593: Steven Pinker | Why Rationality Seems Scarce

The Jordan Harbinger Show

Steven Pinker (@sapinker) is a psychology professor at Harvard, one of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind, and an author of several bestsellers. His latest is Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.

What We Discuss with Steven Pinker:

• Why, by most metrics, older generations are mistaken when they proclaim: "Things were better back in my day!"
• Alternatives we might consider if Universal Basic Income can't sustainably solve the problem of housing and feeding a workforce increasingly unemployed by automation.
• Why nostalgia is overrated, and how criticizing the present is very often a way of criticizing your rivals.
• If we're really living, as Steven says, in "the most peaceable era in our species’ existence," how does he explain why we still have wars, famines, uprisings, and genocides?
• What sentiment mapping shows us about the power of the media to manipulate us into seeing the world in a heavily negative light even as it's improving constantly on every measurable level.
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/593

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Miss the last time we had Navy SEAL leadership authority and Extreme Ownership co-author Jocko Willink on the show? Make sure to check out episode 93: Jocko Willink | Leading on the Line Between Extreme and Reckless!

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