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👉 Adapt or die. I’ve called this principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection. – Charles Darwin Evolution is the fundamental process underlying biology. It describes how organisms adapt over time by a process of natural selection. The environment is not static and it’s in constant flow. Resources that at some point were abundant become scarce and organisms compete to get enough of them. Some organisms will have traits that make it easier to get these resources or survive the lack thereof. Hence, they are more likely to survive and pass on their traits to their offspring. Others don’t get enough resources and go extinct. ...

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” – George Box Reality is incredibly complex. To handle it and reduce the complexity, we create models that zoom in on aspects of how the world works. They are abstractions that simplify reality and make it easier to understand the world and avoid overwhelm. How good an abstraction is, is always measured by its utility. Imagine if when you wanted to buy a car, you had to say, “Honey, let’s go look at configurations of metals, polyester, and plastic.” That’d be highly impractical. The abstraction “car” summarizes all the usual components that make out a car and allow you to communicate the concept efficiently. Abstractions taken together form the mental models through which we see and interpret the world. ...

This is an acronym I came across a lot in my studies. VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It’s used to describe the world we live in and was noted as the number one reason to why we need innovation. It’s also a useful reminder for any individual or organization to avoid overconfidence. The world is volatile. It moves unpredictably and doesn’t ever really trend in one direction for long. Especially human made systems move faster and fluctuate more with our progress. When our thinking and actions couldn’t keep up, we invented computers to do some thinking and acting for us. The result was more interconnectedness and faster systems, which often makes mistakes more devastating. ...

If you want a successful and fulfilling life, you shouldn’t optimize for happiness. Instead, Richard Meadows argues that you should focus on increasing optionality. We think happiness is a state we can arrive at. However, happiness is always relative, and we have both external and internal reference points that guide our happiness level. Because of the hedonic treadmill, you’ll need newer and stronger “happiness kicks” to get to the same level of happiness than before. ...

We often have an inflated opinion of our understanding of reality. We think we know how things work. But as Philip Tetlock showed elegantly in his research, even experts are typically not much more accurate than anyone taking random guesses. This is bad because if your understanding of reality is inaccurate, you’ll inevitably make some horrible decisions in your life. The main reason for our false understanding seems to be confirmation bias. Let’s say you make a prediction: ”Paul and Sarah will definitely get together”. Now if Paul and Sarah don’t get together, you’ll either find a nice excuse why you’re wrong, ”well, I couldn’t have known about X, and that changed everything”, or you’ll just slowly forget that you were wrong over time. It’s not pleasant being wrong, so why should you keep reminding yourself of it? If your prediction about Paul and Sarah is right, you’ll say that you knew it all along and congratulate yourself on your profound understanding of human nature. ...