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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Sep. 21 - Sep. 27, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 21 September 2015 07:19AM

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Comment author: G0W51 23 September 2015 04:23:19AM 2 points [-]

Where can one find information on the underlying causes of phenomena? I have noticed that most educational resources discuss superficial occurrences and trends but not their underlying causes. For example, this Wikipedia article discusses the happenings in the Somali Civil War but hardly discusses the underlying motivations of each side and why the war turned out how it did. Of course, such discussions are often opinionated and have no clear-cut answers, perhaps making Wikipedia a sub-optimal place for them.

I know LW might not be the best place to ask this, but my intuition suggests that LWers may care more about this deeper-level understanding, so may be able to suggest resources.

Comment author: Lumifer 23 September 2015 08:43:02PM 3 points [-]

In social sciences the "causes" depend on your preferred analysis framework and are often highly contentious.

For a "deeper-level understanding" I'd recommend reading many viewpoints which disagree with each other.