Mastodawn

The Rod That Snaps

Most solutions to our problems are already right in front of us. We just can’t see them because they’re buried under layers of assumption and habit and inherited thinking.

When a deeply held assumption finally breaks, you feel it. It’s almost physical. Like a rod snapping inside your skull. You can almost hear that sharp, clean crack of something rigid giving way. If you’ve ever watched neodymium dipoles snap into alignment under an electromagnet, it’s that kind of sudden, irreversible shift. Something that was locked just clicks free.

You should chase that feeling. Have it often.

The know-how behind any given problem is rarely out of this world. It’s usually pretty ordinary. It’s just hidden behind stuff we never thought to question. And the more you practice catching your own biases, the ones baked in by childhood, by culture, by sheer repetition, the sharper your thinking gets. You start asking better questions. You go deeper. You stop memorising things and actually start understanding them.

We need so much more of this in our industries and in academia. Less autopilot. More first-principles thinking.

And here’s a practical place to start. Your language. The words you speak out loud carry every bias and assumption you hold. Just listen to them. Then turn inward. Watch your internal conversations, the quiet narration running under your decisions.

That’s where real depth begins.

Subscribe to get notified or follow the blog, and if you like what I write, please share it with your network 🙂

#Assumptions #Awareness #Biases #Childhood #FirstPrinciples #Intellect #Life #Nurturing #Philosophy #Psychology #Society #Truth #Wisdom

Jock Busuttil Jan 6, 2016

Should I start a bank?

After yet another day of outage from my business bank, I found myself thinking: “I could do this better. I should start a bank.”

#prodmgmt #assumptions #bank #customerDevelopment #customerSatisfaction #GeneralAssembly #HSBC #serviceDesign 📖 Read more: https://imanageproducts.com/should-i-start-a-bank/

Dr Mircea Zloteanu 🌺🌞🍃Jun 9

#statstab #548 Checking model assumption {easystats}

Thoughts: The {performance} package is great at a one-function plot for assunptions. Good explanations also (bug theory limited).

#rstats #assumptions #linearity #linearmodel #r #modelselection

https://easystats.github.io/performance/articles/check_model.html

Dr Mircea Zloteanu 🌺🌞🍃Jun 5

#statstab #546 Assumption-checking rather than (just) testing: The importance of visualization and effect size in statistical diagnostics

Thoughts: Think more about what "assumption checking" means.

#assumptions #tutorial #nhst #epistemology #statistics

https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-023-02072-x

Assumption-checking rather than (just) testing: The importance of visualization and effect size in statistical diagnostics - Behavior Research Methods

Statistical methods generally have assumptions (e.g., normality in linear regression models). Violations of these assumptions can cause various issues, like statistical errors and biased estimates, whose impact can range from inconsequential to critical. Accordingly, it is important to check these assumptions, but this is often done in a flawed way. Here, I first present a prevalent but problematic approach to diagnostics—testing assumptions using null hypothesis significance tests (e.g., the Shapiro–Wilk test of normality). Then, I consolidate and illustrate the issues with this approach, primarily using simulations. These issues include statistical errors (i.e., false positives, especially with large samples, and false negatives, especially with small samples), false binarity, limited descriptiveness, misinterpretation (e.g., of p-value as an effect size), and potential testing failure due to unmet test assumptions. Finally, I synthesize the implications of these issues for statistical diagnostics, and provide practical recommendations for improving such diagnostics. Key recommendations include maintaining awareness of the issues with assumption tests (while recognizing they can be useful), using appropriate combinations of diagnostic methods (including visualization and effect sizes) while recognizing their limitations, and distinguishing between testing and checking assumptions. Additional recommendations include judging assumption violations as a complex spectrum (rather than a simplistic binary), using programmatic tools that increase replicability and decrease researcher degrees of freedom, and sharing the material and rationale involved in the diagnostics.

SpringerLink

Artun Jun 1

“Heterosexuality isn’t normal, it’s just common.”

Derek Jarman’s inspiring intervention to #queer and question and to overturn the hegemonic ossified assumptions in society.

Derek Jarman. "At Your Own Risk: A Saint's Testament," London: Hutchinson, 1992, p. 17.

#DerekJarman #queering #assumptions

Show thread

Artun Faliro May 28

4/ end - fin - son

“a set of #aesthetic #assumptions so thoroughly #institutionalized that they can be reproduced from #within.”

“This is what the AI controversy ultimately reveals—not a new problem introduced by technology, but an old one made newly legible.”

#postcolonial #literature #prose

Richard Michael Blaber May 6

https://theconversation.com/what-working-class-boys-need-to-succeed-at-school-respect-and-open-conversations-277912; https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/boyhood-studies/16/2/bhs160207.xml (abstract only). "There are entrenched gaps between working-class #boys & their peers in their levels of attainment at every stage of #education. Often, however, the #solutions for addressing this gap in attainment have roots in #assumptions & #stereotypes. These tend towards positioning working-class boys as somehow suffering from... #apathy, #laziness or a lack of #ambition... The #evidence does not back these stereotypes up."

What working-class boys need to succeed at school: respect and open conversations

Being a boy who expresses themselves can be a risky enterprise.

The Conversation

Paul Healey May 5

#AltText A painting of a brown pipe with a black mouth piece half way along its curved stem partitioned by a small gold coloured ring on a plain light yellow background with the caption below in italics: ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’, signed in small text by Magritte in the bottom right hand corner

Deduce: this reality is not a #MAGA

#models #Abstraction #DialecticPrinciple #TranscendentalRepresentations #Magritte #Assumptions #Arguments #AntoninArtaud #AbductingLanguage #MouldyLogic #LanguageRacketeering #TheatreOfTheAbsurd #Philosophy

The Skeptic's Kaddish Apr 18

They read themselves, or: As they are

A Sijo

some impose their inner template their flat idea, a label; they read me through their fixed frame seeing only their own beliefs; I have learned to accept them and hold them all as they are

Sijo?

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

#Acceptance #Assumptions #Confidence #Identity #Limitations #Poem #Poetry #Pride #SelfConfidence #Sijo

Psychotherapy Commission ACPE Apr 17

Join Wayne Gustafson April 24-26, 2026 in Linthicum, MD to challenge #assumptions in #psychotherapy and life. Deepen your #cultural competence and #embodied presence.

More info: http://dlvr.it/TS5Pkn

#SpiritualCare #MindBodySpirit #ContinuingEducation #ACPE