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Good morning, John. Since we've been
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talking a lot about like hope and
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forgiveness and stuff, I want you to
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know that in the beginning of this
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video, it's going to feel like we're
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headed to a dark place, but it is going
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to turn around halfway through. I
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promise. Recently, I saw this rather
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innocuous headline on Fox News.com. A
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guy had made a modular device that turns
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electricity, water, and carbon dioxide
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into gasoline, or at least some kind of
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fuel that can be burned by gasoline
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engines. And this is great. Not the
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first time that we've demonstrated airto
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fuel technology. Certainly less
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efficient than a large plant would be,
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but maybe useful in off-grid situations.
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That's how I read the article. Here is a
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niche solution for niche problems, which
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is one of the things that we do as
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humans. But because I wanted to be sad,
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I did scroll down to read the comments.
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Very clever, but IMO of no practical
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value. We have thousands of years of oil
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and gas in our own country if you are
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not taken in by the climate crisis hoax
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scam. You easily see that this device
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likely uses more energy than it
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produces. Fossil fuel is the biggest lie
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going. Petroleum is a product of the
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Earth's crust and mantle action. I'm
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guessing it takes more energy to make a
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gallon than the energy it will create
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when burned. Yeah, good guess. I promise
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you, whoever breaks conservation of
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energy will be a bigger story than some
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little jar of gasoline. I mean, the
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thing that this video is about is
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climate change, but I do want to mention
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that it is strange how many of these
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people see the first law of
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thermodynamics as something that we just
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haven't yet happened to overcome yet.
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But regardless, these comments all
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suggested variously that fossil fuels
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are not bad for the earth. Climate
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change is fake and also fossil fuels are
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manufactured by the earth and so there's
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no reason to think that we'll ever run
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out. And if you are like me and I think
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that most people are like me, you would
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look at this and you would think all Fox
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News viewers would think this way and
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also all Republicans would think this
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way and also half of Americans would
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think this way. This is how we work. If
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we imagine them as a group, then we also
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imagine that they all believe the same
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things. And we also believe that the
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things they believe are the things we
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hear their representatives say. But I've
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got news for you. Reality breaks at
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every single one of those steps,
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especially the last one. If you think
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that the ideas of a group of people that
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are reaching you are representative of
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that group of people, you are not
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understanding how the information
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ecosystem works. Because the biggest
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thing that decides whether an opposition
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point of view reaches you is that it is
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crazy. An ingroup is much more likely to
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expose you to outgroup ideas that are
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easy to refute. This is not a surprise.
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Everyone would expect this, but that's
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what happened. And so, you are mostly
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only ever exposed to the worst versions
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of your opposition's ideas. But this is
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a very hard thing to keep in your mind
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all the time. And around 5 years ago, I
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saw a graph that changed my life
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forever. And now, I'm going to show it
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to you. And I hope it changes your life
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forever, too. This is a graph of people
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who are extremely or very sure that
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climate change is happening on the top
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line and people who are extremely or
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very sure it isn't happening on the
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bottom. For nearly two decades, the
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percentage of Americans who are
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committed climate skeptics has been
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pretty consistently below 10%. Likewise,
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if you ask Americans whether global
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warming is happening, roughly four
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fifths will say yes. The reason this
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graph changed me is not because I'm
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happy that it turns out lots of
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Americans agree that global warming is
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real. Because while that is nice to
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know, it also comes along with the
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reality that despite that fact, we are
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not doing a great job of adapting to
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that reality. It didn't change me
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because I got like a useful piece of
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data. It changed me because this did not
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align with my perceived understanding of
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the situation. If you had asked me
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before I saw this graph, I would have
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told you that probably 50% of people in
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America thought that climate change is a
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scam or a hoax. The actual situation is,
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get this, complex. With lots of people
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being unsure and even more people having
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other concerns that are making it so
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that they just aren't very focused on
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climate change. It would be so easy to
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take those comments from Fox News and
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share them without any of this context
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and see, look at how crazy these people
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are, and what many people would
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understand by these people is half of
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the country. And then you move on
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through the world with the idea in your
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head, I guess that is what we're up
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against. But if you believe that, you
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are one fighting the wrong fight every
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day. You think there's a bunch of people
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who are impossible to convince. So
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you're not trying to convince them when
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actually the situation is mostly they're
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convinced. They're just not convinced
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that it is the thing that we need to be
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concentrating on right now because
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they're dealing with some other problem
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like the price of eggs at the grocery
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store. So one, you're caught fighting
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the exact wrong fight. And two, you're
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fighting it with the weight of despair
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tied around your neck. If we could say
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this in the fewest words possible, it
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would be something like with today's
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information ecosystem, it is very easy
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to believe that 50% of people hold the
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views of the most extreme 10% of them.
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Or maybe if we wanted to state it as
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like the cable news fallacy, it would be
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the mistaken belief that the most vocal
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or visible members of a group represent
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that group as a whole. And it is no use
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to be weighed down by a world that isn't
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actually this one. This one's hard
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enough as it is. And I know this is a
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problem because every time I talk about
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something with some amount of nuance,
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people will come at me and say there's
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no winning those people over. And who
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are those people? They're not simple.
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They're not unified. They're not
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monolithic. And four-fifths of them
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think that climate change is real. And
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very few of them are committed climate
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skeptics. If we think there's no winning
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people over, then that huge group of,
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"Yeah, I think it's probably a problem,
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but I don't know if it's the right
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problem to be addressing right now."
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That group just completely gets ignored.
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And then we have to ask ourselves, is
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the way that we are behaving bringing
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those people in or alienating them from
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us? The cable news ecosystem, the
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algorithmic news ecosystem, they both
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benefit when we believe this fallacy.
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But you know who doesn't benefit?
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Anybody else. John, thank you for your
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lovely video this week. I'll see you on
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Tuesday.
