Daniel Kahneman Explains Multitasking
Can we do several things at once? You can do several things at once, but only if they are easy and undemanding. What happens when we’re trying to do things that are not so simple? It is the mark …
Culture
Happy Birthday Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born to a family in Geneva. His mother passed only a few days after his birth. A few years later, his father fled after a …
Why Do People Choose Political Loyalties Over Facts?
One of the theories is cognitive dissonance—we find it difficult to hold contradictory ideas in our head at the same time. Cognitive dissonance predicts that given the choice between our emotional …
Summer Reading List: Curated Recommendations For a Curious Mind
If you haven’t already decided on your summer reading list, here is a curated list of multi-disciplinary books that can help fill your brain. Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for …
How To Find Work You Love
It’s possible to love your job and hate it at the same time: On one side of the equation, there are the elements of work that, if not done right, will cause us to be dissatisfied. These are the …
Ten Commandments For Living From Philosopher Bertrand Russell
Philosopher Bertrand Russell: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows: 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. 2. Do not think it …
This is Water by David Foster Wallace (Full Transcript and Audio)
David Foster Wallace‘s 2005 commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College is a timeless trove of wisdom — right up there with Hunter Thompson on finding your …
Changing Minds: It Takes More than Facts
When is the last time someone told you a fact that caused you to change your mind? It’s likely you can’t think of a verifiable example. And yet, when it comes to trying to persuade others, …
Daniel Kahneman and Herbert Simon on Intuition
Why do experts seem to have better intuition than the rest of us when operating within their Circle of Competence? Are they doing something the rest of us are not? Or is there another explanation that …
The Filter Bubble — What the Internet is Hiding From You
In case you’re interested, we have another article on The Filter Bubble here. Just “googling it” might not be such a great idea after all The Filter Bubble, by Eli Pariser, puts …
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
In The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt tells the story of the most important person you’ve probably never heard of: Poggio Bracciolini. Although Bracciolini’s …
The Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips
Many of us have constant access to information. We are so used to looking up the answer to any question immediately that it can feel like withdrawal when we have to wait. Of course, storing …
The Simple Principles of Good Management
Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize laureate and polymath, offered many contributions to the world in fields such as computer science/artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, economics, and management. …
Five books on Holding Power to Account
Heather Brooke, author of Your Right To Know: A Citizen’s Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, offers five picks on holding power to account. Animal Farm …it is an allegory about power …
What did Steve Jobs Read?
I’ve always wondered just what influenced Steve Jobs thinking? Walter Isaacson‘s biography of Steve Jobs provides an unprecedented look at not only Steve Jobs life but the books which …
Herbert Simon on the Distinction Between What is Legal and What We Will Tolerate
You’d break the law. In fact most of us would. How can I say this with near certainty? Because if you were put in a position where the ends justified the means, the means would become …