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This is Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast.

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Parenthes.

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Actual evolutionary psychology by actual evolutionary psychologists.

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Dot dot dot.

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Enjoy.

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I don't know if the dots were necessary.

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Probably not.

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Today we have Mike McCullough, who is uh professor of psychology at UC San Diego.

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That's right.

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And uh this was a really fun, wide-ranging conversation where we just explored a lot of

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really interesting topics.

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Yeah, revenge, forgiveness, gratitude.

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Um, we talked a little bit about um the logic, the cost-benefit logic, respecting the

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cost-benefit logic of people feeling uh revengeful or angry, um, and also

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being a little bit in like a little bit of a um uh content alert, like abusive

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relationships, too.

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Yeah, yeah.

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It took a dark turn in the middle of of the conversation.

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We talked about, you know, how sometimes evolutionary perspectives can lead you to a more

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tragic view of of the human condition and and the problems we're facing.

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And it's kind of humbling to think about how tough these problems are.

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Um we talked about impartiality a bit.

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Uh it was was a lot of fun.

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Yeah, it it was great.

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I love the conversations where we really just get to hear a world expert about a topic just

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um uh extemporaneously to pull a word, um, just talk about stuff.

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Uh, I also got to ask about a mystery I've always had, which is why does time heal all

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wounds?

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Uh and Mike McCullough was like the single person on earth to ask that question to.

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He had like the best answer ever.

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It was a really great answer.

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So stick through to the end to hear his answer to that question because it's uh it's a

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fascinating answer.

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Yeah.

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Enjoy Michael and David and I talking about revenge forgiveness and uh other

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stuff.

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You study what among other things, revenge and forgiveness.

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Yeah.

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It may be a limitation of my ignor of my knowledge, but I don't know many people who study

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opposites in their topic of study.

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Is that unique to you, or is it typical in the study of revenge or forgiveness to study the

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opposed concept?

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Um I think I think probably

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there's some people who do it.

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You know, uh it's har it's hard for me to quite

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feel like I'm uh I understand um forgiveness that well if I don't

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really kind of understand one of the you know it's it's like studying like a I don't know a

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little bit like studying a cure without fully understanding the natural natural history of

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the disease or something like that.

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Yeah.

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So yeah over the years I have done a fair bit of work on retaliation

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and some of the social factors that you know kind of promote it or inhibit

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it.

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And I think also, you know, on one

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view of forgiveness, I suppose it the whole point of it is to help you get a relationship

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back on track, short of you know, imposing this massive, you know, retaliatory harm on

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the other person.

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I mean, you know, and I yeah, so I I I to me they only kind of make sense together to

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study.

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Um and I also think that they're just like wide op both of them are like wide open research

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fields.

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Do you do you view the are they are they opposites? 'Cause I I could imagine, you know, uh

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one opposite to forgiveness is not necessarily going out of your way to hurt the person who

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hurt you, but merely just severing ties with them, not talking to them, cutting off the

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relationship with them.

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That that could potentially be one end of the forgiveness spectrum.

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On one end, you've you're fully in a relationship with that person and you're continuing uh

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cooperating with them.

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And on the other end, you're just totally uh not dealing with them at all.

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Um and it seems like imposing actively imposing costs on the person is is a different

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question entirely.

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Do you or do you view do you buy that logic or or or do you view them as as real opposites?

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Yeah, I I don't think they're opposites.

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I think, you know, it's you know, when you're when you're harmed by somebody, there's a

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number of ways you could deal with it.

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You could ignore it, you could um pretend like it didn't bother you,

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you could just overlook it, um, or you could, you know, withdraw from the relationship with

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the person, just sort of figuring like, well, what's the point of this?

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You know, if this person's gonna keep ridicul ridiculing me, you know, around my other

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friends, like why why would I bother with this?

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Or you could, you know, it's sort of like, I'm going to try to teach that person a lesson,

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you know, and you might, you know, try to harm them back, or, you

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know, ridicule them in response, or, you know, do something else that's, you know, designed

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to harm them.

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Or, you know, you could just talk to them about it and, you know, express your feelings and

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kind of open your heart.

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And you know, I think all of those are designed in some way to try to get, you know,

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some kind of harm to stop happening to you.

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And um, you know, rip revenge is just, I think, probably kind of a sweet,

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one of a suite of responses you could have after a harm.

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So I do think forgiveness is not act actively

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in opposition to revenge.

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But you know, they certainly take the relationship in different directions.

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Um, one's one's probably gonna be, at least in the short term, not so great for the

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relationship, you know, and put it at further risk, you know, whereas forgiveness is

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probably something that um you know is not going to is kind of

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gives you an antidote to antidote to that the way that revenge can lead to a sort of cycle

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of retaliate retaliation.

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Could could revenge even facilitate forgiveness?

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So if you punch me or insult me and I punch you back and insult you back, um

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fight it out, fight it out if we fight out.

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It could be that if we fight it out, that actually repairs our relationship in some sense

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that we're you know we're even now and I can you know let it go more effectively than if we

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weren't even.

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Uh is that possible?

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Uh maybe.

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I you know, I mean, I suppose you can imagine cases where that would

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work.

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I think on average that's unlikely to be to be

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satisfactory.

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There's a fair bit of research.

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I think it's kind of old now, but it it suggests there's kind of this effect.

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In social psychology, we talk about actor observer effects.

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And the idea is that you really can't get under another person's skin and understand what

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motivates them.

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You can understand your own actions, but you have a hard time simulating other people's.

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So you can't know, you know, like if you ask me why I'm doing what I'm doing, I I'd

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probably give you like a, you know, a decent picture of like the situational forces acting

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on me.

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I'd be like, well, I'm just like, I don't know, um, you know, I

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I'm why am I late today?

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Well, it's like, you know, my kid asked me a question right as I was leaving, or, you know

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the car would start or this or that.

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And I have like this full picture of like my like the forces acting on me.

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I'm I'm getting around to a point.

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But if I'm looking at your behavior, you know, I don't know all that.

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So I'm probably gonna make like a trait attribution for your behavior.

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Like man, Dave is so lazy, you know.

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You know, he's just like you know I was three minutes late to starting the recording and my

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German in my my German uh absorbed norms of being on punctual uh I was like this is

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horrible yeah so much sh shame you had so much shame happening um

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but I think that was your point I think that was your point yeah though you're circling

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around to uh insulting Dave.

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Okay.

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That wasn't yeah yeah but now I can for but now you can forgive me.

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But now this is jumping back to David's point, which is now you can forgive me.

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Now that you've adequately shamed me socially, we can all get along.

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The the real point, Dave, is that my time is very, very valuable.

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Exactly.

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But I think there's a similar actor-observer effect in kind of trying to figure out the um

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the costs of a punishment you might inflict on somebody.

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It seems like we we rarely can fully

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understand the painfulness of other people's harms and the ways we hurt them.

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So we always we often minimize the amount of harm or damage we've done.

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We just can't, for the same reason, we certainly don't have access to other people's inner

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feelings.

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So we, you know, what what you might view as like

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a retaliation that evens the scales.

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Probably the you know, the the risk the observer, or rather the the recipient of your,

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you know, your retaliation is going to think like you've just opened up a new wound.

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Like you didn't make things even, like you've just like harmed me.

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And um so I think it's hard to get the I think it's hard

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to get the titration right there a lot of times.

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But but you know, people do say I learned a lesson, you know, or they, you know, they they

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say, well, it was because of this harm that you know I realized that it,

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you know, punishments can sick can can act

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by as as punishers.

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Like, you know, if we think about just sort of like basic learning theory, you know, when

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you when you punish somebody, you're the presumption is, or maybe even by definition, you

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know, in that in learning theory, it's a behavior that makes another behavior go down, or

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it's some stimulus, you know, some some feature of the environment that reduces the

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probability of a behavior in the future.

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So like by definition, it's its job is to get you to change your behavior.

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And so when like we punish each other, we punish our kids, we, you know, the criminal

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justice system punishes us.

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Uh maybe.

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Um we we think what we're doing is getting the behavior to go down through like learning

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principles.

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But a lot of times two punishments are, and I think this may be what you're hinting at, or

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you know, kind of flirting with David, is uh, you know, they can also be just communicative

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messages.

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So I my my the point the point of punishing you isn't to like literally change

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your representation of the reinforcement schedule, you know, on some kind of implicit

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way, but it's instead to say, like, Mike is telling me that

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he doesn't approve of my behavior.

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And so the fact that he's willing to punish me tells me more about his mind and how much he

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disliked what I did to him.

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You know what I mean?

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So I think it may it it it it can have

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that effect, but maybe not just because we're even, but just because it sends a message

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about a special kind of message about my displeasure.

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So I don't know.

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I think the fact that we've we we tend to minimize the pain of the

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harms we cause other people and or overestimate

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when we receive them ourselves, we sort of, I guess we can't overestimate our own pain, but

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we we give higher, we we we view it as more painful than the harmdoer does.

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You know, between that and this idea that maybe it's really about communication, I don't

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know that the scales ever get really balanced per se through through

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aggression um or you know or through retaliation.

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I yeah, so it it's a you

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can you can you retaliate just someone back to a détente?

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Yeah, of course you can.

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But you've you've really fundamentally changed how they understand the relationship, I

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think, most of the time.

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So it seems like there are if you go that route of of trying to get even, um, there's this

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big risk that you could get into a cycle of retaliation and retaliation and it just

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escalates out of control because you're going to be biased to underestimate the cost that

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you inflicted, and you might think that you're even, but the other side might think that

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you're actually lopsided, and then uh they retaliate, and then they'll think that they're

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even, but you think something different, and then so on and so on, and things get out of

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control and you get into a Hatfield and McCoys situation.

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Um, so there, yeah, so there's that risk.

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Um, could it be that um if the revenge or the getting even

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is facilitated by impartial third parties, that this has a better chance of truly

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resolving the relationship.

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So maybe I might be biased in terms of how much punishment I think you deserve.

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But let's say we bring in Dave as the third party and he is impartial and he uh you know

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listens to both of our sides and he d uh decides what is a fair so uh uh a solution

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or what is a fair um cost that I get to inflict on you uh after what you've done.

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Let's say you you know you stole one of my goats.

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You don't have any goats.

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You're gonna give me a cow instead.

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I don't know, whatever.

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I'm making but but I was thinking of a goat to I don't know what that means but we're gonna

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be we've talked to a lot of anthropologists who yeah hunter horticulturalist groups so

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that's right on the tip of our tongue stealing goats is a real problem.

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Right.

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But whatever the equivalent maybe two legs for a goat.

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I don't know whatever it is but but Dave you know listens to both of our sides and he

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decides on you know what a what a fair compensation is for the harm that I've suffered that

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you that you have to deliver to me.

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If impartial third parties get involved in the conflict, uh does the getting

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even stand a better chance of of truly resolving the relationship?

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Or have you thought much about the role of third parties?

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I think third parties are very important.

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And I think a lot of the times that um we that that you know

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harms and counter harms and reconciliations and forgiveness happen out in the wild, are

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mediated by third parties, and at least third parties get involved.

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Um I think third parties have a very important role to play, which

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is they, to the extent that they can represent themselves as

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impartial, then they

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put themselves in the position to articulate a broader set of

233
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ways in which the harm kind of cycles through the system, you know.

234
00:15:36,170 --> 00:15:40,650
So, you know, a third party can say, look, your little feud you're having here over here is

235
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bad for business.

236
00:15:41,690 --> 00:15:46,660
You know, I can't, you know, we can't open the saloon because of all the gunfights in the

237
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streets.

238
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So there's a way of articulating the harms that make it clear that the right or wrongness,

239
00:15:52,260 --> 00:15:57,860
the rightness and wrongness of the different parties is perhaps important to consider.

240
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But, you know, we know how this needs to end, which is that the overt behaviors need to

241
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stop and they're going to stop.

242
00:16:05,220 --> 00:16:10,090
You know, we're going to bring the power of this, you know Leviathan or whatever down on

243
00:16:10,090 --> 00:16:12,570
you, but but this is this is going to stop.

244
00:16:13,130 --> 00:16:18,730
Um so I think you know from that point of view, just being able to articulate, look, you

245
00:16:18,730 --> 00:16:23,690
your your little feud here is bad for everybody.

246
00:16:23,930 --> 00:16:28,410
Um I think I think it has a way of potentially exerting kind of pressure on the two

247
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disputants to like get their get their act together.

248
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But the other thing, you're right.

249
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I mean, if you can, you know, generate something like moral rules that, you know, through a

250
00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:44,280
social contract, people have more or less agreed on, and then measure out offenses on that

251
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:50,200
yardstick, um, I think it does um, you know, at

252
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least create some common knowledge that any like final retaliatory

253
00:16:55,990 --> 00:17:01,110
harm, you know, like any punishment that's like, okay, you can, you know, you can yeah, you

254
00:17:01,110 --> 00:17:02,870
know, take this guy's goats.

255
00:17:03,110 --> 00:17:03,430
What was it?

256
00:17:03,510 --> 00:17:03,990
What was the goat?

257
00:17:04,150 --> 00:17:06,070
Was it goats and cows you were talking about?

258
00:17:06,390 --> 00:17:10,310
Yeah, you two I I said cow, but then I realized that that's probably not fair.

259
00:17:10,390 --> 00:17:12,070
So I substituted for two pigs.

260
00:17:12,390 --> 00:17:12,950
Two pigs.

261
00:17:13,110 --> 00:17:13,350
All right.

262
00:17:13,590 --> 00:17:13,670
Yeah.

263
00:17:13,990 --> 00:17:15,750
So you can I would do you think a goat.

264
00:17:16,150 --> 00:17:16,870
I will mediate this.

265
00:17:16,950 --> 00:17:17,670
I will mediate this.

266
00:17:18,070 --> 00:17:18,950
I'm happy to do it for you.

267
00:17:19,190 --> 00:17:22,150
Is a goat more valuable than pigs or a pig?

268
00:17:22,740 --> 00:17:24,900
I have no idea, but I'm guessing, yes.

269
00:17:26,340 --> 00:17:29,780
So yeah, so I guess please let us know if you know.

270
00:17:32,260 --> 00:17:33,780
Yeah, the comments are gonna be amazing.

271
00:17:33,860 --> 00:17:34,180
I can't.

272
00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:35,380
Exactly.

273
00:17:35,460 --> 00:17:35,860
Let me tell you.

274
00:17:35,940 --> 00:17:36,500
It depends on what you're doing.

275
00:17:36,740 --> 00:17:38,660
We're gonna go herders in the comments.

276
00:17:39,140 --> 00:17:41,860
Like an encyclopedia of goat herbs.

277
00:17:43,220 --> 00:17:46,180
You do not want to make uh goat herders angry either.

278
00:17:46,570 --> 00:17:52,090
Yeah, so like maybe it's like, you know, maybe it's like I took your two pigs and so, you

279
00:17:52,090 --> 00:17:53,130
know, and I ate them.

280
00:17:53,290 --> 00:17:58,330
So now it's fair for you to give up for me to give up four of my goats or something like

281
00:17:58,330 --> 00:17:58,570
that.

282
00:17:58,890 --> 00:18:03,290
So you can maybe kind of say like, well that's that's going to be the last word because we

283
00:18:03,290 --> 00:18:09,050
have this higher order issue, which is like we're tired, we're tired of hearing you fight.

284
00:18:09,130 --> 00:18:11,530
We're tired of getting caught in the crossfire.

285
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:18,080
you know, you this harm, you know, this harm you committed against this other group or this

286
00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:20,160
other family, it's like now everybody's mad at everybody.

287
00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:22,240
Like we just have to bring this to a stop.

288
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:27,200
So third parties disturb that function informally in lots of societies.

289
00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:33,120
Um I mean, Dave and Dave, you and I wrote a piece for a Target article

290
00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:37,710
um That who who was it that wrote It was Luke Lowaki.

291
00:18:37,870 --> 00:18:40,590
It was the Evolution of Peace BBS target article.

292
00:18:40,670 --> 00:18:43,310
You and I wrote it was very fun to do it with you.

293
00:18:43,630 --> 00:18:45,390
We did a commentary on it.

294
00:18:45,470 --> 00:18:45,630
Yeah.

295
00:18:46,030 --> 00:18:46,830
That's exactly right.

296
00:18:46,910 --> 00:18:52,910
And I think one of his main points is that third parties often do get involved in mediating

297
00:18:52,910 --> 00:18:58,830
peace between not only conflicting individuals, but also like you know, conflicting groups.

298
00:18:58,990 --> 00:19:03,840
And like the idea is here: like, look, this group has an interest in peace, you know, and

299
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,400
you what you're doing is just not making anything better.

300
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:07,680
You're making it way worse.

301
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:13,120
So, you know, we're gonna let let this offended party punish you, you know, or you're like,

302
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:16,320
you're gonna go in the brig for a week or whatever, you know, whatever it happens to be.

303
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,640
But I think the idea there is that that higher order third dispassionate third party kind

304
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:22,480
of does impose the last word.

305
00:19:23,130 --> 00:19:23,530
Yeah.

306
00:19:23,690 --> 00:19:23,770
Okay.

307
00:19:24,090 --> 00:19:27,770
If I can just, I mean, I I'm restating what you're saying saying, Mike.

308
00:19:27,930 --> 00:19:33,930
Um, but but I think the whole point of punishment or revenge is

309
00:19:35,210 --> 00:19:40,410
that you, each agent is navigating this cost benefit landscape, as you've been saying.

310
00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:45,370
And the reason why I might punish you or seek revenge is to recalibrate you because I think

311
00:19:45,370 --> 00:19:48,090
you're going to be the source of additional costs, right?

312
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:53,680
And so um like I'm not gonna do that if if if I don't think you're gonna be the uh source

313
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:54,480
of additional costs.

314
00:19:54,640 --> 00:20:00,080
So in so for your perspective, it's for all of us, I think like as parents is a good

315
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:04,720
example, is like the ideal thing is to not punish somebody, but to sort of show them that

316
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:10,170
look, actually it's not me that's gonna impose the cost given the behavior, but it's

317
00:20:10,170 --> 00:20:11,450
actually the world, right?

318
00:20:11,690 --> 00:20:11,930
Yeah.

319
00:20:12,170 --> 00:20:13,690
Sort of like it's not gonna depend on me.

320
00:20:13,770 --> 00:20:18,250
Like, you know, like if if we're a parent and we're like, you know, it's not that I as a

321
00:20:18,250 --> 00:20:22,330
parent am gonna imposing this cost, you know, and whenever I'm there, that's therefore the

322
00:20:22,330 --> 00:20:23,290
cost is happening.

323
00:20:23,450 --> 00:20:28,090
It's that when you're doing this, there's actually a cost to you just because of the

324
00:20:28,090 --> 00:20:28,970
structure of the world.

325
00:20:29,130 --> 00:20:32,410
And I want you to consider that and change what you're doing.

326
00:20:32,650 --> 00:20:38,320
And so I think you know, for for all punishment and even for third party

327
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:44,080
punishment, sort of the aim is to sort of the deep structure is presenting these

328
00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:45,360
costs.

329
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:50,960
And I think some of them are idiosyncratic to the person, like, you know, I don't, you guys

330
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:56,050
might take all my goats and maybe that's in your interests, but I I I don't want it to be,

331
00:20:56,130 --> 00:20:56,450
you know.

332
00:20:56,530 --> 00:21:00,450
So I want to make it seem like it's a structure of the world that it's bad for you to take

333
00:21:00,450 --> 00:21:01,250
my goats, right?

334
00:21:01,330 --> 00:21:03,810
And I'm gonna say something like, Well, we if we all took, you know.

335
00:21:04,050 --> 00:21:09,090
So I think it's really interesting to think about it from this like deep cost benefit

336
00:21:09,090 --> 00:21:09,890
structure.

337
00:21:10,130 --> 00:21:15,970
Um that uh that this all everything you're saying, I think really resolves down

338
00:21:15,970 --> 00:21:21,500
to what we're trying to do is present an argument to this cost

339
00:21:21,580 --> 00:21:27,500
benefit analyzer in everybody's head that you should take this other path,

340
00:21:27,820 --> 00:21:30,220
which has a higher benefit to you.

341
00:21:31,100 --> 00:21:36,460
And we want to craft ones that are in our interest too.

342
00:21:36,540 --> 00:21:41,260
And I think punishment, as David was talking about it, bad punishment is where you just

343
00:21:41,260 --> 00:21:47,030
sort of impose a cost without showing an alternative, better

344
00:21:47,350 --> 00:21:47,910
option.

345
00:21:47,990 --> 00:21:50,630
And that's where you're just going to get retaliation, right?

346
00:21:50,790 --> 00:21:55,590
So smart punishment is where you say, oh, look, if you keep doing this thing, there's a

347
00:21:55,590 --> 00:21:58,390
cost, but then the alternative is much better.

348
00:21:58,790 --> 00:22:04,230
So that that's, you know, the carrot in the stick metaphor, I think, is is is a is apt

349
00:22:04,390 --> 00:22:07,430
because I think that that's part of that cost benefit psychology.

350
00:22:07,830 --> 00:22:12,790
You can almost think of it as when someone's misbehaving or behaving in a way you don't

351
00:22:12,790 --> 00:22:12,950
like.

352
00:22:13,110 --> 00:22:14,470
You kind of disagree.

353
00:22:14,820 --> 00:22:20,020
you have like different maps of the world sort of you know and that's a good great way of

354
00:22:20,020 --> 00:22:25,700
putting it yeah exactly yeah yeah you know my you know my map of the the the world with you

355
00:22:25,700 --> 00:22:30,740
know with Dave and David in it might be like oh you know um you know

356
00:22:31,540 --> 00:22:37,220
I'm gonna tell some jokes in a group at Dave's expense or something like that and my map of

357
00:22:37,220 --> 00:22:41,780
the world's like that's the best payoffs for me you know whereas your you you know your map

358
00:22:41,780 --> 00:22:47,710
is like well, the best payoffs for me are having that not happen and they're having

359
00:22:47,710 --> 00:22:49,710
you change your behavior going into the future.

360
00:22:49,870 --> 00:22:53,550
Like so you're, you know, you're viewing that very much as the the pathway you should take.

361
00:22:53,630 --> 00:22:57,390
And so like at this second order level, you're also saying, like, Mike, you need to be

362
00:22:57,390 --> 00:22:58,350
taking a different path.

363
00:22:58,510 --> 00:23:02,030
You don't, you don't, you don't have a full, you know, when you behave that way, it was

364
00:23:02,030 --> 00:23:07,950
pretty clear you don't have a full uh a more uh uh um a detailed enough map of the so of

365
00:23:07,950 --> 00:23:09,470
the social world you live in.

366
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:10,120
Yeah.

367
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:11,240
I really like that.

368
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:15,560
Cause I like one of the themes of David's worldview that I've absorbed is sort of there's

369
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:16,760
hidden these status games.

370
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:21,640
And I love this idea that another thing in related is exactly what you're saying, Mike, is

371
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:27,560
that part of the hidden world of social interaction is negotiating maps of

372
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,400
the cost benefit landscape, sort of if if that's a way of putting it.

373
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:32,040
Yeah.

374
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:32,440
Yeah.

375
00:23:32,530 --> 00:23:38,530
Like here's here's where you're plopped down and you you're you're not really you

376
00:23:38,530 --> 00:23:43,330
don't have enough of the kind of little hills and valleys in it that you really probably

377
00:23:43,330 --> 00:23:43,810
ought to have.

378
00:23:43,970 --> 00:23:49,810
Because some of them lead to you know they need potentially lead to some pretty bad little

379
00:23:49,890 --> 00:23:51,010
you know canyons.

380
00:23:51,330 --> 00:23:51,810
Yeah.

381
00:23:52,130 --> 00:23:56,760
And and and communicating that is interesting because for example, like in the context of a

382
00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:01,080
parent, at least from our biased perspective, we would like to think we are impartially

383
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,880
conveying the structure, the reality of the world.

384
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:09,640
But also communicating that can also be a threat in the sense of you're also saying, This

385
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:14,040
is the one I would, this is the cost-benefit landscape I would like to see true.

386
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,280
I would like you to behave according to.

387
00:24:16,570 --> 00:24:18,410
And that hides two different things.

388
00:24:18,570 --> 00:24:22,890
One is a real assessment of the cost benefit landscape, but it also hides the one I would

389
00:24:22,890 --> 00:24:23,050
like.

390
00:24:23,290 --> 00:24:23,930
Yeah, that's right.

391
00:24:24,090 --> 00:24:24,890
That's right.

392
00:24:25,610 --> 00:24:27,210
Well, that's a that's a yeah.

393
00:24:27,450 --> 00:24:31,850
And and yeah, I mean, with parent-offspring conflict, you may have a different, you may

394
00:24:31,850 --> 00:24:34,970
want your kid to behave differently than the kid would want to behave.

395
00:24:35,130 --> 00:24:39,850
You know, you might want to want the kid to behave in a way that would impose fewer costs

396
00:24:39,850 --> 00:24:44,410
on uh his or her siblings or future siblings than that kid would would like.

397
00:24:44,570 --> 00:24:49,400
So you they might like to pursue a riskier life strategy that might potentially inflict

398
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:54,680
costs on the family that you would uh not have an interest in in him pursuing, you know,

399
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:55,480
for example.

400
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:57,880
So yeah, that's a great that's a great example.

401
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:03,320
I mean that parent offspring conflict concept is so

402
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:04,520
surprising.

403
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,040
You know, some of the outcomes of that are just so wild.

404
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:13,830
Um but yeah but in general they make you know it it certainly makes the point that I I

405
00:25:14,230 --> 00:25:18,310
want you to behave in ways that are are gonna be favorable to me.

406
00:25:18,630 --> 00:25:23,510
And for parents, that's that that certainly can be

407
00:25:27,030 --> 00:25:31,830
it could be against your immediate reproductive interests, actually, you know, in in a more

408
00:25:31,830 --> 00:25:32,310
direct ways.

409
00:25:32,390 --> 00:25:37,750
I'm gonna help you choose your friends because of the effects of those choices on my

410
00:25:37,750 --> 00:25:43,300
welfare, you know, like and the ones I might want that might be in my interest are

411
00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:45,300
potentially different from yours.

412
00:25:46,020 --> 00:25:51,780
So um, you know, I'm I'm thinking about a a family, an entire family, you know, in a way

413
00:25:51,940 --> 00:25:54,260
you've that that's where the payoffs generated for me.

414
00:25:54,340 --> 00:25:57,860
It's like this larger context where you're just thinking, like, wow, she's really pretty,

415
00:25:57,940 --> 00:26:01,060
you know, or somewhere like, you know, he's wow, he's really good looking or something like

416
00:26:01,060 --> 00:26:01,300
that.

417
00:26:01,460 --> 00:26:03,190
So I like this.

418
00:26:03,270 --> 00:26:04,870
I never thought about it this way.

419
00:26:05,030 --> 00:26:10,870
Um of of of punishment really being uh I'm rewarding for that matter,

420
00:26:11,030 --> 00:26:14,950
you know, it's an attempt to help, you know, to the extent.

421
00:26:15,110 --> 00:26:19,350
I mean, I really I like Fiery Cushman's point about on this about punishment.

422
00:26:19,510 --> 00:26:25,320
You know, it it it isn't just changing, you know, you know, helping people to understand

423
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:26,520
the schedule of reinforcement.

424
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:32,440
And more deeply, it is about a communication and um about I did I'd like this and I like I

425
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:32,920
don't like that.

426
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,120
But I think enriching this, you know, it's like, no, I want to explain to you what the

427
00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:43,400
structure of your social world is really like from from how I'm seeing it.

428
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:44,360
Right.

429
00:26:44,890 --> 00:26:45,450
Yeah.

430
00:26:45,690 --> 00:26:51,370
I mean it it sort of ties into the DeScioli view of of morality where it

431
00:26:51,370 --> 00:26:57,050
basically revolves around third parties and the decisions they are likely to make uh in the

432
00:26:57,050 --> 00:27:01,610
wake of a of a social conflict with someone else, like whose side they're likely to take.

433
00:27:01,850 --> 00:27:07,050
Um you could think about a moral rule as as an expectation about what

434
00:27:07,140 --> 00:27:11,940
impartial third parties are likely to do in response to this action.

435
00:27:12,100 --> 00:27:17,540
You know, if I take your uh your goat, for example, I might have internalized an

436
00:27:17,540 --> 00:27:22,900
expectation that my community is going to side against me in that case and force me to give

437
00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:25,940
up two of my pigs in r to compensate you, or whatever.

438
00:27:26,100 --> 00:27:30,420
Whatever the expectation is, that is sort of the moral, the moral rule.

439
00:27:30,580 --> 00:27:34,990
Uh, and because I know that that's how third parties are going to respond to this action.

440
00:27:35,150 --> 00:27:38,510
I might never undertake that action in the first place because I'll I'll you know compute

441
00:27:38,510 --> 00:27:41,630
the costs and benefits and I'll realize, you know, third parties are gonna make me give up

442
00:27:41,630 --> 00:27:42,190
two of my goats.

443
00:27:42,270 --> 00:27:44,350
I really love two of two to my pigs or whatever.

444
00:27:44,510 --> 00:27:45,470
I really love my pigs.

445
00:27:45,630 --> 00:27:47,630
It's not worth it for me to take your goat.

446
00:27:47,950 --> 00:27:53,470
Um and that could be a little, you know, David's conscience preventing me from from

447
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,160
undertaking the action.

448
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,120
Um and that, you know, it doesn't necessarily uh it's not actually necessarily the

449
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,040
calculation part is not necessarily conscious.

450
00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:05,480
I might just have a feeling that it's not right or I shouldn't do that.

451
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:10,840
Uh but the underlying calculations might have to do with the expected uh behavior of third

452
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:11,160
parties.

453
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:12,280
Absolutely, yeah.

454
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:14,120
Hey, I got a question for you.

455
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:17,960
Um D Dave, you're married to a developmental psychologist, right?

456
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:19,160
I am guilty of that.

457
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:19,480
Yeah.

458
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,120
So um maybe you are too, David.

459
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:23,080
I don't know.

460
00:28:24,090 --> 00:28:25,210
David, who are you?

461
00:28:25,850 --> 00:28:25,930
Yeah.

462
00:28:26,810 --> 00:28:29,290
No, no, she she's she's not in academia, thank goodness.

463
00:28:29,530 --> 00:28:29,690
Okay.

464
00:28:30,810 --> 00:28:35,930
Well, so like is there any is there any that's healthy for that's good that's healthy for

465
00:28:36,410 --> 00:28:36,410
it.

466
00:28:36,650 --> 00:28:38,810
It sounds like you're gonna ask me about what research exists.

467
00:28:38,890 --> 00:28:41,690
I'm gonna get my uh I'm gonna about to type into Google here.

468
00:28:42,410 --> 00:28:47,690
So so how you know, I know that children have a fair pretty pretty sophisticated set of

469
00:28:47,770 --> 00:28:51,900
like expectations about what the social world's going to be like, you know?

470
00:28:52,140 --> 00:28:57,820
Do you do you do you think that they have, I mean, is there any research or but you know,

471
00:28:58,140 --> 00:29:00,220
and and if you don't know of any, like what do you think?

472
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:04,780
Do you think how how well do you think children at like the age of

473
00:29:05,900 --> 00:29:11,740
four or five, let's say, understand that they're that dispassionate

474
00:29:11,740 --> 00:29:17,530
parties are like really reliable uh for for not you know like

475
00:29:17,770 --> 00:29:21,610
that there's such a thing as a dispassionate third party you could you could you know you

476
00:29:21,610 --> 00:29:25,450
turn to to help fix a conflict and that person would be fair.

477
00:29:26,010 --> 00:29:31,690
Hmm that's a really good question because it it it combines a couple

478
00:29:31,690 --> 00:29:35,210
different things that I think there is developmental research on.

479
00:29:35,370 --> 00:29:41,130
So one of them is there's a lot there are there is evidence that like more popular higher

480
00:29:41,210 --> 00:29:46,420
status kids are leaders in the social world with respect to uh

481
00:29:46,420 --> 00:29:49,140
negotiating conflicts like on the playground, right?

482
00:29:49,300 --> 00:29:54,900
Like some of my own work was informed by developmental work showing that um impartial third

483
00:29:54,900 --> 00:29:58,820
parties are sort of tolerated as resolvers of first-person conflict.

484
00:29:58,900 --> 00:30:04,740
So if you and David are kids on the playground, you'll sort of go along with a

485
00:30:04,740 --> 00:30:10,650
higher status um kid um uh I guess then

486
00:30:10,890 --> 00:30:12,650
I guess I'm that kid in this example.

487
00:30:12,730 --> 00:30:14,570
Um I get to be the nice that is playing.

488
00:30:14,970 --> 00:30:20,250
Um uh but you know, like but it's and I don't know if that's um an

489
00:30:20,250 --> 00:30:26,170
explicit acknowledgement of the validity of an impartial third party, but

490
00:30:26,170 --> 00:30:29,770
at least the de facto action occurs.

491
00:30:29,930 --> 00:30:33,210
So that's at least one version of this answer.

492
00:30:33,370 --> 00:30:39,340
There's another one, which is um People like Paul Harris, long there's like a

493
00:30:39,340 --> 00:30:44,780
long sort of um history, well no super long, but of research on people

494
00:30:45,020 --> 00:30:47,500
being informed or uninformed.

495
00:30:47,660 --> 00:30:51,100
Uh um what's the word?

496
00:30:51,660 --> 00:30:54,940
Um, sort of testimonial or sources of evidence, right?

497
00:30:55,020 --> 00:30:59,340
Just sort of like this is what this object is called, or this is what we do, or this is

498
00:30:59,340 --> 00:31:00,940
good to eat or bad to eat.

499
00:31:01,020 --> 00:31:04,730
Um, and you can vary things like do they have the same cultural background, do they look

500
00:31:04,730 --> 00:31:06,090
like me, et cetera, et cetera.

501
00:31:06,170 --> 00:31:07,610
And there is work on that.

502
00:31:07,850 --> 00:31:12,650
Again, that's not that's not right on what you're describing.

503
00:31:12,890 --> 00:31:18,650
Um, I mean, uh my own guess is that uh kids should

504
00:31:18,650 --> 00:31:24,010
not come prepared with all the details filled in because it really does depend on

505
00:31:24,500 --> 00:31:27,780
um what your well how third parties are gonna react.

506
00:31:27,940 --> 00:31:32,820
So I think the idea that third parties will react is important and there would be built-in

507
00:31:32,820 --> 00:31:33,300
stuff.

508
00:31:33,460 --> 00:31:37,300
But how they react might depend on your status and your power.

509
00:31:37,780 --> 00:31:42,980
And and it probably, I mean my my best guess is that again, just because I'm you know a

510
00:31:42,980 --> 00:31:48,580
parent right now, a lot of parenting psychology is probably or one aspect of parenting

511
00:31:48,580 --> 00:31:54,430
psychology is really representing how kids' behavior is going to be

512
00:31:55,790 --> 00:32:01,550
seen by their peers or especially by the rest of the world and care

513
00:32:01,870 --> 00:32:02,430
about that.

514
00:32:02,910 --> 00:32:07,310
And be and so like I think a lot of like teaching morals to kids, like according to based

515
00:32:07,310 --> 00:32:11,310
on what David's saying, I think like the idea of like I have to teach my kids right from

516
00:32:11,310 --> 00:32:16,430
wrong, or like morality is part of like parenting tropes, is part of

517
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:22,360
your job is the control system that's much more sensitive to the ambient third-party

518
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:23,640
reactions to behaviors.

519
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,880
And your job is to sort of in the same way it's to like keep them from falling off a cliff,

520
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,120
it's to keep them from falling off a third-party reaction cliff as well.

521
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:34,760
But I don't know.

522
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:36,520
That that's a non-answer.

523
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:37,720
I don't know.

524
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:37,880
Yeah.

525
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:42,770
No, it's I mean, I I feel like there's way too little work on the full concept of

526
00:32:42,770 --> 00:32:43,730
impartiality.

527
00:32:43,970 --> 00:32:48,130
I feel like there there's probably some really interesting stuff happening surrounding that

528
00:32:48,130 --> 00:32:48,370
question.

529
00:32:48,530 --> 00:32:53,410
I bet we have pretty sophisticated machinery for judging how impartial someone is likely to

530
00:32:53,410 --> 00:32:54,770
be if we're in a conflict.

531
00:32:54,850 --> 00:32:58,850
Like if Dave, you and I are in a conflict, probably we're gonna have different preferences

532
00:32:58,850 --> 00:33:00,610
about who we want to mediate that conflict.

533
00:33:00,770 --> 00:33:02,690
I might say, nah, Mike is gonna be on your side.

534
00:33:02,850 --> 00:33:04,690
Mike, you're you've been friends with Mike for a long time.

535
00:33:05,010 --> 00:33:08,530
No, we gotta choose someone who's more impartial who's gonna be give us a fair and you

536
00:33:08,530 --> 00:33:09,330
might have different turns.

537
00:33:09,490 --> 00:33:13,320
I might go to, you know, someone else and be like, no, that that that person's not gonna uh

538
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,200
give us a a fair ruling.

539
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:21,640
Um so I feel like we probably uh have pretty sophisticated judgments of how uh

540
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,120
impartial someone is likely to be.

541
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:28,520
Um it might be cool to see if there's like we have we've we categorize people like in a who

542
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,560
said what paradigm based on their uh expected impartiality to particular sides of a

543
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:33,880
conflict.

544
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:38,490
And I bet it tracks a lot like you know, who we think is allied with who.

545
00:33:38,650 --> 00:33:43,450
You know, probably the the full concept of impartiality is someone who is either not an

546
00:33:43,450 --> 00:33:48,810
ally of either of the two disputants or uh equally loyal to both of the disputants.

547
00:33:49,050 --> 00:33:54,810
Um is connected to the generic third party structure of the

548
00:33:54,810 --> 00:33:59,290
world, the right, where it's sort of like they are the vehicle of how the rest of the world

549
00:33:59,290 --> 00:34:02,260
will react whether it's the physical or social world.

550
00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:08,020
Mike, did I answer your question or is there a better it is it do you is the question still

551
00:34:08,020 --> 00:34:09,940
stand on yeah?

552
00:34:10,500 --> 00:34:15,620
Like is there an aspect of like the child cognition that you're asking about that I didn't

553
00:34:16,100 --> 00:34:19,620
I'm not sure if I had it well I no I I I I think so.

554
00:34:19,780 --> 00:34:25,310
I mean it wasn't a the best formed idea in the world but I just like you know when when

555
00:34:26,030 --> 00:34:31,710
you know, like maybe another way to put what I'm curious about is what

556
00:34:32,110 --> 00:34:38,110
are the features of a third party that from you know in the eyes of a five-year-old,

557
00:34:38,270 --> 00:34:42,030
you know, would say, like, no, you have to give that back, you know, like maybe there's

558
00:34:42,030 --> 00:34:46,350
some moral, you know, there's some ambiguity, there's some ambiguity about, well, no, like

559
00:34:47,140 --> 00:34:49,940
it, you know, it was left there overnight.

560
00:34:50,020 --> 00:34:51,460
We don't even know that he it's his.

561
00:34:51,540 --> 00:34:53,140
You know, I I found it, you know.

562
00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:58,340
Well, you know, like what gives what gives the third party in that child's eyes the

563
00:34:58,340 --> 00:35:00,420
standing to say, no, like you need to give it back?

564
00:35:00,740 --> 00:35:02,100
Yeah, that's a great question.

565
00:35:02,340 --> 00:35:04,820
And I don't I don't know if there is research on that.

566
00:35:04,980 --> 00:35:10,500
So my answer to that would just be it's what it is for all of us, which is does that third

567
00:35:10,500 --> 00:35:16,350
party holds some potential for me of benefits or status

568
00:35:16,510 --> 00:35:22,270
in the sense of either they can convey them or they're a they they have an accurate

569
00:35:22,270 --> 00:35:28,190
picture of the world's larger status um or benefit structure such that I should

570
00:35:28,190 --> 00:35:28,670
believe them.

571
00:35:29,230 --> 00:35:34,030
So they're either an accurate messenger or they're actually a a provider of benefits.

572
00:35:34,110 --> 00:35:40,020
And otherwise, there's no um otherwise you would not expect an evolved system to but

573
00:35:40,180 --> 00:35:41,700
to listen to that.

574
00:35:44,340 --> 00:35:45,940
Yeah, that tracks for me.

575
00:35:46,260 --> 00:35:50,980
Yeah, I would expect, you know, the kid if if uh if I take the kid's crayons or whatever

576
00:35:51,060 --> 00:35:55,700
and then the kid's best friend says, Give give me back those crayons, uh I'm probably gonna

577
00:35:55,700 --> 00:36:01,590
react differently than if like uh the teacher comes in and says give him back his crayons.

578
00:36:01,670 --> 00:36:01,910
Right.

579
00:36:02,870 --> 00:36:06,790
Uh because I I I view the teacher as being more impartial to the to the conflict than than

580
00:36:06,790 --> 00:36:07,670
the kid's best friend.

581
00:36:07,750 --> 00:36:09,990
And I might, you know, react differently in the future.

582
00:36:10,150 --> 00:36:13,110
Uh maybe if the kid's best friend isn't around, I'll take the crayons again.

583
00:36:13,270 --> 00:36:16,550
But if the teacher does it, maybe I'll I'll be less likely to do it.

584
00:36:16,630 --> 00:36:17,030
I don't know.

585
00:36:17,270 --> 00:36:19,030
Yeah, you think then that's oh yeah.

586
00:36:19,110 --> 00:36:19,190
Yeah.

587
00:36:19,270 --> 00:36:19,510
Go ahead.

588
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,040
That's the key just there's a key distinction there that I I think is really interesting.

589
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,480
Is like from the point of view of view of that little kid, is it's like I trust the teacher

590
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:31,840
to is it I trust the teacher to be impartial here, or is it I know this teacher can like

591
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:33,760
impose huge sanctions on me?

592
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:35,680
And I think they're the same thing.

593
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:41,370
I actually think what it means to be impartial is the stand-in for they

594
00:36:41,690 --> 00:36:43,690
there's an army behind them.

595
00:36:44,250 --> 00:36:48,890
Uh it's not literally an army, but it's the world, they're act either accurate with respect

596
00:36:48,890 --> 00:36:52,330
to there will be costs, or or they can impose costs.

597
00:36:52,490 --> 00:36:57,450
And I think actually I think that's what interesting impartiality means, right?

598
00:36:57,690 --> 00:37:01,930
Like I think if you're a king, yeah, they're representative of the larger community.

599
00:37:02,300 --> 00:37:03,100
yeah, exactly.

600
00:37:03,260 --> 00:37:09,100
So so if you're king and there's only your fiefdom, and you don't believe that

601
00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:14,860
another peasant can collect enough peasant outrage to impose a

602
00:37:14,860 --> 00:37:20,220
cost on you, you're not gonna believe that an impartial peasant is the

603
00:37:20,220 --> 00:37:24,670
conveyor of that you're gonna go along with him and call it impartial, You're gonna call it

604
00:37:24,670 --> 00:37:25,310
biased.

605
00:37:25,550 --> 00:37:30,430
It's like it's I think all you know this cynic it's slightly cynical, but this Darwinian

606
00:37:30,430 --> 00:37:35,390
view of that you'll consider an outcome fair to the extent that there's an army behind it.

607
00:37:35,470 --> 00:37:37,390
Um sort of the idea.

608
00:37:38,350 --> 00:37:39,150
Interesting.

609
00:37:39,390 --> 00:37:40,030
Yeah.

610
00:37:40,750 --> 00:37:44,350
Uh Mike, uh what what I've this has been really fun already.

611
00:37:44,430 --> 00:37:50,300
Um what what I heard you say in the beginning is that there's

612
00:37:50,300 --> 00:37:56,300
a cost-benefit logic to these constructs, and nobody was looking

613
00:37:56,300 --> 00:37:56,940
at them.

614
00:37:57,180 --> 00:37:59,980
Um, and that's sort of what we've been doing so far.

615
00:38:00,300 --> 00:38:06,300
Is that a description of sort of how your approach to doing social psychology or

616
00:38:06,300 --> 00:38:08,060
psychology generally has been?

617
00:38:08,220 --> 00:38:13,790
Like we haven't had a lot of uh social psychology, evolutionary social psychologists on

618
00:38:13,790 --> 00:38:14,110
yet.

619
00:38:14,270 --> 00:38:18,110
And um, and I don't want to get too meta-science-y, but we can.

620
00:38:18,270 --> 00:38:22,190
Um, I like doing it, but it's more fun to, I think, for a lot of people to just do the

621
00:38:22,190 --> 00:38:22,830
science.

622
00:38:23,070 --> 00:38:28,910
But um, you know, one thing I as I think about what you do or what many

623
00:38:28,910 --> 00:38:33,710
social uh psychologists do who take an evolutionary approach is there's a long tradition of

624
00:38:33,710 --> 00:38:39,300
studying a construct, A or B or C, And there's really mysteries or

625
00:38:39,300 --> 00:38:41,380
Guardian knots that are really hard.

626
00:38:41,540 --> 00:38:45,540
And then, but if you come from this other evolutionary perspective, you just get these

627
00:38:45,540 --> 00:38:47,860
insights or a different way of approaching it.

628
00:38:48,180 --> 00:38:52,180
My understanding is you've done that a lot to your credit.

629
00:38:52,340 --> 00:38:54,500
Is that a fairer um assessment?

630
00:38:54,580 --> 00:38:59,940
And is that sort of one way you think about sort of what your what your job has been to in

631
00:38:59,940 --> 00:39:03,300
in the context of integrating evolution and social psychology?

632
00:39:03,860 --> 00:39:05,540
Well, first of all, thank you for that.

633
00:39:05,780 --> 00:39:10,830
Um I,

634
00:39:12,990 --> 00:39:18,670
you know, I I don't I don't really feel like I have the standing to kind of

635
00:39:18,670 --> 00:39:22,910
characterize how social psychology operates in general.

636
00:39:23,230 --> 00:39:28,110
But I do feel like for me, a lot of the stuff I study, I just am working like I'm but I'm

637
00:39:28,110 --> 00:39:30,510
not a very complicated, complex thinker.

638
00:39:30,740 --> 00:39:35,620
I just kind of think like, well, people have incentives and they, you know, they are

639
00:39:35,620 --> 00:39:38,500
generally trying to follow those incentives.

640
00:39:38,980 --> 00:39:44,740
And the world, you know, has, you know, has these costs and

641
00:39:44,740 --> 00:39:47,380
benefits associated with different courses of action.

642
00:39:47,620 --> 00:39:53,300
And a lot of what our kind of emotional hardware and sort of

643
00:39:53,780 --> 00:39:59,490
social cognition really is about is tracking those costs and benefits and

644
00:39:59,490 --> 00:40:03,570
trying to bring us closer to the benefits and you know further away from the costs.

645
00:40:03,810 --> 00:40:09,090
So yeah, like I guess I guess for me it's just like people are intuitive economists, you

646
00:40:09,090 --> 00:40:09,410
know.

647
00:40:09,650 --> 00:40:15,490
And I think that does that's probably shaped a lot of the topics I study

648
00:40:15,970 --> 00:40:19,330
and and and kind of how I think about them.

649
00:40:19,570 --> 00:40:25,020
So you know like you know, you could take something like

650
00:40:25,820 --> 00:40:27,820
I didn't take like something like forgiveness.

651
00:40:27,980 --> 00:40:32,940
Like when I started working on it, honestly, I was just interested in like how can we make

652
00:40:32,940 --> 00:40:35,580
the world less vengeful?

653
00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:36,940
Like, what can we do?

654
00:40:37,100 --> 00:40:42,780
You know, like just like what can we do with people in counseling who are hurting and they

655
00:40:42,780 --> 00:40:44,460
can't get over some hurt from their child?

656
00:40:44,540 --> 00:40:47,100
Like that's really all I really cared about, you know.

657
00:40:47,420 --> 00:40:52,410
But the more I got into it, the more it just seemed like, you know, people weren't like

658
00:40:52,490 --> 00:40:53,530
again back to where we started.

659
00:40:53,610 --> 00:40:56,250
Like, I didn't feel like people were taking revenge very seriously.

660
00:40:56,410 --> 00:40:58,250
Like, my background's in counseling psychology.

661
00:40:58,330 --> 00:41:02,010
I don't know if you knew that or not, but oh, you know, I think I did, but I think I had

662
00:41:02,010 --> 00:41:02,490
forgotten that.

663
00:41:02,650 --> 00:41:07,450
Yeah, I think of you because you're so uh uh present in the social psychology and

664
00:41:07,450 --> 00:41:09,050
evolutionary social psychology community.

665
00:41:09,130 --> 00:41:09,770
I forget that, yeah.

666
00:41:10,090 --> 00:41:14,010
Yeah, I mean, so that's how I started was really just like how can we help people like

667
00:41:14,170 --> 00:41:17,130
really like make counseling better for people?

668
00:41:17,370 --> 00:41:23,080
But what I realized in working on that was revenge was

669
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,600
really viewed as this thing just to kind of be knocked out.

670
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,920
Like you just want to get it out of people's scythe somehow because it's just like it's

671
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:31,880
toxic, it's negative.

672
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:36,200
And I I think it's really bad for people for the most part to be walking around with a

673
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:37,160
grudge, you know.

674
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:42,750
Um but what I think got shortchanged in that, and even what gets

675
00:41:42,750 --> 00:41:48,590
shortchanged in trying to get it out of people is like it's it's a re

676
00:41:48,750 --> 00:41:54,590
it's a response to calculations of costs and benefits, you know, and and it is it's it's

677
00:41:54,590 --> 00:42:00,430
people looking for a pathway to um um get the the

678
00:42:00,510 --> 00:42:06,110
the the the the costs to stop, you know, to keep to stop hemorrhaging

679
00:42:06,110 --> 00:42:09,070
costs because somebody else has harmed you in the past.

680
00:42:09,550 --> 00:42:12,440
And I just found that very useful to think about.

681
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:18,600
And it sounds like you guys like to go deep into the into theory and stuff like that.

682
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:24,040
But I found this concept of the WTR, you know, welfare trade-off ratio.

683
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,200
I've uh late, I found it fairly late, but I found like it was like really interesting, you

684
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:28,360
know.

685
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:33,320
Like, how do I get, you know, revenge being about like, I want you to value me differently,

686
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:39,190
you know, and one of the ways I can well, revenge might be one way

687
00:42:39,190 --> 00:42:43,990
I can make that happen is you know, I can get you to stoping putting costs on me and and

688
00:42:44,070 --> 00:42:46,230
and start producing benefits.

689
00:42:46,470 --> 00:42:51,030
So I really just thought, like, yeah, cost and benefits is where it's at for understanding

690
00:42:51,030 --> 00:42:53,190
people and how they're trying to be social.

691
00:42:53,910 --> 00:42:58,310
So, you know, I like to tell people like what I study why people are nice to each other and

692
00:42:58,310 --> 00:42:59,110
mean to each other.

693
00:42:59,190 --> 00:43:02,550
And, you know, but I I think I know really.

694
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:09,040
uh I mean in a in a way that's not a non-glib way.

695
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:14,960
I guess is what I'm trying to say is I I d I do think you get a

696
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:20,880
lot of benefit from an evolutionary approach that's

697
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:26,160
very sort of simple-mindedly says people have incentives and they're trying to follow them.

698
00:43:26,790 --> 00:43:30,390
Silly little insight, but I feel like I've gotten a lot of use out of it.

699
00:43:30,630 --> 00:43:30,870
Yeah.

700
00:43:30,950 --> 00:43:35,110
I mean, the other thing, it reminds me of we had Eddie Hagan on, and he talked about

701
00:43:35,110 --> 00:43:35,990
emotional pain.

702
00:43:36,150 --> 00:43:38,470
And the I think to your credit, you're saying the same thing.

703
00:43:38,630 --> 00:43:43,910
I think one way to put what you're saying, what you're saying is for me, um, this idea that

704
00:43:43,910 --> 00:43:46,390
sort of revenge is a bad thing, we just want to get it out.

705
00:43:46,470 --> 00:43:51,720
It doesn't take seriously the it's the analogue of

706
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:53,720
saying somebody's in pain.

707
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,360
And you wouldn't just want to say, well, let's treat their pain.

708
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,680
You'd want to know what's causing the pain.

709
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:03,240
You know, and it's it's sort of it's it's wonderful to treat the pain and the cause.

710
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:09,400
It's it's it's monstrous to treat the symptom and not even consider there's a cause,

711
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:09,720
right?

712
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,520
It's it's just it's kind of evil in a way, right?

713
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,200
Or uh maybe that's too strong, but it's it it could be.

714
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:20,610
Um I mean yeah, if you if you remove someone's cough when they have pneumonia, like that

715
00:44:20,610 --> 00:44:20,930
could kill them.

716
00:44:21,010 --> 00:44:21,810
That that is easier.

717
00:44:22,130 --> 00:44:22,290
Yeah.

718
00:44:22,530 --> 00:44:22,930
Exactly.

719
00:44:23,090 --> 00:44:23,250
Yeah.

720
00:44:23,330 --> 00:44:23,490
Yeah.

721
00:44:23,650 --> 00:44:23,970
Exactly.

722
00:44:24,130 --> 00:44:27,490
So I think like what it's another way of putting it is it's not just understanding, or it's

723
00:44:27,490 --> 00:44:32,370
not just not being glib, it's that you're actually considering, you're respecting that this

724
00:44:32,370 --> 00:44:37,330
person's in a bad situation, or they're they're trying, they need more benefits, or there's

725
00:44:37,330 --> 00:44:38,610
real costs happening.

726
00:44:38,770 --> 00:44:44,720
And it's an acknowledgement that that's happening and and the the the that it makes sense

727
00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:49,040
why they're feeling this, whether or not that's the best way to approach it, it's your

728
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,720
you're not pushing aside that there's actually something wrong.

729
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:54,160
Yeah, that's right.

730
00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:54,560
Yeah.

731
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:56,880
So I just wanted to understand that really.

732
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:02,960
Um and the I you know, I a fair bit of my

733
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,970
work has been about forgiveness and revenge for sure.

734
00:45:08,370 --> 00:45:13,650
And I think it affects how I think about motive uh uh

735
00:45:13,890 --> 00:45:15,570
pro-social motivations.

736
00:45:15,970 --> 00:45:20,690
Um, gratitude is another topic I've talked about a little, you know, written about a little

737
00:45:20,690 --> 00:45:21,010
bit.

738
00:45:21,250 --> 00:45:23,970
Um, been writing a little bit about envy.

739
00:45:24,370 --> 00:45:30,180
So I guess I do I'm interested in how people trade costs and benefits, And that's

740
00:45:30,180 --> 00:45:34,740
probably more than anything like the through line for my research over the past sort of

741
00:45:34,740 --> 00:45:36,500
couple decades or something like that.

742
00:45:36,820 --> 00:45:42,020
And is it that people are misperceiving why these emotions exist or what the functions are?

743
00:45:42,100 --> 00:45:45,460
And by doing so, we're harming making the world better?

744
00:45:45,620 --> 00:45:49,540
I mean, it sounds it sounds silly, but it, but is that I mean, I think that's is that fair?

745
00:45:49,700 --> 00:45:50,340
Yeah.

746
00:45:50,980 --> 00:45:56,370
Um I am I'm at this point pretty upstream of effort to like to

747
00:45:56,370 --> 00:45:58,370
develop techniques and stuff like that.

748
00:45:58,690 --> 00:46:04,210
Uh but I I do think there's just kind of a um a

749
00:46:06,930 --> 00:46:11,730
vantage point that you kind of miss if you don't

750
00:46:13,010 --> 00:46:18,620
really take seriously the the

751
00:46:18,620 --> 00:46:24,620
idea that a lot of what we're doing

752
00:46:24,620 --> 00:46:30,460
in the social world is trying

753
00:46:30,460 --> 00:46:32,300
to just improve our lay.

754
00:46:36,770 --> 00:46:41,170
you know, have do I have a good position on the green to hit this ball or not?

755
00:46:41,650 --> 00:46:47,090
And, you know, gratitude is an attempt, for example, you know, it's an emotion that, you

756
00:46:47,090 --> 00:46:53,090
know, conceivably, the whole point of it is to say, like, you know, being be

757
00:46:53,250 --> 00:46:58,850
being being close to you is like a

758
00:46:58,850 --> 00:47:00,370
propitious little place to be.

759
00:47:00,530 --> 00:47:06,520
Like, you know, this is this is this is a relationship where I'm gonna be made better

760
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:12,280
off for being in it and um what I want to

761
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:18,200
do is deepen our friendship so that I

762
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:23,960
can continue to get benefit from that and hopefully that'll be by you feeling like

763
00:47:23,990 --> 00:47:27,430
I've got some, you know, I I got some, I have some value to you.

764
00:47:27,590 --> 00:47:30,790
You know, it's like it's all you know, like the wonderful thing about an emotion like this

765
00:47:30,790 --> 00:47:35,350
is you can like talk about like generally like it's probably, you know, I think mostly it

766
00:47:35,350 --> 00:47:36,550
feels pretty great.

767
00:47:36,790 --> 00:47:41,830
You know, which is like, um is it's it's yeah, good.

768
00:47:41,990 --> 00:47:42,390
I good.

769
00:47:42,470 --> 00:47:43,670
I'm glad it feels that way.

770
00:47:43,830 --> 00:47:49,360
I think the feeling of this telling us something really important about what's

771
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,840
what's on offer, you know?

772
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:56,880
And in general, I think that is gonna be to me best understood as in this again, this

773
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:58,000
language of cost and benefits.

774
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:04,080
Again, I'm pretty some ups, pretty simple person, but I think it's a it's a um uh well

775
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:09,440
it's not a foolproof heuristic, I think it's a pretty good one for getting some purchase to

776
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:12,320
a lot of different emotions and social behaviors.

777
00:48:13,870 --> 00:48:14,510
I love that.

778
00:48:14,670 --> 00:48:17,310
That's uh like a hallmark card, gratitude.

779
00:48:17,470 --> 00:48:22,990
And then just we can put that on a Hallmark card and sell it.

780
00:48:23,150 --> 00:48:24,030
I think that's perfect.

781
00:48:25,150 --> 00:48:26,910
Can you imagine if you manage from you?

782
00:48:27,310 --> 00:48:31,870
Can you imagine if they're like there was an evolutionary psychology like um you know, uh

783
00:48:31,870 --> 00:48:37,720
company that just did just did greeting cards and um that there could be a small a very

784
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:43,320
a very small business there could be a very small business there an offshoot of cards

785
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:49,240
against humanity oh there you go yeah that's a there's a song reading cards

786
00:48:49,240 --> 00:48:53,880
against hum reading cards for humanity yeah wow wow wow wow we could keep we could stay

787
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:58,120
here and riff on this for a long time I bet oh wow that that could raise money for all the

788
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:03,230
gear for our podcast that'll be our side hustle We could we could we could fund some grad

789
00:49:03,230 --> 00:49:04,510
students with that actually.

790
00:49:05,310 --> 00:49:05,950
Yeah.

791
00:49:06,590 --> 00:49:07,950
All right, we'll edit that out.

792
00:49:12,190 --> 00:49:13,950
Uh yeah.

793
00:49:14,350 --> 00:49:16,830
Well, I I wanted to ask you, Mike.

794
00:49:16,910 --> 00:49:20,590
I mean you you were sort of hinting at this that you don't necessarily want to just

795
00:49:20,590 --> 00:49:26,540
eliminate revenge or assume that revenge is always stupid or faulty or coming from

796
00:49:26,620 --> 00:49:28,700
um an irrational place.

797
00:49:28,940 --> 00:49:33,340
That often it's coming from real harms and you know, people, evolved creatures that they

798
00:49:33,340 --> 00:49:36,620
are, are just trying to do the b the best they can for themselves and their families.

799
00:49:36,780 --> 00:49:40,140
And if they're trying to get revenge on someone, they you know most of the time have a

800
00:49:40,140 --> 00:49:42,220
pretty good reason to be pursuing that strategy.

801
00:49:42,380 --> 00:49:46,490
And you have to understand that if you want to try to create peace in the world.

802
00:49:46,570 --> 00:49:49,370
You have to understand what people's reasons really are.

803
00:49:49,930 --> 00:49:54,730
Um so I wanted to ask uh about the dark side of forgiveness.

804
00:49:54,890 --> 00:49:58,170
Um, because you know, we all know the dark side of punishment.

805
00:49:58,250 --> 00:50:00,810
Um, it's it's very visible uh to us.

806
00:50:00,970 --> 00:50:03,050
But the dark side of forgiveness is less visible.

807
00:50:03,130 --> 00:50:09,050
But like, say I'm in an abusive relationship and my partner is hitting me, like uh I

808
00:50:09,050 --> 00:50:12,820
could I might forgive my partner, and that might not be the best thing for me to do.

809
00:50:12,900 --> 00:50:14,820
That would be a case where forgiveness would be bad.

810
00:50:15,060 --> 00:50:17,300
It would be good for me to get out of that relationship.

811
00:50:17,460 --> 00:50:21,620
Um, if a kid's getting bullied on the playground, uh, you wouldn't necessarily want the kid

812
00:50:21,620 --> 00:50:25,620
to forgive the bullies because that's just gonna perpetuate the bullying.

813
00:50:25,860 --> 00:50:31,860
Um and so I I think too often psychologists slip into this view that like

814
00:50:31,940 --> 00:50:36,590
bad emotions are always bad, uh, and they have they have no rationality to them, they have

815
00:50:36,590 --> 00:50:37,470
no reason behind them.

816
00:50:37,630 --> 00:50:41,630
We gotta get rid of shame, we gotta get rid of revenge, we gotta get rid of guilt, we gotta

817
00:50:41,630 --> 00:50:45,070
get rid of all all these negative emotions, get rid of suffering.

818
00:50:45,230 --> 00:50:49,790
Uh and that's just a wrong headed way of of viewing the situation.

819
00:50:49,950 --> 00:50:54,750
Um, do do you think there is a a dark side of of forgiveness and and and a way of taking it

820
00:50:54,750 --> 00:50:55,630
too far?

821
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:57,400
Yeah, I do.

822
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:00,520
I do think there's a way of taking taking it too far.

823
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:03,400
And I do I do think there's a dark side.

824
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:12,680
So you know I I I think of forgiveness probably as

825
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:13,800
like the product of a system.

826
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:19,810
And the system seems to want um access to benefits of

827
00:51:19,810 --> 00:51:24,050
a relationship um uh

828
00:51:26,930 --> 00:51:32,370
short of imposing retaliatory harm on the you know so um

829
00:51:32,690 --> 00:51:38,690
ultimately what i'm trying to do is get the flow of costs and benefits back where i want

830
00:51:38,690 --> 00:51:43,620
it and so in forgiving i'm indicating my willingness to

831
00:51:44,260 --> 00:51:49,060
resume relating to you that harm sort of

832
00:51:49,060 --> 00:51:50,500
notwithstanding.

833
00:51:51,540 --> 00:51:57,220
So I I think okay.

834
00:51:58,740 --> 00:52:02,820
Here's something that's always I really don't have a good answer to, and I I haven't

835
00:52:02,820 --> 00:52:04,420
figured out for myself.

836
00:52:05,250 --> 00:52:10,530
I haven't figured out, and I I and I confess I haven't been particularly like

837
00:52:10,850 --> 00:52:12,530
consistent about this, I don't think, either.

838
00:52:12,610 --> 00:52:14,770
Now I've written about this stuff.

839
00:52:15,250 --> 00:52:21,250
So if forgiveness is really

840
00:52:23,330 --> 00:52:28,040
basically coming out of a system that wants to restore

841
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:35,000
or preserve a favorable benefit-cost ratio associated with

842
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:40,520
a relationship short of imposing retaliatory harm, then

843
00:52:43,720 --> 00:52:49,510
what would be sad is if it's neither it's never neither good nor bad, but if decisions

844
00:52:49,510 --> 00:52:55,110
to exercise it in some relationships, in bad relationships, just says

845
00:52:55,110 --> 00:53:01,110
something very tough to accept about the forgiver situation position in that

846
00:53:01,110 --> 00:53:01,990
relationship.

847
00:53:02,710 --> 00:53:08,630
You know, like it you the example you use,

848
00:53:08,710 --> 00:53:13,500
you know, it's like if it was if it was somebody I didn't know, and it's like, you keep

849
00:53:13,500 --> 00:53:16,700
forgiving this person, you keep forgiving this person, you keep forgiving this person.

850
00:53:16,860 --> 00:53:22,780
Like one one response would be like, no, I truly am just willing to accept

851
00:53:22,780 --> 00:53:23,500
this, you know.

852
00:53:23,580 --> 00:53:29,580
Like I my love for this person exceeds this ridicule I have to get every,

853
00:53:29,660 --> 00:53:34,060
you know, you know, or whatever, this this verbal abuse or God forbid, you know, emotional

854
00:53:34,060 --> 00:53:35,420
abuse, physical abuse.

855
00:53:36,270 --> 00:53:38,990
And so I'm going to continue to do that.

856
00:53:41,230 --> 00:53:47,070
One sad thing that I think is probably true a lot more is you say, like, well, what are

857
00:53:47,070 --> 00:53:48,350
the alternatives here?

858
00:53:48,510 --> 00:53:54,510
You know, you know, I, you know, I'm

859
00:53:54,510 --> 00:54:00,110
dependent on my partner for all these benefits that come my way and to leave those

860
00:54:00,110 --> 00:54:00,750
behind.

861
00:54:01,140 --> 00:54:05,620
maybe you're like in the long run, it'll be I'll be better off, but like in the short term,

862
00:54:05,780 --> 00:54:06,500
like, what?

863
00:54:06,660 --> 00:54:08,100
Like, where am I gonna live?

864
00:54:08,260 --> 00:54:13,060
You know, like, or you know, if I don't forgive and keep going on with the relationship,

865
00:54:13,140 --> 00:54:16,020
like the abuse will just get worse, you know.

866
00:54:16,180 --> 00:54:22,180
So, like, maybe over the long run, by not accepting this, not forgiving it, and

867
00:54:22,180 --> 00:54:23,700
just like cutting the relationship off.

868
00:54:23,780 --> 00:54:27,540
Yeah, you're right, maybe I'll be better off in a in two years or three years, but like I

869
00:54:27,550 --> 00:54:31,710
gotta go through two or three years of things being really bad before that.

870
00:54:31,870 --> 00:54:36,670
You know, like I can't I can't afford to we can't afford for me to have the to to operate

871
00:54:36,670 --> 00:54:42,350
two households, you know, or like I can't, I couldn't possibly make it even like six months

872
00:54:42,350 --> 00:54:45,070
out there living apart from this person, you know.

873
00:54:45,710 --> 00:54:51,540
So again, I'm I'm genuinely right now here in this moment thinking this through and

874
00:54:51,540 --> 00:54:57,540
trying to come to some better, like more you know, rounded out

875
00:54:57,540 --> 00:54:58,420
way of thinking about it.

876
00:54:58,580 --> 00:55:04,260
But like maybe forgiveness just kind of is in that

877
00:55:04,260 --> 00:55:09,620
situation, and what it tells us is this person's again, this person's

878
00:55:09,620 --> 00:55:12,100
incentives are like this.

879
00:55:12,260 --> 00:55:17,630
Well, this person's incentives lead them towards something that from the

880
00:55:17,630 --> 00:55:22,350
outside really doesn't look very attractive, you know, and looks like it's really

881
00:55:22,350 --> 00:55:22,910
unpleasant.

882
00:55:22,990 --> 00:55:28,670
And then you just have to say, well, that's a really that I I'm I'm really grieving for

883
00:55:28,670 --> 00:55:33,150
that person having to be it that to be in such dire circumstances, you know.

884
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:39,800
um yeah yeah so you know you might it

885
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:45,640
might be the kind of situation where you know when when we see uh you know like

886
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:51,480
what looks like just like an irrational faithfulness to a terrible relationship you know it

887
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:55,400
could be like yeah come on man snap out of it you know you gotta like you gotta adjust your

888
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:59,560
attitude you gotta get out of this situation and so like what would the reluctance to do

889
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:05,070
that be based on probably be based on like at least how that person locally is sees how

890
00:56:05,070 --> 00:56:06,590
their incentive map looks.

891
00:56:06,750 --> 00:56:08,510
You know, we just kind of can't see.

892
00:56:08,670 --> 00:56:09,310
So yeah.

893
00:56:11,150 --> 00:56:11,310
Yeah.

894
00:56:11,390 --> 00:56:12,030
Oh no go ahead.

895
00:56:12,110 --> 00:56:12,270
Sorry.

896
00:56:12,430 --> 00:56:12,990
No please.

897
00:56:13,310 --> 00:56:18,030
I was just gonna say, yeah, and I think that like that would be the trope of the the mu the

898
00:56:18,270 --> 00:56:24,240
the clinical intervention that's effective and efficacious would be those

899
00:56:24,240 --> 00:56:29,280
situations where the person has really low self-esteem, which is just that they believe

900
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:32,960
their market value in the social world is much lower than it is objectively.

901
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:35,520
And that will happen for some people.

902
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:37,680
But that's not every case, right?

903
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:42,400
And so there's there may be other cases where the person is as adequately or accurately

904
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,160
perceiving their situation.

905
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,040
Um, and yeah, so yeah.

906
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:49,120
Right.

907
00:56:50,070 --> 00:56:55,910
Interestingly, it seems like it's the I don't know if this is

908
00:56:55,910 --> 00:57:01,910
true like in every state, but certainly in a lot of states, we have just it's like

909
00:57:01,990 --> 00:57:07,830
I I think the statutes have come to recognize that

910
00:57:08,710 --> 00:57:12,900
well, I think I think dates

911
00:57:14,500 --> 00:57:20,180
have um I don't want to pass a jet value judgment here, but um so I'm not sure I'm actually

912
00:57:20,180 --> 00:57:20,820
not sure.

913
00:57:21,060 --> 00:57:27,060
So if if the cops show up and have reason to suspect one partner has been battering the

914
00:57:27,060 --> 00:57:27,780
other, right?

915
00:57:28,020 --> 00:57:33,950
Physical battery, they can just make an arrest of who they believe to be the batterer, at

916
00:57:33,950 --> 00:57:34,750
least detain them.

917
00:57:34,990 --> 00:57:38,350
And I don't know if, you know, I don't know if charge them, but certainly arrest them.

918
00:57:38,830 --> 00:57:43,550
If they just themselves are convinced that there's a battery situation, even if the

919
00:57:43,550 --> 00:57:46,510
potential victim is saying, no, no, no, nothing like that happened, right?

920
00:57:46,750 --> 00:57:47,470
Right, right.

921
00:57:47,950 --> 00:57:53,870
So I think that points to a very interesting situation where

922
00:57:53,950 --> 00:57:59,860
low, like, like suppose we have an intimate partner violence

923
00:57:59,860 --> 00:58:00,180
situation.

924
00:58:00,340 --> 00:58:01,780
At least that's what the police suspect.

925
00:58:01,860 --> 00:58:04,020
They show up to your house, it's been noisy and all that.

926
00:58:05,780 --> 00:58:11,460
The fact that the cops will make this judgment when

927
00:58:11,700 --> 00:58:17,460
the partner they believe to have been battered will not, I think

928
00:58:17,780 --> 00:58:23,550
really points to a kind of an understanding in the in the

929
00:58:23,630 --> 00:58:29,070
in an understanding in the law that um

930
00:58:30,270 --> 00:58:36,270
people individual people have incentives that will lead them to

931
00:58:37,310 --> 00:58:43,150
um deny harms that we we as the state really care about yeah

932
00:58:44,100 --> 00:58:50,020
Um, and I guess there's a value judgment there, which is that we as

933
00:58:50,020 --> 00:58:56,020
the state believe the totality of the interests of the world are

934
00:58:56,020 --> 00:59:01,940
such that this the the the partner we perceive to be the batterer should be

935
00:59:01,940 --> 00:59:04,500
removed from this household.

936
00:59:05,750 --> 00:59:10,870
Even if you don't think that in this moment think that's the best course to take.

937
00:59:11,110 --> 00:59:11,430
Right.

938
00:59:11,590 --> 00:59:11,910
Yeah.

939
00:59:12,310 --> 00:59:16,230
So it's like it's this conflict there of, you know,

940
00:59:18,230 --> 00:59:23,190
um what the totality of the state views is the state's interests in this particular

941
00:59:23,190 --> 00:59:24,550
terrible situation.

942
00:59:24,710 --> 00:59:28,950
And like maybe also the timescale over which they think kind of those costs and benefits

943
00:59:28,950 --> 00:59:34,900
are going to kind of run, run out, run, percolate out versus those of

944
00:59:34,900 --> 00:59:40,340
the of the person who they suspect is getting battered, you know, who has a different, very

945
00:59:40,340 --> 00:59:42,980
different, probably is not thinking about the interest of the state.

946
00:59:43,060 --> 00:59:44,900
They're thinking about their own interests.

947
00:59:45,060 --> 00:59:46,820
And they're much more thinking about now.

948
00:59:46,980 --> 00:59:48,740
They're thinking about right now.

949
00:59:49,060 --> 00:59:54,340
Like, what are gonna be the consequences of me saying, Yeah, yeah, my intimate partner has

950
00:59:54,340 --> 00:59:59,140
been beating me, you know, has been battering me, or you know, has been, you know,

951
00:59:59,380 --> 01:00:00,420
battering my kid.

952
01:00:00,500 --> 01:00:06,030
Like, what are the immediate consequences to me right now of telling you that as the cops.

953
01:00:06,110 --> 01:00:10,750
You know, I'm, you know, so they're thinking locally and they're thinking much more

954
01:00:10,750 --> 01:00:15,870
immediately than these, you know, representatives of the state are, which they're thinking

955
01:00:15,870 --> 01:00:21,310
about not just that couple of people, but also what's the state's interest in

956
01:00:21,310 --> 01:00:26,750
preventing intimate partner violence and every you know, and and the the safe, you know,

957
01:00:26,830 --> 01:00:29,870
the long-term safety of even this individual person.

958
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:34,040
So they're not probably thinking about the I don't know.

959
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:40,040
Again, like this that that battered partner is

960
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:45,880
seeing his or her life, you know, seeing their life from a

961
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:47,720
very different perspective.

962
01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:52,520
And that's also recognized in the laws like you can't always understand what trust what's

963
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:54,120
coming out of a partner's mouth, right?

964
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:55,880
When they when you show up at their doorstep.

965
01:00:56,250 --> 01:00:56,410
Yeah.

966
01:00:56,570 --> 01:01:00,410
Especially like for, I mean, I also imagine like for when the state gets involved, it's

967
01:01:00,410 --> 01:01:02,730
these extreme tail-end distribution cases.

968
01:01:02,810 --> 01:01:07,290
And in those cases, it's like the classic, like, oh, what is it, like the Game of Thrones

969
01:01:07,610 --> 01:01:13,210
thing where like the guy imprisons the other guy and just grinds him down to the point

970
01:01:13,210 --> 01:01:19,100
where he's a the the victim of the abuse becomes the lapdog of the abuser

971
01:01:19,340 --> 01:01:25,260
because the abuse creates the cycle of lowering the perceived value on the on the part

972
01:01:25,260 --> 01:01:28,220
of the abusee, abused person.

973
01:01:28,540 --> 01:01:34,380
So I imagine like there's an overrepresentation of if you are being abused and

974
01:01:34,380 --> 01:01:40,060
the state is involved, many times that perception of the from the abused

975
01:01:40,380 --> 01:01:46,130
person has been um corroded in the sense of like this

976
01:01:46,210 --> 01:01:52,210
the person who's been abusing them has been basically conferring or

977
01:01:52,210 --> 01:01:57,010
presenting a landscape, cost-benefit landscape of I'm the only one who will convey any

978
01:01:57,010 --> 01:02:01,010
benefits to you, you're worthless, you have no alternatives.

979
01:02:01,410 --> 01:02:05,650
And if you even try to get help, I'm going to punish you.

980
01:02:05,970 --> 01:02:11,000
And the state, I mean, this is the charitable interpretation interpretation of the state's

981
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:13,320
um ignoring the abused person.

982
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:19,240
This is the charitable version, is that person is a readout of a

983
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:25,160
situation where we haven't gotten involved and we are going to exert the costs on

984
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:29,320
the abuser and we're gonna convey benefits on the abused person that the abused person

985
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:31,960
doesn't perceive yet because we hadn't gotten involved yet.

986
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:36,430
So I think that's like there is a charitable read of like ignoring that, at least in the

987
01:02:36,430 --> 01:02:38,030
beginning, you know, until the yeah.

988
01:02:38,430 --> 01:02:39,630
I think there is a charitable read.

989
01:02:39,790 --> 01:02:45,150
I I mean, and what I'm trying to communicate more than anything uh and work out of my own

990
01:02:45,150 --> 01:02:50,510
head is um it it's a situation in which

991
01:02:51,070 --> 01:02:55,550
um it is very, very difficult to know what the right call would be.

992
01:02:55,710 --> 01:03:00,040
Like if you're setting policy or something like that, what is what is the right what's the

993
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:01,080
right call to make?

994
01:03:01,240 --> 01:03:03,320
You know, because that is absolutely true.

995
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:09,480
You know, this the the the the state does I mean the laws were put into place on

996
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:14,920
the idea that it will be it's not like we're you know the idea that it will be better for

997
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:20,280
you long term and that we have we can provide resources to keep you safe and help you

998
01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:21,000
thrive.

999
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:26,930
Even even if even as this relationship erodes, and you know,

1000
01:03:27,010 --> 01:03:33,010
and even as even you know, we can there there are ways to

1001
01:03:33,010 --> 01:03:38,850
address this wrong, which we think is happening, that will provide benefits for you,

1002
01:03:39,010 --> 01:03:41,250
make it a net gain for you.

1003
01:03:41,730 --> 01:03:47,570
Um, on the premise that even through this initial really

1004
01:03:47,570 --> 01:03:50,690
period of extreme risk, we're also going to be able to take care of you.

1005
01:03:51,220 --> 01:03:56,980
So I I do, but but I think, you know, this is this is a tough judgment

1006
01:03:56,980 --> 01:03:57,300
call.

1007
01:03:57,460 --> 01:04:03,460
And you know, it's it's why I I suspect you know the average police officer that shows

1008
01:04:03,460 --> 01:04:08,340
up with the, you know, to deal with these complaints is a pretty sophisticated person, you

1009
01:04:08,340 --> 01:04:14,340
know, who's done is does a pretty good job of reading nonverbals and threat assessments

1010
01:04:14,340 --> 01:04:20,270
and safety assessments and, you know, they're they're out there, you know,

1011
01:04:20,350 --> 01:04:23,790
we hope exercising a lot of wisdom and discernment about these things.

1012
01:04:23,950 --> 01:04:28,350
Because and they know this stuff very well.

1013
01:04:28,510 --> 01:04:33,870
Like, you know, relationships have you know of all sorts, you know,

1014
01:04:34,350 --> 01:04:36,510
have real risks associated with them.

1015
01:04:39,300 --> 01:04:39,700
Yeah.

1016
01:04:42,660 --> 01:04:42,900
Yeah.

1017
01:04:43,140 --> 01:04:49,140
I mean it it uh it suggests I I feel like it uh in my many years

1018
01:04:49,140 --> 01:04:54,340
of thinking from an evolutionary perspective, I feel like I'm continually led down this

1019
01:04:54,340 --> 01:04:58,660
path of more of just a tragic view of the human condition.

1020
01:04:59,750 --> 01:05:04,870
Um, that a lot of the times the things that we point to as as as the major problems in our

1021
01:05:04,870 --> 01:05:07,030
world, they're just really hard.

1022
01:05:07,270 --> 01:05:09,510
And they're they're really hard for a reason.

1023
01:05:09,590 --> 01:05:13,750
That the, you know, everyone involved is just a human being who's trying to do what's best

1024
01:05:13,750 --> 01:05:15,350
for themselves and their family.

1025
01:05:15,670 --> 01:05:21,350
And it's it's not always the case that someone is just wildly stupid and irrational.

1026
01:05:21,510 --> 01:05:24,870
It's just when you get a world full of humans trying to do the best for themselves and

1027
01:05:24,870 --> 01:05:30,560
their families, they just sometimes collide in ways that create, you know, bad outcomes.

1028
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:36,720
And um it it is it is sobering to take that perspective, just just really get

1029
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:41,840
clear on just how hard the problem is and how complicated it is, and how there are no quick

1030
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:43,120
and easy fixes.

1031
01:05:43,280 --> 01:05:47,200
And at best you can make marginal improvements with a thorough understanding of the

1032
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:50,320
situation, but that's often the best we can do.

1033
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:52,400
There's not going to be a magic bullet.

1034
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:57,810
We're not going to wave a magic wand and get rid of, you know, conflict between people,

1035
01:05:57,970 --> 01:05:58,930
between groups.

1036
01:05:59,170 --> 01:06:00,610
We can try to reduce it.

1037
01:06:00,690 --> 01:06:01,650
We can try to mitigate it.

1038
01:06:01,730 --> 01:06:07,090
We can try to create incentive structures that lessen its costs or channel it in better

1039
01:06:07,090 --> 01:06:07,810
directions.

1040
01:06:08,050 --> 01:06:14,050
But I think thinking about it in a more tragic way may

1041
01:06:14,370 --> 01:06:18,290
be a better lens through which to see these issues.

1042
01:06:19,620 --> 01:06:22,420
I David, I really re resonate with that.

1043
01:06:22,660 --> 01:06:28,420
Um it it would I'm really glad no one ever

1044
01:06:28,420 --> 01:06:33,780
asks me to set any policies of any kind because I I would be so

1045
01:06:33,780 --> 01:06:39,620
paralyzed with with worrying about like the second order effects of

1046
01:06:39,620 --> 01:06:45,530
things and not really being able to anticipate people's incentives, you know, and how

1047
01:06:45,530 --> 01:06:49,290
they would, you know, if we made this change to the rule system of rules in the university,

1048
01:06:49,450 --> 01:06:54,010
like, you know, the the fact, you know, if the faculty policies and policies and procedures

1049
01:06:54,010 --> 01:06:57,930
were changed in just this way, like what would be the total effects of this thing

1050
01:06:57,930 --> 01:06:59,210
percolating through the system?

1051
01:06:59,290 --> 01:07:04,890
Or I'm on this committee, it's called the Undergraduate Council, and we we approve.

1052
01:07:05,130 --> 01:07:08,570
I teach at UC San Diego down the street from you.

1053
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:15,200
And we approve every curricular change

1054
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:19,680
in every department and every major and every program on campus that involves

1055
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:20,800
undergraduates.

1056
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:26,960
And like university committee work usually gets

1057
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:28,560
panned as being pretty unpleasant.

1058
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:29,760
I love this committee.

1059
01:07:29,920 --> 01:07:35,040
I love being on this committee because you get to see, you know, all of these little

1060
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:40,810
decisions that, you know individual departments are are making about us, you know, like a

1061
01:07:40,810 --> 01:07:44,570
major, like, should we change the name of this, you know, this one major we give in the

1062
01:07:44,570 --> 01:07:45,370
Department of Chemistry?

1063
01:07:45,450 --> 01:07:51,050
And it's like, wow, this is going to affect thousands of students, you know, like,

1064
01:07:51,530 --> 01:07:54,330
and you know, how how will it affect them?

1065
01:07:54,410 --> 01:07:58,090
And how will it affect the universities, you know, the bottom line or our competitiveness

1066
01:07:58,250 --> 01:08:02,250
with our, you know, with our competitors, or how will it affect them in the jobs, you know,

1067
01:08:02,330 --> 01:08:04,330
in the in the job market when they graduate?

1068
01:08:04,490 --> 01:08:10,360
And, you know, the you know, I'm not I'm not making

1069
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:15,000
laws about, you know, how the police should intervene in, you know, disputes at in, you

1070
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:16,280
know, at people's doorsteps.

1071
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:20,120
I, you know, I'm just trying to decide whether, you know, help decide whether it's okay to

1072
01:08:20,120 --> 01:08:25,320
change the name of this major, you know, um, you know, add a add an adjective to it or

1073
01:08:25,320 --> 01:08:28,120
something, you know, in an ampersand or something like that.

1074
01:08:28,440 --> 01:08:34,430
So um I I'm really all to say, David, I I agree

1075
01:08:34,430 --> 01:08:34,910
with you.

1076
01:08:35,630 --> 01:08:40,350
I think, you know, as I've gotten older, I think maybe I'm a little bit older than you

1077
01:08:40,350 --> 01:08:45,790
guys, um, I've gotten more and more um just like humble, I think,

1078
01:08:46,270 --> 01:08:52,030
about what at least you know, a naive person like

1079
01:08:52,030 --> 01:08:57,880
me could actually accomplish in making policies for larger groups of people,

1080
01:08:58,120 --> 01:08:58,680
you know.

1081
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:04,120
Like I feel like for me personally, like I honestly, like I can't even see two steps ahead

1082
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:05,160
of my own life.

1083
01:09:05,720 --> 01:09:06,840
Really, you know.

1084
01:09:07,240 --> 01:09:07,480
Yeah.

1085
01:09:09,400 --> 01:09:11,320
Really seriously, seriously.

1086
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:17,720
And um so I I do I do think I've gotten more of that

1087
01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:22,770
like tragic view of human nature where you know it's like we should probably hold our

1088
01:09:22,770 --> 01:09:27,090
convictions very, very lightly, you know, on a lot of things.

1089
01:09:27,250 --> 01:09:32,050
Um, and I found myself saying a lot more like, I'm just not sure, you know, like how this

1090
01:09:32,050 --> 01:09:33,410
is gonna work out.

1091
01:09:34,130 --> 01:09:36,370
You know, so yeah, right.

1092
01:09:36,450 --> 01:09:40,850
Yeah, you put you put a couple of million people together in San Diego County or, you know,

1093
01:09:41,010 --> 01:09:43,170
a few hundred million people together in a single country.

1094
01:09:43,330 --> 01:09:48,760
It's like, wow, um this one little change is like a trivial looking change but it's going

1095
01:09:48,760 --> 01:09:54,200
to affect hundreds of millions of people you know so yeah i'm i'm i'm

1096
01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:58,040
sympathetic to that point and i do think you know what i do think it's it's consistent with

1097
01:09:58,040 --> 01:10:03,960
an evolutionary view of of of human you know the mind and human social interaction i think

1098
01:10:04,040 --> 01:10:06,410
i do think it's very consistent with that Yeah.

1099
01:10:06,570 --> 01:10:11,050
It reminds me of um, like I keep thinking this thing of like, you know, somebody the trope

1100
01:10:11,050 --> 01:10:13,210
is sort of like, no, no, no, I'm here to help.

1101
01:10:13,370 --> 01:10:15,370
You know, and they're just like, no, no, no, I'm here to help.

1102
01:10:15,450 --> 01:10:21,450
You know, and it's I think a lot of social science has that the the lure of

1103
01:10:21,450 --> 01:10:27,450
the the TED talk, um is is it's the currency of

1104
01:10:28,090 --> 01:10:32,600
there's a cheap way to get help, to provide help.

1105
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:34,360
We're the people who provide help.

1106
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:35,560
This is what help is.

1107
01:10:35,720 --> 01:10:38,840
You don't need to understand the problem or the situation.

1108
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:43,400
You don't have to invest in the social support of the abused mother.

1109
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:49,480
You don't have to help her, you know, get groceries cheaply or provide child care

1110
01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:51,720
or make these sacrifices, right?

1111
01:10:51,880 --> 01:10:57,850
Um we can we can make her feel less guilty and we can do it by doing X, Y, and Z,

1112
01:10:58,170 --> 01:11:00,410
you know, like cheat codes in a video game.

1113
01:11:00,490 --> 01:11:06,250
And I think um I yeah, yeah, everything you guys are saying, I just think I'm just thinking

1114
01:11:06,250 --> 01:11:10,330
of somebody where it's the social scientists who just says, no, no, no, we're the ones who

1115
01:11:10,330 --> 01:11:10,970
are here to help.

1116
01:11:11,050 --> 01:11:14,090
And then, you know, the people who need help are like, okay, how?

1117
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:16,360
And like, no, no, no, we're here to help you, you know.

1118
01:11:16,440 --> 01:11:19,960
And and the extreme version is like, you know, we're here to help you and we're bombing

1119
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:20,120
you.

1120
01:11:20,200 --> 01:11:21,240
You know, like it's the same thing.

1121
01:11:21,320 --> 01:11:24,120
It's like we're imposing a cost on you, but we're here to help, you know?

1122
01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:24,360
Right.

1123
01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:28,920
It's that same mentality, but in a uh an academic setting, I think.

1124
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:29,640
Yeah.

1125
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:30,280
Yeah.

1126
01:11:30,360 --> 01:11:33,240
I mean, and you know, on the other hand, like what's the alternative?

1127
01:11:33,480 --> 01:11:37,000
You know, like to trying.

1128
01:11:37,080 --> 01:11:40,680
And what's the alternative to trying to, you know, to improve these systems?

1129
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:45,030
Again, like just you just let them run and do do what they're gonna do.

1130
01:11:45,190 --> 01:11:50,310
Meanwhile, people are you know continuing to get I don't know, this has gone dark.

1131
01:11:50,470 --> 01:11:53,670
Uh yeah, I think this is a theme though in social science.

1132
01:11:53,910 --> 01:11:58,710
I like I think there's like a Nick Cheater or somebody has a like a there's an I frame and

1133
01:11:58,710 --> 01:12:03,430
a S frame, but it's basically just this idea that like a lot of these social social

1134
01:12:03,590 --> 01:12:07,830
psychologically framed problems are actually structural problems, right?

1135
01:12:07,990 --> 01:12:12,240
Like the I think it's a different way to think about like psychology.

1136
01:12:12,320 --> 01:12:15,760
I think like what you're describing was for a long time it was sort of like, well, if the

1137
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:20,800
content of somebody's psychology is X, the way to solve their problems is to just make the

1138
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:22,240
content of their psychology Y.

1139
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:26,000
It's a very clinical point, but it's actually like it's the behavior, you know, it's the

1140
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:28,400
it's the no, you have to change the situation, right?

1141
01:12:28,480 --> 01:12:33,120
Like if if that's why their state is in that, you know, like it's the pain point, right?

1142
01:12:33,440 --> 01:12:33,760
Right.

1143
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:35,600
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

1144
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:36,080
Yeah.

1145
01:12:36,240 --> 01:12:42,110
We I often you know it to take it

1146
01:12:42,110 --> 01:12:47,790
back to forgiveness, a lot of the therapies that

1147
01:12:48,110 --> 01:12:53,710
I found wanting were basically about someone working on their own inner

1148
01:12:53,710 --> 01:12:59,630
self, you know, like would you know, sort of like reframe the situation, you

1149
01:12:59,630 --> 01:13:04,750
know, think more deeply about the benefits of having this person in your life, or or

1150
01:13:04,750 --> 01:13:10,020
alternatively, like realize it's okay to not forgive everybody, you know.

1151
01:13:10,260 --> 01:13:14,020
Um, but it's all like in the interior of your soul, you know.

1152
01:13:14,180 --> 01:13:19,540
And the thing for me that I I found the most uh

1153
01:13:20,180 --> 01:13:26,020
aggravating, I guess, was you know, the the the real levers of forgiveness that we don't

1154
01:13:26,020 --> 01:13:30,100
talk about enough when we think about applied, like making the world a better place kind of

1155
01:13:30,100 --> 01:13:35,230
thing is, you know, it's changed behavior on the bet on the part of the harmdoer, You know,

1156
01:13:35,310 --> 01:13:38,510
like that's the thing that gets people to forgive.

1157
01:13:38,670 --> 01:13:44,350
You know, it's like explicit requests for forgiveness that get like paid out in

1158
01:13:44,670 --> 01:13:50,430
really changed behavior, or you know, a commitment of it seems a

1159
01:13:50,430 --> 01:13:51,950
commitment to changing behavior.

1160
01:13:52,030 --> 01:13:55,950
Like, and that's what changes people's attitudes toward other people.

1161
01:13:56,670 --> 01:14:01,620
And, you know, I guess when you don't have when that's just not possible, that's when you

1162
01:14:01,620 --> 01:14:06,660
maybe focus much more on these intrapsychic or individual interventions.

1163
01:14:06,980 --> 01:14:12,100
But, you know, if you can create situations that are conducive for the person who harmed

1164
01:14:12,100 --> 01:14:17,940
you to be able to kind of own up to it and realize that, you know, um they don't have to

1165
01:14:17,940 --> 01:14:23,810
deny it or justify it and that there won't be like horrible, as hard, you know, there won't

1166
01:14:23,810 --> 01:14:27,410
be consequences as horrible if they're willing to own up to their behavior.

1167
01:14:27,650 --> 01:14:32,130
Then I think that's a more authentic way to make them last, like lasting forgiveness, real

1168
01:14:32,210 --> 01:14:34,850
like forgiveness happen.

1169
01:14:35,090 --> 01:14:38,770
Um, but you know, like harmdoers have a lot of incentives to not own up to what they've

1170
01:14:38,770 --> 01:14:39,490
done wrong.

1171
01:14:39,730 --> 01:14:42,610
And so that's that's a part that piece as well, you know.

1172
01:14:42,770 --> 01:14:48,480
I'm, you know, like let's say I would really like I've harmed you and I'd really like to

1173
01:14:48,480 --> 01:14:53,040
get our relationship, you know, get it get every get get ourselves together.

1174
01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:56,160
Um, but you know, that in what does that involve?

1175
01:14:56,240 --> 01:15:00,000
That involves me like acknowledging, yeah, I did actually do something that was really, you

1176
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:01,200
know, really terrible to you.

1177
01:15:01,280 --> 01:15:07,210
I, you know, that really was, you know, like that was I really did insult you like in a

1178
01:15:07,210 --> 01:15:11,450
way that was like that was really tacky, you know, that was really insensitive.

1179
01:15:11,930 --> 01:15:17,850
Um or um you know um I harmed

1180
01:15:17,850 --> 01:15:22,330
you so badly that it would be appropriate for like third a third party to get involved, you

1181
01:15:22,330 --> 01:15:28,060
know, like or you know I really I this thing I did to you, not only did it hurt you, but

1182
01:15:28,060 --> 01:15:32,140
like I put other things, important things in my life at risk because I broke a law, you

1183
01:15:32,140 --> 01:15:37,100
know, or I broke some kind of norm that's like a really toxic norm to break.

1184
01:15:37,340 --> 01:15:42,380
So there's a lot of barriers to actually sometimes to an offender apologize, you know.

1185
01:15:42,540 --> 01:15:43,420
Yeah, yeah.

1186
01:15:43,740 --> 01:15:48,780
Um, but that is for sure, like of the things we know, like an

1187
01:15:48,850 --> 01:15:54,770
acknowledgement of responsibility and kind of um an acknowledgement that that's not

1188
01:15:54,770 --> 01:16:00,770
the person you want to be, and concrete evidence that you you are willing, you know,

1189
01:16:00,850 --> 01:16:02,930
that will back up this change of heart.

1190
01:16:03,010 --> 01:16:05,970
Like those are the things that really promote forgiveness the best.

1191
01:16:06,130 --> 01:16:11,330
Um, but there are like incentives on the part of the harmdoer to kind of avoid paying that

1192
01:16:11,330 --> 01:16:11,730
price.

1193
01:16:12,660 --> 01:16:13,860
Sometimes, you know.

1194
01:16:14,900 --> 01:16:17,700
It raises the question of like apologies.

1195
01:16:18,100 --> 01:16:19,940
What keeps them honest?

1196
01:16:21,060 --> 01:16:26,660
We rely on a couple of different sources of evidence to figure out

1197
01:16:26,660 --> 01:16:30,500
whether an apology or any other any apology is honest.

1198
01:16:30,580 --> 01:16:35,860
And it's the same set of things we use to figure out whether any communication is honest,

1199
01:16:36,180 --> 01:16:36,820
you know.

1200
01:16:37,220 --> 01:16:42,570
And we probably turn to them in order of their the costliness of

1201
01:16:42,570 --> 01:16:43,530
integrating them.

1202
01:16:43,690 --> 01:16:48,250
So I can just rely on your words, you know, probably first and foremost.

1203
01:16:48,730 --> 01:16:53,450
Let's say I don't know you at all, but you apologize for doing something to me.

1204
01:16:53,770 --> 01:16:59,770
You know, um you know, and if you seem sorry and contrite

1205
01:16:59,930 --> 01:17:05,560
just with your words, that that's gonna go some distance, but obviously talk is cheap.

1206
01:17:05,640 --> 01:17:09,640
So you might want to ask, like, well, what else is there to back that up?

1207
01:17:09,800 --> 01:17:10,440
You know?

1208
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:15,240
So one thing I, you know, one thing I can look to is your history of your past behavior.

1209
01:17:15,480 --> 01:17:19,320
And that's going to be better than, you know, if I don't know you at all, that's one thing.

1210
01:17:19,400 --> 01:17:25,080
But if I've known you a long time, then I can use that as a kind of backfill to figure out,

1211
01:17:25,160 --> 01:17:30,750
you know, given what I know about you, what's the likelihood this apology really marks,

1212
01:17:31,070 --> 01:17:35,070
you know, a your intention to change your behavior.

1213
01:17:35,150 --> 01:17:39,390
And if you're like, man, we've been friends for 20 years and this is just a blip, you know,

1214
01:17:39,550 --> 01:17:44,270
this is just a this is the first time this has ever happened, I'm probably going to be more

1215
01:17:44,270 --> 01:17:48,030
likely to discount it, you know, and give you the benefit of the doubt.

1216
01:17:48,910 --> 01:17:54,190
If third parties say like, no, no, no, like David's like, he's a mensch, you know, like if

1217
01:17:54,200 --> 01:17:58,040
he did that, he was, he must have just been having a bad day, or something else had set him

1218
01:17:58,040 --> 01:17:58,200
off.

1219
01:17:58,280 --> 01:18:01,800
Or you didn't, you know, maybe you just didn't really quite understand his intentions

1220
01:18:01,800 --> 01:18:02,120
properly.

1221
01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:04,120
He wouldn't do that on purpose, you know.

1222
01:18:04,360 --> 01:18:10,120
Um, so I would probably take that third party testimony into account, you know, um, and

1223
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:14,760
then obviously integrate it with other things I can know about you, you know, like how do

1224
01:18:14,760 --> 01:18:16,120
you seem to treat other people?

1225
01:18:16,280 --> 01:18:20,280
And so not just how you've treated me in the past and how you seem to treat other people,

1226
01:18:20,360 --> 01:18:25,650
but uh other people's testimony about you, and obviously nonverbals.

1227
01:18:26,050 --> 01:18:32,050
Um, and that's gonna get, I think, weighted by a couple things, or yeah,

1228
01:18:32,210 --> 01:18:33,170
in some way.

1229
01:18:34,130 --> 01:18:38,210
We're gonna interact with a few other things to to to to know to make of that.

1230
01:18:38,530 --> 01:18:42,930
One is just the cost, the potential risk I put myself in of

1231
01:18:45,880 --> 01:18:48,200
By continuing the relationship with you.

1232
01:18:48,360 --> 01:18:53,880
Like if the thing you did to me is such it put such a steep cost on me, you know,

1233
01:18:54,120 --> 01:18:59,160
or it it would be correlated with that the risk that you'd be putting a very steep cost on

1234
01:18:59,160 --> 01:19:04,920
me in the future, you know, that like let's say you show up to my, I don't know,

1235
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:10,750
I'm gonna If what you've done is serious enough

1236
01:19:10,990 --> 01:19:16,110
that a second time of doing it would put me in an extreme risk, then I'm probably going to

1237
01:19:16,110 --> 01:19:20,030
just sort of treat the first one as like a really serious sign that we just can't be

1238
01:19:20,030 --> 01:19:20,510
friends anymore.

1239
01:19:20,670 --> 01:19:25,470
So I might have a zero tolerance policy for certain kinds of offenses that you might commit

1240
01:19:25,470 --> 01:19:30,110
against me because it's just like I can't, you know, I can't, I won't tolerate that's

1241
01:19:30,270 --> 01:19:32,110
happening a second time,

1242
01:19:37,640 --> 01:19:41,000
So I'm probably gonna just like

1243
01:19:43,400 --> 01:19:49,400
whether I believe you or not, is is gonna get multiplied

1244
01:19:49,400 --> 01:19:53,960
against the, you know, the the the the severity of a the perceived harm.

1245
01:19:54,120 --> 01:19:58,040
This might, you know, how you having it done it once might indicate there's a chance you do

1246
01:19:58,040 --> 01:19:59,400
it again in the future.

1247
01:19:59,790 --> 01:20:05,710
So I think we probably, like in general, for evolutionary reasons, probably

1248
01:20:05,710 --> 01:20:09,630
have reasons to assume people tell us things that are accurate, you know.

1249
01:20:09,950 --> 01:20:15,550
So like I think we have a bias toward just like assuming communications are accurate.

1250
01:20:15,710 --> 01:20:18,110
Um, and then we take in these cues.

1251
01:20:18,350 --> 01:20:23,390
So, like, you know, you're probably like your baseline credulity is probably something

1252
01:20:23,390 --> 01:20:26,510
above zero for all human communications.

1253
01:20:26,830 --> 01:20:32,740
But then I'm going to take into account testimony, how you've treated me in the past, um,

1254
01:20:33,060 --> 01:20:36,100
nonverbals, how other you've treated other people.

1255
01:20:36,260 --> 01:20:42,180
And then also against that factor in, but what if, you know, if this

1256
01:20:42,180 --> 01:20:46,580
ever did happen again, I would be ruined, or like this, it would just be not something I

1257
01:20:46,580 --> 01:20:47,220
could tolerate.

1258
01:20:47,300 --> 01:20:51,140
So I think it's probably some kind of calculus involving all those factors.

1259
01:20:52,470 --> 01:20:53,110
Interesting.

1260
01:20:53,430 --> 01:20:59,430
It suggests that the evolutionary way of thinking about signaling games is in many

1261
01:20:59,430 --> 01:21:01,350
ways too simple.

1262
01:21:01,590 --> 01:21:04,550
That we often ask the question, what keeps a signal honest?

1263
01:21:04,630 --> 01:21:07,350
And then we give an answer like, oh, it's costly signaling.

1264
01:21:07,430 --> 01:21:10,310
And maybe the cost comes in the production of the signal.

1265
01:21:10,470 --> 01:21:14,550
Maybe the cost comes later if you get punished for finding out to be if you find your if

1266
01:21:14,550 --> 01:21:16,150
you're discovered to be lying.

1267
01:21:17,670 --> 01:21:22,080
But the picture you're painting is much more sophisticated than that.

1268
01:21:22,320 --> 01:21:27,920
It's not that there is like one straightforward cost that is produced with the

1269
01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:29,440
signal or or later.

1270
01:21:29,680 --> 01:21:35,280
It's really it's more of um an inference to the best explanation phenomenon

1271
01:21:35,520 --> 01:21:40,480
where the recipient of the apology is weighing lots of different sources of evidence for

1272
01:21:40,480 --> 01:21:45,440
many different aspects of the situation and of life in general, and and taking in as much

1273
01:21:45,440 --> 01:21:49,370
information as possible that is, you know, all the information that's relevant to this

1274
01:21:49,370 --> 01:21:53,850
decision and and figuring out you know what is the best way to explain all of this data.

1275
01:21:54,010 --> 01:21:59,130
And is the best explanation does that involve the person not doing this again, or does the

1276
01:21:59,130 --> 01:22:01,850
explanation involve the person doing it again?

1277
01:22:02,010 --> 01:22:06,490
Um, and in addition to that, like what what are the the costs of me being wrong?

1278
01:22:06,730 --> 01:22:12,560
If the costs are too high of me being wrong, uh like then it's just not worth it.

1279
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:14,640
I shouldn't even make the calculation.

1280
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:20,640
Like if someone you know uh crossed a line uh that that uh is just too costly to

1281
01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:23,840
be crossed again, then I might not even engage in the calculation.

1282
01:22:24,160 --> 01:22:29,920
But if the transgression is more minor, then it's

1283
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:36,000
it's really it's more of a almost scientific way of understanding the signal than it

1284
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:41,520
is a straightforward game theory of you know, was there a cost with the signal?

1285
01:22:41,850 --> 01:22:42,490
Yeah.

1286
01:22:43,610 --> 01:22:45,770
That's yeah, I th I think that's right.

1287
01:22:45,850 --> 01:22:51,210
I I probably would uh um

1288
01:22:51,850 --> 01:22:57,370
it it's tempting it's tempting to think about something like costly signaling theory and

1289
01:22:57,370 --> 01:23:01,130
kind of because you think about signaling and then that's often where our minds go.

1290
01:23:01,290 --> 01:23:07,290
But but I do I do think it's probably a little bit more useful

1291
01:23:07,290 --> 01:23:13,160
to think of humans as you know testers of evidence

1292
01:23:13,160 --> 01:23:18,920
and you know, collectors of evidence that are trying to in real time um just make

1293
01:23:18,920 --> 01:23:21,560
inferences about how the world looks.

1294
01:23:21,960 --> 01:23:27,000
And you know, in the case of, you know, just any decision, you know, you probably use this,

1295
01:23:27,080 --> 01:23:32,840
you know, decision theory and get more, you know, get as much, if not more, traction on it.

1296
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:36,790
You know, what are the costs of being wrong or the cost of being right?

1297
01:23:37,030 --> 01:23:37,670
Base rate.

1298
01:23:37,750 --> 01:23:38,870
You know, so what am I talking about?

1299
01:23:39,190 --> 01:23:44,390
I'm talking about base rates, you know, I'm talking about cost and benefits, and then a a

1300
01:23:44,390 --> 01:23:49,830
number of channels of information that you might bring together to even regression to the

1301
01:23:49,830 --> 01:23:50,150
mean.

1302
01:23:50,230 --> 01:23:53,590
If it was a blip, you can expect regression to the mean following the blip, right?

1303
01:23:53,990 --> 01:23:54,630
Yes, exactly.

1304
01:23:54,790 --> 01:23:55,670
Exactly.

1305
01:23:55,900 --> 01:24:00,700
Um, so you know, and the and that that evidence from the past is not there's not just a

1306
01:24:00,700 --> 01:24:04,460
base rate, but just like the evidence from the past accumulates to give you a very strong

1307
01:24:04,460 --> 01:24:06,860
sense of what to expect in the future.

1308
01:24:07,100 --> 01:24:07,420
Yeah.

1309
01:24:07,660 --> 01:24:13,180
So um, and then you know, I often think it's really helpful with with communication

1310
01:24:13,420 --> 01:24:19,310
to think about um how we you know think of people as

1311
01:24:19,950 --> 01:24:25,230
um very simply as like um multi um

1312
01:24:25,470 --> 01:24:31,230
multimodal sensory um uh phenomena and you

1313
01:24:31,230 --> 01:24:36,590
know we're we're giving off all these chan you know channels of data uh you know

1314
01:24:36,830 --> 01:24:41,280
nonverbal and we look a certain way and we have our emotions in a certain way.

1315
01:24:41,360 --> 01:24:42,800
And then we say things too.

1316
01:24:42,960 --> 01:24:48,720
And then we're trying to look for some integrative, you know, um,

1317
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:52,400
you know, some make some sort of integrated interference about what's out there, you know,

1318
01:24:52,480 --> 01:24:55,920
like so at night I wake up and it's like I can't see anything in the, you know, in the

1319
01:24:55,920 --> 01:25:01,330
room, but so my sentiment, I probably focus more on what I can hear, you know, because I

1320
01:25:01,330 --> 01:25:02,850
just can't see that well.

1321
01:25:03,730 --> 01:25:07,730
So I'm kind of doing more echolocation in the middle of the night than when I would during

1322
01:25:07,730 --> 01:25:08,290
the day.

1323
01:25:08,450 --> 01:25:12,290
But you know, we're trying to create whole pictures of people too, you know, in this same

1324
01:25:12,290 --> 01:25:12,530
way.

1325
01:25:12,850 --> 01:25:18,610
So some of these channels just probably exert like force majeure, right, over the

1326
01:25:18,610 --> 01:25:18,930
others.

1327
01:25:19,010 --> 01:25:23,090
You know, there's just certain things you say or you do where it's like they're just so

1328
01:25:23,090 --> 01:25:23,570
overwhelming.

1329
01:25:23,730 --> 01:25:24,690
They're like acts of God.

1330
01:25:24,770 --> 01:25:27,410
Like I'm not even going to consider other kinds of information.

1331
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:32,280
Or you know, like the chance you would do this is like a hundredth of a bazillionth of a

1332
01:25:32,280 --> 01:25:37,080
percent, but it would be so devastating that, like, I'm just not gonna do any calculus at

1333
01:25:37,080 --> 01:25:37,240
all.

1334
01:25:37,400 --> 01:25:43,400
It's just like it's so yeah, I I I think probably that way of thinking about

1335
01:25:43,400 --> 01:25:45,800
real-time decision making is probably really useful.

1336
01:25:45,960 --> 01:25:48,280
It's a different level of analysis, obviously, right?

1337
01:25:48,360 --> 01:25:54,200
I don't I don't think these I don't think these things are are um in in um in some

1338
01:25:54,200 --> 01:25:58,090
sort of uh you know, zero sum competition with each other.

1339
01:25:58,170 --> 01:25:58,330
Right.

1340
01:25:58,810 --> 01:25:59,050
Yeah.

1341
01:25:59,210 --> 01:25:59,610
Exactly.

1342
01:25:59,690 --> 01:25:59,850
Yeah.

1343
01:25:59,930 --> 01:26:02,010
No, I mean costly it's not that costly is wrong.

1344
01:26:02,090 --> 01:26:06,010
It's just that um you can think of the cost as one piece of evidence that is being uh

1345
01:26:06,010 --> 01:26:08,490
evaluated by the signal recipient, right?

1346
01:26:08,650 --> 01:26:13,450
And the cost is just more evidence uh of the validity of the signal and then there might be

1347
01:26:13,450 --> 01:26:18,090
other sources of evidence as well that that could factor into the recipient's decision.

1348
01:26:18,730 --> 01:26:19,290
Yeah.

1349
01:26:19,600 --> 01:26:19,920
Right.

1350
01:26:20,080 --> 01:26:20,160
Yeah.

1351
01:26:20,320 --> 01:26:25,760
And and and the one difference from a purely scientific perspective is that even the uh

1352
01:26:25,920 --> 01:26:31,680
evidence accumulation you would expect is an evolved cost-benefit decision.

1353
01:26:31,840 --> 01:26:37,120
So, in other words, like people will only continue to collect information if you think that

1354
01:26:37,120 --> 01:26:40,080
the information I'm going to get is going to change what I do.

1355
01:26:40,240 --> 01:26:40,400
Right.

1356
01:26:40,480 --> 01:26:44,930
So, like a good example, I mean, I have this wallowing paper, it's not submitted yet, but

1357
01:26:44,930 --> 01:26:48,770
it's about like the evolved logic of like ignoring information, right?

1358
01:26:49,010 --> 01:26:53,810
Um, and you know, something of like if if there's an I mean a good good trope would be like

1359
01:26:53,890 --> 01:26:57,970
uh an abused spouse whose partner's cheating on her, for example.

1360
01:26:58,210 --> 01:27:03,250
I don't she might not even want to know, just to, you know, uh, because it's not gonna

1361
01:27:03,250 --> 01:27:04,370
change what she's gonna do.

1362
01:27:04,450 --> 01:27:09,840
It might even signal she's willing to put up with a worse cost benefit logic if she if if

1363
01:27:09,840 --> 01:27:15,680
it becomes common knowledge she knows that you know this person is um imposing

1364
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:20,720
more costs on her than than is currently common knowledge right so there's there's like a

1365
01:27:20,720 --> 01:27:26,080
logic to even um whether or not information is pursued or not um

1366
01:27:26,320 --> 01:27:32,320
depending on cost and benefits yeah uh so are you saying that this is that

1367
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:36,800
that the search for the the very search for information is

1368
01:27:38,710 --> 01:27:44,630
uh that I might avoid f looking for certain kinds of information

1369
01:27:44,790 --> 01:27:48,710
because having it just like is is this an argument for like strategic ignorance?

1370
01:27:48,790 --> 01:27:49,350
Is that what you're thinking?

1371
01:27:49,670 --> 01:27:49,830
Exactly.

1372
01:27:49,910 --> 01:27:50,550
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1373
01:27:50,630 --> 01:27:50,950
Exactly.

1374
01:27:51,030 --> 01:27:51,590
Yeah, yeah.

1375
01:27:51,670 --> 01:27:52,070
Yeah.

1376
01:27:52,310 --> 01:27:52,630
Hm.

1377
01:27:52,870 --> 01:27:58,470
And it's uh it's also, I think it conveys the overlooked point that

1378
01:27:58,630 --> 01:28:00,790
information search is itself costly.

1379
01:28:01,030 --> 01:28:01,670
Yeah, right.

1380
01:28:01,990 --> 01:28:02,710
And a signal.

1381
01:28:02,870 --> 01:28:03,590
And a signal too.

1382
01:28:03,750 --> 01:28:04,550
And a signal as well.

1383
01:28:04,710 --> 01:28:04,950
Yeah.

1384
01:28:05,030 --> 01:28:05,350
Yeah.

1385
01:28:05,600 --> 01:28:09,040
Which which is yeah, adds even more complexity to it.

1386
01:28:09,360 --> 01:28:13,360
It's not I mean we we we tend to think, you know, oh simplistically that you know we the

1387
01:28:13,360 --> 01:28:16,240
information just comes to us and we have the information and we make a decision.

1388
01:28:16,320 --> 01:28:21,280
But no, acquiring the information is itself a decision that must also be evaluated with

1389
01:28:21,680 --> 01:28:23,280
with the logic of costs and benefits.

1390
01:28:23,680 --> 01:28:23,840
Yeah.

1391
01:28:23,920 --> 01:28:26,720
Yeah Michael, don't worry I'm gonna start rummaging through your email.

1392
01:28:26,800 --> 01:28:27,280
Don't worry.

1393
01:28:29,360 --> 01:28:31,600
I one I I have a hard time finding them.

1394
01:28:31,680 --> 01:28:37,610
So if you find anything good definitely I

1395
01:28:37,610 --> 01:28:39,450
still can't get Gmail to do what I want it to do.

1396
01:28:39,610 --> 01:28:39,930
Oh my god.

1397
01:28:40,250 --> 01:28:40,890
A decade later.

1398
01:28:41,370 --> 01:28:41,770
I love this.

1399
01:28:41,850 --> 01:28:43,930
I I want to ask one other question about forgiveness.

1400
01:28:44,010 --> 01:28:48,250
And David, if you still have more, I but there's also this trope of like time for heals all

1401
01:28:48,250 --> 01:28:50,570
wounds and like time uh helps forgive.

1402
01:28:50,890 --> 01:28:55,130
I mean, I'm putting this in the worst, least poetic way of like time aids forgiveness.

1403
01:28:55,290 --> 01:28:57,850
Like that's also a poor horrible card.

1404
01:28:58,010 --> 01:29:01,460
Um But have you thought about why that is?

1405
01:29:01,620 --> 01:29:02,580
That's that's one thing.

1406
01:29:02,900 --> 01:29:08,740
Even when you and I were doing this forgiveness and revenge little thing, I was thinking

1407
01:29:08,900 --> 01:29:11,780
this the time course of things I always find interesting.

1408
01:29:12,100 --> 01:29:17,780
And especially as scientists, we we often neglect because it's hard to

1409
01:29:17,780 --> 01:29:19,540
measure things across time.

1410
01:29:20,260 --> 01:29:25,700
Have you thought about, or I'm just curious what you think about this notion that even

1411
01:29:25,810 --> 01:29:30,850
independent of anything else we do, if if if I've done something wrong to you, and but it

1412
01:29:30,850 --> 01:29:36,690
just time elapses, it there's just this thing of like it's it's it's more

1413
01:29:36,690 --> 01:29:37,330
okay.

1414
01:29:37,970 --> 01:29:41,570
Um, and it it it seems to be correct.

1415
01:29:41,650 --> 01:29:42,370
Maybe it's not.

1416
01:29:42,450 --> 01:29:47,090
I don't know if I mean you might know of if there's evidence for this, but um, if it's

1417
01:29:47,090 --> 01:29:49,490
true, why why is that true?

1418
01:29:49,650 --> 01:29:52,050
Have you yeah, I'm curious what you think about that.

1419
01:29:53,570 --> 01:29:59,080
Um about 15 years ago,

1420
01:30:00,360 --> 01:30:02,520
I got really interested in this question.

1421
01:30:02,760 --> 01:30:03,640
Oh, cool.

1422
01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:09,880
And um I started oh the the

1423
01:30:10,120 --> 01:30:15,160
the question the it was not really it's sort of like pre-scientific question, but I was

1424
01:30:15,160 --> 01:30:20,280
wondering like is forgiveness sort of like forgetting?

1425
01:30:20,910 --> 01:30:26,510
And you know, if you think over a long time course, you know, that single, because

1426
01:30:26,670 --> 01:30:32,670
structurally it looks a little bit like something that would be kind of like like the

1427
01:30:32,670 --> 01:30:35,630
connection between forgetting and forgiving.

1428
01:30:36,430 --> 01:30:39,310
There's an analogy there that's that seems good.

1429
01:30:40,510 --> 01:30:43,460
There's a single punctate thing that happens, right?

1430
01:30:43,700 --> 01:30:49,060
So you're in the lab and you see a you know a word pairing, you know, microphone and coffee

1431
01:30:49,060 --> 01:30:51,460
cup, you know, like so the single event happens.

1432
01:30:51,620 --> 01:30:57,380
And the question is, you know, can you, you know, for how long will will

1433
01:30:57,380 --> 01:31:02,900
this will will that event, you know, continue to be something, that pairing be something

1434
01:31:02,900 --> 01:31:07,220
that you can access, you know, that you can withdraw from long-term memory.

1435
01:31:07,460 --> 01:31:10,820
And it's the same with kind of a harm, you know, like a harm happens to you.

1436
01:31:10,900 --> 01:31:16,170
It's this, you know style this we can stylize there's a one day this thing happens to you

1437
01:31:16,250 --> 01:31:22,250
somebody does this bad thing to you well that's the bad thing and how you know

1438
01:31:22,410 --> 01:31:28,330
it how how long will it have potency to continue to make you angry and angry and angry

1439
01:31:28,410 --> 01:31:33,500
and vengeful and vengeful and vengeful so I got to thinking like well,

1440
01:31:35,020 --> 01:31:40,780
the is does this analogy have anything like scientifically useful to it?

1441
01:31:41,340 --> 01:31:47,340
And I thought one interesting thing to do would be simply to see

1442
01:31:47,660 --> 01:31:52,700
if forgiving follows the psychophysical law that forget

1443
01:31:53,020 --> 01:31:55,340
forgetting seems to follow.

1444
01:31:55,590 --> 01:32:00,550
And we've known for well over a hundred years now that

1445
01:32:03,030 --> 01:32:08,630
the likelihood of recalling an event decays

1446
01:32:09,270 --> 01:32:11,590
down toward an asymptote.

1447
01:32:11,910 --> 01:32:17,110
And so as time goes on, what's left becomes more and more stubborn.

1448
01:32:17,270 --> 01:32:19,910
You know, the memory trace becomes more and more stubborn.

1449
01:32:20,140 --> 01:32:24,860
And so I thought, well, maybe if forgiveness is kind of like this, and so what's going on

1450
01:32:24,860 --> 01:32:25,100
there?

1451
01:32:25,340 --> 01:32:30,540
Well, what's going on is, you know, at the computational level with a memory, it's like in

1452
01:32:30,540 --> 01:32:36,380
part, it's just like, you know, kind of a use it or lose it thing is part of it.

1453
01:32:36,540 --> 01:32:40,380
Um, part of this is just buried under the accretion of a million different events.

1454
01:32:40,540 --> 01:32:44,220
You know, I mean, my friend John Wickstead, my next door neighbor at work, says, you we'd

1455
01:32:44,220 --> 01:32:45,340
actually don't forget anything.

1456
01:32:45,420 --> 01:32:47,740
It's just that the interface, it's like it's always in there.

1457
01:32:47,820 --> 01:32:52,470
Like literally, it's like not, you know, uh, I might be overstating a little bit, but you

1458
01:32:52,790 --> 01:32:55,190
forgiving forgetting is not really what's going on.

1459
01:32:55,270 --> 01:32:56,710
There's just interference.

1460
01:32:56,950 --> 01:32:57,590
Right.

1461
01:32:58,150 --> 01:33:03,990
So I was thinking like, well, maybe it's the same with forgiveness in a way, which

1462
01:33:03,990 --> 01:33:09,830
is like, you know, I harm somebody, you know, I harmed somebody on April

1463
01:33:09,830 --> 01:33:15,760
9, 2026, and there's no like reservoir of other new

1464
01:33:15,760 --> 01:33:17,680
stuff sitting on top of it yet.

1465
01:33:17,920 --> 01:33:20,880
It's just a raw thing that I'm thinking about actively.

1466
01:33:21,360 --> 01:33:27,280
And so it's just, it's just, you know, it's inflamed and

1467
01:33:27,280 --> 01:33:32,000
it's acute and it's very, very present in consciousness.

1468
01:33:32,270 --> 01:33:36,750
but perhaps there's something kind of like interference which happens, which is just the

1469
01:33:36,750 --> 01:33:42,750
accretion of the rest of your life comes in and it's more recent, and there's more back and

1470
01:33:42,750 --> 01:33:45,790
forths in relationships, including in that relationship.

1471
01:33:46,110 --> 01:33:52,110
So maybe you, you know, with it sort of every day goes by, you're sort of 1% less vengeful

1472
01:33:52,190 --> 01:33:56,750
or 1% less hurt, 1% less sad or angry by the harm.

1473
01:33:56,830 --> 01:34:01,230
And so it's just taking away, taking away 1% a day, 1% a day, 1% a day.

1474
01:34:01,390 --> 01:34:01,710
Yeah.

1475
01:34:01,940 --> 01:34:07,380
And we found evidence, like in three, I think, very good

1476
01:34:07,380 --> 01:34:12,580
longitudinal studies where we were measuring people day after day after day for a month or

1477
01:34:12,580 --> 01:34:18,100
week after week after week for like 20 weeks, that forgiveness does obey this

1478
01:34:18,100 --> 01:34:23,940
psychophysical law of um kind of like you're taking one percent a day of the pain away.

1479
01:34:24,020 --> 01:34:26,420
You know, just like life is taking one percent of the pain away.

1480
01:34:26,980 --> 01:34:32,610
And what's really cool is you know, people differ how much of that puck

1481
01:34:32,770 --> 01:34:35,170
stuff's getting taken away every day.

1482
01:34:35,570 --> 01:34:35,970
Right?

1483
01:34:36,130 --> 01:34:41,090
So pe some people have very fast decays, you know, and other people it's like there's just

1484
01:34:41,090 --> 01:34:42,130
virtually no decay at all.

1485
01:34:42,290 --> 01:34:43,250
They just stay angry.

1486
01:34:43,330 --> 01:34:49,170
You know, so like so like you can characterize the kinds of people who

1487
01:34:49,490 --> 01:34:51,970
like let's just call that that's maybe that's forgiveness.

1488
01:34:52,050 --> 01:34:57,100
Maybe what we're seeing is like if that's the forgetting curve, maybe that's maybe, you

1489
01:34:57,100 --> 01:34:59,980
know, and that's kind of how you would portray it as a memory person.

1490
01:35:00,140 --> 01:35:02,540
Like, maybe that's kind of the forgetting curve, too.

1491
01:35:03,180 --> 01:35:07,020
So that then becomes a parameter that describes people, you know.

1492
01:35:07,180 --> 01:35:12,620
So like you're, you know, and then so you could say, like, there's forgivers, and what are

1493
01:35:12,620 --> 01:35:12,860
they like?

1494
01:35:12,940 --> 01:35:17,500
Well, we find well, you find they're they're high in agreeableness, and the harms tended to

1495
01:35:17,500 --> 01:35:21,180
be less painful, and they were accompanied by apologies.

1496
01:35:21,870 --> 01:35:27,070
So, so like there are features of people as persons, like I don't know, that you know,

1497
01:35:27,310 --> 01:35:32,430
features of you like at the trait level that seem to make you have like quick be qu a

1498
01:35:32,430 --> 01:35:37,470
quicker forgiver, but also features of these relationships that help them to go away.

1499
01:35:37,710 --> 01:35:43,470
But in general, on average, yeah, it's like, you know, whatever, a percent a day, half a

1500
01:35:43,470 --> 01:35:44,830
percent a day, half a percent a day.

1501
01:35:44,910 --> 01:35:47,790
And then you go out a year and you're like, yeah, I'm kind of over it.

1502
01:35:48,110 --> 01:35:48,270
Yeah.

1503
01:35:48,540 --> 01:35:49,980
I'm so glad I asked that question.

1504
01:35:50,060 --> 01:35:51,980
You're like the best person on earth to answer that.

1505
01:35:52,060 --> 01:35:52,460
So thank you.

1506
01:35:52,540 --> 01:35:53,980
That was a fantastic answer.

1507
01:35:54,460 --> 01:35:58,140
I'm all I'm the I'm both the the one person who wrote the paper and the one person who ran

1508
01:35:58,220 --> 01:35:58,380
it.

1509
01:35:58,540 --> 01:36:01,580
So I that's interesting.

1510
01:36:01,740 --> 01:36:07,740
Um would you it seems to me that you you might also expect people who are more forgetful in

1511
01:36:07,740 --> 01:36:12,270
general or who have who are worse at remembering things in general to be more forgiving

1512
01:36:12,270 --> 01:36:15,630
people just as a byproduct of the fact that they're more forgetful?

1513
01:36:15,870 --> 01:36:17,470
Would would you expect that as well?

1514
01:36:17,790 --> 01:36:20,350
Yeah, I that is so great.

1515
01:36:20,510 --> 01:36:21,790
That is such a great question.

1516
01:36:21,870 --> 01:36:24,190
Nobody's looked at it as far as I'm aware.

1517
01:36:24,430 --> 01:36:30,430
Um and yeah, you can imagine just simply the it may be, it may be a different kind of

1518
01:36:30,510 --> 01:36:35,800
like um it it the the the for the the analogy to

1519
01:36:35,800 --> 01:36:41,160
forgetting could be like not just an analogy, but there could actually be some

1520
01:36:41,640 --> 01:36:44,840
mechanistic relationship between the two.

1521
01:36:45,160 --> 01:36:51,080
Um where um you know perhaps there are people who

1522
01:36:51,080 --> 01:36:55,870
simply don't have very good ability.

1523
01:36:56,030 --> 01:37:01,150
Like, I mean, maybe maybe it's like episodic memory, just like you just are incapable

1524
01:37:02,110 --> 01:37:06,350
of forming really strong emotion-lated episodic memories.

1525
01:37:06,510 --> 01:37:12,510
So it very quickly like, I'm not a memory expert at all, but like I can I can imagine this

1526
01:37:12,510 --> 01:37:18,000
may sound very ignorant, but like um, you know, maybe the emotions

1527
01:37:18,000 --> 01:37:23,600
around a memory are for some people kind of disappear from them and it

1528
01:37:23,600 --> 01:37:28,720
becomes more just like propositional knowledge or something like that.

1529
01:37:28,880 --> 01:37:33,840
Whereas for other people, and and okay, maybe maybe it's like to the extent to which they

1530
01:37:33,840 --> 01:37:36,210
activate affect, you know.

1531
01:37:36,450 --> 01:37:42,210
So maybe for some people, it's just like as time happens,

1532
01:37:42,450 --> 01:37:47,650
when you recall recover a memory, it simply doesn't um

1533
01:37:48,610 --> 01:37:54,610
you know that semantic content doesn't make its way to uh you know systems that

1534
01:37:54,610 --> 01:37:58,530
support emotional responses, you know, or vice versa.

1535
01:37:58,610 --> 01:38:03,090
You know, maybe there are people who you know when they recall the you know the episodic

1536
01:38:03,090 --> 01:38:08,820
memory, it much more efficiently recruits negative, you know, the uh you know

1537
01:38:09,060 --> 01:38:11,860
brain centers that support negative emotions.

1538
01:38:12,100 --> 01:38:15,300
Um could be something like the like that, you know.

1539
01:38:15,460 --> 01:38:17,780
Um I don't know the answer though.

1540
01:38:18,020 --> 01:38:23,700
Uh um it it it I also don't think I

1541
01:38:24,180 --> 01:38:29,460
we've done any work to look at like whether interventions actively

1542
01:38:30,050 --> 01:38:33,410
it can you know speed along that decay process.

1543
01:38:33,730 --> 01:38:35,730
Um yeah.

1544
01:38:35,890 --> 01:38:41,890
I mean it's it suggests to me that if a memory is useful for whatever reason, like say,

1545
01:38:41,970 --> 01:38:45,890
you know, there's lots of research showing that like victimhood narratives are very uh

1546
01:38:45,970 --> 01:38:49,410
useful at mobilizing a group politically, right?

1547
01:38:49,490 --> 01:38:53,090
And each side of the political spectrum has their own victimhood narratives.

1548
01:38:53,330 --> 01:38:58,400
Um Victimhood can be very good at coordinating a group to advance their interests.

1549
01:38:58,720 --> 01:39:01,120
You know, there's that saying after 9-11, never forget.

1550
01:39:01,200 --> 01:39:02,960
We should never forget this, right?

1551
01:39:03,280 --> 01:39:07,200
And a lot, that's what a lot of groups will say in the wake of an atrocity that we we must

1552
01:39:07,200 --> 01:39:07,680
never forget this.

1553
01:39:07,760 --> 01:39:12,560
And often they commemorate it with rituals and they have, you know, uh they reflect on it

1554
01:39:12,560 --> 01:39:13,760
year after year.

1555
01:39:13,920 --> 01:39:19,360
Um so it suggests to me that um we in some cases may want to actively

1556
01:39:19,360 --> 01:39:24,390
counteract the forgetting insofar as the the memory of the

1557
01:39:24,390 --> 01:39:30,230
transgression uh has benefits to us um either in mobilizing the group or or for for

1558
01:39:30,230 --> 01:39:36,150
some other purpose and we may have to you know um create rituals, uh create

1559
01:39:36,230 --> 01:39:41,510
uh uh get into the habit of of of performing certain behaviors to keep the memory alive uh

1560
01:39:41,670 --> 01:39:42,310
and well.

1561
01:39:42,790 --> 01:39:47,830
Um so that that's just another thought that that occurred to me that'd be interesting to

1562
01:39:47,880 --> 01:39:48,280
look at.

1563
01:39:48,360 --> 01:39:48,600
Yeah.

1564
01:39:48,920 --> 01:39:49,160
Yeah.

1565
01:39:49,240 --> 01:39:53,240
I mean, absolutely at the group level, this this gets um

1566
01:39:55,720 --> 01:39:58,760
instantiated all the time at a cultural level.

1567
01:39:58,920 --> 01:40:04,920
You know, we remember a time when some other ethno-cultural or political group

1568
01:40:05,080 --> 01:40:10,760
um you know did that you know committed this atrocity against us or invaded us or broke a

1569
01:40:10,760 --> 01:40:16,630
treaty, and we're gonna do what we can or you know, a feud between two families, you know.

1570
01:40:16,790 --> 01:40:22,550
Um, this is like classic culture of honor type stuff where it's like a hundred

1571
01:40:22,550 --> 01:40:28,550
years ago, you know, your grandfather this guy over there insulted

1572
01:40:28,550 --> 01:40:32,310
your grandfather's first wife, you know, or something like that.

1573
01:40:32,630 --> 01:40:38,470
And that's a way of keep you know, and and that's a way of keeping this grievance

1574
01:40:38,700 --> 01:40:43,500
green, you know, they're keeping this wound green, I think is how the Bible puts do not do

1575
01:40:43,500 --> 01:40:47,020
not keep your wounds green, I think is what it says in the Bible somewhere, you know.

1576
01:40:47,420 --> 01:40:53,180
But it's this idea of like keeping them, you know, keeping them, you know, um from

1577
01:40:55,100 --> 01:41:00,780
I, you know, like let's continue let's continue to keep this grievance active as a way of,

1578
01:41:00,860 --> 01:41:04,250
you know preventing ourselves from getting harmed again in the future, even though you

1579
01:41:04,250 --> 01:41:07,530
weren't even alive when this act of aggression happened.

1580
01:41:07,610 --> 01:41:09,690
They become kind of part of a national mythology.

1581
01:41:10,490 --> 01:41:10,730
Yeah.

1582
01:41:10,970 --> 01:41:15,850
And as an American living in Germany, Berlin for almost a decade, you know, it was really

1583
01:41:15,930 --> 01:41:20,250
that was also striking on the other end, too, of like the collective guilt, for example, of

1584
01:41:20,250 --> 01:41:24,810
like the Third Reich, you know, like the parliament building where there's like literally a

1585
01:41:24,810 --> 01:41:29,940
memorial to the murdered, you know, um, you know, Sinti, for example, you know, in uh

1586
01:41:30,260 --> 01:41:31,060
what's that word?

1587
01:41:31,540 --> 01:41:37,220
Um, the like the gypsies, like, you know, so sort of like yeah, so um uh or like you know,

1588
01:41:37,380 --> 01:41:41,380
certain ethno-linguistic groups or whatever, you know, like literally on there, and you

1589
01:41:41,380 --> 01:41:46,420
know, as an American, you're just sort of like this is it it was hard not to reflect on.

1590
01:41:46,580 --> 01:41:50,020
There's clearly an acknowledgement of a collective guilt.

1591
01:41:50,340 --> 01:41:55,890
Um, and for me at least, it was very contemporaneous with like, you know, a pretty

1592
01:41:55,890 --> 01:41:57,170
functioning society.

1593
01:41:57,330 --> 01:42:02,690
And so there's also this thing of, you know, countries that got over their skis, to put it

1594
01:42:02,690 --> 01:42:03,570
very mildly.

1595
01:42:04,130 --> 01:42:10,050
Um, you know, like the memory of of imposing costs on others and accepting that, and

1596
01:42:10,050 --> 01:42:15,580
then what that does, um you know the um so this is another area where i like this

1597
01:42:15,580 --> 01:42:20,940
collective memory of not just being the victims but the the the perpetrators of

1598
01:42:20,940 --> 01:42:26,380
costs um it's not all bad to remember um these things yeah

1599
01:42:27,100 --> 01:42:32,540
absolutely what are our

1600
01:42:32,540 --> 01:42:38,540
national or ethno linguistic uh you know or cultural myths uh you know like where do we get

1601
01:42:38,540 --> 01:42:44,150
our identity from it's from the stories right You know, and you know how we try to we want

1602
01:42:44,150 --> 01:42:47,830
to encourage our our you know our people to behave in ways that are consistent with the

1603
01:42:47,830 --> 01:42:48,230
stories.

1604
01:42:48,470 --> 01:42:53,270
So some of those stories are gonna be about you know protecting ourselves against being

1605
01:42:53,270 --> 01:42:58,150
harmed in the future, but they ought to be also about like how badly wrong we've gotten

1606
01:42:58,150 --> 01:42:59,510
things sometimes in the past.

1607
01:42:59,830 --> 01:43:04,790
Yeah, no, I mean for me at least, that was for me a lesson is that it's just like being a

1608
01:43:04,790 --> 01:43:09,340
person, it's a it's a poor person who goes through life and thinks I've never harmed

1609
01:43:09,340 --> 01:43:09,580
somebody.

1610
01:43:09,820 --> 01:43:10,140
That's right.

1611
01:43:10,540 --> 01:43:11,820
Not to be too political about it.

1612
01:43:11,900 --> 01:43:17,260
And you can be a apartisan about this, but like from a collective or society or political

1613
01:43:17,260 --> 01:43:21,660
perspective, the idea that the right way to have a political identity or s a national

1614
01:43:21,660 --> 01:43:26,300
identity is that we've never done anything wrong might be questionable in the same way that

1615
01:43:26,300 --> 01:43:28,220
would be questionable personally, right?

1616
01:43:28,300 --> 01:43:28,540
Yeah.

1617
01:43:28,940 --> 01:43:29,180
Yeah.

1618
01:43:29,340 --> 01:43:29,820
Yes.

1619
01:43:30,140 --> 01:43:30,780
Right.

1620
01:43:31,290 --> 01:43:31,850
Cool.

1621
01:43:32,490 --> 01:43:37,610
Um I I wanted to ask about gratitude and well being, but we're also coming up on the end

1622
01:43:37,610 --> 01:43:37,850
here.

1623
01:43:38,010 --> 01:43:42,890
So we always ask this question of like, do you is there something we should have asked you?

1624
01:43:43,130 --> 01:43:47,210
Um, which is one question we is our only mandatory question.

1625
01:43:47,450 --> 01:43:53,280
Um so I'll I'll uh I'll shut up for a second and let you think about that.

1626
01:43:53,600 --> 01:43:57,520
Has anyone ever said said that that that yeah you should have asked me this?

1627
01:43:57,840 --> 01:43:58,320
Oh yeah.

1628
01:43:58,480 --> 01:44:03,440
We've given all answers, including I don't know, I'm sure, but I can't think of any uh

1629
01:44:03,440 --> 01:44:05,200
specific responses.

1630
01:44:05,600 --> 01:44:09,680
Um I need a second to think every possible reaction.

1631
01:44:10,000 --> 01:44:13,120
Yeah, and some people just say, Nope, you I think we covered we covered it all.

1632
01:44:13,200 --> 01:44:14,240
Yeah, we covered this great.

1633
01:44:14,560 --> 01:44:15,280
There's no wrong answer.

1634
01:44:15,360 --> 01:44:15,520
Yes.

1635
01:44:16,000 --> 01:44:16,320
Yeah.

1636
01:44:17,120 --> 01:44:21,870
I I mean I'm very I'm very content with the conversation we had.

1637
01:44:22,110 --> 01:44:24,110
I I'm embarrassed.

1638
01:44:24,190 --> 01:44:28,110
I feel like I learned more from it um than than I gave you.

1639
01:44:28,270 --> 01:44:30,910
I it was just so still it was just so stimulating.

1640
01:44:31,310 --> 01:44:32,030
It was wonderful.

1641
01:44:32,190 --> 01:44:36,910
I I love doing this exactly for this reason, but no, I mean I I I learned a ton.

1642
01:44:37,070 --> 01:44:38,990
Um it's it's it's lovely.

1643
01:44:39,310 --> 01:44:42,430
Um do you wait, we uh here is my question then.

1644
01:44:42,590 --> 01:44:48,040
The closeout question is um some people we have on have interesting side gigs.

1645
01:44:48,120 --> 01:44:49,400
Do you play music?

1646
01:44:49,720 --> 01:44:50,360
Uh yes.

1647
01:44:50,520 --> 01:44:51,000
Yes, I do.

1648
01:44:51,160 --> 01:44:51,320
Yeah.

1649
01:44:51,560 --> 01:44:53,480
Probably about that.

1650
01:44:53,640 --> 01:44:53,800
Okay.

1651
01:44:54,120 --> 01:44:55,800
Yeah, probably play too much, actually.

1652
01:44:56,120 --> 01:44:57,000
Okay, no such thing.

1653
01:44:57,160 --> 01:44:58,360
Can you tell us a little bit about that?

1654
01:44:58,440 --> 01:45:00,120
We can always cut this out if you don't want to.

1655
01:45:01,160 --> 01:45:06,970
Um yeah, I um I I play in

1656
01:45:06,970 --> 01:45:09,050
two bands locally.

1657
01:45:09,210 --> 01:45:15,050
One is a big um 9, 10, 11, 12 piece jazz

1658
01:45:15,050 --> 01:45:16,330
fusion project.

1659
01:45:17,610 --> 01:45:19,050
Do you know the band Snarky Puppy?

1660
01:45:19,130 --> 01:45:19,850
Do you ever heard of them?

1661
01:45:20,010 --> 01:45:20,410
Yes.

1662
01:45:20,650 --> 01:45:23,130
Yeah, it's kind of like a Snarky Puppy project.

1663
01:45:23,210 --> 01:45:28,660
It's like an amazing rhythm section with like just I play bass

1664
01:45:28,900 --> 01:45:34,660
and the guitar player's incredible and the keyboard player is just burning and the drummers

1665
01:45:34,820 --> 01:45:35,140
amazing.

1666
01:45:35,220 --> 01:45:40,420
And then it's like all and then when there's like a huge horn section and a

1667
01:45:40,420 --> 01:45:45,540
percussionist, and this there's a cello player, and there's you know, it's just an amazing,

1668
01:45:45,700 --> 01:45:46,820
amazing band.

1669
01:45:50,170 --> 01:45:51,210
We'll put a link to the band.

1670
01:45:51,370 --> 01:45:53,610
Are you guys on the camp or or Spotify?

1671
01:45:53,690 --> 01:45:55,370
Are you guys uh Spotify?

1672
01:45:55,450 --> 01:45:55,610
Yeah.

1673
01:45:55,770 --> 01:45:57,930
And I mean, and app Apple Music and all that.

1674
01:45:58,010 --> 01:45:59,370
They're called Star Sign.

1675
01:45:59,690 --> 01:46:00,330
Awesome.

1676
01:46:00,570 --> 01:46:02,970
And that's my that's actually my son's band.

1677
01:46:03,530 --> 01:46:09,290
So I I play bass in his band and um he he he writes and scores everything.

1678
01:46:09,690 --> 01:46:15,160
Um so I just I can just kind of show up and I learn the tunes and show up and blow and have

1679
01:46:15,160 --> 01:46:15,720
a great time.

1680
01:46:16,040 --> 01:46:17,560
What kind of bass do you have?

1681
01:46:17,880 --> 01:46:21,720
Um a number of bass.

1682
01:46:22,120 --> 01:46:23,080
Okay, never mind.

1683
01:46:23,400 --> 01:46:25,400
Uh it'll pose questions.

1684
01:46:29,960 --> 01:46:30,280
Yeah.

1685
01:46:30,520 --> 01:46:36,520
I I've got um I've got a nineteen seventy-six Ivanes um black

1686
01:46:36,520 --> 01:46:42,470
eagle, which um a screaming eagle and um which is

1687
01:46:42,470 --> 01:46:47,750
like definitely seen better days um i have a fender uh jazz

1688
01:46:47,990 --> 01:46:53,830
bass um tobacco sunburst that with and then i have this exact same bass

1689
01:46:53,910 --> 01:46:59,830
but with a fretless neck exact like the exact same bass with a fretless neck um i

1690
01:46:59,830 --> 01:47:05,180
have a jazz i have a fender precision bass And then I

1691
01:47:05,180 --> 01:47:10,940
recently bought a um Ken Smith burner 5,

1692
01:47:11,260 --> 01:47:16,540
um which was like definitely like middle-aged guilty pleasure.

1693
01:47:16,700 --> 01:47:19,420
If you look it up, you'll you'll understand why Corvette, yeah.

1694
01:47:19,660 --> 01:47:19,900
Yes.

1695
01:47:21,340 --> 01:47:21,660
Yes.

1696
01:47:22,460 --> 01:47:24,220
Can't play it, but I have one.

1697
01:47:24,450 --> 01:47:24,690
Yeah.

1698
01:47:24,850 --> 01:47:27,330
And then you said the other band is is what?

1699
01:47:27,650 --> 01:47:30,370
I have a I have a band called Sweater Weather.

1700
01:47:30,530 --> 01:47:33,330
Um I think that band's pretty much done now.

1701
01:47:33,410 --> 01:47:37,330
You know, we were together four or five like bands come and go, you know.

1702
01:47:37,810 --> 01:47:40,370
Um it's also we're also on Spotify.

1703
01:47:40,610 --> 01:47:46,610
Um and but these days um mostly like I play with

1704
01:47:46,610 --> 01:47:50,690
my kids' band and I go to a bunch of jam sessions around town to meet meet other musicians

1705
01:47:50,770 --> 01:47:51,840
and that's awesome.

1706
01:47:52,560 --> 01:47:53,120
It's lovely.

1707
01:47:53,280 --> 01:47:53,840
It sounds great.

1708
01:47:54,000 --> 01:47:55,760
And being your son's band, what a what a treat.

1709
01:47:55,840 --> 01:47:57,120
What a it's a blast.

1710
01:47:57,280 --> 01:47:58,080
It's a real blast.

1711
01:47:58,240 --> 01:48:00,240
This is not a side hustle or a side gig.

1712
01:48:00,320 --> 01:48:01,760
This is just pure pleasure for me.

1713
01:48:02,000 --> 01:48:02,480
Wonderful.

1714
01:48:02,640 --> 01:48:03,760
It's good to have those things.

1715
01:48:03,920 --> 01:48:05,920
Well Mike, uh thank you so much for being on.

1716
01:48:06,000 --> 01:48:06,960
We really appreciate it.

1717
01:48:07,280 --> 01:48:08,240
Thank you for having me.

1718
01:48:08,320 --> 01:48:09,760
It was a real honor.

1719
01:48:10,480 --> 01:48:15,590
David, I do not need to seek revenge on this episode.

1720
01:48:15,750 --> 01:48:16,950
That's a dumb way to start this.

1721
01:48:17,110 --> 01:48:17,990
Maybe we should start.

1722
01:48:19,350 --> 01:48:21,990
I need to seek revenge on you for making that comment.

1723
01:48:22,310 --> 01:48:23,350
You do, yes.

1724
01:48:23,590 --> 01:48:25,190
That was way too try hard.

1725
01:48:25,270 --> 01:48:25,430
Yeah.

1726
01:48:25,510 --> 01:48:25,590
Okay.

1727
01:48:26,230 --> 01:48:26,630
I forgive you.

1728
01:48:26,790 --> 01:48:26,870
Okay.

1729
01:48:27,030 --> 01:48:27,430
I forgive you.

1730
01:48:27,670 --> 01:48:28,150
There we go.

1731
01:48:28,230 --> 01:48:33,110
Um David, this was a um I don't even know.

1732
01:48:33,270 --> 01:48:34,550
I hate outros.

1733
01:48:34,790 --> 01:48:35,430
I'm so bad at them.

1734
01:48:35,510 --> 01:48:36,230
Okay, you start.

1735
01:48:37,590 --> 01:48:41,670
Uh support us, you know, go to Patreon, give us a channel.

1736
01:48:41,830 --> 01:48:43,590
You think we need to keep saying that?

1737
01:48:44,380 --> 01:48:45,500
I don't maybe maybe.

1738
01:48:45,580 --> 01:48:46,540
Should we just not do the outros?

1739
01:48:46,780 --> 01:48:47,180
Just cut them out?

1740
01:48:47,660 --> 01:48:48,300
What do people think?

1741
01:48:48,380 --> 01:48:49,420
Let us know in the comments.

1742
01:48:49,900 --> 01:48:50,060
Yeah.

1743
01:48:50,380 --> 01:48:53,660
Let us know if you think we should keep doing the outros uh or whether we should do that.

1744
01:48:53,820 --> 01:48:55,420
Well we should have something in the outros.

1745
01:48:56,620 --> 01:48:57,420
Something?

1746
01:48:57,660 --> 01:48:58,220
Like this.

1747
01:48:58,380 --> 01:48:59,740
This is fun for me at least.

1748
01:48:59,980 --> 01:49:04,620
Just just like a little, you know, debrief, but no call to support us.

1749
01:49:05,900 --> 01:49:07,180
Uh I don't know.

1750
01:49:07,420 --> 01:49:10,550
That's kinda I mean, that's interesting idea where we were like reflect on the

1751
01:49:10,550 --> 01:49:13,270
conversation, like what went well, you know, stuff like that.

1752
01:49:14,150 --> 01:49:16,710
So just just saying inane, stupid things as opposed to.

1753
01:49:17,270 --> 01:49:18,470
Oh, where we just like banter.

1754
01:49:18,630 --> 01:49:23,670
You know, like we can talk about reviving Charles Darwin, uh, for example.

1755
01:49:23,990 --> 01:49:24,390
All right.

1756
01:49:24,470 --> 01:49:25,990
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm done with that.

1757
01:49:26,070 --> 01:49:31,590
That's uh you know, you decide, the listener, what kind of outro you want for evolutionary

1758
01:49:31,590 --> 01:49:31,830
psychology.

1759
01:49:32,230 --> 01:49:33,110
Choose your own outro.

1760
01:49:33,190 --> 01:49:35,430
Did you ever grow up with those choose your own adventure books?

1761
01:49:35,700 --> 01:49:36,580
Oh, I love those.

1762
01:49:36,820 --> 01:49:37,140
Yeah.

1763
01:49:37,300 --> 01:49:38,580
There's not enough of that.

1764
01:49:38,740 --> 01:49:44,100
I actually I think I talked to I forgive apologies to whoever um I've talked to about this,

1765
01:49:44,340 --> 01:49:49,700
but I've often thought that that would be a great way to do a textbook where you think if

1766
01:49:49,700 --> 01:49:52,180
you think X is true, turn to page whatever.

1767
01:49:52,260 --> 01:49:53,860
If you think Y is true, turn to page whatever.

1768
01:49:53,940 --> 01:49:57,060
I mean it you could turn and you know it could be virtual, but yeah.

1769
01:49:57,390 --> 01:49:58,030
Oh, I love that.

1770
01:49:58,110 --> 01:49:59,230
That's a really great idea.

1771
01:49:59,550 --> 01:49:59,710
Yeah.

1772
01:49:59,790 --> 01:50:03,870
And then you could sort of follow the logic of a theory or something, or follow the wrong

1773
01:50:03,870 --> 01:50:04,190
idea.

1774
01:50:04,270 --> 01:50:04,510
Yeah.

1775
01:50:04,990 --> 01:50:06,270
Dave, that's a really great idea.

1776
01:50:06,430 --> 01:50:11,630
Because that's often like how people think about complicated questions, is like, well, what

1777
01:50:11,630 --> 01:50:12,270
if this is the answer?

1778
01:50:12,430 --> 01:50:13,230
Oh no, that doesn't work.

1779
01:50:13,310 --> 01:50:13,950
What if this is the answer?

1780
01:50:14,030 --> 01:50:14,830
Oh no, that doesn't work.

1781
01:50:14,990 --> 01:50:15,790
Yeah, it's like science.

1782
01:50:15,950 --> 01:50:16,110
Yeah.

1783
01:50:16,270 --> 01:50:16,510
Yeah.

1784
01:50:16,830 --> 01:50:22,280
It's it like it's a it um is a microcosm of how scientific thinking works and how it

1785
01:50:22,280 --> 01:50:22,680
progresses.

1786
01:50:22,760 --> 01:50:26,840
It's just going down the various paths and seeing what paths have dead ends and which paths

1787
01:50:26,840 --> 01:50:27,080
don't.

1788
01:50:27,480 --> 01:50:28,360
Exactly.

1789
01:50:29,080 --> 01:50:29,800
I love that.

1790
01:50:30,040 --> 01:50:30,920
Get on it, Dave.

1791
01:50:31,240 --> 01:50:31,480
All right.

1792
01:50:31,720 --> 01:50:35,640
Choose your own uh science adventure.

1793
01:50:36,120 --> 01:50:41,480
Choose choose your own science advent choose your own science theoretical supposition.

1794
01:50:41,910 --> 01:50:43,270
We're gonna have to work on the name.

1795
01:50:45,190 --> 01:50:45,350
Yeah.

1796
01:50:46,230 --> 01:50:49,430
Well, everybody, thank you for listening to this podcast.

1797
01:50:49,750 --> 01:50:52,310
Uh which is not a choose your own adventure.

1798
01:50:52,710 --> 01:50:53,270
Yes.

1799
01:50:53,510 --> 01:50:55,910
It's just uh an adventure.

1800
01:50:56,150 --> 01:50:57,510
I mean it's sort of it's an adventure.

1801
01:50:58,230 --> 01:50:59,670
And you and you and you choose you chose it.

1802
01:51:00,150 --> 01:51:02,950
As George Carlin said, you could always change the channel.

1803
01:51:03,350 --> 01:51:03,830
That's true.

1804
01:51:03,990 --> 01:51:05,670
So it's an adventure that you chose.

1805
01:51:06,150 --> 01:51:08,150
We there's a couple people but there's only one of them.

1806
01:51:08,400 --> 01:51:13,760
There's a couple people who have um uh left comments where I really like we have wonderful

1807
01:51:13,760 --> 01:51:18,720
comments, but there's at least one or two people who recurrently comment, especially I

1808
01:51:18,720 --> 01:51:21,280
think on YouTube, that it's very clear.

1809
01:51:21,440 --> 01:51:25,440
Like I just want to tell them just go, you can just change the channel, like go build some

1810
01:51:25,440 --> 01:51:26,320
furniture or something.

1811
01:51:26,400 --> 01:51:28,000
Like you don't need to troll on YouTube.

1812
01:51:28,240 --> 01:51:28,480
Yeah.

1813
01:51:28,770 --> 01:51:32,690
Life itself is a choose your own adventure, and you can choose a different adventure than

1814
01:51:33,250 --> 01:51:33,970
perfect David.

1815
01:51:34,050 --> 01:51:34,370
Yeah.

1816
01:51:34,530 --> 01:51:35,970
That's that's the thing to end on.

1817
01:51:36,050 --> 01:51:36,450
There we go.

1818
01:51:36,690 --> 01:51:36,850
Yeah.

1819
01:51:37,010 --> 01:51:37,330
All right.

1820
01:51:37,490 --> 01:51:41,650
Well, enjoy the choose your own adventure of your life and uh see you next week.