Steven Pinker is a world-renowned cognitive psychologist, and is widely regarded as one of the most important public intellectuals of our time. His work delves into the complexities of cognition, language, and social behavior, and his research offers a window into the fundamental workings of the human mind.
Pinker, who is the author of nine books including Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress and Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, approaches his work with a kind of data-driven optimism about the world that has set him apart from the chorus of doomer voices we hear so much from in our public discourse.
Today, we talk to Pinker about why smart people believe stupid things, the psychology of conspiracy theories, free speech and academic freedom, why democracy and enlightenment values are contrary to human nature, the moral panic around AI, and much more.
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I do not know how “Smart People” can look at what is happening with this president and be concerned that Pres. Trump would be a dictator or destroy democracy! Biden has defied the Supreme Court, told half the country he hates them, opened our borders to terrorists or who knows who, put his political opponents in jail, and lost face in Afghanistan. This administration is a dictatorship and it must be ended.
The big example of conspiratorial beliefs and communications given in the podcast was Alex Jones. Arguably, a marginal player. What about the conspiracy theory of Trump and Russia? Hunter's laptop and Russia?
At the end, Mr Pinker says that we must rely on rationality and data. But rationality cannot formulate moral goals, it can only assess outcomes of different actions, and frequently cannot even do that. And data is meaningless unless it is fit into a conceptual structure.
I found not a hint of Burke in Mr Pinker. He celebrates (as do I) the progress toward enlightenment that has been made, but this progress was made at a time when the prevailing belief systems had a distinct religious character. The French Revolution, the Russian coup of October, and the Khmer Rouge gov't and others of that ilk were explicitly rational movements.