Always separate assumptions from measures. Doing so reveals undetected surprising foolishness. It’s astonishing how frequently and hard people fail because casu

Always separate assumptions from measures. Doing so reveals undetected surprising foolishness. It’s astonishing how frequently and hard people fail because casual measures are simply too much effort. This identifies potential failure more than anything else. Don’t let other people’s reliance upon artificial conventions dictate your decisions. People will fight to the death about the most asinine things because they fail to question the foundations or conventions on which they are fighting, as in a faulty premise. This is more common and devastating than it sounds forming the basis of social contagion. Worse, frequently this bad behavior is intentional because most people find security in social groups even when they know they underlying decisions in question are severely flawed. When these situations are encountered it’s best to question the obvious and if necessary remove yourself from the group.