Naive Realism – drivers who are slower are idiots, those faster are maniacs! – is also important, but fails if there really is a Clash of Civilizations.
The ancient and continuing rivalry of rural vs urban point of view (see VDH on Athens & Sparta) remains two key factions in all democracies. Yet laws will, inevitably, favor one PoV over the other, and it’s sort of naive of Ivory Tower types to think otherwise. Scott Adams’ Dilbert blog talks about the two very different movies in the heads of Trump haters & supporters.

While homophily, grouping with likes, influences many human behaviors, studying it more in order to reduce inequality seems like very INeffective theory. One of the main reasons poor folk remain poor in the US today is because of the incentives, basic Econ 1 (or web 2 things of Econ): incentives matter. What Jackson fails to mention is that small towns have LESS homophily than big cities, where there are more folk with similar weird ideas & tastes.

Need for Closure is certainly important, but Mark Twain said it better: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

This “knowing for sure” seems to be the Need for closure that is leading to the trouble. Most Trump haters are in just that kind of trouble; many Trump supporters might well be, as well.

Decentering, trying to THINK the thoughts somebody else is thinking, is hard and it has not been solved much yet. While author Klein drifts towards an AI entity speculation, he avoids reference to the large literature of “walking in anothers shoes”. Insofar as this becomes a way to rationalize illegal or harmful behavior (ex. excessive drinking), it is already somewhat discredited and with BLM, is likely to become more discredited. And those doing bad stuff will NOT become more decent.

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth is a huge issue. Most of those surveyed, after being asked to describe a process step by step, will report that their understanding
“The IOED provides us much-needed humility.” Virtually all the non-Christian elites, and many of the Christians as well, need more humility about the depth of their knowledge. Quite related to the NFC to “have an answer”.

Cumulative Culture is a good phrase for describing how humans, and so far humans alone, use tools and group rituals to progress. “Cumulative culture affords collective insights of previous generations to be harnessed for future discoveries in ways that are more powerful than the solitary brainpower of even the most intelligent individuals. ” << This was happening even before books, but exploded after books and literacy.

Arnold's Cultural Intelligence (much longer) is similar but far more relevant: "two sets of institutions in particular — markets and traditional social and familial practices — are the most important products of the process of social evolution building on cultural intelligence because they are the foremost means by which that process operates in free societies. It should hardly surprise us, therefore, that these two sets of institutions are also the foremost targets and objects of scorn of today's progressive planners."
<< Tho I would quibble that there are institutions: family, non-monetary social, and markets. And for all culture, there should be another institution – religion. It seems likely to me that cultural intelligence started booming with religion. (Complex communication was a per-requisite).

Incredibly important from Henrich (along with superiority of monogamy): "Across human societies, we see that seeking prestige, often more than wealth itself, drives much human behavior. However, prestige derives from success, skill, or knowledge in locally valued domains. While not infinitely malleable, what constitutes a valued domain is amazingly flexible. The differential success of societies and institutions will hinge, in part, on what domains are valued."
<< what needs to change among the poor is a re-emphasis on sex only in marriage, and prestige to those guys with successful marriages & kids.
(a BIG stimulus for married folk would help here, based on years of marriage and kids).

Emotive Conjugation (not known as "Russell" and emotive is now better) 3 descriptions: I am firm! You are obstinate. He is pigheaded.
The emotional synonym choice is important. Related to Naive Realism – we make judgments based on emotions. Then use our rational minds … to rationalize our judgments. It's easy to be "wrong" when there are no consequences. Farmers seldom have that option when choosing crops; being wrong is very expensive.

"Blind Analyses force scientists to approach their work with humility," << this is great, plus with excellent examples of how to measure effects and establish results before looking at the data.
This could be extended a bit for looking at decisions before knowing the outcome.

On Coalitional Instincts, It's hard to take Tooby seriously when he concludes: "No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best-case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees. " Actually, he is serious, but not behaving ethically when, earlier he states: "unusual, exaggerated beliefs, such as supernatural beliefs (e.g., god is three persons but also one person), alarmism, conspiracies or hyperbolic comparisons are unlikely to be said except as expressive of identity, because there is no external reality to motivate nonmembers to speak absurdities. "
None know God well enough in factual way to know His characteristics, but the atheist coalition, which Tooby implicitly is boot-licking here, likes to claim believers are absurd. Absolutely no humility by Tooby on this, and clearly showing his own anti-scientific Need for Closure.
Yet, on the Coalitional Instinct, Tooby is likely very correct, and provides a casual example of his own anti-Christian coalition whose purpose is more to denigrate Christians than to illustrate an absurd belief.

Thanks, Arnold, for great pointers. Important thoughts.

= – = – = – =

Robert L Trivers, accept no substitutes. He sounds like a wild man–perhaps he was bi-polar as a youth, according to the anecdotes. IIRC he had trouble with his college career because he kept ending up hospitalized from breakdowns.

I perceive him as being more honest and self-reflective than many scholars. And relentlessly curious.

For me the best work of his is

Trivers, R. L. (2002) Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert L. Trivers. (Evolution and Cognition Series) Oxford University Press, Oxford.

It has key papers reprinted with preferatory context and then post publication reflections.

Some people hated _The folly of fools_ and accused him of anti-semitism and who knows what else.

I’ve yet to glance at _Wild life_.

Anyways, I finally got Twitter working so I might make it a project this year to show people how to do kayfabe with Trump.

Nice to see Trivers mentioned, too. Don’t get me started on raving “Trivers is genius I tell you…”