Steven Pinker: Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

There’s increasing concern that as scary as this period feels—between Russia’s two-year war in Ukraine and Hamas’s ongoing war with Israel—that all of this will come to be seen as the calm before the storm. Should China decide to move against Taiwan in some way, then we’ll have war in three regions, and U.S. involvement in all three. Or perhaps by then it will not seem like separate wars, but a single global one.  Most Americans in the last fifty years, and certainly since the end of the Cold War, have lived in the luxury of safety. We live in a place where peace and security—crime and riots aside—are generally taken for granted. But a lot of Americans had a serious wake-up call after October 7, when a country with a high-tech security fortress was overwhelmed by terrorists on motorcycles and trucks and paragliders. Could this happen here? Who is actually coming over our border? If we had to fight for our country, who would actually show up? Today’s Honestly guests had that wake-up call long before the wars in Ukraine or Gaza. They’re investing their time, money, and resources into building a better American defense. And in the past few months especially, their work has come to be seen as prescient. Palmer Luckey is a 31-year-old software engineer and entrepreneur. At the age of 19, Palmer founded the virtual reality company Oculus, which was originally supposed to be sold on Kickstarter as a virtual reality prototype for VR nerds and enthusiasts. Instead, it was acquired by Facebook for more than $2 billion. Then, when he was 25, he founded Anduril Industries, an $8.5 billion company that develops drones, autonomous vehicles, submarines, rockets, and software for military use. Katherine Boyle is a Washington Post reporter turned venture capitalist; she is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the co-founder of the firm’s American Dynamism arm, which invests in companies that build to support the national interest.  Joe Lonsdale is a co-founder of Palantir (along with Peter Thiel and others) and founder and general partner of the firm 8VC, which backed Anduril in its early days.  They are each attempting to disrupt the defense marketplace, bring Silicon Valley’s speed, creativity, and innovation to defense, advance our national security, and, you know. . . save America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Feb 20241h 5min

Today, Yascha Mounk and Christopher Rufo debate the origins of DEI and the right way to fight the illiberal orthodoxy that has consumed our schools and institutions. Christopher is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a board member at New College of Florida, and maybe the country’s most influential conservative activist. He thinks that using the power of the law to stop DEI is essential.  Yascha is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an international affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University. He thinks that while DEI—and woke ideology more broadly—is concerning, he doesn’t think the answer to its illiberalism should come in the form of bans and legislation. They both recently published books that investigate the changing cultural trends of the American left. Yascha is the author of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. And Christopher’s book is America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Jan 20241h 54min

It’s been four years since the first American death from the coronavirus. Four years since we were told that wearing masks—even cloth masks—were essential to keeping us safe. The same goes for lockdowns and social distancing. Any inconvenience to society was outweighed by the lives saved.  And remember what President Biden told us after Covid vaccines were rolled out a year later? “The CDC is saying, they have concluded, that fully vaccinated people are at a very, very low risk of getting Covid-19,” Biden said in a Rose Garden press conference. We now know that so much of what we were told in those years was wrong. (Last week, Anthony Fauci admitted in closed-door congressional testimony that the six-feet apart rule was “likely not based on scientific data.”) And if the guidance wasn’t flat-out wrong, it was certainly debatable. But debate was not only discouraged—it was shut down. Respected dissident scientists were dismissed as fringe scientists. They were deplatformed on social media. For most of us, all of this seems like a lifetime ago. But the problem is that here we are, four years later; millions of Americans suffered, more than a million died, and it’s not clear we have any better understanding of what exactly went wrong. How was it that our leaders—and our economy—were so brutally underprepared for a global pandemic? That’s what today’s conversation on Honestly is about. Guest host Michael Moynihan talks to The Free Press’s own Joe Nocera about his new book, co-authored with Bethany McLean: The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind. The Big Fail takes a critical look at what the pandemic uncovered about our leaders, our broken trust in government, and the vulnerability of the biggest economy in the world. Nocera also investigates the perverse incentives (and devastating effects) of hospital systems and nursing homes run by private equity firms. All this makes him ask: Does capitalism have its limitations when it comes to healthcare? Most importantly: Are we able to learn our lesson from the Covid pandemic and do better when the next emergency hits us? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Jan 202456min

One hundred days ago, the world changed. October 7 has proven to be many things: the opening salvo in a brutal war between Israel and Hamas; an attack that could precipitate a broader, regional war; the beginning of a global, ongoing orgy of antisemitism; a wake-up call regarding the rot inside the West’s once-great sensemaking institutions; a possible realignment of our politics. One of the things it has also been is a test. A moral test that many in the West have failed. That test of moral conscience is a continuing one considering there are still 136 hostages in Gaza. Two of them are babies; close to 20 of them are young women. Across the Western world, these hostages have faded from view. And when it comes to the fate of the many young women abducted by Hamas and taken to Gaza, the silence from some corners has been deafening. Today on Honestly, Bari argues that the groups you would expect to care most about these women and hostages—the celebrity feminists who are always the first to speak up in times of crisis, the prominent women’s organizations who protested loudly when it came to #MeToo, Donald Trump, or Brett Kavanaugh, and the international, supposedly “nonpolitical” human rights organizations—have said and done next to nothing about the murder, kidnap, and rape of Israeli girls. What explains their silence—or worse, their downplaying or denial?  When Michelle Obama, Oprah, Malala Yousafzai, Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian—and the rest of the civilized world—saw the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Haram in April 2014, within days they took to Twitter and demanded “Bring Back Our Girls.” Why isn’t the world demanding the same now?  It’s been one hundred days in captivity: bring back our girls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Jan 202430min

We're less than two weeks out from the first Democratic Primary in New Hampshire, and the mood among Democrats is grim. Joe Biden is polling behind Trump in almost every national poll. And the feeling among Democrats is well, there’s just nothing we can do about it. Enter Dean Phillips: the one lone soldier Democrat trying to make a last ditch effort to stop the 2020 rematch from hell. Dean is a moderate Democratic Congressman from Minnesota. He has political experience, but not the baggage of a long career in DC. He’s known as an incredibly bipartisan politician. He’s a philanthropist, a business magnate (who makes gelato of all things), a husband, and a father. But maybe, most importantly, he's a spry 54. By many metrics, he has what everyone claims to want in a Democratic presidential nominee. He also offers an alternative for the American voter who feels alienated by both parties. As Peter Savodnik reported this week in the FP, “nearly half of Americans today identify as independents—not necessarily because they’re centrists, or moderates, but because neither party reflects their views.” Dean believes he can win over those voters. He’s already proven he will buck the Democratic party establishment, at great personal and professional cost. (As James Carville said, Dean’s bound to be treated like a heretic in Democratic circles from here on out.) So, why is he doing this? And, can he actually pull it off? On today’s episode, a conversation with Dean Phillips about his uphill battle to knock his own party’s nominee out of the way, his motivations for running in the first place, and how the Democratic Party has gotten to this pass. We also cover his positions on issues like the border crisis, education, policing, healthcare, Israel, China, his Jewish identity and his improbable friendship with Rashida Tlaib.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Jan 20241h 24min

Last year was certainly eventful. It brought spy balloons, Donald Trump’s indictments, the coronation of a king, the fall of a crypto prince, and no shortage of chaos in Washington, from the ousting of Kevin McCarthy to the farcical George Santos scandal. Oh, and then there’s the small matter of two major wars, one in Gaza and one in Ukraine. Plus, ongoing tension between the U.S. and China. On a cheerier note, 2023 was also the year of Barbenheimer, the year it felt like AI really arrived, and the year the 90s were finally cool again.   But, as crazy as last year was, will the next twelve months prove that it was actually just the calm before the storm?  For many of us, 2024 begins with a distinct feeling of dread.  The Middle East grows increasingly unstable, the war in Ukraine is not going Kyiv’s way, and Xi Jinping’s rhetoric gets more bellicose by the day. Here at home, there’s the small matter of the election from hell, in which American voters face the unappetizing prospect of once again having to choose between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.  To try and figure out whether things will really be as terrible as we fear, today on Honestly Bari Weiss and Free Press editor Olly Wiseman are calling up some of our favorite experts to get a better sense of what’s coming down the pike.  The great Tyler Cowen looks into the economic crystal ball. Leandra Medine Cohen clues us in on fashion trends in 2024. Our very own Suzy Weiss talks through the cultural year ahead. Linguist John McWhorter looks at language. Doctor and longevity expert Peter Attia tells how to start the year healthy. Eagle-eyed political observers Nate Silver and Frank Luntz try to forecast the election. And historian Niall Ferguson tells us whether we’re right to be having nightmares about World War III.  Some guests cheered us up, others freaked us out. All of them were a pleasure to talk to. Welcome to 2024! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Jan 20241h 49min

Over the last six months, we’ve run two essay contests in The Free Press. The first was for high schoolers; we asked them to write about a problem facing American society—and how to fix it.  The second contest was for an older generation—70 years and over—and we asked them to tell a story about an event that shaped their life and helped give them wisdom or a fresh perspective.  Today, we are thrilled to bring you the winners of both of those contests. Voices of wisdom exactly 60 years apart. First, you’ll hear 17-year-old Ruby LaRocca read her winning essay, “A Constitution for Teenage Happiness.” As you’ll hear, her happiness guide involves less phones (in fact, she doesn’t own one) and more old books, less TV and more memorizing poems. Ruby is a homeschooled senior. She told us she entered the contest because she believes in our mission of finding “the people—under the radar or in the public eye—who are telling the truth.”  Then, you’ll hear Michael Tobin—a 77-year-old psychologist living in Israel—read his winning essay, “A Love Song for Deborah.” It is about grappling with his wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and nearly giving in to despair—until he found the one thing that awakened her.  We hope you enjoy today’s episode, and that it moves, uplifts, inspires—and all of those other holiday spirit verbs. It sure did for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Des 202329min

Over the last month, America has been witnessing one of the biggest abortion battles in the country since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Today, Bari shares her thoughts on the case of Kate Cox. She explains why it’s an appalling example of the cruelty of near-total abortion bans, and a tragic rebuttal to the pro-life claim that exceptions to these bans allow for a doctor and patient to make decisions in the woman’s best medical interest. And, Bari explains why she still grapples with the other side of the abortion debate—and why we all need to. For more Honestly on abortion, please listen to: Caitlin Flanagan on Why You’re Wrong—and Right—About Abortion Akhil Reed Amar on The Yale Law Professor Who Is Anti-Roe, But Pro-Choice Bethany Mandel, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Jeffrey Rosen on America After Roe: A Roundtable  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Des 202316min