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Much of life comes down to trying to find the most workable point between two extremes. We do that for a lot of things at the individual level, the institutional level, and the sovereign level. Even Aristotle wrote about this thousands of years ago with the Golden Mean (e.g. that the virtue of courage is somewhere between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness, and not necessarily right in the middle). I think one of the hardest ones in today's age is the "tribal ignorance vs analysis paralysis" problem. On on hand, people are very emotional decision-makers, and then they also are hardwired to form into groups. Agreeing with each other on one thing often then comes with an overlay of other things to form basically a tribal culture around it, as people start to adapt the mannerisms and ideas of those they already partially agree with. This is an effective shortcut in some cases, basically like ancestral/cultural knowledge rather than having to figure out everything from scratch ("this person seems like he's doing well, and he does/thinks these 25 things, so maybe I should do/think those 25 things too"), but has its obvious shortcomings. Social media algorithms further amplify it as well, connecting people of similar tribes together across space and helping them build echo chambers around themselves, often unknowingly. On the other hand, human reason lets us apply logic and cold hard analysis to things. You can make an argument, and then spend equal time building up the strongest possible counterargument, fully understand your opponent's position in order to test your own position, see why a given thing often can have two rational people that disagree over it, etc. You can replace anecdotes with statistical analysis, you can compile tons of case studies, you can separate arguments themselves from the characteristics of those arguing them, etc. But then it often leads to a form of anti-tribalism which doesn't necessarily work well either: you become so aware of multiple perspectives that it's hard to commit to one. Your mind is so open that your brain falls out. You have so much data you barely know what to do with it. It plays a role in why academics are often not effective leaders, capable of getting a bunch of people to organize and achieve something specific. Ideally, the right balance on important things is to do a lot of research, steelman the major opposition positions to understand them properly, but then find the right point to put it to rest and make a firm decision. Knowing where that point is can be the hard part, akin to finding Aristotle's Golden Mean. That's the ideal to strive for, and likely impossible to reach most of the time. But there are still exercises one can do to get a bit closer to it. If someone finds themselves more commonly in that tribal mindset, then forming a habit to remind oneself to research and steelman an opponent's argument, and separate the argument from the person making the argument, can go a long way toward making better decisions. It puts a brake on making too many emotional, overconfident decisions. If someone finds themselves more commonly in the analysis paralysis mindset, then forming a habit to remind oneself to stop overanalyzing, go out and touch grass, pay attention to what your "gut" or "vibes" are telling you, and a make a decision you're willing to live with either way, can also go a long way. It puts an accelerator on your stalled condition. The key part, then, is having self awareness to see which direction you tend to err in more often. That allows you to nudge your baseline toward that more optimal point, even if you never do quite reach it.

Replies (10)

Yes and no. I find myself pushing against excessive moderation. Probably different stuff, but still... People try to moderate away the best things, instead of just being okay with things being good. Its like I'm always saying, "Well, why can't we have the best things?" And peoples' response is, "We just can't!"
Thank you. I live the dilemma… tribal by nature whilst seeking logic on points of group think. I make a lot of decisions daily in order to clear blockages enabling people and projects to move forward which for me. I see people’s paralysis and their localised jingoism within the arena where I make my crust
And on top of this trade-off, logic and cold hard analysis are just by themselves expensive in time and energy. It's almost a last resort if other heuristics don't point sufficiently to a conclusion. We need to actively remind ourselves to think and analyze before acting if we don't want to default to the shortcut (which to be fair we more than often probably do want to!)
Great insights Lyn. The way I personally dealt with my similar form of this is I decided to control my inputs. I weighed the benefits to my life and the people I care most about of me being so deeply analytical about these subjects vs the cons. The benefits were something like: -I could debate people well -I made a good spaces guest / host -I could better create entertaining/ informative podcasts -I could amass followers online quicker Then cons were: -I was emotionally stunting myself by trying to live in my analytical / logical brain too much -I was filling my mind with the worst society has to offer, always paying attention to world events. -I was always in a state of debate -I was much more tempted to trade because I was more aware of risks and flaws -No matter how much time I spent doing this, I was not going to be as good as people like you. -Even if I mastered the skill, I didn’t truly desire to be known as an analyst or create income from my analysis. In fact I was unhappy. I had a shield of logic around my heart. I realized I should focus more on my health, fitness and having fun. Still on the journey but I’m spending much less time trying to steelman and understand from all angles and more time trying to understand myself and grow personally. These days I don’t make a great financial or political guest or host, but I have abs and I feel warmth in my heart more often 😆
A lot of words, important words. This is my best attempt to boil down. - In life we must balance extremes, as Aristotle's Golden Mean places courage between cowardice and recklessness. - Tribal ignorance fosters emotional decisions and echo chambers, amplified by social media algorithms. - Analysis paralysis arises from over-researching multiple perspectives, hindering firm commitments. - Ideal approach researches deeply, steelmans opposition, then decides decisively. - Self-awareness identifies personal bias toward tribalism or paralysis, enabling corrective habits.
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What's interesting to me is where "tribes" and "logic" intersect, and that's in the scientific community... At best, it's a "tribal" structure that adopts certain heuristics based on well-understood science, so it's supported by the logic underneath it. At worst, the "tribal" aspect overwhelms the logical, which is one thing that makes scientific revolutions difficult. Good example with vaccines: Most vaccines are safe and effective, don't cause autism, etc. Backed up by decades of studies ever since Wakefield was debunked. Bad example with lab leak: Our tribe doesn't want to appear to be racist or promoting anti-Asian hate, so we're going to label the lab leak idea as "conspiracy theories", beyond the pale of discussion, etc. As always, the solution to bad science is better science, just like the solution to bad speech is better speech.