Wanting: Mimetic Desire: How to Avoid Chasing Things You Don't Truly Want

by Luke Burgis

Imitation plays a far more pervasive role in our society than anyone had ever openly acknowledged.

It’s easy to be an armchair contrarian. It’s hard to take contrarian action:

An unbelieved truth is often more dangerous than a lie.

Models are people or things that show us what is worth wanting.

the root of most violence is mimetic desire.

One version of the Romantic Lie in finance is the “efficient market” hypothesis (closely related to “rational expectations,” another hypothesis). Efficient market theory is the belief that asset prices are functions of all available information.

“Bubbles are neither rational nor irrational; they are profoundly human, and they will always be with us.”

rivalry is a function of proximity.

internal mediators of desire.

Desire doesn’t spread like information; it spreads like energy.

Eventually, they discovered that the organizing principle of their culture was “delivering happiness.”

It’s not enough for them to tell me all the things they care about. They have to put them in some kind of order.

Values and desires are not the same thing.

conflict is caused by sameness, not by difference.

Some values are absolutes. Know them. Name them. Defend them.

Many people have died as a result of road rage. Nobody to my knowledge has ever died of road joy.