Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

From the first time I spotted “The Tipping Point” at a bookstore, I was hooked. Malcolm Gladwell has an art for weaving stories and analyses of social phenomenon. His latest book, Talking to Strangers was a fun binge. On the other hand, this book covers some heavy material.

The book central ideas are: truth-default theory, transparency, and coupling. Humans are likely to default-to-truth, unless given sufficient evidence otherwise. Transparency is the idea that the way a stranger looks and acts is a reliable clue to the way they feel. Our behaviours are more coupled to our environment, more than we like to admit.

The book starts with a story involving Sandra Bland, who has an encounter with a police officer. The officer ends up arresting her for failing to signal, and Sandra hangs herself in her jail cell a few days later.

Truth Default Theory

Before we dive deeper into Sandra’s story, Gladwell segues into stories between adversaries. In the first story, we explore the first encounter between Cortés and Montezuma. Mistaking Montezuma’s humility for a literal admission of weakness, Cortez conquers the Aztecs. During WWII, Neville Chamberlain is confident he can de-escalate the tensions with Germany. Adolf Hitler convinces Chamberlain that Germany has no ambitions beyond a few disputed territories. History remembers Chamberlain as a fool who trusted a war-monger. In both of these encounters, one party failed to judge the true intent of their adversaries. Gladwell argues that Chamberlain was better off reading Mein Kampf than meeting Hitler.

How susceptible are human judges from deception? Gladwell a machine learning algorithm that resulted in better parole hearing outcomes¹. Given the incentive to mislead or deceive, exposure to more information is harmful. This reminds me of the story of Michael LaPaglia² (not in the book). Gladwell tells the story of Ana Montes, one of the most damaging spies in American history. Ana Montes leaked secrets to the Cubans for 15 years leaking secrets. Counter-intelligence agents investigated her, yet found her not guilty. Ana’s stellar reputation, benign excuses, let her escape from arrest for many years.

When we default-to-truth, we sometimes overlook mounting evidence. Jerry Sandusky was a well-respected football coach, and a generous and charitable person. One night, a witness caught Jerry sexually abusing a young boy. Almost a decade past before Jerry was arrested. Many of his victims looked up to him as a father figure, and their testimonies buried under layers of trauma. Gladwell points out that many people assume there’s a larger conspiracy at play. School administration trying to cover up for him, or for some monetary gain. Humans tend to want to believe the best in people. Especially when those people tell you their version of the truth.

In contrast, Gladwell writes about Larry Nassar, another sexual predator. Nassar sexually abused women, sometimes in front of their parents. His cover-up story is that it was part of his medical procedures. A decade and hundreds of victims later, enough evidence mounted to prosecute him. In this case, the people involved in “covering up” are the parents of the victims. There’s no way that these parents would want such a terrible thing for their children. Again, humans tend to want to believe the best in people. Who could fathom such atrocities were happening to their own children?

As far as Ponzi scheme goes, Bernie Madoff holds the record for the largest at tens of billions of American dollars. Gladwell’s focus on the events is less about Madoff, but more about Harry Markopolos. Markopolos is a whistleblower whom is suspect of everyone. Gladwell follows Markopolos’ attempts to rally support, but was repeatedly ignored. Audio excerpts easily paints an image of Markopolos as the caricature of a man wearing a tinfoil hat. Markpolos had a reputation for distrusting everyone. The lesson here is that the basis of our society relies on good faith and trust. Without this, human co-operation is not ³. If we all acted like Markopolos, we may avoid all risks, yet limit our potential as well.

Transparency

Academic laboratories study facial gestures to encode and decode people’s feelings. How accurate is this? Characters on TV/Film convey their emotions in dramatized way to the audience. Real life does not work this way, yet we often assume we can read people’s intentions based on their body language.

Amanda Knox is the young American woman accused of murdering her Italian roommate. Living amongst a foreign country, she was misunderstood. She did not seem remorseful enough. She was goofy-natured. How she acted did not fit a preconceive mold of how one should deal with grief. Prosecutors and police officers alike misjudge her character. She spent 4 years in jail before acquittal.

KSM was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. The FBI locked him up and tortured him for many years. Turns out chronic torture will fuck up your brain and memories. Today, KSM is one of the most notorious terrorists out there, yet many doubt his testimonies. When someone has nothing to lose, and only reputation to gain, why not lie?

Brock Turner raped Chanel Miller while she was unconscious. They met at a frat party. Gladwell argues that talking to strangers is hard enough - Mixing courtship, heavy binge drinking rituals, and unstructured social norms? Absolute disaster. A side effect to feminism is that women have become heavier drinkers. Under the influence, people’s memories can be misleading and blackout altogether. At the same time, people demonstrate the ability to carry out somewhat complex tasks. Gladwell agrees that consent and respect are crucial. However, how effective are these methods in the absence of sobriety?

Coupling

Sylvia Plath took her own life via carbon monoxide poisoning, by sticking her head into an oven. This was only possible during the “town gas years” before the push for natural gas. Carbon monoxide had higher suicide rates compared to the baseline during those years. A popular misconception claims suicidal people will take their lives under any circumstance. The mechanism chosen to take one’s life is significant when committing to go through with it. Sylvia Plath’s suicide is coupled to the accessibility of carbon-monoxide.

This brings us to the raising crime in America. In Boston, a criminologist notices that a crime is concentrated amongst a few city blocks. This analysis is carried out throughout America and the world, and holds true. Therefore, crime and location are coupled. The conclusion is that the most effective method of patrol, is to monitor a handful of streets. This was counter-intuitive to law enforcement beliefs at the time. The adage at the time is to spray patrol across as much of the city as possible. Kansas City found great success in deploying officers in problematic intersections. Kansas City ran an experiment to frisk people under a reasonable cause. There are a myriad of excuses for an officer to pull someone over while they are driving.

End

We finally return to Sandra Bland’s story. Sandra Bland is trying to pull over to get out of the way of the officer’s speeding vehicle. The officer pulls her over for failing to signal. As a recent recent transplant to Texas, Sandra is also trying to get a fresh start. Sandra has negative encounters in the past with police officers. A common experience amongst black Americans. Sandra is also in debt, from minor traffic infractions in her past life in Illinois. This is how the intersecting social phenomenal play out. Empowered by Kansas City’s experiment, the officer to pull Sandra over for a flimsy excuse. The officer does not default to truth. He is suspicious of people he’s not familiar with in a peaceful neighbourhood, as trained. Sandra was rightfully frustrated, and the officer chooses to escalate the situation. He assumes her irritation means she’s someone not cooperative. Sandra is arrested. Despite having lost a child and godmother recently, with a record of attempted suicide, is not placed on suicide watch. She takes her life.