How Smart People Become Stupid

Discussions should be a ritual performed by people to find the truth, not to raise their own status. Or, at least, status should be raised by finding out the actual truth, not by winning against another person.

The norm now is never to admit that you were wrong, and to always present yourself as confident. In evolutionary terms, it's clear where this comes from - you want to project that you're smart, capable and reliable, and to say "I was wrong" is to undermine these things.

Nevertheless, the general aim should never be to DESTROY someone with FACTS and LOGIC, but instead to jointly work on a problem and to find out the truth. In that sense, a discussion should be a cooperative activity - and if you have conflicts within the discussion, they should all have a greater purpose, and that is, again, to find out the truth.

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Read more about biases and how they affect us:

Overcoming Bias article:

Less Wrong article:

New Yorker article:

Study:

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