Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

by Scott Adams

For example, a trained engineer learns a certain way of thinking about the world that overlaps but is different from how a lawyer, a philosopher, or an economist thinks. Having any one of those skill sets puts you way ahead in understanding the world and thinking about it productively. But unless you have sampled the thinking techniques across different fields, you are missing a lot. And again, to be super clear, I am not talking about the facts one learns in those disciplines. I am only talking about the techniques of thinking that students of those fields pick up during the process of learning. The good news is that you don’t need to master the fields of engineering, science, economics, philosophy, law, or any other field in order to learn the basics of how to think the way experts in those areas think. For example, if you didn’t know what the concept of sunk costs is all about, I could explain it in thirty seconds and you would fully understand it. Sunk costs: Money you already spent shouldn’t influence your decision about what to do next, but for psychological reasons, it often does.