Steven Pinker

That was a dad joke.

That's great.

Once again, something that is public can then set off cycles of thinking about what other people are thinking about what other people are thinking.

And a similar phenomenon might be why there was a toilet paper shortage during the COVID pandemic.

It actually wasn't a toilet paper shortage until people thought there was this toilet paper shortage.

They hoarded because they thought other people were hoarding.

When stores started posting maximum three rolls per customer, that didn't so much throttle the demand as it reassured everyone that,

That there was a shortage.

Well, that other people wouldn't be able to strip the shelves bare.

So they didn't have to worry about stripping the shelves bare.

I only need three rolls, but I'm only going to ask for three rolls because none of the other people can buy more than three rolls either.

Right.

It's a level setter.

Who is the originator of this?

By the way, I still have toilet paper from the pandemic.

According to one story, it came from a big common knowledge generator in the day, namely Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

So in the old era of three networks, Johnny Carson was the king of late night.

He hosted The Tonight Show for many decades.

When you were watching it, you had a good reason to think that the rest of the country was watching it and knew that the rest of the country was watching it.

In the early 70s, after the oil embargo, when there was an oil shortage,