Doubt is good. It’s really the only signal the universe ever sends you that you’re on the right track, expanding your understanding of life, the universe, and everything. Not skepticism of what the outgroup says. Not suspicion that they’re cheating. Doubt. Plain doubt.
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Succumb too much, too often, and soon the only kind of doubt you’ll be capable of experiencing is the kind you can bust with one of the clever tools you’re skilled at deploying. You’ll become gut-blind to the existential kind. Which is where the bigger ahas
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There’s a very natural and easy set of instinctive behaviors you’re already good at that help you stay with doubt rather than immediately jump to busting it: irony, absurdity, the usual stuff. My modest contribution to that anti-arsenal is embrace of mediocrity.
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Irony is “seeing double” without succumbing to urge to yell “duck over rabbit, with 95% confidence” absurdity is noticing map-territory glitches without feeling like resolving it. Just enjoying it. Mediocrity is not tying identity and confidence to bring good at doubt-busting.
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If you like sci-fi metaphors, these are all tricks for multiverse travel. Inhabiting multiple universes and timelines at once.
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Even among the 5% who actively prioritize truth, the most common mentality is what I call micro-smart. Very good at the trees, at deduction, at the LessWrong playbook — but non-creative, unable to see that the axioms need to be changed, the the problems reconceptualized.
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