Students Fear Ideas Not Viruses

[@AnimeVampire1324]

Haidt is so articulate, it is impressive to hear him speak even after I've read two of his books, because in interviews like these he makes the ideas even clearer and more concise.

[@buddyguyeh]

Good talk - one I have been waiting for, in fact. A thought (and argument for the importance of Economic/Philosophical History): In terms of exposing people to these ideas, I think the primary effort should not be focused on exposing people to these "scary" or "injurious" ideas, but rather on exposing people to the history of these ideas - i.e. their seminal roots and the incremental thinkers, events, ideas, and movements that have driven their evolution to those modernized versions that speakers like Jon and others propound today. I feel like the more "close-minded" individuals (for lack of a better term) would benefit from a more fulsome logical approach to introducing such ideas. Just something of which I hope to see more :)

[@bothi00]

I forget who it was that said it but with regards to that 2nd thread he talks about around the 15 min mark: The degree of polarisation were seeing now is matched only by what was seen in and around the thé 1400-1500s. The thing that links those two is technology: the printing press was invented by Gutenberg in the mid 1400s and that facilitated a huge amount of information to an unimaginably large audience at the time. And people were learning new ways to consume an endless array of new information from a seemingly endless amount of sources. And that's what we're seeing with the rise of online information, technology and social media.

[@Pinstripe0451]

But before we all enjoyed this educative device called the book, around a third of the European population was slaughtered due to all the religious disputes. A terryfing thought when one wants to draw a parallel to social media and the rise of stress and hysteria.

[@charlesbourgoigne2130]

I think you’re right. People have access to more sources of information. Though on the other hand, it seems that filter bubbles are a thing. One must pay attention to not only hear from one source. But to have as many and as diversified sources as possible

[@RussianLanguagePodcast]

I loved "The Righteous Mind". Thank you both for this interview.

[@queenstrategy904]

I hate the liberalization of higher academia. Keep politics out of my learning. I am disappointed in this higher education for being apart of the total destruction of quality education by pushing politics into social discussions, and ruining my opportunities to learn about useful skills to apply to the broader world. No one can think critically anymore or be open about the realities of the world.

[@achinthafernando]

I agree

[@Nisaaa.118]

You know that NYU is a top-notch university, especially when having educators and researchers like Ahmad Bazzi and Yann LeCun.

[@briandecasa5444]

I've read his book The Righteous Mind after I had read Thinking Fast and Slow. Its fascinating that even within the comment section people are demonstrating the biases and irrationality the 2 books talk about

[@RussianLanguagePodcast]

Me too, I've read the two books one after another too, together with "Some we love, some we hate, some we eat". Fascinating research.

[@charlesbourgoigne2130]

I have to argue against temperament in politics.. Politics should be about knowing the exact issues and discussing them. What are the party programmes? What exact policies do I want to be realized based on the information I have? What exact policies does party a vs b vs c etc offer? Always vote information-based. Never because of temperament.

[@thelegend3841]

Great conversation. I love the broad analysis across various fields.

[@charlesbourgoigne2130]

About contemporary conservative economic thinking: I heard that Ronald Reagan and Thatcher practically inteoduced what the left calls neoliberalism and the right crony capitalism. I.e. that lobbyists of large corporations have more influence on government than the actual population. In the US you can predict the election by looking at campaign founding. Furthermore, the political public discourse in the US is very narrow-minded because people only hear from a narrow spectrum of politics. Would Americans look at European politics, they would realize that their governments have moved to the far right and that affordable health care and education are no dreams, but can be realized. They just must return to the New Deal policies of FDR, as Bernie Sanders proposes. That’s my opinion so far, but I will continue to educate myself on the topic.

[@yashs1999]

Love Jonathan Haidt, glad to hear him on INET.

[@CannabinatedFantasy]

Most people getting booted off of campuses are spreading objectively false material and have no audience at the school. Cancelling shouldnt be the issue, the content should be. I'm worried that these incidents were intended to be overblown by the media in order to reign in and utilize polarization. Most colleges are still very economically conservative, but utilize identity politics for money. The institutions should be at fault btw, not kids.

[@BradSamuelsPro]

If people on campus want to invite speakers to say objectively false things, they have every right to invite those people and listen to what they have to say. Otherwise, all religious groups would be banned. Nobody wants that to happen.

[@WrathAdaft519]

>Most people getting booted off of campuses are spreading objectively false material... you mean like blasphemy against karl marx?

[@CannabinatedFantasy]

@@WrathAdaft519 yeah whatever u said

[@CannabinatedFantasy]

debating the intentions of protesters is quite futile these days. I would just like people to pay attention to the memes that get picked up by power structures. I bet half the speakers are CIA agents and the kids organizing the cancellings are groomed to be, anyhow.

[@CannabinatedFantasy]

or paid by a billionaire, its all the same

[@vinaykrishna2077]

You guys are covering my reference section!

[@RedWinePlease]

Interesting conclusions from the author. I'm not sure I heard a solution to the problems he mentioned. My takeaways: > Our rational thoughts (System 2 - slow deliberate w/effort) are initialized by our emotional/intuitive thoughts (System 1 - fast spontaneous effortless). How? Holding false, unexamined premises, while attempting to do S2 thinking. And, falling for confirmation, availability, halo effect, or any of the other cognitive biases. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) > Overcoming System 1's manipulation of System 2 requires practice, knowing what biases you or others might succumb to, and an openness to hear and examine conflicting ideas.

[@invernessfan3017]

University is about learning about skills in the subjects. It is not about some waffle nonsense about being challenged.

[@unlockwithjsr]

How come most people who go to Universities in the West come out as liberals while those who undergo the military, undergo tough experiences in life, or are religious end up being conservatives ?

[@benwincelberg9684]

Communal indoctrination

[@vanillaglue]

Universities are generally left biased. In the classical fields, they teach moral and cultural relativism. Relativism teaches that there is no objective truth (which is false because truth is binary). These marxist ideas have hijacked thought in the West. Conservative ideas are generally associated with a rejection of progressive values and the retention of tradition. Tradition provides a center, one that makes a claim to objective truth. Religion is tradition, as is military (though both have their own progressive, left flavours). Nowadays it is left vs right because there is a lack of intellectual ideas that are actually driving progress. The division isnt created by technology, but is amplified by it, and we're stuck intellectually in some sort of a limbo. Reason has deconstructed religion generally but has not given us a viable alternative, so we've filled the void with incomplete ideas that are not up for the job. Tough experience makes you conservative, as does military, because you quickly realize that in order to survive, you need to assert a truth. Its your truth vs everyone else's truth. If you accept their truth, you are wrong and you must surrender. If you are to survive, you need to become your own anchor. You learn to trust yourself and in the process you rediscover the same timeless maxims that have lead humanity over the millennia. You find out that tradition taught you values for a reason and that tradition is not so subjective after all.

[@nicholasleclerc1583]

@vanillaglue “In order to [physically] survive, you have to hold on to certain ideas. [...] So yeah, since the physical reality of the world hasn’t fundamentally changed yet [but could, IMO, since now we have the appropriate levels of infrastructure & technology in the West, but not so much anywhere else, and with none of the appropriate quantities of unity and willpower as a species to do so], this is qhy I think traditions are objective.” I at least agree with your 2nd paragraph (tho it’s probably because it was vague enough to be detached from your subconscious conservatism) I can smell your hypocritical political bias through your comment, and apparently it’s only “people are currently putting politics into academic ideas & analyses of society” & “people disagree with the other side just because they’re the other” when it’s the “other” person in question to at does, in this case the “liberals”, and not you conservative

[@DarkMoonDroid]

Jeeeeze! Do y'all turn into pumpkins at the 21 min. mark or what? Letting people finish their thots is a good thing!

[@luckylukewalker9834]

How can a guy study economics and not develop an understanding of capitalism until in his 40s

[@ianstambaugh6158]

He didn't study economics originally.

[@ryanroddy6129]

What specific "The history of capitalism" publication did he read?

[@Marty72]

Listening to this I can’t understand why the US would end up with Trump? Wouldn’t his theory predict a more moderate government being elected like Obama, it seems more of the population has moved to the right not the left.

[@tenmanX]

@Lol...You're not supposed to be awake. Why can't you just accept the pablum and dream of the good old days when everyone knew their place...and everyone uncritically believed what the clever-sounding professor told us?

[@mirandac8712]

Trump was seen as the corrective to all of this. What Trump really is (I think) is a true American maverick in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson: a disruptive individualistic master of communication who celebrates self-reliance, entrepreneuralism, and family values. I know it's strange, but I finally understood this thanks to (of all things) an excellent PBS _Frontline_ which defended Trump -- maybe unwittingly, I don't know (it was authored by a female documentary journalist) -- as motivated by a profound desire to restore American productivity and commercial autonomy, mainly against Asia. And it's possible to argue that he's largely succeeded in doing this, if you look at certain indexes like the unemployment rate, industry, and unemployment. Maybe it's my female perspective, but I believe the current social conflict is a war of the sexes. I keep thinking of an interview Orson Welles gave in the fifties. (I think of Welles as the ultimate progressive: writing speeches for FDR, berating himself for not having run for a seat in Congress, as his friends in DC were insisting -- he was a Wisconsinite, so he would have beat McCarthy! -- doing so much under the banner of the WPA, including _Cradle Will Rock_ and mounting an all-black _Macbeth_ in Harlem, among many other things; _Kane_ is basically Trump, a clueless progressive from NYC who inherited a fortune and mastered mass media before embarking on a political career: Kane, unlike Trump, was brought down by a #metoo style scandal -- _Kane_ is Trump's favorite film, in real life.) Welles said the most important thing about the 20th century was the rise of women. He said it was going to change everything, and that was impossible to predict how. Furthermore I see lots of public intellectuals coming very close to saying this but stopping short. I suspect Haidt might be the first one to actually say it.

[@Marty72]

miranda c I don’t disagree with you. The PBS documentary you’ve mentioned does explain why Trump was elected. Haidt’s perspective would make sense if a traditional Republican was elected. IMO Trump is a populist, and doesn’t fit the normal Republican and Democrat divide. From my perspective he is neither Republican or Democrat.

[@jonah_da_mann]

The best possible answer to your question comes from research done by a political psychologist named Karen Stenner. (Note that the term "authoritarian" in this context refers to the FOLLOWERS, not necessarily the leaders): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Stenner#Research

[@queenstrategy904]

Its due to globalization leaving behind 2/3rds of American workers who are in low skilled labor and have lost their jobs/ poor employment

[@kenfunk2391]

I hope this means you are done with that every thumbnail looks very similar experiment. I applaud trying new things but a distinct image works better.

[@NewEconomicThinking]

Hello Ken. The Black name thumbnail is for a podcast where there is just audio and the image of the guest is the thumbnail of a video.

[@queenstrategy904]

This guy is completely right around 15:00 mark about how free speech has been demolished in our education systems. The rest of what he says can be completely ignored.

[@charlesbourgoigne2130]

To find the truth or what is closer to it, you mist look at all sides. I would recommend to any US conservative nowadays to listen to Noam Chomsky. He will say the opposite opinion of what they believe. However, it is critical to not only get information from your own information bubble that forms around you naturally by your interests. Vice versa, left leaning people should listen to conservative thinkers (I do). You will get new information you didn’t even know existed. Then make a conclusion pro and contra; always update this conclusion with new information

[@BradSamuelsPro]

Jonathan Haidt is a saint!

[@paweex3655]

And when he speaks, he is the nicest person on this planet.

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

More like a right wing nut job who has a very punchable face

[@BradSamuelsPro]

@@PoliticalEconomy101 You're a demon!

[@Pinstripe0451]

@@BradSamuelsPro There are no demons, nut job.

[@BradSamuelsPro]

@@Pinstripe0451 I voted for Bernie twice. Part of the reason why he lost was that progressives can't take good advice, like that provided by Haidt and others, to practice politics of inclusion, rather than politics of exclusion.

[@paulbucklebuckle4921]

Thought police . Why are people so scared,,, paradise syndrome ,,, soft and spoilt ....

[@fuckfannyfiddlefart]

It is the reaction to capitalism that is the origin of morality not capitalism.

[@visicircle]

At 17:45 Perhaps crime dropped in part because parents now take a 'bunker in place' strategy with their kids? If we all let our kids out like in the 50s-60s, would crime against children dramatically rise?

[@queenstrategy904]

No, crime in general has gone down significantly since the 1900s and is on a pretty linear slope downwards. Each 3 decades has about half the amount of homicides and violent crimes as before. Death rates are on the rise again, but that is due to self-inflicted suicides and drug overdoses.

[@visicircle]

@@queenstrategy904 I'm checking some data online, but not finding those results. Anything you can point me to?

[@EvsEntps]

@@queenstrategy904 It's actually been on the rise since about 2015. We're back at 1980s level of violent crimes now. If the trend continues we'll be back at 1990s peak violent crime levels by mid-late 2020s.

[@Pinstripe0451]

Jonathan Haidt is a good complemental of Robert Sapolsky. The former takes a psychological view, while the latter takes a biological view of the same issues raised.

[@benwincelberg9684]

Nice :)

[@queenstrategy904]

Yes! I knew there was a giant wave of depression in American teenagers. All of my friends, peers, and classmates were incredibly depressed, and I haven't been able to find any evidence of why (or anyone that mentioned it) until this video. I had some ideas about what was causing this - social media, the lack of play time outdoors, the radical increase of pressure to preform well academically because the job market is so unstable from low wage work, the poor American diet, the increased use of social interaction in exchange for technology. I hope more people research into this because suicide rates are on the rise for everyone, especially for children 8-12, and adults in their 50s.

[@vanillaglue]

I think the cause is more on an intellectual level. I haven't been able to pin point it either. Nihilism, lack of purpose/sense or belonging, I think those are proxies/symptoms to some ideological foundation.

[@Yor_gamma_ix_bae]

Hehehe

[@roc7880]

same as free market worshipers: the fear new ideas, or anything that does not fit market supremacy, but ignored the COVID-19

[@marble296]

Ouuu I liked that