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"So what innuendo, euphemism, and indirect speech acts do is prevent the proposition from becoming common knowledge. That is, let’s say he said, “Do you want to come up for Netflix and chill?” She says no. She’s a grown-up; she knows this was a sexual invitation. And he’s a... grown-up; he knows it too. But does he know that she knows that he knows it? He can still think, “Well, maybe she thinks I’m dense. Maybe she thinks I don’t know that she knowingly turned down a sexual invitation.” And as far as she’s concerned, he might think she just didn’t want to stay out late. And she could think, “Well, maybe he thinks I’m naïve. Maybe he thinks I just didn’t want to be out late, and he might think I’m just turning down an invitation for Netflix.” Without the common knowledge—the “he knows that I know that he knows that I know”—they can maintain the fiction of a purely platonic friendship without sacrificing their claim to rationality and sanity. If it had been blurted out, “Hey, do you want to have sex?” and she were to say no, then they couldn’t maintain the fiction of a purely platonic friendship, or of colleagues at work, or, even more dangerously, a supervisor and supervisee. And so we use indirect speech, I argue, to keep things out of common knowledge—out of relationship-threatening common knowledge." Clip on innuendo and common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:show more

Steven Pinker

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65,013 views • 9 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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On laughter generating common knowledge: "Laughter is--like eye contact, like direct speech--generates common knowledge. When you're laughing, you know it, because your breathing is interrupted. People around you know it, because they can hear the laughter. It interrupts your speech, and so people who are listening to you know that you're laughing, and you know that you're laughing. So it's generally common knowledge of something. What is that common knowledge? It's generally common knowledge of some infirmity, indignity, embarrassment, cause for humility. And the laughter makes that private knowledge of an infirmity common knowledge. There's something that we all knew compromised that person's dignity, stature. Now, we are all acknowledging it commonly, which means that that person's stature has gone down." Clip on laughter and common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

On laughter generating common knowledge: "Laughter is--like eye contact, like direct speech--generates common knowledge. When you're laughing, you know it, because your breathing is interrupted. People around you know it, because they can hear the laughter. It interrupts your speech, and so people who are listening to you know that you're laughing, and you know that you're laughing. So it's generally common knowledge of something. What is that common knowledge? It's generally common knowledge of some infirmity, indignity, embarrassment, cause for humility. And the laughter makes that private knowledge of an infirmity common knowledge. There's something that we all knew compromised that person's dignity, stature. Now, we are all acknowledging it commonly, which means that that person's stature has gone down." Clip on laughter and common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

Steven Pinker

42,797 views • 9 months ago

Yes, what's happening in the Monty Hall problem is not common knowledge, but it is knowledge about knowledge. To use a fancy term, recursive mentalizing, where mentalizing means getting into someone else's head, trying to figure out what they know. Recursive mentalizing is trying to get inside their head, and when they're trying to get inside your head, as you're trying to get inside their head at an item. So that's common knowledge. In the case of the Monty Hall problem, it's private knowledge, namely, Monty Hall knows You know that he knows, you don't know what he knows. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

Yes, what's happening in the Monty Hall problem is not common knowledge, but it is knowledge about knowledge. To use a fancy term, recursive mentalizing, where mentalizing means getting into someone else's head, trying to figure out what they know. Recursive mentalizing is trying to get inside their head, and when they're trying to get inside your head, as you're trying to get inside their head at an item. So that's common knowledge. In the case of the Monty Hall problem, it's private knowledge, namely, Monty Hall knows You know that he knows, you don't know what he knows. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

Steven Pinker

26,462 views • 8 months ago

"Salience is the more common way that we entertain common knowledge, generated by certain common knowledge generators like direct speech, but also laughter, I argue, tears, blushing. We have nonverbal common knowledge generators and eye contact. With eye contact, you're looking at the part of the person that's looking at the part of you that's looking at the part of them, ad infinitum. Eye contact is a very powerful signal. Eye contact makes something that was private knowledge, common knowledge, which is why we and our primate ancestors are very sensitive to eye contact." Clip on common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

"Salience is the more common way that we entertain common knowledge, generated by certain common knowledge generators like direct speech, but also laughter, I argue, tears, blushing. We have nonverbal common knowledge generators and eye contact. With eye contact, you're looking at the part of the person that's looking at the part of you that's looking at the part of them, ad infinitum. Eye contact is a very powerful signal. Eye contact makes something that was private knowledge, common knowledge, which is why we and our primate ancestors are very sensitive to eye contact." Clip on common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

Steven Pinker

47,007 views • 8 months ago

Why don't we just cut the crap and say it? And the conclusion that I came to, this is an earlier book, The Stuff of Thought (subtitle is Language is a Window into Human Nature), is that direct speech generates common knowledge, and that common knowledge is the basis of our social relationships. Two people--if they're friends, if they're lovers, if they're transactional partners, if they're in a dominance hierarchy--all of those are equilibria in coordination games, and they're matters of common knowledge. In the case of friends, it's we're equal, we would do anything for each other, we're there for each other, and that's kind of the common knowledge that makes friends friends. Clip on direct speech and common knowledge from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- My new book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life is available here:

Why don't we just cut the crap and say it? And the conclusion that I came to, this is an earlier book, The Stuff of Thought (subtitle is Language is a Window into Human Nature), is that direct speech generates common knowledge, and that common knowledge is the basis of our social relationships. Two people--if they're friends, if they're lovers, if they're transactional partners, if they're in a dominance hierarchy--all of those are equilibria in coordination games, and they're matters of common knowledge. In the case of friends, it's we're equal, we would do anything for each other, we're there for each other, and that's kind of the common knowledge that makes friends friends. Clip on direct speech and common knowledge from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- My new book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life is available here:

Steven Pinker

56,084 views • 9 months ago

I'll be giving talks on common knowledge in Australia and New Zealand in February 2026. Tickets : "I begin the book with the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes because it’s the quintessential illustration of common knowledge. When the boy said the Emperor was naked, he wasn’t telling anyone anything they didn’t already know. They could see the Emperor was naked, but he changed the state of their knowledge nonetheless because, by blurting it out within earshot of everyone, now everyone knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that the Emperor was naked. So it shows, first of all, that even though the concept of common knowledge, as I defined it, seems impossible—your head starts to spin after, you know, one or two “I know that she knows,” let alone an infinite number. But what the story shows is that a conspicuous, public, self-evident event—something that you see while you see everyone else seeing it, or you hear when you know everyone else can hear it—can give you common knowledge at a stroke. And the other moral is that it changed the relationship of the people to the Emperor, from obsequious deference to ridicule and scorn. And a major theme of the book is that common knowledge, even though it sounds like this abstruse, recondite academic concept, actually figures into everyday life, figures into our money, and figures into our politics, because it enables coordination and it changes social relationships." Thinkable -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

I'll be giving talks on common knowledge in Australia and New Zealand in February 2026. Tickets : "I begin the book with the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes because it’s the quintessential illustration of common knowledge. When the boy said the Emperor was naked, he wasn’t telling anyone anything they didn’t already know. They could see the Emperor was naked, but he changed the state of their knowledge nonetheless because, by blurting it out within earshot of everyone, now everyone knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that the Emperor was naked. So it shows, first of all, that even though the concept of common knowledge, as I defined it, seems impossible—your head starts to spin after, you know, one or two “I know that she knows,” let alone an infinite number. But what the story shows is that a conspicuous, public, self-evident event—something that you see while you see everyone else seeing it, or you hear when you know everyone else can hear it—can give you common knowledge at a stroke. And the other moral is that it changed the relationship of the people to the Emperor, from obsequious deference to ridicule and scorn. And a major theme of the book is that common knowledge, even though it sounds like this abstruse, recondite academic concept, actually figures into everyday life, figures into our money, and figures into our politics, because it enables coordination and it changes social relationships." Thinkable -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

Steven Pinker

22,283 views • 8 months ago

Galen Druke (Galen Druke) interviewed me about common knowledge, the topic of my new book (link in thread): Me: What common knowledge does in informal interactions is it ratifies social relationships. So if two people are friends, if they’re lovers, if one of them is dominant and the other is subordinate—that is, one always gets it this way—these exist because each party knows the other one knows they exist. And they survive by being common knowledge. Sometimes we don’t want to destroy a relationship, and so we keep things out of common knowledge by using euphemism or innuendo or genteel hypocrisy. Druke: What’s an example of this? Me: At the end of a date, you’ve got a couple of friends and one says, “Hey, do you want to kind of come up for coffee—or Netflix and chill?” That’s very different from, “Do you want to have sex?” even though if they’re both grownups, they both know that it’s having sex. So there’s a denial of common knowledge, which would allow them—if the overture is not reciprocated—to go back to being platonic friends or workplace colleagues.

Galen Druke (Galen Druke) interviewed me about common knowledge, the topic of my new book (link in thread): Me: What common knowledge does in informal interactions is it ratifies social relationships. So if two people are friends, if they’re lovers, if one of them is dominant and the other is subordinate—that is, one always gets it this way—these exist because each party knows the other one knows they exist. And they survive by being common knowledge. Sometimes we don’t want to destroy a relationship, and so we keep things out of common knowledge by using euphemism or innuendo or genteel hypocrisy. Druke: What’s an example of this? Me: At the end of a date, you’ve got a couple of friends and one says, “Hey, do you want to kind of come up for coffee—or Netflix and chill?” That’s very different from, “Do you want to have sex?” even though if they’re both grownups, they both know that it’s having sex. So there’s a denial of common knowledge, which would allow them—if the overture is not reciprocated—to go back to being platonic friends or workplace colleagues.

Steven Pinker

22,350 views • 9 months ago

Why is it hard for nervous lovers to say goodbye on the phone? More on this can be found in my new book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . . Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. Out soon:

Why is it hard for nervous lovers to say goodbye on the phone? More on this can be found in my new book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . . Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. Out soon:

Steven Pinker

66,072 views • 11 months ago

“Social media now allow any of us to be an executioner or a grand inquisitor—pile on—and our tweet shaming someone could go viral or cause other people to tweet. That can happen in academia, where you can gin up a petition denouncing someone in a few minutes with social media. I have a chapter in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows..., in particular on academic cancel culture—or cancel culture more generally—why people feel the urge to cancel, even in an arena like academia, which ought to be about ideas, including ideas that are advanced with the point that they be evaluated and falsified. And so you think that what you say might be wrong, but it surely can’t be evil. But in academia, there’s been a temptation to treat certain ideas as evil and to try to punish or censor the person broaching them.” Clip on common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

“Social media now allow any of us to be an executioner or a grand inquisitor—pile on—and our tweet shaming someone could go viral or cause other people to tweet. That can happen in academia, where you can gin up a petition denouncing someone in a few minutes with social media. I have a chapter in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows..., in particular on academic cancel culture—or cancel culture more generally—why people feel the urge to cancel, even in an arena like academia, which ought to be about ideas, including ideas that are advanced with the point that they be evaluated and falsified. And so you think that what you say might be wrong, but it surely can’t be evil. But in academia, there’s been a temptation to treat certain ideas as evil and to try to punish or censor the person broaching them.” Clip on common knowledge, the topic of my new book, from an interview with Robert Contofalsky (Robert Contofalsky) of R-Academy. -- When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

Steven Pinker

45,050 views • 8 months ago

Me: I discuss in the book—it refers to the state where I know something, you know something, I know that you know it, you know that I know it, I know that you know that I know it, and so on ad infinitum. So it differs a bit from the conventional usage, which just refers to something that everyone knows. Here, everyone has to know that everyone knows. Times Radio Interviewer (Daniel Finkelstein Daniel Finkelstein): Can I use this with reference to the interview that I did yesterday with my brother? My brother’s a professor at City University; he’s president of the university, and there’s a campaign at the moment going on against one of their professors who was in the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1980s. We were having a discussion about how the university was standing up for the free speech of its staff, and I’d begun to wonder, as I went home reading your book on the tube, whether I’d made a big mistake—because the protest against this professor is really just a coordination exercise, isn’t it? And maybe I’d aided it by talking about it. Me: Oh yes—protests are coordination exercises. They’re designed to make private knowledge common knowledge. So, in a repressive regime, everyone may know that they despise the government, but because criticism of the government is punished, people might keep their opinions to themselves, with a result that they really don’t know what their fellow citizens think. Each one might think that they’re the only ones that are disgruntled, and so they can’t fear standing up to—they fear standing up to oppose the regime, because they can be picked off one at a time. If everyone were to protest at once, no government has the firepower to intimidate all its citizens at once. In a public protest, people can see other people there, and they know that the people there see other people there, and that can give them the strength and numbers to oppose the regime—sometimes by literally storming the palace, or sometimes just bringing the machinery of the state to a halt through work stoppages. But the crucial thing is that they are coordinated. They can only be coordinated if everyone knows that everyone knows that they hate the regime. Daniel Finkelstein: I suppose that social media is making people—is increasing the stock of common knowledge. We’re all much more aware of what other people like us, in particular like us, know, and we also know that other people know it, and so on, as you put it, and that makes people have more common knowledge. It’s not making us happier though; maybe we’d be better with less common knowledge? Me: Social media are making us more connected within certain circles—that is, those who are receiving the same texts and feeds that we are. It reduces the pool of, or shrinks the largest pool of common knowledge, namely the whole country, which may have been accessible in a day in which, say, in the United States there were three networks, or in Britain everyone was listening to the BBC. And yes, it probably doesn’t make us as happy, because when everything is public, it means that your reputation is on the line for anything you say or do. It means that since social media allow us to generate common knowledge, not just receive it like in the old days, it means that attacks on people’s reputation can be common knowledge, which means that it’s all the more painful for people on the receiving end of the attack. It may have something to do with the fact that in certain demographics—especially young people whose lives increasingly are online—that there’s that much more social competition, opportunities for gossip and ostracism and demeaning comments, and so on. When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

Me: I discuss in the book—it refers to the state where I know something, you know something, I know that you know it, you know that I know it, I know that you know that I know it, and so on ad infinitum. So it differs a bit from the conventional usage, which just refers to something that everyone knows. Here, everyone has to know that everyone knows. Times Radio Interviewer (Daniel Finkelstein Daniel Finkelstein): Can I use this with reference to the interview that I did yesterday with my brother? My brother’s a professor at City University; he’s president of the university, and there’s a campaign at the moment going on against one of their professors who was in the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1980s. We were having a discussion about how the university was standing up for the free speech of its staff, and I’d begun to wonder, as I went home reading your book on the tube, whether I’d made a big mistake—because the protest against this professor is really just a coordination exercise, isn’t it? And maybe I’d aided it by talking about it. Me: Oh yes—protests are coordination exercises. They’re designed to make private knowledge common knowledge. So, in a repressive regime, everyone may know that they despise the government, but because criticism of the government is punished, people might keep their opinions to themselves, with a result that they really don’t know what their fellow citizens think. Each one might think that they’re the only ones that are disgruntled, and so they can’t fear standing up to—they fear standing up to oppose the regime, because they can be picked off one at a time. If everyone were to protest at once, no government has the firepower to intimidate all its citizens at once. In a public protest, people can see other people there, and they know that the people there see other people there, and that can give them the strength and numbers to oppose the regime—sometimes by literally storming the palace, or sometimes just bringing the machinery of the state to a halt through work stoppages. But the crucial thing is that they are coordinated. They can only be coordinated if everyone knows that everyone knows that they hate the regime. Daniel Finkelstein: I suppose that social media is making people—is increasing the stock of common knowledge. We’re all much more aware of what other people like us, in particular like us, know, and we also know that other people know it, and so on, as you put it, and that makes people have more common knowledge. It’s not making us happier though; maybe we’d be better with less common knowledge? Me: Social media are making us more connected within certain circles—that is, those who are receiving the same texts and feeds that we are. It reduces the pool of, or shrinks the largest pool of common knowledge, namely the whole country, which may have been accessible in a day in which, say, in the United States there were three networks, or in Britain everyone was listening to the BBC. And yes, it probably doesn’t make us as happy, because when everything is public, it means that your reputation is on the line for anything you say or do. It means that since social media allow us to generate common knowledge, not just receive it like in the old days, it means that attacks on people’s reputation can be common knowledge, which means that it’s all the more painful for people on the receiving end of the attack. It may have something to do with the fact that in certain demographics—especially young people whose lives increasingly are online—that there’s that much more social competition, opportunities for gossip and ostracism and demeaning comments, and so on. When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life:

Steven Pinker

21,547 views • 7 months ago

He knows that’s Ronnie baby that’s why he not trying hard to fight for him he making up every excuse in the book to not see that child he claims Chrisean is a unstable mother which she is but gonna continue to let his “son” in her care ???? He scared to do the dna test for real bc he knows the truth gonna come out and say that jr is not his! I fear he knows Chrisean is a suspect in Ronnie death bc he coving for her he knows she got him killed and don’t want her to go to jail so he lying for her and avoiding the dna test ! He knows she had something to do with it and then he protecting Zeus too bc they gave him a fake dna test and if he takes a real one and it says the truth Zeus can get in trouble I know what’s going on here !!

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He knows that’s Ronnie baby that’s why he not trying hard to fight for him he making up every excuse in the book to not see that child he claims Chrisean is a unstable mother which she is but gonna continue to let his “son” in her care ???? He scared to do the dna test for real bc he knows the truth gonna come out and say that jr is not his! I fear he knows Chrisean is a suspect in Ronnie death bc he coving for her he knows she got him killed and don’t want her to go to jail so he lying for her and avoiding the dna test ! He knows she had something to do with it and then he protecting Zeus too bc they gave him a fake dna test and if he takes a real one and it says the truth Zeus can get in trouble I know what’s going on here !!

imthehatedfanpage

180,986 views • 8 months ago

On Friday, Bill Maher asked me if what happened with Biden at the disastrous debate with Trump was the same story as the Emperor's New Clothes. Me: The story of the Emperor's New Clothes is a story about common knowledge, because when the kid blurted it out, he actually wasn't telling anyone anything they didn't already know. They could see the Emperor was naked. But he still changed their knowledge, because by blurting it out with an earshot of the others, now everyone knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew. And what that allowed them to do is change their relationship with the Emperor, from obsequious deference to ridicule and scorn. And the thing about common knowledge in the social realm is that it's what props up our social relationships. And so when something is blurted out, then it can change everything. It changes the nature of your relationship with someone. Maher: And we do have sort of a modern version of the Emperor parable, which is Joe Biden. I mean, he was the Emperor who everyone wouldn't say had lost his marbles. I mean, is that not really the same story? Me: It is the same story, because opinion polls showed that after that disastrous debate with Trump, the number of people who thought that he was cognitively impaired didn't go up by that much. It went up by a few percentage points. But before, a majority of people thought that he was cognitively impaired. The difference is, when it's on TV, where you're watching it, you know that the rest of the country is watching it, you know the rest of the country knows the rest of the country, it's no longer private. It's common. And that's when he was challenged. That was the end. Bill Maher Real Time with Bill Maher

On Friday, Bill Maher asked me if what happened with Biden at the disastrous debate with Trump was the same story as the Emperor's New Clothes. Me: The story of the Emperor's New Clothes is a story about common knowledge, because when the kid blurted it out, he actually wasn't telling anyone anything they didn't already know. They could see the Emperor was naked. But he still changed their knowledge, because by blurting it out with an earshot of the others, now everyone knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew that everyone else knew. And what that allowed them to do is change their relationship with the Emperor, from obsequious deference to ridicule and scorn. And the thing about common knowledge in the social realm is that it's what props up our social relationships. And so when something is blurted out, then it can change everything. It changes the nature of your relationship with someone. Maher: And we do have sort of a modern version of the Emperor parable, which is Joe Biden. I mean, he was the Emperor who everyone wouldn't say had lost his marbles. I mean, is that not really the same story? Me: It is the same story, because opinion polls showed that after that disastrous debate with Trump, the number of people who thought that he was cognitively impaired didn't go up by that much. It went up by a few percentage points. But before, a majority of people thought that he was cognitively impaired. The difference is, when it's on TV, where you're watching it, you know that the rest of the country is watching it, you know the rest of the country knows the rest of the country, it's no longer private. It's common. And that's when he was challenged. That was the end. Bill Maher Real Time with Bill Maher

Steven Pinker

272,948 views • 11 months ago

With The Fifth Column 🖐 talking about common knowledge: “Common knowledge can be generated at a stroke when something is witnessed in a forum where you can witness other people witnessing it. So if something just happens in public and you can see everyone else seeing it, that gives you an instant intuition that there’s common knowledge. Humor, I suggest in one of the chapters, is a common-knowledge generator, usually of some infirmity or indignity or weakness in someone or something. And the laughter, which is conspicuous—you can hear it when someone is laughing; it interrupts their speech and breathing—at the moment of laughter, suddenly becomes common knowledge. Everyone who gets the joke suddenly realizes that someone has been taken down, and they realize that everyone else realizes it. And that’s why freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are suppressed in autocracies. The joke from the Soviet era is about the man handing out leaflets in Red Square. Of course, the KGB arrest him, take him down to headquarters, only to discover that the leaflets are blank sheets of paper. They say, ‘What is the meaning of this?’ And he says, ‘What’s there to say? It’s so obvious.’ And the reason that it was subversive is that he was generating common knowledge. Just the mere fact of trying to make something public, even if you don’t have to stipulate what it is, can generate the coordination—everyone acting together to bring down a regime.”

With The Fifth Column 🖐 talking about common knowledge: “Common knowledge can be generated at a stroke when something is witnessed in a forum where you can witness other people witnessing it. So if something just happens in public and you can see everyone else seeing it, that gives you an instant intuition that there’s common knowledge. Humor, I suggest in one of the chapters, is a common-knowledge generator, usually of some infirmity or indignity or weakness in someone or something. And the laughter, which is conspicuous—you can hear it when someone is laughing; it interrupts their speech and breathing—at the moment of laughter, suddenly becomes common knowledge. Everyone who gets the joke suddenly realizes that someone has been taken down, and they realize that everyone else realizes it. And that’s why freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are suppressed in autocracies. The joke from the Soviet era is about the man handing out leaflets in Red Square. Of course, the KGB arrest him, take him down to headquarters, only to discover that the leaflets are blank sheets of paper. They say, ‘What is the meaning of this?’ And he says, ‘What’s there to say? It’s so obvious.’ And the reason that it was subversive is that he was generating common knowledge. Just the mere fact of trying to make something public, even if you don’t have to stipulate what it is, can generate the coordination—everyone acting together to bring down a regime.”

Steven Pinker

44,931 views • 1 month ago

Trump: I was in New York, and I met a great police officer in New York. He said, “Sir, I want to thank you.” I said, “For what?” He said, “My wife didn’t think very much of me. We were having marital difficulties, actually. She thought I was nothing. I’m a police officer. I’m a tough guy.” I looked at him—the muscles were all over the place. He didn’t suffer from that, but she thought maybe that muscle wasn’t so good because he was always losing money in the stock market. And he said, “Sir, in the last year and a half, my 401(k) is up 74%, sir, and she thinks I’m Warren Buffett. She thinks I’m a super genius.” I said, “How are you getting along with her?” He said, “Well, I’m not so sure I like her anymore.”

Trump: I was in New York, and I met a great police officer in New York. He said, “Sir, I want to thank you.” I said, “For what?” He said, “My wife didn’t think very much of me. We were having marital difficulties, actually. She thought I was nothing. I’m a police officer. I’m a tough guy.” I looked at him—the muscles were all over the place. He didn’t suffer from that, but she thought maybe that muscle wasn’t so good because he was always losing money in the stock market. And he said, “Sir, in the last year and a half, my 401(k) is up 74%, sir, and she thinks I’m Warren Buffett. She thinks I’m a super genius.” I said, “How are you getting along with her?” He said, “Well, I’m not so sure I like her anymore.”

Acyn

7,689,797 views • 1 month ago

I’ve had a lot of people say Candace will move to Russia soon. I don’t think so. Her visit didn’t go well. I watched many of the PR interviews they set up for her and they were disasters. I don’t know if it was a language barrier that made her come off as so stupid or if she didn’t want to really talk but she didn’t do well in any of them. She couldn’t even answer the questions they asked many times. One interviewer had to ask her twice many questions. She answered most every question with “family is important” for an hour. It was weird. The next interview (and I’ll post it again here) is a friend of Putin and I guess didn’t know she was Catholic. Because he basically said the Catholic Church was corrupt and satanists. They had become super liberal even so much so that they did same sex marriages. And that France and the opening of the Olympic Games proved it. You could see she was upset and instead of defending the Church as not liberal or corrupt, she went on a Bridgette and France is bad answer. I think one reason she did that is she knew this guy was Putins friend and popular in Russia. She couldn’t push back on him. She was clearly not comfortable the entire interview. 30 minutes in she cut the interview and said we need to close it here. Her interviews were a disaster, her security guy almost died (I’m still on the fence about the story on why he was sick) and Ukraine bombed close to the hotel and event. She can say all she wants Russia is amazing. She’s lying. I think she found out just how not amazing it is.

I’ve had a lot of people say Candace will move to Russia soon. I don’t think so. Her visit didn’t go well. I watched many of the PR interviews they set up for her and they were disasters. I don’t know if it was a language barrier that made her come off as so stupid or if she didn’t want to really talk but she didn’t do well in any of them. She couldn’t even answer the questions they asked many times. One interviewer had to ask her twice many questions. She answered most every question with “family is important” for an hour. It was weird. The next interview (and I’ll post it again here) is a friend of Putin and I guess didn’t know she was Catholic. Because he basically said the Catholic Church was corrupt and satanists. They had become super liberal even so much so that they did same sex marriages. And that France and the opening of the Olympic Games proved it. You could see she was upset and instead of defending the Church as not liberal or corrupt, she went on a Bridgette and France is bad answer. I think one reason she did that is she knew this guy was Putins friend and popular in Russia. She couldn’t push back on him. She was clearly not comfortable the entire interview. 30 minutes in she cut the interview and said we need to close it here. Her interviews were a disaster, her security guy almost died (I’m still on the fence about the story on why he was sick) and Ukraine bombed close to the hotel and event. She can say all she wants Russia is amazing. She’s lying. I think she found out just how not amazing it is.

Raven Grace 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

41,792 views • 7 days ago

This young man’s girlfriend was cleaning his house to be nice. She stumbled upon a strange room hidden behind some a loosely installed panel. Inside she saw come blankets and an old phony her boyfriend claimed he lost. She then confronts him about it and he is nervous and shaken. He asks her not to record. He’s adamant that he has no knowledge of this room. What makes it weird is his reaction, he doesn’t want any video of this but at the same time denying the knowledge of its existence. Do you think it’s some weird room he uses as maybe a safe room or worst or do you think he really has no idea what this is?

This young man’s girlfriend was cleaning his house to be nice. She stumbled upon a strange room hidden behind some a loosely installed panel. Inside she saw come blankets and an old phony her boyfriend claimed he lost. She then confronts him about it and he is nervous and shaken. He asks her not to record. He’s adamant that he has no knowledge of this room. What makes it weird is his reaction, he doesn’t want any video of this but at the same time denying the knowledge of its existence. Do you think it’s some weird room he uses as maybe a safe room or worst or do you think he really has no idea what this is?

SonnyBoy🇺🇸

1,489,925 views • 3 months ago

Trump Comments on the Drones and Cancels his Trip to Bedminster, NJ— But Pay Attention to what he says at the end When asked if he received any Intel briefings on the drones, he says I don’t wanna comment on that. Do you think he’s worried at all? “The Government knows what is happening… Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage… They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason they don’t want to comment… and I think they’d be better off saying what it is… our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can’t imagine it’s the enemy, because if it’s the enemy, they’d blast it out… even if they were late, they’d blast it. Something strange is going on, and for some reason they don’t want to tell the people. They happen to be over Bedminster, they’re very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won’t spend the weekend in Bedminster.”

Trump Comments on the Drones and Cancels his Trip to Bedminster, NJ— But Pay Attention to what he says at the end When asked if he received any Intel briefings on the drones, he says I don’t wanna comment on that. Do you think he’s worried at all? “The Government knows what is happening… Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage… They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason they don’t want to comment… and I think they’d be better off saying what it is… our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can’t imagine it’s the enemy, because if it’s the enemy, they’d blast it out… even if they were late, they’d blast it. Something strange is going on, and for some reason they don’t want to tell the people. They happen to be over Bedminster, they’re very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won’t spend the weekend in Bedminster.”

MJTruthUltra

344,115 views • 1 year ago

We now know he wasn’t excited; he was texting people that they were going to kill him. We also know she was awake when he was and didn’t tell him goodbye. This woman is evil! She twists the story to get ahead of what she knows is the truth to feed into her “innocence.” And she does it with a smile on her face.

We now know he wasn’t excited; he was texting people that they were going to kill him. We also know she was awake when he was and didn’t tell him goodbye. This woman is evil! She twists the story to get ahead of what she knows is the truth to feed into her “innocence.” And she does it with a smile on her face.

Honest Ash

141,672 views • 2 months ago

🗣️: “The car that is performing at the moment is maybe the Mercedes. Just thinking about your championship, you really came out and stamped your authority at Brawn. I was talking to Nigel Mansell the other day. He was saying, well, that's what I did in 1992. It's kind of what George Russell wants to do. How concerned will he be that Kimmi has won the last two?” Jenson Button: “I actually saw George a couple of days ago, just in passing, weirdly. He seems very calm, collected. You know, it won't phase George. He knows his speed and he knows it hasn't gone his way. He's been very unlucky, but you got to take the rough with the smooth and you understand that sometimes you do get unlucky. Next race, he might not be. He might get the luck. So, who knows? But, yeah, for me, it's an exciting championship to have those two fighting out. Such a youngster. You know, Kimi's so young. George, he's a real powerhouse, I have to say. You know, I'm a big fan of George. [..]”

🗣️: “The car that is performing at the moment is maybe the Mercedes. Just thinking about your championship, you really came out and stamped your authority at Brawn. I was talking to Nigel Mansell the other day. He was saying, well, that's what I did in 1992. It's kind of what George Russell wants to do. How concerned will he be that Kimmi has won the last two?” Jenson Button: “I actually saw George a couple of days ago, just in passing, weirdly. He seems very calm, collected. You know, it won't phase George. He knows his speed and he knows it hasn't gone his way. He's been very unlucky, but you got to take the rough with the smooth and you understand that sometimes you do get unlucky. Next race, he might not be. He might get the luck. So, who knows? But, yeah, for me, it's an exciting championship to have those two fighting out. Such a youngster. You know, Kimi's so young. George, he's a real powerhouse, I have to say. You know, I'm a big fan of George. [..]”

naenia ¹ ⁶³

12,299 views • 3 months ago

WATCH: Jill Biden says she had to walk out of the room after Kamala Harris pressured Joe Biden to endorse her immediately after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race RITA BRAVER: So he decided that it was- he was going to drop out. JILL BIDEN: That’s right. BRAVER: It was Sunday, July 21st, 2024. Before your husband made the announcement. he called Vice President Harris to tell her what he had decided, and you said almost as soon as he gave her the news, she demanded that he endorse her right away, and he- he, I mean, did you think something was off about that? BIDEN: You know, I'm sure she thought about it. You know it wasn't like a call out of the blue. I'm sure with everything happening at that time it had to cross her mind so I think, um, I think that's what- BRAVER: When you said it was back and forth because she wanted him, um, to endorse her at the same time he announced that he was dropping out and he wanted to just make the announcement of the dropout first, right? BIDEN: Oh yeah, sure. BRAVER: And you said you even walked out of the room because it was- got too tense maybe? BIDEN: Well, it was just, I'm telling you, it was so hard. I mean this is what Joe had worked for all his life. He loved being a statesman. Um, he loved the job of helping the American people and to give it up. I mean Rita, he did it for over 50 years of his life. That's a long time. And so at some point when all of this is going on. It gets a little overwhelming, and yes, I had to walk out.

WATCH: Jill Biden says she had to walk out of the room after Kamala Harris pressured Joe Biden to endorse her immediately after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race RITA BRAVER: So he decided that it was- he was going to drop out. JILL BIDEN: That’s right. BRAVER: It was Sunday, July 21st, 2024. Before your husband made the announcement. he called Vice President Harris to tell her what he had decided, and you said almost as soon as he gave her the news, she demanded that he endorse her right away, and he- he, I mean, did you think something was off about that? BIDEN: You know, I'm sure she thought about it. You know it wasn't like a call out of the blue. I'm sure with everything happening at that time it had to cross her mind so I think, um, I think that's what- BRAVER: When you said it was back and forth because she wanted him, um, to endorse her at the same time he announced that he was dropping out and he wanted to just make the announcement of the dropout first, right? BIDEN: Oh yeah, sure. BRAVER: And you said you even walked out of the room because it was- got too tense maybe? BIDEN: Well, it was just, I'm telling you, it was so hard. I mean this is what Joe had worked for all his life. He loved being a statesman. Um, he loved the job of helping the American people and to give it up. I mean Rita, he did it for over 50 years of his life. That's a long time. And so at some point when all of this is going on. It gets a little overwhelming, and yes, I had to walk out.

Jorge Bonilla

92,495 views • 2 months ago

Steven Pinker (Steven Pinker) returns to Conversations with Tyler with an argument that common knowledge—those infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know"—is the hidden infrastructure that enables human coordination, from accepting paper money to toppling dictators. But tylercowen wonders: can there be too much common knowledge? COWEN: For a while now, we’ve had this thing called anonymous posters on the internet. Do you think, on average, they make the world better or worse? PINKER: Interesting. Probably worse. COWEN: They help make some things common knowledge. If there are things that are not common knowledge, some anonymous poster will say it. There’ll also be misinformation. Is that a clue that maybe at the margin, we have too much common knowledge rather than too little?

Steven Pinker (Steven Pinker) returns to Conversations with Tyler with an argument that common knowledge—those infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know"—is the hidden infrastructure that enables human coordination, from accepting paper money to toppling dictators. But tylercowen wonders: can there be too much common knowledge? COWEN: For a while now, we’ve had this thing called anonymous posters on the internet. Do you think, on average, they make the world better or worse? PINKER: Interesting. Probably worse. COWEN: They help make some things common knowledge. If there are things that are not common knowledge, some anonymous poster will say it. There’ll also be misinformation. Is that a clue that maybe at the margin, we have too much common knowledge rather than too little?

Conversations with Tyler

22,273 views • 10 months ago