Net Zero: Created By Madness For Madness

 

You know by now what I think of Net Zero – it has been “one of the most widespread Dunning-Kruger ‘Mount stupid’ delusions ever wrought on modern societies” - and it’s good to see that Kemi Badenoch wants to do away with it – and probably deserves to win the next election on that alone. 

She is right to call out its adverse effects on living standards, and the ridiculous financial burden of Net Zero policies on UK citizens, particularly in the energy sector. The UK’s artificially hasty push towards renewable sources, coupled with a failure to develop domestic fossil fuel resources, has resulted in some of the highest energy prices globally, and it is rightly making British folk mad with indignation. Because of politicians’ short-sighted economics and preening attempts at virtue-signalling, UK citizens are saddled with rising household inflation and escalating industrial production costs, leading to accelerated deindustrialisation, and bigger consumer struggles to make ends meet. The UK deserves better.

That the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves refers to climate policy as the "economic opportunity of the century," merely keeps reaffirming the same mistakes and the same painful realisations that most politicians do not understand basic economics (see my Green/Environmentalism side bar for much more on this). One of the main things they don’t get is that jobs are a cost, not a benefit – in other words, labour is an input, not an output. If something requires more labour to produce, it means fewer resources are available for other productive uses. Moreover, if government mandates force businesses and households to invest in expensive, less efficient green technologies, and pay more for their goods as consumers, this diverts resources away from other sectors of the economy, which are classic misallocation and inefficiency errors in economics. A true economic opportunity reduces costs and increases productivity, and Net Zero policies do precisely the opposite.

Knowledge of price theory brings the basic understanding that prices reflect scarcity and consumer preferences. If renewable energy was as efficient and cost-effective as politicians claim, it would outcompete fossil fuels without such radical government intervention. In reality, subsidies, mandates, and regulations artificially distort prices, creating hidden costs that mostly go under the public's radar. Higher energy prices raise production costs across all industries, leading to reduced competitiveness and real income losses for consumers. And government-driven investment in green industries often crowds out private sector investment in more productive activities, leading to a lower return on capital. And, to rub salt in the wounds, the precipitous transition to Net Zero increases costs for businesses, who then pass these onto consumers, which further erodes purchasing power.

If Rachel Reeves really did want to pursue the true "economic opportunity of the century", she would pursue policies that lower costs, improve efficiency, and allow freer markets to converge upon the best solutions without so much government misallocations. Instead of Net Zero mandates, a market-driven approach - where innovations emerge based on actual consumer demand and price signals - would be far more beneficial. Instead, politicians are merely shifting costs and distorting markets.

I know some will allude to precautionary mindfulness around market failure, and state-based initiatives to jumpstart technological innovation, but these pale in comparison to the superior efficiency, adaptability, and wealth creation of market-based approaches. The counterarguments are the exception not the rule. Market failures are rare and trivial in comparison to government failures, which are frequent and more destructive. Real economic opportunity and, in fact, greener societies, come from increasing efficiency and productivity, not artificially inflating employment in sectors that only exist due to subsidies, regulations and political posturing.

The Mental Health Dilemma

 

There is an "overdiagnosis" of mental health conditions, says Health Secretary Wes Streeting, where Generation Z are giving up on work, a new study suggests, with almost four in ten considering leaving their job and ending up on benefits, and many people already in that situation. We all probably know quite a few people who are playing the system; people who don’t work and probably could work, where the state is funding their lifestyle; and we all probably know people who are too unwell to work, and rely on justified welfare support, and are not getting anything like the support they need. Blanket solutions are problematic here, as every situation is a case by case.

The overdiagnosis issue is a complex matter to solve, because what we have here is a Type 1 and Type 2 error problem. A Type 1 error occurs when a diagnosis wrongly identifies someone as having a mental health disorder deeming them unfit for work, when they really could and should be working. And a Type 2 error occurs when there is a failure to identify a mental health disorder that is actually present.

By and large, the UK is a very risk-averse, interferingly cautious society, where we’d rather be awash with Type 1 errors to guard against Type 2 errors – that is, by analogy, we’d rather let off ten guilty people than see one innocent person go to jail (see my Blog post on Blackstone’s ratio). Type 1 errors are becoming ever-more predominate in many areas of society – from trans issues, to online censorship, to climate change policy, to free speech impediments, to race, equality and diversity policies -  and it seems clear that we are probably predisposing ourselves to increased Type 1 errors occurring in the domain of mental health, which are highly likely to be far more numerous than Type 2 errors. Additionally, because it’s both empirically harder and riskier to fail to diagnose a mental health disorder, or accuse someone of exaggerating a disorder, or suggest that their troubles could be overcome with more personal responsibility, we’d expect Type 1 errors to dominate.

If too many people are wrongly classified as unable to work, the results will be a shrinking workforce, higher welfare costs, lower productivity, and a greater burden on taxpayers. Some are saying we’ve already reached that point, and things are destined to get far worse if this continues. 

I don’t claim to have easy answers to these highly complex problems – but it’s certainly something that a nation shouldn’t be afraid of addressing, because the long-term consequences of this could be severe - not just in terms of economic stagnation and an overburdened welfare state, but also in how we perceive work, personal responsibility, and resilience. Ironically, of course, failing to address an overabundance of Type 1 errors by erring too heavily on the side of caution can itself be an example of the very same Type 1 error under examination. It's a feedback loop where the excessive risk aversion perpetuates the very problem it seeks to prevent. A Type 1 error of Type 1 errors.

Further Reading: Exploring Mental Health

See What's Happening

 

What I’m going to say is expressed in very simple prose, but I suspect only a minority of people who are like me - smart, good looking, socially urbane 😃 - will fully get this. Until, that is, a time when virtually everyone has no choice but to get this.

So, Trump won in America, and in the UK, it is predicted that Reform UK will be the largest political party by membership this summer. The woke left hasn’t woken up (no pun intended) to the fact they are largely to blame for this. Biden was beyond awful; years of the woke, left wing Tories were a disaster; and now the UK faces even gloomier years under Keir Starmer’s Labour - a party even more dreadful in its woke policies and censorious mentality. It is difficult to find many who welcome this prospect. Most people clearly don’t like woke nonsense, and those who think they do are either absurd people who think they are its main beneficiaries, or people who are oblivious to the societal harms it inflicts.

Of course, the headline-grabbing woke stuff is an easy target – but woke’s main harms are more widely and more thinly dispersed in the form of bureaucratic overreach, cultural self-censorship, divisive identity politics, institutional groupthink, and mass resentment in its true victims across the nation. I’ve talked about the last four before in blog posts, so here I want to address bureaucratic overreach, because that is the silent, most insidious force that quietly infiltrates every level of society and undermines real progress and freedoms. And while I’m not a fan of all the purported solutions being offered as a reaction to this plight, you’re not paying enough attention if you don’t realise that many of the most hated figures (Trump, Farage, Musk, etc) are a direct result of millions of people being utterly fed up with woke, with bureaucratic overreach, and with left wing politicians’ attempts to nannify, infantilise, control every aspect of individual and societal autonomy, and, of course, extract ever more money from the public through taxes and regulations to pay for things that most people don’t want and would never vote for if they had the chance.

Up until recently, you could think of the political situation a little like bacteria and human bodies. The bacteria in human bodies have a short life span compared with their hosts, and are driven by evolutionary forces to cooperate for their shared benefit. Because numerous generations of these microorganisms rely on human survival, a disease that kills its host would not be selected for in a long percentage game, because the evolutionary optimisation is for bacteria to sustain themselves by feeding on humans while inflicting minimal harm. Analogically, you could say politicians behave in a similar way regarding what they can get away with to serve their own ends (dictators even more so). Too much duress on the population and they face a civil resistance, or even a Hobbesian collapse of society – so they aim to act with as much self-interest as possible without killing the host organism (the electorate), so to speak.

What’s happening now is that the balance in this relationship has been so heavily disturbed that large swathes of the population have simply had enough. Enough of being lied to, patronised and extorted. Just as an overgrowth of harmful bacteria can overwhelm the body's defences, the political class in the UK appears to be pushing the limits of what the public will tolerate, extracting ever more from the system while offering less in return. Decades of short-termism, self-preservation, and opportunism have weakened trust, not just in mainstream parties, but in the nature of political governance itself, much like an immune system worn down by repeated infections.

I don’t know whether there will be enough momentum to radically change the way governance is manifested, or whether this period will just turn out to be a slightly extreme iteration of the cycles of political pendulum swings we’ve seen time and time again. But I feel fairly certain that the widespread discontent is real, and that something will eventually give way to a new political paradigm. Whether by reform or rupture remains to be seen – but pay close attention to what is going on, and I predict it will become more and more evident.

Triune Love

 

Let me tell you my belief about the triune nature of love (from my book on love). There are perhaps three elements to successful romantic love; passion, depth and security. Passion is the fervour that characterises the emotional energy behind love, and this is often stirred early on, and should continue to intensify in a healthy union with God at the heart. Depth is that adventure of intimacy, closeness and understanding that augments over time, and continues to bring beloveds towards an ever more intimate connection - with each other, and with God. And security is to passion and depth as wisdom is to knowledge and reason – it is the trust and confidence in the union that has been established over time, creating something so well rooted in God that beloveds are, as the Lord says, inseparable (Matthew 19:6), perhaps like a large oak tree is inseparable from its roots as a live organism.

Passion can arrive quickly between two beloveds, but depth and security take time. Passion might be thought of as the desire for the beloved in totality, and the establishment of a commitment to each other. Beloveds’ personalities become intimately connected, and this starts to deepen further, where each becomes the central part of the other’s priorities under God, establishing a secure union under God’s providence and blessing.

Deep Genesis

 

Before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve were in a state of innocence. They knew only good, as they lived in harmony with God and creation. When they ate the fruit, their eyes were opened, and they realised they are naked, and they hid because they were afraid and ashamed. Eating the fruit gave them experiential knowledge of evil, which included shame, guilt, and separation from God.

This is obviously a very deep story, that can be unpacked for days without reaching the bottom. You may wonder how the historical writer could have thought so deeply about the human condition, but that’s not quite the right question, because the story is more than just the work of a single writer (as all stories are, to some extent), it is a symbol of aggregated evolved wisdom passed on throughout the ages. That’s why I think it’s imprudent to try to impute a single meaning to the story, because it is profound enough to contain multi-layered meanings.

In part, it conveys the truth that, in eating from the tree, Adam and Eve sought to define good and evil on their own terms, rather than relying on God's definition. In part, it conveys the truth that irresponsible autonomy as an attempt to usurp God's authority leads to the disruption of the created order. In part, it conveys the wisdom that eating from the tree made them aware of another deep truth; that badness was not just to be found in the snake (in the evil ‘out there’) but deep in our own hearts (‘in there’). In part, it speaks profound wisdom about the consequences of disobedience to divine authority, the consequences of being able to resist temptation, and about the nature of free will and responsibility. And, lastly, it conveys the most powerful truth of all; that choosing self over God is the greatest act of folly an individual can commit, because if we are not on the right path with God, we are not ultimately on the right path in any area of our life.

This is deep storytelling, containing multi-layered levels of wisdom that speaks profound truths about every human that has ever lived – and that is no trivial thing.

On Critical Thinking Part II: Sssshh......It's What They Don't Say

 

In addition to my previous blog post on Four Steps To Sharpen Your Critical Thinking, here’s some guidance on spotting the underlying mistake that most commentators make when they get an argument bang wrong. It’s a form of reasoning, a category of pseudoscience, where what is left out is just as important as what is included – and if what is left out was included in the argument, the argument would be undermined. This observation is as old as the hills; the Socratic method of dialectical questioning focused on, among other things, exposing what was not being considered in an argument, revealing hidden assumptions or contradictions, and was developed further in many subsequent philosophers’ work, especially Mill and Popper. Mill argued that strong reasoning requires considering all relevant causes and counterarguments, not just selective evidence, and Popper famously highlighted how scientific reasoning depends on looking for what might falsify a theory, not just what supports it.

But despite this understanding being as old as the hills, it remains one of the most common problems with arguments made in the mainstream ideological movements, where selective reasoning fuels misguided conclusions. Let me offer examples of what I mean when I identify where what is left out is just as important as what is included – and if what is left out is included in the argument, the argument would be undermined.

People will make an argument that says “If X believes Y, then Z must follow.” But clearly, X might actually believe something more nuanced than just Y leading to Z. There is a misrepresentation of X’s position. Therefore, if we accurately included what X truly believes, the argument would show that the conclusion Z doesn't necessarily follow from Y, as X might support a different conclusion or qualification. Here’s another one; people will make an observation of a small sample (X and Y), leading to a conclusion about the whole set (Z). What’s omitted is that the sample is too small or unrepresentative of the entire set of Z. Clearly, if we included a larger, more representative sample of Z, the conclusion drawn from X and Y would likely be invalidated because the generalisation would not hold for all of Z. Another common mistake; "X happened before Y, so X must have caused Y." What’s omitted in that case is the consideration that Z (another cause) might be influencing Y. If Z (another factor) were included, it would show that the correlation between X and Y does not imply causation.

If you’re partial to a game of bulls**t bingo, you can spot these all day long; some more examples would be; either X or Y must be true; X is true because of Y; Y is true because of X; since we cannot demonstrate X, we must conclude Y, etc - the list goes on. It’s painfully easy to see how this plays out in the real life nonsense spoken by – to take my frequent standard examples – creationists, socialists and climate alarmists.

Climate alarmists often argue, “If carbon emissions continue to rise, then global catastrophe must follow.” But this ignores the possibility that technological advancements (Z), such as carbon capture, nuclear energy, and climate adaptation strategies, will mitigate the effects of emissions. If these factors were included, the argument would be less fatalistic, and a more nuanced discussion about solutions would emerge. Similarly, socialists may claim, “Capitalism causes inequality, so socialism must be the solution.” This argument fails to consider other variables (Z), such as natural power laws, revealed preferences, political corruption, regulatory inefficiencies, and socio-cultural factors, which contribute to inequality. If these additional factors were acknowledged, it would become clear that socialism would not justifiably resolve disparities. Creationists frequently argue, “There are gaps in the fossil record, so evolution must be false.” This omits the fact that an incomplete fossil record is expected due to geological processes (Z), and that many transitional fossils do exist but are selectively ignored. If this missing evidence were included, the argument against transitional fossils would collapse.

These patterns of selective reasoning appear repeatedly, where what is left out is just as revealing as what is included, and we could go on and on naming more of them. It’s also amusing to me how extreme erroneous beliefs in one category feed into the acceptance or rejection of extreme erroneous beliefs in another category – like how most climate alarmists are socialist because it’s many of the same errors repeated, how most creationists often won’t accept climate alarmism because of their fundamentalist religious conservatism, and how many liberal socialists reject the rigidly conversative nature of creationism, that sort of thing – you can observe how clusters of beliefs converge in a kind of ideological package deal, but that’s material in past blogs, so I won’t elaborate on that any further here. 

We’ve seen that when the doyens of pseudoscience try to sell their snake oil, you can spot their deception or blatant mistakes by looking at the content of their propositions and the omissions, as I did in the above examples. But you can also observe it in how they conduct themselves in speech or writing. For example, scratch the surface of what they say or write, and you’ll see attempts at argumentation when they are little more than sparsely educated in the full complexities of the subject under discussion. You’ll see they’ve frequently made no attempt to comprehend if what they are citing is offering the full suite of material that would change the very argument they are making. You’ll see them accepting literally any proposition that aligns with what they want to be true, and either rejecting it or being unaware of propositions that undermine their position. You’ll see entire arguments based on not knowing the very basic things about science, economics, epistemology, logic or human history, where cherry picked data is pliably absorbed into their extant tribalistic confirmation biases. You’ll see fabricated and distorted propositions being passed off as science, economics or morality that actually gets these disciplines blatantly wrong. You’ll see them attacking straw men and in their place building an ideological fiction tailored to how they merely think the reality presents or how they want it to. You’ll see propositions that are devoid of even the basic consultation with experts in the field, or that consist of material that has skewed the material of the experts to fit their own narrative.

For them, reality is whatever they think it is without informed justification, or what they want it to be without critical accountability. And, as we’ve seen, a large part of this deception or ignorance is underwritten by this key error in critical thinking; not merely in what is included in an argument or purported evidence but in what is left out or omitted. The essence of critical thinking involves looking at what is missing in an argument, as the omission of relevant data or alternative explanations can be just as misleading as presenting false information. The reason this tactic is so widespread is because it’s harder to deceive people with outright, blatant lies than it is with half-truths or substandard selective viewpoints. If the truth is north, many of the successful deceptions that gain widespread traction are north-west or north-east, not south.

Politicians probably do this most of all – and with such readiness that politics has really become the world’s greatest performance scam. Politicians don’t get everything wrong, of course, but even what they get right is absent key evidence, arguments or explanations that would alter the argument being made. It’s usually what they don’t say that matters most – most politicians are either masters of selective reasoning, carefully curating information to craft narratives that serve their interests, or they say things that are evidently substandard but align with what the majority of their party voters want to believe – so get away with it in either case.

All that is to say, if my Four Steps To Sharpen Your Critical Thinking was offered to help individuals who wish to… er….sharpen their critical thinking, this blog post invites readers to be alert to when others are misleading by ignoring that which is not being addressed or explained, and where crucial evidence or perspective is being left out that would invariably change the conclusion.

Ratio of Suffering to Eternity

 

Published earlier today on Network Norfolk:

First, a brief disclaimer; this intention of this article is not to explore the deep topic of the growth that comes from suffering - I have lots of material on that in my other blogs - this is more of a niche article in response to sceptics who say they can't believe in a God who allows so much suffering. Therefore, the narrowness is somewhat deliberate in that regard, and shouldn't be seen to contradict the truths about growth and transformation through suffering.

If you were offered three seconds of pain in exchange for 100 years of bliss - filled with joy, security, pleasure, and contentment - you’d likely take the deal without hesitation. The offer seems almost absurd in its generosity. And yet, the span of a human life, with all its joys and struggles, is even more fleeting compared to the infinite glory of eternity than three seconds compared to a century.

The promise of eternal bliss in Heaven doesn’t scrub out the intensity of the suffering we face (although God’s peace and comfort is profound throughout), but if, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”, then even the instant we step into eternity and become aware of our Heavenly state in the presence of God will astronomically eclipse the whole totality of our earthy hardships.

For we have to conceive that the good and the joy we find in God’s presence, His love and His glory will be so astoundingly good beyond what we can currently imagine that it will utterly redefine our understanding of the creation story, rendering even the greatest earthly suffering insignificant in comparison.

I think the above is both comprehensive from a rational and logical perspective, but also modestly understated from an experiential and spiritual perspective. Because the corollary of the above is that every day we live our lives with the potential awareness and available joy that our Creator God is more awesome and more for us than we can possibly comprehend. And that His plan for those who love Him and seek a deeper relationship with Him is so much greater than what we could hope, that it should transform how we approach each moment, filling even the ordinary with a profound sense of purpose and wonder, knowing that our ultimate destiny far surpasses anything we can currently imagine or hope to experience.

The Art of Fulfilment

 

There’s an interesting human phenomenon that one could associate with writing (or music, filmmaking, painting, even sport), whereby there would be dissatisfaction in each element of the whole, but in their combination, they create a sense of integrated fulfilment that none of the constituents could deliver alone. If a writer couldn’t write at all, they’d be dissatisfied; if they could write, but no one would ever read their outputs, they’d be dissatisfied; and if they couldn’t write, but they were magically given all the spoils of having books to their name (and the money, fanhood, critical esteem that goes with being a best-selling author), they’d still be dissatisfied.

Each constituent point is desired, but inextricably connected to the other two. In isolation, there is not full satisfaction in the writing, or in the having written, or in any recognition divorced from the reality of those things – it’s like we create or produce or explore to pursue an end destination, only to find that it’s the interplay of creation, acknowledgment, and an extended sense of artistic accomplishment that gives our pursuits the full suite of meaning and purpose.

The Narcissus Paradox: Suffering Through Excessive Self-Focus

 

I’d say one of the most interesting things Jordan Peterson has said is that “self-consciousness is so tightly associated with suffering that they're not conceptually distinguishable”, and that “the more you think about yourself the more miserable you are”. I think the topic raised here is very interesting, and would be even more compelling with the right amount of nuance, because it’s true that self-consciousness is associated with suffering in some cases, and thinking about yourself more can easily lead to increased negative emotion. But it depends on HOW one is thinking about oneself. Excessive self-focus and unhealthy self-centred preoccupations at the expense of thinking of others are expected to cause increased unhappiness, depression and anxiety, because it’s a terrible way to live. On the other hand, thinking about ourselves in terms of constructive self-awareness and active self-improvement, in a balanced way, is mostly beneficial.

I think it’s worth exploring the former – that excessive self-focus and unhealthy self-centred preoccupations at the expense of thinking of others makes us miserable – because it’s one of the fundamental truths about human nature, that it’s psychologically impoverishing being the primary objects of our own attention. You can see in people who live this way that their life becomes little more than an echo chamber of dissatisfaction – it breeds disconnection from reality and from others, and eventually one’s whole sense of meaning becomes distorted out of shape.

Paradoxically, it is only through positive outward focus – on God, on others, on love, on grace, on gratitude, on kindness, on purpose, on meaning, on beauty, etc – that we get to truly find ourselves in the process, and tap in to the riches that life has to offer.

On Forgiveness

When we act well, we tend to be acting more responsibly and with greater reasoning; and when we act badly, we tend to be acting less responsibly and with less good reasoning. Acting well usually means something like doing good, reasoning competently, believing a true thing, making the world a slightly better place through some action, that sort of thing. Acting badly usually means doing something ignoble, reasoning incompetently, believing a false thing, making the world a slightly worse place through some action, that sort of thing.

What the above means is that by a small margin we are more responsible for the good we do than the bad we do, because we were on better form and reasoning better when we did the good thing than the bad thing. You know what I mean, I think; when Jill spent some time and effort working out how to help the local charity shop arrange its window display, she acted better than Jack, who acted impulsively in a moment of anger and smashed the window with a brick - but she also acted more responsibly and with better reasoning. Good acts usually require careful thought and good reasoning, though they can arise from well-formed character and instinctive virtue - whereas acting impulsively, in haste, is usually the precursor to bad actions (there are, of course, plenty of exceptions in both cases - but the rule of thumb holds).

And on those times when you acted less well than you hoped, you yourself know that you weren't at your best, and that if only we could see what was going on inside you, and have full access to the struggles within your soul, we'd be very forgiving. Well, it's great that that is what God is like, and probably why He created a world in which we are encouraged to forgive easily and be circumspect in judging others.

Let's Be Honest: Charles Manson is Shallow and Dull

 

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.”
C.S. Lewis

That insightful observation from C.S. Lewis came to my mind about halfway through watching Chaos: The Manson Murders on Netflix. I’ve also seen several of Manson’s prison interviews on YouTube, and thought the same thing each time – behind the curtain of his dreadful legacy, as an individual, this guy wreaks of monotony.  Manson’s name is synonymous with manipulation, violence, and the horrifying murders carried out by his so-called "family” of easily brainwashed cult members. Yet, despite the seemingly endless fascination with Manson, especially in the media and pop culture, there's a striking truth when you actually listen to him speak. Despite his bombastic delivery, and obvious twisted narcissism and absurd self-delusions, he is almost entirely devoid of anything remotely smart, insightful or interesting to say (as are, unsurprisingly, the individuals who made up his cult). 

I’m saying this about Manson because it’s generally a good insight about similar figures like him. Behind the mask, we find a very insipid character, whose power wasn’t derived from any remarkable intelligence or charm, but from a carefully cultivated aura of mystery and control over very pliable followers. His speech is often disjointed, filled with rambling, incoherent phrases that sound more like a string of non sequiturs than any profound wisdom. Any philosophies or insights he claims to have are really a sad and pathetic mix of paranoid delusions, racial conspiracies, and half-baked ideas about societal upheaval.

Sure, we are talking about one of the most notorious events in 20^th Century America. But absurdly, very interesting events like this do not mean that Manson himself is a very interesting person with interesting things to say. When stripped of the myth and spectacle, he was little more than a manipulative man who used fear, confusion, and his faux-charisma to exploit vulnerable individuals. Behind all that, his nature is that of a dull, self-absorbed man whose ideas were far from revolutionary, and his supposed “charisma” was more about creating an illusion that is only likely to be persuasive to disillusioned, insecure, easily manipulated young people who are even less interesting than Manson.

When you watch Manson carefully, and look closely at his demeanour and facial expressions during interviews, you are observing a man who, in my view, knows full well how unenlightened he is, especially when he’s in the presence of smart, competent interviews. This is a man who knows his own façade – painfully aware that he is not a visionary leader.

In the end, the real irony is that truly bad people - the ones who inspire fear, revulsion, or even fascination - are often the most mundane. Their evil isn’t the result of genius or depth, but of repetition, pettiness, and an inability to create anything of real value, relying on deception rather than originality. Meanwhile, good people - those who create, inspire, and uplift - are usually the ones who live the most interesting lives and have the most interesting things to say. They challenge the world, push boundaries in meaningful ways, and leave behind legacies that enrich rather than destroy. On this, just as on most things, C.S. Lewis was right; the most profound stories don’t belong to the tyrants and the ignoble manipulators; they belong to those who found the courage to be good – those who dared to build instead of tear down.

Don't Forget To Love Yourself

Christ’s Golden Rule is “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12)

It’s true that we should treat others as well as we wish to be treated, but this taps into an even more profound truth. If we should treat others as well as we wish to be treated, then we should treat ourselves as well as we should wish others treat us – and further, we should treat ourselves and others with the standard we would hope reflects God’s standard of perfect love. And the same applies to the other great commandment, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:31) – we must also love ourselves as we love our neighbour, otherwise we might not treat ourselves as well as we need or deserve.

And all that is bootstrapped with the primary instruction: “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Mark 12:30). This commandment comes first because our love for God is the foundation of everything else. If we do not love God fully, our love for ourselves and others becomes misaligned. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength means we get to see ourselves as He sees us - as infinitely valuable, worthy of love, and made in His image. And this enables us to treat others and ourselves with the same grace, patience, and kindness that God extends to us – because we sense a shared unity in understanding how infinitely loved and valuable we all are.

The reason Christ says about love God and love neighbour that “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” is because we can’t truly live if we don’t love God, and nor can we love ourselves if we don’t love Him first. And if we can’t love ourselves properly, we can’t love others properly either. This is the only Divine equation that fulfils the design of love: 

❤️ Love God > Love Yourself > Love Others ❤️

By loving God first, we receive the true measure of love - one that is holy, pure, and self-giving. That love then teaches us how to love ourselves in a healthy, godly way. And from that place of wholeness, we can truly love others as ourselves - reflecting God’s Divine love in our relationships.

 

Owning Our Preferences

 

One of the big factors behind social, political and domestic division is the habitual mistake of confusing correct policy with preferences – that is, people are constantly asserting something as being the right way things should be done when all they are really revealing is a personal preference. For example, environmentalists declare moral outrage when green space is proposed as a good site for a road or industrial estate; socialists declare injustice when a favoured domestic business is not protected from foreign competition, northerners cry outrage at lack of investment in their regions compared with the south, that sort of thing. But while these propositions do involve value judgements, they are not implicitly moral considerations, they merely convey preferences about how money and resources are allocated.

Consequently, one of the best pieces of wisdom we can learn is to be alert to when we are dealing with preferences and not axiomatic truths, empirical facts or moral propositions. In formal economic terms, a preference is the order that an individual gives to two or more options based on their relative utility. With two considerations, x and y, it will be the case that x is preferred to y, or y is preferred to x, or x and y are preferred equally (this can be measured using an indifference curve, which is a line on a graph showing all the combinations of two goods that give an individual equal utility ). X and y can relate to pretty much anything it is possible to prefer over something else (pieces of fruit, places to go on holiday, online or in-person banking, you name it) – and those preferences are dynamical too (they can change according to context).

Understanding this, and mindfulness of straying from its wisdom, are important home truths that can help bless a marriage too, because if a couple doesn't understand or acknowledge when their views are really preferences, there can be contention that doesn't get negotiated properly.

On Trying To Master Love

To master anything - a musical instrument, a sport, running a business, etc - we're going to require a lot of essential qualities: learning, commitment, devotion to the task, resilience, patience, humility and passion. It must be a continuous effort and a journey of growth. We need to be disciplined in staying present and deeply engaged with the task, we need the ability to immerse ourselves in the activity, and the discernment to understand that progress is gradual and requires enduring setbacks or periods of slow improvement as part of the journey toward mastery.

Trying to master love and being the best beloved are no different – they both take all of those things, but they require understanding something else too. Just as we don't become happy by trying to be happy, or original by trying to be original, we don't master love by trying to master love. You know that what causes happiness is not trying to be happy, it is through cultivating a particular mindset, attitude, and way of being. Happiness should not be pursued as a destination, but as a by-product of seeking truth and goodness. When chased directly, it remains elusive, like someone who seeks wealth for its own sake never truly enjoys its value. True happiness emerges through noble pursuits like kindness, courage, and personal responsibility, not as an end in itself.

Similarly, the journey to mastering love (and being the best beloved) is not an attempt to try to master love, it is the attempt to master the qualities that prioritise, nurture and sustain love - such as truthfulness, trust, self-awareness, honesty, patience, empathy, generosity, kindness, vulnerability and respect. Like any art or discipline, love is a by-product of living with Divine intention, cultivating virtues that support its growth. We don't master love by trying to master it, but by fostering the qualities that enable love to grow and thrive. Love flourishes when we focus not on the intrinsic mastery, but on the process of becoming the kind of person capable of being a continual blessing for your beloved.

 

Trade Makes Us Better People

You may have come across a social experiment called The Ultimatum Game. In this game player A (Jack) is given some money, say £50, and asked how much, if any, he proposes to offer to player B (Jill). Jill can accept or reject Jack's offer - but if she rejects it, neither of them gets anything. If Jack and Jill were rational income-maximisers, Jack would offer just £1 and Jill would accept it, because 1 free pound is better than nothing. But this very rarely happens, because humans are not rational income-maximisers.

Having a voracious appetite for fairness, the Jills of this world often reject free money from the Jacks of this world if the offers are not perceived to be an equitable distribution of the £50. Such sensibilities play out more broadly in society, which is why there is a correlation between trade and fairness. This was demonstrated in an interesting study from Herb Gintis that I read about in Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist:

"People in fifteen mostly small-scale tribal societies were enticed to play the Ultimatum Game. Those societies with the least experience of dealing with outsiders were the most hard-hearted, ungenerous and narrowly ‘rational’. Machiguenga slash-and-burn farmers from the Amazon most often offered just 15 per cent of the sum to their co-subjects, and in all but one cases, the second player accepted. Likewise, a Hadza hunter-gatherer from Tanzania usually makes a very small offer and experiences few rejections.

On the other hand, players from those societies that are most integrated into modern markets, such as the Orma nomads of Kenya or the Achuar subsistence gardeners of Ecuador, will usually offer half the money just as a Western undergraduate would. The whale-hunting Lamalera of the island of Lembata in Indonesia, who need to coordinate large teams of strangers on hunts, offer on average 58 per cent – as if investing the windfall in acquiring new obligations. Much the same happens in two New Guinea tribes, the Au and Gnau, whose members often make ‘hyper-fair’ offers and yet see them rejected: in such cultures, gifts can be a burden to the receiver because they carry an obligation to reciprocate.”

“The lesson of this study is that, on the whole, having to deal with strangers teaches you to be polite to them, and that in order for such generosity to emerge, costly punishment of selfishness may be necessary. Rejecting the offer is costly for the second player, but he reckons it is worth it to teach the first player a lesson. The argument is not that exchange teaches people to be kind; it is that exchange teaches people to recognise their enlightened self-interest lies in seeking cooperation. Here, then, lies a clue to the unique human attribute of being able to deal with strangers, to extend the division of labour to include even your enemies.”

As well as the progression-explosion of individual well-being and higher standard of living that capitalism has bestowed upon us, it's also essential to note how good capitalism has been and continues to be for the collective benefits of human society, not just in more than material gains, but in corporate kindness too. A society that relies on trade relies on cooperation, respect, fairness, justice and mutual toleration - the whole edifice depends on it. The free exchange of goods, services and ideas does not just make us materially better off, it makes us nicer, more respectful, more tolerant people to be around too - and those collective benefits play out in our living in all-round better societies.

And the kinds of society we have created through increased trade are uniquely human too. In the animal kingdom there are all kinds of cooperation and collaboration within a species - between other primates, between ants, between lions, between wolves, between elephants, between bees, between birds - you name it. But as a rule, cooperation and collaboration between unrelated strangers seems to not occur very often in the rest of the animal kingdom - there are almost no cases of unconnected animals involved in mutually beneficial transactions in the humans are when we trade. There is even a ratchet-type pattern of trade occurring with the development of farming in various countries independently at different times in history when the right conditions were met - Peru first, then China, then Mexico, then North America and Africa, and then Europe.

Perhaps my favourite example of the joy of trade is when I buy an Indian takeaway. People with whom I have little in common cook incredibly tasty food that I value much more than the money I pay to consume it. At the same time, I help the people that sell to me to make a living, and both agents are made better off. In feeding me, the proprietors get to feed their family too. And this extends right across the marketplace.

We are all making each other better off by trade. We are contributing to a nicer, safer, more respectful, more tolerant society, in which our own personal pursuits are helping enrich total strangers too - and when aggregated, it is sufficient to make everyone in that society richer and more prosperous.

Commerce has done more to combat racism, sexism, and unfair discrimination of any kind, and the alleviation of poverty for billions, than any government program. How bizarre then that we live in an age in which trade has done more than anything else to tackle poverty, hardship, injustice, corruption, prejudice, bigotry and disunity, yet the generation that has been the biggest beneficiaries are the most vociferous opponents of it in history.

Counting the Colours of Prime Ministers

A friend once pointed out to me that there has never been a black Prime Minister in the UK (this was pre-Rishi Sunak), and he asked how I can be sure that that it isn't down to institutional racism. I wouldn't say we can be sure, but I'd say we can be confident. I'm confident because the sample space as a ratio of the population is too minuscule to infer such a dubious causality. A single role, like a Prime Minister, constitutes about 0.000001% of the population, and there are only a few every decade. The set of preconditions required to be a Prime Minister are complex, and there’s no reason to believe that colour of skin is a direct factor.

Last time I checked the UK demographic a few years ago, I found that for every 100 people, there would be 82 white people, 9 Asians, 4 black people and 5 others. If 82% of the population is white, and being a PM requires a set of skills that are rare in the population as a whole, then even purely on arithmetic, it’s not surprising to me that until recently we hadn't yet had a black Prime Minister.

Moreover, even if we had had a series of black Prime Ministers, that wouldn’t show that we are not a racist society. Consider Society A, which is very racist, and Society B, which is not. Because people in Society A know they live in a racist society, and because they feel that black people need a helping hand, 4 of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Because people in Society B know they do not live in a racist society, and prefer to select on merit, they feel that black people do not need a helping hand, and none of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Purely on number of black Prime Ministers, Society B could seem like it’s the most racist one, not Society A, when in fact the opposite is true.

There may, of course, be other non-racist factors that are contributing to fewer black people being candidates for the role of Prime Minister, where ‘racist’, lest we forget, means unfairly discriminating against someone purely on the grounds of skin colour or ethnicity. Think of Easter as an illustration. Bank Holiday Friday and chocolate eggs occur in the same weekend, without either causing the other. The cause is Easter. So it may be that in the scenario above, other things are playing the Easter role, making the society appear more racist than it is.

My own view is that we don’t live in an overtly racist society, because the vast majority of people don’t unfairly treat people based on skin colour and ethnicity. There are many people who perceive our society as racist, but that’s mostly because they miss the likelihood that apparent overt discrimination is usually based on Easter-type factors other than skin colour and ethnicity (see my Blogs on Discrimination on the side bar).

Here’s another factor to consider: humans are built for survival in the Savannah, where other tribes could have alerted us to threats or insecurity, so we are evolutionarily primed to be a little bit discriminatory against other tribes, and be alert to differences in other humans. When tested, the amygdala, which plays a key role in processing fear and aggression, reacts to different racial groups, even when we are not being consciously racist.

I can recall reading studies where people were put in a brain scanner and shown brief flashes of emotionally neutral faces, and the amygdala was activated more prominently if the face was of someone with a different skin colour or ethnicity. I also remember reading about car salesmen who offered better prices to white people than black people. I also recall an experiment where volunteers played a video game showing people holding either a gun or a mobile phone, and were instructed to shoot only those with guns. When white participants were shown black people on screen, they tended to shoot faster and were more likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person was holding it.

However, the good news is that studies also show that it’s fairly easy to snap out of prejudices, and treat people like valuable human beings with a unique individual identity, and thereby not lazily categorising them according to skin colour and ethnicity. It’s no surprise that experiments show that people brought up in more racially diverse settings are less likely to be racist, less likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person is holding it, and much more likely to be tolerant and accepting if they have a broad exposure to a diverse range of people.

In summary, if we define racism correctly - as unfairly treating people based on skin colour and ethnicity - then I don't think UK racism is anything like as rife as many people think - and it's highly unlikely that racism is the reason we'd never had a black Prime Minister until Rishi Sunak.

The Rule of Distributed Stupidity

 

Groups like Answers in Genesis and a lot of climate groups and social justice groups conform to the principle of what I call the distributed stupidity model. One con artist starts it off, influences a second person, then a third, and so on, until the racket has gained enough traction to distribute its stupidity more widely - a bit like vectors acting to spread the cult's influence. The distributed stupidity model is one of the most effective for influencers at the top to get what they want and grow their own platform (financial and status) by pulling the strings of those at the bottom. Ken Ham is raking it in while folk like you do most of his bidding for him, and blindly dance to his tune. 

But at some point, once a group like that starts to grow, and its blood has trickled for enough time, it inevitably bleeds into haemorrhage, and at this point it becomes externally pervasive and internally overwhelming. The only distributed stupidity groups that can survive this are the ones where the emotional appeal of their indoctrination strategies are such that the members feel the emotional duress of leaving or questioning it, for fear of heretic-hunting.

A good rule of thumb with the majority of the members of these groups is, always assume blithe cowardice, weak-mindedness, lazy indifference or wilful individual ignorance before you assume a thought out collective philosophy, because they are a lot rarer than you think.

Character & Operation Types of Thinking

 

I started pondering the “character and operation” model I write about in two of my books, and how it is in some way to do with the left and right brain elements of cognition. Broadly speaking; the left is the logical and analytical, and the right is intuitive and relationship-based - but not only is there overlap, there is also distinction in how those outputs manifest themselves. So, propositions about belief in God, attitudes about the economy, politics, the climate, even love with a beloved, are nested in a duality of cognition based on reason and intuition. I know my wife loves me (operation) and I sense she loves me (character); I know capitalism works better than socialism (operation) but I know we have a responsibility towards the underdog (character). But it works in reverse too; socialist Jack reasons that capitalism works better than socialism (operation) yet still becomes emotionally attached to socialist policies (character) even if they do not yield to reason and evidence. Ditto climate change - Jill believes that climate change is a problem that is too complex to solve with simple off-the-peg solutions (operation), but she gets a sense of belonging from gluing herself to the road (character), so this instinct supervenes on her rational ones, that sort of thing.

There's some stuff in my books about this in relation to belief in God. Christians tend to believe in God because of a weight of empirical justification and rational consideration (operation) but also because of the functional fulfilment of deeper needs related to relationship, belonging and responsibility in the world (character). It's analogous to love, with it being a set of propositions that yield to reason and evidence - if my wife didn't love me, she wouldn't do x, y, and z (operation); and it being a set of deep sensations associated with relationship, belonging and responsibility (character). 

Consequently, when we are talking about God with unbelievers, we have to be alert to the ways that the mind oscillates between character and operation outputs, and steer them back on track when they criss-cross (a bit like how we have to when politicians disingenuously oscillate between two different types of fairness - the Marxist type and the Aristotelian type - at their own convenience).

How To Define And Identify The Supernatural

 

I've been having a brief online exchange with atheist Richard Carrier regarding his rejection of the supernatural. I've previously written about similar errors he's made (see here, and more generally here), but after he sent me five or six articles arguing why he believes supernaturalism is false, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why I believe most atheists begin with a flawed assumption about the supernatural - an error they continue to repeat, no matter how many articles they write to expand on it. Before proceeding, I’d first encourage you to read (or re-read) my previous blog post on How Economics Can Solve The Supernatural Problem, because it has key passages that will supplement the below.

I think most atheists agree with me that science studies the natural world using empirical methods, but what they often miss is that a proper definition of ‘supernatural’ means it won’t conform to those same constraints. Their argument assumes that if a natural explanation exists, it must be the correct explanation – but the problem is, the term ‘natural explanation’ is the initial error, especially when they use it to conclude that “the observed base rate of the supernatural is zero”, as Carrier does in one of his articles. If the whole thing is supernatural – that is, created by God – then the category distinction won’t manifest in a way that is scientifically testable, making it impossible to determine a true base rate in the way Carrier is attempting. His base rate is faulty from the start, which undermines a large proportion of his work on this. For many, "supernatural" is typically thought to be something outside of or breaking the normal laws of nature, but it’s more accurate to state that everything within creation is inherently supernatural because it originates from God. There are, of course, embedded narratives within the grand narrative – that we can justifiably refer to as miraculous events – but ‘embedded narratives’ is a better way to discern them rather than making false distinctions between natural or supernatural (as we’ll see in a moment).

Carrier thinks that the idea that "we should have found at least one verified supernatural event by now" assumes that the supernatural, if real, must behave in a way that is detectable and repeatable under controlled conditions. But my response to him was; it’s akin to fish looking for wetness – it’s an embedded narrative in their ocean life. I will expand on this analogy here, because what we need to understand about the supernatural is that it is a qualitative categorisation, not a quantitative one. This realisation also undermines the general atheistic mistake that because science has explained many past mysteries naturally, we should see the world as entirely natural – which is mistaken logic. 

Richard Carrier seems to have arrived at a figure he plucked out of the air – that the probability of supernatural claims is "billions to one against". Erm…you can see from the Blog link above that I’ve had issues with his grasp of probability before, but this is to ignore the necessity of probability assessments requiring a well-defined sample space and clear methodology, neither of which Carrier provides. Carrier is misassigning probabilities without a valid methodology or an established framework for measuring supernatural events. It’s a bit like a fish saying the probability that this ocean is wet is a billion to one because it can only perceive the ocean. It assumes its limited perspective is the whole of reality. In other words, the fish is trapped in a mistaken local perspective that it confuses with absolute reality, because the ocean is both water and wet, depending on how it is being defined.

Similarly, nature is created by God, so it is all supernatural for those who know God is the Creator, whereas those who call it natural are just stating it as a proxy for not knowing it is actually supernatural. If the fish could see the full picture, they’d understand that ocean, water and wet are three ways to describe the same properties of their environment. Similarly, calling everything ‘natural’ doesn’t refute the supernatural - it just assumes, without justification, that what we call ‘natural’ isn’t ultimately part of or defined as a supernatural reality created by God. If natural means not created by God (i.e. God doesn't exist) then a creation created by God must be called supernatural, because it is more than just natural - it is fundamentally contingent on and sustained by the Divine. Under these superior definitions, natural can only mean not Divinely created, so a reality that is wholly dependent on God cannot be natural - it must be supernatural by necessity. It is ‘super’ because it is created by God and ‘natural’ because it is not God, therefore it is supernatural.

So, I must reiterate this essential point that underpins most errors people are making when they talk about natural and supernatural – it’s not the right way to think of creation. As God is the Creator of all that exists, then what we call nature is, in reality, the supernatural at work - it is simply creation operating in a consistent and orderly manner. Calling something natural or supernatural ultimately depends on how one defines the entire structure of created reality. It’s similar to how Jack might call Everest a mountain, while Jill refers to it as a big rock - both descriptions are acknowledging the same thing, just from different perspectives. But if Bob, viewing it from a great distance where it appears no larger than his index finger, calls it a stone, that doesn’t change the fundamental nature of Everest as a mountain. It simply means Bob isn’t perceiving its full scale and gravitas. In the same way, calling creation ‘natural’ doesn’t negate its Divine origin; it just reflects a limited perspective on a much grander reality to which we become accustomed once we have the Holy Spirit.

Those who recognise God as the source of all things understand that nothing is truly natural in the sense of being independent from the Divine creation. If there are only two categories – God and creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) – then everything that isn’t God belongs in the same category (created). The only real category division is between God and His creation, not between natural and supernatural within creation – which becomes clearer once we get to grips with the idea of creation being one grand narrative with embedded subset narratives – which is also where we get to understand the fact that reality is interfaced with through varying lenses of apprehension (with science being only one lens). Those who refer to the world as natural are merely using the term as a placeholder for their lack of awareness or recognition that what they observe is, in fact, the ongoing work of God. If you don’t know God, then everything in creation might look natural, just as if you remain distant from mountains, they may all look like small stones.

 

The Resurrection and Bayesian Reasoning

 

A friend asked me, in terms of Bayesian probability, what are the chances that Jesus actually rose from the dead? My response:

I'll write this in the most accessible way I can. Bayesian probability helps us update our beliefs based on new evidence - so the more supporting evidence we have, the more rational it becomes to believe a claim. We have to apply some caution when using Bayesian probability in relation to God, because Bayesian probability typically requires a prior probability (P(H)) that is determined independently of the specific evidence being evaluated (this is known as a common prior) - and this is tricky without a clear statistical or empirical basis to quantify it (it's not like calculating the probability of rolling a 12 with two dice). But as long as we keep the above caveats in mind, we can have a go. So we are considering four primary things:

P(H | E) = Probability of the hypothesis (resurrection) given the evidence
P(E | H) = Probability of the evidence if the resurrection happened
P(H) = Prior probability of the resurrection (before considering the evidence)
P(E) = Probability of the evidence occurring in general

P is probability, H is hypothesis and E is evidence - and obviously from a naturalistic perspective, if there is no God, the probability that anyone would rise from the dead is near-zero. But Bayesian probability from a scientific perspective changes radically as/if we know there is a God who loves us, and was willing to suffer and die for us, and rise from the dead to give us eternal life. Therefore, this won't be easily measurable in terms of the Bayesian ratio of favourable cases to total possible cases. The P(H) (prior probability of resurrection) is extremely low in naturalistic terms, but high if we believe Jesus is who He says He is; and the P(E | H) (likelihood of the evidence if resurrection happened) is high, because if it happened it would be the most remarkable, earth-shattering, life changing event in world history (and it is).

I'd also add that, if there is a God, we’d expect Him to make Himself known – which is what Christianity claims. It’s the only religion which claims with any justification that God Himself has made Himself known in person (in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit). And we know from 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrected Christ appeared to over 500 people. It's not easily conceivable that Christianity would have been the biggest and most important alteration of human history if Christ had not died and risen, especially under the conditions and culture of the time, where it was very much not in people's interest to promote Christianity, and in many cases, doing so presented a danger to their own life. In fact, from the impression I get from reading New Testament history over the years, I think I would be bold enough to state it even more stridently - not only did Christianity spread, but in worldly terms it did so among people who had little to gain and so much to lose - domestically, socially, politically, physically, you name it. Unlike other movements that thrived through military conquest or political weight, Christianity grew in the most remarkable way - through self-sacrifice and love, radically defying the patterns of history that went before or since.

Moreover, in terms of the credibility of what Jesus actually said and did, many leaders and cult figures have deceived many willing adherents over the years, but Jesus demonstrated all the opposite traits of typical false leaders. False leaders usually seek power, status, and control in a way that serves themselves. Jesus showed His humility and power by serving others, giving up His life for us. False leaders use lies, manipulation and falsehoods to maintain their power and influence, but Jesus spoke only the truth. False leaders operate through promoting division, separateness and fear, but Jesus preached love, inclusivity and togetherness. Jesus spoke the wisest and truest words ever spoken about God, because He is God. He is unique in history and in personally revealing God's love to humankind, and that is why Christianity changed the world in the way that it did, in a way that's unparalleled in human history. Not only is there nothing like it, there is nothing that can even be spoke of using the same type of language. It's as different from the false religions as the sun is different to a candle.

So, in summary, Christians have confidence that God exists, that He has revealed Himself in history, that He loves us, that He was willing to die for us, and that when all the evidence for His resurrection is considered in light of that (namely, the sheer weight of historical testimony, the transformation of Jesus’ followers, and the unparalleled impact of Christianity), Bayesian reasoning points to the resurrection being a historical event, not a made up one. And, of course, this logic works in reverse too - if it was merely made up, it would be far more improbable, contrived, historically unexplainable and philosophically unsatisfying than if it really happened.