Loserthink: How untrained brains are ruining America

What is Loserthink ?

In short, it is a kind of thinking that draws conclusions without comprehensive information. When the brain does any thinking, the first thing to do is to get rid of " loserthink ", because this is an unproductive way of thinking.

Why do we fall into this loser mindset?

Learning how to think effectively is not a natural thing, it requires some skills to learn, and as human beings, we often do not know that we do not know, and easily fall into what the author calls a mental prison, which is a kind of hallucination and invalid thinking; limited It reduces our ability to truly understand the world and act rationally. Therefore, in the book, the author helps us learn how to think effectively through the unique thinking modes of 8 major fields , avoid falling into the loser's thinking, and can clearly distinguish the loser's thinking that can be seen everywhere in life.

"Completely right and terribly wrong, both feel exactly the same. 』 is the main ideological framework of the book.

"8 areas of thinking mode"

1. Think like a psychologist

Mind- reading: It is easy for people to think that they are good at reading their minds and guess the inner thoughts of others, but the author reminds everyone that because of different life backgrounds and personalities, we cannot fully see through another person.

Labeling evil: It is unwise to easily label someone evil because of stereotypes or prejudice. We do not have the ability to look directly into the soul of a stranger and see the evil in it.

Occam's Razor: Refers to the simplest explanation of an event, often the correct explanation. But events in real life are often more complicated than we think, so the simplest one is usually not the right solution and should be avoided.

Psychological projection: Human nature sometimes projects its own psychological state or thoughts on the person being commented on, but untrained people cannot do it separately. When commenting on someone who has never been seen before, it is necessary to avoid accusing the other party of projecting psychology. dictated.

Self- esteem: Use self-esteem as a tool that can be scaled up or down depending on the situation. Amplify your self-esteem and make yourself look confident, and your chances of success will double. Shrinking self-esteem can have unintended consequences in certain moments when concessions are required. Self-esteem controls us through fear, and often these fears are just illusions.

Focus on mistakes: Humans are accustomed to seeing the shortcomings of things first, and these defects have a high degree of adhesion in our psychology, continuous negativity and negativity, magnifying the defects will cause serious blind spots, unable to think comprehensively, but will Misleading the true direction of events.

"If you allow your mental bookshelf to be filled with negative thoughts, you are punishing yourself with an unhealthy loser mindset. 』

2. Think like an artist

Imagination: Use your imagination. The most common reason for an event to happen is the one you didn't expect.

3. Think like a historian

"The strongest wall in a mental prison is called history. 』

Don't trust textbook history: History distorted through a political filter is misleading.

Bad memories of history make you unhappy: use good memories to constantly limit bad memories.

History will not repeat itself: some events in history will repeat themselves according to the law, and some will not, and we have no ability to judge which part of history will repeat itself.

Selfishness is overrated: If your hopes for a particular selfishness are based on fear, you may end up in a mental prison. It makes sense to trade privacy for the greater good.

4. Think like an engineer

Peer comparison: The next expert will always question the previous expert, so we should also reasonably question the correctness of these experts or authority figures.

Separate cause and effect: the cause of the event and the result are independent of each other. You should not be attached to the cause of the event and ignore the fact that what you really need to deal with is how to solve the result, and the solution is the most important.

The illusion of a single variable: If multiple causes are related to the outcome, and we only believe that it is the single cause that caused the final failure, we are in a loser mindset.

5. Think like a leader

Correctly oriented filters: Finding the right general direction is more important than knowing exactly how to do it.

Systematic Approach: Finding a good, systematic approach and doing it regularly will reduce the failure rate of things.

"Goals are for losers, and systematic methods are for winners. 』

6. Think like a scientist

Don't believe in coincidences.

Do not use anecdotal evidence: Information sources lack structured observations and are not derived from scientific or other reliable data.

Reverse thinking: Ask yourself, "What if it was the other way around? ' The author's creed is: But I could also be terribly wrong. Doing so will keep us humble forever and less likely to be misled without knowing the truth.

Don't judge groups with black sheep.

Proving a Negative Proposition: Proving that something is not true is almost impossible; but sometimes we can prove that something is true.

7. Think like an entrepreneur

Locked by the couch: The secret to solving this situation is to start with the smallest steps. Learn to think in miniature steps, try moving one finger to start. Do what you can, and build up slowly.

Change the runway: Sometimes you can take a little risk, leave your runway, build some new skills, and the road will be wider.

A sense of personal control: Learning to think like a wealthy person, believing that you can control your own situation, will help you continue to push forward with fruitful things.

Humility and testing.

8. Think like an economist

The influence of money: Money drives human behavior predictably, and when experts are influenced by monetary incentives, you need to be skeptical.

Does the benefit outweigh the cost? : Don't use any means to achieve the goal, and discuss the problem by comparing the cost with the benefit.

How to compare:

1) Lack of objects to compare: If there is a strong opinion on a proposal without comparing the next best proposal, it is not a rational conversation.

2) Semi-claim: The claim is incomplete. Either ignore the benefits, or ignore the costs.

3) Value of money: The value of a dollar now is not equal to a dollar in the future. The money that will be obtained in the future needs to be "discounted" psychologically before we can fully measure the cost and benefit of things.

4) Consider alternatives: that is, when solving the problem, also consider diversifying the risk. If you have to face many fatal risks, it is more qualified to allocate your money to deal with several different risks.

5) Confused monopoly: In life, there are more and more products and services in business that are difficult to understand immediately, and complicated things have a situation of confused monopoly. At this time, no one should be full of confidence, even experts. Too much trust in the experts' ability to resolve your confusion.

6) Don’t make linear predictions: Believing that things will always go the way they are is the worst way to predict the future. In the long run, history hardly follows a straight line, and there are so many variables in it that we cannot predict.

Things that shouldn't be taken as the bill and copied

There are some comparisons about ethics, fairness, and mentioning that are not... "Do your homework yourself", be yourself, "Why didn't you do it earlier?"... These kinds of seemingly authoritative speeches, but after investigating the causes and consequences, you will find that It is easy to fall into the trap of loser thinking.

Filters of the golden age

Just pay attention to the news and you will find that we have been warned that the world is heading in a declining direction, but the situation is not so bad, we should be optimistic, history tells us all the things that human beings worry about at the moment, and fear drives us to think The law will eventually be solved slowly, keep the filter of the golden age!

Author's highlights:

• Don't do mind reading, it's not a human skill.
• Think of self-esteem as a tool, not your identity. Keep track of the predictions you make and keep some useful humility in your worldview. Often put yourself in situations that make you embarrassed, and let yourself learn that the pain is only short-lived.
• The past is gone, don't let your attachment to the past influence your decisions today.
• If you don't come up with the next best alternative to your plan and you're saying nothing, smart people will wisely ignore you.
• If you're arguing over the definition of a word over which line is the best way forward, then you're not on the productive side.
• If you're sure you only need a certain number to grasp the whole complex situation, then the problem is probably yours.
• Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is usually correct) is often cited as absurd. We all think our opinion is the easiest explanation.
• Since fairness itself is subjective, fairness cannot be obtained in most cases. The closest you can get to fairness is to apply the law equally as one.
• If your argument is based on a certain occurrence, then what you are holding is not an argument, just a story.
• If your argument relies entirely on so-called landslides, then you don't have much. Everything keeps changing until a reason to stop is encountered. Weeding your lawn won't create a landslide that lets you shave your dog.
• Coincidences usually don't mean anything, they are often the driving force behind confirmation bias. If your argument is so exhausted that you don't know how to explain any other coincidence, you just don't have an argument. Coincidence might tell you what to think about when encountering confirmation bias, but it doesn't stop there.
• Avoid giving incomplete opinions, either ignoring the costs of the program or ignoring its benefits.
• Don't make predictions by analogy, find cause and effect.
• Don't judge a group by the worst five percent of the group, if you do, you're probably one of the worst five percent of the group you belong to.
• Understand the limitations of expert advice and be skeptical of experts who have financial incentives to mislead you.