Posts · Pablo Stafforini

Useful concepts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

] - “Because” - 5 second skills - 80:20 rule, low hanging fruit - A priori, a posteriori - Adaptation executor not fitness maximizer - Aether variables - Affect heuristic - Affordance - Affordance (brain shaped, overlearning) - Alternative hypothesis generation - Ambiguity avoidance/effect (variance avoidance) - Ammortization - Apophenia - Approach/avoid - Arbitrage - Archetype - Arrow's impossibility - Ask-guess-tell culture - Attribution Substitution - Attribution substitution - Availability heuristic - Back chaining vs forward chaining - Base rate neglect - Be vs Do - Best/worst/average case - Beware what you wish for - Bias gradients - Biases - Big five personality traits - Body language energy - Bottleneck (Theory of Constraints) - Brainstorming questions/problems rather than answers - Breadth vs depth first search - Business analysis concepts - Calibrated scaffolding (i.e build as much scaffolding as necessary and no more) - Can't bullshit yourself - CAR model - Carrot and stick - Causal graph - Challenge - Check-in - Chesterton fence - Clump vs Spread - Cognitive behavioral therapy - Cognitive dissonance avoidance - Common distributions (bimodal, normal, log-normal, power law, etc.) - Common knowledge - Communication concepts - Comparative advantage - Confabulation - Confidence Interval - Confirmation bias - Confusion matrix - Control Calibration - Counterfactual simulations - CoZE - Critical path - Critical thresholds in nonlinear systems - Cross impact analysis - Daily Plan - Daily Review - Data biases - Decision fatigue (microdecisions) - Deduction vs induction - Degree - Deliberate practice - Denotation and Connotation - Dependency hell (goal or aversion factoring) - Derivatives - Diffusion of innovation - Dimensionality reduction/Clusters in thing space - Diminishing returns - Directed graph - Diversify vs Focus - Dominance, communality, or reciprocity relationships - Dramatic vs Marginal - Dual process theories - Dunbar's number - Economic concepts - Effect size - Effectuation - Efficient markets - Elasticity - Endorse on reflection - Endorse vs Record evals - Epistemic concepts - Epistemological rigor->methodological rigor (expert on experts) - Essentialism - Evidence/update proportionality - Evolutionary psychology concepts - Expected value - Exploration neglect - Exploration neglect - Externalities - Farmer vs forager - Feedback loop tightness - Focused grit - Focusing effect - Forest plot - Fox vs hedgehog - Foxy elimination - Fragile vs antifragile (hormesis) - Framing/Reframing - Free riders - Frictional costs - Fully general counterargument - Functional programming (mental heuristics) - Fundamental attribution error (braitenberg vehicles) - Funnel plot - Game theory concepts - Gartner hype cycle - Geographic sensitivity - Gifts - Good vs bad proxies - Graphs - Greedy algorithm - Habit formation concepts - Halo effect/affiliation - Hamming question - Handicap principle - Hard work avoidance - High variance blindness - Hindsight and prehindsight - Holding off on solutions - Identity-Consistency - Impression management - Inception - Incoherent discount rate - Increasing marginal utility of attention (monkey mind) - Increasing returns - Information asymmetry - Inner loop/outer loop - Inner simulator - Instrumental/terminal values - Internal censor - Internal family systems - Introspection illusion - Inversion - Justifiability - Kayfabe - Key assumptions check - Key trade-off analysis (synthesis of form) - Key Uncertainties - Leaky abstraction - Levels of abstraction - Liking vs wanting - Linear vs nonlinear functions - Local and global maxima, hill climbing - Locked to each other (unblending variables) - Locked vs unlocked dials - Locus of control - Love languages - Low-hanging fruit - Low status blindness - Low-status avoidance - Lowering cognitive overhead (trivial inconveniences) - Making beliefs load bearing - Marginal Thinking - Market segmentation - Math concepts - Mean world syndrome - Median voter theorem - Medicalization (deprivation of agency) - Meditation - Memetics - Mental contrasting - Misweight because came first - Misweight because familiar - Misweight because of source - Misweight because simpler - Moat - Moloch - Momentum vs lightness - Moral Foundations theory - Moral hazard - Moral licensing - Moral trade - Moral uncertainty - Motivation equation - Napkin math - Narrative bias - Nash equilibrium - Natural kind (cutting at the joints) - Near vs far - Negative visualization - Net present value - Network effects - Neurodiversity (typical mind fallacy) - Next action - Nominal fallacy - Non-violent communication - Now vs later - Offline training - Ontological crisis - OODA loop - Open vs closed modes - Open vs closed posture, taking up space - Opportunity cost - Optimal brainstorming - Optimal brainstorming - Over/underdetermined - Overton window - Parallelization - Pareto improvement - Participate vs Support - Path dependence - Pattern completion - Permuting concepts - Plurality (voting) - Pointing at the moon - Political concepts - Pomodoro distraction log - Positive vs normative - Post hoc ergo propter hoc - Power - Power-law world vs Normal world - Precision and accuracy - Precommitment - Premature decisions - Premature sharing - Premortem - Prerequisite tree - Prestige vs Results - Principal agent problem/Lost purposes - Prisoner's Dilemma - Production-possibility frontier - Programming concepts - Proving too much (non-falsifiability) - Proximity bias - Proxy measure ratios - Psychotherapy concepts - Public choice theory - Quality time - r/K selection - Rationalism/empircisim - Rationality concepts - Realpolitik - Red queen - Red team - Redescribing to self or others (rubber ducking) - Reference class forecasting (Inside view/outside view) - Regression - Regression to the mean - Regression to the mean - Representativeness heuristic - Risk tolerance - Sample size - Scenario planning (matrices) - Scenario/evidence matrix - Schelling fence - Schelling point - Schlep blindness - Scope insensitivity - Searching under the streetlight - Selection effects - Self care - Self Denial - Self Help/Motivation concepts - Self-signaling/self trust - Semmelweis effect - Separation and recombination (both append and insert) - Service - Show vs Is - Signal/noise - Signaling/Countersignaling/Meta Contrarianism - Simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, stories - State machine - Stated and revealed preference - Statistics concepts - Status quo/absurdity - Stealing cheat codes (opposite of not invented here) - Sticky concepts - Stoicism - Straussian reading - Straw/steelman - Structured analytic techniques - Structured entropy injection - Subject object distinction - Sunk costs - Superstimulus - Survivorship bias - System 1 can't do math - System 1 vs system 2 - Systems vs goal - Taboo words - Tacit knowledge - Tail miscalibration/model uncertainty - Talk vs Bet - TDT - Temporal sensitivity - Time/money value of time/money - Touch - Tragedy of the commons - Transfer of learning - Trend analysis - Trigger Action Plan - Trivial inconvenience - Type error - Type I and II errors - Ugh fields - Universal prior (epistemic luck) - Upstream/downstream - Urge propogation - Us vs Them - Valley of bad X (tends towards hedgehogging) - Value of Information (xkcd chart) - Variance - Virality coefficient - Wastebasket taxon - Weighted edges - What if - Why/How/What hierarchy - Words of affirmation - Workbooks - Zeigarnik effect - Zero vs positive sum thinking]]>

The years of lyndon johnson. 3: master of the senate

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

biblio {#Caro2003MasterSenate} Lyndon Johnson's ability to self-deceive, ch. 37public {#lyndon-johnson-s-ability-to-self-deceive-ch-dot-37} When Lyndon Johnson came to believe in something, [...] he came to believe in it totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter, came to believe in it so absolutely that, George Reedy says, “I believe that he acted out of pure motives regardless of their origins. He had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act.... He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the ‘truth’ which was convenient for the present was the _truth_ and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality.”]]>

The acoustical foundations of music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

biblio {#Backus1969AcousticalFoundationsMusic} musical touch, 246–248public {#musical-touch-246-248} Pianists have used the term _touch_ for a long time and over the years it has acquired an almost mystical connotation; a pianist is praised or condemned depending on the adjective modifier used. He may have a “singing,” “beautiful,” “pearly,” or “velvet” touch—the list is endless, depending only on the imagination of the favorably inclined critic. Conversely, if the critic is in a bad humor, the pianist’s touch may be “harsh,” “percussive,” or whatever. The worth of a pianist is measured by the quality of his touch. Implied in all this is the belief that the pianist can in some manner control the quality of the tone he produces from the piano string by the way he strikes the key. Books have been written asserting this as fact. It has been stated categorically that if the piano key is put in motion suddenly by striking the key with the finger, the tone will be harsh and strident; conversely, if the key is gradually put in motion by being gently pressed, the tone will be smooth and mellow. If this is true, it follows that much practice would be necessary to acquire the proper manner of depressing the piano keys. To put it bluntly, this is nonsense. In our earlier discussion of the action of the piano, we saw that at the instant the hammer strikes the string, it is completely separate from the impelling mechanism attached to the key. The speed of the hammer on striking the string depends on how the key is pressed, and determines the loudness of the resulting tone. It also determines to a certain extent the quality of the tone; a loud tone will have a greater number of higher partials than a soft tone, and so will be “brighter,” or perhaps “harsher.” A given hammer speed will thus produce a certain loudness of tone and with it a certain quality of tone, and the two are not independent; if the loudness is the same, the quality is the same. It does not matter how the hammer attained its speed, whether via a sudden acceleration by striking the key or a slower acceleration by pressing the key; a given final speed will always produce the same tone. It follows that the pianist cannot independently control the quality of the tone of a single note on the piano by the manner in which he strikes the key; a given loudness will always result in a tone of quality corresponding to that loudness. A detailed investigation of this matter has been made in the laboratory. A mechanical striker was constructed that could depress a key of a piano and impart to it accelerations that could be varied to correspond to different ways of depressing the key with the finger. The speed of the hammer at the instant of striking the string could also be measured. The tone produced could be evaluated by recording its wave form on photographic film by means of an oscillograph. It was found that the waveform varied with the speed of the hammer; however, if the speed were kept the same, then in all cases the waveform was the same, regardless of the kind of acceleration used in striking the key. Furthermore, the waveform produced by a concert pianist striking the key could be duplicated precisely by adjusting the mechanical striker to produce the same hammer speed. We must conclude that as far as single tones on the piano are concerned, the player does not have the ability to control quality in the manner that has been commonly assumed. The pianist himself may be subjectively convinced that he is doing so, and the adjectives applied by equally subjective critics may convince others that he is doing so. However, the objective listener will be unable to detect these supposed differences in quality by listening to individual piano tones. Pianists as a group seem remarkably resistant to this fact, which has been pointed out to them for almost half a century.]]>

Resources on writing well

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

[5/24] - LaRocque, Paula, [_The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Writing-Ultimate-Guide/dp/0966517695). [4.8/27] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=674446)] - Montgomery, Scott, [_The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science_](http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Communicating-Science-Writing-Publishing/dp/0226534855). [4.3/7] - Stein, Sol, [_Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques_](http://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/). [4.6/91] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=585981)] “My favorite book on writing.” ([Kaj Sotala](http://lesswrong.com/lw/86a/rhetoric_for_the_good/53tm)) - Strunk, William and E. B. White, [_The Elements of Style_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-4th-Edition/dp/0205313426/), 4th ed. [4.7/441] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=154984)] A classic of its genre, it has also attracted a great deal of criticism. - Thomas, Francis-Noël and Mark Turner, [_Clear and Simple as the Truth_](http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Simple-Truth-Writing-Classic/dp/0691147434/), 2nd ed.[5/2] “The best book I've read in years.” ([Robin Hanson](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/deceptive-writing-styles.html)) I summarized the book [here](/notes/summary-of-clear-and-simple-as-the-truth-by-francis-noe-l-thomas-and-mark-turner/). See also Steven Pinker's excellent talk, [The Sense of Style](http://video.mit.edu/watch/communicating-science-and-technology-in-the-21st-century-steven-pinker-12644/), which is heavily informed by the work of Thomas and Turner. - University of Chicago, [_The Chicago Manual of Style_](http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Manual-Style-16th/dp/0226104206), 16th ed. [4.6/47] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=729763)] - Wilbers, Stephen, [_Keys to Great Writing_](http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Great-Writing-Stephen-Wilbers/dp/1582974926/). [4.9/32] - Williams, Joseph and Gregory G. Colomb, [_Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace_](http://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons-Clarity-Grace-Edition/dp/0205747469), 10th ed. [4.6/29] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=685283), 9th ed.] "The best teachers of practical style are Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb." (Francis-Noël Thomas & Mark Turner) - Zinsser, William, [_On Writing Well_](http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060006641). [4.5/74] [[pdf](http://libgen.info/view.php?id=484820)] “Fantastic” (Tim Ferriss)]]>

Rationality: what it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

public {#steven-pinker} According to a story, the logician Sidney Morgenbesser and his girlfriend underwent couples counseling during which the bickering pair endlessly aired their grievances about each other. The exasperated counselor finally said to them, "Look, someone's got to change." Morgenbesser replied, "Well, I'm nog going to change. And she's not going to change. So _you're_ going to change." Steven Pinker, _Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters_, New York, 2021, p. 81]]>

Hackers \& painters: big ideas from the computer age

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

public {#first-era-to-get-everything-right-p-dot-35} Is our time any different? To anyone who has read any amount of history, the answer is almost certainly no. It would be a remarkable coincidence if ours were the first era to get everything just right. the mind of a hacker, p. 13public {#the-mind-of-a-hacker-p-dot-13} Though hackers generally look dull on the outside, the insides of their heads are surprisingly interesting places. suburbia is a nursery, p. 24public {#suburbia-is-a-nursery-p-dot-24} Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children. learning by imitation and testing, p. 40public {#learning-by-imitation-and-testing-p-dot-40} Writers do this too. Benjamin Franklin learned to write by summarizing the points in the essays of Addison and Steele and then trying to reproduce them. Raymond Chandler did the same thing with detective stories. Hackers, likewise, can learn to program by looking at good programs—not just at what they do, but at the source code. One of the less publicized benefits of the open source movement is that it has made it easier to learn to program. always be questioning, pp. 48–49public {#always-be-questioning-pp-dot-48-49} When people are bad at math, they know it, because they get the wrong answers on tests. But when people are bad at open-mindedness, they don’t know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. Remember, it’s the nature of fashion to be invisible. It wouldn’t work otherwise. Fashion doesn’t seem like fashion to someone in the grip of it. It just seems like the right thing to do. It’s only by looking from a distance that we see oscillations in people’s idea of the right thing to do, and can identify them as fashions. Time gives us such distance for free. Indeed, the arrival of new fashions makes old fashions easy to see, because they seem so ridiculous by contrast. From one end of a pendulum’s swing, the other end seems especially far away. To see fashion in your own time, though, requires a conscious effort. Without time to give you distance, you have to create distance yourself. Instead of being part of the mob, stand as far away from it as you can and watch what it’s doing. And pay especially close attention whenever an idea is being suppressed. Web filters for children and employees often ban sites containing pornogra- phy, violence, and hate speech. What counts as pornography and violence? And what, exactly, is “hate speech?” This sounds like a phrase out of 1984. Labels like that are probably the biggest external clue. If a statement is false, that’s the worst thing you can say about it. You don’t need to say that it’s heretical. And if it isn’t false, it shouldn’t be suppressed. So when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic (substitute your current values of x and y), whether in 1630 or 2030, that’s a sure sign that something is wrong. When you hear such labels being used, ask why. Especially if you hear yourself using them. It’s not just the mob you need to learn to watch from a distance. You need to be able to watch your own thoughts from a distance. That’s not a radical idea, by the way; it’s the main difference between children and adults. When a child gets angry because he’s tired, he doesn’t know what’s happening. An adult can distance himself enough from the situation to say “never mind, I’m just tired.” I don’t see why one couldn’t, by a similar process, learn to recognize and discount the effects of moral fashions. You have to take that extra step if you want to think clearly. But it’s harder, because now you’re working against social customs instead of with them. Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where you can discount your own bad moods. Few encourage you to continue to the point where you can discount society’s bad moods. How can you see the wave, when you’re the water? Always be questioning. That’s the only defence. What can’t you say? And why? the side that’s shocked most likely to be the mistaken one, p. 53public {#the-side-that-s-shocked-most-likely-to-be-the-mistaken-one-p-dot-53} You might find contradictory taboos. In one culture it might seem shocking to think x, while in another it was shocking not to. But I think usually the shock is on one side. In one culture x is ok, and in another it’s considered shocking. My hypothesis is that the side that’s shocked is most likely to be the mistaken one. more resources allocated to persuade the rich, who are hence more likely persuadable, p. 90public {#more-resources-allocated-to-persuade-the-rich-who-are-hence-more-likely-persuadable-p-dot-90} There is always a tendency for rich customers to buy expensive solutions, even when cheap solutions are better, because the people offering expensive solutions can spend more to sell them. zero sum thinking, p. 106public {#zero-sum-thinking-p-dot-106} I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. there's good pain and bad pain, p. 150public {#there-s-good-pain-and-bad-pain-p-dot-150} Not every kind of hard is good. There is good pain and bad pain. You want the kind of pain you get from going running, not the kind you get from stepping on a nail. design imitates nature, p. 152public {#design-imitates-nature-p-dot-152} Good design resembles nature. It’s not so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a long time. a thousand Leonardos and Michelangelos walk among uspublic {#a-thousand-leonardos-and-michelangelos-walk-among-us} There are roughly a thousand times as many people alive in the US right now as lived in Florence during the fifteenth century. A thousand Leonardos and a thousand Michelangelos walk among us. acceptable and forbidden topics in academic fieldspublic {#acceptable-and-forbidden-topics-in-academic-fields} In any academic field, there are topics that are ok to work on and others that aren’t. Unfortunately the distinction between acceptable and forbidden topics is usually based on how intellectual the work sounds when described in research aiming at a distant point when designing languagespublic {#aiming-at-a-distant-point-when-designing-languages} When you’re working on language design, I think it’s good to have such a target and to keep it consciously in mind. When you learn to drive, one of the principles they teach you is to align the car not by lining up the hood with the stripes painted on the road, but by aiming at some point in the distance. Even if all you care about is what happens in the next ten feet, this is the right answer. I think we should do the same thing with programming languages. a hypothetical language called Blubpublic {#a-hypothetical-language-called-blub} I’m going to use a hypothetical language called Blub. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. It is not the most powerful language, but it is more powerful than Cobol or machine language. the Blub paradoxpublic {#the-blub-paradox} As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power continuum, he knows he’s looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub are obviously less powerful, because they are missing some feature he’s used to. But when our hypotheti- cal Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn’t realize he’s looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equiv- alent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub. repeating your message for years before people get itpublic {#repeating-your-message-for-years-before-people-get-it} So anyone who invents something new has to expect to keep repeating their message for years before people will start to get it. It took us years to get it through to people that Viaweb’s software didn’t have to be downloaded. The good news is, simple repetition solves the problem. All you have to do is keep telling your story, and eventually people will start to hear. users are a double-edged sword for language designpublic {#users-are-a-double-edged-sword-for-language-design} Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving it. So choose your users carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it.]]>