I think the author are making a good description of what we all can observe in our times. It's the inclination people have to prefer, or even want, simple answe

I think the author are making a good description of what we all can observe in our times. It's the inclination people have to prefer, or even want, simple answers to anything. Just look at how media is handling the complexity of things. They always look for experts who are willing to give short and simple answers. "complicated ideas take more energy to transmit than simple ones" he writes, and therein lies the problem. The article is itself is a simple explanation to a complex mechanism in human society where people establish truths that are tangible but not (necessarily) true. This is what fuels opinions and even cause actions. The simpler the explanation the faster it spreads. And it spreads among those of us who are too lazy to get acquainted with a complex issue on topics we do not know much or even are ignorant about. I say “us” because even though I feel I am quite well informed and have a high endurance when it comes to acquire information, I know I am still totally ignorant on many topics that are outside my interest and competence, or doesn’t show up in my daily information flow. I think we all are, and that we therefore carry a lot of “stupid cousins” in our mind that we even might be spreading around without thinking about it. The world and our society is complicated and it is very easy to simplify to try to understand why things are as they are. Within this simplification process we obscure the reality more than we enlighten it, and even establish totally wrong ideas of the state of things. When someone who really knows the complexity of the horse tries to explain to us that we haven’t got the whole picture and therefore have gotten it wrong, we do not listen. We all know how “the horse” looks like, why listen to experts who have actually knowledge about horses? This unwillingness to listen to experts is best seen in politics, and best in highly polarized societies. But it’s really everywhere.