How To Be A Skeptic

There's a lot of information out there these days -- and, unfortunately, a lot of it isn't true. But how can we learn to discern fact from fiction? In today's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the basis of critical thought and skepticism, and how your own brain can conspire against you in your search for the truth. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Don't believe us, That's fine, Ask questions,
question everything, why, That's what this episode is about. Uh.

(00:47):
We talk a lot about critical thinking on this show,
and you know, I think it's safe for us to
say this when over the years when we've been doing
this show, we have at times met with people who
have been a bit dismissive from the jump and said, oh,

(01:08):
this is a what are you conspiracy show? Is stuff
they don't want you to know, basically Alex Jones, And
the answer is absolutely not. We prize critical thinking and
it's led us to some very strange places. But you,
longtime conspiracy realists have been with us the entirety of
the drive. So we gotta ask you and ourselves when's

(01:31):
the last time you rethought a long held belief? Can
anyone the five of us, right, Paul and Matt, Noel
and myself and and you were listening along at home,
can you recall a moment where you had an epiphany,
a sudden flash of insider revelation that reversed a deep

(01:51):
seated certainty about something you believed for all or most
of your life? As has that ever happened? Do you?
Guys mad at me? You've spoken about your experience often. Yeah, yeah,
it happen to me in college. Uh, just rethought the
way I viewed religion and the way religion kind of
had a control over my general thought process and my

(02:16):
willingness to explore certain topics. So yeah, that that was
a long time ago. Most recently, though, I watched the
movie Moonfall, and I completely rethought the idea of the
moon as a moon and not a spatian. I thought
you were going to say, I completely rethought the idea
of being a filmmaker. Yeah, yeah it was. Look, look

(02:42):
it wasn't m hm. You may love Moonfall out there, Uh,
but it was. It was tough for me to watch.
But the concepts we're saying that science didn't check out
fully return the script or the acting. But it's very difficult.
It's very difficult to make a film. There are a

(03:04):
lot of moving parts. And if you have ever made
a film, whether it's a critics darling, a blockbuster, or
just something you got to show to your friends, then
it is something to be proud of, and you should
be proud of yourself for that. But what what we're
what we're saying is, it's what Matt's describing here is

(03:24):
a relatively rare experience for most of humanity because, as
we'll find, your brain, if you are human, likes to
be your hype man in a lot of ways. Even
when it sounds like it's it's being very rude to
you and uh telling you catastrophic things that are not true,

(03:46):
your brain wants to is doing that because it wants
to confirm stuff. Your brain likes to be right. I mean,
that's why if you look at it from another way,
you could say, um, if you have not had a
moment of evolation or Eureka experience, then you have doubtlessly
found yourself banging your head against a cognitive wall trying

(04:09):
your best to talk someone off the ledge of craziness.
Uncle Mike, you might be saying the world is indeed round. Okay,
let's just get through Thanksgiving. But bro, come on, read
a book. Uh you might airplanes, man, you know, I
mean if it was around? How come when I take
a flight, I don't see the curvature of the earth.

(04:31):
You know. Put that in your pipe and smoke it
because you're flying spirit and the planes are really slow?
Uh the spirit? Uh this is a side. Uh. You
might know the facts are on your side. You might
have physically printed out studies right, And try as you might,

(04:53):
you can't get the other person to listen. That has
happened to everybody at some point in their lives. And
that's the heart of to Day's episode. Why is skepticism difficult?
How do we function as skeptics? How do we like
the Jedi practice that that sort of not even ideology,

(05:14):
but approach to the world. Spoiler, It's not as easy
as it might sound because a lot of people have
basic facts about skepticism wrong, and your brain doesn't like
skepticism that here are the facts. Yeah, often on this show,

(05:35):
and I think in a lot of maybe the conspiracy realm,
the word skeptic alone functions as a thought terminating cliche,
the way the term conspiracy theory because of thought terminating
cliche within the skeptical uh halls of the world, um,
which is the opposite of what skepticism should be if

(05:55):
precisely precisely and on both ends, I think we shouldn't
view those terms. But it gets a bad rap. Yeah,
like the idea of skeptic being kind of a perma
grump who just questions everything to a fault. It doesn't
really seek truth. It's just more out to kind of
debunk and actually people m m yeah. And for an

(06:18):
explanation there. We have dealt with this. I think we've
talked about in this show. Our colleagues on all the
Stuff shows. We had this moment of reckoning a while back,
or at least I feel like I did, where we said, oh,
we don't sound normal when we talk to people outside

(06:39):
of our little nerd bubble, because when you start a
sentence with actually, it becomes a thought terminating thing right
in conversation, and a lot of people are not going
to take the information you are attempting to relay as
though you are speaking as an equal. They will find
you condescending and pedantic. Uh so without actually in people,

(07:01):
and we've turned it to a verb because it's American
English and everything will inevitably become a verb. Uh. I
think we've described skepticism the way it's perceived very well here,
and the problem is that is a misperception that's incorrect. Skeptic.
What people are describing when they talk about perma grumps

(07:22):
like that is really cynicism. You're describing a cynic Skepticism
by comparison and contrast, is much less aggro. It is
a key part of the critical thought process if you
look back at the etymology. You know, we all love
etymology here. Skeptic is derived from the Greek. That's derived

(07:44):
from the Greek words skepticals, which literally just means look
around or inquiring. And all that means is, if you're
a skeptic, you're determining the truth of something objectively based
on the level of evidence, right, just not taking things

(08:04):
at face value, you know, giving it a little bit
of an extra think before you jump into a you know,
ideology or concept or even the story or yet to
fully explore what's being laid at your feet when new
information is coming at you, right, not to just go
okay or not to go no. Right, that's the thing,

(08:27):
and and it's weird because a lot of people in
the age of the Internet who identify themselves as skeptics
are committing that latter sin. You just describe that very
non skeptic, very cynical idea of uhh no way. You
know what I mean, And there's you have to earn

(08:49):
an uh no way, just like a sketch comedy show
has to go for a couple of seasons before they
earn a good serious moment. Uh. Sadly, this nuance is
often missed, right you. I love what what you're saying here, Matt,
because it goes back to something called the Socratic method,
which is asking generative questions right in a in a

(09:14):
you might have to bleep me a couple of times
in this episode, Paul, in a non way. That's important.
Don't ask questions, don't be a dick about asking questions.
Be sincere and genuine in your exploration. There's nothing wrong
with saying, Okay, if X is true, whatever X is,
then what about why? And then if why is not true?

(09:36):
What does that change about my understanding of X? Yeah?
I mean, the Socratic method is kind of like the
scientific method for conversation or just for like interpreting data
about the world. I mean, it really is about test trust,
but verify, you know, and uh, and test things, maybe
not using the same kind of methods you would in science,

(09:56):
but asking the right questions, digging a little deeper, doing
your own homework, and good conversations I believe are well,
this is a belief I may have to challenge. Uh.
Good conversations are in my mind, uh, based on honest

(10:17):
and well thought out questions, right, and building upon those questions.
The thing is is a big secret of the world
that a lot of really polemical people don't want you
to know. The vast majority of human beings are intelligent
and curious and generally good people. When they're given the

(10:40):
access to necessary information and a safe environment in which
they can digest that information, they're gonna impress you, and
you're gonna you're gonna think, hey, that's a good egg,
that's a smart person. Unfortunately, for so many reasons, a
lot of people do not have that access information, and

(11:01):
more importantly, they don't have a safe, unbiased environment to
explore that information, and as a result, a lot of
people believe really weird, weird, weird. I mean, I would
argue that people by and large do have access to,

(11:22):
you know, the vast majority of all of the information
of time and memorial. You know, it's just a matter
of where their beliefs and those surrounding them, as you said,
man are steering them. Yeah, people who have access to
a phone right and internet service on that phone or
a computer or something like that. But that's not true
for everyone on this planet. There are a couple of barriers,

(11:45):
for sure, But I think we can all agree that
the main, uh, the main issue is the environment in
which that information is encountered and the different variables intervening
variables that allow people allow people intellectual freedom to explore
those things. I mean, okay, so you know, it's a

(12:07):
glass planet. I just fell in love with that phrase
when day we're freestyling it. But it's a glass planet.
So a lot of people, from Henry Kissinger on down
believe dumb things, and they believe things that might sound
weird outsiders, you know, think of superstitions. You're a kid,

(12:28):
you're walking along the sidewalk. You don't want your mother
to be crippled by a back injury, so you don't
step on cracks that has no medical impact on your mom.
I can't believe we're getting to your mom references sorely.
But but you're not ruining the world, you know what
I mean. There's not a nuclear catastrophe because you avoided

(12:53):
panels on the sidewalk. You're not hurting anyone. I mean,
unless you're not paying attention to those around you, and you,
you know, cause someone else to trip. Perhaps there you go,
there you go. Yeah, all you have to do is
take a little trip down the clubhouse lane and you
will figure out how weird stuff is. Uh, oh, my goodness.

(13:14):
You guys haven't experienced that amount of out there info
being you know, said as though it's just absolutely correct
and true in a long time. I gotta tell you,
I was in a conversation the clubhouse when it's going
on there more often, where I did my best in

(13:36):
a diplomatic way to present what I thought was a
very a very kind um rebuttal to some crazy stuff
I heard. And the response to my rebuttal was the
devil comes in an appealing shape and speaks in fine form.

(14:00):
And then twelve other people were like, yeah, no, yeah, right, Well,
well it was a fun conversation. I mean, the thing
is we're talking then about the role of social dynamics
and culture. Right. You might live in a world or

(14:22):
participate in a community that will actively shun or punish
you for not participating in something that you know is
dumb or incorrect. And maybe I shouldn't even say dumb.
Problem is, throughout history there are no exceptions to this rule.
As we established in our earlier episode on the human

(14:42):
Brain or earlier series, your brain is brilliant if you're
a human, is fundamentally wired to recognize patterns, so much
so that the mind makes patterns where none exist. This
is also a huge part of the reason that a
lot of people are pred it is for or against something. Uh,

(15:03):
logic be damned, you know, and and and scientists have
traced the nuts and bolts of this. They got under
the hood of the human mind, and they found the
region of the brain that keeps playing these pranks. Yes,
that part in question here, UH is the posterior medial

(15:24):
prefrontal cortex, and it is the part of the brain
that is involved in evaluating and absorbing other people's ideas. Um.
And as you pointed, out in. It really wants to
kind of maintain uh, cognitive equilibrium, you know. Um. It
does not like cognitive dissonance, which I guess is the
the alternative. It really wants to make you feel like

(15:47):
everything is cool. You understand yourself and the way you
relate to those around you and the world around you,
and it will play some some tricks on you in
order to achieve that result. No, think about identifying a
leopard out on a plane somewhere. Is there a leopard
in that tree, behind that tree, in that grass? Is

(16:09):
there one? It certainly doesn't look like there's one. Well,
how does the human brain evolved to figure out when
there is a natural predator hanging out and watching you
and you can't see them easily at least? Or is
it just a leopard of the mind and there's an
evolutionary incentive for that, there's a cost benefit ratio, right.

(16:32):
It's it's quite her calculation. Rather, it's quite brutal. The
people who thought they saw a leopard, even when there
wasn't a leopard, still avoided leopards. The people who said, ah, no,
that's just some weird uh play of light and shadow
and then were attacked and died. They didn't reproduces anymore

(16:55):
at least anymore at least and so we see that
there is a higher likelihood for this kind of mechanism
to evolve, and today it plays a huge role in
the decision making process. It's a gift and a curse.
Just like having a lot of money in a capitalist society,
the same mechanisms that allows you to survive in the

(17:18):
wild can screw up your thought processes in the modern world.
And you know, don't worry. It gets weirder because, in
addition to loving patterns, your human brain also creates feedback
loops of affirmation. If someone seems very confident about something

(17:39):
that you already sort of agree with, then you are
all aboard, buddy, and you're probably not going to have
a moment of thought where you say, well, I should
look into that. No one's immune to this. If I
saw a very charismatic person, uh, just taking over the
air waves of mass media and all they want to

(18:00):
say was that case ideas were awesome, I might not
do a whole lot of research into that person. And I,
like many people, like to think that I'm okay in
the intelligence game. Well, and on the flip side. If
you see a person who you already trust and who
has been right in the past or has said things

(18:20):
that you've found to be accurate and aligning with your
personal beliefs, say something that maybe stretches credibility ever so slightly,
you'd be much more likely to just take it at
face value rather than do your own homework, because you've
already your brains already taken that shortcut of believing in
this person and believing the things this person says, because hell,

(18:41):
they've been right in the past. And uh, I've based
my decisions on this person's rhetoric in the past. Why
would they, you know, do me wrong? Now? Yeah, this
guy is right. For this guy was right about case
and he is. He's on the money there. Maybe I
should rethink my opinion about the shape of the planet Earth.
WHOA what of that ultra confident guy stood up one

(19:02):
day in a meeting and said, the world is both
understandable and what what did he say? Understanding? That's great though,
it sounds so good man, and I think we would
we I think we can all agree with that. And
there's nothing inherently controversial in a statement like that, you know,

(19:24):
But that's the thing about rhetoric. You know, you can
have something that is on the edge that's just innocuous
enough to be like, yeah, of course, but there might
be this grain of pushing you over that cognitive cliff
that you don't even notice. Yeah, but it's priming as well.
And I think that's I think that's a great point, Noel.
And I'm just still I've just tickled Matt because you

(19:49):
pointed out a beautiful weaponization of information that I learned
from the guy we all know and then used uh often.
Uh No, apologies, but this what we're describing should like
hopefully this is something all of us listening today can

(20:10):
identify with. This is also why to the point about
the flip side, this is why people with a really
strong opinion on sports, or politics or religion, they'll tend
to reject information that challenges their existing notions, that hits
against those feedback loops of the brain, and then they'll

(20:32):
prioritize information that appears to confirm what they already thought.
And this is not just uh for folks on a
podcast saying this. A lot of assiduous study has gone
into this. There was uh study from twenty nineteen that
I think speaks to this directly. Yeah. I mean a
lot of this too just speaks to just like the effort.

(20:55):
You know, it's it's harder. It makes you kind of
have to redo everything and re think everything. We've already
put all this work in. Why would I want to
have to, like, you know, start from scratch. And I
think this Nature Neuroscience study to a degree speaks to this.
Now do you want to you want you were going
to go into this? I think this one really got you.
Oh yeah, this one got me so hard. It comes

(21:16):
from Nature Neuroscience, as you said, been from twenty nineteen.
They were they looked really hard at confirmation bias, What
is it? Why is it so powerful? And they found
that humans quote tend to discount information that undermines past
choices and judgments. This confirmation bias has significant impact on
domains ranging from politics to science and education. Yeah, yep.

(21:40):
Shout out to our episode about about how large corporations
twisted the game on recycling. A lot of people, a
lot of our fellow listeners didn't like to hear that, right,
but it is true. Uh, and it's just unfortunately it's
interrupting a feed back loop or disrupting would be a

(22:01):
better word. Belief formation is a hell of a drug, right.
People don't like to be wrong. This is why you
see countless examples throughout history of someone coming to the
table with pretty hard evidence of something. It literally does
not matter what that evidence is if it contradicts the

(22:21):
social morays, the shared values and beliefs of that society.
So like, this is this is so basic, This is
um This is galileo, right. This is people arguing about
astronomical truths that do not have opinions, and their evidence
is ignored or dismissed because they have questioned things that

(22:43):
were not allowed to be questioned or can't even know.
If you take it to a slightly more modern example,
like in the Soviet Union during the Chernobyl uh catastrophe,
you know, scientists and people literally working at the Chernobyl
plant came to the government and said, this thing has happened.
It will result in you know, nuclear fallout being carried

(23:04):
far and wide. We should do something about it, to
which the government replied, no, it didn't, and no we
won't because it would undermine the inherent truth of our
perception of what the government is. What we do and
what we don't do. And even though I mean it
was based inherently on fact, the way they, uh, we're

(23:25):
reacted to it was by saying, essentially what we say
is true. So if if we don't, if we say
this isn't true, then it isn't true. That's an extreme example,
but I think that very much falls in line with
what we're talking about here. Yeah, Unfortunately, you can see
these tendencies in every single human civilization, throughout every single

(23:50):
moment in human history. So what gives it turns out
folks are very susceptible to how information is communicated. Will
pause for a word from our sponsors, and then we're
gonna return and talk just a little bit more about
this study to set up the best ways that you
can practice skepticism, and we're back. Hey, guys, just really quickly.

(24:20):
I want to point something out that's happening right now
in the news that I feel like I think illustrates
this pretty well, and it is the the classified documents
that were found within the Biden camps thing. Because I
think it's challenging. Yeah, but I think it's challenging people's beliefs,
especially if you're you know, on one side of the

(24:41):
political spectrum, like, that's something the other side does, that's
something bad guy does. Oh well, now that my team
does this too. Oh wait, what's happening now is it's
the same, and it's just really kind of wreaking havoc
within a lot of people's minds. I think I'm really
glad you mentioned this because you'll see that we'll we'll
talk about this too later in this episode. You can

(25:03):
see the same story reported very different ways. Yes, you
you see Karl Rove essentially defending Biden on Fox News
saying it wasn't the same hung on with Trump, and
he drew it on like a whiteboard and said, like
a it was a long time ago. Clearly was an oversight,
be they cooperated immediately. But I mean, like, how weird

(25:23):
is that talking about cognitive dissens the architect of the
the oppositions, you know, whole political ideology is defending the enemy.
But but it just it really depends on where your
beliefs and kind of loyalties lie and how you're going
to take in this information, and really what you were
saying at the top bend which information you end up
taking in, and then how that changes, how you think

(25:46):
about it. What a great example met because this also like,
this is something you may have Your mileage may vary, folks,
but this is something you may have encountered. Uh. What
happens when when you run into piece of news the
confirms a pre existing belief is you are far less
likely to say, let me find out more. Let me

(26:07):
read the original source, right, let me see a timeline,
let me know what kind in this case, what sort
of classified documents, how long were they held, etcetera, etcetera.
If you read something and you are maybe pro biden,
then you could just stop at that one news piece
and say, oh, they found it, they fixed it. That's

(26:27):
great because I was right, you know. But that's that's
unfortunately not what people should be doing. And this study
proves this kind of thing. So that nature neuroscience study
shows that confidence of a speaker has a clear role.

(26:47):
There's a reason that you will very seldomly see uh
public figures say they've had a change of heart. If
you are an intellectually unpracticed person or an insecure person,
then you probably think a lot about the concept of weakness,
which is not the right way to approach anything intellectually.

(27:10):
The the idea that someone could change their mind is
not weakness. It shows that their mind is active. But still,
people love confidence, right, So if you already believe something
and someone seems very strident and confident when they're telling
you something that you already sort of agree with, even

(27:31):
if to your point, Noll, it's a little bit further
past that ordinary conversation, then you're going to agree with them.
That part of your cortex is going to fire up
and say, buddy, we're cooking with gas. It also kind
of matters how tall they are. It does, It does
since the advent of television. Uh, in the case of

(27:54):
US presidents in specific, height has mattered physical height as
well as the apps and some facial hair. There's probably
not going to be a bearded president of the US
for some time unless the US fundamentally changes. Yeah, he's

(28:14):
biding his time to destroy us. All Um. It's funny
because some people do trust a bearded person and then
think that it's comforting. So it's interesting that, like the
studies are the greater perspective as the bearded people are untrustworthy.
But I know plenty of people who find a beard
very you know, um, calming and when someone beard, I know,

(28:38):
but I also will say that when someone who has
had a beard for a long time shaves the beard,
that breeds distrust. Well, I I mentioned this multiple times
in previous episodes, and maybe that's what you're referring to.
The There is a spectrum of perceived trustworthiness for facial hair,
at least in the West, and it varies across the world.

(28:58):
Right in general, in the West US, uh, the spectrum
is clean shaven equals more trustworthy, less experienced. On the
other side, as ez top level gandalff beard means more experienced,
less trustworthy, stubble. Kind of like what what Matt and
I are doing is, at least on my part, Matt uh, calculated, calculated, Yeah,

(29:23):
trustworthy with an edge, been through some stuff, you know.
I'll send you the I'll re send the study. Um
as short as my beard has ever been. So I
think I'm somewhere in the in the middle. Really good,
Thank you so much, thank you, Yeah, no stress, you
look fine, man um. The The issue there is that
we see all these again, tiny intervening variables that can

(29:46):
alter your ultimate conscious opinion because you're not thinking of
all the pre existing beliefs that got ding ding ding,
just like a game of mouse trap, right, or a
game of dominoes. And if you agree with this study
talked about stuff like guessing, like playing zillo, looking at

(30:08):
photos of a house and guessing the estimate. And if
the participants that were paired together agreed on the estimate,
they would sort of hype each other up about how
right they were, and then that part of their brain
would start also, you know again uh firing up. If
they disagreed, their brains did not play this game. And

(30:31):
so if we can see that with something as innocuous
as the price of a house, then neither person has
ever visited and probably never will, then we see that
opinions that that appear to hype your pre existing beliefs
bear as much, if not more, influence then facts. That's

(30:52):
a dangerous tendency. That's why eyewitness reports carry so much
weight in court, even when and we know that they
are cartoonishly unreliable. That's why scientists can talk all the
livelong day about the human species role in climate change
in the age of the anthroposyne, and then if you

(31:13):
look at statistics, you'll see that belief in that has
actually dropped the fixes in. That's what we're saying the
fixes in. If you are trying to exercise critical thinking,
you need to know that you are outnumbered. So how
do you fight against it? If you're like most people
in a self reported poll hypothetical, we haven't conducted this.

(31:37):
If you're like most people, someone comes up to you
and says, hey, do you Someone comes up to you
and you don't have an opinion about their facial hair
or whatever, and they say, hey, do you prefer knowing
an objective truth or feeling comfortable in whatever your beliefs
might be, a lot of them will probably respond with

(32:00):
a hey, trick question. You're being a jerk. My beliefs
are true. That's why I believe them. I'm smart, dude,
you're being offensive. I mean, I think the closest thing
that comes to mind with that for me is religion.
You know, the idea of is religion provable? You know,
can you prove that the beliefs held by various religions

(32:20):
are the right ones or are accurate historically, spiritually, scientifically,
or otherwise, But to fully hold those beliefs and let
it guide your kind of life. And you're the way
you went write with the world is in and of
itself a comfort. You know, for many people, it allows
them some kind of peace of mind, whether it be
belief in and afterlife. If they do good things, then

(32:42):
this will happen for them or whatever. So that's sort
of you know, but but again you're you're right, then
it is inherently offensive to that person if you if
you posit it like, are you cool with just believing
nonsense to make yourself feel better? You know, like that's
essentially the mean version of that trick question, right, well,
and a lot of times, you know, to be honest,
and this is a shout at Christopher Hitchens and and

(33:05):
some other folks, Uh, a lot of times when people
purport to assume that position, what they're really doing is
feeding their own feedback loop. They're making themselves feel better.
They don't give about the answer to the question, because
what they're doing is um an intellectual version of masturbation

(33:26):
in front of someone else who is an unwilling participant.
And I know that sounds brutal and crass, but it's
very true. And if you really want to tackle this conundrum,
this bag of badgers, you have to try exercising skepticism.
The same way you exercise any other part of your body.
And at this point, folks maybe asking, all right, fine,

(33:47):
I get it. It's weird and it's tough and it's unfair.
So how do I practice skepticism with an abroller? Right,
here's where it gets crazy. Yes, your brain, your brain
is in a very real way predisposition to do some
pretty gullible things. And unfortunately, there's not a way to

(34:10):
automatically flip a switch and practice skepticism. But there are
some clear steps and techniques you can employ that will
help you get a better handle on the concept. And
we're gonna we're gonna step through a few of these. Again,
your mileage may vary, and we are going to be
the first folks to tell you, or at least I
will say these. Uh, these are difficult to practice in

(34:34):
at least my own experience, and I think all that
goes for all of us. But they're worth trying. I mean,
it's the same way you have to practice, say, empathy,
It ultimately involves stepping out of your brain, if that's
even possible, or you know, putting yourself in another person's
shoes or the shoes of another perspective, or again, just
kind of you know, questioning and breaking yourself out of

(34:56):
those feedback loops. So doubt is a very important con
sept to exercise or to consider, especially these days with
all of this information just you know, whirlwinds swirling around us,
you know, and people reporting it as though it were
true all the time. You know, there really are no
check safeguards against uh, misinformation. Maybe there never were, but

(35:18):
at least we used to have a journalistic code of
ethics and all of that stuff. Um. That just seems
to have really gone out the window. Especially since internet
stories are always first to market. It seems like some
traditional press outlets are just trying to keep up and
so maybe we see we see sometimes things are reported
and big outlets that that proved to not be true too.
So it's even harder because with you know, the media

(35:39):
or anyway many of these media outlets being owned by
a very small number of families and corporations, um, it
can be really easy to fall prey to these lines
of thinking and reporting that maybe have an agenda, uh
not to mention commercials, the news cycle campaign ads, things

(36:01):
that try to influence what we think and act, and
some networks that essentially operate as propaganda, you know, not
naming names, but I mean it's it's true on both
sides of political divides and in other countries. Used you
have the ones that is pretty widely understood to be
not based in fact, more entertainment than anything to to

(36:21):
get people riled up. Yeah. I would just modify this
one slightly because we're talking about like, if we're making
a list here, number one. First thing, have some doubt
about stuff, I would just say it needs to be
doubt that's led with curiosity, right, not doubt that's led
with just rejection of whatever is stated. Yeah. Yeah, doubt

(36:44):
is not uh an inherently bad thing, nor is it
a measure of weakness. Again, this this leads us to
what a beautiful explanation. This leads us to the next
crucial step and put these of whatever order you want, folks.
Detecting deception right, that doubt doubt is just okay, let's

(37:06):
ask what right? Detecting this deception goes back to the
provenance of a claim. Is it made with honest intention?
Is this guy who is going to sell you a
bridge for an amazing discount? Is there a reason he
wants the cash? Now? Then you know what I mean. Uh,

(37:27):
it all goes back again to asking the right questions.
Is this claim based on assumptions? Probably there's supposed to
be some kind of common ground right for conversation to occur.
If it's based on assumptions. Is there support for these
facts research studies. This is where a matter of faith

(37:47):
arguments tend to fall apart. Look again, folks said it
hundreds of times. I imagine at this point on stuff
they don't want you to know. Our position is there
is nothing wrong you holding your own spiritual beliefs so
long as you are not harming yourself or others. And unfortunately,
all too often these beliefs can be twisted and disguised

(38:11):
as though they are facts rather than opinions, and you
can't that that is a deceptive move. You know, if
someone is if someone is quoting a textbook about physics
versus quoting um a spiritual work that means a lot
to them, there is an inherent difference in those two things.

(38:34):
And you are not as so many people want you
to feel obligated right in the world, and you are
not obligated to believe things that are not facts. And
even some of those traditional journalism outlets that that we
were talking about will now do things like site a
tweet or two to to describe an entire group of

(38:55):
people's thinking around an issue, as if that one or
two or three tweets is proof positive of a of
an entire group, you know. Um, and that's that's not
right either. Well, yeah, this one being able to detect
either deception or I don't know, I guess it would
be deception even if it was misinformation, But being able

(39:19):
to detect that when you're scrolling through whatever social media
you use. More and more and more, the three of
us have seen unattributed videos that are out of context
with voiceover that has absolutely nothing to do with what's
actually occurring in the video, but you know, ascribes some
kind of motivation or action that isn't actually taking place. Um,

(39:41):
I mean it is. It is terrifying the amount of
information it gets floated around and viewed thousands, hundreds of thousands,
sometimes millions of times, and there's the actual information is
not there. It's deception. Let's call it. Maybe we also
call it detect motivation, right, like a shout out to
the shout out that guy who I've never met, Uh,

(40:04):
we're interacting with directly who made those YouTube hit piece
videos saying that was lying about the shape of the
planet last time I'm gonna mentioned flat Earth. But bro,
if you're still tuning in, I hope you had a
good holiday. Uh but really, quickly, is it deception if
someone really believes what they're putting out there? And how
can we determine that if they never admit that they're wrong? Right,

(40:28):
and begun. People don't like admitting their wrong A lot
of people deceive themselves. Actually, honestly, you're probably deceiving yourself
about something right now, a very human being, and that's
just you know, that's part of the game. Uh right, Uh,
this this is a question we have to whirrel with
because we don't want to. You don't want to cast

(40:51):
dispersion on someone's genuine beliefs. You just need to know
that you were not obligated to believe those things. You
shouldn't be obligated to believe those things. That's a reason
theocracies are as dangerous for the world as monarchies, which
also request a huge suspension of disbelief. I think maybe

(41:13):
we pause for a word from our sponsors and gird
ourselves for one of the next ones, the trickiest one
one are the ones that's most often misused, Satan and
it's also a great film featuring Kyoto Reads and al Paccino.

(41:34):
Let's see if let's see if you could guess it
by the time we come back from our break. All right,
I feel like we made that trivia question pretty easy,
right that absentee landlord? Who are you carrying all those

(41:54):
bricks for it? Kevin God I did that monologue. I
I won an award doing that monologue in school. Congratulations
that man, that's great. Not a prestigious award, is a
major award. Let's see. Um. I don't think anybody in
the military gave it to me, but it was. It

(42:16):
was an award. But this uh so, Yeah, folks were
talking about The Devil's Advocate actually just too just to
prepare for this episode, I've rewatched The Devil's Advocate, and yeah,
it's worth a rewatch. It's worth a rewatch. It's got
some bangers in it, it's good. There's there's you know,

(42:39):
some issues, some some dated bits, but overall, I think
it's a pretty interesting piece that does have a message
at its heart, and it's oh man, uh, one day,
maybe we'll just do an episode about film conspiracies. If
we haven't yet, we must, we must. It's not a
bad idea. So the concept devil's advocate away from the film.

(43:04):
You've heard this used all the time, sometimes at bars
where someone a few too many drinks in is deciding
to be a jerk about stuff. But after all our
conversation today about spirituality, religious beliefs and and all that stuff,
it's funny to realize that the real concept of devil's

(43:26):
advocacy comes from a religious institution. You see, back in
the day, the Catholic Church had a bunch of people
who were being put up as possible saints, right proposed
as saints, going through beatification, canonization, etcetera. And so they
would have these long debates and these processes to determine

(43:49):
who was or was not in fact a saint. And
the church said, all right, we gotta be reasonable, So
we have to have at least one person or group
who comes in and says, here are the reasons this
person may not be as saintly as we think. Hey,
maybe we're all getting carried away in our feedback loop
of fandom. So they created the role of advocus diaboli

(44:15):
Devil's advocate, and this was a check in balance just
to make sure everything was on the up and up.
But today primarily it means let me take a position
that I don't necessarily agree with and let me try
to reverse engineer the logic from there. Right, That's what
it is. When people are using it with honest motives,

(44:37):
it's testing, yeah, case test. It's become such a part
of the you know, discourse, people literally just say Devil's
advocate boom and then say the thing you know, you know,
you people understand what that means. It is to kind
of create a thought experiment wherein we try to, like
you said, been worked backwards from like a undesirable or
not personally held, you know, conclusion to get to maybe

(45:01):
where the actual truth. But and usually the goal is
to get somewhere moderate, right, to get somewhere kind of
between the extremes between those poles. So again this is
a tricky one, right. This is a almost like a
not a black belt move of critical thinking, but it
is an intermediate level move of critical thought. You can't

(45:25):
immediately dismiss something out of hand. You never should, even
if it sounds absolutely ludicrous, or even if you find
it contradicts your previously held beliefs. This is where you
go back to the Socratic method. We ask questions from
both sides of an argument in an attempt to triangulate
towards the truth. And it's a key step that is

(45:46):
almost always ignored in hot button issues and debates and
mass media. It's for good reason, because one it's a
bummer to hear, right, and also in a place in
a media ecosystem that prizes out of context quotes, you
could just cut someone saying, well, if I were to

(46:07):
play devil's advocate, and then it sounds like they're a
green with all kinds of stuff that they don't agree with.
But the most important thing is that devil's advocacy as
a concept is often misused and people use it with
um incredibly scurlous, scoundrel like intentions. You know, they're not,

(46:30):
in fact trying to understand a perspective. They're attempting to
attack what they don't like by pretending to see the
other side someone, for instance, maybe as stridently um anti
abortion or pro life, and they're saying, okay, well to
play devil's advocate here, Uh, you know, let's say I

(46:52):
love killing babies. You know, let's say I love the
idea of a child die. Well, where would I get
that idea from? You know what? They stument? No, I've
got people that I know that do that, and they're
when they're trying to win in a debate with you

(47:13):
over something political, they'll do that exact thing where they'll
like take on your perspective but make you look like
an idiot, right like that or just the yes, whatever
it might be. They're they're bastardizing it and making it
extra gross to suit their purposes and in rendering you
how can you argue with that killing babies isn't good

(47:35):
the idea of killing baby, but that's also not what
abortion is, you know. Any No, we don't have to
get into that specific debate, but that's yeah, I'm sorry
that that really gets my dander up. And people do that.
M Well, in order to figure out what's going on there,
you gotta have a little thing called a bias detector.
I hope you've got one. You can build a boy,

(47:57):
you can build one at home. It's kind of funny.
Bias too is a term for like amplifiers get like
tube amplifiers. You have to set the bias for like tubes,
and it makes the sound like a certain kind of
timber or not. And sometimes adjusting in one direction or
the other can change the whole vibe of the amp.
And I'm sure they're not related, but they're spelled exactly

(48:19):
the same way. And I can't help but think about that.
B I A s you're onto something. Bias is essentially
for our purposes. Here is baseline. Yes, that's exactly right.
It's um calibrating, calibrating baseline that is pivotated one way
or another, right, or something that's given more weight than another.

(48:40):
Uh this okay, bias detecting a little, Matt, We're we're
indeed on. You've brought up one of the even trickier ones.
This one is not as misused as Devil's advocation. But
it is nowhere near as easy as it sounds. When
you you're biased detecting in rhetoric, then you think or

(49:01):
in conversation, right, then you would think, okay, I can hear,
I can detect a bias. You know what I mean?
If I read something from Sinua, the Chinese state supported
media about wagers, I'm pretty sure what they're gonna say,
you know what I mean? Or if I know that, um,

(49:22):
a Democratic president is going to talk about a Republican senator,
I'm pretty sure it's not going to be glowing praise. Yeah.
But it gets so much more complicated, right so quickly,
especially in politics, because you're not just looking at okay,
which side is saying that? Which team is this person on?

(49:42):
And what are they saying? Okay, I know that bias? Well,
what about the donors that that person relies on? What
about the state that person comes from? You know, there's
so many things. It becomes deception in the dark. Love it,
love it, Yes, I mean, that's that's a thing, right
because your brain also loves shortcuts. That's how it survived.

(50:04):
It doesn't need to confirm that there's a leopard in
that tree. It just needs to run in case there is, right.
It saves time. So that's why when you hear a
politician throughout the world make a claim, and you hear
just a few, like maybe even as few as one
to three contact contextual clues about that individual, you already

(50:26):
have an idea about where they might stand on what
they're saying. So let's picture let's picture you're tuning into
the radio, right, you're in you're driving somewhere, or you're
on public transit whatever. For some reason, you're listening to radio.
You're hearing these two politicians talk. And they're talking about
something the politicians always talk about. They say, the budget

(50:48):
is food bar. We need to fix the budget, and
they both agree on that. They're not gonna publicly agree
because they're very divided, right, but they're gonna take as
a given the budget whatever the budget is, has problems,
needs work. Also, this is urgent because their subtext there
is there's a reason you vote for me, right, and

(51:12):
you're not going to hear a conversation where they say, well,
we disagree on some things, but the budgets pretty fine.
It's actually a slow Thursday here in America. I hope
everybody takes some time to hang out with their kids.
They'll never say that, they'll they'll say they there's a
problem and no one can agree on how to fix it.
Har Rump for Rump for rumph. Well, another thing that's

(51:34):
interesting that we're seeing really recently with this whole you know,
division over electing the Speaker of the House, right and
like them not being able to get the number of
votes and kind of the left and the right having
to come together to figure out a solution. There you start.
You're starting to see folks like Marjorie Taylor Green, who
infamously was spouted all kinds of conspiracy theories and and

(51:56):
kind of nut job you know, lines about we were
the craziest things you can possibly imagine, Q you know
level type stuff and beyond um has now walked back
a lot of that stuff and is literally saying, oops,
my bad, the Internet got me. I don't actually believe
in any of that stuff, and I didn't really campaign
on it, which isn't true. She did campaign on it,

(52:18):
and she certainly spoke as though she believed it. But
now because of public perception of that kind of stuff
shifting even within the zealot types that maybe follow that stuff,
she's made a calculation so that in and of itself
is also disingenuous or is its own kind of bias. Right,

(52:40):
And this is where we can, towards the end of
the show, we can conduct a very brief experiment and
I think it'll be lustrative. So back to our hypothetical politicians.
One says, Okay, yeah, the budgets messed up and we're
in trouble. The only real solution is in tact cuts
to empower wealth creators. And at the same time, we

(53:03):
need to trim the fat. Let's cut government assistance across
a range of programs. This is unpopular, they might say,
but if we're being honest, and that's why you elected me,
this is the only way to write the ship. The
other person might respond by saying, yeah, the budget's best up, Yeah,
we have to fix it right now. And the answer
is doing the complete opposite of what the distinguished gentleman

(53:27):
from so and so said. We need to raise taxes
on the wealthy, or here's one, have them actually pay taxes,
and then we need to increase access to government assistance. Look,
they say, I know this is unpopular, but you elected
me to tell you the hard truths. It's going to
cost the nation in the short term, but better access
to education means better employees, better businesses, and better access

(53:50):
to government assistance means lower cost for the nation in
the long term. If you think back on that for
a second, my fell low Americans, then I bet you
can already guess which politician belongs to which big party
and due to your own pre existing experiences and belief
sets and feedback loops, you may be tempted to agree

(54:13):
with one over the other. Actually that's almost certain that
you do. But false dichotomy aside, how much do we
know about the nuts and bolts of these plans? Pass
those vague descriptions right at this point we have to ask,
like you were saying, no, not just the biases and
motivations of these politicians, but also what you were asking, Matt,

(54:34):
who funds their campaigns? What else do those campaign funders own?
And then we have to ask our own biases, and
they might not be apparent to us. That's the kicker
to be a skeptic. You have to use techniques of
critical thought on yourself just as much as you do
on others. I know, it's so much easier to tell

(54:54):
other people to work out, you know what I mean. Well,
it's also like, like, what what's hidden in the margins
of those bills that are being supported? You know what
I mean? You might outwardly as a politician support a bill,
but it's really just for the pork that's kind of
hidden in there that really affects your constituencies or or you,
or rather your high level donors. Uh. And the bill

(55:16):
might be you know, broadly accepted as a positive thing,
but you're really only supporting it to get through the
little things that you kind of sneak in there, you know.
So it's all very very disingenuous and and and based
around deception because of how complicated the system is. It's
like reading the terms of service, you know. I I
would okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with you mostly

(55:40):
I would say that the I think it is misleading
for people to say the system is complicated. I think
those in power one to portray the system is complicated
to further their goals. And maybe that's cynical. I saw
have a lot to learn in this regard for sure.
Devil's Advocate, it's all ones and zeros, right, But I mean,

(56:05):
I I think that though, like, how complicated are these
things really? Anyway, that's that's maybe a different story. Skepticism,
as you can tell, is not about this missing stuff automatically,
even if it sounds ludicrous. It's about asking questions, especially
when people would rather you not ask those questions. And
as the world continues to spend its merry way in

(56:27):
the chaos of conflicting narratives. Everybody's shouting, no one's listening.
People have less and less time to really investigate or
interrogate this stuff. Skepticism is becoming increasingly important at the
same time it's becoming increasingly endangered. You know, we love
hearing that someone else is wrong. We love telling someone

(56:49):
else they're wrong. We do not like when it happens
to us, even when it should. And so with that mind,
I would ask whether we should do a follow up
episod showed on something we haven't really talked about, which
is how to approach or apply skepticism to the beliefs

(57:10):
of our friends, loved ones, people who are important in
our lives. That stuff can ruin relationships. I don't know,
should we do an episode on it. I'd rather not.
I mean, you know, we've certainly seen this kind of
stuff ruined relationships and break apart families, you know, during

(57:31):
some of the escalative uh you know, rabbit holing that
took place during COVID, you know, I mean, people not
able to have any common ground with their brothers, mothers.
You know, this stuff is real, and that's why this
stuff is so important. And when I say this stuff
in that context, I mean being skeptical and asking those
questions and figuring out a way to talk to perhaps

(57:54):
a loved one that has gone a little too far
without alienating them or making them feel like you're talking
down to them or that you think they're stupid. Even
if you do, I mean, that's that's just not the
way to handle it. You're just gonna push them deeper
into that rabbit hole by being disrespectful to them and
then dismissing their beliefs as them outright ben you point
out it's about asking the right questions in a respectful way. Well,

(58:17):
it looks like we are a house divided on whether
or not to whether or not to do an episode
on approaching Approaching skepticism with people close to you in
your personal life. So let us know if we should
go on that sojourn, if you'd like to join us,
and if you have advice for your fellow listeners to
end on a positive note. Study from Pew Research showed

(58:41):
that the public overwhelmingly agrees we all need to exercise
more skepticism when we hear mass media. I was surprised
to find seventy two of adults in the United States
say news organizations quote do an insufficient job of telling
their audiences where their money comes from. So how do

(59:02):
we wrangle with that? Oh and also grumpy cat gift
That doesn't matter. We're an audio podcast, but I thought
that would make us laugh. Uh. And now it's time
we ask what you think, folks. We would we would
love to hear your thoughts about skepticism. We'd love to
hear about your experiences, uh with moments where you redefined
what you thought or moments where you uh found yourself.

(59:26):
What's the phrase we used earlier talk trying to talk
a loved when off the ledge. Yeah, you can find
us everywhere. We're online. As they say, we are conspiracy
stuff showing Instagram, on TikTok. We are also conspiracy stuff
show on YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff also on Twitter,
conspiracy stuff on Facebook. We are conspiracy stuff. But we've

(59:48):
got a little group called Here's where it gets Crazy.
Join up with all the rest of the conspiracy realists.
And hey, if the Internet is not your bag of
badgers or other small rodent, uh, i' it is a badger.
It's not really a road. Who knows? No one knows.
Let us know what you think. You can give us
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