Lasmi's Thoughts

I think it’s helpful to know what are the drivers of my own mind. So here I lay them out.

Humans have 2 types of thinking: (1) the automatic and (2) the deliberate. We use both of them everyday. The automatic has been there for a long time and helps us through the evolution process. It helps us in survival. While the deliberate is something rather newly developed. Hence, it requires more effortful process that does not happen automatically.

We fall into bad decision when we mistake to use the proper type of thinking in situations. For example, using hunch when choosing which college to go into without further research. This is based on the book: Thinking Fast & Slow.

As an individual will never know everything we need to know in life to make decisions. We rely on heuristics. Yet, we are required to choose things everyday, whether we realize it or not. How the system is designed affects us a lot when making decision.

When you are grocery shopping, the way the things put into the rack influence what kind of things we find first and hence choose. Read more about how nudging the systems can be beneficial: Nudge.

Related to choice, think about the tea you drink in your house. Have you ever try to change the way you brew your tea? How about where you live and how you dress up? Human is a creature of habit. Small decisions pile up until it becomes automatic.

Maybe you always drink your tea with sugar. But now you are aware of the risk of diabetes. How to change that? I read Atomic Habits and find helpful insights in engineering my own habit.

But wait, do we have to be rational all the time? Yes. But this is only if your definition of rational is what makes you survive.

There has been a debate about what it means to be “rational.” If you have read Thinking Fast & Slow, the notion of rationality is somewhat inclined to the type 2 of thinking, which involves a deliberate and effortful process.

But that’s not how Nassim Taleb defines it. We, as a human, always avoid ruins. Ruins are things that when those happen, we won’t be able to continue life as it was before. It also involves an automatic process (type 1) but serves good for our survival.

At last, the one that influences me the most is a blog called Farnam Street. It helps me to think better, I seek the foundational mental models in everything I learn. It literally …transforms my mind.