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Be Skeptical | Nick Cammarata 

nonfiction•essay•View Source
Appreciation
5
Importance
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Date Added
8.16.25
TLDR
Assigning probabilities to your statements to show your confidence allows us to be productively skeptical when discussing both inkling and polished ideas.
2 Cents
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Tags
  1. Being skeptical is important for progressing science.
  2. But this is often misinterpreted as “be wary and defensive to prevent being wrong.”
  3. Conversations and writing are places to generate, not just display ideas.
  4. So the misinterpretation of being skeptical is good for discussing polished ideas, but harms inkling ideas.
  5. Assigning probabilities (how confident you are) to statements is the solution.
  6. We're terrible at assigning probabilities (what's 15% vs 25%??), but just a few hours of deliberate practice can change that, and that's a big deal.