Consider the quote:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

-Albert Einstein

Of course, that’s not the definition of insanity, and Einstein didn’t say it (despite the quote often being attributed to him). For those reasons, it sounds pretty stupid. But I would argue there is something wise about the quote and that it’s worth paying attention to.

If we are in a situation that’s deterministic and static – that is, nothing is changing, and nothing is random – then it’s absolutely true that doing the same thing over and over again won’t lead to different results. And, while real life is never perfectly static, and there’s an element of uncertainty in much of what we do, we sometimes do find ourselves in situations that are static and deterministic enough that trying the same thing we’ve always tried would be foolish.

And yet, it’s not so uncommon for people to continue using the same failed strategies over and over again. Let’s call these situations “Futility Loops” – where we try the same strategy over and over even though it has failed every time, and we have ample evidence to suggest it will continue to fail.

Here are a few examples I’ve witnessed myself:

•Someone trying to get a family member to change a harmful behavior by nudging them in the same way, year after year, even though it never works. For instance, by making the same kind of remarks that bother the other person but never get them to alter their behavior.

• Someone who is depressed and stuck in a bad life situation, making the same life choices again and again that leave him stuck in that same spot. For instance, by not taking any actions that could plausibly improve his depression.

• Someone who makes the same sort of bad relationship decisions again and again with each new relationship. For instance, getting into relationships with a certain type of personality that they are attracted to inevitably badly hurts them.

These are fairly obvious examples of Futility Loops, but I also see much more subtle examples (which I’ve engaged in myself): where your behavior isn’t exactly the same, and the situation isn’t exactly the same, so it is easy to miss the fact that it’s a Futility Loop. But the situations and your behaviors rhyme each time – effectively, you keep trying to apply a strategy that the world keeps telling you doesn’t work, but you don’t realize the pattern because each situation feels different enough not to notice.

In Futility Loops, whether the more obvious kind or the more subtle kind, a person repeatedly does the same behaviors that have never worked before, and of course, it doesn’t work this time either, leaving the bad situations to endlessly repeat – there does seem to be something insane about the behavior like the fake Einstein quote suggests.

But if we adopt another frame, where we view the person involved as part of the situation itself, the behavior is understandable and not really insane at all. The person themself hasn’t changed, so when they are thrust into the same bad situation, they engage in the same useless behavior. They have static habits, instincts, emotions, reactions, and so on, so when the same situation arises, their behavior is just what it was before – they are static, and the situation is static, so their behavior is static.

From this point of view, we see that they will be stuck in the Futility Loop until something changes: either something in the situation or something within themselves. But if they aren’t willing to wait until the situation luckily changes on its own, that leaves only one option: self-change.

Thankfully, the self-change doesn’t have to be profound to break out of this sort of loop. All you really need to do is recognize that:

(a) what you have been trying so far hasn’t worked

(b) if you try the same thing again, it’s likely to lead to the same outcome, and

(c) as Eliezer Yudkowsky put it: “Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change; you can’t do anything BETTER unless you can manage to do it DIFFERENTLY.”

Then you just need to try a different strategy. And if that strategy proves itself not to work, don’t get stuck on that one either – try yet another strategy. And so on.

It may be worth taking a moment to reflect: which situations may be a Futility Loop for you? Is there a type of bad situation that keeps repeating – and could it be that you’re trying to solve it each time with a strategy that doesn’t work? For instance, is there a person whose behavior you keep trying to nudge in the same way, even though it never helps? Is there a kind of person you keep being drawn with predictably bad outcomes? Is there a type of decision you routinely have to make where you apply the same ineffective approach?

The first step to breaking out of our Futility Loops is to identify them.

This piece was first written on September 18, 2024, and first appeared on my website on November 3, 2024.

I think that almost everyone has beliefs that are essentially unchangeable. These don’t feel to us like beliefs but like incontrovertible truths. Counter-evidence can’t touch them. They are beliefs we can’t change our mind about. I call these “Anchor Beliefs.”

When Anchor Beliefs are false, we distort reality to fit them. So, what distortions do some reasonably common Anchor Beliefs cause?

Anchor Belief 1: “I’m entirely good” or “I don’t do unethical things”

What happens when someone with these Anchor Beliefs acts highly unethically? Well, since the Anchor Belief can’t change, that means the action must have been ethically okay to do, or else it was someone else’s fault or impossible to avoid. Victim blaming, denial, or shirking of responsibility ensues.

“My whole foundation, life, what I believed in, devotion to the company, was based on believing [Ramesh Balwani] was this person…He told me he didn’t know what I was doing in business, that my convictions were wrong…There was no way I could save our company if he was there…We were trying to do the right thing. We were trying to report results that we believed in and not report results if we thought there was any issue” -Elizabeth Holmes, who was found guilty on four counts of defrauding the investors in her company, Theranos

“All I ever wanted was to love women and, in turn, to be loved by them back. Their behavior towards me has only earned my hatred, and rightfully so! I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy.” -Elliot Rodger, in his manifesto about why he planned to commit murder before murdering six people.

Anchor Belief 2: “I’m not good enough”

What happens when someone with this anchor belief gets a great job, performs really well, or achieves success? Well, it must have been a fluke or mistake; eventually, others will figure it out. Imposter syndrome ensues.

“No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?” – Tom Hanks, winner of two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor

“I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.” – Maya Angelou, legendary poet and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Anchor Belief 3: “This thing I’ve devoted a great deal of time/energy/identity into works and is good” [that doesn’t work or is harmful]

What happens when it’s criticized? The criticism must be bad faith. Any imperfection in counter-evidence fully invalidates that evidence. Confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning ensues.

“Those who have attacked my work on Vitamin C are scoundrels.” – Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize winner, defending his theory that vitamin C cures cancer and heart disease.

“We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts…Politician A stands up on his hind legs in a Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over we find crimes – embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys – sordid stuff. Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he didn’t know about.” – L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

Anchor Belief 4: “My group is good.”

What happens when their group does something really bad? The victims must be lying or have deserved it. Or acting badly must be justified in this case because it’s done for some more important greater good. Denial of and justification of immoral actions ensues.

“When we show a statement by Donald Trump that’s not truthful, Republicans will say it’s okay if it’s not true because it sends the right message, whereas Democrats will say that a statement needs to be factual…With a statement from Joe Biden, Democrats will say it’s okay if it’s not based on evidence, that it supports a generally true message, while Republicans will then have a higher bar and say every statement needs to be based on facts.” – Ethan Poskanzer, based on his studies on moral flexibility

So, what are the takeaways here? I think that the following three things are important and true:

(1) Almost everyone has at least one Anchor Belief – a belief that is so sticky that it’s nearly impossible for it to change in the face of even extremely strong counter-evidence. Some people have more of these, and perhaps a small number of people have none, but I think Anchor beliefs are a near-universal among us humans.

(2) When our Anchor Beliefs are false (or partially false), because the beliefs won’t change, we distort reality when we get evidence against them in order to keep them intact while also somehow “making sense” of that counter-evidence.

(3) By looking at fairly common Anchor Beliefs people have, we can start to understand some recurring distortions in people’s thinking. Since people’s Anchor Beliefs are fixed but reality sometimes provides strong counter-evidence against these beliefs, that leads to predictable patterns of distortions that people’s minds deploy to keep the beliefs intact around those Anchor Beliefs.

In particular, I think that we find:

• Anchor Beliefs related to being good may lead to victim blaming and denial of responsibility.

• Anchor Beliefs about not being good enough may lead to imposter syndrome.

• Anchor Beliefs about something we’ve invested a lot of time/energy/identity into working on and being good may lead to confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning.

• Anchor Beliefs about our group being good may lead us to deny or justify immoral actions by our group.

There are no strong studies that I’m aware of that identify or map out anchor beliefs and their frequency in the population – I believe the points above are true based on my experiences and observations.

This piece was first written on August 13, 2024, and first appeared on my website on September 2, 2024.

1. Ideators: generate novel ideas

Ex: Einstein

Strengths: creativity, insight

2: Investigators: vigorously investigate a topic in order to understand it

Ex: Curie

Strengths: truth-seeking, curiosity, systematicness, persistence

3. Provers: demonstrate that the ideas of others are sound, explore their limits, strengthen or work out the implications of existing theories

Ex: Singer

Strengths: consistency, logic, rigor, bullet-biting

4. Appliers: explore new, useful applications for existing ideas, or combine ideas to make something valuable

Ex: Ford

Strengths: pragmatism, knowledge, goal orientation

5. Doers: do things in the world, reflect on what worked and what didn’t, draw insights from and generalize this experience so others can learn from it

Ex: Graham

Strengths: experience, reflection, generalization, synthesizing

6. Critics: dissect ideas to find the flaws in them

Ex: Wollstonecraft

Strengths: questioning, challenging, dissection, disagreeing

7. Enhancers: refine, hone or clarify existing ideas to make them better

Ex: Bostrom

Strengths: clarifying, honing, making rigorous

8. Popularizers: figure out how to explain important, complex ideas in simple ways; spread them to the public

Ex: Sagan

Strengths: simplification, explanation, inspiration, metaphor

9. Activators: use ideas to change norms or improve society

Ex: King

Strengths: inspiration, eloquence, courage, altruism

10. Storytellers: tell compelling stories to convey information and ideas and to capture the narrative behind ideas

Ex: Gladwell

Strengths: narrative, journalism

11. Cataloguers: collect, categorize and organize information

Ex: Dewey

Strengths: comprehensiveness, organization, categorization

This piece was first written on August 23, 2020, and first appeared on this site on July 8, 2022.

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