WEBVTT

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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

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

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So, you know, a third party can say, look, your little feud you're having here over here is

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bad for business.

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You know, I can't, you know, we can't open the saloon because of all the gunfights in the

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streets.

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

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the rightness and wrongness of the different parties is perhaps important to consider.

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

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stop and they're going to stop.

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You know, we're going to bring the power of this, you know Leviathan or whatever down on

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you, but but this is this is going to stop.

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Um so I think you know from that point of view, just being able to articulate, look, you

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your your little feud here is bad for everybody.

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Um I think I think it has a way of potentially exerting kind of pressure on the two

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disputants to like get their get their act together.

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But the other thing, you're right.

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

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social contract, people have more or less agreed on, and then measure out offenses on that

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yardstick, um, I think it does um, you know, at

00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:55.990
least create some common knowledge that any like final retaliatory

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

00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:02.870
know, take this guy's goats.

00:17:03.110 --> 00:17:03.430
What was it?

00:17:03.510 --> 00:17:03.990
What was the goat?

00:17:04.150 --> 00:17:06.070
Was it goats and cows you were talking about?

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.

00:17:10.390 --> 00:17:12.070
So I substituted for two pigs.

00:17:12.390 --> 00:17:12.950
Two pigs.

00:17:13.110 --> 00:17:13.350
All right.

00:17:13.590 --> 00:17:13.670
Yeah.

00:17:13.990 --> 00:17:15.750
So you can I would do you think a goat.

00:17:16.150 --> 00:17:16.870
I will mediate this.

00:17:16.950 --> 00:17:17.670
I will mediate this.

00:17:18.070 --> 00:17:18.950
I'm happy to do it for you.

00:17:19.190 --> 00:17:22.150
Is a goat more valuable than pigs or a pig?

00:17:22.740 --> 00:17:24.900
I have no idea, but I'm guessing, yes.

00:17:26.340 --> 00:17:29.780
So yeah, so I guess please let us know if you know.

00:17:32.260 --> 00:17:33.780
Yeah, the comments are gonna be amazing.

00:17:33.860 --> 00:17:34.180
I can't.

00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:35.380
Exactly.

00:17:35.460 --> 00:17:35.860
Let me tell you.

00:17:35.940 --> 00:17:36.500
It depends on what you're doing.

00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:38.660
We're gonna go herders in the comments.

00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:41.860
Like an encyclopedia of goat herbs.

00:17:43.220 --> 00:17:46.180
You do not want to make uh goat herders angry either.

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

00:17:52.090 --> 00:17:53.130
know, and I ate them.

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

00:17:58.330 --> 00:17:58.570
that.

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

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.

00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:11.530
We're tired of getting caught in the crossfire.

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

00:18:18.080 --> 00:18:20.160
other family, it's like now everybody's mad at everybody.

00:18:20.320 --> 00:18:22.240
Like we just have to bring this to a stop.

00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:27.200
So third parties disturb that function informally in lots of societies.

00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:33.120
Um I mean, Dave and Dave, you and I wrote a piece for a Target article

00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:37.710
um That who who was it that wrote It was Luke Lowaki.

00:18:37.870 --> 00:18:40.590
It was the Evolution of Peace BBS target article.

00:18:40.670 --> 00:18:43.310
You and I wrote it was very fun to do it with you.

00:18:43.630 --> 00:18:45.390
We did a commentary on it.

00:18:45.470 --> 00:18:45.630
Yeah.

00:18:46.030 --> 00:18:46.830
That's exactly right.

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

00:18:52.910 --> 00:18:58.830
peace between not only conflicting individuals, but also like you know, conflicting groups.

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

00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:06.400
you what you're doing is just not making anything better.

00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:07.680
You're making it way worse.

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,

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.

00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:20.640
But I think the idea there is that that higher order third dispassionate third party kind

00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:22.480
of does impose the last word.

00:19:23.130 --> 00:19:23.530
Yeah.

00:19:23.690 --> 00:19:23.770
Okay.

00:19:24.090 --> 00:19:27.770
If I can just, I mean, I I'm restating what you're saying saying, Mike.

00:19:27.930 --> 00:19:33.930
Um, but but I think the whole point of punishment or revenge is

00:19:35.210 --> 00:19:40.410
that you, each agent is navigating this cost benefit landscape, as you've been saying.

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

00:19:45.370 --> 00:19:48.090
you're going to be the source of additional costs, right?

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

00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:54.480
of additional costs.

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

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

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

00:20:10.170 --> 00:20:11.450
actually the world, right?

00:20:11.690 --> 00:20:11.930
Yeah.

00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:13.690
Sort of like it's not gonna depend on me.

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

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

00:20:22.330 --> 00:20:23.290
cost is happening.

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

00:20:28.090 --> 00:20:28.970
structure of the world.

00:20:29.130 --> 00:20:32.410
And I want you to consider that and change what you're doing.

00:20:32.650 --> 00:20:38.320
And so I think you know, for for all punishment and even for third party

00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:44.080
punishment, sort of the aim is to sort of the deep structure is presenting these

00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:45.360
costs.

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

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,

00:20:56.130 --> 00:20:56.450
you know.

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

00:21:00.450 --> 00:21:01.250
my goats, right?

00:21:01.330 --> 00:21:03.810
And I'm gonna say something like, Well, we if we all took, you know.

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

00:21:09.090 --> 00:21:09.890
structure.

00:21:10.130 --> 00:21:15.970
Um that uh that this all everything you're saying, I think really resolves down

00:21:15.970 --> 00:21:21.500
to what we're trying to do is present an argument to this cost

00:21:21.580 --> 00:21:27.500
benefit analyzer in everybody's head that you should take this other path,

00:21:27.820 --> 00:21:30.220
which has a higher benefit to you.

00:21:31.100 --> 00:21:36.460
And we want to craft ones that are in our interest too.

00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:41.260
And I think punishment, as David was talking about it, bad punishment is where you just

00:21:41.260 --> 00:21:47.030
sort of impose a cost without showing an alternative, better

00:21:47.350 --> 00:21:47.910
option.

00:21:47.990 --> 00:21:50.630
And that's where you're just going to get retaliation, right?

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

00:21:55.590 --> 00:21:58.390
cost, but then the alternative is much better.

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

00:22:04.390 --> 00:22:07.430
because I think that that's part of that cost benefit psychology.

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

00:22:12.790 --> 00:22:12.950
like.

00:22:13.110 --> 00:22:14.470
You kind of disagree.

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

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

00:22:25.700 --> 00:22:30.740
know with Dave and David in it might be like oh you know um you know

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

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

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

00:22:47.710 --> 00:22:49.710
you change your behavior going into the future.

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.

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

00:22:57.390 --> 00:22:58.350
taking a different path.

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

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

00:23:07.950 --> 00:23:09.470
the social world you live in.

00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:10.120
Yeah.

00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:11.240
I really like that.

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

00:23:15.560 --> 00:23:16.760
hidden these status games.

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

00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:27.560
that part of the hidden world of social interaction is negotiating maps of

00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:31.400
the cost benefit landscape, sort of if if that's a way of putting it.

00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:32.040
Yeah.

00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:32.440
Yeah.

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

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

00:23:43.330 --> 00:23:43.810
ought to have.

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

00:23:49.890 --> 00:23:51.010
you know canyons.

00:23:51.330 --> 00:23:51.810
Yeah.

00:23:52.130 --> 00:23:56.760
And and and communicating that is interesting because for example, like in the context of a

00:23:56.760 --> 00:24:01.080
parent, at least from our biased perspective, we would like to think we are impartially

00:24:01.080 --> 00:24:03.880
conveying the structure, the reality of the world.

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

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.

00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:16.280
I would like you to behave according to.

00:24:16.570 --> 00:24:18.410
And that hides two different things.

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

00:24:22.890 --> 00:24:23.050
like.

00:24:23.290 --> 00:24:23.930
Yeah, that's right.

00:24:24.090 --> 00:24:24.890
That's right.

00:24:25.610 --> 00:24:27.210
Well, that's a that's a yeah.

00:24:27.450 --> 00:24:31.850
And and yeah, I mean, with parent-offspring conflict, you may have a different, you may

00:24:31.850 --> 00:24:34.970
want your kid to behave differently than the kid would want to behave.

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

00:24:39.850 --> 00:24:44.410
on uh his or her siblings or future siblings than that kid would would like.

00:24:44.570 --> 00:24:49.400
So you they might like to pursue a riskier life strategy that might potentially inflict

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,

00:24:54.840 --> 00:24:55.480
for example.

00:24:55.720 --> 00:24:57.880
So yeah, that's a great that's a great example.

00:24:58.040 --> 00:25:03.320
I mean that parent offspring conflict concept is so

00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:04.520
surprising.

00:25:04.680 --> 00:25:08.040
You know, some of the outcomes of that are just so wild.

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

00:25:14.230 --> 00:25:18.310
want you to behave in ways that are are gonna be favorable to me.

00:25:18.630 --> 00:25:23.510
And for parents, that's that that certainly can be

00:25:27.030 --> 00:25:31.830
it could be against your immediate reproductive interests, actually, you know, in in a more

00:25:31.830 --> 00:25:32.310
direct ways.

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

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

00:25:43.300 --> 00:25:45.300
potentially different from yours.

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

00:25:51.940 --> 00:25:54.260
you've that that's where the payoffs generated for me.

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,

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

00:26:01.060 --> 00:26:01.300
that.

00:26:01.460 --> 00:26:03.190
So I like this.

00:26:03.270 --> 00:26:04.870
I never thought about it this way.

00:26:05.030 --> 00:26:10.870
Um of of of punishment really being uh I'm rewarding for that matter,

00:26:11.030 --> 00:26:14.950
you know, it's an attempt to help, you know, to the extent.

00:26:15.110 --> 00:26:19.350
I mean, I really I like Fiery Cushman's point about on this about punishment.

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

00:26:25.320 --> 00:26:26.520
the schedule of reinforcement.

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

00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:32.920
don't like that.

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

00:26:38.120 --> 00:26:43.400
structure of your social world is really like from from how I'm seeing it.

00:26:43.800 --> 00:26:44.360
Right.

00:26:44.890 --> 00:26:45.450
Yeah.

00:26:45.690 --> 00:26:51.370
I mean it it sort of ties into the DeScioli view of of morality where it

00:26:51.370 --> 00:26:57.050
basically revolves around third parties and the decisions they are likely to make uh in the

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.

00:27:01.850 --> 00:27:07.050
Um you could think about a moral rule as as an expectation about what

00:27:07.140 --> 00:27:11.940
impartial third parties are likely to do in response to this action.

00:27:12.100 --> 00:27:17.540
You know, if I take your uh your goat, for example, I might have internalized an

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

00:27:22.900 --> 00:27:25.940
up two of my pigs in r to compensate you, or whatever.

00:27:26.100 --> 00:27:30.420
Whatever the expectation is, that is sort of the moral, the moral rule.

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.

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

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

00:27:41.630 --> 00:27:42.190
two of my goats.

00:27:42.270 --> 00:27:44.350
I really love two of two to my pigs or whatever.

00:27:44.510 --> 00:27:45.470
I really love my pigs.

00:27:45.630 --> 00:27:47.630
It's not worth it for me to take your goat.

00:27:47.950 --> 00:27:53.470
Um and that could be a little, you know, David's conscience preventing me from from

00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:55.160
undertaking the action.

00:27:55.400 --> 00:28:00.120
Um and that, you know, it doesn't necessarily uh it's not actually necessarily the

00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:02.040
calculation part is not necessarily conscious.

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.

00:28:05.560 --> 00:28:10.840
Uh but the underlying calculations might have to do with the expected uh behavior of third

00:28:10.840 --> 00:28:11.160
parties.

00:28:11.560 --> 00:28:12.280
Absolutely, yeah.

00:28:12.520 --> 00:28:14.120
Hey, I got a question for you.

00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:17.960
Um D Dave, you're married to a developmental psychologist, right?

00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:19.160
I am guilty of that.

00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:19.480
Yeah.

00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:22.120
So um maybe you are too, David.

00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:23.080
I don't know.

00:28:24.090 --> 00:28:25.210
David, who are you?

00:28:25.850 --> 00:28:25.930
Yeah.

00:28:26.810 --> 00:28:29.290
No, no, she she's she's not in academia, thank goodness.

00:28:29.530 --> 00:28:29.690
Okay.

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

00:28:36.410 --> 00:28:36.410
it.

00:28:36.650 --> 00:28:38.810
It sounds like you're gonna ask me about what research exists.

00:28:38.890 --> 00:28:41.690
I'm gonna get my uh I'm gonna about to type into Google here.

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

00:28:47.770 --> 00:28:51.900
like expectations about what the social world's going to be like, you know?

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,

00:28:58.140 --> 00:29:00.220
and and if you don't know of any, like what do you think?

00:29:00.300 --> 00:29:04.780
Do you think how how well do you think children at like the age of

00:29:05.900 --> 00:29:11.740
four or five, let's say, understand that they're that dispassionate

00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:17.530
parties are like really reliable uh for for not you know like

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

00:29:21.610 --> 00:29:25.450
turn to to help fix a conflict and that person would be fair.

00:29:26.010 --> 00:29:31.690
Hmm that's a really good question because it it it combines a couple

00:29:31.690 --> 00:29:35.210
different things that I think there is developmental research on.

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

00:29:41.210 --> 00:29:46.420
status kids are leaders in the social world with respect to uh

00:29:46.420 --> 00:29:49.140
negotiating conflicts like on the playground, right?

00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:54.900
Like some of my own work was informed by developmental work showing that um impartial third

00:29:54.900 --> 00:29:58.820
parties are sort of tolerated as resolvers of first-person conflict.

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

00:30:04.740 --> 00:30:10.650
higher status um kid um uh I guess then

00:30:10.890 --> 00:30:12.650
I guess I'm that kid in this example.

00:30:12.730 --> 00:30:14.570
Um I get to be the nice that is playing.

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

00:30:20.250 --> 00:30:26.170
explicit acknowledgement of the validity of an impartial third party, but

00:30:26.170 --> 00:30:29.770
at least the de facto action occurs.

00:30:29.930 --> 00:30:33.210
So that's at least one version of this answer.

00:30:33.370 --> 00:30:39.340
There's another one, which is um People like Paul Harris, long there's like a

00:30:39.340 --> 00:30:44.780
long sort of um history, well no super long, but of research on people

00:30:45.020 --> 00:30:47.500
being informed or uninformed.

00:30:47.660 --> 00:30:51.100
Uh um what's the word?

00:30:51.660 --> 00:30:54.940
Um, sort of testimonial or sources of evidence, right?

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

00:30:59.340 --> 00:31:00.940
good to eat or bad to eat.

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

00:31:04.730 --> 00:31:06.090
like me, et cetera, et cetera.

00:31:06.170 --> 00:31:07.610
And there is work on that.

00:31:07.850 --> 00:31:12.650
Again, that's not that's not right on what you're describing.

00:31:12.890 --> 00:31:18.650
Um, I mean, uh my own guess is that uh kids should

00:31:18.650 --> 00:31:24.010
not come prepared with all the details filled in because it really does depend on

00:31:24.500 --> 00:31:27.780
um what your well how third parties are gonna react.

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

00:31:32.820 --> 00:31:33.300
stuff.

00:31:33.460 --> 00:31:37.300
But how they react might depend on your status and your power.

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

00:31:42.980 --> 00:31:48.580
parent right now, a lot of parenting psychology is probably or one aspect of parenting

00:31:48.580 --> 00:31:54.430
psychology is really representing how kids' behavior is going to be

00:31:55.790 --> 00:32:01.550
seen by their peers or especially by the rest of the world and care

00:32:01.870 --> 00:32:02.430
about that.

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

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

00:32:11.310 --> 00:32:16.430
wrong, or like morality is part of like parenting tropes, is part of

00:32:17.240 --> 00:32:22.360
your job is the control system that's much more sensitive to the ambient third-party

00:32:22.360 --> 00:32:23.640
reactions to behaviors.

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,

00:32:28.040 --> 00:32:32.120
it's to keep them from falling off a third-party reaction cliff as well.

00:32:34.200 --> 00:32:34.760
But I don't know.

00:32:35.080 --> 00:32:36.520
That that's a non-answer.

00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:37.720
I don't know.

00:32:37.800 --> 00:32:37.880
Yeah.

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

00:32:42.770 --> 00:32:43.730
impartiality.

00:32:43.970 --> 00:32:48.130
I feel like there there's probably some really interesting stuff happening surrounding that

00:32:48.130 --> 00:32:48.370
question.

00:32:48.530 --> 00:32:53.410
I bet we have pretty sophisticated machinery for judging how impartial someone is likely to

00:32:53.410 --> 00:32:54.770
be if we're in a conflict.

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

00:32:58.850 --> 00:33:00.610
about who we want to mediate that conflict.

00:33:00.770 --> 00:33:02.690
I might say, nah, Mike is gonna be on your side.

00:33:02.850 --> 00:33:04.690
Mike, you're you've been friends with Mike for a long time.

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

00:33:08.530 --> 00:33:09.330
might have different turns.

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

00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:16.200
give us a a fair ruling.

00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:21.640
Um so I feel like we probably uh have pretty sophisticated judgments of how uh

00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:24.120
impartial someone is likely to be.

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

00:33:28.600 --> 00:33:33.560
said what paradigm based on their uh expected impartiality to particular sides of a

00:33:33.560 --> 00:33:33.880
conflict.

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.

00:33:38.650 --> 00:33:43.450
You know, probably the the full concept of impartiality is someone who is either not an

00:33:43.450 --> 00:33:48.810
ally of either of the two disputants or uh equally loyal to both of the disputants.

00:33:49.050 --> 00:33:54.810
Um is connected to the generic third party structure of the

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

00:33:59.290 --> 00:34:02.260
will react whether it's the physical or social world.

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

00:34:08.020 --> 00:34:09.940
stand on yeah?

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

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.

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

00:34:26.030 --> 00:34:31.710
you know, like maybe another way to put what I'm curious about is what

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,

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

00:34:42.030 --> 00:34:46.350
some moral, you know, there's some ambiguity, there's some ambiguity about, well, no, like

00:34:47.140 --> 00:34:49.940
it, you know, it was left there overnight.

00:34:50.020 --> 00:34:51.460
We don't even know that he it's his.

00:34:51.540 --> 00:34:53.140
You know, I I found it, you know.

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

00:34:58.340 --> 00:35:00.420
standing to say, no, like you need to give it back?

00:35:00.740 --> 00:35:02.100
Yeah, that's a great question.

00:35:02.340 --> 00:35:04.820
And I don't I don't know if there is research on that.

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

00:35:10.500 --> 00:35:16.350
party holds some potential for me of benefits or status

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

00:35:22.270 --> 00:35:28.190
picture of the world's larger status um or benefit structure such that I should

00:35:28.190 --> 00:35:28.670
believe them.

00:35:29.230 --> 00:35:34.030
So they're either an accurate messenger or they're actually a a provider of benefits.

00:35:34.110 --> 00:35:40.020
And otherwise, there's no um otherwise you would not expect an evolved system to but

00:35:40.180 --> 00:35:41.700
to listen to that.

00:35:44.340 --> 00:35:45.940
Yeah, that tracks for me.

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

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

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.

00:36:01.670 --> 00:36:01.910
Right.

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

00:36:06.790 --> 00:36:07.670
the kid's best friend.

00:36:07.750 --> 00:36:09.990
And I might, you know, react differently in the future.

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.

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.

00:36:16.630 --> 00:36:17.030
I don't know.

00:36:17.270 --> 00:36:19.030
Yeah, you think then that's oh yeah.

00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:19.190
Yeah.

00:36:19.270 --> 00:36:19.510
Go ahead.

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.

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

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

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:33.760
impose huge sanctions on me?

00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:35.680
And I think they're the same thing.

00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:41.370
I actually think what it means to be impartial is the stand-in for they

00:36:41.690 --> 00:36:43.690
there's an army behind them.

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

00:36:48.890 --> 00:36:52.330
to there will be costs, or or they can impose costs.

00:36:52.490 --> 00:36:57.450
And I think actually I think that's what interesting impartiality means, right?

00:36:57.690 --> 00:37:01.930
Like I think if you're a king, yeah, they're representative of the larger community.

00:37:02.300 --> 00:37:03.100
yeah, exactly.

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

00:37:09.100 --> 00:37:14.860
another peasant can collect enough peasant outrage to impose a

00:37:14.860 --> 00:37:20.220
cost on you, you're not gonna believe that an impartial peasant is the

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

00:37:24.670 --> 00:37:25.310
biased.

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

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.

00:37:35.470 --> 00:37:37.390
Um sort of the idea.

00:37:38.350 --> 00:37:39.150
Interesting.

00:37:39.390 --> 00:37:40.030
Yeah.

00:37:40.750 --> 00:37:44.350
Uh Mike, uh what what I've this has been really fun already.

00:37:44.430 --> 00:37:50.300
Um what what I heard you say in the beginning is that there's

00:37:50.300 --> 00:37:56.300
a cost-benefit logic to these constructs, and nobody was looking

00:37:56.300 --> 00:37:56.940
at them.

00:37:57.180 --> 00:37:59.980
Um, and that's sort of what we've been doing so far.

00:38:00.300 --> 00:38:06.300
Is that a description of sort of how your approach to doing social psychology or

00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:08.060
psychology generally has been?

00:38:08.220 --> 00:38:13.790
Like we haven't had a lot of uh social psychology, evolutionary social psychologists on

00:38:13.790 --> 00:38:14.110
yet.

00:38:14.270 --> 00:38:18.110
And um, and I don't want to get too meta-science-y, but we can.

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

00:38:22.190 --> 00:38:22.830
science.

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

00:38:28.910 --> 00:38:33.710
social uh psychologists do who take an evolutionary approach is there's a long tradition of

00:38:33.710 --> 00:38:39.300
studying a construct, A or B or C, And there's really mysteries or

00:38:39.300 --> 00:38:41.380
Guardian knots that are really hard.

00:38:41.540 --> 00:38:45.540
And then, but if you come from this other evolutionary perspective, you just get these

00:38:45.540 --> 00:38:47.860
insights or a different way of approaching it.

00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:52.180
My understanding is you've done that a lot to your credit.

00:38:52.340 --> 00:38:54.500
Is that a fairer um assessment?

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

00:38:59.940 --> 00:39:03.300
in the context of integrating evolution and social psychology?

00:39:03.860 --> 00:39:05.540
Well, first of all, thank you for that.

00:39:05.780 --> 00:39:10.830
Um I,

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

00:39:18.670 --> 00:39:22.910
characterize how social psychology operates in general.

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

00:39:28.110 --> 00:39:30.510
not a very complicated, complex thinker.

00:39:30.740 --> 00:39:35.620
I just kind of think like, well, people have incentives and they, you know, they are

00:39:35.620 --> 00:39:38.500
generally trying to follow those incentives.

00:39:38.980 --> 00:39:44.740
And the world, you know, has, you know, has these costs and

00:39:44.740 --> 00:39:47.380
benefits associated with different courses of action.

00:39:47.620 --> 00:39:53.300
And a lot of what our kind of emotional hardware and sort of

00:39:53.780 --> 00:39:59.490
social cognition really is about is tracking those costs and benefits and

00:39:59.490 --> 00:40:03.570
trying to bring us closer to the benefits and you know further away from the costs.

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

00:40:09.090 --> 00:40:09.410
know.

00:40:09.650 --> 00:40:15.490
And I think that does that's probably shaped a lot of the topics I study

00:40:15.970 --> 00:40:19.330
and and and kind of how I think about them.

00:40:19.570 --> 00:40:25.020
So you know like you know, you could take something like

00:40:25.820 --> 00:40:27.820
I didn't take like something like forgiveness.

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

00:40:32.940 --> 00:40:35.580
the world less vengeful?

00:40:35.740 --> 00:40:36.940
Like, what can we do?

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

00:40:42.780 --> 00:40:44.460
can't get over some hurt from their child?

00:40:44.540 --> 00:40:47.100
Like that's really all I really cared about, you know.

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

00:40:52.490 --> 00:40:53.530
again back to where we started.

00:40:53.610 --> 00:40:56.250
Like, I didn't feel like people were taking revenge very seriously.

00:40:56.410 --> 00:40:58.250
Like, my background's in counseling psychology.

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

00:41:02.010 --> 00:41:02.490
forgotten that.

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

00:41:07.450 --> 00:41:09.050
evolutionary social psychology community.

00:41:09.130 --> 00:41:09.770
I forget that, yeah.

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

00:41:14.170 --> 00:41:17.130
really like make counseling better for people?

00:41:17.370 --> 00:41:23.080
But what I realized in working on that was revenge was

00:41:23.080 --> 00:41:26.600
really viewed as this thing just to kind of be knocked out.

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

00:41:30.920 --> 00:41:31.880
toxic, it's negative.

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

00:41:36.200 --> 00:41:37.160
grudge, you know.

00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:42.750
Um but what I think got shortchanged in that, and even what gets

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

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

00:41:54.590 --> 00:42:00.430
people looking for a pathway to um um get the the

00:42:00.510 --> 00:42:06.110
the the the the costs to stop, you know, to keep to stop hemorrhaging

00:42:06.110 --> 00:42:09.070
costs because somebody else has harmed you in the past.

00:42:09.550 --> 00:42:12.440
And I just found that very useful to think about.

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.

00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:24.040
But I found this concept of the WTR, you know, welfare trade-off ratio.

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

00:42:28.200 --> 00:42:28.360
know.

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,

00:42:33.400 --> 00:42:39.190
you know, and one of the ways I can well, revenge might be one way

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

00:42:44.070 --> 00:42:46.230
and start producing benefits.

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

00:42:51.030 --> 00:42:53.190
people and how they're trying to be social.

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

00:42:58.310 --> 00:42:59.110
mean to each other.

00:42:59.190 --> 00:43:02.550
And, you know, but I I think I know really.

00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:09.040
uh I mean in a in a way that's not a non-glib way.

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

00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:20.880
lot of benefit from an evolutionary approach that's

00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:26.160
very sort of simple-mindedly says people have incentives and they're trying to follow them.

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.

00:43:30.630 --> 00:43:30.870
Yeah.

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

00:43:35.110 --> 00:43:35.990
emotional pain.

00:43:36.150 --> 00:43:38.470
And the I think to your credit, you're saying the same thing.

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

00:43:43.910 --> 00:43:46.390
sort of revenge is a bad thing, we just want to get it out.

00:43:46.470 --> 00:43:51.720
It doesn't take seriously the it's the analogue of

00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:53.720
saying somebody's in pain.

00:43:53.800 --> 00:43:56.360
And you wouldn't just want to say, well, let's treat their pain.

00:43:56.440 --> 00:43:58.680
You'd want to know what's causing the pain.

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.

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,

00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:09.720
right?

00:44:09.880 --> 00:44:12.520
It's it's just it's kind of evil in a way, right?

00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:16.200
Or uh maybe that's too strong, but it's it it could be.

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

00:44:20.610 --> 00:44:20.930
could kill them.

00:44:21.010 --> 00:44:21.810
That that is easier.

00:44:22.130 --> 00:44:22.290
Yeah.

00:44:22.530 --> 00:44:22.930
Exactly.

00:44:23.090 --> 00:44:23.250
Yeah.

00:44:23.330 --> 00:44:23.490
Yeah.

00:44:23.650 --> 00:44:23.970
Exactly.

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

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

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

00:44:37.330 --> 00:44:38.610
real costs happening.

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

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

00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:52.720
you're not pushing aside that there's actually something wrong.

00:44:53.200 --> 00:44:54.160
Yeah, that's right.

00:44:54.240 --> 00:44:54.560
Yeah.

00:44:54.800 --> 00:44:56.880
So I just wanted to understand that really.

00:44:57.200 --> 00:45:02.960
Um and the I you know, I a fair bit of my

00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:07.970
work has been about forgiveness and revenge for sure.

00:45:08.370 --> 00:45:13.650
And I think it affects how I think about motive uh uh

00:45:13.890 --> 00:45:15.570
pro-social motivations.

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

00:45:20.690 --> 00:45:21.010
bit.

00:45:21.250 --> 00:45:23.970
Um, been writing a little bit about envy.

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

00:45:30.180 --> 00:45:34.740
probably more than anything like the through line for my research over the past sort of

00:45:34.740 --> 00:45:36.500
couple decades or something like that.

00:45:36.820 --> 00:45:42.020
And is it that people are misperceiving why these emotions exist or what the functions are?

00:45:42.100 --> 00:45:45.460
And by doing so, we're harming making the world better?

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?

00:45:49.700 --> 00:45:50.340
Yeah.

00:45:50.980 --> 00:45:56.370
Um I am I'm at this point pretty upstream of effort to like to

00:45:56.370 --> 00:45:58.370
develop techniques and stuff like that.

00:45:58.690 --> 00:46:04.210
Uh but I I do think there's just kind of a um a

00:46:06.930 --> 00:46:11.730
vantage point that you kind of miss if you don't

00:46:13.010 --> 00:46:18.620
really take seriously the the

00:46:18.620 --> 00:46:24.620
idea that a lot of what we're doing

00:46:24.620 --> 00:46:30.460
in the social world is trying

00:46:30.460 --> 00:46:32.300
to just improve our lay.

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?

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

00:46:47.090 --> 00:46:53.090
know, conceivably, the whole point of it is to say, like, you know, being be

00:46:53.250 --> 00:46:58.850
being being close to you is like a

00:46:58.850 --> 00:47:00.370
propitious little place to be.

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

00:47:06.520 --> 00:47:12.280
off for being in it and um what I want to

00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:18.200
do is deepen our friendship so that I

00:47:18.200 --> 00:47:23.960
can continue to get benefit from that and hopefully that'll be by you feeling like

00:47:23.990 --> 00:47:27.430
I've got some, you know, I I got some, I have some value to you.

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

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

00:47:35.350 --> 00:47:36.550
feels pretty great.

00:47:36.790 --> 00:47:41.830
You know, which is like, um is it's it's yeah, good.

00:47:41.990 --> 00:47:42.390
I good.

00:47:42.470 --> 00:47:43.670
I'm glad it feels that way.

00:47:43.830 --> 00:47:49.360
I think the feeling of this telling us something really important about what's

00:47:49.600 --> 00:47:51.840
what's on offer, you know?

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

00:47:56.880 --> 00:47:58.000
language of cost and benefits.

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

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

00:48:09.440 --> 00:48:12.320
a lot of different emotions and social behaviors.

00:48:13.870 --> 00:48:14.510
I love that.

00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:17.310
That's uh like a hallmark card, gratitude.

00:48:17.470 --> 00:48:22.990
And then just we can put that on a Hallmark card and sell it.

00:48:23.150 --> 00:48:24.030
I think that's perfect.

00:48:25.150 --> 00:48:26.910
Can you imagine if you manage from you?

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

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

00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:43.320
a very small business there could be a very small business there an offshoot of cards

00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:49.240
against humanity oh there you go yeah that's a there's a song reading cards

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

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

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

00:49:03.230 --> 00:49:04.510
students with that actually.

00:49:05.310 --> 00:49:05.950
Yeah.

00:49:06.590 --> 00:49:07.950
All right, we'll edit that out.

00:49:12.190 --> 00:49:13.950
Uh yeah.

00:49:14.350 --> 00:49:16.830
Well, I I wanted to ask you, Mike.

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

00:49:20.590 --> 00:49:26.540
eliminate revenge or assume that revenge is always stupid or faulty or coming from

00:49:26.620 --> 00:49:28.700
um an irrational place.

00:49:28.940 --> 00:49:33.340
That often it's coming from real harms and you know, people, evolved creatures that they

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.

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

00:49:40.140 --> 00:49:42.220
pretty good reason to be pursuing that strategy.

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.

00:49:46.570 --> 00:49:49.370
You have to understand what people's reasons really are.

00:49:49.930 --> 00:49:54.730
Um so I wanted to ask uh about the dark side of forgiveness.

00:49:54.890 --> 00:49:58.170
Um, because you know, we all know the dark side of punishment.

00:49:58.250 --> 00:50:00.810
Um, it's it's very visible uh to us.

00:50:00.970 --> 00:50:03.050
But the dark side of forgiveness is less visible.

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

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.

00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:14.820
That would be a case where forgiveness would be bad.

00:50:15.060 --> 00:50:17.300
It would be good for me to get out of that relationship.

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

00:50:21.620 --> 00:50:25.620
to forgive the bullies because that's just gonna perpetuate the bullying.

00:50:25.860 --> 00:50:31.860
Um and so I I think too often psychologists slip into this view that like

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

00:50:36.590 --> 00:50:37.470
no reason behind them.

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

00:50:41.630 --> 00:50:45.070
get rid of all all these negative emotions, get rid of suffering.

00:50:45.230 --> 00:50:49.790
Uh and that's just a wrong headed way of of viewing the situation.

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

00:50:54.750 --> 00:50:55.630
too far?

00:50:56.520 --> 00:50:57.400
Yeah, I do.

00:50:57.480 --> 00:51:00.520
I do think there's a way of taking taking it too far.

00:51:00.600 --> 00:51:03.400
And I do I do think there's a dark side.

00:51:06.760 --> 00:51:12.680
So you know I I I think of forgiveness probably as

00:51:12.680 --> 00:51:13.800
like the product of a system.

00:51:13.960 --> 00:51:19.810
And the system seems to want um access to benefits of

00:51:19.810 --> 00:51:24.050
a relationship um uh

00:51:26.930 --> 00:51:32.370
short of imposing retaliatory harm on the you know so um

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

00:51:38.690 --> 00:51:43.620
it and so in forgiving i'm indicating my willingness to

00:51:44.260 --> 00:51:49.060
resume relating to you that harm sort of

00:51:49.060 --> 00:51:50.500
notwithstanding.

00:51:51.540 --> 00:51:57.220
So I I think okay.

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

00:52:02.820 --> 00:52:04.420
figured out for myself.

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

00:52:10.850 --> 00:52:12.530
consistent about this, I don't think, either.

00:52:12.610 --> 00:52:14.770
Now I've written about this stuff.

00:52:15.250 --> 00:52:21.250
So if forgiveness is really

00:52:23.330 --> 00:52:28.040
basically coming out of a system that wants to restore

00:52:29.080 --> 00:52:35.000
or preserve a favorable benefit-cost ratio associated with

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:40.520
a relationship short of imposing retaliatory harm, then

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

00:52:49.510 --> 00:52:55.110
to exercise it in some relationships, in bad relationships, just says

00:52:55.110 --> 00:53:01.110
something very tough to accept about the forgiver situation position in that

00:53:01.110 --> 00:53:01.990
relationship.

00:53:02.710 --> 00:53:08.630
You know, like it you the example you use,

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

00:53:13.500 --> 00:53:16.700
forgiving this person, you keep forgiving this person, you keep forgiving this person.

00:53:16.860 --> 00:53:22.780
Like one one response would be like, no, I truly am just willing to accept

00:53:22.780 --> 00:53:23.500
this, you know.

00:53:23.580 --> 00:53:29.580
Like I my love for this person exceeds this ridicule I have to get every,

00:53:29.660 --> 00:53:34.060
you know, you know, or whatever, this this verbal abuse or God forbid, you know, emotional

00:53:34.060 --> 00:53:35.420
abuse, physical abuse.

00:53:36.270 --> 00:53:38.990
And so I'm going to continue to do that.

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

00:53:47.070 --> 00:53:48.350
the alternatives here?

00:53:48.510 --> 00:53:54.510
You know, you know, I, you know, I'm

00:53:54.510 --> 00:54:00.110
dependent on my partner for all these benefits that come my way and to leave those

00:54:00.110 --> 00:54:00.750
behind.

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,

00:54:05.780 --> 00:54:06.500
like, what?

00:54:06.660 --> 00:54:08.100
Like, where am I gonna live?

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,

00:54:13.140 --> 00:54:16.020
like the abuse will just get worse, you know.

00:54:16.180 --> 00:54:22.180
So, like, maybe over the long run, by not accepting this, not forgiving it, and

00:54:22.180 --> 00:54:23.700
just like cutting the relationship off.

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

00:54:27.550 --> 00:54:31.710
gotta go through two or three years of things being really bad before that.

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

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

00:54:42.350 --> 00:54:45.070
out there living apart from this person, you know.

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

00:54:51.540 --> 00:54:57.540
trying to come to some better, like more you know, rounded out

00:54:57.540 --> 00:54:58.420
way of thinking about it.

00:54:58.580 --> 00:55:04.260
But like maybe forgiveness just kind of is in that

00:55:04.260 --> 00:55:09.620
situation, and what it tells us is this person's again, this person's

00:55:09.620 --> 00:55:12.100
incentives are like this.

00:55:12.260 --> 00:55:17.630
Well, this person's incentives lead them towards something that from the

00:55:17.630 --> 00:55:22.350
outside really doesn't look very attractive, you know, and looks like it's really

00:55:22.350 --> 00:55:22.910
unpleasant.

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

00:55:28.670 --> 00:55:33.150
that person having to be it that to be in such dire circumstances, you know.

00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:39.800
um yeah yeah so you know you might it

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

00:55:45.800 --> 00:55:51.480
what looks like just like an irrational faithfulness to a terrible relationship you know it

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

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

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

00:56:05.070 --> 00:56:06.590
their incentive map looks.

00:56:06.750 --> 00:56:08.510
You know, we just kind of can't see.

00:56:08.670 --> 00:56:09.310
So yeah.

00:56:11.150 --> 00:56:11.310
Yeah.

00:56:11.390 --> 00:56:12.030
Oh no go ahead.

00:56:12.110 --> 00:56:12.270
Sorry.

00:56:12.430 --> 00:56:12.990
No please.

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

00:56:18.270 --> 00:56:24.240
the clinical intervention that's effective and efficacious would be those

00:56:24.240 --> 00:56:29.280
situations where the person has really low self-esteem, which is just that they believe

00:56:29.280 --> 00:56:32.960
their market value in the social world is much lower than it is objectively.

00:56:33.200 --> 00:56:35.520
And that will happen for some people.

00:56:35.840 --> 00:56:37.680
But that's not every case, right?

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

00:56:42.400 --> 00:56:44.160
perceiving their situation.

00:56:44.560 --> 00:56:47.040
Um, and yeah, so yeah.

00:56:48.560 --> 00:56:49.120
Right.

00:56:50.070 --> 00:56:55.910
Interestingly, it seems like it's the I don't know if this is

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

00:57:01.990 --> 00:57:07.830
I I think the statutes have come to recognize that

00:57:08.710 --> 00:57:12.900
well, I think I think dates

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

00:57:20.180 --> 00:57:20.820
not sure.

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

00:57:27.060 --> 00:57:27.780
other, right?

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

00:57:33.950 --> 00:57:34.750
least detain them.

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.

00:57:38.830 --> 00:57:43.550
If they just themselves are convinced that there's a battery situation, even if the

00:57:43.550 --> 00:57:46.510
potential victim is saying, no, no, no, nothing like that happened, right?

00:57:46.750 --> 00:57:47.470
Right, right.

00:57:47.950 --> 00:57:53.870
So I think that points to a very interesting situation where

00:57:53.950 --> 00:57:59.860
low, like, like suppose we have an intimate partner violence

00:57:59.860 --> 00:58:00.180
situation.

00:58:00.340 --> 00:58:01.780
At least that's what the police suspect.

00:58:01.860 --> 00:58:04.020
They show up to your house, it's been noisy and all that.

00:58:05.780 --> 00:58:11.460
The fact that the cops will make this judgment when

00:58:11.700 --> 00:58:17.460
the partner they believe to have been battered will not, I think

00:58:17.780 --> 00:58:23.550
really points to a kind of an understanding in the in the

00:58:23.630 --> 00:58:29.070
in an understanding in the law that um

00:58:30.270 --> 00:58:36.270
people individual people have incentives that will lead them to

00:58:37.310 --> 00:58:43.150
um deny harms that we we as the state really care about yeah

00:58:44.100 --> 00:58:50.020
Um, and I guess there's a value judgment there, which is that we as

00:58:50.020 --> 00:58:56.020
the state believe the totality of the interests of the world are

00:58:56.020 --> 00:59:01.940
such that this the the the partner we perceive to be the batterer should be

00:59:01.940 --> 00:59:04.500
removed from this household.

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.

00:59:11.110 --> 00:59:11.430
Right.

00:59:11.590 --> 00:59:11.910
Yeah.

00:59:12.310 --> 00:59:16.230
So it's like it's this conflict there of, you know,

00:59:18.230 --> 00:59:23.190
um what the totality of the state views is the state's interests in this particular

00:59:23.190 --> 00:59:24.550
terrible situation.

00:59:24.710 --> 00:59:28.950
And like maybe also the timescale over which they think kind of those costs and benefits

00:59:28.950 --> 00:59:34.900
are going to kind of run, run out, run, percolate out versus those of

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

00:59:40.340 --> 00:59:42.980
different, probably is not thinking about the interest of the state.

00:59:43.060 --> 00:59:44.900
They're thinking about their own interests.

00:59:45.060 --> 00:59:46.820
And they're much more thinking about now.

00:59:46.980 --> 00:59:48.740
They're thinking about right now.

00:59:49.060 --> 00:59:54.340
Like, what are gonna be the consequences of me saying, Yeah, yeah, my intimate partner has

00:59:54.340 --> 00:59:59.140
been beating me, you know, has been battering me, or you know, has been, you know,

00:59:59.380 --> 01:00:00.420
battering my kid.

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.

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

01:00:10.750 --> 01:00:15.870
immediately than these, you know, representatives of the state are, which they're thinking

01:00:15.870 --> 01:00:21.310
about not just that couple of people, but also what's the state's interest in

01:00:21.310 --> 01:00:26.750
preventing intimate partner violence and every you know, and and the the safe, you know,

01:00:26.830 --> 01:00:29.870
the long-term safety of even this individual person.

01:00:30.600 --> 01:00:34.040
So they're not probably thinking about the I don't know.

01:00:34.120 --> 01:00:40.040
Again, like this that that battered partner is

01:00:40.040 --> 01:00:45.880
seeing his or her life, you know, seeing their life from a

01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:47.720
very different perspective.

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

01:00:52.520 --> 01:00:54.120
coming out of a partner's mouth, right?

01:00:54.200 --> 01:00:55.880
When they when you show up at their doorstep.

01:00:56.250 --> 01:00:56.410
Yeah.

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

01:01:00.410 --> 01:01:02.730
these extreme tail-end distribution cases.

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

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

01:01:13.210 --> 01:01:19.100
where he's a the the victim of the abuse becomes the lapdog of the abuser

01:01:19.340 --> 01:01:25.260
because the abuse creates the cycle of lowering the perceived value on the on the part

01:01:25.260 --> 01:01:28.220
of the abusee, abused person.

01:01:28.540 --> 01:01:34.380
So I imagine like there's an overrepresentation of if you are being abused and

01:01:34.380 --> 01:01:40.060
the state is involved, many times that perception of the from the abused

01:01:40.380 --> 01:01:46.130
person has been um corroded in the sense of like this

01:01:46.210 --> 01:01:52.210
the person who's been abusing them has been basically conferring or

01:01:52.210 --> 01:01:57.010
presenting a landscape, cost-benefit landscape of I'm the only one who will convey any

01:01:57.010 --> 01:02:01.010
benefits to you, you're worthless, you have no alternatives.

01:02:01.410 --> 01:02:05.650
And if you even try to get help, I'm going to punish you.

01:02:05.970 --> 01:02:11.000
And the state, I mean, this is the charitable interpretation interpretation of the state's

01:02:11.080 --> 01:02:13.320
um ignoring the abused person.

01:02:13.480 --> 01:02:19.240
This is the charitable version, is that person is a readout of a

01:02:19.240 --> 01:02:25.160
situation where we haven't gotten involved and we are going to exert the costs on

01:02:25.160 --> 01:02:29.320
the abuser and we're gonna convey benefits on the abused person that the abused person

01:02:29.320 --> 01:02:31.960
doesn't perceive yet because we hadn't gotten involved yet.

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

01:02:36.430 --> 01:02:38.030
beginning, you know, until the yeah.

01:02:38.430 --> 01:02:39.630
I think there is a charitable read.

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

01:02:45.150 --> 01:02:50.510
head is um it it's a situation in which

01:02:51.070 --> 01:02:55.550
um it is very, very difficult to know what the right call would be.

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

01:03:00.040 --> 01:03:01.080
right call to make?

01:03:01.240 --> 01:03:03.320
You know, because that is absolutely true.

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

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

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

01:03:20.280 --> 01:03:21.000
thrive.

01:03:21.320 --> 01:03:26.930
Even even if even as this relationship erodes, and you know,

01:03:27.010 --> 01:03:33.010
and even as even you know, we can there there are ways to

01:03:33.010 --> 01:03:38.850
address this wrong, which we think is happening, that will provide benefits for you,

01:03:39.010 --> 01:03:41.250
make it a net gain for you.

01:03:41.730 --> 01:03:47.570
Um, on the premise that even through this initial really

01:03:47.570 --> 01:03:50.690
period of extreme risk, we're also going to be able to take care of you.

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

01:03:56.980 --> 01:03:57.300
call.

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

01:04:03.460 --> 01:04:08.340
up with the, you know, to deal with these complaints is a pretty sophisticated person, you

01:04:08.340 --> 01:04:14.340
know, who's done is does a pretty good job of reading nonverbals and threat assessments

01:04:14.340 --> 01:04:20.270
and safety assessments and, you know, they're they're out there, you know,

01:04:20.350 --> 01:04:23.790
we hope exercising a lot of wisdom and discernment about these things.

01:04:23.950 --> 01:04:28.350
Because and they know this stuff very well.

01:04:28.510 --> 01:04:33.870
Like, you know, relationships have you know of all sorts, you know,

01:04:34.350 --> 01:04:36.510
have real risks associated with them.

01:04:39.300 --> 01:04:39.700
Yeah.

01:04:42.660 --> 01:04:42.900
Yeah.

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

01:04:49.140 --> 01:04:54.340
of thinking from an evolutionary perspective, I feel like I'm continually led down this

01:04:54.340 --> 01:04:58.660
path of more of just a tragic view of the human condition.

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

01:05:04.870 --> 01:05:07.030
world, they're just really hard.

01:05:07.270 --> 01:05:09.510
And they're they're really hard for a reason.

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

01:05:13.750 --> 01:05:15.350
for themselves and their family.

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.

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

01:05:24.870 --> 01:05:30.560
their families, they just sometimes collide in ways that create, you know, bad outcomes.

01:05:30.880 --> 01:05:36.720
And um it it is it is sobering to take that perspective, just just really get

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

01:05:41.840 --> 01:05:43.120
and easy fixes.

01:05:43.280 --> 01:05:47.200
And at best you can make marginal improvements with a thorough understanding of the

01:05:47.200 --> 01:05:50.320
situation, but that's often the best we can do.

01:05:50.560 --> 01:05:52.400
There's not going to be a magic bullet.

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,

01:05:57.970 --> 01:05:58.930
between groups.

01:05:59.170 --> 01:06:00.610
We can try to reduce it.

01:06:00.690 --> 01:06:01.650
We can try to mitigate it.

01:06:01.730 --> 01:06:07.090
We can try to create incentive structures that lessen its costs or channel it in better

01:06:07.090 --> 01:06:07.810
directions.

01:06:08.050 --> 01:06:14.050
But I think thinking about it in a more tragic way may

01:06:14.370 --> 01:06:18.290
be a better lens through which to see these issues.

01:06:19.620 --> 01:06:22.420
I David, I really re resonate with that.

01:06:22.660 --> 01:06:28.420
Um it it would I'm really glad no one ever

01:06:28.420 --> 01:06:33.780
asks me to set any policies of any kind because I I would be so

01:06:33.780 --> 01:06:39.620
paralyzed with with worrying about like the second order effects of

01:06:39.620 --> 01:06:45.530
things and not really being able to anticipate people's incentives, you know, and how

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,

01:06:49.450 --> 01:06:54.010
like, you know, the the fact, you know, if the faculty policies and policies and procedures

01:06:54.010 --> 01:06:57.930
were changed in just this way, like what would be the total effects of this thing

01:06:57.930 --> 01:06:59.210
percolating through the system?

01:06:59.290 --> 01:07:04.890
Or I'm on this committee, it's called the Undergraduate Council, and we we approve.

01:07:05.130 --> 01:07:08.570
I teach at UC San Diego down the street from you.

01:07:09.200 --> 01:07:15.200
And we approve every curricular change

01:07:15.200 --> 01:07:19.680
in every department and every major and every program on campus that involves

01:07:19.680 --> 01:07:20.800
undergraduates.

01:07:21.120 --> 01:07:26.960
And like university committee work usually gets

01:07:26.960 --> 01:07:28.560
panned as being pretty unpleasant.

01:07:28.960 --> 01:07:29.760
I love this committee.

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

01:07:35.280 --> 01:07:40.810
decisions that, you know individual departments are are making about us, you know, like a

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

01:07:44.570 --> 01:07:45.370
Department of Chemistry?

01:07:45.450 --> 01:07:51.050
And it's like, wow, this is going to affect thousands of students, you know, like,

01:07:51.530 --> 01:07:54.330
and you know, how how will it affect them?

01:07:54.410 --> 01:07:58.090
And how will it affect the universities, you know, the bottom line or our competitiveness

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,

01:08:02.330 --> 01:08:04.330
in the in the job market when they graduate?

01:08:04.490 --> 01:08:10.360
And, you know, the you know, I'm not I'm not making

01:08:10.360 --> 01:08:15.000
laws about, you know, how the police should intervene in, you know, disputes at in, you

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:16.280
know, at people's doorsteps.

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

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

01:08:25.320 --> 01:08:28.120
something, you know, in an ampersand or something like that.

01:08:28.440 --> 01:08:34.430
So um I I'm really all to say, David, I I agree

01:08:34.430 --> 01:08:34.910
with you.

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

01:08:40.350 --> 01:08:45.790
guys, um, I've gotten more and more um just like humble, I think,

01:08:46.270 --> 01:08:52.030
about what at least you know, a naive person like

01:08:52.030 --> 01:08:57.880
me could actually accomplish in making policies for larger groups of people,

01:08:58.120 --> 01:08:58.680
you know.

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

01:09:04.120 --> 01:09:05.160
of my own life.

01:09:05.720 --> 01:09:06.840
Really, you know.

01:09:07.240 --> 01:09:07.480
Yeah.

01:09:09.400 --> 01:09:11.320
Really seriously, seriously.

01:09:11.960 --> 01:09:17.720
And um so I I do I do think I've gotten more of that

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

01:09:22.770 --> 01:09:27.090
convictions very, very lightly, you know, on a lot of things.

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

01:09:32.050 --> 01:09:33.410
is gonna work out.

01:09:34.130 --> 01:09:36.370
You know, so yeah, right.

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,

01:09:41.010 --> 01:09:43.170
a few hundred million people together in a single country.

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

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

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

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

01:10:04.040 --> 01:10:06.410
i do think it's very consistent with that Yeah.

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

01:10:11.050 --> 01:10:13.210
is sort of like, no, no, no, I'm here to help.

01:10:13.370 --> 01:10:15.370
You know, and they're just like, no, no, no, I'm here to help.

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

01:10:21.450 --> 01:10:27.450
the the TED talk, um is is it's the currency of

01:10:28.090 --> 01:10:32.600
there's a cheap way to get help, to provide help.

01:10:32.680 --> 01:10:34.360
We're the people who provide help.

01:10:34.520 --> 01:10:35.560
This is what help is.

01:10:35.720 --> 01:10:38.840
You don't need to understand the problem or the situation.

01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:43.400
You don't have to invest in the social support of the abused mother.

01:10:43.640 --> 01:10:49.480
You don't have to help her, you know, get groceries cheaply or provide child care

01:10:49.720 --> 01:10:51.720
or make these sacrifices, right?

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,

01:10:58.170 --> 01:11:00.410
you know, like cheat codes in a video game.

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

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

01:11:10.330 --> 01:11:10.970
are here to help.

01:11:11.050 --> 01:11:14.090
And then, you know, the people who need help are like, okay, how?

01:11:14.360 --> 01:11:16.360
And like, no, no, no, we're here to help you, you know.

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

01:11:19.960 --> 01:11:20.120
you.

01:11:20.200 --> 01:11:21.240
You know, like it's the same thing.

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?

01:11:24.200 --> 01:11:24.360
Right.

01:11:24.760 --> 01:11:28.920
It's that same mentality, but in a uh an academic setting, I think.

01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:29.640
Yeah.

01:11:30.040 --> 01:11:30.280
Yeah.

01:11:30.360 --> 01:11:33.240
I mean, and you know, on the other hand, like what's the alternative?

01:11:33.480 --> 01:11:37.000
You know, like to trying.

01:11:37.080 --> 01:11:40.680
And what's the alternative to trying to, you know, to improve these systems?

01:11:40.840 --> 01:11:45.030
Again, like just you just let them run and do do what they're gonna do.

01:11:45.190 --> 01:11:50.310
Meanwhile, people are you know continuing to get I don't know, this has gone dark.

01:11:50.470 --> 01:11:53.670
Uh yeah, I think this is a theme though in social science.

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

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

01:12:03.590 --> 01:12:07.830
psychologically framed problems are actually structural problems, right?

01:12:07.990 --> 01:12:12.240
Like the I think it's a different way to think about like psychology.

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

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

01:12:20.800 --> 01:12:22.240
content of their psychology Y.

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

01:12:26.080 --> 01:12:28.400
it's the no, you have to change the situation, right?

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?

01:12:33.440 --> 01:12:33.760
Right.

01:12:34.000 --> 01:12:35.600
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:12:35.760 --> 01:12:36.080
Yeah.

01:12:36.240 --> 01:12:42.110
We I often you know it to take it

01:12:42.110 --> 01:12:47.790
back to forgiveness, a lot of the therapies that

01:12:48.110 --> 01:12:53.710
I found wanting were basically about someone working on their own inner

01:12:53.710 --> 01:12:59.630
self, you know, like would you know, sort of like reframe the situation, you

01:12:59.630 --> 01:13:04.750
know, think more deeply about the benefits of having this person in your life, or or

01:13:04.750 --> 01:13:10.020
alternatively, like realize it's okay to not forgive everybody, you know.

01:13:10.260 --> 01:13:14.020
Um, but it's all like in the interior of your soul, you know.

01:13:14.180 --> 01:13:19.540
And the thing for me that I I found the most uh

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

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

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,

01:13:35.310 --> 01:13:38.510
like that's the thing that gets people to forgive.

01:13:38.670 --> 01:13:44.350
You know, it's like explicit requests for forgiveness that get like paid out in

01:13:44.670 --> 01:13:50.430
really changed behavior, or you know, a commitment of it seems a

01:13:50.430 --> 01:13:51.950
commitment to changing behavior.

01:13:52.030 --> 01:13:55.950
Like, and that's what changes people's attitudes toward other people.

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

01:14:01.620 --> 01:14:06.660
maybe focus much more on these intrapsychic or individual interventions.

01:14:06.980 --> 01:14:12.100
But, you know, if you can create situations that are conducive for the person who harmed

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

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

01:14:23.810 --> 01:14:27.410
be consequences as horrible if they're willing to own up to their behavior.

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

01:14:32.210 --> 01:14:34.850
like forgiveness happen.

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

01:14:38.770 --> 01:14:39.490
done wrong.

01:14:39.730 --> 01:14:42.610
And so that's that's a part that piece as well, you know.

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

01:14:48.480 --> 01:14:53.040
get our relationship, you know, get it get every get get ourselves together.

01:14:53.360 --> 01:14:56.160
Um, but you know, that in what does that involve?

01:14:56.240 --> 01:15:00.000
That involves me like acknowledging, yeah, I did actually do something that was really, you

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:01.200
know, really terrible to you.

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

01:15:07.210 --> 01:15:11.450
way that was like that was really tacky, you know, that was really insensitive.

01:15:11.930 --> 01:15:17.850
Um or um you know um I harmed

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

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

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

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.

01:15:37.340 --> 01:15:42.380
So there's a lot of barriers to actually sometimes to an offender apologize, you know.

01:15:42.540 --> 01:15:43.420
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:43.740 --> 01:15:48.780
Um, but that is for sure, like of the things we know, like an

01:15:48.850 --> 01:15:54.770
acknowledgement of responsibility and kind of um an acknowledgement that that's not

01:15:54.770 --> 01:16:00.770
the person you want to be, and concrete evidence that you you are willing, you know,

01:16:00.850 --> 01:16:02.930
that will back up this change of heart.

01:16:03.010 --> 01:16:05.970
Like those are the things that really promote forgiveness the best.

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

01:16:11.330 --> 01:16:11.730
price.

01:16:12.660 --> 01:16:13.860
Sometimes, you know.

01:16:14.900 --> 01:16:17.700
It raises the question of like apologies.

01:16:18.100 --> 01:16:19.940
What keeps them honest?

01:16:21.060 --> 01:16:26.660
We rely on a couple of different sources of evidence to figure out

01:16:26.660 --> 01:16:30.500
whether an apology or any other any apology is honest.

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,

01:16:36.180 --> 01:16:36.820
you know.

01:16:37.220 --> 01:16:42.570
And we probably turn to them in order of their the costliness of

01:16:42.570 --> 01:16:43.530
integrating them.

01:16:43.690 --> 01:16:48.250
So I can just rely on your words, you know, probably first and foremost.

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.

01:16:53.770 --> 01:16:59.770
You know, um you know, and if you seem sorry and contrite

01:16:59.930 --> 01:17:05.560
just with your words, that that's gonna go some distance, but obviously talk is cheap.

01:17:05.640 --> 01:17:09.640
So you might want to ask, like, well, what else is there to back that up?

01:17:09.800 --> 01:17:10.440
You know?

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.

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.

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,

01:17:25.160 --> 01:17:30.750
you know, given what I know about you, what's the likelihood this apology really marks,

01:17:31.070 --> 01:17:35.070
you know, a your intention to change your behavior.

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,

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

01:17:44.270 --> 01:17:48.030
likely to discount it, you know, and give you the benefit of the doubt.

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

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

01:17:58.040 --> 01:17:58.200
off.

01:17:58.280 --> 01:18:01.800
Or you didn't, you know, maybe you just didn't really quite understand his intentions

01:18:01.800 --> 01:18:02.120
properly.

01:18:02.280 --> 01:18:04.120
He wouldn't do that on purpose, you know.

01:18:04.360 --> 01:18:10.120
Um, so I would probably take that third party testimony into account, you know, um, and

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

01:18:14.760 --> 01:18:16.120
you seem to treat other people?

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,

01:18:20.360 --> 01:18:25.650
but uh other people's testimony about you, and obviously nonverbals.

01:18:26.050 --> 01:18:32.050
Um, and that's gonna get, I think, weighted by a couple things, or yeah,

01:18:32.210 --> 01:18:33.170
in some way.

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.

01:18:38.530 --> 01:18:42.930
One is just the cost, the potential risk I put myself in of

01:18:45.880 --> 01:18:48.200
By continuing the relationship with you.

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,

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

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,

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:10.750
I'm gonna If what you've done is serious enough

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

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

01:19:20.030 --> 01:19:20.510
friends anymore.

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

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

01:19:30.270 --> 01:19:32.110
happening a second time,

01:19:37.640 --> 01:19:41.000
So I'm probably gonna just like

01:19:43.400 --> 01:19:49.400
whether I believe you or not, is is gonna get multiplied

01:19:49.400 --> 01:19:53.960
against the, you know, the the the the severity of a the perceived harm.

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

01:19:58.040 --> 01:19:59.400
it again in the future.

01:19:59.790 --> 01:20:05.710
So I think we probably, like in general, for evolutionary reasons, probably

01:20:05.710 --> 01:20:09.630
have reasons to assume people tell us things that are accurate, you know.

01:20:09.950 --> 01:20:15.550
So like I think we have a bias toward just like assuming communications are accurate.

01:20:15.710 --> 01:20:18.110
Um, and then we take in these cues.

01:20:18.350 --> 01:20:23.390
So, like, you know, you're probably like your baseline credulity is probably something

01:20:23.390 --> 01:20:26.510
above zero for all human communications.

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,

01:20:33.060 --> 01:20:36.100
nonverbals, how other you've treated other people.

01:20:36.260 --> 01:20:42.180
And then also against that factor in, but what if, you know, if this

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

01:20:46.580 --> 01:20:47.220
could tolerate.

01:20:47.300 --> 01:20:51.140
So I think it's probably some kind of calculus involving all those factors.

01:20:52.470 --> 01:20:53.110
Interesting.

01:20:53.430 --> 01:20:59.430
It suggests that the evolutionary way of thinking about signaling games is in many

01:20:59.430 --> 01:21:01.350
ways too simple.

01:21:01.590 --> 01:21:04.550
That we often ask the question, what keeps a signal honest?

01:21:04.630 --> 01:21:07.350
And then we give an answer like, oh, it's costly signaling.

01:21:07.430 --> 01:21:10.310
And maybe the cost comes in the production of the signal.

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

01:21:14.550 --> 01:21:16.150
you're discovered to be lying.

01:21:17.670 --> 01:21:22.080
But the picture you're painting is much more sophisticated than that.

01:21:22.320 --> 01:21:27.920
It's not that there is like one straightforward cost that is produced with the

01:21:27.920 --> 01:21:29.440
signal or or later.

01:21:29.680 --> 01:21:35.280
It's really it's more of um an inference to the best explanation phenomenon

01:21:35.520 --> 01:21:40.480
where the recipient of the apology is weighing lots of different sources of evidence for

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

01:21:45.440 --> 01:21:49.370
information as possible that is, you know, all the information that's relevant to this

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.

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

01:21:59.130 --> 01:22:01.850
explanation involve the person doing it again?

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?

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.

01:22:13.120 --> 01:22:14.640
I shouldn't even make the calculation.

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

01:22:20.640 --> 01:22:23.840
be crossed again, then I might not even engage in the calculation.

01:22:24.160 --> 01:22:29.920
But if the transgression is more minor, then it's

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

01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:41.520
is a straightforward game theory of you know, was there a cost with the signal?

01:22:41.850 --> 01:22:42.490
Yeah.

01:22:43.610 --> 01:22:45.770
That's yeah, I th I think that's right.

01:22:45.850 --> 01:22:51.210
I I probably would uh um

01:22:51.850 --> 01:22:57.370
it it's tempting it's tempting to think about something like costly signaling theory and

01:22:57.370 --> 01:23:01.130
kind of because you think about signaling and then that's often where our minds go.

01:23:01.290 --> 01:23:07.290
But but I do I do think it's probably a little bit more useful

01:23:07.290 --> 01:23:13.160
to think of humans as you know testers of evidence

01:23:13.160 --> 01:23:18.920
and you know, collectors of evidence that are trying to in real time um just make

01:23:18.920 --> 01:23:21.560
inferences about how the world looks.

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,

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.

01:23:33.000 --> 01:23:36.790
You know, what are the costs of being wrong or the cost of being right?

01:23:37.030 --> 01:23:37.670
Base rate.

01:23:37.750 --> 01:23:38.870
You know, so what am I talking about?

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

01:23:44.390 --> 01:23:49.830
number of channels of information that you might bring together to even regression to the

01:23:49.830 --> 01:23:50.150
mean.

01:23:50.230 --> 01:23:53.590
If it was a blip, you can expect regression to the mean following the blip, right?

01:23:53.990 --> 01:23:54.630
Yes, exactly.

01:23:54.790 --> 01:23:55.670
Exactly.

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

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

01:24:04.460 --> 01:24:06.860
sense of what to expect in the future.

01:24:07.100 --> 01:24:07.420
Yeah.

01:24:07.660 --> 01:24:13.180
So um, and then you know, I often think it's really helpful with with communication

01:24:13.420 --> 01:24:19.310
to think about um how we you know think of people as

01:24:19.950 --> 01:24:25.230
um very simply as like um multi um

01:24:25.470 --> 01:24:31.230
multimodal sensory um uh phenomena and you

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

01:24:36.830 --> 01:24:41.280
nonverbal and we look a certain way and we have our emotions in a certain way.

01:24:41.360 --> 01:24:42.800
And then we say things too.

01:24:42.960 --> 01:24:48.720
And then we're trying to look for some integrative, you know, um,

01:24:48.880 --> 01:24:52.400
you know, some make some sort of integrated interference about what's out there, you know,

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

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

01:25:01.330 --> 01:25:02.850
just can't see that well.

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

01:25:07.730 --> 01:25:08.290
the day.

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

01:25:12.290 --> 01:25:12.530
way.

01:25:12.850 --> 01:25:18.610
So some of these channels just probably exert like force majeure, right, over the

01:25:18.610 --> 01:25:18.930
others.

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

01:25:23.090 --> 01:25:23.570
overwhelming.

01:25:23.730 --> 01:25:24.690
They're like acts of God.

01:25:24.770 --> 01:25:27.410
Like I'm not even going to consider other kinds of information.

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

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

01:25:37.080 --> 01:25:37.240
all.

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

01:25:43.400 --> 01:25:45.800
real-time decision making is probably really useful.

01:25:45.960 --> 01:25:48.280
It's a different level of analysis, obviously, right?

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

01:25:54.200 --> 01:25:58.090
sort of uh you know, zero sum competition with each other.

01:25:58.170 --> 01:25:58.330
Right.

01:25:58.810 --> 01:25:59.050
Yeah.

01:25:59.210 --> 01:25:59.610
Exactly.

01:25:59.690 --> 01:25:59.850
Yeah.

01:25:59.930 --> 01:26:02.010
No, I mean costly it's not that costly is wrong.

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

01:26:06.010 --> 01:26:08.490
evaluated by the signal recipient, right?

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

01:26:13.450 --> 01:26:18.090
other sources of evidence as well that that could factor into the recipient's decision.

01:26:18.730 --> 01:26:19.290
Yeah.

01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:19.920
Right.

01:26:20.080 --> 01:26:20.160
Yeah.

01:26:20.320 --> 01:26:25.760
And and and the one difference from a purely scientific perspective is that even the uh

01:26:25.920 --> 01:26:31.680
evidence accumulation you would expect is an evolved cost-benefit decision.

01:26:31.840 --> 01:26:37.120
So, in other words, like people will only continue to collect information if you think that

01:26:37.120 --> 01:26:40.080
the information I'm going to get is going to change what I do.

01:26:40.240 --> 01:26:40.400
Right.

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

01:26:44.930 --> 01:26:48.770
it's about like the evolved logic of like ignoring information, right?

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

01:26:53.890 --> 01:26:57.970
uh an abused spouse whose partner's cheating on her, for example.

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

01:27:03.250 --> 01:27:04.370
change what she's gonna do.

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

01:27:09.840 --> 01:27:15.680
it becomes common knowledge she knows that you know this person is um imposing

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

01:27:20.720 --> 01:27:26.080
logic to even um whether or not information is pursued or not um

01:27:26.320 --> 01:27:32.320
depending on cost and benefits yeah uh so are you saying that this is that

01:27:32.400 --> 01:27:36.800
that the search for the the very search for information is

01:27:38.710 --> 01:27:44.630
uh that I might avoid f looking for certain kinds of information

01:27:44.790 --> 01:27:48.710
because having it just like is is this an argument for like strategic ignorance?

01:27:48.790 --> 01:27:49.350
Is that what you're thinking?

01:27:49.670 --> 01:27:49.830
Exactly.

01:27:49.910 --> 01:27:50.550
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:27:50.630 --> 01:27:50.950
Exactly.

01:27:51.030 --> 01:27:51.590
Yeah, yeah.

01:27:51.670 --> 01:27:52.070
Yeah.

01:27:52.310 --> 01:27:52.630
Hm.

01:27:52.870 --> 01:27:58.470
And it's uh it's also, I think it conveys the overlooked point that

01:27:58.630 --> 01:28:00.790
information search is itself costly.

01:28:01.030 --> 01:28:01.670
Yeah, right.

01:28:01.990 --> 01:28:02.710
And a signal.

01:28:02.870 --> 01:28:03.590
And a signal too.

01:28:03.750 --> 01:28:04.550
And a signal as well.

01:28:04.710 --> 01:28:04.950
Yeah.

01:28:05.030 --> 01:28:05.350
Yeah.

01:28:05.600 --> 01:28:09.040
Which which is yeah, adds even more complexity to it.

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

01:28:13.360 --> 01:28:16.240
information just comes to us and we have the information and we make a decision.

01:28:16.320 --> 01:28:21.280
But no, acquiring the information is itself a decision that must also be evaluated with

01:28:21.680 --> 01:28:23.280
with the logic of costs and benefits.

01:28:23.680 --> 01:28:23.840
Yeah.

01:28:23.920 --> 01:28:26.720
Yeah Michael, don't worry I'm gonna start rummaging through your email.

01:28:26.800 --> 01:28:27.280
Don't worry.

01:28:29.360 --> 01:28:31.600
I one I I have a hard time finding them.

01:28:31.680 --> 01:28:37.610
So if you find anything good definitely I

01:28:37.610 --> 01:28:39.450
still can't get Gmail to do what I want it to do.

01:28:39.610 --> 01:28:39.930
Oh my god.

01:28:40.250 --> 01:28:40.890
A decade later.

01:28:41.370 --> 01:28:41.770
I love this.

01:28:41.850 --> 01:28:43.930
I I want to ask one other question about forgiveness.

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

01:28:48.250 --> 01:28:50.570
wounds and like time uh helps forgive.

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.

01:28:55.290 --> 01:28:57.850
Like that's also a poor horrible card.

01:28:58.010 --> 01:29:01.460
Um But have you thought about why that is?

01:29:01.620 --> 01:29:02.580
That's that's one thing.

01:29:02.900 --> 01:29:08.740
Even when you and I were doing this forgiveness and revenge little thing, I was thinking

01:29:08.900 --> 01:29:11.780
this the time course of things I always find interesting.

01:29:12.100 --> 01:29:17.780
And especially as scientists, we we often neglect because it's hard to

01:29:17.780 --> 01:29:19.540
measure things across time.

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

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

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

01:29:36.690 --> 01:29:37.330
okay.

01:29:37.970 --> 01:29:41.570
Um, and it it it seems to be correct.

01:29:41.650 --> 01:29:42.370
Maybe it's not.

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

01:29:47.090 --> 01:29:49.490
true, why why is that true?

01:29:49.650 --> 01:29:52.050
Have you yeah, I'm curious what you think about that.

01:29:53.570 --> 01:29:59.080
Um about 15 years ago,

01:30:00.360 --> 01:30:02.520
I got really interested in this question.

01:30:02.760 --> 01:30:03.640
Oh, cool.

01:30:04.040 --> 01:30:09.880
And um I started oh the the

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

01:30:15.160 --> 01:30:20.280
wondering like is forgiveness sort of like forgetting?

01:30:20.910 --> 01:30:26.510
And you know, if you think over a long time course, you know, that single, because

01:30:26.670 --> 01:30:32.670
structurally it looks a little bit like something that would be kind of like like the

01:30:32.670 --> 01:30:35.630
connection between forgetting and forgiving.

01:30:36.430 --> 01:30:39.310
There's an analogy there that's that seems good.

01:30:40.510 --> 01:30:43.460
There's a single punctate thing that happens, right?

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

01:30:49.060 --> 01:30:51.460
cup, you know, like so the single event happens.

01:30:51.620 --> 01:30:57.380
And the question is, you know, can you, you know, for how long will will

01:30:57.380 --> 01:31:02.900
this will will that event, you know, continue to be something, that pairing be something

01:31:02.900 --> 01:31:07.220
that you can access, you know, that you can withdraw from long-term memory.

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.

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

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

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

01:31:28.410 --> 01:31:33.500
and vengeful and vengeful and vengeful so I got to thinking like well,

01:31:35.020 --> 01:31:40.780
the is does this analogy have anything like scientifically useful to it?

01:31:41.340 --> 01:31:47.340
And I thought one interesting thing to do would be simply to see

01:31:47.660 --> 01:31:52.700
if forgiving follows the psychophysical law that forget

01:31:53.020 --> 01:31:55.340
forgetting seems to follow.

01:31:55.590 --> 01:32:00.550
And we've known for well over a hundred years now that

01:32:03.030 --> 01:32:08.630
the likelihood of recalling an event decays

01:32:09.270 --> 01:32:11.590
down toward an asymptote.

01:32:11.910 --> 01:32:17.110
And so as time goes on, what's left becomes more and more stubborn.

01:32:17.270 --> 01:32:19.910
You know, the memory trace becomes more and more stubborn.

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

01:32:24.860 --> 01:32:25.100
there?

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

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.

01:32:36.540 --> 01:32:40.380
Um, part of this is just buried under the accretion of a million different events.

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

01:32:44.220 --> 01:32:45.340
actually don't forget anything.

01:32:45.420 --> 01:32:47.740
It's just that the interface, it's like it's always in there.

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

01:32:52.790 --> 01:32:55.190
forgiving forgetting is not really what's going on.

01:32:55.270 --> 01:32:56.710
There's just interference.

01:32:56.950 --> 01:32:57.590
Right.

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

01:33:03.990 --> 01:33:09.830
is like, you know, I harm somebody, you know, I harmed somebody on April

01:33:09.830 --> 01:33:15.760
9, 2026, and there's no like reservoir of other new

01:33:15.760 --> 01:33:17.680
stuff sitting on top of it yet.

01:33:17.920 --> 01:33:20.880
It's just a raw thing that I'm thinking about actively.

01:33:21.360 --> 01:33:27.280
And so it's just, it's just, you know, it's inflamed and

01:33:27.280 --> 01:33:32.000
it's acute and it's very, very present in consciousness.

01:33:32.270 --> 01:33:36.750
but perhaps there's something kind of like interference which happens, which is just the

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

01:33:42.750 --> 01:33:45.790
forths in relationships, including in that relationship.

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

01:33:52.190 --> 01:33:56.750
or 1% less hurt, 1% less sad or angry by the harm.

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.

01:34:01.390 --> 01:34:01.710
Yeah.

01:34:01.940 --> 01:34:07.380
And we found evidence, like in three, I think, very good

01:34:07.380 --> 01:34:12.580
longitudinal studies where we were measuring people day after day after day for a month or

01:34:12.580 --> 01:34:18.100
week after week after week for like 20 weeks, that forgiveness does obey this

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.

01:34:24.020 --> 01:34:26.420
You know, just like life is taking one percent of the pain away.

01:34:26.980 --> 01:34:32.610
And what's really cool is you know, people differ how much of that puck

01:34:32.770 --> 01:34:35.170
stuff's getting taken away every day.

01:34:35.570 --> 01:34:35.970
Right?

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

01:34:41.090 --> 01:34:42.130
virtually no decay at all.

01:34:42.290 --> 01:34:43.250
They just stay angry.

01:34:43.330 --> 01:34:49.170
You know, so like so like you can characterize the kinds of people who

01:34:49.490 --> 01:34:51.970
like let's just call that that's maybe that's forgiveness.

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

01:34:57.100 --> 01:34:59.980
know, and that's kind of how you would portray it as a memory person.

01:35:00.140 --> 01:35:02.540
Like, maybe that's kind of the forgetting curve, too.

01:35:03.180 --> 01:35:07.020
So that then becomes a parameter that describes people, you know.

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

01:35:12.620 --> 01:35:12.860
they like?

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

01:35:17.500 --> 01:35:21.180
be less painful, and they were accompanied by apologies.

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,

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

01:35:32.430 --> 01:35:37.470
quicker forgiver, but also features of these relationships that help them to go away.

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

01:35:43.470 --> 01:35:44.830
percent a day, half a percent a day.

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.

01:35:48.110 --> 01:35:48.270
Yeah.

01:35:48.540 --> 01:35:49.980
I'm so glad I asked that question.

01:35:50.060 --> 01:35:51.980
You're like the best person on earth to answer that.

01:35:52.060 --> 01:35:52.460
So thank you.

01:35:52.540 --> 01:35:53.980
That was a fantastic answer.

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

01:35:58.220 --> 01:35:58.380
it.

01:35:58.540 --> 01:36:01.580
So I that's interesting.

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

01:36:07.740 --> 01:36:12.270
general or who have who are worse at remembering things in general to be more forgiving

01:36:12.270 --> 01:36:15.630
people just as a byproduct of the fact that they're more forgetful?

01:36:15.870 --> 01:36:17.470
Would would you expect that as well?

01:36:17.790 --> 01:36:20.350
Yeah, I that is so great.

01:36:20.510 --> 01:36:21.790
That is such a great question.

01:36:21.870 --> 01:36:24.190
Nobody's looked at it as far as I'm aware.

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

01:36:30.510 --> 01:36:35.800
like um it it the the the for the the analogy to

01:36:35.800 --> 01:36:41.160
forgetting could be like not just an analogy, but there could actually be some

01:36:41.640 --> 01:36:44.840
mechanistic relationship between the two.

01:36:45.160 --> 01:36:51.080
Um where um you know perhaps there are people who

01:36:51.080 --> 01:36:55.870
simply don't have very good ability.

01:36:56.030 --> 01:37:01.150
Like, I mean, maybe maybe it's like episodic memory, just like you just are incapable

01:37:02.110 --> 01:37:06.350
of forming really strong emotion-lated episodic memories.

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

01:37:12.510 --> 01:37:18.000
may sound very ignorant, but like um, you know, maybe the emotions

01:37:18.000 --> 01:37:23.600
around a memory are for some people kind of disappear from them and it

01:37:23.600 --> 01:37:28.720
becomes more just like propositional knowledge or something like that.

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

01:37:33.840 --> 01:37:36.210
activate affect, you know.

01:37:36.450 --> 01:37:42.210
So maybe for some people, it's just like as time happens,

01:37:42.450 --> 01:37:47.650
when you recall recover a memory, it simply doesn't um

01:37:48.610 --> 01:37:54.610
you know that semantic content doesn't make its way to uh you know systems that

01:37:54.610 --> 01:37:58.530
support emotional responses, you know, or vice versa.

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

01:38:03.090 --> 01:38:08.820
memory, it much more efficiently recruits negative, you know, the uh you know

01:38:09.060 --> 01:38:11.860
brain centers that support negative emotions.

01:38:12.100 --> 01:38:15.300
Um could be something like the like that, you know.

01:38:15.460 --> 01:38:17.780
Um I don't know the answer though.

01:38:18.020 --> 01:38:23.700
Uh um it it it I also don't think I

01:38:24.180 --> 01:38:29.460
we've done any work to look at like whether interventions actively

01:38:30.050 --> 01:38:33.410
it can you know speed along that decay process.

01:38:33.730 --> 01:38:35.730
Um yeah.

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,

01:38:41.970 --> 01:38:45.890
you know, there's lots of research showing that like victimhood narratives are very uh

01:38:45.970 --> 01:38:49.410
useful at mobilizing a group politically, right?

01:38:49.490 --> 01:38:53.090
And each side of the political spectrum has their own victimhood narratives.

01:38:53.330 --> 01:38:58.400
Um Victimhood can be very good at coordinating a group to advance their interests.

01:38:58.720 --> 01:39:01.120
You know, there's that saying after 9-11, never forget.

01:39:01.200 --> 01:39:02.960
We should never forget this, right?

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

01:39:07.200 --> 01:39:07.680
never forget this.

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

01:39:12.560 --> 01:39:13.760
year after year.

01:39:13.920 --> 01:39:19.360
Um so it suggests to me that um we in some cases may want to actively

01:39:19.360 --> 01:39:24.390
counteract the forgetting insofar as the the memory of the

01:39:24.390 --> 01:39:30.230
transgression uh has benefits to us um either in mobilizing the group or or for for

01:39:30.230 --> 01:39:36.150
some other purpose and we may have to you know um create rituals, uh create

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

01:39:41.670 --> 01:39:42.310
and well.

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

01:39:47.880 --> 01:39:48.280
look at.

01:39:48.360 --> 01:39:48.600
Yeah.

01:39:48.920 --> 01:39:49.160
Yeah.

01:39:49.240 --> 01:39:53.240
I mean, absolutely at the group level, this this gets um

01:39:55.720 --> 01:39:58.760
instantiated all the time at a cultural level.

01:39:58.920 --> 01:40:04.920
You know, we remember a time when some other ethno-cultural or political group

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

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.

01:40:16.790 --> 01:40:22.550
Um, this is like classic culture of honor type stuff where it's like a hundred

01:40:22.550 --> 01:40:28.550
years ago, you know, your grandfather this guy over there insulted

01:40:28.550 --> 01:40:32.310
your grandfather's first wife, you know, or something like that.

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

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

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.

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

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,

01:41:00.860 --> 01:41:04.250
you know preventing ourselves from getting harmed again in the future, even though you

01:41:04.250 --> 01:41:07.530
weren't even alive when this act of aggression happened.

01:41:07.610 --> 01:41:09.690
They become kind of part of a national mythology.

01:41:10.490 --> 01:41:10.730
Yeah.

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

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

01:41:20.250 --> 01:41:24.810
like the Third Reich, you know, like the parliament building where there's like literally a

01:41:24.810 --> 01:41:29.940
memorial to the murdered, you know, um, you know, Sinti, for example, you know, in uh

01:41:30.260 --> 01:41:31.060
what's that word?

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,

01:41:37.380 --> 01:41:41.380
certain ethno-linguistic groups or whatever, you know, like literally on there, and you

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.

01:41:46.580 --> 01:41:50.020
There's clearly an acknowledgement of a collective guilt.

01:41:50.340 --> 01:41:55.890
Um, and for me at least, it was very contemporaneous with like, you know, a pretty

01:41:55.890 --> 01:41:57.170
functioning society.

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

01:42:02.690 --> 01:42:03.570
very mildly.

01:42:04.130 --> 01:42:10.050
Um, you know, like the memory of of imposing costs on others and accepting that, and

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

01:42:15.580 --> 01:42:20.940
collective memory of not just being the victims but the the the perpetrators of

01:42:20.940 --> 01:42:26.380
costs um it's not all bad to remember um these things yeah

01:42:27.100 --> 01:42:32.540
absolutely what are our

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

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

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

01:42:47.830 --> 01:42:48.230
stories.

01:42:48.470 --> 01:42:53.270
So some of those stories are gonna be about you know protecting ourselves against being

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

01:42:58.150 --> 01:42:59.510
things sometimes in the past.

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

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

01:43:09.340 --> 01:43:09.580
somebody.

01:43:09.820 --> 01:43:10.140
That's right.

01:43:10.540 --> 01:43:11.820
Not to be too political about it.

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

01:43:17.260 --> 01:43:21.660
perspective, the idea that the right way to have a political identity or s a national

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

01:43:26.300 --> 01:43:28.220
would be questionable personally, right?

01:43:28.300 --> 01:43:28.540
Yeah.

01:43:28.940 --> 01:43:29.180
Yeah.

01:43:29.340 --> 01:43:29.820
Yes.

01:43:30.140 --> 01:43:30.780
Right.

01:43:31.290 --> 01:43:31.850
Cool.

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

01:43:37.610 --> 01:43:37.850
here.

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?

01:43:43.130 --> 01:43:47.210
Um, which is one question we is our only mandatory question.

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.

01:43:53.600 --> 01:43:57.520
Has anyone ever said said that that that yeah you should have asked me this?

01:43:57.840 --> 01:43:58.320
Oh yeah.

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

01:44:03.440 --> 01:44:05.200
specific responses.

01:44:05.600 --> 01:44:09.680
Um I need a second to think every possible reaction.

01:44:10.000 --> 01:44:13.120
Yeah, and some people just say, Nope, you I think we covered we covered it all.

01:44:13.200 --> 01:44:14.240
Yeah, we covered this great.

01:44:14.560 --> 01:44:15.280
There's no wrong answer.

01:44:15.360 --> 01:44:15.520
Yes.

01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:16.320
Yeah.

01:44:17.120 --> 01:44:21.870
I I mean I'm very I'm very content with the conversation we had.

01:44:22.110 --> 01:44:24.110
I I'm embarrassed.

01:44:24.190 --> 01:44:28.110
I feel like I learned more from it um than than I gave you.

01:44:28.270 --> 01:44:30.910
I it was just so still it was just so stimulating.

01:44:31.310 --> 01:44:32.030
It was wonderful.

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.

01:44:37.070 --> 01:44:38.990
Um it's it's it's lovely.

01:44:39.310 --> 01:44:42.430
Um do you wait, we uh here is my question then.

01:44:42.590 --> 01:44:48.040
The closeout question is um some people we have on have interesting side gigs.

01:44:48.120 --> 01:44:49.400
Do you play music?

01:44:49.720 --> 01:44:50.360
Uh yes.

01:44:50.520 --> 01:44:51.000
Yes, I do.

01:44:51.160 --> 01:44:51.320
Yeah.

01:44:51.560 --> 01:44:53.480
Probably about that.

01:44:53.640 --> 01:44:53.800
Okay.

01:44:54.120 --> 01:44:55.800
Yeah, probably play too much, actually.

01:44:56.120 --> 01:44:57.000
Okay, no such thing.

01:44:57.160 --> 01:44:58.360
Can you tell us a little bit about that?

01:44:58.440 --> 01:45:00.120
We can always cut this out if you don't want to.

01:45:01.160 --> 01:45:06.970
Um yeah, I um I I play in

01:45:06.970 --> 01:45:09.050
two bands locally.

01:45:09.210 --> 01:45:15.050
One is a big um 9, 10, 11, 12 piece jazz

01:45:15.050 --> 01:45:16.330
fusion project.

01:45:17.610 --> 01:45:19.050
Do you know the band Snarky Puppy?

01:45:19.130 --> 01:45:19.850
Do you ever heard of them?

01:45:20.010 --> 01:45:20.410
Yes.

01:45:20.650 --> 01:45:23.130
Yeah, it's kind of like a Snarky Puppy project.

01:45:23.210 --> 01:45:28.660
It's like an amazing rhythm section with like just I play bass

01:45:28.900 --> 01:45:34.660
and the guitar player's incredible and the keyboard player is just burning and the drummers

01:45:34.820 --> 01:45:35.140
amazing.

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

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,

01:45:45.700 --> 01:45:46.820
amazing band.

01:45:50.170 --> 01:45:51.210
We'll put a link to the band.

01:45:51.370 --> 01:45:53.610
Are you guys on the camp or or Spotify?

01:45:53.690 --> 01:45:55.370
Are you guys uh Spotify?

01:45:55.450 --> 01:45:55.610
Yeah.

01:45:55.770 --> 01:45:57.930
And I mean, and app Apple Music and all that.

01:45:58.010 --> 01:45:59.370
They're called Star Sign.

01:45:59.690 --> 01:46:00.330
Awesome.

01:46:00.570 --> 01:46:02.970
And that's my that's actually my son's band.

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.

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

01:46:15.160 --> 01:46:15.720
a great time.

01:46:16.040 --> 01:46:17.560
What kind of bass do you have?

01:46:17.880 --> 01:46:21.720
Um a number of bass.

01:46:22.120 --> 01:46:23.080
Okay, never mind.

01:46:23.400 --> 01:46:25.400
Uh it'll pose questions.

01:46:29.960 --> 01:46:30.280
Yeah.

01:46:30.520 --> 01:46:36.520
I I've got um I've got a nineteen seventy-six Ivanes um black

01:46:36.520 --> 01:46:42.470
eagle, which um a screaming eagle and um which is

01:46:42.470 --> 01:46:47.750
like definitely seen better days um i have a fender uh jazz

01:46:47.990 --> 01:46:53.830
bass um tobacco sunburst that with and then i have this exact same bass

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

01:46:59.830 --> 01:47:05.180
have a jazz i have a fender precision bass And then I

01:47:05.180 --> 01:47:10.940
recently bought a um Ken Smith burner 5,

01:47:11.260 --> 01:47:16.540
um which was like definitely like middle-aged guilty pleasure.

01:47:16.700 --> 01:47:19.420
If you look it up, you'll you'll understand why Corvette, yeah.

01:47:19.660 --> 01:47:19.900
Yes.

01:47:21.340 --> 01:47:21.660
Yes.

01:47:22.460 --> 01:47:24.220
Can't play it, but I have one.

01:47:24.450 --> 01:47:24.690
Yeah.

01:47:24.850 --> 01:47:27.330
And then you said the other band is is what?

01:47:27.650 --> 01:47:30.370
I have a I have a band called Sweater Weather.

01:47:30.530 --> 01:47:33.330
Um I think that band's pretty much done now.

01:47:33.410 --> 01:47:37.330
You know, we were together four or five like bands come and go, you know.

01:47:37.810 --> 01:47:40.370
Um it's also we're also on Spotify.

01:47:40.610 --> 01:47:46.610
Um and but these days um mostly like I play with

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

01:47:50.770 --> 01:47:51.840
and that's awesome.

01:47:52.560 --> 01:47:53.120
It's lovely.

01:47:53.280 --> 01:47:53.840
It sounds great.

01:47:54.000 --> 01:47:55.760
And being your son's band, what a what a treat.

01:47:55.840 --> 01:47:57.120
What a it's a blast.

01:47:57.280 --> 01:47:58.080
It's a real blast.

01:47:58.240 --> 01:48:00.240
This is not a side hustle or a side gig.

01:48:00.320 --> 01:48:01.760
This is just pure pleasure for me.

01:48:02.000 --> 01:48:02.480
Wonderful.

01:48:02.640 --> 01:48:03.760
It's good to have those things.

01:48:03.920 --> 01:48:05.920
Well Mike, uh thank you so much for being on.

01:48:06.000 --> 01:48:06.960
We really appreciate it.

01:48:07.280 --> 01:48:08.240
Thank you for having me.

01:48:08.320 --> 01:48:09.760
It was a real honor.

01:48:10.480 --> 01:48:15.590
David, I do not need to seek revenge on this episode.

01:48:15.750 --> 01:48:16.950
That's a dumb way to start this.

01:48:17.110 --> 01:48:17.990
Maybe we should start.

01:48:19.350 --> 01:48:21.990
I need to seek revenge on you for making that comment.

01:48:22.310 --> 01:48:23.350
You do, yes.

01:48:23.590 --> 01:48:25.190
That was way too try hard.

01:48:25.270 --> 01:48:25.430
Yeah.

01:48:25.510 --> 01:48:25.590
Okay.

01:48:26.230 --> 01:48:26.630
I forgive you.

01:48:26.790 --> 01:48:26.870
Okay.

01:48:27.030 --> 01:48:27.430
I forgive you.

01:48:27.670 --> 01:48:28.150
There we go.

01:48:28.230 --> 01:48:33.110
Um David, this was a um I don't even know.

01:48:33.270 --> 01:48:34.550
I hate outros.

01:48:34.790 --> 01:48:35.430
I'm so bad at them.

01:48:35.510 --> 01:48:36.230
Okay, you start.

01:48:37.590 --> 01:48:41.670
Uh support us, you know, go to Patreon, give us a channel.

01:48:41.830 --> 01:48:43.590
You think we need to keep saying that?

01:48:44.380 --> 01:48:45.500
I don't maybe maybe.

01:48:45.580 --> 01:48:46.540
Should we just not do the outros?

01:48:46.780 --> 01:48:47.180
Just cut them out?

01:48:47.660 --> 01:48:48.300
What do people think?

01:48:48.380 --> 01:48:49.420
Let us know in the comments.

01:48:49.900 --> 01:48:50.060
Yeah.

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.

01:48:53.820 --> 01:48:55.420
Well we should have something in the outros.

01:48:56.620 --> 01:48:57.420
Something?

01:48:57.660 --> 01:48:58.220
Like this.

01:48:58.380 --> 01:48:59.740
This is fun for me at least.

01:48:59.980 --> 01:49:04.620
Just just like a little, you know, debrief, but no call to support us.

01:49:05.900 --> 01:49:07.180
Uh I don't know.

01:49:07.420 --> 01:49:10.550
That's kinda I mean, that's interesting idea where we were like reflect on the

01:49:10.550 --> 01:49:13.270
conversation, like what went well, you know, stuff like that.

01:49:14.150 --> 01:49:16.710
So just just saying inane, stupid things as opposed to.

01:49:17.270 --> 01:49:18.470
Oh, where we just like banter.

01:49:18.630 --> 01:49:23.670
You know, like we can talk about reviving Charles Darwin, uh, for example.

01:49:23.990 --> 01:49:24.390
All right.

01:49:24.470 --> 01:49:25.990
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm done with that.

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

01:49:31.590 --> 01:49:31.830
psychology.

01:49:32.230 --> 01:49:33.110
Choose your own outro.

01:49:33.190 --> 01:49:35.430
Did you ever grow up with those choose your own adventure books?

01:49:35.700 --> 01:49:36.580
Oh, I love those.

01:49:36.820 --> 01:49:37.140
Yeah.

01:49:37.300 --> 01:49:38.580
There's not enough of that.

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,

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

01:49:49.700 --> 01:49:52.180
you think X is true, turn to page whatever.

01:49:52.260 --> 01:49:53.860
If you think Y is true, turn to page whatever.

01:49:53.940 --> 01:49:57.060
I mean it you could turn and you know it could be virtual, but yeah.

01:49:57.390 --> 01:49:58.030
Oh, I love that.

01:49:58.110 --> 01:49:59.230
That's a really great idea.

01:49:59.550 --> 01:49:59.710
Yeah.

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

01:50:03.870 --> 01:50:04.190
idea.

01:50:04.270 --> 01:50:04.510
Yeah.

01:50:04.990 --> 01:50:06.270
Dave, that's a really great idea.

01:50:06.430 --> 01:50:11.630
Because that's often like how people think about complicated questions, is like, well, what

01:50:11.630 --> 01:50:12.270
if this is the answer?

01:50:12.430 --> 01:50:13.230
Oh no, that doesn't work.

01:50:13.310 --> 01:50:13.950
What if this is the answer?

01:50:14.030 --> 01:50:14.830
Oh no, that doesn't work.

01:50:14.990 --> 01:50:15.790
Yeah, it's like science.

01:50:15.950 --> 01:50:16.110
Yeah.

01:50:16.270 --> 01:50:16.510
Yeah.

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

01:50:22.280 --> 01:50:22.680
progresses.

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

01:50:26.840 --> 01:50:27.080
don't.

01:50:27.480 --> 01:50:28.360
Exactly.

01:50:29.080 --> 01:50:29.800
I love that.

01:50:30.040 --> 01:50:30.920
Get on it, Dave.

01:50:31.240 --> 01:50:31.480
All right.

01:50:31.720 --> 01:50:35.640
Choose your own uh science adventure.

01:50:36.120 --> 01:50:41.480
Choose choose your own science advent choose your own science theoretical supposition.

01:50:41.910 --> 01:50:43.270
We're gonna have to work on the name.

01:50:45.190 --> 01:50:45.350
Yeah.

01:50:46.230 --> 01:50:49.430
Well, everybody, thank you for listening to this podcast.

01:50:49.750 --> 01:50:52.310
Uh which is not a choose your own adventure.

01:50:52.710 --> 01:50:53.270
Yes.

01:50:53.510 --> 01:50:55.910
It's just uh an adventure.

01:50:56.150 --> 01:50:57.510
I mean it's sort of it's an adventure.

01:50:58.230 --> 01:50:59.670
And you and you and you choose you chose it.

01:51:00.150 --> 01:51:02.950
As George Carlin said, you could always change the channel.

01:51:03.350 --> 01:51:03.830
That's true.

01:51:03.990 --> 01:51:05.670
So it's an adventure that you chose.

01:51:06.150 --> 01:51:08.150
We there's a couple people but there's only one of them.

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

01:51:13.760 --> 01:51:18.720
comments, but there's at least one or two people who recurrently comment, especially I

01:51:18.720 --> 01:51:21.280
think on YouTube, that it's very clear.

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

01:51:25.440 --> 01:51:26.320
furniture or something.

01:51:26.400 --> 01:51:28.000
Like you don't need to troll on YouTube.

01:51:28.240 --> 01:51:28.480
Yeah.

01:51:28.770 --> 01:51:32.690
Life itself is a choose your own adventure, and you can choose a different adventure than

01:51:33.250 --> 01:51:33.970
perfect David.

01:51:34.050 --> 01:51:34.370
Yeah.

01:51:34.530 --> 01:51:35.970
That's that's the thing to end on.

01:51:36.050 --> 01:51:36.450
There we go.

01:51:36.690 --> 01:51:36.850
Yeah.

01:51:37.010 --> 01:51:37.330
All right.

01:51:37.490 --> 01:51:41.650
Well, enjoy the choose your own adventure of your life and uh see you next week.