A lot of the things that go into being a scout are, they're almost unconscious. And so it seems to me that if you're practicing those habits even in domains that don't have a direct benefit to you like politics, I think that's good for you in general. But then to go back to the ideological situations where, you know, why bother trying to be a scout because there's no direct benefit toyou? I think that is a bit of a tougher sell.
Podcaster and author Julia Galef talks about her book The Scout Mindset with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Galef urges us to be more rational--to be open-minded about what we might discover about the world--rather than simply defend what we already believe, which she calls the soldier mindset. The conversation is a wide-ranging discussion of our biases and the challenges of viewing the world objectively.