While I’ve spent a bunch of time fact-checking these, I’m very interested in correcting any mistakes I may have inadvertently made. If you catch any mistakes, please let me know what I’m wrong about and what’s actually true.

Facts about the US that contradict commonly believed narratives:

1) Regarding political violence, the majority of Americans see it as…a big problem in society and as being “never justified” (liberals and conservatives agree on this), and the substantial majority view it as “always or usually unacceptable” to be happy about a public figure’s death.

2) The majority of murderers have…prior criminal history (e.g., arrests or convictions), and the substantial majority of homicides are committed by men under 45.

3) More than half of murder victims who were not murdered by a family member…also have prior criminal histories (though, of course, this doesn’t mean that they deserve to be murdered).

4) The majority of homicides are committed due to…personal arguments or are related to drug or gang activity, rather than random acts of violence.

5) School shootings kill…vastly fewer children annually than prosaic dangers like unsafe driving (though it’s a horrifying tragedy each time school shootings occur).

6) Mass murders (where 3 or more people are murdered at the same event) are most often…familicide, where a person kills their family, usually committing suicide afterward.

7) Regarding violence, since the 1990s, America has gotten…far less violent (while there was an uptick during the pandemic around 2020, it is still well below the 1990s peak).

8) Compared to alcohol, homicide leads to the death of…very few people (though it’s terrible whenever homicide occurs).

9) The majority of gun-related deaths are…suicides, not homicides.

10) In rural areas, the suicide rate (per million people) is…highest (urban areas actually have lower rates).

11) The vast majority of reported disappearances of children are…relatives taking a child (e.g., custody disputes) or runaways (rather than kidnappings).

12) Most rapes are carried out by…someone the victim already knows (though in about 1 in 5 cases, the perpetrator is a stranger).

13) Women experiencing sexual assault are not…at all uncommon (more than 20% of adult women have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives).

14) The most dangerous activity that is very common for people under 30 to engage in on a daily basis is…driving in cars.

15) Commercial airline crashes are…incredibly rare (despite the media attention), and commercial flights are far safer than driving per mile (whereas per hour they are closer to being on par).

16) For adults 25 to 35, the biggest killer is…accidental poisoning (which mostly consists of drug overdoses), not car accidents, and considering the whole adult population, opioid related deaths exceed deaths from motor vehicles.

17) Most personal bankruptcy is related to…sudden job loss or illness (which can simultaneously lead to large medical bills and loss of work).

18) The significant majority of federal taxes that the government collects come from…the top 20% of earners.

19) The percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax is…about 35% (though they still pay payroll taxes and sales taxes, and may pay property taxes and state taxes).

20) Regarding health insurance, the vast majority of Americans…are insured (about 90%), and while some people get extremely screwed by the system by being stuck with huge bills they can’t afford due to unavoidable medical challenges, most Americans say they are satisfied with their health insurance, even though they usually also say that the system overall is substantially flawed and needs significant reforms.

21) Most US federal government spending goes to…social security, health care (e.g., Medicaid/Medicare), military-related expenses (e.g., staff costs, veterans, vehicles), and interest payments on national debt (since interest rates have risen).

22) On average, legal immigrants commit crimes…at a lower rate than natural-born citizens.

23) Where immigration status is reliably recorded, undocumented immigrants have an incarceration rate…lower than that of U.S.-born residents.

24) It’s extremely rare that trans people…get murdered (of course, it’s a horrible tragedy when it does occur, and there are uncertainties around data collection); but current data indicates that suicide is a vastly more common life-threatening risk to trans people, and also, that trans people experience a substantially elevated risk of non-fatal violence compared to cis people.

25) Unarmed Black people who are stopped or engaged by the police have…an extremely low chance of being killed by those police (of course, it’s a horrendous tragedy when it does occur); however, Black people are substantially more likely than white people to be stopped by police without clear cause, and are far more likely than white people to be murdered by criminals.

26) Black Americans mostly want the level of police presence in their area…to stay unchanged (i.e., neither be decreased nor increased), with only about 1 in 5 wanting less policing, though most Black Americans do want other major changes to policing to be made.

27) Currently, much of the recycling that occurs…ends up being wasteful once you factor in all extra fuel burned in order to recycle those materials, the amount of “recycled material” that fails to actually be recycled, and alternative enviromental efforts goverment money spent on recyclying could have gone to instead; whether recycling is effective depends on the region as well as the type of material being recyled (e.g., aluminum is especially useful to recycle, whereas plastic recycling tends to be inefficient).

28) Our landfills are…mostly not close to running out of capacity (and when there are shortages, they are almost always local issues).

29) From a danger perspective, nuclear power is…extremely safe (especially when compared to many other sources of power, like coal), as well as very environmentally friendly (with almost no emissions and reliable solutions for storing the toxic waste produced); new reactor designs are dramatically safer than past ones, yet, nuclear power largely is stopped from being cost-effective due to excessive regulations that are extremely costly to comply with.

30) Almost all suffering that humans cause to domesticated land animals is due to…practices at large farms, such as tiny cages that animals spend almost their whole lives in, or being densely packed together in unpleasant conditions with little to no outdoor access and limited ability to engage in their natural behaviors.

31) Most individuals who experience homelessness are homeless for…less than 12 months, but most of the people you see living on city streets, who are typically the most visible homeless people, are experiencing longer-term homelessness.

32) The majority of people who experience chronic homelessness are either…experiencing a drug addiction or a significant mental health challenge, or both (though for some of these people, the addiction or mental health challenge occurred after homelessness began); a non-negligible percent (perhaps 20%, but estimates differ substantially) have neither challenge.

33) The primary causes of high housing prices are…factors that increase the costs of building new housing or that completely prevent it from being built (such as zoning, excessive regulations, lengthy approval processes, and local opposition), as well as, for popular places like New York City, net migration into those areas.

34) The majority of people in prison in the US at any given moment are there for…violent crimes, not non-violent drug-related crimes or victimless offenses – while the substantial majority of convictions are for non-violent crimes (since most crime is non-violent), violent crime typically carries much longer sentences.

35) Almost nobody who is charged with a crime goes to…trial (they mostly take plea bargains).

36) The significant majority of people who are charged with a serious crime and go to trial are…convicted.

37) Regarding the US federal minimum wage, very…few people actually get paid that amount (in part due to higher minimum wages that many states have, and in part due to naturally occurring labor market prices that are simply higher than the federal minimum).

This piece was first written on November 2, 2025, and first appeared on my website on November 17, 2025.

I think that almost everyone has beliefs that are essentially unchangeable. These don’t feel to us like beliefs but like incontrovertible truths. Counter-evidence can’t touch them. They are beliefs we can’t change our mind about. I call these “Anchor Beliefs.”

When Anchor Beliefs are false, we distort reality to fit them. So, what distortions do some reasonably common Anchor Beliefs cause?

Anchor Belief 1: “I’m entirely good” or “I don’t do unethical things”

What happens when someone with these Anchor Beliefs acts highly unethically? Well, since the Anchor Belief can’t change, that means the action must have been ethically okay to do, or else it was someone else’s fault or impossible to avoid. Victim blaming, denial, or shirking of responsibility ensues.

“My whole foundation, life, what I believed in, devotion to the company, was based on believing [Ramesh Balwani] was this person…He told me he didn’t know what I was doing in business, that my convictions were wrong…There was no way I could save our company if he was there…We were trying to do the right thing. We were trying to report results that we believed in and not report results if we thought there was any issue” -Elizabeth Holmes, who was found guilty on four counts of defrauding the investors in her company, Theranos

“All I ever wanted was to love women and, in turn, to be loved by them back. Their behavior towards me has only earned my hatred, and rightfully so! I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy.” -Elliot Rodger, in his manifesto about why he planned to commit murder before murdering six people.

Anchor Belief 2: “I’m not good enough”

What happens when someone with this anchor belief gets a great job, performs really well, or achieves success? Well, it must have been a fluke or mistake; eventually, others will figure it out. Imposter syndrome ensues.

“No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?” – Tom Hanks, winner of two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor

“I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.” – Maya Angelou, legendary poet and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Anchor Belief 3: “This thing I’ve devoted a great deal of time/energy/identity into works and is good” [that doesn’t work or is harmful]

What happens when it’s criticized? The criticism must be bad faith. Any imperfection in counter-evidence fully invalidates that evidence. Confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning ensues.

“Those who have attacked my work on Vitamin C are scoundrels.” – Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize winner, defending his theory that vitamin C cures cancer and heart disease.

“We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts…Politician A stands up on his hind legs in a Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over we find crimes – embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys – sordid stuff. Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he didn’t know about.” – L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

Anchor Belief 4: “My group is good.”

What happens when their group does something really bad? The victims must be lying or have deserved it. Or acting badly must be justified in this case because it’s done for some more important greater good. Denial of and justification of immoral actions ensues.

“When we show a statement by Donald Trump that’s not truthful, Republicans will say it’s okay if it’s not true because it sends the right message, whereas Democrats will say that a statement needs to be factual…With a statement from Joe Biden, Democrats will say it’s okay if it’s not based on evidence, that it supports a generally true message, while Republicans will then have a higher bar and say every statement needs to be based on facts.” – Ethan Poskanzer, based on his studies on moral flexibility

So, what are the takeaways here? I think that the following three things are important and true:

(1) Almost everyone has at least one Anchor Belief – a belief that is so sticky that it’s nearly impossible for it to change in the face of even extremely strong counter-evidence. Some people have more of these, and perhaps a small number of people have none, but I think Anchor beliefs are a near-universal among us humans.

(2) When our Anchor Beliefs are false (or partially false), because the beliefs won’t change, we distort reality when we get evidence against them in order to keep them intact while also somehow “making sense” of that counter-evidence.

(3) By looking at fairly common Anchor Beliefs people have, we can start to understand some recurring distortions in people’s thinking. Since people’s Anchor Beliefs are fixed but reality sometimes provides strong counter-evidence against these beliefs, that leads to predictable patterns of distortions that people’s minds deploy to keep the beliefs intact around those Anchor Beliefs.

In particular, I think that we find:

• Anchor Beliefs related to being good may lead to victim blaming and denial of responsibility.

• Anchor Beliefs about not being good enough may lead to imposter syndrome.

• Anchor Beliefs about something we’ve invested a lot of time/energy/identity into working on and being good may lead to confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning.

• Anchor Beliefs about our group being good may lead us to deny or justify immoral actions by our group.

There are no strong studies that I’m aware of that identify or map out anchor beliefs and their frequency in the population – I believe the points above are true based on my experiences and observations.

This piece was first written on August 13, 2024, and first appeared on my website on September 2, 2024.

What matters (evidence-wise) is how likely that level of improvement would have been in that time period if the treatment works relative to how likely that improvement would have been if the treatment is useless.

For something like tiredness, which tends to fluctuate a lot, feeling somewhat less tired than normal after two weeks may provide almost no evidence a treatment worked. But if you feel less tired than you have in 10 years, that could be strong evidence!

To give another example, if you’ve had a rash without a break for years, and the rash goes away in one day with a new cream, that is very strong evidence the cream worked. But if the rash very often comes and goes on its own, or it took six months of using the cream before it disappeared, its disappearance provides little evidence of effectiveness.

More formally, the amount of evidence an improvement gives you (in favor of the treatment working) is:

Bayes Factor = the probability that you’d see this level of improvement given that the treatment works / the probability that you’d see this level of improvement given that the treatment doesn’t work

In words, this is just “how many times more likely is it that you’d see this level of improvement during this period of time if the treatment works compared to if it doesn’t work.”

This Bayes Factor is what you multiply your prior odds by. So if, before trying the treatment, you thought there were 1 to 3 odds of it working (i.e., a 25% chance), and if you now you get a Bayes factor of 6, you should now believe there are 6*(1/3) = 2 to 1 odds that it works (i.e., a 66% chance).

While it’s rare to be able to do this calculation precisely, it’s this general way of thinking (in terms of relative likelihoods, comparing a world where the treatment works to one where it doesn’t) that’s important. I find this to be an especially helpful application of Bayes’ rule which can guide practical decision-making (e.g., whether to stick with a new treatment).

This piece was first written on April 15, 2023, and first appeared on this site on August 2, 2023.

1. Soldier Altruists think it’s obvious how to improve the world and that we just need to execute those obvious steps. They see the barriers to a better world as:

(i) not enough people taking action (e.g., due to ignorance, selfishness, or propaganda), and

(ii) bad groups blocking things (e.g., corrupt politicians or greedy corporations).

2. Scout Altruists think it’s hard to figure out how to improve the world – and most attempts either don’t work, only slightly help, or make things worse. They see the barriers to a better world as:

(i) not enough understanding of causal mechanisms (e.g., due to a lack of high-quality evidence, not enough attention to the evidence we do have, not enough careful reasoning, etc.), and

(ii) too much investment in bad solutions (e.g., due to people jumping to conclusions, doing what feels good emotionally rather than what is effective, ideological blindspots, inertia, etc.)

Soldier Altruists say we need to DO and FIGHT more. Scout Altruists say we need to THINK and TEST more. Soldier Altruists are more likely to think that if we could just get people to be less selfish and more motivated to act, we would make a lot of progress towards a better world. Scout Altruists are more likely to think that if we could just get people to pay more attention to evidence and to have more good-faith debates with strong norms around the quality of argumentation, we would make a lot more progress.

Soldier Altruists may think Scout Altruists are far too reluctant to act and are wasting their time on research and debate. Scout Altruists may think Soldier Altruists are far too confident in their conclusions and are wasting their effort pushing for changes that aren’t going to help much (and which, in some cases, might even make things worse). Of course, in reality, there is a continuum between these two positions. So, on a scale from 0 (Soldier Altruist) to 10 (Scout Altruist) where do you fall? I’m probably a 7 or 8.

As some commenters have pointed out, there is a relationship between this distinction and “Conflict Theory” vs. “Mistake Theory.” I think it is related – but also distinct in important ways. Conflict theory says that there is a giant zero-sum struggle (groups fighting over fixed resources). Whereas in this case, we’re operating from a framework of altruism: “the world can be made a lot better – what’s the big barrier to that happening? Is it that we know what to do and we’re not doing it enough/with enough energy, or is it that we don’t really know what to do?”

Also, to clarify another important point brought up in the comments: I’m not asking, “do you think it’s obvious how we should improve the world if we had a magic wand that could change whatever we wanted?” – instead, the question is: “is it obvious what to do to improve the real world, given that we don’t have a magic wand?” Do we just need to put more money/time/effort/people into executing the current “obvious” strategies because they will work well if we just scale them up? Or is it pretty unclear what strategies we should even be putting more resources into (meaning that a lot of thinking, research, debate and/or evidence evaluation will typically be necessary to even figure out what is worth scaling up)?

Julia’s book (which I highly recommend): https://www.amazon.com/Scout-Mindset-Perils-Defensive-Thinking/dp/0735217556/ref=nodl_

This piece was first written on April 23rd, 2021, and first appeared on this site on January 7th, 2022.

1: Start to think that one ideology you like – which contains genuine benefits, truths, and positive moral elements – might be the only valid perspective.

2: Surround yourself with believers until you’re convinced that your view is common and normal.

3: Ignore your own doubts so that you can fit in better. Join in on chastising (and eventually ostracizing) insiders who doubt too much. Punish slightly more harshly than you feel is fair in order to prove that you are one of the good guys.

4: Since challenging the ideology is punished, pretend to believe more than you really do – contributing to the sense that almost everyone else has no doubts – in a self-reinforcing cycle.

5: Assume that since your view is obviously correct, normal, and morally good, those who strongly oppose your view are bad people.

6: Since you are good and they are bad, conclude that you, as the good guys, should try to destroy them (figuratively, or in extreme cases, literally).

7: But how can you tell who is bad? Decide that a set of beliefs that sound similar to the bad people’s beliefs are off-limits. Anyone who believes them is probably bad. In those cases, humane treatment is no longer necessary.

8: Even just spending too much time with one of the bad people, or speaking well of them, is morally suspect. Why would you do that if you weren’t bad too?

9: Unfortunately, some true beliefs were accidentally put on the “bad” side of the good/bad dividing line. Now there are true things that you would become a bad person for believing.

10: Because of that, you and your group must avoid looking at reality too closely, lest you become bad too.

11: If you start to notice something true that you’re not allowed to believe, look away quickly or contort reality to make it seem different than it is.

12: Intensify your self-delusion and your punishment of non-believers so that you can make sure that still more people in your group will delude themselves out of fear.

13: Start teaching children (before they are old enough to think for themselves) that your belief system is the only correct one, perpetuating the system for future generations.

14: Congratulations! You’ve succeeded at being a good person who harms the world. Your mostly good ideology has eaten itself and has become more bad than good.

This has happened many times throughout history, and it will happen many more times. Watch out for this pattern so that you (and the people you love) don’t end up as “true believers” who do harm by accident.

This piece was first written on August 7, 2020, and first appeared on this site on April 29, 2022.

Can you justifiably believe that you may be able to really change the world?

There’s a certain seeming absurdity in believing you can change the world. And by “change the world,” I don’t mean playing a small (though still meaningful) cumulative role in bringing about change as part of a group of many thousands of people, each contributing incrementally. I mean, causing a large and important positive change to occur (and not merely by dumb luck) that would not have occurred (or that would have occurred much more slowly) had you not put in the effort.

The irony is that just believing you can change the world makes you, I think, significantly more likely to actually succeed at it, for at least four reasons:

(1) If you believe you can do it, you’re probably much more likely to TRY AT ALL compared to if you don’t, since the idea doesn’t seem automatically stupid or doomed to fail.

(2) When trying to create change, you’re likely to encounter numerous problems and obstacles, and if you really believing you can make change, you may be less likely to give up when these problems occur (e.g., if your first, second, and third attempts at a solution don’t work). Creating significant change probably requires smashing your way through, or skillfully dodging, EVERY ONE of these obstacles. In that vein, it’s amazing to see how often successful startups had times when they looked like they were going to fail, and if the founders had given up, they probably would have.

(3) When you really believe you can do something, others are more likely to believe it too, meaning it becomes easier to persuade others to help you or join you in your mission.

(4) If you really believe you can make change, you may feel more of a moral obligation to actually try really hard to do so. For instance, if you think you can actually ease the suffering of a million people with effort, isn’t it very important that you try hard to do so? On the other hand, if it were something you’re not capable of (or you convinced yourself of that anyway), then you wouldn’t be (or feel) obligated to solve the problem.

BOOTSTRAPPING BELIEFS

Hence, believing you can change the world is what I’ll call a “bootstrapping belief” (in the sense that it is a self-starting process). Your belief in it causes that very same belief to become truer. Another example of a bootstrapping belief might be a belief that the placebo effect has a strong effect on you. The more you believe it, the more effective the placebo effect may actually be, just by virtue of you having that belief

Yet, even with its bootstrapping nature, there is still a certain absurdity in believing you can change the world.

If you believe all that, and you’re truly willing and able to put in the effort, then maybe (with some luck) you really can.

If you don’t already believe “I may be able to really change the world,” maybe you can find yourself able to rationally endorse “I may be able to really change the world” with these extra conditions added. And if you already believe you can change the world, maybe adding these conditions to your belief will make it substantially more likely to be true.

Of course, being able to “change the world” is not binary. The amount of impact you can have is a continuous variable from “not at all” to “massive,” and the probability that you can change the world (in any particular way) is a continuous variable between 0 and 1. What I’m suggesting is that, compared to the statement “I can change the world,” the statement “I can change the world [given certain conditions]” should have a higher probability of being true.

Much of what happens in our brains is chemical, why would depression not be? If by “imbalance” we happen to mean “a state of brain chemicals that the patient doesn’t want”, as opposed to, say, some specific theory that is now discredited like “not enough serotonin” (i.e., the low serotonin myth), then depression can reasonably be thought of as a “chemical imbalance”.

Disagreement about whether depression is a chemical imbalance may stem from confusion about what it means for something to be a “model” for something else. For instance, “chemical imbalance” is a model for depression. But it’s just one model, and it is often not the most useful one. Here are all the models I’ve seen people use for depression:

(1) Neurology – caused by a chemical imbalance of neurotransmitters in your brain; that’s why anti-depressants are effective for many people.

(2) Beliefs – caused by unhelpful perceptions of yourself, your future, or the world; that’s why cognitive therapy is helpful for many people.

(3) Circadian rhythm/sleep – that’s why some people may find chronotherapy (involving sleep and light) or sleep apnea treatment effective.

(4) Relationships – that’s why socially isolated people often feel depressed and why Interpersonal Therapy may be effective.

(5) Nutrition – that’s why people with depression are sometimes found to have vitamin deficiencies or harmful diets and may feel better if these are corrected.

(6) Society – that’s why groups of people who are oppressed, shunned, or in poverty are more likely to be depressed, and improving these social problems may resolve the depression.

(7) Behavior – that’s why depressed people are sometimes found stuck in harmful behavioral feedback loops and why Behavioral Activation for depression is helpful.

(8) Trauma – that’s why people who were unloved or abused as children may be more likely to be depressed, and why people often show depressive symptoms for a while after a loved one dies.

(9) Meaning – that’s why depressed people sometimes feel that nothing matters, and why techniques from the ACT approach that get you to take action towards what you value may be useful.

(10) Genetics, that’s partly why depression tends to run in families and helps explain why one person gets depressed in a particular circumstance that another person doesn’t get depressed in.

These can’t all be true, can they? I believe they can, in the sense that each of these is partially correct, or to be more precise, each of these is a model for depression that is better than useless. What’s nice about this set of models is that they are complementary: they each capture some distinct aspect of depression, and each will be especially useful in certain circumstances. In particular, a number of these refer to different things that can cause or trigger depression. Not all of these causes will be in play in any particular case, so sometimes one model will apply more than other.

There are many ways to model any system. A good model typically is not one that fully explains every detail of a system but rather one that explains important aspects of the system in important cases of interest. It is not a contradiction to find that there are multiple good models for the same system that are very different from each other. They may each capture different important attributes of the system, or may each be accurate in different situations, or they may just represent similar information in very different seeming ways. Even if one model is much better than the others on average, there may be specific cases where the alternative models make better predictions. And realizing that may allow us to combine models to create an even better one.

Consider the game of Pac-Man as an example. One way to model the game is to think of the ghosts as sentient beings that are trying to touch you, which will cause you to die. This is the intuitive model that players often have of the game, and despite being completely untrue on one level (the ghosts are not sentient), it is quite a useful model that enables you to play the game effectively.

However, if you train a reinforcement learning algorithm to play Pac-Man, it will produce a very different model of the system (one that may well contain no direct notion of ghosts that are out to get you, and likely the model it produces will be one that you’ll have a hard time understanding). Yet, using this model, the software may play Pac-Man as well as you do or perhaps even better. So whose model is right, the intuitive human one or that of the reinforcement learning algorithm? Neither is “right”, and neither is “wrong”; they both capture important elements of the game in different ways.

A more complete model of Pac-Man than either the intuitive human one from a reinforcement learning algorithm’s is the computer code of Pac-Man, which determines the gameplay. From the point of view of you playing the game effectively, it MIGHT help to some extent to study the code in advance to learn potential quirks of the ghosts’ behavior, but mostly the code would not be useful while you play, and you’ll find it a lot easier to think of ghosts being out to get than to mentally reference the underlying algorithms. So your “ghosts are out to get me” model may be more helpful to you than the “source code of the game” model, despite the latter being a much more accurate description.
But even the source code is not the ultimate model of your Pac-Man experience, as the ULTIMATE model would include the hardware that code runs on (maybe the behavior of that code varies slightly on different hardware), and even the people around who might distract you during the game, and ultimately the laws of physics on which the behavior of the hardware and everything else depends.

As statistician George Box once wrote, “The most that can be expected from any model is that it can supply a useful approximation to reality: All models are wrong; some models are useful.”

So let’s stop asking if depression “is” a chemical imbalance. Instead, let’s ask: is it useful to sometimes model depression as a chemical imbalance? I think the answer there is yes; this is one model that should be used among other models in certain specific instances. It may sometimes be a useful model, but other times other models of depression will be much more useful. And, of course, much of what happens in our brains can be modeled as chemical changes. So the question is: when is this a useful way to think about what’s happening chemically in the brain? When does such a model give us insight?

If a depressed person responds well to anti-depressants, we can use our Neurology model of depression to try to understand this (though that still may be very tricky to do). On the other hand, if a person’s depression lifts after they stop believing that they are inherently worthless, we can use our Beliefs model to try to understand this. And if a person’s depression improves when they adjust their sleep patterns, we can use our Circadian rhythm model to try to explain this. And so on.

Ideally, we’d try to figure out the most effective model for a given person’s depression so that we can accurately model their specific depression, not merely depression in general.

If you’re not an outlier, you may never guess that someone’s internal experience could be so vastly different. Even if 5% of people have an experience, and it causes very different internal experiences than you have but doesn’t manifest in an apparent difference in behavior, you might not notice the difference exists. So these “outliers” don’t necessarily have to be rare to escape your notice.

Here are a few real examples of some of the most extraordinarily different psychological experiences I’m aware of:

(1) Some can control things about themselves that people don’t normally view humans as being in control of (e.g., can choose to quickly lower their heart rate, or can choose to suddenly make themselves feel happier if they want) vs. those who aren’t in control of things that people normally think we all control (e.g., they feel as though they are literally unable to take action in certain types of situations regardless of how bad the consequences of inaction are, or they can’t stop thinking about a certain thing no matter how much they want to)

(2) Some view themselves as truly special, capable of world-changing things that no one else is, or existing for a singular and unique purpose, vs. people who view themselves as inherently inferior to others or fundamentally not deserving of love

(3) Some lack any desire for friendship and have no negative feelings about long periods of solitude vs. those who prefer to spend literally every hour of their waking time around others.

(4) Some control their physical condition primarily by treating their body as a chemical machine and consciously varying the inputs (e.g., caffeine, certain foods, nicotine, marijuana, alcohol, microdoses, modafinil, Adderall) vs. those who purposely avoid any substance that causes significant changes in their physical condition.

(5) Some have virtually no awareness of the facial expressions they are making vs. those who are aware of their facial expression at all times in social settings

(6) Some never experience a specific emotional state (e.g., they have little idea what a “depressive” state means because they’ve never experienced one, or they have never had an experience of awe) vs. people who experience specific emotions at a higher frequency or intensity than is typical (e.g., they find humor in almost everything)

(7) Some have almost no awareness of social dynamics (e.g., who is trying to suck up to whom and who is trying to signal what) vs. people who observe social dynamics just as they would a person’s hair color

(8) Some have almost no ability to change how they feel emotionally by changing their cognitive beliefs about a thing vs. can actually “snap” their emotions into alignment immediately using their cognitive beliefs when the two are out of sync

(9) Some view coincidences and strange occurrences as being deeply meaningful and fundamentally non-random vs. those who view most of their existence as being driven by unavoidable but totally meaningless chance

(10) Some have extremely limited abilities to guess what emotion another person is feeling in a given situation vs. those who constantly are aware of the emotional states of the other people in the room

(11) Some have learned that it is bad when another person is very unhappy and want to help, but experience essentially no emotion about it vs. those who viscerally experience pain when they see (or even hear of) someone else who is very unhappy, and can’t imagine what it would be like to not feel compelled to help

It’s tough to make real-life disagreements productive, but here are my favorite techniques for making it easier to do so. These help more if you are significantly motivated to use the disagreement to deepen mutual understanding of the issue.

I’m assuming here that you have control over your own behavior, but not over the other persons, because that’s the reality of almost all such situations. I’m not assuming that the other person is motivated to figure out the truth (e.g., they may be mostly motivated by “winning” the debate).

TIPS FOR HAVING MORE PRODUCTIVE REAL LIFE DISAGREEMENTS

(1) Avoid debates in front of others – if others are watching, it tends to create unproductive social dynamics. You or the person who disagrees with you may want to look good in the debate in front of those other people, which tends to push in the opposite direction of being open-minded and conceding when the other person has made a good point. What’s more, having other people involved increases the chance that the conversation gets derailed.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “Bob, what do you think about what we’re discussing?”

PRODUCTIVE: “Want to sit over there with me and discuss this in more detail?”

(2) Stay on topic – very often, the topic of disagreement will start to drift. Resist the urge to go follow tangents or switch what the debate is about, or you’ll lose focus. If someone says something new that you disagree with, resist the urge to address it if it isn’t related to the main point of contention.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “You’re wrong about that too.”

PRODUCTIVE: “We can discuss that point of disagreement later, but I’d be interested in returning to the subject we were discussing if you don’t mind.”

(3) Investigate first, don’t attack – when someone says something we strongly disagree with, we can be tempted to immediately attack their position. However, doing so sets up the discussion as a war. If the goal is to have a productive debate (where both you and the other person have a reasonable chance of making your views more accurate), then it’s much better to set the conversation up as a discussion where you can learn from each other instead. Avoid immediately jumping into attacking the other person’s position so that they aren’t put on the defensive and so that the conversation isn’t framed in terms of winning. This relates to Julia Galef’s concept of Scout Mindset (see: http://bit.ly/2fPYRJI), which I think is the right mindset to have when entering into a disagreement. You should be trying to understand the lay of the land, not firing cannons. If you fire cannons, you can expect cannon fire right back at you.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “There are at least three reasons you’re wrong about that.”

PRODUCTIVE: “Could you tell me more about that?”

(4) Clarify the other person’s claims – it’s surprisingly easy to have a long disagreement without fully understanding what the other person really meant. Typically you’ll need to ask a lot of clarifying questions early on so that you really understand what’s being claimed. If you refute the other person’s points, without having clarified, there is a good chance that you are arguing against something that isn’t quite what they believe. One of the best ways of making sure you’ve understood the other side is to repeat back the other person’s claims in your own words and ask if you’ve accurately reflected what they are saying.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “But X is not true because…”

PRODUCTIVE: “I think that what you’re saying is X, am I understanding that right?”

(5) Clarify definitions – language tends to be quite ambiguous. If the points you are making hinge on someone understanding your definition of a word, then take a moment to clarify what you mean by it. Or, if you notice that the way the other person is using a word may not be quite the way you use it, stop for a moment to explain your usage and to ask them to clarify their own. If you and the other party mean different things by word, it’s very hard to constantly keep that in mind without getting confused. It’s typically much better to either decide to switch over to the other person’s definition (once you’ve asked them to explain it) or to ask to switch to another word entirely that you both agree on the definition for. It’s a lot harder to get someone to successfully switch over to your definition than to simply resolve to switch over to theirs.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “We obviously don’t have free will because we don’t choose the things we fundamentally want.”

PRODUCTIVE: “Could you elaborate on what you mean by the phrase ‘free will’? I’m not sure I understand what you are using that phrase to mean.”

(6) Identify reason(s) for belief – don’t just stop at understanding what the other person is claiming. If you actually want to make progress in the debate, you’ll need to dig into the reasons behind their beliefs. Knowing why they believe what they do may cause you to agree with the other person more (because it helps you understand their reasoning) but, even if it doesn’t, it can also help you understand where the debate needs to focus in order to make progress. Without knowing why they believe what they do, you don’t know what points are most critical to discuss.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “I don’t think X is true because….”

PRODUCTIVE: “What are the main reasons that you think X is true?”

(7) Gently probe the reasons you’re given – if someone tells you that the reason they believe X is Y, don’t assume that if you were to change their belief in Y, then belief X would change too. First of all, we are not always aware of the reasons we believe things, so while the person might think Y is the reason they believe X, they might be wrong (it could just be their best on the spot guess or the first argument their brain could put together – they may have even forgotten what caused them to believe X). Second, our beliefs may be propped up by multiple other beliefs, so even if the other person really does believe X because of Y, there may be other beliefs P and Q that would need to change at the same time for the other person to stop believing X. What’s more, a person may have an emotional attachment to X that isn’t really supported by conscious “reasons” at all (e.g., the idea of not believing X causes them anxiety, so if they start to sense that X is being challenged they try to defend it with whatever argument comes to mind first). So if the main point of contention in your debate is whether X is true, and the other party says they believe X because of Y, you’ll want to gently probe Y to understand better what’s really going on. This can be done with questions such as:

-“Is Y the main reason you believe X, or are there other important reasons you believe X as well?”

-“If you were no longer convinced of Y, do you think that would be enough to cause you to stop believing X?”

-“If it turned out that X was true, would you see that as a bad thing? Why?”

UNPRODUCTIVE: “But Y is not a convincing reason to believe X.”

PRODUCTIVE: “If you stopped believing that Y was true, would that change your mind about X?”

(8) Look for the critical points of disagreement – there may be a lot of reasons that you and the other person disagree, but they are unlikely to be equally important. Chances are, there are a small number of important points of contention that the disagreement hinges on. (see CFAR’s “double crux” technique: http://bit.ly/2xYjqOI for more about finding these “crux’s”). It can be helpful to frame finding the core points of disagreement as an explicit goal in the conversation and to enlist the other person’s help in figuring it out.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “Let’s go one by one through all the reasons we disagree.”

PRODUCTIVE: “I think our main point of disagreement is actually just Y. does that seem right to you? If not, I’d be really interested in finding out what our core points of disagreement really are.”

(9) Find common ground – agreeing tends to make people feel closer to each other and to make a debate feel less heated and awkward, so it’s good to point out the things that you do already agree on. Pointing out what you think you already agree on can also be helpful for clarification because you may discover hidden points of disagreement that you didn’t even realize were there.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “It looks like we really don’t agree on this topic.”

PRODUCTIVE: “It looks like we already agree on a number of things, including…”

(10) Look for ways you can learn – one of the best things about a disagreement is that it presents an opportunity to make your own views more accurate. Even if you are right overall on the topic, you can still correct minor errors in your beliefs and arguments and hone them for the future. Chances are the other person has at least SOME good points. Try to learn as much as you can from them. At the very least, you can learn about how someone gets to the point of believing something that you disagree with on this topic, which is useful to understand in its own right. On complex, controversial issues, it is almost always the case that both sides have some reasonable points. It’s valuable to know what the reasonable points on the other side are. Keep in mind also that, like everyone, you are totally wrong about some of the things that you strongly believe in. This might just be one of those topics. If that’s true, it’s better to find out now and then start being right about it, rather than continuing being wrong about the topic indefinitely.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “I’m still not convinced.”

PRODUCTIVE: “I’d be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on Z because I’ve never thought about Z the way you’re presenting it.”

(11) Give credit when a good point is made – if the other person makes a good point, or changes your mind about something, tell them that. This might feel like conceding ground in the “battle,” but if you’re viewing the disagreement as a battle, then you are probably already not in a productive mode of discussion. Telling the other person that they made a good point or that they changed your mind about something shows good faith. It demonstrates that you are actually interested in listening to what they say and that you are not simply trying to beat them. That tends to make the other person less defensive, more open-minded, and more likely to be willing to admit that you changed their mind as well. It can help to frame the entire discussion as a collaborative enterprise to figure out the truth, rather than as a conflict between two people. Remember that finding out you are wrong about something is a gift that makes you more powerful because, the next time around, you’ll have truer beliefs and better arguments, as well as a deeper understanding of the world.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “What you said was not 100% true.”

PRODUCTIVE: “You made a great point about Z, which helps me understand this topic better.”

(12) Keep your ego out of it – if your ego is invested in coming out on top in the disagreement, or at least in not having your points refuted, then you are less likely to learn and more likely to turn the disagreement into a battle where the goal is winning. One nice trick for keeping your ego off to the side is to put forward claims without saying that you necessarily believe them. For instance, to keep an argument that you have uncertainty about at arm’s length, you can say, “Some people argue that Z, what do you think of that claim?” or if you aren’t sure you believe something, say “I’m not sure yet what I think about this yet, but one thing that comes to mind is Z.” You can also bring up the views of other people, as in “I was reading an article that said Z. What’s your reaction to that?” Using softening language can help too, such as “I’m thinking that” rather than “I believe that” or even worse, “I’ve always believed that.” The more your language makes the belief seem like a core part of your identity, the harder you may later feel it is to back down, even if you turn out to be totally wrong.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “I believe in Y.”

PRODUCTIVE: “I’m still figuring out what I think about Y. Some people say Z about it; what do you think of that argument?”

(13) Keep the other person’s ego out of it – if the other person’s ego is invested in winning (or at least not losing), it is likely going to tend to reduce the quality of the discussion. Make it as easy as possible for the other person to concede a point, for instance, by acknowledging that you understand why they think the thing and explaining how you see someone might come to that conclusion, or by emphasizing that another point they made was really good while you’re pointing out that this other point they made is weaker. Mentioning ways that you realize your own views were wrong can also be helpful, as it neutralizes the embarrassment of being wrong. If you used to believe the same thing that they do (but changed your mind about it), it can be helpful mentioning that as well to show that you understand why someone would take their side.

UNPRODUCTIVE: “You’re wrong about X.”

PRODUCTIVE: “I can understand why you said X, and you made a lot of good points about it. I think, though, that there is an important consideration that the argument you gave isn’t taking into account.”

After adjustments based on the feedback we received, we published the two essays below, with at least 50% of the corresponding group agreeing to each sentence (see color coding) and high levels of overall agreement to the whole essays (see the bottom of the infographic – 84% overall agreement for the Clinton Essay, 94% for the Trump essay, though the subjects were not from a nationally representative sample).

Our thinking was that trying to simulate the perspective of both sides is one of the best ways to check your understanding. And that understanding both sides is useful for many reasons (epistemic, altruistic, strategic), even if you won’t ever support or agree with them.

If you’re interested in learning more, this Fast Company article discusses our motivation and approach:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3066609/try-this-exercise-in-radical-empathy-to-minimize-conflict