Miscellaneous: My 1,000th Post

This is my 1,000th post. I hope some of them have been useful or at least interesting.

My main interest has been about how bad we are at absorbing new information, correcting old beliefs, and making decisions (see the posts which have been labeled mind). We are far from the rational creatures which might like to think we are. Our brains naturally take shortcuts to make thinking quicker and easier, which is understandable for less important things, but our biases make it difficult for us to absorb information which challenges the biases unless we consciously work to overcome them, as evidenced by the state of our political system where the two sides talk past one another often without much interest in understanding the other side's point of view.

My growing interest is in how we mistake economic progress with human progress (see well-being). The average American now is no more satisfied with his life than he was many decades ago, yet we are far richer. Are we focusing on the right things?

-- DougL