This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded – Typical mind fallacy

Redwing · 6th Sep, 2021

Just noticed Aussie HiFire has a new post up, they are always a good read

This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded – Typical mind fallacy

One of the biggest problems I have when writing about FIRE and personal finance, in general, is trying to look at things from a different perspective than my own. I don’t think I’m alone in this because we all tend to look at the world through the lens of our own experiences.
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Morgan Housel has a great line in his book The Psychology of Money (which I highly recommend!) about your personal experiences being 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. I think he’s probably deliberately exaggerating with the 80% number, but you get the idea.
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Reading blogs/FB/Reddit and listening to podcasts from others in the FIRE community I’d have to say that I’m definitely not the only one struggling with this.
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So what is typical mind fallacy?

I’m going to use the LessWrong definition here, which is that “it’s the mistake of modeling the minds inside other people’s brains as exactly the same as your own mind. Humans lack insight into their own minds and what is common among everyone or unusually specific to a few. It can be often hard to see the flaws in the lens, especially when we only have one lens to look through with which to see those flaws.”
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Basically we look at our own way of thinking and assume other people think the same way. Which isn’t necessarily wrong for some subset of the population, but almost certainly isn’t true for everyone.
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cont...

FeasibleFI · 22nd Mar, 2022

Very good info here, sometimes we get sucked down into our own rabbit holes. I am currently reading Psychology of Money and recommend it.

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This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded – Typical mind fallacy

Redwing Well-Known Member

FeasibleFI Member

Log in or Sign up

This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded – Typical mind fallacy

Redwing Well-Known Member

FeasibleFI Member

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