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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.

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Speaker 1: And the new episode this week is about happiness and

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Speaker 1: the big question can money buy any happiness? This episode, however,

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Speaker 1: is going to be a little something from the way

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Speaker 1: Back Machine, one of one from our seven Deadly Sin

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Speaker 1: series about greed and the science of creed and well,

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Speaker 1: so we decided to replay this episode because there are

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Speaker 1: obvious connections between between greed and what we take for

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Speaker 1: greed and human behavior and that, uh, and the idea

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Speaker 1: that money is going to give us happiness and that

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Speaker 1: the things that we that we want are going to

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Speaker 1: make us happy. Yeah, that's right. So we thought this

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Speaker 1: would compliment the next episode. In the meantime, as you

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Speaker 1: listen to this, you are going to hear us talk

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Speaker 1: a bit about the jerky behavior of luxury car drivers,

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Speaker 1: and we wanted to mention that there's a newer study

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Speaker 1: out two thousand and thirteen that actually pinpoints seat design

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Speaker 1: is the possible culprit for behaviors from luxury drivers like

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Speaker 1: running stop signs and so on. And so forth. Turns

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Speaker 1: out that the seats are more expansive. And if you

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Speaker 1: think back to one of our episodes on expansive postures

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Speaker 1: and how they can make a person feel more powerful

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Speaker 1: like a king on a laid back on a throne. Right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: as some luxury cars have that kind of seating, that

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Speaker 1: throne like seating, then you can kind of see how

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Speaker 1: that might actually change someone's behavior in the car. Interesting. So,

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Speaker 1: the individual who is in a fancy car is in

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Speaker 1: a fancy seat, and that fancy seat allows them to

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Speaker 1: to lounge about and feel superior to everyone else else

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Speaker 1: around them. That's right, I'm so fancy. I don't need

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Speaker 1: this stop sign that I think that's the thought bubble. Now.

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Speaker 1: You were telling me when you encounter jerky rider, you

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Speaker 1: you have a reaction that lignes up with this research.

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Speaker 1: If I'm driving on the highway and I generally speed

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Speaker 1: anyway and there's someone behind me who's super close, I

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Speaker 1: tend to reach out and put my my arm reach

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Speaker 1: it across the other seat. As if you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: on a date and I'm the alpha male, and I've

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Speaker 1: noticed my behavior in doing this, and I think that

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Speaker 1: I'm just trying to signal like I'm not intimidated. So

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Speaker 1: maybe there's something here to that. It brings to mind

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Speaker 1: two things. First, there there might I wonder if there's

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Speaker 1: an added level of them having poor posture in these

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Speaker 1: in these reclined positions, and maybe if they're you know,

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Speaker 1: they're all lounged back, they're also less happy and less

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Speaker 1: uh you know, less less secure in themselves as they're driving,

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Speaker 1: whereas somebody that's in a less comfortable seat is maybe

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Speaker 1: setting up a little more straight with their with their

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Speaker 1: chest puffed out, and maybe they're they're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: little more a little more confidence and only just less

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Speaker 1: lucky to the lash out of those around them. Maybe

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Speaker 1: unless greedy. Perhaps maybe let's find out the third circle

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Speaker 1: of Dante's Inferno is where the glutton of hang out,

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Speaker 1: and the fourth circle is where the greedy hang out.

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Speaker 1: To be more specific, this is the circle of avarice

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Speaker 1: and prodigality. It's it's interesting Dante is really down on greed.

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Speaker 1: It's not like one of these sins like lust, which

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Speaker 1: he has a lot of sympathy for. Well, because he's human,

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Speaker 1: yeah right, yeah, he has like he has a lot

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Speaker 1: of sympathy for some of the individuals. Yeah, that's what

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Speaker 1: I'm getting too. He hasn't he has needs. But when

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Speaker 1: he encounters the greedy, he's it's it's a lot harsher.

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Speaker 1: He divides it up. You have the prodigal and the

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Speaker 1: more typically miserly greedy. So the prodigal, they're reckless spenders.

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Speaker 1: It's coming in and it's it's going out twice as fast.

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Speaker 1: I think that's something we can all, if not relate

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Speaker 1: to personally, we can, we can we definitely witness in

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Speaker 1: the world around us. And then you have the the

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Speaker 1: truly greedy, the hoarders and the misers, the ones that

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Speaker 1: take the money, hold the money, that are just in

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Speaker 1: it for the money itself. Okay. And so when Dante

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Speaker 1: and his guy Virgil show up an inferno, first of all,

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Speaker 1: they're greeted by Plutus, which is the god of riches,

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Speaker 1: with a little a little pluto, god of the underworld

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Speaker 1: thrown in because you know, the underworld, underground, that's where

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Speaker 1: gold and silver come from. And he's beast, he always

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Speaker 1: full of rage, and he's babbling and he's saying poppy Satan,

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Speaker 1: poppy Satan, Nalipi which is kind of just nobody. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about what in the heck that means. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, like poppy Satan sounds a little poppy

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Speaker 1: Satan pop Satan. Yeah, I mean there's a sense like

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Speaker 1: maybe it's something papal, because certainly there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: discussion of sinful popes in the Inferno and then Satan

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Speaker 1: of course. But but this is actually one of the

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Speaker 1: few instances where Satan is actually mentioned, because when you

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Speaker 1: actually encounter the big demon himself the bottom of Inferno,

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Speaker 1: he's referred to as Lucifer. So anyway, back to these centers,

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Speaker 1: so you have the spin Thrifts and the Misers, and

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Speaker 1: they're all first of all, they're all so abby you

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Speaker 1: can't even recognize them, Like Dante is all like, I'm

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Speaker 1: probably gonna look around here, I'm gonna know some people

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Speaker 1: that I met know from life, and that your Italian

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Speaker 1: accent very mildly. Your Italian is much better. And the

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Speaker 1: Virgils like, now you're not gonna You're not gonna recognize anybody,

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Speaker 1: because everyone's so twisted here from their lives, from their

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Speaker 1: their earthly lives full of greed and and overspending that

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Speaker 1: you're just not gonna be able to reckon? Is that

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Speaker 1: part of the punishment? Um, it's not as much a

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Speaker 1: part of the punishment. It's just kind of like the

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Speaker 1: reality of the like the like spiritually there deformed from

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Speaker 1: this life of the task. The punishment itself is that

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Speaker 1: they have there. It's kind of a joust between the

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Speaker 1: spinthrifts and the greedy, except instead of having like you know,

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Speaker 1: swords or spears or any kind of typical jousting equipment,

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Speaker 1: they are rolling large objects against each other using only

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Speaker 1: like their chests. And if you look at the illustrations

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Speaker 1: provided by good staff Dora, the large objects that they're

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Speaker 1: jousting with their giant money bags. So if you imagine

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Speaker 1: these these hideous looking like naked people and they're all

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Speaker 1: sort of like pushing big money bags, rolling them around

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Speaker 1: with their chest into each other and arguing with each

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Speaker 1: other and calling each other's other names, and so there

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Speaker 1: there there are no demons um staffed here to punish

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Speaker 1: these guys. They provide their own punishment to each other. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so it's like a scene from Eyes Wide Shut Well no, no, well,

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Speaker 1: you know what, Okay, maybe more accessible is the illustration

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Speaker 1: that you sent me, and it showed a lucky cat

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Speaker 1: a mountain, and the mountain was there was a little

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Speaker 1: trail going to the very top with a lucky cat

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Speaker 1: is perched, and there's mice with big hunks of cheese

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Speaker 1: weighing them down as they bring it to the lucky cat. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I will, I will link to this in the blog

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Speaker 1: post that goes with this podcast, and cause you're interested

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Speaker 1: in saying that. But there there are many artistic interpretations.

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Speaker 1: And now if one goes into Dante's purgatory and this

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Speaker 1: again is the mountain that connects Earth to the to

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Speaker 1: the heaven, and well, you're you're you're complicating the matter

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Speaker 1: with lucky cat. At this point, there's no lucky cat

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Speaker 1: in this thing. It's just a mountain. It connects Earth

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Speaker 1: and hell beneath it to the heavens above. And if

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Speaker 1: you travel up the mountain, each terrace purges you of

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Speaker 1: a sin so that you'll be clean enough to enter heaven.

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Speaker 1: So the fifth terrace is where you would purge yourself

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Speaker 1: of all this greed, and you do it by lying

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Speaker 1: lying face down on a hard rock floor, weeping and

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Speaker 1: praying until the greed has washed away from you. That's

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Speaker 1: your punishment. Yeah, it's kind of It's not a punishment, remember,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a cleansing. Okay, seems kind of weak sauce.

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Speaker 1: It is. It is kind of weak sauce. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe Dante just wasn't bringing his a game when thinking

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Speaker 1: about greed. He's really down on it. But it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's not like they're like, you know, boiling rivers of

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Speaker 1: blood and feces. They're just dudes in hell pushing bags

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Speaker 1: of money against each other. And and here a lot

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Speaker 1: of people pray. So the eyes being soon shut as

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Speaker 1: in with v right, and there's some gas ler ones ahead.

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Speaker 1: But um, let's look to Buddhism real quick again before

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Speaker 1: we get into the real science of all this. In Buddhism, greed,

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Speaker 1: along with delusion, slash, ignorance, and hate, is one of

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Speaker 1: the three poisons at the heart of all suffering. So

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Speaker 1: if you look at the center of the Tibetan wheel

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Speaker 1: of life, the wheel of sam Sorrow, which we have

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Speaker 1: an excellent interactive illustration of in the How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: article how sky Burial Works, if you look at the

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Speaker 1: center of this wheel, you'll find three animals, a pig,

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Speaker 1: a cock, and a snake, and they are all biting

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Speaker 1: each other's tails, forming a ring. And each of these

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Speaker 1: three animals represents one of the three poisons. The snake

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Speaker 1: is hate, the pig is delusion or ignorance, you see

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Speaker 1: it referred to as is either, and then the cock

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Speaker 1: represents greed. It's interesting how Buddhism greed is very central

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Speaker 1: to everything that is wrong with life here on earth.

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Speaker 1: And just as a side note, some people are really

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Speaker 1: into like crazy burgers. I think it would be it

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Speaker 1: would be fascinating if someone were too concoct a burger

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Speaker 1: that contains three meats snake meat, pig meat, and rooster meat.

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Speaker 1: And then you could have it be the the three

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Speaker 1: poison burger or the the burger that is the root

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Speaker 1: of all suffering. Well, isn't there already the true ducan?

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like that your're duncan, except um, it's

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Speaker 1: responsible for all of man's woes. Okay, so it's more

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Speaker 1: of a some and it'd probably be a pretty heavy

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Speaker 1: launch too. Yeah, And just throwing that out there, if

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Speaker 1: anyone wants to create such a blasphemy or if if

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Speaker 1: you know, next Thanksgiving when that rolls are in. You

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Speaker 1: can't take your tree duc in, which is a turkey, chicken,

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Speaker 1: and duck all roll together, right, and you can offer

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Speaker 1: it up as a way to consume the sins of

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Speaker 1: the past year. Yeah, because I think that would go

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Speaker 1: over really well at Thanksgiving table. You know, people don't

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Speaker 1: think about that. So that's kind of the there's the

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Speaker 1: religious introduction, and both of these examples are very down

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Speaker 1: on the idea of greed. But it is this poisonous thing.

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Speaker 1: It is this this awful thing that that distorts the

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Speaker 1: soul and renders us unrecognizable in the afterlife, that is

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Speaker 1: responsible for all of this pain around us. But then

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Speaker 1: there's another way of looking at it, right, Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you write a more materialistic view. Are you talking about

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Speaker 1: Gordon Gecko? Yes, read from us from the book of

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Speaker 1: of Gecko. Alright, Gordon Gecko, the character in Wall Street.

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Speaker 1: We're talking to high eighties here, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: if I can do a Michael Douglas voice. The point is,

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Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, greed is good, Greed works, Greed is right.

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Speaker 1: Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the

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Speaker 1: evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms, greed for life, money, love,

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Speaker 1: knowledge has marked the upward surge in mankind and greed.

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Speaker 1: Mark my words. We'll say you've not only telled our

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Speaker 1: paper that the other malfunctioning corporation called the U s

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Speaker 1: a W. Yeah, well, okay also fights stains. That's right,

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Speaker 1: that's right. I've got a greed stick at home. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, this is an idea that isn't

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Speaker 1: too far away from reality and certain eras of our existence.

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Speaker 1: Certainly in nineteen eighties, you know, accumulation of wealth is

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Speaker 1: something that a lot of people are concentrating on, and

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Speaker 1: there is this idea that greed is this sort of

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Speaker 1: evolutionary birthright that we can't evolve without continuing to amass

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Speaker 1: more and more and sort of step over each other

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Speaker 1: in order to get to it. Yeah, I mean, and

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Speaker 1: you can go with the I mean, the classic argument

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Speaker 1: that stuff like Indian greed, these are the motivating forces

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Speaker 1: of ambition, and we need ambition in life. Like on

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Speaker 1: some level, greed maybe is good because I need things

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Speaker 1: to live, right, I need a little money and a

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Speaker 1: little more is maybe even a little better, So I

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Speaker 1: should want those things, right, yeah, but it's the excess part, right, Yeah. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So there's this guy named Andrew Low, and he's the

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Speaker 1: Harris and Harris Group professor m I T and the

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Speaker 1: director of its Laboratory for Financial Engineering. And in a

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine interview with Freakonomics, he commented on

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Speaker 1: the unprecedented air of wealth just recently that we have, right, um,

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Speaker 1: and he said that quote extended periods of prosperity act

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Speaker 1: as an anesthetic and human brain. Okay, so that's here's

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Speaker 1: one reason why greed isn't so grand. Right. Essentially, he's

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Speaker 1: saying that all of us who were trading in on

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Speaker 1: the real estate based financial bubble, we're in a quote

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Speaker 1: drug induced stupor that causes us to take risks that

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Speaker 1: we know we should avoid. He's saying basically that monetary

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Speaker 1: gain and we've we've seen this before, certainly in the

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Speaker 1: laboratory is uh. It stimulates the same reward securitary as cocaine.

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Speaker 1: And in both cases, again we've talked about this, you know,

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Speaker 1: over and over in terms of this, and since dopamine

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Speaker 1: is released into the nucleus incumbents um and then the

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Speaker 1: opposite of this, this is really interesting. Financial loss activates

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Speaker 1: the same fight or flight circuitry as physical attacks, releasing

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Speaker 1: adrenaline in the cortisol in the bloodstream. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: here you have different sides of the coin, but certainly

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Speaker 1: you've got dopamine and you've got madrinaline on the other side,

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Speaker 1: and all of this is tied to finance. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like the Again, he's in the drug example,

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Speaker 1: a young man takes cocaine and then writes a really

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Speaker 1: horrible song or it gets a really or is really

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Speaker 1: into an idea that is just dreadful. Likewise, a young

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Speaker 1: man who has a financial success for a short amount

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Speaker 1: of time. During that success, everything is so great he decides,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to buy a sailboat, right right, I mean anything,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna blow my money on this, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna spend it on this. I'm gonna do this because

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Speaker 1: things are great. This couldn't possibly wear off. And of

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Speaker 1: course both individuals quickly find that, uh, the sensation does

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Speaker 1: wear off, right, I mean, basically, this is deadening that

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Speaker 1: part of your brain that meaning not literally deadening, but

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Speaker 1: certainly the part of your brain that is thinking about

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Speaker 1: the long term is now offline, and you know your

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Speaker 1: short term brain is like, hey, do whatever, Like let's

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Speaker 1: go buy a boat. It sounds like a great idea. Um,

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Speaker 1: So it would make sense that in terms of economics,

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Speaker 1: there's something happening in the brain that really feeds into greed. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so this question comes up, greed. Everybody is greedy to

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Speaker 1: to some extent or another. Right, Um, but who could

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Speaker 1: be the greediest jerks out there? Is there is there

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Speaker 1: natural answer to that question? Who could be? Or who

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Speaker 1: who might be? Who might be? Who might be? Like

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Speaker 1: who out there in the world is the greediest jerk? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well one would. I mean, if you go on with

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Speaker 1: the stereotype, you're looking at people like your Gordon geckos,

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Speaker 1: like your Scrooge McDuck's a lot, you know, the individuals

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Speaker 1: that have so much. It's an addiction, you know, like

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Speaker 1: the money and the money unto itself, is an addiction. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So bingo wealth corrupting? Right, And you're right, this is

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Speaker 1: you know, somewhat of a cliche. But there are some

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Speaker 1: scientists who decided to put this to the test or

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Speaker 1: whether psychologists Paul piff of the University of California at Berkeley.

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Speaker 1: He conducted seven different studies that the seven different scenarios

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Speaker 1: really testing out socio economic levels and ethics, wondering if

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Speaker 1: indeed wealth corrupts. And I'm just gonna highlight a couple

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Speaker 1: of them because I think that they're interesting, but I

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Speaker 1: should point out and that all seven scenarios, the overwhelming

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Speaker 1: evidence is that people with higher socio economic levels tend

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Speaker 1: to have uh dodgy ethics, or that that was the

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Speaker 1: conclusion that was drawn from this um There was a

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Speaker 1: study in which uh PIF and his team monitored traffic

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Speaker 1: at a four waist stop in San Francisco, and they

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Speaker 1: noted all the makes and the models of automobiles because

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Speaker 1: that's a really good indicator of your socio economic level

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Speaker 1: usually right, Um, so guests who more often than not

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Speaker 1: cut the other drivers off the fancy cars fancy cars,

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Speaker 1: I mean overwhelmingly. Okay. So then there's another study that

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Speaker 1: they did, and this was they had test takers asked

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Speaker 1: to imagine themselves being very rich or very poor and

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Speaker 1: then given an opportunity to take candy from a jar

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Speaker 1: that would next be delivered to children in another lab.

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Speaker 1: Like really like taking candy from from a baby. Right, see,

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Speaker 1: all I can think it is a Simpsons episode where

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Speaker 1: though of course that Mr Burns is another I mean,

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Speaker 1: if not a few examples of the stereotypically rich, misurely

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Speaker 1: awful person who's been totally corrupted by wealth. But there's

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Speaker 1: an episode, of course where he he actually steals or

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Speaker 1: attempts to steal candy from a baby. Well, right, there

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Speaker 1: you go. He in this study certainly would have borne

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Speaker 1: out the results. But so again here here you see

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Speaker 1: the people who are imagining themselves is very rich somehow

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Speaker 1: distancing themselves from their action and saying and taking asually

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Speaker 1: more candy than the other people who imagine themselves is

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Speaker 1: very poor. H And again seven of these different scenarios. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you'd have to have many more studies in order

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Speaker 1: to have more conclusive data on this, I think. But

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Speaker 1: I think at least it gives us an idea of

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Speaker 1: the direction of what happens when you are exposed to

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Speaker 1: extreme wealth and the sort of distancing that you experience.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure that the lab full of

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Speaker 1: babies or children actually need that candy, though, I mean, well,

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Speaker 1: I have to say I thought that too, because I

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Speaker 1: thought well I might be. Okay, you know what those

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Speaker 1: two roles, that kid doesn't need it, nobody has to

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Speaker 1: go to the dentist. And what kind of candy is it?

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Speaker 1: Because there's there's candy, and there's candy. Like if it's

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Speaker 1: if it's like um, you know, the office bank suckers

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Speaker 1: or candy corn, then by all means like other children

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Speaker 1: have it. But if it's upscale candy that's clearly designed

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Speaker 1: for a more sophisticated adult palette, then then I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure taking it is really the best. I agree, I agree, Um.

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Speaker 1: But there there's this evolutionary psychologist and he's a consumer

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Speaker 1: researcher in his name is Vladists of the University of Minnesota,

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Speaker 1: and he says this work is important because it suggests

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Speaker 1: that people often act unethically, not because they are desperate

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Speaker 1: and in the dumps, but because they feel entitled and

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Speaker 1: they want to get ahead. Okay, so that exactly what

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Speaker 1: I just did. I laid out my entitlement for the

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Speaker 1: fancy candy, that the that this candy would be lost

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Speaker 1: on these children, and therefore I'm i a am doing

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Speaker 1: them a favor because they don't need it, and be

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Speaker 1: I am the intended audience for this candy. So I've

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Speaker 1: already I've already rationalized stealing candy from a baby. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a great day in my life. You know what,

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Speaker 1: all your gold rings with your diamonds were kind of

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Speaker 1: shining pretty rightly. Can you kind of just take a

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Speaker 1: couple off their Mr Money bags? Um? Okay? So what

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Speaker 1: is the opposite of greed, Well, not necessarily opposite, but

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Speaker 1: a reaction that you might have to greed, revulsion, a

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Speaker 1: sense of injustice. Right, Because we were discussing this the

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Speaker 1: other day, like, like, there's something particularly foul about greed,

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Speaker 1: especially when we I mean well pretty much only when

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Speaker 1: we glimpsed it in others, because when we glimpse it

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Speaker 1: in ourselves, we tend to, like everything else, we tend

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Speaker 1: to find more enlightened ways of of understanding it or

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Speaker 1: lying to ourselves about it. You know. But when you

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Speaker 1: see greed in another person, it's like, I mean it

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Speaker 1: all bows send the money right and money on on

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Speaker 1: a on a very crucial level, it's not real. Like

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Speaker 1: even when you're dealing with like gold coins, it's just

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Speaker 1: it's all it's all ultimately kind of arbitrary. I mean, yes,

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Speaker 1: there's there's a great deal of numbers and mathematics backing

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Speaker 1: it up, but it's all and none of it is real,

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Speaker 1: you know. And then when when we when we when

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Speaker 1: we raise that this abstract thing, this unreal thing, above

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Speaker 1: everything else that is real in life, when we place

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Speaker 1: this in this this made up money, above the heads

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Speaker 1: of very real people, it's terrifying and awful and absurd.

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Speaker 1: Right well, when the fantasy of this, right, it becomes

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Speaker 1: grotesque and you can't really see the reality around you, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it clouds your vision of your ability to

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Speaker 1: actually accurately since what's going on around you. That's when

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Speaker 1: I when I think, you know, you make decisions that

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Speaker 1: perhaps and other people creates this of disgust, because all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden you become this person who is a

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Speaker 1: caricature yourself to a certain degree. There's something called the

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Speaker 1: ultimatum game, and it's interesting the premises. Okay, I have

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Speaker 1: ten dollars that I can share with you, Robert Land,

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Speaker 1: anyway I choose. Okay, if you accept my offer, then

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Speaker 1: we both keep my proposed shares. If you reject my offer,

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Speaker 1: neither of us sees any of the money. Wait now,

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Speaker 1: what's the offer? Okay, um, okay, have ten dollars, I

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Speaker 1: will give you a quarter a quarter of the money

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Speaker 1: or just what do I have to do? Do you

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Speaker 1: mean you just can you can take or you can

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Speaker 1: leave it. Well, in that case, I would take it

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Speaker 1: because is better than no money. Right, you are so rational,

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Speaker 1: But most people would actually reject it. Huh yeah, because

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Speaker 1: you would think like the rational thing to do is

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Speaker 1: to say, like, um, you know, sure, now we're both

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Speaker 1: richer for this, right, But there's a sense of injustice

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Speaker 1: going on, like someone might think, that's not really why

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Speaker 1: are you keeping and I'm getting but I didn't do

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Speaker 1: anything to earn it. You just you have ten dollars,

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Speaker 1: you're giving me twenty cents and I'm and and if

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Speaker 1: you give me that cents, I'm halfway to getting something

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Speaker 1: out of the office snack machine. All I have to

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Speaker 1: do is find one more quarter and I'm gonna be

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Speaker 1: rolling in granola bar. Okay, Well, if you were a normal,

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Speaker 1: flawed person, you would say, no, I'm going to penalize

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Speaker 1: you for your stinginess. No, I'm not gonna like neither

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Speaker 1: of us are going to get anything, right. That's weird. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So even Ian, it's understandable, like I can totally I

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Speaker 1: can totally get it. Yeah, like I have. And it

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Speaker 1: is in a way, if you think about it, um,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of a power structure, right, because if that

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Speaker 1: person has the money and they're offering it to you,

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Speaker 1: how do you get your power back if you have nothing,

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Speaker 1: if you don't have really, uh any choice in the matter. Right,

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Speaker 1: So I guess I could I could considerably make the argument, well,

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Speaker 1: why don't you you know you're keeping nine five, why

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Speaker 1: don't you just give me one quarter more? And then

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Speaker 1: I can go ahead and at that granola bar instead.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm tempted. I'm with half. I'm here with half

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Speaker 1: a granola bar, basically that I can't eat. Well, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you're gonna get, honestly. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You start to think about that, and what happens in

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Speaker 1: your brain, Uh, the anterior insula starts to get activated.

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Speaker 1: And this is the area associated with negative emotions. And

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Speaker 1: this has been seen by Jonathan Cohen, He's a Princeton neuroscientist.

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Speaker 1: The interesting thing is that when you up the amount

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Speaker 1: of money, like, for instance, if if I said I

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Speaker 1: have twenty three dollars and I'm going to give you

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Speaker 1: eight dollars. Then you start to see people go okay,

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Speaker 1: well that's that's a little bit fairer, and the part

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Speaker 1: of the brain, the the anterior insula, actually starts to

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Speaker 1: die down a little bit in terms of activity as

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Speaker 1: a way to tamp down this and say, okay, let's

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Speaker 1: start to be rational about this, because now the stakes

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Speaker 1: are getting a little bit higher. There's a little bit

423
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,680
Speaker 1: more money here, and it really I think it's very

424
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 1: telling on how we make some portant decisions. Huh. So

425
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: this is definitely the part of the brain is lighting up.

426
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 1: When you've just had a dinner with those some friends

427
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and you have to figure out how

428
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: the bill works, or or even when like far before

429
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: the bill comes, say when the guacamole comes out, or

430
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: the pizza's placed on the table and food has to

431
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: be divvied up, I can see that kicking in, you know,

432
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: because you're wondering about how things are going to be

433
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: distributed and parsed out, and then how are they going

434
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: to be paid for? Like even if you're not like

435
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:28,679
Speaker 1: a stingy kind of person who's counting the slices of

436
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: pizza as they leave the table, like your brain can't

437
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: help but sort of think in those terms, right. Well,

438
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: and they've seen this in babies, they've seen this in

439
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: primates too, that there's a sense of injustice. Study after

440
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 1: study that people are mentally taking notes on what is

441
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 1: being parsed out at that time. Well, because I mean,

442
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: we have to live in a community. We have to

443
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,159
Speaker 1: live in some sort of a group. Be at a

444
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,679
Speaker 1: primitive group that is just you know, crawling through the

445
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: grasses and prehistoric times, or a community of people who

446
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out how in the heck they're

447
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 1: gonna do the tip with a group on discount at

448
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: a restaurant. Right, Yeah, that's just the recipe for disaster

449
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, Yeah, the whole group on thing. Uh,

450
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: not to say that I haven't taken advantage of it's great,

451
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: but yes, um, you have to come to some sort

452
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: of point of cooperation. And like you said, that's that's

453
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: what really makes a society. That's that's the glue of it.

454
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a quick break and when

455
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 1: we come back, more of the science of greed. All right,

456
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: we're back. Why do donuts distract Summer Simpson. Why is

457
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: Hommer Sipson obsessed with with donuts? We had to boil

458
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: this down to a single Oh, I don't know, brain hormone,

459
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: what would it be? Delicious dopamine exactly. Just the mere

460
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: thought of the donut can can result in dopamine release.

461
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: Just the the the anticipation of rewarding yourself with those

462
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 1: delicious cowards. I have to say, I think I might

463
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: be salivating a little bit right now. Yeah, I've been

464
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: picturing that. I don't even really eat donuts, but I'm

465
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: picturing that that Simpsons doughnut with the pink I sang

466
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 1: in the sprinkles. Yeah. Dopamine keeps popping up in these

467
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: podcasts we're doing. I mean, dopamine pops up a lot

468
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: because it's anytime we're trying to figure out neurologically why

469
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: we do the things we do, because dopamine is the

470
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: reward juice, and uh, most of it were not most,

471
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: but a lot of the things we do are about

472
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: releasing that chemical, about achieving the reward. Our life is

473
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: kind of this game, and when we, uh, we actually

474
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: hit the points where we get the achievements, we get

475
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: the dopamine it's not surprisingly would show up here. It

476
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: show it seems to have shown up in all the

477
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 1: other sense. And it's one of these things that we

478
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: learned a game a long time ago. Primitive man kind

479
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 1: of figured out what was going on with the dopamine

480
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: and figured out, hey, I can actually cheat and get

481
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: all the dopamine I want. Right, so we end up

482
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: with this whole legacy of bad habits and addictions and

483
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: and sins if you will, And greed seems to play

484
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 1: especially well with dopamine because it's tied up in three

485
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: of the big needs that we have in life, the

486
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: needs for safety, the need for approval, and the need

487
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 1: for esteem. Right, we need safety because we want to survive.

488
00:25:57,680 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: We need approval because we want to live in a

489
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: community d uh. And we need a steam because we

490
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,679
Speaker 1: want to rise up in that community. And money, as

491
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: it happens, and pretty much buy any of those things.

492
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: You have money, you can buy safety for yourself. You

493
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: want to be approved of, You can buy the right clothing,

494
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: you can buy the right lifestyle to do that, and

495
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: if you want to steam as pretty much any stay

496
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 1: presidential election or or you know, or a political kind

497
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 1: of gate illustrates you can buy that if you have

498
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: enough money and enough will to invest in it. So

499
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: money is the ultimate dopamine inducer. If money in and

500
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: of itself doesn't create fuel the dopamine, then it can

501
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 1: buy something that will, which makes sense again why people

502
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: would be chasing that high with with wealth or greed,

503
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: right um. And it actually plays into something that has

504
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: been called the scrabble strategy before, and again we're talking

505
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: about the short term versus the long term, and the

506
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: scrabble strategy is actually called the greedy algorithm. And this

507
00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 1: is a computational mathematics term, and basically it say is

508
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: that you can do well by making whichever move seems

509
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: best at that moment and not worrying too much about

510
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: future consequences. And in mathematics, the greedy algorithm builds up

511
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: a solution piece by piece, always using the next piece

512
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: that offers the most obvious and immediate benefits. So for us, right,

513
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: that would translate to dopamine ding ding ding. Okay. So

514
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: in the scrabble scenario, the the idea here is that

515
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 1: I get a high number value kyle like an X

516
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: or a Z or something I'm better off holding onto it,

517
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: but instead I play it immediately, right, Yeah, because I

518
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: mean that is not playing game, right. It's not like

519
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 1: chess where you have to really consider, you know, three

520
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: moves ahead, you just have to. In scrabble, it really

521
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: is like whatever you have right in front of you

522
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: at that very moment, you have to play and you'll

523
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: you'll benefit from that strategy. So you know, that's that's

524
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: what greed sort of falls into, is this greedy algorithm.

525
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: Although the greedy algorithm obviously isn't sustainable because at some

526
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: point you have to uh, you know, inhabit your future

527
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: rain and start thinking about consequences. Yeah, and I guess

528
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: with human lives, the problem is that by the time

529
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: you start realizing you need to play the long game,

530
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: there's not In many cases there's not been much game left.

531
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: I don't know, you didn't see that a lot. I

532
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: mean it's like we said earlier, it's like people end

533
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: up not caring during the rich years, during the bountiful years,

534
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: which are there the grasshopper, right, the grassopper in the

535
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: ant That sounds right because the grasshopper, Yeah, the aunt

536
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: in the fable, right, is is piling away for the

537
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: becoming winter, and the grasshopper is like, whoa, I'm having

538
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: a great time and then it gets cold and the

539
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: ants like I'm set in the Grasshopper dies. It's kind

540
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: of a right from your Rosebud we walked. I don't know.

541
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: I can't leap to that logic. I don't know if

542
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: that actually plays in all that well, but I don't know.

543
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: He was chasing after greed, Yeah, well he was, he was.

544
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: He is another iconic greedy character. But but yeah, when

545
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: we're in the midst of the of the Plenty, we're

546
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: not thinking about the long game, and it's easier to

547
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: think about the long game when there's not that much

548
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: game left. I don't know if I'm making sense on that. No, No,

549
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,959
Speaker 1: I'm getting it. I'm getting if you are obsessed your

550
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: whole life with chasing after the Precious and uh and

551
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: trying to battle do battle with the sneaky little hobbits

552
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: is for the Precious. Well, the Precious was pretty awesome.

553
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 1: It was one of the rings of power. So I mean,

554
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: I you could you kind of have to side with

555
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,479
Speaker 1: Gollum on that one, I know, But the point is

556
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: that that you could you could waste your entire life,

557
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: you know, obsessing over the precious and then you no

558
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: longer have a life. You just have a shiny did

559
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: get to travel pretty well, and he lived a long life.

560
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on here, Robert Lamb. I'm

561
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: just saying, you know, greedy got just coming out, don't

562
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: you know, hate on Sneakle too much because you know,

563
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: you got to see the world of mental Earth, and

564
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: you know, and he and he his spoiler, he dies

565
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: by falling into a volcano, which is something I kind

566
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: of want for myself. So okay, So there we are

567
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: revealing something about you right now, into your affinity for snag.

568
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: Like imagine if your if your obituary said something like

569
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: Robert Land has away today when he fell into the

570
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: mountain Doon, Like that's pretty after chasing absolute power. Well,

571
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: now that makes it not kind of sad. I guess

572
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: all right, you've got You've got a point we were

573
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: discussing earlier, like the research into degreed doesn't go quite

574
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: as deep to some of the other ones we've we've

575
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: talked about. Yeah, I was thinking about Dante. I was like, yeah,

576
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: of course, he's like this is awful. This is bad.

577
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: It's awful, it's bad. But I'm not really going to

578
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: devote a lot of time. Same thing with researchers so far.

579
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess a lot of its kind of

580
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: surface level comes down to you. We want money because

581
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: money makes a lot of things possible. It allows us

582
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: to have safety, it allows us to to eat, to

583
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: to have shelter, it allows us to move through life.

584
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: So of course we want it. And like with all

585
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: the sins we've looked at, there's like a tipping point

586
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: between like a normal level of wanting money and an

587
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: unbalanced level. You know, what I think would be interesting

588
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: is some research on the super wealthy and wondering there

589
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: or not if you reach a certain point of wealth

590
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: that you become more altruistic and you actually become more ethical.

591
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: That isn't because a number of billionaires have taken that

592
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: pledge to donate a large portion of their their wealth charities.

593
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: And there are for every you know, miserly Scrooge McDuck

594
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: type individual in the world, you can you can generally

595
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: think of someone else who is using their fortune, or

596
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: at least a large portion of their fortune to try

597
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: and do good things and not just as a tax,

598
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: right right, right, So yeah, I would like to see

599
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: more more numbers on that, for sure, because there are

600
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: there are certainly some individuals that really make a case

601
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: for the old adage money corrupts and money is the

602
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: root of all evil. But then there are some individuals

603
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: who seem to stand apart from that and and really

604
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: give us a little hope. Yeah, and and some people

605
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: who I'm sure at four waste uff and they're driving

606
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: a luxury car that that actually, uh, they're not jerks,

607
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let me get that. Let Dante have

608
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: the last word on this though, because there's a lovely

609
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: little line and this is of course translated from the

610
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: Italian and then this is Virgil talking to Dante. He says,

611
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: now you can see, my son, the brief mockery of

612
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: the goods that are committed to fortune, for which the

613
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: human race of squabbles, for all the gold that is

614
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: under the moon and that ever was, could not give

615
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 1: rest to even one of these weary souls. So that's that,

616
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: as they're looking at the tortures and help. So there

617
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: you go, all right, So there you have it, one

618
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: of our favorite episodes from one of our favorite series.

619
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: If you'd like to hear the other episodes in the

620
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: seven Deadly Sin series. Then be sure to check out

621
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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Just drop seven

622
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Speaker 1: Deadly Sins or your favorite sin uh be at wrath

623
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Speaker 1: or greed or in the endt to the search box

624
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Speaker 1: there and you will find what you're looking for. Also,

625
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630
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631
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632
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Speaker 1: of postures? You can tell us all about it by

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