There aren’t many beliefs I’ve held for decades but this is one — you can’t improve the world without embracing truth first.<\/p>\n
I think I got that from Dennis Prager’s radio show in 1988.<\/p>\n
There’s a statement in the Talmud that I love — “The signature of God is truth.”<\/p>\n
David Pinsof writes<\/a>: “We\u2019re tribal, factional, nepotistic, <\/span>moralistic<\/a>, short-sighted, close-minded, superstitious, self-deluded, and surreptitiously selfish. We aren\u2019t <\/span>naturally motivated<\/a> to make the world a better place, nor are we naturally motivated to see ourselves as mediocre humans, <\/span>saddled with the same flaws as every other human<\/a>. We consume <\/span>\u201cinteresting\u201d information\u2014not useful or true information<\/a>\u2014which prevents us from understanding our predicament. We defend the <\/span>status games we\u2019re winning<\/a>\u2014not the ones that improve the world\u2014which worsens the world. We\u2019re in thrall to <\/span>bullshit political beliefs<\/a>, including the belief that we\u2019re morally and intellectually superior to our outgroup, which is exactly what our outgroup thinks of us, and what every ingroup has wrongly believed about their outgroup since the dawn of humanity. <\/span>We should be troubled about this<\/a>, but we\u2019re not. We\u2019d rather point the finger at the baddies, and cast ourselves as the heroes, than <\/span>fix our broken incentives<\/a>. You might have expected psychologists to help us out here, but they\u2019re too busy <\/span>doing the same bullshit<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There aren’t many beliefs I’ve held for decades but this is one — you can’t improve the world without embracing truth first. I think I got that from Dennis Prager’s radio show in 1988. There’s a statement in the Talmud … Continue reading