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Questions that are rarely asked
This time it's Robin Hanson's turn:
...why exactly would learning that the world is a brutal place make one less interesting in learning more about that world? Wouldn't learning help one to avoid brutality?
That's in response to Paul Graham, who had written:
We want kids to be innocent so they can continue to learn. Paradoxical as it sounds, there are some kinds of knowledge that get in the way of other kinds of knowledge. If you're going to learn that the world is a brutal place full of people trying to take advantage of one another, you're better off learning it last. Otherwise you won't bother learning much more.
Very smart adults often seem unusually innocent, and I don't think this is a coincidence. I think they've deliberately avoided learning about certain things. Certainly I do. I used to think I wanted to know everything. Now I know I don't.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 28, 2008 at 10:22 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
Robin,
I think it's a matter of how you learn of the extent of the world's brutality. The healthy human brain can process all kinds of information but it is vulnerable to trauma as well. So yes, it's good to learn early that the world is a brutal place and that every human being is acting purely based on his/her self-interest, but learn it from someone who doesn't traumatize you with it....preferably the non-religious type.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at May 28, 2008 10:43:07 AM
"Once and for all, there is a great deal I do not want to know. Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Posted by: at May 28, 2008 10:43:53 AM
The problem with the early discovery of brutality is exactly that: one does nothing but learn how to avoid it. Avoiding early and intimate knowledge of brutality is what allows one to become an economist instead of a drug dealer being studied by an economist.
Posted by: mrshl at May 28, 2008 10:44:46 AM
I dont agree with Paul Grham.
Learing that world is cruel, stimulates pepole to learn more, so they have the power of knowlage to take advantage of otheres and not beeing taken.. in my point of view it pushes world progess, it directs people of thinking how to be on top...
Posted by: Tomislav Najdovski at May 28, 2008 11:07:10 AM
I will move forward one idea, that more intelligent people are more cooperative and less abusive http://www.ices-gmu.org/pdf/materials/443.pdf , and also more responsive for punishment for wrong doings see papers
http://www.iew.uzh.ch/chairs/fehr/team/fehr/publications/SocialNormsandHumanCooperation.pdf
http://www.iew.uzh.ch/chairs/fehr/team/fehr/publications/NatureOfHumanAltruism.pdf
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/economics/cedex/papers/2007-07.pdf
so clever people if they are surrounded with other clever people just live in an innocent world - in the world where they can cooperate for the common good.
and thus the recipe to make world better - to move to the world with more intelligent people.
Posted by: Sergey Kurdakov at May 28, 2008 11:12:05 AM
I think we want children who think critically about life. (This is different than being innocent.)
People who are critical thinkers examine their biases. A person who approaches the world thinking it is a brutal place is approaching life with a bias. This will affect a person's decisions.
As people, we also look for evidence to support our beliefs. If you believe people are going to take advantage of you, you'll find plenty of evidence to support it. If you believe people are generous, you'll find plenty of evidence to support it.
Posted by: Michelle at May 28, 2008 11:27:31 AM
The problem with innocent smart people is that they are like Dodo birds or endangered species -- they will go extinct without the protection of those who are not innocent, yet smart enough to know smart, innocent people are worth keeping around.
Academia is full of these kinds of people which is why most of their ideas fail in the real world. The theory of "what should be" rarely jives with the reality of "what is". It takes people with some idea of true brutality to make real change toward "what should be" - IMHO.
While this conversation has focused mainly on individuals -- what about when a country or a region begins to avoid brutality -- like Western Europe for example? Could they really survive alone in a world that is way more brutal and savage then they'd like to acknowledge it is?
Posted by: Robert at May 28, 2008 11:38:54 AM
Re “I think (some adults have) deliberately avoided learning about certain things.”
But - I think every adult does that, and it’s not linked to leaving your mind free for learning, specifically. Every adult not living in fear, or at risk of not having basic food and shelter, has closed their minds, partially, to what it must really be like for the people who are in those situations. I’m not Peter Singer writing under a pseudonym, but individuals’ decisions about voting and charity, and States’ decisions about distribution of resources and foreign policy show a different response to pain far away than you would expect from a normal empathetic human responding face to face. Some form of conscious switching off and putting up of barriers takes place in order to permit enjoyment of the better life in the developed world.
Kind parents who have done this closing-off for themselves also save their children from the full literal truth about the world in order to give their children the choice to do the same in due course.
Intended as observation, not judgment. I’m not posting this from a tent in Burma.
Posted by: polly at May 28, 2008 11:42:46 AM
"A person who approaches the world thinking it is a brutal place is approaching life with a bias."
Great point.
I think we do a great disservice the way "society" sanitizes reality for kids. I know I'm ticked that I was sold a bill of goods. I don't think it's because "we" care about kids sensitivities either. I think the decision makers want sheep, consciously or subconsiously, the last thing they want is critical thinking from the peons.
"The world is a cooperative, giving place, so you are going to cooperate and give, right?"
Posted by: Andrew at May 28, 2008 11:49:02 AM
Such knowledge could lead to something akin to cognitive dissonance. Discomfort with the truth can lead to denial and avoidance. Mao's use of the term "trauma" seems fair, so you could get a variety of psychological disorders. This seems obvious, so I don't understand Hanson's confusion and wonder if his questions are rhetorical. Is he just trying to remind us that we aren't perfectly rational?
Posted by: at May 28, 2008 11:57:52 AM
Brutality is the wrong word, but of course, Paul Graham is right, some kinds of learning cause people to reduce their future learning. e.g. my toddler has dramatically slowed his learning curve for swimming, potty training, reading, trying new foods, etc., because he has recently discovered fear. Yes, he needs fear, and i'm glad he no longer jumps in the deep end without a parent there to catch him and he no longer sticks everything in his mouth, but, there is a real cost in increased difficulty getting him to try new and unfamiliar things.
I've seen something similar happen as smart students leave college or grad school for the real world, with a huge drop in their interest in pure theoretical learning in favor of getting results and less intensive practical learning. A better way to explain it than "brutality" is to say that people increase their discount rates and risk aversion when they encounter the real world, but increasing your discount rate too soon in life will make it harder for you to earn a skills premium over the long run.
Posted by: DK at May 28, 2008 12:06:02 PM
"Older societies told kids they had bad judgement, but modern parents want their children to be confident. This may well be a better plan than the old one of putting them in their place, but it has the side effect that after having implicitly lied to kids about how good their judgement is, we then have to lie again about all the things they might get into trouble with if they believed us.
If parents told their kids the truth about sex and drugs, it would be: the reason you should avoid these things is that you have lousy judgement. People with twice your experience still get burned by them."
I think the right approach for me is "hey kid, you have bad judgment, but it's probably no worse and might be better than anyone else's, at least if you listen to pops. And those who do have the best judgment may not have the best morals, so they might try to get you to question your own judgment so you will follow theirs." I haven't condensed it to fit on a bumper sticker yet. I have time. My plan right now is to tell my kids they are the center of the universe until age X, then after age X tell them they are a speck of dust in a tiny galaxy. Not sure why this is my plan, or what X should be.
Posted by: Andrew at May 28, 2008 12:20:34 PM
I completely disagree with Paul Graham. I attempt to shield my kids from certain knowledge about the world merely to prolong their childhood. It never even occurred to me that learning about the brutality of the world might diminish their interest in learning even more, and considering Paul's statement now I don't think that it would (it actually sounds preposterous to me: are there many such parents out there?).
-Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Postlewaite at May 28, 2008 12:31:11 PM
Expectancy Theory: If you think the world is a brutal, unfair place, you're a lot less likely to want to learn anything new or make any attempts to improve yourself, as the chances of this improvement actually getting you anything are very small.
This problem is probably compounded when you're still living off of Mom and Dad's money. Your incentive to work is even LESS then, especially since the discount rates of children/teenagers are extraordinarily high.
Posted by: Robert Olson at May 28, 2008 12:36:16 PM
The idea that children are innocent is a crock of BS anyway. Children can be extremely and deliberately cruel to one another. They learn that the world is a brutal place as soon as they go off to school, or as soon as they meet their older siblings.
Posted by: John S. at May 28, 2008 12:40:57 PM
Wouldn't learning help one to avoid brutality?
No, because children are weak and cannot defend themselves from brutality. They need illusions of goodness until they are strong enough to defend themselves, else they will hide from the world. Unfortunately, I know this from direct experience.
Robin Hanson is projecting his adult viewpoint into children, and forgetting what it's actually like to be a child.
Posted by: np at May 28, 2008 1:15:35 PM
There's a word for people who don't learn the world is a brutal place until last: dead. Fortunately, in the good old days, these people didn't live long enough to pass on their genes.
Posted by: Franklin Harris at May 28, 2008 1:18:06 PM
Does anyone really think little Johnny is better off knowing firsthand that dad sometimes punches mom, just so long as Johnny is never hit himself?
Posted by: lex at May 28, 2008 1:33:29 PM
Different individuals respond differently to the same stimuli. I think generalizing about how "kids" will respond to this information is useless. Individual outcomes will depend on how the facts interpreted, not how they're presented, and differences in interpretation will be heavily affected by hereditary differences in personality.
An economist and a gangster are both trying to deal with the world's brutality as best they can. One path implies an interest in learning as much about the world as possible, while the other does not.
Posted by: Big Luke at May 28, 2008 1:34:49 PM
The diversity responses here and at OB is surprising.
Posted by: Robin Hanson at May 28, 2008 1:37:12 PM
Does anyone really think little Johnny is better off knowing firsthand that dad sometimes punches mom, just so long as Johnny is never hit himself?
The fact that I knew certainly helped during mom's divorce proceedings.
Posted by: Franklin Harris at May 28, 2008 2:01:16 PM
There's a similar knowledge transition in grad school: at the beginning you want to know everything, just because it's there, but by the end, there's about a minute before it has to pass the "will this get me a paper?" test. But you're not really learning less, you're just becoming more specialised.
I suspect that what PG means by "continuing to learn" is continuing to learn everything which seems cool and interesting and new, rather than becoming a specialist in topics like how to make sure you'll still have a job in 5 years, how to make sure that if you get sick you won't become homeless, etc. And the concrete reason to value the former sort of knowledge over the latter is that it has better long-term payoff, for you and for society.
Posted by: improbable at May 28, 2008 2:42:26 PM
Paul Graham is suggesting that some facts about the world are just too demoralizing. I view it as a reaction to existentialism.
Posted by: Rich at May 28, 2008 2:53:57 PM
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
Posted by: at May 28, 2008 2:59:50 PM
Robin's comment is a typical economist's comment, and unconvincing in this context. He doesn't argue on the basis of facts or evidence, he argues merely based on defensive rationality.
Posted by: John H at May 28, 2008 3:37:14 PM
Robin's comment is a typical economist's comment, and unconvincing in this context. He doesn't argue on the basis of facts or evidence, he argues merely based on defensive rationality.
Posted by: John H at May 28, 2008 3:39:25 PM
Do all of you truly think you can control the world for your children and create a perfect, safe haven for them? I'll save some time - the answer is no. So when the bad thing you can't control inevitably slips through into your carefully guarded world, your children are going to not know how to respond. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with adversity as it arises. Your job as a parent is to give them the tools to do that. You're doing them a disservice by pretending that nothing bad ever happens and are merely delaying the associated bad feelings that come along with it. And when that time comes, not only will your children feel just as bad and be less adept at managing the situation, they will also resent you for hiding the truth.
Unrelated point, but way too often legislation is passed that is clearly posited by parents who want to sterilize everyone else so their children can live in their safe fantasyland. I also resent this.
Posted by: 12345 at May 28, 2008 3:59:58 PM
You can travel to Africa or North Korea and meet many children who understand brutality better than even American adults.
I don't think it has any effect on learning per se. Genghis Khan used his childhood experience with brutality to achieve great success, for instance. On the other hand, I don't think it helps either. We shelter children from brutality and death because it is traumatizing. Parents don't explain sexual molestation and murder to children, they tell them to never let anyone touch them and don't talk to strangers.
Posted by: 8 at May 28, 2008 4:08:12 PM
As someone commented earlier, kids can hardly avoid knowing about brutality in the world; they encounter other kids. The question is where adults should lie in exposure vs. protection.
As with so many other things, I think a happy medium is in order here. The kids who are sheltered and protected forever don't learn how to cope with things as they are, lack initiative, and are astonishingly dependent on other people. (I teach in a prep school. I get a lot of this.) But the kids who are exposed to unnecessary awfulness are too preoccupied trying to process it to be able to interact properly with the outside world; their resources are too inner-directed; they don't have enough left over to engage. (I get too much of this too.)
Posted by: Andromeda at May 28, 2008 4:31:06 PM
We stand outside the model, desperately trying to avoid the Nash equilibrium of being the first to use brutality.
Posted by: josh at May 28, 2008 4:44:43 PM
Hanson's critique only applies if one assumes full rationality, which we generally can't do when talking about very small children.
At any rate I really liked this Graham piece, but it is best to take it as descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Posted by: Noah Yetter at May 28, 2008 5:55:43 PM
kids can hardly avoid knowing about brutality in the world; they encounter other kids
I'm amazed people keep saying this. Certainly kids are capable of real brutality, but lacking AK-47s or pangas (and leaders) most suburban kids get by with hair-pulling and toy-breaking. These are not the same thing. Encountering suburban brutality will not have the same effect on your life as growing up in a civil war would.
Posted by: improbable at May 28, 2008 5:59:24 PM
Ok, we all know why Tyler posted this. He knew that number and quality of comments in the blog is superior signal to simply presenting the results of formal IQ test ;-) However, I would call this a draw. IMHO, Andromeda above provided the best practical advise on the relevant topic. But the best direct answer to Robin's question was posted on Overcoming Bias: learning about the dangers and brutality of the world would discourage learning in a sense of exploration and first-hand experiences. Maybe that's all Paul Graham wanted to say, but his thought drifted a little too far.
Posted by: Giedrius at May 28, 2008 6:37:50 PM
Does anyone really think little Johnny is better off knowing firsthand that dad sometimes punches mom, just so long as Johnny is never hit himself?
Yes, because then he won't believe it's his fault that Mommy cries.
Posted by: Anon at May 28, 2008 7:05:15 PM
Why is it that when the proposal is, "Should we be [more?] honest to our children", the examples postulated presume we must thrust them into the worst experiences in the universe, whether they showed interest or not?
Posted by: anomdebus at May 28, 2008 7:25:36 PM
I disagree with Paul Graham that an interest in learning is dampened by exposure to the brutalities of life. Such an assertion is contradicted by the many examples of individuals who overcome tremendous personal challenges to attain higher learning like Daniel Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational who was burned over 75% of his body and went on to become a prof at MIT or Norman Borlaug who attained a PhD in plant pathology despite failing the university entrance exams.
The naivete of many who seek higher learning may be more indicative of a preference for intellectual rather than social interaction. Many very bright students have very underdeveloped social skills. It does not necessarily follow that they are avoiding life but seems to be more indicative of their developmental response to the world around them. Quite simply, they relate better to ideas than to people.
While a parent cannot protect a child from the problems of the world, one does try to teach a child problem solving, a positive attitude, goal setting, good personal boundaries, critical thinking, self reliance, as well as strong personal values. In short, the tools that one needs to deal with adversity.
Posted by: Cassandra at May 28, 2008 8:28:36 PM
It seems pretty clear to me that the reactions described by Hanson and Graham are both totally plausible -- we live in a heterogeneous world, especially when it comes to our responses to trauma and brutality. I also wanted to address the commenter who posited that Western Europe is abandoning brutality. Since when? Personal brutality is certainly alive and well, and sanctioning torture, denying the humanity and integrity of others (say, Muslims), and withholding citizenship from productive residents are certainly brutal acts, even if none of these acts is characteristic of every Western European resident. There is a measure of violence and a measure of the ability to combat it in everyone, all over the globe.
Posted by: Hannah at May 28, 2008 9:02:29 PM
PG writes from a narrow perspective. Most of his interactions are with net startup people, and he knows what works in that space: optimistic, youngish people intent on making things other people will want to use (as contrasted with Bill Gates, Rob Glaser, etc, of the lock-in era of tech.) It only works because the products don't need armies of people, or expert negotiation with suppliers and bankers.
That said, I like his writing. He's a hacker at heart, releasing version 0.1 of his ideas, and hopefully listening to feedback. Probably will be a rich bore by the time he's 70, but we all run that risk.
Posted by: gorobei at May 28, 2008 9:38:55 PM
"Very smart adults often seem unusually innocent"
That hasn't been my experience.
Posted by: J at May 29, 2008 12:46:54 AM
As Antonio Machado, a spanish poet, once wrote:
Si me tengo que morir, ¿para qué quiero saber?
Y sino puedo aprender, ¿para qué quiero vivir?
Sorry for not having an accurate possible translation
Best
Posted by: Juan at May 29, 2008 5:52:28 AM
Although this puts me at risk for utter lameness:
Sometimes, when I see just how many people die from cruel brutality (and especially when I see visual images), I end up feeling really small and useless, like nothing I could ever do could stop even a small percentage of all that suffering. I feel also like my daily goals and concerns are so minor compared to what's happening. When it becomes overwhelming, rather than spurring me to action, it actually makes me feel really sad, and like I don't want to know anything about the world anymore, and that I would rather just watch a comedy and forget about it. Not very nice, but true.
Posted by: student at May 29, 2008 6:17:03 AM
Student,
I can very much identify with what you are saying having developed a sense of responsibility for others very early in life. As a child, I felt responsible for the emotional states of my parents trying to understand the sufferings that they had experienced like my dad's war experience. Making one's self responsible for others is very overwhelming. My own needs and goals were things that I minimized as less important than the needs of others. Instead my life was structured around caring for others and putting their needs ahead of mine, a pattern that was not sustainable. It was as though I had to prove that I was a caring, compassionate person and that it would be selfish to make choices for myself.
While helping others and developing close loving relationships is important, each of us needs to develop our own gifts and meet our individual needs. We cannot bear the world's burdens and we are not meant to do so. Developing a balance so that we do not get overwhelmed is very important.
Boundaries by Henry McCloud & John Templeton is very useful to help put many of these issues into perspective.
I apologise if you find my comments are off base or intrusive. Perhaps, I am reading more into your post due to my own experiences. Perhaps, it is that you minimize your own emotions as "utterly lame" that strikes a chord. Emotions are very important. They tell us when something is wrong.
Posted by: Cassandra at May 29, 2008 9:57:53 AM
A key aspect of "learning about brutality" would be what you mean by "learn". The effects are different, I'd expect, if you read about Mongol massacre of Baghdad, or watch your mother fly into a screaming rage every few weeks, or get raped by your mother's boyfriend from when you were eight to fourteen.
Posted by: Laserlight at May 29, 2008 11:12:58 AM
Laserlight,
I agree completely that there needs to be agreement on the terminology of "brutality", "innocence", etc. or the discussion merely becomes a nebulous, tail-chasing exercise.
Tyler Cowen never really offered anything more than a personal impression using himself as an example. ie. I am intelligent and I do things this way so I imagine that other intelligent people make similar choices. I tend to think of this kind of argument as similar to marketing in the 19th century...if I like this product, everyone else will too.
The argument presents very little evidence to support the conclusion that experiencing brutality directly (being a crime victim) or indirectly (ie. watching the news) discourages the pursuit of education. One can prove the opposite by citing examples of individuals who pursue higher education in spite of traumatic experiences like my father who became a history teacher after serving in WWII. WWII was an event which shaped his lifelong interest in history. It is difficult to conceive of an experience more likely to disillusion one about mankind than the experience of being severely wounded and burned yet my father never hated the germans.
I believe that the lifelong learning is like many other human endevour something that we do for our own pleasure, mental stimulation and career development. Personally, I do not see where brutality or lack of brutality enters into the equation.
Posted by: Cassandra at May 29, 2008 1:15:21 PM
Ah, the noble lie or the ignoble truth? Each born of the other, it seems odd to ask which will it be?
Young people, in my experience, often have a profound sense, or at least deeply felt sense, of what is and is not just. The impulse to change the world, however naive, seems to me among the most potent and healthy impulses that may motivate a child. Besides, the notion that children ought to learn something last begs the question as to who is going to compose this well-ordered curriculum, much less impose it.
It seems when Grahams says that "Very smart adults often seem unusually innocent," he is talking about a certain kind of "very smart," which is fine enough in our technological age; but what of the "very smart" students of human nature? Surely they can leave no stone--and pardon the poor-taste pun, no stoning--unturned?
Posted by: Dedalus at May 29, 2008 7:17:19 PM
Precisement.
Posted by: Cassandra at May 29, 2008 10:16:35 PM
random thoughts:
- "smart" doesn't equate with "lots of knowledge about everything", it's only a correlation. It's even less correlated with "lots of useful-to-society knowledge about anything".
- how do puppies become afraid of loud noises (instead of being merely startled)? they pick up their handler's reactions. Guide dogs are taught to handle situations calmly. A friend said her daughter isn't afraid around bees, because she isn't. Her friend's daughter freaks out at flies (because mommy screams when there's a fly in the room).
- If you learn to handle brutality (appropriately introduced and explained, of course), you will not be paralyzed when it happens.
- Kids know brutality well... do you even realize how completely selfish and cruel most young children are? They only stop when they learn about consequences.
- If one keeps running away from unpleasant knowledge one loses all the potential to change it.
- Close your eyes, the monster will still be there.
- If Mother Teresa hadn't known about poverty, she wouldn't have made a difference in so many lives in Calcutta.
- We only have a certain finite amount of time and attention to spend. Closing one's mind to some knowledge isn't necessarily about "fear of brutality", I think it prevents diluting one's focus.
Posted by: Andrew Nelson at May 31, 2008 10:06:34 PM
