Steven Pinker | Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters | Talks at Google

Steven Pinker discusses his book "Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters." Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that doubled its lifespan, sequenced its genome, and developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures, conspiracy theories, and “post-truth” rhetoric? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself. We actually think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we’ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book--until now.
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in cognition, language, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. Steven has won many prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals and Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications.
Get the book here: goo.gle/399ObRO.
Moderated by Brian Welle.

[@jennifercgraf5304]

Please improve the audio on the Google side: it doesn’t make sense to look like a, I just threw this together from a corner of a room channel when you are Google. Provide speakers with the technological tools they need to sound professional and edit to match the cut - both heads should be the same size and sound so should equal please.

[@breenaxie4672]

Exactly. It’s hard to a watch and listen to, a video of this quality, especially the sound recording, which is much less professional than a lot of individuals’ podcasts. It’s Google, you have all the resources, technologies, equipment and specialists!!!!

[@vincentanguoni8938]

Seriously?

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

I found these segments to be essential 33:44- 37:47 and 45:55-47:15

[@garywood97]

Steve should've identified as AND/OR given that he's promoting logic.

[@austinm419]

Lol! tbf he distinguishes between logic and rationality

[@Jay-xh9dl]

​@@austinm419 I think Pinker considers logic a tool of a general definition of rationality. Logic is an indispensable tool for denoting facts and truths and deriving new true statements from existing ones, but Bayesian reasoning is more applicable for assessing your degree of belief for say, an empirical hypothesis or hypothesis based on evidence. Thus both are just two tools of reasoning that we use in the greater web of what we call "rationality".

[@Bangy]

Or is logically equivalent to (and union xor). Hence, a more appropriate and more precise alternative would be "AND/XOR." It is in my intentions to incorporate "XOR" into the mainstream lexicon. This is not the fallacy of equivocation because by using capital "AND/OR." I subjectively made the assumption you're referring to boolean logical operators.

[@shinjodenn]

Everything about Brian Welle's video/audio (who works at Google?) is wrong. I simply cannot believe that his audio/video quality is so low.

[@sprucegoose6933]

If anyone at Google sees this, please pass it on to Dr. Pinker -- Thank you for keeping the light of reason and enlightenment still glowing brightly, Dr. Pinker. I've read many of your previous books and I've been blown away by your insight into the human psyche and the broader human condition. Works of authors like yours are a reason why I still have a super optimistic outlook about the future of humanity. Thank you and keep up the incredible work; you're an inspiration!

[@JonathanRootD]

His defense of late stage capitalism is quite irrational.

[@Praisethesunson]

@@JonathanRootD Also based on nothing but his obvious self interest. His literal job only exists if he can make the global elite feel that their rampant exploitation of the world is actually good.

[@Praisethesunson]

He's only inspiring if you aspire to be a soothsayer of the global elite.

[@user-lh8he8sr3q]

Spruce Goose you may want to consider finding a more realistic view of the man that he really is.

[@Praisethesunson]

@@aaronclarke7732 That view is only true for a minority of already well of people in the parts of the world colonizers rule. The 3+ billion poorest people on Earth haven't benefited much if at all from all the nonsense Pinker praises. The industrial revolution and the unnecessary, unsustainable, and deliberately wasteful consumption patterns that trade (corporate consolidation and control of global exchange). Pinker sells cruel optimism. While literally trying to gaslight the people who rightfully point the many MANY flaws the lifestyles for people like Pinker this system creates. We all live under two swords of Damocles (Climate change and nuclear weapons) which Pinker actively dismisses because they don't let him push his BS narrative.

[@rylaczero3740]

Please add timestamps!

[@cluckycluck3053]

And better sound from the interviewer. It is as if he is speaking into a toilet. I mean, can't Google afford better mics?

[@romancandlefight1144]

And on the topic of ghosts/paranormal, I wonder whether it is not in some cases just a measure of people's (rational) humility in accepting that there are likely to be things we cannot explain out there.. with such examples of recent discoveries of things previously deeemed impossible such as quantum teleportation and (at least theories of) higher dimensions (and the possibility therefore of higher dimensional beings)

[@gooddaysahead1]

If we cannot easily explain something, try Occam's Razor hypothesis or the plausibility of the event. Example: If you live in rural U.S. and hear hooves clopping outside your home, what is the plausibility that you're hearing a zebra? It's possible, but highly unlikely.

[@martinstudenteditaliano4338]

19:29 - Null hypothesis significance testing 52:25 - Flipflopping

[@lizgichora6472]

Thank you very much professor Steven Pinker forv his conversation on rationality.

[@lugaritzbrown2250]

One of the leading lights of our times.

[@DrCharlesParker]

29:06 'Medical diagnosis is an especially important place to more effectively use big data [paraphrased].' Said another way: diagnosis by the use of appearances in the context of the complexity of the human mind is rapidly becoming outdated. And, NB 34:11 *belief in an attitude* [values and identity] is regrettably pervasive in mind 'diagnosis.'

[@Spijkiemvs]

Love the content, but I find it absolutely incomprehensible that one of the top tech companies in the world releases videos with such poor audio quality. Giver the interviewer a mic, please!

[@beemo9]

In a dismal white corner too. It's very bizarre.

[@austinm419]

Pinker is too good.

[@MrArtbyart]

I wish that every voter was competent in objective reasoning. At age 15, I had a strong passion to independently study the fields of logic, statistical analysis, logical fallacies and truth tables. I can't imagine anyone forming an opinion, without such tools.

[@Kevin-ul8ux]

It does seem somewhat counterintuitive to give every adult the right to vote while doing relatively little to ensure they understand the issue or how it affects them. I'm not convinced there's much difference in a democracy where voters don't understand their interests and can't reasonably predict the consequences of their vote and a government that's dictatorial in nature (other than the illusion of having control vs having been disabused of it.)

[@gordonpepper1400]

This demise of rationality is 100% correlated to changes going from a literate, print culture to an electronic, post-literate culture As McLuhan said 60 years ago, all our institutions will crumble at a society living and communicating at the speed of light. There is no more POV, there is no codified law, there is no more linear / rational thinking, there is no stable sense of perspective/everything is dynamic and is lived in the present tense. Read McLuhan or even Neil Postman. @@Kevin-ul8ux

[@klausgartenstiel4586]

i did like the "blank slate" iconography, but found it detrimental to the acoustics. 🙄

[@ChuckSilva]

Excellent!

[@kiwidenk]

It is only irrational optimism that keeps humans going

[@blueviserion]

I wonder what Pinker would say if asked why he didn't put (him/he) next to his name. He'd probably say I appear as a man so rationally the conclusion will be met without my interference. Now if I appeared as a man and I identified as a woman, at that point it would be rational for me to add (her/she) to my name.

[@michaelschmidt1101]

The real function of the contemporary use of such pronouns is not to in any real way to be useful but rather to signal to people that you are an ally of (or subjugate of) the "woke religion". People who submit to using pronouns are the same people who, even under slight pressure, will agree that 2 + 2 = 5... “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

[@blueviserion]

@@michaelschmidt1101 agreed

[@index293]

Telecasted from the restroom studio of Google.

[@BradKaellner]

Aha, that's why I'm so twitchy!

[@iamphineas]

So good. Especially enjoyed his take on the reproducibility crisis in scientific journals.

[@TheErasec]

This comment section is full of people concerned about pronouns, and this is a video about rationality. If you (it if you prefer) are so obsessed about things like this, your life is doomed to be miserable.

[@zabrak999]

He/Him 🤣😂

[@thegroove2000]

Would anyone here trust a drug company that has a prior history of wrongdoing?.

[@anndreastembridge367]

🤓🧐😜

[@arjunroy4468]

I think the Whig Interpretation of History is Obsolete!

[@jamespatrick4654]

He/him ? I’m out after 5 seconds.

[@lewisruben1072]

My thoughts exactly.

[@shinjodenn]

The obsession with identifying your pronouns is not healthy. Same, with identifying with your race, or age or anything that really you have no choice over.

[@zedwords]

But people do get to choose their pronouns. Wtf do you think being transgender is?

[@shinjodenn]

@@zedwords, that's choose your pronouns - go for it. But the idea that we all have to up front make sure that everyone gets clear on what gender you identify with is NOT what the transgender community should want (and my guess is that many of them don't want this). It's the overgeneralization of a very good rule: call people what they want to be preferred - don't put up front labels for all to see. This is called virtue signaling and it's NOT healthy. So in my situation, my name is John and I don't want to be called Jack, and it's perfectly fine for me to say that if someone calls me Jack. Another example, I have a student who's name is Alexandra and she likes being called Lexi - of course that's what I'm going to call her. It's simple, just talk to people and let them know how you want to be referred to. Putting up front labels on all people is not solving the problem - it's causing another problem.

[@zedwords]

@@shinjodenn seems like normalizing pronoun disclosure would help people that don't fit neatly into the binary feel more, you know, normal, but please tell us more about what the transgender community should want. you sound like you really know what you're talking about.

[@shinjodenn]

@@zedwords, is this how discussing issues on a Stephen Pinker video works? And yes, I do know what I’m talking about. Glad it sounds that way.

[@zedwords]

@@shinjodenn sounds like you know about as much about sarcasm as you do about gender, jack

[@jmarty1000]

Plenty of examples of Irrationality are on display here in the comments section, from the usual group of frothing detractors.

[@nancygerette]

Rather it's the usual gang of right-wingers who hero-worship a mediocrity like Steven Pinker.

[@thegroove2000]

I have found flaws in stevens own reasoning.

[@thegroove2000]

He trusts government. FATAL FLAW.

[@phoebewilkins3065]

HELLO, good video! 😅💋

[@Praisethesunson]

It's not though

[@eraliocardoso8098]

Amber

[@mounika3241]

@@Praisethesunson is

[@Praisethesunson]

@@mounika3241 Is not. Unless you are into sex pest lecturing people.

[@idjdbrvvskambvvv9007]

Despite the absurdity of "(he/him)" after his name that proof irrational side of humanity, this is a great video.

[@k.h.6991]

It's rational to tell the viewer what gender you want them to assign to you. Nothing irrational about that. Uncommon perhaps, from someone who looks like a cis-male, but not irrational.

[@fudgeknuckle952]

@@k.h.6991 being concise is rational, like arguing in KZbin comments.

[@Praisethesunson]

Your profile name checks out

[@JonathanRootD]

@@k.h.6991 It's not rational for Pink to identify himself other than to pander to identity politics while obfuscating the detriments of exploitative capitalism.

[@blueviserion]

@@k.h.6991 it's irrational to believe that you need to express your gender when your gender identity is aligned with how you visually appear. Just as it would be irrational to speak to someone face-to-face while smoking a cigarette and then notifying them that you're currently smoking a cigarette. It would be rational to express your gender if you do not visually appear to be aligned with your identity and therefore need to assist others in reaching the conclusion that you desire about your gender.

[@apust]

Condolences about your close friend Jeffrey, Steve.

[@Praisethesunson]

Pinker is so rational he doesn't let something as trivial as sex slavery keep him from telling other people how good the world is(for people in Pinker's economic and social class)

[@TomasPetkevicius94]

So everyone who knew Epstein is automatically a terrible person, did i get this right?

[@apust]

@@TomasPetkevicius94 if your connection to Epstein is through your close personal friend (and alleged p*dophile) Alan Dershowitz, then yeah you're a bad person lol.

[@thegroove2000]

Would you get microchipped if offered to prove your vaccination status?.

[@presidentoxford]

Waffler of many axioms ; and er, ah , you know...... Kissinger reply to Why is Peace..er.

[@JonathanRootD]

The rationality of Jeffrey "Stein" friendship.

[@Praisethesunson]

Pinker wanted young sex slaves but doesn't like traveling overseas Everytime he wants one.

[@thegroove2000]

Steven contradicts himself.

[@117Industries]

How so?

[@nancygerette]

I have to laugh at all the Pinker fanboys here objecting to Pinker's pronouns. You do realize that Google as a company is dedicated to the use of pronouns, right?

[@stevenbarton5949]

what is rational about wearing that curly mop hair-do ?

[@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy]

00:06 - “he/him” … appeasing the neo-pronouns movement? 04:32 - The Starting point: mismatch between the environment we evolved in and current environment. 06:50 - The San people, throwing shade at Michael Shermer 09:08 - Misgendering a refrigerator

[@NinaLetizia]

I thought the same, what does it have to do with this talk??? Out of place.

[@k.h.6991]

It is possible that he feels it's a normal part of introducing yourself.

[@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy]

@@k.h.6991, It is. Which is more likely though?

[@FR33Willi]

he/him is not a neo-pronoun. I think you'll find it's one of the oldest pronouns, actually.

[@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy]

@@FR33Willi, I did not claim it's a neo-pronoun. Only that I suspect his stating the obvious looks like he's appeasing the neo-pronouns movement.

[@AndyAnaya]

There is a 0% chance that history will look back kindly on Steven Pinker's reactionary social commentary

[@jmarty1000]

"How the Mind Works" will be remembered on par with "On the Origin of Species".

[@lewisjones2825]

I've put a curse on him

[@seiya1337]

Epstein associate

[@jsrjsr6105]

I stopped watching about 13 seconds in when I saw “He/Him”. Come on people….I support progressiveness but this convention is absurd.

[@wfettich]

well you're easily offended