| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: September 2, 2025.] Russ Roberts: Today is September 2nd, 2025, and my guest is cognitive psychologist and author Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His latest book and the subject of today's conversation is When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. Steven, welcome to EconTalk. Steven Pinker: Thank you. |
| 1:02 | Russ Roberts: At the heart of the book is this idea of common knowledge, which has an everyday meaning, but you also mean it in a more technical way. What do you mean by 'common knowledge'? Steven Pinker: Common knowledge refers to the state where A knows something, B knows it. A knows that B knows it. B knows that A knows it. B knows that B knows that A knows it, ad infinitum. Russ Roberts: And, part of this--there's an attempt at some point in the book to answer the question whether this is feasible at the deepest level, at the fullest level. Talk a little bit about that. Some of the book is applied game theory, which involves recursive reasoning in various ways by the participants. Sometimes mathematically that's important. So, give us your take on, quote: How realistic this assumption is of common knowledge and whether that realism is important or not. Steven Pinker: So, as a cognitive psychologist--I'm not a logician, I'm not an economist, I'm not a game theorist, myself. So, having read about how vital common knowledge is to coordination--two people being on the same page, acting together in each of their interests, and how ubiquitous, how vital this is--my thoughts turn to, 'Well, geez, what's going on in someone's head when they have it?' Because clearly I can't be thinking, 'All I know is that she knows that I know that she knows.' Your head starts to spin after one or two I-know-that-she-knows, let alone an infinite number which can't fit into a finite skull. And there has been some speculation in the various literatures on what's going on in someone's head if they really do have common knowledge. And, one possibility is that we just think a bunch of I-know-that-she-knows and then think to ourselves, 'Dot, dot, dot,' or 'And so, on,' or 'Ad infinitum.' That introduces the problem of how do you know how to extend the series? But, I think actually what happens more often is that we just have a sense that something is public, or salient, or self-evident, or out there. And, if two people are observing something as they observe each other, that is enough to guarantee common knowledge, because you're seeing the other person seeing you seeing what it is that's known. And so that self-evidence, or salience, or conspicuity, is, I think--and the psychological intuition, 'Uh-oh, it's out there, I can't take it back,'--that's what corresponds to common knowledge in our minds. Russ Roberts: I think at one point in the book you give an example of people at an event, watching an event together, and seeing that the other people are watching. But of course, in the human experience, one of the great challenges is: You and I could both hear the same thing, but we will not process the same thing, right? Our knowledge of what we've heard is not the same. And, part of what makes life interesting and difficult is, I wonder whether you heard what I heard. I might think that you think I heard the same thing that you heard, but in fact, I didn't. And etc., etc. Steven Pinker: And of course, that happens a lot. Now, a lot of public events are designed so that they generate common knowledge. That's why we have ceremonies like a wedding or an investiture. Everyone knows who is the leader, and everyone knows that everyone knows, and that's what makes them the leader or that two people are committed to each other. But, yeah: there are many possibilities for not just misunderstanding of the message of the event, but of whether other people are also aware of it, and more important, whether they're aware that you're aware of it. |
| 4:59 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. Now, much of the book is about coordination, and you contrast coordination with cooperation and the idea that common knowledge was more important than you appreciated for coordination, not just cooperation. Talk about what's special about coordination and why common knowledge is important. Steven Pinker: Yeah. So, cooperation, at least as it's often used in biology, and game theory, and economics, often refers to two people, each conferring favors on each other, each incurring a cost-to-benefit, a favor, a benefit on someone else. It was made famous 50 years ago in Richard Dawkins's book, The Selfish Gene, because it poses a puzzle for evolutionary biology, namely how could altruism--that is suffering a cost to benefit someone else--ever have evolved if presumably natural selection favors those who act in their own interests? And it's also a puzzle in classical economics, because the simplest models assume that people act in their own interests. How do you explain people being generous, and giving to charity, and all the other kinds of cooperation? And it is a genuine problem, and I think there are solutions. And, an enormous amount of writing, and attention, and bestselling books have dealt with the problem of cooperation, and they've introduced ideas like reciprocity, trading favors. But, there's another form of acting together that I think escaped a lot of people's notice because it doesn't have that air of paradox of, 'What's in it for me if I benefit someone else?' And that is coordination, where two people do simultaneously act in a way that benefits them both without necessarily paying a cost. In the animal kingdom, it's sometimes called mutualism, when, for example, an oxpecker picks ticks off the back of a zebra. The oxpecker bird gets a meal, and the zebra is tormented by fewer pests, and everybody wins. No one pays a cost except for the ticks. But still--and there are lots of cases where humans both act in their own and in each other's interest. If two people bring complementary dishes to a potluck dinner, if they hold opposite ends of a heavy couch. Lots of cases. If they respect paper currency, one does something, and the other one pays him in greenbacks, and he, in turn, uses that to buy groceries. We drive on the right in the United States, or on the left in the United Kingdom, but all of us driving on the same side clearly benefits everyone; but no one's paying any price. But, what interests me as a psychologist, as with the problem of cooperation, where there is a puzzle as to how it's possible--in the case of cooperation, is: why do someone else a favor? In this case, it's a cognitive problem, an epistemological problem. Namely, how do I know that the other guy is going to make the same choice that I make? Not out of any fear of selfish motives, but a sheer ignorance or even unwillingness to take a chance? And, the general answer is that public conspicuous signals, or if there isn't any, focal points--namely solutions that occur to you and you think will occur to everyone else--that's what cuts the knot and solves these coordination problems. But the problem was introduced by the political scientist, Thomas Schelling, more than 60 years ago, where he imagined a couple that is separated in New York, and this was before the era of cell phones. How can they find each other? In both their interests, they really do both want to find each other. The problem being that he can't think, 'Well, she likes to go to a bookstore, so I'll find you there,' because she might think, 'Well, he likes to go to a camera store, so I'll go there.' And then, he might think, 'Oh, yeah. Well, she knows that I like going to a camera store, so she won't go to the bookstore this time. She'll look for me at the camera store.' But then, she'll anticipate that I know that she goes to the bookstore. Etc. Nothing short of common knowledge. The most obvious case would be a cell phone call. That's probably why we evolved language. Second best, and this is Schelling's suggestion, is the idea of a focal point or common salience: namely, without the cell phones, they might think, 'Well, what just pops out as an obvious solution to our problem?' He gave the conjecture that it might be the clock in Grand Central Station, not because it necessarily was close to where they were separated, but simply because it's so salient and obvious that each can guess that it'll pop into the mind of the other as something would in turn pop into the mind of the other, and that they're likely to coordinate by meeting at the clock. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Of course, the problem is, is that you, I'm sure, are married to someone, as I am, who would obviously not pick such an obvious example. You'd pick something more interesting, and you'd worry that they'd appreciate [inaudible 00:10:31] anyway. Steven Pinker: Well, except it might be I'd like to think my wife would be smart enough to realize, 'You know, now is not the time to pick what's interesting. The rest of life is for what's interesting. Now's the time for what's obvious.' Russ Roberts: But, she knows that you would care about what's interesting. For her, she would realize, of course, this is not the time, but you wouldn't realize that she probably knows, and therefore-- Steven Pinker: Well, this is what makes this whole topic so interesting--to me, especially, as a cognitive psychologist. That is, there are levels upon levels upon levels upon levels of mentalizing. So, she might think, 'Well, yeah, he'll pick what's interesting.' On the other hand, he knows that now is not the time to be interesting. Now is the time to be salient or obvious. Of course. And, these things can break down, and there can be misunderstandings, and we have a whole genre that's designed to allow us to exercise this talent and to play with it. And, these are mysteries where the whole plot hinges on who knows what about who knows what, and a skilled writer can keep the audience guessing. Sometimes I find that mysteries have too many layers, and I just can't keep track of it; or the author seems to know more than I could possibly know, and there's no way that I could have figured out who stabbed the boyfriend because the number of layers of knowledge that the author has revealed isn't enough to have anticipated the solution. |
| 12:11 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. What's funny about it, it's a little like the recursive mentalizing we were talking about earlier. There are some shows and mysteries that are so entertaining that I give the author a pass, and I don't even try to figure out the plot at this point. I won't name the show, but there are many shows like this where you're enjoying the character so much that the plot doesn't exactly hold together. Actually, an old example would be The Big Sleep, which is a fantastic movie with Humphrey Bogart. But, a lot of people say, 'Well, Faulkner worked on it, and so-and-so worked on it, and it doesn't really hold together.' But, who cares, right? Other times, of course, you care a lot. And, there's the other layer, which is a lot of times, especially in modern art, modern storytelling, we as the audience know what the characters know and don't know, and the author exploits that to create the exhilarating realization that we're hoping they will eventually figure out what the other person knows, and so on. So, they sort of break through the fourth wall and let us savor the imperfection of the knowledge. Steven Pinker: Quite right. But the--fiction in general, and especially fiction with complex plots and mysteries, as with any human talent, anything that we need for survival, we enjoy playing at, and playing is a practice for the real thing. So, sports are about aiming, chasing, and fighting, basically. Three very useful skills for our ancestors. But, we continue to exercise them for the sheer pleasure, ultimately probably to perfect them. And likewise, getting inside each other's heads, and getting inside the head of someone who is trying to get inside the head of someone else, is a lot of what we exercise in fiction. Russ Roberts: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I was just thinking about the O. Henry short story, which I can't believe I'm blanking on the name of. But, do you know the one I'm talking about? Steven Pinker: "The Gift of the Magi." Russ Roberts: That's it. "The Gift of the Magi." Yeah. Steven Pinker: Yes, that's a good example. Yes. Russ Roberts: Awful getting old. But, that's a great example of what you're talking about. We'll link to that for readers who want to read it. But, that's an example. Steven Pinker: We won't give away-- Russ Roberts: No spoilers. Steven Pinker: No spoiler alert. But, it is about a couple, each of whom is getting in the head of the other couple, and the story is about what could go wrong. Russ Roberts: What's fun about it in light of, I would say, the game-theoretic perspective--in game theory, sometimes we're exploiting the inability to communicate, right? The Prisoner's Dilemma being the most dramatic example. You isolate two people; they're stuck trying to speculate about what the other person's thinking and how they're going to behave. In this case, there's no cell phone, but they could talk; but they can't because it's a surprise. They're buying presents for each other. So, that's the way that O. Henry takes out the ability of communication to solve this coordination problem. Steven Pinker: It's a great example, and I'm sorry it didn't occur to me while I was writing the book because I could have used it instead of that couple who get separated at Grand--that old story from Thomas Schelling. But, it is an excellent example. The thing about the Prisoner's Dilemma is that even if the prisoners could communicate, it would not solve their problem because neither of them has grounds for trusting the other. Each would then be tempted to defect. Just as a reminder, I don't know if every one of your listeners is familiar with the Prisoner's Dilemma. Russ Roberts: You could lay it out. Go ahead. Steven Pinker: It's a classic paradox in game theory, probably game theory's best-known example, where two partners in crime are held in separate cells. The prosecutor doesn't have enough evidence to convict either of them and is hoping that one of them will rat out the other, and so offers them the following devilish deal: If they both stay silent, they will get, say, a year sentence. If each one of them turns on the other, defects on the partnership, then they both get five years. If one of them turns in the other and stays silent himself, then he goes free and the partner gets ten years. Now, what makes it devilish is that neither one wants to take the chance of going away for 10 years if he remains true to his partner, while the other partner defects and rats him out. That's the worst possible outcome. So, each rats out the other. They mutually defect. They end up serving five years apiece, whereas if they had only stayed loyal to the coalition, they would only have served one year. But, neither of them can take the chance because he fears the other one will defect if only out of the fear that the other one fears that he will defect. And, there's no solution. What makes it a kind of tragedy is that they're doomed to the second-worst outcome. The interesting thing is, and I point this out in the book in a chapter on game theory, that Coordination Dilemmas don't have that structure. They're not Prisoner's Dilemmas. And it's easy to confuse them. One of the classic game-theoretic examples of a Coordination Dilemma was proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau more than 250 years ago--and to this day, it's called a 'Stag Hunt' in honor of his example--which is: Imagine there are two hunters, and again, there are no telephones in those days. Every day they have to rendezvous, and they have a choice of either bringing heavy weaponry, which they can use to work together to fell a big, meaty stag, or, say, slingshots, where they can separately hunt for rabbits, much less satisfying a quarry. So, it's in their interest that both of them bring their heavy weaponry. But each one worries that the other one might think that the first one might just come with a slingshot, if only out of fear that the other one is worrying about the same thing. And so, they might both end up with slingshots, even if they could only exchange messages that they could coordinate and both bring heavy gear and fell the stag. Now, it sounds a little bit like a Prisoner's Dilemma, but the payoffs are different because in a Prisoner's Dilemma, the worst possible outcome is if you cooperate and your partner defects. In a stag hunt, the worst thing that can happen to you is if both of you defect. And the problem in a stag hunt is different, because if you could coordinate, neither of you really has an incentive to lie or to stay silent because it's both in your interest to say, 'Hey, let's bring big bows and arrows today.' |
| 19:53 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. The problem I have with some of these examples is that much of the human experience, I would argue, is designed to overcome these problems. And, the problems are real; and mathematicians like them a lot because they're fun to solve and they're clever. But of course, many norms and conventions have emerged to cope with this. Especially when we can't communicate, especially when you can't. In the Prisoner's Dilemma example, you point out correctly that credible commitment is the real problem, not just the ability to--you could both say, 'Yeah, let's keep the deal,' and then, of course, when you're facing the decision, you can defect, and you worry the other prisoner will do the same. But these are, of course, old, old problems, and human beings have developed all kinds of ways to cope with them. The most obvious is codes of conduct for soldiers in wartime. And it's ironic: The saying is, 'There's no honor among thieves,' but thieves have codes of behavior to prevent these kind of unattractive equilibria. Let me just add one more because I think it's really important: the Tragedy of the Commons, which is more like a Prisoner's Dilemma. If I avoid the commons--excuse me, let's go the other way. If I bring my cow onto the commons at night and secretly let my cow graze and overgraze the commons, everybody will have the incentive to do that. So the claim is the commons will be bare, and commons will therefore be a disaster. Elinor Ostrom and others have pointed out that that's why small communities at least that can communicate, although they can't commit necessarily, but they do create norms of behavior that try to reduce the probability of a tragedy like that. What are your thoughts on that? Steven Pinker: Yes. So, I don't think any of these undermine the interest of the game-theoretic analyses. On the contrary, they explain why we have these conventions and norms, and how they arose, and how they work. And so in the case--and a norm basically is a matter of common knowledge-- Russ Roberts: No!-- Steven Pinker: We call it a norm as opposed to a law because the only reason that it works is that everyone knows that everyone else knows that it exists. And it can unravel if people start to flout it. But, in the case of, say, Ostrom and others, like Larry[?Robert?] Ellickson, Order without Law, where the theory was that nothing short of enforcement by a third party can get people to stop overgrazing the commons. As you note, it is a multi-party Prisoner's Dilemma. And in fact, Ostrom and others have noted that when you have communities of fishers, or ranchers, or farmers, and you don't have Big Brother enforcing good behavior, they do often settle on norms that avoid the Tragedy of the Commons. On the other hand, my understanding is that these are norms like: You don't pull in baby lobsters and therefore deplete the stock for next year's catch. Or: You don't overgraze. On the other hand, I think these norms are often enforced, certainly by gossip, if it's known that someone flouts them, and that can hurt you in the community. And by the occasional anonymous threat, the occasional symbolic vandalism--a lobster fisherman who overfishes might see some of his trap floats cut loose to kind of send a message. So, it is a genuine dilemma. And again, though the Tragedy of the Commons--the overfishing, and overgrazing, and so on--because it does have the structure of Prisoner's Dilemma, is a little bit different from the coordination problems. Which are also problems; but, they're problems that are less motivational. They're less about greed, and generosity, and trust, and gratitude, and more about communication, being on the same page, and to some extent, a confidence versus nervousness. Rousseau's 'Stag Hunt' is sometimes called a security dilemma or an assurance dilemma, I should say, because the part of the problem is not just not getting the message, but fear of the worst that could happen if the other guy doesn't get the message. Or, if the other guy gets the message but doesn't know that you know that he knows that he got the message. So, it's a different set of issues, equally interesting. And generally, public things--public announcements, public beacons, smoke signals, bat signals, something that is out there that everyone can see and knows that everyone can see--it can be a way of solving these Coordination Dilemmas, which are somewhat different than the Tragedy of the Commons dilemmas. So, I'll give an example. It's not mine. It comes from a political scientist named Michael Chwe, of the problem that Apple Computer faced when it introduced the Macintosh in 1984. The problem being a coordination problem. It was clear that compared to the old IBM PCs [International Business Machines Personal Computers], where you just had 24 lines of text and you had to type verbal commands, that a computer system with windows, and icons, and a mouse was way, way better, insanely great. The problem being you don't want to be the only one who owns a Macintosh computer because then where will you get peripherals? Where will you get software? Where will you get tech support? Everyone has got to--or at least a critical mass of people have to buy it at the same time. But, each one would be nervous that they may be the only one buying it. So Apple cut that knot with a common knowledge generator, namely the American Super Bowl. This was the football game that everyone knows that everyone watches. And so, Apple paid for the most expensive commercial in the history of television. It ran only once, directed by Ridley Scott of Blade Runner and Alien fame. And, not coincidentally, it was 1984, and it played off the dystopia of 1984, showed a live athletic woman in red gym shorts and a singlet invading a corporate meeting filled with gray-clad drones and throwing a hammer at a screen which shatters in an explosion. And then, the message is, 'On January 25th, Apple will introduce the Macintosh and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.' So, it was kind of meaningless. It didn't say anything about the product, but what it was advertising was common knowledge. What it was saying is: as you're sitting on your couch watching this, you know that tens of millions of other Americans are sitting on their couches watching it. So, if you buy this, you won't be the only one. And then, other examples that Chwe mentions were products that depend on coordination. Another example being the Discover credit card. Great credit card, but it doesn't matter if no stores are going to accept it. No store is going to accept it if they think that no customers are going to carry it. How do you cut that knot? Again, Super Bowl ad. |
| 28:06 | Russ Roberts: Yeah, I'm not sure that's true. It's a nice story. Obviously, there are other ways to cut the knot. You can offer hundreds of free or discounted prices for early adopters; but it is a challenge, of course, when there are these network effects that people do worry about. I saw that ad. I think I saw it live. I'm not sure that it's going to convince me that I wasn't going to be alone. But, it's a great ad. We'll put a link up to it. If you haven't seen it, it's quite a spectacular minute or so of storytelling. Steven Pinker: It's obviously not the only way to generate common knowledge. There are many ways as human ingenuity can come up with. But the point being that what has to be conveyed is not the qualities of the product, but the fact that somehow you're not going to be the only one. Russ Roberts: Well, I'm pretty confident people thought they weren't the only one who saw the commercial. I'm not sure they were convinced that they wouldn't be alone if they bought one. But, it's provocative. Steven Pinker: It is. Yeah. And then, Chwe did try to get independent empirical evidence for this hypothesis. So, for example, he found that products that are advertised on highly publicized events--at the time, there was the Super Bowl, but also the Barbara Walters' famous interview with Monica Lewinsky at the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, which was avidly watched, especially during the three-network era when there wasn't streaming video. And, in highly public events, he counted up the products that were advertised, and he compared products that have network effects. Sometimes they would be technologically-dependent products like a new computer system, but also products that depend on brand image, and products where consuming them collectively is part of the pleasure. So, part of the pleasure of seeing a new movie is you talk to other people who've seen the movie. And so, if you're the only one who sees it, it's not as enjoyable as if it's a blockbuster that everyone's going to be talking about, or a best-selling book. Anyway, what he found was that as opposed to, say, things like motor oil, or batteries, or underwear, where you consume it in private, or breakfast cereal, what he claimed was that products that are consumed in public or that otherwise have network effects are more likely to be advertised on highly public media, events like the Super Bowl--holding constant size of audience. Likewise, what he found was that events like the Super Bowl commanded a higher premium, higher advertising price per minute, holding constant the size of the audience. That is, advertisers who play Super Bowl ads aren't just paying for the number of eyeballs, but the rates reflect the fact that those eyeballs are aware that there are other eyeballs. At least that was the claim. So, it was clever. And, a more recent example, another thing that depends on networks, is speculative investing. Going back to John Maynard Keynes with his metaphor of a beauty contest where the object is not to pick the prettiest face, but to pick the face that the most other contestants are picking, each one of them knowing that other contestants are anticipating what they will pick. And so, Keynes used this as a way of explaining speculative bubbles, and bank runs, and crashes, where everyone's trying to get in the head of everyone else getting in the head of everyone else. But, a more recent example of Chwe's phenomenon is that two years ago, during the crypto craze, the Super Bowl was filled with high-concept ads for crypto exchanges--FTX [Futures Exchange] being the most famous--and Larry David's appearance as himself in various periods of history resisting new innovations. But, the punchline being, 'Don't be like Larry. Don't be left out.' Again, nothing about the advantages of cryptocurrency, like their hedge against inflation, or you can buy drugs, or weapons, or hookers, or whatever. It's nothing about what's so great about crypto, but rather everyone else thinks that there's something else great about crypto, so don't miss out on the bubble. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Well, I like the idea that those are particularly unlikely to emphasize the nature of the product itself and more about the widespread knowledge about the product. That's very cool. |
| 33:07 | Russ Roberts: Before we leave this topic, I want to just make an observation about Tragedy of the Commons that you remind me of, which is: a lot of commitment problems are solved by letting the other person see that you are complying. Or vice versa. But, sometimes that's impossible. And, one could argue that one of the roles of religion, as well as other norms--patriotism, and other belonging activities--is to get compliance when it seems like no one is watching, but in fact there is someone watching--the Almighty. And, to get people to do what you'd like them to do, as opposed to defect--it's pretty extraordinary that it works at all. Obviously, it doesn't work perfectly, but that it works at all is kind of amazing. Steven Pinker: Yes, that's right. There is an idea that a number of anthropologists and psychologists of religion have proposed, that especially historically, as civilizations got bigger and more complex, and mere gossip networks, let alone the state, would not be adequate to police the laws, the ideology of an overseeing and moral God arose, a big God, the monotheistic God. A little bit like the song about Santa Claus: 'He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good. So, be good for goodness' sake.' The idea that there is a watcher and an enforcer can ensure large-scale cooperation in conditions where, as you note, you can't have the transparency or the mechanisms of enforcement. But, another thing, though, that religion, and in fact the law does, since neither God--let's face it, there's no guarantee that you will go to heaven or hell. There's no guarantee that there is a heaven or hell. Russ Roberts: There's uncertainty. Steven Pinker: There is uncertainty. Yes. Then people could take Pascal's Wager, but still it's not the same as if Big Brother was watching you through telescreens and the Stasi would whisk you away if you broke the law. A lot of laws--and as we noted earlier, norms that aren't enforceable by law work because they can be focal points. That, if everyone knows that everyone knows they exist--and that can happen with religious rituals--then that can ensure coordination even in the absence of outright enforcement. So, let me just say a couple of words about this. Legal theorists have noted that the law is effective because there are courts, and police, and so on. But they couldn't possibly detect every infraction of every law and send everyone to jail who breaks the law. But nonetheless, the law can work as a focal point. That is, whenever two people are in a confrontation, there's a question of who will stand his ground and who will back down if they want to avoid the cost of a fight. And often some things aren't worth fighting for. It's better if someone gives way, but the question is, is it going to be me or him? Well, what a law can do if it's commonly known--if everyone knows that everyone knows--is that it can kind of tell you who should give way and who should prevail in these disputes. I give an example of the time when smoking started to be outlawed. When I was a student, and since we're the same age, I'm sure this is true of you, everyone smoked everywhere. In classrooms my professors would smoke. It was horrible, especially for a non-smoker such as myself. You could ask someone to put out their cigarette if they're sitting next to you in a lecture hall. The problem is they could glare at you and say, 'Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? I have the right to smoke if I want to smoke.' It could create an ugly scene. But then, when universities started to have policies against smoking--now, there were no smoking police that would haul you off in handcuffs if you lit up, but there were no-smoking signs in classrooms. And, what I could do is tap the guy on the shoulder, point to the no-smoking sign. And that would be, again, not enforceable. Well, it wasn't enforceable, but no one would enforce it. But still, in the confrontation, one of us had to give way. And, the idea was, 'Okay, the convention around here is the smoker gives way, the non-smoker prevails.' And so, a lot of laws and a lot of religious courts--like Sharia courts, rabbinical courts--had no police force to enforce their decisions. But, everyone accepted them simply because accepting some decision, any decision, was better than fighting over everything. Russ Roberts: And of course, the failure to comply with the decision, you could be kicked out of the group, and that could have high costs. |
| 38:34 | Russ Roberts: I want to give two examples that you provoke in my thinking. One is, we did an episode on prison codes with David Skarbek--a long time ago. We'll put a link up to it. And, there's a remarkable thing. His book is about that many prisons have constitutions--have, literally, a set of rules written by the prisoners, not by the guards. And the question is: How do you enforce that? And, especially in a world where there are cameras everywhere--the example you gave. And, the startling insight--which I don't know if it's true, but I love it--is that there are certain places in prisons where the cameras are not 100% covering. There are certain corners. The prisoners know where those are, and that's where enforcement is done. People are beaten up or worse in those corners. And, the prison--the prison--likes that. They like that because it allows the prisoners to enforce order and a certain set of norms of behavior, and the prison doesn't have to incur those costs. I don't know if it's true. I like to think it is. It could be true. The other thing you make me think of--and you can comment on any of this if you want--you mentioned the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. And, one of my all-time favorite movies is The Lives of Others, which involves the oppressive nature of the East German regime. It's one of my favorite movies. I've only seen it once. I've never had the stomach to watch it again. It's an extraordinary movie, but I can't enjoy it. I couldn't enjoy it again. Steven Pinker: No, same-- Russ Roberts: It's too painful. Steven Pinker: Same, same. Yeah. Russ Roberts: But it's a brilliant movie, and it reminds me, along with your book and this conversation, the power of informers--who, of course, are undercover. Police wear a sign that says Police. Informers don't wear a sign that says Informer. And so, when you live in a totalitarian regime, a 1984-type regime with the screens everywhere, or the cameras everywhere, of course, they can't be everywhere. But, informers are almost everywhere, or at least they could be because you don't know who they are. And so, one of the most effective things that totalitarian regimes are able to use and invoke to maintain power and compliance is that uncertainty, that lack of common knowledge, the not knowing who is a possible conduit and effectively being a camera for the regime or a recording device for the regime. To the extreme--where, of course, people lie about what they've heard and what they've seen to punish people they want revenge against, or people they feel have done them wrong, or people they don't like, or for the feeling of power. And, what an extraordinary non-technological innovation that is for oppression, and how sad that is. Steven Pinker: Well, in a tremendous irony--you know, I work at a university, and we have Bias-response Hotlines, where students are encouraged to anonymously snitch on their classmates for microaggressions--subtly racist comments like, 'Where are you from?' or, 'You're very articulate.' And, helping, I think, explain the fantastic irony that college students at elite universities are kind of in adolescent heaven. Their meals are provided for, there's constant cultural programming-- Russ Roberts: They're at a resort. Steven Pinker: It's a resort. They're with their peers, and they claim to be lonely. What? And, it's because, I think, partly they can't let loose and do what bonds people all over the world, namely: gossip, and off-color jokes, and politically incorrect sardonic remarks. Because we've got a modern equivalent of the Stasi. Namely, you don't know which of your fellow students might rat on you in one of these anonymous Bias-response Hotlines. So, anyway, the irony is a little bit off topic. Russ Roberts: No, no, no, that's it. That's incredible. We did a Book Club here at EconTalk on Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman's masterpiece. And, I think it's very hard for people who have lived in a relatively free society for most of their lives, like you and I have, to imagine what that world is like. And, what's bizarre and strange about this cultural movement that you're talking about against bias--hotlines and so on--is that people who had to live under real oppression find this very painful because they thought they had escaped it. For those of us who haven't lived under it and have only read about it, or not--many people, of course, haven't read about it--it's just totally different. And those--they have a visceral dislike for that kind of enforcement. Steven Pinker: Well, yes. And, I sometimes wonder if people who have not grown up with the shadow of Communism, the Soviet regime, and the Warsaw Pact, and reminders of what life is like under a dictatorship--not just the fear of speaking out and the way that it poisons intimate relationships, but things like the comical inefficiency of state-run enterprises. A lot of jokes were told--if we had time, I could recount them--about the inefficiency of the Soviet system. Of which the Russian citizens themselves had mordant jokes about. Now when you have the likely next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, talk about government-run grocery stores, that's almost like a punchline of a joke for the people who remember government-run grocery stores in the Soviet Union. And, there were a number of jokes commonly told about that. But we're getting a little bit off-topic. |
| 45:12 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. Well, I'll tell one, just because I have to. I think it was told--it doesn't matter which Soviet dictator it was. It wasn't Stalin, but it was somebody else. You know, two guys are waiting in line for meat because Monday is meat day or whatever it is, and they've already spent an eternity earlier that day waiting for vodka, and now they're in this incredibly long line to get a modest allotment of meat. And, one of them says, 'That's it, I've had it.' He says, 'What do you mean you've had it?' He says, 'I'm going to go assassinate'--fill-in-the-blank, whoever it was, Brezhnev or whoever. And the other guy, he's just sort of flabbergasted. And the guy disappears--his buddy disappears. Comes back half an hour later. He goes, 'What happened? Did you kill him?' He goes, 'No, no. The line for that's even longer.' That's my second favorite. My first favorite has to do with when the washing machine is going to be delivered. And, you can probably Google that and find it. Did you want to tell one, Steven? Russ Roberts: Go ahead, please. Steven Pinker: Rumors are spread throughout the neighborhood that the grocery store that day is going to have tomatoes. So, everyone is really excited, lines up around the block to get tomatoes. And, they wait there for about an hour and 20 minutes, and then the guy comes out of the supermarket, says, 'I'm sorry, there are not going to be enough tomatoes. All Jews leave the line.' And so they wait; another hour passes. The manager comes out and says, 'I'm sorry, there are fewer tomatoes than we imagined. Everyone who is not a member of the Communist Party must leave.' So, about two-thirds of the line leaves. Another 40 minutes, comes in again, 'I'm sorry, the allotment was less than what we had originally been promised. Those who are not part of the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party leave.' So maybe a dozen people left. The day is getting late. The guy comes out and says, 'I'm sorry, only members of the Central Committee who are veterans of World War II can get tomatoes.' Then finally, it's, you know, six o'clock. It's about to close, and there's only two people left in line. And, the manager comes down and says, 'I'm sorry, there will be no tomatoes today.' And, one says to the other, 'Goddamn Jews always get special treatment.' Russ Roberts: Uh, yeah. I know the joke, but that was lovely, very well-told. Steven Pinker: But, anyway, we're--this is EconTalk-- Russ Roberts: It's all right-- Steven Pinker: So, it's an economics joke, too. Russ Roberts: Yep-- Steven Pinker: And, what's the point of a podcast if you can't get spontaneous material that you won't read about in-- Russ Roberts: Exactly-- Russ Roberts: Exactly. It's all good. |
| 48:17 | Russ Roberts: And, it gives us a perfect segue to a topic I wanted to get to, which is laughing and crying. You have a very nice discussion of--I mean, laughter is a really weird thing. And, we all know people who laugh nervously in their social interactions; and it's just a sign of discomfort, a sign of unease. But, you point out something--it's quite profound, and it's already affected me today when I finished your book. Many of the things we laugh at--not nervous laughter, but things that amuse us--are not funny. They're not comic, they're not witty, and it's hard to understand why we do that. So, talk about laughter, and then, I want you to then talk about crying and the inverse nature of certain emotions. These are ideas I have never encountered before, especially the complex physical range of things we do with our body when we're either amused or disturbed is very interesting. So, talk about that. Steven Pinker: Yeah. So, the first thing: Here is an experiment you can all try at home, listeners. Next time you're in a social gathering, just pay attention to what triggers laughter. And, probably nine out of 10 times, it is not a joke, a witticism. It's a minor indignity of someone, and it befalls the teller, or the hearer, or everyone. But, people laugh. And, the puzzle of laughter is: unlike our facial expressions, which are pretty economical signals, communicators, when you laugh it takes over your respiratory system. You've got to at least momentarily stop talking. You can't talk and laugh at the same time. It's conspicuous. Laughter, it can be loud, it breaks into things. It's unignorable. And it's contagious, which is why TV sitcoms used to have laugh tracks. It genuinely does make people laugh more. The common denominator in humor is that there usually is some indignity that is pointed out of some target, sometimes oneself, and that the laughter means that--the laughter generates common knowledge. That is, you hear it, you know everyone else is hearing it. If you are laughing, you can't ignore it because you've stopped speaking, and it takes over your body at the same time that you know that others are hearing. So, it's a common knowledge generator. And it's basically, you're spreading common knowledge in some infirmity, indignity, weakness, embarrassment, sometimes aggressively. And, of course, humor can be used aggressively when you laugh at someone. And it's very painful. Even children hate it when they're the butt of a joke or the target of laughter. Or it can be used convivially. A self-deprecating humor is a way that we bond, where we basically convey we're all equals. Even though I might be smarter, or better looking, or richer, or better connected than you, I'm going to bring myself down to signal that the basis of our relationship is egalitarian friendship and not a hierarchy. Russ Roberts: Nice. Steven Pinker: And, conversely, I have a chapter on emotional expressions that I propose are special because they're common knowledge generators. So, laughter: you know you're laughing, you know that other people are hearing you laughing. Crying is another one. You're seeing the world through tears at the same time that other people are seeing the glistening or the trickling. Blushing is another example. You feel the heat from the inside while other people see the reddening from the outside. And, when you blush, what makes a blush so painful is you know that other people see that you're blushing. In the case of tears, the most obvious occasion for crying is defeat, helplessness, surrender, when you've been hurt. And, it has probably evolved from signals of defeat in a conflict, just like there's an interest when an army knows that it has lost, putting up a white flag of surrender, or in a boxing match, the manager throws in the towel. You want the fighting to stop. You've accepted defeat. Neither side wants there to be further fighting with a possibility of both of them getting hurt. And so, it calls the conflict to an end in a commonly known way. But, although crying--a lot of occasions of tears isn't necessarily of pain or surrender. We cry at weddings, we cry at people who win Miss America, or win the Super Bowl: We'll have tears of joy. So, part of it might even be the opposite or antithesis of laughter. And, Darwin proposed that facial expressions could sometimes evolve in opposite pairs, and that explains why they exist. Or bodily postures: That, if you display one posture to signal one state, to signal the opposite state there's the opposite posture. And, in many ways, crying is the opposite of laughter. Laughter, you kind of slap your knees; and crying, you slump down. In crying, you have big inhalations. In laughter, you have loud exhalations. And, it may be a way of appreciating--in contrast to laughter, which thrives on some indignity, some infirmity--that tears signal an appreciation of the best that life has. Of being moved by generosity, by joy, by good fortune. And so, some of the explanation for crying, I suggest, may be it's the opposite of laughing. |
| 54:58 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. The contagion part is interesting to me because, as you point out, the laugh track is an example. You also point out how rarely we laugh out loud when we're alone. Steven Pinker: Notwithstanding the texting abbreviation, LOL [laughing out loud], which is almost never true. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Actually, LOL: what you really mean by that is usually is, like, 'It brought a smile to my face.' Or, a sort of [?]. But, what's interesting to me is that I am not a big fan of attending stand-up comedies live. I've been to a couple events. And a lot of times I find myself laughing a lot. And then afterwards, I'll turn to my wife and say, 'I don't think it was very funny.' And, she will agree with me usually, because she didn't either. But, she could have said, 'But, you sure laughed a lot.' And, it's a phenomenon that I think is very real. I also have this with crying. I don't know if this is a common phenomenon: People talking about crying, or when I'm reading a book that talks about someone crying, often I get a visceral, choking up, an emotional response for myself, even though I'm not necessarily particularly moved by the event, by the thing that's being described. And, it's clearly physical. Just like people will cough: it's another example of a contagion. If you go to a symphony and somebody coughs, often there'll be two to 10 people coughing after that. And, I've felt the urge to cough. Everyone's fighting it off as best they can, but not everybody can. And, some people just cough. It's an interesting--but, that's an interesting phenomenon-- Steven Pinker: Yawning. Yawning is another example. Yeah. So, in the case of laughter and tears, they're absolutely contagious. It has been shown in studies. And there that's consistent with the rules of common knowledge generators: namely, everyone knows that everyone knows that in the case of laughter, someone has a previously hidden infirmity or indignity. That is: What laughter does is it turns private knowledge into common knowledge. Anyone who gets the joke--and usually a good joke--there's some missing premise that the hearer has to fill in. When they do, what everyone knew privately, now everyone knows that everyone knows. And, probably the same with crying. With coughing and yawning, it's much more mysterious why they should be contagious. One can tell a story. I didn't in the book just because I didn't think it was convincing enough. Russ Roberts: But, the strange thing about laughter, which fascinates me, is that, I'm going to confess here publicly--it's now going to become common knowledge--that I have laughed at things I didn't understand, right? So, someone tells a joke--the punchline [?] requires some understanding of either a term, or a phrase, or a translation--and I find myself laughing along with everyone else. Then I realize I didn't get that. And, sometimes you have the courage to ask, 'I'm sorry, what? Explain that.' But, other times it's very socially awkward to confess that you didn't understand it. Having said that, the other thing that I think is so fascinating about comedy, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this: punchline is crucial. The person who has talked the most about this that I know of is Gary Gulman. He's a very funny man. He talks about how he works at honing the precise wording. And, many, many jokes that are funny when told correctly are not funny when told poorly. Your punchline, 'Goddamn Jews, they get all the--' What was it? They get all the-- Steven Pinker: Always get special treatment. Russ Roberts: Special treatment. I should let listeners know that both Steven and I are Jewish, lest a bias-hotline report, complain. I did not take that to be an anti-Semitic joke, but [inaudible 00:59:07] if you just read the punchline in the transcript, you could be judged for that. But, it's actually the opposite. It's a critique of anti-Semitism. But, my point is that that wording is much funnier than, 'Boy, the Jews get all the breaks.' 'The Jews get all the breaks'--there's a wry, ironic nature to it, but it's not as funny. And why is that? Why is that wording--the wording of the punchline is so crucial to so much humor? Steven Pinker: Yeah. No, that is so true. I'll give you another example, the beginning of Woody Allen's movie, Annie Hall, he recounts another Jewish joke of two women at a Catskills resort, and one of them says, 'The food here is really terrible,' and the other one says, 'Yes, and such small portions.' Now that's funny. And, I've heard it retold as, 'The food is bad, and the portions are small.' Russ Roberts: Yeah: not funny. Steven Pinker: That's not funny. That's not funny. So, the main idea is that humor and jokes are not the same thing. As we mentioned before, certainly most laughter is in response to things that are not particularly funny. What a joke does, I think--and because very few people can write jokes, and not that many people can tell them well. A greater number, but even the ones who tell jokes well often didn't write them. A comedian is someone who can do both. And, of course, delivery matters. Now, I think a joke is: we take a human response of laughter, of humor, but we use our ingenuity to purify, concentrate, give the biggest possible dose for our own pleasure. It's what I call a pleasure technology. The analogy would be cheesecake. Why do people like cheesecake? We couldn't have evolved a taste for cheesecake. There was no cheesecake in the savanna where we evolved-- Russ Roberts: In the hunter-gatherer era-- Steven Pinker: In the hunter-gatherer, there's no cheesecake. Quite the contrary. What cheesecake does is it takes things that we do respond to in small doses--fat,-- Russ Roberts: [inaudible 01:01:16]-- Steven Pinker: sweet food--and we use our ingenuity and our technology to concentrate it into a super-normal dose. And, I think that's what happens with jokes. They're not typical of laughter, but they're engineered to give us pleasure. And, of course, we pay money for them. We go to comedy clubs, or we pay comedians and sitcom writers lots of money because they do it so well, and most people don't. So, you have to realize that it is interesting what makes something really, really funny; but it is kind of an exaggeration of response. And, I think in the case of the timing--which is everything, and hence the wording of the punchline--is that the pleasure comes from the sudden realization of the hidden logic that makes what at first seems like an anomaly sensible, and a bring-down in dignity of some target. And, if that happens quickly--if it happens all at once--that enhances the pleasure compared to figuring it out in dribs and drabs. Russ Roberts: Although that half beat where you don't realize and then you get it is also a very sweet spot. Steven Pinker: Oh, yes. Well, there's the pleasure of anticipation; and then the consummation when it suddenly happens. But, as with other pleasures where part of the pleasure is the buildup, but then there has to be the consummation to make the whole experience enjoyable. Russ Roberts: I just saw recently an interview with Bob Odenkirk. Bob or Bill? Let me get this right, hang on. It's Bob. I just saw recently an interview with Bob Odenkirk, who wrote the 'Van Down by the River,' Chris Farley's Saturday Night Live skit, which we'll of course link to. And, his favorite line--he says he's written hundreds, if not thousands, of skits for Saturday Night Live and elsewhere. And, he said they often get edited and changed by the performers. He claims at least that that skit was almost done exactly the way he wrote it: that, in one night he wrote it and then it got canonized that way. But, there's one moment where Chris Farley, the motivational speaker, who is standing about four feet away from the son of the family, raises his glasses and looks at the teenage son and says, 'Who wants to be a writer?' And, says, 'I don't know.' He goes, 'I don't see so well. Is that Bill Shakespeare?' I may have got the line wrong. It may be that the line is, 'I don't see Bill Shakespeare.' I think it's, 'Is that Bill Shakespeare?' But, Bill Shakespeare is 10 times funnier than William Shakespeare, and I'm not 100% sure why. But, William Shakespeare is funny. If he says, 'Is that William Shakespeare over there?' that's kind of amusing. But when he says Bill Shakespeare and him are intimates, I guess that's the humor of it. It's special. |
| 1:04:28 | Russ Roberts: Anyway, I want to close with two topics. The first is a puzzle that you have a lot to say about, which is--it's a deep puzzle: Why don't people say what they mean? You have a beautiful example of bribing the maitre d'. When you bribe a maitre d', you could say, 'Look, here's $20 bucks. We need a table.' But, instead, there's this norm that you don't say that--that's gauche--and you give a bunch of examples. 'I hope you can fit us in,' as you hand the maitre d' the money. 'I was wondering if you might have a cancellation. Is there any way you could speed up my wait?' 'We were wondering if you had a table for two. This is a really important night for me.' And I think one of the more interesting parts of human social relations is that some people know how to do that. Most of us don't, or many of us struggle with that situation. And, I don't really mean the problem of getting a table at a fancy restaurant that's overbooked. The situation where you need to do something subtle with nuance and word it in a way that conveys what you mean, but not in so many words. What a strange aspect that is of the human experience. Steven Pinker: Well, this is what got me interested in the entire topic of common knowledge, as someone who is interested in language, because it's a commonplace in linguistics that very often we don't blurt out what we mean in so many words, but we speak indirectly, and the listener has to connect the dots and catch our drift. Politeness being the most obvious example; and that's something that all of us do every day. 'If you could pass the salt, that would be great.' If you think about it, that would be awesome. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And, why don't you just say, 'Give me the salt'? Now, we effortlessly do connect the dots. In that case, it doesn't require a whole lot of social skill to say, 'Could you please pass the salt?' or, 'I was wondering if you could pass the salt.' Although sometimes, when you're asking a huge favor and you're not on intimate terms with someone, it does require a lot of skill in wording something indirectly so that the listener knows exactly what you're saying, what you're asking, without being offended. And, we have names for that. We call it tact, or social skill, or savoir faire. But, it does raise the question for at least me as a psychologist: Why do we bother? Why don't we just say what we mean? Sometimes we muse, 'Wouldn't life be easier if people just were honest all the time?' Until we think twice, and think actually, that would be rather a hellscape-- Russ Roberts: Hell-- Steven Pinker: And, why? So, here's what I proposed in a previous book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. And, I expand on it in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. And that is, that direct speech generates common knowledge. Hints, innuendo, euphemism can convey the same message without common knowledge. Which is to say, in the case of, say, the maitre d', bribing the maitre d', the maitre d' is a grown up. He knows what, 'Is there any way to shorten my wait?' means. So, it's not as if there's plausible deniability of the intent. But there can be plausible deniability of common knowledge. That is, the maitre d', if he, say, turns down the bribe, could still think, 'Well, I know that it was a bribe. I know I just turned down a bribe. But maybe he thinks I was dense and I didn't get it.' And, the patron who offered the bribe could think, 'Well, maybe the maitre d' thinks that I'm dense and I don't know that he rebuffed the bribe.' And, that can preserve their social relationship--the expected social relationship of a maitre d' in a restaurant, namely, he's the authority. He decides. He's not a mere sales clerk who can be bought off in a transaction. It's his discretion, his power. And, social relationships--it's a major theme of the book--are matters of common knowledge. Someone has authority, like a maitre d', because both parties know that each knows that the other knows that he has authority. Two people are friends or lovers because each one knows the other one knows. And, when you say something in so many words, generating common knowledge, you can be challenging the basis of the relationship. But sometimes you really do need to make an offer, and you don't want to blow up your relationship. And that's when you use euphemism. In the case of a polite request, that's a very ordinary example, everyday life example. But, still, you don't want to treat someone like they're a servant, like a waiter. You don't want to boss around your friend and say, 'Give me the butter now.' And so, saying, 'I was wondering if you could pass the butter,' it doesn't presume that the other person is your subordinate or servant. But, they, knowing that you're saying, figure there must be some reason he just said it. 'Oh yeah, it must be that he wants the butter.' Likewise, in the case of the bribe, the social relationship between maitre d' and customer is not threatened, even though if both are willing to consummate the transaction, their private knowledge allows them to do it. And, there are other examples. Sexual come-ons: 'Would you like to come up and see my etchings?' Threats: 'A nice story you got there. Would be a real shame if something happened to it.' Fundraising attempts: 'We're counting on you to show leadership in our campaign for the future,' instead of-- Russ Roberts: 'Give me a lot of money'-- Steven Pinker: Give you a lot of money. And so, I have--the contrast between communicating a message without common knowledge and with the common knowledge that not only on top of conveying the content also threatens the nature of the relationship: that's where common knowledge figures into indirect language. Beating around the bush, shilly-shallying. And, it's what got me into this in the first place. And there's a whole chapter called "Weasel Words" in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows that is about indirect language. Russ Roberts: Thinking about the maitre d', I'm reminded of a wonderful analysis in Alchian and Allen's textbook--which I now think is called Universal Economics. I don't know if it's still in the modern editions, but, it was a puzzle as to why in the old days a football game like the Rose Bowl--which was at the time a big deal; it still is something of a big deal--why do they price the tickets so that they don't all sell out? I mean, they give away a lot of money to scalpers; and it's true of lots of things. But their answer, which is very creative and may be true, but it's interesting either way, is that: what that induces--there's a shortage. It's an artificial shortage. They could have avoided it by pricing the tickets higher, but that induces rent-seeking, and it allows the members of the administration, or the team, or whoever it is who has access to a certain number of tickets, to be importuned and begged, and special favors can then be given that are often worth much more than the monetary value. And I just wonder if some restaurants, I assume, will sometimes overbook, but leave a couple tables free for the discretion of the maitre d' to be bribed by the right kind of person. And, speaking of bad jokes, the joke is the guy shows up at the hotel and he says, 'I'm sorry, sir, we're sold out.' He says, 'You're sold out?' 'Yep, we don't have a single room available.' He says, 'Well, if President Trump were coming, would you have a room for him?' 'Well, sure, I guess we'd find a room for him.' 'Well, I have news for you, he's not coming. Give me the room you were going to give him.' So, hotels, of course, have a way to solve that problem, I assume. It's not available to everybody. And, certainly restaurants have the same thing. And, it's another way, by the way, by giving some discretion to the maitre d', you can pay him a lower wage. He can make up some of the difference on the part of--by scalping his tables to the highest bidder. Anyway, that was just an aside. Steven Pinker: Very, very interesting. I hadn't thought about that. That's plausible. Yes. Russ Roberts: Yeah, I can't help myself. |
| 1:13:34 | Russ Roberts: I want to close with the state of universities in America. You write at the end of the book about freedom of speech, and you've been very outspoken at Harvard. And, Harvard is going through some really unimaginable times when you think back even five years ago, but certainly longer, 20 years ago. The world has in many ways been turned upside down by the-- Steven Pinker: Six months ago. Russ Roberts: [inaudible 01:13:59] You could even--yeah. Steven Pinker: [inaudible 01:14:02]. Russ Roberts: Harvard has some special situations with President Trump and various issues. But, just the issue of free speech, which has been an issue that has really surfaced in the last few years at elite colleges, where do you think we're going? And, is the modern university dying? When you combine grade inflation, which is a serious problem at--I don't know if it's a problem. It's a fact. Steven Pinker: Yeah, it is. Russ Roberts: Grading is very different than it was 20, 30 years ago. It's not used as a distinguisher or discriminator between student performance. What do you think is happening? And what are your thoughts on where we're at and where we might be headed? Steven Pinker: Very hard to predict the future because there's so many unknown unknowns. But, I don't think universities are dying. But, certainly, Donald Trump is trying to cripple them by cutting off research funding that's part of the lifeblood of universities--and of health in the country and in the world. As often happens with Trump, he picks up some genuine problem, but then takes a sledgehammer to it, not solving the problem and doing a lot of damage at the same time. And, there have been threats to free speech on university campuses. That's why I co-founded, and now I'm the President of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard to try to push back on this. Cases where faculty members have been punished, or ostracized, or forced to grovel, or students, for expressing a heterodox opinion, like there are two sexes, or arguments for and against gay marriage, or for policing. That is, 200 or so colleagues and I who are part of the Council--and organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Heterodox Academy, the Academic Freedom Alliance--believe that it's essential to the mission of the university that people can say what they think. Simply because none of us is infallible. And, if you have to watch what you say because of the threat of punishment, then that just poisons the whole enterprise of trying to figure out what the truth is. Because, often the truth isn't what's popular. It isn't what we think. Unless you have a forum in which people can try out ideas and find out which are right and which are wrong, you are going to be locked into error. Some of this is even when there isn't a rule on the books that says that a professor can be fired for saying such-and-such. There are, especially with social media now, shaming mobs. You can gin up a petition with 600 signatures to denounce some professor for being a bad person. And that can have a chilling effect just because no one wants to be out in the cold, or called a racist, or a transphobe, or a sexist. In the book, I have a chapter called "The Canceling Instinct," where I, as a psychologist, try to figure out just what's going on. Why, of all places, in a university--which is dedicated to the idea of trying ideas--should there be mobs, petitions, collective punishment for voicing unpopular beliefs? And what I suggest, there's really a couple of things going on. One is that, in general, norms, as we've said before on this episode, which can't and/or aren't enforced by authorities, are held up by common knowledge. Just: You don't do that. You don't say that. Everyone knows that, and everyone knows that everyone knows that. They can start to unravel if someone flouts them without being sanctioned. And that's why, throughout history, a lot of punishments were done in public, to be common knowledge--like public hangings, and public crucifixions, and burnings at the stake. It's not enough to punish someone. Everyone has to know that everyone else knows that you get punished for it. Again, it goes back to solving the problem for which religions are partly a solution, namely: How do you enforce a norm when you can't have the Stasi and telescreens in every room? Now, in the case of the heretical academic beliefs, where people are accused of racism for some trivial joke or observation, the feeling is: if this passes unnoticed, the norm against racism will unravel. So, we've got to make an example of this person and pile on in, say, a social media scrum where everyone knows that this person is being publicly punished. But, why should this be in the case of opinion? The truth can't be racist. The truth is the truth. And, here I reiterate an idea that I developed in my previous book, Rationality, of why a rational species can entertain so much conspiracy theorizing, and medical quackery, and superstition, and preposterous belief in miracles, and so on. And, I think it's because the idea that, when it comes to big cosmic questions--like: What's the cause of disease? What is the cause of wars, and military defeats, and ruinous storms, and plagues?--until recently, there was no way that mortal humans could answer these questions. Why is there economic catastrophe? Why is there an epidemic? Now we have science, we have academia, we have data sets, we have analytic techniques, we have experts. We like to think there's a way of determining what's the cause of, say, a disease or poverty. But, that's a really alien notion to the human mind: that there is a truth, and that we have a way of finding out. I think the default assumption is that for big beliefs like that, the beliefs are signs of loyalty to a coalition. They're edifying moral messages. They're uplifting myths. What you believe has nothing to do with what's true, because you can't find out. It has to do with what kind of person you are. Are you a decent moral member of our community? And so, people get punished for beliefs that seem to challenge the group collective myths. And, the fact that there's evidence for them is just no defense. Now, that's bizarre when you think of what universities, and courts, and government agencies are for. But it's the natural way that humans fall back on when just thinking their thoughts. Russ Roberts: As an economist, I have a different perspective. I don't think that's what universities are for. They used to be; but my explanation is that they serve a different purpose now. Why that is, I don't have an easy answer, but that also explains why they've morphed in such a strange way. Education and truth-seeking-- Steven Pinker: Well, no, I'm giving the idealization of what a university is for. In practice, as I somewhat cynically put it: a Harvard education is a third-of-a-million dollar IQ [intelligence quotient] and marshmallow test. It sorts people for the benefit of employers. But that's a whole other discussion. Russ Roberts: My guest today has been Steven Pinker. His book is When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. Steven, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Steven Pinker: Thanks, Russ, for having me. |
Why are Super Bowl ads so good for launching certain kinds of new products? Why do we all drive on the same side of the road? And why, despite laughing and crying together, do we often misread what others think? According to bestselling author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, it all comes down to common knowledge, or the phenomenon that happens when everyone knows that everyone else knows something. Hear Pinker and EconTalk's Russ Roberts explore the necessary conditions for that knowledge, and how it can be both vital and dangerous to societies, depending on how it's used. They discuss, among other things, game-theory puzzles, how laughter spreads, how totalitarian regimes exploit uncertainty about who knows what (even when they don't), and why we often don't say explicitly what we really mean to say.
READER COMMENTS
Ken Perepelkin
Sep 22 2025 at 11:58am
Great episode!
A couple of comments here. Firstly I will recommend listeners interested in this subject also listen to the Mike Munger episdoe with Russ on “Obedience to the Unenforceable”
https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-obedience-to-the-unenforceable/
Secondly the discussion made me think about how we approach elements of politeness in conversation differently depending on who we talk to. Specifically when you are chatting with a friend about something and they are reaching for a word, title or subject but are not recalling it quickly and you blurt it out. Most often they are happy for the aid and conversation continues briskly. Then there are those instances where you are talking to someone with the same recall issue and despite your desire to do so you wait until they themselves recall it properly, as a matter of respect I suppose, but it might also be that your intuition is telling you that they won’t appreciate your interruption and may instead be offended. A similar scenario is when you don’t correct someone immediately when they mispronounce a word or name, which you know very well how to pronounce properly, but are refraining again to avoid offending the person because of some intuitive feeling you have that it would be improper to do so.
All in all this episode was smooth flowing and information dense with lots of pertinent digressions which I thoroughly enjoyed. Keep it up and please bring Stephen Pinker on more frequently even when he isn’t discussing his newest book as I suspect there are other equally great conversations to be had.
Yang W.
Sep 24 2025 at 3:11am
Awesome episode.
Second the call to bring Steven Pinker on more often and, if I may suggest, bring on fellow psychologist Joshua Greene again.
Kevin Ryan
Sep 24 2025 at 9:40am
I’m pleased to report that I did indeed laugh out loud hearing Stephen’s telling of the Soviet queue joke, (while I was walking along a street in my neighbourhood.)
Also the subsequent discussion’s mentioning that it was a critique of anti-semitism reminded me that there were a couple of hugely popular sit-coms in Britain in the 1960’s/1970’s that were effective critiques of racism and/or anti-semitism that it would be totally impossible to make today.
(I refer to ‘Til Death Us Do Part’ and the less critically acclaimed ‘Love Thy Neighbour’)
John Dawson
Sep 25 2025 at 12:34am
Regrading the joke discussion. Here is a joke that was popular in Poland before the collapse of communism:
Ivan: Hey Stosh! How are you doing?
Stosh Hey Inan. I am doing better. Not as good as yesterday but better than tomorrow.
Always seemed to me like communism in a nutshell.
Great show. Thanks for doing this. I have gotten a lot out of Econtalk over the years.
Joe Surro
Sep 25 2025 at 4:03pm
Russ, there are a couple things you do extremely well that make EconTalk so compelling. The first is your ability to take complex economic discussion and translate it for us common folk. There is nothing better than when you stop one of your economics professors and say something like, “hold on a second, let me explain what it is you just said for our listeners that may not have a background in economics.” You do this so skillfully that it often leads to a clarified understanding between you and your interviewee while bringing the rest of us up to speed on a given topic.
The second thing you do so well is push back on points you disagree with. You often do this with such graceful logic that even when there is significant disagreement there is no tension in the discussion and it always leads towards a better understanding of the nuance associated with many of the topics you discuss.
So here I was, waiting with anticipation at the very end of this podcast when you said, “As an economist, I have a different perspective…Education and truth-seeking…” before being interrupted. You never finished your point! What was it you were going to say?
Russ Roberts
Sep 26 2025 at 9:08am
Thanks for the kind words, Joe. What I was trying to say is that there is no reason to think that a university’s purpose is what it once was, a place for education and truth-seeking. A place for intellectual exploration and discover. It’s something else now. And yet people to continue to assume that universities are failing at that mission. My point is that sadly, there is no reason to think that is their mission any longer.
Adam Wildavsky
Sep 25 2025 at 6:08pm
Life is not a Prisoner’s Dilemma. The reason is that the thought experiment is missing essential context. What are these prisoners accused of, and by whom? This would tell us whether we should root for the prisoners or their prosecutor. We should not be concerned with granting lighter sentences to thieves or murderers. Suppose, though, that these were resistance fighters captured by the Nazis during WW2. Not only would they be unlikely to betray one another, but the threats and promises would have no epistemological validity – there would be no reason to expect their captors to keep their word.
See also https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463192004001003, by my dad.
Adam Wildavsky
Sep 25 2025 at 6:10pm
My go-to source for humor from behind the Iron Curtain is Hammer and Tickle by the late, great, Dr Petr Beckmann:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5902040-hammer-and-tickle-clandestine-laughter-in-the-soviet-empire
This is my version of my favorite:
The party secretary is lecturing to a group of factory workers. “After the next five-year plan, everyone will have a television. And then, after the next five-year plan, everyone will have an automobile.” He can tell they are underwhelmed, so he extemporizes. “Then, after the next five-year plan, everyone will have an aeroplane.”
One brave soul in the audience speaks up. “Comrade secretary, for what will we need an aeroplane?”
The secretary had no answer planned, but he could think on his feet. “Suppose you live in Moscow, and you hear they have soap in Kiev…”
Adam Wildavsky
Sep 25 2025 at 6:12pm
I’ve not read Dr. Pinker’s book, so I don’t know whether he cites this sketch, but it’s on point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0HGEZXTy8Y
Thucydides
Sep 26 2025 at 1:55pm
Interesting episode, but what was this nonsense about President Trump trying to destroy Harvard University by cutting off research funding? He is not trying to destroy Harvard, he is trying to get it to address some of the very issues you and Pinker discuss, for example, free speech, where Harvard has the lowest FIRE rating of any. Harvard is not entitled to taxpayer funding, and research can be done anywhere. Indeed, given Harvard’s many failings, maybe it ought to be done elsewhere, where it doesn’t help perpetuate the negatives. For me, its main failing is that it is doing nothing to transmit our rich civilizational heritage, as admitted by one eminent professor there, who claims that they haven’t hired a single person in history who teaches anything in the tradition of Western Civilization since 2007. The drive-by deprecatory shot at President Trump is I suppose obligatory for academics, but it only emphasizes how deep the rot is, even among the fairly rational.