https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=fvbG2JxosBQ
So here we are again. And I think the topic I want to cover today is basically wrapped up in this idea of the thing I’ve been sort of teasing at, which is telling a good frame from a bad frame, right? Or a good perspective from a bad perspective. And I want to do that using a couple of different techniques. So one is participation. And the other one is around your intuitive senses or intuitive knowledge. And I think that will help us to understand whether or not a frame is good or bad. And I’m going to invoke sort of the modern idea of pragmatism. So I’m going to define pragmatism for you as best I can. And then we’re going to talk about this idea of participation and how you can participate and whether or not you can participate. And then we’ll see if that gels enough to give you a sense for telling a good frame from a bad frame through pragmatism and participation. The modern view of pragmatism is something like, does this enable me to do something? Like, can I get stuff done? It’s a very hands on, hitting the ground, moving the world, right? Manipulating myself, right? And the things around me, maybe, towards a goal, right? Towards a telos. So that’s sort of the definition of pragmatism that I use. Something that is useful to me. And so pragmatism sort of gets divided into different senses, right? One is, is it pragmatic for me or is it just pragmatic for others? And so you can imagine, hopefully, a situation where building a bridge, perfectly pragmatic idea. People build bridges, bridges happen, bridges are good, we need bridges. I can’t build a bridge by myself of a certain size. Maybe I can build a bridge over a creek or stream or something for one or two people. Or maybe something big enough for a horse or a wagon or something like that. But not for a car. I’m not going to build a bridge for a car. That’s not going to happen. Maybe I could. Maybe it’s physically possible that I could by myself build it. So pragmatically, that’s not a thing for me. It’s a pragmatic thing in the world because it can be done. So like most things, pragmatism sort of works out at levels. And the reason why this is important with respect to framing is if it’s a frame that you can’t relate to in pragmatic terms, as in how does this move the world? How can I move the world to do this? How do I relate to this? Then maybe it’s not a good frame for you. I’m not saying it’s not a good frame. It might be. But it might not be. And I think we get a lot wrapped up in a good is good and good is good for everybody. Like the good is equal. And I don’t think the good is equal because people aren’t equal. If you think people are equal, then you don’t believe in evolution. Because evolution says people cannot be equal or evolution doesn’t work. Good to keep in mind. So good is not equal because people are not equal. So what’s good for me and what’s good for you might be different. And this is not to say there’s no universal good, but we equivocate on good. The universal side, which is what’s good for us, good for us in the moment, good for us in the future, there’s all sorts of senses of good. Pragmatism states this thing is something that is available to do. It doesn’t speak to good or bad. It’s pragmatic to shoot people. If you have a gun, that’s the thing you can do in the world. It may not be pragmatic to get a gun. Where I live it is. Just go to the store and get one. So pragmatism is very much dependent upon your circumstances and you and the frame. So if the government could buy houses for all the homeless people, then that’s a pragmatic statement. But if the governments at a smaller scale have bought homes for all the homeless people and there’s still homelessness, then maybe that’s not a pragmatic solution because it doesn’t meet the goal. So the fact that something can be done doesn’t make it pragmatic. Just things that can’t be done can’t be pragmatic. Not possible. So that’s good to keep in mind. That’s good to keep in mind. So that’s sort of the sense of pragmatism. So if it can’t be done, it’s not pragmatic. If it can be done by not, but not by you, it’s not pragmatic for you. Right. So that’s what I mean when I’m talking about pragmatism and the modern the modern conception of pragmatism. So it’s all about, you know, enactability and how connected you are to it. So there’s also this thing around participation. Right now I’m wrapping participation up with pragmatism to some extent, but it’s more basic. Like you can participate in things that aren’t strictly speaking pragmatic because there’s some fuzziness in pragmatism. You could say, well, playing a game isn’t pragmatic because it doesn’t really move the world. And in a sense, that might be true. But, you know, I would argue now, of course, it moves the world because, you know, you’re spending your time and then you could say, oh, well, then all video games are equal of equal engagement. But I think there’s a way in which you can square that circle, too. You can say if your participation in the game does something for you, like if you’re not stressed out and you’re not unhappy and you’re playing by yourself, maybe you’re just wasting time. And that’s not pragmatic. Right. If you’re stressed out and you go visit your friends and they want to play a board game with you, maybe that’s a very pragmatic thing to do because maybe it’ll get you less stressed and camaraderie to the group. Right. And maybe everybody have a good time and actually having a good time, especially with others, I would argue is usually pragmatic. So there’s a sense in which a game a game can be pragmatic. But I mean, minimally, it’s good participation. So participation is neutral, just like pragmatism. So not all participation is good. You can participate in doing bad things. Right. You can participate in the gulags. You can participate in, you know, being being a guard at the gulag will say you can participate in hurting other people. Right. You can participate in a cult. Right. That sucks. It’s members dry. Right. There’s all kinds of modes of participation that aren’t good. So I’m not this isn’t a prescription. Right. We’re just trying to figure out what a good frame is and what a bad frame is. If you can’t participate in it, it is not a good frame for you. Full stop. Right. There are lots of frames you cannot participate in. In fact, I would say most of the things people can come up with in their heads are things that other people can’t participate in. And so those are all bad frames, all bad frames. That’s why I’m very suspicious when somebody said, well, I came up with something new. Maybe. But if I can’t participate in the thing that you came up with, it doesn’t impact my life. And you can insist it could change the world all day long. But if other people can’t participate in it, it’s not going to change the world ever. That’s the pragmatic argument. Right. Your pragmatism is based on this ability to participate. Roughly speaking, if you can’t participate, there’s no pragmatism, no pragmatism. I’m done. I’m finished. I got things to do. So the way you understand a frame and I’ll just take one of my favorite weird frames, which is the game of the game. So if you think about game A, game B, and, you know, there’s lots of ways to think about it. I don’t think it’s wrong. I think it’s a good map, but it’s a descriptive map. And I’ve I’ve talked about maps before. Right. And I think that’s important to keep in mind, maps and models. But I think that’s important to keep in mind, maps and models. But I don’t think it’s prescriptive or predictive. It doesn’t tell you really what’s happened in the past. It doesn’t tell you what’s what’s possible in the future. Right. And it doesn’t give you a way to participate. Now, if you’re curious about the game A, game B theory stuff, there’s lots of places to look at it online. There was a video put out by the Stoa, which is a channel that specializes in such intellectual pontification. Not that I’m opposed, obviously. I do that myself, although I try to keep it pragmatic and as participatory as I can, at least in a YouTube video. But they put out this video and Manuel and I did a thing on that video that maybe you want to check out. But the key factor in game A, game B is it looks like a viable theory. Like it holds together. Like, well, there was a game A and then there was overpopulation and that caused game A to go bad and turn into corruption. And now we need a new game, a game B. The problem that I have with this, other than the problems listed in that in that video there that I did with Manuel, is I don’t know how to participate in that. Like, you know, and they’re sort of stating explicitly that this can be done. Can it? Are you sure? It doesn’t sound like something that can be done. And again, I’m not saying it’s wrong, although I strongly suspect that it’s just a bad way to think about the world. Like, it’s just a bad framing. It talks about economy and money in ways that I don’t think are helpful. And, you know, I have videos on that. So there’s a video on the economy and there’s a video. Well, there’s two videos on money by the time this comes out that you can check out. And I’m not going to tag them here. You can search for them on the channel. And I encourage you to search on the channel. There’s some interesting concepts on there. Hopefully, you know, if you’re if you’re really interested in more about about maybe how money works or a better way to think about how money works and the economy in particular, I think that my framing is better because it tells you how to participate. So this idea of participation is really important because it’s tied up in pragmatism. And again, if the frame is we can save the world with sanctioning a country, right? I can’t participate in that. So maybe I buy your thesis, your theory that your hypothesis that sanctions against a country will change their behavior fundamentally. But I can’t do those sanctions. That has to be done at a government level. So I can’t participate in that. And asking me to participate in that by saying, well, look, there’s certain products now that you can’t buy. That doesn’t fly for me. First off, who’s getting hurt by sanctions? Governments don’t produce things. So when you sanction a country and your purpose is to manipulate the government, you’re maybe at the high level, you are manipulating the government because maybe there’s tax revenue wrapped up or whatever. Maybe there’s aid packages, whatever. But past a certain point, and I don’t think that takes long. I think it’s a real quick point to pass. You’re just hurting regular people in the country. And you can argue, well, if you hurt enough regular people in the country long enough, they’ll change their government. Maybe. Maybe that’s an option that’s available to them. Maybe not. Maybe they’ll just get bitter and resentful and angry and want you dead. Which wouldn’t be good. You know, making people dislike you is not a good strategy for getting them to do what you want. I know that postmodern power narrative might tell you otherwise, but I can’t participate in that behavior. Right. So I’m not going to be sanctioning anybody from any countries. I’m going to buy the things I want to buy from the countries that make them when I can get them because I can get them. And I’m not going to buy things from countries that I don’t like for other reasons that have nothing to do with their government. Maybe it has to do with their culture or their behavior, something specific. But that’s what I’m going to do, because that’s how I can participate. I can’t participate in large scale protests against people doing things that I don’t have direct access to. Because that doesn’t that doesn’t move the needle for me. Maybe it does for you. I’m not saying nobody should do this, but I am the sneaking suspicion that that level of participation is inadequate to get anything done in the world. And, you know, I have lots of years of watching these things be inadequate. And they’re not all inadequate, which is interesting, because maybe at some point we’ll get into what makes a good protest versus a bad protest. What makes when is civil disobedience, for example, a good frame to think about things and when is it not? And I think it’s going to be wrapped up in pragmatism and participation somehow for sure. So what is pragmatic and participatory about the frame? If there’s nothing I can do personally now today, maybe it’s not the right frame for me. I’m not saying the frame is wrong. I’m not saying the frame is bad. But maybe it’s not right for me. If it’s a frame I can participate in the future, I can always adopt it later. There’s no rush. There’s no rush. Right. If you’re aiming to do something or save the world or whatever, there’s no hurry. I think part of the problem is we’re convinced if you do this very quickly, change will happen and magic appears. Because we have this. I can look up anything, anything in five minutes or under with this thing. Anything. Instant gratification right at the fingertips, right here, right at the very tips of my fingers. And we end up with too much information, with too much attention hijacking, with too many things to look at, with too much information to sift through, with the inability to engage because it’s not pragmatic to hold the world in your hand or the knowledge of the world in your hand or the information of the world in your hand. It’s not pragmatic. You have to filter it. It will get filtered. You can outsource that filtering. But at the end of the day, you just can’t know enough about most of the things in the world to engage with them. And if somebody comes along and says, if you march with the sign, things will change. I’m skeptical. Yes, pragmatically speaking, I can march with a sign. Marching with a sign is unlikely to change the world. I think that if people point to past times when people marched with signs to change the world, I think they’re doing the middle out thinking thing. Excellent video. And that’s how I think you know. I think you know because you can go back and look at all the marches and see whether or not they move the needle. And that’s important to know. That’s important to know. I don’t know what how successful are these things? And look, I’m not saying that just because something’s not pragmatic, you shouldn’t do it. You shouldn’t signal your position on it. But if you’re signaling your position for you to tell other people where you stand, maybe you’re not protesting. Maybe then you’re virtue signaling. Right. And virtue signaling is bad. If you need to signal your virtue, you’re living your life wrong. Period. End of statement. Full stop. People should understand what your virtues are by your actions in everyday life. They should not need you to hold a sign. They should not need you to make a statement. They should not need you to tell them which pronouns to use. Everything they need to interact with you to participate with you should be available from your actions. And if it’s not, maybe you’re doing something wrong. Now, that’s not true for everybody. Some people are blind. They cannot see. Fair enough. But if nobody in your life knows who you are or how you think, or maybe only two or three people know who you are and how you think, maybe maybe you’re not participating correctly. And maybe the two or three people are or maybe they’re not participating with you. Maybe you’re not participating with something that you think you are or that they think you are. And maybe you’re playing a role instead of being an active agent in the world. And if you don’t have the agency in participation to do something pragmatic that looks like it will move the needle, that it will have the intended effect, maybe you’re engaged in a bad frame. Another way that you can tell bad frames is does it feel right? This is your intuitive knowledge. We’re back to the knowledge model. If you haven’t seen that video, I’ve got a video with slides and the knowledge model. There’s this intuitive knowledge and intuitive knowledge is somewhat the knowledge that when you’re listening closely to yourself inside your head, you can feel things if you’re going through your life or even your week, your month, whatever time frame it is, and you’re getting more angry and more frustrated. The framing you’re using for the world is wrong. It’s wrong. Maybe not all of it, but some of it is wrong. If you’re very upset about work, your frame about work is wrong. There’s a great show called Severance, which is on Apple TV. And the show is interesting because it exemplifies a phenomena that I’ve seen people talk about where they’re telling me they work at these companies. In some cases, I know these companies. In some cases, I know people at these companies, at the building they’re working at. And the way they describe the place that they’re working bears no resemblance to the way other people describe that same place. None. It just seems like a different place. Their framing of where they work is wrong. And Severance, the show, is all about bad framing about where you work. The premise is you go to work, and if you work on the Severance floor or in the Severance department, I’m not quite sure if those are different, then as you take an elevator down into that section, they have severed your memory, and you can only remember the things from work while you’re at work. And then as soon as you go back up the elevator, when you’re out of that section of the building, you only remember the things that happened to you at that section. And it’s a very dark environment. It’s very stark. There’s a lot of contrast, very high contrast show. It’s either outdoors in the normal world or in this windowless, bleak, stark, retro, industrial, but not quite, not manufacturing industrial, but lab industrial environment. And so, you know, some people see their work that way as this oppressive thing, as this oppressive place that’s causing all kinds of weird problems in their lives, that’s oppressing them in some way that they can’t quite remember or understand. They have a bad frame. Their intuition is correct. Something’s wrong. But the thing that’s wrong is not the outside world. It’s them. And that’s a good way to know. Does this make me feel angry? Why would a frame, a way of thinking about something, make you feel angry? If you feel angry at a politician, is that because they did something? Did the thing they did affect your life? Or was it a story someone told you? Because the thing about stories is people make up stories all the time. So if this isn’t something that you participated in with the politician, you know, they passed a law, that law had an effect on you. If it’s not something like that, I’d be pretty suspicious if you’re getting angry. Anger is not helpful with participation, generally speaking. I mean, it can be, but generally speaking, not helpful. Resentment is definitely not helpful. That’s not good. You have a bad frame. And maybe that frame was given to you by somebody else and you didn’t even notice because that happens all the time. You buy into some story and this is the, oh, history is wrong. It’s written wrong. This is wrong. Well, you bought into a story. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, by the way, but could be. Maybe the new history they’re giving you is wrong. The original history was right. I don’t know. I don’t know what you were given. So we’re given these stories. And if they make us feel that, maybe they’re bad frames. Maybe they’re not bad frames for everybody. Maybe they’re bad frames for us. And if you’re a pragmatist, you care about bad frame for me, like bad frame for other people, good frame for other people. Who am I to judge? I don’t need to judge. Don’t need to. But I do need to pay attention to and judge what’s a good frame for me. Like that’s vitally important, vitally important that I know what I can participate in, what’s pragmatic in a good way for me, because it could be pragmatic in a bad way. And you can participate in a bad way. I need to participate in a good way with something that’s pragmatically good for me and for the world. It can’t be just for me because in participation, nothing is just for you, because participation implies interaction with something outside of yourself. And when you interact outside of yourself, you have to cooperate. And that requires sacrifice. And if you’re not sacrificing or you’re not sacrificing much for what you’re asking, maybe you’re asking too much. Maybe you’re not asking for the right thing. Maybe you have a bad frame. So your intuition is not flawless. It is not some moral compass that enables you magic superpowers to know in the moment for every moment what’s right and what’s wrong. But it is a guide. It is a signal. And it’s one signal that can cause you to go deeper on the reason and rationality side. Right. And apply some logic. Anger and resentment. Something doesn’t make you feel good. Does it make you not feel good because it bothers you? Because that happens. And maybe because it has implications for something you’re not doing, but should be, or something you could do, but didn’t. Or something that you did do, but not sufficiently, because that happens. Or is it different? Is it bothering you because it doesn’t fit with you? And once you determine that, you can pull out the other tools and say, all right, can I participate in this? If I participate, can I participate in a positive way? Is it a good way? Is it pragmatic? Is it pragmatically good? Right. Those are things you can evaluate using logic, reason, rationality. And then once you’ve established that, then you’ll have your answer. Like yes, OK, or no, no good. And again, I think that’s pretty important. It’s really super important that we have that sense of that. So that’s how I think that we can deal with frames through participation and pragmatism. And hopefully that gives you some idea of how I do it, what some of the magic is. I realize this isn’t complete. I’m probably going to need to do at least one or two more videos on different methods for determining good versus bad framing and perspectives in the world. But I’m hoping that that was a good start and that that’s something you can use today to sort of start in with it. And check out middle out thinking because that’s that’s part of this helps you figure out good stories, bad stories, right? Or at least gives you some guides to that. And, you know, I think that by watching my videos, you are participating and we’re cooperating. Hopefully, hopefully you’re leaving comments and liking and subscribing and all that good stuff so that we can grow the channel a little bit more because I want to I want to use this. Like this is my participation in pragmatic goodness, right? By getting people engaged and giving them tools to help themselves and to help others. Right. Because if we’re only helping ourselves, that’s not good. We need to we need to help others. That’s how you magnify your your capabilities in the world. Right. Is it you don’t just help you, you help others and then they help themselves and help others. Right. That’s how things spread. That’s the proper way to think about how to make a cultural difference is exemplified that the thing you want to see in the world in a way that not only are you getting better, but other people are getting better as a result. So hopefully your participation is doing that. Hopefully my participation is doing that. And hopefully in in a way that’s good for me, for you, that you can make good for others. And so I just want to thank you for participating, for cooperating with me, for helping to get this rolling, for helping in the comments, for helping watch more videos, likes, likes and subscribes and telling other people. Right. And giving them the tools that I’ve given you, even if they can’t engage with the videos. And, you know, I just I just want to thank you that you’re for engaging in my channel and most especially for the thing that I think is most valuable, which is your time and attention.