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How can we make better decisions?


Infoslop
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil I think Infoslop has a lot to answer for. I'm not sure if I have invented the word, but I will try and define it and explain why I think why Infoslop makes us less well-informed yet more confident in our (faulty, or at least non-nuanced beliefs). I am taking measures to try and avoid infoslop in my life, but its a journey - I would love to hear from you, how you have successfully achieved this. To add insu
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Britain balancing its books part 3
The moral case — betraying our values? Zoso Davies, a credit strategist and Hartej Singh, a Credit Investor write a four-part series...
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Britain balancing its books part 2
More promises than productivity Zoso Davies, a credit strategist and Hartej Singh, a Credit Investor write a four-part series arguing...
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The Overton Window
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — attributed to Mahatma Gandhi You might not have...
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Britain balancing its books part 1
Britain balancing its books part 1: Sound public finances underpin living standards, discuss Zoso Davies, a credit strategist and Hartej...
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Summer book recommendation
“It is easier to judge a man by his questions rather than his answers” - Pierre-Marc-Gaston I hope you are having a great summer! This is...
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The lost art of patience and curiosity
"Dripping water wears through stone, but not in a single day." – Chinese Proverb Before heading off on holiday, I stuffed five slim books...
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How we can avoid going broke
“In any case, the days of borrowing much more than can be paid back to support excess consumption, by unproductive people, are coming to...
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The 5 Powers of a storyteller
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.” - William Butler Yeats, Irish poet Storytellers command power. A...
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Vision - the story of tomorrow
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but...
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Humour - spice for stories
“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” — George Bernard Shaw Making people laugh is not...
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Stories that lift us
“Stories are the communal currency of humanity.” – Tahir Shah Stories can lift us Welcome to part five of the storytelling series, with...
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Data-driven storytelling
"The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight." – Carly Fiorina Data is the start of the story not the story...
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The power of narratives
“The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them". - from Stephen...
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Stories simplify ideas
“ After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world .” -- Philip Pullman A famous and...
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Learn how to tell stories
“Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better.” — Yuval Noah Harari Is the...
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Assumption Sages
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Unknown (often attributed to...
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Tech trade-offs
'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times' - Charles Dickens I hesitated before writing this. Who am I to generalise, to...
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Luxury beliefs
“People care a great deal more about appearance and reputation than about reality.” - Jonathan Haidt , The Righteous Mind Are beliefs the...
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Death by process
“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” - Albert Einstein Where to go next? It feels in the day that Amazon can get a product to...
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The Blame Game
Blaming others is a common response to not feeling happy Too good to be true usually means too good to be true." – Richard Branson We...
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Book: Rockefeller Letters
This is the book cover This week, I have not been able to spend as much time writing as I would have liked to, and that is largely...
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Laws are tools not truths
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - Robert Kennedy The...
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80/20 rule and life decisions
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee Outsize outputs come from a small group in inputs. If...
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2025 Focus and 2024 Review
"Focus is the art of knowing what to ignore" - James Clear What to focus on this year? Dear readers thank you for joining me in this...
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Free speech - real talk
It's time to have a grown up conversation around free speech... What's the real story of free speech today? Free speech was back in the...
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2024 - Winners and Losers
"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday's logic." - Peter Drucker If someone had...
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Trust - why we need it
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough." – Frank Crane We need to talk about...
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The Risk of Excessive Caution
"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." – Lao Tzu My biology teacher used to joke, "A pessimist is a man...
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Survive bs everywhere
Bs is everywhere. We know what it is when we see it, but how do we define it, spot it and avoid it? Today's blogs takes the smelly tour...
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Did the policy work?
"The plural of anecdote is misinformation" - Dr. Jonathan Stea Did a policy work? Voters are in the mood for radical policies. Radical...
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Agree to Disagree
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it means to sit down and listen” - often misattributed to Churchill...
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Competing narratives
"Narratives are the primary way in which we make sense of our lives" - Jacqui Stedmon What are narratives? In most situations there is...
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Radical Centrism explained
There was recently a survey from a right wing magazine which stated that the bottom quarter of the US had the same or worse outcomes to...
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The 5Ds of national decline
"We can neither endure our vices nor their remedies." - Livy about the Roman Empire Whether it is riots, strikes or feelings of...
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Popular does not equal good
Today's short blog is on a subject that seems so obvious, but we often fall into logical fallacies around it. Popular does not equal...
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What is the "far right"?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall Increasingly we are hearing of...
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What is democracy good for?
'It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried' - Winston...
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Why you should vote
"Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country and this world."- Sharon Salzberg This year 2024, has...
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Public square 2.0
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes." What would a modern public square look like?...
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Democracy and the public square
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people." - John Adams Imagine the cacophony of information that is...
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Thinking charitably
Why hadn’t I heard of the concept of "charity" in critical thinking?.... maybe because it’s a lost art. Have you come across the idea in...
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Why tech chose misinformation
"The challenge is that the internet has created a place where misinformation just flourishes. We have to think about these systems more...
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Free speech and its limits
Free speech has its limits. We need to work out what they should be. Freedom of speech is venerated by us as an essential right within a...
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Critical thinking - explained
Our public square is broken. For the first time since records began, more Americans say they have no trust in the mainstream media than...
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How do you switch off?
"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." - Anne Lamont There are at least two problems with...
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10 insights from 100 blogs
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself." – adapted quote from Mahatma Gandhi Dear readers, welcome to my 100th blog. A huge...
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13 questions whilst you read
"The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you." – W. Somerset Maugham I was probably the anti-example (if that...
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Short book recommendations
I seek out short books to read. Short books might lack the snob-value that War and Peace or the Count of Montecristo has but these short...
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Different ways to read a book
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”― Lemony Snicket. You can only read a book front to back, right? Wrong....
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