Making Better Decisions: Mental Models, Heuristics, and Biases

Inside The Speakership Race Drama by Shunx Shannon

Sources: Articles New Vision [https://www.parliament.go.ug/sites/default/files/2023-08/How%20Among%20wears%20many%20hearts%20%28New%20Vision%20newspaper%29.pdf] Inside meeting - New Vision [https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/news/inside-meeting-that-sealed-amongs-fate-NV_233962_052026] Anita Among elected duty speaker Independent [https://www.independent.co.ug/anita-among-overwhelmingly-elected-deputy-speaker/] The Eagle [https://eagle.co.ug/2026/04/09/mao-to-anita-among-only-head-of-family-has-final-word-on-who-can-access-which-room-in-the-home/] Robert Mao withdraws from speaker race to support Tayebwa - The Observer [https://observer.ug/news/mao-backs-plu-withdrawal-of-support-for-among-tayebwa/] About Anita Among [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Among] Videos Kadagga and Among battle it out for the speaker role [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6vf5UwfQFU] Anita’s Items confiscated [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTVg2Ni_sek]

Editing Atoms and the Future of Medicine

What if you could edit a drug molecule the way you edit a document? Not rebuild it from scratch, just go in, find what needs changing, and fix it. That’s exactly what skeleton editing does. And it might be one of the most underreported breakthroughs in modern chemistry. In this episode I dig into what skeleton editing actually is, why it matters for drug discovery, and how it connects to the other tools reshaping medicine right now: CRISPR, AlphaFold, and Isomorphic Labs. Together these technologies are attacking the biggest bottleneck in medicine, iteration speed, from every angle at once. For the first time we have tools working at every level of biology simultaneously. This is what engineering medicine looks like. Links to articles sited in the episode and CRISPR Casgevy success cases: Science Magazine — Skeleton Editing: [https://scim.ag/4tcMd9K] PhRMA — Research & Development: [https://www.phrma.org/policy-issues/research-development] Patheon — Drug Development Phases: [https://www.patheon.com/us/en/insights-resources/blog/drug-development-phases.html] The Applied Science — Biotech Product Dev: [https://theappliedscience.com/biotech-product-dev] AlphaFold Protein Database [https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk] Isomorphic Labs - Isomorphic Labs website [https://isomorphiclabs.com] CRISPR Casgvey success case in Uganda [https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/health/byamukama-becomes-first-ugandan-to-get-sickle-NV_225965_052026] Another CRISPR world treatment case at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. [https://www.chop.edu/news/worlds-first-patient-treated-personalized-crispr-gene-editing-therapy-childrens-hospital]

Beds Are Overrated.

Why I swapped my mattress and bed for the floor—and how it’s changed my back (and sleep!) Book Recommendation - Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You. [https://dokumen.pub/back-mechanic-9780973501827.html] Executive Producers: Sol & Ben

It starts with obsession

Executive Producers: Sol & Ben For collaborations and episode suggestions: solomontalemwa27@gmail.com

Making Better Decisions: Mental Models, Heuristics, and Biases

In this episode, I discuss decision-making, focusing on mental models and heuristics. I share personal experiences from product management, exploring tools like opportunity cost, first principles thinking, and cognitive biases. I suggest expanding mental models, challenging biases, and using techniques like the Feynman Method and 80/20 Rule and more to improve our decision making and communication. Timestamps and key moments: 00:00:00 - Intro. 00:01:06 - Intro to Mental models and there usefulness to breaking down complex ideas for better decision making. 00:03:09 - Drawbacks on over relying on Mental models. 00:04:04 - Intro to heuristics and how they influence our decisions like the availability heuristics, anchoring heuristics and more. 00:06:35 - Benefits and drawbacks of heuristics in making decisions. 00:07:35 - Exploring ways to use Mental models and heuristics for better decision making. 00:10:55 - More mental models like the Feynman Technique, Inversion, Occam’s razor, etc can help you in making better decisions. 00:18:10 - Intro to Framing, Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, and confirmation bais. 00:18:29 - Exploring Framing and how information is presented influences our decisions. 00:19:48 - Exploring confirmation bias and the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. 00:21:27 - Closing remarks concluding everything we have discussed in the episode. It also discusses how these models make us better decision markers and better communicators. 00:24:51 - FS blog article recommendation. It covers all the mental models I’ve mentioned in this episode and more from the fields of economics, physics, biology and more. 00:25:14 - Book recommendation: Thinking Fast, and Slow by Daniel Kahneman on the psychology of decision making. 00:25:56 - Outro :) Links: FS blog on mental models [https://fs.blog/mental-models/] Earth day article [https://farmradio.org/country-level-climate-action/] Thinking Fast, And Slow (Online read) [https://ia600603.us.archive.org/10/items/DanielKahnemanThinkingFastAndSlow/Daniel%20Kahneman-Thinking%2C%20Fast%20and%20Slow%20%20.pdf] Production Credits Executive Producer, Script, Research: Sol & Ben Got topics you want us to look into? Want to feature on our podcast? Got any Book recommendations? Send us an email at solomontalemwa27@gmail.com