Talking to Strangers Summary of Key Ideas and Review
One-Paragraph Summary
This book examines the death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman who was pulled over for a minor traffic violation, to illustrate the importance of understanding the underlying ideas and institutions that shape our interactions with strangers. It looks at how police officers are often trained to conduct "concealed interrogations" based on their initial observations of suspects and highlights the need for transparency in police encounters.
It delves into how false positives disproportionately impact African-Americans and suggests that police officers should leave a receipt with everyone they talk to in order to reduce misunderstandings. The chapter also explores cases such as those of Jerry Sandusky, Neville Chamberlain's meeting with Adolf Hitler, and Emily Doe at a fraternity party to emphasize the dangers of defaulting to truth and belief in strangers.
Short Summary
In Talking to Strangers, the author examines the events that lead up to Sandra Bland's death in order to explore the larger issues of police violence against black people and racism in America. The chapter also looks back at Hernán Cortés' and Montezuma II's infamous encounter 500 years ago, which ended with Montezuma taken hostage and murdered. It explains how the modern world is filled with strangers, and how we often fail to understand them. The author delves into the stories of Florentino Aspillaga, Amanda Knox, and Sylvia Plath, as well as Neville Chamberlain's ill-fated meeting with Adolf Hitler to examine how we interact with strangers. Lastly, a study conducted by Harvard and UChicago revealed that an AI system was 25% better than humans at making decisions about granting bail.
This chapter explores the case of the 1996 Cuban shoot-down incident and its coincidences, as well as the strange story of Ana Montes, a Cuban spy. It examines why people are often deceived by strangers due to the "illusion of asymmetric insight," and looks at how psychologists have studied deception and why people tend to default to believing what they are told. It highlights that it takes a definitive case against someone's initial assumption to snap them out of this truth-default mode, as demonstrated by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment.
The chapter discusses the case of Jerry Sandusky, a beloved figure at Penn State University who was convicted of 45 counts of child molestation. It looks at how defaulting to truth, combined with a lack of sufficient doubts, allowed Sandusky's abuse to go unchecked for so long. The story also highlights the importance of whistleblowers like Harry Markopolos and Aaron Fisher, who sacrificed loyalty to their institutions and peers in order to expose the truth. The chapter serves as an example of how the holy fool archetype can be used to counterbalance the potential for deception and injustice.
This book examines the concept of defaulting to truth, which is the tendency to trust people and assume the best in them. It looks at cases such as that of Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar, both of whom were trusted figures accused of sexual abuse. The chapter also discusses the friends fallacy, the idea that viewers can easily follow along with the show Friends even if they turn off the sound, and transparency, which is the idea that people’s behavior and demeanor provide an authentic and reliable window into how they feel. Finally, it looks at a study done in the Trobriand Islands showing that humans are able to accurately read emotions from facial expressions.
This chapter discusses the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses and the difficulty of determining consent in such cases. It looks at a 2015 poll of college students which revealed that 1 in 5 female college students had been victims of sexual assault, and examines the role of alcohol in many of these cases. As an example, it provides a case study of four people at a fraternity party: Brock Turner, Emily Doe, Julia, and Trea. The book highlights the importance of understanding consent in order to prevent such occurrences from happening.
In the book chapter "KSM: What Happens When the Stranger is a Terrorist?", the author examines the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), a senior Al Qaeda official captured in 2003 and interrogated by two psychologists. The chapter discusses the extreme example of the talking-to-strangers problem, as well as the methods and controversy surrounding KSM's interrogation. It also examines how air force officers were prepared for potential capture through the SERE program, which included techniques such as walling and simulated drowning. In conclusion, it highlights the difficulty of making sense of people we do not know and suggests that better understanding is needed to prevent terrorist activity.
The chapter covers the life of Sylvia Plath and her suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in 1962. It discusses the concept of 'coupling' which suggests that suicide is often linked to a particular place or method, and how the modernization of British gas industry led to a decrease in suicides. It also looks at David Weisburd's research on crime concentration and Anne Sexton and Plath's complex relationship. In summary, this chapter explores the idea that an individual's environment can have a big influence on their behavior, even when it comes to something as extreme as suicide.
The chapter explores the events that led to Sandra Bland's arrest in 2015 and examines how police officers are often trained to conduct "concealed interrogations" based on their initial observations of suspects. It further delves into how Brian Encinia used the Reid Technique to judge Bland's innocence or guilt and how this technique is used by law enforcement agencies around the world. The chapter also discusses proactive policing tactics such as looking for clues like air fresheners, fast food remains, tools, high mileage, and new tires on an old car. Finally, it explains how flawed thinking can lead to misunderstandings and missteps when it comes to traffic stops.
This chapter examines the death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman who was pulled over for a minor traffic violation, to illustrate the importance of understanding the underlying ideas and institutions that shape our interactions with strangers. It highlights the need for police officers to be trained in de-escalation techniques and emphasizes the need for transparency in police encounters. The chapter also discusses how false positives disproportionately impact African-Americans, and suggests that police officers should leave a receipt with everyone they talk to in order to reduce misunderstandings.
Talking to Strangers Chapter Summary
Introduction: “Step out of the car!”
Sandra Bland was pulled over by a police officer while driving to a job interview in Texas. She was asked to put out her cigarette, and when she refused, the officer threatened to remove her from the car. The interaction was recorded on video and has been viewed millions of times on YouTube.
Talking to Strangers is an attempt to understand the events leading up to the death of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was arrested and jailed after a traffic stop in Texas, and to examine the larger issues of police violence against black people and racism in America.
In the 16th century, Europe was embroiled in numerous wars between neighboring nations and states. However, the most significant conflict of the era was between the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and the Aztec ruler Montezuma II, who had never encountered each other before. Cortés and his army were in awe of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, and when they met Montezuma, they were met with a figure of grandeur. Despite their differences, the two bowed to each other in respect.
The chapter covers the meeting between Cortés and Montezuma 500 years ago and how it has fascinated historians for centuries. It explains how the two sides had to communicate through multiple layers of translators, and how the nuances of the Nahuatl language were lost in translation. It also discusses how the encounter ended with Montezuma taken hostage and murdered, and how it ushered in the era of catastrophic colonial expansion. Finally, it examines how the modern world is now filled with strangers and how we are often bad at understanding them.
In Talking to Strangers, the author seeks to understand the strategies used to communicate between strangers, analyze them, critique them, and figure out how to fix them in order to prevent tragedies such as the death of Sandra Bland. The author begins by exploring two puzzles about strangers, beginning with a story from Florentino Aspillaga, and then delves into the cases of Amanda Knox and Sylvia Plath.
Chapter One: Fidel Castro’s Revenge
Florentino Aspillaga was a high-ranking officer in Cuba's General Directorate of Intelligence who grew disenchanted with Fidel Castro and defected in 1987, smuggling his girlfriend out of Czechoslovakia in a Mazda. His knowledge of Cuba and the Soviet Union was so sensitive that the Cuban spy service twice attempted to assassinate him.
In this chapter, the story of CIA agent Félix Ismael Aspillaga is told. He defected from Cuba in 1985 and revealed to the CIA that their entire network of spies inside Cuba were actually double agents working for the Cuban government. He provided the CIA with a memoir he had written, which contained details of the double agents and their activities.
The Cuban intelligence service managed to deceive the CIA for years by creating a network of false double agents, fooling the CIA into believing they were getting valuable information when in reality it was all cooked up by the Cubans themselves. This was revealed when a Cuban defector, Florentino Aspillaga, exposed the deception to the CIA, leading to shock and horror among the CIA's Latin American division. The Cuban intelligence had filmed and recorded everything the CIA had been doing in their country for at least 10 years, and released an 11-part documentary exposing the CIA's activities. The CIA's counterintelligence division had failed to detect the deception.
The CIA's Cuban division had a poor record of detecting double agents, with Fidel Castro's doubles being particularly difficult to spot. The CIA's record in East Germany was also poor, with not a single CIA agent having worked in East Germany without being turned into a double agent or working for the East Germans from the start. The CIA's reliance on lie-detector tests to guard against treachery was ineffective, and the agency's best case officers were taken aback when one of their own, Aldrich Ames, betrayed them. The lesson is that even the most experienced professionals can be misled, and that we should be wary of trusting our own judgment when it comes to strangers.
Chapter Two: Getting to Know der Führer
Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, proposed a plan to fly to Germany and meet with Adolf Hitler in order to try and avert a world war. He was the only world leader to have spent any real amount of time with Hitler before the war, and the news of his trip was met with celebration in Britain. He left London on the morning of September 15, 1938 and was welcomed with thousands of people at the airport in Munich.
Neville Chamberlain's negotiations with Adolf Hitler were widely regarded as a major mistake of the Second World War, as Chamberlain misread Hitler's intentions and failed to warn him of the consequences of reneging on his promises. Despite this, Chamberlain spent a significant amount of time with Hitler, observing his demeanor and behavior, and drawing conclusions from their interactions. However, this information did not help Chamberlain to see Hitler more clearly, and instead may have clouded his judgement.
The chapter discusses how Chamberlain, Halifax, Henderson, and other British diplomats were deceived by Hitler despite having met him in person. It also highlights the contrast between those who were deceived and those who saw the truth about Hitler, with the latter being those who knew the least about him personally. Finally, the chapter provides an example of a judge who was thoughtful and gentle in his manner.
In the book chapter, Judge Solomon is faced with the difficult decision of whether to grant bail to a defendant who has been arrested on suspicion of a crime. He uses meditation to help him make the decision and is confronted with the same problem that Neville Chamberlain faced in 1938. A study conducted by a Harvard economist, three computer scientists, and a bail expert from the University of Chicago found that an artificial intelligence system was 25% more successful than human judges in making the right decision about who to grant bail to.
This book chapter discusses a study conducted by Team Mullainathan which found that a computer algorithm was more accurate than human judges in making bail decisions. The algorithm was able to accurately identify high-risk defendants that the human judges failed to identify, suggesting that human judges are mis-ranking defendants and making decisions that are all over the place. The chapter also discusses how the extra information available to human judges may not be as useful as expected, and how the computer algorithm was able to make more accurate decisions with less information.
This book chapter explores the difficulties people have in making sense of strangers, and how this can lead to misjudgments and mistakes. It examines the case of a CIA officer who could not make sense of his spies, a judge who could not make sense of his defendants, and a prime minister who could not make sense of his adversary. It looks at how meeting a stranger can sometimes make us worse at understanding them than not meeting them, and how first impressions can be misleading. It also examines the importance of being able to assess a stranger’s honesty, character, and intent.
People are more likely to make assumptions about the personalities of strangers than they are about themselves, even when presented with the same evidence. This phenomenon is known as the "illusion of asymmetric insight".
The conviction that we know others better than they know themselves leads to us talking when we should be listening, and being less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are being misunderstood or judged unfairly. This is the problem at the heart of two puzzles: the officers of the CIA evaluating the loyalty of their spies, and judges assessing the character of defendants. William Lyon Mackenzie King is the exception, as he met Hitler in 1937 and compared him to Joan of Arc. Nazi official Henderson knew Göring well, and was convinced that he wanted peace and was a decent man underneath his Nazi bluster. The law has since been changed so that defendants must be 18 or above to be sent to Rikers. Lastly, a sophisticated statistical analysis can be used to estimate who will or won't commit a crime while out on pretrial release.
Chapter Three: The Queen of Cuba
This book chapter covers the story of Hermanos al Rescate, a group of Cuban emigrés in Miami who took to the skies over the Florida Straits in search of refugees, and the Cuban government's response to their activities. It also discusses the revelations of retired U.S. Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, who warned the State Department and DIA of the Cuban government's intentions the day before the shoot-down of two Hermanos al Rescate planes, and the resulting diplomatic embarrassment for the U.S. government.
The chapter examines the strange case of the Cuban shoot-down incident in 1996, and the coincidences surrounding it, including a warning from a prominent military insider the day before the attack and a rear admiral making the Cuban case on a news network the day after. It looks at the theories of psychologist Tim Levine and the story of Bernie Madoff and Jerry Sandusky to illustrate the problem of why we are deceived by strangers. It then delves into the investigation of the incident by a military counterintelligence analyst, who uncovered the involvement of a Cuban expert at the DIA, Ana Belen Montes, in the suspiciously perfect timing of events.
In this book chapter, Reg Brown's suspicions of Ana Montes' involvement in Cuban counterintelligence are explored. He believes that she was involved in a Cuban influence operation to spin a story and was the one who organized a meeting with Admiral Carroll. However, after reviewing her security and personnel files, it is concluded that Brown is likely wrong and Montes is not a Cuban spy.
In the chapter, the story of Ana Montes, a Cuban spy, is discussed. It is revealed that she had been a spy since the day she joined the DIA, and that she had been sending facts and insights from her work to her handlers in Havana every night. The chapter also discusses the investigation into Montes' activities, and how her story serves as a reminder that the most dangerous spies are not necessarily diabolical.
Ana Montes was a Cuban spy who worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was one of the most damaging traitors in American history. She had mediocre performance reviews, a drinking problem, and was receiving money from the Soviet Union for her spying. She was accepted into the CIA's Distinguished Analyst Program and requested a paid sabbatical in Cuba. Her paper written after her sabbatical raised red flags, but no one suspected her of being a spy. Her family, including her brother and sister who were FBI agents, and her boyfriend who worked for the Pentagon, had no idea of her activities. When she was arrested, her coworkers were shocked and psychologists were brought in to provide counseling services.
Tim Levine's experiments on deception reveal that people are more likely to cheat when given the opportunity and that they often struggle to tell the truth when asked about it.
The chapter discusses Tim Levine's research on why people are so bad at detecting lies. His research found that people have a "default to truth," meaning that they assume people are telling the truth unless they have evidence to the contrary. He also found that people are better at detecting truths than lies, but still not very good at either.
People tend to default to believing what they are told, and it takes a definitive case against their initial assumption to snap them out of this truth-default mode. This is demonstrated by the famous Stanley Milgram obedience experiment, in which volunteers were convinced that a local high-school biology teacher and a man named Mr. Wallace were actually part of an experiment, despite the transparent hoax.
The book chapter discusses the concept of belief and how it is not the absence of doubt, but rather the lack of enough doubts to push one over the threshold of belief. It uses the Milgram experiment to illustrate how people often default to truth even when they have doubts, and introduces the idea of Ana Belen Montes, who was recruited by Cuban intelligence due to her vulnerabilities and psychological weaknesses.
Ana Montes was a Cuban spy who worked in the US intelligence community for years, going unnoticed until a counterintelligence officer suspected her of being involved in a counterintelligence influence operation. Despite her impressive list of qualities, she was eventually arrested and found to have been personally given a medal by Fidel Castro.
Ana Montes was a Cuban spy who was caught after an intense two-hour interview with FBI agent, Carmichael. During the interview, Carmichael noticed a change in her demeanor when he asked her about her movements that evening, leading him to suspect that she was hiding something. After her arrest, investigators discovered that she had been meeting with her Cuban handlers in secret.
Scott Carmichael, a CIA officer, is tasked with investigating Ana Montes, a Cuban spy. He operates from the assumption that she is telling the truth, and works to square her story with that assumption. However, it takes time to accumulate enough evidence to prove a lie, and the CIA was unable to detect the Cuban's lies until four years later when the NSA decoded their communication codes and revealed the identity of the spy.
In the book chapter "Deception Detection: Theories and Techniques", the author discusses the various theories and techniques used to detect deception, including Paul Ekman's "microexpression" theory, David Levine's "truth-default theory", and the use of the SAFE system.
Chapter Four: The Holy Fool
This chapter discusses the case of Bernard Madoff, a reclusive investor who was exposed as a fraud and mastermind of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. It looks at the warning signs that were missed by Nat Simons, a portfolio manager for the Long Island–based hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, and the SEC's investigation into Madoff's operations.
Harry Markopolos was the only person to not default to truth when it came to Bernie Madoff, instead he saw him for who he really was and was able to uncover the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Harry Markopolos is a fraud investigator who grew up in a family of Greek immigrants who ran a chain of Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips outlets. His early experiences taught him to be fraud-aware and he eventually discovered Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. He reported his findings to the regulators, but was met with resistance. He eventually exposed Madoff's scheme and was hailed as a hero.
Harry Markopolos was a whistleblower who was willing to sacrifice loyalty to his institution and the support of his peers in order to expose fraud and deceit, unlike Renaissance Technologies who trusted the system. He believed that dishonesty and stupidity were everywhere, and that many public companies were cheating on their financial statements. He was an example of the "Holy Fool" archetype in Russian folklore, a social misfit who nonetheless had access to the truth.
Defaulting to truth is a logical strategy that has been beneficial to humans over the course of evolution, as it allows for efficient communication and social coordination. However, from time to time, we need Holy Fools to act as a counterbalance to the potential for deception. Harry Markopolos was a prime example of a Holy Fool, as he risked his life to expose Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Harry Markopolos was a financial analyst who uncovered Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and attempted to alert the SEC, but was met with skepticism and disbelief. He eventually resorted to disguising himself and delivering documents to Eliot Spitzer in person, but was unsuccessful. He later began carrying a gun for protection, and installed a high-security alarm system in his home.
Markopolos was a financial investigator who uncovered Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and took measures to protect himself from the SEC, such as installing an alarm system, replacing locks, and arming himself with a shotgun. James Angleton, a predecessor of Scott Carmichael, ran the counterintelligence operations of the CIA and became convinced there was a Soviet mole high inside the agency, leading to the investigation of 120 CIA officials and the eventual conclusion that Angleton was the mole.
Chapter Five: Case Study: The Boy in the Shower
Michael McQueary, a former quarterback turned assistant coach of the Pennsylvania State University football team, testified in court about an incident he witnessed in 2001 where he saw Jerry Sandusky, a beloved figure at Penn State, naked and engaged in skin-on-skin contact with a minor in the locker room shower. He reported the incident to his boss, Joe Paterno, who was visibly saddened by the news, and Paterno then reported it to the athletic director, Tim Curley, and another senior administrator, Gary Schultz.
Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child molestation after an investigation revealed he had abused young boys hundreds of times over the years. Penn State paid over $100 million in settlements to his victims. The scandal led to the resignation of Joe Paterno and the firing of Graham Spanier. Sandusky denied being a pedophile in an interview with Bob Costas, but his behavior raised questions about the university's leadership.
Jerry Sandusky was a frustrated playground director who ran a local community recreation center and ran sports programs for children. He and his wife adopted six children and were foster parents to countless more. He founded a charity called the Second Mile, which was a recreational program for troubled boys. Questions about Sandusky's conduct emerged in 1998 and again in 2008, when a boy named Aaron Fisher reported feeling uneasy about some of Sandusky's behavior.
In the 1998 and 2008 cases against Jerry Sandusky, default to truth was the main factor that allowed the abuse to continue for so long. Despite suspicions and doubts, the victims' stories were not taken seriously and Sandusky was not held accountable until an anonymous email in 2010 brought the case to the attention of the authorities.
Michael McQueary was six foot five and 225 pounds when he started as quarterback for Penn State. When he witnessed a suspicious situation between Jerry Sandusky and a young boy in the shower, he did not intervene but instead called his father and a family friend, Jonathan Dranov, who did not think the situation was serious enough to report to the authorities.
Mike McQueary witnessed something troubling in the Penn State showers in 2000/2001, but the prosecution in the Sandusky case distorted his words to make it seem like he witnessed a rape. John Ziegler argues that the incident likely happened on December 29, 2000, during Christmas break, and Mike McQueary waited five weeks to tell anyone in the university administration about it. The Larry Nassar case is also discussed, with Nassar being a doctor at Michigan State who was trusted by parents and treated injuries from competitive gymnastics.
Larry Nassar's decades-long sexual abuse of hundreds of young gymnasts was finally brought to justice in 2017 after years of warnings and allegations that were ignored by those in positions of authority.
The Larry Nassar scandal highlighted the difficulty of recognizing abuse when the perpetrator is a trusted figure, as many of his victims' parents were unable to see past their default to truth and initially defended him.
In the chapter, the author discusses the case of Larry Nassar, a former USA Gymnastics doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of young girls. The author examines the case from the perspective of one of Nassar's former supporters, Rachael Gonczar, who initially believed Nassar was innocent until the evidence against him became overwhelming. The author then compares the Nassar case to the case of Jerry Sandusky, another former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of sexual abuse, and examines the story of one of Sandusky's former supporters, Allan Myers, who eventually came to realize that he had been the boy in the shower with Sandusky the night McQueary witnessed the abuse. The author argues that defaulting to truth is essential, even in cases where the evidence is not open-and-shut.
In this book chapter, it is discussed how the prosecution of Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State football coach, was complicated by the contradictory testimonies of key witnesses. It is revealed that the most important witness, a boy in the shower, initially denied any sexual activity occurred, then changed his story and became a key prosecution witness. Other witnesses, such as Brett Swisher Houtz and Dottie Sandusky, also gave confusing testimonies that complicated the prosecution's case.
This book chapter discusses the Jerry Sandusky case and how it was interpreted by those involved. It explains how Sandusky's victims were unable to speak out about the abuse, and how the people involved in the case chose to interpret his actions as benign. It also looks at the conversations between Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and Graham Spanier, and how they all chose to interpret the events as "horseplay" instead of sexual abuse.
The chapter discusses the concept of "defaulting to truth" and how it is a human tendency to trust people and assume the best in them. It examines the case of Graham Spanier, the former president of Penn State University, who was charged with failing to protect children from a predator, and how he was defaulting to truth when he accepted the explanation that the man in the shower with a boy was just horsing around. The chapter also looks at other cases such as the Larry Nassar case and how the parents of the gymnasts were trusting of Nassar and sent their children back to him, and how defaulting to truth is not a crime and is necessary for society to function.
In the book chapter, the case of Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State University, is discussed. It covers the charges of child sexual abuse brought against him, the guilty plea of two of his supervisors, the controversy surrounding his conviction, and the evidence gathered by the prosecution. It also covers the idea of repressed memories and the skepticism of Sandusky's innocence by some. Finally, it discusses the testimony of a key witness, Allan Myers, and the prosecution's report on him.
Chapter Six: The Friends Fallacy
This chapter explores the Friends Fallacy, which is the idea that viewers can easily follow along with the show Friends even if they turn off the sound. It then uses this example to explain the bail problem, which is the fact that judges do a worse job of evaluating defendants than a computer program, even though judges know more about the defendants.
This book chapter discusses the use of FACS (Facial Action Coding System) to analyze facial expressions in the opening scene of the Friends episode “The Girl Who Hits Joey”. It explains how FACS assigns numbers to each of the 43 distinct muscle movements in the face and how it can be used to detect genuine smiles, fake smiles, and expressions of anger and disgust. It also provides a detailed analysis of the facial expressions of Ross, Chandler, and Monica in the scene.
The chapter discusses the concept of transparency, which is the idea that people’s behavior and demeanor provide an authentic and reliable window into the way they feel on the inside. It is one of the crucial tools we use to make sense of strangers. Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution suggests that accurately and quickly communicating our emotions to one another is of such crucial importance to the survival of the human species, that the face has developed into a kind of billboard for the heart. The chapter also examines how the actors in the show Friends use facial displays to convey emotions and how judges in court cases rely on facial expressions to understand the truth.
This book chapter examines the Trobriand Islands, a small archipelago off the coast of Papua New Guinea, and the people who live there. Two Spanish social scientists, Sergio Jarillo and Carlos Crivelli, tested Darwin's hypothesis that humans can accurately read emotions from facial expressions in the Trobriand Islands. They found that the Trobrianders were just as good as the schoolchildren in Madrid in recognizing facial expressions, suggesting that Darwin's hypothesis is correct.
This book chapter discusses how different cultures interpret facial expressions differently, with examples from the Trobriand Islanders, the Mwani, and the Ancient Romans. It also looks at how facial expressions are interpreted within a culture, and how the perception of facial expressions has changed over time.
This book chapter discusses how the idea of transparency, or the notion that our emotions can be read from our facial expressions, is a myth. It uses examples from a Franz Kafka short story, the sitcom Friends, and a real-life incident involving the author's father to illustrate how our emotions are often not as easily read from our faces as we may think.
This chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using computers to make bail decisions, as opposed to judges. It explains why computers can be more accurate than judges in making these decisions, and why the extra information that judges can see is not necessarily useful. It also explores the implications of this for other areas of life, such as hiring a babysitter or interviewing for a job. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that while computers can be more accurate, the personal encounter still has value.
In the chapter, the author discusses the paradox of talking to strangers, which is that while it is necessary to do so, humans are terrible at it and often dishonest about their abilities. He uses the example of Solomon, a lawyer, to illustrate the difficulty of talking to strangers and the importance of recognizing the impact of one’s words on another person. He also discusses the criminal justice system, hiring process, and selection of babysitters, which all require a human element, but also involve a great deal of error.
Chapter Seven: A (Short) Explanation of the Amanda Knox Case
Amanda Knox was wrongfully accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007 and was only declared innocent after 8 years due to the ineptitude of the police investigation and the lack of physical evidence linking Knox to the crime.
In the book chapter “Analysis and Implications of the Miscarriages of Justice of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito”, the author examines the forensic evidence used in the case and discusses the implications of the miscarriages of justice for the criminal justice system. The author also highlights the importance of transparency in the criminal justice system and the difficulty of accurately detecting lies.
Levine argues that people tend to judge others' honesty based on their demeanor, such as how well-spoken, confident, and friendly they are, rather than on any nonverbal cues associated with deception. He found that people who match the stereotype of how a liar acts are more likely to be judged as liars, even if they are telling the truth.
Human beings are not bad lie detectors, but are bad lie detectors in situations when the person being judged is mismatched (e.g. a liar acting honest or an honest person acting like a liar). This is exemplified by Bernie Madoff, who fooled many people for a long time due to his demeanor of an honest person, and Hitler, who was mismatched as a liar with the demeanor of an honest man. Similarly, Amanda Knox was mismatched as an innocent person who acted guilty, leading to her being misunderstood and misjudged.
The murder of Meredith Kercher changed the way her circle of friends behaved, with Knox displaying a lack of emotion and even being criticized for her coldness and calculated responses. Despite Knox not being guilty of the crime, she is still being judged for not displaying the expected grief and remorse.
Tim Levine's research found that experienced law enforcement agents were perfect at identifying deception in "matched" senders, but their performance was abysmal when it came to "mismatched" senders, particularly sincere-acting liars. This suggests that people charged with making determinations of innocence and guilt are as bad as or worse than the rest of us when it comes to the most difficult cases.
Amanda Knox's wrongful conviction and subsequent exoneration serves as an example of the dangers of relying on subjective interpretations of people's behavior and expressions to make judgments, rather than relying on objective evidence.
Chapter Eight: Case Study: The Fraternity Party
This chapter discusses a case study of a fraternity party where two Swedish graduate students observed a man on top of a woman outside the fraternity house. The students intervened and tackled the man, who was later identified as Brock Turner, a freshman at Stanford and a member of the university's swim team. The woman, known as Emily Doe, was unconscious and her skirt was hiked up around her waist and her underwear was on the ground. The chapter highlights the challenge of reconstructing the encounter and understanding consent in such cases, as well as the results of a 2015 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of college students which showed that 1 in 5 female college students have been victims of sexual assault.
This book chapter discusses the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses and the lack of consensus on what constitutes consent. It examines the results of a poll of college students on their views on behaviors that could constitute consent, and highlights the disconnect between the way people act and the way they feel in sexual encounters. It also discusses the role of alcohol in many of these cases, and provides an example of a case involving Brock Turner.
In this book chapter, the author discusses the drinking habits of four people at a party: Turner, Emily Doe, Julia, and Trea. Turner drank five Rolling Rock beers, Fireball Whiskey, and other alcohol. Julia drank a full bottle of wine and then went to a pregame where she opened a handle of vodka and took shots. Emily Doe had four shots of whiskey and one glass of champagne before going to the party, where she then opened a handle of vodka and poured it into a red Solo cup, drinking it all at once.
In the book chapter “People v. Brock Turner: The Unspoken Narrative of Sexual Assault”, the author examines the case of Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexual assault in 2016. The author looks at the events of the night of the assault, the trial, and the aftermath. The author argues that the case highlights the lack of understanding of consent, the prevalence of victim-blaming, and the need for better education on the issue of sexual assault.
Dwight and Anna Heath traveled to La Paz, Bolivia to do fieldwork for Dwight's dissertation. They then traveled 500 miles into the interior of eastern Bolivia to a small frontier town called Montero, inhabited by the Camba people. During the trial of Brock Turner, the jury ruled against Turner based on his unconvincing version of events and Emily Doe's level of intoxication. The prosecutor argued that Turner took advantage of someone who was "out of it" and unable to understand what was going on.
The Heaths engaged in old-fashioned ethnography in Montero, Bolivia, learning about the culture and customs of the Camba people, including their ritualized drinking parties. They discovered that the alcohol they drank was 180 proof laboratory alcohol, which no one drinks, and Dwight tested this by drinking it under controlled conditions.
Myopia theory suggests that alcohol's primary effect is to narrow our emotional and mental fields of vision, making short-term considerations loom large and more cognitively demanding, longer-term considerations fade away. This can lead to more anxiety or depression in certain situations, and can have its greatest effect in situations of high conflict.
The chapter discusses the concept of "alcohol myopia", which is the idea that when someone is drunk, their understanding of their true self changes and they become less able to consider the long-term consequences of their actions. It uses the example of the Camba people in Bolivia to illustrate how alcohol can be used to temporarily create a different world for oneself and how it can be used to manage conflicts between immediate and longer-term considerations. It also uses the example of the 2006 Benjamin Bree trial in England to show the complications that can arise from alcohol myopia.
This book chapter discusses the difficulty of determining consent in situations where alcohol is involved. It uses the example of a court case involving a man and woman who had consumed alcohol and engaged in sexual activity, to illustrate how alcohol can make it difficult to determine whether or not consent was given. The chapter highlights the need for understanding the inner state of the other person, which can be difficult to do when alcohol is involved.
Alcohol affects the frontal lobes, reward centers, amygdala, cerebellum, and hippocampus in the brain, leading to myopia, impaired coordination, and memory blackouts.
Blackouts, once rare, have become common due to heavy binge-drinking which often involves having twenty or more drinks in a sitting. The hippocampus shuts down at or around the 0.15 mark, but other parts of the brain can still function normally, making it hard to tell if someone is in a blackout.
Alcohol consumption among women has increased significantly in recent years, making them more vulnerable to blackouts, which can lead to increased risk of victimization due to decreased memory and impaired decision-making. Women are also more likely to skip meals when they drink, which can further increase their blood-alcohol levels and the risk of blackouts.
The chapter discusses the role of alcohol in sexual assault, arguing that alcohol can lead to myopia and a distorted understanding of social situations which can lead to sexual crimes. It also highlights the need for education and awareness of the risks of alcohol consumption in order to prevent further sexual assaults.
In the book chapter, Emily Doe's letter to Brock Turner is discussed, highlighting the devastating consequences of sexual assault and the importance of consent. The chapter also examines Turner's initial statement to the police, which reveals that he had no certainty about Emily Doe's involvement and that he was likely blacked out during the incident. Finally, the chapter emphasizes the role of alcohol in the incident, noting that while it was a factor, it was not the cause of the assault.
This book chapter discusses the case of Brock Turner, a college student who was convicted of sexual assault after he was found to have assaulted an unconscious woman at a party. It argues that alcohol consumption can impair judgment and lead to dangerous situations, and that it is important to be aware of the risks associated with drinking. It also argues that it is important to teach people how to respect women and how to drink responsibly, as the two are connected.
This book chapter discusses the prevalence of alcohol-related issues such as drunk driving, blacking out, and sexual assault, and how it affects both young people and adults. It also examines the differences in how alcohol is metabolized between men and women, and the effectiveness of drinking less in reducing sexual assault.
Chapter Nine: KSM: What Happens When the Stranger Is a Terrorist?
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was a senior Al Qaeda official captured in 2003, and was interrogated by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two psychologists brought in by the CIA due to their special skills in “high stakes” interrogation. KSM was defiant and brilliant, and held forth on the tactics of terrorist engagement, his strategic vision, and the goals of jihad. He had all manner of follow-ups to 9/11 planned, and his descriptions of low-tech, lone-wolf attacks were horrifying.
This book chapter discusses the extreme case of the talking-to-strangers problem, in which a terrorist wants to hold on to his secrets and an interrogator is willing to go to almost any lengths to pry them free. It examines the methods used by the interrogators, the controversy surrounding them, and the underlying problem of making sense of people we do not know.
The SERE program was designed to prepare air force officers for the possibility of capture and interrogation by enemy forces. It included techniques such as “walling” and threatening a colleague of the subject’s to extract information. One exercise involved a 55-gallon drum filled with water, which was used to simulate drowning. The women in the program tended to be more resilient than the men in the face of such interrogation tactics.
The CIA came to Mitchell and Jessen for advice on interrogation techniques, and the two of them developed a protocol that included sleep deprivation, walling, and waterboarding as the technique of last resort. They tested the techniques on themselves and two senior attorneys from the Justice Department to ensure safety procedures were in place.
In this book chapter, former CIA interrogator Mitchell describes the process of using enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) on high-level Al Qaeda operative KSM, including waterboarding, walling, and sleep deprivation. He explains that these techniques were used in a controlled environment with a physician present and that KSM was able to resist the waterboarding technique by opening his sinuses. He also notes that the EITs were used to get KSM to talk and provide information, and that they were necessary to get him to cooperate.
JPRA is a Pentagon agency that monitors SERE programs, which Charles Morgan studied to research post-traumatic stress syndrome. He found that the realistic stress of the training laboratory produced rapid and profound changes in cortisol, testosterone, and thyroid hormones, comparable to those documented in individuals undergoing physical stressors such as major surgery or actual combat.
The chapter discusses the work of psychologist Morgan Banks, who conducted experiments at the US Army's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school to study the effects of stress on memory. He found that under stressful conditions, adults would draw complex figures like a child, indicating that their prefrontal cortex had shut down. He also found that when asked to identify a person in a lineup, 20 out of 52 students misidentified the commandant, even though he had been on vacation. Morgan's work has implications for the CIA, as it suggests that information obtained from sources under stress may be unreliable.
The chapter covers the story of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), a key figure in Al Qaeda, and his interrogation by CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. It details the techniques used by Mitchell and Jessen to extract information from KSM, including sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and other forms of torture, as well as KSM's eventual public confession in 2007.
The difficulty of understanding strangers is a common challenge faced by law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and other organizations. To gain insight into a stranger, one must tread carefully and humbly, as the truth is often fragile and elusive. The Navy SERE school provides an example of how to approach such a situation, as they focus on showing people that they can resist to the best of their ability.
In a study conducted by Morgan, it was found that 77 out of 114 soldiers falsely identified their interrogators in a photo lineup 24 hours after interrogation, despite being confident in their responses.
Chapter Ten: Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath left her cottage in the English countryside for London in the fall of 1962, where she found an apartment in London’s Primrose Hill neighborhood. She wrote prolifically and was on her way to becoming one of the most celebrated young poets in the world. However, a deadly cold winter and her depression caused her to become increasingly strained. On Sunday, she sealed the kitchen door, turned on the gas in her kitchen stove, placed her head inside the oven, and took her own life.
Sylvia Plath had a history of suicidal tendencies and was in a vulnerable state when she took her own life by placing her head in an oven and turning on the gas taps, which were powered by a mixture of deadly carbon monoxide.
The book chapter discusses the transformation of the British gas industry from town gas to natural gas in the 1960s and 1970s, and how this transformation led to a significant decrease in gas suicides as carbon monoxide poisoning became a physiological impossibility.
This book chapter discusses the idea of suicide being linked to very specific circumstances and conditions, known as "coupling". It uses the modernization of British gas as an example to demonstrate how the availability of a particular method of committing suicide can affect suicide rates. It also explains how the introduction of town gas in British homes led to an increase in suicides, and how its removal in the late 1960s prevented thousands of deaths.
Coupling theory suggests that suicide is closely linked to a particular place or method, and that making it harder to commit suicide in one place or manner can prevent it from happening elsewhere. The Golden Gate Bridge is an example of this, having seen 1,500 suicides since it opened in 1937, despite the fact that a barrier or net was not installed until 2018.
The chapter discusses how people often make mistakes when dealing with strangers, such as assuming they know the stranger's thoughts and intentions and not taking into account the context in which the stranger is operating. It also looks at the example of David Weisburd's research in Brooklyn's 72nd Precinct, which found that crime was not necessarily connected to certain neighborhoods, but rather to certain streets and blocks.
Crime is highly concentrated in specific places, and is influenced by the context of the location and the time in which it is committed. Criminologists David Weisburd and Larry Sherman found that 3.3% of street segments in Minneapolis accounted for more than 50% of police calls, and that this pattern was consistent in other cities. This phenomenon is known as the Law of Crime Concentration.
Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton were friends who met in a writing seminar at Boston University, and often talked about death and suicide in detail. They would go out for drinks at the Ritz and talk opposites while drinking martinis. Plath was unlucky in that the suicide rate for women of her age in England was at its highest when she committed suicide in 1962, with a large number of deaths by gas poisoning.
Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath's suicides were complex acts that cannot be explained solely by their character and pathology, but must also take into account the social and environmental factors that influenced their decisions. Additionally, a study of a prostitution hot spot in Jersey City revealed that sex workers are more likely to change their behavior than their location, suggesting that they are coupled to place and anchored to their environment.
Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath's suicides were both determined by their individual needs and desires, with Sexton ultimately choosing to take her life by carbon monoxide poisoning in her car, while Plath chose to die by asphyxiation in her oven.
Coupling is a concept that explains how the world around us can influence our decisions, particularly when it comes to suicide. It suggests that the environment in which we live can provide the means and opportunity for suicide, and that understanding this can help us prevent it. The chapter uses the examples of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton to illustrate how the availability of lethal methods of suicide can increase the risk of suicide, and how understanding this can help us to prevent it.
This chapter discusses the potential benefits of banning handguns, such as reducing the number of suicides and homicides, and provides evidence from the Golden Gate Bridge and Seattle crime "hot spots" to illustrate the effectiveness of such a ban.
Chapter Eleven: Case Study: The Kansas City Experiments
The Kansas City Police Department conducted an experiment in the 1970s to determine the effectiveness of preventive patrol, which involved having police cars in constant, unpredictable motion throughout a city’s streets. The experiment found that beefed-up patrols had no effect on crime, citizen satisfaction, or any other statistic.
In the early 1990s, Kansas City conducted two experiments to test the effectiveness of police patrols in reducing crime, the first of which found that patrols had no effect. The second experiment, led by Lawrence Sherman, focused on reducing gun violence by having two-man teams knock on every door in a high-crime neighborhood, introducing themselves and talking about gun violence, and giving out flyers with an 800 number to call in anonymous tips.
The Kansas City Gun Experiment was an effort to reduce gun violence by implementing three strategies: door-to-door visits, training officers in spotting concealed weapons, and increased traffic stops. Ultimately, the increased traffic stops proved to be the most successful strategy.
The Kansas City experiment showed that focused police work can be effective in reducing gun crimes, as long as officers take the initiative and stop anyone they think suspicious, get out of their cars as much as possible, and go out of their way to look for weapons.
Lawrence Sherman's experiment in Kansas City showed that effective policing could be achieved by focusing on a few specific areas with high crime rates, rather than by hiring more police officers and increasing surveillance in the entire city. This idea of "coupling" was lost in the transition from Kansas City to the rest of the country, leading to an increase in traffic stops and other aggressive policing tactics that were not confined to areas with high crime rates.
The chapter discusses the concept of "coupling" and how it relates to police work, exploring how police officers' misconceptions of the concept can lead to misunderstandings and missteps. It also examines how the idea of coupling has been tested in the Derry region of Northern Ireland, and how police officers' predictions of "hot spots" often fail to match up with the actual locations of crime.
Chapter Twelve: Sandra Bland
Sandra Bland was pulled over by a Texas State Trooper on July 10, 2015 for failing to signal a lane change. The officer, Brian Encinia, made three mistakes during the stop: not defusing Bland's anger, asking her to put out her cigarette, and ordering her out of her car without cause. Bland refused to comply and was eventually removed from her car and arrested.
In this book chapter, a police encounter between Sandra Bland and Officer Encinia is described in detail. The officer pulled Bland over for a traffic violation and then escalated the situation by demanding she get out of her car. When she refused, Encinia threatened to use force and then proceeded to drag her out of the car and arrest her. Bland protested the arrest, citing her epilepsy and the fact that it was only a traffic violation. Encinia then used force to subdue her and arrested her.
The chapter discusses the need for police officers to be respectful and polite when talking to strangers, and how the Kansas City traffic stop search for guns and drugs requires a new mentality of suspecting the worst and being creative in looking for anomalies. It also outlines the tactics for criminal patrol, such as looking for cracked windshields, lane changes without signaling, following too closely, and parking in dead-end streets and cul-de-sacs to watch for improper stopping or backing.
Brian Encinia is a police officer who uses proactive policing tactics to look for suspicious activity, such as drug couriers, by looking for clues such as air fresheners, fast food remains, tools, high mileage, new tires on an old car, and too much or too little luggage. He stops people for minor infractions, such as improper reflective tape or noncompliant headlamps, in order to document that he is not selectively targeting people. On the day he stopped Sandra Bland, he had pulled over three other people in the twenty-six minutes prior.
In the book chapter, Brian Encinia's use of the Reid Technique to judge a person's innocence or guilt based on their demeanor is discussed. He uses the technique to pull over Sandra Bland and is suspicious of her due to her aggressive body language and demeanor. He also looks for other clues such as fast-food wrappers on the floor and a single key on the key ring. The chapter further explains how the Reid Technique is used by law enforcement agencies around the world to assess a person's guilt or innocence.
In the chapter, the author discusses the flawed thinking of police officers during traffic stops, using the example of Sandra Bland, who was pulled over and arrested in 2015. The author explains how officers can be trained to conduct a "concealed interrogation" based on their initial observation of the suspect, and how Sandra Bland's behavior was mismatched with the officer's expectations, leading to her arrest. The author also mentions that Bland had a history of encounters with the police, and had attempted suicide the year before her arrest.
The chapter discusses the case of Sandra Bland, a woman who died in police custody after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation. It examines the role of transparency in police encounters and how a lack of it can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. It also looks at how police officers can misinterpret the emotions of those they interact with and how this can lead to dangerous situations. Finally, it examines the Tactics for Criminal Patrol manual and how it instructs police officers to de-escalate situations.
The chapter covers the events leading up to the death of Sandra Bland in 2015, the DOJ investigation into the Ferguson Police Department in 2014, and the implications of the "Brian Encinia" style of policing. It highlights the need for police officers to be trained in de-escalation techniques and the importance of understanding the context of a situation before taking action.
The chapter discusses the case of Mike, a man who was arrested and charged with multiple offenses after being stopped by a police officer for a minor traffic violation. It highlights the issue of police officers mistaking innocent people for criminals, which has caused a breakdown of trust between police and community. The chapter also examines the Kansas City gun experiment, which was designed to minimize the harm of policing by focusing on the worst parts of the worst neighborhoods and training police officers to be more proactive in their approach.
This book chapter discusses the death of Sandra Bland, an African American woman who was pulled over by a police officer in Prairie View, Texas, and the implications of the incident. It examines the officer's actions and the implications of aggressive policing in a place with low crime, as well as the importance of understanding the relationship between crime and place. It also highlights the need for a better understanding of how to talk to strangers in our modern, borderless world.
Intelligence officers must accept the limits of their ability to decipher strangers and should not penalize one another for defaulting to truth. We should also accept the cost of forcing people to talk and assume the best about others, as this trait has created modern society. We should also put up barriers to reckless behavior and instruct young people to be aware of the difficulty of reading others. Lastly, we must recognize that the death of Sandra Bland was a collective failure, not just a bad police officer and an aggrieved young black woman.
This book chapter discusses the importance of understanding the underlying ideas and institutions that shape our interactions with strangers, as well as the consequences of not understanding them. It uses the example of Sandra Bland's traffic stop to illustrate how a lack of understanding can lead to false assumptions and blame being placed on the stranger. It also highlights the disproportionate impact of false positives on African Americans, and suggests that police officers should leave a receipt with everyone they talk to in order to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.
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