Podcast - Episode 0191 - Would You Rather Be Right Or Happy?

In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about being right vs being happy.

In this podcast you’ll find:

• This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
• A collection of essays from influential thinkers.
• What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?
• Kathryn Schultz: Being Wrong – Adventures in the Margin of Error. Pessimistic meta-induction from the history of science.
• We are working with models that help us understand ourselves and our society, but we need to hold these tools loosely. A better model may still come along.
• We assume that we all have it figured out and everybody before us were dopes.
• We have a bias for how much credit we take for the innovation of our time.
• We over-identify with it to such an extent that it is almost like they are our ideas and we don’t want them questioned.
• The knowledge of the time becomes the misinformation of the future.
• If that is the case in science, how much more so in other fields?
• Scientific progress happens one funeral at a time.
• Einstein’s concepts weren’t adopted by the physicists of his day.
• At best, we build on previous info and refine it. At worst, the info collapses.
• Astronomy and star mapping have remained ridiculously accurate for a long time.
• Anything that’s concrete and doesn’t change usually gets built upon and refined.
• A lot of the challenges we face now are less concrete and more abstractions, like human suffering, poverty, hunger, etc.
• The assumption that you have the ultimate answer and if everyone just listened to you everything would be fine is hubris.
• Each generation makes that mistake.
• It comes down to being uncomfortable with uncertainty.
• Intuitives have a learning preference for pattern recognition.
• A lot of people double down on their current understanding.
• At the same time, being too free form can be limiting, too.
• People who lead with learning styles (Introverted or Extraverted Intuition) can end up spinning their wheels a lot.
• Holding on too tightly, or too loosely, can both be a fear of uncertainty.
• We don’t have to know. We just have to find out what works and share what we’ve learned, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be useful to someone else.
• If Myers-Briggs isn’t working for you, throw it away and find something that does work.
• When you utilize models, it is an easier way to navigate the world.
• If we could only share the things we are certain about we would never be able to share anything because we can’t be certain of anything. Except for those people who have doubled down on something they hold to be true and refuse to consider anything else.
• On one side there are the people who are so sure they are narrow-minded.
• On the other side are the people who are in analysis paralysis because they don’t know anything to be right.
• The middle ground is holding loosely to your concepts. Sharing what has served you. Cross-pollinating what has worked. Building skill in map making and being okay when the maps and models don’t work.
• Be okay with test iteration.
• The litmus test should always be happiness.
• What does everything lead toward – the magnet in the field?
• Don’t look for truth, look for usefulness toward some end.
• It can be a difficult concept for some to accept.
• There is a skill to building comfort with uncertainty.
• Having something else as your goal is going to be the best way to strengthen that muscle.
• Cheerfulness is a state of being and easier to mark than happiness.
• Hilaritas = Hilarity = Cheerfulness.
• We lose sight of what life should be about – fun, pleasure, and happiness.
• Pleasure is not sinful.
• The concept and condemnation of sin is an unhappy model that doesn’t get us to a better place.
• When we are around someone who is endlessly cheerful, we want to be around them.
• Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?
• If you are ever in a spat with someone and you can create a mental trigger to stop and ask this question it will reframe a significant portion of your disagreements.
• It’s not natural for us to let our egos die a little bit.
• It takes practice.
• What models do you use to increase your cheerfulness?