Look Forward, Reason Backward: A Primary Principle of Strategic Thinking

One of the basic principles in game theory is that you should look forward and reason back. Essentially, this means that before making a move, you should consider all the possible moves that you and the other players can make, together with the possible outcomes that these moves lead to. Then, consider how desirable each outcome …

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The Best Type of Subtitles to Use When Learning a Foreign Language

  When you learn a new language, it’s important to get a lot of exposure to it. One of the best ways to do this is by watching movies and TV shows in your target language. In general, it’s better for you to watch foreign-language videos with subtitles, rather than without them. However, this gives rise …

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Strawman Arguments: What They Are and How to Counter Them

  A strawman is a fallacious argument that distorts an opposing stance in order to make it easier to attack. Essentially, the person using the strawman pretends to attack their opponent’s stance, while in reality they are actually attacking a distorted version of that stance, which their opponent doesn’t necessarily support. For example, if someone says “I think …

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How to Win at Arm Wrestling and Avoid Injury

  Arm wrestling is often used as a trial of strength, which is meant to ‘prove’ how strong you are. However, while physical strength does matter, most people have no idea how to utilize it effectively, especially in this context. This means that by making a few simple modifications to your technique, you should easily …

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The Stages of Learning: How You Become More Competent at Skills

  The stages of learning model is a psychological framework which explains how people become more competent when learning a skill. According to this model, as people learn a skill, they advance up a hierarchy of competence, which includes four main levels of competence: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. Each of …

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Sleep Better by Reducing Blue-Light Exposure Before Bedtime

  In today’s world, late-night exposure to bright lights is one of the most common issues affecting sleep quality, a fact which is often attributed to the widespread use of light-emitting screens. Basically, when you check your phone or laptop while lying bed, you’re making it more difficult for yourself to fall asleep, while also reducing your …

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The Cognitive Benefits of Chewing Gum

  Research suggests that chewing gum could have some small but beneficial cognitive benefits. In the following article, you will learn about these benefits, and about how you can take advantage of them.   The cognitive benefits of chewing gum There is a large number of studies on the topic of the cognitive benefits of …

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Mise en Place: How to Be More Efficient in the Kitchen and in Life

  Mise en place (pronounced mee-zon-plas) is a French culinary term which means “putting in place”, and which denotes that you should plan and prepare for a task before you start working on it. Mise en place is most often used in a culinary context, where it signifies that you should prepare all the necessary …

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The Illusion of Transparency: Why You’re Not as Obvious as You Think You Are

  The illusion of transparency is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate the degree to which their thoughts and emotions are apparent to others. For example, the illusion of transparency can cause people who feel nervous about public speaking to overestimate the degree to which their nervousness is noticed by the audience. Because …

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