Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Barone and im a resident fellow here. American enterprise institutent and its my pleasure today to welcome to aei professor Cass Sunstein. Hes a robber wants a University Professor at harvard law schoolp he formerly was professor of law and Political Science at the university of chicago for many years. He was the administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairs, may none as oira from 2009 to 2012 in the obama administration. He has written more than a dozen books and im happy to say he has spoken a number of times at aei and we consider him a good friend of aei. He is here today to talk about his latest book, which is called republic. I think a reader would not have pronounced the word that way 20 years ago but its an important and interesting book, so please welcome Cass Sunstein to aei. [applause] okay, well its a thrill to be back here. You all do amazing work and i have learned so much what is produced here legal and regulatory matters and i really thank you on behalf of millions of people whom you never will meet who read what you produce. I will tell you the origin and the origins of this book. I was blessed or cursed for the last several years to live in the waldorf towers which is pretty heady stuff for a country boy from massachusetts and i lived there because my wife ambassador to the United Nations and that is where the ambassador lives. For the first few months, the people at the waldorf towers would greet me in the morning and the evening by saying hello mr. Power, good evening mr. Power, how are you mr. Power . And that was fine except that one of them had become quite a good friend after several monthm in the sense that i knew him and talk to him every day and i was a little awkward that he was calling me by name other than my own. I said to him after a few months of some embarrassment, its casn sunstein. You can call me cast or mr. Sunstein as you choose but my name is Cass Sunstein. Looked at me with incredulity and he said thats unbelievablel thats amazing. You look exactly like mr. Power. That was intriguing to me in the sense that he was not an irrational person. He was updating basically his belief space on the new information and he believed it was more like they that there were two people who looked exace with the same, Walking Around his building and thes ambassadors husband had a different name from her. Given his prior beliefs that was not irrational. It turns out to be wrong but itt was not irrational. And the falsehood emanating from the other side. This has implications not only for our capacity to handle problems. There is a phenomenon party is him which isnt as ugly as racism but which in some respects is larger. The number of people who would be unhappy if their child married someone of the opposing clinical party is higher than the percentage of people who would be unhappy if their child marry someone of a different race. Amazed by this finding, a few years ago i tried to find out whether people would be more unhappy if their child married io we are and as of 27 teen it is immensely higher than theyeyimml couple of years ago or a couple look decades when people did not care if they married someone of a Different Political Party and it is showing up in other measures so people actually discriminate is an Employment Decisions ofga their Political Party is different from their own here are some issues where party is of is causinges problems. With everything should be done about infrastructure chances are good something should be done about infrastructure and that intensity of disagreement between republicans and democrats is relatively modest yet nothing has happened. The usf is a technical talk for authorization for use of military force to get that in areas where that level of consensus is pretty high is really difficult with respect to immigration and judges we could get a much more agreement than we are observing like the Nuclear Option taken by the democrats than the republicans is testimony to the difficulty to move beyond Party Affiliation in washington my job in washington i notice that with some meetings of people with a Political Party will bonding very sharp disagreement between the privately expressed and thtion and publicly expressed immoderation in that is between both Political Parties with a poignant plea what if it was the case that our privately expressed moderation would not cost us our jobs and to the extent of which people were complaining were also complaining a social media on the capacity to retain their jobs if they expressed moderation that is very visible to them. W im goin so now i will tell you aboutthr three empirical studies which are replicating in the experimental setting every hour of every day are twitter and facebook. The first comes from colorado with the idea of getting people from boulder boulder, leftofcenter together to discuss Climate Change come affirmativeaction and people from Colorado Springs rightofcenter to do the same thing with a reality check to make sure Colorado Springs participants were rightofcenter but we recorded anonymous views privately to have them deliberate together with the publics verdict and then record the views privately after words so why interested me was only one question how is that shifts to the anonymous post deliberation . About those three issues and they were recording those judgments that nobody would ever see . Here is what happened. People in Colorado Springs were more unified than before. Before it they talked they would say i worry about Climate Change maybe there should be the International Agreement but not after the discussion people live boulder thought affirmative action has problems is somecr discrimination and diversity after they talked briefly it was crushed in the private anonymous statements for go second to they got moree confident. People in Colorado Springs samesex unions sought were not sure they did not like them but they were sure. Re. Thought the most disturbing of all science is that those to the right to but it was this range after the experiment it was here operating from different political universes live their private anonymous use in view that is the social media constructs that capacity to create that functional equivalent of the experimental groups. Why does this happen . I have seen the tapes of the discussion we could roll them but first with Colorado Springs the place where theyo started kind of skepticalmber o the number of those that supported the International Treaty were few. That is not to the amazing but the statistical inevitability but those arguments were numerous but if people are listening to one another and human beings typically do they would have been more skeptical about the treaty after the arguments but in boulder the exact same things happened in the bearer. With affirmativeaction, the argument that supported it crashed the argument that undermines it and then people thought that was supportive of it. Second is slightly more subtle and rica see this in our daily lives with what products to abide, of which people to light gore which political view and here is the phenomenon most dont have a ton of intermissionst tend toward the middle day are tentative because of humility that it diminishes they become confident more extreme. Confidence is increased by corroborated you can see that of both cities and corroboration makes for more intensity of commitment to the view and the third involves reputation they dont want to look likeke croesus store idiots inn front of one another so they say plenty even if they did not before then in that private anonymous statementt it to say what they said publicly they dont believe so that prided view runs upp with the public view it doesnt involve professors or think tanks it involves the world. And it benefits the study on a three judge panel in the United States that possible composition reagan reagin bush or Obama Obama Clinton clinton, Obama Clinton and bush bush clinton that is all that could be possible but here is the headline finding while the of Political Party is a pretty good predictor power judge will vote it is an fantastic but pretty good the Political Party of the to other judges of the panel isot at least as good and often a better predictor of the judge will vote if you want to know then dont ask north day appointed those to other judges will in the aggregate data a 13 percentage point difference roughly 13 Percentage Points witches concerning but not catastrophic but the likelihood of day liberal vote this third year 40 higher than the likelihood on the all republican panel. So a judge of that panel but the r on the rrr panel to show it how they voted eggs forget. But the d panel have thee votes. W they can do what they want. Why is the d on the d d r panel or in more moderation . The d on the old d payable is bolder and the old r panel is Colorado Springs springs, we are observing is legal professional judges in the lot as answering a legal question even so those selection to the random draw with the informational and cocoon. To understate the magnitude of the phenomenon we just collected votes costing and many thousands of votes but they did it i did not ask them to explore that a relative extremism of the opinion rather than just the up or down vote for perot did the woman win the sex discrimination . The epa . Nlrb . Were not asking the hour reasoning. Co here is one other story. In indeed other story and the research to star wars. The debate between the Great American screenwriter and george lucas of killing the main characters in return of m the jedi. They said you have to kill lipsky walker. Of george lucas he said live will not die. Then kill leia and he said leia will not die. That is not nice to dont go around killing people then kill yoda. He dies but he comes back. Then i think then he gives a speech about art to save the of movie has more emotional weight if somebody is lost along the way. And george lucas says very quickly. I dont like that and i partt believe that. The waldorfastoria they did not like i had a name for my wife but here it is about the emotional commitment proceeding the belief. Call baddie think he you look, the scale of one through 10 . That is you. [laughter] now what do you think . Tont do a second experiment with how good looking . That is you. [laughter] here is what the data suggest people are the asymmetrical upstaters that good news has a much bigger impact than bad news. If the credible outsider says i have learned. People believe the good news not the bad news. This is true for many personal things withis diabetes insomnia, of being trapped in the elevator that information end processing regularity is good news people will update much more reliably than bad dudes news the it turns out to have their logical foundations the identifiable part of the brave then good news bad news disappears. What i uninterested did is the political information sow heres what we did miss was replicated with more people with 300 plus americans based on their answers to questions about Climate Change believers. They would go 6. 3degree to lung negative degrees fire hype fahrenheit but the only thing that is interesting the week believers are at 3. Six. And roughly where they are. Levat with quite large samples with the good news conditiontio. You will not have a mouse in your house and youre better looking in you think and retold people scientists to come in with terrific news with those likely increase of one and 5 degrees. So the other half scientists have tough information for you it is worse than youti thought between seven and 11 degrees people get that on twitter and facebook and n the d your times. What do you think would happen . In this is a the bottom terse style. Ir without full 1 degree from 3. Six at 2. Six that is very dramatic it is a zero impact because that fits with everything you have fit before with in politics it is politically explosive. Terrorism and the effect of of minimumwage that bottom terse style will treat good news as informative news and bad news as who paid to them . The top terse style show the opposite. Strong believers not panicking moved more by the bad news than the good. Bad news it jumped 2 degrees good news sold them less than half. They will be jumping with their level of fear with new scientific information that is not as large so what you have just heard is basicallyre were a bunch of people are reacting asymmetrically so what is the explanation . We dont know. One possibility is i dont like that motivated reasoning. Her explan others were updating irrational way. It is a tale that they were thinking given my prior conviction that can be true because of unpaid in say i dont believe thats where is the good news. And now facebook 2016 our success if you can look through thousands of stories every day what would they be . It should be your news feed and we hope to achieve really . When it they are speaking about is architecture of control in which algorithms or individual choices are creating those rrr or d d d panels as a democratic society. Ible] jay jacobs where they urged great cities Like Washington war berlin or paris or small city versions may have a degree of homogeneity but he will come across people different tragedys or joyce or aspirations are failures in new will see them over the course of the week to enlarge you or disturb you teen negative your day and your life. And the beauty of that it is the opposite of the facebook version that with those unplanned that turned out to be the lifeblood of freedom in a democratic society. With liberty and selfgovernment that is largely possible to have that value placing human beings in contact with those dissimilar to themselves with thought and action id like those of which they are familiar. Such communication has been one of the of primary sources. [applause] they explore very interesting and eliminating presentation. With facebook Band Technology and social media has exacerbated the problem. In to be polarized an isolated. And to offer some solutions and the book. In with the guthrie regulation of the internet. Or how hopeful you are to say at 1. People should be polite to each other. There is the great psychologist had he not died young that said to be irrationally pessimistic first when you are sad when a bad thing happens. So in terms of hopefulness so is an autobiographical counterpoint to my star wars book is a problem rather than solutions focus. So talk about providers first then culture. E runnin use of a passage from 2016 and did those who have a value. And with that public pronouncement and with serendipity and did your news feed that random draw. With that algorithm for your own behavior and Something Else which is blossoming through private sector creativity. So the things that our different. Could so why are they sending this process . That day are even sillier than i thought then they were not unreasonable. The second approach with the use of rock rhythms but there are 12 health care right now now all facebook i am using thats as a word for social media generally lookk it looks like theyre both providing a service with the economic commitment to. With that larger ideological commitment. To come across geography to communicate with her children that is fantastic. And also having that increasingly large democratic function. They fell one of the things were doing garda great news providers. If things start carryingingsh 85 or 90 percent democratic. That word is ambiguous for any number of reasons would be in the economic interest but facebook almost certainly should not dot that. But the Facebook News feed is part of a and it is not of the source of polarization in america. The problem is with as a predilection. Some p so those that have aspirations they would like to see other stuff. Those people who write about things that i dont know about or those opposing views. So teetoo described as a description on hudson street in the 50s if you go down hudson street today, we can describe that with their accuracy. And to have speech codes andresi restrictions. Until much they paid the speakers. As one of those closed minded silos going on and go into that 58 percent democratic university. But nowadays that typical student goes 50 of a data problem rather than a solution . So i and volatile at day disadvantage on to pounces different one is of a National Leader than the of coauthor. You may be said in your own scholarship. But if any academic identify is in a way that is ideological discoverable it would be amazing with your views on 12 of those leading issues that would be amazing in a bad way. But in this way or in a free society the number of peopleof l that bought those democratic parties were full ofth nonsense ended then intellectual leadership they come from a the right in my current institution of harvard many of those top people that 92 percent number is alarming. Ve is is there an awarenessness of that the highest academic will levels . My general reaction so our country has a number of challenges. 40,000 people died on the highways that infrastructure is not a great the unemployment level while down is too high a. Gdp growth is not high enough. I say will not continue but you get the draft. Erious there are things that United States could make more progress. The educational institutions are the pride of the world with the best weather it evolves and it is really something. So i think academics in particular focus on universities the the main problem mailing America Today is not about what is happening in overland but people are dying prematurely is there an argument in republic for subsidiary titlf or the of a principal of deciding decisions of dave more vocal or federal or National Basis so does it make sense to have washington and decided transgendered after behavior for the state legislature for the city council inside that issue . Can you give us some of your thoughts in whats areas that might be helpful . That is a great question. There is an old Political Science paper called the gag rules and democracy. That people are at loggerheads. They may not talk of those procedures but talk of those that they can. This is a brilliant poinght connected to the point but the government will break down where that will in flame everybody for having states and localities and that isnt addressed in the of book but it is reasonable and fair inference but where we are in flamed it is paralyzing and it is a point but is suggest if this is just one of seven considerations . So in that environment to all context then there is an argument for a National Solution to prevent that crossover. Edit should not set those quality standards but to make sure it doesnt create adverse Environmental Impacts with that cross state rule that follows that theory environmental issue for Water Pollution of production and that might make sense given the capacity have a problem adversely affecting one another . Mib the National Authorities have capacity to figure out Environmental Impact which would suggest plausible. So it is super interesting that talking about transgendered does is subject to reasonable doubt in the way of race discrimination with a characteristic that is not the basis before mistreatment. With the National Government with the more capacious notion and with the National Age Discrimination to have provocative mess that some people think that kind of discrimination is life. And it doesnt mean there is a centralized solution. And those were the government is the of loggerhead that intensity of course, will diminish. Justice ginsburg pre Supreme Court statements on abortion it is not as great of an issue. Into 03 wade was a blunder. And then to resolve it in different ways. Maybe these problems are not new if you go back in time with the passage of the radioactive of 1930 with the of federal regulation of the Electronic Communications medium and that doctrine of 1987 which you say was warranted at that time as intelligent policy decision should not be revisited in this country you have peoplesal media having 123 million average movie attendance was 100 Million Television in the 50s and 60s one of the reasons for political success with the media and radio and television with the linkage of of those moments was common values and provide a common language. Thats technology is clearly changed the prior to 1930 but that was not ast connected can you think of any lessons on how to cope with that with the other america the . That helps to explain what exists that gone with the wind beats star wars with the inflationadjusted box office twitter. Those are what we really dont like. But star wars ands should be number one. [laughter] to give of right explanation. The star wars was released at a time with less diversity when don with the wind beat star wars is not better or more popular but in the era of more universal media. With that term universal media with the providers of p information have been referred to as general interest intermediary. So what could mueller but with those challenges even with that of level of universal experience because the ability of each of us to find 1 billion people has no precedents that somebody, need your least favorite politician should be in jail. Jorda most people love michael jordan. You could find a billion people that agree with you. Put those other times and the ability it is just great in a way to find yourself in the cozy is to place of the world that is different those you will agree with you and then the unity and that pre1930 period alsot had a civil war. So then pointing to a numbermb is officially addressed policy areas do you see a thread as big as that . Water those . That civil war references great because non sufficiently prominent because of lincoln was and oppose it opposed to slavery in the uncompromising way but not of an opponent to eliminating slavery for much of his adult life with no contradiction the majority of those that once slavery are highly relevant whether they are wrong or right is relevant with their intent to use that we have to have clarity on the principle in the way that is respectful so with that relationship that defined his thinking about slavery and all think were in danger of anything like that so what is keeping it that night is thinking there are tragedies all around us probably everyone is listening because my a mother died of a smoking associated illness. And so for a large percentage with a well functioning markets or prophecies that did not fall prey it would not have happened so the recent news of 40,000 people dying on the highway is salient it probably would not be a drive that is what keeps me up at night there are many problems that they have Good Solutions they could not resolve but they have the ability to work with one another is compromised not because they dont want to but lose their jobs. Electoral system is the adversary system. And the adversary system is the adversary system but completely willing to work with democrats on these issues and those that are working together and as said contributor hatteras say no twitter would go crazy that works for republicans and democrats. We saw this with a vote on justice course which gore such. Zero or have had a soft respectful without the of filibuster but even if they share that view you are a demon on twitter and facebook to get yourself explain to that context is very challenging. That contributed over the last decade and a very unfortunate process. I will leave you with the thought that occurred to me while reading your book one of those places which the mayor can still hear opposing political views is the extended family thanksgiving day. Christmas but on the weather way they are getting smaller with your children that means they have you were cousins do we know was it is happening to those extendedow family discussions . With a variety of people is that gone the of a way of everybody going every week . Nt and with the degree of the baby is born negative diversity there is geographical assertion that found decades before as those silly numbers have internal disagreement if youre a republican nor a democrat you are probably not alarmed. Sis and in that part hypothesis that and of that is true. Something that did occur to me earlier about subsidiary writing that the Segmented Society over most of American History with of primary circles of values americans live together because they live apart. You just get the extreme example. Has the book that is called the benedictus option religious faith i believe he is a Roman Catholic should wall themselves off from the vicious Larger Society to make their living in some way and to of model is the st. Benedict for monasteries the marriage that was the help of the catholic ambassador and those who were gracious enough to dono that. Real i am glad they wall themselves off. To of minor children to love my children would not exist at least could not agree but theyre very few things that are american but that is korean the stand america to be a nation that celebrates the capacity the people with Different Foundation no commitments to live together with something approaching one of. That is a christian and american sought. We will open to the audience. We have people with microphones and to identify which silo you come from. And i am a big fan of yours i am a political liberal but i am working on the book right now with the polarization. Disease that study in response to your book the least likely to use the internet are more polarized . It ended in 2012. Guided read the paper. It shows the young people more likely to use the internet with a lower degree increase of polarization than older people who do not. It is a very gross account not thats it is disgusting but it operates with real aggregates. Is so that hypothesis and the paper does falsify that thepo what we dont know whether social media use is a polarizer and what is going m on with those older people . There is something happening there. But that is usually true older people are more likely to have a fixed Party Identification . It might be but the drama of the paper is older people are showing more split now than they were earlier so what is the name of this book . Republic it is consistent with that is dayconti contributor to Political Polarization it has a ton of papers not by the author so lets call that to aggregate data with that is not your concern with. Demon gin the democrats and republicans and with the nature of your achievements in before in the 50s or 60s what do you want to achieve . But now just to think about reform so i just wonder with of a twoparty system so now the people say dont talk politics or religion but now they say dont talk so o what d think we could improve the system. First point i am a big fan of capitalism so that is a source of pride. Second in a capitalistic system if that is ever the case is uniformly associated i mean that word never literally if they are greatly admired a lot of them dont have a ton of money or if they do they are required for their achievement of their money the view for those that admire those communities it depends on their characteristics some people read maya them for their money but to say you figure that out steve jobs isev greatly admired. The lady in the 50s people were more a buyer for their achievements and in 2017 more for their money is theoretically possible but i dont know of any evidence. Some of these Baseball Players are paid 10,000 per year. Even if he made plenty he was joe dimaggio. Y, 56 fiftysix consecutive games. To , so to not focus on capitalism with private practices that are not inevitable near very recent that are contributors to thers problem and that would make sense in some the main and that is taken testable view the with hamiltons conception those people whose job it would be an old mill be accountable to read the people but it would bebe like the referendum for their actions daybyday it would be knowledgeable that they do stuff so everyone to do something to authorize people who know something move on whether food safety or Traffic Safety theyre not the only people to have some space to do stuff and afrad not be afraid of getting crashed into is a part of capitalism with that matter sony envisioned mad as sony and madison vision. Afternoon it is the pleasure to meet you i would like to ask you from your perspective the kids you know, so many things bad a Job Interview with someone were to rescue the in the sense to exact change that people could say you did change my life is there anything you can think of they were conscious of . I think when i got to gove again the government there were some things that i hope were hopeful so one paying a lot of people have experienced i would not say that it is mine but i got to participate. Then i got involved from the various problems that i got to participate so i got to help with that the edison does good as 22 eggs a you have probably saved herself to maybe 40 hours of my life so thank you commissioner or director. So to have no institutional affiliation it is about us a judges steady but im wondering if you thought how that could be affected if that has been extended gravy if a are all republican then i believe of ane of more obama appointees make that central that they are more moderate than the democratic seven states that would affect the outcome. That is a great question. Issue number one is judicial voting behavior when the judges are sitting by the people appointed by the president of the same party. And the data us to just basically that happens with the every circuit. So as it completed the uniform to the extent to the democratic judge will flow more liberally. There is almost the iron law with a percentage of liberal votes grows with the democrats of the party off the panel. There was some noise in the day theyre not affected by the republicans and that seems to me they really dont like each other. Your plane to is different with those ideological moderators. Enough in of period to compile data start between democratic and republican appointees that has to withdo senatorial courtesy or the fact the issue is were not splitting up parties with the civil rights revolution period with president eisenhower. You are asking when senatorial courtesy is of p the logical decision . That could be as. That is independent of the of question of social mediae obv when people are in the echo chamber. You say a couple of them in the book that is be ebola conspiracy and i am not a renaissance man but. With go marginal revolution on everything with interesting things to say about lot. D you know, the phrase what is your take . That is a bad phrase if you have to take on something you should now set long backs should not say it. So i know this d cozzens it is admired that i read it they are intelligent. If i read the headlines in the right to the rest of it in my head i will love bother because they know what they will say but. Most law professors that i know he is very much worth reading in it is 10 times worth the time it would take to read him. Although his prose got to people. I want to ask about that potential applications for social media. And on that speech mostnd social Media Networks have strong written code could that pass the requirement . So separate those ideas that is that they are open to express the activity so the public forum says those manner restrictions that is a very unusual First Amendment isnt about protecting government censorship but providing spaces where people can communicate and it closes the of public spaces so theee public forum document seems the allied air and applies not just to do those discriminatory restrictions but if you say they are open for expressive activity between 2 00 and 5 00 that would probably be struck down even though it is neutral word you said something that is viewpoint neutral you cannot use a the word more of a public forum and shut down like that it is content based so it is about spaces and then the ban on content discrimination is different than viewpoint it must meet a big burden of justice but it might be 0k. But like with the hate speech it seems in viewpoint neutral but content to save. If predictably that will produce violence that can be regulated so now what counts as a speech is a very narrow definition looking at what can be regulated but if you say that has been full full but the question is that it is regular relatable that no regulations will have in the abstract that it could become as notwithstanding i think the concerns we should have about instability to ban civil speech would not be very civil with their often enflame to in political discussion. I en a former social all media researcher. With of effectiveness as a way to combat the polarization and to bee serendipitous in their ownth way as opposed to a Colorado Springs of the same room that is as far as the results are concerned. To be serendipitous project so given what we have known the more i looked at this lab just not sure the most effective remedy. First taking upon that ambiguity and serendipity and also that means a little more particular with exposure to a d is 04 points of view that dont necessarily fit with your in antecedent views if you would find yourself in a room of where people marched that is serendipitous but not in the sense that i mean it like youre reading data daily newspaper said you have a story about turkey you have an interest in turkey but then there is the authoritarian crackdown andth that could change what you do that day over the coursege w of a year change peoples lives to do something about that. For me be a point of view with the university of chicago people to have us story of minimumwage it is putting people out of working and they may not like that very much. So that may affect your attitude had zero you talk to one another with the policy implications and. Erendipi the ledger is probably have a word for that in a precise sense but if you feel adamant with that preferred issue that the holocaust happened then that will not change so Many Political issues are like that. So Many Americans on know why a range of issues they think about obamacare and nothing will change or i dont like that. But to say i had a provision that is causing a problem. Or say i like obamacare but those calorie labels of schaede restaurants that the data suggested is the decent thing so the effect is that first approximations inth answer with respect to the death of lucansky offer Luke Skywalker it is not going to have been so notice that yoda did die a so they did make some progress. 84 that interesting presentation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] summer before he was suspended by fox news. We will see if i can do this again. Good evening. No, good evening. Its a big room, thank you