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81 " of frustration and resentment that accompany interpersonal and intergroup conflict. "
― Malcolm Gladwell , Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know
82 " Aplicamos el sesgo de veracidad —aun cuando esa decisión acarrea riesgos terribles— porque no tenemos elección. La sociedad no puede funcionar de otra manera. Y en esos casos raros en los que la confianza termina en traición, aquellos que son victimizados por el sesgo de veracidad merecen nuestra simpatía, no nuestra censura. "
83 " One side made the discussion about racism—looking down at the case from ten thousand feet. The other side examined each detail of each case with a magnifying glass. What was the police officer like? What did he do, precisely? One side saw a forest, but no trees. The other side saw trees and no forest. "
84 " chatting to? Oh no.” They never question it. To snap out of truth-default mode requires what Levine calls a “trigger.” A trigger is not the same as a suspicion, or the first sliver of doubt. We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away. "
85 " Their meeting wasn’t some meaningless diplomatic reception. It began with Halifax mistaking Hitler for a footman and almost handing him his coat. And then Hitler was Hitler for five hours: sulking, shouting, digressing, denouncing. He talked about how much he hated the press. He talked about the evils of communism. Halifax listened to the performance with what another British diplomat at the time called a “mixture of astonishment, repugnance, and compassion. "
86 " We believe that the information gathered from a personal interaction is uniquely valuable. You would never hire a babysitter for your children without meeting that person first. Companies don’t hire employees blind. They call them in and interview them closely, sometimes for hours at a stretch, on more than one occasion. They do what Chamberlain did: they look people in the eye, observe their demeanor and behavior, and draw conclusions. He gave me the double handshake. Yet all that extra information Chamberlain gathered from his personal interactions with Hitler didn’t help him see Hitler more clearly. It did the opposite. "
87 " The participants in all conditions grossly overestimated their surprise expressivity,” Schützwohl wrote. Why? They “inferred their likely facial expressions to the surprising event from…folk-psychological beliefs about emotion-face associations.” Folk psychology is the kind of crude psychology we glean from cultural sources such as sitcoms. "
88 " Throughout the majority of human history, encounters—hostile or otherwise—were rarely between strangers. "
89 " What is required of us is restraint and humility. We can put up barriers on bridges to make it more difficult for that momentary impulse to become permanent. We can instruct young people that the kind of reckless drinking that takes place at a fraternity party makes the task of reading others all but impossible. There are clues to making sense of a stranger. "
90 " Something about writing poetry appears either to attract the wounded or to open new wounds... "
91 " The transparency problem ends up in the same place as the default-to-truth problem. Our strategies for dealing with strangers are deeply flawed, but they are also socially necessary. "
92 " Montezuma’s speech was not his surrender; it was his acceptance of a Spanish surrender. "
93 " What is required of us is restraint and humility. We can put up barriers on bridges to make it more difficult for that momentary impulse to become permanent. We can instruct young people that the kind of reckless drinking that takes place at a fraternity party makes the task of reading others all but impossible. There are clues to making sense of a stranger. But attending to them requires care and attention "
94 " point. 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. "
95 " The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly, it will crumple under our feet. In front that falls a second cautionary note: we need to accept that the search to understand the stranger has real limits. We will never know the whole truth. We have to be satisfied with something short of that. The right way to talk to strangers's with caution and humility. "
96 " The standard immigrant-entrepreneur story is about the redemptive power of grit and ingenuity. "
97 " Art thou not he? Art thou Montezuma? "
98 " nothing about the Aztecs, except to be in awe of their wealth and the extraordinary city they had built. Montezuma knew nothing of Cortés, except that he had approached the Aztec kingdom "
99 " when explorers began traveling across oceans and undertaking bold expeditions in previously unknown territory, an entirely new kind of encounter emerged. Cortés and Montezuma wanted to have a conversation, even though they knew nothing about the other. When "
100 " doubts trigger disbelief only when you can’t explain them away. "