Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason
Here's a TED first: an animated Socratic dialog! In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power? Watch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold. The dialog was recorded live at TED, and animated, in incredible, often hilarious, detail by Cognitive.
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I just learned that these two are married. What a couple!
Wouldn't you just like to be invited to a dinner party?
Yes, image the argument over who washes the dishes 🤔
I keep coming back to this one time and time again. I can't understand how something that so effectively encapsulates some of our collective best thoughts on strident moral issues could have so few views.
Something tells me I should have watched this before I started drinking tonight.
I love your comment. I have had that thought more often than I should have. Thanks for the serious, but true thought.
One of the best vids from TED!!!! An excellent summary of the moral issues from past to present, and how to overcome them.
finally some positive critic
"How could a reasoned argument logically entail the ineffectiveness of reasoned arguments? You show up for that debate and you've already lost it." Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!
Good idea and the presentation is very neat and simple. Lots of good reasons available to watch this talk, I find no reason why somebody commented it's a leftist propaganda. I don't think it has any kind of sectarian view. By and large, it gives unbiased views. Highly recommended.
Stoney Lonsome It was called snobary because it was snobary. Wanting everybody to go to college is simply moronic. Whether more or fewer people should be going to college is a topic up for debate, but wanting more to go to college so they can be more like me and less like the unwashed masses is snobary plain and simple.
At the risk of being bludgeoned to death: don't you mean 'snobbery'?
***** Your argument is invalid. The fact that more people getting a higher education at a certain level leads to more prosperity does not support the conclusion that more people without limit (up to all people) leads to maximal prosperity. Going to college does not make you a snob. Believing that everybody should go to college and those that do not are somehow beneath you makes you a snob. Just because it is right for you does not make it right fore everybody. Have you such a short memory? Do you not remember the occupy movement? Numerous young people complaining about among other things the fact that they had outragious unforgivable college debt and no job to pay for it. The current cost of college, the fact that the government moved to make college debt unforgivable, and the fact that a very large percentage of college grads are either unemployed or employed in jobs that do not require thier degree is strong evidence that too many people are going to college.
acvarthered Prosperity depends on many things and education is one of those things. Education is what produced that Haber process that now feeds billions, the clean water that prevents disease outbreak and keeps you healthy, all the modern medicine and technology that we enjoy. Prosperity and economic growth are at their highest when education and innovation are at their highest. To deny the importance of education, one must be ignorant of history. The ridiculous increase in tuition fees was caused by the government cutting spending for education along with the deregulation and lack of oversight on the system. The problem is very similar to what caused the collapse of the housing market in 2008.
acvarthered read a book, take a bath.
5:25 "I'm all for empathy, I mean who isn't, but -" *kettle laughs* PAUL BLOOM
Please make more of these dialogs!!!
I thoroughly enjoyed this TED Talk "The long reach of reason" which is perfect to watch when thinking about my dentaltown column this month “Howard Speaks - Ethical Dilemma - a Series Kickoff. Thank you so much for taking my mind out for a run. Howard Farran DDS, MBA
Haven't been so thoroughly entertained in a long time.
Excellent. I'd love to see more animated dialogs like this.
14:46 "I have become convinced that reason is the better angel that deserves the greatest credit for the moral progress our species has enjoyed and that holds out the greatest hope for continuing moral progress in the future". ...has anyone read his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity? Is this the central premise that runs throughout?
Yes, because the other three angels have been with us since the dawn of our species and haven't really helped that much. By comparison, the cultivation of reason is relatively new. And has the biggest potential potential for growth, since reasoning is an open-ended, combinatorial, and recursive system.
We need more Socratic TED talks like this one.
a very well-crafted and empathetically considered video - many congrats
What a beautiful conversation.
I loved the last line!
A point made very well. Love you both.
This animation is amazing!!
Nice presentation. And I pretty much agree, though I think it is worth stressing how empathy is a necessary aspect of moral progress, even if it's not enough on its own.
In all of the examples given in the talk about how a reasoned argument by certain individuals eventually changed the perception of society, I'm sure the intellectual that sowed the seed first got his/her inspiration in the first place due to empathy in his/her heart. I'd say empathy provides inspiration/passion to an individual, while reason is the tool he/she uses to spread that empathy onto others. They both are very important for the evolution of a society.
lol @5:17, But, ty for this whole discussion. It is so true. I was in sales for 8 years, and it took me that long, if not all to learn all that you discussed here today. I wish I had this knowledge as a teenager, in such a blunt sense of the factor.
Human nature could be ameliorated through Empathy, which is in accordance with the maxim of freewill, reason and reciprocity principle, advocated by I.Kant in late 18 century in his moral foundations essay. I agree with the essence of the statements given in this interesting and instructive video. Bravo Professor Steven Pinker! don't give up the fight against violence, greed, selfishness, blindness, and ignorance / thank you very much
Can I get a written version of this talk? It is on of the most interesting ideas I've ever heard, and I would like to analyze it better.
Reason and empathy aren't 2 different things, they both work together. There was no argument to be made in the first place.
You're right, poor choice of word. I meant they aren't against each other, or that you don't have to use one over the other.
That is not true. Empathy is the ability to "feel" what someone else might be feeling. Let's say I see someone suffering. From here I can use my reason to exercise compassion and help them, or to avoid the situation entirely. Either way reason allows me to benefit by alleviating my empathy for them; either through helping someone else to alleviate their suffering or from avoiding further contact with them - either way alleviating my own suffering. Thus I can reason, and through reason, I can choose to act either compassionately or apathetically.
Vane Fal, that is a fantastic analogy to describe the overlap on a venn diagram. Is it your own?
hahaha what a moron.
Great discussion and animation ! The chain of thoughts is paced well and the animation is very explanatory and detailed. Indeed reason is the panacea for the human society. But it is a double edged sword. I would appreciate if you can process the audio and remove the background noise and make it more pleasant to the ears.
WOW, what a great dialogue and animation ! great find brother :) atheistcoffee
someones need to watch this cuz as far as progress in society keeps moving forward there´s a lot of hate and oppression against the ones who stop for a second to evaluate the whole content of an idea and choose what to agree or not with, motivated by reason, logic, science, moral and ethics.
Excellent talk
This video needs a Spanish translation or subtitles, I would like too much if I could send it to all my friends here in Venezuela.
We pick the axioms we reason from emotionally. You must first establish that the axiom is considered by all to be a valid position. Take equality for example, is it outcomes or opportunity that we refer to, it's rarely mentioned when people discuss the concept of equality, but the implementation for each position is very different. To achieve equality of outcomes then discrimination must be implemented, those that are talented must be knobbled so that those who are less talented or driven can equally share in the fruits that collectively everyone contributes to. This is not a good idea for progress (we end up with second best getting positions that were not competed for on merit and ambition), yet we see it implemented everyday when quotas are used when the statistics don't meet ideological expectations. However 40 hours of effort is forty hours of effort, who are you to say that the garbage collector is less important than the doctor, both are necessary parts of the same solution. Equality of opportunity is giving people access to the tools they need to strive upwards on their own merit. Provide the tools and let the mob sort themselves out, it seems to be effective with people entering careers that are not beyond their capacity to fulfil, even though the incentives are based in unequal shares of the collective fruits. I can make reasoned arguments for both sides and do it convincingly, yet the point from which you argue is subjective and made emotionally if you aren't just looking for debating points.
I'd say the Venn diagram tenets starting at 3:00 gets at the axioms you're waxing philosophical on
I like how the restaurant looks like the "house" inside the stargate from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
That was magnificent!
When you look back at human history and the progress that has been made, and when you look at future challenges such as climate change, it appears to me that humanity's great accomplishment is saving itself from itself. Now what does that say about our species?
I don't agree. While it has and will certainly be necessary to save us from ourselves, the r e have been enough accomplishments besides that. We have managed to improve quality of life significantly when compared to the lives animals lead in nature. Pinker makes a great argument for the reduction of violent death in "The better angels of our nature". Apart from that, we have been able to control and reduce a great number of ilnesses. And we might do quite some damage to nature sometimes, destroying ecosystems, causing extinction and now the prospect of global warming, so that we might again need to save nature from evils we inflicted, we are doing things to counteract that. We might well succeed in stopping global warming, and then there are projects to bring back extinct species, which we could not only use to bring back the species we caused to go extinct, but which could also be used to bring back other species. Another thing, if and when we are able to colonize other planets or even star systems, we could bring life to places it has never been before, and we might even, when the time comes, save "life" from our own dying solar system when the sun finally blows up and then shrinks to a dwarf star. Wouldn't that be a great accomplishment for humanity? ;)
you saw everything that humanity got better at and focused on that? Brings me back to another thing Steven Pinker said. Some people just don't like the idea that we made progress.
Pinker's nose redness needs to be toned down a little. Thats ridiculous.
I thought the same thing, but then I took a look at how badly Goldstein is drawn. She's not the most beautiful of women, but she's not freaky-looking, like she's portrayed here...
that’s what you got out of the whole video ... ridiculous
@@marbellarubio3481 Er...why is it red at all?
His nose isn't red at all actually, but OK.
And OUT comes that fabled double edged sword! I thought my eyes might never see the day!
I absolutely adore this couple.
Excellent stuff.
Still believe this to be a GREAT summary of moral issues
This really stirred my emotions, haha!
Use critical thinking, logic, rational thought and above all..............QUESTION EVERY SINGLE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***** GOOD!
***** Thinking has a better track record than faith
***** i think what he says is true, at least if i go by my beliefs
***** I make mistakes, however, I try the best that I can to use rational thought and logic
***** Look, I've had this argument many times. People make conclusions built upon by premises based on axioms. If the axioms are not reliable then there cannot be any debates. An example would be 1 + 1 = 2. It is beyond my intellect, but mathematicians have made arguments against 1+1=2. I know where you are going, and I concede, you are right, we could be in the matrix or this world could be a hologram. I have no way of knowing. I just choose to use my brain, if you do not want to that is fine with me.
Stephen Pinker animated is awesome. I would have enjoyed this more if they had worked out some way to have lightning shoot out his eyeballs though.
Good talk; I love philosophical arguments/presentations made in the form of a dialogue. Naturally I would, Socrates is my all-time favourite =] To respond to this dialogue's conclusion, I'd like to point out some counter points and give my own conclusion about man's moral progress. For every logical argument that advances morality Goldstein brings up that was ahead of its time, there were of course an equal or greater number of 'logical' arguments against these positions. For all the Benthams and Lockes that argued against slavery, there were of course Jefferson Davises and Forrests that argued for it. The simple act of going through history and cherry-picking arguments that turned out to be 'right' in our present view doesn't establish that people who constructed logical arguments were always 'right'. Post-hoc deciding that Locke and Lincoln were right about slavery, and Davis and Forrest wrong based on how history has turned out doesn't necessarily cut it in my opinion. Now if you have some ability to prove that anti-slavery arguments are right and pro-slavery arguments are wrong regardless of how human history turns out, you have a stronger case. But so far I would say that the very fact that it obviously can take so long for logical arguments to have their desired effect; even hundreds of years or more, might indicate that it's not the fact that logical arguments are made in favor or against something that is the key factor in causing change. Moreover, the fact that no doubt millions of 'logical arguments' exist in favor of things that will never happen or are not desirable would indicate the same thing. The truth is that there are so many people on earth making so many arguments and predictions all the time that if you look for it, you can find a prediction or 'logical argument' in favor of literally anything that happens. When an earthquake leveled Haiti, Pat Robertson said he knew all along that Haiti would be destroyed by God for their devil worship or whatever; does the fact that an earthquake actually happened prove him right? Of course not. On the other hand, Pinker's initial point that technology widens our circle of empathy I think is a very good point. Technology is the one thing we can point to in human history that is in fact always progressing and always bringing about sweeping changes in societies. I would say that not only does technology widen our circle of empathy, it also reduces scarcity. It is definitely a provable fact that lower-scarcity societies tend towards more altruistic behaviors. The further people are from living hand-to-mouth, the more freedom they have to be more altruistic to others. When your own existence is not desperate, it's much easier to help those who are in desperate circumstances. However, there is a limit--it's also true that when there is a big enough wealth gap, in order to get around what Goldstein rightly points out is our natural tendency to dislike logically inconsistent positions, the extremely wealthy find ways to separate themselves from the extremely poor and avoid empathizing with them. But the wealthy invariably point to 'logical arguments' about why they are different from the poor and don't have to empathize with them. So what is it that really causes change, if change happens at all? I don't know if you can prove that it is the presence of superior logical arguments to the contrary; rather I suspect that it's the onward march of technology that causes societal change and improvement. What really ended slavery in America? It wasn't the superior arguments of Bentham and Locke; it was the superior economic/industrial system of the North, where machines replaced slave labor and eliminated the need for slaves. The North were perfectly happy to have slaves themselves when they were needed, even though the same arguments by Bentham and Locke existed then too. The North didn't care to eliminate slavery and fight against it until technology had made slaves unnecessary. I think if you look throughout history you will find that the same is true for all moral progress. I'm sure it will be the same for 'factory farming'. We all know deep down that animals suffer terribly in industrial agriculture; we are all aware of the arguments against it. But factory farming continues apace because we all still want to eat meat at a decent price. And plenty of arguments exist in favor of factory farming as well; certainly if you ask a factory farmer why they do what they do they will be able to justify their position at length, whether you agree with them or not. I think that factory farming will continue to exist until some technology is created to eliminate the need for it. Something like cloning or a Star Trek replicator or something will be used to provide us with all the cheap meat we need without having to subject real living animals to suffering, and then factory farms will rapidly disappear. To post-hoc decide that it was arguments against factory farming that were responsible for this moral victory would be to tell only one small part of the story. Technology will deserve the lion's share of the credit. Arguments will always exist on every side of every issue--it is technology that will decide which arguments win in the end.
This argument should not be set in a false dichotomy of exclusively oppositional extremes. Reason of the mind should be a valued servant to a good heart. Intellect should seek coherent approval from emotion. As Jiminy Cricket said, "Let your conscience be your guide."
As much fun as this was, I think I would have rather seen them speak.
me too.
I think they should have mentioned the psychological/neurological notion that reason doesnt work, if its not informed by the emotional center (you can not decide between courses of action if the two are seperated). That means a human fully capable of rational thinking and behaviour must both be emotionally and logically competent. How does anyone get the idea of arguing for human rights, if he doesnt feel its "unfair/mean/wrong" in the first place? I think the defenition of a psychopath is someone who isnt able to associate his own feelings with the feelings of another human.
Ironically the video showed that reason can argue sensibly and pedandically for a position but it takes a novel like Uncle Tom's cabin or a photograph of a naked, crying Vietnamese girl to effect real change. Reason serves to justify our feelings. It's why our societies can be easily captured by a demagogue speaking to our fears and hopes. His followers can trot out a long roll of reasons on why the demagogue is right and not be moved by the opposition's erudite arguments of why they are all stupid.
Reason dictates that peace and cooperation, yields the greatest results reliably and long term. Being violent, oppressive and narcissistic only inhibits personal progress. So sticking to a rational mindset to make moral/ethical conclusions (utilitarian thought) works to achieve a "good" or moral/ethical driven society. It's more than just appeasing emotions; perhaps evolutionary change has made our emotions around empathy designed to a way in that match what is most efficient for human progress. So when we deal with others our natural tendencies are even genetically prone to feel the right way to accomplish the best results.
Morality is reason. It is social reason. I do unto others as I would have them do unto me not because I'm a good person, but because I understand that others behave most often based on how they've been treated by others. I choose to break the cycle of mistreatment knowing that without a doubt treating others with respect and kindness will make my life better.
There are more than plenty modern axioms that not only are going to potentially change, rather all axioms are continually evolving as they exist only in extension of our individual understandings and interactions with them and what represents the axioms; I cannot help but feel as though this talk seeks to degrade or diminish the recurrency and reiterative effect of what it means to be a human as well as what it means to be a family, community, nation, and civilization of humans as a result - that it should take a long time for strongly held or otherwise important axioms to change, even in the face of reason, I think is only to be expected; in fact I would argue that the speed with which recent axiom changes have been taking place in recent decades before the internet came to be and the acceleration with which we see the ebb and flow of differing or incompatible axioms exchange discourse and effect populations to incur demonstrations, changes in voting tendencies, humanitarian aid, and all manners of other consequences I hope is merely a foreshadowing of a future we could be, I claim should be, and most likely will be far beyond our capability to bridge the gaps between generations particularly in terms of the understanding of maths, language, science, technology, but also likely many key moral issues that have surfaced several times throughout history but only now seems to be able to take strong roots in our minds. To any who cares to read my statement, I'm sorry for the jumble, I'm very tired from a long day at work and had little patience with which to properly express myself, bear with my faults if you would :)
This is a good debate, but it is overshadowed by an overwhelming graphic animation.
We are led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny powers of reason merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact - 100% totally agreed. We need reasons to justify our decisions intrigued by our emotions.
Reason is just a means to an end. Sad but true. I want to lead my life based on logical reasons but our gut feelings and instincts are too powerful. However at the end I realized that good reason change the way we feel about something. And we all are looking for good reasons which is reliable and proved.
Overall a good dialogue, but what happens once people start to figure out that being happy is much easier once you remove your conscience. It's not possible now, but could be in the future. There are a lot of pillar this argument rests on, and many of them can be challenged by future technology.
Awesome!
They made Steven look like the Katamari King.
Brilliant
When Morals (law) reflects itself into Ethics (habit) of people, that is what has been happening throughout the course o Human History. It is not very clear, but Reason indeed has a fundamental importance in the progressive development (or transformation) of this relationship; Morals to Ethics and vice-versa.
Soooooo goooooood .....
i dont get why this video gets so many down votes. yes maybe the technical part or the way it was done was not the very best but the topic itself is just so damn important. especially in our times. you should be passionate about reason and be happy that ppl care enough about it to make a video. to the down voters: ask yourself, have you upvoted a cat video in the last few days? was it really better than this? was it more important?
I cannot remember the last time I liked a cat video… the last video I hit the like button for was about astrophysics. I disliked the video because I disagree with it… I find it annoying when people try to ascribe to some single underling factor some aspect of human nature or history. The examples given played their roles, and important ones, but the underlying premise is a gross oversimplification. I was also annoyed at the obvious ways the various counterarguments were just blatant setups to the subsequent points… it made the entire thing feel wooden and staged (which of course it was). I myself am a proponent of the use of reason but I will not look at history through an artificial lens because it seems to justify my worldview.
rstrosah oversimplified: yes you get this point. can you refer to a video that summarizes the importance of reason in history in a less simplified way? staged: yes it was, as you pointed out. but i dont see the problem. in fact almost all ted talks are staged. they are even held on stages most of the time.
No it’s not that the video presents an oversimplified account of history it’s that the first half of the stated concussion (that reason “deserves the greatest credit for the moral progress our species has enjoyed”) is derived from an oversimplified, and biased, view of history.
I just want to know whats the app they used for animation
Bravo
She needs to write REASON FOR DUMMIES
Reason is a clever negotiator.
re: last line: I could be using reason to point out flaws in this argument, but it would be conceited to claim that I'm advancing humanity rather than playing some silly game.
Surely I reason no more than a computer reasons, only I am more complex and capable of far more complex social calculations. So i don't think changes in society come from the internal thought but from outside changes. Our reason is always based on reasonings before it and they before another. As a history student I still maintain that large movements or "turning points" rose out of a change in the ethos not the other way around, normally due to economic changes in structure or supply, just like how we observe animal behavioural change. And that culture slowly evolves through natural selecting processes placing new pressures on our genes. Many physicist will argue there is no free will, it is an illusion. I believe that to be the same with our ability to reason, it is an illusion.
Emotivists could just say "boo" to reason... thereby not making any rational argument at all...
Yes, but they must surely use reason in other parts of their lives. I'd bet that they leave their homes by the front door and not the second storey window, eat their food with the correct end of the fork, and walk on their feet rather than their ears. Reason is inescapable for human beings.
ya GITMO tell the people how nice it is there!!!!
Reason really only works as a persuasive tool. People who endorse the dictatorship of reason fail to realize how difficult it is to determine the actual truth valve of the premises with which we reason. The "if" in "If P is true then Q most also be true" is a very, very large "if." On another note, I wonder what the probability is that it will rain tomorrow?
Much of this makes sense but the idea that it comes about via popular opinion seems odd. Most moral change has happened when power has shifted. I think its more of an partition powered movement and i also object to the term progress instead of progression.
I would agree. A shift in power changes what gets paid attention to in the first place. In particular, it seems there is greater equality in the distribution of power, causing the proliferation of rights to a greater variety of parties. Each party is less able to stand in ignorance of others welfare. In summary, reason is the story told after the change has taken place, not before. For example, if technology allowed all fatal car high speed car crashes to be caught on camera, and victims families where advertised in psa's, then speeding might become as morally taboo as drunk driving
Okey, can you explain, please? I have find this video with help of book the TED Talks. The official TED guide to public speaking. But there is information about ~1million views on this video.. But on this video only 139 thousands views.. What's wrong?
14:24 YES
you need both- reason as well as emotions
guys are you fucking serious this animation probably got alot of time to make and it illustrates things quite well
4:25 The true 'deadly sins' and virtues :)
Son brillantes los dos. El mundo necesita más personas así y menos idiotas. Por supuesto ambos tienen razón. Se necesita la razón para formular argumentos que permitan convencer a otros de que algo está mal, pero también se necesita que el creador de esos argumentos tenga moral y empatía emocional. De lo contrario, sería un psicópata y no tendría ninguna razón más allá del egoísmo propio de formular tales argumentos éticos.
I've shared this video with people I care a lot, that have tried to pull me towards religion with the vague argument that religion is required for values and morals (being a truly good person). These are good people, but they have these concepts all tangled up.
I will say that it is a non sequitur to say that a reasoned argument saying that “reason wasn’t the primary motivating factor behind social progress” is invalid because it relies on reason.
Interesting, when you raised the point of tribalism it was the Union Jack on the mast of the boat. You would think that the Stars and Stripes would have been the contemporary choice.
Is the waiter supposed to be Ricky Gervais?
The TED talks by live speakers with an audience are almost invariably more interesting and compelling in content and presentation than this cartoon version of talking heads. This is the first TED talk I've thumbed down.
I still enjoyed the message of the video though, but agree with your statement
Reason without values can only point out hypocrisy. The value system that needs exploration by reason is that of "suffering" -- do insects qualify for animal rights? Is it sensible/moral/reasonable/consistent to ban all old fashioned mouse traps? What we cannot admit to ourselves is that there are interests that outweigh anothers suffering, that there is a hierarchy of the deserving, a hierarchy of values that trumps that to which our empathy objects. Morality is an economic system.
"What about religious faith in general?" BAAM.
The idea that reasoning can provide us with boundless knowledge, is the greatest delusion that mankind suffers.
Is that a critique of this video?
This feels more like an argument for reason as superior. In that, it fails, because the main point given toward the end is that reasoned arguments have been given and disseminated in favor of many ethical and empathic imperatives. The argument is not made that those reasoned arguments are the beginning of causes based on such imperatives. The argument is weakly made that reasoned arguments are the cause of public acceptance of such movements. For the weaker thesis that reason is a useful tool that can be used toward ethical ends, I see no problem with the argument.
And now, men's rights. The unfair redacting and application of the law against mostly poor men, that basically means creating and using a law differently because of nothing more than the gender of the accused or the accuser.. Which just means legislating with double standards for no good reason related to the specific case. Not to mention that this is sometimes used to cover up for racism...
Wouldn't the non-aggression principle clear just about everything up here?
The non-aggression principle has ambiguities. If I hammer a nail into a piece of wood, did I initiate force against the wood? What about animals? If I play my music loudly, is that aggression? If I drive a car, am I violating your rights to clean air? When is self-defense justifiable and to what measure? These are only a few examples.
A single psychopath could kill a city of pacifists.
TGGeko Your point?
TGGeko You're assuming the pacifists are stupid and don't believe that killers should be caught and brought to justice. Justice which will than be applied both to protect the public from this individual, and where possible, what steps can by taken to rehabilitate the individual, even if the individual in question must remain in captivity for the rest of his life.
Ian Atkinson pacifists don't believe in the use of force at all, including retaliatory force/self-defense. Nobody is advocating pacifism though, so again I ask, your point? This is a red herring. Stop talking about it.
I'm sorry but the dialogue sounds so fake that I can barely listen to it without cringing. There is no natural pronunciation, it all sounds like they are reading off a script and a dialogue in audio form should never sound like that. It's okay if "The dialog was recorded live at TED" but that doesn't really excuse that it all sounds like robots talking. Both talkers also come across as incredibly arrogant, even though I know both are probably very humble and willing to communicate ideas. >.< So yes, I am complaining that an animated project like this deserves better voice acting.
From what I heard of Steven Pinker, that's how he always talks. He is a professor, probably used to lecturing to students. It's unfortunate, but he probably doesn't have training in voice acting
I don't mean to insult Prof.Pinker, I have read some of his books and I recognize him as a brilliant person. My critique is superficial in that regard but if one has audio material then the audio should not be unpleasant to listen to, I think.
Progress... Towards what standard and according to whom?
To quote Pinker, "life is better than death, health is better than sickness, abundance is better than want, freedom is better than coercion, happiness is better than suffering, and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance." Most people probably agree that improving these things counts as progress.
I take issue with what I view as her false oversimplification of requirements for morally effective reason. Self interest? While caring for oneself can be good, it is selflessness that's more the characteristic of true Love. And it is love, for All, which gives foundation and life to the highest of moral reason.
2 thoughts on watching this first it seems very scripted to a mutually desired outcome. second the true force of change seems to require both a reasoned argument against some common practice and someone to turn that reason into emotion that people will feel compelled to support.
brilliant video, really enjoyed their pairing. That being said, what was up with making pinker's nose all dark pink? I've never seen him for full rudolph in any of his public appearances. Maybe it's a mnemonic for 'Pinker'? I would love to use this as a kind of 101 to this kind of thinking, but The awkward nose thing, and the dismissive intro to GOP, DNC, 9/11 truthers etc kind of puts a bad taste in the mouth of the viewers who might actually get the most out of this. Small critiques for a talk that was largely very insighful and fascinating, enough so I watched it twice :)
Loved it. Yea, could've been better with the reading of the script. And not enough blame thrown at religious dogma. But overall a nice diversion from the usual. :-)
What does she mean by saying "scientific" creationism?
I have a reason!
rationalization wears the mask of reason it builds bombs, justifies discrimination and violence and chains minds to ideology. People all over the internet have identified many unreasonable conditions, but many still behave as if those conditions were still reasonable. If we're living in unreasonable times, then reason may incur a cost.
"If you detect a flaw in this argument [that reason is how we figure out what is ethically and morally sound], you'll be depending on reason to point it out." Well, not if I'm backward enough. Maybe I like to with arguments using the power of arson.
This is probably the smartest comment section I have seen on a KZhead page, that might just be, because I watch a lot of stupid stuff, but still it is nice to see. Anyways while I like the arguments they present, I feel that it is probably biased to the left's point of view, I don't have anything wrong with that, but it would be nice to hear a logical argument by people who have a more right wing perspective. Also, while I get that a lot of people have problems with religion couldn't it be argued that their treatment of religion in this video be something a kin to how they say that other people have portrayed discriminated people in the past. Not everyone or every religion is evil and I like to think that most people who say they are religious are good, maybe a lot of them are misguided, but still good.
Is that taxi driver Travis Bickle?
"Reason" here sounds like a slicked-up version of the economists' "rationality", which merges too quickly with behaviorism--it doesn't have to make sense to me; I just have to feel better afterwards.
Reason leads me to a great contradiction. I won't get into the details. But in the end reason, along with everything else, emotions, faith, sympathy, and even truth, is all meaningless. The only thing that has meaning to me is the fact that I'm only fifteen and I hope someday my fears and confusion will be put to rest, even if it means suffering.
Am i watching director's cut of waking life :p
It's a shame this dialogue ignores the current monstrosities of humankind - For the first time in history, we have the ability to live sustainably, end world hunger, improve literacy and numeracy rates globally, greatly reduce disease and subsequently save millions of lives per year. Instead we what? We create a system to live by which works for itself and allows us to say "That's just how the world works". We've not evolved, we've just changed the nature of our barbarism and categorised it as the nature of capitalism.
This is so on point I have to ask: who *are* you?
@@if-i-stumble A real person