How To Improve Critical Thinking, Embrace Uncertainty, and Stop Self-Censoring | Jenara Nerenberg

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody, how are we doing? In my opinion, one of the biggest problems we face in this country, by which I'm referring to America and This is also true in many other parts of the world.

But one of the biggest problems is that the public conversation has become increasingly and impossibly toxic and corrosive. There are many aspects to this, but one of them is that we tend to exist in our own media echo chambers, where our priors and our biases are reinforced and rarely challenged. The image that comes to mind for me is like a murmuration of starlings. You know, when all the little birds instinctively flow as a pack, which can be beautiful in nature, but deeply unhelpful when it comes to a functioning democracy. We really are in a precarious and combustible moment.

We have huge groups of people who detest one another, often based on incomplete understandings of the other side's point of view. There's a surplus of confidence and certainty and outrage and a dramatic, and I would argue dangerous lack of empathy and basic curiosity. So today we're going to talk about how to develop your critical thinking skills. We're also going to talk about how to get comfortable with uncertainty, how to stop self-censoring and self-silencing, how to speak up and challenge members of your own tribe, how to successfully engage with people with whom you disagree, and much more.

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