The Importance of Models in Life

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Spencer: We need lots of little models of the way things work. The idea is that they capture some important elements of truth and they're flexible and easy to apply. Spencer: I think another thing, another sort of like thinking tool that I've adopted has been like making explicit hypotheses and then seeing if they turn out to be true or false. It's in the in between philosophy and an empirical science.

What is 80,000 Hours? What sorts of people should become entrepreneurs? How can you run cheap experiments on yourself? What are some beneficial modes of philosophical thinking?

Arden Koehler is a researcher and writer at 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit whose mission is to help people use their careers to help solve the world's most pressing problems, and an active member of the effective altruism community. Arden has a PhD in philosophy from New York University, with a specialisation in ethics and attitudes toward time, and a B.A. in philosophy from University of California, Berkeley. You can check out her work at 80,000 Hours, and you can email her at arden@80000hours.org.

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