The Social Influence Effect “You are the average of the top 5 people you spend the most time with.” This phrase strikes a chord with many of us—even if it’s surely a crude heuristic rather than a scientific law, it carries an intuitive truth. Yet within this simple observation lies a cycle: our social environments […]
The Social Elevation Loop Read More »
“In each of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves.” – Carl Jung Have you ever noticed how your mind contains multitudes? How different aspects of your personality debate, argue, and collaborate when
AI Personas – A Method for Summoning Digital Spirits Read More »
Heuristics – Why life is too complex to account for everything I first learned the word ‘heuristic’ from Daniel Kahnemann’s phenomenal book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” In that book, Kahnemann identifies two different mental modes we operate in – System 1, and System 2. System 1 is a more ancient system in our brain, refined
42 Rules, Tools and Heuristics to Become Better at Living Life Read More »
Dreams and Perceptions I’m sure you all feel it sometimes. It doesn’t matter how productive you are, how successful you are, or how many to-do list items you’re checking off, you still get that nagging feeling. Am I doing enough? Am I falling behind? Why haven’t I achieved my goals and dreams? Will I ever
The Eudaimonic Path – How to be Happy Read More »
Any study of the authoritarian nightmares of the 20th century is usually enough to make anyone wary of governments – a glimpse into the excesses of both state power and incompetence, and the vast human toll it can collect. Certainly in the last few years I’ve become more and more wary of any bureaucratic institution
Moloch and the Mob Boss – The Balance Between Freedom and Order Read More »
When life gets you down, it’s worth remembering that anybody with internet access can freely download and read the entire Harvard Classics – thousands of hours of cultivated quality reading that would have been the envy of virtually anyone in history. In a spontaneous (and perhaps over-ambitious) desire to read the whole thing, I began
I Created Ben Franklin’s Virtue Journal in Notion Read More »
It’s been a while since I dragged myself off of Twitter and its many cousins – for those who use social media frequently, the phantom limb of its absence is often keenly felt. Many people find, despite their conscious effort, that they’ve brainlessly opened up Twitter, Reddit or Tiktok, and had been scrolling for minutes
Social Media Poisoning Read More »
Anybody who had their ear to the ground regarding Artificial Intelligence for the last year – and many who didn’t – will know that the technology has improved at a dramatic and frankly startling pace, and in many domains we least expected. AI generated art – by tools like Dall-E and Midjourney – evolved from
Many of us have an idea of morality and virtue, but if pressed to define it, I imagine we might struggle. Many of us have become disentangled from religion in the empirical modern world, and ethics can become fuzzy without the moral authority of religion to shape it for us. One should be wary of
The Ancient Virtues Read More »
I used to consider the ability to read a lot of books a good in and of itself. I kept a list of every book I finished, and set myself reading goals of finishing 3 or 4 a month – child’s play for some of our more prodigious readers out there. Today I want to
Don’t Read to Read, Read to Learn Read More »
