It's time to swot up. (HM Treasury)
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We humans are neophiles; we’re drawn to whatever’s new. This anxious curiosity may have saved our lives when we lived as hunter-gatherers, but in the digital age, it’s mostly just exploited to keep us checking our phones. Even the most trivial update is now presented as Breaking News, and it gets us every time. The news cycle churns out so many updates that anything older than 24 hours is considered prehistoric — especially during an election.
This is an underlying problem because the most valuable information tends to be old. From classic literature, to proven theorems, to replicated studies, the past is the archive of wisdom that has weathered the fickleness of fashions and the erosion of aeons. And yet, just because it’s old, it is typically overlooked in favour of the latest gossip and rumours (which almost never stand the test of time).
So, as we stare down the barrel of another interminable election campaign stuffed with trivial updates, I plumbed the past for time-tested ideas forgotten by our collective 24-hour memory. I recently presented a few of the best, to start the year. Here are 17 more to get you through the next six weeks.
1. False Consensus Effect
“Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.” — George Carlin. Our model of the world assumes people are like us. We don’t just do whatever we consider normal, we also consider normal whatever we do.
2. Fredkin’s Paradox
The more similar two choices seem, the less the decision should matter — yet the harder it is to choose between them. As a result, we often spend the most time on the decisions that matter least. To avoid being paralysed by meaningless choices, use decision-making heuristics.
3. Package-Deal Ethics
“If I can predict all of your beliefs from one of your beliefs, you’re not a serious thinker.” — Chris Williamson. Being pro-choice and being pro-gun control don’t necessarily follow from each other, yet those who believe one usually also believe the other. This is because most people don’t choose beliefs individually, but subscribe to “packages” of beliefs offered by a tribe.
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SubscribeNumber 18: Sunak is a ding-dong who can’t govern.
Number 19: Starmer is a wing-wong who can’t govern.
Well, one of those two (almost certainly the second) is going to be the next PM, so you’re going to have to get used to it. I agree that Sunak is looking extremely desperate, but Starmer has done many of the right things. I mean, he has purged the socialists from the Labor Party.
No he hasn’t. He has purged a couple of elderly, high-profile socialists so the easily misled will think he has removed them all.
Nobody elected can govern The Blob.
They can only increase it.
They don’t even have to actively increase it; it just grows when they do nothing to actively oppose it – like garden weeds or, rather, that vast fat-mountain they found ‘living’ in the London sewer system.
18 – Ignoring Pretentious Irrelevant Journalism
How is it irrelevant?
Excellent. And precisely the sort of amusing diversion needed to help survive the next 6 weeks.
And isn’t this the truth ?
“The new role of the press is not to inform its readers but to confirm what they already believe.”
Indeed, don’t we often prefer it that way ?
Not only have most newspapers become opinion-papers many have also majored in ‘reporting’ gossip. Sadly this has infected other media reporting too, such as broadcasting and scientific magazines – once respected sources of information.
Well worth following this guy on Substack.
I enjoyed that, thank you.
This is excellent!
#6. “Imagine you get drenched during a big campaign speech…… Is there anything you can do today to prevent that?”
Ha, ha. [Use an umbrella or give the speech indoors].
I do like point 17 ‘Cached Thoughts’, and the implied rejoinder to continually reevaluate our opinions.
Unusually, I find myself drifting from being a Nietzschean, survival of the fittest, ‘Tory Boy’ young man, economically leftwards as I get older.