Falsifiability & If You Can't Decide the Answer Is No

🧶 Tags:: #literature_Notes
🗃 Resources:: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (2020)
2026-06-10

Least understood, but the most important principle for anyone claiming "science" on their side — falsifiability. If it doesn't make falsifiable predictions, it's not science. For you to believe something is true, it should have predictive power, and it must be falsifiable.

If you cannot decide, the answer is no. Modern society is full of options. There are hundreds of thousands of careers available to you. If you find yourself creating a spreadsheet for a decision with a list of yes's and no's, pros and cons, checks and balances — forget it. If you cannot decide, the answer is no.

Simple heuristic: If you're evenly split on a difficult decision, take the path more painful in the short term. What your brain is doing through conflict-avoidance is trying to push off the short-term pain. By definition, if the two are even and one has short-term pain, that path has long-term gain.