Hardwired For Outrage

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior
Podcast.
This week, greg and I exploremoral psychology and how our
deep-seated survival instinctsshape what we consider right and
wrong.
We'll be framing ourconversation around an article
from the New Yorker titled DoesOne Emotion Rule All Our Ethical
Judgments, by Elizabeth Colbert, which features the work of
moral psychologist Kirk Gray.
Along the way, we'll dive intowhy humans are evolutionarily

(00:22):
wired to detect harm or threats,how bias and emotional
storytelling often overshadowraw data, especially in politics
, and the complexities offear-based thinking that can
oversimplify or polarize entiresocieties.
We'll also look at how training, increased awareness and a
focus on behaviors rather thanjust motivations can give us a
clearer view of real-worldactions.

(00:42):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
We hope you enjoyed the episode.
Don't forget to check out ourPatreon channel for additional
content and subscriber-onlyepisodes.
If you enjoyed the podcast,please consider leaving us a
review and, more importantly,sharing it with a friend.
Thank you for your time andremember training changes
behavior.
All right, we're going to goahead and get started here, greg
.
Kind of a little bit differenttopic than we typically discuss.

(01:07):
I mean, we're going to frame itin how we do things, but this
was actually inspired by anarticle.
This is more of like aphilosophical discussion about
sort of right and wrong andwhere we get our ethical
judgments from.
But I found it interestingbecause, for a number of reasons
and I'll put the link upbecause the name of the article
is called Does One Emotion RuleAll Our Ethical Judgments?

(01:28):
So whether you want to take itfrom an ethical judgment and a
philosophical standpoint or, aswe do with the behavior and what
you actually do, it doesn'treally matter.
Interested in about it is too.
Is it once again kind of tieseverything back to a very primal
instincts, very unconscious wayof thinking that is tied

(01:49):
directly to survival, which iswhat is sort of the basis of
what we do.
Right, we tie things back tothe unconscious brain how it's
tied to survival and then howyour behavior manifests out of
that right, in a sense sort oflike how your behavior manifests
out of that right and in asense, and so that's given
things that are happening in theenvironment, perceived threats,

(02:09):
what you're thinking, what yourlife experience is, there's a
lot that plays into it.
But this was sort of aninteresting one to start from.
So, greg, I think I'll kind ofgive a recap and go over my
thoughts initially and then toget everyone up to speed on kind
of what we're talking about,and then I'll have the link in
there you can go back and readit.
But we'll cover a lot of it inhere today.
So, like I said this came from,I believe in the New Yorker

(02:29):
right Does one emotion rule allour ethical judgments, and so
Elizabeth Colbert's article inthe New Yorker centers on
research from moral psychologistKirk Gray, who proposes that
our strongest moral convictionsall revolve around one key
emotion the fear of harm.
So culbert begins by telling thestory of raymond dart's 1924
discovery of the tong child, anancient human ancestor in south

(02:53):
africa, which upended the notionthat our earliest forebearers
were fearless predators.
Instead, the evidence suggeststhey were often prey.
So this evolutionary history,gray argues, may explain why
we're so quick to see threatsand feel outrage in the modern
world.
After millions of trying toavoid becoming dinner, humans
developed a hypersensitivity toharm, so like an innate

(03:15):
hypervigilance, if you will.
So Colbert then contrastsGray's view with what's called
moral foundations theory, mostfamously associated with
Jonathan Haidt.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
And.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Haidt's approach claims people have multiple
modules like loyalty, fairnessand sanctity, which shape their
moral judgments.
But Gray counters that oneoverarching concern perceived
harm drives almost everything.
Even in scenarios that seemvictimless, most people
instinctively suspect thatsomeone is getting hurt, even if

(03:44):
they can't say exactly how.
Now, according to Gray, that'sbecause we're wired to assume
harm lies beneath any moraltransgression.
So that's kind of where kind ofinterest and goes back to
really this evolutionary way oflooking at it.
But the article also examineswhy societies are so divided on
issues like abortion orimmigration.
Both sides often invokevulnerable victims but focus on

(04:05):
different ones.
So, for example, the fetusversus the woman or local
citizens versus immigrantchildren.
And Colbert notes that whenpeople try to sway others with
facts it usually fails.
But vivid, harm-based storieswork far better at engaging
emotions.
Finally, she raises thequestion of whether a primal
instinct designed to confrontsaber-toothed tigers can handle

(04:25):
today's complex threats likeartificial intelligence or
political discourse.
In the end, fear of harmemerges as a possible unifying
explanation for moral outrage.
It also points to a deep-rootedchallenge our instinctive
tendency to see and fight aboutdanger.
That's seemingly everywhere.
Before we jump into thediscussion, discuss some of the
points from the article.

(04:46):
There are a couple things thatI would kind of want to start
off with.
So first, from a linguisticperspective, when the term
threat or threatened istypically, or when it's used, it
typically is someone perceivesor feels that something is a
threat, and this subjectiveaspect of the perception is
important to understand, becausethere's no difference between
your brain Meaning if you feelthat something is a threat and
this subjective aspect of theperception is important to
understand, because there's nodifference between your brain

(05:07):
Meaning.
If you feel that something is athreat to your safety or
survival, then for all intentsand purposes it is a threat and
you will behave accordingly,regardless of whether or not
it's true.
It's true to you and that's allthat matters to your brain.
Secondly, as a behaviorist, Ifocus on what people actually do
rather than why they say theydo it.
Your unconscious mind makes themajority of your decisions for

(05:28):
you, and so it's not alwaysclear why we make certain
decisions or arrive at variousconclusions, or at least it's
not as clear as we think it is.
It's also why we hear me referto you and your brain as sort of
two separate entities,physiologically very strong and
complex relationship betweenyour conscious mind and your
unconscious one, and they worktogether in a manner that we

(05:48):
kind of still don't fullycomprehend.
But for the purpose of training, education and discussion I
kind of think it's important todistinguish between the two,
because it helps delineatebetween what you can and cannot
control.
And then I had a note in thereto insert some joke about
stoicism, but I apparently neverwent back and thought of one.
But I'll let you do that.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
But that's sort of the Well stoic wouldn't allow it
.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, so but no, but yeah, and that's sort of just
the introduction to you knoweverything from the article and
how we approach things.
I just want to, like, kind ofdelineate a few things up front,
and there's a lot we can getinto.
So before I go on or anything,greg, I want to, I want to kind
of throw to you as well.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
No, no, that's great.
And so, brian, you did such agreat job of framing the
discussion, so I'd like to justthrow in a couple of definitions
so we can all talk about it,meaning everybody at home and us
as well.
So first cautionary tale Iremember being called out by
Green Gunny and he came up rightin the middle of class and he
said unconscious means you'reasleep.

(06:46):
And it was like okay, brian,some people you're not going to
be able to spar with, no matterwhere you are, or what the?
argument is or how intellectualit may seem.
So that's the first one.
So a couple quick things.
So definition of moralpsychology Moral psychologists
put aside questions of howpeople should make moral
judgments to examine how peopledo make moral judgments

(07:10):
Important distinction, importantdistinction.
Definition of moral foundationstheory.
There's two, so there's themoral foundation theory and then
the moral foundations theory.
So, in other words, one card,one ring to rule them all, okay.
Moral foundations theory.
So in other words, one card,one ring to rule them all, okay,
or many cards.
Many examples the mentalstructure, the modules, and

(07:31):
people reach ethical decisionson the basis of either a mental
structure or a series of mentalmodels that have been pre-wired
into our brains and thatinvolves feelings like being
vulnerable, being empathetic, aresentment of cheaters, a
respect for an authority figure,all of those things that we
call file folders, that we knowthat people have right.

(07:53):
But this again, it's somebodyelse's attempt to categorize
something in a way that worksfor them.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Oh, we don't call that a snowcone here, we call that an ice
dish, right, then we've got adefinition of bias.
So bias merely your tendency torespond one way compared to
another when you're making anynumber of life choices.
I prefer a red blanket, brianis blue.

(08:15):
I prefer a sports shoe, brian'smore of a ballerina.
I like salads over fast food.
Those biases are going toconsciously and unconsciously
impact all of our choices, thedoor we go in when we start our
car, whether the radio is on oroff.
Those are just things we do.
So a bias isn't a bad thing.
It's how we approach things,because of historical precedent,

(08:39):
because of ease of movement,because of any number of things.
So what's an implicit bias?
And this is where we got tojump on it just for a second.
Implicit biases have also beencalled implicit prejudices, or
attitudes, or negative attitudes.
You got to remember.
If it's implicit, it's one biasthat you're not consciously

(09:00):
aware of.
So it means that you chooseagainst a specific social group.
Well, our consigliere, sean,sent me a very interesting video
of dog herding ducks, and anumber of the ducks were white
and a number of the ducks wereblack.
Now, this has nothing to dowith race.
What it has to do with isself-preservation.

(09:21):
So when the dog was trying tocut the ducks, the ducks hid
with other ducks that lookedlike them.
So, a white duck would clearlystand out in a group of black
ducks and vice versa.
So we have to understand.
Sometimes an implicit bias isbeyond our control, brian, and
we're there because we don'tunderstand what it had to do

(09:42):
with our upbringing.
So we don't know 3, 3000 yearsago what it was and the reason
we turned the doorknob to theright or to the left right.
Make up things to say that youknow, we come into the church
and we touch the holy waterthat's on the right.
We're not sure that that waterwas there because it was a fire
risk and before it was used to,you know the candles.
You understand what I'm saying.

(10:03):
So what happens there?
And you brought up something Ijust took a note on when you're
talking about ethical orbehavioral.
So both of us are behavioristsand that's not an insult,
because, philosophically, whenwe think about threats, we think
about an existential threat andthat means your question of
your life choices, even thoughyou're not in danger or you

(10:23):
might not be in danger butyou're projecting a potential
danger, do you see?

Speaker 1 (10:27):
what.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
I'm trying to say, and what I mean by that, is
that's a very selfish fear ofharm to me, and this is where I
want to deep dive just for asecond when Dart was writing
about the predatory transitionfrom ape to man it was profound
it was very influential at thetime.
And then he figured out wait aminute with more studies.

(10:48):
Theory was wrong.
So, as a good scientist, you'vegot to update, you've got to
change your theory when newscience comes in right.
The Tong child changed that.
So instead of being that apexpredator, guess what?
He was running for his life,most of his life, and he ended
up getting eaten.
So Gray, in Outraged availablefor Pantan folks if you want to

(11:08):
look up the book Gray arguesthat most of the problems of
contemporary society can betraced to that being prey.
That's simple.
That's something that we love,because that means that all our
thoughts and feelings arise fromthat mental model that was
evolved eons ago and that washardwired for our survival.

(11:29):
And we know that.
We know that we're much morelikely to choose
survival-oriented thinking andpredicting anarchy and anxiety
rather than saying everything'sfine, having the everything's
okay alarm going off.
But Gray also says harm is themaster key of morality.
and and this is where he startsgoing off, because he says our

(11:49):
ethical judgments are governednot by, uh, these modules, but
by one overriding emotion, and,and that you know, the this fear
emotion is, you know, making ushypersensitive.
Well, what he's accounting foragain is is a very in my opinion
only is a very selfish view.
What he's saying is thesethings that I fear, whether they

(12:11):
truly cause harm or not, areenough for me to go off and be
who I am and see you can't dothat because the existential
threat to a scientist means thata living, non-living future
event that threatens somethingelse.
And it's realistic.
Like we don't understand if ameteor is ever going to knock us
out of orbit.
We don't understand if globalwarming is going to change stuff

(12:34):
and trigger a nuclear winter.
Do you see what I'm trying tosay?
So one is an irrational fearand humans don't do irrational
fears unless they have someother external scheme of
pressing on them.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
That is just my opinion no, and and that's this
is kind of the the what, what I,the part I want to get into,
because you know, you, whenthere we have such a strong
evolutionary sort of advantageby, by doing that, being fearful
of things, right, and so thenyou can make the well, you know,
that's plato's allegory of thecave, that's everything.

(13:06):
It's like, okay, I'm gonna sitback here where it's warm and I
know what's going on.
I'm not going to venture out,because a lot of people that
venture out die.
But occasionally they do reallywell and they thrive.
Not only thrive, but become,you know, leaders of some new
thing or create something thatnever existed before.
So there's always that play andit's, it's this fear.

(13:27):
And when you get into how thisis why, too?
Because you know you're talkingabout existential threat.
Well, an existential threat isliterally something that would
threaten your existence.
But now, if you get stuff andthis is why, because this was
all originally talking aboutthese others, about writing
about politics and politicians,which didn't even matter to me,
it was just the interest oftheir underlying theories, right
, because it's funny, becauseeven in their writing I found it

(13:50):
a little bit ironic, becauseit's kind of like wait a minute
you're saying all these thingsthat this person's bad, but
you're kind of just, you'reactually helping prove your
theory here, but you're kind ofgetting it wrong and how it's
getting laid out here gettinglaid out here exactly and and
and what it.
What it, what I look at it is is, you know, because that's a
subjective measurement ofsomething that's an existential

(14:10):
threat like, well, I that that'sto a human being.
That could be anything.
What's a threat to you isnothing to me.
What's what's a huge threat tome is nothing.
I mean literally.
I can.
One person eats a peanut butter,they'll die, like that's an
existential threat to that,where everyone else is fine
eating it, right, but but whatI'm saying is that that it plays
with so emotion-based too,especially when you know there's

(14:32):
all of these seemingly thingsthat are very complex, that I
don't fully understand, comingat me.
Well, that's fucking scary formy little p brain.
You know what I mean.
It really is.
So I always default to thatfear, and so what they're trying
to say is like okay, that'ssort of like where morality in a
sense comes from, yeah, andlike, like I went, like I see
what you're doing here, I seehow you're connecting the dots,

(14:55):
but I think you're takingsomething that's complex.
You're addressing the, thecomplexity of it and and how
long this has happened, but thenyou're kind of providing too
simple of an answer for me.
You know what I'm saying it'slike you're, you're, you're,
you're oversimplifying this partof it.
So there there's, you know thethe things that I found
interesting, obviously becausewe talk about it and you know,

(15:16):
like the article talks aboutwhat they call like fear wiring
and harm detection and that, butthat's, but that's, that's
pattern recognition.
Right, that's why we're primedfor that kind of stuff,
precisely, and so this wholeevolutionary backdrop is like
yeah, you're, you're dead onthat, this is where these things
come from.
So the recognition of how thesethings fall in, like I'm making
those unconscious choices ofwhat's scary and what isn't,

(15:39):
especially now, like because,this was written about politics.
Well, the saying used to be likeall politics are local.
Right, like if you're in thepolitical world, like kind of
like, you still got to get outthere and do this and you still
get.
You know which is technicallytrue.
Right, still got to get peopleto vote and all those things.
But what it's?
What's?
What's changed because of thespeed of communication, how
connected everyone is, like noweverything is a national story

(16:00):
and everything has to do withthe united states, and it's like
how many of these actuallyaffect you in your, your
backyard today, like in yourfamily and your life.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
But if I tell you it does, and if I put my thumb on
the scale and if I make a darkcloud and lightning, then all of
a sudden it does, brian.
That's what I don't think isfair here, and I mean?

Speaker 1 (16:18):
what do you mean like , like, what do you mean by?
Let me explain that.
Yeah, let me explain that Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
So horses, elk and elephants were once vampires.
And they're vampires thatchanged how we write stories and
scare children and make movies.
Okay, so male horses have fangs, known as canine teeth, and all
male horses have four canineteeth, two on the top and two on

(16:43):
the bottom.
And maybe a quarter or less offemale horses have some canine
teeth, but they're usually small.
They're benign.
So historically they were usedfor fighting Horses fought other
horses.
They didn't and don't help thehorse chew.
These canine teeth start with amature horse four to six years
of age.
Elk, prehistoric elk and pastelk once had tusks and even now,

(17:07):
when you hunt elk, their moderncanine teeth are remnants of
those tusks and we call themivories or, as Jaeger would call
them, whistlers.
Ancient elk had the tusks fordefense and established
dominance, much like antlersestablished dominance in the
tribe.
So a scientific study, theactual research that's conducted
, to answer a question.

(17:28):
If I pick and fucking choosefrom that, what I can do is come
up with a story.
Well, the only reason a horsewould have canine and the only
reason an elk and a gosh damnelephant would have them is
because they suck the blood ofthe other animals and that led
to a downfall or whatever else.
Brian, it's unscientific to thepoint that it's non-scientific,

(17:49):
and this is what I mean.
So he wrote Outraged, andhere's his own quote.
When I wrote Outraged, it waswritten at a time of extreme
political polarization, and it'scoming out just days before the
polarizer in chief, donaldTrump, is set to be inaugurated.
Okay, brian.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
So that's what I'm talking about, Listen exactly, I
do not care.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
We work at the behest of the government and when we
do the commander in chief is ourboss.
It's just simple, okay, and sothe idea is that when you start
saying that listen, I know he'sin power, but we've got to do
everything that we can to fightagainst him, what you're doing
is fighting against your fellowAmericans, you're fighting

(18:32):
against our livelihood,whoever's in power.
So there was no good demeaningand bashing Biden for not
showing up because he was, youknow, in mid Alzheimer's or
whatever it was.
But it also wasn't good foranybody to hide that.
You see what I'm trying to sayTransparency and knowledge
Science is one of those thingsthat when we shine a light on it
, it still exists.

(18:53):
It's not smoke and mirrors andit's not a parlor trick.
So what Gray's done here is hebring up some incredible
arguments, but then what he doesis he throws all of these other
politics based gesture in witha solid argument, and that's the
only reason I I just calledhorse shit when I started deep
dive and outrage thosephilosophical discussions a lot,

(19:15):
because it's kind of like youyou get, they're so general that
you can throw anything you wantin there, yep, and then I've
never walked away from one ofthose conversations going, wow,
that's enlightening.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
It's always like that was a waste of time.
Now, unless I will say this,there are like in some roles,
right.
So I look at like there's a lotof like military leaders and
you're talking about differentphilosophical ways of
approaching things.
I actually understand it alittle bit more in that context,
obviously being from themilitary, but also because they

(19:51):
have.
They're dealing at nation statelevel with the geopolitics of a
country, with changingadministrations, changing public
.
They have a mission to do and alot of times it's not clear and
they're always trying to figureout what the next thing coming
is, and so, in order to do that,you can't make up random shit
and go well, I think it's goingto be the klingons and they're

(20:12):
going to come out of here, likeyou know, like you have to base
it on something.
However, you're in unchartedwaters in a sense going well, we
don't know what's going tohappen or what the next step is.
Maybe the strategic initiativehere isn't very clear, so you
have to fall back on somethingso they'll have these moral
discussions on what the valuesare and the ethics, because
without that and the commander'sintent, like you're kind of,

(20:33):
you're, you're, you're screwed.
But a lot of places are justhaving these like kind of
philosophical things and it'slike, well, you have to frame it
around something.
And if you're going to frame itaround something, then you have
to include everything aroundsomething, then you have to
include everything in there andthen you have to look at those
laws or those things that you'rethe evolutionary things that we
know haven't changed or don'tchange very quickly, and go this

(20:55):
is, and you have to look atthat as the constant.
You can't then dig down intothese different weeds of what's
happening today because it's somicro, micro, it might be a blip
on the radar and in 10 years,like no one's even, it's not
even a thing, because there'sbeen some either major thing or
we've realized hey, wait aminute.
You know, that's why we'd alwaysmake the joke like this was you
know the what?

(21:15):
The third, the thirdpresidential election in my
lifetime.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
That was the most important election in the
history of the country, likehistory of the united states
statistically that's not evenfucking possible.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Like like you're.
So you're telling me I wasalive for the three most
important ones out of our almostnearing 300 years of existence
for this nation like that's.
That's highly unlikely based onabout about civil war where 600
000 americans were killedfighting each other.
Like maybe that one wasslightly more important, I'm not
bashing gray, because bravebrings up some good points and

(21:47):
we'll discuss good points.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
But I will tell you this a selfish fear helps no one
.
So, for example, I was in a youknow me, I'm always going toe
to toe with somebody somewhereand I'm in city market and
somebody was just talking smackabout immigration.
First of all, there's laws.
So we live in a country of laws, so read immigration laws very

(22:10):
specific.
There's different rules thatapply to immigration and
protecting your borders thanother laws, and if you're not
educated on them, don't gospouting off on them.
As a matter of fact, if youtake a look at the base of the
Statue of Liberty, there's agive us your, you know, great
speech that's down there.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, okay, but you know what was on Ellis Island
People stopping you and askingyou for ID and who you were from
and everything, and people weregetting sent back out.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
So we forget certain parts of our own history.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
We do.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
And we choose the ones that suit us better than us
.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
That's and that's my.
That's the interesting part tome about these conversations,
because you even said it.
You said you know selfish fear.
Well, technically, all fear,most fear is selfish because it
affects me, which affects thesociety.
Right, we are thinking that wayin a sense of survival of
ourselves in order to survivethe species.
So so that's the inherentevolutionary trait in everyone.

(23:09):
And then what, what gets reallysubjective, is what then, is a,
is an existential threat orwhat's a fear?
Because of all I can, if I can,link a few points together and
see, well, if this occurs, thenit's going to be chaos and it's
going to go.
It's like, oh, oh, my God, itreally is.
And that's where thatstorytelling comes in, and this
is what they even brought up,and how easy it is to polarize

(23:31):
people, even though we'retechnically wired, in a sense,
in the opposite direction, wherewe want to get along in order
to make things.
But we do need to have somecommon threat or enemy.
And since that's not happeningin our environment, we're still
hyper vigilant, in a sense, togo well, but, but it's in my dna
that there are threats outthere, because there are, it's
just.
It's.

(23:52):
It's just.
The development of the worldhas has changed significantly,
exponentially faster than thanthe, the operating system we're
working on so I think.
But but also to do that, likeevery generation has had this,
this is more than humans aresupposed to know or understand,
or this is too much, or like youknow what I'm saying?

(24:12):
Everyone keeps going back tothis.
Well, you know, back then wedidn't have these problems.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Like, yeah, back then plato was bitching about young
greek kids fucking who didn'tknow their history.
Same problems and it wasgraffiti everywhere and crime
and the price of eggs was themost on people's mind.
You're right and this is.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
This is the important part of memory, because I
remember, even like when we haddr leah de bello on a while back
, like who's great she's?
Like no, it's.
It's called the adaptiveunconscious for a reason, and I
was like yeah, that's right it.
It can adapt very quickly, likeyour unconscious brain is
constantly adapting and it'ssetting a new baseline and it's
changing.

(24:48):
That's why, when, like all this, something comes out and goes,
oh my God, this is horrible forpeople, or oh my God, this is
really good for people, it'slike, dude, it's only been a few
years, like we don't, we don'tknow.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
We still don't know.
We don't know enough about thebrain, we don't know enough
about things, and when we learnnew things, we have to adapt our
conscious thinking how we thinkof those.
So, brian, I'm guessing you're40 or early 40s 42 this year.
Okay, there you go.
So that's how much I know aboutmy fucking business partner and
future CEO of the company.
How stupid am I?
You know me.
I don't like numbers.

(25:19):
But think about this for aminute, brian.
Since you've been able toreckon, you know that there's a
thing called the doomsday clock,or other people call it
different things, and they movethe numbers and they make a big
show of it.
So you know, we're eightseconds to annihilation, we're
65 seconds to annihilation.
We've never been more than aminute or a minute and a half in

(25:40):
40 years that you've lived onthe face of the planet.
But you know what?
The funny thing is?
We're still here.
Okay, four o'clock in themorning, when I get up and head
down to the gym, first thingthat's on television is match
game, and you know the jokesthat we're making on match game.
They're making jokes about theprice of groceries, how they're
off the his, the price of fuel,how, uh how, politicians are

(26:02):
untrustworthy.
And when a new broom sweepsclean, everybody on the other
side look, brian, certain thingsnever change and therefore
there's certain hardwiring thatwe have in our brains that is
adaptable to current conditions.
There's your adaptiveconscience, but what we do is we
pick and choose.
I read a LinkedIn article justyesterday and the person was

(26:23):
saying the thing that's going tosave police work is changing
how you teach cops to a Socraticmethod.
No, no, you have to have abasis for a Socratic method.
Okay, socrates himself wouldhave showed you how to do that.
No.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I agree 100% with Socrates was an intellectual
bully and also didn't believe inwriting things down.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
So if you're writing down Socrates' he would.
He would make fun of you, hewould laugh.
It's so stupid.
But the idea is that if you'retelling me that you want
semi-Socratic, I'm in yourcorner.
What's semi-Socratic?
Okay?
So what do you mean by that?
Well, how would that makesomebody think, well, what are
other ways we would approachthat?
Brian, that's always beenaround and we don't attribute
that to socrates.
That's an intelligent mind isnever bored and wants to learn
more about things.

(27:09):
So your intuitive mind isconstantly thinking harmless
things are harmful because it'sa defense mechanism, it's a a
predisposition that all humanshave.
Okay, but we abandon.
We abandon that sometimes, andwhen we do, we fucking die.
People swim out to help theiranimal.
I remember in Avon the dog fellthrough the ice.

(27:31):
They were playing with theFrisbee.
The guy went out and peopledrowned.
People drowned trying to save adog.
Now, brian, that's socounterintuitive.
And then somebody would say,well, I love my dog, I love my
dog too, yeah.
And and somebody would say,well, I love my dog.
I love my dog too, yeah, and mydog's laying right next to me.
But you know what, if it'sbetween she and I, drowning, I'm
not going with her.
I mean, those are type ofthings that keep the species

(27:52):
going.
Procreation is another one, waris another one.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Because bad ideas have to be punished somewhere,
right, well, and it's adifferent setting because you
know, you're right with, likethe, you know, you hear, you
know a Marine or someone jumpson a grenade when it gets thrown
in the group, it's like, yeah,because they sacrificed
themselves.
It's like, but that's part ofthe training and initiation
process you go through.
It's like, no, you don't haveto physically train to jump on a
grenade.
Like, hey, we're going topractice jumping on a grenade

(28:20):
today, but the idea is it'sinstilled to, you know, to.
Someone has to walk, pointright, someone has to do
something, and so you'd rathertake it all for the team rather
than exposing everyone to that,right, but but that's a, that's
a process of of sort of trainingand, in a sense, just part of
what it is.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
But that's what I mean.
Like, nobody can thrive alone,nobody, and you can meaning
there are.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
There are examples of people overriding your basic
need for survival.
For what, though?

Speaker 2 (28:52):
for the survival of others or the greater good of
the team.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
You're spot on brian, and some, some of the big
things, and we, we get into thisall the time because one of the
big things in the article toois which is obvious, we know and
most people do is, like youknow, storytelling versus data.
Right, like you, you know,nothing works better than a
story is always powerful.
And, of course, when they'regoing, politicians are obviously
that's the.
They have to create a story oran image or a way to get things

(29:17):
sticky.
And so, with this guy too, isbashing certain ones like well,
but, but, but they all do that.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
That's, that's part of capturing again, you can't
pick and choose because everyonehas done and storytelling is
the oldest form of of knowledgeand skill transfer.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's how it is, that's why it's so focused.
So, but that's also why, youknow, because humans, humans
implicitly understand storiesand I can relate to it.
I don't understand statistics.
No one does really good datascience and statisticians still
don't have a full comprehensionof, because it's so
counterintuitive to how humansthink sometimes.
So it's like, well, I can showyou all the numbers or I can
just tell you this story andthat story will always be more

(29:52):
popular and that's where theurban legends come around,
that's where everything.
And so, like you, you, you're,when the thing about the
politics, one is like, yeah, butlike you're not supposed to
make policy off of stories,you're supposed to make it off
of data and what will work bestand looking at it.
But that doesn't sell.
So that's why you have to tiesomething to it and so, but
sometimes if they'll pick thewrong ones or use one that

(30:15):
doesn't apply, but it doesn't,and once, once the narrative's
out there, it doesn't matteranymore.
But that's true, like even whywe try not to do the hey, one of
these days this is going tohappen.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
You better hire us because we want.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
It's like no, like exactly that was our first
principle that we would never,ever, never, not gonna be the
fear-based advertisement.
No, because you don't need,because one it, it, it, it works
.
Yes, but it's also createsfucking more bullshit how many
times were that ones have to sayopposite.
When people like, anything canhappen, no one fucking can't, no
like.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
And when you said tell me, science says it can't
well, greg, that's.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
It goes right back into this.
If you tell me that anythingcan happen when I walk out that
door, I'm fucking terrifiedbecause that's really difficult.
I can't manage everything.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
My Rolodex is going to be spinning a mile a minute,
so I'm never going to be able toland normalcy here.
I just have to find it.
If not, it's chaos.
It's constant chaos, and youknow what.
You want your enemy to thinklike that.
You want them to neverunderstand what your move is.

(31:17):
But if you're like that, brian,that's unsustainable and that
means you're going to be avictim soon.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, no, and that's the whole thing.
Is that?
That's what leads to beingoverwhelmed?
And now you're going to fallback on.
Obviously, you know what theycall the harm bias or harm
perception or vulnerabilityassumptions.
There's some great terminology,you can call it whatever you
want, but we're talking aboutthose same primal instincts.
It's the same thing that youhave which allows immediate
group cohesion, people togetheror or rip each other apart, and

(31:44):
it's and it's like, really, isthere the, the when?
If you're tying it back toevolution, if you're tying back
to the system, you're generallygoing to be right, but what
happens?
Is then you meaning, if that'sreally what's causing it or
that's where it's coming from,if you're basing it off of these
these are autonomic humanreactions like you're probably
heading in the right direction.

(32:04):
I think these things go wrong,and there's plenty out.
There is like when you try tomake an overarching, general,
like moral, you know judgment onsomeone, that's where things go
wrong, right, that's why, likeif you look at even our first
principles, and the first onebeing people, the same all over
the world.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
All over the world.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Do we have differences?
Well, yeah, of course, but if Igo in general across time of
that humans being here, look,there are some basic things that
humans need and beyond that,it's kind of made up after that,
because everything after thatchanges with time and with
culture and with, you know,advancements in technology.
But there's some core elementshere that affect every single

(32:42):
human being and they affect usall the same way.
So why don't we start there andthen go from it?
And then, once you get into,obviously, well, plus, they're
the different moral degrees, solike that's heavily influenced
by different religions, bydifferent cultures, by different
, uh, traditions, right?
So it's like what are the corethings?
Well, everyone believes like,hey, you know the golden rule,
right, treat other people asyou'd want to be treated, like

(33:03):
that, that's, you're not goingto go somewhere where they're
like no, treat people like shiton your neighbor every day,
exactly, exactly.
Even north korea doesn't dothat.
come on yeah so sorry northkoreans.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, I don't know if we have a big after me at
gonadsen yeah, exactly but uhbut look, you're, you're, you're
right on, and and let's talkabout a moral, ethical truth.
That's also in the behavioristphilosophy Respect is easiest to
build with harm-basedstorytelling.
That's why, when you see thedownfall of a deadly attack or

(33:41):
an explosion or a car wreck oranything else, it's much easier
for me to sell you an airbag ora gun or a concealed holster or
training.
Okay, so we know that that'strue.
And then Gray cited the studyfrom 2021 that showed that
strangers who were offeredanecdotes stories Okay, it
turned out they were much morewilling to engage with the

(34:02):
researchers than those that wereoffered data.
And you said that people don'tunderstand when they see the
data, even if it's the bestchart in the world.
And the group that got thestories also treated their
interlocutors with more respect.
So what we're saying?
There is two truths.
Yeah, is it fair?
So, for example, the reason Imean is it fair to humans is

(34:24):
that you're again putting yourthumb on a scale.
An injustice collector that'sgoing to kill, okay, needs to
control the narrative.
You caused this.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
You made me do this.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
You were the one that left me out, and look at what I
endured.
Same thing with the familyannihilator.
Same thing with the last threeweeks, where each time a teen
killed their entire family andthen committed suicide.
How do you think theyrationalize that, brian?

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
They look at what's going on in the media and on
songs and in movies and all thatother stuff, and they create a
narrative.
Now, whether that narrative isintertwined with reality doesn't
matter, because it becomes areality and that's where you
started the show becomes areality and that's where you

(35:11):
started the show, it.
It is so powerful to humansthat you can write a false
narrative, but your brain willbelieve it just as if it's a
real thing and then, well, thisis what, this is.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
The other, you know, one of the significant parts
about this and understandinglike, yeah, you know, people are
going, okay, yeah, I get it.
It ties all back to, you know,survival and fear.
It's like, yeah, but but onceyou do that, now all of my
actions are morally justified.
I've now myself, I'm takingmoral like, no, it's okay,
because this is evil, and so nowit doesn't matter, and, which

(35:40):
is funny, which is why I need tobe exterminated.
Well, this is to be ostracizedexactly which is actually why I
think the, the military kind ofdiscussions about this stuff are
important, because theyunderstand no, that doesn't like
just because these people arebad doesn't mean just ends,
don't justify the means.
We can't kill everyone in thevillage because there's a
handful of bad guys in thereLike I mean, that's the whole

(36:02):
thing.
It's like we can't be like them, otherwise we're just them if
we do those same things and thenthere is no more.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
No matter what uniform you're wearing, no
matter what cause or banner thatyou're marching under, You're
exactly right.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
And then also, too, goes back to why I focus on
behaviors and what peopleactually do not, why they say,
well, I did it, because this,it's like, because it goes right
back to the family and otherthing, it's like OK, like maybe
everything you said that waswrong was true.
Maybe all of those things didhappen that doesn't mean you,
that doesn't justify you killingthose people, though, like,

(36:35):
like maybe maybe your feelingsare justified, maybe what, what
what is happening to you is isunfair and bullshit.
But, like a lot of people havedealt with that and they didn't
go kill their family, like whatI mean you you don't look into
the sort of sympathy side of itfrom that person and go, oh well
, they had all these.
Okay, well, are you going toaddress those issues?

(36:55):
And young kids then Is thatwhat you're getting out of this?
Or are you just trying tojustify their actions?
Like you, you know it's justwow, look at all the issues they
had growing up in this.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yes, they had a chemical imbalance.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
You can't conflate that but that.
But that doesn't mean then,okay, well, we got to change how
we do everything.
Right, it's like, right, no, we, we can get better at
identifying those people earlieron and saying, hey, this is
someone that needs more helpthan everyone else.
I, I'm all good with that.
But then you can't come afterthe fact and then use that as
some sort of justifying actionor justifying reason.
It's not, I mean, that's thewhole thing.

(37:38):
I'm all good with the analysisand talking about it, but how
you use that is incorrect.
Your application of this goingforward is like you don't get to
make these then statements,it's just because don't get to
make.
You don't get to make thesethen statements Like it's, it's,
it's just because I coupledtogether some great reasoning.
Does it mean my, does it meanmy hypothesis or my solution is
right?
It just.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
That's why we talk about the scientific method,
that's look, the, the.
There's a line that perfectlyepitomizes what we're talking
about and about, and, and graysays that we have, it could be
argued, been surprisingly goodat muddling through modern times
with the impulses we inheritedfrom our troglodytic forefathers
first of all.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
What a great line yeah, he's trogs all the time,
all the time, right, I justremember shelly I go.
What did you just call thatperson?
And she was.
She walked over to the boardand wrote troglodyte and the
definition and she goes learnthis.
And I'm like, oh my God, Learnthis early.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Exactly, that was back in the T3, if you remember.
Yeah, so the essential, themost compelling claim of moral
psychology is that people makeethical judgments on the basis
of intuition rather than reason.
Well, you can't say that,because you threw the word
ethical in there.
Yes, okay, because ethos doesnot apply to survival thinking,

(38:55):
because when you think ofsurvival, the electrochemical
neurotransmitters, your brain,the adrenal cortex, your limbic
system, they override prefrontalcortex thinking and all of a
sudden, you now exclude certainthings that your body and your
mind work together to saythey're not, as mission,

(39:17):
essential to my survival.
And therefore saying thatthat's an ethical judgment,
brian, that's wrong because it'snot an ethical judgment.
As a matter of fact, killinganother human being is against
all ethical judgments.
But you know what?
Sometimes we have to allow itand sometimes people do it, and
sometimes people do it for thewrong reasons.
There are people that claimself-defense that are in prison

(39:39):
now.
Right, because in their mind atthat time they made a selfish
choice.
I remember a caper that I didwhere a kid broke into a car Kid
.
Remember that Kid?
I remember a caper that I didwhere a kid broke into a car Kid
.
Remember that kid.
And I call a kid anything from13 to 21.
Kid broke into a car.
Homeowner comes out, car alarmstarts going off.
Kid runs from it.
Homeowner starts getting himdown, boom, boom, boom.
Finally shoots him.

(39:59):
With the third shot he's DOA, aDRT kid because he was doing a
property crime inside and wearrested the homeowner because
it was outside the curtilage ofhis property.
It wasn't a self-defensesituation and the community and
that guy shit on us.
Now, two streets over, they go.
That guy should spend the restof his fucking life in jail, as
did the parents of the kid.

(40:20):
Do you see what I'm trying tosay, brian?
This isn't a moral dilemma.
It's not an ethical judgment.
What it is that our instinctand intuition, combined with our
brain, survival chemistry isalways going to choose what it
thinks at that time and place isbest for us.
So therefore, if we skew theinformation coming in, if we

(40:40):
change that and make youirrationally fear something,
then that'll lead to prejudice,that'll lead to bias the bad
kind, that'll lead to consciousand unconscious fear of things
that we shouldn't be fearing,you know.
And and that'll, that'llmalinger, that'll last a long
time.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
It's like rust never sleep, and that's that's why I
mean, the law is already, it hasyou know ethics and morals and
values imprinted into it.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
That's where, that's what the law is the constitution
and the bill right?

Speaker 1 (41:11):
it's not just about a legal well.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
The legal standard comes from our collective, you
know, societal judgments onthings over time and how they
change what they look at, andand internationally, globally
yeah, that's the thing is shaped, our thing someone goes hey,
these guys are doing it here andit's actually working really
well, and they're like, oh, wow,okay.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
And then sometimes that can go wrong.
It's like, well, we're not likethat society at all.
So you're comparing apples tooranges, so like that won't work
here.
But like the, the theory behindit is sound, but maybe that
sound because they have a very,you know, homogenous group that
they're working with, whereas inthe united states, which
changes your view after a whiletoo.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah it.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
But you brought up a good one and you said that you
know ethos doesn't apply to likea survival situation.
I'm sort of paraphrasing, Ithink yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
But you're close.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
But you know, in that let's take that example right
there, because you know the kidbreaking into the car and then
running away and then gettingshot and killed, and people like
, well, you shouldn't bebreaking the car.
It's like, yeah, you're right,but he but, but does he deserve
to die?

Speaker 2 (42:10):
for that, there's no.
There's no, that sentence, youknow I'm saying I, I mean what?

Speaker 1 (42:15):
what do we?
What are we talking about here?
Like we don't do that anymore.
We realize there's different.
You know classifications ofcriminal activity and what's.
You know where they fit in andyou know, maybe it, maybe it's
unfair, but that's constantlychanging.
It's like, yeah, you don't havethe right to do these things,
and so I.
But but again, I agree that youcan't.
I when, when someone's makingjudgments like that, yes, you

(42:38):
can say their values as a person, their ethics plays into that,
but but that's shaped their,their perspective, but it's,
it's sort of detached from thespecific decision.
You get what I'm saying in asense like, like you, they
didn't say well, you know,because I was taught this way,
because my daddy taught me this,because I went to this school

(42:59):
and learned that, like I'm goingto make this decision, no, like
the, the decision's been made.
And then all of those thingsmay be informed it at some level
, but maybe not.
I mean because you see reallybad people do good things
sometimes.
You see really good people doshitty things sometimes.
So it's like you're in.

(43:20):
It's so contextually based inthe moment with the individual
circumstances.
And everyone talks about that.
Oh, you have to take in thetotality of the circumstances.
But then they go.
Well, what about their ethicsand morals?
And it's like well, does thateven apply in the situation?
Because this was something.
Fear, if it's fear-based andit's survival-based, it's going
to be limited in capacity towhat options, you know, your

(43:41):
brain comes up with now.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Maybe now you're talking about a bias, though,
brian.
Now you're spot on a biasbecause things I don't know that
influenced me when I was 11years old in East Detroit come
to play and I don't even knowthey're coming to play my fear
of my uncle and a situation anda smell and a sound that
transports me back there.
And now I'm feeling anxious anduncomfortable in a situation.

(44:05):
Okay, I'll buy that, but thatpiece of a larger puzzle is
going to be unpacked sometimelater, not during the incident.
During the incident, I'm goingto do what it takes to get out
of the incident and that's whywe can't claim psychology or
moral psychology or an ethicaljudgment in a spontaneous
nanosecond decision.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
You see what?

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I'm saying that's why we have to understand that
biases can be both good andhelpful and they can be horrible
and detrimental.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Well and that's my point too is like when you have
those discussions and it's like,okay, given these set of
circumstances, or what are yourthoughts, would you rather do
this or that?
Or you have to choose betweenthis and it's like, okay,
sitting here talking about itand discussing where you're,
that's one thing, but that'sthat's not how they play out in
real life.
And and this part of the reasonI found this interesting too is

(44:54):
it leads right into how we lookat solutions, whether it's a
policy decision, whether it's atraining solution, because some
of the you know people will saywell, if you have a higher level
of training and a higher levelof experience, and you don't
just know how to shoot, but youknow how to fight, you know how
to do this, you know how tofight, you know how to do this,
you know how to do all that andyou're really proficient at this
, you've been through it it'slike, okay, I'm not saying
that's bad, I'm saying that'sall great and yes, you're,
you're less likely to getoverwhelmed.

(45:14):
I would say, as a generalstatement right, the higher,
more training experience youhave, the less likely you are to
become overwhelmed, unless youcome in and it's, it's.
Everything is like meaning thatmay not help you at all
sometimes.
So if we focus too much on justdoing that, like it, you may

(45:38):
still get yourself in asituation where that doesn't
help.
And if it's a spontaneous, likeyou know, biologically primed
response, you're going to fallback on fear.
So, whether or not you have thewherewithal of the training to
handle the situation, it's, it'salways going to bias this
outcome or it's always going tobias this way of looking at it

(46:00):
in your perspective.
And so it's.
It's putting things into likeweighing things out when you
look at all these differentcontributing factors, because
everyone's like, okay, well thenit's morals and ethics.
It's like, yeah, but that itcan be like in a thousand years
if we look back, will that bethe same answer?

Speaker 2 (46:17):
you touched on that earlier in my argument.
It's not the gift of time, anddistance means more than just a
survival, uh in a firefight.
It means that you have tosometimes distance yourself from
an argument and 360 it.
You got to do the Holberman.
This is the point that weconsistently try to get to these
gosh damn trainers.
Look, I remember the early daysof the infantry immersive

(46:39):
trainer and you go in there andyou get gunned down by guys in a
hidden position and and theMarines walked out of there
completely dejected.
What did you learn?
You learned that you got asimulation zipper stitch on you
and that you lost half yoursquad leader and you walked out
all demoralized and it was liketime out.
What are we teaching peoplehere?
What are we doing?
And so the idea is that yourtraining, your understanding of

(47:03):
an issue, your experience, allthe things cumulatively that you
do in your life, good and bad,are going to come to play,
consciously and unconsciously,when you have to make those
judgments.
So the idea is, the more filefolders you have and the better,
the better weighted certainfile folders are for logic

(47:24):
science, the better yourdecision making will likely be
so.
If your sense making is lessflawed and if your problem
solving has been tested, thenyou're likely to come to a
better decision and be moreresilient, because you'll be
more adaptive.
And adaptive and adaptable aretwo words that I'll use

(47:46):
interchangeably.
Interchangeably- in thisinstance, and not in future
instances.
And so when you tell somebodyafter a scenario in a machine,
or you add realistic smells oryou shoot a person and now they
feel it in their leg, you reallythink that you're making a
decision and what that person'sgoing to pay it forward.

(48:07):
But it's not, because what'sgoing to happen is that person
is going to have that additionalfile folder not a panacea, it's
not a cure-all.
So so by doing that, you'regoing to have that.
Wow, I certainly don't want toget shot.
I know I don't want to getstabbed, just like watching a
video, just like getting punchedin the nads when you were
younger.

(48:27):
Right, but that doesn't becomea life philosophy.
The brain is much more complexthan that.
So the brain is constantlylooking out 5 and 25s for danger
and it's also looking at futuredanger.
So when the elections werecoming up, there's a certain
half of America said Trump isthe antichrist.
When he comes in, everything'sgoing to change, and the first

(48:48):
couple of days they're right,because everything he did played
into their narrative.
The other people that are onthe other side of the thing oh,
can't wait.
You know, got Biden out, thisis going to be great.
Guess what?
Brian?

Speaker 1 (48:59):
they're right, yeah, they're right, but you can't be.
You can't.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Okay so.
So what we got to do is we gotto back off that ledge.
Give ourselves the gift of timeand distance and say what
exactly is helpful, because ifwe think what's helpful, what's
helpful for us, for society, forhumanity, those are the type of
things, those are the type ofgood choices.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, and of good choices, yeah, and and what the
the way?
Because you talk about the time, distance and we talk about
sort of information processingand you know people like to say
we say too like we're gettingmore information coming at us
than we're typically used to andit's not that we can't process
a significant amount ofinformation.
I think it has more to do withjust a it's it's more things

(49:44):
competing for our attention morethan we recognize right.
so, like our phones andcomputers and all that stuff,
it's like because we've slowlyadapted and started using it.
It's like, well, it's actuallytaking a lot more of your
attention than you realize.
I think it's that because oneof the things that they bring up
and people talk about this andso do I and I, and where they
say there's a sort of likemismatch between instinct and

(50:04):
complexity, like, okay, I havethis natural human instinct, but
it's simple, it's like it'ssimple, it wants to it.
It has a bias for simplicitygoing is this going to hurt me
and kill me?
Can I eat it, whatever it?
But but if it's not that, if Ican bypass that part, then I can
process everything, then mybrain can understand this right

(50:27):
Stages.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Exactly Modules.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Because it's a big one and everyone talks about
when all this information comesout and then we find out this
and see that proves this pointand everyone tries to point to
these different especially whenit comes to technology stuff, of
how it changed and social mediachanged.
This it's like okay, and I gostuff of like how it changed and
social media changed this.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
It's like okay, when I go back to you know, everyone
said well, the invention of theprinting press.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
You know that changed the revolution, yeah,
revolutionized the world.
It changed, you know, actuallyhad all these implications for
the catholic church, because youknow, martin luther, that's
when the protestant reformationhappened and he, you know,
nailed his thesis, his problemswith the catholic church at the
door.
And it's like, well, everyone'slike well, that kicked off all
this.
Because now all these peoplesaw this, it's like, yeah, but
when they saw that they didn'tgo, oh, my god, what is all this

(51:12):
?
They went, see, I fucking knewsomething was up.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
I had this feeling too, meaning like it wasn't a
new revelation, it's justsomeone had finally written it
down and everyone went yeah, Ifucking see that too, and it was
probably nine other MartinLuthers in different parts of
the world that were nailingtheir treatise on a door
somewhere that didn't get thepress, and that's what I'm
saying.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
So when these things come out and everyone oh my God,
now it's AI is the biggestthing.
It's like okay, well, did theinternal combustion engine get
rid of manufacturing?
Did it get rid of this?
Did it get rid of this?
Did it get rid of, like, everynew machine that comes out?
Did it get rid of it?
No, it opened up an entirefucking economy and new things
that no one had ever thought ofbefore.
But because we always look atit as this, impending this big

(51:53):
complex thing, it's like it'sthat clock again.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Tick, tick, tick.
This is it.
This is the end of life as weknow it.
And and, brian, you saidsomething I want to make sure
that our listeners are payingattention to.
You talked about attention.
Look, all of the informationoverload that is hitting our
kids and hitting us, andeverything with your phone and
the nudes and the music aroundyou and all this stuff that's
going on challenges ourcognitive bandwidth, which means

(52:19):
that we don't deep dive oncritical issues.
What we do is we skim.
If you want to get through allof it, okay, you have to be
careful about that, because whatthat does is that diminishes
your capacity to discern what'sessential and vital and what's
just amusing and nominal.
And if you don't do that, theneverything is important, brian,

(52:43):
everything is an emergency andeverything is dangerous you know
, because we have a you knowvery, very wide, but shallow.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
You know amount you know in terms of our knowledge
base right, it's for humans,it's very wide, but it's very
shallow, like we can know aboutall these different things, but
only at such a level of depth,right, because there's not
enough time, whereas, like amachine or something can have a
ton of depth, right, but, butit's, it's very narrow, right it

(53:13):
can give me the specifics anddeep depth.
So it's like this, this sort ofway of looking at it, or our
perspective, our brain wants tosimplify it for immediate
understanding, but like there'sso much more to it and so if I
just stick like you're saying,if I just stick with this like
immediate headline, headline,headline, headline, like well
then I don't actually get thedetail it's making me dumber.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
So so look, max is is 18 months to two years and and
mac will be one on february 1st.
Okay, why is that important?
Because if you look at theanimal kingdom, a fucking
giraffe lands on its feet whenit's shit out and it's still
trying to graze when there's aplacenta.

(53:55):
But with human kids you wouldnever take Max push him out the
front door with a flashlight andsay go, okay, we have to
understand that.
For everybody that wants toargue this claim of moral,
psychology and ethical judgment,you have to understand it takes
us a long time and a juvenile'sbrain is different and a teen's
brain is growing, and so whatlessons?

(54:16):
And those are back to ourstories, brian.
What narrative do we want tofollow?
So if we follow like peopleconstantly are bashing religion
and it's always been that wayBecause some people are going,
ah, religion's just screwing ourkids.
Or it's just taking our money,or it's doing this.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
And now it's like swinging the other way
culturally sometimes.
And what's happening?

Speaker 2 (54:37):
is that religion gave us something to aspire to.
Even agnostics said well, maybeit's not God, but it's a way of
living, yeah.
It's a form, it's, it'ssomething.
So I would rather havesomething than nothing, and no
person can alone become anything.

(54:57):
It's always a team.
Nobody was born aware.
Uh, Einstein was working at apatent office and he was working
on great stuff.
But guess what?
He went to lunch with a friend.
He discussed things with people, he was writing stuff.
So whenever we see theseoutliers, Brian and Gladwell can
eat me.
But when we see these outliers,we constantly want to prop them

(55:18):
up and we want to say thesepeople are special.
Somehow Now they become that andI hate using the term because
people have stolen it and usedit for different.
They become the lone wolf andwhen you're that nail that
sticks out, gichin Funakoshisays pound it down, because it's
not good for the tribe, it'snot good for the team and it's
not good for society.
So if your first reaction tobuying Greenland is this is

(55:40):
fucking ludicrous and this is isthe dumbest thing in the world
and somebody should do that,then you're not giving yourself
the gift of time and distance.
Look if it's going to come upon your radar and create anxiety
.
You got to decide is it worthit?
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Is the cost benefit analysisgood enough?
If it has to do with yourfamily and your livelihood and
prices and costs and getting ajob and stuff, then immerse

(56:01):
yourself in it.
But then, and only then, willyou be making judgments on the
base of reason rather thanintuition.
Because if not, you don't havereason, because reason is earned
and it's learned and it takestime.
That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Yeah, yeah, no.
And you know, the historicalprecedent is always one of the
best things to look at.
I mean, people say, yeah, well,that's the newest thing.
The historical precedent isalways one of the best things to
look at.
I agree.
People say, well, that's thenewest thing.
Well, not newest.
But when people are like, well,yeah, all these people who
don't believe in God or don'tthought religion was bad, but
then they're now picking up andit's like, oh my God, the

(56:37):
simulation theory.
This is all a simulation we'reliving in.
This was built by someone,created.
You're all coming to the samecollection like so there's some
higher order here.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
That's brian.
That's a balance of reason andand it has nothing to do with
your instinct or intuition.
That means the more we know,the more we can know, and, and
that's an important distinction,that's why the police academy
is more needs to be, in mypersonal opinion, needs to be
more about problem solving anddefense making than it is about

(57:10):
the decision.
The decision will come, that'swhy we're fighting the the shoot
, don't shoot mentality because,it's more about getting to the
right decision and and notmaking the right decision no,
that's it, that's.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
That's a great point, because that's what all these
you know.
Everyone's focusing on what thedecision is, and it's like you
haven't clearly articulated theproblem.
How are you already at adecision?

Speaker 2 (57:31):
precisely like why do you think that that we like
reading case law?
Because we like how peoplethink, how they got to that
point to make those decisionsand that's our approach.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
When people are talking about well, they learn
to make those decisions.
And that's our approach.
When people are talking aboutwell, they got to learn to make
these decisions, I'm like no,like humans actually know how to
make decisions and they'regoing to do it in a logical
manner.
They can do it with empathy,they can do it with.
They don't have to learn thatstuff.
That stuff is a part of who weare, in our DNA.
What we suck at is thesense-making and problem-solving
part, because that's where allthe things go wrong.

(58:03):
That's where the fundamentalattributions, error, errors come
in.
That's where the cognitionbiases come in, that's where
confirmation bias, it all comesin.
At this initial, initial pointand you're already talking about
what to do it's like hang on,like, you'll figure out what to
do.
Trust me humans have, becausewe're still alive.
Right, you'll figure out whatto do.
If you're given the, theappropriate and correct set of

(58:25):
fundamental assumptions, the,the appropriate and correct way
of looking at things and ageneral intended outcome, that
is good, right.
If you go into every situationlike, yeah, I'm going to fuck
this up, like, okay, like, yeah,you're going to.
Or let's go like, you know, hey, let's go fuck this dude up,
it's like, yeah, well, that'swhat's going to happen, then you
know, hey, let's go fuck thisdude, this dude, up.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's like, yeah, well , that's what's going to happen,
then Like, but if you're goingin both of us have survived in
different cultures and differentsettings, in different lands,
in different environments,meaning permissive,
semi-permissive, non-permissive,without having a complete
understanding of the languageand the culture, have tens of
thousands, if not by now amillion, yeah, okay, other

(59:03):
people that have done that, andI'm not just talking warriors,
I'm talking vacation tourist.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Teachers, you get what I'm trying to say.
A lot of other people arekidnapped victims.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
High school yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
So.
So the idea is the world is setup with us to be able to learn
from our environment or be eatenby it.
And this is right back to thatoriginal argument that gray
missed when he was looking atthe overarching theory, because
when we take a look at dartsaccount, it was flawed.
Brian, I'll agree with it, buthis principles were correct.
What he was trying to say ishey, this kid is really the town

(59:38):
child is really profound andprolific and important.
Here's why and what it shows ishe's the apex predator.
No, really profound andprolific and important, and
here's why.
And what it shows is he's theapex predator.
No, wait a minute.
When we dug a little deeper inthe cave we found out he was
fucking lunch, but the idea isthat it was sound.
So what we're talking about isreasonableness.
We're talking about, like, forexample, de-escalation.
There was a video that I sawthat somebody purported they

(59:58):
were talking about training andit was a philippine hospital, if
I'm right emergency room, and aguy had a knife and was waving
it around and the security guardthat appeared to be unarmed was
kind of like hey, relax, andsat down on the bench and
crossed his feet and talked theguy out of the knife within a
couple of feet of the guy.
Okay, not my style, thatwouldn't have been the way that
that ended.
And then a bunch of people,thousands of people, were going.

(01:00:21):
Oh man, that guy was collected.
You know what?

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Brian.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
He might've been shit in his pants.
We don't know that.
He might've not known anythingother to do.
The other person might've saidhey, fuck it, it's not worth it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
There's so many come, or he had some other insight
that he knew nothing bad wasgoing to happen, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Because this guy had done it every Wednesday at two
o'clock for the last.
So what we can't do is we can'tpoint to somebody and say that
that's what we need to do,because that's.
There's no time in your life orin your future that it's going
to be exactly the same as that.
That's why you've got to trainfor sense-making and
problem-solving, to drive thedecision, and that'll make you
more adaptive and resilient,because if not, then what you do
is you're just adding filefolders.
Oh, okay, now there's a new cpr.

(01:01:06):
Okay, wait a minute.
Now.
Now it's how many compressionsand brian, when you get to that,
you got ob.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
You're gonna know and , and that goes into, I mean so
much becomes based on okay, thissituation occurred.
How do we never let thissituation occur again?
Okay, exactly, if you, youcan't one, you can't one, you
can't do that, but you don'tneed to, like you're never going
to see that specific thing,like it goes back into okay,

(01:01:31):
you're going to make a policyand new law and you're going to
base it off of this one case, orare we going to base it off of
something more?

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Perfect example.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Like.
It's like what are we, what areyou trying to do here?
Because there's otherunintended consequences.
There's going to be othersecond, third-order effects that
you're not accounting for.
There always is, you can'taccount for everything.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Let's reinforce the glass, but the shooting takes
place in a parking lot.
Let's reinforce the door, butnobody has the keys to the lock.
We're playing a game that youcan't win.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
You can't win.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
That's not sense-making and problem-solving
.
What that's doing is that'ssaying this is the problem,
misidentifying the problem, andso we're going to throw all our
money at that.
You know, school resourceofficer, there's your answer
right there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Or picking the one and this goes back to even the
political discussions too, it'slike or picking the one thing
that I think was the biggestcontributing factor and go, we
just didn't have these, thiswouldn't happen, it's like oh
okay, we can't get past that onething.
Okay, like you're.
Well, it's just like a veryit's just too simplified of a
word the way to look at things.

(01:02:32):
You can't oversimplify thingsthat much.
That's not how it is.
Like you deal with all of thesethings beforehand and focus on
how do I get better atunderstanding the world and the
environment and what I'm in,because then once I know the
rules of the game, right Okay,now I get this, now I see what's
happening.
Now I can make the mostinformed decision, and most
people do, like that's the thingthey do every day, almost every

(01:02:56):
day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Most people make the right decision.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
No matter what it is, whether it's like any of our
different clients, even if it'sa private sector or law
enforcement, it's like, okay,I'm going in, going like these
people want to do the rightthing we get.
People want to make the rightthey want, they want to be right
, we want to make the rightdecision, we want to do the
right thing.
So If they're this initial partof understanding, the situation
is better.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
I have a bias.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I have a bias for doing the right thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
You have a bias for action and the action will be
sound because you followed aformat.
So when I talked about the elkbeing a vampire, it was a bitch
slap of reality and what I wantto do is I want to shake people
up so they think about it.
So I'll give you one more briefone.
Brian, I was unpacking somestuff for a kid in Iraq, a young

(01:03:50):
Marine that was all bent out ofshape because it was his door.
He didn't boot it, the otherperson didn't got lit up, and so
I was like walk me through whathappened all that day.
And they were like well, we weregoing from cloth to cloth,
going from courtyard tocourtyard, and the first
courtyard we found where itmust've been, 30, 40 people had
shit and pissed in this one areathat was behind this wall.
And he said then we went intothe next courtyard and you know

(01:04:10):
what?
We found a bunch of damagedammo.
Some didn't have primers, somewere bent, and it was all piled
up like they were throwing itaway.
And we went to the next placeand it was fruit and vegetables
and they were all damaged.
It was all fetid stuff that had, you know, worms and maggots in
it and all that other stuff.
And then we went to the next.
And what he's doing, brian, ishe's laying out a sense-making
that he missed.
He never got to theproblem-solving stage to know

(01:04:32):
that what he was following isthe pre-attack phase, where the
unit that they were about tocome up against, that they
didn't know was going to ambushhim, was going through and
making sure all the ammo wasready and they were topped off
and everybody had eaten and shitand was ready for the fight.
And you know what, brian, whenwe took him back through that
road, when we said, look at allthese things, he became one of
the best instructors that youcould ever think of, because it

(01:04:55):
was all about sense making.
And where's it got to lead?
It's got to lead to the problem.
What's the problem?
Somebody's setting us up hereand you know what?
Smelling, smelling it, seeingit, feeling it, tasting it gives
me the gift of time anddistance.
That's all we're about.
We're about, look, if you breakthese things down to their most
base element, most of life ispretty gosh damn easy and it's
not anxiety producing, eventhough you're bent.

(01:05:17):
You're forced into being thatway because historically you
were predated and eaten, andthat's why I like the Tong child
example in dart and and I thinkthat we had a real good chance
for gray to make somethingprofound, but as political
biases caused damage that Idon't think can be overcome,

(01:05:37):
yeah, no, and and that's that'salways it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
It's like you're you're going from.
The other issue I have with anyof these is like there's always
some oversimplification orjustification of something to
fit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
A much bigger thing, Right right and to go see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
so this must be the solution.
This is the reason why it'slike no, because you're on one.
You're on shaky legal ground,You're on shaky fucking
scientific ground.
You're on like.
You're just kind of like you'retrying to come up with
something, but, like you know,what I can use every single day
is baseline plus anomaly equalsdecision because I can sit here
and go wrong I can go well,what's the baseline?

(01:06:14):
well, what's the baseline, whatam I?
And then now, when I get reallydeep into that, then it's like
oh okay, this situation iseither a little bit more complex
or a little bit less than Ithought it was.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
I mean that's the whole thing.
So I need more time anddistance, or I need less time
and distance.
Right, Come on.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
It's that, you know, I mean I don't know.
We covered a lot and you know Ithought this was a good one for
us to kind of discuss some oflike the philosophical and moral
and ethical things and how thatplays in and how it may inform.
But but you know the individualperson, most people can't sit

(01:06:51):
here and articulate.
It's like when people get allinto these manifestos that
someone writes like they're allover the place.
They're fucking nonsense.
You know why?

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
because they're a fucking confused individual like
that and they haven't seen anyclear answers stringing things
together because it sounded goodto them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Like you know some someone who loves posting
motivational quotes.
It's the same thing, but it's amanifesto and it's not
motivational.
It's really bad stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
You know what I mean but then if you took them back
and said you know where thatcome from, who the?
No, they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
They're not making a rational or reasonable or a
logical decision we'reattributing values to influences
that that likely had less of aninfluence than people think.
Yes, it is what what my bigpoint is.
On all these and with any typeof moral debate stuff.
It's like there's there, youcan have a nuanced discussion
about a situation, but you can'treflect philosophically when

(01:07:40):
you're in the middle ofsomething.
You can't reflect on what youyou can.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Can't at the time either.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Yeah, well, even if, like, that's why it's like you
can't reflect, like what's thepurpose of doing an after action
on something it's like, well,you can't reflect.
Even during training, I can'treflect on what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
While I'm doing it, I'm doing what's court for and I
can go back is for the judgeand the jury and the evidence
and stuff and brian.
Sometimes for an incident thattook nanoseconds, it's months
and months of preparation andthen the trial lasts weeks, if
not months.
Come on, that's what that is.
That's exactly what you'retalking about.
That's life's after actionreview.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Yeah, yeah, all right .
Well, we covered a lot, youknow, and kind of got our
thoughts out there on this asbest as I guess I could.
But again, know and kind of gotour thoughts out there on this
as best, as best as I guess Icould, but again it reinforces,
like this is great, this isinteresting.
I love seeing why people docertain things agreed.
But I'm just more concernedabout like what did they

(01:08:34):
actually do, not what they said,or why they said they did it.
It's like just look at the, theactual thing that was done,
what were the behaviors?

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
behavior.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Behavior over theory, exactly, and that's who the
person is, it's like, that's it.
It's not what they say, it'snot what they think, it's not
what they feel, it's what theyactually do.
And so, because there could bemisalignment on all of those
things, but cognitively, withindividuals, but I think we'll
do some extra stuff for thePatreon folks.
But I think we'll do some extrastuff for the Patreon folks.

(01:09:03):
You know, if you want to, yeah,the Patreon listeners, I think
we'll give some.
We've got some good little, Iguess little, I don't know what
you call them limited, objectiveexperiments, little simple
tasks you can try out in themoment or when you're hearing
stuff or you're looking at stuff, and that'll give.
We'll give some kind ofexercises for our Patreon folks
to do, to kind of reinforce whatwe're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
I guess I can't wait to hear what they might be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Yeah, all right, all right, everyone.
We appreciate you guys tuningin.
If you like the show, pleaseshare it with a friend.
That's the best way to get itout there and then reach out to
us, of course, and we've got aton more on our Patreon, so if
you have any questions we'll hopon and answer there.
But we appreciate everyone andwe've been super busy and got a
lot going on, so we're we'regoing to be more consistent here
as we go forward, but just gota lot happening right now.
But thanks everyone for tuningin and don't forget that
training changes behavior.

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