
Ask HN: What concepts, if popularly understood, would most improve the world? - marviel
A personal list would start with an understanding of cognitive biases -- how they can be formed, how to recognize them, and how to work with and around them.
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FrozenVoid
That your thoughts are not generated by your own will and you have no control
over what you think, unless you explicitly train yourself to filter and focus
on thoughts you need. Most people live in the assumption that what they think
is coming from within the I-self, their thoughts are unique creation of
themselves and that they should consider all thoughts as equally valid due
being of same source. Science is now fully considering that "conscious"
thoughts are actually prepared by unconscious processes.
[https://www.medicaldaily.com/new-theory-suggests-all-
conscio...](https://www.medicaldaily.com/new-theory-suggests-all-conscious-
thoughts-and-decisions-are-actually-made-your-340238)

~~~
HiroshiSan
How much of your thoughts are generated by how you live your life? And how
much of the way you live your life is generated by your thoughts?

~~~
oldsklgdfth
That's a very interesting question. When I feel sad I try to make myself go
eat a piece of fruit and drink some water.

I have noticed my mood is tightly tied to my diet and living conditions.

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michaelpinto
the danger of climate change

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miguelrochefort
Compound interest

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SamReidHughes
Related and of interest: What Developmental Milestones are you Missing?
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-
mile...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-milestones-
are-you-missing/)

But a real answer might be a set of concepts around self-management, that
you'd find in a Christian self-help book, or stoicism, or Buddhism, or the
rules of St. Benedict, something in that category. But if you look at the
uselessness of "mindfulness," maybe not.

~~~
noobly
>for example, the person who thinks that someone with depression is just
“being lazy” or needs to “snap out of it”.

I do this internally (not quite to that extent, but along a similar line of
reasoning) all the time and feel a little bad about it, yet even as I type
this I can't help but feel it's true in many cases. I have a low tolerance for
people that abuse medical diagnosis as a certified scapegoat (a static,
unchanging one at that), and most of the depressed people I've known don't eat
well, exercise regularly, _try_ to sleep better (get off your phone/laptop at
least an hour before bed, for example), or perform any other anti-
depression-101 tactics. I have pretty severe bouts of apathy at times, and I
feel that depression is often a case of simply indulging this apathy a little
excessively, while postponing the work involved in constructively and
pragmatically working one's self out of it.

On the flipside, I tend to agree with the idea that our current model of
society and the direction it's going is incompatible with a happy life for a
lot of people, and it's perhaps no more fair to blame them for this then it is
to blame a square for not fitting into a circular hole. But, if you dull your
corners enough, you may just fit right in.

At any rate, this was largely tangential and irrevelant, I'm not intending to
dispute milestone #2 in a general sense and thanks for the link - it's a good
read.

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blackflame7000
That nothing is free.

~~~
facorreia
That. There's no free lunch.

~~~
afarrell
But there is lunch that would otherwise go to waste. I used to work at a bagel
shop.

My mother-in-law used to work full-time for a hospital calling insurance
companies to get them to actually pay for claims.

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RaceWon
Thoughts are real; they do actualize.

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SanderSantema
It wouldn't improve the world in the short term but it certainly wouldn't hurt
if more people knew about the dangers and benefits of AGI or super-
intelligence for that matter.

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cvaidya1986
Incentives.

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cm2012
just world fallacy.

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sexydefinesher
How about the opposite, nihilism and moral relativism?

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Lausbert
Correlation does not imply causation

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turingspiritfly
Bayesian updates to beliefs

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person_of_color
Life is a zero sum game

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yesenadam
In what way?

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thedevindevops
Climate Engineering

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snyena
capitalism

~~~
perilunar
Georgism

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1vn
recycling

