It explains why we like certain things, and a lot of that has indeed to do with status and sex. What the book does is to offer deeper (ultimate) explanations for the reasons (proximate) behind behaviours that shine new light on everyday life. Given that we already do most things for selfish purposes, and that this should be obvious, SH's novel thesis cannot be just that we do have these selfish purposes. Things we do that are not selfish are rare and few: From helping strangers, to donating to charity, to just being nice to people, but note that in some of these there can even be a selfish component to altruistic actions, and it can even be the case that this selfish component can be arranged to serve a non-selfish end, as we will see with the discussion on Effective Altruism. We perhaps don't think about it, but we don't think that we are constantly breathing either, yet we wouldn't say that we are deluded about breathing. Indeed, most of the things we do are done selfishly, for our own goals and purposes. One can be acting for selfish purposes deliberately instead of "unconsciously", for example. The elephant in the brain is also competition for status, power, and sex, and also misdirection, lies, and self-delusion. The authors (Simler and Hanson, henceforth SH) say: selfishness, the selfish parts of us. What is exactly the elephant in the brain? I'll come back to this shortly, but first some unpacking of the author's main thesis: It is the interpretation I take issue with. The object-level claims of the book, the claims about how things are are largely correct. This last thing does not make me disagree per se, but makes me reduce the strenght of my agreement with a given claim.īy where is this disagreement? Isn't it true that education is -to a large degree - about signaling? Isn't it true that politics is not just about making policy? Isn't it true that charity is not just about helping others in the most efficient way? Yes, those things are true, but that's not my point. I am also putting some weight behind conceptual clarity and discussion of possible alternative explanations (Side effects of reading too much philosophy!). I am weighing heavily the core claims and discounting many object level claims. It can be both things, depending on how one weighs the different agreements and disagreements. In some sense, I agree with the thesis, and in another sense I disagree, and overall I gravitate towards this second sense, but after having read the review you may think that I actually gravitate more towards the first one. In fact, we expect most readers to buy only about 70 percent of what we’re selling- and we’re OK with that. For this purpose, we don’t need to be right about everything. Our main goal is to demonstrate that hidden motives are common and important- that they’re more than a minor correction to the alternate theory that people mostly do things for the reasons that they give. The book's main thesis can be boiled down to Some lead to support for the book's thesis, other to more nuanced results. The review also doesn't just deal with the arguments and points made in the book, I also expand on some questions I thought were interesting. Thus it may seem like I disagree more than I actually do, or that I address secondary or minor claims too much: if I agree I will either mention it in passing or omit it, while disagreements require me to explain why I disagree, hence the assymmetry. I have chosen to focus on claims that I considered interesting, or that I disagreed with. He then wanted to do a PhD thesis, but instead ended up teaming up with Robin to produce this book, which may have been in production for four years (like a proper PhD thesis).īelow follows my review. On the other hand, Kevin Simler had been writing at his blog about many things, among them reflections on that nebulous concept that is social status, with practical examples, including an anthropological view on the inner workings of a startup. The core idea here is that many people, or even entire societies do things that seem, superficially, to be done for a reason, but actually, on deeper reflection (more on this later) are done for a different reason. Healthcare is not about healthcare, is about showing how much we care. It is worth laying out some backstory to understand where this book comes from before getting into the review itself: For years, Robin Hanson has been writing pieces arguing that "X is not about X, it is about Y" (Where Y is usually signaling). They just released a book together, The Elephant in the Brain. Perhaps you have also heard about Kevin Simler, who blogs at MeltingAsphalt. If you are part of the select readership of Nintil, you probably know about Robin Hanson of Overcoming Bias fame.