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I love that story. That's that's a

theory. I we economists, we love little

theories about why businesses do things,

but that one I'm like, okay, I I I buy

that. Um, so so one question that's come

up, um, I know you talk about social

media in the book. You talk about social

media pylons in the book and kind of

shaming and so on, but the question is

more uh more general. Is there a way to

slow down or reverse the negative

impacts of social media on society?

>> Oh, it's a a big challenge. It's not

easy just because these runaway

phenomena are are hard to control, hard

to put certain genies back in the

bottle. um

you know uh presumably if if Facebook

and and um X and Tik Tok are clever

enough to devise algorithms that get us

addicted by mining patterns in our

previous history of of clicks. Um they

should be clever enough if they were so

motivated to develop algorithms that

might tamp that down

>> if if Yeah.

>> produce a big if. Yes. I mean this is

this is part of it. I mean one um one

suggestion I've seen for example this is

very straightforward is the ability of

um

if you've if you've made a tweet made a

tweet if you've tweeted I'm 52

>> 52 what am I going to say you've tweeted

you've posted and um people are

commenting

um you should be able to um remove the

comment disconnect the comment

from the from the tweet thread,

>> you think the comment is not for

whatever reason, the comment's there.

People can make the comment, people can

go to the commenter's website and see

the comment, but it's not it's not

attached to your tweet. And that sort of

simple example uh just I think changes

the context of how people might pile on

or not pile on, hijack. I mean, people

are constantly just trying to sell

crypto in comments on my posts, which is

like, you know, that should be it

doesn't I shouldn't have to flag that as

spam. I should just be able to go, it's

that's just a a tweet about crypto

that's no longer attached to my tweet.

But I I don't see any great interest in

the social media companies in in doing

this, presumably because they they have

concluded that we like it that way.

>> Yeah. or at least well there's a

difference between liking something and

wanting something. This is a big

neurobiological difference. They might

even involve different parts of the

brain that you can crave things that

don't actually give you pleasure when

you get them.

>> And for many people, well, social media,

um even smartphones in general, uh

especially teenagers can become addicted

to them, but actually happier when

they're banned because they aren't

getting pleasure from them. As with many

other addictions,

>> I mean this this feels it's not quite

common knowledge, but it is a network

effect in as much as

if you say to a teenager, well, if you

if the phone is making you miserable,

then just don't have the phone, switch

off the phone, whatever. Um,

but that that's no good unless everybody

else has the phone taken away

>> because it's the knowledge that everyone

else is talking maybe talking about you,

maybe bullying you, it doesn't help

>> to uh to just switch off the phone as

long as you've still got that anxiety.

if everyone has the phone taken away.

>> Yes, it's another game theoretic

dilemma, not a coordination dilemma,

closer to I guess a a tragedy of the

commons or a public goods kind of game,

but again with a paradoxical result that

you a unilateral move by you won't uh

may not solve the problem. uh in fact

even unilateral moves by everyone that

is in their own local interests works to

the detriment of everyone when everyone

does it.

>> Yeah. But I mean them is surely a case

for uh social media as a as a common

knowledge generating

mechanism. So I mean this was this was

the hope during the Arab Spring. But the

idea of dictatorial regimes collapse if

everybody can coordinate. Everybody

knows that everybody knows that everyone

is ready to take down the regime. The

regime collapses overnight. We have

examples the Romanian the Chashescu

regime in Romania for example. Many

other examples.

Uh social media is potentially a way to

coordinate that. But we don't we don't

hear so much about that anymore. Why why

not?

>> No it's true.

The thing about social media, one thing

is that they aren't technically uh

common knowledge generators in the way

that say the BBC was or Time magazine or

the Super Bowl broadcast television

because by definition the information is

delivered to you by an algorithm and you

don't really know that anyone else is

seeing it. Yeah.

>> But there's the illusion of common

knowledge and there's always the

potentiality for common knowledge

because of virality. Because if you

repost, retweet, like something, then

for all you know, it could go viral and

everyone could be seeing it. And so that

and and moreover, unlike traditional

media like Time magazine or the BBC, you

can generate common knowledge

potentially and not just precede it.

>> And there there is also I mean there are

a couple of things that come from that.

One is the idea of of um advertising on

say for example Facebook and showing

different adverts to different people.

So there's no common knowledge like in a

in political claim. You could make some

inflammatory political advert show it

only to a small number of people. Nobody

even knows that the advert has been seen

um depending on the legal framework. And

so that's a problem connected to common

knowledge. And a second problem is the

the sense of generating the impression

of common knowledge where you know this

is what everyone thinks. this is what

everyone's saying on social media when

in fact it's just a very tiny vocal

minority trying to establish a new kind

of norm. Yes, indeed. Because we we

never really we never know. Common

knowledge is almost a bit of a misnomer.

Probably common belief would be more

accurate for almost everything we've

said this evening, but but common

knowledge is the more common term. We

never knowledge has to be true for it to

be knowledge. And we never know when

whether something is true. But more

generally, there's always the it's the

perception that matters. That is the

sense that something is public. Uh

whether or not it is. And in this case,

it feels as if what you're seeing could

be seen by everyone. And that's

amplified by the trending column and by

the habit of the mainstream media, which

really do generate common knowledge to

often reproduce tweets. And you never

know when that'll happen.

>> Yeah. No, it Yes. Happens all too often,

I think. Um several questions

kind of floating around the same sort of

um subject which is really a a reaction

to your uh previous books Enlightenment

Now and Better Angels of Our Nature

which are great books, optimistic books

really tracking how much progress

humanity has made over the last however

many centuries you you you care to um

look back. uh decline in violence,

improved life expectancy, reduce

poverty, lots and lots of good news.

People I think in 2025 are not feeling

very optimistic. Um

do do you are we are we right

to worry that some of these gains are at

risk or is this is this the same kind of

like it doesn't matter how much good

news news there is, people are always

going to be gloomy.

>> Yes. So, I think there are some built-in

biases that um that that that uh push

toward gloom. Just the very nature of

news as something that happens quickly

enough to be reported. Things that

happen fast tend to be bad just because

there are many more ways for things to

go wrong than than to go right. Things

that go right are often either things

that don't happen like there's no war in

Southeast Asia. um or things that happen

incrementally and uh couple of

percentage points a year and might

compound

changing the world um radically but so

gradually that there's never a Thursday

in October in which it's reported.

>> Yeah. Um Max Roser, the uh proprietor of

uh the website our world and data said

the newspapers could have had the

headline 130,000 people escaped from

extreme poverty yesterday every day for

the past 30 years, but they never ran

the headline. And so a billion people

escaped from extreme poverty and no one

knows about it. So there is that and

that this is on top of the explicit

negativity biases that that that many

journalists have. One editor said to me,

"Well, in our business, we consider um

bad news to be journalism and good news

to be advertising." So, it's kind of

looking down on good news. Yeah. So,

people are

>> It is the gradualism as well as the bad

news. I mean, I I reflected on this in

in my book, How the How the World Add Up

from smoking related diseases in America

in the week of 911 than died in 911. But

it would be a very strange news editor

who in the Saturday roundup of the news

said, "Well, you know, actually the

really the really big news is is deaths

from smoking related heart disease and

cancer." Um even though that's worse

news. So it's not it's not just

pessimism, it's also that I think the

gradualism is a really important point

there in

>> indeed. Yes. Um so where the two books

that I wrote on progress, the better

angels of our nature which focused on

violence and enlightenment now which um

updated the graphs on violence but added

uh data on other indicators of human

well-being like longevity and poverty

and education and so on. Um, so they

weren't so much they were uh framed as

optimistic books, but the message wasn't

look on the bright side of life or see

the glasses half full. It was just that

you get a very different picture of

history and of the present moment if you

understand it through graphs than if you

than through headlines and incidents and

and anecdotes. But it what it means is

that progress which I just claimed is an

empirical fact. We really have made

progress if you look at the curves. But

it isn't a process that just happens.

That is there's no nothing that just

makes things better and better. It's all

people trying to solve problems and

sometimes they succeed and if we keep

the solutions that work and try not to

repeat our mistakes then progress could

happen. But there's a lot of

unpredictability, a lot of randomness. I

don't think the history is cyclical but

I think that um uh weird unpredicted

things can can happen. uh no one expects

the Spanish Inquisition as Monty Python

would say. Um so in terms of the present

moment compared to when I published

Enlightenment Now which came out in 18

so it was sent off to the press in 17

which means that the statistics were no

later than than 2016. Some of the trends

have continued, some of them after a

notch during COVID, but life expectancy

now is at the highest in the history of

of our species. Uh extreme poverty is at

the lowest. Homicide has gone down

globally. Suicide has gone down

globally. Education is up. Uh uh girls

education, access to electricity, access

to clean water. All of these trends have

uh improved. Some of them though have

gone in the wrong direction. So the

world is less democratic now than it was

20 years ago. Still more democratic than

it was at any time in the 20th century.

But we have lost some progress. Uh war

deaths have gone in the wrong direction

in the last 5 years. Still we're better

off than we were through most of the

20th century. Better than we were in the

80s and the 70s. Um but uh but but the

curve has gone in the wrong direction.

Is this a blip and will it resume its

upward trajectory or is this a new

normal that we just don't know?

>> Yeah.

Uh we've barely scratched the surface of

the questions. We have certainly barely

scratched the surface of the book. Uh I

really enjoyed it. You will really enjoy

it. The book is when everyone knows that

everyone knows dot dot dot worth

fighting for. Um,

Steven is going to be signing copies of

the book out there. So, if you wish to

meet Steven, say hello, get your book

signed, go that way. Do not come this

way. Um, I will I will intervene. Uh, go

that way. Um, thank you all very much

for coming and um, please join me in

thanking wonderful Steven Pinker.