I am, among other categories, a cognitive scientist, or, as some call it, an applied epistemologist. My primary research interest is in rationality, which means judgement and decision-making under unmeasurable uncertainty, a field in the intersection of psychology, economics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. I love the scientific method so much that I regularly spread my joy about it in various formats of science communication. One of the approaches for spreading ideas I appreciate a lot is information design. I also teach psychology of perception to designers, e.g. UX/UI designers. However, in the end I care about ideas being applied in the real world, solving problems, and benefitting humanity. This means I often play the role of being an interface between the two worlds, of ideas and their application by humans. Over the last years I have founded and lead different organizations in the DACH region that work on improving the world. With Effective Altruism Austria we educated students and young professionals on how to think more clearly about (and finally have more) impact and offer a community for people who want to combine applied ethics as well as strategical and scientific thinking. With the Global Shapers Vienna Hub (connected to the World Economic Forum) we bursted filter bubbles and constantly design new social projects and businesses.
“If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing the drains, many of us will die of cholera.” ― John Rich
Disclaimer
Regularly I perceive how people have naive impressions of my beliefs. Most of my interests do not represent positions and opinions I identify with, but phenomena I am interested in thinking about. I am agnostic and flexible regarding my stands on them and my opinion is like a flag in the wind of good arguments and evidence. Also many of my blog posts do not reflect my own standards of quality. If they would, I would never publish anything online. I try to produce minimal viable products that are readable and at least approximate my knowledge and opinion, to get ideas and input "out there".