This article is about how we think. The two systems in our brains.
--Kim
TL;DR if you don't care about critical thinking skills then this post is not for you.
I know I often write about critical thinking on the profile - but I rarely explain what I mean. Well, I guess I should start doing that if I'm gonna complain about it.
Luckily, I have a whole stack of books on it that I probably need to review for my own benefit, so…
Welcome to my new series where I use my personal library to explain how we can all become better critical thinkers.
Because frankly, we need it.
The political divide in this country isn't just about disagreeing on policy. It's about people on both sides operating without basic reasoning skills. Today, let's talk about Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, a book that won him a Nobel Prize and explains why your brain is constantly sabotaging you.
I keep watching people on both sides of the political aisle absolutely lose their minds over things that make zero sense.
People sharing obviously fake news, falling for transparent grifts, and believing things that five minutes of actual thinking would debunk.
You probably think you're not one of these people. You're smart. You're informed. You fact-check things.
Here's what you might not realize: your brain is sabotaging you right now, and mine is too.
Kahneman discovered something deeply uncomfortable about human thinking. We don't actually have one unified mind making rational decisions. We have two completely different systems running simultaneously, and the one in charge most of the time is absolutely terrible at its job.
He calls them System 1 and System 2.
Think of System 1 as your autopilot. It's fast, automatic, always running. When you read a headline and instantly know how you feel about it, that's System 1.
When you see a politician's face and immediately trust or distrust them, that's System 1. It handles the overwhelming majority of your mental life effortlessly.
System 2 is different. It's slow, deliberate, and exhausting. This is what's working when you're calculating a tip or following a complex argument. System 2 can actually think logically, weigh evidence, and change its mind based on new information.
Here's the problem: System 2 is lazy as hell.
System 2 requires real mental effort. It burns glucose. It makes you tired. So your brain uses it as little as possible. System 2 mostly just monitors what System 1 is doing and occasionally steps in when something seems obviously wrong. The rest of the time, it goes along with whatever System 1 suggests.
And System 1 is wrong constantly. Not randomly wrong. Systematically, predictably wrong in ways that follow clear patterns.
System 1 works by association and pattern-matching. This is great for recognizing your friend's voice or knowing that touching a hot stove is bad. But it means System 1 can't handle logic. It can't evaluate evidence. It just matches patterns based on what feels familiar or sounds right.
The whole architecture of your thinking is designed for speed and efficiency, not accuracy. This made sense when humans were evolving. Quick decisions mattered more than perfect ones. Better to mistake a shadow for a threat than to carefully analyze whether that's actually a predator while it's eating you.
But we're not running from predators anymore. We're trying to evaluate complex policy proposals, distinguish real news from propaganda, and figure out who's telling the truth in a media environment specifically designed to hijack System 1's weaknesses.
System 1 jumps to conclusions based on limited information. It can't be turned off. It's biased to believe rather than doubt. It accepts information that fits your existing worldview and fights against information that doesn't. Most critically, System 1 often answers an easier question than the one you're actually asking. You wonder if a policy is effective, but System 1 tells you whether you like the politician proposing it.
And here's where this gets relevant to why American politics is such a mess: System 2 thinks it's in charge, but it's usually not.
When you're scrolling through social media and instantly sharing something that confirms your beliefs, that's System 1. When you dismiss a good argument because it comes from someone on the other team, that's System 1. When you accept a terrible argument because it comes from someone on your team, that's System 1.
System 2 could step in. It could actually evaluate the evidence, check the sources, think through the logic. But System 2 is tired, and checking your own thinking is hard work, and frankly it's easier to just trust that your instant reaction is correct.
This is happening on the left and the right. Progressives falling for obvious rage bait about conservatives. Conservatives sharing transparently fake stories about progressives. Everyone trusting their gut, which is just System 1 making snap judgments based on whatever feels right.
The strength of your conviction means nothing. System 1 is equally confident when it's right and when it's wrong. That feeling of being absolutely certain? That's just cognitive ease. It means the information fit your existing patterns, not that it's actually true.
Intelligence doesn't save you. Education doesn't save you. Knowing about these biases doesn't save you. Smart people just get better at rationalizing their System 1 reactions after the fact.
The only thing that helps is deliberate effort. You have to actively engage System 2. You have to slow down and think when everything in your brain is telling you that you already know the answer. You have to doubt your own certainty and check your own reasoning.
This is exhausting. There's no way around it. Good thinking requires actual work, which is precisely why most people avoid it most of the time.
But here's what I keep coming back to: we're making decisions about the future of the country, about policies that affect millions of people, about who gets power and how they use it. And most of us are doing it on autopilot, trusting a system that's designed to be efficient rather than accurate, confident rather than correct.
If you actually care about truth, if you actually want to understand what's happening instead of just confirming what you already believe, you have to start treating your own brain as an unreliable narrator. Because it is one. System 1 is lying to you constantly, and System 2 is asleep at the wheel.
The uncomfortable reality is this: you are not naturally built for rational thought.
You're built for quick, confident, wrong-most-of-the-time thinking. And until you accept that, until you understand how your own mind actually works, you're just another person in the crowd believing whatever feels right and wondering why everyone else is so damn stupid.
They're not more stupid than you. They're just running on the same broken system.
If you want me to dig into more of my old books lemme know. My brain is lazy too and I don't want to do all of this work if nobody cares.
Okay - good talk.
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