Joe Rogan Experience #1743 - Stephen Pinker

1. 0:00 – 3:48

   From early digital cameras to serious photography as visual cognition

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. SPSteven Pinker0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      So I was saying, I had, uh, you, we were talking about phones and cameras and the fact that compact cameras are essentially dead. I had an Apple camera, I don't know if you remember them.

   5. SPSteven Pinker0:21

      No.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      But it was a, I think it was one megapixel, and it was about the size of this book, County Mon- Count of Monty Christo book. That's it right there.

   7. SPSteven Pinker0:32

      Oh, okay, I don't remember that.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:33

      How many megapixels was that?

   9. NANarrator0:34

      There's two of them there. One's flat, like that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       I didn't have that one. I had the one on the right.

   11. NANarrator0:40

       This one?

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah, that's the one I had.

   13. NANarrator0:41

       Okay. Quick, take 200.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Yeah. I think it used floppy disks, if I remember. I'm trying to remember what you put in there. This was in the '90s-

   15. SPSteven Pinker0:51

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       ... I wanna say. Yeah. And that was a big deal. (laughs) I mean, I don't know what the megapixels were, but I, I seem to remember it was, like, one.

   17. SPSteven Pinker1:04

       Could've been one, yeah, I think that makes sense.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       Yeah, it was a big deal. Like you could take some good-ass pictures with that one. Okay, so it is some sort of an SD card. So. Are you, uh, an amateur photographer?

   19. SPSteven Pinker1:18

       I am, yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       Yeah.

   21. SPSteven Pinker1:19

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       Do you use actual pho- photography? Do you do, like, do you develop your own photographs?

   23. SPSteven Pinker1:24

       No longer. So I am digital-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:26

       Ah.

   25. SPSteven Pinker1:26

       ... as most pe- most photographers are these days, except for, uh, people into nostalgia and, you know, retro and-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       Yeah.

   27. SPSteven Pinker1:34

       ... and hipster stuff. Uh, but I, I do have a manual focus camera, so I am old school in, in that way.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:41

       Oh.

   29. SPSteven Pinker1:42

       And, uh, I set my own aperture. I use a tripod when I can. So, uh, and I, I do take it seriously. I love the gadgets, but I also love thinking about visual experience. Uh, I started off as a psychologist studying visual cognition.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       Ah.
2. 3:48 – 9:09

   Stereo photography and the long history of 3D viewing

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:48

      What is stereo photography?

   2. SPSteven Pinker3:50

      That's when you, uh, have two, two lenses, like we have two eyes, and, um, so you take two pho- uh, photographs from slightly different vantage points, uh, and then you view the pair of images through a viewer that allows your eyes to focus on the two, each eye to focus on its own image.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:11

      Oh, so it's like a 3D movie type deal?

   4. SPSteven Pinker4:13

      It, well, 3D movies, which were a fad, they were a fad first in the '50s when Hollywood had to-

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:17

      Yeah. (laughs)

   6. SPSteven Pinker4:17

      ... compete with TV. And of course, now they're a, they've been revived with IMAX and, um...

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:22

      Yeah.

   8. SPSteven Pinker4:24

      And they were huge in the 19th century. I mean, that was their equivalent of television. People would sit around with these wooden stereograph viewers and they'd see side-by-side pictures that would pop into depth when they saw them through the viewer, of the Eiffel Tower and the pyramids-

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:39

      Ah.

   10. SPSteven Pinker4:40

       ... and the, uh, the American West, the Grand Canyon. Uh, and that was, that was kind of the way the, the, the whole family or a bunch of, of, uh, friends coming over would amuse themselves, uh, in the 19th century.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:52

       Is this supposed to be a visual, like a video representation of what that would look like, Jamie?

   12. NANarrator4:56

       Yeah, it's like taking a GIF and bouncing back and forth between the left and right photos.

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:00

       Oh.

   14. NANarrator5:00

       So you can sorta see it without the viewer.

   15. SPSteven Pinker5:02

       But you can, you know, you can do it with... They, they used to sell stereo cameras, and I think there's, there's still one or two that you can get. They were big in the '50s. You can get the equivalent by doing what they, what they call the astronaut two-step, because the astronauts who walked on the moon would take stereo photos with a regular camera. Just, you put your, uh, put your weight on your left leg, take a picture, put your weight on their right leg, take a picture. Naturally, it's gonna shift the camera over-

   16. JRJoe Rogan5:25

       A little bit, oh.

   17. SPSteven Pinker5:25

       ... like, a couple of inches. And so you have two images that were taken, kind of like from the perspective of your left eye and your right eye. Then you... The, the trick then is, you can't just take a pair of pictures, put them side by side, and have your left eye look at the left picture and the right eye look at the right picture. I mean, you can if you really train yourself, and I've trained myself to do this, and a lot of perception psychologists have. But ordinarily, because your eyes both con- uh, kind of converge and diverge in and out, you go cross-eyed or wall-eyed, and the lens in each eye has to focus what you're looking at. Those two reflexes are coupled, so that if you have each eye looking at a picture, your brain thinks it's, uh, infinitely far away, and so you focus for infinity, so each picture is blurry.

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:10

       Hmm.

   19. SPSteven Pinker6:10

       Then when you try to get it into focus, now your brain's thinking, "Well, it's, uh, uh, uh..."... something is nearby, I gotta make my eyes a little more cross-eyed, so that I don't get a double image. And you lose the... each image going to a separate eye. So, that's why you have these viewers, kinda like the o- the View-Masters, that sold at tourist traps.

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:27

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SPSteven Pinker6:27

       Those plastic contraptions with a ring of photos.

   22. JRJoe Rogan6:29

       Yeah.

   23. SPSteven Pinker6:30

       Where they just have two lenses, one for each eye, and that spares your eye from having to focus. You can just focus at infinity and the lens do- brings the- makes the picture sharp. When you focus at infinity, your eyes are parallel, they're both looking out, uh, into the distance, and each eye can see its own photo. And then, it snaps into a- a 3D illusion.

   24. JRJoe Rogan6:52

       If I remember correctly, a few years ago, there was a camera on a phone that was taking three-dimensional images. Do you remember this, Jamie? There was... It was one of the Android phones. You know, like, Android, you know, because it's such an open source thing, they- they kind of have freedom to do wacky things to try to attac- (laughs) Right.

   25. SPSteven Pinker7:12

       ... attract attention and try to get people to buy them. And so, they had developed this camera on a... It was, like, an enormous camera apparatus on the back of a phone that took three-dimensional images. Do you remember this? I'm not making this up, am I?

   26. NANarrator7:27

       I vaguely remember something like that.

   27. JRJoe Rogan7:29

       I wanna say it was, like, eight or nine years ago.

   28. NANarrator7:32

       Oh, okay.

   29. JRJoe Rogan7:32

       It was quite a while ago.

   30. SPSteven Pinker7:34

       There- there are a number of ways of- of, um, having a picture pop into depth using stereo vision. I mean, o- one of them is the technique that goes back to the Victorians of just... Y- you put two lenses in front of the eyes, and then the eyes can both look s- straight ahead. Each one can see its own image, and they're both sharp. You can also... In- in virtual reality, what you often have is, um, you wear goggles that, um, (clears throat) are effectively shutters for the left eye and the right eye. So, you block the left eye, and then the screen shows the image that goes to the right eye. Then, you block the right eye, and the screen shows the image that goes to the left eye. But it happens so fast that it- it doesn't even look like it's f- it's, uh, flickering faster than the eye can resolve. And that's how, uh, that's how the old 3D TVs used to work. That was a fad in the-
3. 9:09 – 10:36

   Lenticular images and other tricks for depth illusions

   1. SPSteven Pinker9:09

      Then there's the l- what are... They're lenticular photos, which is, uh, like the, uh, the kind of the, uh, w- winking Jesus. When you kinda tilt it, Jesus-

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:17

      Mm.

   3. SPSteven Pinker9:17

      ... you know, winks at you or waves.

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:19

      Yes.

   5. SPSteven Pinker9:19

      And you... That can be- be used for stereo too. And there, you, uh, have the two pictures. Again, always taken, one where the left eye is, one where the right eye is. Then, the trick is, how do you get each photo to a- to the, uh, appropriate eye? And with the lenticular photos is if each photo is cut into teensy-weensy little vertical strips, and they're kind of interdigitated. Then, on top of it, you have a bunch of tiny little s- s- kind of cylinder, half cylinders, aligned with the images, so that the l- left eye and the right eye, which are, you know, a- a couple of inches apart, l-... are looking at the pictures through slightly different angles. And these cylindrical lenses just make sure that each eye can only see the half image, uh, at the appropriate angle. And s-

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:03

      Mm.

   7. SPSteven Pinker10:04

      Uh, uh, uh, it's gotten much better, and now there are artists who actually use it as an art form, where, um, uh, as you move, the image moves like it's a real scene in- in- in the, uh, world. Uh, but I remember them as f- uh, when- when I was a kid, they... Often with, uh, cheesy cartoons, or, you know, Jesus, or, uh, Santa Claus, uh, yet another way of just basically getting, uh, two images, uh, taken from different vantage points, each to the right eye.

4. 10:36 – 15:02

   Optimism about technology—then straight into nuclear energy and climate

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:36

      Photography's fascinating. The technology around photography is fascinating. But what does... How do... Are you, um... Do you have an optimistic view of our relationship with technology?

   2. SPSteven Pinker10:47

      Uh, uh, uh, on the whole, yes. But, uh, of course, it crucially depends on what the technology is used for.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:53

      Right.

   4. SPSteven Pinker10:54

      If it's making, uh, better bioweapons or, uh, um, the, uh... or better nuclear weapons, it's not necessarily such a good thing. But if it's-

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:02

      Do we really need better nuclear weapons? I mean, don't we have enough nuclear power to nuke the entire world multiple times over?

   6. SPSteven Pinker11:09

      We sure do. Uh, I think we need better nuclear energy sources.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:12

      Yes.

   8. SPSteven Pinker11:13

      Like fourth generation nuclear-

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:14

      Yes.

   10. SPSteven Pinker11:15

       ... is probably the only way we're gonna get out of the climate crisis, I think.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:17

       Well, fourth generation nuclear... The- the problem with nuclear is there's th- a very relatively small amount of accidents that have happened. You know, Fukushima, Three Mile Island. There's a- a few of them. There haven't been that many. But everybody associates Chernobyl with nuclear power. Like, "Oh, my God. It's gonna melt down. It's gonna kill everybody." And if you really pay attention to what nuclear power is capable of, it's really capable of zero emission energy. It's really capable of d-... I mean, there's some problems with the waste, and... But th- that... Those problems can be resolved with better versions of nuclear power. Whereas, like, Fukushima is a perfect example. They were working on, like, very old technology, where they have one backup, and the backup went down too because of the tidal waves. And then, that was it. The tsunami kicked out the whole system, and now they're in this, like, perpetual state of meltdown. Like, they don't know what to do with all the waste. They don't know what to do with all the water. They have, like... They're developing these trenches. Have you paid attention to what they're doing?

   12. SPSteven Pinker12:17

       Yeah. It's, uh... Well, I- I've-

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:19

       They're freezing it?

   14. SPSteven Pinker12:20

       No, and that was, uh, spectacularly bad design. People don't know that there was another nuclear power plant in, uh, Japan, that during that same, uh, tsunami, people actually went into that nuclear power plant for safety because it was so well built. It was so-

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:35

       Oh.

   16. SPSteven Pinker12:35

       ... removed from the reach of the ocean, even during the worst conceivable tsunami. It was- was-

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:41

       Oh.

   18. SPSteven Pinker12:42

       ... better designed, better situated, and people used it as a refuge. I know it sounds like an episode out of The Simpsons.

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:47

       (laughs)

   20. SPSteven Pinker12:47

       Like, "Let- let's get into the nuclear power plant to be safe."

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:50

       Right.

   22. SPSteven Pinker12:51

       But that really happened. So, I- I've written about this a lot. I wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called Nuclear Power Can Save the World. And indeed, the... One of the big impediments is a feature of psychology that I also write about in- in- in my book Rationality, namely the availability bias. Namely, when people assess risk, they don't look up data. They don't count up the number of- of- of accidents compared to the number of years that nuclear power plants have been in operation and how many there are. Uh, you- you remember examples. And we estimate risk, we meaning the human race, by how easily we can, uh, dredge up examples from memory. We use our brain's search engine as a way of calculating probability. And indeed, some of these flamboyant accidents, like Three Mile Island and- and Chernobyl, are what people associate nuclear power with.

   23. JRJoe Rogan13:38

       Yeah.

   24. SPSteven Pinker13:38

       And so, the, uh, hurdles to building new power plants are just... Have been crippling, even though it's the biggest, most scalable form of, uh, energy and the safest form of energy. If you think of it...... uh, in terms of number of deaths per amount of energy made available, it's probably the safest form of energy ever developed.

   25. JRJoe Rogan13:58

       Yeah.

   26. SPSteven Pinker13:59

       But we are... Our sense of danger comes from remembering these, these, uh, examples. I know someone who blames the climate crisis on The Doobie Brothers and Bonnie Raitt and Bruce sin- Springsteen because their 1979 film, No Nukes, a benefit concert coming, uh, around the time of Three Mile Island, kind of poisoned an entire generation, maybe two generations against nuclear power.

   27. JRJoe Rogan14:24

       (laughs)

   28. SPSteven Pinker14:24

       And, you know, the world needs energy. We're not... People aren't gonna give it up.

   29. JRJoe Rogan14:28

       Yeah.

   30. SPSteven Pinker14:28

       Uh, we saw that at the, the Glasgow meeting where, you know, India and China and Indonesia, they're saying, "Sorry, we're not gonna do without the energy that lifted you guys out of poverty."
5. 15:02 – 18:40

   Wind/solar limits, grid reliability, and the nuclear waste trade-off

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      But if you ask people, the average person who hasn't really looked into this would say, "Oh, you know, wind and solar." But if... I flew into Hawaii last week when on vacation with the family, and when we flew into Hawaii, there's these, uh, they have those wind turbines that are sitting on the island of Maui, and, uh, they weren't moving. (laughs)

   2. SPSteven Pinker15:21

      Yeah. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:22

      I go see that... The kids, I was pointing to it out the window. I go, "That's a spectacular failure." I go, "It doesn't generate that much energy anyway." They kill a lot of birds. Those poor birds don't know what's going on. They fly right into those, those propellers and get chopped up.

   4. SPSteven Pinker15:36

      Yeah, I mean, I think we, uh, wind energy is gonna be part of the mix, but you just can't power an entire city from -

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:42

      Yeah.

   6. SPSteven Pinker15:42

      ... climate change.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:42

      Well, it's also, they're ugly.

   8. SPSteven Pinker15:43

      (laughs) Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:44

      There's so many of them. They, they litter the, the side of a, a mountain or a countryside. It's just, I think it's gross.

   10. SPSteven Pinker15:50

       Well, it's not a taste. I, I, I, I, I actually find them beautiful.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       Really?

   12. SPSteven Pinker15:52

       I, uh... Yeah, I like them, but, uh-

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:53

       Oh, my God, there's a, there's one in California. There's like a wind... See if you can find this 'cause it looks so gross. It's a, uh... What do they call them? Wind turbines?

   14. SPSteven Pinker16:02

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       What's the f-

   16. SPSteven Pinker16:03

       Yeah, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       It's like a wind turbine field.

   18. SPSteven Pinker16:05

       Arm. Yeah, right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Ever seen it? It's enormous. Yeah, there it is. You don't think that looks gross?

   20. SPSteven Pinker16:10

       No, that looks pretty gross. But on the other hand, that is pretty, you know, bad and deadly.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       That's disgusting.

   22. SPSteven Pinker16:13

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       That, to me-

   24. SPSteven Pinker16:14

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       ... looks like a funeral, like, like a graveyard rather. That's like a horrific graveyard of good ideas.

   26. SPSteven Pinker16:20

       But, you know, if, if it would s- I- if it would prevent a climate catastrophe-

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       Yes.

   28. SPSteven Pinker16:24

       ... I could live with it.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       Right.

   30. SPSteven Pinker16:25

       Yeah.
6. 18:40 – 23:04

   Radiation fear, contamination psychology, and nuclear power misconceptions

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:40

      It's funny, but in comic books, nuclear power always leads to a great result. Like, the, the nuclear energy, the radiation always leads to superheroes.

   2. SPSteven Pinker18:49

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:49

      You know? (laughs)

   4. SPSteven Pinker18:50

      I don't think we should count on that. (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:52

      You always get, like, Spider-Man-

   6. SPSteven Pinker18:53

      Right. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:54

      ... or Fantastic Four. You get awesome stuff.

   8. SPSteven Pinker18:56

      Well, I remember as, as a child when nuclear everything was, was good-

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:01

      Right.

   10. SPSteven Pinker19:01

       ... you, you'd see these pictures of, you know, super zucchinis and massive turnips-

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:07

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SPSteven Pinker19:08

       ... from seeds that had been irradiated, and the mutants that would produce, you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:12

       Right.

   14. SPSteven Pinker19:12

       ... supercharged vegetables would be featured at county fairs. I don't think... But that was just after the era where people thought that nuclear bombs could excavate harbors and dig canals. (laughs) I mean, there was a period of, let's say, irrational exuberance about, uh, about nuclear power in this country.

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:30

       Are you familiar, I'm, I'm sure you are, but that with, um, the, the issues that they had with that radioactive paint and, uh, women who would work-

   16. SPSteven Pinker19:39

       Oh yeah, the ra- the, the, um, glow in the dark watch dials-

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:42

       Yes.

   18. SPSteven Pinker19:42

       ... which, which had-

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:43

       Yeah.

   20. SPSteven Pinker19:43

       ... had radium in them, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:45

       Yeah. And these-... poor women that worked in these factories painting these things, they would touch the brush on their tongue and-

   22. SPSteven Pinker19:52

       Yeah, to, to make it, to, to, uh, draw it into a fine point.

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:55

       Yes.

   24. SPSteven Pinker19:55

       You know, the same way an artist, you, you, you put or, you know, you have a shoelace with the, when the, when the aglet has fallen off-

   25. JRJoe Rogan20:01

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SPSteven Pinker20:01

       ... you put it into your mouth so that the little threads make a fine point.

   27. JRJoe Rogan20:05

       Yes.

   28. SPSteven Pinker20:05

       You do that with a brush and the... which had been coated in radium paint-

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:09

       And these poor women developed-

   30. SPSteven Pinker20:10

       They look horrible.
7. 23:04 – 25:41

   Pinker’s 'Rationality': data-driven progress vs modern conspiracism

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:04

      Um, your book, the new book is Rationality?

   2. SPSteven Pinker23:07

      Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:11

      It, it is kinda scarce.

   4. SPSteven Pinker23:13

      (laughs) It certainly seems scarce.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:15

      What has happened to us?

   6. SPSteven Pinker23:16

      Well, it's-

   7. JRJoe Rogan23:17

      (laughs)

   8. SPSteven Pinker23:17

      (laughs) You know, I, I think that there's, there's a lot of rationality inequality.

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:22

      Yeah.

   10. SPSteven Pinker23:23

       'Cause, you know, at the top end, we've never been more rational.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:25

       Right.

   12. SPSteven Pinker23:26

       I mean, not only do we have this mind-boggling technology in terms of, uh, mRNA vaccines and, you know, smartphones and 3D printing and artificial intelligence, but we have rationality applied to areas of life that formerly were just a matter of, of, you know, seat-of-the-pants guesswork and hunches and, and you rely on experts. So you have things like, you know, Moneyball, where some genius thought, "Well, if you make decisions in sports, like drafting and strategy, based on data instead of the hunches of, you know, some old general manager, you could actually have an advantage." And so the O- Oakland A's went all, all the way with a fairly small, uh, uh, budget for players because they applied data. Now every team has a statistician.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       Hmm.

   14. SPSteven Pinker24:15

       Uh, data-driven policing. One of the reasons that the crime rate in the, the US fell by more than half in the 1990s wasn't that all of a sudden guns were taken, uh, off the street. It wasn't that, you know, racism vanished or inequality vanished. Uh, part of it was that police got smarter. Since a lot of violence happens in a s- few small areas of a city, often by a few, you know, hotheads, a few perpetrators-

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:41

       Yeah.

   16. SPSteven Pinker24:41

       ... if you concentrate police on where the crime hotspots are, you can control a lot of crime without that much manpower. Um-

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:49

       We were just having a conversation-

   18. SPSteven Pinker24:51

       Evidence-based medicine.

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:51

       Yeah.

   20. SPSteven Pinker24:52

       You know, evidence-based policy and governance. So there are areas in which we've applied rationality in areas that formerly were just gut feelings and hun- and, and hunches. I'll give you one other example is effective altruism, a movement that I'm kind of loosely connected with. Where do your charitable dollars save the most lives? Um, should you buy malarial bed nets? Should you buy seeing eye dogs for, for blind people? It makes a big difference and that's... So charity now is becoming more rational. So all of these areas, policing and sports and charity and government are becoming more rational, but of course, at the same time, you've got, you know, chemtrail conspiracy theorists, you've got the idea that COVID vaccines are a way for Bill Gates to implant microchips in people's, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:36

       They're not?

   22. SPSteven Pinker25:37

       (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) I, I-

   23. JRJoe Rogan25:38

       Don't they make you magnetic?

   24. SPSteven Pinker25:39

       Yeah, right. (laughs)

8. 25:41 – 38:06

   Political my-side bias, polarization, and the decline of cross-tribe institutions

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:41

      (laughs) Um, what's interesting to me is that, uh, there's a, a thing that goes along with, uh, irra- irrational thought where you have irrational thought that is confined to your party lines, right?

   2. SPSteven Pinker25:53

      Oh, yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:54

      Like if you are a-... if, I mean, this is just a blanket statement, but if you are right-wing, you are more likely to dismiss the worries of climate change.

   4. SPSteven Pinker26:03

      Yeah, absolutely.

   5. JRJoe Rogan26:03

      Why is that?

   6. SPSteven Pinker26:03

      In fact, that's the, that is the main predictor of whether you dismiss climate change. It has nothing to do with scientific literacy. You know, a lot of my fellow scientists say, "Oh, the fact that there's so much denial of manmade climate change means we need, you know, better science education in the schools."

   7. JRJoe Rogan26:18

      Yeah.

   8. SPSteven Pinker26:18

      "We need scientists becoming more popular, uh, and, and, and making the climate science more accessible." Turns out that whether you accept human-made climate change or not has nothing to do with how much science you know, and a lot of the people who do accept it know, you know, diddly about the, the science. They often will think, "Well, yeah, climate change, isn't that 'cause of, you know, the, the hole in the ozone layer and-

   9. JRJoe Rogan26:41

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SPSteven Pinker26:41

       ... toxic waste dumps and, you know, plastic straws in the oceans?"

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:44

       Right.

   12. SPSteven Pinker26:44

       I mean, really, out... A lot of them are out to lunch. Um, uh, whereas, you know, a, some of the climate deniers, they are like well-prepared litigators. They can find every loophole, they know every study. They... You know, a good lawyer can argue against anything. What does predict your acceptance of climate change is just where you are in the political spectrum. The farther to the right, the more denial. So abs- that's, what you said is absolutely right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan27:07

       It's not just more denial, but this willingness to instantaneously argue it. Like, uh, the, the subject came up, oddly enough, in jujitsu, where after class, we're, uh, like, uh, just getting dressed and putting stuff away, and someone said, "Man, it's just, uh, it's just a fact of life that it's getting hotter every year." And this guy jumped in immediately with, like, this defense of th- this idea that climate change is nonsense. And it's like, "Listen, it's a cycle. It's always been going on like this." I'm like, "How much research have you done?"

   14. SPSteven Pinker27:40

       Yeah. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan27:40

       Like, do you think, you don't think people are affected at all? I'm like, "Yeah, it is a cycle," right? If you go back and look at core samples and you look at the Ice Ages and you look at all the various times in the history of the Earth, the climate has moved. And we were actually just talking about this yesterday. I had someone on who's an expert in ancient, uh, civilizations and all these, uh, archeological mysteries that they've found, and one of the things we were talking about was the Sahara Desert, that the Sahara Desert goes through this period of every, like, 20,000 years or so where it's green and then it becomes a desert again, and then it becomes green again, and it goes back and forth. And 5,000-plus years ago, it was very green, and now it's a inhospitable desert. And, you know, this guy just, like, had this, like, right-wing talking point. Instead of arguing with him, I said, "How much research have you done?"

   16. SPSteven Pinker28:28

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan28:28

       I'm like, "W- what do you think is happening?" Like, "Well, it's just a cycle." Like, it's definitely a cycle, but don't you think it's extraordinary the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere?

   18. SPSteven Pinker28:37

       Yeah, but there, there can be superimposed trends. There can-

   19. JRJoe Rogan28:40

       Yeah.

   20. SPSteven Pinker28:40

       ... be cycling on top of that.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:42

       Right.

   22. SPSteven Pinker28:42

       There can be the forcing that, that, that-

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:43

       Right.

   24. SPSteven Pinker28:43

       ... we're doing. So.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:44

       It's both things.

   26. SPSteven Pinker28:45

       It's both things, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:45

       It's clearly, there's, like, the, the Earth varies. It has varied forever in terms of, like, the climate shifting back and forth. But clearly, like, if you look at, uh, any, like, Mexico City is a great example. I flew into Mexico City once, and I took photos 'cause I couldn't believe there wasn't a fire. I'm like, "I can't believe there's..." Like, when you live in Los Angeles, you're used to smoky skies when there's forest fires and wildfires. But Mexico City had... There was no fire. It was just pollution.

   28. SPSteven Pinker29:13

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan29:13

       I'm like, "These poor fucking people."

   30. SPSteven Pinker29:15

       (laughs) Yeah.
9. 38:06 – 1:00:16

   QAnon as identity, entertainment, and a different kind of “belief”

   1. JRJoe Rogan38:06

      I mean, it seems that if you... Did you watch that, um, four-part documentary series on HBO about QAnon? It was called Into the Storm.

   2. SPSteven Pinker38:15

      I did not watch that, no.

   3. JRJoe Rogan38:16

      It's excellent.

   4. SPSteven Pinker38:18

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan38:18

      And it's the, um... Cullen... H- how do you say his name? Huffback? We had him on...

   6. NANarrator38:24

      Hallback.

   7. JRJoe Rogan38:25

      Hallback? Hall... I forget how to say his last name. But, uh, we had him on the podcast, and, uh, I watched the, the documentary series with my mouth open the whole time, like... (gasps)

   8. SPSteven Pinker38:33

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan38:34

      It's, it's amazing. It's really good. But you get a sense of what's driving these people. And the personal identity aspect of it is a, it's a big factor. A big factor is the tribe, that they're, they're all this one group of, uh, patriots, and they're all in it together. Like, even the way they have their little logo, "Where we go one, we go all." Like, th- they, they-

   10. SPSteven Pinker38:57

       Mm. Wow, that, that says it all.

   11. JRJoe Rogan38:58

       Yeah, they, they've developed this sort of, uh, tribal climate, where they really believed that they were going to stop this evil takeover of the government and, you know, supplanting the Constitution, and, you know, killing our freedoms. And, and they thought they were gonna do it through this one person who was a leaker for-

   12. SPSteven Pinker39:19

       This Q?

   13. JRJoe Rogan39:20

       Yeah, Q.

   14. SPSteven Pinker39:20

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan39:21

       Well, this documentary shows that most likely... again, most likely, I don't know... most likely, Q was this guy who was running 4chan who was fucking with people.

   16. SPSteven Pinker39:32

       (laughs) Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan39:33

       And then, uh, he, uh, he actually took it over from another guy who was on 4chan, who started fucking with people, and then the style of the drops changed, and then this, th- you know, there's, like, real evidence that this one guy would be the only person that would have access to be able to post things at certain times. And during these certain times-

   18. SPSteven Pinker39:54

       Hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan39:54

       ... Q got to post when other people couldn't post, and it seems pretty clear that there's some fuckery afoot.

   20. SPSteven Pinker40:01

       (laughs) Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan40:01

       Right? But the people that were all in on the QAnon theory, these people had, they, they had President Trump photographs on the walls of their houses, and they, they believed in things so wholeheartedly, the way they communicated online, it was, it was a part of their tribal identity.

   22. SPSteven Pinker40:22

       And it was also a tremendously entertaining, you know, multiactor, uh, uh, online game too.

   23. JRJoe Rogan40:28

       Yes.

   24. SPSteven Pinker40:28

       You look for cues, clues.

   25. JRJoe Rogan40:30

       Yes.

   26. SPSteven Pinker40:31

       You share them.

   27. JRJoe Rogan40:32

       Yes.

   28. SPSteven Pinker40:32

       If you, if you find something that no one else has missed, then you're kind of a, you know, local hero. You get a lot of-

   29. JRJoe Rogan40:37

       Yes.

   30. SPSteven Pinker40:38

       ... of, uh, credit. Also... So this is a problem that I had to think about a lot when I wrote Rationality, 'cause, you know, I'm a cognitive psychologist, and I, you know, l- like everyone in my profession, I teach students about, you know, the gambler's fallacy. Like, you know, if you have... i- there's a run of reds on a roulette wheel, people mistakenly think that a black is more likely, uh, whereas, of course, the, the roulette wheel has no memory and each spin is independent. So anyway, I have a list of those fallacies. Then someone says, "Okay, well, now explain QAnon." And, you know, the standard cognitive psychology textbook is not much use in, in explaining such a, um, you know, well-developed but bizarre set of beliefs. So part of what I, uh, came to in trying to make sense of this (clears throat) is, uh... Y- as you said, there's part of it is, uh, just building up a tribal identity, a set of sacred beliefs that just define your tribe. If you believe it, you're a member in good standing. If you doubt it, then you're some sort of traitor or heretic. So there is that. But a- another part of it is... it kind of depends what you mean by belief, that people... I, I think there are two kinds of belief. There's the kind of belief a- about the physical environment that you... you know, the world that we live in, that, where you've got to be in touch with reality 'cause reality gets the last word. You know, "Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it." That's a f- quote from Philip K. Dick, the science-
10. 1:00:16 – 1:11:29

    Eyewitness memory, false convictions, and signal detection trade-offs

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

       Well, there's also a lack of understanding of eyewitness accounts of things too. Like, people say, "Eyewitness people said that they saw this and heard that." The problem with any traumatic experience is eyewitness accounts are often highly inaccurate.

    2. SPSteven Pinker1:00:29

       Oh, tell me about it.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       Yeah.

    4. SPSteven Pinker1:00:30

       I mean, that's, that's one of the main findings in cognitive psychology from Elizabeth Loftus at, uh, UC Irvine, who, uh, who has shown in, in experiments that people confidently remember seeing things that never happened.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       Yes.

    6. SPSteven Pinker1:00:43

       And-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:43

       Well, they're very easily convinced. Like, it's one of the problems with, uh, eyewitness, uh, testimony. It's, uh, one of the-

    8. SPSteven Pinker1:00:50

       That's her-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Yeah.

    10. SPSteven Pinker1:00:51

        I mean, that is her discovery, absolutely.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

        Yeah.

    12. SPSteven Pinker1:00:53

        That a lot of innocent people have been convicted based on eyewitness testimony, especially not only when they're coached, but especially after the fact. The more often they're asked to affirm what they saw, the more confident they get whether it was true or not.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

        Yeah.

    14. SPSteven Pinker1:01:07

        And the, the fact that we de-... I, you know, distinctly remember this, I saw it with my own eyes, means nothing in terms of whether it really happened, because we can confidently remember things that, that never took place.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

        That's the thing too, the coaching. The coaching aspect of it is very disturbing because you can plant memories in a person's head that were not real.

    16. SPSteven Pinker1:01:26

        Oh, easily. Yes.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

        It's so... The f- the mind is so fucked. Like, I, I've talked to people about this before. I've said, like, "How much of your childhood do you re- how good is your memory?" And people go, "Oh, my memory's great." I'm going, "Let, let me tell you something. You think your memory's great." I go, "My memory's pretty good. It's really good when it comes to, like, I can say things that I remember and quote things and remember numbers and stuff like that. But if you ask me..."... could I give you a detailed account of yesterday? Yesterday is a blurry slideshow to me.

    18. SPSteven Pinker1:01:57

        Mm-hmm.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:58

        Like, I kinda, like, I've got a few images. I think I remember where I parked my car. I think I went in that door.

    20. SPSteven Pinker1:02:05

        Right. (laughs)

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:02:05

        I think my dog was there. I remember petting him, kinda. I remember a few things. But I don't have, like, a, like, an HD video that I can roll of my entire day-

    22. SPSteven Pinker1:02:16

        Oh, no way.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:16

        ... and back it up to the. But some people like to pretend that they do.

    24. SPSteven Pinker1:02:20

        Right. And we know that they don't. And there, there are certain tricks that we know our memory plays on us, such as we tend to kind of retrospectively edit our memories to make a, a good story. Often that puts-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:31

        Yes.

    26. SPSteven Pinker1:02:31

        ... us at the center of historic events.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

        Yes.

    28. SPSteven Pinker1:02:34

        So, you know, a lot of people remember, you know, people in my generation remember seeing John F. Kennedy assassinated on live TV.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:41

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SPSteven Pinker1:02:41

        Now, there w- wasn't, uh, live TV.
11. 1:11:29 – 1:14:19

    Surveillance, chips, and whether tech inevitably leads to totalitarianism

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:11:29

       My concern when it comes to this sort of inevitable connection of human beings to technology, I think it's just a matter of time before we become symbiotic, before some... We're kind of already. We're, you know, connected at the hip to our cell phones. But I think it's a matter of time before we get something that is more reliable than the human memory. And my... I've... Real concern is that one day, we're going to all be required to be chipped because this is the only way to get a full HD version of what you did during the day.

    2. SPSteven Pinker1:12:10

       Yeah. (laughs)

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:12:10

       And it shouldn't, shouldn't bother you if you're innocent. It's the same idea of, like, the NSA spying, like, with what Edward Snowden revealed. And so many people were horrified by it, and some of the other people are like, "What difference does it make if you're not doing anything wrong?" Like, well, you're missing the point, because human beings having that kind of power to look into other human beings' lives are almost always going to abuse it. And if we do come to a point in time someday where we say, "Listen, there are, you know, thousands of innocent people convicted, uh, every year and sent to j-..." probably more than that, "sent to ya- sent to jails for crimes they didn't commit, we can stop all of that. We can stop all that through these chips." Just, uh-

    4. SPSteven Pinker1:12:50

       By chips, you mean, like, everyone wears Google Glass and-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:12:52

       I mean-

    6. SPSteven Pinker1:12:53

       ... or do you mean actually-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:12:54

       ... like Neuralink-

    8. SPSteven Pinker1:12:55

       Oh, yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:12:56

       ... like that kind of deal.

    10. SPSteven Pinker1:12:57

        I, I, I tend to be more skeptical of that. But the same problem arises if, you know, everyone's wearing, you know, Google Glass and has-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:13:04

        Yes.

    12. SPSteven Pinker1:13:05

        ... a... your 24/7 video record of everything they do.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:13:07

        Yeah, but that could... You could take it off.

    14. SPSteven Pinker1:13:09

        Yeah, right.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:13:09

        You know? The chip is there.

    16. SPSteven Pinker1:13:11

        Well, you know, in 1984, with a telescreen in every room-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:13:14

        Yes.

    18. SPSteven Pinker1:13:14

        ... it was a crime to turn off the telescreen.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:13:16

        Wow.

    20. SPSteven Pinker1:13:17

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:13:17

        So it might be headed in that direction.

    22. SPSteven Pinker1:13:18

        Yeah, I, I don't know, but I, you know, I, I tend to be more skeptical than Neuralink... Not that it's, you know, physically impossible, but, you know, brains are pretty complex.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:13:27

        Yeah.

    24. SPSteven Pinker1:13:27

        And we're nowhere near that level of, of specificity, and I suspect we never will be, just because it's-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:13:33

        Really?

    26. SPSteven Pinker1:13:34

        Yeah, I, I think-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:13:35

        So you have no, uh, faith whatsoever in AI being sentient?

    28. SPSteven Pinker1:13:40

        Oh, uh, so this is separate from, from, say, neural implants, like-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:13:44

        Right.

    30. SPSteven Pinker1:13:44

        ... interfaces with your brain tissue.
12. 1:14:19 – 1:47:23

    Authenticity, haecceity, and the Ship of Theseus—from art forgeries to cover bands

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:14:19

       I had a really interesting conversation with him for this, this sci-fi show. We talked for, like, over an hour. And at the end of it, uh, one of the weirder parts about it is that what he is trying to do is to get to a point where he can have a conversation with his father.

    2. SPSteven Pinker1:14:37

       Hmm. His dead father.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:14:38

       His dead father.

    4. SPSteven Pinker1:14:39

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:14:39

       He, he thinks that he, through memories, and through, um, whatever recordings he has and photographs he has, will be able to replicate his father's personality to a sus- significant or sufficient extent, where he can actually have a conversation with him. You know, talk to his dead father.

    6. SPSteven Pinker1:15:00

       Yeah. I mean, you know, I think he could, uh, you know, he could al- if, if the father wrote a lot, like wrote a lot of correspondence, you know, we already have AI that can kind of fake, uh, new text in the style of existing text.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:15

       That's weird, man.

    8. SPSteven Pinker1:15:17

       Um, but, uh, although, you know, I think it's pretty un- uh, unsatisfying, I, I would not, uh, consider that to be having a conversation with my dead father.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:23

       No. If I had, I mean, I had-

    10. SPSteven Pinker1:15:25

        I wouldn't want to, for one thing. I wouldn't wanna be fooled in that way.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:28

        No. I'd just, like ... I, I would find no comfort in that. Like, I have very good friends that have died, and if I had the ability to email a fake version of my very good friend that died and get, like, a response that's very similar to what they would say, that would mean nothing to me.

    12. SPSteven Pinker1:15:44

        Exactly. No, that's really right. See, that, it's another interesting part of our psychology. We have this sense of, you know, is, is something real or not? That sometimes, is it really connected to the person that we, you know, know and love? And it makes a big psychological difference, even if you can't tell the difference. Uh, it's like, there's lots of examples, and this is from, from, uh, my former collaborator, Paul Bloom. You know, someone paid a lot of money for John F. Kennedy's golf clubs. Now, if it turned out that they weren't John F. Kennedy's golf clubs, if they were just some other guy's golf clubs from the l- you know, late '50s and early '60s, it would be worth a fraction of the amount and it would be emotionally much less satisfying.

Episode duration: 2:40:30