Anne-Laure Le Cunff Do you know someone who always seems to jump to conclusions? While this behaviour may be more obvious in some people than in others, we are all prone to it. In fact, doctors themselves often jump to conclusions: “Most incorrect diagnoses are due to physicians’ misconceptions of their patients, not technical mistakes like a faulty … Read More
I’m obsessed with thinking in maps: discovering and creating connections between ideas, adding nodes to a knowledge graph, finding patterns across distant areas of knowledge. However, the traditional way of exploring connections between research papers is fairly tedious: read the paper, scan the references, search for any relevant title, rinse and repeat. Connected Papers aims … Read More
We all know that one chain-smoker who lived an old, healthy life. We read everyday about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg—college dropouts who started billion-dollar companies. And we tend to attribute our own success to dedication rather than luck. These are all typical examples of survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is a common bias … Read More
“This is just wrong.” How many times have you heard that phrase during a heated conversation? Such categorical statements never seem to help in coming to an agreement, or at least to create opportunities to learn. Whether at an interpersonal level or at a broader scale, a lack of nuanced thinking can have a significant … Read More
Plato, Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mary Shelley, Frida Kahlo… When we think about the most famous thinkers, inventors, and creators in history, we often picture one specific individual—a genius who uncovered something new where nobody was looking. However, this poetic vision of the innovator as a solo explorer doesn’t reflect the reality of humanity’s … Read More
Learn how to personalise the look of Roam Research with a custom CSS theme. Check out our selection of the best themes shared by Roam users to get started.
In politics and linguistics, semantic traps are words so vague that we cannot give them specific meaning, or words that are systematically misleading. Semantic traps are often used to stir a debate in a certain direction, or to influence people’s judgement. A famous example is when Republican strategist Frank Luntz wrote a memo to George … Read More
As a big fan of thinking in maps, I’m always curious about tools to lay out and connect ideas visually. Many people are not aware as this is a bit of a hidden functionality, but you can actually create diagrams in Roam. 1. Create the canvas. Type {{diagram}} and press enter. You can also type … Read More
When I launched the newsletter last summer, I didn’t expect to hit 20,000 subscribers about a year later. Beside the financial freedom, what started as a little project has brought me countless opportunities to connect with smart people and create new friendships. Many readers are also writers, creators, designers, and entrepreneurs—whether full-time or on the … Read More
Have you ever found yourself ruminating over a mistake you made a while ago? Replaying in your head a conversation that didn’t go so well? That’s the negativity bias at play: not only do we register negative stimuli more readily, but we also tend to dwell on these events for longer. In general, negative events … Read More