{"id":164085,"date":"2025-10-05T03:20:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164085"},"modified":"2025-10-05T03:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:21:19","slug":"the-interesting-is-rarely-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164085","title":{"rendered":"The Interesting Is Rarely True"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Pinsof writes<\/a>: Here\u2019s a list of problems with the idea that humans are primarily interested in useful truth:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Most of the stuff that interests us is false and useless. And we know it. We freely admit it. We call this stuff \u201cfiction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    We\u2019re not only interested in fiction; we\u2019re <\/span>more <\/em>interested in fiction than reality. Novels sell better than textbooks. Movies sell better than documentaries. Tabloids are about a thousand times more interesting than scholarly journals.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    We\u2019re interested in celebrities, even though we we\u2019ll never meet them. Useless. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    We\u2019re interested in sports, even though we can\u2019t control the athletes. Useless.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    We\u2019re interested in sweeping generalizations, even though reality is complicated.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  6. \n

    We\u2019re interested in eloquence\u2014enthralling speakers and stylish prose. But eloquence has nothing to do with truth or usefulness. Ditto for charisma, humor, whimsy, wit, passion, irony, and quirkiness.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  7. \n

    We\u2019re interested in <\/span>new <\/em>information (i.e. the \u201cnews\u201d), even though the vast majority of useful truths are old. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  8. \n

    We\u2019re interested in spiritual flimflam about the \u201c<\/span>meaning of life<\/a>,\u201d even though it\u2019s too vague to be useful.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  9. \n

    We\u2019re interested in self-help gurus who confidently tell us all that we can be the best, even though that is logically impossible.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  10. \n

    We\u2019re interested in contrarian hot takes, even though the conventional wisdom is usually truer and more useful. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  11. \n

    We\u2019re interested in simplistic partisan rants, and we\u2019re bored by nuanced policy analysis. Shouldn\u2019t it be the other way around? <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  12. \n

    We\u2019re interested in stuff that confirms our preconceptions. But that is the <\/span>least <\/em>useful information to focus on, because it just results in us doing what we were going to do anyways.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  13. \n

    You know what\u2019s <\/span>actually<\/em> useful? The tax code. Home repair. How cars work. Retirement planning. Noncollateralized loans. The actual policies going through Congress. The actual words in the contracts we DocuSign. Booooooooring!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  14. \n

    Here\u2019s a weird fact: modern humans have been around for roughly two hundred thousand years<\/span>.<\/em> Yet we only discovered how to find useful truths (i.e. science and free inquiry) a few hundred years ago\u2014<\/span>about 1% of our history<\/em>. And plenty of countries still<\/span> <\/em>haven\u2019t gotten the memo: heretics and dissidents are getting killed all the time. Humans <\/span>really suck<\/em> at seeking useful truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cBut David,\u201d you say, \u201cit doesn\u2019t make any sense. Why our brains so interested in bullshit? If our brains evolved by natural selection, then why do they function so poorly?\u201d<\/p>\n

    They don\u2019t. They work just fine. They just don\u2019t work in the way you think they do.<\/p>\n

    People like to think that humans are the smart ones in the animal kingdom. We alone evolved to learn stuff, figure things out, and use tools. But that\u2019s only a small part of the story of human brain evolution. The bigger part of the story is <\/span>social<\/em>. Our brains weren\u2019t designed for solitary contemplation; they were designed for <\/span>arguing, rationalizing,<\/a> politicking, rule-following, <\/span>covert rule-breaking<\/a>, and excuse-making. We are <\/span>homo hypocritus<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s actually pretty obvious when you think about it. How much of your brainpower is devoted to office politics and social life, as compared to, say, auto parts? How much of your conversations are devoted to gossip and people-stuff, as compared to, say, home repair? If we naturally use 90% of our brainpower for dealing with people, it\u2019s hard to argue that our brains evolved primarily for tools.<\/p>\n

    Once we realize that the human brain is a fundamentally social brain, we can see the logic behind the subtle urges that goad us to click on this or skim through that. These urges are not designed for practical truth-seeking\u2014or at least, that\u2019s not their primary function. They\u2019re designed to fulfill our social goals. <\/p>\n

    So what makes stuff interesting? Any information that helps us get what we want from the people around us, including <\/span>the ugly things we can\u2019t admit we want<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Below are some of the ugly things I\u2019m talking about. These are the things that generally determine what humans find interesting:<\/p>\n

    We want to fit in.<\/strong> We often find stuff interesting because others find it interesting. Just as people can become famous for being famous, things can become interesting for being interesting. That\u2019s why we\u2019re interested in sports, celebrities, and the news, even though they\u2019re mostly useless. Everyone talks about these things, and we don\u2019t want to be left out of the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want attention. <\/strong>When people listen to us, that\u2019s a sign that we\u2019re high status. We like that. So we\u2019re interested in whatever grabs people\u2019s attention, from the titillating to the gory to the gossipy to the paradoxical…<\/p>\n

    We want to form cliques<\/strong>. We\u2019re constantly on the lookout for shareable tidbits we can use to signal membership in our special subculture, like historical esoterica or highfalutin theories. For example, if we casually mention the book \u201cCapital in the 21st Century,\u201d some people will look confused, but cool smart likeminded people will nod their heads. This allows us to <\/span>covertly figure out<\/a> <\/strong>who\u2019s smart and cool like us and who\u2019s not, so we can connect with fellow members of the cognoscente, while subtly excluding dumb-dumbs who aren\u2019t as cool as us. To pull off this strategy, though, we need to find nerd chic <\/span>interesting in the first place.<\/em> Not because it\u2019s especially useful or accurate, but because it helps us hobnob with other smart, high-status people. <\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to display our superiority<\/strong>. The hotter the take, the fewer people believe it. So if we can convince people that the hot take is correct, then we get to look smarter than everyone else. The same thing goes for moral claims. If we can convince people that some widespread behavior is morally wrong\u2014or some weird behavior is morally right\u2014then we get to look holier than thou. <\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to display our <\/strong>group\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>superiority<\/strong>. The more a piece of information disparages an enemy group (e.g., Republicans, \u201cwoke\u201d people), the more we\u2019re captivated by it. Spreading the disparaging information rallies our tribe and boosts solidarity. That\u2019s why we\u2019re more interested in simplistic partisan rants than nuanced policy analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to persuade people.<\/strong> We want to justify our behavior, tell self-flattering stories, win debates, and <\/span>rally people to our side<\/a>. That\u2019s why we\u2019re interested in stuff that supports what we already believe or want to believe. The goal isn\u2019t to learn anything new or better understand reality; it\u2019s to <\/span>gather ammunition for arguments<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to signal. <\/strong>Talking about scary stuff<\/span> makes us look competent<\/a>. Talking about complicated stuff makes us look smart. Talking about feel-good stuff <\/span>makes us seem warm and cuddly<\/a>. But in order to signal these traits, we have to be interested in scary, complicated, or feel-good stuff in the first place. So we\u2019re interested in whatever helps us signal the kind of person we are\u2014or want to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to be flattered. <\/strong>That\u2019s why self-help is such a popular genre: it always involves praising the reader and telling them what wonderful people they are. The same thing applies to the groups we belong to. Any information that flatters our group, that \u201cinspires\u201d us and tells us how brave and virtuous we are\u2014that\u2019s interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to oneup everyone else. <\/strong>That\u2019s why we like cynical bullshit, including this very substack: it gives us all an opportunity to dunk on other people. If <\/span>everyone else is a hypocrite<\/a>, and everything else is bullshit, then guess who comes out looking good? You and me!<\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to show we\u2019re on the same page.<\/strong> Working together requires coordinating our movements, which is why dancing and chanting feel good: it makes us feel like we\u2019re a single unit (plus it <\/span>strikes fear into the hearts of our enemies<\/a>). But working together also requires coordinating <\/span>our thinking<\/em>. That\u2019s why we like sweeping generalizations: <\/span>it\u2019s easier to mentally coordinate on false simplicity than real complexity<\/a>. The ultimate mental dance is to converge on the same banal interpretation of a deepity, paradox, or jargon-laden word salad. <\/span><\/p>\n

    We want to be associated with high status people<\/strong>. That\u2019s why \u201celoquence\u201d is so interesting. It signals all sorts of cool characteristics in the speaker (wit, creativity, social skills), which means that the person must have lots of status or be well on their way to getting it. We want to listen to high status people, and we want to parrot whatever eloquent bullshit they\u2019re saying, because that raises our status by association.<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    David Pinsof writes: Here\u2019s a list of problems with the idea that humans are primarily interested in useful truth: Most of the stuff that interests us is false and useless. And we know it. We freely admit it. We call … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43013],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-pinsof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164085"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164087,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164085\/revisions\/164087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}