{"product_id":"when-everyone-knows-that-everyone-knows","title":"When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals, a \"fascinating\" (\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e), brilliantly insightful work that explains how we think about each other's thoughts about each other's thoughts, ad infinitum.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness is called \u003ci\u003ecommon knowledge\u003c\/i\u003e, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Common knowledge is necessary for \u003ci\u003ecoordination\u003c\/i\u003e, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It's also necessary for \u003ci\u003esocial\u003c\/i\u003e coordination: everything from meeting up at a time and place to forming enduring bonds of friendship, romance, or authority. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e But people also may strive to \u003ci\u003eavoid\u003c\/i\u003e common knowledge--to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can't know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life's enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that seem to come from out of nowhere, the eruption of cancel culture, and even the awkwardness of a first date.","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52122665287900,"sku":"9781668011591","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/4845\/9740\/files\/imageloader_7eed6081-e4b7-46de-b0ac-25db94872216.jpg?v=1785259837","url":"https:\/\/tworiversweirdsisters.com\/products\/when-everyone-knows-that-everyone-knows","provider":"Two Rivers \u0026 Weird Sisters","version":"1.0","type":"link"}