Speaker 1: Why do we all believe our own truths so strongly?
Speaker 1: And is there any possibility that we can at least
Speaker 1: see other points of view? What is steel manning and
Speaker 1: why is it so important? What does any of this
Speaker 1: have to do with f Scott Fitzgerald or John Keats
Speaker 1: or the future of our society? Welcome to Inner Cosmos
Speaker 1: with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author
Speaker 1: at Stanford, and in these episodes we come from the
Speaker 1: perspective of the brain to understand why and how our
Speaker 1: lives look the way they do. Today's episode is about
Speaker 1: something that I've talked about on here before, which is
Speaker 1: the extreme and seemingly growing rization that characterizes much of
Speaker 1: our society at this moment, and I'm interested in it
Speaker 1: from the point of view of neuroscience. I'm not banging
Speaker 1: on about any particular political position here. What I'm interested
Speaker 1: in is how we come to form our truths and
Speaker 1: why we each believe in them so strongly. For all
Speaker 1: of us, with whatever political issue, our intuition usually is
Speaker 1: to say, well, I know that I'm correct about this,
Speaker 1: but the important part to point out is that, depending
Speaker 1: on the issue, roughly half of the society has a
Speaker 1: different point of view than you do, and on almost
Speaker 1: any hot button political issue, you'll find that the people
Speaker 1: on the other side of the issue have exactly the
Speaker 1: same dedication and passion that you do, the same absolute
Speaker 1: belief that they are right and that you are misinformed. Generally,
Speaker 1: it's hard to see this with politics, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to ruffle any feathers here, but I just want
Speaker 1: to point out that it's often easier to see this
Speaker 1: with something like religion, whatever deity you were brought up with.
Speaker 1: You tend to think, okay, well, I know that's right,
Speaker 1: and I know that the other two thousand religions on
Speaker 1: this planet are all diluted and incorrect. But of course
Speaker 1: each of those people is looking at you and thinking
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing. The way the atheist community sometimes
Speaker 1: phrases this is we are all atheists. I just believe
Speaker 1: in one fewer God than you do. And it's always
Speaker 1: a worthwhile exercise to think about what your beliefs would
Speaker 1: be if you happened to be born into a different religion,
Speaker 1: Let's say, on a different spot on the globe, where
Speaker 1: everyone that you cared about, your mentors, your hero is
Speaker 1: your relatives all believed in that deity. So ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what would be your worldview? Now, if there were a
Speaker 1: single truth about which deity is correct, you might expect
Speaker 1: that that would spread everywhere equally. So you'd look for
Speaker 1: evidence of a grassroots takeover of Ottestanism in Mecca, or
Speaker 1: maybe a blossoming of Islam in North Dakota. But that's
Speaker 1: not what we see. We all take whatever our culture
Speaker 1: pours into our nervous systems. Now, I use this as
Speaker 1: an example only to illustrate that it's easy to recognize
Speaker 1: that there are many points of view on things that
Speaker 1: we feel our fundamental truths, and for better or worse,
Speaker 1: people can hold these truths with absolute conviction and take
Speaker 1: up arms over this stuff, and we might be able
Speaker 1: to get ourselves to a point of realizing that if
Speaker 1: you were brought up in a different place, you might
Speaker 1: have a different point of view. Okay, now you've heard
Speaker 1: me talk about on other episodes. Is that the brain
Speaker 1: is locked in silence and darkness inside your skull and
Speaker 1: its whole life. It's just trying to make a model
Speaker 1: of the world out there. We slide into the world
Speaker 1: half baked, and we each experience a very thin trajectory
Speaker 1: in this world. We're born in a particular spot at
Speaker 1: a particular moment in time, and we have a handful
Speaker 1: of experiences that shape our view, and the massive flexibility
Speaker 1: of the human brain, what's called brain plasticity, is what
Speaker 1: allows us to absorb our local experiences and shape our model.
Speaker 1: So we each end up with an idiosyncratic model about
Speaker 1: what makes sense. But the interesting thing is that our
Speaker 1: human brains are generally terrible at seeing outside of their
Speaker 1: own walls. We generally believe that our view of the
Speaker 1: world is the correct view, and we're typically likely to
Speaker 1: think that anyone who votes differently than we do is
Speaker 1: a real problem because they are misinformed or stubborn, or
Speaker 1: at the extreme, they're simply evil. So we have limited
Speaker 1: internal models combined with a sense that we know the truth.
Speaker 1: This is just the way that brains work, and for
Speaker 1: much more detailedness, please listen to some of my previous episodes,
Speaker 1: which I've linked in the show notes on Eagleman dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast. Now, one of the things that's been
Speaker 1: hard to miss is watching millions of humans on both
Speaker 1: sides of society doubling down and saying that they need
Speaker 1: to protect our democracy, which is being threatened by the
Speaker 1: other side. And part of what makes me feel dismayed
Speaker 1: is that I have intelligent friends on both sides of
Speaker 1: the aisle, and many of the people that I know
Speaker 1: and love are truly unable to see the viewpoint of
Speaker 1: the other side. People on both sides claim to have
Speaker 1: logic on their side, and morality and the statistics, and
Speaker 1: they feel certain that they're right and the other side
Speaker 1: is wrong. And for that matter, a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel certain that there even are clearly definable sides, even
Speaker 1: though so much of political life on Earth's complexities in
Speaker 1: which issues go with which. And again, what this comes
Speaker 1: down to is the limitations of the internal model. Without
Speaker 1: real effort, we have a difficult time putting ourselves at
Speaker 1: other people's shoes. And it would be one thing if
Speaker 1: only a few people had this other point of view.
Speaker 1: But in the case of current political upheaval, it's usually
Speaker 1: the case that about half of the humans that you
Speaker 1: spin with might be on the other side of some issues.
Speaker 1: So it's not just a few people with a wacky opinion.
Speaker 1: We're talking about millions of people who genuinely feel differently
Speaker 1: about some issue. Than you do. And the question is,
Speaker 1: is there a way for us to expand our internal
Speaker 1: models to at least see their point of view, not
Speaker 1: even agree with it, just understand what their perspective is
Speaker 1: and why. Now we're all familiar with the problem that's
Speaker 1: currently worsening our political discourse, which is we all tend
Speaker 1: to seek out the people who agree with us, and
Speaker 1: it's a self reinforcing loop such that we tend to
Speaker 1: believe that most or all sane and reasonable people agree
Speaker 1: with us. But the question for today is is there
Speaker 1: any meaningful way that we could combat this tendency to
Speaker 1: retreat into our own echo chambers and at least here
Speaker 1: with the other side of the political issue is saying
Speaker 1: and how they're feeling, and to appreciate the complexities and
Speaker 1: diversity of opinions on the other side. There's a great
Speaker 1: quotation from the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald who says, quote,
Speaker 1: the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability
Speaker 1: to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same
Speaker 1: time and still retain the ability to function. And the
Speaker 1: poet John Keats, who was a believer in this concept
Speaker 1: as well, he called this ability negative capability, which he
Speaker 1: just meant as a person being capable of being in
Speaker 1: uncertainties and mysteries and doubts. So there's some nodding to
Speaker 1: this in the intellectual community, but we're not seeing a
Speaker 1: great deal of this in the political media. This holding
Speaker 1: two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, well
Speaker 1: why not. I suspect there are at least two issues here.
Speaker 1: The first is that we all like to believe our
Speaker 1: own truths in the second is that people often feel
Speaker 1: that they will seem smarter and get more followers if
Speaker 1: they take a hardline position and say I understand this
Speaker 1: with crystal clarity, I have no doubts.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This is true for politicians and also for media outlets,
Speaker 1: which are rewarded for speaking the language that their constituents
Speaker 1: want to hear. And of course we see on all
Speaker 1: sides of the spectrum the media that say, look, we
Speaker 1: only care to tell the truth. Everyone else might be
Speaker 1: a liar or misdirected, but we're finally going to get
Speaker 1: this right. We see this on all sides, and what
Speaker 1: this represents is our certainty that we know the truth
Speaker 1: and if we could just shout it loudly enough and
Speaker 1: start our own website, then everyone would see the wisdom
Speaker 1: of what we're saying and come to agree with us.
Speaker 1: And you may know that I made a triptich of
Speaker 1: episodes on this issue of the meaning of truth and
Speaker 1: truth on the Internet and truth in media. Those were
Speaker 1: episodes forty to forty two. And if you heard my
Speaker 1: argument there, you'll know that I think this notion of
Speaker 1: telling the truth in media is a lost cause because,
Speaker 1: with the exception of a very few factual issues, most
Speaker 1: of telling a political story is interpretation, which is to say,
Speaker 1: even putting aside the fog of war issues, the issue
Speaker 1: of perspective determines which facts make it into your story
Speaker 1: and which do not. So the question I want to
Speaker 1: ask say is this, is there a different approach to
Speaker 1: news telling? Is there a way to think about doing
Speaker 1: this totally differently? And I think one of the cleverest approaches,
Speaker 1: which is attempted every once in a while, is to
Speaker 1: build something that instead of trying to pick aside and
Speaker 1: fight and die for it, but instead works to say, look,
Speaker 1: there are multiple points of view here. Let's genuinely dig
Speaker 1: into the complexity of the issues and try to see
Speaker 1: if we can build a more multi dimensional understanding. Instead
Speaker 1: of the typical approach of saying I have my team
Speaker 1: and the other team is simply misinformed or misanthropic. And
Speaker 1: one such attempt at making a site like this is
Speaker 1: from a journalist named Isaac Sahl, who runs a newsletter
Speaker 1: called Tangle. The idea of Tangle is to present different
Speaker 1: sides of the same argument to understand something about the
Speaker 1: complexities therein. It's not about saying both sides are right
Speaker 1: and we're going to land in the middle. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: about saying, wherever you might land, can you do this
Speaker 1: with curiosity and intellectual humility and a meaningful level of
Speaker 1: self education on the position rather than tribalism and assumption.
Speaker 1: Big fan of what sites like Tangle are working to do,
Speaker 1: so I called up Tangles founder Isaac Sahl to talk
Speaker 1: with him about this. Okay, Isaac, it's so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. You run a newsletter called Tangle, which
Speaker 1: I'm a giant fan of, and one of the things
Speaker 1: that has struck me as amazing is that you tell
Speaker 1: your readers if they disagree with you, not to throw
Speaker 1: vitriol your way or or you know, unsubscribe, but to
Speaker 1: tell you why they disagree and to make their argument
Speaker 1: to you. So tell us about that, tell us about
Speaker 1: Tangle and how you came to run a newsletter like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So first of all, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm Stan of the show, glad to be here.
Speaker 2: It's been fun listening to you guys last few weeks.
Speaker 2: You know, I have kind of two genesis stories. I'd
Speaker 2: say the first one is just that I grew up
Speaker 2: in a really politically divided place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: Bellweather County, Bellweather State. Obviously, Pennsylvania kind of goes where
Speaker 2: the presidential election goes. So I just grew up around
Speaker 2: a lot of people who had very different political views
Speaker 2: than each other, and so I saw how those divides
Speaker 2: manifested and also how people kind of talked through those
Speaker 2: divides in real time. And have a lot of friends
Speaker 2: and family people I love and care about who have
Speaker 2: different political views, which I think just makes me a
Speaker 2: little bit more open minded to them. And then the
Speaker 2: second kind of genesis story was just being on the
Speaker 2: inside of media organizations and kind of seeing how the
Speaker 2: sausage was made. And it became very clear to me
Speaker 2: early on that a lot of media organizations are catering
Speaker 2: their content to their audience. You know, we have a
Speaker 2: term for it now, audience capture. The idea that you know,
Speaker 2: an audience likes something, they like a certain tone or
Speaker 2: a certain editorial slam, and so news organizations give them
Speaker 2: more and more of that because they recognize that's what
Speaker 2: the audience wants. And we've created a lot of echo
Speaker 2: chambers and bias and you know, confirming people's preconceived notions.
Speaker 2: And when I decided to go out and start my
Speaker 2: own media company, I was just looking at a blank
Speaker 2: page and that was super exciting for me to think about,
Speaker 2: how could I tear this whole thing down and start
Speaker 2: from the beginning. And what are some of the ethos
Speaker 2: that I would want a news organization to have. And
Speaker 2: one of them is that I want us to be
Speaker 2: really open minded and fair. Another is I want to
Speaker 2: make sure we're representing people from across the political spectrum
Speaker 2: and not just presenting people with arguments reviews that they
Speaker 2: already believe. And the third is that I want my
Speaker 2: audience to be involved in the conversation and the production
Speaker 2: of the content and feel like their voice is heard
Speaker 2: and feel like they can actually interact and learn from
Speaker 2: the news and talk to me or our staff, or
Speaker 2: have a space where they can kind of express themselves.
Speaker 2: You know, I look at the comment section on Facebook
Speaker 2: on an article, and a lot of people see, you know,
Speaker 2: craziness and people spouting off and fighting, and it's always like,
Speaker 2: don't look at the comments section. And when I go
Speaker 2: and do that, I see something that I think is
Speaker 2: a gold mine for people who care about issues, people
Speaker 2: who want to express themselves, people want to be involved
Speaker 2: in the conversation, And so I try and invite those
Speaker 2: people in a bit. And frankly, I learn a lot
Speaker 2: from my readers when they write in and tell me
Speaker 2: about why they view the world a certain way. It's
Speaker 2: almost always illuminating.
Speaker 1: Now a lot of folks, especially in this moment in time,
Speaker 1: seem less interested in instigating dialogue than in terminating it.
Speaker 1: So why do you think that is what's happening? And
Speaker 1: do you feel that this time is different than previous eras?
Speaker 2: Look, I mean, anybody who takes a dive into the
Speaker 2: history of free speech will learn pretty quickly that what
Speaker 2: we're living through right now is not a particularly unique thing.
Speaker 2: I think beach goes through expansions and contractions, and it
Speaker 2: always has throughout you know, civil society. There were times
Speaker 2: when the idea of a printing press was exactly the
Speaker 2: same way we talk about you know, the internet today,
Speaker 2: that this would be too big and too easy to
Speaker 2: disseminate information, and we needed to limit this thing because
Speaker 2: it was so scary that someone could write down their ideas,
Speaker 2: you know, print a thousand copies of them, and cover
Speaker 2: a city in them, you know, in a matter of hours.
Speaker 2: And we went through the same thing with the radio.
Speaker 2: We went through the same thing with the Internet, and
Speaker 2: it's something that's going to happen over and over again
Speaker 2: throughout society. And I'm sure there's communication methods we haven't
Speaker 2: even considered yet that are coming down the pike that
Speaker 2: are going to make it a lot easier to you know,
Speaker 2: transmit thoughts or ideas and create all sorts of different issues.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to downplay the idea that you know,
Speaker 2: misinformation or bad information is a you know, a threat
Speaker 2: to democracy or a threat to an informed populace. It is.
Speaker 2: There are certain things about it that are really problematic.
Speaker 2: The Internet has a lot of really dark corners, and
Speaker 2: it's really easy for people to sort of sit in
Speaker 2: their own echo chambers and be radicalized. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a plethora of evidence for that. But the way to
Speaker 2: sort of address these issues is almost never to eliminate them,
Speaker 2: and oftentimes it's not even good to quarantine them, because
Speaker 2: what you basically do is you just put people off
Speaker 2: into their own silos. You put them into their own
Speaker 2: little corners of the Internet where they're only interacting with
Speaker 2: the people who agree with them, and it just pushes
Speaker 2: them further into the fringe. And you know, there are
Speaker 2: a lot of examples of this. I think the number
Speaker 2: of people who have been quote unquote canceled or silenced
Speaker 2: and the people who have done the cancelation or silencing
Speaker 2: have gotten what they want is quite limited. You know,
Speaker 2: I could think of maybe two or three people who
Speaker 2: have I'm like, oh, I forgot that person existed because
Speaker 2: they got canceled or they got kicked off a platform
Speaker 2: or whatever. Most of the time, what happens is like
Speaker 2: what happened to somebody like Alex Jones, where you know,
Speaker 2: he becomes a martyr by being silenced, and then he
Speaker 2: builds his audience in his own space where nothing he
Speaker 2: says or does gets challenged. And then you know, you
Speaker 2: look at something like January sixth, and who's there standing
Speaker 2: on the White House lawn on a table giving instructions
Speaker 2: on a megaphone. It's Alex Jones with a bunch of
Speaker 2: his supporters. And yeah, maybe we haven't seen him on
Speaker 2: Twitter for five years, but guess what, he's still building
Speaker 2: a massive audience, speaking to millions of people, and he's
Speaker 2: just doing it in a space where his perspectives are
Speaker 2: never getting challenged. So I think that's the kind of
Speaker 2: illustration of why silencing these you know, quote unquote dangerous
Speaker 2: people is a really dangerous thing to do, and why
Speaker 2: I prefer to have the engagement and have it out
Speaker 2: and let the audience sort of make up their minds.
Speaker 1: So I love your point of view and your approach
Speaker 1: to this. Why do you think it's so rare? As in,
Speaker 1: why are you one of the few people who's running
Speaker 1: a site like this?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a question I asked myself a lot,
Speaker 2: because when I started, I recognized that there was a
Speaker 2: desire for this from people. But I also remember when
Speaker 2: I first launched Tangle that I was not confident that
Speaker 2: it was going to work. The idea that I was
Speaker 2: going to bring a bunch of people from across the
Speaker 2: political spectrum under one roof and convince them all to
Speaker 2: trust me and to trust my news, and to trust
Speaker 2: us as a place to provide them balanced perspectives. It
Speaker 2: was really daunting. It seemed kind of unrealistic, and in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, I thought, this probably isn't going
Speaker 2: to work, but it's worth trying. And I think most
Speaker 2: people who are looking at the media as a business
Speaker 2: understand that the best way to make money and the
Speaker 2: best way to grow is to give people the red
Speaker 2: meat that they want. You know, I mean the vast
Speaker 2: majority of trash and viewers on a station like Fox
Speaker 2: News or a website like the New York Times dot
Speaker 2: com or whatever it is, they're political junkies. They are
Speaker 2: people who are going back to that every single day.
Speaker 2: You know, they represent maybe five or ten percent of
Speaker 2: the population. And if you can capture that group and
Speaker 2: keep them coming back day to day and keep giving
Speaker 2: them what they want, keep giving them ammunition for their
Speaker 2: arguments and their worldviews, that's a really good way to
Speaker 2: build a subscription, you know, a subscriber base. It's a
Speaker 2: really good way to build an audience for primetime television.
Speaker 2: It's a really good way to build an advertising business
Speaker 2: that has consistent traffic and metricks. And so I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of business stuff happening in the media
Speaker 2: space that's sort of influencing these things. I had a
Speaker 2: vision for a subscriber supported news outlet where people were
Speaker 2: coming to us because they trusted us, because they wanted
Speaker 2: to understand the news better, because they wanted to get
Speaker 2: out of their bubbles. And I thought we could sell
Speaker 2: it to them if the content, you know, followed through
Speaker 2: on the promise, and we've been able to do that.
Speaker 2: But you know, I have one hundred thousand plus subscribers
Speaker 2: on my newsletter, which is a huge number, and I'm
Speaker 2: super proud of it. And five years ago, if you
Speaker 2: told me that, I would have been really happy that
Speaker 2: we hit this milestone. But two million people watch Fox
Speaker 2: News every night, you know, The New York Times has
Speaker 2: two million subscribers. That Huffing and Post still gets hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousand of hits a day. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are competing with that make us look
Speaker 2: like a small fish still. But I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: we're a growing movement of people who are interested in
Speaker 2: stepping into this kind of media ecosystem, and I hope
Speaker 2: it keeps growling.
Speaker 1: So I just want to touch on this issue about
Speaker 1: the extremes about you said maybe five percent of the
Speaker 1: people are going for the extreme things. That leaves a
Speaker 1: lot of people somewhere in the middle. And so what
Speaker 1: opportunities do they have, for example, from the point of
Speaker 1: view of candidates. You know, we have a system that
Speaker 1: tends to privilege people who take extreme positions, and so
Speaker 1: what does this mean for our political system?
Speaker 2: I had nothing great. It's not I would say the
Speaker 2: news is not super optimistic in that sense. You know.
Speaker 2: I got the chance to interview a guy named Hiram
Speaker 2: Lewis who co authored a book called The Myth of
Speaker 2: the Lefts and the Right. Really fascinating guy who talks about,
Speaker 2: you know, basically, we're not operating around a left and
Speaker 2: right political orientation that is fixed and we're all moving.
Speaker 2: Those political orientations are actually moving, and it's really just
Speaker 2: tribal motivations and kind of tribal dynamics that are driving
Speaker 2: what constitutes being a conservative or what constant's being in liberal.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that he said to me.
Speaker 2: That has always stuck with me, which I really like
Speaker 2: is most voters go to the voting booth, and what
Speaker 2: they are doing effectively is like being a shop or
Speaker 2: going to a grocery store where you're looking for a
Speaker 2: bunch of things. You want to go pick out all
Speaker 2: the things you want, and you get to the grocery
Speaker 2: store and there's one card A that's just full of
Speaker 2: half stuff you really want and half stuff you really don't,
Speaker 2: and one car card B full of half stuff you
Speaker 2: really want and half stuff you really don't. And you
Speaker 2: just have to pick one of the carts, and you
Speaker 2: pick the one with more stuff that you really like
Speaker 2: and less stuff that you really don't. And that's what
Speaker 2: most American voters you're doing. And I think it's true
Speaker 2: of Democrats, and it's true of Republicans. And what's really
Speaker 2: interesting about it is the dynamic we have in our
Speaker 2: country right now is a lot of people who go
Speaker 2: to the grocery store and pick cart A. Look at
Speaker 2: people who go to the grocery store and pick cart
Speaker 2: B and think you're totally insane. I can't believe you
Speaker 2: would do that, like you're a nut. Even though there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff in card b they want to
Speaker 2: and a bunch of stuff in there cart that they
Speaker 2: don't really want, but they have a hard time seeing
Speaker 2: that about the other person. And there's tons of dynamics
Speaker 2: I think that drive that, you know, whether it's the
Speaker 2: media polarization, which is an issue that I'm trying to solve,
Speaker 2: Whether it's the fact that, you know, we only talk
Speaker 2: about the people who are on the fringe when we
Speaker 2: talk about the other side, or the fact that in
Speaker 2: American society today, people are becoming a lot more siloed.
Speaker 2: So it's not just that we consume news that you know,
Speaker 2: affirms a lot of our priority. It's that we also
Speaker 2: spend time with people in our social lives who mostly
Speaker 2: agree with us politically. So, you know, if you're a
Speaker 2: conservative living somewhere in rural West Texas, you might not
Speaker 2: know very many in Muslims. And so the things that
Speaker 2: you see about Muslims on the news are the things
Speaker 2: that we all see about Muslims on the news, and
Speaker 2: you don't get to learn or meet somebody who maybe
Speaker 2: is not what you see characterized on the news, And
Speaker 2: that goes every direction in our country and it creates,
Speaker 2: you know, a really dangerous sort of boiling pot, which
Speaker 2: I think is part of what we have right now.
Speaker 1: So I want to return to this issue about what
Speaker 1: makes you care about taking this middle position, about standing
Speaker 1: in between the two carts and saying, look, I get it,
Speaker 1: there's some good stuff in here. There's some good stuff
Speaker 1: in here. You said that you grew up in a
Speaker 1: place where there were different opinions and so on, but
Speaker 1: still a lot of people grew up in that. What
Speaker 1: is it that allowed you to feel like, all right,
Speaker 1: I want to tackle this. I want to represent everyone's
Speaker 1: point of view here so that we can understand each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to address
Speaker 2: something you just said, because it's something I try and
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about in my writing, which is
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be a middle my own personal
Speaker 2: perspectives and my own views. I'm not just trying to
Speaker 2: find some middle ground. I actually think doing that is
Speaker 2: an ideology of its own. If you're always looking for
Speaker 2: what's between the left and the right, you're just going
Speaker 2: to land on a bunch of half baked solutions. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the people on the left are right, sometimes the people
Speaker 2: on the right are right. I try and just take
Speaker 2: it issue by issue, and I don't know. I consider
Speaker 2: my self a moderate and open minded, but I don't
Speaker 2: consider myself, you know, middle on a lot of the
Speaker 2: really contentious issues. Sometimes I'd land there, but I try
Speaker 2: and you know, come to it organically and not seek
Speaker 2: it out. In terms of like the the motivation for
Speaker 2: starting Tangle, I mean, part of it was the classic
Speaker 2: entrepreneurial thing, which was I wanted a product and I
Speaker 2: went looking for it and I couldn't find it, and
Speaker 2: so I thought, oh, it wouldn't be that hard to
Speaker 2: make that. I mean, I would go read the news
Speaker 2: and there'd be a story about Donald Trump's border wall,
Speaker 2: and in order for me to feel like I had
Speaker 2: a full understanding of all the arguments about whether a
Speaker 2: border wall was a good or bad thing, I'd have
Speaker 2: to read the Wall Street Journal opinion page. I'd have
Speaker 2: to watch Fox News. I'd have to read the New
Speaker 2: York Times opinion page. I'd read an article on the
Speaker 2: Huffington Post. I'd read a piece from some immigration lawyers
Speaker 2: who are on the left or at the ACLU. I
Speaker 2: would listen to some conservative podcasts like Ben Shapiro or something.
Speaker 2: I would go to twenty different sources and I'd six
Speaker 2: hours doing it, and then at the end of all that,
Speaker 2: I'd feel like, Okay, now I kind of have some clarity,
Speaker 2: and I've seen a bunch of the arguments on this issue,
Speaker 2: and God, I really wish there was a place that
Speaker 2: I could just go get that and not spend half
Speaker 2: my day doing it, and it would just take ten
Speaker 2: or fifteen minutes. And I went looking for that product
Speaker 2: and I didn't see it anywhere, and so I started
Speaker 2: a product that I felt fulfilled that need and figured
Speaker 2: I wasn't building the person who wanted that. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, some of our growth has definitely confirmed that
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people out there, and over time
Speaker 2: the newsletter, in the podcast and the YouTube channel and
Speaker 2: all the stuff we have, it's just become a lot
Speaker 2: more personal because people want to know who's providing the
Speaker 2: news to them. So early on readers would say, hey,
Speaker 2: it's like, thanks for explaining this story. Cool to see
Speaker 2: what the left and the right are saying, but I'm
Speaker 2: really curious, like what do you think? And that was
Speaker 2: like the genesis of my take, which is a section
Speaker 2: in the newsletter where I share my own personal opinion
Speaker 2: on stories and that's one of the engage parts of
Speaker 2: the newsletter because people are really interested in the kind
Speaker 2: of personal element and the person that is providing them
Speaker 2: this information why they view things certain ways. And I
Speaker 2: try not to just make that section a little mini
Speaker 2: opinion piece. I try and address the arguments that we
Speaker 2: just laid out in the newsletter and talk about why
Speaker 2: so I'm resident with me and why they don't. And
Speaker 2: I go to it with, you know, just humility, with
Speaker 2: the acknowledgement that my position is not the right one
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to learn and figure out what i believe,
Speaker 2: just like a lot of Americans are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the key, is intellectual humility. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I find so remarkable about your
Speaker 1: newsletter is first of all, you present the what the
Speaker 1: left is saying, what the right is thing. Even within
Speaker 1: those there are different voices representing different points of view.
Speaker 1: Then you tell your opinion. But the important part is
Speaker 1: then you say, look, I'm really aware, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: see my own blind spots, and so next week I'm
Speaker 1: going to write from the opposite point of view. I'm
Speaker 1: going to stealman the other point of view and represent
Speaker 1: that and try to see my own blind spots, and
Speaker 1: that is so rare, and I'm still I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what makes you do that? And why isn't
Speaker 1: everybody trying to do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean I, first of all,
Speaker 2: from a personal perspective, I find that exercise exhilarating. I mean,
Speaker 2: I genuinely find it really interesting and fun, and it
Speaker 2: excites me to challenge myself that way, and it excites
Speaker 2: me to see people write in and make an argument
Speaker 2: I haven't thought of. I think I have a curious disposition,
Speaker 2: and I'm open minded, and I'm speaking publicly about issues
Speaker 2: that I really care about, and so I want to
Speaker 2: get them right. So the idea that I can go
Speaker 2: back and read an article I wrote a few weeks
Speaker 2: ago and then write an entire opinion piece criticizing the
Speaker 2: thing I just wrote that exercise for me is actually
Speaker 2: really fun and rewarding. But I'll say candidly that I
Speaker 2: wasn't always like that, and it wasn't always easy for
Speaker 2: me to do that. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: made it easy was the actual exercise of doing the
Speaker 2: newsletter every day, and that is created in me, you know,
Speaker 2: like a muscle that I think I've trained the same
Speaker 2: way I trained muscles going to the gym, where I
Speaker 2: have taught myself that it's okay, it's okay to just
Speaker 2: like step out of my own belief step out of
Speaker 2: my own viewpoint, and try and put myself in another
Speaker 2: person's perspective or put myself in another person's you know,
Speaker 2: ideological framework, and explore that a bit and think along
Speaker 2: those lines and play with it and going there. It's
Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of people feel like
Speaker 2: they can't go do that because if they do, they'll
Speaker 2: never return to their core self or their values. And
Speaker 2: it's not true. You can sit down at your computer
Speaker 2: and write a five hundred word piece making an argument
Speaker 2: for a position you don't believe, just to see what
Speaker 2: it feels like and what comes out of you and
Speaker 2: what positions come up and what ideas come up. And
Speaker 2: then you can delete it and never publish it or
Speaker 2: do anything with it, or you can show it to
Speaker 2: people and try and get feedback on it. And that
Speaker 2: exercise doesn't change who you are fundamentally. It just makes
Speaker 2: you a little more open minded. I think teaches you
Speaker 2: to empathize with people who maybe you disagree, and I
Speaker 2: was fortunate enough that I did that publicly through Tangle
Speaker 2: with a community of readers who are interested in that,
Speaker 2: and they gave me a lot of positive reinforcement for it.
Speaker 2: You know, Like we published a piece today where I
Speaker 2: took the position that Israel should not have it like,
Speaker 2: not engage in a ceasefire in Gaza, which is not
Speaker 2: a position I believe. I've been writing a lot about
Speaker 2: how I want Israel to make a ceasefire deal, and
Speaker 2: I said today I'm going to step out of that
Speaker 2: view and try and articulate the best arguments against my position.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've read fifty emails that have come
Speaker 2: in in the last hour and a half since we
Speaker 2: published that piece, and forty eight of them have been positive.
Speaker 2: You know. They are people saying, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for doing this. I know you don't totally believe all
Speaker 2: these things, but it's so fascinating to watch you go
Speaker 2: through this process, and it's helping me better understand the conflict,
Speaker 2: and getting that positive reinforcement makes me want to do
Speaker 2: it more. So I'm very lucky in that sense, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm getting some of that feedback that it's
Speaker 2: clear people are interested in this kind of.
Speaker 1: Thing, and when you do this, I know you try
Speaker 1: to be really careful to make sure that you're bringing
Speaker 1: readers in and you're not stopping anybody at the door
Speaker 1: from wanting to come in, and so you're careful about
Speaker 1: language and the language choices you make.
Speaker 2: So tell us about that. Yeah, sure, you know. This
Speaker 2: is something that I care a lot about because what
Speaker 2: I've learned over time from doing this is it's often
Speaker 2: not the content of the argument that sends people scurrying
Speaker 2: away from you know, your perspective or your writing. It's
Speaker 2: the language that you're using to sort of communicate it.
Speaker 2: And so one of the classic examples that I give
Speaker 2: that I think is really relevant in the media space
Speaker 2: is the ways in which we talk about illegal immigration
Speaker 2: in the United States. Anybody can go do this right now.
Speaker 2: If you go to funews dot com and look up
Speaker 2: a story about, you know, President Biden's border policies, you'll
Speaker 2: see Fox News referring to legal aliens or illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2: And if you go to the New York Times and
Speaker 2: look up stories about Biden's border policies, you'll see them
Speaker 2: referring to undocumented immigrants and that language choice might seem
Speaker 2: not that important to somebody who is really a political junkie,
Speaker 2: but to people who really care about that issue, that
Speaker 2: those language choices matter a lot. And we found early
Speaker 2: on that people would write in and say, you know,
Speaker 2: I saw you refer to undocumented immigrants, and it's clear
Speaker 2: that you're on the left, so I've unsubscribed, And it's
Speaker 2: like they didn't even get to the arguments. They just
Speaker 2: saw that language choice, and to them, that's a tip
Speaker 2: that we are taking some ideological stance. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes we would do articles where we mixed it, where
Speaker 2: we do some undocumented and some illegal immigrants, and then
Speaker 2: you know, people on the left would write in and say, like,
Speaker 2: no person is a lead goal, you're dehumanizing immigrants. I
Speaker 2: thought I was getting something better than this. I've unsubscribed
Speaker 2: from the newsletter. And so we looked at our whole
Speaker 2: you know, vocabulary across the website and started thinking about
Speaker 2: ways in which we could find a little bit more
Speaker 2: neutral language that still articulated the thing we were trying
Speaker 2: to get across to our readers or listeners, so you know,
Speaker 2: on the question of immigration. Our solution to that was
Speaker 2: we refer to illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants as unauthorized migrants,
Speaker 2: which is actually the legal term that something like the
Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security will use to describe somebody who's
Speaker 2: coming to the country illegally. And we find that that
Speaker 2: doesn't offend the sensibilities at either side. It articulates exactly
Speaker 2: what we're trying to say, and it keeps people focus
Speaker 2: on the arguments we're presenting and not just the language
Speaker 2: choices we're making. And you know this is relevant for abortion,
Speaker 2: drug policy, every issue you can think of under the sun.
Speaker 2: There there are language choices like this that readers are
Speaker 2: really keen on, and it's a good way to kind
Speaker 2: of get people's barriers down and make it so you
Speaker 2: can communicate with them a little bit more openly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so glad you're really thinking about these trip
Speaker 1: wires and removing those so you can get everyone in
Speaker 1: to talk about these issues. So, as a neuroscientist, what
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in is how we each have our
Speaker 1: internal model of the world and we believe our truths.
Speaker 1: We believe our models are complete, and we have those
Speaker 1: From your point of view, why do you think it's
Speaker 1: so difficult for people to see both sides of an issue,
Speaker 1: or usually more than two sides, all sides of an issue.
Speaker 1: Why is that such a challenge for people generally?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I don't this is probably closer
Speaker 2: to your expertise than mine, to be frank, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to, you know, step out of my lane here.
Speaker 2: But from what I understand from reading a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, people like Jonathan Haate who write a lot
Speaker 2: about the way our brains work, and you know, the
Speaker 2: competing things that happened and reasoning, what we know is that,
Speaker 2: you know, use is the analogy of the elephant and
Speaker 2: the rider, that our emotional response is like this ninety
Speaker 2: percent part of our brain, this kind of instinctive response
Speaker 2: we have to certain ideas to certain politicians or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. That's the elephant, and then there's the rider,
Speaker 2: that's the ten percent logic reason that's trying to control
Speaker 2: this emotional thing. But sometimes we've lost the battle before
Speaker 2: we even you begin. There's tons of super interesting political,
Speaker 2: you know, poly sized studies about this stuff. Like, for instance,
Speaker 2: one of the things that I've read about is a
Speaker 2: study where people are shown the image of a politician
Speaker 2: for about three seconds, and then the image is removed.
Speaker 2: Then there's some the image of another politician for about
Speaker 2: three seconds. The image is removed, and then they're asked
Speaker 2: to vote on which politician they like more. And then
Speaker 2: they do the same experiment again with people where they
Speaker 2: show them these politicians and then they spend twenty minutes
Speaker 2: explaining the views and they do the same thing and
Speaker 2: the results are almost identical. And so what the researchers
Speaker 2: take away is that a lot of times people are
Speaker 2: making their minds up in a split second, just like
Speaker 2: literally based on how somebody looks, all the things they
Speaker 2: can assume about them, just based on their appearance and
Speaker 2: what they look like, and that by the time they
Speaker 2: get to know their actual views and policies, you're only
Speaker 2: moving like ten percent of the population. Kind of a
Speaker 2: scary thought, right, I mean, really like whoa. But it's
Speaker 2: reflective of the fact that we are a tribal species,
Speaker 2: you know, like there are people that we've interacted with,
Speaker 2: there are people that we've spent our lives growing up with,
Speaker 2: people that feel foreign, are different from us, and when
Speaker 2: push comes to shove, those kind of like instinctual based
Speaker 2: lizard brain type responses do a lot of the driving.
Speaker 2: And you know, to the point I was making earlier,
Speaker 2: I think it's a muscle you have to flex. It's
Speaker 2: something you have to be very intentional about to do.
Speaker 2: Everybody's capable of it. But I don't think it's something
Speaker 2: that comes totally organically to people to just you know,
Speaker 2: be open minded about the views or ideas or politicians
Speaker 2: or whoever they're considering. That's right.
Speaker 1: We all have a drive for certainty where we feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: look I know the truth, I know it's right and
Speaker 1: what's wrong here. Do people ever look at what you
Speaker 1: are doing and accuse you of being wishy washy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they do. That's something I get a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, the common accusation is, you know, both SiZ
Speaker 2: ism or what about ism or you know whatever else.
Speaker 2: And look, I get it if you're somebody who has
Speaker 2: a strong political view about an issue and you sign
Speaker 2: up for our newsletter or start listening to our podcast
Speaker 2: and you hear me talk about an issue and take
Speaker 2: a squishy stance on something where you know, sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: just say I actually don't know. I mean, I'll literally which,
Speaker 2: by the way, everybody should do a lot more. But
Speaker 2: I'll just say I don't you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: like I feel conflicted about this. I don't feel confident
Speaker 2: saying strongly that what my view is one way or
Speaker 2: the other. Here's why I feel conflicted, and I'm just
Speaker 2: not sure where I land on. You know, whether Congress
Speaker 2: should pass this bill or not. And people feel strongly
Speaker 2: about that issue, will you know, write in accusing me
Speaker 2: of being wishy washy or whatever else, and my response
Speaker 2: to them, like the standard response is I understand why
Speaker 2: you feel strongly about this issue, and I can see
Speaker 2: very clearly you know why this matters to you, what's
Speaker 2: important to you about it. If you were looking for
Speaker 2: somebody who's just going to give you something in black
Speaker 2: and white terms all the time, I'll tell you right
Speaker 2: now you're not going to get that here. And this
Speaker 2: isn't the news outlet for you. I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people doing that, and I hope you keep
Speaker 2: reading them and you keep engaging them and supporting them
Speaker 2: if you like their work. But to me, it seems
Speaker 2: like we are actually the place you should be spending
Speaker 2: some time with to get a little bit more of
Speaker 2: the gray. And that response oftentimes goes over well, sometimes
Speaker 2: it lands a little condescending or off putting or whatever,
Speaker 2: but oftentimes people are receptive to that and they're appreciative
Speaker 2: I took the time to write back or answer them somehow,
Speaker 2: and so I just try and you know, be authentic
Speaker 2: about what we're trying to do and who I am
Speaker 2: as a person. And people typically, you know, they reply
Speaker 2: positively when you just transparent and authentic and put a
Speaker 2: little effort in.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've been writing about and
Speaker 1: talking about in this podcast is the way that I
Speaker 1: possibly the only way that I see of trying to
Speaker 1: bring sides a little bit closer together is the complexification
Speaker 1: of allegiances, by which I mean understanding. Okay, well, look,
Speaker 1: you know I feel strongly about this issue and you
Speaker 1: feel the opposite about this. But you know, we actually
Speaker 1: have this in common, and we both like to surf,
Speaker 1: and we both like this kind of dog, and we
Speaker 1: both have children at the same elementary school, and we
Speaker 1: love the you know, activities there. And so when things
Speaker 1: get tangled like that, then people find it a little
Speaker 1: harder to completely dismiss the person and say you're my enemy.
Speaker 1: So I'm just curious, you know, your newsletter I think
Speaker 1: goes a long way to doing that. What would you
Speaker 1: see in terms of the ways that we can entangle
Speaker 1: the allegiances that people have in our society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I get a lot of emails that
Speaker 2: I think ask a really similar question in a different way,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, my niece is like a radical
Speaker 2: socialist and I don't know how to talk to her
Speaker 2: about politics. Or my neighbor is a diehard Trump supporter
Speaker 2: and he flies the Trump flag and it freaks me out,
Speaker 2: but you know, I want to learn more about him,
Speaker 2: and you know, do you have any advice about how
Speaker 2: to approach this the conversation or whatever? And you know,
Speaker 2: depending on the context, I think one of my common
Speaker 2: go to answers is just like, have you ever tried
Speaker 2: grabbing a six packup ear and ocking on their door
Speaker 2: and asking if they want to spend a little time together?
Speaker 2: I mean, genuinely, like, people are social creatures. We're typically curious,
Speaker 2: you know, we're typically peaceful if people approach them in
Speaker 2: a peaceful manner. And I don't think it's particularly dangerous
Speaker 2: to just try and go open a conversation with somebody
Speaker 2: who you recognize might feel really differently about your worldview.
Speaker 2: One rule that I have, I like a rule of
Speaker 2: engagement I have about doing that is just try your
Speaker 2: best to ask two or three questions before you make
Speaker 2: any statements. And so like, when I'm speaking to somebody
Speaker 2: who's somebody new and what will happen to me because
Speaker 2: of my work, and you know, someone might know me,
Speaker 2: or somebody a friend tells them that I write this
Speaker 2: politics podcast, they'll come over and just like start drilling
Speaker 2: me with political stuff immediately, you know, like spraying me
Speaker 2: with their opinions whatever it is, are peppering me with questions,
Speaker 2: and I my rule is just like, don't like get
Speaker 2: on your stool and start pontificating out of the gate.
Speaker 2: Do your best to ask like two or three questions,
Speaker 2: earnest questions, like real genuine questions, and hear the person,
Speaker 2: listen to them, pay attention to what they're saying, and
Speaker 2: just try to understand them a little bit better before
Speaker 2: you start trying to explain anything to them, or you know,
Speaker 2: convince them that your position's right. And that exercise to
Speaker 2: me has always you know, entangled me in some sort
Speaker 2: of societal fabric way where they'll say something or I'll
Speaker 2: hear something that they that they offer that makes me
Speaker 2: think of a friend or a relative, or you know,
Speaker 2: I recognize a little bit of who this person is
Speaker 2: or where they're from, and I can connect them to
Speaker 2: some other part of my life, and that makes me
Speaker 2: a little bit more empathetic to whatever else is coming
Speaker 2: out of their mouth, or maybe some positions they have
Speaker 2: that I find a boor or whatever it is. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, I think earnestly asking questions is genuinely you know,
Speaker 2: spending time with somebody trying to talk to them is
Speaker 2: a good strategy. And I know it sounds so cheesy
Speaker 2: and corny, and people can pretend it's not true, but
Speaker 2: it is really genuinely true that the vast majority of people,
Speaker 2: not just in the United States but all across the world,
Speaker 2: you know, they they care about their family, They care
Speaker 2: about safety and security and eating having food on their
Speaker 2: table and taking care of their kids, and you know,
Speaker 2: growing up in an environment that's kind of safe and
Speaker 2: boiling off some steam and having some fun and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody smiles and everybody laughs. Everybody can do that. Everybody
Speaker 2: has that capacity, and you can reach people who feel
Speaker 2: unreachable if you're you know, asking the right questions or
Speaker 2: coming into I think with a truly open minded posture.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what I preach and I think
Speaker 2: it's effective in my personal life.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about how to get this into the
Speaker 1: education system with high schoolers and college students? Plus what
Speaker 1: you mentioned before about the value of steel manning the
Speaker 1: other side's argument, if we could work this into our
Speaker 1: educational system and even this, you know, the simple thing
Speaker 1: of okay, ask two or three questions before you say
Speaker 1: your thing. How would you think about getting that in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one of my big goals for Tangle actually
Speaker 2: is to get more engagement at the high school and
Speaker 2: college level. I have a partnership with a poly side
Speaker 2: professor at Georgia State University who actually sells a digital
Speaker 2: poly side textbook, and Tangle is part of the textbook,
Speaker 2: so included in the textbook yard daily editions of Tangle
Speaker 2: every day, which is really cool. And we have teachers
Speaker 2: from all over the country who are high school teachers
Speaker 2: who are subscribers to the newsletter of the podcast and
Speaker 2: have written in and told me, you know, they're using
Speaker 2: editions that we've written about controversial issues as sort of
Speaker 2: jumping off points for their classes. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: really big problem. I think the education side of it
Speaker 2: and bringing kids up, you know, in an environ that
Speaker 2: teaches them to be a lot more open minded, and
Speaker 2: we need to do it at that age. I mean,
Speaker 2: the question you're asking, in my opinion is really the
Speaker 2: right question, is how do we get the next generation
Speaker 2: to a place where they're a lot more open minded
Speaker 2: and inquisitive and you know, tolerant of the other side
Speaker 2: or people who have different political views in them, because
Speaker 2: I think we're seeing a hardening right now. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think the really the really cynical part of me
Speaker 2: feels in some ways like, you know, the people who
Speaker 2: are in their fifties and sixties and seventies, they are
Speaker 2: not lost, but it's you know, it's like a euphemism
Speaker 2: that it's so hard to you know, teach an old
Speaker 2: dog nutrix. For a reason, it's it is, And we
Speaker 2: need to focus on, like the young people and our
Speaker 2: generation who are coming up next and are entering a
Speaker 2: society that is really black and white and really hard
Speaker 2: and really ideological right now and break them out of
Speaker 2: that because it's getting worse in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: And I think we have a small window to kind
Speaker 2: of course correct that. So I'm doing my best to
Speaker 2: you know, spread tangle to the masses, and I hope
Speaker 2: model some of this, you know, model the way that
Speaker 2: I want to see people go about this. But the
Speaker 2: more participants the better, and kind of spreading the word
Speaker 2: is really one of the only good ways to fight
Speaker 2: back against some of the stuff we're saying.
Speaker 1: Let me trill into that for one second, because I
Speaker 1: know that some people are of the opinion that the
Speaker 1: young people are the ones that it's hard to teach
Speaker 1: new tricks to and that as people mature and they gray,
Speaker 1: they think, well, you know, maybe this we've had I've
Speaker 1: seen more things now, I've known people with different opinions.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious that you mentioned fifty sixty seven year
Speaker 1: olds are the ones that are less plastic in their
Speaker 1: views and the young people are more plastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I mean, I guess I've
Speaker 2: heard that framing too, and haven't thought super deeply about
Speaker 2: the kind of counter to that. I would say. My
Speaker 2: perspective is folks who are older and have been around longer,
Speaker 2: I think have a better understanding of the complexity and
Speaker 2: the gray that exists between the black and white, but
Speaker 2: they're less willing to move out of whatever their positions are.
Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what I'm more articulating,
Speaker 2: is that, you know, if you're a sixty five year
Speaker 2: old and you're a lifelong Democratic voter and you know
Speaker 2: you think Trump is the worst thing you've ever seen
Speaker 2: in the history of US politics, I am way more
Speaker 2: skeptical that in the next fifteen years you're going to
Speaker 2: change your mind about that position than I am if
Speaker 2: you're a twenty year old college student who feels that way,
Speaker 2: and I know you're about to go through this next
Speaker 2: phase of your life and your world's going to change
Speaker 2: and your world's going to evolve, and you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's true. I think you make a great point
Speaker 2: that a lot of the longer you are around, I
Speaker 2: think the more you realize that the world is not
Speaker 2: black and white. But I think people also become more
Speaker 2: fixed in their positions and less willing to kind of
Speaker 2: have their mind changed by other people. And part of that,
Speaker 2: I think, part of what scares me I think about
Speaker 2: this moment right now in particular, is that we're in
Speaker 2: this weird kind of societal moment where a lot of
Speaker 2: younger Americans are entering a space where, you know, silence
Speaker 2: is complicity. There is a perception that if you are
Speaker 2: not tapped into or have a strong opinion about certain
Speaker 2: issues that our country is facing, that you are somehow,
Speaker 2: you know, part of the problem rather than somebody who's
Speaker 2: just ripe to become educated or learn more about an
Speaker 2: issue or whatever else it is. And so people feel
Speaker 2: really really compelled to take sides and sort of this
Speaker 2: blue versus red culture war that we have right now
Speaker 2: that I don't think has always existed the past. And
Speaker 2: so a lot of young people that I know and
Speaker 2: I'm seeing, you know, on college campuses across the country
Speaker 2: are jumping into issues, you know, headfirst in a way
Speaker 2: that I'm like, yes, you should care about this, you
Speaker 2: should be thinking about this, Like I love seeing this
Speaker 2: civic participation and whatever else it is. But they're doing
Speaker 2: it because it's it's almost like a social phenomenon. It's
Speaker 2: a community thing. It's not it's not necessarily like an
Speaker 2: educational thing that pushed them there or an interest in
Speaker 2: you know, going really deep on this topic and learning
Speaker 2: about all the complexities. It's like, oh, all my friends
Speaker 2: are doing this thing, or you know, all my friends
Speaker 2: have picked this side, and I feel like I need
Speaker 2: to go pick this side. And there's a really really strong,
Speaker 2: you know, social pressure, I think in part because of
Speaker 2: social media and just also how divided the rest of
Speaker 2: the country is. And I really want to get to
Speaker 2: those kids and try and just like teach them that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's okay to change your mind. It's okay
Speaker 2: to not have a position yet, it's okay to say
Speaker 2: you're still learning, and it's okay to feel really radically
Speaker 2: passionate about a certain issue if like you spent the
Speaker 2: requisite time to learn about it, and that that's kind
Speaker 2: of like what I'm hoping to get out there a
Speaker 2: little bit. And I think sort of the distinction I
Speaker 2: see between the older and younger generations.
Speaker 1: One more question. So you and I both think a
Speaker 1: lot about how to maintain curiosity and hopefully humility about
Speaker 1: our political opinions. But it's tough, right and you recently
Speaker 1: posted on x that things seem so fraud right now
Speaker 1: that sometimes you feel tempted just to run back to
Speaker 1: your side to people who agree with you and just
Speaker 1: quit talking about it and quit being out there in
Speaker 1: public advocating for curiosity and humility.
Speaker 2: So how do you stay strong on that?
Speaker 1: How do you stay somebody who says, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep trying to understand the different sides
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I pace myself, you know.
Speaker 2: I think one thing that's really important for someone who's
Speaker 2: in my line of work is that, you know, you
Speaker 2: can't spend ten hours with your head down just reading
Speaker 2: the news and watching you know, videos of what's happening
Speaker 2: in war zones across the world, or you know, congressional
Speaker 2: hearings or whatever else it is. You actually have to
Speaker 2: separate yourself from that and go live your day to
Speaker 2: day life and experience the world as it is right
Speaker 2: in front of you, to stay really grounded and to
Speaker 2: understand that, you know, not everything is what's happening on
Speaker 2: the kind of political fringes and whether it's in congress
Speaker 2: or in war zones or whatever else it is. So
Speaker 2: I try really hard to just like get some space
Speaker 2: from that and take breaks and live and experience, you know,
Speaker 2: the things that I'm talking about myself. And I also
Speaker 2: just think we are sort of programmed in a way
Speaker 2: to remember and focus on and emphasize the negative feedback
Speaker 2: we get and not necessarily the positive feedback we get.
Speaker 2: And I know in my work, when somebody writes in
Speaker 2: really critically or says something that's really sharp or biting
Speaker 2: about something I've said or my writing, that's the thing
Speaker 2: that I spend all day thinking about. It's not the
Speaker 2: email from somebody telling me your news source is like
Speaker 2: the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so
Speaker 2: glad to be a subscriber. And I could get ten
Speaker 2: of those emails and one of the kind of biting ones,
Speaker 2: and I'll think about the biting one the rest of
Speaker 2: the day, and I just dismissed the other ten. And
Speaker 2: so I've tried to be a lot more intentional about like,
Speaker 2: you know, focusing on the people who are standing up
Speaker 2: and clapping and saying we want more of this, like
Speaker 2: this is what I've been looking for, and remembering that
Speaker 2: like those people are relying on folks like me to
Speaker 2: kind of step into the fray. And you know, as
Speaker 2: I like to say, like I'm going to war with
Speaker 2: partisan news, like that's the battle that I have is
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of people out there who are
Speaker 2: intentionally turning the temperature up when they don't need to.
Speaker 2: That's going to happen organically. We don't need to manufacture that.
Speaker 2: But they're doing it on purpose, and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: fight against those people. That's sort of my quote unquote
Speaker 2: enemy is the people who are trying to turn the
Speaker 2: temperature up. And I just want people to be more
Speaker 2: informed and have a more holistic view of things. And
Speaker 2: when I feel that exhaustion, I just like step away,
Speaker 2: give myself a little bit of a break, and then
Speaker 2: try and focus on and remember the people who are
Speaker 2: I know are like rooting for us and rooting for
Speaker 2: me and rooting for my company, and want what we're
Speaker 2: doing to kind of prevail, and hope that they just
Speaker 2: stick around and keep supporting us.
Speaker 1: Well, keep up the strong work, Isaac. There are many
Speaker 1: of us who are rooting for you, and we thank
Speaker 1: you a lot.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate that man.
Speaker 1: That was my interview with Isaac Soahl from Tangle. I
Speaker 1: highly recommend his newsletter, which is one of the few outlets,
Speaker 1: along with some others that I list in my show notes,
Speaker 1: that operates at a different level of curious intelligence. It
Speaker 1: doesn't simply plug into our limbic systems to get us
Speaker 1: angry and verify that we're right and those others are wrong.
Speaker 1: But instead this pushes us into the prefrontal cortex, forcing
Speaker 1: us to think about multiple points of view. One does
Speaker 1: not have to agree with the other points of view,
Speaker 1: and one may still feel dismissive towards them, but at
Speaker 1: least one sees that reasonable people can hold different points
Speaker 1: of view, can wrestle internally with deeply uncomfortable issues, can
Speaker 1: even feel lost and confused about issues. Rather than pretending
Speaker 1: that everything is black and white, this sort of approach
Speaker 1: values a wide embrace of society rather than dismissing half
Speaker 1: the population. If we have any hopes of retrieving a
Speaker 1: more communicative and less polarized world, it's only going to
Speaker 1: be having a willingness to expand our viewpoint just a
Speaker 1: little bit, to not assume that everything is our way
Speaker 1: or the highway, and to force ourselves at all moments
Speaker 1: to see and celebrate our common humanity.
Speaker 2: Go to Eagleman dot.
Speaker 1: Com slash podcast for more information and to find further reading.
Speaker 1: Send me an email at podcast at eagleman dot com
Speaker 1: with any questions or discussion, and check out and subscribe
Speaker 1: to Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each episode
Speaker 1: and to leave comments until next time. I'm David Eagleman
Speaker 1: and this is Inner Cosmos.