The DSM is a book that lists mental disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. It is also one hell of an ugly beast. In retrospect, it has always been bound to be one because of the conflict of two of its attributes:

1) It was never meant to be a book that explicitly defines different mental conditions. The original intent was for it to simply reduce the number of terms that psychiatrists use to make it easier for them to communicate with one another. As such, the DSM-IV carries the following warning:

“There is no assumption that each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries dividing it from other mental disorders or from no mental disorder”

2) The DSM is being used as a diagnosis tool. Based on the diagnosis issued the insurance companies can choose to pay/not pay for certain drugs or treatment.

It does not take a...

The propagation of Massive Online Open Courses, apart from giving people unprecedented access to education, has shed light on some flaws of our education system. The ability to freely move through lectures makes it evident that most of them are terribly inefficient. Generally, over 90% of what the lecturers say is filler content. Since the undergraduate professors’ goal is to make every person in the classroom understand the material, there is a lot of repetition. The actual crystallized knowledge that is important for students to learn makes infrequent appearances, and is rather hard to find in two-hour videos.

An efficient way to educate people using the Internet has to do the following things:

1) Present information in a way that is easy to navigate. Wiki, not VCR.

2) Present information to each person based on how they learn best. Some people are global learners, some are...

Through you reading my blog we are entering a relationship. It has a few rules. If you don’t want to follow them, you are welcome to read something else.

On my end I promise to post content that is interesting to you. That means I will do my best not to write about myself, and not to post opinion pieces. A certain amount of preference is unavoidable, but I will not write pieces that are pure opinion and devoid of insight.

I will post my Principles, though. Kudos goes to Ray Dalio for suggesting that people make their Principles publicly available. What is the difference between Principles and opinions? Principles imply commitment to following them. Opinions don’t. As such, here is the first thing I require from you, my reader:

If you ever encounter me failing to follow one of my Principles, call me out on it.

That will help me in my progress as a person. Thank you. The second thing...