Wisdom

"There might not be international law at all. It's really just about power. So I think it's hilarious that they're using rights as any kind of defense."

International relations aren't governed by law or rights—they're about power. Claiming rights as a defense is ridiculous against a stronger actor.

"In my bubble it feels almost proven, but it really isn't fully proven. So I warn you not to get too excited. We are below the level of confirmed reporting. We're up to 'whoa, that looks like it could be real,' which is bad enough."

Even when something feels proven inside your information bubble, it often isn't confirmed. Stay cautious at the 'this could be real' stage rather than treating it as fact.

"If you're a protester and you hear a report that the leader has picked an escape plan, wouldn't you try a little harder because you say to yourself, 'Wait a minute, he's got an escape plan. Maybe we're almost at the breaking point.' So I see that as maybe true, might be true, but it's just as likely that the story is planted because planting that story would be very good for the protesters."

News of a leader preparing an escape plan can energize protesters by signaling the regime is near collapse. Such reports are just as likely to be strategically planted to create exactly that psychological boost.

"There are a lot of stories about battery breakthroughs, but until I see it in a Tesla, I don't believe it."

Be skeptical of tech breakthrough claims until the innovation appears in a proven, market-leading product like a Tesla.

"If you had some way to know who had been really good at predicting in the past that you'd like to see just those people predicting the next thing. Why would I take the average of people who are terrible at predicting mixed in with the average of the people who were right most of the time? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense if you could go to Polymarket and say, 'Show me the people who have been right more than 60% of the time on whatever topic it is.'"

Rather than averaging all predictions, filter for only those forecasters with a strong historical track record of accuracy.

"Why would I take the average of people who were poorly informed on the topic? Let's say the topic is crypto. Do I want to see my plumber's opinion on crypto mixed in with David Sachs' opinion? No. I just want to see David Sachs' opinion."

On any specialized topic, ignore the uninformed and focus solely on the views of the most knowledgeable rather than averaging them together.

"I calculated wrong because I just assumed without thinking about it well enough that everybody wants to end war. But if he doesn't mind that and it's sort of moving in his direction, I can't see any reason he would end the war."

Don't assume all sides in a conflict want to end it; if a leader is indifferent to casualties and sees progress, they lack incentive for peace.

"I don't think it matters what Ukraine wants or what Zelensky wants. I think it's between the United States and Russia."

In major conflicts, the desires of the smaller or proxy nation often don't matter; the outcome is decided by the primary powers involved.

"If we go too far with allowing Ukraine to have all the best weapons and stuff, some of that's going to come back on the homeland. Russia is going to not want to put up with that without responding in kind."

Escalation in proxy wars is limited because excessive support for one side invites direct retaliation against the sponsor.

"So that was my trade-off: take a pain that would be the greatest pain of my life for 15 minutes to an hour, or never deal with the problem to my death. So I decided I could do anything for 15 minutes."

When choosing between the worst pain of your life for a limited time or living with a serious problem forever, realizing you can endure anything for a known short duration makes the right decision possible.

"You were 60 seconds away from being completely done, but they had miscommunicated so that I thought it was 15 minutes for the process that had not yet started. So I bailed out."

Unclear communication about what a time estimate actually covers can lead you to quit a difficult task right before success, because your mental model of the situation was wrong.

"He showed you the science and then he modified the policy to match the science. That ladies and gentlemen is what we asked for."

The gold standard for decision-making is to examine the evidence first, then adjust policies to align with what the data actually shows.

"It's not even about the CDC now for the COVID. It's very much about you and your doctor. You know you can still do what you want but it's between you and your doctor."

Health choices should be personalized decisions between patients and their doctors rather than blanket directives from central authorities.

"If it's not illegal and it works, I suppose it's on the table."

If an action isn't illegal and proves effective, it becomes a legitimate option to consider.

"Even though the people who steal that stuff might get caught, I'll bet it will still happen because people always think they can get away with it. So I don't know how you solve that."

People will keep stealing valuable information because they overestimate their chances of escaping detection, which makes the problem nearly impossible to solve.

"Anybody who got into that kind of illegal activity with him would just sort of know it would be better to keep him happy than not. So it doesn't have to be blackmail. It could just be putting them in sensitive situations so they're more likely to play ball with him in the future."

People who share involvement in illegal acts don't need overt blackmail to align their interests. The implicit risk alone often motivates them to stay cooperative and keep the other party happy.

"If millions of Ukrainians died trying to protect that land, zero. You should not include that in your decision. You have to make your decision like you woke up into the game today and the only thing you know is what's true going forward."

Ignore all past sacrifices and deaths when deciding what to do next. Approach the choice as if you entered the situation for the first time today and only consider what is true going forward.

"I feel like maybe there’s a self-awareness problem at play here. Jimmy Kimmel admitted that repulsive liberal scolds are driving people away from the Democratic Party, but he's sure that it's other people who are the problem. It's not what I'm doing every day. It's those other people."

People who acknowledge a problematic behavior often fail to see that they themselves are exhibiting it.

"From a human empathy standpoint, if you have enough contact with that part of the world, it’s really hard to be in favor of shipping them home because home doesn’t exist."

Direct personal contact with long-term immigrants makes supporting their deportation difficult, because after decades their original country is no longer truly home.

"A meta-analysis is not science. And they are so susceptible to misuse or being done wrong that as soon as your so-called expert says we’ve done a meta-analysis that’s when you should stop believing what they say. It’s a coin flip."

A meta-analysis is not real science and is easily misused, so you should tune out any expert who leans on one. With only two possible outcomes, even a flawed analysis has a fifty percent chance of being right, making it no better than a coin flip.

"The correct analysis is on day one, hey, I don’t trust all these experts. They haven’t tested it enough and I don’t trust their motivations and/or their competence. But would it be reasonable that you trust these latest experts? If you don’t apply the same filter, then you’re not being rational. You’re just guessing. Don’t trust it. You have no way of knowing if anybody did the science correctly. They’re just claims."

Skepticism toward experts is rational when their claims can't be personally verified, whether at the beginning or when new contradictory studies appear. Applying doubt only to the experts you dislike while trusting the ones who confirm your view is not rational thinking—it's guessing, since all sides are just unverified claims.

"One day I realized in my corporate jobs that if I had never existed in my job nothing would be different. Nothing about the company would be different. Nothing about the stock price. That every day I was going to work and getting paid putting all these hours in and I was completely aware that none of it made any difference to anybody and you could just take me away from history."

In many corporate roles, a person's contributions are so insignificant that the company would perform exactly the same if they had never existed. This realization that your daily work changes nothing is what inspired Dilbert.

"If he quit and even if he didn't tell you all the details, so this will be hypothetical, if Bongino quits and the only public statement he makes is something like my ethics were incompatible with the job I was asked to do... I think they would say you're an honest man who got caught in a bad situation. You did the best you could."

Resigning from a difficult role with a vague statement about ethical incompatibility often earns public respect, as people view it as doing the best one could in a compromised spot without burning bridges or revealing secrets.

"If you were Jeffrey Epstein and you wanted to fake your own death would you make sure that your body could not be examined? And would you make sure that all of your money went to a trusted person so you still had access to it after you were allegedly dead? It looks like coincidentally he did the very things you would do if you were trying to fake your own death and still have resources when you were done."

To assess a conspiracy theory, check whether the person's final actions match exactly what a rational actor with that motive would choose, such as preventing body examination and routing assets through a trust to a reliable beneficiary.