Thinking Better

Learning from history is often problematic — history is context and path dependent, and it doesn't repeat itself. But what if there is a better way to read history, one that sidesteps these problems?

Believability is a heuristic for practical advice. Here's one surprising way that it can fail.

Everything I know about learning in novel, ill-structured domains, summarised in one piece.

How to hunt for useful expertise research, emotional regulation work, or better learning techniques, straight from the primary literature.

Why bother learning history, when history isn't likely to repeat itself? We take a look at what Cognitive Flexibility Theory tells us about the best way to learn from other people's experiences.

Game analogies can be helpful when you're playing to win. But there's a limit to how useful they can be when thinking about life.

There's a saying commonly attributed to Charlie Munger that goes 'Take a Simple Idea and Take It Seriously'. Work out all the implications. Seek out all the case studies. Here's a story of two investors who did exactly that.

Why it's important not to hold too tightly to any one explanatory narrative during a period of high uncertainty.

M. Mitchell Waldrop's book on the Santa Fe Institute is a gateway drug to a powerful if subtle idea. Here's why it matters.

Sensemaking is hard. Sensemaking around a possible paradigm shift is even harder. What's the narrative for crypto? What is crypto good for?