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Modern Wisdom

#424 - Steven Pinker - The Problem With Trying To Be Rational

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.74.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Steven Pinker is a Cognitive Psychologist at Harvard University, a psycholinguist and a Best Selling Author.

It would be nice to always make the right decision. To escape the prison of human emotions and biases and operate from a purely rational place. Steven's new book breaks down rationality into it's components in an attempt to understand just what we're all missing from our mental makeup.

Expect to learn why betting websites are the most accurate forecasters of the future, why learning lists of cognitive biases won't always make you more effective, whether smart people are more or less rational on average, whether politics makes you dumber, how to balance rationality with a desire to be intuitive and present and much more...

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Stephen Pinker. He's a cognitive

0:05.4

psychologist at Harvard University, a psycho linguist and a best-selling author. It would

0:10.8

be nice to always make the right decision, to escape the prison of human emotions and

0:15.6

biases and operate from a purely rational place. Stephen's new book breaks down rationality

0:21.1

into its component parts and attempts to understand just why we're all missing something

0:26.7

from our mental makeup. Expect to learn why betting websites are the most accurate

0:31.0

forecasters of the future, why learning lists of cognitive biases won't always make

0:36.0

you more effective, whether smart people are more or less rational on average, whether

0:40.8

politics makes you dumber how to balance rationality with a desire to be intuitive and present

0:46.0

and much more. If you haven't already joined the Modern Wisdom

0:49.7

Local's community, then get your face and take it to www.modernwisdom.locals.com. You can

0:55.8

join over 2,000 other people who will listen to the show. It is a community where we can

1:00.6

post memes, thoughts, insights, other podcasts and pieces of content that we found engaging

1:05.6

and I'm doing regular Q&A live streams only for local supporters. That's www.modernwisdom.locals.com.

1:13.5

In other news, this episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. We all need help at some

1:18.6

point in our lives, whether it's because of stress at home or work or loneliness, it

1:23.3

can be invaluable to know that there's someone professionally trained who can help us get

1:27.2

through whatever we're facing. Over 2 million people have taken charge of their mental

1:31.9

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1:36.2

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1:40.7

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1:45.8

combination of specialities like addiction, social anxiety or relationships. You can go

...

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