Field note: collective experience as purifying agent
Risk aversion and negative bias help filter out bad and mediocre things. The past as history retains it is a reduced gravy that consists of what is deemed preferable and of higher quality.
Being “modern”, living a modern life means dealing with a lot of noise, bad quality to noise ratios.
Must stop being bogged down in unimportant minutiae, things that are supposed to facilitate life but carry no intrinsic value. I. E. It’s ok to be behind the latest tends and gadgets.
Furthermore, training oneself to have a statistical outlook on life is hard, but it is the first step to taming the instinctive chaos. It is hard not to mistake special cases for general rules, especially negative events.
Another approach is thinking in terms of opportunity costs. What is an hour of free time worth? What does $1000 of disposable income represent? Should we spend Saturday mornings cleaning and doing laundy? Or should we hire help and pursue part-time graduate degrees? Perhaps go skiing instead?
