The Benefit of the Doubt: A Must Have Super Power

The Benefit of the Doubt: A Must Have Super Power

Giving the benefit of the doubt is a super power that can streamline your life, relationships, and discern the fake from the real. It does this by creating a framing around who someone, or something, says they are. By believing that presentation to be real, one can test the congruency of the goals, tasks, and actions to their truth.

When you are 50:50 trusting of someone, you can be prone to exercising your own personal biases and prejudice. For example, I could believe someone is pure evil, and yet they try to tell me they are good. When they try to sell me something, my prejudice might cause me to believe they are selling snake oil, even if they are selling something good. And if they are actually evil, they might be able to trick me into a purchase by leaning into my prejudice, and convincing me to give them a chance.

Benefit of the Doubt

Power of The Benefit of the Doubt

When you assume you are wrong and/or they are right, you will take actions that will accurately confirm or deny the congruency of their clams.

By assuming you are wrong, you build a case around why and how you could be wrong. Then, you can compare and contrast your findings to your own bias and thoughts. When you assume they are right, you use the same philosophy to see if actions and data back up their claims.

  • What confirms their claim?
  • Why does it confirm it?
  • Who do I respect that is anti-me or pro-them?
  • Do the thoughts of those I respect make sense?
  • Is it a reasonable/convincing argument against me or for them?
  • Does history confirm or deny?
  • Does the claim-ee’s history confirm or deny?
  • Why?
  • How do the alternatives stack up against or for me/them?
Benefit of the Doubt = Maze of thought

By taking a 100% solid stance, and studying to confirm congruency, you will be able to quickly identify a trend confirming or denying their claims.

Checkers, Chess, and Yu-Gi-Oh

Playing games against yourself is an excellent exercise in giving the benefit of the doubt.

I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh against myself.

For the uninitiated: this was a TV show that had an accompanying card game. In the TV show, the characters used different decks, with their own strategies, and a theme that reflected their character’s personality. And I had several decks modeled after these players playing styles.

So, when I would play myself with 2-4 decks of cards, I would have to place myself in the mind of this fictional character. Then, I had to exercise the several layers of framework centered to give my own mind the benefit of the doubt against its self. I had to pretend:

  1. I was two different people, with different strategies, cards to memorize, long term and short term tactics to memorize, and how to use the deck to that character's specific benefit.
  2. That I didn’t know what was in the other me’s deck, their strategy, and their continuously-fluctuating long-term and short term strategies.
  3. I had to switch back and forth for hours at a time, while compartmentalizing what I knew about the other me, while still formulating a strategy as the other me's style and strategy progressed through the game.
  4. To play to each me’s benefit while compartmentalizing what I knew about the other me’s cards and strategy.
Exercise the Benefit of the Doubt

Empathy and Networking

Playing games within your own mind, or as I like to say, “Rock-Paper-Scissors it”, is an exercise of compartmentalizing your bias, and looking at the world from another perspective 100% for that perspective's benefit.

Also known as empathy.

Most people exercise empathy by putting their own mind “in someone elses shoes”. Usually accompanied by the statement “If I were them I wouldn’t have done that”. Empathy requires understanding that person and why they are moving in a way that benefits them. So if a poor hungry person steals, of course you wouldn’t do that. But for a poor hungry person, you understand how that action was a rational choice for them. Maybe you don’t agree with it, but you have a common ground and understanding of your fellow man.

With networking, you can use the benefit of the doubt to ascertain their goals, then, break your compartmentalization, and add your biases to their best interest. Your perspective could reveal an angle they missed, or recognize a potential partnership through shared interests, problems, and goals.

Women

A woman’s logic is based on her emotional state at the time.

-Dante Nero

There are multiple levels to understanding why women do what they do. I thought about saying “don’t use this on women”, but that probably won't stop you from using rocket launcher and accidentally blowing shit up.

When giving a woman the benefit of the doubt, you must understand that a woman’s logic is based on her emotional state at the time:

  • If you are dating a girl, you piss her off, and then you tell her not to do something. This is a "something" that y’all both agree is bad, and she does it anyway causing y’all to break up. In her logic, she is right and didn’t do anything wrong. You are a bad person for making her feel bad, and why would she do something nice for a bad person?
    • Congruent.
  • In the same situation, you are making her happy, and you tell her not to do that "something.” This time, she doesn’t do it. She will believe that not doing that same bad behavior was right this time. You are a good guy making her feel good.
    • Congruent.

This thing could be objectively "bad": cheating, murder, selling your dog, etc.

BUT!!!! It is congruent with her emotions at the time. So ultimately for women, the test of their congruency, is typically the lack of congruency. The hilarity is that what this measures, is that you can count on her to be a woman.

It doesn’t make sense, but you can’t make sense out of non-sense.

Closing

The benefit of the doubt is a super power. Exercise your mind and challenge yourself to verify if an opposing view is right, before you call it wrong. Look for all the ways and congruencies that might confirm you as the wrong one, before you write off another's opinion or claim.

I'd rather be wrong and win, than be right and lose.

-Daxism #133

As you exercise this power, just like anything you practice, you will be able to recognize trends and detect congruencies faster. Eventually, you will internalize the process, making the game a part of you. Your thorough analysis will appear as a biased judgement to the untrained - Mastery.

You will bring value and empathy to the world in need of it more than ever. Always exercise your psychology and strengthen your mind.

Peace

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