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Ask HN: What concepts, if popularly understood, would most improve the world?
A personal list would start with an understanding of cognitive biases -- how they can be formed, how to recognize them, and how to work with and around them.
- thedevindevops 8y agoClimate Engineering
- SanderSantema 8y agoIt wouldn't improve the world in the short term but it certainly wouldn't hurt if more people knew about the dangers and benefits of AGI or super-intelligence for that matter.
- Lausbert 8y agoCorrelation does not imply causation
- blackflame7000 8y agoThat nothing is free.
- facorreia 8y agoThat. There's no free lunch.
- afarrell 8y agoBut there is lunch that would otherwise go to waste. I used to work at a bagel shop. My mother-in-law used to work full-time for a hospital calling insurance companies to get them to actually pay for claims.
- meiraleal 8y agoThat's a common saying in my country, usually used by middle class middle aged men that doesn't work and eat for free at their mother's expense.
- yesenadam 8y agoThat there are no gods - invisible friends aren't real, there's no afterlife, Jesus doesn't love you, the universe wasn't created for humans, ethics and morality weren't given from the sky etc. (I don't know if it would actually improve the world. Maybe things would get better, but worse in the long run? Or vice versa? When is it measured from? Maybe most of the most terrible ideas, systems and inventions in history have been created to improve the world.)
- meiraleal 8y ago- That there are no gods - invisible friends aren't real, there's no afterlife, Jesus doesn't love you, the universe wasn't created for humans, ethics and morality weren't given from the sky etc. This is a VERY personal concept that you can't prove, just like religion (which atheism and scientism are very similar to these day).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- horatiocain 8y agoThey don't need to prove that, it's the default.
- meiraleal 8y ago- there's no afterlife How does the "default" death answers that there is no afterlife? You need to be a believer in both cases. And then depending on the answer of this one, all of the others could also change. Also, the very definition of God is that you can't see it, so negating its existence because our 5 senses can't get it isn't a default negation of the existence of God. To be a real skeptical you need to be doubt and understand both absolute answers.
- cvaidya1986 8y agoIncentives.
- michaelpinto 8y agothe danger of climate change
- cm2012 8y agojust world fallacy.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoRelated and of interest: What Developmental Milestones are you Missing? http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-milestones-are-you-missing/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-mile... But a real answer might be a set of concepts around self-management, that you'd find in a Christian self-help book, or stoicism, or Buddhism, or the rules of St. Benedict, something in that category. But if you look at the uselessness of "mindfulness," maybe not.
- noobly 8y ago>for example, the person who thinks that someone with depression is just “being lazy” or needs to “snap out of it”. I do this internally (not quite to that extent, but along a similar line of reasoning) all the time and feel a little bad about it, yet even as I type this I can't help but feel it's true in many cases. I have a low tolerance for people that abuse medical diagnosis as a certified scapegoat (a static, unchanging one at that), and most of the depressed people I've known don't eat well, exercise regularly, try to sleep better (get off your phone/laptop at least an hour before bed, for example), or perform any other anti-depression-101 tactics. I have pretty severe bouts of apathy at times, and I feel that depression is often a case of simply indulging this apathy a little excessively, while postponing the work involved in constructively and pragmatically working one's self out of it. On the flipside, I tend to agree with the idea that our current model of society and the direction it's going is incompatible with a happy life for a lot of people, and it's perhaps no more fair to blame them for this then it is to blame a square for not fitting into a circular hole. But, if you dull your corners enough, you may just fit right in. At any rate, this was largely tangential and irrevelant, I'm not intending to dispute milestone #2 in a general sense and thanks for the link - it's a good read.
- 1vn 8y agorecycling
- snyena 8y agocapitalism
- perilunar 8y agoGeorgism
- miguelrochefort 8y agoCompound interest
- RaceWon 8y agoThoughts are real; they do actualize.
- FrozenVoid 8y agoThat your thoughts are not generated by your own will and you have no control over what you think, unless you explicitly train yourself to filter and focus on thoughts you need. Most people live in the assumption that what they think is coming from within the I-self, their thoughts are unique creation of themselves and that they should consider all thoughts as equally valid due being of same source. Science is now fully considering that "conscious" thoughts are actually prepared by unconscious processes. https://www.medicaldaily.com/new-theory-suggests-all-conscious-thoughts-and-decisions-are-actually-made-your-340238 https://www.medicaldaily.com/new-theory-suggests-all-conscio...
- HiroshiSan 8y agoHow much of your thoughts are generated by how you live your life? And how much of the way you live your life is generated by your thoughts?
- oldsklgdfth 8y agoThat's a very interesting question. When I feel sad I try to make myself go eat a piece of fruit and drink some water. I have noticed my mood is tightly tied to my diet and living conditions.
- sexydefinesher 8y agoHow about the opposite, nihilism and moral relativism?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- person_of_color 8y agoLife is a zero sum game
- yesenadam 8y agoIn what way?
- turingspiritfly 8y agoBayesian updates to beliefs