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Nazi’s and Certainty

Nyla Bright

What follows is a portion of an essay my son, Grant Bright, wrote for a scholarship application. I thought I would share it here.

“This place. This is the fruit of unquestioned, ferocious conviction. This is where absolute certainty leads.” 

Most people who read this essay probably won’t recognize that quote. Those few who do are probably wondering how a quote from Wolfenstein: The New Order, an M-rated video game, could possibly be relevant to an essay about the importance of lifelong learning. Allow me to explain how.

To understand that quote and how it’s relevant, we’ll need a little context. Those three sentences are spoken by Set Roth, a jewish character from The New Order. And “the place” he’s referring to is Camp Belica, a nazi-run death camp. It is, in essence, a place run by people so certain in their worldview and ideology they are willing to engage in industrialized mass-murder in that ideology’s name, so certain that they have nothing more to learn that they slaughter millions of people who they believe have nothing to contribute to their New Order. 

And as you are likely all too aware, the Nazis didn’t just do that in the context of Wolfenstein: The New Order. Despite what some holocaust deniers would have you believe, places like Camp Belica did exist in the real world, places such as Auschwitz and Dachau and Nohra. I should know; I’ve studied the Nazis very thoroughly, reading things like Maus and Night, all in my quest to understand what drove the Nazis to let their fanaticism override their basic human decency, what drives other cultures to keep making the same mistake, even after the end of World War II. And I’ve found that the reasons why a group decides that another needs to be wiped out almost always boils down to the same absolute certainty Set Roth spoke of.

That, right there, is why lifelong learning is important. Absolute certainty that there is nothing more to learn is what brought about the holocaust, so naturally the best way to prevent it is to embrace uncertainty, embrace the fact that there will always be more to learn. And we do that by understanding other viewpoints, acknowledging and listening to criticism, and being willing to change our beliefs when they’re proven wrong or misleading. Instead of just blindly accepting statements because it’s what we want to hear, we ask ourselves hard questions about those beliefs and whether they line up with our values and knowledge, backing them up not with raw emotion but evidence, research, and data, and changing them to reflect new information we receive. 

That’s why I’m seeking a college education as an Economist. While many of them, like Claudia Goldin, have been doing groundbreaking research on the flaws in our society and how we can leverage economics to fix them, others are falling into the same trap that the Nazis fell into, clinging to economic policies that benefit the rich and powerful at the cost of those below them because they don’t want to admit that they’re wrong. We need more Economists like Goldin, like me; people who go in with a willingness to analyze and deconstruct past assumptions, people who are willing to acknowledge that they don’t know everything, people who truly understand that the quest to learn is life-long, and doesn’t end when you graduate from school. 

Expertise and the Problem of Affinity Groups

Nyla Bright

In 2004 Richard Branson had a reality TV show called “The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best.” I would give you a link to the show, but I can only find the season finale on YouTube and the show isn’t streaming anywhere. Premiering the same year as Trump’s “The Apprentice,” this standard reality TV show had a similar theme: a billionaire searching for someone worthy of his time and energy using a series of challenges. Where Trump’s challenges were all about the board room, sales, deals, and New York City; Branson took the contestants to exotic locations to do charity and physical challenges. Branson’s show was arguably less linked to business skills and more closely aligned with the action-adventure philanthropist brand that he had spent decades developing.

The episode that stuck with me was the third episode with its trip to Victoria Falls. The twelve remaining contestants, four having already been eliminated, traveled to the falls. There, with some breathtaking helicopter footage of the falls and everyone standing on top, Branson let the contestants know the next challenge: go over Victoria Falls in a barrel. Well, not really a barrel. A crane pulled up a sphere that looked a great deal like an old-school bathysphere built for two. Branson said he was going and there is only one more seat. Who will go with him? A guy (for the life of me I can’t remember who he was or his background) volunteers while everyone else stands around awkwardly, clearly not keen. On little more than Branson’s word that this is the most advanced barrel ever designed, the contestant straps into the seat next to Branson.

No one can be an expert in everything, so we depend on people to tell us what is safe or not safe. We believe one expert over another based on where they went to school as if Prinston has never graduated a fool or two. Our narratives of who to trust are driven by our personal experiences and the stories we tell ourselves. We trust folks who are part of our affinity group (class, race, ethnicity, or even hobbies) because we believe they hold our values. We distrust people who have made things difficult for our affinity group in the past. Then there are the social narratives we have internalized: If someone owns a business, they must know what they are doing. If someone has $25 million net worth (top 0.5% of wealth), they must be smart. And regulation and certifying bodies inhibit innovation and get in the way of progress. If you are a wealthy person, you are aware that the cost of many things suddenly gets more expensive when people see the size of your house–for the ultra-wealthy there is a legitimate fear that everyone around you is on the take. These narratives might have a basis in truth, but as a way of assessing individual trustworthiness, it is useless–especially when that narrative includes a dismissal of experts in the field.

Stockton Rush and his OceanGate submersible, which imploded on a descent to the Titanic, is a study in hubris. Rush felt that the other experts in his field were overly cautious and made statements that the “obscenely safe” regulations had been holding back his “innovations.” He billed himself as a Princeton University-educated aerospace engineer–and he was educated at Princeton University, but his master’s degree was in Business Administration from Berkley. He was not more qualified, with more peer-reviewed papers than those who were cautioning him. He was, however, richer than the engineers and scientists who tried to hold him back. He was conventionally handsome and had all the advantages a person would need to convince others that he was right, even without evidence.

In his recent Washington Post Opinion piece, Sam Howe Verhovek made an impassioned plea to not ignore the value of exploration and pushing the limits. And he has a good point if the CEO, and victim of the sub, was the only person who died. Even if the submersible, made of fiberglass and controlled with an off-the-rack game controller, was packed with scientists, there would be a justification for the risks. The problem of OceanGate lands with Stockton Rush funding exploration with tourist dollars. He was the image of the self-funded, adventure-seeking millionaire with credentials that looked amazing unless you looked closer. He came from a life of privilege, was reported to have a net worth of $25 million, and was positioned to be trusted as a member of his customer’s affinity group. They knew what they were doing was dangerous but they also believed it wasn’t because he was there and he was one of them.

In the Victoria Falls episode of “The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best,” Branson, strapped into a steal bubble next to his contestant gives him one last chance to back out. The contestant says he’s ready to go. That is when Branson tells him he’s been eliminated from the competition. Under Branson’s logic, risktaking is important but you also have to ask questions and be willing to walk away from unacceptable risks. Branson outlines for him all the questions he didn’t ask, like design and testing questions. I had mixed feelings on the stunt. On a reality show, asking reasonable questions is a good way to get eliminated and it’s easy to see how the challenge could have gone the other way, being eliminated for not taking an opportunity when it is handed to you. But Branson is also right. You just can’t assume the person handing you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has thought it through–even when his own life is on the line.

As someone who shares very little in common with Richard Branson, and a deep personal skepticism of the meritocracy of wealth, I have no trouble saying no to going over Victoria Falls in a barrel (or taking a sub to the Titanic)–I’ve said no to far less risky things, like an island helicopter tour and under far more family pressure to say yes. But, how often have I bought an overprice cleaning cloth because a friend, who of course did home sales, said it was awesome or subscribed to a podcast because the host was a lot like me? We easily turn off our critical thinking functions when we identify a person as part of our group. Most of the time, it’s fine, but sometimes it has consequences and, in rare cases, the results can be deadly. Skepticism has value, especially when backed with quality evidence (and, no, someone from your affinity groups agreeing with you isn’t evidence even if they have 190 million loyal listeners). Sometimes it is best to pass up an opportunity.