WEBVTT - Humanity, the Good feat. Andrew 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.960 All the media. 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.320 Hello and welcome. Take it up, and here I'm joined 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:10.200 once again. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:11.320 By yours Davias. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.960 Hello, Hello, Hello. And recently I was reading through a 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:22.800 photo book called Humans by Brandon Stanton. It features interviews 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.520 of people on the streets all over the world. He 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.000 started off and he kind of became well known online 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.960 for the Humans of New York series. I'm sure if 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.160 you've heard of that, Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:34.639 So he did that for a while and he ended 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.480 up traveling at the parts of the world and doing 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.840 basically the same thing, just interviewing people on the street, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:43.080 getting their insights, hearing their struggles, hearing their story. And 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.279 when I saw the book in the library, I just 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.440 I picked it up orroed it, decided to read it through. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.239 And it's really profound in a sense, and you get 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.440 a sense of the spectrum of humanity, of what people 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.320 are going through, of the highs and lows of the 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.960 human experience, make you laugh on one page and make 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.119 you cry for the next page. And seeing that variety 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:11.039 of humanity reminded me of another book that I read 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.560 and finished recently, which is called Humankind Hopeful History by 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.400 Rutga Bregmant, a friend of mine, had given it to 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.280 me because he said it had changed his whole view 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.760 on the world. And so I wanted to talk about 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.840 some of the concepts that I picked up in that book, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.800 like the origins and critiques of veneer theory, why most 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.120 people are actually pretty decent, and the problems with some 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.400 of the narratives of our wickedness. And the next episode, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.399 I want to get into some of the reasons why 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.760 people do bad and what we can do about it. 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:49.120 Sounds exciting because there is a lot of bad right now. 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.640 Is there is? I mean, as on that stuff. I mean, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.560 what would you say is the most common perspective you 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.559 hear on humanity and human nature? 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.880 I don't know, Like there's there's this clash between like 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.440 this like liberal humanist version and then this like Christian 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.120 moralist version, I guess like in the States right now, 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:15.239 but that's been going on for decades, if not centuries. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.040 By liberal humanists on Christian I mean, I think I 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.480 get a sense of what the Christian moralist vision is right, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.560 that we are all sinful, destined for hell any salvation, 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.760 that that version of the story, yeah, yeah, more or less, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.720 and the liberal humanist perspective is I mean. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.320 I don't know, like this this this forever search for 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.639 like what human rights are and like human decency. So 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.560 we come up with like governments and rules to actually 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.160 like govern over our morals as a democratic process that 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.560 continues to evolve over the course of like hundreds of years. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.919 We're like, you know, on the moral arc of the universe, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.680 just not fully you know there yet. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.799 Yeah, I've heard that perspective, I think most commonly and 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.800 decent in my spaces, I tend to hear the you know, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.359 people are wicked, people are sinful in religious cases, or 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.080 people are violent, people are selfish, and that kind of 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.000 in that similar number of vein where we have these 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:18.600 systems in place to kind of check ourst simpulses, to 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.800 kind of keep us regulated and to keep society functioning. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:28.240 And Bregman opens his book by discussing the idea of 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:34.079 civilization being a thin mask that covers our true savage instincts. 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.600 He calls it the veneer theory, and he spends the 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:39.360 rest of the book basically points it out all the 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.160 different errors in that judgment. I mean, he doesn't claim 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.760 that we're all good people, happy go lucky saying so 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.200 anything like that, But he does see it. For the 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.480 most part, most people are pretty decent, and I know 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.120 that clashes with all a lot of people are accustomed 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:01.000 to hearing, and there are some very notable exceptions. But 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.360 despite the efforts of elite to pain and purport a 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:12.680 different picture, there's actually a lot more leaning towards our decent, 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.000 if not good nature and the contrary. But of course, 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:18.640 of these kind of conversations, who are set to go 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.520 back to the debate between Thomas Hobbes and Sean jack 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:26.040 ersue we can't escape these guys. Hobbes, of course, had 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.240 the perspective in Leviathan, which was written in sixteen fifty one, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.640 that in the absence of a strong central authority, human 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.320 beings would live in a condition of perpetual war, with 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.280 every man against every other man, a war of war 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.080 against all. As he would have put it so to him, 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.840 people are naturally self interested and driven by the desire 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.320 for power and survival, so without laws or a sovereign 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.360 to keep them in check, individuals would act purely on 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:59.440 their own instincts, lead into constant conflict over resources, safety, 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:04.479 and dominant life. In this state of nature would be 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:10.240 solitary for nasty, brutish, and short. A couple of years later, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:14.680 a couple of decades later, Rousseau was writing in the 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.080 Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.960 and he basically flipped Hobbs view on its head. He 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.320 believed that humans in the state of nature were peaceful, cooperative, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.960 and guided by basic needs and compassion, and there was 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:35.440 a development of hierarchies and institutions that had led to inequality, jealousy, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:39.520 and competition which basically corrupted human nature. In his words, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.760 man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:44.920 Do you take a side in this debate? 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.719 By the way, er not to be the centrist option, 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.240 But I don't know. I think both these things play 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.279 into each other. I definitely don't believe in the idea 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.600 that like this state is the only thing that reigns 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.320 people in and stops them from doing a moral acts. Right, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.560 It's the same thing as like without without God or 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.200 without the Bible, then everyone would just be like raping 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.839 and murdering it. Meanwhile, actual Christians obviously rape and murder 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.479 all the time anyway. But like, no, like this this 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:20.080 idea isn't the only thing that keeps you from becoming 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.679 this like, you know, savage, like inhuman monster. People can 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.640 be morally good without this this like religious notion. And 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:30.480 I think in some ways the state can also operate 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.640 as a religious notion to these people, where you know, 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.080 the police is the only thing that's keeping you from 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.080 becoming this like horrible monster who just hurts everyone around you. 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.760 But I also have my sympathies to the like alternate 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:44.719 side of that, and I can see there's a great 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.640 deal of oppression and horrific violence that can only happen 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.080 at scale under the organization of a state. So I 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.279 will pick the annoying centrisce option. 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:58.520 Yeah, I know that there are a lot of people 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.800 who have the sense that, you know, the state and 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.680 the laws all that's standing between us and the purge 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.520 or mad Max or something like that. Sure, exactly, So, yeah, 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.680 I don't think that Hobbes's over generalization of human nature 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.560 as inherently violent and selfish holds up when you look 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.600 at the diversity of human experience and human societies. I mean, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.280 that's not to say that violence and conflict were absent 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:28.560 in a world out state, but you know, context matters. Resources, environment, 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.440 group size. All those things would have played roles. I 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.600 don't think that we should be accepting Rousseau's romantic light either, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.560 So I guess I'm in the centris to count with you. 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.760 The truth does seem to lie somewhere in that middle ground, 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:47.400 that human nature is flexible and then it's shaped by social, ecological, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:08:02.600 and historical contexts. What's getting the weeds of humanity's origins 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.960 is stimulating as an exercise. But there's only so much 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.200 we can know about the past for certain. What we 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.040 can't know for certain is the present, And what we've 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.080 seen in the present is that when disaster strikes, people 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:19.360 have tended to help each other. In Hurricane Katrina in 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.920 two thousand and five, the official response was famously criticized 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:29.880 for being slow and disorganized, and yet despite media attempts 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.360 to pain these people as looters and thugs and all 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.080 these different things, community members, neighbors, volunteers all stepped up 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.080 to rescue people, to mobilize food, shelter, and basic aid, 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.000 to expropriate when necessary to get people what they needed, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:50.360 long before federal agencies gone on the scene. Similarly, in 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.640 a more recent occurrence, after the cranfelt tower fire in 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:59.880 the UK in twenty seventeen. The official channels had failed 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.440 the people of that tour many diet as a result. 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.400 Regulations that were supposed to protect people were not enforced 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.760 or were absent. And yet it was community members who 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.200 sprang into action to provide water and shelter and food 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.160 and clothes and emotional support even when the Twin Tours 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.320 fell on Stement eleven, two thousand and one. And this 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.320 is an example that brag when I actually spent some 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:30.160 time talking about people actually helped people descend the stairwells 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.960 in an orderly fashion. You know, they would say, you know, 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:37.960 after you going down the stairs, and passers by would 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.880 go in and help others to evacuate and assist the 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.640 wounded law before the emergency services arrived. So people acted 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.600 and prioritized helping others even in a disaster scenario. And 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.800 yet what do we see in dystopia and fiction. In 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.920 apocalyptic fiction, you see people just like driving around shooting 0:09:57.960 --> 0:09:59.719 guns in the air. You see the purge, you see 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:05.920 them the ceiling, zombie apocalypse scenarios. In Rebecca Solnitt's book, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.120 A Paradise Built in Hell, she found that disasters peeled 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.640 back the layer as a society and revealed the empathy, cooperation, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.640 and ka at humanities core. She noted that when disaster 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.360 strikes is when people most often reveal the better natures, 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.160 and yet those negative narratives tend to have more suite 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:26.599 in the popular imagination. 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.760 No, and this is like so true. I remember in 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.560 twenty twenty, during the wildfires on the West Coast, the 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.080 anarchist response was to set up these like giant, like 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.240 mutual aid centers for people fleeing from the fire, you know, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.120 like not like other anarchists, just like regular people fleeing 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.319 from the fire could get necessities and figure out housing. Meanwhile, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.240 right wing militias were setting up checkpoints, monitoring to make 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.480 sure Antifa wasn't you know, like raiding people's homes as 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.800 they were fleeing from the fires. Like these were the 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.319 two options you had. You had, you had anarchists actually 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.199 helping the people who were who were fleeing from this 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.640 horrific fire and setting up like massive, massive like aid 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:13.080 distribution centers. Meanwhile right wing militias were pulling people over 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.400 at gunpoint making sure Antifa wasn't up to any shenanigans 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.280 and similar stuff happened last year during Hurricane Helene on 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:23.719 the East Coast, where you had a whole bunch of 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:30.200 like Southeast anarchists in the Appalachians do mutual a disaster response. Meanwhile, 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.920 right wing malicious were spreading rumors about like FEMA fraud 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.600 and all of all of this crazy stuff, not actually 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:41.040 helping anybody. But it was anarchists doing a large a 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.840 large amount of the actual water distribution and like medical 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.679 assistance on the ground as the federal response was delayed 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:48.480 and insufficient. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.000 Yeah, I mean, I was aware of the anarchist efforts 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.840 during these disasters, but I wasn't. I didn't know about 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.559 that situation with the right wing militias setting up checkpoints. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.320 That's shocking but still wild, you know. 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.360 Yeah, No, it's so funny because those are the people, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.320 you know, claiming that, you know, without the government we 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.160 would have the purge, anarchists would just go around doing 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.199 all kinds of crazy crimes. I get when things actually happen, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.480 their attempts to like deputize them as like their own 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.160 police force actually creates those conditions. Meanwhile, anarchists are the 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:22.319 ones actually helping. 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:29.200 People exactly exactly, and yet despite these situations, these these 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.760 things happen again and again. We still have these popular narratives. 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.040 You don't know, the narrative I see referenced all the 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.760 time Lord of the Fliers. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:38.920 Yes, of course, of course. 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.800 All the time. Right. It's basically become a cultural shorthand 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.240 for the idea that people are just savage at heart, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.959 that this Veneo civilization is the only thing keeping us 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.960 in checked. I mean, these days I do see people 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.719 joking that it's because those were British boys. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.880 So true, actually, so true. 0:12:58.559 --> 0:12:59.760 But well, I get that. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:12:59.880 You. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.080 I think it's also important to remember that it's like 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:05.560 people are taking this work of fiction as if it's 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.760 an anthropological study, yeah, when it's just something that a 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.840 guy made up as an analogy for, you know, the 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.400 situation during World War Two. 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.280 I think it's also good to remember that the British 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.800 are people too. I have a British co worker, so 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.000 you know, we have to we have to show them 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.680 a little bit of human human dignity exactly exactly. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.520 People embrace the story because it confirms what they want 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.360 to believe in this climate of cynicism. But Ragman actually 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.840 tells a story in the book about a true instance 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.480 of when a shipwreck of young boys occurred. Of course 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.520 there't They weren't British boys. There were Tonguan boys as 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.920 and from the country of Tonga. So in nineteen sixty five, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.640 six Tonguan boys we were stranded on a remote island 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.439 for over a year, and rather than descended into violence, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.920 they survived through cooperation. You know, they built a garden, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.040 they shared duties. They didn't do any human sacrifices, you know, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.920 they created a rotor system to get things done. There 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.440 resolved conflict. When people were in conflict, they would go 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.640 on time out. They put each other on timeout and 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.480 go on opposite sides of the island until the you know, 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.760 cooler heads prevailed. The figure out ways to deal with 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.720 their conflicts, to organize themselves without authority and without chaos. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.240 But the problem is that these fictional narratives become so 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.960 powerful instead of the real ones, that they have a 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.360 similar effect to the placeboy effect. In fact, it's the 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.960 Placeboy effects evil twin the no Sea Boy effect. Now, 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:39.960 I'd heard about the place boy effect before, and I'm 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.520 sure you have as well. But for those who don't know, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.440 it's basically where someone's health actually improves after receiving what's 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.920 basically a dummy treatment like a sugar pill or a 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.400 fake surgery or a saline injection. The body heals itself 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.040 because the mind of the person believes it's being healed. 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.600 The mind in that trust into medicine. I mean, that's 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.120 just that's amazing to me even now, and they'll quite 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.240 understand how it works yet, but it's still really cool. 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.280 But there's another dimension to the placebo effect that I 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.600 hadn't heard about before, but it makes intuitive sense. I 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.120 suppose it's called the no Seaboy effect. And Bregman is 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.040 the one who introduced me to that concept. So the 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.440 no Seaboy effect is where instead of belief heal and you, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.080 it's belief that makes you sick. So people experience real pain, 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.200 real symptoms, and even real illness, not because there's an 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.360 actual physical cause, but because in their minds they expect 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.960 to be harmed. So their minds to that fear of 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.560 harm into actual harm and injury. And there was one 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.720 case study that he used where a child had drunk 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.440 a coke and photo was poisoned and then just created 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:56.280 this mass hysteria almost with dozens of children in hospitals 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.800 with headaches and nausea and pradic attacks because they drank. 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.600 Go to the point where Coca Cola actually had to 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.000 recall all of those drinks even though tests had showing 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:07.960 that there was nothing in the drinks that we're making 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.680 people sick, but theirs bodies still responded as if there 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.640 was because they believed they heard the story, they heard 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.800 about it, they saw what happened to others, and they 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.720 believed it would happened to them. And that's the no 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.720 super effect in action, right, So we get the concept. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.800 So Bregmun actually stretched these concepts beyond the field of medicine, 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.360 and he basically made the points that what if these 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.680 contents are abate into how we view each other? You know, 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.560 so what if I believe that people are selfish, cruel 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.640 and violent by nature? Actually makes it so, you know, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.400 if you expect the worst from people, you'll act on that. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.640 You know, you might be colder or more defensive and 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.720 more likely to punish or preemptal. And what happens as 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:03.640 a result is that, you know, people pick up on 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:08.199 that energy, they're spawning kind they withdraw, they retaliate, and 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.560 then that cycle ends up feeding itself and to the belief. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.920 That negative belief becomes a social reality, a self fulfilling prophecy. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.359 So we end up building institutions that are based on 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:24.439 that cynical expectation. We design policies that are based around 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.040 the punishment we are, train ourselves to see strangers as 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.760 threats rather than as neighbors. And then when we have 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.920 a fallout, as when that prophecy is fulfilled by our 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.520 own actions, we can then say, well, see I was right. 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:40.840 You know, people are awful. But what we don't see 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.320 is that our expectations and the systems we build around 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.760 those expectations are part of what ends up making it 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.000 that way. I think an easy example to going to 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:55.679 is with prison right. People expect criminals to act like animals, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.320 to act like monsters, to beasts, and so they create prisons, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.400 and in those prisons treat them like animals, monsters and beasts, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.879 and people respond to that. You know, you treat people 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.840 like animals, they're going to behave like animals. So then 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.600 the question that Bragmann poses is what happens if we 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.480 decide to treat people like their good you know, trusting 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.840 their intentions, leaning into care, and building our systems around 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.359 the assumption that most people are decent. So how do 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.320 we make that leave? I said before that you know, 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.600 we don't really necessarily need to go into the past 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.160 to see how people behave in the present, but it's 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.880 a good idea to get a sense of how we evolved. Right. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.600 A lot of people have a brutal perception of human evolution. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.879 You know, they truck comparisons between us and chimpanzees, or 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.680 you know, they make it see first of all like 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.919 nordn bernobles entirely and also ignoring the fact that we 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.720 are our own speecies with our own evolutionary history. You know, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.520 people have are very cynical and honestly insultant, like view 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.479 of the cave men of our past. But our histories 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.439 are actually pretty soft. In fact, Bragman argues in favor 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.640 of something called self domestication theory, which has a little 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:17.439 bit of anthropological and evolutionary biological back in. And so 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.800 the basic claim of this theory is that the reason 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.440 Homo sapiens survived and other ancient humans didn't isn't because 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.720 we were the strongest, or the smartest, or the most 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.240 cun in or because we were friendlier, that we evolve 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.080 to be more social, cooperative, playful, and trust in self. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:39.320 Domestication theorists basically compare humans as puppies to the other 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.560 homo species as wolves, that we domesticate ourselves to become 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:49.240 less aggressive or faces softened, our bodies became less robust, 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.600 and our openness and friendliness allowed us to build relationships, 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.400 to build groups, to raise children, community, and to survive. 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.919 And so if we accept our theory we had not 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.560 that and build that into our foundation, that we did 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.480 evolve our capacity to be kind, that it is something 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.200 that is within our humanity, that it's not a fragile 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.120 gloss over savagery or a morality that's given to us 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.720 by religional law. Then we can basically become who were 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.320 capable of becoming, you know, we can create systems that 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:24.000 allow us to develop that. And this sounds really optimistic, 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:29.439 This sounds really happy, go lucky and woo. And we 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.480 are going to get into some of the darker chapters 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.720 of our humanity in the next episode. But I wanted 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.600 to wrap this one up by back in the Death 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.920 of Catherine Kitty Genevieves in nineteen sixty four. It's another 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.760 example that Breckman refers to in his book, and it's 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.479 one of the classic case studies that was used for 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.400 a long time to illustrate the apathy and cold heartness 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.280 of humanity. Because the New York Times, which as we 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.320 all know, is a reputable and trustworthy institution, The New 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.919 York Times claimed that she was stabbed in the street 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.000 while thirty eight neighbors looked on and did nothing. Right. 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.560 This was the quintessential story that was used to say, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.560 you know, look at that bystanding effect. Humans just don't care, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.520 you know. There was used as an example of apathy, 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.480 of urban de kay, of everything wrong with us. But 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.040 the story was wrong. The reporters will help this story 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.440 and it was wrong. I mean, yes, she was murdered, 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.160 but people did try to help. Someone called the police, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.520 but this wasn't a time before nine one one, so 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.560 it was yet to call like the local station, and 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.040 then the response process was a bit slow. One neighbor 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.800 actually rushed out and held her as she died, held 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.719 her in their arms. So the press spun this story 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.280 as like some bleak tale, and the few of psychology 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.040 ate it up because it was part of a trend 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.800 at the time to create this perception of humanity, but 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.520 the real story was a lot more hearing, a lot 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.240 more human. I mean, it was messy and somebody still 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.200 murdered her. But this this idea of the byastounding the 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.320 fact that has been so inflated. A lot of the 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.560 key studies that have been used as examples of them 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.159 have been chipped away at over time, and that's one 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.720 of the main stories that has been pretty thoroughly debunked 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.960 at this point. So I like where Bregman's been going. 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.919 But we've glossed over the dark side, you know, the 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.679 shadow of our humanity. You know, even he acknowledges in 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.520 this book that we do bad stuff as well. So 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:42.879 the next episode we are gonna wade into that. But 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:45.639 how you're feeling about humanity so far. 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:51.439 I think I actually do have an underlying optimism like 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.080 beneath how I move around in the world, which is 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.640 which is kind of odd considering the sort of stuff 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.840 I do for work, but it is it is true, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:02.600 and I think part of that is what just keeps 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.480 me going. I don't know, like, yeah, I've I've I've 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.640 certainly been around my fair share of like doomers and nihilists, 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:12.680 over the years, and at the very least those people 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.199 don't seem to be very happy and don't seem to 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.440 be enjoying life, and sometimes it's hard to enjoy life, absolutely, 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.160 but I think I think you need to be able 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.959 to find a place for yourself within a world that 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:31.160 has like evil as a almost inherent component and find 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.760 your way either through that, sometimes around that, but oftentimes 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.720 through it. And I think that's I mean, that's that's 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.920 just been a part of like growing up. We're certainly 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:45.200 growing up in like a weird time, but I think 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.040 that's kind of always been true, like that that was 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.800 true one hundred years ago. So I don't know, I 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.600 part of me and maybe this is just over the optimistic, 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:56.639 but but part of me continues to resist being a 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:00.399 doomer despite all of the bad news that is trying 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.640