Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

by Scott Adams

Despite evidence to the contrary, we all use our brains. But most of us have never learned how to think effectively.

We don’t teach thinking in schools, and you can see the results of that nearly every day.

Sunk costs: Money you already spent shouldn’t influence your decision about what to do next, but for psychological reasons, it often does.

stupid refers to a person whereas loserthink applies to the technique.

If you have been exposed to the thinking styles of only a few disciplines, you will have large gaps in your ability to productively think about the world.

When lots of people are making lots of predictions about the future, some of them are guaranteed to be closer than others.

Unless scientists are a different kind of human being than the rest of us, they would intelligently cut corners whenever they think they could get away with it, just like everyone else.

If all you know is how many times someone hit a target, it is loserthink to judge how accurate they are. You also need to know how many times they missed.

Whenever you have a lot of money in play, combined with the ability to hide misbehavior behind complexity, you should expect widespread fraud to happen.

When lots of money and lots of complexity are in play, fraud is nearly guaranteed.

nutrition science wasn’t science at all. It was some unholy marriage of industry influence, junk science, and government.

Whenever you have money, reputations, power, ego, and complexity in play, it is irrational to assume you are seeing objective science.

the way climate science is presented to the public is not credible to people who have my type of experience, even if it turns out that most climate scientists are right.

Mental prison: The illusions and unproductive thinking that limit our ability to see the world clearly and act upon it rationally.

it is nearly impossible to mock a good idea unless you also lie about its nature or leave out important context.

Ethics is a separate and important issue, but it isn’t predictive in the context of capitalism. If something is legal and profitable, it will happen, a lot.

Being absolutely right and being spectacularly wrong feel exactly the same.

If your opinion depends on reliably knowing another person’s inner thoughts, you might be experiencing loserthink.

If an ordinary explanation fits the facts, but you have chosen an extraordinary interpretation instead, you might have too much confidence in your opinion.

The loserthink comes into play when we imagine we can read people’s minds (as opposed to observing their actions) and we totally-definitely see some evil in there.

If you think you can gaze into the soul of a stranger and see evil, you might be experiencing a loserthink hallucination.

People who have good arguments use them. People who do not have good arguments try to win by labeling.

If your criticism depends on assigning labels instead of cause-and-effect reasoning, you are engaged in loserthink.

Occam’s razor is the idea that the simplest explanation of events is usually the right one. The problem with that line of thinking is that it is complete nonsense, and people who have training in the field of psychology can see the problem right away.

In a scientific setting, the simplest explanation that fits the facts is generally preferred. But in the messier nonscientific world, we all think our explanations of the world are the simplest ones.

Occam’s razor, as it is typically used in debate, is an example of backward thinking.

In science, the simplest explanation that fits the facts is preferred. In life, we are all under the illusion that our explanations of things are the simplest ones.

I don’t believe the average person can tell the difference between an opinion based on observation and something we would properly label projection.

Humans aren’t good fact-checkers. As evidence of that claim, see every discussion of politics ever.

No matter which side is right on any given topic, the one thing we know for sure is that being right and being wrong feel exactly the same to all of us. We can’t tell the difference.

confidence is strongly correlated with success. The sweet spot for self-confidence involves operating with a belief that you can do more than the available evidence suggests, but not so much more that it would be crazy.

Tell yourself, “I’m good at this” Learn to breathe properly Improve your posture Manage your body language If you are an introvert, keep some questions in your back pocket so you can guide conversations and always have something to say Make a good first impression with a solid handshake and eye contact Remind yourself of the skills you are good at Exercise regularly to drain off nervous energy

A PERSON WHO considers ego a reflection of self, instead of a tool that one can dial up or down as needed, has fewer pathways to success.

People who want to create “art” for a living do not want to hear what the public wants. They want to hear that their ideas are amazing, even when they aren’t. That’s ego. And when your ego makes your decisions for you, that’s loserthink.

In today’s world, influence is determined by a combination of communication skills and reach.

The need to be right (driven by ego) crowds out the opportunity to be persuasive, which is the whole point of debate. Choosing ego over effectiveness is classic loserthink.

Effectiveness is more important than ego.

Our egos control us through fear, and often that fear is an illusion.

If you can’t think of anything good about a situation, and yet you observe that others can, you might be experiencing loserthink.

we can’t always tell the difference between the people who are far smarter than us and the people who are dumber. Both groups make choices we can’t understand.

Life is messy and unpredictable. Sometimes our underpowered and biased brains correctly deduce a chain of cause and effect. But the accuracy of our opinions is deeply influenced by our ability to imagine alternate explanations for events.

Make a mental note every time you find yourself being wrong about something you thought you couldn’t possibly be wrong about. Focusing on your track record can prime you to understand there can be lots of different explanations for a set of facts, and you can’t always think of them all.

one of the most common explanations for anything in life is something you didn’t imagine.

If you can’t imagine any other explanation for a set of facts, it might be because you are bad at imagining things.

The first way history is not real is that whoever is in charge gets to write history any way they like. And the way they like it is whatever way keeps them in power and looking awesome.

every government invents its own version of history to brainwash their population.

I hope you can see how unlikely it is that any country is presenting history to its children in an objective way.

They have multiple realities from which to choose. My bet is that historians will choose versions of history that are best suited for indoctrinating kids to be obedient and productive citizens.

Truth will be a secondary consideration, as always, when it comes to socializing children into productive adults.

The trouble happens when people try to manage events in the present to fix the past.