Every so often I'll say 'X' and I'll get the reply 'but lots of smart people think not-X so why be so sure'.

What's going on is that while I think the concerns around 'peer disagreement' are sound, I believe people should still usually just assert their personal impressions. 1/

The benefits of this are:

A. It encourages people to actually engage their brain and not just lazily lean on others — in so doing perpetuating past mistakes, and likely overestimating how much existing ideas have already been vetted. 2/

B. It encourages people to offer up the private information they have about a topic, rather than keeping their mouth shut because they fear being wrong or insufficiently comprehensive. 3/

C. It's much faster and more motivating to share personal impressions about what is true than 'all-things-considered' beliefs that incorporate the opinions of everyone.

Also, people are more likely to read what you say because it will be more engaging. 4/

D. It allows your misconceptions to be corrected because you'll just state them directly.

E. We don't get stuck in a situation where everyone incorrectly guesses what most people's impressions are.

The lit on a topic properly represents the range of impressions people have. 5/

F. We allow people to act, experiment and fully explore the implications of currently-niche views, rather than being super cautious because of what they think other people think. 6/

If I were going to make some momentus or risky or irreversible decision I'd absolutely apply peer disagreement to reach an all-things-considered view rather than relying on my judgement alone. 7/

Likewise if I thought people took whatever comes out of my mouth as gospel rather than mere food for thought.

But for the purposes of everyday discussion and learning 'personal impressions' are where it's at. 8/