The Elephant in the Brain
Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
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Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.
About this Author
Kevin Simler is a writer and software engineer currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He's worked for ten years as a programmer, product designer, and engineering director, and continues to advise startups about technology, leadership, and recruiting. Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a doctorate in social science, master's degrees in physics and philosophy, and nine years of experience as a research programmer in artificial intelligence and Bayesian statistics. With over 3100 citations and sixty academic publications, he's recognized not only for his contributions to economics (especially, pioneering the theory and use of prediction markets), but also for the wide range of fields in which he's been published. He is the author of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth (OUP 2016).
Reviews
"Many of the details of Hanson and Simler's thesis are persuasive, and the idea of an 'introspective taboo' that prevents us from telling the truth to ourselves about our motives is worth contemplating. (That taboo is the Elephant [in the Brain])." --The New Yorker
"The Elephant in the Brain is refreshingly frank and penetrating, leaving no stone of presumed human virtue unturned." --Wall Street Journal
"This book will make you see the world in a whole new light." --Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg columnist; author of The Great Stagnation
"The Elephant in the Brain is a masterpiece." --Scott Aaronson, Director, Quantum Information Center, University of Texas, Austin
"In this ingenious and persuasive book, Simler and Hanson mischievously reveal that much of our behavior is for social consumption: we make decisions that make us look good, rather than good decisions." --Hugo Mercier, Research Scientist, French Institute for Cognitive Sciences
"A thoughtful examination of the human condition." --David Biello, Science Curator at TED; author of The Unnatural World
"Simler and Hanson have done it again- a big new idea, well told." --Gregory Benford, Professor of Physics, University of California, Irvine; two- time Nebula Award Winner; author of The Berlin Project
"Deeply important, wide- ranging, beautifully written, and fundamentally right." --Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics, George Mason University; author of The Case Against Education
"This is the most unconventional and uncomfortable self- help book you will ever read. But probably also the most important." --Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT; coauthor of Machine
"Thorough, insightful, fun to read, with the slight negative that everything is now ruined forever." --Zach Weinersmith, author of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
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