Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. So
Speaker 1: today we have doctor Gleb c Porski on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Doctor c Porski is passionate about promoting truth, rational thinking,
Speaker 1: and why is decision making. He's a tenured truck professor
Speaker 1: at Ohio State, serves as the volunteer president of the
Speaker 1: nonprofit Intentional Insights. Is a co founder of the Pro
Speaker 1: Truth Pledge, and the author of a number of books,
Speaker 1: most notably the number one Amazon bestseller, The Truth Seeker's Handbook,
Speaker 1: a science based Guide. Gleb, so nice to chat with
Speaker 1: you today. Thanks so much, Scott. It's a pleasure so
Speaker 1: much to discuss. You really cover so many topics. As
Speaker 1: I was trying to prepare for this podcast today, I
Speaker 1: was wow, Like I didn't want to choose, but we
Speaker 1: have to exactly exactly. And do you have any advice
Speaker 1: to people who might be overwhelmed with too many options
Speaker 1: in life? Let me start with that question. Have you
Speaker 1: studied that at all or looked at that? Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a phenomenon as probably both of us now, called decision fatigue,
Speaker 1: where when we are faced by too many options, we
Speaker 1: get really tired. So what I strongly recommend that people
Speaker 1: do is look at the most important options, choose the
Speaker 1: top five most important decisions making criteria, then evaluate the
Speaker 1: most plausible options of those decisions making criteria, and look
Speaker 1: at the one that comes out on top. You'll usually
Speaker 1: have one that comes out on top pretty quickly. I
Speaker 1: assume that you walk the talk, right, so you practicely
Speaker 1: practice this in your daily life. Do you obviously you
Speaker 1: think of yourself as you're a truth seeker? Right? That's
Speaker 1: how you probably conceptualize yourself as well. And are you
Speaker 1: constantly changing your worldview based on new evidence that comes in?
Speaker 1: Like do you have a very flexible worldview? Absolutely? Oh?
Speaker 1: I tend to think of myself as having a relatively
Speaker 1: humble worldview rather than flexible, So I have relatively low
Speaker 1: certainty on a number of things that people have high
Speaker 1: certainty about that. People tend to have high certainty about
Speaker 1: So it's quite easy for me to change my worldview
Speaker 1: because I take a quite humble, deliberately humble position, because
Speaker 1: we as human beings tend to be very overconfident about
Speaker 1: our knowledge, and I don't want to fall into that
Speaker 1: trap myself. I love that so humility. So let me
Speaker 1: ask this question, why do humans us messy humans tend
Speaker 1: to flinch from the truth. It's almost like we have
Speaker 1: a build in aversion to it. We do from the
Speaker 1: perspective of what our minds are adapted to. Our minds
Speaker 1: are adapted to the savannah environment. They're not adapted to
Speaker 1: the current modern, contemporary environment. And in the savannah environment,
Speaker 1: it really was not very important for us to have
Speaker 1: the truth in order to survive. So we are not
Speaker 1: adapted and we're not optimized for evaluating reality. Clearly, we're
Speaker 1: adapted for survival, so if we want to fit, it's
Speaker 1: much more important for us to fit along and conform
Speaker 1: to our tribe rather than get to the truth. So
Speaker 1: anything that goes against tribal impulses and intuitions would tend
Speaker 1: to cause us to go away from the truth. And
Speaker 1: anything that causes us to feel uncomfortable and threatened, and
Speaker 1: that's the fighter flight response, would cause us to go
Speaker 1: away from the truth. So both of those things, the
Speaker 1: fighter flight response, which is incredibly powerful, and tribalism, which
Speaker 1: is also incredibly powerful, both steer us away from the
Speaker 1: truth unless we very actively try to get over the
Speaker 1: fight or flight response and get over the tribal response.
Speaker 1: And that's hard, and most people choose not to do that.
Speaker 1: A lot of people intentionally choose not to do that
Speaker 1: because they think that they're right. I mean, they think
Speaker 1: that they have a moral sort of so that maybe right, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, you know, some people have a certain
Speaker 1: political opinion or value system and see it violated and
Speaker 1: get outraged. And I don't know, telling some people for
Speaker 1: them to maybe rely more on their rational faculties will
Speaker 1: actually just make them more mad. Right. Absolutely. There's a
Speaker 1: phenomen called the backfire effect, where when we are presented
Speaker 1: with information that goes against our beliefs, we often stick
Speaker 1: more strongly to our current beliefs, especially if it threatens
Speaker 1: our tribal sensibilities. So that's an example of what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Now. There are many problems that result from
Speaker 1: us striving to win as opposed to go toward the truth.
Speaker 1: Many people, if you give them a real choice, if
Speaker 1: you look at their behaviors, it's a phenomenon called revealed motivations.
Speaker 1: What are they really looking for? You'll find that they're
Speaker 1: not really looking for the truth. You'll find they're looking
Speaker 1: to win for whatever goal they are pursuing, for whatever
Speaker 1: value said that they're pursuing. They don't optimize for the truth.
Speaker 1: They optimize for winning. However, they interpret winning in any
Speaker 1: specific context, whether it's in a corporate setting, whether it's
Speaker 1: in a relationship setting or a political setting like you're
Speaker 1: talking about, is winning tied up with power? Yes, so
Speaker 1: it can be tied up with power. It can also
Speaker 1: be tied up with relationships. So, for example, if you
Speaker 1: perceive some people, to them relationships are the most important thing.
Speaker 1: For other people, power is more important. It depends what
Speaker 1: people are optimizing for. So often the tribal response, where
Speaker 1: people want to fit into their tribe. That's more the
Speaker 1: relationships are more important than individual power seeking. So interesting,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with the cartoon that they have two lines,
Speaker 1: one line for inconvenient truths and another line for comfortable
Speaker 1: lies two booths and the line which line is much
Speaker 1: much much longer. Yes, yes, I use that quite I
Speaker 1: use that curtain quite often in my public presentations. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an accurate and unfortunate statement about our society that
Speaker 1: we tend to prefer comfortable lies over uncomfortable truths. And
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, because of tribalism and because of
Speaker 1: the fight or flight response, we have to deliberately be
Speaker 1: educated and taught to go against our intuitions. Otherwise, unless
Speaker 1: we are deliberately taught and choose to put in the
Speaker 1: effort to go against our instincts, we will definitely choose
Speaker 1: the comfortable lies over inconvenient truths. So you know, your work,
Speaker 1: as I was reading it has some good, nice nuance,
Speaker 1: and you do talk about how we can go with
Speaker 1: our sometimes it's okay to go with our gut in
Speaker 1: everyday life, right, So you're not making a blanket statement
Speaker 1: that we should all become sparks, you know. Yes, Buck
Speaker 1: is actually a quite problematic figure because if you'll actually
Speaker 1: observe the show, if you look at the Star Trek,
Speaker 1: he does do things based on emotions without realizing it,
Speaker 1: as do most of us. So most of the people
Speaker 1: who perceive themselves as not having emotions actually are very
Speaker 1: strongly driven by emotions. An example, I was doing some
Speaker 1: consulting for an engineering firm of about two hundred people.
Speaker 1: I was talking to the hr vice president who brought
Speaker 1: me in to do the consulting, and I was talking
Speaker 1: to him about how to motivate engineers, and I asked him.
Speaker 1: I saw that he wasn't really using emotions to motivate
Speaker 1: engineers and said, hey, so, how are you integrating emotional
Speaker 1: motivation into getting engineers to do what you want? And
Speaker 1: he told me, Hey, what, engineers have emotions And I
Speaker 1: was like, yes, you know, they may not show it,
Speaker 1: but they're very emotional. They're emotionally driven. So you to
Speaker 1: think about emotions if you want to motivate them well
Speaker 1: to get what the firm wants done. So, what are
Speaker 1: some good examples of everyday life when we should rely
Speaker 1: on our gut in the jurious situations and situations or
Speaker 1: immediate danger. It's a good situation. It's a good situation
Speaker 1: to rely in our gut, partially because it resembles a
Speaker 1: savannah environment where the fight or flight response is going
Speaker 1: to be immediately present. You don't want to think too
Speaker 1: much when you're in the way of a moving truck.
Speaker 1: No thinking there, Just get out of the way of
Speaker 1: the truck. Or if you see something flying at you
Speaker 1: from the you know, from the corner of your eye,
Speaker 1: that's a good time to duck. So none need to
Speaker 1: think about that situation. That's one immediate danger. We face
Speaker 1: much less immediate danger than we intuitively think. We tend
Speaker 1: to make decisions way too quickly when we don't need to,
Speaker 1: so be careful when you're thinking about whether something is
Speaker 1: immediately dangerous. Your boss giving you constructive critical feedback is
Speaker 1: not a time to use your gut response. It might
Speaker 1: feel dangerous, but that's un actual physical danger. One actual
Speaker 1: physical danger. The second major one is with people who
Speaker 1: you know for a while, with whom you have close relationships,
Speaker 1: and that's the tribal response. With people you know in
Speaker 1: a tribal situation for quite a while, you can trust
Speaker 1: your gut intuitions about them. You shouldn't trust your gut
Speaker 1: intuitions about people you just met, because we tend to
Speaker 1: respond to people we just met as though they're from
Speaker 1: a hostile tribe. That's a really bad thing to do.
Speaker 1: In our modern contemporary world. But with people you know
Speaker 1: for a while, if you see something is off with them,
Speaker 1: if you feel something is off with them, if you're
Speaker 1: somewhat uncomfortable with them, then that's a good time to
Speaker 1: trust your gud. So those are two big areas where
Speaker 1: you can trust your guy. Wait, I want to understand
Speaker 1: that last one you said, because I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times I have felt something was all off
Speaker 1: with someone, but once I gave them a chance, or
Speaker 1: you know, I found out ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 1: time that either they were just having a bad day
Speaker 1: and particularly stressed, or some of them are just maybe
Speaker 1: we're just on the autism spectrum and like you know,
Speaker 1: just have a different way of seeing the world. And
Speaker 1: I just gave them a chance. You know, I realized
Speaker 1: that it was a lot more innocuous then maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of people would have just immediately dismissed them. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you think of that? So that's the key
Speaker 1: thing that if you know somebody well, that's why I
Speaker 1: was making that statement. Oh okay, okay, So if you
Speaker 1: know somebody well, then that's when you can trust your God.
Speaker 1: Relatively speaking, You're not always going to be correct. But
Speaker 1: if you know somebody well, you know, you'll you'll know
Speaker 1: that that person's on the autism spectrum and how you
Speaker 1: should relates. I see right, that's the tribal situation. We
Speaker 1: are adapted to read our tribal our tribe members sensations,
Speaker 1: feelings pretty well. That was really important for our survival
Speaker 1: in the savannah environment. So we are all the descendants
Speaker 1: of those who survived partially because they were able to
Speaker 1: be socially adapt within those environments. Now we are not
Speaker 1: well adapted to read new people, people from outside our tribe.
Speaker 1: We tend to assume hostile intent, whereas that's almost much
Speaker 1: rarer the case than we would tend to imagine it is.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point when you project onto our
Speaker 1: supposed enemy of our deepest fears. Yeah, yeah, boy. There's
Speaker 1: a phenomenon. There's a phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error,
Speaker 1: one of the coging to biases that results from us
Speaker 1: making where we tend to attribute people's behaviors to their personality,
Speaker 1: especially negative behaviors, rather than the context. And there the
Speaker 1: context is usually much more important. For example, when somebody
Speaker 1: cuts us off, you know, we tend to think, Oh,
Speaker 1: what a jerk that person cut us off. Now, when
Speaker 1: we cut somebody off because we fail to look in
Speaker 1: the mirror, we don't tend to think of ourselves, Oh
Speaker 1: I'm such a jerk. We just tend to give ourselves
Speaker 1: a pass. We're like, oh, oops, didn't look in the mirror.
Speaker 1: That's a classic example of where we tend to make
Speaker 1: mistakes about other people by attributing to the negative perceptions
Speaker 1: hostile intent where that's not at all intended. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: really like that. So how can are some tips of
Speaker 1: ways we can recognize these thinking errors to prevent us
Speaker 1: the errors that prevent us from seeing reality more clearly.
Speaker 1: The most important way the broad frameworks off for deductive
Speaker 1: thinkers who like broad frameworks is to notice whether this
Speaker 1: situation is similar to the savannah or not. Are you
Speaker 1: in a tribal relationship with this person, you have a
Speaker 1: close relationship with this person. If not be suspicious of
Speaker 1: your got to be suspicious of your intuitions, you'll be
Speaker 1: likely more hostile than you should. That's one. Now, if
Speaker 1: this person looks like you, has your cultural background, and
Speaker 1: looks like this person is a member of your child,
Speaker 1: you might actually have too much favorability, too much positivity
Speaker 1: toward this person in comparison to what you should. That's
Speaker 1: called the halo effect. So that's one thing. The other
Speaker 1: thing is to delay your decision making. We tend to
Speaker 1: make decisions way too quickly, and we need to very deliberately,
Speaker 1: to say, delay our decision making and think about what
Speaker 1: the decision we're making now. A third thing, just a
Speaker 1: very easy tip, is to make predictions about the future
Speaker 1: of your decisions. Predict what you anticipate the consequence to be,
Speaker 1: and see whether you're right or not, and then calibrate
Speaker 1: yourself based on these predictions. All of us have some
Speaker 1: kind of mental errors based on our personalities. So for example,
Speaker 1: I tend to be highly optimistic. I tend to think,
Speaker 1: you know, the future will be bright, the grass is
Speaker 1: green on the other side. My wife on the other side,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, tends to be highly pessimistics. She
Speaker 1: tends to think the future will be bleak, you know,
Speaker 1: the grass is yellow on the other side. Well, there
Speaker 1: isn't that true, right, just sure? Exactly So you need
Speaker 1: to learn. You need to learn where your cognitive biases
Speaker 1: are to which where you are biased. The kind of
Speaker 1: problems that you experience and making predictions about the future
Speaker 1: will help you calibrate yourself in the future and adjust
Speaker 1: for your personal biases. So is it possible to be perfect?
Speaker 1: It's never possible to be perfect, and that's not something
Speaker 1: we should ever strive for. We should strive to be better.
Speaker 1: We should always strive to be better than we were
Speaker 1: in the past. And that's definitely a chewable. Being perfect
Speaker 1: is not really chewable because it's too high of a
Speaker 1: standard and you just get depressed and sad and anxious
Speaker 1: trying to be perfect. Okay, it's okay to be It's
Speaker 1: still human to be biased every now and then. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's inhuman to not be biased like that.
Speaker 1: And we are inherently biased because we're not adapted for
Speaker 1: the modern world. The only thing we can do is
Speaker 1: work on ourselves to address these biases slowly over time
Speaker 1: and become slightly less biased over our period of time.
Speaker 1: That's great, So our friends the enemies of wise choices.
Speaker 1: Friends can definitely be the enemies of wise choices. To
Speaker 1: your friends wisely then, absolutely, because of this tribal phenomenon,
Speaker 1: we are deeply influenced by our tribe in positive ways.
Speaker 1: And negative ways. So for example, if we stop smoking,
Speaker 1: our spouse is about sixty percent more likely to stop smoking,
Speaker 1: and our close friends are about thirty percent more likely
Speaker 1: to stop smoking. The opposite applies if they start smoking,
Speaker 1: and so on. So that's the clear example, and that's
Speaker 1: a good study. That's a clear example. There have been
Speaker 1: many similar studies where this phenomenon called network effects is
Speaker 1: really influential for us, where it highly shapes us in
Speaker 1: ways that we don't understand and we don't notice. The
Speaker 1: people who we who we perceive as our tribe, really
Speaker 1: deeply influences. So that's why it's important to choose friends
Speaker 1: wisely and make good choices about who we interact with.
Speaker 1: That means letting go of some relationships that aren't healthy
Speaker 1: for us as we develop and grow over time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's easier said than done. Just letting you letting your
Speaker 1: friends go. It's like, okay, like setting them free. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's not. It's they can be tough. It can be tough,
Speaker 1: but you want to think about what's better for them
Speaker 1: and what's better for you. Are you good at that?
Speaker 1: Are you good at doing that? Like? Are you have
Speaker 1: you learned a tactful way of doing that a tactful
Speaker 1: way of letting friends go. Oh, I would you tell them?
Speaker 1: Do you tell them that you let them go? It's
Speaker 1: a good question of I tend to let it develop
Speaker 1: organically and naturally, depending on how and whether we find
Speaker 1: value in interacting with each other. And I generally tend
Speaker 1: to spend less time with those people with whom I
Speaker 1: find less value interacting. And that's just a healthy way
Speaker 1: of developing orienting over time in the future, spending less
Speaker 1: time with people whom you find less value with in
Speaker 1: interacting and who you want to be less like. So again,
Speaker 1: remembering that people who we are around and deeply shape us.
Speaker 1: That makes it really important for us to spend time
Speaker 1: with people that we want to be like, and not
Speaker 1: spend time with people who we don't want to be like. So,
Speaker 1: for example, a lot of us, a lot of people
Speaker 1: tend to spend time with those they knew from high
Speaker 1: school or college or something like that, and that's often
Speaker 1: a bad idea because those people tend to often not
Speaker 1: be the kind of people who want to be like
Speaker 1: in the future, I let go of the large majority
Speaker 1: of my high school connections that's not those people want
Speaker 1: right and most of my college connections for the same reason.
Speaker 1: Those not people I want to be like. So it's
Speaker 1: a very good choice as you go through life to
Speaker 1: choose who you want the people with whom you want
Speaker 1: to have your relationships. And that's talking about relationships. New
Speaker 1: Harbinger will really be upset if I don't plug my
Speaker 1: new book for them, which I'm writing on relationships and
Speaker 1: talking to biases. So fy everyone, So when will that
Speaker 1: be out? That will be out in March twenty twenty. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: that's exciting, and so the focus will be on relation
Speaker 1: on social relationships, yes, social relationships, of work relationships, community relationships,
Speaker 1: so all sorts of relationships, all the biases we have
Speaker 1: in relationships. What a neat conjunction of things, biases and relationships.
Speaker 1: I really like that. Well, I look forward to reading
Speaker 1: it and maybe you can come on again. Absolutely, I'd
Speaker 1: love it in twenty twenty. Twenty twenty is going to
Speaker 1: be an interesting year politically too, Yes, it will be.
Speaker 1: It will be. Let's talk about politics. Now you have
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff you've writ about it and
Speaker 1: I'm like looking forward to talking to you in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty about how about we have a chat like the
Speaker 1: day after the election. Sure, happy to do it. That'll
Speaker 1: be fair and we can kind of see how things
Speaker 1: movie have changed. So here's some questions. What's the worst
Speaker 1: problem in politics? I'm just going to straight up ask
Speaker 1: you this, Gosh, the workst problem is irrationality. People are
Speaker 1: deeply irrational about their decision making. They make choices based
Speaker 1: on their god reactions, like we talked about the tribal
Speaker 1: responses and the fight or flight response, rather than making
Speaker 1: choices based on what's good for themselves and what's good
Speaker 1: for their country in the long term. So they are
Speaker 1: not seeing the truth of reality and making really bad
Speaker 1: choices that really harm them and people around them in
Speaker 1: the long term. And that's really dangerous for our future
Speaker 1: as a country. And it's causing right now as we
Speaker 1: see from the current political climate. It's causing not something
Speaker 1: increasing polorization, but fundamentally undermining the institutions that have made
Speaker 1: America great in the past. America has been great at
Speaker 1: one point. Yes, America was definitely source of light and
Speaker 1: leadership for democracy, freedom of the press, freedom of expression
Speaker 1: in the world in the past. Not so much now, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: big unfortunate. Yeah, so you know, let's talk about a
Speaker 1: future with Trump. You know, we don't tend to talk
Speaker 1: about the politics on the Psychology podcast, but I think
Speaker 1: we can keep this conversation actually a political analytical you know,
Speaker 1: you say with Trump, you say that there's a kind
Speaker 1: of a distinction. We need to embrace truth first. Comfort
Speaker 1: is that, right? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: So for people who are supporting Trump or people who
Speaker 1: are opposing Trump, it's important to establish and evaluate the
Speaker 1: distinction between what's comfortable and what's accurate. So, for example,
Speaker 1: a lot of people might who support who don't support Trump,
Speaker 1: who oppose Trump, might not like to hear the economy
Speaker 1: is doing really surprisingly well for many of them under Trump.
Speaker 1: But it's an accurate and truthful statement that you can
Speaker 1: look at the data and see that, Okay, the economy
Speaker 1: is doing really really well Trump. Now, people who support
Speaker 1: Trump might not like to hear that he makes a
Speaker 1: lot of false statements. He makes a lot of deceptive
Speaker 1: statements that are very clearly deceptive. Lots of people, Republicans themselves,
Speaker 1: say that he makes a lot of deceptive statements, and
Speaker 1: that really hurts the country. The credibility that the Office
Speaker 1: of the presidency has the credibility that the United States
Speaker 1: has in the eyes of the world as a whole
Speaker 1: has greatly decreased, and that is visible through polling and
Speaker 1: through a lot of social science mechanism where you can
Speaker 1: effectively clearly recognize that that's what's happening, and that's undermining
Speaker 1: the institutions of the country. The things that we talked
Speaker 1: about has made America great in the past in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the world. So you might support Trump and
Speaker 1: at the same time recognize the truth of this is
Speaker 1: happening right now. So this is an important way to
Speaker 1: make a distinction between regardless of how you feel about Trump,
Speaker 1: you can recognize if you don't like him, that there's
Speaker 1: some things that are going on in the country that
Speaker 1: are positive, and if you do like him, you can
Speaker 1: recognize that there are something going on in the country
Speaker 1: and the world that are negative. You know, you're talking
Speaker 1: about this so objectively, like kind of like a computer
Speaker 1: who's analyzing things from from afar, Like do you personally
Speaker 1: have any political convictions or do you just really like
Speaker 1: thinking about everything really gets objective. Personally have very strong
Speaker 1: political connections and I vote and yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I have very strong feelings. I can also very clearly
Speaker 1: differentiate between the truth and my personal values really two
Speaker 1: different things. Oh, that's really it's a truly interesting distinction.
Speaker 1: So you can hold all things in your I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a sign. That's a sign of intelligence, I would
Speaker 1: say to be able to No, seriously, that's that. That's
Speaker 1: not easy. It's not easy to hold both in working memory,
Speaker 1: especially when they're inconsistent. Yes, it is very it is
Speaker 1: very hard, you know. And whether I support Trump or
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about whether I do or don't, sure,
Speaker 1: but both I made both points earlier that you couldn't have,
Speaker 1: you know, support Trump and still believe that there are
Speaker 1: some problems and oppose Trump and still believe that there
Speaker 1: are some benefits. And that's the number of That is
Speaker 1: something that we all should strive for in order to
Speaker 1: be truth seekers, to be able to recognize that there's
Speaker 1: a difference between personal values and the truth of reality.
Speaker 1: That's a very fundamental way that we should be as
Speaker 1: real citizens of the country who recognize what is best
Speaker 1: for the country, what is best for our society as
Speaker 1: a whole, rather than a partisan position, what's best for
Speaker 1: an ideology or our tribe. I mean, in an ideal world,
Speaker 1: our values would be extraordinarily truthful, they'd be all everything
Speaker 1: would be aligned. Truth, goodness, and beauty would be one. Oh,
Speaker 1: I actually disagree with you, Scott. I think that that's
Speaker 1: not a world that can be possible, always possible, that
Speaker 1: an ideal world. That doesn't mean there are things that
Speaker 1: are separate from truth. So, for example, do you you
Speaker 1: know one can value family values you know traditional family,
Speaker 1: or one can value gay marriage. Those are not about truths.
Speaker 1: Those are about values. What do you value? You can
Speaker 1: value this or you can value that. Now you can
Speaker 1: also observe that children who grow up in gay families
Speaker 1: turn out really well according to the social science research,
Speaker 1: So that's an accurate statement according to the research. Doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether you support traditional families or whether you support
Speaker 1: or whether your for gay families or not. You can
Speaker 1: also say, looking at family research, that children who grow
Speaker 1: up in single parent homes don't do so well. And
Speaker 1: that's another sort of statement that you can say. According
Speaker 1: to the social science that psychology research, that's what happens.
Speaker 1: Single parent homes tend to be worse than homes with
Speaker 1: gay parents with two parents of the same sex, of
Speaker 1: the same genre. So that's a that's another sort of
Speaker 1: statement you can make and say, this is backed by
Speaker 1: the research. I can I can personally approve appreciate traditional families,
Speaker 1: or I can appreciate gay families. But this is all
Speaker 1: what the science says. So we can separately hold value
Speaker 1: positions and separately hold truthfulness position. Where do you get
Speaker 1: how do you derive your values personally? Gosh, my personal
Speaker 1: valuest Oh that's part of for me personally, and for
Speaker 1: everyone that comes from their background, their culture, personality, their temperamire.
Speaker 1: I mean a bunch of this is genetic, as you
Speaker 1: know that our genes determine a significant subset of our values.
Speaker 1: So for example, people who have a strong repulsive response
Speaker 1: tend to be more likely to be conservative, and people
Speaker 1: response repulsion discuss Yeah, yeah, Jonathan's research, Yep, exactly so,
Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of other stuff. So a lot
Speaker 1: of this is genetic, maybe about forty to fifty to
Speaker 1: sixty percent is genetic. A lot of it is about
Speaker 1: our personal experience and so on, and values are not
Speaker 1: about truth. It's just what we hold as a value,
Speaker 1: our personal ideology that's separate from what is the fact
Speaker 1: about reality. I think that you're you're abnormal in the
Speaker 1: sense that I do think that most people. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do mean that as a compliment obviously, but I think
Speaker 1: most people do not have that capacity or the inclination
Speaker 1: to hold those things separate in their working memory. And
Speaker 1: I think that, and maybe it's this is a problem.
Speaker 1: It seems to me like most people automatically equate their
Speaker 1: value system with the universal truth, which is what gets
Speaker 1: us into these kind of tribal wars. Would you agree
Speaker 1: with that? You're absolutely right? And what research of the
Speaker 1: topics shows is that the more education someone has, especially
Speaker 1: in the liberal arts, the more capable they are of
Speaker 1: holding a difference between values and truths. So people who
Speaker 1: are more educated tend to be more capable of this.
Speaker 1: It's a matter in other words, of education. As we
Speaker 1: talked about before at the beginning of the program, the
Speaker 1: difference between tribalism. You can be tribal and that tends
Speaker 1: to oververwhelm truthfulness, and fight or flight response also tends
Speaker 1: to overwhelm truthfulness. However, education training in critical thinking, this
Speaker 1: is what critical thinking is about. Rational thinking, evaluation of
Speaker 1: reality can help us overcome these things and This is
Speaker 1: crucial for us, not simply in political settings, but let's
Speaker 1: say in personal company, corporate settings. If we are not
Speaker 1: able to overcome our impulses, will make really bad decisions
Speaker 1: for in business settings. That's a clear example. If we're
Speaker 1: not able to There's a reason so many people lose
Speaker 1: money in the stock market because they sell they sell
Speaker 1: low and buy whereas experienced investors know that they should
Speaker 1: sell high and buy low. Oh, it's a really hard
Speaker 1: thing to do, which is why most people aren't able
Speaker 1: to make money in the stock market. We can go
Speaker 1: into a number of other examples where not being oriented
Speaker 1: toward overcoming your gut reactions harms you in life in
Speaker 1: very many ways. Also, you talk about, you know how
Speaker 1: we can stop losing money and invest wisely. Yes, So
Speaker 1: we can stop losing money and invest wisely by not
Speaker 1: trusting our intuitions. That's a really important one. So we
Speaker 1: can invest. We can invest wisely by thinking about where
Speaker 1: do we by thinking about the difference between ETFs and stocks.
Speaker 1: We talked about selling low versus selling high. That's a
Speaker 1: clear one. Now, a good way of making stock investments
Speaker 1: is to invest in the broad stock market and especially
Speaker 1: into exchange traded funds. So that's what I talk about
Speaker 1: the article. Look for exchange traded funds which include a
Speaker 1: lot of stocks, not simply one stock which can go
Speaker 1: up or down. For example, if you are recently invested
Speaker 1: in the mattress firm, you'd be wiped out, mostly because
Speaker 1: it's mattress from one bank. Not only that, but I
Speaker 1: had a mattress from bed and when I saw they're
Speaker 1: about to go bankrupt, I returned it before they went bankrupt,
Speaker 1: and I'd never be able to ever get a warranty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great idea. Absolutely, So that's an example. You don't want
Speaker 1: to be invested in one stock. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be invested in a mutual fund. Here's why many people
Speaker 1: are invested in mutual funds, and that's a big problem.
Speaker 1: Let me explain why mutual funds are actively traded by
Speaker 1: stock traders who say, hey, we are we have made
Speaker 1: a lot of money in the past. You should trust us,
Speaker 1: you should go with us. Well, let's let's have a
Speaker 1: thought experiment. Let's think that there are a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: Let's imagine there one hundred thousand stock traders and they're
Speaker 1: trading just purely based on luck. fIF fifty percent down.
Speaker 1: So in one year, you'll have fifty thousand stock who
Speaker 1: have had a good year and fifty thousand who had
Speaker 1: a bad year. In another year, of those who had
Speaker 1: a good year, the fifty thousand, you'll have twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand who had a good year and twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: who had a bad year. Now fast forward to ten years,
Speaker 1: you'll have fifty remaining who had a decade of good years.
Speaker 1: They simply in luck alone. Now what will happen. Those
Speaker 1: will be the gurus of the new stock market. They'll
Speaker 1: be appearing on CNBC, Fox Business, in company Wall Street
Speaker 1: journals saying these are the people you should go with,
Speaker 1: and they just succeeded based on luck alone. So you'll
Speaker 1: be giving them your money and next year you'll have
Speaker 1: a completely blind chance of luck whether you'll be your
Speaker 1: money will be up and your money will be down,
Speaker 1: and they'll be taking a high commission. You don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. That's why the vast majority of exchange,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of actively traded funds mutual funds are
Speaker 1: a bad idea. I Exchange traded funds ETFs are not
Speaker 1: actively traded. You just invented in a certain you just
Speaker 1: invest in a certain industry or the broads market, and
Speaker 1: you have very low payments on that percentage. So that's
Speaker 1: the best idea to invest for people who are not
Speaker 1: highly actively true. Wow, you just gave that advice for free.
Speaker 1: I do you realize there are people who would have
Speaker 1: kept that under a paywall. It's okay, I'm helping make
Speaker 1: your show more popularly, so I don't market thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm saying thank you. Well, let's pivot back to politics,
Speaker 1: as we're saying, because you write some things that I
Speaker 1: thought were quite provoking. Thought provoking, so why should the
Speaker 1: mainstream media be careful when they criticize conservatives? So mainstream
Speaker 1: media often criticizes conservatives or Democrats, but in this case,
Speaker 1: conservatives more recently, with a broad brush. And that's a
Speaker 1: big problem when you criticize people with a broad brush,
Speaker 1: because there's that that's there's that immediate tribal response by
Speaker 1: people who are identify as conservatives. They when they see
Speaker 1: the mainstrea media criticizing conservatives, saying republicans broadly, that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. Now let's go to the Kevin now nomination,
Speaker 1: which just occurred so very recently occurred Kevinan nomination. When
Speaker 1: you see apeds which I read in the New York
Speaker 1: Times and the Washington Post, they were very broadly saying
Speaker 1: Republicans did this, Republicans did that. You know, the Republicans
Speaker 1: are a problem when they were criticizing the behaviors of Republicans,
Speaker 1: Whereas there are a number of individual Republicans who did
Speaker 1: not behave in ways that the newspapers described. Now, but
Speaker 1: if you're criticizing Republicans, people who identify as Republican will say,
Speaker 1: you're criticizing me. That's criticizing a group of fifty or
Speaker 1: forty nine Republican senators. You're criticizing all Republicans. So that's
Speaker 1: an example of why it's a problematic idea to paint
Speaker 1: all conservatives of the broadbrush. I was specifically referring to
Speaker 1: an example, historical example of where and that happened when
Speaker 1: when someone who's currently a congressman body slam the journalists,
Speaker 1: and all Republicans were criticized for how the Republicans are
Speaker 1: attacking the media, and that's just not true. There are
Speaker 1: many Republicans who are not attacking the media. But that
Speaker 1: creates a tribal response, which is really harmful for the
Speaker 1: future of our country and for trust in the media.
Speaker 1: So that's why I strongly recommend media to not criticize
Speaker 1: conservatives with a broadbrush. It sounds like the same logic
Speaker 1: would apply in the other direction as well, you know,
Speaker 1: just does not pain anyone with a broad brush. You know,
Speaker 1: Republicans love paying democrats with the broad brush as well,
Speaker 1: and that's a bad idea as well. I was giving
Speaker 1: this as an example with the media painting saying that
Speaker 1: that's the way all Republicans act, which is not true.
Speaker 1: The same with Democrats who are targeted by Republicans saying
Speaker 1: that all Democrats act in a certain way and that
Speaker 1: that's just not true. Now, let's think about who that benefits.
Speaker 1: That most benefits people on the edges, on the poles
Speaker 1: in both parties, because it creates more polarization, so people
Speaker 1: are pulled to the poles and the country grows further
Speaker 1: divided greater parties rather than pulling toward the middle. Having
Speaker 1: a stronger center and having more care and concern for
Speaker 1: the future of our country rather than the poles of
Speaker 1: each party. Doesn't seem like we're moving in that direction
Speaker 1: right now. It does. So here's a potentially controversial question
Speaker 1: which I never shy away from on my podcast, What's
Speaker 1: the one thing Trump got right in Charlottesville? So the
Speaker 1: one thing Trump got right in Charlottesville. That's an article
Speaker 1: I wrote that also got me in some hot water
Speaker 1: oats liberals was that he accurately pointed out that there
Speaker 1: was violence on both sides. And that's a big problem
Speaker 1: that a lot of liberals were not able or willing
Speaker 1: to accept that the Antifa, the people who are fighting
Speaker 1: the not see fascist whatever, people on the old right
Speaker 1: engaged in some provocative aggressive violence, which was actually documented
Speaker 1: by Antifa themselves proudly afterward where they were saying that
Speaker 1: they aggressively pursued with violence some people on the old
Speaker 1: right in Charlottesville. And that's really important technoledge and accept
Speaker 1: there was, according to documented evidence, quite a bit more
Speaker 1: violence on the old right side on the side of
Speaker 1: the right in that case in Charlottesville. But we can't
Speaker 1: simply ignore or sweep under the rug the violence on
Speaker 1: the left, on the far left and the Antifa. And
Speaker 1: that's an example of being of orienting toward truthfulness regardless
Speaker 1: of where your values are, so you can see, you know,
Speaker 1: I personally really don't like the far right. I don't
Speaker 1: like Nazis. I wouldn't say the far right. Let's say
Speaker 1: it Nazis. That's I have a big problem with them.
Speaker 1: I think they're very badly for America as a country. Really,
Speaker 1: I think they're very ither respectfully disagree with you, well,
Speaker 1: I respectfully disagree with you, and we'll have to degree
Speaker 1: to disagree. By the way, for the listeners who don't
Speaker 1: know me, I'm joking, you have to say that these
Speaker 1: days you know, yes, yes, as if your last name
Speaker 1: doesn't dedicate that, yeah, exactly, I'm a very self loading Jew.
Speaker 1: But anyway, go on. So it's very important to identify
Speaker 1: accurately that there's some people on the far left who
Speaker 1: engage an aggressive, provocative violence, and to say, okay, we
Speaker 1: can identify them, and we could say that those are tactics.
Speaker 1: Whether you personally agree with them or disagree with them,
Speaker 1: you have to acknowledge that those are tactics that occurred
Speaker 1: for the sake of truthfulness, because otherwise you can't have
Speaker 1: a healthy conversation with people on the other side. If
Speaker 1: you can't acknowledge the problems in your own on your
Speaker 1: own side, then how can you engage effectively with people
Speaker 1: on the other side? Yeah, well if I'm ready on
Speaker 1: board with you, and I'm just loving this distinction you're
Speaker 1: making between facts and values, and it's just it's kind
Speaker 1: of blowing my mind in a way because it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's just so clear to me now that we need
Speaker 1: more of that. That's what we're lacking. And I hadn't
Speaker 1: articulated in that way. So thank you for I love
Speaker 1: it when my mind gets expanded on this podcast. That's
Speaker 1: why I do this. So how can you talk to
Speaker 1: people who deny the facts? So there are a couple
Speaker 1: of ways. The most important thing that you want to
Speaker 1: focus on, and what I talk about is a strategy
Speaker 1: called egret emotions, goals, report information, and positive reinforcement. First
Speaker 1: of all, you have to understand why people are denying
Speaker 1: the facts. We talked about the tribal response, the tribalism
Speaker 1: and the fight or flight response. The underlying components and
Speaker 1: all of that is emotions got intuitions. So you have
Speaker 1: to understand what kind of emotions are going on with
Speaker 1: a person that are causing that person to do the facts,
Speaker 1: what's driving them. The first thing you have to understand
Speaker 1: then you need to understand what that person's goals are.
Speaker 1: Why is that person denying the facts. So, for example,
Speaker 1: why are people on the far left on the left
Speaker 1: denying the facts about far left antifa violence in Charlottesville?
Speaker 1: What's going on there? What are their goals and doing? So,
Speaker 1: then you need to establish report with them. You need
Speaker 1: to show them that their goals are your own. So
Speaker 1: for example, I can agree with them that people on
Speaker 1: the far right in the Nazis specifically, not all far
Speaker 1: right people, but Nazis. We can both agree that they
Speaker 1: are highly promomatic of America, that that's a really dangerous
Speaker 1: trend to go. So we can establish that report. Once
Speaker 1: we establish that report, I can give some information that
Speaker 1: now we can bring in facts. We should not lead
Speaker 1: with the facts. Leading with the fact is going to
Speaker 1: be quite dangerous if we want to prevent defensive aggressive
Speaker 1: responses from people on the other side. And again, defensive
Speaker 1: aggressive responses are consequence of the fight or flight response
Speaker 1: and tribalism that people want to defend themselves or they
Speaker 1: want to attack you. So to prevent that, you want
Speaker 1: to first do the four do the previous three sides
Speaker 1: before you bring in the information and that's the eye
Speaker 1: of the egret. So you bring in information and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: in order to have conversations with people on the other side,
Speaker 1: we need to acknowledge the problems the challenges on our side,
Speaker 1: and that includes the provocative, aggressive violence of the Antifi.
Speaker 1: So if you want to convince other people to collaborate
Speaker 1: with you effectively people on the other side, you need
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the problems on your side. And once they
Speaker 1: agree with this statement that's obvious on the face of it,
Speaker 1: you want to give them positive reinforcement. That's the key part.
Speaker 1: Say okay, it's great that we can agree, and I
Speaker 1: understand this one was not an easy thing for you
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that the Antifi engaged aggressive, provocative violence, but
Speaker 1: it was really important that we did so in order
Speaker 1: to have these healthy conversations with people on the other side.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of grass you want to make
Speaker 1: through the Egypt technique. Emotions, goals, report, information, and positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to remember that. Do I remember the acronym?
Speaker 1: So that's cool. Where are you from. I'm originally from
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, a small republic, a small country called the
Speaker 1: Republic of Moldova. Now it's just to the south east
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and the west of Romania. It was liberated
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one from the Soviet Union from Russia
Speaker 1: whatever what's now Russia. It was conquered in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: five by the Soviet Union and then added to that territory.
Speaker 1: And so my parents left in nineteen ninety one when
Speaker 1: it was liberated, and I was a ten year old
Speaker 1: kid when they left, and then grew up in New
Speaker 1: York City, lived in Boston, North Carolina, and now I'm
Speaker 1: based in Columbus, Ohio. Wow, what were you like as
Speaker 1: a kid. Were you really curious? I mean, I imagine
Speaker 1: you were very curious and intellectual. I was definitely curious intellectual.
Speaker 1: I was quite less self aware and quite a bit
Speaker 1: less humble, much more intellectually aggressive. I would say, like,
Speaker 1: you wanted the things to be precise, right, I wanted
Speaker 1: things to be precise, and I wanted I was really
Speaker 1: concerned when they weren't. I was much more inclined to
Speaker 1: see both sides of the debate than other people, and
Speaker 1: that got me in a lot of hot with people
Speaker 1: on my side. Yeah, and that would still get you
Speaker 1: in hot trouble in this political climate you have, everyone
Speaker 1: wants you to take it. If you're not taking so
Speaker 1: inside they don't like you exactly. Yeah, the thing about
Speaker 1: the Charlottesville that got me a lot of trouble with
Speaker 1: people who could see that were similarly agreed with me
Speaker 1: on the problem with Nazis sort of problem, but weren't
Speaker 1: willing to acknowledge the Antifa violence. I mean, my background
Speaker 1: also is Jewish, so that got me in a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble, particularly with people in my contact network were
Speaker 1: also Jewish. So you know, I also know, and if
Speaker 1: this is too personal, please tell me. I know that
Speaker 1: you battled mental illness for some part of your life
Speaker 1: and you've escaped it. As you said, you know you've
Speaker 1: escaped that darkness. So how did you kind of cail
Speaker 1: your way out of that? So there, it was difficult
Speaker 1: to really acknowledge at first when mental illness pursed. It's
Speaker 1: not intuitive to see from within that mental illness is
Speaker 1: occurring and that it's time to seek help. So it
Speaker 1: was really important for me to get an outside perspective
Speaker 1: first of all, to acknowledge that something is really wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm not able to function normally as regularly as I should,
Speaker 1: not to be motivated, not to be able to engage
Speaker 1: in important activities, and then to be able to go
Speaker 1: and find a therapist for help. So that was really
Speaker 1: important for me to be able to make that understand
Speaker 1: that understanding. And the important thing to remember is that
Speaker 1: the brain is an organ just like any other organ,
Speaker 1: and we tend to forget that. We tend to identify
Speaker 1: our brain with ourselves. We would be much more like
Speaker 1: the quickst help if we had a stubbor problem or
Speaker 1: you know, if we broke our arm, rather than if
Speaker 1: we broke our brain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a
Speaker 1: really good it's a really good point. Yeah. Did do
Speaker 1: you have depression? Yeah? So depression anxiety, And in order
Speaker 1: to address that, it was really important to have the
Speaker 1: recognition that I'm not able to function as in normally
Speaker 1: yeahs you know. And so I went to a therapist
Speaker 1: for a while for weekly, and then eventually so every
Speaker 1: week for a couple of years several years. Then started
Speaker 1: taking medications as well, psychiatric medications. Right now I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a therapist monthly but still taking a psychiatric medications. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: sounds like you've really come a long way, So congratulations, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. Still suffering from quite a bit of anxiety occasionally,
Speaker 1: but not so much. Yeah, yeah, me and you both, brother.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this day and age, if you're not anxious,
Speaker 1: you're not conscious. That's good. Right now, I'm much more
Speaker 1: capable of noticing when I'm experiencing anxiety and taking deliberate
Speaker 1: steps to address it. Good. And I personally found that
Speaker 1: meditation has helped me leaps and downs for me too.
Speaker 1: Try to meditate daily, Yeah, I try to. So how
Speaker 1: can we defend our happiness against emotional traps? It seems
Speaker 1: that question is related to mental illness from anxiety. So
Speaker 1: one way, too sure, one way that we can defend
Speaker 1: our happiness against emotional traps is recognizing when these emotional
Speaker 1: traps are occurring, when we're driven by our god responses
Speaker 1: and intuitions to make bad decisions. And that was the
Speaker 1: chapter of a book that I talked about choosing a house.
Speaker 1: How we chose our house of my wife and so
Speaker 1: what we want, the process through which we went in
Speaker 1: order to choose the house. We went to this house.
Speaker 1: It had a great it was in the summer, It
Speaker 1: had a great, beautiful backyard, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of shade, and we were really struck by it. And
Speaker 1: so that's really fascinating, really great house, and we were
Speaker 1: going to choose it, and then there was a second
Speaker 1: runner up, but we decided to not just go with
Speaker 1: our intuitions. It was a pretty major life decision. And
Speaker 1: what we did was we evaluated by a quantitative mechanism
Speaker 1: which I can describe right now, how we chose the house.
Speaker 1: What we did was we evaluated each part of the house,
Speaker 1: including the backyard, also the kitchen, you know, the bathrooms,
Speaker 1: the living room and so on, by its importance to
Speaker 1: us and the quality of it. So importance is basically
Speaker 1: the weight of it, how weighty it is, how important
Speaker 1: there is, and we placed a number on that from
Speaker 1: one to ten. And the quality of this room, So
Speaker 1: how god are the bathroom so good as the kitchen?
Speaker 1: How good is the backyard. One thing we realized was
Speaker 1: that we would not be using the backyard year round.
Speaker 1: We would only be using it for half of the year.
Speaker 1: So that made the backyard only five our ranking of
Speaker 1: five out of ten, whereas let's say the living room
Speaker 1: would be using year round. So I think we ranked
Speaker 1: something like at nine. And when we added up everything
Speaker 1: the other house that one we thought was going to
Speaker 1: be a runner up, not the one with a great backyard,
Speaker 1: turned out to be quite a bit better on this scale.
Speaker 1: And so we really protected ourselves from a great year
Speaker 1: of unhappiness by using this weighted decision making method. And
Speaker 1: so we live in this We've been living in this
Speaker 1: house where I currently am for about two years, and
Speaker 1: we are very glad that we made this decision, even
Speaker 1: though the backyard is not as awesome. Well, I bet
Speaker 1: there's many aspects of you that your wife fell in
Speaker 1: love with, you know, including your quirky personality, you know,
Speaker 1: your compassion, your big heart. But also it's obvious you
Speaker 1: have such a you know, you help the family make
Speaker 1: the best decision. So, yes, that's really important, and that's
Speaker 1: something I really strive to do. To focus and we
Speaker 1: collaborate together, my wife and I am. Oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw a really nice picture of you two. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: one of your materials that you sent me. So tell
Speaker 1: me a little about this pro truth movement that you're
Speaker 1: kind of spearheading. So the pro truth movement is an
Speaker 1: effort to get everyone around the world to commit to
Speaker 1: certain clear, truthful behaviors. Now, let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the concept of truth. It's a very fuzzy concept.
Speaker 1: If you think about it, you know whose truth is?
Speaker 1: That my truth, your truth. It's very fuzzy. We can
Speaker 1: argue about it to no end. Who you know whose
Speaker 1: truth is? Instead of arguing about truth with the capital T,
Speaker 1: let's focus on behaviors. Let's focus on truthful behaviors. In
Speaker 1: the same way that if you go to a doctor
Speaker 1: and he tells you to eat healthy doesn't mean to
Speaker 1: eat healthy. It could mean a thousand different things to
Speaker 1: a thousand different people. If he gives you a clear
Speaker 1: set of behaviors, that's much more helpful for you to follow. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the pro truth movement, which is the basis of it,
Speaker 1: is the Pro Truth Pledge at protruthpledge dot org is
Speaker 1: a set of simple, twelve clear, simple behaviors that anyone
Speaker 1: can follow. So for folks who are following along on
Speaker 1: their online just go to the Protruthpledge dot org websites. Again,
Speaker 1: that's p O T A E T H P L
Speaker 1: E G G P L E d g E dot org
Speaker 1: and you can check out these twelve behaviors there. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a couple of examples fact check in information
Speaker 1: to confirm it's true before accepting it or sharing it.
Speaker 1: Cite my sources so that others can verify my information.
Speaker 1: Revaluate if my information is challenged and retracted. If I
Speaker 1: can't align my opinions and my actions with facts, ask
Speaker 1: people to retract information reliable sources have disproved, even if
Speaker 1: those people are my allies. And celebrate those who attract
Speaker 1: and correct statements and update their beliefs to or the truth.
Speaker 1: And six more behaviors like this, very simple, very clear behavior.
Speaker 1: You're taking notes, you're talking too fast. It's all approach,
Speaker 1: all appro truth Pledge that org. So yeah, all of
Speaker 1: these very simple, very clear behaviors that are fundamentally important,
Speaker 1: that are the essence of critical rational thinking and media literacy.
Speaker 1: So just committing to these behaviors taking the pledge is
Speaker 1: what we want folks to do. Cool, we'll all put
Speaker 1: down the show notes so people can go to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a number of prominent people who took the
Speaker 1: pro Trooth pledge, including four US congresspeople, over thirty state legislators,
Speaker 1: and prominent individuals like Peter Singer, Stephen Pinker, Jonathan Heide.
Speaker 1: We mentioned Jonathan Hyde earlier in the show, Michael Shermer
Speaker 1: and many others who chip Heath is a famous psychologist
Speaker 1: who took the Pro Trooth Pledge. Many other organizations as
Speaker 1: well took the pledge, and over eight thousand ordinary folks. Wow,
Speaker 1: you just made this thing between height and ordinary folks
Speaker 1: right so well, you know I want to ask you
Speaker 1: one last question, how can you live the life you
Speaker 1: want to live? I think it's a good ending question here.
Speaker 1: The most important thing to do in living the life
Speaker 1: you want to live is making sure that you're not
Speaker 1: letting your gut intuitions drive you into making really bad
Speaker 1: decisions for yourself. Think about the example I gave just
Speaker 1: be five minutes before about the house. If we chose
Speaker 1: that house, we'd be having quite a bit of a
Speaker 1: worse life than we have right now because we just
Speaker 1: let our gut intuitions drive us and make causes to
Speaker 1: make bad choices. If I didn't look at objectively at
Speaker 1: the fact that I needed some mental health support, I'd
Speaker 1: be still having quite a bit of struggle with depression
Speaker 1: than I am right now. And there are so many
Speaker 1: other choices. In our final we made some examples of
Speaker 1: financial investments where if we made poor financial investments, sold
Speaker 1: low and bought high, we'd be having much worse lives.
Speaker 1: The most important thing to do in having the life
Speaker 1: that you deserve, the life that you want to live,
Speaker 1: is to make sure that you are able to notice
Speaker 1: when your gut intuitions are not aligned with reality and
Speaker 1: make choices that are aligned with reality. Otherwise you will
Speaker 1: not have the life you want, and that's really bad
Speaker 1: for you. And I really don't want you to suffer.
Speaker 1: That's what it's driving in here. I mean seriously, my
Speaker 1: goal that my value set is utilitarian. I want people
Speaker 1: to not suffer, and that's what's really driving all of
Speaker 1: my activism. That's what I want the most good for
Speaker 1: the most number. That's what I want. You want your
Speaker 1: value there to be aligned with the truth. You want
Speaker 1: them to actually not suffer in reality. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for chaving with me today, Gleb, and for
Speaker 1: the great work you're doing. Thank you, Scott, and I
Speaker 1: hope you yourself consider taking the approach with pledge. We
Speaker 1: have a number of psychology podcasters who did so, and
Speaker 1: they welcome you to be one of them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you mentioned like a list of guests on the show.
Speaker 1: You're right, You're right. I will absolutely consider it. I'll
Speaker 1: check it out later tonight. Hey, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Scott, you have a great day. You two.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 1: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 1: in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's
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