Firstly, the combined ideas of “something to protect” and “rational agents should win” and “joy in the merely real.” The idea that you should want to be rational not because it’s inherently virtuous or important, but because it will allow you to get what you ultimately want, whatever that might be. The person I want to give this book to, currently believes that rationality is defined by cold, bloodless disinterest in the world, and thus has no interest in it.
Secondly, the combined ideas of “writing the bottom line first” and “guessing the teacher’s password” and “your ability to be more confused by fiction”. That you cannot first choose an opinion from the ether, and then figure out how to argue for it. In the effort to correlate your beliefs with reality, it is only your beliefs that you are capable of changing. The person I want to give this book to, currently believes that it is better to “win” a debate than to “lose”, and thus defends his beliefs against all comers without first finding out where they are come from.
Thirdly, the idea that nature is allowed to set impossibly high standards and flunk you even if you do everything humanly possible to meet them. The person I want to give this book to, currently thinks that “I’m doing the best I can” is a viable excuse for failure.
Of course there should be advice on how, specifically, to be more rational, and the many failure modes possible. These three ideas are primarily the motivational ones: that rationality is necessary to anything you want to accomplish, and yet so difficult that it will take you a lifetime of effort to maintain a fighting chance of doing so. They are the ideas that, if internalized, will make people really want to try harder.
A few ideas:
the difference between Nobly Confessing One’s Limitations and actually preparing to be wrong. I was pretty guilty of the former in the past. I think I’m probably still pretty guilty of it, but I am on active watch for it.
the idea that one should update on every piece of evidence, however slightly. This is something that I “knew” without really understanding its implications. In particular, I used to habitually leave debates more sure of my position than when I went in—yet this can’t possibly be right, unless my opposition were so inept as to argue against their own position. So there’s one bad habit I’ve thrown out. I’ve gone from being “open-minded” enough to debate my position, to being actually capable of changing my position.
That I should go with the majority opinion unless I have some actual reason to think I can do better. To be fair, on the matters where I actually had a vested interest, I followed this advice before receiving it; so perhaps this shouldn’t be under ‘useful’ per se, although I’ve improved my predictions drastically by just parroting InTrade. (I don’t bet on InTrade because I’ve never believed I could do better.)
Sticking your neck out and making a prediction, so that you have the opportunity to say “OOPS” as soon as possible.