A Timeless classic libertarian essay I, Pencil by Leonard Read is not only relevant in economics but I think it applies to cognitive psychology as well. We are creatures (thanks to cognitive fluency) thriving under the illusion of "knowing-it-all". Media, confirmation bias, polarization and that damn cognitive dissonance makes the illusion more surreal. It's hard to come out this self-induced quagmire unless and until we begin to realize economics behind the making of the good old pencil. And I am sure, humility will engulf automatically as a "fringe-benefit" of this realization:
"I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies— millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human masterminding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that
only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree."
"I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies— millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human masterminding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that
only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree."
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