Our natural instinct is to look for ways to confirm our previous beliefs. It’s called confirmation bias.

In fact it is not entirely useless. If we can find circumstances in which our beliefs are true – they practically become true. Pragmatically, your beliefs render you positive results.

But for those of us concerned not only with utility, but with reality — we do not wish to be subjects to bias.

Bias obviously makes you stupid. Belief makes you stupid. Belief replaces your ability to think. You have beliefs, you have memory — so that you don’t have to think. Instead of seeing the thing as it really is, instead of assessing what you see — you rely on your beliefs.

 

One example of confirmation bias is our inclination to surround ourselves with people of similar convictions.

Needless to say this is terribly limiting. You end up with people repeating your own mistakes, functioning within the same bounds – and no further.

Some of us notice this limitation – and do the opposite.

“Surround yourself with people you disagree with”.

Though this sounds fancy – it misses the point.

 

The thing is that the beliefs someone holds are entire meaningless. Whether you agree with them or not — it’s entirely meaningless.

Seeking either people you agree with – or disagree with – are both void. Pointless.

That’s because the belief someone holds is irrelevant.

What matters if HOW he’s arrived at those conclusions.

What matters is

1) The QUALITY OF DATA one had access to.

2) The QUALITY of the PROCESS to which one subjects this data.

 

Whether you agree with someone or disagree in itself says nothing about the following two.

There are plenty of people who’d disagree with you. Plenty of fools.

There are plenty of fools who’d agree with you too.

All of this changes nothing.

You giving every fool that disagrees with you a chance is not humbleness – it’s stupidity. If you have time you can give him respect out of courtesy. But you never have to listen to his nonsense. That’s because your time is quite limited, isn’t it?

 

Don’t look for people you agree with or disagree with.

Look for INTELLIGENCE.

INTELLIGENT DATA. Good data.

INTELLIGENT PROCESS. Intelligent thinking. Not distorted by bias.

This is how you learn quick.