June 18, 2024 • 45 mins
Can humor survive the era of cancel culture? Today, we tackle the intriguing concept of "lapelle de voie"—the call of the void—and its implications for banter and social interactions. We also explore the quirky idea of "cancel cultural appropriation," where people take on others' grievances. Our conversation shifts to an exciting personal project: innovative shirt designs aimed at reducing laundry frequency and combating climate change. You'll hear about the creative process and the costs involved in tailoring these unique garments.
In our quest for fresh perspectives, we lament the rise of recycled concepts and missed opportunities for genuine innovation, even on platforms like TED. The episode also dives into a compelling discussion on morality and ethics. Do we need a divine arbiter to guide our behavior, or could a placebo deity suffice? We explore the role of religion in shaping laws and guiding moral actions, ending with a poignant story about conscientious objection during the Vietnam War and its impact on one man's career in community health.
We then dissect the complexities of ethics, pondering what constitutes necessary and avoidable suffering. Through various ethical theories and historical examples like slavery and theft, we question the inherent moral worth of individuals. The episode wraps up with a fascinating look at empathy, cooperation, and the evolutionary roots of moral behavior. Using game theory and real-world scenarios, we highlight how cooperation and compassion can arise naturally, even without religious influence. Tune in for a thought-provoking blend of humor, social insight, and sustainability.
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Comments? Feedback? Questions? Solutions? Message us! We will do a mailbag episode.
Email: solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
Adam: @ajbraus - braus@hey.com
Scot: @scotmaupin
adambraus.com (Link to Adam's projects and books)
The Perfect Show (Scot's solo podcast)
The Numey (inflation-free currency)
Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You don't have to have a solution yet.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I mean it takes, oh yeah, why not?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, we have to talk first.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Oh, but I mean I got to be full banter focused.
I can't be like.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You can't half banter , I can't half banter.
You don't do hanter.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I don't want to half-ass my banter.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
What's the worst that could happen in a half-ass
banter situation, you think?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I get canceled Right.
I mean, that's the worst caseyou banter yourself right off a
cliff.
Right yeah.
You're just like I'm like, well, let me tell you, but your,
brain is just like chainingwords together, and here are
some controversial opinionsabout things.
Oh no, what have I done?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What have I done?
All right, I'll let you focus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Do you think that with cancel culture, there's
like a?
Do you know, lapelle de Voie?
Have you heard of this, lapellede Voie?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
No, I don't know this one.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Lapelle de Voie.
It's a French phrase that meansthe call of the void.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And what it means is, when you're walking along a
cliff, you get this weirdfeeling that you just should
throw yourself off the cliff.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Lemming disease.
You suddenly get infected withlemming disease.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, that's called Le Pelle Du Void.
So now that cancel culture, youcan basically ruin your entire
reputation by just saying wordsthat come out of your mouth hole
In a way.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
we constantly have this lapel de voie around us
everybody do you think there'ssuch a thing as cancel cultural
appropriation?
Cancel cultural appropriationwhat?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
does that look like?
What is that?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I don't know, I'm just trying to smush words
together and see what that wouldbe cancel cultural
appropriation.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So that's like.
So I like appropriate someoneelse's.
Cancel culture.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah yeah, so so you're offended on behalf of
someone else?
I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I mean, I've heard of people talk about that.
Like you, you know what youknow.
Oh, that's, that's you know.
Like, imagine two white peopleand then one white person's like
uh, you're, you're beinginsulting, you're being
offensive to latinos and it'slike there's no latinos here.
Right, it's like, but youshould right you know.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So is that, is that a ?
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
permissive thing or not?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
yeah, right, right that's a good name for it,
though you can because, thenbecause then the other one, the
other one person can be likewell, you're practicing cultural
cancel, cultural appropriation.
And then the first person wouldbe like, completely lost they'd
be like I don't know, I don'tknow, I don't know what I do.
Am I being bad?
I don't understand which sideof this thing is supposed to be
(02:32):
the side of anything and thenit's just two confused white
people right standing aroundtalking, for they just shouldn't
be talking well, and then youjust tweak.
you tweak their nose, you grabtheir wallet, you gotcha and you
run away the other directionwhile they're confused.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Gotcha yeah, oh God.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Just scamper off with a few bills.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'm going to take those dollar, dollar bills,
y'all.
Is that cultural appropriation?
What I just did there?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I don't know, but I feel like I need to cancel
cultural appropriation yeah, youare about to cancel cultural
appropriation?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You are about to cancel cultural appropriation.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm just like how do I sign off of that?
Let me Google how to sign offof a Zoom call permanently so it
never comes back.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
What do I?
I like to mix up the solutionsso that they're not all Like we
did a climate solution.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like a chemist, you like to mix up solutions that's,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And then they all turn purple and green.
So I don't like to all like.
What have we done recently?
We did like we did a smatteringof things we did diet.
Uh-huh, it's like a mental youhad, uh, you had a demented
shirt design idea oh, oh, by theway, I've taken that to a
tailor.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Oh, by the way, you sent me pictures of one that you
made, yep, and it was prettyinteresting Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It was remarkably easy to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
When you were explaining it to the tailor,
were they cutting you off Likeyeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So I didn't make the little Caesar and I didn't make
the Pharaoh, I made the muscleshirt, the most sort of simple
one, the Batman the flap.
And all I had to do I didn'teven use a flap.
All I had to do was cut awaycloth and then reattach it, like
on the front of the shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
shirt so the for listeners.
We're talking about an episode,maybe three or four back where
yeah solving sweat about how youcan affect climate change with
doing less laundry, with adifferent design of a shirt.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, all that makes perfect
sense, of course, but of courseyou'll have to go back, but
anyways I will have that, uh,today.
It's done today, yes, so I willgo and get it after we're done
recording and then I will beable to wear it to our next
episode.
I'm going to give him two moreshirts and be like okay, that
was V1, v0.
(04:54):
Here's two more shirts I'll pay.
He's charging me 25 bucks ashirt, so it's kind of an
investment, but I'm willing topay 200 bucks for this idea,
right?
Okay, okay to pay 200 bucks forthis idea, right, okay, okay.
So I so I'm gonna give them twomore shirts 50 bucks and and
I'm gonna say okay, you did thefirst one and we're gonna try it
on and it's like well, is itwork?
You know what can we makebetter?
Here's two more shirts.
Make another one better, comeback, try on again.
(05:15):
Okay, make a third one, and thethird one is gonna be like a
grand slam.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I'm convinced it's gonna be like a total iteration.
You're all about iteration.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then I told him yeah and then I told him I'm
gonna bring all the rest of myshirts and he can just alter
them all to be like this,because this is exactly what I
want, you know he's just sittingat night and his family's like,
what are you doing?
And he's like, ah, there's thisweird guy this guy, well, the
tailor, so I mean he must havehe must have crazy armpits
(05:44):
because he does not want anyfabric touching him does not he?
maybe I could say I'm allergicto cotton, and then the rest of
your body yeah, he's like.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You don't like have vampire burning going on on your
back there, homie my whole bodywould be covered in hives,
right.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I'd have to wear like wool and I guess if you were
allergic to cotton you'd wearsilk and wool and stuff.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You said your idea was children's bill of rights.
You had an idea for morecathedrals.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You had an idea, oh, yeah, we did a bunch of little
ones.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah so we've got a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, I've got.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, I think you're not a huge God fan, so I've got
one that goes with.
I'm not a huge.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
God fan Yep, and me neither, me neither.
And so I've got one that goesalong with that.
I've got one that I've got agood atheist idea.
Oh, okay, okay, a big one.
So most people say one of thebiggest problems with Should we
start, should I do?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
it Sure.
Is it?
Should I do it Sure?
Welcome to Solutions from the.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Multiverse.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I'm Scott Maupin.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My name's Adam Browse and we come to you every week
here for a little chat where wetalk about a new idea from.
Adam's bag of tricks.
Yeah, I'm a professor, scott'sa comedian and we just keep it
light and have fun and talkabout totally new ideas which
I've found.
There's like nowhere you canfind new ideas.
There's no like dedicated.
There used to be ted, ted usedto be.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know, you want new ideas ted dead, ted is dead,
that's dead.
Baby, oh baby ted's dead.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Ted's dead pulp fiction yeah yeah, um, so yeah,
so ted's basically dead.
They basically just say ideasyou already know mostly now.
But yeah, I was looking aroundfor like because I'm such an
addict of new ideas.
I was like I just need to finda publication that just does new
ideas.
And, you know, the only thing Ican find is like science
(07:36):
journals, which of course, youknow it's new ideas because it's
like research, but there aren'tlike new for other things.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
It's very hard to find those.
Do you get to a manic statewhere you're running through the
halls and you're like new ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
New ideas and people are like.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Adam, I have this idea where I have it, and you're
like no, I've heard it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I've heard it.
I don't want it.
Yeah, it's old, I want new, new, new, I want more Right One of
the arguments that religiouspeople often kind of come down
to.
I think even if they don'treally believe sort of really
that God exists, they mightthink that God is like a good
(08:12):
fiction to have, because it'shard to think of how to be a
moral person or why you shouldbe a moral person for some
people without God.
Now, I think you and I wouldsay that's not actually that
convincing.
I'm a real person, because Idon't go around murdering people
(08:32):
, because I don't want to be amurderous asshole.
I don't need God to make me not.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
But a lot of people say that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
A lot of people say that.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, you're describing what's kind of like a
placebo deity, where you'rejust like I believe in an uber
parent who's going to punish meif I do wrong, and that keeps me
on the straight and narrow, ormaybe not even me maybe like
criminals and stuff, like hey,we need to punish criminals.
The royal.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
If we just say we're going to punish them because we
don't like them, that's not asconvincing as we're going to
punish you because an almightydeity says that the actions you
took are inherently against thedeity's laws.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Then you just get that begrudging like it's going
to hurt you more and it's goingto hurt me.
I'm not going to enjoy this,but I just have to for your own
good.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And also, what about on the positive sense?
What about times when the lawsare evil and you need to say I'm
going to break the lawsdeliberately because they're
evil, like races, like if youhad an apartheid South Africa
and you were like a religiousperson?
You could be like, no, you aredefying God's laws person.
You could be like, no, you aredefying God's laws.
Even if you didn't believe inGod.
(09:47):
You'd want something.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You'd want some grander arbiter of what was
moral than just what people hadagreed on, or some tyrant had
sort of said, is the law.
If I were to be and I'mprobably out of the age bracket
of this now, but if I were to beconscripted into military
service, at this point I feellike, even though I'm not a
believer of religious things, Ifeel like my first stop would be
like yeah, I can't go therebecause it's against my beliefs.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Conscientious objector yes, exactly, so this
is the story of my dad.
So my dad was a conscientiousobjector to Vietnam, okay, and
he got his full conscientiousobjector status, which was quite
rare at that moment.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It was like wait, that's only an official hold on.
Forgive my ignorance, oh yeah,objector isn't something that
you just self-label yourself asyou know, like I'm vegetarian
now, or what it's like anofficial you have?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
uh, it's an, it's an official status yeah, it's a
designation of the federalgovernment gives you and if, if
you have it, it's called your COstatus.
If you have your CO status,then you cannot be conscripted
in the military, but that youcan still be forced to do civil
service for two years or threeyears or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So, my dad which seems fair honestly, yeah, yeah,
so my dad and honestly, if I'mgoing to be conscripted which I
can sort of accept, a trade-offlike where they're like, yeah,
you get a lot from society,maybe give some back like and if
you're not going to voluntarily, let's make it mandatory at a
young age or whatever.
Yeah, I get that I just, thiswas just for the war, this was
(11:18):
just I'm like oh, but I'm like Idon't want to fight, I don't
want to shoot and violencepeople, but like I can shore up
and do home stuff and buildsandbags and keep places safe.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, and that's what my dad did.
So he did actually communityhealth work in Detroit, okay,
and his main job was theyactually gave him a car to drive
around.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Of course it's Detroit, which was great.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They've given everyone cars in Detroit, so he
got a car and his job was to goaround and give tuberculosis
medication to black people,essentially in the ghetto of
Detroit.
Wow which wasn't nearly as badas it was now.
I mean, the ghetto in the 60swas like a bunch of middle-class
families, sure, but now it's asort of segregated part of
(12:02):
Detroit.
Well, it wasn't legallysegregated, but you know.
No, I know they had itglomerated into one part of
Detroit, the black people what?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
In the 60s there was heavy racial segregation in
large cities.
I'm shocked, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So he would go around and give people medication and
then that's what made him wantto be a doctor.
So then he became a doctor afterthat, because of his community
health work that he did Anyways,like community health work that
he did anyways, and he became ajob.
And but here's the thing,here's the thing, the way he got
his co status was because hewasn't catholic anymore but he
had attended the seminary forhigh school and so he would, was
(12:34):
like on the track to being apriest, and then stopped and
kind of became a hippie and kindof lost, you know, lost
connection to the religion anddidn't really love christianity
very.
He was more of a Zen Buddhist,more of a kind of hippie.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Did he have long hair ?
Yeah, he had long hair.
I think he wore a leatherjacket.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, he wore a leather jacket with fringe on it
.
Okay, so hold on.
He made yogurt he made his ownyogurt, he's like I'm going to
be a priest man.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
He's like no, not a priest Got long hair.
I'm getting a leather jacket.
I'm moving to Detroit Rock City.
They're going to give me a bigold muscle car and I'm going to
drive drugs around in it.
Being the guy, I'm the candyman.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh, your dad was cool , he became a Detroit drug
dealer instead of going toVietnam.
But the point was, in order toget his VCO status, he kind of
cosplayed back as ahyper-religious Catholic and
then he wrote this wholedissertation on just war theory
using Thomas Aquinas, and he gota letter of recommendation from
one of his former colleagues atthe seminary who was then at
(13:36):
the Vatican.
So they sent on Vaticanstationery this letter of
recommendation that my dad wasthis, this total, you know, war,
anti-war, pacifist, catholic,yeah, and and then he got his co
status from that.
So he did exactly what youwould do, which is sort of you
know it seems like it should beeasier to get that official stat
(13:56):
hopefully like it's.
Not everybody has thoseconnections able to get it
really easy.
Of course, your dad is drdetroit, that's right.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Legacy, legacy legacy Driving through Detroit with
his shades on and his leatherjacket.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I was going to say I get it because I've been paying
dues at the Zen Center for seveneight years.
Oh, okay, so I'd be able to sayI'm a Buddhist Buddhist or
pacifist, so you can't make mego to war.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I have two cats.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But here's the thing.
Let's go back to the.
I don't do an ethic, an ethicaltheory that doesn't require god
in order to create, uh, ethicaloutcomes okay, and you know
we've talked about it before,but we're going to talk about it
again minimizing avoidablemisery, misandry, minimum
(14:41):
misaccordianism misaccordian.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Oh, I almost had.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It, misandry is the hatred of people why is that in
my brain?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Hatred of men.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Really Misericordia is to hate men.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Why do I know that word?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's like it's the opposite of.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Misericordianism.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, misericordianism.
So this is the idea.
So this idea comes from biology, from nature, from evolution,
and so, instead of having torely on like a deity that's
supernatural, you just can.
Actually, you can show thathuman beings are actually wired
(15:16):
by nature.
It's our nature to try to beinstinctually motivated to
reduce avoidable misery, andthere's caveats to that.
What does it mean to be anavoidable misery versus an
unavoidable one?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Right, what's misery versus, just like you know,
difficulty, you know, is it isit misery?
To do exercise every day, whichis for my overall general
health, or is that not?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
you know Right, Right , and is it, and is it also like
you know?
You might say you know what isavoid is avoidable right, like
what is a necessary suffering,what is what is unavoidable
suffering.
And is that really?
Can we really be sure of that?
And you know there's a lot ofuncertainty because we're
uncertain beings, right, we'rebeings with limited knowledge
(16:02):
and with bounded rationality andwith cognitive biases that, in
a snap decision, will influenceour perceptions Finite time span
within which to operate Right,and so we have to make decisions
on timelines that are not ofour choosing.
And so there's all these whatare called epistemics, all these
epistemic problems, but you cankind of separate those from the
(16:25):
question of, well, what's theactual moral thing to do, and
then you can say, well, that'skind of clouded by better and
worse epistemics.
Right, if you know all thecircumstances, you know all the
conditions, you can perfectlypredict the future, then you're
going to make a better decision,but there won't be a debate
about what's actually moral.
Anyways, the reason why I thinkthis is the case is because of
evolution, which, again,evolution, not God, right, this
(16:49):
does not require any kind ofsupernatural being, nor does it
require any kind of weird, likeyou know, sort of theoretical,
philosophical thing that youhave to sort of believe, kind of
on faith.
Like, for example, kant alsotried to create an ethical
theory to replace God, so thatyou didn't need God and you
(17:09):
could still have ethicaldecisions.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And that was called, as you know, Kant's famous
theory no, that was Jesus, thatwas God.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The golden, the.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Kantan rule.
The Kantan rule, yeah, no, itwas called the categorical
imperative.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's my next guess.
Yeah, it's the CI.
Cut me off the.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
CI, the rule.
Yeah, no, it's called thecategorical imperative.
That's what?
That's my next guess yes, theci off the ci, the categorical
imperative, okay, which which wedon't necessarily need to get
into, but it was an inherentlylogical.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So he used logic, or what he would call pure reason
or just logic yes in order toderive this theory of behavior
from logic, and he tried to kindof treat logic, as that makes
sense, we have to have an agreedupon set of rules in order to
interact with each other incertain well, that's that's
what's called contractualism.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Okay, so what you just described is contractualism
.
We must have sort of rules thatwe use to kind of you know,
interact with each other.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
That's what, and therefore good and evil comes
from those contracts.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But then, what about evil contracts?
What about evil laws?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
you know, how do you?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
how do you find out if a law is?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
evil if you're always bound by the contracts that
you're in a lot of things feellike, a lot of ethics feel like.
To me, they evolve naturallyjust from like practice, like
you're like, oh, I don't.
I like the freedom to havethings and leave them here and
then be able to go out and nothave everything that I own with
me at all times.
Other people also enjoy that,and so we agree with each other
(18:37):
that stealing is wrong, becausethe alternative is I have to
carry everything with me all thetime.
Because if I drop anythingAlthough you're pretty strong,
scott If I drop, anything andleave it, and someone else comes
along and stealing is not wrong, they can just take it and go.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And I'm like, okay, I understand that, so I don't
have to push around a cart witheverything.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
But the problem is, if you really just are a pure
contractualist, then we can alljust contract to have slavery be
legal, and now we have slavesand there's nothing wrong with
that because it's legal, becauseit's in the contract, and
that's a problem because thereare things that are legal that
(19:15):
people still consider wrong andthere are things that are not
illegal that are still peopleconsider wrong as well.
Even if you don't have a lawagainst certain things, people
still think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
We can't contract a bunch of people into slavery
without completely the we in.
That needs to be everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So you can't put a section of your we I don't know
Right, but now you're startingto do non-contractual things,
like treating human beings ashaving some kind of inherent
value or some kind of inherentmoral worth or autonomy,
although that's not contractual.
Now you're starting to take akind of you know, it's a diff,
that's another theory, but itfeels natural.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Like I would I treat others with some sort of
inherent moral worth because Iwant to be treated with.
I extend the behaviors.
I'm an animal right.
I extend the behaviors I wantto be treated with.
I extend the behaviors.
I'm an animal right.
I extend the behaviors I wantto receive.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Well, that's the golden rule right there.
Yeah, I do unto others, butthat's just.
That's also behavioralism, butthe problem is animals stuff no
animals just take what they needand kill things and they don't
care.
Like my cat just rips, you know.
If a bug gets in the house hejust rips it to shreds and like
eats it for fun.
You know animals, just you knowthey are kind of kind to their
(20:34):
own kin.
That's what I'm thinking Like totheir own kind, but not to
anything else, not to any otherbeing Sounds like, kind of
sounds like humans, I mean no,no, human beings are quite
interesting that way.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
That's what I we're kind of like cats and dogs, but
we are rough on pigs and cows.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Well, more or less, More or less.
Well, I think this gets intothe question of unavoidability
right.
I think we say it's not nice tobe a butcher, but then people
think but we really got to eatand people are going gonna eat
meat because it's an extremelyenergy dense it's like the most
energy dense form of food inexistence right, and so people
(21:13):
are gonna eat.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Someone who can, you know, operate?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
so somebody's got to do that you know and so it
becomes a kind of unavoidable.
Now if tomorrow you said wehave lab-grown meat and it costs
exactly the same and it doesn'tkill animals, a a lot of people
would be like that's better, Imean if it literally was
indistinguishable they wouldjust say immediately yeah, let's
do lab-grown meat.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Would you eat lab-grown human meat?
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I was just listening to a podcast about this earlier
this morning.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I don't think I would because?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
well, because you have to think of the downstream
effects, right?
So if I'm eating human,lab-grown meat and then other
people know that there's allkinds of risks to my status, but
I mean, it doesn't actuallymatter, right, it's just
proteins and if it was lab-grown, it doesn't matter at all, but
it would have all theseconnotations that would have
negative effects.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So I wouldn't do it for that reason.
That's what they were talking.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
They were also like.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I worry about weakening the barrier between
that taboo right, making it soit's not weak in the cannibalism
taboo.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Sure, let's soften that a little bit.
If there's one thing we need tosoften in the world, it's not
racism or you know these things,it's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It's the cannibalism taboo the state has been
controlling us too long yeah,the deep state keeping us back,
keeping us from eating people.
Come on, here we go.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Solution for today.
Scott, uh-oh cannibalism no,what?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
no?
Really glad we are in separatecities, right did you hear about
the cannibal he?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
he passed his brother in the woods oh my god wow, um
so cannibalism, jokes, you knowjokes.
So here's the argument for whyleast avoidable misery is
(22:58):
stronger than Kant's thing,which is like this logical thing
that I don't think is verycredible Right or other sort of
theories like contractualism,which we already saw is
problematic because we cancontract anything.
The golden rule is problematicbecause actually what we want
for ourselves is not what otherpeople want for themselves and
therefore actually we shouldn'tuse ourself as a measure.
That's not actually right.
We should use other people as ameasure.
We should say what do you wantand then provide them that right
(23:19):
it should be.
The what's called the platinumrule is superior to the golden
rule, so like the golden rule isnot great, platinum rule is
pretty good, but we'll get.
I think the platinum rule iscoincident with this idea of
misericordianism.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Well, what other thing is coming to mind that
falls in with this?
Is the Hippocratic Oath.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
The first do no harm.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Which is like not focused that's more the intent
than the impact where it's likeharm could happen, obviously,
but I'm trying not to yeah.
But the problem is what?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
about when you do need to do harm in order to make
the best outcome still occur,the least miserable outcome
still occur.
You need to do some deliberateharm.
Trolley problem.
Trolley problem or abortion forthe life of the mother.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
There's lots of examples.
Sure, let's make it way lesstheoretical.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, I mean, that's not theoretical, that's true,
yeah, that's like what peoplefight about now, right on the
laws are fighting about this.
But yeah, if you think, well,the mother's going to die or the
baby's going to die and it's aneither-or case and it really is
either-or, it's not like someimaginary, maybe trolley problem
, like it really is.
People are like, well, we don'tknow the baby, we do know the
(24:31):
mom, you know that's a lot youknow um, and so there's more
suffering involved in the inthat anyways complicated issue.
But but it does come down.
Yet at some point you have toface these really complicated um
and and and fraud issues andpeople won't necessarily all
agree, but you, you have to sortof, but you have to see whether
you can make a better case.
(24:51):
But let's get back to thebiology of it.
So why would it be our instinctto reduce avoidable misery?
I think it's very easy forpeople to say no, our instinct
is to be selfish jerks.
That's our instinct.
And actually it's only societyand maybe our contracts and you
know things like and fear ofpunishment that actually make us
behave well or something.
(25:12):
But that's that's not true.
Though that's not true if, ifeveryone was just behaving well
because of fear of punishment,we would, a society would like
immediately grind to a halt,right, right, because it's too
expensive to police everyone,every single person would be
like need another person to be apoliceman, to like watch them,
otherwise they would justconstantly, you know, cheat and
(25:34):
fraud and steal and kill and anddo stuff for their own
self-interest sure, and I thinkthat there's some degree of that
, that, would you know, there'ssome degree of shenanigans that
happen, but some of it is justthwarted by our natural wanting
to not do bad things to eachother.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
To a degree, you know what I mean.
We just have a naturalinclination.
There is one, I think, so, Ithink humans have empathy, and
empathy lets us see ourselves inthe other person, and that's
why it's so frustrating whenpeople draw racial lines or they
(26:13):
otherize other groups becausethey're like ah, I can now
figure out a way to feel lessempathy toward these people
because I feel like they lookless like me, so therefore they
are less like me, so you'resaying empathy, but remember
psychopaths total psychopathsare extremely empathetic.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
They know exactly what their victims are thinking
and feeling and then use that tomanipulate them and kill them
and take advantage of them.
So actually empathy itself notactually a moral thing that
doesn't lead to greater moralbehavior or is kind of some
impetus to moral behavior.
You need something in additionto empathy in order to make it
(26:54):
actually moral.
And actually you don't needempathy if you have this other
thing, which is what I callmisericordia, misericordia, the
urge, the feeling of distress atthe distress of others.
You feel distress.
It's like distress others, youfeel distress, it's like
distress resonance.
You feel distress becausethey're distressed.
Okay, so here's where it comesfrom in nature, and we already
talked about it a little bit.
(27:15):
Animals feel it for their youngand their kin.
This is well documented.
This is called the Hamiltonrule.
The Hamilton rule says that innature I would die.
Any animal would would.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
The joke is I would die for eight of my cousins or
three of my brothers day but youhave to say it like a snappy
rhythm, right, if it's theHamilton rule, I would die for
eight of my cousins, three of mybrothers.
Yeah, there you go, it's adifferent him.
Fine, it's a biological ethicalrule, but so this guy Hamilton
(27:50):
I'm just trying to make you abillion dollars, sorry.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He figured out that animals show concern.
They will take sacrificial,risky behavior in proportion to
the blood, the thickness of theblood they share with another
animal.
So if it's like your brother,you'll take way riskier
behaviors to help the brother.
But if your cousin, you'll takeway less risky behaviors.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
This is true, I mean in my real life.
I would also think this checksout.
You know what I mean as humans.
Yeah, blood is thicker thanwater, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
But for animals it's like this is the law of the
jungle, this is the reality.
But with humans it seems likewe evolved to have this misery,
for the misery of others, toextend beyond our kin.
Sure, to have a mind we havesome sense of, we should.
(28:48):
If it's no risk to us, or ifit's a proportional risk to us,
we should do what we can.
So this kin relationship, thiskin genetic relationship, should
be extended.
Human beings, extend it out toall, all beings, not just to our
(29:10):
kin you Sorry, my cat Corn Dogwas getting into a bag that had
food that's in plasticcontainers, but apparently not
(29:32):
strong enough.
Strong enough.
Corn Dog has powers.
He's very good.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
The way we can illustrate this is there's a
classic ethical scenario, whichis the drowning child scenario.
You ask a group of people oranybody Would you like to?
Drown a child.
If you had the option ofdrowning a child and then
cannibalizing them, what wouldyou decide?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
to do.
Oh, that's the famous policetest where you go would you like
to drown a child.
They say, yes, you go.
Now we are arresting you.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Oh my God, that's entrapment so most people who
you ask that they'll say I wouldhelp the child.
I would jump in the water andhelp the child, even if it would
hurt.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You know, destroy my expensive shoes, ruin my
expensive clothes even if itwould destroy your expensive
shoes, you would save your childbecause you say it's worth.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You know, your shoes are 500 bucks, your suits,
without you know, 2 000 bucks.
You got 25 bucks for theclothes and you're on your way
to a job interview.
If you jump in the water,you're not going to make your
job interview.
You're probably going to getthe job.
It means you're going to be outa few months salary because you
got to keep looking for anotherjob yeah, plus you're wearing
five grand and apparently you'redoing okay in your previous job
because you're wearing somesnazzy outfits.
(30:45):
Well, you try to keep it.
The reason why you keep that,the reason why you keep that
dollar amount kind of increasing, is because then you turn it
around on people and say, well,why don't you make a two
thousand dollar donation todayto unicef?
It'll save two or three kidslives.
Oh, and they go and they andthey back away and they go.
Well, I don't know.
(31:05):
But you say if the kid wasright there and you were there,
and they were there and youcould do something, then people
are like I would just do it, I'ddo whatever it takes.
Yeah, when you're like.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Is someone going to whip out their phone and video
me making a donation to UNICEFand is that going to be on the
evening news and make me like areally cool person?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You think they're thinking that no, people don't
say that they like a really coolperson.
You think they're thinking thatno, people don't say that they
don't say I would do thisbecause I would look cool.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well, the sociopaths do, but most people don't.
Oh, whoops, Scott's outingyourself as a total sociopath.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You're the opposite of a sociopath.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
No, when I see a drowning child, my first step is
I go hey, everybody come herecome, chill out, dude, I'll be
there, just do something foryourself.
And then I gather the group,and then I dive in and make
myself a hero.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So people would jump in and save this kid.
But if you took any animal inthat situation it would just
chew its cud and look out at youat the ground.
Maybe a dog that was connectedto your family and perceived
your family as part of its kinmight try to help and you see
videos like that online andstuff right.
But if you just had some animalthat had nothing to do with you
, it would not give.
It would no give no.
(32:15):
But a human would care if it'sa child, even if it was an
animal struggling out in therethe human might throw, throw a
stick out or try to do somethingto help the animal.
you know so.
And so humans have this thingthat other animals don't have,
which is this urgency, thispanic that other animals only
have for their kin's well-being.
Humans have for not only ourkin but other humans, and not
(32:35):
only other humans but otheranimals, and not only animals
but for even abstract beingslike nature or the souls of our
ancestors or our souls afterdeath.
If we believe that our soulsafter death have a mind and will
experience suffering, we willtake actions today to try to
prevent that suffering of oursoul after death.
(32:56):
It's very strange but we dothat.
We have this panic instinct forreducing suffering.
So it's upon this instinct thatyou can base, and we should
base, morality this is morality,this is the basis of morality,
is this instinct to prevent andameliorate avoidable misery for
all beings with a mind, whichincludes ourselves.
So we also try to avoid miseryfor ourselves and for others.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Anyways.
So why has this evolved?
Why did human beings evolve tohave this?
Well, it goes back to why didhuman beings evolve to have this
?
Well, it goes back toproto-homos, Proto-homos.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
The proto-homos.
Hey, the proto-homos, okay.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
So there was the homo sapiens.
That's just one species of thehomo genus, right, Right.
So there were these homoerectus homo, you know,
astropithecus.
There was all these homo genusspecies, monkeys who were
hanging around in the RiftValley in Africa.
Dr Justin Marchegiani Are thesedifferent than Neanderthals?
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Are those a different….
Dr Tim Jackson, neanderthals, Ithink, are also part of the
same genus.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
They're a branch of the homo genus.
So all these different homoswere walking around and what was
happening was there was theRift Valley in Africa had what's
called.
This is called the climatepulse theory of human evolution,
okay, which I'm sure you'refamiliar with.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Of course, of course.
So basically there was climatechange over tens of thousands of
years.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Oh, you're going to keep talking about that.
Yeah, so these pulses wouldtake this very rich, fecund,
plentiful area of the RiftValley, which is currently
Tanzania and Kenya, and up intoEthiopia and Egypt and stuff.
That's all the Rift Valley.
I don't think it actually goesthat far north, but Kenya and
Tanzania, northern Tanzania,southern Kenya Am I doing my
(34:45):
geography right?
Anyways, that area, especiallyTanzania, that's where homo
sapiens and a lot of homo genusspecies evolved.
It was partly because peoplebelieve it was because the
climate changed and we go fromwet, plentiful to dry savanna
with not plentiful resources,and so the humans would evolve
(35:06):
different strategies to survivebetter whenever that pulse would
happen, down to more scarcityand then, as it pulsed, more
plentiful, whatever, there wasfewer pressures on humans, and
then it would pulse Anyways.
So one of these pulses producedHomo sapiens, who do this
(35:30):
cooperation really well.
We cooperate incredibly well,and this cooperation, I think,
goes back to this instinct toavoid the least avoidable misery
for everyone through what'scalled the prisoner's dilemma.
Have you heard of theprisoner's dilemma?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I have called the prisoner's dilemma.
Have you heard of the?
Speaker 2 (35:47):
prisoner's dilemma I have.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
This is where we separate two people and we have
them each.
We have them each.
We tell them that the otherperson is going to crack first,
right or right?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
they're arrested for a crime.
You've both been arrested.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I'm going to go easy on whoever gives up the
information first, then thenyou'll get to get off.
But if you don't confess, andso, they both get off if neither
one of them talk, but the ideais one of them will talk and you
know that your other personwill talk, so you want to talk
first, because that will get youright if you talk first and
(36:22):
they don't.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
If you confess and they don't, you get off.
If, if you both confess, youboth get the worst case, you
both get 10 years in prison.
If both of you don't you getoff.
If, if you both confess, youboth get the worst case, you
both get 10 years in prison.
If both of you don't confess,you each get one year in prison.
So it's like the total is less,but you still have to go to
prison for a year.
So the idea is the prisonersmight both confess because and
then they both get the worstcase scenario right, right.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So this is if they were in the same room together,
if they could communicate roomtogether.
They would not turn on eachother and they would just both
go.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, neither one of us is talking, we're both safe,
right, but separating would makesome of the doubt this is the
key thing for cooperation is theability to collaborate without
having deep ties and connectionswith each other.
Right, so you can collaboratein group, you can connect and
collaborate with people, youknow.
But the real advantage is toconnect and collaborate with
other groups and with nature andwith like entities, like
(37:14):
animals, like entities aroundyou that you can collaborate
with.
That's like hyper, hyper.
Advantageous dilemma is what'scalled the closed bag exchange.
Same exact setup.
You have the drugs, they havethe money, you you're going to
do a closed bag exchange youcould put in, you could put
bricks in yours and they couldput bricks in their bag and you
(37:35):
could both screw each otherright, or you could both
cooperate and now both of youget.
You know, one gets the money,one gets the drugs and you could
keep trading and it's better,right.
So the closed bag exchange isthe same as the prisoner's
dilemma, except for it modelsexactly cooperation.
Okay, if you take a human andyou say if you take a being, an
(37:55):
animal, and you say this animalhas the instinct to reduce
avoidable misery that it's awareof, it will more often than not
do the prisoner's dilemma.
It will do the closed bagexchange.
It'll cooperate without theneed of communication.
Okay, it will do the closed-bagexchange.
It'll cooperate without theneed of communication because it
will identify I'm going to actin such a way that leads to the
least avoidable misery foreveryone.
(38:16):
And so that instinct enhancescooperation.
And cooperation, especiallybetween people who can't talk,
is enormously evolutionarilyadvantageous for this early homo
genus, this homo sapien genus.
Probably other homo genuses hadthis a little bit too, but it
(38:36):
seems like homo sapiens had it,maybe more than other ones.
So this is why we can say Godis dead.
Sorry, sorry everybody, but weactually don't need a sort of
fictional God and we don't needto believe in God to still have
a very strong moral theory morallaw moral compass, and that
(39:02):
moral compass can be basedentirely on our own evolved
natures, which is to reduceavoidable misery for every being
that has a mind that makessense there you go.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I like it no ethics without yeah, without the, uh,
the deity top dog involved.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, people often say why?
How well, evolution.
If evolution is all there is,how can we have right and wrong?
How can we have a moral law?
People often say that here itis.
Yeah, that's a very commonargument.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I don't find that to be a puzzling part.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, I think it's because evolution is considered
to be the law of the jungle,right?
Anybody just kills anybody else, and whoever survives survives.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's what people think of Darwinian evolution
right, I guess, but I'm a beingand I've existed and I've never
felt the need to kill and bekilled.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You know like to live in that way that seems like
fiction to me, but people wouldsay that's because of society.
Society's created an unnaturalenvironment around you.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Sure, maybe it is, but it makes it very easy for me
to suss out the idea thatethics aren't coming from a
magical place, that they're justlike natural.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Well, but wait a second.
If it's coming from society,then it's not natural, right.
It's like riding a bicycle ortaking a phone call is not
natural, or is building societyas part of our natural
inclination?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Is it all natural?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Yeah, are we able to do things that are natural?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or society is an emergent property of a natural
instinct.
And then you know, I think itkind of outgrowths from our,
from our particular humaninclinations.
You know, we're not.
We're not like oh man, we keptbuilding another city, shoot.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
It's like yeah, that seems to be what we're drawn to
do, like we seem to do that, atleast right now so there you go,
all you, all you atheists outthere, yes, or theists, it's
okay, you know, if you're atheist and you believe in god,
or if you're eighths, if you, ifyou, if you want to believe in
god still and you like this,well, you probably have to still
square evolution so you'regiving people god if you can say
(41:01):
they want to believe in god'sskill.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Still you get permission.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
You can because you can say evolution made us
compassionate and that's whatGod intended was for humans to
be compassionate, so that Jesuswas compassionate Without that
there's all sorts of words youcould use Without that then
Jesus wouldn't have been-.
If we had been sharks, thenJesus would have never been
compassionate.
He would have never givenhimself to save everyone,
(41:24):
whatever.
All the Christian dogma wouldhave never occurred because he
would have been a shark.
We would have been smooth ashell dude Sharks just kill.
They're murderers, they don'tcare.
Instead, he needed acompassionate great ape, and so
evolution.
God did it.
So evolution would make acompassionate great ape, which?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
is the human being.
There we are, so there's theother side.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Anyways that's the solution.
If anybody wants a littletheology, slash ethics.
Rework your ethics from theground up and you can read my
book the Future of Good whichtalks all about this, and I talk
about the neurobiology of howthis all works and how it
evolved through the amygdala,and I cite all the research
around the amygdala andpsychopaths who have repressed
(42:07):
amygdalas is evidence that thisis really the way it works.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Now you found out your psychopath information by
going and interviewing HannibalLecter, style like going to a
room with crazy leather facemasks.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, actually, the research, a lot of it comes from
Madison, wisconsin, uw-madison.
There's.
A lot of it comes from madison,wisconsin, uw, madison, there's
a lot of psychopath research.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Maybe it's because they have that murder lake that
they're, that their city issurrounded by, where people kill
each other in the moat every sooften that's.
I don't know what that is, butsounds like that might be the
cause so yeah, well, cool, allright thanks god for putting up
with my philosophical ramblings,but I thought it was ethical of
(42:51):
me to do it was compassionate,that's deeply compassionate.
I was my, uh, that was my wayof oh, I don't know how to good
deed, my good day.
I was avoiding yourmisericordianism.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yes, misericordian, yes, there we are it would have
caused me so much suffering foryou to be like.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I didn't want to do that.
I can't put up with this crap.
Can I just say?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
you're welcome.
Thank you, all right, and thankyou everyone for hanging around
.
That's right, enjoy theSolution.
Never before heard of Theory ofEthics.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Indeed.
See you again next time.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye, bye, thank you.
You don't have to have a solution yet.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I mean it takes, oh yeah, why not?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, we have to talk first.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Oh, but I mean I got to be full banter focused.
I can't be like.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You can't half banter , I can't half banter.
You don't do hanter.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I don't want to half-ass my banter.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
What's the worst that could happen in a half-ass
banter situation, you think?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I get canceled Right.
I mean, that's the worst caseyou banter yourself right off a
cliff.
Right yeah.
You're just like I'm like, well, let me tell you, but your,
brain is just like chainingwords together, and here are
some controversial opinionsabout things.
Oh no, what have I done?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What have I done?
All right, I'll let you focus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Do you think that with cancel culture, there's
like a?
Do you know, lapelle de Voie?
Have you heard of this, lapellede Voie?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
No, I don't know this one.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Lapelle de Voie.
It's a French phrase that meansthe call of the void.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And what it means is, when you're walking along a
cliff, you get this weirdfeeling that you just should
throw yourself off the cliff.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Lemming disease.
You suddenly get infected withlemming disease.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, that's called Le Pelle Du Void.
So now that cancel culture, youcan basically ruin your entire
reputation by just saying wordsthat come out of your mouth hole
In a way.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
we constantly have this lapel de voie around us
everybody do you think there'ssuch a thing as cancel cultural
appropriation?
Cancel cultural appropriationwhat?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
does that look like?
What is that?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I don't know, I'm just trying to smush words
together and see what that wouldbe cancel cultural
appropriation.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So that's like.
So I like appropriate someoneelse's.
Cancel culture.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah yeah, so so you're offended on behalf of
someone else?
I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I mean, I've heard of people talk about that.
Like you, you know what youknow.
Oh, that's, that's you know.
Like, imagine two white peopleand then one white person's like
uh, you're, you're beinginsulting, you're being
offensive to latinos and it'slike there's no latinos here.
Right, it's like, but youshould right you know.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So is that, is that a ?
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
permissive thing or not?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
yeah, right, right that's a good name for it,
though you can because, thenbecause then the other one, the
other one person can be likewell, you're practicing cultural
cancel, cultural appropriation.
And then the first person wouldbe like, completely lost they'd
be like I don't know, I don'tknow, I don't know what I do.
Am I being bad?
I don't understand which sideof this thing is supposed to be
(02:32):
the side of anything and thenit's just two confused white
people right standing aroundtalking, for they just shouldn't
be talking well, and then youjust tweak.
you tweak their nose, you grabtheir wallet, you gotcha and you
run away the other directionwhile they're confused.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Gotcha yeah, oh God.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Just scamper off with a few bills.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'm going to take those dollar, dollar bills,
y'all.
Is that cultural appropriation?
What I just did there?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I don't know, but I feel like I need to cancel
cultural appropriation yeah, youare about to cancel cultural
appropriation?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You are about to cancel cultural appropriation.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm just like how do I sign off of that?
Let me Google how to sign offof a Zoom call permanently so it
never comes back.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
What do I?
I like to mix up the solutionsso that they're not all Like we
did a climate solution.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like a chemist, you like to mix up solutions that's,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And then they all turn purple and green.
So I don't like to all like.
What have we done recently?
We did like we did a smatteringof things we did diet.
Uh-huh, it's like a mental youhad, uh, you had a demented
shirt design idea oh, oh, by theway, I've taken that to a
tailor.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Oh, by the way, you sent me pictures of one that you
made, yep, and it was prettyinteresting Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It was remarkably easy to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
When you were explaining it to the tailor,
were they cutting you off Likeyeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So I didn't make the little Caesar and I didn't make
the Pharaoh, I made the muscleshirt, the most sort of simple
one, the Batman the flap.
And all I had to do I didn'teven use a flap.
All I had to do was cut awaycloth and then reattach it, like
on the front of the shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
shirt so the for listeners.
We're talking about an episode,maybe three or four back where
yeah solving sweat about how youcan affect climate change with
doing less laundry, with adifferent design of a shirt.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, all that makes perfect
sense, of course, but of courseyou'll have to go back, but
anyways I will have that, uh,today.
It's done today, yes, so I willgo and get it after we're done
recording and then I will beable to wear it to our next
episode.
I'm going to give him two moreshirts and be like okay, that
was V1, v0.
(04:54):
Here's two more shirts I'll pay.
He's charging me 25 bucks ashirt, so it's kind of an
investment, but I'm willing topay 200 bucks for this idea,
right?
Okay, okay to pay 200 bucks forthis idea, right, okay, okay.
So I so I'm gonna give them twomore shirts 50 bucks and and
I'm gonna say okay, you did thefirst one and we're gonna try it
on and it's like well, is itwork?
You know what can we makebetter?
Here's two more shirts.
Make another one better, comeback, try on again.
(05:15):
Okay, make a third one, and thethird one is gonna be like a
grand slam.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I'm convinced it's gonna be like a total iteration.
You're all about iteration.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then I told him yeah and then I told him I'm
gonna bring all the rest of myshirts and he can just alter
them all to be like this,because this is exactly what I
want, you know he's just sittingat night and his family's like,
what are you doing?
And he's like, ah, there's thisweird guy this guy, well, the
tailor, so I mean he must havehe must have crazy armpits
(05:44):
because he does not want anyfabric touching him does not he?
maybe I could say I'm allergicto cotton, and then the rest of
your body yeah, he's like.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You don't like have vampire burning going on on your
back there, homie my whole bodywould be covered in hives,
right.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I'd have to wear like wool and I guess if you were
allergic to cotton you'd wearsilk and wool and stuff.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You said your idea was children's bill of rights.
You had an idea for morecathedrals.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You had an idea, oh, yeah, we did a bunch of little
ones.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah so we've got a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, I've got.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, I think you're not a huge God fan, so I've got
one that goes with.
I'm not a huge.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
God fan Yep, and me neither, me neither.
And so I've got one that goesalong with that.
I've got one that I've got agood atheist idea.
Oh, okay, okay, a big one.
So most people say one of thebiggest problems with Should we
start, should I do?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
it Sure.
Is it?
Should I do it Sure?
Welcome to Solutions from the.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Multiverse.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I'm Scott Maupin.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My name's Adam Browse and we come to you every week
here for a little chat where wetalk about a new idea from.
Adam's bag of tricks.
Yeah, I'm a professor, scott'sa comedian and we just keep it
light and have fun and talkabout totally new ideas which
I've found.
There's like nowhere you canfind new ideas.
There's no like dedicated.
There used to be ted, ted usedto be.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know, you want new ideas ted dead, ted is dead,
that's dead.
Baby, oh baby ted's dead.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Ted's dead pulp fiction yeah yeah, um, so yeah,
so ted's basically dead.
They basically just say ideasyou already know mostly now.
But yeah, I was looking aroundfor like because I'm such an
addict of new ideas.
I was like I just need to finda publication that just does new
ideas.
And, you know, the only thing Ican find is like science
(07:36):
journals, which of course, youknow it's new ideas because it's
like research, but there aren'tlike new for other things.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
It's very hard to find those.
Do you get to a manic statewhere you're running through the
halls and you're like new ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
New ideas and people are like.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Adam, I have this idea where I have it, and you're
like no, I've heard it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I've heard it.
I don't want it.
Yeah, it's old, I want new, new, new, I want more Right One of
the arguments that religiouspeople often kind of come down
to.
I think even if they don'treally believe sort of really
that God exists, they mightthink that God is like a good
(08:12):
fiction to have, because it'shard to think of how to be a
moral person or why you shouldbe a moral person for some
people without God.
Now, I think you and I wouldsay that's not actually that
convincing.
I'm a real person, because Idon't go around murdering people
(08:32):
, because I don't want to be amurderous asshole.
I don't need God to make me not.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
But a lot of people say that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
A lot of people say that.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, you're describing what's kind of like a
placebo deity, where you'rejust like I believe in an uber
parent who's going to punish meif I do wrong, and that keeps me
on the straight and narrow, ormaybe not even me maybe like
criminals and stuff, like hey,we need to punish criminals.
The royal.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
If we just say we're going to punish them because we
don't like them, that's not asconvincing as we're going to
punish you because an almightydeity says that the actions you
took are inherently against thedeity's laws.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Then you just get that begrudging like it's going
to hurt you more and it's goingto hurt me.
I'm not going to enjoy this,but I just have to for your own
good.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And also, what about on the positive sense?
What about times when the lawsare evil and you need to say I'm
going to break the lawsdeliberately because they're
evil, like races, like if youhad an apartheid South Africa
and you were like a religiousperson?
You could be like, no, you aredefying God's laws person.
You could be like, no, you aredefying God's laws.
Even if you didn't believe inGod.
(09:47):
You'd want something.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You'd want some grander arbiter of what was
moral than just what people hadagreed on, or some tyrant had
sort of said, is the law.
If I were to be and I'mprobably out of the age bracket
of this now, but if I were to beconscripted into military
service, at this point I feellike, even though I'm not a
believer of religious things, Ifeel like my first stop would be
like yeah, I can't go therebecause it's against my beliefs.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Conscientious objector yes, exactly, so this
is the story of my dad.
So my dad was a conscientiousobjector to Vietnam, okay, and
he got his full conscientiousobjector status, which was quite
rare at that moment.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It was like wait, that's only an official hold on.
Forgive my ignorance, oh yeah,objector isn't something that
you just self-label yourself asyou know, like I'm vegetarian
now, or what it's like anofficial you have?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
uh, it's an, it's an official status yeah, it's a
designation of the federalgovernment gives you and if, if
you have it, it's called your COstatus.
If you have your CO status,then you cannot be conscripted
in the military, but that youcan still be forced to do civil
service for two years or threeyears or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So, my dad which seems fair honestly, yeah, yeah,
so my dad and honestly, if I'mgoing to be conscripted which I
can sort of accept, a trade-offlike where they're like, yeah,
you get a lot from society,maybe give some back like and if
you're not going to voluntarily, let's make it mandatory at a
young age or whatever.
Yeah, I get that I just, thiswas just for the war, this was
(11:18):
just I'm like oh, but I'm like Idon't want to fight, I don't
want to shoot and violencepeople, but like I can shore up
and do home stuff and buildsandbags and keep places safe.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, and that's what my dad did.
So he did actually communityhealth work in Detroit, okay,
and his main job was theyactually gave him a car to drive
around.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Of course it's Detroit, which was great.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They've given everyone cars in Detroit, so he
got a car and his job was to goaround and give tuberculosis
medication to black people,essentially in the ghetto of
Detroit.
Wow which wasn't nearly as badas it was now.
I mean, the ghetto in the 60swas like a bunch of middle-class
families, sure, but now it's asort of segregated part of
(12:02):
Detroit.
Well, it wasn't legallysegregated, but you know.
No, I know they had itglomerated into one part of
Detroit, the black people what?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
In the 60s there was heavy racial segregation in
large cities.
I'm shocked, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So he would go around and give people medication and
then that's what made him wantto be a doctor.
So then he became a doctor afterthat, because of his community
health work that he did Anyways,like community health work that
he did anyways, and he became ajob.
And but here's the thing,here's the thing, the way he got
his co status was because hewasn't catholic anymore but he
had attended the seminary forhigh school and so he would, was
(12:34):
like on the track to being apriest, and then stopped and
kind of became a hippie and kindof lost, you know, lost
connection to the religion anddidn't really love christianity
very.
He was more of a Zen Buddhist,more of a kind of hippie.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Did he have long hair ?
Yeah, he had long hair.
I think he wore a leatherjacket.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, he wore a leather jacket with fringe on it
.
Okay, so hold on.
He made yogurt he made his ownyogurt, he's like I'm going to
be a priest man.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
He's like no, not a priest Got long hair.
I'm getting a leather jacket.
I'm moving to Detroit Rock City.
They're going to give me a bigold muscle car and I'm going to
drive drugs around in it.
Being the guy, I'm the candyman.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh, your dad was cool , he became a Detroit drug
dealer instead of going toVietnam.
But the point was, in order toget his VCO status, he kind of
cosplayed back as ahyper-religious Catholic and
then he wrote this wholedissertation on just war theory
using Thomas Aquinas, and he gota letter of recommendation from
one of his former colleagues atthe seminary who was then at
(13:36):
the Vatican.
So they sent on Vaticanstationery this letter of
recommendation that my dad wasthis, this total, you know, war,
anti-war, pacifist, catholic,yeah, and and then he got his co
status from that.
So he did exactly what youwould do, which is sort of you
know it seems like it should beeasier to get that official stat
(13:56):
hopefully like it's.
Not everybody has thoseconnections able to get it
really easy.
Of course, your dad is drdetroit, that's right.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Legacy, legacy legacy Driving through Detroit with
his shades on and his leatherjacket.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I was going to say I get it because I've been paying
dues at the Zen Center for seveneight years.
Oh, okay, so I'd be able to sayI'm a Buddhist Buddhist or
pacifist, so you can't make mego to war.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I have two cats.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But here's the thing.
Let's go back to the.
I don't do an ethic, an ethicaltheory that doesn't require god
in order to create, uh, ethicaloutcomes okay, and you know
we've talked about it before,but we're going to talk about it
again minimizing avoidablemisery, misandry, minimum
(14:41):
misaccordianism misaccordian.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Oh, I almost had.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It, misandry is the hatred of people why is that in
my brain?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Hatred of men.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Really Misericordia is to hate men.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Why do I know that word?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's like it's the opposite of.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Misericordianism.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, misericordianism.
So this is the idea.
So this idea comes from biology, from nature, from evolution,
and so, instead of having torely on like a deity that's
supernatural, you just can.
Actually, you can show thathuman beings are actually wired
(15:16):
by nature.
It's our nature to try to beinstinctually motivated to
reduce avoidable misery, andthere's caveats to that.
What does it mean to be anavoidable misery versus an
unavoidable one?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Right, what's misery versus, just like you know,
difficulty, you know, is it isit misery?
To do exercise every day, whichis for my overall general
health, or is that not?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
you know Right, Right , and is it, and is it also like
you know?
You might say you know what isavoid is avoidable right, like
what is a necessary suffering,what is what is unavoidable
suffering.
And is that really?
Can we really be sure of that?
And you know there's a lot ofuncertainty because we're
uncertain beings, right, we'rebeings with limited knowledge
(16:02):
and with bounded rationality andwith cognitive biases that, in
a snap decision, will influenceour perceptions Finite time span
within which to operate Right,and so we have to make decisions
on timelines that are not ofour choosing.
And so there's all these whatare called epistemics, all these
epistemic problems, but you cankind of separate those from the
(16:25):
question of, well, what's theactual moral thing to do, and
then you can say, well, that'skind of clouded by better and
worse epistemics.
Right, if you know all thecircumstances, you know all the
conditions, you can perfectlypredict the future, then you're
going to make a better decision,but there won't be a debate
about what's actually moral.
Anyways, the reason why I thinkthis is the case is because of
evolution, which, again,evolution, not God, right, this
(16:49):
does not require any kind ofsupernatural being, nor does it
require any kind of weird, likeyou know, sort of theoretical,
philosophical thing that youhave to sort of believe, kind of
on faith.
Like, for example, kant alsotried to create an ethical
theory to replace God, so thatyou didn't need God and you
(17:09):
could still have ethicaldecisions.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And that was called, as you know, Kant's famous
theory no, that was Jesus, thatwas God.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The golden, the.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Kantan rule.
The Kantan rule, yeah, no, itwas called the categorical
imperative.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's my next guess.
Yeah, it's the CI.
Cut me off the.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
CI, the rule.
Yeah, no, it's called thecategorical imperative.
That's what?
That's my next guess yes, theci off the ci, the categorical
imperative, okay, which which wedon't necessarily need to get
into, but it was an inherentlylogical.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So he used logic, or what he would call pure reason
or just logic yes in order toderive this theory of behavior
from logic, and he tried to kindof treat logic, as that makes
sense, we have to have an agreedupon set of rules in order to
interact with each other incertain well, that's that's
what's called contractualism.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Okay, so what you just described is contractualism
.
We must have sort of rules thatwe use to kind of you know,
interact with each other.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
That's what, and therefore good and evil comes
from those contracts.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But then, what about evil contracts?
What about evil laws?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
you know, how do you?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
how do you find out if a law is?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
evil if you're always bound by the contracts that
you're in a lot of things feellike, a lot of ethics feel like.
To me, they evolve naturallyjust from like practice, like
you're like, oh, I don't.
I like the freedom to havethings and leave them here and
then be able to go out and nothave everything that I own with
me at all times.
Other people also enjoy that,and so we agree with each other
(18:37):
that stealing is wrong, becausethe alternative is I have to
carry everything with me all thetime.
Because if I drop anythingAlthough you're pretty strong,
scott If I drop, anything andleave it, and someone else comes
along and stealing is not wrong, they can just take it and go.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And I'm like, okay, I understand that, so I don't
have to push around a cart witheverything.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
But the problem is, if you really just are a pure
contractualist, then we can alljust contract to have slavery be
legal, and now we have slavesand there's nothing wrong with
that because it's legal, becauseit's in the contract, and
that's a problem because thereare things that are legal that
(19:15):
people still consider wrong andthere are things that are not
illegal that are still peopleconsider wrong as well.
Even if you don't have a lawagainst certain things, people
still think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
We can't contract a bunch of people into slavery
without completely the we in.
That needs to be everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So you can't put a section of your we I don't know
Right, but now you're startingto do non-contractual things,
like treating human beings ashaving some kind of inherent
value or some kind of inherentmoral worth or autonomy,
although that's not contractual.
Now you're starting to take akind of you know, it's a diff,
that's another theory, but itfeels natural.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Like I would I treat others with some sort of
inherent moral worth because Iwant to be treated with.
I extend the behaviors.
I'm an animal right.
I extend the behaviors I wantto be treated with.
I extend the behaviors.
I'm an animal right.
I extend the behaviors I wantto receive.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Well, that's the golden rule right there.
Yeah, I do unto others, butthat's just.
That's also behavioralism, butthe problem is animals stuff no
animals just take what they needand kill things and they don't
care.
Like my cat just rips, you know.
If a bug gets in the house hejust rips it to shreds and like
eats it for fun.
You know animals, just you knowthey are kind of kind to their
(20:34):
own kin.
That's what I'm thinking Like totheir own kind, but not to
anything else, not to any otherbeing Sounds like, kind of
sounds like humans, I mean no,no, human beings are quite
interesting that way.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
That's what I we're kind of like cats and dogs, but
we are rough on pigs and cows.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Well, more or less, More or less.
Well, I think this gets intothe question of unavoidability
right.
I think we say it's not nice tobe a butcher, but then people
think but we really got to eatand people are going gonna eat
meat because it's an extremelyenergy dense it's like the most
energy dense form of food inexistence right, and so people
(21:13):
are gonna eat.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Someone who can, you know, operate?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
so somebody's got to do that you know and so it
becomes a kind of unavoidable.
Now if tomorrow you said wehave lab-grown meat and it costs
exactly the same and it doesn'tkill animals, a a lot of people
would be like that's better, Imean if it literally was
indistinguishable they wouldjust say immediately yeah, let's
do lab-grown meat.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Would you eat lab-grown human meat?
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I was just listening to a podcast about this earlier
this morning.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I don't think I would because?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
well, because you have to think of the downstream
effects, right?
So if I'm eating human,lab-grown meat and then other
people know that there's allkinds of risks to my status, but
I mean, it doesn't actuallymatter, right, it's just
proteins and if it was lab-grown, it doesn't matter at all, but
it would have all theseconnotations that would have
negative effects.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So I wouldn't do it for that reason.
That's what they were talking.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
They were also like.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I worry about weakening the barrier between
that taboo right, making it soit's not weak in the cannibalism
taboo.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Sure, let's soften that a little bit.
If there's one thing we need tosoften in the world, it's not
racism or you know these things,it's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It's the cannibalism taboo the state has been
controlling us too long yeah,the deep state keeping us back,
keeping us from eating people.
Come on, here we go.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Solution for today.
Scott, uh-oh cannibalism no,what?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
no?
Really glad we are in separatecities, right did you hear about
the cannibal he?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
he passed his brother in the woods oh my god wow, um
so cannibalism, jokes, you knowjokes.
So here's the argument for whyleast avoidable misery is
(22:58):
stronger than Kant's thing,which is like this logical thing
that I don't think is verycredible Right or other sort of
theories like contractualism,which we already saw is
problematic because we cancontract anything.
The golden rule is problematicbecause actually what we want
for ourselves is not what otherpeople want for themselves and
therefore actually we shouldn'tuse ourself as a measure.
That's not actually right.
We should use other people as ameasure.
We should say what do you wantand then provide them that right
(23:19):
it should be.
The what's called the platinumrule is superior to the golden
rule, so like the golden rule isnot great, platinum rule is
pretty good, but we'll get.
I think the platinum rule iscoincident with this idea of
misericordianism.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Well, what other thing is coming to mind that
falls in with this?
Is the Hippocratic Oath.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
The first do no harm.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Which is like not focused that's more the intent
than the impact where it's likeharm could happen, obviously,
but I'm trying not to yeah.
But the problem is what?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
about when you do need to do harm in order to make
the best outcome still occur,the least miserable outcome
still occur.
You need to do some deliberateharm.
Trolley problem.
Trolley problem or abortion forthe life of the mother.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
There's lots of examples.
Sure, let's make it way lesstheoretical.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, I mean, that's not theoretical, that's true,
yeah, that's like what peoplefight about now, right on the
laws are fighting about this.
But yeah, if you think, well,the mother's going to die or the
baby's going to die and it's aneither-or case and it really is
either-or, it's not like someimaginary, maybe trolley problem
, like it really is.
People are like, well, we don'tknow the baby, we do know the
(24:31):
mom, you know that's a lot youknow um, and so there's more
suffering involved in the inthat anyways complicated issue.
But but it does come down.
Yet at some point you have toface these really complicated um
and and and fraud issues andpeople won't necessarily all
agree, but you, you have to sortof, but you have to see whether
you can make a better case.
(24:51):
But let's get back to thebiology of it.
So why would it be our instinctto reduce avoidable misery?
I think it's very easy forpeople to say no, our instinct
is to be selfish jerks.
That's our instinct.
And actually it's only societyand maybe our contracts and you
know things like and fear ofpunishment that actually make us
behave well or something.
(25:12):
But that's that's not true.
Though that's not true if, ifeveryone was just behaving well
because of fear of punishment,we would, a society would like
immediately grind to a halt,right, right, because it's too
expensive to police everyone,every single person would be
like need another person to be apoliceman, to like watch them,
otherwise they would justconstantly, you know, cheat and
(25:34):
fraud and steal and kill and anddo stuff for their own
self-interest sure, and I thinkthat there's some degree of that
, that, would you know, there'ssome degree of shenanigans that
happen, but some of it is justthwarted by our natural wanting
to not do bad things to eachother.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
To a degree, you know what I mean.
We just have a naturalinclination.
There is one, I think, so, Ithink humans have empathy, and
empathy lets us see ourselves inthe other person, and that's
why it's so frustrating whenpeople draw racial lines or they
(26:13):
otherize other groups becausethey're like ah, I can now
figure out a way to feel lessempathy toward these people
because I feel like they lookless like me, so therefore they
are less like me, so you'resaying empathy, but remember
psychopaths total psychopathsare extremely empathetic.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
They know exactly what their victims are thinking
and feeling and then use that tomanipulate them and kill them
and take advantage of them.
So actually empathy itself notactually a moral thing that
doesn't lead to greater moralbehavior or is kind of some
impetus to moral behavior.
You need something in additionto empathy in order to make it
(26:54):
actually moral.
And actually you don't needempathy if you have this other
thing, which is what I callmisericordia, misericordia, the
urge, the feeling of distress atthe distress of others.
You feel distress.
It's like distress others, youfeel distress, it's like
distress resonance.
You feel distress becausethey're distressed.
Okay, so here's where it comesfrom in nature, and we already
talked about it a little bit.
(27:15):
Animals feel it for their youngand their kin.
This is well documented.
This is called the Hamiltonrule.
The Hamilton rule says that innature I would die.
Any animal would would.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
The joke is I would die for eight of my cousins or
three of my brothers day but youhave to say it like a snappy
rhythm, right, if it's theHamilton rule, I would die for
eight of my cousins, three of mybrothers.
Yeah, there you go, it's adifferent him.
Fine, it's a biological ethicalrule, but so this guy Hamilton
(27:50):
I'm just trying to make you abillion dollars, sorry.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He figured out that animals show concern.
They will take sacrificial,risky behavior in proportion to
the blood, the thickness of theblood they share with another
animal.
So if it's like your brother,you'll take way riskier
behaviors to help the brother.
But if your cousin, you'll takeway less risky behaviors.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
This is true, I mean in my real life.
I would also think this checksout.
You know what I mean as humans.
Yeah, blood is thicker thanwater, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
But for animals it's like this is the law of the
jungle, this is the reality.
But with humans it seems likewe evolved to have this misery,
for the misery of others, toextend beyond our kin.
Sure, to have a mind we havesome sense of, we should.
(28:48):
If it's no risk to us, or ifit's a proportional risk to us,
we should do what we can.
So this kin relationship, thiskin genetic relationship, should
be extended.
Human beings, extend it out toall, all beings, not just to our
(29:10):
kin you Sorry, my cat Corn Dogwas getting into a bag that had
food that's in plasticcontainers, but apparently not
(29:32):
strong enough.
Strong enough.
Corn Dog has powers.
He's very good.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
The way we can illustrate this is there's a
classic ethical scenario, whichis the drowning child scenario.
You ask a group of people oranybody Would you like to?
Drown a child.
If you had the option ofdrowning a child and then
cannibalizing them, what wouldyou decide?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
to do.
Oh, that's the famous policetest where you go would you like
to drown a child.
They say, yes, you go.
Now we are arresting you.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Oh my God, that's entrapment so most people who
you ask that they'll say I wouldhelp the child.
I would jump in the water andhelp the child, even if it would
hurt.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You know, destroy my expensive shoes, ruin my
expensive clothes even if itwould destroy your expensive
shoes, you would save your childbecause you say it's worth.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You know, your shoes are 500 bucks, your suits,
without you know, 2 000 bucks.
You got 25 bucks for theclothes and you're on your way
to a job interview.
If you jump in the water,you're not going to make your
job interview.
You're probably going to getthe job.
It means you're going to be outa few months salary because you
got to keep looking for anotherjob yeah, plus you're wearing
five grand and apparently you'redoing okay in your previous job
because you're wearing somesnazzy outfits.
(30:45):
Well, you try to keep it.
The reason why you keep that,the reason why you keep that
dollar amount kind of increasing, is because then you turn it
around on people and say, well,why don't you make a two
thousand dollar donation todayto unicef?
It'll save two or three kidslives.
Oh, and they go and they andthey back away and they go.
Well, I don't know.
(31:05):
But you say if the kid wasright there and you were there,
and they were there and youcould do something, then people
are like I would just do it, I'ddo whatever it takes.
Yeah, when you're like.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Is someone going to whip out their phone and video
me making a donation to UNICEFand is that going to be on the
evening news and make me like areally cool person?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You think they're thinking that no, people don't
say that they like a really coolperson.
You think they're thinking thatno, people don't say that they
don't say I would do thisbecause I would look cool.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well, the sociopaths do, but most people don't.
Oh, whoops, Scott's outingyourself as a total sociopath.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You're the opposite of a sociopath.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
No, when I see a drowning child, my first step is
I go hey, everybody come herecome, chill out, dude, I'll be
there, just do something foryourself.
And then I gather the group,and then I dive in and make
myself a hero.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So people would jump in and save this kid.
But if you took any animal inthat situation it would just
chew its cud and look out at youat the ground.
Maybe a dog that was connectedto your family and perceived
your family as part of its kinmight try to help and you see
videos like that online andstuff right.
But if you just had some animalthat had nothing to do with you
, it would not give.
It would no give no.
(32:15):
But a human would care if it'sa child, even if it was an
animal struggling out in therethe human might throw, throw a
stick out or try to do somethingto help the animal.
you know so.
And so humans have this thingthat other animals don't have,
which is this urgency, thispanic that other animals only
have for their kin's well-being.
Humans have for not only ourkin but other humans, and not
(32:35):
only other humans but otheranimals, and not only animals
but for even abstract beingslike nature or the souls of our
ancestors or our souls afterdeath.
If we believe that our soulsafter death have a mind and will
experience suffering, we willtake actions today to try to
prevent that suffering of oursoul after death.
(32:56):
It's very strange but we dothat.
We have this panic instinct forreducing suffering.
So it's upon this instinct thatyou can base, and we should
base, morality this is morality,this is the basis of morality,
is this instinct to prevent andameliorate avoidable misery for
all beings with a mind, whichincludes ourselves.
So we also try to avoid miseryfor ourselves and for others.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Anyways.
So why has this evolved?
Why did human beings evolve tohave this?
Well, it goes back to why didhuman beings evolve to have this
?
Well, it goes back toproto-homos, Proto-homos.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
The proto-homos.
Hey, the proto-homos, okay.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
So there was the homo sapiens.
That's just one species of thehomo genus, right, Right.
So there were these homoerectus homo, you know,
astropithecus.
There was all these homo genusspecies, monkeys who were
hanging around in the RiftValley in Africa.
Dr Justin Marchegiani Are thesedifferent than Neanderthals?
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Are those a different….
Dr Tim Jackson, neanderthals, Ithink, are also part of the
same genus.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
They're a branch of the homo genus.
So all these different homoswere walking around and what was
happening was there was theRift Valley in Africa had what's
called.
This is called the climatepulse theory of human evolution,
okay, which I'm sure you'refamiliar with.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Of course, of course.
So basically there was climatechange over tens of thousands of
years.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Oh, you're going to keep talking about that.
Yeah, so these pulses wouldtake this very rich, fecund,
plentiful area of the RiftValley, which is currently
Tanzania and Kenya, and up intoEthiopia and Egypt and stuff.
That's all the Rift Valley.
I don't think it actually goesthat far north, but Kenya and
Tanzania, northern Tanzania,southern Kenya Am I doing my
(34:45):
geography right?
Anyways, that area, especiallyTanzania, that's where homo
sapiens and a lot of homo genusspecies evolved.
It was partly because peoplebelieve it was because the
climate changed and we go fromwet, plentiful to dry savanna
with not plentiful resources,and so the humans would evolve
(35:06):
different strategies to survivebetter whenever that pulse would
happen, down to more scarcityand then, as it pulsed, more
plentiful, whatever, there wasfewer pressures on humans, and
then it would pulse Anyways.
So one of these pulses producedHomo sapiens, who do this
(35:30):
cooperation really well.
We cooperate incredibly well,and this cooperation, I think,
goes back to this instinct toavoid the least avoidable misery
for everyone through what'scalled the prisoner's dilemma.
Have you heard of theprisoner's dilemma?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I have called the prisoner's dilemma.
Have you heard of the?
Speaker 2 (35:47):
prisoner's dilemma I have.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
This is where we separate two people and we have
them each.
We have them each.
We tell them that the otherperson is going to crack first,
right or right?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
they're arrested for a crime.
You've both been arrested.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I'm going to go easy on whoever gives up the
information first, then thenyou'll get to get off.
But if you don't confess, andso, they both get off if neither
one of them talk, but the ideais one of them will talk and you
know that your other personwill talk, so you want to talk
first, because that will get youright if you talk first and
(36:22):
they don't.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
If you confess and they don't, you get off.
If, if you both confess, youboth get the worst case, you
both get 10 years in prison.
If both of you don't you getoff.
If, if you both confess, youboth get the worst case, you
both get 10 years in prison.
If both of you don't confess,you each get one year in prison.
So it's like the total is less,but you still have to go to
prison for a year.
So the idea is the prisonersmight both confess because and
then they both get the worstcase scenario right, right.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So this is if they were in the same room together,
if they could communicate roomtogether.
They would not turn on eachother and they would just both
go.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, neither one of us is talking, we're both safe,
right, but separating would makesome of the doubt this is the
key thing for cooperation is theability to collaborate without
having deep ties and connectionswith each other.
Right, so you can collaboratein group, you can connect and
collaborate with people, youknow.
But the real advantage is toconnect and collaborate with
other groups and with nature andwith like entities, like
(37:14):
animals, like entities aroundyou that you can collaborate
with.
That's like hyper, hyper.
Advantageous dilemma is what'scalled the closed bag exchange.
Same exact setup.
You have the drugs, they havethe money, you you're going to
do a closed bag exchange youcould put in, you could put
bricks in yours and they couldput bricks in their bag and you
(37:35):
could both screw each otherright, or you could both
cooperate and now both of youget.
You know, one gets the money,one gets the drugs and you could
keep trading and it's better,right.
So the closed bag exchange isthe same as the prisoner's
dilemma, except for it modelsexactly cooperation.
Okay, if you take a human andyou say if you take a being, an
(37:55):
animal, and you say this animalhas the instinct to reduce
avoidable misery that it's awareof, it will more often than not
do the prisoner's dilemma.
It will do the closed bagexchange.
It'll cooperate without theneed of communication.
Okay, it will do the closed-bagexchange.
It'll cooperate without theneed of communication because it
will identify I'm going to actin such a way that leads to the
least avoidable misery foreveryone.
(38:16):
And so that instinct enhancescooperation.
And cooperation, especiallybetween people who can't talk,
is enormously evolutionarilyadvantageous for this early homo
genus, this homo sapien genus.
Probably other homo genuses hadthis a little bit too, but it
(38:36):
seems like homo sapiens had it,maybe more than other ones.
So this is why we can say Godis dead.
Sorry, sorry everybody, but weactually don't need a sort of
fictional God and we don't needto believe in God to still have
a very strong moral theory morallaw moral compass, and that
(39:02):
moral compass can be basedentirely on our own evolved
natures, which is to reduceavoidable misery for every being
that has a mind that makessense there you go.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I like it no ethics without yeah, without the, uh,
the deity top dog involved.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, people often say why?
How well, evolution.
If evolution is all there is,how can we have right and wrong?
How can we have a moral law?
People often say that here itis.
Yeah, that's a very commonargument.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I don't find that to be a puzzling part.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, I think it's because evolution is considered
to be the law of the jungle,right?
Anybody just kills anybody else, and whoever survives survives.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's what people think of Darwinian evolution
right, I guess, but I'm a beingand I've existed and I've never
felt the need to kill and bekilled.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You know like to live in that way that seems like
fiction to me, but people wouldsay that's because of society.
Society's created an unnaturalenvironment around you.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Sure, maybe it is, but it makes it very easy for me
to suss out the idea thatethics aren't coming from a
magical place, that they're justlike natural.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Well, but wait a second.
If it's coming from society,then it's not natural, right.
It's like riding a bicycle ortaking a phone call is not
natural, or is building societyas part of our natural
inclination?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Is it all natural?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Yeah, are we able to do things that are natural?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or society is an emergent property of a natural
instinct.
And then you know, I think itkind of outgrowths from our,
from our particular humaninclinations.
You know, we're not.
We're not like oh man, we keptbuilding another city, shoot.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
It's like yeah, that seems to be what we're drawn to
do, like we seem to do that, atleast right now so there you go,
all you, all you atheists outthere, yes, or theists, it's
okay, you know, if you're atheist and you believe in god,
or if you're eighths, if you, ifyou, if you want to believe in
god still and you like this,well, you probably have to still
square evolution so you'regiving people god if you can say
(41:01):
they want to believe in god'sskill.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Still you get permission.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
You can because you can say evolution made us
compassionate and that's whatGod intended was for humans to
be compassionate, so that Jesuswas compassionate Without that
there's all sorts of words youcould use Without that then
Jesus wouldn't have been-.
If we had been sharks, thenJesus would have never been
compassionate.
He would have never givenhimself to save everyone,
(41:24):
whatever.
All the Christian dogma wouldhave never occurred because he
would have been a shark.
We would have been smooth ashell dude Sharks just kill.
They're murderers, they don'tcare.
Instead, he needed acompassionate great ape, and so
evolution.
God did it.
So evolution would make acompassionate great ape, which?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
is the human being.
There we are, so there's theother side.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Anyways that's the solution.
If anybody wants a littletheology, slash ethics.
Rework your ethics from theground up and you can read my
book the Future of Good whichtalks all about this, and I talk
about the neurobiology of howthis all works and how it
evolved through the amygdala,and I cite all the research
around the amygdala andpsychopaths who have repressed
(42:07):
amygdalas is evidence that thisis really the way it works.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Now you found out your psychopath information by
going and interviewing HannibalLecter, style like going to a
room with crazy leather facemasks.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, actually, the research, a lot of it comes from
Madison, wisconsin, uw-madison.
There's.
A lot of it comes from madison,wisconsin, uw, madison, there's
a lot of psychopath research.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Maybe it's because they have that murder lake that
they're, that their city issurrounded by, where people kill
each other in the moat every sooften that's.
I don't know what that is, butsounds like that might be the
cause so yeah, well, cool, allright thanks god for putting up
with my philosophical ramblings,but I thought it was ethical of
(42:51):
me to do it was compassionate,that's deeply compassionate.
I was my, uh, that was my wayof oh, I don't know how to good
deed, my good day.
I was avoiding yourmisericordianism.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yes, misericordian, yes, there we are it would have
caused me so much suffering foryou to be like.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I didn't want to do that.
I can't put up with this crap.
Can I just say?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
you're welcome.
Thank you, all right, and thankyou everyone for hanging around
.
That's right, enjoy theSolution.
Never before heard of Theory ofEthics.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Indeed.
See you again next time.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye, bye, thank you.
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