Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 4568 answers
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Pick a domain where you recently changed your mind or shifted your behavior — investment allocation, a judgment about a colleague, a habit you dropped. Write down the event that triggered the shift. Now write down the full history: the last 12 months, 3 years, or whatever the relevant window is..
You read this lesson and intellectually agree that recency bias exists, then open your portfolio after a red week and feel the urge to sell. The bias does not operate at the level of intellectual agreement. It operates at the level of felt normalcy — what your nervous system treats as the.
Recent events disproportionately influence your perception of what is normal or likely.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
For one week, keep a Base Rate Log. Each time you encounter a vivid anecdote — a news story, a personal account, a social media post, a colleague's experience — that makes you feel like something is common, dangerous, or likely, stop. Write down your gut estimate of the probability. Then look up.
The most common failure mode is not ignorance of base rates — it is knowing the base rate and overriding it anyway because the narrative feels more real. You hear the statistic that airline travel is safer than driving. You understand it intellectually. Then you watch news footage of a plane crash.
Statistical base rates predict outcomes better than compelling individual stories. Your brain will fight this truth every time a vivid narrative competes with a dry statistic — and your brain will be wrong.
Being well-calibrated in one area does not transfer automatically to others.
Being well-calibrated in one area does not transfer automatically to others.
Being well-calibrated in one area does not transfer automatically to others.
Being well-calibrated in one area does not transfer automatically to others.
Imagining failure in advance corrects for optimistic perception biases.
Imagining failure in advance corrects for optimistic perception biases.
Pick a decision or project you're currently planning. Set a timer for ten minutes. Write at the top of a page: 'It is [date six months from now]. This has failed completely.' Now write every reason you can think of for why it failed. Do not filter. Do not rank. Just generate. When the timer ends,.
Running a pre-mortem as a compliance ritual instead of a genuine imagination exercise. If participants are generating 'safe' failures that everyone already knows about (budget overruns, timeline slips), the technique is being domesticated. The power comes from surfacing the failures people sense.