Getting out of your own mind and into other people's
The journalist Jamelle Bouie (whom I greatly admire for his nuanced perspectives on US politics and culture) posted this on Bluesky:
he's talking about empathy
Empathy is one of my superpowers
By superpower, I don't mean that I'm preternaturally gifted at it (I'm not). But I was born with a pretty high ceiling and since I was young I've been developing the skill unconsciously for a long time (thank you theatre major) and more recently consciously.
As Jamelle notes, "conceptulizing how someone could be totally ignorant of politics" when it's something I personally think about all the time is very hard. People's go-to for understanding what's going on inside someone else's head is to project what's going on in their head into the other person's, perhaps with a little different life experience sprinkled on top like sea salt.
Like many universal truths, it's also got a xkcd comic about it: relevant xkcd #2501
OK, so what to do about it
There's a great tool I learned from Shreyas Doshi: inversion. If you're stuck on a problem, think about the opposite. Reverse it. See what possibilities open up.
A classic example is space flight. It costs too much because every time we build a rocket to get into space, we burn it up in the atmosphere or beat it up so much we have to just build another one.
What if we didn't do that? What would we have to do in order to reuse a rocket for launch after launch? That (and lots of work and problem solving) is how you get to SpaceX catching a booster with "chopsticks."
It's not all perfect, but that humans did this is pretty wild
So let's invert the problem. If we know imagining that others think like we do is a failure mode, what if we figured out a way to think like them?
Simulation nation
This where we come to another tool I learned from Shreyas (seriously, he knows what he's talking about): simulation.
There's all sorts of ways to develop this skill, and I'm indebted to Shreyas for teaching me that it's a skill (that can be learned and improved) instead of magic. Like all skills, the best way to develop it is to practice it. And when you're a beginner it helps to have learning aids (like training wheels on a bike).
So here's an exercise I do sometimes when I'm trying to get in the mindset that Jamelle is talking about in the skeet above.
Pick a thing It could be anything. insects, asphalt, kids' toy wagons. The less likely you've ever thought about this thing the better (i.e. don't pick the Roman Empire)
Search for "<thing> crisis" This will return a bunch of articles about how something in this field is broken. Try to resist the urge to trivialize the importance of whatever this crisis is. That's mostly a subconscious reaction related to you not already caring about this crisis. We're trying to notice something else.
Skim through a few articles to get a sense of something vitally important going on in an area of the world that you know (and care) very little about
This is the 🎯 to notice.
100s or 1000s of people are thinking very deeply about whatever this thing is. They're fighting over the state of affairs. There's a bunch history that led up to this crisis. Who's at fault? What to do about it?
Up until this moment, you didn't even know it existed.
Now imagine that you're being societally pressured to weigh in on this topic. It's your duty as a citizen. There's not sitting on the sidelines. To not weigh in is to let the bad guys win. You have to do it.
Do you have a nuanced understanding about the consequences of your decision?
Do you know which of the players in this drama trustworthy and not?
Most importantly, how does it feel to be in this situation?
Not great.
Based on the confusion, frustration, anxiety, uncertainty, and intense pressure you're likely feeling, you're probably going to go with what seems good enough to you in the moment, get rid of those feelings, and get back to your life.
And when you go back to your life of not thinking about <thing>, if/when the consequences of your decision come back to affect you, how likely are you going to be able to tie them back to your choice?
If i'm being honest with myself, the answer to this last one is probably not.
It would cost a lot to replace (and with what?) or they could keep mitigating for a while. One article says something about a shelf life until 2030. I guess we could put it off until then. Some other article said that installing metal trusses is an option.
What to do? 🤷♂️
Personally, I might choose to replace roofs with something else (because schools and hospitals are good) and better now than later I guess.
And this is the point. This isn't a considered opinion. It's a gut call. It's rife with my personal biases and doesn't consider any 2nd or 3rd order consequences (or even what to replace the crumbling roofs with, let alone who will make that decision).
If the street outside my house crumbles because, based on my decision, the concrete budget was drained and there wasn't any left to do road repairs, I'd never make the connection.
It's not because i'm dumb, but because I'm human. I'm not paying as much attention to the particular topic as the people in the article and because I'm being forced to make a decision, I'm doing the best with what I've got (time, energy, motivation).
What to do about it™️
If you think about it, so many issues with <waves arms around> are connected to this problem.
I'm always suspicious of the end of posts like this where the unspoken expectation is because I've pointed out a problem, I'm now expected to come up with the solution. I'm just one person and I think it's enough to clearly articulate a problem. In fact, doing so as clearly as I can makes it easier to enlist others in articulating a solution.
But I can at least point in the general direction of the solution.
It's something to do with practicing empathy.
And this isn't a woo woo recommendation like "be the change you want to see in the world." There's plenty of other work to do as well to make the world a better place.
But as I said before, empathy is a skill. Practice it like shooting free throws or drawing comics or writing blog posts. The exercise I wrote about here is just one of many you can do to practice it.
Keep practicing it until it goes from something that takes minutes to seconds to milliseconds. Do it until it becomes 2nd nature.
Then keep doing it until it becomes 1st nature. Until it's a way of being in the world. As natural to you as breathing.
