- The English philosopher, Bertrand Russell once said,
the whole problem with the world
is that fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves,
while wiser people are so full of doubt.
In psychology, what Russell described
is more popularly known as The Dunning-Kruger Effect.
This effect finds that people who are bad at something
tend to believe that they're actually good at it,
and people who are good at something
tend to believe that they are bad at it.
Elderly people who believe they're better drivers
than most are actually four times more likely
to make unsafe driving error.
Gun owners who think they're highly knowledgeable
about gun safety score the lowest on tests about gun safety.
Medical lab workers who rate themselves
as highly competent in their jobs
are actually the worst at their jobs.
The lowest performing college students
dramatically overestimate their performance on exams.
The lowest performers in a debate competition
wildly overestimate how well they do.
People with the unhealthiest lifestyle habits
rate themselves as far healthier than they actually are.
People who score poorly on cognitive reasoning
and analytical thinking tests
severely overestimate their cognitive
and analytical abilities.
But why does this happen?
To understand, let's break knowledge down
into four quadrants.
So there are known knowns,
things that we know that we know,
like, I know I know how to ride a bike.
There are known unknowns,
things that we know that we don't know.
For example, I have no fucking clue
how quantum physics works.
And then there are unknown known,
things that you forgot you knew
or you don't realize that you know,
like you still remember how to drive
to the supermarket from your childhood home,
you just forgot that you knew that.
And then there are unknown unknowns,
stuff that you don't know that you don't know.
When we are an amateur at something
we are very aware of the things that we know we know
and we're completely oblivious
to the things that we don't know.
Let's use basketball as an example.
If you know nothing about basketball,
it seems simple enough.
You throw a ball into the net,
you know what you know and don't know what you don't know.
But as you start to learn more about basketball
you discover that there are a lot of nuances.
How you shoot the ball,
the mechanics of your elbow, wrist, and forearm,
how you position the ball in your hand,
understanding the different shots,
a fade away, a jumper, a layup, a finger roll, an alley oop.
You're beginning to become aware
of all the things you don't know
and there's a lot that you don't know.
Let's say you spend another year working on basketball.
You've mastered a bunch of different shots
and learned to shoot with good form.
Now you're getting into the weeds of defensive schemes,
hand checking,
picks and rolls,
setting various kinds of screens.
At this point, you're no longer even
thinking about your shooting form
or how to hit a free throw.
You've forgotten, you know this stuff,
it's unconscious, it's automatic.
It's the stuff you know, but you've forgot you know
and there's a ton of it.
As you can see,
the difference between an amateur and a professional
is that an amateur's knowledge is known to them,
therefore they get to feel smart about it.
But an expert, so much of their knowledge
is either unconscious and automatic
or it's knowledge of what they still need to learn.
Another way to visualize this shift
is to think of knowledge as a circle.
The area within the circle is what you know about a topic
and the border is the horizon of your knowledge
or everything that you're aware of that you don't know yet.
This border is what determines our uncertainty or doubt.
Interestingly, as the size of your circle grows larger
the horizon of your knowledge also grows larger.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
But something else happens as well as you gain knowledge,
as you implement information and it becomes automatic,
you forget that you know it,
so there's a second border inside the first.
This smaller circle is everything
that you've forgotten you know.
So not only is the expert's horizon of doubt much longer
most of their knowledge is also unconscious,
they forgot that they know it
because it strikes them as so obvious and immediate,
why even think about it?
The idiot thinks he knows everything
because he literally doesn't have enough
knowledge to know better.
Meanwhile, the expert thinks he knows nothing
because he is so aware of all the ways
in which he may be wrong.
Now, I know what you're probably doing right now,
it's probably the same thing I did
and most people do when they learn
about The Dunning-Kruger effect.
You think to yourself, what a bunch of fucking idiots.
Good thing I know about this Dunning-Kruger effect thing
'cause you know, I'm super aware of all my flaws,
that makes me like an expert at fucking everything.
So this is the tricky thing
about learning about cognitive biases.
We would like to think that
because we're aware of all the ways
our mind fucks up that we are
somehow immune to those fuckups.
But once again,
we are so wrong
because again and again research has shown
that educating people about their cognitive biases
doesn't really make them any less susceptible
to cognitive biases.
And that is the most frustrating thing
about The Dunning-Kruger Effect,
it is so hard to overcome
both in others but also in ourselves.
Because here's the thing,
they're called blind spots for a reason,
you can't fucking see them.
How do you fix something that you can't see in yourself?
This is the paradox of trying to overcome our own ignorance.
The very thing that would help us see our mistakes
is exactly what would prevent us
from making them in the first place.
Part of the problem is that there is a comfort
in the feeling of knowing,
people don't like uncertainty.
Settling on a belief, whether it's true or not
is a way to resolve anxiety within ourselves.
So our minds often default to believing things
even if we don't have a whole lot of evidence for them.
And unfortunately, ripping on people
for being fucking stupid
doesn't really help the situation either.
Anybody who's gotten in a dumb ass argument
in comment threads can tell you this from experience.
Again and again, psychology has shown
that when people's beliefs are challenged
they don't change their minds
they actually get more rigid and defensive.
So what are we supposed to do?
Well, starting with ourselves,
I think it's an important practice to
perhaps hold fewer opinions
or at least hold them less strongly.
This means being less emotionally attached to our beliefs.
In other words, I think there's a lot to say for humility.
When you see something online that is upsetting
or angering or frustrating,
instead of jumping to conclusions about that person
or that cause maybe sit back and say, I don't know.
What the fuck am I saying?
You guys aren't gonna do that, let's be honest.
You know, last year I created an online course
that helped people challenge their own beliefs.
It helped people figure out
how to hold opinions a little bit more softly.
But a funny, funny thing, nobody fucking took the course.
You know, for some reason there wasn't
a ton of demand for that,
and not to mention it's fucking hard to market.
Like how do you market a thing to people
that's gonna make them feel wrong
about everything they believe in their life?
That's not exactly like the most enticing sales pitch.
But if for some reason you want to take that course
you can find the link in the description, good fucking luck.
So when it comes to other people,
I think one of the hard truths
that I've had to swallow over the years
is that you can't really change the mind of somebody
who's not willing to have their mind changed.
You can throw as much data and statistics
and logical arguments at them,
but they're just gonna like Ninjutsu that shit,
you know, pull a Neo in The Matrix
and all the bullets are gonna get by them.
I think this is because most people's beliefs
are not based on logic or reason,
most people's beliefs are based
on identity and group affiliation.
And so when you show them contradicting data
their thought process isn't,
oh, I need to update my prior assumptions about the world.
Their thought process is like, I'm being attacked,
my tribe is being attacked.
You know, many years ago I used to coach people
and one of the reasons I fucking stopped coaching people
is because it was often very frustrating.
Somebody would hire me for a week
or we'd do like a monthly call or something
and it just felt like I was beating my head against a wall.
Like I was telling them the same thing
over and over, and over again.
Usually like deep, profound truths
don't sink in for people the first time.
It's almost like you plant the seed in their head
and then they need to go live for another year or two
for that idea to sprout.
It's almost like we have to be in the right
environment or context,
or be going through the right phase of our journey
for those seeds to sprout.
So one thing that has helped me a lot
in my own relationships
and just fucking tolerating all the nonsense
that goes on in the world
is understanding that I'm not here
to change minds necessarily,
I'm here to plant seeds.
I'm here to drop an idea or an argument
so that one day if that person becomes fertile ground,
that seed can sprout.
The most impactful things usually don't sink in right away,
they usually need like a few weeks or months
or even a couple years to like incubate in a person's head.
And when I look at my own life, this also feels true.
Like, there were things that people told me in my teens
that I didn't fully appreciate
until my twenties or thirties, or hell even almost 40.
Ultimately, I think humility is
one of the most underrated values in our world right now.
On the internet, people are rewarded for false confidence.
People are rewarded for being bold.
People are rewarded for being zealots
and fanatics about things.
But while the algorithms may reward bluster and bullshit,
the real world doesn't.
Life is really fucking difficult and complicated,
and most of us don't really know
what we're doing most of the time.
So, any sense of false certainty
is really just gonna cause more pain than necessary.
I think what The Dunning-Kruger Effect
really teaches us is that humility
is actually very practical.
By intentionally underestimating
our own understanding of things,
not only do we open ourselves up to learn and grow more,
but we also prevent ourselves
from just being a fuck narcissistic assface on the internet.
That is, of course, until we decide that
I'm the most humble person you ever met,
Man, I'm so fucking humble you wouldn't believe it.
Everybody thinks they're humble, but I'm really humble.
Like I've got this humility shit down,
they should bottle it up and put that shit on eBay
'cause I'm gonna make a fucking killing.
Humility, like off the charts.
Oh, you can't even see.
You can't even see how high it is up there, man.
Camera doesn't go that high.
It's that humble, that fucking humble.
And as you could see, now we're back to square one.
(whimsical upbeat music)