Ask HN: What concepts, if popularly understood, would most improve the world?
A personal list would start with an understanding of cognitive biases -- how they can be formed, how to recognize them, and how to work with and around them.
30 comments
That your thoughts are not generated by your own will and you have no control over what you think, unless you explicitly train yourself to filter and focus on thoughts you need.
Most people live in the assumption that what they think is coming from within the I-self, their thoughts are unique creation of themselves and that they should consider all thoughts as equally valid due being of same source.
Science is now fully considering that "conscious" thoughts are actually prepared by unconscious processes.
https://www.medicaldaily.com/new-theory-suggests-all-conscio...
How much of your thoughts are generated by how you live your life? And how much of the way you live your life is generated by your thoughts?
That's a very interesting question. When I feel sad I try to make myself go eat a piece of fruit and drink some water.
I have noticed my mood is tightly tied to my diet and living conditions.
I have noticed my mood is tightly tied to my diet and living conditions.
the danger of climate change
Compound interest
Related and of interest: What Developmental Milestones are you Missing? http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-mile...
But a real answer might be a set of concepts around self-management, that you'd find in a Christian self-help book, or stoicism, or Buddhism, or the rules of St. Benedict, something in that category. But if you look at the uselessness of "mindfulness," maybe not.
But a real answer might be a set of concepts around self-management, that you'd find in a Christian self-help book, or stoicism, or Buddhism, or the rules of St. Benedict, something in that category. But if you look at the uselessness of "mindfulness," maybe not.
>for example, the person who thinks that someone with depression is just “being lazy” or needs to “snap out of it”.
I do this internally (not quite to that extent, but along a similar line of reasoning) all the time and feel a little bad about it, yet even as I type this I can't help but feel it's true in many cases. I have a low tolerance for people that abuse medical diagnosis as a certified scapegoat (a static, unchanging one at that), and most of the depressed people I've known don't eat well, exercise regularly, try to sleep better (get off your phone/laptop at least an hour before bed, for example), or perform any other anti-depression-101 tactics. I have pretty severe bouts of apathy at times, and I feel that depression is often a case of simply indulging this apathy a little excessively, while postponing the work involved in constructively and pragmatically working one's self out of it.
On the flipside, I tend to agree with the idea that our current model of society and the direction it's going is incompatible with a happy life for a lot of people, and it's perhaps no more fair to blame them for this then it is to blame a square for not fitting into a circular hole. But, if you dull your corners enough, you may just fit right in.
At any rate, this was largely tangential and irrevelant, I'm not intending to dispute milestone #2 in a general sense and thanks for the link - it's a good read.
I do this internally (not quite to that extent, but along a similar line of reasoning) all the time and feel a little bad about it, yet even as I type this I can't help but feel it's true in many cases. I have a low tolerance for people that abuse medical diagnosis as a certified scapegoat (a static, unchanging one at that), and most of the depressed people I've known don't eat well, exercise regularly, try to sleep better (get off your phone/laptop at least an hour before bed, for example), or perform any other anti-depression-101 tactics. I have pretty severe bouts of apathy at times, and I feel that depression is often a case of simply indulging this apathy a little excessively, while postponing the work involved in constructively and pragmatically working one's self out of it.
On the flipside, I tend to agree with the idea that our current model of society and the direction it's going is incompatible with a happy life for a lot of people, and it's perhaps no more fair to blame them for this then it is to blame a square for not fitting into a circular hole. But, if you dull your corners enough, you may just fit right in.
At any rate, this was largely tangential and irrevelant, I'm not intending to dispute milestone #2 in a general sense and thanks for the link - it's a good read.
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Thoughts are real; they do actualize.
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It wouldn't improve the world in the short term but it certainly wouldn't hurt if more people knew about the dangers and benefits of AGI or super-intelligence for that matter.
just world fallacy.
How about the opposite, nihilism and moral relativism?
Correlation does not imply causation
Bayesian updates to beliefs
Climate Engineering
That nothing is free.
That. There's no free lunch.
That's a common saying in my country, usually used by middle class middle aged men that doesn't work and eat for free at their mother's expense.
But there is lunch that would otherwise go to waste. I used to work at a bagel shop.
My mother-in-law used to work full-time for a hospital calling insurance companies to get them to actually pay for claims.
My mother-in-law used to work full-time for a hospital calling insurance companies to get them to actually pay for claims.
recycling
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