Black and White vs Shades of Grey. The hidden cost of simple answers. The challenge of the Steemit environment.

A simple question. Does simplicity serve us, or can it be dangerous thing?

We are drawn to black and white answers to complex questions, but we all know that life is shades of grey.

Our brains are wired to look at our environment for things that are novel and unexpected. There is a phrase where 'something catches our eye' that embodies this well. Some 'thing' we don't know what, has taken possession of our attention. Prior to that moment what we had been looking at was being interpreted by our brain as safe things that we understand. It didn't require much energy. It didn't require all of our attention.

When something novel comes along that we don't understand, our brain goes into hyperdrive. Is it dangerous? Should I run from it? Can I eat it? Is it friend or foe? Novelty is complexity. Novelty is discovering something about our environment that we have never seen before. We then process what we know about it, to see if we can put it into the comforting category of things we have seen before. Then we can go back to consuming less energy in a predictable and well known environment.

People love simplicity. Simple answers to simple questions. Black and white. Good and evil. We are drawn to simplicity because it free us from the burden of complexity. With a simple answer, we can use broad strokes to answer the questions of life and then move past uncertainty. There are problems with simple answers. They are often not always an accurate reflection of reality. We can sometimes make simple assumptions that lead us to disastrous consequences. In a novel environment, simple answers are not the solution.

On the flip side of simplicity, we have complexity. The discovery of something novel that defies our previous abstractions of reality. It excites our nervous systems and may cause us to experience some anxiety and fear. We can't exist in this state forever, because it can wear us out. It's purpose is to get us to take notice. It wants us to open our eyes and examine something closely. We are motivated to watch its movement and perceive it's detail, so that we can create rules of thumb and generalizations about its behavior. We are integrating complexity into our understanding and giving it new meaning.

This dynamic is playing out now on Steemit. We have the urge to accept simple answers that give us comfort and security. Should we be comfortable? I don't think comfort is the right feeling when confronting novelty and the unknown. We should be watchful and attentive. We should be analyzing what is dominating our attention to better understand what it is we are perceiving. Is it friend or foe? Can we eat it? Can we make it our pet? Interesting questions! Don't take your eyes of the beast for long. It might have teeth!

I'm motivated to write about this because I would like to encourage people to enter into the continuing dialogue of Steemit and it's evolution without the baggage of simple answers or black and white notions of what is true or false. This is a whole new animal, quite novel and not the least understood yet. It begs us to pay attention. It's not a safe thing. Not now, while we don't understand it. We are in a grey area. It requires a lot of energy and will demand our full attention if we are to correctly form an abstraction of what it means.