The Hypnosis of Certainty
Some people speak with such confidence that the world mistakes it for truth. They do not persuade. They overwhelm.
And something odd happens in their presence. Minds freeze. People stop thinking as soon as they speak.
It is not stupidity.
Most people do not want the weight of independent judgment. Judgment carries a price: Loneliness. Responsibility. Doubt. The risk of standing alone with no applause and no tribe behind you.
It is far easier to outsource one’s thinking to a strong personality than to wrestle with life on your own.
So when a confident mind appears, a man who speaks ex cathedra in sharp lines and throws little punches in every sentence, someone who sounds like he earned his views, people hand over their brain like a passport at the border.
Taleb is the perfect example.
A brilliant man, an important man, and a man whose force makes the unsure shrink. He speaks like a philosopher with the temperament of a bouncer, and people confuse that mix for infallibility.
He tweets something like “Competition is for losers,” and instantly a crowd begins to decipher his words like scripture. Meanwhile the contradiction sits there in daylight, because he spends every morning in open combat with half the internet.
He wakes up, logs on, and wrestles the world before breakfast like Chuck Norris in a bad mood.
Call me nuts, but the contradiction is obvious. But people do not see what they are not prepared to see. That is how hypnosis works.
Once you admire someone, your mind starts erasing their contradictions to protect your comfort. You stop looking at their behavior and start quoting their lines. You stop using your own brain and begin borrowing theirs. You adopt their worldview because it feels lighter than carrying your own.
This is not about Taleb.
It happens in politics, spirituality, science, public health. Anywhere a confident voice meets an uncertain audience.
Thinking for yourself has a price.
Obedience has a reward.
And here is the uncomfortable thing: Sometimes the person most susceptible to the hypnosis of certainty is the one who prides himself on having escaped it. These gurus just take the red pill. But I think life offers more choices than red or blue. And what about taking no pill at all and just see things as they are?
In the end, real independence is not announcing that you are independent. It is the quiet, boring habit of checking what people actually do, every single time, even when their words play a tune you want to hear.
This is the problem: People confuse confidence with truth.
If you want to stay awake in a world full of confident voices, you have to disappoint yourself on purpose. You have to check the facts even when the narrative flatters you. You have to watch the behavior even when the words make sense at first glance. You have to be willing to catch your favorite thinkers break their own rules.
Real independence is not a pose.
It is not an attitude, it is a discipline.
It is the refusal to kneel, even in front of the people you admire. Especially them.
Look at what people do.
Not what they say.