I remember Dana White gave this talk at some top business school (stanford, I think) mocking boxing for occasionally paying it’s fighters tens of millions of dollars. His argument was that fighters were more motivated to put on a show if they were paid less, and given incentives.

there’s a battle to decide which single narrative that explains the outcome will win out over the others. This is an act of pruning that serves the general human inability to hold two even slightly contradictory thoughts in mind simultaneously.