Haidt on Anti-Fragility and the Safety Culture

n this lecture, Jonathan Haidt describes the new Manichean culture, where some groups of people are inherently good and other are inherently bad. Many of the "good" groups have found power in victimhood, demanding (and getting, especially at universities) protection from the authorities. This "safety culture" has proven to be debilitating, infantilizing the protected group. What they actually need is challenges and hurdles, which will make them stronger. People are anti-fragile. As shown with bones, immune systems and helicopter parenting, lack of insult weakens individuals. Haidt argues that all of this dependence culture has the opposite effect than the one intended. The only group subjected to challenges and insults without no societal support are straight white men (11:00 min), which is much better preparation for holding a job than a lifetime of victimhood, dependence and safety culture.

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Read more about the article A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

Aesop had a tale that is quite apropos right now: The Frogs Desiring a King (a.k.a "King Log and King Stork") is about a group clamoring for a strong handed leader, someone to declare moral rules and enforce them on the people. The Republicans (the party currently wanting to have government enforce ones personal morality, especially in the bedroom) chose Trump (as amoral an individual who ever took the proverbial throne) and somehow got him into power. Splash. The Democrats, aghast at the dangerous ignorance and exemplary incompetence of this purported moral leader, strive to have him impeached; to oust this King Log. So who would be our King Stork? Pence, a man who is neither uneducated nor incompetent. One who is actually a willing enforcer of a particular moral code, a one size fits all set of rules that most Americans don't actually live by, but some few vocal ones want to enforce it on everyone. This, despite the constitutional prohibition about the government enforcing the moral codes of a particular religion, is why he had the second seat next to the regularly bankrupt (both morally and financially) head of state. So, from frying pan into fire?

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About Google Scientist James Damore

I know I'm late to the game on this Google incident, but this is such a good illustration about how we, as a society, are unable to talk and think about serious issues except through our ideological filters. Further, some questions that can be explored through science apparently should no longer be even raised. First, a comment from a Gizmodo article by Melanie Ehrenkranz, who characterizes former Google Engineer James Damore as follows: "The man thinks women are inferior to men as engineers." That is typical of a lot of how Damore has been treated on the Internet. Now consider the basic facts about what Damore wrote at Google:

Calling the culture at Google an "ideological echo chamber", the memo says that while discrimination exists, it is extreme to ascribe all disparities to oppression, and it is authoritarian to try to correct disparities through reverse discrimination. Instead, it argues that male/female disparities can be partly explained by biological differences. According to research he cited, those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism (a higher-order personality trait). Damore's memorandum also suggests ways to adapt the tech workplace to those differences to increase women's representation and comfort, without resorting to discrimination.
Damore has given detailed interviews about what happened at Google and why he wrote his comments. That includes this interview with Joe Rogan:

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How race frames our attitude toward drug addictions

From an article titled, "There was no wave of compassion when addicts were hooked on crack." A nationwide case study is now laid out before us. It shows us that drug addictions are not treated equally.

Faced with a rising wave of addiction, misery, crime and death, our nation has linked arms to save souls. Senators and CEOs, Midwestern pharmacies and even tough-on-crime Republican presidential candidates now speak with moving compassion about the real people crippled by addiction. It wasn’t always this way. Thirty years ago, America was facing a similar wave of addiction, death and crime, and the response could not have been more different. Television brought us endless images of thin, black, ravaged bodies, always with desperate, dried lips. We learned the words crack baby. Back then, when addiction was a black problem, there was no wave of national compassion. Instead, we were warned of super predators, young, faceless black men wearing bandannas and sagging jeans.

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Steady Diet of Bad TV and Movies

We are in the middle of a big experiment. What happens when you subject hundreds of millions of people to vivid portrayals inducing consumerist tendencies and paranoia? A haunting thought keeps recurring to me: We were once a nation with such potential, but we have been poisoning ourselves with our mass media. Yes, there are many thoughtful TV shows and movies that challenge us to be self-critical, as well as shows that inspire us to be our best selves, Over the decades, though, we have willingly lapped up far more TV shows and movies that do the opposite. I haven't watched much TV for the past decade, but I do see many previews for shows, and I do check in here and there to see what shows are about. Thousands of plot lines teach us to distrust those who look like they are not from Europe or who talk with an accent. We learn that weapons are the first choice for solving complex social conflicts. We learn that failing to carefully plan works out most of the time. We learn to be cocky in our ignorance embracing Dunning-Krueger as a substitute for being well informed. We learn from show after show that putting other people down or dehumanizing them is a worthy substitute for empathy. We learn that people come in two mutually exclusive flavors, good and bad. We learn that impatiently acting out is often a worthy substitute for hard-earned intelligence and wisdom. We learn that we can recognize the good guys by the fact that they have lots of money, fancy houses, a lot of shiny consumer gadgets, and formidable weapons. [More . . . ]

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