Aug 20, 2025 10:05 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 20, 2025 10:14 PM by Yazata.)
Here's a set of principles for understanding politics. They are very good, though I would quibble with a few and perhaps add some of my own. (My own comments are highlighted.)
Source: https://x.com/MCCCANM/status/1958064390697283608
1) The world is almost never “Black & White”. It’s almost exclusively varying shades of grey.
2) There are no absolute heroes or villains. It just depends on who you’re talking to.
(I don't believe in the objective existence of good and evil. These are evaluative labels, part cognitive and part emotional, that we attach to our own and to others' behavior for social reasons. As they say, good and evil are 'socially constructed'.)
3) “Truth” is absolute & real, but humans overwhelmingly have no idea what it is, which makes “The Truth” fluid & malleable. I’m not immune.
(I believe that objective states of affairs are absolute and real. (I'm a realist.) But whatever we believe those objective states of affairs to be is based on whatever our limited sources of information might be and has to be formulated in terms of our concepts, which might not be fit for the purpose.)
4) Humans crave a purpose & tribe. They’ll adopt anything that offers it to them, no matter how bad the idea. They will ignore / attack evidence that threatens either.
(This is the fundamental principle of social life and the source of politics. Humans are most assuredly social animals. In paleolithic times our social group was the family. In neolithic times, as communities grew, families expanded into myths of common ancestry. (We see that today with groups like the Jews.) But as urban life became common, people found themselves surrounded by strangers. Social cohesion started to erode, and alternative sources of social cohesion had to be found. Economic systems, nation states and organized religion appeared. Those are all weakening and breaking down today, which helps explain the breakdown of the family, the growing prevalence of crime and all sorts of psychiatric and social pathologies, all attributable at their root to social isolation and anomie. It's what explains why people today are so attracted to identity politics and cling so tightly to their political identities. People need to feel like they belong to something larger than themselves, when everyone around them is a stranger and everything seems to be falling apart.)
5) Nothing is purely good, or purely bad. Everything has second & third order consequences & it can all be spun.
6) Information & knowledge is power. Control those & you control the majority.
(People act and behave on the basis of what they believe to be true. If you can control that, you can hope to control the population. It's why the left has tried so hard to control education and the media.)
7) Those outside of power will seek to attain it, and the ends often justify terrible means.
8) Those with power will seek to consolidate & expand it, and the ends often justify terrible means, but they are *usually* more constrained than those outside of power.
9) “Power” comes in many forms & is poorly understood by most, even as most spend the majority of their day vying for it.
10) Life isn’t a “Star Wars” movie, and the good guys don’t always win; history looks that way because the winners write the history.
11) Losers aren’t morally superior by virtue of having lost, and their last counter-attack is to make themselves appear as innocent victims.
12) Ordered civilization is fragile; empires can fall in a single generation. When the food deliveries stop, it all crashes down.
(It's entropy. It's always much easier to break things than to build them. That's why I respect and honor the lives, struggles and work of those who came before me, despite the fruits of their labors seeming imperfect to people today. They were flawed human beings who did their best and accomplished wonders. As Isaac Newton is supposed to have said, the reason why he could see so far is that he was standing on the shoulders of giants. It's pure hubris to believe that we can tear everything down and replace it with something better.)
13) Everyone is lying to some extent. Some more than others, but everyone, including me…see rule #3.
(I would rather say that nobody is ever telling the truth in some absolute sense. People often do knowingly lie, but other times they are relating what they believe to be true, even if it really isn't.)
14) The best way to lie is to lie by omission, leaving out facts that are inconvenient. You can then make a claim of a simple mistake if caught.
15) Emotion is the most effective means of manipulation. Anger, fear, empathy & guilt are particularly effective. They can be weaponized.
(Good and evil are the paradigmatic example of that. If you want to steer people, just label the alternative that you oppose 'evil'. Or 'bigoted' or 'fascist'. People don't want to be associated with that.)
16) Those who cry loudest are the ones who intrinsically understand rule #15.
(Sympathy is obviously an emotion that can be exploited for political ends.)
17) Simple, one-word labels that invoke strong emotions, which you can apply to opponents, are highly effective at achieving rule #15.
18) Create Zealots of your followers & you won’t have to personally show up on the battlefield or explain your inconsistencies & hypocrisy. They’ll do it for you.
19) When evenly equipped & led, God is always on the side of the bigger Battalion.
(That's why I've always believed that the best way to understand the Ukraine War wasn't in terms of who the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' are, but rather in terms of what was actually objectively happening on the battlefield.)
20) Zealots get slaughtered; on the battlefield quickly if they lose, one by one at the hands of their leaders if they win.
21) Politicians understand all of these ideas, and rarely go into politics “for the people”. They go into politics for power, ego & money. Yes, your favored politicians, too. They are *not* smarter than you, they just understand the dynamics.
22) There is always something worse. The choice is frequently between the lesser of two evils.
23) Choosing the lesser of two evils sometimes leads to a worse long-term outcome.
(It's very difficult to predict the future and to know what the longer-term results of our actions will be. (I try to remember that with stock-market advisors. If they can predict the market, why aren't they richer than Elon?) Part of the problem is conceptual, trying to imagine history in terms of simple physics, as if there are laws of history that can be known and would enable us to steer history. Karl Marx was a poster child for that conceit. In real life, history appears to be exceedingly complex, chaotic and probably unpredictable for technical reasons.)
24) Perceived moral superiority does not protect from hunger, thirst or violence; in some circumstances, it makes an easy mark for those who do not share the same convictions.
25) No amount of cleavage ever shows up in a selfie by accident.
I would add this very important one:
A) No matter how strongly we believe something, the possibility always exists that we are wrong.
Source: https://x.com/MCCCANM/status/1958064390697283608
1) The world is almost never “Black & White”. It’s almost exclusively varying shades of grey.
2) There are no absolute heroes or villains. It just depends on who you’re talking to.
(I don't believe in the objective existence of good and evil. These are evaluative labels, part cognitive and part emotional, that we attach to our own and to others' behavior for social reasons. As they say, good and evil are 'socially constructed'.)
3) “Truth” is absolute & real, but humans overwhelmingly have no idea what it is, which makes “The Truth” fluid & malleable. I’m not immune.
(I believe that objective states of affairs are absolute and real. (I'm a realist.) But whatever we believe those objective states of affairs to be is based on whatever our limited sources of information might be and has to be formulated in terms of our concepts, which might not be fit for the purpose.)
4) Humans crave a purpose & tribe. They’ll adopt anything that offers it to them, no matter how bad the idea. They will ignore / attack evidence that threatens either.
(This is the fundamental principle of social life and the source of politics. Humans are most assuredly social animals. In paleolithic times our social group was the family. In neolithic times, as communities grew, families expanded into myths of common ancestry. (We see that today with groups like the Jews.) But as urban life became common, people found themselves surrounded by strangers. Social cohesion started to erode, and alternative sources of social cohesion had to be found. Economic systems, nation states and organized religion appeared. Those are all weakening and breaking down today, which helps explain the breakdown of the family, the growing prevalence of crime and all sorts of psychiatric and social pathologies, all attributable at their root to social isolation and anomie. It's what explains why people today are so attracted to identity politics and cling so tightly to their political identities. People need to feel like they belong to something larger than themselves, when everyone around them is a stranger and everything seems to be falling apart.)
5) Nothing is purely good, or purely bad. Everything has second & third order consequences & it can all be spun.
6) Information & knowledge is power. Control those & you control the majority.
(People act and behave on the basis of what they believe to be true. If you can control that, you can hope to control the population. It's why the left has tried so hard to control education and the media.)
7) Those outside of power will seek to attain it, and the ends often justify terrible means.
8) Those with power will seek to consolidate & expand it, and the ends often justify terrible means, but they are *usually* more constrained than those outside of power.
9) “Power” comes in many forms & is poorly understood by most, even as most spend the majority of their day vying for it.
10) Life isn’t a “Star Wars” movie, and the good guys don’t always win; history looks that way because the winners write the history.
11) Losers aren’t morally superior by virtue of having lost, and their last counter-attack is to make themselves appear as innocent victims.
12) Ordered civilization is fragile; empires can fall in a single generation. When the food deliveries stop, it all crashes down.
(It's entropy. It's always much easier to break things than to build them. That's why I respect and honor the lives, struggles and work of those who came before me, despite the fruits of their labors seeming imperfect to people today. They were flawed human beings who did their best and accomplished wonders. As Isaac Newton is supposed to have said, the reason why he could see so far is that he was standing on the shoulders of giants. It's pure hubris to believe that we can tear everything down and replace it with something better.)
13) Everyone is lying to some extent. Some more than others, but everyone, including me…see rule #3.
(I would rather say that nobody is ever telling the truth in some absolute sense. People often do knowingly lie, but other times they are relating what they believe to be true, even if it really isn't.)
14) The best way to lie is to lie by omission, leaving out facts that are inconvenient. You can then make a claim of a simple mistake if caught.
15) Emotion is the most effective means of manipulation. Anger, fear, empathy & guilt are particularly effective. They can be weaponized.
(Good and evil are the paradigmatic example of that. If you want to steer people, just label the alternative that you oppose 'evil'. Or 'bigoted' or 'fascist'. People don't want to be associated with that.)
16) Those who cry loudest are the ones who intrinsically understand rule #15.
(Sympathy is obviously an emotion that can be exploited for political ends.)
17) Simple, one-word labels that invoke strong emotions, which you can apply to opponents, are highly effective at achieving rule #15.
18) Create Zealots of your followers & you won’t have to personally show up on the battlefield or explain your inconsistencies & hypocrisy. They’ll do it for you.
19) When evenly equipped & led, God is always on the side of the bigger Battalion.
(That's why I've always believed that the best way to understand the Ukraine War wasn't in terms of who the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' are, but rather in terms of what was actually objectively happening on the battlefield.)
20) Zealots get slaughtered; on the battlefield quickly if they lose, one by one at the hands of their leaders if they win.
21) Politicians understand all of these ideas, and rarely go into politics “for the people”. They go into politics for power, ego & money. Yes, your favored politicians, too. They are *not* smarter than you, they just understand the dynamics.
22) There is always something worse. The choice is frequently between the lesser of two evils.
23) Choosing the lesser of two evils sometimes leads to a worse long-term outcome.
(It's very difficult to predict the future and to know what the longer-term results of our actions will be. (I try to remember that with stock-market advisors. If they can predict the market, why aren't they richer than Elon?) Part of the problem is conceptual, trying to imagine history in terms of simple physics, as if there are laws of history that can be known and would enable us to steer history. Karl Marx was a poster child for that conceit. In real life, history appears to be exceedingly complex, chaotic and probably unpredictable for technical reasons.)
24) Perceived moral superiority does not protect from hunger, thirst or violence; in some circumstances, it makes an easy mark for those who do not share the same convictions.
25) No amount of cleavage ever shows up in a selfie by accident.
I would add this very important one:
A) No matter how strongly we believe something, the possibility always exists that we are wrong.
