Speed Reading vs Deep Reading: Which Makes You Smarter?

    Brain Series Current: Speed Reading vs Deep Reading Second Language Learning All Posts Cold Showers and Cognition Speed reading promises to help you read 1,000+ words per minute-triple or quadruple your normal pace. Imagine reading entire books in an hour! ...

    January 28, 2025 · 11 min · Rafiul Alam

    The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories: Why Smart People Believe Irrational Things

    My uncle is intelligent, educated, and successful. He runs a business, reads extensively, and can hold sophisticated conversations about history, economics, and technology. He also believes: COVID-19 was created in a lab as a bioweapon The 2020 election was stolen A global elite controls world events through secret organizations Vaccines contain tracking microchips Climate change is a hoax to implement global government When I try to discuss evidence, he responds with: ...

    July 1, 2024 · 17 min · Rafiul Alam

    Authority Bias: The Milgram Experiment Explained

    I once deployed code to production because a VP told me to, even though I knew it would break things. I was a junior engineer. They were a VP of Engineering. They said, “Ship it now. We need this for the demo tomorrow.” I tried to explain: “The tests are failing. The database migration isn’t ready. This will cause data corruption.” They responded: “I understand your concerns, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Trust me. Ship it.” ...

    May 20, 2024 · 20 min · Rafiul Alam

    Groupthink: How Smart Teams Make Dumb Decisions

    We were going to launch the feature on Tuesday. Everyone on the team knew it wasn’t ready. The code was buggy. The UX was confusing. We hadn’t tested the edge cases. One of our engineers literally said in standup, “I’m not sure this is going to work well,” but immediately followed it with, “but I guess everyone else thinks it’s fine.” The PM wanted to hit the deadline. The CEO was excited about the demo. The team had momentum. So we all nodded along. ...

    April 15, 2024 · 17 min · Rafiul Alam

    Confirmation Bias in the Age of Social Media: Why We Only See What We Want to See

    I used to think Tailwind CSS was terrible. Not because I’d used it extensively. I’d tried it for maybe an hour, felt uncomfortable, and decided it was “just inline styles with extra steps.” Then I spent the next six months seeing only evidence that confirmed my belief: Blog posts criticizing Tailwind? Bookmarked and shared. Tweets praising Tailwind? Scrolled past or found reasons to dismiss them. Projects struggling with Tailwind? “See, I knew it was problematic!” Projects thriving with Tailwind? “They would’ve been fine with CSS modules.” I wasn’t evaluating Tailwind objectively. I was collecting ammunition to defend a conclusion I’d already made. ...

    January 17, 2024 · 14 min · Rafiul Alam