Two articles I've read about recently ago that's been on my mind a lot:

The first one is a study on the rise of anxiety in the U.S.: Trends in anxiety among adults in the United States, 2008–2018: Rapid increases among young adults

Nearly 7% of adults and 15% of young adults reported anxiety in 2018.

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Anxiety increased from 5.12% in 2008 to 6.68% in 2018 (p < 0.0001) among adult Americans. Stratification by age revealed the most notable increase from 7.97% to 14.66% among respondents 18–25 years old (p < 0.001).

That's almost double in 10 years. Holy cow.

Anxiety increased more rapidly among those never married and with some college education, relative to their respective counterparts.

This is interesting, I would not have expected college education to correlate with anxiety. Is this belief about climate change, intense competition in schools, or something else?

Some speculated sources in the article includes financial stress, social media, and loneliness, all of which seem like probable causes to me.

(Related: Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades: when asked about how many close friends they have, the most common reply in 1985 is “Three” and the most common reply in 2004 is “Zero”).

To complement the anxiety study, the second article is a Time report on income inequality that has completely changed how I view the subject: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure

Lots of choice quotes here, the numbers speak for themselves. Wall of text warning:

Had the more equitable income distributions of the three decades following World War II (1945 through 1974) merely held steady, the aggregate annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone. That is an amount equal to nearly 12 percent of GDP—enough to more than double median income—enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month. Every month. Every single year.

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At every income level up to the 90th percentile, wage earners are now being paid a fraction of what they would have had inequality held constant. For example, at the median individual income of $36,000, workers are being shortchanged by $21,000 a year—$28,000 when using the CPI—an amount equivalent to an additional $10.10 to $13.50 an hour. But according to Price and Edwards, this actually understates the impact of rising inequality on low- and middle-income workers, because much of the gains at the bottom of the distribution were largely “driven by an increase in hours not an increase in wages.

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Adjusted for inflation using the CPI, the numbers are even worse: half of all full-time workers (those at or below the median income of $50,000 a year) now earn less than half what they would have had incomes across the distribution continued to keep pace with economic growth.

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According to Oren Cass, executive director of the conservative think tank American Compass, the median male worker needed 30 weeks of income in 1985 to pay for housing, healthcare, transportation, and education for his family. By 2018, that “Cost of Thriving Index” had increased to 53 weeks (more weeks than in an actual year). But the counterfactual reveals an even starker picture: In 2018, the combined income of married households with two full-time workers was barely more than what the income of a single-earner household would have earned had inequality held constant. Two-income families are now working twice the hours to maintain a shrinking share of the pie, while struggling to pay housing, healthcare, education, childcare, and transportations costs that have grown at two to three times the rate of inflation.

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That the majority of white men have benefited from almost none of this growth isn’t because they have lost income to women or minorities; it’s because they’ve lost it to their largely white male counterparts in the top 1 percent who have captured nearly all of the income growth for themselves.

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This is an America in which 47 percent of renters are cost burdened, in which 40 percent of households can’t cover a $400 emergency expense, in which half of Americans over age 55 have no retirement savings at all.

The American Affairs journal article that the “Cost of Thriving Index” links to has a visual representation of the increasing pressure on American families:

There's really no other word to describe it other than “Scary”.

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Categorized under: #sociology

(Note: for now, the footnotes only look right if you click into the post.)

Epistemic status: ideas on this post have been forming over a roughly a year or so, about 80%-90% sure on this one.

1

One thing that my more ambitious friends tend to talk a lot about is that we should focus on creating vs. consuming, kind of like the guy in this xkcd comic:

This is a sentiment that I have myself held before, though I could never quite explain exactly why I had that belief. Even now, I feel somewhat torn about this one.

The root of this conflict is that I perceive the rhetoric around creating and consuming to be very similar to be the rhetoric around authenticity, which I feel is problematic.

There is a very strong message today for people to live authentically and not to worry about what others think of you. I actually think this trend is all well and good.

However, at the same time, pretty much everyone readily evaluate people based on their social status. “That hardcore gamer who still lives in his parents' basement”, “that late-30s woman who's not yet married”, “that dude who dropped out of school”, we use these caricatures all the time in a condescending way, and think of this as the normal state of things.

I think this type of judgement, combined with the message to live authentically, forms a Catch-22. If someone pursues what they want to do all the time, they could well end up with a social status considered undesirable. However, if they ever feel bad about it, then they are too anxious and “too worried about what others think”. It's a lose-lose situation, you feel bad no matter what you do.

2

“Well, that seems all well and good, but isn't it all based on the assumption that what people like to do won't lead them to a positive social image? If they only searched inside to find what they really like, then they'll certainly be appreciated eventually”.

Perhaps, but from my observation, most people simply want to do what's fun to them, and entertainment fills that role in its entirety.

Indeed, by definition, consuming entertainment is more fun than things that are not entertainment for most people. If going about everyday life for most people was itself more fun than entertainment, then entertainment ceases to have much (though not all) of a reason to exist.

A limited few prestigious spots are reserved for people who consume entertainment well, like through streaming or winning game competitions. However, those spots are one among hundreds of thousands, it's not really sensible to expect people to reach those positions “if only they are passionate enough”.

Then, if one were to truly look down on people who doesn't seem to be doing something “productive”, then one can't really believe in the form of authenticity that's “do what you like to do” without perpetuating the Catch-22. For a lot of people, their authentic self is not something that's valued by others[^1].

3

One idea I don't want to endorse is that a person's preferences of things to do is unchanging over time. A person may start wanting meaningful friendships enough that they stop playing games and go join a meetup group. Someone else might have enough fun travelling that they leave someplace they volunteer at to travel. From new thoughts and experiences, the set of personal values can shift to produce different behaviors out of genuine desire.

On the other hand, I think it's possible someone's personal desires are not connected to something valued by society. As long as it doesn't infringe on anyone, then so be it. If someone values “be yourself” as sacred, then they should withhold the type of judgement that looks down on them.

(I think that condescending in general is bad, but do understand if the implications of “be yourself” as sacred can be uncomfortable to some. For example, the arguments of the tragedy of commons are legitimate, and so are issues of substance abuse. I think these are great things to consider when deciding on personal viewpoints.)

4

(This post is mainly pointing out a social phenomenon I don't like. This part is that awkward place where I don't feel super comfortable or qualified giving individual advice, but will try my hand at a take anyways since I think it could be useful.)

Resolving the Catch-22 of status and authenticity in society requires a significant number of people to realize the mismatch between the two. This will probably be a slow progress. For an individual caught in the contradiction, how should they navigate the feeling of a lack of fulfillment?

I think first of all, understanding whether one's motivation comes from individual desires or social status could help. Here are some useful questions:

• Did you want to do something because it's 1) it's what a reputable/prestigious person would do 2) it's enjoyable, 3) to learn more about it or 4) a tradeoff of a bunch of different factors?
• Actions often speak better than words. Does your actions match your theories of why you are doing it?
• If it's from social status, do you think that it comes from a reasonable place[^2]?
• If it's a tradeoff of between a bunch of factors, do you agree with the value you place on each factor?
  

And broadly:

• What's your take on what is meaningful to pursue?

With these answers, however rudimentary the first drafts are, at least they are a step beyond the never-ending struggle between being yourself and being accepted.

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[1] Throughout the piece I've been using the words “Authentic” and “Being true to self” interchangeably, as these tend to be used as synonyms in everyday conversation. However, there's some experimental evidence (1, 2, 3) that people feel more “authentic” when they involve a version of themselves that's more socially ideal under the five-factor personality model (high agreeableness, extroversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness. Low neuroticism.). On the other hand, the correlation with their everyday personality is much lower. Perhaps people feel that the authentic version of themselves is the part of themselves that's socially their best? Subjective authenticity has significant correlations with subjective-wellbeing, so there is a reasonable argument that achieving societal ideals in certain aspects of personality do lead to more happiness. Regardless, I feel that the findings indicate that “Authentic” may be a particularly confusing word to use when it comes to talking about oneself. Matthew D. Liberman's “Social” may be a helpful book on the subject.

[2] Not a trick question, the answer can easily be yes. Status is a controversial word to use here because it often evokes the negative image of “status chasing”, but to improve one's status often points to productive things like meeting a minimum of presentable-ness, helping others, and being a good person in general. As ugly as status conflicts can be, it's also a fundamental building block of human societies that often points the way for participants to benefit others (albeit it is sometimes a lagging indicator). The argument of this post is not that status is bad, but that it can potentially lead people astray and is an important thing to be aware of.

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Categorized under: #psychology, #sociology, #philosophy

In a virtual group conversation a while ago, someone mentioned a potentially negative observation about the people in my ethnicity.

The friend immediately caught himself, and I actually assured him that it's fine because I've had that same observation before. However, I was surprised that I felt really strong (albeit unexpressed) outrage for a split second, even though I agreed with the observation. It was as if the observation triggered a tripwire in my brain.

After the conversation, I pulled the said friend aside and had a talk about how he shouldn't say the same things to people he's not familiar with, even though it might contain truth to it. He was very receptive, and things went over well.

However, my split-second of outrage continued to bother me after the conversation. After thinking about this for a while, I remembered that I've read something about this before. The idea was that in societies comprised of distinct groups, there is a really strong incentive to swiftly & harshly punish any verbal criticism to the group you belong to, because it can become a rally point for outside groups If a group enforces punishment efficiently, then it can maintain the illusion of its ideas being the majority opinion even if it is in fact in the minority. This is a really useful dynamic to tap into evolutionarily speaking.

The problem is that I don't think this dynamic is nearly as useful nowadays. After understanding my mental tripwires, I see a lot of people acting on that same bias in the public sphere. When someone comes up with a constructive point, the mental tripwire immediately causes the opposing group to read the worst possible meaning into it, and descend upon that person with pure unbridled wrath.

After this happens a few times, the public space becomes a place where the people who are the most willing to communicate gets punished the most; where constructive conversations cannot take place; and where resentment builds under the surface. Note that the premise is that the point is constructive, and that sort of point is much more likely to stick compared to nonconstructive points.

After thinking about this for some time, my belief now is that when I become angry about a statement that threatens a group that I am in, I should work on my anger first, and then ascertain whether that statement is indeed true.

Barring extreme circumstances like imminent hate-based prosecution, that's probably a much better approach than to feed the flames.

— Categorized under: #psychology, #sociology, #communications

When I was little, I used to have these funny fantasies whenever I was taking an long flight. I imagined that I was ushered into a metal cage for a few hours while everybody outside hurriedly shuffled big props along and put on convincing disguises. When my flight supposedly “arrives”, the plane never actually moved from its starting point, but everyone happily pretended that I've arrived somewhere else, because I'm that important.

It was fun to amuse myself with these far-fetched scenarios, more recently I started thinking if there isn't something deeper than this.

How did I know that I HAVE actually arrived at a different place, and the whole world wasn't just trying to make my world more interesting?

It's the same reason that I know that the Earth is round, that Covid-19 is real, that the Euler formula is true.

People have a strong grip on parts of the reality that they can see and touch. We easily agree that fire is good at making food more edible, and that water makes our hand less sticky.

However, outside of that immediate sphere, everything becomes social proofs. I trust the astronomers that the Earth is round. I trust the journalists that there is a virus going around. I trust the mathematicians that the Euler formula is true.

Where does that trust come from?

Having a theory of mind contributes. If I believe that everybody else thinks and acts similar to me, then I know that they likely won't bother an elaborate prank to pretend that I flew somewhere else.

Experience also contributes. After using a the Euler formula for a while, I get some confidence that it's at least pretty useful.

But I think what contributes the most is the chain of social beliefs. Every fact we believe that isn't immediately visible to us has passed through a chain of people who trust each other:

I trust my science teacher, who trust the astronomy textbook writer, who trusts their scientific peers. I trust the public, who trusts media outlets, who trust journalists. I trust the math professor, who presumably had to prove Euler's formula at some point. The chain of trust can be quite long and for the most part, it is extremely effective. Without this chain of trust, we would likely still be living in cases.

At the same time, that kind of trust is eminently hackable. We trust recordings even though they can be taken out of context, we trust kind people if they can fake it especially well, we trust authority figures if they have a likable personality, we trust rhetoric that validates our emotions.

Once that trust has been acquired, it can be leveraged to undermine trust in other sources, effectively gaining control of another person's belief system.

If there's an insight that really made the world make a lot more sense for me, it would be the extent to which everything is invisible and is based on social proof. It's why people who are book-smart fall for scams, and why similar people can see reality so differently. It's how cults and radicalizations work.

This is a concept that my mandatory education hasn't come near with a ten-foot pole, but definitely something that I wish I had explicitly learnt growing up.

— Categorized under: #psychology, #sociology

I recently started and finished the first Harry Potter book. This was right before J. K. Rowling started a new round of controversy surrounding TERFs on Twitter, and owing to this and various other circumstances, my experience with the book was a bit strange to say the least. It reminded me of this xkcd comic:

I started reading the book with high expectations, since the series was such a huge hit, it must be a masterpiece, right? Owning to that perception, I mostly enjoyed the first few chapters.

At some point still early in the book, I read Ursula Le Guin's thoughts on the book, and my expectation changed. For context, Ursuala Le Guin penned A Wizard from Earthsea, an acclaimed but little-known book from 1968 that created the Wizard School archetype (complete with the loyal friend and the hateful rival cast) that Harry Potter borrowed generally from. I read A Wizard from Earthsea last year and thought quite highly of it. Therefore, I found it surprising that Le Guin was pretty critical of the book – specifically having fairly ordinary style and creativity, and being “ethically rather mean-spirited”.

After learning of Le Guin's opinions, I started reading the next few chapters of HP with more of a critical lens – picking out places where it was mean or ordinary. A bit later, when the TERF controversy happened, I looked at the book even more critically, and did find a few more valid points of criticism.

But by this point, what interested me far more than the HP book were my significant shifts in attitude towards the book, in relation to external events that should in theory have nothing to do with the book's merits. It was as if the morals of the author must be tied up with the aesthetic merits of the book.

I think what hit me then was that to a certain extent, everyone has a hard time compartmentalizing personal character vs. artistic talent. Art, even in as static of a form of a written story, is by default a performance that people use to judge the wisdom of the artist, and we intrinsically believe that those who produce good art would produce good wisdom.

This is why we feel so uncomfortable when someone we admire gets embroiled in believable controversy.

The urge to connect the two is so strong that when the artist appears as morally disagreeable, we resort to interesting tactics to resolve that dissonance. Paraphrased from my Twitter feed:

• HP was actually discovered by someone (could be J. K. Rowling or someone else) in an attic in the early 2000s.
• HP books were actually not great at all. This other anime that came out later is much better.

Admittedly, these are a bit of a straw-man, but I think these express some cognitive dissonance what we universally feel regarding artists.

Since it feels difficult to stop our (unconscious) belief that good art = wise artist, sometimes it's easier to just say that the art was never good, or to imply that the authorship was false after all.

To a certain extent, I think artists and viewers are both best served by removing the links between good art and wise artist. For one thing, it prevents artists from identifying too much of themselves with their art, which I'm pretty sure is a significant cause of depression in artists. For another, it's probably just as often false as it is true.

However, from my own perceptions of controversial artists, I know this can be difficult to reconcile – as evidenced my very experienced outlined in this post.

When I got to the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Store, I thought it was fine. It wasn't as good as everyone said it was, but also not as bad as Le Guin made it to be, it had both good parts and bad parts – just like every person ever.

(On the other hand, the Harry Potter parody music video Dark Lord Funk is spotless perfection that shall never be surpassed in our lifetimes)

— Categorized under: #psychology, #sociology, #reading, #writing, #fiction