Kasparov’s Warning

A contractor once told me that it is forbidden for an unlicensed person to do plumbing work in his own house. I asked, “At what point is the plumbing work deemed to require professional intervention?”

He told me a very long and detailed story of some plumbing work he did in his own basement, as a non-plumber. I had trouble keeping up with the terms for the various parts and fittings. I struggled to understand what general restriction each specific installation was meant to negate. Or maybe I was meant to understand why one installation had happened; it was compelled by one that had happened earlier. In the end, I was totally confused. I asked, “Was the work inspected?”

“No.”

“Then how does that tell us anything about what is permitted?”

“It doesn’t. It just shows what people are willing to do.”

I’ve started to understand that these long, drawn out answers are designed to exhaust the listener. There are so many details, the listener feels too stupid to extract the conclusion. All you know is that there is one guy who seems to know about the topic; maybe it’s better to let him decide.

I see that it is in the interest of professionals to pretend they always know the answer and to disable their clients’ ability to think about the given topic. They then have the freedom to choose the course of action and the fees. But this technique has unintended consequences. If they fail to recognize it as intellectual aggression, if they do it at home, it ends by disabling people they rely on. Or rather, people who would be relied on, if they weren’t disabled.

I’ve come to understand that although mental wealth may not be given, it may be given up. Usually, to people who stand to benefit from your loss, but not always. Sometimes they are just other abuse victims who do not know any better: people who disable you with info-bombs, but they bomb only because they cannot summarize. Some people try to make you believe religious ideas, which destroys your logical ability, but that is not the goal. The goal is give a previously disabled mind something to cling to.

The war on mental wealth is the fundamental crisis of our times. It is the war that Madison Avenue wages on consumers, it is the war that religion wages on science, it is the war that the political right wages on democracy. Ultimately, it is the war that the unreasonable wage on the reasoning.

How may we confront this? There is no way to stop it. All we may do is recognize it and reject it. However, if that were easily done, then these assaults on mental wealth would rarely occur. The problem is that a person needs a fairly high level of mental wealth just to defend it.

It is important that narratives be independent of decision-makers. In other words, decision-makers justify their decisions with narratives, but the winning narrative ought to be based on facts and logic, not on the need for justification.

An example that happened today: I noted aloud that in order to get a license to drive a car, one must demonstrate proficiency backing the car up. But backing up a car with a trailer is much more difficult, and here, no demonstration of proficiency is required. You may simply hitch a trailer to your car and enter public traffic, and even maneuver in crowded parking lots.

My interlocutor said, “The state assumes that anyone who buys a trailer has an interest in knowing how to use it safely.”

I said, “Anyone who buys a car has an interest in knowing how to use it safely, but the state ignores that interest.”

The state does not always make sensical laws. Just because it is all-powerful does not mean it is all-right. In order to believe that we live in a sensical state, when we do not, we must trade in some mental wealth. I would go so far as to say, the more we trade in, the less sensical the state becomes, simply because it may; senselessness is a great convenience. The vicious circle of senselessness ultimately annihilates truth.

It is a great inconvenience to service the truth. Independent narratives place a special burden on their weavers. The latter must be able to ultimately cite their sources and explain their logic trees. It is costly and effortful. It is a lifestyle, just as much as being religious is a lifestyle. There is a certain holiness of attention required. Where the cleric constantly compares what is being said to what has been written, the reasoner might compare what has been said to what is reasonable. The more reasonable one makes his/her environment, the easier it is to think reasonably. There is a potential virtuous circle here. More logic leads to more logic. From a logical perspective, this becomes the ‘right’ path to take.