You Are Not So Smart

Now, for whatever reason, nothing has effectively changed and millions suddenly care This was discussed on a You Are Not So Smart [1] episode some time over the last few months (I had a look but couldn't find it). The basic idea was that collective behaviour can change in an instant because of multiple pressures that have been building over time and looking for a single cause (or trigger) is fruitless because no one event has any great significance per se. The closest that Google would bring me is a paper on 'Threshold Models of Collective Behavior' [2]. [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/ [2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778111?seq=1

http://youarenotsosmart.com/ ,book and podcast, is also pretty great

I've struggled with this, but feel that I've made some headway in the past decade, so for what it's worth, here are my two cents (YMMV): I'd say start by conscious effort, and then eventually you can build intuition and 'empathy' in a more traditional sense (and your mirror neurons might even help you understand your own feelings better that way too, as seeing something in others might help you recognize those same things in yourself). Whenever you interact with a person, consciously ask yourself questions like 'how does this person feel?', 'how do they perceive me?', 'what are they trying to achieve?', 'what do they think I am trying to achieve?', 'in what context will they interpret the things I say?' and so on. Even if you won't have a lot of those answers, just making yourself aware that there is information there that you are missing is a valuable step in noticing it - and teaching yourself to care about that dimension of the human experience. Understanding what goes on inside a person is not unlike playing an imperfect knowledge game, e.g. reading someone's hand in poker - a combination of observation, prior knowledge, statistics and logic can help gain you insight into likely scenarios (e.g. "Aggressive behavior is often due to being stressed, or feeling threatened - this person is normally well-mannered, so they are likely under stress right now, so instead of snapping back at them, I could ask them if there's anything I could help with - assuming they normally trust…

Agreed wholeheartedly. I was recently listening to the podcast You Are Not So Smart with an interview from an author named Britt Frank [0]. She discusses exactly the problem with low value therapists and how they can actually be really harmful as part of a broader conversation about feeling “stuck”. I really recommend the episode. After listening, I ordered the book, but haven’t yet read it, so I cannot recommend the book just yet. [0]: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2022/04/05/yanss-229-britt-franks-advice-…

I'm not so sure. All of my friends who aren't getting the vaccine and vocal about it are pushing some pretty out there reasons. It may have started from relatively reasonable reasons, but it has morphed into an especially vitrolic ideology and in-group signaling rather quickly. Also, a lot of polls show there is a sticky group of people who will never get it and that population hasn't changed much over time. So at this point there's not much you can move the needle on them via facts and all that. Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying. Highly recommend the You Are Not So Smart podcast on how to have beneficial discussions with anti-vax individuals. One key is don't use social media (eg in public). https://youarenotsosmart.com/2021/08/23/yanss-213-how-to-improve-your-…

I highly recommend an episode of the podcast "You Are Not So Smart" where David McRaney speaks with Misha Glouberman who explains "How to talk to people about things", it's a fantastic list multiple times over - https://youarenotsosmart.com/2018/12/17/yanss-143-how-to-talk-to-peopl…

I never tried the AirPods so I can't comment on their quality, though I'm all for wired ones so it won't happen anytime soon. Quality aside, psychology can explain a things or two on why people absolutely love what they spend money on. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/

Here's a good read about the "just world" fallacy: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/ And indeed "credit" comes from the latin word for trust.

Everyone has cognitive biases, yes; this podcast, which I direct you to specifically [1] has made me realise more readily the biases I have and allows me to attempt to correct for them. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/

I scan RSS feeds of the obvious sites: NYT, WaPo, ZDNet, Ars, Verge etc Otherwise I go to Twitter, HN and The Guardian every day, plus Reddit, Amazon and Facebook every few days (often it's to wish someone a happy birthday). I also like The Wirecutter for reviews, Authority Nutrition https://authoritynutrition.com/ for food info, Dilbert and xkcd for cartoons, and YouAre Not So Smart https://youarenotsosmart.com/ for essays.

>my friend was really good at Quake no, he wasnt:( he was just better than you. Reaper on default skill 1 was an ok challenge for average players. Skill 3 was a competitive against good players, but still nothing special against deathmatch veteran spending days in gaming cafes or internet servers. For reference best Quake bot, Omicron(dev went to work for ID software and wrote Quake3 AI etc) on highest skill level vs actually good dm player https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEeDXPkEnME also https://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/11/10/yanss-podcast-036-why-we-are-u…

You are not so smart podcast did a great 3 parter on this topic. https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/ #93, #94, #95

As others have mentioned, what you've described is survivorship bias and it's prevalent in many places. I found the following to be an excellent and very readable article on the topic. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/

In addition to Connections and tDtUC, I also recommend this[1] interview, in which Burke discusses current problems related to privacy and technology, the balkanization of traditional social structures, speculation about using technology to replace important decision-making with a continuous Delphi-technique-style referendum, and social responsibility in a post-scarcity future. https://youarenotsosmart.com/transcripts/transcript-interview-with-jam…

You may be referring to the result that exposing people to evidence contradicting their beliefs actually increases the strength of those beliefs (older than a few months, though). Pop-sci level article at http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ This doesn't reduce to "impossible to persuade most people of a contrary position." It just means that you have to employ methods of persuasion, i.e. rhetoric. This was obvious in classical Athens, when people heard news and discussed politics in public, but is apparently harder to grasp in our society.

"You are not so smart" by David McRane touches the same topic. It goes through the long list of ways we are fooling our selves or "not being as smart as we think we are". And for each case he is also referencing the studies proving this. http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Smart/dp/1592407366 He also has a blog with the same name as the book that covers the same topics (I believe the book came out of the blog): http://youarenotsosmart.com

99% Invisible - http://99percentinvisible.org/ You Are Not So Smart - http://youarenotsosmart.com/ NPR Planet Money - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/

A few weeks ago, the You Are Not So Smart podcast talked about this. I really recommend it to anyone interested in this 10K hour thing http://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/08/14/yanss-podcast-030-how-practice-…

But that's a game everybody rigs to their own advantage: ignorance is defined as not knowing something that I know. You always win, everybody else always loses. That person who doesn't know what Lisp is, might be an expert on finite state machines and maybe you don't know anything about that. Or maybe they're just junior: someone with great potential to grow but without the benefit of experience. Surely there's better ways of detecting who's an idiot and who isn't than a jargon competition. Also see http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-asymmetric-insi…

Despite having a very long wish list of things I long for to do, I am usually in for redditing, reading HN, sitcoms, booze and weed. I hadn't opened Sublime for past two months, neither read anything nor any activity faintly productive. After reading an amazing article [1], I have beginning to feel an amazing happiness with everything I am doing now and it just so simple. The trick is to ask yourself every time you start doing something: "What I will be doing now, Will it help me in future in anyway?". Of course, you must not drag yourself to despise everything not related to higher gains but realize that life in the future is function of what you do now, and the decisions you make. [1]: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/

Depend how you define being smarter. Being aware of your bias is a possible initial approach. For a list try start reading from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases (some of them have nicer explanation in i.e. http://youarenotsosmart.com/ )

That may not be the best thing to do. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/08/11/catharsis/

A blog (and a book) related to the subject: http://youarenotsosmart.com/ I really enjoyed the book, fun read.

Watch out for the Anchoring Effect: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/27/anchoring-effect/ Is the population of Venezuela greater or fewer than 65 million? Go ahead and guess. Ok, another question, how many people do you think live Venezuela?

I'm shocked that no one has mentioned http://youarenotsosmart.com/ > The central theme of You Are Not So Smart is that you are unaware of how unaware you are. There is branch of psychology and an old-but-growing body of research with findings that suggest you have little idea why you act or think the way you do. Despite this, you continue to create narratives to explain your own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and these narratives – no matter how inaccurate – become the story of your life.

My experience shows me that there are no magic snake instant solutions. The only way to improve productivity is to gradually change your everyday routine for the better. One can do it by trying different things and sticking to the ones that work for you. One thing that is certain is that guilt and self-loathing are as unproductive as it gets. This approach won't get you far because the brain doesn't work that way. I am sure we all have read plenty articles on this issue [1]. For example, try something along the lines of Magic Work Cycle [2] or Pomodoro technique [3]. Caffeine and other nootropics can also be helpful. Jogging is the best nootropic I know. [1] http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/ [2] http://www.magicworkcycle.com/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique I hope some of it was useful.

I love coffee way too much, but i am increasingly finding that this is a bad idea. The more coffee i drink throughout the day the worse i feel in the morning, even when i get a reasonable amount of sleep. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/22/coffee/

Thanks, I enjoyed this post. I don't resonate with everything he says, but it was worth reading. The more philosophical points of his post were an interesting contrast to this piece I read yesterday: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-asymmetric-insi… Reading the OP I was actually a bit put off by what seems like vague braggadocio, but then I turned it around on myself - maybe that's me suffering from the same illusion as a mask for my own jealousy?

We do have some choice (ok, barring the free wil debate, which is for more than I'd like to go into), but we are also largely effected by our cognitive and biological biases. For some easy to dive into examples, check out http://youarenotsosmart.com/. Don't take that name as an insult; it's a fascinating, well written, and yet easily digestible look at the myriad biases we all have. I think we have a lot less choice than we like to believe.

http://xkcd.com/192/ http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ For people that already have misgivings about interviewing for a position at Google, I'm sure this post was a god send. I mean, after reading all those "google is great" love-posts, you read one that points out flaws, and all of the sudden that's the one to read? All the others go out the window? How does that work?