Stop Believing Obvious Lies
Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer
by Duncan J. Watts
Social Science
TL;DR
This book spills the tea on why common sense is a lying little bish when it comes to understanding complex systems like society or your TikTok feed. It teaches you to question your "duh" moments, recognize hindsight bias as a total scam, and understand that predicting the future is basically astrology for nerds. You'll learn to ditch the simple cause-and-effect thinking and embrace the messy reality of interconnectedness and emergent behavior. Basically, it's a guide to not looking like a fool when things don't go as planned, and understanding why things did go as planned wasn't actually obvious beforehand.
Action Items
Next time something "obvious" happens, pause and genuinely ask yourself if you really knew it beforehand, or if your brain is just being a smug jerk.
Instead of blaming one 'big bad' for a problem, try to trace back the small, individual actions that might have collectively led to it. It's rarely one person pulling all the strings.
When someone confidently predicts the future, take it with a grain of salt. Focus your energy on adapting to what is happening, rather than agonizing over what might happen.
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Key Chapter
Chapter - The Problem with Common Sense
Our brains are wired to make sense of the world by creating simple stories, especially after something has already happened. This is why we often say, "Well, obviously that was going to happen!" But this "obviousness" is a total illusion. It makes us overconfident in our ability to predict things and blinds us to the actual complexity of how events unfold. Think about how a viral trend blows up – afterwards, everyone has a "reason" why it was destined for greatness. But before it happened? Crickets. This chapter basically tells you to stop trusting your gut feeling about why things happened and start looking at the actual messy data. It's about realizing that hindsight is 20/20, but foresight is blindfolded and drunk.
Key Methods and Approaches
Your Brain's "I Told You So" Mode
(AKA: Hindsight Bias)
Description:
Your brain tricks you into thinking you totally predicted something after it already happened, making you feel smarter than you are.
Explanation:
Imagine you're watching a reality show. After the winner is announced, you're like, "Duh, I totally knew they'd win!" But five minutes before, you were clueless. Your brain just rewrites history to make you feel smart. It's like your internal narrator is a gaslighter, constantly telling you that you're a psychic genius.
Examples:
"Oh, obviously that stock was going to crash." (After it crashed and you lost money.)
"I knew that relationship was doomed from the start." (After they broke up, not when you were hyping them up.)
"It was so clear that TikTok sound would go viral." (After it had 100M views, not when it had 100.)
Today's Action:
Next time something "obvious" happens, pause and genuinely ask yourself if you really knew it beforehand, or if your brain is just being a smug jerk.
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