## Colophon title:: Easynomics: The Market for Lies type:: [[clipped-note]] date:: [[2024-11-13]] tags:: [[&articles]] ## Highlights > The ancient Romans had an ironic phrase for this terrible logic – post hoc, ergo proper hoc, “after this, therefore because of this”.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchkwwq7wneqq26ra90sv8qp)) 😂 > To put it in a rather straightforward way: There is a market for lies or putting on a pretence, and it’s all around us. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchm37pfmwt27tdt8hjzx8ch)) marketplace for ideas meets marketplace for lies. But seriously, this is essentially the supply/demand thing. > Basically, the analysis and the predictions of the panel had turned out to be all wrong. But that didn’t turn out to be a problem. The same panel that was offering reasons for why the BJP wouldn’t cross the 2014 number started offering reasons on why the BJP had won as many seats as it had. > No one batted an eyelid. Also, that was the last time I appeared on TV. The basic problem of the medium became obvious to me and I have stayed away since that big mistake. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchm687xafvhxfqcdj82yx8g)) > So, what’s happening here? In cricket. In politics, and even in financial markets, there is a huge market for instant analysis or quick explanations. Why is there a demand for quick explanations? When something occurs, people instinctively seek a reason—a story, an explanation, a cause. This mental drive compels us to find answers, accurate or otherwise. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchma1qmkygprt7d91xshzag)) > Also, stories make things, as they stand, more digestible for the human mind. As Taleb puts it: “The more orderly, less random, patterned, and narratized a series of words or symbols, the easier it is to store that series in one’s mind or jot it down in a book.” He further explains: “We, members of the human variety of primates, have a hunger for rules because we need to reduce the dimension of matters so they can get into our heads… The more random information is, the greater the dimensionality, and thus the more difficult to summarize. The more you summarize, the more order you put in, the less randomness. Hence the same condition that makes us simplify pushes us to think that the world is less random than it actually is.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmbrkmwcmkmc41my6n7f0s)) Ties in with oversimplification tendency. > Basically, there is a large set of people who are ready to be lied to because there is only so much that a human brain can comprehend. There is another set of people who are ready to lie and make money from this, and find meaning in what they are doing with their lives. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmgttax1bmrfv2g5vv80hz)) > In fact, sometimes they may not even know that they are in the business of lying. Also, real explanations are not always easy to offer, especially for a system as complex as an election. The same stands true for their audience. Many do not really realise that they want to be lied to. > But that’s how any successful market works: The demand and supply match. The broader point being that if there is an incentive for doing something, irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, or socially useful or not, a market for it will emerge. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmhffs75a3pwva562y2zte)) Market participants unaware of their of their attraction to/creation of false narratives/incorrect explanations > And you can’t make the viewer wait by saying something like, “We don’t know why the Congress lost the election but please give us two days more. It will allow us to dig a little more and offer a plausible explanation”. Because that’s not how it works: two days later the viewer would have moved on to other issues that they may want an explanation on. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmnj4wdtk5ff97ctyxx29g)) The role of immediacy / 'instant-gratification' > Cricket telecasts and election results are not the only areas fuelling demand for quick explanations and incentivising a market for lying. Analysis around the financial markets thrives on this as well. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmv27zdhmksnpprbh193rr)) > “Almost never does a stock pundit say that market’s or a particular stock’s activity for the day or the week or the month was largely a result of random fluctuations.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchmw7jfvax5ettse1sc955h)) > The market for explanation does not work like that. There are people out there who want to be actively lied to. And they need to be lied to then and there, at that exact moment when any news breaks. That’s the incentive that has been created. > To conclude, as Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal puts it, there are three ways to [get paid to write](https://elink.businessmint.com/vtrack?clientid=147525&ul= > XFBTVAAFHgYfEkdYQwNdXRYCBV9LVnFRCVYMXR8HDFlPE0ZZRFRTX0ECAlAQB3FUXQVcCh5RCV5F&ml=U1ZSWwQDU0tTHg0OA18MSg==&sl=Jx4nHmFgHmQuNklcWw9WXU8BF0RQXVRFF1oMX0VKAFteHwQ=&pp=0&fl=DRYQEkcJTRgbTFZWWklVWRMEA1lRXERFAVtKQkUFF0FATAUNAgcFBAFRUglaUwEDBFcMVgQ=&ext=bGFuZz1lbg==): “Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jchn09mm4h42whwn0pnyj11k))