“Pinned Post”: Why Place the “Constructive Skepticism” Curriculum in the Public Domain? - "See For Yourself"
January 2025 Final Update
In 2024, due to the retirement of one of its co-founders, CTRI’s Board of Directors authorized the dissolution of the organization, and the placement of its IP, the “Constructive Skepticism” curriculum, in the public domain. This “Pinned Post” that sits at the top of this Substack’s home page provides some background on the development of the curriculum, and how to find specific posts in order to use it.
The Bottom Line
Reading papers about Health, Wealth, and Statistics on behalf of CTRI’s members from 2017 to 2024 revealed that the average outcome of an ensemble does not match the typical outcome of an individual life trajectory. Such differences offer new models to support new best practices that improve the accuracy of individual “Predictions” for wellness, financial and retirement planning. The “Rational” optimizations and simulations of the Logic & Statistics Program present ensemble outcomes, the Heuristics & Bias Program blames the individual for divergences, and “Terrain Theories” such as the Household Balance Sheet for retirement planning, Ergodicity Economics for investment management, and the “Fast & Frugal” Heuristics Program for decision-making present typical individual outcomes. The “Constructive Skepticism” curriculum placed in the public domain following the dissolution of CTRI in January 2025 introduces readers to such models and best practices.
The Structure of the “Constructive Skepticism” curriculum
Volume 1: A Book of Connections in Four Workbooks
Workbook #I: Our Shared Humanity
Workbook #II: Making Good Individual Decisions
Workbook #III: Making Good Business Decisions
Workbook #IV: Making Good Investment Decisions
Volume 2: A Book of Collections in Four Handbooks
Handbook #I: Glossary List & “Terms-of-Art” Definitions
Handbook #II: Author Profiles
Handbook #III: References
Handbook #IV: The Template for Reading Research Papers (See downloadable pdf below)
Volume 3: A Book of Illustrations
Notebook #I: Model Risk in Retirement Planning
Notebook #II: Flying like a “Foil in the Flow” above the “Walled Gardens”: From Rational Investors, Inc. to the Curve, Triangle & Rectangle Institute, a 25-year Story of Change in a Hard-to-Change Industry, and What May Come Next
Intended Audience
The next generation of entrepreneurially-minded individuals, and members of their business ecosystem.
Focus
What do entrepreneurs need to know in order to make good individual, business, and investment decisions?
How to Read These Posts:
In addition to offering a search tool to find posts with specific terms, Substack keeps posts archived in chronological order, thus readers can use the following timeline to find specific posts:
- Posts started on January 8, 2022 present the ideas that inspired the decision to write “Constructive Skepticism: Making Good Individual, Business, and Investment Decisions”.
- Posts started on May 4, 2022 present the first draft of writing these posts as a single book.
- Posts started on September 17, 2022 document the first round of edits of the posts for the single book. At this point in the process, the single book becomes too large to handle, and becomes a series of three books: Volume I - A Book of Connections, Volume 2 - A Book of Collections, and Volume 3 - A Book of Illustrations.
- Posts started on January 17, 2023 present the first draft of various sections for Volume 2 - A Book of Collections (mostly “Author Profiles”).
- Posts started on Feb. 2, 2023 document the second round of edits for the earlier Volume 1 - Part V: The Template for Reading Research Papers. (Retitled as Volume 2 – A Book of Collections: Handbook #IV: The Template for Reading Research Papers).
- Posts started on April 3, 2023 document the second round of edits for the earlier Volume 1 - Part I: Our Shared Humanity. (Retitled as Volume 1 – A Book of Connections: Workbook #I: Our Shared Humanity)
- Posts started on June 14, 2023 document the second round of edits for the earlier Volume 1 - Part II: Making Good Individual Decisions. (Later retitled as Volume 1 – A Book of Connections: Workbook #II: Making Good Individual Decisions)
- Posts started on July 14, 2023 document the second round of edits for the earlier Volume 1 - Part III: Making Good Business Decisions. (Retitled as Volume 1 – A Book of Connections: Workbook #III: Making Good Business Decisions)
- Posts started on August 1, 2023 document the second round of edits for the earlier Volume 1 - Part IV: Making Good Investment Decisions. (Retitled as Volume 1 – A Book of Connections: Workbook #IV: Making Good Investment Decisions)
- Posts started on September 10, 2023 revise the second round of edits for Volume 2 – A Book of Collections: Handbook #IV: The Template for Reading Research Papers)
- Posts started on October 19, 2023 document the second round of edits for Volume 2 - A Book of Collections: Handbook #II: Author Profiles
- Posts started on November 15, 2023 document the second round of edits to Volume 2 – A Book of Collections: Handbook #II: Glossary List and “Terms of Art” Definitions
- Posts started on January 9. 2024 present the first draft of Volume 3 - A Book of Illustrations: Notebook #I: Model risk in Retirement Planning.
- Posts started on May 29, 2024 present final edits to Volume 2 - A Book of Collections: Handbook #IV: The Template for Reading Research Papers, prior to its publishing in print form on Amazon
- Posts started on October 14, 2024 present the first draft of Volume 3 - A Book of Illustrations: Notebook #II: Flying like a “Foil in the Flow” above the “Walled Gardens”