Why the world as a whole is so angry, despite rational optimism.
As a super-organism, mankind is experiencing a form of teenage-angst out of dissonance.
Individuals gained an unprecedented amount of knowledge/truths, but no one has even roughly the same collection, unlike the past.
Many of these truths directly contradict each other, yet are equally profoundly true. Putting one to practice invariably fails another. Eventually it feels like you can't do anything right.
Learning a bit of kindness doesn't spare you from being exploited. Practicing complete ruthlessness backfires even worse.
Learning outcome-orientation makes you rigid; switching to process-orientation misses goals that don't exist.
This frustration feels like the world is conspiring against you. This is the teenage-angst that longs for a simpler model of the world. But it's too late, some things cannot be un-knew.
That no one shares the same truths-set makes deep consensus impossible. This has the tragedy of making communication very costly. To understand another's worldview takes up a bulk of the time, even if you don't prematurely protest them.
Without the skill to make these truths cohere, individuals unknowingly experience painful dissonance. Since communication of worldview is costly, help is nowhere to be found.
Since truth-seeking is painful, they engage at self-preservation instead.
Simple mental-models are expressed with the intention for self-validation, not because they're true. They want people to agree with them, not their opinions.
Therefore online discussions sounds like teenagers conversing, with unearned confidence, longing for validation.
Making-sense as a meta-skill used to be the domain of sages. Knowledge explosion now has elevate it into necessity.
I don't see mankind growing out of this teenage funk until making-sense becomes a thing.
Originally published here