#28 - Timur Kuran

Balaji Srinivasan (0:00)

Today, I am happy to welcome Timur Kuran to The Network State Podcast. And Professor Kuran is author of Private Truths, Public Lies. And I've cited him many times over the years for people who want to understand the 2016 election, people who want to understand distributed consensus, pseudonymous consensus, to learn, want to understand the fall of the Soviet Union. So we've been a fan for a long time. And, you know, so that's how I came across Professor Kuran's account. And then I was tickled to see he followed me on X. And I wonder how you came across my account, because I don't think I've asked you this.

Timur Kuran (0:35)

I came across your account because people I follow forwarded your very interesting tweets. And I can't remember exactly what they were. But this must have been around 2017 or 2018, soon after I joined Twitter. And that's how I discovered you.

Balaji Srinivasan (1:02)

Excellent. Well, so I want you to give a quick... We can talk about the kinds of things, topics you're interested in. I'm always interested in how people are interested in each other's intellectual currents. Because I do talk a lot about tech, but I talk a lot about politics, and the future, and history, and pieces like that. So there may be strands that appeal to you or what have you. I wanted to go through your work, though, because I think Private Truths, Public Lies is something which has just started to break down in the US. Not just started, like the last six months or so, we've seen an enormous preference cascade. And maybe you can describe, summarize the book, and talk about what motivated it, and then how you apply it in other places.

Timur Kuran (1:46)

Certainly. Well, let me start with the definition of preference falsification. It's the misrepresentation of one's wants under perceived social pressures. It involves, of course, self-censorship, hiding one's actual preference from the public. But also, and this is very important, this second component is extremely important. It involves pretending to like someone something that one actually dislikes. And one engages in preference falsification to avoid social sanctions, to avoid ostracism, to avoid being called names, to avoid being associated with disreputable groups, to win favors. Now, there are many negative consequences that preference falsification has. One of it is, one is that it distorts collective decisions. Let's imagine a department, an academic department, that is trying to decide whether to continue using standardized tests in admitting PhD students. Now, thousands of departments across the United States that faced exactly this question, this issue, because there were people who argued that standardized tests discriminate against marginalized communities, so they brought the matter to department meetings. Now, imagine a department where the majority, even a very clear majority, a large majority, believes that there's a great deal of valuable information in standardized tests. Even if you don't use standardized tests exclusively, do you look at other things as well, there's a great deal of valuable information in them. But these same people are afraid of being labeled as racist, as misogynist, as insensitive, etc. And the people who are pushing hard for eliminating standardized tests are quite powerful.

They may falsify their preferences, and just to avoid the wrath of the promoters of eliminating standardized tests. And as a result, the department might eliminate standardized tests even though a clear majority believes this is a bad decision. Now, preference falsification is accompanied by what I call knowledge falsification, which is that you in the process of trying to project to the public a preference that you don't actually have, you conceal what you know and you pretend that claims made by others that you believe to be are actually true. So in the process, you distort knowledge. If you are pretending that if you believe that standardized tests are valuable, but you are pretending that they're not, you cannot publicly talk about all the virtues of standardized testing. You have to say things to be convincing you to the people who want to eliminate standardized tests or want to retain, want to prevent their reinstatement. You have to pretend that you accept all the arguments made by the opponents of standardized tests.

Balaji Srinivasan (6:13)

So, one thing that I remember from your book that I thought was interesting was, in my head, I was comparing it to a method actor. Because, sometimes, these people who are forced to mouth all of these falsehoods for a long enough time, find themselves quasi-believing the falsehood or rationalizing it to themselves. And the external lie sort of shapes the internal narrative, at least partially.

Timur Kuran (6:40)

It does. I mean, there are some people who actually come to believe their lies, perfect falsification in a wide array of context, it's becoming a visual.