Why are we all such liars, and what does it say about us that we are able to lie to ourselves so well?
Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and the coauthor along with Kevin Simler of THE ELEPHANT IN THE BRAIN: HIDDEN MOTIVES IN EVERYDAY LIFE.
A former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, he is known for his work on idea futures and markets, and was involved in the creation of DARPA's FutureMAP project. Among other accolades, he has conducted extensive research on signaling, and proposed the Great Filter Hypothesis on extraterrestrial life.
His book, THE ELEPHANT IN THE BRAIN, explores the mental blind spots of society and individuals, with a focus on the ways that we are unaware of our own motives, thanks to how our brains evolved to trick us.
On today’s podcast, we talk about how he applies the lessons of hidden motives to his own social awkwardness, and how we can all become more aware of our own blind spots. We look at evolutionary psychology and discuss the so-called split-brain experiments for context before digging in to our baser motives for self-deception in politics and religion. Hanson explains the role of the press secretary in the white house…as well as the one in the human brain. Turns out we are a lot more political in our everyday lives than we’d care to admit. The questions are How can we stay aware of our own Hidden Motives, and does it serve us to spend any energy doing that? How can we hold people accountable for their actions if even they aren’t wholly aware of their own motives? And what would the world look like if everyone’s motives were laid bare…perhaps for example through cutting edge AI technology. Hanson also happens to be a futurist, so he has cause for his predictions. And you won’t want to miss them, regardless of the motives you tell yourself are driving you to tune in.
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