Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
In the past, I have encouraged attaching probabilities and statistical chances to the things we believe or to events we think may (or may not) occur. For example, say Steph Curry's three point shooting percentage is about 43%, and I am two Steph Currys confident that my running regiment will help me qualify for the … Continue reading Stats and Messaging
My wife works with families with children with disabilities and one of the things I learned from her is how to ask children to do something. When speaking with an adult, we often use softeners when requesting that the other person do something, but this doesn't work with children. So while we may say to … Continue reading Frame Bound vs Reality Bound
"The reality is that most people hear more from pharmaceutical companies (16 to 18 hours of pharma ads per year) than from their doctor (typically under 2 hours per year)." writes Dave Chase in his book The Opioid Crisis Wake-Up Call. Chase is critical of American's looking for a quick fix and expecting a pill to … Continue reading Thoughts on Pharmaceutical Advertisements
Our thoughts are generally not just our own thoughts. What we think, what we say, and ultimately what we do is influenced by other people. We are social animals and come to understand ourselves and define ourselves socially. However, we often are not aware of just how much this social conditioning shapes our thinking and … Continue reading How We Define Our World
This blog is a place for me to return to specific quotes and thoughts that stood out to me in books that interested me. The blog, on its face, is mostly about me trying to remember key insights from books, to formulate my thoughts, and share them with others. Another goal of the blog, if … Continue reading Elevating Reason
Yesterday I wrote about how our speech conveys information in the direct meaning of what we say and also conveys additional information about us as a person. Our messages include the specific thing we said, and also something about how we are the type of person who knows about or cares about the thing we … Continue reading Examples of Hidden Meaning in Communication
In The Elephant in the Brain Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson write about the ways in which we act to signal something important about ourselves that we cannot outright express. We deceive ourselves to believe that we are not sending these signals, but we recognize them, pick up on their subtle nature, and know how … Continue reading Two Messages
The last few days I have been writing about communication and asking what our communication is really all about if it is not just about facts and conveying information. When just talking to someone or communicating anything we seem to be including a lot of information that we are not even aware of. One of … Continue reading Speakers are Eager to Impress
"If exchanging Information were the be-all and end-all of conversation, then we would expect people to be greedy listeners and stingy speakers. Instead, we typically find ourselves with the opposite attitude: eager to speak at ever opportunity." Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson write this in the book The Elephant in the Brain as they attempt to understand … Continue reading Where are the Greedy Listeners?
In The Elephant in the Brain authors Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson investigate human communication and ask why we are so quick to speak, communicate, and share information we have acquired, even if we acquired that information at great personal costs. Humans communicate a lot, and we generally like to be the one talking and … Continue reading Curious Conversations