Author Archives: John

Just because you believed something in the past is not a good enough reason to believe it now.

Why can’t you just sit by yourself and not do anything?

Rationality is hard—if we were completely rational, we would be considered psychopaths by everyone around us.

When confronted by conflicting evidence, we can either update our beliefs or categorize such evidence as an anomaly, rare, or untrue. We tend to do the latter.

How do you know the event was rare?

To help you decide whether to believe someone, consider the reputational cost they would face if they believed something else, particularly the opposite thing. If their status, reputation, or livelihood is based on a certain belief, they are incentivized against espousing anything that would contradict such view.

Do whatever, just do it consciously.