Spaces In-Between

Practical reflections on avoiding binary thinking traps

Maria Gruza, Between, 2024, oil on canvas

This Substack has had a practical angle from the start. Something worthwhile for readers, or what Tolkien called “applicability”. Considerations or thoughts that fit a lot of individual contexts. One of the recurring themes is navigating the House of Lies. The mainly fake reality that has become mainstream official life in “the modern West”.¹ An old Band series broke down that historical conga line of inversions and magical thinking. For newer readers, it’s where my assumptions about self-reliance and antifragility come from. But that doesn’t show how to see through it. Specifically, for those who do learn from information. Like avoiding the binary thinking trap.

Peter Kogler, psychedelic room installation

To be fair, the House of Lies narrative was a powerful snare. In no small part because it’s so comprehensively integrated. All the elements and pillars support each other. Any of us who grew up in it know it’s so effective when the deceptions are subtler. But it becomes transparent when it goes too wide of reality. Take covid. Every component of mainstream society lockstep pushing the same toxic agenda against any empirical and logical truth. Entire cultural foundations like “scientific inquiry” or “self-expression” were jettisoned and replaced with moronic authoritarian dogma. The only truths revealed being how many wicked sociopaths are in society and overall level of mass idiocy. I doubt the FTS phenomenon would have been as visible without it.

For recent example, take yeeting beast hacks from advisory boards while beast media complain about betrayal of beast science. The hacks, media, and science are all either willful liars or ignorant/stupid enough to moot the distinction. But the mutual support enhances the illusion of realism. It crumbles when you understand basic truths don’t stop being true. Things like [aggregating liars and retards] != [a reliable evidentiary path]. But for NPCs incapable of mental processes like “considering”, the mutual integration is superficially similar to preponderance of evidence.

Then throw in that we were immersively conditioned from childhood to believe the narrative is what reality is like. Consider all the just-so stories of science, history, governance, human nature, etc. in the post-WW2 Progress! mirage that have turned out fake. Too much layered deception, just taken for granted, to wade through here. Webs of lies, not the welfare state, is the real cradle to grave. A powerful snare.

But obviously not inescapable. It’s true that FTS-2 can’t process information in ways that let them adapt to real events. No path to an alternative. But a considerable minority aren’t NPC. I’m proof that FTS-1 can find a moral, truthful, individual path with sufficient agency. And I know others. It just takes effort. And DeepSeek did recently tell me my protective habits of mind can be shared. Seems worth trying.

Here’s a simple maxim.

If the House of Lies hides in tangles of integrated nonsense, do opposite.

Focus on one core problem and the applicable processes for dealing with it. Binary thinking is something the Band has been understandably harsh on in the past. The tendency to assume everything fits into one of two possibilities even sounds crazy when spelled out like that. Entire fields of probability get ignored. For the kind of results you’d expect from only considering two of countless options. The problem with the Band’s harshness is that blasting something doesn’t help those who don’t perceive they’re falling for it.

It’s best to begin any practical approach by being able to clearly define your topic or idea to yourself before sharing it. Ideas are flashes, but serious presentation is called “articulation” for a reason. Putting together all the parts into a coherent structure or system. Like a healthy skeleton or a solid building. Sometimes holes or gaps don’t show until you’re stringing it together. Making it all clear first dodges that bullet. Just take a moment and think it through.

Kind of ties in with the not babbling post.

After Party

So why is binary thinking so common? The short answer it that it’s easy. One thing paying attention to the House of Lies has taught me is that NPCs avoid effort. Compulsively. Obviously NANPCALT, but in general. I always sort of assumed Wrath or Lust were the most powerful motivators of the Seven. Projecting maybe, or conditioned by Pedowood. But The Band observed that, by the fruits, it’s Sloth that’s the #1 driver to socio-cultural ruin. Just observe. NPCs fantasize about doing nothing. It’s why we’re already seeing the [outsourcing agency to AI] → [cognitive decline] dance. Despite AI saying not to do that.² The road to pods and cricket paste would almost certainly be voluntary.

There’s more to it than ease though. Binary thinking seems natural because it really is in important ways. Many fundamentals of our very existence are binaries. Any basic moral orientation has to establish a Good, that by extension creates an evil. Our own physical nature is defined by bilateral symmetry. To the point where “good facial symmetry” registers neurologically. Binary code is the foundation of digital reality. We reproduce sexually. Rudimentary logic with its = or !=. Either/or. Mind/body, with spirit bringing the divine triadic element. Often, real world choices boil down to a central dilemma. The problem is what to do when they don’t.

Lilly van der Stocker, Good Bad In Between, 1992, acrylic on linen

Why binary thinking is a problem is easy. It misrepresents reality and blinds you to options. As easy as associating the answer to any affirmative / negative type question with a moral absolute. Taken literally, refusal is “evil”. Do as thou wilt and so forth. The usual House of Lies satanic inversion.

Here’s a common binary error to watch out for. Assuming that because something is shown to be false, the revealer’s story is true. This one is everywhere. It appears to be a reflex response to restore the comforting binary structure after the old assumptions were upended. Different content, but same form.

All revealing a lie does is … reveal a lie.

That’s it. Every other possibility - including possibilities beyond comprehension - is possible. Back in play if the accepted story has collapsed. Think in courtroom terms - exonerating a suspect != identifying the perpetrator.

There’s a more insidious part to binary thinking than assuming only two choices. A compulsion to settle on one of the choices when the evidence isn’t there to choose.

Vladimír Véla, Between Worlds VII (cropped), 2020, acrylic on canvas

It does appear many find it hard to operate in a state of uncertainty. That’s the House of Lies talking though. Human existence is a state of uncertainty. Finite and limited beings in a much vaster and older reality. Every thought or encounter filtered through language and other symbols. We used to be mindful of the effort and forced commitment that was needed to maintain civilization. It’s in another meaning of “order” - having to do something. The tragic irony of humanity is the opposition between mass short term desire and long term health.

Dorota Broda Maciejewska, In Between, 2023, acrylic, chalk on canvas

The beast jacks binary tendencies. Shepherding people into false pairings. It’s more than that though. Sometimes the outcome isn’t knowable. Whether one or many paths. We can call this the either/or problem. Which, when looked closely at, does offer two options. It taps into the same will to comfort.

1. [Pick one and veg] means sweet, sweet screen is coming soon.

2. [Suspend final judgment and follow the path of optimal flexibility] offers two horrors. Being forced to maintain medium/long-term mental engagement. And consider multiple factors … at the same time.

But readers are aware it’s not actually that hard once started. Just leave unknowable potentials open. There’s no prize for dying on internet hills. My belief that “Trump” doesn’t call the shots has been on record here for a while. That gives me precisely no insight into who the Scriptwriters are. It’s why I don’t argue or speculate about it. I have no idea. The whole idea of The Script is purely inductive necessity from public information. I can’t even refute the [layers of an onion-Matrix-simulation] problem with absolute certainty. But presuming we aren’t in a total collective mass VR, Trump the 1.0 insurgent genius out. Regardless of whether it was real or not then. Because true or fake, it’s not here now. To say nothing of what looks to the untrained eye to be a small barrel-shaped LARPer in recent photos. Maybe I’m off. Falling for my own pareidolia. Watch and see.

But keep options flexible. Do things that are useful precursors to as many scenarios as you can brainstorm. Like how a bug-out oasis, localized self-reliance, an eco business, and a sweet retirement spot spring from the same prep. Totally different futures - some obviously more probable than others. But no doors closing even remotely prematurely

Consider big picture because every option from most optimistic to most dystopian involves more personal responsibility. Pods and cricket paste, should it come to that, will be freely chosen. Organic life will be the opposite. Ironically, it starts with mastering AI. Longterm readers know to take it seriously when I see a macro-pattern. The paste and pod outcome isn’t certain. But it does end a few possibilities. And in all of them, NPCs make a string of dehumanizing choices to finally opt in for that. Personal responsibility is the counter, but it’s on you. Appropriately enough. I’m always advocating fitness and reading. Here’s something more current. Master AI. What it is. What it isn’t. How it extends your agency. Then keep up. Please.

Even if I can’t tell you exactly why.

Yet.

Amber Brunsden, Beyond The Darkness, 2025, oil on canvas

1. A web of institutions, assumptions, policies, media, etc. that control and shape information into a false narrative. One that has drifted far enough from reality to fully invert it. This has been brewing since at least the Enlightenment but has become more urgent in this late Clown World stage. Financialization, centralization, and globalization have made society more dependent on the system. While convergence has brought the system to the verge of collapse. There are paths to antifragility and avoidance of the worst consequences. But they start with seeing through the House of Lies.

2. Once it became obvious that maintaining mental fitness would take conscious effort like physical fitness, the NPCs were doomed.