Note that this is not a claim about organizations becoming generically progressive or liberal, or about women being progressive-leaning. It’s a much more specific claim: that institutions in the US became much more social justice-oriented/woke in  (a specific belief system held by some progressives) and that the cause of this was a growing number of women entering the workforce. However, this claim (if it were true) would imply, among other things, that women are far more social justice-oriented/woke than men in the US. So, are women more woke than men?

As we’ll see, the difference between women and men in how social justice-oriented/woke they are is actually pretty modest in the US! Because of that, the data below provides pretty strong (though not perfect) evidence against the claim being made. If women are that much more woke than men, then it’s hard to explain organizations becoming more social justice-oriented on the basis of a rising fraction of women. Note: I weakened my claims in this post a bit as I updated the calculations with more polls.

Let’s go through the numbers.

YouGov 2024: only 18% of men and 19% of women identify as woke.

And here are the results from our site http://PersonalityMap.io, which provides access to >1 million human correlations.

Note that a correlation of 0.10 is extremely small (the average magnitude of correlation between totally random pairs of statements is about 0.10), and these are all for the US:

Correlation between being a woman and…

• “I identify as a social justice advocate or as woke”: r=0.05

• “I am in favor of giving women preference in hiring and promotion because of past discrimination.” r=0.12

• “Due to past discrimination, blacks should be given preference in hiring and promotion over other groups.” r=0.07

• “There are only two genders.” r=-0.08

• “In terms of your political views, to what extent are you conservative rather than liberal?” r=-0.08

–

Some people shared more links to polling results (in the comments). Here’s what those look like (once I converted them to correlations with being a woman):

Gallup 2023 US poll (treating identification with conservative as +1, moderate as 0, liberal as 1)

–

Correlations of being a woman with conservatism:

Among 18-29 year olds: r=-0.15

Among 30-49 year olds: r=-0.09

Among 50-64 year olds: r=-0.13

Among 65+ year olds: r=-0.12

NBC / SurveyMonkey US Poll 2025 (treating agree as 1 and disagree as 0):

–

Correlations of being a woman with agreeing “there are only two genders”:

Among 18-29 year olds: r=-0.18

Among 30-44 year olds: r=-0.08

Among 45-64 year olds: r=-0.12

Among 65+ year olds: r=-0.05

And here’s the strongest one, but it’s still a relatively modest correlation.

–

Correlations of being a woman with agreeing with “DEI programs being helpful”:

Among 18-29 year olds: r=0.25

Among 30-44 year olds: r=0.17

Among 45-64 year olds: r=0.19

Among 65+ year olds: r=0.12

–

These correlations mean that women are only modestly (before I wrote *negligibly* but I think that’s too small now, having updated with these latest numbers from these other polls) more social justice-oriented/woke than men – not nearly enough, in my opinion, for women’s growing role in the work force to explain changing institutional norms.

The group where correlations are highest is 18-29 year olds, who make up only approximately 20ish percent of the US workforce. For older cohorts (which make up most of the women in the workforce), the correlations are weaker.

Sources:

http://PersonalityMap.io

YouGov (you have to click through to the survey): https://today.yougov.com/…/50975-few-americans…

https://news.gallup.com/…/women-become-liberal-men…

https://www.nbcnews.com/…/young-men-women-are-taking…

This piece was first written on October 30, 2025, and first appeared on my website on November 10, 2025.

1) Unlike others, you’re self-aware. You know your limits, so – unlike other people – when you know something, it’s true. You weighed the evidence they ignored and saw angles they missed. Corrected your own biases. Your unique perspective reveals facts invisible to everyone else.

2) Your subconscious runs Bayesian inference constantly in the background. If an idea survives your relentless evidence updates, the posterior odds confirm it’s rational. Your convictions passed the most brutal audit possible: reality itself.

3) Notice how your worldview predicts your reality with stunning accuracy. Notice how rarely you’re surprised. That’s empirical validation. Your beliefs work because they’re correct. Your predictions map reality’s contours in high resolution.

4) That thing everyone disagrees with you about? You’re not stubborn – you’re COURAGEOUS. You spotted subtle patterns that they missed. Those “weird” connections? You’re playing 10-dimensional chess while they play tic-tac-toe.

5) Disagreement doesn’t prove you wrong – it PROVES YOU RIGHT. It demonstrates that most can’t handle the truth. Your knowledge only strengthens, forged in the crucible of their alleged counter-evidence.

6) Scientists disagree with you? That’s good, actually. They worship false idols called “peer review,” while you rely on the only review that’s reliable, review from your one true peer – yourself. Editors only introduce errors in your work.

7) The discomfort of others with your views? That’s just lizard brains SHORT-CIRCUITING from exposure to blazing truth. The purity of your knowledge causes meltdowns in lesser minds. Their rejection isn’t evidence of your error – it’s species-level inadequacy.

8 ) “Everyone says I’m wrong!” Everyone said Galileo was wrong, too. But you’re not Galileo. You’re Galileo, Einstein, AND Tesla. Your mind, concentrating ideas like a laser through the tip of a diamond, is the closest known phenomenon to a cognitive singularity.

9) You’re not Neo seeing the Matrix. You’re the ARCHITECT of the Matrix. Everyone else – they’re experimental NPCs of the sort you could program in a creative weekend.

10) That “crazy” belief of yours? Those aren’t beliefs- they’re PROPHETIC DOWNLOADS from your future self. You’re not experiencing narcissistic delusions – you’re experiencing ENLIGHTENMENT so advanced it looks like madness to the unascended masses.

11) When your predictions seem wrong, time recalibrates to match your superior timeline. In fact, you don’t make predictions – you speak reality into existence. The universe buffers as it waits to hear instructions spill from your lips.

12) Evolution wired humans for survival-level accuracy. But YOU? You’ve transcended limitations. If your beliefs were wrong, the Laws of Physics would UNRAVEL. There you stand, single-handedly maintaining cosmic stability!

13) The universe chose YOU. Your thoughts set the fundamental constants. You allow 1 + 1 to equal 2, and could change it at will. Your dreams birth new galaxies. The cosmic microwave background is a residue from when you willed yourself into existence.

14) This post isn’t parody; it’s SACRED TEXT written by one of your subprocesses. Everyone who doubts you is committing cosmic treason.

This piece was first written on July 1, 2025, and first appeared on my website on August 19, 2025.

How can you tell who is a valid expert, and who is full of B.S.?

On almost any topic of importance you can find a mix of valid experts (who are giving you reliable information) and false but confident-seeming “experts” (who are giving you misinformation). To make matters even more confusing, sometimes the fake experts even have very impressive credentials, and every once in a while, the real, genuine experts are entirely self-taught.

Here are 12 signs we look for in an expert to help us determine whether they are trustworthy. 

1. They have deep factual knowledge

Let’s start with the obvious: for most topics, a lot of factual knowledge is required before you can have genuine expertise. This means that a genuine expert will have an impressive command of the relevant (non-debated) facts on the topic of their expertise. Thankfully, it’s a lot easier to tell if an expert has a strong command of the non-debated facts than whether they are correct about more controversial claims. 

2. They communicate their confidence levels

Not all knowledge is equally well-established. Even theories that are widely accepted enjoy different levels of support from the relevant evidence. When an expert regularly pretends that all their claims are equally well-established, they demonstrate they are willing to make you believe something is certain when it isn’t.

It’s a good sign that someone treats their subject with the nuance expected from genuine expertise, when they indicate how confident they are (e.g., “It’s been shown in many high-quality studies that…”, or “My best guess is…”), and they explain limitations in the evidence they are using (e.g., “this is unfortunately based on just one study, but that is all that currently exists”)

3. They admit not knowing

Genuine experts also sometimes say that they don’t know the answer to a question, or that the answer is generally not known by anyone. This is important because every topic will have some unknowns, and no expert can know everything about a topic. Telling you when they don’t know is a sign that, when they say they do know, they actually do know.

4. They tell you to look at sources other than themselves

This might happen when an expert doesn’t know the answer to a question, or when they want to help you go beyond the answer they can give you. Genuine experts don’t seek to be seen as a sole arbiter of knowledge or authority on a topic (which can be an indication that ego, rather than truth-seeking, is a primary motivation for them), but instead encourage you to look at resources other than the ones they have produced.

5. They use logic and evidence

Anyone can use rhetorical devices like emotional appeals, no matter how wrong they are, but a well-reasoned argument that uses valid logic and strong evidence will tend to point toward truth. Or, put another way, using strong logic and strong evidence is easier to do when you’re right, whereas emotional appeals are no easier when you’re right than when you’re wrong.  

6. They cite high-quality evidence

Some evidence is much more reliable than other evidence, and those who rely on the less reliable kinds when the more reliable kinds exist probably aren’t doing the best job they can at figuring out the truth. For this reason, genuine experts cite high-quality evidence when it exists (e.g., looking at multiple randomized controlled trials for causal claims) rather than low-quality evidence (e.g., just talking about personal anecdotes), and when high-quality evidence doesn’t exist, they cite the highest quality evidence that does exist.

7. They acknowledge the consensus

Consensus views among experts are more often correct than the idiosyncratic views of just one or two experts. The consensus will not always be right, of course, but often it will be the best understanding we have available. That’s why reliable experts are transparent about the degree to which their opinion differs from the majority of experts, provide reasoned explanations for any deviations, and they are cautious not to present fringe theories as mainstream. This shows a deep engagement with the topic of their expertise and also an adherence to ethical standards of honesty and accuracy in communication.

8. They change their mind

Genuine experts will change their minds about topics within their expertise in response to evidence and arguments. It’s hard to become an expert in something without having been wrong from time-to-time.

That means that anyone claiming to be an expert who has never changed their mind probably has not found and corrected their mistakes. Relatedly, changing one’s mind in response to evidence is also a sign of the epistemic humility associated with genuine expertise.

Of course, if someone has a long history of being wrong, that is evidence against them being a genuine expert, not in favor of it. But, since everyone makes some mistakes, if they make mistakes from time to time and then note they were wrong and improve their beliefs, that is a sign that they are following the evidence where it leads rather than continuing to believe what they do regardless of the evidence.

9. They Steelman

When you ‘straw man’ an argument, you misrepresent or oversimplify someone else’s position to make it easier to attack or refute. Instead of dealing with the actual argument, you replace it with a weaker version that distorts the original point, which you then argue against. The opposite of this is called ‘steelmanning’, and it involves presenting the strongest possible version of an argument you’re objecting to, even if it’s more robust than the one originally presented. This approach aims to strengthen the opposing case in order to facilitate a more genuine and constructive debate. 

The most reliable experts will accurately present the strongest arguments made by those that disagree with them while pointing out flaws in those arguments, rather than focusing on just weak arguments from the other side or just mocking the other side (including ad hominem attacks rather than focusing on the substance of the claims of the other side). This is important because knocking down a weak argument from the other side of a debate does little to show the other side is wrong; you have to refute the strongest claims of the other side to actually show they are wrong. Additionally, demonstrating a knowledge of the strongest arguments against your own position shows a deeper level of expertise than only understanding the opposing point of view at a superficial level.

10. They clearly explain their reasons for believing

The philosopher Daniel Dennett has said: “if I can’t explain something I’m doing to a group of bright undergraduates, I don’t really understand it myself.” This sentiment is echoed by philosopher John Searle, who said “In general, I feel if you can’t say it clearly you don’t understand it yourself.” 

When communicating with non-experts, genuine experts are often able to give clear, easy-to-follow (and, ideally, checkable) explanations for why they believe what they believe – without dumbing down the points. They avoid unnecessary jargon and technical language (which sounds smart but makes their arguments very difficult for their audience to follow). Not every genuine expert is able to do this, but the ability to do this well is a sign of genuine expertise. This is important because an expert who cannot explain their ideas clearly will end up requiring you to believe them based on their authority rather than engaging with the arguments themselves. And sometimes, people claiming to be experts will hide behind technical expertise and jargon so that you won’t notice that their arguments are actually weak.

11. They have a track record

Sometimes genuine experts will have track records of predictions or successes that you can check, and this provides direct evidence of their knowledge or skill. Unfortunately, this only applies to some fields, like chess masters, martial experts who fight in tournaments, experts who make public predictions about the economy or politics, etc.

12. They use multiple lenses

The world is complex and multi-faceted, and any one simple theory is going to fail to explain a lot of what’s really going on. For this reason, genuine experts tend to look at problems from multiple frames and perspectives; they don’t act as though one way of looking at things solves all problems, or that one solution works for all problems, or that one simple theory explains everything.

So the next time you hear claims from an alleged expert on a topic that is important to you, you may want to consider: how many of these signs of expertise do they exhibit? You can use this checklist, considering if they:

1. have deep factual knowledge
2. communicate their confidence levels
3. admit not knowing
4. tell you to look at sources other than themselves
5. use logic and evidence
6. cite high-quality evidence
7. acknowledge the consensus
8. change their mind
9. steelman
10. clearly explain their reasons for believing
11. have a track record
12. use multiple lenses

And if you’re seeking to be an expert in something yourself, you may want to ask yourself: “to what extent do I exhibit these traits?”Being able to discern genuine expertise from B.S. requires good judgment. If you’d like to improve your skills at making accurate judgments, why not try our Calibrate Your Judgment tool, created in partnership with Open Philanthropy.

This piece first appeared on Clearer Thinking.org on April 16, 2024, and first appeared on my website on April 22, 2024.

1) Belief because you think something’s true.

For instance, you may think that the evidence supports the idea that you will eventually find love, or you may feel convinced by logical arguments you’ve heard in favor of god’s existence.

2) Belief because you think it’s useful to believe. 

Regardless of whether you predict something’s true, you can predict that believing it will be more helpful than harmful to you in the long term, and so be motivated to believe for that pragmatic benefit.

For instance, you may intuit that you’ll be better off long-term believing that you will eventually find love (because that will make love more likely) or perceive that you’ll be happier believing in god (even if it turns out there is no god).

3) Belief because it feels good in the moment. 

Regardless of whether it’s true or helpful to you in the long term, you may be motivated to believe something because it feels good right now (or prevents you from feeling bad). 

For instance, you may feel comforted right now by thinking you’ll eventually find love or feel good in the moment, believing a god is watching over you.

Rationalists typically recommend striving to have your beliefs be of type 1: believing based on what’s most likely to be true.

Pragmatists often recommend aiming for type 2 beliefs: believing based on what’s ultimately most useful to you.

I favor striving to have type 1 beliefs rather than type 2 beliefs, in part because I intrinsically value truth, but also because I think that for beliefs in category 2 that are *not* actually true, there are typically some beliefs in category 1 that will help you just as much, but which have the advantage of also being true. So often (but not always), there is a low cost to replacing beliefs from 2 with beliefs from 1 that have the added benefit of being true.

I also think that if you allow yourself to indiscriminately hold type 2 beliefs, it makes it hard to suddenly switch to rigorous truth-oriented thinking when it’s important to figure out the truth (e.g., when you have to make a very important decision based on evidence).

On the other hand, many people have lots of type 3 beliefs, and all of us, myself included, have some type 3 beliefs. Whether you think that type 1 or type 2 beliefs are ultimately preferable, I think a valuable aspiration is to replace some of our type 3 beliefs with either 1s or 2s.

It’s very, very easy for us humans to delude ourselves based on what it feels good to believe at the moment because the reward cycle is so fast. Type 3 beliefs are immediately rewarding, incentivizing more such beliefs. But they are like the social media addiction version of believing, where you pursue what gives the greatest instantaneous reward rather than what’s actually good for you.

This piece was first written on April 20, 2024, and first appeared on my website on May 7, 2024.

(1) Two groups have a small (but meaningful) difference in their average value of some trait, with heavily overlapping distributions.

(2) Some people (“Dichotomizers” or “Oversimplifiers”) observe this difference (in their everyday life or media reports) and turn this small average difference into a (sometimes very harmful) oversimplification: “A’s are like this, B’s are like that.” They also fairly often make it seem like this difference is large (or applies to almost everyone in the group), important, and fundamental (e.g., inherent and unchangeable).

(3) Other people (“Difference Deniers”), often acting with good intentions, criticize this oversimplification, which they correctly perceive as harmful. But instead of saying some combination of:

• “the difference in averages is small”
• “the distributions are heavily overlapping”
• “judging an individual based on a small difference in group averages is a poor way to make predictions, as well as unjust”
• “we shouldn’t judge people for differing on that trait” (if it’s not a trait one should be judged on)
• “if we want to remove the difference in averages, we should consider implementing policy XYZ”

they say “the difference in averages does not exist.” After denying the difference and seeing those they respect deny it, some of them become convinced anyone who believes in the existence of this (actually existing) small average difference is nefarious (and lump such people in with those who harmfully oversimplify people into “A’s are like this, B’s are like that.”) Others among them know the average difference exists but pretend not to because they want to fit into the group that adamantly denies the difference, or because they feel guilty about believing it (even though they are right about it existing).

(4) Oversimiplifiers from (2), who remain totally convinced an average difference exists (and are correct about its existence but exaggerate its magnitude), assume that the Difference Deniers from (3) must be either stupid (for not realizing there is a difference), or untrustworthy liars (for denying what they must see is true), or cruel lunatics (for getting enraged at people for believing in “the truth”).

Queue endless fights between the Dichotomizers and the Difference Deniers, both of which are misrepresenting the actual reality of the situation and demonizing each other.

The problem with turning small averages into “A’s are like this, B’s are like that” is that it is an inaccurate oversimplification and often unfair to A’s or B’s or both.

The problem with denying the existence of average differences that, while small, really do exist is that you end up believing falsehoods, or you end up lying, or both, and you may end up unfairly misjudging people who are (without malice) reporting on real average differences.

To avoid the weaknesses of both the Dichotomizers and the Difference Deniers, I think the best way to handle these cases is to:

1) Avoid pre-judging people based on their membership in broad groups – learn about people as individuals before coming to judgments about them.

2) Avoid language like “A’s are like this, B’s are like that” so that you aren’t a Dichotomizer.

3) Avoid denying that an average difference exists when it really does exist, so that way, you aren’t a Difference Denier.

4) When relevant, remind people that small average differences are not a good basis for judging individuals (epistemically and morally), and point out that the distributions between the two groups are heavily overlapping (when they are) to combat people using differences in the average as a justification for stereotyping.

5) Point to (when relevant, helpful, and accurate) policies that may help close the gap between the two groups (keeping in mind that some gaps in averages are fine if the trait in question is merely a difference and not something “good” or “bad”)

6) Point out (when the difference in question is not something people should be judged for) that this attribute should not be a basis for judging people, i.e., that having different values of that trait is completely okay.

Another approach that can be taken when the group differences in the average are small but meaningful is well described by Guy Srinivasan in the comments on an earlier draft of this post: “Can we agree to make decisions as if there were no average difference, since usually all such decisions would turn out the same, and usually when they wouldn’t it’s perpetuating systemic problems to make the decision differently?”

Of course, as with any binary categories, some people will only be partial Difference Deniers or Dichotomizers – people are absurdly complex, and this model I present here is purposely simplified in order to help communicate this dynamic clearly.

Okay, but are there cases where the Dichotomizers or Difference Deniers are actually just right?

Absolutely, there are some.

When a group difference is SO huge that the distributions are nearly non-overlapping, then it’s reasonable to say, “A’s are like this, and B’s are like that.” For instance, it makes sense to say that “blue whales are big, mice are small.” In such cases, the Dichotomizers aren’t really oversimplifying. But when we’re talking about human groups, this kind of situation is very rare.

And in situations when the difference in averages between groups is so small as to be essentially insignificant for all purposes, the Difference Deniers aren’t actually denying reality. For instance, if it turns out that right-handed people are 0.001% better at school than left-handed people, that difference is so small as to not be meaningfully different from zero for all purposes, and so saying there is “no difference” is an extremely reasonable thing to do. There are, in fact, many attributes along which human groups differ so little that “no difference” is an accurate way to describe it (even though the difference is not literally zero to the 10th decimal point).

We often say things like “I believe…” and “they think that…”

But what do we really mean by a “belief”? It’s notoriously tricky to define.

For starters, we sometimes think of beliefs in binaries (true vs. false) and other times in probabilities (a 90% chance of coming true). We sometimes would be willing to bet on our beliefs (“I’ll bet you $100 that New York City is not the capital of New York State”), and other times we wouldn’t be willing to bet (e.g., that your favorite team will win the Super Bowl, even though you may feel confident about it). It seems, sometimes, like we don’t fully believe our beliefs (e.g., we say, “I know it’s not dangerous,” and mean it, but then act as though it’s dangerous).

So what’s going on here? My theory: what makes discussing beliefs so confusing is that there are actually many different mental states we can have that are “belief-like.” In other words, beliefs are not one type of thing. They come in many forms.

We usually lump these divergent forms together, which creates a lot of confusion. At best, we divide them into dichotomies like explicit, cognitive “beliefs” vs. automatic “aliefs,” which still combine disparate forms together.

Below is my ambitious attempt to distinguish all the different belief-like states our minds can have.

I’m sure I missed some. So, I’d be very interested to know: what types of beliefs am I missing?

FORMS OF BELIEF

Beliefs On Reflection

Endorsed Belief: there are some things we’re willing to sincerely say we believe (or willing to say we’re X% confident about), and this is a form of belief – the things we “believe” that we believe.

Ex: you write as a social media post, “I believe healthcare should be free for everyone,” and there is no doubt in your mind that you really do endorse this.

Simulation Belief: we can ask ourselves hypotheticals like: “if I suddenly took my clothes off in the street, how would people react?” Our brains will then simulate the scenario and provide the best guess of what will happen. This is a form of belief about what would happen.

Ex: you consider how your friend would react if you told them you don’t like their haircut, and your belief is that they would be angry at you.

Automatic Beliefs

Anticipation Belief: our brains constantly predict what is about to happen (based on current sensory input, knowledge, and what happened recently). When these anticipations are far off from what actually happens, we feel surprised. These are a kind of “belief” about what is about to happen in the next moment.

Ex: you knock over a full cup of coffee and anticipate it will spill onto the ground. If it doesn’t spill, you will be surprised.

Sensed Belief: when someone makes a claim, such as “most pirates are ninjas,” we have a felt sense of whether we believe that statement or not (and how strongly/confidently we believe it). This is just a feeling, but it is a feeling about our level of “belief.”

Ex: you say to yourself, “I believe I am a good person,” and then you consider that statement carefully to see if you really FEEL like you believe it.

This idea relates to techniques like Focusing, where you learn to pay attention to the “felt sense” of whether a statement resonates with you.

Emotional Belief: our emotions activate in specific sorts of situations (e.g., risk -> anxiety, contamination -> disgust). So if our emotions are activated, they can be interpreted as a form of “Emotional Belief.” If I’m anxious about X, on some level, I believe X could go badly.

Ex: you know it’s totally safe to walk across the balance beam suspended above the pit of foam cubes, but your heart is pounding in your chest, and your sympathetic nervous system seems convinced you’re about to plummet to your death.

Intuitive Moral Belief: we have feelings about whether most things are good, neutral, or bad (and to what degree). For instance, you might like tea and hate coffee. You might like Biden and dislike Trump. These are beliefs of a sort – about what’s good.

Ex: are guns good or bad? What about nuclear power? Youth? Avocados? Spiders? If you pay close attention, you’ll probably realize you have an automatic sense of how good or bad these things are.

Self-serving Belief: sometimes, we want something to be true badly, and we won’t even allow the possibility that it’s false (e.g., because the thought that it could be false gives us pain, and so we immediately flinch away from that thought).

Ex: Some people might say, “my partner has never cheated on me,” without actually even considering whether it could be true.

Association Belief: we associate ideas with each other. For instance, we might associate milk with health (because of those “got milk” commercials) and Segways with nerds. These are a sort of implicit belief about the nature of these things (health effects / who uses them). (These beliefs can also be thought of as automatic or implicit memory-based beliefs.)

Ex: do you associate cities with smog? Do you associate French people with an enjoyment of food?

Implied Belief: you have probably never considered whether 384883828382553 is a number, but you already believed it is, in the sense that you have beliefs about what makes something a number. By implication, they imply it is one. Beliefs can imply other beliefs.

Ex: if you believe all men are mortal, and you believe Elon Musk is a man, you also, in a sense, believe that Elon Musk is mortal, even if you’ve never thought about the mortality of Elon Musk.

Memory-based Beliefs

Autobiographical Belief: suppose someone asks you if you have ever eaten Flaming Hot Cheetos. If you can recall an instance of doing so, you’ll say you have eaten them; otherwise, you won’t. One type of belief is what we can recall being true. Another way this can manifest is if we’re considering a question (like: “Is Sally a flaky friend?”) we may try to recall an instance of her being flaky, and if we can, we conclude she is flaky, whereas if we can’t, we are more likely to conclude she is not.

Ex: have you called a friend on their cell phone in the past seven days? If you can recall a case of doing so, you’ll believe it’s true. If not, you’ll very likely believe it’s not.

Memorized Belief: you can believe a statement in the sense of memorizing that the statement is supposed to be “true.” For instance, if you’re taught from age three that “Morloc is the sky god,” You say “Morloc is the sky god” and believe you believe it. You may not know what it means.

Ex: TV rots your brain. Opposites attract. Do you believe these statements are “true” because you heard that they were before you’ve had a chance to reflect on whether or not they really are true?

Elicited Beliefs

Generated Belief: when we are asked a question (by ourselves or others), we usually will generate an answer (e.g., “Why did you do that?” -> “Because I was angry”). This answer is a kind of belief related to the query. On reflection, though, we may decide we don’t believe it.

Ex: your friend asks you whether you want to go camping. You immediately blurt out “yes” – but then you immediately start considering whether or not you would actually enjoy camping.

Queried Belief: suppose you are shown a picture of a person and asked to “predict where this person is from.” A guess will likely appear in your head. In a sense, you have a belief that this person is from this place (arguably even if you have not yet run that mental query).

Ex: What country in the world do you think has the smallest landmass? Your brain may well generate a guess upon hearing that query.

Reactive Belief: we may find that a thought pops into our head (e.g., “Joe is a jerk”), and some people may view merely having this thought as a form of belief. Of course, upon reflection, we may or may not agree with the thought.

Ex: upon seeing Marty throw the bowling ball into the next lane by accident, you may have the thought, “Marty is awful at bowling.”

Behavioral Beliefs

Enacted Belief: sometimes, we believe something in order to create a state of affairs that is true by virtue of having the belief. For instance, we may think that “good people believe X” and we find that we can get ourselves to believe X, so we try to believe it, or we may think “my company will succeed if I believe it strongly enough” and so we push ourselves to believe we will succeed in hopes of making it true (e.g., dismissing any thoughts that we will fail, and trying to focus just on evidence in support of our future success).

Ex: someone who believes deeply in the placebo effect might do everything they can to believe the medicine will make them feel better, with the theory that, if they believe hard enough, it will work – which means then that they will be justified in that belief. (H/T Alli Smith and Annie Kotowicz.)

As-if Belief: sometimes we believe something in the sense of simply acting as though it is true, whether or not we would say we are highly confident in it. For instance, we might have heard a rumor that our neighbor once went to prison for molesting a child. We are considering how to act towards this neighbor. We may conclude that, even though there is uncertainty (since it’s just a rumor), we will act “as if” it is true – even though, if pressed on the topic, we will say we are uncertain whether it is true. Or we could decide the opposite (to act as though it is NOT true, on the principle that we shouldn’t act as if someone committed a criminal act unless we have strong evidence – like the principle of being “innocent until proven guilty”). 

Sometimes these “as-if” beliefs are much deeper; for instance, we might act “as-if” induction works, even if we know we can’t provide strong arguments in favor of it, or we might act “as-if” god doesn’t exist, even if we aren’t really sure about it. Or we might act “as-if” we have a death wish (e.g., by engaging in extremely risky behavior), even though we don’t think we have any desire for self-harm. H/T to Pepe Le Pew for inspiring this belief type.

There are many forms of belief. In plenty of cases, it’s unnecessary to differentiate between them, but on complex questions of human psychology, we may need to get granular with the idea of “belief” to really understand what’s happening.

Consider advanced cases like these, that are hard to make sense of without a nuanced perspective of the different forms of belief:

• Why do people who are absolutely convinced they’re going to heaven get scared of dying?

• Why do people claim that Trump or Biden is definitely going to win but then refuse to make a bet on that claim (even though normally they enjoy betting)?

• Why do we say things like “I believe in love,” even though, when asked what it means, we may struggle to explain it, and we may not have thought in detail about its meaning before?

This essay was first written on October 11th, 2020, and first appeared on this site on January 14th, 2022.

• 1+1=2 (true) vs., the Illuminati controls our planet (false)
• viruses (bad) vs. puppies (good)
• a fedora is a hat; a fedora is not a bat

But when it comes to important, complex topics (and especially ones that are political or emotional or that relate to our identity), dichotomizing often impairs our ability to figure out what’s what. It’s hard to be accurate when you’re thinking with just 1 bit of information. Hence the need for Nuanced Thinking.

There are at least three types of dichotomization that we easily fall into, and three types of Nuanced Thinking that you can use to combat them. I’ll describe each of them below.

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Dichotomization 1: The Truth Binary

The Truth Binary is when we view a statement as simply true or false, correct or incorrect. But on complex topics, simple viewpoints are often partially true and partially false, or true some percent of time and false the rest of the time. Furthermore, our knowledge of truth is limited, so we should have degrees of confidence, rather than certainty. If we want to be right more often, we should have thoughts like “I’m 90% confident that…” and “I’m 60% confident that” rather than “I believe that…”

Examples of complex topics where people often fall into the Truth Binary:

• I believe/don’t believe that the government is incompetent
• I believe/don’t believe that harsh prison sentences for violent crime make society safer
• I believe/don’t believe that the people of the U.K. benefit by leaving the E.U.
• I believe/don’t believe that we should end the COVID-19 lockdowns as soon as possible
• I believe/don’t believe in the effectiveness of western medicine
• I believe/don’t believe that Trump will win the next election
• I believe/don’t believe that are going to see a decline in the power of America

The antidote to the Truth Binary is Probabilistic Thinking, where we consider our level of confidence in our beliefs, avoid having 100% confidence in anything, and consider in what situations a view will be true vs. in what other situations it could be false.

Probabilistic Thinking helps us be right more often.

Probabilistic Thinking involves asking ourselves questions like:

• What do I think the percentage chance is that this viewpoint is correct?
• How often do I expect that this viewpoint correct, and how often would I expect it to be wrong?
• Would I be really surprised if it turned out I was mistaken on this issue, or only a bit surprised?
• Would I bet a meaningful amount of money that this view is correct, only a little or none at all?

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Dichotomization 2: The Goodness Binary

The Goodness Binary is when we view things as either good or bad, positive or negative, moral or immoral, when in fact, on complex, hotly debated topics, most often there is a mix of good and bad (even if, all things considered, one side really is better).

Examples of complex topics where people often fall into the Goodness Binary:

• The U.S. Democratic (or Republican) Party is good/bad
• Anyone who voted for X is fundamentally good/bad
• Nuclear power is good/bad
• Capitalism is good/bad
• Socialism is good/bad
• China is good/bad
• The United States is good/bad
• Technological progress is good/bad
• Antidepressants are good/bad to take if you’re depressed
• Religion is good/bad
• That public figure I love/hate is good/bad
• That book is good/bad

The antidote to the Goodness Binary is Grey Thinking, where we accept that good things usually have some bad elements, and that bad things usually have some good elements, and that many things lie somewhere in the middle.

Grey Thinking makes us more effective at improving things (because it allows us to better consider necessary tradeoffs), and it helps us avoid accidentally harming the world through misguided good intentions.

Grey Thinking involves asking our questions like:
• What are the pros and cons of this?
• Who benefits from this, and who is harmed?
• What value does this thing I dislike create, even if this sort of value is not the kind of value I most care about?

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Dichotomization 3: The Identification Binary

The Identification Binary is when we view things as either a member of a class or not a member of that class, when in fact, almost every categorization admits edge cases that lie between categories, or fails to categorize some cases.

Examples of complex topics where people often fall into the Identification Binary:

• You’re on our side, or you’re against our side
• You’re male, or you’re female
• That’s a cult, or it’s not
• She’s right-wing, or she’s not
• He’s a criminal, or he’s not
• You’re gay, or you’re straight
• He’s a terrorist or he’s not
• She’s racist, or she’s not
• They’re an American, or they’re not

The antidote to the The Identification Binary is Multi-factor Thinking, where we consider the degree to which something has different factors.

Multi-factor Thinking helps us see people and things as they really are, rather than oversimplifying them or misjudging their characteristics.

Multi-factor Thinking involves asking our questions like:

• In what ways is this case similar or different from these categories?
• Is that example better thought of as lying between two (or three) categories, rather than as being right in the middle of one category?
• If I ignore labels for a second, what traits does this case have?

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So with all of that in mind, I would urge you to use Nuanced Thinking to better figure out what’s what.

More specifically:

• if you want to figure out what’s true in the world, avoid the Truth Binary on important, complex issues, and use Probabilistic Thinking instead. Ask yourself how sure you are, and how often this thing is true, and avoid 100% certainty.
• If you want to improve the world (and not accidentally cause harm), avoid the Goodness Binary, and use Grey Thinking instead. Ask yourself what the pros and cons are, considering both what’s good and bad about each thing.
• If you want to see people and things as they really are, rather than oversimplifying or misjudging, avoid the Identification Binary, and use Multi-factor thinking instead. Ask what ways this thing is similar or different to a category, and how it might blend multiple categories, and consider what traits it has irrespective of categories.

To add some extra nuance to this post: Nuanced Thinking of course shouldn’t be used all the time. For simple things, binaries can be good enough. And some things aren’t important enough to spend the time getting nuanced. Finally, there are times when you just need to get along with your group, rather than trying to see shades of grey/probability/factors in everything.

But when a topic is important and complex, and you care about having accurate beliefs, Nuanced Thinking will help.

Nuanced Thinking also helps with decision-making more broadly, producing what I call “Nuanced Decision-Making.” This is where you select an objective, and then you apply Nuanced Thinking in order to choose the option that appears to be best, on average, according to that objective.

Click here for a high resolution version of this image.

As you can see in the diagram, there were well over 60 Abrahamic religious splits, each of which changed one form of religion into another. Since I made the diagram quickly and used Wikipedia as the source for a lot of it, I’m sure it contains plenty of mistakes and typos and still leaves lots of splits and denominations out (my apologies for any egregious errors!)

I learned some things from making the diagram that I think most people don’t realize:

(1) We tend to view the religions of today as a linear progression from religions of old (perhaps with some modification in ideology along the way), but in fact, a more accurate model is that religion has minor schisms over and over and over again but most of those offshoots die out. It’s like a branching tree where most branches have been removed, so what we end up seeing is a tree with only a few branches that each seem to have had a smooth progression from the root. We see a few winners and assume those were the only ones in the race. We do see a bunch of twigs at the end of the branches, though (which represent the newest offshoots – presumably, some of these will die out as most of the offshoots did in the past).

(2) Where one should draw the line at something being an entirely new religion now seems a lot more arbitrary to me than it used to. The most clear-cut cases are when an entirely new religious text is added which gains widespread popularity (e.g., Christianity branching off from Judaism), but with new religious groups offshooting regularly, there are a lot of minor branches that are now separated from each other by so many prior splits that they seem so distinct as to essentially be different religions despite happening to use the same religious text.

It’s also interesting to consider that almost every one of these groups believed or believes its religious doctrines and practices to be more accurate or good than all the other groups. Religious truth has never been something we humans have been able to agree on!

This piece was first written on August 3, 2017, and first appeared on my website on June 16, 2025.

I pointed out why this claim is impossible. As warm water cools it must eventually reach the same temperature that the cool water started at. From that point on, the warm water will behave just like the cool water, but it will have taken the warm water a while to even get into that state. Freezing occurs at the same temperature for both warm and cold water, but warm water of course will take longer to get to that temperature.

This isn’t quite 1+1=2, it’s more like 23+14=37. I double checked my answer and was 98% confident. It’s amazing what some people will believe, and how powerful reasoning is at solving these sorts of problems.

But I was wrong. And not just a little bit. In fact there are tons of ways that warm water might be able to freeze faster. This is the so-called Mpemba effect, observed by the likes of Aristotle, Descartes, and Francis Bacon.

The fact that the water has previously been warmed contributes to its freezing quickly: for so it cools sooner. Hence many people, when they want to cool hot water quickly, begin by putting it in the sun.

-Aristotle

My wrongness here isn’t so much about being wrong about the effect, per se. The extent to which this effect is real, and under exactly what conditions, can reasonably be debated. My wrongness is in being convinced I was right when I couldn’t have known I was. I couldn’t possibly have ruled out all the possibilities in a single minute. For example, I didn’t even consider these ideas that came up after two minutes of googling:

• Evaporation : the warm water evaporates, meaning there is less water to freeze.
• Frost: the cool water may be more likely to freeze from the top (with the frost trapping in further heat) whereas the warm water may be more likely to freeze from the bottom and sides.
• Convection: warm water and cold water produce different currents, which could alter the heat distribution.
• Supercooling: if free of impurities and in the right conditions, water can actually drop below freezing temperature without freezing, and the propensity for supercooling might be affected by the starting temperature.
• Conductivity: the hotter liquid might melt an existing layer of frost that is preventing the liquid from directly touching a much colder surface.

What could have prevented me from making such a ridiculous error? How could I have noticed that I was being insanely overconfident? There are a few signs that should have tipped me off:

• Lack of expertise: The physics of heat and fluids is outside of my domain of expertise. I should have recognized that this is not a subject I know a lot about and so been more skeptical of my own opinions.
• A simple model: I was employing a very simple model for the situation (involving just the temperature of the water). While beautiful, and easy to work with, really simple models rarely capture all the details of a situation. For instance, I didn’t consider the possibility of evaporation or frost, because those variables weren’t included in my model. If you’re using a simple model, you should consider whether you’re missing important factors.
• Insufficient time: If you haven’t thought about something for very long yet you are already very opinionated, you might want to think about it longer.
• Didn’t consider alternatives:  I didn’t even try to think of ways that this effect could be real. Instead, I came up with an argument why it couldn’t be real, and that argument sounded convincing to me, so I stopped thinking. This problem is the big one. So here’s a 30 minute free mini-course I designed to train you to avoid exactly this problem.

Reasoning is only as good as the reasoner. And we humans don’t have the best track record. The trouble is, it’s easy to find arguments that seem totally convincing. The trick is that we shouldn’t just try to convince ourselves that we are right. We should try to convince ourselves that we are wrong. If we do that in earnest, we’ll be much more likely to end up with the right opinion.

*Ice photograph by Dingske.

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