The Scout Mindset

Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't

hardcover, 288 pages

Published April 13, 2021 by Portfolio.

ISBN:
978-0-7352-1755-3
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4 stars (13 reviews)

A better way to combat knee-jerk biases and make smarter decisions, from Julia Galef, the acclaimed expert on rational decision-making.

When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a "soldier" mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and everything in between, we are driven to defend the ideas we most want to believe—and shoot down those we don't.

But if we want to get things right more often, argues Galef, we should train ourselves to have a "scout" mindset. Unlike the soldier, a scout's goal isn't to defend one side over the other. It's to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what's actually true.

In …

3 editions

The Scout Mindset

4 stars

I saw this book get mentioned on fedi a while back, so got around to reading it. Its goal is to help people "see more clearly". The main metaphor of the book is to that we are often stuck in a "soldier mindset" (motivated reasoning to defend your beliefs, where being wrong feels like a mistake) and that we should try to have more of a "scout mindset" (finding the lay of the land and seeking truth, where being wrong means updating your map and is always a positive).

We use motivated reasoning not because we don't know any better, but because we're trying to protect things that are vitally important to us--our ability to feel good about our lives and ourselves, our motivation to try hard things and stick with them, our ability to look good and persuade, and our acceptance in our communities.

Some of this I'd heard …

Thinking about thinking

4 stars

Thinking about thinking is a subject that I often find interesting. With The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef does a good job of both summarising what we know and providing a framework for looking at how we think, and how we can improve our thinking.

This is a very solid book and one that is well worth reading.

Review of 'The Scout Mindset' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I think this is like 3.5 stars for me. I have a natural tendency to be wishy washy on issues, thinking to myself “but what about this, what about that?” It can frustrate the people in my life! But this book framed that tendency as something good, which was nice.

Review of 'The Scout Mindset' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This was a great book and I'd like everyone to read it. The discussion about soldier vs scout mindset is a framing of the world that will stick with me. I need to re-read the various sections on strategies for adopting a more truth-oriented life, as those ideas I'll need to do work to internalize.

The discussion near the end of the book on identity really resonated with me.

Holding an identity (athlete, Democrat, feminist, etc.) is neither bad nor good. Identity can make hard things rewarding (e.g. "I'm the kind of person who keeps promises"). But when making decisions related to our identity we often find ourselves at a crossroad, choosing between an identity-affirming and a more impactful (but non-affirming) action.

A quote that stuck out to me: "You can make the effort to think honestly no matter what community you're embedded in, but your friends, coworkers, and audience …

Review of 'Scout Mindset' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A masterclass in living more thoughtfully through rationality. The past few years I've had a keen interest in humility, cognitive biases, and nuance, and this read was like a handbook that addressed all of it. I think there's been a bit of a renaissance in listening and changing minds since 2016. Clearly the typical approaches to debate and reason haven't been working, and we're not as unbiased and rational as we all thought either. Information has become more complex, with polarization rising simultaneously. Our biological threat response is sensitive when it comes to our strongly held beliefs. But we're terrible at differentiating between physical and emotional threats, so even discussing these beliefs can feel like an attack. The Scout Mindset tackles all of this in a superb way.

Each chapter covers actionable practices to function more like a scout—basically, to check your current perception of reality, rather than only giving …

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