The milestone about understanding trade offs really resonated with me. I had been using (what I call) the "Scylla-Charybdis Heuristic":
-Don't trust any model that implies X is too low unless it's also capable of detecting when X would be too high
I've been frustrated by how people can fail this for X=the minimum wage, immigration, ease of getting public assistance (just to show that it's across the spectrum), as well as less political issues like "approaching strangers" or "trying to persuade after a rejection".
There is a very common mentality out there that cannot admit to any downsides to a favored policy. I had often attributed this to "well, they have to be wary of tripping others' poor heuristics", but this may itself be the #1 fallacy Alexander mentions! It can just as well be that the person cannot think in terms of trsdeoffs.
-Don't trust any model that implies X is too low unless it's also capable of detecting when X would be too high
I've been frustrated by how people can fail this for X=the minimum wage, immigration, ease of getting public assistance (just to show that it's across the spectrum), as well as less political issues like "approaching strangers" or "trying to persuade after a rejection".
There is a very common mentality out there that cannot admit to any downsides to a favored policy. I had often attributed this to "well, they have to be wary of tripping others' poor heuristics", but this may itself be the #1 fallacy Alexander mentions! It can just as well be that the person cannot think in terms of trsdeoffs.