In this dialogue, Robert Gressis (UCal Northridge) and Hugo Mercier ( French National Center for Scientific Research, Not Born Yesterday) discuss how human belief and manipulation work, and Hugo's research about why people aren't as manipulable as we sometimes think.
01:24 Hugo’s thesis: when it comes to communication, people are not easily manipulated, but hard to manipulate.
07:19 If people aren’t easily manipulated, then how does Hugo explain the success of Hitler, Pol Pot, and Trump?
16:07 Aren’t people easily manipulated by leaders who share their political orientation?
21:00 Do people really believe the crazy things they espouse?
28:36 What is the connection between belief and behavior? 35:45 Sperber and Mercier’s “interactionist” theory of reason
41:00 Twitter as a counterexample to the interactionist theory of reason
48:18 Are people good at arguing?
53:13 Rational rioters and the extraordinary heterogeneity of crowds
E. John Winner and Dan Kaufman (Electric Agora) talk about the Marx Brothers and their relationship to American Comedy. 1:30 Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Musical...
A brief history of 20th-century literary criticism ... John's battles against radical feminists as a grad student at SUNY Albany ... Post-structuralism and "how...
Jay Jeffers (The Partially Examined Life) and Dan Kaufman discuss the beginnings of MTV and their recollections of it, on this 40th anniversary of...