I wanted to talk a little bit about my previous post, and I suppose quite a bit of it is related to the famous quote "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
And, to my way of thinking, a lot of incompetence is related to human biases.
We all have biases, just like we all have blind spots...
And like with blind spots, if we're aware that we have biases we can take steps to counter them. (One of the most annoying attitudes I've seen is this idea that 'since it's impossible to be without bias, we shouldn't bother trying'. Like... NO! That completely misses the point?!?)
You can read the list of common biases and think up countermeasures if you want... I don't intend to go into great detail here. I will say, though, that I think at the heart of it you have to value truth over comforting lies... that you have to be willing to listen when someone speaks who doesn't share your biases and preconceptions (not that you have to agree, but if you listen and consider what they say you have a better understanding of what might go wrong and can - again - take countermeasures)... and that you will be more aware of when you resist hearing something simply because it doesn't conform to your preconceptions. Which makes it easier to step back and evaluate whatever it is by focusing more on the facts. What confirms it? What disproves it? What does the actual data say?
When I talk about incompetence, to me it's mostly about people in positions of power who are all too human. That is, they are biased and flawed and they're not necessarily evil or bad... but they aren't wise enough to counter those biases and make good decisions. Hmmm, well... plus one more thing. Jesus did that whole bit about making his disciples 'fishers of men', and taught how to be 'good shepherds', and I do think that provides a guiding light to any decision making. And those same biased and flawed individuals have a tendency to think that what's good for them is good for everyone, and lose their direction. Basically they get more concerned with 'optics' and how things look. How to manage perception... and so they forget to do their true task, which is taking care of their flock.
But this is... again... human. It comes from biases and fears that are all too common. In other words, they're not special. And they're not really worth laud and praise when they're more... average at best. (Okay... Trump is special... for being spectacularly worse than average. But I don't want to get started on that or it will derail this whole post.)
I've used this logic before, when discussing the decision to invade Iraq. Because critics shortened that decision to 'they lied, people died'.
But I don't think there was some malevolent group of immoral and evil villains that said "let's lie about weapons of mass destruction so that we can get support to invade Iraq".
Honestly... that would be a lot easier to deal with. The challenge with preventing such a poor decision from happening again is that the people who made that decision were biased and flawed human beings making decisions in a system where most of the people they encounter reinforce their biases and prejudices.
If you absolutely believe Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, then suddenly the lack of intelligence is not because he doesn't have them... it's because he's too sneaky and clever at hiding them.
There's a lot more to it than that, of course, but the point is that people who honestly think they are trying their best can still make very flawed decisions.
Those rules of thumb helped explain quite a bit of the issues I'd seen in the past... but it no longer feels sufficient today.
I'll use covid again as an example, but it applies to other things as well.
With covid... the data on vaccinations and other preventative measures is about as clear as I've ever seen. Scientists may argue about whether it's the vaccines, masks, or other actions that have led to such a disparity in outcomes between blue and red counties but it's quite clear that there is a disparity. And that the 'red' counties are dying and being hospitalized at a much greater rate than blue.
Multiple outlets have reported the same results, at multiple times. This is the reality, and anyone who wanted to be a good shepherd to America would be trying to prevent more death and disability by persuading Americans to take proper precautions.
Instead, every single countermeasure (except the personal choice on whether or not to get vaccinated) has been fought. And even with vaccinations... there are forces out there trying to persuade people not to get vaccinated.
It feels like a concerted campaign, even... because every post on Twitter talking about covid deaths seems to get inundated with responses trying to blame the vaccine instead of covid.
Someone on Twitter said it was less a concerted campaign and more a loose coalition of forces acting out of their own self interest, which fits my own biases and preconceptions well enough that I think it's likely...
But the end result still seems to be the same. That is... people are being hospitalized and dying while any attempt to prevent that from happening is attacked until such efforts are paralyzed.
It smacks of eugenics, tbh. Can you just accidentally create a eugenics campaign?
How have we come to this? Where are the good shepherds?
Can typical human biases and prejudices lead to incompetence on such a scale? How were these fools not smacked down by wiser and more competent heads?
I don't believe that the fools that created our current situation are truly the best we can do, but they sure seem to have a lock on power.
Or rather... they're blocking better people from fixing their mistakes, probably because doing so would mean admitting they weren't all that.
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