WEBVTT - Ep60 "Can we think better by wrestling with conflicting ideas?" 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:09.000 Why do we all believe our own truths so strongly? 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:12.240 And is there any possibility that we can at least 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:17.000 see other points of view? What is steel manning and 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.360 why is it so important? What does any of this 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.000 have to do with f Scott Fitzgerald or John Keats 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:29.600 or the future of our society? Welcome to Inner Cosmos 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.880 with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.280 at Stanford, and in these episodes we come from the 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.760 perspective of the brain to understand why and how our 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:53.120 lives look the way they do. Today's episode is about 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.160 something that I've talked about on here before, which is 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:02.280 the extreme and seemingly growing rization that characterizes much of 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.039 our society at this moment, and I'm interested in it 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.280 from the point of view of neuroscience. I'm not banging 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.000 on about any particular political position here. What I'm interested 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:16.520 in is how we come to form our truths and 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.280 why we each believe in them so strongly. For all 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.440 of us, with whatever political issue, our intuition usually is 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.920 to say, well, I know that I'm correct about this, 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.280 but the important part to point out is that, depending 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.039 on the issue, roughly half of the society has a 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.560 different point of view than you do, and on almost 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.520 any hot button political issue, you'll find that the people 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.520 on the other side of the issue have exactly the 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:48.320 same dedication and passion that you do, the same absolute 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.480 belief that they are right and that you are misinformed. Generally, 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.360 it's hard to see this with politics, and I don't 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:57.240 want to ruffle any feathers here, but I just want 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.160 to point out that it's often easier to see this 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.520 with something like religion, whatever deity you were brought up with. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.120 You tend to think, okay, well, I know that's right, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.840 and I know that the other two thousand religions on 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.720 this planet are all diluted and incorrect. But of course 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.560 each of those people is looking at you and thinking 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.480 exactly the same thing. The way the atheist community sometimes 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.720 phrases this is we are all atheists. I just believe 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.160 in one fewer God than you do. And it's always 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.920 a worthwhile exercise to think about what your beliefs would 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.639 be if you happened to be born into a different religion, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.680 Let's say, on a different spot on the globe, where 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.160 everyone that you cared about, your mentors, your hero is 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.720 your relatives all believed in that deity. So ask yourself, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.720 what would be your worldview? Now, if there were a 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.520 single truth about which deity is correct, you might expect 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.880 that that would spread everywhere equally. So you'd look for 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:02.280 evidence of a grassroots takeover of Ottestanism in Mecca, or 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.240 maybe a blossoming of Islam in North Dakota. But that's 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.560 not what we see. We all take whatever our culture 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.079 pours into our nervous systems. Now, I use this as 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.880 an example only to illustrate that it's easy to recognize 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.800 that there are many points of view on things that 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.480 we feel our fundamental truths, and for better or worse, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.639 people can hold these truths with absolute conviction and take 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.920 up arms over this stuff, and we might be able 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.720 to get ourselves to a point of realizing that if 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.280 you were brought up in a different place, you might 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:40.160 have a different point of view. Okay, now you've heard 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.880 me talk about on other episodes. Is that the brain 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.120 is locked in silence and darkness inside your skull and 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.320 its whole life. It's just trying to make a model 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.520 of the world out there. We slide into the world 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.880 half baked, and we each experience a very thin trajectory 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.360 in this world. We're born in a particular spot at 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.360 a particular moment in time, and we have a handful 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.480 of experiences that shape our view, and the massive flexibility 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.480 of the human brain, what's called brain plasticity, is what 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:18.120 allows us to absorb our local experiences and shape our model. 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.840 So we each end up with an idiosyncratic model about 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.200 what makes sense. But the interesting thing is that our 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.960 human brains are generally terrible at seeing outside of their 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.039 own walls. We generally believe that our view of the 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.800 world is the correct view, and we're typically likely to 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.520 think that anyone who votes differently than we do is 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.640 a real problem because they are misinformed or stubborn, or 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.320 at the extreme, they're simply evil. So we have limited 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.760 internal models combined with a sense that we know the truth. 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.159 This is just the way that brains work, and for 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.320 much more detailedness, please listen to some of my previous episodes, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.480 which I've linked in the show notes on Eagleman dot 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.000 com slash podcast. Now, one of the things that's been 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.960 hard to miss is watching millions of humans on both 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.640 sides of society doubling down and saying that they need 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.719 to protect our democracy, which is being threatened by the 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.080 other side. And part of what makes me feel dismayed 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.479 is that I have intelligent friends on both sides of 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.479 the aisle, and many of the people that I know 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.680 and love are truly unable to see the viewpoint of 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.800 the other side. People on both sides claim to have 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:40.520 logic on their side, and morality and the statistics, and 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.440 they feel certain that they're right and the other side 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.839 is wrong. And for that matter, a lot of people 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.239 feel certain that there even are clearly definable sides, even 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.840 though so much of political life on Earth's complexities in 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.000 which issues go with which. And again, what this comes 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.480 down to is the limitations of the internal model. Without 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.720 real effort, we have a difficult time putting ourselves at 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.960 other people's shoes. And it would be one thing if 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.719 only a few people had this other point of view. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.600 But in the case of current political upheaval, it's usually 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.320 the case that about half of the humans that you 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.560 spin with might be on the other side of some issues. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.919 So it's not just a few people with a wacky opinion. 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.480 We're talking about millions of people who genuinely feel differently 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.000 about some issue. Than you do. And the question is, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.120 is there a way for us to expand our internal 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.760 models to at least see their point of view, not 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.520 even agree with it, just understand what their perspective is 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.680 and why. Now we're all familiar with the problem that's 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.320 currently worsening our political discourse, which is we all tend 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.359 to seek out the people who agree with us, and 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.280 it's a self reinforcing loop such that we tend to 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:59.240 believe that most or all sane and reasonable people agree 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.400 with us. But the question for today is is there 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:07.240 any meaningful way that we could combat this tendency to 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.960 retreat into our own echo chambers and at least here 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.160 with the other side of the political issue is saying 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.640 and how they're feeling, and to appreciate the complexities and 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.440 diversity of opinions on the other side. There's a great 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.800 quotation from the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald who says, quote, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.400 the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.840 to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.840 time and still retain the ability to function. And the 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.280 poet John Keats, who was a believer in this concept 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.440 as well, he called this ability negative capability, which he 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:50.000 just meant as a person being capable of being in 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:55.640 uncertainties and mysteries and doubts. So there's some nodding to 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.320 this in the intellectual community, but we're not seeing a 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.240 great deal of this in the political media. This holding 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.480 two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, well 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.760 why not. I suspect there are at least two issues here. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.800 The first is that we all like to believe our 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.239 own truths in the second is that people often feel 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.520 that they will seem smarter and get more followers if 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.480 they take a hardline position and say I understand this 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.760 with crystal clarity, I have no doubts. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:23.600 Now. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.240 This is true for politicians and also for media outlets, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.920 which are rewarded for speaking the language that their constituents 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.480 want to hear. And of course we see on all 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.920 sides of the spectrum the media that say, look, we 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.600 only care to tell the truth. Everyone else might be 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.560 a liar or misdirected, but we're finally going to get 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.319 this right. We see this on all sides, and what 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.000 this represents is our certainty that we know the truth 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.240 and if we could just shout it loudly enough and 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.240 start our own website, then everyone would see the wisdom 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.360 of what we're saying and come to agree with us. 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:04.640 And you may know that I made a triptich of 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.120 episodes on this issue of the meaning of truth and 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.839 truth on the Internet and truth in media. Those were 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.520 episodes forty to forty two. And if you heard my 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.360 argument there, you'll know that I think this notion of 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.800 telling the truth in media is a lost cause because, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.600 with the exception of a very few factual issues, most 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.320 of telling a political story is interpretation, which is to say, 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.960 even putting aside the fog of war issues, the issue 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.760 of perspective determines which facts make it into your story 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.120 and which do not. So the question I want to 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:45.000 ask say is this, is there a different approach to 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.480 news telling? Is there a way to think about doing 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.239 this totally differently? And I think one of the cleverest approaches, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.200 which is attempted every once in a while, is to 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.000 build something that instead of trying to pick aside and 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.920 fight and die for it, but instead works to say, look, 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.520 there are multiple points of view here. Let's genuinely dig 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.720 into the complexity of the issues and try to see 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.400 if we can build a more multi dimensional understanding. Instead 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.760 of the typical approach of saying I have my team 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.400 and the other team is simply misinformed or misanthropic. And 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.600 one such attempt at making a site like this is 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.800 from a journalist named Isaac Sahl, who runs a newsletter 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:34.600 called Tangle. The idea of Tangle is to present different 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.800 sides of the same argument to understand something about the 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:42.080 complexities therein. It's not about saying both sides are right 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.240 and we're going to land in the middle. Instead, it's 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.440 about saying, wherever you might land, can you do this 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:53.080 with curiosity and intellectual humility and a meaningful level of 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:58.560 self education on the position rather than tribalism and assumption. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:04.240 Big fan of what sites like Tangle are working to do, 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.400 so I called up Tangles founder Isaac Sahl to talk 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:15.880 with him about this. Okay, Isaac, it's so great to 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.720 have you here. You run a newsletter called Tangle, which 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.040 I'm a giant fan of, and one of the things 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.200 that has struck me as amazing is that you tell 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.320 your readers if they disagree with you, not to throw 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:35.000 vitriol your way or or you know, unsubscribe, but to 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.240 tell you why they disagree and to make their argument 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.120 to you. So tell us about that, tell us about 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.559 Tangle and how you came to run a newsletter like that. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.760 Yeah, for sure. So first of all, thanks for having me. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.680 You know, I'm Stan of the show, glad to be here. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.000 It's been fun listening to you guys last few weeks. 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.720 You know, I have kind of two genesis stories. I'd 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.320 say the first one is just that I grew up 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.920 in a really politically divided place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:05.520 Bellweather County, Bellweather State. Obviously, Pennsylvania kind of goes where 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.800 the presidential election goes. So I just grew up around 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.680 a lot of people who had very different political views 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.120 than each other, and so I saw how those divides 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.600 manifested and also how people kind of talked through those 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.439 divides in real time. And have a lot of friends 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.440 and family people I love and care about who have 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.079 different political views, which I think just makes me a 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.840 little bit more open minded to them. And then the 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.439 second kind of genesis story was just being on the 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.400 inside of media organizations and kind of seeing how the 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.000 sausage was made. And it became very clear to me 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.600 early on that a lot of media organizations are catering 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.880 their content to their audience. You know, we have a 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.480 term for it now, audience capture. The idea that you know, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.200 an audience likes something, they like a certain tone or 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.960 a certain editorial slam, and so news organizations give them 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.960 more and more of that because they recognize that's what 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.280 the audience wants. And we've created a lot of echo 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.720 chambers and bias and you know, confirming people's preconceived notions. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.520 And when I decided to go out and start my 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.760 own media company, I was just looking at a blank 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.079 page and that was super exciting for me to think about, 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.720 how could I tear this whole thing down and start 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.199 from the beginning. And what are some of the ethos 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.400 that I would want a news organization to have. And 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.120 one of them is that I want us to be 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.800 really open minded and fair. Another is I want to 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.440 make sure we're representing people from across the political spectrum 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.840 and not just presenting people with arguments reviews that they 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.120 already believe. And the third is that I want my 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.559 audience to be involved in the conversation and the production 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.000 of the content and feel like their voice is heard 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.240 and feel like they can actually interact and learn from 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.320 the news and talk to me or our staff, or 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.720 have a space where they can kind of express themselves. 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.959 You know, I look at the comment section on Facebook 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.160 on an article, and a lot of people see, you know, 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:08.160 craziness and people spouting off and fighting, and it's always like, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.480 don't look at the comments section. And when I go 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.520 and do that, I see something that I think is 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.400 a gold mine for people who care about issues, people 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.600 who want to express themselves, people want to be involved 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.200 in the conversation, And so I try and invite those 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.320 people in a bit. And frankly, I learn a lot 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:26.560 from my readers when they write in and tell me 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.760 about why they view the world a certain way. It's 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.120 almost always illuminating. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.440 Now a lot of folks, especially in this moment in time, 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:39.280 seem less interested in instigating dialogue than in terminating it. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.880 So why do you think that is what's happening? And 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.440 do you feel that this time is different than previous eras? 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.920 Look, I mean, anybody who takes a dive into the 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.040 history of free speech will learn pretty quickly that what 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.160 we're living through right now is not a particularly unique thing. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:03.000 I think beach goes through expansions and contractions, and it 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.560 always has throughout you know, civil society. There were times 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.760 when the idea of a printing press was exactly the 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.560 same way we talk about you know, the internet today, 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.160 that this would be too big and too easy to 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.440 disseminate information, and we needed to limit this thing because 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.520 it was so scary that someone could write down their ideas, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.440 you know, print a thousand copies of them, and cover 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.680 a city in them, you know, in a matter of hours. 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.600 And we went through the same thing with the radio. 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:33.600 We went through the same thing with the Internet, and 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.760 it's something that's going to happen over and over again 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.080 throughout society. And I'm sure there's communication methods we haven't 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.040 even considered yet that are coming down the pike that 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.200 are going to make it a lot easier to you know, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.600 transmit thoughts or ideas and create all sorts of different issues. 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.320 And I don't want to downplay the idea that you know, 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:57.200 misinformation or bad information is a you know, a threat 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:02.720 to democracy or a threat to an informed populace. It is. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.160 There are certain things about it that are really problematic. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.840 The Internet has a lot of really dark corners, and 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:09.680 it's really easy for people to sort of sit in 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.160 their own echo chambers and be radicalized. I mean, there's 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.200 a plethora of evidence for that. But the way to 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:23.840 sort of address these issues is almost never to eliminate them, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.200 and oftentimes it's not even good to quarantine them, because 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.160 what you basically do is you just put people off 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.840 into their own silos. You put them into their own 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.040 little corners of the Internet where they're only interacting with 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.160 the people who agree with them, and it just pushes 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.720 them further into the fringe. And you know, there are 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.600 a lot of examples of this. I think the number 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.160 of people who have been quote unquote canceled or silenced 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.040 and the people who have done the cancelation or silencing 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.640 have gotten what they want is quite limited. You know, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.040 I could think of maybe two or three people who 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.000 have I'm like, oh, I forgot that person existed because 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.320 they got canceled or they got kicked off a platform 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.280 or whatever. Most of the time, what happens is like 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.119 what happened to somebody like Alex Jones, where you know, 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.520 he becomes a martyr by being silenced, and then he 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.040 builds his audience in his own space where nothing he 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.919 says or does gets challenged. And then you know, you 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.399 look at something like January sixth, and who's there standing 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.399 on the White House lawn on a table giving instructions 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.639 on a megaphone. It's Alex Jones with a bunch of 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.960 his supporters. And yeah, maybe we haven't seen him on 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.840 Twitter for five years, but guess what, he's still building 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.160 a massive audience, speaking to millions of people, and he's 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.959 just doing it in a space where his perspectives are 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.520 never getting challenged. So I think that's the kind of 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:43.160 illustration of why silencing these you know, quote unquote dangerous 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.479 people is a really dangerous thing to do, and why 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.360 I prefer to have the engagement and have it out 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.520 and let the audience sort of make up their minds. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.119 So I love your point of view and your approach 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.600 to this. Why do you think it's so rare? As in, 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.600 why are you one of the few people who's running 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:01.240 a site like this? 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.119 You know, it's a question I asked myself a lot, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:10.720 because when I started, I recognized that there was a 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:16.880 desire for this from people. But I also remember when 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.360 I first launched Tangle that I was not confident that 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.760 it was going to work. The idea that I was 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.960 going to bring a bunch of people from across the 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.199 political spectrum under one roof and convince them all to 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.000 trust me and to trust my news, and to trust 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.120 us as a place to provide them balanced perspectives. It 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.199 was really daunting. It seemed kind of unrealistic, and in 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.119 a lot of ways, I thought, this probably isn't going 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.119 to work, but it's worth trying. And I think most 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.280 people who are looking at the media as a business 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.560 understand that the best way to make money and the 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.120 best way to grow is to give people the red 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.040 meat that they want. You know, I mean the vast 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:03.080 majority of trash and viewers on a station like Fox 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.520 News or a website like the New York Times dot 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.639 com or whatever it is, they're political junkies. They are 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.960 people who are going back to that every single day. 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.080 You know, they represent maybe five or ten percent of 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.720 the population. And if you can capture that group and 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.119 keep them coming back day to day and keep giving 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.800 them what they want, keep giving them ammunition for their 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.760 arguments and their worldviews, that's a really good way to 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.760 build a subscription, you know, a subscriber base. It's a 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.880 really good way to build an audience for primetime television. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.600 It's a really good way to build an advertising business 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.359 that has consistent traffic and metricks. And so I think 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:39.280 there's a lot of business stuff happening in the media 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.879 space that's sort of influencing these things. I had a 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:48.240 vision for a subscriber supported news outlet where people were 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.040 coming to us because they trusted us, because they wanted 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.480 to understand the news better, because they wanted to get 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.160 out of their bubbles. And I thought we could sell 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.120 it to them if the content, you know, followed through 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.840 on the promise, and we've been able to do that. 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.159 But you know, I have one hundred thousand plus subscribers 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:07.320 on my newsletter, which is a huge number, and I'm 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.760 super proud of it. And five years ago, if you 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.320 told me that, I would have been really happy that 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.400 we hit this milestone. But two million people watch Fox 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.439 News every night, you know, The New York Times has 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.959 two million subscribers. That Huffing and Post still gets hundreds 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.399 of thousand of hits a day. So there's a lot 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.000 of people who are competing with that make us look 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:30.280 like a small fish still. But I think that, you know, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.800 we're a growing movement of people who are interested in 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.800 stepping into this kind of media ecosystem, and I hope 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:37.640 it keeps growling. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.120 So I just want to touch on this issue about 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.320 the extremes about you said maybe five percent of the 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.800 people are going for the extreme things. That leaves a 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:04.920 lot of people somewhere in the middle. And so what 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.639 opportunities do they have, for example, from the point of 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.640 view of candidates. You know, we have a system that 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:15.240 tends to privilege people who take extreme positions, and so 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.199 what does this mean for our political system? 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.240 I had nothing great. It's not I would say the 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.080 news is not super optimistic in that sense. You know. 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.560 I got the chance to interview a guy named Hiram 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.119 Lewis who co authored a book called The Myth of 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.879 the Lefts and the Right. Really fascinating guy who talks about, 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.879 you know, basically, we're not operating around a left and 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.600 right political orientation that is fixed and we're all moving. 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.760 Those political orientations are actually moving, and it's really just 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.560 tribal motivations and kind of tribal dynamics that are driving 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.679 what constitutes being a conservative or what constant's being in liberal. 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:57.720 And one of the things that he said to me. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.040 That has always stuck with me, which I really like 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:06.239 is most voters go to the voting booth, and what 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.639 they are doing effectively is like being a shop or 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:11.600 going to a grocery store where you're looking for a 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:13.320 bunch of things. You want to go pick out all 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.600 the things you want, and you get to the grocery 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.080 store and there's one card A that's just full of 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:21.760 half stuff you really want and half stuff you really don't, 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.119 and one car card B full of half stuff you 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.199 really want and half stuff you really don't. And you 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:27.960 just have to pick one of the carts, and you 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:29.959 pick the one with more stuff that you really like 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.399 and less stuff that you really don't. And that's what 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.320 most American voters you're doing. And I think it's true 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.840 of Democrats, and it's true of Republicans. And what's really 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.560 interesting about it is the dynamic we have in our 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.800 country right now is a lot of people who go 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.879 to the grocery store and pick cart A. Look at 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:50.640 people who go to the grocery store and pick cart 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.480 B and think you're totally insane. I can't believe you 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.320 would do that, like you're a nut. Even though there's 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:58.119 a bunch of stuff in card b they want to 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:00.760