Heuristics & Harm
Don't assume your mental shortcuts are benefiting you
Heuristics are the mental shortcuts all humans use in order to make rapid decisions in a complex, ever-changing world. Most people do not consciously question these shortcuts once they have taken root. This leads to cognitive biases.
Heuristics impact our daily lives immensely and invisibly. They are the go-to mental mechanism for problem-solving and making snap decisions. Because heuristics skip the critical thinking process in favor of a pre-built algorithmic solution, they can be error prone and lead to flawed decision making.
Flawed heuristics may one day end the human species. How did a species that invented transistors and logic loops also create the conditions that allowed a moron criminal malignant narcissist to be crowned king of the idiots twice? We may never know. The only silver lining is that h…
