How To Think Clearly

"Clear thinker" is a better compliment than "smart"

1. Real knowledge is intrinsic and it's built from the ground up.
2. The smart thinkers understand the basics at a very fundamental level.
3. If you can't rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you are lost.
4. Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority
5. The advanced concepts in a field are less proven. We use them to signal insider knowledge, but we'd be better off nailing the basics.