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.

Weird, cops keep getting caught doing racist shit in private

Fri, Aug 9, 2019

Ok - this article is a bit dated, but we need to pay attention to this kind of thing:


 A framed Ku Klux Klan application form was left displayed in the house of a white Michigan police officer while a Black man was there with a real estate agent.


"Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses," Rage Against the Machine famously said on its searing 1991 debut single "Killing in the Name," and many cops have pretty much been doing a terrible job of refuting that accusation ever since.

A Michigan cop is now being investigated after a framed Ku Klux Klan application form was found displayed in his house while a Black man and his family were inside on a real estate walk-through.

The Black man, Rob Mathis, took to social media to share his disgust in a viral Facebook post on Wednesday, adding that the house also had multiple Confederate flags on display.

"I feel sick to my stomach knowing that I walk to the home of one of the most racist people in Muskegon hiding behind his uniform and possibly harassing people of color and different nationalities," he wrote.

"To the officer, I know who you are and I will be looking at resources to expose your prejudice," he added. "As for now pictures speak 1000 words."

The officer, who was later identified as 48-year-old Charles Anderson of the Muskegon Police Department, had been previously cleared of fatally shooting 23-year-old Julius Johnson, a Black man, following a 2009 traffic stop. At the time Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague ruled the shooting was in self-defense, with Anderson testifying that Johnson had beat him with his own baton during a struggle.

Eric Hood, the president of the Muskegon County chapter of the NAACP, has called for a comprehensive look at Anderson’s dealings with people of color, telling WOOD-TV, "We want a thorough investigation to be sure that when he goes out there and puts on that uniform and performs his duties as an officer that he’s being fair and impartial."

The City of Muskegon released a statement saying Anderson has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted. Both Anderson and his wife have declined comment to other outlets, saying they have been told to stay silent during the investigation.

It's the latest headline about law enforcement officers getting caught doing racist shit while off the clock. In July, Citylab published The Plain View Project, which uncovered more than 5,000 racist and sexist Facebook posts and comments made by members of law enforcement. That same month, ProPublica published posts from a secret Facebook group for border patrol agents, where agents joked about the deaths of migrants and posted sexist memes about Latina lawmakers.

As a direct result of The Plain View Project, the Philadelphia Police Department announced it would fire 13 officers following an investigation. Later in July, two Louisiana police officers were fired for a Facebook post that suggested that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot.

The Case Against Political Ideology

How you think matters more than what you think. ….. beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.
– Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner (2015), Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.
– Johnathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

People for the most part dislike ambiguity ….. people find it hard to resist filling in the missing data points with ideologically scripted event sequences. ….. People for the most part also dislike dissonance ….. Unfortunately, the world can be a morally messy place in which policies that one is predisposed to detest sometimes have positive effects and policies that one embraces sometimes have noxious ones.
– Philip Tetlock (2005), Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

…. the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. …. cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. …. the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.
– Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels (2016), Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Governments

One gets the sense, as my Post colleague Jennifer Rubin wrote, that if progressives championed the theory of gravity, conservatives would denounce it. In fact, public-opinion research suggests that many Republicans would be likely to support climate-change solutions if they were proposed by Republican leaders — and conversely many Democrats would be likely to oppose them even if they would have backed the very same policies when put forward by Democrats. We’ve already seen the parties flip positions on Russia because of Trump. That is the danger of ideology, and why I strive for an empirical, non-ideological approach instead, even if that leaves me in a political no-man’s land where I am sniped at by both sides.
– Max Boot (2108), Washington Post columnist, former republican commenting on the profound distrust that democrats and republicans feel toward each other


From a pragmatic, evidence and reason-based point of view, standard existing ideologies are factors that significantly contribute to, or directly cause, major social and political problems. Those problems are serious and potentially lethal. Current evidence argues that society and politics would be better off if standard, obsolete, ideologies were abandoned and replaced with a moral mindset that is empirical, non-ideological and focused on the core political values necessary to defend liberal democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.

Ideologies that people bring to bear on politics are typically grounded in some combination of political, economic and religious belief. When one identifies with a particular ideology mostly to the exclusion of others, that orthodox mindset makes a person an ideologue. Personal identity and self-esteem is usually tightly associated with strongly held ideological beliefs and loyalties. That usually makes it very hard or impossible to accept both inconvenient truths and weaknesses or inconsistencies that ideology can lead to. History, current events and cognitive and social science research all clearly show that strongly held ideological belief often leads many or most ideologues to distort or even rejects facts, truths or reasoning that undermine or contradict the ideology. In short, ideology leads the mind to unconsciously make the world and reasoning better fit with personal identity, beliefs and the values that underpin them.

Rejecting inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning ideology arises from normal human psychological traits. One of them is motivated reasoning or cognition. It is an unconscious process that works to reduce the discomfort that ambiguity and cognitive dissonance generates. We are inherently motivated to make the world and thinking conform to the dictates of both ideology and existing ideological beliefs. That often comes at the expense of facts and reasoning. One prominent libertarian became self-aware of the power of motivated reasoning to distort both facts and reasoning. He described it like this:

Ever since college I have been a libertarian—socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility. I also believe in science as the greatest instrument ever devised for understanding the world. So what happens when these two principles are in conflict? My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which our brain reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true. Knowing about the existence of motivated reasoning, however, can help us overcome it when it is at odds with evidence.

Two other harmful aspects of ideology in politics merit mention. The fist is that ideology leads people to be certain that their beliefs are correct, despite the obvious complexity and uncertainty inherent in the world and political issues. Ideology tends to kill open mindedness and intellectual freedom. It also tends to lead people to not see nuance or shades of gray. That closed mindedness leads people to disregard or even attack contrary facts, counterarguments and points of view that would create at least some uncertainty in most open minds. People with a less ideological and more pragmatic mindset are more open to possibilities that the world, facts and logic operate without the mental constraints that ideology imposes. One libertarian who rejected ideology altogether cites it as a both mental prison and a threat to freedom:

I have abandoned that libertarian project, however, because I have come to abandon ideology. This essay is an invitation for you to do likewise — to walk out of the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.” ….. Worse, [ideology] encourages fanaticism, disregard for social outcomes, and invites irresolvable philosophical disputes. It also threatens social pluralism — which is to say, it threatens freedom.

Another harmful aspect of ideology is its tendency to lead people to dehumanize other people and groups of people, including races. Dehumanization may decrease empathy toward dehumanized out-groups. That would tend to make politics less tolerant and more irrational than it is now. Social discord and conflict become more plausible. In a civil democracy, rational disputes center on ideas, not on vilification of political or social opposition. Dehumanization labels or even vilifies people, making it easy to ignore contrary ideas and beliefs with merit.

Currently, political rhetoric is rife with name calling. That tactic invariably foments negative emotions and irrationality. Derogatory use of labels such as un-American, socialist, fascist, atheist, libtard, liar, stupid and so forth attacks the target’s integrity, patriotism, intelligence, honesty and/or moral judgment. Once attacked, negative emotional reactions (anger, hate, fear, distrust, bigotry, etc.) arise instantly, making calm evidence and reason-based thinking and discussion difficult or impossible for most people.

Growing SUV and pickup sales are cancelling out emission savings from electric cars

Even if more cars go electric, it's almost pointless unless we get rid of light trucks.

The great benefit of electric cars is that there are no tailpipe emissions, because there is no tailpipe. And even with our usual complaints, it has been wonderful to see them taking off. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA):

Plans from the top 20 car manufacturers suggest a tenfold increase in annual electric car sales, to 20 million vehicles a year by 2030, from 2 million in 2018. Starting from a low base, less than 0.5% of the total car stock, this growth in electric vehicles means that nearly 7% of the car fleet will be electric by 2030.

 The IEA notes talk about "the beginning of the end for the ICE age.” As passenger cars consume nearly one-quarter of global oil demand today, does this signal the approaching erosion of a pillar of global oil consumption?"

Nope. In fact, emissions from transportation keep climbing, even as fewer cars are sold and more are electric, because so many more people are buying SUVs and pickups trucks.

On average, SUVs consume about a quarter more energy than medium-size cars. As a result, global fuel economy worsened caused in part by the rising SUV demand since the beginning of the decade, even though efficiency improvements in smaller cars saved over 2 million barrels a day, and electric cars displaced less than 100,000 barrels a day.

It's just going to get worse.

In fact, SUVs were responsible for all of the 3.3 million barrels a day growth in oil demand from passenger cars between 2010 and 2018, while oil use from other type of cars (excluding SUVs) declined slightly. If consumers’ appetite for SUVs continues to grow at a similar pace seen in the last decade, SUVs would add nearly 2 million barrels a day in global oil demand by 2040, offsetting the savings from nearly 150 million electric cars.

We do go on about how SUVs and pickups are killing and maiming people by the thousands, and all of the other problems that they cause, but surely this should raise some eyebrows. Many countries offer incentives and tax credits to encourage people to buy electric cars, which all seems kind of silly if they don't have disincentives for buying light trucks like SUVs and pickups.

The government actually subsidizes big SUVs.

It gets still worse; if you buy a truck or SUV in the U.S. that is heavier than 6,000 pounds, the IRS gives you a massive tax write-off for depreciation. Range Rover is even using this in their marketing to people who use their cars for business. Another site conveniently lists all the cars over 6,000 pounds (copied below) that are eligible for this.

The government is giving these tax deductions because they consider these to be work vehicles. Given how dangerous they are, it's time to license their drivers to a higher standard as they do for trucks over 10,000 pounds. That would get a lot of them off the road fast.

Here's the list of 2018 cars and trucks that are over 6,000 pounds, via Financial Samurai.

Audi Q7
BMW X5
BMW X6
Buick ENCLAVE
Cadillac ESCALADE AWD
Chevrolet Truck AVALANCHE 4WD
Chevrolet Truck SILVERADO
Chevrolet Truck SUBURBAN
Chevrolet Truck TAHOE 4WD
Chevrolet Truck TRAVERSE 4WD
Dodge Truck DURANGO 4WD
Ford Truck EXPEDITION 4WD
Ford Truck EXPLORER 4WD
Ford Truck F-150 4WD
Ford Truck FLEX AWD
GMC ACADIA 4WD
GMC SIERRA
GMC YUKON 4WD
GMC YUKON XL
Infiniti QX56 4WD
Jeep GRAND CHEROKEE
Land Rover RANGE ROVER
Land Rover RANGE ROVER SPT
Land Rover Discovery
Lexus GX460
Lexus LX570
Lincoln MKT AWD
Mercedes Benz G550
Mercedes Benz GL500
Nissan ARMADA 4WD
Nissan NV 1500 S V6
Nissan NVP 3500 S V6
Nissan TITAN 2WD S
Porsche CAYENNE
Toyota 4RUNNER 4WD
Toyota LANDCRUISER
Toyota SEQUOIA 4WD LTD
Toyota TUNDRA 4WD
Volkswagen TOUAREG HYBRID