Insincerity is the inability to put reality first. It manifests whenever we prioritize our existing beliefs, social status, or emotional comfort over what reality is showing us. When faced with new information or challenges to our worldview, our default response is to protect our existing patterns. We generate sophisticated justifications, redirect attention, or simply ignore what doesn't fit. This happens automatically, before conscious awareness even begins. The depth of this insincerity is staggering. It infects nearly every human interaction. Watch any debate or discussion - you'll see people trading clever defenses of pre-existing views rather than actually engaging with reality. Even in scientific and academic contexts, where objectivity is supposedly paramount, researchers often unconsciously shape their work to protect favored theories. **Social reinforcement** makes this worse. We're rewarded for maintaining consistent views and punished for changing our minds. The more intelligent someone is, the more sophisticated their ability to generate plausible-sounding defenses of their positions. The rare moments of sincerity come when reality forces itself upon us so strongly that our defensive patterns temporarily break down. But even then, we quickly begin reconstructing those patterns, finding ways to incorporate the new information while preserving as much of our existing framework as possible. This is why most attempts at "rational discourse" are fundamentally insincere. They assume people are consciously choosing their beliefs based on evidence and argument. But we're actually running on unconscious pattern-matching, with conscious reasoning serving mainly as post-hoc justification. The path forward isn't trying to eliminate this tendency - that's impossible given how our minds work. Instead, we must become aware of it. By seeing how automatically we generate defenses against reality, we can start creating space between stimulus and reaction. This space is where sincere engagement becomes possible. 2024-11-28: [[Insincerity 0.1 (Preview)]] (P)