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The "Token black" phenomenon lends some creedence to the blank slate theory and the capacity of fathers to at least paralize base level instincts

Pinker's better than this. I'm sad about how toxic academia have treated him. I can relate.

Love the video's, but I'm sure you get a couple more clichés into the intro if you really tried.

“The universe is indifferent to our well being” wonder if he thinks this statement is an opinion or objective fact. Aren’t humans inseparable from the universe? Our bodies are made of the same atoms as cosmic bodies. Our minds use the same electronic interactions that permeate space time. Seems pinker doesn’t apply his own idea of dissolving the distinction between subjective vs objective reality here. Being a linguist I’m surprised to even hear him use “the universe“ as a concept at all since it literally means everything. Even hardcore materialist atheists can’t help but separate humans from the heavens.

Pitbulls, as a subspecies, do have certain traits, and it generally serves I've well to "generalize" about them, as generalizing is about probabilities and pattern recognition. As with pitbulls, so too with the subspecies of humans, of which the differences between the nervous systems is even much more defined by differences than with dogs.

Over a longer period I would have agreed with this summary, but I feel that in the recent decade or so the progress of the previous 50 years is in decline. Knowledge and possession of sparkly things is not synonymous with enlightenment. > Thank you, I have very much enjoyed this series :)

how did you decide for us that equity is morally good?

Allow me to argue briefly how mechanistic enlightenment rationality failed humanity during the recent pandemic. If human societies were mobilized not towards the mechanistic end of a consciousness spectrum (with bacteria as the least conscious and humans as the most), then resources would have been directed to care for the sick rather than hiding or going dormant like bacteria. Communities could have mobilized youths to actively care for the sick using the best-known technologies and commonsense solutions - increasing altruistic, economic and social success for the least productive parts of humanity. This active participation would have exposed strong human immune systems to the virus, aiding its eradication. The Enlightened elites missed an opportunity, or they deliberately edged us closer to a "Brave New World".

It is not about believing that individuals are blank slates. It is about forming a society that allows the unique capabilities of each individual to flourish. The current system (which of course you an apologist for), in based on market driven competition. This favours a certain ontological presupposition about human nature. Ie, the ontological basis of neoclassical axioms. The crux is, society isn't a blank slate. It is based on normative assumptions that favour some. This, inequality.

It is astonishing to realize that the more efficiently our universalist efforts at human progress succeed, the more humanity resembles Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." This outcome seems inevitable if the only allowed explanatory framework considers mechanistic properties and non-teleological reasoning. With that in mind, you have to realise that the most rational life form is bacteria, and therefore you will realise that these mechanistic approaches seem to reduce humanity to similar mechanistic efficiencies, encompassing all possible human experiences. This approach is based on many observational delusions, such as the belief that there is no inherent or actual teleology in nature. Moreover, it fails to acknowledge the lack of a theory that successfully explains why any organism would ever evolve to be mechanistically and rationally less optimal than the single-celled ecosystems, these organisms always remain a measure against which we can measure all non-teleological claims. Therefore, as a human, you should be extremely concerned if Pinker's method is being implemented aiming towards its final conclusion. This is especially scary if AI machines are programmed to only follow non-teleological optimization of replicating rational systems. Your trans-human sphere of existence might not be what you expect, simply because sensory experiences beyond chemical and energy gradient sensing, like those many bacteria use, are not rationally more probable to ensure successful gene reproduction - and thinking about things is completely redundant for Pinker's perfectible matter in motion humanity. It was just a human-centric bias that the Enlightenment Humanists preferred in their anti-god, anti-teleology delusions about the origins of species. Furthermore, Charles Taylor critiqued Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" by pointing out several areas where Pinker's philosophy falls short, particularly in addressing the deeper, often existential, dimensions of human life. Taylor highlighted issues such as the sources of meaning in life, the importance of community and belonging, the role of religion, and the complexities of human identity and moral dilemmas. These aspects, Taylor argues, are often overlooked in Pinker's data-driven optimism.

It's not about human nature, we deny "existence" as the term is conventionaly understood; we deny that things exist in the way they appear to exist to us. "Things" are mental symbols for certain arrangements of causes in reality, which arrangements we cannot even start to understand without this simplification. So, just like with everything else, "human nature" exists only because we ourselves give it existence: we give it name and definition and all of its properties. When we remove our own input from any thing, such as name, form, definition, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, indications and contraindications... what's left once all of these are removed is - nothing.

That's just Human Nature to do that

Just think of all the hours he spent in his life, on his hair.

Thank You

Millions of shirts should be emblazoned with what Prof. Pinker states at 7:05 - “Reason, Science, and Humanism”. And wear it proudly.

Oh, that enlightenment, the one where Kant tells us that knowledge of the 'thing in itself' is impossible :)

I would think the goal of eliminating poverty is connected to the selfishness of the Western world in many ways, mainly through irrational belief/faith? While vaguely assuming it will stymie the planet's population growth by some and others knowing it will help increase the human population on the planet through an increased birth rate secured by human well-being - before understanding what human overpopulation means. Either way, eliminating poverty is a disturbing statement to many in the current world with the populations currently, because most have not understood where this leads too. Precisely because of irrational beliefs mentioned. Perhaps those newly arrived out of poverty, they then can collectively use this newly found freedom of self-assurance, new beliefs and the irrational collective energy to impose these irrational belief systems on others and create havoc or more wars when opposed...

So paedophilia is just an adaptation. We should accommodate. No moral outrage necessary. Likewise eugenics, euthanasia, abortion. BY WHAT STANDARD do we judge these things as reprehensible? As Malcolm Muggeridge once said. This is education into imbecility.

How was Epsteins island pedo???

A cautious optimism-a great way to wake up! Thank you Steve!❤

Nicely done. 😊 2:40 This one thing has moved the needle forward more than anything else...the sharing of ideas through the printed (texted?) word.

Loved watching this

Argghhh! Steve, I *hate* the picture of you holding the brain at 0:06. Whoever took that picture did you no favors. I love your books, but I'm not watching any of your videos featuring this bizarre picture.

The history of pessimism pertaining to the “clash of civilisation” is a counter factual to optimistic humanism derived from the Kantian enlightenment paradigm.

Read the book when it first came out. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Pinker is unfairly critical of Libertarians but nobody is perfect. Anyways, I highly recommend the book!

junk science

Think again. Humans use music for the purpose of reliable long term memory. This is why you can remember the lyrics to a song you haven't heard for 10 years. It's the hangover of needing to maintain detailed social constructs over long periods of time, before writing there were songs. 'yesterday, all my troubles...'

I agree that we are in relatively peaceful times. I still feel that here are forces of aggression and people who are aggressive that still want to promote aggressiveness. It's a tug-of-war. If society doesn't properly explain altruism and kindness, the trends could start skewing another way. Also, not every instance or idea of aggression gets documented. Sometimes it can be a mindset. So, it matters that a society promote altruism directly. In modern societies, people have become more secular and we don't have the same moral explanations that previous cultures had. This means the minds of modern people, especially young people, are up for grabs. Like I said, people who are aggressive promote aggressiveness, because it is self-serving and to also teach others to tolerate aggression, but on the other hand, this aggression could be used against people who are innocent. So, it really is about competing interests. We are for the most part peaceful, but I actually think things coule be even more peaceful, and also things could get worse if we don't pay attention to trends.

Science and reason is the way forward, not superstitious religion. Without scientific method we are not even posting on the Internet as we do now because the secrets to electricity were never given in any Holly Book.

Paradox: this series and I are well aligned but I often feel chaffed after watching a video. Observation: 0:30 into the video, and other than four words on a title card, we've only seen personality-centered indexing. Perhaps it's related to the paradox.

3:15, 3:31 - Modern feminism is based on the idea of equality through sameness, and the trans agenda is a central part of that strategy.

We are all equally different

I haven't watched this yet....but this is the question I ask myself every day This world and especially the west is deviating and trying to fool mother nature.

People refuse to believe it when I tell them we live in the most aggressive and dangerous time in history. We are organizing worldwide Extinction of lives except mankind. If we continues to be this successful as the last 200 years, I do not think that mankind would survive next 200 years.

What seems too often overlooked is the fact that we are a social species. By confining our vision to the individual we misread the real selective system shaping/driving behavior.

As a non-biologist average Joe, I appreciate this blip we're experiencing right now. I appreciate my car and being able to drive it coast to coast without checkpoints and having everything I need along the way. Spending hours looking out of a window on a jet plane. Soloing an airplane alone. Calling my sister only to find out she's in Spain, not the next town over like normal. A lifetime of store shelf's full of enticing products. Education. The Internet. Phil Spector's The Wall Of Sound. I also understand this is a blip in our history soon to go away forever.

How come i am just getting to see this channel ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Because you would die like a fool if you didn't.

Except for “Rap” which isn’t music.

Steven Pinker,...an apologist for Hell & Dystopia, using statistics.

LOL Pinker, you don't know math

Why is everybody nowadays saying "we" dont need???

Great video! I hope Trump picks Pinker as his running mate because both of them have such great hair. Together, they would be unbeatable!

I suspect that the fear of texting and driving will take some time. It will take at least a generation or two to clear the gene pool.

A crucial difference between Conservatism and Progressivism.

We need to separate two things here. 1. Denying human nature 2. Using human nature as an EXCUSE for poor performance.

A definition of human nature to begin with, would be helpful. There are many conceptual confusions in this presentation.

Language is "just" one method in our library of communication channels/options. So is gesturing, smelling, seeing/showing, thumping and so on. It just happens to be a very precise and easily extensible method; but you could, at least in theory, devise a language based only on touching that is able to convey just as much "data". Also, consider the *huge difference* between a language *before* and _after_ a connected writing system was invented; the use of an alphabet greatly increased *bandwidth, accuracy and standardization* Finally, anyone who "thinks" that language is required for thought hasn't done much of it. Steven is too kind to those who think so; they are idiots, indeed one might even make the case that to think so, is to reveal oneself as one ;)

I wish I could make similar observations about the modern decline of violence as a South African. Sadly we suffer from a persistently high crime rate.

The way we speak to angels.