February 6, 2016 • 60 mins
Have you ever found yourself infuriated by someone's opinion posted online? Or, perhaps, taken it a step further and attempted to argue with them? Why can't you win an argument online? The answer leads into a cognitive conspiracy that might surprise you.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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. Hello,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. Most importantly, you
are you are we hope, which makes this as always
stuff they don't want you to know, Ladies and gentlemen.
Before we get to anything else, before we start the show,
we want to do something very important and that is
(00:45):
shout Out Corner. That's right. It is the return of
our shout Out Corner. And the first person to get
a shout out today is our own Jake han Rahan,
who asked us on Twitter, Hey guys, do you still
do shout outs? We do, Jake, or we do for you?
So welcome. You are officially a member of the shout
(01:06):
Out Corner. Anybody else meant you got shouted out? So
did you? Heather getting shouted out for saying things while
you were apparently intoxicated that are hilarious on Twitter? Thank you?
So uh. We are going to continue our shout out Corner.
If you would like to have your name read on
the air, If you would like to say hi to us,
or if you would like us to convey a message
(01:28):
to your fellow listeners, there are a couple of ways
to do it. You should take a page from Jake
and Heather's book and follow us on Twitter dot com
forward slash conspiracy stuff. Or you can just take a
page from the Noel Brown book and just be a
buddy of mine by the name of Wesley Van who
I turned on the show recently and I wanted to
give him a little shouty addie. Oh yes, shout out
(01:49):
to Wesley as well. And so you know, I think
I think three are good for a shout out in
the corner, right, yeah, so a on a room. Yeah
so its just the corner, It's just a quarter. So
with that, as always, thank you to Wesley, Jake and
Heather for checking out this show. Thank you to everyone else,
all you guys out there listening. Again. We can't emphasize
(02:12):
it enough. Our best ideas come from you. We're also
on Facebook. We have what else do we have, guys?
We have a live show. We do we do periscope.
You can find us their Periscope TV. Even though Facebook
doesn't want you to know. That's true, and but Facebook
will let you know about our Facebook live posts. We alternate. Yeah,
we go back and forth. And our last one was
(02:32):
kind of cool because this is a little bit behind
the scenes. But Noel matt Um and I hung out
with future special guest who's who is a super cool guy.
I'm like his number one cheerleader actually, but he he
is simultaneously one of the most mysterious individuals that I've
(02:53):
ever met. But at the same time, I feel like
I could just sit and talk with him, and he
has the knowledge of a of a professor. But it
this way. The conversation over lunch veered wildly, from alchemy
to philosophy, all kinds of esoteric thought to you know,
the Fallout series and um Dungeons and Dragons rules, so
you know, it's cut quite a wide swath. I enjoyed
(03:15):
myself immensely looking Forred to having him on the show. Yeah,
this is a is a friend of mine from a
long time ago. But enough about that. You will you
will meet him soon because we're going to talk about
something different today, which might sound a little bit strange
for some of our listeners because we usually cover stuff
like cryptids. Oh and spoiler alert. You guys, I really
want to do some cryptids soon. Yeah, if we Yeah,
(03:36):
if I am so ready to cover cryptids, we just
gotta we have to find the new ones. Yeah, the
ones we haven't covered yet. You guys, I think that
sounds like a terrible idea. Get out of here. Stop arguing.
So you guys may have noticed that last week we
did a little episode on political conspiracies, which is one
of those things. I think it's politics, religion, and money.
(03:58):
Those are the three things three you shouldn't talk about
at dinner. Well, we we found out in our YouTube
comments section in our videos, uh specifically in this one,
a lot of comments, a lot of people just attacking
each other, arguing with each other, and uh, it kind
of made us want to look into this further. Yeah, exactly.
That's a great point. We do want to say that
(04:20):
we really appreciate every everybody who took the time to
check out our YouTube video and to check out our
earlier audio episode. We were surprised, you guys. We we
thought we would get just excoriated in comments and stuff
because we talked about political things, but a lot of
people seemed pretty on board. Yeah, there were a lot
(04:41):
of people just disagreeing with each other and what they
were writing in the comments rather than what was actually
in the video. We do, we do try to be
as unbiased as we can, or to be biased towards
facts rather than our own opinions. And that's one where
I spectacularly uh broke the rule and wh I went
on a rant. Yeah, I think that was the first
(05:02):
in our video series, at least think it was at first.
But but be that as it may, met. The point
you make is excellent, Uh, And we're gonna get to
some listener feedback later regarding our political stuff, so stay
tuned for that towards the end. But the point that
Matt is making now is that we saw arguments. We
(05:23):
saw a lot of arguments, and we started thinking, why
do people argue online? Why does it seem like there
are always a couple of people who are no matter
what the video is or what the story is, there's
always like one or two people who are fighting. And
it could be something's innocuous, as like a cute, overweight
cat who is pushing a cup off the table, or
(05:44):
like a puppy that is booping another puppy, and there's
somebody in the comments, he's always going like, hey you buddy, exactly. Yeah,
it ranges pretty widely, and it's a weird thing, right,
you know where I found some of the most just
completely livid cant anchors arguments online on local newspapers websites,
(06:05):
so especially you know, especially in the South, because people
to have a tendency to really let their Confederate flags fly,
shall we say? You know, that is a weird thing.
I noticed that in looking up a couple of articles,
uh in in smaller newspapers online, the comments sections that
you have to scroll all the way down the page
(06:25):
to find are just filled with people yelling and saying
horrible things to each other on a I mean, who
who goes there to like have a discussion. Well, it's
like a spoken word open mic night. The only people
who are going to watch are also the people who
want to perform, so people very very good analogy. It's
(06:47):
kind of cruel to spoken word and I am a
fan of spoken word. That's just a reality. Well that's
true of any kind of open mic night for the
most part. I mean, you know, if you've got someone
playing acoustic guitar, you know, singing Bob Dylan I mean
it's sort of a contract. You know, you've you got
to watch the other the other people did in the
Bob Dylan covers before you get your turn to do
(07:08):
yours right and stand up. Open Mic nights for comics
are are tough because you know, comics hate to laugh
at each other's jokes. It's like walking into a church
where everyone is angry, wonderful. Yeah, So what's the point?
Why why do we do this? Well, it's a great question.
This makes us think because we must explore the nature
(07:29):
of an argument itself before we get to the strange
world of arguing online. So the nature of argument is this,
Matt Noel, me or every guest host we've ever had,
you listening here, and every single person you have ever met,
probably I certain, uh, everyone you have ever met is
(07:52):
hardwired to prize feeling correct over being correct. That's a
very important distinction, right. Um. There are some chemical reasons
for that that we're going to get into, but it's
just it is a it's something you need to know. Yeah,
and evolutionary reasons as well. So everyone's had some sort
(08:13):
of argument. It doesn't matter who you are, you've had
some sort of argument. One of the nicest people I
know is a local Atlanta improviser named Mark Kendall. Super
nicest guy, but it doesn't matter if he would never
himself start an argument. He lives in an argumentative world, right,
So I think of you know, the nicest person you
(08:34):
know and probably had an argument at some point, right, Yeah,
I mean in my roommate Frank, for example. Um. And
the funny thing is he and I both used to
live with a mutual friend of ours who is just
he lives for arguming. He will he will make his
point and will never back down from it no matter
what information you throw at him. He's never wrong and
(08:55):
he's good at it because he's he makes you feel
like you have to meet his burden of proof. And
then he constantly is just like raising the bar. It's
very clever and it's infuriating, but you can't help but
engage when he when he does this, and you play
his reindeer games too, and so you know, Frank's got
a little bit of that every now and then we'll um.
(09:15):
But you know the thing about Frank, as he will
back down, but sometimes it will be like you know,
maybe something as simple as uh, this is the lyric
to this song, I'm like, no, that's not the right lyric,
And you know, kind of go back and forth for
a while and then eventually someone will look it up
and ended there and history hinges on history, hinges on arguments.
Arguments have caused wars, Arguments have caused changes of government.
(09:39):
Arguments have propelled some of the greatest innovations of our species,
and those maybe those we can um group under rivalries
more so right like Edison and Tesla, for instance, if
they didn't have such enormous abiding contempt for one another,
(10:00):
would they have explored technology the way they did? I
think the answer is no, I think they would have
explored something differently. So argument is not necessarily bad. Everyone
has it. This has probably happened to you recently, when
you were when you were doing something else between the
time you listen to our last show and the time
you're listening now, you may have argued over something in
your last show, for sure. So what what do you do?
(10:22):
How do you handle this when this happens? Do you
embrace conflict or or does even the thought of an
awkward social situation send you into anxiety land? Like Mark
Corrigan on Peep Show, you know, which is again I
think Nolan mentioned it earlier. So he's my spirit, he's
your spirit. Well at least you're not jazz. Uh So,
(10:43):
despite the name homo sapien modern wise person, uh, we
are biologically ill equipped for the times of which we live.
We are beta max is in a blu ray world,
which is totally inaccurate. I just like the way it sounds.
I like it. It's like outdated technology. It's like the
(11:04):
funny thing is I mean they're almost both out there.
Yea blue that's the thing. It sounds good, but blue
rays are also outdated. Yeah. So the the thing is
that the evolution of our technological capability and the evolution
of our social dynamic across the world, they've they've they've
(11:25):
outpaced the biological evolution, the biological adaptations that made human
beings so suited to that fight or die brutal grind
of the ancient natural world in which we lived. We
evolved cognitively and physically to outrun, outfight, or outwit predators
and monsters in the world around us. However, now we're
(11:49):
in a different world. Now the threats aren't so much.
You know, a tiger coming at you let's say we're
a bear that you have to fend off to save
your family or something. They're much more low, they're they're
more existential. They're on paper a lot of times. Yeah,
what are some of the terrors of the modern world
for other people in developed countries? We should say they're
(12:11):
there or people who are well off. The things are like,
am I leaving a legacy? Is web md? Right? Do
I have enough of these hoodies that I like, you know,
I don't have to watch them all the time to
make it good tickets for that concert? Or are they
only that? Are there only bad tickets left? And there
(12:31):
are real ones too, like the ones that are coming up,
like in the current political movements that we're seeing in
like how do governments function? Right? Even though that's that's
a large question, it's something that affects all of us
that we have to think about, but it's not something
that we can that you can fight against, that you
can fight or fight right. Well, It's also another thing
(12:54):
that's becoming more and more um just part of potentially
part of a daily concern is threats of attacks terroristics
for example. I mean, obviously we've been dealing with that
in our culture for a long time, but for me
personally and also having a child, I feel like it's
definitely more in the forefront of my mind. Like I
went to a political event um last year and was
(13:15):
standing in line and the thought occurred to me going
in like, you know what there, someone could try to
slow up. This could be it. And it was very
strange because I've never had that thought before, and it
was very like a marked kind of moment, like, Okay,
I guess this is how my brain works now, And
that is how our brains have always handled the world
around us as a constant as a constant background noise
(13:38):
of threat music. You know the music that plays in
kill Bill right before the bride does anything. Your brain
is always on some level playing that music at a
very low level. But it's because our hardwiring, however antiquated
(13:58):
it is, got us or by being that way, so
it was very very useful in the past. It is
still useful, otherwise people wouldn't have it. Well, what this
means is that our brains treat every innocuous argument like
it could potentially be a fight to the death. So
(14:19):
so for instance, what's what's the most what's the most
innocuous argument, like the dumbest little thing to argue with
someone about. Like if you guys were arguing. I had
an argument one time about shoes. I was about to
say shoes, Yeah, it's so funny. That was literally that
was the most innocuous argument I could have thought of.
A mutual friend of ours, Brie and I got into
(14:41):
a huge argument one time about the need for new,
like really expensive shoes and about how I only had
one pair of shoes. That was exactly the thing that
I was going to say, We'll see there, you go,
that's weird. You guys have group minds. Well, mine was
going to be a hypothetical. Actually I have this argument,
but that was literally going to be It was very straight. Well, so, okay,
(15:01):
so even if if it's this question about new exclusive Jordan's,
or if it's a question about what sort of shoes
are best suited to what sort of event? Right, uh, Ultimately,
if you have a horse in the race, if you
have a badger in the bag on this one, then
you your brain is going to treat it as though
it potentially will be a situation where one where you
(15:24):
have to thunderdome it and one of you is going
to die and it's an unconscious thing. And this, ladies
and gentlemen, is why stuff they don't want you to
know is covering the topic of argument because it's not
the kind of thing we would usually cover, right, m Yeah,
it's I think this falls in line really well with
the deceptive brain series that we do. Yeah, and that's
(15:45):
because the question is always who are they in this context? Well,
friends and neighbors, ladies and gentlemen, uh future potential uh foes.
This is depending on how you feel about Jordan's this
is a situation where the they are you at least
your brain, your brains and the ancient Eldrich processes that
(16:09):
compel us to mistake our programming for free will. And
so now that we know that the game is rigged
with regular arguments, let's take it a step further, you
know what I mean, Let's look at technology. What is
it like when you can argue with someone that you
will never have to meet in real life? Do you
have do you guys have a story? Okay, have a
(16:31):
really quick story to tell, and it I think matches
up where the real world and then the avatar that
you are when you're speaking or typing online kind of meat.
So there's this game when I was in middle school
called Ultima Online, and it was really cool. Is a
new game and you could do all these things. Well,
I spent way too much time playing this game. I
(16:53):
got a character to seven x GM, which means that
seven times grand master you have a hunt. You have
even skills that are at one hundred, which takes forever.
And I mean, really we're talking. I don't know six
to eight months that I spent on this one character,
and I bought a boat, I got all this stuff
Like I was. I was riding high back in middle schools, like,
(17:15):
oh man, this is awesome. Uh So, anyway, they made
a change to the game where in certain spaces you
weren't safe anymore. Someone could take things from you, pickpocket
you right or even attack you and the guards wouldn't
come or whatever. Anyway, I got pickpocketed and my boat
got stolen with all my stuff, and I basically was
(17:37):
going to rage quit the game. But there was this
function into inside the game where you could call a
a GM a game master also GM. That's weird, but anyway,
you could call them and it was a human sitting
at their computer who was like helping run the game,
who would come in a character and talk to you.
And this character came up and I, basically as this
(17:57):
little kid, was arguing for about minutes, yelling with vitriol
about how could this happen. I've spent all this time,
I love this game, Please get my boat back, help me.
This sucks. And then I said awful things to this
person because I was so furious that I I don't
even remember exactly what I wrote to the guy, but
(18:19):
it was just in text, coming up in a little
bubble above my characters. And well, that's important to remember too,
is you know there's no context in text. It seems
funny to say, but I mean, you know, it's like you.
It just comes across like you. You have one side
of the meaning of the words, because you're missing an entire,
incredibly important component, which is your body language, the tone
(18:39):
of your voice, the sound of your voice, the oscillations
of your volume up and down, things like that. And
a lot of people talk with their hands and the
other there's just a whole nuance that's missing from online conversation.
And it can work both ways. It can either make
you come off as extra mean, or you know that
people get confused. Maybe you're saying something that's meant to
be a joke, and if you had heard to say
(19:00):
it in their voice, it would be very clear they
were being sarcastical that it was a joke. But when
you type it out and there's none of those nuances,
it's very easy to mistake it as someone being a jerk. No,
that's one of the primary differences between most online interactions
versus real life interactions. Another one would be that everyone
in an online interaction has the ability to pretend to
(19:25):
be more knowledgeable than they are by opening another table
at your fingertips, especially now. Back then, I was on
a dial up on a o L and that's how
I was connecting to No, I did not get my
boat back I And it explains a lot about like you,
because I never got my boat but boat. It is
(19:50):
funny though, how I transferred my anger and my rage
and from that guy, from the person who stole my
stuff to this game master who had nothing to do
with it. Yeah, completely equivalent of yelling at someone on
like Comcast customer supporters exactly exactly has nothing to do
with it. It's just my job to help out, but
your I can't deal with you right now. And I
(20:10):
would say that's a little bit different because the person
who was bearing the brunt of the of the frustration
was paid to be there and was not passionately telling
you that you had to have better shoes or something.
So so, because we are, as we said, hardwired for survival,
let's look a little bit at what what happens in
(20:33):
these online arguments when you are in situations with high stress,
or you have fear or you're suspicious. Um, there's a
hormone called cortisol which floods your brain. And when this happens,
all the all the cool cognitive neighborhoods in the frontier brain,
(20:54):
like all all the all the hip, new up and
coming areas. Evolutionarily speaking, uh, they don't function as well.
These would be executive functions. They're like strategy, trust building, empathy, compassion,
and instead, one of Knole's favorite parts of the brain
kicks in, and that is the amygdala. This is the
(21:15):
part that makes a choice about how best to protect
the body. And this thing, which is a very old
part of your brain, is the one that says, all right, look, body,
we are very close to losing it all in this uh,
in this dangerous, dangerous game of Russian roulette that we
(21:36):
confused with a pleasant conversation. We have several choices. We
can fight, possibly to the death. We can run as
fast as we can, we can freeze, or we can
try to kiss there. But I don't know what. I
don't know it'll work better for you. But your brain
usually is gonna say fight or fleet, yes, the the
(21:58):
I like that idea of a strate Egypt, but kiss
that your brain decides to make. And and this is
just for arguments when you when you're arguing with someone
you don't know that well, you don't have that much
of a stake in there, you know. It's this is
an argument where, uh, maybe Noel meet somebody in line
(22:18):
to grab lunch or something and they just say something
very offensive and you say, hold on though, that's that's
not that's not true actually, because blah blah blah, and
they're like, oh, oh, look at make Beardy over here.
Look at the pants on this guy. Look at the
pants on this guy, big boy pants. I love the
(22:40):
idea that all of a sudden everything just stops in time.
Noel turns around, and then you just hear that and
all of a sudden, it's a fight to the death.
What is that? It's the Star Trek. Yeah, that's also
me calling all my bearded compatriots. I knew you guys
traveled in packs. I didn't want to say it because
they don't want to prejudice be you know, open with
(23:01):
my prejudices. But it's like, why are there always those
like other eleven guys hanging out waiting for you. I
can't tell you the secret. I've literally never seen you
walking in a pack of less than twelve bearded men.
You know, there's safety and numbers, my friend, I guess, well,
it looks good, I think have Yeah, well that's a
(23:23):
different epis what you do? You just grow your beard
out a little bit and then maybe we'll welcome you
into the fold. I don't know, man, I don't know
if I'm ready. Okay, cool trader, so so, but let's say,
like going back to this hypothetical situation. No, let's say
that you are in a long standing argument, a deep
seated rivalry, one of those arguments with that has continued
(23:45):
for some reason for years and years and years, and
we'll never reach a conclusion. In fact, it's further and
further away from a conclusion you have, like some Edison
Tesla kind of deep seated, uh, deep seated disgusted for
one another. Well, it turns out your brain functions in
an even stranger way at that point. Now your brain
(24:06):
has gone from sort of betraying you by making you
a little bit dumber to um or a little bit
less rational, it's a more fair way to say it, uh,
to giving you a little bit of something that might
be like a mad mad genius superpower. So in this
study at the University College of London, a guy named
Professor Summer Zecky scan the brains of these test subjects
(24:28):
as they looked at photos of someone they hated. And
I still don't know how they got these photos. I
guess the person said, oh I hate this person, celebrities
or something. Right, Well, I mean the methodology is in
the study. No, it's fairly sound. So Professor Zecki found
that everyone's brain has what he called a hate circuit,
(24:49):
and it connects three regions, the superior frontal gyrus UH,
the putamen, and the medial insula. The activity in these
regions correlates the experience of hate. So if someone says
to you like, oh, I don't who's the celebrity Ryan Gosling. Okay,
So if someone says to you, know, I don't hate
(25:10):
Ryan Gosling, you can check to see if they're telling
the truth by showing them a picture of Ryan Gosling
and seeing if the superior frontal gyris putaman and the
medial insula have a higher level of activity that means
they hate this guy. I love the idea of walking
up to someone in the street be like, do you
hate Ryan Gosling? No? No, no hold on equipment or anyone.
(25:33):
And this this circuit is distinct. It includes parts of
the cortex subcortex that generate aggressive behavior and translate this
into action through motor planning, which means like a very
small individual size version of war games or you know, modeling,
strategic modeling. If then right, if they swing first, I'm
(25:56):
gonna duck put a put a foot up in their
groy or something like that. I have that with a
couple kids in middle school because of my dorkiness, Like
you know, and there are those kids that that you
you think about, how am I going to react if
you're you know, a bully? I guess something like that.
Did you guys ever have something like that where you're
(26:18):
you have just planning on how am I going to
interact with this person next time? And if then in
order to keep yourself from being bullied. Yes, like like
a good singer to get Like I guess what a
why a comedian learns to be a comedian at a
young age? Right, That's the kind of thing. Yes, this
(26:38):
this is something that I'm sure a lot of people do.
And you know, listeners, we're collectively a pretty diverse group,
the three of us here in the studio, everybody out
there listening and writing in and helping us find the
next episode of a show. So some of you are
doubtlessly in middle school right now, in high school right now,
(27:00):
maybe I think I don't think there's anybody younger than
middle school age listening to the show. So, uh, some
of you are in maybe middle school, high school right now,
and and you're aware you've seen this kind of stuff
happened before. I hope you are not bullying anybody. I
also hope you're not being bullied. But it is a
it is a true skill, and it's one of those
(27:22):
um abstract cognitive superpowers that separates humanity from most but
not all, other animals. And here's the thing about when
you really hate someone. We did this in our Deceptive
Brain series. All Right, when you're in love, you have
less activity in the parts of your brain that have
(27:44):
objectivity and judgment. So, like you've seen one of your
friends date someone who's just an absolute piece of garbage,
and and they're like, oh, no, you know, uh, Donovan
or Samantha or whatever is just going through a lot.
They they need a little money, but our hearts in
the right place. And you know, they love their three kids,
but they can't talk to them because of their schedule.
(28:06):
And and they're like, you know, Donovan or Samantha whomever
doesn't sound like the most up and up character, right,
And they're like, but no, I love him, or you know,
I love her or whatever. I think we've all been
in those situations. Yeah, that's almost another coping mechanism that
your brain sort of you know, circumvents uh common irrational
(28:30):
rational thought by allowing you to kind of explain away
some of these these pretty deal breaking shortcomings. So even
though the circuit for hate is distinct, it has a
little bit in common. It runs in some of the
same circles as the love circuit, which we cover in
that Deceptive Brain video, with one really important difference. Brains
(28:52):
experiencing hate retain activity in the objectivity and judgment areas,
which means are better prepared not only to plan your
next move, but to calculate the next move of your opponent.
This does not happen when you are just arguing with
some random stranger in the internet. This happens people that
you hate. So if you have this kind of experience,
(29:17):
it can keep you smart, which in terms of maybe
cunning is a better word. Right, So does this apply online?
We did a video earlier where we talked about why
you cannot win arguments online, and you know, I'm sure
there are loads of folks out here listening who are
(29:37):
thinking like I used to think. Well, I did actually
win several arguments online bends. So if you want to
argue about it, check out you know, check out your email. Right. However, No,
you named one of the biggest reasons that it's difficult
to win an argument online when you said body language, right,
(29:59):
body language just missing. Yeah, And I also think that,
like I mean, there's no moderate moderator in an online argument.
So I mean, everyone kind of walks away feeling the
same way as they did when they went in, you know,
like I'm no one ever really gets their minds changed.
Oh and since there's no neutral third party to say,
(30:20):
you know, X or Y won the debate, it's just
all about mud slinging and just it devolves usually into
just personal insults because essentially you're missing more than half
of what people are actually saying when you cut out
the ability to interpret their body language, their intonation, the
sound of their voice. Like I was saying, Oh yeah,
(30:41):
let's get into this, because there's a there's a little
bit of myth busting we need to do, but there's
also a little bit of uh, revelatory stuff we need.
We need to show people here because we have some
numbers on this. You've probably heard this before. Research shows
only about what we're actually saying matters. People are any
more attendant to your body language, etcetera. Lately, that's actually
(31:04):
been amended pretty significantly to say fifty of communication is
actually body language, percent is the tone of voice, and
seven wow the actual words. So okay, so this is
this measure up. Let's look at this. The history behind
these numbers they're often quoted and the percentages are often misunderstood.
(31:27):
They come from a guy named Albert Mehrabian. Albert Mehrabian
is responsible for this this breakdown, right uh, and he
was he did a lot of research detailing the importance
of non verbal communication channels. Right because we've seen people
who speak very seldomly but the rest of what they
(31:52):
are still being very talkative, the lack of a better
term in in the ways in which they carry themselves. Right. Uh.
We we have a couple of coworkers who speak rarely
but is still communicate very well. So this actually comes
this number comes from two different research studies, both in
(32:13):
the sixties, and they combined together, uh to modify that
sixt nonverbal verbal thing into the thirty eight and seven
because they figured out that intonation does matter that much. Right.
Sarcasm uh, still is very difficult for people to read
(32:33):
based on text alone. There are some ways that you
can get around some of the sarcasm and some of
those things now I know. On Twitch in particular, they
have actually come up with an emoji that when you're
being sarcastic, you throw the emoji somewhere in the message,
which is kind of an interesting way that h communication
is being is evolving. I think eventually there will be
(32:55):
something that you'll be able to denote sarcasm simply by
with a click or some lee I mean, or you know,
for example, using an exclamation point, where when an exclamation
point was missing, a sentence might come off as de
mirror or like sounding like, you know, you're not very
enthusiastic about something. But if you have that exclamation point
maybe two or three, then the person that you're chatting
(33:17):
with or texting with, you know, knows that you're being
upbeat about something. I mean, there's all kinds of little
work arounds, not to mention all of the emojis that
you know, we have access to, just like through you know,
androids and iPhones, but that is, that is if the
other person that you're speaking with understands those symbols and
those messages that you're trying to get across, because ultimately
it's just characters. And this leads into something that's an
(33:38):
interesting bit of history, which I'll probably pitch to Holly
and Tracy over at Stuff you Missed in History Class
from our Pure podcast. There have been numerous attempts to
create new punctuation characters that denote stuff like an interra
bang which is a question mark but also an exclamation point,
(33:58):
or an irony mark or a mark to donate uh sarcasm. However,
these haven't really caught on, so at this point we're
stuck with clarity of communication. The big misunderstanding about this
seven rule is that it is a hard and fast
rule all the time. That's that doesn't make sense because
people communicate so differently across the world. What it does
(34:22):
show us is that in any instance, what how you're saying,
what you're saying, what you're doing with your body while
you say it matters way more than people might think. Also,
intent has a lot to do with it, Like, for example,
an internet troll um is communicating for the sole purpose
of rilling people up. So not only will they use
(34:44):
language and phrasing in such a way that will ruffle people,
they're actually being very pointed and targeted and what they're
saying and creating these argumentative threads, and a lot of
times you'll see message boards where you know there's somebody
on there and as I later identified as a role
only after like people kind of react and say, oh,
you idiot, blah blah blah, you're so full of it
(35:04):
about and then someone will be like he got old,
you know x y Z two thousand and sixteen, GOTSI
or whatever, you know. I mean, it's the thing. You
see it all the time, and they're a little bit different.
I think in there in the chemical processes that occur
in the brain during trolling, because it's not The point
is not to win an argument, you know what I mean.
The point is to uh derive some other sort of
(35:27):
cathartic thing that's true and so and do you think
people enter into online arguments really believing that they're going
to win? Like do you think we delude ourselves into
believing that we actually have a chance of changing someone's mind? Uh?
Sometimes sometimes one thing that I think may even be
more common is when people are okay, So imagine a
(35:51):
person is like a cup and the fluid that a
person is filled up with is a belief, right be
that belief is something like the best video game ever
was g t A. Or that jazz music stinks except
for this one album, right so, or that you know,
(36:14):
my religion is right if we want to go to
that point. So this person, this cup is filled with
this this fluid of belief. And this fluid, you know,
like any other fluid, adheres to the it conforms the
shape of its container, and then when it overflows, maybe
an event happens in the news, it's like an ice
(36:35):
cube or something dropping in and that raises the fluid
and then it starts to pour over into the outside world.
So I'm trying to be very kind when I say this,
but my instinct says that often people just want to
express the thing they already believe rather than um think
critically about it. So maybe maybe you've grown up hearing
(36:59):
that the only real metal is cradle of filth. Right, Okay,
I don't want to get in trouble with the metal audience.
This is just for the sake of argument. So you,
as a cup have been filled with this thing that says,
only metal is cradle of filth. The only metal is
cradle of filth. Yes, And and by going out and
(37:20):
saying it, like like just going out in the world,
and some even if it's just on a little online forums,
when we're in saying that, it's it's almost like you're
trying to reinforce your own belief. Yes, And you're and
you're attempting to find like manded people. So you guys
can all sit together and say, the only medal is
great to live filth. The only medal is great to
(37:40):
live filth. And the reason this, the reason this happens,
and this is a very crude analogy, but the reason
this happens is because of kind of a tribalistic pact mentality.
And we are much more like uh, we are much
more um synthesizing creatures than we are original thinkers. So
(38:02):
we take stuff that has already existed in our cup
and we just let the cup overfloweth you know what
I mean. We're not actually making the thoughts in many cases.
So you can also see these online arguments that are
very impassion as proxy wars because someone who didn't actually
invent the thought just heard it so much they believed
(38:23):
it was true, heard it so much they believed it
was true. They they end up just being kind of
a puppet of a pre existing opinion to another puppet
of a pre existing opinion. And it's a sad thing,
but it's a reality. Another reason you can't win a
lot of arguments online is that the act of arguing
tends to reinforce those pre existing opinions. So if I
(38:44):
am a cuppet, I'm overflowing with the only medal is
created of filth. And then uh, Matt, you or you
knowl or you listeners say, well, technically, I looked up
the definition of metal and while Creadle of Filth maybe
your favorite of this genre and it's many subgenres, it
is factually inaccurate to say that it is the only example.
(39:08):
So confronted with the facts, what would I do? Well,
do we have those those three options from earlier in
the show fight or peas? I don't know if people
would appease Um. It's rare for people to roll over
and show their belly and online because you know, there's
(39:29):
such anonymity. And well, here's what Brendan Nihan and a
guy named Jason Rifler discovered. They discovered something they called
the backfire effect, which means that if you guys had
like a metal intervention with me and said, here are
several other metal albums. Furthermore, here's some albums that if
(39:49):
you like Cradle of Filth, you will probably enjoy immensely.
And if I still thought that same thought, just running
like a ear worm through my head. Then what I
would end up doing is saying no, no, you guys
are wrong, we're not friends. You don't know what you're
talking about. Your offensive, you're stupid. Down vote dislike hands up.
And the funny thing is is, like, you know you
(40:09):
can get away with that stuff online, I guess because
no one's really trying to be your friend. Um. But
you know, if a buddy of yours kept behaving that way,
probably find a new buddy, you know what I mean.
Just I'm not saying that everyone has to be the same,
but when people just are inherently closed minded and closed
off to any other possibilities other than what they believe
(40:30):
to be the case, it's just not any fun to
talk to him, you know, it's just not And even
if you're into arguing, that gets all real quick, you know,
especially something as arbitrary is you know, Cradle of Filth
is the only medal. It's making me think of the
concept that thoughts can be viral or are in a
way neural viruses. The medic Yeah, yeah, And some of
(40:51):
the kind of takes me back to the Invisibles and
Filth and some of the work with great Morrison just
some of the ideas that if you have a thought
that is dangerous enough and you are able to spread it,
the thought itself is a thing that is dangerous, not
whatever comes of it, right, does the thought function as
essential being. Yeah, it's it's a it's an interesting idea,
(41:14):
and it's something that we've talked about off air, which
you know, I would love to I would love to
explore in the future episode two, because we're already We're
already at this in this situation where the evidence or
the truth of whatever something might be doesn't necessarily matter.
The backfire effect is related to confirmation bias. Confirmation bias,
of course, where if you think of yourself as a skeptic,
(41:36):
and you say, if you think of yourself as a skeptic,
then you should be saying, I am interested to hear
about this UFO report and see what if anything is
anomalous about it. Many people who confuse themselves with skeptics
practice confirmation bias and say aliens are not real. Where
(41:57):
I heard the term conspiracy theory. Therefore whatever follows after
this is automatically wrong. If anything, that's the opposite of skepticism.
So in a situation where the evidence of the truth
doesn't necessarily matter when people on any conversation from closely
held personal values like religion or politics two very arbitrary
(42:19):
stuff like Anchorman one versus InCor mare and two, or
pepsi versus coke or whatever. What we find is that, again,
our brains are hardwired to prize feeling correct over being correct,
even when there's not, even when there's not really a
correct answer, like I don't know, you guys feel a
(42:40):
bit if it's a soda. It's a soda. It's a soda.
You might have your favorite, but I don't think there's
an inherently superior one. Well, it's like you said at
the beginning to it's it's the difference between argument being
this functional kind of um defense mechanism where you are
actually protecting yourself against something. Now it's almost more like
(43:01):
a sport, you know, And that's certainly how people treated
online a lot of the time. I mean, it's definitely
you are trying to get that I guess dopamine release
that comes from the satisfaction of feeling like you have
one or you are right, you know, even if you aren't,
And almost it's benefits you to maybe ignore the fact
that you're not right. Right. Yeah, Ben, you said something
(43:22):
in the video that I thought it was fantastic. You're like,
this idea of being right is is addictive, and so
much so that it is a drug that you The
feeling of being right all the time would be such
an all encompassing feeling that you would want to chase
and chase and chase. You said it would be like
(43:42):
if you're Kanye West, like that feeling of everything I
say I believe is right and and it doesn't matter
what anybody else says. I believe that this is right.
And so it's just I was trying to imagine what
that would feel like constantly. You guys are both on point,
But we're getting to this very important thing here that
you can become physy, physically addicted to this dopamine and
(44:07):
adrenaline rush, dopamine triumph that occurs when you think I
am right. Yeah, I'm not even listening to you. The
only medal is creadle of filth, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. I
mean this, it's a it's a strange thing. And again,
you know, I'm just mentioning creadle of filth and metal
for the sake of argument. Yeah, I mean, we're all
(44:28):
stars now on the Dopamine Show, Thanks Marilyn. Shout out
to Marilyn Manson. So when yeah, so, when you argue,
when your your brain rather floods with these different chemicals
and they even make you feel invincible. So the next
(44:48):
time you're in a tense situation, your brain remembers right,
and your brain says, let's fight. We don't need to
run because if we run, we don't get the rush.
Fight for the rush. Yet, let's say, let's say that
all of us listening now, all of us on the show,
(45:10):
now say that each of us has some sort of
amazing revelation and we are able to transcend these things,
and we say, you know what, you guys, I'm sorry.
I was being such a piece of crap about it.
It was cartoonist that I believe there was only one
metal band in the world, and in retrospect it's weird.
(45:33):
And I appreciate you guys for being so honest with
me and listening to me. I apologize. Let me take
you guys out to Dave and Busters. Let's see that
we were all capable of doing that. Well, there's still
another problem. Another reason that you may not be able
to win arguments online because your chances of finding an argument,
(45:54):
finding a contradicting opinion, even if it's correct, are lowering.
How to continue great, We're talking about something called the
search bubble. So what what is this? This is the
thing you may have noticed recently and when you're just
on Google or really any other search bar, or on
Facebook or some other social media network that you use.
(46:15):
What's getting uh supplied to you, to your feed or
to your search results is more and more. It's being
customized for you for what you've searched for in the past,
for what you like on Facebook in particular, or what
you what you buy. Even a lot of times it's
matched up with your credit cards, which is a little
(46:37):
bit creepy um. And it's happening because mostly advertisers want
you to have what you want and you know, and
that's getting into maybe even places where your news sources,
the types of news sources on your news feed are
going to be different. Are you saying even non sponsored posts,
like just normal things that you like that come up
(47:00):
in your feed are reorganized and reordered based on your
browsing behavior. That's really creepy. Yeah, that's why. Yeah, that's why.
If you're signed into Google and you're on Chrome or
something like that, your results are going to be different
than if you're just not signed in anywhere and using Google,
using Google Chrome on on a different computer. And here
(47:21):
a how dramatic these differences can become. You can use
search engines that strip some of the personalized information that
Google uses. Uh there's Duck Duck Go and Scroogle, and
you'll see that the search results you get, uh do
differ almost regardless of what you look up. Yeah. It
scares me sometimes when I'll type in stuff somewhere on
(47:42):
a computer and then stuff they don't want you to
know shows. I'm like, yeah, awesome man. Oh wait, oh.
So there's a Ted talk you can watch about this
if you're interested in learning more by a fellow named
Eli Harris or Priser, the author of a book called
The Filter Bubb Bowl, and he's talking about this personalized search. So,
(48:06):
as they say in an excellent article on you Are
Not So Smart dot com, the media of the future
may be delivered based not only on your preferences. Right,
whatever you looked up, Yes, even in incognito mode. H
it will be. It will also be based on your
voting record, your medical records, where you grew up, your
projected mood, the time of day, the time of year,
(48:29):
maybe even information gleaned from your text message conversations, right,
even public records, like perhaps how much you make if
you work in a public because as you apply for
a loan recently, are you getting dental work? Why? Yeah,
did you make in an usual purchase? And the biggest one,
are you about to have or have already had a
(48:50):
baby recently? I don't know, man. Another big one that
makes me uncomfortable is when I see when I'm hanging
out with a friend, and for some reason, it's almost
always one of my female friends, and I see, like, wow,
you have a lot of ads for engagement rings and diamonds,
and that seems to me, that seems so unfair because
(49:10):
we already live in a society that tolerates pushing people
to do uh, ritualistic things that maybe don't even apply
in our society at this point. It's it's a form
of is it of it? As if how from space
obviously two thousand one decided to pester you to the
point of bullying. You know what, I mean that's crazy.
(49:32):
I know it's not it's not the best, but hey,
maybe it's all wrong, right, No, maybe we can just
maybe we can be better. Maybe we can have rational discourse,
throw off those old social dynamic rules. What do you think?
Maybe it's it's it's been. It's not a fair fight though,
you know, I mean, our odds are pretty abysmal. You
(49:55):
don't think we can evolve past the physiological limits of
the brain and break three of these, uh, algorithms that
keep us from discovering things that may change our view
of the world because we're a star stuff after all,
you know. I I don't know. You're right. Maybe our
odds don't look good, but I think there are there
(50:16):
are older pieces of I'll you know what, I'll take
a page from l. Ron Hubbard's book and call it
cognitive technology. Uh. The Socratic method is an excellent way
to explore differing opinions. Of course, it takes time. A
lot of people don't have it, and a lot of
people when you're in an argument online, I don't know, listeners,
if you ever played this game as kids where you
(50:38):
were like you had invisible guns, do you remember this
this game? Oh, we're gonna pick two sides or whatever. Um.
So the the the thing that happens with that is,
you know, like if we're playing this, if you if
you're not in a family like yours met and you're
playing with invisible guns, one thing you'll notice is a
lot of people say, oh, I got you, and then
(50:59):
some it is like, you know you didn't. That's what
that's what internet argument is. It's imaginary bullets, imaginary weapons,
and people are expecting to play the honors system on
who got shot. So of course I don't think it's
gonna work out. But these are things to keep in mind.
And we would like to hear what you think about
(51:20):
the strange ways in which our brains deceive us and
force us to think that we are living in a
different era. And the the way in which one of
the main conspirators in your quest for any factual thing,
any truth, maybe an inside job, maybe the person in
(51:42):
in between your ears all along and it's not your fault.
These are processes older than civilization. Yeah, we need to
find a way to suppress the amygdala, Ben, but I
feel like that's a terrible that would be an awful
world to live in. Oh, I don't know. I'm sure
people have conducted experiments like that. You know, we we
(52:04):
do know that it does change brain function when you
reduce electrical activity in one part of the brain, even
using an external source like uh t dcs, right, which
still is somehow it's not illegal, right, But no one
will sell me one. I'm gonna have to just build one.
Can do it. I'm probably gonna give myself brain damage,
but I'm gonna do it anyhow. Oh and listeners, if
(52:26):
you know of a tc at T DCS device, please,
uh yes, send one our way, right on our way.
But before we go, it's time for some feedback and
some listener mail. Listening, mail listening. Man, Now it's time
for listening, all right. So we had a lot of
feedback from our political conspiracy episode, and we had some
(52:49):
different views that we wanted to share with share with
everybody else listening. And there were also a couple of
things that I wanted to amend or corrections, which which
we're grateful for all of these. So Kelly M. Wrote
into us, and I'm gonna read a portion of this
letter because I want to take a look at this.
(53:11):
Uh Kelly's talking specifically about the part where I kind
of went on a rant about my own personal opinion,
which again Noel especially thank you for pulling me off
back from the allege on that one so Kelly Kelly
says she likes the show. Uh. I don't usually have
a reason to write endo podcast, but something was said
during this episode that frustrated me. I apologize if it
(53:33):
was corrected later in the podcast. Felt the need to
stop and write the email before finishing the podcast because
I was afraid I forget if I waited. It was
stated that there should be a law that if someone
in your immediate families and politics, you cannot hold the
same or similar office. I think that's just what was said.
Correct me if I'm wrong. My problem with this is
that the way it was discussed in the podcast was
(53:53):
from a very white male viewpoint. Historically, those who hold
political office have been white men. Not in all parts
of the world, but you know, certainly US, Canada, Western
Europe for sure. So if the proposed law were an
actual law in this country, it would disproportionately affect women
who are seeking public office. It would be much more
(54:14):
difficult for the goal of a fifty fifty representation in
the House and at White House, et cetera to actually happen.
The women who are using familial connections to get into
these positions of power are paving the way for other
women who do not necessarily have these connections. While I
agree with that family dynasties do not line up with
the idea of America being a metocracy meritocracy, let's be real,
(54:37):
can we really call America a meritocracy anymore? And I thought,
you know, that's that's just a piece of Kelly's letter.
But we talked about this off air, and I wanted
to bring this to the rest of our audience. You know. Um,
Here's here's what I'm thinking. I over apply to this
directly because it is my opinion. It seemed is that
(55:00):
the argument is that the evil of nepotism is a
lesser evil in comparison to, uh, the greater evil of
misogyny and prejudice against women in positions of power or equality. Right.
But the assumption I see here is that there's this
idea that by virtue of being women, uh, people who
(55:24):
are women and are elected via nepotistic or elitist means
will inherently or inevitably or necessarily help someone who is
outside of that circle. I don't know. That's a lot
like trickle down economics. So I while I see, I
see the opinion, I respect it, I'm a little um,
(55:44):
I'm a little more skeptical of how that how well
that would work. But again, one of the things that
everybody pointed out, including uh, Matt and nol on the
podcast when I talked about this and everybody on YouTube
comments were like, well, I see are you going with
this law then? But there's no way to enforce it. Yeah,
so it's somewhere at a moot point. Well, and I
(56:05):
and I slightly in in after thinking about it for
a long time, I slightly disagree with the law, But
I was going to put forward one that you had
talked about before that I think is even better. What's
that one? Then? Instead of elimining eliminating nepotism through familial means,
I think we just eliminate the ability to to hold
(56:28):
office if you have ever been in a secret society.
Oh yeah, I remember that one. That was one of
those three laws. What do you think of that now? Um?
Kind of on the fence, you know, and depends on
how much weight you put behind the particular secret society.
And what is a secret society any society which is
made secret from the public in membership and or in duty. Okay,
(56:54):
it seems fair. I get go with that one. Uh.
Also we have a another we have another slight correction
here I had said, and I think this was me.
We talked about the difficulty for felons to vote in
the US. It is not true that no felons can
ever vote in US elections. It is true that goes
(57:15):
state by state. There are eleven states which do not
allow which which are pretty much do not allow felons
to vote. However, there are two states that have unrestricted
voting for felons. Those are main and Vermont, where felons
can vote in prison. Nice work, Vermont. I did not
know that. And the person to help illuminate us uh
(57:38):
and hopefully you as well listeners with that uh, with
that slight correction is Drew Richards, So you get a
shout out as well. Drew, thank you so much for
your time and thanks for checking out the show, and
even more importantly, thanks for keeping us honest. And one
last mention here, I wanted to say thanks to Kelly
d for putting us onto the Democracy Now episode called
(57:59):
Dark Money, that's kind of a deep dive into the
Koch brothers and where that money goes and super PACs
and stuff. It was. It was cool, right, Uh no,
and you got anything else? I think I'm good? Guys,
All right? Uh well, we are going to head off
and argue with each other, old school, the old school
way in real life. I'm already shaking my fist at you.
(58:20):
You are you are? And did you know there's Matt
you know, there's some evidence that shaking your fists and
this sky like that are holding it and that Darth
Vader pose increases pain tolerance. Story for another day. I'm
gonna try that out later today. Yeah, try it out
today and report back and let us know if it works. Oh,
you know, I do have one thing, but what's up?
You know that we had Julie Douglas on a couple
(58:41):
of weeks ago last week talk about the stuff of life,
and the show has launched in an episode that just
came out today. Uh the day that we're recording rather
um is features you, Mr Bowlin, if anyone wants to
that's true. I do a lot of things. Yeah, I'm
gonna go listen to that right after this. It gives
you a little glimpse behind the bend. And uh, well,
(59:02):
I will say you know that of a high opinion
of Julie Douglas, and you and Julie have been working
in concert on this show for quite a while. Stuff
of Life, and it's kind of an immersive podcast experience,
you know, so immerse yourselves. In the meantime, we are
going to be researching some exciting new stuff and we
(59:23):
want to hear from you. So do you have an
idea for something that we could cover in the future.
If so, we'd love to hear from you. Find us
on Twitter and Facebook where we are at conspiracy stuff.
You do want to hop onto the Twitter sooner rather
than later, because we may have spoiler alert some exciting
things coming your way. On that format, you can check
(59:45):
out every podcast we have ever done at our website.
Stuff they don't want you to know dot Com And
if that's not your bag, if you're opposed to the
search bubbles and you'd like to minimize your time on
the computer, uh, we can send you our snail mail
dress if you're what, or you can email us directly.
We are conspiracy bedhouse stuff works dot com. For more
(01:00:15):
on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on
Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
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. Hello,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. Most importantly, you
are you are we hope, which makes this as always
stuff they don't want you to know, Ladies and gentlemen.
Before we get to anything else, before we start the show,
we want to do something very important and that is
(00:45):
shout Out Corner. That's right. It is the return of
our shout Out Corner. And the first person to get
a shout out today is our own Jake han Rahan,
who asked us on Twitter, Hey guys, do you still
do shout outs? We do, Jake, or we do for you?
So welcome. You are officially a member of the shout
(01:06):
Out Corner. Anybody else meant you got shouted out? So
did you? Heather getting shouted out for saying things while
you were apparently intoxicated that are hilarious on Twitter? Thank you?
So uh. We are going to continue our shout out Corner.
If you would like to have your name read on
the air, If you would like to say hi to us,
or if you would like us to convey a message
(01:28):
to your fellow listeners, there are a couple of ways
to do it. You should take a page from Jake
and Heather's book and follow us on Twitter dot com
forward slash conspiracy stuff. Or you can just take a
page from the Noel Brown book and just be a
buddy of mine by the name of Wesley Van who
I turned on the show recently and I wanted to
give him a little shouty addie. Oh yes, shout out
(01:49):
to Wesley as well. And so you know, I think
I think three are good for a shout out in
the corner, right, yeah, so a on a room. Yeah
so its just the corner, It's just a quarter. So
with that, as always, thank you to Wesley, Jake and
Heather for checking out this show. Thank you to everyone else,
all you guys out there listening. Again. We can't emphasize
(02:12):
it enough. Our best ideas come from you. We're also
on Facebook. We have what else do we have, guys?
We have a live show. We do we do periscope.
You can find us their Periscope TV. Even though Facebook
doesn't want you to know. That's true, and but Facebook
will let you know about our Facebook live posts. We alternate. Yeah,
we go back and forth. And our last one was
(02:32):
kind of cool because this is a little bit behind
the scenes. But Noel matt Um and I hung out
with future special guest who's who is a super cool guy.
I'm like his number one cheerleader actually, but he he
is simultaneously one of the most mysterious individuals that I've
(02:53):
ever met. But at the same time, I feel like
I could just sit and talk with him, and he
has the knowledge of a of a professor. But it
this way. The conversation over lunch veered wildly, from alchemy
to philosophy, all kinds of esoteric thought to you know,
the Fallout series and um Dungeons and Dragons rules, so
you know, it's cut quite a wide swath. I enjoyed
(03:15):
myself immensely looking Forred to having him on the show. Yeah,
this is a is a friend of mine from a
long time ago. But enough about that. You will you
will meet him soon because we're going to talk about
something different today, which might sound a little bit strange
for some of our listeners because we usually cover stuff
like cryptids. Oh and spoiler alert. You guys, I really
want to do some cryptids soon. Yeah, if we Yeah,
(03:36):
if I am so ready to cover cryptids, we just
gotta we have to find the new ones. Yeah, the
ones we haven't covered yet. You guys, I think that
sounds like a terrible idea. Get out of here. Stop arguing.
So you guys may have noticed that last week we
did a little episode on political conspiracies, which is one
of those things. I think it's politics, religion, and money.
(03:58):
Those are the three things three you shouldn't talk about
at dinner. Well, we we found out in our YouTube
comments section in our videos, uh specifically in this one,
a lot of comments, a lot of people just attacking
each other, arguing with each other, and uh, it kind
of made us want to look into this further. Yeah, exactly.
That's a great point. We do want to say that
(04:20):
we really appreciate every everybody who took the time to
check out our YouTube video and to check out our
earlier audio episode. We were surprised, you guys. We we
thought we would get just excoriated in comments and stuff
because we talked about political things, but a lot of
people seemed pretty on board. Yeah, there were a lot
(04:41):
of people just disagreeing with each other and what they
were writing in the comments rather than what was actually
in the video. We do, we do try to be
as unbiased as we can, or to be biased towards
facts rather than our own opinions. And that's one where
I spectacularly uh broke the rule and wh I went
on a rant. Yeah, I think that was the first
(05:02):
in our video series, at least think it was at first.
But but be that as it may, met. The point
you make is excellent, Uh, And we're gonna get to
some listener feedback later regarding our political stuff, so stay
tuned for that towards the end. But the point that
Matt is making now is that we saw arguments. We
(05:23):
saw a lot of arguments, and we started thinking, why
do people argue online? Why does it seem like there
are always a couple of people who are no matter
what the video is or what the story is, there's
always like one or two people who are fighting. And
it could be something's innocuous, as like a cute, overweight
cat who is pushing a cup off the table, or
(05:44):
like a puppy that is booping another puppy, and there's
somebody in the comments, he's always going like, hey you buddy, exactly. Yeah,
it ranges pretty widely, and it's a weird thing, right,
you know where I found some of the most just
completely livid cant anchors arguments online on local newspapers websites,
(06:05):
so especially you know, especially in the South, because people
to have a tendency to really let their Confederate flags fly,
shall we say? You know, that is a weird thing.
I noticed that in looking up a couple of articles,
uh in in smaller newspapers online, the comments sections that
you have to scroll all the way down the page
(06:25):
to find are just filled with people yelling and saying
horrible things to each other on a I mean, who
who goes there to like have a discussion. Well, it's
like a spoken word open mic night. The only people
who are going to watch are also the people who
want to perform, so people very very good analogy. It's
(06:47):
kind of cruel to spoken word and I am a
fan of spoken word. That's just a reality. Well that's
true of any kind of open mic night for the
most part. I mean, you know, if you've got someone
playing acoustic guitar, you know, singing Bob Dylan I mean
it's sort of a contract. You know, you've you got
to watch the other the other people did in the
Bob Dylan covers before you get your turn to do
(07:08):
yours right and stand up. Open Mic nights for comics
are are tough because you know, comics hate to laugh
at each other's jokes. It's like walking into a church
where everyone is angry, wonderful. Yeah, So what's the point?
Why why do we do this? Well, it's a great question.
This makes us think because we must explore the nature
(07:29):
of an argument itself before we get to the strange
world of arguing online. So the nature of argument is this,
Matt Noel, me or every guest host we've ever had,
you listening here, and every single person you have ever met,
probably I certain, uh, everyone you have ever met is
(07:52):
hardwired to prize feeling correct over being correct. That's a
very important distinction, right. Um. There are some chemical reasons
for that that we're going to get into, but it's
just it is a it's something you need to know. Yeah,
and evolutionary reasons as well. So everyone's had some sort
(08:13):
of argument. It doesn't matter who you are, you've had
some sort of argument. One of the nicest people I
know is a local Atlanta improviser named Mark Kendall. Super
nicest guy, but it doesn't matter if he would never
himself start an argument. He lives in an argumentative world, right,
So I think of you know, the nicest person you
(08:34):
know and probably had an argument at some point, right, Yeah,
I mean in my roommate Frank, for example. Um. And
the funny thing is he and I both used to
live with a mutual friend of ours who is just
he lives for arguming. He will he will make his
point and will never back down from it no matter
what information you throw at him. He's never wrong and
(08:55):
he's good at it because he's he makes you feel
like you have to meet his burden of proof. And
then he constantly is just like raising the bar. It's
very clever and it's infuriating, but you can't help but
engage when he when he does this, and you play
his reindeer games too, and so you know, Frank's got
a little bit of that every now and then we'll um.
(09:15):
But you know the thing about Frank, as he will
back down, but sometimes it will be like you know,
maybe something as simple as uh, this is the lyric
to this song, I'm like, no, that's not the right lyric,
And you know, kind of go back and forth for
a while and then eventually someone will look it up
and ended there and history hinges on history, hinges on arguments.
Arguments have caused wars, Arguments have caused changes of government.
(09:39):
Arguments have propelled some of the greatest innovations of our species,
and those maybe those we can um group under rivalries
more so right like Edison and Tesla, for instance, if
they didn't have such enormous abiding contempt for one another,
(10:00):
would they have explored technology the way they did? I
think the answer is no, I think they would have
explored something differently. So argument is not necessarily bad. Everyone
has it. This has probably happened to you recently, when
you were when you were doing something else between the
time you listen to our last show and the time
you're listening now, you may have argued over something in
your last show, for sure. So what what do you do?
(10:22):
How do you handle this when this happens? Do you
embrace conflict or or does even the thought of an
awkward social situation send you into anxiety land? Like Mark
Corrigan on Peep Show, you know, which is again I
think Nolan mentioned it earlier. So he's my spirit, he's
your spirit. Well at least you're not jazz. Uh So,
(10:43):
despite the name homo sapien modern wise person, uh, we
are biologically ill equipped for the times of which we live.
We are beta max is in a blu ray world,
which is totally inaccurate. I just like the way it sounds.
I like it. It's like outdated technology. It's like the
(11:04):
funny thing is I mean they're almost both out there.
Yea blue that's the thing. It sounds good, but blue
rays are also outdated. Yeah. So the the thing is
that the evolution of our technological capability and the evolution
of our social dynamic across the world, they've they've they've
(11:25):
outpaced the biological evolution, the biological adaptations that made human
beings so suited to that fight or die brutal grind
of the ancient natural world in which we lived. We
evolved cognitively and physically to outrun, outfight, or outwit predators
and monsters in the world around us. However, now we're
(11:49):
in a different world. Now the threats aren't so much.
You know, a tiger coming at you let's say we're
a bear that you have to fend off to save
your family or something. They're much more low, they're they're
more existential. They're on paper a lot of times. Yeah,
what are some of the terrors of the modern world
for other people in developed countries? We should say they're
(12:11):
there or people who are well off. The things are like,
am I leaving a legacy? Is web md? Right? Do
I have enough of these hoodies that I like, you know,
I don't have to watch them all the time to
make it good tickets for that concert? Or are they
only that? Are there only bad tickets left? And there
(12:31):
are real ones too, like the ones that are coming up,
like in the current political movements that we're seeing in
like how do governments function? Right? Even though that's that's
a large question, it's something that affects all of us
that we have to think about, but it's not something
that we can that you can fight against, that you
can fight or fight right. Well, It's also another thing
(12:54):
that's becoming more and more um just part of potentially
part of a daily concern is threats of attacks terroristics
for example. I mean, obviously we've been dealing with that
in our culture for a long time, but for me
personally and also having a child, I feel like it's
definitely more in the forefront of my mind. Like I
went to a political event um last year and was
(13:15):
standing in line and the thought occurred to me going
in like, you know what there, someone could try to
slow up. This could be it. And it was very
strange because I've never had that thought before, and it
was very like a marked kind of moment, like, Okay,
I guess this is how my brain works now, And
that is how our brains have always handled the world
around us as a constant as a constant background noise
(13:38):
of threat music. You know the music that plays in
kill Bill right before the bride does anything. Your brain
is always on some level playing that music at a
very low level. But it's because our hardwiring, however antiquated
(13:58):
it is, got us or by being that way, so
it was very very useful in the past. It is
still useful, otherwise people wouldn't have it. Well, what this
means is that our brains treat every innocuous argument like
it could potentially be a fight to the death. So
(14:19):
so for instance, what's what's the most what's the most
innocuous argument, like the dumbest little thing to argue with
someone about. Like if you guys were arguing. I had
an argument one time about shoes. I was about to
say shoes, Yeah, it's so funny. That was literally that
was the most innocuous argument I could have thought of.
A mutual friend of ours, Brie and I got into
(14:41):
a huge argument one time about the need for new,
like really expensive shoes and about how I only had
one pair of shoes. That was exactly the thing that
I was going to say, We'll see there, you go,
that's weird. You guys have group minds. Well, mine was
going to be a hypothetical. Actually I have this argument,
but that was literally going to be It was very straight. Well, so, okay,
(15:01):
so even if if it's this question about new exclusive Jordan's,
or if it's a question about what sort of shoes
are best suited to what sort of event? Right, uh, Ultimately,
if you have a horse in the race, if you
have a badger in the bag on this one, then
you your brain is going to treat it as though
it potentially will be a situation where one where you
(15:24):
have to thunderdome it and one of you is going
to die and it's an unconscious thing. And this, ladies
and gentlemen, is why stuff they don't want you to
know is covering the topic of argument because it's not
the kind of thing we would usually cover, right, m Yeah,
it's I think this falls in line really well with
the deceptive brain series that we do. Yeah, and that's
(15:45):
because the question is always who are they in this context? Well,
friends and neighbors, ladies and gentlemen, uh future potential uh foes.
This is depending on how you feel about Jordan's this
is a situation where the they are you at least
your brain, your brains and the ancient Eldrich processes that
(16:09):
compel us to mistake our programming for free will. And
so now that we know that the game is rigged
with regular arguments, let's take it a step further, you
know what I mean, Let's look at technology. What is
it like when you can argue with someone that you
will never have to meet in real life? Do you
have do you guys have a story? Okay, have a
(16:31):
really quick story to tell, and it I think matches
up where the real world and then the avatar that
you are when you're speaking or typing online kind of meat.
So there's this game when I was in middle school
called Ultima Online, and it was really cool. Is a
new game and you could do all these things. Well,
I spent way too much time playing this game. I
(16:53):
got a character to seven x GM, which means that
seven times grand master you have a hunt. You have
even skills that are at one hundred, which takes forever.
And I mean, really we're talking. I don't know six
to eight months that I spent on this one character,
and I bought a boat, I got all this stuff
Like I was. I was riding high back in middle schools, like,
(17:15):
oh man, this is awesome. Uh So, anyway, they made
a change to the game where in certain spaces you
weren't safe anymore. Someone could take things from you, pickpocket
you right or even attack you and the guards wouldn't
come or whatever. Anyway, I got pickpocketed and my boat
got stolen with all my stuff, and I basically was
(17:37):
going to rage quit the game. But there was this
function into inside the game where you could call a
a GM a game master also GM. That's weird, but anyway,
you could call them and it was a human sitting
at their computer who was like helping run the game,
who would come in a character and talk to you.
And this character came up and I, basically as this
(17:57):
little kid, was arguing for about minutes, yelling with vitriol
about how could this happen. I've spent all this time,
I love this game, Please get my boat back, help me.
This sucks. And then I said awful things to this
person because I was so furious that I I don't
even remember exactly what I wrote to the guy, but
(18:19):
it was just in text, coming up in a little
bubble above my characters. And well, that's important to remember too,
is you know there's no context in text. It seems
funny to say, but I mean, you know, it's like you.
It just comes across like you. You have one side
of the meaning of the words, because you're missing an entire,
incredibly important component, which is your body language, the tone
(18:39):
of your voice, the sound of your voice, the oscillations
of your volume up and down, things like that. And
a lot of people talk with their hands and the
other there's just a whole nuance that's missing from online conversation.
And it can work both ways. It can either make
you come off as extra mean, or you know that
people get confused. Maybe you're saying something that's meant to
be a joke, and if you had heard to say
(19:00):
it in their voice, it would be very clear they
were being sarcastical that it was a joke. But when
you type it out and there's none of those nuances,
it's very easy to mistake it as someone being a jerk. No,
that's one of the primary differences between most online interactions
versus real life interactions. Another one would be that everyone
in an online interaction has the ability to pretend to
(19:25):
be more knowledgeable than they are by opening another table
at your fingertips, especially now. Back then, I was on
a dial up on a o L and that's how
I was connecting to No, I did not get my
boat back I And it explains a lot about like you,
because I never got my boat but boat. It is
(19:50):
funny though, how I transferred my anger and my rage
and from that guy, from the person who stole my
stuff to this game master who had nothing to do
with it. Yeah, completely equivalent of yelling at someone on
like Comcast customer supporters exactly exactly has nothing to do
with it. It's just my job to help out, but
your I can't deal with you right now. And I
(20:10):
would say that's a little bit different because the person
who was bearing the brunt of the of the frustration
was paid to be there and was not passionately telling
you that you had to have better shoes or something.
So so, because we are, as we said, hardwired for survival,
let's look a little bit at what what happens in
(20:33):
these online arguments when you are in situations with high stress,
or you have fear or you're suspicious. Um, there's a
hormone called cortisol which floods your brain. And when this happens,
all the all the cool cognitive neighborhoods in the frontier brain,
(20:54):
like all all the all the hip, new up and
coming areas. Evolutionarily speaking, uh, they don't function as well.
These would be executive functions. They're like strategy, trust building, empathy, compassion,
and instead, one of Knole's favorite parts of the brain
kicks in, and that is the amygdala. This is the
(21:15):
part that makes a choice about how best to protect
the body. And this thing, which is a very old
part of your brain, is the one that says, all right, look, body,
we are very close to losing it all in this uh,
in this dangerous, dangerous game of Russian roulette that we
(21:36):
confused with a pleasant conversation. We have several choices. We
can fight, possibly to the death. We can run as
fast as we can, we can freeze, or we can
try to kiss there. But I don't know what. I
don't know it'll work better for you. But your brain
usually is gonna say fight or fleet, yes, the the
(21:58):
I like that idea of a strate Egypt, but kiss
that your brain decides to make. And and this is
just for arguments when you when you're arguing with someone
you don't know that well, you don't have that much
of a stake in there, you know. It's this is
an argument where, uh, maybe Noel meet somebody in line
(22:18):
to grab lunch or something and they just say something
very offensive and you say, hold on though, that's that's
not that's not true actually, because blah blah blah, and
they're like, oh, oh, look at make Beardy over here.
Look at the pants on this guy. Look at the
pants on this guy, big boy pants. I love the
(22:40):
idea that all of a sudden everything just stops in time.
Noel turns around, and then you just hear that and
all of a sudden, it's a fight to the death.
What is that? It's the Star Trek. Yeah, that's also
me calling all my bearded compatriots. I knew you guys
traveled in packs. I didn't want to say it because
they don't want to prejudice be you know, open with
(23:01):
my prejudices. But it's like, why are there always those
like other eleven guys hanging out waiting for you. I
can't tell you the secret. I've literally never seen you
walking in a pack of less than twelve bearded men.
You know, there's safety and numbers, my friend, I guess, well,
it looks good, I think have Yeah, well that's a
(23:23):
different epis what you do? You just grow your beard
out a little bit and then maybe we'll welcome you
into the fold. I don't know, man, I don't know
if I'm ready. Okay, cool trader, so so, but let's say,
like going back to this hypothetical situation. No, let's say
that you are in a long standing argument, a deep
seated rivalry, one of those arguments with that has continued
(23:45):
for some reason for years and years and years, and
we'll never reach a conclusion. In fact, it's further and
further away from a conclusion you have, like some Edison
Tesla kind of deep seated, uh, deep seated disgusted for
one another. Well, it turns out your brain functions in
an even stranger way at that point. Now your brain
(24:06):
has gone from sort of betraying you by making you
a little bit dumber to um or a little bit
less rational, it's a more fair way to say it, uh,
to giving you a little bit of something that might
be like a mad mad genius superpower. So in this
study at the University College of London, a guy named
Professor Summer Zecky scan the brains of these test subjects
(24:28):
as they looked at photos of someone they hated. And
I still don't know how they got these photos. I
guess the person said, oh I hate this person, celebrities
or something. Right, Well, I mean the methodology is in
the study. No, it's fairly sound. So Professor Zecki found
that everyone's brain has what he called a hate circuit,
(24:49):
and it connects three regions, the superior frontal gyrus UH,
the putamen, and the medial insula. The activity in these
regions correlates the experience of hate. So if someone says
to you like, oh, I don't who's the celebrity Ryan Gosling. Okay,
So if someone says to you, know, I don't hate
(25:10):
Ryan Gosling, you can check to see if they're telling
the truth by showing them a picture of Ryan Gosling
and seeing if the superior frontal gyris putaman and the
medial insula have a higher level of activity that means
they hate this guy. I love the idea of walking
up to someone in the street be like, do you
hate Ryan Gosling? No? No, no hold on equipment or anyone.
(25:33):
And this this circuit is distinct. It includes parts of
the cortex subcortex that generate aggressive behavior and translate this
into action through motor planning, which means like a very
small individual size version of war games or you know, modeling,
strategic modeling. If then right, if they swing first, I'm
(25:56):
gonna duck put a put a foot up in their
groy or something like that. I have that with a
couple kids in middle school because of my dorkiness, Like
you know, and there are those kids that that you
you think about, how am I going to react if
you're you know, a bully? I guess something like that.
Did you guys ever have something like that where you're
(26:18):
you have just planning on how am I going to
interact with this person next time? And if then in
order to keep yourself from being bullied. Yes, like like
a good singer to get Like I guess what a
why a comedian learns to be a comedian at a
young age? Right, That's the kind of thing. Yes, this
(26:38):
this is something that I'm sure a lot of people do.
And you know, listeners, we're collectively a pretty diverse group,
the three of us here in the studio, everybody out
there listening and writing in and helping us find the
next episode of a show. So some of you are
doubtlessly in middle school right now, in high school right now,
(27:00):
maybe I think I don't think there's anybody younger than
middle school age listening to the show. So, uh, some
of you are in maybe middle school, high school right now,
and and you're aware you've seen this kind of stuff
happened before. I hope you are not bullying anybody. I
also hope you're not being bullied. But it is a
it is a true skill, and it's one of those
(27:22):
um abstract cognitive superpowers that separates humanity from most but
not all, other animals. And here's the thing about when
you really hate someone. We did this in our Deceptive
Brain series. All Right, when you're in love, you have
less activity in the parts of your brain that have
(27:44):
objectivity and judgment. So, like you've seen one of your
friends date someone who's just an absolute piece of garbage,
and and they're like, oh, no, you know, uh, Donovan
or Samantha or whatever is just going through a lot.
They they need a little money, but our hearts in
the right place. And you know, they love their three kids,
but they can't talk to them because of their schedule.
(28:06):
And and they're like, you know, Donovan or Samantha whomever
doesn't sound like the most up and up character, right,
And they're like, but no, I love him, or you know,
I love her or whatever. I think we've all been
in those situations. Yeah, that's almost another coping mechanism that
your brain sort of you know, circumvents uh common irrational
(28:30):
rational thought by allowing you to kind of explain away
some of these these pretty deal breaking shortcomings. So even
though the circuit for hate is distinct, it has a
little bit in common. It runs in some of the
same circles as the love circuit, which we cover in
that Deceptive Brain video, with one really important difference. Brains
(28:52):
experiencing hate retain activity in the objectivity and judgment areas,
which means are better prepared not only to plan your
next move, but to calculate the next move of your opponent.
This does not happen when you are just arguing with
some random stranger in the internet. This happens people that
you hate. So if you have this kind of experience,
(29:17):
it can keep you smart, which in terms of maybe
cunning is a better word. Right, So does this apply online?
We did a video earlier where we talked about why
you cannot win arguments online, and you know, I'm sure
there are loads of folks out here listening who are
(29:37):
thinking like I used to think. Well, I did actually
win several arguments online bends. So if you want to
argue about it, check out you know, check out your email. Right. However, No,
you named one of the biggest reasons that it's difficult
to win an argument online when you said body language, right,
(29:59):
body language just missing. Yeah, And I also think that,
like I mean, there's no moderate moderator in an online argument.
So I mean, everyone kind of walks away feeling the
same way as they did when they went in, you know,
like I'm no one ever really gets their minds changed.
Oh and since there's no neutral third party to say,
(30:20):
you know, X or Y won the debate, it's just
all about mud slinging and just it devolves usually into
just personal insults because essentially you're missing more than half
of what people are actually saying when you cut out
the ability to interpret their body language, their intonation, the
sound of their voice. Like I was saying, Oh yeah,
(30:41):
let's get into this, because there's a there's a little
bit of myth busting we need to do, but there's
also a little bit of uh, revelatory stuff we need.
We need to show people here because we have some
numbers on this. You've probably heard this before. Research shows
only about what we're actually saying matters. People are any
more attendant to your body language, etcetera. Lately, that's actually
(31:04):
been amended pretty significantly to say fifty of communication is
actually body language, percent is the tone of voice, and
seven wow the actual words. So okay, so this is
this measure up. Let's look at this. The history behind
these numbers they're often quoted and the percentages are often misunderstood.
(31:27):
They come from a guy named Albert Mehrabian. Albert Mehrabian
is responsible for this this breakdown, right uh, and he
was he did a lot of research detailing the importance
of non verbal communication channels. Right because we've seen people
who speak very seldomly but the rest of what they
(31:52):
are still being very talkative, the lack of a better
term in in the ways in which they carry themselves. Right. Uh.
We we have a couple of coworkers who speak rarely
but is still communicate very well. So this actually comes
this number comes from two different research studies, both in
(32:13):
the sixties, and they combined together, uh to modify that
sixt nonverbal verbal thing into the thirty eight and seven
because they figured out that intonation does matter that much. Right.
Sarcasm uh, still is very difficult for people to read
(32:33):
based on text alone. There are some ways that you
can get around some of the sarcasm and some of
those things now I know. On Twitch in particular, they
have actually come up with an emoji that when you're
being sarcastic, you throw the emoji somewhere in the message,
which is kind of an interesting way that h communication
is being is evolving. I think eventually there will be
(32:55):
something that you'll be able to denote sarcasm simply by
with a click or some lee I mean, or you know,
for example, using an exclamation point, where when an exclamation
point was missing, a sentence might come off as de
mirror or like sounding like, you know, you're not very
enthusiastic about something. But if you have that exclamation point
maybe two or three, then the person that you're chatting
(33:17):
with or texting with, you know, knows that you're being
upbeat about something. I mean, there's all kinds of little
work arounds, not to mention all of the emojis that
you know, we have access to, just like through you know,
androids and iPhones, but that is, that is if the
other person that you're speaking with understands those symbols and
those messages that you're trying to get across, because ultimately
it's just characters. And this leads into something that's an
(33:38):
interesting bit of history, which I'll probably pitch to Holly
and Tracy over at Stuff you Missed in History Class
from our Pure podcast. There have been numerous attempts to
create new punctuation characters that denote stuff like an interra
bang which is a question mark but also an exclamation point,
(33:58):
or an irony mark or a mark to donate uh sarcasm. However,
these haven't really caught on, so at this point we're
stuck with clarity of communication. The big misunderstanding about this
seven rule is that it is a hard and fast
rule all the time. That's that doesn't make sense because
people communicate so differently across the world. What it does
(34:22):
show us is that in any instance, what how you're saying,
what you're saying, what you're doing with your body while
you say it matters way more than people might think. Also,
intent has a lot to do with it, Like, for example,
an internet troll um is communicating for the sole purpose
of rilling people up. So not only will they use
(34:44):
language and phrasing in such a way that will ruffle people,
they're actually being very pointed and targeted and what they're
saying and creating these argumentative threads, and a lot of
times you'll see message boards where you know there's somebody
on there and as I later identified as a role
only after like people kind of react and say, oh,
you idiot, blah blah blah, you're so full of it
(35:04):
about and then someone will be like he got old,
you know x y Z two thousand and sixteen, GOTSI
or whatever, you know. I mean, it's the thing. You
see it all the time, and they're a little bit different.
I think in there in the chemical processes that occur
in the brain during trolling, because it's not The point
is not to win an argument, you know what I mean.
The point is to uh derive some other sort of
(35:27):
cathartic thing that's true and so and do you think
people enter into online arguments really believing that they're going
to win? Like do you think we delude ourselves into
believing that we actually have a chance of changing someone's mind? Uh?
Sometimes sometimes one thing that I think may even be
more common is when people are okay, So imagine a
(35:51):
person is like a cup and the fluid that a
person is filled up with is a belief, right be
that belief is something like the best video game ever
was g t A. Or that jazz music stinks except
for this one album, right so, or that you know,
(36:14):
my religion is right if we want to go to
that point. So this person, this cup is filled with
this this fluid of belief. And this fluid, you know,
like any other fluid, adheres to the it conforms the
shape of its container, and then when it overflows, maybe
an event happens in the news, it's like an ice
(36:35):
cube or something dropping in and that raises the fluid
and then it starts to pour over into the outside world.
So I'm trying to be very kind when I say this,
but my instinct says that often people just want to
express the thing they already believe rather than um think
critically about it. So maybe maybe you've grown up hearing
(36:59):
that the only real metal is cradle of filth. Right, Okay,
I don't want to get in trouble with the metal audience.
This is just for the sake of argument. So you,
as a cup have been filled with this thing that says,
only metal is cradle of filth. The only metal is
cradle of filth. Yes, And and by going out and
(37:20):
saying it, like like just going out in the world,
and some even if it's just on a little online forums,
when we're in saying that, it's it's almost like you're
trying to reinforce your own belief. Yes, And you're and
you're attempting to find like manded people. So you guys
can all sit together and say, the only medal is
great to live filth. The only medal is great to
(37:40):
live filth. And the reason this, the reason this happens,
and this is a very crude analogy, but the reason
this happens is because of kind of a tribalistic pact mentality.
And we are much more like uh, we are much
more um synthesizing creatures than we are original thinkers. So
(38:02):
we take stuff that has already existed in our cup
and we just let the cup overfloweth you know what
I mean. We're not actually making the thoughts in many cases.
So you can also see these online arguments that are
very impassion as proxy wars because someone who didn't actually
invent the thought just heard it so much they believed
(38:23):
it was true, heard it so much they believed it
was true. They they end up just being kind of
a puppet of a pre existing opinion to another puppet
of a pre existing opinion. And it's a sad thing,
but it's a reality. Another reason you can't win a
lot of arguments online is that the act of arguing
tends to reinforce those pre existing opinions. So if I
(38:44):
am a cuppet, I'm overflowing with the only medal is
created of filth. And then uh, Matt, you or you
knowl or you listeners say, well, technically, I looked up
the definition of metal and while Creadle of Filth maybe
your favorite of this genre and it's many subgenres, it
is factually inaccurate to say that it is the only example.
(39:08):
So confronted with the facts, what would I do? Well,
do we have those those three options from earlier in
the show fight or peas? I don't know if people
would appease Um. It's rare for people to roll over
and show their belly and online because you know, there's
(39:29):
such anonymity. And well, here's what Brendan Nihan and a
guy named Jason Rifler discovered. They discovered something they called
the backfire effect, which means that if you guys had
like a metal intervention with me and said, here are
several other metal albums. Furthermore, here's some albums that if
(39:49):
you like Cradle of Filth, you will probably enjoy immensely.
And if I still thought that same thought, just running
like a ear worm through my head. Then what I
would end up doing is saying no, no, you guys
are wrong, we're not friends. You don't know what you're
talking about. Your offensive, you're stupid. Down vote dislike hands up.
And the funny thing is is, like, you know you
(40:09):
can get away with that stuff online, I guess because
no one's really trying to be your friend. Um. But
you know, if a buddy of yours kept behaving that way,
probably find a new buddy, you know what I mean.
Just I'm not saying that everyone has to be the same,
but when people just are inherently closed minded and closed
off to any other possibilities other than what they believe
(40:30):
to be the case, it's just not any fun to
talk to him, you know, it's just not And even
if you're into arguing, that gets all real quick, you know,
especially something as arbitrary is you know, Cradle of Filth
is the only medal. It's making me think of the
concept that thoughts can be viral or are in a
way neural viruses. The medic Yeah, yeah, And some of
(40:51):
the kind of takes me back to the Invisibles and
Filth and some of the work with great Morrison just
some of the ideas that if you have a thought
that is dangerous enough and you are able to spread it,
the thought itself is a thing that is dangerous, not
whatever comes of it, right, does the thought function as
essential being. Yeah, it's it's a it's an interesting idea,
(41:14):
and it's something that we've talked about off air, which
you know, I would love to I would love to
explore in the future episode two, because we're already We're
already at this in this situation where the evidence or
the truth of whatever something might be doesn't necessarily matter.
The backfire effect is related to confirmation bias. Confirmation bias,
of course, where if you think of yourself as a skeptic,
(41:36):
and you say, if you think of yourself as a skeptic,
then you should be saying, I am interested to hear
about this UFO report and see what if anything is
anomalous about it. Many people who confuse themselves with skeptics
practice confirmation bias and say aliens are not real. Where
(41:57):
I heard the term conspiracy theory. Therefore whatever follows after
this is automatically wrong. If anything, that's the opposite of skepticism.
So in a situation where the evidence of the truth
doesn't necessarily matter when people on any conversation from closely
held personal values like religion or politics two very arbitrary
(42:19):
stuff like Anchorman one versus InCor mare and two, or
pepsi versus coke or whatever. What we find is that, again,
our brains are hardwired to prize feeling correct over being correct,
even when there's not, even when there's not really a
correct answer, like I don't know, you guys feel a
(42:40):
bit if it's a soda. It's a soda. It's a soda.
You might have your favorite, but I don't think there's
an inherently superior one. Well, it's like you said at
the beginning to it's it's the difference between argument being
this functional kind of um defense mechanism where you are
actually protecting yourself against something. Now it's almost more like
(43:01):
a sport, you know, And that's certainly how people treated
online a lot of the time. I mean, it's definitely
you are trying to get that I guess dopamine release
that comes from the satisfaction of feeling like you have
one or you are right, you know, even if you aren't,
And almost it's benefits you to maybe ignore the fact
that you're not right. Right. Yeah, Ben, you said something
(43:22):
in the video that I thought it was fantastic. You're like,
this idea of being right is is addictive, and so
much so that it is a drug that you The
feeling of being right all the time would be such
an all encompassing feeling that you would want to chase
and chase and chase. You said it would be like
(43:42):
if you're Kanye West, like that feeling of everything I
say I believe is right and and it doesn't matter
what anybody else says. I believe that this is right.
And so it's just I was trying to imagine what
that would feel like constantly. You guys are both on point,
But we're getting to this very important thing here that
you can become physy, physically addicted to this dopamine and
(44:07):
adrenaline rush, dopamine triumph that occurs when you think I
am right. Yeah, I'm not even listening to you. The
only medal is creadle of filth, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. I
mean this, it's a it's a strange thing. And again,
you know, I'm just mentioning creadle of filth and metal
for the sake of argument. Yeah, I mean, we're all
(44:28):
stars now on the Dopamine Show, Thanks Marilyn. Shout out
to Marilyn Manson. So when yeah, so, when you argue,
when your your brain rather floods with these different chemicals
and they even make you feel invincible. So the next
(44:48):
time you're in a tense situation, your brain remembers right,
and your brain says, let's fight. We don't need to
run because if we run, we don't get the rush.
Fight for the rush. Yet, let's say, let's say that
all of us listening now, all of us on the show,
(45:10):
now say that each of us has some sort of
amazing revelation and we are able to transcend these things,
and we say, you know what, you guys, I'm sorry.
I was being such a piece of crap about it.
It was cartoonist that I believe there was only one
metal band in the world, and in retrospect it's weird.
(45:33):
And I appreciate you guys for being so honest with
me and listening to me. I apologize. Let me take
you guys out to Dave and Busters. Let's see that
we were all capable of doing that. Well, there's still
another problem. Another reason that you may not be able
to win arguments online because your chances of finding an argument,
(45:54):
finding a contradicting opinion, even if it's correct, are lowering.
How to continue great, We're talking about something called the
search bubble. So what what is this? This is the
thing you may have noticed recently and when you're just
on Google or really any other search bar, or on
Facebook or some other social media network that you use.
(46:15):
What's getting uh supplied to you, to your feed or
to your search results is more and more. It's being
customized for you for what you've searched for in the past,
for what you like on Facebook in particular, or what
you what you buy. Even a lot of times it's
matched up with your credit cards, which is a little
(46:37):
bit creepy um. And it's happening because mostly advertisers want
you to have what you want and you know, and
that's getting into maybe even places where your news sources,
the types of news sources on your news feed are
going to be different. Are you saying even non sponsored posts,
like just normal things that you like that come up
(47:00):
in your feed are reorganized and reordered based on your
browsing behavior. That's really creepy. Yeah, that's why. Yeah, that's why.
If you're signed into Google and you're on Chrome or
something like that, your results are going to be different
than if you're just not signed in anywhere and using Google,
using Google Chrome on on a different computer. And here
(47:21):
a how dramatic these differences can become. You can use
search engines that strip some of the personalized information that
Google uses. Uh there's Duck Duck Go and Scroogle, and
you'll see that the search results you get, uh do
differ almost regardless of what you look up. Yeah. It
scares me sometimes when I'll type in stuff somewhere on
(47:42):
a computer and then stuff they don't want you to
know shows. I'm like, yeah, awesome man. Oh wait, oh.
So there's a Ted talk you can watch about this
if you're interested in learning more by a fellow named
Eli Harris or Priser, the author of a book called
The Filter Bubb Bowl, and he's talking about this personalized search. So,
(48:06):
as they say in an excellent article on you Are
Not So Smart dot com, the media of the future
may be delivered based not only on your preferences. Right,
whatever you looked up, Yes, even in incognito mode. H
it will be. It will also be based on your
voting record, your medical records, where you grew up, your
projected mood, the time of day, the time of year,
(48:29):
maybe even information gleaned from your text message conversations, right,
even public records, like perhaps how much you make if
you work in a public because as you apply for
a loan recently, are you getting dental work? Why? Yeah,
did you make in an usual purchase? And the biggest one,
are you about to have or have already had a
(48:50):
baby recently? I don't know, man. Another big one that
makes me uncomfortable is when I see when I'm hanging
out with a friend, and for some reason, it's almost
always one of my female friends, and I see, like, wow,
you have a lot of ads for engagement rings and diamonds,
and that seems to me, that seems so unfair because
(49:10):
we already live in a society that tolerates pushing people
to do uh, ritualistic things that maybe don't even apply
in our society at this point. It's it's a form
of is it of it? As if how from space
obviously two thousand one decided to pester you to the
point of bullying. You know what, I mean that's crazy.
(49:32):
I know it's not it's not the best, but hey,
maybe it's all wrong, right, No, maybe we can just
maybe we can be better. Maybe we can have rational discourse,
throw off those old social dynamic rules. What do you think?
Maybe it's it's it's been. It's not a fair fight though,
you know, I mean, our odds are pretty abysmal. You
(49:55):
don't think we can evolve past the physiological limits of
the brain and break three of these, uh, algorithms that
keep us from discovering things that may change our view
of the world because we're a star stuff after all,
you know. I I don't know. You're right. Maybe our
odds don't look good, but I think there are there
(50:16):
are older pieces of I'll you know what, I'll take
a page from l. Ron Hubbard's book and call it
cognitive technology. Uh. The Socratic method is an excellent way
to explore differing opinions. Of course, it takes time. A
lot of people don't have it, and a lot of
people when you're in an argument online, I don't know, listeners,
if you ever played this game as kids where you
(50:38):
were like you had invisible guns, do you remember this
this game? Oh, we're gonna pick two sides or whatever. Um.
So the the the thing that happens with that is,
you know, like if we're playing this, if you if
you're not in a family like yours met and you're
playing with invisible guns, one thing you'll notice is a
lot of people say, oh, I got you, and then
(50:59):
some it is like, you know you didn't. That's what
that's what internet argument is. It's imaginary bullets, imaginary weapons,
and people are expecting to play the honors system on
who got shot. So of course I don't think it's
gonna work out. But these are things to keep in mind.
And we would like to hear what you think about
(51:20):
the strange ways in which our brains deceive us and
force us to think that we are living in a
different era. And the the way in which one of
the main conspirators in your quest for any factual thing,
any truth, maybe an inside job, maybe the person in
(51:42):
in between your ears all along and it's not your fault.
These are processes older than civilization. Yeah, we need to
find a way to suppress the amygdala, Ben, but I
feel like that's a terrible that would be an awful
world to live in. Oh, I don't know. I'm sure
people have conducted experiments like that. You know, we we
(52:04):
do know that it does change brain function when you
reduce electrical activity in one part of the brain, even
using an external source like uh t dcs, right, which
still is somehow it's not illegal, right, But no one
will sell me one. I'm gonna have to just build one.
Can do it. I'm probably gonna give myself brain damage,
but I'm gonna do it anyhow. Oh and listeners, if
(52:26):
you know of a tc at T DCS device, please,
uh yes, send one our way, right on our way.
But before we go, it's time for some feedback and
some listener mail. Listening, mail listening. Man, Now it's time
for listening, all right. So we had a lot of
feedback from our political conspiracy episode, and we had some
(52:49):
different views that we wanted to share with share with
everybody else listening. And there were also a couple of
things that I wanted to amend or corrections, which which
we're grateful for all of these. So Kelly M. Wrote
into us, and I'm gonna read a portion of this
letter because I want to take a look at this.
(53:11):
Uh Kelly's talking specifically about the part where I kind
of went on a rant about my own personal opinion,
which again Noel especially thank you for pulling me off
back from the allege on that one so Kelly Kelly
says she likes the show. Uh. I don't usually have
a reason to write endo podcast, but something was said
during this episode that frustrated me. I apologize if it
(53:33):
was corrected later in the podcast. Felt the need to
stop and write the email before finishing the podcast because
I was afraid I forget if I waited. It was
stated that there should be a law that if someone
in your immediate families and politics, you cannot hold the
same or similar office. I think that's just what was said.
Correct me if I'm wrong. My problem with this is
that the way it was discussed in the podcast was
(53:53):
from a very white male viewpoint. Historically, those who hold
political office have been white men. Not in all parts
of the world, but you know, certainly US, Canada, Western
Europe for sure. So if the proposed law were an
actual law in this country, it would disproportionately affect women
who are seeking public office. It would be much more
(54:14):
difficult for the goal of a fifty fifty representation in
the House and at White House, et cetera to actually happen.
The women who are using familial connections to get into
these positions of power are paving the way for other
women who do not necessarily have these connections. While I
agree with that family dynasties do not line up with
the idea of America being a metocracy meritocracy, let's be real,
(54:37):
can we really call America a meritocracy anymore? And I thought,
you know, that's that's just a piece of Kelly's letter.
But we talked about this off air, and I wanted
to bring this to the rest of our audience. You know. Um,
Here's here's what I'm thinking. I over apply to this
directly because it is my opinion. It seemed is that
(55:00):
the argument is that the evil of nepotism is a
lesser evil in comparison to, uh, the greater evil of
misogyny and prejudice against women in positions of power or equality. Right.
But the assumption I see here is that there's this
idea that by virtue of being women, uh, people who
(55:24):
are women and are elected via nepotistic or elitist means
will inherently or inevitably or necessarily help someone who is
outside of that circle. I don't know. That's a lot
like trickle down economics. So I while I see, I
see the opinion, I respect it, I'm a little um,
(55:44):
I'm a little more skeptical of how that how well
that would work. But again, one of the things that
everybody pointed out, including uh, Matt and nol on the
podcast when I talked about this and everybody on YouTube
comments were like, well, I see are you going with
this law then? But there's no way to enforce it. Yeah,
so it's somewhere at a moot point. Well, and I
(56:05):
and I slightly in in after thinking about it for
a long time, I slightly disagree with the law, But
I was going to put forward one that you had
talked about before that I think is even better. What's
that one? Then? Instead of elimining eliminating nepotism through familial means,
I think we just eliminate the ability to to hold
(56:28):
office if you have ever been in a secret society.
Oh yeah, I remember that one. That was one of
those three laws. What do you think of that now? Um?
Kind of on the fence, you know, and depends on
how much weight you put behind the particular secret society.
And what is a secret society any society which is
made secret from the public in membership and or in duty. Okay,
(56:54):
it seems fair. I get go with that one. Uh.
Also we have a another we have another slight correction
here I had said, and I think this was me.
We talked about the difficulty for felons to vote in
the US. It is not true that no felons can
ever vote in US elections. It is true that goes
(57:15):
state by state. There are eleven states which do not
allow which which are pretty much do not allow felons
to vote. However, there are two states that have unrestricted
voting for felons. Those are main and Vermont, where felons
can vote in prison. Nice work, Vermont. I did not
know that. And the person to help illuminate us uh
(57:38):
and hopefully you as well listeners with that uh, with
that slight correction is Drew Richards, So you get a
shout out as well. Drew, thank you so much for
your time and thanks for checking out the show, and
even more importantly, thanks for keeping us honest. And one
last mention here, I wanted to say thanks to Kelly
d for putting us onto the Democracy Now episode called
(57:59):
Dark Money, that's kind of a deep dive into the
Koch brothers and where that money goes and super PACs
and stuff. It was. It was cool, right, Uh no,
and you got anything else? I think I'm good? Guys,
All right? Uh well, we are going to head off
and argue with each other, old school, the old school
way in real life. I'm already shaking my fist at you.
(58:20):
You are you are? And did you know there's Matt
you know, there's some evidence that shaking your fists and
this sky like that are holding it and that Darth
Vader pose increases pain tolerance. Story for another day. I'm
gonna try that out later today. Yeah, try it out
today and report back and let us know if it works. Oh,
you know, I do have one thing, but what's up?
You know that we had Julie Douglas on a couple
(58:41):
of weeks ago last week talk about the stuff of life,
and the show has launched in an episode that just
came out today. Uh the day that we're recording rather
um is features you, Mr Bowlin, if anyone wants to
that's true. I do a lot of things. Yeah, I'm
gonna go listen to that right after this. It gives
you a little glimpse behind the bend. And uh, well,
(59:02):
I will say you know that of a high opinion
of Julie Douglas, and you and Julie have been working
in concert on this show for quite a while. Stuff
of Life, and it's kind of an immersive podcast experience,
you know, so immerse yourselves. In the meantime, we are
going to be researching some exciting new stuff and we
(59:23):
want to hear from you. So do you have an
idea for something that we could cover in the future.
If so, we'd love to hear from you. Find us
on Twitter and Facebook where we are at conspiracy stuff.
You do want to hop onto the Twitter sooner rather
than later, because we may have spoiler alert some exciting
things coming your way. On that format, you can check
(59:45):
out every podcast we have ever done at our website.
Stuff they don't want you to know dot Com And
if that's not your bag, if you're opposed to the
search bubbles and you'd like to minimize your time on
the computer, uh, we can send you our snail mail
dress if you're what, or you can email us directly.
We are conspiracy bedhouse stuff works dot com. For more
(01:00:15):
on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on
Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
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Noel Brown
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