Truth vs. Utility: The Hidden Logic of Viral Ideas

Let’s start with a simple question: Why do some ideas speedrun our collective consciousness while others, despite being true, barely make it past their origin point? The answer, in my opinion, lies in understanding a fundamental distinction: truth value versus utility value.

The Mechanics of Spread

Before diving into examples, we need to establish what makes an idea “useful.” An idea’s utility can be measured by its ability to:

1. Solve immediate problems
2. Reduce cognitive load
3. Facilitate social coordination
4. Generate predictive power
5. Create actionable frameworks

None of these require truth. In fact, sometimes truth gets in the way.

False But Useful

Consider the widespread belief that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” This meme originated from marketing campaigns in the early 20th century. It’s not strictly true – the importance of breakfast varies significantly between individuals and circumstances. Yet this “false” idea serves several useful functions:

• It creates a simple decision framework for morning routines
• It encourages regular eating patterns that work for many people
• It facilitates social coordination around morning meetings and family time
• It reduces decision fatigue about when to start eating

The idea persists not because it’s true, but because it’s useful for social coordination and personal planning. Its utility value outweighs its truth value.

Another example: “Money can’t buy happiness.” This oversimplified meme ignores extensive research showing that money does increase happiness up to a certain (relatively high) threshold. However, it serves as an individually useful (cope, prob not beneficial in terms of GDP but is beneficial in terms of individual well-being) cognitive framework for:

• Managing expectations about wealth
• Encouraging focus on non-material sources of satisfaction
• Providing emotional resilience during financial hardship
• Creating social cohesion across economic classes

True But Useless

Now for the inverse: ideas that are true but provide little utility. Consider these examples:

“The observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter.” Absolutely true, thoroughly verified, and almost entirely useless for daily human existence. This information rarely solves problems or improves decision-making for most people.

“Most human cells are not human cells, but microorganisms.” This fascinating fact about our microbiome is true but doesn’t provide immediate utility for most people’s decision-making or problem-solving processes.

The Utility Premium

What’s particularly interesting is how utility often commands a premium over truth in the marketplace of ideas. Ideas that solve immediate problems or reduce cognitive load tend to spread faster than those that are merely true. This isn’t a flaw in human cognition – it’s an optimization for survival and social coordination.

Consider these mechanisms:

1. Speed of Implementation

   • Useful ideas can be acted upon immediately
   • True ideas often require extensive context to implement

2. Feedback Loops

   • Useful ideas generate immediate feedback
   • True ideas might take generations to verify

3. Social Reinforcement

   • Useful ideas create visible results that others can copy
   • True ideas might remain abstract or unverifiable in daily life

Breaking New Ground

Some questions emerge from examining the relationship between truth and utility:

• What problems does this idea solve?
• How much cognitive effort does it save?
• What social coordination emerges from it?
• What can it predict?
• What actions does it enable?

The answers often reveal why false ideas persist and true ones languish.

Potential Applications

This framework opens up several possibilities:

• Connecting truth with demonstrated utility in education
• Highlighting practical benefits when communicating complex ideas
• Using simplified models when they outperform complete but unwieldy truths
• Evaluating both truth and utility in decision-making

A Different Lens

The gap between truth and utility shapes which ideas spread and which fade. Understanding this mechanism gives us a sharper tool for analyzing information dynamics – and perhaps for bridging that gap when it matters most.