The most effective people I've met all maintain a gigantic locus of control and bias towards internalizing blame. Whenever something doesn't go their way, they deeply analyze the circumstances to identify what they should have done differently, or, even if they acted

When I say race is a social construct, and that human variation tracks geography, what I'm claiming is humans aren't multiple races differing in kind, but one race varying in degree.

Hard truth: if you want to build a serious educational product, you can't be afraid to charge money for it. You can't back yourself into a corner where you depend on a massive userbase. Why? Because most people are not serious about learning, and if you depend on a massive base

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” — George Orwell

There have been many discussions on here regarding AI and creativity--will AI be able to create truly new knowledge or art? There's distinction between two types of creativity: closed (w/specific goal) and open, "blue sky" creativity (open-ended). In one of my fav papers:

Golden rice is a no-brainer: a publicly funded, non-proprietary genetically modified crop that combats vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of childhood blindness and mortality - yet it's opposed by many Western environmental groups and NGOs. 24 years ago, in The Blank Slate, I

"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."

Droy Focus not on problem solving, but on intuitive comprehension. Take interest in your intuition, even when it is extremely faint and totally stupid. Use logic as tool for identifying what's wrong with your intuition and gradually honing it. davidbessis.substack.com/p/thinking-fas…

Hitler didn’t begin with camps. He began with nationalist revival slogans, attacking the press, banning books, scapegoating immigrants, demonizing educators, gutting the arts, and turning neighbors into enemies... just like what we're seeing in America today.

Taiwan spent $600 billion to discover what has been obvious for a very long time: Childcare subsidies are almost uniquely ineffective at boosting fertility in societies where work demands are not capped or restrained in some way.

This is the most accurate description of what is going amongst conservatives. They have made it clear that the shooting was justified as a response to disrespect, not due to an objective threat to life.

We need to heavily shame and stigmatize using AI for personal writing: texts, eulogies, essays, twitter posts. Letting a machine steal your words is a dangerous habit, that over time will rob you of being able to write or think at all. Writing is for human beings.

Das, was wir gerade in den USA erleben, ist 1:1 die Vorstellung der AfD für Deutschland: Ein faschistischer und autokratischer Staat. Es ist lange überfällig, dass wir endlich unserer Verfassung folgen und ein Verbotsverfahren einleiten, bevor es zu spät ist.

Am Beispiel der USA sieht man, wie fragil Demokratie ist, wenn antidemokratische Kräfte durch Wahlen an die Macht kommen. In Deutschland ignoriert man diese Warnung mit Blick auf die AfD trotzdem.

“You won’t get killed if you obey” isn’t something you’d usually hear in a democracy.

“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” — Aldous Huxley

If you read Karl Popper, you realize why communists (and Marxists) say this all the time. Key terms—capitalism, proletariat, exploitation, class interest, ideology, false consciousness, power—do not have stable (or concrete) definitions. The definitions expand and contract

The challenge faced by serious learning apps is that they must use serious learning techniques -- techniques that repel unserious learners, i.e., most people.