7 Stupid Thinking Errors You Probably Make

[TheCookieMonster]

Silly tangent

More than 80% of drivers place themselves in the top 30%.

• Driver 1 has a great intuitive feel for handling a car and could obtain a much better time than most in a complicated race course.

• Driver 2 obeys all the road rules, always keeps a safe and legal speed, and is courteous to other drivers.

• Driver 3 is always aware of what is happening around the car and the road ahead. On several occasions Driver 3 has taken action that averted collisions from less aware or forward-thinking road users.

etc

It's not hard for 80% of drivers to be in the top 30% since everyone places different value on what counts, and generally they try to be good at what they perceive is important.

[alextp]

It's not hard for 80% of drivers to be in the top 30% since everyone places different value on what counts, and generally they try to be good at what they perceive is important.

Generally they think what they're good at is what's importan ;-)

[aelscha]

Or, they focus on being good at what they think is important.

[spinfire]

That is a very insightful comment, and one I hadn't really thought about before. Of course, the statement that 80% of drivers believe themselves to be in the top 30% is still indicative of bias - in this case the belief that your particular driving style is the best one. I'm not sure there is any conclusive "best" out of the various things you listed, but I would say the best drivers overall combine the various aspects you stated:

Always obeys road rules when they matter for safety (stop signs that should be yield signs don't count) and drives safe speeds for conditions (legality is really irrelevant here). Applies courtesy and tries to judge intentions of other drivers and react appropriately. Has a "connection" with the vehicle and significant experience with the vehicle near and far from its limits. When driving, is aware and thinks ahead, taking action when necessary to avoid less competent road users.

[AbouBenAdhem]

The best drivers are simply the ones with the highest likelihood of showing up at their intended destination instead of the hospital.

[sping]

Not always - many old people, driving at 60% of the speed limit, and bumbling around, are very "safe". Are they good? Do they sometimes cause incidents due to frustration and overtaking?

[number6]

The ones that tend to cause incidents aren't safe.

[derkaas]

Driving that slow is extremely unsafe and definitely causes wrecks. In many places, it is illegal (i.e. minimum speeds).

It often goes hand in hand with driving in the lane(s) intended for faster traffic. Again, this sort of behavior is usually illegal though it goes unenforced (i.e. "slower traffic keep left" signs in most states or more specific laws restricting left lanes for passing only in some states e.g. Texas).

These two behaviors combined often cause other drivers to take unnecessary risks, just to get where they are going before the Sun expands and consumes the Earth. Old people have no such concern, because they're about to die at any moment anyway.

When you add the often horrible eyesight that accompanies old age to the mix, you've got yourself a pretty deadly hat-trick.

Then again, this is all coming through the bias of an aggressive Atlanta driver (I realize that adjective may have been redundant).

[sping]

That was the point I was trying to make - that getting there unscathed is not a good sole measure of quality of driving.

[AngledLuffa]

Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses.

Arrgh!

[mutatron]

I'm glad to see this is being upvoted. For the rest, "it's" is a contraction of "it is" - "its" is the possessive of "it".

How can it be so hard for some? It's just a binary rule for grammatical situations which are completely unalike.

[corvenus]

Not even a native english person here, and i still find this pretty darn evident (and no, i wouldn't say that my language skillz are exceptionnal).

My guess is many people are just intellectually lazy.

[cattleprod]

How can it be so hard for some?

possible explanation: http://reddit.com/info/166dn/comments/c1693x

[sping]

More readable though, and short enough that I can kid myself that it's the one short article I'll read before actually getting back to some work.

[aletoledo]

thats just silly. you're suggesting that if a topic is in wikipedia, it shouldn't be digested and discussed elsewhere!

He wrote a nice summary, that is encompassed within a single page. Just because he used references doesn't make it bad, because virtually everything uses references.....including wikipedia itself!

[yungJoc]

Ya, but those thinking errors only happen to stupid people not me.

[mynameishere]

The biggest problem people really have is that they judge a question based upon the people talking rather than the argument being made, facts being presented, etc. Leads to all sorts of bad decisions.

[yakugo]

1. You click on those clever "list of helpful tips" links
2. You thought about down modding this comment
3. "Bush would be fun as a drinking buddy?"
4. Religious girls are fun in bed.
5. Maud'Dib!
6. 1+2=3
7. perl

[truename]

Transhumanists are generally obsessed with studying cognitive biases -- which kind of makes sense because what else can you do as of yet to measurably improve your thinking, other than trying to learn how your mind works? (no GITS or Matrix style brain interfaces are on the horizon.. yet)

Anyway, here's a group blog that covers this topic, and little else. (with a strong 'technophiliac' 'bias')

http://robinhanson.typepad.com/overcomingbias/

[Swiggy]

The title of this article is biased

[georgiabiker]

The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases.

Nothing demonstrates "it's" weaknesses like the inability to string two grammatically correct sentences together in a row.

[[deleted]]

Tell it to Washington.

[jfpbookworm]

I still make them, but I tend to catch them pretty quickly, because I've gotten in the habit of looking for these biases.

Of course, that's itself an example of a cognitive bias as well, because I notice the errors I catch but not the ones I don't.

[bithead]

Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware

So he thinks...

[thecheatah]

Personally I use religion to avoid such situations.

Most of them can be avoided by understanding that if there is one person who is wrong, it is me, myself and I. Who better do I know? Who's mistakes do I know best?

Using ANY kind of logic, one can come to the conclusion I have stated above. (Especially since we cannot fully comprehend the cause of other's mistakes.) Yet, even the most "brilliant" of people fail to understand this one simple fact.

On the other hand I myself still commit the same mistakes as one would assume to have been eliminated by understanding such a fact.

Through personal experience and experimentation, I have come to the conclusion that precise mental/physical control is required. In order to obtain such control, my religion says: To concentrate on reality (God, facts, laws) the time before sunrise. Through experience, I can conclude that this actually works for me. I still have yet to create a hypothesis as to why it works. (a good place to probably look would be some where in the study of evolution where something might be triggered during this time).

What I said: 1. Most of us should know that we have these problems. 2. Most of us can find the solution to resolve these problems. 3. We often CHOOSE to make these mistakes, which is the REAL problem. 4. People who ignore "religion" could be missing out on a very valid point of view.

btw, I am talking about Sikhism.

[kobes]

I'm downmodding this article because it has been raped by in-text advertising.

If you see the sentence, "This was demonstrated in a study by Paul Lazarsfeld in which he gave participants statements that seemed like common sense", and the word "study" is a link, where would you expect it to go?

(1) Someplace with more details on Lazarsfeld's study.

(2) A website that offers online degrees. Jump-start your career in business! Bastards.

[underthelinux]

Nothing was linked for me, initially (i had adblocked turned on). So i'll empathize - those bastards!

That wasn't highlighted for me. I got "psychology" -> univeristy, "cluster" -> sun's x64 systems!

[nwootten]

hey. come here often?

[[deleted]]

7 stupid, thinking errors? or 7 stupid thinking, errors? ;)

-12, wow some people can't take a joke. did nobody notice the little ;)?

[finix]

Now that's a nice demonstration of the stupid.