I clicked on this article because our goal here in Sanityville has always been to help with this exact problem. Hence the name. I was surprised to find something worth reading, and I hope you’ll read it, too.
At one point in the article, the author says, “You need a small group of people who value truth-seeking over status games” This is exactly what I think every time I read a Christian say anything about “winning.” It’s all about status games.
Here are a couple of sections from the article:
The common thread: their extreme positions got them more of what they wanted. The friend who saw conspiracies everywhere built a following. Then an audience. Then a 7-figure income stream. The one who tribalized every issue found a ready-made community that validated every prior. Etc, etc.
The incentive gradient was clear: sanity was expensive, and extremism paid dividends.
We talk a lot about polarization as if it were a disease that infected society, but we’re missing a key data point: polarization is a growth hack, and it works.
It delivers results.
When you pick a side and commit to it wholly and without reservation, you get things that moderate positions cannot provide. You get certainty in an uncertain world. You get a community that will defend you. You get a simple heuristic for navigating complex issues.
Above all: you get engagement, attention and influence.
The writer who says “this issue has nuance and I can see valid concerns on multiple sides” gets a pat on the head and zero retweets. The influencer who says “everyone who disagrees with me on this is either evil or stupid” gets quote-tweeted into visibility and gains followers who appreciate their approximation of clarity.
The returns on reasonableness have almost entirely collapsed.
Here is another quote:
These trades won’t feel equivalent. The losses are immediate and visceral. The gains are distant and abstract. When you refuse to join the mob, you feel it right away. When you maintain your ability to think independently, the benefits accrue slowly over years.
The discount rate on sanity is brutal.
But consider the alternative.
The people I knew who went all-in on extremism got what they wanted in the short term. Some built audiences. Some found communities. Some gained certainty. Most of ‘em made bank. But they’re trapped by their earlier positions. They can’t update without admitting they were wrong, and admitting they were wrong would cost them their community. They’ve optimized themselves into a local maximum they can’t escape. They won the game by its current rules and lost something harder to quantify.
The world will keep offering you bad trades, will keep rewarding positions you know are too simple to be true. Every day you’ll watch people cash in their nuance for influence. Every day you’ll be tempted to do the same. The only defense is to remember that some things compound differently than others.
Extremism gives you a fast start and a ceiling.
Sanity gives you a slow start and no limit to how far you can grow.
Remember: the world only rewards insanity because we’re measuring the wrong timeframe.
Check back in ten years.