This is still my favorite @QuilletteM piece that I have written. So what if it only has like 22 Facebook shares : )http://quillette.com/2017/08/05/haunted-mind-stubborn-persistence-supernatural/ …
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Our mind is built to think about motives, therefore it does. True for ghost stories. Also conspiracy theories are often built around a good motive hook. Even evolution itself, it's is highly tempting for us to think of it as striving towards something.
TL;DR the motives of others was so important evolutionary that it's better to make lots of false positives about motives than to miss important ones. Error management theory. Especially relevant for politics, hence the extreme focus on motives in that area.
