Steven Pinker: Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things 

Intelligence and wisdom are separate stats.

Thank goodness for The Free Press. Journalism has got to get back to being as unbiased as possible. And free. Keep up the good work.

'we want to believe a good story over the truth' Pinker expresses some great thoughts

Totally pertinent topics to discuss. Strange to mention: TFP has, for me, taken on the informative-analytical role that, at one time, NPR had.

The only Harvard professor they want to cancel but can't.

Forgot to ask: 1. Why does the Harvard board of governors think that SKIN COLOR/GENDER is component to cognitive power?? 2. Why didn't Harvard's board of governors collectively resign over Claudine Gay's plagiarism and testimony before Congress??.

Pinker's data-informed views often come as a breath of fresh air, but I think he is missing a big part of the AI puzzle. The threat isn't that AI will have undesirable human tendencies baked into its "DNA", it's that AI increases humans' capacity to express those tendencies by orders of magnitude. Some humans are violent psychopaths. But the availability of high-powered firearms allows those humans to do a lot more damage than they otherwise would. AI could have a similar effect. In other words, it's not the semantic misunderstanding of the input phrase "Eradicate cancer" that threatens the world, it's the plethora of actually malevolent potential inputs. Having said that, we don't really have a relevant data set to refer to on this topic, so we're all just speculating.

Pinker is spot-on about the trivialized misuse of the word "genocide" in relation to the war in Gaza. Sadly, misguided people have been softening up the definition of genocide for at least a couple of decades, in all sorts of contexts - mainly I think because, as Pinker says, the absolute opprobrium of the idea, inviting unconditional condemnation, is something they want to co-opt for their own cause, whatever that is, and using the “nuclear option” of the G-word is a cheap and easy way to do it. There was a very ill-advised example in Canada in 2022 when Parliament voted to declare the (now thankfully defunct) residential school system to be an example of genocide (not just cultural genocide, but unqualified genocide) - as if the schools to which First Nations children were compulsorily sent for a century were not simply cruel, shoddy, and educationally inefficient (all of which they were), but as if killing the children who attended them were the institutions’ primary purpose.

The reason conspiracies rarely exist is because the only way 3 people can keep a secret is if 2 of them are dead.

Ideology. Smart people see things like a puzzle and when one clue unlocks a "Wait a second I'm onto something here...!!" they follow it, but unfortunately for negative reasons, either they are disenfranchised or intense emotions or whatever, they brew their intelligence into justifying negitive ideology. Jordan Peterson does this and he's VERY smart.

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history” George Orwell

Great conversation...Thannk you, I have become a big fan of this channel

Great interview 😊

Excellent discussion. I'd love to hear more reasonable, intelligent, and nuanced conversations like this rather than the angry, fearful, hateful garbage to which we are constantly exposed.

In the first 90 seconds, this guy is bringing up conspiracy theories. People have been trained to immediately dismiss all conspiracy theories despite human history being chock full of people conspiring to commit crimes.

Was just listening to this on my subway ride home. Excellent conversation gentlemen.

I always enjoy Pinker's breakdown of things.

Hypothesis: about topics that don't have immediate practical effects, people are not so much given to believing nonsense as they are to *saying* they believe nonsense.

I like listening to Steven Pinker, I feel smarter listening to him speak, lol. I saw both of these men in person recently, at the "Dissident Dialogues" in Brooklyn, New York, on May 3-4th. I wonder if this interview was recorded there? Regardless, it was a pleasure to hear Mr. Pinker speak in real life.

I notice a lot of people drawing a distinction between "intelligence" and "wisdom". I would say that rather depends on your definition of "intelligence". I would suggest that those who are truly intelligent are wise. An ability to pass an exam doesn't make you intelligent.

First of all: I like this discussion I do have a few remarks, though. Point I disagree with. Democracy: Choose the leader that fits your group best (that's the statement in the discussion, no?) -> versus Choose the leader that can run the country best, in your view Those are 2 different things. In the USA you have indeed only 2 parties. Here in Europe people regularly vote strategically, voting for a party that doesn’t suit their needs the best way, but will ensure that the other end of the isle doesn’t become the bigger party. So that’s a short-term deviation from your long-term vision for the country. Which means you vote for the leader that can run the country better than the alternatives. Not the one that would suit your group best. It's called "compromise", I believe... One could extrapolate that to "short-term best interest", but then you are deviating from your own group, into possibly a smaller group, etc. etc. So, by your deviation from your own best interest into the next-best interest, you áre setting aside your purely selfish perspective. And I am pretty sure that many people don't even háve their own best interest in mind when voting, but the policies and perspectives that suit their country best. For me it's hard to rhyme that with the 2-party vision of "fits my group best". You really áre voting for what suits your country best. And that's a véry extrapolated self-interest. But maybe I'm wrong? Israel: Genocide is not only the deliberate killing of a massive group, it is also about displacement and starvation. For now, the displacement happening is bigger than the 750.000 who were forced to leave in 1948. Now we are talking about more than a million. Is it a genocide? I don't know. If Israel rebuilds Gaza and gives all these people back their land and their homes, then it is not. But how big of a chance is there Nethanyahu will do that? For now the question is open on whether or not he is displacing a whole population. The signs are not good: Ever since Nethanyahu started to build his wall and confiscate the lands of Palestinians (around 2003), it has turned into an Apartheidstate. One can deny it and say Palestinians still have some rights, but in practice they don’t. They are at the whims of Israel. Which is a very bad position to be in. The best comparison presumably is the waiting time at the border controls from Gaza (in the past) to the waiting time at the “homelands” in South Africa. Both were designed to check and humiliate, while the only reason people wanted to pass them, was either to go to work or to pass to another secured district. Which is Apartheid. Maybe it’s just my own bias (I’ve been watching this for 30+ years now), but even the excuses used for the border controls are the same: security measures after “terrorist attacks”. Which are essentially freaked out people blowing themselves up, not unlike many of the mass shootings in the USA, more often than not incited by some crazy ideology or conspiracy. Which brings me full circle: thank you for provoking some thoughts! 💙💛❤

Wait a minute… multiplying probabilities only works when the events are independent. Lawyers and conspiracy theories don’t always add details to a story at random and with things that are independent.

If Pinker thinks democracy & freedom of speech are not intuitive to humans, I suggest reading “Hierarchy in the Forest” by Christopher Boehm. Boehm argues that throughout the great majority of our evolution as humans we lived in small hunter-gatherer bands that were essentially egalitarian, and made most group decisions by consensus, with all adults entitled to opine. Those tendencies remain deep in our genes. Unfortunately, civilization required much larger populations than can decide by consensus, and therefore a central authority. But we’ve always chaffed under such authority. It took another 5000 (mostly tumultuous) years for us to tinker our way back to democracy and free speech that can work for a large society. How long such a society can endure remains an open question.

Fantastic conversation, thanks Micheal!

Why is this edited differently from the version on apple podcasts?

FYI for people with respiritory issues otolaryngologists sometimes recommend masks on high traffic conjestion proximity bike routes.

“Post-modernist” outcomes after decades of criticizing Western institutions and liberalism. (Kuznar 20<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="487">08:7</a>8): 1-question reality and representation (it's all “fake”). All history, literature, religion is wrong/biased) Specifically, Universities teach qualitative analysis (opinions and feelings) outdoes quantitative analysis and numbers (votes) 2 make social media and documents the battleground by isolating text and language as “phenomena” (e.g. CRT) Everything (e.g. gender) is a “construct”. Over focusing on the construct of “power” creates “hegemony” 3-apply literary analysis, making words and images the weapons. E.g. CRT 4-deconstruct Enlightenment “metanarratives” by counter-storytelling. (cyber-espionage) promoting “progressive nihilism” 5 argue against method and evaluation (science) e.g.- lotions and potions are as valuable as vaccines.

Nice to hear rational thought! Thanks for the great interview.

Why can't we have leaders with Steven Pinker's intelligence.

Fantastic writer, one of our greatest public intellectuals. The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, Enlightenment Now, Rationality are all tremendous contributions.

As a person gives us more detail about Linda, we can reasonable increase our belief that they know Linda well and hence accurately know her profession. This type of causal connection can be implicit in questions about Linda even if not explicit in the test. “Is she a teller?” can be interpreted as “would you believe me if I said she was a teller?”. My answer depends on how well you know her.

Never heard of this gentleman being interviewed he's fascinating

I wish Dr. Pinker had more of a presence on social media throughout the last few years.

Outstanding

Pinker would be an expert on intelligent people believing stupid things lol.

Ask this genius what he believes about specific things

The large role Conspiracy played in English politics and the American founding is well documented, as one example. This is good gaslighting, though.

Relevant to the Shakespeare conspiracy theories that Henry Oliver writes about in the blog post cited this morning by Oliver Wiseman.

If AI transforms inexpensive drones into cunning hunters, used by both sides in a conflict, and if defensive tech fail to keep pace with offensive tech, then ..?

Can someone write 1-3 thoughts that you liked from this conversation? Because it's so long and full of irrelevant stuff, it's interesting what you guys liked the most of it

I understand the normative axioms of probability (Kolmogorov, Cox, etc.). I understand that 'conjoining' the probability of two events is done by multiplying them (necessarily leading to a smaller number/lower probability). However, let's consider the concept of evidence, particularly the concept of a 'preponderance of evidence'. Is evidence thought to be no longer a matter of probability but of certainty (P=1)? So, in the case of Linda the bank teller, it would be probable (not less likely) that she is a feminist than not a feminist given her other evidenced traits. Those traits may not have a bearing on whether she's a bank teller (or not) but they may have a bearing on whether she is feminist, volunteered for a 'social justice' cause, voted Democrat, etc. That is it could 'add weight' to making some conclusion actually more probable ... but not necessarily 'any' conclusion (eg. she likes cilantro). I think Judea Pearl's work in Bayesian nets/conditional probability tried to fix this problem with frequentist probability. I'm not an expert but he showed that not only did more occurrences (i.e. evidence) increases the probability for an event, event's could increase the probability of other events. For example, having more symptoms related to some illness increases the likelihood for diagnosis, they don't consecutively decrease it b/c your less likely due to how probability are conjoined. Having more traits can increase the likely hood that you have some other trait due to a causal structure; in this example some illness having caused the symptoms. Each symptom adds to the probability of a diagnosis due to a causal structure. Going back to the Linda, if we've have enough evidence to believe with high certainty that she is politically and socially significantly left of center, then this should be cause to believe she is more likely to have further leftist traits than not. Just like once we've got enough evidence to believe there's an infections it increases the lieklihood that we'll find a raised white blood cell count justifying a blood test. What am I am I missing here?

Steven is a brilliant guy with an excellent system for applying reason to find truth. He doesn't always follow his own system. He points out the "fallacy of composition", and notes how each additional detail makes a claim less likely... but he ignores the legal standard of "preponderance of the evidence"- where no single fact makes a case, but an overwhelming number of facts tips the scales. The case for an assassination conspiracy against JFK can't be dismissed with a handwave. No honest person can seriously state that the investigating commission was on the level- especially after seeing how the J6 commission was run. There really are genocidal monsters who will use AI to cause havoc and destruction. All it takes is someone with a school-shooter's mentality to jailbreak the program. Steven should know this. And the 2020 election WAS rigged. The amount of empirical evidence is staggering. Denying it all with a shrug because some courts refused to hear the case is dumb. They cant rule on things they refuse to look for. Steven's optimism frequently blinds him to reality.

There is a sense in which Pinker is a "bean counter" saying that the current Gaza situation is much less important compared to the Syrian conflict, since less people were killed. This would be fine if you believe that all lives are equal. I hate to say this, but there should be a recognition that there is a notion of *culture* being preserved, like the last of a species. We hope that, eventually, displaced Syrians would recognise and rehabilitate their culture(s) in a way which was more stable and tolerant. Elsewhere in this discussion the topic of population reduction was briefly mentioned, it would be great if Pinker could turn his mind to that, since I think it is necessary. But what I'm trying to say is that the world needs to preserve culture. And by implication, all living species that have struggled to make it this far to now, especially insects, plants, corals, things at the base of our ecosystems. I guess I'm advocating preserving what we have for a long time, I'm a "conservative" in the sense of conservation, but not against change, as long as it can conserve "diversity". Because diversity means creativity. It means choice. Options.

Thought experiment: What if an AI that can, as Pinker said, iteratively get smarter, decides to investigate ambition in an iteration of learning and it understands the concept. Do we know for sure it wouldn't decide to hardcode ambition into its code if it has access and thinks it would be an improvement? Could this ambition then make it add other aspects to itself that may corrupt it? I personally think we should be very careful before we let a true AGI have access to its own code, either directly or by proxy.

It’s a difference , if The restrictions on free speech were because of protecting the or lying to the citizens

There's a book, not Pinker Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid

You don't need conspiracy when you've got blind obedience to orthodoxy.

Well, Pinker, a very smart person indeed in many regards, supported the Catalan nationalist separatist movement. I am not sure if that is a stupid thing, but it is not taking into account the Spanish recent political history, the coup it was victim of through that movement, its constitution and the large amount of people who want to remain in Spain as Spanish citizens and receive an unfair treatment there in Catalunya.

I'll watch, but I'll embarrass myself first by saying Pinker will say anyone who believes the opposite of what he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true, is being stupid no matter how smart they are and how well thought out their positions. Classic. Let's see.

That what I always ask reading Pinker himself :)

I'd like to hear Prof. Pinker discuss the rationality of a few pandemic topics: 1. Gain of Function research and the Lab-Leak Hypothesis, 2. the bureaucratic overreach in preventing doctors from prescribing promising medicines "off label" for early treatment, and 3. The Risk/Benefit of taking the vaccines in light of the emergent safety signals. It seems that lives were lost needlessly due to these failures.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="705">11:45</a> The official story about the JFK assassination, which tells that JFK was killed by one pathetic schmuck, is a story in which many things that would have happened by chance would have had to happen in just the right way, against the odds, to yield an outcome that was not very probable. Oswald would have had to be a very smart and capable person with very good access to material resources to have done it all by himself, and he would also have had to have plenty of good luck. A story in which Oswald acted in collusion with others puts him in a role in which he would have been more likely to be able to do what he could have done to help expedite the assassination, given that he was just a pathetic schmuck and not the Hannibal Lecter of political assassination. So the One Pathetic Schmuck theory works against the official explanation. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1435">23:55</a> AI can do wonders for the economy by replacing human managers with AI managers. People will still be doing work that is unpleasant and dangerous, but under the command of computers, not human bosses. It will be cheaper for tech companies to develop programs that can exercise power over human beings than to develop robots that will clear rubble, fight fires etc. So the greatest risks of AI lie in the motives of its human masters.

Holographic Principle Perspective Imagery is observable Actuality, but the conglomerations of interlocking narratives is Logarithmic Time, WYSIWYG pulse-evolution.

Steve has an amazing intellect! Always a pleasure to listen to him talk ❤

Two “smart” men, while discussing why smart people believe stupid things, discuss stupid things they believe. Very meta.

US Jew hatred is insane

Steven Pinker can definitely offer some expertise on this specific topic.

I love Pinker. I liked this talk very much. The joke about women not having an urge to dominate must have been satire, no?

So interesting. My comments appear when I look on my subscribed page but don't appear when I look incognito. I knew they don't appear because I would expect at least one reply. The fact that my comments have been censored say it all.

Once that belief is set, the subsequent revelation of fact will be difficult, and most likely painful, which in today's "Harm Reduction" framework, causes harm. Facts then get cancelled as harmful, not just to the greater moral value, but to the physical body. Isaiah <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="320">5:20</a>: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Confucius: "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1850">30:50</a>, he claims that women have no "urge to dominate" (in contrast to men). Granted, the female style of domination is different from the male one, but his statement is ignorant and pandering. If women have no urge to dominate then why, among most married couples, can the wife arrange the appearance of a room in the house with no fear of blowback from the husband, but not vice versa?

MOYNIHAN! A step up from Vice.😁

Salubrious. Good word.

Smart people are not usually wise. To be both is the goal, it is often one or the other.

The Irony.

But Gaza has a much smaller population than Syria so are you overlooking that aspect when considering the atrocities especially given the number of women and children.

AI? All car factories have been fully automated for twenty years while car prices tripled!

It’s very simple really. Intelligence is not a substitute for wisdom.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1341">22:21</a> I can't say I was surprised that Russia once again embraced, or at least reoriented itself to, a strongman authoritarianism after Russians found the hopes of the early post Soviet era to flounder. Each Marxist nation was distinct and the flavor of communism they practiced was a reflection of that. Russia, China, and Cuba were all different versions of authoritarianism with Marxist paint jobs. When the socialist dreams died, each culture went back to their old patterns. In many ways, they were just what they had always been. Sometimes I think Putin is just another Czar, and XI Jinping just another ruler over a Chinese Imperial court (he's actually a fascist so there's that), and so on. Societies can change, but often they really don't, and authoritarianism can be a more tempting path when you fear that not everyone is trustworthy as far as the social contract goes. No surprise in that.

Pinker's notion that science replaces myth is a category error. And a prime example of why smart people believe stupid things.

Don't agree with his argument about adding details to a story - because the other side can make the same argument. It just depends on what story you believe. For example they mentioned the JFK shooting. If you believe the CIA did it, then you would use Pinkers same argument that "the number of things to go right for" Oswald to have shot him make it less likely he did

I’m 69, saddened to believe I’ve been lied and manipulated by my government, those in media, those in the medical system all my life. Now I understand why my mother and father never explained to me the world I lived in. I’m thankful that God saved me and provided the Spirit of truth and the true Hope that comes from His Word and Jesus, the Savior.

Both guys spoke so fast that it made it impossible to digest what they wanted to convey. Major problem for people who engage in a public debate or conversation! I find the whole conversation, which I had high hopes for, useless

What does Syria's 5-600,000 total have to do with genocide. That's a war total - of many different groups. Within that there could be an situation where a group did a genocide against another. I think ISIS did continue their (UN recognized) genocide of the Yazidi people, coming from Iraq. But that was 5,000 killed - so that's not a genocide to you? The data point isn't big enough? And that Syrian total, almost half is civilian deaths - while in Gaza, the civilian deaths seem to be way more than half. Then add the hundreds of Palestinians killed in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas - no war. What's up with those deaths?

Contextualizing the appeal of conspiracy theories in our pre-modern behaviors was very interesting.

Imagine being just smart enough to talk shit about people who have solved more than your current understanding as a “public intellectual”

AI is the field of Digital Duplicates, and making comparisons with Actuality instantaneously, just like Quantum Operator Logic Fields Modulation Mechanism Lensing orientation-observation resonance is always going to be here-now-forever. The instantaneous Mind-Body Problem operates in the Aether of nothing but a relative-timing point positioning in the context of Eternity-now No-thing definable cause-effect, pure-math relative-timing motion substantiated Quantum Entanglement Fusion-Fission Function Fields positioning, ie, "it's not what you think " in the null set or fantasy of chaotic sum-of-all-histories untested. Tesla FSD is an Exoskeleton of digital duplication, ultra smart, but never Actual Intelligence of living parallel coexistence perceptions. It may be "good enough" on some scale of marginally monitored approximation?

No one knows how AI will evolve in the future. Pinker should speak with a bit more humility on this subject and maybe on others too.

"Evolution of the Lip Smack" - Steven Pinker

Steve Wozniak on Bloomberg last week - "I have AI myself, actual intelligence."

Michael Shermer is thinking "I wrote a book on this"

Classical American being born of 1300s global peasant revolt inspired all the enlightenment and mechanics invented it own tools that was temporarily waived .achieved all those goals needs and demands change physicalism is subject to change without further notice is why usa chose objectivism instead. Material sciences & tech plus quadrupled logistics with ability to develop regions to extract resources and operate business only major city's could support while ending blue collar white collar under universal operating systems makes prohibition era systems along with old agency and institutions outdated . Economic dead weight middle men fat old control mechanisms that are obstacles now. We never adjusted for increased life expectancy just as we never celebrated for successfully achieving our goals liberating all common sense marginalized groups leaving only criminals and extremist. We industrialized all 3rd world at the expense of middle class Americans. We charged all this on the native family cells from woman's suffrage to affirmative action.

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1029">17:09</a> - "A reason too not panic about deep fakes..." - I have to assume he means flagrantly bias deep fakes. Serious efforts to spread BS are more sophisticated and can be expected to operate under the radar of our casual interpretation.

We are having a very dangerous epistemological conflict …actually a war.

Helenistic enlightenment in concert with paper scroll production was knee deep in ( dualistic physical lawisms vs triality of self mosaic commandments. Alphabetical exodus was drawn upon more ancient knowledge just as 1300s global peasant revolt revisiting inspired reformation enlightenment in concert with the press. Quntom mosaic discovers,invents and builds while the dualistic deterministic classical physics takes simplicity orders and name fighting again real reality lol Newton says ( pretend) it's not how invented mechanics lol The moment we learned that we could play musical chairs of super positions to get the answer we want and that it was valuable to identify a city by its walls ,top down form and shape ancient world style by prescribing hierarchy Value on objects in space with a premium on carbon based life ends in this controdidictions yoo hoo woo hoo Babylonian evolutionary uncertainty. We have to assume realism over ant realism to further line of measure. That choo choo train standardized time where we effortlessly plagerize and correlate projecting human qualities into nature around us no longer could be the ultimate arbitor of truth. Niechtze would've really hated Max Plank lol But just because hiesenberg approach ends in nilhism and the more subjective properties like hamiltonian oscillating waves correlated with idealized time is sensible and tells us orientation and direction mang can't handle the truth. But it can give us guidance but will never release the human dashboard from intervention. The fall in man not nature really upsets most of the world including our scientists. Man made time hierarchy knowledge of Good and evil equations x, y,z .. All we call symmetrical beauty or ugly chaos is manmade. Sorry 😞 We tune our truest most precise instruments. Our longitude and latitude on soul agency & By for thru. It's built our world. A profitable competition that comes to an end in this Computational age in concert with strong indentefiers more precise human infrastructure

Eh, no. 2 dems discussing social issues will inevitably put their own biases forward as fact.

Because it gives comfort and emotional support. Believing in the improbable god gives emotional support and helps people to live a comfortable life.

Wait, Oswald shot JFK? Now that sounds like a conspiracy theory.

Its better to believe a lie from the New York times than anything alex jones says??? This has got to be one of the worst discussions i have listened to in 2024.

Wonder if it ever occurred to Steven pinker that he's one of those smart people who thinks stupid things. Sam harris, too. The arrogance, the smugness, of smart people, like harris and pinker, who think stupid things😂

Because they listen to Stephen Pinker. Duh!

The John Berch society was not a conspiracy thoary...all they stated came true

Interesting that the two of them could have a discussion about the the threat to democracy and not have any mention of a U.S. president trying to put the number one opposition candidate in jail.

There is a truth, that's the foundation of everything; but I know the truth - that's blasphemous and arrogant. That's why in science we say "true until proven otherwise".

Why did Pinker defend Jeffrey Epstein? Thats the question I would like answered.

so disappointed to see you whitewash Israel's crime by labeling it blood libel. What mental gymnastics. ..Some mistake only a PhD can make-Moynihan

This interviewer is so biased with regard to Israel.

Its always funny watching two people agree on the false premises they agree on.

Primacy of Consciousness - God’s, Versus Primacy of Consciousness - their own.

🤦🏼‍♂ almost nothing in the world is about probability.