Not too many people get to the core of it, but there's been a public attitude shift about capitalism and money. It happened after I started getting very critical vocally - years after (I know, probably a silly hipster attitude). For me, harm to the biosphere was the central proof that something is wrong with the system. There's a lot of analysis, but I don't think you can get around that. This system the free marketeers believe in so strongly seems inextricably linked with degradation of the habitability of Earth for most of its species, including humans.

That was in the public consciousness, but many voices denied the link, even though when you look at the data, it punches you in the face over and over and over. You can't miss the connection if you look with an open mind, and it's difficult to refute in clear intellectual/scientific conscience. Even countries that are doing really well (it seems, environmentally) show this same link between money flow and degradation.

Then some studies came out. A different kind of study. Results that had been lurking in smaller studies got citations and more attention.

There's a link between having a less understanding, more mean-spirited personality and making money. And on the other hand, there's a link between empathy and making less money. Maybe we all kind of knew this in the backs of our minds, but it's easy to half-know something and move on. Maybe it wasn't true. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe we were flattering ourselves, or on the other side of the fence, maybe people were just jealous or weak.

Except that's a robust finding. Agreeableness is closely linked with empathy, helping professions, lower income, etc. And low agreeableness is linked with higher income.

A spate of articles came out declaring capitalism to be the most empathetic of all systems. Some might have been fooled by the pleas, but to someone aware of this research thread, the motivation behind - and the sophistry used in - the articles was crystal clear. This was apologism and a subtle form of gaslighting, or else it was just plain delusional projection from people who were good at arguing and writing, and could make these maneuvers and contortions seem legitimate and reasonable. No, free market capitalism is not ultra-empathetic. Face evidence, don't contort it.

Other findings were coming out around the same time about hubris syndrome - what one might call the toxic overconfidence of many leaders - and its close relative and likely its main underlying mechanism, a tendency for humans to lose empathy as they rise through the ranks of social hierarchy.

Not only was making lots of money associated with being a comparatively mean person, but gaining social status tended to make people meaner, or at least more insensitive.

These are associations, not unavoidable fates - it's possible to be a good person in a position of leadership, or to accumulate wealth in good ways - but experiments show there's a mechanism. It's something deep in human nature that we have to work to counteract.

It just doesn't make the traditional hierarchy look very good, does it? Any of it? Throw in the fact its ways seem deeply patriarchal and colonial. I may have just shot the notion of "the best of all possible systems" in the head, and it wasn't difficult (except it was, because scientists spend careers asking questions and figuring out how to answer them reliably, and this little chat is a brief, breezy consolidation of many careers' worth of work).

But we still aren't all on the same page yet, nor are we clear on how to fix the fundamental interactions of capitalism, ie, of economic life.

-

There were other events and forces. The Great Recession, the popularity of Bernie Sanders, the election of Trump, and the pandemic all put arrows in the chest of the traditional creed - the idea that freewheeling capitalism is wonderful and we all just need to suck it up, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and go from rags to riches if we don't like what we see or experience.

But as with full acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people (definitively a natural variation, not a choice), legal cannabis (much less harmful than believed, enforcement was ineffective and racist), etc, science worked in the background to update what was known, and then public opinion slowly caught on.

You can know before other people if you take an interest in new science.

-

I do have some thoughts about how to fix the basic interactions, and I wish I were part of a community working on this. 

The problem with controversy is that people think you're a bad person for making an argument on any side that isn't theirs. You're automatically suspicious for not simply falling in line and making arguments that ADVANCE their cause. If you aren't ADVANCING whatever a person feels their cause is, they will likely see you as the OPPOSITION.

Most people even think this is the right way to be. This is how you get things done. You pick a side and argue for that side. That's the game you play.

Except it's the game that makes people groupthinky and eventually prejudicial. Fight hate with hate? Fight prejudice with prejudice? That seems to be the usual thinking.

If you're the kind of person who makes arguments for (and against) every side or idea in a debate, you quickly notice this weird neuroticism that causes people to be unable to argue for anything but their chosen cause.

That isn't how you think well. That's a way to get delusional.

There are few things stranger than being called presumptuous or conceited for saying what's true.

Of course, I think we have to agree that not everything that's true is appropriate, useful, or even safe to say at all times to all people. But I really try to give everyone truth points. If it's true, it doesn't matter how much I don't like it or wish you could have said it better or at a better time - you get points for saying something true.

I'll even give you some points for spouting utter bullshit, as long as it really seems to me that you believe what you're saying.

I'm not sure what's difficult or weird about this. If you try it, you might like it.

I don't believe someone's confidence gives an accurate measure of their value, and I also don't believe that it's only their responsibility. People who are marginalized or abused will typically suffer a blow to their confidence. To put that on them and rate them as worthless (or worth less) is primitive and disgusting.

How did we get to the point where caring about other people's thoughts regarding us equates to inauthenticity? It doesn't.

I care what you think, and that doesn't make me dishonest or pathetic. Actually, I just balance it another way. I care, but you're not going to push me around (without my agreement), because I have a solid reality check and I know manipulation and delusionality when I see it.

I think many people protect themselves by "not caring what anyone thinks" (kind of a lie, but they're free to lie to themselves or take a breather or keep things private). But you don't have to protect yourself on that level. You can manage any fallout another way - by using your reason.

I guess if your sense of reason is weaker, it can really help sometimes not to care. But if you have a strong enough sense of reason, you can care - you just apply a reality check and make your own decisions as you have every right to do.

I think my problem is I run on hope, and whenever that runs out, I'm hopeless. And I'm very disinclined to lie to myself even for the sake of hope and running.

So it's hope or nothing, but the hope has to really be believable, or it's nothing.

I think ever since turning 40, I have felt vaguely yet definitely more than before as if I am leaving this world. You grow up thinking there's all this stuff out there, all this future for you. Over time, you can start to realize you will never have a future. The future you were going to have is behind you, and before you, there is nothing - almost like leaving Earth behind you on an endless voyage. You were attached to this place, but there is only so much you will ever see, and that horizon is diminishing, now, not growing.

-

To make it concrete, what is the point of learning things? Now when I forget, I wonder whether I'll ever bother to remember again. Will I need that information after all? Maybe I have spent my life learning things I will never use. I have hoarded all this material, and it is beginning to rot inside me, without having seen any use.