Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
One of the great things about competitive markets (in an economic sense) is that they reduce waste. If multiple firms are competing against each other to sell a good, each firm has an incentive to find a new way to produce their good that makes the process cheaper and quicker. This allows each firm to … Continue reading Wasteful Signals
I often feel that we are moving so fast toward the future that we are advancing beyond our means. I think we are in some ways exceeding the capacity that we have evolved to fit, and this is creating great challenges for humans across the globe. We have new technologies, new social structures, and new … Continue reading The Challenge of Trying to Enlarge the Pie
The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson suggests that our self-interest drives a lot more of our behavior than we would like to admit. No matter what we are doing or what we are up to, part of our brain is active in looking at how we can maximize the world … Continue reading The Price of Friendship
The California Redwoods are amazing trees. They stand taller than any other tree, scraping at the sky as they compete among each other for sunlight. The trees can be packed together in a dense manner, all competing for the same light, all pulling massive amounts of water from the ground up enormous heights. What is … Continue reading Social Brain Hypothesis
In The Elephant in the Brain, Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler write about the Arabian babbler, a bird that lives in hierarchical social groups. The small birds are easy prey when isolated on their own, but as a social group they can live in bushes where they are able to take turns on guard duty, … Continue reading Competitive Altruism
"We now realize," write Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson in their book The Elephant in the Brain, "that our brains aren't just hapless and quirky–they're devious. They intentionally hide information from us, helping us fabricate plausible pro-social motives to act as cover stories for our less savory agendas. As Trivers puts it: "At ever single … Continue reading Our Devious Minds
Toward the end of the introductory chapter of their book The Elephant in the Brain, Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson explain what they observed with the human mind and what they will be exploring in the coming chapters. They write, "What will emerge from this investigation is a portrait of the human species as strategically … Continue reading What’s Happening in Our Brains Behind the Conscious Self
In their book The Elephant in the Brain, Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson write about "conspicuous consumption," a term coined by economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen who lived about 100 years ago. Simler and Hanson write, "When consumers are asked why they bought an expensive watch or high-end handbag, they often cite material factors like … Continue reading The Purchases We Make
The last few weeks I have been wasting time with thing that are not meaningful. My time and attention have been eaten away by things that don't add value to my life and leave me feeling slightly guilty. This morning I recognized, when I took advantage of an extra 30 minutes in my schedule, … Continue reading Keep What’s Meaningful
Yesterday I wrote a bit about how non-verbal communication often happens below the level of our consciousness. However, just because it is something we don't consciously recognize doesn't mean that the messages conveyed are meaningless. I wrote yesterday about how non-verbal communication can allow us to communicate some messages slyly, implying things and making our … Continue reading Non-Verbal Communication & Messages