Newsletter 121: Why is so much harder to lie in print . . . and could that save us all? Plus concentrating on what AI is bad at, an AI-enabled publishing imprint, three people to follow and three books to read. I can’t lie in print I’ve noticed something about myself and I want to…
Donald Trump’s campaign people send me incendiary emails every day. Most of it is just baiting to get money, but I was intrigued by one of these emails that claimed he was right about ten things that “the media” got wrong. Was Trump actually telling the truth and we missed it? Let’s put it to…
Donald Trump’s State of the Union message sounded like a rational if self-serving laundry list of dozens of platitudes and programs — you know, just like every other president’s. Except for one thing: He invented facts that are easily proven false. Why? The rest of this post is based mostly on the fact checks in…
Truth is more important than anything else. Without it, all else crumbles. When I was a child, if you did something wrong, you got in trouble. But if you lied about it, it was much worse. If you told the truth about it, sometimes you wouldn’t get punished at all. “You told the truth —…
“That’s fake news!” “No, you’re fake news.” With all the accusations of what’s fake flying about, is there any meaning to the idea of truth? It’s a remarkably subtle concept. But, contrary to what President Trump told TIME Magazine, truth is not a feeling. The topic of the TIME interview was truth and falsehood. Trump said a…
At 140 characters, tweets lack context. Without context, there is no truth. So tweets are lies. Donald Trump’s tweets are lies, and so are mine. But they reveal a lot about what’s going on in our respective heads. What do I mean when I say that the truth demands context? Let’s start with one of my…
Here are five ideas for my next book. Tell me which one you like best. Thinking Without Bullshit: Embracing the Discipline of Analytical Thinking Based on my 20 years as an analyst and my training in mathematics, I will describe the steps you need to take to think like an analyst. Will feature interviews and examples from…
Don’t lie. Don’t deceive. Be honest. But if you must lie or deceive, do it the right way, for the right reasons. Let’s be frank. You cannot occupy a position of any responsibility in a business and be perfectly honest and transparent. Don’t believe me? Here are some examples: A client requests that your work with…