Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

by Scott Adams

we humans are wired to put meaning on coincidences, and when we do, we are often engaged in loserthink.

The more you care about a topic, the more susceptible you are to assigning meaning to coincidences.

Sometimes coincidences tell you something useful. But 90 percent of the time they mislead you. Never be too confident about an opinion that depends solely on interpreting a coincidence.

The problem occurs when the media slants its coverage of stories so you see what you believe to be a pattern.

If you are reaching a general conclusion about a big topic by looking at anecdotal evidence, you are engaging in loserthink.

Always ask yourself if the opposite of your theory could be true. Doing so keeps you humble and less susceptible to bias until you get to the truth of the situation.

If you are genuinely trying to understand the world, please avoid judging entire groups by their worst members.

Don’t believe that every member of a group is as bad as its worst 5 percent. If you do, you’re probably among the worst 5 percent of whatever groups you are in.

If any part of your argument depends on asking critics to “prove it isn’t true,” you are thinking like a cult member.

People who are trained in decision-making know it is not rational to ask someone to prove a negative. So if you find yourself demanding that others do so, you are practicing loserthink.

Rarely is it possible to prove something isn’t true. But sometimes we can prove things are true.

Learn to think in microsteps. If you are experiencing couch lock, try wiggling one finger. Then build from there.

When entrepreneurs don’t know how to get from A to B, they take the smallest step in that direction that is available to them and then see if they can figure out the next one from that new starting point.

My nomination for the most loserthinkish advice in history is: “Stay in your lane.” That is the sort of advice that is better served to an enemy, not a friend. If everyone followed that advice, you wouldn’t have civilization.

In my experience, the smartest plan for life is to leave your lane as often as you can (without inviting major risk) to pick up skills that will complement your talent stack. The more skills you have, the more valuable you will be, although you won’t necessarily know in advance where it will take you.

most of us are not the best in the world, or anywhere near it, at any particular skill. If that describes you, I recommend leaving your lane often—even at the risk of embarrassment—to pick up new skills and new ways to see the world.

The best way to widen your lane is to leave it often, so you can learn something new.

If I learn some useful new skills, and I make some valuable contacts, and I learn to see the world through the filter of the new skill, I know I have become more valuable and my lane has widened.

Two of my favorite sentences are . . . I don’t know how to do that. But I can figure it out.

Sticking with what you know ensures you stay where you are. Take some chances. Leave your lane and build some skills.

If I had to pick one defining characteristic that separates the successful from the unsuccessful, it would be luck.

But if I had to pick two defining characteristics, the other one would be a sense of control.

Whether they are right about that or not, it’s a winning mindset. People who think they control their situations will put more effort into doing so.

Perhaps the most important thing the book does is move people’s minds from wondering how to succeed in a world that seems mostly driven by luck, to habit-driven systems in which you are evolving from a situation with low odds of finding luck to situations with better odds.

If you take full responsibility for your outcomes, even while knowing much of it depends on luck, that’s how rich people think. If you blame something beyond your direct control, you’re probably engaged in loserthink, and your outcomes will reflect it.

Confidence is a great quality to have, unless you’re also often wrong.

Certainty isn’t a good indication of rightness for any complicated situation.

the scientific method is more reliable than human certainty, and it allows for a lot of failure, so long as some things turn out to be right.

It doesn’t matter how many times science is wrong so long as sometimes it is right and the good stuff sticks around. To put it in sporting terms, no one cares how many fish you didn’t catch. They only care about the ones you did.

Capitalism is similar to both science and fishing in that it is largely a failure machine.

You only need a small percentage of companies to succeed in order to have a strong economy.

the reality is that entrepreneurs are making educated guesses and talking themselves into a degree of certainty that the facts do not support.

Being wrong and yet confident is a good description of the human condition.

As a general rule, people have to go find luck; it doesn’t find them. Luck is attracted to action and energy; it doesn’t come looking for you on the couch.

confidence is generally not fact-driven.

Nature doesn’t seem to care whether we are smart. In terms of our survival as a species, it only matters that some people, in some places, get things right some of the time. And if that success comes only from luck, that still moves society forward.

Favoring action over inaction, even in the face of uncertainty, is generally a good approach to life.

Find a way to test your assumption in a small way so no one gets hurt.

The next time you find yourself in a debate about doing something big, ask yourself how the idea can first be tested small. The alternatives are loserthink.

A basic understanding of economics can help you “see around corners” that others cannot.

People who understand economics can more easily spot hoaxes because money drives human behavior in predictable ways.

One of the most consistent rules of life is that bad behavior happens almost 100 percent of the time whenever you have this combination of variables: There is money to be made from the bad behavior The odds of detection are low Lots of people are involved

Be skeptical of any experts who have a financial incentive to mislead you and almost no risk on their end.

A trained economist would know to consider all factors in a decision. The public at large tends to leave out the parts they don’t like.

If you think in terms of “the ends justifying the means” instead of “costs compared to benefits,” you are buying into loserthink.

If you have a strong opinion about a proposed plan but you have not compared it to the next best alternative, you are not part of a rational conversation.

If your opinion considers only the benefits or only the costs of a plan, you might be in a mental prison.

Political advocates focus on the costs of a plan when they hate it and the benefits when they like it. People who follow politics mimic the advocates and end up with halfpinions instead of full opinions.

A dollar you have today is worth a dollar. But a dollar you might get in the future, if things go as predicted (which is rare), is worth a lot less.

The opinions of average voters on how to address climate change are driven by fear, emotion, team play, and other irrational factors. We’re not capable of sorting out the risks and the economics of complicated events playing out over decades.