Overview
Authors: Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
Year: 2018
Cameron’s Rating: 9.5/10
Year: 2018
Cameron’s Rating: 9.5/10
My Thoughts
We all have blind spots. One of the biggest benefits of having a business partner or spouse is that they can help you identify your blind spots so that you can improve any weaknesses that may lay therein.
But… why do we have blind spots? And how can you try to identify your own blind spots if you aren’t lucky enough to have supportive people in your life?
The Elephant In The Brain is a book that’s brave enough to help us identify our less altruistic inner motivations — the ones we tend to downplay or ignore the existence of entirely.
Best Quotes
Note from Cam: I may have added square brackets “[ ]” to some of the below quotes to provide you with additional information or context.
- “Our brains are built to act in our self-interest while at the same time trying hard not to appear selfish in front of other people.”
- “The less we know of our own ugly motives, the easier they are to hide from others.”
- “If we can accurately diagnose what’s holding back our institutions, we may finally succeed in reforming them, thereby making our lives better.”
- “Often the best way to convince others that we believe something is to actually believe it.”
- “Spontaneous generosity [instead of focusing on donating to charities that are efficient with a high return on on donation] may not be the most effective way to improve human welfare on a global scale, but it’s effective where our ancestors needed it to be — at finding mates and building a strong network of allies.”
- “…By helping people in need we demonstrate our value as an ally.”
- “The greater the sacrifice, the more trust it engenders.”
- Actions speak louder than words, and expensive actions speak the loudest.”
- “Instincts that are adaptive in one context can lead us fatefully astray in another.”
- “…When our beliefs are of non-pragmatic functions, emotions tend to be useful to protect them from criticism.”
- “If politics is a team sport, rational voting is like playing Tetris alone in the corner.”
- “There’s common ground in almost conflict, though it may take a little digging to unearth it beneath all the bullshit.”
My Notes
- It’s difficult to be honest with ourselves because conscious thought can be seen as a rehearsal for what we will share with others.
- Many theorize that the human brain grew to be so incredibly large not due to competition from other species, but from competition within our own species.
- Because we know it is a natural human instinct to judge others, we advertise our strengths and attractive features so that when others inevitably judge us, they’re likely to have a more positive perception.
- The biggest benefit of deception is that it allows an organism to reap benefits without incurring costs.
- Social norms are a way for our species to suppress inner-species competition and increase collaboration.
- Social norms are created based on what things members of a species punish each other for failing to conform to.
- Gossip and damaging another’s reputation is one of the strongest mechanisms we have to enforce social norms when more direct forms of punishment would be too costly or difficult to perform.
- The potential benefits a positive reputation may bring to an individual increases our motivation to stand up against violators of social norms.
- Strategic self-deception only has value when your opponent is another human being or other highly intelligent species.
- When we make up stories about the outside world it is easy for others to fact check the things we say. It’s much more difficult, however, for others to question our self-rationalized motives we present to the world. For that reason, we tend to rationalize our motives in a way the world would find more flattering.
- The brain has a system we could refer to as the “interpreter module”. This system works similar to a press secretary working for the president. The interpreter module uses the information it’s given to rationalize the policies and actions taken by the president (or ourselves).It’s important to note that there’s a form of strategic ignorance for both the press secretary and the interpreter module wherein it is not given all of the information the executive (brain/president) has access to.The reason for this is so that secretive information is not accidentally shared with the other people. The interpreter module and the press secretary excel at creating rationalizations that are difficult to detect and that would show flattering motives for the president (or us).Although a bit frightening, in many ways what we refer to as consciousness could easily be seen as the press secretary and what we refer to as the sub consciousness is actually the president.
- Science suggests that there is a chemical basis to human attraction. When asked to rate the attractiveness of different men based on t-shirts they worn, women unconsciously rated men with complementary immune systems as being more attractive.
- 3rd person advertising is a type of advertising where the product is not being directly promoted to us. Instead, the product can be seen as being promoted to others.Research suggests that humans often see themselves as being too savvy to be impacted by advertiser’s efforts but see others as being less savvy.As a result, if you believe others will “fall” for a product that is being pushed as “cool”, you yourself are more likely to purchase it because you want to signal to others your own high social status.
- Male Bowerbirds prove their genetic superiority to potential female mates by decorating their nests using objects made of colors rarely found in the forest (such as blue).The ability to waste energy accumulating rare objects with no innate usefulness helps males prove that they are healthy and have good genetics.This parallel in another species may explain human beings’ attraction to luxury goods as a method of status signaling and saying, “I’m so confident in my ability to survive that I can afford to waste time and energy.”
- Beliefs often aren’t things we consciously choose, but rather symptoms of underlying incentives earned via holding said beliefs.
- The largest benefit of self-deception is that it allows us to be pursue our self-interests without appearing selfish.