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Steven Pinker

Published podcast speaker

Claims
37
Episodes
2
Shows
1
Named items
0

Claim ledger

What Steven said.

8 transcript-backed records

01 / evaluation

I think there’s a lot of interplay in human life between this recursive mentalizing, that is, thinking about other people thinking about other people, and the intuitive sense that something is out there, and therefore people do know that other people know it, even if you don’t have to consciously work that through.

“I think there’s a lot of interplay in human life between this recursive mentalizing, that is, thinking about other people thinking about other people, and the intuitive sense that something is out there, and therefore people do know that other people know it, even if you don’t have to consciously work that through.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

02 / evaluation

In general, something that finds the truth, it’s got that going for it, and universalism, namely that if liberal enlightenment depends on universal human rights, the maximization of human interests, the fact that we’re ultimately birds of a feather, we all want to be alive rather than dead, that there is something logically incoherent in saying, “I deserve rights because I’m me and you don’t because you’re not me.

“In general, something that finds the truth, it’s got that going for it, and universalism, namely that if liberal enlightenment depends on universal human rights, the maximization of human interests, the fact that we’re ultimately birds of a feather, we all want to be alive rather than dead, that there is something logically incoherent in saying, “I deserve rights because I’m me and you don’t because you’re not me.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

03 / evaluation

As Schelling notes, because he noted this is very fragile, he said this is the point when it comes to actually choosing what we now call a Schelling point, common salience, this is where game theory, rational analysis, logic, leave off, and human whimsy, caprice, even poetry, take over.

“As Schelling notes, because he noted this is very fragile, he said this is the point when it comes to actually choosing what we now call a Schelling point, common salience, this is where game theory, rational analysis, logic, leave off, and human whimsy, caprice, even poetry, take over.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

04 / evaluation

I think a lot of the shaming mobs, a lot of the trolling, a lot of the degradation of discourse in social media comes because of that anonymity.

“I think a lot of the shaming mobs, a lot of the trolling, a lot of the degradation of discourse in social media comes because of that anonymity.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

05 / evaluation

In fact, as I point out in The Sense of Style, the two most famous style guides in the English language, namely Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, both accidentally use the passive in the very sentence in which they say “don’t use the passive.

“In fact, as I point out in The Sense of Style, the two most famous style guides in the English language, namely Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, both accidentally use the passive in the very sentence in which they say “don’t use the passive.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

06 / evaluation

Linguistics is an eccentric field in some ways partly because it was so polarized by a charismatic figure [Noam Chomsky] and his opponents that it didn’t proceed in the ordinary direction of making the theory more precise, more testable.

“Linguistics is an eccentric field in some ways partly because it was so polarized by a charismatic figure [Noam Chomsky] and his opponents that it didn’t proceed in the ordinary direction of making the theory more precise, more testable.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

07 / evaluation

There are ugly attitudes, and there always will be: there is a benevolent hypocrisy and taboo where there are certain things that you just don’t say in public because that does legitimate them.

“There are ugly attitudes, and there always will be: there is a benevolent hypocrisy and taboo where there are certain things that you just don’t say in public because that does legitimate them.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

08 / evaluation

I’m rooted enough in what we know about behavioral genetics to think that these science-fiction scenarios are not particularly productive. It’s probably a scenario that we’re not going to have to worry about just because it’s too complicated, especially since every time you monkey with a gene you are taking some chance that something will go wrong.

“I’m rooted enough in what we know about behavioral genetics to think that these science-fiction scenarios are not particularly productive. It’s probably a scenario that we’re not going to have to worry about just because it’s too complicated, especially since every time you monkey with a gene you are taking some chance that something will go wrong.”
Speaker
Steven Pinker
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler
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