A while back, I posted on my blog two lists with the posts I considered the most useful on Overcoming Bias so far.
If I just had to pick one? That's tough, but perhaps burdensome details. The skill of both cutting away all the useless details from predictions, and seeing the burdensome details in the predictions of others.
An example: Even though I was pretty firmly an atheist before, arguments like "people have received messages from the other side, so there might be a god" wouldn't have appeared structurally in error. I would have questioned whether or not people really had received messages from the dead, but not the implication. Now I see the mistake - "there's something after death" and "there is a supernatural entity akin to the traditional Christian god" may be hypotheses that are traditionally (in this culture) asssociated with the same memeplex, but as hypotheses they're entirely distinct.
I would vote for "Burdensome Details" as well.
My current plan does still call for me to write a rationality book - at some point, and despite all delays - which means I have to decide what goes in the book, and what doesn't. Obviously the vast majority of my OB content can't go into the book, because there's so much of it.
So let me ask - what was the one thing you learned from my posts on Overcoming Bias, that stands out as most important in your mind? If you like, you can also list your numbers 2 and 3, but it will be understood that any upvotes on the comment are just agreeing with the #1, not the others. If it was striking enough that you remember the exact post where you "got it", include that information. If you think the most important thing is for me to rewrite a post from Robin Hanson or another contributor, go ahead and say so. To avoid recency effects, you might want to take a quick glance at this list of all my OB posts before naming anything from just the last month - on the other hand, if you can't remember it even after a year, then it's probably not the most important thing.
Please also distinguish this question from "What was the most frequently useful thing you learned, and how did you use it?" and "What one thing has to go into the book that would (actually) make you buy a copy of that book for someone else you know?" I'll ask those on Saturday and Sunday.
PS: Do please think of your answer before you read the others' comments, of course.