Dave: [00:00:00] There are some people who will do things that make them
lose and other people lose because they're too dumb to do otherwise. [00:00:05] We think we're smarter than we are. We think we're more correct than we are. We think we are [00:00:10] nobler than we are. All of us. And so, if you empower a human with all the flaws [00:00:15] that come with being human, things are bound to go wrong because they
Host: are not omniscient.
Steven [00:00:20] Pinker is one of the world's most celebrated A Harvard professor of psychology, [00:00:25] a two time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and named by Time magazine as one of the [00:00:30] 100 most influential people in the world. His groundbreaking work on [00:00:35] language, human nature, and the power of reason has transformed how we understand the modern mind.
As the [00:00:40] Harvard professor, psychology professor, whose news bestseller is Enlightenment, now the case for reason, [00:00:45] science, humanism, and progress. Steven Pinker! A
Dave: lot of things that seem utterly baffling, [00:00:50] puzzling, irrational, I think fall into place when you understand the role of common knowledge in [00:00:55] facilitating human coordination.
What is
the one cognitive trap that even [00:01:00] the smartest people still fall for? You're listening to The [00:01:05] Human Upgrade with
Host: Dave Asprey.[00:01:10]
Dave: Hey guys, quick reminder. If you're listening to this on your favorite [00:01:15] audio podcast app, and you haven't been over to my YouTube channel, check it out. Just search for [00:01:20] the human upgrade or find me under Dave Asprey BPR. I post full video versions of [00:01:25] every episode and a bunch of other cool content outside the pod.
It's a great way to go deeper into the [00:01:30] content and connect with other biohackers like you. So leave a comment for me. Yeah, I'm actually going to read them. [00:01:35] And poke around while you're there. There is a lot of stuff specifically for you. It really helps, and [00:01:40] it means a lot to me. Steven, you're one of [00:01:45] the rare people who's been awarded the Time Award.[00:01:50]
You're one of the most influential people in the world. How do you describe yourself [00:01:55] today, given all the things you've done?
I still think of myself as a cognitive [00:02:00] psychologist. I'm a professor and a scientist who's interested in how the human mind [00:02:05] works. And all of my other interests in language, in violence, in progress, are [00:02:10] really downstream of my interest in what makes us tick.
When I was graduating from my [00:02:15] undergrad with a degree in computer information systems with a concentration in [00:02:20] AI many years ago, I learned that my school had a [00:02:25] cognitive science department and I was so mad that I'd never heard of cognitive science because I would have [00:02:30] studied that instead, but I was just graduating.
So I kind of missed out on that. How did you get into cognitive [00:02:35] science? Like why this of all the things in the world that you could have studied? Where's the [00:02:40] fascination come from?
Well, I, I think starting from when I was a, a, uh, a [00:02:45] teenager and a, a, a freshman, I was, I was interested in human nature [00:02:50] in, in part because I, I, I was a little too young to be at the [00:02:55] forefront of the all of the student protest movements and all of the, [00:03:00] all that sixties stuff.
I am a baby boom boomer. I was bored at, at the peak [00:03:05] year. There's a lot of ideas in the air of rethinking society [00:03:10] from the ground up. Should we be, uh, should we have anarchism? Should we have communism? [00:03:15] Should we have, you know, Ayn Randian, uh, anarcho capitalism? And [00:03:20] people, including my friends and older brothers and sisters, my friends were talking about these ideas, which a lot of [00:03:25] which hinged on what kind of animal are we?
Are we inherently [00:03:30] generous? Are we inherently selfish? Are we violent? Are we peaceful? Are some of these traits, [00:03:35] just artifacts of the society we grew up in, or did we evolve to have them? So this, [00:03:40] these were the kind of ideas that were in the air. And early in college, I took, Courses in a number of [00:03:45] different fields that we're interested in human nature, including [00:03:50] humanities, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology for me, hit the sweet spot [00:03:55] of being about.
Big, deep, interesting questions, but with [00:04:00] some promise of actually answering them through experimental studies of humans [00:04:05] in the lab or, or other animals. And at the time I also caught wind of a new movement within [00:04:10] psychology, cognitive psychology, which was trying to look at actual [00:04:15] mental processes involved in perception and language and memory and, and, uh, [00:04:20] reasoning, which in, and I thought, wow, this is a, an exciting new field.
[00:04:25] It'd be, it's always. Thrilling to be part of an expanding new field. It's also [00:04:30] good. In an, in an. Era in which there's already a contraction in [00:04:35] academia and all the fears about unemployed PhDs were circulating to choose a field that [00:04:40] seems to be expanding, seems like a good career, career move, even at that age and then [00:04:45] cognitive psychology itself, even from the beginning, but Involved different [00:04:50] disciplines it, it involved linguistics, including the ideas of Noam [00:04:55] Chomsky which I had read about from the, uh, profile in the New York Times magazine when I was a [00:05:00] student artificial intelligence, such as it was in the, uh, in the seventies, [00:05:05] philosophy of mind, some neuroscience, which was big at McGill University [00:05:10] where I was in, in Montreal, where I was a student.
And then it was. that this Nexus [00:05:15] was christened cognitive science and that was, it took the excitement to another level because it [00:05:20] wasn't just the field of psychology. So I did get my PhD in psychology, [00:05:25] experimental psychology, but I did a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT at the, a new, [00:05:30] uh, A unit called the Center for Cognitive Science, which had people from AI and linguistics and [00:05:35] philosophy and, and psychology.
I later became the, the co director of that center. But anyway, [00:05:40] that's how I got into it. And then, uh, kind of in, in almost full circle later in my [00:05:45] career, once I had published many, Papers and books on language and how we [00:05:50] process words and visual imagery and spatial attention and, uh, [00:05:55] shape recognition.
Then I started to turn, come back to these big, deep [00:06:00] foundational questions, uh, when I started to look at the history of violence and later the history of [00:06:05] progress.
You definitely described what you've done, but there's an inner yearning when [00:06:10] you're a young man. So this is what I want to do. Yeah. I don't think you told me where [00:06:15] that came from.
Oh, when I was a teenager, I, I put myself [00:06:20] in college. I did kind of put myself across with tutoring high school students in math. [00:06:25] Okay. And I liked, I've, I thought that I I enjoy teaching. I thought I [00:06:30] was, uh, I was okay at it. I was making a living from it. But I also [00:06:35] just liked my, my. Parents subscribe to a lot of magazines [00:06:40] and there sort a lot of ideas kind of flow through the house.
I, and one day I said to my mother, you know, I read about this thing called a [00:06:45] think tank. Did I, I said, actually a job where they pay you to think . [00:06:50] Uh,
okay, now I'm getting that, that, that'd be awesome.
And she said, you know, what you really want to do is go into a [00:06:55] uni, a university, you wanna be a professor because, uh, both, I mean, if there's a sense in which they [00:07:00] do pay you to think as long as you write about it, as long, as long as you publish.
But combined with [00:07:05] the, with, with the teaching. And so it It became clear to me maybe when I was a [00:07:10] sophomore that or the equivalent of a sophomore, we don't call it that in Canada that becoming an [00:07:15] academic was the
obvious career path for me. Why do you think an unusual number of interesting [00:07:20] thinkers come out of Canada?
The
most famous, uh, uh, child of the [00:07:25] community that, that I grew up in was, uh, not a thinker, but, uh, a poet and a [00:07:30] musician, Leonard Cohen, who, uh, who not my generation, my brother knew him. They were [00:07:35] actually classmates. Oh, wow. I, I think, you know, Canada did have a [00:07:40] combination of It ties to the mother country, the [00:07:45] UK, uh, ties to France proximity and huge influence of the United States.
So it [00:07:50] was a place where people from different backgrounds
came, came together. If you had your [00:07:55] say today. Should the U. S. be another Canadian state or Canada [00:08:00] should be another American state? I don't think either
would be terribly happy with the other. [00:08:05]
I have a passport in both countries, so I'm allowed to ask that.
Yes.
You know, as you, as [00:08:10] you know, if you, you know, if you know anything about Canada. You know, I've lived
there for 13 years. I have a passport in Canada. So, yeah, [00:08:15] I do. Oh, very good. Okay. I
mean, the idea of Canada. Joining the United States is [00:08:20] somewhere between outrageous and hilarious. They're very different.
Canadians do not [00:08:25] want that .
No, no. And one thing you
learn in, in Canada is some degree, [00:08:30] some, you know, some mixture of envy and resentment is, is what it means to be [00:08:35] Canada. And actually when I, I spent some time in New Zealand and it's interesting 'cause that was [00:08:40] the same attitude they had to Australia.
It's bigger,
more so New Zealand is the Canada of [00:08:45] Australia is what you're saying.
Yes, New Zealand is to Australia as Canada's, you know, it [00:08:50] states, this is an analogy question on the, uh, on the, the SAT, it
could be. [00:08:55] I, I love that. My kids are graduating from a Canadian school high [00:09:00] school very soon.
Actually, my daughter just graduated. Is it even worth going to college anymore?
[00:09:05] Yeah,
You know, yes, I mean, it is. I'm, I'm saying not just because it's, you know, [00:09:10] my, my, my, uh, employer does that, but the whole business model pays my [00:09:15] salary. Is that, I like to think it's not just that it's not actually my salary comes from an endowed chair, so it [00:09:20] doesn't come from a tuition stream.
So maybe I can speak independently. So, yeah, I mean, part of it is [00:09:25] you're in a peer group of other smart kids who are also must have some intellectual [00:09:30] curiosity to, to be there. You do acquire skills by just sheer [00:09:35] practice, whether or not you get explicit pedagogy, you are writing papers, assuming if you're [00:09:40] not having, not having checked GPT write them for you.
You are engaged in, in, uh, [00:09:45] discussions in, uh, in on intellectual topics. And [00:09:50] I mean, cynically you get a piece of paper that certifies that you have, you Meet [00:09:55] some minimal threshold of intelligence and, and self discipline. I think that would be the [00:10:00] most cynical view, as I put it, Harvard as a third of a million dollar IQ and marshmallow [00:10:05] test.
Uh, the marshmallow reference for listeners is [00:10:10] the test of whether little kids are gonna take the marshmallow when you tell 'em to wait. Right?
Are they [00:10:15] gonna take, uh, one marshmallow now or two marshmallows if they can avoid the [00:10:20] marshmallow and wait 15 minutes? Right. But the, um, also, so I actually have, [00:10:25] have raised this question among my colleagues that why you know, I have students who [00:10:30] didn't go into any kind of business or consulting related coursework at Harvard.
They [00:10:35] were, you know, psychology majors or linguistics or even philosophy. They get snapped up. by the [00:10:40] big tech and consulting firms and investment firms and asked, and this is not [00:10:45] my world, but I asked one of my colleagues in the business school, why does, uh, these [00:10:50] students know diddly squad about, about business?
Why do they get marched right into Goldman Sachs, [00:10:55] into, uh, McKinsey? And he said, um, you'd be surprised a lot of people in [00:11:00] business just don't, you know, aren't used to thinking in terms of [00:11:05] systematic evaluation of cause and effect. They fall back on [00:11:10] anecdotes. They confuse correlation with causation. They don't have the [00:11:15] idea that you need, you know, a large data set to get a representative sample.
So all these kind of really [00:11:20] elementary things. immediately learn in any social science course turn out [00:11:25] to be pretty valuable. And they turned out that even these distinguish, [00:11:30] including a college graduate in social sciences or any intellectually demanding field, just this ability to [00:11:35] think systematically about problems, break them into parts, express [00:11:40] yourself clearly, both orally and in writing.
So yeah, together with the [00:11:45] fact that you know, universities, you can learn just incredible amounts of stuff that you'll never have the same [00:11:50] opportunity to learn. Again, I wish sometimes I looking at the course catalog, I wish I was 18 [00:11:55] again, so I could take a course in, you know, geology or folk folk [00:12:00] tales or languages, uh, deep history.
It's just, [00:12:05] uh, game theory, just a spectacular. Spectacular Disneyland of [00:12:10] ideas. At any lar large research university,
you've managed to maintain [00:12:15] your curiosity. Just that answer was perfect. Uh, but to, to demonstrate that, [00:12:20] how do you maintain curiosity over the decades? 'cause so many people lose it.
So, you know, I don't know how much of [00:12:25] it is just, you know, red temperament that's just, you know, the kind of person I am.
I do like [00:12:30] to I, I do get, uh, this, this is is particular to, to me, but I tend [00:12:35] to write. Big syntheses, big books that are kind of [00:12:40] theories of everything. So the language instinct was kind of my take on [00:12:45] every aspect of language. How the mind works is kind of hard to get bigger [00:12:50] than that. And prior to that, I did a pretty comprehensive [00:12:55] reviews of language acquisition in children of visual imagery.
And I kind of [00:13:00] feel it'd be an exaggeration to say, okay, I did it. I'm done with it. You know, now I want to. [00:13:05] Do something a little different. I think that, that would be something of an exaggeration, but I do kind of [00:13:10] feel that once I have put my stamp on something, tied everything together in [00:13:15] as coherent and satisfying a package as possible.
It's a [00:13:20] time to expose myself to, to, to something else. Not only just to keep myself [00:13:25] unused, but I feel in terms of what contribution I can make. You know, I have [00:13:30] a, like any human being, I have a, You Particular way of thinking about things. And, you know, once I've done it, [00:13:35] it probably needs the input of other people, including younger people that, you know, I've, [00:13:40] this is what I think.
And I'm probably not going to have huge, hugely different new ideas [00:13:45] about that in the near future. So I've said my piece time for, for, for younger [00:13:50] people to have their go at it. And then I, I, I, I, my personally, I just [00:13:55] love immersing myself in some field that I. Did not know, [00:14:00] did not particularly know that I wasn't an expert on, and just, you know, kind of devouring [00:14:05] something new.
Um, and I've done that a number of times in my career with evolutionary [00:14:10] biology, with historical linguistics, where did English come from? With [00:14:15] international relations and the history of, of, of, uh, violence. With global [00:14:20] development, how countries rise out of poverty. I just find it. [00:14:25] Great fun and, uh, and addictive to come across some new [00:14:30] field, especially if there are new ideas, like really interesting things that [00:14:35] I had did not know, especially if I think other people don't know [00:14:40] about them.
And when I discovered there's a literature where these ideas are explored. [00:14:45] That kind of gives me an idea. Well, there, there's, there's a book in that because I [00:14:50] find it exciting. All the people that I talk to don't know about it. So there's my niche.
I've [00:14:55] written nine books, about half New York Times bestsellers, and my, my bar is always, [00:15:00] I want to write something that hasn't been written before because otherwise I would just recommend the book, [00:15:05] right?
It's hard to find those things though.
I think it was Isaac Beshevar Singer who, [00:15:10] who said I write books that only I can write. Oh, what a great [00:15:15] quote. Words, words to that effect. Yes.[00:15:20]
Given all that you know about the inner workings of the [00:15:25] mind and the brain. If you could design or select a system of [00:15:30] government that's most compatible with humans, what would it be?
You know, I mean, [00:15:35] democracy is a pretty good start especially liberal democracy. If it's just, you know, [00:15:40] competitive autocracy, that is, you have an election to, to elect a dictator [00:15:45] you know, I think that doesn't work too well.
And the reason being that dictators are human. I mean, leaders are humans. [00:15:50] And I think it's not a coincidence that the framers of the American constitution [00:15:55] were in a sense, students of human nature. I think it was shame John Adams who said, what is [00:16:00] government, but the biggest of all reflections on human nature and.
And one of [00:16:05] my favorite quotes is from another of the, uh, the founders, James Madison, who said, if, [00:16:10] if, uh, men were angels, no government would be necessary. If [00:16:15] angels were to govern men, no constraints on government would be necessary. So we [00:16:20] need, and it's stated to name a third. Founder, uh, Thomas [00:16:25] Jefferson in the declaration of independence after enumerating the rights to life, liberty, and the [00:16:30] pursuit of happiness self evident truths inalienable rights.
He says to secure these rights, [00:16:35] governments are formed, governing with the consent of the governed. So the idea is that [00:16:40] we all, because so getting back to your question. Based on what we know about, about [00:16:45] humans, we are, we are all saddled with many cognitive [00:16:50] flaws, biases, especially, self centered biases.
We think we're [00:16:55] smarter than we are. We think we're more correct than we are. We think we are nobler than we are, [00:17:00] all of us. And so, if you empower a human with all the [00:17:05] flaws that come with being a human things are bound to go wrong because they are not [00:17:10] omniscient, they're not infallible, but they kind of think they know more and they're wiser than they [00:17:15] are.
And that's why so we all submit to [00:17:20] government because we're better off sacrificing some degree of [00:17:25] freedom of thought. to, uh, including the freedom to harm others and in exchange for that [00:17:30] bargain, you know, other people can't harm us. So we submit to government and it's better if everyone [00:17:35] does it than if, you know, only a few people, because then that just leaves the door open to, for, you know, [00:17:40] predators and exploiters and and, and manipulators.
So we all agree. Let's [00:17:45] all. I sort of think of it as, as, um, an example [00:17:50] of a solution to a kind of collective action problem where everyone, if everyone just [00:17:55] acts in their own interests, they're actually worse off than if everyone has to follow certain [00:18:00] rules, as long as everyone follows them. I mean, a really crude Canadian analogy is [00:18:05] the rule that says you have to wear a helmet in hockey.
It's more fun to skate around without a helmet. And you have an [00:18:10] advantage in, you know, heat and peripheral vision and, and all these things, you know, on the other [00:18:15] hand, you're risking getting, getting brain damage or getting killed. And, uh, the problem is if there's [00:18:20] no rule, then the advantage of mobility and vision would mean that, uh, [00:18:25] you'd be a sucker if you wore a helmet, if.
All of your opponents didn't [00:18:30] wear helmets. They would rather wear helmets. They don't wanna get brain damage either. But then they're worried [00:18:35] that you're gonna uh, not wear a helmet and you'll have the advantage. So if you have a rule, it can [00:18:40] constrains your freedom. On the other hand, you're kind of happy to have the rule because it constraints other [00:18:45] people's freedom as well.
So you don't have to choose something that is ultimately not in your [00:18:50] interest, but you have no choice given what other people are are choosing. So that's kinda the basis for government. [00:18:55] Then if you're going to have government, you don't really want a, uh, a [00:19:00] despot, a dictator, an autocrat, a tyrant, because, you know, they're human, they may say that even if [00:19:05] they say that they are ruling in the interests of everyone, they're going to tilt [00:19:10] things their way, they're going to be biased, they're going to have their own preconceptions, they may be [00:19:15] wrong and Um, checks on the power of the leader [00:19:20] are inherent to a well functioning liberal democracy as opposed to democracy just [00:19:25] meaning, you know, you vote.
And so I think that you know, it's, it's a little bit vague, but that's just the [00:19:30] general idea. Okay. And so I could, uh, give
you. After decades of looking at how brains [00:19:35] work, liberal democracy is where you ended up. I would have been surprised if you said, you know, Ayn Rand [00:19:40] was right, but you never know.
AI is on everyone's mind. [00:19:45] It has to be on your mind, but you've studied minds. So how much of your work do [00:19:50] you think applies to the inner workings of AI today?
So, the current [00:19:55] AI, since the great AI awakening of about 10 years ago was a big [00:20:00] shift in a kind of back and forth debate within AI since [00:20:05] its inception, since I was an undergraduate, before I was an undergraduate, as to two [00:20:10] different styles of intelligence.
One is a little bit like logic. You've [00:20:15] got propositions, you've got. Deductions, you know, Socrates is a man, all men are more, um, uh, [00:20:20] all men are mortal. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Uh, rules of grammar, the the, the, [00:20:25] the, the subject is the agent of the actions specified by the verb. And, you know, just [00:20:30] rule by rule deduction computation.
The other is what's, uh, uh, something that's called [00:20:35] neural networks that is, uh, they're not, they're not that closely based [00:20:40] on the neural tissue in the brain, but they're, kind of based on the metaphor of neural, what [00:20:45] brains do. Namely, you've got a large number of simple units that aggregate [00:20:50] information and that then pass on a signal based on all the information [00:20:55] coming in.
But there's so many of them wired together and they are trained [00:21:00] by the sometimes by just, Soaking up patterns in their [00:21:05] input, sometimes by having to match some correct output provided [00:21:10] by a kind of a teacher. So that's the artificial neural network approach and over the [00:21:15] decades, they, you know, there's, there's some back and forth as to which became more popular, but then [00:21:20] Suddenly starting around 2015, real AI models based on neural [00:21:25] networks actually started to do stuff.
The previous ones based on [00:21:30] symbolic propositions had their moments, there was an expert systems and so on, but they didn't [00:21:35] really do anything that people were going to pay for. Now, the reason for the breakthrough [00:21:40] turned out not so much to be a breakthrough in the, [00:21:45] their, their design. Although there was, there was some of that.
One breakthrough came in the 80s when people [00:21:50] figured out how to train models with multiple layers between input and output. That had been kind of [00:21:55] a uh, a breakthrough. A barrier that was overcome in the eighties. And one of the people who invented that [00:22:00] technique, Jeff Hinton recently won a Nobel prize retroactively for that discovery, [00:22:05] but the, what made AI possible in the sense of Google [00:22:10] translate and Siri, and then later chat GPT was just sheer scale.
Something [00:22:15] that was kind of impossible before, because it was just unthinkable that you could throw [00:22:20] that much data into a training set, namely, you know, the entire World Wide Web, you know, all of [00:22:25] Wikipedia and the New York Times and Reddit and just a gargantuan amount of, of [00:22:30] data combined with a kind of uh, accident that, uh, there [00:22:35] were cheap graphic processing units probably developed mainly for gaming.
But [00:22:40] there's out that they were because of what they do is they map, you know, a huge, a big [00:22:45] array of pixels onto another array of pixels in parallel. That is, [00:22:50] you don't have to go They're going to be doing doing doing doing doing doing doing going, but they're wired so that every [00:22:55] input thousands and thousands of inputs directly affect thousands and [00:23:00] thousands of outputs.
That turns out to be easily portable to training neural [00:23:05] networks. And so you throw the zillions of GPUs, graphic [00:23:10] processing units, you know, from, from NVIDIA, uh, and you, you throw [00:23:15] massive gargantuan amounts of data, uh, at them, the entire worldwide web, and they can [00:23:20] do things that no one, including me would have predicted.
You know, they can compose [00:23:25] poetry. They can take the SAT. Uh, so that was the breakthrough. Now [00:23:30] raising the question is that really the, do we now based on now that we [00:23:35] know how to build something that we could reasonably call intelligent, is that the way the [00:23:40] human brain does intelligence? Probably not.
And probably not. I mean, it would be [00:23:45] the, you know, the equivalent, if you think of how the, the rate at which, say, [00:23:50] children are exposed to, let's say, depression. Language input sentences when they, when they learn to talk, [00:23:55] it'd be the equivalent of, of a child having to sit for 30, 000 years before they could [00:24:00] converse.
And you know, real kids, it's, you know, it's two or three years. [00:24:05] So it suggests that the brain has some more powerful shortcuts to [00:24:10] intelligence than just having you know, terabytes wash over them.
Has it [00:24:15] changed your work now that you can use AI to, say, analyze [00:24:20] language or to work with, you know, brain structures?
Some.
The, [00:24:25] uh, although, you know, being uh, you know, kind of advanced in years, I probably [00:24:30] don't take up new technology as quickly as younger people did or as I did when I was [00:24:35] younger so I probably don't use it to its full advantage. I mainly use it, and I think this is true [00:24:40] of older people, as a.
Semantic search engine that is instead of searching for [00:24:45] text, you can search for ideas. So that, that's a big breakthrough and that's really, really helpful. But [00:24:50] at the same time, I'm always mindful and here, my experience as a cognitive [00:24:55] psychologist, uh, is, is relevant that they, you know, they make stuff up, they hallucinate, they blend, [00:25:00] they can fabulate.
And I think going back to the. debate between the two different [00:25:05] styles of AI, namely propositions, models, rules, [00:25:10] algorithms versus aggregating lots of statistical information. The [00:25:15] reason that they hallucinate, confatuate, is they don't do the symbolic [00:25:20] computation. They kind of quite literally don't have ideas.
The coffee cup [00:25:25] was on the table from 9am to 10am. That kind of isn't in there, at [00:25:30] least not explicitly. It's, you know, often things that kind of [00:25:35] look like coffee cups are often in the vicinity of things that are kind of like tables, [00:25:40] usually for, I mean, determinate amounts of time, they throw all that together and they get something that, you know, [00:25:45] it's often, you know, not only in the ballpark, but sometimes dead on, but very often [00:25:50] not dead on because it just They talk about things that never happened because they don't know what happened.
All they know is [00:25:55] what tends to go with what. What little pixels tend to go with what other [00:26:00] pixels. What words tend to go with what other words. It's amazing how much they can make of that, [00:26:05] but it's not the same as an understanding of who did what to whom, where and when. [00:26:10]
So When it comes to using AI these days, [00:26:15] AI is disgustingly complimentary.
Oh, such a [00:26:20] good idea. You're so amazing. And then it tells you whatever it made up. How [00:26:25] harmful is that to our psychology?
Oh, yes. Is it, uh, is it [00:26:30] like too, too obsequious?
It's sycophantic. It's
Sycophantic,
yes. What's that doing to [00:26:35] our consciousness, especially for young people, but even for any of us?
Yeah. So for young people, [00:26:40] whose main, uh, I, this is a, almost a terrifying thought if their main form [00:26:45] of social action is social interaction is with AI, the worst possibility [00:26:50] is that that's how they expect other intelligent beings to interact with them all the time.
[00:26:55] You're unemployable, right? Right. You know, on the other hand, You know, we're not that stupid. [00:27:00] And, you know, we do know that, you know, the way you interact with one, even one person is [00:27:05] different than the way you interact with, with someone else. You, you, I mean, I don't think that many kids go in the [00:27:10] world thinking that their friends are going to treat them the way their mom does or their teachers or their bosses.
[00:27:15] You know, we do compartmentalize. We know there are different people we interact with and we have different [00:27:20] social relationships with them. And so we don't automatically assume the way we interact [00:27:25] with one, uh, uh, you know, person or. Agent is going to transfer to [00:27:30] everyone else. And in fact, that's, that is one of the obsessions of, uh, of, uh, my [00:27:35] new book of the different bins that we put our social relationships in.
[00:27:40] We make a big difference between a psychological difference between relationships of, [00:27:45] Communality, warmth, sharing, [00:27:50] intimacy a whole separate bin is hierarchy, who defers to whom, [00:27:55] and a third bin is reciprocity, fairness, trade, even [00:28:00] Stephen tit for tat. When
you talk about fairness in your new book, the [00:28:05] world objectively isn't fair.
How are people supposed to be able to come up [00:28:10] with this idea? We feel like it should be fair, but we know it's not.
[00:28:15] Yeah, there is a, um, a literature in psychology on the just world hypothesis [00:28:20] that an idea that people have to varying degrees that, you know, in the end what [00:28:25] goes around comes around, uh, you get what you deserve, you know, there's, there's, there's karma, [00:28:30] just desserts, and which can also lead people to rationalize various things that [00:28:35] happen that there, there must be a reason for it.
Everything happens for a reason. Um, [00:28:40] And the reason being people get rewarded for good stuff they do. It's, it's, and of course [00:28:45] that's the foundation of, of, uh, a lot of major religions that what [00:28:50] doesn't immediately. Appear fair will, you know, in an afterlife, [00:28:55] I'll be even even doubt. And of course, there's a reason that people want to believe that that [00:29:00] is other people will be deterred from exploiting you if you think that they have [00:29:05] to fear some kind of punishment or retribution for being an [00:29:10] antisocial given that, you know, what we do actually have on earth, namely, you know, governments.[00:29:15]
Court systems, rule of law, HR departments and networks of gossip and [00:29:20] ostracism and more informal ways of enforcing social norms. But there, [00:29:25] there's a kind of a dream that when someone slips through all [00:29:30] dastardly, they'll pay for it at the end and maybe therefore people will do fewer dastardly things.
That's the [00:29:35] basis of the hope and the dream.
I've chosen to believe in karma. [00:29:40] Whether or not it's real just because it brings me more peace. Does that make me [00:29:45] dysfunctional?
I don't think it's optimal to be honest.
I don't know how [00:29:50] hypothetical we are here in this discussion. I don't have to mete out justice on that bad person because someone else will do it [00:29:55] later, I hope.
Well, yes, and you know, I think that can be a problem because [00:30:00] if they don't, that is, and, and, and, and, Trust me, they won't. So the question is, [00:30:05] that does leave us with the problem, uh, and it's a real problem of how do we [00:30:10] deter exploitative aggressive behavior? And we can't avoid that problem, [00:30:15] whether it be on the national scale with a police force and a criminal justice [00:30:20] system on the personal scale with, you know, networks of [00:30:25] shaming gossip, ostracism, choosing your partners, if all the ways that.[00:30:30]
And again, that is a big obsession in, in, in, [00:30:35] in the book of how, what are the ways in which we can kind of enforce [00:30:40] norms, norms being assumptions that are held up by, and this [00:30:45] is the theme of the book, common knowledge that is everyone knows that everyone knows. A norm exists because [00:30:50] everyone knows that it exists.
And if it, people stop. Assuming that exists, it doesn't [00:30:55] exist. That's why people often feel the need to police norms. If someone breaks a norm [00:31:00] in a public forum, there's an urge to publish them, punish them, [00:31:05] sorry, in a. And I think that's the biggest challenge. forum. In order to prop up the, the, the [00:31:10] norm and that it isn't just in everyday social interactions, but even the law, I [00:31:15] mean the law, we don't have a network of cameras and [00:31:20] snitches and, and informants that will enforce every law everywhere.[00:31:25]
I think it's about nine
more months before we have that, maybe 12.
Yes, at least for now we [00:31:30] don't have it. But, you know, a lot of laws are [00:31:35] followed just because people know they're followed. They can fall back on it. When two [00:31:40] people have an encounter, who stands his ground and who backs down? Sometimes [00:31:45] it's brute force.
A lot of the times it's everything that goes into dominance, [00:31:50] alpha male, pecking order, saving face, losing face, which are matters of common knowledge, [00:31:55] namely in an encounter where you don't literally come to blows at one moment. [00:32:00] Figures that it isn't worth fighting over. So they'll give it up to the other One person stands as ground 'cause he [00:32:05] knows the other one will give away and that one gives away 'cause he knows the other one stands as ground.
So it's a [00:32:10] question of common knowledge, each one with expectations about the other. And that, uh, [00:32:15] so that that's how that ordinary. Authority, deference, uh, [00:32:20] status dominance hierarchy go in our informal day to day life. But it's also [00:32:25] partly the way even laws work in practice, given that we don't have a big [00:32:30] brother watching us 24 7.
I'll give you an example. This is, again, from my undergraduate [00:32:35] work. It, um, yeah, I, I never smoked and I, you know, I really don't like breathing other [00:32:40] people's cigarettes smoke and this is even before it, uh, it was known to, uh, itself be [00:32:45] harmful, but you know, I just thought it very unpleasant, but you know, in a classroom where.
Believe, [00:32:50] believe it or not, for all of you, younger people, people just smoke like chimneys in classes, in [00:32:55] restaurants. Professors used to smoke. But it would take a lot of gumption for me to [00:33:00] tell a fellow student, do you think you could, could you put out your cigarette? 'cause I'd be a little bit nervous about making a [00:33:05] scene.
You know, they might say, well, I have every right to smoke. Who the hell are you to tell me not to smoke? It's my right. [00:33:10] But once. There was a, uh, smoking was outlawed, and there was a sign [00:33:15] in the classroom with a cigarette and a diagonal red line through it. I could tap them on the [00:33:20] shoulder, point to the sign, and expect him to to, to, to give [00:33:25] way.
I would win the game. That confrontation. Right? Right. Without that sign, I'd be taking [00:33:30] my chances at an ugly scene. And so a lot of laws actually work by, in, in [00:33:35] practice, even though, you know, they are enforceable. But, you know, McGill just didn't have smoking police, they didn't have a, [00:33:40] you know, report a smoker hotline.
It depended on people. [00:33:45] The on the common knowledge again, to come back to the theme of the book that this is something that everyone knows that [00:33:50] everyone
knows you don't do you talk about norms and in your book, but it feels [00:33:55] like the very idea of norms is going away in part because of [00:34:00] AI and because of social networks where you have one group that has a norm and another group.[00:34:05]
There's not a lot of overlap between them.
Well, there is. I mean, I don't think norms are [00:34:10] going away in our, in our, our, uh, in, in general. And in fact, if anything, [00:34:15] norms against saying anything that might be conceived as racially insensitive, [00:34:20] even if it is completely innocent. That is a norm that is stronger than [00:34:25] ever, and that that's what gets people canceled.
That's why you have social media shaming mobs. You make the wrong kind of joke, [00:34:30] even if it's not a racist joke. If someone could dream up why it might be racist, then [00:34:35] your, your life could be made a living hell. But what we are seeing. In, in, in [00:34:40] the public sphere, especially in politics, it's a shattering of certain norms that held [00:34:45] for a long time for liberals, conservatives, everyone like [00:34:50] you for example, you don't overtly insult your, uh, [00:34:55] opponent.
You don't call them stupid. If it's a woman, you don't make a comment about her [00:35:00] physical appearance. You don't blame. But if it's a man, you can, right? I mean, if it's a man, [00:35:05] well, even then, uh,
I'm mostly kidding, but like that, that's a question about [00:35:10] norms. Like it's, you wouldn't have,
you know, um, uh, [00:35:15] you know, George Bush and, and Al Gore, you know, may have hated each other's [00:35:20] guts, but they didn't insult each other's looks.
Yeah, there was [00:35:25] a norm of respect that you wouldn't, and also there was, even though all politicians lie because all [00:35:30] humans lie, you had to not lie blatantly, uh, saying something [00:35:35] that anyone could instantly see was false. You'd lose credibility. You'd be seen as a, [00:35:40] as a, as a boor, as totally unfit for public service.
So Donald [00:35:45] Trump has shattered those norms. The norms are held up. By [00:35:50] the common knowledge again, going back, back to a book, you know, no [00:35:55] one policed the norm that you don't comment on a, a woman's looks in [00:36:00] public but people obeyed it because everyone knew you obeyed it. And, and the [00:36:05] assumption was, and this would often be true, that if you did flout the norm everyone [00:36:10] would come down on you like a ton of bricks.
They'd give you you know, contemptuous stares, they [00:36:15] would rock and fight you back. What Trump showed is that these norms are fragile, that you could [00:36:20] blatantly, um, shatter them and get away with it. And once you [00:36:25] did, it's no longer a norm. And so you see other politicians, sadly, and other [00:36:30] public figures Elon Musk being an example, who are happy to blatantly [00:36:35] lie, insult exaggerate the overtly crude [00:36:40] in a way that would have been unthinkable even probably even five or six years ago, someone in the corporate [00:36:45] world, for example, like a politician had to obey certain norms of [00:36:50] decorum decency, chivalry, gentlemanliness.
Uh, and we're now [00:36:55] seeing that they, you know, No one enforced them by law, they were just things you did because everyone [00:37:00] knew you did them. And when people no longer know that you, you have to do them, people [00:37:05] don't do them.
It's a fine line between having a civil society and [00:37:10] having an anarchy and also being able to have that pesky free [00:37:15] speech thing.
Do you think that there's, that we're going to come up with a new norm? I [00:37:20] mean, you, you have the wisdom of studying this intensely and seeing decades of [00:37:25] history. So where do you think we're going to end up in five years? Are we all just going to walk in and [00:37:30] insult someone and maybe say those negative comments about a person's body?
Because now we can say that, [00:37:35] uh, so are we, we're going to become uncivil or are we going to
evolve? It's a good [00:37:40] question. And the reason that You know, not necessarily simply because, and again, this is something that I [00:37:45] discuss in the book, our norms are context specific. What you [00:37:50] do varies with your relationship to the other person or your parent, [00:37:55] teacher, husband, wife, sales clerk, customer all the possible [00:38:00] dyads.
Uh, it depends on the context at home, at school, at a university, [00:38:05] in a public forum, in private. Depends on what. Um, the, the actual content [00:38:10] or resources, are we talking about food or money or sex or [00:38:15] power? And all of those were, I think the human brain is pretty good at compartmentalizing [00:38:20] those. You know, that's what it means to have social skills, to be a socially competent adult.
You [00:38:25] know what norm applies with what other person in what setting. [00:38:30] So what Donald Trump gets away with in his social media feed and [00:38:35] even in public debates, It could [00:38:40] extend to people, you know, say in, in the, on a university committee or a [00:38:45] corporate committee, but not automatically. And I'd be surprised if the [00:38:50] kind of boorish behavior that, that Trump exhibits in public [00:38:55] characterizes you know, committees in a, in a, in a corporation or a university or a nonprofit [00:39:00] hope.
So those are the lines that One hopes will hold
so you think [00:39:05] society will still remain mostly civil, but maybe outside of some political things. And it's true. [00:39:10] In corporations, you get sued for stuff. And in government, you don't get sued for stuff. You can [00:39:15] get voted out of office for stuff. But at that level
of government, you know, in the, in the government [00:39:20] bureaucracy I, you know, I think if someone in, in the, you know, the HR department of the, uh, uh, you [00:39:25] know, department, department of commerce were to make comments about, uh, a [00:39:30] woman's appearance or about one of their coworkers being stupid you know, they [00:39:35] would probably get sacked.
The, ironically, the most powerful. Person in the world doesn't [00:39:40] get sacked. Well, maybe not ironically, but, but, but it used to be that that was [00:39:45] just you know, any politician left, right, center, you, they just wouldn't do that.
We have this kind of [00:39:50] outrage economy. And it's something you touch on in your new book where people will play up their [00:39:55] outrage online and things like that.
And at the same time, we also have truthfulness and. [00:40:00] There's a book from the 1920s out of Berkeley called The Basic Laws of Human [00:40:05] Stupidity that you may have come across, uh,
Host: economics professors.
Dave: I'm gonna order that, [00:40:10] yeah. Oh, it's a beautiful book. And he talks about, well, there are stupid people, [00:40:15] and people who aren't stupid can't see them, and they're one of the problems in society.
And he defines stupidity [00:40:20] mathematically and talks about percentages and very short read, but very [00:40:25] uplifting because it's not all just evil people. It's just knowing there are some people who will do things that make them lose [00:40:30] and other people lose because they're too dumb to do otherwise. For me, it created some peace.
Like it's not all bad [00:40:35] people. Sometimes it's just dumb people. But if we can't talk about the fact that that person's [00:40:40] actually stupid, how do we evolve as humans? If we can't ever say anything that might hurt another person's feelings? [00:40:45]
Well, I mean, that, that is kind of one of the dilemmas of social life.
And in fact, you know, a large part [00:40:50] of, of, of, of my book is about tact, social skills, savoir faire [00:40:55] genteel, hypocrisy, politeness, euphemism. And indeed, you know, a lot of [00:41:00] our language, and this is how I actually, I came into the whole topic of common knowledge the, the, the [00:41:05] subject matter of the book.
I came from my interest in language, namely so much of language. It consists of people [00:41:10] not saying what they mean. You can't figure out what it means just by looking at the subject or the predicate [00:41:15] and the, the rules of grammar but you, people are always reading between the lines and [00:41:20] connecting the dots and catching each other's drift.
Even something as basic as [00:41:25] politeness if you can pass the salt, that would be awesome. Um, if you actually think about the [00:41:30] literal meaning of that, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's hyperbolic. It wouldn't be worthy [00:41:35] of awe if you got the salt. And why are you kind of Pondering [00:41:40] hypotheticals, counterfactuals, possible worlds, uh, and the reason is.[00:41:45]
That, you know, that's a case where you don't want to treat someone like a servant. You don't want to say, give me the salt, [00:41:50] depending on your relationship with them. Of course, you could, you know, in the
house, you would talk that way, [00:41:55] but yeah, exactly. You better not treat your spouse that way. Well,
no, I'm not, [00:42:00] you know, I, I say, well, even there, I might say, can you get the [00:42:05] salt, which By the way, it's a question about her ability, which is, again, doesn't make any sense [00:42:10] literally, but it is sense as treating the person with respect that [00:42:15] is not bossing them around as if they were a servant, they interpret the [00:42:20] indirect request.
On the assumption that you are rational, [00:42:25] they are rational, the only reason you'd be musing about their ability to pass the salt [00:42:30] or pondering what it would be like if you had the salt is, well, you know, that's what you'd do if you wanted [00:42:35] salt. And, you know, also veiled, um, Bribes, failed threats, [00:42:40] sexual come ons, cases where we're very sensitive about the nature of the relationship that we [00:42:45] have with the other person.
Are we platonic friends? Is, is, uh, is, is he [00:42:50] the, the, the, the boss and I'm the, um, [00:42:55] supervisee? Are we in a transactional relationship? And sometimes we have to get [00:43:00] across messages that contradict that. or at least threaten the nature of the relationship, say two [00:43:05] platonic friends, and they want to explore the possibility of a sexual and romantic relationship.[00:43:10]
Once you blurt out you know, do you want to have sex? That kind of changes [00:43:15] everything. You can't go back to being platonic friends because it just, Contradicts the whole [00:43:20] logic of platonic friendship, but still you may want to make the transition. So how do you do it? Well, then [00:43:25] you say, you want to come up for Netflix and chill.
You want to see my etchings cases [00:43:30] where another intelligent adult knows what the intent is as with, if you could pass the [00:43:35] salt, that would be awesome. But you haven't overtly challenged the [00:43:40] basis of the relationship by the content of what you say. You haven't generated common knowledge.
[00:43:45] Again, going back to the theme of the book. And in fact, I've done studies that, that, that, uh, bear this [00:43:50] out. So there's not plausible deniability in the sense that if he asks [00:43:55] her up late at night for dinner, for coffee. You know, she's a grown woman. She knows he doesn't just mean [00:44:00] coffee. And you know, and so she turns him down.
He also knows that she hasn't just turned him down for [00:44:05] coffee. Does he know that she knows that he knows? I mean, he could still think, [00:44:10] well, you know, me, you know, I, I know what she, what just happened, but maybe she doesn't know that. I know. Maybe [00:44:15] she thinks I'm dense and thinks that I just think she turned down coffee and she could think, well, maybe he [00:44:20] thinks I'm naive.
Maybe he just, He thinks that I that I interpreted as coffee even, or, or thinks [00:44:25] that I think that he thinks that. And without those recursive thoughts [00:44:30] about thoughts about thoughts, let that common knowledge get back to the theme of the book. They [00:44:35] can go back to their platonic relationship. If it was just [00:44:40] blurted out, then or, uh, you know, then that changes everything.
The [00:44:45] relationship Rubicon. And that's when we get the, the [00:44:50] emotions of. Awkwardness, shame, embarrassment, reactions like [00:44:55] blushing and stammering and looking, looking away. And I have, you know, [00:45:00] one chapter of the book is about it's called Weasel Words, about why we don't just blurt out [00:45:05] what we say.
Another one is called laughing, crying, blushing, staring, [00:45:10] glaring about all of the non verbal signals that we use to generate common [00:45:15] knowledge about the nature of our relationship. How we signal, trust me, I know [00:45:20] what kind of relationship we have.[00:45:25]
I saw a study, about 60 percent of [00:45:30] young men have never approached a woman in real life, as in not [00:45:35] online, to say, hey, do you want to date? It's like this skillset isn't. [00:45:40] As common because it's so easy to approach online where it feels safer. It feels like [00:45:45] reading your book would be really important if you're under 30 because you're going into some of these [00:45:50] nuances that maybe were missing.
What advice would you have for someone who's just terrified? [00:45:55] at approaching another person, whether it's for a job offer or for a romantic offer. [00:46:00] Well, walk me through the cognitive psychology steps to convince myself to go do something like that.
[00:46:05] Yes. So actually, uh, in the, the chapter on, uh, weasel words, I, I kind of analyze, you know, [00:46:10] what's at stake in these interactions in terms of a, a two by two matrix [00:46:15] of they're willing, they're not willing.
You make the offer, you don't make [00:46:20] the offer where I point out that in fact, there is a third person. Column in the [00:46:25] matrix, namely, you hint at it, uh, indirectly. Uh, it's a question of [00:46:30] calibrating the, the degree of overtness from [00:46:35] blurting it out to the subtlest of hints and the optimal level [00:46:40] depends on, and you and I, I even have a mathematical model.
I don't go through it in the book, but I've, [00:46:45] I've got it in academic papers of just how blunt to, [00:46:50] indirect speech should be depending on the costs and benefits [00:46:55] of a willing partner accepting the proposition, a willing partner, [00:47:00] not even realizing that it's a proposition. It goes over their head.
There's that risk. [00:47:05] And by the way, a lot of these things, You know, a lot of us learn about human nature and [00:47:10] social skills from, from fiction, from comedies of manners, situation comedies. And there's an episode of [00:47:15] Seinfeld that indicates this cell of the matrix, namely George Costanza is [00:47:20] invited by his date up for coffee.
And he says Oh no, I have to get up early for work. And, you know, I [00:47:25] can't. Uh, consume caffeine that late at night. And then when he gets back [00:47:30] to on the way, he just suddenly realized coffee doesn't mean coffee. Coffee means sex, right? So [00:47:35] there's that, there's the, the, uh, consummated cell [00:47:40] where you make a proposition, a willing partner understands it, accepts it.[00:47:45]
There's the danger of it going over the listener's head. They think. You [00:47:50] know, I think you're just inviting them up for coffee as with George, the, the humor in George Costanza being [00:47:55] in that situation, there's the, the, the worst [00:48:00] outcome of you, it's an unwilling partner who does catch your drift and, and [00:48:05] rebuffs it maybe even is offended.
And there's the lost opportunity that you don't make the [00:48:10] offer and, uh, and you know, nothing happens, nothing ventured, nothing gained. [00:48:15] So those are the, the. logical possibilities. And it [00:48:20] really involves thinking, well, what's the worst that could happen? And you can [00:48:25] tilt things so that you minimize the worst outcomes while [00:48:30] providing the opportunity for the best outcomes by calibrating the degree of [00:48:35] directness versus indirectness.
I think that is what we informally mean by indirectness. [00:48:40] Social skill, tact, savoir faire not being on the [00:48:45] spectrum or not being too far along the spectrum. All of these skills, you know, often are [00:48:50] anticipating, you know, what's the best thing that can happen, what's the worst thing that can happen, what do I want to happen how do I [00:48:55] calibrate my level of bluntness to minimize the downside, maximize the [00:49:00] upside.
And you know, again, it's, I, I actually have a mathematical model and we, and, and [00:49:05] with, in collaboration with, with students and colleagues, tested the mathematical model and, and showed that that really [00:49:10] is what governs how people choose their words. It's basically
a calibrated
model. [00:49:15] It's a calibrated model.
And, and, you know, life is calibration. The reason I can't give advice is, you know, [00:49:20] Here's what you say. You try, try this line is that, you know, it very much depends [00:49:25] on the on the context on the person. And it is hard to, you're right that the, [00:49:30] you know, some of the reluctance of young men to ask say [00:49:35] mask a woman out or, you know, or, or vice versa, because, you know, women, women ask men out too.
And I don't know, [00:49:40] I don't know where the data are on that, but, um, you know, some of it is. Thanks. You got [00:49:45] to probably live through some embarrassing situations to know what's right or what's [00:49:50] wrong. We have to observe, you have to, you know, that's why we consume art, why we [00:49:55] read novels, watch TV, go to the movies is to see other people try things out [00:50:00] and see what happens.
If it's plausible you learn from those, you learn from gossip. You [00:50:05] learn, you wouldn't believe what happened. Can you believe he said blah, blah, blah? And sometimes there's no [00:50:10] substitute for experience. And it is a problem if, you know, not only to begin [00:50:15] with are the, you know, Gen Z's grow up behind screens and, and, uh, forego a [00:50:20] lot of face to face interaction, but of course, COVID meant those, you know, two years in which it was [00:50:25] even worse.
They couldn't do it if they wanted to. And again, going to the other chapter [00:50:30] that, you know, I have the chapter on language. I have also the chapter on nonverbal communication, on eye [00:50:35] contact, on blushing, on laughing, on tears, on angry [00:50:40] glares there's a lot of signaling that goes on face to face problem with screens.
And is [00:50:45] that you are missing that channel, especially if it's text, if it's, if it's, you know, [00:50:50] X or Facebook, you're not getting any reaction at all. At least zoom, you get some pixels [00:50:55] that are simulating the person. But when it's texting and you don't get those [00:51:00] signals ordinarily regulate our social relationships.
They're absent, which is why it's so much [00:51:05] easier to insult people, to troll, to shame on social media than in [00:51:10] face to face life. Even in Zoom, and I thought I'd talk about this as well, because I have a whole discussion on eye [00:51:15] contact. So right now I have a setup between you and me. I have a little camera.
I think [00:51:20] you guys may even have sent it to send me a little mini camera. I have it propped up on a [00:51:25] stock in front of my screen, and I have the square with you [00:51:30] so that your face is Is right next to the camera and go back and forth and, [00:51:35] uh, you know, uh, I'm doing exactly
the same thing. Like you're right behind my lens.[00:51:40]
I like to think that you and I are having a pretty natural conversation because we're doing the closest [00:51:45] equivalent to eye contact. The problem being in zoom there can't be. [00:51:50] I contact because the unlike face to face communication where the part [00:51:55] of the person you're looking at is also the part of the person that's looking at you [00:52:00] and you look at them.
It generates common knowledge. That is when you make eye contact. I [00:52:05] know that, you know, that I know that, you know, because it's what Each of us is looking at the part of the other that gains knowledge [00:52:10] about the other. You can't have that literally in in, in human made technology [00:52:15] because you've got a screen that displays the pictures, you've got a camera that is recording the [00:52:20] image and they're different gadgets unlike eyeballs.
The closest [00:52:25] equivalent is what I'm trying to do now. Avoiding the usual you know, camera looking up the [00:52:30] nostrils look of most people on zoom when they have the laptop screen down on a desk [00:52:35] I'm doing the best to make eye contact by having your little image right next [00:52:40] to my little micro cam.
It's kind of funny if you're doing.
[00:52:45] interview or online dating, putting the camera right by the person's face probably means you're going to [00:52:50] get the date or the job because of all these unspoken, but still important [00:52:55] things that are mostly invisible. And when you're in person, My eyes would actually see your [00:53:00] eyes dilating a little bit and I wouldn't know that, but my system would know that and change how I [00:53:05] behaved in unconscious ways and maybe some conscious ways to do you think that [00:53:10] as the world becomes more and more virtual and digital and people are more remote, that [00:53:15] this lack of.
Of connection that's fostered by technology is going to cause [00:53:20] harm to society.
Well, it it, it could, and some of the, [00:53:25] the, the, uh, data on the loneliness and mental health problems [00:53:30] of, uh, younger Americans could, could, could conceivably be because the, uh, [00:53:35] ordinary channels of communication and face to face are things that they haven't grown up with.
And the, the [00:53:40] face to face. interactions and feedback. When did you make a fool of yourself? [00:53:45] You know, when did you blush? It's painful, but you learn something. If you don't learn [00:53:50] it then you're, you are missing out on a a, uh, aspect of life that really gives [00:53:55] people deep satisfaction. My sister, Susan Pinker wrote a book called The Village Effect on the [00:54:00] difference between Face to face contact and all the various digital [00:54:05] equivalents and how face to face contact really makes people happier, [00:54:10] healthier, lengthens their lives and, uh, and, and, and other benefits.
The [00:54:15] question is that, so, but before we conclude, You know, the species is doomed. You know, and [00:54:20] Gen Z is not having sex, at least not having as much sex as other [00:54:25] generations you know, maybe because of porn also. Um, so is the species just going to spiral downhill and [00:54:30] until the, the, the last, you know, 90 year old dies and then humans won't exist [00:54:35] anymore because no one will have had sex for, for a hundred years, probably, probably not.
[00:54:40] Cause when social trends, uh, lead to harm, you know, often there is, [00:54:45] There's correction, there's feedback, there's realization that something bad is happening. What do we do [00:54:50] about it? And it's very hard to anticipate what those responses are going to be. I [00:54:55] doubt that we're just going to let it, everyone's just going to let it happen, and it's going to [00:55:00] spiral downward.
There will be corrections. We don't know how effective they'll be.
Let's ask some hard [00:55:05] questions. What's one rational thing you believe that makes all your friends [00:55:10] uncomfortable? Ha
ha, let's see. It makes all my friends uncomfortable. [00:55:15] It has to be also something rational that I share.
Well, at least something you believe.
If it's the first time you shared it, [00:55:20] even better.
Yeah. Well, probably that all of our [00:55:25] imaginations kind of seethe with wicked thoughts that would change everything if we [00:55:30] blurted them out. I'm doing a study now with some, with a couple of, uh, former students [00:55:35] on, uh, people's, uh, fantasies. And we know from, I'm not the first, that, you know, [00:55:40] people people, you know, visualize a lot of pretty awful things in the [00:55:45] privacy of their imaginations.
So that's one of the reasons, but the last chapter of the book is called [00:55:50] rational radical honesty, rational hypocrisy, why some [00:55:55] degree of hypocrisy is good, indispensable. And there are a lot of things that [00:56:00] each of us thinks each of us, if we're at all savvy or [00:56:05] reflective, I have to know that other people think, cause you know, we're birds of a feather.
If I'm thinking [00:56:10] them, probably other people are as well. On the other hand. Sharing it can change [00:56:15] everything. It can pollute the basis of your relationship of your marriage, your [00:56:20] romantic relationship, your friendship, your relationships at work. There's a good case to be made [00:56:25] for not saying everything that's on your mind.
Sounds like
you dodged the
question pretty well. [00:56:30] Okay. Well, there you go. Maybe I'm, I'm, I'm following my own advice. [00:56:35]
That was very elegant. It's almost like you've done this before.
[00:56:40] Once or twice. Actually, not that question though. I have not, I don't think I've gotten that question. I've gotten a lot of questions
over [00:56:45] again, but not that one.
You've been interviewed a kajillion times. So that's cool. I want to offer [00:56:50] some real value for our listeners who tend to think [00:56:55] about thinking the way that, that you or I would. And I'd love to know, [00:57:00] what is the one cognitive trap that even the smartest [00:57:05] people still fall for? Probably
the, the my side bias.
That is [00:57:10] the assumption that you and your, your, your tribe, your [00:57:15] coalition, your posse, your group, your political party, your religion, your club [00:57:20] are smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable and more moral than, [00:57:25] uh, a rival group. Okay. So you, you believe whatever
makes your [00:57:30] side look good. And that is, that is for sure.
And I, I do my best to not have [00:57:35] sides. I'm just curious. And
there is research that suggests that for, for most [00:57:40] of the. Many biases, fallacies, errors that cognitive [00:57:45] psychologists and behavioral economists have, have documented the, the subject matter [00:57:50] of Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow, or Dan Ariely's book, Predictably [00:57:55] Irrational, Wikipedia has a page for cognitive biases, which lists 200 of [00:58:00] them, a lot of them are going back to your discussion of [00:58:05] stupidity, smart people are less likely to fall into these traps on average.[00:58:10]
However, that is not true of the my side bias, that the my side bias is not [00:58:15] correlated with
intelligence. And when they do fall for it, their intelligence lets them defend it even [00:58:20] better, I imagine. That may be why, exactly. Your book, When [00:58:25] Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows, which is a great title, by the way, what's the [00:58:30] change in the world you want to see?
Because if your work has changed the world, what is this book going to do for the world?
[00:58:35] You know, it's not a book with, you know, advice or self help or formulas [00:58:40] for achieving You know, world peace or anything else, but it's a way of [00:58:45] understanding life at a deeper level of insight. A lot of things that seem [00:58:50] utterly baffling, puzzling, irrational, I think fall into place when you understand the role of common [00:58:55] knowledge in in, in, in facilitating human coordination.
And that's why common [00:59:00] knowledge that is this rather abstruse state of, I know something, you know it, I know that you know it, you know that I know it, [00:59:05] I know that you know that I know that you know it. At a different item, which might seem like the kind of thing, but only a mu a [00:59:10] logician. It's actually very potent in human affairs because it's what allows us to be on the same page to [00:59:15] work together for a common goal to cooperate.
And [00:59:20] conversely, there are many circumstances which we, we, we, we were just discussing where you want. [00:59:25] Keep things out of common knowledge, even if everyone knows something, you don't want everyone to know [00:59:30] that everyone knows it because you need to preserve some kind of relationship that allows [00:59:35] people to, to, uh, work and live
together.
I'm so impressed [00:59:40] with the way you see things differently. Then just about [00:59:45] anyone else. And I'm still trying to figure out if it's because you've studied all of these things and [00:59:50] put them all together for yourself, or you just always see the world differently.
Do you have an answer [00:59:55] for that? I think it's because I, I exposed myself to lots and lots of ideas [01:00:00] and including ideas, at least by my standards.
And, and, you know, judging by the fact that people do, [01:00:05] do, do read my books, they do engage me, uh, they, they appreciate as well. That is, [01:00:10] you know, in the whole, you know, none of us is smart enough to figure it all out. Um, but [01:00:15] if you sample ideas from enough people, enough, you know, thoughtful, smart people, [01:00:20] you find an idea here, an idea there that turns out to explain a lot, the [01:00:25] skills fall from your eyes.
Oh, so that's the way things work. And what I. What I [01:00:30] try to do is to find those ideas from the universe of academia, [01:00:35] intellectual life, science, and make people aware
of those. It makes good sense. And [01:00:40] I, I think that by reading the kind of books that you write, [01:00:45] it gives us a new lens to see reality.
That, [01:00:50] that's my goal.
There you go. And, and it, it makes the lens, at least if you choose to put on [01:00:55] this lens, some of the time it's less distorted or maybe distorted in a different way than other [01:01:00] lenses. Right. And I, and I thank you for that.
I hope so. And thank [01:01:05] you.
My final question for you goes back to this cognitive bias thing.
So we talked about [01:01:10] what, which one we're all susceptible to. What is the cognitive bias that you found in your own life [01:01:15] that you're most susceptible to?
It may be you know, I like to win arguments and that's, [01:01:20] um,
being right,
being right, that's, that's, it's a bad thing is one of my [01:01:25] friends, a linguist and farmer put it.
It's the goal is to not to be right. The goal is to [01:01:30] get it right. And I've kind of learned and been chastened by a movement sometimes called the [01:01:35] rationality movement or the rationality community, you know, maybe not coincidentally, cause I wrote a book called rationality, [01:01:40] but the, the goal of that community is to get out of the mindset, which is common [01:01:45] in academia and in debates in newspapers and magazines of [01:01:50] kind of winning the argument using whatever debating trick gives you an [01:01:55] advantage but being epistemically humble, realizing, you know, You can't be [01:02:00] right about everything.
No one is right about everything. You can't know everything. You're going to, the very fact that you want to [01:02:05] win arguments means that you're going to be wrong a lot of the time. You should hedge your [01:02:10] assessments in degrees instead of black or white. But shades of [01:02:15] gray more accurately probabilities when disagreeing with someone try [01:02:20] to formulate the strongest version of their argument, not a caricature of their argument.
It's [01:02:25] called steel manning. The opposite of straw manning be willing to make a [01:02:30] bet. As, as, uh, Alex Tabarrok and economists put a bet as a tax on [01:02:35] bullshit. So you're really putting your money where your mouth is. Adversarial [01:02:40] collaborations. You should, you ought to get together with the people you disagree with most [01:02:45] strongly.
With a mediator. Try to decide a priori what would [01:02:50] settle the issue. Do the study, do the experiment, and uh, agree. Okay. If [01:02:55] it comes out this way, you're right. It comes out this way. You know, I'm right. All of these are, are [01:03:00] workarounds for our own. Desire to be right, desire to win, which gets [01:03:05] in the way of, of getting it right, being truthful,
profound, amazing advice, [01:03:10] as always your new book is when everyone knows that everyone knows [01:03:15] common knowledge and the mysteries of money, Power and everyday [01:03:20] life, which is a great title, man.
Amazing. Thank you for writing [01:03:25] yet another book that has made me think differently and keep doing what you're doing [01:03:30] for as long as you choose. I'm truly grateful.
That's very kind of you. Thanks. And thanks for the [01:03:35] conversation, which I enjoyed very much. See you next time on [01:03:40] podcast.