Author: Uday

Do watch debates to learn about both good and bad communication. The presidential debates in the U.S.A.
show how both opponents build and attack arguments, distract the public, instigate the person, propagate myths
and lies, take exemptions and exceptions to defeat the whole point instead of general principles and rules,
doing character shaming, emotional manipulation, and such things. We will understand how the skills we learn
are tested in live action and reiterate the main point that we learn more from a match than from practice
sessions in the arena.

If there’s one key takeaway from this book, then it is to embrace being wrong and be less resentful. Ego gets hurt when someone disapproves of our idea or opinion, but being rigid costs us and hurts our growth. Intelligence is a twin of doubt, the sooner we get that message, the better we can get. Cocksure is only for stupid and arrogant.

Learning to rethink is a skill that’s most demanded these days. And this is what the book exactly tries to do. To turn us into scientists who always question and question like the great old Socrates. Let’s start the cruise—

• Don’t be the preacher. Don’t get me wrong. Being a preacher here means a person who doesn’t change his beliefs no matter what. Or there’s another category who defends. That is a prosecutor. And the last don’t-want category is a politician who sells lies to make us believe. But a man with a scientific temper like Bill Nye brings us questions, challenges and a curious mind who’s a bamboo bending to the winds of evidence.
  And also it doesn’t mean being a man or woman without confidence who should always bend his head and listen. It means having a right proportionate intellectual humility whose house is open to fresh visitors.
  George Bernard Shaw—“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Avoid big totalitarian egos.
  

• Debate is not a war to win. Best negotiators do not strike the opposite soldier but make a deal. That’s what you need to do. Find the common ground without losing cool and accept when the point is right and carefully mention when something is wrong. And don’t blabber too much. Shoot the best points and stay quiet. And ask questions if there’s a disagreement. Dance with your foes and engage with the critics.
  
  Dick Cavett—It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.

• Avoid Binary bias. Turning debates into believers vs non-believers leads to polarization which is bad in our continuing search for truth. There are always many sides to the issue. For instance, take the issue of affirmative action. It’s not about continuing or cancelling it because that’s not going to solve our problem of injustice. Instead, we need to look to loopholes on the pro side and con side and then fix issues on both sides.
  
  Denying rather than perspective-taking will divide us. Here’s a pearl of hot wisdom to you—
  
  “I do not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

When coming up with a new policy, law or idea, first understand the older ones thoroughly, especially
the rationale behind them, and only then try to dismantle them and bring the fresh ones. If we take Indian history,
Aurangazeb reversed Akbar’s Rajput and secular policies not knowing a simple fact that they
kept the empire stable and sound and paid the price. Understand the tradition first and then break it.
Indian government perhaps understood this and could achieve at least a modicum of success w.r.t
Swachh Bharat Mission. It recognized the caste equations, water issues, and lack of functional toilets
before pushing the idea of ending open defecation. However, sadly it did not apply Chesterton’s law
while coming up with the GST. And
Supreme courts too need to remember this more often while reversing the earlier and even the minority judgments
and the orders of lower courts.

Stress is the number one enemy of your productive habits. Your carefully cultivated routines
like writing, exercising, reading, or working fall away like a pack of cards when stress enters
the picture. The dopamine hits we take through entertainment while breaking a habit are often
due to high stress. So, to maintain them, monitor stress and you’ll do just fine.

First, there’s always a simple solution than what you are currently doing. Second,
you don’t need a smart plan always. The former is to remind yourself when you are
unnecessarily complicating something. The latter is not to fret over useless tasks.

Life boils down to the Q&A session we have with ourselves. Why did the car hit me? Karma. Why was I fooled
by a financial scam? Stupidity. What emotions usually get the best of me? Anger. Why do I eat junk food? No reason.
Why do I go to college? fun. And on and on.
Watch this Q&A more carefully, as this shapes how we experience and wish to experience this life we got.

At least up to 90-95% of our problems are already solved by someone else. You need to just find them. That’s all.
It could be getting food at home, summarising the whole book for you, learning to plumb, watching a Korean documentary or
anything wild, someone already did it for you. In this day and age, to find the wisdom of Himalayan monks
all you need is an app.