Podcast Club ONLINE: The Power and Ubiquity of Common Knowledge

This week's podcast is The Michael Shermer Show with guest Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, author of numerous bestselling and critically-acclaimed books, and public intellectual. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He previously taught at Stanford and at MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, where he also served as Director of the McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Pinker has received countless awards and honors, some of which are as follows: named as one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world; named as one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in both years the poll was conducted; named by Foreign Policy to its list of top global thinkers; elected to the National Academy of Sciences; and twice named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

PLEASE NOTE: We require that attendees listen to the podcast below before attending the meeting to optimize discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVx5eAV1ck8
(video)

or

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-shermer-show/id1352860989?i=1000728099819

(1 hr., 35 min.)

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What's this podcast about?

In this week's episode, podcast guest Steven Pinker discusses his latest book entitled When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

Pinker defines "common knowledge" not just as something everyone knows but as a condition in which everyone knows that everyone else knows that thing, and so on, infinitely (i.e., I know that you know that I know that you know. . . ). This awareness of knowledge permeates our everyday lives in surprisingly many ways we tend not to even think about, and it drives our behavior. It also serves to create norms, euphemisms, innuendos, and allows us to say things that literally make no sense but are ultimately understood by a listener. This podcast explores how we use common knowledge and reveals what it has to do with things like bribes, sex, passing the salt, the use of nuclear weapons, international borders, money, Super Bowl ads, name brands, facial expressions, and political protests. It also covers topics including the difference between common knowledge, mutual knowledge, reciprocal knowledge, and private knowledge; why we say things we don't really mean; what's the significance of Schelling points; and much more.

What's a podcast club?

It's like a book club for podcasts. Each week we discuss an interesting and currently-relevant episode from podcasters like Ezra Klein, Michael Shermer, or Russ Roberts. We start off as a large group and spend most of the time talking in small break-out groups, which we remix 3 times during the course of the evening. Our conversations are casual and open. We ask that everyone speak respectfully at all times, and we encourage free and concise discussion relevant to the week's podcast topic. To do this, we try to adhere to Grice's Maxims: https://bit.ly/2p4uSQm

Ultimately, the idea is to help each other think a little differently, learn a thing or two and have some fun.