Your brain is amazing. It can learn languages, recognize faces, and remember the lyrics to a song you haven’t heard since 2009.

Your brain is also great at taking shortcuts, especially when making decisions. 

Sometimes those shortcuts are helpful. Ninety thousand years ago, if you were out for a stroll and ran into a tiger, stopping to analyze your options would not have ended well. 

That’s not a pros and cons moment. 
It’s a run moment. 
And a quick decision-making shortcut keeps you alive.

Civic Assemblies are not tiger problems. 
They don’t come with clear villains or simple, bumper-sticker solutions. 
They’re complicated. 
They involve tradeoffs. 

That requires a different kind of thinking. 

In deliberation, it helps to assumethat the first answer is not the wisest answer. 
It might be. 
But it’s probably not. 

By challenging your first reaction to an idea, there’s a good chance your thinking will get smarter. 

So don’t fall in love with your first response to a new idea. 
Stay curious about it. 
Test it. 
Compare it to alternatives. 
See how it holds up when others bring different perspectives. 

That’s how a group moves from fast thinking to better thinking.