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Yascha Mounk and Steven Pinker. Many thanks -- valuable discussion.

When I lived in New York we often had big sit down dinner parties around my cutting table (I was a fashion designer). They were really fun because people were from all places and enjoyed talking -- so much so that getting the food onto the table was almost an interruption. I played a game with myself by identifying those guests who were strong in mathematics and those not -- I spotted an amazing correlation. I give you an example exchange.

"Is it true that Volvo's are really safer than other cars? or is it simply a sales pitch?"

"Absolutely it's true! My uncle in his Volvo went over a bank and rolled over 4 times before hitting the bottom -- emerged completely unscathed"

Languages were where he excelled.

What is apparent now, as then, is a confusion of evidence as in facts, statistics, probabilities etc. with the anecdotal. That they are interchangeable -- and they are not. In the same way reporting and opinion often struggle even in reliable news outlets to be keep separate, but the free-for-all of much online doesn't have those rails as you point out. Throw some emotion into all this and you have apples, oranges and avocados all mixed.

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A brief and wonderful tour of the key ideas of one of my beloved public thinkers! I eagerly await the upcoming book on Rationality. It may be the umpteenth book I have read on the broad subject, but I suspect Prof. Pinker will serve up plenty of new wine with the old in a reliably readable bottle.

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Thanks for a great discussion that got me introduced to Steven Pinker and contemporary thinking on rationality! I see that some of the discussions regarding rationality revolves around statistics versus anecdotes. Perhaps one way we could get more people emotionaly aroused by statistics would be to tell stories not based on "a true story", but on "statistics": A moving fictional yet representative report of a car crash (I know it might sound silly). Or maybe it would just be enough to situate an anecdote in the context of statistics, saying that what happened was against the odds which I think in some cases could still be a compelling way to tell a story. I.e. finding a compelling statistical angle to an interesting anecdote.

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Yes, free will is determined. Or to be clearer, we are made to search freely for meaning; that is determined. The feeling of freedom and responsibility is determined, and that feeling is real, real freedom. Existence precedes essence? Yo Kierkegaard.

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Solid pod, always nice to hear Pinker's perspective.

However, if Persuasion wants to be a non-ideological community anchored by the search for truth... lay off fawning over Biden and demonizing Trump. It betrays a misunderstanding of how government functions and does not move us toward a better understanding of our present situation. Also, don't use terms like "authoritarian" unless you understand them and are willing to apply that same analysis to all players.

Stop staring at the third rail - go ahead and touch it.

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Pinker's closing identification of a "large, moderate, rational center" is his true faith. And mine. Sincere thanks to him, Yascha and others for helping that center hold.

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I have a question, naive to a relatively high degree: Is Charles Murray essentially wrong or right with his nature defeats nurture arguments in Coming Apart and Real Education, not to mention The Bell Curve. I simply do not have the sophistication in statistics to judge this, and I would so very much like it to be wrong, but I fear it may not be. I would genuinely appreciate insights any here have. As a teacher and professor of 40 years I have worried about this for years. I so much want nature to buckle under nurture. I want to believe a good teacher matters at least a bit.

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