How to Think for Yourself

The best place to find undiscovered ideas is where no one else is looking. [] To go beyond this general advice, we need to look at the internal structure of (View Highlight)

independent-mindedness — at the individual muscles we need to exercise, as it were. It seems to me that it has three components: fastidiousness about truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity. (View Highlight)

For most people, degree of belief rushes unexamined toward the extremes: the unlikely becomes impossible, and the probable becomes certain. (View Highlight)

Note: Like Nadine

Without this fastidiousness about truth, you can't be truly independent-minded. It's not enough just to have resistance to being told what to think. Those kind of people reject conventional ideas only to replace them with the most random conspiracy theories. And since these conspiracy theories have often been manufactured to capture them, they end up being less independent-minded than ordinary people, because they're subject to a much more exacting master than mere convention. (View Highlight)

Note: The allure of conspiracy theory is that you think you’re in on the trick