A new way to think about brainpower.
Why older people are happier and what we can learn from them | Psyche Ideas
Around the world, happiness tends to peak later in life. It has more to do with balancing priorities than elderly wisdom
What Makes Us Smart?
Human creativity does not solely rely on our individual cognitive abilities, but instead emerges from the recombination of ideas, practices, and approaches that result from social interactions and id...
Learning From Older Adults: An Intergoal Compatibility Account for Successful Happiness Pursuit
Academic Abstract People want to pursue happiness but often fail, a phenomenon known as the paradox of pursuing happiness. The mechanisms underlying this paradox remain elusive. Age differences in happiness—specifically that older adults appear more successful in pursuing happiness (the emotion paradox of aging)—provide valuable insights into effective happiness pursuit. Drawing on this literature, we propose an intergoal compatibility account to interpret both paradoxes through the lens of intergoal interactions, an intuitively critical yet underexplored factor in existing interpretations. This account asserts that greater compatibility (fewer conflicts and greater facilitation) between happiness pursuit and other important personal goals enhances the effectiveness of happiness pursuit, and such compatibility can be enhanced through contextual influences (e.g., age-graded developmental tasks) and strategic self-regulation (e.g., goal adjustments). This account generates testable predictions and practical implications for enhancing happiness pursuit across the lifespan. Public Abstract Why do people often struggle to achieve happiness? And why are older adults happier than younger adults, even though they face more losses in life? While these questions have drawn extensive attention, they remain puzzling. A crucial yet insufficiently explored factor in successful happiness pursuit is intergoal compatibility —the extent to which the pursuit of happiness aligns or conflicts with other important personal goals. For younger adults, the demands of age-related developmental tasks (e.g., educational and career aspirations) often create conflicts with the pursuit of happiness, diminishing its effectiveness. Conversely, in older adults, happiness becomes more prioritized and compatible with other important personal goals, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of pursuing happiness. A lesson we can learn from older adults is to pursue happiness in ways compatible with other important personal goals.
The People Who Will Thrive in the AI Age
What will differentiate people is not how smart they are but their relationship to mental effort.
How your bank balance buys happiness: The importance of “cash on hand” to life satisfaction.
why do we assume progress should feel good?
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve achieved something and genuinely felt lasting satisfaction.
Why Is Everyone In Tech So Sad?
A lot of people seem to be realizing that knowledge work is mostly pointless. AI might give us the pleasure of finding out what happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers.
Jon Barron on Twitter / X
This idea that intelligence is solely a function of what you've observed since birth and not also a function of the 500 million years of evolution that preceded your birth is surprisingly sticky despite being demonstrably untrue. https://t.co/m2z5cN8Byb— Jon Barron (@jon_barron) January 28, 2026
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Check out Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition--in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos--to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal--and human--intelligence. by Dr Frans de Waal on Bookshop.org US!
Conscious or Not
For as long as I remember, people have been arguing about whether machines could be intelligent or not.
AGIHound on Twitter / X
"Demis Hassabis says our brains are likely to be approximate Turing machines."Dear Lord. This Alan Turing worship never ends. It's a cult. 🤦♂️I research the visual system of the brain. I've come to understand that the most important principle of intelligence is the precise… https://t.co/isLnLqjFkw— AGIHound (@TrueAIHound) May 5, 2026
Why Psychology Hasn’t Had a Big New Idea in Decades
Can our field get its act together?
Do not give up your brain
It's tempting to just let tools think for you, but you still need to be able to think for yourself and stay sharp.
The Irrational Decision
How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality—and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment
