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Language: en
global conflict is on the rise because
people are losing their minds if you are
eating a daily Buffet of information
that's been highly processed by social
media and the News you are going to
break your own brain just like how
highly processed food destroys your body
a junk food diet of triggering slanted
information is going to destroy your
ability to think well you've got to
train yourself to avoid traps and see
through the BS to that end behavioral
economists Dan arieli and I dive into
how to think clearly even in dangerous
times so the breathing ground for Mis
misbeliefs is
stress and I don't mean the stress of
I'm so
busy the stress is like job I don't
understand the world why is the world
not better to me why why are things not
working my way why is my significant
others so unhappy with me my kids my
work why is health I mean across the
range um and now what happens in those
condition of stress people feel a need
for an
answer even even just cognitively you
know if we give people a a picture with
black white and gray dots what's called
White Noise right just dots and we say
do you see a
pattern the more stressed people are the
more they see a pattern when people go
parachuting the closer they are to
jumping the more they see patterns
interesting when there's violence in the
country the more people see so so we
need a we need a story we need to like
like the the stress of what is going on
here we want to resolve
it and we don't need just any story we
prefer a story with a villain because
it's not our fault it's somebody else's
fault and oddly we prefer a complex
story to a simple one now now that's
strange right because usually we think
people love simple stories why do people
want a complex on these people feel like
underdogs something is wrong with me
something is not okay so on feeling that
they're the only one who understand the
complex story gives them a feeling of
superiority so we have this stress and
then people want a story with a villain
and a complex story and thanks to the
internet for example they can find
examples of that so that's the starting
point need for a story and and they find
a story the next part is the cognitive
part and it has confirmation bias right
we look at the information that is going
to confirm our
hypothesis we have motivated reasoning
we needed we can bend the story to fit
what we believe even if that's not what
the story is saying we can just distort
the facts and and then we have
overconfidence in in what we believe
even when it's not justified I actually
like the term corrosive information when
people use the term misinformation
there's this feeling that oh we could
fix it here's misinformation here is the
truth will fix it when you think about
corrosive you say people are different
on the other side of this and and
there's really no no going back so so
maybe I'll say a little bit about my
history with with covid and and this the
origin of this book um so here I am
beginning days of covid and the world is
crazy and people from everywhere realize
that social science is important how do
we get people to wear masks and how do
we do distance education and how do we
reduc domestic violence I sit there with
my laptop and two phones just trying to
help and I feel at the top of my career
I am like being the most helpful person
I can imagine ever all of a sudden I get
an email that says D what happened to
you what's wrong with you how can you be
how did you become this person and I say
what do you mean and I get back a list
of links I'll just describe one of them
that link shows pictures of me in
Hospital very badly
burned uh and then it goes to say that
because of my injury I started hating
healthy people and that's why I joined
the cabal and Bill Gates and the
Illuminati to try and kill as many
healthy people as possible and that's
what the pandemic is is all about and I
I get this and and lots of other links
and I I look at all of them and very
hard to believe right it's a here's a
view of myself that doesn't coincide
with what I think of myself
myself and I I spent a month trying to
argue with these people trying to give
them my facts and my side of things and
so on and of course I failed and I only
got things worse by the way a few of my
friends experts told me don't do it and
I did it anyway and then I went on a
basically a two-year long um
adventure of visiting some of the
darkest cor corners of the internet
meeting with lots of people talking to
about 20 misbeliever in a very deep and
repeated way trying to understand the
mechanism I call it the funnel of
misbelief what takes people and and
change them in some fundamental way but
some
people trust themselves they see
something and they say it feels like the
truth it must be the truth and some
people question themselves so guess what
the people who trust themselves are more
likely to go the final of misbelief and
then there's a couple of other personal
traits interestingly people who are
complete the picture like something that
is really good for artist you see a few
things and you can draw connections and
you see things that were not there but
is as connected to the story all of
those things make it more likely that
people would go down the The Funnel of
misbelief and then the the final
component is the social
component what is the social component
so if we think about stress is the the
breeding ground and we think about
cognitive and personality is kind of
making it further the social is really
what SEALs the
deal so what what are the elements
within the social uh part and the first
one is ticism
and and you remember the story about
ticism the guy who kind of started the
the big research on on ticism
describes uh a day in the park he goes
with his dog to the park
um and he sees two people playing
frisbee they play Frisbee they play
Frisbee he walks by the Frisbee Falls
next to his feet picks it up throws it
to one of them and to his surprise they
throw it back to him and the three of
them for a few minutes play
Frisbee and then they stop throwing it
to him and he feels rejected what now he
didn't know them he didn't come to play
with them but he felt
rejected and it's a very interesting
feeling so he went to the lab and he
tried to recreate it how did he recreate
it he got two people to work for him and
one
participant and the participant came to
an experiment say look the experiment is
not ready please wait outside with these
other two people and these other two
people pick a ball and start throwing it
between the three of them they throw
throw throw the ball in one condition
they keep on playing for 10 minutes in
the other condition they play between
the three of them for five minutes and
then they stop and they just play
between the two of them taking the real
participant and getting him to be
ostracized and now the experiment starts
and now the question is how does that
person feel and that person feels more
lonely and less connected less
optimistic about the world with less
confidence they're less likely to help
they're more likely to cheat all kinds
of terrible things so so when we think
about the the social element ticism is
the first part and and I don't know
about you but when I realize that I also
realized that when some people are
starting to go down the final of
misbelief I sometimes not by not in
intentionally I ostracize them
interesting somebody is is coming up
with a with a strange belief and I try
to crush it no not crush it me but I How
Could You Poss you know something
something like that now for me it's a
little joke
for them it's probably a big offense so
so the social part start with ticism and
we've all done it and by the way with
coover we did it a lot um now when
people feel
ostracized what do they need supportive
community so where do they go mostly
somewhere online that gives them this
this
support now it gets worse why does it
get worse because people now part of a
group and they want to get to a good
position in that group how do they do it
by saying something
extreme this is where uh this term we
use is
shibolet and the the story in the Bible
they come from the Bible this word is
that there were two tribes that had a
very bloody war at the end of the tribe
each of them was in a different side of
the river but they didn't know if all
their people were on this side and none
of the others on that side and and these
two tribes differed in their
pronunciation of the word
shibolet one of them said shibolet and
one of them said
seet so imagine we walk around and I
show you the plant and I say how do you
pronounce this if you said it the way I
do
it everything is good and you get to
live if you say it the wrong way I maybe
chase you away or try to kill you and
and this term shibolet were using it for
things that are not about what the word
is but about showing identity so I ask
you what's the name of this plant I
don't care about the name of the plant I
care about your tribal
belonging so now we're in a group and
now we want to show our belonging and we
want to be extreme and maybe we say
things that are not true but show
identity because if you just say like
the run of the mil things everybody
agrees with you you're not showing
yourself you have to say something
outrageous
in order to show your true identity so
you know imagine that
you're um you know saying something
about being a vegan or whether you say
something about gun control or a gender
identity or whatever H people often say
things that they don't necessarily
believe but are signaling their identity
but then of course once they repeat them
they become accepted truth or new
standard and they start believing them
themselves
and then there's the last
component and the last component is
cognitive dissonance of course everybody
knows cognitive dissonance but just to
to to refresh let's think about
festinger's original
observation and his original observation
was about this woman who said that on a
particular date the Earth will be
destroyed and only she and her followers
will be saved because aliens would come
and take them
away and festinger wondered what would
happen the day after when the earth is
not destroyed and her followers realize
that nothing happened now if we think
about two types of followers we say
there's the extreme followers the die
hard ones the one that gave up all their
money and say goodbye to their family
and sold their homes and so on and was
just ready to to take off and this on
the fense followers the standard
prediction is that the Die Hard
followers will be the most disappointed
they would say she she lied to us and
they would just leave and uh so so
followers we said you know we never
really believed it she's a fine woman
let's
stay but festinger predicted the
opposite he said that the Die Hard
Believers could not say to themselves I
was wrong they did so
much that they would have to adjust
their beliefs and and cognitive
dissonance is about if we act in a
certain way our beliefs follow now
usually we think that our beliefs direct
dire actions I believe X therefore I
work in that direction but festing as
show it can also go in the other way
which is we act in a certain way then
then our beliefs follow and
that that's the last social component
which is basically saying that once
people have invested so much of their
time and social capital in a particular
misbelief you can't just say I'm closing
shop I'm coming I'm going back you
basically change so so in in in her
example with festinger the the Die Hard
believer the next day said she saved us
it was all thanks to her and now they
went to recruit more more people in the
same way that with
Co people have moved on to the next
thing oh you know it's not covid of
course the real thing was the World
Health Organization or the real he thing
is global warming or it's the
government's control with crypto or they
come up with with bigger and bigger
stories and moving in with it so so so
if we think about it there's this
Machinery that basically Taps all of
psychology like this book is not
everything but it's almost like an
introduction to psychology textbook
because every element of our psychology
is
attacked to get us down to this funnel
of misbelief and the amazing thing is
not the people who go down that the
amazing is kind of the people who don't
you know what what what is the strength
H that some people have to uh to stay
with our uh with our convictions yeah
that that's what I want to um cover
today so in the book you lay them out
super succinctly so you've got basically
the mind works in a certain way and this
is one of the things that's drawn me to
your work is I have an absolute
obsession with understanding how the
brain works so that I can Master my own
mind not be tricked by the cognitive
distortions my biases motivated
reasoning all that um and so
what I really want to get to today is
okay so we just walked through the
problem now I want to better understand
like what is it in the cognitive
architecture that leaves us this way um
why do we think so emotionally but why
does it feel like it's not emotional
what comes first the Intuition or the
rationalization then once we have that
mapped out then we can get into okay now
how do I avoid these traps so um I have
the Good Fortune of having read your
other books and uh arguably your most
famous book predictably irrational
basically lays out that we are wildly
emotional creatures we think we're using
rationality but in reality we're not the
rationality comes post Hawk that's right
walk us through that one how does how
does the sequencing work and then two if
you have any evolutionary insights as to
why that would have been advantageous I
think that'd be really helpful okay so
so let's talk outside of misbelief for a
second about about the the our nature of
making
decisions so emotions in general are
basically rules of thumb they're not
accurate they're not designed to be
accurate they're designed to dictate a
particular behavior that is almost
instinctual you're at the edge of the
Jungle you see a tiger you don't want to
take out an Excel spreadsheet and start
Computing anything you want a stimulus
response you see a tiger start running
running you can figure out later that
you're afraid like that we we don't even
want the fear to come first we want you
to just start running and that's true
for lots of things we have this very
quick intuitive
system that gets us to act because
that's what nature wants now if you ask
the evolutionary question why there's a
cost and benefit right so what's the
benefit of figuring out the absolute
correct
answer what's the what's the cost of
making a mistake and staying there for
too long and meeting the tiger right
there's there's some there's some very
very high symmetry in that by the way
that was the world a long time ago it's
not necessarily the current world right
in the current world we can make very
different mistakes right evolutionary
speaking if you think about nature
evolving our cost benefit trade-off it's
not the same it's not the same as now
and another example by the way with more
about Mis
belief is think about
Communication in nature communication
always has a true
signal what what do I mean by that the
the most famous example is the tail of
the peacock the peacock has this long
very dysfunctional tail in fact if you
take young peacocks and you Stitch long
long tails on them they get eaten faster
right because the tail is a
handicap now you say okay why why would
peacocks adopt a dysfunctional tail that
makes it difficult to to run and escape
and and so on because it's a true signal
so if you're a strong verile male you
can
carry a long tail and you will not be
eaten because you're strong if you're a
weak peacock and you try to carry a long
tail it would not work out so if you
think about the tail of the
peacock it's really Comm
communicates what kind of a male you are
and if you cheat you'll cheat for a
short time and then you'll be
eaten now now contrast that to
Facebook where you can say whatever you
want and there's not
necessarily real there's not a real
signal in it now we can do what's called
cheap talk hey I'm just saying like
imagine that we all went on Facebook and
we said how long is our taale whatever
the the modern analogy you could say oh
mine is 10 meters and here look at even
a picture that that that supports this
the communication in nature by the way
start not from the The Entity that
creates the signal but from the entity
that receives it the female in this case
uh the the communication starts with
what the female would believe it doesn't
start with what the male feel they're
going to talk about or to communicate it
starts with The Listener and then the
the transmitter of the signal have to
give a true a true signal now um we're
in a different world we still trust
signals you know I don't know about you
but my first instinct actually it's true
for everybody but you know how gullible
we are I'm very
gble but but even the people who are not
that
Gible our first instinct is to trust why
do we trust because we grew up in an
evolutionary
environment in which signals were true
signals maybe not 100% but but to a
large to a large degree so we evolved in
a certain environment we we evolved in a
certain environment with costs and
benefit we evolved in the environment in
which emotions were very helpful
decision making in which signals were
very true and now we created a very
different environment
and just as another example think about
the
cookie uh we created the
cookie an optimal combination of salt
sugar and fat so much that we want one
and after we eat one we want to keep on
eating the next
one we but it basically uh hijacks our
emotions right it hijacks our taste buts
it's not a cognitive process where a
cookie manufacturer is saying look at
the cost and benefit of eating a cookie
they are attacking our emotions our
emotion developed for this decision
making quick decision- making
process uh but now of course they're
being used by other entities and by
other entities you mean advertising
companies social media apps everything
everything right so um you know imagine
imagine you're a
supermarket and uh um you know I go to
the supermarket and I have have a plan
of what I want to to buy but the
supermarket also has a plan and the
Super Market plan is different than mine
what kind of tools could they use to
most likely get me to do what they want
and not what I want it's emotion right
it's not a somebody giving a lecture on
the benefits of fruits and vegetables
it's about sugar fat salt that's the
that's the mechanism so we created a a
society that is very much built on
Temptation and
emotions everywhere not just not just in
social media and not just notification
on the phone and it's everywhere it's
it's an easier trigger to press than to
go through the cognitive route yeah I
think that's one of the most important
things that I've taken away from the way
the human mind works is that I'm GNA
have the Intuition or the emotion first
and then I'm going to put some sort of
rationalization on top of it I know that
um people have sort of discredited the
the sort of tril layer brain but it
certainly is a useful framework to think
through that I have a a more primeval uh
lizard Reptilian Brain at the center
then I've got my mamillion brain which
is very much the lyic system its
emotions um which the interesting way to
think about emotions for me
is emotions are the way that the sub
conscious mind speaks to the conscious
mind so if the conscious mind is
processing data in a faster and vaster
way it's not going to be able to
communicate through language which is a
much smaller bandwidth pipe instead it's
just going to make you feel something so
you're at the edge of the Jungle boom
tiger you turn and run even before you
realize what's going on you just had
this insane impulse to do it and you
take off running and then like you said
you'll worry about the truth of this
situation later and once I understood
okay wait a second uh this is the
impulses that I feel is a product of
evolution because Nature has one aim
which is to make sure that I Stay Alive
long enough to have kids it have kids
and so if it had to do that when I was
an amib boid and then you know something
coming out of the primordial ooze of the
ocean it's like on and on and on and
that's going to be the thing that's that
is consistent and Carries across the
different species that we move through
to become a human it's like okay that's
that's uh preserved because it's so
effective whereas if I'm going to
rationalize it I'm not necessarily going
to act and you'll probably know these
studies better than I but very
interesting to me that if you damage the
emotional centers of the brain a person
will be normal in every way but they
can't make a decision do I want steak or
fish and they'll rattle off all the
advantages to steak and all the
advantages to fish but ultimately they
can't make a decision because they don't
have that internal impulse towards one
or the other that when they have they'll
then give you a rationalization for but
the reality is it's the emotion that
allows you to make a decision and you
layer that on at the end yeah so I'll
give you I'll give you two two other
kind of stories for your
Arenal one is the question of
fairness so um you know your parents
pour a little bit more orange juice for
your sister than to you and you feel
that there's something unfair or
somebody at work is getting paid
unfairly or get promoted and it really
and really hurt us and you say why what
is this where is this coming from and it
turns out that if we want to work
together we need to trust that fairness
is inside you right so imagine you and I
are going hunting together and then at
some point we have to do something
separately I want to trust that when the
time comes you will have an instinct
toward fairness that I don't need to
supervise you so on so now you you you
can see how human human for Humanity to
work in a group you really want
everybody to be concerned with fairness
because I want to work only with people
who are concerned with with fairness and
I'll give you another example and this
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there's this amazing research I still
can't believe it but I've seen it so
soorry um you get people to meet new
people they meet new people they shake
hands just imagine the Gathering and
what they see in the videos is that
almost everybody at some point raises
their hand and
smells their the other person what yes
now I I saw this and I said I've never
done that never I've done it as well no
yes these are lies yeah these are lies
go ahead what go ahead
and take the next social Gathering that
you're doing install cameras and observe
it now here is the thing
smell Taps the emotional Center
extremely quickly and
directly H we all know that smell
predicts romantic
love with smell we can also predict who
your friends are going to be like you
know we think we don't smell well we
actually smell very well but we just
need to be close like you know we're far
away from the ground we not like dogs
but we have a very good sense of smell
and smell is incredibly
important again think about romantic
love and you would say there's something
about smell that is incredibly important
can you articulate it not really but
there's something very Primal about
smell and smell communicates genetic fit
I mean it communicates all kinds of
things so anyway there's lots of ways in
which our mind works and we're unaware
of it and you know smell is just one of
them but it's kind of an amazing example
because you say I don't think I've ever
smelled anybody but you you you have
that's so interesting okay so so so
basically if if we say if if we go back
to the funnel of misbelief we're saying
there's this mechanism that starts with
stress and and everything we stress in a
brain that reasons emotionally exactly
and and not only that the brain cannot
discern the the origin of the stress
it's not as if you say oh I'm stressed
because of my kids let me just realize
that stress is coming from there no
stress is kind of a general activity
that we have we feel stress it doesn't
matter where it comes from it
accumulates across the domains of life
and we just feel we need a story and an
answer and a villain and so on and and
this idea about the brain being a
Storyteller after the fact is part of
this right because if we understood what
the origin of stress is maybe we
wouldn't have this need to tell it but
we have this stress we don't H
understand it and then we have a drive
to tell a story with the villain and the
story needs to be complex So when you
say that we don't understand so take Co
I knew where the stress was coming from
I just didn't know what to do about it
and one of the things I found
interesting in the book and tell me if
you think this feeds into it is that it
it really is about control finding
patterns as you were saying you're about
to do something super dangerous you're
more likely to find patterns patterns
give you a sense oh these dots connect
and therefore I can understand it and if
I can understand it I can do something
about it yeah so I mean look just
intuition which I know to distrust trust
me after reading your book um but my
intuition would be that it it is more
that I'm I am going to apply a story and
whether that story ends up being
accurate or not may be important but I
I'm gonna I'm not I don't feel like oh I
don't know where the stress is coming
from I will stamp it with it's
this so so I think you you know at some
level that it's
covid um but but you don't really where
know where it's coming from so so is
this the unpredictability that makes it
it's it's it's the fact that again we
said say we feel an
emotion but all emotions have similar
connections and we don't know exactly
where they where they come from so I
give I give this this story in the book
about one of
the early early research on
misattribution of
emotion and there were basically men who
uh crossed the bridge and it was a very
narrow shaking Bridge like a hanging
bridge and they met a researcher they
didn't know they were going to be in an
experiment they just thought they were
walking but they met this a researcher
and she met them in the middle of the
bridge in the place where it's the most
shaking and so on and she asked him some
boring questions about the you know the
like research let me guess she happens
to be attractive she happened to be
attractive mhm and and then she said H
by the way if you want to call me later
and find out the results of the
experiment here's my number okay now
nobody cares about the result of the
experiment um and they compare it to a
non- shaking Bridge what happened many
more men call her from the shaky Bridge
from the shaky Bridge they basically
have an experience of something is
shaking my my heart is pounding my my
hands are sweaty I don't know where this
is coming from right knowing where the
emotion is coming from is not easy it's
not easy so yes during Co you could say
it's covid but is it coming from work is
it coming from worrying about China is
it coming from worrying about the US
economy you know where exactly is it is
it coming
and I'll give you one other example
there's a beautiful study showing that
the number of conspiracy theories about
covid have a strong correlation to how
much violence there is in the
country why so the more violent your
country the more conspiracy theories
you're likely to believe in the average
person is likely to believe in that's
right why because violence creates
stress and it's not as if people can say
oh this stress belongs to violence no it
just accumulates throughout by the way
if you think why does that make you more
like because I really I really want to
understand what is my brain doing so one
um Plato's Cave uh simulation hypothesis
like do you to me the you are living in
a simulation not in that I actually
think the world is a simulation but your
brain is creating a simulation you only
see
0.35% of the visible electromagnetic
spectrum or the available
electromagnetic spectrum you see such a
tiny fraction your brain is
oversimplifying the world in a massive
way emotions feel to me like no I can't
tell you I'm not going to react to the
quote unquote reality I'm not going to
try to explain it potential danger
potential mate whatever whatever um and
so the emotions are parsing these
incredibly complex things down into
something that I can feel and I can
react on immediately and if that's true
and I really am then in effect living in
the simulation of the reduced might be
the easiest way to explain it it's
simplified I'm just simp my bra isfy the
and say to this so not having to count
phons thatle off Surface in a wave
length it's blue or it's black or it's
red you just see the colors yeah that's
a gross simplification of what's really
beautiful mechanis beautiful metaphor
yes okay so if we're trapped in that
bubble how do we begin to parse out what
we can listen to what we can trust
because the one thing in the thesis of
book that we may disagree on is I think
everybody is prone to this I don't think
anybody escapes it I think everybody is
down some portion of the misbelieving
shoot you talk about humility in the
book which I think is
ultimately probably the only path out of
all this um which we will definitely
talk about because in the book you don't
give people the path out yes which which
is very horrible I am sorry about that
uh but we will we will for sure uh talk
about so you said so many things let's
let's H let's kind of let me go back to
them so the first thing you ask is why
why do I say that the Mind cannot
separate different sources of stress why
why would it be efficient in a world in
which the brain start tries to simplify
things and here is what I think is
happening and you know it's hard to
reason about evolutionary but here is
what I think is
happening imagine that you your brain
wants to separate whether you're in a
good place or or a bad place stay or go
eventually is the
decision if it's about this is a bad
place I don't care so much why it could
be stress because of kids or significant
other or work and so on there's a
there's a signal of Badness that is
incredibly important and the specifics
are less important now in the modern
world where we have lots of control and
so on it's more important but if you
think in an ancient world
the big the big decision you want to say
good or bad Stay Stay or Leave and the
and the reasons for that are less
important so that's why you say okay
there's some Badness here I don't care
so much where the Badness and and just
just go just go away um so so the the
the Mind basically gets signals of bad
things are happening and they accumulate
and you want them to accumulate because
if if let's say you have two things you
have family and work if one of them is
half bad and the other one is half bad
um is it really different than all of
them one of them being 100% bad no the
whatever is bad you you want to just
just change
it so we we just categorize the goodness
and Badness of things across domains by
the way the same thing is true for pain
if if you have a pain in your leg and in
your hands and you're not a doctor you
say leave that place and do something
else right so so the the Mind
accumulates across domains doesn't care
so much where it's coming from and codes
for the goodness of Badness of this of
this whole thing and now when something
is bad it says okay let's figure out
what's a coping mechanism and the coping
mechanism becomes this um in in the case
of misbelief it becomes like a bad
response and and and the metaphor to
think about
this is obsessive compulsive order so so
how does that work imagine that I feel
uncomfortable going I out in the world
with my Burns right I worry and this is
true I I worry about how people would
react to my hand how people shake it
every time somebody shakes my hand it
kind of brings back the the notion that
I it reminds me that I'm injured that
people think about it differently they
don't know what to do and so so imagine
I have this um this work how will people
react to me what will people say and and
so on um and I find a solution and my
solution is to wash my hands now it
doesn't solve the problem but it gives
me a sense of control and so on and and
then it reinforces every time before I
go home before I meet people I shake my
I I wash my hands I I feel a bit more in
control that's the obsessive
compulsive mechanism right there's an
activity that gives us a sense of
control that helps us with something
else
what happens in in misbelief I feel
stressed I don't know what to do um I go
online I watch a video of somebody being
the villain with a story and so on but
this is where the metaphor breaks down
because the next time I watch the video
I don't necessarily watch the same one
and maybe I watch it for longer because
that's the nature of videos maybe
there's one video leading to another
leading to another and next time I watch
another one and it expands my cognitive
framework of how I understand things so
it starts with a sort of healthy
response to a bad situation but then it
really goes
away okay so uh I'm going to give you
back very succinctly The Funnel of
misbelief let me know if I've missed
anything yeah so it starts with a person
is they're stressed they're getting
overwhelmed to use today's language um
in their overwhelm if you want to
supercharge this if that overwhelm is
being generated by
Oster so that they are now hyp sensitive
to being left out they want to seek the
comfort of the known they're looking for
that pattern that's going to let them
regain some kind of control that they
have a narrative that makes this all
make sense um they find people that
resonate with their take and so hey the
JFK assassination or Co just to keep it
to something really uh masks are
ineffective I knew it I I knew that they
were ineffective and now instead of
being rejected by my family who's like
don't talk like that in this house like
that's crazy talk I get accepted the
world's starting to make more sense and
that feeling of unease I'm now putting a
layer of narrative over the top of that
that says that unease was I understood
something other people did not
understand they were unable to face the
truth these people really get it and so
now I'm being soothed by being accepted
I'm being soothed by understanding what
the path forward is I feel better about
myself because I understand a complex
story that other people do not
understand and now I reinforce reinforce
reinforce my identity with this new
group and now you end up with people on
Parallel paths that's right or I think
you called them parallel universes or
different universes and and and you
basically said it but but there's the
the cognitive part right you choose
which information to pay to attention to
and not and there's the personality part
that some people are more susceptible to
this than than others but that's that's
exactly the that's exactly the funnel
and now you say when I think about these
people in our lives that have turned out
to to be so different it's not because
they're so different it's because there
was something in their experience that
got them to be stressed and looking for
an answer and they started going down a
path and it helps us understand better
what what happened to them hopefully it
will help us understand understand
better when somebody is the initial
stage and we just see the dangers and
maybe we can still help them there's one
other thing that is is worth while
mentioning is that um as a
society uh we have less and less
resilience economic Inequality For
example is a big contributor to reduce
resilience right if you think about
what's the chances that you would go to
one of your neighbors and ask for for an
egg uh as economic inequality increases
even at the level of neighborhood people
are less likely to to ask for help and I
think we're moving into that direction
in general and Co specifically we we we
lost a lot of resilience so you're
saying the usual inoculation we have
against stress is support from other
people we had less of it during covid
but we also have less of it in
general okay
so H do I think we have less of it I
think that we have a more deranged form
of it because now people are turning to
social media and when I was reading the
book I thought one of the things that
we're really up against is what I call
velocity of information because one of
the notes I took when I was reading the
book and you never go into this but it's
like I have a base assumption that
people really are being lied to so just
because you're paranoid doesn't mean
they're not after you right and so I
think that there's also mixing into all
of this all the things you said about
being ostracized it em stress
emotionally sets you up to be ready for
this to go into the arms of the people
that accept you and you've got the
algorithms which literally funnel you
down a shoot so fast into the arms of
people that view the world like you yeah
um that that becomes just a a a greased
shoot so you've got all this information
coming at you some people really are
lying some of this stuff really is being
weaponized against people and now you're
able
to barrage people enough with enough
misinformation disinformation confusion
whatever you want to call it um
corrosive information you're able to hit
them with enough of that that the
average person isn't able to look into
the different claims it's coming too
fast and furious y they have to use a
heuristic uh rule of thumb just a fancy
word and as they come up with that
heuristic it's largely going to be based
on social proof so all of my friends
have said yeah uh or the news station
that I listen to has said or my favorite
podcaster has said whatever their rule
of thumb is and then you will more
likely because of the cognitive bias
around um I've now got some of my
identity tied up in this I've had
arguments with my family so now I'm
really to your point about the aliens
are coming it's the people that were
most hardcore about it that are least
likely to change so now the more that I
invest in this the more like
reason in that way and so now I'm
cherry-picking the data I'm the that I
to see and so this is where we get into
uh simulation Theory where what I I I'm
really trying to get people to
understand one simple fact about the
brain and that is you view the world
through what I call frame of reference
you have a frame of reference and the
easiest way to explain that is you're
wearing a pair of glasses that have
wildly distorted lenses wildly and over
the of your life you and people around
you have shaped those lenses to distort
the world in a certain way and your
problem is you've confused that with
objective truth yeah and so we all view
the world in a distorted fashion and we
all mistake it for reality and to me the
the only path forward is to understand
that as a social species there are
there's an array of personality types
for a reason and just to like think in
political lines for a second so you've
got can I can I stop you you're saying
so many things I just want to to to to
stop and and and dissect each of those
so um so so so the first thing you said
and you said it in a much more extreme
way than I say in the book is that this
funnel of misbelief is really
weaponized and in the same way that the
cookie is designed you you saying
everything we have around us is tapping
the weakest part of of the human mind
the cognitive the emotional the social
proof the loneliness the social support
to get us to believe strange things
right it's
almost you're saying it's almost as if
the world has been designed more and
more to get people down the funnel of
misbelief we have all of these things
that are very potent mechanism to get us
to believe things that are good for
somebody else maybe but certainly not
good for us or good for some purposes
but not not for real long-term
well-being so that's one important thing
and you're absolutely right and I think
it's a that's one of the big lessons is
that this we have created this
Machinery that has very undesirable
consequences and uh you know if the most
of the book is pessimistic because it
describes that look the way you describe
it is is even more pessimistic than I am
you use the term weaponize but it's a
it's a very it's to realize how much of
our
uh psychology is being attacked just
tell you how comprehensive this
Machinery is and now you say okay we
have to wake up and do something about
it so that that I think is part part
number one and very important to realize
the second thing you said is about these
glasses that we wear and we have to and
we have to recognize them and for me I
use the term misbelief to describe two
things at the same time one is a belief
in something that is not right that the
experts don't think so the majority
majority of the people don't think so
but the second one is that we hold it as
a central truth and through it we view
the rest of the
world so we're in California let's say I
hold the belief that kale is not that
healthy not the big deal maybe most
people in California believe that kale
is great I don't or or um what's the
other one Brussels Pro okay even even
more okay but let's say I believe that
kale is not that not that good not a
central tendency I don't view life
through that and so on but but the the
misbeliefs we're talking about that are
dangerous is not just that there's a
piece of data about kale that I believe
or not is are things that we start
believing is a core of my personality I
am a flat earther right so and and it's
not just that okay oh you know maybe the
Earth is flat maybe it's it's round I
don't I don't care no no no it's a
central tendency now of my life and it's
not just about the Earth being flat it's
about
NASA lying to us and every pilot lying
to us and every government and you know
now and and I view the world through
that so now when something bad happens
it's I don't view it objectively I view
it through that through that lens so so
this this understanding and it's easiest
with sports right if you don't know are
you a fan of some sports team uh not
really but I Sports analogies all the
time so go for it you know so you have
Team a and Team B and you're a fan of
Team a and Team B is your rival and you
have a game and the referee is calling
against a call against your team you you
can't see it objectively you can't see
it in the same way that somebody El you
have to see the game is you know the
refere is evil vile blind uh somebody
paid all something something like that
um and it's true how we view our kids
and all kinds of things like
that and
um and you're absolutely right that
these these glasses that we have it's a
good metaphor and color everything color
everything and to the extent that we
adopt these negative glasses they have a
lot of Downstream
consequences so uh if we adopt the
glasses that um everybody out there is
with a good
intention everybody wants our benefit
everybody wants to make the world better
that's probably not correct but but
think about those glasses compar to a
glass that everybody is against me um
both are incorrect they probably some
people against you some people and so on
but the negative one can have much more
dire consequences for you and for
society right because now if you look at
everything through a negative lens there
there's lots of things that you would
not participate in you would not help we
we can't get collaborative action all
kinds of things all kinds of things
happen and and you mention this this
notion of intellectual humility and the
term I don't like so much but that's
what that's what say why don't you like
the term feels so politically correct to
me oh I'm
intellect I have I have intellectual
humility
um I I think it's really about the
ability to hold multiple hypothesis in
mind and not being convinced too quickly
and I also think it's about reducing the
gap between confidence and knowledge
because the moment you you hold multiple
things in mind you basically say I don't
I don't know no you're talking about the
Dunning Krueger effect specifically so
so there's another version of it that
one is is also a great one there's
another version of it called the
illusion of explanatory depth and it
it's similar but it's different and and
the way I demonstrated it uh it's been
demonstrated a lot but but my version
was with a flash
toilet I would go to people and say do
you understand on a scale from let's say
1 to 100 how well do you understand the
flash toilet people gave a number
usually a very high
number and then I would say great
luckily for you we have all the pieces
of a flash toilet why don't you assemble
it what do you think is the percentage
of people who manage to assemble it
effectively zero exactly zero including
a daughter of a plumber she
was um but but that's not the important
part the important part is you go back
to people and you say how well do you
understand flash toilet and people say
not so much and and that's really
interesting
because it's very easy to say okay we
can teach people something and they will
learn maybe but in the illusion of
explanatory depth we don't teach people
anything we just ask them to
explain and and what they show is that
when you ask people to explain something
in a bigger depth most people say oh
maybe I didn't understand that as much
as I thought I would by the way if you
want if you want party tricks not party
tricks but if you want a way to talk
with your relatives and friends over the
holidays who are
misbeliever if you try to attack them
you know it's not going to work right
you're just going to ostracize them it
will only make things worse but going at
them with the illusion of explanatory
depth is actually quite useful you say
that the Earth is flat help me
understand how it works and what about
the other planets are are they all are
they all flat and so what happens to fly
I mean just help me understand not not
you're wrong help me
understand and there's another nice
trick which is to say
uh what would convince you to change
your
mind right when you're not saying this
you're saying you tell tell me what
would what would convince you those two
things are good for the
cognitive uh for the cognitive component
of of that to kind of reduce people's
confidence because you're absolutely
right if people are if we think that
misbelief or whatever is is about
adopting something very deeply
inside with high certainty and using it
as a lens to view everything else that's
what you want to stop like if people say
you know covid I'm 90% sure that it's
this and 10% sure 10% that maybe it's
not I don't think I don't think anybody
would become that extreme I don't think
anybody would create death rates I don't
think anybody would ER start to CH to
change the World Health Organization I
don't think people would start
organization that will get people to
stop immunizations or stopping can I see
now people going against standard Health
Care practices in all kinds of illnesses
right people people are going and off
the edge with their the distrust of the
medical
establishment right the moment you hold
two hypothesis and you say I'm not so
sure that's incredibly healthy not easy
to get to especially under stress where
people want an
answer so here's how I have gotten to
that in my life let me know if there's a
better
way I need to know what I need to know
what's true I understand that truth is
fishlyn the world most of what we
recognizes truth is perception and
interpretation so I see what I expect to
see so I'm over here looking at
something you might be looking at the
same thing but we are almost certainly
seeing different things having different
experiences and then on top of that
we're interpreting it so I walk away
seeing something and believing one thing
you walk away seeing something and
believing something else in the book you
give a great example of uh sleep
paralysis or night terrors and now some
people interpret that as abduction by
aliens and then other people like if
that happened to me I'd be like the one
thing I can tell you it was not an alien
abduction that doesn't fit my worldview
right so I would not be able to
accommodate that no matter how real it
felt I would walk away being like well
it was crazy I can't believe how much it
felt like I was levitating and like
there were aliens around the bed or
whatever all the normal signs are but
because my interpretation of that event
has to filter through my entire world
view I'd walk away going wow that's a
crazy trick of the brain to feel like
that this sounds like night terar sleep
paralysis whatever and so I'd walk away
with that but you might have that same
experience or somebody else and be like
100% I was abducted by aliens there's
literally nothing you could tell me that
would make me believe other wise I was
there I experienced it it's real I can
pass lie detector test so on and so
forth okay so that's how we end up with
these just wildly Divergent senses of
truth it's not even necessarily because
let's take the hard example it's not
that anybody's lying it's that they
looked at the same thing and they walked
away with wildly different conclusions
because we are all in our own simulation
which is based around our distorted
glasses and so we're legitimately
attempting to see the truth and we can't
okay so so just just to give to bring it
back so somebody gets um an announcement
from the CDC two people get announcement
from the CDC and one person says the CDC
is always lying and therefore it's the
opposite from what they're saying and
the other person says I trust the CDC
and you have the same piece of
information interpreted in very very
different ways and and then um lots of
other examples like this absolutely for
sure so now the question becomes is
there anything that we can call
objective truth and I would say there is
the only thing that I'm supremely
confident is physics so but even physics
we don't have a unifying Theory yet so
we know we're off by some margin but
that's at least it predicts and when I
think about in my own life okay truth
matters because it allows me the closer
I get to truth the more I'm able to
predict the outcome of my behaviors as
an entrepreneur that's incredibly useful
because my business lives or dies by my
ability to say if we do this then we
survive if we you know do something else
and we might fail so I'm always trying
to get as close to ground truth as
possible the problem is going back to
the phrase you don't like intellectual
humility so there's something I call the
physics of progress if you want to get
better at something there is a Formula
it's essentially the scientific method
recontextualized for whatever you're
trying to get good at but you know your
end goal you recognize the obstacle that
stands between where you are and the
goal you're trying to achieve and then
you're going to come up with a
hypothesis of what you would need to do
to overcome that obstacle to get to your
goal then you're going to try it it's
going to fail to some degree almost
certainly now in that moment if you're
willing to be honest okay this is all my
fault all 10 fingers back at me what did
I do wrong that if I changed I would get
a better result and in that is where all
the cognitive distortions all the
self-identity all the anxieties about
not being accepted uh thinking less of
yourself all the psychic pain that comes
with realizing I'm not as smart as I
thought I was what you build your
self-esteem around comes crashing in on
you and so in that moment of analyzing
the data and saying why didn't this work
all the sins of humanity can be found
yeah by the way with the with the I like
the fact that use the scientific um
approach the
methodology running two conditions would
be very
helpful right because if you run one
experiment one condition of the
experiment it's not always clear if it's
successful or failure or if it could be
even better but running two experiments
actually is also a very good thing for
saying I so much I don't trust this and
I don't know that I'm going to put in
two hypothesis at the same at the same
time so you know I I'm not sure whether
physics is you know yes physics is is
not social science there's a big
difference
but the physics part of it doesn't help
me because I want to predict human
behavior like you know physics is still
a different a different topic and I I
want to predict and understand improve
The Human Condition and my Approach and
you please tell me honestly if it comes
out in my books or not I I feel that I'm
like a tour guide that is sharing
information of what I think is the best
knowledge right now but I try very much
not to say that this is the there'll be
no thing after that that that I'm
basically saying here is the best
ability to what I think we know in
understand the world right now but it's
certainly possible we'll learn more
we'll change our opinion things will be
more complex and and by the way in
social science things can change because
technology changes the world of
attention before social media is
different than the world of attention
after social media different before the
phone then after the phone loneliness I
mean lots of things are are different
but I think that the right approach is
to
say what are the what are the things
that I hold to be most likely to hold in
most circumstances in a general way but
to
basically be open-minded to keep
examining them so and and that's one of
the risks so think about something like
education what do you mean that's one of
the risks the one of the one of the
challenges is that we don't keep
examining them right so think about
education we know very little about
education we spend a tremendous amount
of GDP on education if you ask what do
we know truly about what get kids to be
better educated we know very little we
know very and it's because we've done
very few experiments right what parents
will want their kids to go to a
randomized control trial on education so
we do correlational studies but we
hampering our own ability in terms of in
terms of learning so what on that
because what I want to get into one I
want to know how you establish truth so
I laid out my formula truth is that
which when I act in accordance with that
it allows me to accurately predict the
outcome of my behaviors that is to me
true if it isn't true I won't get the
right outcome if it is true then I will
and then
two if you want to use education as an
example like what would you do how would
you because to me you just plug it into
the physics of progress like it is
self-evident how you solve these
problems to me yeah um so so so let's
let's let's talk about I I sort of agree
with your first point I I would just
make the the barrier lower than
accurate um I would say that for me
truth is that these tools principles and
so on help me predict better than
without them okay but I accurate is kind
of a high a high bar right so uh let's
say let's say we want to predict
and let's say we have a new computer
game and um we want to we want to
predict how excited people would be
about it and we have some kind of
Economics within within the game there's
kind of an economic system uh within
that game and I say hey we have this
principle of loss aversion people hate
losses more than we enjoy gains I'm to
predict that if we have a system where
people are afraid of losing that there's
an opportunity to
lose uh they will be more motivated
to for the game and more motivated to
prevent loss than they would be
motivated to to gain I'm not I'm not
saying I'm not I'm not willing to give
you a specific accurate oh they will
play for 17 minutes instead of 10 but
the direction will be the direction that
it will be it will be positive so
so by adding this element to our
understanding of the mechanism we would
be better able to predict so I'm with
you there just I'm accuracy for me is a
is a little high yeah that's fine I
don't I don't know that we're
necessarily going to get to um the Final
End State everything is sort of
incrementally in the direction but what
I'm saying is you have to say I expect
this outcome and I either got that
outcome or I didn't or it was
directionally headed towards that or it
wasn't absolutely which is where
everybody fails don't have a metric by
which they judge and so then it becomes
we're arguing
about what we think is true with no
method to prove what is true and so we
get into these deranging battles so that
people say that the Earth is flat okay
that that one just seems um very simple
there are a set of tests where you can
predict okay if the Earth is flat it
makes these predictions go run test did
the prediction come true or not there's
a fantastic video of a flat earther who
in real time realizes oh I was wrong
because he's like if the Earth is flat I
can set up posts at a given height shine
a light through it and the light will
reach it'll go straight across if the
Earth is curved then the light will be
you know whatever uh in in a given place
and it was in the place you would expect
if the Earth Earth was curved and so you
see him be like whoa okay but that that
to me is exactly how you prove all this
stuff yeah so so we are we're together
on this and and there's actually the
running an experiment is one one
approach and basically specifying your
prediction is another one up front right
it's it's not just about if if we think
that rationalizing after the fact or or
you know motivated reasoning is a big
Force you want to be very clear upfront
about what your predictions are right
because you don't want to be in the
situation afterwards oh yeah that's
really what I meant yep you go out of
your way in the book write it down
because you're all going to think that
you were closer than you were that's
right so that's that's absolutely
important and and and a very important
mechanism to to move forward but but the
second part in all of this is the level
of uncertainty that we need to accept in
a very deep level how much we don't know
and that's very very tough it's very
very tough to just because humans don't
like uncertainty that's right we don't
like uncertainty
um you know you can think about all
kinds of professions where we think
about politicians right when do you
think a politician could be elected if
they said look um the question about how
to move the US economically forward is
very complex there's lots of options I
don't know who what will be the
composition of the senate in the house
and I'm not sure what they'll let me do
or not do but trust me I'll do my best
given the circumstances and the
political climate and our economic
opportunities and so on not going to
work right how many people would say yes
let's let's do that we don't like
uncertainty there's something very very
strong about we like confidence we like
stories we like um things that we think
are facts uh very very hard to live with
it so when we
say intellectual humility it's a it's a
tough State it's we need to understand
that yes it's nice to do but it's very
very tough to to actually live in that
mhm okay so let me ask uh sort of
nakedly gross question do you think the
average person is capable of the um
intellectual humility that will be
required to figure out what is true and
what is
false no okay no and I don't think it's
just the average I think I think it's
going these are very tough questions
they're very very complex and the world
is becoming more complex so
um like you know when I when I grew up
there was one school there was no
question of which school to go to there
was the school we we went to H for my
kids it's like you need a masters in
trying to understand the different
schools um Health Care is unbelievably
complex I mean the the world thankfully
is incredibly interesting incredibly
rich but also incredibly confusing and
you know what what are we expecting
people to be like we're expecting people
to be experts in every one of the many
aspects of their of their lives how can
they day it's
impossible so
not not because of I I doubt people's
ability and don't you expressly doubt
their ability I'm saying I also doubt
their ability but saying even even
without their even without doubting
human ability just the the sheer
demands that we have on people is
completely unacceptable so people need
to make very very simplifying
assumptions um I'm you know you and I
are in a privileged position let's
say tomorrow we we're diagnosed with
some medical condition we would find the
time to read the literature we would
talk to experts we we
would we would become slight expert in
it
quickly um but but you need a big
trigger with a real incentive to do that
we have to make a ton of decisions in
places that we are no experts on and
we're not going to spend the time and we
have to use some some mechanism so would
the majority of the people and the
majority of the topics be able to
separate truth from not truth
no no and but it doesn't mean that we're
doomed why because I think that the
Ingenuity of
society is not about Counting or on
human nature it's about designing a
better
world so imagine that I I came to your
house every morning by the way beautiful
house I came here every day and I
brought a a tray of fresh donuts and
corons how healthy would you be at the
end of that year exactly the same you
would you would refuse all of them every
single time okay I I'm not going to run
it because you live in LA and I'm very
open it's interesting because you've
mentioned this before and I thought I
got a FAS that question he's not going
to like the answer I get where you're
going but this also leads to what I'm
trying to get to so I want to show
people the way out of this um make your
point though I don't want to Der we'll
talk about your your personality in a
minute but most people would be less
healthy at the end of the year but but
the point is because the default option
is bad because because when we're faced
with temptation and we know that donuts
and croissant not the the good thing for
us but when we're faced with temptation
we have a really hard time resisting it
I'm not saying people would fail all the
time but they would fail enough to to
make them less less
healthy but our strength as as humanity
is to design the world in a different
way we can design the world so nobody
comes in the morning to serves donuts
and croons we can design the world so
the notifications on our phone are
not popping up all the time we can
design the world so that we don't
confuse um something funny with
something with something true on the
internet we can design the world to
reduce stress we can design the world to
increase resilience we I mean there's
lots of things we can do so if you say
let's let's take this human mind and say
how capable is this human mind to deal
with the modern world not so much how
cap how sensitive is this human mind for
all kind of interferences that would
derail this human from their long-term
objective very very hard what can we do
the only answer is so so your approach
is like the Dal Lama you say I'm going
to fix myself I'm going to to train I'm
going to think I'm going to be more
rational I'm going to do all kind of
things going to work for a few people a
little bit of the time I think the real
solution is to try and design things in
a better way
so
um saving let's design better savings to
health let's design Better Health
approaches in all of those things I
think once you design something
everybody can use
it uh but to count it everyone will
figure out their own way of how to do
things better that's a that's a that's a
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impact Theory that's K
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Theory to earn more doing what you
love okay so you this is such a big
problem and I do not I'm going to I like
to present very aggressive very clear
propositions but I want everybody to
understand I distrust myself I assume
I'm wrong I assume my default assumption
is that I'm laying something out that
may be directionally correct but is
going to fail in some way and I need to
be constantly seeking disconfirming
evidence with that I will say that the
reason this problem scares me and the
reason that I wanted to do a show on
this particular problem is because I
believe believe that people are trapped
by the way that their mind works and
that we have entered a hyper dangerous
period of human evolution where the rate
of information is coming at you so fast
that whether people are intending to
manipulate you or not they're just like
a social media app is just designed to
keep you on the app for the longest
amount of time but that might be by
enraging you it might be by scaring you
it might be whatever and so that's not
necessarily in your best long-term
interest now we haven't even defined
best long-term interest and if I have a
hundred guests on the show and I ask
them each to say what's your Northstar
they're going to be different which is
already crazy minine is fulfillment
which is working very hard to gain a set
of skills that allow you to serve not
only yourself but somebody
else so that to me is what everybody
should be aiming at but not everybody's
going to agree with that you can already
debate that so I like I like your
definition a lot thank you but I know
not everybody agrees with that so now we
have we don't even know necessarily what
we're aiming for we don't have the same
level of distortion in our glasses or
they're certainly not distorted in the
same way so we're not aiming at the same
thing we do not view the world the same
way we are all subjected to emotional
reasoning and then adding the logical
thing on the backside of it and we we
are living in a society where people are
trusting the government less and less
and as you said distrust begets distrust
so you get into a downward spiral of
just distrusting everything but one of
my base assumptions which again I'm very
open to being wrong but one of my base
assumptions is that there really are
people trying to manipulate me and there
really are people that are lying to me
and maybe they're even doing it because
they think they have my best interest at
heart but the second you try to impose
something top down instead of letting it
come bottom up and this is the one thing
that worries me about your solution
where we depending on how you let the
engineering happen to a better world if
you force that from the top down with
the smart people you're you're going to
end up with a [ __ ] disaster whereas
if you clear the way for people to run a
bunch of experiments which may and this
wounds my soul it may need to be at the
country level so that different
countries can do wildly different
experiments and hey whatever country
wins wins but part of winning is going
to be either economically icing you out
or dropping bombs on you and so man any
one person that can be a very rough ride
to see because again what's your
Northstar what are we actually aiming at
for some it might be just our GDP is
higher than yours or more people trade
in our currency than yours so it gets
very weird very fast so we're so so so I
think yes there are lots of differences
but there's also things we agree on I
think everybody's agrees that trust in
society is incredibly important right
some people think it's one of the most
important contributors to GDP some
people think it's less than the most
important but everybody agrees that it's
important and I think the idea that
countries need to take Collective
actions is also true I think the idea
that people should obey the laws and
that creates lots of a virtuous cycle is
is also clear there's some things we
agree I you're right it what's the North
Star we will probably have some
different opinions on but there are some
uh some some other General things that
we would that would we would agree I
also agree with you that that the way we
have designed Society I think not
purposefully but the way we've designed
Society is to basically kind of pray on
our weakest Point as as human beings
it's praying on an emotion it's praying
on our impulsivity it's praying on our
trust in information it's praying on our
loneliness praying on all kinds of
things and it's this is the Machinery
that is incredibly dangerous
now H the question is how do we get out
of this I I don't think there's one
solution so it's not as if I think oh
you know it's just government
regulation I think as individuals we
need to worry about our own
resilience uh
friends loved one significant other we
need to give resilience to others I
think we need resilience against what
against misinformation no or corrosive
information about about resilience is
about everything so I'll give you my my
favorite story on
resilience there's a principle called
secure
attachment and uh the story The Standard
story on secure attachment is the
following imagine your parent you have a
four-year-old kid you go with them to
the park and you say kid go and play and
the kid goes and play on the swing and
comes back 30 minutes later if that
happened you have a kid with Ure
attachment on the other hand if you say
go and play and and every 90 second they
look to see if you're still waiting for
them not so
successful now for me if I think about
that that means that you walk around the
world with kind of a feeling that you
have an insurance policy for everything
you know usually if you think about life
and you say sometimes bad things happen
and resilience is how much we jump back
do we bounce back to where we were do we
bounce back to a better place a worse
place how fast that's usually resilience
secure attachment is without anything
bad happens it's about what is your
attitude to life how much do you feel
that if something bad will happen
somebody will will catch you and if you
feel that if something bad will happen
somebody will catch you you you become
your force in the world is becoming very
different you can take risks you can try
different things right you could if you
think that nobody will be there to catch
you what's the chance you will start a
new company take a risk and and so on
very very low so this sense of
resilience secure attachment is
incredibly important in the
society now if each of us took a stock
and said if we fail on hard
time if we were hospitalized if we lost
a loved one if we got bankrupt you know
name name a few of those things
who can we trust if you have a long list
or at least a list with with a few names
on it you you have some sense in the
world at the world that you can you can
dare and if you say no there's nobody I
will be alone uh if that happens now now
you're in a very very different world so
can we give that how do we give that
sense to ourselves and to
others and on the individual level right
think about your friends and say to
yourself
what what can you do to give your
friends and family a higher feeling of
secure
attachment how would you create it for
yourself you know I think we don't think
enough about that but but I think that's
a that's on the individual level so
secure
attachment resilience to ourselves to
others stop
ostracizing H be more cognitive of how
we consume information and how we share
it multi multiple opinions intellectual
humility there's lots of things we could
do on the individual level I think
that's that's kind of um the starting
point but but we can't stop there I
don't think it'll be enough I think the
the the big forces of corrosive
information are out there and and
they're getting worse so if you think
about this notion of shibolet and
identity it's getting worse right we we
are now in a situation where politicians
for example can say things that are
clearly false clearly false there and
they're saying it just as a mark of
identity and we let it
go uh that's that problem will not solve
itself but but we as a
society have to figure out mechanisms
against that because if a politician is
saying something and they're saying it
for identity but you think it's fact
uh we're now in
trouble so how do we inoculate ourselves
against that so that one I don't know I
mean you you started our discussion with
complaining that that um I don't give
enough solution so you know I think the
the individual Solutions are are
important oh before I do
that you know AI is certainly going to
make this problem more complex thousand
times harder yes and you know usually by
the way for people following your
Twitter feed your exfeed uh you posted
two videos yes that are clearly deep
fakes yeah um did you post them knowing
that they were deep fakes or were okay
yeah just making sure yeah a friend made
them for me
yeah so I I I dedicated the book to to
Trump I I I I kind of wrote a dedication
of the book to to Trump and to Elon Musk
thanking them for
different types of inspiration and so on
I also thanked other people but I didn't
post those videos and a friend made a a
deep fake video of trump and a fake
video of Elon Musk thanking me and
taking taking this this thing further
but yes I knew
um so so so you know usually when we
think about systems like think about
driving with with cars and especially
with you
know autonomous vehicles with think that
the human link is going to be the weak
one that machines are better and humans
are going to be the the weak link right
every
time people fly we have more accident if
machine flies when people type we have
more spelling mistakes than if machine I
mean in many many ways we think humans
make more
mistake once you introduce
AI with the power to
deceive uh and to create corrosive
information
human beings are going to be the strong
point you know just because just because
technology is going to be so terrible so
terrible that we have to work on hum are
going to use those tools some people
would use it but I'm saying is is as as
end
users um we need to get much better at
this right so if you say oh as an end
user with cars Humanity will be better
off if you stop driving M as an end user
of information you it will be you need
to stop trusting and and start relying
on yourself like that's the that's the
difference right that if in every in
many other aspects like take Physicians
we want Physicians to rely more on
algorithms and more on automated surgery
and all kinds of tools like that in the
world of consuming information because
what I think AI will do to that you want
people to rely more on themselves and
less on the technology you want people
to trust L be more critical have more
intellectual humility all of those
things we we need to improve ourselves
right it's not there like we driving you
don't say oh let's solve the driving
Problem by getting people to drive
better saying no let's replace it with
technology here technology is going to
be very different so I think we we do
need to improve our own skills but then
there will be need some some things that
social networks will have to change and
regulations will have to change and you
know the way that Reg regulations work
is that we we find out bad things that
we do and then we fix it later sometimes
it takes a really long
time here it's also important to figure
out what are the things that we're doing
badly and now let's start let's start
regulating that so you know uh we don't
have rules against
lying uh you can't lie on in in court
right there's a there's rules against
that if you're a farmer company you
can't lie in your
ads uh and B that but but other than
that oh and you can't lie in a way that
would get somebody else to lose
money but if you think about what's
happening for example in the
US this corrosive information is costing
all of us a
lot right it's not an
individual that that is losing but but
mistrust in our
institution is costing all of us a lot
uh very hard to think about how to
quantify it but if we if we started to
quantify it we would say oh my goodness
when people start trusting the
government and starting the healthcare
system and starting this is this is
incredibly expensive for us so now we're
starting to realize that corrosive
information is costly and dangerous and
has lots of implications and we need to
figure out how how we going to regulate
it we can't we can't just let it go
continuously like you know
with let's take food and we found out
that you know heroin is not that good
and we said okay here are some
restrictions on how to use it meth not
so good here's some restrictions against
that I think with information we're
getting there we're getting to things
that are incredibly devastating for
people what do you think about Free
Speech okay so I think about everything
in a cost benefit way H there's not a
single principle that I would say that
I'm 100% sure that it's it's the right
one I think free speech is a wonderful
principle all else being equal I prefer
free speech to No Free
Speech uh but
um when if I'm convinced that the costs
outweigh the benefits but I need to be
convinced of that I'm willing to
restrict everything not just not just
free speech um you know societ is moving
in such
ways that that it is not clear to me um
that a good a good world is consistent
with with all of those principles for
example free speech is wonderful um but
trust is also wonderful and people not
hating each other is also wonderful and
now when you understand that Free Speech
the way it's being
utilized takes it has a cost on these
other things we are in a cost benefit
way and you can say I don't care about
everything else free speech is about is
about above all and um that's that's not
an empirical perspective it's an
ideological perspective on an empirical
side I would say if you can convince me
with with data that the cost of free
speech
outweigh uh the benefits then I'm
willing to consider what kind of
limitation I'm willing to have
yeah the only way that we'd be able to
do that is first people have to agree on
what we're trying to accomplish this is
why going back to the example you used
of Education this is where that all
breaks down what what is our aim what
are we trying to do because this is
measurable and we're either hitting it
or we're not hitting it if we're not
hitting it then we have to do something
new and if the structures that we have
don't allow us to hit that then the
structures have to change but so some
things some things you're absolutely
right but there are some things that are
lwh hanging fruit so for example
uh again we know very little about
education but one of the things we know
is that the differences between good
schools and not so good schools are less
about what the kids learn during the
year and what more about what they
forget in the
summer right kids who have an amazing
environment and summer camps and and
homes that they teach them don't forget
much in the summer maybe they even learn
and kids that come from impoverished
neighborhoods forget a lot in the summer
once you understand this you say let's
move to the to something like the kip
schools where they're all year round
let's not have a three three months
summer vacation let's make the the
vacation but is that your intuition
about the kip schools is that it's just
the fact that they're year round to me
it's the militant identity driven we
don't do that here there are very strict
rules you would hear or you don't it
gives them something to Aspire to it
gives them bright lines to adhere to
like I've been trying do you know
Jeffrey Canada no oh god I've got to
find this guy like I am desperate to get
that man on the show we have tried and
tried and tried anyway the whole idea
it's an amazing it's an amazing
organization unbelievable and they
certainly have more than just just that
but I gave you that as an example
because that's a factor that we know
works we know that the summer forgetting
is a big is a big deal discipline and so
on have a lot of intuitions around it
and reasons and I can I can play the
logic of why it happens and for what
kids it will be happen and so on not my
field but I've not seen the the evidence
for that yet it might be that it exists
but I I don't see it but right but but
you're right that there are some things
that are um High hanging fruit that
we'll need to decide you know what is
the goal of education and you and I will
probably agree that we want kids to H
keep on having the thirst for knowledge
and we want people to be flexible and
and you know we could we could Define a
few things that we'll probably agree but
there's also some Basics uh that we
would also agree and not
forgetting would certainly would
certainly be one of them but but I gave
the the education one as an example
because it's so easy to it's so
difficult to experiment with but I think
that and I gave it on purpose right
because say here's a here's a
domain that we find it morally
objectionable to
experiment but in some level we have to
because how are we going to make any
progress doesn't feel true to me so I
have a different take on that I this is
not an area I'm super familiar with I'm
shooting from the hip I outside of my
realm of expertise I want to fully
acknowledge that but at the same time I
believe people have an obligation of
themselves and the world uh to
articulate how they would approach a
novel problem okay so knowing that I'm
approaching this as a novel problem I
look at that and I say okay let each
School run its own experiment Let It Be
an experiment the kip school started out
as an experiment many of them were
started in the same building that the
the Normal public school is in they take
people on a completely randomized
lottery so it's not even like it selects
for you know better kids or whatever and
so right there you have two different
schools and if you could that are both
experiments and you could let the
parents decide hey what kids do you want
to or what school do you want to send
your kids to Boom now we see which
experiment Works which one doesn't I
understand they're going to be be a lot
of complexities in terms of federal
dollars and like that just to just to be
clear the moment you let the par parents
choose the experiment is not as good why
because now you have self- selection
okay so imagine that you have school a
and school B and you let the parents
choose the parents follow their
intuition of whether my kid will be
better in school a and school B but now
the the schools get very different kids
so it's much easier you can't compare
anymore that's what's called self-
selection
right that in an experiment one of the
things you want is that randomize you
randomiz assign people to conditions
yeah but don't you think that if you do
that like with Kip that same uh pool of
students in the same building but
different teachers different mentality
you get these wildly different outcomes
and we can look at that and go o I'd
rather have my kid in the kip School
than the normal school I'm saying if the
experiment gives the parents a choice
then it's already not a good
experiment um but I'll give you another
example for this uh so when I was in the
in the burn Department there was a
treatment called the jobs pressure
bandages and it was like um because I
have Burns all over I had a it was like
a superman but ugly Brown so no not
Spider-Man Spider-Man so I had um a
shirt very tight and it was supposed to
hold the hold the scars and create
pressure so I had
legs I had um a shirt long sleeve shirt
I had two gloves and I had one on my
head so really the only things you could
see were my eyes ears mouth and brown
brown Spider-Man kind of walking around
I walked with the hat it felt a little
bit less strange but but that's what it
was and and I asked the doctors is there
good evidence that this is
working and they gave me paper but the
paper not have a control group they
didn't compare half the people yes half
the people no and and I said look I I
don't know if this is really working how
how how do you know that that it's
working um and one of the things I
proposed to them I said look the upper
thighs I don't have
scars why don't you take an iron and
give me equivalent scar on the left and
equivalent scar on the right put me to
sleep I don't want to to be awake when
you give me this burn but give me
equivalent Burns temperature and
duration and let's put the jobs on one
leg and not on the other leg and let's
see if if it it's all working and I said
you know I I think that there's going to
be generations of burn patients that are
going to get this terrible treatment
it's very tough right it's
it's hard to move uh you're not free
it's very very hot it's itching it's
sometimes when I would put it on it
would tear the delicate skin and not
without cost m
ER the treatment and I said look I'm
willing to be a guinea pig Jesus for
this give me and by the way I think
every burned patient will be willing to
do it because we we have a kind of a
tremendous camaraderie with all the next
generation of burn patients like and and
they couldn't do it they said on ethical
reasons and and I can see why ethically
it's complex but you can see why
ethically it's also complex not to do it
now generations of burned patients are
getting a treatment that I don't know if
it's
effective because because we're not
willing ethically to do the experiment
so I love experiments and and there are
many experiments and that's what I was
going with the
education there are many experiments
that we're not willing to do
ethically but at the same time uh not
doing an experiment also has an ethical
cost and the ethical cost is we're not
learning how to do it better and we're
subjecting future generations of to to
to worse off treatment
so that that's for me is the issue I I
love experiments I think it's the only
way truly to learn something because of
our because of our
biases um and and if we don't have that
that compared to the control condition
we never know if this is actually better
or worse mhm how do we get a culture of
doing experiments even when they are
difficult and complex and painful and
even if we don't believe if we even if
we're sure that the the experiment would
yield a certain result and so on that
that for me is a big is a big issue for
us so I feel like the problem might be
something else more tied to misbelief
than anything because countries are
already running their own experiments we
can look at a lot of different countries
see how they handle education the
problem is that we have very different
North Stars so China's Northstar we are
going to run this [ __ ] like they're
here to run the table just in no
uncertain terms and so the way that they
run their education is in a with that if
what I hear about the Tik Tok algorithm
is really true and that in China they're
like showing you kids that win the
science fair and in America it's the
best dancers and people doing dumb [ __ ]
really is that what you hear that's what
I hear I haven't looked at it so I don't
know if that's actually true but um it's
certainly from a psychological warfare
perspective it would be very wise for
them to do that uh but anyway there's a
lot to look at I think that we were're
not looking at it because we are so
entrenched in these different camps and
so bringing this back to the thing I
want to get out of all this is I want
people to understand everything that you
lay out in the book resonated with me
very very much people go down these
funnels of misbelief they develop a core
identity around something the only thing
that I think you and I may disagree on
is I think everybody has misbeliefs I
don't think it's like oh one subset of
people I get it there are people that
are more prone to maybe certain styles
of misbelief but none of us see the
world as it actually is I don't think we
disagree on that
um you know again the the first figure
in the book is showing that conspiracies
are not about being left or right
everybody thinks that the other side is
conspiratorial they they are held by all
all side of the political spectrum and
and there are things that um we we all
hold and and there's a couple of
exercises that basically get people to
recognize I hope some of our some of our
misbeliefs
so
um you know I talked on some on some
radio about about misbeliefs and
somebody uh wrote and complained that I
I gave examples of people on the right
that I do not give examples enough
examples on people on the left and and
conspiracies and and of course um he was
right and it's
because you know cancel culture is so
powerful
uh you know the left has its own its own
issues um but but giving examples of
specific things that that um the left is
doing in a in a crazy way and the the
identity around it is so powerful that
it's even hard to to say to say the
words because because people will come
after you that's right which you've had
a lot of in the last few years that's
right you talked about earlier in the
interview um I didn't want to distract
from the points you were making but that
is it's it's a really potent example of
what happens when people grab onto an
idea and they need the villain and they
need somebody to be
wrong but it's also an example of okay
like what what is the truth are you
going to be able to convince people I
know people were comparing you to Geral
which for anybody that knows the um Nazi
propagandist that seems a little
uh outrageous there's a way there's a
way to look at it as a compliment I was
the chief Consciousness architect for
the covid pandemic like you could say oh
my goodness that's a compliment it's
certainly high level but no not really
no
the you know the
psychology of being attacked is very
tough I I would say that in the first
month when I would try to have
conversations but
also for the next two years like every
day that I would get a death
threat I'm sure I had I lost a few IQ
points for that day because you were so
preoccupied yeah I would say that in the
beginning it felt like I lost
20% like I I I would try to focus I
would try to focus and I would feel like
there's something really missing and
that I was not as quick and I was
not but I I was slower um and so on and
and then part of it was social media
related some of it was like oh you know
the my my computer Bings with something
or uh what what is this I I opened my
email which which ones are are going to
be um hurting and so
on um there was a point where people
attacked me in the street that's crazy
that was that was very very tough um
really did you ever have a car accident
yes so so I I had a motorcycle accident
once and and everything felt like in
slow motion they had the same yeah and
and being attacked like this was the
same I I don't think it lasted very long
somebody called me a kept on calling me
a murder and a psychopath and and
somebody else joined um it felt it felt
like in slow motion uh for a very long
time it was such a such
a a bizarre a bizarre experience but I
felt I felt very much this
drain of intelligence and and and stress
and so on and you know we talked about
how people um are looking for a villain
and looking for a story in some sense
this book it it it struck me only when I
finished it in some sense this book is
is my the way I dealt with the
stress I was attacked I was stressed how
did I solve it I found the story and I
found the villain and and the story is
the book and the villain is is
eventually the combination of human
nature and society and and so on it's
not a simple story it's a complex story
as well but um
but but it is so negative like if I if
you ask me
about how people feel in in counil
culture and what what are the lengths
that people are willing to
go uh
to reshape their understanding and
rechange their what they're willing to
say and and so on it's it's tremendous
because it's such such a feeling it's
such a a devastating feeling even I I
feel of it like the last time I got a
death rate was four days ago but but the
the the rate is going down it's not
every day
anymore um but but it was a very very
long very very tough period and
I you know now we're in Hollywood like
this is Hollywood right it's is is Ish
um since I came here Heard lots of
stories about people who've been
recently been been cancelled I I can
imagine now uh that that feeling and I
think I can imagine the the lengths that
people would go not to not to exp not in
a healthy way not in not in a good way
for
society yeah group think yeah so that
was um going back to the initial premise
the thing that I want to help people do
is be able to think independent ly to
not get caught up in group think to be
able to
outperform the vast majority of the
world my hypothesis goes like this uh
you need massive amounts of humility you
need to completely distrust yourself
because again this is me people need a
Northstar I highly advise fulfillment
and to actually get where you want to go
you have to be able to get as close to
ground truth as possible so that you
know okay well if I try this I'm going
to get this outcome you're going to be
off you're going to refine refine refine
but you have to stare nakedly at your
own inadequacies in that moment where
you're assessing did what I just try
worked or not because you're going to be
able to come up with a compelling
narrative as to why either it wasn't
your fault which is what most people do
I'm a victim I'm whatever there's all
these reasons outside of my control why
this didn't work it doesn't have
anything to do with me I'm a good person
I can still feel good uh you'll stay
stalled out forever you'll never figure
out exactly why what happened happened
and so you have to stop and say okay I'm
going to point all 10 fingers of
responsibility back back in myself what
can I do differently in order to get a
different outcome now once you click
over into that
zone I should say two click over into
that zone you can't build your
self-esteem around being right and this
is where the I need to feel good about
myself derails people down the funnel of
misbelief If instead you even mentioned
this in the book this is a central
thesis of my life if you have a growth
mindset you are not prone to going down
the funnel of misbelief because your
identity is not tied up in a belief
belief or something you've said your
identity is tied up in identifying what
works and getting better so that you can
execute against that so anytime that you
notice you're falling short you can
improve so intellectual humility and
experimentation go hand inand right
because the moment you say I'm not
really sure then you go and test
multiple things
I I have my own version of what what you
said um so my version of this is
believing in
karma and there are many definitions but
for me karma is the law of cause and
effect and it means that when we do good
things the odds of other good things
happen is is higher and when we do bad
things for mystical reasons or because
humans are a social creature h i yeah
not mystical yeah just just because the
the way the the world works right you do
a favor to somebody you know you do you
do positive things you increase the
probability that something good would
happen but no not mystical but you do
something negative you increase the
chances that something bad will happen
down the line but it's probalistic I
don't know if the percentage but you
know there's a small percentage
Improvement but for me this notion of
karma is connect is connected with the
idea that we don't judge ourself based
on the outcome but we judge ourself on
what we do because you say I've done a
good thing I ended my job here uh and
now it's the world's turn and the
statistic it's going to be probalistic
it could turn out to be good it could
out to be bad but but my responsibility
ends where I finish doing my job at the
best ability possible but but for me
that changes my framework from judging
myself based on outcomes to judging
myself on whether I think I've fulfilled
my
duty really interesting you and I view
the world very
differently so that's clear I have heard
you uh I will steal man your argument
that the world there is a right way to
live there are right things to do that
we have duties and obligations to each
other as a species and the the world is
far too complex so all you can do is say
did I adhere to my duty yes or no and if
I did then hey amazing and if it ends up
backfiring and being a problem I too
complicated there's nothing I can do
beyond that that's beyond myself have I
understood your position accurately no
you because you you've taken away you've
you've taken one part of it and I don't
think that I always know the right thing
to do so so you you're you're connecting
Karma and
certainty for me they're not connected
they're are separate issues so I would
say based on what I know right now I'm
doing the best I can and it includes
could include learning and improving and
all kinds of other things but but the
notion is that my obligation is to act
in my best ability right now but my
respons responsib I don't judge myself
based on whether it worked out I judge
myself that I adhere to my current
standards so so the the I don't want it
to be seen that I think that there's
absolute
standards of behavior everybody has
their own but what's that built around
is it for you personally is everybody
building a moral code is it a religious
code it is it is it is about the
particular project so so I'll give you
an example
during covid I I designed a program that
I thought could reduce domestic
violence uh against kids there was a
huge
increase and I had this idea of what
would work I talked to lots of experts
and I designed something I worked very
hard on it and um it turned out that for
legal
reasons we couldn't introduce it to
schools uh should I feel bad
about this or or not like I felt
terrible I felt terrible because I I
felt that this was going to be good and
I was disappointed it didn't work but I
also said you know I took a real problem
that pains me and and I and I did my
best to try and push something something
forward it was it was what I thought was
the best
solution that I could
help and I I I I try to basically say I
did I did what I thought was right I'm
really disappointed it didn't work out
but I'm not going to judge myself and
saying next time I'm only going to do
things if I know that they'll work out
no I said I I want like when I see
problems and I have solutions that are
low probability events but might work in
this I still want to reinforce that
behavior
so imagine the human being is a learning
algorithm and you're saying what
behaviors do you want to
reinforce and I think that low low
probability high stake success is great
to reinforce but it means that to
reinforce that people need to
reinforce what they do and not the
outcome like let's just take um you have
this you have a a set of Amazing Ideas
that each of them has 5% chance of
working
out if you base it on reward most time
you would say you failed you failed you
failed right 19 out of 20 times you
would say you failed if you basically
move to a situation you did your best in
each of those you would reinforce more
of
those so that's where that's what I mean
by karma is that I want to reinforce by
the way it's not just in me but but in
everybody like with experiments at the
University right the people who work
with me I don't want them to judge thems
on whether the experiment worked or not
work because then there's a really easy
shortcut do triv
experiments I I want people to do risky
experiments that we don't know if they
will work or not work we'll learn the
most out of them so the the thing that
tripped you up in my Steel Man and your
argument is certainty it's it's the
outcome it's the it's the it's the well
I said that so all I'm trying to do is
is um Faithfully articulate what you're
saying yeah what I hear you saying oh oh
I see when when you say about about me
yeah yeah so when the your your
complained about my
my statement my complaint I don't have a
complaint no complaint but but the the
challenge that you said that we well
first I just want to see if I understand
with the fair is is about the fact that
I think that for me the doing the right
thing is not a universal principle and
it can change over time and I'm
committed to learning and improving and
so on but given what I know right
now I want to feel fulfilled I want
people around me to be fulfilled when
they have done their best and and not
depend on an
outcome yeah so um I agree but I want to
make sure that I articulate your point
in a way that you say yes I understand
what I hear you saying is that you
cannot guarantee the outcome because you
can't guarantee the outcome it doesn't
make sense to judge somebody their
Endeavors based on the outcome far
better to say did you do that thing
sincerely did you really give it a shot
and if you really gave it a sh shot
regardless of whether it ends up being
successful is irrelevant because the
behavior that you want to reinforce is a
sincere attempt to do something um you
said risky seems like a reasonable word
but risky in a way that like it really
has a chance of adding value to some
group or Humanity at large right y okay
uh that's I actually get that and in my
own life I say I don't value myself for
whether I succeed or fail I value myself
for this sinere pursuit of something but
my whole life is predicated
on um steering by not my intentions but
by My outcome and so the subtle
difference because I think you and I are
basically saying the same thing but the
thing that drives me like a maniac is
this slight tweak on it which is I
really believe that I can bend the world
to my will but I have to exist in the
physics of progress and so I have to go
ooh I thought I was going to get X
result and I didn't get X result that
means I need to do something different
in order to get X result and if I
attempt this enough times and I refine
refine refine that I'll ultimately be
able to get there yeah and I think we
agree because because you're saying once
you're into
something that's
the the the journey but once the journey
is over there's an evaluation and the
evaluation should create a sense for
Improvement right like and I I don't
think that if you if something doesn't
work you should learn nothing from it
you should certainly learn from it and
try to improve for the next for the next
time but I think both of those are
important it's
the not being sure testing multiple
things uh and rewarding effort rather
than than outcome in the short term
because we think that rewarding effort
in the long term would be the right the
right approach
Ro so along those lines is somebody
that's seen misbelief so up close what's
the move like what do you do from here
keeping in mind what I'm trying to
answer for the people that are watching
right now is precisely how they should
be approaching this problem so so
individually I think invest in your own
resilience secure can deal with it y so
you can deal with stress because if you
understand the role of stress then you
and that resilience is built strong
family life people that you love and
care about family friends yes stop
bickering with your significant other
I'm talking but but you know we do we do
so many things that reduce resilience we
not intentionally but but you know we do
we do lots of those things so it's in
like having high level of trust and
resilience with your your close
environment unbelievably important for
you and and for
others and that's that's number one uh
when you identify people early on in the
funnel of misbelief helped them I I use
the The Heading hug a misbeliever but
you know like you know these people are
really suffering and and they're going
to suffer more and their suffering is
going to have consequences for them for
you for society try to do early
detection in your see if I can predict
why you say they're suffering they're
suffering because the funnel of
misbelief starts with somebody who's
incredibly stressed somebody who's
probably feeling ostracized somebody
that's being pushed into the arms of
people that agree with what they agree
with they and they need that because
they're not getting it anywhere else um
they probably also have personality
traits that lead them
to um believe would you call them
falsehoods anyway so negative things
lead all of us down this path and so
when you see somebody heading down that
path it's probably indicative of
something bad has happened yeah just
just imagine somebody who believes in
God they basically wake up and they say
oh the world is good yes that there
devil sometimes but it's mostly good and
there's an entity that takes care of me
in principle and and so on now take a
misbeliever we say it's the lens from
which they view everything or the
glasses in which they view everything
and they mistrust and so on think about
how difficult it is to wake up like this
you wake up and you feel that there's a
network of pedophiles that is trying to
take your kids and they're they're
trying to implant a G5 chip in them and
they're trying to make sure that they
don't uh move uh they don't see nature
you know just just think about what all
the terrible things that that that
people
live then I think a lot of our
discussion so that's that's you know the
this the emotional element and a little
bit of not ostracizing people on on that
side but a lot of what we talked about
is is the cognitive part right how do we
keep multiple hypothesis how do we keep
the idea that we might be wrong how do
we inject it on ourselves so we gave two
two little party tricks one is what
would it take to change your mind and
the other one is the illusion of
explanatory depth but those are
attacking the the cognitive component
when you say to yourself I don't want to
be I don't want to be 100%
sure in anything that is going to color
my worldview or at least I'm going to be
very very cautious before I before I get
there and and that's that's the
individual level and I think that's the
the level that we we're talking here but
I'm also hoping that we will do that we
will do other things that will you know
we'll create different social networks
that will think about different
standards uh for politicians that for
opinions not just politicians for for
anybody who is speaking I think I think
those are important progress but not not
something that we you and I could do
individually do you have basis on what
change you want to
see so um so let's let's take the
example of of social media media um I
don't want people to be
deprived of misbelief in conspiracy
theories you mean be deprived like uh
the one approach is to is to uh censor
so you know social network X is not
allowing um flat earther to to share
anything they're now really is a social
network
X you mean random social right random
yeah yeah sorry didn't mean that um I
don't think that's healthy I think we
need to learn to deal with different
opinions and I think we need to learn to
deal with uh conspiracy theories and but
it's a question of what's the what's the
Right Mix what what mix do we want to
expose ourselves to or what kind of mix
do I want my kids to expose themselves
to I don't want them to I don't want
forb to be zero I think they need to I'm
hoping to to be there with them when
they cons
some of those things and develop the
ability to not just believe but suspend
belief and question and test things more
more generally but I think that's that's
an example of you know what is the how
do we
regulate the
mix you know we we think about pieces of
information I think that's not the right
level of analysis I think the right
level of analysis is a person and and
what are they exposed to as a person
because I'm fine for anybody to be
exposed
to to videos let's just say not you know
not things that I don't know what
there's some things that probably not
but I'm willing for everybody to be
exposed to videos of name the conspiracy
theory I don't want people to start
being exposed 100% to that so we need to
think about that another simple ex
another simple thing is that
the the the action of liking or
promoting or whatever it is is very
ambiguous when I uh like something what
am I really saying do I say it's true do
I say it's ridiculous do I say it's
funny you know in in a in a regular
conversation you would know what I mean
and if I say something hey look at this
this is ridiculous can you believe
somebody else believes that that will be
very different in saying I think this is
true but but the way social networks are
created we we are it's everything is
ambiguous and you can understand why
what they do it but that's not how we're
consuming it and the people who are
sharing it don't get to convey their
meaning to the PE people who are
consuming it right you said social proof
people say lots of likes so oh must be
true no it might be that it's ridiculous
it doesn't it doesn't mean that so so I
think I think we have a lot of solutions
that we need to figure out there I don't
know if they will do it themselves do we
need to create some standards I don't
know what it is but if you think about
language just what like is and you say
when these these social networks are not
allowing likes to express the the range
of what people mean we have a terrible
communication
gap and then we have to think about what
we do with the First Amendment
I think it's a you know we started
talking about because you want to
curtail
it so you know we'll go back to the
experiments remember I I I would love to
go on a journey that explores the
downside of free speech and if at the
end of this journey I would be convinced
empirically that the
downside outweighs the positives then I
would start
exploring better ways to do it
you know there are some things we don't
allow already right I I don't think
necessarily we're doing the right thing
so you know there's there's things
against violence and sex for young kids
we've decided that those two categories
are are important and we're not
questioning that right but I I'm not
sure that some of the things we making
it uh free for our kids are not worse
than those two like how how did we
decide like what was the mechanism that
that got us to decide that seeing a
nipple is what is it like rated R I
don't know what but whatever that you
you can't see a nipple
or you know maybe you can see a gun but
you can't see a you know a punch you see
a gun or a nipple but not a gun and a
nipple yeah I get all that so so we have
curtailed we have decided as a society
that we're willing that these are these
are things that are taboo that we're not
allowing kids in certain ages and their
rules I don't think those things have
ever been tested
somebody decided I don't like that I
want I want things to be tested and and
I am I think that some of the things
we're exposing ourselves are worse than
those right is
is is a conspiracy the is is exposing
people to a
cabal that is smuggling
kids uh for sexual gratification
um you know like where does it stand on
the scale how do we how do we think
about it what about what about the
conspiracy that the the FDA is
controlled
by you know a person person y I guess we
can't use x anymore probably probably
soon for anything um so I I like an
empirical
approach and and by the way this is my
guess is that the the sex and the
violence have were done with with
zero uh with zero evidence with just
intuition about what would would be
negative for kids what do you think
about Jordan Peterson's idea that speech
is effectively thinking and if you're
curtailing people's speech you're
curtailing what they think and their
ability to think and thusly you are
making making it impossible for people
to think through difficult problems
well yeah I it's it's not that I think
that I don't take Free Speech
lightly um I just watched this amazing
documentary on Floyd Abrams on on you
know the the the important um free First
Amendment lawyer that that's I mean just
really it's an incredibly
important thing but again I take nothing
as uh saying that I'm not willing to
trade it off you know there are people
that are single issue
voters this is it it's all
about guns abortions uh gay rights I I
think that everything is a trade-off and
I think that for most things we don't
understand them sufficiently deeply and
we're just in the beginning of the
journey and we need to understand it and
we need to keep on willing to change it
later on so for example if I let's say
let's say we found out that there's a
particular speech that we we all agree
empirically is more hurtful than sex and
nudity and we said this particular
speech uh Speech L is
prohibited
um I'm I don't want to say this is it
we'll keep on developing new speeches
right we this needs to be an ongoing
project on figuring out what's damaging
and what tradeoffs we're willing to make
like the the world we're in now 10 years
ago if I asked you 10 years ago what are
the challenges that are facing human
nature human Human Society what is what
are the big challenges misbelief would
not have been one of them now it's
certainly one of them Society is
changing technology is changing we need
to change our rules and regulations
accordingly 20 years ago we wouldn't
think that we need to do a law guns
texting and
driving now now certainly texting and
driving is killing way too many people
so so this is a a living system social
science unlike physics physics is not
changed for a very long time social
science changes all the time because the
things that tap
our
irrationality keep on changing and the
type of mistakes we make keep on
changing so we we need to change with
it interesting okay so for me as I think
about trying to put together a mental
framework that's going to protect myself
I don't see how we build a mental
framework without having a
Northstar uh a thing that we're aiming
at
so rather than asking you to give
something that everybody can use what's
the mental framework that you use I I
don't think it's very different than
yours so you have a your your North Star
is very general and it's subjected to
change because the language that you use
is is General right you're not saying I
know the one way to get fulfilled and to
to improve myself in humanity you kept
it at a very high level on purpose and
you say and I'm not sure exactly what
the path in fact I probably don't know
the path and I'll keep on learning about
it so I like your framework very much I
think that as as people uh we have this
beautiful thing called social utility we
care about others it's it's it's a it's
a beautiful thing we have this capacity
to care about others um and and I think
we need to build it up not not crush it
and tell people that they need to be
selfish I think we need to build it up I
think it's good for people I think it's
good for society I think we we tap into
some of the good things about
irrationality right in the in the
standard rational framework people are
selfish there's some good things about
irrationality we we love
we like poetry we create art we care
about others there so I think
that creating a goal of fulfilling
ourselves by uh improving other other
people's lives I think is a wonderful is
a wonderful abstract goal as long as you
don't say I know what is the exact way
to do it and then the rest of the things
you you said it's a journey right we
don't know and we are committed to
exploring it we're committing to
investing effort uh to test things that
we think work but don't work and and the
other way around and to continue and to
continue working and I think those two
elements are
great so I I would I I would stick I
would stick with
yours I would I would add the component
of of karma I would say that because
it's a long-term
Journey uh I want people to try things
that are have a low probability High
payoff but if you think about the risk
return world you say I really want
people to try uh low probability High
returns so I want I want to reward
effort not not outcomes
um and that's great oh and and then if
we if we add one more thing I would say
plus if you think about the
energy that is required to to do all of
that I think that energy needs a good
base in
resilience so if you think about the
world in which says how do you get
people to wake up in the morning and and
be willing to take steps and take risks
and try something and doubt themselves
and so on you want them to be not in
stress and you want them to feel to high
high resilience because you the the
human motivation aspect the way you've
defined your objective doesn't have
the place where you derive energy to do
it from and I think the the doesn't have
not enough like you say it's about the
goal it's about but but what gets you on
a day-to-day basis to be willing to to
take these extra steps and I
think resilience is is one of the things
that supports this now think think to
yourself you you told me a little bit
about your your
start and what it means to live in a
world where you have partners that you
can you can trust and to be in an
environment where I mean those are those
are incredibly important
elements yeah agreed very much I'm not
sure that I understand what you mean so
part of my formula is that it's got to
be something that you care about and
serves yourself as well as other people
um and then anyway I've got a whole
thing about how you build desire and all
that but I I do very much agree with But
but so what what do you mean by
resilience so so you can have all of
these good intentions but let's say you
wake up one day and you feel the
scarcity
mindset what are the odds that you could
take long-term actions that you could
invest the the mindset that you have to
have to fulfill yourself is a mindset
where you can say I can take risks and I
don't need to worry about being
cancelled and I don't need to worry
about Express my opinion psychological
safety is so important in the
workplace why because if we tell people
don't express your ideas what are we
hoping that to get out of them so so
this this support
network uh is incredibly important to
allow you to have the energy that you
that you want to uh to fulfill yourself
now my guess is that you have built your
life in a way that you have a lot of
this so much that you don't notice it
now that that's an area that I'm hyper
aware of um I just use a different
phrase which is the people with the um
strongest relationships or strongest
home life take the biggest risks so um
very very very much agree with that uh
so the only thing I think that there
might be a slight difference in is that
idea of Duty um that there's a right way
to do something and as long as I did
that um for me me I just have an extra
thing that matters to me whether this is
what everybody needs to adopt or not I
don't know I I don't think of it like
that but uh for someone to live a
fulfilling life I feel like they need to
have a sense of control and agency in
their life and to have that you have to
exist in the physics of progress to do
that when something doesn't go right you
have to say Okay then there's something
wrong with my base assumptions there's
something wrong with the Distortion in
the lenses through which I view the
world I'm not at Ground truth because
I'm not at Ground truth I have missed
something and so I just need to look and
figure out what that thing is but um
yeah I think ultimately we're very very
close in terms of I will say one other
thing that when you said passion so I um
one of the things I'm finding myself
these days that I am able to find
passion in many different
projects so um I was three weeks ago I
was in Brazil and I went to visit some
of the favas you know the the places
where people live illegally very very
tough places no sewage poverty violence
drugs you name
it and I came to visit an organization
that is trying to get these favellas out
of poverty kind of an amazing
organization and and their question
was what is the best
investment to get people out of poverty
what's the what's the marginal
contribution of investing in domestic
violence in reducing domestic violence
reducing
violence that is not domestic in helping
people find jobs in getting kids to go
to school in getting sewage you know
just the number of problems is is
incredible more food more health I mean
just the number of problems is
amazing where where is the marginal
where's the mar thing now that problem
was not high on my list before but going
and visiting for a few days um certainly
got me to
start um it became very high on my on my
on my list just thinking about it
there's about 200 million people in
Brazil about 20 of them are in this 20
million are in this um in these
conditions and um I I think that my my
motivation I if you show me three
projects and you tell me you ask me
where I think I would be have the
biggest
impact um I think I would pick just the
one that I have the I think I can have
the biggest impact so I and and maybe
this is different than the new new but
it's not that I I say oh poverty is is
my thing or health is my thing or end of
life and so on I just look at the world
and I say where can I make an
impact it's it's kind of my my starting
point and I I think I could get excited
with anything as long as I felt that I
could make an impact and it's with
within my reach so the the the fact that
my knowledge is relevant and I have
agency and I could help I think I could
be excited with very different
topics and you seem to have um specific
topics that excit
you yeah I think that um if I had to
guess going back to your favella problem
one it fits into a type of problem that
you find interesting like what this
social rats nest how do we begin to
untangle that that's sort of the theme
of all your books um also I mean look
part of it is you went there you saw the
people this is what what I call when
when I talk about building desire people
have to find people that that are real
that they can picture that they ideally
know and love and they want to do
something to help them or at least
people like them um so yes I think all
of us ultimately have what I call the
world of there's a world of things that
we like to be around uh and so the more
like if you're huge into soccer like but
you're an accountant well go figure out
how an accountant can help a soccer club
mhm so there are things like that but
yeah I I could I mean and have when I
was in nutrition I was in nutrition I
wasn't like thinking oh I'm going to get
out of this I was like Hey I'm going to
find a way to connect to this and and
really build something here again just
this everything comes back to me that
there is a physics to the human mind and
once you understand the physics of the
human mind we actually talked about this
briefly we didn't go deep into it but
you can reattribute your emotions so
you're walking across the bridge you
have a heightened
arousal uh you meet an attractive woman
at least
subconsciously they were reattribution
the emotion from the bridge yeah to the
woman now you can actually take a hold
of that process and say okay every time
I explain to people why I'm building
let's say impact Theory every time I say
it I'm going to explain my whole mission
in life is to make sure that nobody gets
to the age of 15 without encountering a
growth mindset at scale through ideas
and entertainment okay why does that
matter and then I'll tell them my past
and I tell it in a very animated way why
do I do that because I know that my
brain is going to justify whatever
amplitude of emotion I repeat so if I'm
constantly like you don't understand how
much this matters to me man if I do that
enough it really starts to seep in and
so this is why your books many of your
books have been so instrumental for me
because they're putting their finger on
these just weird quirks of human
psychology and what I I hope people are
getting out of this is if you understand
what's happening not only can you avoid
the Trap of like sliding down the funnel
into misbelief but you can also go oh I
know how this works I get that my brain
is going to justify these things I'm GNA
have an intuition and then a logical
thing is going to come after that okay
I'm going to connect dots based on
feelings that's going to give me that
illusion of explanatory depth where I
think I understand this thing oh but I
don't so cool the next time I think I
understand something I'm going to force
myself to write it down in a single
sentence or to draw out a blueprint of a
toilet or whatever and when I realize oh
[ __ ] I can't then that will be further
proof I can't trust my emotions which is
one of the things that I'm trying to get
people to understand you cannot trust
your emotions when you feel you're most
convinced that's when every alarm Bell
you have needs to be going off and
because I spend a lot of time with
entrepreneurs I'm always telling them
look the mind works in a certain way
leadership is a certain thing because
the mind works in a certain way and when
you're talking to your empy employees
you are going to have to give them
certainty you're going to intoxicate
them with certainty we're going to do
this and it's going to yield this and
trust me just get behind me and execute
like a demon and this is all going to
work then you need to go away and
understand you have to challenge that
you have to go find disconfirming
evidence you have to figure out because
you know there's something wrong with
your thesis if there wasn't you would
already be where you plan to be but
you're not and you're not because
there's some piece of this that's
missing and so while externally you have
to project certainty because that's the
way the mind works you also have to
distrust whatever certainty you have in
yourself and call those beliefs into
questions there is a physics to the
human mind and because there is physics
to the human mind there's physics to
groups because those Minds
collectively they act in a certain way
and you've really mapped a lot of this
territory out and if people can begin to
internalize the lessons like when I look
around and I see people trusting
themselves I'm like Jesus Christ like
I'm jealous I guess a little bit because
I have so much mistrust for myself but
at the same time because I distrust
myself I've actually been able to go I'm
probably wrong about this what am I
missing I'm open to new information I
have a a high degree of openness to new
ideas and that's allowed me to
constantly pull myself out of what would
otherwise be traps to listen to other
people um
and getting people there getting people
to distrust themselves to me is the and
look I understand this is a gross
oversimplification but if you want to
avoid the traps of misbelief you you
cannot trust yourself when it feels
right is when you should most be like I
know better than this yeah I know better
I'll give you what one uh one more
anecdote for this we we did a study when
I was still at
MIT on simulations for jet
engines so there's all these programs
that do simulations and what we saw was
that the more realistic the simulation
looked it looked like a real engine you
know in in the the graphics the more
people forgot the assumptions that went
into the
model the more something looks real the
more you forget that it's just a fiction
it's based on simulation and so on and
and with with deep fi
you know this issue about what do we
trust we we have such trust in our eyes
you know eyewitness testimony We Trust
our memory I mean the the amount of un
uh undeserving trust that we have in
ourselves uh Vision memory um perception
decisions yeah certainly we need to
question it much more no doubt all right
talk to me about in the social sciences
there is a replication crisis so many of
these things they're amazing and they
feel so right and it lines up with what
I believe one of my favorite stories I
don't think this has anything to do with
you but one of my favorite ones was like
oh if you meet somebody uh and they're
you have a hot mug get them to hold the
hot mug because then they'll think warm
feelings of you I was like a so dope and
then it can't be replicated and so many
things including some of your own
research fails to replicate how do we
deal with that like this seems to fall
into the same sort of cognitive basket
yeah so so there lots of lots of
different ways to think about it let me
tell you about one uh one example from
mine and kind of through that
so so so we ran an experiment uh on the
Ten
Commandments we asked people to recall
the Ten
Commandments um or recall 10 books and
then we gave them a task they could
cheat and what we found was that the
people who recall the Ten Commandments
cheated cheated
less okay now there's another group uh
that that tries to replicate this
study and we did it in one place and
they do it in many places they do it in
many places much more serious and and so
on now they don't replicate it exactly
uh they they make some important
differences um one important difference
is in the cheating task they they use
the same cheating task but with a
slightly different procedure
so we had a task where people could just
say I solved it or not and in their
version they had to Mark the correct
answer so there was a difference in
there and and they run this experiment
it doesn't
replicate and they write this paper that
says fail to replicate um and you know
lots of questions why um we asked them
for the data and what they actually did
so aside from making the experiment
slightly different but in an important
way
they they ran another experiment before
that so you know they ran this
replication effort a lot of people
participate and so
on they said let's replicate two things
at the same time so they ran two
experiments one after the other and the
first experiment annoyed people and it
annoyed them either at the 20% level or
80%
level um but when we looked at their
data for for our experiment we also
looked at it as a function of the first
experiment and guess what it
matters so now they thought they were
replicating our experiment but because
they were running it after another one
they actually changed the results
because when you annoy people people
respond differently to the 10
commandments I don't exactly understand
why so um we said look this is an
interesting thing right social science
is complex lots of things happen it
turns out it looks like annoying people
makes the effect of the Ten Commandments
different not something I would expect
but it looks like that so that's just
based on their data so we said okay
let's repeat that let's annoy people and
not annoy people let's test that this is
indeed the case and also because when we
ran the experiment originally it was
2004 we learned a lot since then and
let's add more things to the mix so we
add more things to the mix um do people
need to know the Ten Commandments they
need to believe in them then all of
things like that and and guess what we
find that annoyance matters I don't
exactly understand why but it matters H
we find that the Ten Commandments do
make a difference but it makes a
difference only for the people who
believe that it captures some moral code
you don't have to be in a in that
religion you know judeo-christian
religion but they have to believe that
it captures some kind of a moral code
right the people who don't and of course
you know we can go back to 2004 and say
you know religion has the role of
religion has dropped all kinds of things
have changed in the last in the last 20
years but but anyway here's a
story about
results a failed
replication that actually gets us to
understand something different and now
in retrospect I wouldn't call it a
failed replication I would say that this
was a a different experiment that
revealed something else
so so I think there is a class like that
where people who do the
replication do something else
important that is different an
experiment before different conditions
all kinds of things like that and it
actually is not negating the results
it's it's about something else so that's
that's one type I don't I'm not saying
it's everything but I think one type is
like is like that um
I'll in a very different way you know
when I early in my career I spend a lot
of time in the lab and I had people read
instructions on a computer right there
was all kind of computerized
experiments and and my observation was
that people read instructions very
quickly they Press buttons they don't
they don't read and then they get to the
experiment and remember the the
experiment and I had my own
procedure um and my procedure was to
read it with them they I I had a a
secret key that they couldn't press
continue the the continue button was uh
grayed out and they had to to press a a
secret a secret letter and I read to
them the instructions and I had it on a
big screen and I would read it slowly
and at the end of each screen I would
say do you understand and if they said
yes I would say please press on the
letter L and then we would get to the
next screen and all on and I made really
sure that everybody understood the
instructions and I had another thing
that that I did I told people I said
look I know you came here for the
experiment you were promised
xll and but if you don't take the
experiment seriously please leave now
I'm happy to pay you but having people
who are not taking it seriously is just
bad for me and so I basically said you
know pay attention and so on
now now most experiments are happening
online with people who don't see the
experiment nobody's slowing them to read
the
instructions
um we have some ways to test how
seriously people taking the the
experiment and but I think those are
very different ways to run
experiments I think that when people ran
studies with me in the good old days H I
think they
paid attention I think the instructions
were clear to them I think uh they they
wanted to work hard I think they paid
more attention it it was like they were
fully engaged I think if we compare now
to a lot of the ways experiments are run
they're run on MK on the internet where
people are at home you know doing
watching TV uh while paying little
attention to the experiment and it's not
clear to me that those things should
should replicate now
now if you think about this from
everything we've we've talked about
today these are not the same
experiments an experiment in which
somebody is engaged and attentive and
caring and paying attention is not the
same as an experiment when somebody is
careless and doing something else at the
same time I'm not saying that one of
them is right and one of them is wrong
but they're they're capturing very
different
environments so there's another class
like this
that things have changed we don't know
exactly to put our fingers on what have
changed but things have changed and I'll
give you one other
example we ran experiments on
dishonesty and in some
Labs um cheating is allowed and there
are some Labs that cheating is not
allowed allowed by who by the experiment
by the people who run the lab so
economists why would they allow cheating
um so so
psychologists think that
deception um is sometimes
unavoidable yeah you're coming to an
experiment on helping other people you
know this experiment called the good
samarathon either that phrase just is so
familiar that I think I do or so so so
people come to to an experiment and then
you say oh you late for another
experiment in the other side of the
corridor and please run and they run to
the other side and then they meet
somebody in the middle they don't know
that drops pencils and the question is
do they stop to help him and it turns
out that sometimes they say you run
sometimes you don't run and even when
it's seminar students who just finished
a lecture on the Good Samaritan they
don't stop if they're in a hurry um
that's an experiment that you deceive
people people think they're there for
something else but the goal is something
else and that's what you mean by
cheating yeah um I thought you meant
cheating on the data no no no I I mean
Labs that allow deception Labs that
allow deception um and you know
sometimes it's Justified or not for
example now I have an experiment that I
have been wanting to run for a while
that that involves
deception um it's an experiment that
compares how much people are willing to
pay for rent versus buying a
house and and the initial results show
that people spend too much much on rent
and not enough on buying so imagine you
see a house and say how much would you
pay rental how much would you pay on on
buying now buying is
rental plus an
investment plus some tax and all kinds
of other things um and and the results
in the beginning on on these studies on
the internet show that people um are not
paying enough on buying but these are
not people in the market they might not
understand all the
considerations uh so I wanted to have
have an open house on a house that is
not really for
sale and people would come and would say
hey we didn't decide if to buy it or to
sell it or to rent it please give us an
offer to both but those will be real
people in the market and and the Ethics
Committee said this is unacceptable this
is too much too much deception then they
don't they don't want me to run this
they don't they're not allowing me to
run this experiment and you know they
they get to that's why we have an Ethics
Committee to to help us figure out
what's
what's what's an acceptable um deception
for you know social value and what's
what's not but anyway there's some Labs
that allow deception and some Labs that
don't and um it turns out that you run
experiments in two Labs like this and
things look
different right two Labs that allow
deception a lab a lab that allows
deception and a lab that
doesn't you run experiments in in both
of those there results can be different
now do you think that that is so all
these different things you're walking
through these are what lead to the
social sciences having a replication
crisis I think a lot of it is that like
people
um people look at their something not
replicating and said somebody
cheated I think that's the minority of
the
cases there are some there are some
what's called packing there are some
things that somebody ran 10 experiments
two worked out they published the two
that worked out
not the eight didn't that's a well-known
problem in science in general right that
we don't publish no
results but I think a lot of it is that
we haven't really captured the
environment correctly like things like
is the lab allows deception or not is
the experiment in person or online
there's lots of variables that I think
matters a lot and people are
quantifying uh like you know when I
motiv ated my participants I think they
were much more sensitive to nuances in
description when people don't read the
instructions very carefully of course
the results are going to be weaker so I
think there's lots of things like that
that we think that they are failure to
replicate but in fact they're not
they're just that there's an important
variable that we we people have changed
but we
haven't accounted for that
variable okay so one of the criticisms
that you take online centers around one
particular study with data of um mileage
on a car whether you sign up at the top
at the bottom um it's taken on a life of
its own and I don't know whether to
interpret that through the lens of the
people calling you Geral so it's like
all the sort of craziness over here made
me start discounting this over here um
but I think it warrants a rebuttal what
so given the whole like two different
fonts being used and that supposedly one
font correlates to ones that look like
they're it's using a randomized function
instead of like reality let's let's
let's a couple of things so first of
all there was data set from 20072 2008
that was published in
2012 H the two years ago we discovered
was falsified like the the facts are the
facts there's a data set that was
falsified and it was in a paper that I
was the fourth co-author
but
certainly uh in my
paper
uh pointed out to us immediately
retracted also started replicating the
results you'll see what the results show
um terrible thing right shouldn't
happened shouldn't happened um you know
I I uh I worked on many papers with with
many people um
terrible terrible I wish it never
happened it did it did happen uh just to
be clear I never falsify data I wouldn't
think about it I not part of my Arsenal
and I can go more deeply into it if you
care I also you know you see my hands I
don't even uh it's been years since I I
touch data I try to uh do that but but
anyway um paper I was connected to um it
terrible outcome
and happily retracted it replicating it
so we'll you know the just because the
data was falsified and we retracted the
paper doesn't mean much about is the
result effective or not that data set is
terrible data set but you're replicating
it now yeah yeah yeah yeah and when will
that come out I hope soon the paper is
under a second round of reviews so
hopefully soon and and the results
replicated and of course you know we we
move forward and we and there there are
different types of ways of signing and
some of them work better and worse and
digital versus just checking the box and
and we we kind of Get Much More Much
More nuances into
this and
now now the the the internet
storm I don't know storm but uh you know
the it's it's mostly Twitter um some
people have decided that I falsified the
dat data um and very hard
to aside from saying look at all my
other papers look at everything I do I
don't use my hands and and so on very
very hard to argue that you didn't do
something when when
the how do you prove it happened that
your sister's not a prostitute when you
don't have a sister that's right um so
um I it's it's um
so these are these are largely
academics uh different than the the co
deniers H they also don't use death
threats H but but I think that the
experience with the co deniers
inoculated me to some degree right
the the idea that some here's a very
difficult thing that the idea that some
people would hate me no matter what and
that they're not going to be
convinced is very very tough idea to
accept um and I'm not sure I accepted it
100% but I accepted it to a large to a
large degree to say there are some
people that just um have made a decision
and even whether they're academics or
not it's so on it it there's no
difference some people have just made a
made a
decision so how do you think about that
is your replicating the experiment
knowing people are going to go through
that thing with a fine tooth comb
um yeah so first of all people have gone
through everything I've done with a fine
tooth con for a long time it's not it's
not new um and things have changed a lot
right so that um that that data set was
from 20072 2008 H science has improved a
lot everything we do now is
pre-registered the is online um that
that study was collected with paper and
pencil and somebody was supposed to
enter it into a computer now everything
is computerized so so lots of things
have have improved I think the
pre-registration we talked earlier about
how it's good to state in
advance uh what you what you predictable
find and not just uh and exactly how you
go to the data analysis so now the
acceptable standard in in research is
you write in
advance what you expect and also exactly
how you're going to analyze
it and then you just continue and if
you later on come with a new method of
analyzing the that you said this was not
pre-registered so it's clear that that's
now a more exploratory and less so no I
I welcome scrutiny and um
also um you know we we both I think uh
like this idea that we don't know and
and and my my pride is completely not
connected with oh falsify dat terrible
My Pride is very much connected to that
but whether I'm wrong uh or right like
like let's say let's say this uh one day
somebody will find out that I ran an
experiment and turns out the result is
not
correct
um because X Y and Z or because I did it
on a hot day and on a different day it's
this or I did it in um in a religious
place and when you do it in in most of
the world it do whatever it is my ego is
not connected at all to any findings my
my ego is connected to my feeling of
integrity and that I do my best in in
everything but there's no finding that
you say oh Dan if they found out that
finding X
Y doesn't hold or was limited to this
circumstance or something like that I
would say that's great we are we're
learning we're
improving and so on and and and the
other thing that is helping me is I feel
that accusations are it's very easy to
make
accusations H it's extra easy to make
accusation about something that happens
a long time ago because they harder to
to disprove uh but I think um
time is actually good right so I so
somebody makes an
accusation um and I now take the time to
replicate the study that takes years but
it's fine right we have many years I
still have many years ahead and uh there
are things to fix and it will take some
time to fix but I I feel that in the
long
term uh you know what's what's what's
correct will will will show up even
though in the short term it's not the
case it's really interesting there's
something about the way that we're
living our lives in public it's not lost
of me how much of myself is out on the
internet and that as I change it's
inevitable that I'll contradict myself
from years ago and we're the first
generation that are living through this
and then also just people form opinions
you know so the idea of misbelief um
that it is all too easy for any of us to
have motivated reasoning to um see what
we want to see to not be able to
accurately identify the truth and then
to have that on full display for
millions of people is um it's
interesting it's a very weird thing that
we're going through and I don't know
what the consequences will be very weird
and there's something about like um a
lawyer's approach to things so oh but in
2008 you said
X yeah at a time
I thought I thought X and I learned more
since 2008 and maybe I know something
different now what are we interested in
are we interested in finding examples
where I changed my mind or learned more
or are we interested in understanding H
the truth you know or oh but you use
that word you know no no not what I
meant and so on but it's
um I think I think a lot of what is lost
is the presumption of good
intentions um so yesterday was the day
of atonement the Yum kipur the Jewish uh
fasting day and uh I I um the the thing
that I that I contemplated is whether
I'm willing
to I I have a very optimistic view of
the world I I feel even after everything
that's happened you say in the book that
it legitimately impacted your Outlook
that's right it did but but I still have
an optimistic view but not not as much
but
um I I used to think that when things
are going wrong uh there are either
mistakes uh or some wrong beliefs uh but
I didn't think that there was lots of
evil
intentions and that's kind of a
big a big issue right if I think that
people mean well but sometimes they
believe something wrong or but but
meaning well is is incredibly was was
kind of my my my assumption going
forward do you think the people that
were legitimately calling for your
execution meant well no no I so not
everybody no no I'm saying pre-co pre-co
I my belief in the world was that people
mean well for the people mean well for
the most part um I I got to believe that
less and there are less people who mean
well and and there are more people who
you know produce
a fake damaging news for their own
benefit and social signaling and and all
kinds of things right in the in the
covid world um hating me became a
currency of social acceptance right you
you want a bit more likes and a bit more
views um post something uh new about my
evil intentions and that that would get
that would get you social currency um
and and yesterday I was I was debating
whether
I um what's my view on on the goodness
of
humanity and whether I'm willing to
reset my
expectations um because when you when
you expect uh good intentions there's
also opportunity for get to get
disappointed um so I thought you know am
I ready
am I ready to change my basic assumption
that maybe there's a a large group that
doesn't have uh good intentions and they
they're different
and and I thought about this the whole
day like you know where what what are my
standards what am I willing to accept
and not accept and what's my working
assumption and and I concluded that I'm
not yet ready to move to that hypothesis
so I'm I I am more is that because you
don't think it's true or because of
something else don't ask me that no I'm
joking it's it's um I I think I think
it's I think it's not because I don't I
I think there is there is much more evil
than I I thought and I think it's
increasing and and so on um but
um I'm not fully willing to embrace it
yet as a is a working hypothesis so it's
kind of the
delusional uh stage I I
I I'm recognizing it but but I'm not yet
ready to to move to that as being my my
the glasses from which I view the world
I think that that will that could have a
it it frightens me ER to accept a a more
negative of of the world in terms of how
it would influence
my motivation and and so on so I'm I'm
I'm I'm not yet accepting it it's really
interesting I tell people you you should
do and believe and believe that which
moves you towards your goals
yeah because I look I don't ever want to
intentionally believe something that's
false but identifying what is true is so
difficult yeah that and I if it is
difficult then I would rather if I'm
going to be wrong and I'm just sort of
taking my best guess and I'd rather lean
towards something that moves me towards
where I want to be and if believing that
the world since neither of us really
know like what are the percentages or
given situations could a bad person do
good it's so
complex maybe you really are better off
it's interesting you and I maybe are
passing on Parallel paths so I used to
have a just fundamental wildly
optimistic everything is going to work
out okay and then covid really um made
me scared for other people I've been
successful enough I wasn't worried about
myself but I was very worried about
other people and the more I pulled back
the curtain on how the world worked
hoping that I could help people that
were really going to struggle through
that time more I realized whoa the world
doesn't work the way that I thought it
did and that there are cabals and there
are
um some conspiracy theories that turn
out to be true and that there are people
that are they want for your downfall and
they will go way out of their way now
that doesn't mean that they can't be
lovely people like they might have a
niece that just adors them and that they
really are legitimately kind and
wonderful to that person and just the
complexity of human nature but um I have
given myself over
to this is a more complicated and
highrisk game than I ever thought but
it's still so beautiful and so I really
want to help people but I feel like the
doey version of me is gone that I have
I now have a healthy amount of cynicism
it's not I think if you give into the
darkness it's a misconception first of
all you're probably spilling too far
you're going too hard but I was I had
cultivated a
naiv that I've let go of and but with
the same desire to help people
especially young people um get the right
mindset so that they can really be high
functioning in society but I do I I
embrace the the ideology of a warrior of
somebody who is going to have to enter
battle and that there is going to be
Bloodshed and all of that so so talk to
me in a year I I think I I I can
sense the need for
that shift I'm I'm not ready for it yet
it's a it's a it's a tough transition
yeah it's a tough transition it's
interesting man because you're at a I'm
going to guess you're 50ish 56 oh [ __ ]
wow well congratulations doing very well
um it's a it's an interesting phase to
hit that do you know um oh God I can't
believe I'm blanking on his name oh he's
so
amazing [ __ ] he just wrote a book with
Oprah Winfrey and I love him to death
and he has sat in that chair Arthur
Brooks do you know Arthur Brooks no I
don't oh my God he's got this really
fascinating idea that
um people go through these two major
phases in their life and phase one is
like you're sharp you're like that young
energy of just like crazy ideas big
risks all of that and then you get to a
point in your career where you don't
quite have that like nent hyper Energy
new ideas like the World produced you
you know your 20s and 30s is really sort
of the peak of that sort of creative
genius where you and the world meet at a
moment where you're able to have an
Insight that that other people of an
older generation just are not going to
be able to
have but that we all transition into a
wisdom phase he has a way better way of
explaining this uh but you go into where
you're now able to synthesize ideas in a
way that you couldn't before and you're
able to tie things together that you
can't when you're young and so he says
you really do shift into a totally
different phase of your life
and most people can't navigate that
moment well and he tells this just
grueling story about he's on an airplane
and he hears this couple in front of him
talking and old couple like 80s and the
man is like he he can't hear everything
he's saying but the the man says like
nobody cares about me anymore and the
woman's like don't be ridiculous of
course people still care about you and
then towards the end of the flight he
says uh I just wish I were dead and
she's like that's ridiculous like how
could you think that about yourself and
so Arthur's like I got to see like you
know this guy obviously middle manager
like he just never quite like made it to
his full potential and the Heartbreak of
realizing oh I'm too old now and it's
it's all played out and he stands up and
he looks at the guy and it's one of the
most famous people on planet Earth and
he said that guy had accomplished so
much as he walked off the plane people
came out from like the cockpit
everything sir I just had to thank you
you inspired me so much as a kid and so
he was like he has this completely
disorienting moment where he realizes
wait a second if that guy who I admire
half the people on this plane admire
literally just said 20 minutes ago I'd
be better off
dead what am I doing like all the
accomplishment in the world is never
going to get me where I want to go and
so how do I make sure that I don't fall
prey to that trap so anyway ends up
going and quitting his job completely
switching moving into this new phase of
his life where he's um basically trying
to take advantage of okay I can bring
wisdom together I can really pursue like
what is real happiness and so it'll be
interesting man you've been through such
a crazy Crucible through this whole
thing right at the age where you're
naturally in this sort of big transition
moment you're absolutely right and I
told you in the beginning I'm I'm I'm
thinking now about what's my next uh
what's my next adventure where where
does it take me so yeah I I do I do
feel this you know with this the rest of
my books you know there's always another
irrationality and things to
fix uh this book is different it's it's
kind of a big picture on a on a big on a
big topic and when I um when it came out
last week I left all the
groups know there was okay I understand
the problem now I can stop that part of
understanding now we need to find
Solutions and so on but it was much more
transition period than this but but yeah
maybe it's something also with the age I
do feel um I do feel this's the next
chapter is is waiting and I just need to
figure out I I'm delaying decisions to
January but January is going to be a
month to figure out the next uh next
chapter we're going to go on another
monthlong hike uh so this year so I I've
been going every every year for a month
in the last six years yeah yeah W Yeah
Yeah by yourself no with two friends
okay always the same two guys H yeah
always old school friends yeah uh so I
started the first year I did with one
friend uh he's he's my best friend from
seventh grade whoa and then another
friend joined us for a few days and
that's the friend that kept on traveling
with us yes but it's been the
the three of us for a while and is it
like really rough or are you guys like
bougie hikers H depends on the year um
last year we did the Camino Santiago you
know this hike it's a it's a pilgrim
hike in in Spain 800 kilomet we stayed
in
in um we did the high desert took a
month a month yeah wow uh we hiked in
the deserts the desert with the beduins
you know it takes takes about a week to
get
so it takes about a week to get to the
paste of this life in which you wake up
in the morning and you just walk the
whole day do you have your cell phone we
do have cell phones the rules are um no
phones from 7: a.m. to 7: p.m. wow okay
yeah legit um the first year was was was
really interesting so the first year um
we did the Israel Trail and both me and
Ron grew up in Israel and I had an
online application and we we walked for
30 days we invited people to join us for
some of those days and we accepted
applications from
anybody and lots of people applied and
everybody had to say what they want to
contribute and um so we had a few days
just us a few days we invited like
friends from first grade like we we we
did different periods of our lives and
there were quite a few days when we met
random people
and the the rules for the road were um
we start the morning everybody tells an
embarrassing story about themselves uh
what's said on the trail stays on the
trail and that was a great Icebreaker
and after people said something personal
and
embarrassing um it was great like we we
walked we finished by the way with the
party in the desert that was we invited
some of the people that walked with us
and that was great and since then we try
different things um this year I think
we'll do Croatia that's the that's the
plan um but it's it's about walking
in um when when you spend time with
friends uh face to face the conversation
is very different uh when you spend time
walking next to each other when you have
the whole day and you have a month um
the conversation is very different like
usually um we don't repeat the same
topic like oh we just finished talking
about this why again when you walk it's
fine like things that bother us are okay
to bring up again and again and rethink
and rehash and try to to understand
things better it's also much easier to
take a few moments and walk by yourself
and think and then come back there's
there's a there's a dynamic of the
communication and the thought process
that is that is
fantastic it's interesting
getting moving the way that it changes
the way that you think getting out of
civilization and having those much of
this book I wrote in the
Alps um I rented a little cottage and
every day I walked up the mountain for
two hours there was a little coffee shop
on the ski lift and I would get there
and I would dictate or write or do
whatever and then walk back and keep on
working on the book and for the two
hours of that it was fixed two hours I
can't it faster tiny bit faster but not
really and I would have a topic today I
want to think about this part of this
chapter and sometimes I would have a
solution of how I want it after half an
hour but I still had an hour and a half
so I kept on thinking about it and it
always got better and I think there's
actually there's some really nice
research on how we become more creative
when we
move um but but in addition to that the
forcing myself to have two hours to
think about an idea was very very good
usually I think we have kind of
premature
closure oh I think I understand this no
no no keep on thinking about it it will
get better a little bit like the
illusion of explanatory depth so I
think and then I would get up and it was
it was wonderful I think I'll adopt it
for the next projects it's really
interesting let me ask you was there
some something about something
therapeutic about old friends from like
grade
school yeah no question no question
there's the is it helping you access a
different part of your personality what
is
it I I think that a part of it is
trust if you say because you've stayed
in touch with them since then since they
they they know me in my in in every
aspect of that um so so I this this
month is is good for lots of things uh
but but it's really good to uh ask real
question about where we want to head in
life and and the people that you want on
the other side are people that know you
and you trust so I can you know Ron
knows me from from seventh grade and
some elements he knows better than I
than I do and I can talk about
about everything with with both trust
and and knowledge and it's it's really
quite amazing it's really quite amazing
you know we talk about resilience and
and social networks and so on I mean
real real social connections yeah and
and of course um it's also improved our
friendship let so we were we were good
friends but spending a
month uh together a year uh has an
impact legit for sure yeah you know up
to up to that point um I felt it was
selfish to take time
off like for for many years I I'm a I'm
a very good workaholic I basically work
I'm really good at working uh I know the
feeling yeah um and um and I always felt
guilty I even felt guilty
exercising I have so much email so many
people asking for things like what's the
selfishness of spending an hour you know
doing meditating I can't meditate for
but you know what's the an hour running
where I could answer 17 more emails like
I really felt that that the amount of
things on my plate was so high that how
could I be selfish and um and find time
to
exercise and then I took this this month
and and I don't uh the rest of my year
looks very different but um it it's been
it's been really amazing it's been
really amazing and once I did it I said
why did I wait until age 50 to start why
didn't I start earlier that's really
interesting it's really interesting so
have you by any chance ever done
psychedelics you mean in a legal in a
legal way of course I will assume that
you were wise enough to only yes only
only legal and
yes what is it about so I have not but
I'm very eager to try it what is what is
its
utility so I think that the utility is
not about the trip it's about the
transformation and uh since we talked
about this question about life and and
work I I'll tell you about one of
my my first
hallucinations is is a
a hallucination in which I'm ER
in front of
God and uh big are you a Believer no
interesting but I'm huge huge head curly
if you if you're wondering curly hair
beard um and uh it's clear that I'm
going to be destined for heaven or hell
that's the that's the question and it's
my
judgment and to my happiness I see the
people waiting to be come on the witness
stand and and I
see um my mother and my sisters and my
wife and my daughter all the women in my
life
are are waiting for to be on the witness
stand and I S I'm I'm very happy because
you know they're all on my side how can
this go wrong and then they get on the
witness stand and they all and they all
say how I never had time for them wow
everyone says I don't have time I always
prefer
work that I can get a call
from somebody in Africa and I and I go
but if somebody needs me at home
I anyway it looks blecker and Bleaker as
things uh
progress and then it's my turn to to
plead for my uh things
and I don't know how I was so creative
but I was creative
and I basically says I I I evoke I evoke
Nelson
Mandela and I say to God think of Nelson
Mandela he was not home for like 30
years now I'm not Nelson Mandela by far
but I also wasn't not home for 30 years
so I basically make the argument
that um not everybody is destined to
be standard spouse and father and so on
we all have a different set of skills
and and calling and and we each needs to
navigate our own our own path and and we
shouldn't be hold to the average
standard that's just not right and you
know with Nelson Mandela I said to God
look God you wouldn't have wanted him to
do anything else he was this what a
remarkable human being like one of the
few people who change you know the
trajectory of the world with his well
again completely arrogant to to invoke
him but but still that was
that was the case and
um and and the amazing thing about this
is that after this was
over um I
felt less
guilty I I resolved that problem so
again it's not about the the specific
it's about the
transition now if you think about this
as a metaphor I think that what's for me
at least what happened is that
there's all kinds of things I I
debate with Within
Myself um and and these things help me
make make decisions or I'll give you
another
example uh we've all said I never want
to work with [ __ ] again we've all
said it um and and one experience I had
included that
exactly um one of my startups something
happened between two people I felt that
there was somebody who really misbehaved
toward another another person I I felt
terrible about this um and I had an
experience that about this thing
and and when it ended I came to this
conclusion like everybody has come to
this conclusion it's not new
but under that condition I had the force
to actually follow through to stop
project to ask people to leave to do all
kinds of things like that so I think
think I think it is about the the
transformation you want so I wouldn't do
it for
fun but I think it's about um figuring
out what is not
working how we want to solve it and
getting the conviction to actually
follow through that's that's somebody
that knows as much about the brain and
psychology as you what's going on is it
is it taking off those normal dist
glasses and giving you just a radically
different perspective and all of a
sudden you have Clarity so so we have
these thing called the default Network
and the default Network basically is a
network that quiets the brain and um and
these these substances LSD mushrooms I
mean different ones that work
differently but LSD and mushrooms
basically quiet a default Network and
what it means is that different parts of
your brain start talking to each other
more
directly right and and remember uh the
way that neurons work once two neuron
starts talking to each other it
strengthen the relationship between them
not not just at the moment right the
word that if you think about how the
most of the activity is not in the
neural it's the connection between them
but once you strengthen a connection
that connection BEC stronger right it it
will continue to be like this it might
Decay later but but for a while
it it would get stronger so what happen
is that the default Network quies down
and the areas of the brain start
communicating with each other and and
for me that means that we get
associations that we usually don't get
that this part of your memory can talk
to another part of your memory and the
auditory cortex can can be connected to
something else so our ability to to
think and to think creatively is is
enhanced emotions can be more connected
so that's really what's
happening and um and again the
experience can be good or can experience
be bad and when the experience is most
of my
experiences like you know this thing
about being in front of God even though
he agreed with me at the end I wouldn't
have called it a good experience but it
was
transformative and and I think most of
you know other people have different
experiences but I think for me that's
the that's the main reason the main
reason is to say I I have a problem that
is complex and difficult and I'm not
sure what to do and I've been debating
it for a while and not and and this is a
a very very useful way to to make this a
transformative
decision I love that or can people
follow you
the best place is my website dani.com
and um yeah that's it all right well
people I highly encourage you to read
his books few things have had a bigger
impact on the way that I view my own
mind uh and speaking of things that will
change how you view your own mind if you
haven't already be sure to subscribe and
until next time my friends be legendary
take care peace if you enjoyed this
episode check out this deep conversation
with Donald Hoffman about reality and
consciousness but we are our avatars of
the one the one awareness is exploring
all of its possibilities through
different avatars so somehow there is
this field of awareness