Why is it so hard to tickle yourself?

Paul Seabright is the author of the Company of Strangers a fascinating exploration of human behaviour in complex worlds. The new edition has just come out and this is a video of Paul’s talk at the RSA. It is forty minutes well spent with some really interesting insights. I am adding Paul’s book to my reading list for aspiring Oxbridge students this summer.

Humans are social primates and human brains have astonishingly sophisticated abilities to size up social and comic relationships - we conduct complex exchanges relying on trustworthy nature of our partners in a deal - in most cases we have never met them. Most exchanges in economics are between strangers - we have no connection with virtually every person or network involved in supplying goods and services to us. Paul draws on lessons and recent research in neuroscience and behavioural economics and explains why we need to invent a machine if we actually want to tickle ourselves to a state of ecstasy