Three Tiers of Mind - An Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from my "Three Tiers of Mind" that I thought relevant of as of late. It describes what I consider the two most common types of people, but their ways of thinking are so far apart that they often don't think the other side exists (as my friend Waterflame used to say until he spent more time in America, "Surely no one really thinks that way!"). It's problematic because if either side tries to solve a problem or negotiate anything, they only see it from their own world view and can't understand why an entire half of the population might not share those values.

At the outset, we pointed out that Tier 3 doesn’t really want anything other than to survive, Tier 2 wants something more but doesn’t get how to make it happen, and Tier 1 both wants and can make it happen. A lot of this stems from fundamental beliefs of what you should value in life and what is acceptable.

More specifically, Tier 3 doesn’t want anything except to feel good - in other words, pleasure and comfort. Much of what they want is concerned with “getting” things or “having” things - things being material but also experiences. In their mind, there is nothing wrong with wanting nothing more than what life already offers. Going nowhere in life is fine as long as in the end you are “happy.” It is essentially hedonism. What you end up having in a broader social context is someone who would often only really look out for your needs, emotions, or health - where everything is alright as long as you’re alive. There is a disconnect if you want to communicate more abstract goals and aspirations that don’t lead to further pleasure, comfort, money, or other needs. If you gave unlimited time and resource to Tier 3, they almost wouldn’t want it because they wouldn’t know what to do with it (they can only consume so much). The same goes for when things are not going your way; rather than focus on what went wrong, Tier 3 would often focus on how it feels - the pain. In that situation, they’re the poster child for misery loves company. Whereas Tier 2 may want to find a greater purpose in society and Tier 1 wants to shape the world, Tier 3 more or less just wants to be left in peace.

Deep down, Tier 3 believes that everything should be equal, things should be fair, life should be balanced (note: should, not is). It is not so much about everyone being equal in value as much as it is about everyone being made from the same stuff, and therefore no one idea or action is worth more than another. “Everything has strength and weaknesses.” “All things are created equal.” “All life is composed from the same matter.” Fairness for Tier 3 builds off this assumption, that everyone is built from the same “equal” stuff, by then asserting that everyone’s time, resource, and efforts are all weighed the same and therefore everyone should have the same outcomes. You see this when someone says, “but I tried,” as if their effort, their pain, has to count for something no matter what. I spent just as much effort planting this rock as you did planting that seed, and I therefore deserve equal treatment and outcome. Tier 3 doesn’t really have a true sense of right and wrong, only fairness and fairness only in the transactional, material sense. It’s always centered around someone getting something rather than why they are getting it, what happens instead of why it happens. It’s like the guy who thinks they can get away with a crime by just paying off the cop, the regulator, the witnesses... As long as everyone gets a piece, what’s the harm? Cheating, stealing, lying... are all okay as long as no one finds out or is physically hurt. Conversely, it’s always okay to take from those who have more, always okay to “stick it to the big man” or discriminate towards those with better circumstance, because at the end of the day, they’re still better off than you - that end result of where you are, what you have, is the meter for fairness, and as long as someone else is still better off than you, then you’re in fact the victim, not the imposer. In a sense, you can almost always “fix” Tier 3’s unfairness by giving them something or making them feel better, even if the original problem that got them there never is addressed. It’s like someone that tries to give you money or food to cheer you up even if you’ve just gone through the most traumatic experience of your life. You’re rich, you got your reward - what does it matter what happened to you along the way? “Look at what you have! You should be happy and grateful; some of us are not as lucky.”

As with anything else abstract, what actually leads to the outcomes, the reasons and intent behind what one wants, are all disregarded because they can’t be seen or quantified. Instead, if everyone started at some state A together, they should all end up at the same state B regardless of what happens in between. You see this with old “friends” that come out of the woodshed only after you’re successful. They start demanding the same outcome because they see themselves as having had the same childhood, same education, the same material starting point. Sometimes they try to use a butterfly effect argument where they claim, if not for you having met them, all the things you ended up doing subsequently might never have happened, and they therefore deserve as much of the outcome. It’s the same kind of argument as the parents who say they gave you life, your genes, and therefore own your life and everything you do. If they didn’t feed you as a baby, you would have died, so you owe them everything you do afterwards. What happens when they’re not around, the details they can’t see, your individual choices, don’t matter. It goes hand in hand with their view that power is born into. You deserve something because of where you started or what fate gave you, not because of what you do or how you do things - because by the former logic, all of that is equal anyway.

Lastly Tier 3 assumes that what everyone wants is equal and should be treated the same. Everything is fair as long as everyone equally gets what they want, no matter what it is they actually want. It’s again because, at least in Tier 3’s world, you can’t see or measure what people want; therefore, you should just treat it like everything else unknown in the world - random, equal weighted, and following a normal probability distribution. Like with randomness, they then assume that making something turn-based is fair, as long as everyone gets an equal turn. This is fine if everyone involved is Tier 3 and just wants something for themselves, but it becomes a problem when faced with the fundamentally different motivations of Tier 2 and Tier 1. If you “get” to do something you want to do, even if it is to build something or improve society, then they must also “get” to do something they want to do, no matter how self-indulgent it is. If you get to have an hour for creating art, they get to have an hour for shopping. If you get to travel the world to build a company, they get to travel the world for their next vacation. Letting one person do all the work is fair if that person enjoys the work because everyone “gets” what they want. Tier 3 simply cannot fathom someone wanting something other than personal gain, so everything anyone else does must be just as personal and self-serving as their own desires.

Tier 2, on the other hand, is more utilitarian, by nature of their reference point being driven by what everyone else thinks. This leads to a tendency for conformity or group thinking, as they rely on majority or popular opinion. What they end up wanting and what they value as a result often ends up being what they perceive others want of them or what society values highly. Put in another way, if society didn’t exist, they wouldn’t know what they want or what to value. An action or opinion is good only if people back it, regardless of what the actual truth or result is. In a way, Tier 2 only has ethics but no morals, not because they are immoral but because they can only discern right and wrong by what others say and not by what they feel internally (morals come from one’s self; ethics come from socially acceptable norms). Often times they’ll do things just to play the part socially but lack the intent or underlying authenticity.

Similar to Tier 3 is Tier 2’s inability to discern intent - the why something is good or bad. Tier 3 ignores intent in favor of the outcome, getting from A to B no matter how they get there; Tier 2 ignores intent in favor of the action taken, of how everyone gets from A to B but almost dismissing the importance of actually getting to B in the first place. For them, it is only the action that is good or bad, not the intention or result. They just know that you’re supposed to do this or not supposed to do that, but they don’t understand or care to understand why the rule exists. You see this when someone violates the spirit of the law but then nitpick that they didn’t do the exact wording outlawed. If you try to press them on why something is bad, they’ll say because it creates a bad perception or because it’s illegal. They’ll cite observation after observation where people got in trouble for those actions but never actually identify the reason or intent behind the actions. It’s bad because of who did it or what they did, not because of what the person tried to do or why. They’ll hate on an unpopular figure actually doing good, even if that person ends up saving the world. Tier 3 would have a hard time believing that anyone could really think this way, but if you were to shine a light in Tier 2’s head, you would find that they genuinely believe the things they follow, that they actually tell themselves what they tell you. They genuinely want to do the “right thing” but lack the “right reason.”

Full read available in both book and online format - search “Three Tiers of Mind.”
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Tiers-Mind-pftq/dp/B08L3Q6CZ4/
Online (free): https://www.pftq.com/blabberbox/?page=Three_Tiers_of_Mind