How To Be a Contrarian

If you want to prove the experts wrong, the burden of proof is on you

"Renegade Contrarian Imperial Pilsner" by peteSwede is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

In June 2016, British politician Michael Gove, then Lord Chancellor, made a controversial soundbite during the UK’s heated debate on whether or not to leave the European Union (EU). He said: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”  Of course, nobody remembers the full quote. The first 12 words - ““I think the people of this country have had enough of experts” - entered the culture as shorthand for the kind of people who wanted to ignore expert warnings on the dangers of leaving the EU and just do it anywhere.

This kind of kneejerk contrarianism - trusting your gut instead of the experts who have spent their whole lives studying how things work - is the opposite of skepticism. It is the operating system for conspiracy theories. Once you start doing this regularly, you will set yourself up for many of the problems we have talked about throughout this blog: Developing conspiracy theories as the bodyguards to bad ideas, moving backwards from events to alleged causes, relying on sloppy research skills and trusting pundits who are utterly sure of themselves, even if they are selling dodgy worldviews.

None of this should be taken to mean that the experts are necessarily right. Sometimes they will be and sometimes they won’t. A Bayesian approach offers us a way of developing contrarian views while trying to avoid the traps mentioned above. To refresh your memories a little, Bayesians see their views as sitting on a sliding scale from 0 to 100. They seek to adjust them up and down the scale based on the evidence. Borrowing a non-mathematical version of this approach is a very powerful tool that can easily be adapted by amateur researchers. The trick is to distinguish between your starting position and the latest iteration of your views. You should always start your research with a survey of what the experts say (as well as several news sources and a healthy social media feed). If you still think the experts or the mainstream media are wrong, that is fine, but the burden of proof is on you.

If you were right and the experts were wrong, what would happen in the real world as a result? Can you find anyone who will accept a bet on this? One of the biggest contrarian bets you can make is to found or join a startup. Peter Thiel, a billionaire entrepreneur and investor with a philosophy degree, says that startups should be seen as a way of proving the rest of the world wrong. My own personal experience (joining a journalism and data startup as an early employee and working hard as it became a unicorn) bears out this insight.

If you lose several bets in a row, or your startup fails to gain traction, a Bayesian would expect you to adjust your views downwards and become less of a contrarian in this particular case. It is worth reminding you that cognitive dissonance makes this hard to do, which is why it is so important to be self-critical and have a little honesty with yourself when your bets fail.

I explore these issues in much greater depth in Chapter 17 of Sharpen Your Axe, my free book on critical-thinking skills. If you missed the beginning, here are the links to Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15 and Chapter 16. I decided to make the book free so it could spread as widely as possible. If you could share a moment to share this post, it would be greatly appreciated. See you next week with the final chapter!

Update (25 April 2021)

The full beta version is available here

[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.