1/ Hey, so what the fuck's wrong with the world, anyway? (A thread...)
2/ While researching and writing an article on news media at the beginning of the year, I was reminded of a famous Bertrand Russell quote:
“The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are so confident and the intelligent are so full of doubt.”
3/ Russell was describing what psychologists would decades later label The Dunning-Kruger Effect. The Dunning-Kruger Effect shows that the less knowledgeable people are, the more they tend to overestimate their knowledge and abilities.
1/ The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (in a Twitter thread)...
Now, while not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t give a fuck. A bag of burritos sounds awesome, let’s go with it
2/ The point is, most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck about the rude gas station attendant who gave us too many nickels. We give a fuck when a show we liked was canceled on TV.
3/ We give a fuck when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck when it’s raining and we were supposed to go jogging in the morning.
1/ What’s cheap is often more expensive. What does this mean exactly? Let me explain.
2/ My wife and I are both conservative with money. We’re always looking for the bargain, the discount, the special one-time sale. Last year, we bought a house. And when you buy a house, there’s a lot of stuff you have to spend money on that comes along with a house.
3/ Contractors, accountants, designers, lawyers, and so on. Sadly, we learned the hard way—over and over again—that the money you save by hiring the less expensive contractor or the newer designer ends up costing you far more in their mistakes.
1/ The dangers of leading a life based on feelings (a thread)...
Psychological research shows that most of us, most of the time, make decisions and are inspired to action via our feelings, rather than based on knowledge or information.
2/ Psychological research also shows us that our feelings are generally self-centered, willing to give up long-term benefits for short-term gains, and are often warped and/or delusional.
3/ People who lead lives based on how they feel will find themselves perpetually on a treadmill, constantly needing more. The only way to step off is to decide that something matters more than your feelings—that some cause, goal, person, is worth occasionally getting hurt for.
1/ First, when approaching any difficult subject, before even starting, I try to remind myself of a few things (a thread)...
2/ THERE IS LITTLE EVIL IN THE WORLD, BUT LOTS OF STUPIDITY AND SELFISHNESS:
With the exception of truly heinous shit, most people are not motivated by evil intentions. In fact, it’s usually the opposite — most people do awful things with the best of intentions.
3/ Therefore, we should not assume people’s intentions to be evil, but rather try to understand why they believe what they are doing is good.