Low-rung thinkers always need to have an enemy to fight – a “them” to their “us.” When the wars of the twentieth century ended, the big scary “them” of other countries were no longer a threat, so people started looking to their neighbors for a fight. It’s like how you defended your sibling from bullies in the schoolyard but still fought with them at home. In low-rung politics, none of this is possible. Urban calls it “Political Disney World.” In such a world, each party has its own narrative that looks as perfect as a Disney movie, like Aladdin or The Lion King. Each party member is the underdog hero, going up against “pure evil.” Now, rather than two different parties, poring over a map together, we have two loud and angry giants, shouting at one another. When the Higher Mind is winning the tug-of-war, its staff illuminates our minds with clarity, including awareness of the Primitive Mind and what it’s up to. The Higher Mind understands that primitive pleasures like sex, food, and all-in-good-fun tribalism like sports fandom are enjoyable, and often necessary, parts of a human life. And like a good pet owner, the Higher Mind is more than happy to let the Primitive Mind have its fun.” I have progressive views and can't tolerate or understand Trumpism. But now I can a bit, and far more important understand how my brain was distracted enough to miss an equally intolerable movement on the Left, that Urban calls Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF). They are two sides of the same thing, driven by the loss of critical thinking. First, there’s been a shift toward concentrated tribalism. What do we mean by that? Well, throughout American history, there’s been plenty of internal political conflict – the civil war for example – and external conflict – like when the country was mostly unified during and following World War II.

However, there are a few topics I wish he would have examined more. His chapter on the Republican Party, for example, felt a bit shallow. He did an excellent job explaining what he set out to explain, but there are several other types of low-rung thinking and behavior the Republican Party engages in that I would have liked to see him explore (Jonathan Rauch's examination of "troll epistemology" and Rachel Kleinfeld's examination of political violence come to mind). Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?Alas, this seems to me to not take seriously how deep such problems go. What you “really think” is substantially created by your social world, and need not come from your high mind. So encouraging everyone to ignore social context and just say what they “really think” just isn’t obviously going to induce a world dominated by high minds. Nor does it have much chance of actually happening. humble (the humility of the high-rung mindset makes your mind a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom).

I think Tim is giving away his own emotionally based lower level bias in his dedication of fully half of this book to one topic, when he was able to cover multiple similar topics in the first 40% of the book. I could not give this book more than 3 stars because of this glaring problem. Practice thinking ‘vertically’ about your society, its industries, its cultures, its politics. Slap the Ladder onto all these things and see what they look like. Where do you see high-rung and low-rung psychology or behavior playing out?” The massive technological rise has added fuel to this fire through the ease at which we can now find and consume media. When news is designed to entertain a specific group or push a political agenda, it’s easy for people to tune into the relevant media outlet for their echo chamber. Tim Urban is a writer whom I have followed on his Wait, But Why? Blog for his brilliant visualizations of data and science -- he has stayed true to course: funny, clear and readable, insightful, and always different than expected. There are moments that will be hard for most readers to swallow in the book, but forge on! Your primitive mind wants you to eat the whole bag of Skittles. Your higher mind tells you that it’s probably a bad idea.First, we need awareness, and this starts with humility. We’re all guilty of lower-rung thinking – seeking out information that confirms our beliefs, or holding onto our ideas like a blind zealot. We’re all biased and hypocritical – because we’re all human. First of all, it's one of the very few books where the author doesn't take a stance. I mean - a few times he expresses his (liberal left) affiliations, but it does NOT impact the judgments made in this book. He proposes a simplified MENTAL MODEL to take a look at today's socio-political posture spectrum & he succeeds in showing that exactly the same mechanisms work in both ways. He nails it when he shows that it's not really left vs right, but this conflict actually spans 2 dimensions (add: low-rung vs high-rung). He does so well in using common sense to show that there is STILL space to use reason in a civilized discussion - he also captures why this is not happening. Oh, I've made soooo many notes, so many highlights - I don't remember noting down so much stuff since ... well, a long time ago.