Modern WisdomLearn To Improve Your Decision Making - Julia Galef | Modern Wisdom Podcast 332
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 20,928 words- 0:00 – 15:00
Soldier mindset is my…
- JGJulia Galef
Soldier mindset is my term for this often unconscious motivation that's guiding your thinking when you're reading an article or listening to an argument, where the motivation in the back of your mind is trying to defend your preexisting beliefs, or trying to defend things that you want to believe against any evidence that might threaten those beliefs. And so you're gonna be much more accepting of evidence if it supports what you already believe or want to believe, and you're gonna be much more motivated to find flaws in evidence that goes against your beliefs. Rationalizing or wishful thinking or self-justification, those are all facets of what I call soldier mindset.
- CWChris Williamson
Is being as rational as possible something that everyone should aim to do all the time?
- JGJulia Galef
(laughs) Well, so, like any philosophy nerd, I wanna immediately define all of the terms that you just used in that sentence so we can understand how we're using different words. Um, but I'll just ... I'll start with the idea of being rational. Um, I think a lot of people hear that word and they think of being like Spock from Star Trek, where you're not allowed to have any emotion and you're only allowed to do things that you can justify in dollars and cents (laughs) or in time efficiency or something like that. That's not actually, um, th- that's not how academics use the word rational. It's not how I'm used to thinking of the word rational. Um, rationality is just about, uh, forming beliefs that are as accurate as you can. That's one kind of rationality. And another kind is just making decisions that, um, that, that help you achieve your goals, whatever those goals might be. Those goals could be helping people you care about or it could be enjoying life or, uh, or, you know, succeeding at whatever you want. But, um, but the goal of, of being more rational is to just, uh, find more effective ways to get those goals for lower, um, lower s- cost or sacrifice. So, um, defined that way, uh, I think it's harder to argue that being rational is, uh, is not something we should strive for. Um, and so yes, I think, uh, improving your, your, they're called epistemic and instrumental irrationalities, is a really valuable goal. And, um, and I tend to argue that, uh, improving your ability to see things clearly and have accurate beliefs actually is a really good way to achieve your goals, to be more instrumentally rational, and that there's a, there's a real, um, a real synergy between those two kinds of rationality that I think people should be more aware of.
- CWChris Williamson
The problem is that most people aren't aware of just how irrational they are being. Most people presume that the decisions that they're making are going to take them towards their goals, right? If they have goals, they don't purposefully make decisions that don't take them toward them. But it's kind of like the emperor has no clothes in a weird way. They don't know that the things that they're doing are irrational.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah. I mean, I think, um, in the moment, we all, we, we never feel like, "Yes, I'm doing an irrational thing." But I do think that many people are able to kind of zoom out, take a step back a- and think, you know, "Okay, yes, I do sometimes do things that are, like, predictably bad for my goals." Like, "I do sometimes, um, put off working on a project until the day before it's due, and I know from past experience that that tends to shoot me in the foot and I do a worse job, and ... but I still do it anyway because, for various reasons." You know? (laughs) There, there's always, like, a short-term temptation, um, that can pull you into doing something that you know is bad for your goals. Uh, or, you know, you might lash out in anger at someone, um, even though there's no real, th- there's no real expectation there that you're gonna improve the situation by yelling at someone, but you just feel compelled to do it anyway. Um, and so I think, I think people can often recognize that at least, you know, in the past they have done things that they, they now accept were, were not the most rational strategy for getting the things that they want. But in the moment, it's really hard to recognize that.
- CWChris Williamson
So why do some people see things more clearly and others don't?
- JGJulia Galef
(laughs) So this is a big question that I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing and talking to people about. Um, and I'll just try to give you a very, very simplified answer so I don't spend two hours answering this one question. Um, I think some people have, uh... A, some people care more about seeing things clearly and accurately and so they're more motivated to, um, you know, double-check their initial intuitive guesses about what's going on. They're more inclined to say, "Well, before I share this story on social media that seems really true to me, maybe I'll just spend a moment fact-checking it just to see if there's any obvious flaw I'm missing." So some people just, you know, are already more motivated to do that because they like being the kind of person who just sees things as accurately as possible. And then also a big part of the puzzle, I think, is that some people just for various reasons have developed more effective emotional skills to cope with some of the stressful or difficult aspects of seeing things clearly. And it can be stressful and difficult, you know? It can be uncomfortable to notice that you were some pa- you know, uh, some political position you've been taking passionately to your friends and family or, or, you know, saying publicly, to notice you were wrong about that can be very uncomfortable. (laughs) Um, or just to seriously consider, you know, unflattering or difficult truths about yourself that, you know, "Maybe I do tend to lash out at people unfairly," or, "Maybe I did screw up at that..." um, you know, that, "That problem at work maybe is my fault after all." That's not fun to recognize. Um, but I think some people have developed tools that allow them to kind of tackle those situations, um, and, and be willing to see things clearly even, even though it's not the easiest thing in the world. So, uh, I think a lot of the, the task of moving towards, um, what I call scout mindset, the ability to, to really want to see things as clearly as possible even if the truth isn't what you wish it were, um, I think a lot of that progression involves just developing these emotional skills that make seeing the truth easier on you.
- CWChris Williamson
And what's the opposite of scout mindset?
- JGJulia Galef
Right. So I have this metaphor that I talk about a lot, um, called soldier mindset versus scout mindset. Um, s- soldier mindset is my term for, um, this often unconscious motivation that's guiding your thinking when you're, you know, reading, uh, an article or listening to an argument, where the motivation in the back of your mind is trying to defend your preexisting beliefs, um, or trying to defend things that you want to believe against any evidence that might threaten those beliefs. And so, you're gonna be much more accepting of evidence if it supports what you, you know, already believe or want to believe, and you're gonna be much more motivated to find flaws in evidence that, that goes against your beliefs. Um, so this phenomenon isn't new. It has many names. You might have heard of it under the name motivated reasoning. Um, that's what cognitive scientists often call it. And then there's other sort of colloquial terms, like rationalizing or, um, or wishful thinking or, uh, self-justification. Those are all facets of what I call soldier mindset. Um, and then scout mindset is just the alternative to that, because, you know, the scout's role, unlike the soldier, is not to attack or defend. It's to go out, see what's really there as clearly as possible, and, and to form as accurate a map of a situation or, um, or a topic as possible, um, including all the, all the things that you don't yet know or that you can't be certain about, um, and always, always being motivated to learn new things that could help you revise your map and make it more accurate. So the map is always a work in progress, um, that, that is going to be subject to revision. And so scout mindset is basically just trying to be intellectually honest and as objective as possible and just curious about what's actually true.
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think most people default to a soldier mindset rather than a scout mindset? I know far more soldiers than I do scouts.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah. I mean, so to be clear, we're all a mix of both. We're, we're all, you know, somewhat soldiers and somewhat scouts, and we, we can fluctuate between the two mindsets. Um, you know, I'm often in scout mindset when I'm thinking about some intellectual issue. But if someone is confronting me and arguing with me, and especially if they're being kind of a jerk about it, um, then it's much easier for me to slip into soldier mindset, where I really just wanna prove myself right. Um, or, you know, the context can matter a lot, so, like, the topic. Someone might be, uh, really good at being a scout at work. Like, let's say they're a, a trader, a, a financial trader, and, um, and maybe they're, they're really good at trying to test their own assumptions about the market. And they're quite happy to discover that they were wrong about something 'cause it means they can improve their, um, their trading strategy. But then they come home, and they're a soldier in their personal relationships, and they're unwilling to even consider the possibility that other people's perspectives might be valid or, you know, completely closed to the possibility of problems in their relationship, things like that. So we're all a mix of both. But some people are better at being more of a scout, especially in these especially trickier, you know, emotionally or ideologically fraught situations. Um, and so... I forget your original question. (laughs) What did you ask me?
- CWChris Williamson
Just why do people err toward it?
- JGJulia Galef
Oh, why do we s- why do we so often default to the soldier?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah, that's right. Um, right. So, there are, there are things that soldier mindset does for us, at least in the short term, um, that can be very tempting and, and can pull us into soldier mindset even if scout mindset is better for us in the long run. So, you know, one of those benefits is just comfort, just, like, feeling better about our lives or the world. Um, we often are motivated to reach for, reach for defenses of some narrative in which we're a good person and, um, things that happen weren't our fault and, you know, things that are wrong with our life are, are someone else's fault. So, I don't know. Suppose you're, suppose you tend to do poorly at standardized testing, um, like SATs or IQ tests or whatever. You might be especially motivated to believe articles that tell you that standardized testing doesn't actually measure anything important and it's, you know, it's, like, a meaning- they're, they're meaningless tests or something. That might be an especially appealing belief for you to try to, to accept. Um, so soldier mindset can give us comfort. It can make us feel better about ourselves and our lives. Um, it can also... People also sometimes use soldier mindset to help motivate themselves. They'll try to convince themselves that, you know, "If I just work hard, I'm guaranteed to succeed," which, you know, working hard is great, and it will help your chance of success. But there's a lot of randomness and luck in life and a lot of things you can't control. And we're often kind of motivated to downplay that because we are afraid it's gonna demoralize us. Um, and, yeah, there, there's lots of other things that people try to use soldier mindset for, to feel good or to look good to other people. Um, and that's all totally understandable. I'm, I'm not, I'm not gonna come on here and say, "You shouldn't worry about feeling good or looking good," um, because those are (laughs) very valuable, you know, parts of being a happy and fulfilled human being. Um, but I think there are better ways to get those things that don't require you to, to tell yourself falsehoods and deceive yourself.
- CWChris Williamson
It definitely seems to reduce complexity when you-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... don't consider all of the options and the fact that you might be wrong. Conviction-
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... goes up. Culpability probably goes down. And complexity-
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... gets reduced.
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And that creates a scenario in which you're just more certain and the parameters within which, or the degrees of freedom within which you could be wrong have been reduced.
- JGJulia Galef
Right. No, that's, that's very well put, and I think that, that simplicity can be very appealing to people. Um, and it can also be a way that people are trying to avoid a, a common failure mode, which I agree is a failure mode that we should avoid, which is, like, analysis paralysis, where people are afraid, "Well, if I, if I don't just stick to one way of looking at things, or I don't just stick to the first plan I think of, then I'm just gonna get mired in, in uncertainty-"
- CWChris Williamson
Nihilism.
- JGJulia Galef
"... and I'm never gonna be able to ask..." Uh, yeah, or, or nihilism. Right, exactly. If you allow yourself to, you know, consider other moral perspectives or other whatever. Yeah, so this is a, this is also a very legitimate concern because analysis paralysis (laughs) can be a terrible thing, and I've seen people get stuck in it. Um, but again, I think there are better ways of avoiding analysis paralysis that don't require you to, you know, insist on false certainty. So, for example, a lot of the, like, very successful scouts, uh, people who are good at scout mindset who I know, are just really good at the skill of saying, "Well-...I'm going to, uh, I'm gonna spend a little while considering some options, then I'm just gonna go with whatever my best guess is right now. And I'm just gonna act on that. You know, I'm gonna make this business plan that seems like I, I've bounded the amount of time I'm gonna consider this, and I'll just go with whatever my best plan is that I come, can come up with in a day or, or something. And I'll just, I'll go on with that until some new evidence comes to light that makes, you know, makes it worth reconsidering. Like, if I, if we get some feedback from our beta testers that is surprising and, you know, makes this plan seem flawed, then we'll reeva- we'll reevaluate then. Or maybe I'll reevaluate at a set time in six months or something. But until then, I'll just act on this assumption that this plan is worth doing, and then we'll, you know, revise if and when we need to. And so they're able to keep that awareness of uncertainty, um, in the back of their mind as, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
It's bounded in a way.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it has to be bounded, right? We humans have limited time and energy and computational power, and so you, even if you wanted to, you know, uh, consider all the possibilities every time, you wouldn't have the, the time to do that. So, it's just really important to be able to act on imperfect information and just trust that you can, you know, iterate it and revise as you go. And I, I think that's, like, a much healthier approach than trying to be 100% confident in, you know, whatever your current guess is so that you don't have to deal with the unpl- uh, complexity.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Can you tell us that story from the book about the guy who got stranded at sea in the raft?
- 15:00 – 30:00
And he had five…
- JGJulia Galef
And these kinds of survival situations where, you know, the stakes are life or death can be extremely stressful and fear-inducing. And because of that, people in these situations are very often tempted to reach for soldier mindset to, to assuage their fears. They're tempted to, you know, insist that, "I will definitely be rescued. There's no question. I will be rescued." Or sometimes they go the other way, and they just collapse into fatalism and say, "Well, there's no hope. There's nothing I can do to, to salvage this situation." Because, you know, sometimes that little bit of hope is even more uncomfortable than having no hope at all, because it means you have to try and you have to worry and you have to et cetera. So, the, there's all of these temptations towards soldier mindset in a survival situation, um, and that's, that's unfortunate, because in a life or death situation is when you most need clear-eyed judgment. It's when you most need to be able to, you know, weigh the odds as best you can of, "Well, should I, you know, wait here to be rescued, or should I s- go out to seek help? Which one, strategy is more likely to work?" For Steve Callahan, the kinds of decisions he had to face were things like, um, "You know, I have a few flares that I, that I've salvaged. When a ship passes by, you know, I have to judge, is it close enough that I should waste one of my flares in hopes of being seen? Or is that just gonna be a waste of a flare 'cause it's too far away? Um, how, how much water can I afford to drink per day?" (laughs) Um, so th- there are all these really tough judgment calls that make a real difference in whether you end up surviving or not, and your best hope of making those decisions, uh, well is to just be as, as clear-eyed, objective, and realistic as possible. And so what Steve Callahan was able to do, um, was to comfort his own fear and anxiety without deceiving himself, without telling himself falsehoods like, "I'm definitely gonna be rescued." So he found other ways. I call them honest coping strategies, ways of, you know, comforting yourself without lies. Uh, so for example, one thing he did was just to remind himself, he, he u- used this mantra. He said, "All I can do is the best I can. I'm doing the best I can." Which was true. He was doing the best he could, and he just kept reminding himself of that, and, you know, and that was comforting to him. Um, and he also worked on his memoirs while he was in the boat, because he figured, you know, "Even if I die, maybe someday this raft will be found, and my memoirs of this experience could be useful to someone else." And he found that comforting too. So, Steve Callahan relied on these honest coping strategies that all- allowed him to keep going without deceiving himself, and his story has a happy ending. Um, he eventually made it. After three months, almost three months of drifting in this raft slowly across the Atlantic Ocean, he got to the Caribbean, um, I think he'd lost over a third of his body weight at that point. But, uh, but he, you know, made a full recovery and now his memoirs, uh, are this amazing book called Adrift, which is the story of how he survived both logistically and emotionally, um, in the Atlantic for all that time. So, I, I love his story just as, like, a gripping adventure story, and also as this kind of emotional role model that I try to follow.
- CWChris Williamson
And he had five pints of water left when he was found as well, right?
- JGJulia Galef
He did. I was so impressed at that. What self-restraint, you know? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Outrageous.
- JGJulia Galef
Um, oh, I should mention, he, yeah, I mean, he had very little water at the beginning, but he managed to rig up this device to collect rainwater on the raft so that he could replenish his supply of water. But still, it was a very slow rate of replenishment, so he could only afford to drink, I think it was, like, a liter a day or s- or something. You know, it, it amounted to about one gulp of water per hour, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Sh-Yeah.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, um, it's interesting that you say that he found comfort in rationality. So, I was reading-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Red Rising, which is a series by Pierce Brown. It's just a sci-fi-
- JGJulia Galef
Oh. Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... fiction series that I've addicted half of the audience to. Um, it's so good.
- JGJulia Galef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's outrageously good. And in it, there's this line, and the protagonist is talking about the fact, he's in this emotionally charged situation, he's at war in space and stuff, 'cause-
- JGJulia Galef
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
...'cause space. And-
- JGJulia Galef
(laughs) Space.
- CWChris Williamson
... he, um, he says... Someone comes in and asks him about how he's feeling or, or, sort of brings him back to this, um, social issue that he's having while he's in the middle of planning the attack, this new attack that he's doing-
- JGJulia Galef
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
... out in space. And he says that he was, "Ripped out of the cold comfort of rationality and into the emotion of it all."
- JGJulia Galef
Huh.
- CWChris Williamson
And I thought that was really poignant. I highlighted it, I've saved it down in my-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in my favorite quotes. And this is something that I think... I've been thinking about this for a while, to do with the rationality movement at large, so LessWrong and Slate Star and all this sort of stuff. I wonder how much of the comfort that people take in the rationality movement at large is them trying to wrangle the infinite complexity of the world and the inherent fear that comes from being a finite creature, like we are, surrounded by infinite complexity. I wonder how much of the compulsion and the desire and the enjoyment of the rationality movement comes from creating a little bit of order, trying to-
- JGJulia Galef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... reduce the amount of chaos that you're surrounded by. What are your thoughts on that?
- JGJulia Galef
Well, I guess that would seem more plausible to me if the non-rationalists were all wrestling with uncertainty and feeling lo- but, like, normal people-
- CWChris Williamson
It's Pandora's box with that though, right? Isn't it? It's like, if you don't know that it's there, you can't know your own ignorance, if you're still ignorant to it.
- JGJulia Galef
Oh, I see. So, you're sugg- okay, okay, got it. So, you're suggesting, like, the rationalists are people who have, they have opened Pandora's box. They have, they have become, you know, aware of how much
- CWChris Williamson
They've stepped out of Plato's cave, yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
I would agree. …
- JGJulia Galef
that's working in the back of my mind. And I do try to correct for it when I can. Like, I try to, you know, I try to motivate myself to be the kind of person who just really tries to care about whatever happens to be the most important thing. And I like the idea of being that kind of person, um, uh, hopefully more than I like the idea of being, like, some esoteric (laughs) per- some person with esoteric tastes and interests. So, uh, I'm trying. But I agree that that is a kind of blind spot that I, uh, suspect rationalists fall prey to more than the average person does.
- CWChris Williamson
I would agree.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, dig into that attitude and knowledge limitation. What sort of attitudes can we have that will foster better self-awareness?
- JGJulia Galef
Um, yeah. Well, then the first thing is just to actually want to notice yourself, uh, being in soldier mindset, um, to, you know, feel good about yourself when you notice, "Oh, I was just, I was just being defensive there. Oh, I ..." You know, something I often notice is, "Oh, when I answered that person's objection or that person's question, I didn't actually think about it. I was just... Like, if I pay attention to the mental motions I was going through, I was just reaching for something I could say that would, that would, uh, knock down their objection. I, I never actually stopped to think about whether they could be right." Um-
- CWChris Williamson
So let me interject there.
- JGJulia Galef
... and-
- CWChris Williamson
What, what's a thing that you do to create a breakpoint in that? Have you got a practice that you have?
- JGJulia Galef
In, in the reflex-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JGJulia Galef
... like, to, to stop the reflex? Uh, y- well, part of it is just, you know, simply paying attention to it and building the habit of noticing. But there are, there are some concrete things as well that help. Um, one thing is to, uh, step back and remind myself of... This is an, an example of kind of an honest coping strategy, like a, a thing, a, an emotional tool to make yourself more motivated to be in scout mindset instead of soldier mindset, even when the temptation to soldier mindset is there. Um, and a specific thing I often do is just to remind myself that, oh, if I, you know, if I s- admit that I'm wrong in this argument, that might be uncomfortable now, but the silver lining, the upside is that, by doing so, I'm going to be building this track record in which I've proven that I'm a, I'm, you know, arguing in good faith and I'm not the kind of person who's just going to stick to what she's saying just for the sake of it, you know, just to, to stick to her guns. And so I'm kind of investing in my future credibility by, you know... If, if it turns out that I actually was wrong in this argument, then, you know, the, the silver lining to that is that I can build a reputation as someone who's a credible good-faith arguer. And so sometimes just remembering that silver lining, um, it doesn't necessarily make it fun to notice that I was wrong, but it makes it, like, tolerable. Uh, it makes it just palatable enough that I'm kind of willing to do it. So I think that can help, like, noticing the silver linings or the upsides to, like, being wrong or, um, or to, yeah, changing your mind. Um, and then I also have some tools for the s- for the noticing part, like tools to help you notice that you're actually in s- soldier mindset. Um, there's a whole category of things called thought experiments, where you just... For example, um, suppose you're, you find yourself defending a politician on your side, um, who just did something that he's coming under attack for. Uh, a thought experiment you could do that would be useful in that situation is to imagine that a politician from the other party had done the exact same thing. Um, what would your reaction have been? Would you feel like defending him too (laughs) or would you say, like, "Oh, no, that's terrible, um, that's, you know, he should be just taken out of office," or something like that. Um, I just, I call that an example of, or, that is an example of what I call the double standard test, where you kind of check to see, am I applying a double standard to people on my side versus someone else? Am I applying a double standard to judging my own actions versus someone else? Am I applying a double standard to claims I want to believe or, you know, that I would apply to claims I don't want to believe? So i- in situations where I think it's possible I'm in soldier mindset, I will sometimes do a thought experiment like that just to test.
- CWChris Williamson
What other thought experiments do you like?
- JGJulia Galef
Um, well, another one that I use a fair bit is called the outsider test, um, and the goal there is to check to see if your judgment about what's best to do in a given situation would be different if it wasn't you in the situation. So, uh, an example of some, uh, people who aren't me using the outsider test is, comes from Andy Grove, um, and Gordon Moore, who are two founders of Intel. In the '80s, um, Intel's market share... So they, they made memory chips originally, and their market share had been really high, but then started plummeting as Japan found ways to make memory chips, uh, much faster and cheaper than Intel. And so everyone was kind of, you know, tearing their hair and, like, wringing their hands. And, uh, in his memoir, Andy Grove tells this story of being in his office with Gordon, just going back and forth about what to do, um, and he asked Gordon, "What do you think, like, if, if the board kicked us out and got a new CEO and brought him in, he walked into this office, what's the first thing he would do?" And Gordon said, "Oh, he would get us out of the memory chip business." (laughs) And Andy was like, "Yeah, he would. So what's stopping us from just walking out the door, coming back in, and doing that ourselves?" And the answer was nothing, except that they had been so kind of stuck in the status quo that they were used to of like, "Well, we're a memory chip company. We should always make memory chips." It was kind of their identity, uh, Andy said, and it felt almost like blasphemy to consider giving that up. But a new CEO without those attachments would have no such, uh, uh, attachment. (laughs) So, uh, just imagining what an outsider would do in that situation or, like, what you should, what you think an outsider should do can often cause you to realize, oh, this is, you know... My judgment was being clouded just by the f- by my past attachments. It's almost like, um, I forget who wrote this. Uh, some, some writer had this great metaphor of, like, it's like hanging a sign around your neck that says, "Under new management." Um, and, uh, a- and just, like, getting rid of that past baggage or imagining what it would be like can, can give you a very different take on a situation. So, uh, double standard test, outsider test, two examples of thought experiments that can help you, you know, notice and then hopefully compensate for bias in your judgments.
- CWChris Williamson
That third party perspective is so important. It's like-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's such a scalable cue role for so many of the things that you do, because we're all capable of giving friends amazing bits of advice-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, we say the thing, the friend that doesn't know what to do in the relationship, and you, you're firm but compassionate with them, and you're understanding, but you're not a, a total walkover, and you maybe give a few different points of view.
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And, and then when it comes to your own situations, you just lambast yourself about how short you are with your, your ... Your shortcomings are awful, and you're failing at this, and you watch your own blunders from a front row seat and then give yourself a kick in the ass on the way out of the door.
- JGJulia Galef
Right. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's, i- i- it's such a d- And you're like, "Well, hang on a second. If there's anyone that you should be a best friend to, it should be yourself."
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And yet, we find it so hard to treat ourselves like someone that we are responsible for helping, to quote Jordan Peterson.
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And that third-party perspective, to develop that metacognizance and to step away from the identity, I think, is super, super important. You looked at whether self-deceived people are happier. What did you find out about that?
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah. So this was a bit of common wisdom that I, uh, investigated for my book. Um, I'm sure many of your listeners have seen the articles and books saying things like, uh, "Self-deception makes you happy," or, you know, "A little bit of delusion is, is good for your mental health," or things like that. There've been a lot of articles and books like this in the last 15 years or so. And so I looked into the research, um, that these articles and books were citing, and was kind of appalled, uh, at how bad it was. (laughs) So I'll just, I'll give you one example. Um, here's a, a scale, um, measuring self-deception. So it's like a mea- uh, a measure of how self-deceived a person is. Um, and the way the researchers measured this was to ask people questions like, um, "Do you ever get angry, um, on a scale from ..." And they ask you to answer from one, never, to seven, all the time. Um, and if you ... A- and their rule was, if anyone gives a one or a two, then they're a self-deceiver. So, in that example, you might think, "Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, everyone gets angry, so anyone who says they never or rarely get angry must be lying to themselves, right?" Well, I mean, maybe. I, (laughs) I know some people very well who, you know, they've been my friends for years, and they get angry, like, once a year. So they would-
- CWChris Williamson
I think that's me. I would be in that category, yeah.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah. Right. And so maybe it's not that common, but there's definitely people who rarely get angry, um, and so they would honestly answer, like, two out of seven, and then they would be classified as self-deceivers. And then the questions get weirder from there. So another question is, (laughs) , uh, "Are you attracted to members of your same sex, ever?" Uh, like, "Do you ever find someone of your same sex attractive?" And if you answer one or two, like never or rarely, then you're classified as a self-deceiver. So the reason for this is just that-
- CWChris Williamson
Or because everybody's a bit gay. (laughs)
- 45:00 – 52:28
Right. In that, um,…
- CWChris Williamson
sort of a psychological layer on top of this, the fact that you can wrap the person that you believe that you are around being right or another group being wrong so tightly that this further creates more self-deception or, uh, more murky waters to see rationality through.
- JGJulia Galef
Right. In that, um, noticing that you were wrong about some, you know, maybe random political or ideological, intellectual issue can be a blow to your identity, um, just because you, you pride yourself in being the kind, the kind of person who's always right. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Um, yeah, I think it's very important to kind of tie your identity not to having the right beliefs, because then you're, you're never allowed to change the beliefs, um, but instead tie your identity to taking the right actions. And by the right actions, I mean things that actually help you improve over time or help you make your map of the world more accurate over time. And so, you know, I would put oth- things in that category like being able to say that you were wrong or, uh, being able to understand the views of people who disagree with you, um, like being able to accurately represent the opposing perspective, you know, fairly and charitably enough that people on the other side go, "Yes, thank you. That, that is what we believe." Um, as opposed to a straw man of the other side. Um, and so I think if you pride yourself on being able to do things like that, to change your mind and understand opposing views, then over time you're incentivizing yourself to do the things that make you stronger and more accurate over the, over the long term, as opposed to priding yourself on holding a particular view that you then can't let go of.
- CWChris Williamson
It's inevitable that you're going to have to loosen your grip on your identity if you are constantly seeking out counterpoints to your position. Right? You can't be a good faith actor intellectually in any kind of discourse and steel man somebody else's position properly without-
- JGJulia Galef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... thinking, "Well, this, this actually does mean that I need to let go of the identity that I have that's wrapped around my particular ideology or my particular viewpoint a little bit." It has to.
- JGJulia Galef
Right. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think, um, thinking about it from a competitive advantage standpoint, there are so many ideologically bound bad actors that are just sort of dogmatic single track thinkers now, especially in 2021 with social media-
- JGJulia Galef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and sort of extremism out to both sides, et cetera.
- JGJulia Galef
Now more than ever.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. You can stand out from the crowd by being radically reasonable-
- JGJulia Galef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... far more reasona- (laughs) far more easily than you can by trying to be an extremist.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Th- This is the, the, this-
- JGJulia Galef
I think it's an underrated niche, honestly.
- CWChris Williamson
Honestly.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
An extreme centrist, um, is a, a really radical position to hold now, surprisingly.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I s- I did this video about Sam Harris a few months ago where I said that-
- JGJulia Galef
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
... um, what you do by holding a nuanced viewpoint that is non-typical and also, um, somewhere in the middle, you're paying a high cost, because you guarantee disagreement from both sides.
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
By being in the middle, you guarantee disagreement from both. At least when you're out on one extreme, you know that you're going to be agreed with by that group.
- JGJulia Galef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Right?
- JGJulia Galef
Right, right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so what it is, it's a hard to fake signal of intellectual honesty, because you need to pay a very high price-
- JGJulia Galef
Yeah.
Episode duration: 52:33
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