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How To Think About Cognitive Biases

13 min readJul 7, 2023

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I am pretty sure it has happened to you before.

You have probably argued with someone whose position did not make sense. Instead of backing it up with facts, this person ended up just spouting the same slogans, over and over again in a never ending circle.

We were always at war with Eurasia.

It’s a matter of facts, you would say to yourself. Maybe if they knew the facts, they wouldn’t be saying what they are saying.

After this quiet self-talk, you would then go back, research the shit out of the subject and send a summary of this research to them.

However, contrary to what you expected, they would not buckle down under a barrage of facts. Being exposed to facts just made their weakly argued conviction even stronger. Your strategy backfired.

A few days later they would come back and start saying the same thing you told them, albeit with their own spin, without even acknowledging that it was you who told them this in the first place.

We were always at war with Eastasia.

Or they might come back and start shouting their original slogans even louder, thinking it is how loud you shout and not the…

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Renaissance Man World
Renaissance Man World

Published in Renaissance Man World

Exploring the world from different perspectives.

Peter Burns
Peter Burns

Written by Peter Burns

A curious polymath who wants to know how everything works. Blog: Renaissance Man Journal (http://gainweightjournal.com/).

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