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short-term thinking is hardwired into our system; we are built to respond to what is immediate and to seek out instant gratification. For our early human ancestors, it paid to notice what was potentially dangerous in the environment or what offered an opportunity for food. The human brain as it evolved was designed not to examine the full picture and context of an event but to home in on the most dramatic features. This worked well in a relatively simple environment and amid the simple social organization of the tribe. But it is not suited to the complex world we now live in. It makes us take notice mostly of what stimulates our senses and emotions, and miss much of the larger picture.
The Laws of Human Nature
Robert Greene
“The West is shy of its values—it doesn’t speak up for classical liberalism,” he says. “We are unsure of them. They make us feel uneasy.” Contrast that with the Islamic State, which “knows exactly what it stands for,” a certainty that is “incredibly seductive”—and he should know, having once been a regional director of the jihadist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Enlightenment Now
Steven Pinker
Si l’on commence à remettre en cause les droits de propriété acquis dans le passé et leur inégalité, au nom d’une conception de la justice sociale certes respectable, mais qui inévitablement sera toujours imparfaitement définie et acceptée, et ne pourra jamais faire totalement consensus, ne risque-t-on pas de ne pas savoir où arrêter ce dangereux processus ? Ne risque-t-on pas d’aller tout droit vers l’instabilité politique et le chaos permanent, ce qui finira par se retourner contre les plus modestes ? La réponse propriétariste intransigeante est qu’il ne faut pas courir un tel risque, et que cette boîte de Pandore de la redistribution des propriétés ne doit jamais être ouverte.
Capital Et Idéologie
Thomas Piketty
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