Peter, Nick and Fraser scrutinize the infamous distribution of pie between Bert and Ernie.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am1FSGV5wRg

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering podcast produced by Telmere Studios for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm Fraser McGruer and I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing apple pie and Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street. So to kick things off I just want to talk about a famous sketch from Ernie and Bert on Sesame Street. So to describe the scene we've got Ernie and Bert, Ernie has two slices of apple pie, he takes the big piece and gives Bert the small piece. Bert takes offence at this saying that he would have given Ernie the big piece and kept the small piece for himself but the outcome is the same. So what is Bert angry about? So let's just start this off. Nick are you an Ernieite or a Bertist? I'm definitely an Ernieite here. Okay so Peter are you an Ernieite or a Bertist? Staunch Bertist. Right okay ding ding here we go. Let's start

off with Nick so tell me why are you an Ernieite? I don't even understand how anyone could be a Bertist here. Look you can say that Ernie's being selfish that's fine but if take Bert at face value but Ernie is completely and utterly correct in his assertion that I mean Bert has basically said to him well if he'd been making a decision he'd have given Ernie the big piece so Ernie has ended up with the big piece. We're in exactly the same situation that Bert wants only Bert is now trying to virtue signal. He's just trying to virtue signal trying to pretend that he'd be really virtuous as an obvious and cynical way of trying to convince Ernie to give him the big piece.

It's disgusting. No I think it's different. I think Bert perhaps is looking for some kind of affirmation of their relationship their friendly relationship and an easy way of doing that is to give the other person the greater share of something. Maybe he's insecure but I think it's just sort of manners good manners to offer people the bigger bit. It's not necessarily virtue it's just a nice thing to do. Yep okay but let's think of

this in terms of outcomes right now obviously right any game theorist will tell you that what they should have done is one person should have cut the pie and then the other person should have chosen which bit they want. That's just a really easy result then you know the first person has an incentive to cut it 50-50 and then you know if they don't it's only their own fault if the other person ends up with a bigger piece. But the point at peace you're proposing a set of rules that cannot be mutually satisfied. I mean we can't all end up by giving other people the big piece it's not a viable you know way of conducting of conducting you know of allocating resources. Well assuming the well if the but you choose to do it with

selectively so you wouldn't give the person you don't like the bigger piece but you would you would do to people you do like to sort of reaffirm that your affection for them. But are you is it

ultimately that you're hoping one day they'll give you the big yeah I think I think that's really what's the point in all that then that just seems ridiculous just just you know take you want why not just say well I'll take the big piece today and you can have the big piece tomorrow. I don't it just seems unfair of him to criticise Ernie when he out I mean the the outcome is

exactly the same. That's the sort of that's the unwritten assumption in their relationship that that Bert has that that that will happen so in in if this if this is repeated then they will even out on the share but it's clear that Ernie is either is either deliberately being selfish

or he's just not thought about it as much. He's not being selfish he's got a choice of two pieces of pie he's only got one shot at this all right he's only got one life Ernie. It could have been Bert I mean it doesn't matter does it Ernie has decided that he's gonna take he's completely within his rights to take the big piece here. I don't think he deserves any criticism at all.

I think if if Bert was genuinely wanting to signal virtue he would have said no Ernie it's fine he would have just selected he would have said I want this but when when off a pie before Ernie made his

choice he would say I'll take the small piece. No no that that exactly Bert actually wanted the bigger piece he doesn't care about he's not he's all he wants to do is score points by making Ernie look selfish. But hold on. Yeah sorry. So I you know first of all Nick. What about you

Fraser? Are you an Ernieite or a Bertist? We'll come to that in a moment. Well actually I'll tell you now so um well first of all what do you think I am? Do you think I'm an Ernieite or Bertist? I'm gonna go with Bertist. Certainly not I'm an Ernieite I would say. Good. We need more Ernieites in the coming war. Well this is actually that's what I was about to say Nick Hare you you surprise and disappoint me because I you know it's a cruel stark world in which you live in I would say if you're a Bertist first but secondly I actually don't believe that. You mean an Ernieite? Uh no if you're a Bertist so and I believe if I were to come to your house and and there you are making a nice bit of cake from the Hare kitchen and and it turns out you've only got two bits left I know you and I know you're a nice kind gentleman and I know that if if in what I can I can definitely understand is that you mess up cutting it up yeah that sort of that figures um but I know you and I think you would give me the bigger piece I think that's a kind thing because that's a kind... This reminds me of uh I was

telling my son about who's who's eight about the um uh there's a very famous experiment with children which is uh identifies whether or not they are good at self-control which is quite a quite a strong predictor of um of life success and it's and it's uh an experiment where you say to a kid here's a marshmallow um you you can eat it but if you don't eat it I'm coming back in five minutes and I'll give you another marshmallow so if they can if they can uh withhold from eating it for five minutes they they get another marshmallow and and Tom said um oh I definitely wouldn't eat it and I was like oh that's good Tom so you'd wait five minutes and he said no I just don't like marshmallows and I don't particularly like cake so I would happily see I'd score points by giving you big bits of cake and uh but I but um more for me yeah I mean I think um I think I think you're probably right but I know I think the issue is not that no no no no no no no no I think no the issue no you're probably right about me giving you a bigger bit of cake I might well do that but doesn't that imply that you're an Ernieite? No but you mean a Bertist? Hold on which one's Ernie? Which one's Bert? Ernie's the guy who's giving himself the big bit of cake. Right so you're an Ernieite? No but I'm what I what I'm saying is that Ernie doesn't deserve criticism. Oh so you're a Bertist? No I'm an Ernieite. Ernieites are people who think that Ernie was within his rights to take the big bit of cake. Okay sorry. And doesn't deserve criticism and I don't think I would give you uh the big bit of cake but I don't feel like I should deserve criticism if I took the big bit for myself. Okay hold on. Particularly not if you would have you would have given me the bigger piece anyway.

First of all apologies you're both quite right I'm a Bertist not an Ernieite okay you're you're you're

quite right. It's this sort of thing which you've got to get right because there's going to be a global a global uh cataclysm at some point soon the world the world will divide up. I think when

it first came to shove I think you'd probably be sort of somewhere in the middle and actually you would choose not you would choose to either not notice or to not say anything because it's just

it's easier. That's a slander on my on my character. Yeah and I wonder how much of a how much of a

Bertist you would be if you were you know in the siege of Leningrad or something. I think I think we can all have the luxury to be Bertists when we when there's when there's plenty of cake to go around but I think deep down and I think this um so so the there there are lots of interesting philosophical uh sort of issues this raises and I think we're touching here on this the whole kind of um uh the the Rousseauian worldview uh versus the the Hobbesian worldview and I think you know you could probably say that Hobbes that Ernie is being a bit of a Hobbesian here you know uh it's every man for himself and that's truer if you like to a to a state of nature that that's the that's the Hobbesian claim would be will look actually we're all uh fundamentally uh after the big bit and to to hope you know to make policy and to design systems uh on the assumption that we're Bertists and that we'll all be giving giving away the big bit of cake uh is completely misguided and and I think empirically that that viewpoint the Ernieite viewpoint um as it's now known not Hobbesian anymore the Ernieite viewpoint is is broadly correct in that you know you look at systems like communism which are founded on the assumption that you can get people to be essentially not self-interested and they fall apart because you know people don't like sharing the crops that they've spent ages growing with people who just sat about um you know lazing around that that's fundamentally why communism doesn't work at the at the root of everything it's because it relies on us being Bertists and people aren't deep down Bertists we can all sit around saying we're Bertists but when push comes to shove every every man's an

actually there is a viewpoint that um the welfare state the existence of the welfare state has uh has sort of imposed Ernie Ernie-ite-ism on us where actually without the welfare state birth Bertists would come to the fore that that's the theory that's the sort of big society theory you know that actually uh the problem is if it becomes very transactional people start going well you know I've paid my taxes so I'm not giving any money to this homeless shelter because that's what I pay my taxes for you know it all becomes a very sort of Ernie-ite um dog eat dog sort of world uh whereas I think the Bertist viewpoint is um you know the idea is that that actually people are more Bertist than we give them credit for but I think more generally the whole idea of um I mean there is really the theory of what the role of government is um one of the big theories is that it exists to make us be Bertists it exists to make us be nicer to people because otherwise we all end up taking trying to take the big bit of cake and the result is there's

there's no cake yeah uh Peter well I what I think interesting is that it's quite easy to behave like this and get away with it you can it's easy to sort of uh to behave like an Ernie and get away with it and in fact and uh feigning ignorance and pretending that you didn't know that this was a thing for Bert or pretending that it's it's all okay when actually yeah I'd like to think it'd be better if people were more Bertist and and shared stuff out more in the hope that maybe the favour would be returned in in the future a sort of calmer kind of uh a way of a way of

way of operating yeah I mean that's that's the thing that actually generally people would like everyone to be Bertists but they're not there's a famous thought experiment called the where you you know which makes you invisible and the question is you know if everyone had access to a ring of guy keys where they could be invisible um would we expect their behaviour to change well I mean the thought experiment ends there because obviously more people would do nefarious things you know so people aren't generally going around not committing crime because it's morally wrong because it's morally wrong they're dissuaded from the negative consequences that are put there by the government and I think this was uh Stephen Pinker uses that as an example uh uses an example of a of a police strike I think it's in the book The Blank Slaves uh as as being one of the there was a police strike in in um I think one of the Canadian cities I can't remember which one where he lived and you know crime skyrocketed during the the police strike and he said this was one of the things that sort of started to lead him to question his left wing assumptions that you know people were generally good and and institutions like the police were oppressive because actually you take that away suddenly people people everyone's an

Ernieite you know um I mean I do agree that it actually doesn't take much for um you know the sort of doggy dog world to come about Ernie the Ernie to cake world yeah yeah well look a couple of quick questions then um I've been mulling over my in my mind while I've been chatting is Peter when Ernie um so when Bert reacted as he did uh negatively do you think Ernie was genuinely surprised do you think Ernie was acting in good faith and just saying hey I'm just giving my

friend a bit of pie yeah I think I I I think Ernie is portrayed as being uh completely ignorant of Bert's sort of uh feelings um but do you think he's acting rational is Ernie I mean you could

make the argument that Ernie is sort of a high functioning autistic yeah it seems in general actually you look at their interactions in general and it's rather like you get the feeling that Bert is almost his Ernie's carer yeah and that Ernie is just chronically sort of selfish and and and

fails to make any correct judgments about having brushed up on a few other Ernie and Bert's guests in preparation for this yes I think that's right I think Ernie is it it has that kind of ultra um very sort of selfish uh actually he's acting in good faith but it's much more emotionally in much more emotionally insensitive or insecure and needs these are different these are dimensions of the relationship which Ernie doesn't give him okay it's really uh I mean they are such a

brilliant inventioner they were always my favorite bit of Sesame Street yeah they sum up so absolutely

brilliant yeah brilliant stereotypes I must admit I mean apart from this sketch which again I watch for the purposes of this podcast I I can't I don't know anything I don't know them at all I mean I mean I mean I can't remember anything really from their other sketches but um I mean

I think if anyone in their late 30s or early 40s listening to this podcast which is probably most people listening to this podcast uh will remember Sesame Street I think I mean I I used to watch it every every Saturday morning absolutely loved it um and Ernie and Bert were one of the best

bits well I want to come back to that in a moment but um just one other question then I guess also to Peter it had the situation been reversed and Bert was cutting a cake and handing out what do

you think he would have done I think he would probably have selected the small bit um or given

Ernie a choice well yeah I think he'd given him a choice or maybe he would have played out the same way Ernie would have chosen the big piece but the sanctimonious bastard would have said

okay but you'd have got there without having an argument so you don't really have the same end result you have the same end division but you don't have the same end result because you see

this touches on um a quite a major debate in political philosophy between a sort of a Rawlsian viewpoint and a Nozickian viewpoint uh which is probably best explained by uh using an example that that Nozick drew on called the Wilt Chamberlain example um now the rule of John Rawls his sort of view was that basically the goodness of any particular arrangement what we should be aiming for some arrangement of resources so everyone gets a certain amount of resources um that the goodness of that arrangement is to do with who gets what basically and you know his his argument is that you would you would sort of um if you didn't know who you were going to be if you were designing an arrangement of resources but you didn't know which person you were going to be you would be a broadly equitable you would sort of share out resources equally and um you know but basically all you've got to do is look at the arrangement of resources and then you can say well this guy's got loads of money and these people are poor that's bad it'd be better if they had uh you know if it was more equal and Nozick said no because it's not about who's got what it's about how they got it it's actually essentially about the um the the sort of the the justice inherent in how that how those resources are allocated and he used the example of you know if if a thousand people all want to pay a dollar to go and see Wilt Chamberlain play basketball uh you know he ends up with a thousand dollars they're all one dollar uh poorer but they got to see him play basketball what's the problem you know that's that's perfectly okay and I think uh here you know the the um uh Ernie Ernie is missing the point by looking at who gets what you know by focusing only on the allocation whereas Bert is focusing on well how did you get that you know were you were you given the cake in a in a sort of generous uh in a sort of generous friendly way or did you take the cake you know that's that's it's important to know how the

cake was allocated it's a bit like um uh what it was just bear with me one second um I forget now but it was one of the French philosopher and um belief in God was it Descartes Pascal's Pascal's way Pascal yeah Pascal yeah yeah yeah that each one should believe in God because you know you're the the the when you weigh the gains against the um the downsides then it just makes sense

absolutely I think this is very very similar to that because you know on one hand you could say well actually you ought to believe in God because the prospect of getting it wrong is so scary and being in heaven is great um and you should be a Christian because because God is basically threatening you with hell and rewarding you with heaven if you go around being nice to people um well is that being nice to people if you're doing it because you're you know this prospect of a reward that is not as good as someone who does it and doesn't mind you know which is why you know there's an argument of saying atheists who are nice nicer than Christians who are nice because they can't be doing it in you know in expectation of some kind of reward yeah I know like yes Peter

anything to add at this point yeah I have a first-hand experience of this Ernie Burt situation like when I was a teenager and used to go boozing with a friend of mine from school uh as teenagers do when they get back from the pub they're ravenously hungry so depending on whose house we were staying at we would cook late night pizzas and and have them with chips and things uh much the annoyance of parents because it'd be a big mess lots of noise but we um uh my friend he was definitely an Ernie definitely an Ernieist uh and because he liked Ernieite because invariably there is either it appears to be or there actually is some discrepancy in the portioning of food and uh he would invariably give me the small portion if he was serving always always always uh and uh I I took this as an opportunity for a bit of experimentation so I would occasionally um give him the bigger bit uh when I was serving or I would I would um make make a scene of give of sharing them out to try to educate him that there's a way of giving more chip you know putting more chips on the smaller plate um or sometimes I would just take the bigger bit and if I if I took the bigger bit he would always challenge me or without fail always challenge me if I uh when you gave him the bigger bit when I gave him the bigger bit he was happy but he would always scrutinize which was the bigger bit and which was the smaller bit um and I just gave up she gave up trying to educate him and uh just always

gave him the big bit and just sort of sucked it up well presumably are you any are you friends with

this person any longer um I haven't I haven't spoken to him for years because actually since

that last piece of pepper not since that not since that last piece but also now another rational thing here to do actually if you're burnt is to go right well sod you Ernie and I'm as as I think as as Nick has intimated there are other examples of this kind of Ernieite behavior and so I would go right I'm just not gonna be your friend anymore I don't want to be friend I don't

which is what Peter did and they're they're they're invariably quite successful because they're just a

bunch of money-grabbing nutcases well I think the Ernieite the Ernie a full-fledged Ernieite defense would say you know the if if let's say that we can we can put in a bit of effort to make our cakes bigger just forget about a fixed cake world let's imagine that someone can put a let's imagine Ernie made the cake right and um and he makes the cake and he decides to give himself a bigger bit and burnt mains about it um well the the defense there is simply that well if Ernie wasn't going to get the prospect of having a bigger bit he might not bother making the cake in the first place that's the argument for why the free market works and you know if if I mean I suppose the question would be let's let's say that you know Ernie has through his hard work um created a cake that was double the size and he then gave himself three quarters of his so you know Bert's essentially ending up with the same as he would have done uh had had Ernie just left the cake the size that it was would that be okay well all right I don't know is the

answer but um I want to go on to something else I want to wrap up in fact but before we do I just want to ask um going from who were the creators of Sesame Street what's the that kind of the studio children's television workshop no but and those puppets and so on it all came from that larger jim henson jim henson kind of group whatever yeah so taking either that you may have already answered this but um taking either sesame street or uh the the muppet show um who's

your favorite character I quite like animal uh the drummer the drummer because he's just sort of he doesn't really interact with any he doesn't have a share any of the politics or any of the kind of social stuff he just comes along and whacks the drums that's his job there's quite touchingly kind of mad about him isn't there yeah he's just he's just see all he wants to do is play drums and um shout and that's it so you you look a bit like animal oh thanks yeah great I think um I

think Kermit really Kermit is such a fantastic individual I mean he's you know he's he's a real sweetie he's conscientious he's caring he's a bit drippy he's obviously extremely sexy because miss piggy can't keep her hands off him uh he's just an all-round top bloke I think and he you know plays the banjo um he's he's excellent he's one of the great great inventions of the 20th

century isn't isn't isn't he uh one of those people frogs isn't he isn't he one of those amphibians where would you say well what would Kermit do in this situation I think you couldn't

go far wrong if you asked yourself that yeah there's a guy to lie well you're thinking I

think I think Kermit would be is Bertist but he wouldn't say anything he would just sort of suck

up if he was given a smaller bit of cake that is true but he wouldn't even be a sanctimonious git about it yeah he would just be well I know Ernie has you know has personality issues yeah I'm just

gonna mention it yeah exactly wouldn't think anything of it just accept the cake we all need

Kermits in our lives yeah nice well we'll leave my favorite characters because I can't even think of one but we'll say we'll end on that note then so um if you're ever unsure what to do in life the Aleph Insight in this case is what would Kermit do and do that um gentlemen thank you very much thank you um you've been listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. I'm Fraser McGruer. Thank you very much indeed for listening. Bye-bye.