How to Think (Meta)
The meta-skills: incentive tracing, uncertainty labeling, falsifiability, and avoiding both cynicism and naivety.
What I mean by this tag
This topic covers the method itself—the thinking tools that apply across all the other topics. Incentive tracing, source evaluation, uncertainty labeling, falsifiability, and the discipline of distinguishing what you know from what you believe.
I'm also interested in the failure modes: how cynicism pretends to be wisdom, how naivety pretends to be open-mindedness, and how both make you easier to manipulate.
Start here
If you're new to this topic, begin with this episode.
EP. 000: Trailer - What is Second Opinion?
A short orientation. What this channel is, what it isn't, and why "Second Opinion" is the right frame.
Related reading
Sources I trust on this topic.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman) — Foundational on cognitive biases and how we make decisions.
- The Scout Mindset (Julia Galef) — On truth-seeking vs. validation-seeking.
- Superforecasting (Tetlock) — What actually makes people good at predicting things.
- The Method page — Read the full Second Opinion method.