## Highlights
Each conjectural detail should make the scenario less likely, according to the laws of probability, yet each can make it more compelling. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j687rmce24jd34mh6822r9hx))
- 💭 because of system 1 preferring a coherent story
What we are after is the probability of a hypothesis given the data, or prob(Hypothesis | Data). That’s called the *posterior* probability, our credence in an idea after we’ve examined the evidence. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j6z8paynyeqpqmc4hd8dcrk0))
 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j6z8t5bs1p9hgmtj1tddjvvk))
Base-Rate Neglect and the Representativeness Heuristic ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j6z911abzfjjmrxvpf52ksmf))
- 💭 countered by bayesian theorem
a practical example on how you continue considering the base rate when performing system two thinking
Even at the success rate of the test is high, a 10% inaccuracy with the test combined with the very low chance someone actually has it results in a drastic decrease in probability
### New highlights added September 6, 2024 at 2:38 PM
Easier still, we can put our primate visual brains to use and turn the numbers into shapes. This can make Bayesian reasoning eye-poppingly intuitive even with textbook puzzles that are far from our everyday experience, like the classic taxicab problem. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j74egsxey9mh6t4kzrz2rew3))
- 💭 using note taking as a form of thinking
To be sure, in some cases, like the sacredness of our relationships and the awesomeness of death, we really may be better off not doing the sums prescribed by the theory. But we do always want to keep our choices consistent with our values. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j74g56byymmbdy91f4wxaqhx))
- 💭 encouraging subjective meaning as the core metric begore
Should you pay an extra $100 a year to reduce your out-of-pocket expense in the event of a claim from $1,000 to $500? Many people do it, but it makes sense only if you expect to make a claim every five years. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j74g8s7ss3y8dvatv93xbbsf))
- 💭 this was the mindset i had when not buying applecare, but behold its been the only electronic device i own with faults 🥲
### New highlights added September 9, 2024 at 3:08 PM
The discovery that in some situations a rational agent must be superhumanly random is just one of the conclusions from game theory that seems outlandish until you realize that the situations are not uncommon in life. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7c6x61ry7jxd8dj3v3nmfcy))
- 💭 reminds me of thinking in bets, every decision has probabilities. if we are facing an opponent that can gain an advantage by predicting us, we need to learn to play randomly
Politically motivated numeracy and other forms of biased evaluation show that people reason their way into or out of a conclusion even when it offers them no personal advantage. It’s enough that the conclusion enhances the correctness or nobility of their political, religious, ethnic, or cultural tribe. It’s called, obviously enough, the myside bias, and it commandeers every kind of reasoning, even logic.[27](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/35917982/#EndnoteNumber394) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7c8ex80p8dce5yy7vpggse8))
- 💭 People will work harder to prove their belief, which can end up in thinking more rationally at the data at hand. if it already is alignment your beliefs then will be less likely to do so
### New highlights added September 10, 2024 at 12:08 AM
Science is often presented in schools and museums as just another form of occult magic, with exotic creatures and colorful chemicals and eye-popping illusions. Foundational principles, such as that the universe has no goals related to human concerns, that all physical interactions are governed by a few fundamental forces, that living bodies are intricate molecular machines, and that the mind is the information-processing activity of the brain, are never articulated, perhaps because they would seem to insult religious and moral sensibilities. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7d600abm5tm0yhjsvz3cyf8))
- 💭 we are not exposed to think foundationally through science, which causes us to fall prey to system 1 conclusions that seem possible and intuitive like out of body cognition and magic in living things
when they circulate among people with a vested interest in their content, such as within workplaces, they are usually correct.[58](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/35917982/#EndnoteNumber425)
In everyday life, then, there are incentives for being a sentinel who warns people of hidden threats, or a relay who disseminates their warnings. The problem is that social and mass media allow rumors to spread through networks of people who have no stake in their truth. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7d67d03qqpwsg371hcv8m1y))
- 💭 just sounds like a skin in the game issue. this can also be said for things that are too good to be true, like people selling courses
Openness to Evidence correlates with cognitive reflection (the ability to think twice and not fall for trick questions, which we met in chapter 1) and with a resistance to many of the cognitive illusions, biases, and fallacies we saw in chapters 3–9.[69](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/35917982/#EndnoteNumber436) This cluster of good cognitive habits, which Stanovich calls the Rationality Quotient (a play on the intelligence quotient or IQ), correlates with raw intelligence, though imperfectly ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7d6ek9p9pqf3gwkgkhm6shv))
The dream at the dawn of the internet age that giving everyone a platform would birth a new Enlightenment seems cringeworthy today, now that we are living with bots, trolls, flame wars, fake news, Twitter shaming mobs, and online harassment. As long as the currency in a digital platform consists of likes, shares, clicks, and eyeballs, we have no reason to think it will nurture rationality or truth. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7d6rtbzqsm56kzyzcr7ag46))
- 💭 because people end up optimizing for those values instead of the knowledge itself?
### New highlights added September 10, 2024 at 2:10 PM
They found that people’s reasoning skills did indeed predict their life outcomes: the fewer fallacies in reasoning, the fewer debacles in life. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7epetym0y3zmabbfyvavvhy))
Having documented these changes in two books, I’m often asked whether I “believe in progress.” The answer is no. Like the humorist Fran Lebowitz, I don’t believe in anything you have to believe in. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7eph93yw1z4h4090ys2hafz))
- 💭 that's a cold science-pilled line 🥶