Externalities: Why We Can Never Do “One Thing”
No action exists in a vacuum. There are ripples that have consequences that we can and can’t see. Here are the three types of externalities that can help us guide our actions so they don’t come back …
Ecology
How The Four Laws of Ecology Help You Solve Problems
Ecology is the study of relationships and processes linking living things to the physical and chemical environment. Exciting, right? In the 1971 book The Closing Circle, Barry Commoner gives us a …
Three Filters Needed to Think Through Problems
One of the best parts of Garrett Hardin‘s wonderful Filters Against Folly is when he explores the three filters that help us interpret reality. No matter how much we’d like it to, the …
The Effect of Scale in Social Science, or Why Utopia Doesn’t Work
Things change as they scale, often drastically. This is true for living creatures and it’s especially true for social systems. Here’s how the dynamics of social groups change as the numbers do and why …
Books Everyone Should Read on Psychology and Behavioral Economics
Earlier this year, a prominent friend of mine was tasked with coming up with a list of behavioral economics book recommendations for the military leaders of a G7 country and I was on the limited email …
What Facts Do We Know About Food?
A summary of a recent talk by Michael Pollan about what we know about food. We are ignoring the elephant in the room when we only talk nutrients — this way of eating is killing us. For example by …
Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss
The HR department’s long run on gut instincts may be coming to a close. Recently, Google applied their engineering (data-driven) mindset to building better bosses and the counter-intuitive …