Talking To Strangers
Malcolm Gladwell

Summary

Gladwell does a great job explaining how we really have no idea what other people are thinking, even those we think we know really well

Rating: 4/5

Notes

We believe info gathered from meeting a person is uniquely valuable but it’s not always true

Strangers are not easy to understand

When we listen to strangers, we operate under the assumption they are telling the truth

We need a trigger to snap out of the default to truth but threshold for triggers is high

Alcohol is not an agent of disinhibition but an agent of myopia where it creates a feeling of short sightedness where everything in the short term becomes much more important. When you’re drunk, the understanding of yourself changes

The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility

Coupling is a concept where one thing is directly associated with something else (suicide off the golden gate bridge)

• You need to understand context in which the stranger is operating

Like suicide, crime is connected to places and context

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