Nathan Young argues calibrated open-mindedness beats blind openness

Nathan Young challenges the common advice to "be more open-minded," arguing that open-mindedness has a real cognitive and emotional cost. With 30,000 Twitter followers and daily intellectual sparring, he says he is already at his limit. The implicit request to be more open-minded often means being open to the requester's own ideas, not good ideas in general. Instead, Young advocates for calibrated open-mindedness: triage incoming arguments based on the source's track record (e.g., forecasting accuracy, wealth), and allocate limited energy to conversations that are likely to change your mind or are truly important.

Young warns that unbounded open-mindedness can lead to harms, citing one "how not to be racist" book that used a cult-like tactic—defensiveness as proof it's working. He questions whether white liberals who uncritically accepted such criticisms voted optimally in the last US election. His recommendation: be more open-minded in new environments or with mechanisms like prediction markets, but otherwise be selective. Learn one thing per day, have one substantive conversation. Epistemic lock-in is a risk, but so is waste from over-engagement.