Jules van Binsbergen

speaker

478 appearances 6 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 13 Aug

Jules van Binsbergen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions · Rerun: Ep69 “The Science Behind Why We Don’t Just Say What We Mean” with Psychologist Steven Pinker - Part 1 · 15 Jul 2026 podcast

Right.

I think that is a very clear and salient example.

And so when you say, you know, common knowledge is usually a mathematical modeling tool, I agree with that.

But there are a couple of these examples and a couple of these anecdotes that we all know.

Where no pun intended, where this is a very important event that just occurred.

So for example, in the emperor not wearing clothes, every individual observes that the emperor is not wearing any clothes and therefore has a piece of information potentially that says, Well, this person is not wearing any clothes.

But what is missing is that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows

Because due to these tailors that were around the emperor, there is this information failure that has happened where everybody starts to doubt am I really the only one who is seeing this?

And therefore they don't know that somebody else knows.

And then when that little boy screams out and says it

Of course, that is the moment that it becomes common knowledge.

Because if in the public square the boy screams it out, and now everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows in Advanitum that the emperor is wearing no clothes, suddenly the entire social equilibrium in that society changes.

And I think that just that example is very telling for how powerful common knowledge can be compared to

A piece of information being out there with all individuals, but not people not knowing that other people know that other people know and so forth.

Yes, I think that's a great idea, Jonathan.

Let's do that.

Thank you.

Steven, it's so wonderful to have you on the podcast.

So, in economics, common knowledge has mainly been treated, I think unduly, as a mathematical tool to solve models only.

And one thing that is just absolutely fascinating to me about your book is that you're really showing that it's very important to understand common knowledge to understand human behavior.

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