Book Review: Talking to Strangers

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2019 book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About People We Don't Know, deals with the human condition in the face of deceit. Gladwell is a non-fiction writer who tends to write about topics in sociology, psychology, and social psychology. The book’s main point is that strangers, some of who are liars, deceivers or criminals, are treated in a default mode of trust. We believe strangers as the default mindset. Getting out of default trust mode usually takes a lot of evidence before the trusting mind flips into distrust mode.

Gladwell convincingly argues that if humans evolved with a default distrust mode mindset, civilization would probably not have arisen to an advanced state. For humans to accomplish complicated things, they must cooperate. That requires a non-trivial level of trust. Intuitively, that makes sense. Gladwell argues that if everyone always had to take time to vet a stranger’s intentions, an awful lot of time would be spent doing that instead of doing more useful things.

Looking into their eyes to see their soul makes things worse

Gladwell describes research where some computer scientists and an economist got together and built a computer algorithm to assess people for receiving bail for various infractions of law. They ran about 550,000 cases through their program and compared the results with how things turned out when judges either allowed bail or denied it and kept a suspect in jail to await trial. Although the amount of data fed into the algorithm was much less than the data the judges had access to, including directly looking at the defendant from a few feet away, the algorithm made 25% fewer mistakes based on how bail decisions actually turned out. Despite the populations of people they deal with, judges operate in a default trust mode. Looking at a person’s physical appearance and demeanor is not helpful. It seems to make things worse.

Gladwell describes other instances of the same thing. That includes Neville Chamberlain, who concluded from in-person meetings with Hitler that Hitler was a rational and trustworthy guy who wanted to avoid war. Other people, some of whom who did not meet Hitler, e.g., Winston Churchill, came to the opposite conclusion that he was a “duplicitous thug.” Chamberlain took the time to meet Hitler on several occasions to judge for himself whether he could be trusted or not and decided he was trustworthy. We all know how that turned out.

Another example that Gladwell describes is the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme saga. No one would believe that Madoff was running a ponzi scheme. That included the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who was responsible for finding and shutting people like Madoff down before they could cause a lot of harm. That included on at least four separate occasions when the SEC was handed all the evidence they needed to arrest Madoff. Despite being in law enforcement, the SEC simply could not look at the objective evidence of massive crime as see it for what it was. They were in default trust mode and could not be snapped out of it by mere proof of crimes.

Another deeply troubling story is how amazingly and thoroughly the CIA had been deceived and used by Cuba and East Germany during the cold war. There were not many (or any) CIA spies in Cuba or East Germany that operated without being known as CIA agents. Cuba recruited and planted a spy in the CIA and she was not detected even after one CIA agent got suspicious and reported her to senior spy catchers in the CIA. The amount of evidence it took to flip the CIA from trust to distrust was astonishing. It took years before all the evidence snapped into focus and the CIA realized they had been deceived in a massive way by a rather inept Cuban spy. One last piddly little piece of evidence, a trip to Cuba years before by the Cuban spy, was all it took for the CIA’s spycatcher to finally go “oh shit” after the light bulb finally turned on.

That is the truth mode in operation.

Gladwell discusses a common belief that people can distinguish a liar from an honest person based on how they act. The belief is false. Good liars can often convince most people they are honest. Bad liars usually do not fool most people because they act like they are lying. On the other hand, sometimes innocent people act like they are guilty or lying. Their ‘guilty’ actions can arise from factors like nervousness or confusion. Gladwell discusses the case of a young American woman vacationing in Italy, who was wrongly convicted in Italy of a murder based on the way she spoke and acted. There was no physical evidence that she committed the murder, but prosecutors were certain of her guilt based on her behavior. She really did act and speak like she was guilty. She did that she was scared and freaked out, not because she committed any crime.

That is another example of people believing they can judge someone by looking at and listening to them. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.

Trust is better than distrust

Gladwell concludes that our default to trust mindset sometimes allows bad people to do and get away with bad things. But overall, default to trust is much better for society than default to distrust. Citing 400,000 police records from North Carolina where police were aggressive about not trusting people and hassling them for trivial things, the hassling turned up 17 instances of illegal activity. In return for 17 hits, 399,983 people were alienated and angered for nothing in return.

Another example of the damage that default to distrust can inflict on people was the sad story of Harry Markopulos, the guy who easily figured out that Bernie Madoff was a crook running a massive ponzi scheme. Markopulos was a financial trader and forensic analyst with a chronically distrusting mind. He trusted almost no one about almost everything. He could not figure out how Madoff was making his money.

Madoff claimed he was heavy into certain kinds of financial transactions and this was where much of his returns kept coming from. Markopulos contacted the main players in the instruments that Madoff claimed to be trading in. None of them ever did business with Madoff. From that, Markopulos correctly concluded that Madoff was a crook. Markopulos then collected evidence that Madoff was a crook and gave it to the SEC. Over the years, Markopulos collected more evidence and gave that to the SEC on several occasions. When the SEC finally realized that he was a crook after Madoff turned himself in.

After the Madoff arrest, Markopulos concluded that because so many wealthy and powerful people had been hurt or humiliated that some of them, or the SEC itself out of embarrassment, would come to kill him. Markopulos bought a gun and lots of ammo and waited for his door to be broken down as his killers came for him. That is what irrational distrust can do to a person.