Have you ever thought: "Authority figures are wiser than I am and should be obeyed"?

You'll know you have this mindset, and operate according to this frame, if you're constantly focused on the hierarchy of society—whom to listen to and whom to ignore.

You give preference or respect to people simply based on data points that don't actually carry meaningful weight, like age, wealth, or social proof (how much others like them).

For example, if you ever feel nervous when seeing the CEO of your company walking through the office or spot a celebrity in public, you'll recognize that you hold this mindset—this idea that you must bow down to certain people who "outrank" you.

You'll also notice that this goes the other way.

There will be people you perceive as being "below" you, people whom you see yourself as outranking, like a homeless person or someone you consider creepy at the office, and you'll ignore them, giving them less attention, kindness, or resources.

The narratives may be subtle, but they'll be there—like, "He's famous, so he must be special," or "He's the boss, so he must be smarter than me," or "He's homeless, so he must be a loser."

These cause-and-effect assumptions are based on vague data points that you use to rank people in society.

The reason this is an unhelpful frame should be quite obvious: those data points are not reliable sources of information about a person's true value.

I'm not saying that it’s always the case, but the evidence you're focusing on doesn’t give you an accurate picture.

To dive deeper into this topic, check out the original video here:

https://youtu.be/WzHR7tYS6GQ

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