One of the top-5 most important things I've ever read: Löb's Theorem Cured My Social Anxiety. Teaser:

During the conversation in which I described my plan to him, we meandered to the topic of a meetup of professional hypnotists he’d recently attended. He told me they talked in passing about what it’s like to change their own behaviors. They all knew they could use a long, draw-out induction (or series of inductions and post-hypnotic suggestions) to self-modify if they wanted. But that takes time and energy, and it turns out that if you’re sufficiently confident it’ll work… you don’t have to bother with the hypnosis.

Think about that for a minute. They treated it as a perfectly normal, every-day occurrence. Basically they were saying, “Yeah, when I don’t like what System 1 is doing, I just tell it to do something else instead. No biggy.” They seem to have this available as a primitive action.

Initially, I said it sort of tongue-in-cheek: “Ha, well I guess we don’t really need that induction I described then!”

Pause.

System 2: Surely not. It can't be that simple. There’s just no way that will actually work. Nobody cures a life-long psychological disorder overnight. Don’t be ridiculous.

An arch-bias, supporting many other biases.

We all hear about confirmation bias, and maybe we even have a habit of keeping it in mind. That doesn't mean it's solved, nor that we should focus on other less-known biases as if they were bigger fish to fry. Paraphrasing Raymond Nickerson 1998: If there were a contest for the single largest problem in human reasoning, confirmation bias would have to be a candidate. No one is free from it.

Countermeasures

• The slipbox counters confirmation bias
• Don't follow the news and don't stay in one social bubble.
• A habit to Think of your belief's most painful weaknesses
• Abandon party politics: politics is the mind-killer.

Related

• Positive bias isn't confirmation bias

[…] But now suppose instead that I don’t go on television. I do not wish to share the power, nor the truth behind it. I want to keep my sorcery secret. And yet I also want to cast my spells whenever and wherever I please. I want to cast my brilliant flare of light so that I can read a book on the train—without anyone becoming curious. Is there a spell that stops curiosity?

Yes indeed! Whenever anyone asks “How did you do that?” I just say “Science!”

Ever since the author pointed this out (and to some extent, ever since I read Lockhart's Lament sometime prior to 2012-12-22), I like to look at things people regard as ordinary, and wonder about them. I still haven't understood how metal wires in a light-bulb make light, but it's a puzzle I'm working on, and the more I understand, the more I appreciate light-bulbs: Joy In the Merely Real.

There was an internet meme making the rounds around 2012: "magnets, how do they work?" I chatted with some people who found it hilarious. I couldn't understand the humor, but then, humor is pointing out something unexpected.

I'm over here just saying "well, I haven't learned yet about magnets"… and while that's interesting, laughing about it would be like laughing at a chair being brown. I already know I don't understand magnets.

Laugh isn't a reaction I could ever have. Engagement, yes, but laugh? At what?

The fact someone else in the world knows the answer to the mystery doesn't make it any less of a magical mystery for you.

This seems related to how when people are given "teacher's passwords" that explain some scientific fact, they may undervalue its surprisingness due to hindsight bias. "I could have predicted that": hindsight devalues science.

If you know how little of your knowledge you could regenerate, perhaps you will feel more shocked (How to feel shocked enough?) and wonder "How can it be? My world-model does not expect this to happen!"