Enes Paker - Work & Notes

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• 11 Nov 2026

  What Shapes Our Decisions?

  Intelligence and information alone may not be enough to make good decisions. There are many things that quietly influence our judgment, often without us realizing it.

  Charlie Munger explored these psychological tendencies extensively. Drawing from his framework and related ideas in psychology, some of the common ones are:

  • Confirmation bias: Favoring evidence that supports what we already believe while overlooking evidence against it.
  • Loss aversion: Giving potential losses more weight than comparable gains.
  • Social proof: Following what others believe or do, especially when we are uncertain.
  • Authority bias: Giving too much weight to someone's opinion because of their status or title.
  • Incentive bias: Allowing personal rewards or interests to influence what we consider reasonable.
  • Commitment bias: Defending past decisions because changing course feels like admitting a mistake.
  • Overconfidence: Being more certain about our knowledge or predictions than the evidence supports.
  • Overoptimism: Expecting favorable outcomes while underestimating risks, obstacles, or the possibility of failure.
  • Availability bias: Giving too much importance to recent, memorable, or emotionally striking events.
  • Envy: Allowing what others have or achieve to influence our own priorities.
  • Denial: Avoiding facts because they are painful or uncomfortable to accept.
  • Contrast bias: Judging something too heavily by what we compare it against rather than its own merits.
  • Reciprocity: Feeling pressure to return a favor, even when it may affect our judgment.
  • Liking and disliking: Allowing how we feel about someone to influence how we evaluate their ideas or actions.
  • Doubt avoidance: Rushing toward a conclusion simply to escape the discomfort of uncertainty.
  • Stress influence: Allowing pressure, fear, or exhaustion to narrow our thinking or affect our decisions.
  • Lollapalooza effect: Several psychological tendencies reinforcing one another, creating a much stronger influence than any one of them alone.

  What makes this interesting is that some of these tendencies are useful shortcuts. They help us navigate a complicated world without questioning everything. The problem may arise when we follow them automatically, without recognizing their influence.

  They can also reinforce one another. Imagine investing heavily in an idea, becoming emotionally attached to it, and surrounding yourself with people who believe in it. Confirmation bias, commitment bias, and social proof may work together, making it increasingly difficult to recognize when the idea is no longer working.

  There is also an uncomfortable contradiction. We are often better at recognizing bias in others than in ourselves, something known as the bias blind spot. Even understanding these patterns does not make us immune to them. Sometimes we simply become better at explaining why others are wrong while finding reasonable explanations for the same behavior in ourselves.

  Maybe improving our judgment starts with developing the habit of examining our own thinking. What am I assuming? What would change my mind? Am I defending this decision because it still makes sense, or because I already made it? Would I see things differently if I had nothing personally at stake?

  Honest conversations with people we trust and respect can be another way to challenge our thinking, especially when they have relevant experience or see things differently. Discussing difficult decisions may reveal assumptions, expose blind spots, and introduce perspectives we had not considered. But there is a difference between seeking advice and seeking validation. These conversations are more valuable when we are genuinely willing to hear something we disagree with.

  At the same time, questioning everything can become its own obstacle. We rarely have perfect information, and even a well-reasoned decision can turn out badly. There is a balance between examining our assumptions and accepting that some uncertainty will remain.

  Perhaps better judgment is not about becoming completely objective or eliminating every bias. It is about recognizing what may be influencing us, being open to perspectives that challenge our own, and making the best decisions we can with what we know, while remaining willing to change our minds.

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• 2 Sep 2026

  The Turkey Illusion

  I find the turkey illusion interesting: a turkey is fed by the butcher every day. Day 1, food arrives. Day 2, food arrives. Day 999, food still arrives. Based on the data, the turkey may believe the butcher is a friend and the future is safe. Then day 1000 comes, and it is Thanksgiving. The turkey had a lot of data, but not enough context.

  I do not read this as a reason to ignore data. The data was not wrong. Maybe it was just incomplete. The turkey saw the pattern, but not the context around it. That is the part I find useful to keep in mind when looking at data, forecasts, and repeated signals.

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• 16 Aug 2026

  The Risk of Forced Fit

  In Greek myth, Procrustes had a bed, and when travelers did not fit it, he forced them to fit exactly. If they were too short, he stretched them; if they were too tall, he cut off their limbs until they matched the length of the bed. The bed never adjusted to the person, the person was forced to adjust to the bed. That is why a Procrustean bed became a metaphor for forcing reality to match a fixed idea.

  I think about this because it shows up in how we reason. We build models, beliefs, systems, and explanations to make sense of the world, and that structure is necessary. But the risk is that once we become too attached to a frame, we stop asking whether it still fits reality. In software engineering, this can happen when a team chooses an architecture too early and then forces every problem into it. The product may need something lightweight, but the team has already committed to microservices. The quiet shift happens when the question becomes less “What does this system need?” and more “How do we make this fit what we already decided?” That is when the model starts becoming the bed.

  The same pattern can show up in strategy, hiring, product decisions, and even personal beliefs. A framework can help us think, but it can also protect us from seeing what is actually in front of us. Maybe the discipline is not to avoid models, but to keep them humble. Use them to understand reality, not to reshape reality until it becomes convenient.

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• 4 Aug 2026

  Financial freedom

  Financial freedom may be better understood as a spectrum than a finish line.

  Not simply “free” or “not free,” but a gradual increase in control over time, work, relationships, and decisions. Each layer of savings, lower debt, and fewer dependencies creates a little more room to choose.

  That framing makes independence feel more practical. You do not need to be retired or ultra-wealthy to become meaningfully freer. Having enough cash to cover normal problems is one layer. Being able to absorb a larger surprise without panic is another. Having the savings and skills to leave a toxic job, bad client, or unhealthy role may be one of the more important ones.

  The version I keep thinking about is what Morgan Housel calls “I respectfully disagree” money:

  “The concept of f-you money, having so much money that you can tell people to f-off without fear of repercussion, is great. But so is kindness and civility. So I aspire to ‘no thank you, I’m not interested in that, I respectfully disagree and I’m free to ignore you’ money. One is rationalizing being a jerk, the other is intellectual independence.”

  Maybe the highest form of financial freedom is not status. It is having more control over your time, more room to choose well, and fewer people or obligations owning your decisions.

  The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel

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