Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions
Like Duolingo, but for Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
170 levels across 8 sections, about 340 minutes end to end, roughly 68 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Making Tough Choices, Staying Calm in a Messy World, Living Together and Following Rules, Creating Your Own Meaning, Are You Really in Charge, What Are You Made Of, Judging Right and Wrong, and The Deep Roots of Your Thoughts. It starts from scratch.
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Key ideas in Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions
- Utilitarianism focuses on maximizing the total good or 'utility'
- Inaction is a choice that carries moral weight
- The 'math' of lives saved is the primary metric for a utilitarian
- Choosing not to intervene still results in a specific outcome for which the observer is responsible
- Physical contact increases the 'moral 'ick' factor' for most people
- Mechanical buffers like levers make the trade-off feel more like a calculation than a murder
- Age, social contribution, and personal relationships change how we value individuals
- Pure utilitarianism ignores individual identity in favor of raw numbers
- The emotional and moral difference between direct and indirect intervention.
- Factors that complicate the 'value' of a life in a crisis.
- AI requires pre-programmed rules rather than human intuition
- There is no 'correct' answer to the problem
- The emotional and moral difference between direct and indirect intervention
- Coding a 'value' for different lives creates legal and ethical liability
- The goal is to see how a person justifies their choice
- Factors that complicate the 'value' of a life in a crisis
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Imagine a runaway train is barreling toward five people. If you prioritize the 'total good' for the group above all else, which framework are you using?
Get it right to open this lesson and 169 more in the app.
Where Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions takes you
Stop wondering and start deciding what you believe. Master the tools of history's greatest thinkers to navigate morality, freedom, and the meaning of life.
- 1
Making Tough Choices
- The Famous Trolley Problem
- Doing the Most Good for the Most People
- When Rules Matter More Than Results
- Is There Ever a Right Answer?
- 2
Staying Calm in a Messy World
- Focusing Only on What You Can Control
- How to Handle Hardship Like a Stoic
- Finding Peace When Things Go Wrong
- 3
Living Together and Following Rules
- The Unwritten Deal Between You and Society
- Why We Agree to Have Leaders
- When Is It Okay to Break the Law?
- Giving Up Freedom for Safety
- Fairness in a World of Inequality
- 4
Creating Your Own Meaning
- What to Do When Life Feels Pointless
- The Freedom to Choose Who You Are
- Embracing the Weirdness of the Universe
- Living Honestly in a Fake World
- 5
Are You Really in Charge?
- The Idea That Everything Is Already Decided
- How Science Challenges Your Free Will
- Why We Feel Responsible for Our Actions
- The Middle Ground Between Fate and Choice
- Predicting the Future with Perfect Logic
- The Power of Saying No
- 6
What Are You Made Of?
- The Difference Between Your Brain and Your Mind
- Can a Machine Ever Truly Think?
- The Argument That Only Physical Things Exist
- 7
Judging Right and Wrong
- Does Morality Change Based on Where You Live?
- The Danger of Judging Other Cultures
- Are Some Things Always Wrong Everywhere?
- How Your Upbringing Shapes Your Values
- Finding a Common Ground for Humanity
- 8
The Deep Roots of Your Thoughts
- The History of the Great Debaters
- How Ancient Ideas Still Run Our World
- The Science of How We Think About Thinking
- Building Your Own Personal Philosophy
8 sections · 34 units · 170 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions is taught in the The Storyteller style: every lesson is a story. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Thinking for Yourself: A Guide to Life's Big Questions today.
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