The Tyranny of OR
We are living in binary bias. We are forced to choose between increasingly extreme positions. It's time to liberate ourselves from this prison.
Friends!
Thank you so much for your loving, kind, and supportive messages in response to last week's post. It is clear that the notion of "we are who we are with" resonated with many and the conversations that followed helped remind me how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many of you.
This week, I am tackling another foundational theme of this newsletter. Its mission is "in pursuit of elevation." Above all else, I wish to share content and ideas that help us see the forest and not just the trees. Our public discourse is mired in division and short-sightedness, and I am trying my best to climb up the ladder to see the bigger picture and help better orient my choices towards where I truly want to be, not just where the gravity of the moment is pulling us to.
Computers rely on binary thinking, and now, so do we. I find it to be one of the more counter-productive aspects of modernity that has only been amplified by technology and social media. We have a tendency to frame nearly every decision as a choice between two opposites. I typically refer to this as BINARY BIAS. Our current political sphere is perhaps the most glaringly obvious example of this consuming polarization.
But, as with many similar phenomena, I am not convinced our current political climate is the cause or the result of this binary bias. What I do know is that they exist in the context of one another. And I also know that the binary, though very enticing, is often too convenient and forces us to oversimplify complicated discourse. We must be able to hold two opposing truths in our souls at once. Discord sits at the very core of the human experience, both within our internal dialogue as well as within our relationships with one another. And that fundamental tension is not only essential, but it is also a good thing. It is the texture of our emotional lives.
I am increasingly concerned about our intolerance of other people's ideas. Diversity of thought, scientific debate, pluralism, the sovereignty of reason — you can call it whatever you want, but these are cornerstones of the enlightenment which clearly brought enormous progress to the world. I fear we are experiencing a time in history where belonging is becoming more important than believing.
“Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing someone to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community, too. You have to give them somewhere to go.
Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.”
— JAMES CLEAR
Our media habits and landscapes have encouraged people to live in their own "reality bubble." And, therefore, increasingly "the other side" exists within a different reality. They often feel so foreign to us that it becomes easy to deny their humanity. It’s one of the worst byproducts of this type of alienation and insulation. Our distance begets distortion. It’s why political fear-mongering is so successful.
So what are we so afraid of?
The "reality" is that the extreme positions that people are either fearful of or hoping for are incredibly unlikely outcomes. In that way, people are arguing about hypothetical situations with the confidence and intensity of hyper-realistic ones. The premise of these diametrically opposed arguments are flawed off the bat. In the case of climate change, one of the most pressing issues in our current world, it seems like we are offered either a choice to believe in the end of the world as we know it (and SOON!) OR to believe in some type of singular future where new technologies will solve all our problems and create superhumans with endless human potential. This type of thinking works well for the plot of an action movie, but not for our reality. Our world contains far more possible outcomes than those two options.
Here is another case in point. From my own life and work.
I have been a supporter and investor in ideas that can decarbonize our world for well over 25 years. It became supremely clear to me that we are running a linear economic system inside a circular ecological system. There are planetary boundaries for what liberties we as humans on this earth can or should take. And there is very clear evidence that we are taking more than we give and racking up ecological, financial, and human debts which our future generations will have to carry and repay. Our responsibility is obviously to leave this earth in a better place than how we found it. That is generally a good philosophy to have. And we have a lot of work to do to restore, recover, and replenish.
At the same time, I have also been an equally ardent supporter of free markets and capitalism, and I don't see a conflict between the two. Or at least not an irreconcilable conflict. It is possible to upgrade our rules for free markets in a way that will unleash a level of commitment, investment, and innovation that would help us transition to a sustainable future. In fact, it is probably the only way to do it. It's been disappointing and frustrating that it has taken us too long, and we have lost very precious time. But it is not too late, and fortunately, there is a lot of movement lately that indicates that we might finally be making some really necessary progress.
Right now, there is a political discussion around infrastructure investments. I think most of us recognize the need to invest in infrastructure. I hope our elected officials do it wisely, as we do have roads, bridges, railroads, electric grids, fiber, and a whole lot of investment needs that would make America function better.
But we can all participate in perhaps the most important infrastructure project we have: to build bridges between extreme positions and help people walk towards the middle and realize that most of life happens in “the space between." The world is as unlikely to end tomorrow as it is to enter some type of utopia. We have a set of very persistent and difficult problems to address, and yes, we have enormous resources, talents, and opportunities with which to address them. The rest is just up to our commitment, discipline, and ability to work together.
My hope is that we all can help build these bridges. It might be our most important project in the next few years.
Here are 4 things that I found worth reading and listening to:
Tyler Cowen's podcast with Niall Ferguson. I admire historians very much. Niall Ferguson is provocative to some. But not to me. I find his language to be beautiful and his insights to be worthy of listening to. In this interview, he talks about precisely this false choice between "the end is near" and "singularity" and why that is most likely not the right endpoints to waste our energies on. And there is a lot more in there to listen to, from James Bond to his defense of the positive contributions of the British Empire.
Bill Maher's back after a short break and had this to say about extreme positions and cancel culture. It's funny (which is important) but it's also important (which is not funny)
I thought this opinion piece by former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, about our situation with vaccinations in the US was worth reading. I have stated here before that the entire response to COVID has been steeped in politics, and we have missed enormous opportunities to both save lives as well as use this crisis to advance the very poor overall health in the US population. Another powerful example of the limitations of binary thinking. We could wear masks, we could develop vaccines, AND we could at the same time have all eaten better, improved our Vitamin D intake, lost weight, slept better, etc, and thereby helped overall immunity to handle this and other future viruses better.
I found this piece in the NYT by Farhad Manjoo to be a good summary of the topic of division and polarization. However, I am more optimistic than he is. While there is troubling evidence that we are struggling to cooperate right now history has shown that crises could also bring us together. If you don’t believe me, I have previously mentioned Rutger Bregman’s inspiring book Humankind which makes the very case that crises tend to bring out the best, not the worst, in people.
This is a difficult and important topic. I am working on NOT accepting positions people have as absolute but instead as directional. And I am definitely working on not judging a person because of their opinion. People arrive at opinions based on so many different inputs and experiences. To cast judgment without understanding their entire context is unfair and unwise. Most of all, I am trying to do what I can to be and feel closer to my fellow humans. Even if we see things differently, we can still be closer together. It's a better way to live.
Thank you! And have a great week!
