Why Humans Can’t Understand Each Other

(1) As humans, we are bound to live by our perceptions of what we hold true.

(2) As a result, we overextend our own judgements to others. We believe we know more about others than we do.

(3) When their actions don’t match our expectations, we jump to expedient conclusions (like, something is wrong with that person) rather than correct our premises, because we are afraid of being wrong.

(4) Then, after we conclude understanding is hard/impossible, we deem it justified to ignore or hate the other person, but if there lies justification in blame, that same justification only breeds more blame.

(5) This behavior doesn’t match the other’s expectations of us, thus creating a cycle of misunderstanding (3).

Before social media, a lot of these issues can be solved via face-to-face communication. By nature of social media, misinterpretation (3), and ghosting (4) are easier to do than ever before which perpetuates this downward spiral. Take for example, the Tesla stock prices jump after an Elon Musk tweet.

The only way to salvage this downward spiral is to be cognizant of the limits of our perceptions, and judge from evidence not ego.

In a world where wisdom is in short supply and flat earth theories abound, I’m honestly not sure what we can do to solve this.