Scout Mindset
"When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a "soldier" mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and everything in between, we are driven to defend the ideas we most want to believe--and shoot down those we don't. But if we want to get things right more often, argues Galef, we should train ourselves to have a "scout" mindset. Unlike the soldier, a scout's goal isn't to defend one side over the other. It's to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what's actually true. In The Scout Mindset, Galef shows that what makes scouts better at getting things right isn't that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than everyone else. It's a handful of emotional skills, habits, and ways of looking at the world--which anyone can learn. With fascinating examples ranging from how to survive being stranded in the middle of the ocean, to how Jeff Bezos avoids overconfidence, to how superforecasters outperform CIA operatives, to Reddit threads and modern partisan politics, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think"
Stats for nerds
25recommend
41mentions
32people
2020–2026years
73% recommend24% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Think about all the possible explanations carefully. Weight them based on the best information you have.
(I think the most likely explanation for Mythos is that it's asymmetrically a very big deal. Come to your own conclusions, but don't simply fall back on the "oh this fits the hype pattern" thought terminating cliché.)
Also be aware of what you want to see. If you want the world to fit your narrative, you're more likely construct explanations for that. (In my friend group at least, I feel like most fall prey to this, at least some of the time, including myself. These people are successful and intelligent by most measures.)
Then make a plan to become more disciplined about thinking clearly and probabilistically. Make it a system, not just something you do sometimes. I recommend the book "the Scout Mindset".
Concretely, if one hasn't spent a couple of quality hours really studying AI safety I think one is probably missing out. Dan Hendrycks has a great book.
- The human brain strikes again. It is built into our cognitive machinery to look for patterns and naively ascribe causation. We're not rational beings that sometimes mess up. We're a clusterf--k of cognitive biases all the way down.*
Cool pattern! Sure, maybe there is something there.** And/or maybe our brain is doing "conspiracy theorizing lite". Its all on the same spectrum -- the same flawed cognitive machinery trying to operate in a weird modern world quite different from where we came from.
A better way: write out your favorite hypothesis. But don't stop there... keep going... write out many hypotheses. Then find ways to test them. To tap into our best selves, I recommend The Scout Mindset (book). Here is an infographic summary of part of it: https://imgur.com/qN31PX8
Probably not a better way: float one's first gut feels to the Internet phrased as i.e. the better question and feed empty calories to our pattern-craving brains. There is reason some of our brain functions are considered higher order.
* Maybe I'm overstating this. Let me know? I want to read Rationality and the Reflective Mind by Keith Stanovich (https://academic.oup.com/book/5930) as a counterpoint to the usual suspects (such as Tversky & Kahneman)
** But what is there. What kind of pattern? What kind(s) of causation could be at work? See Judea Pearl's "ladder of causation". Nice write-up here: https://samuel-book.github.io/causal_inference_notebook/pear...
- This response is indicative of a completely different perspective on the idea of "argument" (and "making up your mind," a phrase that does not appear in the than the original article and would not fit with the framework of understanding expressed therein). The belief that your mind should or even can be "settled" on an issue - that you can examine the evidence, weigh it, judge it, come to a definitive conclusion, and then never think about it again - is not universal.
There exist people who think probabilistically; issues are not definitively decided in their mind, but given some likelihood of being one way or another. Such people tend to have much more accurate understandings of the world and benefit greatly from constructive debate, revisiting the same issues over and over again as new evidence is brought up in these arguments. If you'd like to know more, I recommend reading the book The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef.
- > Restoring some kind of sane not-hyper-polarized political discourse
I don't think it's just a systems problem. Sure, systems can help, but education is even more important. Recognizing it's terrible is valuable too (I hope most people have recognized that...).
I recommend Julia Galef's Scout Mindset[1] as an inspiration for the kind of change that I believe is needed. (perhaps the most book of the 3rd millenium? :P ) We need to boost our immunity against fake news and extreme discourse. Information now is what is decisive, and viral (and wrong, misleading, hateful, etc.) information can spread very quickly.
Apart from that, more compassion in general. We're very good at teaching kids about "productive" things they are interested in, but very poor about ethics and meta things, like compassion for fellow beings, the importance of a peaceful and kind discourse to the survival of civilization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scout_Mindset
> Utopias are always fantasies. All of them.
Historically utopia had this association. But I think if an utopia is impossible, then it's less interesting. There has to be something achievable that's worth striving for. It's not going to be perfect of course, but I'm confident it exists somehow.
I also think Utopia is as much as about the small as the big. Tolkien famously had his utopia in the Hobbit way of living, with a simple, relatively wealthy, relatively peaceful society -- but with great interpersonal relationships and all the little things (literally :) ).
- Tact is one thing, but if I were advising a younger person on this, it would be on cost/benefit of challenging and having a read for others' insecurity or openness.
Even in older age, many have fragile egos and may throw their weight around to punish you just for the insolence of contradicting them. It's worth knowing what's at stake, what's the upside. It's not enough to be right. That applies not only to subverting authority, but also popular conventional wisdom, as beautifully exemplified in anecdotes from the book the Scout Mindset.
If you're talking to those who value the pursuit of truth then not being a dick can be sufficiently disarming.
- What books would you recommend on the Scientific Method, Epistemology and scientific thinking in general?
Books like this that I liked:
- The Selfish Gene
- Rationality: From AI to Zombies
- The Scout Mindset
- Asking the Right Questions (Critical Thinking)
I've read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" already and could barely finish it. I respect that Feynman is a great scientist but he came across too full of himself in the book.
I'm planning on reading "The Beginning of Infinity" sometime this year and I am collecting more recommendations.
EDIT: Formatting.
