WhatsOurProblem

• In a lot of ways, modern humans are like modern moths, running on a well-intentioned Primitive Mind that’s constantly misinterpreting the weird world we’ve built for ourselves.
• So the Higher Mind’s goal is to get to the truth, while the Primitive Mind’s goal is confirmation of its existing beliefs.
• Trust, when assigned wisely, is an efficient knowledge-acquisition trick.
• Boxer analogogy: You would never believe that someone was the world best boxer if they hadnt beaten anyone. But people do this with ideas all the time. They feel sure they’re right about an opinion they’ve never had to defend—an opinion that has never stepped into the ring.

• RUNG 2: THINKING LIKE A SPORTS FAN Nima seems to think that at a high level you should be on RUNG1 (dispassionate and unbiased) but to more effectively make progress on teh different possible outcomes you should, temporarily and knowingly, adapt the mindset of RUNG2. Helps getting past potential false leads.

  RUNG1 is the strategy/ RUNG2 is the tactics

  Note this is how the SYSTEM of courts work

• You can live in a flourishing high-rung utopia with clear, civilized rules, but when a golem arrives at your gates, none of those rules matter if you can’t beat the golem at the Power Games. [BROKEN LINK: KeepYourPowderDry]
• It’s the great catch-22 of our species: the biggest threat to humanity is low-rung humanity, and low-rung humanity persists because it has often been the best defense against this very threat.
• Small individual bias can lead to large collective bias
• Eisenhower, who was in attendance, said the scene was “unpardonable—and a complete negation of the spirit of democracy. I was bitterly ashamed. re:1964 republican primaries
• Re:Equity Meme: The thing about moving those boxes around is that if activists are wrong about the specifics of the fence, moving boxes may be counterproductive and potentially a form of injustice itself.

• Oppression has been a regular feature of human societies since the dawn of time, and in the Power Games, the primary tool to fight oppression has been violence. Free speech offers a better way. The rich are protected and empowered by their money, the elite by their connections, the majority by their vote, while minority views often end up left out. But free speech gives the powerless a voice—the ability to spark a mind-changing movement that gains so much momentum, it moves our beliefs and our cultural norms, which in turn moves the Overton window, which moves policy, and then law.

  Throughout American history, free speech has been much more than protection against tyranny. It’s been the country’s brain, its compass, and its conscience.

• It’s the job of the progressive to never be satisfied with progress
• It’s only the idea supremacist on campus who says, “No one on campus is allowed to express ideas I find reprehensible, whether I’m in the room or not.” Which is another way of saying, “No one on campus is allowed to hear ideas that I find reprehensible.”
• The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people, but we’re now creating a surveillance society, where the smartest way to survive is to go back to being voiceless.”
• Think about your identity. The truth is, you’re not a progressive or a conservative or a moderate or radical or some other political noun. Those are words for ideas, not people. Your mind is way too weird and particular to be locked in a noun or adjective prison. Attaching a political category to your identity is a heavy piece of baggage to carry around, and putting it down makes learning and exploring much easier and less stressful.

• I’ve been using a little mantra. When I’m down on the low rungs and I have a moment of self-awareness where I realize I’m on the low rungs, I say in my head:

  Climb.

  It’s not a scolding moment, it’s a moment of self-compassion. I’m doing that thing that every human does sometimes. It’s okay. I caught myself. Climb.

• There was no shortage of ideas in this book, but I believe one stands out above all: Us vs. Them is always a delusion.