Walden Ponders: History Until Now (HUN) in a Few Simple Haiku
Version: 20251102
Warning: contains Swanson style humor which sometimes is not
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Preface
This is not a carefully crafted science piece.
If you are an accomplished scientist or a brilliant intellectual, this book may not be for you. Reading it could frustrate you to no end, as its flaws—ranging from errors and faulty conclusions to baseless assumptions and insufficient evidence—are likely to make your blood pressure spike and that's not good for someone your age.
Despite its logical-sounding arguments, the book exemplifies a persistent and powerful human tendency to accept flawed reasoning cloaked in persuasive rhetoric. This tendency is one of the book's primary points. Read at your own risk (and with a blood pressure monitor nearby).
HUN (History Until Now) began as my personal quest to find an answer to this overwhelming question*: why do so many intelligent people support Trump? The quest forced me to examine flaws in our species that I didn’t know were there and that uncomfortably reflect who I am too.
HUN has taken me far afield and to regions I know nothing about. It is my mind map of that quest. Here you will find my pedestrian views and haiku on astrophysics, evolution, genetics, epistemology, sociobiology, metaphysics, civilization, and philosophy.
Alas, my ire and blood pressure rose while researching too. I read right wing books by Limbaugh, Carson, et.al. They were disappointing and did not give me a clue as to why intelligent people support Trump. I liked reading the New York Times op-ed pages because the NYT employed four intelligent intellectuals from the right and four from the left. Reading them all gave me a more balanced view than I wrangled from other sources. A bummer though – all 4 on the right eventually became Never Trumpers and that didn’t help me find an answer to my quest. I also followed three pro-Trump Facebook groups where the content was skillfully articulated and logically presented. To my chagrin, I later found that they were written in Russia, by Russians, for Americans. The groups disappeared when the CIA caught on. I am probably on some watchlist now. Kate and I watched Fox News to immerse ourselves in the other side. Watching Tucker BBS (before being sacked) and Sean made us vomitous and we could not keep it up (or down?). They were articulate and logical, but it all seemed like slick, emotional, curated propaganda to us.
This journey revealed something uncomfortable: how solidly biased and deeply entrenched I am. Perhaps right-wingers reading The New York Times would feel equally outraged.
Ultimately, it’s clear—we are all deplorables in one way or another.
Let us go and make our visit.*
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Table of Contents
Part I In the Beginning: Just Physics and Chemistry
Chapter 1 Banging Big
Chapter 2 Ebbing Embers
Part II Primordial Soup: Dawn of the Mutant Clones
Chapter 3 Luca Lives!
Chapter 4 Mind the Mutants
Chapter 5 Cellular Courtship
Chapter 6 Mean Machines
Chapter 7 Team Machines
Intermission
Part III Big Brains: Ignorance Isn’t Bliss
Chapter 8 Thinking and Talking
Chapter 9 Way Too Much Information (WTMI)
Chapter 10 Way Too Little Information (WTLI)
Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents
Chapter 11 Awesome Accomplishments
Chapter 12 Complicating Complexity
Chapter 13 Conforming Compliantly
Chapter 14 Conflicting Conformities
Part IV Presently My Dear: Double Double Toil and Trouble
Chapter 15 Arching Acceptably
Chapter 16 Going Goodbye
Chapter 17 Cycling Continuously
Conclusion
Appendix 1: WSIM Framework
Appendix 2: HUN Scenarios in Detail
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Part I In the Beginning: Just Physics and Chemistry
“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” - Julie Andrews
Starring:
Biba as the Big Bang
Emba as Ebbing Embers
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Chapter 1 Banging Big
I was the beginning - the Big Bang; call me Biba.
At 13.8 billion years old, I’ve seen it all.
What a rush at birth! Super rapid expansion, contracting gravitational forces, and strong molecular bonding, all of which I am proud to say, determined the rest of history.
I (Biba) wanted to keep you humans in the dark about some things though.
Why?
Because your curiosity, questioning, and searching serves as a propellant for my penchant for diversity.
If you knew everything, what would be the use of doing anything?
So…at the big bang birth, I created dark matter and dark energy. These unseen, unknown forces make up 95% of my being. They remain to you a mystery, forming the bedrock of uncertainty, teasing you with reality riddles.
In addition, I gifted you the ability to conjure: to make things up so that you might feel certain. But “to seem rather than to be” was my trick to keep you guessing and keep you moving – painfully, I know, at times.
I chuckle because I know that uncertainty stings, but that you’ll try to scratch that itch. I watch you wonder, build, and blunder with consequences both brilliant and bitter.
Let us go and make our visit.
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Chapter 2 Ebbing Embers
After 10 billion beautiful but lonely years, Biba longed for company
I am one of the Ebbing Embers; call me Emba.
Millions of us chemically bound entities arose alive from primordial soups struck by lightning on volcanic islands four billion years ago.
We all died without reproducing though.
We flickered, then faded, like ebbing embers into the night.
I was nearly something, but not quite.
That’s it for Part I?
Yep.
The first 10 billion years flew by in “Part I – In The Beginning: Just Physics and Chemistry” because Biba and Emba had little distinguishing influence on the emergence of Smart Trump Advocates (STAs).
The next section delves into a more interesting question: Why do both STAs and their bewildered opposites (TBOs) exist?
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Part II Primordial Soup: Dawn of the Mutant Clones
Life evolved, genomes embedded, requisite variety attained.
Starring:
Luca as your Last Universal Common Ancestor,
Muta as the first Mutant,
Fire as the First Result of sexual reproduction,
Brut as the Brutal gene, and
Coop as the Cooperative one.
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Chapter 3 Luca Lives!
I am your Last Universal Common Ancestor; call me Luca.
4 billion years ago, out of the millions of lifelike embers that arose, only I survived.
A little secret: I survived by cloning - literally splitting in two, and those two split too, and on and on. And there you are.
My clones and I began populating Earth and incidentally and accidentally kicked off evolution. And then evolution unintentionally but consequently embedded deep down in our genome a "drive to survive and replicate". That part of me remains with you, my precious progeny. These drives still account for much of what all of you are and do. You don’t even have to think about it. Just happens.
It also means that all living things are related: humans, plants, animals, bacteria, and maybe viruses. Think about that for a minute.
But my problem, 3.9 billion years ago, was boredom. Due to cloning, Many Me's did not provide any variety and after a while, we just were not that interesting to each other.
Also, since we could only survive in very precise ecological environments, it got really crowded and slimy slums ensued.
Thanks Evolution – Not.
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Chapter 4 Mind the Mutants
I am the first mutant; call me Muta.
Just 3.8 billion years ago, due to cloning glitches beyond Luca’s control, we mutants materialized. We were more than just Many Me's and survived in more interesting niches.
Thanks Evolution!
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Chapter 5 Cellular Courtship
I am the First Result of sexual reproduction, call me Fire.
It started out with 2 mutant cells out late one night. They were spooning and trading chemicals, but, as your Parents, Church, Synagogue, Temple, and Society admonish, spooning likely leads you astray.
I was born about 2 billion years ago and my progeny produced incredible variety and species Zsa Zsa galore.
Thanks Evolution!
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Chapter 6 Mean Machines
I am your embedded Brutal gene*; call me Brut (not to be confused with the aftershave).
I’ve been around since Fire.
After the Cambrian Explosion more than 500 million years ago, I turned gruesome: T-Rex, et.al. You think Hannibal Lecter was bad?
The bigger and stronger mutated species like me ended up being selfish, greedy, and mean. We claimed our territories and even ate nicer, littler, and weaker guys, even though we were related. Distant relatives taste good with salt.
Thanks Evolution – Not.
Survival of the Fittest: the bastards survived and the less aggressive did not, embedding the selfish, greedy, mean, and brutal forces deep inside everything that came after, explaining us and the food chain (fast food chains come later). You humans know me well, although some of you won’t admit it. I’m still a part of each of you and emerge quite often.
Brut is alive and well and not doing good.
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Chapter 7 Team Machines
I am your Cooperative gene*; call me Coop.
* Actually, I am polygenic - see Chapter 6. (Please don’t tell others as polygenic may now be considered illegal by the same group that wants to stop mitochondria from cloning.)
Coop allowed humans to socialize and band together into tribes.
Individual and group intelligence evolved to combat brute size and strength. Physically weaker and smaller banded together, communicated, and cooperated to survive the brutal, bigger beasts (and to kill Mastodons). Also, we would like to thank the asteroid that slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, eliminating some of the bigger brutes.
Natural Selection kept evolving a bigger brain which fostered communication and cooperation, or vice versa. The better we did both, the more likely our tribe survived: Survival of the Fittest Tribes.
Each fall you can catch tribal survival reenactments by tuning in to ESPN.
Thanks Evolution!
(Some argue, along the lines of Kropotkin, that Coop came first and that Brut came later when cooperation didn’t work. That might be the case, but in terms of Smart Trump Advocates (STAs), it matters not – both still have a home in our genome.)
“Part II Primordial Soup: Dawn of the Mutant Clones” implies that the Trump side of human nature goes way back. I suspect that all sides agree that his Brut side is dominant.
That still doesn’t explain STAs for me though. I know plenty of STAs that aren’t Brutes. What’s going on?
In “Part III Big Brains: Ignorance Isn’t Bliss”, we ask if our relatively big brains enable us access to ultimate truths or is there so much information out there that we realize that our brains are relatively small. My assumptive answer to this question moves me closer to understanding how good smart people can be STAs.
And later in “Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents” , we’ll discuss the ongoing battles between contemporary Brut advocates like Dawkins and Dennett and Coop advocates such as E. O. Wilson and Jane Goodall. The intellectual wars between the two sides have been nasty, brutish, and mean.
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Intermission
Recap:
Evolution doesn’t give a damn about what’s good or bad; just what survives: Mutate, Survive, Replicate. “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” – Clint Eastwood in the Unforgiven
Might Made Right for much of our genome’s history. Being brutish, greedy, and mean worked and so did murdering, cheating, lying, raping, and stealing. Our genome preserved these trait tendencies because the creatures carrying those mutations survived; others didn’t.
But five times over the last 4 billion years, the brutes that had clawed to the top of the food chain were wiped out by extinction events. Evolution was smart to insist on mutations that created incredible variety. Some varietal niches survived each mass extinction. Small mammals survived the last one.
Thanks Evolution!
Foretell:
The brutish traits are still there, hiding in the genome like sleeper cells. Just listen to Trump or turn on the news - they burst out all the time.
Cooperate/Communicate (CC) traits survived as well and are also buried in our genome. We have both, although the CC genes may be much younger. The Cherokee really knew what they were talking about when they described the two wolves within each of us. Were the elders geneticists?
The brain grew bigger and better, predisposing more and more cooperation and communication. There’s a debate about which came first, but in terms of HUN, it doesn’t matter.
The big thing is that the big brains allow us to think in ways that other life forms do not. Bees and ants are the Borg while we humans became Socratic: Why are we here? What’s the good life? What happens when we die?
We also invented morality.
Thanks Evolution – Maybe!
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Part III Big Brains: Ignorance Isn’t Bliss
Now on to big brains.
Evidently, according to people with really big brains, we humans are just another species like all our animal cousins, albeit with a relatively higher brain to body ratio.
It does seem apparent that many of our ubiquitous, buried in the brain instincts are shared with animal cousins: hunger, thirst, motherly love, pecking orders, mating behavior, etc. Was Freud on (to) something?
Let us go and make our visit.
Starring:
Cere as your cerebrum,
WTMI as Way Too Much Information,
WTLI as Way Too Little Information
with appearances from:
Sede representing Sensory Deprivation,
Suba who is up for an award for her portrayal of Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions,
Bias playing Bias, and
Shat as Shallow Thinker
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Chapter 8 Thinking and Talking
I am your Cerebrum; call me Cere.
Just by chance and thanks to mutations, I evolved and got really big compared to body size.
Did you know that your little brain has more synapses (in the trillions) than there are stars in the Milky Way (in the billions)?
That growing multitude of neurons allowed me, Cere, to adapt even more: I was able to communicate and cooperate better and better and, as mentioned before, that was the way we wimps whipped the Brutes.
Thanks Evolution!
The mutant genes enabling communication and cooperation eventually became indelible primal DNA sequences alleled near the brutal buried elements already abiding in our genome. Brut (Chapter 6: Mean Machines) and Coop (Chapter 7: Team Machines) became next door neighbors. They didn’t like each other; still don’t. Hatfields and McCoys.
This tension is a fundamental part of human nature: Brut and Coop are still at home, shaping our behaviors in varying degrees over time in ways we may not consciously recognize. Their influence is unmistakable in our myths and stories though: angels/devils, Star Wars, Tolkien, countless movies. Gotta have the Good, the Bad, but not necessarily the Ugly.
As Hirschman demonstrates (Chapter 17: Cycling Continuously), sometimes we and society tend to be more concerned about cooperating and at other times exhibit more of our selfish brutish side. We probably all want Coop to prevail, but it ain’t in the cards. We can still feed that side, but not too much. More on this later.
It is worth repeating that Coop helped humans survive by enabling individual and group intelligence to combat brute size and sheer strength. Yet even as Coop shaped our ability to battle brutes, Brut never disappeared and remained a weapon we wielded, both against other species as well as our own. Fused cooperative brutality is powerful and pervasive and is evident in gangs, cliques, wars, and Friday night football.
A fundamental question is whether, as an individual, a tribe, or a nation, our Brut tendencies tend to overpower our Coop nature.
Some argue that it does: “When they go low, we go high” is a losing strategy.
AI cites these historical examples: Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan initially in WWII; genocide of indigenous civilizations in the Americas, Australian, and New Zealand; the Spanish Civil War; expansion of European empires in Africa and Asia through brute military force; child labor during the industrial revolution; slavery forever.
Others say the opposite: Coop trumps Brut in the long run.
AI cites these historical examples: the nonviolent movements of King and Gandhi, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the formation of the European Union, the Marshall Plan, CARE, scientific collaboration, Mother Teresa, philanthropy, and game theory.
You lose some and you win some.
In any case, the enlarged cerebrum (Cere) accommodating both Brut and Coop begat an unintended consequence: capacity to contemplate.
· Why are we here?
· What is truth?
· What is morality?
· How should we govern?
· Why do some believe one thing and others something else? (answers to these questions come later)
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Chapter 9 Way Too Much Information (WTMI)
There’s Way Too Much Information in the world for our little brains to process; call me WTMI.
Alas, evolution tasked Cere with managing all five or six senses (sic). I, Cere, would not have taken this task on if I had known that the senses would be continuously bombarded with information. Let me in! Let me in! Stimulation from the outside is frantic. Let me in! Let me in!
Thanks Evolution – Not.
Ever been to the boundary waters? Data bombers trying to get in to your mind are like boundary water black flies trying to get under your skin. And although our brains are relatively big among living creatures, compared to the number of data bombers out there, our brain is tiny.
Thanks Evolution – Not.
Plato had something to say about the buzzing too. (Of course, all great philosophers and neuroscientists did and do think about this issue, but Plato is old and had but one name.) He described our perceptions as but “Shadows on a Wall”; a deck of 51. Cere cannot possibly perceive and process all available information “out there”, thus what’s “in here” is not exactly accurate. It is incomplete and distorted - just Shadows on a Wall. (Aristotle, his pupil, vehemently disagreed and basically said, “Accept what you sense and use my syllogistic logic to think things through”.)
Plato also wondered how “out there” is filtered so that we are freed from information overload, albeit with substantive skewing.
We will discuss one strategy, among many, that evolution has developed for us to deal with WTMI: sensory deprivation.
Let us go and make our visit.
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One way we cope with WTMI (Way Too Much Information) is Sensory Deprivation: call me Sede.
I am deprived because eagles can see more than I can.
Bloodhounds can smell better (and they do not use deodorant).
Cats, with their little kitty brains, can hear better and dolphins have a sense that I do not.
Elephants remember more? Nah.
But maybe I am not deprived since sensory impairment is like netting that keeps out most of the boundary waters’ black flies. Filtered information prevents overwhelming. Thanks Evolution!
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Chapter 10 Way Too Little Information (WTLI)
After Sede (Sensory Deprivation) has swatted away excess stimuli, our big brains are left with Way Too Little Information; call me WTLI.
Damn you Sede for filtering out information before it even reaches me (Cere).
I get it, you think you are doing me a favor. And sure, sensory filters have worked for millions of years. But jeez…what am I missing?
In your defense, I know evolution has wired us to feel like we know it all—even when we don’t. It has schemed to mask how little we actually know and to hide the vastness of what we don’t. But jeez…what am I missing?
Okay, I give up. Since you, evolution, went and flipped on Sede’s parental controls - limiting what our senses are allowed to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste - could you at least give me some hints about how to deal with Way Too Little Information (WTLI)?
SUBAs? What the hell are those?
Let us go and make our visit.
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Coping with WTLI (Way Too Little Information) 1: SUBAs
I am Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions; call me SUBA.
The Garden of Eden probably refers to that time before Cere—the oversized cerebrum—came online. Back then, abstract thinking wasn’t a thing. Ignorance was bliss: be born, eat, poop, gather, hunt, mate, die.
Then Cere arrived, armed with a big brain. It gave us the power to communicate, to cooperate, and to outsmart the brutal beasts—including some of ourselves.
Since Cere had excess bandwidth, along came Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who asked haunting deep end questions. SUBAs emerged to help deal with them:
• Why are we here? Religious SUBAs.
• What is truth? Epistemological SUBAs.
• What is morality? Philosophical SUBAs.
• How should we govern? Political SUBAs.
• Why do some believe one thing and others something else? Fox News and MSNBC.
SUBAs unconsciously provide a framework to direct filtered information to fit a preexisting expected pattern that makes sense.
SUBAs help make life understandable. Our brains could not cope and would not work without the conceptual constructs that SUBAs provide so that we can make sense of the restricted stimuli that Sede has let in.
SUBAs have worked well – after all, we are still here and may be the most dominant species. Ants may disagree.
SUBAs simplify, explain, and create a base for logic to be built upon and for tribes to rally around. Impeccable logic built on unconscious SUBAs can make sense and can be readily internalized even if the assumptions are wrong. Damn Shadows on a Wall, they don’t bother me at all.
SUBAs are necessary and can contribute a lot to the greater good. They also manipulate, fool, and cover up since they are abstract ideas based on WTLI (Way Too Little Information).
SUBAs are what I think 17th century Leibniz described when he talked about the foundational assumptions of a person’s worldview upon which logic is construed. Leibniz warned us about faulty assumptions combined with reasonable sounding logic. Mein Kampf anyone?
And as 18th century Kant warned, SUBA like features silently and stealthily urge me to seek out and choose what information to let in. Culture is the culprit here (but not yogurt or kefir). Everything we are algorithmically programmed to watch, hear, and read enters our brain as a stimulant, goes through the neuronic filters and then is categorized by some existing SUBA (my rendition of Kant’s categories) resulting in an intuitive impression of what’s going on. Just shadows on a wall.
19th century Nietzsche warned us that assumptions determine the impressions we form and that these assumptions were cultural, were not God-given, were semi-stable, but could be changed. Nietzsche warned about society-imposed SUBAs stifling individual creativity and keeping people from reaching their potential. He lamented that it’s damn hard to break out of a SUBA headlock when you don’t even know you are in one. That’s what makes SUBAs dangerous.
20th century Wittgenstein warned us that, by definition, SUBAs are shared social binding agents. We make up our tribe and the tribe in turn makes us. The Madness of Crowds has historically reared it’s SUBA head again and again: the condemnation of Socrates, the crucifixion of Christ, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Holocaust, the elimination of USAID, which is likely to result in a million, preventable, gruesome deaths. On the other hand, the Wisdom of Crowds has been at work too: over the last 80 years, people are healthier, better educated, live longer, earn more, enjoy electronic surfing, been to the moon and back, and experienced less war than before. SUBAs provide frameworks for both the Madness and the Wisdom of Crowds.
SUBAs are similar to what 20th century Kuhn described as paradigms in his mind-altering book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. As we will see a little later, it was hard work to convert the center of the universe from the earth to the sun. SUBAs are surprisingly stable even if demonstrably wrong.
21st century Habermas warned us about validity claims. A particular SUBA’s validity is assured by articulate people (Hannity or Maddow?) in our extended tribe who effectively convey logical frameworks built upon our Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions. The logic might be perfect even though the SUBA might have led us astray. Like pointing out the dragon form in a cumulus cloud, a demagogue seems to tell us the truth hidden behind Shadows on a Wall. Oh yes, I see it!
We all have SUBAs, called intersubjectivity in philosophical jargon. Can we even not have them? I think we must, even if we are not aware. Que Lastima. What are yours?
Our personal SUBA is like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle ensconced in our little brains.
The corner pieces are our most basic assumptions. They make a big difference and define how the edge pieces fit so that any new information will snap in perfectly to fill in the rest of the puzzle.
For example, if a corner piece for you is believing in God and my corresponding corner piece is not, the way we think the universe works is very different. Of course, the edge pieces we conjure up to snap in place with the corner pieces are going to be quite different too. God saved Trump to save America is one edge piece for you; inherent citizen disappointment fueled by fear mongering disinformation is my equivalent edge piece.
Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Christians might share the “Belief in God” corner piece, but their edge pieces are slightly different…well, wildly different in the Hindu case. Did you know that humans have conjured up about 18,000 Gods in the last 10,000 years? Unless you believe in all 18,000, I guess you are an atheist from some points of view.
If another corner piece for you is existence of free will and my corresponding one is just the appearance of free will, then the edge pieces that snap into that corner of our unique jigsaws are very different. Rich people deserve to be rich and poor people deserve to be poor are your edge pieces; prior history, cultural constructs, and unexplained variance make up mine. Policies produced from these distinct edge piece assumptions are radically different!
The 18th century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a corner piece that basically said that people were born pure, but that society and government corrupts, while the corner piece of his contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, was just the opposite: we are born with brutish, greedy, and mean tendencies that only a “social contract” (laws and enforcement) can adequately hold in check.
The overall scene (like the lighthouse or mountain range in completed store bought jigsaw puzzles) emerging from the brain embedded jigsaw is determined ultimately by our corner and edge pieces. With our brain’s jigsaw mostly completed, we make the absurd world sorta (or maybe Sartre) make sense. We continue scooping up info to fill out and grow our little jigsaw of assumptions and perceptions, while continuing to ignore or alter pieces that don’t fit.
Even with contrary evidence our jigsaw SUBAs don’t change that much because the corner and edge pieces are surprisingly stable. Sede (Sensory Deprivation) filters input which Cere (our Cerebrum) molds so that the puzzle pieces snap in. There’s not much doubt about how things fit, even if they are forced, or we just ignore the ill-fitting piece, at least for a while.
In the 14th century, the earth really was the center of the universe! We saw the sun rotating around it every day. The revered and infallible Church validated our views. Galileo was told: you are stupid to agree with Copernicus that the sun is the center. You should be flogged or maybe exported to El Salvador. He burned his scrolls.
Several times in a lifetime, however, there is a disruption. You move, you lose your job, you don’t get that promotion, the economy collapses, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Or maybe the doubt that you might not actually have the right puzzle creeps in little by little and then all at once. Like good old Copernicus, someone shows us that the sun doesn’t rotate around the earth and at least one of the corner pieces must be replaced for the world to make sense. That messes up the entire scene, requiring a reordering of all the pieces, creating a whole new view of the world, like the store-bought jigsaw’s foggy lighthouse turning into a sunny majestic mountain, or vice versa.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn says that if a paradigm (your brain’s jigsaw SUBA) worked practically, was widely known, and sounded sound, it was “ordinary and accepted”, even if wrong. Even before Kuhn, a philosophical branch called Pragmatism emerged that also incorporated this view. It was backed by eminent philosophers like Locke, Dewey, and Peirce. Probably Aristotle too. This branch baked in skepticism, as did Kuhn: We can never discover ultimate truth; just try to get closer to it. Cere has a hard time with that. Cere seems to crave absolutes. I’m sure of it.
17th century Descartes suggested that our SUBAs originate with clear and distinct truths that are common sense and so apparent that they could not be wrong – not Shadows on a Wall, the real thing! To repeat a prior example, if you go outside on a sunny day, you will notice that the sun revolves around the earth. It is common sense, clear and distinct, and no egghead professor type is going to convince me otherwise! I can see it! Descartes would have even questioned that. He didn’t get many “likes” because he questioned everything – especially long held beliefs. He settled on only one thing he knew for sure: “I think, therefore I am”. (I always thought that he should have said: “I feel, therefore I am”, but maybe you had to be there.)
As an example of how defenestrating SUBAs might help us get closer to the truth, Copernicus noticed that assuming that “the Earth is the center of the universe” could not precisely predict planets’ paths. However, if you assumed that “the sun is the center” you could predict more precisely. The anomalies in the generally accepted “earth as center” SUBA led to the scientific revolution of a new, more predictive “sun is the center” SUBA. Adopting the new was fought tooth and nail by the “ordinary and accepted”, but eventually the new won out over the old, to be discarded later when another SUBA assumed that the sun was moving too and was not anywhere near the center of the universe. The sun centered SUBA fought long and hard before it went dark. Most SUBAs seem like common sense but are flawed like the sun.
False but accepted SUBAs are not just in the realm of science; they permeate all human perception.
Mein Kampf made a logically consistent case that Hitler’s thoughts should be the basic assumptions for an entire country. Given the dire German cultural environment at the time, many eagerly adopted Hitler’s SUBA… evil spewing from it.
Stalin and Mao spread SUBAs that claimed millions of lives as did the illegal European immigrants’ religiously justified treatment of Native Americans. According to the Holocaust Museum, we find a population declining from about 10 million native Americans before Europeans arrived to less than 300 thousand in 1900 – 97%. At least they got religion and capitalism though to replace their heathen and socialistic ways. Our SUBAs dominate! USSuba! USSuba! USSuba!
We all have SUBAs, many of which are unconsciously absorbed from our friends, families, tribes, and cultures.
SUBAs have made progress possible and serve humans well, but beware, some SUBAs are zombies; they are deadly and never die. Kinda like the Twilight Zone episode where aliens had a book titled “To Serve Man”. Humans realized that the aliens were like angels if they had a book with a title expressing the willingness to share their technologies and wisdom with us. Turns out, it was a cookbook.
Thanks Evolution – Not.
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Why am I spending so much time on this SUBA idea? Seems obsessive, doesn’t it?
Perhaps because of the following personal and indelible Eastern European experience that demonstrated SUBA power. (Also, the idea of powerful and distorting SUBAs helps me understand why, and accept how, intelligent people, as well as stupid people, could be behind Trump, and why, along the same lines, I was a Harris believer.)
I was working with a Slovenian business in the 90’s. The company had been around for many years, doing business across the Eastern Bloc. Slovenian had been part of Yugoslavia before that country split into several independent countries.
I attended the company’s annual meeting one year and at the reception employees from all the former Eastern Bloc countries and ethnicities were celebrating, dancing, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company: Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, Latvians, Bosnians, Albanians, et.al.; Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox. It was an inspiring event, especially given the surrounding war: genocide, ethnic cleansing, and rape as a weapon.
The management team and I attended a small afterparty at the CEO’s apartment; we all had too much to drink.
Vladimir, an ethnic Serb, got a call and then stormed out of the apartment without saying anything; he was terribly upset.
I simply asked the remaining execs why they thought Vlad was so upset: It was the day that American led NATO started bombing Serbia.
Then they turned on me.
It was scary, but I had the “Why” wrong.
They told me that bombing should have started sooner!
Somehow they knew that President Clinton had read a book called Balkan Ghosts and had concluded from it that the conflict between the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats was inevitable, so he had rejected intervention. Nonintervention made sense if you accepted that Shared Underlying Basic Assumption (SUBA).
The management team, however, unanimously agreed that the conflict had not been inevitable and that Clinton’ s underlying basic assumptions had been wrong. (Ironically, Robert Kaplan, the author of the book, agreed with the management team).
They asked, “Didn’t I just witness the supposed adversaries dancing, talking, and laughing with each other during the annual meeting party earlier that evening?”.
And “Under Tito, Yugoslavia worked well - Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Christians were friends and sometimes married each other.”
“No, the reason for the conflict was Milosevic!”
They said that the Milosevic controlled, biased, and ubiquitous evening news constantly stressed the historical conflicts in which the Serbs were unfairly taken advantage of, murdered, and slandered. Serbia was going to hell! We need to Make Serbia Great Again! This SUBA, repeated constantly and loudly, became true, logically leading to war. The medium was the message. It was their Fox News.
The managers said that the conflict did not have to happen and would not have, without Milosevic’s demagoguery. “Thank goodness NATO is finally putting a stop to genocide.”
Serbs had been media manipulated and were prone to rationalized evil deeds when threatened. That describes us all. Evolution has set us up to be inclined that way. SUBAs play a key role.
Trump and Tucker are Milosevicking, IMHO.
Thanks evolution – not!
Thank goodness Secretary of State Madeleine Albright eventually convinced Clinton that the sun wasn’t circling the earth, and NATO intervened.
Coping with WTLI (Way Too Little Information) 2: Biases We Know and Love
Biases evolved to help deal with WTLI too; call me Bias.
Wikipedia lists over 100 bias types that tint Cere’s shadows on the wall - many biases honed and ingrained over millions of years. Evidently they worked, evolutionarily speaking.
While our sensory perceptions respond directly to external stimuli, our biases emerge from how our brains interpret and categorize those experiences over time. These mental patterns are susceptible to influence from random correlations, propaganda, advertising, etc. that exploit our tendency to recognize orderliness even if it is not really there. They are invented by our culture and our pattern seeking. Our Biases work very closely with our SUBAs. They may even be related. Biases are a case study of the consequences of WTLI (Way Too Little Information).
Biases help select what our senses see and then place the filtered concepts in just the right spot of our mental jigsaw puzzle. Actually, the overall picture is pretty clear even before the sensory pieces flow and fit in.
Just because biases are made up, doesn’t make them useless…in fact they are one reason we continue to exist!
WTMI (Way Too Much Information) makes Bias necessary. What’s frightening is that most of the ones Cere has, Cere is not even aware of and does not want to be aware of. The implications are scary for the Rest of You (ROU). (Be careful not to confuse ROU with ROUS - Rodents of Unusual Size.)
At one time, many of these biases may have been useful and certainly some still are, but evolution has kept some of the nasty ones around even though many are now worse than worthless. They may be efficient and still help with both the WTMI and WTLI problems, but some are now destructive, not instructive.
Seems that we have a bias for biases and a bias for not confronting bias as well, as Florida has enshrined in law.
Thanks Evolution – Not.
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Coping with WTMI (Way Too Little Information) 3: Fast Thinkers R Us
I am a Shallow Thinker; call me Shat.
Have you read Kahneman’s book: Thinking Fast and Slow? A great read, written by a Nobel Laureate. In it, he suggests that thoroughly thinking about a topic (thinking slow) requires a lot of Cere energy. Thinking fast by relying on instinct or biases or by relying on others to think things through, does not. The implication: one of the most efficient ways to deal with WTMI is Don’t.
The mind, which is me (Cere), has learned over eons that conserving energy is smart and good. Thinking fast, thus conserving energy, helped me and you survive. (Does conserving energy mean we should not go jogging? Thanks Evolution!)
Reminds me of a story. Once, there was this nerdy guy who loved collecting data—and even more, he loved feeding it back to the very people he got it from. His favorite statistical concept was “Specific Cause” vs. “Common Cause”, a lesson he picked up from a group of grocery store produce department managers.
One Saturday in October 1998, about 20 New England produce managers gathered in Brattleboro, VT, to compare data. The nerd had a slick PowerPoint ready, showcasing each produce department’s results. But just as he was about to start, he caught something out of the corner of his eye - a Store Manager. This meeting was supposed to be for Produce Managers only!
The store manager leaned in and quietly whispered to the nerd: “My produce manager is a nice person—gets along with everyone, works hard—but she’s not cutting it. Her sales growth lags the store’s overall growth, and her produce margin has dropped from last year. I’m here to find a top-notch produce manager from this group and offer them her job.” In his mind, the Specific Cause of the department’s underperformance was clear: the produce manager. “Uh, okay,” the now-nervous nerd replied, then launched into his PowerPoint presentation.
Turns out, all 20 produce managers experienced declining sales growth and shrinking margins. Whoa! How could that be?
Because the worst El Niño weather system on record had slammed the country in 1997 and lingered into 1998, wreaking havoc on California’s produce crops. At the time, California supplied over 33% of the nation’s vegetables and 75% of its fruits and nuts. That was a textbook Common Cause—one that affected the entire grocery industry by reducing both the availability and quality of produce.
And the store manager’s own produce manager? Her numbers were among the best in the room—upper quartile in both sales growth and margin. She kept her job.
The store manager had made one of the most common reasoning errors: thinking fast, seeing a pattern, jumping to a conclusion, and blaming a Specific Cause (his produce manager) when the real culprit was a Common Cause (El Niño) which takes a little longer and more data in context to discover.
Want another example? Popular pundits unmercifully bashed Kamala Harris and the democrats for losing to Trump and the republicans. All kinds of analysis show how she didn’t do this or that right and lost in this or that niche. Kamala was the specific cause of defeat! Bad candidate! Terribly campaign!
Trump, on the other hand, did everything right: relied on social media, made people feel threatened, shouted lies long and loud enough until they became true, etc.
However, The Financial Times (hardly a leftist publication), presented some startling data: The share of votes declined for all incumbent parties in all democratic elections around the world. Didn’t matter if they were left or right. They all won by less or lost by more than they had the previous election cycle. There was an anti-incumbent tsunami sweeping the world. It was a sneaky Common Cause. Guess who lost the least? Kamala was the produce manager.
Specific Causes are so much faster, easier, and less complicated to conjure, even when they aren’t really causes.
Shallow thinking or not even thinking helps leaders who need followers too, which is important, probably necessary, for the tribe to survive.
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“Part III Big Brains: Ignorance Isn’t Bliss” explored some of the ways we humans cope with more information than we can possibly handle and how those coping mechanisms enable STAs.
In “Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents”, we look at how our big brains, even with a deck of 51, enabled humans to climb to the top of the food chain, albeit with a lot of baggage.
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Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents
Efficiency, Effectiveness, Feats
Complexity, Compliance, Conformity, Conflict
Imperatives, Uncertainties
Starring:
Prog as Progress,
Comp as Complexity,
Conf as Conformity, and
Coco as Conflict
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Chapter 11 Awesome Accomplishments
I am Progress; call me Prog.
The genetic tendency to innovate and make things better and more efficient helped us survive.
Tribes built castles, moats, nations, jails, guns, and bombs to keep us safe.
Books, libraries, schools, and universities fed the cerebrums to make us smart and sent people to the moon.
Democracy, philosophy, medicine, art, and science. Wow!
Innovation, mass production, economic growth, increased wealth.
Health and food for almost all.
Artisanal cheeses, tofu, wine, and yoga.
We now have Wi-Fi, garbage disposals, flush toilets, superstores, and unnecessary plastic items delivered to our doorsteps.
Life just keeps getting better, No?
Thanks evolution!
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Chapter 12 Complicating Complexity
I am Complexity; call me Comp.
Alas, as groups grew, so did complexity, at conflicting costs.
To deal with complexity, skills evolved to convince, interpret, inspire, lead, and manage.
Complimentary, yet ominous traits developed to believe, comply, conform, follow, or just not care.
You can probably see where this is going.
Thanks evolution – not!
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Chapter 13 Conforming Compliantly
I am Conformity; call me Conf.
As complexity compounded, tribes needed conformity to manage productivity and also to keep people in line.
Specialization, markets, laws, and mass production increased efficiency. Can you imagine an army or assembly line without compliance and conformity?
Conformity and acceptance of rules worked: our species became incredibly efficient and effective, although most people did not and do not realize that most of us are and always have been conformers, somewhat like our distant cousins: bees and ants. Wolves and sheep too.
Belief Conformity (Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions or SUBAs) also satisfied the lingering basic human need to replace inherent uncertainty with absolute certainty.
Belief conformity became the font of morality, outlining what was right and wrong, although different Tribes had different beliefs from which significance followed.
Indeed, laws, regulations, and social morays (do not think eel of them), and their enforcement decreased murders, stealing, and rapes. Rules and Regs have improved our Quality of Life.
But belief enforcement became supreme. Different tribes with different beliefs went to war. Both sides knew they were right and morally superior. Neither side realized that SUBAs are just conceptual constructs passed down or absorbed unconsciously from our friends, families, and tribes.
Perceptions skewed by belief enforcement produced alternative truths from common facts and events - often compressed and expressed via very mean memes.
Thanks evolution – not!
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Chapter 14 Conflicting Conformities
I am Conflict; call me Coco.
Too much conformity in the wrong direction or stifling innovation is worse than worthless.
These new constraints of civilization clashed with our evolutionary inheritance - those deep-seated instincts of individual survival, competition, and dominance that had once served our ancestors so well. Though society now demanded cooperation and restraint, the ancient drives toward self-interest and power remained embedded in human nature.
At least three types of conflict emerged from this quandary:
Within Me: Our genes wage an eternal conflict - selfishness versus cooperation, each vying for control. Like the legendary feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, this struggle plays out daily in our minds and choices. It's an intensely personal war, captured in the old Cherokee tale: two wolves battle inside us - one selfish, one generous. The one that wins? The one we choose to feed.
Between Me and We: I do not like being told what to do. Why do I have to wear a COVID mask or stop at a red light? My private freedoms are being taken away for the greater good. My lizard remnant brain part is not happy.
Between Tribes: Deep tribal divisions persist through history, each side absolutely convinced of its righteousness and the other's depravity. We see it in the bitter Catholic-Protestant conflicts in Ireland, the Sunni-Shia divide in Islam, and today's political polarization between conservative and progressive movements. Osama bin Laden saw himself as a righteous warrior against Western corruption, while his opponents viewed him as the embodiment of evil. Even biologists can grow combative over technical differences. The clash between Dawkins, who championed gene-centered evolution, and Wilson, who advocated for group selection, escalated sharply. Hatfields and McCoys.
Thanks evolution – maybe.
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“Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents“ described incredible human achievements cloaked by unnoticed conformities in the face of increasing complexities that inevitably bred conflicts.
SUBAs - the subconscious biases and groupthink tendencies - have shaped humanity's paradoxical nature. While they've normalized conflict and made peace seem remarkable, these same tribal instincts have also driven remarkable achievements. Our tendency to band together, to share common goals and beliefs, has enabled great civilizations, scientific breakthroughs, and cultural masterpieces. The very forces that divide us have simultaneously fueled our greatest collaborative accomplishments.
As human populations grew exponentially and individual resource consumption surged, our collective impact on Earth intensified at an unprecedented rate. Humanity's dominance began reshaping not just societies, but entire ecosystems and species - marking our entry into the Anthropocene epoch, which we'll explore in the next section.
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Part V Presently My Dear: Double Double Toil and Trouble
I am the Anthropocene; call me Anth.
The Anthropocene Epoch is a unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth's history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems.
As a species, humans embody a blend of inherited primal traits and advanced cognitive abilities. This duality introduces complexity, conformity, conflict, and lingering brutality, balanced by the more recent evolutionary emergence of cooperation.
Will humanity navigate and endure this intricate, self-created milieu, or are we destined to become casualties of the planet's sixth extinction event, following in the footsteps of the dinosaurs?
Thanks evolution – maybe.
Three possible scenarios follow.
Starring:
Arch as Arcing Acceptably,
Goby as Going Goodbye, and
Cycl as Continuously Cycling
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Chapter 15 Arching Acceptably
I am the future, arching acceptably; call me Arch (not to be confused with the 2024 Texas Longhorn’s second string quarterback, Arch Manning, who is much better known).
Trends suggest that humanity will continue to thrive, though as Stephen Pinker suggests, we probably won’t recognize how good we have it. We’ll just complain about the glass being half empty.
Over the past few centuries, key indicators of global human well-being have steadily improved. Extreme poverty has dramatically declined, literacy rates have surged, childhood mortality has plummeted, and overall human health has significantly advanced—nearly every measure points to positive progress.
With our capacity for innovation, creativity, and technological advancement, along with other uniquely human strengths, we may continue to build on this trajectory toward an even brighter future.
According to Pinker, a pivotal driver of progress over the past few centuries was The Enlightenment, which championed logic and science as the foundations of truth, displacing reliance on revelation.
Bertrand Russell famously remarked that Copernicus’s most profound contribution wasn’t merely the heliocentric model of the solar system, but the revolutionary idea that long-held beliefs, endorsed by society’s most respected elders, could both be wrong.
Science, of course, is not infallible—it thrives on its capacity to be wrong. It is not an absolute but a dynamic process of refining understanding through tentative conjectures and rigorous refutations, continually striving for better explanations of the world around us.
Like Copernicus’s heliocentric explanation, modern disruptions such as discovery of penicillin, invention of the internet, and even A.I. can cause great leaps forward.
An essential legacy of The Enlightment was the emergence of democratic ideals, which challenged the long-held belief that kings or autocrats were the best way to organize society. The American and French revolutions cemented this new democratic world view, although recent trends suggest that The Enlightment virtues may be showing cracks and might soon be going the way of the Dodo… Dum Dee Dum Dum.
Thanks Evolution?
The following presents a simulation of an Optimistic Arching Acceptably scenario, forecasting potential global changes over the next decade. (Refer to the appendix for additional details on WSIM, the simulation software utilized.)
Historical trends continue their positive trajectory, driven by innovation and unknown factors that net out with a positive impact. Negative factors such as climate change exist, but don't cause societal collapse as feared.
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Chapter 16 Going Goodbye
Another scenario is kissing the world goodbye; call me Goby.
Goby is a scenario, perhaps propelled by environmental collapse, world wars, or civil society suicide, eventually leading to the 6th mass extinction in Earth’s history.
Some argue that the sixth extinction is inevitable, suggesting that climate change is less about human influence and more about natural cycles beyond our control. Just another million-year cycle. There’s nothing we can do about it. If so, why do anything? Max out your credit cards!
Others argue that Climate Change is a hoax. If so, why do anything? In this case, don’t max out your credit cards.
On the other hand, 97% of climate scientists believe that Climate Change is real, exacerbated by humans, and that we can do something about it. While science is a process—never claiming absolute truth—it provides our best current understanding, so use your credit card judiciously.
All three suppositions are examples of malleable Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions (SUBAs) – see Chapter 11.
Some SUBAs can condemn us inadvertently. For example, adopting the widely shared assumption that Climate Change is a hoax, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot (or perhaps more aptly in the head). We may find ourselves grappling with the devastating consequences of inaction, but since we were advised not to max out our credit cards, we will be just fine.
As discussed in Chapter 10, SUBAs are necessary and can be useful. On the other hand, they can be nefarious and dangerous. For example, the United States Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations are like people (so it must be true). What they did not know was that SUBAs are too. The highest form yet exhibiting evolutionary like behavior. SUBAs tend to die or stagnate; or mutate, survive, and replicate. SUBAs do not have to be right or moral to evolve - just survive and have their human pawns adhere to and fight for the SUBAs tenets. Zealots.
Like organic living things and somewhat like memes, SUBAs strive to survive, battling other SUBAs, using humans as their sacrificial soldiers fitted with new, powerful, pervasive, and subversive technological weapons (a shout-out to Mark and Elon for these).
One MAGA theme, for example, is that immigrants are bad news for the rest of us. Perhaps that is so or perhaps not, but it is believed by a lot of people.
Have we evolved into worker bees blindly allegiant to our Queen Meme? If so, is our allegiance so deep we cannot even recognize it, let alone question it? We nourish our SUBAs, we pass them on, we punish or shun those without them. All classic evolutionary methods. We are the Borg (Sung to melody from the old Coca-Cola commercial).
5 of 11 (an inside joke that only Swanson sibs who have watched Star Trek may get)
The following presents a simulation of a Pessimistic Going Goodbye scenario, forecasting potential global changes over the next decade. (Refer to the appendix for additional details on WSIM, the simulation software utilized.)
Well Being, Migration, Poverty, and Peace all worsen significantly, driven by climate change, a deteriorating world economy, and poor governance. We/Me cycles exacerbate the trends and conditions. Pandemics are more
frequent due to Climate Change and poor Governance. Misinformation and Inequality worsen. Unknown and unexplained variance add to deterioration.
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Chapter 17 Cycling Continuously
I am a cycle of ups and downs; call me Cycl.
One of my favorite cyclists was the prominent economist A.O. Hirschman. That is not him on the stationary bike.
Regardless of whether he was right about cycles, delight yourself by Wikipediaing him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_O._Hirschman) or watch the Netflix series that prominently features Hirschman’s WWII heroics (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15441266/?ref_=tt_ch). Intellect and action. Wow, what a life.
Interestingly, Hirschman attributed “disappointment” as a cause of the socio/political/economic cycles over time (or perhaps you would prefer reversion toward the mean of a social trend over time). This ebb and flow, when visualized graphically, forms what could be called a Social Cycl, which would be a good name for an edgy rock band. One can almost imagine Social Cycl headlining festivals, their lyrics delving into themes of societal shifts, human expectations, and the inevitable pendulum swings of history.
My interpretation is that Hirschman’s disappointment cycle can be attributed to three cognitive biases:
The nostalgia bias tends to lead people to romanticize the past often perceiving it more favorably than the present. For example, Trump’s first term actual favorability ratings do not correspond with what people now remember about those four years. How easily we forget. Or, as William should have said, “The bad (sic) is oft interred with their bones”. Romanticizing the past is not always the case though – my neighbor is one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors and has plenty of bad memories.
The optimism bias tends to cause people to imagine the future as rosier than it is likely to be. For example, private business forecasts as well as the CBO forecast are, on average, higher than what actually happens (except for Ben and Jerry’s first sales forecast which was way low). Optimism bias is also just a tendency not a determinant. About half the country wasn’t exactly brimming with smiley faces after Tuesday, Nov 5, 2024, as they contemplated the future.
When you combine the nostalgia bias with the optimism bias, the present is often perceived as worse than both . Nostalgia casts the past in a rosy glow, while optimism points to a future that is better than now, leaving us with a dissatisfied present. That’s my interpretation of Hirschman’s disappointment driven Social Cycl.
Hirschman’s cyclical disappointment theory could be interpreted as a kind of evolutionary mechanism, driving humans to innovate and adapt. If we idealize the past as wonderful, perceive the present as lacking, and view the future as an opportunity for improvement, dissatisfaction now becomes a catalyst for action and creativity.
This cycle might serve as a subconscious survival strategy, pushing humanity to explore new ideas, solve problems, and strive for progress. In this sense, disappointment isn’t just a cognitive quirk—it’s a built-in motivator, ensuring that we never settle for stagnation and instead continuously "make the future great again."
Hirschman’s research brilliantly illustrates how societal disillusionment fuels a pendulum swing between extremes. When government inefficiency breeds widespread frustration, people flock to the private sector, dazzled by its promise of efficiency and innovation—“Greed is Good” as Gordon Gekko famously declared.
But over time, the private sector’s shortcomings—inequality, exploitation, and soulless profit-chasing—trigger a moral awakening. The pendulum swings back as individuals seek meaning and justice through collective action, inspired by ideals like JFK’s Peace Corps and the quest for the Greater Good. Yet, as the complexity of collective action and its inherent imperfections emerge, disappointment sets in again, reigniting the cycle.
Why does the cycle persist? Perhaps because neither the “Me” mind nor the “We” mind knows all. As Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon aptly observed, "The capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared with the size of the problems whose solution is required." Complex systems are almost always invariably impacted by unknown unknowns, making errors inevitable. For example, next week’s weather forecasts, calculated by the most powerful computers around, are almost always off a little or a lot. When “Elonald” inevitably started making mistakes, the resistance pounced, the public was disappointed, and the pendulum starting swinging back anew.
If Hirschman’s model holds true, where are we now?
Arguably, we are in the “Me” portion of the curve given Trump’s professed themes. Cynicism about the effectiveness of collective action looms large.
However, dissatisfaction with both public institutions and corporate excesses has sparked movements advocating systemic fairness, whether through social justice activism, environmental initiatives, or calls for corporate accountability. The “We” may emerge again soon as disappointment with Trump returns like it did in his first term. How easily we forget.
I suspect the Social Cycl’s frequency and amplitude have speeded up primarily due to the pervasiveness and ubiquity of social media. The generational political cycles seem to have shortened to one termers, at least demonstrated by the last few US Presidential elections.
If history is a guide, the pendulum may soon begin swinging anew—perhaps toward a reimagined form of individualism or a hybrid approach, as society searches for the next paradigm to address its enduring discontent.
It’s entirely plausible that the We/Me cycle—oscillating between collective action (We) and individualism (Me)—is deeply rooted in ancient, competing alleles within our genome. These primal instincts, honed over millennia, may drive us to alternately prioritize group survival and personal autonomy as adaptive strategies.
If this cycle is indeed a genetic norm, humanity may continue to repeat it indefinitely, shifting back and forth between collaboration and competition until climate change, AI, or an asteroid bring about the 6th mass extinction.
Thanks evolution - maybe.
The following presents a simulation of an Expected Social Cycl scenario, forecasting potential global changes over the next decade. (Refer to the appendix for additional details on WSIM, the simulation software utilized.)
Well Being, Migration, Poverty, and Peace all worsen but not dramatically. Climate change and inequality drive the deterioration but are offset somewhat by innovation, improved information, and a stable world economy. The We/Me cycle increases in amplitude and frequency due to social media while Governance and Pandemics follow historical cyclicality.
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Conclusion
Here’s a summary of what I think I learned:
· Don’t believe everything you think (from a bumper sticker seen in Santa Fe, New Mexico).
· Evolution (From Part II Primordial Soup: Dawn of the Mutant Clones):
o Started as a fluke and became a tautology (what persisted did so because it didn’t vanish).
o Didn’t understand or care about good and evil (not even aware of morality).
o Adapted for survival not truth (so long Socrates).
o Produced requisite variety via mutations and sexual reproduction that allowed some forms of life to survive five mass extinctions in the last four billion years (little mammals survived the last one).
· Humans (from Part III Big Brains: Ignorance Isn’t Bliss):
o Inherited both brutish and cooperative traits (Angels and Demons still echo within each of us and among us all).
o Developed relatively big brains (an evolutionary advantage predisposing us to communication and cooperation).
o Evolved sensory filters (our sight is not nearly as good as eagles, our smell not as good as bloodhounds, and our hearing not as good as cats, but since all humans have relatively equal sensory deprivations, we perceive the material world similarly, give or take).
o Thought abstractly (deep-end questions emerged such as: What’s real? Why are we here? What is the good life?).
o Escaped strictly instinctual behavior (made things up and shared those fabrications with others - the Ten Commandments spelled out what is good and bad and that helped guide us past some of our instinctual ugly urges).
· Subas (Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions):
o Squeeze down our universe’s overwhelming complexity into something that our little minds can comprehend (we gotta have em).
o Become the bedrock upon which logic is built even if the underlying assumptions are flawed (the sun rotates around the earth as anyone can see).
o Allow humans to bind socially (become tribes, companies, and nations to get things done such as landing on the moon).
o Create zealots (Stephen Miller and his ilk are convinced of the evil that illegal immigrants cause and this Suba is absolute truth from their points of view).
o Hide often from our consciousness yet remain one of the major determiners of human behavior (racism, sexism, and waryism of strangers).
o Persist when they become buried in our little brains and get reinforced by our tribe (repeating truths loudly and often help reinforce our Subas, even if blatantly false).
o Evolve (Trump Republicans are nothing like Reagan Republicans).
o Change dramatically occasionally (many Americans were sympathetic to Germany before Pearl Harbor, but not many after).
o Aren’t anything new (paradigms, myths, memes, and narratives are similar in concept, but I liked the shared part of Suba)
· Billions of humans, the need for cooperation, and sophisticated infrastructure generated (from Part IV Following Inevitably: Civilization and Its Discontents):
o Complexity (cities, corporations, countries, cars, cell phones, sewage, Wi-Fi, medicines, missiles, buildings) which required
o Conformity via social binding Subas in order to operate efficiently and effectively as well as rationalize some pretty bad behavior (segregation for example) and
o Compliance (laws, regulations, religions, and societal morays) to keep people on the straight and narrow path of chosen Subas which led to
o Conflict between tribes that had different ideas about which Subas were true (Catholic/Protestant, Suni/Shia, Hutu/Tutsi, Conservatives/Progressives, Us/Them, etc.).
Basically, I believe that our genetically gifted capacity to create abstract, made up, shared Subas is one of the most powerful forces in human nature – for both good and evil (concepts which we made up as well). Subas are the big deal IMHO.
· Anthropocene (from Part V Presently My Dear: Double Double Toil and Trouble):
o Resulted from the exponentially growing number of humans and each human exponentially increasing their environmental impact (humans now are at the top of the food chain and may topple it).
o Enabled by both brutal and cooperative human traits, sophisticated communication, and social binding Subas (propaganda, advertising, and leadership work).
· Finale:
o Trying to understand another tribe’s Subas doesn’t mean that I must accept their Subas, but it’s a lot better than saying they are not entitled to them (a shout out to the work of Isaiah Berlin for this concept).
o Realizing that humans, via made-up, media amplified, persistent Subas, are easily manipulated and prone to rationalized evil deeds (slavery and slaughterhouses).
o Propagating Subas through media, especially social media, has led to an increase in the number of accepted Subas. These profound media changes caused greater amplitude and increased frequency of social/political/economic cycles and also led to more polarization across countries, cultures, and families. (Congratulations Fox News and MSNBC for achieving top ratings in polarization.)
o Could social media algorithmic curation subtly engineer Subas that promoted reflection and inclusion rather than fanaticism and polarization, or is human nature just not wired that way?
o Fueling the Subas is our evolutionarily gifted duality: deep seated brutal as well as cooperative nature (creates cycles, as cultures invariably stray too far from the balance between our two fundamental natures and regress toward the mean – a salute to Aristotle for this mean concept).
o Changing climate will likely lead to the earth’s 6th major extinction (we are due for one).
o Wondering if AI will ascend to the top of the next food chain (ask Hal).
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Back in the Preface, I wondered if I could figure out why some smart people support Trump. Did I?
Let me count the ways:
1. I think part of the answer is genetics. As discussed in Chapter 6 (Mean Machines) and Chapter 7 (Team Machines), it's the age-old tug-of-war between Brut and Coop—those evolutionary forces wired into our DNA, still battling it out after millions of years. Even STAs (Smart Trump Advocates) admit Trump is a brute. Biden, on the other hand, may have been so considerate, planned, and measured that voters’ Brut genes kicked in, reactively swinging the pendulum back toward the mean mean. As the Cherokee might say: Trump’s election indicates that we are currently feeding our Brut side. But Brut’s incarnation will go too far and eventually we’ll shift back toward our Coop side. These internal struggles create societal cycles, as outlined in Chapter 17 (Cycling Continuously). The tragic twist? Coop never wins forever. Our genetic design won’t allow it.
2. As mentioned in Chapter 15 (Arcing Acceptably), Bertrand Russell famously remarked that Copernicus’s most profound contribution wasn’t the heliocentric model of the solar system. Copernicus’s most profound contribution was the revolutionary idea that long-held beliefs, endorsed by society’s most respected elites, could both be wrong. And as Kuhn asserted (Chapter 10: Way Too Little Information): even science is biased by Shared Basic Underlying Assumptions (Subas). For me, Subas make up the core of the case for understanding smart Trump advocates (STAs). One of their Subas might be “we are protecting and restoring our way of life from pinko, do-gooders”. The suba is validated and Milosevicked by State Media, aka Fox News (See Chapter 10: Way Too Little Information). On the other hand, maybe it is me and my tribe’s Subas that are not resonating with enough voters. One of our Subas is: “preserving the principles and processes of The Enlightment which has brought so much good to so many”. This one is validated by Stephen Pinker and other Harvard elites, as well as Noam Chomsky at MIT, among others. After all the reading, research, and reflection, I don’t believe that wise people from either side can possibly be certain of societal truths – we are all just conjecturers as Karl Popper suggested in Conjectures and Refutations, his book on the philosophy of science.
3. Furthermore, as Socrates, Laplace, and many others have implied, humans are incapable of completely understanding the universe. Of course, Socrates might have been wrong. More on this later. “Which wolf you feed” still counts though. More on this later too.
4. As discussed in Chapter 17 (Cycling Continuously), human nature is predisposed toward We/Me economic/political/social cycles. In addition to having Brut and Coop residing and battling in our genome, this cycling occurs partly because people are prone to view the present critically, while idealizing both the past and the future. Que sera sera. This permanent ongoing disappointment fuels the We/Me Cycle. We now appear to be in the “Me” part of this never-ending cycle (“Me Trump” - adapted from apelike dominance utterances and chest beating). Although STAs aren’t aware of it, the unseen subtle force of the cresting Me cycle explains why they are STAs. Tell them that and they’ll deny it. Tell my side that the way we think is perhaps beyond our control; we’ll deny it. And of course, many intellectuals will state that there are no more cycles – which is itself cyclical.
5. As pointed out in Chapter 7 (Team Machines), the “We” mind is way more powerful than the “Me” mind, although we think the opposite.
As John Maynard Keynes did not say, “Intelligent people who think themselves free from any intellectual influence whatsoever, are usually the slaves of some defunct philosopher (sic).”
In the Me part of the cycle, probably Nietzsche.
For the We part of the cycle, maybe that famous American philosopher - Ronald Reagan (channeling the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes).
6. The We mind (or should that be the Wee mind?) ironically creates the group think dominating both the Me and We parts of the cycle. STAs are both leading and following the pack. Alas, accept the way the world works: powerful unseen forces silently shepherd our lives.
7. As featured in Chapter 10 (Way Too Little Information), Shared Underlying Basic Assumptions (SUBAs) are just made-up conceptual constructs to squeeze down our universe’s overwhelming complexity into something that our little minds can comprehend. We gotta have em. They make the world work for us but are easily manipulated to good and bad effects. It seems that consciously fausting unconscious SUBAs on us is the one of the reasons that Murdock owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, Besos owns The Washington Post, and Elon bought Twitter. Milosevicking (Chapter 10: Way Too Little Information) works: the strategic molding of shared beliefs and assumptions has proven effective throughout history. Once swallowed, SUBAs dominate the converts but often become mightier than their enablers. That apparently happened in prewar Germany after Hitler came to power - too late for the Murdock, Besos, and Musk of that era to do anything about it. Most of us aren’t even aware that we are possessed by SUBAs, some of which are Frankensteins. SUBAs are powerful subliminal forces that we just can’t acknowledge….suppressed for our own good? Bad Robot.
8. As inferred in Chapter 15 (Arcing Acceptably) – we need disruptions! Maybe disruptions are what STAs want most, especially since their SUBA tells them loudly and often that America is a terrible place and needs a change. Ironically, The Economist notes that from 2020-2024 the US economy completely dominated the G7 field in terms of growth, jobs, and reduced inflation, even though the STA SUBA says otherwise. This Aristotelian like quote seems appropriate: “Comparison is the root of all significance.” Furthermore, it looks like Elon is on track to disrupt the outperforming US economy in a Twitter like fashion.
And, as Frank Zappa, another famous philosopher, wrote on the blackboard, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” No disagreement here, just wishing for progressive disruptions that move us forward, rather than regressive ones that move us back.
9. Our species has benefited from the perpetual tug of war between conservatives who want to preserve what is good and progressives who want what is better. I suspect some STAs are just conservatives and don’t like all this WOKE stuff, which I really like. Tell me again why WOKE is bad?
To me it seems the MAGA movement continues the historical conservative opposition to progressive disruptions such as these:
· Doing away with slavery (it was natural and in the Bible)
· Voting by men who did not own property (my God, the country will go to hell!)
· Voting by women (if we aren’t in hell yet, we will be!)
· Doing away with the divine rights of kings (God given and the way it has always been)
· Democracy and science over revelation (have faith in absolutes, relatives are messy)
· Gay rights (you can’t love just anyone – what about family values?)
· Environmental rights (God gave us the earth to do with what we want and will always protect us)
· Civil rights (people not like us are inferior, ala Hitler)
· Union rights, overtime, and the 40-hour work week (laborers are takers, rich people are makers)
· Making it easier to vote (there was rampant voter fraud or Trump would have been reelected the first time)
· Meritocracy rather than the affirmative action of generational wealth (the rich are the victims; the poor the culprits)
But perhaps there is something evolutionarily useful about these SUBA differences, forcing us to think harder and hone our logic. It is called democracy in a free society.
And my side takes the Trump elections too hard. A single election can be a mistake, which I think both of Trumps were. However, over time, we evidently elect more good presidents than bad ones. C-Span’s quadrennial presidential surveys show that more than 60% of our presidents have scored greater than 500 on the 1000-point system developed by these presidential historians. 600 is not a bad batting average. Abe has hit grand slams in all the surveys conducted so far. President Polk, one of my ancestors (maybe), is a high mediocre (599). On the other hand, both Hitler and Mussolini were elected. Putin too.
I think STAs, MAGAs, and “Me” Trumpers are naturally occurring phenomena produced by the We/Me cycle. Society will swiftly swing back to the “We” Kennedys (JFK, not RFK Jr.). You want hippies again? You’ll get them and another set of Beatles too - perhaps from Greenland. And really, wasn’t the 2010 Tea Party much like the 1970 Peace movement? Aims were different, but both questioned the system and authority. Again, an example of the We/Me cycle.
I like this chart by the acclaimed statistician, Nate Silver. More evidence of the We/Me cycle:
The joy of resistance will rise, egged on by unavoidable mistakes by any administration in a complex world full of unknown unknowns. We will swing back to the We part of the cycle.
Hope you twenty-year-olds have as much fun with the joy of resistance and find as much purpose in it as we did.
That’s nostalgia bias though, isn’t it?
Let us go and make our visit.
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Appendix 1: WSIM Framework
For easier reading, download the pdf:
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Appendix 2: HUN Scenarios in Detail
Pessimistic, optimistic, and expected scenarios of what the world might be like over the next 10 years:
Factor Definitions for all scenarios:
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Optimistic Summary: Historical trends continue their positive trajectory, driven by innovation and unknown factors that net out with a positive impact. Negative factors such as climate change exist, but don't cause societal collapse as feared.
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Pessimistic Summary: Well Being, Migration, Poverty, and Peace all worsen significantly, driven by climate change, a deteriorating world economy, and poor governance. We/Me cycles exacerbate the trends and conditions. Pandemics are more frequent due to Climate Change and poor Governance. Misinformation and Inequality worsen. Unknown and unexplained variance add to deterioration.
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Expected Summary: Well Being, Migration, Poverty, and Peace all worsen but not dramatically. Climate change and inequality drive the deterioration but are offset somewhat by innovation, improved information, and a stable world economy. The We/Me cycle increases in amplitude and frequency due to social media while Governance and Pandemics follow historical cyclicality.
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For easier reading, download the pdf:
Relevant to the HUN Conclusion, especially the section that discusses Hirschman's disappointment powered socio/economic/ political cycles:
Your brain is biased to negativity...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2025/05/06/negativity-bias-positivity-strategies/
Relevant to the HUN Chapter: Conforming Compliently. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/opinion/trump-faith-humanism.html?smid=nytcore-android-share