Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
Taking the outside view is a shorthand and colloquial way to say, think of the base rate of the reference class to which something belongs, and make judgements and predictions from that starting point. Take the outside view is advice from Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow for anyone working on a … Continue reading Take the Outside View
Does travel help us be more happy? Seneca did not think it did. In Letters From a Stoic, he included a quote from Socrates, "Why do you wonder that glob-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels." Seneca … Continue reading On Travel as a Cure for Discontent
A topic I am fascinated by and plan to dig into in the future is motivated reasoning. We are great at finding all of the reasons and examples for why the things we do are overwhelmingly good and justified, while finding all the flaws in the people and things we dislike. Our brains seems to … Continue reading Take a Close Look at What Feels Right
A couple years ago, one of my good friends wrote a book called Vector Rising under the pen name Cole Carver. The book is a science fiction thriller about a character who is able to see a little bit ahead of normal people. The idea for Carver stemmed from the science behind the way the … Continue reading Observation
"Nature's wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless," writes Seneca in Letters From a Stoic. Nature is indifferent to humans. The world exists and life exists upon it, but the world doesn't seem worried about what life flourishes, how it flourishes, and what life does. It simply carries on and life must react … Continue reading The Bounds of Opinion
I have been engaged with Stoicism for several years now and even though I work on recognizing my thoughts and reactions to the world around me, I am still frequently surprised by how quickly I can assume bad intent in another person and view others as terrible people when they do something I don't like. … Continue reading Avoid Ascribing Guilt or Menace
When I sat down to read Ryan Holiday's book Ego is the Enemy, I expected to hear about the importance of compassion and humility and to read anecdotes about why we should try to avoid self-aggrandizement, but I didn't expect to get a quick lesson in creativity. Holiday includes a short section in which he … Continue reading A Creative Skill
There is always something we can learn and something we can better understand. No matter how smart we think we are or how smart we feel, we can always adopt new perspectives, work to see things from new points of view, and begin to see the world in a more clear way. Challenging ourselves to … Continue reading Turn Off the Ego and Learn
Early in the book The Miracle of Mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh, a story is recounted and includes a conversation between two people about time. The story specifically looks at how we think about our time and the story we tell ourselves about our time. Jumping right into the middle, the story goes: "Then Allen … Continue reading Time For Ourselves
I just finished a semester at the University of Nevada focusing on Public Policy as part of my Masters in Public Administration. Throughout the semester we focused on rational models of public policy and decision-making, but we constantly returned to the ways in which those models break down and cannot completely inform and shape the … Continue reading Social Constructionism in Physics and … Everything!