Note: I’m in a gradual process of anonymizing this blog. This is just so that I can write more freely, and include observations from my life that cannot be tied to my boring real world grad student existence. We’ll see how that goes. There’s a theme from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy that has stayed withContinue reading “Of dead Russian authors and dead-er French kings”
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The case for falling in line
Picking up bits and pieces from various writers that I admire and producing a relatively inferior narrative. A lot of instagram is basically a bunch of people encouraging each other to be “fierce”, not care what others think of them, keep on doing what they love, keep on being who they are, etc. This isContinue reading “The case for falling in line”
Last year in retrospect
I turn (even) older today. Hence, this seems as good an occasion as any to put the last year in retrospect and think about things I could have done better. Blogging I decided last summer to start blogging about research papers outside of my field. I would often email these pieces to the authors ofContinue reading “Last year in retrospect”
Find out what you don’t know, and protect it from half-baked explanations
I’ve thought about these ideas for a long time, and they’ve only been strengthened by reading biographies and articles like Ambidexterity and Cognitive Closure. In this article, I’ll try to untangle this mess of ideas, and also try and provide a refutation of The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan. Why are the greats thatContinue reading “Find out what you don’t know, and protect it from half-baked explanations”
Dostoevsky is a two-trick pony
Like most other people who enjoy self-abuse through reading thousand-page novels, I’ve had the experience of reading Dostoevsky and marveling at his ability to capture “reality”. I’ve read “Crime and Punishment” in the past, and am now reading “The Brothers Karamazov”. Needless to say, there have been many parts that have completely floored me. IContinue reading “Dostoevsky is a two-trick pony”
The futility of contrarian arguments
Since I was very young, I used to want to tell people exactly what I think about something. Most of these views would be contrarian, and I would assume that I am adding value to the conversation by presenting an alternate view. Needless to say, I often had trouble making friends in middle school, highContinue reading “The futility of contrarian arguments”
Dealing with conflicting goals
Today I read an amazing paper titled “Behavioural Consistency and Inconsistency in the Resolution of Goal Conflict” by Laran and Janiszewski. It was published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2009, and is one of the most highly cited papers in the field. I think this paper really helped me understand my daily behaviour,Continue reading “Dealing with conflicting goals”
Decoding human personality
I recently had the opportunity to read a fascinating paper titled “A model for personality at three levels” by Revelle and Condon. I was expecting the article to be rather dry, from which I would need to extract useful facts after a lot of effort. However, it proved to be fantastically “wise”, with deeply penetratingContinue reading “Decoding human personality”
Status signaling
Of the subtle things in life, status signaling is one of the subtlest. It is mostly a delicate art refined in the forging fires of one-upmanship (and perhaps envy), but it can become quite unpleasant in the hands of brutes. So what is status signaling? Well if I am earning a lot more than you,Continue reading “Status signaling”
On virtue signaling
Let me detail some of the many ways in which I am basically a hypocrite. I am a “liberal”. Does that mean that I fight for women’s rights? Do I work tirelessly for the downtrodden? Well I got into an argument with a family member once in which I said that men and women deservedContinue reading “On virtue signaling”
