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This is evolutionary psychology, the podcast.

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Actual evolutionary psychology?

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By actual evolutionary psychologists.

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I I was which are uh are are me, David Pinzhoff, and uh my co-host Dave Petrazuki.

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Yeah, and uh I was gonna say uh why why do why do you have a theory, a coordinating theory

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of why we say the podcast?

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Because unless your phone auto advanced, you know.

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That's true.

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It is redundant information.

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Yeah.

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Like You know what you're listening to.

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You clicked on it.

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Yeah, but it feels it feels compelling.

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I feel it compelled.

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It makes it feels like a a tidy bow on a package to say this at the beginning.

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Why do we do that?

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No, I I think there's a deeper psychological reason.

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Do you have a do you have an idea?

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This is a I'm putting I this gotcha question for you, David.

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Oh no, it's interesting.

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Uh yeah, uh it's possible it's it's just kind of gets you in the right headspace and sets

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the tone or the or the vibe or whatever.

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That's possible.

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But I'm sure I like that idea.

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Probably my guess is that it's just inertia, that it's just a suboptimal equilibrium that

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we're sticking with out of pure convention, like the QWERTY keyboard.

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Are you familiar with that?

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Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, I think like at some point, uh maybe people didn't know what they were listening to

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when you were listening on the radio, for example.

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Like it's helpful to say what the show is.

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But now that we're in a post-radio world, it's it's no longer necessary, but we've retained

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the convention for arbitrary reasons.

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Yeah.

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So uh so enjoy uh this arbitrary convention.

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Yep.

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Enjoy.

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David, today we talked to Katie Starkweather, who is uh recently uh anthro faculty here

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at UC Santa Barbara.

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Before that was at Mox Planck uh Leipzig.

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And um before that, I think in Chicago, she mentioned.

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Yeah, that's right.

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Does really cool work with um people who uh are boat dwellers, at

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least part of the time, in uh in Bangladesh.

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That's right.

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The Shodogore Boat Dwellers, uh fascinating um group of people that uh you will

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learn lots about, and I think they shed light on all sorts of things like loneliness,

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friendship, mating, childcare, uh division of labor, how uh aspects of the

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ecology can uh have uh effects on social systems.

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Uh really fun and interesting conversation.

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Yeah.

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And I like you, we talked about something I would call barriers to social interaction,

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whether it's weather or ecology or being on a boat.

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And then also your um deep dive into coasts and the origin of firms and transaction costs.

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And I I really like that part too, David.

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Oh, thank you.

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Yeah, no, I've been thinking a lot about Coast lately.

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Ronald Coast?

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I believe I believe Ronald, yes.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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So without further ado, you can hop on board the boat of uh this interview.

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Dive in.

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Enjoy.

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Uh we we've had many experimental psychologists, more recently

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philosophers, many field anthropologists.

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Um, although I sometimes wonder if anthropology is a

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broader tent in the sense that you can have people who are both in anthropology departments

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but do very different things in terms of what their day-to-day work is like,

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but also where they go to the field or how they go to the field, or even just how they

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think about the the science and sort of what they do.

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Maybe as a way to start what you do, can you tell us a little bit about

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either what you're currently doing with respect to in the next year,

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physically, where do you go?

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Or what's the story of sort of how you slice up being an anthropologist um and where

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you go and sort of what you study for people who might not know the answer to that question

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about you.

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Yeah.

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Well that's a good question.

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And you're you're right, anthropology is an extremely wide ranging wide wide ranging um

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field with lots of subfields and then you know subfields within subfields and everything.

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And even those of us in the same subfield do wildly different things

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sometimes.

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Um, you've had Amy Body on your podcast, I know, um, and Amy and I do very different

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things, even though sometimes the subject matters kind of, you know, uh overlap a little

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bit.

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So it's it's fun and it's interesting.

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Um, and I think that was probably part of what drew me into anthropology.

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Um, as well as I've always been really interested in, you know, humans and cultures and

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like why people do what they do and stuff like that.

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So um uh yeah, so I um the major well, all my field work, all my current

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field work, and the major vast majority of the fieldwork that I've done um has been in

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rural Bangladesh.

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Um I work with a community of people there who are called

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Shodogore and they're traditionally boat dwelling, traditionally semi-nomadic,

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although their lifestyles are changing pretty rapidly.

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But I've been working there since 2011 was the first time I went.

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And then more, you know, sort of consistently since 2014.

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So I was there over the summer for a very short trip, about a week, to just kind of do

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logistics and things like that and see everybody.

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And then this coming year, I'm hoping to start a new

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project that is looking at the

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basically how women make decisions about sort of

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livelihood activities.

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When faced with conditions of extreme heat.

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And then basically how those decisions, you know, about like how much time they're spending

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working in the heat and what the intensity of their activities are, and all those kinds of

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things, like the downstream effects of those on their health and nutritional condition and

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their families, too.

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So for now, um, I'm teaching uh this quarter, and so I'm here.

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Um, and i'm also you know going through the i rb process which is always a process

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right um institutional review board for those of you uh who are who are not uh who

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don't do them um and that is roughly speaking you have to explain to uh what

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is ostensibly a dispassionate set of people sitting in a building in Santa Barbara in this

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case reviewing what research you're going to do in the future to make sure that you're not

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doing something like, you know, shocking puppies or something like that, roughly.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I haven't gotten into that my research yet.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And for anthropologists, sometimes um, some of us actually, since we work internationally,

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so like I have an IRB that I have to go through in Bangladesh as well.

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Um, actually, two review committees there.

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And so um the that's where the project is at right now.

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Um, but then I'm hopeful that I'll be going to the field a bit in um uh

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January to kind of get things kicked off.

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I have a field team there who's amazing and we've worked with for a long time.

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Um and so they'll I have two little kids.

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Um it's my preference to be in the field as much as I can, but at the moment that's not,

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you know, really possible.

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And yeah, so I'm really lucky to have this great field team.

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So I'll my what usually when I have a big project running, um, I go back and forth

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as much as I can.

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I just make short trips there and um and then I'm in constant communication and have

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product managers and things like that on the ground there so that you know we can run it as

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smoothly as possible.

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But yeah, it's just it's kind of a lot of everything.

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And um, you know, trying to manage the international travel and having these really close

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relationships with people internationally as well as, you know, my family and my job here

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in the US.

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It's tricky sometimes.

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Yeah.

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And we've had anthropologists on describing its two lives almost, you know.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Am I am I correct in in saying that a common thread to a lot of your work

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is sort of an economic way of thinking and sort of applying the logic of costs and benefits

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and diminishing marginal utility to uh domains where those concepts wouldn't traditionally

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be applied, like childcare, uh um, you know, uh working in the heat, for example, uh

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and trying to understand how those economic changes, say, in the cost of working in the

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heat, might uh have ramifications throughout an entire culture.

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Um and so i uh am i correct?

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I sort of see your your work as kind of like um like a a social biological economics.

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Um is is that a fair characterization or am I am I uh Yeah yeah, I think so.

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I think so.

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Um I yes, I I would agree with that.

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I have not um I haven't applied any sort of formal models um to

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my work thus far.

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Um I would love to do that in the future.

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And my postdoc and I've been talking about um doing some optimal foraging modeling, um

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which be a, you know, that's a deep cut for the the anthropologists and evolutionary people

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out there.

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Um but uh yeah, no, I think that's fair.

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And I think um I would describe myself as a human behavioral ecologist, which is one of

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those sub-subfields of anthropology.

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And we sort of like to think about, you know, how does environment impact behavior?

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And then what are the kind of you know fitness or evolutionary effects of that on people's

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usually survival and you know, mating and reproduction and stuff, but we often use lots of

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proxies like growth and health.

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And one of the things that's always really necessary to consider are the constraints that

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people are facing.

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Um, and uh human behavioral ecology in general is drawn, you know, a lot of our

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models are drawn from behavioral economics and and development economics.

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Um, so yeah, it's kind of a natural, natural consequence, I think.

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One thing you mentioned, and we can get into more of the science, but at the outset, you

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mentioned boat dwelling.

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And I think for many of us, um, that's uh what um which is cool.

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And one of the great things about anthropology is it exposes you to a different way of

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living um or existing.

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Um can you unpack um what exactly that means?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Um, so this community, um, they if people go to my website, there are pictures, uh,

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which can be really helpful to visualize some of that sometimes.

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Um, but people are living on small, like very small houseboats.

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Um, they are, I think we measured the average is like 14 feet from

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end to end.

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Um, and then I don't remember the width exactly, but not very wide.

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Usually, like when I kind of am in a boat, it's like, you know, two of

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me sort of wide.

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And that's sort, you know, with all of their things in the boat too.

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So it's a little wider than that in, you know, absolute terms.

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Um, but they live people are in these communities have been moving on to the land pretty

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rapidly in the last few decades.

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Um, and it's been interesting to work there during that transition because I've seen that

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happen.

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And then I've also seen the people who kind of hang on to, you know, the

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boat lifestyle.

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And they do so for various reasons.

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But yeah, I mean, like living on the boat is every the whole family sleeps on the boat.

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If their families are way too big, sometimes they send like the dad and the older kids out

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to the fishing boats to sleep there.

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And they cook on the boat, they do their laundry on the boat, they kind of they do

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everything there.

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And so it's a really interesting lifestyle and quite unique lifestyle.

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one of I don't know if this is what you were getting at or where you were headed, but I

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think one of the things that is challenging about that sometimes is well, how can we

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actually learn anything about what humans do or why humans do what they do

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from studying, you know, such a like unique and weird in some ways, not the,

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you know, not the Joe Henrik version of weird, but um population.

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Um, and it's been so that's yeah, it there are that's been

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a challenge, but it's been a fun challenge.

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And it's something I think about every time I do a project or write a paper because it's

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always, I'm always asking myself, what can we take away from this that is

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broadly applicable?

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And how do we frame this in a way that we're understanding something about humans as

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opposed to this one kind of like niche socio

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environmental circumstance.

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Yeah.

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I actually quite the opposite.

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I actually think, I mean, I was just curious.

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It was just the dumb version of the question.

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It was like my you know, reactive.

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Yeah, no, no, no, exactly.

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Reviewer two.

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Yeah, exactly.

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How do you know this generalized?

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No, I honestly I think if you put if you put people, uh human beings on a boat um in that

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circumstance, I think you're probably going to learn a lot about people.

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Um, in on the view that um, you know uh people react contingently to the

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environment, and so by looking at people in different environments, it both highlights the

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universals and also what isn't um in a way that you can't just

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mentally simulate until you um the rubber hits the rotor, in this case the the

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water in the raft or the the water in the wood.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Or how, you know, just the constraints of the local ecology and the way that you have to

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make a living, how that has ramifications on every aspect of of life.

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Um it's not just confined to the way you work, like it it affects social relationships, uh

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gender division of labor, uh childcare, uh lifestyles, uh the everything.

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00:14:58,490 --> 00:15:04,320
Um and uh so I'm kind of curious about like, you know, what what do you see uh as

240
00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:10,080
the ecological pressures that are uh number one leading to this this lifestyle this boat

241
00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:15,760
dwelling lifestyle and then what are some of the ramifications that you see uh this

242
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:21,520
having yeah um that's a great question you really you really kind of hit all my like points

243
00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:27,520
of excitement there too um that's my job um yeah I think um

244
00:15:28,050 --> 00:15:33,490
the the ecological pressures that are leading to this lifestyle um from a

245
00:15:34,370 --> 00:15:39,970
like historical perspective, um I'm not sure.

246
00:15:40,210 --> 00:15:45,810
I I imagine that it is just the fact that Bangladesh is um

247
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a heavily riverine country.

248
00:15:49,490 --> 00:15:55,380
Um There's just there's so there's water everywhere and rivers and canals connect so many

249
00:15:55,380 --> 00:15:56,660
different parts of the country.

250
00:15:56,900 --> 00:16:02,820
And so I think that um, you know, again, I don't really know a lot about kind of

251
00:16:02,900 --> 00:16:08,740
the chicken and egg of the the um the decisions that have been made because

252
00:16:08,980 --> 00:16:14,830
subsistence um Choices and livelihood choices are

253
00:16:14,830 --> 00:16:20,430
often, you know, kind of part and parcel of the ecological pressures and the way that you

254
00:16:20,430 --> 00:16:22,270
move around and all that kind of stuff.

255
00:16:22,910 --> 00:16:25,630
But these communities are also known.

256
00:16:25,790 --> 00:16:30,910
So the word shotegore means business person or businessman, I think more specifically.

257
00:16:31,390 --> 00:16:35,020
And so women work primarily as traders, petty traders.

258
00:16:35,100 --> 00:16:40,300
They go out into the villages, they sell things to non-Shotegore people, women usually, um,

259
00:16:40,460 --> 00:16:44,140
and men and and their wives um catch fish.

260
00:16:44,460 --> 00:16:49,580
Um, but then they they keep some of those to eat for themselves and they also sell them in

261
00:16:49,580 --> 00:16:52,060
the markets in exchange for cash.

262
00:16:52,220 --> 00:16:57,430
Um, and so they have this um kind of lifestyle that and

263
00:16:57,430 --> 00:17:01,270
livelihoods that require them to have interactions with other people.

264
00:17:01,430 --> 00:17:06,790
And I think the living on the boats allows them to move to where the

265
00:17:06,790 --> 00:17:12,790
resources are, um, to you know, where the fish are at any given time, um,

266
00:17:13,030 --> 00:17:17,510
where the markets are, where they can sell things uh and make more money and such.

267
00:17:17,750 --> 00:17:21,560
Um currently, climate change is a huge

268
00:17:24,120 --> 00:17:25,960
creeping constraint.

269
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:32,440
People have been, it's it's really interesting to go back because, you know, now that I've

270
00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:38,360
been working there for 12 years consistently, you can see where some of the earlier

271
00:17:38,360 --> 00:17:42,120
homes on the land were built, um, and you can see where the homes are now.

272
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:48,150
And there's a like difference in how high up the land is from the water because people have

273
00:17:48,150 --> 00:17:54,150
been building, like building the land up more and more to try to avoid the blooding

274
00:17:54,150 --> 00:17:55,270
that happens.

275
00:17:56,070 --> 00:18:00,950
And so that's, you know, imposing constraints and it's going to continue to impose

276
00:18:00,950 --> 00:18:01,910
constraints on people.

277
00:18:02,070 --> 00:18:07,750
And I don't know what's going to happen if we'll see people who are in homes that are no

278
00:18:07,750 --> 00:18:12,880
longer viable because of rising water levels go back to living on the boats,

279
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:19,280
or if we'll see them kind of opt to move inland, you know, to

280
00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:22,400
move to the cities, like some other people in Bangladesh do.

281
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:24,160
I'm not sure.

282
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:29,440
But the other thing that's really going on for these guys on a on a regular basis is

283
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:30,640
seasonality.

284
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:36,850
Um And the dramatic differences in landscape between sort of the rainy

285
00:18:36,850 --> 00:18:39,730
and the dry season are shocking.

286
00:18:39,970 --> 00:18:40,450
Shocking.

287
00:18:40,610 --> 00:18:43,090
Like you wouldn't even know you were looking at the same place.

288
00:18:43,410 --> 00:18:45,650
I showed you pictures of the same area.

289
00:18:46,130 --> 00:18:50,850
Because every year, for like five or six months of the year, there's flooding and then

290
00:18:50,850 --> 00:18:56,800
landscape floods and it's kind of normal and natural and not natural it is natural but

291
00:18:56,800 --> 00:19:01,200
like people plan their agricultural seasons around this right so it's something that's been

292
00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:07,120
happening forever and it's because of um uh rainfall and also because of Himalayan snow

293
00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:12,720
melt that happens um you know around April May um

294
00:19:13,230 --> 00:19:19,150
So that also has huge impacts on everyone in Bangladesh,

295
00:19:19,230 --> 00:19:25,230
but specifically on these communities, lifestyles and livelihoods, and how they divide

296
00:19:25,230 --> 00:19:28,750
labor by gender and how they socialize with each other.

297
00:19:29,310 --> 00:19:32,190
Those things have seem to have really major impacts.

298
00:19:32,270 --> 00:19:38,110
And that's one of the areas that my research has kind of attempted to delve into

299
00:19:38,190 --> 00:19:42,110
is to understand how those changes impact people's lives.

300
00:19:42,860 --> 00:19:46,140
So what is what is the gender division of labor like there?

301
00:19:46,300 --> 00:19:51,420
Is it is it more like the the men are are primarily the the people fishing, and then the

302
00:19:51,420 --> 00:19:54,220
women are the one who are the ones who try to sell that in the marketplace?

303
00:19:54,380 --> 00:19:56,060
Or is it more complicated than that?

304
00:19:56,540 --> 00:19:58,140
It's more complicated than that.

305
00:19:58,300 --> 00:19:59,340
It's interesting.

306
00:19:59,420 --> 00:20:05,070
Um, and it's um basically 95% of the men

307
00:20:05,230 --> 00:20:11,070
um fish and they fish either for like half of the year or all year

308
00:20:11,070 --> 00:20:11,390
long.

309
00:20:11,630 --> 00:20:17,310
Um, women are roughly split in half between fishers and traders.

310
00:20:17,710 --> 00:20:23,310
Um, and so it that seems to have the biggest effect on how

311
00:20:23,310 --> 00:20:25,390
households are dividing their labor.

312
00:20:25,630 --> 00:20:31,440
So, excuse me, in households where women fish, they always, almost always

313
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:32,560
work with their husbands.

314
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:37,920
They the couple takes their kids along and they're on a fishing boat all day, almost every

315
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:38,960
day of the year.

316
00:20:50,190 --> 00:20:55,310
fishing is sometimes not super profitable during the dry season for these households.

317
00:20:55,470 --> 00:21:01,470
Um and trading is much more challenging during the rainy season because a lot of areas

318
00:21:01,470 --> 00:21:07,230
of um you know the rural villages are flooded and and women just can't access their their

319
00:21:07,230 --> 00:21:08,990
customer base, basically.

320
00:21:09,150 --> 00:21:14,980
Um and so in those households, they have um they change, they

321
00:21:14,980 --> 00:21:18,500
flip how they divide labor by season, or they often do.

322
00:21:18,660 --> 00:21:24,500
And so in the dry season or scar, excuse me, in the rainy season, um, men in

323
00:21:24,500 --> 00:21:29,220
those households will fish and they fish usually with other men, usually not with their

324
00:21:29,220 --> 00:21:30,580
wives and kids.

325
00:21:30,740 --> 00:21:35,860
Um and the women will often stay home and take care of kids, especially when they have

326
00:21:35,860 --> 00:21:36,820
little kids.

327
00:21:37,090 --> 00:21:42,690
Then they flip, and in the dry season, women are going out trading pretty intensively

328
00:21:43,170 --> 00:21:43,890
every day.

329
00:21:44,130 --> 00:21:49,490
And men, when they have little kids, men are staying home as the primary caregivers of

330
00:21:49,490 --> 00:21:54,450
their kids, which is really unusual from uh both of those things are unusual from a

331
00:21:54,450 --> 00:21:55,730
cross-cultural perspective.

332
00:21:55,890 --> 00:21:58,130
So it's it's been interesting.

333
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:02,000
So what what causes the the flip?

334
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:08,960
I um do you mean like so so what yeah so what is it about the difference between the the

335
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:12,800
wet season and the dry season that makes it more advantageous to to flip the division of

336
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:13,120
labor?

337
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:13,840
Yeah.

338
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:20,000
So um in the wet season and the rainy season, um women because they're

339
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:25,040
mostly walking or they're accessing their customers by road, um

340
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:31,550
When the the rainy season flooding happens, it just becomes really difficult for them

341
00:22:31,550 --> 00:22:36,190
to reach their customers because a lot of the like sort of smaller roadways will just be

342
00:22:36,190 --> 00:22:37,470
completely flooded.

343
00:22:37,710 --> 00:22:42,430
And the and people then either have to like who live in those homes that are now kind of

344
00:22:42,430 --> 00:22:48,360
isolated, either reach the main roads by their own boats, or they have like

345
00:22:48,360 --> 00:22:51,800
these tiny little bamboo bridges that people have to walk across.

346
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:57,560
And so women carrying these like big heavy baskets can't easily access any of those

347
00:22:57,560 --> 00:22:58,120
homes.

348
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:04,200
So they can and they still do go trading sometimes in the rainy season, but then they have

349
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:09,530
to travel farther away from home, um, You know, access different areas

350
00:23:10,330 --> 00:23:12,570
in the rural villages.

351
00:23:12,890 --> 00:23:17,690
And so when they have small kids, they just mostly opt not to do that.

352
00:23:18,650 --> 00:23:21,450
The opportunity cost is just way too high.

353
00:23:34,330 --> 00:23:38,720
Groups mean like boats, like houseboats and houses.

354
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:44,880
They have different like clusters of of uh Shodogore groups um throughout Motlab

355
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,280
um and along the river.

356
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:53,360
The river uh tends to the canals tend to dry up during the dry season, not

357
00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:55,840
entirely, but to some extent.

358
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:01,330
And um and so the farther like upriver you are from

359
00:24:01,890 --> 00:24:05,410
the main river that flows through Motlob is called the Donagoda River.

360
00:24:05,570 --> 00:24:09,730
It meets up with the Megna River, which is one of the largest rivers in Bangladesh.

361
00:24:09,810 --> 00:24:10,610
It's huge.

362
00:24:11,010 --> 00:24:15,810
And so the closer you live to the Megna River, the more profitable fishing is all year

363
00:24:15,810 --> 00:24:16,130
round.

364
00:24:16,370 --> 00:24:21,090
And so those households that live down there tend to just fish year-round, husbands and

365
00:24:21,090 --> 00:24:21,730
wives.

366
00:24:21,970 --> 00:24:27,280
The farther away from the Magna you live, fishing is still really profitable in the rainy

367
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:33,200
season, but is much more economically risky during the dry season, meaning

368
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,840
you're far more likely to go out and get nothing than you are in the rainy season.

369
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:43,920
And so again, I think it's kind of an you know cost-benefit analysis here.

370
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:49,890
Um, and they need someone to care for their small children um and

371
00:24:50,210 --> 00:24:53,330
the husbands stay home and and do that.

372
00:24:53,490 --> 00:24:59,010
Um, and so it seems to be, I don't, I actually would love to do a study um that's that's

373
00:24:59,010 --> 00:25:04,930
sort of um uh measuring how the different changes in in environmental

374
00:25:04,930 --> 00:25:10,530
conditions and landscape kind of trigger a flip in the switch between strategies.

375
00:25:10,690 --> 00:25:16,530
Um I haven't done that yet, but it really seems to be a landscape and accessibility type of

376
00:25:16,530 --> 00:25:18,610
a thing that is triggering that.

377
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:25,280
I mean it it really complicates this this narrative, which I'm sure you're familiar with,

378
00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:29,200
that men are um higher in risk taking uh proness.

379
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:35,600
Um what your work shows is that uh number one, risk is

380
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:40,320
a far broader uh and and variegated category than than we might think.

381
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:45,600
And there are many ecological pressures that could change, you know, what risks are taken

382
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:47,670
by uh which sex.

383
00:25:49,510 --> 00:25:51,430
So I I'm I'm kind of curious.

384
00:25:51,590 --> 00:25:57,510
Is is the is it the idea that there's something about the um f physical

385
00:25:57,510 --> 00:26:03,270
treacherousness of of you know navigating terrain when it's when it's really wet that um

386
00:26:03,670 --> 00:26:08,790
that makes it more appealing for for men rather than women to go out and try to weather

387
00:26:08,790 --> 00:26:09,030
that?

388
00:26:09,190 --> 00:26:13,820
Is it more of like a uh willingness to brave these sort of physical dangers?

389
00:26:13,980 --> 00:26:19,740
And that when the risk shifts to uh more of an economic risk, then uh becomes more

390
00:26:19,740 --> 00:26:20,540
favorable to women?

391
00:26:20,620 --> 00:26:23,980
Is that sort of how you're you're carving it up or am I butchering this?

392
00:26:24,540 --> 00:26:25,420
Um no.

393
00:26:25,660 --> 00:26:31,100
And the the reason is that when men are fishing, they're on fishing boats.

394
00:26:31,340 --> 00:26:37,110
And so um I like I've had many conversations with people about, you know, how

395
00:26:37,110 --> 00:26:38,310
risky fishing can be.

396
00:26:38,550 --> 00:26:41,670
This fishing physically, this fishing is not risky.

397
00:26:41,910 --> 00:26:46,470
Um, if you know how to swim, like your biggest risk is you might accidentally fall in the

398
00:26:46,470 --> 00:26:47,350
water, right?

399
00:26:47,670 --> 00:26:49,990
I feel like you really need to know how to swim in this culture.

400
00:26:50,070 --> 00:26:51,270
I feel like you really do.

401
00:26:51,510 --> 00:26:51,750
Yes.

402
00:26:53,030 --> 00:26:53,350
Yes.

403
00:26:53,510 --> 00:26:57,840
And like it's interesting because teaching kids how to swim is a really like important

404
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:58,240
thing.

405
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:02,720
And I've seen, you know, and the dads mostly do it, and I've seen them do it, and it's

406
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:03,760
super interesting.

407
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:09,840
Um, and so the other thing that's interesting about uh so there

408
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:14,400
there would certainly be some physical, like quite a lot of physical risk, probably

409
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:19,920
associated with trying to maintain the same kind of trading patterns in the

410
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,120
rainy season.

411
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:26,530
Um and I think the reality is that there is so little

412
00:27:27,250 --> 00:27:32,690
like the likelihood of benefit from maintaining from like having that kind of risk.

413
00:27:33,170 --> 00:27:38,690
Um, trying to cross the bamboo pole, like for instance, um, you're

414
00:27:39,090 --> 00:27:41,010
you might not make it across.

415
00:27:41,250 --> 00:27:44,850
When you do get across, like you might not make that much money.

416
00:27:45,010 --> 00:27:48,920
I and so I I think it is just a cost benefit thing.

417
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:54,600
Women still do go trading, but they just access different areas of the villages, basically.

418
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:59,880
They go to places where the flooding is is much less or they'll travel farther away.

419
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:06,440
And so the interesting thing I think though about trading is that it actually

420
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,800
from the perspective of how likely are you to get hurt?

421
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,810
How likely are you to have something bad happen to you?

422
00:28:15,890 --> 00:28:21,810
Um, you know, get all of your things stolen or assaulted or something like that.

423
00:28:22,130 --> 00:28:24,610
Trading is a lot riskier.

424
00:28:25,170 --> 00:28:29,970
Um, and women usually travel in groups to try to mitigate that risk.

425
00:28:30,130 --> 00:28:35,890
Um, but even like they'll often get into a CNG, which is little motorized

426
00:28:35,890 --> 00:28:36,610
vehicle.

427
00:28:36,770 --> 00:28:42,210
Um, and it's risky riding in CNGs around rural Bangladesh.

428
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:48,160
And so we've known uh women who've been in, you know, really bad accidents and then have

429
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,600
like a physical disability for the rest of their lives.

430
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:56,000
And so it is in every sense of the word, trading is riskier.

431
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,080
And I think I don't know.

432
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:08,150
I mean, I think it is the reality that is just a kind of a cost-benefit, you

433
00:29:08,150 --> 00:29:09,590
know, analysis for them.

434
00:29:09,750 --> 00:29:14,870
Like we can make more money trading than our husbands can fishing on average.

435
00:29:15,110 --> 00:29:18,710
Um husbands really can't go trading.

436
00:29:18,870 --> 00:29:24,390
I mean, they do, they can go with their wives, um, but that's happens pretty rarely.

437
00:29:24,630 --> 00:29:30,630
Um, because there's this like unique little niche that is

438
00:29:30,630 --> 00:29:32,230
available to these women.

439
00:29:32,390 --> 00:29:38,080
Um Shonogore women don't generally don't practice perda,

440
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:38,560
right?

441
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:44,560
Which is the sort of cultural practice of um covering themselves, like covering their faces

442
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:50,160
and their heads, um, but also not interacting with unrelated people or not

443
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:56,160
traveling by themselves without, you know, a male relative, usually mostly staying

444
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:56,640
at home.

445
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:01,840
They don't have those kinds of cultural beliefs or restrictions for the most part.

446
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:08,170
Um, Whereas the women who live in the villages are Muslim or Hindu

447
00:30:08,250 --> 00:30:13,850
and they do practice or they do have really strong cultural beliefs around

448
00:30:14,810 --> 00:30:20,650
women leaving their homes without a male relative, interacting with

449
00:30:20,650 --> 00:30:23,930
unrelated um men in particular.

450
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,440
so it so they don't get to go to the markets very often.

451
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:30,960
Um they rarely do.

452
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:36,240
And so it's whereas the Shodogore women can leave their homes and can come into these other

453
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:42,240
people's, you know, like uh yards basically uh or homes and sell these things

454
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:42,560
to them.

455
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:48,560
And so it sets up this kind of perfect little cultural niche where like only women

456
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,400
can sell to other women and these women can only buy from other women.

457
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:57,690
Um, and so you know, because of of this, it's something that's available to

458
00:30:57,690 --> 00:31:03,050
Shotegore women that's not available to Shotegore men that's largely unavailable to

459
00:31:03,050 --> 00:31:04,410
everybody else.

460
00:31:04,650 --> 00:31:08,170
Um, and so, and they can make a lot of money while they're doing it.

461
00:31:08,330 --> 00:31:11,450
They can also lose money, um, they can lose a lot of money.

462
00:31:11,610 --> 00:31:16,970
Um, but I think they, for whatever reason, they've decided it's, you know, worth worth the

463
00:31:16,970 --> 00:31:17,450
risk.

464
00:31:17,690 --> 00:31:19,130
Um yeah.

465
00:31:19,740 --> 00:31:20,220
Interesting.

466
00:31:20,380 --> 00:31:26,300
I mean, so uh I I'm kind of curious about their sort of mating

467
00:31:26,380 --> 00:31:32,300
dynamics, because presumably those would play a a role in in the sort of uh

468
00:31:32,380 --> 00:31:36,860
in the in the perda you describe, where men are very protective of of women.

469
00:31:36,940 --> 00:31:41,020
And um you could spin an evolutionary story about how this has to do with paternity

470
00:31:41,020 --> 00:31:46,570
certainty and restricting um, you know, reducing the risk of you know um females

471
00:31:46,570 --> 00:31:48,170
encountering other males.

472
00:31:48,330 --> 00:31:54,330
Um and is that same pressure there and sort of male sexual proprietariness?

473
00:31:54,410 --> 00:31:56,250
Is that is that there in the Shogador?

474
00:31:56,650 --> 00:32:02,090
And it's just because the economic pressures are so high that uh it it just doesn't have an

475
00:32:02,090 --> 00:32:02,410
effect?

476
00:32:02,570 --> 00:32:08,010
Or or is it a an entirely different way of understanding uh meeting uh in that culture?

477
00:32:08,650 --> 00:32:09,850
The pressures are there.

478
00:32:10,010 --> 00:32:14,500
The pressures are there from mothers-in-law in particular.

479
00:32:14,740 --> 00:32:18,340
Um the mothers in law are the ones who are really concerned about it.

480
00:32:18,580 --> 00:32:23,860
Um but it seems to be the concerns seem to be

481
00:32:23,860 --> 00:32:26,820
greatest very early on in a marriage.

482
00:32:27,140 --> 00:32:32,980
Um like when and the age difference the age gap doesn't tend to be quite as large in the

483
00:32:32,980 --> 00:32:34,820
Shodogore marriages.

484
00:32:35,060 --> 00:32:40,770
Um they tend to have more love marriage, or love marriage is more common as opposed to

485
00:32:40,770 --> 00:32:46,210
arranged marriage than what you see in you know the rest of Bangladesh in general.

486
00:32:47,170 --> 00:32:51,090
And so there are cultural differences here.

487
00:32:51,250 --> 00:32:57,010
Um, but especially with like newly married young women, mothers-in-law are

488
00:32:57,010 --> 00:33:02,820
very, you know, uh careful to pay attention to what they're doing and who they're talking

489
00:33:02,820 --> 00:33:04,420
to and all that kind of stuff.

490
00:33:04,660 --> 00:33:09,620
Um and as they get older, this is what I've seen.

491
00:33:09,700 --> 00:33:12,020
This is kind of anecdotal evidence here.

492
00:33:12,260 --> 00:33:17,780
Um, the concerns, either the daughters-in-law gain more authority in the relationship

493
00:33:17,780 --> 00:33:23,540
because they've had a baby or two, um, or they

494
00:33:23,570 --> 00:33:24,770
live on their own boat.

495
00:33:24,930 --> 00:33:30,930
Like the it nuclear families are living usually on their own because the boats are

496
00:33:30,930 --> 00:33:31,410
so small.

497
00:33:31,570 --> 00:33:36,850
And so it's also the case that like mothers-in-law have some control, but they don't have

498
00:33:36,850 --> 00:33:40,530
as much control because they're not living under the same roof, right?

499
00:33:40,850 --> 00:33:46,840
So yeah, as the women get older, they tend to be more likely to then, you

500
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:52,840
know, become traders or have just less scrutiny of their behavior in general.

501
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:58,520
The women themselves, though, are also concerned about

502
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:02,920
things like, you know, assault and sexual assault when they're out trading.

503
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:08,040
So especially if they're going somewhere that's new for them, they they almost always

504
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,870
travel in a group, regardless.

505
00:34:10,030 --> 00:34:14,190
And then they're going to places that are that they've been before.

506
00:34:14,590 --> 00:34:18,190
So they'll kind of all go together to one place and then they spread out and go to

507
00:34:18,190 --> 00:34:21,070
different households to sell their goods.

508
00:34:21,390 --> 00:34:26,590
And if they're going to a new to them place, then they're more likely to stay close by with

509
00:34:26,590 --> 00:34:32,190
a friend so that they always have, you know, some amount of you know backup or protection

510
00:34:32,270 --> 00:34:34,590
or, you know, just accountability there.

511
00:34:35,150 --> 00:34:40,380
And I think the reality is that to some extent, these

512
00:34:40,460 --> 00:34:46,380
groups of, you know, these social groups also kind of function in a similar way in that

513
00:34:46,380 --> 00:34:50,700
everyone's kind of monitoring everybody else's behavior to some extent.

514
00:34:50,940 --> 00:34:55,100
Um but um, and polygyny is pretty uncommon.

515
00:34:55,180 --> 00:34:58,620
Um it's most marriage is mostly monogamous.

516
00:34:58,860 --> 00:35:04,710
Divorce is more common in the Shodogore households and somewhat more

517
00:35:04,710 --> 00:35:06,470
culturally acceptable too.

518
00:35:06,630 --> 00:35:11,030
Um and so, you know, so there is some of that certainly that that's going on.

519
00:35:11,190 --> 00:35:15,190
Um but yeah I think there's just these these cultural differences there.

520
00:35:15,350 --> 00:35:20,630
Um that that last point is interesting because uh just like from a cross-cultural not

521
00:35:20,710 --> 00:35:26,470
cross-cultural cross-species perspective, where you get monogamy often is where

522
00:35:26,630 --> 00:35:32,180
there's both male and female cooperative breeding or high investment.

523
00:35:32,660 --> 00:35:38,660
So like classically, things like birds, where the uh one bird will be on the nest while

524
00:35:38,660 --> 00:35:41,220
the other one is foraging, and vice versa.

525
00:35:41,460 --> 00:35:46,820
And it sounds a little bit, I mean, the principle's the same, um, is that maybe what higher

526
00:35:46,820 --> 00:35:51,700
rates of divorce mean is that this is a way of living where you really need to depend on

527
00:35:51,970 --> 00:35:53,010
your spouse.

528
00:35:53,170 --> 00:35:57,170
You really have to be a cooperative partner such that if it's not working, you know, it's

529
00:35:57,570 --> 00:36:02,050
we can't be a viable household if I can't trust you, depend on you.

530
00:36:02,290 --> 00:36:07,730
And so you can imagine like the culture um allows for divorce, given that

531
00:36:07,810 --> 00:36:11,490
practically people need to really trust and depend on who they're with.

532
00:36:12,050 --> 00:36:17,920
Yeah, I think that that is um a good characterization of what's going on for a lot of the

533
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:18,560
households.

534
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:24,960
That gets that is trickier for newly married couples or couples in which

535
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:29,600
the wife uh doesn't work outside the home and so she's entirely reliant on her husband for

536
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,040
economic purposes.

537
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:36,720
Um and and I think of course there's a lot of kind of, you know,

538
00:36:36,970 --> 00:36:42,730
individual variation um when it comes to these sorts of things um but i yeah

539
00:36:42,970 --> 00:36:48,730
there is a strong um basis so many

540
00:36:48,730 --> 00:36:54,730
of the aspects of their lives are based around the nuclear family um and

541
00:36:54,730 --> 00:37:00,570
cooperation economic cooperation childcare cooperation between um the

542
00:37:00,570 --> 00:37:06,460
spouses and um uh in right, uh it doesn't

543
00:37:06,460 --> 00:37:11,020
work well when that's you know, that gets broken down.

544
00:37:11,260 --> 00:37:15,500
Um and so I I do think that's a really strong motivator.

545
00:37:15,660 --> 00:37:21,260
Um and then we also talk about um, you know, the extent to which

546
00:37:22,380 --> 00:37:27,750
monogamy or uh is um kind of socially restricted, right?

547
00:37:27,830 --> 00:37:33,510
Or socially conscripted versus ecologically conscripted, meaning that it's simply too

548
00:37:33,510 --> 00:37:39,430
hard to maintain multiple spouses, and or you don't have, you know, the land or the

549
00:37:39,430 --> 00:37:43,830
resources to even like have multiple spouses live in your household.

550
00:37:43,990 --> 00:37:49,750
Um, and I think that is another huge driver of monogamy in these communities because it's

551
00:37:49,750 --> 00:37:55,640
just again, it comes back to the economic thing where it's like you just can't um make

552
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:56,440
it work.

553
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:57,800
Yeah.

554
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,520
And the women are unwilling to do that if they're making the majority or more money than

555
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:03,240
their spouses.

556
00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:05,160
So that helps too.

557
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:05,720
Yeah.

558
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:11,160
It's it's it is it's a lovely example of, I think I mean, for me at least, I will, I will

559
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:17,000
um say uh one has this idea that, well, the way my culture makes a living is

560
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,920
just the way it is, or we just it's purely just social tradition.

561
00:38:21,750 --> 00:38:27,190
But I think like the value of seeing different ways of making a living is that you really

562
00:38:27,190 --> 00:38:33,110
see that it is very much fitting with the ecology, to the point

563
00:38:33,110 --> 00:38:35,430
where even the way of making a living flips.

564
00:38:36,390 --> 00:38:40,950
And then you start to think, oh, maybe the way that we make a living, even or aspects of

565
00:38:40,950 --> 00:38:45,780
our culture that I assume are just social or somebody told people to do it, or this is the

566
00:38:45,780 --> 00:38:51,140
way we've always done it, is in fact a consequence of weird stuff like economics or how

567
00:38:51,140 --> 00:38:54,260
often we see people during the day.

568
00:38:54,500 --> 00:38:56,420
I actually that's a question I have for you.

569
00:38:56,580 --> 00:39:00,020
Uh one back to the simple question of living on a boat.

570
00:39:00,260 --> 00:39:06,250
I can imagine people wondering, well, how lonely or social is boat dwelling.

571
00:39:06,330 --> 00:39:08,250
Are there lots of other people around?

572
00:39:08,410 --> 00:39:12,250
If the kids want to play with other kids, do they jump in the water and go play with other,

573
00:39:12,330 --> 00:39:13,530
you know, go on someone else's belt?

574
00:39:13,690 --> 00:39:15,450
Like what what it how does that work?

575
00:39:16,010 --> 00:39:18,170
Yeah, um, well, this is a great question.

576
00:39:18,330 --> 00:39:22,970
And um we uh I've got uh some preliminary answers for you.

577
00:39:23,130 --> 00:39:27,610
Um so I just um I'm wrapping up sort of.

578
00:39:27,770 --> 00:39:33,740
We just wrapped up data collection last year, gosh, sometime recently, um, for

579
00:39:33,900 --> 00:39:39,740
a larger project, it kind of came, it was developed out of you know COVID

580
00:39:39,900 --> 00:39:40,620
and everything.

581
00:39:40,700 --> 00:39:45,740
Um, it's really about respiratory disease transmission, but there's a social network

582
00:39:45,740 --> 00:39:49,500
element to the project, which is kind of you know the one of the primary pieces.

583
00:39:49,580 --> 00:39:55,500
And so the idea is that we are um asking uh me and my uh

584
00:39:55,500 --> 00:40:01,490
colleague uh Ashley Hazel, who's at the University of California, San Francisco, um, And

585
00:40:01,490 --> 00:40:07,090
then our colleagues in Bangladesh are basically asking how do social

586
00:40:07,090 --> 00:40:09,650
networks change across seasons?

587
00:40:10,210 --> 00:40:13,730
Are they different for people who are living on boats versus living on the land?

588
00:40:13,810 --> 00:40:19,330
And we really expect those differences to uh matter seasonally.

589
00:40:20,610 --> 00:40:25,840
And uh and then and then what are the consequences of that for you know all kinds of other

590
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,640
things about health and well-being and and stuff like that.

591
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:34,080
Um and so we collected uh contact networks um

592
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:40,160
weekly for a year produced insane amounts of data sounds easy

593
00:40:40,240 --> 00:40:46,080
wow sounds easy I know unbased um and yeah yeah and so we're still cleaning the

594
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:50,590
data sets Um, but um yeah, I mean, like that's one of the big questions.

595
00:40:50,750 --> 00:40:56,430
Um, and then I've got a um, I'm gonna be working with Mike Gervin, my colleague at UCSB,

596
00:40:56,590 --> 00:41:00,510
our colleague at UCSB, um, who's really interested in social aging.

597
00:41:00,750 --> 00:41:06,670
And we're gonna be running um an interview uh that he um is that's is being run

598
00:41:06,670 --> 00:41:12,350
across cultures that's looking at older people and how socially isolated versus integrated

599
00:41:12,350 --> 00:41:12,910
they are.

600
00:41:13,070 --> 00:41:18,680
Um uh so but my suspicions, um, my my anecdotal evidence

601
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:23,800
suggests that um people become more

602
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,200
isolated during the rainy season.

603
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:32,680
Um and that, and it's not entire like

604
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:38,040
you're not entirely isolated, but you are isolated with, you know, maybe one or two other

605
00:41:38,010 --> 00:41:40,090
households or families, right?

606
00:41:40,250 --> 00:41:44,890
Um, and you're also not fully isolated in the sense that you couldn't go, like, you know,

607
00:41:45,050 --> 00:41:48,090
spend five minutes to get in your boat and go see someone else.

608
00:41:48,170 --> 00:41:49,690
And people do that all the time.

609
00:41:50,170 --> 00:41:56,170
But you are isolated in the sense that it takes more effort to actually go visit other

610
00:41:56,170 --> 00:41:58,810
people or to, you know, socialize with people.

611
00:41:59,050 --> 00:42:03,980
In the dry season, you see because a lot because the flooding recedes, and so there's a lot

612
00:42:03,980 --> 00:42:06,220
more like open land that's available.

613
00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:09,180
And so you see people gathering on the land.

614
00:42:09,340 --> 00:42:14,540
Um, kids are playing together, adults are socializing, you know, all kinds of stuff.

615
00:42:14,700 --> 00:42:20,060
Um, and then in the rainy season, a lot of that um is reduced.

616
00:42:20,540 --> 00:42:25,570
And um, and so yeah, so I think there is a huge seasonal element to this.

617
00:42:25,730 --> 00:42:27,730
Um, and it it depends again.

618
00:42:27,810 --> 00:42:31,090
Uh, people do people find ways to get around this.

619
00:42:31,170 --> 00:42:35,170
Um, they'll all dock their fishing boats at the same place at the end of every day.

620
00:42:35,410 --> 00:42:38,610
Um, or and then they'll all go to the tea stall together.

621
00:42:38,850 --> 00:42:42,530
Um, because fishing itself is is pretty isolating.

622
00:42:42,770 --> 00:42:46,770
You're only on your fishing boat with your spouse and kids.

623
00:42:47,170 --> 00:42:52,880
Um, but uh yeah, and kids do jump in the water and swim together and play, and

624
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:53,840
it's very cute.

625
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:59,920
Um but yeah, I mean I I think there is a real major seasonal um

626
00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:01,040
distinction there.

627
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:07,280
And uh the extent to which this is impacting people um and their sort of health

628
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,570
and well-being, happiness, um, feelings of loneliness and isolation.

629
00:43:11,730 --> 00:43:16,370
That I'm not sure, but hopefully we'll have some answers to in the near future.

630
00:43:16,690 --> 00:43:16,850
Yeah.

631
00:43:17,010 --> 00:43:20,850
It's funny because I know I know you lived in Germany too, but even just the minimal

632
00:43:20,850 --> 00:43:24,850
cultural difference between going back and forth from Germany to US and car culture versus

633
00:43:24,850 --> 00:43:25,010
not.

634
00:43:25,170 --> 00:43:25,410
Yes.

635
00:43:25,650 --> 00:43:30,660
Um I actually this is sounding very f familiar of you know driving in a car every day,

636
00:43:30,820 --> 00:43:33,380
working at home, living in a nuclear family household.

637
00:43:33,540 --> 00:43:38,020
So I actually I think, you know, contrary to your concern earlier, I mean I think in a

638
00:43:38,020 --> 00:43:43,860
sense this highlights that every culture has, you know, seasonality or

639
00:43:44,020 --> 00:43:49,540
constraints of how often do you see people, how can you actually um uh have the opportunity

640
00:43:49,540 --> 00:43:54,370
to hang out with people, to play with people, to how do you what is what is your work like?

641
00:43:54,530 --> 00:43:55,970
Are you isolated or social?

642
00:43:56,210 --> 00:44:02,050
And we we all need to, you know, figure out out how to um square the circles

643
00:44:02,050 --> 00:44:05,410
when our work may be more isolating than we want it to be.

644
00:44:05,570 --> 00:44:08,050
Um or if not, we are a little bit miserable.

645
00:44:08,130 --> 00:44:09,330
And that's really interesting.

646
00:44:09,490 --> 00:44:09,810
Yeah.

647
00:44:09,890 --> 00:44:10,050
Yeah.

648
00:44:10,530 --> 00:44:10,770
Yeah.

649
00:44:10,850 --> 00:44:16,800
I mean there are a lot of parallels um in the US, maybe maybe less

650
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,960
so for those of us in California where seasonality is a little bit less extreme.

651
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:26,080
But um, you know, in wintertime in the Midwest, you're just not seeing as many people,

652
00:44:26,240 --> 00:44:26,480
right?

653
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:29,360
I mean, yeah, on a farm, yeah, exactly.

654
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:30,080
Yeah.

655
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:35,280
Or even like in the city, like, you know, it's cold, everybody's grumpy, it gets dark

656
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:35,600
early.

657
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:40,530
So no one is, you know, lingering outside of school to chat with each other, kids aren't

658
00:44:40,530 --> 00:44:42,050
having outdoor play dates, right?

659
00:44:42,130 --> 00:44:46,450
There's there's a pretty big shift in in our behavior too seasonally.

660
00:44:46,690 --> 00:44:51,890
Um and yeah, so it it's really it is one of those kind of human universal things if you

661
00:44:51,890 --> 00:44:53,170
really squint your eyes at it.

662
00:44:53,410 --> 00:44:54,050
Yeah, yeah.

663
00:44:54,610 --> 00:44:55,170
It's interesting.

664
00:44:55,330 --> 00:44:55,570
Yeah.

665
00:44:55,650 --> 00:45:00,130
I mean, um, yeah, there's a lot of work on on the so-called uh loneliness epidemic, you

666
00:45:00,130 --> 00:45:03,890
know, depending on on which numbers you look at, at least, you know, in particular in the

667
00:45:03,890 --> 00:45:08,060
US, um uh rates of loneliness seems to seem to be on the rise.

668
00:45:08,300 --> 00:45:12,220
Um, and to me, you know, this always raised the question of like, why?

669
00:45:12,380 --> 00:45:15,420
Like, why don't people just call their friends or just get together?

670
00:45:15,500 --> 00:45:16,300
Like, it's not hard.

671
00:45:16,380 --> 00:45:17,020
I don't understand.

672
00:45:17,100 --> 00:45:19,420
Like, if you're feeling lonely, there's a very clear solution.

673
00:45:19,500 --> 00:45:20,700
You you have access to it.

674
00:45:20,860 --> 00:45:24,220
It's like if like people are like dying of thirst in the desert, and there's like water

675
00:45:24,220 --> 00:45:24,620
right there.

676
00:45:24,780 --> 00:45:26,380
It's like, what's the problem here?

677
00:45:26,620 --> 00:45:28,300
The water's right there, just get it, you know.

678
00:45:28,380 --> 00:45:34,070
Like, um But I think w uh you're describing to me

679
00:45:34,070 --> 00:45:39,590
the sorts of barriers, ecological barriers, that make it harder for people to hang out with

680
00:45:39,590 --> 00:45:45,270
people, uh um the idea I'm starting to have now is that um getting

681
00:45:45,270 --> 00:45:48,790
together and socializing uh entails costs, right?

682
00:45:49,110 --> 00:45:54,950
It entails costs and time, effort, energy, perhaps physical risk if you're uh braving

683
00:45:55,030 --> 00:45:59,190
um, you know, dangerous uh circumstances like rainfall.

684
00:45:59,500 --> 00:46:05,260
Um so it may be that, you know, um when the costs of

685
00:46:05,260 --> 00:46:08,860
socializing are high, you know, you get less socializing.

686
00:46:09,020 --> 00:46:13,020
And it may be that one of the causes of of loneliness isn't so much that like there's water

687
00:46:13,020 --> 00:46:14,860
there within reach and people aren't reaching it.

688
00:46:14,940 --> 00:46:18,700
It's that just the costs of of getting together with other people have increased.

689
00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:22,780
You know, like even living here in LA, um, you know, there's there's a lot of traffic and

690
00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:24,410
people are situated further apart.

691
00:46:24,490 --> 00:46:27,450
And so, like, I'm gonna go hang out with someone, I better really like that person.

692
00:46:27,610 --> 00:46:28,170
Like, no.

693
00:46:33,210 --> 00:46:33,610
I know.

694
00:46:33,770 --> 00:46:36,570
That was one of my least favorite things about living in Chicago.

695
00:46:38,570 --> 00:46:39,770
I never got to see anyone.

696
00:46:39,850 --> 00:46:44,250
Like, I never saw my colleagues outside of work because it's an hour in the car to see

697
00:46:44,250 --> 00:46:44,810
them, right?

698
00:46:44,970 --> 00:46:47,440
So which, you know, I don't know.

699
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:48,960
That that was not for me.

700
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:50,480
Um, other people like that.

701
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:51,760
Right.

702
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:52,000
Yeah.

703
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,160
And it makes me think that like we perhaps one of the reasons why we don't see these

704
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:01,760
loneliness issues arising in more small scale societies is just because the barriers to

705
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:02,880
socializing aren't there.

706
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,600
Like you're already living amongst people that are already there.

707
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:10,400
It takes no effort to like, you know, reach out and tap them on the back or, you know, say

708
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:10,960
something.

709
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:16,830
Um and uh because just the barriers and and the costs are so low, you get

710
00:47:16,990 --> 00:47:18,030
more socializing.

711
00:47:18,110 --> 00:47:22,350
It it goes it goes back to this this fundamental economic logic, you know, that that that

712
00:47:22,350 --> 00:47:23,870
we started off the podcast with.

713
00:47:24,510 --> 00:47:30,350
It also reminds me a lot of I I've been um mulling over this this cool um

714
00:47:30,750 --> 00:47:36,670
uh economics paper, this famous paper um by Ronald Coase called the Coase uh Theorem.

715
00:47:36,820 --> 00:47:40,740
Uh, and and what he discovered is that there's this fundamental principle at the heart of

716
00:47:40,740 --> 00:47:43,380
economics, which is this idea of transaction costs.

717
00:47:43,700 --> 00:47:49,460
Um, and these are the silent invisible the invisible costs that um are required for a

718
00:47:49,460 --> 00:47:54,340
buyer and a seller to find each other and make a mutually beneficial deal.

719
00:47:54,580 --> 00:47:58,820
And uh you know, prior to uh Coase coming along, economists just kind of didn't see that

720
00:47:58,890 --> 00:48:00,330
and just kind of took that for granted.

721
00:48:00,410 --> 00:48:03,050
Like you know, people can mutually benefit by trading.

722
00:48:03,130 --> 00:48:03,770
Why don't they do it?

723
00:48:03,930 --> 00:48:05,530
Well, because there are all these costs, right?

724
00:48:05,930 --> 00:48:09,370
Uh they the the the buyer and seller have to know that the other one exists.

725
00:48:09,450 --> 00:48:10,330
They have to know where they are.

726
00:48:10,410 --> 00:48:12,170
They have to meet up at the same time and place.

727
00:48:12,330 --> 00:48:16,650
They're costs and sort of and bargaining uh and and reaching a mute mutually beneficial

728
00:48:16,650 --> 00:48:16,890
deal.

729
00:48:16,970 --> 00:48:20,490
There are costs in in trust and ensuring that if I give you the money, you'll give me what

730
00:48:20,490 --> 00:48:21,050
I paid for.

731
00:48:21,370 --> 00:48:26,490
There are all these uh silent invisible costs that that exist that that that have to be

732
00:48:26,490 --> 00:48:30,660
there in order for um a a marketplace to even exist, right?

733
00:48:30,900 --> 00:48:31,060
Yeah.

734
00:48:31,460 --> 00:48:37,380
And the major reason why marketplaces exist is because the transaction

735
00:48:37,380 --> 00:48:38,980
costs have come down.

736
00:48:39,140 --> 00:48:43,780
And the major reason why uh businesses exist is because they minimize transaction costs.

737
00:48:43,940 --> 00:48:48,260
It's much the transaction costs are much lower if I'm working with the same people every

738
00:48:48,260 --> 00:48:52,190
day and I have a stable employee that's working for me than if I'm literally contracting

739
00:48:52,190 --> 00:48:56,270
out every task that my business has to do with and finding a different person and signing a

740
00:48:56,350 --> 00:48:57,870
different contract for every little thing.

741
00:48:58,030 --> 00:49:01,550
If I just have a stable set of people I'm always working with, that reduces the transaction

742
00:49:01,550 --> 00:49:01,870
costs.

743
00:49:02,030 --> 00:49:06,430
And that's why you have things like companies instead of just a bunch of contracts, right?

744
00:49:06,750 --> 00:49:07,390
Right, right.

745
00:49:07,550 --> 00:49:13,360
Um, and so I'm beginning to think like talking to you, um, that

746
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,560
there's kind of like a transaction cost theory of loneliness.

747
00:49:16,720 --> 00:49:22,480
Um, and and and and the same logic that's that's that governs economic growth also governs

748
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:23,600
social growth.

749
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,680
Um, and that when the transaction costs are down, people engage in the activity.

750
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,480
And when they're high, you know, they can't.

751
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:31,600
Right.

752
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:33,920
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

753
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:39,440
Uh and the other thing that I was thinking about too, um uh is uh that for

754
00:49:40,110 --> 00:49:45,790
lots of people who live outside of the US and kind of outside of major cities around the

755
00:49:45,790 --> 00:49:51,470
world, so many people are living in multi-generational households.

756
00:49:51,790 --> 00:49:57,550
So many people are, I mean, again, aside from some of the like

757
00:49:57,550 --> 00:50:03,320
weird exceptions, um Most people get married and have kids.

758
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:11,160
The barriers are either completely like non-existent because you

759
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:17,080
live in the same household with people who you can socialize with, or just so

760
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:17,960
low, right?

761
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:22,570
That like it's just not, this is not something you're facing on a regular basis.

762
00:50:22,730 --> 00:50:28,490
And so maybe there are slightly higher costs to seeing your friends um or your brother or

763
00:50:28,490 --> 00:50:29,690
your sister or whatever.

764
00:50:29,850 --> 00:50:35,610
Um, but those costs are still pretty low, especially if you live in, you know, the same

765
00:50:35,610 --> 00:50:39,770
place, um, same group or or you know, location or whatever.

766
00:50:39,930 --> 00:50:45,240
Um, But but still, I mean, like I think humans spent the majority of our

767
00:50:45,240 --> 00:50:50,680
evolutionary history living in contexts where those costs were

768
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,760
exceedingly low, if not completely non-existent, right?

769
00:50:55,000 --> 00:51:01,000
And so it's like we're trying to navigate these things alongside, like it's it's

770
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:06,050
not, you know, it's the costs are in time and energy and all that kind of stuff.

771
00:51:06,210 --> 00:51:09,490
They're also in like, um, you know, what you're giving up.

772
00:51:09,650 --> 00:51:09,890
Right.

773
00:51:10,050 --> 00:51:14,450
So if you're gonna travel an hour to see someone, that means an hour that you're not doing

774
00:51:14,450 --> 00:51:15,090
something else.

775
00:51:15,250 --> 00:51:15,490
Um.

776
00:51:16,290 --> 00:51:22,130
And so yeah, I think it's like we we just our our way of living has increased

777
00:51:22,130 --> 00:51:27,920
those costs so dramatically um that we don't even, you know, we don't know what we're

778
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:28,560
doing anymore.

779
00:51:28,720 --> 00:51:31,600
I think it's really bad for us too.

780
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:32,080
Yeah.

781
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:38,000
And I I think there's uh a prescriptive element to this too, which is sort of either in

782
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:43,280
your own life or if you have the position of, you know, you're you're thinking about well

783
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:48,670
how do how do I build a better institution or a better I'm a planner or something, you

784
00:51:48,670 --> 00:51:48,830
know.

785
00:51:48,910 --> 00:51:52,430
I don't know how often people think about, well, what is the interaction cost?

786
00:51:52,590 --> 00:51:56,990
I mean, there's this idea of like third places, and there are some people doing it.

787
00:51:57,070 --> 00:52:00,830
But I mean, you know, usually we're like, well, you know, how many cars can we fit in this

788
00:52:00,830 --> 00:52:01,710
parking lot?

789
00:52:02,030 --> 00:52:07,550
We're not asking, um, well, what are the barriers to social or economic

790
00:52:07,550 --> 00:52:11,230
interaction that we're creating as an incidental byproduct?

791
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:12,800
And maybe we should, you know.

792
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,800
I mean, I think this is an argument for one of the values of social science and

793
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:22,480
anthropology and psychology is that the this issue of if I'm designing something,

794
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:26,640
I should be thinking about what or even, you know, how where do I want to live?

795
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:29,280
What kind of neighborhood do I want to live in if I'm lucky enough?

796
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,840
Or how could we make our neighborhood better?

797
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:37,920
Um or you know, yeah, what what are ways to lower my own social interaction costs if I

798
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:38,560
feel lonely?

799
00:52:39,370 --> 00:52:40,650
Yeah, absolutely.

800
00:52:40,810 --> 00:52:42,330
I think that's a great point.

801
00:52:42,730 --> 00:52:43,050
Yeah.

802
00:52:43,290 --> 00:52:48,410
I mean, uh not to get on my own hobby horse, but it reminds me of my my own work on humor.

803
00:52:48,570 --> 00:52:52,890
Um and you could think of, you know, the the uh the function of humor is reducing the

804
00:52:52,890 --> 00:52:56,570
transaction costs of coordination and communication with another person.

805
00:52:56,730 --> 00:53:00,720
Because when every anytime you attempt to communicate or collaborate with someone, there is

806
00:53:00,720 --> 00:53:05,120
the possibility of uh mix-ups of I say one thing and you think I mean a different thing, or

807
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:08,800
we're supposed to be taking on different roles, and I get the roles mixed up, or you know,

808
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:14,640
I get uh I I you know uh I speak too quickly or too slowly, or um, I use the wrong

809
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,280
body language or the wrong gestures or or whatever.

810
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,600
There are all these ways that we can become mixed up or or misaligned, and that gums up the

811
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:25,040
gears of us, you know, fruitfully collaborating and communicating with each other.

812
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,800
And so there would have been selection pressure to detect those kinds of mix-ups and to

813
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:34,070
find and to find the detection rewarding and pleasurable and to signal and create uh a

814
00:53:34,070 --> 00:53:37,830
common awareness that we that we're mixed up and to try to get us back on the same page.

815
00:53:37,990 --> 00:53:41,350
I think that's what laughter is about, the sort of the sort of signal that we're sending.

816
00:53:41,430 --> 00:53:47,110
And so I think humor is one of the ways in which we have evolved to reduce the transaction

817
00:53:47,110 --> 00:53:52,740
costs of mutual uh benefit and collaboration by evolving these mechanisms for detecting

818
00:53:52,740 --> 00:53:56,420
when we're out of sync or when we're misaligned and for signaling and sharing the signal uh

819
00:53:56,420 --> 00:53:57,620
to get us back on the same page.

820
00:53:57,700 --> 00:53:59,780
And we find that very rewarding and and pleasurable.

821
00:53:59,860 --> 00:54:04,020
And that's one of the ways one of the reasons why I think laughter brings people together

822
00:54:04,100 --> 00:54:05,940
and humor brings people together.

823
00:54:06,500 --> 00:54:11,060
But there are probably many other uh adaptations that that evolve for this purpose of uh

824
00:54:11,140 --> 00:54:15,540
you know reducing the costs of of social interaction and uh increasing the benefits.

825
00:54:15,860 --> 00:54:16,180
Yeah.

826
00:54:16,390 --> 00:54:17,190
yeah, yeah.

827
00:54:17,350 --> 00:54:18,790
That's an interesting point.

828
00:54:19,270 --> 00:54:19,910
I love it.

829
00:54:20,630 --> 00:54:26,070
Uh Katie, um, when you come back from the field or in in the um

830
00:54:26,550 --> 00:54:31,990
in the transition either year to year or over time,

831
00:54:32,950 --> 00:54:38,870
what if there's probably many things, but what are the things that having gone through this

832
00:54:39,190 --> 00:54:44,740
two uh different uh very different existences transition,

833
00:54:45,700 --> 00:54:50,660
what do you when you come back home, wherever home is, uh now Santa Barbara, but you know,

834
00:54:50,740 --> 00:54:56,580
or just um what what do you is are there things that you particularly notice?

835
00:54:57,060 --> 00:55:01,380
Maybe that the ground is stable now and you're not on a boat rocking all the time.

836
00:55:01,860 --> 00:55:07,540
Or or maybe more more um you know, are there things you're like, oh I realize now that

837
00:55:07,780 --> 00:55:12,390
this thing that I I wasn't looking at as a idiosyncrasy.

838
00:55:12,550 --> 00:55:16,870
Now I see it as an idiosyncrasy because I've seen that it can be different elsewhere.

839
00:55:18,070 --> 00:55:19,670
Yeah, wow, that's a good question.

840
00:55:21,750 --> 00:55:22,870
It is, yeah.

841
00:55:23,110 --> 00:55:26,310
Um there's a lot of uh metacognition requirements.

842
00:55:26,950 --> 00:55:27,670
Yeah, exactly.

843
00:55:27,830 --> 00:55:28,150
Yeah.

844
00:55:28,470 --> 00:55:32,870
Um yeah, I I think I I don't know.

845
00:55:33,190 --> 00:55:37,580
I think um I certainly

846
00:55:39,340 --> 00:55:45,180
I have like, you know, kind of little things that I've noticed every every once in a while

847
00:55:45,260 --> 00:55:46,060
when I come home.

848
00:55:46,220 --> 00:55:51,980
One of them, they're not always really positive, uh, but one of them is like um when I I

849
00:55:51,980 --> 00:55:53,260
think I came back one time.

850
00:55:53,420 --> 00:55:55,500
I think I was in the LA airport.

851
00:55:55,660 --> 00:55:57,710
Um, this was before I was living here.

852
00:55:57,790 --> 00:56:00,590
So it was, you know, I was uh transferring somewhere else.

853
00:56:00,670 --> 00:56:04,190
Um, and you know, you come back from an international flight, so you have to pick up your

854
00:56:04,190 --> 00:56:07,390
luggage and then recheck it before you, you know, transfer.

855
00:56:07,870 --> 00:56:11,950
Um, and there was just tons of luggage everywhere.

856
00:56:12,110 --> 00:56:17,630
I forget where I was coming from, but I had two huge suitcases that I was bringing with me.

857
00:56:17,790 --> 00:56:22,820
And they had gotten buried under other people's luggage on the conveyor belt, and no one

858
00:56:22,820 --> 00:56:24,820
helped me get my bags out.

859
00:56:24,980 --> 00:56:27,300
And I just thought, like, what is happening?

860
00:56:27,460 --> 00:56:31,780
Like, if I had been back in Bangladesh, everyone would have been helping me, you know, and

861
00:56:31,780 --> 00:56:34,180
that like they do that for each other.

862
00:56:34,500 --> 00:56:39,700
Um, even though it's like when you're in the airport in Taka, you're in a mega city

863
00:56:39,700 --> 00:56:42,900
airport, like people do not know each other, right?

864
00:56:42,980 --> 00:56:45,060
Um, they certainly don't know me.

865
00:56:45,220 --> 00:56:51,150
Um, and it's just a a like a way of life there that you are

866
00:56:51,150 --> 00:56:55,950
like kind and courteous to other people, in large part, you know, not always and not

867
00:56:55,950 --> 00:57:00,830
entirely, but just like that there are these small things that you do for other people.

868
00:57:01,230 --> 00:57:07,150
Um, and I think to a large extent, you know, our kind of individualism has

869
00:57:07,150 --> 00:57:13,060
really screwed us up in a lot of those kinds of ways where we just we think we don't have

870
00:57:13,060 --> 00:57:16,180
to rely on anyone else or we don't want to have to rely on anyone else.

871
00:57:16,340 --> 00:57:20,660
So we don't so you know don't go out of our way to help others all the time.

872
00:57:20,740 --> 00:57:20,820
Yeah.

873
00:57:20,980 --> 00:57:22,820
Um especially if we don't know them.

874
00:57:22,980 --> 00:57:26,980
Um and I I think um you know there are obviously reasons for that.

875
00:57:27,140 --> 00:57:30,180
Like we could come up with a whole evolutionary story about that.

876
00:57:30,340 --> 00:57:35,620
Um but but at the same time, right, like it's it's not entirely true that we don't need

877
00:57:35,620 --> 00:57:36,580
other people here.

878
00:57:36,900 --> 00:57:39,780
We this is a story that we have told ourselves.

879
00:57:39,930 --> 00:57:44,650
Um, and I think it's just a story there that is not really plausible.

880
00:57:44,890 --> 00:57:49,770
Um, it's very apparent in everyday life how much you need other people and how many other

881
00:57:49,770 --> 00:57:54,090
people you have around you, you know, how often you're around family members and all those

882
00:57:54,090 --> 00:57:59,930
kinds of things that I think just you know leads to these kind of small

883
00:58:00,010 --> 00:58:02,570
but not insignificant differences.

884
00:58:03,130 --> 00:58:08,920
Um And so yeah, it's it's little things like that, I think, that really kind of strike

885
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:09,160
me.

886
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:09,640
Yeah.

887
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:13,960
And to your point, and what our point we were talking about earlier, it's also, I mean, the

888
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:19,960
individual people in LA here in this example, it's it's also

889
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:24,760
the evolved psychology interacting with, you know, it's doing a cost benefit analysis,

890
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:25,000
right?

891
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:31,010
And so it's that there's been some set of circumstances that you know have just you know,

892
00:58:31,170 --> 00:58:36,370
if people want to be more friendly or social, maybe there's been a slap on the wrist both

893
00:58:36,530 --> 00:58:40,930
as experiences, or you're just kind of absorbing the ambient norms.

894
00:58:41,170 --> 00:58:46,930
So um I think one of the points of this whole discussion is it's not impossible to change

895
00:58:46,930 --> 00:58:51,570
it, you know, like if you if you but it's it's a it's the psychology and the social

896
00:58:51,570 --> 00:58:55,170
structure, but it's not like you have to change the whole culture, you can just have a

897
00:58:55,170 --> 00:59:00,720
small, small local cues can completely change how social or friendly or

898
00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:03,280
interactive the cost of interaction, as David said, you know.

899
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:03,600
Yeah.

900
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:07,280
Like if you were wearing, I don't know, an Eagles jersey and somebody else with an Eagles

901
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:09,360
jersey and you're like, hey, hey, help me out.

902
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:11,440
And you know, um, that's a terrible example.

903
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:13,040
Um J Jamie Kremsman.

904
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:13,840
I think that would do it.

905
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:19,200
I think that would probably um but uh but yeah, but but but the point is like it's not

906
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:23,600
magical or ethereal, right, to change things or even humor, as David said, you know, or

907
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:25,040
just anything in common.

908
00:59:25,270 --> 00:59:27,510
Um, but sometimes it does require that.

909
00:59:27,670 --> 00:59:27,990
Yeah.

910
00:59:28,310 --> 00:59:28,950
Right, right.

911
00:59:29,030 --> 00:59:31,750
I mean, we're looking for commonalities with other people all the time.

912
00:59:31,830 --> 00:59:33,270
And I mean, I'm from Nebraska.

913
00:59:33,350 --> 00:59:37,670
So also my opinion on how friendly and helpful we should be to other people is entirely

914
00:59:37,670 --> 00:59:38,630
skewed by that.

915
00:59:38,710 --> 00:59:38,950
Yes.

916
00:59:39,110 --> 00:59:43,750
Um, but it's also the case that if I see someone with a Nebraska t-shirt on, I get very

917
00:59:43,750 --> 00:59:45,830
excited and immediately want to go talk to them.

918
00:59:46,150 --> 00:59:46,390
Right.

919
00:59:46,550 --> 00:59:47,110
So exactly.

920
00:59:47,270 --> 00:59:52,660
Yeah, I mean, yeah, we're doing that kind of stuff all the time and partially possibly it's

921
00:59:52,660 --> 00:59:58,580
because we assume that that similarity we have with someone else will reduce the cost um

922
00:59:58,900 --> 01:00:04,180
or reduce you know uh the risk that we're taking with that interaction at least yeah I'm

923
01:00:04,180 --> 01:00:07,620
from Buffalo New York and I would say we're also a friendly people.

924
01:00:07,940 --> 01:00:09,540
The weather can kill you there too.

925
01:00:09,620 --> 01:00:13,860
That's always my feeling of of banding together and being fairly friendly.

926
01:00:14,180 --> 01:00:14,420
Yeah.

927
01:00:14,660 --> 01:00:16,610
I I don't think that's a bad theory at all.

928
01:00:17,090 --> 01:00:18,850
I'm good on board with that.

929
01:00:19,250 --> 01:00:19,490
Yeah.

930
01:00:19,570 --> 01:00:23,170
No, I've I've I've been thinking a lot about the the case of of the jersey or or the

931
01:00:23,170 --> 01:00:27,970
superficial similarity or and and the role of that and in bringing people together.

932
01:00:28,050 --> 01:00:33,890
And I've been trying to do some game theory of uh work on um on alliances and and that is

933
01:00:33,890 --> 01:00:37,490
also a problem of uh of transaction costs or or coordination costs.

934
01:00:37,810 --> 01:00:42,760
If you think about it if you're trying to form an in-group and an out group um uh there are

935
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:47,240
a huge number of permutations and even a small number of people, small group of people, uh,

936
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:51,400
of who could theoretically be in the in-group and who could theoretically be in the

937
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:51,800
outgroup.

938
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:56,120
I mean, it's just the logic of combinatorics and factorials, just like huge number of

939
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:56,760
possibilities.

940
01:00:56,920 --> 01:01:01,720
And in order for us to successfully form an in-group and an all-out group, we all have to

941
01:01:01,720 --> 01:01:03,400
agree on who's in and who's out.

942
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:04,600
And that's really hard to do.

943
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:06,440
That's a really challenging coordination problem.

944
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:11,670
And what wearing the same jersey does is it is a huge uh solution to that problem.

945
01:01:11,830 --> 01:01:13,030
Oh, we're all wearing the same jersey.

946
01:01:13,190 --> 01:01:14,230
Okay, we're the in-group.

947
01:01:14,550 --> 01:01:18,710
And it just massively collapses the space of possibilities down to a manageable number.

948
01:01:18,790 --> 01:01:23,270
And I think that is largely the function of these superficial similarities that is that it

949
01:01:23,270 --> 01:01:26,710
helps us solve this coordination problem of who's who's on our side, who's on the other

950
01:01:26,710 --> 01:01:28,550
side, who's the in-group, who's the out group.

951
01:01:28,710 --> 01:01:33,510
We're just going to make it easy for each other by uh creating common knowledge of uh

952
01:01:33,840 --> 01:01:37,440
similarities even if they're entirely superficial they can still serve that function.

953
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:42,240
Yeah and it's also it's also what the constitution of the group is you know it's not like

954
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:46,880
Jersey therefore you know like I think this is like a sexual interaction or you're gonna

955
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,160
come live with me or I have to like take care of you for my forever.

956
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:54,160
It's like no we might like hang out or talk for a second and it coordinates about that.

957
01:01:54,240 --> 01:01:57,520
Like I don't want to approach somebody at an airport and then think like oh they're

958
01:01:57,520 --> 01:02:01,430
actually in really bad straits and now I have to take care of them the rest of my life,

959
01:02:01,510 --> 01:02:06,070
which is I think like one of the hindrances for dealing with homeless people, which is like

960
01:02:06,070 --> 01:02:07,430
sad but rational.

961
01:02:07,510 --> 01:02:11,270
You know, I think like that's part of the evolved psychology is like I'm gonna be

962
01:02:11,270 --> 01:02:16,870
responsible for dealing with a really hard situation that I only have 10 minutes and $10

963
01:02:17,190 --> 01:02:17,750
to deal with.

964
01:02:17,830 --> 01:02:20,150
And that's too little in both ways.

965
01:02:20,310 --> 01:02:22,870
So I think also just yeah, sorry, Katie, go ahead.

966
01:02:22,950 --> 01:02:23,030
Yeah.

967
01:02:23,270 --> 01:02:26,340
Oh no, I was gonna say, and I mean, you guys are both dads.

968
01:02:26,420 --> 01:02:29,940
So I don't know if this is the same for dads, but I feel like this is something that

969
01:02:29,940 --> 01:02:32,100
happens with moms a lot.

970
01:02:32,820 --> 01:02:37,460
Um, you know, like in in settings like airports or parks or something like that, you know,

971
01:02:37,620 --> 01:02:42,820
you have you have kids, there's this kind of um, I don't know, level of of

972
01:02:43,140 --> 01:02:48,900
in-group trust that you have with someone, um, where it's like, I could totally ask this

973
01:02:48,900 --> 01:02:53,730
person to like hold my place in line while I go like run and you know, help my child really

974
01:02:53,730 --> 01:02:54,130
quickly.

975
01:02:54,290 --> 01:02:59,970
Or like I could even like, I mean, I've had people in the grocery store offer to like

976
01:03:00,210 --> 01:03:03,090
hold my child before.

977
01:03:03,250 --> 01:03:08,370
Um, or you know, like watch her while I go like pick something up that I forgot, right?

978
01:03:08,530 --> 01:03:14,050
Um and um and while I don't usually take them up on that, um, it is something where like

979
01:03:14,220 --> 01:03:18,940
if they also had kids or they were also holding a baby, then it's like this honest signal

980
01:03:18,940 --> 01:03:22,460
that I know that this person is a generally trustworthy person.

981
01:03:22,540 --> 01:03:22,780
Yeah.

982
01:03:22,940 --> 01:03:23,260
Right.

983
01:03:23,340 --> 01:03:29,340
Um, and so I think, you know, again, it it it happens on smaller

984
01:03:29,340 --> 01:03:31,660
scales and on larger scales a lot.

985
01:03:31,740 --> 01:03:33,660
And it's it's it's really important.

986
01:03:34,140 --> 01:03:34,460
Yeah.

987
01:03:34,670 --> 01:03:35,710
No, I I I get that.

988
01:03:35,790 --> 01:03:39,390
I I I don't know, David, but for me, yeah, no, I experienced that as well.

989
01:03:39,710 --> 01:03:45,550
And it's almost like kind of uh like parents are especially parents of young

990
01:03:45,550 --> 01:03:48,430
kids, you know, it's all we're we're all you're sort of closed.

991
01:03:49,790 --> 01:03:51,470
Yeah, you're kind of like, okay, I see you, I see you.

992
01:03:51,550 --> 01:03:51,710
Yeah.

993
01:03:51,870 --> 01:03:56,990
And if like your kid ran off, you know, like it's even in a second, you know, or or even I

994
01:03:56,990 --> 01:04:02,440
mean, this reminds me even where there's been situations where I'm closer to somebody

995
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:07,000
else's kid who's in a clearly like if they ran out, they would get hurt.

996
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:11,800
And just like a second of like me contact like eye contact with the other parent, it's

997
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,680
like, no, okay, if they did that, I would get them, you know, like that.

998
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:15,480
Yeah.

999
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:20,360
Or at the playground, like um, I've you know, I've kind of got eyes on this kid and like,

1000
01:04:20,440 --> 01:04:24,520
you know, their parent knows that like they're on their way, but if something happens, like

1001
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:25,720
I'm gonna step in, right?

1002
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:26,200
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1003
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:26,680
Yeah.

1004
01:04:26,990 --> 01:04:27,390
Yes.

1005
01:04:27,550 --> 01:04:27,710
Yeah.

1006
01:04:27,790 --> 01:04:28,030
Yeah.

1007
01:04:28,270 --> 01:04:33,070
No, it speaks to, you know, an interesting thing about human psychology is that we don't

1008
01:04:33,070 --> 01:04:38,590
merely find our own offspring uh cute or uh nieces and nephews cute.

1009
01:04:38,670 --> 01:04:41,150
We find pretty much every kid and maybe

1010
01:04:46,990 --> 01:04:50,590
about Well David, do you feel like more that way since you're like became a parent?

1011
01:04:50,860 --> 01:04:53,900
Like do you I've I've always found kids pretty cute, I think.

1012
01:04:54,220 --> 01:04:54,540
Yeah, yeah.

1013
01:04:54,780 --> 01:04:58,140
I mean, there's clearly individual differences, there's clearly parenting brain that gets

1014
01:04:58,140 --> 01:04:58,780
turned on.

1015
01:04:59,580 --> 01:04:59,740
Sure.

1016
01:04:59,900 --> 01:05:05,740
I I wouldn't say that um becoming a dad has made me find other people's kids more more

1017
01:05:05,740 --> 01:05:06,300
cute.

1018
01:05:06,540 --> 01:05:08,060
Um I don't know.

1019
01:05:08,140 --> 01:05:08,700
Do you have a lot of people?

1020
01:05:08,860 --> 01:05:09,820
Yeah, no, I I agree with that.

1021
01:05:09,980 --> 01:05:10,460
No, no, no.

1022
01:05:10,540 --> 01:05:15,420
I I I think it's all the other stuff where we're that we're talking about sort of that as

1023
01:05:15,420 --> 01:05:20,650
opposed to like this is just aesthetically acute thing, which whatever.

1024
01:05:20,810 --> 01:05:24,970
Now it's sort of like, you know, I'm in parenting mode, such that, like, you know, when I

1025
01:05:25,050 --> 01:05:30,970
I'm I'm in the role of parent, of I'm the, I'm the older, more mature

1026
01:05:30,970 --> 01:05:31,850
control system.

1027
01:05:32,010 --> 01:05:37,850
I'm keyed in and attentive to kids and what's going on with the kids and if something

1028
01:05:37,850 --> 01:05:38,730
is needed.

1029
01:05:38,970 --> 01:05:43,930
And other parents are also doing that, and we're co-registering that we're all in this

1030
01:05:43,930 --> 01:05:44,650
together.

1031
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:49,240
and if there's a really high cost benefit situation or even mundane, but we can all

1032
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:55,000
coordinate a little bit to to to keep doing this job of keeping these little not always

1033
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:59,640
helpless but still relatively neotonous things from really hurting themselves or getting in

1034
01:05:59,640 --> 01:06:00,360
a bad situation.

1035
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:00,680
Yeah.

1036
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:01,080
Yeah.

1037
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,320
You would make a great show to go dad.

1038
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:08,120
Maybe I'll move there if that doesn't work here in LA.

1039
01:06:09,720 --> 01:06:10,600
That's awesome.

1040
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:11,160
Yeah.

1041
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:11,640
Yeah.

1042
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:12,200
Yeah.

1043
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:12,840
Yeah.

1044
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:13,400
Yeah.

1045
01:06:13,430 --> 01:06:13,830
Yeah.

1046
01:06:13,990 --> 01:06:19,510
I mean it is really interesting because um there's just a lot of like um I mean, certainly

1047
01:06:19,590 --> 01:06:23,830
this is true in our lives, but it's also the case with the the Shotogore families.

1048
01:06:23,910 --> 01:06:29,670
Like the dads are when the moms are at work, they're gone and maybe there's a

1049
01:06:29,670 --> 01:06:31,190
grandma around somewhere, right?

1050
01:06:31,270 --> 01:06:35,990
Or something, but the dads are in charge and they are like

1051
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:41,960
you know, I mean, like they're bringing their kids to like have not uh not little play, but

1052
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:44,040
basically effectively little play dates, right?

1053
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:48,600
With the other um kids whose dads are also taking care of them.

1054
01:06:48,760 --> 01:06:54,600
There's a lot of solidarity, there's a lot of you know of of social bonding, I think that

1055
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:59,960
happens around these kind of shared circumstances that they have, and um

1056
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:06,250
and a lot of very strong sort of norms and expectations around how

1057
01:07:06,250 --> 01:07:11,690
people should behave as parents in general, but as dads in particular.

1058
01:07:12,170 --> 01:07:17,050
And there's just this really strong cultural norm that you are an attentive and

1059
01:07:17,050 --> 01:07:19,290
affectionate dad.

1060
01:07:19,450 --> 01:07:24,170
And again, there's individual differences, certainly, but by and large, that's that's the

1061
01:07:24,170 --> 01:07:25,130
vibe there.

1062
01:07:25,860 --> 01:07:30,820
And it seems to be quite important, especially if your kid, for example, falls out of the

1063
01:07:30,820 --> 01:07:33,140
boat or somebody else's kid falls, right?

1064
01:07:33,220 --> 01:07:34,900
Like you have to be attentive.

1065
01:07:35,060 --> 01:07:36,100
So interesting.

1066
01:07:36,260 --> 01:07:36,980
Um, yeah.

1067
01:07:37,460 --> 01:07:41,700
I I will say that one thing that has changed after after becoming a dad is that is the

1068
01:07:41,700 --> 01:07:45,860
level of outrage I feel toward people who are bad dads or bad parents.

1069
01:07:46,180 --> 01:07:50,660
Like I I didn't feel that at all before before becoming, but now like if someone is is like

1070
01:07:50,950 --> 01:07:56,150
mistreating a child or especially their own child, like man, that just really just

1071
01:07:56,390 --> 01:08:00,710
disgusts me and and creates a sense of loathing that is is totally new for me.

1072
01:08:00,790 --> 01:08:02,870
I don't know if if if that resonates with you, Dave.

1073
01:08:03,590 --> 01:08:07,910
Uh I mean I'm pretty high in moral outrage at a baseline.

1074
01:08:08,070 --> 01:08:12,070
Um people people who know me well are laughing are laughing right now.

1075
01:08:12,310 --> 01:08:15,990
So um if anything, I feel like it's kind of chilled me out a little bit.

1076
01:08:16,630 --> 01:08:18,470
Or I'm just like, but I don't know.

1077
01:08:18,550 --> 01:08:20,240
I I actually I don't know, David.

1078
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:26,160
I don't know if I also don't see a lot of bad fortunately I I don't actually see a lot of

1079
01:08:26,160 --> 01:08:27,040
bad parenting.

1080
01:08:27,200 --> 01:08:32,320
Um but I don't see a lot of parents Well, yeah, no, I think I I do see a lot of parents

1081
01:08:32,400 --> 01:08:36,160
like, you know, dropping on and off school and things like that, but I don't fortunately I

1082
01:08:36,160 --> 01:08:37,520
don't see a lot of bad parenting.

1083
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:38,720
I don't I don't know, David.

1084
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:39,730
I I I don't know.

1085
01:08:39,890 --> 01:08:40,210
I don't know.

1086
01:08:40,370 --> 01:08:44,690
Oh maybe I just have I live in a different with yeah I I I know like celebrities word

1087
01:08:44,930 --> 01:08:49,890
phlanderers and you know right oh I drug addictions and just totally neglecting it's an LA

1088
01:08:49,970 --> 01:08:50,770
Santa Barbara difference.

1089
01:08:50,930 --> 01:08:52,450
In Santa Barbara we're just still fine.

1090
01:08:53,570 --> 01:08:53,730
Yeah.

1091
01:08:53,970 --> 01:08:57,490
When I hear horror stories like that of, you know, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1092
01:08:57,650 --> 01:08:58,850
No, no, I I did that.

1093
01:08:59,010 --> 01:09:04,770
No, there are things like um, you know, something like somebody yeah, like a a drug user,

1094
01:09:04,930 --> 01:09:10,760
famous person who had young kids, the the simulating could I

1095
01:09:10,760 --> 01:09:14,040
imagine doing that actually post being a parent?

1096
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:19,640
It's like, no, that's an alien situation to me in a way that wasn't as

1097
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:22,360
visceral probably before being a parent.

1098
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:24,280
Um yeah, that's true.

1099
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:25,080
Yeah.

1100
01:09:25,160 --> 01:09:25,320
Yeah.

1101
01:09:25,720 --> 01:09:28,520
And especially I mean the economics here are are different as well because the

1102
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,960
entertainment industry you have to be gone for months at a time if you're on a shoot.

1103
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:36,010
Uh and so that that could be like really um you know hard.

1104
01:09:36,090 --> 01:09:39,530
I can't, I mean, honestly, like being away from from my daughter for like more than a few

1105
01:09:39,530 --> 01:09:41,050
days, like it just it kills me.

1106
01:09:41,450 --> 01:09:43,930
Like I'm imagining having to be away for months at a time.

1107
01:09:44,090 --> 01:09:48,250
And you know, when I see people just being really blasé about that or using it as an excuse

1108
01:09:48,250 --> 01:09:51,770
to be a neglectful parent, like, oh boy, it just makes me blood boil, you know.

1109
01:09:51,930 --> 01:09:52,810
Yeah, anyway.

1110
01:09:53,210 --> 01:09:58,380
I have a lot more patience for parents uh who are like at the playground on their phone now

1111
01:09:58,460 --> 01:10:02,220
than I think I used to because now I'm like, oh I get that.

1112
01:10:03,980 --> 01:10:05,980
Like your kid is finally playing.

1113
01:10:06,300 --> 01:10:11,500
And I, you know, like this may be your only chance during the day to chill out and not have

1114
01:10:11,500 --> 01:10:12,860
to like be on the malt.

1115
01:10:13,260 --> 01:10:13,580
Yes.

1116
01:10:13,740 --> 01:10:14,140
Yes.

1117
01:10:14,300 --> 01:10:14,620
Yes.

1118
01:10:14,860 --> 01:10:18,860
I try not to do it too much, but sometimes it's like, I gotta take a minute here, guys.

1119
01:10:19,260 --> 01:10:20,700
Like I need a break.

1120
01:10:21,580 --> 01:10:25,870
So exactly put on your oxygen mask first, is the way we talked about it.

1121
01:10:27,710 --> 01:10:30,270
Katie, uh this is yeah, this is fantastic.

1122
01:10:30,510 --> 01:10:36,510
Um are there any things that um or maybe that you want to point people toward

1123
01:10:36,510 --> 01:10:39,150
that they might not know after this conversation?

1124
01:10:39,390 --> 01:10:44,190
Like, is there um I mean we'll put it we can put a website and thing, but is there anything

1125
01:10:44,270 --> 01:10:49,070
kind of in c as we're wrapping up here that you wanted to make sure to flag or mention that

1126
01:10:49,070 --> 01:10:53,780
we might not have covered yet as it relates to either something you're doing or something

1127
01:10:53,780 --> 01:10:56,100
you're excited about, you know, whatever, anything.

1128
01:10:56,180 --> 01:10:56,740
Yeah.

1129
01:10:57,220 --> 01:11:03,060
I do think I was thinking about the conversation we had about risk earlier.

1130
01:11:03,140 --> 01:11:07,540
Um, and I think one of the things that I failed to mention that I should have mentioned,

1131
01:11:07,620 --> 01:11:13,380
um, which is a hobby horse of my own, I suppose, um, is

1132
01:11:13,380 --> 01:11:18,430
that I think one of the reasons, kind of going back to these, you know, sex or gender

1133
01:11:18,430 --> 01:11:24,270
differences and risk preferences and risk taking, um, I think one of the

1134
01:11:26,110 --> 01:11:31,550
pitfalls that we as evolutionary researchers um

1135
01:11:32,350 --> 01:11:35,790
you know are susceptible to a lot.

1136
01:11:36,030 --> 01:11:41,710
And one of the things that I see in the literature all the time is we get so

1137
01:11:41,710 --> 01:11:45,800
used to comparing women and men to one another.

1138
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:51,880
And it's often the case that when we do that, uh for in many different sorts of realms

1139
01:11:51,880 --> 01:11:57,640
of life, that what it looks like is that men have all this sort of variability, right?

1140
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:00,360
And that men are lots of men are doing different things.

1141
01:12:00,440 --> 01:12:03,560
If we just sort of think about parenting and fatherhood, right?

1142
01:12:03,720 --> 01:12:09,480
But there's a lot more variation in what um how men across

1143
01:12:09,480 --> 01:12:15,070
cultures and probably throughout history father and how they invest in their

1144
01:12:15,070 --> 01:12:18,430
kids than when we look at women.

1145
01:12:18,990 --> 01:12:24,830
But I think that what happens when we do that is we end up washing out a lot of

1146
01:12:24,830 --> 01:12:27,630
the variability in what women are doing.

1147
01:12:27,870 --> 01:12:28,190
Right.

1148
01:12:28,350 --> 01:12:33,710
And so when we're thinking about, well, women sh are more, you know, uh risk averse than

1149
01:12:33,710 --> 01:12:39,400
men, well, but we still might assume or we could test a

1150
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:45,320
hypothesis that would say that sure, on average, that's probably true, but that if we

1151
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:51,160
actually sort of look at the, you know, um all the women in the world,

1152
01:12:51,240 --> 01:12:53,400
um, that there is going to be a range.

1153
01:12:53,480 --> 01:12:59,320
Um, and that there will be cultural differences, certainly, and ecology and and sort of

1154
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:04,970
social circumstances and culture will play a major role in shaping those differences,

1155
01:13:05,370 --> 01:13:11,210
but that I think we often fail to examine a lot of the variability in

1156
01:13:11,210 --> 01:13:17,050
what women are doing because we so often compare what they do to what

1157
01:13:17,050 --> 01:13:17,690
men do.

1158
01:13:17,930 --> 01:13:23,530
And in some spaces, anyway, that has gotten kind of, you know, like

1159
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:28,960
whitewashed into saying, like, well, it's just not as interesting, or it's not as as worthy

1160
01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:34,960
of study, or that this variation is not evolutionarily relevant because when,

1161
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:37,200
you know, because of the comparison between the two.

1162
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,360
And so that again, like that's my personal hobby horse.

1163
01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:46,320
Um, and something that I always come back to when I'm talking about women's work in

1164
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:51,760
particular, their livelihoods, their economic work specifically, as well as childcare, um,

1165
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:57,690
and kind of thinking about from an evolutionary perspective, we know that

1166
01:13:57,690 --> 01:13:58,970
women do different things.

1167
01:13:59,210 --> 01:14:01,130
Why do they do these different things?

1168
01:14:01,690 --> 01:14:02,890
How are they different?

1169
01:14:03,050 --> 01:14:07,370
And what are the sort of you know fitness costs and benefits of them doing all these

1170
01:14:07,370 --> 01:14:07,930
different things?

1171
01:14:08,090 --> 01:14:13,610
And so trying to focus more on the variation among women than

1172
01:14:13,930 --> 01:14:19,450
kind of the comparison between men and women, because I think that remains a kind of

1173
01:14:19,500 --> 01:14:24,860
underexplored area that I'm obviously personally really passionate about.

1174
01:14:25,820 --> 01:14:30,700
So that's kind of that's like the driving force between basically all of my research.

1175
01:14:31,020 --> 01:14:32,220
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

1176
01:14:32,300 --> 01:14:32,620
That's great.

1177
01:14:32,700 --> 01:14:36,300
And of course, natural selection cares a whole lot about the variability within women.

1178
01:14:36,380 --> 01:14:39,900
I mean, like that's literally a whole entire class of selection pressures.

1179
01:14:40,460 --> 01:14:43,340
Natural selection is just not like what's the difference between men and women.

1180
01:14:43,420 --> 01:14:47,530
It's also there's a lot of difference with you know with between within each sex that

1181
01:14:47,530 --> 01:14:49,130
natural selection sees and cares about.

1182
01:14:49,290 --> 01:14:53,770
And that reminds me, Brenda Bowser mentioned that uh early in one of our earlier episodes.

1183
01:14:53,930 --> 01:14:57,930
She just kind of off-handedly, but I think very importantly, and it stuck with me, and what

1184
01:14:57,930 --> 01:15:01,050
you said reminded me was women's reproductive success.

1185
01:15:01,210 --> 01:15:03,210
It's less variable than men, but it's still there.

1186
01:15:03,370 --> 01:15:05,050
There is variability in women's reproductive success.

1187
01:15:05,210 --> 01:15:05,610
Yeah, right.

1188
01:15:06,090 --> 01:15:09,130
And I was just like, oh honestly, I was kind of like, oh yeah, duh.

1189
01:15:09,210 --> 01:15:13,060
Like I can so that was even me um not really thinking about that.

1190
01:15:13,220 --> 01:15:14,260
And of course there is.

1191
01:15:14,340 --> 01:15:20,260
And of course that's a huge selection pressure and and of course an

1192
01:15:20,260 --> 01:15:20,660
important thing.

1193
01:15:20,740 --> 01:15:21,140
Yeah.

1194
01:15:21,540 --> 01:15:21,780
Yeah.

1195
01:15:21,860 --> 01:15:26,660
Well, and I think when we talk about, and I I I have I've read a lot of evolutionary

1196
01:15:26,660 --> 01:15:29,540
psychology, but I don't want to speak for evolutionary psychologists.

1197
01:15:29,620 --> 01:15:34,980
Um, but I think this is certainly true for anthropologists, which is that when we um

1198
01:15:35,650 --> 01:15:41,570
talk about the fitness benefits or the evolutionary benefits of particular types of

1199
01:15:41,570 --> 01:15:42,450
behavior.

1200
01:15:44,210 --> 01:15:48,370
Who like, who are we thinking about being the beneficiary of that?

1201
01:15:48,530 --> 01:15:49,650
It's often men.

1202
01:15:49,890 --> 01:15:54,370
And the reason is because you say it's often because men's reproductive success is more

1203
01:15:54,370 --> 01:15:55,570
variable than women's.

1204
01:15:55,730 --> 01:16:00,680
And so we kind of, I think for a long time, the evolutionary anthropologists, the

1205
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:06,600
behavioral ecologists got stuck in this trap or rut of always thinking about like, how

1206
01:16:06,600 --> 01:16:09,400
is this thing like um polyandry?

1207
01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:14,120
So I, you know, have done a little bit of work with polyandry at women's multiple mating.

1208
01:16:14,280 --> 01:16:19,960
Um, and for a long time, the question was: how is this beneficial to men?

1209
01:16:20,350 --> 01:16:25,390
And because it's really hard to think about how that can be beneficial for men, although,

1210
01:16:25,470 --> 01:16:29,470
you know, see your previous episode with Brooks Shelza and all of her work.

1211
01:16:29,710 --> 01:16:35,630
Um it it like we the question was largely ignored about how this would be

1212
01:16:35,630 --> 01:16:39,630
beneficial to women, um, or that it was just assumed that it wouldn't be.

1213
01:16:39,790 --> 01:16:45,160
Um, and so it was, you know, for a long time just kind of passed over that that women

1214
01:16:45,480 --> 01:16:49,560
may actually benefit from having multiple partners at the same time.

1215
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:56,120
And so yeah, I think, I think we, that's an important thing for people to keep in mind when

1216
01:16:56,120 --> 01:17:00,360
they're talking about evolutionary things in kind of broad terms and how things are

1217
01:17:00,360 --> 01:17:01,960
beneficial and things like that.

1218
01:17:02,200 --> 01:17:07,230
I think we always have to follow up by saying beneficial to whom or to what group.

1219
01:17:08,110 --> 01:17:12,510
Because that really does change the calculus of the argument and of the cost-benefit

1220
01:17:12,510 --> 01:17:15,470
analysis quite a lot, frankly.

1221
01:17:16,430 --> 01:17:17,070
Yeah.

1222
01:17:19,070 --> 01:17:19,710
All right.

1223
01:17:21,150 --> 01:17:23,230
On that note, yeah, that's a good way to wrap it up.

1224
01:17:23,870 --> 01:17:28,990
Starting where we started, David's summary of this is all roughly this beautiful,

1225
01:17:29,310 --> 01:17:35,180
difficult, um, and it sounds like often very wet um um foray into

1226
01:17:35,420 --> 01:17:40,380
like looking at a uh different slice compared to what the three of or the two of us are

1227
01:17:40,380 --> 01:17:45,420
used to anyway, um, of humanity, but looking at from this cost-benefit lens.

1228
01:17:45,580 --> 01:17:51,500
Um, but as you say, Katie, um just really, you know, we we always, whenever we have an

1229
01:17:51,500 --> 01:17:55,980
anthropologist on, you know, the running joke is the thank you for your service, but it is

1230
01:17:56,060 --> 01:18:02,010
it's it's just it's really cool um because we do get to see ourselves and what

1231
01:18:02,330 --> 01:18:03,930
human beings are like.

1232
01:18:04,090 --> 01:18:09,930
It's just a it's a fun, um um evocative um and very interesting um

1233
01:18:10,250 --> 01:18:10,570
place.

1234
01:18:10,730 --> 01:18:16,730
Um and uh it sounds like um it just sounds like a really interesting um way

1235
01:18:16,730 --> 01:18:17,690
to have a career.

1236
01:18:17,770 --> 01:18:19,290
And so thanks for sharing it with us.

1237
01:18:19,530 --> 01:18:22,170
It's really fun and it is very sweaty.

1238
01:18:22,330 --> 01:18:24,720
It's not always wet, always very sweaty.

1239
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:25,520
Oh my goodness.

1240
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:27,440
Well, Santa Barbara is very low humidity.

1241
01:18:27,520 --> 01:18:31,840
So maybe that's your karma is you get to go to a low humidity place.

1242
01:18:32,320 --> 01:18:33,600
Yeah, I'll accept that.

1243
01:18:33,840 --> 01:18:37,280
Except maybe not this year because of El Nino, but still I'm sure it's nothing compared to

1244
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:38,800
It's pretty humid today.

1245
01:18:39,200 --> 01:18:42,000
No, no, no, nothing compared to Banglarash.

1246
01:18:42,320 --> 01:18:45,520
No, people get very concerned about the amount of sweat that I

1247
01:18:48,480 --> 01:18:49,920
think that's always fun and embarrassing.

1248
01:18:50,080 --> 01:18:50,240
Yeah.

1249
01:18:50,480 --> 01:18:52,710
Um thank you guys.

1250
01:18:52,950 --> 01:18:53,750
Yeah, thank you so much.

1251
01:18:53,830 --> 01:18:55,030
This was wonderful.

1252
01:18:55,350 --> 01:18:56,390
It was super fun.

1253
01:18:56,550 --> 01:19:00,790
I really enjoyed talking to you guys and nerding out about evolutionary theory.

1254
01:19:00,950 --> 01:19:01,910
It's always great.

1255
01:19:02,150 --> 01:19:03,110
Why we're here.

1256
01:19:03,350 --> 01:19:04,230
Always a blast.

1257
01:19:10,310 --> 01:19:13,350
David, that was that was lovely.

1258
01:19:13,590 --> 01:19:15,030
Yeah, that was a fun conversation.

1259
01:19:15,270 --> 01:19:15,750
Yeah.

1260
01:19:16,070 --> 01:19:17,830
Uh let's do it again.

1261
01:19:18,070 --> 01:19:18,940
Yeah, let's do it again.

1262
01:19:19,260 --> 01:19:20,700
I mean, not the same conversation.

1263
01:19:20,860 --> 01:19:21,260
You understand.

1264
01:19:21,580 --> 01:19:25,260
We should just do it do the exact same one, try to look at the transcript and memorize it

1265
01:19:25,340 --> 01:19:26,620
and just have a an exact replica.

1266
01:19:27,020 --> 01:19:27,900
That sounds super fun, yeah.

1267
01:19:28,140 --> 01:19:30,300
I think that would be a you know a really cool thing to do.

1268
01:19:30,940 --> 01:19:35,260
Uh I just saw um I don't know if this is the time to bring it up, I just saw Dan Conroy

1269
01:19:35,260 --> 01:19:41,170
beam in his office and there was a picture of a um a bighorn sheep um in his

1270
01:19:41,250 --> 01:19:47,250
uh um uh on his computer and I said is that in turkey and he looked at me like I

1271
01:19:47,250 --> 01:19:53,090
was crazy because he thought I asked him is that a turkey and

1272
01:19:53,090 --> 01:19:59,090
I thought I thought he had a much too high opinion of my knowledge

1273
01:19:59,100 --> 01:20:04,620
of megafauna's geographic range, such that it would be crazy to think that a bighorn sheep

1274
01:20:04,620 --> 01:20:05,740
would be in Turkey.

1275
01:20:05,900 --> 01:20:10,140
And then we laughed, and I thought this is a perfect example of David Pinsoff's mix up

1276
01:20:10,140 --> 01:20:15,260
theory of humor because he thought I needed my eyes examined, and I thought Dan had much

1277
01:20:15,260 --> 01:20:18,220
too high of an opinion of my of the distribution of megafauna.

1278
01:20:18,300 --> 01:20:19,740
But anyway, it was a funny anecdote.

1279
01:20:19,820 --> 01:20:21,100
I thought I would share it with you, David.

1280
01:20:21,420 --> 01:20:22,140
That's a great yeah.

1281
01:20:22,220 --> 01:20:25,420
No, that's a beautiful piece of evidence that is consistent with the theory.

1282
01:20:25,500 --> 01:20:25,900
I love it.

1283
01:20:26,060 --> 01:20:26,300
Yeah.

1284
01:20:26,540 --> 01:20:32,390
So, um anyway, the um the I I really like this

1285
01:20:32,470 --> 01:20:38,150
this episode reminded me of several of the anthropology episodes

1286
01:20:38,390 --> 01:20:43,750
where I feel like I will always retain one of the things I learned from this is that

1287
01:20:44,070 --> 01:20:49,030
looking at the way people make a living in a different way sheds light on human nature.

1288
01:20:49,110 --> 01:20:51,030
Um and I thought that was really cool.

1289
01:20:51,350 --> 01:20:52,470
Yeah, for sure.

1290
01:20:52,790 --> 01:20:58,540
So if you want that kind of thing to keep happening, listener, Uh you can leave us a

1291
01:20:58,540 --> 01:20:59,500
kind review.

1292
01:20:59,740 --> 01:21:03,180
Check us out on Patreon, social media stuff.

1293
01:21:03,340 --> 01:21:04,460
Uh anything else, Dave?

1294
01:21:04,540 --> 01:21:06,540
Get it get us uh get get our gear.

1295
01:21:06,700 --> 01:21:07,820
Do we have gear?

1296
01:21:08,380 --> 01:21:09,420
No, we don't.

1297
01:21:09,580 --> 01:21:12,300
I mean, I'm starting to teach a class this quarter.

1298
01:21:12,460 --> 01:21:14,860
Um, if you want to look into gear, let me know.

1299
01:21:15,180 --> 01:21:17,900
Or if or if you listener, if listener, yeah, yeah.

1300
01:21:18,300 --> 01:21:23,110
Well, I think we gotta, I mean, maybe if our Patreon money gets gets pretty high, we'll

1301
01:21:23,190 --> 01:21:24,150
we'll get some cool gear.

1302
01:21:24,470 --> 01:21:30,230
But th you can do um no inventory gear you can have a no inventory gear store

1303
01:21:30,310 --> 01:21:35,750
such that there are I've looked this up because of other podcasts that are similarly small

1304
01:21:35,750 --> 01:21:37,030
scale that I enjoy.

1305
01:21:37,750 --> 01:21:43,460
And what you can do is you can just have a store that no you you've never made the t shirt.

1306
01:21:43,780 --> 01:21:48,580
But if somebody wants the t shirt, they order it and then it's so s trivial to print the

1307
01:21:48,580 --> 01:21:51,220
shirt that they just wait till somebody orders it.

1308
01:21:51,380 --> 01:21:55,860
So we could have all kinds of things that um I mean I don't know about all kinds of things,

1309
01:21:55,940 --> 01:21:56,980
but um wow.

1310
01:21:57,060 --> 01:22:01,460
That's a beautiful example of the reduction of transaction costs exactly discussed in the

1311
01:22:01,460 --> 01:22:01,540
show.

1312
01:22:01,700 --> 01:22:01,860
Okay.

1313
01:22:01,940 --> 01:22:02,020
Yeah.

1314
01:22:02,500 --> 01:22:03,300
Yeah maybe we should do that.

1315
01:22:03,380 --> 01:22:06,010
Well if you have ideas for gear, um, let us know.

1316
01:22:06,090 --> 01:22:10,410
If you have any other ideas about guests or feedback, let us know.

1317
01:22:10,730 --> 01:22:13,450
Evolutionary psychology, the podcast car.

1318
01:22:14,490 --> 01:22:17,610
Like you can have that car, like a like a race car, like a NASCAR.

1319
01:22:19,930 --> 01:22:20,250
Exactly.

1320
01:22:20,330 --> 01:22:23,050
You could just print that on the car and buy the car.

1321
01:22:23,210 --> 01:22:24,250
Yes, exactly.

1322
01:22:24,570 --> 01:22:25,210
That'd be pretty good.

1323
01:22:25,370 --> 01:22:29,130
Oh god, that's gonna happen with corporation logos at some point, isn't it?

1324
01:22:29,380 --> 01:22:31,220
It kinda already is is with the car company.

1325
01:22:31,620 --> 01:22:34,660
It already has but I mean I think the logos are all over the nest with a lot of s

1326
01:22:34,740 --> 01:22:36,420
advertising space on cars.

1327
01:22:36,900 --> 01:22:39,140
Anyway, don't do that.

1328
01:22:39,300 --> 01:22:40,340
Nobody listen.

1329
01:22:40,660 --> 01:22:41,940
We could bumper stickers.

1330
01:22:42,020 --> 01:22:43,860
I think I just reinvented bumper stickers.

1331
01:22:44,020 --> 01:22:46,260
We could just get in the podcast bumper stickers.

1332
01:22:46,500 --> 01:22:46,660
Yeah.

1333
01:22:46,980 --> 01:22:47,940
Pretty easy.

1334
01:22:48,260 --> 01:22:48,580
Yeah.

1335
01:22:48,660 --> 01:22:50,260
Although we wouldn't want to cause any accidents.

1336
01:22:50,340 --> 01:22:56,260
You know, someone might you know try to ram some oh the evolutionary psychology fan.

1337
01:22:56,340 --> 01:22:59,610
I'm gonna or they might they might try to ask them a question.

1338
01:22:59,690 --> 01:23:00,730
They're like, I have a question.

1339
01:23:01,130 --> 01:23:03,930
They roll down their window at the design of the human mind.

1340
01:23:04,890 --> 01:23:09,450
Yeah, I'm curious where what do you think is the evolutionary function of nostalgia?

1341
01:23:09,610 --> 01:23:10,490
Oh, it's green light.

1342
01:23:10,570 --> 01:23:10,730
All right.

1343
01:23:10,810 --> 01:23:11,290
See you later.

1344
01:23:11,690 --> 01:23:11,850
Yeah.

1345
01:23:11,930 --> 01:23:15,770
Which model do you think will better explain like the fate of humanity with AI?

1346
01:23:15,850 --> 01:23:18,970
Is it Rogers Paradox or ideal free distribution?

1347
01:23:19,050 --> 01:23:21,530
Like which good good traffic light conversation.

1348
01:23:21,770 --> 01:23:22,090
Exactly.

1349
01:23:22,250 --> 01:23:26,880
We should have an AI episode on if for no other reason then it's the flavor of the week.

1350
01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:29,280
And also before the AI kills us all.

1351
01:23:29,600 --> 01:23:30,160
Just to trigger.

1352
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:31,120
Just to trigger.

1353
01:23:36,240 --> 01:23:36,800
All right.

1354
01:23:36,960 --> 01:23:41,760
Um, well, if the over AI overlords haven't gotten to you yet, enjoy your week.

1355
01:23:41,840 --> 01:23:44,880
And uh yeah, David, we should have a an AI episode too.

1356
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:45,840
Yeah, that would be fun.

1357
01:23:46,000 --> 01:23:46,160
Okay.

1358
01:23:46,470 --> 01:23:47,270
Episode for sure.

1359
01:23:47,670 --> 01:23:48,070
Cool.

1360
01:23:48,390 --> 01:23:48,870
All right.

1361
01:23:49,110 --> 01:23:50,710
See everybody next week.

1362
01:23:51,030 --> 01:23:52,390
Take it easy.