I tend to be the opposite, often failing at empathy because it just does not occur to me that the way to predict how others may feel would be to put myself in their shoes and ask me how I would feel. I agree the trick is find the exact limits of both heuristics.
I wonder why the opposite fallacy, the atypical one i.e. not putting myself in others shoes is not discussed as much here? Is it rarer?
following on from:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
I am quite sure in my experience that at some point between the ages of 10-15 I concluded that; "no the rest of the world does not think like me, I think in an unusual way".
This idea disagrees with the typical mind fallacy (where people outwardly generalise to think everyone else has similar minds to their own).
I suspect I started with a typical mind model of the world but at some point it broke badly enough that I re-modelled on "I just think differently to most others".
I wanted to start a new discussion; rather than continuing on from one in 2009;
Where do your experiences lie in relation to typical minds?