We're All Conservatives

We are nothing more than little ants fighting disorder in our immediate environment living in a universe trending towards chaos. From our insignificant, unilateral (human) viewpoint, we are always striving to minimize surprises. That's the brain evolution gifted us. And when surprises appear, we learn, hoping to apply what's learned in our next interaction with our environment, so we hopefully survive. Ok, maybe not "we", but our genes, because we're really just the vehicle genes use to perpetuate themselves into posterity. 

If only us little ants' fight was costless. Every time we strive to reduce disorder locally (reduce entropy), and rearrange our environment so that it's less hostile to us, we actually increase disorder (entropy) in the overall universe. When we chop down forests to dedicate that land for human crops, and we reduce the threat of going hungry (reducing entropy from humans' perspective), we actually increase entropy at the planetary level, as energy is dissipated and all that carbon released when we kill carbon-trapping trees contributes to gas chaos in the atmosphere.

Yet we persevere fighting disorder (in our minds). We continue to strive to build our bubble of stability at the micro level and soldier on in our constant battle to push away exogenous disorder from our lives. We do it because our survival depends on it. Your 9-to-5 job (the one that feeds you) is nothing but a constant effort to expel entropy from your daily professional life: the client that didn't pay; the coworker that's badmouthing you; the report that came out with the wrong date --anything/anyone that stands in the way of things being orderly. Our jobs are nothing but a constant battle with Murphy's law --an (un)dignified quest to banish local entropy from our lives. 

In a way, we're all conservatives. We all look for ways to find the satisfying comfort of a predictable "there" --a "there" we want to (need to!) reliably find in the same place and at the same time. No surprises. No entropy. In the same 7am cup of coffee every day. In the same 7pm daily dog walk. We do it because it is soothing. Because it lends us stability. To some, it even provides purpose. 

But also, in the same genetic makeup that pushes us to be conservatives --to minimize surprises-- coexists a yearning for something more. Stable, absolutely predictable routines devolve into a funk that robs us of joy. We are, after all, inquisitive animals that look for new (hopefully better) things. Exploration is, contradictorily, also part of us. And we wouldn't be where we are (at the apex of the tree of life) if we hadn't exploited that curiosity and applied it for the benefit of our kind. 

We crave predictability because we coddle in the warmth of the familiar. But not absolute predictability, or we will feel aimless. Familiarity is convenient, but also dull. We look for it in our relationships (people who share our interests); in the things we eat (the same 3-4 restaurants we go to every time); in the way we inform ourselves (the information bubbles big tech's built for us). But our dislike for surprises also makes us vulnerable. We construct familiar, surprise-less environments in the shape of bubbles. Of which we will not dare step out lest we face unnecessary stressors. Those bubbles can be (and often are) hijacked, making us prone to manipulation. As long as the bubble around us continues to appear intact, it can shift without us knowing it.  

When dealing with surprises, Neuroscientists come up with 3 buckets:    

• Expected Uncertainty. Like when you go to your favorite restaurant and order any dish (at random). You know that not everyone will taste the same, but since you know the menu you know you'll be OK. You're fine with the expected uncertainty of the Chef's style. 
• Unexpected Uncertainty. That's when you go to your favorite restaurant, but the chef's changed the menu. You don't know the menu changed, but you at least have a mental "model" in your head (you know the Chef's cooking style) to estimate how good/bad your dish will be. You can still trust your "model", learn from your experience and apply it in your next visit. You're not helpless, you still can count on your mental "map" to help you navigate the surprise.
• Volatility. You go to your favorite restaurant to find out that your Chef has not only changed, but that the restaurant will feature a different Chef every week. Here, your mental "model" is now trash. There's no point in trying to learn what to order for next time. Every time will be a surprise impossible to ascertain. Here, you're truly helpless. 

We live in the age of volatility. The mental maps we used in the past to minimize surprises are useless now. These days there's no point in trying to learn from our environment to adapt. We can't really rely on media to get unbiased information --we can't learn from the sources that used to be useful to lead a life free of surprises. We can't really rely on media's successor (social media), because they have trained hyperintelligent algorithms fueled by supercomputers to hijack my brain and my perception of reality, so there's no use learning from what you see in Twitter, Facebook or Google to better adapt to your environment. We can't rely on populist politicians, who use those same algorithms to manipulate my emotions, whip up my anger/fear and make us go berserk every election to make us think the world will end unless I vote for them. You can't really rely on weather forecasts, either, because our historical fight with local disorder (to achieve our beloved modern comforts) has unleashed planetary chaos, apocalyptic fires, (on both hemispheres), and once-in-a-century biblical locust plagues. 

And then the worst pandemic in a century hits us.

And then the worst economic collapse in a century hits us. 

And then the worst social unrest in half a century hits us. 

So I don't blame you if you feel helpless. Us little ants were used to toil day in & day out building up our little ant pile fighting the universe's disorder, and then an asshole came and stomped on it just because he could. The Chef in the restaurant's been replaced by a maniacal chimpanzee who's throwing feces through the kitchen window, and you're still sitting there, stunned, trying to process what's going on, following your (very obsolete) mental map thinking you can still sit down and have a nice meal. (Spoiler alert: you won't.)

A massive longing for normalcy is cresting all around the world. We are all conservatives in that sense. And these days, all we want is just to go back to the way things were.