- Romanticizing the past: Believing earlier times were better, more authentic, or more virtuous than today
- Platonicity: The desire to cut reality into crisp shapes – leads to overconfidence in knowledge
- Misunderstanding of hubris: Thinking hubris refers to thinking too big, but it really means excessive pride (includes attempts to keep things the same)
- Moral framing of issues: People you disagree with are not just wrong but morally deficient and thus we should not learn anything from them
- Belief in the supernaturally inexplicable: “No one understands (or can understand) quantum physics” “Ancient civilizations had knowledge we still can’t understand” etc
- “Americans are lazy”: Incorrect and offensive trope
- Self-serving institutions: Can never solve problems if it means the institution goes away
- Zero-sum scarcity mindset: Leads to fighting over scraps instead of building. “The rich get richer/shrinking middle class” “Immigrants take American jobs” “You can only become rich by exploiting others”
- Focus on limits/risks/so-called “externalities” instead of potential upsides
- Expert bias, where only experts can understand or do certain things. “I need to ask a doctor what medication to take” “Only the government can do certain projects”
- Academic gatekeeping where ideas are only taken seriously if they come from institutions or peer-reviewed journals
- Future state worship: The idea that there are basic needs which must be satisfied before we can do what we enjoy
- Activist culture: Confusing tearing down corrupt systems with progress
- Systems thinkers: Confusing building up process/systems with progress
- Privilege paralysis: The pervasive idea that we must constantly be “checking our privilege”
- Consensus culture: Belief that nothing should proceed unless everyone agrees
- Compromise culture: Belief that averaging together 2 or more solutions can create a valid solution even though no one advocated for the compromise solution in the first place. Temporarily resolves disputes but does not result in progress as much as if individual solutions were tried and tested
- Litigation culture: Fear of lawsuits discourages risk taking
- The Myth of the Framework: Belief that science and research have set methods or frameworks which reliably produce progress
- Belief that criticism is meaningless or merely annoying
- Normalcy bias: Avoiding doing things differently for fear of judgement or not looking like a “team player”
- Cultural relativism: Resistance to judging any practice or idea along identity lines, even when it’s clearly bad
- Obsession with fairness: Solutions that aren’t perfectly fair are rejected
I run a small SEO consulting business in San Francisco, CA. I like to write a little bit and get in arguments with my friends. It’s the only way I can make sense of the world.