Computer Science • Math • Philosophy • Science • Vocabulary
The range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It says politicians can act only within the acceptable range. Political commentator Joshua Treviño has postulated that the six degrees of acceptance of public ideas are roughly: Unthinkable, Radical, Acceptable, Sensible, Popular, Policy.
Tendency to rather settle for a smaller present reward than to wait for a larger future reward, in a trade-off situation. It describes the trend of overvaluing immediate rewards, while putting less worth in long-term consequences. The present bias can be used as a measure for self-control, which is a trait related to the prediction of secure life outcomes.
Approach to improving productivity.
The observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.
Hedonic adaptation is a process or mechanism that reduces the affective impact of emotional events. Generally, hedonic adaptation involves a happiness “set point”, whereby humans generally maintain a constant level of happiness throughout their lives, despite events that occur in their environment. The process of hedonic adaptation is often conceptualized as a treadmill, since no matter how hard one tries to gain an increase in happiness, one will remain in the same place.
A psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
A fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone’s or something’s history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. It fails to assess the claim on its merit.
Inability to take responsibility for one’s actions, instead blaming others or rationalizing one’s behavior.
St. George killed the dragon but wasn’t satisfied. He was convinced that there were still more dragons around every corner to slay and kept on looking for dragons that didn’t exist. He searched everywhere and started killing smaller and smaller creatures until eventually he was swinging his sword at clean air like a crazy person.
In psychology a person who has a martyr complex, sometimes associated with the term “victim complex”, desires the feeling of being a martyr for their own sake, seeking out suffering or persecution because it either feeds a psychical need or a desire to avoid responsibility.
Tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person (“victim”) is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need. The effect is also observed when subjects administer punishment rather than reward. Research has shown that individuals can be more likely to mete out punishment, even at their own expense, when they are punishing specific, identifiable individuals.
A psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. The effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant.
Logical fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency. AKA comparing apples and oranges.
Logical fallacy occurring when someone argues that something is good because it is natural and something else is bad because it is not natural. The flaw with this line of thinking is the fact that whether something is natural or unnatural is completely irrelevant to whether or not it is good. Arsenic is natural. Cyanide is natural. Bubonic plague is natural.
A monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.
Mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new evidence perceived by the person. When confronted with facts that contradict beliefs, ideals, and values, people will try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
A situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it.
Belief that one’s private thoughts are different from those of others.
Type of tribalism prioritizing and highlighting concerns of a group based on racial, gender, religious, etc. identity without regard to broader interest.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
A cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Tendency to continue doing something simply because we have always done it.
Tendency to undervalue things that aren’t ours and to overvalue things we already own.
For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
20% of the inputs or activities are responsible for 80% of the outcomes or results.
Adding human resources to a late software project makes it later.
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
The adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.
A graphical representation of the life cycle stages a technology goes through from conception to maturity and widespread adoption.
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.
Technology Trigger > Peak of Inflated Expectations > Trough of Disillusionment > Slope of Enlightenment > Plateau of Productivity
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
The simplest explanation is almost always somebody screwed up.
Successful companies can put too much emphasis on customers’ current needs, and fail to adopt new technology or business models that will meet customers’ unstated or future needs.
2 individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.
Two prisoners stole $1 million and are being questioned. If neither snitches, they both walk and get $500k each. If one snitches, he walks and keeps the full $1 million. If both snitch, they get nothing.
People’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains.
Justifying increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit.
A concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.”
In an organizational structure, assessing an employee’s potential for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job. This eventually results in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent, referred to as their level of incompetence.
Peter suggests that “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties” and [the corollary] that “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.”
Opinion > size > age > shape > color > origin > material > purpose > noun
Lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.