From askamathematician. (and lesswrong)
"Worried that someone doesn’t like you because he hasn’t returned your phone call in two days? Ask, 'how much more likely would this be to occur if he liked me than if he didn’t like me? '"
"Think that the stock you bought that went up 30% is strong evidence for you having skill as an investor? Ask, 'how much more likely is it that my highest returning stock pick would go up 30% if I was an excellent investor compared to if I was just picking stocks at random?' "
Turns out many of my beliefs violated the laws of math.
*
I feel much calmer now, with these beliefs safely proven fallacious. I'm still figuring out how reasoning like this got my gut to calm down, but it did.
