David McRaney
@davidmcraney.bsky.social
How Minds Change: http://bit.ly/3rwtxFO | YANSS: http://YouAreNotSoSmart.com | Exploring Genius: http://bit.ly/31pO9EI | Speaking: http://davidmcraney.com
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Reminder: The smarter a person is and the more education they earn, the better they will become at rationalizing and justifying their incorrect beliefs if so motivated.. Critical thinking is a skill, like playing guitar. It must be learned and practiced (and the person must want to do both).
Latest posts
I love how we reacted to Furbies, owl toys that played prerecorded gibberish less and less and prerecorded words more and more. People believed they were learning, they had minds. Give us just the right amount of the right kind of lifeform cues, and we will fill in the rest with agentic pareidolia
The information deficit model is appealing, but the research suggests we resist updating our priors even when exposed to mountains of expertly-vetted information if that updating threatens our social connections or requires us to admit we made poor decisions based on misinformation and propaganda.
Want to avoid a terrible holiday dinner? Cognitive scientists at Northwestern have created a game (that you can download for free) that makes it possible to avoid fights and find common ground when addressing the issues you likely avoid discussing. youarenotsosmart.com/2025/12/22/y...
According to actual, real studies into this sort of thing, the number of people needed to ensure a protest movement succeeds is much lower than you might assume: youarenotsosmart.com/2025/05/14/y... Apple Podcats: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6og4...