#980 - 大卫·平索夫 - 当你的大脑遭遇胡扯

对幸福的渴望并非驱动我们行为的真正动力。这是一种预测行为的糟糕方式，也是对人类心理学的天真理解，只会让你陷入困惑、矛盾与无限倒退的泥潭。

A desire for happiness is not what is driving our behavior. It is a terrible way to predict our behavior. It is a naive way of thinking about human psychology that will lead you into a morass of confusion, contradiction, and infinite regress.

为什么？我曾写过一篇题为《幸福是狗屁》的长文，后来又写了续篇《幸福确实是狗屁》。不，开个玩笑，其实是《幸福是狗屁再思考》。

Why? Well, I wrote a very long post on this called happiness is bullshit, and then I wrote a sequel to that post called happiness really is bullshit. No. I'm just joking. It was happiness is bullshit revisited.

人们对此耿耿于怀。我认为我们对心智运作的最大误解之一，就是荒谬地认为人生追求存在于我们头脑内部。从进化角度看，这种认为我们是受内在事物驱动的动物的想法极其怪异且站不住脚。更合理的解释应该是我们被驱使去追寻外界事物——比如食物、性、地位、赞誉、群体归属感，这些与生物适应性和祖先环境息息相关的东西。这才像我们这种灵长类动物会渴望的事物。

People really get hung up on this. I think it's one of the biggest confusions we have about how the mind works is that we have this really misguided idea that what we're pursuing in life is inside of our heads. That is a really weird and implausible idea from an evolutionary perspective, that we would be animals that are driven to seek stuff inside of our heads makes no sense. It makes way more sense that we would be driven to seek stuff out there in the world, you know, like food, sex, status, praise, inclusion in groups, all this stuff that would have correlated with biological fitness and ancestral environments. These are the sorts of things that would make sense for a primate like us to want.

渴望头脑里的东西根本说不通。对此常见的反驳是：幸福某种程度上激励我们去获取所需，就像悬在眼前的胡萝卜，我们需要幸福感驱动自己去争取世间万物。但这种观点同样荒谬——既然你认为需要幸福来激励我们，那么紧接着的尴尬问题就是：进化如何让我们渴望幸福？

It makes no sense for us to want something inside of our heads. Now the common response to this argument is that, oh, well, happiness sort of motivates us to go out and get what we want. It's sort of like the carrot that's dangling in front of us, and we need happiness to to motivate us to get out to go out and get the get the stuff in the world. Right? This view also makes no sense because as soon as you posit that we need happiness to motivate us, well, there's a awkward follow-up question, which is how does evolution get us to want happiness?

如果需要幸福来促使我们追求事物，那么进化如何让我们渴望幸福？难道要我们在获得幸福时再获得幸福，在获得幸福的幸福时继续获得幸福吗？正如我所说，这已陷入无限倒退。认为需要某种内在奖励来激励我们的整个思维模式都极不靠谱，它与大量社会行为科学及神经科学研究成果相矛盾。

If you need happiness to get us to want stuff, then how does evolution get us to want happiness? Does it have to give us happiness when we get happiness, and then happiness when we get happiness when we get happiness? Like I said, we have entered an infinite regress. This whole way of thinking that we need some internal goody to motivate us is just wildly implausible. It it contradicts a wealth of research and social and behavioral sciences and and neuroscience.

我们不需要快乐来获得动力。我们的神经系统直接连接着心脏、生理机能、肺部以及肌肉，它能直接驱使我们行动起来获取所需。就像恒温器无需感到快乐也能将室温调节到适宜温度一样，我们同样不需要快乐来激励自己。明白吗？我们体内也有类似的恒温机制——寒冷时会促使我们发抖，炎热时让我们出汗；感到冷就寻找毯子，觉得热便寻觅阴凉。

We don't need happiness to to be motivated. Our nervous system is directly wired up to our hearts, to our physiology, to our lungs, to our muscles, it can just motivate us to go out and get the stuff directly. We don't need happiness to motivate us any more than a thermostat needs to feel happy when it gets your home at the right temperature. Right? We have thermostats inside our bodies that motivate us to shiver when we're cold and sweat when we're hot and and seek blankets when we're cold and to seek shade when we're hot.

这些内在调节机制和家用恒温器一样不需要快乐驱动。因此，将人类行为视为对快乐的追求存在诸多认知谬误。我在文章中列举了许多例证，但归根结底，这种观点是对人类心理和思维的严重误解。我认为更有洞见的视角是：人类是在为真实世界中那些与祖先环境生物适应性相关的事物而奋斗。

Those inner thermostats don't need happiness just any more than the thermostats in our home need happiness. So, there are many reasons why, viewing human behavior as a pursuit of happiness is misguided. I go through lots of them in my post, but, yeah, I think this is just a a wildly confused way of thinking about human psychology, about the mind. I think it is way more insightful to think about humanity as striving for things, for real things in the world that would have correlated with biological fitness in ancestral environments.

那么你是否完全否定了主观内在幸福状态及其与我们的关系？

Do you completely discard with subjective internal states of well-being and our relationship to them then?

不。我认为这些状态存在，但并非我们想象的那样。我们误以为它们是悬在眼前的胡萝卜，是驱动力来源。实际上它们是进化机制——快乐是自然选择塑造的机制，服务于特定功能。

No. I think those exist, but they're not what we think they are. So what we think they are is just a carrot that's dangling in front of us that gets us to to that motivates us. What they actually are are mechanisms. Happiness is a mechanism that evolved by natural selection to serve a very specific function.

正如我们讨论过的，这个功能不可能是激励，因为动机本身不需要快乐。对吧？它另有作用。具体是什么？是当现实超出预期时，重新校准我们的期待与动机。

And as we discussed, that function cannot be to motivate us because motivation doesn't need happiness. Right? It serves a different function. And what is that function? Well, it's to recalibrate our expectations and motivations when something turns out to be better than we expected it to be.

性爱比你预想的更美妙。冰淇淋比你预想的更美味。当你尝试烹饪西班牙海鲜饭时，本以为会搞砸，结果却惊艳无比。当这类误判发生时，你的大脑需要大幅重新校准。如果我做出了这道惊艳的海鲜饭，就必须更新对自己厨艺水平的预期、对西班牙菜烹饪能力的评估、对海鲜饭品质的认知，并重新调整动机——未来我会更愿意烹饪西班牙菜肴。

The sex is better than you thought it would be. The ice cream is better than you thought it would be. You tried cooking a Spanish paella, and you thought it was gonna suck, and it ends up being amazing. When mistakes like that get made, your brain has to do a lot of recalibrating. If I cook this amazing paella, I need to update my expectations about how good my cooking ability is, about how about my ability to cook Spanish cuisine, about the quality of paella, and it needs to reorient my motivations that I'm more motivated to, cook Spanish cuisine in the future.

当现实以积极方式颠覆我的预期时，大脑需要做大量工作。我认为这种认知重构的过程，就是我们所谓的快乐。但如果你将快乐理解为预测误差后的大脑校准机制，那么声称'我们追求快乐'就毫无意义。事实上更准确的说法是：我们正在驱散快乐——因为越是得到渴望之物，预测误差就越小，美好事物越变得可预期，获得的快乐感就越稀薄。我们许多人都熟悉这种适应现象。

My brain has a lot of work to do when I'm wrong about reality in a positive way. And and all that work that my brain is doing, I think, is what we call happiness. But if you understand happiness as a mechanism for recalibrating your brain in the wake of a prediction error, well, then it makes no sense to say that we want happiness. In fact, it makes more sense to say that we're chasing happiness away because the more you get the thing you want, the lower those prediction errors become, the more expected the good thing becomes, and the less happy you feel when you get it. So many of many of us are familiar with this idea of habituation.

买新车时最初几次驾驶令人兴奋，但逐渐习惯后就不再带来快乐。新交往的恋人最初惊艳，后来关系逐渐变得可预期甚至乏味。这几乎适用于生活中所有美好事物——接触越频繁，预测误差越小，产生的快乐就越少。

You get a new car, and it's awesome the first few times you drive it, but then eventually you get used to it and it no longer no longer makes you happy. You get, you know, a a new girlfriend or boyfriend. They're amazing at first, and then eventually, you know, things get a little more expected, a little more boring. This happens pretty much, across the board, with regard to any good things in our life. The more we get exposed to them, the lower those prediction errors become, and the less happy those things make us.

但我们仍会与恋人确立关系，会结婚，购车后可能长期驾驶。事物带来的快乐减弱，并不意味着我们不再需要它。我们可以持续渴望不再带来快乐的事物。

But we often commit to, girlfriends or boyfriends. We often get married. We often, drive a car for a very long time if if we purchase a car. So, just because the thing no longer makes us as happy as it used to, doesn't mean that we no longer want it. We can still want things even if they don't make us happy.

因此我认为必须区分动机与快乐——我们常被驱动去获取许多实际上不会带来快乐的事物。更矛盾的是：越是追逐这些，最终获得的快乐反而越少。这表明我们追逐的并非快乐本身，而是外界那些具体事物。

And so I think we need to separate motivation from happiness and realize that we are often motivated to get lots of things that don't really make us happy. And in fact, the more we pursue those things, the less happy those things ultimately make us, which suggests that we're not pursuing happiness itself. We're pursuing those things out there in the world.

这是否意味着：相较于追逐快乐，干预预期才是提升主观幸福感的更直接途径？

Does this suggest that intervening into our expectations is a more direct route to improving subjective well-being than trying to chase happiness?

没错。若真想要快乐，方法应是让预期与现实产生更大偏差。

Yes. If we actually did want happiness, then the way to get it would be to make our expectations about reality more wrong.

而

And

吸毒就是方法之一。毒品会扰乱大脑，放大预期误差。某些毒品能带来狂喜，正因一切都变得极度意外。但思考毒瘾本质时会发现：成瘾者追逐的并非快感，而是毒品本身——随着摄入增加，毒品带来的快乐递减，耐受性增强。但成瘾者仍会强烈渴求毒品，即使已无法获得快感。这正是毒瘾发展的轨迹：快感越来越少，渴望却越来越强，证明成瘾者要的是毒品本身而非兴奋状态。所以你的观点完全正确。

so one way to do that is by doing drugs. Drugs sort of scramble your brain and make and make your expectations about reality more wrong. And in some cases, drugs can offer you a kind of euphoria because everything is just so wildly surprising. But when you think about what drug addiction is, it becomes even more clear that it's not the high that the drug addict is chasing, but the drug itself. Because what happens when you're addicted to something is the more you take the drug, the less happy the drug makes you.

兴奋感越来越弱，耐药性越来越强。但成瘾者往往在毒品已不能带来快感时，仍对其产生强烈渴求——这就是成瘾的发展过程：毒品带来的愉悦感持续衰减，你对毒品的渴望却与日俱增，这充分说明成瘾者要的是毒品本身，而非那种亢奋状态。

The the less intense your high becomes. You become more tolerant to the drug. But an addict will often crave the drug really intensely despite the fact that it no longer makes them feel good anymore, and that's what happens as an addiction progresses. The drug makes you feel less and less good, and you end up wanting the drug more and more, which suggests that the addict wants the drug itself, not the high. So, yes, you're right.

如果我们真的渴望幸福，那么获得它的最佳方式就是让我们的期望落空。但我不认为我们真正追求的是幸福，也不认为人们会有动力去刻意打乱自己的预期，因为这终究不是他们想要的。

If if we actually wanted happiness, then the best way to to get it would be to make our expectations wrong. But I don't think we actually do want happiness, and I don't think people are gonna be motivated to go out and screw up their expectations because that's ultimately not what they want.

这同时也会让你在追求成功时效率降低，嗯。成功的一部分在于能够准确预测未来，这意味着你需要拥有一个良好的世界模型，而你的预期实际上不会频繁偏离现实。既然幸福不是解释我们行为动机的最佳方式，那么激励是否是更好的指引？

It's also going to make you presumably less effective at getting at being successful because Mhmm. Part of being successful is being able to accurately predict what's going to happen, which means that you need to have a a good model of the world, which means that your expectations aren't actually diverted from, diverged from all that frequently. So if happiness isn't a particularly good way to work out what's driving our behavior, are incentives a better north star?

是的，绝对如此。我写过一篇题为《激励即一切》的文章，主张激励从根本上决定一切。我们通常将激励视为金钱激励，比如加薪或罚款。有时也会考虑法律惩罚这类激励。

Yes. Absolutely. I have a post called incentives are everything where I argue that basically incentives are everything. We usually think of incentives in terms of monetary incentives, like getting a salary increase or getting a fine. We sometimes think about them in terms of legal penalties.

偶尔人们会谈及社会性激励，如赞扬或尊重。我更倾向于以最广义的视角理解激励——我认为激励是人类作为灵长类动物进化过程中渴望并追寻的一切事物。因此激励包括地位、群体归属感、性、食物、舒适感、内稳态等所有我们进化形成的需求。

Occasionally, people talk about social incentives like praise, or esteem. I like to think of incentives in, in the most broad way possible. I think incentives are anything that we as human primates evolved to want and seek out in the world. So incentives include status, belonging to a cohesive group, sex, food, you name it, comfort, homeostasis. Anything we evolved to want is an incentive and can be used to incentivize us.

而激励结构就是这些激励在时空中的分布方式。我认为理解人类行为最有帮助的框架，就是考察我们所处的激励结构以及为获取环境中各种激励采取的行动。这种视角比所谓追求幸福、内心状态或内在福祉的理论更能洞察人类行为与文化本质。

And what an incentive structure is is where those incentives are situated across time and space. And so I think a helpful way of thinking about human behavior is in terms of the incentive structures that we inhabit and and what we do to get the various incentives in our environment. I think that is a way more insightful way of looking at human behavior and human culture than this idea that we're pursuing happiness or inner states or inner well-being.

没错，只需跟随激励。那么激励从何而来？我们对此是白板一块吗？我们是否具备干预或影响它们的能力？

Yeah. Just follow the incentives. Where where do incentives come from then? Are we are we a blank slate with regards to them? Have we got any or do we have any ability to interject into them?

这是个很好的问题。我们需要区分作为终极目标的欲望和作为手段的欲望。例如，我不认为金钱本身是终极目标——我们渴望金钱是因为它能换取食物、性、舒适居住等需求。但如果明天货币体系崩溃，金钱将立即失去吸引力。

So this is a great question. I think we need to make a distinction between what we want as an end and what we want as a means to an end. So for example, I don't think we want money as an end in itself. We want money because we can use money to buy us all sorts of things we want, like food, sex, comfort, housing, whatever. But if all currency collapsed tomorrow and nobody was no nobody was accepting money in exchange for goods and services, we would stop wanting money.

对吧？我们对金钱的欲望取决于其获取价值的能力，这意味着金钱只是实现目标的手段而非目标本身。作为手段的欲望会受环境、文化、成长背景等因素塑造，但作为终极目标的欲望——我认为源自进化历史和生物学基础——我们作为动物对这些深层需求几乎没有干预能力。

Right? So our our desire for money is conditional on its ability to get us what we want, which means that we want money as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. So what we want as a means to an end can be shaped by our environments, by our culture, by the opportunities available to us, where where we where we grow up. But what we want as an end, I don't think can be changed. I think that comes from our evolutionary history, that comes from biology, and I see very limited ability for us to inter to change or intervene on the things that we deeply want as animals.

我不认为自己能消除对食物或氧气的需求，这些根本需求是不可协商的。所以我们最底层的欲望最终都源于进化，且不容妥协。

I don't think I'm ever gonna get rid of my desire for food or oxygen. This this is just nonnegotiable. So I think our our deepest desires are ultimately come from evolution and are nonnegotiable.

能否用这种方式探讨近端激励与终极激励的概念？

Is it would you be able to talk about proximate incentives and ultimate incentives kind of in this way?

你可以从这个角度来思考。在进化心理学中，人们区分了近因分析层面和终极分析层面。近因分析层面指的是你从具体运作机制上思考系统如何工作。比如快乐是如何产生的？它接收什么作为输入？

You could think of it in those terms. So in evolutionary psychology, people make a distinction between the proximate level of analysis and the ultimate level of analysis. What the approximate level of analysis means is just you're thinking about how the the system works in nuts and bolts terms. So how does happiness work? What does it take as input?

它产生什么作为输出？它如何处理信息？这些都是近因层面的问题。而当你进入终极分析层面时，你思考的是该机制的进化历史及其存在的根本原因。它服务于什么目的？

What does it produce as output? How does it process information? These are all proximate level questions. When you go to the ultimate level of analysis, you are thinking about the evolutionary history of that mechanism and why it exists at all. What purpose is it serving?

在祖先环境中，它是如何提升生物适应度，最终成为人类表型中稳定发展的一部分的？因此终极问题关乎功能，近因问题关乎结构。所以你的问题是，我们能否用近因和终极的框架来思考激励？是的，我认为完全可以。

How did it increase biological fitness in ancestral environments to the point where it became a reliably developing part of the human phenotype? So ultimate questions are about function, and proximate questions are about structure. So your question is, can we think about incentives in terms of proximate and ultimate terms? Yeah. I think we we we can.

我们可以思考动机系统的功能——它们为何进化，我们为何渴望世间某些事物；也可以思考动机的近因细节——我们的认知局限、学习能力、记忆限制，以及环境中存在的机遇与约束。这些都属于更近因层面的问题。

We can we can think about, the the function of our motivational systems, why they evolve, why we want certain things in the world, And then we can think about the proximate details of our motivations, you know, what what our constraints are and limitations are in terms of what we can perceive, what we can learn about, what we can remember, what the, available, opportunities and constraints are in our environment. These are more proximate level questions.

那么观点只是我们对激励理由的广播吗？就像拿着扩音器宣布'这些是我的动机，这就是你们应该听从的理由'？我们为什么会有观点？

Are opinions just broadcasts of our reasons for incentives then? Is that us just getting a megaphone in front of our face and saying, these are my incentives, and this is why you should listen to them. Why why do we have opinions?

好问题。我认为观点确实令人困惑。据我所知，至今没有人对'观点是什么'给出令人信服的定义。我写过一篇题为《观点都是废话》的文章，试图深挖观点的本质。这并不像人们想象的那么显而易见——有人可能觉得'哦，不就是我的偏好嘛'。

Great question. So I think opinions are really puzzling. As far as I'm aware, nobody has provided a convincing definition of what an opinion is, so and I have an I have a post called opinions are bullshit where I try to really drill down to what an opinion is. I mean, it's not as obvious as you think it is. I mean, people might think, oh, it's just just my preference.

比如喜欢辛辣食物或香菜。但这不能算观点，因为我们从不用这种方式谈论观点。如果我喜欢香菜，我直接说'我喜欢香菜'就够了。

You know? I like Mhmm. You know, spicy food or I like cilantro or I don't like cilantro. But that can't be an opinion because that's not how we talk about our our opinions. If if I if I like cilantro, I just can say I like cilantro.

而不会说'我坚定认为我喜欢香菜'，这听起来很荒谬。

I wouldn't say, like, it's my strongly held opinion that I like cilantro. That sounds true.

就像隔了一层。你对香菜的喜恶对你而言是不证自明的事实，而不是你关于香菜持有的某种观点。

Like one level removed from what it is. That your liking or nonliking of cilantro is an axiomatic fact to you. It's not an opinion that you hold about yourself in regards to cilantro.

正是。我们早已懂得如何表达偏好——直接说喜欢或不喜欢某物。我们永远不会说'我坚定认为我喜欢这个'。

Exactly. We already know how to talk about our preferences. We say we like this or that. We don't care for this or that. We never say it's my strongly held opinion that I like this.

这根本说不通，对吧？所以观点不能仅仅是偏好。它们必须超越偏好。然后你可能会说，好吧好吧，也许这是你的观点，你对某事的看法。

That just doesn't make sense. Right? So opinions cannot just be preferences. They have to be something more than that. And then you might say, well well, maybe it's your your point of view, your perspective on something.

也许，你知道，有些人看到杯子半满，有些人看到半空。也许我的观点是看到半满，你的观点是看到半空。但这也不对，因为你的视角只是另一种偏好。对吧？我更喜欢把杯子看作半满。

Maybe, you know, some people see the glass half full, some people see it half empty. Maybe it's my opinion that I see the glass half full, it's your opinion that you see it half empty. Well, that can't be right either because your perspective is just another kind of preference. Right? I prefer to see the glass as half full.

你更喜欢把它看作半空。我更喜欢关注大局。你更喜欢关注细节。这些归根结底都是偏好，于是我们又回到了如何区分观点和偏好的问题。所以视角不能是观点。

You prefer to see it half empty. I prefer to focus on the bigger picture. You prefer to focus on the details. These are ultimately preferences, so that gets us back to the question of how we differentiate opinions from preferences. So perspectives cannot be opinions.

那这些鬼东西到底是什么？你可能会想，哦，也许它们是信念。它们只是我们认为真实的东西。不，它们不能是信念，因为如果你相信某事并且你是对的，那这就是事实。

So what what the hell are these things? You might think, oh, maybe they're beliefs. They're just what we think is true. Well, no. They can't be beliefs because if you if you believe something and you're right, well, then that's just a fact.

对吧？我相信巴黎是法国的首都。这是真的。这是事实。但如果我相信达拉斯是法国的首都，那就是个错误。

Right? I I believe that Paris is the capital of France. That's true. That's a correct that's a fact. But if I believe that, you know, Dallas is the capital of of France, then that's a mistake.

那不是观点。那只是我对现实的误解。所以我们有事实，有错误，有偏好。

That's not an opinion. That's just I'm just wrong about reality. So we have facts. We have mistakes. We have preferences.

我们有视角。这些东西都不能算观点。那他妈的观点到底是什么？求你了

We have perspectives. None of these things can be opinions. So what the fuck are opinions? Please

继续啊。你...我希望...我真心希望你不是在问我，因为我所有的想法都被驳倒了。

go on. You I hope I really hope you're not asking me because all of my ideas have just been shot down.

是啊。你怎么看？克里斯，你觉得呢？

Yeah. What do you think? What do you think, Chris?

我不知道。我是说，听着。在我读到你这篇尖刻的帖子之前，我可能会说...如果早知道是在和你对话，我...我可能会说类似某种宣言的东西，某种为我们追求目标而辩护的正当理由。

I don't know. I mean, look. Before I read your very castigating post, I would have said something like if I'd known that I was speaking to you, I I I would have said something like kind of a campaign, kind of a justification a justification for for a goal that we're trying to pursue.

好的，我喜欢这个说法。这其实非常接近我对观点的定义。克里斯，你很有洞察力，你的想法与我的思考方向非常接近。

Okay. I like that. That's actually pretty close to my definition of of an opinion. So you're you're very insightful, Chris. You're you're very close to the way I'm thinking about this.

所以我认为观点几乎等同于偏好。它们包含偏好。观点就是偏好加上你对共享该偏好的人和不共享该偏好的人所做的一系列评判。比如说我喜欢麦当劳，这是一种偏好。

So I think of opinions as almost preferences. So they include preferences. What opinion is is is a preference plus a set of judgments you make about the people who share your preferences and about the people who don't share your preferences. So let's say I like McDonald's. That's a preference.

但现在假设我对喜欢麦当劳的人有各种正面评判。也许我认为他们是真实、真诚、坚韧的人，懂得自己口中的美味，不在乎道德表演和反资本主义。他们是真正酷炫诚实的人，喜欢麦当劳且直言不讳。同时假设我对诋毁麦当劳的人有一堆负面看法。

But now let's say that I have all sorts of positive judgments about the people who like McDonald's. Maybe I think they're authentic, real, sincere, gritty people who who know what tastes good in their mouth, and they don't care about virtue signaling and anti capitalism. They're just real authentic cool people who like McDonald's, and they're honest. They're blunt. And that's let let's say I have a bunch of negative opinions about the people who shit on McDonald's.

或许我觉得他们只是爱发牢骚的道德表演家，虚伪至极。他们明知麦当劳美味却假装不喜欢，只为装出高尚形象。当我对喜欢和不喜欢麦当劳的人形成这些评判时，我的偏好就突然转化成了观点，对吧？

Maybe I think they're just, you know, whiny virtue signalers. They're they're just dishonest. They know that it tastes amazing, but they're just pretending that it doesn't so that they can, you know, look good. So if I have all of those, judgments about the people who do and don't like McDonald's, well, then all of a sudden, my preference gets transformed into an opinion. Right?

因此观点就是偏好加上我对持有或不持有该偏好者的社会性评判。嗯。所以你的切入角度是正确的——当我分享观点时，本质上是在试图让与我偏好相同的人显得比不同者更优越。我想让喜欢麦当劳的人获得比不喜欢者更高的地位，最终目的是改变社会规范：让吃麦当劳的人受赞扬，不吃的人遭贬损。

So an opinion is a preference plus all of those social judgments I make about the people who have or don't have that preference. Mhmm. So so your your angle is is correct, and that ultimately what I'm trying to do when I share my opinion is I'm trying to make the people who share my preferences look superior to the people who don't. I'm trying to, make the people who like McDonald's gain status, over the people who don't. And ultimately, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to change social norms such that people are praised or at least, get, seen in a positive light when they eat at McDonald's, and people get, condemned or dissed or seen in a negative light when they don't eat McDonald's.

这本质上就是社会规范。换句话说，吃麦当劳成为一种社会规范。我认为分享观点就是在争夺社会规范的主导权——这是关于何种社会规范将在我们文化中盛行的战争。当然，我们都有切身利益：试图让社会规范朝有利于自身的方向发展，提升自己地位同时贬低对手。因此我将观点分享与批评视为社会规范争夺战的战场。

And what that is is just a social norm. That's another way of saying that there is a social norm to eat McDonald's. So what I think we do what what I think we're doing when we share opinions is we are fighting over social norms. They are battles over what social norms are going to prevail in our culture, and of course, we all have a self interest at stake in trying to shape social norms in our favor in ways that benefit us, in ways that inflate our status and lower the status of our rivals. So I see the the space of opinion sharing and and the space of opinion criticism as a battleground in the fight over social norms.

确实如此。这就像是社会规范的先锋战，你在为自己阵营摇旗呐喊。这意味着多数人的观点要么明显利己，要么是通过二三四阶效应最终回馈到自身——只是人们需要更长时间才能意识到。我猜这其中还掺杂着自我神化的成分，这样你就能从中获取大量好处。

That's exact yeah. It's kind of the vanguard of of social norms, and you're trying to campaign for your particular side, presumably, that means that most people's opinions are either obviously self serving or second, third, fourth order effect self serving in some way that comes back around to make them look in you know, it just takes a little bit more time for people to realize. I have to assume that there's an injection of, like, self pedestalization, and then then you are going to capture a lot of the upside from this being held.

没错。我认为观点本质上是利己的求地位策略，但存在一个有趣的悖论：我们不能暴露观点的利己本质，因为暴露反而会降低地位、违背初衷。人类心理有个奇妙现象——被视作地位追求者反而会降低你的地位。所以我们必须 covertly（隐秘地）追求地位。

Yes. Exactly. I think opinions are ultimately self interested status seeking tactics, but there's an interesting paradoxical element there and that we cannot reveal that our opinions are self interested status seeking tactics because revealing that would lower our status and be against our interests. Because there is a weird thing about human psychology where being seen as a status seeker actually lowers your status. So in order for us to seek status, we have to do it covertly.

我们必须掩饰它，让它看起来像在追求更高尚的事物：也许是幸福、真实性、自我实现，或是真理，又或是让世界更美好。

We have to cover it up. We have to make it seem like we're not actually pursuing status. We're pursuing some other high minded thing. Maybe we're pursuing happiness, or maybe we're pursuing authenticity or self actualization Yeah. Truth, or making the world a better place.

这些神圣价值观就是我们用来掩盖和解释地位追求的外衣。

These are the sacred values that we use to cover up and explain our status seeking.

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Basically, it is everything that was awesome about WHOOP plus tons of new tools to help you optimize your health and performance. Right now, you can get the brand new WHOOP five point o by going to the link in the description below by heading to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. Can you, can you give a couple of examples of how opinions masquerade as pursuit of something higher but are just thinly veiled, status seeking?

当然。比如当前许多高知文化圈存在这样的社会规范：推崇莎士比亚。他被视为天才作家，作品充满先知般的深刻洞见。如果你身处高知亚文化圈，可能会说'我热爱莎翁'，引用《哈姆雷特》或《麦克白》台词，认为这些作品揭示了现代小说无法触及的人性真理。

Sure. So here's an example. It is currently a social norm in many, intellectually, well educated and and literate cultures to praise Shakespeare. So Shakespeare is seen as a genius, a a brilliant and prophetic writer, prescient. And if you're in a highly literate subculture, you might say, oh, yes.

实质在于：能引用莎翁作品的人获得地位资本，而对莎剧一无所知的人则在圈子中丧失地位。这意味着'喜爱莎翁'（或假装喜爱）已成为一种社会规范。这种规范究竟利好谁？显然是那些读过莎剧、能读懂古英语、受过精英教育、投入时间研习语言演变的特定群体。

I love Shakespeare. You might quote Hamlet or Macbeth. You might see these as revealing deep and profound truths about the human condition that more recent works of fiction cannot reveal. What's happening is that if I have read Shakespeare and can quote Shakespeare, I get status. And if I haven't read any Shakespeare and don't know shit about Shakespeare, I lose status in that subculture.

这种机制抬高了特定人群的社会地位，同时贬抑了另一群体。这就是人们试图塑造有利社会规范的典型手段——将文化资本转化为地位符号，通过确立'高雅趣味'的标准来巩固自身优势地位。

What that means is that liking Shakespeare or pretending to like Shakespeare is a social norm. Now who does that social norm benefit? It benefits the people who have read Shakespeare, who can read Shakespeare, who are smarter, who are more well educated, who have been taught Shakespeare, who have taken more time to learn all the different, you know, words that that have have have changed as English has evolved. So it increases the status of a very select group of people while lowering the status of a very select group of people. And so that is one way in which people will try to shape social norms in their favor.

如果我没读过莎士比亚，也许是我智商不够理解它，也许是我懒得查所有生词，也许——你知道——我没上过大学，没读过研究生，也许我觉得小说纯粹是浪费时间，诸如此类。那么贬低莎士比亚、说他被高估了对我有利。‘哦，为什么人们假装莎士比亚这么深奥？他明明就那样，比他有趣优秀的作家多的是。这些道理我看电视电影也能学到。’

If I haven't read any Shakespeare, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand it, maybe I'm too lazy to look up all the words, maybe, you know, I didn't get a college degree, maybe I didn't go to grad school, maybe I think, you know, fiction is, you know, a waste of time, whatever. Well, then it's in my interest to try to shit on Shakespeare and say it's overrated. Oh, why are why are people pretending that Shakespeare is so deep? He's obviously you know, he was fine, but there are plenty of more interesting and better writers. Well, I can learn these lessons by watching TV or by watching a movie.

这有什么大不了？这就是我在玩观点博弈，试图让社会规范朝有利于我的方向改变，这样我不喜欢莎士比亚就不会降低我的地位。所以每个有偏好的人——无论这偏好从何而来——都是观点博弈的利益相关者。他们都在试图塑造社会规范，让与自己偏好相同的人获得地位，让不同偏好的人失去地位。但必须掩饰这种行为，因为一旦暴露，他们就会输掉观点博弈，地位反而会下降。

What's the big deal? That's me trying to play the opinion game and try to change social norms in my favor so that my status isn't lowered for not liking Shakespeare. And so everyone who has any kind of preference, wherever that preference comes from, is a stakeholder, in the opinion game. They're each trying to shape the social norms so that people who have their preferences get status and people who, don't have their preferences lose status. But they have to cover up the fact that they're doing that because if it came out that they were doing that, they would fail to win the opinion game, and their status would be lowered.

所以我们必须在掩盖争夺社会规范本质的同时进行争夺。必须在隐藏追逐私利和社会地位的同时去追逐它们。我想这就是为什么我们心底都明白观点本质是狗屎。当有人向我们分享观点时，我们隐约能感觉到他们想提升地位、显得优越，但不能戳穿，否则会显得刻薄，像是我们在通过贬低他们获取地位，反而降低自己的地位。

So we have to somehow fight over social norms while concealing the fact that we're fighting over social norms. We have to pursue our own self interest and social status while concealing the fact that we're pursuing our self interest and social status. And this, I think, is why we all sort of know deep down that opinions are bullshit. When someone is sharing their opinion with us. We can sort of tell deep down that they're trying to, you know, boost their status and look superior, but we cannot call them out on that because if we did, we would look mean, and we would look like we were trying to gain status over them, and then that would lower our status.

这真是复杂

It's this really complicate

有趣的是，就连对地位游戏或观点博弈的反抗也严重违反规则——即使对方在玩这个游戏，只要他们玩得足够‘可推诿’，你就不能打破...你熟悉即兴喜剧吗？我上次讲过这个吗？

It's interesting that even a pushback against the status game or the opinion game breaks the rule so much that even if somebody on the other side is playing it, as long as they're playing it in a sufficiently culpably deniable way, you don't get to break the are you familiar with improv? Did I do this last time?

有一个

There's an

即兴表演中有个概念叫‘别破坏游戏规则’，这是绝对禁止的行为。想象大卫和克里斯在船上甲板打扫，我在旁边说‘天啊’——

there's an idea from improv called don't punk the game. It's the one thing that you're never allowed to do. You David, Chris, you're on a ship. You're cleaning the deck. I'm there going, oh god.

‘外面太冷了是吧？’而你回答‘听不懂你在说什么’。这就叫破坏规则。你本可以假装天气炎热，

It's so cold out here, isn't it? And you go, I don't know what you're talking about. It's like, no. You fucking punked the game. You could pretend that it was too hot.

或者附和说‘是啊确实很冷，幸好我穿了厚外套’之类的即兴反应。但绝不能破坏游戏框架。

You could have said, oh, yeah. It really is very cold. I'm glad I've got my thick coat on or whatever, right, in improv. Mhmm. But you can't punk the game.

破坏规则就像打网球时突然把球打向侧面或直抛高空——不，我们玩的是线性对攻游戏。

And punking the game is we're playing a game of tennis, hitting the ball back and forth, and you hit the ball sideways or you hit it straight up in the air. But no. No. No. No.

我从未意识到地位博弈是种隐蔽玩法，连批评行为本身也是暗藏地位争夺。除非对方明显暴露动机，否则指责他人‘你这么说只为维护立场’反而显得你在蔑视更高层次的真理与艺术追求。

Like, we're playing this sort of relatively linear game. I never thought of the fact that status game is this sort of concealed way or opinions are a way to sort of covertly conceal the fact that we're playing for status, putting it back and forth. But even in the act of criticizing, unless the person opposite you unless you say, dude, this is like, you're only saying this because you believe in that. Unless that person has done something that makes it obvious that they're doing it, that the prosec the case for the prosecution on your side has a good case to be able to sort of justify it. That sounds like you are disregarding the higher order, refined search of truth and beauty and art and fulfillment and whatever whatever.

没错。当他们在玩社交规范游戏时，你却在玩个人地位游戏——这下你反而成了肤浅虚荣的信用追逐者。

Yep. Oh, no. This is they're playing a game of social norms. You're playing a game of personal, status. Oh, you look like the one who is actually the very shallow, vapid seeker of of credibility.

正是如此。揭露他人地位动机若反而提升你的地位，这本身就可视为地位策略。而且被揭露者会感到强烈威胁，因为你在动摇他们的地位根基。

Exactly. If pointing out someone's status motive lowers their status and increases your status, well, then that itself can be seen as a a status tactic. Right? And it often is. And not only that, it can be very threatening to the person that you're calling out because you're threatening to lower their status.

你在威胁摧毁他们的地位游戏。当所有人都看穿这是场地位博弈时，玩家就无法从中获益——因为被视作地位追求者本身就会降低地位。而顶层人士的地位更会因暴露其虚荣本质而崩塌，导致阶层体系某种程度上被颠覆。

You're threatening to make their status game collapse. So what happens when we all realize that a status game is a status game? Well, the players no longer gain status for playing it because being seen as a status seeker lowers your status. And those at the top of the hierarchy, their status gets lowered because they're seen as the ickiest, most vainglorious, most selfish status seekers of all. And so the hierarchy kind of gets inverted a little bit when when the status game is called out as a status game.

所以游戏参与者都有维护体系稳定的既得利益。若你攻击某人的地位游戏，揭露其神圣价值观的空洞本质，他们必然感到极度威胁并试图压制你。这就是...

So everybody who is playing that game has a vested interest in keeping it stable and protecting it against attacks. So if you try to attack a person's status game and and call out their sacred values as hollow and full of shit, obviously, they're going to get extremely threatened and angry, and they're going to try to silence you. Right? It's yeah. Just the

奇怪的是，想起我们上次关于为什么一切都是胡扯的对话——我们甚至不了解自己。如果我问你为什么持有这件东西？为什么你会以这种方式行事？我们对自己并不透明。既然我们对自己都不透明，其他人显然也他妈绝对不可能对我们透明。

weird thing, remembering our last conversation about why everything is bullshit, very matter, we don't know ourselves. If I ask you why is this thing something that you hold? Why do you behave in this sort of a way? We're not transparent to ourselves. Also, other people given that we're not transparent to ourselves, other people definitely fucking certainly aren't transparent to us either.

所以我们不了解自己，也不了解他人。鉴于我们连自己都不了解，甚至无法用自己的心智理论去推断他人的心智理论——因为让别人相信你真心相信某件事而非在欺骗的最佳方式，就是先欺骗自己让自己相信这个可能利己的谎言。嗯。我仍在思考这个体系中是否存在某个切入点让人可以宣称'我明白怎么回事'——但整件事根本没有任何让人能笃定点头的节点。

So we don't know us, and we don't know others. And given that we don't know us, we can't even use our own theory of mind to infer somebody else's theory of mind, because the best way to convince other people that you genuinely believe a thing and aren't doing itself deceptively is to be able to deceive yourself so that you believe the lie, which is potentially self serving. Mhmm. I'm still trying to find at what point in this sphere there is a vector that someone can try and inject, I know what's going on, into this. There's no point at all in this structure that people can go, yeah.

话说回来，如果你理解这个元游戏——即大多数观点都是推动社会规范向某个方向发展的运动，某种程度上这很可能对你自己或你的群体有利，或贬低他人及其群体——那么将其作为普遍规律来匹配大多数人的行为似乎是个可行方法。但除此之外，我确实找不到更好的方式来诊断你或他人思维背后的成因。

I actually understand. That being said, if you understand the meta game, which is most opinions are campaigns for a movement in social norms in a direction that in some way is probably going to benefit you or your cohort or derogate, other person's other person or their cohort. Yep. That as just a general rule overall to pattern match what most people are doing seems to be one particular way to do it. But outside of that, I can't actually see a way to better diagnose what why you think the things you think or why other people think the things that they think.

是啊，确实令人沮丧又迷茫。我认为我们应当警惕自己大部分信念都是胡扯这个事实。

Yeah. No. It can be pretty depressing and disorienting, for sure. Yeah. I think we should be troubled about, you know, most of our beliefs being bullshit.

我们需要更多谦卑，因为我们的大部分想法很可能都是错的。但如果要在脑中建立真实信念或确信自己了解真相，唯一方法就是创建一套促进真理的社会激励机制。比如科学方法，以及围绕学术和科学研究的地位博弈——比如因重大可复现发现获得诺贝尔奖——这些驱动科学家的地位激励非常强大。而当这些激励被扭曲时，就会出现像'可重复性危机'这样的事：人们通过发表无法复现的低质量论文来获取地位。你猜这种激励会导致什么？

I think we should have more humility because most of what we think probably is wrong. But if there is one way to have true beliefs in our head or to be confident that we know what's really going on, it's by creating a set of social incentives that promote truth. So the scientific method and the status games surrounding academia and scientific research, you know, winning the Nobel Prize if you make an important discovery and it's replicated, You know, those are really powerful status incentives that drive scientists. And when those status incentives are perverse, you can get things like the replication crisis where you get status for pumping out low quality publications that don't replicate. Well, guess what happens when when those are the incentives?

结果就是大量无法复现的低质量论文。所以科学与学术的激励机制必须恰到好处才能促进真理。

Well, you're gonna get low quality publications that don't replicate. So the incentive structure of science and academia has to be just right for promoting truth.

等等，可重复性危机是什么时候真正爆发的？2016还是2018年左右？

Well, do you not do you not have I was gonna say, do you not have now in what? When did replication crisis really, really ramp up? Like, 2016, 2018, something like that?

差不多那时候。

Yeah. Around then.

现在的新元规则变成了'必须确保研究可复现'。而之前大家追求的是大量低质量、统计效力可疑的p值操纵垃圾研究。

Yeah. Okay. Now the big meta is, well, you need to make sure that things can replicate. So whereas previously, it was pumping out lots of low quality, weirdly powered p hacked, like, bullshit studies. Mhmm.

如今获取地位的新方式是成为那个证明三十年前低效力研究——比如津巴多实验——其实存在缺陷的人，毕竟那些研究既没有预注册也存在其他问题。所以我们从开拓时代进入了批判时代。你觉得这只是把酒吧高脚凳倒过来，整个游戏规则反转，人们开始玩新元游戏了吗？

Now where you get most of your status from is being the person who proves that this low powered study from thirty years ago oh, Zombardo, actually, it was this, that, that didn't quite work, and it wasn't preregistered and all the rest of it. So we've gone from sort of the pioneer sphere to the critique sphere now. Mhmm. Yes. So is that do you just see this as the bar stool got turned upside down and everything's inverted and people are now playing a new game because that's kind of the new meta?

确实如此。说得非常好。我认为事实正是如此。不过我觉得这是件好事。原有的地位游戏被颠覆是好的，现在你甚至能因为无法复制他人研究成果而获得声望。

Absolutely. That is very well put. I think that's exactly what happened. I think that's a good thing, though. It's good that the status game got turned upside down, and now you get status for, you know, failing to replicate others' work.

让天平稍微平衡一点。

Balance the scales a little bit.

平衡天平。但有趣的是——这又回到你之前关于揭露游戏规则往往不利的观点——当人们最初开始揭穿这些劣质研究并发表复制失败的结果时，他们实际上遭到了猛烈抨击。他们的人格受到攻击，被称为'复制恶霸'、'复制警察'、'方法论恐怖分子'。我清楚这些是因为我当时...

Balance the scales. But what's interesting, and this is bringing back to your point about how, calling out the game often can be, disadvantageous, When people were originally starting to call bullshit on these bad studies and, publish failed replication attempts, they were actually heavily attacked and criticized. Their character was attacked. They were called replication bullies, replication police, methodological terrorists. I know this because I was

在读研。恐怖分子。这称呼太他妈带劲了。继续说吧。

in grad school. Terrorists. I fucking love that. Let's go.

这...这简直绝妙。完美诠释了这个动态：那些在稳定地位游戏中既得利益的人，会攻击试图瓦解和颠覆游戏规则的人。事实正是如此。那些猛烈抨击复制失败者的人，正是该领域的高地位者——他们发表过大量论文，简历里塞满了劣质研究。这些人对试图改进科学的人叫嚣得最凶，表现得最幼稚。

It's it's it's beautiful. It's a perfect example of of this dynamic where people who have entrenched interests in stabilizing a status game will attack those who are trying to make it collapse and invert. And this is exactly what happened. The people who were lashing out against the the people failing to replicate their work were the people who were high status in the field, who had lots of publications, who had lots who had who resumes padded with with shitty studies. These were the people who were most vociferous and and most, petulant against the, people trying to improve science.

插播一条：本节目由Function赞助播出。你知道吗？年度体检仅筛查约20项生物标志物，这对全面了解健康状况远远不够。因此我选择与Function合作。他们每年进行两次实验室检测，监测100多项生物标志物，甚至能筛查50种一期癌症。专业医师团队会将数据整合成简明仪表盘，提供可执行的健康改善建议，从心脏健康到激素水平再到甲状腺功能，全方位追踪。

In other news, this episode is brought to you by Function. Did you know that your annual physical only screens for around 20 biomarkers, which leaves a ton of gaps when it comes to understanding your health, which is why I partnered with Function. They run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one, and then they've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it into a simple dashboard, and give you actionable recommendations to improve your health and lifespan. They track everything from your heart health to your hormone levels and your thyroid function.

这类血液检测分析通常需花费数千美元，但Function仅需499美元。前1000名Modern Wisdom听众可享100美元优惠，实付399美元。点击下方链接或访问functionhealth.com/modernwisdom，你就能获得和我同款的血液检测套餐并节省100美元。网址是functionhealth.com/modernwisdom。说到这里...这或许是个很好的例子来总结我们刚才的讨论。

Getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with function, it is only $499. And for the first thousand Modern Wisdom listeners, you get a $100 off, making it only $399. So right now, you can get the exact same blood panels that I get and save a $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. So is it a k that that's a this is probably a good example to bring home what we talked about so far.

想象存在一个现有前沿阵地，好比一支强大的军队占领了大片领土。这时出现了一股来自另一侧的守成势力，他们激烈地试图守住防线。你可以把这看作两种不同社会规范的碰撞。

You have this existing frontier. You can think of it like a a a an army or battalion or whatever. And and they're real powerful, and they're kind of capturing a lot of territory. And then there's this, you know, incumbent force that comes from the other side, and they try and hold the line aggressively. This you can see this is two different social norms coming in.

嗯。一方面...心理学研究本该开疆拓土，发现新事物，这很激动人心。另一方则认为我们应该更谨慎。

Mhmm. One Yeah. Psychology science through psychology should be breaking new ground, finding new things. This is exciting. The other side is we should move more slowly.

在将某些发现纳入对人类行为的基础认知之前，我们必须确保其准确性。两者之间存在一个权力争夺的中间地带，这场斗争将决定哪种社会规范占据主导。如果新兴势力退让，旧范式就会持续，直到证据权重发生逆转，所有人转向新范式。我们在COVID起源争论中就见过这种拉锯战——自然起源说与实验室泄漏说反复交锋。

We should ensure that things actually are accurate before we inculcate them as as part of the sort of foundational understanding of how human behavior works. And then there's this there's a a point in the middle, which is where there is a a fight for power. There is a struggle between the two, and which one is going to become the dominant social norm. And then presumably, if the second if the incumbent side, the new one, backs down, then you get to continue with this until the weight of evidence flips and everybody sort of moves over to the other side. I mean, we saw this with, COVID was natural origins, zoological, or it was a lab leak, and then it's this fight fight fight back and forth.

谁会赢？谁会来回拉锯？谁会赢？现在仍然悬而未决。所以这就是它的运作方式吗？

Who's gonna win? Who's gonna back and forth? Who's gonna win? And it's still up for debate now. So is is that kind of the way that it works?

这是两支军队在寻找社会规范时进行的某种模仿性战斗，最终天平倾斜，他们又回到一种状态。对我来说，这解释了为什么我们会看到这些巨大的摇摆，这些极性的剧烈摆动。我先说到这里，我有个相当尖锐的观点。我们进行到哪了？已经三十分钟了。

It's this sort of mimetic battle between two armies looking for social norms, then eventually the scales tip and they go back one way. This, to me, kind of explains why we see these big swings, these big sort of polarity swings. I'll let you go on that, and I've got a real spicy opinion. How far are we? We're thirty minutes in.

现在只剩下酷酷的人了，所以我可以开始谈这个了吗？但这是准确诊断现状的方式吗？

It's only the cool people left, so I can I can start talking about this? But is that is that an accurate way to kind of diagnose what's going on?

是的，完全正确。你可以把它看作一种地位游戏，当它被攻击并暴露为地位游戏时，就会发生反转，变成一种反地位游戏，你通过假装不在乎地位来获得地位。所以当地位游戏崩溃时，通常会通过做与之前相反的事情来获得地位。比如如果梳着油头、穿着笔挺黑白西装的身份游戏被揭穿，被认为装腔作势、自命不凡，做着烦人的企业工作，这种地位游戏被揭露本质后。

Yes. Absolutely. You could think of it as a status game, which gets attacked and exposed as a status game, which inverts it, makes turns it into an anti status game where you get status for pretending that you don't care about status. And so what happens to a status game when it's collapsed is that you often gain status for doing the opposite of what was done previously. So if the status game gets called out where I have to slick back my hair and wear a nice crisp black and white suit, if that gets called out, if I'm just being snooty and stuffy and, you know, pretentious and pompous, I'm working this, you know, an annoying corporate job, like, this status game gets called out for what it is.

突然间，我反而会因为做相反的事获得地位——留长乱发、穿色彩鲜艳的宽松衣服、表现随意、远离黑白西装和 corporate 世界。于是新的对立地位游戏从废墟中崛起。最终这个游戏又会被揭穿，再次反转形成新地位游戏，如此循环往复。这种动态让地位游戏不断以对立形式崩溃和重生。

Well, all of a sudden, I get status for for doing the opposite. I get status for growing my hair out long and wild and wearing long colorful flowing outfits and being casual and avoiding the black and white suits and avoiding the the corporate world. And so all of a sudden, you get an opposite status game rising from the ashes. And then eventually, that status game will get called out, and you'll get another inversion and a new status game that gets and so you get this kind of cyclical Mhmm. Dynamism where status games are constantly collapsing and reemerging in antithetical forms.

我认为这是文化变异的主要引擎之一。纵观不同文化，你会发现人们获取地位的方式天差地别。地位象征随时间空间剧烈变化——曾经我们因戴扑粉假发和决斗获得地位，后来这些被批为古板自大。

And And I think this is one of the major engines of cultural variation. So if you look across cultures, you see that what people get status for doing is wildly different. Status symbols vary wildly across time and space. It used to be that we got status for wearing powdered wigs and for dueling. Eventually, you know, that got called out for being stuffy and self important.

决斗不过是男子气概的较量。那个地位游戏崩塌后，现在我们通过不同方式获取地位。比如当下拥有教育文凭就能获得地位，上常春藤学校、拿高等学位都会带来声望。

Dueling was just a macho pissing contest. The status game collapsed, and now you we get different things. We we get status for doing different things. Right now, we get status for for, you know, let's say, having educational credentials. If you go to, you know, an Ivy League school, if you get an advanced degree, you get lots of status for that.

也许有一天这套体系也会崩塌，届时抨击教育制度反而能获得地位。曾经持有所谓'觉醒'信念能带来地位，现在这个游戏正在崩塌反转。地位游戏不断以对立形式崩溃重生，这解释了为何文化差异如此之大——它们永远在进化。

Maybe that'll collapse one day, and you'll get status for shitting on the educational system. It used to be that you got a lot of status for having, quote unquote, woke beliefs. I think that status game is starting to collapse and and invert. So I think this is one of the main drivers of cultural variation in status symbols. If status games are constantly collapsing and reemerging in antithetical forms, then this explains why cultures are so different and why status games are so different because they're constantly evolving.

或者可以把观点视为测试盟友的方法？就像社会规范秘密战争中的忠诚度测试或效忠考验？

Or is it a way to look at opinions as a method to sort of test allies, like a a loyalty test or a fealty test in some secret war of social norms?

没错。我认为分享观点的功能之一可能就是检验忠诚度，看对方是否与你有共同偏好、相同兴趣、玩同一种地位游戏。如果他们能和你一起从你推动的社会规范中受益，那就是好盟友——你们利益一致。

Yeah. I buy that. So I think, you know, one function of of sharing opinions might be to test people's loyalty to see if they share your preferences, if they have the same interests, if they're playing the same status game. If they're going to benefit from the social norm that you're advancing in addition to you, well, then that makes them a good ally. You have common interests.

就像经济上相互依存的国家更可能结盟一样，那些在社会层面相互依存、在特定地位游戏中拥有共同利益的人，也会成为更好的盟友。如果他们持有相同观点并相互呼应，彼此间会感觉更亲近。由于这些游戏变得极其复杂，我们常常会假装持有并非真实的观点，以免疏远潜在的社会盟友。你可能表达一个观点，而我假装赞同，让你感觉与我更亲近，从而形成对我有利的联盟——即便我们实际上并无共同利益，我只是试图让你认为我们有。这些社交游戏能极其迅速地变得异常复杂，这让你明白为何人类大脑会如此发达。

In the same way that, you know, nations who, are economically interdependent are more likely to team up with each other, people who are socially interdependent, who have common interests in particular status games, you know, those people make better allies, and they're gonna feel closer to each other if they share the same opinions. They echo each other's opinions. And oftentimes, because these games get so complicated, we pretend to hold opinions that we don't actually hold so as not to alienate potential social allies. You might express an opinion, and I might pretend to agree with it so that you feel closer to me so we might form an alliance that I might benefit from even if, you know, we don't actually have common interest, but I'm trying to make you think that we do. And so these social games can get very, very complicated, very, very, very fast, and it makes you appreciate why the human brain is so fucking big.

我们的大脑约是黑猩猩大脑的三倍大。在人类进化史中，人科动物大脑的扩张相当迅速。传统观点认为大脑用于制造工具、展现智慧以及智胜动植物。但我认为这是错误的。我认为大脑如此庞大的主要原因，是为了应对这些复杂的社交游戏。

So our our brains are about three times the size of a chimpanzee brain. A hominid brain's expanded quite rapidly throughout human evolutionary history. The common sense view is that we use our brains to make tools, to be smart and to outsmart flora and fauna. I think that is wrong. I think the main reason why our brains are so big is to play these complicated social games.

这在进化社会科学中日益成为一种流行观点，被称为'社会脑理论'。其核心思想是：人类大脑的进化是为了政治博弈、规则遵循、隐蔽违规、伪善、宣传、社交策略制定、地位追逐及隐性地位竞争。这些策略极其复杂，需要发达的大脑才能实现。

This is an increasingly popular perspective in evolutionary social science. It's called the social brain theory, and and the idea is that the the human brain evolved for politicking, rule following, covert rule breaking, hypocrisy, propaganda, social strategizing, status seeking, covert status seeking. These are very complicated strategies to pursue. You need a big brain to pursue

它们需要极高的运算能力。

them. Computationally difficult.

没错，计算量非常庞大。我认为社交游戏是推动人类大脑扩张的主要选择压力。有有趣的实证证据支持这点——灵长类大脑大小的最佳预测指标不是是否使用工具，而是其群体规模。

Yes. Very computationally difficult. I think that social games were the major selection pressure leading to human brain expansion. There's cool empirical evidence for this. So the best predictor of primate brain size is not whether or not the primate uses tools, but how big the primate's group is.

这方面证据很充分。我们曾认为推理能力用于解决问题、逻辑思考和优化决策。但心理学家雨果·梅西耶提出的新锐观点认为：推理本质上是社交工具，并非用于孤独的理性，而是为了赢得辩论、说服他人、合理化自身行为并正当化行为以维护社会形象。

And so I think there's a lot of evidence for this. We used to think that reasoning was sort of for solving problems and for thinking logically and making better decisions. An increasingly prominent view pioneered by the psychologist Hugo Mercier is that reasoning is actually a social tool. It's not for solitary rationality. It's for winning debates, for persuading other people, for rationalizing, what you did, and for justifying what you did so that you can look good to other people.

这解释了推理过程中各种从个体理性角度看令人费解，但从社交视角看极具策略性和功能性的偏见。

And that explains all sorts of of biases in our reasoning processes that would otherwise seem puzzling from the perspective of individual rationality, but are actually quite strategic and functional from a social perspective.

比如社交一致性偏见？

Like social consistency bias?

当然。通过附和他人观点来融入群体就是例证之一。此外还有确认偏误或动机性推理——我们倾向于证实既有信念，寻找支持性证据，同时忽视或否定挑战性证据。如果推理的目的是变得更理性，这完全说不通。

Sure. So parroting the preferences of other people to fit in with them, that might be one thing that this can explain. Another thing is your confirmation bias or motivated reasoning. You know, we are biased in favor of confirming what we already believe, and we look for reasons that support what we believe, and we ignore or dismiss any reasons or evidence that challenge our beliefs. And so this makes very little sense if reasoning is about being more rational.

若真正追求真理与理性，就该权衡正反证据。但若目标是说服他人和赢得辩论，你绝不会提及可能证明自己错误的证据——这对社交目标将是灾难。因此，若推理的目的是说服、辩论胜利和合理化，这些现象就完全合理；若是个体求真的工具，则完全不合逻辑。

If you're truly trying to get to the truth and be a rational person, you should consider the evidence both for and against a belief. But if you're trying to convince someone and win a debate, you don't wanna bring up any evidence or reasons that could show that you're wrong. That would be disastrous for your social goal. So it actually makes a lot of sense if the goal of reasoning is persuasion and winning debates and justifying and rationalizing. It makes no sense if it's about individual truth seeking.

本期节目由Shopify赞助播出。听着，创业不是为了学习编程、建网站或处理后端库存管理。Shopify帮你解决所有这些，让你专注于初衷——设计和销售出色的产品。全美10%的电商企业都在使用Shopify。

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Look. You're not going into business to learn how to code or build a website or do back end inventory management. Shopify takes all of that off your hands and allows you to focus on the job that you came here to do, which is designing and selling an awesome product. Shopify powers 10% of all ecommerce companies in The US.

Gymshark、Skims、Allo和Nutonic等品牌都由它驱动。正因如此我才选择合作——在将浏览者转化为买家方面，他们是行业标杆。其结账系统比其他主流平台平均高效36%。通过Shop Pay更能将转化率提升50%。点击下方描述链接注册，即可享受每月1美元的试用期，或直接访问shopify.com/modernwisdom（全小写），升级你的业务系统，使用与Newtonic同款的Shopify结账方案。

They are the driving force behind Gymshark and Skims and Allo and Nutonic. And that is why I've partnered with them because when it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they're best in class. Their checkout is 36 better on average compared with other leading commerce platforms. And with Shop Pay, you can boost your conversions by up to 50%. You can upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use at Newtonic with Shopify by going to the link in the description below and signing up for a $1 per month trial period or by heading to shopify.com/modernwisdom, all lowercase.

立即访问shopify.com/modernwisdom升级销售体验。你认为意识（即我们感知自我存在的现象学体验，那种'我'的质感）有多大可能只是副产品？因为我需要理解大卫的想法，这意味着要对他建立心智理论，就必须先对自己有心智理论。你觉得这种可能性有多高？

That's shopify.com/modernwisdom to upgrade your selling today. What do you reckon is the likelihood that consciousness, I e, a felt sense of us being an us, the phenomenological texture of being an I with a sense of I, how much of that do you reckon is just a byproduct of me needing to be able to work out what David thinks? And that means that in order to have theory of mind for him, I need to have theory of mind for myself. How likely do you think that is?

我认为可能性很高。虽不能解释全部意识现象，但能说明其重要部分，特别是自我意识与身份认同。这些都很自然地从我们的社交游戏中产生。比如现在交谈时，我在电脑屏幕上看到自己的画面——为什么需要这个？

I think it's quite likely. I don't know that it would that explains all of consciousness, but I think it explains a big part of it, and particularly the sense of self and and the sense of identity and self consciousness. I think all of those fall out quite naturally from the social games we play. So we're having a a conversation right now, and I see a picture of myself on my computer screen. Well, why do I need that?

我需要监控自己在他人眼中的形象。摄像头正告诉我呈现给别人的状态，以便调整自己：整理乱发、修正姿势。

Well, I need to monitor how I look, to other people. That's what the camera is telling me. It's telling me how I'm coming off to other people so that I can adjust myself. I can maybe, you know, fix my hair if there's something wrong with my hair. I can adjust my posture.

如果表情阴沉，我可以调整面部显得更友善。这就是此刻电脑屏幕上摄像头的功能。我认为大脑中有类似机制——就像需要持续监控他人对我的看法，在每日社交中24/7地调整形象，建立'你眼中的我'的模型，从而更积极地影响你的认知。

If I'm making scowly faces, I can adjust my facial expression to look more friendly. That is what that is the function of of of my, webcam in that spot on the computer screen right now. I think we have something very similar inside of our brains. Just as I need to monitor how other people, think of me and and and how I appear to other people, I need to do that all the time, basically twenty four seven in my everyday social interactions. I need to have a model of how you see me so that I can adjust how you see me in a in a more positive way and win you over.

我认为这就是自我意识的核心——一种内置于大脑的自拍镜头。

And I think that is largely what our sense of self is about. It's a kind of selfie cam that is installed into our brains.

这个比喻非常精妙。那么争论与观点有何关联？社会规范似乎总在某种战场交锋，而最直接的战场就是争论。

Yeah. That's very that's very, very good. So how does arguing relate to opinions? Because it seems like social norms come into contact on some kind of a battleground. Presumably, the battleground of that in the most direct form is an argument.

你持某种观点立场，我持另一种，我们较量直到一方稍占上风。争论究竟如何影响观点？

You have your opinion and position. I have my opinion, my position, and we'll joust it out until one emerges remotely victorious. How does arguing relate to opinions?

二者深度关联。构建有力论据是我们争夺社会规范的主要武器。但有趣的是，'好论证'与'社交有效的论证'不同。如果我让你显得笨拙、低姿态，即使你观点正确，人们认同的概率也会降低。因此很多争论本质并非为了说服或求真。

I think it's related very thoroughly to opinions. One of the one of our chief weapons in the fight for social norms is to create good arguments. What's interesting, though, is that a good argument is, different from a socially effective argument. So if I make you look uncool or awkward or stupid or low status, that is going to reduce the likelihood that people agree with you and share your opinions, even if your opinions are in fact correct. And so a lot of our arguing is not actually designed to persuade anyone or to get at the truth.

这种设计的目的是让对方看起来比你更糟糕，从而使人们更倾向于同意你的观点而非对方。如果你观察总统辩论及辩论后的分析，很明显这些辩论并不关乎公共政策的内容。当人们分析辩论时，会说‘哦，他在这一刻表现得非常出色，很有总统风范’，或者‘他看起来非常自信’。

What it's designed to do is make the other person look worse than you so that people are more likely to agree with you than the other person. So if you look at presidential debates and the post debate analysis, it is very clear that these debates are not about the contents of public policy. When people analyze the debates, like, oh, he looked really great in this moment. He was really presidential, or it's like, oh, yeah. He looked really confident.

这是一句绝妙的台词。他们讨论的不是其信念是否正确，或者其政策偏好是否真正能促进公共利益，而是谁看起来更好。对吧？因此，我认为总统辩论实质上是比谁更机智、更自信、更讨喜、更吸引美国民众——尤其是你的支持者或那些摇摆不定的选民——的竞赛。

This was a great one liner. They're not talking about whether their beliefs are correct or whether their policy preferences are actually going to promote the common good. They're talking about which one looked better. Right? And so what I think what what presidential debates are are competitions to be quippier and more confident and more likable and more attractive to, the American people, particularly your constituents, perhaps the people who are on the fence.

它们并不真正关乎政策或探究哪些政策实际上对国家有益。我认为这也适用于我们许多其他辩论。很多时候，辩论成了比谁更受欢迎的竞赛。如果我不同意你的观点，我实际上是在挑战你的地位，因为我在暗示你是错的而我是对的。那么如何解释你错我对这一事实呢？

They're not really about policy or about getting, to the truth of what policies are actually going to, help the nation. I think that's true of, much of our debates as well beyond presidential debates. There are competitions to be more likable than the other person a lot of the time. And if I disagree with you, I am implicitly challenging your status because I am saying, basically, that you're wrong and I'm right. And what could explain the fact that you're wrong and I'm right?

那必然是因为你比我愚蠢，知识不如我渊博，无法接触我所掌握的信息，或者社交关系不如我广泛。无论你找出什么理由，这都会让你显得糟糕，而让我显得比你优越。

Well, you must be dumber than me. You must be less knowledgeable than me. You must not be privy to the same kinds of information that I'm privy to. You must be less socially connected. Whatever reason you come up with, it's gonna make you look bad, and it's gonna make me look better than you.

因此，仅仅通过表达不同意见，你就在无形中威胁到对方的地位。所以我认为许多争论的本质并非说服或追求真理，而是地位竞争。争论还有其他阴暗功能，我在《争论是胡扯》一文中讨论过。很多时候我们与人争辩，并非试图说服对方，而是想恐吓和压制他们——让他们因表达观点而感到羞愧，从而减少未来发声的意愿。

So merely by disagreeing with someone, you are implicit implicitly threatening their status. So I think a lot of what goes on in arguing is not persuasion and truth seeking, but status competition. There are other dark functions of arguing, which I talk about in my post arguing is bullshit. I think a lot of the times when we argue with someone, we're not trying to persuade them, but we're trying to intimidate and silence them. We're trying to make them feel bad about expressing their opinions so that they're less likely to express them in the future, and they're more afraid to express them in the future.

想想网络辩论中人们互称对方为希特勒的现象，从说服的角度很难解释这种行为。你上次听到有人说‘哇，你说得对，我简直像希特勒，你完全说服我了’是什么时候？

So if you think about the tendency of people to call each other Hitler or compare each other to Hitler during Internet debates, that is very hard to explain from the perspective of persuasion. When was the last time you heard someone say, wow. You're right. I'm just like Hitler. You have totally persuaded me.

是啊。确实。

Yeah. Yeah.

没错。若想说服某人，称其为希特勒是极其糟糕的策略；但若想羞辱和压制对方，这就是绝佳手段——因为在对方内心会想：‘天啊，如果我表达观点，别人就会叫我希特勒，太可怕了’。

That's right. So if you're trying to persuade someone, calling them Hitler is a very bad idea. But if you're trying to make them feel bad and silence them, then calling them Hitler is a great idea because inside the privacy of their own minds, they're going to be thinking, oh, shit. If I express my opinions, people are gonna call me Hitler. That's terrible.

‘我最好闭嘴不再表达意见’。当有人在辩论中被称作希特勒后会发生什么？被指控者会沉默，而如果指控看似可信，社会规范的竞争天平就会向指控者倾斜。某些情况下，我们争论的目的纯粹就是恐吓、压制对话者，通过贬低对方来让自己的阵营获利。这与极权政体的运作如出一辙。

I better shut the fuck up and not express my opinions. And so what happens after someone gets called Hitler during a debate? The person who is called Hitler is silenced, and the competition for social norms is tilted in favor of the accuser if the accusation is plausible. And so what we're trying to do in some cases when we argue is literally just intimidate, silence the person we're talking to and make them feel bad so that our coalition, our tribe can gain power at their expense. It's the same thing that happens, you know, in totalitarian regimes.

例如在苏联时期，如果我们都憎恨斯大林，但彼此不知道这种共识的存在，这对斯大林就非常有利。斯大林需要确保没人知道身边有多少反斯大林者——因为如果我们知道这个事实，并且知道其他反斯大林者也知道我们知道，我们就能联合推翻他。维持极权统治的关键正是这种持续的不确定性：不知道是否有其他反对者存在，不知道他们是否知晓我的立场。任何极权政体都致力于破坏这种信息协同，使民众无法估量反对力量的大小，始终生活在恐惧之中。

You know, for example, if we're in the Soviet Union and we all despise Stalin, it is very bad news for Stalin if we all gain common knowledge of the fact that we hate Stalin. Right? And so it is in Stalin's interests to make sure that none of us know how many anti Stalinists there are in our midst because if we knew that, and if we knew that the anti Stalinists knew that we knew, then we could rise up to overthrow Stalin. And so what keeps Stalin in power is constant uncertainty, not knowing if anyone else is actually an anti Stalinist, not knowing that they know that I know. This kind of coordination is what helps people rise up to overthrow a regime, and every totalitarian regime that I'm aware of in existence has tried to silence, intimidate, and break down this kind of coordination so that nobody knows how many people are opposed to the regime, how many people will come up to support them, and they are living in fear.

在那里，可能有这样的情况，你知道，90%的人口憎恨这个政权，但没人知道这90%的人憎恨它，于是他们因恐惧而保持沉默。因此，一个群体为了获取权力所做的就是压制反对声音，阻止他们协调行动，我认为这是辩论超越单纯说服之外的另一个功能。这也是为什么我认为辩论有时会变得如此丑陋和充满侮辱。

And there and it it may be the case that, you know, 90% of the population hates the regime, but nobody knows that 90% of the population hates the regime, and so they stay silent out of fear. And so what a tribe does to gain power is to silence the opposition, prevent them from coordinating, and I think that is one of the other functions of arguing beyond mere persuasion. And that's why I think arguing can get so ugly and insulting at times.

因为你在优化恐吓效果，很多时候这相当激进。它非常不留情面，可能相当刻薄。

Because you're you're optimizing for intimidation, and a lot of the time, that's quite militant. It's very unforgiving. It can be quite mean.

是的。嗯。你不仅通过让对方改变主意获胜，还能让他们闭嘴。而让人闭嘴往往比说服更容易。

Yes. Mhmm. Yeah. You win not only if the person changes their mind, but if they shut up. And it's often easier to make a person shut up

比让他们闭嘴更容易。

than it is to shut up.

没错。所以我们常常选择后者而非前者，因为它更简单。

Yeah. And so often, we we opt for for the latter over the former because it's easier.

辩论与伪辩论有什么区别？

What's the difference between an argument and a pseudo argument?

伪辩论是指当一个人在做一些丑陋的事情，比如争夺地位、试图让你沉默或恐吓你时，用说服的外衣掩盖他们丑陋的动机。所以我可能只是想贬低你、让你闭嘴或显得自己高人一等，但我会假装我实际上是在试图说服你，改变你的想法。于是我会表演给出理由、引用证据、进行逻辑论证。但在表面之下，我只是想让你感觉糟糕，贬低你，以牺牲你为代价提升我的地位。

A pseudo argument is a is when a person who is doing something ugly, like, say, competing for status, trying to silence you or intimidate you, covers up their ugly motives with the, the veil of persuasion. So it might be that I'm just trying to diss you and silence you or look good or whatever, but I'm going to pretend that I'm actually trying to persuade you. I'm trying to, you know, change hearts and minds. And so I might, you know, make put on a performance of giving reasons and citing evidence and having a logical argument. But beneath the surface, I'm just trying to make you feel bad and put you down and raise my status at your expense.

对吧？那就是伪辩论。它伪装成真正的辩论，真正的说服尝试，但暗地里却是更丑陋、更黑暗的东西。我认为我们的大部分辩论实际上都是伪辩论。

Right? That is a pseudo argument. It is masquerading as a real argument, a real attempt to persuade, but, secretly, it is something much uglier and darker. And I think, much of, if not most of our arguments are actually pseudo arguments.

有哪些常见的迹象表明你处于伪辩论中？人们如何诊断这是矩阵还是现实世界？

How what what are some of the common signs that you're in a pseudo argument? How can people diagnose whether it's The Matrix or the real world?

是的。我在《争论是废话》一文中列出了一系列警告信号。我看看我能记住多少。其中一个迹象是对方是否真的在听你说话并理解你的意思。如果他们不理解你的话，没有在听你说话，而是曲解你的观点，以最坏的可能解读你的言论，那是一个非常明显的信号，表明你正处于伪辩论中。

Yeah. So I have a list of of warning signs in my post arguing is bullshit. I'll see how many I can remember off the top of my head. So one of them is whether the person is actually listening to what you're saying and understands what you're saying. If they do not understand what you're saying, they're not listening to you, and they caricature your view and interpret what you're saying in the worst possible light, that is a very good sign that you're in a pseudo argument.

如果一个人真心想与你合作探寻真相，他们会有动力倾听并准确理解你的观点。若他们无意求真，只想让你难堪，便会刻意以最恶意的角度曲解你的话，且不愿倾听——多数时候他们更热衷于发言而非聆听。在伪辩论中，辩手常因懒得界定术语而不知自己在争辩什么。我在关于所谓'社会主义'的辩论中屡见不鲜这种现象。

If a person is actually trying to collaborate with you to get to the truth, they have an incentive to listen to you and get what you're saying right. If they are not trying to get at the truth and they're just trying to make you look bad, they have an incentive to interpret what you're saying in the worst possible light and not listen to you. And, they'd rather talk than listen a lot of the times. Often in pseudo arguments, the arguers don't know what they're arguing about, because they don't bother to define their terms. I see this a lot in debates over quote unquote socialism.

甲可能将社会主义定义为瑞典模式，乙则理解为苏联体制，结果双方怒气冲冲地自说自话，无法说服彼此。若辩论目的是说服，这毫无意义；但若目的是群体对抗，就完全合理。这是另一个征兆。还有呢？

One person might define socialism as Sweden, the other person might define it as the Soviet Union, and then they angrily talk past each other and fail to persuade each other of anything. This makes little sense if the goal of arguing is persuasion. It makes a lot of sense if the goal of arguing is intergroup competition. So that's another sign. What else?

如果对方频繁打断你——这在伪辩论中很常见。让我想想...还有吗？如果他们回避问题，拒绝正面回应你的提问。

If the person interrupts you a lot, if the person you experience that a lot in pseudo arguments. Let's see here. What else? If they dodge your questions. So if if they refuse to engage with with what you're asking them.

如果他们...如果他们完全不指出你观点中任何认同之处，这是个危险信号。通常求真者会说'这点很对'、'我同意这部分，但对那部分有异议'。若对方从不表达认同，情况不妙。还有呢？

If they if they fail to point out anything that they agree with in what you're saying, that's that's a sign. Usually, when someone cares about getting at at the truth, might say, oh, that's good point. Oh, I agree with that, but I don't but I I might push back on this. If they're never saying anything they agree with you on, that's a bad sign. What else?

我暂时能想到的就这些，不过我会...我会再参考下...

I think that's about as much as I can come up with off the top of my head, but I'll I'll I'll refer yeah.

听你谈论观点交锋的困境时，我脑海核心问题是：真诚的善意辩论有可能规模化吗？它真的存在吗？人们达成这种状态有多难？

The main as you're talking about the challenges of opinions arguing, the main question I've got in my mind is, is there any hope of ever scaling genuine good faith debate? Like, does that does that exist? How hard is that for anybody to arrive at?

我认为它确实存在。虽罕见如珍稀花朵，但确实存在。奇怪的是，我博客评论区常有这种现象，不知为何似乎吸引了良性讨论。

I think it does exist. It is rare. It is a rare precious flower, but it it does exist. I see it a lot weirdly in in the comment section of my blog. I for whatever reason, I feel like it attracts, you know, kinda good faith discourse.

或许是我的写作风格吓退了胡搅蛮缠者？不确定。这是找到善意辩论的一个场所。有趣的是，我们在日常实务问题上完全能进行善意辩论。

I don't know what it is about my writing. Maybe I scare away bullshitters. I'm not sure. So that's one place to find good faith debate. What's interesting is that I think we're we're more than capable of good faith debate when it comes to mundane practical matters.

比如决定去哪家餐厅时——要考虑素食者偏好、地理位置、空位情况等——我们反而非常理性：倾听他人意见，接纳信息，乐于改变主意。你会说'这建议很好，那家没素食选项，我们换地方吧'。

So when it comes to deciding, you know, which restaurant we should go for dinner, you know, to accommodate everyone's preferences, you know, if someone's a vegetarian or whatever, like, which restaurant's gonna be closer, if they're gonna have tables available, when we're having debates about that, we're actually perfectly rational. We listen to other people's opinions. We take into account other information. We're totally willing to change our mind. You say, oh, that's a good point.

没错。在这些日常事务上，我们简直是理性典范。要是开车时有人说'高速路会堵车'...

Yeah. They don't have vegetarian options there. Well, we should go to this place instead. We're actually we're paragons of rationality when it comes to these mundane practical matters. If we're driving to the restaurant and someone says, oh, actually, the the highway will be backed up.

我们为什么不走另一条路线呢？我们会说，哦，对。对。这是个好主意。我会我会走另一条路。

Why don't we take this other route? We'll say, oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. I'll I'll take this other route.

我们会倾听，然后改变主意。因此在人类生活的许多领域，我们完全能够进行真诚的辩论，交换理由，交换信息，并更新我们对世界的认知模型。但一旦涉及地位和部落主义，这一切就都抛到九霄云外了，我们就变成了教条主义者。所以我认为许多有自闭倾向的人所做的，就是把决定去哪家餐厅吃饭或选择哪条路线这种日常实用理性，带入了本不属于它的政治领域。

We'll listen, and we'll change our minds. And so there are many domains of human life where we're fully capable of having a good faith argument, exchanging reasons, exchanging information, and updating our models of the world. But as soon as you bring in status and tribalism, all that goes out goes out the window, and we turn into apparatchiks. So I think what a lot of sort of autistic adjacent people do is they bring that mundane practical rationality of deciding which restaurant to go to for dinner or what route to take to get there. They bring that kind of rationality into politics where it doesn't belong.

然后他们就会因为没人用他们的方式思考政治而感到沮丧。比如，哦，不。这家是最好的餐厅。这确实确实是最佳路线。大家都一脸茫然：你在说什么？

And then they get frustrated that nobody is sharing their way of thinking about politics. Like, oh, no. This is the best restaurant. This really is this really is the best route to get there. Everyone's like, what are you talking about?

我们不在乎那个。对吧？所以他们试图做的是在玩真诚辩论的游戏，而其他人实际上在玩群体间 dominance 游戏——这显然需要掩饰它本质上是群体间 dominance 游戏。我们经历过这种情况。而那些不擅长社交、不擅长捕捉这些暗示的人以为这只是理性论证游戏，当没人关注他们重视的证据、论点等等时，他们就会感到沮丧。

We don't care about that. Right? So what they're trying to do is they're trying to play the good faith debate game when everyone else is actually playing the intergroup dominance game, which involves concealing the fact that it's an intergroup dominance game, obviously. We've been through that. And people who are bad at socializing and bad at picking up on those cues think that it's just the the the reasonable argument game, and then they get frustrated when no one shares their focus about, you know, the evidence and the arguments and and so forth.

我认为这是我看到很多人常犯的重大错误，我自己也犯过很多次。重要的是要现实看待政治会激发出我们什么，要清醒认识政治常常激发出的人性阴暗面。

I think this is big mistake that I see a lot of people I myself have made it a lot of times. I think it's important to be realistic about what politics brings out of us, and and be realistic about the dark things that politics often brings out of us.

什么是 deepity（深度伪命题）？这个词在我读你的作品之前甚至不知道存在。

What's deepity, or what is a a deepity? This is a word that I didn't even know existed before I read some of your stuff.

这是个绝妙的词。是非常有用概念。是识别世上废话并避免上当的好方法。deepity 这个词最初由哲学家丹尼尔·丹尼特创造，他举的例子是'爱只是一个词'。之所以成为 deepity，是因为它有两种解读方式。

It's a it's a wonderful word. It's it's a great and helpful concept. It's a great way to detect bullshit in the world and avoid falling prey to it. So the word deepity was originally coined by the philosopher Daniel Dennett, and his example of a deepity was love is just a word. And what makes it a deepity is that it has two interpretations.

第一种解读震撼心灵、颠覆认知、改变世界。它让人难以置信。事实上它极不可信。几乎肯定是错的。对吧？

One interpretation is absolutely mind blowing, earth shattering, world changing. It it boggles the mind. It makes you in fact, it's extremely implausible. It's almost certainly wrong. Right?

这种解读认为：爱的情感——我们内心的渴望、情欲、浪漫承诺、所有求偶仪式、所有关于爱的歌曲——都只是四个字母。只是口中呼出的气流。它其实不是情感，只是个词语。这几乎肯定是谬误。

And that interpretation is the emotion of love, you know, our heartfelt feelings of desire, lust, romantic commitment, all of our courtship rituals, all of our songs about love, all that is just four letters. It's just a puff of air from our mouths. It's not actually an emotion. It's just a word. That is almost certainly wrong.

但如果这是真的，天啊，那将改变一切。对吧？而另一种解读'爱只是个词'可以理解为：'爱'这个词确实只是个词——这显然正确。显然'爱'这个词只是个词。每个词都只是个词。

But boy, if it were true, that would change everything. Right? And then there's another way you can interpret love as just a word, which is that the word love is just a word, which is obviously true. Obviously, the word love is just a word. Every word is just a word.

对吧？它没有传递任何信息。所以让它成为‘深度废话’的原因在于在‘爱只是一个词’的两种解释之间来回切换。你转向那个令人费解的解释，那完全说不通。然后又转向更合理的解释，那倒是讲得通。

Right? It's not conveying any information. And so what makes it a deepity is sort of toggling back and forth between these two interpretations of love is just a word. So you go to the mind boggling interpretation, that makes no sense at all. And then you go to the more plausible interpretation, that makes sense.

当你在这些解释之间来回切换时，就制造了一种洞见的幻觉，一种消除困惑触及真相的幻觉。这有点像寒冷夜晚进出热水浴缸——泡热水浴缸的乐趣在于先出来感受一下寒冷，再进去时又因短暂离开而感到愉悦。

And when you go back and forth between those interpretations, you create the illusion of insight, the illusion of resolving confusion and getting to something true. It's sort of like going in and out of a hot tub on a cold night. Right? That a hot tub is more pleasurable when you you get out and and experience a little bit of cold. And then when you're in the hot tub, you it feels pleasurable to get out of the hot tub a little bit.

明白吗？所以当你通过说些模棱两可的话在困惑和理解之间切换时，就能制造类似进出热水浴缸的快感——先享受困惑，再享受解惑的过程。对吧？

Right? So when you toggle between confusion and understanding by saying something vague with multiple interpretations, you can create the kind of pleasure of getting in and out of a hot tub, but you get the pleasure of being confused and then resolving the confusion. Right?

你那个‘人生只活一次是屁话’的见解很犀利啊。这句话常被用作追求地位和自我满足的借口，比如挥霍度假、转行竞争更激烈的职业。‘生命短暂’与‘享乐主义和冒险行为是好的’之间根本没有逻辑关联。这算深度废话的例子吗？

You you had an insight that was a hot take. You only live once is bullshit. It's usually used as an excuse for status seeking and self gratification, splurging on a vacation, pivoting to a more competitive career. There's no logical connection between life is short and hedonism and risk taking are good. Is that an example of deepity?

呃...是的。我

A a Yes. I

认为是。‘人生只活一次’这句话有多种解读方式。其中一种解释显而易见——我们当然只能活一次。

think so. So there are multiple ways to interpret the sentence, you only live once. One of it is just one interpretation is obvious. Right? Like, of course, we only live once.

我们当然都会死，这显然正确。但另一种解释是：所以我们应该冒险、周游世界、挥霍去意大利度假，死前要看罗马和红杉林，或者搞外遇什么的——这种解释就毫无道理。

Of course, we're we're all gonna die. Right? And that it's obviously correct. And then another interpretation is, well, therefore, we should take all these risks and and and travel the world and splurge on a on a vacation to Italy so we can see Rome before we die and see the the Redwoods and, you know, have an affair or or whatever. And that interpretation makes no sense.

人终有一死并不意味着那些事都是好的。前者和后者没有逻辑关联。也许周游世界是好事？也许和人发生关系是好事？

Just because we're going to die doesn't mean that all those things are good. There is no logical connection between the former or and the latter. Maybe maybe it's good to travel the world. I don't know. Maybe it's good to, you know, have sex with someone.

我不知道。但这与我们是否会死毫无关系。显然我们都会死，你需要独立论证为什么某件事是好的。

I don't know. But it it has nothing to do with whether or not we're gonna die. Right? Obviously, we're gonna die, and you need an independent argument for why this thing is good. Right?

甚至可能相反：正因为生命有限，你才不该搞外遇；正因为时日无多，你才不该去罗马，而应该工作或做些对社会有贡献的事。对吧？

It could be that maybe it's the opposite. Maybe because we're gonna die, you shouldn't have an affair. Maybe because we're gonna die, you know, there are only so many hours in the day and you shouldn't go to Rome. You should instead do your work or do something that's gonna, you know, make a contribution to society. Right?

比如，某个陈述的含义与人们所理解的隐含意义之间毫无关联。我认为这就是‘深度假象’的一个例子。另一个‘深度假象’的例子是‘一切皆有原因’，对吧？这话你常听到，它有两种解读方式。

Like, there there's just no connection between, what what the statement means and its and the implications that people take it to mean. So I think that's one example of a deepity. Another example of a deepity is, everything happens for a reason. Right? You hear this one a lot, and there are two ways to interpret it.

一种是从有意识的超自然存在视角出发——某件事发生是因为某种超自然存在、本质或力量希望或意图让它发生。这是极其荒谬、惊天动地、令人费解的解读。另一种解读仅仅是事物皆有因果。‘一切皆有原因’就像说万物皆有因果，事情总有前因后果。

One is that everything has a reason from the perspective of a conscious supernatural being, that something happened because some supernatural being or essence or force wanted it to happen or intended it to happen. That's the really implausible, earth shattering, mind boggling interpretation. The other interpretation is just that things have causes. Everything does happen for a reason, like that that has cause. Things have causes.

这只是基本的科学世界观。你可以在两种解读间来回切换，欺骗自己以为获得了深刻洞见，实则不然。这就是‘深度假象’。其他例子比如‘心之所想，身之所现’，这句话出自佛陀。

This is just the basic scientific worldview, and you can toggle back and forth between those two interpretations and delude yourself into thinking that you're experiencing some deep insight when you're not. It's just a Deepity. Other examples of Deepities. What we think we become. This is from the Buddha.

你可以理解为：如果我认为自己是林肯，就会神奇地长出胡子、头顶冒出高礼帽变成林肯。显然这不成立。更平庸的解读是：思想会产生影响。当你思考时，总会以某种方式影响行为——这正是我们拥有思想的根本原因。

You can interpret it as meaning that if I think I'm Abraham Lincoln, then I will magically sprout a beard and sprout a top hat from my head and become Abraham Lincoln. Obviously, that's not true. The more mundane interpretation is that just thoughts have causes. When you think stuff, it's going to affect your behavior in some way. That's why we have thoughts in the first place.

也是我们拥有大脑的首要原因——它能影响行为，对吧？这个解读相当乏味。还有个例子：‘未来对现在的影响不亚于过去’，这是尼采说的。

That's why we have brains in the first place because they affect our behavior. Right? It's a pretty, boring interpretation. Another one, the future influences the present as much as the past. This is from Friedrich Nietzsche.

令人震惊的解读是：未来发生的事能逆向改变过去。而平庸的解读则是：我们有时会考虑未来，这能改变当下。

The mind boggling interpretation is things that happen in the future can retroactively change the past. Right? The boring interpretation is that we sometimes think about the future, and that can change the present. What's

请解释下，当我们在惊世骇俗与平庸无奇之间摇摆时，情感上获得了什么满足？为什么会有这种心理？

explain to me the emotional payoff when we flip flop between something that's bold and something that's banal. Like, what what why?

没错。部分原因在于——我们一直在讨论地位博弈和竞争。提出惊天动地的观点、改变他人思维方式能让我们获得地位。我们以此为生并因此赢得声望，但这其实非常困难，因为真正新颖的洞见和颠覆性思想极其罕见。况且传统智慧往往正确，偏离常规的观点通常站不住脚。

Yeah. Well, part of it is that I mean, we've been talking a lot about status games and status competition. One of the things that we get status for is by presenting people with bold, earth shattering ideas and changing the way they think. That gets us a lot of status. We do that for a living and we get status for it, but it's actually a really hard thing to do because real genuine novel insights and earth shattering ideas are hard to come by, And because the conventional wisdom is often correct, things that depart from the conventional wisdom are often wrong and implausible.

于是我们面临两难：既要寻找新颖、特别、有趣、挑衅的观点，又要保证其合理、逻辑自洽、正确。问题是，对于合理正确的观点，人们要么早已相信，要么很快被说服——你无法借此获得多少声望。而‘深度假象’让我们鱼与熊掌兼得。

So there's this trade off between finding ideas that are new and special and interesting and and provocative, and ideas that are plausible and logical and consistent and correct. The thing is, the plausible and logical and correct ideas, people already mostly believe them or will be quickly convinced of them and you won't gain much status for presenting them. Mhmm. Right? And so what deepities do is they kind of allow us to have our cake and eat it.

我们可以抛出看似 provocative（挑衅性）且石破天惊的观点。当人们质疑‘你疯了，胡说什么’时，就切换到另一种解读说‘不，其实...’

We can present an idea that seems, you know, provocative and earth shattering. And then when people question and say, no. You're crazy. What are you talking about? You can pivot to the other interpretation and say, no.

实际上，这完全说得通。

Actually, it makes perfect sense.

这有点像是一种智力上的莫特与贝利策略。

It's a it's kind of like a a intellectual Mott and Bailey.

是的，完全正确。莫特与贝利是个非常相似的概念。我忘了是谁提出的这个术语，但这是你在辩论时使用的另一种胡搅蛮缠的策略。

Yes. Absolutely. So the Mott and Bailey is a very similar idea. I I forget who came up with this term, but it's when you're arguing. It's another bullshit arguing tactic, by the way.

就是当你提出一个极端立场时，比如我们应该废除警察。然后当人们说'不，你疯了，你在说什么？'

It's when you put forward an extreme position of of of your view, like, say, we should abolish the police. Right? And then when people say, no. You're crazy. What are you talking about?

你就说'哦不，我只是说我们需要更多心理健康服务，需要改变警察的运作方式'，然后他们就退回到一个温和得多的立场。等对方一离开，他们又继续喊着要废除警察。这种手法在政治辩论中很常见，这就是一种诡辩。

You say, oh, no. I just mean we need, you know, like, more mental health services and, like, we just need to, like, change change the way that police operate, and then and then they they walk back to a much more moderate position. And then as soon as the person leaves, they go back to saying, let's abolish the police. Right? You see this a lot in political argumentation, and that is a kind of debity.

'废除警察'可以有两种解读：极端解读是彻底不要警察，温和解读则是改革警察系统。人们常在辩论中 strategically 来回切换立场以获取优势。我观察到这种现象不仅存在于政治领域，在灵性认知和超自然观念中也是如此——人们会先抛出更 provocative 的超自然解释，在被质疑时又退回到直白的解释。

You could interpret abolish the police in one of two ways. You could interpret it the extreme way, which is we should have no police, or you can interpret as we should, you know, reform the police, and that's more moderate. And people will often pivot back and forth strategically to sort of gain status in in in political debates. And I see people doing that that toggling, not just in politics, but across the board with spiritual insights, supernatural ideas. They will often put forward the more provocative and plausible supernatural interpretation of a statement and then pivot back to the more straightforward interpretation when they're challenged or when they're attacked.

'万事皆有因'——'这是神的旨意'——'你在说什么？哦，显然事物都有因果关系嘛，事情发生总有其原因'

Everything happens for a reason. God wanted this to happen. What are you talking about? Oh, just things have causes, obviously. You know, things happen because, you know, there was some cause.

对吧？我就是这个意思。

Right? That's all I'm saying. Right?

这些DVD本质上像是制造顿悟幻觉的思维黑客。我怀疑其吸引力很大程度上来自这种既能显得深刻又不用承担风险的 status signaling，是非常安全的装深沉方式。

It's it DVDs kind of feel like they're essentially brain hacks that manufacture an without an insight. I wonder how much of the appeal is sort of fueled by status signaling of sounding profound without also risking status. They've it's very it's this very sort of safe way to do it.

没错。这是用 provocative 的反直觉观点获取地位的 low risk 方式。

Yes. Exactly. It's a low risk way of of getting status from having a a provocative counterintuitive idea.

那么，含糊的废话和深奥的废话有什么区别呢？

Well, what's the difference between vague bullshit and deep bullshit then?

这两者并不相同。我认为一个是另一个的源头。含糊的废话可以视为更宽泛的概念

Is that the same They're not the same thing. I see one as the parent of the other. So vague you could think of vague bullshit as the broader

必要但不充分。

Necessary, but not sufficient.

是的。我认为含糊的废话是总称，是更广泛的类别。含糊的废话就是难以解读的废话，它有多种解释。

Yes. So I think vague bullshit is the umbrella term. It's the broader category. And vague bullshit is bullshit that just is hard to interpret. It has multiple interpretations.

有些含糊的废话是深奥的废话，但并非所有都是。含糊的废话是指具有多重解释的内容，而深奥的废话则是一种解释惊天动地，另一种解释却平淡无奇。但更广泛的概念只是指那些有多种解释的东西，比如占星术、量子疗愈、大陆哲学、后现代主义、精神分析等。这些东西都充斥着术语，冗长晦涩，难以理解。

And some vague bullshit is deep bullshit, but not all vague bullshit. So vague bullshit is something that has multiple interpretations. Deep bullshit is when one interpretation is earth shattering and the other interpretation is boring and mundane. But the broader concept is just stuff that has multiple interpretations, and there's lots of vague bullshit out there like astrology, quantum healing, continental philosophy, postmodernism, psychoanalysis. All this stuff is jargon laden, verbose, impenetrable, hard to wrap your head around.

当你读到这些时，你完全不知道自己在读什么，我认为这都是有意为之。含糊的废话的功能通常是让听众对说话者的意图产生不确定性，同时暗中向少数理解其含义的内部人士传递群体归属感。举个例子：'空无的完满没有极限'。克里斯，你知道这他妈是什么意思吗？

You have no idea what the fuck you're reading when you read it, and I think that is all by design. I think often the function of vague bullshit is to create uncertainty about what the speaker intends while covertly signaling group membership to a select few of insiders who understand what the bullshitter is getting at. So an example of this is there is no limit to the fullness of emptiness. Do you have any idea what the fuck that means, Chris?

有一种满足感源自深刻的宁静，这是忙碌而混乱的生活无法给予的。

There is a type of satisfaction that you can derive from deep peace which a busy and chaotic life cannot afford you.

这非常接近原意，但你对这类东西很熟悉。大多数人听到这句话可能会非常困惑。

That is very close to the intended meeting, but you are very familiar with this kind of stuff. Probably most people when they hear that will be very confused.

我不得不进行一些真正的剖析才能理解

I've had to do some I've had to do some real dissection there to try and get

你不得不做了很多工作，对吧？这是一句真实的引述，出自奥修或拉杰尼希教派的巴关，在Netflix纪录片《狂野国度》中出现过。克里斯，你看过吗？

You had to do a lot of you had to do a lot of work. Right? So that's a real quote. It's from Osho or the Bhagwan from the Rajneesh cult in in that Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country. Have you seen that, Chris?

糟透了。我本该在那儿的，但没去成。

Sick. I I should have been there, but no.

没错。太精彩了。这是我最爱的Netflix纪录片系列之一。所以呢，他是个邪教头目。

Yeah. Fantastic. One of my favorite Netflix docuseries. So yeah. So he's a cult leader.

他有句名言：'空无的丰盈没有极限'。本质上，他所说的空无是指冥想中达到的那种正念状态——清空欲望和杂念后，这种空无会让你感觉极好。他其实就是在说正念有益。这不过是另一种故作高深的把戏。

He had this this quote, there's no limit to the fullness of emptiness. Basically, what he's saying what he what he means by emptiness is a kind of mindfulness that you would achieve in meditation. So you are emptying your mind of cravings and mental chatter, and that kind of emptiness makes you feel great. He's basically just saying mindfulness is good. It's it's another kind of deepity.

你看，'正念有益'是浅层解读。'空无的丰盈没有极限'？丰盈怎么可能是空无？根本说不通对吧？

You know, mindfulness is good is the mundane interpretation. There's no limit to the fullness of emptiness. How could fullness be emptiness? That makes no sense. Right?

他的策略是：对少数听懂他黑话的人说'正念有益'——这些人明白空无指代正念，会因理解其深意感到被接纳；而其他人只会觉得被排斥和困惑。这是暗中筛选团体成员的绝妙手段。通过这种模糊的废话，他既吸引了志同道合的追随者，又排除了异己，从而营造出忠诚与共谋感——当所有人都说着晦涩暗语却心照不宣时，圈外人根本摸不着头脑。

So what he's doing is he's saying mindfulness is good to the select few of people who know what the fuck he's talking about, who know that emptiness means mindfulness, and those people feel warm and included because they understand what he's getting at, and everyone else feels alienated and confused. And that's a wonderful way of covertly probing group membership. He is saying something that will attract people who are like minded and sycophantic toward him while alienating and excluding everyone else. And so that creates a sense of loyalty and shared community when everyone spouts vague bullshit and secretly gets what what everyone means by the vague bullshit where while everyone else has no idea what they're getting at.

这是否意味着需要谨慎把握分寸？如果太过直白，就失去了看似深刻的洞察力；但若过于晦涩复杂，又难以吸引大众。所以在设计话术时存在这种张力，这样理解对吗？

Does that mean that there is there's kind of a an accelerator pedal that you need to press carefully? Because if it's too obvious, then it doesn't have the boldness sort of insight. But if it's too, obfuscatory and too complex, then it's not sufficiently accessible to actually be attractive to people. So you have a kind of tension when it comes to designing your deportee. Is that a fair way to look at it?

是的，这个角度很合理。但模糊废话还有另一种功能——它可能完全无意义，纯粹是无法穿透的谜语，根本不具备可理解的涵义。

Yes. I do think that's a fair way to to to look at it. But I think there could be another function of vague bullshit where it's it literally is meaningless. It literally is impenetrable. It has no meaning intelligible meaning at all.

你可以借此测试听众：看他们是否忠诚到会脑补出意义，是否为了奉承你而把胡言乱语解读成深邃哲理——即便他们压根没听懂。这样即便内容毫无价值，你仍能通过观察人们的反应，获取有价值的社交信息：看看谁急于维护你和你的声誉。不不...

But you might be trying to test your audience to see if they are loyal enough to you to hallucinate meaning and to and and if they want to flatter you enough that they're willing to interpret what you're saying as deep and profound even though they have no idea what the hell you just said. Right? And so even if it's totally meaningless, you can still get some meaningful social information from it by gauging how people react to it and how eager people are to defend you for it and defend your reputation. No. No.

他这话其实大有深意，信我。这种反应对邪教头目极其珍贵，能帮他们甄别谁会成为死忠。

He actually he meant something that that's really deep by that. Trust me. Right? That reaction is very valuable to a cult leader because they can assess who is going to be loyal to them and who is not. Right?

所以又多了个成员。

So that's another member.

没错，正是如此。

Yeah. Exactly.

是的。所以它也可以是一种忠诚度测试。我认为模糊废话具有许多社会功能。我在文章中探讨了几种可能性。但确实，我认为这也与我们作为语言动物的本质有关。

Yeah. So it it it can be a kind of loyalty test as well. I think there are lots of social functions of vague bullshit. I I I write about several possibilities in the post. But, yeah, I think it also has to do with the fact that we are linguistic animals.

这是智人非常惊人的特质——我们通过交流构建共享的现实模型。这意味着如果我擅长语言，擅长将想法从我的头脑传递到你的头脑，那我就成为了绝佳的社会伙伴。这使我成为优秀的盟友、伴侣和协作者。与我协调配合会比与其他人更容易。如果我们能产生共鸣，说明我们善于沟通，了解彼此的期待，理解对方言语的含义。因此，擅长语言的部分内涵在于擅长解读，擅长领会弦外之音。

That's a pretty incredible trait of of homo sapiens that we communicate, we form shared models of reality, and that means that if I'm good at language, if I'm good at transmitting ideas from my head into yours, that makes me a really good social partner. That makes me a good ally, a good mate, a good collaborator. You're going to have an easier time smoothly coordinating with me than with other people. If we're vibing, that suggests that we're good at communicating with each other, and we know what each other's expectations are, and we know what each other means by what they're saying. And so part of what it means to be good at language is is is good at interpreting it, good at reading between the lines.

如果你表达含糊、结巴、被打断，或者我没完全听清你的话，却仍能理解你的意图，从你的角度来看这是极好的信号。这意味着我要么非常擅长语言，要么非常了解你——这两点都会增加你对我的好感。对吧？所以很多模糊性其实是在混沌中寻找意义的乐趣。

If you say something unclear or if you stutter or if you if you get cut off or if I don't quite hear everything you said and I still manage to get at the at your intended meeting, then that's a really good sign from your perspective. That means that I'm either really good at language or I know you really well, both of which are good signs in terms of you liking me. Right? So a lot of vagueness is just the joy of trying to get a the joy of finding meaning in chaos. Right?

我认为在混沌中寻找意义的乐趣与锻炼语言能力有关，因为语言本质上就是从看似混乱中提取意义。我们喜欢练习并炫耀这种能力。如果我能从晦涩难懂的文本中解读出含义，天啊，这会让我显得特别厉害对吧？这显得我精通语言。

I think the joy of finding meaning in chaos has to do with the joy of practicing our linguistic ability, because language depends on extracting meaning from seeming chaos. And so we like to practice that ability and show off our ability. If I can extract some meaning from this really weird impenetrable text, boy, that makes me look good. Right? That makes me look like I'm really good at language.

我与作者高度同频——如果对方是地位高的人，这点对我尤其有利。因此我认为模糊废话确实具有这些交织的社会功能：凝聚人群、获取地位、测试忠诚、展示和锻炼我们的诠释才能。这里头实在包含了太多东西。

I'm really clued in to to the writer. If if they're a high status person, that helps me a lot, that I'm really in sync with them. So I think, vague bullshit really has all these, intertwined social functions, that bring people together, that help us gain status, that test loyalty, that allow us to show off and practice our ermeneutic or interpretive talents. It's really a a lot going on there.

多么精彩的论述，让我们都觉得自己没那么高尚了。女士们先生们，这位是大卫·彭佐夫。大卫，你太棒了。我爱你的博客，爱你所有的作品，还有你的新播客。

What a wonderful way to make us all feel a little bit less virtuous than we should be. David Penzoff, ladies and gentlemen. David, you're great. I love your blog. I love all of this stuff you do and your new podcast.

告诉大家在哪里可以关注这些内容。

Tell people where they can go and and check it all out.

好的。我最近和加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的戴夫·彼得鲁泽夫斯基教授合作开设了播客，专注进化心理学领域。据我所知，我们是目前唯一完全聚焦进化心理学的专题播客。我们会邀请正在从事研究和教学的进化心理学家进行访谈。

Sure. So I recently started a podcast with Dave Petruzewski. He's a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, and it's all about evolutionary psychology. As far as I'm aware, we are the only explicitly evolutionary psychology focused podcast that is just all about evolutionary psychology. We bring in evolutionary psychologists who are practicing, who are professors, who are doing research right now, and we interview them.

我们彼此之间也会展开讨论。相比我的博客，这个播客更偏向学术向，但我觉得它在向公众传播严谨扎实的研究方面很有价值。播客名为《进化心理学（The Podcast）》，括号里标注了'播客'字样。

We also talk with each other. It's more of a nerdy and academic vibe than my blog, but I think it's doing an important service in getting good, solid, rigorous research out into the public. So you can check that out. It's called Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast. The podcast is in parentheses.

你也可以看看我的博客，名字叫《一切都是胡扯》。网址是everythingisbullshit.blog，在Twitter上可以找到我，账号是David Pinsoff。欢迎直接联系我，我很喜欢和人交流。

And you can also check out my blog. It's called Everything is Bullshit. You can find it at everythingisbullshit.blog, and you can find me on Twitter at David Pinsoff. Feel free to reach out to me directly. I love talking to people.

是啊，David，你太棒了。下次见，祝你的播客一切顺利。

Yeah. David, you're great, man. Until next time. Good luck with the podcast.

非常愉快。非常感谢，Chris。

Lots of fun. Thanks so much, Chris.