Mo's Blog

Most people are eager to ask for (good) advice. Many people make a living on giving advice - just look at how many self-help books are out there. But how do you know which advice to follow? Here are some common criteria to tell good advice from bad ones.  Does this advice itself follow logical reasoning and “make sense”? Is there a “consensus” about this advice?  Does this advice come from a “successful” person? The problem is there are good counter arguments against all the above.  Availability bias and belief bias. Think about a typical i/o system. The input is available information to a person, the model is the person’s belief system , the output is the conclusion whether this advice makes sense or not. Two people who believe they are both rational beings could easily arrive at opposite conclusions.  There’s an old saying “the truth lies in the hands of a few”. The appeal of good advice is that it’s not too obvious, contrarian or even controversial. If everyone agrees on this advic

Are you having fun? What’s fun for you? Traveling, reading, playing sports? What’s your definition of fun? Doing something that excites you? Doing something that makes you feel good?  Some people talk about having fun like a waste of time. There’s nothing more motivating than having fun. The dopamine release keeps you going and going. What else would you rather do at this moment? Nothing. If every hour of your life is having fun, you have a great life, my friend.  Don’t worry. Have fun. Oh by the way, there’s always going to be more fun other people are having, at least from your perspective - from all the smiles they had in those instagram posts. You are not having their fun, and their fun looks more fun than yours. So you work hard to make more money to have the fun you saw your friend had. You finally afford it. But no, you see your other friend having a different fun! You are no longer having fun anymore. All you think about is how do I afford that fun ? You work harder this time.

One thing I’ve noticed is some people seem to have strong opinions about many things - politics, sports, entertainment, education…you name it. The strange thing about it is even when they had never heard about a topic before, say, quantum entanglement, within a few minutes they’d develop an opinion based on what they heard. It seems this is part of our cultural identity to be able to develop an “original” opinion as quickly as possible.  Surely it’s something to be celebrated, right? Being able to derive a conclusion from existing evidence is just logical, and a sign of intelligence, isn't it right? Most people who talk about their opinions on TV seem pretty smart, too. I’m not so sure about it. In order to form an educated opinion you’ll need to research enough information about the topic. I believe there’s a critical mass in the amount of information someone needs to gather before an educated opinion can start to develop. The problem here is the quality of information. It’s more

What do you believe in? More specifically, do you need to believe in something in order to live a good life? Let’s say you believe exercising regularly is good for your health, which has clear scientific evidence behind it. But whether you believe it or not doesn’t change the fact it’s good for your health. You either exercise regularly and get the health benefits, or you don’t exercise and do not get the benefits. So why does it matter if you believe exercising regularly is good for your health or not?  The obvious answer is if you don’t believe it you won’t do it (or vice versa), but is that really true? Most people who binge drink believe it is bad for their health, but they still do it regardless; most people who speed on a highway believe that could result an accident or at least impose a higher risk of hurting themselves and others; most people believe reading (books) is valuable to their learning but only a few read books consistently. Should I go on? The next answer may be that