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Musings Report 2022-43 10-22-22 Red Flags, Green Flags
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Red Flags, Green Flags
One of my oldest friends occasionally recommends books he's reading. Since he reads books across a wide range of topics, I've read many interesting books I otherwise wouldn't discover.
I wrote about one of his recent recommendations in the blog: Loonshots and Collapse.
One of his other recommendations was The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles Mann.
I'd read the author's ground-breaking popular histories of pre and post-Columbus North America, 1491 and 1493, and found them meticulously researched and engagingly presented.
My friend found the either-or proposal of The Wizard and the Prophet insightful and sensible: either we dial back to small-scale responses to the worlds' environmental crises, or we power ahead with large-scale technological solutions.
I saw the title and book as a false choice: I don't see an either-or choice, I see a spectrum of potential solutions that make sense or don't make sense in specific situations.
In other words, each problem is a complex context and so claiming a large-scale technological solution will always be available and appropriate as long as we "go for it" struck me as impractical, inaccurate and misguided.
While my friend found the sections on energy and the Green Revolution instructive, I found each deceptive.
In my view, the author failed to explain the role of cheap hydrocarbon energy in everything he was discussing. For example, while the author focused on genetic cross-breeding advances to develop new more productive strains of rice and other grains, he barely mentioned the role of cheap natural-gas-based nitrogen fertilizers in the Green Revolution.
Once those energy-dependent fertilizers become expensive, as we're now witnessing, the Green Revolution is revealed as an artifact of cheap oil and natural gas. Without those, the Green Revolution wilts.
I concluded the author's strength was as a historian, and he was ill-equipped to discuss science, and that he cherry-picked "science" to support his either-or narrative.
How could two people disagree so completely on a book?
Psychology offers many possible explanations, but I don't think any one explanation actually explains what's going on.
Here's my simplistic summary of what's going on, not just in disagreements about books but in disagreements about climate change, politics, etc.
Every individual has what I'm calling a frame of reference, which is the complex adaptive aggregation of personality, character, upbringing, social status, experience and learning.
How we respond to the world is based on how we contextualize the world within our frame of reference.
Within each of our frames of reference, we see green flags and red flags in various stimuli and contexts.
If something fits positively into our frame of reference, we see a green flag: yes, this makes sense, it's good.
If it's at odds with our frame of reference, we see a red flag.
Which flag we see isn't entirely rational. We respond viscerally and immediately.
Though we likely pride ourselves on being objective, we're only objective about things that we have no connection with and that play no part in our frame of reference.
For example, if we see a data-based presentation on a South American economy, unless that's our professional specialty or we have a financial stake in the country, we won't have much of a response. We will likely tune it out as not of interest.
But if the presenter uses highly charged political language, we will likely see red flags or green flags right away, and viscerally approve or disapprove of the presenter and the presentation.
In other words, we're predisposed by core elements in our character and experience to be attracted to or repelled by people, presentations, ideas, etc.
This has to do with our genetic makeup, our age (what we experienced in our formative years), what intellectual tools we've used to navigate life, our base education (which in technical matters boils down to either being able to understand the fundamentals of engineering/science or not), our social status / class, our wealth and social circle, and so on.
In a very simplified form, our frame of reference defines which narratives we find appealing and which ones we don't.
For example, I found the first Star Wars film (1977) enthralling and captivating. Others found it violent and boring.
Millions of people have paid billions of dollars to watch superhero movies, turning the genre into multiple franchises. I have yet to watch more than a few minutes of any of these films I've tried to watch. They don't do anything for me.
In other words, other people see green flags in these films, I see red flags.
The trick in marketing books, movies, politicians, ;political parties, supposed solutions, etc. is to fashion the look, feel and pitch to appeal to those ready to see a green flag and not display too many things that cause people to see red flags.
Or, go out of your way to raise bright-red flags and present yourself as the one stalwart holding up a green flag. That works all too well.
Once we're out of our safety zone, where we feel in control and things feel predictable and stable, our ability to respond rationally decays, and we're more likely to respond viscerally, seeing red or green flags which then shape our response.
How many people are truly objective about climate change, politics, wars, entertainment, or proposed solutions?
I would suggest the number is small. I wouldn't claim to be one of the few truly objective observers.
It seems to me that we're collectively out of our safety zone, and so our public and private lives are increasingly dominated by red and green flags.
This isn't helpful in terms of actually solving problems. Once we have a red/green flag in hand, we are so emotionally bound to our proposed "solution" that whether it actually works or not no longer matters.
As I said in last week's Musings, we would be well-served to focus on physics, costs, scale and time, i.e. realistic assessments, and on the tradeoffs needed to reach our goal of a sustainable, open-to-all, fair economy. .
Highlights of the Blog
podcast on Self Reliance in the 21st Century (43 min)
Getting Rich Is One Thing; The Tricky Part Is Keeping It 10/19/22
What Everybody Knows No Longer Matters 10/17/22
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
My new novel is now available. It's at the top of the "My Novels" page. Here's an excerpt.
I wrote this story with the express intent of only pleasing myself and not trying to reach or please an audience. It succeeded in amusing me, so it's already a success, albeit a private one.
What's the genre? I'm not sure. Maybe we can call it high-end pulp fiction. I think it's my most entertaining and readable novel yet. But I'm not exactly the most objective observer...
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
‘It’s not an unsolvable case’: has the Zodiac killer finally been found?
‘I am lonely’: controversial book reveals Anthony Bourdain’s final days.
The Brain, the Gut, and How we get Old.
placebos prove so powerful even experts are surprised;New Studies Explore the Brain's Triumph Over Reality (NYT.com 1998) "If you expect to get better, you will"
Swarm probes weakening of Earth’s magnetic field
Olomana Gardens azolla beds explained by Glenn Martinez. (2:55 min)
The Downside of Imperial Collapse: Authoritarian regimes, while they present the aura of serenity, may always be rotting from within.
How China Trapped Itself: The CCP’s Economic Model Has Left It With Only Bad Choices. -- Michael Pettis is always worth reading...
Sublime reason: when Isaac Asimov met Jay Forrester
How Gaslighting Manipulates Reality (Scientific American)
Overshoot in a Nutshell: Understanding Our Predicament (31 min) (via Ryan K.)
Top 1% Of U.S. Households Hold 15 Times More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Combined
"All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl." Jean-Luc Godard
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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