Four intuitive ways of thinking may actually lead humans into traps. Here, they’re outlined in a bit of a review of what’s wrong with the CIA:
The first and most important tendency is that our minds are prone to see patterns and meaning in our world quite quickly, and then tend to ignore information that might disprove them.
Second, people pay more attention to visible information than to information generated by an absence.
Third, conclusions often rest on assumptions that are not readily testable, and may even be immune to disproof.
Another common error is to believe that the adversary sees the world as you do — a failing that is especially strong when the adversary’s beliefs are strange or extreme, but can also happen when the adversary has tactical goals that you hadn’t expected.
To compensate for natural tendencies of leaping to conclusions, relying on implicit understandings, and better recognizing the significance of absences, you should head over the article to read it in its entirety.
