Excerpts from –文摘–和陌生人对话

不对称的错觉-Illusion of Asymmetric insights

The conviction that we know others better than they know us and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)-leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly.

我们坚信我们对别人的了解比别人对我们的了解更透彻，我们具有对别人没有自觉的洞见（反之则不成立）。正是这样的错误认识导致在我们应该洗耳恭听的时候急着说话，当别人表示他们认为自己被误解和误判时没有足够的耐心。

Because of this illusion of asymmetric insights, we think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced, complex, and enigmatic, but the stranger is easy.

正是因为这种不对称的错觉，我们看到一些蛛丝马迹，就着急地下结论，认为自己已经看穿陌生人的内心。是的，对于陌生人我们是会毫不犹豫的下结论；可对于自己，在下结论之前可就小心多了，我们所细致入微、复杂而神秘的；但陌生人就简单得多。

以上的不对称错觉正违反了孙子兵法的 “知彼知己，百战不殆”的原则，认为知彼要比知己要容易得多。面对一个陌生人，而你对该陌生人的判断对你自己，家人，所在的团体，国家会有重大影响是，记住看穿陌生人不容易，最好把那个陌生人当做一块人类从未踏足过的土地，一个你从未听说过、从未到过的国家那样来看待，不要妄下结论。

Default to Truth(默认为真）

We have a default to truth: our operating assumption is that the people we are dealing with are honest.
默认为真：我们通常假设正在与我们打交道的人是诚实的。

You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them. Only if there are enough red flags, you will be pushed over the threshold of belief. If there are not, then by default to truth because you are only human.

你相信某人不是因为你对他没有怀疑。相信并不是没有怀疑。你相信某人是因为你没有足够的证据证明你的怀疑。只有当有足够的危险信号时，你才会推翻默认的真。如果没有，那就默认为真，因为你是常人。

I think an antidote to this default to-truth mechanism is an old Chinese saying, “The intention to harm others is unacceptable, and the intention to prevent others is indispensable”—害人之心不可有，防人之心不可无。

我认为针对“默认为真”的解药是一句中国俗语，“害人之心不可有，防人之心不可无。”

The holy fool (神圣的法官）

The holy fool is a social misfit–eccentric, off-putting, sometimes even crazy–who nonetheless has access to the truth. The holy fool is a truth-teller because he is an outcast. Those who are not part of existing social hierachies are free to blurt out inconvenient truths or question things the rest of us take for granted, The holy fool is someone who thinks liars and con man are not as rare as one thinks. Society benefits from Holy fools because they perform a valuable role, but we cannot all be holy fools.

神圣的傻瓜(圣愚）是一个与社会格格不入的人——古怪、令人反感，有时甚至疯狂——尽管如此，他还是可以接触到真相。圣愚是一个讲真话的人，因为他是一个被抛弃的人，他可以说出不属于现有社会等级制度的人可以自由地脱口而出不便的真相，或者质疑我们其他人认为理所当然的事情。神圣傻瓜认为欺骗和谎言并不像人们所认为的那么罕见。社会受益于圣愚，因为他们扮演着宝贵的角色，但我们不可能人人都是圣愚。

The advantage to human beings lies in assuming that strangers are truthful. What we get in exchange for being vulnerable to an occasional lie is efficient communication and social coordination. The benefits are huge and the costs are trivial in comparison. Sure, we get deceived once in a while. That is just the cost of doing business.

假设陌生人是诚实的对我们有益。和高效的沟通和社会协调相比偶尔受欺骗的代价微不足道。偶尔会被骗只是社会正常运行必须付出的成本。

Friends Fallacy (知人知面不知心）

The facial expressions of actors/actresses in the sitcom <friends> match exactly the emotion they are supposed to express, but common people’s expressions of emotions most of the time do not match the stereotypes; this will cause judges’ jurisdictions worse than a computer. More information is worse than no information.

情景喜剧《老友记》中男女演员的面部表情与他们应该表达的情绪完全匹配，但普通人的情绪表达大多与刻板印象不符；这将导致法官的司法管辖权比计算机更糟糕。更多的信息比没有信息更糟糕。

We can guess right the people whose level of truthfulness corresponds with how they look. If the person is a liar but has the demeanor of an honest person, then we cannot detect him as a liar.

我们可以正确地猜测那些真实程度与他们的外表相对应的人。如果这个人是个骗子，但举止诚实，那么我们就无法发现他是个骗子。

The Myopia Effect of Alcohol

The myopia theory was first suggested by psychologists Claude Steele and Robert Josephs. Alcohol’s principal effect is to narrow our emotional and mental fields of vision. it creates ” a state of shortsightedness in which superficially understood, immediate aspects of experience have a disproportionate influence on behavior and emotion.” Alcohol makes the thing in the foreground more salient and the thing in the background less significant. It makes short-term considerations loom larger, and more cognitively demanding, and longer-term considerations fade away. To give an example, if a drunkard is at a football game surrounded by rabid fans, the excitement and drama going on around him will temporarily crowd out his pressing worldly concerns because the game is front and center, his worries are not. However, if the same man is in a quiet corner of a bar, drinking alone, he will get more depressed.

近视理论最早是由心理学家克劳德·斯蒂尔和罗伯特·约瑟夫斯提出的。酒精的主要作用是缩小我们的情感和心理视野。它造成了“一种短视的状态，在这种状态下，表面上理解的、直接的体验对我们的行为和情感产生了不成比例的影响。”酒精使眼前的事物更加突出，而背景中的事物则不那么重要；使短期考虑变得更大，而认知要求更高的长期考虑则逐渐消失。举个例子，如果一个醉汉在狂热的球迷包围下观看足球比赛，他周围的兴奋和戏剧性会暂时让他忘记他平日的各种焦虑。因为比赛实实在在在眼前如火如荼的进行，而他的担忧没有。然而，如果同一个人在酒吧安静的角落里独自喝酒，他就会变得更加沮丧。