More Random Than We Realize
a day ago
- #social norms
- #modern chaos
- #cultural coherence
- US foreign policy and left vs right ideologies are less coherent than commonly believed.
- Social norms, legal systems, artistic genres, corporate cultures, and product brands are perceived as more coherent than they actually are.
- People tend to simplify cultural units, overestimating their coherence due to limited mental abilities and far mode thinking.
- Belief in the coherence of individuals or companies leads to expectations of continued success if core values are preserved.
- Seeing entities as collections of random factors makes predicting success or diagnosing failure more difficult.
- Overconfidence in oneself and groups stems from perceiving them as more coherent than they are.
- Cultural evolution and drift are hard to recognize due to the presumption of cultural coherence.
- Cultural features are often random collections, but rationalization leads to stories of deeper coherence.
- Traditional cultures resisted substantial change, but modern cultures allow rapid change, assuming few key cultural choices matter.
- Modern cultural changes may lead to maladaptive drift, as tracking a few features is insufficient to diagnose decay.
- Randomness is subjective; what seems random to one may be predictable to another.
- Statistical models with simple variables are preferred over 'all random' models, even if imperfect.
- Cultural 'drift' reflects individual preferences responding to greater freedom and wealth, not randomness.
- Modern chaos results from cultural adaptation timescales (A) being overwhelmed by rapid environmental changes (C).
- Conservative inclinations to slow change clash with the irreversible pace of technological advancement.