54 Quotes by Brian Christian

Unless we’re willing to spend eons striving for perfection every time we encounter a hitch, hard problems demand that instead of spinning our tires we imagine easier versions and tackle those first. When applied correctly, this is not just wishful thinking, not fantasy or idle daydreaming. It’s one of our best ways of making progress.

Everything starts to break down, however, when a species gains language. What we talk about isn’t what we experience – we speak chiefly of interesting things, and those tend to be things that are uncommon.

By the 2012 presidential election cycle, their company counted among its clients both the Obama re-election campaign and the campaign of Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

As Carl Sagan put it, “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

We can hope to be fortunate – but we should strive to be wise.

As Trick points out, sports leagues aren’t concerned with determining the rankings as quickly and expeditiously as possible. Instead, sports calendars are explicitly designed to maintain tension throughout the season, something that has rarely been a concern of sorting theory. For.

The patent talks about “anticipatory package shipping,” which the press seized upon as though Amazon could somehow mail you something before you bought it.

If you want to be a good intuitive Bayesian – if you want to naturally make good predictions, without having to think about what kind of prediction rule is appropriate – you need to protect your priors. Counterintuitively, that might mean turning off the news.

If you’re flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.