Author: Lloyd Morgan
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An Index of Cognitive Biases (Understanding (and Overcoming) Mental Shortcuts)
I’ve shared lists of cognitive biases before, and books and blog posts on the topic are everywhere. To me, this stuff is like catnip. While doing further research into cognitive-debiasing training (inspired by Philip Tetlock’s research on forecasting), I stumbled across an extensive index of over 100 cognitive biases from The Decision Lab. The biases…
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Four Steps to Better Predictions
Following his work on geopolitical forecasting, Philip Tetlock co-founded The Good Judgement Project, along with decision scientist Barbara Mellers and UPenn colleague Don Moore. Their further research identified four key steps to improving forecast accuracy, shared on the (now archived) ‘Science’ section of the project’s site. These steps: And don’t forget the ten commandments of…
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Hedgehogs, Foxes, and Prediction
In reviewing Philip Tetlock’s Expert Political Judgment upon its release in 2005, The New Yorker of course discussed the main finding that expert judgements are not much better than those of lay forecasters. Another key focus of the review was Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox, a metaphor drawn from Archilochus sometime in the…
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The Two Fundamental Truths of Prediction
There are two fundamental truths of prediction: (i) there exists a “prediction horizon” where predictions beyond this point are inherently inaccurate; and (ii) experts are generally just bad at predicting. On that first point: our ability to predict is limited by the nature of complex systems. Weather forecasts, for example, are quite accurate a day…
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Tsundoku and Eco’s Antilibrary
Today I learnt of tsundoku: 19th-century Japanese slang for “the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them”. Yep, that’s me—with physical books, sure, but especially with ebooks. I love books as much as the next person, but I’m no bibliomaniac. Instead, I’m reminded of the more…
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The Capital City Effect and Britain’s “Mississippi Question”
Ranking Britain’s per capita GDP to that of the various US states seems to be of recurring interest to some in the British economic media—likely because the UK ranks surprisingly low. This has given rise to “the Mississippi question”: which is more economically productive per capita, Britain or the most impoverished US state, with the…
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FAST not SMART for Goals
The conventional SMART approach for setting goals undermines higher-level (team and/or organisational) objectives by promoting an individualistic and isolated approach to work. The best approach for creating effective goals, according to researchers at MIT Sloan, is to go FAST: Frequently discussed; Ambitious; Specific; and Transparent. According to their meta-analysis and additional field research across companies…
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Some Favourite Daily Mini Games
I feel like the concept of daily mini games really came to prominence in those pandemic-hazed days of 2021, thanks to Wordle. Since then, my daily game habits have changed as I hunt for fresh, challenging puzzles. I enjoy finding games that are quick to play but mentally engaging enough to add a little spark…
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Prioritising the Search for Good Books
A favourite hobby of mine is research. Structured or unstructured, informal or scholarly. Deep diving on a topic, old or new, is my jam. For that reason, I spend a lot of time reading about the thing, rather than actually doing the thing. The meta-activities. There are clear negatives to this approach (limited impulsivity, slower…
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Alt Codes and symbol.wtf
In my work and in my writing here, I’m constantly searching for “ellipsis”, “euro symbol”, and “section symbol”, among many, many other symbols. For me, trying to remember even more alt codes is a futile endeavour. Obviously, when Sam Rose wrote this, I was excited: “Made a dumb website so I wouldn’t ever have to…