Sandoirs

all models are wrong, some of them are useful

This kind of regime-analysis disappeared with the rise of classical liberalism, which supplied an altogether different language of politics. As an intellectual reaction against an oppressive order, classical liberalism is first and foremost a negative ideal. Most liberal theorists know what they do not want—domination, illegitimate hierarchies, dogma—but they do not know what they do want, insofar as they do not tie their political philosophy to a precise definition of the good life. Once liberated, individuals must build their sense of selfhood by and for themselves. The liberal state provides liberty and rights, not meaning and purpose.

Unfettered media consumption skews our perception of the present

There's a Jewish folktale about King Solomon asking a counselor for an adage that would make the happy man sad, and the sad man happy. Said counselor, perplexed, asked a jeweler in the bazaar for advice. The jeweler inscribed on a ring: 'This too shall pass.'

Most people don't value truth for being true. They value truth for what else it can offer them. It must confirm their beliefs, bolster their ego, or aid their tribe, otherwise they feel no particular loyalty to it. Most people only support the facts when the facts support them.

Human perception is like predictive text, replacing the unknown with the expected.

Goodhart’s Law: When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to become a measure. E.g. British colonialists tried to control snakes in India. They measured progress by number of snakes killed, offering money for snake corpses. People responded by breeding snakes & killing them.

Anentiodromia: An excess of something can give rise to its opposite. E.g. A society that is too liberal will be tolerant of tyrants, who will eventually make it illiberal.

Nirvana Fallacy: When people reject a thing because it compares unfavorably to an ideal that in reality is unattainable. E.g. condemning capitalism due to the superiority of imagined socialism, condemning ruthlessness in war due to imagining humane (but unrealistic) ways to win.

Tocqueville Paradox: As the living standards in a society rise, the people’s expectations of the society rise with it. The rise in expectations eventually surpasses the rise in living standards, inevitably resulting in disaffection (and sometimes populist uprisings).

Progress blinds people to progress

Cumulative Error: Mistakes grow. Beliefs are built on beliefs, so one wrong thought can snowball into a delusional worldview.

Causal Reductionism: Things rarely happen for just 1 reason. Usually, outcomes result from many causes conspiring together. But our minds cannot process such a complex arrangement, so we tend to ascribe outcomes to single causes, reducing the web of causality to a mere thread.

Motivation sits upstream of reason

The amount of proof that you need to be convinced of something is based on how much you want to be convinced of it, so always subtract your desire to believe from the available evidence.