Solving The News Bubble Problem

The technology for delivering news to consumers is too good now. Facebook, for example, can serve up only the types of content they already know will interest you. The problem with that model is that each political group ends up in an information bubble where they only see the stuff with which…

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How to Know Whether You are a Real Person or a Simulation

Regular readers of this blog know about philosopher Nick Bostrom’s idea [archive] that it is far more likely we are simulations created by an advanced species than we are likely to be the original species itself. The reasoning here is that every sufficiently-advanced species will create multiple simulations in which the simulated…

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President Trump’s First 100 Days

Everyone observing politics seems to agree on two things about a president’s first 100 days in office: 1. 100 days is a meaningless, arbitrary marker for a president’s performance that is likely to be more misleading than useful. and… 2. Let’s treat it like it is important! Reeeeeeee! The thing…

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WhenHub Hackathon – An Example of Systems over Goals

Regular readers of this blog know that I wrote a book about the benefits of systems versus goals. You also might know that I cofounded a startup (WhenHub [archived]) using a systems business model approach. I’ll use this blog to keep you updated on how that works out compared to the traditional goal-oriented business model that almost…

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How a Systems-Thinking President Can Settle the Climate Science Debate

This idea in today’s Wall Street Journal [link available, alternative archive] talks about creating a “Red Team” to dig into the climate science debate and come up with a conclusion for the public. I call that a good system. Systems are better than goals. A goal, in this case, might be to “Convince the…

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Big Red Flag for Cognitive Dissonance

When I see an obvious case of cognitive dissonance in the news, I like to point it out so you can see reality through what I call the Persuasion Filter. Today’s example comes from an article in SLATE [archive] about climate change. The author, Tim Requarth [archive], correctly points out that facts and logic…

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You Don’t Have Free Will – but You Might Get It Someday

Regular readers know that I don’t believe in the superstition of “free will” because the laws of physics don’t stop at your skull. Whatever is happening in your brain is the result of cause and effect, and perhaps some randomness. But “free will” isn’t a real thing, except in our imaginations. But…

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The Air Comes Out of the Anti-Trump Balloon

In January of this year, President Trump’s critics were marching in the streets because they believed he was about to go full-Hitler. Or maybe he was just crazy, and about to do something dangerously stupid.  Today their biggest complaint is that President Trump hasn’t shared his tax returns with the…

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How to Structure a Deal With North Korea

One of the most useful things I learned in business school was that you can usually make a deal whenever the parties involved don’t want full control of the same limited resources. That’s why a peace deal in Israel is impossible – because both sides want the same land. But…

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Am I Shadowbanned on Twitter?

Earlier this week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey contacted me to discuss my ongoing public observations that Twitter appears to be “shadowbanning” me because of my writings about Trump. Jack introduced me via Direct Message to Del Harvey, Twitter’s Head of Trust & Safety, for the official answer. The official answer is that…

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U.S. and Russian Relationship at a Low?

Everyone is saying the relationship between the United States and Russia is really, really bad right now. President Trump says it is bad. Russia agrees. All the pundits agree too. So it must be true, right? In the 2nd dimension – where things are just the way they look –…

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The North Korea Reframe

Prior U.S. presidents framed the North Korean nuclear program as a problem between the United States and North Korea, with China as an unhelpful third party with its own interests. That framing was weak and useless. North Korea did whatever it wanted to do. President Trump recently changed the frame….

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