of narrative involving both this person and all those words.

Just be careful if the sounds aren’t exact fits, in which case you should try to remember what those sound differences are. Also, be aware that words can switch in your memory for their close synonyms. I once referred to someone named Sofas as “couch-us”! Fortunately, it wasn’t to their face.

So to summarize the Tocayo technique:

(1) Set an INTENTION to remember the person’s name.

(2) REPEAT the person’s name.

(3) If you can think of anyone with that name, notice any COMMONALITY between the two of them, then imagine them having a weird CONFRONTATION. Otherwise, ASSOCIATE each sound in the name with a word that sounds almost identical, and craft a narrative out of these words that involve the person.

Example 1: You are about to meet someone. You (1) set the intention of remembering their name. It turns out it is Tom. You (2) repeat the name by saying, “nice to meet you, Tom.” You think of Tom Cruise (since he is the first person who comes to mind that shares that name). You look for any similarities and notice that this Tom and Tom Cruise have similar hair.

Next, you imagine a confrontation between them and try to make it weird. In this case, you imagine Tom Cruise dropping down from the ceiling on a cable (Mission Impossible-style) and then mean-spiritedly licking his finger and sticking it into the ear of the Tom you just met. What is Tom Cruise’s problem? Hard to say. But the fact that he descended from the ceiling Mission Impossible-style will make it easy to remember it was Tom Cruise, and therefore, that this person is Tom.

Example 2: You meet someone named Natalie, setting the intention to remember her name and repeating it quickly in your head. You think of your friend Natalie (who’s a gymnast) and notice that they both have thinner than average lips. Then you imagine these two Natalie’s competing for who can do more double backflips in a row without making a mistake. It turns out this new Natalie can’t do any.

Example 3: You meet a new person, and when they tell you their name, it sounds like “su-kee.” You intend to remember their name, and say, “Nice to meet you, su-kee…did I say your name right?” When they confirm the pronunciation, you momentarily visualize that person picking up a magic key that they can point at any person to instantly initiate a lawsuit—a sue key.

Example 4: You are being introduced, and you decide you want to remember the person’s name, which sounds just like “ra-meer.” You repeat it quickly in your head, then you visualize Ra, the ancient Egyptian sun god, and watch in your mind’s eye as Ra morphs into a meerkat. A Ra-meer(kat).

I’m certainly not going to say this technique is EASY to do, but I think that after a little practice, you can likely learn to do it pretty reliably in 5-15 seconds or so. It also fails pretty gracefully. Even if you only achieve some of the steps, that’s still an improvement memory-wise over doing none of them. Just don’t try to do it right while someone is asking you a question!

I suspect that this technique works well for quite a few reasons, all of which relate to how (I think) memory works:

(1) Our visual memories are usually stronger than our auditory memories, so we want to get our visual system involved in the memorizing process. This is why the technique involves visualizations.

(2) Repetition helps memory, and carrying out the technique forces you to repeat the person’s name in multiple ways.

(3) Strangeness enhances memory, so by doing a strange visualization, you increase the chance that you remember it.

(4) Active generation of content tends to improve memory compared to passive processing, and the technique gets you to generate content rather than just listening to the person’s name.

(5) Paying attention increases memory, and when we are doing the technique, we’re forced to have focused attention at the moment when we hear a name.