0:01
happiness has itself become a status symbol we brag about how happy we are as a kind of humble brag we trick ourselves and other people into thinking that that is the real reason why we do things it's never out in plain sight we conceal our
Search this video
0:16
status-seeking motivations in order to achieve higher status you got to fit in right so the tribe likes you it's still in our base code I think right [ __ ] is a disregard for the truth it's when you talk without really knowing what you're talking about whether what you're
0:35
saying is is true or not bullshitter doesn't necessarily know what's true they're only talking to achieve a goal if you want to get them to clutch say something outrageous it's very easy for me to call out these sort of ugly unconscious motivations in other people
0:49
but it's very difficult for me to do it in myself we are all doing it all the time Jonathan rotenberg thinks that this mythology surrounding the pursuit of happiness is actually responsible for a lot of our mental health problem is it I think we all need to be less confident
1:05
in our beliefs and in particular our political beliefs be a little bit more real with one another and a little more honest with one another well hello everyone it's Jim oy with yet another infinite Loops today I was so excited when I was going through
1:28
my next guest David pins off's material because we are brothers from another mother David is the co-founder of Cards Against Humanity a game that I will admit is very popular in our family he has a PhD in Psychology from UCLA and he has a forthcoming hopefully pre-print
1:48
evolution of social paradoxes David welcome thank you glad to be here so the reason I say we're we're brothers from another mother is we both love um the idea that we are surrounded by and many people are drowning in [ __ ] and and we look about we look
2:12
at that term maybe a little differently than like when somebody says oh that's [ __ ] I don't think they mean the same thing that you and I mean when when we are talking about that could could you explain a little yes so I am using [ __ ] in the same sense that the
2:27
philosopher Harry Frankfurt uses it and his classic book on [ __ ] which is a very lengthy philosophical Treatise on what it means to to [ __ ] and how that is different from lying uh and the way he thinks of it uh is that [ __ ] is a disregard for the truth it's when
2:46
you talk without really knowing what you're talking about or Without Really caring whether what you're saying is is true or not um and uh [ __ ] is is different from lying because a liar really knows they're lying they know what the truth is and they're
3:01
deliberately misrepresenting it but a bullshitter doesn't necessarily know what's true or or care what's true um really they're only talking uh to achieve a goal usually a social goal like enhancing their status or Prestige or trying to win forgiveness or sympathy
3:16
or any of number of different things and the the key is that the goal is orthogonal to accuracy that they're going to say whatever they need to say to get what they want regardless of whether it's true or not so a bullshitter could be telling the truth and in fact sometimes bullshitters do
3:33
tell the truth but whenever they do tell the truth it's always by accident it's never on purpose it's never the goal of the communication if that makes sense it makes total sense to me and and I love his book uh Henry Frankfurt um it it I I
3:49
still remember the first time I saw it on the Shelf I'm like oh I've got to buy this immediately and then of course I loved it I one of the things that you tie into it and I think is absolutely true is most of this stuff most bullshitting is done for people seeking status seeking
4:09
to convince somebody of something you know therefore Edward bernes our good old friend who wrote propaganda and rebranded propaganda as public relations that guy what a [ __ ] he was but he definitely did uh achieve quite a bit um obviously the entire category of
4:30
politics would probably end up in [ __ ] land abely and and any kind of thing where you're trying to um convince persuade and or in some manner kind of demonstrate oh I am so vastly Superior to you I go go a little deeper because I I think this is a distinction a lot of
4:51
people aren't like cognizant of and and that is bullshitters are not Liars there is a big difference like we react really really strongly and badly when we know that somebody is intentionally lying to us whereas we kind of have a ruffle the head of the oh God you're such a great
5:14
bullshitter yes exactly no there are very strong moral Norms against lying uh if you are known as a liar your reputation is really quite destroyed but if you are known as a bullshitter it doesn't really destroy your reputation in the same way
5:30
um and it kind of makes sense because a liar is someone you can't really trust but a bullshitter maybe you could trust them because maybe maybe they'll [ __ ] on your behalf if you're friends with them you know maybe they'll [ __ ] to make you look good you know
5:44
maybe when they're talking about you to their friends that they want to convince them that you're really something special and and they'll they'll [ __ ] in your interests or maybe they'll they'll [ __ ] in a way that's favorable to you that makes you feel good about yourself maybe they they'll
5:56
flatter you uh or or or tell you uh comforting uh stories regardless of whether they're they're true or not or whether or maybe they'll just tell you what you want to hear and we want to be around people who tell us what we want to hear so I think
6:07
that's part of the reason why there there are these strong Norms against lying but not against bullshitting and I think the other part of the reason why we have Norms against lying but not against bullshitting is because it's much harder to detect [ __ ] than it
6:20
is to detect lying when you lie uh the the truth is is pretty easy to see and it's and it's it's pretty easy to see that you knew what was and you could have told it and you didn't when you [ __ ] um you're really you're ignorant of so many things and it's hard
6:38
to prove that that you actually knew what you were saying was false uh so I think the case for establishing whether someone was bullshitting is is is much more difficult to make so I think that that might also be part of the reason why why bullshitting is is less frowned
6:53
upon but yeah it's an interesting question I'm not 100% sure why why the difference is there but those are some speculations yeah I think that that's right I think that um you know part of this it seems to me is that people seem to have this
7:09
need to react to everything right like um you know it's it's a well-known uh business uh methodology uh especially online Etc if you if you want to Eng if you want to get them to clct say something outrageous say something that is going to get them either angry or vastly uh in
7:35
support of Etc except what it seems to me is is that what often happens is people have an opinion right and that like my opinions are probably just as worthless as everyone else is so I try to you know downplay them as much as I can because like unless I have some kind
7:53
of domain expertise there like what the [ __ ] do I know right but a lot of people it's just the opposite right when if you read chelini uh uh influence for example I'm sure you've read that book uh you know there's two words that like if you want to hook in human OS you you use
8:11
them you you use the first one if you want to convince somebody of something you say imagine and then you can pretty much fill in anything you want what you're going to fill in is what you want them to do right in other words imagine like Jim you're going to set aside this
8:28
money for your grandchild children and then imagine 20 years from now how proud you will be when you're at their graduation and you can just feel so good about yourself and the other one that I love that chelini that that hooked me into his book is
8:45
because H basically in the book what he says is if you say because it immediately hijacks are human OS because there's a reason and I I often up on Twitter I often put up this gift that is a kid going because of reasons we're gonna get we're g to get into rationalization in a minute but like
9:10
there are all sorts of these hooks that like in the hands of like an evil person can can be devastatingly effective in the hands of like and see what I did there we're gonna I'm gonna actually switch topics because I'm gonna I'm G to talk to I use used evil as a
9:31
moral sounding word and and you have great things to say that mostly moralizing is [ __ ] and I I there I just did it I did it on let's let's jump right to that let's talk moralizing is [ __ ] because I do agree with you yeah wonderful yeah uh moralizing is
9:51
[ __ ] um well I think the way that people think about morality uh is very wrong-headed we tend to have very positive associations with morality with Justice with ethics we think that morality is all about kindness and and and compassion and helping and generosity
10:11
and making the world a better place but if you actually take a look at the things that humans have done throughout history in the name of morality it is not nice at all it is quite the opposite in fact morality has been the instrument of Cruelty for thousands of years it is
10:29
the cheap weapon in the Arsenal of a warlord or a uh or a king or a politician um the best way to Rally people to a violent or aggressive cause is to give them a moral reason for doing so is to make them feel good about themselves to make them feel virtuous
10:48
like they're the heroes Waging War against the villains so what I'm trying to do in this post is to try to change the associations that people have with this world word morality to make them understand that it is actually it's not so nice it is more often uh a an instrument of evil than it
11:08
is an instrument of virtue you know and then of course you left one out there and that would be all of the organized religions of the world absolutely um and I I used to put a a a cartoon from The New Yorker up um and it it showed the forces aligned against one
11:27
another and uh the the the flags one was looked like a duck and one like uh a a dog I think just upside down and they're getting all already to go to to battle to the death with one another because they don't accept our duck God and right
11:48
and we're going to make them accept our dog god and and so so much of it just seems to me to be like just really crazy crazy when you when when you look at a lot of like Orthodoxy right uh I was on a zoom earlier today and somebody made the remark you know you're so lucky that
12:11
you weren't around back like when religions ran everything because you would have been so burned at the state man uh and and and so but you know all of these things I wonder did did they did they were they generated spont ously just from Evolution right or or uh you know people
12:35
seeking uh a truth in quotes and and then once they find that little truth they put everything they got into it they believe it they align with other people you see it in social media all the time us firstus them everybody's tribbing up and and I just wonder is is
12:54
this just part and part of what it means to be a human I mean we're domesticated primates right right yeah no I I I do think it is part of what it means to be a human I I I think it is uh rooted in our evolutionary history um uh Robert Wright has a great book called the moral
13:11
animal um and I think we are moral animals or or or rather uh moralistic animals um and I think part of the the reason for why morality is so often cruel is because it is rooted in our evolutionary history uh and because Evolution itself is a competitive
13:33
process so if morality evolve by natural selection which most Scholars who study it think that it uh it is then uh ancestral moralizers must have somehow outcompeted uh non-m moralizers right they must have done they must have gotten more stuff than them more mates
13:53
more friends more allies more resources whatever uh and and the the sad thing is that there's really not a nice way to get more stuff than other people right you have to either exclude them from your stuff or scare them away from your stuff not share with them bully them
14:09
even kill them in some cases and there's evidence of of U of killing uh in in in Hunter gather societies of of of ganging up on people and and and literally killing them if they're uh if they're getting too out of line Richard rangam has done work on this he calls it the
14:24
the execution hypothesis for the evolution of morality that morality emerged when gang of males started executing people for uh acting up and that caused us to start to worry about our moral reputation reputations because uh you know if we if
14:39
we ran a foul of of the existing moral Norms we might be killed um and so once you reflect on The evolutionary processes that must have given rise to our moral Behavior you have you start to see that it must be mean at least in some sense there must be a mean
14:54
competitive part to it um otherwise it it could not have evolved and it would not exist uh that's that that's the argument I make uh in the piece yeah and I I agree with that because I always try to filter everything through does this make if if we look at evolutionary
15:12
biology and psychology does this make sense right um and you know when you think about it if we had a clock uh for uh all of the time we Homo Sapien sapiens have been around right let's get rid of the Neanderthals and all the other versions of us for minute uh if if
15:31
we were on a 24-hour clock you know the first 23 and a half hours of that were spent as hunter gatherers uh Andor then a little bit of farming right and so the the idea of the tribe seems really simple to me right you have to be in a tribe because the world's a hostile
15:48
place for most of human history we're going to get to how uh everyone is squawking now about how oh this horrible global ation and all this and yet we are in the safest period of human history ever uh but but but back then it was the
16:06
safe in fact right being exiled from the tribe that was a death sentence because you were not going to survive on your own so it would behoove us and evolution would favor people who understood first you got to fit in right so the tribe likes you but then the status monkey
16:27
hits in after we fit in we want to stand out and and and this combo we I mean it's still in our base code I think right yeah absolutely yeah I think much more than we would like to admit and I think the interesting thing about our our status monkey as as you call it is
16:47
that uh it's never out in plain sight we're always striving to conceal it and cover it up uh Ironically in order to achieve status that is we conceal our status-seeking motivations in order to achieve higher status um and that's that's that's the subject of my uh of my
17:07
pre-print um that I'm I'm looking to to publish soon as an academic paper um called the evolution of social paradoxes so this tendency to uh seek status by concealing our desire for status is one example of a social Paradox uh and I and I list plenty of other uh social
17:23
paradoxes in the paper like um trying to get credit for not caring ing about getting credit or or uh uh rebelling against Conformity uh in the same way as everyone else uh or uh bravely defying social norms so that people will praise you um and uh or or um helping someone
17:50
without regard for your own self-interest because being seen as the type of person who helps people without regard for their self-interest is in fact in your self-interest uh and so these kinds of social paradoxes I think lie at the heart of human culture and
18:04
cultural Evolution uh and as soon as you reflect on them you you start to see why our status symbols are so volatile uh and so unpredictable it's because they're they're they're constantly collapsing under the realization that they are status symbols because as soon
18:21
as something becomes widely recognized as a status symbol everyone tries to distance themselves from it because they don't want to be seen as a status Seeker right y yeah uh and so these status games that we play are constantly collapsing and reemerging under the
18:37
realization that they are in fact status games and I think that is one of the fundamental engines of of cultural Evolution and why cultures differ so much in what they deem high and low status yeah um Treasure Trove of questions there I mean uh my friend Rob
18:54
Henderson who just got his PhD in Psychology from Cambridge uh or Oxford Oxbridge uh he he he was the one who finally convinced me that I in fact was signaling all of the time and I was like No And then I had will store on uh to talk about his book the status game and
19:17
I'm like I'm truly and deeply [ __ ] here because you come to the realization that yeah you know we are all doing it all the time uh Rob had a really interesting thing uh when when he was doing his study of it and and you know we all know beIN Goods we all know the
19:37
showy the old style way of showing status which was to have a fancy car to have really fancy clothes and then everybody could have fancy cars and clothes and so we had to start signaling through as Rob calls them luxury beliefs and and he thinks he's got a
19:57
bone to pick with luxury beliefs because he thinks most of them are really really bad for society and he also goes on to point out that people who are the most prone to you know uh signal these these luxury beliefs signal them but don't walk the walk right they talk the talk
20:17
but they don't walk the walk in other words one of his is big ones is marriage uh you know two family or two parent households he's like all of these people are saying no no it's fine to do to have babies without both parents present and he goes then you look at the statistics
20:35
and like all of them are in two parent households uh and and um so that that can lead to a a real big disconnect I wonder you know hards Against Humanity I I the thing I think that's great about that is you did it as a joke right uh uh not not quite a joke uh I
21:01
guess you could sort of call it that it was it was mostly just we were bored and we wanted so I I made the game with my friends from from high school and we we made it uh uh while we were in college just as a as an activity to do dur for a
21:14
New Year's party yeah because you we liked making games with one another one our favorite one of our favorite things to do was putting dirty words in Mad lips that was like our favorite activity and so decided to just make a game out of that and and play it at New Year's
21:25
and we had no intentions of turning it into a business it was just something we did for fun to amongst ourselves uh and then it kind of weirdly went went viral and and took off in the face of all of our expectations see the thing that I find interesting about that is you know
21:41
I think that for example Envy is probably responsible for a lot more uh Behavior than greed in my op yeah because it goes it fits right back into that pecking order right and and by the way do you where the term pecking order comes from uh hens pecking each
22:02
other is that it yeah exactly I I I always kind of thought I knew that but then I actually read a piece about it um in a book by Howard Bloom where this guy take he's curious about the hens he notices he goes home from college and to his parents farm and he notice the a
22:22
chicken Coupe there and he's watching the chickens and he notices that the hens always eat in the same way order and he's like that's weird and so he says they must have some kind of hierarchy how could I see if they have a hierarchy or not so he goes to the
22:38
neighbor can I borrow one of your hens so new hen and he took the new hen tossed it in to his parents uh chicken Coupe and the fur or feathers uh flew right in other words a new person or new bird introduced the fighting ensues pecking right and
23:03
what he found and of course he kept meticulous notes I love researchers he kept very ridiculous notes and he noted that the alpha hen was the least wounded of the hens in the fight the M who that ensued after introducing the new character the the the bottom hen often
23:25
was dead because she was pecked to death and then the pecking order was established and then Harmony reigned yet again and that you read about other things like when chimps CH when a when a chimp challenges the alpha and wins this is this blew my mind when I read it they
23:47
physiologically change they stand more erect their balls drop I'm reading this stuff and I'm going my God like I can't and and so you know in a in a less uh obvious way the same sort of thing happens with we humans right as Robert Anton Wilson calls us
24:09
domesticated primates and there's another great example right um of you you did it for fun and and I was thinking of the discordian religion uh all hail erys discordia was the god of chaos uh for the Romans and and she was called ays by the Greeks and so he and
24:29
and a buddy of his uh krie Thornley thought let's let's have some fun let's start a religion and they called it discordianism and it was entirely a gag and now discordianism actually has many many adherence the the the point being uh Cards Against Humanity um pecking orders
24:51
all of these things um this done as a lark we used to keep a portfolio uh at my old firm that we called the eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die and it was filled with pharmaceutical makers alcohol makers all all of the you know bit stuff
25:10
well yeah see I don't even have to tell you how well that portfolio did so it seems to me that like there is a strong part of us that wants to deny that like we're interested in all this stuff but all of a sudden when you look at the numbers of that portfolio when you look
25:27
at how well Cards Against Humanity did what what are we ostensibly missing what are we missing in in in what way kind of here in in in like you did it as a joke we kept that portfolio as a joke did we do that because we knew kind of what the results
25:50
were going to be that people are drawn to uh those sort of uh the seven deadly sins so to speak we're back to moral H so is the question that is that uh did we somehow know in the back of our minds perhaps unconsciously that we were making something that that would uh increase
26:09
our status in some way or or become successful is is that is that sort of the question yeah let's yeah let's take it that way um maybe uh I I I I you know it's interesting it's very easy for me to call out these sort of ugly unconscious motivations in other people
26:24
but it's very difficult for me to do it in myself so I have this to deny it's say no we just we had this pure joy of of just having fun with our friends and it has nothing to do with with with impressing people and and making money and gaining status uh but uh if I'm
26:40
being honest with myself yeah uh it makes sense that there there probably was that that element as there is in most human behavior um and uh I I think once we all realize that and try to bring it to the surface I think we'll be able to be a little bit more real with
26:57
one another another and a little more honest with one another if if we're just honest about our our actual unflattering motivations because I think the biggest source of human [ __ ] is the unwillingness to disclose honestly uh unflattering truths about oneself and
27:16
one's desires um and because we're were unwilling to disclose those unflattering truths we cover them up with [ __ ] and we give [ __ ] reasons instead that that sound much nicer and much prettier yeah because of reasons that's a gift I put up with all the time because of
27:33
reasons yeah uh you know what I love about this again as I as I was really I I really had a great time going through your stuff again because like they all fit together really they you know the why do we [ __ ] so much well because we [ __ ] ourselves first and foremost
27:52
right the easiest person to fool as one of my heroes uh Richard feineman would say is you um and and so first we tell the lies to ourselves then if we're really good at putting stories together we we build a rock solid [ __ ] lie about why we're doing something and then
28:11
everyone else believes it right exactly yeah so one of the things that I've tried to train myself to do and it's hard it's really hard but like you know when I was starting this new company um one of the things we do is we get fellowships right and and um I actually
28:28
worried that people would say oh look what a humanitarian what a great guy and so I kind of I I put it out on a podcast on record no no no no I'm doing this for my own benefit let's just really really be honest about the whole thing and and
28:45
say look it makes makes me feel good to be able to highlight these people who I think are super smart so like because I really hate all of the the um virtue signaling right like yeah I think that that's one of those things that has broken as you say people people the game
29:05
has to continually reinvent itself because if you're out at is seeking status like oh nope new game yeah exactly what what kind of new games do you think are emerging now around status H it's a really interesting and and subtle question um I think social media
29:25
has has thrown a huge wrench into our status games uh and and altered them in in really weird and evolve in ways that we're we really haven't come to terms with I I think I think we're still discovering what what social media is doing to us and and and the social games
29:43
we play um I find myself getting sucked into to Twitter debates compulsively uh and against my better interest when I should be doing more productive activities uh and I really don't know what it is about it that that sucks me in um so yeah I think the the the fact
30:02
that every thing you post on social media is observed by a large audience and uh difficult to erase provides a really weird and alien element to human social interaction because if you think about it if you're in a smallscale society maybe Hunter
30:22
gather a group and you say something really it's not you know people might remember it maybe they won't might misremember it if they say what you said they might get it wrong that you know people misremember things all the time um and if you say something maybe one or
30:37
two people hear it but you know the whole tribe isn't going to hear it right um but social media is really different a tweet that I you know write you know hastily you know while I'm eating lunch like that could be seen by thousands or even millions of people and
30:54
and that's something that is permanently recorded on the internet I can't get rid of right so the social consequences of our Behavior Uh in in the modern age are so magnified and I feel like that is causing us tremendous anxiety uh and and and we're still I
31:11
think struggling to cope with that I think it's it's it's probably responsible for for the rise in in mental health issues particularly among teenage girls i' I've been persuaded that um social media has been pretty destructive for for adolescent and and teenage girls in particular um I think
31:26
if I had access to social media media uh as a young teenager it would have uh completely destroyed my mental health because I was already anxious enough about you know fitting in and gaining status and getting a date and you know to to magnify all of that and and put it
31:43
out on social media would have would have destroyed me so I I really think we're we're struggling to to deal with this new technology and we'll you know we'll see where it takes us yeah I think you're right about that I think that uh I had the great Good
31:59
Fortune of growing up before any of that really I'm 62 so uh you know I I was a free- range kid uh basically you know could our our parents were like get out get out of the house but the the cool thing was there was no helicopter parenting right there was it was like go
32:20
as long as you came back in time for dinner and everything was okay so we could get up to all sorts of Mischief um but I hadn't really thought about what you just said which I think is really insightful there was nobody documenting what we were doing yeah yeah I mean
32:37
imagine my mom used to always say to me now don't say anything that you wouldn't want to see printed on the front page of the New York Times right and and like so okay Mom I I doubt that I have that worry um but we you know I've talked to
32:55
others too and uh the the pre and Po and post it those were houseon days man because you could make a lot of mistakes you could say a lot of really stupid [ __ ] and you're right only your buddies might have heard it and they forgot it right uh afterwards but sense of
33:16
permanence yeah I I now under that that's really a a great point I could see where that would make your average adolescent like incredibly anxious um and and and lead to a lot of the performative type stuff that we see on social media like you know the kids uh
33:37
the Instagram kids who literally pay huge amounts of money to have pictures of themselves taken on a private plane that is parked of course and not going anywhere I just when I read about that the first time I was like that is [ __ ] crazy man yeah but now now I get because they they were
33:59
building up these images for others but that kind of leads me to another topic which you write a lot about and happiness and I've always kind of had this idea that people who were inner oriented were much better at being happy than people who were externally oriented
34:20
right Tony Tony demelo um who was a u Catholic priest uh a Jesuit uh and actually um uh became enlightened after spending an afternoon with a terminally ill Rick Shaw driver um and he he would by the way never claim that he was Enlighten one of the one of the
34:41
clues to know that he might have been on to something uh but he has this great thing about love in which he says real love Real Love is always and absolutely must be unconditional and by that he means if you can't can't say to the object of your desire hey you're free to think
35:01
what you want be follow the interests that you want and and you know if they lead away from me so be it right he said if you can't honestly say that then you're just a manipulative quid proquo I'll love you if and and that kind of leads me to the I'll be happy if
35:23
I think I think that's [ __ ] and I know you do too elaborate a little bit on that sure yeah I mean uh it's a really alluring story we like to tell ourselves that as soon as I get this promotion or this car or this house or uh or whatever then I'll finally be
35:42
happy you know as soon as I get this many uh Twitter followers or Instagram followers then I'll be happy as soon as my substack becomes successful then I'll finally be happy and I can stop striving uh and and we we tell ourselves this for every go we have it's it's
35:58
insane and we believe it every time it's it's really uh unbelievable that we're able to convince ourselves of it um you know Robert Wright talks about this in his book why why Buddhism is true that he he thinks that this this feature is is an adaptation that it's designed to
36:13
to motivate us for for reward that That Never Comes so that we keep striving and doing the sorts of things that help us survive and reproduce it it's sort of like um a carrot that that Evolution keeps dangling in front of us that we never quite get um and he thinks it's a
36:29
design feature of human psychology may maybe it is but yeah it's it's uh it's striking um how deluded we are about um our Pursuit of Happiness and that we we trick ourselves and other people into thinking that that is the real reason why we do things and
36:47
I and you know this goes back to what I was saying earlier about how we don't like to reveal our unflattering motivations uh for for for status or or virtue signaling or whatever and I think one of the biggest ways that we cover up uh those unflattering reasons for our
37:01
behavior is by covering them up with with happiness with saying that the real reason we're doing this is because it makes me happy it's because it's rewarding it's fulfilling or because it uh it's it's my way of seeking self-actualization it's my way of
37:14
self-care you know it's h it's me being authentic and expressing myself right these are all kinds of [ __ ] explanations we give for our behavior that sound really nice and pretty but that conceal the more unflattering realities uh behind our behavior and that's what that's what I think
37:30
happiness is all about and that's why I I call the Post happiness is [ __ ] because I think this whole narrative that happiness is the purpose of life and the reason for everything we do is a [ __ ] story that we all tell ourselves uh for for various uh unsavory
37:44
reasons I think yeah I agree with you and I I've always thought that if anything is conditional I.E uh if then uh you're on the wrong course right so yeah as you put it you know once my substack becomes popular then I'll be happy if this girl or or person loves me
38:07
then I'll be happy [ __ ] no you won't and and so the the making things conditional I think is a big part of this happiness [ __ ] story yeah and and uh Darren Brown The Illusionist from the UK he's also an incredibly aidite guy I I had no idea and I read his book
38:27
happy is and one of one of the things that he tells is a story it's not his story but he tells it well I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote it but essentially it's like imagine you wake up and you're the only human left on the planet just you he goes what are
38:43
you gonna do for the first couple of weeks well maybe a lot of people are going to go live in buckingam Palace or drive the lambo or do all that kind of stuff but what are you ultimately going to do what you're ultimately going to do
38:58
is wear clothes that are comfortable and easy to maintain live in a home that is comfortable and is easy to maintain and is accessible to the things you need in the world in other words and I won't build out the whole story it goes on at Great length but the purpose of it is
39:17
he's trying to demonstrate look man a lot of the social status seeking things that you do is for other people and this story illustrates that if you're all on your own you're not going to do any of that [ __ ] you're not going to care what kind of car you drive what your clothes
39:36
look like none of that and you're probably GNA be like really happy and and or you're not like no probably no one's going to be happy if they're the last human on earth right but yeah no I I like the metaphor because it does underline the point that much of what we
39:56
do is seeking approval and or love and or any of these other good things from other people so like I'm a huge fan of the daing and lau and he's got a piece in there that he goes like knowing others you could be learned right but knowing yourself is true
40:18
intelligence uh can control others you could be considered powerful but self-control you are mightier still and then he goes happiness from others okay but self-contentment inexhaustible what what why do you think like and especially in the west why do
40:39
you think that those kinds of ideas and you you reference why Buddhism is true on similar similar kind of uh philosophy if you will why are those like not a lot more popular yeah um well the sad answer I think is that deep down though we hate to admit it I don't think we actually
41:04
want happiness I think we want the sorts of things that would have enhanced our survival and reproduction and ancestral environments right um and those things are often ugly like status is is is among them um probably the biggest one um but we don't
41:25
actually want happiness uh and it's interesting I I actually got into meditation a while ago and it actually led me to this this realization because I I got really into meditation uh and it was making me feel great uh and I got to the point where it would
41:40
make me feel happy almost instantly like I would sit down take a deep breath close my eyes listen you know pay attention to the the sensations of my breath and I would instantly just feel good right but at some point I just kind of fell off the wagon I just kind of got
41:56
bored of it and I stopped doing it uh and it was really bizarre because I had the thought here's this activity that makes me happy I know it makes me happy I've experienced it many times before and yet I do not want to do it and that was when it dawned on me wow
42:20
I must not actually want to be happy that's must not be how my brain is designed right totally right uh and so that ultimately gave me the light bul moment for for for happiness is [ __ ] like wow maybe none of us actually want happiness uh and then I started thinking about well
42:40
well if we don't want it then then what is it for why does it exist what is its function why do we say that we want it uh and that that led me to to write this post which which I think uh is is on the right track of of of What happiness really is uh I I uh you know in in post
42:57
I have a pretty lengthy footnote where I go into sort of technical details of what I think happiness is know from a computational perspective and I think once you really get serious about thinking uh about the function of happiness in computational terms you
43:11
realize there's really no way that it makes sense to say that we want it right um because motivation is enough you don't need happiness to motivate you any more than a thermostat needs happiness to keep your home with the right temperature right right happiness is
43:25
different from motivation and so if if happiness isn't necessary for motivation then what is it doing what is its function and I think its function and Technical terms is is um prediction error minimization so what I what I mean by that is uh well when something is
43:42
unexpectedly good much better than we expected um our brain needs to rewire itself it needs to shift our priorities adjust our expectations change our beliefs recalibrate reorient uh and that's ultimately What happiness is it's a recalibration it's it's a it's
44:03
sort of like your brain saying getting warmer when you're playing a guessing game right yep just and and and for the same reason that you don't want to maximize the number of times you hear the words getting warmer when you're playing a guessing game you know you
44:17
don't want to maximize happiness when you're playing the game of life right the getting warmer is there to help you and it goes away when you no longer need it and for the same reason happiness is there to help you it's there to push you in the right direction and then it goes
44:30
away when you no longer need it the better you get at predicting how things are going to be the less you need happiness doesn't mean you want them less you might still be just as motivated but it no longer gives you that that jolt of Happiness the better
44:44
you get at achieving your goals maybe it gives you something else maybe it gives you a different kind of contentment but but the the the raw pleasure and and ecstasy tends to fade the more competent you get at achieve achieving your goals
44:58
um and so that that's the argument I I I make in the piece is that we're not so much pursuing happiness so much as chasing it away huh you you know what's interesting about that is like the original wording of our Declaration of Independence was life liberty and the pursuit of
45:18
property and they they changed that to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness maybe they've done us dirty right because perhaps that's the the first example of Happiness being [ __ ] exactly because the first one at least seemed honest right life liberty and property [ __ ] wow but but
45:40
maybe they didn't want to hold themselves into giving everyone property yeah probably but I I've always kind of thought about happiness as a byproduct and so I'm directionally very much in agreement with you in other words I don't don't like go the like I've
46:00
trained myself to not think oh then I will be happy I I don't think like that at all like um I I'm enjoying what I'm doing this is fun I'm like I but it's like if I'm happy it's generally as a byproduct of things that I'm doing um that I find interesting uh talking to
46:19
people like you who I find fascinating I you know I'm incredibly uh lucky that I get to talk to smart people like you on the podcast and in business and everything else and so that makes me happy but it's a byproduct of what the other thing that I'm doing is absolutely
46:38
yeah and I agree with you that we we maybe send a message that is [ __ ] um by by saying you know you really you happiness is the goal in and of itself I I had an earlier guest um on uh the podcast guy young guy by the name of George Mack and one of his things is
47:02
he comes up with all these various razors right and he he had this one called the bragging razor and and it's quite simple he says if people are bragging about success or happiness cut the level that they say they have in half because on the other hand if people
47:20
are trying to downplay how successful they are or how happy they are he says double it and and again the reason I thought of it when I was thinking in terms of what I wanted to chat with you about it's like it itself is [ __ ] but you know it's like it's also signaling right yeah
47:42
abolutely like oh oh yeah you know um I I I'm I'm mostly happy said the guy with the best life in the world uh you know the other one oh I'm so successful and like no you're not um what yeah what do you think about the way these these interact and intertwine
48:04
because that was the other thought that I had as I was rereading your stuff it's like they they all and that's what I like about it and you they all interact and they all Abol coales to some some interesting insights about we humans absolutely yeah no I think the point
48:22
you're making which would this is the point I think you're making and I think it's right uh which is that happiness has itself become a status symbol yeah that we we brag about how happy we are as a kind of humble brag uh a and when we feel happy we see that as a sign that
48:41
we're High status and when other people claim to be happy or seem happy we we view them as high status and we tend to reward them for that um and so status has has become intertwined with happiness in a way that I think is really toxic um devastating in fact so
49:00
the there's a psychologist by the name of um Jonathan rodenberg who actually thinks that this mythology surrounding the pursuit of happiness is actually responsible for a lot of our mental health problems and is actually responsible for the uh uh the increase
49:14
in depression um so if you think about it if if happiness gets tied up with status um then we start to want happiness uh as a means to getting status um so we're not wanting it as an end in itself we're wanting it as a means to to getting social approval and and esteem
49:33
uh and once that happens that's a really devastating and toxic mind Loop because once you start wanting happiness even if it's just as a means to getting status you set yourself up for failure because the best way to avoid happiness is to actually pursue it or
49:51
put differently happiness is impossible to directly pursue because if I'm right that What happiness is is prediction error minimization where it only arises when things are unexpectedly good well then it's impossible to pursue it because happiness is by definition
50:07
unexpected you're happy when things are unexpectedly good and you cannot pursue something if you don't know you know how to predict it or anticipate it right yeah you can only pursue something if you have expectations about where it's going to show up right and so if
50:23
happiness is all about things being unexpectedly good then then you cannot by definition pursue it and so if you try to pursue it you're going to beset with failure time and time again and that's going to ironically make you miserable which is a paradox and so your
50:41
your uh pre-print is is well named you know as I was listening to you I just I I was thinking about the parallels between happiness uh the unexpected that's what causes happiness right with Claude Shen's uh information Theory uh information is the
51:01
unexpected uh uh new information that you derive right so if if like you're listening to a political speech zero information right nothing unexpected it's all the same [ __ ] to tie it back into everything is [ __ ] but if you're listening to a poem wow there
51:19
could be a lot of information because it was unexpected yeah um and I always find it interesting because I always try to figure out how these things interweave and and like the the parallels there are probably not accidental would be my guess right like if if if happiness is
51:40
unexpected and I agree with you that it is it can't be pursued now information can be pursued it especially after good old uh Claude came up with formulas for us uh but what do you think about like the idea that we have all of these social uh mores these taboos Etc and it
52:06
just seems to me as I was reading you and I was just thinking about it they're all wrong for the most part I mean how how how does one ever begin to try to break out of that right and or or somehow set things set those social without being you know a heretic unless
52:30
you want to be a heretic right then that's good you're signaling something there right yeah but but like if so many of our our social um uh ground state reality beliefs are wrong uhuh how do we move towards right yeah it's it's a really difficult challenge um I think at
52:53
the heart of it is a prisoners dilemma so um if I am the only one who's honest about myself and my unflattering motivations and everyone else bullshits and pretends to have pretty high-minded motivations then I lose status and everyone else gains status right that
53:16
would be equivalent of me cooperating and everyone else defecting right um but if we all cooperate and if we're all honest uh and forthcoming about ourselves and our limitations and our unflattering motivations then we all benefit right but there's that
53:31
temptation to depict you know there's always the opportunity for someone else to say oh yeah well all you guys are are are status Seekers and social climbers and selfish but me I'm really interested in in being authentic and and achieving self-actualization and making the world
53:45
a better place and you people are just are just Petty and inferior to me there's always that temptation to defect in the prisoners dilemma so we're stuck in this prisoners dilemma uh and I think the only way we can get out of it is by coordinating to punish
54:04
defectors right so I think we have to create a social Norm where if you come out and pretend that you're above it all that you don't care what people think of you or that you don't care about your your status and esteem in the eyes of others you need to be penalized for that
54:21
we need to call you out on that and say you're being self-d deluded you're being naive you're being unself-aware um if uh you know I think once we can create a social penalty for defection then that removes the incentive to defect right uh and if we can do that together
54:43
we can escape the prisoners dilemma and build a more honest [ __ ] free world and so that's what I'm trying to do with my substack is to try to create common knowledge of of this [ __ ] to try to burst the [ __ ] bubble so that we can all
54:59
escape this prisoners dilemma together you know in in uh uh hoffstead go leer Bach he talks about the tit fortat model uh with prisoners dilemma um and and then you know they used to have these these uh prisoners dilemma gaming uh things and for computer code and and Tit
55:21
for Tat was three lines cooperate um and if the uh if the other person rats you out retaliate but then go back to cooperation right three lines three computer lines all of the other code is like pages and pages and Pages tit fortat with retaliation wins all of the
55:45
iterative prisoner dilemma games so I mean there it is right my question is yeah like how do you create that social convention how do you create a because right uh Jed McKenna the fictional character who uh writes about uh how we're all fictional characters um says
56:07
that um you know crazy is a numbers game uh basically uh if enough people believe it it's not crazy anymore yeah but but so how do you how do you create that Tipping Point how does that happen yeah well uh the short answer is subscribe to my substack uh the long answer is uh it's really
56:32
hard uh you know building a new social Norm is is extremely difficult you know groups have been trying to do it you know since since the dawn of humanity you know every every social movement is essentially an attempt to build a new social Norm some of them are successful
56:47
some of them are not um and uh I wish I had the answer of of of what what it is that makes it successful and what it is that doesn't but I I really don't it's an extremely difficult and and complicated social science question um but I what I can say is that
57:04
there needs to be an an incentive for everyone who's a part of the group to enforce the norm it needs to be in their interests to uh to enforce the new Norm you need to get status in some way for following the norm and you need to lose status for failing to follow
57:18
it um and how we do that is we we need to associate Norm following with Good Vibes and Associate uh Norm violations with bad vibes uh and maybe those bad vibes are you know [ __ ] dishonesty maybe the Good Vibes are honesty realness um and that's what I'm trying to do with my
57:36
substack hopefully I'll succeed but it's anyone's guess whether I will the the and and that kind of brings up the the Eternal question like is there just part of I call it human OS I stole that from another guy Brian romelli human operating system right I
57:55
like it that way because uh I often find that when you talk to people about things that you know might they might not want to admit about themselves uh they they get they get really upset really quickly so I changed it up to say you know all people do this me
58:13
especially I'm especially guilty of this and and then that often opens the door but what I find is when you when you talk about things like belief uh and whatnot in the abstract people are willing to have the conversation when you get to specific beliefs that
58:33
they might hold uh then it's a whole different thing right like we we I think we are emotional creatures at our core and I think that the emotion that drives us is fear for the most part and and that I wonder if that ever changes do you think do you think do you
58:54
think that I'm off here or or do you think that um or if I'm not off Bas can that change um no I actually I think you're on base um I I think especially you're on base if you if you constru Fe in a more broad sense of of negative emotions in general I think we're way more driven
59:16
by negative emotions than than positive emotions and there's you know huge psychological literature on this that negative emotions are way more intense memorable and attention ground than uh than anything positive so the negative always has an a psychological
59:31
advantage over the positive um and I think you're right that that we're very much steered by those emotions and and for good reason because you know evolutionarily you know the the costs of uh of of losing um are severe you know genetic Oblivion uh but the benefits
59:51
they often have diminishing returns as long as you survive and you have a few kids you know your genes are are doing okay but each additional kit is just kind of diminishing returns right and so if you look at the the the slope of of Fitness increases there's a huge drop
1:00:05
off at zero but there's kind of a plateau the higher up you go right and so I think that's reflected in the design of our minds is that we're we're much more dri driven to avoid that drop off than we are to pursue that Plateau right yeah um so I think you're yeah go go
1:00:26
yeah no I I I think you're you're right because it also fits evolutionarily speaking right novel dangers are things you want to pay attention to right that's why we're always scanning and and that's why like when I look around this room if nothing's different I my
1:00:43
processing goes off right what what triggers my processing it's why good stories always have uh conflict right because if there's no conflict there's no story really and and be because like if all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye saw
1:01:01
an animal charging at me I'm going to notice that very very quickly right uh but if there's nothing there I'm gonna it goes away I W I wonder though and and that's why I asked that question about like is that so core to our uh our being that that that overcoming it
1:01:26
is going to be a herlean challenge right like you make a point in your writing uh where you know you say you know when you hear the next think boy or girl go on in their essay about globalization is bad and like social media is horrible and but let's remind ourselves that we are
1:01:49
living at the most peaceful time in human history and one of the things I always say to people is like you you should you should be so chuffed by the fact that you're here the fact that you're here means you are a cosmic lottery winner because you are also the
1:02:11
result of millions of years of success right all of your ancestors managed to get their genes up to little old you and me and so and yet we don't think that way so what do you think yeah no I think it's a it's a really excellent point that um we're living in
1:02:31
the most peaceful and safe and prosperous time in human history by far our ancestors if they if they heard about how we how we lived they they would be absolutely Blown Away be unfathomable the luxuries and the riches and the Comforts that we get to enjoy
1:02:45
right so we we're living in this unprecedented time culturally and technologically but our brains haven't caught up our brains are still stuck in the Stone Age we still think that there's going to be a tiger that's going to come out and get us any moment right
1:03:00
so if there is a way to transcend this emotional negativity in our psyche I think it involves trying to catch ourselves up it involves trying to remind ourselves that know the tiger is not going to come out and eat us that know the the consequences of someone not
1:03:20
liking your post on social media are not going to be life and death right because because we're so quick to make that leap to oh if people don't like me or if they don't like my joke or if they don't like the way I look then then I'm going to die right because in ancestral
1:03:32
environments you would have died if people didn't like you right but we have to S keep constantly reminding ourselves that no that is not going to happen that the the consequences the social consequences of of our Behavior are so much less severe than they would have
1:03:49
been throughout our evolutionary past and and it's really it's a constant battle you can never stop reminding yourself because as soon as you stop reminding yourself you forget it and you go back to your old you know instinctive fear-based ways of of moving about the
1:04:01
world you have to keep it's it's kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy you know you the cognitive distort the catastrophizing you have to constantly detect them in yourselves and talk yourself out of them and it's it's a constant battle and I think if there's
1:04:14
any way to overcome it that's that's how to do it yeah I agree it's one of the things that I uh I'm a journal keeper and I have been for since I was 18 and so one of the things that I noticed as a benefit of that was our our memories are unreliable narrators and uh we tend to
1:04:34
uh overwrite memories or what we call memories uh with what we currently believe and there's nothing like being called a liar in your own handwriting uh from you know 20 years ago that to to make you kind of wake up and go something really weird is going on here
1:04:52
I better look into this so one of the things that I got in the of doing was like U one of my favorite authors Robert Anton Wilson has this saying that is uh whenever you wonder maybe I'm just a cosmic schmuck he said you become if just for a brief period of time a little
1:05:12
less of a cosmic schmuck and he goes if you can continually remind yourself of this you will make yourself in ineligible for political office I love him so one of the things that I will do is when I'm having these feelings I'll use apple noes and I'll
1:05:33
just say you're being an you know you're being an idiot because of X Y and Z right but yeah and and it's I find that if I don't do that you it is very easy to slip back into the nobody likes me and you know like the the thing is the other thing that you realize and maybe it's a function of
1:05:54
age I don't know but like you realize that you know worry about what other people are thinking about you the first thing you got to remember is they're not [ __ ] thinking about you at all're thinking about themselves for the most part right yeah absolutely and and
1:06:11
so I found that to be helpful and then just small like little things like every time I take a shower I I say you know what thank you Universe I'm not a religious person but you know I I'll thank the universe thank you universe that I get to be in a hot shower because
1:06:28
think of that what tiny percentage of all humans who've ever lived have access to a daily hot shower yeah and and and like when you start thinking things those ways you just are like much happier and then the other thing that I've trained myself to do is like
1:06:48
everyone's always talking about I'm going to die on that Hill you know that's a believe I'm GNA die on that hill and I always say to people no no no no no I subscribe to the General georgees Patton uh belief that I'm going to make the other poor dumb bastard die
1:07:03
on his Hill right no it seems to me do you think that there's a way that we can train a bigger group of people to to have that attitude or is it just is that just something you got to want for yourself I think it's possible I really liked what you said about uh sending
1:07:25
yourself reminders or recording yourself saying you're being an idiot and then listening to it later I think one of the best ways of of getting out of of this uh cycle of [ __ ] is to sort of see ourselves from the third person is to see ourselves as a as a as a different
1:07:41
person and not as ourselves because we're so much better at spotting the [ __ ] in other people than we are at spotting it in ourselves totally and really the only way we can spot it in ourselves is to sort of treat ourselves as someone else right you know to to to
1:07:57
you send a voice memo to yourself as if you were sending a a message to someone else right um there was there was a paper I was reading that that even just the simple Act of of referring to yourself in the third person can sort of cause that mental shift I know it's it
1:08:12
makes you sound like a jackass you know David David likes that so you know that's that's part of why I'm I'm hesitant to actually endorse it but it might help you break out of it a little bit to to you know talk about yourself the third person you know for for you to
1:08:28
say David you're you're being a jackass David you're you're deluding yourself you're bullshitting again um I think that that might be a helpful tool I found it to be very helpful uh I used to call it an objective Observer and when I would say it and I would have it this
1:08:45
other person right he was the objective Observer yeah and that was the way I I looked at myself from you know outside of myself but the first time I said it to my wife she like got really mad it's like objective of you're the one who's
1:08:59
being an [ __ ] so it's it's interesting it's something I think that we can do with ourselves and it and it works pretty nicely you know again Tony Dello I think you might love his work because he he had another thing like um he would go up
1:09:17
to people and say hi I'm an ass who are you because he would always be able to say to himself if somebody said to him Pony you're such an [ __ ] and he would go he would go yeah I told you I was but but I think that you know these little tricks if you want to get better
1:09:39
at it they help right because they they are they they remind you that you we really are much better at assessing other people than we are ourselves we dilute ourselves constantly and you know this Bears itself out in the research right although Ed it's not a function of
1:10:00
Education phds are just as guilty of this is people with no education absolutely you see it in um I saw a survey of uh professors of Sociology um who were asked you know their colleague uh Paul over there do you think that he could be the head of the department no
1:10:21
[ __ ] way he's an idiot right um then what do you think you could be the head of the oh absolutely and Paul of course says the same thing about you right and and so one of the things that I did find that I thought you'd be interested in is uh who who are the people who are best at
1:10:45
calling [ __ ] and seeing [ __ ] um Special Forces emergency room doctors anyone and traitors and trador H people who trade on Wall Street right because um in two cases it's truly life and death right if you get it wrong and you're the ER doc your patient dies if
1:11:08
you're a special force you get it wrong your colleagues your brothers die um and if you're Trader it's it's a fictional death right your money dies um and and and so one of the interesting things about that though that I've thought and I don't have I don't have empirical
1:11:27
evidence for this so let's be careful I this is a hunch of mine but the the people that I've known in those capacities are all really funny what do you think that humor has to do with this whole thing that we're talking about yeah oh there's so much to
1:11:48
say there uh where do I begin yeah I think humor and calling out [ __ ] I think uh they're they're almost interchangeable I think for one I think one of the only ways that we can call out [ __ ] in a way that is safe in a way that isn't going to be too offensive and
1:12:06
threatening to people is to frame it uh in a in a humorous way to ouch it at a joke you know the jester that uh that hooks fun at the king in a in a in a humorous way and can you know you know couch some clever satire of the of the political regime and in the comedy
1:12:21
routine and I think comedians have been doing that uh throughout the ages um humor is is a wonderful way of revealing otherwise threatening or unsettling truths in a way that's that's more palatable to hear I think that's part of it um the other part of it is I think
1:12:39
what humor is is ultimately the detection of a of a whoopsie you know some kind of mistake that we're making uh uh some kind of mixup and the reason why we laugh is we we we want to all coordinate and and get on the same page about what the whoopsy was uh and the
1:12:55
bigger the potential whoopsy the bigger the laughter because we all really need to to make sure not to make that whoopsy you know like yeah I'm not I'm not going to make that whoopsy no no [Laughter] no uh and so one of my favorite ways of of coping
1:13:12
with the horror of The Human Condition uh is to find a way to laugh at it um because it would otherwise just be uh so upsetting and disorienting and destabilizing but I think the most helpful and and and psychologically healthy way of reflecting on all that's wrong with the
1:13:32
world is to find a way to laugh at it because at the end of the day it is a kind of a whoopsie it's a really really really big whoopsy but it's a whoopsy it's born of human Folly and human self- delusion uh and and human uh uh narcissism and if we can recognize that
1:13:53
we can both detect the whoopsy and avoid it and also not feel too upset by it and so I think that's that's ultimately um the marriage of of comedy and misanthropy that uh that I that I am you know trying to promote in in my work everything is [ __ ] and also at Cards
1:14:10
Against Humanity yeah and uh I think it was Billy Wilder who said if you're gonna tell the truth you better be funny or they'll [ __ ] kill you yeah love that yeah well David this has been fantastic um what's what's next uh after the pre-print uh is out uh uh what are you
1:14:33
working on right now yeah so I have another academic paper that's going to be published in psychological inquiry it's my grand theory of political ideologies on on why political ideologies are [ __ ] um and uh right now there's going to be some scholarly
1:14:47
commentaries and there those commentaries are being submitted and then I'm going to respond to the commentary so that'll be out uh this summer uh and I'm also just plugging away at this substack everything is [ __ ] uh trying to pke holes in the in the
1:15:01
[ __ ] stories we tell ourselves uh hoping to uh uh gather an audience and start a movement for uh for anti- [ __ ] uh and uh hopefully that'll that'll work out it's been a fun intellectual outlet for me so far and there's definitely no shortage of [ __ ] to P CO's in so I feel like
1:15:19
that'll that'll probably keep me busy for a very long time your Source material is inexhaustible uh abolutely Well you certainly have a big fan of your subsec and me and our team over here at infinite Loops at the at the end of each of our podcasts we uh we
1:15:37
wave a magic wand and make you the emperor of the world uh only for a day you can't kill anybody you can't put anyone in a re-education camp but we are going to hand you a magical microphone and you are going to speak two things into it that will
1:15:55
every eight billion of the humans on the planet whenever their next morning is are going to wake up and whatever you David whispered in that they're going to think that was their idea and not only are they going to think it was a good idea they're gonna act on it what two
1:16:12
things are you going to incept in the world's population what a wonderful question um well I'm I'm uh very disposed to uh hearken back to our earlier conversation about happiness uh and incept them with the idea that they need to stop pursuing happiness uh and
1:16:33
and pursue the things that they really want because the pursuit of happiness is the shest path to misery um that would probably be uh my first decree as Emperor um my other decree uh is that uh I think we all need to be less confident uh in our beliefs and in
1:16:54
particular our political beliefs so I have a a substack post called you should be troubled uh and I talk about how emotionally troubled we are by our political opponents uh and how rarely intellectually troubled we are we rarely stop to doubt whether we're the ones who
1:17:10
are wrong or whether we're the baddiest right or whether we're vulnerable to the same biases and distortions that we see in our political opponents and of course we are we're all humans we're all members of the same species if there are some power ful biases in the human mind
1:17:26
that are leading our political opponents astray then surely those biases are leading us astray in similar ways and we should be very very intellectually troubled by that so I would make everyone uh a bit less confident in their political beliefs amen I I could
1:17:42
not uh be more in favor of that one because like the other thing that I always say is listen I am just as likely just as guilty just as uh uh yeah I have all of these foibles because I happen to be a human being and anyone who is is going to suffer under these same
1:18:03
delusions and these same certainties that aren't certainties right and and that's helpful again the more you remind yourself that you're not a COS that you're just a cosmic schmuck the less of a one you can be so I really like that one well David where where can everyone
1:18:20
find you uh on your substack and social Med so substack is uh everything is bullshit. substack docomo can feel free to reach out to me on Twitter you can direct message me if you want um yeah that's that's where you can find me if if you if you want to
1:18:40
look at my academic work uh you can check out research gate which is a repository for uh academic papers and you can just search my name on that terrific well this has been fine or fun fine this has been fine Jim you're full of [ __ ] David thank you so much this was a lot of fun