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Speaker 1: M Hi. I'm Ethan Natalman and this is Psychoactive, a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is

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Speaker 1: the show where we talk about all things drugs. But

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Speaker 1: any views expressed here do not represent those of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: heed as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they

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Speaker 1: may not even represent my own and nothing contained in

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Speaker 1: this show should be used as medical advice or encouragement

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Speaker 1: to use any type of drug. One of the most

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Speaker 1: popular episodes the Psychoactive to date has been the one

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Speaker 1: where I invited my friend Julie Holland to service my

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Speaker 1: co host and answer questions with me from you the audience.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to record another one of those episodes,

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Speaker 1: and we need your questions. Leave us a voicemail with

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Speaker 1: a question as deep else as possible at one eight, three, three, seven,

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Speaker 1: seven nine sixty, or he can record a voice memo

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Speaker 1: and send it to Psychoactive at protozoa dot com. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure it's going to be a great second go with this. Hello,

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Speaker 1: Psychoactive listeners. I thought this episode to have me talking

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Speaker 1: with Kat Packer, who's in charge of regulating cannabis for

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Speaker 1: the city of Los Angeles. But instead this being Valentine's

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Speaker 1: Day week, we're gonna talk about love drugs with the

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Speaker 1: bioethicist Brian Earp. He's a bioethicist and a philosopher and

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Speaker 1: interdisciplinary researcher. He's currently the Associate director of the Yale

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Speaker 1: Hastings Program and Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University,

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Speaker 1: and he's also a research fellow with the Oxford u

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Speaker 1: Hero Center for Practical Ethics. He's co authored a book

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Speaker 1: with a title that just captivated me at the start.

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Speaker 1: In the US, it's called Love Drugs The Chemical Future

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Speaker 1: of Relationships. If you get into the UK, it's called

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Speaker 1: Love Is the Drug, with the same subtitle. He co

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Speaker 1: authored it with a faster at Oxford named Julian Sevalescue.

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Speaker 1: Our conversation is really going to focus on his writing

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Speaker 1: about drugs and drugs and love, drugs and breakups, drugs

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Speaker 1: and relationships. So Brian, thanks so much for joining me

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Speaker 1: on Psychoactive. Thanks for having me on. Your book's got

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Speaker 1: a great provocative title, at least in the US, Love Drugs.

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Speaker 1: You gotta give the elevator pitch four or five sentences

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Speaker 1: about what that books about? How do you sum it up?

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Speaker 1: I guess it's right there in the title. It's a

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Speaker 1: book about love, it's a book about drugs, and it's

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Speaker 1: a book about the effect of drugs on love. So

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Speaker 1: partly we try to understand what are the chemical possibilities

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Speaker 1: for intervening in our romantic neurochemistry that can really influence

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Speaker 1: our relationships, both commonly used medications that are already available

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Speaker 1: and you know, psychedelic drugs and m d m A

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Speaker 1: and other drugs that are sort of coming down the pipeline.

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Speaker 1: And then in thinking about the ways that love can

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Speaker 1: be manipulated neurochemically, what does that teach us about love?

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Speaker 1: Is love something that we can gain insights into by

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Speaker 1: thinking about it as a sort of thing that's to

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Speaker 1: some extent under our control or that we can at

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Speaker 1: least influence, rather than something that just happens to us passively.

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Speaker 1: What I love about the book is you go much

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Speaker 1: deeper in terms of exploring not just m DUMA and

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Speaker 1: other drugs, but trying to lay out ethical frameworks for

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Speaker 1: how we think about using psychoactive drugs. Um In facilitating relationships,

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Speaker 1: and not just facilitating relationships, but also helping people break

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Speaker 1: up from relationships or avoid bad relationships. What's been the

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Speaker 1: principal reactions to the book that you and Julian put

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Speaker 1: out there. Well, the feedback from people who have read

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Speaker 1: the book has been overwhelmingly positive. But when people hear

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Speaker 1: about the book where they think they have a sense

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Speaker 1: of what the book is about, they often have an

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Speaker 1: extremely skeptical response. So they think something like, well, if

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Speaker 1: you if you have to take a drug in order

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Speaker 1: to feel love for your partner, surely whatever you're feeling

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Speaker 1: can't be authentic. It's not real. It's just the drug

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Speaker 1: that's doing the talking, so to speak. And I think

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Speaker 1: what's surprising is just how readily convinced people seem to

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Speaker 1: be when you get down into the details of what

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Speaker 1: it's actually like two approach your own inner emotional life

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Speaker 1: under the influence of a drug, and how under some

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Speaker 1: circumstances people will report that they feel it enhances the

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Speaker 1: authenticity of their relationship to themselves but also to their partners.

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Speaker 1: And as you point out, it seems like it should

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Speaker 1: be self evident if we're going to be bringing these

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Speaker 1: powerful drugs back into mainstream medicine as part of this

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Speaker 1: so called psychedelic renaissance. We shouldn't only be studying the

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Speaker 1: effects of these powerful agents on individuals and their clinically

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Speaker 1: diagnosable symptoms. You know, we're all embedded within relationships and

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Speaker 1: social networks. And this is a broader fault of so

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Speaker 1: called Western medicine and that it tends to atomize, and

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Speaker 1: it tends to focus on the individual and their symptoms

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Speaker 1: and ignore the relational and the wider social context. But

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Speaker 1: of course, you know, psychedelic drugs have been used in

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Speaker 1: social context as part of religious and spiritual ceremonies in

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Speaker 1: in some groups for many generations. And as you pointed

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Speaker 1: out right at the get go, m d m A

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Speaker 1: was used in a Western medical context therapeutically four couples

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Speaker 1: as recently as the nineteen eighties, and we've we've forgotten

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Speaker 1: about that, it seems, and we're now back to the

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Speaker 1: individual focused model. But we think that we should really

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Speaker 1: expand out and look at how drugs affect us in

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Speaker 1: relational and social context. You know, my first encounter with

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Speaker 1: m d M A was when I was in my

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Speaker 1: early thirties and going through a difficult time in my marriage,

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Speaker 1: and a friend of mine gave nesa m d m

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Speaker 1: A and my wife and I did it, and initially

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Speaker 1: it felt like it was a thing that was going

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Speaker 1: to save our relationship, the type of communication it opened up.

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Speaker 1: You know, we were committed to doing it in a way,

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Speaker 1: so we understood we would just keep going back to

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Speaker 1: the drug to facilitate this feeling, but that there will

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Speaker 1: be certain ways to bring back the feeling and the

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Speaker 1: lessons of the m d m A without using the

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Speaker 1: drug itself. And in the end um, after trying to

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Speaker 1: number more times, we ended up getting divorce. But I've

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Speaker 1: always thought that our use of m DUMA helped us

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Speaker 1: to a softer landing and better enabled us to be

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Speaker 1: very good co parents for our our young daughter. So

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Speaker 1: I thought that that was really a beautiful story that

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Speaker 1: you told, and I think it's important for people to

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Speaker 1: understand that that gives us a better sense of how

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Speaker 1: m d m A works than just this this blunt

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Speaker 1: love drug kind of stereotype knee jerk response that I'll

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Speaker 1: sometimes get when talking to people about the subject matter

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Speaker 1: of the book is that they think, well, m d

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Speaker 1: m A is a pro love drug. It's something that

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Speaker 1: just binds people together, no matter how incompatible they may

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Speaker 1: be with the thought that again it it just takes

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Speaker 1: you over zombie like and causes you to feel these

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Speaker 1: these kinds of ways towards your partner, whoever you're taking

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Speaker 1: the drug with, and as your experience illustrates, and as

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Speaker 1: we also mentioned in the book, that's just not the case.

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Speaker 1: In some ways, the way that it's been used for

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Speaker 1: PTSD is illustrative for how it can be used in

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Speaker 1: a relational context, because what happens in PTSD is somebody

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Speaker 1: brings up a topic that you don't want to talk about.

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Speaker 1: It's very triggering for you, and you shut down and

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Speaker 1: you divert the conversation to practically anything else, and as

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Speaker 1: a consequence of that, you never really face and work

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Speaker 1: through and deal with whatever is the underlying trauma. And

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Speaker 1: most contemporary medications for PTSD sort of paper over the

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Speaker 1: symptoms and help you cope with the fact that you

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Speaker 1: haven't dealt with the trauma. But precisely why m d

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Speaker 1: m A and in some cases sylo cyberin asisted therapy

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Speaker 1: seems to be helpful for these sorts of conditions is

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Speaker 1: that in some ways, it takes the lid off, and

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Speaker 1: it allows you to confront difficult thoughts and uncomfortable truths

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Speaker 1: and buried emotions rather than coming from a place of fear,

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Speaker 1: approaching those emotions from a from an open minded and

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Speaker 1: almost loving stance. And so the love that you feel

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Speaker 1: when people think of it as a love drug isn't

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Speaker 1: just a sort of one dimensional love for the person

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Speaker 1: sitting across from you or for whoever you're romantically involved with.

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Speaker 1: There's also sort of loving attitude that you take towards

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Speaker 1: your own emotions again under the right conditions. If if

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Speaker 1: you happen to be among the subset of people for

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Speaker 1: whom it works this way, it can lead you to

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Speaker 1: think to yourself, maybe I shouldn't be with my partner.

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Speaker 1: Maybe what I've been hiding from, Maybe the buried emotion

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Speaker 1: that I haven't been wanting to confront is the fact

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Speaker 1: that my partner and I are fundamentally not suited to

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Speaker 1: each other, or we've grown apart in a way that

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Speaker 1: means we should let each other go. And as you say,

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Speaker 1: with a soft landing or from a place of compassion,

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Speaker 1: rather than you know, throwing dishes across the room, and

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Speaker 1: having some big storm out. I mean, M d m

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Speaker 1: A seems like one of those drugs where, when used

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Speaker 1: in the context with a therapist or responsible knowing way,

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Speaker 1: the ratio of good outcomes too bad is about as

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Speaker 1: high as you can get with psychoactive drugs. Is that

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Speaker 1: fair to say? I think or can you think of

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Speaker 1: cases where we're doing M d m A in a

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Speaker 1: controlled environment has actually led to significantly bad results, well

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Speaker 1: in terms of just the effects on the brain and

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Speaker 1: subjective consciousness and so forth. In order to get neurotoxic

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Speaker 1: effects with m d m A you have to take

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Speaker 1: several doses and higher doses, and and over repeated use.

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Speaker 1: You can have a physiological risk from the drug. But

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Speaker 1: as you say, when it's taken at a relatively low

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Speaker 1: dose or controlled dose on a handful of occasions spaced

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Speaker 1: out over time, in terms of its effects on the

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Speaker 1: brain and the body, it's very very low risk, and

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have a risk of an addiction for example.

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Speaker 1: So among the various drugs that are used in the

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Speaker 1: psychopharmacopeia that's rolled out in psychiatry, m d m A

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Speaker 1: is certainly among the safer of those drugs. Now, because

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Speaker 1: M d m A is used in conjunction with counseling,

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Speaker 1: or it should be under this model that we're discussing.

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Speaker 1: It's true that the drug can sometimes put people into

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Speaker 1: a state whereby they come to have to deal with

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Speaker 1: some things that maybe they aren't prepared to deal with.

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Speaker 1: That's a possibility, and it's why the psychotherapeutic context is

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Speaker 1: so important. So one way to misuse the drug is

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Speaker 1: to take it in large doses, well, dancing all night

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Speaker 1: in a hot warehouse and not drinking enough water and

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Speaker 1: having other drugs through your system and so forth. That

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Speaker 1: can be dangerous as well as enormous fun and pleasure,

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Speaker 1: right Well, of course, of course, I mean so that

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Speaker 1: you're you're right, there's always there's always a benefit to

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Speaker 1: risk ratio. But let's say that that raises the risk

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Speaker 1: side of the Asian. Whereas another way to potentially go

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Speaker 1: astray is to, you know, take it in a sort

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Speaker 1: of self directed attempt at therapy with your partner or

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Speaker 1: something like that, but where you haven't really laid the groundwork. Now,

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Speaker 1: you don't necessarily need to have a trained therapists sitting there.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that people have had self experiments and experiments

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Speaker 1: within the relationships that have been successful without all the

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Speaker 1: paraphernalia of the therapeutic context. But what we advise in

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Speaker 1: the book is that really the best case scenario and

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Speaker 1: where where we should center the discussion is around a

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Speaker 1: carefully controlled session where somebody who has training in helping

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Speaker 1: people work through difficult matters is part and parcel to

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Speaker 1: the whole experience precisely so that when difficult things arise,

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Speaker 1: you can work through them in a productive, in a

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Speaker 1: therapeutic way, rather than make a rash decision in response

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Speaker 1: to them or whatever it might be. You know, you

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Speaker 1: point at one point that actually, most divorces aren't about

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Speaker 1: people in this horrendous, horrible throwing dishes thing. It's more

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Speaker 1: about you know, married couples, oftentimes with kids, you know,

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Speaker 1: just getting to a point where everything's flat and not

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Speaker 1: working and not good communication what you call gray relationships,

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Speaker 1: and that this is sort of an optimal use or

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Speaker 1: most likely to be successful use of m d M.

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Speaker 1: A just say a little more about that we're aware

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Speaker 1: of concerns that people have and we think they're they're valid.

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Speaker 1: That people when they seem to have access to some

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Speaker 1: drug based solution or so they think to their relationship

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Speaker 1: that when a couple is fundamentally incompatible with each other

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Speaker 1: and really what they should do is break up, they

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Speaker 1: might turn to this medication or this drug as a

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Speaker 1: kind of chemical band aid to just patch things over,

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Speaker 1: rather than accepting the reality of their situation and moving on.

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Speaker 1: The thing about these gray relationships that you mentioned is

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Speaker 1: that they aren't fundamentally characterized by abuse or toxic behavior

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Speaker 1: or or what or what have you, But rather, as

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Speaker 1: you say that the feeling of love has basically faded

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Speaker 1: from the relationship, and the couple maybe continues to have

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Speaker 1: shared values and shared projects. Maybe they have children they're

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Speaker 1: raising together, Maybe they've got plans for the future that

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Speaker 1: they've oriented themselves around, and and they value the relationship

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Speaker 1: and want to work on it. And it seems like

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Speaker 1: if you've got a case of a relationship that has

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Speaker 1: a lot of valuable components to it and you're not

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Speaker 1: ready to throw in the towel, and there's a possibility

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Speaker 1: that partly what you need to to rekindle a sense

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Speaker 1: of intimacy with your partner is, you know, in addition

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Speaker 1: to talk therapies, you know a chemical agent that will

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Speaker 1: hopefully enhance the effects of the talk therapy you were

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Speaker 1: going to do anyway, Well, then it seems like that

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Speaker 1: would be the best case scenario for for introducing the

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Speaker 1: drug in addition to the other therapeutic means you want

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Speaker 1: to try to try. Yeah, you know, probably there was

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Speaker 1: a connection that you did not make, I think in

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Speaker 1: the book, but which really struck me because it came

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Speaker 1: through to me from reading your book, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the one hand, m d m A looks like

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Speaker 1: it's going to be approved for PTSD, and you talk

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Speaker 1: about the importance thill of primarily using M d m

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Speaker 1: A and gray relationships. But then you have this little

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Speaker 1: couple of pages where you talk there's a researcher at

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Speaker 1: McGill University who makes the point that oftentimes heartbreak bear's

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Speaker 1: a remarkable resemblance to PTSD, And then you talk about

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Speaker 1: a study or that he's done in which people try to,

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Speaker 1: you know, reduce the heartbreak, that the symptoms of heartbreak,

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Speaker 1: not within d M A actually, but with another drug.

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Speaker 1: What are the other drugs that can also help in

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Speaker 1: these loving in either enhancing a love relationship or dealing

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Speaker 1: with the trauma of it. The drug that the researcher

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Speaker 1: uses as pro panelol, which is a beta blocker, and

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Speaker 1: the particular therapy is called reconsolidation therapy. It immediately bears

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Speaker 1: a resemblance to what people might think of with the

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Speaker 1: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, tampering with memories sort

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Speaker 1: of an intervention. A major difference is that the Eternal

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Speaker 1: Sunshine of the Spotless Mind plot revolves around the technology

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Speaker 1: that as I recall, sort of deletes certain memories, just

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Speaker 1: races them from your consciousness and your ability to recall them,

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Speaker 1: whereas this real world, real life reconsolidation therapy works a

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Speaker 1: bit differently. Basically, come into the lab, do you take

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Speaker 1: preparing a law which kind of suppresses part of your

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Speaker 1: nervous system so that you're automatic kind of emotional responses

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Speaker 1: and fear responses to things is settled down, and then

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Speaker 1: you write out a memory, the memory of the betrayal,

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Speaker 1: a memory of the breakup, whatever it is that's really

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Speaker 1: torturing you, and you experience what it's like to reflect

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Speaker 1: on that content without the emotional response that's been so

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Speaker 1: crippling for you before undertaking this treatment, and then you

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Speaker 1: restore the memory you sort of you know, through this exercise,

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Speaker 1: you you re encode the memory again with some of

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Speaker 1: that emotional drama stripped away from it, and then you

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Speaker 1: you do this on a number of occasions, and the

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Speaker 1: idea then is that you're able to remember what happened.

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Speaker 1: So it's not that you have a break in the

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Speaker 1: continuity of your biographical narrative or anything like that. But

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Speaker 1: when you remember it, it just doesn't trigger the trauma response.

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Speaker 1: And so that's the logic of that kind of therapy.

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Speaker 1: So the researcher Elaine Burnett has made the point that

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Speaker 1: what he calls romantic betrayals or other sorts of romantic

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Speaker 1: traumas can be among the worst experiences of people's lives,

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Speaker 1: and he thinks that we shouldn't treat them with kind

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Speaker 1: of rolling our eyes and saying, oh, it's just a breakup,

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Speaker 1: you'll get over it. You know. He primarily treats people

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Speaker 1: with post traumatic stress disorder from all the usual causes,

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Speaker 1: assault and violence, and you know, serving in a war environment,

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Speaker 1: and what he was noticing was that some people were

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Speaker 1: coming to him talking about their partner of twenty years

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Speaker 1: walking out on them suddenly, or other such shocks to

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Speaker 1: the system that come about through you know what feels

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Speaker 1: like a broken heart, and and he's right to say that,

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Speaker 1: in the long course of a life, some of these

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Speaker 1: romantic upsets and breakups and betrayals and so forth can

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Speaker 1: certainly be among the most psychologically jarring and difficult to

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Speaker 1: deal with. So once again we're in a situation where

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Speaker 1: people might be worried that when you go through a breakup,

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Speaker 1: the thought is you don't want to just take some

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Speaker 1: drug to make those sad feelings go away, because part

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Speaker 1: of the sadness is giving you an opportunity to slow

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Speaker 1: down and reflect and learn from what happened. And then

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Speaker 1: as you begin to emerge from your shell and try

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Speaker 1: to pursue relationships going forward, hopefully you've you've figured out

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Speaker 1: some pitfalls that you don't want to fall into again.

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Speaker 1: Pain sometimes is something that you know makes you stronger,

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Speaker 1: but pain is also sometimes something that just crushes your soul.

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Speaker 1: And figuring out when somebody's in a position where a

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Speaker 1: drug assisted treatment modality would help them get from the

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Speaker 1: soul crushing kind of pain to the instrumentally useful kind

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Speaker 1: of pain, that seems like something that's useful, you know, Brian,

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Speaker 1: I just say I'm prepping to have this conversation with you.

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Speaker 1: I actually watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a

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Speaker 1: couple of nights ago, and so one of the other

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Speaker 1: things that you know. Obviously the book is called Love Drugs,

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Speaker 1: but a big part of your book is about love,

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Speaker 1: and you go through a kind of systematic analysis of

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Speaker 1: love in a way I've never really read before, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean breaking it out, the dual nature of love,

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Speaker 1: in the ways in which it's both biological and psychlosocial,

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Speaker 1: the different brain systems of lust and libido and a

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Speaker 1: action and attachment all being components. Just explain more about

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Speaker 1: why that sort of analysis was important is sort of

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Speaker 1: us and enabling people to think about more productive and

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Speaker 1: ethical ways of dealing with quote unquote love drugs and

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Speaker 1: anti love drugs. Sure. I think one way that people

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Speaker 1: in just popular discussions think about love, and it's maybe

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Speaker 1: reinforced through films and poetry and so forth, is the

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Speaker 1: idea that it's something that happens to you. Love strikes you,

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Speaker 1: like with Cupid's arrow, and then it's out of your control.

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Speaker 1: And part of what we were thinking about is when

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Speaker 1: you imagine intervening into some system with a technology. Partly

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Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is not necessarily to control

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Speaker 1: it in some deterministic sense, but you're trying to exert

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Speaker 1: some influence over this system so that it moves in

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Speaker 1: a direction that is conducive to your flourishing. Now, of course,

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Speaker 1: you can mess up systems by intervening in them and

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Speaker 1: make things much worse, which is partly why we wanted

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Speaker 1: to write this book. We wanted to try to sketch

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Speaker 1: out what kinds of interventions are likely to be good

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Speaker 1: for us and which one are likely to have, you know,

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Speaker 1: potentially very negative individual or society level consequences. But when

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Speaker 1: you think about the system of love as the sort

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Speaker 1: of thing that could be tampered with in a way,

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Speaker 1: then you have to think, well, what are the moving parts,

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Speaker 1: what's susceptible to influence? And here's where we begin to

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Speaker 1: realize that thinking about love as something that's disconnected and

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Speaker 1: just floats around in your soul is going to lead

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Speaker 1: lead you astray. Now, you can influence your feelings of

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Speaker 1: love through non chemically mediated interventions, Like if you're obsessed

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Speaker 1: with someone and you're trying to create some distance, you

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Speaker 1: can just stop looking at their pictures on Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: you can, you know, delete their phone number from your phone.

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Speaker 1: There's all sorts of low tech ways to change the

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Speaker 1: way you feel about someone that show that we're already

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Speaker 1: used to the idea that we should be able to

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Speaker 1: exert some influence over love. And then we just realized that,

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Speaker 1: however much there is a psychosocial and historical component of love,

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Speaker 1: which there surely is, there's also something going on in

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Speaker 1: our brains and something going on in our biology. And

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Speaker 1: we thought that as we're taking drugs for other purposes,

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Speaker 1: you know, just common medications like S S R eyes

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Speaker 1: for depression and so forth, we should be alert to

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Speaker 1: the possibility that we're already influencing the biological dimension of

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Speaker 1: love inadvertently. And then the book kind of shifts from

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Speaker 1: a warning, you know, let's be sure that we aren't

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Speaker 1: taking drugs for other purposes that are influencing our romantic

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Speaker 1: neurochemistry in ways that might be interfering with our relationship

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Speaker 1: goals too, then you know, promoting this more positive account.

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Speaker 1: What if we could actually harness these technologies to change love,

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Speaker 1: or nudge love, or assist love in a direction that

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Speaker 1: we want, and the only way to do that is

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Speaker 1: to realize that love is a biopsychosocial phenomenon. It's all

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Speaker 1: of those things. There's a way it feels like to

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Speaker 1: be in love. There's the psychology of love. There's the

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Speaker 1: social context, which shapes what kinds of phenomena account as

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Speaker 1: love or get labeled as love or talked about as love,

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Speaker 1: or have poems written about as as as constituting love.

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Speaker 1: And that of course influences how we feel about our

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Speaker 1: own relationships, because you know, we don't know if what

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Speaker 1: we're feeling is love until we look out there in

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Speaker 1: the culture and see what people are talking about, and

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Speaker 1: then we kind of triangulate what we think we're feeling

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Speaker 1: with what we see getting identified as love and the culture.

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Speaker 1: And then this, this previously under explored aspect of love

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Speaker 1: which we try to bring out in the book, is

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Speaker 1: that there's also a subterranean aspect of love, which is

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Speaker 1: what's going on in our brains and our bodies when

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Speaker 1: we form attachments and feel lust and attraction toward people,

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Speaker 1: and develop a sort of bond with a partner over

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Speaker 1: the long haul. All of that is the sort of

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Speaker 1: thing that's increasingly susceptible to being studied in a in

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Speaker 1: a scientific way. I was thinking back to the lesson

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Speaker 1: I learned from reading Andrew Wild's book The Natural Mind

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Speaker 1: many years ago, where he makes the point that any

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Speaker 1: alteration of consciousness that we attained or can attain by

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Speaker 1: using psychoactive drugs can also be attained without using these drugs.

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Speaker 1: It just oftentimes takes more discipline or effort, and that

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Speaker 1: psychoactive drugs are, for better or worse, the quick and

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Speaker 1: easy ways of getting these alterations of consciousness. That would

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Speaker 1: that ring true with what you've studied about drugs and love.

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Speaker 1: I think it's true that certain altered states of mind

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Speaker 1: that otherwise might only be achievable through you know, dedicated

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Speaker 1: meditation and stream sort of bodily practices and so forth,

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Speaker 1: some such states of mind can be fairly, readily, fairly

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Speaker 1: directly and with relatively little effort be achieved through ingesting

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Speaker 1: certain substances. And I think worry people have is that

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Speaker 1: that might somehow cheapen the insights that could be gained.

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Speaker 1: There's an understandable cultural association between effort and value, the

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Speaker 1: idea being that if you really work for something and

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Speaker 1: you achieve some some outcome, that outcome is just simply

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Speaker 1: worth more than the very same outcome that's gotten through

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Speaker 1: some more efficient means. Let's say, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: think you could even concede that point. You could say,

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Speaker 1: maybe it is more valuable to achieve a certain kind

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Speaker 1: of state of consciousness or insights that that may a

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Speaker 1: company that state of consciousness through you know, decades of

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Speaker 1: meditation and so forth. But unless you think that the

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Speaker 1: value of that state drops to zero if it's gotten

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Speaker 1: through m the ingestion of a substance, then you might

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Speaker 1: still want to acknowledge that it could still be valuable.

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Speaker 1: And the way that people talk about their experiences on

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Speaker 1: psychedelics and sometimes in the case of m d m

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Speaker 1: A assisted psychotherapy, is that they feel that it's dramatically

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00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 1: transformative of certain aspects of their lives. Again, not everybody

434
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 1: has this experience, as lots of individual differences depends on

435
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:24,919
Speaker 1: the dose and the setting and all that stuff. But

436
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,919
Speaker 1: for a lot of people who have just been enrolled

437
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: in these trials, let's say, the drug assisted psychotherapy trials

438
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 1: for PTSD, many of them, the majority of them in

439
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: some cases, will say that the experience that they have

440
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,399
Speaker 1: is among the most meaningful in their life. And so

441
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 1: it's clear that the value isn't zero. And even if

442
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,400
Speaker 1: you think you can somehow squeeze some more value out

443
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: of that state of mind by struggling for it without

444
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 1: any chemical assistance, you know, what people are experiencing is

445
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 1: clearly something that is not just a hedonic experience, but

446
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,120
Speaker 1: something that that is striking to them as very meaningful

447
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: and something from which they feel that they learn that

448
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: they gain real insights into their life and their relationships

449
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,400
Speaker 1: and their own emotional world and so forth. So there

450
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: may be a tradeoff there, but the tradeoff isn't one

451
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: that that should cause us to dismiss the use of

452
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 1: the drugs altogether. We'll be talking more after we hear

453
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: this add there's one point where you say that the

454
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: quote unquote naturalistic fallacy is one of the oldest and

455
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 1: most famous mistakes in ethics. You know, on the show,

456
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,879
Speaker 1: we've oftentimes had this issue about, you know, whether or

457
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: not psilocybin or mescal in or d m T or

458
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, is more good, is better if

459
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: it comes directly from the plan as opposed to being synthesized.

460
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 1: And there's been a discussion about this but I guess

461
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: that same debate happens with ethics as well well. Absolutely,

462
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a sense in which things that are natural,

463
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: if that means that we've co evolved with them and

464
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: therefore we have some deep knowledge about how they work

465
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: and we have a very good sense of of how

466
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 1: to use them responsibly, then there's a sense in which

467
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: naturalness is a proxy for something that we value. But

468
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: if you can recreate the chemical structure of something in

469
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: a laboratory and you can learn to use it in

470
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:18,679
Speaker 1: a responsible way over time, then it's it's hard to

471
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: see what the ethical relevance is of something merely being

472
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: natural versus artificial, Because of course, some natural things are

473
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: quite bad, like cancer, and some artificial things are obviously good,

474
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: like corrective eyeglasses and so forth. So yeah, people have

475
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,440
Speaker 1: to get over the natural equals good and unnatural equals

476
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,240
Speaker 1: bad dichotomy. But you know, both of those concepts maybe

477
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: proxies or approximations for other things that we do care about,

478
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: you know, Brian, at what point you mean you obviously

479
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: talk about the dual nature of love and both the

480
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 1: biological on the one hand, is psychological, and how they

481
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 1: interplate with one another. But one of the most fascinating

482
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: things you talked about was how powerful two people looking

483
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: deeply into one another's eye and remaining silent could be

484
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: in terms of love. I found that fascinating. Yeah, well,

485
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 1: this is even a trans species effect. So there's evidence

486
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: that looking into a dog's eyes also releases oxytocin in

487
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 1: both the human and the dog and seems to be

488
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: part of the process by which humans and dogs form

489
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 1: a bond with one another. And contrariwise, in the same

490
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: chapter where I was talking about some anti love remedies,

491
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 1: people say, well, if I'm if I'm hooking up with

492
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: someone and I don't want to become attached to them,

493
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: what should I do? And the answer is you should

494
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: close your eyes while you're having sex with them so

495
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 1: that you don't form this attachment. Now, again, there's whole

496
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: sorts of ethical critiques that can be raised about the scenario,

497
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, as a practical matter, closing your eyes and

498
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: blocking the release of oxytosein is helpful, and keeping your

499
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: eyes open will foment a bond in many cases. You

500
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 1: know what I was thinking about the extremes of biological

501
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: love versus psychosocial I guess the extreme of the psychosocial

502
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: one might be where you have an arranged marriage where

503
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: the couple comes together and ultimately full deeply in love.

504
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: And conversely, on the extremely biological. I just saw the

505
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: remake a West Side Story, and there's that seed where

506
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: Tony and a real lock eyes without ever knowing other,

507
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: and it just seems it's biology on steroids, right, So

508
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,199
Speaker 1: that does happen. You know, people have something like this

509
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 1: phenomenon of love at first sight. Now, usually there's all

510
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,360
Speaker 1: sorts of background conditions, like they're in proximity to each other.

511
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: You know, if they live far apart, they probably wouldn't

512
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: have this experience and so forth. But you're right to

513
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: point out that there's different ways that relationships are um

514
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: normatively constructed in different environments. In the case of an

515
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: arranged marriage is very interesting because in the quote unquote

516
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: west we think of love matches as being the ideal.

517
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: And in many cultures, you know, there's forced marriages, which

518
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: we object to in the book. But in some cases,

519
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: the families get together and they try to find a

520
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: mate for you, and you have a veto but you

521
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:47,679
Speaker 1: meet the person and maybe you you have to create

522
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 1: love with them, and we think that's a very interesting

523
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: case study for the kind of thing we're talking about,

524
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 1: which is what if you could use not only the

525
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: psychosocial tools but also biotechnological tools to help bring love

526
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: into a relationship that you want to be relationship where

527
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily start out that way. So let's go

528
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: through a few of the drugs now, because this is

529
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: where I learned I think the most from your book,

530
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: from everything like oxytocin to SSR eyes to a range

531
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 1: of others, but starting off with oxytocin, you know, which

532
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: I guess is sometimes called the cuddle drug or the

533
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: love drug enhances bonding, but it's also something that you

534
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: can get in a nasal spray. And so is oxytocin

535
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: is something that we see potentially coming along as something

536
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: that might be used in addition or separately from m

537
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: d M A to accomplish somewhat similar objectives or is

538
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: m d M A going to be more appropriate for

539
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: certain context and oxytocin not? And is the research really

540
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: in on oxytocin is yet? Yeah? Well, one thing is

541
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: m d M A also stimulates the release of oxytocin

542
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: just endogenously, So it's not a clean break between those

543
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: two interventions. You know, we started by researching oxytocin. When

544
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 1: we have this idea for what what we're biotechnological ways

545
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: of intervening in certain aspects of love. What we notice

546
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: was all this stuff coming out about oxytocin, and we

547
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: thought it seemed very promising. There were all these headlines

548
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 1: coming out about you know, people sniff oxytocin and it

549
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: improves trust, and it improves eye contact and all these

550
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: other things and bonding cues and so forth, and so

551
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: we thought, oh, well, that seems relevant to our project,

552
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 1: and we did a literature review, and what we found

553
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: was a couple of things. One the most recent and

554
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: and probably most important concern is that a lot of

555
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: the initial findings simply don't seem to replicate. So what

556
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: you'll find is that a handful of laboratories will be

557
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: conducting basically the same experiment. And let's say that, just

558
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: to simplify, let's say twenty laboratories run this experiment and

559
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: one of them gets a statistically significant result that looks publishable,

560
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: and the other nineteen laboratories don't don't find anything publishable. Well,

561
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: what happens, just as a matter of sociology of science,

562
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: is that those nineteen labs will simply file away their

563
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: non significant result in the file drawer. This leads to

564
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: something called the file drawer problem. And then that one

565
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: lab that thinks it's found something, but just mathematically we

566
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: can tell from the situation it's got to be a fluke.

567
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: They published their fluke as a result, and that that

568
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: gets in the literature, and that's what everybody thinks the

569
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: finding is. But unless you know what all the unpublished

570
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: studies were, you actually can't even interpret the statistical values

571
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: that are present in the paper. So some researchers with

572
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: integrity decided to look in their own file drawer and

573
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: taken an accounting of how many versions of experiments they did,

574
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: if you count pilot studies and things that are kind

575
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,239
Speaker 1: of near misses and so forth, And they said, you know,

576
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: if we're honest, if we look at the bulk of

577
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: all the work that we've done, not just our published papers,

578
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: it's not clear that we have very good events for

579
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: a lot of these these findings. Now some of them

580
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: may hold up over time. All that is just to

581
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: say that we're at a stage in the scientific research process,

582
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: where it's unclear which of the published findings will prove

583
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 1: to be replicable over the long run, in which of

584
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: them will turn out to just be flukes. Nevertheless, I'm

585
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: still not certain that oxytocin is going to be a

586
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: major player in this area. One reason is that you know,

587
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: our our brains release oxytocin under certain conditions through touch,

588
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: through orgasm and kissing and hugging and eye contact and

589
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, so we're capable of producing our

590
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: own oxytocin. It's conceivable that somebody who has a deficit

591
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: in that capacity, who actually isn't able to release oxytocin

592
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: on their own, or potentially somebody who's unable to engage

593
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: in the sorts of activities that would allow them to

594
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: do so. Maybe somebody has some sort of trauma that

595
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: disables them from certain kinds of physical contact, let's say,

596
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,479
Speaker 1: but they nevertheless want to enhance their bond with a partner.

597
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: It's conceivable that some such people maybe candidates for an

598
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: oxytocin based treatment. But what we're seeing with these nasal

599
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: sprays where you just spray the oxytocin right up through

600
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier and into the brain through the nose.

601
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: Is that the effects are pretty short term. The effects

602
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: are measured on these highly artificial economic games and so forth.

603
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to operationalize trust in the context

604
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: of a study, it's through these these pretty staged kind

605
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: of interactions that it's not clear how they reflect anything

606
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: we do in real life, and the effects seem to

607
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: seem to wear off. So I'm not I'm not too

608
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: keen on oxytocin as being very likely to be a

609
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: significant intervention in this area, but the jury is still

610
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: out because it's still a young research field. Hello, and

611
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: maybe wonder whether there could be almost a deliberate weaponization

612
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: of oxytocin that you would have, whether it's a sports

613
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: team or a military unit or some other group where

614
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: you want to enhance their kind of intro group sense

615
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: of loyalty and fidelity and closeness and enhance the sense

616
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: of alienation and maybe even hostility to the other group.

617
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: That maybe oxytocin could be weaponized. Well, that's an interesting idea. Obviously,

618
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of psychosocial methods to achieve the

619
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: same thing. In military training, for example, so a lot

620
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: of what's done is precisely to strip away some of

621
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: the person's sense of independent personal judgment, to socialize people

622
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: into obedience to authority within a hierarchical structure, to feel

623
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: a sense of real brotherhood and familial connection among the

624
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: the troops that are all on the same side. And

625
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: also a sort of vilification and demon demonization and dehumanization

626
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: of the enemy. And so you know, that's all accomplished

627
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: with traditional standard military training. Whether that could be enhanced

628
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: through the strategic use of oxytocin, it seems possible, But again,

629
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the science is is evolved enough

630
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: to be able to make any sort of strong prediction.

631
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: So we typically don't think about animal studies as being

632
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: so key to understanding love relationships and humans. But you

633
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: have a number of pages where you talk about research

634
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: involving a type of rodent called voles. Just just tell

635
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: our audience a little more about voles in the research

636
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: and why they're relevant to think about humans. Possibly relevant,

637
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: I should say, so, voles are a species of rodent,

638
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: there a mammal. There are for our purposes two main

639
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: variety of voles. There's prairie voles and montane voles, and

640
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: one of the species is more or less monogamous in

641
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: the sense that we think of. They bond together with

642
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: one partner, they protect the nests from competing potential mates,

643
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: they really raised the offspring together, and so forth. The

644
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,479
Speaker 1: other species of val, which is closely related, nevertheless has

645
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: an important difference in its mating style, which is that

646
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: it's uh polygamous. And so these voles take multiple partners,

647
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: they aren't as involved in protecting and guarding the primary

648
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: bond with one partner and so forth. And so this

649
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: this is part of what caused researchers to realize that

650
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: there's certainly has got to be some kind of biological

651
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: basis to aspects of our romantic or mating psychology, and

652
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: it's just so so obvious in the case of voles,

653
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: where you can also manipulate these variables. So you can

654
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: intervene in the oxytocin system through injecting certain chemicals into

655
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: the nucleus cucumbents of these voles, and you can in

656
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: essence flip the monogamous voles to become polygamous by introducing

657
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: an oxytocin blocker, and you can similarly get the polygamous

658
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: voles to behave in a more monogamous way by tampering

659
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: with their brain chemistry as well. And so, you know,

660
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: there's always the question of how much about humans can

661
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: be learned from these kinds of animal studies. But some

662
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: researchers think that this basic oxytocin system and its role

663
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: in bonding and our attachment to a close partner is

664
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: something that seems to have been highly conserved through you know,

665
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: many different mammal species, and that there's good reason, evolutionary

666
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 1: reasons to think that that a very similar system would

667
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: be conserved in humans. You know, there may be technological

668
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 1: developments that allow us to administer oxytocin in a way

669
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: that's more comparable to what you can do with a role,

670
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: where you can do these direct injections, and if that's true,

671
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: it might be that you could, you know, assert a

672
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: stronger sway over human mating dispositions, which which would be

673
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: quite a striking outcome. He reminded me of conversation I

674
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: had with the guest some weeks ago about kenemy, you know,

675
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: and that's one where it's oftentimes used in the party

676
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: scene by stiffing it right and you know, nasally, but

677
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: that would the therapists tend to prefer the intramuscular administration

678
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: is way to going more directly there, But people haven't

679
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: really tried the intramuscular or i the administration of of

680
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: oxytocin and evaluated that is yet well. Oxytocin it works

681
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: in two different ways depending on if it's active in

682
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 1: the brain versus active in the blood stream. So it

683
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: works as a neuro hormone in the in the blood stream,

684
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,320
Speaker 1: and that's you know, how it's used. For example, in

685
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: the context of birth thing it's part of what causes

686
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: the letdown of milk, and it stimulates the cervical contractions

687
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: and so forth. When oxytocin is active in the brain,

688
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: it works more like a neurotransmitter. And the issue is

689
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: just that the blood brain barrier causes the brain based

690
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 1: oxytocin and the bloodstream based oxytocin to not intermingle very much,

691
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: and so injecting oxytocin into the bloodstream isn't necessarily going

692
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: to have the strong brain based effects that allow it

693
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 1: to work as a neuro transmitter. I see, So another

694
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: drug you talk about, it's some length in all sorts

695
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: of ways are the SSR eyes, you know, I mean

696
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: this is something that what roughly ten percent of the

697
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: population over the to twelve in America. But you make

698
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: the point not just that ss OUR eyes need to

699
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: be looked at in terms of their impact on the individual,

700
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: but that one of the biggest mistakes that we make

701
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: in therapy and medicine and in research is not looking

702
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:22,479
Speaker 1: at the impact of drugs on people's relationship. There's looking

703
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,840
Speaker 1: just solely doesn't reduce their depression, help them, you know,

704
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: get a bottom of that depression. But actually there's a

705
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: whole relationship that people are involved in, and obviously we

706
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 1: assume if you can reads to depression, that should help

707
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,919
Speaker 1: the relationship. But you point out that there's a whole

708
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: lot of ways in which this could also go the

709
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: other direction, right, So one thing people should should realize

710
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: is that when you run a clinical trial to test

711
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: the effect of some drug, you have a hypothesis about

712
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: what you think it's gonna do, and you prepare the

713
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: trial to be able to capture data that's relevant to

714
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: your hypothesis. So once people started using selective serotonin reptake inhibitors,

715
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: which are s R eyes as intended and to pressence. Well,

716
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 1: the questionnaires and the measures they use in the study

717
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly have to do with symptoms of depression. Often these

718
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: trials aren't set up in such a way to even

719
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: capture the full range of bodily harms, but they certainly

720
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: are not including questionnaires to do with interpersonal relationships or

721
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: how's your relationship working out? And so this is a

722
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: general point. You know, the drugs that we ingest for

723
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: medicine are just chemicals. They're just molecules, and they act

724
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: on our brain in whatever way they act. But when

725
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: we give them a name, when we call the drug

726
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: an antidepressant, we're just saying what we mean to use

727
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: the drug for. We're not saying what is the overall

728
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 1: effect of the drug. The drug may have all manner

729
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: of other effects that we simply haven't measured properly. And

730
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 1: then what happens is over time, when people are using

731
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:46,919
Speaker 1: these drugs, especially on the wide scale like we're seeing,

732
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,399
Speaker 1: you start to get stories anecdotes, case studies where people

733
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: are coming and saying, Doc, you put me on these pills,

734
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe my symptoms of depression are a

735
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: little bit alleviated. But I found that I'm just not

736
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: in love with my partner anymore. And we've had a

737
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: strong relationship for fifteen years and all of a sudden,

738
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: you know, after three months into taking these drugs, I

739
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: just find that my my love of life and love

740
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: for my partner are diminished. And what's going on? And

741
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: if you start to hear enough of those stories, you think, well,

742
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: maybe this is the sort of thing we should be

743
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: studying systematically rather in this slap dash anecdotal way. But

744
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: you are finding that in some cases, when you, in

745
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: a prospective study ask people about their relationships who are

746
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: taking ss R eyes, you find some disturbing outcomes. One

747
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,479
Speaker 1: of them is is that people will say, Okay, I

748
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: feel that the drug is dampening my chronic, maladaptive feelings

749
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: of sadness, which is maybe the point of the drug,

750
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 1: But I also find that it's dampening my ability to

751
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 1: care about my partner's feelings as well. It's not just

752
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: my own feelings that I'm sort of detaching from. UH.

753
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,439
Speaker 1: In a controversial way, some people think that that's that's

754
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: not the way to deal with these problems is just

755
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: by you know, muting the feelings. Um. But if you're

756
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: muting your ability to respond to your partner's feelings. That's

757
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: something that could have pretty severe consequences for the relationship.

758
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: So yeah, we we argue that it's a major mistake

759
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: not to systematically study these interpersonal variables. And I'll say,

760
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,479
Speaker 1: you know, I'm familiar with a number of researchers who

761
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: are extremely critical about s s R is. The one

762
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: point that they'll make is that the known risk of

763
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: a side effect on libido in dampening people's sex drive

764
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: is very robust, and some studies put the risk of

765
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: that upwards of Now, I do want to just add

766
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: a caveat to this, which is that a given physical

767
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: side effect, if we want to know morally how to

768
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: feel about it, we have to understand how does it

769
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,919
Speaker 1: fit into the whole dynamic of the relationship. And I'll

770
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: just add to that. One reason why I think a

771
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,720
Speaker 1: lot of this research hasn't been done is precisely because

772
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: it starts to get complicated when you put two people

773
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: in the picture, Because now you're not just checking off

774
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,800
Speaker 1: symptoms with person A. You have to ask yourself questions

775
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 1: like what style of attachment does this person have with others?

776
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: And what's really going on in the relationship and what

777
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,439
Speaker 1: are the background conditions of their story and so forth,

778
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: and it's just increasingly hard to scientifically capture all of

779
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: that variance, which I think is part of the reason

780
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: why it hasn't been done. Um but just finally on

781
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: ss R I s, as some researchers think that the

782
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: the therapeutic effect that's been reported is most of it

783
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: is probably down to placebo, and that there's not a

784
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: lot of good evidence that over and above placebo, ss

785
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: R E s are for most people very effective even

786
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: in treating depression, in other words, doing the thing that

787
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: they're intended to do well. I mean, I was struck though,

788
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 1: because you said there is this limited evidence. You know,

789
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 1: it's not just about blunting libido and arousal and the

790
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: duration intensity of orgasms, but also blocking empathy. You know,

791
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: quite a substantial and real SSR I sort of just

792
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:46,240
Speaker 1: not caring as much about their partner. The depression gets

793
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: lifted a bit, but then it's counteracted by this actually

794
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: serious negative effect on that and that that seems to

795
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: be fairly common, although, as I guess you say, there's

796
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: not enough research to really know, but you did report

797
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: a few studies which indicated that was a pretty sick

798
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: nificant impact of S s R EYES, right. I mean,

799
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 1: so people who are taking ss R E s and

800
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: who have noticed diminishments in their libido sometimes will just

801
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: spontaneously report to their doctor as well that it's not

802
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: just their sex drive that's been diminished. It's, as you say,

803
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: their sense of empathy, their their ability to care about

804
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: others feelings, and their ability to cry, their ability to

805
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: imagine and to dream. I mean, all sorts of things

806
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: seem to be dulled by S s R E s

807
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: for many people, and we think that figuring out what

808
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: the interpersonal and social aspects of that are is something

809
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: that should be front and center in this research going forward.

810
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: You know, Brian, you talked about oftimes people don't pay attention,

811
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: whether it's physicians researchers to the quote unquote side effects,

812
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: which may include, you know, decreased libido and what that

813
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,439
Speaker 1: would mean for relationships. But one of the interesting ones

814
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: you talked about was in pointing out that oftentimes with

815
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: O c D that an emotion like intense jealousy are

816
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 1: some of the assessive aspects of amorous relationships can effectively

817
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: be treated quote on well with the same drugs that

818
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: we use to treat O c D. Yeah, A couple

819
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: of researchers have noticed that at the level of symptomology

820
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: and behavior and mindset, there are some striking parallels between

821
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: classical symptoms of o c D and certain experiences of jealousy,

822
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: one of which is this checking behavior. So I have

823
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: O c D, and for years, whenever I would get

824
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: out of the car and i'd i'd locked the door

825
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: and start walking to the store, I think that I

826
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: really locked the door, and I go back and check

827
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: it and Okay, it's there. And then I do it

828
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: and I go and I do this, you know, fifteen

829
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: times before I finally leave. It's a totally compulsive thing.

830
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: I know, it's irrational. I can't help it. Well, some

831
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 1: people who experience jealousy do the same thing, you know,

832
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: they check in with their partner. Who were you talking

833
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: to and what were you talking about? And this kind

834
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: of a thing, and they start to obsessively interrogate the

835
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: partner because they're really just trying to deal with their

836
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: own compulsion. I mean, the partner maybe is giving them

837
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: no legitimate reason to feel this extreme jealousy. And so

838
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 1: in those cases where you have an irrational jealousy that's

839
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: causing you to engage in these compulsive, repetitive behaviors that

840
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: you know are really not helpful. It seemed likely to

841
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: these researchers that there might actually be a neurochemical basis

842
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: for both of these kinds of symptoms. And so there

843
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: are a couple of instances where the psychiatrists actually prescribed

844
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: S s R e S in conjunction with cognitive behavioral

845
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 1: therapy as a treatment for jealousy basically and found that

846
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: in the cases described it was effective. Yeah. I mean

847
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: you also talk about how you know, some of some

848
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: of these things like m D M A almost cannoperate

849
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: directly in terms of our love relationship by affecting our emotions.

850
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 1: But then you take a drug like viagra, right, which

851
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,439
Speaker 1: I guess, like I says, all, I can go cut

852
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: both ways. I mean, on the one end, if viagra

853
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: by enabling you know, an older man to get an

854
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: erection and have sex, and if that's a desirable thing

855
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,919
Speaker 1: in the relationship, that could be a good thing, and

856
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: not least be a good thing, because then if you're

857
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: having sex, it's gonna be releasing oxytocin, which is going

858
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,320
Speaker 1: to be another kind of love making or love feeling drug.

859
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if your partner is not interested

860
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 1: in that part of thing, and maybe you know, viagraphy

861
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: if you want to just left well enough alow, and

862
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: a couple is aging into a fairly non you know,

863
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 1: conventionally sexual relationship, or their sexual relationship is evolving away

864
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: from being so focused on erections, maybe viagra does more

865
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: harmening good. Yeah, I think that's right. There's been some

866
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: interesting feminist critiques of viagraa which is that it prioritizes

867
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: and promotes a certain kind of penile vaginal intercourse, which

868
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,439
Speaker 1: often for women is not necessarily the most enjoyable form

869
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 1: of sexual activity. And so it might well be that,

870
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: you know, as people are going into older age, you know,

871
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: assuming a heterosexual couple, a lot of women would prefer

872
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: to have non penetrative forms of sex and to explore

873
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: their bodies in different ways and so forth. But if

874
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 1: there's this imperative to you know, have a certain kind

875
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: of uh sex into old age, and to to take

876
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: a pill to accomplish that, some people would say the

877
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: pill is having a certain physical effect that maybe narrowly

878
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,399
Speaker 1: conceived do you think is desirable? But maybe you should

879
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:52,839
Speaker 1: step back and think about the bigger picture here, you know,

880
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: is there more to sex than just the sort of

881
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: thing that this pill enables. Well, you also talk about,

882
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 1: you know, different types of relationships and the role of

883
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: sex in and I remember reading once Brian. I don't

884
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: know if it's accurate or not, but that if you

885
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 1: look at the relationships that oftentimes are the most successful

886
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,760
Speaker 1: over a long period of time, it's where the couple

887
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: is more or less evenly matched in their desire for sex.

888
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: So that a couple which remains highly sexually oriented is

889
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,280
Speaker 1: more likely to do well. Or conversely, a couple where

890
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 1: both are are not particularly sexually oriented, for whom they

891
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: have a loving relationship that's almost maybe more like a

892
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,359
Speaker 1: sibling relationship, you know, with little or no sex can

893
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 1: also be highly successful. And that some of the greatest

894
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: tensions can result when the when then there's a mismatch there.

895
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: And then I think in the book which you raises

896
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,359
Speaker 1: the issue that one could use drugs either to bring

897
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 1: these things more into a greater commonality, that in one

898
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: sense it might be helping the less sexually oriented person

899
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: to become more so or conversely diminishing the person who's

900
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: more sexualized, who wants more sex, in order to create

901
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: a greater meeting ground, and that this can be done

902
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: an ethically either way. Yeah, there's a there's a certain

903
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 1: possibility here that, you know, adjusting libidos of one or

904
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: the other partner to try to make them more harmonious

905
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: could be helpful. An early critique of some of our

906
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 1: work I don't remember who raised this was that, you know,

907
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: there's an alternative here to to try and get this

908
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: couple's libidos matched, Which is supposed one partner is interested

909
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: in having sex once a month and the other one

910
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: would really prefer to be having sex once a day.

911
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: It seems like, gosh, how are they going to deal

912
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 1: with this problem now? Of course, the problem assumes that

913
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 1: they're in a monogamous relationship. There's a background norm here

914
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: that's causing this particular mismatching libido to amount to a problem.

915
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: Whereas it could be the case if this couple was

916
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: in an open relationship and the partner with the stronger

917
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,399
Speaker 1: libido was allowed to have sex with other partners under

918
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:49,319
Speaker 1: certain agreed upon conditions and so forth, it might be

919
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: that there's no problem at all in the relationship. And

920
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 1: so this just drives to a broader point, which is

921
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: partly what we're trying to do in the book is

922
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: say it's not ever enough to just ask what's the

923
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: local effect of technology? We have to rather ask what

924
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: are the set of norms within which the technology is working,

925
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: What are the set of social background assumptions that are

926
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: shaping how we evaluate the technology? And so you're right,

927
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: I think that for a couple who overall values of monogamy,

928
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: and they have strong reason too, and maybe they've considered

929
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: open relationships and so forth, and they've thoughtfully rejected that

930
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: given their particular you know, dispositions and values for them,

931
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 1: it might be that the use of a drug to

932
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:26,800
Speaker 1: sink things up in terms of libido could be the

933
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 1: best solution for them. But this is always a risk

934
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:32,799
Speaker 1: of technologies, is that they sometimes allow us to they

935
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: disincentivize us, I should say, from having to think about

936
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: the norms that we're taking for granted, Whereas if we

937
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: didn't have the technology available, we might have to confront

938
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: certain things about our implicit value system that otherwise we

939
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't be interrogating. And that's something that that has to

940
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 1: be kept in mind. That technologies can draw our attention

941
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: away from social conditions and from background norms, and that's

942
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: something that we should be wary of. Let's take a

943
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:11,919
Speaker 1: break here and go to an ad h Of course,

944
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: you keep making the point that we just need to

945
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: be aware of the ways in which drugs can affect

946
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: our relationships. You know, one of the things you come

947
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: back to oftentimes is about hormones and drugs that affect hormones,

948
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: like birth control pills, And there was some study I

949
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: think you pointed out about, you know, the impact of

950
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 1: birth control pills on the types of mates that women

951
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,319
Speaker 1: may end up choosing and whether those relationships turn out

952
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: to be successful long term or not. Right. So, this

953
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: is research where some of it seems robust, some of

954
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: it seems contested. But the standard narrative is that part

955
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 1: of what drives our attraction to particular mates is something

956
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: to do with our old factory system. We seem to

957
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: be picking up through our nose and through all faction

958
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:58,280
Speaker 1: evidence of the genetic compatibility of ourselves with the partner

959
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: in terms of passing on healthy and in systems. It's

960
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: called immunohisto compatibility complex is something that supposedly is detectable

961
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: in this semi conscious, unconscious way through you know, molecules

962
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: that we can we can smell off the person. And

963
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: so the thought is birth control, hormonal birth control may

964
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: disrupt this process. It may make it so that we're

965
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: less sensitive in terms of these subtle cues that we

966
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: pick up through a person's smell to our sort of

967
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: underlying compatibility with them that normally would be driving our

968
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 1: sense of attraction. And so here's the risk. Suppose that

969
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,359
Speaker 1: I'm on birth control, I'm I'm dating around and I'm

970
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who a good might mate might be,

971
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: and I've I've got this process blocked so that I'm

972
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: missing a certain amount of important information, and I'm going

973
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: off of other information. You know, this person is charming

974
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: and friendly, and they seem nice, and we get along well,

975
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: and they make me laugh and so forth, and so

976
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 1: you you decide to go along with that partnership. And

977
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 1: then at some point, let's say you want to have

978
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: children with this person, so you you go off birth control.

979
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: And now it happens is in some cases you have

980
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: information now made available to you that in some cases

981
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 1: just turns you off, where through these subtle, subconscious cues

982
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: that you're getting through your factory system, something in your

983
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: brain is saying, warning, this is not a good genetic match. Uh,

984
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: this is not somebody who you should be combining your

985
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 1: genes with for the sake of the health of your offspring.

986
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 1: And the way that that plays out phenomenologically is that

987
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:20,800
Speaker 1: you just feel not into the person. Your your sexual

988
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: chemistry is not there, and so this can be a

989
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: very devastating kind of a situation for people. There's evidence

990
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,400
Speaker 1: that this sometimes happens. How often it happens, how robust

991
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: this story is is unclear, but that's kind of the

992
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,720
Speaker 1: starting point for research in this area. But the result

993
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: being that a couple of that gets going when a

994
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:37,919
Speaker 1: woman's using the birth control that later in the life

995
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: she may find herself being maybe sexually less connected, less frustrated.

996
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: But I think you also make the point, or these

997
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: studies make the point that sometimes that same person who

998
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 1: she's feeling more and more dissatisfied with may actually turn

999
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 1: out to be good on the parenting level or something

1000
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 1: like that. Right, there seems to be some paradoxical findings

1001
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: in this area. So yeah, We'll have to see how

1002
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: this research develops. But it's it's it's it's a very

1003
00:50:57,680 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 1: sort of thing that we're talking about should be done.

1004
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: I mean, lots of people are und hermonal birth control,

1005
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 1: and as many women know, hormonal birth control can have

1006
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: radical effects on your subjective experience, on your moods, on

1007
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes how you relate to other people, and

1008
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 1: so understanding the full swath of of potential effects beyond

1009
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 1: just you know, you might experience nausea or breast tenderness.

1010
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: It's like you might experience relational difficulties, and we should

1011
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: be aware of the range of relational difficulties that people

1012
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: may face. Well. A big part of the book, also, right,

1013
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: is talking about the role of drugs in terms of

1014
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 1: our unhealthy or dangerous or abusive relationships, as well as

1015
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: relationships that might not be any of those, but which

1016
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: for religious or cultural reasons, may be disfavored relationships. Right,

1017
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: And you talk about obviously, when it comes to drugs,

1018
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 1: are sums that are gonna help reduce you know, sort

1019
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: of anti lust drug and that may be the easiest,

1020
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: and anti attraction drugs are harder, and anti attachment drugs

1021
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: even harder. Than that, But you have a whole discussion about,

1022
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 1: you know, trying to block lust, right and obviously with pedophilia,

1023
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 1: you know there's testosterol blockers and this chemical castration, but

1024
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: you know there's also other situations you talk about where

1025
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 1: people may want to be blocking the lusty field, blocking

1026
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: their feelings of wanting to have sex with somebody from

1027
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 1: the same sex, where that's not something that their culture

1028
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: or religion permits. Just expand on that part of it, Brian,

1029
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 1: if you would, right, So, we were thinking about these

1030
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: hypothetical anti love drugs, and some of them are not

1031
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: so hypothetical. So as as you mentioned, intervening in the

1032
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: testosterone system can very much dampen in person's libido. And

1033
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: if you have a damp in libido, that means that,

1034
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, you're not releasing oxytocin in certain contexts,

1035
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: which can affect attachment and so forth. So you can

1036
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:48,760
Speaker 1: institute a kind of global anti i don't know, bonding,

1037
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 1: anti romance effect in some cases through these libido impairing drugs,

1038
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: which which have been used in the case of sex

1039
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 1: offenders and in the case of some people with pedophilia,

1040
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: in the case of sex offenders or people of pedophilia.

1041
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: Beyond that, are there cases of just, you know, ordinary

1042
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: folks who might also be interested in somehow taking an

1043
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 1: anti love drug just to use that shorthand. And we

1044
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: noticed in looking through the literature that there's there's a

1045
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: lot of people who think to themselves, gosh, you know,

1046
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:17,640
Speaker 1: my life would be so much better if only I

1047
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: could not be in love with this person. You know,

1048
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,720
Speaker 1: maybe you're pining after somebody who won't ever return your feelings.

1049
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: Let's say, unrequited love can be an absolute disaster for

1050
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: your sense of self esteem, your ability to focus on

1051
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 1: anything else. And so it seems like, wow, if I

1052
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 1: could take some pill that would allow me to just

1053
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 1: focus more on myself and my own goals and not

1054
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:38,319
Speaker 1: be so obsessed with this person who will never be

1055
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 1: interested in me, maybe that would be a situation where

1056
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: it could be ethically appropriate or even prudent to use

1057
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: this technology. We also thought of somebody who is desperately

1058
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: attached or attracted to someone who abuses them and who

1059
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 1: they know rationally, I ought not to be in this relationship.

1060
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 1: What's best for me is to leave this this household

1061
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: and get out of here and set up my life

1062
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: somewhere else. But many people will report that, and this

1063
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 1: is often a side effective abuse where you have a

1064
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 1: kind of Stockholm syndrome kick in, where people will feel

1065
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: even more attached to the person who abuses them, maybe

1066
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 1: because partly they're trying to rationalize the abuse in some way.

1067
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:20,719
Speaker 1: And so this is a very difficult situation where if

1068
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: a person has a higher order awareness of the fact

1069
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: that they ought to leave the relationship, and they wish

1070
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: that that first order attraction that they feel were diminished

1071
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: because it would help them achieve their important and sensible

1072
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: goal to leave the relationship, we thought that might be

1073
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: a good use of these drugs as well. But then

1074
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 1: we came on too. Well, you know, once you have

1075
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: a technology available, once you you know, put the gun

1076
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 1: on the on the stage set, somebody might use it

1077
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 1: for something other than how it was intended. And so

1078
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 1: we thought about the way that people with minority sexual orientations,

1079
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: gay people in many cultures historically certainly, but also in

1080
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 1: many places today have been forced to undergo various forms

1081
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,800
Speaker 1: of chemical castration and attempted conversion therapies and so forth.

1082
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: And we think this is a real worry because the

1083
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 1: main refrain that you hear now in the case of

1084
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 1: conversion therapy is well it doesn't work. They say, well,

1085
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,720
Speaker 1: it's harmful in any way. It doesn't work these various

1086
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: techniques that people employ in in conservative religious communities to

1087
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: try to turn a gay person straight to to use

1088
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: that lingo, and and we thought, well, that's maybe a

1089
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 1: bit myopic, because insofar as there is some neurochemical, genetic,

1090
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: biological basis to sexual orientation, it might be that in

1091
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:33,240
Speaker 1: the future technologies could be developed that would be effective

1092
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 1: and you'd have a kind of high tech conversion therapy.

1093
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 1: And we thought this is something we should actually take

1094
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:41,520
Speaker 1: seriously as a concern because it would undermine one of

1095
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 1: the main arguments that's used to promote the human and

1096
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:48,439
Speaker 1: civil rights of gay people, which is sexual orientation can't

1097
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 1: be changed. Sometimes there's actually conflation, which is they'll say, well,

1098
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: a person is born this way, and that implies that

1099
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: it can't be changed, but that doesn't actually follow. You

1100
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: might be born with the trait that can nevertheless be changed.

1101
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: But basically that's what people mean is think I didn't

1102
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 1: choose it, and also I can't change it. Therefore you

1103
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,919
Speaker 1: shouldn't discriminate against me, And we think that's a bad

1104
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: argument because if it turns out that you can change it, well,

1105
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: then it suggests that your ethical argument for why gay

1106
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: people should have human rights is suddenly the empirical premise

1107
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: is refuted, and that just seems like a really bad

1108
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: way to go. The claim for human rights and fair

1109
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 1: treatment and non discrimination of sexual orientation minorities um follows

1110
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 1: the same logic as why you shouldn't be able to

1111
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 1: discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs. But you

1112
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: can change your religious beliefs. It's not like they're immutable.

1113
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,720
Speaker 1: In fact, Dan Savage has made this point. The idea

1114
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: that something has to be immutable in order to be

1115
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: worthy of respect is just a nonsense premise, and so

1116
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,360
Speaker 1: we should come up with stronger, more principled arguments to

1117
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 1: support gay rights rather than things that hang on a

1118
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 1: potentially contingent empirical premise about what I also see you

1119
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:50,359
Speaker 1: do any of the book, and it's very nu odds right.

1120
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: Is on the one hand, you say, look, it's not

1121
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 1: enough to just look at the impact of drugs and

1122
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: individuals and relationships in a laboratory set, and you need

1123
00:56:58,200 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: to look at it in the real world to real

1124
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:02,959
Speaker 1: you understand this stuff. And then I think the same

1125
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 1: point you make in some respects in terms of the

1126
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 1: ethical views, right, which is that you and I and

1127
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: many other people, especially people are progressively minded, would say that,

1128
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,320
Speaker 1: you know, we need to change the morays and the

1129
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 1: values so that people can have a loving, sexual intimate

1130
00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: relationship with somebody of whatever sexual orientation or or gender.

1131
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,479
Speaker 1: That that should just that's just what it means about

1132
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: to talk about the human rights of individuals and the

1133
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: human rights of people, you know, when it comes to

1134
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 1: their sexuality. But then you have the interesting case, right

1135
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: of these young men growing up in a Jewish ultra

1136
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 1: orthodox background who feel, you know, homosexual desires, and in

1137
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: that community there's some encouragement, if not pressure, for these

1138
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: young men to take SSR eyes or other things that

1139
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: we just simply reduce their sexual desire. I mean, the

1140
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: same thing might be true when it comes to people

1141
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: going to the Catholic priesthood are expected to be celibate,

1142
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: and it would also be true of Christian Islamic fundamentalist

1143
00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: views where they just far home and sexuality. So we say, yes,

1144
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 1: these views, of course they should evolve in these are

1145
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: backward views and their anti human rights. But in the

1146
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 1: real world, where people may in fact sometimes be tortured

1147
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: by their own homosexual desires, and would you know, in

1148
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: their own perhaps prefer to let go of those desires

1149
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: so that they wouldn't be so tortured, that raises an

1150
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 1: interesting ethical dilemma, right, absolutely, it's an extremely difficult case.

1151
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: So I agree with you that if I could wave

1152
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: a magic wand and make these deep seated, religiously justified

1153
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 1: homophobic attitudes disappear, that's obviously the preferable course of action

1154
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:38,520
Speaker 1: than trying to help somebody who is situated within that

1155
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: value system cope with or change their sexual orientation. You know,

1156
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: so from a progressive moral standpoint, there's simply no reason

1157
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 1: that a person should ever feel pressured to change their

1158
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: sexual orientation. But here's the problem. We live in a

1159
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 1: world where not everybody has a progressive moral worldview. And

1160
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: in fact, if you are raised in an ultra Orthodox

1161
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: community or you know, fundamentalists Christian community or Islamic community,

1162
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:04,440
Speaker 1: where these sort of anti homosexual attitudes are embedded within

1163
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 1: the value structure of the religion, it's easy for somebody

1164
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,960
Speaker 1: standing outside of that worldview to say well, just you know,

1165
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:14,000
Speaker 1: just leave your community. It's it's that simple. But for

1166
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:17,439
Speaker 1: some people who are in a relatively cloistered community, whose

1167
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: whole worldview, whose friends and family and everything that they

1168
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 1: ever cared about is wrapped up in this, and also

1169
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: who made themselves sincerely hold these religious beliefs, that's the

1170
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 1: further thing. You know, a lot of these youths that

1171
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: I reported on, they go to their rabbis and their

1172
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 1: counselors and they say, I have these desires that I,

1173
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 1: based on my own theological commitments, believe are separating me

1174
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 1: from the creator of the universe. Now what do you

1175
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:45,680
Speaker 1: do with a claim like that. I might go up

1176
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:47,160
Speaker 1: to the person and say, well, let's do a little

1177
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 1: philosophy of religion and maybe I can you know, talk

1178
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:51,480
Speaker 1: you out of your commitment to your reading of the

1179
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:54,640
Speaker 1: Torah or something like that. But you know, it just

1180
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: ain't that simple. If this other person is an adult

1181
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:01,880
Speaker 1: of sound mind and they've reflected on these reviews, these views,

1182
01:00:01,920 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: and they've they've studied their religious beliefs, and they really

1183
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 1: have a certain kind of different premise. They model the

1184
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 1: world differently, and they see that what's most important to

1185
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 1: them and their sense of self is, say, their relationship

1186
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:15,919
Speaker 1: to God, and they see their sexual desires as being

1187
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 1: not central to their identity. Again, I think there's every

1188
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 1: reason to try to persuade them of a different view,

1189
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,880
Speaker 1: or to try to maybe provide resources whereby there's some

1190
01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:27,080
Speaker 1: way to reconcile their religious beliefs with their sexual orientation.

1191
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 1: But at some point I think, I think you have

1192
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 1: to try to be respectful of a person's self conception

1193
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:34,920
Speaker 1: and not tell other people how they ought to feel.

1194
01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:37,480
Speaker 1: And then this raises an extremely difficult situation, which is

1195
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: suppose you're in one of these communities where as a

1196
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 1: matter of fact, you are depressed. You're depressed because you

1197
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: have feelings that you based on your theological commitments which

1198
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 1: obviously were socialized into having cause you to reject. And

1199
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 1: now you go to the doctor and you say I

1200
01:00:52,680 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: need some treatment for this. Now the doctor has an

1201
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,280
Speaker 1: opportunity to give you a drug that is, you know,

1202
01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: on the label it says it's going to treat your depression,

1203
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:02,840
Speaker 1: which is a vale reason to prescribe the drug for you,

1204
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 1: but it also has a known side effect that it

1205
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: is probably going to reduce your libido. Which will make

1206
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:10,440
Speaker 1: you maybe not have these feelings at least not so

1207
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: strongly that you had before as as a side effect. Now,

1208
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: if you know that that's a side effect, if it's

1209
01:01:15,840 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: a foreseen but now also intended outcome of the drug,

1210
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 1: it's really just being used as high tech conversion therapy. Well,

1211
01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: it's not re orienting you necessarily, it's basically just killing

1212
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 1: your libido. But that's the situation that these counselors are

1213
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:32,040
Speaker 1: confronted with. And I guess maybe structurally the way of

1214
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: talking about it is how much human well being in

1215
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:39,160
Speaker 1: the here and now for people who are embedded within

1216
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: certain social networks should be sacrificed on the altar of

1217
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: long term social change by making certain technologies unavailable. If

1218
01:01:48,520 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 1: prescribing an s s r I to one of these

1219
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 1: Yeshiva students genuinely will help them function and live their

1220
01:01:55,720 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 1: life in a way that's not despairing, it seems like

1221
01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: there's at least a prima facial reason that that should

1222
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 1: be done. Now again, somebody will say, well, you shouldn't

1223
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: do that, You should just change their entire social, moral,

1224
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: and religious worldview. And my thought is, okay, well, God

1225
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,400
Speaker 1: bless you, good luck, with that in some communities it

1226
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: seems like that's not the most immediate way to relieve suffering,

1227
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:18,680
Speaker 1: and it just puts people in this horrible, horrible dilemma.

1228
01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:20,439
Speaker 1: And so we really struggle with that case in the book.

1229
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:21,920
Speaker 1: We don't quite know what to do with it, because

1230
01:02:22,240 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 1: it's a true dilemma with just tragedy on every end.

1231
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 1: You know, it may be also wondered about other sort

1232
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 1: of group settings, like when you know, we have an

1233
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:32,160
Speaker 1: America over two million people behind bars, you know, over

1234
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: who are men, and in the vast majority, we presume

1235
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: our heterosexual who may want to have a reduced sex

1236
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: drive while they're behind bars to make life more manageable.

1237
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 1: We could think about, you know, as military units become

1238
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: more integrated of men and women, but where there may

1239
01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:51,800
Speaker 1: be good reasons for military discipline to discourage any sort

1240
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 1: of sexual relationship, you know, whether homosexual, heterosexual, or what

1241
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 1: have you. That you know, there could be arguments for

1242
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 1: allowing or even having these draw ugs be administered in

1243
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 1: order to accomplish other desirable objectives. Now, of course, there's

1244
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: a question about who says who determines, you know, it's

1245
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:10,439
Speaker 1: one thing to say that, you know, the prison ward

1246
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: is gonna say we're gonna give this to all the inmates,

1247
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 1: or that the head of the military unit's gonna say

1248
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: we're gonna give this to all. But when done on

1249
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: a voluntary basis, yeah, it's hard to say. I mean,

1250
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: some people will question the degree of voluntariness of a

1251
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 1: certain choice if the choice is being made within what

1252
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:28,640
Speaker 1: others construe as an unjust system. So if I'm in

1253
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: an oppressive institution and I think that I'm making a

1254
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: choice to relieve certain burdens within that institution, some people

1255
01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: would say, well, you're really being coerced by the circumstances.

1256
01:03:38,680 --> 01:03:41,400
Speaker 1: Now there's a whole philosophical debate we could have about that,

1257
01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 1: But that's just raising a point of nuance. Here's the

1258
01:03:43,720 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 1: way of making maybe making the point even more dramatic.

1259
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:48,240
Speaker 1: I have a colleague, O the Martin Mohan, who's a

1260
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: Norwegian philosopher who wrote a paper about a way to

1261
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: potentially deal with the immense suffering that goes along with

1262
01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:59,240
Speaker 1: factory farming, mass factory farming of animals who are just

1263
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: you aren't basically being tortured all all day long and

1264
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:05,240
Speaker 1: then slaughtered unceremoniously at the end of it. Now, what

1265
01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 1: people like Cale Martin and I who are non meat eaters,

1266
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 1: would prefer is that factory farming was banned, and so

1267
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,680
Speaker 1: that's what we think is the morally preferable state of affairs.

1268
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,640
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be having factory farming. But we're also aware

1269
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 1: of the fact that for every day that factory farming

1270
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: continues and isn't banned because of complicated political realities that

1271
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:29,600
Speaker 1: we can't change. You know, we should advocate for the change,

1272
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:31,360
Speaker 1: and in the long run, hopefully it will be banned.

1273
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:34,920
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, there's billions of animals just living

1274
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: utterly miserable lives, and so only Martin says, maybe there's

1275
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:42,000
Speaker 1: a moral obligation to basically drug these animals on mass

1276
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: so that at the very least they can be, you know,

1277
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: high on some sort of drug and not feel all

1278
01:04:47,080 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 1: the pain that they're going through and not be aware

1279
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 1: of the fact that they're living in such dire circumstances.

1280
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 1: You know, when he told me this idea, I recoiled.

1281
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:56,080
Speaker 1: I felt, what a horrible idea. You know, if you

1282
01:04:56,160 --> 01:04:58,520
Speaker 1: if you administer these drugs to these poor pigs and

1283
01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 1: chickens and so forth, all it's gonna do is disincentivize

1284
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:05,760
Speaker 1: anybody from pursuing the long term structural change that's needed,

1285
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 1: because they'll say, well, the the animals aren't suffering anymore,

1286
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:11,000
Speaker 1: so what's the problem. And so you know this is

1287
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:13,520
Speaker 1: this is an analogous kind of a dilemma, and as

1288
01:05:13,560 --> 01:05:15,560
Speaker 1: you can tell from my animated way of speaking, I

1289
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: don't know how to resolve it because I agree that

1290
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 1: those animals are suffering right now, and it might well

1291
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 1: be that the mass distribution of drugs would help these

1292
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:26,560
Speaker 1: animals right now not suffer so much, but it might

1293
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:30,000
Speaker 1: be at the cost of disincentivizing long term social change. Yeah,

1294
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:31,480
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean this is also where I

1295
01:05:31,520 --> 01:05:32,960
Speaker 1: think you have a bit of a dilemma, which is

1296
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:35,440
Speaker 1: when we talk about the policy implications of all this,

1297
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 1: and it's different points. You go back and forth between

1298
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:40,800
Speaker 1: whether or not these drugs should be bad or be

1299
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:43,360
Speaker 1: allowed by prescription only, right, And I think at one

1300
01:05:43,400 --> 01:05:45,080
Speaker 1: point you say M D M A should be prescipe

1301
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,320
Speaker 1: prescription only is you know, adults should not be allowed

1302
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 1: to obtain that outside some sanctioned setting, perhaps involving prescription.

1303
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:54,919
Speaker 1: While at the same time you're saying we don't really

1304
01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: want to be medicalizing relationships and putting all this in

1305
01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:01,000
Speaker 1: the hands of doctors in an inappropriate way. And then

1306
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:03,480
Speaker 1: you bump into the issue that even when things are banned,

1307
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 1: you know, where there's a market, people will end up

1308
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:09,640
Speaker 1: using this, and that bands can have the effect of

1309
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 1: reducing the number of people of access who do certain things,

1310
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: but at the same time increasing the dangers and risk

1311
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: for people who do participate or or or obtain that

1312
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:21,720
Speaker 1: drug in an illicit environment. And I see that's another

1313
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 1: issue where you're sort of struggling with where should we

1314
01:06:24,440 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 1: be going on this without coming to any clear conclusions. Yeah,

1315
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 1: so you know you're right to raise these tensions within

1316
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:33,200
Speaker 1: our our work. One thing I'll draw distinction here is

1317
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:36,560
Speaker 1: we think that it would be most prudent for people

1318
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:41,200
Speaker 1: to take these powerful drugs under some sort of guided hand,

1319
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 1: somebody who has the wherewithal to be able to help

1320
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: them have the best possible experience and to avoid some

1321
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: of the worst possible risks. Whether that's a doctor in

1322
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 1: a white lab code or whether it's somebody who's undergone

1323
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 1: some other form of training in a less obviously overtly

1324
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 1: medical setting. Is unclear, but we don't argue that that

1325
01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:01,640
Speaker 1: should be the only legal option. And I can I

1326
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 1: can tether this to another paper that I wrote with

1327
01:07:04,120 --> 01:07:08,439
Speaker 1: many colleagues recently, whose title is Racial Justice requires Ending

1328
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:12,680
Speaker 1: the War on Drugs. So we argue that actually drugs

1329
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:15,120
Speaker 1: should be not only decriminalized, We argue for the long

1330
01:07:15,240 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 1: term legalization of drugs for reasons to do with safety

1331
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 1: and making sure that the drugs that are used aren't

1332
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: only available in underground markets and so forth. And so

1333
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:26,960
Speaker 1: I think that it should not be a crime for

1334
01:07:27,000 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 1: people to consume substances however they are obtained. It might

1335
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 1: be good for it to be a crime for certain

1336
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 1: people to sell certain substances in an irresponsible way. I mean,

1337
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 1: just in the way that if you have a you

1338
01:07:37,160 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 1: sell alcohol, you have to have a liquor license and

1339
01:07:38,960 --> 01:07:41,720
Speaker 1: you can't sell to teenagers. You know, maybe something similar

1340
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:44,240
Speaker 1: should be true for silocybin and M D M A

1341
01:07:44,320 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 1: and so forth. But we do think it's prudent. We

1342
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: think it's makes sense and is the best case scenario

1343
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: to be using these drugs in an appropriately supported way.

1344
01:07:52,040 --> 01:07:54,200
Speaker 1: And then as for medicalization, the main concern we have

1345
01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: is that under the current model. If you want to

1346
01:07:57,600 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: make a drug available to someone, it's I there, it's

1347
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: a criminalized recreational drug quote unquote, or we call it medicine.

1348
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:07,000
Speaker 1: And in order to give somebody a drug that we

1349
01:08:07,040 --> 01:08:09,880
Speaker 1: call medicine, we have to diagnose them with something. And

1350
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 1: then what happens, and pharmaceutical companies have been implicated in

1351
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: this for a long time, is this kind of disease

1352
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:17,840
Speaker 1: monitoring where you figure out that a drug might be

1353
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 1: able to help someone, and maybe it genuinely can help

1354
01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 1: them in some way, but you don't have a diagnostic

1355
01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 1: category yet, You don't have a pathology or a disease

1356
01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:26,280
Speaker 1: label that you can apply to them, And so you

1357
01:08:26,280 --> 01:08:28,799
Speaker 1: make one up, and you come up with some diagnostic criteria,

1358
01:08:28,840 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 1: and you lobby for it, and you get some psychiatrists

1359
01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: to sign onto and so forth, and now you've come

1360
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,559
Speaker 1: up with a new disease that we can subsume human

1361
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:36,960
Speaker 1: experience under and come up with, you know, here's the

1362
01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:39,679
Speaker 1: prescription to solve the disease. So we try to say

1363
01:08:40,200 --> 01:08:43,439
Speaker 1: we should think about drugs as potentially being enhancements, in

1364
01:08:43,479 --> 01:08:45,840
Speaker 1: other words, things that can simply help make your life

1365
01:08:45,840 --> 01:08:47,640
Speaker 1: go better if used in the right way under the

1366
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:51,840
Speaker 1: right circumstances without having to first pathologize you. We don't

1367
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: have to decide whether you have a relationship disorder or

1368
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,360
Speaker 1: some sort of I don't know, commitment phobia, or something

1369
01:08:57,400 --> 01:09:01,680
Speaker 1: becoming a diagnostic category. We can just say, given your circumstances,

1370
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:03,800
Speaker 1: a kind of relationship you're in, your values, and the

1371
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:06,720
Speaker 1: likely effects of this drug, if this drug is made

1372
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:10,000
Speaker 1: available to you, you know, setting other considerations aside, will

1373
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:12,559
Speaker 1: it help your life be better? And if it would

1374
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:14,360
Speaker 1: help your life be better, we think that that should

1375
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 1: be a sufficient reason to make the drug available, even

1376
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:21,519
Speaker 1: if there isn't some pathologization that also goes along with it. Yeah,

1377
01:09:21,520 --> 01:09:23,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I I just thinking in terms of contemporary

1378
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:26,599
Speaker 1: politics to initiatives pest and our again back in one

1379
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:29,200
Speaker 1: was an old drug decrime, one to sort of institute

1380
01:09:29,200 --> 01:09:33,439
Speaker 1: a Portugal like model with respect to drug possession and

1381
01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:36,320
Speaker 1: harm reduction and treatment. And the other was one to

1382
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:41,960
Speaker 1: legitimize psychedelic assists. Psilocybin specifically assist a psychotherapy where one

1383
01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:45,040
Speaker 1: would not necessarily I think, need to have a defined

1384
01:09:45,360 --> 01:09:47,840
Speaker 1: medical condition where one might be able to use it

1385
01:09:47,960 --> 01:09:51,080
Speaker 1: just to enhance quality of life. And you know, I

1386
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:53,519
Speaker 1: was just recently at a meeting looking at the next

1387
01:09:53,680 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: wave of psychedelic spalat initiatives, and one that's being proposed,

1388
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:02,080
Speaker 1: possibly in Colorado that light include both this prescribed use

1389
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:06,840
Speaker 1: of psychedelics but also ways of decriminalizing the non prescribed

1390
01:10:06,960 --> 01:10:09,760
Speaker 1: use as well. So it does seem like these are

1391
01:10:09,800 --> 01:10:12,559
Speaker 1: going to be some of the interesting policy debates going

1392
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:15,720
Speaker 1: on in this area. Yeah, you're really touching on the

1393
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:19,120
Speaker 1: frontier of this debate. And when the organ statute was

1394
01:10:19,160 --> 01:10:21,639
Speaker 1: passed or ordinance or whatever it was, I was really

1395
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:24,840
Speaker 1: intrigued to see the circumstances under which they'll make a

1396
01:10:24,920 --> 01:10:27,600
Speaker 1: silo cybin available. And you're right, it's a sort of

1397
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:30,120
Speaker 1: quasi clinic like environment where you can have access to

1398
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:31,600
Speaker 1: the drug. You don't have to have a prescription. I

1399
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:33,120
Speaker 1: think you just have to be twenty one and maybe

1400
01:10:33,120 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 1: you have to get a license or something like that,

1401
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:36,800
Speaker 1: and then you just take it insofar as you think

1402
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:38,720
Speaker 1: it will be good for you. Maybe you even take

1403
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:40,680
Speaker 1: because you think it'll be fun, and maybe that's a

1404
01:10:40,760 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 1: legitimate reason to take a drug, as long as as

1405
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:45,439
Speaker 1: you say, there's a certain margin of safety. And so

1406
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,120
Speaker 1: this is the first practical thing that I've seen that

1407
01:10:48,160 --> 01:10:51,400
Speaker 1: actually maps onto our ethical framework where policymakers out there

1408
01:10:51,439 --> 01:10:53,080
Speaker 1: in Oorgan. I haven't been in touch with any of them,

1409
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:56,240
Speaker 1: but they've stumbled on a solution that is saying, there

1410
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:58,960
Speaker 1: should be a way to safely obtain and have access

1411
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:01,720
Speaker 1: to drugs that you know are sufficiently safe and that

1412
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:04,040
Speaker 1: can be used in ways that are well being or

1413
01:11:04,080 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 1: life enhancing, and the fact that you see them as

1414
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:09,200
Speaker 1: enhancing is enough of a reason to have access to

1415
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 1: the drug. We don't have to go through all a

1416
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 1: rigimar role of deciding that you have some sort of

1417
01:11:12,439 --> 01:11:15,559
Speaker 1: treatable disease that the pharmaceutical companies can make a bunch

1418
01:11:15,560 --> 01:11:18,240
Speaker 1: of money off of. And so I was incredibly intrigued

1419
01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:19,960
Speaker 1: to see that, and I think that that's the sort

1420
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:22,680
Speaker 1: of thing that's probably going to be rolling out in

1421
01:11:22,880 --> 01:11:25,840
Speaker 1: years to come. Okay, So, just to conclude a few

1422
01:11:26,040 --> 01:11:29,000
Speaker 1: random things. One other drug we haven't talked about, but

1423
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:33,639
Speaker 1: you mentioned periodically as perhaps the most universal of all

1424
01:11:33,760 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 1: love drugs is boots alcohol, right are well, Well, you know,

1425
01:11:39,439 --> 01:11:42,519
Speaker 1: we raised the alcohol example just to show that there

1426
01:11:42,520 --> 01:11:44,960
Speaker 1: are certain drugs that were culturally familiar with and then

1427
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:50,000
Speaker 1: have been tangled up with our romantic escapades for centuries,

1428
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:54,360
Speaker 1: and so partly the use of alcohol was to prepare

1429
01:11:54,400 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 1: the reader for the idea that altered states of consciousness

1430
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:00,280
Speaker 1: can be handled poorly and can be handled well. You know,

1431
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:03,240
Speaker 1: some people get drunk out of their minds and blackout

1432
01:12:03,360 --> 01:12:05,600
Speaker 1: and hurt other people. I mean, alcohol is one of

1433
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:08,400
Speaker 1: the most dangerous drugs we have, but it's also a

1434
01:12:08,479 --> 01:12:11,360
Speaker 1: drug that, when used responsibly, and we have certain cultural

1435
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:14,120
Speaker 1: norms around how best to use it, can put a

1436
01:12:14,200 --> 01:12:16,080
Speaker 1: person into a state of mind where they're more open

1437
01:12:16,160 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 1: to pursuing, you know, a conversation with someone that they

1438
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:21,839
Speaker 1: think is sort of cute across the way that otherwise

1439
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:24,320
Speaker 1: they might not have the confidence to do. And we

1440
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:26,840
Speaker 1: further wanted to say it doesn't necessarily make the conversation

1441
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:28,840
Speaker 1: that follows in authentic. I mean, you don't want to

1442
01:12:28,880 --> 01:12:31,360
Speaker 1: have to always be drinking alcohol in order to talk

1443
01:12:31,439 --> 01:12:34,200
Speaker 1: to the person. Hopefully, at some point you establish something

1444
01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:37,680
Speaker 1: that's non drug mediated to see whether the relationship can

1445
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:39,600
Speaker 1: stand on its own feet. But the idea that a

1446
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:41,640
Speaker 1: drug could serve as a catalyst for some kind of

1447
01:12:41,720 --> 01:12:44,680
Speaker 1: interpersonal discovery is something we're familiar with, and we just

1448
01:12:44,760 --> 01:12:46,720
Speaker 1: wanted to to use that low hanging fruit as a

1449
01:12:46,760 --> 01:12:49,599
Speaker 1: way to prime the reader for our thesis. And one

1450
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 1: drug you don't talk much about, except we just briefly

1451
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:56,120
Speaker 1: alluded to, we're pheromones. Pheromones we didn't include in the

1452
01:12:56,160 --> 01:12:58,720
Speaker 1: book for two reasons. One it seems like that's the

1453
01:12:58,760 --> 01:13:00,800
Speaker 1: first thing that people think about. You know, you you

1454
01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 1: smell somebody and then somehow you become attracted to them.

1455
01:13:03,920 --> 01:13:06,320
Speaker 1: But the other reason is that they're extremely poorly understood.

1456
01:13:07,040 --> 01:13:09,840
Speaker 1: Nobody really knows how pheromones work. Nobody knows how they

1457
01:13:09,920 --> 01:13:12,439
Speaker 1: relate to why it is that particular people we find

1458
01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:15,040
Speaker 1: attractive and others we don't. I mentioned that we have

1459
01:13:15,200 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: some information about the old factory system as giving us

1460
01:13:18,640 --> 01:13:22,760
Speaker 1: potentially semi conscious, subconscious clues to genetic compatibility, and that

1461
01:13:22,920 --> 01:13:24,920
Speaker 1: came up in our discussion of formonal birth control, which

1462
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: might impair that process. But my understanding, which is admittedly superficial,

1463
01:13:29,360 --> 01:13:31,960
Speaker 1: is that pheromones are so little understood in terms of

1464
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,000
Speaker 1: how they are related to romantic attraction that I wasn't

1465
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,599
Speaker 1: sure we get much attraction bringing them up. But that's

1466
01:13:37,640 --> 01:13:39,960
Speaker 1: something I'd like to look into some more. There's not

1467
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:43,440
Speaker 1: I think a mention of the word cannabis or marijuana

1468
01:13:43,479 --> 01:13:45,840
Speaker 1: in the entire book. How come? Yeah, I think you're right.

1469
01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:48,639
Speaker 1: I don't have a good answer for that. For whatever reason,

1470
01:13:48,680 --> 01:13:50,840
Speaker 1: we started out with oxytocin and kind of took a

1471
01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:54,200
Speaker 1: winding path based on that, and we just missed cannabis.

1472
01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:56,080
Speaker 1: But maybe in the next edition of the book will

1473
01:13:56,120 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: have a chapter on cannabis. So Brian, I asked almost

1474
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,840
Speaker 1: all the guests here a similar question, And I'll let

1475
01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:04,400
Speaker 1: me frame it this way. Are you able or willing

1476
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:08,559
Speaker 1: to share any ways in your own life in which

1477
01:14:08,640 --> 01:14:13,599
Speaker 1: psychoactive substances and love relationships have interacted that have shed

1478
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:15,960
Speaker 1: insight in terms of your work or stimulated your interests

1479
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: in this area. Sure, I guess there's maybe one way

1480
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,840
Speaker 1: of saying this. So many of the academic papers that

1481
01:14:22,160 --> 01:14:25,200
Speaker 1: served as the basis for drafts of the book I

1482
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:28,080
Speaker 1: wrote at a time when I was in a romantic relationship,

1483
01:14:28,160 --> 01:14:30,400
Speaker 1: and my partner was a co author on several of

1484
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:33,680
Speaker 1: those papers. We both had a degree in psychology and

1485
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 1: background cognitive science and so forth, so we hadn't particularly

1486
01:14:37,479 --> 01:14:40,960
Speaker 1: specialized in romantic chemistry before I started on this book project.

1487
01:14:41,080 --> 01:14:43,640
Speaker 1: But as a consequence, of being together and working on

1488
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:46,640
Speaker 1: these projects together, we started to think about romance in

1489
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:48,960
Speaker 1: terms of things that we're going on in our brains.

1490
01:14:49,200 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: And you know, one possibility, and I think a fear

1491
01:14:52,280 --> 01:14:54,120
Speaker 1: people have is that if you think about love and

1492
01:14:54,479 --> 01:14:58,760
Speaker 1: romantic attraction and so forth in terms of neurochemistry, some

1493
01:14:58,880 --> 01:15:01,519
Speaker 1: people fear that that would just kill the romance of

1494
01:15:01,560 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: it if it becomes sort of scientifically tractable question, which

1495
01:15:06,360 --> 01:15:10,160
Speaker 1: therefore loses its mystery and it's it's poetry. And interestingly,

1496
01:15:10,280 --> 01:15:12,680
Speaker 1: we didn't experience that. Now, it might be just idiosyncratic

1497
01:15:12,720 --> 01:15:14,519
Speaker 1: because we're scientists and we like to talk about this

1498
01:15:14,600 --> 01:15:17,000
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, But what we found is it was

1499
01:15:17,040 --> 01:15:21,840
Speaker 1: possible both to describe in theoretical third personal neurochemical terms

1500
01:15:22,160 --> 01:15:24,840
Speaker 1: what was going on with us and to experience it

1501
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 1: subjectively and feel the full force of its value. So

1502
01:15:28,479 --> 01:15:31,560
Speaker 1: the fact that knowing about how something works doesn't necessarily

1503
01:15:31,640 --> 01:15:34,880
Speaker 1: undermine the qualitative experience and value that's derived from that

1504
01:15:35,080 --> 01:15:37,720
Speaker 1: very same phenomenon, you know, experience from the inside out,

1505
01:15:38,240 --> 01:15:40,960
Speaker 1: was a striking discovery that came about over the course

1506
01:15:41,000 --> 01:15:44,960
Speaker 1: of this research. Okay, fair enough, well, Brian Listen, thanks

1507
01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 1: so much for having this conversation to me, I've loved it.

1508
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 1: I love reading your book and uh I encourage our

1509
01:15:50,280 --> 01:15:52,000
Speaker 1: listeners to get a hold of it. The book called

1510
01:15:52,080 --> 01:15:54,519
Speaker 1: Love Drugs. You know what I look forward to, you know,

1511
01:15:54,640 --> 01:15:56,519
Speaker 1: seeing where you go with this next. So thanks so

1512
01:15:56,680 --> 01:15:59,559
Speaker 1: much for being my guest and Psychoactive, thanks very much

1513
01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:01,240
Speaker 1: for your excellent questions. This was a lot of fun.

1514
01:16:06,400 --> 01:16:10,120
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it,

1515
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:12,640
Speaker 1: or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts

1516
01:16:12,760 --> 01:16:15,519
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear

1517
01:16:15,560 --> 01:16:18,599
Speaker 1: from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories,

1518
01:16:18,680 --> 01:16:21,760
Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one

1519
01:16:22,080 --> 01:16:27,519
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three

1520
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:32,120
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive

1521
01:16:32,160 --> 01:16:35,280
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com, or find me on Twitter at

1522
01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:38,680
Speaker 1: Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in

1523
01:16:38,760 --> 01:16:42,240
Speaker 1: our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart

1524
01:16:42,400 --> 01:16:46,559
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman.

1525
01:16:47,000 --> 01:16:50,480
Speaker 1: It's produced by Noam Osband and Josh Stain. The executive

1526
01:16:50,479 --> 01:16:54,679
Speaker 1: producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus, and Darren

1527
01:16:54,720 --> 01:16:58,479
Speaker 1: Aronovsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from

1528
01:16:58,479 --> 01:17:02,280
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, and me Ethan Edelman. Our music is

1529
01:17:02,360 --> 01:17:06,440
Speaker 1: by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to Abbvi Brioseph

1530
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:12,439
Speaker 1: Bianca Grimshaw and Robert B. B M.