Friedrich Nietzsche: On Love And Hate
“We must learn to love, learn to be kind, and this from earliest youth … Likewise, hatred must be learned and nurtured, if one wishes to become a proficient hater.” *** German …
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Charlie Munger on the Medical System
Long a fount of wisdom, Charlie Munger provided us fascinating insight on everything from energy policy and mental models to how good gamblers think and making effective decisions. At the Daily …
Merchants Of Doubt: How The Tobacco Strategy Obscures the Realities of Global Warming
There will always be those who try to challenge growing scientific consensus — indeed the challenge is fundamental to science. Motives, however, matter and not everyone has good intentions. *** Naomi …
Recognizing Our Flaws is The Beginning of Wisdom
A short post today that packs a punch. The liberating power of humility is one we’ve covered before. In fact, it’s a concept that is core to understanding your Circle of Competence. Now …
Why Micromanaging Kills Corporate Culture
“The more he kept sweating the details, the less his people took ownership of their work.” *** The most important part of a company’s culture is trust. People don’t feel …
Alignment: The Key to Success Nobody Ever Taught You
I spend a lot of time thinking about this simple idea: The person who aligns themselves with the general principles of the world goes further and faster than the person who doesn’t. What the …
To Sacrifice the Joy of Life is to Miss the Point
Your ability to get things done and be productive is not always a function of hours. Working more doesn’t always mean you’re working better or harder. It doesn’t mean you’re …
Montaigne’s Rule for Reading: The Promiscuous Pursuit of Pleasure
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) might have been the original essayist. George Orwell before George Orwell. Montaigne was well-read, smart, critical, and possesed a tendency to write in a personal …
Karl Popper: The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience
It’s not immediately clear to the layman what the essential difference is between science and something masquerading as science: pseudoscience. The distinction between the two is at …
The Best Way to Get Smarter? Learn to Read the Right Way.
There is a Buffett & Munger interview from 2013 that we reflect on frequently. They discuss how they’ve leaped ahead of their peers and competitors time and time again: Munger: We’ve learned how …
What Can Chain Letters Teach us about Natural Selection?
“It is important to understand that none of these replicating entities is consciously interested in getting itself duplicated. But it will just happen that the world becomes filled with …
Need to Improve your Relations with Others? Start by Getting Human Nature Right
Most of us periodically struggle to manage our relationships, whether we’re trying to manage a company, a team, a marriage, or a friendship. The problem is that we’re often fighting, …
Yuval Noah Harari on Why Humans Dominate the Earth: Myth-Making
Yuval Noah Harari‘s Sapiens is one of those uniquely breathtaking books that comes along very rarely. It’s broad, yet scientific. It’s written for a popular audience but never feels …
Nick Hornby Reminds us Why We Love Books (Sometimes)
“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal…With each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more …
Maria Konnikova on How we Get Conned
There’s a scene in the classic Paul Newman film The Sting, where Johnny Hooker (played by a young Robert Redford) tries to get Henry Gondorf (played by Newman) to finally tell him when …
How Darwin Thought: The Golden Rule of Thinking
In his 1986 speech at the commencement of Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles (found in Poor Charlie’s Almanack) Charlie Munger gave a short Johnny Carson-like speech on the things to avoid …