Archive

24 issues · 65 links · Updated weekly

  1. Issue 24 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Ads Don't Work That Way Kevin Simler Advertising often works by changing what a product means in public culture, not by secretly implanting a feeling in each consumer.
    • 02 Better Than Free Kevin Kelly When copies are free, durable value comes from qualities that cannot be copied, such as trust, immediacy, interpretation, and access.
    • 03 Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality Scott Alexander Strong priors can twist every new observation into support, so escaping them requires gradual exposure and explicit mechanism-based reasoning.
  2. Issue 23 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process Henrik Karlsson Good work and good lives often emerge by letting the situation teach you their form instead of forcing a vision onto them.
    • 02 Looking for Alice Henrik Karlsson Important relationships are discovered through particular people, not categories, and social advice can steer us toward safer but flatter choices.
    • 03 Crony Beliefs Kevin Simler Some cherished beliefs serve social identity more than truth; the strongest emotional reactions can reveal when that is happening.
  3. Issue 22 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Goodhart's Law Isn't as Useful as You Might Think Cedric Chin Goodhart's Law describes a failure mode, but improving the process and watching controllable inputs is more useful than repeating the slogan.
    • 02 A blog post is a very long and complex search query Henrik Karlsson A precise public essay does not broadcast to everyone; it finds the small group of people who can recognize and extend its question.
    • 03 Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born Henrik Karlsson Early ideas often sound bad, so creativity depends less on talent than on protecting private space where they can develop.
  4. Issue 21 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 95%-ile isn't that good Dan Luu Basic deliberate practice is rare enough that modest improvement among practitioners can place someone near the top of the whole population.
    • 02 Why is it so hard to buy things that work well? Dan Luu Markets often reward claims of quality more reliably than quality itself because customers cannot easily evaluate what they buy.
    • 03 Don't Read History for Lessons Cedric Chin History is better for learning concepts and calibrating what is possible than for extracting simple lessons that supposedly apply everywhere.
  5. Issue 20 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Staring into the abyss as a core life skill Ben Kuhn Decisions improve when you face uncomfortable possibilities early instead of protecting yourself from them with optimistic stories.
    • 02 Searching for outliers Ben Kuhn When important outcomes have heavy-tailed distributions, searching for exceptional possibilities beats optimizing a single merely acceptable choice.
    • 03 You don't need to work on hard problems Ben Kuhn The world rewards important problems more than difficult-looking ones, and smart people often mistake difficulty for leverage.
  6. Issue 19 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Face it: you're a crazy person Adam Mastroianni Treating your unusual traits as information about the life that fits you can be more productive than trying to appear normal.
    • 02 Science is a strong-link problem Adam Mastroianni Science is often governed to prevent its weakest work, even though its value may come from a small number of exceptional contributions.
    • 03 Surely you can be serious Adam Mastroianni Some games reward you with more of the game; the way out is often to stop, not to win harder.
  7. Issue 18 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 What You Can't Say Paul Graham Every era has moral fashions that hide certain truths; simple tests can reveal which ideas you are afraid to say aloud.
    • 02 Arithmetic is an underrated world-modeling technology dynomight A few minutes of basic arithmetic can settle arguments that people otherwise prolong without checking the numbers.
    • 03 Why "controlling for a variable" doesn't (usually) work dynomight Controlling for a variable assumes a causal diagram without proving the arrows, so the same data can support opposite stories.
  8. Issue 17 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Reality is Very Weird and You Need to be Prepared for That Slime Mold Time Mold When a reliable theory meets a stubborn counterexample, the right response may be to accept a more complicated reality rather than discard the evidence.
    • 02 Littlewood's Law and the Global Media Gwern In a world of billions, rare events happen constantly, so anecdotes become nearly worthless evidence at scale.
    • 03 Notes on Puzzles Nabeel Qureshi Experts spend far more time trying to falsify an idea than amateurs do, but excessive skepticism can kill projects that must be tested in the world.
  9. Issue 16 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 Heuristics That Almost Always Work Scott Alexander Experts can look correct almost all the time while adding little value; judgment matters most in the rare cases when the heuristic fails.
    • 02 Epistemic Learned Helplessness Scott Alexander Persuasive reasoning is not evidence by itself, because false and true arguments can be equally persuasive.
  10. Issue 15 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 How To Understand Things Nabeel S. Qureshi When in doubt, go closer.
    • 02 The Tyranny of Structurelessness Jo Freeman / Joreen Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group.
  11. Issue 14 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 Strategic choices: When both options are good Jason Cohen A strategy that never says no is not a strategy.
    • 02 The Rise of Worse Is Better Richard P. Gabriel It is slightly better to be simple than correct.
  12. Issue 13 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 What Makes Art Great? Nabeel S. Qureshi Great art is not predictable or obvious, it is surprising.
    • 02 Impact, agency, and taste Ben Kuhn Without taste, you're likely to work toward the wrong thing.
    • 03 Why science needs outsiders Alvin Djajadikerta & Laura Lungu The frequency of paradigm shifts is not fixed.
  13. Issue 12 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 We are destroying software antirez · 2 min read We are destroying software by no longer taking complexity into account when adding features or optimizing some dimension.
    • 02 We Are Living in Pinocchio's World Om Malik · 9 min read The interesting lies are the ones that work.
  14. Issue 11 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 High Agency George Mack · 30 min read If your problem doesn't defy the laws of physics, it's not an unsolvable problem -- regardless of what other people say.
    • 02 Taste for Makers Paul Graham · 11 min read When you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem.
  15. Issue 10 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System Donella Meadows Paradigms are the sources of systems.
    • 02 The Bitter Lesson Rich Sutton We want AI agents that can discover like we can, not which contain what we have discovered.
    • 03 You and Your Research Richard Hamming If you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important problems, and you should have an idea.
  16. Issue 09 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice Patrick McKenzie Software solves business problems.
    • 02 Do Things that Don't Scale Paul Graham Actually startups take off because the founders make them take off.
    • 03 1,000 True Fans Kevin Kelly A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce.
  17. Issue 08 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Meditations On Moloch Scott Alexander The opposite of a trap is a garden.
    • 02 The Tail End Tim Urban Living in the same place as the people you love matters.
    • 03 The Psychology of Money Morgan Housel A key use of wealth is using it to control your time and providing you with options.
  18. Issue 07 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Choose Boring Technology Dan McKinley Technology for its own sake is snake oil.
    • 02 Slow Ideas Atul Gawande But people talking to people is still the way that norms and standards change.
    • 03 Reality has a surprising amount of detail John Salvatier At every step and every level there’s an abundance of detail with material consequences.
  19. Issue 06 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Being Glue Tanya Reilly Glue work is the difference between a project that succeeds and one that fails.
    • 02 How Will You Measure Your Life? Clayton M. Christensen Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.
    • 03 Inventing on Principle Bret Victor Creators need an immediate connection to what they’re creating.
  20. Issue 05 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Augmenting Long-term Memory Michael Nielsen That is, Anki makes memory a choice.
    • 02 Normalization of deviance Dan Luu But once people get convinced that some deviation is normal, they often get really invested in the idea.
    • 03 The Law of Leaky Abstractions Joel Spolsky All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.
  21. Issue 04 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 Status as a Service Eugene Wei Thirst for status is potential energy.
    • 02 The Mental Model Fallacy Cedric Chin The most valuable mental models do not survive codification.
    • 03 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule Paul Graham A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in.
  22. Issue 03 · · 3 links ·
    • 01 This is Water David Foster Wallace You get to decide what to worship.
    • 02 A Lesson on Elementary Worldly Wisdom Charlie Munger You’ve got to have models in your head.
    • 03 How Complex Systems Fail Richard I. Cook Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated ‘cause’ of an accident.
  23. Issue 02 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 The Wrong Abstraction Sandi Metz When the abstraction is wrong, the fastest way forward is back.
    • 02 Simple Made Easy Rich Hickey Easy is not simple.
  24. Issue 01 · · 2 links ·
    • 01 How can we develop transformative tools for thought? Andy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen If those are well chosen, the medium expands the possible range of human thought.
    • 02 Why Tacit Knowledge is More Important Than Deliberate Practice Cedric Chin Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be captured through words alone.