Insightfull and convincing

I have encountered some of these ideas before, and found it intriguing and convincing to see them combined into a complete mindset instead of as a bunch of individual ideals. I even found a new way to view my writing, or lack thereof, that might help me overcome my mental barriers. I especially liked how the author considered the pros and cons of both the opposing and her own side, and gave examples of how she herself has found herself in the soldier’s mindset.

I did, however, miss more examples on how to identify when you are being too harsh on yourself. Most of the examples of self delusion assume that you think you are better at something than you really are. As a person suffering of, sometimes, crippling self doubt, I didn’t find this very relatable.

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Insightful

Really great book with lots of research references. Liked the way it was laid out with the beginning having ties to the end.

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Great self improvement book

In this book Julia Galef presents two approaches to thinking about and interacting with world: scout mindset and soldier mindset. Soldier mindset is our default way of thinking that often prevents us from seeing the world clearly. Scout mindset is opposite of that. It's a mindset we force on ourselves to escape traps of soldier mindset like motivated reasoning.

The book provides series of examples, studies that show us the impact and advantages of scout mindset. Also it contains a range of techniques that can help us to get into scout mindset.

Overall I think it is well written, easy to listen and gives you lots to think about and improve on.

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Magnificent :)

It took me a while to harmonize with the flow but around half of the book I submerged fully and with great joy. Important topics, great insights and pleasant and direct style of writing

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How to think better

“Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.” Aldous Huxley, Texts and Pretexts, 1932

This is an interesting book that looks at how we sometimes see the world and how we can become more aware of what is so and what isn’t. Some people are very certain of the stories they’ve told themselves and the certainties of their narratives that they will either defend or attack others who question their beliefs - this is a person with a soldier mindset. Very good if you're fighting a battle. However, it can be hard for these folk to always see or know the truth, stories are stronger than facts and rational reasoning and their truths can be built on flimsy, unreliable evidence. The Scout mindset is one that purveys the landscape and rationalises and reasons what the truth might be, has a broader outlook and tries to see both sides of an argument or set of beliefs. The author looks at whether we have a scout mindset or a soldier mindset. The soldier mindset is one that is always on the attack or being defensive, at the point of all else, certain of its viewpoint - but none of us can be right or correct all the time. However, the scout mindset is one who surveys the world with curiosity and open-mindedness. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong and in fact your thinking and thoughts should always be open to constant reevaluation. This book looks at ways that we can see the world more clearly. As another recent book I read recently concluded with the quote“the problem with the world it’s not that people think wrong things but there certain of those wrong things“. By the end of this book I realised that I do do a lot of things similar to a scout mindset but it was still a very worthwhile read. Question your thinking, try to see new points or argue with your own opinions, be humble, instead of being certain of something give it a percentage of how current you think an opinion, belief or statement you think is correct actually is. It might not be. If you don’t agree with someone, try to be curious as to why other people think things you might disagree with and why some people are more focused on their narratives rather than facts, reasons and rationale. There is nothing wrong with being wrong and this book illustrates this with lots of practical ideas. I listened to this as an audiobook, and it would probably be helpful to have a hardcopy so that I could have made a few notes.

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Great book, all that I had hoped for

I look out for books like this and it was all that I had hoped for. It gave me a lot of food for thought and some real challenges. It is not a “thinking fast and slow” spinoff but has a lot of original ideas and entertaining anecdotes to help remember them.

The reading by the author is excellent.

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held my attention throughout.

Julia Galef is a very able communicator with an interesting and engaging perspective. I certainly enjoyed this audio book.

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I will be giving this book to my kids

This book is superb - it's helpful, short and practical, just what I needed. More than just identifying ways that we fool ourselves, this book offers simple practical ways to catch ourselves mid-flight and change the outcome. It's also a good guide to being kind to others despite disagreements. I will be giving this book to my kids and re-reading it myself, probably several times.

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Mindset Made Flexibly Robust

This book is a well-researched, well-performed toolkit for avoiding the many trappings of group think in our time.

Highly recommended for those who value free thinking…and also for those who think they don’t need such a book!

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for rationalists

This book is not about "be rational, biased human!" so much as "the first step is to actually desire to seek truth". There isn't too much new *substance* here if you have heard of things like the Intellectual Turing Test and Keep Your Identity Small and are familiar with Julia's work. If so, the new stuff will be the inspirational anecdotes about cases where people embodied the scout mindset. These stories, which include both famous people and friends of Julia, can be good inspiration and motivation to be a scout. One made me sob.

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6 people found this helpful