Modern Wisdom

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• “The main problems of the internet are not caused by algorithms, they’re caused by people. Algorithms are just a reflection of human behavior”– Gurwinder Bhogal
  • “We have re-primitivized our technology”– Gurwinder Bhogal
  • In the age of information, the internet, and social media we often find that our tribal instincts overpower the search for truth that these tools should be enabling and accelerating
• Law of large numbers – given a wide enough data set, any pattern can be observed
  • “The world hasn’t gotten crazier, we are just seeing more of everything” – Gurwinder Bhogal
• Brandolini’s Law – it takes more energy to refute bullshit than to produce it, the world is left with a lot of unrefuted bullshit
  • It doesn’t take much effort to be wrong on social media – it creates an illusion that society is dumber than it is
• The Tocqueville Paradox – if living standards rise, people’s societal expectations also rise. When expectations rise past living standards, disaffection towards society results.
  • We misinterpret our conditions by measuring them in relativity rather than absolutes
• Bulverism – in debate, we assume our opponent is wrong and attempt to retroactively confirm our assumption usually by appealing to the opponents’ character or motives
• Reactance Theory – when someone is restricted from expressing a point of view or pressured into an opposing point of view, they tend to hold their original view even stronger

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

Gurwinder Bhogal is a programmer and a writer.

I got tagged in a monstrous thread of Gurwinder's on Twitter exploring human nature, cognitive biases, mental models, status games, crowd behaviour and social media. It's one of the best things I've read this year, so I just had to bring him on.

Expect to learn how saying ridiculous things can be a test of loyalty, why people can be too stupid to know that they're stupid, why million-to-one odds happen 8 times a day in New York City, why The Bullshit Principle is actually a thing, why everyone is seeing racism everywhere and much more... 

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Extra Stuff:

Follow Gurwinder on Twitter - https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal 

Gurwinder's MegaThread 1: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1225561131122597896

Gurwinder's MegaThread 2: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1438972527838117895 

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