Understanding People
The best example of a worldview that predicts well is “follow the money.” I already mentioned this in relation to predicting the fate of a marriage, but it works in almost any domain. People can be expected to act in ways that maximize their money, at least as they see it. The weird part of this worldview is that it seems to predict even when you think it should not.
Usual Frame: Predicting people’s actions involves many variables.
Reframe: Follow the money. That’s all you need.
For example, if you knew a trusted member of a religious organization made an important decision, you would assume money was not the top priority. One would assume the religion itself would be the top priority along with empathy for the disadvantaged. But in those situations, you can reliably predict the decision will follow whatever path is also the best financial outcome for the decision-maker, directly or indirectly. In such a situation, I would expect the religious leader to make an argument that depended on religious principles and empathy. And the argument might make sense. Or not.
What matters is that I could predict which way the decision would go. That’s all we know, or think we know. If you extend that worldview to include knowing the religious figure is a fraud or a hypocrite, that’s mind-reading—and taking things too far. This hypothetical religious figure might be acting in naked self-interest. The other possibility is they don’t know they are rationalizing their own self-interest. That explanation is at least as likely as a religious figure being corrupt.
Look for patterns that predict. Don’t assume you know why. It would be terrific if you did know why as that would help predict even better. But our tendency to mind-read imaginary motives in people is far greater than our ability to discern real motives.
If you ask people what motivates them, they might not say money, but watch how often their ethics-based preferences match their economic interests. Polite society asks us to express our priorities as lofty goals such as making the world a better place, helping children, succeeding in business, that sort of thing. It would sound rude to say you’re in it for the money and are only pretending to care about doing good. And perhaps you’ve convinced yourself you are not in it for the money. That’s not uncommon.
For example, if you ask me why I’m writing this book instead of shuffling off to rich-guy retirement, I’ll probably say something about how good it feels to improve people’s lives and how I like to feel useful. Every bit of both is true. But if you want to predict how I spend my time, check to see if I expect the book to make me some money. And sure enough, I do.
You might tell yourself money doesn’t influence how you think about your choices and your priorities. But it sure influences what your body is doing while your mind is enjoying lofty thoughts about yourself. We humans often have no idea why we do what we do. Sometimes you must “follow the money” even to understand yourself. Or more generally, selfishness explains nearly everything about human behavior.
Life Is an Adventure
I heard this reframe from Dr. Jordan Peterson. It matches one I’ve been using for a few years to great effect.
Usual Frame: Life is about avoiding pain while pursuing happiness and meaning.
Reframe: Life is an adventure.
Life is full of discomforts. If you think your purpose is to avoid discomfort, you will be unhappy because there is no real hope of succeeding. Problems are part of life. But if you frame your life as an adventure, your temporary discomforts will feel as if they belong in the game to keep it interesting.
As a point of comparison, people who like to go camping are willingly taking on a load of inconvenience and discomfort before they even get the campfire lit. In any other context, willingly taking on those discomforts might look like insanity. But when viewed as part of the camping adventure, the psychological discomfort is greatly reduced.
This is one of my favorite filters on reality. Now when something goes wrong, the situation feels no different than missing one shot in a basketball game. Missing half of all shots is expected in basketball, so missing any one shot doesn’t crush your spirit. If you live your life that way instead of crying “Why me???!!!” at every bump in the road, you are likely to better enjoy the ride.
My take on the adventure frame is that we are computer simulations put here either to entertain our creators or to test strategies for their civilization. I go through my day as if I’m in a video game, which makes a lot of the stress disappear. Does it matter how unrealistic or dead-wrong I am about my reality? Nope. All that matters is that the reframe works in some identifiable way, and this one does. It makes me happy. I recommend it.
Innocent until Proven Guilty
Much of adult life is spent trying to discern who is lying and who is telling the truth. When it comes to the legal system, we take the view that citizens are innocent until proven guilty. That’s an improvement (a reframe) from labeling a person potentially guilty, or maybe innocent, maybe not. As with most reframes, it is not literally true that someone is innocent until proven guilty, except in a strict legal sense. It’s simply a better system to act as if innocence is the starting assumption to avoid harming the truly innocent.
The problem appears when we extend “innocent until proven guilty” to corporations and government entities. Given the outsized power those entities wield over citizens, it’s a better system to think of them as guilty until proven innocent. That’s why public corporations must show their financials and why elections can be audited.
Keep this rule in mind the next time a large company or government entity is accused of some heinous behavior. Until they can prove otherwise, assume guilt. You won’t often be wrong. But please be cautious about extending the presumption of guilt to any specific individuals running those organizations. Citizens are always presumed innocent until proven guilty, and I think we all appreciate that.
Usual Frame: Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
Reframe: Citizens are innocent until proven guilty. Corporations and governments are presumed guilty until proven innocent.
How often will big organizations cheat and lie? More often than you think. The larger the organization, the less likely anything they say is completely true. And there’s a reason for that. This reframe reveals it.
Usual Frame: No cheating has been detected, so the organization is innocent.
Reframe: Whenever there is an opportunity for cheating and not getting caught, a lot to gain from cheating, and lots of people involved, cheating will always happen.
The larger the organization, the more opportunities there will be to cheat and get away with it. That’s because crime can easily hide in a complicated bureaucracy.
Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about distrusting a large organization. Distrust is the best starting position. If a company can make itself transparent and reduce mistrust, it’s welcome to do so. But until then, hold organizations to a higher standard than citizens. Assume guilt but give them every opportunity to prove otherwise.
Where Opinions Come From
We want to believe our opinions come from some combination of our experiences, our knowledge, and our reason. That’s what it feels like. But nothing remotely like that is happening. Most of our opinions are assigned to us by the media. We pick a “team” we want to join, then the media tells that team what to believe.
I could spend the remainder of this book explaining why science agrees with me about how opinions are formed, but it would be easier for you to directly observe the media assigning opinions to teams.