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Do Something Syndrome

The Noise Bottleneck: When More Information is Harmful

When consuming information, we strive for more signal and less noise. The problem is a cognitive illusion: we feel like the more information we consume the more signal we receive. While this is …

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Suppressing Volatility: Making the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous

Nassim Taleb’s article, The Black Swan of Cario, (PDF) on suppressing volatility is worth a read. It’s the ultimate example of iatrogenics by the fragilista. Here are my notes. Complex …

Continue readingSuppressing Volatility: Making the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous

Problem Solving Tools

When you’re faced with problems, do you have the right tools to handle them? I didn’t use to. My approach consisted mostly of guesswork and dumb luck. It worked sometimes. But I wanted to improve my …

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Predicting the Improbable

One natural human bias is that we tend to draw strong conclusions based on few observations. This bias, misconceptions of chance, shows itself in many ways including the gambler and hot hand …

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Information Without Context

Information without context is falsely empowering and incredibly dangerous. As an adult, have you ever picked up a child’s shape-sorter and tried to put the square item through the round hole? …

Continue readingInformation Without Context

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