23/ It's not even malfeasance (sometimes). It's just overwhelming scale. But it makes me wonder about careers and industries I have ZERO actual exposure too. How often are people papering things over and fudging numbers and lying and hiding embarrassing stuff?
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24/ My sense is that this happens CONSTANTLY, everywhere, all the time, because it's human nature. You put your best foot forward, show your good side, try to sweep the bad stuff under the rug.
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25/ But we form expectations of other people and other industries based on the behavior we observe, and the thing is that we haven't actually *observed* much at all. We've consumed a carefully-manicured construct filtered through several layers of abstraction.
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26/ I see this with politicians a lot too. Like, people complain all the time that politics is shady and grumble about legislators and so on. Have you considered that this might be completely necessary to their jobs and that you're not seeing the whole picture?
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27/ Or I've watched younger friends react with indignation about superiors misrepresenting information to them or doing things they don't understand. But having not been in those roles, they're not seeing the whole picture.
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28/ Often what they're doing is taking the small slice of the information and actions that they're exposed to and holding it up against their mental model of what they THINK someone in that role should be doing, and judging the person for not doing it better. We all do this.
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29/ And like... when I look at something like health care, or foreign domestic policy, or the legal system, or tax policy, I feel like it's SO hard to form good opinions about what is good and bad and wrong and right given how little I really know, if I apply this model outward.
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30/ I've never been to war. I've never worked in a hospital. I've never been a trial lawyer. I've never lived in a condo in NYC. I've never worked for a TV studio. Why do I let myself believe that I know anything meaningful about any of these things?
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Replying to @liminal_warmth
Great thread but why are presenting it like these are all bugs rather than features?
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Replying to @vgr
Hmm, I'm not sure I am? I don't think they're bugs, I think I'm trying to make an observation about how you should challenge what you think you know before passing judgment on people's actions
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I mean in the sense of, living in fictional escaped realities probably is the foundation of our sanity, so I’m not sure *generally* challenging it is either necessary or wise. We work really hard to construct and maintain these delusions for good reasons.
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Replying to @vgr
Hmm... that is a good point but also I think we should refrain from making moral judgments on the basis of flawed understanding, too, no?
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Replying to @liminal_warmth
It’s all flawed understanding and shaky judgments, and inseparable from belief anyway, so I personally prefer to censor my actions very parsimoniously rather than judge my judgments. As in “he’s an asshole, but don’t do anything to cause him pain because default don’t cause pain”
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