Loserthink is a deliciously quotable book, hence all the quotes. As always, directly quoted materials is in quotation marks. A lack of quotes denotes my thoughts.
Notes from the book
- “If you have a negative word for something, it’s easier to avoid it than if you don’t.”
- “The difference is that ‘stupid’ refers to a person whereas ‘loserthink’ applies to the technique.”
- “Whenever you have a lot of money in play, combined with the ability to hide misbehavior behind complexity, you should expect widespread fraud to happen.”
- “If your opinion depends on reliably knowing another person’s inner thoughts, you might be experiencing loserthink. And… If an ordinary explanation fits the facts, but you have chosen an extraordinary interpretation instead, you might have too much confidence in your opinion.”
- “Occam’s razor, as it is typically used in debate, is an example of backward thinking.”
- I have long agreed with this believe. “…the simplest explanation is usually the best one” is highly subjective. For example:
- “Which is simpler: that an all power being snapped their fingers and the universe sprang into existence or that trillions upon trillions of unfathomable particles all behaved precisely so to form Earth?”
- “Which is simpler: that physical rules governed interactions, culminating in Earth, today or that some being beyond all recognition and identification used their unfathomable powers to intricately plan and layout every detail of our reality, all while remaining hidden from us?”
- “Simplest” depends on your point of view and both can be tortured to fit the speaker’s beliefs.
- “The productive way to think of your ego is to consider it a tool, as opposed to a reflection of who you are on some core level. If you think your ego is a tool, you can choose to dial it up when needed and dial it down when it would be an obstacle.”
- “Effectiveness is more important than ego.”
- “Our egos control us through fear and often that fear is an illusion.”
- “As a rule, we can’t always tell the difference between the people who are far smarter than us and the people who are dumber. Both groups make choices we can’t understand.”
- “One of the most normal situations in the world is that people like the same thing… for wildly different reasons.”
- “If you can’t imagine any other explanation for a set of facts, it might be because you are bad at imagining things.”
- I laugh to myself and think this anytime I hear someone go off about how they cannot imagine any other reasons. Aliens 👽are always a good place to start imagining things 😉
- “History (even the fake kind) can be useful for persuading others through guilt. But don’t make the mistake of persuading yourself that history should matter to your choices today.”
- “Focusing on the past when the present offers sufficient paths to success is loserthink. It is better to focus on your own systems for success, and when you succeed, watch how winning fixes most problems.”
- “History doesn’t repeat, at least not in any way you can use to accurately predict the future. (The exceptions are simple situations.)”
- The repeatable events repeat because human nature drives them
- “Belief in slippery slopes is loserthink. It is more useful to look at forces and counterforces to see where things are likely to end up.”
- Who knows where it will end? Probably no one, but we who it should not end here.
- “You could say the LGBTQ community traded privacy for equality.”
- “If you think more privacy is always better, that is a case of loserthink. Every situation is different. Sometimes privacy is the problem that prevents the solution.”
- “If experts are routinely skeptical of other experts, shouldn’t you be skeptical of experts too?”
- There is always a lingering question in my mind when someone is cited… “What makes them an expert?”
- “The best solution to a problem is often unrelated to who is at fault. It is loserthink to believe otherwise.”
- “If you analyze a complicated situation with multiple variables in play, and you conclude that only one of them was decisive, there’s a good chance you are practicing loserthink.”
- “Truth has two important dimensions: 1) accuracy, and 2) direction.”
- “If you find yourself obsessing over the accuracy of facts versus the direction those facts will lead you, you might be in a mental prison.”
- An annoying, but useful, business phrase I have come to learn is “directionally correct”; this means to start making decisions once there is enough information to guess at the ending with some confidence
- “A goal gives you one way to win, whereas a system can surface lots of winning paths, some of which you never could have imagined.”
- “Always ask yourself if the opposite of your theory could be true. Doing so keeps you humble and less susceptible to bias until you get to the truth of the situation.”
- Back to imagination… If you cannot imagine an alternative to your operating theory, then you might be too close to it.
- “Don’t believe that every member of a group is as bad as its worst 5 percent. If you do, you’re probably among the worst 5 percent of whatever groups you are in.”
- “Rarely is it possible to prove something is true. But sometimes we can prove things are not true.”
- “Sticking with what you know ensures you stay where you are. Take some chances. Leave your lane and build some skills.”
- “Find a way to test your assumption in a small way so no one gets hurt.”
- “People who understand economics can more easily spot hoaxes because money drives human behavior in predictable ways.”
- “Be skeptical of any experts who have a financial incentive to mislead you and almost no risk on their end.”
- Also, be skeptical of experts who are supported through unknown means… They are often connected to the things they are promoting.
- “If you think in terms of ‘the ends justifying the means’ instead of ‘costs compared to benefits,’ you are buying into loserthink.”
- “If you have a strong opinion about a proposed plan but you have not compared it to the next best alternative, you are not part of a rational conversation.”
- “If you find yourself experiencing certainty in a complex situation, you are probably experiencing loserthink.”
- Life, systems, almost everything is more complex than we think it is
- “Over the long term, straight-line predictions are loserthink, because history rarely travels in a straight line.”
- Though they can still be helpful in the short term.
- “…the word ‘problematic’ sounds smart, which gives you unearned credibility.”
- This is also how I feel about “opportunity.”
- “As bad as analogies are for persuading, they are even worse for predicting.”
- “…in the real world, often the best you can do is to create some friction to slow down the things you wish would stop completely.”
- “For big, complicated political questions, ‘doing your own research’ is a waste of time.”
- “Never be yourself if you can make yourself into something better through your conscious actions. You are what you do.”
- “If your response to a disagreement is to assign your opponent a dismissive label, you have surrendered the moral and intellectual high ground to wallow in loserthink.”
- “If you allow the opinions of unsuccessful people in your culture to hold you back, you’re engaged in loserthink. If you can learn to think of yourself as free from the cultural gravity of your peers, it will pay off in the long run.”
- “Reports about famous people and other newsworthy topics are either wrong or misleading about 60 percent of the time, often because they lack context. Wait a few days before forming an opinion on anything new, just in case context is missing. It usually is.”
- “The Forty-Eight-Hour Rule says that everyone deserves forty-eight hours to clarify, apologize for, or otherwise update an offending statement. The clock starts when the offender first realizes people are taking offense.”
- The magic question: “State ONE thing you believe on this topic that you think I do NOT believe.”
- “Don’t argue in the weeds of a debate. Dismiss the trivial stuff and concentrate on the variables that matter. That gives you the high ground.”