Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

Key Takeaways

Thinking like a psychologist
1. The mind reading delusion - people are dreadful at reading other people and knowing what they’re thinking
2. Occam’a Razor - In science the simplest exclamation that fixed it fits the fact it’s quite easy to arrive at however nearly every other round this is in a good jurisdiction because everyone has a different opinion on what is a simple fact
3. Projection - people accuse others of having faults flaws or biases that they themselves have
4. Ego is a tool that you should be able to dial up and down if you want to accomplish something ambitious turn off your ego and if you’re dealing with loved ones turn it down. Don’t choose ego over effectiveness. Put yourself in potentially embarrassing situations as a sort of practice and learn to ignore or at least minimize your embarrassment
Thinking like an artist
1. Failure of imagination - The best explanation to most things in life is something that has never occurred to you. Most people fail because of a failure of imagination
Thinking like a historian
1. History is extremely filtered and biased based on who wrote it. Every government writes its own version of history to brainwash its citizens no one history is objective everyone is slanted
2. Don’t forget about the past but it is more productive to look forward to understand what the paths to success are rather than what has happened
3. Slippery slope - things will continue on their path until they go too far. Almost everything can be considered a slippery slope so it’s more productive to look at forces and systems
4. Privacy is overrated. Sometimes it helps but context is important. When gay men started coming out, their lack of privacy helped their cause
Thinking like an engineer
1. A new expert will always call the work of the previous expert a joke
2. The one variable illusion - people look for a silver bullet when in reality almost always multiple variables matter
Thinking like a leader
1. Directional truth filter - truth has two important aspects: accuracy and direction. If you don’t know which one is more important, you might be falling to loserthink. Getting the direction right is almost always important but being 100% precise is only sometimes so
2. Confusing hyperbole with legitimate opinion - make sure you know which you are dealing with
3. Systems vs goals - a good system is doing something on a regular basis to increase your odds of doing something productive even if you don’t exactly know the final outcome
Thinking like a scientist
1. Coincidences are more than likely simply confirmation bias. We are surrounded by coincidences and most mean nothing at all
2. Anecdotes - beware drawing patterns or assigning too much confidence in anecdotes
3. Inversion - always ask what if the opposite were true. Beware forming opinions too early and always realize that you could be wrong
4. Judging a group by its worst members - beware falling for this mistake
5. Proving a negative - can’t be done and best you can do is say it hasn’t been detected or found up to this point
Thinking like an entrepreneur
1. Couch lock - do what you can do, not what you can’t do. This will give you a small step to take, leading to the next, building momentum. Small but steady and consistent steps is how big things happen in a lot of realms. The effort in totality is humongous but in any given day it is manageable
2. Leave your lane - pick up different skills from different realms. This makes you more valuable and gives you different perspectives
3. Sense of control - people who think they can control their situations are more likely to do so
4. Humility and testing - be aware that you are probably overconfident but this should not stop you from experimenting. You learn from failure as long as it doesn’t take you out of the game completely. Find ways to start small so that nobody gets hurt
Thinking like an economist
1. You can expect bad behavior when there is money to be had, when the chance of being caught is low, and lots of people are involved
2. The ends justify the means. Must consider all the costs and benefits that goes into a decision - ethically, morally, pragmatically, emotionally, financially...
3. How to compare things - this is a skill that can be learned but most people don’t even know this is a skill. Compared to nothing is the lowest rung of the skill ladder, compare to how someone else performed in the same/similar situation, compare to the next best alternative
4. Halfpinions - must compare full cost of the plan to the full benefit
5. Time value of money - those who only focus on the near term are childish and those who can look long term and understand the full costs and benefits are adults. Should discount things in the future back to the present to understand the trade offs. Money received in the future is worth less than money received today
6. Consider the alternatives - important for any decision
7. Confusopolies - companies in an industry are so complicated that knowing what is the best product or service is difficult if not impossible
8. Straight line predictions - the world is dynamic so assuming anything stays stagnant is by definition incorrect. Don’t assume that the future will look just like the past. Humans are not good at predicting but are good at solving important and slow moving problems. You should also look at industries that have a lot of entrepreneurial energy as these tend to stick around
Things pundits say that you should not copy
1. Pundits are almost always advocates so are biased. Do not blindly mimic what they say without understanding their bias
2. Moral equivalency - beware comparing two things which aren’t morally equivalent (even if you think they are). Somebody’s issues with their kids compared to your issues with your cat
3. Word-thinking - trying to win a debate or persuade by focusing on the definition of words. Instead, focus on the root of the problem, the morality of it. When people resort to word thinking, walk away as the chance of a good debate is low. Words are not reasons by themselves
4. The hypocrisy defense - just because the other side did something too, doesn’t make it right. If you screwed up, admit it, and communicate how you’ll solve it
5. Fairness - different for everyone and it can rarely be measured or doled out. People are spring loaded to prefer fairness but fairness is an illusion
6. Feels-the-same - just because one thing about a person or situation feels the same as something, doesn't make it fair or right to compare the two. People are pattern recognition machines, and not good ones. Analogies cannot help you predict the future. Focusing on causation rather than simply patterns
7. Friction - adding friction of whatever kind changes behavior
8. Mentioning is not comparing
9. Do your own research - doing your own research is very helpful in many realms but in the most complex (politics, climate change) it may not and may simply lead to confirmation bias. Doing some research is likely better than no research, but don't pretend that you can tell the difference between knowledge and confirmation bias
10. Be yourself - if who you are today isn't benefiting your or those around you, you can change yourself. Be more positive and adapt your habits to become a better person
The Golden Age Filter
1. Bad news and drama sells, so most people don't see or understand that the world is in a better place than it has ever been
2. Poverty has drastically decreased, overpopulation has been mitigated, unsolved crime has decreased, inexpensive homes are improving, wars seem to be less likely moving forward as the economic and political benefits have drastically decreased, climate change technologies are quickly improving, end of unemployment may be within our lifetimes as housing/energy/technology/etc. costs and improvements help everyone, healthcare innovations, race relations have improved although the press blinds us to this often
How to Break Out of Your Mental Prison
1. Cultural gravity - some cultures have low gravity so that people aren't ashamed of learning and excelling. Seek to surround yourself with this as much as possible.
2. Knowing where to start - doing the wrong thing is an excellent place to start in order to learn how to do it right. Loserthink involves doing nothing until you know how to do it right.
3. Unfocused priorities - You have to get your own health and finances in order. Only then can you help and focus on others. Priority should be yourself, family, friends, community, state, country, and then the world
4. Context is hugely important yet most people ignore or are blind to the bigger picture
5. Fake news filter - can assume that if both sides present the same story that it is likely true, side that is out of power more likely to resort to fake news, beware mind reading and absurdity, be skeptical until the noise settles down a bit
6. Persuasion - humans are not rational but have the illusion that they are. Once you accept and see this, the walls of Loserthink will soften
7. Managing Embarrassment - getting comfortable with getting embarrassed takes training. Put yourself in the position to fail and be embarrassed and you'll realize it won't kill you. Learning that embarrassment doesn't kill you is like a super power
8. Change what you do to change how you think - thoughts follow action, so be biased towards positive action
9. Judging the mistake versus the response - this is the best way to judge others
10. The 48 hour rule and the 20 year rule - new manners that the author proposes. Give people 48 hours to apologize, clarify, or update you if something didn't make sense. Forgive what people did more than 20 years ago
How to break others out of their mental prison
1. The magic question - what one thing do you believe that you don't think I believe? This question will frame the conversation so that you can respond to specific criticisms
2. Pacing - Agree with someone as much as you can at the beginning (without lying) to prove that you are an open and reasonable person. This will make future disagreements and discussions more productive
3. Define the weeds - define what is important and not
4. Describe the long-term - what does the future look like under your scenario? If they can't answer that clearly, they aren't looking out far enough
5. Call out the mind reading - by giving it a name and exposing mind reading, you will have more productive conversations
6. Framing issues - how you frame an issue is as important as the issue itself. make sure you are thoughtful about how you frame it
Other
1. People gave greater weight to things that have names (why he created a new word in "Loserthink")
2. Everyone is coming from a different starting point but the purpose of this book is to explain these core ideas and how you can use them in your own life
3. You must know not only how many times someone or something was correct, but how many times they were incorrect (the stockpicking scam where they send thousands of people productions and some salt small subset is blown away by how accurate they are and are conned out of money...)
4. Opinion stacking - tactic of fake news where you get several people with the same biased opinion together and only one dissenting opinion

What I got out of it

Different realms require different modes of thinking and Scott Adams gives some amazing tips and tools for how to be more productive and persuasive and how to not fall for "Loserthink."

Summary