{"id":164120,"date":"2025-10-05T04:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T12:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164120"},"modified":"2025-10-05T09:37:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T17:37:59","slug":"getting-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164120","title":{"rendered":"Getting Away With It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prestige media, including the New York Times in America<\/a> and the ABC public broadcaster in Australia<\/a> have done devastating work about the murder committed by out-of-control soldiers abroad.<\/p>\n

Despite this, most people don’t care about war crimes committed overseas against out-groups. Why not? Because caring about strangers conveys no reproductive advantage. Elites pretend to care about these things because they are playing a status game. <\/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

On May 21, 2025, David Pinsof wrote<\/a>: “A lot of people ask me how I write blog posts\u2014where I get my ideas from. They\u2019re often surprised when I give them a precise, step-by-step answer. Here\u2019s my patented \u00ae formula for writing Everything Is Bullshit content:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    I look at a story we tell ourselves. Maybe it\u2019s <\/span>the pursuit of happiness<\/a> or <\/span>the meaning of life<\/a>. Maybe it\u2019s our desire <\/span>to change people\u2019s minds<\/a> or <\/span>make the world a better place<\/a>. Maybe it\u2019s the idea that <\/span>we don\u2019t care what others think<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    I ask myself if the story makes any evolutionary sense.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    If the answer is no, I think about what might be going on beneath the surface\u2014something that <\/span>would <\/em>make evolutionary sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    I call the story we tell ourselves \u201cbullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    I write about what\u2019s likely going on beneath the surface.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  6. \n

    I link to a lot of technical papers in evolutionary psychology that nobody clicks on.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The most important part of this formula is step 3\u2014the part about what does or doesn\u2019t \u201cmake evolutionary sense.\u201d This step is rarely taken by anyone who thinks about humans. It\u2019s as if the human psyche emerged from a bolt of lightning and not from millions of years of natural selection. When people talk about why Bob voted for Trump or Jane can\u2019t find a date or Otto is depressed, they rarely reflect on the fact that Bob, Jane, and Otto are animals, and so are they.”<\/p>\n

    It seems like we had a bunch of Muslim terror attacks in the USA prior to the rise of Trump and after he was elected in 2016, it ended.<\/p>\n

    ChatGPT says: “There were Islamist-motivated or jihadist attacks in the U.S. after 2016, though fewer in number and often less lethal.<\/p>\n

    Here are some relevant points and examples:<\/p>\n

    CSIS notes that between January 2020 and January 2025, there were 8 jihadist attacks and 10 disrupted plots in the U.S. The 2025 New Orleans truck attack, carried out by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar and motivated by Islamic extremism, killed 14 people. <\/p>\n

    In 2021\u20132022, four Muslim men were ambushed and killed in New Mexico in what has been treated as a hate crime with sectarian motivations. <\/p>\n

    The largest jihadist attack since 2016 remains the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, claimed by ISIS.”<\/p>\n

    There are vicious things you can do to stop terror. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Prestige media, including the New York Times in America and the ABC public broadcaster in Australia have done devastating work about the murder committed by out-of-control soldiers abroad. Despite this, most people don’t care about war crimes committed overseas against … 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":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19698],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t