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Speaker 1: A good a team. I hope you will. So those

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Speaker 1: of you who know me pretty well know that I

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Speaker 1: share a lot of stuff, obviously through the podcast, but

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Speaker 1: also on social media. I pump out a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff on Instagram. Sometimes it's a thought, one thought, one idea,

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Speaker 1: or a couple. Sometimes it's a story. Sometimes it's serious,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's silly, and sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's philosophical.

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Speaker 1: And you know how it kind of works with me

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Speaker 1: is I don't really have a strategy or a plan.

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Speaker 1: I don't get up every day and think, what did

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Speaker 1: I share the last ten days, What topics have I

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Speaker 1: covered recently? What does the world need to hear? Or

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Speaker 1: what do I think I should you know? Or it's

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Speaker 1: very organic, And what happens quite often is I'll have

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Speaker 1: a thought or an idea, and I'll just come up

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Speaker 1: with one or two sentences that kind of capture that

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Speaker 1: idea or that message, and it might be in a

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Speaker 1: funny way or a cheeky way or a sweary way.

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Speaker 1: And quite often the one to two to three to

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Speaker 1: four sentence just have the most impact, get the most traction,

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Speaker 1: get the most eyes, get the most attention, and so

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Speaker 1: on and so there's a real, I guess, a real

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Speaker 1: attraction to writing stuff that's short, cheeky, funny, I guess,

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Speaker 1: and impactful in that way. But I also there's another

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Speaker 1: part of me that thinks deeply, very deeply. Some people

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Speaker 1: would say too deep, and that's okay, And for better

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Speaker 1: or worse, my mind really is always thinking about all

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Speaker 1: the stuff we talk about, you know, other people, human behavior,

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Speaker 1: us as a species and as a world, as a

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Speaker 1: planet full of eight billion or so human beings, and

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Speaker 1: you know, the dichotomies and the division and the love

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Speaker 1: and the hate and the and sometimes I'll write something

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Speaker 1: deep and I'll turn into not a few words, but

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Speaker 1: a paragraph, and then two paragraphs, and then I've written

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Speaker 1: this thing that's like probably too long to share anywhere,

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Speaker 1: and it's It's what interests me is some of the

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Speaker 1: things that I can write in two or three minutes

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Speaker 1: seem to get the most attention and traction and to

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Speaker 1: me are very you know, that not that impressive, If

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest, I don't think they're that impressive.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they're that clever or funny. But some

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Speaker 1: of the things that and you know, the things that

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about the things that are often cheeky or

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Speaker 1: sweary or inappropriate get sometimes you know, like I've written

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Speaker 1: one many many of my whiteboards have got well over

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Speaker 1: a million views. One of them's got somewhere close to

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Speaker 1: twenty million, and when I read it, I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting and a bit funny, but it's

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Speaker 1: not that fucking good, right And then and then when

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Speaker 1: I opened the door, and this is I guess, this

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Speaker 1: is the dichotomy of like trying to be real and

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Speaker 1: be authentic and share your thoughts and ideas, but also,

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Speaker 1: you know, have have an audience and and share content

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Speaker 1: that people want to read and is relevant and connects

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Speaker 1: in a way that's not going to take people an

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Speaker 1: hour to read, and it's not overly complicated, and it's

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Speaker 1: relevant and it's all of the things that people want. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: with that long winded intro, so I started just thinking

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Speaker 1: out loud, writing some stuff, well, thinking to myself, I guess,

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Speaker 1: and then with the idea of potentially sharing it, and

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Speaker 1: I just wrote a few things and that became a paragraph,

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Speaker 1: and then that became a bigger paragraph, and my intention

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Speaker 1: was to share it on social media. Then it ended

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Speaker 1: up being probably you know, I could definitely share it

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Speaker 1: as a post, but whether or not anyone would read it,

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Speaker 1: and to be honest, I don't even know if sharing

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Speaker 1: it here is a great idea. I think some of

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Speaker 1: you will resonate with what I'm about to share with you,

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Speaker 1: some of you won't. And my intention is not to

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Speaker 1: change the world or push anyone in a direction, or

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Speaker 1: to highlight any specific cause or but rather just to

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Speaker 1: think deeply and to try to turn down the emotion.

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Speaker 1: I understand the emotion. I understand the anger, I understand

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Speaker 1: I understand the outrage. I understand all of it, and

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Speaker 1: I was all of it as well, and I still

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Speaker 1: feel those things. But I am fascinated with the why

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Speaker 1: behind it all. And I just think that sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: worth trying to understand the things that we hate, and

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Speaker 1: I'll explain why in a moment. So what I'm about

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Speaker 1: to share with you, I'm going to read. I don't

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Speaker 1: often read, you know. I just riff and freestyle, as

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Speaker 1: I'm doing right now. I just talk off the cough normally,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't always produce a good outcome, as you know.

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Speaker 1: But I'm going to read for the next few minutes.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read you what I wrote, because I

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Speaker 1: think some of you will find it may be helpful,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit enlightening, or maybe worth exploring a

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Speaker 1: little further. Some of you won't, And that's okay, of course. Alrighty,

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Speaker 1: so here we go. Like most of you, Like most dozzies,

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Speaker 1: I was shocked, saddened, and if I'm being honest, I

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Speaker 1: was angry about what transpired at Bondai on Sunday. And

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Speaker 1: I'm also well aware that my shock and my sadness

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Speaker 1: and anger doesn't change anything. It doesn't fix anything, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't help anyone, and I'm well aware it's not a

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Speaker 1: solution to anything. And typically I don't really like to.

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Speaker 1: I don't feel compelled to. I tend not to comment

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Speaker 1: on such significant public events or tragedies because in the

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Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, really, who needs to hear what

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Speaker 1: I think? Honestly, and the complete overwhelm of media and

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Speaker 1: social media commentary in the middle of all of that,

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Speaker 1: and the outcry and the newspapers and the stuff on

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Speaker 1: repeat on TV. I don't think I'm important in that.

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Speaker 1: I know I'm not important than that. And maybe another

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Speaker 1: person just sharing their feelings isn't particularly helpful. So rather

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Speaker 1: than reiterate and revisit the obvious tragedy, devastation, and sadness

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Speaker 1: of what happened, I thought I would think out loud

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Speaker 1: about what's actually happening underneath the behavior, what's happening underneath

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Speaker 1: the violence, Like what's psychologically and sociologically and culturally and

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Speaker 1: emotionally happening behind that behavior, that violence, and that terror.

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Speaker 1: In simple terms, I want to explore the unseen behind

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Speaker 1: the scene. I want to explore the psychology that drives

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Speaker 1: the action, the thinking that drives the behavior. But before

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Speaker 1: I open this door, I want to say something really clearly,

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Speaker 1: and that is to understand hatred and to understand evil

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Speaker 1: and violence is not to condone it. I'm of the

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Speaker 1: opinion that we need to understand the minds and the

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Speaker 1: motivation and the beliefs and the ideology of people who

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Speaker 1: perpetrate horrible acts, who do horrible things, who hurt people,

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Speaker 1: so that we can better prepare and combat and protect

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Speaker 1: ourselves and others, protect the people we love. To not

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Speaker 1: understand the enemy in inverted commas is an overwhelming psychological

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Speaker 1: and strategic disadvantage. We need to understand them and if

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Speaker 1: we don't, we are way behind. As I said, it's

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Speaker 1: a disadvantage, and not only in war, but also in life,

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Speaker 1: the life that we saw or the lives that we

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Speaker 1: saw torn apart Sunday past. In fact, it's in our

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Speaker 1: interest and the interest of everyone that we love and

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Speaker 1: want to protect, to understand what we hate and to

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Speaker 1: understand those who would seek to do us harm. How

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Speaker 1: can we overcome what we don't understand, How can we

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Speaker 1: anticipate the potential actions and attacks if we don't seek

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Speaker 1: first to understand and to begin to understand. It's really

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Speaker 1: important to realize that most people who do evil things,

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Speaker 1: they don't believe they are either evil or evil doers.

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Speaker 1: And as uncomfortable as that makes us, and as deluded

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Speaker 1: and indoctrinated as they may be, most terrorists absolutely believe

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Speaker 1: they are doing the right thing. They believe they're doing

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Speaker 1: the good thing. Bad people doing bad things don't think

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Speaker 1: they are bad people doing bad things. They can't see that.

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Speaker 1: They don't have that level of self awareness. They live

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Speaker 1: in that confirmation bias, They live in that echo chamber

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Speaker 1: of belief and ideology that says that you and I,

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Speaker 1: in this case are the enemy. Consider a teenager. Think

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Speaker 1: about this. Think about a teenager walking into a marketplace

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Speaker 1: strapped with a vest that's full of explosives, ready to

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Speaker 1: kill himself because of the belief of a way of

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Speaker 1: thinking that he had programmed into him since he could walk.

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Speaker 1: Not only is the killing of innocence not evil in

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Speaker 1: his mind, it's noble, it's courageous, it's a higher calling.

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Speaker 1: And in his group and with his indoctrination, he's actually

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Speaker 1: becoming a martyr. He'll be celebrated for his sacrifice and

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Speaker 1: courage by his family, by those in his group, and

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Speaker 1: of course to you and I this thinking is fucking horrible,

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Speaker 1: and it is fucking horrible. It is pure evil. But

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Speaker 1: to them and to him, it is not. And this

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Speaker 1: is where we can seek to understand so that we

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Speaker 1: can perhaps prepare, we can perhaps anticipate. And this doesn't

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Speaker 1: just correlate to you know, big horrible, devastating events like

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Speaker 1: we saw on the weekend. This correlates and relates to life.

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Speaker 1: You need to understand, even in the context of what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I believe it's important for you and

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Speaker 1: I to understand the sociopaths that surround us that we

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Speaker 1: work with that, we know that we need to interact

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Speaker 1: with them so that we can prepare ourself, so that

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Speaker 1: we can protect ourself and others for what might be

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Speaker 1: the consequences of interacting with or being around that person,

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Speaker 1: and what sits beneath this kind of violence, the violence

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Speaker 1: we saw on Sunday, it is rarely just an impulse

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Speaker 1: or momentary madness, or a single bad decision. It's almost

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Speaker 1: always the end point of a long psychological conveyor belt

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Speaker 1: identity fused with ideology, belonging tied to belief meaning outsourced

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Speaker 1: to a cause, and moral responsibility handed over to a narrative.

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Speaker 1: I've spoken about this before, but when a person's sense

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Speaker 1: of self, when their identity, when their version of who

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Speaker 1: they are becomes inseparable from an ideology, a tribe, or,

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Speaker 1: in some religions, a promised future of eternal bliss, then

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Speaker 1: critical thinking no longer plays a role in the decision

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Speaker 1: making and the action taking process. Nuance dies first, being

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Speaker 1: able to make nuanced decisions in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: programmed mind doesn't happen. Nuance dies, then empathy dies, Then

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Speaker 1: the humanity of the other person dies, and at that point,

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Speaker 1: violence is an experienced by them as violence. It's experienced

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Speaker 1: by them as obedience and necessity and duty and even destiny.

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Speaker 1: And this is how ordinary human psychology, under the right

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Speaker 1: or perhaps more accurately wrong conditions, can produce extraordinary cruelty,

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Speaker 1: not because the brain suddenly stops working, but because it

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Speaker 1: starts working exactly the way it was programmed to. The

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable truth is that the psychological ingredients that make this

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Speaker 1: possible are not exotic or rare. They're human. Our brains

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Speaker 1: crave certainty and belonging, meaning and identity. And when fear, grievance, humiliation,

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Speaker 1: or perceived in justice are layered on top of those needs,

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Speaker 1: and then exploited by simplistic narratives that divide the world

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Speaker 1: into good and evil, us and them, heroes and enemies,

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Speaker 1: then that slope becomes dangerously slippery. Most of us will

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Speaker 1: never commit violence. But the mechanisms of dehumanation, tribal thinking,

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Speaker 1: and moral outsourcing exist on a spectrum, and they don't

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Speaker 1: begin with bombs or bullets. They begin with stories. We

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Speaker 1: stop questioning people, we stop humanizing, and beliefs we stop

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Speaker 1: holding lightly. Now, having said all of that, I fully

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that these are just words. These are just my words,

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Speaker 1: these are just my thoughts, and I'm just a flawed

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Speaker 1: bloke trying to figure stuff out like you. I'm just

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Speaker 1: a guy trying to understand human behavior and how the

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Speaker 1: world works, and hopefully to do some good and to

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Speaker 1: share some love and to encourage some of you to

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Speaker 1: think critically. I want to support you along the way,

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Speaker 1: and maybe I can shine of the light in the

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Speaker 1: darkness of what's going on at the moment. Love harps