Contemporary · Mental Models · Essay
10 Books That Sharpen Critical Thinking in an AI-Dominated World
Steve Burns · 2026
"As algorithms increasingly curate what people see and think, independent critical thinking becomes a survival skill rather than an academic nicety — and a specific set of books (on cognitive bias, randomness, algorithmic power, and disciplined attention) function as a practical defense."
Algorithms are optimized to trigger fast, automatic thinking — clickbait, personalized feeds, emotionally-charged content. Defending against that requires understanding how your own mind gets exploited.
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16 Mental Models to Sharpen Your Thinking
"A compact reference of sixteen widely-used mental models — spanning economics, psychology, and systems thinking — intended as a checklist to apply against a decision rather than a single unifying theory."
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