nico λ

He categories different biases:

• Availability bias - the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant examples come to mind


• Confirmation bias - confirming what you expect to find by selectively accepting or ignoring information


• Affective bias - the tendency to make decisions based on what we wish were true

The government lost control of controlled substances. The Sackler’s main crime, which doesn’t really come through in these dramas because it’s actually a difficult thing to narrativize, is knowing precisely how to exploit America’s thin, hollowed out, and very weak regulatory state. And that’s just not a very sexy Netflix style crime. It’s a crime... See more

It's the same with most successful people. They're never more engaged than when you disagree with them. Whereas the obstinate don't want to hear you. When you point out problems, their eyes glaze over, and their replies sound like ideologues talking about matters of doctrine.

misses the religious challenge to complacency, the heart and soul of faith. Instead of discouraging moral inquiry, religious prompting can just as easily stimulate it by calling attention to the disjunction between verbal profession and practice, by insisting that a perfunctory observance of prescribed rituals is not enough to ensure salvation, and... See more

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On Inboxes

I have two conceptual inboxes.

First one, inbox.md , is where the most interesting links end up, together with my random thoughts, waiting for a weekly review. I mainly append to that file through iOS shortcut. I can quickly share a twitter link, or jot a quick note in drafts.

Second one is a bit more convoluted. Sometimes during the day... See more

Science may be the pursuit of truth, but scientific language is adept at dressing up insidious ideologies as fundamental truths.

Julia Evans once said "behind every best practice is a horror story." If you don't understand a Best Practice, look for the horror story that inspired it. It might make the best practice make sense. It might turn out to be something that's completely irrelevant to you, and then you can feel comfortable doing a different practice instead.

Anyone who’s spent a few months at a sizable tech company can tell you that a lot of software seems to exist primarily because companies have hired people to write and maintain them. In some ways, the software serves not the business, but the people who have written it, and then those who need to maintain it. This is stupid, but also very, very... See more