why doesn't the snail do it anyway? because there is a compromise between the needs of survival and reproduction. the snail that had a shell that was too thick would be less likely to reproduce because it puts too much work and too much energy into thickening its shell and doesn't have enough left over for reproduction. so the ottoman shell thickness for the fluke, for the parasite inside of the snail is thicker than for the snail itself which is why i'm saying that the thicker shell is an extended phenotype of the fluke. generalizing that again, any time that a parasite has an effect on its host, which many of them do, sometimes quite remarkable effects, you can call that an extended phenotype. there's another kind of worm

called the brain worm which infects ants and an infected ant has its behavior change. the brain worm burrows into the brain of the ant ant and make solution in the brain of the ant just like a physiologist might make a lesion in the brain of an ant and causes the ants to instead of going down into the ground in the heat of the day the ant goes up grass stems to the top where it shouldn't be in the middle of the day and there it becomes vulnerable to being eaten by a sheep which is exactly what the brain worm wants because the brain worm's next host after the ant is a sheep. there are lots and lots of examples of parasites manipulating their hosts for their own advantage. i want to regard every one of those changes in the host behavior as an extended phenotype.

finally, a parasite doesn't actually have to live inside its host. cuckoo's and the american equivalent of cuckoo's parasitize other birds by laying eggs in the other birds nest in the cuckoo hatches out and i talk about cuckoo's, european cuckoos and all kinds of adaptations of the nestling could do influence the host and cause the host bird to defeat it. you see grotesque pictures of gigantic baby cuckoos dwarfing their foster parent in the foster parent is frantically working to stuff food into the gaping more of the cuckoo. the cuckoo somehow manages to exert an influence on the behavior of the house.

that again is an extended phenotype even though the cuckoo does not live inside of its host. then you can generalize that to any influence that animals have on each other. the nightingale song preferably intoxicating by heartaches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense. one minute past. keats was not a bird. he was a mammal but the effect that the drugging of fact as though of him hemlock the drugging effect on john keats is i am conjecturing the same as the male nightingale is having on a female nightingale. so the female nightingale is being drugged by the male nightingale song, manipulated.

it's as though a brain physiologist had come along and injected a drug into the female. the male can do that. he doesn't have a hypodermic but he does have a voice. and the voice has been honed over generations to become an extremely powerful intoxicating influence, very intoxicating that it even intoxicated john keats at whom it was not and since he is not a female nightingale. that is enough for me to phenotype. sorry i went on a bit long. [applause] >> as you know better than any of us there have been a number of questions and challenges and criticisms of the evolutionary biological thesis of the role

that genetic mechanisms, to ask you to try and comment, refused a couple of the most obvious. what is all true some? how do you explain all tourism and you invoke or you describe your belief in the hamilton ru rule, a colleague of yours, a friend and i will allow you to explain that to the audience and then does that apply to one of your oxford mentors mike colin who had such a significant influence in your career? >> yes. the book the selfish gene could have just as well been called the author is taking because much of the book is about all tourism. it's widely misunderstood as being a book about selfishness or even an advocacy of selfishness.

it is thought to be that by people who have read the book by title only. reading the title and omitting the rather large footnote which is the book itself. [laughter] a lot of it is about all true some and discuss his two main ways in which all touristic organisms are favored by selfish genes. selfish genes because they are the immortals, because they are the ones that go through the generations, they achieved this feat of going through the generations partly by programming their bodies, their vehicles into being very good at surviving at the expense of others. that would be selfish. partly by programming them to reproduce obviously contrary to the next generation. if you are a genie don't cause your vehicle to reproduce but also there's another way to do it with collateral kin. you can calculate and it's been

done several times. you can calculate the probability that a gene in you will be in inner and a relative you like like a nephew, a niece, a sister, great-nephew or a grandchild and the probability is a known function. it's easy to calculate. so if you imagine a gene for making an individual be all touristic towards saying nieces that gene has a 25% chance of ending up in the body of a niece helped. so therefore at the cost of the altar altar is, the cost to the altar is is not very great and the benefit to the niece, to the beneficiary is great, and in this case it has to be four times as great, then that gene will survive. there will be a tendency for

that gene to survive. bill hamilton whom you have just mentioned my colleague and friend was the one who worked out this theory, work it out very thoroughly in 1964. he himself was a great expert in social insects and which of course are the supreme altar is to look after ken other than their own offspring. most of the work in an ant colony or a termite colony or a beehive is done by workers who are sterile who have no prospect of reproducing themselves but instead put all their efforts into the reproduction of the queen or males and their rearing of young queens and young males who may be their younger siblings or nephews and nieces. so the social insects are the sort of showcase of this theory of king's vote -- kin selection

and the theory of place while animals even if they don't actually show all tourism towards collateral can nephews and nieces or brothers and sisters. the reason they don't show it is the economics of the situation don't favor it. you only get an actual evolution of sibling all tourism or niece all tourism if the economic circumstances favorite taking into account the spout probability factor of the probability of sharing a gene. happens that the ecological economic circumstances of ants and bees lost in termite's favor extreme can all tourism and there are quite another -- quite a lot of woodpeckers in california and mammals being the most extreme the native rat of australia which are vertebrate

equivalents of social insects. it's powerful and correct one. >> eldritch this is where schizophrenia comes in. how do you understand conditions and diseases such as autism or schizophrenia which their reproductive capacity of individuals is significantly impaired but their population frequency remained stable or increases if you believe the cdc figures of rates of autism? >> yes, the question of why we have any genetic diseases at all of courses easily answered by a mutation. there's a certain rare occurrence of mutations, things like hemophilia, huntington's korea and these terrible if off elections which are genetic.

they are explained by mutation. mutation happens, mutation has to happen. they are accidental. they are just mistakes and we notice the ones that are bad as many of them are. but when you talk about things like schizophrenia which occur at a higher frequency than you would expect by mutation that's a real puzzle. one is kind of tempted to think along the lines of could there be some sort of advantage? it's hard to imagine it in schizophrenia but one could imagine in some cases that autism that autistic individuals might have advantages under some circumstances and it doesn't sound all that plausible but it has been suggested that perhaps there is a milder form a long

the spectrum that have an advantage. this is your field more than mind so i am often pontificating about it. >> maybe if i write a book about it someday you will interview me about it. i can't conclude the interview without asking one question about the god delusion which was one of your books somewhat of a departure. and i gather you were appointed if not friends with christopher hitchens and he spoke at his funeral. so how does your view of religion in this context compare to those of hitchens or sam harris in this country who has written about this? >> well they are pretty similar. christopher hitchens' book, "god is not great," sam harris wrote the end of faith and the other two books which are about atheism for him.

i would say that my approach to atheism is a more scientific one. i'm interested in the academic question of whether there is a supreme intelligence, creative intelligence behind the universe which i regard as a scientific question. it will be a very interesting scientific hypothesis that there is a creative intelligence behind the universe, a universe with a creative intelligence would be a different kind of universe from one without. so i think it's a scientific question and that for me is primary but the book also includes value considerations as well. i think for christopher is rather that the values in the morality of the politics come first. he regarded god, i suppose especially the judeo-christian muslim god as it tyrants, is a

dictator, and a solid steel north korea. [laughter] he said the difference is in north korea you can at least escape by dying. [laughter] [applause] >> there are enough. i wanted to share related to religion as a matter of fact an anecdote that relates to the issue of how your book has impacted individuals, people, our society and i'm not sure to what degree you have informed yourself about that or what your thoughts are but just by coincidence on the way down here today i was talking with a

friend who is actually in the audience, mark jackman, a young man recently graduated from college who is a journalist now from the television networks. and he read the selfish gene when he was a freshman and he was in a parochial school. he said it completely transformed his thinking about all of a sudden what might've been viewed as the delusion or the abrogation that is presented to people in religion and parochial school had a different view is that the curtain had been pulled back and he had a much more enlightened sort of understanding of that and he really did something i can't help but mention. his mother came and took them in one night and said i love you and he said of course you do, i have your genes. [laughter] so he didn't go off the rails

and end up doing anything that was disruptive but in the content -- context about your book has impacted society do you have any fitted or distinct impressions? >> well, i must say is true of a lot of people have said that to change them. a lot of people have said they went into biology because of it which of course is immensely gratifying to me. i think it's probably true and i hasten to say that the ideas in the selfish gene are all in the literature already. i express them. pacom from hamilton and we just mentioned but i think it probably is as a result of the selfish gene that field biologists doing muddy boots research in the woods and fields and serengeti and african places when they look at their animals, whatever their animals are lions

or seagulls they see those animals as maximizing their own genetic survival. i think that probably is a genuine change that has come about. although in a sense i was re-expressing orthodoxy, near darwinian orthodoxy dating from the 1930s i suppose i did put it in a sort of vivid rhetorical language which caused it to catch fire in the minds of field biologists in the way the previews we have been rather sort of academic and perhaps haven't really taken it on board. i think that's the most credit that i can claim. >> we are going to stop in a moment and invite questions for a few minutes but before doing so i just wanted to ask, appetite for wonder, your

current book takes us through 1976, which is the year of the publication of the selfish gene which is roughly half of your life. what comes next? >> okay, the autobiography commissioned by the publisher was supposed to be my whole life. when i got halfway through i sort of felt the need for a sense of accomplishment. so i asked the publishers whether they would mind splitting it in half and they were actually quite pleased about the idea. and they suggested that the selfish gene would be a good breakpoint and indeed it was. so i started at the age of 35 in the second volume is one that i have just about finished it now. it's called brief candle in the dark which is instantly recognized as an allusion to shakespeare followed by carl sagan and science as a candle in

the dark. and it takes an eight up to my present age. it is not chronological in the way that an appetite for wonder is. it's thematic and the themes are things like television, lectures, books, that kind of thing. and it will come out in 2015. >> i'm glad that i asked that question. we have something to look forward to. so i want to thank the professor for this discussion and we have the queue that is forming to take as many of the stage manager will allow us so sir. >> my question is this. one of your fellow atheist sam harris has come up with a book where he is focused on marrying rationality with spirituality

and i'm kind of interested and you know what your atheistic perspective on that and any thoughts on the ben affleck bill maher controversy? >> it would be to align sam harris to accuse him of becoming religious. he is an atheist and he is a great believer in meditation techniques as a physiological technique for leading a good life, meditation in meditation techniques have been perfected by buddhists. to that extent some -- sam could be confused with a buddhist but that should not take the form of supernatural beliefs in things like reincarnation. there's nothing new about it. sam has been interested in

meditation i think for much of his life. spiritual concerns will i think, carl sagan who i just quoted science as a candle in the dark also would have had a different kind of spiritual concern as to why. one response in a sort of poetic way which could be called spiritual to the wonders of the universe and of life. the ben affleck who i didn't know but i understand he is. [laughter] what was on bill maher's show with sam harris and he vigorously and vitriolic layout tacked sam accusing him of racism because sam has criticized islam and that's a very easy thing to do but it's a very silly superficial thing to do because of course islam is not a race.

it is an enormous way widespread misconception that anybody who criticizes islam is being religious. i would say that if you can convert to it or are possible with ties of it then it's not a race, okay? [laughter] [applause] >> so it's nonsense to criticize people like sam harris and indeed may hugo after the extremes that islam can deliver as racism. i thought it was a rather disgraceful exhibition of bigotry on ben affleck's part and there's a kind of condescension about it actually as well because the horrific things that are done in the islamic world, but the horrific

things that are done to people, two women, stoning women to death for the crime of being raped, throwing acid in their face for the crime of refusing to marry a cousin, refusing to let them drive cars, refusing to let them leave the house and less in the company of a male relative. these horrific things, misogynistic things it's almost as though one is saying you brown people, we don't hold you to the same standards of nonmisogyny as we hold ourselves. now isn't that a patronizing and condescending thing to do to use a different standard to say we don't criticize you because

misogyny is as part of your culture. that i think is what ben affleck was doing among other things. it was a disagree out -- disagreeable episode and i thought sam handled it quite well today. i think it was unexpected. didn't think ben affleck had read anything that sam had written. i think he was briefed by someone who said sam harris does a racist and go after him to this is what i suspect. >> probably his publicist. [applause] >> a pleasure to meet you mr mr. dawkins panetta question for you. after having read darwin and i've read almost everything you have ever written that has been published one of the questions that always seems to seep through my mind is when we talk about the big bang theory and we talk about evolution, one of the questions that i always have mulling around in my mind is when you think of the first unicellular organism.

how's the scientific community figured out where that first cell originated from? >> no it hasn't and it's one of the big open questions. it's something that happened a very long time ago for probably about 4 billion years ago, not long after the earth came into existence about 4.5 billion years ago. we know the kind of thing it had to be. it had to be the origin of the first cells replicating information, the first gene although it certainly would not have been dna. dna would have almost certainly come in later and usurped the role of the original replicator so most of the theorizing and i would say perhaps all the theorizing going on now is looking for the chemical event, some kind of a lucky random chemical event which gave rise to a molecule which was self

replicating. as i say it would not have been dna. dna can do its job without protein and protein can do its job without dna so there's a catch-22 there. it could have been rna because rna is capable both of doing the job of protein which is being a capitalistic in some sort of an executive function in the cell and rna also can do what dna does. mainly the replication function although not as well as dna. so the current vogue theory is that the original self replicating molecule might have been rna. it did both jobs. both the enzyme job and later taken over by protein and the replication job later taken over by dna and rna remains is a very important mediator between them. >> excuse me we need to move on

because there are so many people find you. thanks for the great question. >> thank you so much for your great answer. >> good evening. i read the selfish gene quite a while ago and i remember the altar is a a menu touch touch on the talking about kin selection but the other was reciprocal altar was reciprocal ultras him and i wonder is that considered currently viable and what struck me at the time and thinking about how that might work is that mike is a byproduct of that give a certain selection pressure to identify cheaters and if you identify cheaters do you also punish cheaters so i wonder if that makes sense and has that been examined in the biological world, punishment systems and the this sort of thing? >> very much so. there are two problems and explaining altruism.

the individuals concerned don't have to be members of the same species and not even the same kingdom. there is reciprocal subtotal between flowers and bees the bees pollinating the flowers and the flowers feeding the bees with aviation fuel which is nectar. reciprocation works because a new game theory terms we have a nonzero-sum game. both parties benefit from the other one's presence. when it happens within a species that often concerns doing it turns feeding the other individual for example and the expectation that being said later. a beautiful example of this is the work of wilkinson on bats, vampire bats which as you know blood. wilkinson worked out as a blood donor scheme in these bats.

they feed at night and day not a way at the heels of things like cows and can blood. and then they go back to their caves by day. at any one night, but that may strike lucky in which case it gets a surplus of blood or it may strike unlucky and get no blood at all. wilkinson showed that if he gets no blood at all it's in great danger of dying. these bats need food every single day whereas when they get a surplus they have more than they need so it's a perfect situation for reciprocal altruism and they do indeed feed each other. at bat that has a surplus of blood will be solicited by at bat that struck unlucky that night and the starving and the one with the surplus will

regurgitate its surplus to the starving one so that's reciprocal altruism. it's part of the theory that this should only work if the bats know each other so that they can identify potential cheaters as you have said and identified those individual bats who do good turns. and what wilkinson did was to set up artificial combinations of bats in the lab and some of his artificial combinations of bats were from the same cave and therefore knew each other and others of his artificial conglomerates of bats didn't know each other and sure enough it turned out that the ones that knew each other practice reciprocal authorism, practiced the blood donor scheme where's the ones that did not know each other didn't do that. that's just one particular

example that the theory would be that it's a very common phenomenon and things like guilt, cheating, consciousness of debt may be important in human evolution. our very ability to do arithmetic may come from a tendency to reckon up debts that we owe to potential, to all tourists. ..

[inaudible] >> i don't think i really understand that. >> whether they argue the result of this. >> this includes genetics research and we determined this human line of he was human and who is not human. of any challenges or questions.

>> [inaudible] >> there are many things that we have going on with this, whether it is schizophrenia or sickle cell disease. there is no sort of categorization of a specific racial identification of those purely based upon the genetic principles order those that have suffered a mutation that has cost out. but the racial politics that have been completely deleted from credible scientific investigation. and so we can make some kind of consolation in the fact that that is part of this. >> that is right.

the human species is extremely uniform and there are separation of different races and there is a very minor separation we are very close. >> good evening. touching back as there has been a string and then underlying question and i'm looking for different opinions like that of christopher hitchens and others, my question is that can any good or great good come from religion, good as and beneficial to humanity, or should we do away with it? >> i don't think any good can come of it. but i don't think that we should do away with the in this sense. i would like to think that it is simply something that will wither away. but i fear that that may take a long time.

>> what do you mean in the first sense of good, that no good can come of it? >> i simply can't think of any good that comes of it. [inaudible conversations] >> i am told by our stage manager that we only have time for one more question. and there are two more questions. okay. >> hello, i am a big fan. i have always wondered about intelligence and the singularity of intelligence and i wanted to ask you in particular if there is any room in evolution or singularity of intelligence and a species or human race. >> what was the word before in singularity? >> tentacle. >> i can kind of see what he

said singularity might mean come a sudden abrupt change. >> if you want the word, i can change it to perfection. >> yeah, well, okay. let's take this, which would sort of mean a sudden abrupt change. and i don't know that. i think it is arguable that the or in a language is the arguable the singularity. we don't know whether there was or whether there is a major change in this way. so that would probably be the best guess i could think of, which would be the origin. >> the idea of this would exist to so many different forms of

intelligence. >> last question. i'm sorry we can't take anymore because of this time constraint. >> hello, i have a question about the role of religion in communities. i grew up in miami beach and there are half a million jews here. and i noticed something that they always seem to be well connected to each other and these are the friends i have, they are secular. do you think that religion has a role in establishing communities or all they are better ways to establish communities? because this seems to be very well-connected and i kind of wish there was a way that i could do this. >> that is right, and what is good about it is the idea of community and fellowship and friendship. that is what we should be working toward. you simply don't need religion to do that. you can set out with community and fellowship and that is what we ought to be doing rather than

tying it to supernatural superstition. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> that concludes our first day of live coverage from the miami book fair. we are back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern time for more author talks enter calls with the likes of randall kennedy and others. today's entire schedule will re-air tonight at midnight eastern. >> this is booktv on c-span2. television for serious readers. here is our primetime lineup.

coming up next, many rich liberals like jc and elon musk use a distortion of the public market system. and then steven pinker, author of the sense of style discusses how we can improve the quality of our writing. then at 10:00 p.m. on "after words" him a shill atkinson talks about being obstructed and harassed and monitored by the obama administration. we wrap up our primetime lineup at 11:00 p.m. eastern with editor william buckley who has a new book out entitled the pity party which takes a look at liberal compassion and that all happens next on booktv. >> coming up next, jason mattera argues that many are using their

crony connections to loot public treasury and distort the free market system. this is about one hour. >> today it is my pleasure to introduce to you a great young american, jason mattera. he is a best-selling author, entitled obama zombies. and and we have all gathered here to talk about his new book, "captialism", how many can make money off of your tax dollars. including vice president joe biden, michael bloomberg and a countless number of others. and this includes internet legend. currently he is the publisher of the daily search and surge and we are proud to work with our good friend here to keep a

relationship going. please help me in welcoming jason mattera. >> i want to thank the young america foundation for inviting me here today and we have such magnificent new security. italy's great to be back both as a student and then as an employee after i graduated as well. it really feels like i am coming back home and sort is always a privilege to be with them. and so okay, we are here to talk about capitalism. but it's always interesting doing interviews on radio and tv

and we get a little bit of a spark every time the host mentions that when they say something they wouldn't usually say in an interview and i guess the most interesting thing in the person of probably have the most enjoyment, pat robertson, and he really got a kick out of playing it over and over again. and so the reason why i went ahead and wrote this, obviously it is not a common nation on capitalism, not at all, it is the greatest economic system that i've ever known. it has built the middle class and it has created pathways out of poverty.

most importantly it has kept this man off food stamps which must've saved taxpayers millions of dollars. [laughter] and so unfortunately today we do not have a free-market system, which is a system where you have people turning political access into crony access. and that should be in capitalizing goods and services that we would not have a shrimp otherwise. it allows others to become more rich and famous and most disturbingly it has enabled two classes of citizens, those who benefit from these connections and those who do not. and this includes the conversion of the rule of law using it to rig bids in your favor and so it

exposes some of the more egregious things and they all have that same common thread with those connections to minimize exposure and maximize other things. and so by definition is and a variety of ways in which we hear about these green energy companies and capitalism at its finest. building a sports stadium for some billionaire or it is little known tax credits that actually are thankful and generally their

actual subsidies going to produce this as well. it's using the government to rig the game in their favor and leaving taxpayers holding the bill. and so the book has 27 chapters on 27 different cronies and that is what you get in the book. but i wanted to highlight this the best i can. i have some who i really enjoyed writing about including those that will be recognized such as this man. the self-appointed best rapper

alive, jay-z. he will go on television. and he will talk about the haves and the have-nots, talking about wealth disparity in america. and he said that it was getting to such a stark point that no amount of police would be able to stop the problem. and so it's interesting because he has the partnership, an interesting partnership that sort of belies his concerns for the working man. and he is partners on the right. david rosenberg who runs an

investment firm, he runs an ohio-based collection agency that has been involved in a number of federal and state investigations such as those that have resolved their debt decades earlier and getting that money from them, suggesting that they were lawyers and they needed representation and there have been dozens of suits against the company and so certainly there is something fishy going on. so if you're thinking that i included a picture of david rosenberg, and also can kardashian, you're disturbed individual. but he gets a spot there because he helps to build a monument

there. and so brooklyn now has this and jc was the one man die for this, the one-man pr machine to moving them from new jersey over to brooklyn. and he also partnered with bruce ratner who was a real estate developer in new york city. and he saw where the berkeley center says. and he saw an opportunity to build luxury apartments. but the problem was that these apartments that he wanted to build were sitting on land that was owned by other people. and so he decided to say, how can we do this so i can build my luxury apartments, one way you

can do it if you do use of eminent domain and unfortunately for him you cannot use this to kick people off the property. but what did he decide to do? welcome you could use it to have businesses relocate if you have a public good that includes escorting [inaudible] because of all the thousands of jobs they're supposed to bring. so that is where he got jay-z involved. he became a minority shareholder of the nets and also of the center itself. so he got his luxury apartment which is still ongoing and he helped to bring the brooklyn nets to brooklyn and new yorkers were able to offer $760 billion in government subsidies to help two build this monstrosity which is then name, the rusty turtle, and also the so that he can have a luxury apartment and use his

celebrity status to laugh about this. he laughed about how he made no offer of this deal. that includes the haves and have-nots, wealth disparity, he could have used this status to bring awareness to this economic injustice. if he wanted this or one of the stadium, he didn't have to go head and do this to do so. he could've found this on his own. if he wanted to pursue this project. and of course, that thousands of jobs and anytime there is a public and private partnership, their light okay, it's usually not right. the thousands of jobs never materialized for new yorkers and

most of the jobs they are our part-time and not even full-time jobs. that's what 760 million in subsidies gets you and of course the politicians think it's a big deal as well. so next up, the real-life iron man, elon musk, and he refers to himself that way. he's worth $8.9 billion and he's one of these case studies that as a man that cofounded paypal and built his wealth doing that he ended up in the united states and to this day calls himself a big believer in the free market and says he is self-made and will invest money into projects and he will not expect other people to go ahead and invest except that he does expect

others to go ahead and invest and that includes the taxpayer. the biggest brainchild. what is most known for today is probably tesla. tesla is one of these electric cars that is built for the super rich. they are for you. except that they are largely dependent and profitable today because of government subsidies and regulations. not only did they score a bail out early on, but they also benefit from a shop in california who decided it is a good idea that fossil fuel inducing states either have to produce this, cars that have zero emissions, or they have to buy clean energy credits to absolve them of their global

situation. the clean energy credit can be bought from car companies like best. so here we have elon musk who is supportive of these rules and regulations because they actually add to the bottom line. just to give an example with this in the first quarter 2013, the overall profit was $11 million. and none of that $11 million, $60 million of revenue was generated and that includes profitable automakers who liked clean air credits from companies like tesla because they are mandated to by law. and elon musk was also in favor of a carbon tax on a federal level because he would benefit from that as well. so it's not just automakers in california but those and other fossil fuel producing companies around the country that would

have to go and involve themselves in purchase these clean air credits. and as if that wasn't bad enough, they also benefit because the federal government will give someone a tax credit up to $7500 for buying an electric needle. the state of california will give them up to $5000 for buying an electric vehicle and that includes people that had the money already and could afford it if they wanted to on their own. but this is not capitalism. and in fact if i can do this and it doesn't catch fire on the highway, that's great. and i would be all intuitive it's not going to mess up my electricity bill one of plug it in at night. so even if i thought the environment would go down the tubes because of the suvs on the

road, it's something for another day. but it's just that this business model is making this part of their plans whether they want to or not and they are not viable without the generous subsidies of the federal government. and another company, this one is even worse than tesla. which installs solar panels for presidential homes and businesses across the country and this is from one of their financial filings are they essentially admit that it is the dentist tax structure and lucrative tax credits where they can turn into direct from the treasury, if they go away, it's going to harm their business

model. solar panels can go ahead and roll the energy costs and you want to put them on your roof and your neighbors are okay with that, then cool, go ahead. so here is an exact example of capitalism today where that is not the case, where first you have business leaders who were free markets at one point in their life, and they are building a business model around the government subsidies. and they are forcing us to be involved whether we like it or not but it's also bad for the entrepreneur because if that government is eventually turned off and we hope that it is, then this business tanks and there's no actual market for these products and it's not viable

either. he has almost the supernatural ability to gobble up these tax dollars. next up is the owner of the minnesota vikings and it's such a shame that this has even inundated sports for that matter. it is so annoying that it is professional sports loaded with politics and other government regulations today and according to forbes they just pass this mark and you would figure that someone then thought it was worth a billion dollars and they would have the ability to go ahead and finance the

construction if they wanted to. that would be the logical conclusion but unfortunately the people in minnesota, the good folks there were talked into a $490 million in public subsidies to build a new sports arena. and of course he had this during the ongoing debate that must've taken place in minnesota. you have the vikings showing up to the legislative session in the politicians. and adrian peterson at the time, i just wish it was happening now. and they probably wouldn't have gone that far in trying to produce these subsidies. but they were supposed to be looking out and being a steward of the taxpayer money to build

him a glitzy new sports stadium. one democratic state senator in minnesota said that it should be a bipartisan affair condemning the practice and can we disagree that this man finances on stadium. one actually did the math and said that a hundred $98 million would be analogous to $72 per ticket, including the preseason, every game, every single minnesota taxpayer. and it's not like you get to go to the game for free. but minneapolis is also on the hook for almost a billion dollars a year in operating

costs. so they are also making sure that it happens smoothly as well. and so while this was happening and they were trying to get them to fork over this money for the stadium, he bought a 19 million-dollar co-op in new york city overlooking the park. and that is what they do. to minimize disclosure and if i had $19 million to spend, i don't know if i would do that. and you have to fork over all of this money and that includes economic development and all of that when it happens.

and that includes how affordable this team can really be. next up, john doerr. is no conflict, no interest. he is a business partner to al gore. and his big issue is climate change and the environment and he also says things that can be taken as a little bit hyperbolic, such as the one day that if we don't do anything to

stop the precipice of global warming that the art will be counted. and interestingly, i know this is a big coincidence, but the solution to fight global warming to be on the economic advisory board, there was a place where there was a lot of stimulus money and the coincidence is that john doerr had solutions to many of these problems that just happened to line his own pocket. to succeed in of these companies that he had invested in just happened to receive lucrative government subsidies and so he said we need to fight climate change that i may believe him more so if the prescription

wasn't to go ahead and also do what he had done. one of those companies was a solar panel manufacturing company in the house oversees a little over a hundred million dollars in subsidies are you and it would then be sold to another company and clean energy haven and you may have heard of them in china. and so they received this money from the taxpayer in and they were sold to the chinese for $32 million. and now there's been no conflict and no interest model which makes sense.

and he is there using the means to go ahead and continue alongside promoting these solutions to climate change that just happened to pick our pockets. next up is sally sussman. she is a second generation capitalism. her father is lewis sussman and he has been a very involved over the years because he sucks so much money because he helped president obama and he got a

nice ambassadorship to london. but sally is his daughter and is also the top lobbyist advisor and the interesting thing when it comes to capitalism and many and much of the animosity from this is they would direct it and say we have all these big businesses and banks and the bailouts and this needs to end and this is capitalism and michael moore did it documentary about it, it was all something that conservatives had routinely condemned. including getting them into crony profits. so here you have it with the

largest here in america and also also responsible for viagra and it has spent over $300 million lobbying for obamacare. so why would they want obamacare to ask about this? they want government added in this way. and they wanted more government conclusions because it meant mandating customers and and now every entrance policy in america can be covered by insurance like

this. so we are happy to pick up the price tag for all of these prescription drugs generally namebrand ones and that is why it continues to this day, war on women, free birth control, women's rights and the 15 minutes of fame. it was never about rights or free birth control, it was about how they could get this to the customer, and they did. and in fact before obamacare was passed they actually had this bill was about to expire and it was a huge cash cow for them. and it was really hitting the bottom line with the more expensive name brand one.

so how could they get around it. they get around it by making sure that every state covers not only namebrand prescriptions but also birth control and women's rights and freedom and feminism and it was all about them having this with customers. see recall the farmerpharmaceutical industry talked about this debate in obamacare convincing us that obamacare was a prescription that we really needed. and it was supposed to be a great deal for all of us. but now pfizer says their prospects are looking up and there was a study recently that

said because of obamacare and mandating the prescription drugs we expect at least $115 billion in added revenue and now with the prospects looking up and sally susman was there from the beginning trying to get this law passed and lobbying forward after obamacare past and the law started to take effect, she cashed in her stock $4 million, so it's good for her and the rest of us are stuck with this misery. so next up is one that is similar to john doerr and elon

musk. a venture capitalist who made his money and generally they are investing in companies knowing that maybe nine of them are going to go bust. but they are hoping that this gives them a return on investment whether in jobs or employment being brought to an area. but unfortunately the equation has changed and where can we get this to invest as well and i will invest alongside it. and so his companies have been

such terrible investments in green energy sector that even 60 minutes called him out earlier in the year. calling you out on the green energy companies where if something has not gone right for you. they actually stood by this, expecting us to fork over the products by comparing green energy funding and system sizing to the money that we have spent over the years. and this is someone i had the opportunity to have a little chat with. on all the money that he is wasting, it's an interesting analogy comparing it to green

energy funding. so rather than me going tell you about this, i will still tell you about it. >> i'm being offensive? you compared green energy to cancer research. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> to have been looking for a cure for cancer for a long time. how much money has the u.s. government spent max. >> liens and billions of dollars. should we stop looking for a cure for cancer because we haven't found it yet? >> this is this venture capitalists talking about money lost in the green energy sector

by comparing them to cancer research. of course he won't. while he hit it big as a founder of sun microsystems in the 80s, many of those re-companies either wamp bust or are teetering on bankruptcy like range fuels. this was supposed to convert woodchips ethanol fuels. instead it became a debt that the american taxpayer had to eat and we didn't even get as much as thank you card from vinod khosla. >> when are you going to include these energy boondoggles that you have wanted to have a strong over the years? >> the topic here is different and i'm not interested.

>> do you still compare this to tax research? >> yes, i do. >> you can see how that is wildly offensive remark to figure. >> i'm being offensive? >> you compare this to cancer research and i'm being offensive. [inaudible] >> you want to give taxpayers an explanation? >> can you stop? i'm having conversations. >> what do you think will go down in this way? >> range fuels? which one? >> i guess i could mention

nortek wind power. funded by taxpayers. ♪ ♪ >> there you have vinod khosla, who is not used to getting these questions and he should. you go back to individuals who are not household names, aiming them to vote democrats and republicans because they don't care about ideology but they care about those that offer them the most crony process. and also it's a similar equation to venture capitalism to see which one is going to stick and give the biggest return for

people like this. so we will throw money and we will see which one actually gets a return on that and that return is taxpayers backing all of these green energy boondoggles for these companies and either have gone bust or are on the point of a pepsi. and they just have no idea what to do in regards to this. coming up next, this representative greg meeks. he is one who not only has government work for him, but he also works in government. here is a man, and i have a video of him. he actually on his financial disclosure form sounds like he

is the scope joke and he shows very little money in his checking account. and he doesn't show any accumulation as well. but he makes it interesting and he is still able to drive a lexus. and so the thing about this is that you and i are paying for it. and some members of congress, specifically congressmen can have taxpayers, some members of congress do this. and the theory is as it can drive on that and meet your constituency and people who do take advantage of this generally

get a nice toyota corolla or something like that that is reasonable. but this guy drives a lexus $4000 per month. and he also somehow managed to score a home in new york that was listed by the city for $1.2 million and he scored it for about 800 30,000 dollars. for the going market rate at the time. would you be shocked if i told you that he scored this from a campaign contributor. he did, from a campaign contributor. he's also been a part of the charity and help cofounder charity that has been accused of embezzling funds for hurricane katrina victims. and no one else knows where the money went, and then he says he has no idea what happened to it.

he also took out a loan from another campaign contributor worth $40,000. he declared it is a long but he forgot to until many years later and there was no documentation actually on the loan and he said that he lost it, of course. so this is someone who campaigns and goes to the super bowl every year, members of congress get early tickets from the nfl ticket agency and then he says it's a fund-raising event at the super bowl. but here is a guy in congress living a lifestyle that he would otherwise be unable to afford. and so certainly not just to greg and others and notably harry reid. but i thought i would highlight

this because he's not only an agree just violator, but if anything he should be granting interviews behind ourselves. but with greg meeks, we also have a conversation. [inaudible] >> whatever happened? is that a made-up thing to? ♪ ♪ ♪ >> let's meet greg meeks. this man includes scoring at

home, $400,000 below market rate for the campaign contributors, obtaining $40,000 from another donor, but neglected to report the money as a loan. cofounder charity and accused of embezzling 30,000 dollars for hurricane katrina victims. and because he's that kind of guy, he also leases a lexus for $1000 per month. but none of those are scandals according to him. he is just a misunderstood politician who unwittingly found himself in one of unethical situation after another. or something like that. >> hello, i am jason mattera from new york. i wanted to ask you a question, how many more scandals do think you will be involved in for your career is up we max. >> i'm not in any scandals. >> not me?

>> not me. >> there are a lot of members of congress who have done this. [inaudible] >> that was not a fact. >> the hurricane katrina fund that went missing two on and on and on? what about you'd driving a taxpayer-funded lexus? are you still doing that? >> that is not illegal. >> a thousand dollars a month? >> may be where the scandal. >> [inaudible] >> check the facts. >> the city list of over

1.2 million. >> check the facts. >> check your facts. >> you don't offer an apprenticeship of sorts on how i can live large on the taxpayer dime? >> this interview is over, thank you. >> what do you think? >> this interview is over or whatever happened to this? is that made-up as well? nothing? >> where did the hurricane katrina funds go? >> he's using an elevator now >> he's using an elevator now. >> this interview is over. >> why does everyone around you seem to be on some sort of investigation?

[inaudible] >> this investigation started. we are doing an investigation. >> there are so many investigations. >> because of you. >> because of me? >> so apparently it is because of me. an ongoing clout at all times of ethical improprieties. and it's interesting when you talk about this, even "the new york times" is talking about this. and when the city list the home price, they have such a substantial production and most people would say that it's an

example of what is going on. including using their ability to enrich themselves and their families. those are just several examples that i feature in my book, "craptialism." but the representative is turning this into a crony process. so rather than going to the good old days, you had a business plan and he wanted to go to congress to represent the people and be stewards to affect liberties, now it's about lining their own pockets and maximizing the exposure of this. the irony is from the obama administration that has given a pretty good game on

redistribution of wealth, talking about economic justice and growing disparities between the 1% and the rest. but if you look over the last six years there has been a redistribution of wealth and it's not as though we imagine. it has gone from the middle class to those that have connected access and wealth disparity has actually increased under the obama administration. if this is increasing because of what we had talked about, good for them, that should be laudable and emulated. but oftentimes it's happening now because there's products and services offer that we enjoy the because we are being forced to do so with products that we would not have otherwise. we need to call them out on a local level, a statewide level, a national level.

and so we have the opportunity to highlight the justices and actually be a champion for the middle class and for the little guy and so they trample all over the little guy. they are phony and hypocrites and they are called out and there are those that like to give the veneer that they are for free-market and four at be deregulated business environment. and as i point out and others in the book, they do everything possible to make sure that the government can crush the competition and impose onerous regulation that would hurt, also hurt the competition. and it doesn't necessarily mean that just because a business or big business that they automatically have the

principles of free-market. generally they are trying to undermine the free market. so with that, we have enough information than we can certainly ringdown shame on the capitalist who would rather win their way to the top, not through hard work and competition in the whole practice is part of this. with that, i will end. and i would like to thank the foundation for hosting us. [applause] [inaudible] >> jason sawyer smith, thank you

for being here, and thank you for all you do to help expose stories like these. my question is what can we the taxpayers do to combat this? >> that is an excellent question. many of these issues that i detail can be dealt with on a local level. so the federal government isn't forcing us to build these sports arenas. we shouldn't give them any new ideas. but it's happening on a local and statewide level where people could really get involved to make their voices heard through their own city councils and state legislatures, and they can make an issue, especially when many states are facing other prices is today. there's no way we should be defunding these types of programs. many of the issues that are detailed can actually be dull at

on the local level and as i point out in the book, the democrats and republicans are both in agreement and it can be a bipartisan issue that can push ideological lines, getting individuals to actually watch out for the taxpayer. >> the stadium deal is tied into this here in washington, can we talk what is now what died within a couple of years the fedex stadium and then his family was subject to estate tax and the government took half the values of it and had it driven sports owners, in your opinion, cannot take the risk of paying for the stadium, or the arena,

having that paid back to the government which is a person that may normally owned the team. >> that is a great question. many of the financing structures that are happening as of late, technically sports owner doesn't own the new stadium but it's owned by the city and then the arena is least to be like a dollar per year. so technically they don't own it, but it's owned by the city and one example that i point to in the book is the founder and ceo of little caesar's pizza. and it's not because he offers terrible pizza. i'm from new york, and i know good pizza. but he also owns the detroit red wings and tigers and he got the city to build a new stadium and

he's also going to have an entertainment district and arena around the stadium as well. so he will get at least to him or something minimal like a dollar per year. so that is how many people avoid things. but if these owners want to go ahead and try to get as illuminated, which it should, be told everyone in this room partner to do so. >> my question is who do you think are the right people to elect so that we will be less susceptible to this kind of stuff, what kind of people, what kind of background or they come from?

>> well, it's almost not about elections. they always held, but it's certainly not about that. so it's not automatically supporting publicans are democrats but really looking for that core conservative libertarian principle and who embodies that as we scale back the size of government. so the solution is fairly easy. the process to get there has proven to be a lot more arduous. but the problem with big government is that you have big government contracts and you have big businesses who are buying and lobbying for the big government contracts. and anytime you have politicians with the ability to go ahead and play got in the market place and picked winners and losers, those who can donate to the campaign, those who show up to the right party, though his that can do this in their favor. so i would say look for the

right person who is genuinely interested in scaling back the size of government and minimizing their roles in the marketplace, minimizing their role in trying to aggrandize power. you get many individuals who come here to washington dc. and they may have originally said they would be a good steward for the taxpayers and they get sucked into the bubble and realized the power that is there and the money and then they go ahead and they sell their this and they get it job on lobbying and it's very vicious as it takes place. i also think if we had real media in this country, certainly in dc, we would see a lot of the scandals minimized.

but i don't know why he says welcome. i mean, it is insane, this guy should be covered on a daily basis on these issues. harry reid is someone who was born into poverty who entered politics with very little money and is going to leave politics and multimillionaire. and he's been on the government salary on his life and how does that happen? and there were issues on how he's moved his way to enrich himself and his family. ..

to scale down the size of government to see what politicians promise, what comes to pass and follow the money trail and how these politicians are utilizing their perches to live while the rest of us are stuck with their miserable pieces of legislation. [inaudible] how would you respond that the

corporation has a responsibility and it's on them. to maximize prophets for shareholders and therefore should take advantage of any subsidies or credits etc. that are available legally and the facts, and whether they are ethical or not? >> that's an excellent question. and if that's so why shouldn't they lobby for the benefit of stockholders to gain additional subsidies? >> the last emission is the bigger problem. if a government subsidy is the there, why not take advantage of it is at the heart of the question. in yeah a lot of business owners may struggle and say yeah we want to do this are on way but the problem nap today is it's not a government subsidy is

there to be offered. you have the lobbying for the continuation of a subsidy or from creating subsidies that were holy new that didn't exist before. so you have someone say like elon musk who again was the real deal entrepreneur. now he is not just taking green subsidies that are available to him, he is lobbying for a carbon tax because it would mean even more subsidies to him so these individuals the same thing with general electric and jeffrey immelt usa classic s. because he's a registered republican and claims to be a believer in free market so you look at what ge is backing today. ge is pushing for the electric nation of the electric fleet to taxpayers. it happens that ge builds the charging station. so it's not that they are taken

advantage of the subsidies that excess but loving to push for the creation of new subsidies. they are addicted to corporate welfare and they don't want the faucet turned off anytime soon. they are looking to keep it running and to keep that government gravy train going. so it may maximize profits for shareholders in the beginning but then again if that government faucet is ever turned off the shareholders are going to lose big-time. it's not a viable business model because without the government it wouldn't exist and it would go belly-up very quickly. so i think from a business owner's perspective they should look at and this doesn't apply to small business owners. it's generally large corporations in the silicon valley or on wall street but they are going to hire those at sea number of lobbyists and spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in order to keep

the subsidies going and create new ones and it's money that could be spent innovating new products or hiring more people to create new things. instead it's going towards picking our pockets. [applause] i just wanted to think andy for coming in anyone interesting in getting a free chapter in other books here for everyone but the free chapter is that the web site capitalism.com. you get a free chapter go ahead and get the book but there are a ton of other stu by the way not just the ones that you saw today so i would encourage everyone to go there and thanks again to young america foundation. such an wonderful organization and i'm proud to have worked and served with them and i will be serving with them just at a

different capacity. [applause] >> thank you again jason. that was fantastic. today you guys will each be receiving a copy of jason's book and we will have a complementary book signing out in the front lobby. you guys entered from the elevator space so make sure you stop by and jason will be there signing your copies. milton friedman said there's no such thing as a free lunch but today's your lucky day. you have a complementary lunch set up free in the kitchen which is to the hallway and they will have staff guiding you over there. we actually have that quote on the wall in her kitchen so i thought it would reference it as a bit of a joke and make sure before you cut out that you get your parking validated as well. if you guys parked in the garage are today at our receptionist desk she will be happy to help you out with the parking validation. thank you so much for coming. we appreciate it and again happy halloween and enjoy your lunch.

[applause] >> host: booktv is on location at the new york public library in midtown manhattan. ann thornton is joining us from the library. what did you hear? >> guest: in the andrew w. mellon director of the research library for the public library. there are four research libraries. there is this one in midtown manhattan, the schomberg sent in for research in black culture in harlem, the library for the performing arts at lincoln center and the business library at 34th street and madison avenue. >> host: as director would you do? >> guest: i'm i'm responsible for a collections exhibition fellowships reference and

research services for all of those facilities as well as preservation. >> host: and we will have been co-thornton and show us some of the collections of the research library paraphernalia but where are we right now? >> guest: we are in a magnificent reading room of the new york public library which is really the heart and soul of the library. you see here lots of users who are taking advantage of the library's resources, not only our physical resources, our books in their materials but also technology which is incredibly important. >> host: even though this room is kind of quiet and sedate if you look at the window you can see the entire city of new york. >> guest: absolutely, that's right in when the library was founded in 1911 there weren't these tall buildings outside the reading room. instead all you could see was sky so it's really a place where the city has grown up around the library. >> host: why's it called the rose reading room? >> guest: at the rose family named this reading room in honor of their children when it was

renovated in 1998 and during that renovation every square inch of the surfaces in this room were touched by a craftsperson so it has really been restored to its original splendor. >> host: do you know about the paintings up on the top? >> guest: these are murals that we had to re-create. they were in such bad state of disrepair before the renovation and so these were created in his studio on campus and then installed here. they are not painted michelangelo style. it's. >> host: how much of the library's collection of artifacts are available for people to see? >> guest: all of them. our collections are more than 51 million items and we have all kinds of things from books to manuscript and archival material to photographs, prince, menus, maps all kinds of materials. >> host: one of those valuable

items is this. what are we looking at here? >> guest: this is a gutenberg bible volume. we have a gutenberg bible in our collection. many great research libraries on the rope do. you see one of the volumes here. this gutenberg bible was the first one to be brought to the united states in the mid-19th century so it's remarkable in that way. >> host: and is on display for anyone walking by to see if? >> guest: absolutely so the technology here of course is what's remarkable about this. for movable type in 1455. >> university steven pinker author of "the sense of style" discusses how we can improve the quality of our writing. professor pinker says while texting and the internet are currently blamed for developing bad writing habits writing well has always been a difficult

task. this event was held at barnes & noble booksellers in new york city. it's just over an hour. >> good evening ladies and gentlemen. welcome to barnes & noble. i am pleased to welcome tonight's guest professor steven pinker from the department of psychology at harvard here to introduce his new book, "the sense of style" the thinking person's guide to writing in the 21st century. his work in cognition and psychology of language has granted multiple accolades among them has been named foreign policies list of 100 global thinkers and tithe be 100 most influential people in the world today. please join me in welcoming steven pinker and "the sense of style." [applause] >> thank you. why is so much writing so bad

and how can we make it better? why do we have to decipher so much legalese like the revocation regulations of the provision previously revoked subject to savings does not affect it to be continued operations. why do we have to endure so much academics like it is the moment of nonconstruction disclosing the oxidation of sexuality from a a concept in part to its imitation to emphasize in reading the helplessness of it's folly to conceptual holiday. why's it so hard to set the time on a digital alarm clock? well there is no shortage of theories and the most popular one is captured in this cartoon where the tech writer says good start needs more jewish. in other words bad writing is a delivery choice. bureaucrats insist on gibberish to evade responsibility.

pasty faced nerds get their revenge on the girls who turned them down for dates and the jocks who kick sand in their faces. pseudo-intellectuals try to bamboozle their readers with highfalutin gobbledygook, concealing the fact that they have nothing to say. i think there's a problem with the bamboozlement. though no doubt it applies to some writers some of the time but in my experience i know plenty of scholars and scientists who do groundbreaking work on important subjects. they have no need to impress and nothing to hide. still they're writing stinks. good people can write bad prose. the other popular theory is that its digital media that he wrote of the language. google is making us stupid. the digital age stupefy's young americans and jeopardizes our future. twitter is forcing us to think and write at 140 characters.

well there is a think a problem with the dumbest generation theory too because it makes a prediction that it was much better before the digital age and those of you who were around in the 1980s remember what it was like in that decade. that was the decade in which teenagers spoke in fluent paragraphs. bureaucrats wrote in clear prose. every academic article was a masterpiece in the art of bsa. you remember those days, don't you? or was it the 70s? the thing is bad prose have burdened us in every era. in 1961 the commentators on line would say reach it -- recent graduates completing university degrees seem to have no master the language at all. maybe it was better earlier in the 20th century before the advent of television and radio like in 1917. from every college in the country goes up the cry of our

freshmen can't spell and can't punctuate. every high school is in disrepair because people are so ignorant of the rudiments. maybe if we go back even farther like the 18th century when they are saying our language is degenerating very fast. i began to fear it will be impossible to check it and then there are the ancient grammar police who said for crying out loud you never end a sentence with a little birdie. [laughter] i think a better theory is inspired by one of my favorite things by charles darwin that man has an instinctive tendency to speak as we see in the battle or young children wears no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew or right. speech is instinctive, writing is and always has been hard. the reader is a known invisible. they exist only in the writer's imagination. the reader can't break-in or reactor ask for clarification

and so writing is an active act of pretense and writing is an act of craftsmanship. well classic prose gives the reader credit for knowing the concepts are hard to define and many controversies are hard to resolve. the reader is there to see what the writer is going to do about it. another corollary is to minimize the reflexive hedging that many scholars engage in, the drizzling of prose with fluffy modifiers like somewhat fairly, nearly seemingly and comparatively predominately to some extent so to speak and presumably which implies that they don't really mean what they are saying. similarly many academics tend to overuse shutter "backs. i will give an example of a sentence that does both. this comes from a letter of recommendation i read for a candidate from an admission to graduate school.

are we supposed to understand this is saying this young woman is a quick study or she is a quick study mainly someone who is alleged to be a quick study but really isn't. and virtually that there are some areas where she tried to educate herself but failed? the use of these hedges is so ingrained among many scholars that at one point that i met an eminent scientist and i asked her how she was and she pulled out a picture of her 4-year-old daughter and she deems we virtually adore her. [laughter] why is there so much compulsive hedging and academia and other kinds of professional leaves?

is to follow that bureaucrats abbreviate cya, cover your anatomy. there is an alternative credo reads so, sue me. you state what you mean and you count on the ordinary charity of conversation that we all engage in to make a conversation possible. so if someone says that they want to move out of seattle because it's a rainy city you don't interpret them as meaning that it rains in seattle 24 hours a day seven days a week, 52 date a year. you determine it as relatively rainy so you can count on that in a writing classic prose. the second major implication of classic prose is it has to keep up the illusion that the reader is seeing a world rather than listening to verbiage and evolution can be shattered when a writer writes in clichés leading to the familiar advice,

avoid clichés like the plague. so the kind of writer who writes we needed to get the ball rolling in our search for the holy grail but found it was neither a magic bullet are slam dunks of the world with the punches and let the chips fall where they may while seeing the glass is half-full which is easier said than done. [laughter] as you process this prose you clearly have to turn off your visual cortex or else you get one ludicrous image after another. especially since the overuse of clichés will inevitably will lead writers to mix their metaphors as in another sentence from a letter of recommendation i received. jeff is in a renaissance man drilling down to the core issues of pushing the envelope. i'm not sure how you can do all three of those at the same time or no one has invented a that will knock people's socks off. [laughter] a related hazard of writing in

clichés or at least not thinking of the visual content of what you write is that you would be eligible for membership in awful that as americans who figuratively used literally. so there is nothing wrong with saying she literally blushed. it's not so good to say she literally exploded in its very very bad to say she literally emasculated him. [laughter] classic prose is about the world, not about the conceptual tools with which we understand the world. therefore it calls for minimizing the use of meta-concepts. these are concepts about other concepts like approach assumption context framework issue level model perspective process world strategy tendency and variable. anyone who has read bureaucratic or academic prose is all too familiar with these words. for example this is from an editorial in "the new york times" by legal scholar who

wrote i have serious doubts that trying to amend the constitution would work on an actual level. on the aspirational level constitutional amendment strategy may be more valuable which means i doubt they are trying to amend the constitution would succeed but it may be valuable to aspire to it. or it is important to approach the subject from a variety of strategies including the mental health assistance but but also from our law enforcement perspective to which we need to consult a psychiatrist that we may also have to inform the police. [laughter] classic prose narrates ongoing events. we see agents performing actions that affect objects. not classic prose signifies pros and refers to them. using a pernicious grammatical process called normalization, turning something into a noun or a name. so instead of talking about

someone appearing you say they make an appearance. instead of organizing something you bring about the organization of that thing. the english scholar calls them zombie nouns because they lumber across the stage without any conscious agent directing their emotion and they can turn prose and do a night of the living dead. example, this is from an experimental paper. participants read assertions whose ferocity was either affirmed or denied by the subsequent presentation of an assessment word which means means people saw a sentence on the screen followed by the word true or false. [laughter] subjects were tested under conditions of good to excellent acoustic isolation, to which we tested the students in quiet rooms. the use of meta-concepts and zombie nouns has become such an signature of academics that

everyone can recognize the humor behind this editorial cartoon from tom tolls where a bearded academician is explaining the reason that s.a.t. scores are at an all-time low. incomplete implementation of strategized programmatic designated to maximize acquisition for words and utilization of communication skills to standardize review and assessment of gradual development. any interrogatory verbalization's? it's not just academics who are tempted by zombie nouns. it's also politicians as when governor rick perry of texas said right now there is not any anticipation that there will be a cancellation. that is, right now we don't anticipate that we have to cancel it. and corporate consultants as a man who explained what he did for a living by saying i'm a digital and social strategist. i deliver programs products and strategies to our corporate clients across the spectrum of

communications clients. ..

the analysis was made of the data which were collected either suggested the hypothesis can be reject. and lawyers, if the outstanding balance is prepaid in full the unearned finance charge will be refunded. and a political officials, you may all recognize the recently resigned director of the secret service, julia pearson, who, in trying to explain how it is that on her watch an armed intruder vaulted the fence to the white house, sprinted across the lawn, managed to get into the white house, armed with a knife, before he was finally tackled. she said, mistakes were made.