Review: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Kevin Simler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was going to give up on the book early on, since it started mentioning things I thought were quite obvious as if they were revelations. Their first point seems to be that we do things for selfish reasons, (which Adam Smith also said a few centuries ago), and then it discusses Signaling. These are both well-known concepts in the world of economics.
Then it talks about societal norms and how to enforce them, and that we need to punish those who don't punish transgressions: "In the US, for example, it is unlawful to witness a crime without reporting it". Is this true though??

Later it states how we repress bad memories (in which we did bad things or things we're embarrassed about). Do we though? I feel like memories of embarrassing things I did keep coming back to me at random times. I'd hate to think what I'm repressing if that's the case.

However, I stuck with it, and there were some interesting points later on. For example, how we have to deceive ourselves in order to deceive others (politicians do this a lot). It isn't enough to lie, but we have to lie to ourselves in order to make it work.
I really liked the section about how we do not get into discussions with other people to learn new things, but to prove how much we already know. It always bothered me in a sense. If A and B get in an argument, and A clearly wins, then B will go home feeling bad, while A will feel good about himself. However, the fact is B Is better off, since B learned something new, while A didn't gain anything. This seems like a flaw in human wiring, but it was sort of explained here (getting into discussions is another way of displaying how "fit" we are in an evolutionary sense, not of gaining new information. So the more arguments we win, the more we show we have the resources to 'survive').

The chapter on art seemed a bit odd (why do we like the original art work so much more than a copy?). I think they don't take into account the appreciation factor, in the sense of appreciating what humankind is capable of. Seeing the Mona Lisa in its original helps us "feel closer" (as faulty as that reasoning may be) to Davinci and his genius.

A couple more interesting tidbits:
There used to laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than once a week because it was considered cruel and unusual (like eating rats).
Aluminum spoons are better than silver spoons in every sense, yet we prefer silver spoons


So, over all, pretty hit or miss. They did state that the average reader would agree with 70% of the points they make. I probably agree with a bit more, but I feel like a lot of it had been covered in other books. The few new points, however, were enlightening.

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