When leaders violate norms without consequence, shared “common knowledge” fractures. Media silos and social segregation also deepen polarization by erasing a common civic reality. Full video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTQsOBLEIV8 For more on common knowledge, see my new book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life | Steven Pinker
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When leaders violate norms without consequence, shared “common knowledge” fractures. Media silos and social segregation also deepen polarization by erasing a common civic reality. Full video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTQsOBLEIV8 For more on common knowledge, see my new book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life | Steven Pinker
2K views3 months ago
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A few minutes ago.... | Steven Pinker
1:08
A few minutes ago.... | Steven Pinker
80.5K viewsNov 7, 2020
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The surprising decline in violence
19:01
The surprising decline in violence
3.6M viewsSep 10, 2007
TEDSteven Pinker
What our language habits reveal
17:15
What our language habits reveal
2.8M viewsSep 9, 2007
TEDSteven Pinker
Human nature and the blank slate
22:22
Human nature and the blank slate
1.8M viewsSep 26, 2008
TEDSteven Pinker
Not afraid to shy away from controversy, Steven Pinker insists that public policy should be largely driven by facts, not emotion, even in heart-wrenching cases. | Reason Magazine
56:42
Not afraid to shy away from controversy, Steven Pinker insists that public policy should be largely driven by facts, not emotion, even in heart-wrenching cases. | Reason Magazine
10.3K viewsOct 15, 2021
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How Common Knowledge Shapes the World | Steven Pinker | TED
13:48
How Common Knowledge Shapes the World | Steven Pinker | TED
7 months ago
MSNTED
0:24
“I have nothing against diversity, equity, and inclusion. But as Voltaire said about the Holy Roman Empire: it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” | Steven Pinker
390.3K views8 months ago
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5:03
Harvard professor Steven Pinker unpacks stakes of Trump legal battle
Apr 23, 2025
MSNCBS News - Video
3:07
Trump's approach is qualitatively different than what we've seen before. As we see in the appointment of a crackpot as the Secretary for Health and Human Sciences, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and as we see in the imposition of tariffs that no thinker in their right mind could endorse, there's a lot of just pleasure in watching things burn. (From a Reason interview with Nick Gillespie in April.) | Steven Pinker
12.2K views8 months ago
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4:10
"The investments we have made in a whole generation of young scientists will go to waste," says Harvard professor Steven Pinker, co-chair of the university’s Council on Academic Freedom, on the Trump administration's $2.2 billion funding freeze on Harvard and the impacts it has on research. "There is a big, a large cohort of young scientists, who feel that their entire careers are being threatened. Not only will they be laid off and unemployed, but they just don't see a future in science," Pinke
12.4K viewsApr 23, 2025
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The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon--perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that killed an additional 4 million people, led to the restoration of slavery, to the restoration of the monarchy, and a delay of democracy in France by perhaps a century. Russian Revolution killed several million, led to the Russian Civil War--which killed another 9 million--led to the rise of Stalin, who killed 20 millio
326.3K views8 months ago
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1:49
60 Minutes: Harvard and the federal government have been in settlement talks for months, and in a statement, the Department of Education told us the Trump administration is actively working toward a deal with Harvard that holds them accountable for egregious civil rights violations and discrimination on campus, while restoring generous taxpayer dollar support to the institution. Harvard, in turn, says it's working to improve existing programs promoting ideological diversity. Me: Harvard has not
5.2K views5 months ago
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Steven Pinker: Now Is A Great Time To Be Alive, "Safer In Just About Every Way"
Mar 28, 2018
RealClear PoliticsTim Hains
2:49
Steven Pinker explains how changing the rules of the game can help us all win and prevent climate change. Watch the full interview now on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8DHHt2sOmzw You can listen to the podcast on all good podcast apps and on apple podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ways-to-change-the-world-with-krishnan-guru-murthy/id1359195562 | Channel 4 News
37K viewsNov 4, 2021
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I recount a joke from the old Soviet Union: a man handing out leaflets in Red Square. Of course, the KGB arrested him and bring him back to headquarters. Only they discover the leaflets are blank sheets of paper. They confront him: "What is the meaning of this?" He says, “What’s there to say? It’s so obvious.” So the point of the joke was, he was generating subversive common knowledge. That is, the citizens of the Soviet Union, they all knew that the regime was inefficient and cruel and oppressi
9.4K views3 months ago
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Me: I try to look at data and trends rather than headlines, because headlines can give you a misleading picture of the state of the world. Something goes wrong every day — that’s guaranteed — and if you just look at something goes wrong and say, oh, things are getting worse, you might be forgetting all the things that went wrong in the past. Andrew Marr: And what we call the news is a long litany of all the things that are getting worse or going wrong. Me: Well, yes, it’s much easier for somethi
15K views5 months ago
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1:07
Below I explain the concept behind my new book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . . Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life https://bit.ly/3FgucEQ "I came to the topic of common knowledge, that is, everyone knowing that everyone knows that everyone knows something, through my interest in language. In language, most of what we say isn't exactly what we mean. People say things like, if you could pass the salt, that would be awesome. And that's not literally
10.9K views8 months ago
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18:22
Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers
4.8M viewsApr 30, 2018
TEDSteven Pinker
1:35
Harvard Business Review - Why do people pour money into hype—like crypto or meme stocks? Speculative bubbles, crypto perhaps being one of the most recent examples, are cases where people think that other people will, in the future, will want to buy in. Some of that's called the greater fool theory of investing, that you invest because you think other people will invest because they think that still other people will invest. The thing is that, of course, bubbles could pop when the market starts t
7.2K views7 months ago
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1:34
On Putin's invasion of Ukraine: “This really was a stunning breach of the norm since 1945: that borders are grandfathered in; nation-states are immortal. The borders may be irrational; they may be all kinds of grounds for irredentist claims—‘Well, that patch of land on your side of the border really historically and morally ought to be on our side’—which could lead to endless wars. But good fences make good neighbors. There they are, and if you just say, ‘The borders are the borders,’ then you a
8.8K views4 months ago
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0:49
What happens when leadership says "to heck with all the nuance?" In our recent program "What Happens When We All Know" Brian Greene and Steven Pinker discuss the invisible rules that make socially possible. Watch the full conversation on the World Science Festival YouTube channel. | Brian Greene
27.2K views5 months ago
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7:30
Steven Pinker On Reason | Big Think
84K viewsApr 24, 2012
YouTubeBig Think
43:33
Yuval Noah Harari & Steven Pinker in conversation
328.5K viewsOct 7, 2019
YouTubeYuval Noah Harari
19:50
A History of Violence: Steven Pinker at TEDxNewEngland
89.7K viewsNov 20, 2012
YouTubeTEDx Talks
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Stephen Reacts To Trump Calling Him 'A No-Talent Guy'
10.6M viewsMay 12, 2017
YouTubeThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert
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Bill Gates & Steven Pinker discuss Enlightenment Now
154.5K viewsJan 26, 2018
YouTubeBill Gates
15:12
Steven Pinker on Human Nature | Big Think
131.6K viewsApr 23, 2012
YouTubeBig Think
24:09
Steven Pinker: Human nature and the blank slate
561.7K viewsOct 7, 2008
YouTubeTED
18:45
Stephen Miller Interview with George Stephanopoulos | This Week
298K viewsFeb 12, 2017
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