Should you ignore any advice you hear?

You've considered listening to the advice you hear. You've considered reversing any advice you hear. But have you considered ignoring any advice you hear? Reasons to ignore any advice you hear Most people give advice that stems from their personal experiences. If you worked 16 hours a day for three years straight before "making it," you're probably going to tell others that they should do the same (so long as they want to be as successful as you). But there are two problems here: In general, people overestimate their own role and underestimate luck's role in finding success. To the extent that someone's success wasn't due to luck, people's self-evaluation of what actions led to their success probably isn't very accurate (people are worse at introspecting than at confabulating plausible-sounding theories). Taken together, these tendencies mean that the self-identified actions in anecdotally-derived advice probably mattered less to the advice-giver's success than they think, and the same will probably hold for you. Reasons not to ignore any advice you hear If you gut the "story" part out of advice, leaving yourself only with the "anecdata," you may find that there's still a surprising amount of value left over, even though this anecdata is still survivorship-filtered. (At the very least there should be less motivated reasoning, which is usually confined to the "story" part.) This is likely why giving advice in the form of anecdotes can be more effective than prescriptions, and why when a smart person gives a bad take, there's probably some kernel of truth hidden inside. So should you ignore any advice you hear? Probably, to the extent that "advice" is the takeaways people draw from their anecdotes (and then preach to the world). But you probably shouldn't throw away the anecdotes. Given enough independent anecdotes, you might end up being able to differentiate some actual signal from the noise. (But take my advice with a grain of salt.) Discuss

You've considered listening to the advice you hear. You've considered reversing any advice you hear. But have you considered ignoring any advice you hear?

Most people give advice that stems from their personal experiences. If you worked 16 hours a day for three years straight before "making it," you're probably going to tell others that they should do the same (so long as they want to be as successful as you). But there are two problems here:

In general, people overestimate their own role and underestimate luck's role in finding success.

To the extent that someone's success wasn't due to luck, people's self-evaluation of what actions led to their success probably isn't very accurate (people are worse at introspecting than at confabulating plausible-sounding theories).

Taken together, these tendencies mean that the self-identified actions in anecdotally-derived advice probably mattered less to the advice-giver's success than they think, and the same will probably hold for you.

If you gut the "story" part out of advice, leaving yourself only with the "anecdata," you may find that there's still a surprising amount of value left over, even though this anecdata is still survivorship-filtered. (At the very least there should be less motivated reasoning, which is usually confined to the "story" part.) This is likely why giving advice in the form of anecdotes can be more effective than prescriptions, and why when a smart person gives a bad take, there's probably some kernel of truth hidden inside.

So should you ignore any advice you hear?

Probably, to the extent that "advice" is the takeaways people draw from their anecdotes (and then preach to the world). But you probably shouldn't throw away the anecdotes. Given enough independent anecdotes, you might end up being able to differentiate some actual signal from the noise. (But take my advice with a grain of salt.)

Off-topic for aiqbench

Should you ignore any advice you hear?

Related coverage