On Not Knowing What We Know Plus, the Big Five US publishers over time

Issue no. 53 of The Critical Thinker is out. Known knowns and unknown knowns.

almossawi.substack.com/p/on-not-kno...

10 years ago, I started a side project to visualize the big five US trade book publishers. This weekend’s little project was to add the ability to go back in time and to search for imprints.

almossawi.com/big-five-pub...

#publishing

You Must Leave the Cave to See the Cave In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, prisoners are chained inside a cave, forced since childhood to stare at a wall. Behind them, a fire casts shadows of moving objects. It’s all they ever see.

almossawi.substack.com/p/plato-alle...

A pile of books: The Voyage of Horace Pirouelle by Philippe Soupault With Their Hearts in Their Boots by Jean-Pierre Martinet Rakkóx the Billionaire & The Great Race by Paul Scheerbart The Confession of a False Soul by Ilarie Voronca Recitatif by Toni Morrison An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language by Ali Almossawi Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason limited 2 CD edition album by Kayo Dot Trouble in the Swaths by Boris Vian The Door by Magda Szabó The Rim of Morning by William Sloane Madre De Dios by Rosalie Parker Third Instar by David Gullen Family Matters by Gaurav Monga Tomorrow, When I Was Young by Julie Travis The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker Mirror Dead by Magda McQueen

January reads:

@almossawi.bsky.social @dergullen.bsky.social

Groupthink Conformity at the expense of independent thinking

How does a cohesive group react when a dissenting voice speaks up? In this week’s issue: what groupthink is, why we’re susceptible to it, and four things to do when we’re stuck inside one.

✨ Read issue no. 50:
✨ almossawi.substack.com/p/groupthink...

Moral Exclusion Plus, what's the Mandela Effect?

Moral exclusion.

✨ Read issue no. 49:
✨ almossawi.substack.com/p/moral-excl...

As I’m mid-research for an upcoming book project, I’m realizing that no two books are written by the same person.

The spectrum is interesting when crafting villains. Subhuman, inhuman, lesser human, superhuman.

Morning doodles.

Wishful Thinking: Why We Believe What We Want to Believe And is that always a bad thing?

Issue no. 47 is out.

almossawi.substack.com/p/wishful-th...

Next week's issue will be on the science behind wishful thinking.

Also, what are halfalogues, and why are they so distracting?

What if Kurt Vonnegut Had Done “Shapes of Thinking” Instead Plus, what's a halfalogue?

How would you draw confirmation bias as a graph? How about the Dunning-Kruger effect or the sunk cost fallacy? In this week’s issue: what if we had shapes of thinking, a la Kurt Vonnegut’s shapes of stories?

✨ Issue no. 46 of The Critical Thinker
✨ almossawi.substack.com/p/shapes-of-...

I got into data visualization in 2011. I always wondered how great it would be if I could one day be on a website and somehow ask my browser to explain the data graphic I was looking at. #chatgptatlas

The top-8 cognitive biases that can derail the unwary investor—summarizing Barry @ritholtz.bsky.social’s conversation with @almossawi.bsky.social :

buff.ly/oqQpK5q

The Endowment Effect: Owning Something Makes It More Valuable? Plus, revisiting a picture book for grownups thanks to a nudge by Veo 3

This week’s issue (issue no. 44) looks into how ownership clouds our judgment through the endowment effect, the IKEA effect, and the not-invented here (NIH) bias.

almossawi.substack.com/p/the-endowm...

The Endowment Effect: Owning Something Makes It More Valuable? Plus, revisiting a picture book for grownups thanks to a nudge by Veo 3

This week’s issue (issue no. 44) looks into how ownership clouds our judgment through the endowment effect, the IKEA effect, and the not-invented here (NIH) bias.

almossawi.substack.com/p/the-endowm...

How people use ChatGPT, from the paper released earlier today: www.nber.org/system/files...

The Big Five US Trade Book Publishers With all the imprints out there, it's sometimes difficult to know which imprint belongs to which of the big five publishers.

HarperCollins imprints, under HarperCollins Leadership and Thomas Nelson, updated. Thanks, Josey Hill. almossawi.com/big-five-pub...

@harpercollins.bsky.social

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Our Invisible Sidekick Plus, what's so interesting about Torpenhow Hill?

In this week’s issue, I summarize two studies that looked into the effects of self-fulfilling prophecies on our intellectual abilities and, more interestingly, on our physiology.

✨ Read issue no. 43 of The Critical Thinker
✨ almossawi.substack.com/p/how-self-f...

#criticalthinking

Why We Think Only Others Get It Wrong Plus, San Francisco’s little libraries, writers throwing shade, and the strangest cafe in town

Why do we spot flaws in other people, but miss them in ourselves? (Follow me for more marriage tips.)

Read issue no. 42 of The Critical Thinker

almossawi.substack.com/p/why-we-spo...

Least delusional AI founder interviewed by Veo 3-generated interviewer.

A couple of updates as I prepare to move Check Yo Shelf (the easy bookshelf scanner) from closed beta to soft launch.

Pithiness The shortest letter, paper, ad, story, issue

The shortest academic paper? The shortest letter to a king? The shortest ad campaign? The shortest story?

This week’s issue is about pithiness.

✨ Read Issue No. 41: Pithiness
✨ almossawi.substack.com/p/pithiness

Everyone on the waitlist should have received an invite by now. Reach out if you didn’t. #checkyoshelf

San Francisco’s tiny libraries:

checkyoshelf.com/explore/c/sa...

I wasn’t able to visit them all during that one weekend, so I’ll be going back to several spots over the summer when I have a bit more time.

#sanfrancisco #littlefreelibraries

✨ This week’s question:
Have you seen any dark patterns in the wild or in other disciplines?

Dark Patterns: How Deceptive Design Tricks Us Plus, what's so insidious about a roach motel?

Have you seen those matchbox-looking traps, where an insect is lured into a box by an enticing smell, only to realize once they’re inside that their feet are stuck and their fate is sealed?

✨ Read Issue No. 40: Dark Patterns: How Deceptive Design Tricks Us
almossawi.substack.com/p/design-dar...

My favorite little free library so far. Eight more to visit today. I’ve lived in San Francisco for 13 years, and there were neighborhood I’d never been to. Thanks for all the recommendations. ❤️📚