"... double-cruxing' (trying to get to the root of a disagreement).... In her book, Galef argues for what she calls 'scout mindset,' which she contrasts with 'soldier mindset.' The idea is that evolution has wired our minds to be soldiers (focused on winning) instead of scouts (focused on ensuring our mental maps accurately reflect the territory of reality). To adopt a scout mindset is to resist falling prey to 'motivated reasoning,' in which we distort our thoughts to achieve a desired outcome."
From "The Tech Elite’s Favorite Pop Intellectual Julia Galef on bringing the rationalist movement to the mainstream" (NY Magazine).
The book is "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't Hardcover." My link goes to Amazon, where there's this graphic (click to enlarge and clarify_:
I'd love to see more "scouts," but I'm afraid this clear picture may make some rational people chose to be "soldiers"! I believe I've always been on the scout side, but if I'd understood this division early on, I would have asked the "Is it true?" question about whether it's better in life to be a "scout," and I might have said no, taken a side, and fought. I have no idea if Galef discusses that problem!
FROM THE EMAIL: Tim writes:
Engineers are trained to have a scout mindset. Never mind what we want to be true, what IS true. Seek out the correct answer and then revise your assumptions. Which is why 2/5ths are conservative, 2/5ths are independent, and only 1/5 is leftist. Because there is a right (sometimes best, but always accurate) and wrong answer. And once you figure out the right answer, you stop believing in the false answers. It is why we have not built any more Tacoma Narrows bridges. There was a right answer, and it was found. It is how the Brooklyn Bridge was built starting 150 years ago. I may not be the engineer that Washington Roebling was, but if I get hit with a clue bat often enough, I figure out the correct answer.
Yes, if the scout mentality naturally appeals to you, there are some careers that will fit most comfortably.
AND: Geoff emails:
If everyone were a scout, tens of thousands of people in Silicon Valley would stop getting up every morning to work 10 hour days to implement the visions of "thought leaders" like Steve Jobs and would do their own thing instead. This is why Silicon Valley likes H1Bs from countries where obedience to the hierarchy is a social value. It takes a special kind of self-regard to think of how lost your army would be without your scouting while blinding yourself to the fact that without your army's soldiering you would be dead. This is, of course, just another manifestation of the elite's self-separation from the world they presume to rule.
ALSO: I received email from 4 different readers who converged on the point that Galef is mischaracterizing soldiers:
1. A reader named Tytus writes: "There is a, quite famous, fight methodology developed by the military called OODA loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act).It is an approach of constantly updating your priors based on incoming information, resulting in increased agility, and, in effect, gaining advantage over even greater opposing forces. Such an approach seems very much scout-mindset-like. Sooo, I'm not sure about starting with the premise 'soldier' vs 'scout' and running with it, when the military was able to create such gems as OODA loop.
2. A reader named John writs: "I was in the armed forces for seven years (four years navy, three in the army national guard). The military, as an institution, gave me more freedom to think for myself (and required it- they are big on individual initiative) than I ever have had since. It's the opposite of the closed-minded archetype depicted by Julia Galef. Soldiers, in my experience, are far more adaptable and flexible than your average office worker. They have to be because war requires it. If you can't adapt, the enemy will kill you. After every engagement or task, army units hold an after-action review, where soldiers and leaders describe in front of everyone what happened and what could have been done better. Everyone is included. It's not about criticism or blame. It's about learning from mistakes. I've never had another job where they did anything like that. There's a stereotype that soldiers are rigid and mindlessly follow orders. It's very far from the truth. I don't know what other word the author could have used. It's unfortunate she used soldiers as a foil for her pop psychology message. It's the opposite of what she is saying, which is to look at reality instead of a preconceived notion."
3. A reader named Eric wrote: "As a former soldier and S2 (intelligence staff officer) I am disturbed about the use of the words 'soldiers mindset.' Military intelligence is always aware of the possibility that any or all information may be false. The opposing forces are always trying to deceive you. Your own channels have misinformation due to stress or wishful, fearful, thinking from the provider. Every bit of information is evaluated as to the probablity of being true. And the are numerous decision points at which decisions must be made based on that best information available, knowing that it may be wrong. Soldiers use the Scouter mindset. I had trouble understanding those who felt that 'Bush lied.' Any politician should have known that the data on WMD may be wrong. And had the decency and courage to say that they made a mistake in believing the data, not 'Bush lied.' The congressional authorization for that war listed the 23 reasons-23 paragraphs in Part 1 beginning with 'Whereas.......' Vote based on the likelihood that the sum total of those 23 reasons are likely True. "
4. A reader named Clyde wrote: "It's obvious that Ms. Galef has never been a soldier. Soldiers must be able to read the map correctly, and the sorts of things that she lists under the 'soldier mindset' (rationalizing, denial, self-deception, wishful thinking) are that exact sort of mistakes that will get people killed on a battlefield. I think that perhaps 'Politician Mindset' might be more accurate, since politicians are far more likely to ask themselves 'Can I believe this?' or 'Must I believe this?' They're also more likely to engage in the aforementioned rationalizing, denial, self deception and wishful thinking."
MORE: The commenter God of the Sea People writes:
"It seems to me that soldier v. scout is a false dichotomy, and values are what differentiate the two. Some things are demonstrably, objectively true. It makes sense to have a scout mindset about quantifiable things. Values and opinions are not quantifiable, and are not necessarily less valid because of that. I'm willing to change my mind about something when there is sufficient evidence to warrant it, but I don't think evidence is typically sufficient to change what someone values, aside from direct life experience. Especially so, if the evidence comes in the form of a bunch of studies or articles written by people with obviously different values, and who are themselves in the soldier-posture of trying to 'win' over their adversaries. I can see how thinking of yourself as having a rational, scout mindset is appealing to people. However, after witnessing the way people weaponize scientific pronouncements (with little understanding or curiosity) solely to browbeat their friends and family in social media wrangling, I would be skeptical of anyone who uses this kind of framing in an attempt to convince me of anything."
And Daniel wrote:
I have been a fan of Julia Galef for years. I love her careful demeanor and her extensive discussion on Bayesian reasoning. Her main idea is that the normal rational mindset only works in "one direction" in a series of unique choices. Her approach, and one I endorse, is that we actually make choices through a series of events. The Bayes Theorem essentially states that with each iteration, we add to our knowledge of the choice set and can use that information to revise (and resubmit) how we understand the choices before us. This means that the next set of choices will be informed by what we have learned a posteriori.
As the research on decision making has shown, most of us are what Kahneman and Twerski called "naive statisticians," meaning that we actually do not make the necessary calculations to compute the best choice. We choose on our gut. The Bayes process is a bit more complicated and requires some basic computation; yet, the results reveal a topography of probability that is not apparent from a simple presentation of the initial choice set.
For example, in the Wikipedia article on Bayes theorem, there is the classic case of Drug Testing. The Bayes process shows that the probability a person who tested positive for cannabis is actually a user is not very high (the solution given there is only 19-21 percent). Regardless of how Ms. Galef chooses to label it, the Bayes/Scout approach is a better model for rational process since it combines inductive and deductive models. Washington Blogger: I would guess that most people would consider themselves more scout than soldier. But I think, through my own anecdotals experiences most people are scouts about what they assume they don't know and soldiers about what they do, and the sad thing is, most people assume they know a whole lot more than they do. In this I am soldier. I have come to the conclusion that people are soldiers in action because they think they were scouts about the topic.
In reality, we have a favored notion of what the terrain looks like and act under the assumption that we came by that knowledge through careful scouting. However, I have another thought on this. What if we are all looking at different maps? I wonder this because of the seemingly obvious problem with the idea that math is racist. (BTW, rationalism is racist under the current race paradigm.) One person is looking at a map of the streets and bus routes saying how could math be anything close to racist while another is looking at a map of the terrain and saying how could you totally miss the inherent racism of math? Is either map wrong?
And Stuart wrote:
Being a scout all sounds well and good, so why aren’t we all scouts? I have composed a short hymn to explain:
Onward, Christian soldiers, transformed into scouts,
With the loss of Jesus now beset by doubts!
Christ, the royal Master, all but overthrown;
Into ev’ry battle, each will go alone!
Like a mighty army in a cul-de-sac;
Brothers, we are trapped here helpless to attack;
We are quite divided; frequently at odds,
Arguing the doctrines, of out private gods. [Refrain]
