🎭 The deniability hood: why groups prefer not to know

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 01:00:00 +1100

In The Elephant in the Brain, Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson argue that human behavior is driven by hidden motives we rarely acknowledge, even to ourselves. The paradox sounds wrong at first: shouldn’t ignorance be most useful when it is hidden?

What they said

It’s never useful to have secret gaps in your knowledge, or to adopt false beliefs that you keep entirely to yourself. The entire value of strategic ignorance and related phenomena lies in the way others act when they believe that you’re ignorant. Ignorance is at its most useful when it is most public.

DeniabilityHood on behaviorengineering.ai

🎭 The deniability hood: why groups prefer not to know

What they said