Nov 218 min read

How to Tackle Binary Bias

Messi or Ronaldo? Coke or Pepsi? Republican or Democrat? Whether it’s politics, fan allegiances or opinions on Marmite, we love to frame our choices as black and white.

This “binary bias” can be a useful way to simplify complex decisions and spur us into action. But it can also harm our decision-making more than we realise and lead to unhelpful divides.

Here’s my quick explainer on the subject:

The appeal of binary

From Shakespeare and The Beatles, to JFK and The Clash, we've long been captivated by the simplicity of binary opposites.

Ancient philosophers like Plato fixated on two-way distinctions, such as the soul versus the body or objects versus ideas. Religions frame the world as a battle between good and evil. And many of our favourite modern stories follow suit.

Why? Because reducing things to two clear choices – for or against, stop or go – makes life a lot easier.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed this clarity to survive. Today, the stakes aren’t always as high, but we have a whole lot of modern challenges to deal with. It’s estimated that each of us makes 35,000 decisions every day. Imagine how stressful life would be if we were weighing up multiple options for every single one of them.*

It’s no wonder we often crave a simple ”yes” or ”no”…

Have computers changed the way we think?

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who can read binary, and those who can’t…"

Binary code is the fundamental language of computers. The series of 1s and 0s that instruct transistors on a microchip to switch on or off have transformed our lives in more ways than we could have imagined (see my June 2023 newsletter for the fascinating story of how microchips changed the world).

Could the binary code that powers our technology also be seeping into the way we think?

A cartoon image of a digital device with arms and legs pulling a dance move. On the screen are multiple 1s and 0s representing binary code.

Take a quick glance at your social media feed and you’ll see what I mean. We seem to increasingly be dividing into polarised camps, aligning with binary tribes on countless issues. Was the latest Star Wars a masterpiece or a disaster? Is cryptocurrency the future of finance or an elaborate scam? Is climate change an apocalyptic threat or a government-funded hoax?

Booker Prize-nominated novelist Mohsin Hamid sees a connection:

The machine world is a binary world, and it strikes me that we have learned to apply those zeroes and ones to our thinking, intensifying our impulse to sort one another into like-me and not-like-me at what might well be, historically speaking, the worst possible moment…

It’s an intriguing idea, but it may be a stretch to draw a direct link between the 1s and 0s driving our technology and our proclivity for online shouting matches. The more likely culprit is how social media algorithms profit from our attention, amplifying divisive content to keep us engaged.

Computers and technology might be influencing the way we think and even exacerbating polarisation, but this stems from how we use them, not from how they operate.

Polarisation: Good or bad?

So, is binary bias always bad?

There’s another spin on the joke at the top of the last section, which goes something like this: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.”

The serious point is this: we won’t overcome the pitfalls of binary bias by adopting a binary position on it.

In that spirit, let’s consider one of the consequences of our binary impulses – polarisation.

It’s often said that we are becoming more polarised and that this is a bad thing.** But what if the reality is actually a bit less straightforward?

A cartoon image featuring three newspapers headlines. One says "Politics" with two vote badges beneath, another writes about the pros and cons of AI, and the third one says "Path to Net Zero".

Some academics believe that polarisation is a crucial driver of social progress – from the civil rights movement and women’s suffrage protests to today’s campaigns for climate justice and racial equality. A 2023 study published by scholars at the University of North Carolina argued that: “polarisation can only be seen as a central threat to democracy if inequality is ignored [...] Groups struggling for equality, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, often cause polarisation because they threaten the extant power and status of dominant groups.”

Philosophy Professor Rupert Read, a former strategist and spokesperson for the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion, argues that high-profile and polarising acts of civil disobedience – such as blocking roads, occupying landmarks, and people glueing themselves to trains – were crucial in getting the climate crisis taken more seriously.

According to Read, these tactics were ultimately successful. In 2019, UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove met with Extinction Rebellion representatives, and later that year, the UK Parliament became the first in the world to declare an environment and climate emergency – one of the group’s central demands.

However, there comes a point when binary thinking and polarising stunts reach their limit. Read believes that the time has now come for the climate movement to leave the divisive tactics behind:

In times when the weather is our greatest recruiter, and when evermore people are looking for ways to come on board, what’s needed is the opposite of seeking to be more ‘radical’ than thou. What’s needed is mainstreaming of climate action (without losing any focus on the difficult, terrible truth of our climate predicament). What’s needed is depolarisation (whereas civil resistance inevitably polarises). What’s needed is to be genuinely welcoming to the majority, who are sidling towards coming on board, but who will be easily put off if they’re made to feel insufficiently righteous or ‘radical’.

So perhaps polarisation isn't entirely negative – so long as we recognise when it's time to move beyond it.

Sticking to your guns

Fred Guttenberg is one of the most outspoken campaigners against gun violence in the US. His activism started in 2018 when his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in a school shooting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His response was unequivocal: “I’m going to break the effing gun lobby and everybody associated with it.”

On the other side of the debate was Joe Walsh – a controversy-stoking Republican politician and talk show host. Here’s how he’d describe his stance on guns: “I was the [...] big gun guy. I was Charlton Heston: ‘You’ll get this gun from my cold dead hands.’”

A cartoon image of the U.S. flag flanked by two groups of people shouting insults at one another.

The issue of gun control has long been one of the most contentious in the US. If you were to stage a debate between the most extreme opposing views on the subject, Guttenberg and Walsh would have been the kind of people you’d invite. And broadcasters frequently did. The pair would move from one TV studio to the next, hurling insults, and then take the battle online, where their exchanges grew even more vitriolic.

It’s a classic case of binary bias: the gun-loving cowboy versus the gun-hating snowflake. This is how the gun control debate often plays out in the U.S. The result? Years of political deadlock.

Then something unexpected happened. The pair moved from online slanging matches and divisive posturing to becoming close friends. They began collaborating on gun safety initiatives and embarked on a tour of schools and universities, advocating for the need to address polarisation and find common ground.

So, what changed?

Speaking together on Alan Alda’s excellent Clear+Vivid podcast, Walsh shares a revealing insight: “It wasn’t until we started to talk privately that I realised Fred doesn’t want to take away my guns.” Guttenberg adds: “There’s a lot of things this gun owner and this gun safety guy agree upon that can save lives.”

By getting to know each other better and listening in good faith, the pair were able to reach a consensus and break free from the simplistic binary positions that so often dominate the gun debate.

Walsh, the self-described “Charlton Heston guy,” ended up signing an open letter supporting Guttenberg’s gun safety proposals.

The solution? Well, it’s complicated…

Listening to the other side of the argument and trying to understand why someone you disagree with feels that way entails something which binary bias doesn’t allow for: embracing complexity.

So, here’s one possible solution to the dangers of binary bias: whenever we notice an issue being framed in either/or terms, we can make it a habit to think: "It’s probably a bit more complicated than that."

This means rejecting simplicity in favour of complexity and stepping outside of comforting tribal allegiances to think for ourselves.

While this requires some conscious effort, the good news is that bucking the binary trap may not be as tricky as you’d think.

In his book Think Again, Adam Grant points out that while our brains like to simplify, this doesn’t mean that more nuanced positions turn people off. In fact, we’re more inclined to find those who acknowledge uncertainty and complexity around a topic more persuasive:

New research suggests that when journalists acknowledge the uncertainties around facts on complex issues like climate change and immigration, it doesn’t undermine their readers’ trust. And multiple experiments have shown that when experts express doubt, they become more persuasive. When someone knowledgeable admits uncertainty, it surprises people, and they end up paying more attention to the substance of the argument.

Binary thinking can be a helpful shortcut sometimes, but people crave nuance and complexity too. Need convincing? The Rest is Politics has become one of the UK’s most popular podcasts by positioning itself as an antidote to polarisation and a forum for “disagreeing agreeably”. Last month it sold out London’s O2 arena.

The first step in tackling binary bias is to recognise that it exists. If we can identify unhelpful binaries in the world around us, and remember that any issue framed in binary terms probably doesn’t represent the whole story, we’ll be taking a step in the right direction.

So, complexity is good and simplicity is bad? Well, it’s probably a bit more complicated than that…