Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
We often talk about mental models in the context of business, investing, and careers. But mental models can also help with other areas, like parenting. Here are 5 principle-based models you can apply …
When disaster strikes, people come together. During the worst times of our lives, we can end up experiencing the best mental health and relationships with others. Here’s why that happens and how we …
Recently, shame has gotten a bad rap. It’s been branded as toxic and destructive. But shame can be used as a tool to effect positive change. *** A computer science PhD candidate uncovers significant …
Healthy friendships offer far more than a reliable person to share a beer with. Research shows they can make us healthier, wealthier, happier and overall more successful. Here’s how. *** Is friendship …
Equilibrium is an important concept that permeates many disciplines. In chemistry we think about the point where the rate of forward reaction is equal to the rate of backward reaction. In economics we …
“All that glitters is not gold,” the saying goes. The aesthetics of things often fool us. People we call ignorant might not be ignorant. People we call smart might not be smart. The Green …
“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 …
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 …
“The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning.” — …
Morality is hard to define, but all non-psychopaths experience strong gut reactions to certain moral violations. One way to understand it is from an evolutionary perspective. Our sense of morality is …
Jeff Stibel’s book Breakpoint: Why the Web will Implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in Your Brain is an interesting read. The book is about …
The first thing we do is try to figure out what went wrong. When people in organizations evaluate poor outcomes, determining what went wrong, and why is one of the first steps. Once we have a cause, …
“The ancient relationship between bees and flowers is a classic example of coevolution. In a coevolutionary bargain like the one struck by the bee and the apple tree, the two parties acton each …
In Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel Dennett, one of the world’s leading philosophers offers a trove of mind-stretching thought experiments, which he calls …
From Steven Pinker’s edge.org article The False Allure of Group Selection. Pinker argues that the more carefully you think about group selection, the less sense it makes, and the more poorly it …
Laurence J. Peter and James Hull defined The Peter Principle: “In a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence.” I think …