Why We Fool Ourselves

Chakraborty asks why our minds habitually distort or ignore inconvenient information — wishful thinking, head-in-the-sand denial, the slow drift into drinking our own Kool-Aid. Drawing on evolutionary psychology, he argues self-deception isn't a bug we should be embarrassed about but a feature: it allowed our ancestors to convince others more effectively because they convinced themselves first. The piece sits between intellectual honesty and self-compassion: understanding the mechanism is the first step toward catching yourself doing it.