Critical Thinking as a Daily Discipline
Critical thinking is less a skill than a set of habits, practiced badly by almost everyone, including the people who teach it.
The minimum kit
1. **Distinguish a claim from its source.** A true thing said by an unreliable person is still true. A false thing said by a credentialed one is still false. 2. **Ask what would change your mind.** If nothing would, you are not holding a belief; the belief is holding you. 3. **Notice the feeling first.** Most of what we call "reasoning" is rationalization arriving after a verdict the body already issued. 4. **Steelman the other side.** If you cannot state the opposing view in a form its holders would recognize, you have not understood it. 5. **Tolerate uncertainty.** "I don't know" is a complete sentence and often the correct one.
A specific application
When a piece of content makes you feel that you alone see what others miss, slow down. That feeling is the most reliable predictor of error.
This is true of political content. It is also true of mystical content, conspiracy content, and content from people we agree with.