Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
Our society makes fun of the unrealistic optimist all the time, but the reality is that most of us are unreasonably optimistic in many aspects of our life. We might not all believe that we are going to receive a financial windfall this month, that our favorite sports team will go from losing almost all … Continue reading Nudges for Unrealistic Optimism
The world is a complex place and people have to make a lot of decisions within that complexity. Whether we are deliberate about it or not, we create and manage systems and structures for navigating the complexity and framing the decisions we make. However, each of us operate from different perspectives. We make decisions that … Continue reading Should We Assume Rationality?
I like to write about the irrational nature of human thinking because it reminds me that I don't have all the answers figured out, and it reminds me that I often make decisions that feel like the best decision in the moment, but likely isn't the best decision if I were to step back to … Continue reading Narrow Framers
Our brains are built to think causally and look for patterns. We benefit when we can recognize that some foods make us feel sick, when certain types of clouds mean rain is on the way, or when our spouse gives us a certain look that means they are getting frustrated with something. Being able to … Continue reading Detecting Rules
Our thoughts are a jumbled mess. Things tend to repeat with subtle variations and they tend to jump around at random points in an inconsistent manner. Keeping our mind on a single thing is hard and our thoughts are not as logically consistent as we might think, despite the fact that our thinking and though … Continue reading How to Think it Out
I listen to a lot of science podcasts, and really love the discoveries, new ways of thinking about the world, and better understandings of the world that we gain from science. Science is a process that strives to be rational and to build on previous knowledge to better understand an objective reality. What is also … Continue reading Our Mind Seems Counterproductive
Peter Singer focuses on the ideas regarding our interactions with others throughout his book The Most Good You Can Do, and he continually returns to the idea of how we value our life relative to the lives of our family members and the lives of those beyond our family. Singer argues that the effective altruist … Continue reading Respecting the Well-Being of Others