Edited by Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
In “The Elephant in the Brain,” Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson argue that human beings are primates that are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception.
But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our ugly motives, the better and thus we don’t like to talk or even think about our selfishness. This is “the elephant in the brain.”
Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. This book confronts our hidden motives directly and tracks down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights.
How male friendships can survive without the pub
Men aren’t staying in touch through lockdown like women – and it’s all evolution’s fault
6 February 2021 • 6:00am
Men need physical closeness and an endorphin rush to bond - and the pub is the ideal place
Credit: E+/AleksandarGeorgiev
The last time I saw my friends was August 2019,
writes Simon Lewis. That feels like something you’d confess to a therapist. But are we that unusual? We’re old school friends, scattered around the country by jobs and family, so a beer every few months is perfectly normal and we never worried about missing one. Lockdown looked easy enough to ride out. You can always stay in touch by text, right?
but rather change how your mind works by the time you re done with them.
These categories could be thought of as a hierarchy, a way of evaluating what you re reading for its potential value. At the bottom, you have the life hacky books. In the middle, you have the informative, educational books, and at the top, you have the philosophical mind-bending books.
But I soon realized this wasn t just about books. It was about thoughts.
The way we think can be broken down into similar tiers, and all meaningful self-improvement, attainments of knowledge, advances in maturity, skill development, and independent thought require graduating through these successive levels.