The Prince by Machiavelli, and every time I make a video like that, I expect a particular

type of comment and I’m usually never disappointed. The comment goes more or less something like

this, “This is stupid, I don’t like Machiavelli…” Now… The topic of discussion might be something

very complex like, “Is it beneficial for a prince to learn how not to be good,” which

is a really good and a relevant question, but what do you have to do to answer that

question? You have to think a lot, you have to analyze the behavior of the people in power

throughout history, and along with endless other considerations you have to dedicate

a lot of time and mental energy to it. Now… Why would our brains want to waste energy

like that? So what do we do instead? We ask a simpler question… And the question is,

“Do I like Machiavelli or not?” And if the answer to that is, “No, I don’t like

Machiavelli,” then we’ll take that answer and turn it into, “Well, it turns out that

it’s not beneficial for a prince to learn how not to be good.” But notice how the

two questions literally have nothing to do with each other. Whether you like Machiavelli

or not has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic of discussion. And we tend

to do this with all kinds of complex questions we have to answer in life.

So the first big idea is to realize our tendency to replace complex questions with easier,

irrelevant questions and thereby reduce our ridiculous biases caused by cognitive ease.

2. Confirmation Bias. A few days ago, I was talking to my friend

who’s really into coconut oil. And he started to tell me how great it is, and how it’s

the best thing in the world, and I don’t know much about coconut oil so I said, “That’s

pretty cool. Why is it so good?” And he just had absolutely no idea. So I said, “Okay,

cool… Why don’t we just research it?” So I get on my computer and type in something

like, “Is coconut oil good for you?” And I’m not even done typing when he yells,

“Look! I found a study that says it’s good for you.” So I thought, “Hmm… That

was pretty fast…” And I go over there and I take a look at the article and it was

citing this study that literally had nothing to do with whether coconut oil is good for

you or not. But I also clicked on his search tab and guess what he had searched for? He

had searched for, “Why coconut oil is good for you.”

And that is what we tend to do with everything in our life. If you care about searching for

truth and don’t want to live in some fantasy world, instead of typing in, “Why coconut

oil is good for you,” type in “Is coconut oil good for you?”

If you’re Mormon and you care about searching for truth, stop typing in, “Why Joseph Smith

is the best thing that happened to humanity.” Instead, type in “I would like to learn

more about Joseph Smith.” And I guarantee you those two will give you very different

results. So remember, if searching for truth is what you care about, realize how susceptible

we are to confirmation bias and don’t answer the question before you’ve even started

your research.

3. The endowment effect. Now a lot of people watching this are probably

thinking, “Heh, stupid Mormons… Yeah, let’s all make fun of how easily they’ll

fall for bullshit and how stupid they are,” but chances are that you yourself might be

catholic, or whatever else but let’s just pick the Catholics. For those of us who aren’t

catholic, your beliefs are just as childish and ridiculous. For those of us who aren’t

catholic, the idea of giving our time and money to some guy wearing a dress and a ridiculous

hat because that somehow makes him important is just as crazy.

So how can we look at something and think that it’s so ridiculous, but not be able

to see it if it’s our own? It’s called the endowment effect. We value things highly

just because they’re ours. If you have a car that you’re trying to sell, you’ll

think that it should cost a lot more than if you weren’t the owner and you were actually

trying to buy it yourself. So the third big idea is to become aware of

our endowment bias. So ask yourself with everything in life including religion, do you really

think your religion is the best because you actually searched for truth without confirmation

bias or all the other biases and came to that conclusion, or is it because it’s just your

religion? Do you really think that Nicaragua is the best country in the world because it

really is, or could it possibly be due to the fact that you just happened to be born

there?

So the 3 big ideas are… 1. Cognitive ease. We have to stop replacing

complex questions with easier ones that are irrelevant if we want to be less biased.

2. Confirmation bias. We have to stop starting out with an answer before we’ve even asked

the question. 3. And the endowment effect. We have to stop

thinking that something is great just because it’s ours. Maybe Nicaragua really is the

best country in the world and you just happened to be born there, or maybe it’s a little

more likely that you’re just biased because of the endowment effect.