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Thinking About Diets And Other Complex Matters →
Humans like answers and patterns. The truth is we always have. The Greek and Norse gods were early human attempts at understanding the sky, stars, and oceans. If we don’t have a specific answer we think up the best one we have, and we all glom onto it; it is better than the alternative of admitting to everyone that we don’t have a clue. Then we teach it to everyone else, and they all believe it too. Ironically, the more you come to know something through this passing of memes or ideas, the more argumentative, fanatical, or “religious” you might be. The lack of a fundamental understanding opens the door for a spiritual one. No one has an uber passionate view on how gravity works. But politics, stock prices, and diets are a different matter. In these complex worlds, people “believe” what they cannot know.
