Steven Pinker: prediction

Transcript context

…Taiwan included, in a funny way. Taiwan included, yes. I don’t know if that would be an example. It’s not exactly a noble lie, but it’s a common pretense. Again, you can spell out the reason, although if you spell out the reason, then that undermines the reason. The reason, of course, being that it would be considered an affront, a challenge to China’s sense of authority, prestige, standing, preeminence, because it stakes a claim to all of historic China, which, if it was explicitly breached by formally recognizing Taiwan, it would be a challenge to China’s authority. If nations act as if it was a sovereign state without saying it’s a sovereign state, then China can maintain the pretense that its claim is valid. Yet another example is, does Israel possess nuclear weapons? Their official policy is, “We’re not saying yes, we’re not saying no.” Now, everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. If there wasn’t some suspicion, the weapons would be useless because they wouldn’t be a deterrent. On the other hand, if it was part of the official policy that Israel was a nuclear state, then its Arab rivals would feel that they had to acquire them as well so as not to lose face and standing. Say determinism were true and free will were false, it would be disastrous if we all believed that. I think it’s a good thing there’s not more common knowledge because I think determinism is true.…

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