“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” This somewhat well-known quote is from a NY Times Magazine piece written by Michael Pollan in 2007. Many know Pollan for, among other things, railing against something called nutritionism. Nutritionism is the idea that the key to understanding food’s impact on our health lies in isolating its individual…
Pucker Factor
Late last night, I arrived back in New Jersey after spending the last few days at the inaugural Wealth/Stack conference out in Scottsdale, AZ. The conference was a great time, and I’m sure there will be plenty of awesome recap posts to read soon. I want to share a quick story from Tuesday morning. Dan…
It’s Not Rocket Science
“It’s not rocket science”, is a phrase commonly invoked to indicate a topic’s simplicity. As Duncan Watts laments in his book, Everything is Obvious, this refrain is often unfairly applied to social science: “Well, I’m no rocket scientist, and I have immense respect for the people who can land a machine the size of a…
Well, Technically
Do you remember learning about fungibility in Econ 101? It’s the idea that a good or asset can be interchanged with another similar good or asset. The part we didn’t learn about is when this is technically true, but pragmatically irrelevant. Enter behavioral economics. One of the first behavioral economics ideas I understood was the…
The Investor’s High
To borrow the framework of a famous Dorothy Parker quote: I hate running, but I love having run. This mentality embodies a phenomenon many refer to as a “runner’s high”. A runner’s high is the euphoric feeling experienced after a long run. As a runner, that feeling of general contentment and well being is a…
The Unsatisfying Certitude of Uncertainty
On a recent episode of the Shea Anything podcast, reporter Andy Martino addressed a popular narrative about Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler. The story is that Wheeler threw more splitters in 2018, and that this new pitch explained his markedly improved performance. Neat and tidy – because of this, that occurred. However, Martino shared that MLBs…