#905 David Pinsof: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems, Meaning of Life, and Morality

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of the, the Center. I'm your host, Ricardo Lops. And today I'm joined by Doctor David. David Pins off. He's a research scientist at UCL, a, the University of California, Los Angeles. And his research focuses on evolutionary psychology, political psychology, public opinion and sexual behavior. And today we're focusing mostly on political belief systems, the meaning of life, morality and some other related topics. So David, welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure to everyone.

00:36 David Pinsof: The pleasure is all mine, Ricardo, I'm a big fan of the podcast and I'm very happy to be on it.

00:40 Ricardo Lopes: Great. Thanks. So, starting with the fun stuff, let's talk about political belief systems then. So, I mean, I guess that uh if you talk with political scientists and philosophers, uh when it comes to explaining how political belief systems work, where they come from, they would give you a, I don't know, a highly intellectualized version of it based on abstract values and how they are so coherent and so on. But since you come from an evolutionary psychology perspective, how do you approach it? Exactly.

01:23 David Pinsof: Yeah. So um I have a kind of cheeky blog called Everything Is Bullshit. Uh And part of the shtick there is to call bullshit on things. And um you could describe my academic paper, uh strange bedfellows, the alliance theory of, of political belief systems as a way of calling bullshit on that prevailing view of political ideology. So, um I really take aim at the idea that uh liberalism or conservatism as they manifest in contemporary American society or other Western nations uh represent uh coherent belief systems, reflect moral principles, reflect well thought out philosophies. Um I think they are much more strategic uh chaotic random uh than, than that. Um And I'd be happy to get into the details of, of uh how I'm grounding out that view.

02:16 Ricardo Lopes: OK. So, uh but just before we get into your view and start exploring it, what would you say are some of the most common explanations that people bring to the table when trying to explain where political belief systems come from?

02:36 David Pinsof: Yeah. So I'd say broadly speaking, the most common approach to political belief systems is to point to some essential difference between people on either side of the political spectrum. Um So maybe that essential difference has to do with one's personality or one's psychological dispositions. Uh ONE'S uh traits, one's um uh personal idiosyncrasies and quirks the way one sees the world. Um And that's one common way of, of looking at it. Um The other way of looking at it uh is to say that they, they really pertain to differences in moral values. So, one of the most prominent approaches in this area is Jonathan Heights Moral Foundations theory, which says that liberals and conservatives uh rely on different moral foundations that is uh have a monomaniac egalitarian and harm focused uh ideology. Whereas conservatives uh rely on all six moral foundations from uh in group out group psychology to uh to uh purity and authority. Um And roughly, I think a lot of people in political psychology would agree that there are deep seated moral differences between liberals and conservatives. Republicans and Democrats, left wing, left wing, right wing uh et cetera. Uh And uh and, and it's those abstract moral values that color and explain uh the contents of our political belief systems. They are the common thread that ties all our beliefs together. Uh And I think that is mistaken

04:17 Ricardo Lopes: and what would you say are some of the biggest weaknesses, at least in your view when it comes to hypotheses that are based on or try to explain political belief systems on the basis of abstract values. Because I mean, it seems to me that sometimes people are trying to talk about abstract values and not necessarily just moral values, but some other sorts of political values uh as if they were like sort of separate from the rest of our psychology and based on just pure rational philosophy or something like that. So, what are your thoughts on that.

05:02 David Pinsof: Sure. Yeah. Um I think the biggest problem with that view is that it's just fundamentally evolutionarily implausible. So if you, if you, if you actually look at what people who believe in these abstract values are saying, uh usually what they're saying is that these values are not self interested, they're not helping a person advance their power or status or access to resources. They're not in the interests of one's self or one's kin. Uh But they're also not group interested either. Um Because if they were, then we would strategically endorse whatever values support our political allies and reject them or flout them when they serve the interests of our political rivals. And when we have a wide variety of heterogeneous political allies, as we do uh in uh modern democracies with complex political coalitions, then we're going to see uh the strategic endorsement of moral values in one case to support one's allies and the rejection of that moral value uh when it happens to support our rivals. And so that is basically identical to alliance theory that these values are not really held consistently, but are used strategically to support the interests of one's allies and oppose the interests of one's rivals. But the problem is if these abstract values are not in our self interest and they're not in our political allies, interests or our group's interests, then that really rules out the only possible mechanisms by which these values could have evolved, uh you know, Darwin once famously said that um um something along the lines of uh uh things don't exist merely for the sake of beauty or for the sake of mere variety. Um They don't exist to delight man or the creator, right? And if, and if you could show that that uh the properties of an animal exhibited these uh benevolent properties, uh then that would be absolutely fatal to the theory of evolution. And I think a lot of people in political psychology are taking that kind of evolutionarily implausible view that we have these high minded values that are nobly designed to make the world a better place. But that's just not the kind of thing that can evolve by natural selection. And so I think we actually need to get a bit more cynical about our uh supposed moral values in the same way that we're cynical about the mission statements and N pr campaigns of big corporations. I don't think anyone thinks that Starbucks is actual goal is to uh uh nourish and inspire the human spirit, as it says on their website. I think most people went trying to predict what Starbucks is going to do next, uh are going to ask themselves what, what will make Starbucks the most money. And I think we need to view humans in a similar way. I think we need to view the quote unquote mission statements of design to mobilize supporters. Uh AND they, uh, we, we really have no reason to think that they, they represent nobly designed impartially, altruistic, uh, world views. I think that's fundamentally, uh evolutionarily and functionally implausible.

08:00 Ricardo Lopes: And a very interesting question here is if people's political beliefs are even consistent, there is, and of course, that might mean different things. But I guess that what people mean by consistent theory is that, for example, if someone say, says they are from the left or from the right, or a Republican, a democrat or libertarian, an a, an authoritarian or something like that, that uh there's sort of a, a checklist and they check all the points when it comes to the political beliefs that you usually associate with either side of the political spectrum. But uh I mean, there, there are, I guess very good criticisms of that, for example, back in 2018, I interviewed Robert Kurzban and he has a very good book about that and the sort of shows I think to some extent that people are not really consistent, at least if we look at things from, uh I mean, expecting that people again, check all of the boxes when it comes to a particular political ideology. And there are things that perhaps even if I, for example, identify as a Republican, I might agree with some points on some points with the Democrats and vice versa. So are people's political beliefs really consistent or not?

09:35 David Pinsof: Yeah. Um So it's, it's a complicated question and that, I think the way that a lot of political scientists think about consistency is misguided. Um So a lot of political scientists will think that, you know, if you support, um, say, uh you know, a Christian fundamentalist morality, you know, uh anti aora uh anti recreational drugs, um, anti gay rights. And you also endorse free market libertarianism that, that is a consistent moral philosophy. Uh And if you, in so far as you deviate from that, then you're inconsistent. Um And I think that is just a very wrong headed way of thinking about what it means to be consistent. I think we should define consistency in the straightforward way of having beliefs that fit together coherently. Um And if you actually look at the combination of Christian fundamentalism and, and free market libertarianism, there's actually nothing consistent about it at all. Um The only reason these philosophies go together in the United States is because of a historically contingent political alliance that arose in uh starting in the 19 seventies between wealthy business people and uh pro-life evangelicals. And that alliance does not exist in many other countries. In fact, in other countries, you see free market libertarianism being combined with um with more, more secular ideology, with, with um with being pro choice. Um And so this peculiar alliance that exists in the United States is not a reflection of some deep, you know, feature of human nature that, that, that these issues have to go together. Uh I think they are much more historically contingent uh and arbitrary than we like to think. Um And so I don't think that uh political belief systems are consistent in the sense of reflecting coherent philosophies or consistently held moral principles. And I go through a lot of examples in the paper of, of ideological inconsistencies that are really hard to explain from that perspective, but easy to explain from my perspective.

11:31 Ricardo Lopes: OK. But wait a minute, because at this point, someone might come in and say, ok, but perhaps that's true for just the general population. I mean, the average citizen, the average voter is ignorant is ill informed. They don't inform themselves about the politics, about the political philosophy, the political science, they don't read blah, blah blah. And so that's the main reason why they say they are, for example, on the right, but they have inconsistent beliefs, they might believe in some things that are mostly associated with the left and so on and vice versa as well. But what about the, let's call them political elites. And that would include, of course, the more let's say, educated people, the people who actually read the political philosophy, the political science and they want to try to be or they say they want to try to be as consistent as possible. Uh And they are constantly informing themselves on the politics, what's happening and so on the political alliances and all of that. Uh I mean, our political elites, the more educated people, the more informed people, more consistent than just the general population.

13:04 David Pinsof: Yeah. So that's generally the standard view in political science, which is that the, the masses are, are generally um uninformed or, or at the very least, not as, as well informed as their elite counterparts. Uh And they, they don't, they sort of lack quote unquote ideological consistency. Uh And the dominant explanation for, for, um mass opinion is that it's group centric that is, it's rooted in uh sort of uh group attachments, group prejudices, group allegiances, you know, and their policy preferences really depend on, you know, whether the policy is in groups they like or groups they don't like. And if it's benefiting a group, they like, then they like the policy. And if it's benefiting a group, they don't like, then they don't like it. And that's really the dominant approach to explaining uh the uh political beliefs of the mass public. Uh And what's interesting is that the group attitudes of the mass public aren't, do, not necessarily align with the group attitudes of political elites that is they're much more chaotic and unpredictable. Um What I want to argue is that the political beliefs of elites are, in fact, just as group centric as the political beliefs of the mass public. It is just that there that the groups around which they center uh are a different set of groups uh and the uh and the beliefs might be a more sophisticated set of rationalizations, befitting of, of more intelligent, highly educated people. Um But that's really the only difference that is, you see these complex political coalitions and alliances and the most politically informed people are most attentive to the details of those political coalitions and are most willing to align themselves with those coalitions and accommodate new alliances and oppose the enemy of their enemy and befriend the ally of their ally. Uh And that kind of loyalty and engagement is what ultimately drives their beliefs, their loyalty to the coalition as a whole, not any kind of uh abstract philosophizing. Usually the abstract philosophy comes as a justification or rationalization for whatever serves the interests of their political coalition.

15:20 Ricardo Lopes: So we've been focusing mostly on people here but uh talking about the belief systems themselves. And of course, here again, we are coming from the presupposition that there is a pure ideological belief system from any sort of ideology here, which is also something uh questionable or debatable. But uh are even the belief systems, them themselves coherent because someone might say, oh OK, so you're saying or earlier, you talked about the example of some ideological inconsistencies when it comes to, for example, uh rep Republicans in the US. But people might say, OK, but that's just a silly historical accident, but they are still uh pure uh right wing ideology out there somewhere. And when you look at it and if you're careful, you can see that it's really coherent. But is that really the case?

16:31 David Pinsof: Yeah. So I think it's not the case and you could go through any feature you want to identify with, say right wing ideology or left wing ideology. Um I go through three different proposed features in, in the paper, um equality, authority and tolerance. And I go through each feature and show how uh the uh apparent uh moral principle or moral moral value is actually not held consistently. And it's only uh brought forward when it's in the interests of one's political allies and it is flouted and rejected when it happens to benefit other groups, uh especially one's political rivals. Um So to take an example from the equality domain, um liberals think it is unfair that corporate CEO S uh make millions of dollars a year, but they actually think it's, uh it's fair for Hollywood movie stars to make millions of dollars a year. Um And so that would be an example of the type of ideological inconsistency I'm talking about, especially when you consider the fact that corporate CEO S are widely associated with conservatives and Hollywood movie stars are widely associated with liberals. And what's interesting is that, uh you actually see the reversal among conservatives, conservatives actually think that it's unfair for Hollywood movie stars to make millions of dollars a year. And so as soon as you swap in different groups that people feel allegiance or rivalry towards. You see their supposed principles shift and change flexibly. Another example from the equality domain, we like to think that conservatives don't care about disadvantaged groups. But when you say, should the government do more to help small working class towns in America's Heartland? That is very much a right wing coded group and a majority of conservatives say yes, the government should do more to help them. So it's really not a matter of being in favor of quality of equality or inequality in the abstract or in general, it's really being strategically in favor of it uh when it favors the interests of one of one's allies and being strategically against it when it favors the interests of one's rivals. And I'm happy to go through some of the other um supposed principles as well if you'd like me to.

18:37 Ricardo Lopes: Oh yeah, sure. I mean, I was just about to ask you because there's this idea that whatever sort of principles are part of a specific political ideology. I mean, the ideology itself derives from supposed first principles. That is something that philosophers, for example, talk a lot about. And in this particular case, I guess that some political scientists would also argue that. But I mean, you're making the case here that that's not really the case they are based or these ideologies are based on things like have a justifications, rationalizations, moralization and so on. So perhaps tell us a little bit more about that. And if you have a few more examples to illustrate this point.

19:30 David Pinsof: Sure. So we can go through the idea of um uh authoritarianism. Uh Another widely proposed view is that right wing ideology is all about respecting authority or obeying authority or um enforcing one's preferences on others. Uh And that just does not make a lot of sense at all. Um So if you ask, you know, conservatives, whether we ought to respect authority more, most of them would say yes. But then if you ask them, if, if companies should disobey government regulations that they think are unfair, a majority of them will also say yes. So that's another example of an inconsistency. So conservatives are um are happy to say they support authority in the abstract. But when it comes to specific authorities, like, I don't know the IRS CDC, the EPA the who um government regulators uh Democratic uh politicians, uh even the FBI once they started investigating Donald Trump, uh many uh Republicans turned against. Uh These are a wide variety of authorities that Republicans reject and disrespect. So I, I think it is very hard to argue that they are holding a case. Um And if you think that it's about exercising authority over others, I think that's also hard to reconcile with their actual opinions which involve uh you know, uh deregulating um uh businesses, um environmental deregulation uh uh uh having fewer restrictions during COVID-19. Uh These are hard to reconcile with a general desire to exercise authority over others. Um And if you look at the desire to exercise authority over others in terms of restricting their speech, uh you actually see uh uh little to no differences at all between liberals and conservatives that is people want to restrict the speech of their political opponents, uh but not their political allies. And you see that on both sides of the political spectrum, if anything, there might be a little bit of evidence that that is more prominent on the left these days. So I think it's hard to argue that that that authority or a general desire to obey or exercise authority is the unifying principle of right wing ideology. Um So the other one is uh tolerance. So that would be a um a, a kind of tribalism or nationalism or um ethnocentrism that is supposed to be uh more prevalent among, among right wing people. And I think there, that's e equally at odds with reality. Uh So if you ask conservatives whether we ought to be more suspicious, uh and distrusting of foreigners, uh most of them will say yes. But then when you ask if we should trust Vladimir Putin, when he said that he did not interfere in the 2016 election, a majority of them will also say yes. Uh So there's, that's quite a stark inconsistency there that is, they think we should be distrusting of foreigners. But when it comes to AAA particular foreigner uh who, who, who is a Russian autocrat and hostile, overtly hostile to the United States, they seem to trust him quite readily. Uh And so I think that is one of many uh uh stark inconsistencies you see uh uh uh on, on the right. Uh And I think it's uh I list a few other examples in the paper but um you could also see similar inconsistencies on the left that is the left will, will say that they value uh you know, uh diversity and respecting the views of, of a variety of different groups, but in fact, they disrespect the views of uh any group that is mildly associated with conservatives. So Christian fundamentalists pro-life people, uh uh white people, men, uh uh wealthy business people, uh these days, even uh pro-israeli people. Um So, uh the respect for diversity is actually, um pretty restricted to a list of groups that are, that are left coded. Mhm.

23:20 Ricardo Lopes: Uh And I mean, I'm not sure if this, what I'm about to say makes sense or not, if it doesn't please correct me in whatever way you think. Uh It makes sense. But, uh I mean, even when it comes to some of the supposed principles or at least the labels people come up with sometimes to refer to some of their values that supposedly orient their political ideology. Uh I mean, sometimes with same label people from different sides mean different things and they're also inconsistent within their own ideology. But for just to talk about different sides, meaning different things. For example, when it comes to economics, perhaps someone on the left when they use the word freedom or they, they would bring the word freedom to the table when saying, OK, so uh perhaps workers should be paid enough, should earn enough to cover at least their basic expenses and to feel secure enough in their own lives. I mean, if they work example, full time, they should earn enough to cover their bills and, and not being ejected from their homes and stuff like that. And perhaps they might use the word freedom there in the sense of not being economically coerced, for example. But when it comes to the right, perhaps they would use the word freedom to refer more to things like in the case of more libertarian right wingers, uh they want a more deregulated market and that's freedom for them. So I mean that that's also you're making in the sense that OK, so people use these words, they refer to principles, but even then they uh they use it very sometimes very loosely because in a particular situation, freedom means one thing, in another situation, it means another thing. And even the supposed meaning that in this particular case, freedom might have for the leftists and right wingers. If you look across different examples, perhaps they are not. So much on the side of their own uh flavor of freedom, but they are more authoritarian and so on. So does this also make sense?

25:55 David Pinsof: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think it's a great example of, of the point I'm making, which is that it, it, it doesn't really make sense to say that one ideology is the ideology of freedom, given that each uh political coalition is trying to use freedom to mobilize support for its side. That is freedom is uh a word that has a lot of positive vibes. Uh If you, if you ask people, if they like freedom, I bet you that most people will say, yeah, freedom is great. And so each party is basically competing to capture the positive vibes of freedom to mobilize support for their side. Uh But whether each side actually consistently holds the principle of freedom is a different question. And I think the answer to that question is no, they don't. Um WHAT they're trying to do is use freedom as a kind of mission statement to uh um associate their political coalition with positive vibes. Um But I don't think it represents a coherent and principled philosophy because if it were, you would see each side, you know, uh valuing freedom in all cases. But that is uh but that is not what you see. Um Another example of this kind of competition for, for positive and negative vibes I think is really clear in the abortion debate. Um YOU see, uh you know, people who oppose abortion, they, they describe themselves as pro life that is, they're trying to paint themselves as the group that values life, right? They're trying to put a positive spin on their view. Uh And, and in the same way, uh people on the, on the pro choice side uh are trying to claim the mantle of freedom that a woman should have the right to do what she wants with her own body. But of course, neither side holds this actual, this principle actually, consistently, people who are pro life are happy to be pro death when it comes to civilian casualties, when it comes to military occupations, when it comes to the death penalty, uh when it comes to contraception, which could uh actually prevent abortions, um uh on the left, uh uh uh most liberals will say that a woman should have the right to do what she wants with her own body unless she wants to um say uh purchase private health insurance or not wear a seatbelt or drink a large sugary soda or have sex for money. Uh These are all views that are pretty common on the left and they are pretty inconsistent with the idea that we should generally have the right to do what we want with our own bodies. Um So, uh that would be, that would be my, my case there.

28:21 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. And I brought that to the table, I mean, people basically using the same term or referring to the same principle, but with different meanings because sometimes in political debates, political discussions, it's very obvious, at least for someone looking on the outs from the outside that uh people are using the same term. But with completely different meanings, like in this case, freedom and the examples I and you gave here. So um uh uh but perhaps what I was alluding to there by bringing that discussion here to the table is that, is it really about the word or the principle of freedom or since you're uh using it to refer to completely different things? Isn't it really about you having a particular kind of interest of you wanting to do some something or wanting other people to do something as well uh or not do for uh in particular cases and then simply attaching the label freedom to it just because it sounds good to try to convince other people, for example.

29:43 David Pinsof: Yeah, I think it's very much the latter and I think it's, it's directly analogous to the marketing and pr you see in the corporate world, you know, corporations will have mission statements, they have values that they are supposedly pursuing. Uh And, and because it is in their financial interest to associate positive vibes with their brand, right? You know, Starbucks says their mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit. Um I'm sure you could come up with, with, uh, uh equally silly examples from, from other, uh, large corporations. Um, AND I think there is an interesting element there, which is that in order to sell, in order to make money, you have to convince people that you're not interested in making money. Uh, AND I think that's what I would call a social. But I think you, you see the exact same phenomenon in the political world in order to gain uh power, you have to convince people that you're not interested in gaining power, that instead what you're interested in is making the world a better place. Generally making things better for everyone being uh kind and generous and fair and, and patriotic and virtuous and all those sunny things. But really, uh um politics is a competition to gain control of the coercive apparatus of the state which uh literally forces people to do things by threat of imprisonment. Uh And uh that is a scary thing and nobody has ever gained power by saying that that's what they want. You know, I, I want to gain control of the, the coercive apparatus of the state so that I can boss people around and force them to do things by threat of imprisonment. No one has ever gotten elected by saying that just as no business has ever made money by saying all I want to do is make as much money as possible. I don't care about values or the environment or, or whatever. Um So I think we have these, these um social paradoxes, these tensions in our mind that in order to pursue, pursue our goals, we cannot admit the goals we're pursuing. Uh And I think we can't even admit them to ourselves. A lot of the time. I think a lot of people at Starbucks would probably believe their own bullshit that they really are trying to inspire and nurture the human spirit. And I think uh most committed partisans and ideologues also believe their own bullshit that they really are trying to uh pursue this impartially altruistic vision to uh uh better humanity in the world.

31:50 Ricardo Lopes: Uh But when it comes to the social dynamics uh themselves. So for example, things like social identity and intergroup relations, what aspects of that kind of research would apply here because I mean, I I read in your paper that you are also trying to reframe, for example, the in group out group dichotomy as an allies versus rivals, dichotomy, right? Could, could you explain that?

32:24 David Pinsof: Sure. So there's a whole bunch of research on what's called social identity theory, the idea that we have an in group and we have an out group and it's a monolithic in group and against a monolithic out group and they, they stay, they're fixed and they stay the same and we we, you know, do things and believe things to make us feel better about our in group to enhance our self esteem. And uh we, we do things that make the out group look worse to enhance our self esteem. That is, that is the uh vision coming out of decades of research in social psychology. I think that vision is, is deeply flawed for a number of reasons. Uh uh FOR one thing, um If you actually look at the uh group dynamics and um uh small scale hunter gatherer for societies, uh It is nothing like the monolithic in group against the monolithic out group. It is very much uh complex strategic Aries occurring within groups. Uh They're constantly fission and fusion. Uh They're called fission fusion societies, literally like they, they have small bands of around 20 or 30 people and then they, they form larger groups and then they split apart. And so it's much more complicated and dynamic than the picture of a, of one tribe on one side of the river and another tribe on the other side of the river. I think we are much more politically savvy and sophisticated than this kind of caveman tribalism that is that has come out of uh social identity theory. Um And so what I try to replace this, this picture with is instead of talking about in groups and out groups, which is misleading in, in, in a variety of ways. I think it's, it's more illuminating to talk about alliances, to talk about allies and rivals. Uh AND uh and conflicts within groups uh So, uh I can walk you through some of the, the ways in which this in group out group thing breaks down. So, uh you know, uh you might expect uh that uh uh in order to favor a group, you would have to be in that group, they would have to be in your, in group. And in order to um oppose a group, they would have to be uh your out group. But that's just manifestly not the case. Uh You don't have to be a black person to feel as if you are an ally of black people and you don't have to be a police officer to feel as if you are an ally of police officers. You don't have to be an Israeli to feel pro Israel. You don't have to be a Palestinian to be pro Palestinian. You do not have to be in a group to be an ally of that group. Alliances can occur between groups and the same thing occurs within groups. You don't have to, you, you can be a white person and uh feel enmity toward white people. In fact, a lot of white progressives uh feel that way about white people. Um You can be an American and feel negatively toward Americans. Did a lot of progressives hold that view uh as well. Uh You can be a poor person and feel antipathy toward poor people. You can be a rich person, feel antipathy toward rich people. And these phenomena are much easier to understand when you realize that there are rivalries within groups that is within the group of rich people. There are different subcultures uh within the group of poor people. There are different subcultures, perhaps ethnic rivalries between lower class white people and lower class ethnic minorities, um uh et cetera, et cetera. So I think um if we, if we view politics from the lens of ever shifting alliances and rivalries, uh I think that is going to be much more illuminating and insightful way of understanding things than in terms of cheering for some monolithic in group against some monolithic out group that never changes.

35:52 Ricardo Lopes: And when it comes to the alliances, how do people form them? I mean, are there uh is there a set of criteria that people use to choose their allies?

36:04 David Pinsof: Yeah. So in the paper, I go over three criteria that people use for choosing allies that have a lot of uh empirical evidence going for them at the moment. I'm not saying that these are the only three criteria we use, but I think uh the strongest case could be made that that these are important. So the three are uh similarity, transitivity and interdependence. So I'll go through each one in turn, uh similarity uh like attracts like we like people who are similar to us. Uh PEOPLE who speak the same language who uh speak that language in the same dialect who inhabit the same location uh who um share uh personality quirks, maybe share similar beliefs, um uh share the same skin color, et cetera, et cetera. This is a pretty obvious one. And the, and the evolutionary rationale there is pretty clear. Um So for one thing, uh similarity uh might help you coordinate and collaborate with an ally. That is uh the, the easiest example of this is if allies speak the same language, they're gonna have an easier time working together. But um they could also speak the same language of their subculture and have an easier time working together or they could have, you know, similar personality quirks and they might, you know, uh uh be less likely to have conflicts and disagreements with one another because of, because they're more similar in, in that vein. Um A marker might help to uh create common knowledge of the alliance itself that as you see this in sports, you know, one team wears one wears a red shirts, the other team wears blue shirts and that helps everyone coordinate, uh who's on whose side. Uh We do the same thing with uh with our alliances and rivalries. And I think one of the reasons why racism is so pernicious is because there are visible uh differences that are common knowledge to everyone uh in terms of skin color and outward appearance. Um And that helps uh make it easier for people to coordinate uh who's on whose side the second one is transitivity. Uh So that is summed up by the following statements, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Uh The friend of my friend is my friend, the friend of my enemy is my enemy and the enemy of my friend is my enemy. Uh These statements taken together are what I call transitivity, the sharing of allies and enemies. And there are pretty solid functional reasons why we would want transitive allies versus intransitive allies. That as it mitigates two major costs, one is infighting that is we don't want our allies getting into conflicts with one another because if they get into conflicts, then we're going to have to be forced to choose sides. We have to be forced to choose between them. And that means we're going to lose one of our allies and potentially gain a new enemy, which is really bad for us. So we want our allies to get along. Uh But, and we also want our allies to share our enemies because um if, if an ally uh is friendly toward our enemies, well, they might, they might side with our enemies and betray us. Uh And that is really bad for us as well. So for that reason, we really uh we look to, to transitivity when, when deciding who we want to ally with and who we don't. Uh AND we also uh try to accommodate new allies by um by being transitive with them that is if, if we form an alliance, we oppose our allies, enemies. Uh AND we support our allies, friends, that's transitivity, uh inter interdependence. This is probably the broadest and most unexplored one. But I think um it's, it's, it's perhaps one of the most important ones. This is just generally whether uh a person or individual benefits you or not, whether they are acting in your self interest or not. Um You could think of this uh in terms of someone acting against your self interest, say if you're competing with someone for status or resources, um then you would be negatively interdependent with them and you would not want to form an alliance with them because it is in your interests to lower their status or to lower their access to resources. So you can get more of those resources for yourself. So it would be a kind of negative interdependence, a positive interdependence would be these people are inclined to help you to share information with you, to trade with you, um et cetera, et cetera. Um So interdependence are just, you know, a, a cooper relationship wherein uh uh parties benefit each other either directly or indirectly that is likely to lead to alliances. So those are the three criteria I discussed in the paper.

40:21 Ricardo Lopes: And of course, when we have alliances, we need, I mean to maintain them, of course, we need to support our allies. And so in, in the particular context of politics, or at least that's one of the contexts where you see this happening, how do we do that through the use of pro propagandistic uh tactics?

40:46 David Pinsof: So the point of an alliance, from my perspective is to uh uh offer support in conflicts that is conflicts is ubiquitous in social life. There are limited resources like status, power and resources and one side's or, or one person's gain is is another side or person's loss. So uh in order to prevail in these conflicts, we try to uh mobilize supporters, we try to draw people to our side so that our side is bigger than the other side and the other side submits to our bigger side. That's the way democracy works the side with the most votes wins. That's how a lot of conflicts uh play out in small scale societies, the bigger side gets their way. Um And so we have a, a vested interest in making our side the bigger side. How do we do that? Uh The way we do that is with propaganda. Um So when a conflict breaks out, we try to frame the conflict and describe it in ways that uh um flatter our allies and impugn our rivals. Um So I can walk you through the three propagandistic biases I discussed in the paper if you'd like. Yeah, sure. So the first one is uh perpetrator biases. So uh probably the most common source of conflict would be someone committing harm against someone else. Um And uh how do you uh mobilize support for a perpetrator of a transgression against the person? They rocked. Well, one way you want to do that is you want to downplay that transgression. You want to minimize it, you want to justify it, you want to rationalize it. You want to emphasize the mitigating circumstances, you want to emphasize their good intentions, they didn't really mean to do anything wrong. Um You want to uh frame them as generally a good well meaning person and the the victim as as being AAA crybaby or even making it up altogether. So that's what I would call perpetrator biases. Um They are extremely common uh both when we commit transgressions and when our allies commit transgressions, we uh bring perpetrator biases to bear on that. The other side of this, of course, is victim biases. Victims have basically the opposite set of biases. So they uh will view the perpetrator as uh uh incredibly personally responsible for, for committing the harm, no mitigating circumstances, no good intentions. They were just pure evil twirling their mustaches and, and they just wanted to harm us just out of pure sadism. Uh And uh of, of course, the harm they committed was incredibly grievous. It will last for generations. We can, we should never forget it. We should always remember this horrible harm that has, that will, that will last forever. Um Those, those are um victim biases. Um You could think of it as the exact opposite of perpetrator biases. Um And then there's another class of interesting biases that relate to conflicts over status and resources. Uh This presumably would also be a recurrent source of conflict in ancestral environments. And the way we resolve these conflicts is by making attributions about the causes of disadvantages and advantages. Um That is uh if we attribute a person's advantages to their internal dispositions, that is their intelligence, their talent, uh their wisdom, their, their, their creativity, um their work ethic, then uh we're inclined to side with that person and let them have their advantages or their resources. Um But if a person uh uh lost a lot of resources or status through no fault of their own, through misfortune through bad luck, um or through uh mistreatment or exploitation by others. Uh Then we're inclined to side with them and we're inclined to um uh give resources to them and, and compensate them and help them in, in whatever way we can. Um So naturally, if there's a conflict over resources or status, then we're going to uh want to attribute our high status allies uh advantages to their internal dispositions, they're smart and, and hard working and our low status allies, disadvantages to external factors. They were just unlucky or they were preyed upon by exploitative people. Uh And so we, we have both of these biases and we employ them depending on whether our allies are in the advantaged position or the disadvantaged position. And we do that in a strategic way, those are attribution biases.

44:54 Ricardo Lopes: And so how do we go from the biases you've just described there? And also uh what we talked about a bit earlier regarding social dynamics and alliances. How do we go from there to political alliance structures, like for example, let's say a political party.

45:17 David Pinsof: Yeah. So um it just kind of falls naturally out of those, those basic assumptions about how our psychology works. So if you just think about, you know, similarity, transitivity, interdependence and just look at the, the kind of social groups that form in any given society, you can start to see how this might unfold. So for example, you might get some uh some groups forming based on ethnicity uh or uh region, you know, southerners might have a kind of Southern loyalty or class uh or uh or religion. Um And from there, you, you start to think about, well, how are these groups going to coalesce into different alliances? And then you might start thinking about transitivity and then you might start thinking about overlap between groups. So maybe, you know, ethnic minorities are going to overlap with poor people. And so you might get an alliance between the interests of ethnic minorities and the interests of lower class people. Um And you might see uh some, some status rivalries between, you know, members of the upper class. That is the more highly educated uh elites and the less educated, wealthy corporate executives. And you might see a rivalry there with perhaps uh intellectual elites siding with um ethnic minorities and poor people and with the wealthy business people siding with uh lower class white people who might feel rival risk with their lower class, ethnic minority counterparts. Uh And uh that's, that's basically the, the dynamics of how it plays out. Um And then from there, once you, you get this alliance structure, um it, you just straightforwardly apply those propagandistic biases to each member of the alliance structure. And then from there, do the contents of political belief systems just fall out uh perfectly. Uh And you, and you can get a beautiful explanation for all of the inconsistencies and double standards and idiosyncrasies of political belief system simply by looking at the alliance structure and looking at what beliefs would mobilize support for each member of that alliance structure and from their ideologies uh fall out of that elegantly.

47:15 Ricardo Lopes: But since from the very beginning of our conversation, we've also been referring to alternative theories. Uh In this case, in the paper, you also go through, for example, intolerance theory of authoritarianism theory and egalitarianism theory. So could you tell us about those? I mean, how uh in what ways they would be alternatives to your alliance theory of political belief systems? And I in what aspects do you think they failed?

47:52 David Pinsof: Sure. Um So one alternative explanation for the existing alliance structure that is, is that it's all based on equality. And really what you see in the left wing alliance is just a bunch of low status disadvantaged groups. And what you see in the right wing alliance is just a bunch of high status disadvantaged groups. But if you actually look at the alliance structure, you see that that is not the case. So there are plenty of high status groups uh on the left wing side, like college professors, scientists, uh government regulators, um members of the uh of, of international organizations, um scientists, et cetera. Uh And then you also see plenty of low status groups on the right wing side. So you see, uh you know, working class white people, um you know, uh manufacturing workers, um people without a college degree, people in uh uh small towns that are struggling. Um And uh what's interesting is that if you actually measure groups, perceived status and you measure their perceived political allegiances, turns out that status makes no difference uh in in predicting which group, either side of the political spectrum will like will like or dislike. So this, I'm referring here to the work of mark brand. Uh And he measured attitudes toward a variety of different groups, dozens of, of different social groups in society measured their status, measured their perceived political allegiances. Turns out the simplest and most elegant and powerful model just uses the group's perceived political allegiances, throws out status throws out other variables that basically predicts who you're going to like, uh, and, and dislike. Um, AND, and, and if you just think about other groups, you know, like there are plenty of groups in the political line structure that don't really seem high status or low status at all. Like our environmentalists, high status. I, I don't know, uh, are, are Christian fundamentalist, high status or low status? I don't know. Uh WHAT about Southerners, high status or low status? Not sure. Um PRO-LIFE people, unclear, recreational drug users, unclear. Uh Really, I think status is either ambiguous or it violates the rules. So I don't think that equality can really explain uh contemporary alliance structures and it certainly can't explain uh the variation in allied structures you see around the world and throughout history. So the alliance structures were very different in the past. Uh uh uh African Americans used to be quite loyal to the party of Lincoln uh racist, segregationist Southerners used to be quite loyal to the Democrats Party. They were known as Dixiecrats. Uh uh uh uh DEVOUT Christianity used to, to not be a partisan issue at all. Uh So if you, if you look at these line structures, there's so much variation across time and space that it's really hard to argue that any principle of equality uh is organizing them. And then of course, there are plenty of ideological inconsistencies regarding equality which I discuss in the paper and which I, I talked about previously. Um THE other ones, authority and diversity. Um Yeah, I basically use the same strategy with those. I, I go through uh plenty of ideological uh inconsistencies where these principles are not uh held. Uh AND, and are often flouted uh strategically. Um And yeah, that's, that's basically my, my beef with uh egalitarianism, authoritarianism and tolerance.

51:08 Ricardo Lopes: So, since you're from the US, do you think that if your theory is correct, it might help us understand or better understand the formation of the Democratic Republican divide? Whether,

51:27 David Pinsof: yeah, so I, I presented a pretty detailed sketch of, of how I think this divide originated. Uh And uh where, where it was, you know, around 100 150 years ago and how it has evolved over time. So, as I mentioned, uh previously, uh the current political instructor is very different than what it was. Um YOU know, 100 150 years ago at the turn of the 20th century. Um Yeah, you know, uh Christianity and, and, and abortion was just not an issue. It was not a divide. Feminism was, was not a divide between the two parties. Um uh AT the turn of the 20th century, um race was very different. So, uh African Americans were actually leaned in favor of the Republican Party, uh uh racist southerners were, were Democrats. Um So, uh I walk through the evolution of that alliance structure and how it has changed in the paper. Uh And I think uh you could tell a similar story for how alliance structures have played out in other societies. I think you see some overlaps in, in similar countries like uh countries in Western Europe. Uh And I think that could be explained by just uh convergences and the types of, of factors that create alliance structures. So if you have, you know, overlap between um highly religious pos, you know, whatever the cause of that overlap, if there's overlap, then groups are gonna be more likely to form an alliance and, and belong to the same political coalition than other groups. And I think you see that convergence in a lot of Western European nations, particularly nations who have, who have um had similar uh political conflicts um about globalization and the erosion of religious morality. Um And it also explains some of the differences. I think if you look at the unique history of different uh countries, particularly Eastern European countries who, who uh who are dealing with the collapse of communism uh that has resulted in different alliances. You even there's an interesting example, I cite in the paper in Latvia where uh um uh green parties were actually sort of uh anti-communist, right wing nationalist uh parties uh because they were, they rose in opposition to Soviet industrial policy. Um So there are lots of, there are lots of interesting examples of alliance structures that, that deviate from what you see, in America and a few uh western nations. Um And I talk about that a lot in the paper and how other theories really struggle to explain it.

53:48 Ricardo Lopes: Uh And so, uh I would also like to ask you about, uh I would, I would like to hear your thoughts about uh moral foundations theory. That's also something that we touched on earlier a little bit. So, um what are your thoughts on it? And on basically the idea bit uh about there being a connection or an intimate connection between uh certain moral values and also certain correspond or supposedly corresponding political ideologies. And uh a second question I have that's related to that is uh do you think that um the way you're thinking about or reframing the way we think about political belief system, uh ethical systems or not?

54:45 David Pinsof: Yeah. Um So, uh first, I'll just start off by saying that I'm, I'm very skeptical of, of moral foundations theory as a theory of political differences. So I don't think it can explain why liberals and conservatives have the beliefs. They do. I don't think it can even come close to explaining all of the inconsistencies in political ideologies. In fact, it struggles to make sense of them. Um As I argue in the paper. So I think in terms of a theory of political belief systems, moral foundations theory fails um as a theory of moral cognition, uh I think it's fine as a first pass, I think there, you know, the, the six foundations that he sketched are reasonable hypotheses about um cognitive adaptations that might have evolved to solve recurrent problems and cooper operation and, and group living. Um I personally prefer uh Oliver Curry's work which sort of expands upon uh Jonathan he's work uh and adds a few additional uh foundations and gets a little bit more systematic about the, the game theory uh uh uh of, of these adaptive problems. Um So as a theory of morality, I, I have no objections to moral foundations theory. Um So the question was whether um this sort of cynical view of political ideologies applies to moral systems as well. Um And maybe, maybe not. Um So in the paper, I sort of take great pains to distinguish between politics and morality because I think they're too often conflated uh in a way that causes a lot of confusion. And the reason they're conflated is because politics uh almost always masquerades as morality in order to, in order to achieve its political objectives, that is in order to rally people to our side, we have to convince people that our side is the good side, the moral side, the virtuous side, and the other side is evil, unfair, uh disrespectful, et cetera. So morality is our chief weapon in our political arsenal. And that is why it is often so easy to confuse morality with politics as if they were the same thing that is to confuse moralism with, with morality. Um And uh in the paper, I, I try to differentiate politics and morality in the following way. I describe politics as being centrally about conflict and loyalty to one or the other side of that conflict. That's what I think politics is ultimately about uh uh and morality is ultimately about cooper operation that is working together for a mutual benefit uh and impartiality to uh either side of a conflict and working to resolve conflicts. So, uh in that sense, when once you cleave uh politics from morality, morality starts to look pretty nice. Um So in that sense, I don't think that um uh morality as distinguished from, from politics, uh it can be described in the same sort of cynical terms as being about, you know, self interested. Um uh FLOUTING of moral principles. I think we do have genuine moral principles that are shared between liberals and conservatives. I think the prevailing view that ideologies are about moral disagreement is actually backwards. I think um at the heart of our political disputes is, is moral agreement that is we are using the same moral moral language, the same moral intuitions to try to win political conflicts. Uh We're trying to cast our side as the fair side, as the side for freedom, the side for patriotism. Um THE side for compassion. Uh And, and we couldn't have those political fights if both sides didn't care about compassion, uh freedom, fairness, et cetera. So I think we have common moral intuitions that partisans compete to activate and that underlies a lot of our political discourse.

58:31 Ricardo Lopes: And so again, if your theory is correct, um would it have some implications as to how we look at uh correlations between individual differences and political beliefs? Like, for example, a certain differences in personality traits and particular political beliefs.

58:55 David Pinsof: Sure. Yeah. So a lot of people think that personality traits are the explanation for our political belief systems. I think that's wrong, but that doesn't mean that they don't matter and they don't exist clearly. There is some evidence that there are some personality differences between liberals and conservatives. There are some psychological differences between liberal conservatives. The question is, what role do they play? Uh, IN my view, uh, they play a secondary role to alliances. Um, AND, uh, there are two ways that, that, that personality. Uh, SO, uh, the first way is that, um, your psychological traits might predispose you to join certain alliances over others that is, you might be inclined to side with people who are like you or who act in the interests of people who are like you. Um, SO that's, that's one possible mechanism. So, for example, um, if I am sexually restricted, uh, and, uh, uptight about sexual promiscuity, I might be more inclined to become religious. Um, AND if I'm more sexually promiscuous, I might be more, I might be less inclined to become religious. I might abandon my, my religious upbringing. Um And uh and of course, so, so there will be a causal pathway between your sexual strategy, your religiosity and your ideology. But ultimately, the religiosity is what's um predicting the, the ideology, not the, the uh sexual strategy directly. Uh II, I think, uh or, or, or, you know, the sexual strategy, predicting loyalty to fellow uh sexually restricted people and, and wanting to advance their group interests. So that's one way, the other way is that the group you belong to or ally with, uh shapes your personality or your psychological traits. There are plenty of ways you can see that if you belong to a religious community, they're going to pressure you to behave in ways that are that um uh that mark you as a member of that religious community and distinguish you from other communities, they're gonna want you to uh uh profess your devotion to the religions, creeds to um to purge all doubts and uncertainties from your mind uh to become more sexually restricted if you. Uh So it might work the other way as well. Um So there are really two possible ways. So your, your personality might uh cause you to join certain alliances over others or your, your alliance might shape your personality. Uh And I think both of those uh uh mechanisms are compatible with alliance theory and compatible with the idea that alliances are ultimately the direct primary cause of our political beliefs.

1:01:28 Ricardo Lopes: Uh And so your paper is all about, uh sort of new approach in political psychology, what you call there a shift from deep seated moral values to ever shifting alliances and rivalries. So before we move on from this topic to another one, I would like to ask you. So do you think that I if you're correct? And if basically we told people about this, that when people get frustrated because for example, from someone from their own political group, political party, for example, they find out that they have uh also um alliances to some extent with people from other political ideologies and they get very frustrated because, and they call them, for example, hypocrites or traitors or turn cloaks or something like that. Do you think that it could help people perhaps be a little bit more understanding of where that behavior comes from? And perhaps also the fact that they probably also do that themselves and I mean, perhaps be a little less divisive in their political approaches or is that too optimistic?

1:02:54 David Pinsof: Um I, I'm torn on that. II, I definitely think knowledge is a good thing and, and, and knowledge of the truth might help us solve our problems and in particular our political problems. Um YOU know, sometimes studying this makes me depressed and, and cynical and pessimistic. Uh Sometimes I see a bit of a silver lining. I think one silver lining, you might see is that, uh, this shows us that we're really not as different as we think we are that we don't have these deep seated, uh, world views that are, that are, that are completely clashing and at odds with one another, we don't have fundamentally different moral principles. We basically have the same moral principles. We all care about fairness. Um, WE all care about, you know, uh, helping people who are truly in need. Uh We all care about, you know, welcoming people into our group when they pose no threat and when they're willing to uh be an, you know, an asset to our group, um and the differences really come from our beliefs about those things about, you know, what, what is unfair, what is fair, uh Whether the people we want to welcome really are a threat or, or not. Um WHETHER uh the people we want to help really are in need. Those are really what, what political differences are about. They're not uh an absence or a presence of compassion or an absence or presence of uh uh you know, a willingness to, to welcome people to the group or, or um an absence or presence of uh concerns for fairness. Um So I think uh at the heart of our political disputes is, is a shared moral psychology. Uh And I think that should challenge the idea that one side is inherently morally superior to the other side, at least in terms of their underlying character, maybe their beliefs make them do things in the world that are bad but in terms of their underlying character, their moral psychology, their intuitions, the way they interact with their family and their friends. Uh, MOST people are pretty decent people. Uh, AND, yeah, sometimes they can have beliefs that, that make them do terrible things but I think it's worth remembering that, that, um, we're not as different as, as we think we are.

1:04:58 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. I, I was also perhaps thinking about the fact that, uh, if people understand that, uh, people's political beliefs and their own political beliefs are not so as coherent or consistent as they think, uh, that perhaps when they, for example, see someone that, uh, identifies with their own political poll, political party or something like that, uh, espousing, uh, political beliefs that they don't necessarily agree with. That's not really the end of the world or a tragedy. It's just that, uh, I mean, no one is fully consistent and no one follows, uh, I don't know the, a particular kind of political dogma to, uh, uh, to the last detail. So I don't know if,

1:05:58 David Pinsof: yeah. No, that's, that's, that's a good point. Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. So, I, I guess the idea is that you might be less, uh, pissed off by your, by the traitors on your side. Um, ONCE you realize that your side is just a cobbled together patchwork of inconsistent beliefs. If, if you think that your side has a coherent principled moral philosophy and you see someone deviating from that, well, then you might think that they're evil or insane or stupid. Right. But if you see your side as not having a coherent or principled philosophy, then you might be a little bit softer on people who might deviate from it because if they're deviating from it, maybe they're deviating from it in a good way. Um Yeah, that's one hopeful way of looking at it. Uh I'm not optimistic about political extremists being softened by these ideas, but I think it might affect uh people who are a bit more moderate uh at the margins

1:06:51 Ricardo Lopes: and so changing topics. Now, uh in your substack, you also, you have a collection of very interesting uh articles there and one of them has to do with the meaning of life. So, does it really matter? I mean, does it matter if life has some meaning or not? At least to most people?

1:07:19 David Pinsof: Yeah, it's an interesting question. Uh I think it's worth distinguishing between two different kinds of meaning. Um So the meaning I'm, I'm talking about in, in the post is very much a highfalutin intellectual kind of, of meaning. Um TRYING to come up with a philosophy of, of, of life that is coherent. Um And uh but, but there's a different kind of meaning um that you might call emotional meaning. Um THE feeling that what you're doing uh is meaningful. And I think that is very much not and has an emotional sense of meaning. And even just raising a family is a, is a meaningful activity. Anyone who has a family will, will tell you that, you know, trying to raise their kid and have a good relationship with their kid is a, is a meaningful project to undertake. And uh how, how I think about the, the emotional aspect of meaning is basically, it's evolution's way of telling you that this activity is in your long term fitness interests. It might not pay off right now. It might not pay off immediately. It may not pay off at all, but probabilistically and in the long run, it's good to invest in this activity. So, you know, uh if you think about uh your biological fitness, it's very straightforward in the case of raising a family. Um, IT takes a really long time to rear a child to maturity and to make sure that they're successful and well off and high status and gonna give you lots of grandkids. Um, THAT'S a, that's a very difficult and long run project that will, that will have lots of setbacks and obstacles and discomforts and pains and conflicts, right? Uh Any, any parent will tell you that their, that their kid can be a pain in the ass and, and, and you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. So we need some kind of emotional mechanism to help us weather those storms. Uh AND, and see the grand prize on the horizon, which is, you know, uh uh rearing a, a mature and successful uh uh family that will give you lots of grandkids. So that, so the emotional sense of meaning is something that evolution has given us to get us to devote to a long term fitness, beneficial projects. So raising a family is the most obvious example. But there are other examples, I think committing to a group, an alliance and bolstering that alliance, uh making sure you know that, that, that everyone is committed to the alliance and purging dissenters and purging uh uh traitors from the alliance and making sure that they gain power and superiority and dominance over rival alliances. That is also a long term project that is often beset with many setbacks and obstacles. And I think many people gain a lot of meaning from their, from their political uh uh allegiances. Um And that can be uh either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you, you want to look at it. Um Cultivating a valuable skill is also a long term thing uh that, that will pay off in terms of raising your status. But, but maybe beset with, with obstacles, helping others, you know, putting others in your debt that might pay off in the long run. If you're ever in need, then you'll have a lot of people who feel grateful for you and are willing to help you uh in that situation. Uh But in order to be helped in that situation, you, you must have provided a lot of help to, to others before that. And so that's why helping others uh feels meaningful. So that's emotional meaning. Sorry, I went on a very long tangent there.

1:10:26 Ricardo Lopes: That's

1:10:28 David Pinsof: um yeah. Uh So I didn't talk about this in the piece. I probably should have. Maybe this is a separate piece that's emotional meaning. I don't think that is unique to intellectuals. I think we all have emotional meaning. I think that's a biological adaptation. Then there's intellectual meaning that is uh what we think is objectively meaningful. That is what we think is rationally defensible as, as meaningful. Um What we think the uh coherent and principled uh answer is to, to the meaning of life. What are, what are actual reasons are for, for living and caring for families and supporting our, our political tribe uh that uh is very much unique to intellectuals. At least in my personal experience I could be wrong. You know, I'm, I'm happy to see some data challenging me, but it seems like if you poll the general population and you ask them, you know, how much they think about existentialism or nihilism or Camu or Sarre or how much they, they try to, how much they care about having a coherent uh uh worldview or philosophy. I would bet you that you would see uh uh highly educated people uh answering yes to those questions at a much higher frequency. Uh And so, in that sense, I don't think most people care about the meaning of life. Um IN, in that intellectual sense,

1:11:45 Ricardo Lopes: you know, whenever I think about the uh intellectual kind of meaning of life, you were just referring to there every time it comes to my mind that uh Socratic uh uh, that, that quote from Socrates where he says something along the lines, the unexamined life is not worth living. That like, really is that, is, that, is, is really life just about, I don't know, overthinking.

1:12:20 David Pinsof: Yeah. I, I find it really surprising that intellectual sort of hold that quote in reverence to me that's kind of, I find it really kind of disgusting quote to be perfectly honest. I find it elitist, uh, and, and, and smugly superior. It's an implicit dig at people who don't spend their whole life philosophizing. It's basically saying that those people, their lives aren't worth living. That's a terrible sentiment. Absolutely despicable when you, when you really think about it. So, it, it, it continuously surprises me that intellectuals hold up this quote as a, you know, as this symbol of, of meaning and virtue. I think it's just, um, smug elitism, uh, masquerading as, as, uh, as philosophy.

1:13:05 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. But, uh, I, I mean, going on with the cynicism here, I guess so when it comes to the meaning of life and other sorts of, for example, existential questions that uh highly intellectual, over educated people uh care about. I mean, do you have any idea if they really do care about them for the sake of acquiring some sort of knowledge about particular kinds of questions, or do you think that they like to discuss them among themselves, mostly for the sake of social signaling, showing off their intellect and stuff like

1:13:53 David Pinsof: that? Yeah. So uh I, I would argue that that the answer is, is very much the latter. Um I, I don't mean to upset anyone, but I do think this is the, the best explanation uh for, for what's going on here, which isn't to say that, you know, I look down upon this, I engage in it myself. I love philosophizing about the meaning of life. I, I, me

1:14:15 Ricardo Lopes: too. I have almost 300 philosophy interviews on the show.

1:14:19 David Pinsof: So, yeah. So just because I'm describing this as kind of social signaling um and, and bullshit doesn't mean that it's, it's bad or I don't like it. I actually love it that I'm kind of attacking myself here. Um But I do think it's a kind of BS um I don't think that um the human mind has an innate or, or deep seated desire for truth about abstract, irrelevant uh matters. I think we certainly have evolved a desire for truth and concrete, practical relevant situations. That is we want to know if there really is a tiger over there. We want to know if this canoe really has a hole in it or not. We really want to know if our tool works or if this food is safe to eat. Those are the kinds of things that we evolved to care about and, and, and evolved to care about having accurate beliefs about. But when it comes to the meaning of life, how on earth would that affect your fitness in any way? Why would we care about having a correct view of that? That strikes me as a very evolutionarily implausible desire. So I think if we're going to explain discourse on the meaning of life, we cannot appeal to any deep seated motive for truth seeking and in these, in these matters, I think we have to look in other directions. I think we have to look to the social aspect of these debates because after all debates are social, they are not just, you know, one individual thinking to himself or herself. Uh If that's what uh you know, pondering the meaning of life was like, uh it would be unrecognizable to us. No, this, these, these discussions are very social. Uh THEY have all sorts of, of social implications, all sorts of status implications. Um We tend to praise people who have, you know, well thought out uplifting um philosophies of life as, as humane, as, as wise, as virtuous and we really seek that kind of acclaim and, and esteem from our peers. I think philosophers love that kind of acclaim. They love to be called wise and humane and, and insightful. Um So I think the key here is, is thinking about, you know, what an intellectual is, what is an over educated person, what trait makes them that way. And I think the clearest answer is that they are hyper reasoners, their reasoning faculty is uh uh very online uh and intensely activated uh all the time. That's what I think in, in like there are people who love to reason and we all have reasoning faculties. Some of us have, you know, you know, stronger reasoning faculties and we like to reason more frequently than others, but we all have it. Uh And uh and I think to understand why intellectuals debate the meaning of life, we have to understand what reasoning is and what it's all about and why reasoning evolved. Um And the theory I like most about what reasoning is uh comes from Hugo Mercier, who I believe you've had on the podcast before. And he thinks that reasoning evolved for two purposes, one is arguing and the other is rationalizing. So we reason to win debates uh and resolve conflicts in our favor. Um And we also reason to excuse justify and rationalize our behavior so that we look good to our peers. That's basically what reasoning is all about according to, to uh Hugo Mercier. Um There are all sorts of nuances here. And II, I don't want to give a whole overview of his theory, but that's the gist. Um And uh if we see reasoning as fundamentally about arguing and rationalizing, then we can see why these hyper reasoning weirdos are so obsessed with the meaning of life. What they're doing is they're finding a way to win arguments with one another and rationalize their lives. That is they're trying to come up with a justification for, for their life choices, the, you know, the justification for why they support the uh haphazard and arbitrary political coalition, they support uh they're trying to come up with a rationalization for why they're alive at all. Uh You know, that's, that's a big question, you know, why don't, why don't we commit suicide? Uh I think the answer is there are, there are clear evolutionary reasons why we would be afraid of committing suicide. Uh But that doesn't sound as pretty as, oh, I'm alive because I want to pursue some high minded value or I want to make the world a better place or pursue justice or equality or um or any other uh value. So I think basically what, what uh conversations and debates about the meaning of life are, are, are a kind of status competition. Uh And the status competition might take a variety of forms. Um uh It might take the form of virtue, status or, or wisdom, status um or, or, or whatever, but I think that's ultimately what it's all about uh and uh apologies for that cynical view. But I think it might help with uh with existential angst to realize that your existential angst is uh sometimes uh bullshit.

1:18:59 Ricardo Lopes: No, I mean, at least as far as I'm concerned, we do not have to apologize at all also because I mean, o of course, again, uh it's fine uh to be interested in all these sorts of questions and I am interested in them myself and I explore them on the show several times. So, but uh I guess that the BS part here is really about the fact that people and it's not their fault to some extent because most of these happens subconsciously. So people are not really do not really have direct access to what's motivating them to perform a particular kind of behavior in this case showing off intellectually, for example. Uh BUT the BS is really about them thinking that the arguments they're making uh the law they bring to the table. And all of that is really about the content of what they're saying and not about, for example, increasing their status or uh so socially signaling their intellectual prowess or something like that also, because lots of that uh as a clear fitness benefits. Right.

1:20:23 David Pinsof: Yes, exactly. Yeah. If we're trying to explain AAA costly human behavior, a costly investment of time and energy, I think we have to try to explain it first in ways that make evolutionary sense and the way you describe it as social signaling and status competition, that makes a whole lot of evolutionary sense. The idea that we are intrinsically interested in the abstract meaning of life for its own sake makes no evolutionary sense whatsoever. So I think all else equal, we should favor the theories and explanations that make more evolutionary sense because we know evolution is true. Uh And all of our theories should ultimately be consistent with it. And that's, that's my pitch for Darwinian cynicism.

1:20:59 Ricardo Lopes: At the end of the day, the question would be if there was no social aspect to any of these, would you still really be interested in thinking about the meaning of life or arguing about the meaning of life and other questions like that? Right? It's,

1:21:19 David Pinsof: it's interesting. Uh Part of me wants to say yes and part of me wants to say no because I know my own inner press secretary wants me to deny that I'm, I'm motivated by these ugly things but, but my rational intellectual brain says yes, of course. Um So, uh yes, ultimately, I'm a human being too. Um I'm just as motivated by these uh social signaling and status motivations as any other human. And I'm just as motivated to deny that I have these motivations as any. I think that's a big part of a big part of our, of our status competition. Is denying that we're competing for status because if you come out as a status seeker, as a social climber, as a vous narcissist, uh you're going to look bad, you're going to lose status. So overtly seeking status lowers your status, which means that we have to seek status covertly and we have to be in denial about it. We have to come up with pretty uh uh rationalizations and self flattering stories about what we're really pursuing, which is not status but some high minded, sacred value like truth or justice or beauty or authenticity or whatever. Um And that's where a lot of our bullshit comes from, I think is, is trying to cover up the ugly facts of our status competition and uh present them as pretty and impartially altruistic and benevolent uh ironically for the purpose of winning those very same status competitions.

1:22:35 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. And perhaps even this entire conversation is just boils down to status seeking

1:22:43 David Pinsof: ultimately. Sadly, yes, which isn't to say it's bad. So one thing I've, I've, I'm coming to terms with is that just because something is bullshit or, or is a status game doesn't mean it's bad. Uh Because if, if I were to take that view, then I would have to think that everything is, is bad and that is, is, is an unlivable philosophy. So I, the way I think about it is yes, what we're, what we're doing here is ultimately a kind of status game that doesn't mean it's bad and that doesn't mean it's not useful and it doesn't mean it's not improving the world in some way. Certainly we're going to be biased to think that it's useful and that it's improving the world in, in, in some way. Uh, BUT just because we're biased to think that doesn't mean it's, it's not true.

1:23:18 Ricardo Lopes: So, another thing that you wrote about in one of your posts, uh is, uh and earlier, I've asked you about this, at least to some extent when I asked you about moral foundations theory. But what function the morality serve exactly because we have this idea or this common idea that morality is really about making us good or better people. But is that really what morality is about?

1:23:51 David Pinsof: Yeah. So I don't think it's what it's uh about. Um So I have a, a post on everything is bullshit called morality is not nice. Uh In which I argue that morality is not, in fact nice. Uh It's quite mean. Um If you think about all of the awful stuff that has happened throughout history, uh It has all had a very high minded moral justification, purges pogroms, inquisitions, genocides, um Eugenics, uh uh uh conquests, colonialization. Um uh YOU name it, it all comes accompanied with immoral justification. We cannot commit injustice without thinking we're pursuing justice, we cannot behave immorally without thinking we're behaving morally. Uh We need our moral justifications and our moral rationalizations in order to effectively mobilize groups against rivals. Um So that is what I think a lot of morality is about. Um IT'S about mobilizing groups against rivals. And the way we do that is by creating self serving narratives that frame the group as morally superior and the rivals as morally inferior. Um And uh I think way too much of the scholarly literature on morality takes an overly sunny view of what it's all about. Um That is if you think about morality from a Darwinian perspective, ultimately, it exists because it, it helped our ancestors out compete their rivals. That is uh ancestors who had the genes for morality did better, got more stuff than ancestors who didn't have those genes. And then you have to ask yourself, well, how did they get more stuff than their non moral rivals? Well, there are only so many ways, right? They could either physically exclude them from that stuff, just, just uh not interact with them or, or, or just avoid them. That's not very nice. They could uh violently exclude them, they could hurt them or kill them, not very nice. Um They could lie to them and, and to, to keep them away. That that's another tactic. Uh Really, there's no way that one group of primates can get more stuff than another group of primates systematically throughout evolutionary history without being mean to that other group of primates. There's just no way to do it. So I think morality, while it is very much about cooper operation, as a lot of scholars have argued, it also must necessarily have a competitive side. That is there must be some kind of competition at the heart of it. Yes, we co-operate, but we co-operate to outcompete our rivals. Yes, we try to be to, to show off our virtue and to, and to be good cooper partners. But what we're doing there is we're competing with other people to be better co-operative partners than they are. And I think too often the competitive side of morality has been ignored in favor of the co-operative side. Ironically, because that serves the functions of morality. That is if I'm trying to mobilize a larger group than my rivals, I have to make it seem like my moral agenda is better for more people than it really is that it's more sunny and co-operative than it really is that it's less ugly and dark and competitive than it really is in order to rally more people to my side and away from the other side. So that's what I think uh morality is about at the end of the day. Um It's just as much about competition as it is about cooper operation and it is, I think the leading cause of immorality in our species. I think it is the leading cause of cruelty of violence. Uh There's an excellent book called Virtuous Violence by uh Lan Fis Conte Re arguing. Uh, THAT pretty much all violence around the world has a moral justification. It's all done in the name of morality. And that far more violence is done by normal people who think they're doing the right thing than, uh, is committed by sociopaths. Um, AND so I think we really need to have a reckoning with morality. Uh, AND the role it plays in our society. Mhm.

1:27:51 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I, I mean, I was just about to mention that book Virtues Violence and I talked about about it with Alan Fisk back in late 2018 or early 2019, something like that on the show. Uh And yeah, it's, it's a very compelling argument that he and his co-author make there, right? But that, I mean, when, for example, uh you want to uh take revenge or something like that and you morally justify your revenge or you base some sort of uh individual or collective action on morality and on being wronged, for example, that uh more easily can lead, you can lead you and your fellow, I mean, allies to commit atrocious acts, right? Like for example, even in some cases, genocide and stuff like that.

1:28:53 David Pinsof: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um I, I have no descent to your opinion.

1:29:02 Ricardo Lopes: OK. So let's get into one of the last topics here. So earlier you mentioned at a certain point, social paradoxes. So what, what are social paradoxes? What does that mean? Exactly.

1:29:17 David Pinsof: Yeah. So it's, it's usually good to give a few examples of social paradoxes rather than, than give you the definition. I think that'll be easier to understand what it is. I'm talking about. So here, I'll give you a few examples. Um We um try very hard to make people think that we don't care what they think. Um We uh rebel against social norms in the exact same way as everyone else. Um We uh authentically express our true selves, not who society wants us to be because that is ultimately who society wants us to be. Um We uh um oppose virtue signaling to signal our virtue. Uh We um bravely defy social norms so that people will praise us. Um We uh um avoid being manipulative um to get people to do what we want them to do. Uh We uh where we avoid being defensive uh in order to ultimately defend ourselves. Uh Those are just a few examples of social paradoxes. What's the common thread to all of them? The common thread is that they ultimately involve a uh a signal that is concealed from both the signaler and the recipient. That is the virtue signaler does not know that they are a virtue signaler. Uh And neither do the recipients who award them virtue. If they thought of them as virtue signalers, they wouldn't award them virtue, they would think they were, you know, narcissistic or, or whatever, right? Um The brave norm, violator does not know that they're actually, in fact, just conforming to the norms of their particular subculture. And neither do the members of that subculture, the authentic person who's authentically expressing their true self, uh, does not know that they're behaving exactly how society wants them to behave and neither does the society who praises them as authentic. Right. So these are signals being sent that are concealed from both the signaler and the recipient.

1:31:24 Ricardo Lopes: A and so why is it that uh things like status seeking and virtue signaling have to occur uh covertly for them to work?

1:31:37 David Pinsof: Yeah. So the answer is kind of complicated. Uh So I think it has to do with um are a couple of cognitive abilities. We have one ability is that we are just eagerly in search of information about a person's character. We are, are, you know, likely to draw all sorts of inferences about them from the subtlest things they say are and, and, and the subtlest behaviors they engage in. Uh WE, we want to know what kind of person I want to know what kind of person you are. And I'm going to judge you in all sorts of ways unconsciously, unconsciously and draw inferences, you know, you said this thing that means that you're this type of person. So that's what I call QE based inferences using others behaviors as a cue to their, their underlying traits. Uh And then there's uh recursive mentalis. So that's the ability to get inside other other people's heads. Um AND think about what, what they might be thinking about, uh uh or what they might want or what they might have intended. And the recursive part comes from embedding mental states inside other mental states. So, for example, um I want you to think that I'm smart, but I don't want you to think that I want you to think that I'm smart because if you thought that you would think I was a douche, right? So that's an example of recursive mentalis. Their thoughts about thoughts, you know, beliefs about desires, beliefs about desires, about thoughts, uh beliefs about intentions, about thoughts, et cetera. That's a lot apologies. Let me get back to social paradoxes. Why, why, why does virtue signaling have to occur covertly? Well, because being an overt virtue signaler trying to show off your virtue, that's a signal. But it is also at the same time become a cue of one's underlying vanity and self absorption and selfishness and pettiness. And perhaps even one's low status, maybe you're insecure uh about yourself because you're low status and you want to try to show off uh to improve your status, whatever, whatever the reason, you know, there we draw all sorts of nega negative inferences about people when they overtly uh and conspicuously show off their virtue. So that means that if we want to gain virtue, we cannot let people know that we're virtue signaling. We have to somehow signal our virtue without making it seem like we're signaling our virtue. Um And one way of doing that is to hide the fact that we're virtue, virtue signaling, not merely from the people we're signaling to, but also from ourselves. That is we deceive ourselves. We think we're not actually virtue signaling, we're, we're pursuing some high minded value. Um And, and, and the same story could be told about status. If you're a status seeker, people draw negative inferences about you, you're selfish, you're competitive, maybe you're low status and insecure. We don't like status seekers. Uh So in order to achieve status, we must conceal the fact that we're trying to achieve status that is status seeking must occur covertly and must be disguised uh in high minded uh uh benevolent terms.

1:34:29 Ricardo Lopes: Uh uh I mean, and this will be my last question. I was just about to ask you if this would connect in any way to self deception in the sense that if we self deceive, then it would be easier for us to uh behave in a way that would also lead to uh let's say higher probability of uh faking our true motives to other people. I mean, for other people to not really read what we're trying to do there. Right.

1:35:05 David Pinsof: Yeah. So there's a whole literature on the evolution of self deception and, and then that um it makes us more successful at deceiving others if we can deceive ourselves first. And I think the general argument here is sound. Um, AND I think one way I'd like to, I like to frame it is in terms of a lawyer who practices their opening statement to themselves before they deliver it to the jury. Right. Maybe they'll practice in front of the mirror. I don't know. Um, BUT they want to make sure that they'll, they'll hear themselves giving the arguments and if it's convincing to themselves and if it sounds good to themselves, then it probably sounds good to, to other people. And I think we do that with ourselves. That is we, we, we first try out arguments on ourselves before we try them out on others. And what we're often arguing about is how good we are or how not bad we are. So we, we, we first try to convince ourselves that we're good people that we don't care about status. Uh And we rehearse those arguments in our head. And we, and we sometimes even even do things in the world that help us gather evidence for that picture of ourselves. We might actually donate to charity. So that later on we can say, hey, I'm not a bad person. I actually donate to charity, right? So we convince ourselves through talking to ourselves in our head and making arguments to ourselves in our head and anticipating future scenarios where we might be called out. And we also occasionally act in the world. So as to accumulate evidence of our good character that we can, um, use later on. Uh, IF we're ever challenged, that is we prepare, uh, like lawyers for, for trials that we may not ever be in, but it's good to prepare in any case because those trials could be hugely important, um, for our fitness. Uh, THAT is if we're caught off guard by an accusation or an insult, uh, and we have no argument to give in response that's going to be very bad for our fitness. We want to prepare for those types of situations so that we can defend ourselves and defend our character. And I think a lot of our behavior is oriented around that. So, yeah, that's how I construe self deception. Um, IT'S not literally lying to ourselves. It's more like bullshitting ourselves. Uh I would, I would think of it more as, as, uh, self bullshitting. We bullshit ourselves, uh in order to more effectively bullshit others.

1:37:14 Ricardo Lopes: Ok, great. So let's end on that very cynical note, I guess. But I, I, I'm also a very big diogenes fan, so there's no problem with that. So David, uh, just before we go, would you like to tell people where they can find you on the internet?

1:37:36 David Pinsof: Sure. Uh, YOU can find me on Twitter slash X. Um, AT David pins off. Um, FEEL free to DM me if you'd like, I'm always happy to talk to people. Uh, AND, uh, you can find my substack, uh, uh it's called Everything is bullshit and it's just everything is bullshit.substack.com.

1:37:54 Ricardo Lopes: Great. So I'm leaving links to that in the description box of the interview. And look, thank you so much again for taking the time to come on the show. It's been really fun to talk to you.

1:38:05 David Pinsof: Yep. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much, Ricardo.

1:38:08 Ricardo Lopes: Oh, before we go, would you like to tell people where they can find you on, on the internet?

1:38:14 David Pinsof: Sure. Uh You can find me on Twitter slash X um at David Pins off. Um Feel free to DM me if you'd like, I'm always happy to talk to people. Uh And uh you can find my substack. Uh uh IT'S called everything is bullshit and it's just everything is bullshit.substack.com.

1:38:32 Ricardo Lopes: Great. So I'm leaving links to that in the description box of the interview and look, thank you so much again for taking the time to come on the show. It's been really fun to talk to you.

1:38:43 David Pinsof: Yep. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much, Ricardo.

1:38:46 Ricardo Lopes: Hi, everyone. Thank you for watching this interview until the end. If you like what I'm doing, please consider supporting the show on Patreon or paypal. You can find the links in the description box down below. And if you like the interview, please share it, leave a like hit the subscription button and comment, the show is brought to you by N Lights learning and development and differently. Check their website at N lights.com. I would also like to give a huge thank you to my main patrons and paypal supporters, Pero Larson, Jerry Mueller and Frederick Sunder Bernard. So all of Alex Adam, Castle Matthew Whittenburg, Arno Wolf, Tim Hoac, Eric Alan John Connors Philip Forrest Connolly. Then the mere Robert winger ruin. Nai Z Mark Nevs Colin hope Mikel Storm, Sam Andre Francis for the Agn Fergal Ken Harl hero, Jonathan Lebron and Eric Heinz Mark Smith Hummels are Wilson Ruben Romani Charlotte Bli Nicola Barbaro Adam Hunt Palo Stassi, Nele Bach Guy Madison, Gary G Hellman, Samo Zal Adrian Yi Paul Tolentino, Julian Price Edward Hall, Eden Bruner Douglas Fray, Franco Bartolo Gabriel Pan Cortez or Lalit Scott Zachary Fish, Tim Duffy and Smith John Wiesman, Daniel Friedman, William Buckner, Paul Georgina, Luke Lo A Georges, Theo Chris Williams and Peter W David Williams Di Costa, Anton Erickson Charles. Murray, Alex Shower, Marie Martinez, Coralie Chevalier, bungalow atheists Larry D Lee junior, Old Harri Bon, Starry Michael Bailey. Then Sperber, Robert Grass is Jeff mcmahon, Jake Zul Barnabas Radix Mark Temple, Thomas Dubner, Luke Neeson, Chris to Kimberley Johnson, Benjamin Gilbert Jessica Nowicki Linda Brandon, Nicholas Carlson, Ismael Bensley Man, George Katis, Valentin Steinman, Per Rawley, Kate Von Goler, Alexander, Robert Liam Donaway br Masoud Ali Mohammadi Perpendicular Jonas Herner, Ursula. Good enough Gregory Hastings David Pins of Sean Nelson and Mike Levine. A special thanks to my producers is our web, Jim Frank Luca Stefi Tom Ween Bernard. Yugi Cortez Dixon Benedict Muller Thomas Trumble, Catherine and Patrick Tobin, John Carl Montenegro, Alick Ortiz and Nick Golden. And to my executive producers, Matthew lavender, Sergi Adrian Bogdan Knits and Rosie. Thank you for all.