Elon Musk shares list of 50 Cognitive biases which should be 'taught to all'

Tech genius and TIME's Person of The Year 2021, Elon Musk, on Sunday, shared a list of ‘50 Cognitive biases’ that people should be aware of in order to be the best version of themselves. The 50-year-old posted the graphic on Twitter, wherein he asserted that everybody should be made aware of the biases at a very young age. The biases ranged from those related to learning, social to those about money and politics. 

One ubiquitous bias that the post highlighted was that of ‘Digital Amnesia’ which means that people tend to forget things that could easily be searched. Another one was the ‘Halo Effect’ which implied that a person’s one trait (positive or negative) overshadowed other traits. The list also talked about the Dunning-Kruger effect which states that a person’s confidence is inversely proportional to a person’s knowledge. 

'And also Pole Dancing 101' 

The post resonated with people, who added a few other biases seen widely in society. "A lack of critical thinking skill is a major setback in a lot of educational systems. The fact that things like the flat-Earth and anti-science movements have gained such traction is very worrying for our society," one user wrote. Meanwhile, a second user joked, "And pole dancing 101... It's the future for most women." A third user, "Would you vote for Elon Musk for President Of The United States?" 

In a separate tweet, Musk revealed that he will pay more than US$11 billion in taxes this year. The SpaceX founder is the world’s richest person with a net worth of over US$244 billion, according to Forbes. On Sunday, he took to Twitter to reveal that he would pay the said tax- an amount that could constitute a record payment of US Internal Revenue Services. 

Interestingly, this high amount of tax comes after Musk exercised almost 15 million options and sold millions of shares to cover the taxes related to those transactions. A separate report by ProPublica revealed that the Tesla founder paid less income tax as compared to his humongous wealth. However, Musk has many times defended himself stressing that he does not draw a salary from Tesla and that he pays an effective tax rate of 53% on stock options he exercised. 

(Image: AP)