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Back to my regularly scheduled pomposity...

The democratic ideal envisions informed citizens engaging rationally with complex issues, holding elected officials accountable, and shaping policy through reasoned debate. Yet, the lived reality often feels increasingly distant from this vision. New research we’ll explore in this week's newsletter paints a concerning picture, suggesting deep disconnects between voters, politicians, and the very nature of public discourse. Examining three distinct studies reveals interconnected threads weaving through conspiracy beliefs, political cynicism, and fundamental shifts in language, challenging our assumptions about how democracy functions—or fails—in the digital age.

One strand explores the fertile ground of conspiracy thinking. The analysis of data from the European Voter Election Study punctures the simple notion that conspiracy beliefs cluster only at the political extremes. Instead, individuals of diverse backgrounds longing for a "lost paradise" are susceptible to narratives explaining their anxieties through the lens of perfidious, hidden forces. Beyond simple ideology, deeper psychological and political vulnerabilities create a perception of lost control in a rapidly changing world.

A second strand turns the lens onto the political class itself. As we explore below, elected politicians across 11 countries overwhelmingly hold “thin, minimalist, ‘democratic realist’" theories of voting behavior, fundamentally misaligned with the beliefs of their voters. This chasm between leaders and voters drives many politicians to campaign and govern based on a cynical model that underestimates the electorate's capacity and desire for substantive engagement.

How might these two phenomena—the specific appeal of conspiracies and the cynical theories of politicians—be connected? A third study, analyzing linguistic trends in millions of texts from 1850 to 2019, offers a provocative potential link: a documented historical shift in the very language we use from “rationality” to subjective experience. This linguistic transformation uncannily mirrors, and is likely amplified by, the rise of ubiquitous smartphones and social media platforms—environments often optimized for emotional engagement, rapid-fire information sharing, and algorithmic curation rather than deep, rational deliberation.

This documented shift away from the language of rationality, fueled by our digital ecosystem, provides a compelling macro-level context for the other findings. A public discourse less grounded in objective reasoning and more steeped in algorithmically amplified subjective feeling could inadvertently create a more receptive audience for conspiracy theories, which often bypass logic to appeal directly to emotion, grievance, and distrust. Simultaneously, politicians observing this shift, perhaps perceiving voters primarily through the lens of social media engagement metrics and fragmented online interactions, might logically (if cynically) conclude that rational policy arguments are less effective than emotional appeals or identity-based messaging. This could solidify their "democratic realist" theories, even if those theories misrepresent the nuanced reality of voter motivations.

The implication is that these are not isolated issues. The specific psychological profile susceptible to conspiracies and the potentially self-fulfilling prophecies embedded in politicians' theories of voting might both be amplified by a broader cultural drift away from reasoned discourse, a drift accelerated by our information technology. Politicians operating under a "realist" framework might fail to engage citizens on substance, further alienating those who feel their concerns aren't being rationally addressed, potentially pushing them towards simplistic narratives or digital echo chambers where conspiracies thrive.

This brings us to a critical concept emerging from research on collective behavior in the digital age: the information-exploration paradox. My colleagues and I have found that as the sheer volume and velocity of available information explode—as they undeniably have with the internet and social media—people paradoxically explore less. Not just relatively less compared to the vastness of available information, but often less in absolute terms. Faced with overwhelming informational complexity, the tendency is to retreat into familiar territory, to seek confirmation rather than novelty, and to "herd" around seemingly safe, simple answers.

This paradox offers a powerful lens through which to view the phenomena described. The retreat into conspiracy theories can be seen as a coping mechanism for information overload, offering simplistic, emotionally satisfying narratives in place of complex, nuanced realities. Similarly, politicians adhering to minimalist theories of voters might be engaging in their own form of herding, relying on easily digestible models rather than exploring the difficult, diverse landscape of actual citizen perspectives. The very technologies designed to give us access to more information may, paradoxically, be constraining our willingness to engage with it deeply or explore beyond our pre-existing beliefs.

Addressing these interconnected challenges requires understanding this paradox. My own research focuses on collective intelligence and how groups navigate this tension between exploiting known information and exploring the unknown. If our political systems and public discourse become trapped in low-exploration loops—driven by cynical political models, appealing conspiracy narratives, and algorithmically-reinforced echo chambers—our collective ability to solve complex problems is severely hampered. We need strategies, both technological and social, that actively counteract the information-exploration paradox, encouraging genuine curiosity, diverse perspectives, and the cognitive effort required for robust democratic deliberation and effective collective action.

You can read more about the information-exploration paradox in the upcoming How to Robot-Proof Your Kids, and about its implications for political polarization in the subsequent, The Tax on Being Different.

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Research Roundup

If only I am rational, why talk rationality?

From 1850 to 2000, rationality grew overturning the preeminence of subjective experience. Over the last two decades, however, truthiness has returned with a vengeance. 

These insights come from a systematic analysis of “millions of books”, New York Times articles, and Google Search terms. For 150 years, “the use of words associated with rationality, such as ‘determine’ and ‘conclusion,’ rose … while words related to human experience such as ‘feel’ and ‘believe’ declined”. But over the past few decades, “this pattern reversed”.

Intriguingly, a parallel trend has emerged: “a shift from a collectivistic to an individualistic focus as reflected, among other things, by the ratio of singular to plural pronouns such as ‘I’/’we’ and ‘he’/’they’.” Both shifts occur in “fiction as well as nonfiction”.

I believe I am terrified.

If you think you're owed a bridge, someone will sell you one

I loved my weekly dose of The X-Files back in the day, but I never mistook its conspiracy theory laden plots for reality. Now we live in a world where conspiracy theories have become mainstream politics. Who is voting fantasy over reality?

A new analysis of the “European Voter Election Study (EVES)” has a fascinating answer: “Individuals with economically left-wing and culturally conservative attitudes tend to score highest on conspiracy thinking.” These voters “seem to long for both economic and cultural protection”. They see conspiracies behind “cultural modernization and economic neoliberalism”. Interestingly, they are found in every country and across education and income categories.

The visible purveyors of these fantasies overwhelmingly seem to be exploiters without strong policy commitments (or at least with commitments that elevate them over being honest with the electorate). Why are buyers of these conspiracies so indifferent to the honesty of the sellers?

Thin, Minimalist, "Realist"

Democratic optimists see “voters as policy oriented, knowledgeable, prospective decision makers”. In bleak contrast, democratic realists see voters as “blindly retrospective, group oriented, and generally rather ignorant about politics”. Care to guess which categories describe voters vs politicians?

Comparing “face-to-face interviews with nearly one thousand politicians in 11 countries” with surveys of “more than 12,000 citizens” of those countries reveals a perhaps unsurprising divergence: 73% politicians of the are democratic realists, while voters are more balanced (and include committed moderates and those that can’t be bothered as well). With “remarkable consistency across counties”, political leaders “overwhelmingly hold thin, minimalist, ‘democratic realist’ theories of voting”.

Given my research on individual choice and collective intelligence, I see a much more complex story: voters are what we make them. The dynamical feedback between voters, media, and politicians can drive either optimist or realist behavior. In fact, it is the very transactionalism of many politicians (and other leaders) that drive voters to cast votes on similar principles.

Do politicians learn their “realism” from their experiences with voters and policy-making, or does the system select for a bleakly transactional attitude?A better class of voters and politicians requires institutions committed to the hard work of nurturing the optimists…and checking thin, minimalist realists.

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SciFi, Fantasy, & Me

I recommend A Drop of Corruption for the same reason I recommended the previous “Shadow of the Leviathan” novel, The Tainted Cup: the mash up of fantasy, murder mystery, and (bio)steampunk is just fun. Of course, some of the novelty has worn off, but the mysteries both fantastical and murderous still engage. The interplay between the principal characters is still full of humorous tensions. In the end, they fact that I listened to a full novel in just a few days probably provides all the necessary recommendation.

Stage & Screen

• May 7, Chicago: Innovation, Collective Intelligence, and the Information-Exploration Paradox
• May 8, Porto: Talking about entrepreneurship at the SIM conference in Portugal
• May 14, London: it time for my semi-annual lecture at UCL.
  • And more is in the works for London, including talks, interviews, and ...standup?
• June 12, SF: Golden Angels
• June 9, Philadelphia: "How to Robot-Proof Your Kids" with Big Brothers, Big Sisters!
• June 18, Cannes: Cannes Lyons
• Late June, South Africa: Finally I can return. Are you in SA? Book me!
• October, UK: More med school education

If your company, university, or conference just happen to be in one of the above locations and want the "best keynote I've ever heard" (shockingly spoken by multiple audiences last year)?

Vivienne L'Ecuyer Ming