Always put numbers in context

In every topic, seek to understand roughly the magnitudes involved.

• How magnitudes relate: if you know that Russia has 140M people, and that countries rarely field more than 1% of their population as soldiers, you don't need to read the news to be very skeptical if someone claims that Russia is about to field 5M soldiers.
  • Expressed differently: this lets you remember about base rates so as to not fall to base-rate neglect.
• Enable better Fermi calculations

This may mean making conscious note of statistical data. At least taking the time, as a policy, to find out the important numbers.

For example when people are talking about their car releasing so-and-so tons of CO2, you look up how many tons of CO2 are released per year globally, and how much that is per person.

As a side effect, you may actually remember their car's exhaust magnitude because you've connected it to other info and made it mean something.

With this habit, all kinds of statistical data may start sticking better in your head because you're connecting them more and more.

What links here

• Anchoring and Adjustment
• Availability heuristic