> Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its

> Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its devolution of everything to simple matters of capital and labour comes to mind. Agreed. The further you get from physics the more multi-factor everything becomes. We know this yet I think our language and minds have difficulty expressing multifactor explanations in ways which seem convincing to most of us. That is a problem. Strangely we are more confident with a single over-arching explanation. I can't explain why that should be so. Surely more analysis should give us more confidence and not less! Intelligence analysts and other smart people put their efforts into building multiple scenarios, which is a good way to see things more multi-dimensionally. I picked up on something from Thiel, which is that he tends to run through multiple explanations e.g. from a liberal and conservative and libertarian and communist point of view before proceeding to make a political point. That's a pretty good mental habit! Whether this gets you to the truth is a separate question I feel but this method will certainly prevent you from overlooking major lines of reasoning, and that in itself is a pretty profound improvement over single factor determinants.