#61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

These are kids who are about, you know, eighteen to twenty two. This was just a few months ago. And then I say, you know, how many of you had any restrictions? Like your parents, you know, s put limits, hardly any hands went up. I said, How many of you when you have kids uh will let your kids use devices without restrictions? Not a single hand went up. They all said no, that this was wrong. I wish my parents hadn't done this. Hello and welcome, I'm Shane Parrish and this is The Knowledge Project, a podcast exploring the ideas, methods, and mental models that will help you master the best of what other people have already figured out. You can learn more and stay up to date at fs.blog slash podcast. We also have a newsletter that comes out every Sunday called Brain Food. It's free, packed with all the best content we've come across this week, that's worth reading or thinking about, contains quotes, book recommendations, articles, and so much more.

You can learn more at fs dot blog slash newsletter. Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Haidt. John is the professor of ethical leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. John has a PhD in social psychology, is the author of The Happiness Hypotheses, The Righteous Mind. And more recently the Coddling of the American Mind with his co author Greg Lukyanov. We're gonna talk about how we coddle kids and what to do about it, whether video games are harmful, the variables of hierarchy for kids and their impact, the role of social media, and what we can do about it.

We also talk about the second order impacts of the new norms of self-censoring and being afraid to play with or challenge ideas. We explore why it's important to disagree and explore how to disagree in a world where that's becoming less common. and we explore why we need people to disagree with us. We need others to make us smart, and if we surround ourselves with only people who think like us, we're gonna reinforce what we already think we know. And slow the pace of learning. Well, it's comfortable to only be around people that think like we do.

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