Basically, I am in total agreement, although w.r.t.
Problem 2: ‘Changing the World’ Creates Black and White Thinking
Actually, I think human beings can’t help being drawn to black and white thinking of one kind or another. Even while thinking this, an insidious something in my mind is trying to turn it into some kind of black and white thinking:
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people who don’t.
So I suggest you have the causation backwards, and rather, the reason so many heated arguments fall into some dichotomy between two Schelling points
(like “Change the World” <--> “Stop the catastrophe caused by the maniacs trying to change the world”)
is a tendency so central to our being that we can’t ever expect to extinguish it—we can only learn to be vigilant about it, laugh at ourselves (and others).
At bottom, I think it is something like an instinct for orienting oneself, like “my people” vs “those I’d better beware of”, which to me seems right for hunter-gatherers, who are very likely to only know of two groups (or they can easily view it this way): the people I live my life with, cooperate with, who are mostly likely to defend me in some way, vs those other people who don’t think, talk, or decorate their bodies in the proper way, who have neutral at best, and frequently hostile intentions towards me and my people.
Ask yourself (ozziegooen) whether it’s happened to you to some extent. Was there, in the feelings that motivated you to post, an element of anticipation of the agreement of people you’d like to get to know better, and simultaneous head-shaking over all those silly people to whom “Change the world” seems meaningful? There certainly was for me while reading it.
Black-and-white thinking is something that people seem gravitated to in all regards. It’s very simple.
However, I think we can understand that it is often wrong. Our tendency to put things into simple categories instead of gradients is to me one of the most important themes behind common human rationality.
I think it’s still useful to point out when its done, and that was what I was trying to do here with that point. Just because it’s an endemic everywhere doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be understood and is not a problem towards this one mentality.
Black-and-white thinking is more dangerous the more important the area of thinking is. This area (one’s perceived ‘purpose’ in life) is quite important, so I believed that this was dangerous enough to point out and think about.
I think it’s still useful to point out when its done, and that was what I was trying to do here with that point. Just because it’s an endemic everywhere doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be understood and is not a problem towards this one mentality.
Black-and-white thinking is more dangerous the more important the area of thinking is. This area (one’s perceived ‘purpose’ in life) is quite important, so I believed that this was dangerous enough to point out and think about.
I totally agree it’s dangerous and worth pointing out. And humankind is is serious danger. I have no idea what the odds are; it’s one of my points of agreement with N. N. Taleb that another addiction of human race is thinking we know—thinking we can calculate the odds.
Have I made you feel defensive? If so, not at all what I intended. I’ve had enough of those games. If you took my post as saying “Your post is lame and pointless so I’m 1-upping you”, I sincerely urge you to question that, and wonder if that was some sort of automatic reaction and if so, where it might have come from.
I was glad to see your post; it’s one of the more interesting things to come up here lately—it just reminded me of my point of view, which is related but somewhat different.
You have not made me feel particularly defensive; I just wanted to reply to that last comment. That said, I really appreciate that you considered that. I find that lots of people on this site (and others) are used to ‘1-upping’ the rest of a long list of commenting sins, so am happy you pointed that out.
Basically, I am in total agreement, although w.r.t.
Actually, I think human beings can’t help being drawn to black and white thinking of one kind or another. Even while thinking this, an insidious something in my mind is trying to turn it into some kind of black and white thinking: There are two kinds of people in the world: people who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people who don’t.
So I suggest you have the causation backwards, and rather, the reason so many heated arguments fall into some dichotomy between two Schelling points (like “Change the World” <--> “Stop the catastrophe caused by the maniacs trying to change the world”) is a tendency so central to our being that we can’t ever expect to extinguish it—we can only learn to be vigilant about it, laugh at ourselves (and others).
At bottom, I think it is something like an instinct for orienting oneself, like “my people” vs “those I’d better beware of”, which to me seems right for hunter-gatherers, who are very likely to only know of two groups (or they can easily view it this way): the people I live my life with, cooperate with, who are mostly likely to defend me in some way, vs those other people who don’t think, talk, or decorate their bodies in the proper way, who have neutral at best, and frequently hostile intentions towards me and my people.
Ask yourself (ozziegooen) whether it’s happened to you to some extent. Was there, in the feelings that motivated you to post, an element of anticipation of the agreement of people you’d like to get to know better, and simultaneous head-shaking over all those silly people to whom “Change the world” seems meaningful? There certainly was for me while reading it.
That’s a really good point.
Black-and-white thinking is something that people seem gravitated to in all regards. It’s very simple.
However, I think we can understand that it is often wrong. Our tendency to put things into simple categories instead of gradients is to me one of the most important themes behind common human rationality.
I think it’s still useful to point out when its done, and that was what I was trying to do here with that point. Just because it’s an endemic everywhere doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be understood and is not a problem towards this one mentality.
Black-and-white thinking is more dangerous the more important the area of thinking is. This area (one’s perceived ‘purpose’ in life) is quite important, so I believed that this was dangerous enough to point out and think about.
I totally agree it’s dangerous and worth pointing out. And humankind is is serious danger. I have no idea what the odds are; it’s one of my points of agreement with N. N. Taleb that another addiction of human race is thinking we know—thinking we can calculate the odds.
Have I made you feel defensive? If so, not at all what I intended. I’ve had enough of those games. If you took my post as saying “Your post is lame and pointless so I’m 1-upping you”, I sincerely urge you to question that, and wonder if that was some sort of automatic reaction and if so, where it might have come from.
I was glad to see your post; it’s one of the more interesting things to come up here lately—it just reminded me of my point of view, which is related but somewhat different.
You have not made me feel particularly defensive; I just wanted to reply to that last comment. That said, I really appreciate that you considered that. I find that lots of people on this site (and others) are used to ‘1-upping’ the rest of a long list of commenting sins, so am happy you pointed that out.