Trapped Priors: A Fundamental Challenge in Rational Thought

The hardest part of this is fighting Goodhart's law. You have to really be the skeptic that you say you are, not just declare yourself a skeptic and take the day off. You have to care about the truth of your positions, not how good it feels to hold them. Not how rational you feel for being such a skeptic.

Which is expensive. It's inefficient at producing confidence from information, and efficiency is fitness. Why do the work when you could just...not? But feel as sure as if you had?

There's also rarely a reward for caring. Few people choose truth over tribe. If all you get for challenging a core belief among your group is punishment, less opportunity and more cold shoulders, without even changing their minds, why even try?

You'd have to care about the truth to an irrational degree.

We've known a bunch of ways to be more rational for thousands of years, but who wants to use them? It's just extra work. The methods in the article are simple and effective—but they're mostly good for leaving you upset, a lot, because nobody cares and they want you to stop.