The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't

by Julia Galef

“The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.”

Holding an identity lightly means treating that identity as contingent,

Susan Blackmore

Blackmore had a second identity, one that was strong enough to counter the first—that of a truth-seeker.

Scout mindset isn’t a chore they carry out grudgingly; it’s a deep personal value of theirs, something they take pride in.

your identity is a hindrance to scout mindset,

the idea of being intellectually honorable: wanting the truth to win out, and putting that principle above your own ego.

I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” The lecture hall burst into applause.

Keep an eye out for examples of motivated reasoning in yourself—and when you spot one, be proud of yourself for noticing.

At the end of the day, we’re a bunch of apes whose brains were optimized for defending ourselves and our tribes, not for doing unbiased evaluations of scientific evidence. So why get angry at humanity for not being uniformly great at something we didn’t evolve to be great at? Wouldn’t it make more sense to appreciate the ways in which we do transcend our genetic legacy?

We’re not a perfect species. But we should be proud of how far we’ve come, not frustrated that we fall short of some ideal standard. And by choosing to become a little less like soldiers and

a little more like scouts, we can be even better still.