Cognitive Miserliness

The mind is a miser. Not because it is lazy — because thinking is genuinely expensive, and the budget is fixed. Given a choice between the accurate method and the cheap one, it takes the cheap one almost every time.

This explains the whole family of shortcuts you have met in this book. Stereotypes are cheap sorting. First impressions are cheap research. Going along with the crowd is cheap analysis. Each saves fuel; each sometimes saves the day; each sometimes ruins it.

The miser's habits are not curable, and should not be. A mind that reasoned fully about everything would not finish breakfast. The skill is knowing when to splurge: the house purchase, the accusation, the vote, the diagnosis deserve the expensive method.

So do not ask "how do I stop taking shortcuts?" Ask "where am I taking shortcuts I cannot afford?" Save your thinking the way the miser saves coins — then spend it, deliberately, where it counts.