Intellectual autopilot

It can be frustrating when we are faced with someone who has not done the real work of forming opinions or evidence for those opinions and beliefs. Very often, it seems, one might just believe something because they feel that they are expected to, or because that's always how they've thought. Far more frustrating is someone who offers an opinion and cannot give any reason why they believe it.

The irony is that this person often can't to see the importance of having well founded thoughts and opinions. However this is very often not a malicious or evil intent that leads them to this point. It might be that they have never been taught to be skeptical or to think critically or that they simply didn't know that they weren't thinking critically already.

Switch your intellectual autopilot to
disengage.

Whatever the cause of intellectual autopilot, the ramifications of living this way can be incredibly dangerous the person and to others.

The duty of the critical skeptic is not only to work to guard oneself from the dangers of intellectual autopilot (we are all susceptible) but to help eliminate it in others.
Learning how to catch oneself in intellectual autopilot can also help to detect it in others. The real trick is helping people to see that there is nothing wrong with learning how to reevaluate their convictions when presented with evidence to the contrary of their firmly held beliefs. It is important to anticipate the backfire effect, to make no judgments about their beliefs (no matter how misinformed they are) and to be compassionate. It can be both a little embarrassing and cause guilt to be shown the error on one's thinking.
The reality is, that if successful, it can be exhilarating to be freed from bad ideas and misconceptions.