The Elephant in the Brain

Why it’s on the list: Simler and Hanson’s argument that most human behaviour is signalling we are not conscious of — that self-deception is functional because a motive you cannot see is one you cannot be caught holding. Applied in turn to conversation, charity, education, medicine and religion.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @SpencrGreenberg’s question, “What non-fiction book taught you the most about how the world (or how humanity or society) really works?” (June 5, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet). It was listed there as “The Elephant in the Brain”.

Connections

• Robin Hanson — co-author.
• Incentives — the book’s method is to ask what behaviour is actually optimising for.
• Language of Discourse — conversation treated as a status display rather than an information exchange.
• Behave — Sapolsky’s biological account of the same question, named in the same thread.
• A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.