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
For more info, see here
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