Harari on complex causation

In this interview he notes that simple explanations of causation are more conducive to conspiracy theories. They use the metaphor of a 'chain of events,' where every event is linked to the previous and subsequent one. Whereas a better metaphor for complex causation is a tree's system of roots, with several causes that create any event with multiple results. 

Hence the simple explanation with just one cause for everything is not only conducive to conspiracy theories but some theories of everything that have the same dynamic. E.g. the model of hierarchical complexity uses the simple, fractal algorithm to explain all of its levels in a 'chain of events.' But recall this Facebook thread where actual, natural (as opposed to abstract) complexity is much more like Harari's tree metaphor, with all sorts of cross-cutting causes and results. E.g.:

"These overlapping, non-nested groups cannot be unified into a single cohesive hierarchy" (34).

 

"Only if nature were limited to the very simplest assortment of objects and properties would science correspondingly be restricted to just one hierarchical arrangement of its natural kinds" (40).

 

"But this [hierarchic] view [...] treats an epistemic ideal—simplicity—as the criterion for what is categorically real" (41).