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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And folks, if I sound a little bit groggy today,

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Speaker 3: I think I do have a bit of a cold.

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Speaker 3: But we're recording anyway. Since we're going to be talking

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Speaker 3: about the syth of Star Wars, I thought I'd just

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Speaker 3: embrace it. I would embrace all the negativity and lean

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Speaker 3: into the sithiness of this sickness.

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Speaker 2: There you go, use it. It will make you stronger, exactly.

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Speaker 3: So, a couple of weeks ago, we did a pair

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Speaker 3: of episodes about the Star Wars universe. One of them

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Speaker 3: was about the ice planet Hath from the Empire Strikes Back,

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Speaker 3: where we talked about the fictional sort of theropod dinosaur

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Speaker 3: goat beast known as the ton Ton, and from that

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Speaker 3: we jumped into a discussion about actual dinosaurs that we

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Speaker 3: now know lived in a polar environments, which is pretty

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Speaker 3: cool and very surprising if you grew up like I did,

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Speaker 3: thinking that dinosaurs were ownt were exclusively inhabitants of steamy

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Speaker 3: jungles and you know, deserts, surrounded by molten lava. We

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Speaker 3: also talked about the wampa and its relation to real

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Speaker 3: life predators, as well as the infamous town Toon sleeping

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Speaker 3: bag scene, and from that we got into the history

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Speaker 3: and science of trying to crawl inside a dead animal's

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Speaker 3: body for warmth. People in reality have done it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, listener, males keep piling in about this one.

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Speaker 3: By the way, Yeah, it's generating some good stuff. Then

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Speaker 3: in a second Star Wars episode, we shifted gears and

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Speaker 3: talked about syth psychology, the Syth being the elite order

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Speaker 3: of practitioners of the dark side of the Force. So

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Speaker 3: characteristics of the Syth that we discussed from last time

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Speaker 3: obsession with power, a might makes right mentality, so a

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Speaker 3: belief in strength over principle. Not I do it because

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Speaker 3: I should, but I do it because I can. An

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Speaker 3: open embrace of negative emotions, seeing negative impotions as empowering

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Speaker 3: or fueling the acquisition.

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Speaker 4: Of more power in the world.

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Speaker 3: And then also the fact that they operate mostly in secret,

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Speaker 3: maneuvering through treachery, backstabbing.

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Speaker 4: Manipulation, and cruelty.

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Speaker 3: And in the last episode we ended up talking largely

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Speaker 3: about the siths so called rule of two, Rob, can

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Speaker 3: you do a quick refresh on this? What's the organizational

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Speaker 3: structure here?

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Speaker 2: Always too? There are a master and an apprentice. That's

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Speaker 2: pretty much it, right. There is a master, there's an apprentice.

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Speaker 2: The master is promising power and withholding power and secrets.

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Speaker 2: The apprentice is lusting for power, is hungry for power

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Speaker 2: and dominance. And therefore this kind of like hateful relationship

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Speaker 2: between master and apprentice is able to They're able to

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Speaker 2: coexist for period of time until such time as the

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Speaker 2: apprentice is powerful enough and knows enough of the secrets

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Speaker 2: to slay their master and become the new master and

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Speaker 2: then take on new apprentice.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: So, from this we discussed the theory and practice of

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Speaker 3: conspiracies composed of only two people. Sometimes you run into

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Speaker 3: problems there. Religions composed of only two people problems there

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Speaker 3: as well. And we also talked about how succession often

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Speaker 3: works in the somewhat comparable world of elite business. Common

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Speaker 3: problems that arise during the succession of one CEO to

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Speaker 3: another in a big company. Now, of course, a lot

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Speaker 3: of these examples that came up in the episode from

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Speaker 3: Star Wars pertained to Darth Sidius, the main Sith Lord

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Speaker 3: in the main Star Wars series, also known as Emperor Palpatine,

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Speaker 3: and for that last Sith episode, it actually prepared a

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Speaker 3: whole other segment that we ended up not having time

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Speaker 3: to record in that session. So we're coming back today

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Speaker 3: and expanding on that. It is a perhaps recurring segment

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Speaker 3: that I would like to call Palp Facts, where we

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Speaker 3: review and discuss words of wisdom from the lips of

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Speaker 3: our beloved Emperor Palpatine. Because of course, you know, many

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Speaker 3: people admire the Emperor's way with words, but I think

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Speaker 3: it does not even insult him to say that the

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Speaker 3: words he speaks may not be entirely true, since the

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Speaker 3: Sith openly embrace lying and manipulation, and so I think

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Speaker 3: the Great Palp can do with a bit of a

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Speaker 3: fact check every now and then.

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Speaker 2: You know, Joe I actually spoke with Emperor Palpatine earlier

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Speaker 2: today and he said that he's very much in favor

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Speaker 2: of this series and he thinks it should go a multi.

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Speaker 3: Part Oh, the Emperor will be listening. Yes, yes, then

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Speaker 3: I will do my absolute path. We will redouble our efforts. So, yeah,

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Speaker 3: we're going to look at some Palpatinian proverbs in this

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Speaker 3: episode and maybe in future installments of this as a

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Speaker 3: series and see to what extent they stack up with

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Speaker 3: observable reality and what the research literature has to say. So,

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Speaker 3: the first palp fact I want to look at is

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Speaker 3: about anger. The line in question comes in the movie

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Speaker 3: Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, episode three. The context

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Speaker 3: of the scene is that before becoming Emperor, at this point,

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Speaker 3: Senator Palpatine has been developing a relationship with the young

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Speaker 3: Jedi Anakin Skywalker. He is trying to cultivate Anakin's loyalty,

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Speaker 3: and he is subtly kind of twisting the knife in

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Speaker 3: turning Anakin against the Jedi order, dropping these little bits

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Speaker 3: of poisoning that other relationship.

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Speaker 4: Would you say that's fair, Rob, Yes? Yes.

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Speaker 2: Above all else, Palpatine is a master manipulator and is

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Speaker 2: just always subtly tuning things in his favor.

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Speaker 3: Machiavelli into the core. So, Palpatine has for some time

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Speaker 3: been hinting that there is a looming danger to Anakin's wife, Padme.

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Speaker 3: In fact, I think Anakin has some premonitions of this himself, maybe,

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Speaker 3: or does Padme have them?

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Speaker 2: Somebody has dreams, Anakin has dreams, Yeah, so he has

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Speaker 2: this growing feeling certainty that something terrible is coming and

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Speaker 2: he has to do whatever he can to stop it.

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Speaker 3: Right, and so Palpatine is hinting every now and then

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Speaker 3: that he himself has access to knowledge that could save

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Speaker 3: Padme from certain death. Now where does this knowledge of

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Speaker 3: power over life and death come from? Palpatine reveals in

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Speaker 3: a pivotal scene that it comes from the dark side

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Speaker 3: of the Force, with which he is secretly more than

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Speaker 3: a little bit familiar. And in the scene, Anakin is shaken.

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Speaker 3: His relationship with the Jedi has been rocky, but he

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Speaker 3: is still a Jedi. He's still fully allied to the

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Speaker 3: good side of the Force, and he knows to be

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Speaker 3: wary of the dark Side and his false promises. So

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Speaker 3: now this guy, this kindly white haired Paul Titian who

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Speaker 3: has slowly been becoming his mentor and patron, reveals that

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Speaker 3: all along he was an adept of the of the

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Speaker 3: dark Side, which is very disturbing. So Anakin draws his

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Speaker 3: lightsaber and he accuses Palpatine of being the secret Sith

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Speaker 3: Lord that has been commanding the Jedi's enemies over the

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Speaker 3: whole storyline so far, And then standing with his back

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Speaker 3: to Anakin, who has his lightsaber drawn. Palpatine asks, are

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Speaker 3: you going to kill me? Anakin says, I would certainly

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Speaker 3: like to, and Palpatine says, almost orgasmically, he's really feeling it.

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Speaker 3: He says, I know you would. I can feel your anger.

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Speaker 3: It gives you focus, makes you stronger. And I thought

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Speaker 3: that was interesting because that is a testable proposition. Does

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Speaker 3: anger give you focus? Does anger make you stronger? And

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Speaker 3: that's what I want to look at by examining some

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Speaker 3: of the psychology literature on this.

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Speaker 2: Yes, an interesting question to get into, because, of course

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Speaker 2: anger is not exclusive to the dark side of the force.

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Speaker 2: You know that there is. We often hear talk of

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Speaker 2: righteous anger and a lot of discussion of like, in

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Speaker 2: what cases is it okay to feel anger, express anger

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Speaker 2: even and then of course process that anger in a

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Speaker 2: healthy manner. The sith of course, I think you can

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Speaker 2: say that their treatment of anger is let it go

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Speaker 2: ahead and fester, let it go ahead and mature into proper,

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Speaker 2: full blown hatred, let it rip. Yeah, exactly. They don't

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Speaker 2: just get angry, They stay angry, and they just let

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Speaker 2: it boil over into hatred.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think that's right. So human beings are not all

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Speaker 3: going to be prone to anger to exactly the same degree.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes we might be able to have conscious efforts to

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Speaker 3: limit our own anger in certain ways, and so we're

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Speaker 3: not all equally angry, But all humans have some susceptibility

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Speaker 3: to anger. Everybody's going to have some anger sometimes. I

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Speaker 3: think what separates the syth from just the common emotional

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Speaker 3: state of humanity is that they embrace it, go with it,

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Speaker 3: use it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, you might know that you might become angry

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Speaker 2: if you start scrolling the news first thing in the morning,

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Speaker 2: and therefore you might avoid doing so. Not so with

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Speaker 2: the Sith. They know that scrolling the news is going

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Speaker 2: to make them angry. They get up early to do

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Speaker 2: it so they can They can get angry, stay angry,

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Speaker 2: and let it become hatred.

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Speaker 4: And get revenge. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So addressing this question, does anger make you stronger? Does

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Speaker 3: anger give you focus? I was somewhat surprised by what

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Speaker 3: I found in my research here, because after digging into this,

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Speaker 3: I think I have to give this a ruling somewhere

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Speaker 3: between partially true and mostly true. It depends on what

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Speaker 3: exactly you're trying to do or optimize for and I'm

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Speaker 3: surprised by this because I personally almost always think of

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Speaker 3: anger as something that clouds judgment and impair focus. It

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Speaker 3: makes people make choices that they later regret, and I

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Speaker 3: know factually this is true in many people's lives. And

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Speaker 3: it turns out that this is not exactly wrong either.

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Speaker 3: This is also true. Anger does also cloud judgment and

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Speaker 3: impair focus. It does also make people act impulsively and

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Speaker 3: make choices they later regret, but in specific ways, anger

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Speaker 3: can in fact be a functional performance enhancer. So I'm

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Speaker 3: going to untangle this not as we proceed and try

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Speaker 3: to tease out this tension between seemingly opposed facts. All right,

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Speaker 3: so first, let's refer to one major recent paper on

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Speaker 3: how anger can be a functional performance enhancer. This paper

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Speaker 3: is by Heather Lynch, Noah Reid, Tiffany, George Caitlin Kaiser,

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Speaker 3: and Sophia North, and it's called Anger has Benefits for

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Speaker 3: Attaining Goals, published in the Journal of Personality and Social

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Speaker 3: Psychology in twenty twenty four. The research here was conducted

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Speaker 3: out of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at

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Speaker 3: Texas A and M University. In their background section, the

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Speaker 3: authors start by highlighting what they call the functional account

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Speaker 3: of emotions. This is the idea that emotions are adaptive traits.

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Speaker 3: They are traits selected by evolution, which we are not

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Speaker 3: just subject to. Emotions are not just something we must endure.

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Speaker 3: Emotions do things for us which in the ancestral environment

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Speaker 3: helped with survival and reproduction. And within this framework, the

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Speaker 3: authors compare our emotional capacities to a Swiss army knife,

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Speaker 3: which has different tools for different tasks. So you know

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Speaker 3: your Swiss army knife. You got the knife for a

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Speaker 3: lot of major You know your standard whittling and all

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Speaker 3: of the kinds of stuff, but you've also got the

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Speaker 3: sewing needle and the corkscrew and you need to open

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Speaker 3: a bottle. And they say our emotions are like this,

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Speaker 3: different emotions for different types of situations and challenges. If

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Speaker 3: you think about this, you can probably recognize in your

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Speaker 3: own life that if you are feeling a strong emotion,

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Speaker 3: there's a very good chance it stems from the relationship

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Speaker 3: between your current situation and a goal. How far are

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Speaker 3: you from a goal or a desired outcome? Are you

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Speaker 3: getting closer to that desired outcome or farther away if

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Speaker 3: you are not getting closer to it. What is preventing

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Speaker 3: you is something bringing an undesirable outcome closer to you.

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Speaker 3: That most of the emotions you can think about feeling

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Speaker 3: have some kind of interaction between my current situation and

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Speaker 3: what I want, And studies show indeed that in a

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Speaker 3: lot of situations, the emotions we feel can be traced

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Speaker 3: back to these kinds of situational inputs. Also, the emotions

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Speaker 3: that we feel change how we react to these situations.

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Speaker 3: Emotions are internal behavior modulators that should, at least in theory,

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Speaker 3: help us react in ways that make us more likely

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Speaker 3: to achieve our goals, and this study looks specifically at

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Speaker 3: anger through that lens. Now, there are several major accounts

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Speaker 3: of the functional value of anger. These are not necessarily

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Speaker 3: mutually exclusive. I'll mention just a couple of the ideas

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Speaker 3: that they review. One is what you might call the

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Speaker 3: challenge account of anger. Quoting from the paper here. Quote

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Speaker 3: Anger results when a goal is obstructed and requires attention

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Speaker 3: if it is to be attained, or a frustration eliminated.

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Speaker 3: So essentially, anger is what you feel when an obstacle

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Speaker 3: or obstruction appears that prevents you from getting what you

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Speaker 3: want and under this account, anger is the emotional state

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Speaker 3: that promotes readiness for action. It promotes a type of

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Speaker 3: reaction in your brain and in your body that gets

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Speaker 3: you ready to meet that challenge. It motivates you to

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Speaker 3: overcome the obstacle and beat it or overcome it, and

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Speaker 3: also motivates you to keep fighting and persisting against that

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Speaker 3: challenge until it becomes clear that the goal has been

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Speaker 3: attained or is impossible to achieve. Another interesting account they

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Speaker 3: bring up is known as the recalibration theory. This is

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Speaker 3: more a human to human social framing which says that

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Speaker 3: anger arises from perceived injustice or mistreatment. So under this model,

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Speaker 3: a person becomes angry when they feel that others are

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Speaker 3: in some way not placing enough consideration on.

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Speaker 4: Their needs or desires.

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Speaker 3: To quote from an author named cell in twenty eleven

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Speaker 3: in an important paper on recalibration theory, quote, the function

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Speaker 3: of anger is to recalibrate individuals who place insuf wait

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Speaker 3: on the welfare of the anger individual when making decisions.

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Speaker 4: So under this.

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Speaker 3: View, anger is sort of a relational bargaining chip. It's like,

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Speaker 3: you are not treating me as well as I think

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Speaker 3: I deserve. Therefore I will use anger associated behaviors like

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Speaker 3: threats and social retaliation, potentially even violence until you appropriately

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Speaker 3: increase the psychological wages you pay me in consideration for

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Speaker 3: my welfare and my desires. And note that a couple

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Speaker 3: of important things under this kind of framing recalibration idea,

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Speaker 3: anger could be abstracted onto concern for the welfare of

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Speaker 3: others as well. And in fact, many studies show that

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Speaker 3: one pretty reliable way to trigger anger reactions in people

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Speaker 3: is to show them like images of somebody just being

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Speaker 3: bullied or mistreated.

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Speaker 4: That is like a reliable way.

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Speaker 3: To induce anger in people. So it doesn't necessarily have

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Speaker 3: to be centered on the though obviously a lot of

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Speaker 3: our you know, the majority of our emotions in our

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Speaker 3: lives are going to be centered on the self, so

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Speaker 3: a lot of it is going to be about mistreatment

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Speaker 3: or perceived mistreatment of the self. It also, on this account,

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Speaker 3: I would say, doesn't need to arise from objective injustice.

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Speaker 3: It's just about the perceived mismatch between treatment and expectations,

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Speaker 3: whether that perception is objectively fair or not. And I

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Speaker 3: think you could probably see plenty of examples with this,

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Speaker 3: with the SITH getting very angry about not being treated right,

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Speaker 3: when in reality they're just getting angry because they're not

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Speaker 3: getting some special exceptional treatment they believe they're entitled to.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, these two models, challenge and recalibration sound pretty different,

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Speaker 3: but I think they're, at least in my reading, they're

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Speaker 3: not necessarily at odds with one another, because you could

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Speaker 3: frame the recalibration theory as a particular social human to

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Speaker 3: human instantiation of the challenge account. So a person not

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Speaker 3: respecting your welfare or your desires enough is functionally an

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Speaker 3: obstacle to your goals, and studies show actually that displays

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Speaker 3: of anger can remove these social obstacles. So getting angry might,

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Speaker 3: in social situations, cause someone to give in to the

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Speaker 3: angry person's desires. It might cause people to take their

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Speaker 3: side in a situation, or it might cause a person

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Speaker 3: who is interfering with them getting their desires to remove

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Speaker 3: themselves as an obstacle to the angry person's plans. You

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Speaker 3: can probably think of situations like these that you've seen

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Speaker 3: in your life. Anger can sometimes prompt joining and alliance

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Speaker 3: from onlookers and third parties, whether that anger is justified

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Speaker 3: righteous anger. It can bring people to your side, or

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Speaker 3: if it's you know, very unjustified anger, it can get

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Speaker 3: people into the bullying mob.

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Speaker 4: It does.

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Speaker 3: It works both ways. Anger can also make people give

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Speaker 3: up resistance and disengage. I think we've all had this

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Speaker 3: experience too. You are inter fearing with what somebody wants

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Speaker 3: because you think you're supposed to or whatever, but the

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Speaker 3: person just gets so angry. You're just like, I'm out,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to deal with this, and you just

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Speaker 3: let them have their way anyway. Operating primarily from the

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Speaker 3: challenge account of functional anger the author's right quote, the

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Speaker 3: problem that causes anger is the perception of challenge to

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Speaker 3: goals that are still attainable, and therefore functional accounts predict

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Speaker 3: that anger will result in greater goal attainment in situations

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Speaker 3: that involve challenge. So that is what they set out

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Speaker 3: to study in this paper, not just whether anger can

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Speaker 3: lead to behaviors that theoretically could help with beating obstacles

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Speaker 3: and attaining goals that had already been shown in some

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Speaker 3: other studies. In this case, they were looking at whether

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Speaker 3: feeling anger actually does lead to accomplishing goals in reality.

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Speaker 3: In their summary the author's right quote, in seven studies

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Speaker 3: goal attainment was assessed in situations that involved varying levels

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Speaker 3: of challenges to goal attainment. Across studies, anger compared to

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Speaker 3: a neutral condition resulted in behavior that facilitated greater goal

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Speaker 3: attainment on tasks that involved challenges. So that's the top line.

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Speaker 3: The authors found that anger does, actually, at least in

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Speaker 3: the types of tasks they tried, help people achieve goals,

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Speaker 3: with the caveat that the kinds of goals studied are

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Speaker 3: fairly simple. They are self contained laboratory tasks, and it's

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Speaker 3: possible that the same patterns would not manifest for real

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Speaker 3: world goals, though I suspect they would for certain types

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Speaker 3: of goals. We can talk about that more at the

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Speaker 3: end if you want, but a few specifics from the

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Speaker 3: paper that I'd like to get into. One was the

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Speaker 3: question I was wondering, how is anger manipulated? Like, how

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Speaker 3: do you make people angry for the purposes of a study.

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Speaker 3: It's a hard thing to calibrate. So it was a

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Speaker 3: mix of different methods across the studies. In the first

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Speaker 3: few studies, the participants were undergraduate university students, and the

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Speaker 3: authors used slide shows of images in part from a

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Speaker 3: database of images designed to provoke specific emotions. This is

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Speaker 3: called the International Affective Picture System, supplemented with some additional

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Speaker 3: pictures made specifically for this study. And with these slide shows,

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Speaker 3: they had multiple emotional groupings, so you'd have amusement images.

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Speaker 3: This was stuff like cute animals, babies, ducklings, laughter, that

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Speaker 3: sort of thing. Desire images here, it's a lot of

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Speaker 3: pictures of chocolate, cake, desserts and fudge and stuff. Sadness images,

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Speaker 3: images of people at funerals, pit upful animals and things

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Speaker 3: like that. And then the anger category consisted mostly of

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Speaker 3: for one thing, you had images of anger like showing

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Speaker 3: people displaying overt anger, angry faces, pointing accusingly. And then

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Speaker 3: you have this is a reliable, pretty reliable trigger of

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Speaker 3: anger in studies like this, pictures of bullying and in justice,

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Speaker 3: like a bigger person picking on a weaker person. Or

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Speaker 3: They also used direct group insults like graffiti or cartoons

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Speaker 3: insulting people who go to the school that the subjects

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Speaker 3: went to. They also used harsh insults to the school

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Speaker 3: sports team and its fans.

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Speaker 2: Not my sports team.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so you know, I was like, how people

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Speaker 3: get upset about that? But then I remembered some people

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Speaker 3: actually do people do, yes, but I just can't. But

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Speaker 3: you could imagine other things that you care about.

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Speaker 2: Whatever kind of thing you're heavily invested in, like a

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Speaker 2: movie you're excited about, an album, whatever it happens today,

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Speaker 2: you know, someone starts yucking you'r yum. You can feel

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Speaker 2: a bit defensive about it, you know.

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Speaker 3: Only yeah, only the dumbest, like whatever you like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: So there were also emotionally neutral images, and it doesn't

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Speaker 3: describe these essentially, so I was wondering what they were,

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Speaker 3: like square triangle.

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Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know.

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Speaker 3: So the subjects were told that this slide show to

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Speaker 3: try to throw them off. They were told that the

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Speaker 3: slideshow was for a memory task later in the experiment.

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Speaker 3: This was misdirection. And then a self report found that

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Speaker 3: the images did indeed provoke the intended emotions in each

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Speaker 3: case oblique to the study, but I thought it was

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Speaker 3: interesting that sadness was the most easily provoked emotion by

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Speaker 3: the slide show, and the anger provoking images did make subjects,

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Speaker 3: as far as they self reported, significantly more angry. And

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Speaker 3: then after these manipulations, experiments found, first of all, in

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Speaker 3: an experiment presented to subjects as a test of verbal intelligence,

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Speaker 3: kind of subtly implying that in order to prove their intelligence,

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Speaker 3: they should do well. Subjects tried to unscramble these different

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Speaker 3: sets of anagrams at different levels of difficulty. Interestingly, the

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Speaker 3: experiment found that angry subjects solved significantly more anagram puzzles

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Speaker 3: at the higher levels of difficulty than subjects in other

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Speaker 3: emotional conditions, and it's worth noting that anger only seemed

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Speaker 3: to make a difference with the hard puzzles. Angry people

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Speaker 3: did no better than non angry people on the easy anagrams,

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Speaker 3: and the authors interpreted this as a result of angry

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Speaker 3: people displaying greater persistence on hard puzzles. Indeed, angry subjects

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Speaker 3: spent longer on the hard puzzles before giving up on

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Speaker 3: them and moving on, which resulted in them solving a

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Speaker 3: greater number of the difficult anagrams.

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Speaker 2: Wow, so I don't scroll the news first thing in

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Speaker 2: the morning, but I do attempt to solve the wordle

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Speaker 2: first thing in the morning. But it's sounding like maybe

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Speaker 2: I should get angry by reading the news first so

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Speaker 2: that I'll have everything more revved up for puzzle. Solving.

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Speaker 3: I think it's possible that could work, but I think

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Speaker 3: getting angry might overall have more negative consequences on your life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the juice is probably not worth the squeeze on this.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it's true. I think it might possibly give you

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Speaker 3: a greater mindset of persistence in the face of challenges

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Speaker 3: for this immediately following task. So in the second study,

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Speaker 3: researchers used a similar emotional provocation, and then they used

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Speaker 3: a puzzle test where you could win prizes for logic

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Speaker 3: puzzles that you solved. Unfortunately, the puzzles used in this

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Speaker 3: test were designed to be extremely difficult, so students did

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Speaker 3: not have much hope of doing very well on their

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Speaker 3: own merits. However, in this test, researchers presented participants the

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Speaker 3: opportunity to cheat. The researcher left the room while the

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Speaker 3: puzzles were being solved, and then allowed the participants to

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Speaker 3: self report the number they had successfully solved and then

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Speaker 3: discard the problem worksheet, destroying the evidence, or so they thought.

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Speaker 3: And this study found that students were significantly more likely

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Speaker 3: to cheat when they were angry. Now, of course, this

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Speaker 3: is in no way a moral and horsemen of cheating,

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Speaker 3: not by the authors here, But in a very practical sense,

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Speaker 3: cheating absolutely is a strategy for attaining goals. In reality,

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Speaker 3: it's just a way of, you know, I'm going to

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Speaker 3: go around what I think is people are supposed to do,

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Speaker 3: and I'm just going to get what I want. Cheating

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Speaker 3: in this sense does help us win, and anger seems

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Speaker 3: to possibly make us more likely to cheat, to break

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Speaker 3: rules in pursuit of desires, and maybe would make us

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Speaker 3: even more likely to dabble in the dark side. I

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Speaker 3: don't know to say, I'm not supposed to do this,

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Speaker 3: but all these things are standing in my way and

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Speaker 3: I can't do it, and I need to get it,

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Speaker 3: and so I'm just gonna I'm going to use the

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Speaker 3: dark side.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we see this all the time in

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Speaker 2: Star Wars, right, like get the noble Jedi angry. Not

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Speaker 2: only will they will they fight you, but they are

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Speaker 2: they're going to maybe fight a little dirtier, They're going

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Speaker 2: to fight more like a Seth. And so you almost

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Speaker 2: get a two fer on that one, right because now

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Speaker 2: they're angry, then maybe they're cheating a little bit, like

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Speaker 2: they're playing more and more into your hands.

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Speaker 3: That's true, you know, you even see that in earlier

436
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 3: before the Syth was really expanded on in a lower

437
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 3: sense in the prequels. In Return of the Jedi, I

438
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 3: get a large sense that that is what the Emperor

439
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 3: is trying to get Luke to do in the final

440
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 3: fight in the second.

441
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 4: Death Star with Darth Vader.

442
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 3: You know, he's asking him, given to anger, given to hate,

443
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 3: let the hate flow through you. But he's also trying

444
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 3: to encourage him to, in a literal and practical sense,

445
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 3: fight dirtier in the fight against Vader, which will dirty

446
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:31,199
Speaker 3: his soul in doing so.

447
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

448
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, So another study tested for the effect of anger

449
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 3: on performance in a skill based video game. It was

450
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 3: like a skiing game of some kind. Interestingly, anger improved

451
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 3: performance relative to other emotional states only when the game

452
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 3: was hard. Anger did not help when the game was easy. Again,

453
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,360
Speaker 3: it seems that anger's effect on performance is probably related

454
00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 3: to persistence, to making you keep trying to overcome challenges,

455
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 3: to focusing on goals and trying to force yourself over

456
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 3: obstacles and toward challenges, perhaps at the expense of other considerations,

457
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 3: I mean, even considerations like honesty and honor.

458
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 2: You know this is this even talking about playing games,

459
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 2: video games, or otherwise. This would this is like a

460
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 2: whole separate area we could come back to at sometimes

461
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 2: point in the future. You know, there's a lot of

462
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 2: talk about like getting tilted when you're playing a game,

463
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: you know, where it's like you've lost your confidence, you've

464
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 2: lost your mojo. Take a break from it because you're

465
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 2: just going to keep losing. And you know to what

466
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: extent that is true, You know, you hear that all

467
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 2: the time, like the game's making you angry, maybe you

468
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 2: should stop playing it because it's not fun anymore. But

469
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 2: we can all think to times, especially with frustrating video games,

470
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 2: where we got angry at that game and we did

471
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 2: not stop. We were in that mode where it's like

472
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 2: I am not enjoying this game. I kind of hate

473
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 2: this game, but I'll be darned if I'm gonna kind

474
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 2: to let this level beat me. And if you keep

475
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 2: grinding at it until it's just excrudeciating and then you

476
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 2: finally beat that level and then you get like an

477
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: easy part of the next level and you keep playing

478
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 2: for some god awful reason.

479
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, but no, I think this is actually a personal,

480
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 3: not a perfect common illustration of exactly what's being studied

481
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 3: here at work, that.

482
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 4: Feeling of.

483
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 3: Anger driving you to a higher level of persistence in

484
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 3: the face of obstacles than you would normally entertain.

485
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just sometimes they are like fake obstacles, like

486
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 2: a video game. Yeah, this is not the sort of

487
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 2: thing that our evolution has really been preparing us for.

488
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

489
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 3: So, in short that there were three more studies in

490
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 3: this paper. They found that anger sped up reaction times

491
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 3: in a time to task and cause players to persist

492
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 3: more in trying to improve reaction times. They also found

493
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 3: that anger predicted efforts to vote in upcoming elections, so

494
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 3: the level of anger about upcoming elections correlated to actual

495
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 3: voter turnout. And then also they found when compared to

496
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: no on emotional physiological arousal, anger was more likely to

497
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 3: make people I think it was sign a petition to

498
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,719
Speaker 3: protect their financial interests. So this was testing. It's not

499
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,479
Speaker 3: just about like arousal and elevated heart rate, blood pressure

500
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing. It's the specific emotional motivational

501
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 3: state of anger.

502
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: Politicians should take note of this. You can you can

503
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: make people angry and exploit it.

504
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: Okay, that's that's very novel. Very interesting. Yeah, you brought

505
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 3: up the idea of being on tilt in a game,

506
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 3: you know, so that might make you very angry and

507
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 3: persistent in this video game and eventually beat the level.

508
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 3: But I know of another use of the phrase on

509
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 3: tilt in games, and that is in gambling games where

510
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 3: it's player versus player games like poker, where to my understanding,

511
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,959
Speaker 3: the idea of being on on tilt means you have

512
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 3: become so angry that you are behaving irrationally, and a

513
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 3: common maybe not that common. But the way I understand

514
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 3: tilt as a strategy in poker is sometimes poker players

515
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 3: will intentionally try to make other players angry in order

516
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: to make them behave less rationally with their betting behavior.

517
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 3: And that brings us back to my original instinct that

518
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 3: anger cloud's judgment and interferes with goal attainment? Was that

519
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 3: just totally wrong? Now that we've seen the study that

520
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: anger does help people break through obstacles and get to

521
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 3: their goals, No, that is not wrong. Some studies do

522
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 3: show also that anger cloud's judgment and interferes with goal attainment.

523
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 3: I think the difference comes down to it's complicated, but

524
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 3: I think the big difference is in what type of

525
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 3: problem you're trying to solve and what is needed in

526
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:58,239
Speaker 3: order to solve it. So a few examples of this

527
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 3: kind of research. One thing I found is a twenty

528
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 3: nineteen study in the journal Motivation and Emotion where Schmidt, Gielnick,

529
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 3: and Sebel tested the effects of anger on problem solving

530
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 3: in goal pursuit, and they actually found something interesting.

531
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 4: They found if you don't.

532
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 3: Already have a clear and effective plan in place to

533
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 3: accomplish a goal, anger actually makes you show less persistence

534
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 3: in your efforts, which makes you less likely to accomplish

535
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 3: the goal. Quote. Across both studies, self reported anger during

536
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 3: goal pursuit is negatively related to later goal achievement through

537
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 3: a decrease in persistence when participants action planning is low.

538
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 3: So these authors also found that when action planning was high,

539
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 3: anger was unrelated to goal attainment. It neither helped nor hurt,

540
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 3: and so anger in this case they find that anger

541
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily help you achieve goals if what you need

542
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 3: to do is unclear. So what about in figuring out

543
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 3: what you need to do in the first place. I

544
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 3: think this is another area where it seems pretty clear

545
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 3: to me that the Sith wisdom is totally wrong. If

546
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 3: you are trying to strategize and figure out what you

547
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 3: should do, the embracing anger path is very misguided. Multiple

548
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 3: studies over the years have found that anger can impair

549
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:27,479
Speaker 3: higher order logic, planning and decision making. Just one example,

550
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 3: I came across a twenty twenty one study in the

551
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 3: European Management Journal by Meisner, Peinskin, and Wolf called how

552
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 3: hot cognition can lead Us astray The Effect of Anger

553
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: on Strategic decision making. This study made a distinction between

554
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 3: what they call simple decisions and strategic decision making, and

555
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 3: they say that strategic decision making is quote characterized by complexity, ambiguity,

556
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 3: and a high information load. And in a field experiment

557
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 3: they conducted with the participation of fifty two business executives,

558
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 3: they found that anger was negatively correlated with the quality

559
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 3: of strategic decisions made when later assessed retrospectively. Decisions which

560
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 3: required complex thinking, dealing with ambiguity and synthesizing a lot

561
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 3: of information led to worse outcomes when they were when

562
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 3: those decisions were made while the person was angry. Now,

563
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 3: another interesting thing here is that the authors say that

564
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 3: while there was some conventional wisdom that while anger might

565
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 3: be bad for this kind of high level thinking where

566
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 3: you need to deal with lots of information and ambiguity,

567
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 3: anger might at least have the benefit of speeding up

568
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 3: simple decision tasks, making you more decisive when the path

569
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 3: forward is pretty simple and clear. And the authors say, actually, no,

570
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 3: they didn't even find this. Angry participants showed no benefit

571
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 3: in simple decision speed in this study, and this is

572
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 3: mirrored in other research in the field. I was just

573
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 3: reading an article in The Atlantic from twenty sixteen by

574
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 3: Olga Kazan called the Best Headspace for Making Decisions, And

575
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 3: this article was going into more a general overview of

576
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 3: the relationship between emotions and decision making, and so it

577
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,760
Speaker 3: quotes a researcher named Jennifer Lerner, a professor of public

578
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 3: policy and management at Harvard who's done a bunch of

579
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 3: research on the effects of different emotions and decision making.

580
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 3: And according to Learner and colleagues, anger is what they

581
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 3: call an activating emotion. It creates a bias for approach

582
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 3: behaviors at the expense of caution. So anger tends to

583
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 3: make you more confident and eager to act. Anger makes

584
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 3: you more impulsive, so when you're angry, you are more

585
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 3: likely to take big risks and to ignore or discount

586
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 3: the severity of risks. Anger also makes you more likely

587
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 3: to assign blame to individuals rather than to impersonal forces

588
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 3: or circumstance factors. You know, it's like, you know this

589
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,800
Speaker 3: is Ted's fault. It's not, you know, just the situation.

590
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 3: Anger makes you crave rewards more intensely, and it tends

591
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 3: to make you more biased toward simple explanations rather than

592
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 3: complex ones. So putting together this whole picture we've been

593
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 3: painting of how anger relates to behavior and decision making,

594
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 3: you can see how anger could be very helpful or

595
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 3: very harmful, depending on what you're trying to do. Like,

596
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 3: anger might well help if your problem is Doug keeps

597
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 3: bullying me and stealing my food, and I need to

598
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 3: hit him hard enough to make him stop, but he's

599
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,919
Speaker 3: bigger than me and I'm scared of him. In that case,

600
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: the anger might help you, like, we'll get over that

601
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 3: fear and get the confidence and face the challenge to

602
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 3: just fight him and try to make him stop. But

603
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 3: anger probably hurts you overall if the problem is something

604
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 3: that requires ambiguity synthesis of information. You know, if the

605
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 3: problem is I need to understand why my business is

606
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,839
Speaker 3: performing poorly and come up with the plan to fix it,

607
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 3: or I need to understand you know, politics or business

608
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 3: or anything that's like a complex system. So my view

609
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 3: after reading all of this is that planning and deciding

610
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 3: while angry is usually not a good idea. So this

611
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 3: is this is going to be my overall assessment. I

612
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 3: think when the task required to accomplish goals is fairly

613
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 3: simple or concrete, that task is something like subdue the

614
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 3: Sith Lord, and when you already have a strong action

615
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 3: plan to follow, like beat him in a lightsaber duel.

616
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 3: Anger quite possibly does give you focus and make you stronger,

617
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 3: in particular by enhancing persistence and motivation. It might also

618
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,959
Speaker 3: make you a dirtier fighter. But as we've been talking

619
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,439
Speaker 3: about in the Star Wars examples, that might help Luke

620
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,919
Speaker 3: Skywalker beat Darth Vader in the fight, but it also

621
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 3: might dirty his soul in ways that follow him for

622
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 3: the rest of his life.

623
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 4: Now.

624
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 3: But the other side is when the task required to

625
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 3: accomplish goals is complex and requires higher order rationality and

626
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 3: decision making. If the task is like navigate this political

627
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 3: situation involving the Jedi in the Senate, and if you

628
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 3: don't already have a clear action plan figured out, I

629
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 3: think anger is almost always going to hurt you there.

630
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 3: It's going to lead to impulsivity, dumb decisions. It's going

631
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 3: to make you think complex things are simple. It's going

632
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 3: to give you over confidence. It's going to make you

633
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: take unnecessary risks and lead to bad strategic moves.

634
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 2: This is fascinating because it makes you think more and

635
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 2: more about the character of Palpatine slash Darth Sidius. Certainly

636
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 2: we see a lot from him when he is being

637
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 2: his more or less true self to what to whatever extent,

638
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 2: there is a you know, a true self on display here.

639
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 2: Since he is always manipulating people, there is often a

640
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: seething hatred to that persona. But at the same time,

641
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 2: you know, there is a sense of someone who is

642
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,359
Speaker 2: also cold and calculating, and it would it would make

643
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 2: sense that he would need to be able to modulate

644
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 2: his own anger and hatred pretty regularly in order to

645
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 2: carry out these long term complex plots, manage underlings, and

646
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 2: also engage in such manipulation of those around him. So

647
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:27,879
Speaker 2: you know, I can see where it would make sense

648
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: to actively encourage anger on the part of his apprentice

649
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: and his apprentices and those that he's attempting to bring

650
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 2: into the fold. But I would imagine there would be

651
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 2: a certain amount of modulation required in the part of

652
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 2: a true Sith master.

653
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 4: Yeah.

654
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. I was thinking about this

655
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 3: in the last episode actually, when we were talking about

656
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 3: sith the other time, about how the Emperor, even though

657
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 3: he encourages anger and says it gives it gives strength,

658
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 3: you don't really see him acting out of anger very much.

659
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 3: He feels more like a more purely Machiavelian, cold calculating

660
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 3: manipulator rather than somebody who acts more impulsively like we

661
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 3: see Anakin do when he's during his descent into the

662
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,359
Speaker 3: dark side. Right right, Yeah, So wait, No, where does

663
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,240
Speaker 3: this leave us on the Palpal meter? At the beginning,

664
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 3: I said somewhere between partly, partially true and mostly true.

665
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 3: I guess I'll lean more toward partially true because it

666
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 3: is this mixed thing. It really just depends on what

667
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 3: it is you need to do, sort of at what

668
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 3: stage of the problem solving process that anger is arising

669
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 3: and how it's interacting with the problem itself. So yeah,

670
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 3: in some cases can make you stronger, give you focus,

671
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 3: comes with a lot of downsides, and in some cases

672
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 3: definitely makes you dumber and hurts you. And that's just

673
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 3: if you're a Sith, by the way, and the only

674
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 3: thing you care about is optimizing for your own goals.

675
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 3: I mean, it's quite obvious. And I'm sure we talk

676
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 3: all the time about the the negative externalities of anger,

677
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 3: just in real human life.

678
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, for the part I'm going

679
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 2: to cover here, I don't have so much a testable

680
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 2: statement from Palpatine, but I think there's a there's a

681
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 2: lot to draw from another key moment in Revenge of

682
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 2: the Scyth. So I think everyone is familiar with this

683
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 2: moment if you if you've seen the film at all,

684
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 2: and maybe even if you've never seen the film, you

685
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 2: just have seen clips of it and you've picked up

686
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 2: on sort of the lore of it. But there is

687
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 2: a moment laid in the film where Jedi Master Mace

688
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 2: Windhu and two Jedi associates attempt to arrest the Supreme

689
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: Chancellor Palpatine, accusing him of being a Scyth, and he

690
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 2: reveals himself and promptly slays two of the Jedi with

691
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 2: a lightsaber before Windu is able to disarm him of

692
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 2: his lightsaber and deflect his syth force lightning back onto Palpatine,

693
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: soverely disfiguring him. Yeah, Windu himself has always is always

694
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 2: depicted as a rather grim, humorless Jedi.

695
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,760
Speaker 3: He's all business. He doesn't crack a lot of jokes

696
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 3: or anything.

697
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 2: No, no, but he's a cool cucumber and seems to

698
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 2: he seems to walk that line. He seems to walk

699
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: this line of you know, of of the Jedi's honorable

700
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 2: path and almost a kind of of coldness that that

701
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:32,359
Speaker 2: maybe gets close to the borders of dark side. But

702
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 2: you know, he's he's a master, and he knows exactly

703
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 2: where the line is.

704
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,760
Speaker 3: One assums, seems to be very devoted to the rationality

705
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 3: aspect of the Jedi approach.

706
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 2: Right right, So when Anakin Skywalker arrives and witnesses this scene,

707
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 2: he ends up pleading for mercy on behalf of the

708
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 2: injured Palpatine who's there, you know, also clearly milking the

709
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 2: moment master manipulator that he is, you know, calling out

710
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 2: for help like he's just a wounded old man that

711
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 2: is being like basically creating a bully tableau much like

712
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 2: the ones that you were discussing in the studies. You

713
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 2: know that's going to instantly make one angry to see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

714
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 2: Here's this younger, towering Jedi threatening this old man who's

715
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 2: crumpled up on the floor and has now already been

716
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 2: horribly disfigured.

717
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 3: Right, if you didn't see the scene before, makes Palpatine

718
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 3: look like the victim. It makes Mace Windu look really mean.

719
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 2: Right right. And then when Windu pronounces that Palpatine is

720
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 2: too dangerous to live, he of course raises his saber

721
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 2: to finish him off right there on the floor. But

722
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: then Palpatine reminds Anakin that you know, he's pleads for

723
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: his aid and reminds him that the only way he

724
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 2: can save his family is of course, through the secrets

725
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 2: of the Scyth that he has promised and leveraged by

726
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 2: this by the pleadings of an injured old man who's

727
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 2: always been good to him, he intervenes, slicing off Window's

728
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:58,360
Speaker 2: saber hand, allowing Palpatine to then force lightning the Jedi

729
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 2: Master out of the shattered window to his death, and

730
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:08,280
Speaker 2: he exclaims, with a lot of passion power, unlimited power.

731
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's always what you want to hear right after

732
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 3: you have intervened on somebody's behalf.

733
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 2: Well, it's done now, that's the thing. So it's a

734
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:21,359
Speaker 2: great scene. It's very dynamic, it's emotionally complex. Palpatine is

735
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 2: on one hand, just merely expressing his enthusiasm for the

736
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: thing he values and desires most in life. That's what

737
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 2: it's all about for him. Unlimited power.

738
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 4: Yeah.

739
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:34,760
Speaker 3: Some people love skateboarding, some people love nature, some people

740
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:36,240
Speaker 3: love unlimited power.

741
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. But he's also expressing something. This is where I

742
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: really got to thinking about it. He's also expressing something

743
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 2: key to the Sith order, and that is that negative

744
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 2: emotional states, especially anger and hatred, but also other related

745
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:54,480
Speaker 2: negative emotional states. They're the key that they use to

746
00:43:54,640 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 2: unlock the Force and harness its powers. So this got

747
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 2: me looking at a topic that I'm researching for an

748
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 2: upcoming interview that I'll come back to here in a minute,

749
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 2: the topic of rumination. Now, coming back to the Revenge

750
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 2: of the Sith, there's a great line in the novelization

751
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 2: of the film by Matthew Stover about how towards the

752
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 2: end of his time under the name Anakin Skywalker, so

753
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 2: this is before his actual fall, before this pivotal scene

754
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 2: I just mentioned, he's meditating, or he's supposed to be

755
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 2: engaging in some sort of Jedi meditation, and Stover writes

756
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 2: that these meditation sessions have become quote indistinguishable from brooding.

757
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 2: So ideally he's supposed to be engaging in something much

758
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 2: like meditative practices in our own world, where you're freeing

759
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 2: the mind, you're living in the moment, he's trying to

760
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:57,759
Speaker 2: sort of shut off the default mode network and be

761
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 2: free of those inner voices. But instead Anakin is giving

762
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 2: end them and he's just brooding, and he is ruminating over,

763
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 2: you know, the things that he is afraid of in

764
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 2: the future that he and course within the context of

765
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 2: the film and the story that he has perhaps some

766
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 2: level of insight into, and also constantly thinking about things

767
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 2: in the past and things that are being deprived of him.

768
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking about what's standing in the way

769
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 2: of your goal. There's a lot of that with Anakin's character,

770
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 2: Like he believes that he has been slighted. He should

771
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 2: be on the on the council, and he is not.

772
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,959
Speaker 4: I'm being treated unfairly. Yeah. Yeah.

773
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 2: And then later on in the timeline, but earlier in

774
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: the Star Wars movies, at various points, we see Darth

775
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 2: Vader doing something that at least externally resembles meditation. Remember

776
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 2: an Empire strikes back. He has a dedicated meditation chamber,

777
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 2: like this is what it's called within the lore. It's

778
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 2: also a place where he can take his helmet off

779
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 2: and have like a contained environmental and environment that allows that,

780
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 2: but it also serves as him. It serves as a

781
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 2: place for him to quote unquote meditate.

782
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it looks like Richard Keel's teeth in the

783
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 3: James Bond movies.

784
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I guess it's like Jaws Jaws teeth. It's

785
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: a great, great set. It's one of the great designs

786
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:20,320
Speaker 2: of Empire. So why would Darth Vader, of all people,

787
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 2: need to meditate and see this seek escape from his

788
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 2: ruminations and negative emotional states, when, as we've been discussing,

789
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 2: these are the source of his power. These are the

790
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: keys that allow him to tap into the potent dark

791
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 2: side force energy that lets him you know, it gives

792
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: him heightened senses that makes him helps make him such

793
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 2: an amazing combatant, and also gives him these supernatural powers

794
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 2: over his surroundings. And so it would make more sense

795
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 2: that these sessions, which outwardly resemble meditative meditative practices, are

796
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 2: actually quite the opposite. They are highly focused exercises in rumination.

797
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,399
Speaker 2: And I believe this is all reflected elsewhere in Star

798
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 2: Wars media, where especially novelizations and all where we were

799
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: not just dealing with the visuals of the scenario, but

800
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 2: also discussing what is actually going on inside the character's mind.

801
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 2: But yet, we might well imagine a Sith practitioner mentally

802
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 2: walking a memory palace of the worst moments in their lives,

803
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 2: visions of their enemies and things that they feel or

804
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 2: denied them, the things that they fear most in the future.

805
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 2: All of this is a way to continually nurture their

806
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,399
Speaker 2: negative emotional states, creating a sort of black hole of

807
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 2: emotional darkness inside them that serves as the fulcrum of

808
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 2: their force powers, kind of like a self renewing battery

809
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 2: of dark side energy.

810
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so if the anger for the Scyth, you

811
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 3: know more so than in the real world. If it

812
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 3: for them in this fantasy scenario really does just make

813
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 3: them stronger, give them focus. It's like a magnifying glass

814
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 3: for the dark side of the force. Then they can

815
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 3: sit there and channel all of these negative emotions. It's

816
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 3: like charging their powers.

817
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so as we discuss this, we'll have

818
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 2: to sort of like step in and out of the

819
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 2: fictional world where again in Star Wars there is this

820
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 2: kind of magic and these negative emotional states again allow

821
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 2: them to manipulate these powers, and then in our own

822
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 2: world that's not the case. So I wanted to talk

823
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 2: about a couple of angles here. First of all, the

824
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 2: idea of unlimited power through negative emotional states, the wave

825
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 2: we've been describing sith Anger and hatred, it really does

826
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: make it sound like a kind of engine, a perpetual

827
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 2: motion machine that the Dark Force users draw on to

828
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 2: sharpen their senses and invoke unnatural powers. And I think

829
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 2: that's an ideal comparison, because in many ways, hatred is

830
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 2: a perpetual motion machine. It's cyclical, it is self sustaining

831
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 2: in a way that we only wish all of our

832
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 2: positive emotional states were, you know, like what if you

833
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: got in like a really good mood and you're like, man,

834
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 2: I just can't shake this good. This thing's just gone.

835
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 2: It's just looping on itself. Somebody, somebody showed me a

836
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 2: sad puppy because I got to stop feeling this good

837
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 2: and move on to other things in my day.

838
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 3: Well if only, I mean that certainly doesn't happen, I

839
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 3: think for most people. But I think you can at

840
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 3: least identify some limited ways that positive emotional states can

841
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 3: give rise to things in your life which can in

842
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 3: the future bring on more positive emotional states. Like if

843
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 3: your positive emotional state makes other people around you happy

844
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 3: and then they're going to give it back to you

845
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,919
Speaker 3: and make you happy again sometime in the future. Yeah,

846
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: you can kind of see how good things happen like that.

847
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 3: You can really see how this works with negative emotional states. Yeah,

848
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 3: like that you just being say, like spiraling down, getting

849
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,919
Speaker 3: angry and hateful about people around you. It's probably gonna

850
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 3: kind of cut you off from them and make it

851
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 3: impossible for you to have good relationships, which is just

852
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 3: going to make you more angry and hateful. So yeah,

853
00:49:58,440 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 3: it really is a very self.

854
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 4: Staining emotional condition.

855
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a kind of dark gravity to spiraling

856
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 2: down in these scenarios. But one thing I'm going to

857
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 2: come back to, if not in this episode, then I

858
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 2: think in the interview that I'm going to be conducting.

859
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 2: This is discussed by Donna Jackson Nakazawa in the upcoming

860
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 2: book Mind Drama, The Science of Rumination and How to

861
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:28,240
Speaker 2: Outwit your Inner Defeatist. She talks about spiraling up as

862
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 2: kind of like a catch all for some of the

863
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,240
Speaker 2: different tools that all of us can use when we're

864
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 2: dealing with our own rumination and trying to get out

865
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 2: of these states. So this idea that hate is cyclical

866
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 2: and self sustaining, this is often observed to be true

867
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 2: in the world of outward hate. Certainly. There's a quote.

868
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 2: This quote circulates around, and it's from nineteen fifty four's

869
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 2: Human Society and Ethics and Politics by philosopher Bertrand Russell,

870
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 2: and he's the quote, when you hate, you generate a

871
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 2: reciprocal hate. When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite,

872
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 2: But when great groups or of nations hate each other,

873
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 2: the harm may be infinite and absolute. Do not fall

874
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 2: back upon the thought that those whom you hate deserve

875
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 2: to be hated. I do not know whether anybody deserves

876
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 2: to be hated, but I do know that hatred of

877
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 2: those whom we believe to be evil is not what

878
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 2: will redeem mankind. It's a great quote. I think there's

879
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 2: a lot of truth in it. But in discussing the

880
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 2: finite and the infinite here, I believe Russell is referencing

881
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 2: the finite scope of human lives. So two people may

882
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:40,359
Speaker 2: hate each other, and they may hate each other a lot,

883
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 2: but on the whole, when on the whole that hate

884
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 2: is going to die, when one or both of them dies,

885
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 2: like it has a limited lifespan.

886
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah.

887
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, if the hatred spreads, if it becomes a societal infection,

888
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 2: it can last for a very long time. Obviously, maybe

889
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:00,839
Speaker 2: not truly infinite in the great and sense of the word,

890
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 2: but certainly lasting longer than the scale of a human lifetime.

891
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

892
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 3: I think I'm sure bertrand Russell meant it in the

893
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 3: metaphorical infinite, not in the mathematical en right, right, exactly.

894
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, But even between two people, we can see how

895
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 2: the cycle of hatred can be very self sustaining, and

896
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 2: this may even be part of the Sith Lord's a

897
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 2: rule of two master and apprentice our accomplices. Yes, but

898
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 2: there's probably hatred there as well. Like we can imagine

899
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 2: this with Vader and Palpatine. Vader hates Palpatine for the

900
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,720
Speaker 2: things he's lost in service to him, including the life

901
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 2: of his wife. He hates him for you know, not

902
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 2: being able to deliver on his promises. And at the

903
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 2: same time, Palpatine may well hate Vader on various levels

904
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 2: because of his growing power, for the threat that he represents,

905
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 2: either in the culmination of the Sith Way or in

906
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 2: the culmination of Jedi prophecy, you know, the one that

907
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 2: will bring balance to the forest and so forth. Yeah,

908
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 2: and then we have just the case within the human mind,

909
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 2: within the depths of rumination. Here experts agree that these

910
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 2: negative thoughts are highly self sustaining and cyclical, and in

911
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 2: many different ways. So, for instance, I was reading political

912
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 2: paranoia in Organizations, Antecedents and Consequences. This is by R. M.

913
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 2: Kramer and came out in two thousand and It points

914
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 2: out the theories that we hold about others' basic hostility

915
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 2: and incivility. These are highly self sustaining. Just think how

916
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 2: easy it is to cherry pick data to strengthen these theories,

917
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 2: or to know or to have it served to you

918
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 2: via your favorite influencer or partisan news site. They point

919
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 2: out that quote freeway drive driving provides unfortunately all too

920
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 2: much time for isolated, dysphoric rumination about such people.

921
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've talked about this a good bit on the

922
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 3: show in the past. This sort of came up in

923
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 3: our episodes about cynicism, which I think back on fairly often. Actually,

924
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,439
Speaker 3: that's something it's on my mind a lot. But it's

925
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 3: true that it's just so easy to maintain thoughts of

926
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,759
Speaker 3: negative generalizations about people, whether that is just a sort

927
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 3: of universal cynical outlook that people are nasty and in

928
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 3: it for themselves, or kind of negative group characterizations if

929
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 3: there's some group of people you don't like, it's so

930
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 3: easy to maintain that because just you know, the smallest

931
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 3: little bits of evidence that you know couldn't possibly actually

932
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:40,880
Speaker 3: reflect on any broader realities, will just feed the furnace,

933
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 3: almost like a kind of the magic coal in the story,

934
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 3: you know, the one magic coal that blooms up into.

935
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 4: A great fire.

936
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:49,399
Speaker 3: Sorry, I was just picking up what you were saying

937
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 3: about the cherry picking one little thing that like feeds

938
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 3: that ruminations like yeah, yeah, it is like that, isn't it.

939
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can pick the most potent coals, the

940
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 2: worst examples, true or not to continue to feed these

941
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 2: feelings and just keep that fire raging, and again generally speaking,

942
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 2: without being completely aware of it or not aware of

943
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 2: it at all. And that's that's something that is essential

944
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 2: to all of this because to be clear, we all ruminate.

945
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:19,839
Speaker 2: I think we all engage in some level of this,

946
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:21,879
Speaker 2: and it's more of a problem for some of us

947
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 2: than others. A lot of the data shows though that

948
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 2: it is. It is a big problem for a lot

949
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 2: of people, and it's perhaps worse now than it ever

950
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:33,840
Speaker 2: has been, in part due to just, you know, certain

951
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 2: details of our modern life. But the other thing that though,

952
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:41,720
Speaker 2: is that like a lot of things with negative emotional states,

953
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 2: a certain awareness of them is necessary to do anything

954
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:48,880
Speaker 2: about it. You know, you have to be aware of

955
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 2: your thoughts and then being able to you know, be

956
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 2: able to step back from it, label it and then

957
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 2: deal with it. But it's Donna Jackson, because Alla points

958
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 2: out in their book as many as according I think

959
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 2: this was an Australian study found like a third of

960
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 2: the people out there don't even have the concept of rumination,

961
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 2: like to say, like they don't know the word or

962
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 2: they don't know the definition, Like it's not something that

963
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:14,919
Speaker 2: they would be able to give a name to, which,

964
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 2: of course, is going to be vital vital first step

965
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:20,839
Speaker 2: in being able to combat it at all.

966
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 4: Well, okay, can we describe it here?

967
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:27,879
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So rumination is one of those things that

968
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 2: it's going to vary depending on how you're tackling it.

969
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: And sometimes a distinction is made between worrying and rumination,

970
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 2: saying that like one deals with the past, one deals

971
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:41,959
Speaker 2: with the future. You know, I'm ruminating about the past,

972
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 2: I'm worrying about the future. But on the whole, you

973
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 2: see a lot of rumination literature just using rumination to

974
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 2: determine both directions. So it can be thinking about past failures,

975
00:56:55,840 --> 00:57:00,800
Speaker 2: past social slights perceived or real, you know, ebarrassing moments

976
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 2: at parties, traumatic memories, even like, it really runs the gamut.

977
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 2: There's a huge variety of the sorts of things that

978
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 2: could be sucked up in rumination and then go looking

979
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 2: into the future. You know, it can deal with all

980
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 2: sorts of spiraling worst case scenarios. You know, what's the

981
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 2: worst thing that could happen, and then that becomes the

982
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:24,560
Speaker 2: thing that I feel like will happen. And this can

983
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 2: become the the the you know, the the engine of

984
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 2: rumination in one's mind.

985
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, So.

986
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,959
Speaker 3: And like let's just laying in bed and I let's

987
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 3: revisit all of the times I've let people down.

988
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 2: Right right, So thinking about Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.

989
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 2: So when he is Anakin before the full fall to

990
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,840
Speaker 2: the dark Side, a lot of his rumination is going

991
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,240
Speaker 2: to be over you know, perceived slights on the part

992
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 2: of the Jedis and also this worry about what is

993
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 2: going to happen to Patme in the future. And then

994
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 2: once he is Darth Vader, there's I'm assuming a lot

995
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 2: of rumination about everything that he lost, about you know,

996
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:05,960
Speaker 2: the fall of the Republic, the loss of Padme, his

997
00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 2: his also the shame of his own role in her

998
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 2: death because remember part of the whole you know, as

999
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 2: he continues to become Darth Vader. Like that's one of

1000
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 2: the things that Palpatine is really kind of quick to

1001
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 2: let him know, like she is dead, and it is

1002
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:24,680
Speaker 2: because of you, like the the it's not like obi

1003
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 2: Wan killed her, it is like it's your fault. Sorry, pal,

1004
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:31,479
Speaker 2: this one's on you, a like piling on that dark

1005
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 2: side weight.

1006
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 3: That's interesting from a storytelling perspective, you would think that

1007
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 3: the Palpatine would want to use that against the Jedi.

1008
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 3: Wouldn't he want to play up that somehow it was

1009
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 3: obi Wan's fault, somehow the Jedi did this.

1010
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then like that in a way that kind

1011
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:48,560
Speaker 2: of like sends him out in a direction he doesn't

1012
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:51,240
Speaker 2: want him to go, because, on one level, like obi

1013
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 2: Wan someone who could conceivably bring him back, you know,

1014
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 2: his his great friend from the past who has no

1015
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 2: longer his friend, but there's still that connection to the past.

1016
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 2: But if he can like drown him in his loneliness

1017
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 2: and isolate him from any other influence, you know, then

1018
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 2: he has even more control.

1019
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:11,440
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1020
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 3: Blaming obi Wan poisons one relationship, Blaming Anakin himself poisons

1021
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 3: all of Anakin's life, is all of his relationships?

1022
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go.

1023
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 2: So coming back to rumination specifically, in psychological literature, there

1024
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 2: are multiple models and subtypes of rumination. There's no overarching

1025
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 2: layout for just how it works.

1026
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:43,480
Speaker 4: In the mind.

1027
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 2: Obviously, our minds are all different, but a common theme

1028
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:50,680
Speaker 2: is repetitive thoughts about a sadness, trauma, social interaction, or

1029
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 2: something else. And we keep replaying the triggering event or thoughts,

1030
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 2: which increases our distress, which enhances our focus on these

1031
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 2: things via negative altering, and so forth. We become trapped

1032
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 2: in a cycle in which no solutions or actionable items

1033
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 2: are generated. We're just pummeling ourselves with enhance bad memories

1034
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:14,520
Speaker 2: and traumas of the past, as well as spiraling worst

1035
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 2: case scenarios of the future. And you mentioned it already

1036
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,280
Speaker 2: that like emotional states are there for a reason, we

1037
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,280
Speaker 2: evolve them for a reason. And so the trap of

1038
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 2: rumination is that this is in theory, like this is

1039
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 2: about finding an answer to a problem, and that's why

1040
01:00:32,080 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 2: we end up tackling It's like, I'm going to replay

1041
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 2: this in my mind until I find a way out,

1042
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 2: until I find a solution. But that's the horrible thing

1043
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 2: about rumination is generally we're not finding a way out.

1044
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 2: We're just replaying it and making ourselves miserable and also

1045
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:51,080
Speaker 2: exhausting ourselves emotionally in the process.

1046
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean much in the same way that

1047
01:00:54,840 --> 01:00:59,880
Speaker 3: fear is a biologically useful emotion because it helps you

1048
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:03,720
Speaker 3: avoid things that are dangerous. We can also recognize in

1049
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 3: our lives that the body is quite often over eager

1050
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 3: to deploy fears in ways that are not adaptive in

1051
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:15,560
Speaker 3: you know, a non dangerous scenarios. So you know, our

1052
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 3: bodies are constantly using that fear emotion that is really

1053
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 3: only useful when like there's you know, a large animal

1054
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,720
Speaker 3: or other human trying to kill you or something, and

1055
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 3: is instead deploying it about an email or something where

1056
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,720
Speaker 3: it's just like this is not helping anything. It's something

1057
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 3: is being repurposed to a kind of environment where it

1058
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 3: doesn't really make any sense.

1059
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:40,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So a note, there are models for rumination

1060
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 2: that are not entirely negative or view it as one

1061
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 2: of many coping strategies, but most of the model that

1062
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 2: was looking at in a Roadmap to Rumination by Smith

1063
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 2: and Alo twenty ten Clinical psychological review, most of these

1064
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 2: models viewed it as something that actively interferes with our

1065
01:01:56,720 --> 01:01:59,520
Speaker 2: self regulation, and they view it as something that can

1066
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 2: easily viral into enhanced states of anxiety and depression. So

1067
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:07,600
Speaker 2: these thoughts feed on themselves without generating a way out

1068
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 2: unless we take action ourselves, and there are various tools

1069
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 2: for doing so. The putting thoughts on trial exercise is

1070
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 2: a great example of this that I've brought up before

1071
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 2: that I think a number of you may be familiar with.

1072
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 2: You might use this in your own life where you

1073
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:26,760
Speaker 2: know you're spiraling, you're thinking about worst case scenarios. This

1074
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 2: is the thing that could happen, this is the thing

1075
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 2: that will happen. And then you take that thought, you

1076
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,160
Speaker 2: step away from it, and you say, is this what

1077
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:37,080
Speaker 2: is going to happen? Is this what is likely to happen?

1078
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:40,440
Speaker 2: And then separate it and say what is likely to happen?

1079
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:42,200
Speaker 2: And then you put that thought on trial and you

1080
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 2: decide whether this is a reasonable thought or an unreasonable thought.

1081
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 2: And you know there's no silver bullet for any of

1082
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 2: these things, and there's a lot of gradual work to

1083
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 2: be done in any of these scenarios, but it's something

1084
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 2: that can help that can help you sort of work

1085
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 2: your way out of out of ruminated states. Another source

1086
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 2: I was looking at on this is Marine Solomon's Break

1087
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 2: the Cycle from twenty twenty four published on Harvard Health.

1088
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:14,880
Speaker 2: She points out again that It's like the idea is

1089
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:17,440
Speaker 2: that your brain is tricking you into believing that you're

1090
01:03:17,440 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 2: figuring out something useful by replaying all of this like

1091
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 2: your captain on a star on a on a like

1092
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 2: a you know, on star trek or something, and you're like, okay, enhance,

1093
01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 2: all right, enhance again. Let's just keep enhancing on this

1094
01:03:29,360 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 2: this traumatic moment until we find the answer. But the

1095
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 2: answer doesn't occur. You just keep enhancing something negative that

1096
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:38,120
Speaker 2: is making you feel worse.

1097
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:42,080
Speaker 3: Much like in reality, zoom and enhanced doesn't exist. Yeah,

1098
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:42,920
Speaker 3: it's an illusion.

1099
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1100
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. And at the same time, the thing Salomon drives

1101
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 2: home here is that all you're doing is exhausting yourself.

1102
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 2: You're emotionally exhausting yourself, and you're stealing your focus away

1103
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 2: from things you'd rather be doing or need to be doing.

1104
01:03:57,640 --> 01:03:59,480
Speaker 2: So I think that's all interesting to think about in

1105
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 2: terms of the Sith, and it leads me to the

1106
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:03,479
Speaker 2: next area I want to discuss. So, yeah, the Sith

1107
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 2: or space wizards and their negative thinking is the way

1108
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 2: they harness their power. We're to assume there are different

1109
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 2: sorts of mental states that one can use to harness

1110
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:13,959
Speaker 2: the force, you know, the Jedi's equanimity is one way,

1111
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 2: the Cyth's darkness is another. But conceivably there are other

1112
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 2: emotional states that you can use as your force interface.

1113
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 3: Am I correct in remembering that? In the prequels at least,

1114
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 3: the Jedi are not even very big on positive emotional states,

1115
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:31,840
Speaker 3: things like love and so forth. They're sort of against

1116
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 3: all of the emotions. They're more just reason oriented. They're like,

1117
01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 3: use your reason, discipline your mind, those sort of things.

1118
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 3: So I don't know which force users are out there,

1119
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 3: you know, cracking up the lightsaber for love.

1120
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 4: I just see the Sith.

1121
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 3: Are going in for hate and anger, and the Jedi

1122
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:49,920
Speaker 3: are like, no emotions at all.

1123
01:04:49,960 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 4: I want those love Jedi.

1124
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 2: They might not be Saber users at all. Yeah, but

1125
01:04:53,280 --> 01:04:55,720
Speaker 2: there might might be some faction. Maybe I'm forgetting one.

1126
01:04:56,000 --> 01:05:00,440
Speaker 2: Surely this has been discussed in the expanded Universe. But

1127
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 2: there's got to be some force users out there that

1128
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 2: are motivated by love, like love is their key, And

1129
01:05:05,520 --> 01:05:08,080
Speaker 2: maybe they're not particularly useful. Maybe they're even a little

1130
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 2: unpredictable because of this.

1131
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 4: I don't know.

1132
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:13,360
Speaker 3: To be fair to the Jedi, you know, I don't

1133
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:16,000
Speaker 3: want to slander them. I think they're thinking, is that

1134
01:05:16,520 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 3: all of the positive emotions are gateways to negative emotions,

1135
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 3: right that, like within love there is the potential for hate.

1136
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 3: And so if you foster love, much like we see

1137
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:30,920
Speaker 3: with Anakin, it's like because he falls in love with somebody,

1138
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:33,920
Speaker 3: he is therefore tempted by a desire to protect her,

1139
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 3: to embrace all of the darker paths.

1140
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:41,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So so, momentarily putting the Swith magic aside,

1141
01:05:41,120 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 2: is there anything innate to rumination that benefits us? Well,

1142
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 2: we've discussed some potential answers to this already, but here

1143
01:05:47,400 --> 01:05:49,560
Speaker 2: are two really important things to consider. So, by and large,

1144
01:05:49,640 --> 01:05:53,400
Speaker 2: rumination again is a mental trap in which no solutions

1145
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 2: are generated. And beyond that, it can interfere with us

1146
01:05:56,400 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 2: getting things done outside of the ruminated upon problem, you know,

1147
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 2: interfering with work, hobbies, interpersonal relationships. And if we step

1148
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 2: back into the fantasy world of the Sith for a second,

1149
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:10,480
Speaker 2: we might conclude that all this rumination might just interfere

1150
01:06:10,520 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 2: with such important ongoing projects as the training of apprentices,

1151
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:17,680
Speaker 2: the seeking of revenge, overall plotting, and of course the

1152
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:22,160
Speaker 2: keeping of secrets and golf and golf, Yeah, might interfere

1153
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 2: with the golf game. So again it does make you think,

1154
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:29,959
Speaker 2: I get, like we were saying earlier, like a true

1155
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:32,760
Speaker 2: Sith master like Palpatine might need to be able to

1156
01:06:32,800 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 2: modulate things. Might be important to not just meditate in

1157
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:42,200
Speaker 2: a way that is just ruminating and wallowing and darkness,

1158
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:46,040
Speaker 2: but also step apart a step away from all of

1159
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:51,439
Speaker 2: that and engage in more logical reasoning as well. Yeah, now,

1160
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:53,360
Speaker 2: again we're dealing with space magic. But there is this

1161
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:59,320
Speaker 2: recurring idea that hatred also keeps various Sith practitioners alive.

1162
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,240
Speaker 2: This is something that is implied with Vader, I believe

1163
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 2: at times. I don't know if it's ever expressly stated.

1164
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:09,040
Speaker 2: You know, he has this his suit, he has he

1165
01:07:09,120 --> 01:07:11,920
Speaker 2: benefits from executive health care, and he has all these

1166
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:15,200
Speaker 2: cybernetics that do the heavy lifting and keeping him alive.

1167
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:17,920
Speaker 2: But there's also this strong sense that he is fueled

1168
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:22,640
Speaker 2: by hatred, that he is like too too angry to die,

1169
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:26,240
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, And in the Nights of the Old

1170
01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:29,680
Speaker 2: Republic games, I believe there's there's actually a dark Sith

1171
01:07:29,760 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 2: Jedi by the name of what is a Darth Psion

1172
01:07:32,960 --> 01:07:35,880
Speaker 2: who is more of an explicit example of this like

1173
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 2: he has like a shattered body that is held together

1174
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:41,680
Speaker 2: by his hatred and by dark force energy, Like he's

1175
01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 2: just he is too angry, too mean, and too evil

1176
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:47,760
Speaker 2: to die. It just holds him together in one piece.

1177
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 3: So for the sith, hatred itself is the geriatric spice.

1178
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:55,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. At times it is either yeah, it is

1179
01:07:55,520 --> 01:07:58,919
Speaker 2: either implied or expressly stated as such. And I think

1180
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 2: this idea is is very alive and well in our

1181
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 2: own perceptions of reality. I think we can all think,

1182
01:08:05,120 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 2: on one hand, we all have examples of people that

1183
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 2: we hold in a positive light whose lives were cut

1184
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 2: short by illness or tragedy or some of the recurrence.

1185
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:18,360
Speaker 2: While meanwhile we can point to other examples in the

1186
01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:21,400
Speaker 2: world where some of the worst stop is people who

1187
01:08:21,439 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 2: are full of passionate enthusiasm just live on and on

1188
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 2: and what could possibly sustain them but their own inner darkness. Right,

1189
01:08:31,520 --> 01:08:33,639
Speaker 2: And we have all these examples of people we can say,

1190
01:08:33,680 --> 01:08:36,040
Speaker 2: like that person is just too mean to die. There,

1191
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:39,000
Speaker 2: they're just going to live forever because they're just so evil.

1192
01:08:39,240 --> 01:08:42,080
Speaker 3: You know, it can seem that way, but I think

1193
01:08:42,160 --> 01:08:46,639
Speaker 3: that's just our the salience of things that seem really

1194
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:49,040
Speaker 3: horrible and unfair to us. I mean, you're just not

1195
01:08:49,200 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 3: thinking of all the examples of really awful people who

1196
01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:54,080
Speaker 3: died young and good people who live to be old.

1197
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:56,800
Speaker 2: And to be clear, like, engaging in this kind of

1198
01:08:56,800 --> 01:08:59,680
Speaker 2: thought can also be rumination. You know, we can get

1199
01:08:59,720 --> 01:09:02,640
Speaker 2: into the cycle of thinking, yeah, life's not fair, the

1200
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:05,360
Speaker 2: good people die, the bad people live forever. Don't fact

1201
01:09:05,400 --> 01:09:07,840
Speaker 2: check it, but just keep running it through your head,

1202
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:12,760
Speaker 2: you know. And Yates is the second coming, which I

1203
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:17,320
Speaker 2: just referenced there. With the passionate enthusiasm, it can be iny,

1204
01:09:17,360 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 2: isn't it. Yes, that's right. Yeah, the best lack all conviction,

1205
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:24,960
Speaker 2: while the worst are full of passionate intensity. You can

1206
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:27,839
Speaker 2: see that poem is kind of one big rumination. Sometimes

1207
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:30,519
Speaker 2: great art can come out of rumination, and you can

1208
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:32,720
Speaker 2: find examples of people saying that their art comes out

1209
01:09:32,720 --> 01:09:34,920
Speaker 2: of rumination. But I think it's like a lot of

1210
01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:38,880
Speaker 2: things when we're talking about artistic inspiration, there are plenty

1211
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 2: of examples we're not aware of in which rumination has

1212
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:46,760
Speaker 2: prevented great art from taking place. Yeah, so absolutely this

1213
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:49,879
Speaker 2: kind of observation can very much be the stuff of rumination.

1214
01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:56,000
Speaker 2: But also the statistics don't just don't support this, like

1215
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 2: if you start, if you set aside the cherry picking

1216
01:10:00,160 --> 01:10:03,960
Speaker 2: you look at like rumination tends to do to people

1217
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 2: what the larger trends are is just not true. So

1218
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:11,639
Speaker 2: Nakazawa writes that quote, the degree to which we ruminate,

1219
01:10:11,680 --> 01:10:15,080
Speaker 2: perhaps more than any other mental act, determines our lifelong

1220
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:19,040
Speaker 2: well being. Studies have shown that rumination heightens our vulnerability

1221
01:10:19,040 --> 01:10:24,120
Speaker 2: to anxiety, depression, insomnia, and impulsive behaviors, all things that

1222
01:10:24,160 --> 01:10:28,400
Speaker 2: we know also lead into potential, you know, you know,

1223
01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:32,320
Speaker 2: either health problems or negative life choices, that sort of thing.

1224
01:10:33,200 --> 01:10:37,719
Speaker 2: And also rumination can interfere with psychotherapy. It can worsen

1225
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:40,920
Speaker 2: and sustains the body and sustain the body stress responses

1226
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:44,760
Speaker 2: such as inflammation. And this this was pointed out as

1227
01:10:44,800 --> 01:10:50,000
Speaker 2: well in that Salomon twenty twenty four article. So again,

1228
01:10:50,080 --> 01:10:52,120
Speaker 2: the idea that you could just be so full of

1229
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 2: hatred that would somehow sustain you, just holds you together

1230
01:10:55,840 --> 01:11:02,160
Speaker 2: and unlimited power, unlimited power out of your hatred not true.

1231
01:11:02,200 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 2: It's it's like it's as true, I guess as that

1232
01:11:05,240 --> 01:11:08,200
Speaker 2: as on the Simpsons where we hear that mister Burns

1233
01:11:08,240 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 2: can't die because there's too much competition for the things

1234
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,160
Speaker 2: in his body that are trying to kill him. That

1235
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 2: that also is not.

1236
01:11:15,120 --> 01:11:18,240
Speaker 3: True three Stooges syndrome. There you go where all the

1237
01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:20,800
Speaker 3: germs are stuck in the doors.

1238
01:11:20,640 --> 01:11:21,040
Speaker 4: And they go.

1239
01:11:23,080 --> 01:11:28,040
Speaker 2: So that's the case of regarding rumination in our own world.

1240
01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 2: But again, to step back into the fantasy world of

1241
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:32,240
Speaker 2: Star Wars, in the sith I guess you could, you

1242
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:36,960
Speaker 2: could make a strong case that self sustaining negative emotional states. Again,

1243
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 2: these are what allows you to access the force and

1244
01:11:40,240 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 2: whatever degree you can keep it always on as you can,

1245
01:11:44,200 --> 01:11:47,280
Speaker 2: you know, you have like an always on high voltage

1246
01:11:47,280 --> 01:11:52,120
Speaker 2: battery within you. But within the actual context of real

1247
01:11:52,160 --> 01:11:56,719
Speaker 2: world rumination, the process mostly consumes energy, and it consumes

1248
01:11:56,760 --> 01:12:00,240
Speaker 2: your energy. So so yeah, you can. Again you point

1249
01:12:00,280 --> 01:12:04,160
Speaker 2: to examples where artists say rumination is their creative font

1250
01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:08,320
Speaker 2: but for the most part it again, it results in

1251
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:11,320
Speaker 2: no answers to a given woe, and it serves only

1252
01:12:11,360 --> 01:12:13,680
Speaker 2: to emotionally exhaust the ruminator.

1253
01:12:14,479 --> 01:12:17,439
Speaker 3: Well, actually, now that you're saying this, another way of

1254
01:12:17,479 --> 01:12:20,799
Speaker 3: looking at it occurs to me, what if the sith lord,

1255
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:25,479
Speaker 3: if the syth is actually not the same as the person.

1256
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:28,840
Speaker 3: So you know, you have Anakin Skywalker, who is a

1257
01:12:28,880 --> 01:12:31,960
Speaker 3: body and a brain, and then you've got the syth

1258
01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 3: Darth Vader, which is some kind of parasitic person that

1259
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:42,120
Speaker 3: sort of inhabits that body, and maybe the rumination powers

1260
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:46,880
Speaker 3: the powers the parasitic person while sapping and draining the

1261
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:49,639
Speaker 3: body the whole time. Like it's you know, it's actually

1262
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:54,240
Speaker 3: like it's never actually good for Anakin Skywalker's brain and body,

1263
01:12:54,479 --> 01:12:58,439
Speaker 3: but it is continually juicing that syth energy which runs

1264
01:12:58,520 --> 01:13:00,440
Speaker 3: at the expense of its hope.

1265
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you know that actually might have some

1266
01:13:03,400 --> 01:13:05,640
Speaker 2: some legs and cannon right when you start getting into

1267
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:09,000
Speaker 2: some of the stuff in the sequel trilogy, you know

1268
01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:11,639
Speaker 2: some or at least the last film of the sequel trilogy.

1269
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:14,880
Speaker 2: They were all a bit disjointed, weren't they. But in the.

1270
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:17,160
Speaker 4: Last what you're talking about, but oh, you do know

1271
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:19,839
Speaker 4: what you don't know? I said, I don't remember, Okay, yeah.

1272
01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:22,679
Speaker 2: I only vaguely remember it. I've only seen the third

1273
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:26,720
Speaker 2: film in the sequel trilogy a couple of times. But

1274
01:13:26,760 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 2: they get into some sort of idea about like there's

1275
01:13:29,400 --> 01:13:32,880
Speaker 2: some deeper meaning to what's happening when uh, you know,

1276
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:36,280
Speaker 2: the when one sith Lord passes on to the apprentice,

1277
01:13:36,360 --> 01:13:39,519
Speaker 2: and there's some sort of like continued energy. So I

1278
01:13:39,520 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 2: don't know, there might be more out there in the

1279
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:44,080
Speaker 2: extended universe about about this as well, But yeah, I

1280
01:13:44,160 --> 01:13:47,840
Speaker 2: like this read, and certainly without even getting into the

1281
01:13:47,880 --> 01:13:50,559
Speaker 2: idea of there being some sort of like dark force

1282
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:54,439
Speaker 2: entity residing within one, I mean you could imagine that,

1283
01:13:54,960 --> 01:13:57,439
Speaker 2: you know, given the complexity of the human psyche, you

1284
01:13:57,479 --> 01:14:00,240
Speaker 2: could you could have that duality in place where like

1285
01:14:00,400 --> 01:14:03,320
Speaker 2: it's making you know, it's easy to compare to to

1286
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:06,920
Speaker 2: real world states as well, Like this is destroying, this

1287
01:14:07,040 --> 01:14:11,759
Speaker 2: is making you physically ill, mentally exhausted, But this version

1288
01:14:11,800 --> 01:14:15,040
Speaker 2: of yourself that you hold up, maybe this persona, this

1289
01:14:15,080 --> 01:14:16,120
Speaker 2: is what you're sustaining.

1290
01:14:16,600 --> 01:14:19,360
Speaker 3: I think of this often, actually that not in a

1291
01:14:19,520 --> 01:14:23,439
Speaker 3: literal biological parasite sense, but I think often a person's

1292
01:14:23,520 --> 01:14:28,960
Speaker 3: social media persona is a parasite that sustains itself by

1293
01:14:29,120 --> 01:14:33,200
Speaker 3: draining the host body of the actual individual. So the

1294
01:14:33,280 --> 01:14:37,040
Speaker 3: person is destroyed in the process, but the persona feeds

1295
01:14:37,120 --> 01:14:40,040
Speaker 3: off of that, off of that weakening of the host body.

1296
01:14:40,479 --> 01:14:43,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so it's like I'm exhausted, but I need

1297
01:14:43,479 --> 01:14:45,760
Speaker 2: more content for the Darth Vader feed.

1298
01:14:47,240 --> 01:14:50,519
Speaker 3: Or you know, or my sort of personal integrity in

1299
01:14:50,960 --> 01:14:53,479
Speaker 3: the real world is kind of shattered and drained, but

1300
01:14:53,560 --> 01:14:56,200
Speaker 3: I have continually built up this facade.

1301
01:14:55,760 --> 01:14:57,040
Speaker 4: For people to see. Yeah.

1302
01:14:57,240 --> 01:15:02,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, he would be a pretty epic poster. Actually, I

1303
01:15:02,680 --> 01:15:05,000
Speaker 3: think he would have He would have good Internet game.

1304
01:15:05,479 --> 01:15:07,720
Speaker 3: I mean not like not good like I would like it,

1305
01:15:07,760 --> 01:15:09,240
Speaker 3: but you know, he would be good at it.

1306
01:15:09,320 --> 01:15:10,719
Speaker 4: He would be good at the algo.

1307
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:12,600
Speaker 2: Do you think he would be a long tweeter or

1308
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:14,959
Speaker 2: a short tweeter? Which would which would.

1309
01:15:16,520 --> 01:15:19,920
Speaker 3: What if he's a meme guy, it's just image memes.

1310
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:22,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like to think. I like, I have

1311
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 2: too much respect for Palpatine to think that he would

1312
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:27,599
Speaker 2: just post memes. But but who knows?

1313
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:28,720
Speaker 4: Who knows?

1314
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:30,880
Speaker 2: I guess it would be like hollow memes in the

1315
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:33,479
Speaker 2: future they're always doing it's hallow this, hollow that.

1316
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:36,679
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, yeah, and project up out of your phone.

1317
01:15:36,760 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, does that do it for pulp facts?

1318
01:15:40,240 --> 01:15:40,559
Speaker 4: Today?

1319
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:42,519
Speaker 3: We have some other pulp facts we were thinking about

1320
01:15:42,680 --> 01:15:46,400
Speaker 3: talking about. Obviously, no time to do that in this episode.

1321
01:15:45,960 --> 01:15:47,840
Speaker 2: But hey, you know, we already got to go ahead

1322
01:15:47,920 --> 01:15:50,439
Speaker 2: from the Emperor himself, so we may do some more

1323
01:15:50,479 --> 01:15:52,160
Speaker 2: in the future, right in if you would like to

1324
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:54,840
Speaker 2: like to hear that, And in fact, if you have

1325
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:59,120
Speaker 2: particular nuggets of knowledge from Palpatine, either from the films

1326
01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:04,519
Speaker 2: or from extend universe content, comics, novelizations, novels and so forth,

1327
01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:07,000
Speaker 2: send them to us and we will consider them for

1328
01:16:07,040 --> 01:16:10,720
Speaker 2: the future. All right, all right, just a reminder to

1329
01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,240
Speaker 2: everyone out there, The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1330
01:16:12,280 --> 01:16:14,600
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

1331
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:17,600
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays, and then

1332
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:20,040
Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to just

1333
01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:23,040
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Wherever

1334
01:16:23,080 --> 01:16:26,480
Speaker 2: you get the podcast, we just asked you rate, review, subscribe,

1335
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:29,200
Speaker 2: thumbs up, whatever the case may be, any of those

1336
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:32,280
Speaker 2: little interactions you can do to sort of encourage the

1337
01:16:32,360 --> 01:16:39,000
Speaker 2: various algorithms and so forth. You know, give in to it.

1338
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:40,360
Speaker 2: It helps us out in the long run.

1339
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:45,920
Speaker 4: Do it? Yes? Can you on Netflix? Click? Remind me

1340
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:47,519
Speaker 4: that's how you subscribe on there.

1341
01:16:48,160 --> 01:16:50,920
Speaker 3: A huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer

1342
01:16:51,080 --> 01:16:53,240
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch

1343
01:16:53,280 --> 01:16:55,320
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode, or any other

1344
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:57,360
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1345
01:16:57,360 --> 01:17:00,120
Speaker 3: say hello. You can email us at contact stuff to

1346
01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:08,559
Speaker 3: Blow your Mind dot com.

1347
01:17:08,640 --> 01:17:11,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1348
01:17:11,680 --> 01:17:15,520
Speaker 1: more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1349
01:17:15,600 --> 01:17:36,439
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M