Believing our own Lies
This post begins with a discussion in the vein of the somewhat clichéd US vs China cultural comparison. But I hope to use it as a preamble to discuss more abstract issues and, hopefully, generate original insights.
Disclaimer #1: I generally critical of Western coverage of parts of Asia of which I think I have above-average understanding (e.g. Singapore, parts of China) as it plays too much into the prejudices of their audience. I take this as a specific manifestation of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
Disclaimer #2: While Jack Ma is a very good storyteller, it is also important to note that sometimes he is really just telling stories.
These two disclaimers notwithstanding, I think the short clip in the tweet above hits at an interesting truth that is borne out of my personal experience living in both the West and China.
When I was studying at Oxford and Berkeley, my Western peers tend to frame their motives in pro-social terms. I don’t mean to re-express the tired ‘rightist’ tirade against ‘political correctness’ and ’social justice warriors’; those who lean right defend their politics in similar pro-social terms (‘free speech’, ‘free markets’ etc.). To be sure, I mean more than just political behavior: I refer to the expressed reasons for choosing careers, participating in social activities, picking romantic partners and so on.
Alternate take: Libra’s mission is literally to make money.
By contrast, Chinese people I met tend to be openly mercenary. When people discuss their reasoning behind particular decisions (which job to choose, which social event to participate in, why do you join the party etc.), it is assumed that self-interest is the underlying motive. The real point of the discussion is the calculus; is it really worthwhile to, say, forgo X amount of income to get a Beijing hukou (household registration)? Someone who explains their motivations with a Western-style “I am doing this for public good X” is likely to be greeted with a fair amount of skepticism and be regarded as insincere.[1]
In other words, the capitalists tend to frame their motives altruistically, whereas the socialists tend to frame their motives selfishly.
“We are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.”
-Clay Routledge
This has resulted in a few somewhat curious personal encounters. During a dinner catch-up with a friend, she mentioned that she was taking time to learn a foreign language. When asked why, she said something to the effect of “I am really learning this language out of personal interest and in a way that is unrelated to advancing my career; I think it is important to pursue some things for non-utilitarian reasons (不是因为功利而做的事情)”. That probably sounds a little strange to Western ears.[2]
Before I present my own take, I should present the following three positions, which have had a tremendous influence on my worldview:
Position (1): “We do many things for reasons that are hidden even to ourselves, and for good reason.” People: Robin Hanson, Kevin Simler. Book: Elephant in the Brain.
Position (2): “Our psychological biases cause us to make systematic, predictable errors.” People: Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely. Books: Thinking Fast and Slow, Nudge.
Position (3): “Our psychological ‘biases’ make more sense than you think.” People: Nassim Taleb, Gerd Gigerenzer, Rory Sutherland. Books: [not sure what the go-to Taleb reading should be…Antifragile? Skin in the Game? His Twitter account?], Alchemy.
I will not attempt the foolhardy endeavor of reproducing their thinking in the narrow margins of this essay.
Let’s start with Position (1). Humans are intelligent social animals. This means that, first, we are likely to impose social sanctions on selfish individuals and, second, we are very good at detecting lies by other humans. Ironically, taking the two together means believing in our own lies is a great strategy. Specifically in the context of this essay, it means actually believing in one’s professed noble motives while carrying out actions benefiting oneself is a great way to further one’s self interests while escaping the social costs of selfishness.
This is why, as a heuristic, I find it very unproductive when arguments proceed along the lines of accusing the other side of hypocrisy or double-standards. If the view of humanity outlined in Elephant in the Brain is right, we are hardwired to both practise double-standards and be blind to the fact.[3]
A second heuristic is it pays to focus less on intentions and more on outcomes. Or more specifically: what institutional arrangements would enable agents pursuing their self-interest to nonetheless create value for everyone else? An interesting defence of free markets is that it compels even the most selfish person to act in a socially beneficial way by providing something that others would voluntarily pay for. This is probably unintuitive for most people. Speculatively, in our ancestral environment, intentions and outcomes are more closely aligned than in today’s environment. As an ‘enforcement’ issue, we might think it is easier to determine an individual’s intentions, compared to judging outcomes, especially in the absence of obvious control variables and the presence of second-order effects in complex systems.
Finally, at least at the individual level, it pays to be ‘not-so-rational’ and ‘not see the truth so clearly’. The orthodox view is that we should pursue truth for its own sake and that a clear-eyed view of the world is ‘better’ than a distorted one. Consider the Socratic dictum that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. This is the view on which Position (2) is founded and Position (3) is essentially a (convincing, in my opinion) correction to this view, with implications in many areas of life. That is, examining one’s life too carefully might inhibit one from living well.
The other day, L and I were discussing modern romance through a game theoretic lens. ‘If the other person knows that you have fallen deeply for her/him, he/she no longer have reason to cherish you.’ This is probably true, but clearly seeing these incentives is obviously bad for the relationship; each person will be waiting for the other person to be the sucker. Like happiness, sometimes one’s self-interest is best pursued obliquely. Nobody can fully reap the benefits of love, friendship, religion, raising children or other activities that make life meaningful if one engages in them too self-consciously or with too clear-eyed a view of what’s going on. (At the societal level, however, mass delusion might be more problematic, as we collectively fall prey to social desirability bias. There is probably much more to be said here.)
So what do I make of the cultural divide I observed in the first part of this essay? I tentatively offer two takes.
First, a culture that is more openly mercenary means that people pursue their self-interests more efficiently, as they trade tactics and information more quickly than a more reticent culture. Insofar as these exist within institutions that align private incentives to produce positive-sum games, this is great. But if these efforts are used to play zero-sum game, the tragedies of the commons are likely to be much worse.[4]
Second, some lies are self-fulfilling and become true because we believe in it. (This is basically Yuval Harari’s take on ‘useful fictions’ like the nation-state, God/religion and the corporation as focal points around which humans organize.) Other times, to paraphrase, we first shape our lies, then our lies shape us. For example, the ongoing privacy debate in Silicon Valley probably led Apple to take a pro-privacy stance as a strategy credit. But as Apple’s self-conception as a company that ‘believe[s] privacy is a fundamental human right’ begins to take hold among its employees and customers, this begins to result in actual constraints (e.g. calls to extend iMessage to Android or the design of its upcoming ‘Find My’ feature) their product development. So, in these ways, which lies we believe in can be hugely important.
[1] As someone who is tangentially involved with the Effective Altruism community (and I use ‘involve’ really liberally), I find myself struggling to communicate to my Chinese friends what the movement is all about. (“Yes, it is a group that is trying to save the world. No, really. I know what it sounds like, but they’re actually fairly normal.”) I suspect this cultural aversion to professed altruism is holding the movement back in China, especially since the ‘causes’ are somewhat unconventional. Pursuant to the theme of this essay, I think the most valuable aspect of the EA movement is its willingness to try to actually look at issues in a good faith, impartial manner. My misgivings stem from the difficulty in acquiring skin-in-the-game in solving such intractable problems: unlike in a market, it is unclear what kind of feedback signals would indicate that efforts are being directed to the right places. Insofar as scarce resources (money, status etc.) must be allocated, I am not sure good faith and impartiality go all that far.
[2] On this count, my personal view is Singapore definitely skews much more Western than Chinese. More often than not, people are much more willing to profess altruistic motives (especially in group settings), though this is somewhat tempered by kiasu (怕输) culture, where people openly take pride in being shrewd/savvy.
[3] I’d go further: most debates are a waste of time. The point of most debates is probably to demonstrate intelligence or signal tribal loyalty, rather than to share insights or change minds.
[4] At risk of oversimplifying an obviously much more complicated issue, consider education. East Asian students are known to spend far more time studying than their peers elsewhere (and under far more pressure too). If signalling (a zero-sum activity), and not human capital (a positive-sum one) is the primary goal of education, much more time and anxiety is wasted on generating the same signal than in a society where education is much less of a blood sport.