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On Opinion
On Opinion episodes
- Post-Privacy Politics, with Michal Kosinski
“We often treat privacy as a quick fix for much deeper social problems - like prejudice and bias”
Our lives are constantly documented. Our Facebook likes, our Tweets and even our credit card statements all reveal information about us. But what about our faces?
Michal Kosinski has demonstrated that off-the-shelf, commercially available AI can analyse facial images and determine sexuality and political preferences with up to 91% accuracy.
If our opinions and preferences are written into our very faces, what does that tell us about the immutability of our values and behaviours?
And what does that mean for privacy?
Listen to Michal explain how we must learn to live in a Post-Privacy world.
“We should just not be making judgements about people based on their faces, regardless of whether those judgments are accurate or not.”
Works cited include:
- Facial Recognition and Political Orientation
- Facial Recognition and Sexual Orientation
Michal Kosinski
Michal is an Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He studies humans in a digital environment using cutting-edge computational methods, AI and Big Data.
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Meet Turi Munthe: https://twitter.com/turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
40 min - Polarisation on the Couch, with Alex Evans“Our inner and outer crises are two sides of the same coin”
There are many lenses through which to explain polarisation - economic, political, demographic, evolutionary… Alex Evans wants us to consider it from a psychological perspective.
Alex has campaigned around inclusion and social justice for two decades, but researchers in Israel changed his mind about social fracture. Polarisation between Israelis and Palestinians is a mental health issue - driven by ongoing trauma, anxiety, hyper-vigilance and threat perception.
If democracy depends on citizens who can manage their mental and emotional states, feel empathy for each other, and share a sense of common identity and purpose, we need to address our inner worlds as much as the outer one.
“The state of the mind and the state of the world intersect”Larger Us, his campaigning organisation, puts psychology at the very heart of its approach to curing our social divide.
Listen to Alex explain how society - both governments and individuals - can move from fight/flight to self-awareness and empathy, from powerlessness to agency, from disconnection and loneliness to belonging.
Along the way, he also discusses:
- The changing role of Religion in society
- Collective Psychology
- How ‘spirituality’ gave up on social justice
- When polarisation is good
- And how we can move from an Us-vs-Them to a ‘Larger Us’ Society
Works cited include:
- Johann Hari’s Lost Connections
- Jurgen Habermas on Democratic Polarisation
- Robert Wright’s Non-Zero
- Richard Layard on Happiness
- David Bohm on Dialogue
Alex Evans
Alex founded the Collective Psychology Project in 2018, which then became Larger Us in 2021. He is the author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough?, and is a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.
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Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
50 min - Conflict is Good, with Ian Leslie“The avoidance of conflict is actually the real problem”
We traditionally view an argument as a symptom of a problematic relationship, but relationship psychologists have found that they actually lead to healthier and happier people. Children who grow up arguing with their parents do better in school, and couples who air their disagreements stay together longer.
What holds true for the family, holds true for all groups of people: conflict is central to Democracy. Humans evolved to reason collectively: we need each other to get to the truth.
“For valuable conflict to occur, you need two things: a shared goal, and agreed rules of engagement.”Listen to Ian and Turi discuss:
- Why arguments are good for us
- Why most ‘conflict’ on social media isn’t ‘Fight’ so much as ‘Flight’
- Why emotion is so important in conflict
- How we can turn our cognitive flaws to society’s advantage
- How human individuals evolved to argue, but society evolved to reason.
- Democracy as an ‘Infinite Game’
- How we can have healthy arguments
Works cited include:
- Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber’s Enigma of Reason
- James Carse and his Finite and Infinite Games
Ian Leslie
Ian Leslie is a writer and author of acclaimed books on human behaviour. He writes about psychology, culture, technology and business for the New Statesman, the Economist, the Guardian and the Financial Times. He is the author of Conflicted.
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Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
44 min - Investing in Injustice - System Justification Theory, with John Jost“The disadvantaged don’t make the world, they cope with it”
Since Etienne de la Boetie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1577), we have asked ourselves why the weak, the poor and the marginalised accept injustice.
Social scientists talk to economic and political oppression. John Jost’s work shows that the oppressed don’t just suffer the injustice, they commit to it. Across society, people “invest in their own unhappiness”.
Black children prefer white dolls; women feel entitled to lower salaries; victims blame themselves; around the world, people vote against their own economic interests…
Jost presents three underlying reasons - epistemic, existential and relational - for why people become psychologically invested in the status quo even if it harms their objective interests, and walks through some of the research that demonstrates it.
“One of the things that any kind of social movement for change needs to accomplish is a kind of undoing of the kind of indoctrination that all of us experience.”Listen to John Jost explain:
- False Consciousness: “ideology as a cognitive illusion” (Marx)
- Out-Group Favouritism
- Why social activism is so taxing - and so many activists suffer burnout
- The role of the Stereotype: it simplifies and justifies
- The role of Evolution in system justification
- And how to break the cycle
Works cited include:
- Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory
- Robert Sapolsky, on the physiology of low-status
- Howard Zinn
- Gyorgy Lukacs
- Berger and Luckman’s The Social Construction of Reality
- Karl Marx
- Antonio Gramsci
- Henri Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory
- Catharine MacKinnon: Towards a Feminist Critique of the State
- Chris Boehm on the benefits of inequality
John Jost
John Jost is Professor of Psychology, Politics, & Data Science and Co-Director of the Center for Social and Political Behavior at New York University. His research addresses stereotyping, prejudice, social justice, intergroup relations, political ideology, and system justification theory. He has published over 200 journal articles and book chapters and five books, including A Theory of System Justification.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
48 min - Populism, with Jan-Werner Müller
"Populism is a permanent shadow of modern representative democracy, and a constant threat"
The last few decades has seen a democratic drift, as populist leaders emerge all over the world - from Bolsonaro and Trump in the Americas, through Orban, Kaczynski and Erdogan in Europe, to Modi and Duterte in Asia.
Their policies have little in common, but in their approach to politics, in their populism, they share profound, and deeply undemocratic, tendencies.
Jan-Werner Muller conceptualises populism - that “moralistic imagination of politics” - as a triptych: Anti-Elite, Anti-Pluralist, and Identitarian. Populists arrogate the right to define who counts as ‘The People’, and to exclude all those who don’t fit the bill from full participation in civil and political life.
“The ‘People’ is singular - authentic, morally pure”
Listen to Jan-Werner Muller explain:
- Why Corruption and Clientelism are structural features of Populism
- Why Populists love social networks
- How Populists fetishise the idea of ‘The People’
- Populism’s genius: that it can destroy Democracy in the name of democracy
- and How NOT to fight Populism
“Populism is only thinkable within Representative Democracy”
Works cited include:
- Ralph Dahrendorf
- Nancy L Rosenblum's work on Holism
Jan-Werner Müller
Jan-Werner Müller is a political philosopher and historian of political ideas working at Princeton University. He is the author of What is Populism.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
43 min - Infodemiology, with Jens Koed Madsen“The more we increase the connectivity of people, the more people get stuck in extreme positions and echo chambers on the extreme edges of our belief structures.”
In December 2017, Jens Koed Madsen heard Mark Zuckerberg talking about the power of connectivity. Zuckerberg’s hypothesis was that the more people were connected, the more quickly we would filter out bad ideas - a reworking of John Stuart Mill’s classic theory of the marketplace of ideas.
To test it, Jens built a computer model of a social network - full of rational agents sharing information with each other. What he found is disturbing: the larger the network of agents (or citizens, or Facebook users), the faster it builds echo chambers, and the more radicalised those echo chambers become.
“Nobody ever starts extreme - they’re pushed into it through connectivity”
We have spent years focusing on ‘fake news’, misinformation, gullible readers, on the design ethics of the platforms, on political manipulation and propaganda. But Jens’ research shows that it’s the very architecture of our social networks that polarises us.
Listen to him explain his experiment Large Networks of Rational Agents form Persistent Echo Chambers, as well as a forthcoming paper on the role broadcasters play in the media ecosystem - and attempt to look at how we can fix our infodemic.
“Media is an ecosystem. In the same way that an epidemiologist describes the spread of diseases, we do infodemiology - tracking the spread of misinformation across complex dynamic systems.”
Works cited include:
- Sander van der Linden on inoculating against misinformation
- Tristan Harris on the ethics of attention mongering
- Stephan Lewandowsky’s Debunking Handbook
Jens Koed Madsen
Jens Koed Madsen is a Cognitive Psychologist at LSE. He is interested in misinformation and complex human environments, and how people change their beliefs and act in social networks.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
35 min - Why we Believe, with Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer is one of the world’s most prominent skeptics - founder of The Skeptic Society and editor of its magazine Skeptic. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Michael has spent his career uncovering the workings and causes of our 'Believing Brain'.
“Our brains are wired to think more like lawyers than scientists - to win arguments, to bolster what we already believe...”
We evolved to discern patterns in the world around us. When our ancestors ate the wrong mushroom, they very quickly learnt to link it to their upset stomach. Discovering patterns is the way humans learn. But humans are sometimes too good at it: we ‘discern’ patterns where none exist, and we infuse them with agency.
Listen to Michael and Turi discuss the two key evolutionary drivers of belief:
- Patternicity - our tendency to find patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data.
- Agenticity - our tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency.
And learn more about:
- The evolutionary origins of belief
- Where conspiracy theories come from
- Dopamine: the belief drug
- What Twin Studies teach us about the Heritability of belief
- How to keep a healthy mind
- And B.F Skinner’s famous pigeon experiment, which shows all animals exist on the belief spectrum.
“Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity.”
Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer is a science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic. He's also the author of The Believing Brain and most recently, Giving the Devil his Due on the free speech wars raging across the West.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
38 min - The Backlash against Democracy, with Roberto Foa
Roberto Foa's research on Global Dissatisfaction with Democracy and Youth Dissatisfaction with Democracy uncovered the highest rates of dissatisfaction in decades, particularly amongst young people.
“The majority of Americans today are dissatisfied with Democracy”
2019 represents the highest level of democratic discontent on record. Around the world, the share of individuals who are dissatisfied with democracy has risen to 57.5%.
In the biggest macro-survey on perceptions of democracy yet performed, Roberto's research shows some terrifying key trends with dissatisfaction at its worst in the world's largest and oldest democracies.
- If a majority of citizens in the US are dissatisfied, it's 80% in Brazil, and closer to 90% in Mexico.
- In Europe, it's 80% in Greece and 65% in Italy.
- In Africa, growing disillusion with the promise of newly democratic countries has pushed dissatisfaction up to 60% in both Nigeria (the world's 5th largest democracy) and South Africa.
- With the failure of the Arab Spring, democracy in the Middle East remains a dream.
- The only two exceptions are some northern European countries (Switzerland, Netherlands, the Nordics) and parts of Asia where democracy appears to be delivering.
But while dissatisfaction is not quite the same as anti-democratic sentiment, frustrations with its failings are THE fastest route towards populism (that democratic counterfeit).
Listen to Turi and Roberto discuss his findings from around the world, and look at:
- why we have lost our faith in democracy
- whether we’re right to distrust its promises
- why the young in particular feel democracy has disenfranchised them
- and how greater ideological polarization might actually be good for democracy in the long term...
"Dissatisfaction with Democracy is rational - in countries with institutions that deliver, it isn't there"
Roberto Foa
Roberto Stefan Foa is University Lecturer in politics and public policy, Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Future of Democracy, and Director of the YouGov-Cambridge Centre for Public Opinion Research.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
48 min - Bridging the Gap, with Stephen Hawkins“There’s a subtle but crucial difference between ‘Opponent’ and ‘Enemy’”
If Polarization is on the rise around the world, it takes different forms. The “Ideas Landscape” in the US, UK, France and Germany is very different, with the US - unfortunately - most radicalised across its politics. There, political sorting amongst voters and inside Congress has seen a hardening of attitudes towards each side. In Europe, however, there’s more hope.
“What seems to characterize the British political environment right now, more than polarization, is exhaustion…”In the UK, there is very broad consensus around environmental concerns, the benefits of diversity and the value of the NHS, with only a small minority of political activists on the hard left and right. That pattern is echoed in France (with the added divisiveness of Islam) and Germany (more divided over how to deal with its past).
What can Europe do to ensure it avoids US-levels of polarisation? Stephen believes they key is building a shared identity, characterized by 8 key features.
- An individual experience of belonging, regardless of background or biology.
- A common perception of the country, one that is neither self-aggrandizing nor self-loathing, but self-aware.
- A basic alignment on trusted institutions for expertise and other information.
- A shared notion of the individual’s responsibility to the country.
- A common sense of our basic, guaranteed rights from society.
- A set of shared values to orient moral decision making.
- Congenial intergroup perceptions
- Common aspirations for the future.
Stephen Hawkins
More in Common was founded to strengthen democratic societies by countering social division and polarization. They work at the very base of the pyramid - doing deep research into the causes and forms of polarisation, as well as testing new initiatives to counter it. Stephen is their Global Director of Research, and has led their work on Hidden Tribes, the Perception Gap and Democracy for President
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
37 min - The Securitarian Personality, with John Hibbing“The key division in all political systems is the result of two distinct perceptions of the most dangerous threats”
Western politics have traditionally been divided into Conservatives and Liberals - tradition vs egalitarianism. John Hibbing, who more than anyone has put biology back into our understanding of politics, proposes an entirely new approach.
John divides the world between “Securitarians” and “Unitarians”, and sees the battle between them as the ultimate source of political conflict in the world.
Do you worry more about immigration or authoritarianism?
“The difference in orientation to security in the face of outsiders constitutes the most fundamental divide in political systems around the world, now and always.”Based on a mass of new survey data, John’s revolutionary new book, The Securitarian Personality, proposes a fundamental rethink of the core political divide in our societies - between Securitarians, whose central preoccupation is to protect insiders from outsider threats, and Unitarians, whose core central goal is to outsiders from insider threats. It is also a seminal new assessment of the political instincts behind Donald Trump’s rise to power.
Securitarians fear outsiders: immigrants, foreigners, norm-violators, non-native speakers, and those of different races, religions, sexualities who might be a threat to the identity and existence of the in-group.
Unitarians fear powerful insiders: those with the authority to impose their will arbitrary on the society below them.
These differences are deeply, biologically embedded in who we are, and they have immensely strong evolutionary causes. Securitarians and Unitarians are natural human types, and have been since our hunter-gatherer days.
“Political differences are not just superficial and malleable but rather attached to stable psychological, physiological, and possibly even genetic variations.”Listen to John and Turi discuss this fundamental rethinking of our evolutionary politics:
- The biology behind our political preferences
- The characteristics of Securitarians and Unitarians
- How Securitarians differ from Conservatives, Authoritarians, and Fascists
- The ‘Securitarian’ Phenotype
- The evolutionary history of our different political instincts
- Who voted for Donald Trump (and Orban, Bolsonaro and others) and why
- The advantages and hypocrisies of Unitarian thinking
- What Siberian silver foxes can teach us about political types
John Hibbing
John Hibbing is an American political scientist and Foundation Regents University Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is known for his research on the biological and psychological correlates of political ideology. He is the author of The Securitarian Personality.
More on this episode
Learn all about the Parlia Podcast here.
Meet Turi Munthe: https://www.parlia.com/u/Turi
Learn more about the Parlia project here: https://www.parlia.com/about
And visit us at: https://www.parlia.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
55 min
About On Opinion
From the publisher's feed
Where do your opinions come from?
Do we ‘think’ our world views, or ‘feel’ them? And what do our beliefs mean for politics and society?
In each episode of On Opinion, Turi Munthe asks…
thought leaders to share their perspectives on why we think what we think and what it means for the world today, discussing everything from the war on truth to how to argue with people you hate.
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