What is your worst intellectual habit?

Originally asked

Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017

Vox's fixed 9 Questions format asks this verbatim across respondents.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Zeynep Tufekci said elsewhere, not written here
I have the same academic disease that any academic will understand, that I get focused on the interesting because that’s appealing to me. Most of the time, most answers are boring. “It’s a respiratory disease. Wear a mask.” That’s a boring example. Trying to be too clever, too smart, almost too contrarian sometimes — I would say that is something that I fight in myself because, like a lot of academics and a lot of intellectual people, I like the answers that surprise me.

Tyler Cowen, Conversations with Tyler podcast, published transcript source ↗

Others on this question

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Alain de Botton Writer and philosopher; founder of The School of Life
I’m prone to overexplaining things –- when my own understanding of them is shaky. The better I know something, the shorter my prose.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 29 April 2017 source ↗
Celeste Ng Novelist
I don’t believe anything is black and white, so I’m always searching for nuance. On the whole I think this is a positive thing, but it also means I almost never give an unqualified answer.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 5 August 2017 source ↗
Whitney Cummings Comedian and writer; co-creator of 2 Broke Girls
Overthinking. I tend to conflate the amount of time spent on something with how good it is. Sometimes intuition is better than proof, and gut instinct better than hours of “work.”
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 15 April 2017 source ↗

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