Talking to strangers what is the premise of this book . Were not very good at talking to strangers. I was looking at the contemporary high profile controversies that come down to the same problem people had conversations with bernie made off and never understood who he was or at penn state the Sexual Assault case at stanford a few years back. And communications and the one that the book starts and ends with is the signature case im concerned with is the sandra bland cast on case which is a high profile in counter of africanamericans of Law Enforcement. Which was a conversation between a young black man and a Police Officer composer over and the conversation goes off the rails and i wondered why is it we fail in these conversations with strangers . Why is it important to you . Nobody loves the transcript more than me. Have people express themselves and if someone is articulate and one of and to be interviewed by the actor wesley brand. And then he starts to talk and then realize to be the astonishingly articulate people and how is it he is so commanded my attention that was a brilliant way he faced on no space that so starting with her story this is video people went to watch its a small clip and then we will talk more about it. You seem very irritated. I am. I moved over and you stopped me. Please put your cigarette. You can step out. I have to step. Step out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the car. You are under arrest. What are my under arrest for . I will drag you out of here. Get out of the car. Now. Get out of the car. All of this for what . Cspan that ended in tragedy how . Three days later she is in prison for resisting arrest and then two days later she hangs herself in her cell. A tragic and unexpected result. But the whole exchange that we saw goes on and on and on and on we just saw a snippet of it. When i first saw that online thats what i wanted to write about. Because if you break down that exchange moment by moment you can see multiple failures of understanding of empathy, a million things. Just for example and what we just saw, she lights a cigarette and now we know that sandra bland had struggled with emotional problems. She had a failed Suicide Attempt a few months earlier. She is upset and has several thousand dollars in outstanding dollars of traffic signs. That is consequential for her. This is happened before and shes deeply in debt because of it. And then to calm her nerves so shes trying to stay under control and unconsciously i think to signal to the Police Officer i dont want this to go awry. Im trying to calm down but he wont let her. He sees her light the cigarette as an act of defiance. If you watch the entire videotape you can see the two of them are talking entirely past each other he is reading her distress as evidence of something sinister or dangerous. Or malicious it is an epic misunderstanding and by reference to other stories of how it is very straightforward conversation can and in tragedy. Cspan you been thinking about these concepts for a while that you are watching this video many times and find yourself getting angrier. Its been six years since you produced a book so what was it that crystallized this is the topic . So to be drawn to between africanamericans and Police Officers and they all seem to be multilayered. But something went wrong somebody got shot that this is an excellent example there are two reports and thats explains why the officer is it indicted because its clear he didnt do anything that is an obvious violation of the law. The other report which is more important talks about the Ferguson Police department and essentially was a predatory force on the Africanamerican Community of ferguson. Using that power of authority to levy fines on as many different people to fill the coffers. The city was running itself and tickets. So cops are encouraged to write tickets for everything. When you see the things that they were engaged in the previous couple of years your draw on dash job drops this is where the Africanamerican Community was so completely alienated because they are behaving. So if you only look at the encounter the real story is what happened before and using them like the atm like no police force is supposed to do. And it was so scope a tory and a devastating critique. And that is incredibly interesting we have a tendency looking at these encounters to only do the personal look at the interaction between the cop and we can settle the issue if we can figure out what happened with that interaction. But to say this is the beginning of your job you have to take a step back and say what it is that environmental condition to predate that encounter . I wanted to do that was sandra bland only go even broader to pull in made off and all the other cases. Cspan you spent three years on this project if you look at the notes you have in the back youve never met a transcript you dont like and a lot of travel and interviews. So if people who follow you it is limitless and case studies how do you and up selecting those that say yes . There is no procedure. Its an art and then just to remind people if every story i told in this book was the story of the encounter of a young africanamerican and a Police Officer than people with think hes just talking about interactions between Police Officers and black people. I dont want that. I dont want this word to give people reason to pigeonhole this i am trying to Say Something that is broad for all of us talking to strangers. And to be incompetent or biased and those who were jumping to conclusions that he didnt and of those Police Officers so what is the consequence . Know when his dad. And then to make us complicit in these tragedies. Cspan one of the concepts you say we assault the truth . And then to understand why are a human being so bad at detecting deception . This has been studied a million different ways but basically my ability to tell if you are lying to me is scarcely better than chance. We are terrible at it. Almost all of us and its puzzling because you think we would be good at it. And then with those who are willing to believe because if you do that if you default the truth he can send your kids off to school and not worry and believe what people tell you. You can go to a Grocery Store and buy 100 items and be satisfied the bill that they give you is accurate. There 100 opportunities in your shopping cart for someone to cheat you but how often do you see seven in the Grocery Store say i dont believe its 119 . Ive only seen anyone do that is my father who is a mathematician and has a gift wed count along with the checkout person and only if they under charged him with a correct him. Remember just watching him as a kid. He would say i owe you an extra 75 cents for him it was a power trip. There is a cost to that we are not good at spotting a scam artist thats why made off exist. And is some kind of genius because if you systematically lie to people and thats the way we operate. And with those Video Archives is listen to what he has to say to the sec after bernie made off. I give them the largest thing in history they cannot be bothered to have a thorough improper investigation because they were too busy on matters of higher priority if a 59dollar ponzi scheme does not make the list and i want to know who set their priorities. He is the guy almost the only person who saw the truth of bernie made off ten years earlier he was running a massive ponzi scheme and nobody would listen to him. He is example of someone who does not default to truth i refer to him as a person like a holy fool is a russian term to describe access to the truth that none of us see and then to be appointed by the social convention to say the emperor has no clothes thats fascinating because do we want to be like mark coppolas . He could see the father rest of us could not see and had insight we did not have would society be better if there are more of him . Know. You dont want to be like him and he will tell you this he is extraordinarily suspicious and paranoid he thinks there is a scandal under every rock he is filled with a great fear he is being scammed and and then says dont do this to me im aware of all of your tracks and is so paranoid after made Office Finally busted mark coppolas and then became convinced he would have a squad of attackers you dont want to live like that. There is a cost to that insight. It is too high. You are much better off being gullible were defaulting to truth because liars like made off are rare think thats profoundly wise. Should be be better at listening is somebody says the sky is falling . It depends so how many times does he say after announcing that he was engaged in one of the largest accounting scams of all time and the story hasnt played out yet but he just shrugged and said you are off the mark on this case. So i know certainly we would do well. We should ignore them but the difference in the way most of us are calibrated and its probably a good thing to be trustworthy or one should not take the conclusion that they need to be even more heavily regulated if you reduce everyone to a state of suspicion and paranoia it can destroy the thing you try to save. With ed jerrys sandusky scandal we will come back and talk about that. That is a concern because somebody had talked to him about inappropriate behaviors. And you told him . I told him it didnt happen. In my mind it was and inappropriate behaviors. Now he serving a long prison sentence what shed we take away from this and the Michigan State situation . I have a chapter on the sandusky case that is not sandusky himself but rather what the prosecutors did after they convicted him they went after the leadership of penn state for failure to act earlier to prevent his misbehavior which i think is absurd i say go through chapter and verse by the prosecution was asking people in positions of leadership to do things they should not d do, essentially which is the president of penn state still ten years later fighting a legal battle to stay out of jail. The Vice President were both convicted and sent to jail they did absolutely nothing wrong except they did what human beings do except that they were presented with incredibly vague questions about jerrys sandusky and they chose to interpret them in the way was most favorable to the sandusky when it came to this man they said i dont know if this says maybe hes engaging and mildly appropriate behavior or boundary issues you cannot take showers anymore at penn state. But that decision on the verge of going to prison to examine the case closely but what you discover a classic example of the kind of thing we are inclined to shrug off when you default to truth at the truthfulness of what you are told rising to a level so high you cant continue to abide by that position so you see that with made off lots of people with Bernie Madoff a lot of people had doubts but it didnt reach the point where they were willing to concede to make the step to say its a ponzi scheme. With sandusky there were whispers he was seen showering with young boys but either and the football coach who spotted sandusky in the shower went home and told a medical doctor who is a friend of his family even the doctor who had a legal duty to report child abuse did not report it. He couldnt figure out what he saw. It looked weird. Than the same coach waited six weeks and then tells the leadership the next day in and says this is so pressing why did you wait so long to tell us he said it wasnt a sexual act but it made him feel weird so what do we do with that . That is what we do as human beings. And the absolute last thing you want to do two major learning institutions they should be paranoid about their employees. You cannot run the effective intellectual community if you are deeply suspicious of every the inexplicable behavior by your employees. You cant do that you cant run the Regulatory Agency even a mild digression from the straight and narrow what you do you act with an overwhelming amount of evidence there wasnt in that case and its very easy in hindsight i think to get on your high horse to say these people should have been truth tout on Truth Tellers but guess what . Pedophiles go to Great Lengths to hide whats in their heart. With those improper sexual relationships how to the into your thinking . Thats interesting. So the problem with a good analogy just to make reference to the other case you talk about which is much more straightforward than jerrys sandusky where he was a doctor at Michigan State treating young gymnasts and sexually abusing them repeatedly over and over again in the presence of their parents. And it took 15 years for him to be brought to justice. In the case of Michigan State unlike penn state they were being told quite explicitly that wrongdoing was happening and they chose to either disbelieve it and shrug or look away so this was met in the case of Michigan State. In the context of metoo even parents who are those are being abused could take the charge seriously and then to accept the fact something as heinous that has occurred and that is the same lesson that this kind of behavior has been going on for millennia. So a better example them bill cosby but be harvey weinstein. I live in new york. I know people in the film industry. It has been an open secret for years and years that he was doing unconscionable things. I would hear people talk about it ten years ago. The New York Times seven years ago tried to do a story on it but couldnt get people to speak on the record. This isnt something that popped up in 2018. This was an open secret over a decade or more that takes a long time for people to come to grips with the enormity of the crime and to find a way to do something about it. And to me that is the intriguing lesson another person and the news right now Khalid Shaikh mohammed they just set the trial date january 2021. Lets watch the video and help us understand what youre talking about here. 13 and 14 are the worst ones. And none of them which is to identify so we were looking because they wont stop the attacks. It stops the attacks is actionable intelligence and the way you get that dealt with is to get through the enhanced interrogations to use social influence after that to get the information that you want. Those that i talk to you at length as well and genuinely interested has to do an extraordinarily difficult job. What he was doing his that he had to talk to strangers that enhanced interrogation post 9 11 is a textbook example of what my book is about which is seeing the truth and truly understanding is doing her telling him but in his case hes quite open about it and resorted to extreme measures to facilitate that communication with a stranger and the question i raised in the chapter is what happens when you do that . Faced with the same problems you have someone you dont fully understand and tasked with getting the truth out of them. We see how the Police Officer botches it was tangible and misinterprets what she is about and then we see that any other examples so in this case the added element is there was physical coercion to be added into the mix to enhance the discovery process. And the point is to say that is not without its cost either. The issue of using physical coercion to get somebody to talk is that you change their memories and affect the information you are getting. So the crucial question and this is impossible to answer with certainty but there is a cost of coercion with its benefits so that would make you talk if i water board you but in the act of waterboarding do i affect your ability to remember what you did do i harm the conversation in the process to facilitate so there is a tradeoff and there is a good one but the proponents of the enhanced interrogation answer that very differently than the opponents. And my feeling in my conclusion in the book is a tend to believe the cost of coercion is high and higher than we realize and a talk at length and i studied this very question and he is quite convincing were and unchartered territory we dont know what to make of that information through physical coercion because it so compromised. So just skimming the surface of your case studies , bring it full circle what do you want leaders to understand about your thinking and what they should be thinking about and conversations with strangers . And to i want people to slow down and understand the task of getting to know a stranger is very difficult. It cannot be done quickly or easily and to speed up to make the problem worse and we need to devise systems that account for that weakness the last quote in the book is about policing and Law Enforcement strategies and what is the task of taking strangers seriously and they are far more effective and how not to say that the Police Officer needs to be a better conversationalist but he shouldnt have stopped her but you should only stop them when theres no reason to believe and he did nothing he just drove up behind her and she did not use a turn signal and a black woman that is in a sufficient reason to set in motion a potentially dangerous conversation. Cspan why didnt you exclude from your book from social medi media . I have no interest because i use it but does the world need another book on social media . So of course thats important and there are a lot of books to talk about and its unnecessary for me to weigh end but you have to ask where can i best contribute and i dont think ill those books that have been written about twitter in the last year and a half. Many of the conventional media critics and when they were polarized to examine the ways to interpret they could not feel more necessary the graphic and the New York Times so maybe we can show it to our audience to say that gladwell is turning to dark topics wondering whether or not the readers will respond. Are you turning darker thinking about the world . No. It isnt dark in the sense it is trying to make the world a better place and ask the question what can we do different that people dont have the same fate t