Episode · Conversations with Tyler · 2025-09-24
Books mentioned on Steven Pinker on Coordination, Common Knowledge, and the Retreat of Liberal Enlightenment
Steven Pinker returns to Conversations with Tyler with an argument that common knowledge—those infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know"—is the hidden infrastructure that enables human coordination, from accepting paper money to toppling dictators.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The elephant in the brain
The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson is an insightful exploration of human behavior, hidden motives, and the unconscious evolutionary reasons behind why people act the way they do.
Discussed“I think a better a somewhat different case um other than an an outer lie would be a um a kind of um a gental benign hypocrisy where people where you have a common pretense and you're sometime collaborator Robin Hansen writes about that in his book with Kevin Similar where he gives some examples and I actually repeat them”
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“Stephen needs no introduction per se, but I will point out he has a new and excellent book called When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows dot dot dot.”
“Now the the answer to your puzzle and that's I I devote a chapter in the book uh to what common knowledge could actually consist of and and I'm a psychologist.”
Own book Enlightenment Now
“Oh uh one possibility is to revisit the uh all the indicators of progress. What's the report card on the world 10 years after I published uh enlightenment now?”