Over the course of human evolution, the ability to pick out patterns has been useful. But it can also introduce complexity where none exists or redirect our attention toward unimportant things. At the extremes, that ability can push people toward crafting more and more elaborate alternate realities, rickety structures that expand into elegant patterns but that stand on unsteady bases of support.
OP-ED
Philip Bump: Trumpworld’s latest effort to undermine the Russia probe
US President Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One as lightning splits the sky during a storm at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, August 28, 2020.
