Ameya Warde

“It's fashionable among progressives to wonder why so many "red state" voters don't vote in their own economic interests. This is simply another symptom of 18th-century rationalism, which assumes that everyone is rational and rationality means seeking self-interest. [...] People are not 18th-century reason machines. Real reason works differently. Reason matters, and we have to understand how it really works.”
― George Lakoff, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain

“That might be good news for rationalists—maybe we can think carefully whenever we believe it matters? Not quite. Tetlock found two very different kinds of careful reasoning. Exploratory thought is an “evenhanded consideration of alternative points of view.” Confirmatory thought is “a one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point of view.”13 Accountability increases exploratory thought only when three conditions apply: (1) decision makers learn before forming any opinion that they will be accountable to an audience, (2) the audience’s views are unknown, and (3) they believe the audience is well informed and interested in accuracy.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

“An Act of Dissent is simply a way of saying, 'No, I do not accept this and, as my silence may be construed as acquiescence, I would like to make a small gesture to indicate that you can all go fuck yourselves.”
― Mark Thomas, 100 Acts of Minor Dissent

“The brain is not neutral; it is not a general-purpose device. It comes with a structure, and our understanding of the world is limited to what our brains can make sense of. Some of our thought is literal- framing our experience directly. But much of it is metaphoric and symbolic, structuring our experience indirectly but no less powerfully. Some of our mechanisms of understanding are the same around the world. But many are not, not even in our own country and culture.

Our brains and minds work to impose a specific understanding on reality, and coming to grips with that can be scary, that not everyone understands reality in the same way. That fear has major political consequences. Since the brain mechanisms for understanding reality are mostly unconscious, and understanding of understanding itself becomes a political necessity.”
― George Lakoff, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain