That is, while it's true that each year your wealth grows by 7%, it's also empirically true that if you believe in a cause today, you're likely to believe in it about 10% less tomorrow.

the moment when people have the strongest incentive to make you give up opposing them is exactly the moment when you have the most leverage

And so even though the game everyone is claiming to play is choosing ideas based on what brings value in the long term, the game they're actually playing is choosing ideas based on what wins in an often dysfunctional and highly adversarial social environment .