If your opinion is that another person’s idea is terrible, you can only be sure that at least one of you is stupid. You can’t really know which one of you it is except in rare cases in which things can be objectively measured.

Once you can embrace the educational value that comes with being wrong, you will find it easier to think, “But I might be wrong this time,” in any given situation. There will be occasions in which you want to dial down your ego to avoid looking like a jerk. For example, sometimes you might need to pretend in front of others that you have some

The common situation—and the one you should treat as true—is that we are deeply flawed humans pretending to be otherwise.

Verbal gaffes are fairly normal for people running for office. My bias is to prefer ordinary explanations for our observations as opposed to extraordinary ones, assuming the facts support both views.

I PREFER ORDINARY explanations to extraordinary ones, but that doesn’t always make me right. Sometimes the less ordinary explanation is the correct one. It just doesn’t happen often.

The best and easiest defense is to have some questions prepared to fill any gaps.

People who have good arguments use them. People who do not have good arguments try to win by labeling.

I’ve seen lots of wannabe cartoonists with sufficient talent to succeed. But rarely do you find one who understands how to get out of ego jail.

So if you are playing the odds, your confidence that you can see some evil in another person’s soul is probably closer to being batshit crazy than to being the first known human with psychic powers.