What’s Our Problem? summary

Have you ever seen a moth flying uselessly into a light? Stupid moth, right? Well, what’s causing the moth to do that is its primitive instincts – an urge to fly toward the light of the moon. Unfortunately for the moth, its instincts haven’t caught up with changes in the world – the relatively recent introduction of many nonmoon lights.

In a way, we’re all not much different from a moth. We all have a primitive mind, concerned with our primitive and immediate urges – eating, reproducing, and surviving. This mind has always been there, and it’s done a pretty good job of keeping us alive up until now.

But due to the evolutionarily recent explosion of literacy and technology, we’ve created a world that this primitive mind isn’t really made for. This is where the higher mind comes in. Our higher minds control our ability to think objectively, analyze the world, and learn from experience.

Your primitive mind wants you to eat the whole bag of Skittles. Your higher mind tells you that it’s probably a bad idea.

These two minds are constantly in conflict, and whichever is winning out decides the way that you think; how you make your decisions and form your beliefs. Think of it as a four-runged ladder.

When you’re on the top rung, your higher mind is in complete control. Here, you logically observe evidence and reach conclusions with a clear desire to find the truth –no matter what it is. Let’s call this “thinking like a scientist.” The central piece to being a scientist is being open to experimenting and changing beliefs, not identifying strictly with your own.

Go down to the next rung on the ladder and your higher mind is still in control but your primitive mind is having a bit more of a say. Let’s think of this as “thinking like a sports fan” – you know and respect the rules of the game, but you really want your team to win. You're no longer impartial and you’re subject to the confirmation biases that a first-rung thinker would avoid.

The third rung is where problems start. Here your primitive mind has a much greater influence. Now you're "thinking like an attorney." You’ll argue or defend a point no matter how truthful or logical it is. You’re not just motivated to be right, you’re obligated. On this rung, you'll see people claiming that the earth is flat or the CIA is after them, with no amount of evidence changing their minds.

Finally, on the fourth and bottom rung, your primitive mind is in full control and you’re "thinking like a zealot.” Your ideas and beliefs are your baby and no one can tell you that they’re not perfect. You don't need to do any research to prove that you're right, you just know you are. Any agreement is accepted unconditionally, and any challenge is seen as a personal attack.

When you apply this ladder to the world, you can start looking at divisive problems in terms of how people think, instead of what they think. Whether the issue is climate change, abortion, or whatever drama is going on in politics, if you look at it in terms of what rung the person is operating on, things start to make a lot more sense.

And let’s be clear, everyone is both a low and high-rung thinker, it's not just one particular group or type of person. Certain movements can be low-rung in tendency, sure, but it’s crucial to remember that it's not an identity, just a spectrum that societies ebb and flow towards and away from.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, there’s been a huge rise in people working from the bottom two rungs – what Tim Urban calls “low-rung thinking.”

Keep this ladder in mind; we’ll refer to it in the next sections as we look at the causes and implications of this troubling trend.