If you find you can’t reconcile major differences—especially in values—consider whether the relationship is worth preserving.

Believability Weight Your Decision Making

Recognize that having an effective idea meritocracy requires that you understand the merit of each person’s ideas.

If you can’t successfully do something, don’t think you can tell others how it should be done.

Remember that everyone has opinions and they are often bad.

Find the most believable people possible who disagree with you and try to understand their reasoning.

Think about people’s believability in order to assess the likelihood that their opinions are good.

Remember that believable opinions are most likely to come from people 1) who have successfully accomplished the thing in question at least three times, and 2) who have great explanations of the cause-effect relationships that lead them to their conclusions.

If someone hasn’t done something but has a theory that seems logical and can be stress-tested, then by all means test it.

Don’t pay as much attention to people’s conclusions as to the reasoning that led them to their conclusions.

Inexperienced people can have great ideas too, sometimes far better ones than more experienced people.

Everyone should be up-front in expressing how confident they are in their thoughts.

Think about whether you are playing the role of a teacher, a student, or a peer and whether you should be teaching, asking questions, or debating.

It’s more important that the student understand the teacher than that the teacher understand the student, though both are important.

Recognize that while everyone has the right and responsibility to try to make sense of important things, they must do so with humility and radical open-mindedness.

Understand how people came by their opinions.

If you ask someone a question, they will probably give you an answer, so think through to whom you should address your questions.
