EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,344 words- 0:00 – 7:48
Is Happiness Bulls**t?
- CWChris Williamson
A desire for happiness is not what is driving our behavior. It is a terrible way to predict our behavior. It is a naive way of thinking about human psychology that will lead you into a morass of confusion, contradiction, and infinite regress. Why?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm. Well, uh, I wrote a very long po- post on this called Happiness is Bullshit, and then I wrote a sequel to that post called, uh, Happiness Really is Bullshit. No, I'm just joking. It was Happiness is Bullshit Revisited. People really get hung up on this. I think it's one of the biggest confusions we have about how the mind works, is that we have this really misguided idea that what we're pursuing in life is inside of our heads. That is a really weird and implausible idea from an evolutionary perspective, that we would be animals that are driven to seek stuff inside of our heads makes no sense. It makes way more sense that we would be driven to seek stuff out there in the world, you know, like food, sex, status, praise, inclusion in groups, all this stuff that would have correlated with biological fitness in ancestral environments. These are the sorts of things that would make sense for a primate like us to want. It makes no sense for us to want something inside of our heads. Now, the common response to this argument is that, oh, well, happiness, uh, sort of motivates us to go out and get what we want. It's sort of like the carrot that's dangling in front of us, and we need happiness to, to motivate us to get out, to go out and get the, get the stuff in the world, right? This view also makes no sense because as soon as you posit that we need happiness to motivate us, well, there's a awkward follow-up question, which is how does evolution get us to want happiness? If you need happiness to get us to want stuff, then how does evolution get us to want happiness? Does it have to give us happiness when we get happiness, and then happiness when we get happiness when we get happiness? Like I said, we have entered an infinite regress. Uh, this whole way of thinking that we need some, uh, internal goodie to motivate us is just wildly implausible. Uh, it, it, uh, contradicts a wealth of research in social beh- and behavioral sciences a- and, and neuroscience. Uh, we don't need happiness to, to be motivated. Our nervous system is directly wired up to our hearts, to our physiology, to our lungs, to our muscles. It can just motivate us to go out and get the stuff directly. We don't need happiness to motivate us any more than a thermostat needs to feel happy when it gets your home at the right temperature. Right? We have thermostats inside our bodies that motivate us to shiver when we're cold and sweat when we're hot and s- and seek blankets when we're cold and to seek shade when we're hot. Uh, those inner thermostats don't need happiness just, uh, any more than the thermostats in our home need happiness. So, uh, there are many reasons why, uh, uh, viewing human, uh, behavior as a pursuit of happiness is misguided. I go through lots of them in my post, but yeah, I think this is just a, uh, a wildly confused way of thinking about human psychology, about the mind. I think it is way more insightful to think about humanity as striving for things, for real things in the world that would have correlated with biological fitness in ancestral environments.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you completely discard with subjective internal states of well-being and our relationship to them then?
- DPDavid Pinsof
No, I think those exist, but they're not what we think they are. Uh, so what we think they are is just a carrot that's dangling in front of us that gets us to, to, you know, motivates us. What they actually are, are mechanisms. Happiness is a mechanism that evolved by natural selection to serve a very specific function. And as we discussed, that function cannot be to motivate us because motivation doesn't need happiness, right? It serves a different function. And what is that function? Well, uh, it's to recalibrate our expectations and motivations when something turns out to be better than we expected it to be. Uh, the sex is better than you thought it would be. The ice cream is better than you thought it would be. You tried cooking a Spanish paella and you thought it was gonna suck and it ends up being amazing. When mistakes like that get made, your brain has to do a lot of recalibrating. If I cook this amazing paella, I need to update my expectations about how good my cooking ability is, about how, about my ability to cook Spanish cuisine, about the quality of paella, and it needs to reorient my motivations so that I'm more motivated to, uh, cook Spanish cuisine in the future. My brain has a lot of work to do when I'm wrong about reality in a positive way. And, and all that work that my brain is doing, I think, is what we call happiness. But if you understand happiness as a mechanism for, uh, recalibrating your brain in the wake of a prediction error, uh, well, then it makes no sense to say that we want happiness. In fact, it makes more sense to say that we're chasing happiness away because the more you get the thing you want, the lower those prediction errors become, the more expected the good thing becomes, and the less happy you feel when you get it. So many of, many of us are familiar with this idea of habituation. You get a new car and it's awesome the first few times you drive it, but then eventually you get used to it and it no longer, no longer makes you happy. Um, you get, uh, you know, a, a new girlfriend or boyfriend, they're amazing at first, and then eventually, you know, things get a little more expected, a little more boring. This happens pretty much, uh, across the board, uh, with regard to any good things in our life. Um, the more we get exposed to them, the lower those prediction errors become, and the less happy those things make us. But we often commit to, uh, girlfriends or boyfriends. We often get married. We often, uh, drive a car for a very long time if, if we purchase a car. So, um, just because the thing no longer makes us as happy as it used to doesn't mean that we no longer want it. We can still want things even if they don't make us happy. Uh, and so I think we need to separate motivation from happiness and realize that we are often motivated to get lots of things that don't really make us happy. And in fact, the more we pursue those things, the less happy those things ultimately make us, which suggests that we're not s- pursuing happiness itself. We're pursuing those things out there in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Does this suggest that intervening into our expectations is a more direct route to improving subjective wellbeing than trying to chase happiness?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, yes. Um, if we actually did want happiness, then the way to get it would be to, uh, make our expectations about reality more wrong. Um, and-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pinsof
(laughs) So one way to do that is by doing drugs. Drugs sorta scramble your brain and make, and make your expectations about reality more wrong, and in some cases, drugs can offer you a kind of euphoria because everything is just so wildly surprising. Um, but, uh, when you think about what drug addiction is, it becomes even more clear that it's not the high that the drug addict is chasing, but the drug itself. Because what happens when you're addicted to something is the more you take the drug, the less happy the drug makes you, the, the less intense your high becomes. You become more tolerant to the drug. But an addict will often crave the drug really intensely despite the fact that it no longer makes them feel good anymore, and that's what happens as an addiction progresses. The drug makes you feel less and less good, and you end up wanting the drug more and more, which suggests that the addict wants the drug itself, not the high. So yes, you're right. If, if we actually wanted, uh, happiness, then the best way to, to get it would be to, uh, uh, make our expectations wrong. Um, but I don't think we actually do want happiness, and I don't think people are gonna be motivated to go out and, uh, screw up their expectations because that's ultimately not what
- 7:48 – 12:33
Incentives are Key to Human Behaviour
- DPDavid Pinsof
they want.
- CWChris Williamson
It's also going to make you presumably less effective at getting... at being successful-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because part of being successful is being able to accurately predict what's going to happen, which means that you need to have a, a good model of the world, which means that your expectations aren't actually diverted from, uh, diverged from, uh, all that frequently. So if happiness isn't a particularly good way to work out what's driving our behavior, are incentives a better North Star?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes, absolutely. Um, I have a post called Incentives Are Everything, where I argue that basically incentives are everything. We usually think of incentives in terms of monetary incentives, um, like getting a, a salary increase or getting a fine. We sometimes think about them in terms of legal penalties. Occasionally, people talk about social incentives like praise, uh, or esteem. I like to think of incentives in, uh, in the most broad way possible. I think incentives are anything that we as human primates evolved to want and seek out in the world, so incentives include, uh, status, belonging to a cohesive group, uh, sex, food, um, y- you name it, comfort, uh, homeostasis. Anything we evolve to want, uh, is an incentive and can be used to incentivize us. And what an incentive structure is, is, uh, where those incentives are situated across time and space, and so I think a helpful way of thinking about human behavior as, i- is in terms of the incentive structures that we inhabit and, and what we do to get the various incentives, uh, in our environment. I think that is a way, uh, more insightful way of looking at human behavior and human culture than this idea that we're pursuing happiness or inner states or inner wellbeing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah, just follow the incentives. What... Where do incentives come from, then? Are we a, are we a blank slate with regards to them? Have we got any, or do we have any ability to interject into them?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm. So this is a great question. I think we need to make a distinction between, um, what we want as an end and what we want as a means to an end. So for example, I don't think we want money as an end in itself. We want money because we can use money to buy us all sorts of things we want, like food, sex, comfort, housing, whatever. But if all currency collapsed tomorrow, uh, and nobody was no lo-... when nobody was accepting money in exchange for goods and services, uh, we would stop wanting money, right? So our, our desire for money is conditional on its ability to get us what we want, which means that we want money as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. So what we want as a means to an end can be shaped by our environments, by our culture, by the opportunities available to us, uh, uh, where, where we, where we grow up. Um, but what we want as an end I don't think can be changed. I think that comes from, uh, our evolutionary history, that comes from biology, and I see very, uh, uh, limited, uh, ability for us to inter-... to change or intervene on the things that we deeply want, uh, as animals. I don't think I'm ever gonna get rid of my desire for food or oxygen. Uh, this, this is just non-negotiable. So I think our, our deepest desires are... ultimately come from evolution and are, uh, non-negotiable.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it... Would you be able to talk about proximate in- um, incentives and ultimate incentives kind of in this way?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Um, you could think of it, uh, in those terms. So, uh, in evolutionary psychology, uh, uh, people make a distinction between the proximate level of analysis and the ultimate level of analysis. What the proximate level of analysis means is just you're thinking about how the, the system works i- in nuts and bolts terms. So how does happiness work? What does it take as input? What does it produce as output? How does it process information? These are all proximate-level questions. When you go to the ultimate level of analysis, whoop, you are, uh, uh, thinking about the evolutionary history of that mechanism and why it exists at all. What purpose is it serving? How did it increase, uh, biological fitness in ancestral environments to the point where it became a reliably developing part of the human phenotype? So ultimate questions are about function, and proximate questions are about structure. Um, so your question is can we think about incentives in terms of proximate and ultimate terms. Yeah, I think we, we, we can. We can, we can think about, um, the, the function of our motivational systems, why they evolved, why we want certain things in the world, and then we can think about the proximate details of our motivations, um, you know, what, what our constraints are and limitations are in terms of what we can perceive, what we can learn about, what we can remember, what the, uh, available, uh, opportunities and constraints are in our environment.... these are more proximate level questions.
- 12:33 – 19:36
Why Do We Have Opinions?
- CWChris Williamson
Are opinions just broadcasts of our reasons for incentives, then? Is that us just getting a megaphone in front of our face and saying, "These are my incentives and this is why you should listen to them?" Now, why, why do we have opinions?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm. Great question. Uh, so I think opinions are really puzzling. Uh, as far as I'm aware, nobody has provided a convincing definition of what an opinion is, and so I have a nap- I have a post called Opinions Are Bullshit, where I try to really drill down to what an opinion is. I mean, i- i- it's not as obvious as you think it is. I mean, people might think, "Oh, it's just, just my preference. You know, I like-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
"... you know, spicy food, or I like cilantro, or I don't like cilantro." Uh, but that can't be an opinion because that's not how we talk about our, our opinions. If, if I, if I like cilantro, I just can say I like cilantro. I wouldn't say, like, "It's my strongly held opinion that I like cilantro." That sounds weird.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah. It's like one level removed from what it is, that your liking or non-liking of cilantro is an axiomatic fact to you. It's not an opinion that you hold about yourself in regards to cilantro.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Exactly. We already know how to talk about our preferences. We say we like this or that, we don't care for this or that. We never say, "It's my strongly held opinion that I like this." That just doesn't make sense, right? So opinions cannot just be preferences. They have to be something more than that. And then you might say, "Well, well, maybe it's your, your point of view, your perspective on something. Maybe, you know, some people see the glass half full, some people see it half empty. Maybe it's my opinion that I see the glass, uh, half full and it's your opinion that you see it half empty." Uh, well, that can't be right either because your perspective is just another kind of preference, right? I prefer to see the glass as half full. You prefer to see it half empty. I prefer to focus on the bigger picture. You prefer to focus on the details. These are ultimately preferences, so that gets us back to the question of how we differentiate opinions from preferences. So, uh, perspectives cannot be opinions. So what, what the hell are these things? Uh, you might think, "Oh, maybe they're beliefs. They're just what we think is true." Well, no, they can't be beliefs because, uh, if y- y- if you believe something and you're right, well, then that's just a fact, right? I, I, I believe that Paris is the capital of France. That's true, that's a correct ... that's a fact. But if I believe that, uh, you know, Dallas is the capital of, of France, uh, then that's a mistake. That's not an opinion. That's just ... I'm just wrong about reality. So we have facts-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... we have mistakes, we have preferences, we have perspectives. None of these things can be opinions. So what the fuck are opinions?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pinsof
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Please go on. You're ... I hope, I really hope you're not asking me because all of my ideas have just been shot down.
- DPDavid Pinsof
No, what do ... Yeah, what, what do you think? What do you think, Chris? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know. I mean, look, bef- before I read your very castigating post, I would've said something like ... if I'd known that I was speaking to you (laughs) -
- DPDavid Pinsof
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, I would, I would, I would have said something like kind of a campaign, kind of a justification-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a justification-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... for, for a goal that we're trying to pursue.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm. Okay, I like that. That's actually pretty close to my definition of, of an opinion. Um, so you're, you're very insightful, Chris. You are, you're very close to the way I'm thinking about this. So I think of opinions as almost preferences. So they include preferences. What opinion is, is, is a preference, uh, plus a set of judgments you make about the people who share your preferences, uh, and about the people who don't share your preferences. So let's say I like McDonald's. That's a preference. But now let's say that I have all sorts of positive judgments about the people who like McDonald's. Maybe I think they're authentic, real, uh, sincere, gritty people who, who know what tastes good in their mouth and they don't care about virtue signaling and anti-capitalism. They're just real, authentic, cool people who like McDonald's, and they're honest, they're blunt. And then l- l- let's say I have a bunch of negative opinions about the people who shit on McDonald's. Maybe I think they're just, you know, whiny virtue signalers. They're, they're just dishonest. They know that it tastes amazing but they're just pretending that it doesn't so that they can, you know, look good. So if I have all of those, um, uh, judgments about the people who do and don't like McDonald's, well, then all of a sudden my preference gets transformed into an opinion, right? So an opinion is a preference plus all of those social judgments I make about the people who have or don't have that preference.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
So w- ... So your, your angle is, is correct in that ultimately what I'm trying to do when I share my opinion is I'm trying to make the people who share my preferences look superior to the people who don't. I'm trying to, uh, make the people who like McDonald's gain status, uh, over the people who don't. And ultimately what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to change social norms such that people are praised or at least, uh, get, um, seen in a positive light when they eat at McDonald's, and people get, uh, condemned or dissed or seen in a negative light when they don't eat McDonald's. And what that is is just a social norm. That's another way of saying that there is a social norm to eat McDonald's. So what I think we do ... wha- what I think we're doing when we share opinions is we are fighting over social norms. They are battles over what social norms are going to pr- prevail in our culture. And of course we all have a self-interested stake in trying to shape social norms, uh, in our favor, in ways that benefit us, in ways that, uh, inflate our status and-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... uh, lower the status of our rivals. So I see the, the space of opinion sharing and, and the space of opinion criticism as a battleground, uh, in the fight over social norms.
- CWChris Williamson
That's exactly ... Yeah. It's kind of the vanguard of, of social norms, and you're trying to campaign for your particular side. Presumably that means that most people's opinions are either obviously self-serving or second, third, fourth order effect self-serving in some way that comes back around to make them look in ... uh, well, you know, it just takes a little bit more time for people to realize. Uh, I have to assume that there's, uh-... an injection of, like, self-pedestalization and- and- and- you are going to capture a lot of the upside from this being held?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes, exactly. I think opinions are ultimately self-interested, status-seeking tactics. But there's an interesting paradoxical element there in that we cannot reveal that our opinions are self-interested, status-seeking tactics because revealing that would, uh, lower our status and be against our interests, because there is a weird thing about human psychology where being seen as a status seeker actually lowers your status. So in order for us to seek status, we have to do it covertly. We have to cover it up. We have to make it seem like we're not actually pursuing status. We're pursuing some other high-minded thing. Maybe we're pursuing happiness, or maybe we're pursuing authenticity or self-actualization-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... truth or making the world a better place. These are the sacred values that we use to cover up and explain our status seeking.
- 19:36 – 35:08
Exposing the Status Game
- DPDavid Pinsof
- CWChris Williamson
Can you, uh, can you give a couple of examples of how opinions masquerade as pursuit of something higher but are just thinly veiled, uh, status seeking?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Sure. So here's an example. Um, it is currently a social norm in many, uh, intellectually, uh, uh, well-educated and- and literate cultures to praise Shakespeare. So Shakespeare is seen as a genius, a- a brilliant, and a prophetic writer, uh, prescient. And, uh, if you're in a highly literate, uh, subculture, you might say, "Oh, yes, I love Shakespeare." You might quote Hamlet or Macbeth. Um, you might see these as revealing deep and profound truths about the human condition that more recent works of fiction, uh, cannot reveal.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Um, what's happening is that if I, uh, have read Shakespeare and can quote Shakespeare, I get status. And if I haven't read any Shakespeare and don't know shit about Shakespeare, I lose status in that subculture. What that means is that liking Shakespeare or pretending to like Shakespeare is a social norm. Now who does that social norm benefit? It benefits the people who have read Shakespeare, who can read Shakespeare, who are smarter, who are more well-educated, who have been taught Shakespeare, who have taken more time to learn, uh, all the different, you know, words that- that, uh, have- have- have changed as English has evolved. Um, so it, uh, increases the status of a very select group of people while lowering the status of a very select group of people. Um, and so that is one way in which people will try to shape social norms in their favor. If I haven't read any Shakespeare, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand it, maybe I'm too lazy to look up all the words, maybe, you know, I didn't get a college degree, maybe I didn't go to grad school, maybe I think, you know, fiction is, you know, a waste of time, whatever, well then it's in my interest to try to shit on Shakespeare and say it's overrated.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
"Oh, why are- why are people pretending that Shakespeare is so deep? He's obviously... You know, he- he was fine, but there are plenty of more interesting and better writers. W- I can learn these lessons by watching TV or by watching a movie. What's the big deal?" That's me trying to play the opinion game and try to change social norms in my favor so that my status isn't lowered for not liking Shakespeare. And so everyone who has any kind of preference, wherever that preference comes from, is a stakeholder, uh, in the opinion game. They're each trying to shape the social norm so the people who have their preferences get status and people who, uh, don't have their preferences lose status. But they have to cover up the fact that they're doing that because if it came out that they were doing that, they would fail to win the opinion game and their status would be lowered.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
So we have to somehow fight over social norms while concealing the fact that we're fighting over social norms. We have to pursue our own self-interest and social status while concealing the fact that we're pursuing our self-interest and social status. And this, I think, is why we all sort of know deep down that opinions are bullshit. When someone is sharing their opinion with us, we can sort of tell deep down that they're trying to, you know, boost their status and look superior. But we cannot call them out on that because if we did, we would look mean and we would look like we were trying to gain status over them, and then that would lower our status. It's this really complica-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, th- i- it's interesting that even a pushback against the status game or the opinion game breaks the rule so much that even if somebody on the other side is playing it, as long as they're playing it in a sufficiently culpably deniable way, you don't get to break the... Are you- are you familiar with improv? I do this last time.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
There's an i- there's an ib- idea from improv called Don't Punk the Game, and it's the one thing-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hm. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you're never allowed to do. You, um... David, Chris, you're on a ship. You're cleaning the deck. And I'm there going, "Oh, God, it's so cold out here, isn't it?" And you go, "I don't know what you're talking about." And he's like, "Ah, no, you fucking punked the game." You could pretend that it was too hot. You could have said, "Oh, yeah, it really is re- very cold. I'm glad I've got my thick coat on," or whatever, right, in improv.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But you can't punk the game. And punking the game is we're playing a game of tennis, hitting the ball back and forth, and you hit the ball sideways or you hit it straight up in the air. It's like, no, no, no, no, like, we're playing this sort of relatively linear game. I never thought of the fact that status game is this sort of concealed way or opinions are a way to sort of covertly conceal the fact that we're playing for status, putting it back and forth. But even in the act of criticizing, unless the person opposite you... Unless you say, "Dude, this is... Like, you're only saying this because you believe in that."
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Unless that person has done something that makes it obvious that they're doing it, that the prosec- the case for the prosecution on your side has a good case to be able to sort of justify it, that sounds like you are disregarding the higher order, refined search of truth and beauty and art and fulfillment and whatever, whatever.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yup.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, "Oh, no, this is... They're playing a game of social norms. You're playing a game of personal, uh, status. Oh, you look like the one..."... who is actually the very shallow, vapid seeker of, of, uh, credibility?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Exactly. If pointing out someone's status motive, uh, lowers their status and increases your status, well then that itself can be seen as a, a status tactic.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) .
- DPDavid Pinsof
Right? And it often is. And not only that, it can be very threatening to the person that you're calling out because you're threatening to lower their status. You're threatening to make their status game collapse. So what happens when we all realize that a status game is a status game? Well, the players no longer gain status for playing it because being seen as a status seeker lowers your status, and those at the top of the hierarchy, uh, their status gets lowered because they're seen as the ickiest, most vainglorious, most selfish status seekers of all. Um, and so the hierarchy kind of gets inverted a little bit when, when the status game is called out as a status game. So everybody who is playing that game has a vested interest in keeping it stable and protecting it against attacks. So if you try to attack a person's status game and, and call out their sacred values as hollow and full of shit, obviously they are going to get extremely threatened and angry and they're g- going to try to silence you. Right?
- CWChris Williamson
The weird thing-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Ju- just the weird thing, re- remembering our last conversation about why everything is bullshit, um, very meta, um, we don't know ourselves. If I ask you w- why is this thing something that you hold, why do you behave in this sort of a way, we're not transparent to ourselves. Also, other people... Given that we're not transparent to ourselves, other people definitely fucking certainly aren't transparent to us either.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
So we don't know us and we don't know others, and given that we don't know us, we can't even use our own theory of mind to infer somebody else's theory of mind because the best way to convince other people that you genuinely believe a thing and aren't doing it self-deceptively is to be able to deceive yourself so that you believe the lie, which is potentially self-serving, serving.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
W- I'm still trying to find at what point in this sphere there is a vector that someone can try and inject "I know what's going on" into this.
- 35:08 – 40:50
Are Opinions a Way to Test Loyalty?
- DPDavid Pinsof
- CWChris Williamson
Are, or i- is it a way to look at opinions as a method to sort of test allies, like a- a loyalty test or a fealty test in some secret war of social norms?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm. Yeah, I buy that. So I think, you know, one, uh, function of- of, uh, sharing opinions might be to test people's loyalty, to see if they share your preferences, if they have the same interests, if they're playing the same status game. Um, if they're going to benefit from the social norm that you are, uh, advancing, uh, in addition to you, well, then that makes them a good ally. You have common interests. In the same way that, you know, nations who, um, are economically interdependent are more likely to team up with each other, uh, people who are socially interdependent, who have common interests, in particular status games, you know, those people make better allies and they're gonna feel closer to each other if they share the same opinions, they echo each other's opinions. And oftentimes because these games get so complicated, we pretend to hold opinions that we don't actually hold so as not to alienate potential social allies. You might express an opinion and I might pretend to agree with it so that you feel closer to me, so we might form an alliance that I might benefit from even if, you know, we don't actually have common interests but I'm trying to make you think that we do. And so these social games can get very, very complicated very, very, very fast, and it makes you appreciate why the human brain is so fucking big. So, uh, our- our brains are about three times the size of a chimpanzee brain. Uh, uh, hominid brains expanded quite rapidly throughout human evolutionary history. Uh, the common sense view is that we use our brains to make tools, to be smart, and to, uh, outsmart flora and fauna. I think, uh, that is wrong. I think the main reason why our brains are so big is to play these complicated social games. Uh, this is an increasingly popular perspective in evolutionary social science. It's called the social brain theory. Uh, and- and the idea is that the, um, that, uh, the human brain evolved for politicking, rule following, covert rule-breaking, hypocrisy, propaganda, uh, social strategizing, status seeking, covert status seeking. These are very complicated strategies to pursue. You need a big brain to pursue them and to persue them-
- CWChris Williamson
Computationally difficult.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes, very computationally difficult. I think that social games were the major selection pressure leading to human brain expansion. There's cool empirical evidence for this. So the best predictor of primate brain size is not whether or not the primate uses tools, uh, but how big the primate's group is. And so, I think there's a lot of evidence for this. We used to think that reasoning was sort of for solving problems and for thinking logically and making better decisions. An increasingly prominent view pioneered by the psychologist, Hugo Mercier, is that reasoning is actually a social tool. It's not for solitary rationality, it's for winning debates, for persuading other people, for rationalizing, uh, what you did, and for justifying what you did so that you can look good to other people. And that explains all sorts of, of biases in our reasoning processes that would otherwise seem puzzling from the perspective of individual rationality, but are actually quite strategic and functional, uh, from a social perspective.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, like social consistency bias?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, sure. So, um, uh, parroting the preferences of other people to fit in with them, uh, that might be one thing that this can explain. Another thing is c- confirmation bias or motivated reasoning. Uh, you know, uh, we, uh, are biased in favor of confirming what we already believe, and we look for reasons that support what we believe, and we ignore or dismiss, uh, uh, any reasons or evidence that challenge our beliefs. And so this makes very little sense if reasoning is about being more rational. If you're truly trying to get to the truth and be a rational person, you should consider the evidence both for and against a belief. But if you're trying to convince someone and win a debate, you don't wanna bring up any evidence or reasons that could show that you're wrong. That would be disastrous for your social goal. So it actually makes a lot of sense if the goal of reasoning is persuasion and winning debates and justifying and rationalizing. It makes no sense if it's about individual truth-seeking.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you reckon is the likelihood that consciousness, i.e. a felt sense of us being an us, the phenomenological texture of being an I with a sense of I, how much of that do you reckon is just a byproduct of me needing to be able to work out what David thinks? And that means that in order to have theory of mind for him, I need to have theory of mind for myself. How likely do you think that is?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, I think it's quite likely. Um, I don't know that it would, uh, that it explains all of consciousness, but I think it explains a big part of it, in particularly the sense of self and, and the sense of identity and self-consciousness. I think all of those fall out quite naturally from the social games we play. So we're having, uh, a conversation right now, and I see a picture of myself on my computer screen. Well, why do I need that? Well, I need to monitor how I look, uh, to other people. That's what the camera is telling me. It's telling me how I'm coming off to other people, so that I can adjust myself. I can maybe, you know, fix my hair if there's something wrong with my hair. I can adjust my posture. If I'm making scowly faces, I can adjust my facial expression to look more friendly. That is what... That is the function of, of, of my, uh, webcam in that spot on the computer screen right now. I think we have something very similar inside of our brains. Just as I need to monitor how other people, uh, uh, think of me and, and, and how I appear to other people, I need to do that all the time, basically 24/7, in my everyday social interactions. I need to have a model of how you see me, so that I can adjust how you see me in a, in a more positive way and win you over. And I think that is largely what our sense of self is about. It's a kind of selfie cam that is installed into our brains.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pinsof
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's very... That's very, very good. Um, so how
- 40:50 – 46:44
How Does Arguing Relate to Opinions?
- CWChris Williamson
does arguing relate to opinions? Because it seems like social norms come into contact on some kind of battleground. Presumably, the battleground of that, in the most direct form, is an argument. Uh-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you have your o- opinion and position, I have my opinion and my position, and we'll joust it out until one emerges remotely victorious.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
How does arguing relate to opinions?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, I think it's related very thoroughly to opinions. One of th- the... One of our chief weapons in the fight for social norms is to create good arguments. What's interesting though is that a good argument is, uh, different from a socially effective argument. So if I make you look uncool or awkward or stupid or low-status, that is going to reduce the likelihood that people agree with you and share your opinions, even if your opinions are in fact correct. And so a lot of our arguing is not actually designed to persuade anyone or to get at the truth. What it's designed to do is make the other person look worse than you, so that people are more likely to agree with you than the other person. So if you, uh, look at presidential debates and the post-debate analysis, uh, it is very clear that these debates are not about the contents of public policy. When people analyze the debates like, "Oh, he looked really great in this moment. He was really presidential," or it's like, "Oh, yeah. He looked really confident. This was a great one-liner," uh, they're not talking about whether their beliefs are correct or whether their policy preferences are actually going to promote the common good. They're talking about which one looked better, right? And so what I think... What, what presidential debates are, are competitions to be quippier and more confident and more likable and more attractive to, uh, the American people, particularly your constituents, perhaps the people who are on the fence. They're not really about policy or about getting, uh, to the truth of what policies are actually going to, uh, help the nation. I think that's true of, uh, much of our debates as well beyond presidential debates. They're competitions to be more likable than the other person a lot of the time. And if I disagree with you, I am implicitly challenging your status because I am saying, uh, uh, basically that you're wrong and I'm right. And what could explain the fact that you're wrong and I'm right? Well, you must be dumber than me. You must be less knowledgeable than me. You must not be, uh, uh, privy to the same kinds of information that I'm privy to. You must be less socially connected. Whatever reason you come up with, it's gonna make you look bad and it's gonna make me look better than you. So merely by disagreeing with someone, you are implicit- implicitly threatening their status. So I think a lot of what goes on in arguing is not persuasion and truth-seeking, but status competition.There are other dark functions of arguing, which I talk about in my post, Arguing is Bullshit. Um, I think a lot of the times when we argue with someone, we're not trying to persuade them, but we're trying to intimidate and silence them. We're trying to make them feel bad about expressing their opinions so that they're less likely to express them in the future and they're more afraid to express them in the future. So, um, if you think about, um, the tendency of people to call each other Hitler or compare each other to Hitler during, uh, uh, internet debates, that is very hard to explain from the perspective of persuasion. When was the last time you heard someone say, "Wow, you're right. I'm just like Hitler. You've totally persuaded me."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, so ca- if you're trying to persuade someone, calling them Hitler is a very bad idea. But if you're trying to make them feel bad and silence them, then calling them Hitler is a great idea, because inside the privacy of their own minds, they're going to be thinking, "Oh, shit. If I express my opinions, people are gonna call me Hitler. That's terrible. I better shut the fuck up and not express my opinions." And so what happens after someone gets called Hitler during a debate? The person who is called Hitler is silenced and, uh, the competition for social norms is tilted in favor of the accuser if the accusation is plausible. And so what we're trying to do, uh, uh, in some cases when we argue is literally just intimidate, silence, uh, uh, uh, the person we're talking to and make them feel bad, uh, so that our coalition, our tribe can gain power at their expense. It's the same thing that happens, uh, you know, in totalitarian regimes. You know, for example, if we're in the Soviet Union and we all despise Stalin, um, it is very bad news for Stalin if we all gain common knowledge of the fact that we hate Stalin, right? And so it is in Stalin's interests to make sure that none of us know how many anti-Stalinists there are in our midst because if we knew that, and if we knew that the anti-Stalinists knew that we knew, then we could rise up to overthrow Stalin. And so what keeps Stalin in power is constant uncertainty, not knowing if anyone else is actually an anti-Stalinist, not knowing that they know that I know. This kind of coordination is what helps people rise up to overthrow a regime. And every totalitarian regime that I'm aware of in existence has tried to silence, intimidate, and break down this kind of coordination so that nobody knows how many people are opposed to the regime, how many people will come up to support them, and they are living in fear. And there, and it, it may be the case that, you know, 90% of the population hates the regime, but nobody knows that 90% of the population hates the regime, and so they stay silent out of fear. And so what a tribe does to gain power is to silence the opposition, prevent them from coordinating, and I think that is one of the other functions of arguing beyond mere persuasion, and that's why I think arguing can get so ugly, uh, and insulting at times.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Because you're, you're optimizing for intimidation, and a lot of the time that's quite militant, it's very unforgiving-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... it can be quite mean.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You win, uh, not only if the person changes their mind, but if they shut up. And it's often easier to make a, a person shut up-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yes.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... than it is to persuade them. And so often we, we opt for, uh, for the latter over the former 'cause it's easier.
- 46:44 – 52:43
What’s the Difference Between an Argument and a Pseudo-Argument?
- DPDavid Pinsof
- CWChris Williamson
What's the difference between an argument and a pseudo-argument?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hm. A pseudo-argument is, um, a, uh, w- is when a person who is doing something ugly like say competing for status, trying to silence you or intimidate you, um, covers up their ugly motives with the, uh, the veil of persuasion. So it might be that I'm just trying to dis you and silence you or look good or whatever, but I'm going to pretend that I'm actually trying to persuade you. I'm trying to, you know, change hearts and minds. Uh, and so I might, you know, make, put on a performance of giving reasons and citing evidence and having a logical argument, but beneath the surface, I'm just trying to make you feel bad and put you down and raise my status at your expense. Right? That is a pseudo-argument. Uh, it is masquerading as a real argument, a real attempt to persuade, but, uh, secretly it is something much uglier and darker. And I think, uh, much of if not most of our arguments are actually pseudo-arguments.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. How, what- what are some of the common signs that you're in a pseudo-argument? How can people diagnose whether it's the matrix or the real world?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah. So I have a list of, of warning signs in my post Arguing is Bullshit. I'll see how many I can remember off the top of my head. Um, so one of them is whether the person is actually listening to what you're saying and understands what you're saying. If they do not understand what you're saying, they're not listening to you, and they caricature your view, uh, and interpret what you're saying in the worst possible light, that is a very good sign that you're in a pseudo-argument. If a person is actually trying to collaborate with you to get to the truth, they have an incentive to listen to you and get what you're saying right. If they are not trying to get at the truth and they're just trying to make you look bad, they have an incentive to interpret what you're saying in the worst possible light and not listen to you. And, uh, they'd rather talk than listen a lot of the times. Um, often in pseudo-arguments, um, the arguers don't know what they're arguing about, uh, because they don't bother to define their terms. I see this a lot in debates over "socialism." One person might define socialism as Sweden, the other person might define it as the Soviet Union, and then they angrily talk past each other and fail to persuade each other of anything. Uh, this makes little sense if the goal of arguing is persuasion. It makes a lot of sense if the goal of, of arguing is, uh, intergroup competition. So, uh, that's another sign. Hm, what else? Um, if the person interrupts you a lot, um, if the person, uh, you experience th- that a lot in pseudo-arguments. Um, let's see here. What else? If they dodge your questions. So, um, if, if they, uh, ref- refuse to engage with, with what you're asking them. If they, um, if they fail to point out anything that they agree with in what you're saying, uh, that's, that's a sign. Usually when someone cares about getting at tr- at the truth they might say, "Oh, that's a good point. Oh, I agree with that but I don't... I would, I might push back on this." If they're never saying anything they agree with you on-... uh, that's a bad sign. Um, what else? I think that's about as much as I can come up with off the top of my head, but I'll, I'll, I'll ref- yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I, the main... As you're talking about the challenges of opinions, arguing, the main question I've got in my mind is, is there any hope of ever scaling genuine good faith debate? Like does that, does that exist? How hard is that for anybody to arrive at?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Um, I think it does exist. It is rare. It is a rare, precious flower.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Uh, but it- (laughs) uh, it does exist. Um, I see it a lot, weirdly in, in the comments section of my blog. I, for whatever reason, I feel like it attracts, you know, uh, kinda good faith discourse.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Um, I don't know what it is about my writing. Maybe I scare away bullshitters, I'm not sure. Um, so that's one place to find good faith debate. Um, what's interesting is that I think we're, we're more than capable of good faith debate when it comes to mundane practical matters. So when it comes to deciding, you know, which restaurant we should go for dinner, you know, to accommodate everyone's preferences, you know, if someone's a vegetarian or whatever, like, which restaurant's gonna be closer, if they're gonna have tables available; when we're having debates about that, we're actually perfectly rational. We listen to other people's opinions, we take into account other information, we're totally willing to change our mind and say, "Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, they don't have vegetarian options there. Well, we should go to this place instead." We're actually... We're paragons of rationality when it comes to these mundane practical matters. If we're driving to the restaurant and someone says, "Oh, actually, the, the highway will be backed up, why don't we take this other route?" We'll say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. I'll, I'll take this other route." And we'll listen and we'll change our minds. And so, uh, there are, uh, many domains of human life where we're fully capable of having a good faith argument, exchanging reasons, exchanging information, and updating our models of the world. But as soon as you bring in status and tribalism, all that goes out and, goes out the window, and we turn into apparatchiks. So, I think, uh, what a lot of, uh, sort of autistic-adjacent people do is they bring that, um, mundane practical rationality of deciding which restaurant to go to for dinner or what route to take to get there, they bring that kind of rationality into politics, where it doesn't belong, and then they get frustrated that nobody is sharing their way of thinking about politics. Like, "Oh, no, this is the best restaurant. This really is, this really is the best route to get there." Everyone's like, "What are you talking about? We don't care about that." Right? So what they're trying to do is they're trying to play the good faith debate game, uh, when everyone else is actually playing the intergroup dominance game, which involves concealing the fact that it's an intergroup dominance game, obviously. We've been through that. Uh, and, uh, people who are bad at socializing and bad at picking up on those cues think that it's just the, the, the reasonable argument game, and then they get frustrated when no one shares their focus about, you know, the evidence and the arguments and, and so forth. I think, I... This is a big mistake that I see a lot of people make, I myself have made it a lot of times; I think it's important to be realistic about what politics brings out of us, uh, and, and be realistic about the dark things that politics often, uh, brings out of us.
- 52:43 – 1:01:14
What is a Deepity?
- CWChris Williamson
What's deepity or what is a, a deepity? This is a word that I l- didn't even know existed before-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... I read some of your stuff.
- DPDavid Pinsof
It's a w- it's a wonderful word, word. It's, it's a great and helpful concept. Uh, it's a great way to, um, detect bullshit in the world and avoid falling prey to it. So the word deepity was originally coined by the philosopher Daniel Dennett, uh, and his example of a deepity was, "Love is just a word." And what makes it a deepity is that it has two interpretations. One interpretation is absolutely mind-blowing, earth-shattering, world-changing. Uh, it, it, it boggles the mind. It makes you, uh... I- in fact, it's extremely implausible. It's almost certainly wrong, right? And that interpretation is the emotion of love, you know, our heartfelt feelings of desire, lust, romantic commitment, all of our courtship rituals, all of our songs about love, all that is just four letters. It's just a puff of air from our mouths. It's not actually an emotion, it's just a word. That is almost certainly wrong. But boy, if it were true, that would change everything, right? And then there's another way you can interpret love is just a word which is that the word love is just a word, which is obviously true. Obviously, the word love is just a word. Every word is just a word, right? It's not conveying any information. And so what makes it a deepity is sort of toggling back and forth between these two interpretations of love is just a word.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
So you go to the mind-boggling interpretation that makes no sense at all, and then you go to the more plausible interpretation, like, "Oh, that makes sense." And when you go back and forth between those interpretations, you create the illusion of insight, the illusion of resolving confusion and getting to something true. It's sort of like, um, going in and out of a hot tub on a cold night, right? That the hot tub is more pleasurable when you, you get out and, and experience a little bit of cold. And then when you're in the hot tub, you, it feels pleasurable to get out of the hot tub a little bit, right? So when you toggle between confusion and understanding by saying something vague with multiple interpretations, you can create, uh, the kind of pleasure of getting in and out of a hot tub, but y- you get the pleasure of, uh, being confused and then resolving the confusion, right? Um, so-
- CWChris Williamson
You, you had, uh, an insight that was, uh, "Hot take 'you only live once' is bullshit. It's usually used as an excuse for status-seeking and self-gratification, splurging on a vacation or pivoting to a more competitive career. There's no logical connection between 'life is short' and hedonism and risk-taking are good." Is that an example of deepity, uh, a deepity?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes. I think so. Um, so there are multiple ways to interpret the sentence, uh, "You only live once." One of it is just ob- one tradition is obvious, right? Like, of course, we only live once. Of course, we're, we're all gonna die, right? Uh, and that it's obviously correct. Um, and then another interpretation is, well, therefore, we should take all these risks and, and, uh, and travel the world and splurge on a, on a vacation to Italy so we can see Rome before we die and see the, the Redwoods and, you know, have an affair or, or whatever. Um-... and that interpretation makes no sense. Uh, just because we're going to die doesn't mean that all those things are good. There is no logical connection between the former or, and the latter. Maybe, maybe it's good to travel the world. I don't know. Maybe it's good to, you know, have sex with someone. I don't know. But, eh, but it has nothing to do with whether or not we're gonna die, right? Obviously, we're gonna die and y- you need an independent argument for why this thing is good, right? It could be that may- maybe it's the opposite. Maybe because we're gonna die you shouldn't have an affair. Maybe because we're gonna die, you know, there are only so many hours in the day and you shouldn't go to Rome. You should instead do your work or do something that's gonna, you know, make a contribution to society, right? Like, there, uh, uh, eh, there's just no connection between, uh, what, what the statement means and its, and the implications that people take it to mean. So, I think that's one example of a deepity. Um, another example of a deepity is, um, everything happens for a reason, right? You hear this one a lot. And there are two ways to interpret it. One is that everything, um, has a reason from the perspective of a conscious supernatural being, that something happened because some supernatural being or essence or force wanted it to happen or intended it to happen. That's the really implausible, earth-shattering, mind-boggling interpretation. The other interpretation is just that things have causes. Everything does happen for a reason, like, th- that has a cause. Things have causes. This is just the basic scientific worldview, uh, and you can toggle back and forth between those two interpretations and delude yourself into thinking that you're experiencing some deep insight when you're not. It's just a deepity. Um, other examples of deepities, "What we think, we become." This is from the Buddha. You can interpret it as meaning that if I think I'm Abraham Lincoln then I will magically-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... uh, sprout a beard and sprout a top hat from my head, and become Abraham Lincoln.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Obviously, that's not true. The more mundane interpretation is that just thoughts have causes. When you think stuff, it's going to affect your behavior in some way. That's why we have thoughts in the first place. That's why we have brains in the first place, because they affect our behavior, right? Um, it's a pretty, uh, boring interpretation. Um, another one, "The future influences the present as much as the past." This is from Friedrich Nietzsche. The mind-boggling interpretation is, uh, things that happen in the future can retroactively change the past, right? The boring interpretation is that we sometimes think about the future, and that can change the present.
- CWChris Williamson
What... (sighs) Explain to me the emotional payoff when we flip-flop between something that's bold and something that's banal. Like, wha- what, why?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah. Well, part of it is that, I mean, w- we've been talking a lot about status games and status competition. One of the things that we get status for is by presenting people with bold, earth-shattering ideas and changing the way they think. That gets us a lot of status. Um, we do that for a living and we get status for it. Um, but it's actually a really hard thing to do because real, uh, genuine novel insights and earth-shattering ideas are hard to come by. And, uh, because the conventional wisdom is often correct, things that, uh, depart from the conventional wisdom are often wrong and implausible. Um, so there's this trade-off between finding ideas that are new and special and interesting and, and, uh, uh, provocative, and ideas that are plausible and logical and consistent and correct. The thing is, the plausible and logical and correct ideas, people already mostly believe them or will be quickly convinced of them and you won't gain much status, uh, for presenting them.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Right? And so what deepities do is they kind of allow us to have our cake and eat it. We can present an idea that seems s- you know, provocative and earth-shattering, and then when people question and say, "No, you're crazy, what are you talking about?" you can pivot to the other interpretation and say, "No, actually it makes perfect sense," right?
- CWChris Williamson
It's a m- it's kind of like a, a intellectual motte-and-bailey.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes, absolutely. So the motte-and-bailey is a very similar idea. I, I forget who came up with this term, but it's when you're arguing... It's another bullshit arguing tactic, by the way. It's when you, uh, put forward an extreme position of, of, of your view, like say, uh, "We should abolish the police," right? Uh, and then when people say, "No, you're crazy, what are you talking about?" you say, "Oh, no, I just mean we need, you know, like more mental health services and, like-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pinsof
"... we just need to, like, change, change the way that police operate." And then, and then they, they walk back to a much more moderate position.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
And then as soon as the person leaves they go back to saying, "Let's abolish the police," right? You see this a lot in political argumentation and that is a kind of deepity. You could interpret "abolish the police" in one of two ways. You could interpret it, eh, the extreme way, which is we should have no police, or you could interpret it as we should, you know, reform the police, and that's more moderate. And people will often pivot back and forth strategically to sort of gain status, uh, in, in, in political debates. And I see people doing that, that toggling, uh, not just in politics but across the board with spiritual insights, supernatural ideas. They will often put forward the more provocative and plausible supernatural interpretation of a statement and then pivot back to the more straightforward interpretation when they're challenged-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... or when they're attacked. Everything happens for a reason. God wanted this to happen. What are you talking about? Oh, just things have causes, obviously. You know, things happen because, you know, there was some cause, right? That's all I'm saying.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm...
- DPDavid Pinsof
Right?
- CWChris Williamson
It's, eh, deepities kind of feel like they're essentially brain hacks that manufacture an aha without an insight.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder how much of the appeal is sort of fueled by state is signaling it's sounding profound without also risking status.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes.
- 1:01:14 – 1:08:18
The Differences Between Vague Bulls**t and Deep Bulls**t
- DPDavid Pinsof
idea.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, what's the difference between vague bullshit and deep bullshit then?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hmm, very good question.
- CWChris Williamson
Or is that the same thing?
- DPDavid Pinsof
They're not the same thing. I see one as the parent of the other. So va- you can think of vague bullshit as the broader-
- CWChris Williamson
Necessary but not sufficient.
- DPDavid Pinsof
(laughs) Yes. Uh, so I think vague bullshit is the umbrella term. It's the broader category. And vague bullshit is bullshit that just is hard to interpret. It has multiple interpretations. Um, and some vague bullshit is deep bullshit. Uh, but not all vague bullshit.So, uh, vague bullshit is something that has multiple interpretations. Uh, deep bullshit is when one interpretation is earth-shattering and the other interpretation is boring and mundane. But the broader concept is just stuff that has multiple interpretations, and there's lots of vague bullshit out there, like in astrology, quantum healing, uh, continental philosophy, post-modernism, psychoanalysis. All this stuff is jargon-laden, verbose, impenetrable, hard to wrap your head around. You have no idea what the fuck you're reading when you read it, and I think that is all by design. I think often the function of vague bullshit is to create uncertainty about what the speaker intends while covertly signaling group membership to a select few of insiders who understand what the bullshitter is getting at.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Um, so an example of this is, "There is no limit to the fullness of emptiness." Do you have any idea what the fuck that means, Chris?
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, there is a k- type of satisfaction that you can derive from deep peace which a busy and chaotic life cannot afford you.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Hm. That is very close to the intended meaning, but you are very, uh, familiar with this kind of stuff. Probably most people when they hear that will be very confused. What-
- CWChris Williamson
I've had to do some, I've had to do some real dissection there to try and g- get the -
- DPDavid Pinsof
You had to do a lot of, you had to do a lot of work, right? Um, so that's a real quote. It's from, uh, Osho or, uh, uh, the Bhagwan, uh, uh, from the Rajneesh cult in, in that, uh, Netflix docuseries, Wild Wild Country. Have you seen that, Chris?
- CWChris Williamson
Sick. I, I should have been there, but no.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Fantastic, uh, one of my favorite Netflix docuseries. Um, so, uh, yeah, so he's a cult leader. Uh, he had this, this quote, "There's no limit to the fullness of emptiness." Basically, wha- what he's saying, wha- he, what, what he means by emptiness is, um, a kind of, uh, mindfulness that you would achieve in meditation. So you are emptying your mind of cravings and mental chatter, and that kind of emptiness, uh, makes you feel great. He's basically just saying mindfulness is good. It's a, it's another kind of deepity. You know, mindfulness is good is the mundane interpretation. There's no limit to the fullness of emptiness. W- well, how could fullness be emptiness? That makes no sense, right? So what he's doing is he's saying mindfulness is good to the select few of people who know what the fuck he's talking about, who know that emptiness, uh, means mindfulness. And those people feel warm and included because they understand what he's getting at, and everyone else feels alienated and confused. And that's a wonderful way of covertly probing group membership.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
He is saying something that will attract people who are, uh, like-minded, uh, and sycophantic toward him while alienating and excluding, uh, e- everyone else. And so that creates a sense of loyalty and shared community when everyone spouts vague bullshit and secretly gets what, what everyone means by the vague bullshit, where, wh- while everyone else has no idea what they're getting at.
- CWChris Williamson
Does that mean that there is this kind of a, an accelerator pedal that you need to press carefully? Because if it's too obvious then it doesn't have the aha boldness sort of insight. But if it's too, uh, obfuscatory and too complex, then it's not sufficiently accessible to actually be attractive to people. So you have a kind of tension when it comes to designing your deepity? Is that-
- DPDavid Pinsof
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a fair way to look at it?
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yes, I do think that's a fair way to, to, to look at it. Um, but I think there could be another function of vague bullshit where it's, um, it literally is meaningless. It literally is impenetrable. It has no meaning, intelligible meaning at all. But you might be trying to test your audience to see if they, uh, are loyal enough to you to hallucinate meaning.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
And to... And, and if they want to flatter you enough that they're willing to interpret what you're saying as deep and profound, even though they have no idea what the hell you just said, right? And so even if it's totally meaningless, you can still get some meaningful social information from it, uh, by gauging how people react to it and how eager people are to defend you for it and defend your reputation. "No, no, he actually, he meant something that that's really deep by that. Trust me." Right? That reaction is very valuable to a cult leader because they can, uh, assess who is going to be loyal to them and who is not, right? Uh, so that's another-
- CWChris Williamson
A card-carrying member. Yeah, exactly.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Yeah. So it, it, it can be a, a kind of loyalty test as well. I think there are lots of social functions of vague bullshit. I, I, I write about, um, several possibilities in the post. Um, but yeah, I think it also has to do with the fact that we are linguistic animals. Uh, that's a pretty incredible, uh, trait, uh, uh, o- of homo sapiens that we communicate, um, we, uh, form, uh, uh, shared models of reality. And that means that if I'm good at language, if I'm good at transmitting ideas from my head into yours, that makes me a really good social partner. That makes me-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DPDavid Pinsof
... a good ally, a good mate, a good collaborator. You're going to have an easier time smoothly coordinating with me than, uh, with other people. If we're vibing, that suggests that we're good at communicating with each other and we know what each other's expectations are, and we know what each other means by what they're saying. Um, and so, uh, part of what it means to be good at language is, is, is good at interpreting it, good at reading between the lines. If you say something unclear or if you stutter or if you s- if you get cut off or, uh, if I don't quite hear everything you said and I still manage to get at the, at your intended meaning, then that's a really good sign from your perspective. That means that I'm either really good at language or I know you really well, both of which are good signs, uh, uh, in terms of you liking me, right? So a lot of vagueness is just the joy of trying to get a, uh, the joy of finding meaning in chaos, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 1:08:18 – 1:09:40
Find Out More About David
- DPDavid Pinsof
- CWChris Williamson
What a wonderful way to make us all feel a little bit less virtuous than we should be. David Pinzauf, ladies and gentlemen. David, you're great. I love your blog. I love all of this stuff you do and your new podcast. Tell people where they can go and, and check it all out.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Sure. So I recently started a, um, a podcast with, uh, Dave Pietrzyzewski, who's a professor at University of S- uh, California, Santa Barbara, and it's all about evolutionary psychology. Uh, as far as I'm aware, uh, we are the only, uh, explicitly, uh, evolutionary psychology-focused podcast that is just all about evolutionary psychology. We bring in, uh, evolutionary psychologists who are practicing, who are professors, who are doing research right now, and we interview them. We also talk with each other. It's, uh, uh, more of a nerdy and academic vibe than my blog, but I think it's doing an important service in getting, um, good, solid, rigorous research, uh, out into the public. So you can check that out. It's called Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast) . The podcast is in parentheses. Um, and you can also check out my blog. Uh, it's called Everything is Bullshit. You can find it at everythingisbullshit.blog, and you can find me on Twitter @davidpinzauf. Feel free to reach out to me directly. I love talking to people. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
David, you're great, man. Until next time, good luck with the podcast.
- DPDavid Pinsof
Lots of fun. Thanks so much, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
Congratulations. You made it to the end of the episode. And if you want more, well, why don't you press right here? Come on.
Episode duration: 1:09:40
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