xxxxx.... "was an attempt to solve a real problem and allow limited resources to be used more efficiently, but its developers, keen to capture a lucrative market and its outsized rewards, fell into the trap of motivated reasoning. They ignored their critics, and persuaded everyone else to ignore them too, and did massive damage as a result."
This sounds like much of human endeavour (politics, primary industry, industrial agriculture, war, etc.) which is why we are so inefficient at "progress". We go chasing down these blind alleys, motivated by greed or gain, and more often than not find them to be dead ends, or worse, a disaster. Every now and then it works out and we lurch forward to some new baseline. If all of our efforts were focused on "good things" we would be centuries ahead by now. Instead, the cumulative effect of motivated reasoning appears to be making human society on earth unsustainable. It is also why indigenous peoples find "western civilization" so incomprehensible, because the principle of intergenerational sustainability is overwhelmed by "more / better / nicer / richer".
xxxxx.... "was an attempt to solve a real problem and allow limited resources to be used more efficiently, but its developers, keen to capture a lucrative market and its outsized rewards, fell into the trap of motivated reasoning. They ignored their critics, and persuaded everyone else to ignore them too, and did massive damage as a result."
This sounds like much of human endeavour (politics, primary industry, industrial agriculture, war, etc.) which is why we are so inefficient at "progress". We go chasing down these blind alleys, motivated by greed or gain, and more often than not find them to be dead ends, or worse, a disaster. Every now and then it works out and we lurch forward to some new baseline. If all of our efforts were focused on "good things" we would be centuries ahead by now. Instead, the cumulative effect of motivated reasoning appears to be making human society on earth unsustainable. It is also why indigenous peoples find "western civilization" so incomprehensible, because the principle of intergenerational sustainability is overwhelmed by "more / better / nicer / richer".