Sensing danger increases vigilance and vigilant behavior discourages criminals by reducing opportunities (easy victims) and increasing costs (time, effort) relative to payoff (money, status, sex). Here are some examples of what I’m talking about…
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Basic Principles and Useful Heuristics
I’ve often seen “perception” contrasted with “reality” as if they were mutually exclusive: perception versus reality. But perceptions don’t erupt out of nothing. They have some foundation in the real world. In the case of perceived public safety, that foundation includes…
If one wants to return to an issue in a conversation, one can simply say, “I’d like to return to subject xyz…” and then proceed to restate and elaborate the original subject. There’s no need to label the other person’s imputed intentions. And if that person keeps changing the subject, mention that and ask them why.
So, “emphasizing the absurdity and inequity of singling out a person to rake over the coals” for a common behavior is justified whataboutism? Basically, that’s the defense of pointing out double-standards and hypocrisy, which is usually condemned as just plain ole whataboutism
…That is a pattern I’ve seen for years, both in the debate club and on the internet. Does that mean accusations of whataboutism are mostly attempts to maintain partisan narratives and preempt challenges to those narratives?
The term "whataboutism" first appeared in print in 1978, but wasn’t much used until 2007-2008, when British journalist Edward Lucas popularized the term in The Economist. The use of whataboutism in American political discourse increased sharply around the 2016 US presidential election…
The whys and what-fors of whataboutism accusations are the two sides of speech motivation: belief and purpose. Behind every utterance is a felt-truth - which may or may not be conscious or expressed - but the reason we actually say something is to achieve a goal. So what felt-truths are behind accusations of whataboutism, and what do the accusers hope to accomplish?
The accusation of whataboutism often stings, because it implies a moral deficiency in the accused. It’s less about logic and evidence than the accuser’s moral convictions.
But how do we know another’s intent? What appears to be an attempt to change the subject may actually be an attempt to improve the quality of a discussion, to add proper context or examine the speaker’s assumptions. Besides, what’s wrong with trying to redirect attention (“distract”) from a topic if one takes issue with how a claim is presented or defended and wants to sort that out first? And what’s wrong with pointing out double standards or hypocrisy?
So people go along to get along and cultures ossify. But every once in a while, alternative perspectives break through and the whole thing crumples, sometimes very quickly. That may be happening now, in America.
There are a few differences though: corporate statements about company culture or core values don’t mention devotion or commitment to the organization itself and they have little to say about individual fulfillment. They’re more about working together on a mission, e.g., customer satisfaction, better products, fixing problems. Patriotism is also about working together towards common goals (e.g., the “American Project”) but love of country (the overarching organization) is central. And in the U.S., love of country is bound up with its gift to the individual: liberty, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness.
Information: “Any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data or opinions in any medium or form”. National Institute of Standards and Technology
“It’s when uncertainty collides with urgency that the authorities enter the fray, convene commissions, and issue findings. Those who accept the sanctioned conclusions gain official backing. Those who don’t are ruled out of bounds. No longer recognized as colleagues with legitimate hypotheses, they risk being treated as crackpots, deniers, and conspiracy theorists.” - Doctor’s Orders: It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened? By Daniel Immerwahr/The New Yorker. May 26, 2025
Human behavior is the outcome of multicausal pathways. For example, in the theory of planned behavior, beliefs, intentions and perceived behavioral control are all parts of a causal chain that lead to a behavior, whether it’s cramming for an exam or stealing a car. The outcomes of behavior provide information relevant to beliefs, intentions and perceived behavioral control and so are part of the causal chain. Intervening at any point in the chain may change the behavior.
A root cause is not fixed: its effects are not fixed. What gets the ball rolling may not keep it going. What keeps it going may change. What keeps the ball rolling may lose potency with repetition, or be worn down by contrary forces. In other words, causal pathways are subject to decay.
An open science collaboration of researchers conducted replications of 100 studies published in three top psychology journals. Of the original studies, 97% had significant results. Of the replications, just 36% had significant results. Per the study authors, “collectively these results offer a clear conclusion: A large portion of replications produced weaker evidence for the original findings” (Collaboration, O.S., 2015). Replication studies have also been done in economics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, ecology, and organic chemistry. All arrived at the same clear conclusion.
“Political liberty is to be found … only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.” - Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws
Gray and Pruitt maintain that perception of harm is central to all moral judgments. Or as they put it, “harmless wrongs do not exist”. They also argue that “moral disagreement across politics is in part grounded in different assumptions of vulnerability”. For example…
Facts are nice, but fact-checking is not always relevant or helpful, especially when it misses the point of whatever statements are being corrected.
“False consciousness [is] the notion that people are so misled about reality that they act against their own interests. What was once the preserve of Marxists, flummoxed that workers refused to lose their capitalist chains, is now the fall-back position for the modern [left], which worries that voters cannot accurately comprehend the world in which they live.” - Are voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks? The Economist, November 30, 2024.