WithTheEconomist
What is cutting-edge research likely to reveal about our human nature in 2013? Steven Pinker, professor at Harvard University, gives his predictions in an interview with The Economist’s Lane Greene at The Economist’s World in 2013 Festival on December 8th 2012.
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Steven Pinker: Human nature in 2013
The Q&A is predictably terrible.
I've just watched the introduction so far, but I have to pause the video to comment on the preposterousness of it.
To paraphrase: "Steven Pinker is going to talk to us. But before I let him on, I just want to say, isn't left-wing politics just totally messed up and evil? Anyway, now I've got that off my chest, here's Steven Pinker."
With regast to last question and answer. Dr. Pinker is spot on, the faster we can get this radical feminism and homosexual movements out of our system the faster both parties can co-exist at their own without passing any kind of judgement, cause there should not be any.
A great speech, and he needed neither notes nor powerpoint. That is rare nowadays!
Most of the greatest instances of bloodletting in history and the most severe, never ending conflicts are caused by a difference of religious opinion. "My god is better than your god, therefore you must die." You can cloak that fact using $10 words all you want, but at the end of the day that's what it boils down to.
It's time to overcome our animal nature ~~► this will help you: go to TruthContest◙com and read "The Present"
I'm not entirely sure whether Pinker is actually Aware of what he is saying but I like it 🙂 Leviathan = international community XD
is this jewish clown a historian? why does he give himself the right to misinform the public about the crusades? males and females aren't biologically distinguishable? is he a biologist? omfg what a moron!!!
The comment about communism from Robert Greene at the beginning is so arrogant and unnecessary in a topic about human nature. The goal of communism is not even "to remake human kind" in the first place… it's just about another model of production and distribution of wealth – as if capitalism does not suppress some human rights and instincts and as if it was human natures answer of running an economy…
* I am not even a communist, i just don't like dogmatic and biased thinking, which has no place in scientific talk.
It is immensely frustrating when people as intelligent as Dr. Pinker develop their ideas about 'human nature' within a paradigm of thought that has fundamentally deviated from humans ways of natural existence, in this case caused by our species' transition from foraging communities to agrarian ones. There is overwhelming evidence that human nature is actually at it's root altruistic and egalitarian, but that property systems that began with agriculture created new social systems that revolved around ownership and competition. The passing-down of property also hugely diminished women's rights, as the nuclear family developed for the first time, and women were seen more as property and means to creating more 'human capital' than as individuals and the leaders of our species they once were. To base all your arguments about human nature within an incorrect neo-Hobbesian frame of reference that, even if it were correct, represents only around 5% of our entire species existence is simply not good enough. There is a big difference between adaptation to permeating social constructs, and more basic human nature. That said, Steven Pinker has based his entire career off of these ideologies and I highly doubt he will ever change his tune.
Oh, and P.S. It is precisely because of the upshot from Kurzban's insights into morality that Pinker's suggestion of some kind of World Government would a total and utter disaster. Hey, no one's perfect.
I found Sopolsky's discovery that hierarchies are not useful to be fascinating. I think it speaks more to the relevance of anarchistic nativism than Pinker's view. I also think measuring violence is a tricky equation. I simply do not accept that tribal war ever slaughtered, for example, 50 to 100 million indigenous to the Americas or 20 million Russians by Nazis or 10 million kulaks etc. I don't think Pinker can support the claim that we are less violent today in nation-state organizations. I think violence is a workaround – a shortcut – to which the powerful resort when they can't get their way. I don't see it as an essential part of human nature. But it's a fun conversation which we will probably see resolved in our lifetimes, certainly in the lifetimes of our children, because if we don't resolve it there will be no species whose nature we are discussing.
ass
I like that us autistic people are less moral in the sense Pinker is talking about ^)^
We need to spread our genes far and wide to minimize instinctive morality ._.
If Steven Pinker has a gene for baldness and still has a full head of hair at that age, it must be recessive.
It's good and all that you say violence is on the decease. the problem is, it's not like you have a whole bunch of super rigorous and highly accurate records from BC. And from pre-history? Well, you got nothing. I don't doubt that it's true, I'd just like to know what it's based on.
There is no such a thing as human nature. The issues are based on human behavior derived from culture and environment. change in environment = change in behavior.
Pinky is such a weiner and his classes suck. He makes you buy his books then basically reads them to you. At least he has a soothing voice that's easy to sleep to.
2:00—Says that one aspect of "human nature" that "we" are coming to realize as definite—the drive to moralize and pass judgment on others. Sorry, that describes only the last few thousand years at most, the vast minority of human time.
Morality is the bad guy now. Has this guy even thought that there might be a reason for it to exist?
3:48 … here Steve had miss economic interpretation of the heterogeneous nature
of capital …. therefore 'moral' is just one of the tool to get some kind of a capital
By leaving out of your speech, the blood letting caused by the wars that the United States had started only by greed,accumulating
The world wealth, you are not being impartial or honest.Did you made a mistake??
I grew up in gangs, in the streets and later in life turned my life around and have spent many years helping others in life! Having said that, and not wanting to appear pretentious in any way, or intellectual but rather just using plain common sense and insight gained over decades, let me use street language. The professhitter doth talk shit.
As per the comment at 13:36 It is not irrational to "discriminate" based on gender or ethnic averages when we are trying to determine society wide expectations for the distribution of the affected traits. It is irrational to discriminate on a number of basis, and it is always irrational to discriminate on the basis of population averages when dealing with an individual. One cannot apply or assume an individual will be at the average for the population with which they are members.