alt Hacker NewsMy brother and I have been arguing about that all of our lives. He believes everything is intentional and it's just a matter of discovering who benefits. I see chaos that nobody intends or controls. His political landscape is a tapestry of conspiracy theories and mine is a fog of war. I think his is more comforting, since it admits a possibility of a rational, predictable world.
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dgellow • today at 7:22 PM
It’s intentional in the sense that actors are acting intentionally for their own benefit (or at least what they believe is beneficial) and following incentives. Not that there is a master planner who manipulates everything
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I'd synthesize those as: "There is a lot of chaos with no central plan, but every small piece happens because someone believes they will benefit."
In other words, a lot of this depends on what scale/scope is being inspected. On the high level, the world is chaos rather than a meticulous and inscrutable plan of the Illuinati Shadow Cabal. On the low level, people do things for reasons, even if they're dumb ones.
With respect to the "current political climate", I'd like to suggest that a lot of dumb or seemingly "against their own interests" stuff is due to people prioritizing costly in-group loyalty signals. Their interest in staying good with the tribe is just higher than their interest against a dumb national policy.