Super Thinking: Antifragile

Ironically, one way to reduce uncertainty is to question your assumptions. People will often engage in confirmation bias to reinforce preconceived notions that they already have. Confirmation bias is when you seek out information to confirm what you already think is right. So, if I think that vaccinating is wrong, I will search for articles that confirm my belief instead of ones that disconfirm it.

We also surround ourselves with people are are like us, which is a form of confirmation bias. For example, one of the main predictors of attraction to friends, or a partner is similarity. We like people who are similar us and share like-minded opinions, so on social media/in person they are more likely to display like minded content that support your opinions. This is called an echo chamber, since the information you are being exposed to echoes the thoughts and feelings you already have. An echo chamber leads right into confirmation bias.

When it comes to considering information that we don’t want to be correct (e.g., conflicting political ideologies), we tend to use a disconfirmation bias, which is when you require a higher burden of proof to be convinced of the opposite opinion. I will often be quick to agree and support someone’s opinions that are in line with mine but be very skeptical of divergent ones. In this way, I am slower to come to the correct answer, even if the correct answer is the one I originally started with.

The concept of being able to consider other’s opinions, question your own assumptions, and learn from your mistakes is called antifragile. Fragility means something will break under a pressure or force, but antifragile is when something gets stronger under force. If your thinking is antifragile then it will get better over time with the mistakes you make. It’s like working out, to become bigger and stronger you must consistently put your muscles under strain. Through training your muscles over time, they will be able to handle more weight and be more resilient. Just as there are many different ways to train your muscles, there are many ways to put your thinking “under strain” to help it get stronger. I will highlight three ways to work your thinking out: 1) arguing from first principles, 2) perspective taking, and 3) post-mortem analysis.

First Principles

Frist principles are when you break components down to their most basic assumptions and then work your way back up. Frist principles lay the foundation for the house that will stand strong under scrutiny and build a solid conclusion. For example, consider why you may think it is more appropriate to eat a pig or a cow than a dog? Well, one solid foundation of that belief may be the culture you grew up in. I grew up in a society predominately founded on Christian values, which does not abstain from eating “unclean” animals like pigs. The culinary practices of this culture have an ingrained palate for hamburgers and hotdogs, which are predominately made from cows and pigs. Furthermore, dogs are common household pets that are perceived members of the family, whereas cows and pigs are uncommon household pets and are typically farm animals bred for eating. So, in my culture, dogs have a different utility than cows and pigs, but does that make it right for me to eat cows and pigs and not dogs? Fundamentally there is not much difference just how I have been conditioned to think based on my upbringing. Other cultures may have dog as a part of their culinary but not cows or pigs. Are they more barbarian than me? Nonsense. This doesn’t mean I am going to go out and eat a dog, but it does bring into question why I am more okay with eating certain animals over others.

By going through exercises like this you can try to trace back fundamental beliefs and see if the house still stands when you build it back up. This takes time, honesty, and critical thinking, but you learn more about yourself and can train your thinking to be antifragile.

Perspective Taking

I remember in my younger years before I had a cell phone, I would call people on their landlines. When I was trying to "woo" a lady, I would have to call her at her house and hope she was home. When MSN came around, we could schedule a call and I could hopefully avoid the awkward chat with the parent until she got on the phone. One day, I was waiting for a a young lady to call me and it never came. I sat around for hours getting angrier and angrier until I finally gave up. I wrote her off as inconsiderate of my time. Luckily I didn’t send off a nasty email about how she treated me because the next day I received an email saying she was in a terrible car accident and had to be taken to the hospital.

I have always remembered this story, because in that instant I was not giving her the benefit of the doubt and I jumped to a conclusion about who she was. When situations are ambiguous like receiving a text that you can’t decide was a joke or a jab, or being stood up, the best thing to do is use the most respectful interpretation (MRI). By taking the MRI, you will assume that the person is not acting out of ill intent, which gives them the opportunity to clarify what they meant or why they treated like that. Using the MRI will help to build trust with the individual and keep all your bridges intact.

Another way to look at this is through Hanlon’s Razor, which is when you never attribute malice to that which is adequately explained by carelessness. When you perceive someone does something to hurt you, try to flip it and consider if they were taking the path of least resistance that lead to a perceived slight against you. Again, providing the individual the benefit of the doubt until you can truly conclude that they acted out of malice will show them respect and retain your pride.

Finally, a very neat concept that I learned through reading Super Thinking, which I feel is quite timely for our current social climate, is the veil of ignorance. Essentially, it is a thought experiment where the individual does not know their position in society and yet they must make a decision about a social or moral issue. By not knowing where the person falls in society, people will theoretically make decisions that are best for everyone. In our context where we typically understand our social status, this is about imagining the world where you are a different person and thinking about how policy and social issues impact you.

Post-Mortem Analysis

The final way I will address being able to make your thinking antifragile is through post-mortem analysis of your decisions. In medical terms, post-mortem is when someone analyzes a dead body to determine the cause of their death. We can also analyze our decisions to see why they were a success or not (typically it is done when things go awry). One way to achieve this is to keep asking yourself why. By asking yourself five whys of how you arrived at a poor decision, you can slow your thinking down and analyze the steps that put you in this position. Just like the doctor who determines the cause of a death to hopefully prevent future deaths, we will be able to examine why we made a bad decision to hopefully prevent future bad decisions.

Strengthening your thinking takes time and effort, just like training at the gym. By engaging in these practices of arguing from first principles, perspective taking, and post-mortem analysis, we can grow bigger and stronger minds.