JOIN our Locals community to hear *Steven* answer audience questions: triggernometry.locals.com/ CHAPTERS👇 00:00 Trailer 00:39 Is language being warped? 02:36 We’re wired for nostalgia 04:09 Youth pessimism 07:37 Is there a meaning crisis? 10:00 The religion of Wokeness 13:42 We take our wins for granted 17:07 Is the West worth preserving? 24:11 SPONSOR: Qualia Senolytic 25:59 Enlightenment values in decline at universities 31:54 Academics are more concerned with status than doing their jobs 34:02 Is the academy in crisis? 35:45 Universities need to be reformed 38:48 New wave of students pushing back against woke 43:53 The DEI virus 45:28 Cowardly leaders 46:38 Why Jordan Peterson is wrong 50:02 Constructing a secular moral framework 53:02 The decline in child-bearing 57:53 What’s the one thing we’re not talking about?
@@notgunnadoit7461The downsides for ‘Western Marriage’ for men are always embellished and exaggerated online by the typical people who spout that nonsense.
@@ARR409 If you believe it's "embellished and exaggerated online," I'm looking for your own more accurate take. What would you consider the downsides? What would you consider the upsides? *Reply to:* _"The downsides for ‘Western Marriage’ for men are always embellished and exaggerated online by the typical people who spout that nonsense."_
They destroyed the Harvard brand. The whole world used to tout the high standards of this university. Even as a little kid growing up in Eastern Europe my dad who was a music teacher, would always mention Harvard as the pinnacle of education excellence.
I'd go one step farther and say that the value of any university degree has fallen by a lot. It's in the negative now. And it's the fault of the universities maybe 2-3 decades ago when they started regarding the students as customers and make that the priority and not the institution itself.
@@LeeGee There are other ways of accreditation than a university degree.But you do have a point and (currently) will make an exception when it comes to surgery, until they are dumbing down their entry exams.
I don't think the US should be "top dog" for nationalistic reasons. But if if not the US (or the West generally), then who else? Russia? China? Some coalition of Muslim nations? People leave those places to come to the West, not the other way around. The real problem of immigration is not that people flee failed systems. It's that they bring those systems with them.
The things that have gotten better, such as Netflix and the existence of Spirit Airlines, would happily be traded away by most people for what life was line in 1995.
In 1995, condos went for $5-10K in my Swedish hometown. Gen X'ers and older practically had the whole "functional adult" package (home ownership, steady job) mailed to them at age 18. As a millennial, I grew up in the 90s watching older relatives move out and make a life for themselves like it was nothing. It was just a thing you did, like buying a razor at 14 or opening a bank account at 18 - no big deal, expected, taken for granted.
Exactly, all the things he mentioned could be mitted by more opportunities created by better management. I would love to see this discussion with Thomas Sowell. Also listening to him toss out progressive buzz words reminds me that his "intellectual" ilk got us here in the first place.
Apartments were not affordable in "the old days" either. What people did was have multiple roommates. Watch any shows from last century and you'll find most people didn't live alone. Marriage was often a way to "move up" to ownership. It WAS NOT easier in the past.
I get a kick when young people talk about all of "the pollution". When I came of age in the 70's and 80's in the midwest, every city had an industrial district blanketed in a hazy yellow fog which smelt of sulphur. I can still see in my minds eye the black exhaust billowing from the exhaust pipe of every car on the road. Lake Erie was officially declared dead unable to support any life more complex than algae. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire. It was common to toss your fast food waste out your car window.
Cars didn't produce black smoke unless the driver was flooring it. Maybe in your mind's eye they did. The pollution young people are talking about today is carbon dioxide which they think will kill them in ways that ordinary pollution in the 70s wouldn't really have done. And there are all those imaginary "pollutants" that kids worry about today, like plastics, "toxins", GMOs, etc.
I think we've grossly underestimated the negative socio-political effects of digitisation. The internet was like the wild west 1995-2005 - it was mainly a liberating positive thing. Now, silicon valley has your freedom of expression in a choke hold. I'm much MUCH more free to say what I think in person than I am online, but online has taken over as the public square.
Moreover, a significant portion have chosen digital interactions over real world ones. Even things like actually talking to loved ones over the phone have been sidelined in favor of texting. Had a friend tell me that reuniting with his brother at a funeral was weird because he had forgotten what his brother even sounded like because their communications had been solely via text for the past 8 years.
Varies heavily depending on the person and the platform (and whether they're anonymous). For example on a platform where my name is publicly shown, I'd feel less confident in expressing myself than I would in person, but people on twitter will say outrageous things they'd probably never say to that person face to face. But either way, I do agree your point, the negative impact it's had isn't talked about enough.
The European Union functions much more the way the US Constitution says America is supposed to function: US: 50 sovereign American states with a central Federal government to unite them. EU: 27 sovereign countries with a central government in Brussels to unite them. The European Union is much more than just a trade block; it's primarily an attempt to get countries to stop going to war against each other and to stop wasting money on militaries. The EU attempts to do the OPPOSITE of "one countries’ bad actions then gets generalized into the whole continent." The EU is more of an attempt to WEED OUT bad actions. *Reply to:* _"they don’t really have sovereignty thanks to putting most of the power to a centralized EU so one countries’ bad actions then gets generalized into the whole continent"_
"Yeah, your family may be two generations into economic backsliding due to policies that destroyed entire communities while grossly enriching the already wealthy, but there are now fewer people starving in Cameroon. Isn't that great?!"
And it will get worse if we institute climate change policies that will make us a lot poorer to help make the cassava harvest in Cameroon more reliable.
Yeah, I hear ya. I'm usually an optimist but this ticked me off. "Children don't die by 5." Sure, that's good. But the problem now is that they're not being born--and we'll leave it at that--in the first place.
@@KatallinaVT Loss of children before 5 is not a tragedy in and of itself. If you have a high likelihood of some children dying before 5, you value each one less, and lavish attention and sink your future only on the ones that survive. Most kids that do die die before their first birthday, before you get really attached to them. You're right that having no children being born at all is *way* worse than losing one in four before 5.
We have slid back a little from the 1950s but we are still way ahead of our ancestors. My husband recently discovered that in the the early twentieth century his family of nine lived in two rooms (rooms not bedrooms) whilst today people say their flat is too small to have a child.
@@grannyannie2948 My parents grew up dirt-poor but started to make good slowly but surely in the 1950s after they got married. It was pretty grim in much of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia until 1965 or so. This is what we are heading back to if energy becomes scarce or expensive -- it'll be both.
For all those girls out there that aren't having kids, consider it. I waited too long. Although, I have a good life, after 50 there is a strong pain that remains as if a part of me is missing. Don't make my mistake.
Thank you for your honesty. I know some older women are happy, but I would say most older childless women aren't. Thank you. Do you have the many opportunities to speak to younger people about this issue?
Sage words indeed. I thank you for your honesty, it must have been hard to write them. Personally I tire of the 'Career is the goal, it is the most important thing in life'. Jordan Peterson said it best... 'What are going to do between 50 and 80?'. I hope you don't think I say this to inflict any pain onto you, you are clearly well aware of the consequences of your decisions. I am just applauding your honesty.
@@lesliemacmillan9932 You can only underestimate the enemy until you fight, and perhaps lose, your first battle. After that, you have an understanding of what you are facing. There is no way anyone in the military continued to underestimate any of these enemies after the first year of continuous combat. Although the U.S. military had their share of tactical failures, none of those tactical failures resulted in losing any of those wars. All the significant failures were failures of policy, made by politicians or political appointees, for domestic political concerns.
@@glennmitchell9107 Fair point. I would say the battle that told the United States that it had underestimated the Viet Cong and over-estimated the will of the ARVN to fight for South Vietnam was at Ap Bac, described in the biography of John Paul Vann, A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan. And that was very early in the war, before the wholesale commitment of ground combat troops. But are determined insurgencies ever defeatable unless they run out of money? The British Army never defeated the IRA, only barely prevented it from winning. What could it have done with greater will? Destroyed Ulster in order to save it, thus killing the IRA? But the IRA was everywhere.
Vietnam? U.S. thought it was fighting communism. Not! It was fighting Vietnamese nationalism, a hopeless cause. Iraq? In this country, ethnocentrism is over the top. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences seemingly everywhere. Not a place where cooperation needed for democratic politics can take hold. Afghanistan? Well, the graveyard of empires. Political elites view the State and political power as a places to get rich. Corruption is rampant. Thre is a tendency for the U.S. to seize defeat from the clutches of victory. Prospect theory accounts for this tendency.
I live in a small college town in a rural conservative area and the difference in birth rates between the religious-conservative families and the educated-liberal families/population associated with the university is stark. Easily 3-to-1 in favor of the religious-cons, if not more. The future is owned by those who populate it.
That's why libs import migrants. They'll be hedonists and then use the immigrants as a vote bank, offering the taxed prosperity of others to maintain them.
all the crazy ideology freaks of today were made by more religious parents and grand parents. memetic evolution takes places just as much. the reproduction of conservatives is just a pipeline if they cant protect their children from memetic infections.
I’m still watching the interview and still only at the beginning, but with all due respect, the gentleman states that young people today have it “better” and cites reasons such as being able to stream music or attend concerts or other entertainment etc., while also acknowledging that we can’t afford housing, medical care, etc. I would argue that having housing and access to medical care is far more important than having additional entertainment sources, and the fact that both of these essentials in life are increasingly difficult for young people to get, suggests to me that it IS in fact harder to be a young person today. I really find that argument from your guest sounded a bit ridiculous, honestly. But the topic of the interview is important, so I’m definitely finishing the video.
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I think that is an oversimplification of what he's saying. the nostalgia of older generations can be applied to any period in human history, and impatience of younger generations is the same. sure those things are the hardships of your generation, but people survived wars, famine, worked 7 days 14 hours a day, and died of curable diseases. As a pessimist, I've found his outlook towards life more productive
In my 20s I didn’t have my own home, had an apartment w roommates-worked 50-60 hour weeks finally bought a condo in my 30s - didn’t go to Europe, drive fancy cars etc stop whining and fix your life- now in my 50s my life couldn’t be better -kids today have it better then other generation and are a mess ! Start w growing up
The fact that living standards are falling for nearly everyone is the heart of the matter. Pinker is an elite out if touch neoliberal who is a big part of the problem
How much of the problems of academia are caused by the unwarranted multiplication of universities? Has the elite quality of university education and culture been diluted? Are there not enough quality scholars and professors to go around? Have universities filled classrooms, not with the best of the best, but with DEI mediocrity?
It used to be being in the Guild (tenured professor) and upholding its standards were more important than what you”built”. You may have disliked someone’s views, but had absolute contempt for poor scholarship of any stripe by anyone old enough to know better. Now the message is most important with bad research and writing given a pass if they further the message. Common people disliked academics because academics were smarter and MORE RIGOROUS. Now academics are just like us, except you can’t fire a tenured academic.
YOUNG PEOPLE: “We can’t afford homes.” PINKER: “But you’ve got air conditioning!” Says it all really. I’d hoped for more but this bloke can’t see the wood for the trees. This is what happens when optimism becomes your brand.
I think that his point is that the quality of housing is much higher today than for our parents generation. The standard of my apartment us way higher than the first house my parents bought. So the idea that that generation was better off is a bit of an illusion
The focus of Pinker is on the past trends, in fact his optimism (so: future) is very much conditional to recognise that gradual efforts can give benefits. As for home ownership, I understand the overall rate in the US is roughly constant throughout the decades? Isn't it so? Of course from a higher life expectancy alone you would expect that older people, who tend to own a house more likely everything else being equal, would "steal" some from younger (who are also more adaptable). And the tendency of being singles would be expected to have an effect as well.
I hire highly educated big salaried people and have for over two decades…. When an Ivy League resume passes my desk I pitch it….inevitably they are high maintenance, poor thinkers.
I am self employed (marketing) and have worked in an agency for about a year recently. Those who were self-taught were ambitious, great thinkers, and knew how to get results. Those who came into the workforce via the university route were poor thinkers and were pushing 90s marketing tactics in a digital age. I'd throw the Ivy League credentials in the bin too, especially now that it is no longer an IQ filter as a result of DEI.
@@patrickwoods2213 Only a fool would ignore 24+ years of data showing a direct link between new employees from certain universities and consistently poor performance, higher costs, problems with clients, and an inability to integrate well with teammates. The only ones not labeling or showing a bias towards those candidates are the ones who’ve never started and operated their own business.
He’s not sure that it’s worse…. For a start we no longer even agree on the definition of “woman “ never mind “racist”, “Nazi”…. Etc …. Pleeease!!!’ 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Steven Pinker is solid. His book 'The Blank Slate', for me, was seismic. Sure, I don't always agree with him, though usually, I do. It doesn't matter, I've never doubted his intellectual integrity. He is a proper classical liberal; one with deep intelligence. His clear, cogent, plain English, is the best I've heard, anywhere. Yes, he is somewhat redolent of an aged Marc Bolan!
The thing that is the most unattainable today sits at the bottom of the pyramid of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Affordable shelter. A few conveniences and confections sprinkled on top don't matter when housing is so far out of reach. In the US one of the key levers to be able to earn more and afford housing, education, is also a lifetime of debt to achieve for those not already wealthy. Most of the things he mentioned being better than in the past don't matter for a bag of old diapers next to those two factors.
The best countries to live in are NO LONGER religious, but they are living on the cut flowers of being formerly Christian nations, and the deteriorating conditions are a result of cutting off that Christian root that gave them the values that made them good places to live. The barbaric conditions he spoke of were not indicators if Christianity, but IN SPITE OF and falling short of Christianity.
I find any supposed 'intellectual' who is totally unwilling to see this frankly not worth listening to. All I hear is, 'give us more bleeps and bloops, crunch more numbers, and we will thrive.' Bulls*#t.
Christian values played a big Role in Western Countries becoming as successful as we are now. If you listened to Pinker he stated this fact multiple times so he wasn't disagreeing with your point. What he was saying is that it was not purely because those values we became Enlightened and he gave a few examples why. He said we don't agree with death for adultry or for Homosexuality to be illegal/considored immoral which are things stated in the Bible and Old Testament which run counter to Englightenment Values. So basically what he mean't was the values of the Enlightenment are Western Culture Values with some rehashes and updated ideas with improved rationality which would mean Christianity played a huge part but was not responsible for everything which is a reasonable point. I don't agree with your point saying it is because a lack of Christianity is for the decline in modern day. I think the Values are the more important thing which most people in Western Countries, even if not religous, agree with them. All Religions, even Christianity can become a super toxic thing when viewed or implemented in extreme ways. Look what happened in Ireland the last 50 years with Catholic vs Protestant as a example of our Cultural Religion doing damage and not working or Promoting Enlightenment Values. They discussed reasons for the decline and I think he said something incredibly smart: "Enlightenment values are very counterintuitive. And there's a natural backsliding unless there's a constant effort to keep pushing the rock up the hill." We take these values for granted and don't appreciate how hard and long it took Humanity to reach this point. If these values are not championed and taught well, which we can agree in Western Countries they have not been for recent years, we can see why we have a decline. To add to this a resentful generation where a lot of the improvements have been felt by the older Boomer generation and in some ways things have declined for that generation like housing prices. These younger people are rightfully angry but don't know anything about the world so they flock to DEI and Social Justice. Basically a brain washed generation which is sad but if you probably could take to one of them you would find 90% of your values would be the same as theirs. These people just don't know History and have been taught the wrong things and believe what they are doing is for the greater good.
Pinker in the beginning: "I dont like to comment on trends without seeing data" Pinker later on: "Let me question and counter your statements that are based on data analysis without seeing the data or having my own data"
I remember being a kid in 80s soviet block. Waiting 2-3 hours for a bus, which may not come . Waiting 20-30 years to get a toke to be allowed to have a flat assigned (not own it though) or buy a car. Waiting for 6 months in a line to buy a freezer, but when it was our time they were gone so we had to buy what was there. We got 2 radios, an afghan carpet and a tv, and using my younger sisters baby cart, my mom and me, hauled it for 4 hours from the store to our block. Oranges only sold in stores on christmas. Medication sold only in special foreign currancy stores. War rationing of food, suger, baby products and god damn TOILET PAPER and everything else (shoe broke? No shoe token for children shoes and no $ to buy them in foreign currancy store? Well l guess this winter your shoe will be hold by duck tape). And all of this wasn't the worse. My parents had good jobs , my grandparents lived in rural parts of my country and send us kids (illegaly) meat, jams, potatoes etc. And the really fun part is that my parents generation (born at the end or just after WWII) claimed we had it easy (and we did . I lived with my grandma on 27 square meters. But in 1949 in the same flat my gran, her 2 sisters, their mother, 3 husbands and 5 kids lived in a ONE room "aparament")
I left this discussion halfway in. This Harvard professor is so full of himself, I felt nauseous. He would never make it outside his cozy university office.
An excellent point. I spent whole hour waiting for a single word of wisdom. All I found was an empty vessel. In Ancient Greece they called such people sophists.
"We confuse changes in ourselves with changes in the times. We become more comitted to the skills that we have and therefore distrustful of the skills that are changing the world. We tend to think things are getting worse instead of thinking that we are less adapted to a changing world". -Brutally honest point pinker made in the beginning Wired For Nostalgia section.
TLDR: "Enlightenment values are very counterintuitive. And there's a natural backsliding unless there's a constant effort to keep pushing the rock up the hill."
We got our values through a succession of christian revivals, and a culture steeped in the Bible. Pinker is avoiding this because of his naive belief in some underlying rational morality. It was rational to exterminate your opposition. It was Jesus who taught us to love our enemies. I wonder is Pinker has read Tom Holland's book "Dominion"? Or Managalwadi's "The Book that Made Your World"? There, an agnostic, and a non-westerner can both see that it is christianity that gave the west its "enlightened" values.
I read a couple of this guy's books back in college when I was studying linguistics. He's the worst kind of intellectual, who demands evidence of his opponent and then posits his own postulates as if they are gospel truth with no underpinning provided. I noticed he does the same thing several times in this conversation.
January 6th was not a severe stress test. A couple of varsity high school football teams could have more effectively protected the Capitol. No guns required.
Enlightenment values were to distance ourselves from superstition and barbarism and endless religious wars, championed by the church. It was a rejection of backward medieval concepts that held the west back for centuries
It's crucial to question Pinker's mantra of constant improvement. At worst its a WEF lullaby to keep you snoring. At best it's ivory tower elite disconnect. That said how much this conversation has already resonated around the world is a miracle.
I backpack the world for many years back in the 80s and it was very apparent that the west was completely different from the rest… With the exception of Japan and Singapore and a few other pockets, it was obvious that the western nations were far wealthier and far freer… One can discuss These issues in there any which way but in the back of my mind, there will always exist. Memories of a very obvious difference that I can only assume still exist in some basic form… I think we have lost that in a forest of words. There is a desire to see the positives and everything to see every system as beneficial or flawed, but in different ways… But from what I’ve seen in my life, there’s no doubt some are better than others… And this is, for example the reason why the west is attempting to come to grips With enormous levels of immigration… There is a reason why it is a preferred destination.
Perhaps it could be that the west (America) was the only last man standing economically after WWII and it also did everything in its power to undermine subvert and carry out bloody coups of every socialist competitor in the world. The rest of the world has woken up and see the injustice and the hypocrisy. If we truly believe in western ideals, we had an obligation to live by them, which we certainly have not
Pinker is a rationalist in his safe, ivory-tower academic lab. He is so far removed from the everyday's life, that it's staggering, honestly. He also has a convinient and simplistic idea about the world, where enlightenment values = good everything I judge not to be englihtenment value = bad. In his worldview we're all (humanity) purely rationalist, and we can negate / leave beihnd everything that is deemed "irrational". Only if we tried harder! - his answer is. He fails to realise that the reason things are getting better is not that we're not applying the "rational/enlightenment values" properly, but that they fail to be the proper soultion, because they miss half the equation (namely the irrational part of the human being).
"We confuse changes in ourselves with changes in the times. We become more committed to the skills that we have and therefore distrustful of the skills that are changing the world. We tend to think things are getting worse instead of thinking that we are less adapted to a changing world". -Brutally honest point pinker made in the beginning Wired For Nostalgia section.
To compare the improvements of material goods of young people that are worth $100 or a few thousand dollars is not in the same ballpark as those who attained what are nowadays million-dollar plus homes, and they did it on less than 2 full time incomes, paid it off sooner, and with more children whereas young people now do it with 2 full time incomes, pay it off longer, and have less children. Affording housing and more children closer to your place of work is not the same as having Netflix and iPhone access.
More difficult than when though. My husband recently discovered that in the early twentieth century his family were raising seven kids in two rooms (rooms not bedrooms)
Sorry, not sorry. It's called living within your means. Don't waste money on eating out, ordering in, etc. learn how to cook from scratch & eat economically. Thousands do it everyday. It's far healthier. Stop paying fortunes for latte. I was a professor, I'd watch students stroll into class with lattes & various fast food -must have dropped 25-30$ & then go to the pub in the evening, so 50-75 bucks. Then whine about how expensive it all was. Meanwhile there would be another student who had packed a lunch & had a water bottle. It all about the choices you make.
Listening to Pinkers response to Francis' question about finding purpose in life at the 10 minute mark makes me want to throw up. Pinker is so out of touch. He takes it immediately to a global scale. Like dude, I'm working 3 jobs and still can't afford groceries, how tf am I supposed figure out climate change
Clearly some people want comfort, not opportunities. They might complain, but it's a show. Sloth + Entitlement are a potent and real mix. Believe it or not, some people choose to not work, yet demand to be taken care of.
*@patrickbolding9729* If you believe "they want opportunity" primarily, talk to some women. Women tend to want comfort first and opportunity second. Your statement I'm replying to is mostly a guy thing. *Reply to:* _"People don't want comfort, they want opportunity."_
It's not that academics are more concerned with status than before but that the people who are concerned with status are being hired for academic positions.
Don't worry everyone, things have not gotten worse for the new generation because the new generation has Netflix, air conditioning, and affordable long distance phone calls . . . . . .
Whether things are better or worse depends on when you compare to, a century ago families with six children were living in single rooms and nobody thought it was unusual
He's asking us to be mindful of gains as well as losses, and to be grateful of what we have that our forebears didn't, and that given multiple improvements of past decades, our current problems could be solved, just as those things were. I think he's implying that optimism brings about endeavour to create solutions, where despair does not.
@@margaretwinson402exactly. Very underrated comment, you should be top for everyone to see. This is exactly the problem today - too many people keen on whining and complaining, and on wasting their time on internet/social media instead of going out there and figure it out. That is a major drawback of all of this wonderful technology: a major distraction from DOING and living life.
He lost me at "Learn how to mitigate climate change." Anyone poising themselves as an upholder of scientific pragmatism who can't see the flaw there loses all credibility in my eyes.
@@patrickwoods2213 No, not because I disagree with him, because the entire argument/theory he's supporting there is absolutely riddled with very clear logical fallacies and falsehoods, right down to the sentence I quoted him saying - the moon is what you get if you mitigate climate change. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of whether you are able to identify falsehoods or not. Ergo, I can see that he is not able to think properly and so, there was no question there to me, he simply lost all credibility to talk authoritatively about scientific matters at that point - which is what he was attempting to do. It's like going to a financial advisor and him saying "I just signed up to this pyramid scheme, join me!" ...You know he's not bright enough to give good advice. Get it? Before we go any further, I know that there's no genuine rebuttal to that as I've spent a lot of time looking into it and the fact that you think me stupid for pointing out the obvious is an admission that you haven't looked into it, or, if you have, that you failed to apply basic logic when analysing the matter. You see, the entire thing is really about a widespread inability to reason properly, that's why you insulted me rather than actually argue, - an inability to reason properly - that's climate change in a nutshell. [typo]
@@patrickwoods2213 No, not because I disagree with him, because the entire argument/theory he's supporting there is absolutely riddled with very clear logical fallacies and falsehoods, right down to the sentence I quoted him saying - the moon is what you get if you mitigate climate change. That's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of whether you are able to identify falsehoods or not. Ergo, I can see that he is not able to think properly and so, there was no question there to me, he simply lost all credibility to talk authoritatively about scientific matters at that point - which is what he was attempting to do. It's like going to a financial advisor and him saying "I just signed up to this pyramid scheme, join me!" ...You know he's not bright enough to give good advice. Same applies here. You see, the entire thing is really about a widespread inability to reason properly, that's why you went for a personal attack rather than a reasoned argument, - an inability to reason properly - it's therefore unsurprising that you'd fail to understand why that one sentence jumps out as a clear red card in terms of what it reveals about his reasoning. [typo]
This guy lived in the unreal world of higher education much too long. He has no idea of how things truly are in today’s world - if he ever has an idea.
49:08 Everything he just said was apologist nonsense that doesn’t apply to modern society. It was intentionally dismissive and used ancient history, which again, isn’t the world we’ve been living in since the end of the Second World War at least.
Young people today think the boomers just got house keys handed to them on a single salary when they turned 18. We didn't. I had to work 16 hour days from I was 16 till I was around 35 -including weekends and holidays -I had 3 days off when I turned 30, besides that I did little but work. Thats how I got my house -by working a full lifetime of regular hours for a single 100% job, -in 20 years not 50. Many stories reflect that. I also needed the second income when I updated from apartment to house, and i STILL have about 20 years of loans - 200.000 dollars, to deal with after all that work. If you young people stop complaining, stop wasting a fortune on useless degrees in sociology, gender studies and arts, and ACTUALLY do the hard work while you are young and have the health an energy, YOU TOO can get a house. But it takes decades of hard work, dedication, saving, and living cheaply, and that isn't something most young people today are willing to do.
I've been completely unable to get this across to younger people. One set of my grandparents made it work because they ran 2 businesses out of their house and lived in a tiny section of it. The other set were both medical staff in the army and got lucky picking up a house in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and modern convenience literally built up around them over 50 years. I'm reaching the point soon where I get to choose a crappy house I fix up, or a business that I live out of. The problem is we've raised children to BE children when we should raise kids to become adults.
Whilst I’m not necessarily disagreeing with all you have said here, and I 100% agree with the fact that there is the sentiment that ‘boomers had it easy’ and got things handed to them, which is blatantly untrue, there is still the indisputable fact that house prices are proportionally so much more than wages are today. House prices from 1970s to 1990s were around about 4 X your annual wage; it is now agreed to be between 8 and 9 X your wage (this is data from UK). Both my parents were able to buy houses on a single income in the 80s with lower middle-class incomes, something which is virtually unheard of now. Again, this is not to say that ‘things were easier back then’ or ‘people didn’t have to work hard back then’ (both ridiculous statements); but on the issue of buying a house, it most certainly IS a lot harder.
@@Paddypoos What do you think the reasons are that housing is relatively more expensive though? As far as I can tell, the reasons are largely because of government regulation on zoning, building, logging etc. Population growth and a surge of immigration don't help at all. Demand for modern convenience in the house is another. Scaring everyone off from working in the trades and demeaning anyone who works construction is yet another. Also refusal to move to an area where housing is cheaper is yet another. Where I currently live the housing is quite literally 4x the cost than if I were to buy a couple states over. The implication I hear is always that these greedy old boomers are clinging onto their houses and refuse to sell at a reasonable rate. Or that someone who is never you or anyone you know should just be magically popping out affordable housing exactly where you want to live and that you shouldn't have competition for it. I'd love to hear if you have another perspective.
Oh I’m really not talking about solutions here, just stating what the problem is regarding housing, and that it is definitely one thing where this generation have got it worse than boomers. There will be people far far more expert in this who will be able to explain the reasons than I am. For the record, I have never blamed boomers not selling at reasonable rates for this. I would say a couple of things to your points: you’re right, I and others could move to some random town in the north, but this would be moving hundreds of miles away from family, friends, the places we call our home. I personally find it difficult believe that such rich countries like the UK and US (I’m assuming you’re American?) can’t solve this problem and that many of our great cities are essentially off limits to millions of people. Also, I’d add to your list of reasons, certainly in the UK (have no idea about this in the US) but deregulation of the rent market has clearly led to this problem as well. It’s become a lucrative business to buy houses and lend them out, and thus far less houses are actually available to buy. But yes, I agree with your points in general
@@Paddypoos Yes, that is true. And I think it is a massive problem, I agree completely. At the same time, when I was establishing myself we spent about 50% of my income on food, today food is around 15% of income or less, depending on how and what you shop of course. I think there needs to be some middle ground. Cheaper housing for especially first time buyers is necessary, but at the same time we cuddle our kids way too much. Hard work is lost on too many today.
Reduce the number of poor kids compared to middle class kids ✔️.Achieved by pushing the middle class into the lower class. I think when stating goals you need to be more specific.
52:20 Pinker mis-spoke but perhaps it was a Freudian slip when he said, "a third of babies died before childbirth." With abortion, that's probably true today.
Thank you Konstantin and Francis for a fantastic, enriching and thought-provoking interview with Dr. Pinker. Warm regards from Michigan! Your work is so important for free thought.
I saw him giving a talk during the Future-of-Science conference in Venice 2006. Later he talked to Lisa Randall, Marc Hauser and Daniel Dennett. Really fascinating people one could get really close to. Peter W. Atkins was also there. He wrote the physical chemistry text book we used at university. Fond memories indeed.
Wow, this brings me back. I discovered most of these people and many more around that same time. They all run in the same circles, it's a whole ecosphere of public intellectuals. Many of these people were brought together by John Brockman, a literary agent specializing in scientific literature, and the founder of the Edge project. At the time TH-cam had just started and you could find speeches, lectures, and interviews with all these people. I just found them and their work fascinating. I was still young, naive, and idealistic, so it was great times. Eventually though, I became more interested in politics and political philosophy and the naive Western liberal worldview that all these people shared became a turn off to me. And funny you should mention Peter Atkins - I picked up Chemistry as a hobby in my mid 20's and I used his 'Chemical Principles - The Quest for Insight' as my introduction to chemistry. I found a PDF of it online for free. Combined with free lectures from MIT and an online Chemistry forum, I was able to learn Chemistry on my own. It was a lot of fun.
@@LeeGee Yes, I was a bit shoked when he said "Trump loves Putin". I mean I cannot read Trumps mind but I don't think that he loves Putin or Xi Jinping. I think that in universities and "bubbles" like that you rarely come across different political perspectives. Which is good, because sience should not be political. Steven Pinker knows a lot of facts that can prove how things got better in the last decades but maybe he has a blind spot on some of the more culture pop topics.
Another case of Harvard elites with TDS. Smart people are the least likely to question their assumptions because they think they are smarter than everyone else.
Sir Pinker, another Sophisticated Elmer Fudd, chewing on his own Cud, buried in his own Mud. Living in his private Bubble, staying out of real world Trouble 🍦🤡
24:21 Ugh, it’s like this dude’s never been anywhere else or talked to people from anywhere else of their than US/Western Europe! He even bunched up Eastern Europe with the west! 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Pinker talks so much sense. He’s not concerned about driving up views and engagement by publishing click bait. He acknowledges the problem but sees the true bigger picture, and focuses of describing that rather than small pockets of controversial behaviour in society. Good on him and much respect 👏
So just be “reasonable” is what Mr Pinker is saying. Tell people to be rational and everything will be fine. It’s not like we had 1500 years of intense liturgical rituals prior to “the enlightenment”.
@@JoeBeThere if you know anything about how irrational people are. If you have never read books like Thinking Fast and Slow, or The Righteous Mind, or The User Illusion, or any book on evolutionary psychology then you will never understand why people need structures like religion. Once you understand that then you need to do some comparative religion and seek the healthiest one. But I cannot tell you which one it is, you need to go through the process of finding that out through trial and error. But understand that Descartes (the patriarch of modernity) was wrong. You don’t think therefore you are… you believe and are then you rationalize what you are doing. Best of luck.
@@marcoaslan people are spiritual and need to belong to groups. We all want to connect to something bigger than ourselves. That’s human nature. I understand. But the enlightenment was about casting off all if the evil that religious based institutions had ingrained themselves in the top centers of power for a thousand of years. A thousand years of backward violent superstitious mean spirited authority that was law. It was wrong then, it’s wrong now. People are fickle, they are irrational, but that shouldn’t stop our attempts to make a better world
@@JoeBeThere The reason you hold this view is influenced by prevalent narratives in university lectures and classes, which then spilled to the general public. While these ideals aim to inspire positive change, they end up promoting a one-sided perspective. This "matrix of belief" perpetuates the notion that the Middle Ages were the "dark ages," overshadowed by the enlightenment, which is seen as the only valid perspective. Universities have been steeped in enlightenment thinking for centuries, creating an echo chamber where this ideology is omnipresent, like a hall of mirrors from which one cannot escape. Mr Pinker cannot pick and choose which enlightenment ideals he wants. The Soviet Union could be viewed as an extreme manifestation of enlightenment ideals, attempting to control every aspect of life, simplifying the world to make it predictable. We cling to the idea that reality progresses towards some notion of 'progress' (whatever that means) rarely questioning if our current beliefs might be today’s superstitions. This mechanical view of the world has even influenced how we live. I mean, people don't even build their homes anymore with their own hands-except if you're part of the Amish community. ;)
@@JoeBeThere My comment got removed by the algorithm so I will post it again. The reason you hold this view is influenced by the prevalent narratives in university lectures and classes, which aim to inspire change for the better but end up promoting a one-sided perspective. This "matrix of belief" perpetuates the notion that the Middle Ages were the "dark ages," overshadowed by the enlightenment, which is seen as the only valid perspective. Universities have been drenched in enlightenment thinking for centuries, creating an echo chamber where this ideology is omnipresent, like a hall of mirrors from which one cannot escape. The Soviet Union could be viewed as an extreme manifestation of enlightenment ideals, attempting to control every aspect of life, simplifying the world to make it predictable. We cling to the idea that reality progresses towards some notion of 'progress,' without questioning if our current beliefs might be today’s superstitions. This mechanical view of the world has even influenced how we live. I mean, people don't even build their homes anymore with their own hands... except if you are part of the Amish community ;) Ask yourself why are we in front of screens ? How did we end up here?
As the boomers said during the Vietnam War, " Make love, not war." Not hard to imagine teenagers preferring getting stoned and fornicating to risking their lives defending the freedoms of South East Asians threatened by being over run by Chinese Communist backed totalitarians. Both the young at home and in Vietnam understood fully the need for camouflage. Students got deferments (or fled to Canada), while working class kids got drafted. Millions died brutally in South East Asia as the communist influenced "Youth Movement" in the west completely undermined American efforts to defend the Asians from Communist takeover. The millions who died in South East Asia as a result were never much discussed by the boomers of that "Anti War Movement". This shameful history has not been addressed even 60 years later, and their Marxism remained neatly in vogue.
Please name one war, just one that was fought for ‘freedom.” There isn’t one. It’s like Smedley Butler said, war is a racket. The object of every society should be the promotion of all people people in that society. If you are punching down, you are being manipulated by people who want to keep you fighting so you don’t look in their direction
Nonono the Chinese Communist government will implement arranged marriages... 😉HA Not really. China is kind of like "the West" as in the people will be highly distracted and dissatisfied with drab marital situations. I heard A LOT of knife crime and "lay flat protests" and other life killing situations.
Pinker, like most atheists, end up saying "common sense" "common good" or even worse "I wouldn't like to live in a place that...." as the basis for a godless morality without recognizing that it's untennable. Without objective foundations Pinker cannot say "slavery is wrong, let's not do it", but rather a more academic "I don't like slavery, let's not do it" which put both slavers and abolitionistsc on the same moral level. "Greatest good for the greatest number" is an idea as good as "more power for me and screw all of you". He even says "all men are created equal" without believing in a Creator. He's making "democracy" "happiness" as objective truths when they are not.
Morality has nothing to do with believing in Gd. Slavery is not wrong because it's religiously wrong, it's wrong because no one wants to be a slave. Causing people pain is wrong, because it hurts them. Very simple.
@@sofiasininen8268 How did YOU decide that "it's wrong because nobody wants X" is the measure? How did you decide that hurting people is wrong? Aside from personal preference, of course. It's circular reasoning.
@@rodrigodepierola Religious morality is also circular reasoning. "It's wrong because God wants X" Why does God think it is wrong? "Because he said so in his holy book." The New Testament definitely reflects what the people of that time period thought was "the common good" (apocalyptic Jews inspired by Jesus' teachings and his disciples inspired by ancient Greek philosophy). Christians constantly "update" their beliefs and morals according to the times (new denominations, reformation, disestablishment). Which is a good thing. But, it shows that Christians never had one absolute objective moral system of ethics. Religious values are a reflection of human values changing over time, as opposed to a divinely inspired absolute morality. Both believers and non believers have a difficult time defining morality. It is a 3000 year old philosophical problem. I think keeping your mind open and reading about psychology, neuroscience, biology, philosophy and even theology in general (not only your religion), and you can find you own answers.
@@FoivosApostolou it's not circular. It is God who says what right or wrong, that's it. Killing is objectively wrong only because God says so. Without a fixed moral point, all moral issues are subjective and, therefore, equally (in)valid.
"Run to the phone--it's long distance!" I tell my kids that we used to say that in the US. In the USSR, long-distance calls had to be ordered in advance if you had a phone, or made in central locations if you didn't. Speaking of kids, they are a big source of the meaning whose disappearance FF laments.
Steven's more than a little out of touch if he is just going to preach about global increases in SOL, while ignoring the decreases in SOL in the west. Inflation is stealing value from workers, pensions, and anyone who isnt a bank at a rate that has never been seen.
It is worthwhile to look at the lack of incentives for family formation and especially the wealth of disincentives for the same. Values aren't the issue. Laws that punish married men are the issue.
@@gonx9906 Raising children doesn't have to be expensive. Raising entitled, pampered, and spoiled children is expensive. Wives are expensive. Ex-wives even more so.
I used to think Steven Pinker was one of the bright lights at Harvard. Someone with integrity and dedication to scholarly research. However, the response he gave on religion was the most jejune, puerile, high-school level response I've heard in a while. Clearly, he has not thought deeply about this issue, and I'm not sure he's capable of it. His attitude was "enlightenment good, religion bad" as if the enlightenment came out of nowhere and just happened. He is for rational inquiry and pursuit of truth but has no idea what these ideas grew out of and what they are based on. Talk about prejudiced and biased.
In its most basic terms, to me, it goes like this: People who hope they can see their families again believe in some kinda God. People who want absolute freedom to do or say anything in the here and now choose atheism. Either way, there is a fee. The question comes down to whether one believes it should be paid now or later.
Another "really smart" person with either with Trump Derangement Syndrome or a total lack of understanding of Trump's strategy vis-a-vis Putin and foreign policy.
Trump doesn't have any foreign policy strategy, he's pretty indifferent to foreign affairs generally. TDS is a mythical entity created by 'really smart people' to deflect legitimate concern over Trump's often bats**t crazy decision making.
Tell us you’re out of touch with the average person without telling us you’re out of touch with the other person He’s like the circus and bread used to be literally a circus and bread is so much better now got Netflix MMA Delta
I'm always astonished by the crazy levels of anger, crass criticism and sheer belligerence expressed by so many that comment on these discussions (and that's what they are -- DISCUSSIONS). What makes Steven Pinker such a valuable participant isn't necessarily his ideas or beliefs, it's that he's always been a model of respectful and conscientiously pleasant discourse, as someone who actually listens to others and tries his very best to respond in a way that is at the very least honest, honorable and never hostile -- whether or not you agree with him.
Generally I like what Pinker says but his characterisation of our morals as coming from "universal human wellbeing" at 49:28 is very weak. The enlightenment was a mixed movement of philosophers, not a popular movement. It resulted in the genocide of the French Revolution, and later the blood bath of the USSR, where atheist doctrine was imposed on a christian substrate. We get our values and egalitarianism from christianity. Even the agnostic historian Tom Holland can see that. The enlightenment just piggy-backs in on that. All the benefits he attributes to the enlightenment started before the enlightenment.
Steven Pinker is kid of in an Ivory tower, he clearly does not understand that economically it is CLEAR with many stats that it has gotten worse. Wages are generally statis while cost of living has gone up steadily. Job stability is very poor, everything is contracted now and turn over rates are very high. Homelessness is higher than ever. What is this dude smoking? Oh that's right, he's a rich professor from a prestigious school who is completely disconnected from the real world.
There are some ways we are getting worse. Housing, sluggish institutions, stagnant wages, homelessness - ALL of these things are because of over population due to mass immigration. I believe politicians are only getting away with mass immigration due to our abundant resources due to technology softening the blow. We cope with so many people because we can indeed produce so much food. The housing crisis is concealed from us behind the idea that we need to build more houses - something that seems eminently possible to us because we will be able to get the resources to gether to build more and more and more.
@@umwha The immigrant demographic is young and energetic. Human beings are a resource, both in terms of their consumption (essential in a market economy) and their productive outputs (including social interactions). The problem is the political management of the said economy. Social behaviour is shaped by economic pressures driven by free-market capitalism pursuing it's intrinsic aims - increasing growth by stimulating demand by psychological manipulation and novelty. (Packard, The Hidden Persuaders)
@@rburnsuk Yes the immigrant population is young and mostly male. Human behavior is indeed shaped by economic pressures. That’s why young men leave the Middle East, Africa, Pakistani and the third world to come to England. Once they are there they get given hotels for literally years, free healthcare , and provisions . Meanwhile they can engage in other money making activities like organized crime .
As I watch this I find Mr Pinker eloquent, amusing, personable and clearly very well educated. On some subjects actually very acute and interesting. But so ethereal and detached from reality that it is hard to define. Something kept niggling me. Who else was like this? So pleasant, so charming, so well mannered, so privileged, so complacent and yet so terribly wrong? Marie Antoinette.
I think an interesting observation is that Christian predominant countries birthed democracies and that the demolishment of Christian cultural values can be attributed to the manifestation of radical immoral movements across the Western world. Christianity can be seen in many ways as the foundational building blocks of our current democracies. Countries which are objectively more liveable usually have this precursor in common.
The life of young people is not richer today than it was, say, 1958. Easier, maybe, more full of entertainment or easily accessed information. Franklly, though, I am glad I grew up when I did.
@@workhorse7134people continue to die in their 60’s from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and kidney disease due to horrible fast food diets. Plus the use of legal narcotic and illegal drugs is much more rampant than it was in the 80’s.
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JOIN our Locals community to hear *Steven* answer audience questions: triggernometry.locals.com/
CHAPTERS👇
00:00 Trailer
00:39 Is language being warped?
02:36 We’re wired for nostalgia
04:09 Youth pessimism
07:37 Is there a meaning crisis?
10:00 The religion of Wokeness
13:42 We take our wins for granted
17:07 Is the West worth preserving?
24:11 SPONSOR: Qualia Senolytic
25:59 Enlightenment values in decline at universities
31:54 Academics are more concerned with status than doing their jobs
34:02 Is the academy in crisis?
35:45 Universities need to be reformed
38:48 New wave of students pushing back against woke
43:53 The DEI virus
45:28 Cowardly leaders
46:38 Why Jordan Peterson is wrong
50:02 Constructing a secular moral framework
53:02 The decline in child-bearing
57:53 What’s the one thing we’re not talking about?
If Steven pinker is being pessimistic you just know we're fucked.
OMG you are so right. He's super optimistic lol. He can find the positives for males in western marriage and a firestorm.
my thoughts exactly
@@notgunnadoit7461The downsides for ‘Western Marriage’ for men are always embellished and exaggerated online by the typical people who spout that nonsense.
@@notgunnadoit7461 He literally wrote the book on it!
@@ARR409 If you believe it's "embellished and exaggerated online," I'm looking for your own more accurate take.
What would you consider the downsides?
What would you consider the upsides?
*Reply to:* _"The downsides for ‘Western Marriage’ for men are always embellished and exaggerated online by the typical people who spout that nonsense."_
They destroyed the Harvard brand. The whole world used to tout the high standards of this university. Even as a little kid growing up in Eastern Europe my dad who was a music teacher, would always mention Harvard as the pinnacle of education excellence.
I'd go one step farther and say that the value of any university degree has fallen by a lot. It's in the negative now. And it's the fault of the universities maybe 2-3 decades ago when they started regarding the students as customers and make that the priority and not the institution itself.
True. It was like NASA, known all over the Western world despite being local to the US.
@@robdielemans9189 You think a degree is useless until you need a surgeon or an engineer.
@@LeeGee There are other ways of accreditation than a university degree.But you do have a point and (currently) will make an exception when it comes to surgery, until they are dumbing down their entry exams.
Just a reminder that the mortuary department was also busted selling organs on the back market.
I don't think the US should be "top dog" for nationalistic reasons. But if if not the US (or the West generally), then who else? Russia? China? Some coalition of Muslim nations? People leave those places to come to the West, not the other way around. The real problem of immigration is not that people flee failed systems. It's that they bring those systems with them.
Agree
Google 'Dar el-Harb'.
You are exactly right . I so wish more people could understand ...
Exactly. There's no other choice that doesn't lead humanity down a drastically bad route
Wtf are"nationalistic reasons"?
The things that have gotten better, such as Netflix and the existence of Spirit Airlines, would happily be traded away by most people for what life was line in 1995.
I watch Pride and Prejudice again and again. Produced in 1995, the best adaptation (by the BBC), nothing on Netflix can match it.
Wrong on so many levels
Okay, then give them an example. @@BarrGC
What nonsense. Crime was much worse in the 90s, just naming one of the many other factors Steven named.
In 1995, condos went for $5-10K in my Swedish hometown. Gen X'ers and older practically had the whole "functional adult" package (home ownership, steady job) mailed to them at age 18. As a millennial, I grew up in the 90s watching older relatives move out and make a life for themselves like it was nothing. It was just a thing you did, like buying a razor at 14 or opening a bank account at 18 - no big deal, expected, taken for granted.
Come on, not being able to afford an apartment or groceries is simply not offset by better and cheaper long distance service.
He is out of touch with the reality of most people. And sounds simp-ish. Unwilling to call a spade a spade.
Exactly, all the things he mentioned could be mitted by more opportunities created by better management. I would love to see this discussion with Thomas Sowell. Also listening to him toss out progressive buzz words reminds me that his "intellectual" ilk got us here in the first place.
@@UberBri Exactly right. Couldn’t waste my time watching the whole thing.
Remember healthcare is also more expensive.
Apartments were not affordable in "the old days" either. What people did was have multiple roommates. Watch any shows from last century and you'll find most people didn't live alone. Marriage was often a way to "move up" to ownership.
It WAS NOT easier in the past.
I get a kick when young people talk about all of "the pollution". When I came of age in the 70's and 80's in the midwest, every city had an industrial district blanketed in a hazy yellow fog which smelt of sulphur. I can still see in my minds eye the black exhaust billowing from the exhaust pipe of every car on the road. Lake Erie was officially declared dead unable to support any life more complex than algae. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire. It was common to toss your fast food waste out your car window.
Cars didn't produce black smoke unless the driver was flooring it. Maybe in your mind's eye they did.
The pollution young people are talking about today is carbon dioxide which they think will kill them in ways that ordinary pollution in the 70s wouldn't really have done. And there are all those imaginary "pollutants" that kids worry about today, like plastics, "toxins", GMOs, etc.
That sounds appalling. I hope it's more civilised now.
Sounds like Brisbane Australia when I was a kid.
‘Put the wrapper out the window, honey.’
Yeah, thank God for exporting all the industry. Who needs pollution, not me. Keep it in the third world.
I think we've grossly underestimated the negative socio-political effects of digitisation.
The internet was like the wild west 1995-2005 - it was mainly a liberating positive thing. Now, silicon valley has your freedom of expression in a choke hold. I'm much MUCH more free to say what I think in person than I am online, but online has taken over as the public square.
Moreover, a significant portion have chosen digital interactions over real world ones. Even things like actually talking to loved ones over the phone have been sidelined in favor of texting. Had a friend tell me that reuniting with his brother at a funeral was weird because he had forgotten what his brother even sounded like because their communications had been solely via text for the past 8 years.
Varies heavily depending on the person and the platform (and whether they're anonymous). For example on a platform where my name is publicly shown, I'd feel less confident in expressing myself than I would in person, but people on twitter will say outrageous things they'd probably never say to that person face to face.
But either way, I do agree your point, the negative impact it's had isn't talked about enough.
Data is the new money and the reason the internet is metered. Did we really have any choice about digitisation?
I miss real 4chan. Lol
@marcietownsend3635 you can opt mainly out of it, sure. The problem is that everyone else is opted in.
Can the Professor clearly define the difference between progress & convenience?
I can. Owning a home is convenience. Being able to DO things is progress. At least for me.
@@kosmosskuggan9827 thank you! That's deep.
@@Eng0926😂
The European Union functions much more the way the US Constitution says America is supposed to function:
US: 50 sovereign American states with a central Federal government to unite them.
EU: 27 sovereign countries with a central government in Brussels to unite them.
The European Union is much more than just a trade block; it's primarily an attempt to get countries to stop going to war against each other and to stop wasting money on militaries.
The EU attempts to do the OPPOSITE of "one countries’ bad actions then gets generalized into the whole continent."
The EU is more of an attempt to WEED OUT bad actions.
*Reply to:* _"they don’t really have sovereignty thanks to putting most of the power to a centralized EU so one countries’ bad actions then gets generalized into the whole continent"_
Can he tell us what a woman is?
"Yeah, your family may be two generations into economic backsliding due to policies that destroyed entire communities while grossly enriching the already wealthy, but there are now fewer people starving in Cameroon. Isn't that great?!"
And it will get worse if we institute climate change policies that will make us a lot poorer to help make the cassava harvest in Cameroon more reliable.
Yeah, I hear ya. I'm usually an optimist but this ticked me off. "Children don't die by 5." Sure, that's good. But the problem now is that they're not being born--and we'll leave it at that--in the first place.
@@KatallinaVT Loss of children before 5 is not a tragedy in and of itself. If you have a high likelihood of some children dying before 5, you value each one less, and lavish attention and sink your future only on the ones that survive. Most kids that do die die before their first birthday, before you get really attached to them. You're right that having no children being born at all is *way* worse than losing one in four before 5.
We have slid back a little from the 1950s but we are still way ahead of our ancestors. My husband recently discovered that in the the early twentieth century his family of nine lived in two rooms (rooms not bedrooms) whilst today people say their flat is too small to have a child.
@@grannyannie2948 My parents grew up dirt-poor but started to make good slowly but surely in the 1950s after they got married. It was pretty grim in much of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia until 1965 or so. This is what we are heading back to if energy becomes scarce or expensive -- it'll be both.
For all those girls out there that aren't having kids, consider it. I waited too long. Although, I have a good life, after 50 there is a strong pain that remains as if a part of me is missing. Don't make my mistake.
Thank you for your honesty. I know some older women are happy, but I would say most older childless women aren't. Thank you. Do you have the many opportunities to speak to younger people about this issue?
At 60, I have been feeling that for many years now. You never really get over it, you just get used to it.
Sage words indeed. I thank you for your honesty, it must have been hard to write them. Personally I tire of the 'Career is the goal, it is the most important thing in life'. Jordan Peterson said it best... 'What are going to do between 50 and 80?'. I hope you don't think I say this to inflict any pain onto you, you are clearly well aware of the consequences of your decisions. I am just applauding your honesty.
thank you for your honesty. A lot of women won't admit how important family is.
I have slowly been changing my mind about it. Im at the point where I make decisions to make having kids possible.
M 27
U.S. failures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not failures of capability. Those were failures of will.
And from underestimating the enemy, which we did not do in WW2.
@@lesliemacmillan9932 You can only underestimate the enemy until you fight, and perhaps lose, your first battle. After that, you have an understanding of what you are facing. There is no way anyone in the military continued to underestimate any of these enemies after the first year of continuous combat.
Although the U.S. military had their share of tactical failures, none of those tactical failures resulted in losing any of those wars. All the significant failures were failures of policy, made by politicians or political appointees, for domestic political concerns.
@@glennmitchell9107 Fair point. I would say the battle that told the United States that it had underestimated the Viet Cong and over-estimated the will of the ARVN to fight for South Vietnam was at Ap Bac, described in the biography of John Paul Vann, A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan. And that was very early in the war, before the wholesale commitment of ground combat troops. But are determined insurgencies ever defeatable unless they run out of money? The British Army never defeated the IRA, only barely prevented it from winning. What could it have done with greater will? Destroyed Ulster in order to save it, thus killing the IRA? But the IRA was everywhere.
They were failures of common sense.
Vietnam? U.S. thought it was fighting communism. Not! It was fighting Vietnamese nationalism, a hopeless cause. Iraq? In this country, ethnocentrism is over the top. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences seemingly everywhere. Not a place where cooperation needed for democratic politics can take hold. Afghanistan? Well, the graveyard of empires. Political elites view the State and political power as a places to get rich. Corruption is rampant. Thre is a tendency for the U.S. to seize defeat from the clutches of victory. Prospect theory accounts for this tendency.
I live in a small college town in a rural conservative area and the difference in birth rates between the religious-conservative families and the educated-liberal families/population associated with the university is stark. Easily 3-to-1 in favor of the religious-cons, if not more. The future is owned by those who populate it.
I live rurally but not very religious, two to six kids is the norm.
Their kids will be indoctrinated in college if they go, and have zero social clout if they don’t.
That's why libs import migrants. They'll be hedonists and then use the immigrants as a vote bank, offering the taxed prosperity of others to maintain them.
all the crazy ideology freaks of today were made by more religious parents and grand parents.
memetic evolution takes places just as much.
the reproduction of conservatives is just a pipeline if they cant protect their children from memetic infections.
Not unless we homeschool or reform the education system
I’m still watching the interview and still only at the beginning, but with all due respect, the gentleman states that young people today have it “better” and cites reasons such as being able to stream music or attend concerts or other entertainment etc., while also acknowledging that we can’t afford housing, medical care, etc. I would argue that having housing and access to medical care is far more important than having additional entertainment sources, and the fact that both of these essentials in life are increasingly difficult for young people to get, suggests to me that it IS in fact harder to be a young person today. I really find that argument from your guest sounded a bit ridiculous, honestly. But the topic of the interview is important, so I’m definitely finishing the video.
I think that is an oversimplification of what he's saying. the nostalgia of older generations can be applied to any period in human history, and impatience of younger generations is the same. sure those things are the hardships of your generation, but people survived wars, famine, worked 7 days 14 hours a day, and died of curable diseases. As a pessimist, I've found his outlook towards life more productive
In my 20s I didn’t have my own home, had an apartment w roommates-worked 50-60 hour weeks finally bought a condo in my 30s - didn’t go to Europe, drive fancy cars etc stop whining and fix your life- now in my 50s my life couldn’t be better -kids today have it better then other generation and are a mess ! Start w growing up
yeah...he wrote that about 15 years ago and its not aging well
The fact that living standards are falling for nearly everyone is the heart of the matter. Pinker is an elite out if touch neoliberal who is a big part of the problem
It depends on the time period that you are comparing with the present. Life in every way is better today than >4 generations ago. When comparing with
How much of the problems of academia are caused by the unwarranted multiplication of universities? Has the elite quality of university education and culture been diluted? Are there not enough quality scholars and professors to go around? Have universities filled classrooms, not with the best of the best, but with DEI mediocrity?
Elite overproduction is definitely a problem. Some historians believe it helped to bring down the Roman Empire.
@@ajs41 Sounds like something a crotchety old patrician senator might say.
It used to be being in the Guild (tenured professor) and upholding its standards were more important than what you”built”. You may have disliked someone’s views, but had absolute contempt for poor scholarship of any stripe by anyone old enough to know better.
Now the message is most important with bad research and writing given a pass if they further the message. Common people disliked academics because academics were smarter and MORE RIGOROUS. Now academics are just like us, except you can’t fire a tenured academic.
^ this, that's is what we have lost in academia.
YOUNG PEOPLE: “We can’t afford homes.”
PINKER: “But you’ve got air conditioning!”
Says it all really. I’d hoped for more but this bloke can’t see the wood for the trees. This is what happens when optimism becomes your brand.
Well said OP
@alaakela then get a cheaper rented home,
I think that his point is that the quality of housing is much higher today than for our parents generation. The standard of my apartment us way higher than the first house my parents bought. So the idea that that generation was better off is a bit of an illusion
The focus of Pinker is on the past trends, in fact his optimism (so: future) is very much conditional to recognise that gradual efforts can give benefits.
As for home ownership, I understand the overall rate in the US is roughly constant throughout the decades? Isn't it so? Of course from a higher life expectancy alone you would expect that older people, who tend to own a house more likely everything else being equal, would "steal" some from younger (who are also more adaptable).
And the tendency of being singles would be expected to have an effect as well.
I hire highly educated big salaried people and have for over two decades…. When an Ivy League resume passes my desk I pitch it….inevitably they are high maintenance, poor thinkers.
It’s not a smart thing to label people with such a blanketed bias.
I am self employed (marketing) and have worked in an agency for about a year recently. Those who were self-taught were ambitious, great thinkers, and knew how to get results.
Those who came into the workforce via the university route were poor thinkers and were pushing 90s marketing tactics in a digital age.
I'd throw the Ivy League credentials in the bin too, especially now that it is no longer an IQ filter as a result of DEI.
@@patrickwoods2213 Only a fool would ignore 24+ years of data showing a direct link between new employees from certain universities and consistently poor performance, higher costs, problems with clients, and an inability to integrate well with teammates. The only ones not labeling or showing a bias towards those candidates are the ones who’ve never started and operated their own business.
Yes I agree as a past employer.
He’s not sure that it’s worse…. For a start we no longer even agree on the definition of “woman “ never mind “racist”, “Nazi”…. Etc …. Pleeease!!!’ 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Exactly. And you think that constitutes suffering because you are very immature
another word that we no longer agree on is the definition of "genocide".
You think people used to agree on the term racist or nazi? 🤦♂️
@@drts6955.....it already has caused suffering by giving power to those who don't know what to do with it beyond take revenge on innocent people.
@@skylartownsend3764Yes.
Steven Pinker is solid. His book 'The Blank Slate', for me, was seismic. Sure, I don't always agree with him, though usually, I do. It doesn't matter, I've never doubted his intellectual integrity. He is a proper classical liberal; one with deep intelligence. His clear, cogent, plain English, is the best I've heard, anywhere.
Yes, he is somewhat redolent of an aged Marc Bolan!
The thing that is the most unattainable today sits at the bottom of the pyramid of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Affordable shelter. A few conveniences and confections sprinkled on top don't matter when housing is so far out of reach. In the US one of the key levers to be able to earn more and afford housing, education, is also a lifetime of debt to achieve for those not already wealthy.
Most of the things he mentioned being better than in the past don't matter for a bag of old diapers next to those two factors.
Spot on. People aren’t having kids because of the lack of affordable housing.
"I prefer Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin."
"But they love each other, so..."
I gave myself a migraine with how hard I rolled my eyes at that.
Why?
Yeah, they're much more like twins.
I cringed so hard at that. He can think by himself but clearly he really still is in a bubble of his own !
The best countries to live in are NO LONGER religious, but they are living on the cut flowers of being formerly Christian nations, and the deteriorating conditions are a result of cutting off that Christian root that gave them the values that made them good places to live. The barbaric conditions he spoke of were not indicators if Christianity, but IN SPITE OF and falling short of Christianity.
Which Dawkins would also tell him, being a fan of culturally Christian nations himself.
I find any supposed 'intellectual' who is totally unwilling to see this frankly not worth listening to. All I hear is, 'give us more bleeps and bloops, crunch more numbers, and we will thrive.' Bulls*#t.
Christian values played a big Role in Western Countries becoming as successful as we are now. If you listened to Pinker he stated this fact multiple times so he wasn't disagreeing with your point. What he was saying is that it was not purely because those values we became Enlightened and he gave a few examples why. He said we don't agree with death for adultry or for Homosexuality to be illegal/considored immoral which are things stated in the Bible and Old Testament which run counter to Englightenment Values. So basically what he mean't was the values of the Enlightenment are Western Culture Values with some rehashes and updated ideas with improved rationality which would mean Christianity played a huge part but was not responsible for everything which is a reasonable point.
I don't agree with your point saying it is because a lack of Christianity is for the decline in modern day. I think the Values are the more important thing which most people in Western Countries, even if not religous, agree with them. All Religions, even Christianity can become a super toxic thing when viewed or implemented in extreme ways. Look what happened in Ireland the last 50 years with Catholic vs Protestant as a example of our Cultural Religion doing damage and not working or Promoting Enlightenment Values. They discussed reasons for the decline and I think he said something incredibly smart:
"Enlightenment values are very counterintuitive. And there's a natural backsliding unless there's a constant effort to keep pushing the rock up the hill."
We take these values for granted and don't appreciate how hard and long it took Humanity to reach this point. If these values are not championed and taught well, which we can agree in Western Countries they have not been for recent years, we can see why we have a decline. To add to this a resentful generation where a lot of the improvements have been felt by the older Boomer generation and in some ways things have declined for that generation like housing prices. These younger people are rightfully angry but don't know anything about the world so they flock to DEI and Social Justice. Basically a brain washed generation which is sad but if you probably could take to one of them you would find 90% of your values would be the same as theirs. These people just don't know History and have been taught the wrong things and believe what they are doing is for the greater good.
I call it running on Christian fumes.
Well, Mexico, and all of south America is highly religious. Mostly Catholic but certainly Christian. When are they going to do well?
Yeah, so when housing food medical care and education get more expensive you quite literally can’t afford anything else.
My parents call me "pessimistic" but I just call it "realistic." Hard to deny what I've been watching unfold.
Have you ever heard of depressive realism?
1:48 The Three Slogans of The Uniparty:
SPEECH IS VIOLENCE
FREEDOM IS DANGER
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH
They substitute diversity for Freedom. They attempt to convince, "If anyone, can be anything, You MuST be free... right?" Stupid.
Anyone who says that doesn’t want to take us back to the 1990s….. they want to take us back to 1984….
DIVERSITY OF OPINION IS DEATH
"God hasn't died in Afghanistan, I don't wanna live there" Steven Pinker. That made me belly laugh for some reason.
Pinker in the beginning: "I dont like to comment on trends without seeing data"
Pinker later on: "Let me question and counter your statements that are based on data analysis without seeing the data or having my own data"
This
all he has is shiny credentials
I remember being a kid in 80s soviet block. Waiting 2-3 hours for a bus, which may not come . Waiting 20-30 years to get a toke to be allowed to have a flat assigned (not own it though) or buy a car. Waiting for 6 months in a line to buy a freezer, but when it was our time they were gone so we had to buy what was there. We got 2 radios, an afghan carpet and a tv, and using my younger sisters baby cart, my mom and me, hauled it for 4 hours from the store to our block. Oranges only sold in stores on christmas. Medication sold only in special foreign currancy stores. War rationing of food, suger, baby products and god damn TOILET PAPER and everything else (shoe broke? No shoe token for children shoes and no $ to buy them in foreign currancy store? Well l guess this winter your shoe will be hold by duck tape). And all of this wasn't the worse. My parents had good jobs , my grandparents lived in rural parts of my country and send us kids (illegaly) meat, jams, potatoes etc. And the really fun part is that my parents generation (born at the end or just after WWII) claimed we had it easy (and we did . I lived with my grandma on 27 square meters. But in 1949 in the same flat my gran, her 2 sisters, their mother, 3 husbands and 5 kids lived in a ONE room "aparament")
I left this discussion halfway in. This Harvard professor is so full of himself, I felt nauseous. He would never make it outside his cozy university office.
No he would make it, because cradling his moral juxtaposition nonsense is a tolerant Christian ethic, at least for a short while still.
You spend an hour opening a fancy safe only to find it empty!
I wouldn't say it's empty, it's just that you expected to find cash and diamonds and instead you found a bunch stuff that has little real world value.
😂
Hahaha exactly right. Head empty no new ideas, just keep exporting your wealth
An excellent point. I spent whole hour waiting for a single word of wisdom. All I found was an empty vessel. In Ancient Greece they called such people sophists.
"We confuse changes in ourselves with changes in the times. We become more comitted to the skills that we have and therefore distrustful of the skills that are changing the world. We tend to think things are getting worse instead of thinking that we are less adapted to a changing world".
-Brutally honest point pinker made in the beginning Wired For Nostalgia section.
Today I learned Russia is the west, and national pride is about stoking individual egos.
Sorry, why does anyone listen to this guy again?
TLDR: "Enlightenment values are very counterintuitive. And there's a natural backsliding unless there's a constant effort to keep pushing the rock up the hill."
Also, “The West isn’t perfect….blah blah blah.”
We got our values through a succession of christian revivals, and a culture steeped in the Bible. Pinker is avoiding this because of his naive belief in some underlying rational morality. It was rational to exterminate your opposition. It was Jesus who taught us to love our enemies.
I wonder is Pinker has read Tom Holland's book "Dominion"? Or Managalwadi's "The Book that Made Your World"? There, an agnostic, and a non-westerner can both see that it is christianity that gave the west its "enlightened" values.
@@markaurelius61 *It was Jesus who taught us to love our enemies.*
Is that all ?
@@markaurelius61The church was also, and probably more importantly, heavily influenced by Greek philosophy
@@markaurelius61The Church fought against Enlightenment values every step of the way. Learn some actual history.
I read a couple of this guy's books back in college when I was studying linguistics. He's the worst kind of intellectual, who demands evidence of his opponent and then posits his own postulates as if they are gospel truth with no underpinning provided. I noticed he does the same thing several times in this conversation.
January 6th was not a severe stress test. A couple of varsity high school football teams could have more effectively protected the Capitol. No guns required.
Enlightenment values are secular Christian values- as a culture we rejected Christianity and so enlightenment values too
christian scholars and traditionalist were agaisnt enlightenment values specially the separation of church and state
@@ghostxl8525Not all of them. Look up Erasmus.
Enlightenment values were to distance ourselves from superstition and barbarism and endless religious wars, championed by the church. It was a rejection of backward medieval concepts that held the west back for centuries
Pinkerton still hasn't gotten any less naive since I read/listened to him last I see xD
It's crucial to question Pinker's mantra of constant improvement. At worst its a WEF lullaby to keep you snoring. At best it's ivory tower elite disconnect. That said how much this conversation has already resonated around the world is a miracle.
21:34 ahh, the TDS is strong in this one.
I backpack the world for many years back in the 80s and it was very apparent that the west was completely different from the rest… With the exception of Japan and Singapore and a few other pockets, it was obvious that the western nations were far wealthier and far freer… One can discuss These issues in there any which way but in the back of my mind, there will always exist. Memories of a very obvious difference that I can only assume still exist in some basic form… I think we have lost that in a forest of words. There is a desire to see the positives and everything to see every system as beneficial or flawed, but in different ways… But from what I’ve seen in my life, there’s no doubt some are better than others… And this is, for example the reason why the west is attempting to come to grips With enormous levels of immigration… There is a reason why it is a preferred destination.
Agreed accept maybe you arnt realizing Japan and Singapore ARE western
Perhaps it could be that the west (America) was the only last man standing economically after WWII and it also did everything in its power to undermine subvert and carry out bloody coups of every socialist competitor in the world. The rest of the world has woken up and see the injustice and the hypocrisy. If we truly believe in western ideals, we had an obligation to live by them, which we certainly have not
It's a wild time when two comedians with mics end up resonating with and understanding the public better than one of the world's leading psychologists
Pinker is a rationalist in his safe, ivory-tower academic lab. He is so far removed from the everyday's life, that it's staggering, honestly.
He also has a convinient and simplistic idea about the world, where
enlightenment values = good
everything I judge not to be englihtenment value = bad.
In his worldview we're all (humanity) purely rationalist, and we can negate / leave beihnd everything that is deemed "irrational". Only if we tried harder! - his answer is. He fails to realise that the reason things are getting better is not that we're not applying the "rational/enlightenment values" properly, but that they fail to be the proper soultion, because they miss half the equation (namely the irrational part of the human being).
"We confuse changes in ourselves with changes in the times. We become more committed to the skills that we have and therefore distrustful of the skills that are changing the world. We tend to think things are getting worse instead of thinking that we are less adapted to a changing world".
-Brutally honest point pinker made in the beginning Wired For Nostalgia section.
To compare the improvements of material goods of young people that are worth $100 or a few thousand dollars is not in the same ballpark as those who attained what are nowadays million-dollar plus homes, and they did it on less than 2 full time incomes, paid it off sooner, and with more children whereas young people now do it with 2 full time incomes, pay it off longer, and have less children. Affording housing and more children closer to your place of work is not the same as having Netflix and iPhone access.
More difficult than when though. My husband recently discovered that in the early twentieth century his family were raising seven kids in two rooms (rooms not bedrooms)
right? so insulting.
Sorry, not sorry. It's called living within your means. Don't waste money on eating out, ordering in, etc. learn how to cook from scratch & eat economically. Thousands do it everyday. It's far healthier. Stop paying fortunes for latte. I was a professor, I'd watch students stroll into class with lattes & various fast food -must have dropped 25-30$ & then go to the pub in the evening, so 50-75 bucks. Then whine about how expensive it all was. Meanwhile there would be another student who had packed a lunch & had a water bottle. It all about the choices you make.
@@ELee-zv5ud I'm inclined to agree. And for a single person you can cook enough food for a week only cooking once or twice a week.
Pinker never addresses what is actually important to people.
Having a homeland, for example..
Right. His focus is material.
What do you mean? We already have one... Israel...
Not everyone needs or wants a homeland.
@@patrickwoods2213 I do
@@avengemybreath3084 I do too. But some don’t
Listening to Pinkers response to Francis' question about finding purpose in life at the 10 minute mark makes me want to throw up. Pinker is so out of touch. He takes it immediately to a global scale. Like dude, I'm working 3 jobs and still can't afford groceries, how tf am I supposed figure out climate change
What we lack is real connection.
Yeah, no REAL personal relationships on the net🕺
'So far, so good.' said the man, falling from a building.
Oh my God it hurts. Why did I ever once think that Pinker was wise?
Could it be the Einstein look-a-like hairdo :-)
I will confess that I haven't availed myself of S.P.'s recent thoughts... it's been a while. Even so, something just feels off in this one.
People don't want comfort, they want opportunity.
I like the opportunity of comfort
This does not appear to be the revealed preference of the majority of people
They want both - that's the human condition. Trade-offs between mutually exclusive needs and desires.
Clearly some people want comfort, not opportunities.
They might complain, but it's a show.
Sloth + Entitlement are a potent and real mix.
Believe it or not, some people choose to not work, yet demand to be taken care of.
*@patrickbolding9729* If you believe "they want opportunity" primarily, talk to some women.
Women tend to want comfort first and opportunity second.
Your statement I'm replying to is mostly a guy thing.
*Reply to:* _"People don't want comfort, they want opportunity."_
Necessities and safety got way more expensive and luxury got much more available, see the problem?
Pinker has written some great books. But he reminds me of the dog in a burning building meme! "Everything is fine!"
It's not that academics are more concerned with status than before but that the people who are concerned with status are being hired for academic positions.
TDS has made so many people I once admired seem useless.
Don't worry everyone, things have not gotten worse for the new generation because the new generation has Netflix, air conditioning, and affordable long distance phone calls . . . . . .
The new generations in the West and much of the developing world are much better off than pre 20th Century.
That's just a fact.
Whether things are better or worse depends on when you compare to, a century ago families with six children were living in single rooms and nobody thought it was unusual
He's asking us to be mindful of gains as well as losses, and to be grateful of what we have that our forebears didn't, and that given multiple improvements of past decades, our current problems could be solved, just as those things were. I think he's implying that optimism brings about endeavour to create solutions, where despair does not.
@@margaretwinson402exactly. Very underrated comment, you should be top for everyone to see. This is exactly the problem today - too many people keen on whining and complaining, and on wasting their time on internet/social media instead of going out there and figure it out. That is a major drawback of all of this wonderful technology: a major distraction from DOING and living life.
I live in the middle east. When I was younger all we had were fans and it was managable. Nowadays come June and it's unbearable without A.C.
He lost me at "Learn how to mitigate climate change." Anyone poising themselves as an upholder of scientific pragmatism who can't see the flaw there loses all credibility in my eyes.
Agreed
WTF? He lost all credibility just because you disagree with him about climate change?
That’s so stupid.
Ditto. Stopped it there.
@@patrickwoods2213 No, not because I disagree with him, because the entire argument/theory he's supporting there is absolutely riddled with very clear logical fallacies and falsehoods, right down to the sentence I quoted him saying - the moon is what you get if you mitigate climate change. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of whether you are able to identify falsehoods or not. Ergo, I can see that he is not able to think properly and so, there was no question there to me, he simply lost all credibility to talk authoritatively about scientific matters at that point - which is what he was attempting to do. It's like going to a financial advisor and him saying "I just signed up to this pyramid scheme, join me!" ...You know he's not bright enough to give good advice. Get it?
Before we go any further, I know that there's no genuine rebuttal to that as I've spent a lot of time looking into it and the fact that you think me stupid for pointing out the obvious is an admission that you haven't looked into it, or, if you have, that you failed to apply basic logic when analysing the matter.
You see, the entire thing is really about a widespread inability to reason properly, that's why you insulted me rather than actually argue, - an inability to reason properly - that's climate change in a nutshell.
[typo]
@@patrickwoods2213 No, not because I disagree with him, because the entire argument/theory he's supporting there is absolutely riddled with very clear logical fallacies and falsehoods, right down to the sentence I quoted him saying - the moon is what you get if you mitigate climate change.
That's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of whether you are able to identify falsehoods or not. Ergo, I can see that he is not able to think properly and so, there was no question there to me, he simply lost all credibility to talk authoritatively about scientific matters at that point - which is what he was attempting to do. It's like going to a financial advisor and him saying "I just signed up to this pyramid scheme, join me!" ...You know he's not bright enough to give good advice. Same applies here.
You see, the entire thing is really about a widespread inability to reason properly, that's why you went for a personal attack rather than a reasoned argument, - an inability to reason properly - it's therefore unsurprising that you'd fail to understand why that one sentence jumps out as a clear red card in terms of what it reveals about his reasoning.
[typo]
This guy lived in the unreal world of higher education much too long. He has no idea of how things truly are in today’s world - if he ever has an idea.
I agree. Most centrist academics are still out of touch
49:08
Everything he just said was apologist nonsense that doesn’t apply to modern society. It was intentionally dismissive and used ancient history, which again, isn’t the world we’ve been living in since the end of the Second World War at least.
So, "before I was born" is now considered "ancient history" is it?
His point of reference is the enlightenment - pre and post.
Young people today think the boomers just got house keys handed to them on a single salary when they turned 18. We didn't. I had to work 16 hour days from I was 16 till I was around 35 -including weekends and holidays -I had 3 days off when I turned 30, besides that I did little but work.
Thats how I got my house -by working a full lifetime of regular hours for a single 100% job, -in 20 years not 50.
Many stories reflect that. I also needed the second income when I updated from apartment to house, and i STILL have about 20 years of loans - 200.000 dollars, to deal with after all that work.
If you young people stop complaining, stop wasting a fortune on useless degrees in sociology, gender studies and arts, and ACTUALLY do the hard work while you are young and have the health an energy, YOU TOO can get a house.
But it takes decades of hard work, dedication, saving, and living cheaply, and that isn't something most young people today are willing to do.
I've been completely unable to get this across to younger people. One set of my grandparents made it work because they ran 2 businesses out of their house and lived in a tiny section of it. The other set were both medical staff in the army and got lucky picking up a house in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and modern convenience literally built up around them over 50 years. I'm reaching the point soon where I get to choose a crappy house I fix up, or a business that I live out of. The problem is we've raised children to BE children when we should raise kids to become adults.
Whilst I’m not necessarily disagreeing with all you have said here, and I 100% agree with the fact that there is the sentiment that ‘boomers had it easy’ and got things handed to them, which is blatantly untrue, there is still the indisputable fact that house prices are proportionally so much more than wages are today. House prices from 1970s to 1990s were around about 4 X your annual wage; it is now agreed to be between 8 and 9 X your wage (this is data from UK). Both my parents were able to buy houses on a single income in the 80s with lower middle-class incomes, something which is virtually unheard of now.
Again, this is not to say that ‘things were easier back then’ or ‘people didn’t have to work hard back then’ (both ridiculous statements); but on the issue of buying a house, it most certainly IS a lot harder.
@@Paddypoos What do you think the reasons are that housing is relatively more expensive though?
As far as I can tell, the reasons are largely because of government regulation on zoning, building, logging etc. Population growth and a surge of immigration don't help at all. Demand for modern convenience in the house is another. Scaring everyone off from working in the trades and demeaning anyone who works construction is yet another. Also refusal to move to an area where housing is cheaper is yet another. Where I currently live the housing is quite literally 4x the cost than if I were to buy a couple states over.
The implication I hear is always that these greedy old boomers are clinging onto their houses and refuse to sell at a reasonable rate. Or that someone who is never you or anyone you know should just be magically popping out affordable housing exactly where you want to live and that you shouldn't have competition for it. I'd love to hear if you have another perspective.
Oh I’m really not talking about solutions here, just stating what the problem is regarding housing, and that it is definitely one thing where this generation have got it worse than boomers. There will be people far far more expert in this who will be able to explain the reasons than I am.
For the record, I have never blamed boomers not selling at reasonable rates for this. I would say a couple of things to your points: you’re right, I and others could move to some random town in the north, but this would be moving hundreds of miles away from family, friends, the places we call our home. I personally find it difficult believe that such rich countries like the UK and US (I’m assuming you’re American?) can’t solve this problem and that many of our great cities are essentially off limits to millions of people.
Also, I’d add to your list of reasons, certainly in the UK (have no idea about this in the US) but deregulation of the rent market has clearly led to this problem as well. It’s become a lucrative business to buy houses and lend them out, and thus far less houses are actually available to buy. But yes, I agree with your points in general
@@Paddypoos Yes, that is true. And I think it is a massive problem, I agree completely. At the same time, when I was establishing myself we spent about 50% of my income on food, today food is around 15% of income or less, depending on how and what you shop of course. I think there needs to be some middle ground. Cheaper housing for especially first time buyers is necessary, but at the same time we cuddle our kids way too much. Hard work is lost on too many today.
Sorry this men is not convincing enough for me!
Reduce the number of poor kids compared to middle class kids ✔️.Achieved by pushing the middle class into the lower class. I think when stating goals you need to be more specific.
Excellent point.
52:20 Pinker mis-spoke but perhaps it was a Freudian slip when he said, "a third of babies died before childbirth." With abortion, that's probably true today.
Those were parents that wanted to have a child.
Thank you Konstantin and Francis for a fantastic, enriching and thought-provoking interview with Dr. Pinker. Warm regards from Michigan! Your work is so important for free thought.
I saw him giving a talk during the Future-of-Science conference in Venice 2006. Later he talked to Lisa Randall, Marc Hauser and Daniel Dennett. Really fascinating people one could get really close to. Peter W. Atkins was also there. He wrote the physical chemistry text book we used at university. Fond memories indeed.
Astonishing how politically naïve they are though
Wow, this brings me back. I discovered most of these people and many more around that same time. They all run in the same circles, it's a whole ecosphere of public intellectuals. Many of these people were brought together by John Brockman, a literary agent specializing in scientific literature, and the founder of the Edge project. At the time TH-cam had just started and you could find speeches, lectures, and interviews with all these people. I just found them and their work fascinating. I was still young, naive, and idealistic, so it was great times. Eventually though, I became more interested in politics and political philosophy and the naive Western liberal worldview that all these people shared became a turn off to me.
And funny you should mention Peter Atkins - I picked up Chemistry as a hobby in my mid 20's and I used his 'Chemical Principles - The Quest for Insight' as my introduction to chemistry. I found a PDF of it online for free. Combined with free lectures from MIT and an online Chemistry forum, I was able to learn Chemistry on my own. It was a lot of fun.
@@LeeGee Yes, I was a bit shoked when he said "Trump loves Putin". I mean I cannot read Trumps mind but I don't think that he loves Putin or Xi Jinping. I think that in universities and "bubbles" like that you rarely come across different political perspectives. Which is good, because sience should not be political. Steven Pinker knows a lot of facts that can prove how things got better in the last decades but maybe he has a blind spot on some of the more culture pop topics.
@@JollyRoger183 "Trump loves Putin" paraphrases the psychological observation that authoritarian personalities cling together...
Only last week I thought "oh, I wish they would interview Steven Pinker some day..." and here we are. Thank you!
I heard was "Trump loves Putin." I'm out.
Another case of Harvard elites with TDS. Smart people are the least likely to question their assumptions because they think they are smarter than everyone else.
Snow flake
Why are you saying women are not having kids? Couples have decided not to have children. Men make these decisions as well.
When I was a child living in China my father spent $30 to call home from Canada. One call $30.
@@64standardtrickyness Well yes but someone had to pay for the 3 CCP agents listening in to the wiretap.
Is your ability to use Zoom worth more than your ability to afford a house?
"Secular countries are the best places to live. God hasn't died in Afghanistan."
Ever think it might matter which god is in control?
There there Mr Pinker, I'm sure we could find a bunch of statistics that show why Harvard is only "getting better."
Sir Pinker, another Sophisticated Elmer Fudd, chewing on his own Cud, buried in his own Mud. Living in his private Bubble, staying out of real world Trouble 🍦🤡
Look at the number of black lesbians with tenure, for example.
@@TimPool.BeanieCivilWarlord Very droll, I chuckled at that one.
As usual, Jordan Peterson misunderstands Nietzsche. It is Christian values that Nietzsche opposed. For Nietzsche, Christianity is nihilism.
24:21 Ugh, it’s like this dude’s never been anywhere else or talked to people from anywhere else of their than US/Western Europe! He even bunched up Eastern Europe with the west! 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Pinker talks so much sense. He’s not concerned about driving up views and engagement by publishing click bait. He acknowledges the problem but sees the true bigger picture, and focuses of describing that rather than small pockets of controversial behaviour in society. Good on him and much respect 👏
This man is so out of touch with the younger generations. He has spent too much high time in academia.
So just be “reasonable” is what Mr Pinker is saying. Tell people to be rational and everything will be fine. It’s not like we had 1500 years of intense liturgical rituals prior to “the enlightenment”.
And what do those rituals have to do with what is being discussed?
@@JoeBeThere if you know anything about how irrational people are. If you have never read books like Thinking Fast and Slow, or The Righteous Mind, or The User Illusion, or any book on evolutionary psychology then you will never understand why people need structures like religion. Once you understand that then you need to do some comparative religion and seek the healthiest one. But I cannot tell you which one it is, you need to go through the process of finding that out through trial and error. But understand that Descartes (the patriarch of modernity) was wrong. You don’t think therefore you are… you believe and are then you rationalize what you are doing. Best of luck.
@@marcoaslan people are spiritual and need to belong to groups. We all want to connect to something bigger than ourselves. That’s human nature. I understand. But the enlightenment was about casting off all if the evil that religious based institutions had ingrained themselves in the top centers of power for a thousand of years. A thousand years of backward violent superstitious mean spirited authority that was law. It was wrong then, it’s wrong now. People are fickle, they are irrational, but that shouldn’t stop our attempts to make a better world
@@JoeBeThere The reason you hold this view is influenced by prevalent narratives in university lectures and classes, which then spilled to the general public. While these ideals aim to inspire positive change, they end up promoting a one-sided perspective. This "matrix of belief" perpetuates the notion that the Middle Ages were the "dark ages," overshadowed by the enlightenment, which is seen as the only valid perspective.
Universities have been steeped in enlightenment thinking for centuries, creating an echo chamber where this ideology is omnipresent, like a hall of mirrors from which one cannot escape. Mr Pinker cannot pick and choose which enlightenment ideals he wants. The Soviet Union could be viewed as an extreme manifestation of enlightenment ideals, attempting to control every aspect of life, simplifying the world to make it predictable.
We cling to the idea that reality progresses towards some notion of 'progress' (whatever that means) rarely questioning if our current beliefs might be today’s superstitions. This mechanical view of the world has even influenced how we live. I mean, people don't even build their homes anymore with their own hands-except if you're part of the Amish community. ;)
@@JoeBeThere My comment got removed by the algorithm so I will post it again.
The reason you hold this view is influenced by the prevalent narratives in university lectures and classes, which aim to inspire change for the better but end up promoting a one-sided perspective. This "matrix of belief" perpetuates the notion that the Middle Ages were the "dark ages," overshadowed by the enlightenment, which is seen as the only valid perspective.
Universities have been drenched in enlightenment thinking for centuries, creating an echo chamber where this ideology is omnipresent, like a hall of mirrors from which one cannot escape. The Soviet Union could be viewed as an extreme manifestation of enlightenment ideals, attempting to control every aspect of life, simplifying the world to make it predictable.
We cling to the idea that reality progresses towards some notion of 'progress,' without questioning if our current beliefs might be today’s superstitions. This mechanical view of the world has even influenced how we live. I mean, people don't even build their homes anymore with their own hands... except if you are part of the Amish community ;)
Ask yourself why are we in front of screens ? How did we end up here?
As the boomers said during the Vietnam War, " Make love, not war." Not hard to imagine teenagers preferring getting stoned and fornicating to risking their lives defending the freedoms of South East Asians threatened by being over run by Chinese Communist backed totalitarians. Both the young at home and in Vietnam understood fully the need for camouflage. Students got deferments (or fled to Canada), while working class kids got drafted. Millions died brutally in South East Asia as the communist influenced "Youth Movement" in the west completely undermined American efforts to defend the Asians from Communist takeover. The millions who died in South East Asia as a result were never much discussed by the boomers of that "Anti War Movement". This shameful history has not been addressed even 60 years later, and their Marxism remained neatly in vogue.
Please name one war, just one that was fought for ‘freedom.” There isn’t one. It’s like Smedley Butler said, war is a racket. The object of every society should be the promotion of all people people in that society. If you are punching down, you are being manipulated by people who want to keep you fighting so you don’t look in their direction
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me- GenX
You mean words constantly hurt them -fixed that for you
@@kham6006GenX was taught this saying in kindergarten. Why weren't you?
18:08 that's about to change massively with their plummeting population
Nonono the Chinese Communist government will implement arranged marriages... 😉HA Not really.
China is kind of like "the West" as in the people will be highly distracted and dissatisfied with drab marital situations.
I heard A LOT of knife crime and "lay flat protests" and other life killing situations.
Pinker is one of those people who sounds very intelligent when talking about something you don't know anything about... But pretty much only then.
I agree,I think most academics are clueless,about anything outside of a university.
I was actually going to post something very akin to this.
I like how he says these things with a smile.
Pinker, like most atheists, end up saying "common sense" "common good" or even worse "I wouldn't like to live in a place that...." as the basis for a godless morality without recognizing that it's untennable. Without objective foundations Pinker cannot say "slavery is wrong, let's not do it", but rather a more academic "I don't like slavery, let's not do it" which put both slavers and abolitionistsc on the same moral level.
"Greatest good for the greatest number" is an idea as good as "more power for me and screw all of you". He even says "all men are created equal" without believing in a Creator. He's making "democracy" "happiness" as objective truths when they are not.
Morality has nothing to do with believing in Gd. Slavery is not wrong because it's religiously wrong, it's wrong because no one wants to be a slave. Causing people pain is wrong, because it hurts them. Very simple.
@@sofiasininen8268 How did YOU decide that "it's wrong because nobody wants X" is the measure? How did you decide that hurting people is wrong? Aside from personal preference, of course. It's circular reasoning.
@@rodrigodepierola Religious morality is also circular reasoning. "It's wrong because God wants X" Why does God think it is wrong? "Because he said so in his holy book."
The New Testament definitely reflects what the people of that time period thought was "the common good" (apocalyptic Jews inspired by Jesus' teachings and his disciples inspired by ancient Greek philosophy). Christians constantly "update" their beliefs and morals according to the times (new denominations, reformation, disestablishment). Which is a good thing. But, it shows that Christians never had one absolute objective moral system of ethics. Religious values are a reflection of human values changing over time, as opposed to a divinely inspired absolute morality.
Both believers and non believers have a difficult time defining morality. It is a 3000 year old philosophical problem. I think keeping your mind open and reading about psychology, neuroscience, biology, philosophy and even theology in general (not only your religion), and you can find you own answers.
@@FoivosApostolou it's not circular. It is God who says what right or wrong, that's it. Killing is objectively wrong only because God says so. Without a fixed moral point, all moral issues are subjective and, therefore, equally (in)valid.
"Run to the phone--it's long distance!"
I tell my kids that we used to say that in the US.
In the USSR, long-distance calls had to be ordered in advance if you had a phone, or made in central locations if you didn't.
Speaking of kids, they are a big source of the meaning whose disappearance FF laments.
He's not wrong on everything, but Steven Pinker is a very very average intellect.
Steven's more than a little out of touch if he is just going to preach about global increases in SOL, while ignoring the decreases in SOL in the west. Inflation is stealing value from workers, pensions, and anyone who isnt a bank at a rate that has never been seen.
It is worthwhile to look at the lack of incentives for family formation and especially the wealth of disincentives for the same. Values aren't the issue. Laws that punish married men are the issue.
Yeah.. and it has nothing to do with the fact that raising children is very expensive today.
@@gonx9906 Raising children doesn't have to be expensive. Raising entitled, pampered, and spoiled children is expensive. Wives are expensive. Ex-wives even more so.
@@glennmitchell9107 yeah, just a spoiled child needs to eat or have an education, lol.
@@gonx9906 Once a kid can read, all he needs is a reading list and a library card. For the rest, there's government cheese and salty crackers.
I used to think Steven Pinker was one of the bright lights at Harvard. Someone with integrity and dedication to scholarly research.
However, the response he gave on religion was the most jejune, puerile, high-school level response I've heard in a while. Clearly, he has not thought deeply about this issue, and I'm not sure he's capable of it.
His attitude was "enlightenment good, religion bad" as if the enlightenment came out of nowhere and just happened. He is for rational inquiry and pursuit of truth but has no idea what these ideas grew out of and what they are based on.
Talk about prejudiced and biased.
In its most basic terms, to me, it goes like this:
People who hope they can see their families again believe in some kinda God.
People who want absolute freedom to do or say anything in the here and now choose atheism.
Either way, there is a fee. The question comes down to whether one believes it should be paid now or later.
the enlightenment was a move away from the absolute power religion had in society
Another "really smart" person with either with Trump Derangement Syndrome or a total lack of understanding of Trump's strategy vis-a-vis Putin and foreign policy.
Trump doesn't have a 'strategy' for anything.
Did l hear wrong, or did Pinker say that Trump loves Putin!?
@@elizabethmartinez4086 Well, he is always praising him (especially during his term in office)
Trump doesn't have any foreign policy strategy, he's pretty indifferent to foreign affairs generally. TDS is a mythical entity created by 'really smart people' to deflect legitimate concern over Trump's often bats**t crazy decision making.
@@faustoferrari4303 You, also, show an lack of understanding how Trump operates on the world stage.
I appreciated Pinker’s response to Peterson. Anyone who says the Enlightenment is bad is damning the existence of the United States.
Tell us you’re out of touch with the average person without telling us you’re out of touch with the other person
He’s like the circus and bread used to be literally a circus and bread is so much better now got Netflix MMA Delta
I'm always astonished by the crazy levels of anger, crass criticism and sheer belligerence expressed by so many that comment on these discussions (and that's what they are -- DISCUSSIONS). What makes Steven Pinker such a valuable participant isn't necessarily his ideas or beliefs, it's that he's always been a model of respectful and conscientiously pleasant discourse, as someone who actually listens to others and tries his very best to respond in a way that is at the very least honest, honorable and never hostile -- whether or not you agree with him.
Is guy for real...seriously
Generally I like what Pinker says but his characterisation of our morals as coming from "universal human wellbeing" at 49:28 is very weak. The enlightenment was a mixed movement of philosophers, not a popular movement. It resulted in the genocide of the French Revolution, and later the blood bath of the USSR, where atheist doctrine was imposed on a christian substrate. We get our values and egalitarianism from christianity. Even the agnostic historian Tom Holland can see that. The enlightenment just piggy-backs in on that. All the benefits he attributes to the enlightenment started before the enlightenment.
He's an Elitist. Nationalism is a GOOD thing. Meaning is the Seed of the Tree that is Civilization.
Pinker is the definition of toxic positivity
Pinker said, with a straight face, that someone who read one hundred works of classic literature wouldn't be educated? Uh, incorrect Steven.
Marking and inwardly digesting is also required...
Reading and understanding aren't the same thing
Brilliant. I listen to a lot of intelligent people and talking heads, and Steven Pinker is refreshing in his rationality
Steven Pinker is kid of in an Ivory tower, he clearly does not understand that economically it is CLEAR with many stats that it has gotten worse. Wages are generally statis while cost of living has gone up steadily. Job stability is very poor, everything is contracted now and turn over rates are very high. Homelessness is higher than ever. What is this dude smoking? Oh that's right, he's a rich professor from a prestigious school who is completely disconnected from the real world.
There are some ways we are getting worse. Housing, sluggish institutions, stagnant wages, homelessness - ALL of these things are because of over population due to mass immigration. I believe politicians are only getting away with mass immigration due to our abundant resources due to technology softening the blow. We cope with so many people because we can indeed produce so much food. The housing crisis is concealed from us behind the idea that we need to build more houses - something that seems eminently possible to us because we will be able to get the resources to gether to build more and more and more.
@@umwha The immigrant demographic is young and energetic. Human beings are a resource, both in terms of their consumption (essential in a market economy) and their productive outputs (including social interactions). The problem is the political management of the said economy. Social behaviour is shaped by economic pressures driven by free-market capitalism pursuing it's intrinsic aims - increasing growth by stimulating demand by psychological manipulation and novelty. (Packard, The Hidden Persuaders)
@@rburnsuk Yes the immigrant population is young and mostly male. Human behavior is indeed shaped by economic pressures. That’s why young men leave the Middle East, Africa, Pakistani and the third world to come to England. Once they are there they get given hotels for literally years, free healthcare , and provisions . Meanwhile they can engage in other money making activities like organized crime .
As I watch this I find Mr Pinker eloquent, amusing, personable and clearly very well educated. On some subjects actually very acute and interesting. But so ethereal and detached from reality that it is hard to define. Something kept niggling me. Who else was like this? So pleasant, so charming, so well mannered, so privileged, so complacent and yet so terribly wrong?
Marie Antoinette.
TDS 22 minutes in
I think an interesting observation is that Christian predominant countries birthed democracies and that the demolishment of Christian cultural values can be attributed to the manifestation of radical immoral movements across the Western world. Christianity can be seen in many ways as the foundational building blocks of our current democracies. Countries which are objectively more liveable usually have this precursor in common.
The life of young people is not richer today than it was, say, 1958. Easier, maybe, more full of entertainment or easily accessed information. Franklly, though, I am glad I grew up when I did.
I remember growing up in the 70s and it was normal for people to die in their 60s.
Good times!
It may be worse than 1958 but it's also better than 1928.
@@workhorse7134people continue to die in their 60’s from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and kidney disease due to horrible fast food diets. Plus the use of legal narcotic and illegal drugs is much more rampant than it was in the 80’s.