WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:00.880 David, good to see you. 00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:02.240 Good to see you, Dave. 00:00:02.400 --> 00:00:03.600 Uh, what is your last name? 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:05.040 It's Petra Zuski. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:06.000 It's not easy to say. 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:07.520 And what's my last name again? 00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:08.800 Uh Pinsoff. 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:14.640 Although you uh you late I heard you there's a rumor that you would like to go by Von 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:15.520 Pinsoff. 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:16.880 Uh yes, that's right. 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:17.680 Ideally. 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:20.320 Uh if you could call me Von Pinsoff, that would be much appreciated. 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:26.400 Um, we have a wonderful episode today, and uh that episode involves actual evolutionary 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:29.970 psychology by actual evolutionary psychologists, which is our tagline. 00:00:30.770 --> 00:00:33.650 Oh, I was gonna say, I think there's a a podcast with a tagline like that. 00:00:33.730 --> 00:00:37.810 So yeah, enjoy and uh we'll see you in a few seconds. 00:00:39.330 --> 00:00:40.610 I can cut that out. 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:43.090 Um let's see. 00:00:43.570 --> 00:00:46.450 We'll be back in a few seconds after a brief musical interlude. 00:00:48.770 --> 00:00:49.970 Seven seconds, yeah. 00:00:50.120 --> 00:00:50.280 Okay. 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.160 So David, today we have Christina Moya. 00:01:09.800 --> 00:01:10.200 We do. 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:12.680 Uh this was a oh sorry, David. 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:14.680 Uh Christina uh goes by. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:17.880 I don't know if she still has this her signature in her email, but it's Christina without 00:01:17.880 --> 00:01:18.280 the H. 00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:20.770 So it's C-R I S T I N A. 00:01:21.170 --> 00:01:22.050 Okay, cool. 00:01:22.210 --> 00:01:26.210 Um I mean it's a homonym, so you can't tell the difference, but that's right. 00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:27.330 Uh we're doing great so far. 00:01:27.490 --> 00:01:29.410 Uh it's Christina, not Christina. 00:01:29.570 --> 00:01:29.810 Yes. 00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:32.770 And uh what who is she? 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:37.090 Christina Moya is I don't well, who she's uh Christina Moya. 00:01:37.170 --> 00:01:42.180 I don't know if I'm like wow we're like three minutes in and we still haven't even gotten 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:42.500 it. 00:01:42.580 --> 00:01:43.460 Uh no, no, no. 00:01:43.540 --> 00:01:46.100 She's a professor of anthropology at UC Davis. 00:01:46.180 --> 00:01:50.420 Uh and Christina is from the academic family over at Boyd and Pete Richardson. 00:01:50.580 --> 00:01:52.580 Um, she was a graduate student at UCLA. 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:58.660 And um Christina is just an incredibly uh I think she's one 00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:04.490 to my mind, she's one of the most sort of um well rounded and just intensely 00:02:04.490 --> 00:02:07.850 fierced intellects in the evolutionary behavioral sciences. 00:02:08.010 --> 00:02:10.250 Um and I just love talking to Christina. 00:02:10.570 --> 00:02:15.770 She's so charitable and willing to argue in a very positive way. 00:02:16.090 --> 00:02:21.850 Um and so I just I'm always happy to talk to Christina and it makes my my uh my day 00:02:22.010 --> 00:02:24.090 and my month and my year when I get to see her. 00:02:24.170 --> 00:02:27.530 So it's it's been a while because we're all busy professors now. 00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:30.170 And so it was really good to talk to her on this episode. 00:02:30.330 --> 00:02:33.560 And she talks about um ethnolinguistic boundaries. 00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:34.440 Yep. 00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:38.920 We get into uh you know intergroup boundaries, intergroup essentialism, which we get into 00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:39.400 in the podcast. 00:02:39.480 --> 00:02:43.560 We even get into some of the different branches of the evolutionary social sciences. 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:46.360 Uh and and we we go into some interesting tangents too. 00:02:46.440 --> 00:02:49.880 We talked about like coolness and charisma, like it was a really fun, wide-range. 00:02:50.760 --> 00:02:56.450 This is when we also talked about uh flat Earth uh flat earth conspiracies and yeah 00:02:56.770 --> 00:02:58.370 uh conspiracies in general. 00:02:58.610 --> 00:02:58.930 Yeah. 00:02:59.170 --> 00:03:05.090 So um yeah if if you're interested in flat earth um things, uh this is the one for 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:05.330 you. 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:05.970 Yep. 00:03:06.290 --> 00:03:08.530 Uh so with without further ado, I love this one. 00:03:08.610 --> 00:03:10.050 This is a great, great episode. 00:03:10.130 --> 00:03:15.820 Uh without further ado here is Christina Moya and David and I talking about um flat earth 00:03:15.820 --> 00:03:21.660 and everything uh related and joy okay 00:03:21.820 --> 00:03:27.740 we're recording um christina moya from uc davis anthropology uh professor 00:03:27.820 --> 00:03:32.220 there um is joining us today christina we're super happy to have you thanks so much for 00:03:32.220 --> 00:03:38.060 having us well us me the royal um uh christina yes exactly um 00:03:38.140 --> 00:03:43.450 uh christina i was thinking about this like what um i was thinking yesterday like what to 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:43.930 say about you. 00:03:44.090 --> 00:03:49.770 And I think honestly, you're probably one of the people who has like most changed my mind 00:03:49.930 --> 00:03:51.610 of any person I've talked to. 00:03:51.690 --> 00:03:52.170 Yeah. 00:03:52.330 --> 00:03:56.490 Um, and we can get into sort of what that is, but I mean the short version is like you were 00:03:56.490 --> 00:03:57.450 a student at UCLA. 00:03:57.530 --> 00:03:58.810 I was a student at UCSB. 00:03:58.970 --> 00:04:04.970 And the idea of sort of cultural evolution and the validity of it and why it was important 00:04:05.210 --> 00:04:10.820 and how it fits with natural selection or biological evolution is something that you and I 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:15.460 over kind of conversations as we were graduate students, we just went over year over year. 00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:19.380 And um, you know, I really learned a lot talking from you. 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:25.220 And you know, you convinced me that cultural evolution is a thing and it's important to 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:25.780 understand. 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:27.540 And so thank you for doing that. 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:28.580 It's the nice to be honest. 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:31.940 Oh my gosh, that's like the nicest thing I've gonna hear this week, I'm sure. 00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:34.180 So we're we're gonna end the episode right now. 00:04:34.580 --> 00:04:35.940 So thanks for joining us. 00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:37.690 Done. 00:04:37.850 --> 00:04:38.090 Done. 00:04:38.970 --> 00:04:39.690 Mission accomplished. 00:04:40.010 --> 00:04:44.010 Dave, why don't you you should tell the world, but I convinced you of none. 00:04:45.450 --> 00:04:48.090 Oh, I mean, I I was already on board with cultural evolution. 00:04:48.170 --> 00:04:53.850 I think there's a bit of a difference in between the UCLA and UCSB uh schools of thought. 00:04:54.010 --> 00:04:59.850 I think um UCLA is more like let's marry the two approaches of you know classic to 00:05:00.010 --> 00:05:03.290 be cosmedies of psych and you know Boideian cultural evolution. 00:05:03.450 --> 00:05:07.160 They're compatible, let's find you know how they inform each other. 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:12.840 And that's very much Clark Barrett's approach that he he put forward in his uh 00:05:12.840 --> 00:05:15.480 excellent book, um, The Shape of Thought. 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:18.440 Um, we're getting a little in the weeds here, but no, it's great. 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:19.560 No, shape of thought is great. 00:05:19.640 --> 00:05:21.000 Yeah, we'll we'll yeah. 00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:26.360 But I feel like, yeah, no, the the UCSP school is more like we're gonna stick to the to the 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:30.680 Bible, the Tubian Cosmeties Bible, and anything outside of that we're gonna be a little 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:31.240 hostile to. 00:05:31.320 --> 00:05:32.920 Is that is that unfair, Dave? 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:38.570 Um, no, I think I was uh uh embodying that and I think during this conversation with 00:05:38.570 --> 00:05:39.050 Christina. 00:05:39.130 --> 00:05:43.530 And I mean Christina and Christina, I also have we I also have great guilt because we're 00:05:43.530 --> 00:05:44.970 working on this uh paper. 00:05:45.130 --> 00:05:50.410 And maybe we can talk a little bit about um uh why why we wrote the paper, because I think 00:05:50.490 --> 00:05:55.720 in some sense, uh time has assassinated it to some degree for us, but I think it's still 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:56.760 worth doing the paper. 00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:01.320 I mean, um, but but basically, David, and and we can explain because there's gonna be 00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:04.920 different audiences for this, some people who know us, some people who don't know anything 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:05.480 about this. 00:06:05.640 --> 00:06:10.280 But um this I think this goes in the category of like the people you fight with are the 00:06:10.280 --> 00:06:11.720 people that you're closest to. 00:06:11.880 --> 00:06:17.240 And so compared to everyone else in the world, UCLA, sort of Rob Boyd, Pete 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:22.530 Richardson doing taking an evolutionary approach to understanding cultural dynamics, and 00:06:22.530 --> 00:06:28.530 then Lita Cosmid is in John Tuby taking an evolutionary perspective to understand cultural 00:06:28.530 --> 00:06:29.810 dynamics through psychology. 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:34.610 I mean, that's like really similar, UCLA, UCSB, really close by. 00:06:34.850 --> 00:06:38.770 And, you know, I wasn't there for all of the um 00:06:40.520 --> 00:06:41.480 controversy. 00:06:41.640 --> 00:06:46.680 I heard stories about it from more senior folks um like Clark. 00:06:46.840 --> 00:06:52.040 Um but um and but but I do understand that there was sort of controversy. 00:06:52.200 --> 00:06:58.120 But I think our generation, Christina, you and I, we sort of we were the on the ground um 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:01.480 grad students sort of resolving what that conflict was. 00:07:01.970 --> 00:07:07.170 And I would say I wouldn't want to diminish that some people do like I I still hear from 00:07:07.170 --> 00:07:11.730 some parts of the evolutionary social sciences kind of this wariness about evolutionary 00:07:11.730 --> 00:07:13.330 psychology specifically, right? 00:07:13.650 --> 00:07:19.650 Um, and that I think is born out of maybe like some of what the worst part of that work 00:07:19.650 --> 00:07:23.330 might be, but also some of these old conflicts that haven't been totally resolved. 00:07:23.410 --> 00:07:28.760 So to your point, Dave, that I do think there is still value in saying where is our 00:07:28.760 --> 00:07:31.160 division of labor and where is our true disagreement. 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:36.520 Like that was kind of one of our goals there because what and I try to do this even my now 00:07:36.520 --> 00:07:40.760 that I'm undergraduate teaching, um, which I guess you're starting as well, right? 00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:45.320 Like like thinking about what how do we teach our students to make sure that, you know, 00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:49.960 they're go they're going to hear different stories from different classes and to recognize 00:07:49.960 --> 00:07:55.670 the value of different fields and different approaches as specialization to some extent. 00:07:55.910 --> 00:08:00.310 But then also being able to engage like when it really is when the when there really are 00:08:00.310 --> 00:08:05.190 debates, like figure trying to figure out like where where is the debate, like name that 00:08:05.190 --> 00:08:09.110 debate, and figure out is it something tractable from a scientific perspective? 00:08:09.270 --> 00:08:09.590 Right. 00:08:09.910 --> 00:08:10.390 Yeah. 00:08:10.550 --> 00:08:14.070 Um and I and I think there might be some of those still, but I think some of them it's 00:08:14.070 --> 00:08:17.350 increased like you said that it's assassin time has assassinated that paper. 00:08:17.590 --> 00:08:23.480 I think that some of the big debates that remain are like about just hard, 00:08:23.640 --> 00:08:27.720 really hard to answer questions, maybe intractable. 00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:30.200 Um, what do you think? 00:08:30.280 --> 00:08:31.320 So I'm curious. 00:08:31.400 --> 00:08:34.600 So you you put that out there, and it's a really interesting distinction between like a 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:38.920 pseudo-disagreement where there's actually no conflict, and it's just an intellectual dil 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.000 division of labor where we're gonna focus on these questions and these topics, and we're 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.240 gonna focus on these questions and these topics, and then we can, you know, meet each other 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:50.040 in the middle when we tunnel through the mountain on on either side. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:56.750 Um But there may be some genuine disagreements and genuine conflicts about how the world 00:08:56.750 --> 00:08:57.230 works. 00:08:59.230 --> 00:09:02.110 Do you see that existing? 00:09:02.590 --> 00:09:05.470 And if so, what are those genuine disagreements and conflicts? 00:09:06.030 --> 00:09:10.590 I think we might we could even talk about them as like different priors about how the way 00:09:10.590 --> 00:09:16.300 the world works, like different emphasis put on different processes as being 00:09:16.300 --> 00:09:17.260 relatively more important. 00:09:17.420 --> 00:09:22.780 And I think um those probably come down in the to the field of like cooperation. 00:09:23.340 --> 00:09:24.300 That's a big one. 00:09:24.380 --> 00:09:30.140 Um and then um kind of how much how much 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:36.220 information has to be in the mind or has in that how much how strong do 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:40.860 those priors that natural selection endowed us with have to be or how are they structured 00:09:40.940 --> 00:09:45.410 um to be able to get us like the full range of complex behavior that we see today. 00:09:45.570 --> 00:09:50.050 And so I think we start with different assumptions or different, at least priors. 00:09:50.130 --> 00:09:54.130 I would like to think that hopefully we can all update our beliefs as you know Dave has. 00:09:54.770 --> 00:09:56.290 But it's hard sometimes, right? 00:09:56.370 --> 00:09:59.810 Like we're we have a lifetime of living our world in our subfields. 00:10:00.450 --> 00:10:05.580 But those two, those two questions I think are ones that we start with different 00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:07.660 expectations of the world. 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:08.380 Yeah. 00:10:08.540 --> 00:10:14.140 So just to clarify for people who don't know, a prior is in Bayesian mathematics, it's the 00:10:14.140 --> 00:10:18.380 expectation you have uh that a certain hypothesis is true before you encounter the 00:10:18.380 --> 00:10:21.100 evidence, and then you update your prior once you get the evidence. 00:10:21.260 --> 00:10:26.940 Um what's interesting about you highlighting this um disagreement about what the prior is, 00:10:27.100 --> 00:10:31.820 is that I think the difference in priors is itself about our priors. 00:10:33.410 --> 00:10:37.810 Because uh for so we come to This is getting too meta for me. 00:10:39.890 --> 00:10:45.490 So on one perspective, let's say we come to the world with a rich set of priors about how 00:10:45.490 --> 00:10:46.450 reality works. 00:10:46.770 --> 00:10:51.330 We're expecting to receive certain kinds of really precise inputs. 00:10:51.410 --> 00:10:56.530 Uh and we and we come to the world with a a a wide variety of hypotheses about how the 00:10:56.530 --> 00:11:01.090 world is structured, you know, plants, animals, people, social categories, etc. 00:11:01.540 --> 00:11:05.220 Uh and the other perspective is our when we come into the world and our priors are actually 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:09.700 quite relaxed and we're kind of open to any kind of input uh and we sort of the the mind 00:11:09.700 --> 00:11:14.500 sort of evolves based very contingently on the input and we and we don't really have uh you 00:11:14.500 --> 00:11:19.140 know a a strong expectation one way or the other and the development of the mind is very 00:11:19.140 --> 00:11:24.900 much a product of the inputs themselves and not of the the priors that we have uh before we 00:11:24.900 --> 00:11:25.540 get the input. 00:11:25.700 --> 00:11:28.090 Is that one of the big way of characterizing? 00:11:28.410 --> 00:11:28.970 I think that's true. 00:11:29.050 --> 00:11:30.170 I think that's one of the big debates. 00:11:30.330 --> 00:11:34.330 And then I think the other one which we can or don't have to talk about is like what helps 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:36.170 explain like large-scale cooperation. 00:11:36.330 --> 00:11:36.410 Right. 00:11:36.570 --> 00:11:39.450 Um, or most of cooperation, maybe with but yeah, I agree. 00:11:39.530 --> 00:11:43.130 That's a really good way of putting the debate about the nature of the mind. 00:11:43.210 --> 00:11:44.650 Um priors about priors. 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:52.410 Um Christina, um, your um we'll start talking about your research too. 00:11:52.570 --> 00:11:56.000 Um, do you think uh this is a choose your own adventure? 00:11:56.080 --> 00:12:02.080 Do you think it's useful to um talk about when you said sort of we in different areas 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:03.040 have different fields? 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:08.480 Do you think it would be helpful to sort of sketch out what the different areas are um um 00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:12.400 of of the social sciences, like kind of like a recapitulation? 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:13.360 Because we haven't really done that. 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:19.030 We've sort of de facto had lab experimentalists on, and then also field 00:12:19.030 --> 00:12:19.990 anthropologists. 00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:25.430 And I can almost hear people listening who don't know already sort of the 00:12:26.150 --> 00:12:29.990 topography or the map of the landscape of who does this thing. 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:36.150 That I would expect, you know, a podcast uh with evolutionary psychology 00:12:36.150 --> 00:12:36.710 in the title. 00:12:36.950 --> 00:12:42.620 People might be imagining certain things and not other things that's different than sort of 00:12:42.620 --> 00:12:44.620 those of us who are actually in it. 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:50.060 Would would it be okay to sort of, you know, what's or or or you know, what's your take on 00:12:50.060 --> 00:12:54.300 sort of what is the the landscape of who does it and what is that division of labor? 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:59.740 Yeah, I there's this classic paper that tries to divide the evolutionary social sciences 00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:03.820 like in the early 2000s by Eric Smith into three flavors, right? 00:13:03.900 --> 00:13:05.180 So maybe that's a place to start. 00:13:05.260 --> 00:13:07.790 I think it's it's gotten more complicated to some extent. 00:13:07.950 --> 00:13:13.870 But you know, some of the three flavors are, you know, one coming from the psychology, 00:13:14.110 --> 00:13:18.270 like grow growing up out of psychology and maybe cognitive sciences as well, which is 00:13:18.270 --> 00:13:24.190 evolutionary psychology per se, that is um kind of trying to do well, you you guys could I 00:13:24.190 --> 00:13:26.990 don't want to put words in your mouth, you guys could probably define it better, but I my 00:13:26.990 --> 00:13:32.040 understanding is kind of make sense of the computational machinery that evolves and include 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:33.960 like including its contingencies, right? 00:13:34.040 --> 00:13:35.640 Which is something that I think a lot of people get wrong. 00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:40.520 Like, how does it take input to adapt to the current world that it sees, right? 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:45.800 So it is a contingent computation, you know, machinery that is um under investigation by 00:13:45.800 --> 00:13:47.400 most evolutionary psychologists. 00:13:47.560 --> 00:13:51.800 And to some extent, um, then there's another field that traditionally has been called human 00:13:51.800 --> 00:13:56.520 behavioral ecology that's coming out of anthropology and to some extent, like more rooted 00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:02.110 in animal behavior as well, I would say, and ethology, given that the tools of behavioral 00:14:02.110 --> 00:14:08.110 ecology make basically how do animals, including humans, respond adaptively to 00:14:08.110 --> 00:14:09.550 the environments that they see? 00:14:09.790 --> 00:14:15.310 Like again, if it it it's it sounds so similar to some extent, because you're saying it's 00:14:15.310 --> 00:14:21.070 about how do the inputs into the psychology burn to the mind that 00:14:21.070 --> 00:14:24.510 behavioral ecologists tend to black box because they're trained more as biologists and 00:14:24.510 --> 00:14:25.550 anthropologists? 00:14:25.710 --> 00:14:30.680 How do the different environments that serve as inputs kind of get translated into adaptive 00:14:30.680 --> 00:14:31.240 behavior? 00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:35.720 And the classic assumption in behavioral ecology, or at least their area of investigation, 00:14:35.800 --> 00:14:41.800 is that we're going to be investigating the adoptive out um kind of parts 00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:42.600 of the phenotype. 00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:47.640 And we're kind of going to ignore the neutral forces in evolution for now because whenever 00:14:47.640 --> 00:14:52.230 you see something that kind of looks like a complex behavior, it's probably there by 00:14:52.230 --> 00:14:52.630 design. 00:14:52.870 --> 00:14:56.710 It's a little bit of a simplifying assumption with the kind of the recognition that those 00:14:56.710 --> 00:15:00.790 are models of that probably there are non-adoptive phenotypes as well. 00:15:01.350 --> 00:15:05.590 And then gosh, where does cultural evolution come from? 00:15:05.750 --> 00:15:10.070 Like it has a complicated history because it's using like uh in the 70s, like it's you 00:15:10.070 --> 00:15:15.640 know, it develops using population genetic models is where it first kind of gets to be 00:15:15.640 --> 00:15:16.280 formalized. 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:22.200 And there are people working on it who are um geneticists, who are ecologists. 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:27.880 Um yeah, I guess like not necessarily squarely in the anthropology 00:15:27.880 --> 00:15:33.240 tradition, when it first gets developed by people like um Mark Feldman, Kavale Sforza, 00:15:33.560 --> 00:15:36.360 Pete Um Richardson, and Robert Boyd. 00:15:36.680 --> 00:15:41.430 Um at least the first instantiation, I think it's expanded what it what that means, but but 00:15:41.430 --> 00:15:45.270 then it gets kind of rooted in more ethnographic work as well. 00:15:45.430 --> 00:15:49.590 So I think it tends to get done more in anthropology departments, even though it has that 00:15:49.590 --> 00:15:50.470 um history. 00:15:50.550 --> 00:15:54.870 And it's um trying to make sense of a cut, it has a couple of questions at its heart. 00:15:54.950 --> 00:15:56.790 Like, why are humans a cultural species? 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:57.830 Like, what was that good for? 00:15:57.910 --> 00:16:03.160 How can we make sense of um our cultural nature? 00:16:03.640 --> 00:16:08.040 Like when would c culture meaning social learning from others and you know there are other 00:16:08.040 --> 00:16:08.600 entailments? 00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:12.840 A lot of species do social learning, but humans do social learning at a massive scale, and 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:17.640 we kind of accumulate it intergenerationally in a way that some people like to distinguish 00:16:17.640 --> 00:16:20.920 as culture or at least cumulative culture. 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:23.320 And so how did that get off the ground? 00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:24.600 How can that evolve? 00:16:24.680 --> 00:16:30.670 And then what are the consequences of having those kinds of um that type 00:16:30.670 --> 00:16:36.350 of cultural cognition for the way that um behavior is shaped. 00:16:36.510 --> 00:16:40.830 And so it does have a, you know, at least part of it is a psychological question also of 00:16:40.910 --> 00:16:42.030 like what is that? 00:16:42.350 --> 00:16:46.350 How did natural selection shape our social learning capacities? 00:16:46.590 --> 00:16:47.230 Right. 00:16:48.910 --> 00:16:50.430 So is that okay. 00:16:50.830 --> 00:16:51.420 Yeah, That's good. 00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:56.380 I mean, I want to add one more uh chess piece on the board. 00:16:56.460 --> 00:17:00.140 So cultural evolution itself has different factions within it. 00:17:00.300 --> 00:17:04.380 So there's the the school coming out of you know Rob Boyd, uh Joe Henrik. 00:17:04.620 --> 00:17:10.540 Um that's very much about um how culture accumulates in an adaptive way and and um and 00:17:10.540 --> 00:17:14.540 it talks you know it's about cultural adaptation, about how cultures are smarter than any 00:17:14.540 --> 00:17:14.940 individual. 00:17:15.100 --> 00:17:19.790 Um We did the canoe and kayak example on the podcast a couple episodes ago. 00:17:19.950 --> 00:17:22.990 So we did the classic, Christina, just to let you know sort of what we talked about. 00:17:25.230 --> 00:17:27.070 And then you were thinking about the Sperbarian. 00:17:27.550 --> 00:17:32.830 Yes, and then on the other side of the pond, we have this sort of French or the Paris 00:17:32.830 --> 00:17:38.030 School of Cultural Evolution, uh, pioneered by Dan Sperber, um, uh, you know, 00:17:38.270 --> 00:17:44.270 currently uh uh put forward by you know people like Hugh Mercier, uh Nicolas Baumard, um 00:17:44.780 --> 00:17:47.500 uh, Pascal Boyer uh in in America. 00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:53.580 Um, and this approach uh is uh uh derives less from population genetics and more 00:17:53.580 --> 00:17:54.620 from epidemiology. 00:17:54.860 --> 00:18:00.700 So it looks at culture uh not necessarily as an engine of adaptation, but just 00:18:00.700 --> 00:18:03.020 as a spreader of representations. 00:18:03.260 --> 00:18:07.900 And in order to understand how these representations spread, you need a more detailed and 00:18:07.900 --> 00:18:11.530 thorough ex uh uh model of what's going on in the mind. 00:18:11.690 --> 00:18:15.210 So you need to know what ideas are sticky, what ideas are memorable, what ideas are 00:18:15.210 --> 00:18:20.570 counterintuitive or intuitive, and that helps you predict which um ideas or which 00:18:20.570 --> 00:18:23.530 representations are going to be stickier or going to persist. 00:18:23.690 --> 00:18:29.290 And and and it it's very much and it's it's more of a psychologically um informed 00:18:29.450 --> 00:18:33.530 approach than than the Boidean uh school of cultural evolution. 00:18:33.820 --> 00:18:37.820 Increasingly I I think they're they're beginning to merge and there's you know becoming 00:18:37.820 --> 00:18:40.140 less and less of a of a distinction between them. 00:18:40.220 --> 00:18:43.020 But um that is another piece of the puzzle. 00:18:43.340 --> 00:18:49.020 I guess I would add also um kind of across the pond as well, the kind of a British 00:18:49.020 --> 00:18:52.300 tradition that is also more grounded in animal behavior as well. 00:18:52.380 --> 00:18:57.900 And sometimes there's still some of their practitioners are in biology departments um that 00:18:57.900 --> 00:19:03.350 looks that um looks at social learning in non-human animals um 00:19:03.750 --> 00:19:09.670 and often goes is this a fair characterization but the like 00:19:09.670 --> 00:19:15.350 the the concept of niche construction the fact that that non-human animals as well kind of 00:19:15.430 --> 00:19:20.260 um socially learn or even if they are not socially learning they construct different 00:19:20.260 --> 00:19:24.580 niches, they change their environment in some ways that are parallel to the ways that 00:19:24.580 --> 00:19:28.420 humans change their environments and therefore are create new forces of selection. 00:19:28.500 --> 00:19:34.420 And the classic case of that would be um like a beaver dam, which actually now I feel 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:34.660 bad. 00:19:34.740 --> 00:19:36.260 I don't know how socially learned that is. 00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:40.020 Is that do you just get to do that like totally with genetics? 00:19:40.180 --> 00:19:44.750 Yeah, no that's a good question adaptations as we joke I'm not that kind of doctor like I 00:19:44.750 --> 00:19:48.910 don't know I'm not sure what's be fascinating to look at being a little bit more if there's 00:19:48.910 --> 00:19:52.910 a beaver specialist listening please reach out we would love to have you on I would love to 00:19:52.910 --> 00:19:57.390 talk about I'd love to have a a beaver focused episode that would be fantastic but even if 00:19:57.390 --> 00:20:01.790 whichever its sources like it is a new and like those dams then create like new 00:20:01.790 --> 00:20:07.760 environments that shape um evolution and yeah So so both for that 00:20:07.760 --> 00:20:11.520 reason that new niches are created in the same way that culture in humans creates new 00:20:11.520 --> 00:20:12.160 niches. 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:15.920 Um and for the reason that like social learning is just so prevalent in so many different 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:16.320 species. 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:21.280 There's also that kind of that focus of um research that's you know somewhere between 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:25.280 comparative cognition and animal behavior and cultural evolution. 00:20:25.520 --> 00:20:25.760 Yeah. 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:25.920 Yeah. 00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:30.160 When you you um yeah, we should have the Stu West folks out like Nikolai Morhani and Max 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:33.010 Burton Jones out and just all kinds of people. 00:20:33.170 --> 00:20:39.090 Um, Christina, you worked with Rob Boyd and you you talked 00:20:39.090 --> 00:20:42.210 about sort of cultural evolution, human behavior ecology, and of psych. 00:20:42.770 --> 00:20:46.210 How do you think of yourself or no or how did you get to Rob Boyd? 00:20:46.290 --> 00:20:48.290 What was the I actually don't think I know this story. 00:20:48.530 --> 00:20:52.450 Oh my goodness, that's this is like just because I was such a naive undergraduate and I did 00:20:52.450 --> 00:20:53.010 an undergraduate. 00:20:53.330 --> 00:20:57.250 So this might be relevant to a lot of listeners, is like I did an undergraduate degree in a 00:20:57.250 --> 00:21:00.200 place that was did not have evolutionary social sciences. 00:21:00.760 --> 00:21:01.960 And it was yeah. 00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:06.600 I was at yeah, I was at Berkeley and in fact like all of the biological evolution um 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:09.960 anthropologists had kind of been kicked out of that department. 00:21:10.120 --> 00:21:15.160 So then I just kind of pieced together classes that from different fields from psychology, 00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:15.880 from anthropology. 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:20.770 I actually did a double major with psych and anthro, but from biology as well, that had 00:21:20.770 --> 00:21:22.770 something to do with human evolution. 00:21:23.010 --> 00:21:27.490 Um and then I just started trying, I forgot how I how I found them, but I just found like 00:21:27.490 --> 00:21:33.490 the the universities in the world that had those um those 00:21:33.810 --> 00:21:36.130 fields well represented. 00:21:36.210 --> 00:21:41.570 And you know, UCLA and um came out as one that did have a lot of um 00:21:42.060 --> 00:21:45.900 expertise and I actually did like that at UCLA there were people who are more 00:21:45.900 --> 00:21:50.060 psychologically and uh focused and also ones who are more anthropologically and cultural 00:21:50.060 --> 00:21:51.500 evolutionarily focused. 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:56.060 Um but yeah it's it's it was almost like an accident of history because I didn't really 00:21:56.060 --> 00:21:57.580 know what I was getting myself into. 00:21:57.900 --> 00:21:59.900 Um and then like how I identify today. 00:21:59.980 --> 00:22:04.300 I don't I usually just say I'm an evolutionary anthropologist because it's like so 00:22:04.460 --> 00:22:05.100 inclusive. 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:07.660 And I'm in an anthropology department. 00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:13.510 But but that can mean that I study like Homo erectus fossils, which I definitely don't. 00:22:13.830 --> 00:22:15.350 Although Homo erectus is awesome. 00:22:15.510 --> 00:22:17.670 Maybe you guys could have some Palio people if I do. 00:22:18.470 --> 00:22:21.510 If if if somebody gave you a fossil, you would be happy to look at it. 00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:24.070 But I teach about it actually. 00:22:26.630 --> 00:22:29.110 But it's not my it's not not my expertise. 00:22:29.350 --> 00:22:30.070 Right, right. 00:22:30.230 --> 00:22:36.150 Um, what what um so when you got to UCLA and like how and 00:22:36.280 --> 00:22:39.960 and you don't have we can like edit this or you cut it out like what was the training like 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.040 with Rob Boyd and Pete Richardson? 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:45.320 Um and you're the first sort of representative from that. 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:47.720 And you know, I've had lovely conversations with both of them. 00:22:47.800 --> 00:22:48.680 They've been wonderful. 00:22:48.840 --> 00:22:50.280 I've gotten to know them more. 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:53.080 Um what was it like sort of in that? 00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:57.640 Um we've had a bunch of CP people on, but we haven't had a lot of UCLA folks on. 00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:03.830 What was the what was the feeling there and sort of what was like when you show up and what 00:23:03.830 --> 00:23:08.470 you start to study and maybe this can be a segue also into like what your your in your day 00:23:08.470 --> 00:23:13.110 job sort of thinking not just about like these broad field wide things but sort of what you 00:23:13.110 --> 00:23:15.990 study um and what you're really passionate about. 00:23:16.150 --> 00:23:21.270 Um yeah either scientifically or sort of personally what was it like to sort of start there 00:23:21.430 --> 00:23:26.630 and what was what was the trajectory sort of for you um uh there 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:32.460 so it I wish I could recreate that environment because it was so intellectually 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:33.020 stimulating. 00:23:33.180 --> 00:23:38.940 Like we had weekly, it was a community of um people who studied evolution of human 00:23:38.940 --> 00:23:40.540 behavior and cognition. 00:23:40.780 --> 00:23:46.380 Um so Clark Barrett, Zan Fessler, uh Rob Boyd was there, were there, and then 00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:48.620 several behaviorally oriented primatologists. 00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:51.660 So Susan Perry, Joe Manson, and Joan Silk. 00:23:51.820 --> 00:23:54.450 They were kind of the core when I first got there. 00:23:54.610 --> 00:23:56.850 Some people have um since joined. 00:23:57.250 --> 00:24:01.890 And we would have weekly speaker series that would bring people from all sorts of different 00:24:01.890 --> 00:24:06.290 fields, like across the social sciences, across the natural sciences, some people in the 00:24:06.290 --> 00:24:06.850 humanities. 00:24:07.010 --> 00:24:10.290 Like it was just really a rich intellectual environment. 00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:16.360 And we would also have a seminar that every um fall 00:24:16.520 --> 00:24:20.840 all of those faculty, it was like an amazing faculty to student ratio, right? 00:24:21.320 --> 00:24:24.120 Would give us feedback on what we were up to. 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:30.120 And then we also had a really good um kind of culture of engaging 00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:34.280 just kind of on a regular basis, um, kind of informally and socially. 00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:40.310 And so just having so many different people who are focusing on evolutionary approaches to 00:24:40.310 --> 00:24:46.310 behavior, including across some species, was really stimulating to the 00:24:46.310 --> 00:24:52.070 point that like it didn't particularly feel like I was any one particular person's 00:24:52.070 --> 00:24:52.710 student. 00:24:53.270 --> 00:24:59.190 Um and and of course it like became more relevant as like, but but the expectation was that 00:24:59.190 --> 00:25:03.190 we would take seminar, like whenever those people would offer seminars, the expectation was 00:25:03.190 --> 00:25:06.070 that if we could make it, we would try to make those people seminars. 00:25:06.380 --> 00:25:08.540 um for graduate students. 00:25:08.780 --> 00:25:13.980 Um and then of course as we got into more the nitty-gritty of like each particular like a 00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:19.180 dissertation topic we'd start talking more to um and have like yeah 00:25:19.340 --> 00:25:24.060 committees that were more focused, but we would still be getting all of that feedback from 00:25:24.300 --> 00:25:27.180 these kind of structure, these institutional structures. 00:25:27.260 --> 00:25:28.460 So that was really great. 00:25:29.730 --> 00:25:34.770 it was a very supportive um community but it like each faculty also had like very different 00:25:34.770 --> 00:25:39.410 advising style so i don't know when when when did you get your PhD there 00:25:40.210 --> 00:25:46.130 2012 oh we just missed each other I started in 2013 okay 00:25:46.450 --> 00:25:49.970 so we just because you're because you're describing your experiences it was like I had the 00:25:49.970 --> 00:25:54.260 same experience uh at UCLA as well uh in that environment. 00:25:54.420 --> 00:25:58.180 I I was actually in the psychology department, but I was sort of considered an honorary 00:25:58.180 --> 00:26:02.100 anthropologist because I spent way more time with uh with the anthropology people than with 00:26:02.100 --> 00:26:06.500 the psychology people just because there was more evolution happening in the anthropology 00:26:06.500 --> 00:26:06.820 department. 00:26:06.900 --> 00:26:11.780 And so yeah, I also got to experience that, you know, diversity of different perspectives 00:26:11.780 --> 00:26:16.020 and and the and the richness of you know the the faculty member is uh it was it was a 00:26:16.020 --> 00:26:17.620 really cool uh experience. 00:26:18.150 --> 00:26:20.310 Yeah, and they have it's it just seems like it keeps growing. 00:26:20.390 --> 00:26:21.510 I don't know how they do that. 00:26:21.910 --> 00:26:22.070 Yeah. 00:26:22.790 --> 00:26:26.710 We David did mention though, he talked to Dan Fessler and he was like, This whole like, you 00:26:26.710 --> 00:26:28.470 know, field work thing, do I actually have to do it? 00:26:28.630 --> 00:26:29.590 And Dan was like, Yep. 00:26:29.750 --> 00:26:32.070 And David is like, Nope, not for me. 00:26:33.350 --> 00:26:39.110 I do it I do wonder about that, like who gets attracted to different fields based on kind 00:26:39.110 --> 00:26:42.660 of the expectations and um yeah, I don't know. 00:26:42.820 --> 00:26:48.580 I I do think fieldwork is really valuable, and uh I just don't want to do it myself. 00:26:48.900 --> 00:26:49.700 Yeah, yeah. 00:26:49.780 --> 00:26:51.060 I but it is really hard. 00:26:51.140 --> 00:26:55.220 Like, I think there's a bit of like a taboo in anthropology to talk about like the 00:26:55.220 --> 00:27:00.260 difficulties of field work, um, because it might mean that like you're not cut out for it, 00:27:00.340 --> 00:27:04.580 or you're not strong enough, or you're not being socially gracious enough, and it is like I 00:27:04.660 --> 00:27:06.820 I at least my experiences have been quite difficult. 00:27:06.980 --> 00:27:11.830 Um, and so but I don't want to dissuade people from doing it because it is I think a 00:27:11.830 --> 00:27:16.230 necessary part of uh a robust evolutionary social science, right? 00:27:16.470 --> 00:27:16.550 Yeah. 00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:16.870 Yeah. 00:27:16.950 --> 00:27:21.270 I almost want to like say thank you for your service whenever we have an anthropologist on 00:27:21.350 --> 00:27:23.910 like I have that impulse like I can't believe you're doing this. 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:27.590 Yeah and I'm sitting here in the comfort of my home in Los Angeles. 00:27:27.750 --> 00:27:29.110 Like I I feel so guilty. 00:27:29.190 --> 00:27:29.510 I don't know. 00:27:29.830 --> 00:27:35.430 Especially in especially in like the especially in the low latitude, like does like very 00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:41.140 high like pathogen parasite load places where like the like I cre I mean 00:27:41.300 --> 00:27:45.140 like people just like at these conferences like pulling up their shirts comparing their 00:27:45.140 --> 00:27:48.420 scars for where you know like a worm ate into their torso. 00:27:48.740 --> 00:27:51.220 Sorry if people are eating while we're they're listening to this. 00:27:51.300 --> 00:27:55.060 But I mean to be honest and frank, like I actually chose where I work. 00:27:55.220 --> 00:27:59.860 So I you know I started I wanted to work on ethnolinguistic boundaries and kind of that's 00:27:59.860 --> 00:28:05.770 something like all all um primates, you could think of all primates living in some kind of 00:28:05.770 --> 00:28:09.930 group, even if there's some solitary ones, but most of them have some social grouping. 00:28:10.010 --> 00:28:12.970 But we're pretty weird in that we have these like ethno-linguistic boundaries. 00:28:13.050 --> 00:28:17.210 And that's what motivated me to do field work in a place where like ethno-linguistic 00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:19.610 boundaries were quite different from the ones we see in the US. 00:28:19.770 --> 00:28:24.810 Like there's so much social psychology on like ethno-racial taxonomy in the US, but that's 00:28:24.810 --> 00:28:26.410 a pretty weird system, right? 00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:30.920 Um, but you could go to a lot of places to study ethnolinguistic boundaries that are 00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:31.320 interesting. 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:34.440 And I definitely chose one that was above the mosquito line. 00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:35.400 I'm not gonna lie. 00:28:36.840 --> 00:28:40.360 So I have very little oxygen where I work in the Peruvian altiplano. 00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:45.720 It's at like 13,000 feet above sea level, um, or through 3,800 meters. 00:28:45.880 --> 00:28:51.150 I don't know who your audience is, but there are no mosquitoes and that's really valuable 00:28:51.230 --> 00:28:51.470 to me. 00:28:51.710 --> 00:28:56.110 But I to me like the difficulty is actually like the social difficulty more than like the 00:28:56.110 --> 00:28:56.990 environmental. 00:28:57.230 --> 00:28:57.390 Yeah. 00:28:57.550 --> 00:29:00.830 Uh do you when you when you come back from the field site, do you feel like s like a 00:29:00.830 --> 00:29:01.470 superhero? 00:29:01.550 --> 00:29:04.190 Like you can just run around when you get to some level, yeah. 00:29:04.750 --> 00:29:10.350 I have I when I was at UCLA I would swim sometimes with do you know do you guys know 00:29:10.350 --> 00:29:11.150 Andreas Vilki? 00:29:11.230 --> 00:29:11.790 He's also an opposite. 00:29:12.030 --> 00:29:12.190 Of course. 00:29:12.750 --> 00:29:13.870 Oh yeah, Andreas Andreas. 00:29:14.030 --> 00:29:17.320 Well well, I I I I have a lot to say about Andreas, but I'll just shut up and let you tell 00:29:17.320 --> 00:29:17.640 your story. 00:29:18.040 --> 00:29:19.240 Can I shame him online? 00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:20.680 You could cut this if you're not sure. 00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:23.320 Hi Andreas, good and talk. 00:29:24.440 --> 00:29:29.000 So he's a really large, strong German with very little hair. 00:29:29.080 --> 00:29:31.320 And so which is important for the swimming part, right? 00:29:31.400 --> 00:29:33.400 Like you know, hydrodynamic. 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:39.320 And usually like it wasn't a competitive endeavor because there's like Norway that I can 00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:40.680 um beat him. 00:29:40.840 --> 00:29:46.770 But it's not that I was stronger after coming up down to sea level from um 00:29:46.930 --> 00:29:49.970 the high altitude it's that I could stay underwater for longer. 00:29:50.450 --> 00:29:51.090 Oh nice. 00:29:51.250 --> 00:29:52.930 So you just you just beat Andreas. 00:29:53.170 --> 00:29:53.250 Yeah. 00:29:53.650 --> 00:29:56.450 I don't know that he knows that I beat him, but I was keeping track. 00:29:56.930 --> 00:29:57.730 Now he does, yeah. 00:29:57.890 --> 00:29:58.290 Yeah. 00:29:58.610 --> 00:30:00.770 Yeah the ox the hemoglobin's amazing. 00:30:01.250 --> 00:30:01.730 Fantastic. 00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:07.860 Um uh can you tell us a little bit about um so ethnolinguistic boundaries are 00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:08.420 super interesting. 00:30:08.500 --> 00:30:12.260 We just had Brenda Bowser on talking about that with Schwar Achwa or Qichwa. 00:30:12.740 --> 00:30:16.820 Um I my ignorance is overwhelming, so apologies. 00:30:17.060 --> 00:30:22.260 But um that's a really interesting issue and question. 00:30:22.340 --> 00:30:24.260 And there's also the field site. 00:30:24.340 --> 00:30:29.940 Um, can you tell us a little bit about like how did you so you get to UCLA, there's all 00:30:29.940 --> 00:30:31.150 this, all these people. 00:30:31.310 --> 00:30:32.190 Like, what is it like? 00:30:32.270 --> 00:30:33.630 Or how do you pick a field site? 00:30:33.710 --> 00:30:35.230 Like, I don't I actually don't know any of this. 00:30:35.390 --> 00:30:41.070 Like, can you where do you go from like you're walking around, is it Haynes Hall and UCLA, 00:30:41.230 --> 00:30:44.350 you know, doing doing stuff in Southern California? 00:30:44.910 --> 00:30:48.990 How do you get to Peru and study ethnolinguistic groups? 00:30:49.310 --> 00:30:51.150 I think everybody has a slightly different path. 00:30:51.310 --> 00:30:55.940 I was lucky that actually an undergraduate I mentioned there weren't evolutionary social 00:30:56.020 --> 00:31:00.580 scientists, but I was lucky that I worked with some archaeologists, um, Christine Hassorf, 00:31:00.660 --> 00:31:05.220 who um helped me get to the Peruvian ultiplanetary, like help with archaeological and some 00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:06.500 ethno-archaeological field work. 00:31:06.660 --> 00:31:10.260 So I did some interviews in undergraduate in the Bolivian on the Bolivian side of the 00:31:10.260 --> 00:31:11.060 boundary. 00:31:11.300 --> 00:31:17.220 And I had, you know, I had read some on also some ethnolinguistic boundaries in Panama 00:31:17.540 --> 00:31:19.540 that I thought would be interesting to study. 00:31:19.620 --> 00:31:24.790 Um, but I ended up, you know, it's I I will admit that like the fact that 00:31:24.790 --> 00:31:29.590 mosquitoes much more really love me and much more common where I would have been working in 00:31:29.590 --> 00:31:33.030 Panama did play a role in saying, like, well, actually the ethnolinguistic boundary between 00:31:33.030 --> 00:31:35.990 Kachwanaymara speakers sounds pretty interesting. 00:31:36.150 --> 00:31:42.150 And I was also lucky that there were um not social science or or not ethnographers who are 00:31:42.150 --> 00:31:47.030 working in that area, but archaeologists at UCLA who worked in that area where I wanted to 00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:49.510 work with Ketchwanaymara speakers. 00:31:49.800 --> 00:31:54.280 So I did have a little bit of previous experience knowing that I would be, you know, 00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:57.640 environmentally comfortable enough in that area. 00:31:57.800 --> 00:32:00.200 Um, and that there was like something interesting to study there. 00:32:00.280 --> 00:32:06.200 And there's was very little previous work done on interactions, at least definitely no 00:32:06.200 --> 00:32:09.960 evolutionary work done on interactions between Ketchuna and Mara speakers, but I don't 00:32:09.960 --> 00:32:11.560 think that's the great barometer. 00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:17.590 But more generally, like we're relatively little um kind of anthropological work um done in 00:32:17.590 --> 00:32:18.230 that area. 00:32:18.390 --> 00:32:21.270 So yeah, I was cool. 00:32:21.750 --> 00:32:26.230 It was a confluence of convenience, having good social connections, and then it being an 00:32:26.230 --> 00:32:29.110 appropriate place to study the questions that I wanted to study. 00:32:29.350 --> 00:32:29.510 Yeah. 00:32:29.590 --> 00:32:31.030 And what what can you set up? 00:32:31.110 --> 00:32:32.630 Like what is the scientific question? 00:32:33.030 --> 00:32:33.990 Rationale, right. 00:32:34.310 --> 00:32:40.230 So I want for my dissertation, I wanted to know whether actually it c it comes back 00:32:40.230 --> 00:32:41.350 to priors a bit. 00:32:41.590 --> 00:32:46.820 Like I wanted to know if humans kind of had genetically evolved priors for 00:32:47.780 --> 00:32:53.700 thinking about, learning about certain kinds of social groups that were present in 00:32:53.700 --> 00:32:57.220 humans and we know not present in our closest relatives. 00:32:57.380 --> 00:33:02.500 And those are symbolically marked groups of people that oftentimes share 00:33:02.900 --> 00:33:07.070 cultural traits, oftentimes are marked by linguistic boundaries. 00:33:07.310 --> 00:33:10.910 That was another reason why Dave and I have talked a lot because Dave, I think, has showed 00:33:11.070 --> 00:33:16.590 has you done some research to suggest that, yeah, maybe, maybe it looks like humans are 00:33:16.590 --> 00:33:20.510 thinking about language in a way that's fundamental language differences, linguistic 00:33:20.510 --> 00:33:24.830 differences in a way that's fundamentally different to the way that we think about race and 00:33:24.830 --> 00:33:25.870 coalitions. 00:33:26.190 --> 00:33:26.830 Right. 00:33:27.070 --> 00:33:33.060 And so I that in the American context, the 00:33:33.220 --> 00:33:37.460 those boundaries that we, that like sociologists, that social psychologists tend to look at 00:33:37.540 --> 00:33:42.500 between like African American and European American and Hispanic and Hispanic of various 00:33:42.500 --> 00:33:48.420 kinds and Asian American, they're just, I mean, that like all boundaries are 00:33:48.420 --> 00:33:52.820 complex, but these have been really studied and they confound a lot of different processes, 00:33:52.900 --> 00:33:57.870 including the fact that They're the result of long-distance, 00:33:58.030 --> 00:34:02.750 oftentimes forcible or self-selected migrations 00:34:04.030 --> 00:34:09.870 that then come with incredible economic differences and power differentials 00:34:09.870 --> 00:34:11.390 between and then get perpetuated. 00:34:11.470 --> 00:34:15.150 And these power differentials get perpetuated by institutional structures. 00:34:16.110 --> 00:34:21.960 There is residential segregation, but like in a very weird kind 00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:22.920 of way, right? 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:28.920 Like sometimes it's um because of policies like red mining, like it's it, it's it's 00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:33.800 not um, but sometimes it's because of like the patterns of migration. 00:34:34.120 --> 00:34:39.530 So it's it's kind of unlike most of the boundaries that we think were 00:34:39.610 --> 00:34:42.810 probably important for human evolutionary history, right? 00:34:43.050 --> 00:34:43.210 Right. 00:34:43.370 --> 00:34:47.290 So just just to interrupt, so basically if you're walking around or driving around or 00:34:47.290 --> 00:34:52.570 traveling around the United States, for example, or sort of North America, most of North 00:34:52.570 --> 00:34:58.170 America, and the relationship that people see between language and social interaction, or 00:34:58.170 --> 00:35:03.680 sort of what the groups look like, the ideas that that, if that's your intuition for sort 00:35:03.680 --> 00:35:09.200 of basing the full range of human experience or what a linguistically marked 00:35:09.200 --> 00:35:15.200 group is, the idea is that that's you're a little bit in trouble because we there's a very 00:35:15.200 --> 00:35:16.720 particular history. 00:35:17.120 --> 00:35:17.360 Right. 00:35:17.600 --> 00:35:20.640 And everybody, you know, I don't want to presume that like I'm working with 00:35:20.640 --> 00:35:21.600 agropastoralists. 00:35:21.680 --> 00:35:24.560 They're a sedentary, they're ag agricultural societies. 00:35:24.720 --> 00:35:28.210 Like I don't want to presume that this is the type of the type of boundary that like 00:35:28.370 --> 00:35:30.210 represents human Paleolithic. 00:35:30.290 --> 00:35:31.810 Like that doesn't really make sense either. 00:35:31.970 --> 00:35:34.530 Um, but it is quite different in important ways, right? 00:35:34.690 --> 00:35:38.610 They have been so Ketchua and IMAR speakers, they are speaking totally mutually 00:35:38.610 --> 00:35:41.410 unintelligible languages, which is also quite interesting. 00:35:41.570 --> 00:35:46.050 But they're languages that, as far as we can tell, um, have been in touch with each other 00:35:46.050 --> 00:35:47.490 for centuries. 00:35:48.050 --> 00:35:51.250 And nobody, yeah, they've mutually influenced each other. 00:35:51.410 --> 00:35:56.580 Um, and nobody in the area where I work is like, oh, we've been here longer and you guys 00:35:56.580 --> 00:35:59.940 are recent migrants and maybe you don't belong and maybe you should go back to where you 00:35:59.940 --> 00:36:00.340 come from. 00:36:00.420 --> 00:36:04.420 Like that's not a part of the rhetoric because for a time immemorial, obviously everybody 00:36:04.420 --> 00:36:08.340 comes from somewhere, but like for time immemorial, like they've been in that place. 00:36:08.980 --> 00:36:14.580 Um, the power differentials are also um not like 00:36:14.820 --> 00:36:20.310 pretty much minimal compared to the power differentials that exist between like indigenous 00:36:20.310 --> 00:36:24.390 people and more mestizo or urban or market-integrated people. 00:36:24.470 --> 00:36:28.710 Like that's really kind of the source of status and power differences in that society. 00:36:28.950 --> 00:36:34.070 So it's not to say that power doesn't matter, but it's just not super highly correlated 00:36:34.070 --> 00:36:36.230 with being ketchup my speaking. 00:36:36.470 --> 00:36:38.680 Or at least it's a different all right. 00:36:38.760 --> 00:36:43.640 So like minimally I think we could all agree that at least it represents some other part of 00:36:43.640 --> 00:36:49.400 like the vast diversity that um human social boundaries uh 00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:52.920 yeah, represented in human social boundaries. 00:36:53.160 --> 00:36:57.480 But maybe we could easily even be a little go a little bit further to say that like the 00:36:57.480 --> 00:37:02.440 lower status differentials, the fact that there aren't phenotypic differences like that are 00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:06.910 not cultural, like you know, marked morphological differences between Ketra and AMR 00:37:07.150 --> 00:37:08.830 speakers that are important to them. 00:37:08.990 --> 00:37:14.830 Um, and that one of them isn't like a recent migrant and the other one's not like a 00:37:15.230 --> 00:37:20.990 kind of a host, that those might be informative for some kinds of 00:37:20.990 --> 00:37:23.550 boundaries that are important to human evolution. 00:37:23.950 --> 00:37:24.270 Right. 00:37:24.430 --> 00:37:24.910 Yeah. 00:37:25.230 --> 00:37:29.940 So it it's a really interesting set of distinctions you made between sort of the the group 00:37:29.940 --> 00:37:34.740 dynamics that we see uh in the US, for example, and the group dynamics that you see in the 00:37:34.740 --> 00:37:36.420 communities you study. 00:37:36.580 --> 00:37:42.500 So uh here are we have, you know, a a strong correlation between group and class. 00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:42.980 Right. 00:37:43.220 --> 00:37:49.220 Uh we have this immigrant native dynamic as well, and you throw in um the dynamics 00:37:49.220 --> 00:37:52.340 of political coalitions and how different ethnic groups are associated with different 00:37:52.340 --> 00:37:56.770 political coalitions, uh, and you get a kind of volatile mix um that can perpetuate 00:37:57.170 --> 00:37:59.730 conflict stereotypes, animosity, and so forth. 00:38:00.930 --> 00:38:06.690 In the communities you study, insofar as there is conflict and animosity, if 00:38:06.690 --> 00:38:10.770 it's not coming from the sources that we're familiar with here, where you know, where it's 00:38:10.770 --> 00:38:16.530 like conflicts over social class, you know, natives versus immigrants, um, conflicts over 00:38:16.530 --> 00:38:20.180 political power, and so forth, if it's not coming from there, then where is it coming from? 00:38:20.340 --> 00:38:25.540 What what do you think uh is uh is the source of of the intergroup hostility, uh if there 00:38:25.540 --> 00:38:25.940 is any? 00:38:26.500 --> 00:38:30.340 So where I work there isn't that much intergroup hostility, which is also quite nice. 00:38:30.580 --> 00:38:36.500 But there but there is, but there is, but it's not so um it's like these are not 00:38:36.500 --> 00:38:37.140 at war. 00:38:37.380 --> 00:38:43.050 Um but but um in recent memory, and to some extent now, there are like land 00:38:43.050 --> 00:38:47.450 conflicts that don't don't result in like war or anything like that or raiding. 00:38:47.610 --> 00:38:52.730 Um, but there are land conflicts, and those tend to be like the the organizational 00:38:52.730 --> 00:38:58.650 structures that um kind of rural altipano people have for dealing with those land 00:38:58.650 --> 00:39:01.370 conflicts are usually at the community level. 00:39:01.540 --> 00:39:01.860 right? 00:39:02.020 --> 00:39:06.020 So it's like, what is the boundary of this community versus this other community? 00:39:06.180 --> 00:39:11.460 And they can call on other members of their community oftentimes to like help 00:39:12.020 --> 00:39:15.140 um deal with those kinds of conflicts. 00:39:15.300 --> 00:39:21.060 Um but the big conflicts are again like something not around in the Paleolithic. 00:39:21.220 --> 00:39:25.700 The big conflicts are with like the massive power differentials with the state and the 00:39:25.700 --> 00:39:31.470 urban people that um kind of are represented um by I 00:39:31.470 --> 00:39:35.870 mean, I don't it is a bit of a it is a racialized let me see, how should I say this? 00:39:35.950 --> 00:39:39.630 There there is a morphological variation that's associated with this. 00:39:39.710 --> 00:39:44.590 Like a hundred percent the people who are wealthier in Peru tend to be less ancestrally 00:39:44.590 --> 00:39:48.270 indigenous, for example, like have more European ancestry. 00:39:48.430 --> 00:39:53.550 And this is something very common in Latin America, which is really striking, like every 00:39:53.550 --> 00:39:59.460 time you look at uh TV that shows like the centers of power and 00:39:59.460 --> 00:40:05.060 who is elite culturally in a society, they're like so unrepresentative of the kind of 00:40:05.060 --> 00:40:07.700 diversity of Latin American societies. 00:40:07.860 --> 00:40:10.260 Um, and in Peru that's very striking. 00:40:10.420 --> 00:40:15.750 So you get very, very white, like European ancestry-looking people kind of representing the 00:40:15.750 --> 00:40:17.110 elites of Peruvian society. 00:40:17.190 --> 00:40:22.870 And people in increasingly have like access to TVs and satellites and phones in the rural 00:40:22.870 --> 00:40:23.110 area. 00:40:23.190 --> 00:40:24.150 So they know that. 00:40:25.030 --> 00:40:31.030 But it is complicated by the fact that there it's not a super racialized boundary. 00:40:31.190 --> 00:40:37.030 Traditionally, like in Peruvian society and in the Andes, like moving to the 00:40:37.030 --> 00:40:42.800 cities and losing your indigenous language capacity is seen as like a 00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:46.000 a form of ethnic change in a sense. 00:40:46.160 --> 00:40:46.400 And important. 00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:50.560 But is it seen as like a betrayal to your to your it can. 00:40:50.640 --> 00:40:55.120 It seems like it does cause some like both admiration and resentment is my sense of that, 00:40:55.200 --> 00:40:55.440 right? 00:40:55.520 --> 00:41:01.440 There's like envy that goes along with it, but also um admiration because frankly, like a 00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:06.480 lot of people want to be able to live in the bigger cities in Lima or Arequipa, or maybe 00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:09.280 even Huliaca, which is like a more local big city. 00:41:09.440 --> 00:41:15.370 Like so there's so much um yeah pr desire to have your 00:41:15.370 --> 00:41:19.770 students like your kids educated be good students and then have a good job. 00:41:19.930 --> 00:41:23.290 Like everybody aspires to that even if it's not attainable. 00:41:24.490 --> 00:41:29.130 So it's almost like what you're saying is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that 00:41:29.130 --> 00:41:34.980 there is a difference between the ethnolinguistic divides and the 00:41:34.980 --> 00:41:37.620 divides that actually create conflict and hostility. 00:41:38.180 --> 00:41:41.860 So when you have an ethno-linguistic divide, that doesn't necessarily lead to animosity. 00:41:42.100 --> 00:41:45.860 What leads to animosity is is something that we'd actually be more familiar with as 00:41:45.860 --> 00:41:51.620 Westerners, like a conflict over land or territory, or a conflict between high status and 00:41:51.620 --> 00:41:55.460 low status, or or groups' relative uh positions in a in a social hierarchy. 00:41:55.620 --> 00:41:59.860 That those are really the drivers of conflicts, not ethnolinguistic differences per se. 00:41:59.940 --> 00:42:01.390 Aaron Powell I think that's fair. 00:42:01.470 --> 00:42:06.030 And I think that we see, you know, I'm not the first person to say that you're we're not 00:42:06.030 --> 00:42:07.630 the first people to highlight that. 00:42:07.790 --> 00:42:13.470 Um, but it could like, I guess the question that remains in my mind, and I'm not sure that 00:42:13.470 --> 00:42:18.190 I've resolved this for myself or that I have a s very strong belief, is like, does it be 00:42:18.350 --> 00:42:23.550 does the fact that a boundary is ethno-linguistic or culturally structured make it more 00:42:23.550 --> 00:42:29.070 plausible that that conflict arise or exacerbate the conflict once it does arise? 00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:33.480 And I think we can't really answer that question with one case study. 00:42:33.560 --> 00:42:39.080 Like that's a type of work that requires kind of multi-sided comparative research. 00:42:39.720 --> 00:42:44.760 But yeah, like we, you know, we've seen in the Balkans, for example, some boundaries that 00:42:44.760 --> 00:42:47.960 do matter that are, or in that case, it's amazing. 00:42:48.040 --> 00:42:52.440 Like there is barely an ethnolinguistic boundary, and yet people really fight over it. 00:42:52.600 --> 00:42:58.590 And in other places like Switzerland, where language has divided people or people are 00:42:58.590 --> 00:43:00.510 very multi multilingual in Switzerland. 00:43:00.590 --> 00:43:05.070 They have four official languages, but it has, you know, the Swiss identity overrides that 00:43:05.070 --> 00:43:09.470 linguistic variation and been a pretty stable nation state for centuries. 00:43:09.630 --> 00:43:15.390 So I don't know, I still don't know if it, you know, just by virtue of, for example, 00:43:15.470 --> 00:43:21.230 like inhibiting communication or meet or when it's when it's a more structured 00:43:21.240 --> 00:43:26.120 ethnic boundary where there are more cultural norms that are different between each other 00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:30.600 between each other, which is not so much the case among Ketra and Aymar, where I work. 00:43:30.680 --> 00:43:34.600 Where like at the very local level where I work, Ketra and Aymara speakers are pretty 00:43:34.600 --> 00:43:35.800 similar culturally. 00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:40.040 And so that also probably mitigates conflict, be my guess. 00:43:40.120 --> 00:43:44.120 But but I think it is possible that like with more cultural variation, then it just becomes 00:43:44.200 --> 00:43:47.640 like harder to coordinate with each other and come to agreement. 00:43:47.720 --> 00:43:52.290 So I think that's possible, but I think it hasn't really been totally demonstrated. 00:43:52.610 --> 00:43:52.770 Yeah. 00:43:52.930 --> 00:43:58.770 Just for sort of the uh people like me who are slow to catch up, sort of, um, or for people 00:43:58.770 --> 00:44:02.850 who may not know, like what is the so you talked about Ketchuaimara. 00:44:03.330 --> 00:44:08.290 Um what is the relationship between them other than not super con conflictual or like 00:44:08.370 --> 00:44:09.410 you're in a a field site. 00:44:09.490 --> 00:44:11.730 Can you just like walk us through like do they live different places? 00:44:11.810 --> 00:44:12.850 Like I don't I don't know anything. 00:44:12.930 --> 00:44:13.090 Yeah. 00:44:13.410 --> 00:44:13.890 Right, right, right. 00:44:13.970 --> 00:44:16.300 So they so there is a boundary. 00:44:16.380 --> 00:44:22.300 They if you're in rural community, that's maybe let's say um a community of 00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:28.380 let's say 20 to a hundred families, let's say those tend to be only Ketra 00:44:28.540 --> 00:44:32.860 speaking or only Aymara speaking, with like a handful of people, like especially younger 00:44:32.860 --> 00:44:37.420 people who have maybe migrated in at marriage, like that married across that language 00:44:37.420 --> 00:44:38.060 boundary. 00:44:38.540 --> 00:44:43.580 But then there are these towns, like the one that I did my dissertation in Wata Sani, is 00:44:43.660 --> 00:44:48.750 like a town where it's pretty split because there's that's kind of a stepping stone of 00:44:48.750 --> 00:44:50.670 rural to urban migration. 00:44:50.830 --> 00:44:56.190 Um you can have some um yes everybody kind of has does some 00:44:56.190 --> 00:45:01.710 agriculture and some pastoralism, but you can also have your little shop there or you can 00:45:01.710 --> 00:45:04.910 make it easier for your kids to go to the high school which is in town. 00:45:05.150 --> 00:45:06.750 And there it's much more mixed. 00:45:06.830 --> 00:45:12.180 The high school when I was working there had about 70% of its students were Ketra speaking 00:45:12.260 --> 00:45:14.500 and 30% were MR speaking. 00:45:15.140 --> 00:45:20.900 And then you have these opportunities to go to even larger market towns, where, for 00:45:20.900 --> 00:45:26.820 example, Wangane is the nearest market town that everybody in this area would go to 00:45:26.820 --> 00:45:30.740 pretty regularly, once a week or every two weeks. 00:45:31.060 --> 00:45:37.010 And that is squarely on the Aymara speaking side of the boundary, but people from both 00:45:37.010 --> 00:45:38.370 sides of the boundary go. 00:45:38.530 --> 00:45:44.370 And then you have even a larger city that's about um an hour and a half uh 00:45:44.610 --> 00:45:46.690 bus ride away called Huliaka. 00:45:47.170 --> 00:45:52.290 And again, it's a because it's a center of urban rural migration, it's just very heavily 00:45:52.290 --> 00:45:58.180 mixed between Quechua and Aymara speakers, and of course, increasingly um just uh Spanish 00:45:58.180 --> 00:46:00.260 monolingual speakers as well. 00:46:00.740 --> 00:46:06.740 Um, so there are all these opportunities for interaction in markets, in schools, 00:46:07.060 --> 00:46:12.980 um, and um increasingly well at marriage. 00:46:13.060 --> 00:46:18.340 Um, so there was a sociologist who did work there in the 70s in Watasani who did document 00:46:18.340 --> 00:46:24.310 already at that time quite a lot of intergroup um marriages as well. 00:46:24.710 --> 00:46:24.950 Yeah. 00:46:25.030 --> 00:46:30.630 So can I just so so the idea is that in the rural areas, roughly speaking, you know, 00:46:30.790 --> 00:46:34.470 because I think people are asking like what maintains the linguistic difference, it's sort 00:46:34.470 --> 00:46:39.110 of the rural areas, the just the way it works, where you like, you know, you grow up and 00:46:39.110 --> 00:46:41.670 what do the people around you speak, you learn that. 00:46:41.830 --> 00:46:47.510 But then if people are moving in from the rural areas, there's more contact. 00:46:48.180 --> 00:46:50.660 Um is that fair? 00:46:51.220 --> 00:46:52.340 I think that's probably true. 00:46:52.500 --> 00:46:56.820 I guess there's there that is an interesting question of what maintains cultural boundaries 00:46:56.820 --> 00:46:58.660 if there's constant contact, right? 00:46:58.900 --> 00:47:00.580 And the default would be something like that. 00:47:00.740 --> 00:47:01.940 People don't interact. 00:47:02.180 --> 00:47:07.300 I think that there's reason to be skeptical that generally that's the only process, right? 00:47:07.460 --> 00:47:11.060 Um and I don't know enough about I haven't done like a quantitative study here to know 00:47:11.060 --> 00:47:16.650 exactly, but do you know um William Lebev's um work in the US 00:47:16.890 --> 00:47:22.890 suggests that even with contact, even with common interaction across, in his case, 00:47:22.970 --> 00:47:28.490 like dialectical groups, people maintain their dialects for potentially something like 00:47:28.490 --> 00:47:29.850 signaling purposes. 00:47:30.490 --> 00:47:32.090 Maybe that's too much interpretation. 00:47:32.250 --> 00:47:36.650 So I I don't want to go too far on a limb to say that it's only because of a lack of 00:47:36.650 --> 00:47:38.810 interaction that they're maintained. 00:47:39.530 --> 00:47:45.460 And I will say that there's a lot of more Spanish speaking 00:47:45.620 --> 00:47:50.580 and actually I think that the kind of l loss, some people don't like that term, but the 00:47:50.580 --> 00:47:56.260 loss of indigenous language use in the multilingual areas might be actually a bit faster 00:47:56.420 --> 00:47:59.060 because Spanish is such a useful lingua franca. 00:47:59.220 --> 00:47:59.380 Right. 00:47:59.620 --> 00:48:03.780 So some neutral kinds of processes might be involved, but but it's possible that there's 00:48:03.780 --> 00:48:06.740 also kind of identity based reasons for 00:48:09.810 --> 00:48:14.450 just I mean, there's like even the social inputs to these learning systems, like kids 00:48:14.450 --> 00:48:14.930 learn. 00:48:15.090 --> 00:48:18.530 And Christina, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you know, kids learn like what are the 00:48:18.530 --> 00:48:20.770 other kids speaking, and that's sort of what they learn. 00:48:20.850 --> 00:48:24.930 And that's why you can get something like a pigeon or to into it turned into a creole, 00:48:25.010 --> 00:48:29.090 which is you know, where there's people forcibly removed, like, you know, in the slaveries, 00:48:29.170 --> 00:48:30.610 um, in the slave trade. 00:48:30.770 --> 00:48:36.160 Um, the adults couldn't speak a a grammatical language because they were 00:48:36.160 --> 00:48:41.440 speaking uh they they were coming from different places brought together forcibly to work 00:48:41.440 --> 00:48:42.000 together. 00:48:42.160 --> 00:48:47.360 And so they were just sort of getting by on sort of a um what is called a a pidgin. 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:52.320 And then the next generation, Des Nouveau, the kids build in build that into a grammatical 00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:53.040 language. 00:48:53.440 --> 00:48:59.350 That was all often used sort of to argue against sort of sort of a skinarian 00:48:59.590 --> 00:49:04.470 minimal language acquisition system to show that kids can just, you know, make up a new 00:49:04.470 --> 00:49:06.710 language kind of de nouveau. 00:49:06.790 --> 00:49:12.710 But it's also relevant to show that there's a lot of social cues to language learning 00:49:12.790 --> 00:49:16.630 and that you learn from other kids and it's a coordination thing. 00:49:16.790 --> 00:49:21.960 Um, and I mean even when I looked at like sort of second language learning capacity, People 00:49:21.960 --> 00:49:25.880 who, for example, are like romantically involved with somebody who speaks the other 00:49:25.880 --> 00:49:27.560 language are much more likely to learn it. 00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:32.280 Independent of sort of like the age at which they, you know, um uh show up. 00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:35.480 Like obviously, like when you're young, it's much, it's better because that system is 00:49:35.480 --> 00:49:36.040 turned on. 00:49:36.200 --> 00:49:41.160 But I think there's probably all kinds of social cues, even of sort of quote unquote, like 00:49:41.160 --> 00:49:44.440 more prototypical language learning, as opposed to sort of something like a dialect. 00:49:44.520 --> 00:49:48.070 And I mean the boundaries are all fuzzy, but you know, there's all this code switching 00:49:48.070 --> 00:49:52.150 stuff of, you know, how do you speak when you're in a professional context versus with your 00:49:52.150 --> 00:49:52.710 friends? 00:49:52.870 --> 00:49:55.430 Um, and these cohort your generational effects. 00:49:55.510 --> 00:49:57.110 So yeah, I just wanted to flesh that out. 00:49:57.190 --> 00:49:58.710 But yeah, that's really interesting, Christina. 00:49:58.950 --> 00:49:59.030 Yeah. 00:49:59.270 --> 00:50:00.150 Yeah, that's a good point. 00:50:00.310 --> 00:50:02.390 That's interesting about the romantically involved. 00:50:02.470 --> 00:50:06.150 I wonder if they're also accounting for just having more access to a teacher. 00:50:06.470 --> 00:50:06.710 Yeah. 00:50:07.750 --> 00:50:09.430 But I but I but I take your point. 00:50:09.510 --> 00:50:11.110 Like the motivations matter, right? 00:50:11.270 --> 00:50:11.510 Yeah. 00:50:11.590 --> 00:50:11.910 Yeah. 00:50:12.070 --> 00:50:17.660 Um and and we do see people who were um trilingual even in this area 00:50:17.820 --> 00:50:23.340 or who were market like who are vendors and so therefore had more of an incentive to learn 00:50:23.340 --> 00:50:24.780 a little bit of the other language, right? 00:50:24.860 --> 00:50:27.660 Because they'd want to go to the market towns on both sides of the border. 00:50:27.820 --> 00:50:28.060 Yeah. 00:50:28.220 --> 00:50:28.860 Um yeah. 00:50:29.260 --> 00:50:30.540 Sorry David, you were gonna say something. 00:50:31.100 --> 00:50:33.740 No, I mean I I have a a thousand questions running through my head. 00:50:33.900 --> 00:50:38.170 I mean one one thing that um is is popping into my head is is something that stuck with me 00:50:38.170 --> 00:50:40.170 when we had Brenda Bowser on. 00:50:40.330 --> 00:50:46.090 Um and she mentioned that there was a uh pretty strong uh difference between saying I 00:50:46.090 --> 00:50:50.650 am a member of Group X versus I am with a member of Group X. 00:50:50.970 --> 00:50:55.290 So the former is sort of mark you know marking your ethno-linguistic uh membership and the 00:50:55.290 --> 00:50:59.720 latter is more of a political statement that I am I am loyal to this group and I'm going to 00:50:59.720 --> 00:51:03.080 support them in whatever uh conflict uh might be underway. 00:51:03.320 --> 00:51:07.720 Do you see a similar distinction in the communities you study between belonging to a group 00:51:07.720 --> 00:51:09.960 and being with or loyal to a group? 00:51:10.600 --> 00:51:12.600 Yeah, that's such a good distinction. 00:51:12.840 --> 00:51:18.760 Um the something maybe a little bit parallel to get it to get me to start thinking 00:51:18.760 --> 00:51:24.440 about this is um the fact that when I I would ask people if they were catch where I amara 00:51:24.600 --> 00:51:28.330 when I first got there, and they wouldn't really use those terms. 00:51:28.410 --> 00:51:31.370 They would say quechuista or aimarista. 00:51:31.690 --> 00:51:36.330 So the ista ending is the same as the American, the English ist, right? 00:51:36.570 --> 00:51:42.490 Which to me denotes kind of like a a practice, like a maybe potentially like temporary 00:51:42.490 --> 00:51:42.810 identity. 00:51:42.890 --> 00:51:43.690 Like I'm a socialist. 00:51:43.770 --> 00:51:47.850 I could stop being a socialist tomorrow and become a capitalist or an anarchist. 00:51:48.330 --> 00:51:49.450 I'm a flautist, yeah. 00:51:50.090 --> 00:51:50.650 That's true. 00:51:51.530 --> 00:51:53.210 Once a flautist, always a flautist. 00:51:53.450 --> 00:51:53.690 Exactly. 00:51:53.850 --> 00:51:54.410 That's really interesting. 00:51:54.490 --> 00:51:58.100 I mean, it sounds kind of odd to substitute it with like Western like I'm it would be very 00:51:58.100 --> 00:51:59.300 weird to say I'm a whitist. 00:51:59.380 --> 00:52:02.340 You know it would make me sound right that sounds really bad. 00:52:02.660 --> 00:52:03.780 It sounds terrible actually. 00:52:04.180 --> 00:52:04.420 Yeah. 00:52:04.980 --> 00:52:08.260 And yet that's that's sort of how it's linguistically differentiated. 00:52:08.740 --> 00:52:08.900 Yeah. 00:52:09.060 --> 00:52:12.420 So that's how they would use well and but then if you looked at the signs like the 00:52:12.420 --> 00:52:17.940 political signs when you walk into town it's it when it got there it would say um the land 00:52:17.940 --> 00:52:19.780 of Quechua's and aymaras. 00:52:19.860 --> 00:52:24.370 And so they would use the I like to actually, I think like a more centralizing language, 00:52:24.450 --> 00:52:27.890 like you are a Ketra, you are a Aymara, you don't practice Ketra, you don't practice 00:52:27.890 --> 00:52:28.530 Aymara. 00:52:28.850 --> 00:52:32.610 But the people would use the ist, the practice Ketra and practice aymara. 00:52:32.770 --> 00:52:37.090 And I did do some studies where I would ask people, like, well, what if somebody marries 00:52:37.090 --> 00:52:40.290 in, learns a language, becomes fully competent? 00:52:40.610 --> 00:52:46.320 Are they um like how quechwa are they or how queista are they um 00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:50.720 and and you would become queista like i like most people would say that i would become 00:52:50.720 --> 00:52:55.920 quechista like if i that they admired my attempts at quechwa but they're not nearly as 00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:01.440 fluent as they could be um and so like it wasn't about ancestry it 00:53:01.440 --> 00:53:04.970 wasn't about being for your life. 00:53:05.050 --> 00:53:07.210 It's about it was about practicing for them. 00:53:07.450 --> 00:53:11.610 Um I am currently now doing like more regional studies. 00:53:11.770 --> 00:53:13.770 I get farther away from the border. 00:53:13.930 --> 00:53:19.530 And I am getting the suspicion, the impression I should say, that that less 00:53:19.530 --> 00:53:25.530 essentialist attitude um might be more common closer to 00:53:25.530 --> 00:53:30.540 the boundary and that people farther from the boundary might have more of these like are 00:53:30.620 --> 00:53:34.380 and do seem to be using like their quechua, their nah. 00:53:34.620 --> 00:53:36.940 Could you unpack what with what this word essentialist means? 00:53:37.020 --> 00:53:39.260 Because it's a really important concept and might not be familiar to everyone. 00:53:39.820 --> 00:53:45.820 It's really it's really complicated to so let me let me use for na for 00:53:45.820 --> 00:53:45.980 now. 00:53:46.060 --> 00:53:50.940 I would I was using it in as an operational definition, I was using it to mean kind of like 00:53:50.940 --> 00:53:54.930 a fixed part of somebody's identity. 00:53:55.170 --> 00:53:59.970 But people really debate whether essentialism has to be also uh 00:54:00.930 --> 00:54:06.450 like something that you're born with, um, j if it has to be thought of as something that is 00:54:06.450 --> 00:54:11.170 genetically transmitted or as if genetically transmitted, and whether people have to have 00:54:11.170 --> 00:54:17.120 kind of this notion in their head that it's some deep core part of you that then has 00:54:17.120 --> 00:54:20.560 these outward manif like multiple outward manifestations. 00:54:20.800 --> 00:54:22.800 So do people do use it differently. 00:54:23.280 --> 00:54:27.840 Some of the classic work, I think we're almost all of your listeners are going to be 00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:29.200 essentialists about species. 00:54:29.360 --> 00:54:30.800 So that's a good place to start. 00:54:30.960 --> 00:54:31.200 Right. 00:54:31.680 --> 00:54:37.600 Where if you people do really fucked up experiments, even with kids, and they ask them like 00:54:37.760 --> 00:54:42.910 if we take a fox and then we give it plastic surgery and change how it looks and make it 00:54:42.910 --> 00:54:43.790 look like a dog. 00:54:43.950 --> 00:54:45.870 Is it a fox or is it a dog? 00:54:46.350 --> 00:54:51.150 And I think we all have that intuition that it would still be a fox and that would be kind 00:54:51.150 --> 00:54:53.710 of an indicator of essentialist reasoning. 00:54:53.870 --> 00:54:59.390 Um so if you change the outward appearance, it still has this internal essence of dog. 00:54:59.790 --> 00:55:00.670 Of dogness, yeah. 00:55:00.990 --> 00:55:01.390 Dogness. 00:55:07.470 --> 00:55:09.320 Anyway, uh we can continue it. 00:55:13.080 --> 00:55:18.120 Well, in in the human domain, we don't do anything quite so brutal, but we do t often tell 00:55:18.120 --> 00:55:22.840 these stories of like, um, imagine that a child was born to one community and then raised 00:55:22.840 --> 00:55:25.240 by a different by members of a different community. 00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:26.440 What would they be? 00:55:26.600 --> 00:55:31.240 Like to kind of Brenda's um language term, like what would they be? 00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:34.230 And so and it's very underspecified what that means, exactly. 00:55:34.470 --> 00:55:35.110 Being right. 00:55:35.270 --> 00:55:37.830 And so we don't totally know what that literature is telling us. 00:55:37.910 --> 00:55:42.230 I've done a meta-analysis of it that shows that it's really variable. 00:55:42.310 --> 00:55:46.390 Like children around like that one has been done cross-culturally quite a bit. 00:55:46.630 --> 00:55:52.150 And children tend to be a little bit on the end of essentialism of saying that that child 00:55:52.150 --> 00:55:57.510 will be, will be the identity of the parents, um, of the birth parents, 00:55:57.900 --> 00:55:59.980 rather than the adoptive parents. 00:56:00.380 --> 00:56:05.260 But by the time we get to adulthood, at least cross-culturally, it's really variable. 00:56:05.420 --> 00:56:10.380 Like um that some people it depends on the identity, it depends on where you're doing the 00:56:10.380 --> 00:56:10.780 study. 00:56:10.940 --> 00:56:16.620 But you get anywhere from like 90% of people saying that I think it was like 00:56:16.700 --> 00:56:21.420 let's say um Fijian native Fijians versus um 00:56:22.110 --> 00:56:27.790 Indophagyans, like their identities are fixed at birth, all the way to like 00:56:28.350 --> 00:56:34.110 10% or lower of people saying that, let's say among Himba and 00:56:34.510 --> 00:56:40.430 Herero pastoralists, like if you move at birth and you're raised in one community, you're 00:56:40.430 --> 00:56:43.550 just going to become the member of the community that you're raised in. 00:56:43.790 --> 00:56:45.390 So it's it's really quite variable. 00:56:45.470 --> 00:56:51.150 And I'm not sure, like if we do have priors about treating ethnolinguistic 00:56:51.150 --> 00:56:57.080 groups as kind of having some sort of essence, they're very weak priors and 00:56:57.080 --> 00:56:58.200 they're quickly overridden. 00:56:58.520 --> 00:56:59.240 Christina, that's cool. 00:56:59.320 --> 00:57:03.880 And it's really, and I'll I'll David, I'll let you I just uh that variability, and it 00:57:03.880 --> 00:57:06.040 sounds like you're doing this meta-analysis. 00:57:06.200 --> 00:57:12.120 Um, to me, that variability suggests that there's systems in the mind that 00:57:12.120 --> 00:57:15.800 the function is just sort of like to just it's social learning or prediction, right? 00:57:15.880 --> 00:57:21.870 It's sort of like what's the what do I experience as the correlation 00:57:21.870 --> 00:57:26.590 between a social identity and what I need to do to deal with them. 00:57:26.670 --> 00:57:26.990 Right. 00:57:27.230 --> 00:57:33.070 So if if there's like a a group membership that is like belligerent towards me, 00:57:33.310 --> 00:57:39.230 um, if anybody um can become that based on their behavior, it's in 00:57:39.230 --> 00:57:44.960 my interest to not be essentialistic about it because, you know, it the the the the 00:57:44.960 --> 00:57:49.520 whole point of me representing that group is to predict like how they're gonna treat me. 00:57:49.680 --> 00:57:51.040 Um so that's just one example. 00:57:51.120 --> 00:57:55.040 And I mean there are others, it could be not how they behave, but like what you know, what 00:57:55.040 --> 00:57:55.840 do they tend to do? 00:57:56.000 --> 00:57:59.200 What are their beliefs, what are their characteristics, where do they live? 00:57:59.440 --> 00:58:03.920 Are they good coordination partners or just predicting like just sort of like what what how 00:58:03.920 --> 00:58:06.690 the how they live, what they eat, how they talk, right? 00:58:07.010 --> 00:58:09.090 Um is that a fairer characterization? 00:58:09.250 --> 00:58:13.890 Like even if we haven't, I mean, it's a it's a huge lift to sort of wrap your head around 00:58:13.890 --> 00:58:13.970 it. 00:58:14.050 --> 00:58:15.090 I'm glad you're doing that. 00:58:15.170 --> 00:58:18.130 Um but uh is that a fair characterization? 00:58:18.530 --> 00:58:24.450 I think that that for sure that that it's kind of about predicting kind of correlations 00:58:24.450 --> 00:58:24.850 in the world. 00:58:25.090 --> 00:58:29.900 Now, what those correlations, which which correlations matter, I think is still an open 00:58:29.900 --> 00:58:30.140 question. 00:58:30.300 --> 00:58:35.100 I think like some of the early people proposing a functionalist kind of approach to 00:58:35.100 --> 00:58:40.460 essentialism, like Susan Gellman, who's a developmental psychologist, or Larry Hirschfeld, 00:58:40.700 --> 00:58:46.620 it's not always clear exactly what all of these proponents of like humans 00:58:46.620 --> 00:58:51.340 being essentialists have in mind, but it does seem to be like that this helps do the heavy 00:58:51.340 --> 00:58:55.010 lifting of being able to predict lots of different things about people. 00:58:55.250 --> 00:58:58.290 And you need to learn that there is definitely types in the world. 00:58:58.370 --> 00:59:01.970 And then you have to figure out like who's going to be a good partner to do, who's going to 00:59:01.970 --> 00:59:03.570 be easy to coordinate with. 00:59:03.810 --> 00:59:06.930 Like you're going to be able to predict lots of things once you figure out what the types 00:59:06.930 --> 00:59:07.730 are in the world. 00:59:07.890 --> 00:59:12.130 Um, what we're seeing so far in the meta-analysis, although it's you know, it's the sample 00:59:12.130 --> 00:59:16.600 of societies where we've done these studies, but it it does seem like it's more likely when 00:59:16.600 --> 00:59:19.240 there are power differentials across those boundaries. 00:59:19.640 --> 00:59:24.200 And so it might be that some kinds of predictions are more important than others, right? 00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:30.040 And the predictions about um kind of whether you can transcend that boundary, whether are 00:59:30.120 --> 00:59:34.120 barriers in place to be able to move across that boundary might matter. 00:59:34.280 --> 00:59:35.560 And it's a bit mixed. 00:59:35.640 --> 00:59:40.680 Like we did um, we did not see that when I collaborated with Brooks Shelde to do this among 00:59:40.840 --> 00:59:43.370 uh Hemba uh Herero. 00:59:43.850 --> 00:59:47.930 Well, she did it with Himba participants, but thinking about the Herero and Damara 00:59:48.010 --> 00:59:52.010 boundary, where one of those has a big power difference and the other one does not. 00:59:52.970 --> 00:59:57.530 Or like pretty much 100% of her participants said that they would be, um, they would prefer 00:59:57.530 --> 01:00:01.050 their daughters to marry a Herero person than a Damara person. 01:00:01.210 --> 01:00:03.210 So clearly there's a status difference there. 01:00:03.370 --> 01:00:07.240 And yet that didn't really correspond to or at least our measure of essentialism. 01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:12.440 But other studies done with like the Indian caste system, which is very hierarchical, very 01:00:12.440 --> 01:00:17.240 rigid, kind of cloud, you could call it class, more than class hierarchy. 01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:21.080 There you do see these asymmetries. 01:00:21.160 --> 01:00:27.080 And Mahalingam has showed that, for example, higher caste individuals are 01:00:27.080 --> 01:00:28.520 more rigid about that boundary. 01:00:28.600 --> 01:00:34.590 Like you cannot become one of us than the lower caste individuals who don't maintain 01:00:34.590 --> 01:00:35.950 that boundary as rigidly. 01:00:36.190 --> 01:00:42.110 So it's probably it seems like it's not just about predicting stuff, but that it's 01:00:42.430 --> 01:00:43.790 at least by adulthood, right? 01:00:43.870 --> 01:00:48.110 Like it's work maybe in childhood it's working differently than it is in adulthood, but at 01:00:48.110 --> 01:00:52.510 least by adulthood it seems to be working kind of through this pathway of predicting 01:00:52.510 --> 01:00:54.910 certain kinds of interactions. 01:00:55.380 --> 01:00:55.540 Right. 01:00:56.020 --> 01:00:57.380 Yeah, and just so I understand. 01:00:57.460 --> 01:01:02.100 Sorry, David, it is just that um yeah, because the early essentialism stuff, it's it was 01:01:02.100 --> 01:01:05.460 great, but it was like very vague about what was being predictor, what dimensions. 01:01:05.780 --> 01:01:11.620 And so what you're saying is if I understand it, is that um power and power and status 01:01:11.780 --> 01:01:17.350 and class, things like that, roughly speaking, um That's a really privileged, 01:01:17.670 --> 01:01:23.030 it seems to be so far, in some cases, that it's a really privileged dimension in the sense 01:01:23.030 --> 01:01:28.390 of when those things are more open or closed 01:01:28.870 --> 01:01:34.870 correspondingly, essentialism is sort of higher or lower, meaning that if if 01:01:34.870 --> 01:01:39.910 you can't become the higher class thing, then you will 01:01:40.070 --> 01:01:44.760 represent that these social categories are quote unquote more essentialized. 01:01:45.080 --> 01:01:50.760 And then there's additional like sort of flavoring, which is that if you are high 01:01:50.760 --> 01:01:56.440 class, you're also incentivized to sort of be like, let's all agree on a norm where 01:01:56.440 --> 01:02:02.120 nobody can be where I I am permanently the winner of this sort of 01:02:02.360 --> 01:02:05.000 sort of um uh you know arrangement here. 01:02:05.160 --> 01:02:05.880 Is that fair? 01:02:06.360 --> 01:02:06.840 I think so. 01:02:06.920 --> 01:02:11.630 And I think it's an open question how much this is working kind of in at the individual 01:02:11.630 --> 01:02:16.590 level, like people perceiving that boundary versus like taking the story for give like as a 01:02:17.150 --> 01:02:21.710 like is it that people are individually interacting with others and then building up that 01:02:21.710 --> 01:02:22.830 sense of that boundary? 01:02:22.990 --> 01:02:28.270 Or is it that they just have been told, you know, you're not going to become high 01:02:28.350 --> 01:02:29.150 cast. 01:02:29.550 --> 01:02:29.710 Right. 01:02:29.870 --> 01:02:33.790 And that's what's being so I don't I don't know about we don't have the details of how that 01:02:33.790 --> 01:02:35.550 those representations arise, but yeah. 01:02:36.030 --> 01:02:36.830 That's really cool. 01:02:36.910 --> 01:02:37.230 That's cool. 01:02:37.310 --> 01:02:38.350 You're making progress on that. 01:02:38.430 --> 01:02:39.560 Thank you for your service. 01:02:40.520 --> 01:02:41.560 This one's easier. 01:02:42.200 --> 01:02:43.320 I mean, no mistake. 01:02:44.760 --> 01:02:50.520 So could it be that when a group boundary is politicized or becomes a 01:02:50.520 --> 01:02:56.040 marker of rival conflicting alliances, that that marker 01:02:56.040 --> 01:03:00.600 becomes more essentialized so long as the marker is still present? 01:03:00.920 --> 01:03:06.710 So for example, in the United States, there are uh conflicts between uh black and white 01:03:06.710 --> 01:03:06.870 people. 01:03:07.030 --> 01:03:11.750 Um, I if if a white person is raised by a black family or a black person is raised by a 01:03:11.750 --> 01:03:13.350 white family, that doesn't change their race. 01:03:13.510 --> 01:03:16.870 So the white person is still white, still white even if they're raised by black parents, 01:03:17.030 --> 01:03:20.470 the black person is still black even if they're raised by white parents. 01:03:20.630 --> 01:03:26.460 Um, could it be that the reason that is true is because skin color itself is a 01:03:26.460 --> 01:03:32.380 cue of uh alliance membership and is used by everyone else in the society as a cue of 01:03:32.380 --> 01:03:35.100 alliance membership as as Dave has shown. 01:03:36.780 --> 01:03:42.620 And once a a trait becomes a common knowledge that that is signifying 01:03:42.620 --> 01:03:48.060 which side you're on in a in a particular conflict, that uh as long as that 01:03:48.220 --> 01:03:51.260 difference is there, it sends a signal to everyone of whose side you're on and there's 01:03:51.260 --> 01:03:52.540 nothing you can do to change that. 01:03:52.860 --> 01:03:58.310 Whereas if um if there's a different marker of of alliance 01:03:58.310 --> 01:04:02.790 membership, um, and it can change such that if you change it, then you're signaling that 01:04:02.790 --> 01:04:06.150 you're on a different side, then uh the essentialism goes away. 01:04:06.230 --> 01:04:09.670 And that's sort of how I'm starting to try to understand what's going on here. 01:04:09.750 --> 01:04:11.030 Do you think I'm on the right track here? 01:04:11.750 --> 01:04:13.430 I think it's a good hypothesis. 01:04:13.590 --> 01:04:16.470 I think I I have two points of skepticism. 01:04:16.630 --> 01:04:22.400 One is that we also have political alliances that we're very happy for people 01:04:22.400 --> 01:04:23.840 to move between. 01:04:24.560 --> 01:04:29.280 So like we're very happy for to convert people to becoming Democrats or Republicans. 01:04:29.360 --> 01:04:33.600 And we don't like it's kind of the opposite of essentialism and that we want to grow those 01:04:33.600 --> 01:04:34.320 coalitions. 01:04:34.560 --> 01:04:38.720 At least it's at least it's the opposite of essentialism, insofar as essentialism is about 01:04:38.720 --> 01:04:40.000 having a fixed trait. 01:04:40.240 --> 01:04:40.480 Right. 01:04:40.880 --> 01:04:41.440 Right. 01:04:41.840 --> 01:04:47.760 And the other thing is like if I'm thinking phylogenetically, like I kind, I think I 01:04:47.830 --> 01:04:48.870 would you guys agree with me? 01:04:48.950 --> 01:04:52.390 Like we have a coalitional psychology that we share with non-human primates. 01:04:52.550 --> 01:04:54.150 Do you agree with you agree with that? 01:04:54.390 --> 01:04:54.710 Definitely. 01:04:55.030 --> 01:04:57.990 Like that it's pretty similar, like at least those are the building blocks, right? 01:04:58.630 --> 01:05:03.670 And and I again, like I'm not sure that those building blocks are 01:05:03.670 --> 01:05:05.110 essentialists either. 01:05:05.190 --> 01:05:10.180 Like I guess I don't know I should know more about primate coalitions, but I would imagine 01:05:10.180 --> 01:05:14.340 that like you know, dominance hierarchy shift and whose alpha shifts, and then like whether 01:05:14.340 --> 01:05:19.380 beta and whatever the third primate is in the dominance hierarchy, like they 01:05:20.260 --> 01:05:23.780 might all of a sudden find themselves like on different sides of the coalition. 01:05:23.940 --> 01:05:28.340 So I'm a little bit skeptical that that's kind of like the building, that coalitional 01:05:28.340 --> 01:05:34.150 psychology is like the building block or has like a notion of fixedness attached to it for 01:05:34.150 --> 01:05:34.630 those reasons. 01:05:34.790 --> 01:05:35.590 I don't know what you guys think. 01:05:35.910 --> 01:05:36.070 Right. 01:05:36.230 --> 01:05:39.670 So let me let me see if I can reframe the hypothesis. 01:05:39.830 --> 01:05:43.190 So with with the example of say switching a political party. 01:05:43.350 --> 01:05:43.670 Yeah. 01:05:43.830 --> 01:05:49.190 Um, so I would imagine that some features of being a Republican or Democrat are more 01:05:49.510 --> 01:05:52.550 diagnostic of of political loyalty than others. 01:05:52.950 --> 01:05:57.510 Um say voting for a particular party, that's probably one of the most diagnostic. 01:05:57.750 --> 01:06:03.520 So it let's say I vote for Republican, but all of my outward beliefs are 01:06:03.520 --> 01:06:06.480 consistent with uh progressive ideology. 01:06:06.720 --> 01:06:11.920 I think we would have uh something of an essentialist intuition there that I'm still a 01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:13.040 Republican, right? 01:06:13.200 --> 01:06:17.200 Because I'm I'm I I'm exhibiting the cue that is a stronger cue of alliance membership, 01:06:17.280 --> 01:06:22.480 even if all of my superficial features uh are are resembling um the Democrats. 01:06:22.640 --> 01:06:26.590 It's more about you know, secretly I'm loyal to Republicans. 01:06:26.670 --> 01:06:28.830 I'm a closet Republican or something like that. 01:06:29.310 --> 01:06:35.230 And so I I would suggest that, you know, the hypothesis is that some traits 01:06:35.550 --> 01:06:39.150 are categorized by the mind as if you have it, you're on this side. 01:06:39.310 --> 01:06:41.310 If you don't have it, you're on the other side. 01:06:41.470 --> 01:06:46.800 Um and I think that is is more what's what's driving the essentialism intuitions. 01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:49.600 And and of course it depends on what that what that thing is. 01:06:49.680 --> 01:06:54.800 If it's something that can be changed, like say voting for one party or another, then uh 01:06:55.120 --> 01:06:56.720 categorization will change. 01:06:57.040 --> 01:07:01.360 Um but if it's something that can't be changed, like skin color, uh then there's nothing 01:07:01.360 --> 01:07:03.600 you can do to uh erase that. 01:07:03.680 --> 01:07:08.400 It's always going to be um it's always going to signify that you're on one side or the 01:07:08.400 --> 01:07:08.560 other. 01:07:09.040 --> 01:07:11.130 Does that sort of track? 01:07:11.690 --> 01:07:15.770 I mean, I s I still think I disagree with you, but I do think it's like a cool hypothesis. 01:07:15.850 --> 01:07:21.770 And like that idea that like essentialism is about like the the core part 01:07:21.770 --> 01:07:24.970 of what essentialism is about predicting is like whose side are you really on? 01:07:25.050 --> 01:07:26.970 I think is a really cool hypothesis. 01:07:27.130 --> 01:07:28.970 Um I'm gonna give you another case study. 01:07:29.050 --> 01:07:31.690 Maybe this is like too much of a an ethnographic veto. 01:07:33.530 --> 01:07:35.610 That's why you're here, is to is to keep us honest. 01:07:35.820 --> 01:07:37.900 That's a great question ethnographic veto. 01:07:38.300 --> 01:07:39.020 It's not mine. 01:07:39.260 --> 01:07:43.340 I forget where I I I mean it's usually used disparagingly to be like, Oh, I'm I'm going to 01:07:43.340 --> 01:07:44.940 be the anthropo the annoying anthropologist. 01:07:45.980 --> 01:07:48.700 I want to raise my hand in a talk and be like, here's an ethnographic. 01:07:50.860 --> 01:07:51.020 Yeah. 01:07:51.820 --> 01:07:56.300 And I do accept that like if there are tendencies in the world, then like we should accept 01:07:56.300 --> 01:07:59.580 that there are tendencies and also the possibility to vary away from that tendency. 01:07:59.660 --> 01:08:03.580 So I don't think the ethnographic veto should be used as a like blunt instrument. 01:08:03.900 --> 01:08:05.350 But it should be Christina. 01:08:05.510 --> 01:08:06.310 We should just use it as a blood. 01:08:06.550 --> 01:08:07.510 But here's my admiration. 01:08:08.710 --> 01:08:10.550 Beat us with that blood instrument, please. 01:08:10.870 --> 01:08:11.590 And it's not my work. 01:08:11.670 --> 01:08:13.190 It's Rita Astudi's work. 01:08:13.270 --> 01:08:19.030 And she's worked in uh Madagascar with um people who are well she works with the 01:08:19.030 --> 01:08:21.510 Veso who are uh Austronesian descent. 01:08:21.590 --> 01:08:26.230 So they're an indigenous um kind of Malagasy uh 01:08:28.180 --> 01:08:30.420 Madagascar uh natives. 01:08:30.500 --> 01:08:32.260 They work, I think, mostly with fishing. 01:08:32.340 --> 01:08:37.300 And they have, at least by adulthood, they have this notion that you are Veso, that that 01:08:37.300 --> 01:08:39.620 ethnic category, if you do the Veso things. 01:08:39.700 --> 01:08:45.220 Again, kind of like the is ending, like you go fishing and you do the kinds of work that we 01:08:45.220 --> 01:08:45.380 do. 01:08:45.460 --> 01:08:46.900 That be makes you Veso. 01:08:47.140 --> 01:08:51.540 And she talked, she did these kinds of same essentialism studies, both with children and 01:08:51.540 --> 01:08:56.350 adults there, um, to ask them about this boundary with um 01:08:57.630 --> 01:09:02.270 with Karani, which are actually um more recent migrants from India. 01:09:02.510 --> 01:09:04.830 I forget the history of their migration there. 01:09:04.990 --> 01:09:08.110 It probably had something to do with the British, but I don't remember the details. 01:09:08.270 --> 01:09:13.870 But there's like an Indian origin population in Madagascar and an 01:09:13.870 --> 01:09:18.660 Austronesian kind of earlier migration to Madagascar. 01:09:18.820 --> 01:09:20.500 And they do look physically different. 01:09:20.580 --> 01:09:23.940 Like they can't change kind of your skin tone. 01:09:24.580 --> 01:09:25.780 And they recognize that. 01:09:25.940 --> 01:09:28.260 Like the adults that I forget of the children. 01:09:28.420 --> 01:09:33.220 I think the children also, like by age eight or seven or so, like they recognize that the 01:09:33.220 --> 01:09:35.220 skin tone is something that you're not going to change. 01:09:35.380 --> 01:09:41.370 And presumably, like in the real world, um, like this does map on to some kinds 01:09:41.370 --> 01:09:42.010 of coalitions. 01:09:42.090 --> 01:09:43.290 They live in different areas. 01:09:43.450 --> 01:09:49.130 But they all but they don't, at least by adulthood, they do not um treat that 01:09:49.130 --> 01:09:53.770 cue um as an indicator of being, right? 01:09:54.010 --> 01:09:54.250 Right. 01:09:54.570 --> 01:09:55.450 Yes, yes, yes. 01:09:55.930 --> 01:10:01.530 So if so you'll ask adults, Veso adults, like if a Karani child, like a child born to 01:10:01.530 --> 01:10:06.170 Karani parents is then raised by Vesoparents and they'll say yes, it'll be Veso when it 01:10:06.170 --> 01:10:06.810 grows up. 01:10:07.050 --> 01:10:12.500 So I'm a little bit skeptical that So they will say that that a person who looks 01:10:12.740 --> 01:10:18.660 uh right like they belong to one group and is raised by uh a a group that looks different, 01:10:18.980 --> 01:10:21.780 that they will be that they will become the different looking group. 01:10:22.020 --> 01:10:22.180 Yeah. 01:10:22.260 --> 01:10:26.020 And so it would be equivalent to say a white person becoming black by being raised by black 01:10:26.100 --> 01:10:26.340 parents. 01:10:26.740 --> 01:10:27.140 Exactly. 01:10:27.300 --> 01:10:27.780 Exactly. 01:10:28.340 --> 01:10:33.860 And that's my reading of the literature too, that the inference about the Q um and the 01:10:33.860 --> 01:10:38.210 group and the group um underlying membership, those are distinct things. 01:10:38.370 --> 01:10:41.250 And the old literature sort of conflated those. 01:10:41.410 --> 01:10:43.490 Um, and it that's sort of what made it confusing. 01:10:43.570 --> 01:10:48.370 But if you tease the two apart, people will still say, look, this feature is biologically 01:10:48.370 --> 01:10:49.170 inheritable. 01:10:49.330 --> 01:10:49.730 Right. 01:10:49.890 --> 01:10:54.290 But but they'll but that's separate from what constitutes the group identity. 01:10:54.450 --> 01:10:55.010 Sorry, Christina. 01:10:55.090 --> 01:10:57.170 I just wanted to that that's that's fascinating. 01:10:57.250 --> 01:11:02.700 So my follow-up question would be is there a political divide or 01:11:02.700 --> 01:11:05.100 rivalry by skin color per se? 01:11:05.260 --> 01:11:08.620 So is there social stratification based on skin color per se? 01:11:08.780 --> 01:11:13.340 Is there some kind of uh intergroup conflict over power or resources or status or whatever 01:11:13.500 --> 01:11:18.300 based on skin color like there is in the United States, or is it not based on skin color 01:11:18.300 --> 01:11:18.700 per se? 01:11:19.470 --> 01:11:23.310 I suspect that it's not like institutionalized by skin color, but I'm not totally sure. 01:11:23.390 --> 01:11:25.150 I definitely should read more about this case. 01:11:25.390 --> 01:11:30.030 And but I think that another way to talk about your your hypothesis about this being about 01:11:30.030 --> 01:11:34.990 loyalty detection is that if you are raised, if you do have this information that you are 01:11:34.990 --> 01:11:40.270 raised in a different community, like not only is that going to influence like how your 01:11:40.510 --> 01:11:45.660 your cultural expectation, like your your cultural worldview, it very likely is going to 01:11:45.660 --> 01:11:47.020 affect your loyalty as well. 01:11:47.100 --> 01:11:47.340 Right. 01:11:47.980 --> 01:11:48.220 Yes. 01:11:48.860 --> 01:11:49.180 Yes. 01:11:49.420 --> 01:11:53.420 And so I think that this idea that it's not just about predicting lots of different 01:11:53.420 --> 01:11:57.580 cultural traits, but predicting who you're loyal to, I think, is a really interesting 01:11:57.580 --> 01:11:58.060 question. 01:11:58.940 --> 01:11:59.660 That is interesting. 01:11:59.740 --> 01:12:05.260 But you also have to consider not just the person's loyalty themselves, but how everyone 01:12:05.260 --> 01:12:08.030 else in society will will treat them. 01:12:08.590 --> 01:12:12.990 So if if I'm raised by black parents, I might be loyal to the black community, uh, but 01:12:12.990 --> 01:12:17.310 everyone else in society is still going to see me as white and give me the privileges that 01:12:17.310 --> 01:12:22.110 are granted to white people in our society and and uh make all sorts of assumptions about 01:12:22.110 --> 01:12:25.710 me based on my skin color, regardless of of of my personal loyalties. 01:12:26.110 --> 01:12:28.750 And that may itself also change my loyalties. 01:12:28.990 --> 01:12:33.230 If people are treating me differently, then that might be a factor that pushes me in a 01:12:33.230 --> 01:12:36.590 different direction than I otherwise would have gone if I was black. 01:12:37.140 --> 01:12:37.460 That's right. 01:12:37.620 --> 01:12:37.700 Yeah. 01:12:38.420 --> 01:12:43.780 So it's not just the individual's loyalty, but it's it's it's um uh common knowledge of of 01:12:43.940 --> 01:12:48.340 uh of of the person's perceived loyalties and how how they're seen by others and how that 01:12:48.340 --> 01:12:50.100 affects the alliances. 01:12:50.580 --> 01:12:51.300 No, totally. 01:12:51.540 --> 01:12:51.940 Yeah, yeah. 01:12:52.260 --> 01:12:56.420 That that is, I mean, yeah, when I talk about you know the alliance stuff and and sort of 01:12:56.420 --> 01:13:02.310 race or any cue, that thing is also that really inhibits individuals who want 01:13:02.310 --> 01:13:03.350 to change it, right? 01:13:03.510 --> 01:13:08.630 So even if somebody says I don't want to do this, you know, just um um I don't want to 01:13:08.630 --> 01:13:14.470 discriminate based on race, um, let's say somebody in like, you know, 1960s US or now, 01:13:14.630 --> 01:13:20.550 um, but if if they see that other people are, they're still representing this as a relevant 01:13:20.550 --> 01:13:21.190 cue. 01:13:21.350 --> 01:13:25.660 Um and it just or if people treat me based on this, but I would prefer we didn't. 01:13:25.980 --> 01:13:26.700 They didn't. 01:13:26.860 --> 01:13:32.860 You know, it makes the individual decision is not sufficient to stop the cue from being 01:13:32.860 --> 01:13:33.900 relevant because it is. 01:13:33.980 --> 01:13:36.780 It's a coordination thing that it requires common knowledge. 01:13:36.940 --> 01:13:42.940 And so especially when that's why you need like larger scale coordination to sort 01:13:42.940 --> 01:13:48.460 of stop using a cue or circumstances to change or institutions to change 01:13:49.260 --> 01:13:50.860 precisely for this reason. 01:13:51.020 --> 01:13:56.850 And then especially when the feature or the cue is permanent, like 01:13:56.930 --> 01:14:01.410 you know, I I like to to an extreme aversion, like you know, in in Germany people could 01:14:01.490 --> 01:14:03.490 like take their swastikas off, right? 01:14:03.730 --> 01:14:08.610 But you can't do that if the way that a group is marked is like what you look like or the 01:14:08.610 --> 01:14:09.090 way you talk. 01:14:09.250 --> 01:14:14.850 I mean, what the way you talk is a bit different, but um so that that also has an effect as 01:14:14.850 --> 01:14:15.170 well. 01:14:15.640 --> 01:14:15.880 Yeah. 01:14:15.960 --> 01:14:21.080 And I think it's an important distinction and has probably been some, but could do more 01:14:21.080 --> 01:14:25.720 theorizing like how other members of your group are going to interact with you versus the 01:14:25.720 --> 01:14:27.880 other, the out group is going to interact with you. 01:14:28.120 --> 01:14:34.120 Because um some of those things like um there's been a lot of proposals that like you're 01:14:34.200 --> 01:14:39.550 the fact that we have a really hard time in adulthood, like changing the accents that we 01:14:39.550 --> 01:14:43.950 are raised with, or the fact that like tattoos much more 01:14:44.750 --> 01:14:48.510 permanently like can be used as kind of bridge-burning devices. 01:14:48.590 --> 01:14:53.550 Like you tattoo your face, and all of a sudden people know something about you and will 01:14:53.550 --> 01:14:55.630 treat you differently because of it. 01:14:55.790 --> 01:14:58.910 And actually, tattoos, I guess, now we can take get rid of them. 01:14:58.990 --> 01:15:04.620 And that's an important tool for like dealing with kind of reintegration into 01:15:04.620 --> 01:15:06.300 society for some members, right? 01:15:06.620 --> 01:15:07.580 Like gangs. 01:15:08.540 --> 01:15:11.900 But but traits like that that are harder to get rid of. 01:15:11.980 --> 01:15:15.660 Like there's been a lot of speculation, I think, among evolutionarily social um 01:15:15.820 --> 01:15:19.500 evolutionary social scientists that this is like a really way good way of like committing 01:15:19.500 --> 01:15:20.460 you to the in group. 01:15:20.780 --> 01:15:25.340 But what's I think what's missing in that theorizing is that it requires it's not something 01:15:25.340 --> 01:15:28.210 that the in group can control by itself. 01:15:28.370 --> 01:15:31.250 It actually totally depends on how the out group's gonna perceive you. 01:15:31.410 --> 01:15:31.650 Right. 01:15:31.810 --> 01:15:36.930 It it requires that the outgroup burns that bridge as well, which is not always it 01:15:36.930 --> 01:15:38.130 shouldn't be taken for granted. 01:15:38.210 --> 01:15:43.490 Like we should be thinking more carefully about like why would the out group not be willing 01:15:43.490 --> 01:15:47.410 to interact with somebody with a certain accent or a face tattoo. 01:15:47.650 --> 01:15:49.490 And I think it's not always clear. 01:15:49.980 --> 01:15:52.460 Yes, that's a really crucial point. 01:15:52.700 --> 01:15:58.540 Um there's also this this uh interesting idea that beliefs themselves can be bridge burning 01:15:58.540 --> 01:15:58.860 tactics. 01:15:59.100 --> 01:15:59.260 Right. 01:15:59.500 --> 01:16:05.020 So if I voice support for a particular narrative or myth in my culture, um that you know 01:16:05.100 --> 01:16:08.140 people in my culture you know won't think twice about it and they'll they'll find it 01:16:08.140 --> 01:16:08.940 plausible. 01:16:09.100 --> 01:16:14.780 Um but people in other cultures might think that I'm crazy or or or stupid or you know, 01:16:15.020 --> 01:16:19.610 out of my mind, whatever, that that itself can be a bridge burning tactic. 01:16:19.690 --> 01:16:24.970 So a really, you know, uh flagrantly nonsensical conspiracy theory can can can can be a 01:16:24.970 --> 01:16:30.170 signal of loyalty to uh the the extremist group that I'm a part of while uh alienating me 01:16:30.170 --> 01:16:31.530 from everyone outside of that group. 01:16:31.610 --> 01:16:37.290 Or if I belong to a cult, if I subscribe to this really uh Rococo uh myth about, you know, 01:16:37.450 --> 01:16:41.770 aliens or abducting me or whatever, that that could signal loyalty to that group and 01:16:41.770 --> 01:16:44.540 alienate me from everyone outside the cult. 01:16:44.860 --> 01:16:47.260 Do you do you buy that way of thinking? 01:16:47.420 --> 01:16:48.780 Uh I'm I'm curious. 01:16:50.220 --> 01:16:50.540 I do. 01:16:50.620 --> 01:16:56.380 I'm laughing because one of our students here at Eli Elster is working on um kind of why 01:16:56.380 --> 01:17:01.180 people have beliefs that the majority of kind of educated elites don't have. 01:17:01.420 --> 01:17:03.580 And he uses the example of flat earth. 01:17:03.740 --> 01:17:08.030 And um he's trying to talk about some other reasons why people might have those beliefs, 01:17:08.110 --> 01:17:12.190 but I very much think that they can act as bridge burning devices. 01:17:12.350 --> 01:17:16.510 I still think it's interesting that as somebody who would be a bit wary of somebody who is 01:17:16.510 --> 01:17:21.550 espousing flat earth beliefs, for example, um, like why wouldn't I want to 01:17:22.590 --> 01:17:28.350 like buy fruits from them or you know, engage in other mutually beneficial interactions? 01:17:28.510 --> 01:17:32.270 Like maybe I wouldn't want to like learn my geography from them or my geology from them. 01:17:32.510 --> 01:17:37.560 But like, why would why would it inhibit other kind of mutually profitable profitable 01:17:37.560 --> 01:17:38.440 interactions? 01:17:38.600 --> 01:17:38.840 Um 01:17:44.680 --> 01:17:47.640 I would go to yeah, I would go to a flat earthers restaurant if they, you know, if it was 01:17:47.720 --> 01:17:49.400 highly recommended and had good food. 01:17:49.480 --> 01:17:51.000 Like, yeah, I don't care what they believe. 01:17:51.160 --> 01:17:51.320 Yeah. 01:17:51.480 --> 01:17:55.480 Um, but yeah, I might I wouldn't uh you know get maybe maybe I wouldn't get directions from 01:17:55.480 --> 01:17:55.640 them. 01:17:55.720 --> 01:17:56.360 I don't know. 01:17:56.680 --> 01:17:57.400 I wouldn't buy it. 01:17:57.480 --> 01:17:58.920 I wouldn't I wouldn't trust their like GPS. 01:17:59.240 --> 01:18:00.680 Don't don't go too far in that direction. 01:18:00.840 --> 01:18:02.920 You'll you'll drive off the edge of the earth. 01:18:03.320 --> 01:18:03.560 Right. 01:18:04.110 --> 01:18:04.510 Exactly. 01:18:04.910 --> 01:18:05.230 Yeah. 01:18:05.390 --> 01:18:07.310 Um That's funny. 01:18:07.390 --> 01:18:11.390 I mean, I my intuition is that I'd be like a bit wary about going to their kitchen. 01:18:11.790 --> 01:18:12.350 Oh really? 01:18:12.510 --> 01:18:14.110 But I don't know, like I don't know why. 01:18:14.270 --> 01:18:14.750 I don't know why. 01:18:15.070 --> 01:18:19.230 Well, I guess what it meant, it would does it depend on sort of like how their beliefs, you 01:18:19.230 --> 01:18:21.790 know, like it's interesting. 01:18:21.870 --> 01:18:27.230 I I I think part of the reason why I would eat at a flat earthers restaurant is because 01:18:27.870 --> 01:18:32.360 I uh I am a social scientist and I understand the logic of bridge burning tactics and I 01:18:32.360 --> 01:18:35.880 know that it's just a bridge burning tactic and it doesn't actually c communicate anything 01:18:35.880 --> 01:18:39.880 about their intelligence, that they're probably no smarter or dumber than anyone else. 01:18:40.040 --> 01:18:43.000 And so because I know that I would I would feel comfortable eating the restaurant, but I 01:18:43.000 --> 01:18:47.000 bet the average person does not think that way and might actually judge them as as being 01:18:47.000 --> 01:18:48.040 dumb or crazy. 01:18:48.520 --> 01:18:52.290 Oh, I think I'd be hesitant precisely because of the British reading. 01:18:52.530 --> 01:18:55.170 Like I think it is me thinking coalitionally, to be honest. 01:18:55.410 --> 01:18:55.650 Interesting. 01:18:55.890 --> 01:18:56.450 Well, it depends. 01:18:56.690 --> 01:19:00.530 Do they want to bring you into the Flat Earth Society or are they like spiting you? 01:19:00.690 --> 01:19:00.850 Right? 01:19:01.090 --> 01:19:04.770 Because if they're want to be like we want, we're appealing, that might be cheaper and 01:19:04.770 --> 01:19:06.770 better because there's an agenda, right? 01:19:07.170 --> 01:19:10.450 Um, so sort of, you know, like they're they're trying to sell you something. 01:19:10.610 --> 01:19:11.650 And so that's true. 01:19:11.730 --> 01:19:12.930 Like, think of Hare Krishna. 01:19:13.170 --> 01:19:17.010 Like, would you eat, yeah, would I eat the Hare Krishna food where they are using the food 01:19:17.010 --> 01:19:18.610 for proselytizing purposes? 01:19:19.220 --> 01:19:22.900 I think I haven't, and I'm a little bit wary because I don't want to engage in the 01:19:22.900 --> 01:19:25.460 proselytizing endeavor, but like I probably would. 01:19:25.860 --> 01:19:26.660 So I don't know. 01:19:26.820 --> 01:19:28.420 I'm being inconsistent here. 01:19:28.580 --> 01:19:29.220 Yeah. 01:19:29.540 --> 01:19:34.260 Um, I definitely think this is a cool area of research, the the ways that they do act as 01:19:34.260 --> 01:19:38.260 bridge burning and like what it does for what other in-groups think and what other 01:19:38.260 --> 01:19:40.580 out-groups think and about what, right? 01:19:40.820 --> 01:19:45.620 Um, I think like categories the whole categorization and stereotyping literature is um, I 01:19:45.620 --> 01:19:49.410 think like very underspecified about what are those predictions about. 01:19:49.970 --> 01:19:50.290 Yes. 01:19:50.770 --> 01:19:52.850 Because they tend not to think very functionally. 01:19:53.090 --> 01:19:58.290 And um like bringing it back to materially in the world, what is this going to do for you? 01:19:58.530 --> 01:19:58.770 Yes. 01:19:58.930 --> 01:20:01.650 What is it going to do for your interactions, I think would be really helpful. 01:20:01.890 --> 01:20:02.050 Yeah. 01:20:02.130 --> 01:20:05.170 And I think that's ultimately like what and what this is another example of like where 01:20:05.250 --> 01:20:07.170 taking evolutionary approach is helpful, right? 01:20:07.410 --> 01:20:12.690 Because it it grounds like sort of and Christina like one of the things I love about your 01:20:12.690 --> 01:20:18.560 work is that we we are taking this thing groups that's so amorphous and trying to sort 01:20:18.560 --> 01:20:23.760 of create like what what is the underlying like what's the bone structure like you know is 01:20:23.760 --> 01:20:28.880 it about coordination is it about power and like there's reasons to privilege those kinds 01:20:28.880 --> 01:20:34.640 of things over like other categories because of an evolutionary approach right like 01:20:34.720 --> 01:20:40.000 because these are like things that actually matter to us as organisms that matter to us as 01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:41.120 social beings. 01:20:41.520 --> 01:20:41.840 Right. 01:20:42.090 --> 01:20:42.330 Yeah. 01:20:42.490 --> 01:20:46.330 What are the benefits that we get from being with other people? 01:20:46.730 --> 01:20:51.450 Um, whereas there are a lot of things, and this speaks to kind of these what we think of as 01:20:51.450 --> 01:20:56.890 like implausible beliefs or improbable beliefs, is like a lot of them don't really have any 01:20:56.890 --> 01:20:58.730 consequences for your day-to-day interaction. 01:20:58.890 --> 01:21:02.490 And I think that's kind of why it does make sense to think about them as bridge burning, 01:21:02.730 --> 01:21:08.560 because um it probably isn't going to change your GPS settings, even though we joked about 01:21:08.560 --> 01:21:08.640 it. 01:21:08.800 --> 01:21:12.800 Like, you know, I'm guessing that flat earthers and non flat earthers, round earthers and 01:21:12.800 --> 01:21:14.400 cone earthers, like all of them are. 01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:15.440 I don't know about those. 01:21:15.680 --> 01:21:16.640 No, no, that's Eli. 01:21:16.880 --> 01:21:17.760 That's Eli's term. 01:21:18.080 --> 01:21:18.800 I don't think they exist. 01:21:18.880 --> 01:21:23.200 And his argument is like, isn't that interesting that only certain kinds of earth shapes 01:21:23.200 --> 01:21:23.440 exist? 01:21:24.000 --> 01:21:28.240 The ones that are like more intuitively realistic is his argument. 01:21:28.960 --> 01:21:29.360 Interesting. 01:21:29.710 --> 01:21:33.710 And and so they could have burned the bridge with the cone with the cone Earth as well, but 01:21:33.710 --> 01:21:37.070 they didn't choose that one because it's not as intuitive as his argument. 01:21:37.310 --> 01:21:41.390 Um but I I suspect that in their day-to-day lives, like it doesn't have an effect, right? 01:21:41.470 --> 01:21:44.350 They I do do they use different GPS? 01:21:44.510 --> 01:21:44.670 No. 01:21:44.830 --> 01:21:46.270 Do they fly on planes? 01:21:46.350 --> 01:21:46.670 I don't know. 01:21:46.750 --> 01:21:47.630 That's an interesting question. 01:21:47.710 --> 01:21:48.910 Do they fly on planes? 01:21:49.310 --> 01:21:50.030 I think they do. 01:21:50.110 --> 01:21:51.230 And I think they do, yeah. 01:21:51.620 --> 01:21:52.340 And it doesn't such a lot of people. 01:21:52.580 --> 01:21:56.180 And the fact that the the fact that the pilot doesn't have to keep steering down, I think 01:21:56.260 --> 01:21:58.260 is an argument in favor of the flat earth. 01:21:58.340 --> 01:21:59.220 I think that's the argument. 01:21:59.540 --> 01:22:00.260 Oh, I see. 01:22:00.500 --> 01:22:01.380 Interesting. 01:22:01.860 --> 01:22:02.100 Okay. 01:22:02.180 --> 01:22:06.100 So yeah, so it doesn't really have an ap a practical implication for the life. 01:22:06.180 --> 01:22:10.260 And then and that is interesting, but like it is harder to theorize about why we have 01:22:10.260 --> 01:22:15.910 beliefs that don't actually affect our everyday material interactions. 01:22:16.230 --> 01:22:18.790 Um except if it has a social purpose, right? 01:22:19.030 --> 01:22:19.350 Right. 01:22:19.510 --> 01:22:19.750 Yeah. 01:22:19.910 --> 01:22:24.550 No, I I I find that extremely fascinating as well to what extent we really believe our 01:22:24.550 --> 01:22:26.870 beliefs or whether they're just social signals. 01:22:27.270 --> 01:22:32.230 Um, you know, because be precisely because they don't serve the practical functions that 01:22:32.310 --> 01:22:36.230 that beliefs normally serve of guiding behavior, you know, of you know 01:22:41.420 --> 01:22:43.100 By the way, I just I just quietly looked this up. 01:22:43.340 --> 01:22:46.060 There's a great documentary about Flat Earthers called Behind the Curve. 01:22:46.460 --> 01:22:47.420 I don't know if you guys have seen it. 01:22:48.460 --> 01:22:50.780 It sounds like it's fodder for puns, though. 01:22:51.100 --> 01:22:52.380 Oh yeah, a lot of great puns. 01:22:52.460 --> 01:22:53.100 No, it's a great document. 01:22:53.260 --> 01:22:57.100 It just basically just follows people in a flat earth society, just interviews them, and 01:22:57.100 --> 01:23:01.390 just and you just get a glimpse of what life is like, what these people are like. 01:23:01.550 --> 01:23:03.070 Uh and I found it really fascinating. 01:23:03.150 --> 01:23:08.510 And I think it does largely support this idea that the beliefs are are social signals. 01:23:08.990 --> 01:23:13.470 Um that that these people get a sense of community from being part of the Flat Earth 01:23:13.470 --> 01:23:18.750 society, that this is a a collection of of weirdos and and the flat earth belief is a way 01:23:18.750 --> 01:23:24.500 for them to find each other and and demarcate themselves from uh the rest of society. 01:23:24.660 --> 01:23:28.820 Um and it's it's very much a social thing and not an intellectual thing that was arrived at 01:23:28.820 --> 01:23:29.380 intellectually. 01:23:29.540 --> 01:23:30.900 So I'd I'd recommend that documentary. 01:23:30.980 --> 01:23:32.340 It's it's it's it's a good watch. 01:23:32.660 --> 01:23:32.820 Cool. 01:23:32.980 --> 01:23:33.700 Anyway, yeah. 01:23:33.780 --> 01:23:38.100 I also like just want to say, like, you know, because I people, it's easy, especially like 01:23:38.100 --> 01:23:43.300 scientists, to make fun of flat earthers, but I also feel very I see I feel affection 01:23:43.300 --> 01:23:49.050 towards them in the following sense: of um You shouldn't just believe something because 01:23:49.050 --> 01:23:50.250 people tell you, right? 01:23:50.410 --> 01:23:56.010 Where where I would take issue is they're not typically, I don't want to 01:23:56.010 --> 01:24:01.770 paint broad strokes, but in my experience, what I've seen is they're not one 01:24:01.930 --> 01:24:07.530 remains a flat earther because one doesn't look exhaustively for the evidence for why the 01:24:07.530 --> 01:24:09.100 earth isn't flat, right? 01:24:09.260 --> 01:24:14.220 So there's a difference between sort of like not accepting the digested outcome of science, 01:24:14.380 --> 01:24:14.540 right? 01:24:14.620 --> 01:24:17.500 Like I personally have an experience that the earth is a globe. 01:24:17.580 --> 01:24:21.020 Um, that's a fine starting point to be a scientist. 01:24:21.100 --> 01:24:22.700 That that is being a scientist. 01:24:22.860 --> 01:24:26.780 But then the question is: well, if the earth is flat versus if the earth is around, what 01:24:26.780 --> 01:24:27.260 does that predict? 01:24:27.340 --> 01:24:29.900 And what is the evidence in for one and the other? 01:24:30.140 --> 01:24:34.620 And there's all kinds of data, you know, we weren't flying spaceships or satellites for a 01:24:34.620 --> 01:24:37.390 long time, and people knew the earth was around like for a long time. 01:24:37.470 --> 01:24:41.550 Like, you know, um, what data did people use just from like the way the sky looked, you 01:24:41.550 --> 01:24:46.190 know, just from the way things like worked on Earth, like seeing a ship go go across? 01:24:46.350 --> 01:24:52.270 Like, so I think um I want to just like demarcate that it's it's sometimes people laugh at 01:24:52.270 --> 01:24:58.110 flat earthers, but I think like the thing to be laughed at is ignoring evidence as 01:24:58.110 --> 01:25:01.710 opposed to sort of like holding a belief that's different from what other people believe. 01:25:01.870 --> 01:25:06.110 I think those are two very different things, and it's important to distinguish between 01:25:06.110 --> 01:25:06.270 them. 01:25:06.840 --> 01:25:12.280 Can I can I add to that by saying we shouldn't la laugh at fat earthers because we're all 01:25:12.280 --> 01:25:13.880 flat earthers about some things. 01:25:14.120 --> 01:25:14.680 Exactly. 01:25:14.920 --> 01:25:17.640 And I would say like it's and a lot. 01:25:18.520 --> 01:25:23.400 I I think of quantum mechanics always as this example of like there's no like we cannot 01:25:23.400 --> 01:25:25.400 investigate all of the evidence, right? 01:25:25.560 --> 01:25:26.440 It's just impossible. 01:25:26.520 --> 01:25:29.800 And I do feel like as somebody who does who's interested in culture evolution, I think this 01:25:29.800 --> 01:25:33.750 is one of those places where cultural and evolutionary psychology really have to work 01:25:33.750 --> 01:25:38.630 together um to make sense of like how people process the vast amount of information that is 01:25:38.630 --> 01:25:39.830 available to them right now. 01:25:40.470 --> 01:25:46.230 And like I don't it's really hard and unintuitive for me to imagine that a 01:25:46.230 --> 01:25:52.230 particle is a wave and a particle like quantum mechanic phenomena like don't work with my 01:25:52.230 --> 01:25:52.470 brain. 01:25:52.710 --> 01:25:56.390 But um or probably I would argue with like most people's brain you have to really develop 01:25:56.390 --> 01:25:59.590 those intuitions um through a lot of hard training. 01:25:59.910 --> 01:26:02.280 Yeah and I don't think it is I don't think they ever do. 01:26:02.440 --> 01:26:07.080 I think people who you know they just they just sort of like it, nobody understands it. 01:26:07.160 --> 01:26:10.040 You just sort of get familiarity with it, but it's not intuitive. 01:26:10.360 --> 01:26:15.000 And so like and the reason that I believe that is just because I trust a certain group of 01:26:15.000 --> 01:26:17.800 people and not an an over another group of people, right? 01:26:17.960 --> 01:26:21.880 So it's not because I've actually looked through all the I didn't go and look at like the 01:26:21.880 --> 01:26:24.840 people who are against quantum mechanics and consider their evidence. 01:26:25.160 --> 01:26:25.800 I didn't. 01:26:26.040 --> 01:26:28.390 It would just waste all of my time. 01:26:28.630 --> 01:26:33.670 So I do think that there is a really big challenge right now, probably for a lot of human 01:26:33.670 --> 01:26:34.550 history to deal with that. 01:26:34.870 --> 01:26:35.030 Yeah. 01:26:35.110 --> 01:26:40.070 I mean it's almost like what you're saying is that with the flat earth earth example, sorry 01:26:40.070 --> 01:26:44.950 to return to it, um, the the bridge burning is not happening from the side of the bridge 01:26:44.950 --> 01:26:46.150 that we think it's happening from. 01:26:46.310 --> 01:26:48.790 So we think of it as the flat earthers are burning the bridge. 01:26:48.870 --> 01:26:53.510 They're choosing this crazy sounding, stupid belief that's going to alienate themselves 01:26:53.510 --> 01:26:54.550 from the rest of society. 01:26:54.710 --> 01:26:58.880 But really, uh, once you think about it, the idea that the earth is round is kind of 01:26:58.880 --> 01:27:00.000 counterintuitive. 01:27:00.160 --> 01:27:04.080 Uh and we are the ones who have to take that leap of faith by trusting the experts and 01:27:04.080 --> 01:27:07.840 trusting the scientific community that to to believe in this counterintuitive thing. 01:27:08.000 --> 01:27:10.720 If you think about it, that's really the crazy sounding belief. 01:27:10.880 --> 01:27:14.320 And we have already agree. 01:27:14.400 --> 01:27:14.720 Yeah. 01:27:15.120 --> 01:27:18.160 Um and so maybe we already bri burned the bridge from our side. 01:27:18.480 --> 01:27:22.800 How did and how did the podcast transition into a flat I'm sorry. 01:27:22.880 --> 01:27:23.360 I'm sorry. 01:27:23.520 --> 01:27:28.670 But but I think like but but I but you can't I do think that the bridge burning hypothesis 01:27:28.990 --> 01:27:33.710 for why people believe things as a marker of group identity is a legitimate one. 01:27:33.790 --> 01:27:38.350 And it just only makes sense if you consider both what's happening within and outside the 01:27:38.350 --> 01:27:38.590 group. 01:27:38.830 --> 01:27:43.390 So I'm not like it like bridge burning could be a thing and it requires some sort of 01:27:43.390 --> 01:27:45.950 understanding of what the outgroup things and so forth. 01:27:46.030 --> 01:27:48.350 So the c it's a culturally constructed bridge. 01:27:48.520 --> 01:27:52.600 Like everyone needs to know that the bridge is there and that it's been burned, otherwise 01:27:52.680 --> 01:27:53.000 it doesn't work. 01:27:53.400 --> 01:27:55.400 And how you're going to interact with people once it's been burned. 01:27:55.480 --> 01:27:57.160 Yeah, that it exactly that it's no longer there. 01:27:57.240 --> 01:27:57.320 Yeah. 01:27:57.560 --> 01:28:00.840 So Christina, like your point is that like if somebody sort of like says something 01:28:00.840 --> 01:28:04.760 outrageous and in one social context nobody cares about it. 01:28:04.920 --> 01:28:08.520 And in another context it immediately causes people to break up into groups. 01:28:08.680 --> 01:28:08.840 Right. 01:28:09.080 --> 01:28:13.670 That's the point is like the same behavior in two different social 01:28:13.990 --> 01:28:15.110 ecologies. 01:28:15.430 --> 01:28:19.750 One creates coalitional divisions and the other one is just sort of like, well, this is 01:28:19.750 --> 01:28:22.230 just some person saying something kind of weird. 01:28:22.550 --> 01:28:22.710 Yeah. 01:28:22.870 --> 01:28:28.790 I interact with a bunch of people who I have disagreements with and it doesn't mean um 01:28:29.110 --> 01:28:33.830 that I'm no longer their friends or that I disrespect them in other domains of life. 01:28:33.910 --> 01:28:38.520 Like it would be impossible to find somebody who totally believes exactly the same things 01:28:38.520 --> 01:28:39.080 that I do. 01:28:39.320 --> 01:28:42.680 I guess like the point of it being outrageous, I do think is interesting. 01:28:42.840 --> 01:28:48.600 Like um like there's maybe like a a bit of a positive feedback loop to go kind 01:28:48.600 --> 01:28:52.520 of into one extreme corner that's opposite of what somebody else believes. 01:28:52.600 --> 01:28:54.760 So that maybe is a bit different. 01:28:55.080 --> 01:28:55.320 Yeah. 01:28:55.560 --> 01:28:59.770 Or like a dynamic that ensues when it is for coalitional purposes. 01:28:59.850 --> 01:29:00.410 But right. 01:29:00.490 --> 01:29:01.850 This is something John Tuby talked about. 01:29:01.930 --> 01:29:03.370 I actually started doing empirical study. 01:29:03.450 --> 01:29:04.650 I never finished it up. 01:29:04.730 --> 01:29:09.050 I shouldn't start it again or somebody should um where the idea is sort of like really 01:29:09.050 --> 01:29:12.570 outrageous ideas um versus normal ideas. 01:29:12.730 --> 01:29:17.370 The outrageous ideas are much more diagnostic of a social interaction. 01:29:17.450 --> 01:29:19.050 It's kind of like the language principle, right? 01:29:19.130 --> 01:29:23.580 Like if you see two people or you hear two people and they speak similar languages, the 01:29:23.580 --> 01:29:28.860 inference is just like at some level, there's been a concatenated series of like 01:29:29.500 --> 01:29:34.780 events where like these two people share a fuzzy set of like um social 01:29:35.020 --> 01:29:36.060 interactions, right? 01:29:36.220 --> 01:29:41.260 Like it's impossible that they speak similarly and grew up without growing up in like sort 01:29:41.260 --> 01:29:43.580 of this fuzzy set of like common people. 01:29:43.820 --> 01:29:48.460 And if you like show up and like some two people say, Well, it's raining outside, versus 01:29:48.540 --> 01:29:53.810 like, you know, I believe God is like a purple headed elephant, you know, the purple headed 01:29:53.810 --> 01:29:55.970 elephant, like that's really low prior, right? 01:29:56.050 --> 01:29:57.650 That like anybody's even going to think that. 01:29:57.810 --> 01:29:59.570 So it's really much more diagnostic. 01:29:59.650 --> 01:30:04.850 Like at some point these two had a weird conversation and for whatever reason agreed on it, 01:30:05.090 --> 01:30:08.530 versus, you know, you could just arrive at it's raining because you're looking outside and 01:30:08.530 --> 01:30:09.650 it's raining, it's not predictive. 01:30:09.890 --> 01:30:15.250 And so, like John Tubi's point was sort of maybe sometimes, and Christina, this sounds like 01:30:15.250 --> 01:30:20.740 what you were saying too, is like the the weirdness of the of the content is actually 01:30:20.740 --> 01:30:21.940 serving this function. 01:30:22.100 --> 01:30:24.340 It's not always the right thing to do. 01:30:24.500 --> 01:30:30.340 Um, but it might be it it it it's sort of more clearly it's such a low probability thing 01:30:30.740 --> 01:30:36.500 unless it was arrived at by um people all getting together and sort of agreeing on it. 01:30:37.140 --> 01:30:37.540 Yeah. 01:30:37.780 --> 01:30:38.660 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:30:38.740 --> 01:30:39.220 Exactly. 01:30:39.460 --> 01:30:41.940 And otherwise it'd just be like a single crazy person. 01:30:42.340 --> 01:30:42.820 Exactly. 01:30:43.620 --> 01:30:43.940 Yes. 01:30:44.090 --> 01:30:46.730 And and so that is something I'm kind of working on now. 01:30:46.890 --> 01:30:48.090 Sorry, not to make this about myself. 01:30:48.650 --> 01:30:49.930 No, this the this is about you. 01:30:51.050 --> 01:30:53.450 No, it's about Christina, you should be asking us. 01:30:55.210 --> 01:31:00.010 No, but it is like it is precisely like how we arrive at 01:31:00.810 --> 01:31:06.730 common understandings of w what a lot of people would think of originally as a crazy 01:31:06.730 --> 01:31:11.280 belief, that it's kind of motivating me to look at the origin of a pilgrimage site in the 01:31:11.280 --> 01:31:12.480 Peruvian altiplano. 01:31:12.960 --> 01:31:18.960 And that's that's that's kind of exactly the yeah, the contrast I make is 01:31:18.960 --> 01:31:22.960 like so people started celebrating like the fact that Jesus Christ appeared on the side of 01:31:22.960 --> 01:31:26.000 a mountain um in 2014. 01:31:26.560 --> 01:31:31.840 And so then I've been trying to map on like through time, like who's adopting that belief, 01:31:31.920 --> 01:31:34.240 who's going to this pilgrimage, who doesn't believe it. 01:31:34.560 --> 01:31:40.490 And the important connection here is just that um The first 01:31:40.650 --> 01:31:44.730 person who saw Jesus' face on the side of the mountain and thought it was worth 01:31:44.730 --> 01:31:48.730 celebrating, it is a low prior. 01:31:48.810 --> 01:31:50.730 People should have a low prior on that. 01:31:51.450 --> 01:31:53.930 And so they could have just been dismissed as a crazy person. 01:31:54.010 --> 01:31:59.930 So then how do they go about creating a set of people who both all 01:31:59.930 --> 01:32:00.410 agree? 01:32:00.570 --> 01:32:00.810 Yeah. 01:32:01.210 --> 01:32:05.060 And I don't think that it was that concertive of an effort of one person trying to create 01:32:05.060 --> 01:32:05.860 that community. 01:32:05.940 --> 01:32:09.140 Um, although some individuals might have been more involved than others. 01:32:09.300 --> 01:32:14.740 Um, but yeah, the first person who said this is a flat earth, that the earth is flat, like 01:32:14.900 --> 01:32:16.180 I d don't know the history of it. 01:32:16.260 --> 01:32:20.980 Um maybe we do have enough records, but they somehow managed to not just be a crazy person, 01:32:21.140 --> 01:32:25.060 perceived as a crazy person by the society, but actually build a community around it. 01:32:25.300 --> 01:32:25.460 Right. 01:32:25.540 --> 01:32:27.540 It's like the origins of religion religion, right? 01:32:27.700 --> 01:32:27.780 Yeah. 01:32:28.020 --> 01:32:28.260 Yeah. 01:32:28.340 --> 01:32:34.090 I mean, so uh a working hypothesis I have about this is that in order to trust 01:32:34.090 --> 01:32:39.530 someone's testimony, um, you have to assume that they have your best interests at heart and 01:32:39.530 --> 01:32:42.250 they're not trying to manipulate you or ex or exploit you. 01:32:42.410 --> 01:32:47.610 Um, so you have to be sort of loyal and trusting to the person to to trust what they have 01:32:47.610 --> 01:32:51.530 to say about any topic, whether it's you know, flat earth or or or Jesus being born a 01:32:51.690 --> 01:32:53.050 virgin or or whatever. 01:32:53.210 --> 01:32:57.800 Um And so it could be that maybe the first person who started Flat Earth as a maybe this 01:32:57.800 --> 01:33:00.920 was like a really high status, charismatic beloved person. 01:33:01.480 --> 01:33:06.040 And people wanted to basically signal their loyalty to this person by trusting this 01:33:06.040 --> 01:33:08.680 person's opinion and not calling them crazy. 01:33:09.240 --> 01:33:12.840 And maybe that was diagnostic to the person of, you know, these people believe me, these 01:33:12.840 --> 01:33:13.240 people don't. 01:33:13.400 --> 01:33:16.040 These people are my friends, they're with me, they're on my side, they trust me. 01:33:16.200 --> 01:33:17.240 These people don't. 01:33:17.610 --> 01:33:23.370 And so bel belief itself can become a cue of loyalty and trust to a 01:33:23.370 --> 01:33:23.690 group. 01:33:23.770 --> 01:33:27.530 And that might be the origin of where these crazy beliefs come from, is it's precisely 01:33:27.530 --> 01:33:31.530 because they're hard to believe that they're good signals of loyalty and trust. 01:33:32.170 --> 01:33:32.330 Yeah. 01:33:32.410 --> 01:33:35.050 So that would be like a different process. 01:33:35.210 --> 01:33:40.170 Like by one, by one dynamic, like you have the kind of extreme belief to begin with. 01:33:40.250 --> 01:33:42.970 Um, by another one, like they become more. 01:33:43.130 --> 01:33:45.240 Another possibility is that they become more extreme. 01:33:45.320 --> 01:33:50.840 Like you start off with somebody who just asks you to believe that, um, to question whether 01:33:50.840 --> 01:33:55.480 we have good evidence that the earth is round, let's say, and then like it becomes more 01:33:55.480 --> 01:33:55.880 extreme. 01:33:56.040 --> 01:33:58.440 So I don't, again, I don't know the history of this one. 01:33:58.520 --> 01:34:04.360 Um, I think that in some ways, what our results are suggesting in this particular case is 01:34:04.360 --> 01:34:10.090 that another pathway is like for it not to be to try to work with the 01:34:10.090 --> 01:34:13.850 perception of the extremity to of the content itself to begin with. 01:34:14.010 --> 01:34:14.890 So I agree with you. 01:34:15.050 --> 01:34:19.770 We do have evidence that people are more likely to go to the site if they first learned 01:34:19.770 --> 01:34:23.370 about it from somebody that they trusted, like a close family member or friend, right? 01:34:23.450 --> 01:34:25.530 So that increases our belief. 01:34:25.690 --> 01:34:28.410 That's not we're not, we actually can't actually find the person. 01:34:28.730 --> 01:34:32.730 Everybody says that there was a first person who saw this, and they everybody agrees that 01:34:32.730 --> 01:34:33.770 it was a minor. 01:34:33.930 --> 01:34:38.900 Um, and then beyond that, we have not been able to find the first person, and we have not 01:34:38.900 --> 01:34:40.820 been able, like they have very different beliefs. 01:34:40.900 --> 01:34:43.780 Like some of them say he's dead, some of them say he's in jail. 01:34:43.940 --> 01:34:46.900 Like it's so we have not been able to track that down. 01:34:47.220 --> 01:34:51.300 But we are able to see that, in fact, like it consistent with your prediction, David. 01:34:51.460 --> 01:34:56.500 Like, you are more likely to believe this, you are more likely to go if you have 01:34:56.500 --> 01:35:00.980 trustworthy sources, and you've and other people tell you that miracle has been granted 01:35:01.140 --> 01:35:03.750 there, because it does require that kind of faith. 01:35:03.910 --> 01:35:07.750 However, another thing that seems to be happening, which is quite different then from the 01:35:07.750 --> 01:35:12.870 flat earth, possibly possibly, is that it's trying to piggyback on belief systems that 01:35:12.870 --> 01:35:14.230 already exist, right? 01:35:14.470 --> 01:35:17.750 And so making it feel less unfamiliar. 01:35:17.990 --> 01:35:21.910 So I think and that is an inherent tension, right? 01:35:21.990 --> 01:35:26.700 Like of like whether a belief system acts for bridge burning purposes, or if it's trying to 01:35:26.700 --> 01:35:31.180 bring everybody in along for the ride and say, like, no, no, no, this is actually quite 01:35:31.180 --> 01:35:35.020 similar to that other pilgrimage site that you've been going to for several years. 01:35:35.260 --> 01:35:35.500 Right. 01:35:35.660 --> 01:35:38.780 So I I think belief change can work in different ways. 01:35:38.860 --> 01:35:44.860 And and this kind of goes back to the question of like what counts as like a crazy belief. 01:35:44.940 --> 01:35:49.020 And you know, Dave, your point that you're affectionate towards flat earthers, like, um, 01:35:49.500 --> 01:35:55.310 yeah, because because there are like some beliefs that are crazy that we 01:35:55.310 --> 01:36:00.270 just accept, and some beliefs that are crazy that are probably wrong, but like we don't 01:36:00.270 --> 01:36:02.270 really think people are crazy for having them. 01:36:02.510 --> 01:36:08.350 So um it's it's like almost like what you're saying is you you need a backdrop of cultural 01:36:08.350 --> 01:36:11.230 similarity in order to get a cultural difference. 01:36:11.390 --> 01:36:15.900 That in order to have a bridge burning tactic where one belief is considered crazy by one 01:36:15.900 --> 01:36:20.380 side and sane by the other side, is there needs to be a common cultural understanding of 01:36:20.380 --> 01:36:23.260 what counts as crazy and what counts as not crazy. 01:36:23.820 --> 01:36:28.140 Without that common cultural understanding, the the mechanism uh wouldn't work. 01:36:28.620 --> 01:36:29.020 Right. 01:36:29.420 --> 01:36:33.180 So the and then the cultural background can be used either to create something that's going 01:36:33.180 --> 01:36:38.300 to be understood as crazy or like or bridge burning, crazy enough that you're burning some 01:36:38.300 --> 01:36:43.990 bridges, or cultural background can be um used to inform how to make it not 01:36:43.990 --> 01:36:44.950 sound crazy. 01:36:45.030 --> 01:36:47.590 Um so both of those can produce change, right? 01:36:48.150 --> 01:36:53.350 There's a there's sort of a trope too of like, and I I mean it always seems to be like um, 01:36:53.430 --> 01:36:58.710 you know, like if you watch like a Bigfoot documentary or like spiritualism, and maybe this 01:36:58.710 --> 01:37:04.480 is just wrong, but you know, maybe it's just like people with lots of disposable income 01:37:04.480 --> 01:37:05.680 have the time to do this. 01:37:05.760 --> 01:37:08.880 But, you know, people who are like looking for the Loch Ness monster, like when I was a 01:37:08.880 --> 01:37:12.080 kid, I love Loch Ness Monster books, you know, or like those kinds of things. 01:37:12.240 --> 01:37:17.840 Um, there there's this sort of thing of like conspiratorial or sort of 01:37:17.840 --> 01:37:19.280 wacky beliefs. 01:37:19.680 --> 01:37:24.320 And this is my this, I this is me taking off my scientist hat and just like my my personal 01:37:24.320 --> 01:37:29.450 observation is that it almost looks kind of entrepreneurial in the sense of like people 01:37:29.450 --> 01:37:33.930 with status and resources are more willing to sort of say wacky things. 01:37:34.330 --> 01:37:38.410 Um and again that might be wrong and it might just be that like those are the people who 01:37:38.410 --> 01:37:42.490 can afford to like buy the boat in the sonar looking for the Loch Ness monster. 01:37:42.570 --> 01:37:46.250 And the guy who like you know is too poor to do any of that, you know, there's no 01:37:46.250 --> 01:37:47.370 documentary about him. 01:37:47.530 --> 01:37:49.130 He just thinks it's true. 01:37:49.690 --> 01:37:54.800 But yeah, is that is that a thing where, like, sort of can this be used entrepreneurially 01:37:54.880 --> 01:38:00.320 to sort of people are generating, you know, if you find yourself in a high bargaining 01:38:00.320 --> 01:38:06.240 phenotype or context, you're sort of spouting sort of things that are, 01:38:06.320 --> 01:38:10.560 like you said, like within this range of sort of like maybe some people come along with me 01:38:10.640 --> 01:38:11.440 and maybe they won't. 01:38:11.520 --> 01:38:16.160 It's almost like a leadership or um a grouping entrepreneurial thing. 01:38:16.240 --> 01:38:18.800 Is that um is that crazy? 01:38:19.190 --> 01:38:20.230 That seems possible. 01:38:20.390 --> 01:38:26.070 It's consistent with well, with I was thinking of the early adopter literature, which is 01:38:26.070 --> 01:38:31.030 usually not about coming up with like a new belief, but coming like being an early adopter 01:38:31.030 --> 01:38:33.430 of a new technology, is where that's been studied a lot. 01:38:33.590 --> 01:38:39.350 And um some people might be seen as crazy for adopting a new technology, right? 01:38:39.430 --> 01:38:44.870 Um, but but it is overwhelmingly that literature suggests um kind of higher status 01:38:44.870 --> 01:38:49.220 individuals who are um the ones doing the early adoption. 01:38:49.300 --> 01:38:54.580 But then that could be like a very kind of minimal, not so strategic explanation for it. 01:38:54.660 --> 01:38:57.140 It could just be that they can't, like you you hinted at, right? 01:38:57.220 --> 01:38:58.820 That they can afford to do that. 01:38:58.980 --> 01:39:04.500 They can afford to lose some reputational status points if it turns out to be a bad choice. 01:39:04.740 --> 01:39:04.980 Right. 01:39:05.460 --> 01:39:08.020 Or just can about they can afford like the monetary risk, right? 01:39:08.820 --> 01:39:10.020 Even just the monetary risk. 01:39:11.140 --> 01:39:16.470 But also if um like but I think it is an interesting alternative that like all the people 01:39:16.470 --> 01:39:21.750 who did do this kind of early adoption that didn't get followers and didn't it didn't pay 01:39:21.750 --> 01:39:23.750 off like that, we just don't see them in the literature. 01:39:23.910 --> 01:39:24.390 Yeah. 01:39:24.630 --> 01:39:28.230 Um but I think you were hinting at something a bit more strategic, right? 01:39:28.310 --> 01:39:33.910 That like there is a way that people are doing this when they want to create some 01:39:33.910 --> 01:39:35.540 sort of grouping. 01:39:35.940 --> 01:39:36.100 Right. 01:39:36.260 --> 01:39:40.420 I also I I one sometimes wonder like in the context of like science being a status game 01:39:40.500 --> 01:39:44.260 that you know science sort of works this way too or like certain people are just sort of 01:39:44.260 --> 01:39:47.700 motivated to be like, what I'm doing is different, you know, like that kind of thing. 01:39:48.820 --> 01:39:49.300 Yeah, yeah. 01:39:49.460 --> 01:39:50.180 That's true. 01:39:50.340 --> 01:39:50.500 Yeah. 01:39:50.740 --> 01:39:52.500 You do get rewarded for being different. 01:39:52.740 --> 01:39:52.980 Yeah. 01:39:53.140 --> 01:39:57.380 But you I think you have but to your point, Dave, I think you have to have a certain level 01:39:57.380 --> 01:40:02.030 of status to even get away with, you know, going out on a limb and saying crazy things. 01:40:02.190 --> 01:40:02.430 Right? 01:40:02.590 --> 01:40:06.750 People have to be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt um in order for you in order 01:40:06.750 --> 01:40:07.950 for it to pay off. 01:40:08.270 --> 01:40:11.470 Um so yeah I I I buy that that way of thinking. 01:40:11.550 --> 01:40:16.110 I mean I I I don't think it's a coincidence that cult leaders are often very charismatic 01:40:16.110 --> 01:40:16.430 people. 01:40:16.510 --> 01:40:21.150 It's because they have to earn that status and loyalty before they can right whip out their 01:40:21.150 --> 01:40:22.270 crazy beliefs. 01:40:22.430 --> 01:40:22.670 Yeah. 01:40:22.830 --> 01:40:24.900 Uh what is charisma then though? 01:40:24.980 --> 01:40:26.100 Like I kind of unwonder. 01:40:26.180 --> 01:40:29.220 I mean, we know like people have been talking about it since the early 20th century, but 01:40:29.220 --> 01:40:31.860 some people that are currently like obviously very charismatic. 01:40:31.940 --> 01:40:33.700 I have a hard time understanding why. 01:40:33.940 --> 01:40:36.580 Um do we have like good operational definitions of that? 01:40:36.740 --> 01:40:40.740 Because like if we think of it as just like high SES, like they actually have the material 01:40:40.740 --> 01:40:41.300 backing. 01:40:41.380 --> 01:40:45.220 I don't is that also true of cult leaders that they have like the material wealth to become 01:40:45.220 --> 01:40:46.180 cult leaders? 01:40:46.340 --> 01:40:49.930 Um, or is it like these more intangible things. 01:40:50.250 --> 01:40:54.330 I think it's more in I mean, there's so little high quality work on charisma. 01:40:54.410 --> 01:40:56.570 I've been thinking about it a bit myself, actually. 01:40:57.050 --> 01:41:00.250 Um I think it's a kind of social intelligence. 01:41:00.570 --> 01:41:04.090 So um I have a paper uh called The Evolution of Social Paradoxes. 01:41:04.170 --> 01:41:06.010 I'm I'm I'm trying to get published now. 01:41:06.170 --> 01:41:09.770 Um, and it's about how a lot of our signals have to be concealed in order to be 01:41:09.770 --> 01:41:11.050 successfully transmitted. 01:41:11.770 --> 01:41:16.800 Um so we have to uh compete for status without revealing the fact that we're competing for 01:41:16.800 --> 01:41:17.040 status. 01:41:17.120 --> 01:41:20.080 Because if we're outed as a status seeker, we actually lose status. 01:41:20.400 --> 01:41:24.640 Or we try to get other people's attention without being an attention seeker. 01:41:24.880 --> 01:41:30.080 Or we, you know, we try to be be brave and defy social norms in order to win the approval 01:41:30.080 --> 01:41:31.360 and esteem of our peers. 01:41:31.440 --> 01:41:35.520 And there are a lot of these kinds of paradoxical signals that we send where uh the when 01:41:35.520 --> 01:41:39.630 the signal itself is revealed, it collapses and you fail to gain any of the benefits. 01:41:39.710 --> 01:41:42.670 If you're seen as a virtue signaler, you're not going to get virtue. 01:41:42.990 --> 01:41:47.390 In order to get virtue, you have to be seen as authentically caring about helping or doing 01:41:47.390 --> 01:41:47.550 good. 01:41:47.710 --> 01:41:52.030 And if you're just trying to boost your reputation as a morally superior person, then 01:41:52.030 --> 01:41:53.950 you're going to look morally inferior. 01:41:54.190 --> 01:42:00.190 And so I think what charisma is, is the ability to send these kinds of 01:42:00.190 --> 01:42:01.230 concealed signals. 01:42:01.390 --> 01:42:06.360 So a charismatic person is a person that can successfully virtue signal without uh 01:42:06.360 --> 01:42:08.280 revealing the fact that they're virtue signaling. 01:42:08.360 --> 01:42:12.120 They're a person who can display their status without displaying the fact that they're 01:42:12.120 --> 01:42:13.080 displaying their status. 01:42:13.240 --> 01:42:18.680 They can capture others attention without outing themselves as an attention seeker. 01:42:19.240 --> 01:42:24.600 They're exceptionally good at at playing these kinds of social games that require lots of 01:42:24.600 --> 01:42:30.040 levels of recursive mentalizing about knowing what the other person knows you know and and 01:42:30.040 --> 01:42:33.960 knowing that um they're not going to know that you intentionally wanted them to know that. 01:42:35.650 --> 01:42:37.970 That's my working model of what charisma is. 01:42:38.050 --> 01:42:41.090 It's a kind of ability to play social games really well. 01:42:41.250 --> 01:42:41.410 Yeah. 01:42:46.930 --> 01:42:52.930 And that itself becomes a cue of your likely status 01:42:52.930 --> 01:42:53.570 in the future. 01:42:53.730 --> 01:42:58.700 Because if you're socially attractive, Um and and I I I find myself, you you're sort of 01:42:58.700 --> 01:43:02.060 emitting all of the cues that I'm looking for in a good social partner. 01:43:02.220 --> 01:43:05.420 Um well that's suggests to me that you know other people are going to respond the same way 01:43:05.500 --> 01:43:09.260 and you're likely to win a lot of followers and a lot of friends and you're likely to 01:43:09.260 --> 01:43:13.740 ascend uh the the the status hierarchy even if you're not high status right now. 01:43:13.900 --> 01:43:18.670 Um and so I think that's what what charisma is about. 01:43:18.910 --> 01:43:22.750 Sorry, I'm I'm just sort of spewing my my thinking on this topic. 01:43:22.990 --> 01:43:23.870 Um I like that. 01:43:24.270 --> 01:43:26.350 Yeah, I'm curious if if you think that's that's plausible or not. 01:43:26.670 --> 01:43:31.150 Yeah, I like that you're kind of getting to an more operational definition of it. 01:43:31.310 --> 01:43:35.950 And I know that they're like game theoretic models about that, about like um burying 01:43:35.950 --> 01:43:36.830 signals, right? 01:43:37.150 --> 01:43:42.840 Um that I think also boggle my mind a little bit in terms of you have yeah 01:43:43.000 --> 01:43:48.920 being I I don't know how they're stable to like higher order thinking, but I think 01:43:48.920 --> 01:43:49.160 they are. 01:43:49.320 --> 01:43:49.720 I think they are. 01:43:49.800 --> 01:43:51.480 I don't know if they're true well enough. 01:43:51.720 --> 01:43:57.720 Um yeah, like how to be just subtle enough while still having the same 01:43:57.720 --> 01:44:00.280 motivation and having more work is kind of amazing. 01:44:00.840 --> 01:44:06.650 My thinking about why it's stable is that the ability to send deceptive 01:44:06.650 --> 01:44:11.450 signals effectively is itself a valid cue of your likely social status. 01:44:12.010 --> 01:44:12.170 Right. 01:44:12.250 --> 01:44:16.010 But then that's true for so those kinds of like positive feedback loops, they could be for 01:44:16.010 --> 01:44:16.570 anything, right? 01:44:16.730 --> 01:44:19.450 Like if you kind of that's what sexual selection models do, right? 01:44:19.610 --> 01:44:23.930 Like it's like, oh, you you want somebody tall, oh, because other people want somebody 01:44:23.930 --> 01:44:24.330 tall. 01:44:24.650 --> 01:44:26.810 And so that could stabilize anything, right? 01:44:26.970 --> 01:44:32.600 So I I like this idea that it's about like specifically these kinds of 01:44:32.600 --> 01:44:38.040 games um being played where you cannot be too overt about what you want. 01:44:38.200 --> 01:44:39.000 But that I don't know. 01:44:39.080 --> 01:44:42.680 Some people right now don't want to name names, but like some people right now seem quite 01:44:42.680 --> 01:44:46.280 overt about their motivations and still seem to be quite charismatic. 01:44:46.760 --> 01:44:49.000 That is true, but only certain motivations. 01:44:49.240 --> 01:44:49.320 Yeah. 01:44:49.560 --> 01:44:55.110 So um yeah, so I mean I I I imagine you're you're you're thinking about a politician whose 01:44:55.110 --> 01:44:56.230 name rhymes with dump. 01:44:56.550 --> 01:44:59.510 Um but uh yeah I think we'll cut that out. 01:44:59.750 --> 01:45:00.710 We'll cut that out. 01:45:03.430 --> 01:45:08.390 Um yeah, uh he's definitely overtly braggadocious and uh 01:45:08.870 --> 01:45:11.430 overtly um narcissistic. 01:45:11.700 --> 01:45:17.620 Um but I think what ultimately he's he's signaling is uh is a kind 01:45:17.620 --> 01:45:22.580 of loyalty to his his base and an enmity toward their enemies. 01:45:23.060 --> 01:45:27.860 And I think he's signaling that um effectively because he's using bridge burning tactics as 01:45:27.860 --> 01:45:28.500 we've been discussed. 01:45:28.660 --> 01:45:34.030 He's saying things that are outrageous to uh the the left uh wing 01:45:34.030 --> 01:45:35.150 intelligentsia. 01:45:35.470 --> 01:45:40.110 Um and that and then it's precisely because they're so outrageous to the left wing 01:45:40.110 --> 01:45:44.990 intelligentsia that that it wins him uh approval from his uh his base. 01:45:45.710 --> 01:45:49.470 So I think that's that's really what he's signaling. 01:45:49.630 --> 01:45:51.550 Um and I think he's doing it effectively. 01:45:51.870 --> 01:45:53.790 Um whether he's concealing that signal, I don't know. 01:45:53.870 --> 01:45:54.590 That's an interesting question. 01:45:57.000 --> 01:45:57.480 I don't know. 01:45:58.120 --> 01:45:59.800 Yeah, in a different in a different direction. 01:45:59.880 --> 01:46:03.000 I've always thought like, I don't know, has anybody done the evolutionary psychology of 01:46:03.000 --> 01:46:04.440 cool of being cool? 01:46:05.000 --> 01:46:07.480 Is that is cool different than charismatic? 01:46:07.720 --> 01:46:08.520 I think so, right? 01:46:08.920 --> 01:46:09.080 No. 01:46:09.160 --> 01:46:09.560 I don't know. 01:46:09.640 --> 01:46:13.800 I mean, because I think um I mean I'm I I I take a slightly different take. 01:46:14.120 --> 01:46:15.400 Well David, what do you think? 01:46:15.800 --> 01:46:17.800 I I view them as largely synonymous. 01:46:18.040 --> 01:46:18.280 Yeah. 01:46:18.360 --> 01:46:19.800 I think I mean I think cool. 01:46:19.880 --> 01:46:22.440 I think there's like people that just are sort of wired. 01:46:22.770 --> 01:46:28.690 Um, you know, because like, you know, even like kids, so like my son, for example, is much 01:46:28.690 --> 01:46:30.690 more charismatic than me. 01:46:31.090 --> 01:46:34.770 Um, you know, and when he walks into a room like he'll be so harsh on yourself. 01:46:34.850 --> 01:46:37.250 He's well, no, but it's no, no, it's an age thing. 01:46:37.570 --> 01:46:39.650 He is like he's he's just very charismatic. 01:46:39.810 --> 01:46:42.930 Like, like, you know, and I is I'm not the only person to like observe this. 01:46:43.010 --> 01:46:48.000 And like there's just something about the way he's wired that like people enjoy being 01:46:48.000 --> 01:46:48.400 around him. 01:46:48.480 --> 01:46:51.280 And he like the room is different when he's in it and not. 01:46:51.600 --> 01:46:55.360 And and I see that, you know, I've had enough experiences like where, you know, whatever, 01:46:55.520 --> 01:46:56.400 parents are biased. 01:46:56.480 --> 01:47:01.200 But like, um, so even if it's not true, like I still think this can be true even like of 01:47:01.200 --> 01:47:01.440 kids. 01:47:01.520 --> 01:47:07.520 And so I think the value of sort of like that this person is wired to make people 01:47:07.520 --> 01:47:08.000 feel good. 01:47:08.160 --> 01:47:11.910 I think, I think the things David's talking about will come along, right? 01:47:11.990 --> 01:47:17.990 Or or like that skill set or whatever that is, then kind of naturally 01:47:17.990 --> 01:47:23.510 leads into this strategic use for good or bad or neutral. 01:47:23.830 --> 01:47:25.510 That's just because you know people are people. 01:47:25.590 --> 01:47:29.670 But I think um but yeah I was just wondering if anybody's sort of done the evolutionary 01:47:29.670 --> 01:47:33.030 psychology of cool that would be cool. 01:47:33.380 --> 01:47:34.020 I don't think so. 01:47:34.340 --> 01:47:35.300 Not not to my knowledge. 01:47:35.380 --> 01:47:35.620 Yeah. 01:47:35.780 --> 01:47:40.340 No, I I I think may I feel like coolness is like part charisma and part just like status in 01:47:40.340 --> 01:47:40.820 general. 01:47:41.060 --> 01:47:45.860 That like you can be a non-charismatic cool person if you're just really well respected and 01:47:45.860 --> 01:47:46.420 high status. 01:47:46.740 --> 01:47:47.380 That's true. 01:47:47.540 --> 01:47:48.900 That's that's definitely true. 01:47:49.300 --> 01:47:55.140 Like I could be a really awkward um person and yet if I am widely regarded as a 01:47:55.140 --> 01:47:56.820 genius, I could still be cool, you know? 01:47:57.140 --> 01:47:57.460 Right. 01:47:57.700 --> 01:48:01.550 I think this may be a conversation where it's useful it might be again like useful to think 01:48:01.550 --> 01:48:05.470 about like functionally what do you do with that information or with that like leverage 01:48:05.470 --> 01:48:06.590 that now you have? 01:48:06.830 --> 01:48:11.630 And um or like what are the people who are assi assessing you as cool do with that, right? 01:48:11.790 --> 01:48:13.070 Is it that they're gonna learn from you? 01:48:13.230 --> 01:48:15.630 Is it that they want to become part of your coalition? 01:48:15.790 --> 01:48:15.950 Yeah. 01:48:16.190 --> 01:48:18.830 Um is it that you have like insider information? 01:48:19.150 --> 01:48:24.460 Because I had kind of had the sense that cool would also be somebody who's kind of up on 01:48:24.460 --> 01:48:26.860 trends so that they would be like an early adopter. 01:48:27.020 --> 01:48:27.660 Is that not true? 01:48:27.900 --> 01:48:31.820 Like if you're I think you're right that it's a placeholder for lots of different I think 01:48:31.820 --> 01:48:34.300 there's there's ambiguity about what it refers to, yeah. 01:48:34.460 --> 01:48:39.660 And I suspect it's you know well picking up on on social trends and, you know, uh 01:48:39.980 --> 01:48:45.260 conforming to the to the latest trends without revealing the fact that you're a conformist, 01:48:45.500 --> 01:48:49.330 that is itself the same skill that I that uh uh produces charisma, I think. 01:48:49.410 --> 01:48:53.090 So I think being fashionable and trendy and being charismatic are largely synonymous and 01:48:53.090 --> 01:48:54.850 they stem from the same underlying ability. 01:48:55.250 --> 01:48:55.650 Yeah. 01:48:55.890 --> 01:49:01.890 Yeah, but I think I think is it worth like um thinking about each of those kinds of things 01:49:01.890 --> 01:49:04.130 that you want to signal without being overt? 01:49:04.370 --> 01:49:08.930 Like that you're trying to signal that you're have inside information without conforming, 01:49:09.090 --> 01:49:15.020 seems kind of different from um you are um trying to 01:49:15.020 --> 01:49:19.100 show that you're very moralist morally racious without showing that you're morally racious, 01:49:19.180 --> 01:49:19.340 right? 01:49:19.420 --> 01:49:21.260 Like they're at least it's different content. 01:49:21.340 --> 01:49:24.860 I don't know if it's going to be functionally then used for different purposes, but 01:49:25.500 --> 01:49:30.860 definitely different content, but I think the the level of rec recursive uh mind reading is 01:49:30.860 --> 01:49:35.500 the same in in both cases, and that you have to descend a few layers of recursive mind 01:49:35.500 --> 01:49:41.210 reading to so that I can know that you don't know that I want you to know 01:49:41.210 --> 01:49:42.410 X, right? 01:49:42.810 --> 01:49:48.570 Or I I anticipate that you're going to be anticipating that I'm going to try to make you 01:49:48.570 --> 01:49:54.570 think uh X and therefore I'm going to do Y instead so that you don't think that 01:49:54.570 --> 01:49:57.290 I wanted you to think X. 01:49:57.530 --> 01:49:58.570 Sorry, that got very complicated. 01:49:59.050 --> 01:50:00.170 I'm stuck at two levels. 01:50:00.250 --> 01:50:01.690 Like I don't do recursive reasoning. 01:50:01.770 --> 01:50:02.490 I'm stuck at two levels. 01:50:02.650 --> 01:50:04.780 Well it's it's precisely that ability that is the same thing. 01:50:05.020 --> 01:50:06.060 That's why I'm not charismatic. 01:50:06.380 --> 01:50:09.340 Well, we do know the systems in the natural format. 01:50:09.420 --> 01:50:10.460 Yeah, no, exactly. 01:50:11.260 --> 01:50:16.220 Um, Christina, um uh to make sure we get to there's a couple of things. 01:50:16.380 --> 01:50:22.060 One is like, how did you um discover evolutionary social science? 01:50:22.140 --> 01:50:23.340 Like, how did you get interested in it? 01:50:23.660 --> 01:50:27.740 Gosh, I'm such I think maybe a lot of us are contrarians, and so maybe it's not going to 01:50:27.740 --> 01:50:31.650 work so much so well for the next generation because I think we're more established now. 01:50:31.890 --> 01:50:37.890 But at the I do remember being a history major and then taking my intro-bioanthro 01:50:38.130 --> 01:50:39.650 class from Jonathan Marks. 01:50:39.970 --> 01:50:45.970 Um, and he is uh a well-respected biological anthropologist, but who really likes to point 01:50:46.210 --> 01:50:51.810 towards the kind of its sordid history and all the ways that it's misused and 01:50:52.780 --> 01:50:58.140 and it's and kind of not propping up some of like the interesting triumphs of like 01:50:58.140 --> 01:51:03.660 evolutionary approaches to um human, to understanding humans, not just behavior. 01:51:03.900 --> 01:51:07.100 And so I think that really hooked me, to be honest. 01:51:07.340 --> 01:51:12.620 Just not the sordid history, but like the search for like what is good about this and like 01:51:12.700 --> 01:51:14.220 what can we do about this. 01:51:14.460 --> 01:51:18.430 Um and so that that's when I switched to anthro. 01:51:18.910 --> 01:51:24.430 Can you clarify so uh that the class was saying like there's a sorted history, but there 01:51:24.430 --> 01:51:28.350 were like there's a a core can you just flesh that out? 01:51:28.430 --> 01:51:33.230 Sorry, I just missed I I kinda I'd have to like reconstruct what his complaints were, but 01:51:33.310 --> 01:51:36.190 um Well wait, was he complaining about biological anthropology? 01:51:36.510 --> 01:51:37.230 Like that sounds good? 01:51:37.500 --> 01:51:37.660 Yeah. 01:51:37.740 --> 01:51:38.860 And I was like, that sounds good. 01:51:39.100 --> 01:51:39.660 Yes, yes, yes. 01:51:39.900 --> 01:51:41.500 That's why I think I'm a bit of a contrarian. 01:51:41.580 --> 01:51:42.140 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:51:42.300 --> 01:51:45.420 So he was like, biological anthropology, these are all the bad things about it. 01:51:45.500 --> 01:51:47.580 And I'm like, oh, but there must be something good here. 01:51:47.900 --> 01:51:49.340 There must be something useful here. 01:51:49.580 --> 01:51:55.500 And I think at the time, like, you know, that we're also I I I do think about this 01:51:55.500 --> 01:51:56.300 with our current students. 01:51:56.380 --> 01:52:00.300 Like, I think they're often like, and I I mean myself at the time, probably also like drawn 01:52:00.300 --> 01:52:04.790 to issues that seem like um politically like contentious. 01:52:04.870 --> 01:52:07.270 And at the time I think it was maybe a bit more so. 01:52:07.590 --> 01:52:09.590 And so I think that's less so now. 01:52:09.670 --> 01:52:15.030 I think most people believe and understand like how evolution is important to understanding 01:52:15.030 --> 01:52:17.830 humans, but maybe disagree about exactly how. 01:52:18.790 --> 01:52:22.630 And so just the fact that there was like a controversy there, I think drew me to it and 01:52:22.630 --> 01:52:23.990 like wanted to dig more. 01:52:24.150 --> 01:52:28.230 So I did change to being an anthra major and then I just started picking and choosing 01:52:28.230 --> 01:52:34.220 classes that seem to speak to also this possibility of having like a big kind of holistic 01:52:34.220 --> 01:52:39.500 understanding of all of the things about why we are the way we are. 01:52:39.740 --> 01:52:44.780 Um, and I think it's not surprising that it's often a somewhat it it doesn't have to be, 01:52:44.860 --> 01:52:50.700 but it tends to draw kind of secular people, maybe as a replacement for like a 01:52:50.940 --> 01:52:52.460 framework for understanding. 01:52:52.700 --> 01:52:56.300 Um, kind of pretty puzzling things about humans and our relatives. 01:52:56.460 --> 01:53:02.070 And I I suspect it does some sort of replacement, even if it works differently for 01:53:02.630 --> 01:53:06.310 that was that was a big part of Dave's origin story back when I interviewed him. 01:53:06.470 --> 01:53:08.230 You mentioned your religious upbringing, Dave. 01:53:08.790 --> 01:53:11.350 Yeah, that's a that was a two-hour episode. 01:53:12.790 --> 01:53:14.070 I'll have to listen to that then. 01:53:14.310 --> 01:53:15.190 Yeah, episode two. 01:53:15.590 --> 01:53:16.310 Coming soon. 01:53:16.550 --> 01:53:16.710 Okay. 01:53:17.030 --> 01:53:19.350 Out out already by the time people are hearing this. 01:53:19.430 --> 01:53:20.390 So go back. 01:53:21.670 --> 01:53:24.310 Christina, is there anything that we should have asked you? 01:53:24.720 --> 01:53:26.320 Oh man, I didn't prepare for that. 01:53:26.640 --> 01:53:27.280 No, we didn't. 01:53:27.440 --> 01:53:29.280 Well we haven't this is not yet published. 01:53:29.680 --> 01:53:31.760 Pretty much everyone is completely taken off guard by that question. 01:53:32.080 --> 01:53:37.280 And then we just have a couple of thirty seconds of filler banter and then but no we we 01:53:37.440 --> 01:53:41.760 this is a surprise because we're not actually published yet when we've been recording this. 01:53:42.080 --> 01:53:45.680 But we should discuss I don't have an answer to it, but we should discuss about like what 01:53:45.680 --> 01:53:51.030 are the next steps or like the big things that evolutionary social sciences has to do. 01:53:51.270 --> 01:53:51.670 Yeah. 01:53:51.830 --> 01:53:52.550 Um potentially. 01:53:53.510 --> 01:53:56.390 We should have you we should have you back on for for for that. 01:53:56.790 --> 01:54:00.470 Somebody else has better no no no no no that would be an awesome episode. 01:54:00.550 --> 01:54:03.590 Yeah the future of evolutionary social science with Christina Moya. 01:54:04.310 --> 01:54:06.310 I don't know to be continued on that one. 01:54:07.020 --> 01:54:09.260 A bunch of good t-shirts for this episode. 01:54:10.940 --> 01:54:11.340 What was it? 01:54:11.500 --> 01:54:13.820 Essence of Dog and Essence of Dog, yeah. 01:54:14.060 --> 01:54:14.700 Essence of Dog. 01:54:15.100 --> 01:54:16.700 Flat Earther uh restaurant. 01:54:16.940 --> 01:54:17.260 Restaurant. 01:54:18.860 --> 01:54:20.140 I figured it'd be like a hot dog place. 01:54:20.220 --> 01:54:21.100 That's sort of what I was imagining. 01:54:21.260 --> 01:54:22.460 I don't know what you guys were imagining. 01:54:22.860 --> 01:54:24.700 Like I thought more like Casadillas. 01:54:25.100 --> 01:54:26.140 Oh, that would be more fitting. 01:54:27.100 --> 01:54:27.420 Okay, you couldn't. 01:54:28.540 --> 01:54:29.740 You won that competition. 01:54:30.700 --> 01:54:31.420 Sorry, Christina. 01:54:31.660 --> 01:54:32.780 You're saying you were about to say something. 01:54:33.100 --> 01:54:33.900 Oh no, something else. 01:54:33.980 --> 01:54:38.050 I guess like I also I don't have another thing I don't have a good answer for, but I want 01:54:38.050 --> 01:54:38.370 somebody else. 01:54:38.450 --> 01:54:42.050 Maybe you guys should interview somebody else who tells us about kind of um evolutionary 01:54:42.130 --> 01:54:46.690 approaches in the real world and like what they can give us, other because I pr I very much 01:54:46.690 --> 01:54:51.170 come to this from a basic science perspective and I'm just motivated by curiosity. 01:54:51.410 --> 01:54:56.210 Um and I sometimes think that's not enough or like that we could do more. 01:54:56.370 --> 01:55:00.290 Um, and I feel guilty sometimes about just being motivated by curiosity. 01:55:00.530 --> 01:55:06.380 And so just to you know, particularly in this moment where like um science 01:55:06.700 --> 01:55:11.100 and understanding the world and cross cultural diversity, I think is not particularly 01:55:11.100 --> 01:55:11.740 valued. 01:55:11.900 --> 01:55:15.820 Um I think we'd have to kind of work on our argument for that. 01:55:15.900 --> 01:55:18.860 So I think you should cut it because I don't have the argument ready. 01:55:19.180 --> 01:55:20.540 But I think we should discuss it. 01:55:20.780 --> 01:55:21.020 Yeah. 01:55:21.500 --> 01:55:22.780 Not figure out a good answer. 01:55:23.020 --> 01:55:23.900 Yeah, no, that's true. 01:55:23.980 --> 01:55:28.380 I mean, we've had so like we had Michael Moncrief on and he does like work on like 01:55:28.380 --> 01:55:31.180 terrorism, international humanitarian law. 01:55:31.340 --> 01:55:31.660 Right. 01:55:31.900 --> 01:55:37.430 Um, but um, but yeah, but where where these things sort of get cashed 01:55:37.750 --> 01:55:43.430 out into policy, though I know and David is a a good a good critic of this 01:55:43.750 --> 01:55:49.430 of the long history and social sciences of sort of taking a half-baked or maybe 01:55:49.430 --> 01:55:54.870 completely raw idea, foisting it on people and having, you know, the road to hell is paved 01:55:54.870 --> 01:55:56.390 with good intentions kind of thing. 01:55:56.790 --> 01:55:57.110 Yeah. 01:55:57.830 --> 01:55:58.150 Totally. 01:55:58.310 --> 01:56:01.910 And I think that is maybe that is a there's a book called Applied Evolutionary 01:56:01.910 --> 01:56:02.470 Anthropology. 01:56:02.550 --> 01:56:05.240 I don't know if you've David Lawson is your colleague, actually. 01:56:05.480 --> 01:56:06.520 Is a editor. 01:56:06.760 --> 01:56:07.080 Oh, great. 01:56:07.800 --> 01:56:08.760 We're gonna have one another, David. 01:56:09.560 --> 01:56:09.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:56:10.200 --> 01:56:11.640 It won't get confusing at all. 01:56:12.200 --> 01:56:17.160 Um, but but I think some of the case studies that they highlight are ones where actually it 01:56:17.160 --> 01:56:23.000 was just kind of like putting the brakes on kind of strong hypotheses that like 01:56:23.000 --> 01:56:25.000 development econ people had, right? 01:56:25.320 --> 01:56:30.970 Just by being ethnographically informed and thinking like just having a broader set like 01:56:30.970 --> 01:56:34.490 the evolutionary framework giving you like a broader set of like possible predictions of 01:56:34.490 --> 01:56:36.090 the ways that things could turn out. 01:56:36.330 --> 01:56:36.410 Right. 01:56:36.890 --> 01:56:38.730 Sometimes I feel like that's paralyzing. 01:56:39.690 --> 01:56:40.170 At least for me. 01:56:40.250 --> 01:56:41.850 I'm like I don't know where to go from here. 01:56:41.930 --> 01:56:47.770 But but but it but it it is important to have those cautions. 01:56:48.010 --> 01:56:50.860 But I think I think I'm just overly cautious. 01:56:50.940 --> 01:56:52.700 And then somebody's going to make those policies anyway. 01:56:53.100 --> 01:56:53.580 Yeah, exactly. 01:56:53.660 --> 01:56:53.900 Exactly. 01:56:54.140 --> 01:56:56.860 And so then the question is how do we, how do we speak to that? 01:56:57.100 --> 01:56:57.260 Yeah. 01:56:57.340 --> 01:56:58.700 And there's so much documented. 01:56:58.780 --> 01:57:03.180 Like I was, I was just looking at like the Afghanistan papers book, like just for as an 01:57:03.180 --> 01:57:07.100 example for in psych one, just sort of like conformity, because like what's the newest 01:57:07.100 --> 01:57:07.500 decade? 01:57:07.580 --> 01:57:09.020 You know, what's in the last two decades? 01:57:09.100 --> 01:57:12.380 And and there's all this evidence, like tons of people on the ground. 01:57:12.540 --> 01:57:15.740 Um, you know, the war in Afghanistan, there were just tons of people on the ground who 01:57:15.740 --> 01:57:20.150 would be like like criticizing or concerned with like what are we doing in this particular 01:57:20.150 --> 01:57:20.470 case? 01:57:20.630 --> 01:57:24.630 Like, or or now that we're here, which was fine, why aren't we leaving now? 01:57:24.790 --> 01:57:29.670 And this was across parties, across area, like this was just like you know, people who knew 01:57:29.670 --> 01:57:30.310 the situation. 01:57:30.870 --> 01:57:36.860 Um, and so there's tons of examples, like that's just one of it's not like you 01:57:36.860 --> 01:57:41.020 know, you people are splitting hairs often, and it's sort of like, well, is this good or 01:57:41.020 --> 01:57:41.180 not? 01:57:41.340 --> 01:57:44.380 It's often a thing of like the people at the top don't want to hear it. 01:57:44.540 --> 01:57:44.780 Right. 01:57:45.020 --> 01:57:50.460 Or the people at the top, their their life and death, quote unquote, is sort of like 01:57:50.460 --> 01:57:52.460 independent of what's the reality, right? 01:57:52.540 --> 01:57:55.820 Like I don't want to look soft to my constituents. 01:57:55.900 --> 01:57:58.060 It doesn't really matter what's happening on the ground. 01:57:58.220 --> 01:57:58.300 Right. 01:57:58.540 --> 01:58:02.380 So I think like, you know, keeping, I think this is where like having anthropologists on 01:58:02.380 --> 01:58:07.150 the ground or like keeping open, transparent information of like if we do implement this 01:58:07.150 --> 01:58:09.070 policy, what what is the consequence? 01:58:09.230 --> 01:58:13.630 And keeping keeping a conversation with the people affected. 01:58:13.870 --> 01:58:18.270 It's obvious to say, but it's shocking how infrequently that actually like happens. 01:58:18.750 --> 01:58:18.910 Yeah. 01:58:19.070 --> 01:58:22.190 And I mean you're pointing to more intractable problems at that point. 01:58:22.510 --> 01:58:22.670 Sure. 01:58:22.750 --> 01:58:23.230 No, no, no. 01:58:23.310 --> 01:58:27.630 But I think it's just an example of like, you know, I think at every level, like even you 01:58:27.630 --> 01:58:29.790 know, I think this just happens, right? 01:58:30.270 --> 01:58:30.510 Yeah. 01:58:32.040 --> 01:58:35.640 I'm gonna send a message to you, but that's for David as you were talking about your 01:58:35.640 --> 01:58:36.600 charisma paper. 01:58:36.680 --> 01:58:37.160 Do you know what I mean? 01:58:38.360 --> 01:58:38.760 I love that stuff. 01:58:39.000 --> 01:58:39.480 Yeah, I know, yeah. 01:58:39.560 --> 01:58:40.120 The buried signal. 01:58:40.360 --> 01:58:42.920 Yeah, Moshe Hoffman and they do they do excellent stuff. 01:58:43.320 --> 01:58:43.560 Okay. 01:58:43.880 --> 01:58:48.440 I just I couldn't help but thinking about those for for those who would so Chris Christina 01:58:48.440 --> 01:58:53.720 just sent a chat in the in the Zoom thing about um a very cool paper by um Moshe Hoffman 01:58:53.720 --> 01:58:56.790 and Aries Yoeli about the game theory of buried signaling. 01:58:57.270 --> 01:59:02.790 Um and they do also um they're they have a book uh called Hidden Games uh that that reviews 01:59:02.790 --> 01:59:05.110 the research which is is wonderful and highly recommended. 01:59:05.510 --> 01:59:07.110 I didn't know we were still on the air. 01:59:07.430 --> 01:59:09.350 I thought we were doing the Bantary thing. 01:59:09.910 --> 01:59:12.150 No, no, we're still recording. 01:59:12.230 --> 01:59:15.510 So uh so you know swear all you want. 01:59:15.590 --> 01:59:16.230 I don't know. 01:59:17.910 --> 01:59:20.060 Anyways, uh thank you so much, Christina. 01:59:20.140 --> 01:59:21.900 I really uh love this conversation. 01:59:21.980 --> 01:59:24.380 I love that we just got to bounce ideas off each other. 01:59:24.460 --> 01:59:26.780 That's you know the best kind of fun conversation to have. 01:59:26.860 --> 01:59:28.460 So thank you so much for it was super fun. 01:59:28.540 --> 01:59:28.700 Yeah. 01:59:29.100 --> 01:59:30.300 And lots of food for thought. 01:59:30.620 --> 01:59:33.260 Absolutely, including from the Flat Earth restaurant. 01:59:33.660 --> 01:59:34.220 Yep. 01:59:35.340 --> 01:59:36.860 Somebody's gonna start that. 01:59:39.660 --> 01:59:45.580 Well, you've wasted another hour to two uh with David, myself, and most likely 01:59:45.580 --> 01:59:50.150 a guest, unless uh this was one where it's just David and I. 01:59:50.470 --> 01:59:52.150 Yeah, chances are there was a guest. 01:59:52.390 --> 01:59:52.550 Yeah. 01:59:52.790 --> 01:59:57.590 Um but if you enjoyed randomly we're just randomly attaching outros to the to these 01:59:57.590 --> 01:59:57.910 episodes. 01:59:58.230 --> 02:00:00.310 Yeah, we don't know which episode this is going to be attached to. 02:00:00.550 --> 02:00:01.270 I have no idea. 02:00:01.350 --> 02:00:01.510 Yeah. 02:00:01.750 --> 02:00:03.670 So maybe there was a guest, maybe there wasn't. 02:00:03.750 --> 02:00:09.190 Uh but in any case, if you enjoyed what you just listened to, uh please leave us a kind 02:00:09.190 --> 02:00:14.390 review, check out our Patreon page, uh do what you can to support us because you know we 02:00:14.390 --> 02:00:16.630 depend on your support to keep doing this. 02:00:17.060 --> 02:00:17.380 Yeah. 02:00:17.460 --> 02:00:18.820 Um and please just spread the word. 02:00:18.900 --> 02:00:20.740 Let people know if you're enjoying this podcast. 02:00:20.900 --> 02:00:26.740 If everybody who's listening just told one other person, uh, then we would, 02:00:26.900 --> 02:00:31.380 I don't know, when we do the math, that would what, double our listenership? 02:00:31.780 --> 02:00:33.620 Uh I think that I think that checks out. 02:00:33.780 --> 02:00:37.140 And then the next generation, oh, it's like exponential, right? 02:00:37.460 --> 02:00:37.700 Yeah. 02:00:37.860 --> 02:00:43.790 So maybe we could take over the world if if if all of you tell someone 02:00:43.790 --> 02:00:44.430 about our podcast. 02:00:44.670 --> 02:00:48.670 I don't know if this is like a reproduction or uh differential reproductive success in 02:00:48.670 --> 02:00:52.110 natural selection or a pyramid scheme or why choose? 02:00:52.510 --> 02:00:54.030 Yep, all of the above. 02:00:54.270 --> 02:00:54.590 Okay. 02:00:54.910 --> 02:00:56.990 Uh we'll see you guys uh next week and David. 02:00:57.070 --> 02:00:58.190 I'll see you in a little bit. 02:00:58.510 --> 02:00:59.070 Sounds good. 02:00:59.310 --> 02:00:59.630 Okay.