WEBVTT - Why do we protest? 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.760 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.280 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:17.960 have you ever been to a protest? Have you ever 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.840 been part of the protest movement in any way, shape 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.880 or form. M I have been in the cities before 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.080 we're protests were going on, and I was sort of 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.040 clueless and walking through them. Oh yeah, Well, I think 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.160 we've all done that to a certain extent, Like when 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.280 I when my wife and I went to Thailand several 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.160 years back, there was some protesting going on at the time, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.040 and we just we were on the edges off and 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.199 we we knew it was going going on, but that 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.000 was about the extent of it. Yeah, And it's kind 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.160 of it's it's difficult to when you're on vacation because 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.919 you're not in protest you mind frame, So you might say, oh, 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.320 I support that, but you know, you probably have things 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.240 to do, You've got you know, the love to see, 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:58.480 so on and so forth, and I make light of it, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.160 but seriously, it's it's something that it So that has 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.840 been happening a lot lately, is definitely on our minds, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.000 and we're recording this mid November, and as of mid November, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.000 we've seen a lot of protests unfolding over the summer 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.320 in this fall. So yeah, like just the other day 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.200 they cleared out the Occupy Wall Street. Yeah, that's right, 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.360 So that's sort of up in the air as to 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.319 what the fate will be of Occupy Wall Street. Now. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:26.600 Protests as a whole have have been around for ages, 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.919 like pretty much as as long as as human society 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.760 has been advanced enough to have laws and customs and 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.800 policies and cultural norms. Um, We've we've had reasons at 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.040 times to rebel against those norms. It's human instinct, right, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.000 I mean you feel like some something has been uh, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.600 there's some sort of un injustice going on in the 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.560 world that you need to write, right, and and we'll 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:51.960 talk about this a little bit more too, but it's 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.680 a little bit more complex. I mean obviously socio economic 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.040 issues come into play as well. Yeah. I tend to 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.280 think of it like a like a river. I think 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.400 that's the analogy made in How Protests Work, which article 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.920 which you can find on how stuff Works dot com. Uh, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.040 thinking of it in terms of of a river. And 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.520 in the same way that yes, you can change the 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.000 course of a river, and nature can change the course 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.720 of a river, but it's gonna take something. It's gonna 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:17.600 take a certain amount of will, or a certain amount 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.720 of energy, a certain amount of power, because otherwise, rivers 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:22.639 tend to just keep going the way they're going unless 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.359 unless something comes along to change it. And that's the 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.840 way it tends to go with with something, well, whether 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.560 it is a law or a or a social norm 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.800 or some sort of an idea that has become popular 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.040 or or or has become the norm and a culture, 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:39.600 that the river will continue to go down the course 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.680 it's been going unless people rise up and change it, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.959 unless they step forward and and like, you know what, 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.720 we're not gonna have the river run this way anymore. 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.680 We're going to alter its course in a less destructive 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.239 route or in a more wholesome route, etcetera. Yeah, it's 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.000 interesting you you use that analogy, because just yesterday on 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:02.240 NPR one of the Occupy Wall Street protesters was making 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.600 the analogy that they are like water, um that you know, 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.639 they're a morpheus in the sense that they just can 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.839 continue to sort of change course at will. So, yes, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.360 they've been whisked away from Zuccati Park in New York City, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.160 but that doesn't mean that the protest has stopped the 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.080 genies out of the bottle. And so they're just going 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.079 to continue to to I suppose, run downstream in whatever 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.720 manner they're like water. Um. So, in this podcast, we're 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.960 going to we're going to talk about protests more along 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.120 the lines how we approach it, like why do we protest, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.720 and and also some of the misconceptions about protesting and 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.960 protesters and protesters. Uh, we're just gonna sort of jam 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.480 here about about what the protest is and how it works. 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:47.960 And then at the end, we're also going to run 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.440 through some some quick ideas, some quick suggestions that we've 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.560 run across that may help any of you out there 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.280 who who are planning to be a part of a 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.760 protest in the future, or just I mean, even if 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.160 you're not planning to be a part of one, Uh, 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.160 you may find yourself in the middle of one just 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.000 by virtue of traveling around or going about your daily life. Yeah, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.280 and how you can better gauge a crowd and uh 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:13.920 be safe in the crowd really, Yeah, I mean whether 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.400 it's an occupy protest or a borderline revolution and in 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.320 another country or something as simple. You remember the great 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:26.400 coffee machine protests here at work of Oh yeah, I'm 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.039 not going to talk about the brand name of the 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.120 coffee that was taken away, but I will say this. 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:36.320 Everyone complained about that brand name coffee ceaselessly until it 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.680 was taken away and another subpar brand was brought in, 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.240 and I think everything just ground to a halt because 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.680 we live and breathe off of coffee here. Yeah. Well, 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.720 I remember I was one of the early protesters in 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.279 that particular movement. But no, but I was protesting before 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.440 anybody else, I think, really noticed the change. And so 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.400 then I was like, all right, I give up the 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.320 new this is the new order with coffee. I spring 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.520 my own coffee. And then everybody got up in arms 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.839 and she changed everything. So yeah, yeah, and the Twitter 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.000 feeds were just going nuts. They were. Luckily it didn't 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.360 turn violent, um, and we were only tear gast ones. Yeah, 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.280 it's just not too bad. Um. I mean, you know, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.680 in a workplace, right. Yeah, But let's talk about one 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.880 of the original protesters, or at least in American history 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.440 that we think of Henry David Threau. Oh, yes, Henry 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:31.719 David Threau um in nineteenth century American philosopher, and his 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.600 big thing was civil disobedience. He was against slavery, which 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.960 was legal at the time. He was against the US 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.680 war with Mexico, and so he was like, you know what, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.080 you know, things the way they are. If this was 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.400 a meal at a restaurant, I would refuse to pay 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.719 for it, So I'm going to refuse to pay for 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.960 it my taxes, taxes. He decided to just not gonna 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.720 pay his taxes, and and he was not injuring into 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.360 this situation thinking I'm going to stop paying my taxes. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.680 Good luck funding that war without Henry David's dough behind it. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.840 Now that that wasn't really his his approach, but he 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.160 was making a statement that that as individuals, we can 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.080 choose not to support the things that we disagree with, right, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.480 We don't have to accept the status quo. Right. Yeah. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.680 So of course they came and arrested him eventually, because 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.600 that's what happens when you don't pay your taxes, you 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:21.800 get put in the pokey. Yes, at least, but this 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.920 is really the birth of this idea of civil disobedience 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.800 UM is a way to combat perceived ills in the 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.719 world around you. Rosa Parks is another great example of 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.760 civil disobedience. UM. Of course she she is famous for 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.400 helping to uh begin the civil rights movement right with 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:44.760 the Alabama bus boycott. Yeah, this was ve and at 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.280 the time, Alabama state law required UM, black individuals to 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.480 set at the back of the bus and relinquish their 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.920 seat to white individuals if the vehicle was full. So 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.559 Rosa Parks decided, you know, I'm not going to comply 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:58.080 with this. I'm going to set where I want to 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.359 set and uh and this and again this is not 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.159 a situation. She was like, I'm going to change the 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.839 world with one movement, No, with with with one decision 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.520 to you know, to to disagree. But it ended up kickstarting. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.400 This was like the snowball down the hill. Right. Eventually 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.480 you have a three d eighty one day boycott of 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.880 the Montgomery bus system. In the following year, the US 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.160 Supreme Court banded segregation on public transportation. Right. And this 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.600 wasn't as improvised as as it sounds. Because she was 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.480 a member of the Double A C p UM. There 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.480 was UM Joanne Robinson. She was a black woman and 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.400 a professor in all black Alabama State College, and she 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.240 thought it was time to to test the law. And 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.360 so Rosa Parks had completed a workshop on civil disobedience 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.400 before she was arrested, and she knew very well what 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.200 she was doing and what they were trying to accomplish. Yeah, 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.200 as as much as much as we may want to 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.000 sometimes interpret that story is it's a lady on the 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.240 bus and she finally just had too much and sat down. Um, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.200 it wasn't quite that, but still, Uh, well, that's what 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.120 I love about that because I think that it shows 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.560 that there was this network going on, a lot of 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.480 fun being put into this, a lot of work being 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.160 put into this. And there's a great article called How 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.600 the Civil Rights Movement Work by John Fuller that goes 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.440 into this more detail if you're interested. Um, but this 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.080 is the time obviously that's pre Facebook, Twitter, email, So 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.120 it's really amazing that people were able to really get 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:22.040 all of these details down and execute very well planned situations. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.400 And I mean we're talking about the situations that were 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.760 years in the planning. Yeah. And of course, the other 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.280 big name in protests, non violent protest is Mahatma Gandhi 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.520 who in the eighteen and nineties, early eighteen Nini, who 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.000 worked as a legal advisor to an Indian law from 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.200 in South Africa. So he's he's you know, he starts 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.400 off not like the Mohamma Gandhi we come to identify 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.520 with and the iconic Gandhi that we we know. But 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:53.240 while there he encountered rachel intolerance. He in sain he 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.840 was reading the works of Thorow tolstoy Um, even the 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.760 writings of Jesus uh and uh well, the writings of Jesus, 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.280 the tales of us, you know, and he ends up 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.360 he ends up campaigning for the rights of Indians in 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.000 South Africa and then returns back home to India itself 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.560 and rallies of support against British colonial rule and the 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.599 cast system. So he ends up coming up with a 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.840 strategy called Satya Graja, which is Sanskrit for truth and firmness. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.520 And this in itself to is based in in even 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.680 older ideas that the date back to the Vedic panishards 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.520 of non violence against any living thing. Uh that that 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.120 his whole ideas, it was, you know, we're going to 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.120 protest and we're just going to we're gonna keep it 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.839 as non violent as possible, and uh, it kind of 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.520 it kind of bleeds over into some of the stuff 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:44.800 we talked about in Martyrs, the idea that if you 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.520 if you sit there and take it, eventually it shames 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.120 the person dishing it out. And that's exactly what it did, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.080 and very similar to um, you know some of the 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.439 things that happens. Civil rights movement people were absolutely aghast 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:02.160 at how the government um or certain officials initially reacted 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.920 and that put the pressure on those governments to make 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.560 huge sweeping changes. Yeah, there was a nineteen nineteen the 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.120 British troops open fire and demonstrators and then there's this 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.040 enormous massacre, uh and estimated three hundred seventy nine killed, 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.520 over a thousand injured, and Gandhi ends up calling for 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.680 non compliance. Indian public officials resigned from the British government, 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.880 parents withdrew their children from British schools, and virtually anything 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.360 bearing the Royal seal was boycotted. So in India's struggle 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.040 for independence ends up paying off like through this this 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.400 measure and things things that could not have been one 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.920 necessarily with violence or or violence have been used, you 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.120 would have seen an entirely different unfolding of events and 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.280 unfolding of the modern India. Yeah, the Satia Graja, I 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.040 think was obviously key to this, right because it just said, 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.800 you have to roomain passive, even if you're being kicked, 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.640 even if you're being beaten. We must refuse to act. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.200 And of course this is this is the the the 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.200 upper hand that Gandhi and the protesters had eventually using 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.120 this tactic. But of course, sometimes protests do turn violent, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.840 and I mean you can pretty much search for the 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.800 phrase protest turns violent on Google News any day and 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.960 you'll find a pretty recent example. I mean, it happens. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.520 You get people in a in an area, everyone's kind 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.280 of riled up, their tensions mounting. There's generally some sort 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:26.560 of security police or military force keeping an eye on things. Uh, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.920 it's kind of a powder keg And I mean that's 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:30.959 one of the things that Gandhi realized in his whole thing, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.920 was don't don't give them cause to set the powder 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.200 keg off. And if they start setting the powder keg off, 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.320 don't throw more powder on the fire. Right, And it 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.320 doesn't it's not even just a protest, It could be 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.120 a bunch of individuals congregating. Um. And I'm thinking about 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:51.280 Laura Logan. She was the chief foreign news correspondent for CBS. Uh. 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.080 You know during the Egyptian Revolution in Tahier Square, she 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.280 was brutally desaulted, assaulted, sexual assaulted. And again, this is 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.520 a crowd that was initially coming together to celebrate and 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.720 turned very violent. Um. So we'll talk a little bit 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:06.959 more about that and how how and if you can 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.720 actually read a crowd and try to avoid that. So 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.520 what do we protest, Why do we do it? What's 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.199 at the heart of it? Well, you can't really talk 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.600 about about protests about talking about group think a little 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:18.439 bit and the whole the idea of like the wisdom 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:20.880 of the crowds or well, there's sort of two sides 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.440 to the coin. On one hand, there's the idea of 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.599 the wisdom of the crowd. You get you get a 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:26.400 you go out in the street, you ask what the 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.400 opinion is, and then the street is going to be right. Well, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.560 this is that idea of emergence. Right, And we've discussed 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.480 this a little in the past, that if left to 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.040 its own devices and within certain constraints, the crowd will 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.600 do a better job at figuring things out than a 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.280 single person. A really cool example of this this came 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.920 up in an article I was writing for for How 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.960 Stuff Works about the game Pandemic. This is a game 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.680 where people collaborate to try and stop an outbreak on 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.679 a game board that looks like a map. And I 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.800 was reading some interviews with the Dinner and he and 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:02.280 this is the guy who created the guy who sat 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.600 down and wrote out this game, planned it out. And 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.120 he pointed out that when he if he plays the 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.800 game by himself, like controlling all say four players, And again, 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.880 this is a game where part of it is people 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.120 have to get along and collaborate and potentially fight with 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.280 each other about what are the best moves to initiate. 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.880 There's no leader per se, not an officially prescribed leader, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:24.559 so they have to kind of figure it out and 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.480 decide what their group tactic is going to be, or 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.720 or they're or if they're just going to fight about things. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.280 But even even with this situation in place, he pointed 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.160 out that when he was playing a game controlling all 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.400 four players, he generally did not do as good as 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.000 four individual players because you're gonna have Each of these 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.680 individuals is gonna bring like new uh us new data, 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.760 and if if they can work those out, they're going 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.160 to actually do better than the guy who created the game. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:54.240 Well see, and that's that's one of the things that 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.120 uh I guess you could say one of the errors 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.800 that people make when they talk about protests sometimes and 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.400 then video they say that the crowd is irrational or 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.000 full of irrational people. And what you're saying is is 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.520 that there's you know, pointing to this sort of crowd 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.880 intelligence that is happening, and that people aren't actually nuts, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.720 they're not being crazy. A lot of people who are 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.880 involved in this crowd are actually pretty pragmatic people. Right. Well, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.120 I think everyone has a rightful fear of mobs, I mean, 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.400 and I think that's what plays into this. So so 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.120 there's the idea that we know that a mob is 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.360 a fearful thing when a when a crowd of people 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.240 are out of control and and there's porks with pitchforks 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.880 or fire or you know or whatever Frankenstein, right and 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.280 Frankenstein in the movie and uh but but no, like 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.680 a riot situation is not a good environment, and it 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.160 is one that is rightfully feared by by many. So 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.880 it's easy to extrapolate that and say, I mean it 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.280 ties back into the basic evolution. You know, are you 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.920 going to make a type one air or type two air? Right? 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:56.640 And so you look at a large group of people 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.560 and you're like, I don't like to look at this. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:00.800 This is gonna they're out of control. Just look at 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.200 the beard on that one guy, you know, like these 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.480 dirty bumps. Speaking of this is this is another common 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:11.240 claim that people make that the crowd is poor, right right, yeah, 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.840 the it's going to be the masses teaming out there 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.800 to tear down the golden palaces of the of the rulers, 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.080 right yeah. And this is from an article from Psychology 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.560 Today that's actually talking about the reasons why we protests, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.320 and it says people join mass protests to achieve personal 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.280 goals that they are otherwise unable to realize, for example, 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.920 getting jobs, affordable housing, or getting rid of their debts. 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.640 But what counts in terms of people's motivations to protest 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.520 is not so much their absolute poverty level, but their 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.360 relative poverty that is compared to their peers. Sociologists have 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.400 called this a relative deprivation and it is important predictor 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.240 of social unrest. So the point is there is that 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.920 you might have someone who's protesting at say occupied Wall Street, 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.080 who's doing fine. Actually they can put some you know, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.920 fine being meaning they can eat, they have clothes, they 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.880 have a place to live. So the point of it, though, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:05.440 is that the person that occupy Wall Street is saying, Okay, yes, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.160 I know that I'm doing better than this other person, 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.360 this this other country. But the fact of the matter 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:11.440 is I live here in this city with these people, 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.200 and I should have the same access to opportunities and 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.040 resources that this person next to me does, that my 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.960 politician does, um, that the blue collar worker does, the 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.480 white collar worker does. And it's it's really important that 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.720 while we tend to think of the US is a 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:29.840 rich country, the fact of the matter is that the 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.000 income gap between the rich and poor is much greater 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.640 than anywhere else in the Western world. Um. So statistical 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.920 data bears out that the more unequal society is, the 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.760 more stressed and unhappy people are, and the more chance 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.440 again we have of social unrest. Now, two other ideas 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.120 that are I think are pretty closely related that are 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.040 brought up in the Psychology Today article one crowd members 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.240 are all alike, and that the crowd has no face. 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.920 Now the crowd members are all alike. This one is 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.960 is one that I think tends to it. It tends 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.240 to get be wound up in media coverage, like, for instance, 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:09.560 in in noticing various media outlets covering Occupy Wall Street. Granted, 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.400 you only have so many photos to choose from, I'm sure, 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.560 I mean, I'm sure a p getty all these places 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:16.919 rolling out a lot of photos, but you tend to 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.920 see people gravitating towards particular images, and like, there's just 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:21.960 one of this dude that kind of looks like Andy 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.959 and Parks and wreck Um with kind of like one 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.479 of these beards I think, I know, yeah, yeah he 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.560 and he has like one of these beards, except his 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:31.840 his mustaches shave, so it's kind of looks like giant 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.639 wolverine ciders and he's like kind of yelling, and so 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.479 you see that picture enough and you're kind of like, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.159 that's the Occupy Wall Street movement. It's kind of burly 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.720 dudes with the crazy sideburns, yelling that haven't maybe they 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:45.920 haven't had a bath recently. Well, this is another thing 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.600 that that comes up to This came up in the 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.359 London riots as well, like how could so many people 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.040 from so many different backgrounds, since you know, of all 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.160 stripes of life, how could they all be together doing this? 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.800 This is impossible, you know because not right next to 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.440 Andy from parts of reck, you also have a guy 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.760 in a business suit. Um. So it's funny because we've 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.240 talked about this before. We like pattern recognition and we 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.640 like to keep it simple and easy. But the fact 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.400 of the matter is is that all these people are 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.760 coming together for a common cause. Um, it's not weird 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.080 that there are people from all different walks of life 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.960 getting together and protesting right now. But the idea that 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.080 the crowd has no face, that's another thing that came up. 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.159 You know, this is frequently cited, well, the like the 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.960 occupied movement has no leader, you know, so they can't 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.000 just shut down this leader or arrest this leader because 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.200 the movement is greater. That's true to sort of varying 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.400 degrees with with movements, because even in something like Occupy 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.000 Wall Street, during these occupied movements, you're going to have 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.680 people that are more connected. You're gonna have I mean, 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.960 just on a basic level, think of your own friend group. Um, 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.600 there are people that are better organizers than others. I 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.239 mean just like within you know, my own marriage, my 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.639 wife is much better organizer than me. So well, just 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.480 even in the personality tests that we all took here 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.640 and how stuff works, and some of us were put 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.480 in a group and made play with legos, which was 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.200 perfectly fine. Us and another group were made to play 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.680 with legos unbeknownst to us, and then a third group 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.959 had to clean all the floors. That was really weird. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.520 They like doing that. That's what their personality test said. Um, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.040 but you saw one group I'm gonna says, we were 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:26.640 all grouped in like UM dispositions. So in my group 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.080 where the creative crazies, and so we made some sort 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.760 of toy that made no sense and was inoperable. The 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.960 other group made this was amazing to watch. The other 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.000 group made this completely streamlined, UM, some sort of vehicle 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.919 like with little people, and it was of course it 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.800 was in running condition. So yes, you do have people 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.199 who are you know, automatically going to start organizing and 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.199 helping UM in a protest group situation. And then this 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.280 is another one that I found. It the idea that 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.320 protests correlate to weather, and this one turns out to 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:00.520 be true, or at least there's some there's some strong 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.600 evidence to support the idea. Yeah, there's a Columbia University 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.360 study and they used data from nineteen fifties two thousand four, 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.919 and the researchers concluded that the likelihood of new conflicts 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:14.200 arising in affected countries, mostly mostly located in the tropics 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:19.000 double during alminio years is compared with wetter, cooler years. Right, 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.960 so the hot, dry weather was driving people nuts, raising 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.600