Our species broadly is far more concerned with narratives and stories than reality. This is how our brains work on a very fundamental level.
Yep. Thanks for mentioning this. It’s really the root of it. The existing social structure is reinforcing/escalating our worst psychological biases. The opposite of what many of us think it should be doing. At least for me… going to school was all about deprogramming all the emotional bias bullshit that my parents and home-town idiots I grew up with believed. The internet also helped a lot with that. It was about getting outside of the bubble.
But it seem around 10 years ago this all shifted. and now education and internet is all about reinforcing those biases. I meet so many ‘well-educated’ people that have such provincial/delusional beliefs about the world now… it’s terrifying. And this is folks on my ‘own side’ of leftism/liberalism… I can only imagine it’s equal/worse among the right. A huge uptick in delusional and magical thinking, and people using their education to justify their crazy thoughts… instead of using their education to dismantle/prevent their crazy thoughts.
I’m not so sure good policy is the way to do it… but I do know from political experience that good policy is something EVERYONE hates. Precisely because it doesn’t benefit them exclusively.
History shows us people only learn to do the right thing after things have gone horrible horrible wrong.
we had a worldwide depression and war that uttered in 80 years of peace. we will have another one before things can truly improve. the current generations are all far too removed from the consequences of their actions.
I remind myself all the time that as mad as I may feel, as righteous and justified and endangered, that violence on the level that might change things will fuck up my life and the life of everyone I care about and a whole lot of people I don’t know but don’t deserve it. Are the Cubans better off after the cuban revolution? Maybe, hard to say. Were the Soviets better off after the Russian revolution? Again, hard to say. The French are better off today than they were before the French revolution, but they also got Napoleon right after that.
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Yep. Thanks for mentioning this. It’s really the root of it. The existing social structure is reinforcing/escalating our worst psychological biases. The opposite of what many of us think it should be doing. At least for me… going to school was all about deprogramming all the emotional bias bullshit that my parents and home-town idiots I grew up with believed. The internet also helped a lot with that. It was about getting outside of the bubble.
But it seem around 10 years ago this all shifted. and now education and internet is all about reinforcing those biases. I meet so many ‘well-educated’ people that have such provincial/delusional beliefs about the world now… it’s terrifying. And this is folks on my ‘own side’ of leftism/liberalism… I can only imagine it’s equal/worse among the right. A huge uptick in delusional and magical thinking, and people using their education to justify their crazy thoughts… instead of using their education to dismantle/prevent their crazy thoughts.
I’m not so sure good policy is the way to do it… but I do know from political experience that good policy is something EVERYONE hates. Precisely because it doesn’t benefit them exclusively.
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History shows us people only learn to do the right thing after things have gone horrible horrible wrong.
we had a worldwide depression and war that uttered in 80 years of peace. we will have another one before things can truly improve. the current generations are all far too removed from the consequences of their actions.
The founders tried that and look where it got us.
I remind myself all the time that as mad as I may feel, as righteous and justified and endangered, that violence on the level that might change things will fuck up my life and the life of everyone I care about and a whole lot of people I don’t know but don’t deserve it. Are the Cubans better off after the cuban revolution? Maybe, hard to say. Were the Soviets better off after the Russian revolution? Again, hard to say. The French are better off today than they were before the French revolution, but they also got Napoleon right after that.
Things will get worse before they get better.
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