WEBVTT

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I'm David Pinsov.

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I'm Dave Petrozowski.

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And this is Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast Actual Evolutionary Psychology.

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By actual evolutionary psychologists.

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Look at that.

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We're getting good at this.

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David, who is our guest this week?

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Athena Actipus, a brilliant polymath of many eclectic interest

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that uh all have a common thread, I think, of the science of cooperation and conflict at

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multiple scales and levels.

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Um, we had a really fun, wide-ranging conversation, uh sort of

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bouncing off all sorts of ideas.

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Yeah, I I dare you to not be enthusiastic after listening to this uh episode with

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Athena.

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And these uh Athena is uh contagious um uh with respect to how much she just we

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she talks explicitly about she she works on these things that initially maybe she uh spends

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0.5 or 20% of her time on that she's really excited about, and then oftentimes

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can grow them into larger parts of her work.

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And um, you know, uh she just loves what she's doing and it and it shows.

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I agree.

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And uh I think you will love listening to this podcast.

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On that note, uh without further ado, here's Athena and David and I talking about all

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things.

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Um I don't know, how would you put it in a uh cooperation-y,

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conflicty.

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Uh yeah.

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Inter interoperative is was one of the words that we used.

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And I thought that was really a nice uh inner interoperator or interoperative.

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I think that's a lovely word.

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I agree.

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And you'll hear plenty of other lovely words quite soon.

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Okay.

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Uh so here without further ado, here is um here's the episode.

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I'll do the first question.

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Oh, you're gonna do the question.

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You're okay.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, we guess.

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Or I guess I could just deliver a statement about um what's going on in my life and then We

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should we do a check-in?

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Maybe I'll just I'll just bring an instrument.

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Can we just start playing music?

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That would be great.

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Uh like literally uh my car is filled with instruments.

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I have a bass, I have a cello, I have a guitar, I have a ukulele.

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I also have a bunch of instruments up in my studio there, including an accordion I can't

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play.

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So whatever you guys want, we can do.

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Is it an electric cello or an acoustic cello?

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It's an acoustic cello.

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Oh wow, in your car.

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Wow, that's impressive.

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Okay.

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Well, in a bass, like a acoustic bass, a double bass in my car.

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Yeah.

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What kind of well?

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Yeah, that app opens a whole other set of questions that we will we're gonna we're gonna

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we'll put that in the back burner.

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David Maybe I'll give it to you in some.

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I mean I'm very I'm tempted to bring up my guitar and start jamming.

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Um well Athena um your uh musical prowess is reflected also by your uh

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research prowess in terms of um you having many different wide ranging interests

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across the social sciences and the biological sciences.

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That's part of why I I love your your work so much.

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You have eclectic interests kind of like mine, uh, and are willing to just follow exciting

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ideas wherever they lead, even if they lead you outside of your own discipline.

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So I want to put it to you, uh, if there is any common thread to all of your

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research, if there is like a unifying story, or is it just a bunch of random shit you're

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interested in?

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Because that's cool too.

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Uh, that's probably how I would uh answer that question myself.

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So I'm just curious if if you have a story or if or if it's just uh sound and fury

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signifying nothing.

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Yes to both.

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I mean, like I you know I have so there's so many things that I'm interested in and I I

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make time in my life.

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Like I pretty much reserve like twenty percent of my time for whatever it is that I'm most

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excited about.

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And it doesn't matter what it is.

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Like it could be, you know, learning about something in a discipline that I don't yet know.

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It could be, you know, uh skilling up with some technical skills I don't have yet that

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I'm excited about, or it could be learning another instrument because like I'm obsessed

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with the banjo right now, or whatever it is.

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Um, but leaving that space for whatever is like most compelling to me.

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Um, And at the same time, things end up revolving around this sort of

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vortex of cooperation and conflict.

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Because that's just, you know, fundamentally, I think the way like my brain works.

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I tune into those, those things.

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So, you know, what is it that allows like us as humans to operate as

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something that's greater than the sum of our parts, or what allows the cells in our body to

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do that, right?

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And make us function as a multicellular organism that can do really complex tasks.

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Those kinds of questions for me just they they compel me wherever,

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what whatever kind of system we're talking about.

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And then, you know, equally we have the other side of conflict and exploitation and

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hijacking.

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They're really two sides of the same coin.

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And let me just do a uh where do zombies come in?

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Yeah, zombies.

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Well, I got like all these zombies back here.

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Um so zombies come in on a couple of levels.

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So, like the first one is this idea of zombification, which I've used as a metaphor

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for talking about sort of all of the ways that organisms can hijack each other, or even

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non-biological things, right, can hijack other things.

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Uh, it's it's really grounded in the extended phenotype idea that you know

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Richard Dawkins talked about at the end of Selfish Gene and then also in his book Extended

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Phenotype.

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And the main idea of extended phenotype is that organisms evolve, or really anything that

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can evolve will evolve to not just have sort of a physical

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phenotype that allows it to do things in the world and a behavioral phenotype that allows

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it to do things in the world, but it will evolve essentially to animate anything in

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the world that it can in order to achieve its goals, right?

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And so that's the zombification.

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You know, it's the jewel wasp hijacking the cockroach to take it, you know, to its, you

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know, den so it can like feed it to its offspring.

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Or um it's the way that, you know, even technological systems evolve on their

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own to hijack the way our brain works, right?

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So you could think about, you know, memes as uh hijacking, you know, our

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brains in order to transmit them.

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Um, and they, you know, the memes even you could say that they hijack the algorithms on

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social media platforms, you know, and how those interact with our own brains in order to

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perpetuate them.

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So these kinds of principles apply across, you know, all of these systems.

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And that's what I love when you can, you know, work in one domain and one system and you

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see a phenomenon, and um, it's so general because it has to do with things like

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evolution, recursion, you know, even like signal detection theory, these things that are

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just like invariants that operate like laws of physics, right, in the in the world.

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Um, and then that lets you get insights into systems that are, you know, that people would

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be like, How is it that you are working on both of these things at the same time?

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Well, it's because the underlying laws of how the universe work like apply to all these

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systems.

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Yeah, we had Brett Beheim on uh and he was uh talking about uh something similar.

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And we talked about how bike wheels and galaxies can be both studied uh like in the same

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under the same rubric.

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And I love this idea that um something like zombies, uh it gives you this

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idea that the folk intuition that where evolution starts and ends is a body envelope,

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but that's not true.

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Um, and that's a really nice way to sort of poke on and get past people's folk intuitions.

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Because I think people think about evolution.

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Like I'm sure we've all taught classes where you teach students or even ourselves, and you

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start and you have this idea: well, there's like the physical stuff, and that's where

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evolution starts and stops.

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But then, like, behavior is this weird thing, and then, but it's to to push beyond that and

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to say like even your intuition about where a body envelope starts or stops or where where

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even genes like the example of you know there's things that genes affect in

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offspring but not the body envelope so it's like if you're the mother, your genetics affect

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the offspring um but not yourself like that kind of thing.

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It's a really good way to get people out of their folk psychology.

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And zombies are really fun, which is also to your credit a way to hook people.

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Yeah, for sure.

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So am I correct in in saying that uh zombification happens when the extended

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phenotype of one organism encompasses the phenotype of another organism.

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The classic example would be a parasite, where the extended phenotype of the parasite is

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the behavior of the host that it is manipulating.

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And so the parasite is evolving to control and manipulate the host for its own benefit.

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So in any case where you have overlapping uh extended phenotypes, you get some kind of

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zombification or some kind of um manipulation of another organism to serve another

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organism's interests.

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Is that sort of the the logic that you're getting at?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And so, you know, you could think of a of a zombie in the you know evolutionary

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biological sort of sense as you know, any entity that is getting

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hijacked by something else's extended phenotype, right?

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And so, so, and then that it it also just becomes so deeply interesting from an

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evolutionary perspective, right?

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Because if so, if you're taking an adaptationist perspective, right, and you're saying,

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okay, the behaviors and the physiology that we see like has some adaptive function,

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you have to start asking the question, for whom?

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You can't just assume that it is for the entity that is doing the behavior, right?

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Sometimes the adaptive function is serving the evolutionary interests of a different

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entity.

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Yes.

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I think that's a really underappreciated point that crops up a lot uh in human

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social science when we're curious about weird behaviors like cults and religions and weird

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beliefs.

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Um I think we often fail to consider that perhaps the weird beliefs or or the

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cults are not necessarily serving the members, but are serving the leaders or serving

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someone else.

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And a successful manipulation has occurred.

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And so it may not actually be adaptive for any of the individuals who hold these beliefs or

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are pursuing these practices.

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It may be adaptive for someone else who is doing the manipulation.

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Absolutely.

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And I'm gonna offer a speculation here, which is that I think very

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often as humans, you know, we have evolved to hijack other people to do things

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for us.

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I mean, like that's what babies evolve to have their parents do.

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That's, you know, mates evolved, like, you know, even socially, right?

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We do a lot of division of labor.

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So you could, you know, you could look at that as, you know, having a very cooperative side

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to it, but it also can have a dark side of, you know, where we get other people to do

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things for us so we don't have to do them ourselves.

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Um, and whenever you're in a situation where you have multiple individuals,

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right, who have an extended phenotype that is about getting others to do things for them or

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that would be better for them than their other behavior, you can start to then have

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conflict, right?

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And when you're almost like invading each other's body envelopes, right, with that, um, the

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potential for escalation of conflict is massive.

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And so, you know, we see this biologically with um mother and fetus, right?

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Where the um conflict between maternal and fetal interests over resources can lead to

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escalation of conflict and sort of fighting over the resources, which can then lead to

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eclampsia or pre eclampsia, which can be devastating, right?

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So you have this escalation of conflict because, you know, you have this inside the body

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envelope.

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Well, you can have this escalation of conflict with the invasion of the body envelope

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without it having to literally be inside if you have, say, two people that are

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both trying to influence each other through this sort of extended phenotype mechanism.

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And I think oftentimes some of the really, you know, seemingly dysfunctional relationships

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or, you know, escalation of conflict that leads sometimes to, you know, psychosis,

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mental illness, all of that.

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Like, I think we really should be digging into this with this extended phenotype framework

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because it can explain, I think, a lot of why you see, you know, dysregulation

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of emotion and how, you know, people can end up doing things that are really not very good

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for them and also not very good for the other.

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And you can have like, you know, things completely blow up in ways that are catastrophic.

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It's like, how do you explain that without this notion of manipulation and extended

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phenotype, I haven't I haven't heard a another good hypothesis for what is happening there

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when you get this really destructive interpersonal behavior.

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Yeah.

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No, it's interesting.

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There's there's lots of cool work from uh Hugo Mercier and and uh

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related colleagues about epistemic vigilance.

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This idea that we have evolved um psychological and epistemic defenses to being

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manipulated, to being conned, to being talked into doing things or misled in various ways.

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And we're actually quite skeptical of most information and quite hard to fool.

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And you know, there's there are these prevailing narratives that are actually quite wrong

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that humans are very gullible and they'll believe anything.

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It's actually quite the opposite.

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We're quite vigilant, we're quite resistant to being manipulated, we're quite skeptical.

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Um, and the sort of conspiratorial mindsets that you see flourishing in different spaces

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are actually an example of the opposite of gullibility.

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It's being so skeptical of even the most established wisdom that you're willing to

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entertain these conspiracy theories in the first place.

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It's sort of it extends from a kind of hyper skepticism rather than a hyper-gullibility a

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lot of the time.

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And so there you know this wonderful book, Not Born Yesterday, uh, where uh Hugo Marcia

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goes into this psychology of epistemic vigilance and skepticism of information.

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Uh, but what's interesting, what I find to be an extremely underexplored topic is the flip

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side of this.

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Because if we do have adaptations for epistemic vigilance of resisting being manipulated,

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then we must also have adaptations for doing the manipulating.

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There must have, in order for those systems to have evolved, there must have been a

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selection pressure.

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There must have been manipulators trying to manipulate people in the first place, which

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means that there has to be a kind of counter strategy uh that exists as well.

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So in in the same way that we have an epistemic vigilance psychology, we must also have a

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manipulation psychology where we try to understand what people's weaknesses are, what their

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uh assets and liabilities are, and how to get our way with them.

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Um and it's entirely possible, as in any kind of arms race and evolution, that one side of

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the arms race could have the upper hand at any given time.

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You know, the predator could uh be in a place where it's it's winning a lot of the time and

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the prey is going extinct, or vice versa.

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Uh so it it's quite possible that we have this manipulation psychology that is you know

00:15:50.010 --> 00:15:51.130
completely underexplored.

00:15:51.290 --> 00:15:55.210
Like I know of no w work uh trying to nail down the design features of this.

00:15:55.370 --> 00:16:00.490
Uh and it's entirely possible it explains a lot of of of human behavior and uh and a lot of

00:16:00.490 --> 00:16:05.290
times human behavior that is the byproduct of another person's manipulation psychology.

00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:05.940
Yeah.

00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:11.780
I would add another framework on top of that that I think can could be really helpful,

00:16:11.940 --> 00:16:17.780
which is that really the most important thing to know if you're trying to detect if

00:16:17.780 --> 00:16:22.100
you're being manipulated or not, or even, you know, what kind of manipulation you should

00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:27.220
try to engage in, if you should, is having an understanding of the

00:16:27.380 --> 00:16:32.750
alignment that you do or don't have with the other party that you're engaging with, right?

00:16:32.910 --> 00:16:38.910
So if you have um fully aligned interests with respect to whatever the domain is that

00:16:38.910 --> 00:16:39.790
you're operating in, right?

00:16:39.870 --> 00:16:41.550
You don't have to have like aligned interests for everything, right?

00:16:41.630 --> 00:16:44.670
But if you have fully if you have aligned interests in that domain that you're operating

00:16:44.670 --> 00:16:48.430
in, then you can allow manipulation.

00:16:48.590 --> 00:16:53.550
Um, and any manipulation that you would be doing would actually not be a negative thing,

00:16:53.630 --> 00:16:53.870
right?

00:16:54.110 --> 00:16:59.140
If you have fully aligned interests, that's just allowing yourself to efficiently and

00:16:59.140 --> 00:17:03.700
effectively cooperate and to not have filters up and all of that, right?

00:17:03.780 --> 00:17:08.740
It's like, okay, we'll just act kind of as one nervous system and do what needs to be done.

00:17:09.060 --> 00:17:14.100
Um, but if interests are not aligned, um, or if there's sort of deception, right?

00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:18.020
If you're like sort of luring people in with this idea that, you know, we all have the same

00:17:18.020 --> 00:17:23.070
goals, um, but you know, that that could be an effective way to get them to let their guard

00:17:23.070 --> 00:17:26.430
down and maybe even um positively reinforce them.

00:17:26.510 --> 00:17:30.670
Like you could, you know, get into their reward and reinforcement systems and and all of

00:17:30.670 --> 00:17:30.910
that.

00:17:31.150 --> 00:17:36.110
Um, but then you know, if you start to realize, oh well, maybe the interests aren't

00:17:36.110 --> 00:17:41.550
aligned, then you need to actually flip right really quickly and stop allowing that

00:17:41.550 --> 00:17:42.350
manipulation.

00:17:42.670 --> 00:17:48.340
Now I don't know if you have the same intuition that I do, but to me,

00:17:48.580 --> 00:17:53.860
that sounds a lot like um some of the characteristics that you see in things that are

00:17:53.860 --> 00:17:55.620
diagnosable mental illnesses, right?

00:17:55.700 --> 00:18:00.020
Where it's like people will say, Oh, like we have totally aligned interest, I totally trust

00:18:00.020 --> 00:18:00.260
you.

00:18:00.340 --> 00:18:04.260
And then some little thing happens, and then it's like, oh no, wait, you're totally against

00:18:04.260 --> 00:18:04.420
me.

00:18:04.500 --> 00:18:07.220
And all of this was all about manipulating me in the first place.

00:18:07.460 --> 00:18:13.250
So to me, that seems like a miscalibration of a system that actually is designed to

00:18:13.250 --> 00:18:19.090
be really effectively detecting cues of alignment or misalignment because that tells you

00:18:19.090 --> 00:18:23.890
whether you should be you putting all of your energy into doing something with someone that

00:18:23.890 --> 00:18:29.810
they're saying we should do, or whether actually you're being hijacked and it's not in your

00:18:29.810 --> 00:18:33.170
own best interest to allow that person to influence you.

00:18:34.020 --> 00:18:37.780
It seems like what you're talking about is what borderline personality disorder?

00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:39.540
Yeah.

00:18:39.940 --> 00:18:45.860
Uh it's it seems like what might be going on there is a kind of fickleness of detecting

00:18:45.860 --> 00:18:49.860
when someone is on your side or not, and like an overwillingness to just flip your

00:18:49.940 --> 00:18:53.940
radically flip your assessment on a dime on you know pretty flimsy evidence such that

00:18:53.940 --> 00:18:57.060
you're constantly, you know, uh falling in love with people and then all of a sudden

00:18:57.060 --> 00:18:59.300
thinking that they're evil and out to get you.

00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:04.370
Uh is that sort of uh the hypothesis you're but I would you know frame it more

00:19:04.370 --> 00:19:09.010
computationally so you know not so much about fickleness but you could say you know say we

00:19:09.010 --> 00:19:13.570
have like a signal detection system for interest being aligned and we have a signal

00:19:13.570 --> 00:19:17.970
detection system for in you know uh interest being not aligned.

00:19:18.210 --> 00:19:24.210
Um depending on uh how you're evaluating evidence coming in and where your

00:19:24.210 --> 00:19:30.180
thresholds are set, um, they may be so close together that you

00:19:30.180 --> 00:19:35.140
know, ambiguous information, depending on the state that the organism is in, right?

00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:36.420
You could have ambiguous information.

00:19:36.500 --> 00:19:40.820
Even if you're there's the same information, but it's coming into you when you're more

00:19:40.820 --> 00:19:44.900
stressed or less stressed, that could just influence sort of, you know, whether it's

00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:50.660
hitting a threshold for, oh yeah, this is actually a positive relationship

00:19:50.660 --> 00:19:56.010
that's aligned, or interpreting that information actually as evidence of manipulation.

00:19:56.250 --> 00:20:02.250
So I think that we can really actually break this down into a set of, you

00:20:02.250 --> 00:20:08.090
know, formal principles for how the information is being processed that I think make

00:20:08.090 --> 00:20:12.570
it potentially a lot easier to understand, you know, what's going on and maybe even how we

00:20:12.570 --> 00:20:18.090
could mitigate some of the challenges that you know people who suffer from borderline

00:20:18.090 --> 00:20:20.970
disorder or related disorders have to deal with.

00:20:21.320 --> 00:20:21.640
Yeah.

00:20:21.800 --> 00:20:24.200
I and even beyond that, I really like this.

00:20:24.280 --> 00:20:30.040
I like this idea that manipulation, um, broadly construed, if you if you

00:20:30.120 --> 00:20:35.400
that is actually the intuitive category manipulation is this broader thing of

00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:36.440
co-coordination.

00:20:36.520 --> 00:20:42.280
It's like epistemic coordination or this inter um uh we're we're all

00:20:42.570 --> 00:20:48.170
uh looking at it that way, this extended phenotype way, then um I think there's a lot of

00:20:48.170 --> 00:20:48.410
things.

00:20:48.570 --> 00:20:53.210
Like even if there's cues of misalignment, like things like politics, right?

00:20:53.290 --> 00:20:59.130
That might have information processing consequences of that increases motivation to

00:20:59.130 --> 00:21:05.080
consume episodes about like what people did or you know, provoke uh outrage.

00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:11.160
So I would even argue things like consuming politics or political um uh

00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:15.800
appetites might be a byproduct of this psychology, too.

00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:20.680
That if you're um in the same way, like the memes are just feeding themselves, right?

00:21:20.840 --> 00:21:24.120
And they're just what which memes get selected for?

00:21:24.280 --> 00:21:26.790
Oh, there's people and they're out to get you, right?

00:21:26.870 --> 00:21:27.910
That's really attractive.

00:21:27.990 --> 00:21:28.710
That's really interesting.

00:21:28.790 --> 00:21:30.790
It suggests that we're not as aligned as I thought.

00:21:30.870 --> 00:21:34.150
Like I thought I was just driving, going to restaurants, everything seemed pretty good, but

00:21:34.150 --> 00:21:35.910
no, it turns out there's people trying to get me.

00:21:36.070 --> 00:21:37.270
That's really appealing.

00:21:37.430 --> 00:21:38.310
What does that do?

00:21:38.470 --> 00:21:43.990
And so I think like a lot of the content, a lot of the junk content of uh

00:21:44.310 --> 00:21:50.080
media, uh, one could argue might also be running in a in a either abnormal or

00:21:50.080 --> 00:21:55.920
even normal way, but it's just the the output of this psychology of assessing alignment.

00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:57.120
I really like this idea.

00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:03.680
Well, and this also brings up that, you know, it's not just like a one time period thing,

00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:04.000
right?

00:22:04.080 --> 00:22:07.760
It's not you get information, you evaluate it, and we're aligned or not.

00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.770
You have multiple time periods, right?

00:22:10.850 --> 00:22:14.690
You're integrating over information that's happened in many different contexts.

00:22:14.850 --> 00:22:18.610
You have been in a different physiological state when you've been getting that information.

00:22:18.850 --> 00:22:23.650
If you then, you know, have a a memory that you pull back and you pull it into your current

00:22:23.650 --> 00:22:26.130
state, you may um look at it differently.

00:22:26.210 --> 00:22:30.370
So you may be sort of, you know, foraging for information from the from the past,

00:22:30.530 --> 00:22:31.490
reinterpreting it.

00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:37.080
And then also, you know, if you get a signal that, well, you know, maybe um I thought we

00:22:37.080 --> 00:22:43.080
were aligned, but we're not, um, or then then you might go and seek out as you go

00:22:43.080 --> 00:22:48.440
forward new information that could, you know, confirm your suspicion, right?

00:22:48.600 --> 00:22:52.760
So you could be for sort of foraging for information in the past or then changing your

00:22:52.760 --> 00:22:58.040
information seeking as you go forward in ways that actually then change the base rates,

00:22:58.190 --> 00:23:03.710
right, that go into the signal detection system that, you know, we're we're using without

00:23:03.710 --> 00:23:04.990
even realizing that we're using it.

00:23:05.070 --> 00:23:05.310
Right.

00:23:05.470 --> 00:23:10.110
So I think that, you know, the all these sort of feedback loops that you can have when you

00:23:10.110 --> 00:23:14.430
start looking at this, you know, social cognition and alignment in a signal detection kind

00:23:14.430 --> 00:23:15.150
of framework.

00:23:15.310 --> 00:23:20.830
Um, it you know, it just lets us computationally model what's happening in a way that we

00:23:20.830 --> 00:23:21.710
otherwise couldn't.

00:23:21.940 --> 00:23:22.180
Yeah.

00:23:22.500 --> 00:23:23.060
That's really great.

00:23:23.140 --> 00:23:24.900
And I just like the the I'm sorry, Dave.

00:23:24.980 --> 00:23:29.380
I just and I really like the getting out of the instinct blindness of that manipulation is

00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:29.940
always bad.

00:23:30.100 --> 00:23:33.940
Like this from an evolutionary perspective, it's this idea that manipulation, we're

00:23:33.940 --> 00:23:36.580
designed to worry about that possibility space.

00:23:36.660 --> 00:23:38.500
But there's this whole other possibility space.

00:23:38.580 --> 00:23:40.420
It's actually we we do all the time.

00:23:40.500 --> 00:23:41.540
It's actually wonderful.

00:23:41.620 --> 00:23:47.140
It's what we do by and large, but our evolved psychology really registers the problematic

00:23:47.140 --> 00:23:50.820
zone and kind of scientifically, we probably spend too much time on that.

00:23:51.870 --> 00:23:52.590
Yeah, for sure.

00:23:52.830 --> 00:23:56.830
I mean, speaking of of the darker side of manipulation, so you could think of it as the

00:23:56.830 --> 00:24:01.950
spectrum of parasitism to symbiosis, where you know, symbiosis would be a kind of uh

00:24:02.110 --> 00:24:06.830
mutually beneficial manipulation where the symbiote wants to be manipulated, quote unquote,

00:24:06.910 --> 00:24:07.710
by someone else.

00:24:07.870 --> 00:24:13.390
Uh, in the same way that um, you know, my child might want to be manipulated by me to a

00:24:13.390 --> 00:24:18.940
certain extent in terms of wanting to be taught you know various lessons about safety or or

00:24:18.940 --> 00:24:19.260
whatever.

00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:23.660
Unfortunately, she is not so easily manipulated by me these days.

00:24:25.020 --> 00:24:29.260
But uh in addition to these ideas of alignment and misalignment, and when you're in the

00:24:29.260 --> 00:24:32.780
aligned zone, then you're going to be more comfortable with being manipulated.

00:24:32.860 --> 00:24:36.540
Uh and when you're in the misaligned zone, you're going to be more vigilant and skeptical

00:24:36.540 --> 00:24:37.820
and antagonistic.

00:24:37.980 --> 00:24:43.510
Um, you there are ways of creating alignment between people by creating perceptions of

00:24:43.510 --> 00:24:45.750
misalignment with outsiders.

00:24:46.070 --> 00:24:51.590
And you see this a lot in politics, even in social life, where you know common enemies uh

00:24:51.750 --> 00:24:53.350
can bring people together.

00:24:53.430 --> 00:24:58.870
Uh and so that brings this back full circle to this idea of manipulation where one perhaps

00:24:58.870 --> 00:25:04.460
one of the best ways to create more fitness interdependence between people is to manipulate

00:25:04.460 --> 00:25:09.020
each other into thinking that they have uh that that they're in conflict with outsiders.

00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:13.020
Because uh, I'm much more independent with you, interdependent with you if we have a common

00:25:13.020 --> 00:25:17.100
enemy, or if we have some common danger, or if we're both being singled out by the same

00:25:17.100 --> 00:25:20.700
hostile force, then all of a sudden we become much more valuable to each other.

00:25:20.860 --> 00:25:26.060
Uh and um the the the value of coordinating and cooperating with each other increases

00:25:26.060 --> 00:25:27.020
dramatically.

00:25:27.450 --> 00:25:33.290
So uh uh there's also the the tendency to create the kinds of positive cooperation

00:25:33.530 --> 00:25:35.370
um that that you talk about.

00:25:35.530 --> 00:25:41.130
Uh there's also uh one of the best ways to do that is via manipulation and and conflict.

00:25:41.610 --> 00:25:47.130
Yeah well and I would say you know the the maybe the key phrase that you you said is like

00:25:47.130 --> 00:25:48.570
some outside threat, right?

00:25:48.810 --> 00:25:50.890
And so and that could be another group.

00:25:51.610 --> 00:25:54.240
And you know, that can be problematic, right?

00:25:54.320 --> 00:25:58.720
If you're like, oh, we're gonna increase cooperation by making people hate outsiders, like

00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:03.120
that isn't necessarily the way that you know we want to go forward, you know, as humans.

00:26:03.280 --> 00:26:08.560
Um, but really any um common knowledge, any you know, shared

00:26:08.560 --> 00:26:14.160
understanding of vulnerability to a threat and feeling that you're um you're

00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:20.090
interdependent in some way, that can get people aligned, especially

00:26:20.090 --> 00:26:22.970
vis-a-vis that particular threat.

00:26:23.210 --> 00:26:29.050
And so, you know, I think that's part of why you see extremely high levels of cooperation,

00:26:29.290 --> 00:26:31.930
altruism in the aftermath of disasters, right?

00:26:32.090 --> 00:26:35.690
Because everyone is in a shared environment that is this disaster.

00:26:35.850 --> 00:26:41.210
And it's very clear that, you know, in that kind of situation, the best thing is for

00:26:41.210 --> 00:26:42.650
everybody to help each other.

00:26:42.980 --> 00:26:47.620
And uh, you know, if they can, you know, if you need shelter and I have shelter, if you

00:26:47.620 --> 00:26:52.500
need water and I have water, like we go into that mode of just helping each other and not

00:26:52.500 --> 00:26:54.820
keeping track of accounts or anything like that.

00:26:54.980 --> 00:27:00.740
Um, so that that kind of very powerful cue that you're in a hostile environment,

00:27:00.980 --> 00:27:05.940
that, you know, where the threat really is that we might not all survive and make it

00:27:05.940 --> 00:27:10.260
through unless we share and we're all interdependent, you know, because we're part of the

00:27:10.260 --> 00:27:14.870
same, you know, group, uh, and people go into that mode very readily.

00:27:15.110 --> 00:27:21.110
Um, so I think any sort of shared understanding of vulnerability and

00:27:21.110 --> 00:27:25.510
a feeling of sort of being, you know, if you have an environment where that is salient,

00:27:25.670 --> 00:27:30.550
that threat is salient, then I think you can get very high levels of cooperation.

00:27:30.790 --> 00:27:34.180
Um, you do see, you know, fatigue in that though, right?

00:27:34.260 --> 00:27:40.180
So like if you have say a disaster that occurs and um, you know, people are often for like

00:27:40.180 --> 00:27:44.180
the first two weeks or so, they're very, very cooperative and helping.

00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:50.340
But then if like the disaster persists for a very long time, if those efforts of

00:27:50.420 --> 00:27:55.220
you know collective recovery don't translate into things happening, like, so for example,

00:27:55.300 --> 00:27:59.490
you know, if there's a disaster and like the neighbors, you know, come out and like it was

00:27:59.570 --> 00:28:03.970
like, oh, there's a tree blocking the road, and you, you know, you unblock it and like

00:28:04.050 --> 00:28:08.290
everybody gets fed, and then you have this positive experience and things kind of get

00:28:08.290 --> 00:28:09.970
cleaned up quickly.

00:28:10.290 --> 00:28:15.730
Um, but if on the other hand you have a disaster and people sort of try to help, but

00:28:15.730 --> 00:28:20.450
there's even institutional blocks, or you know, the county says, Well, you're not allowed

00:28:20.450 --> 00:28:22.050
to come and clean up your road.

00:28:22.210 --> 00:28:23.250
We're supposed to do that.

00:28:23.330 --> 00:28:26.000
So they're like waiting and things don't actually happen.

00:28:26.320 --> 00:28:31.360
Then you get this fatigue and people actually, you know, often will have, you know,

00:28:31.760 --> 00:28:37.360
decreases in cooperation much earlier and just like they they don't then have a positive

00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:41.920
experience of that disaster if there are things that kind of block seeing the results of

00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:42.960
that collective effort.

00:28:43.120 --> 00:28:47.030
So I think there's all sorts of things that, you know, that go on when humans are in these

00:28:47.030 --> 00:28:50.630
environments where there are threats, they have shared attention on their threats.

00:28:50.710 --> 00:28:55.990
They can act together to mitigate those threats or, you know, recover from the damage that

00:28:55.990 --> 00:28:56.630
has occurred.

00:28:56.790 --> 00:29:00.390
Then I think that feeds back as like an on a signal, right?

00:29:00.470 --> 00:29:05.990
That you are with people who you have aligned interest with and you can cooperate

00:29:05.990 --> 00:29:10.310
effectively with and that actually will be there for you if you need them.

00:29:10.550 --> 00:29:16.300
So I think that that's a it's a really interesting kind of place to see that is in these

00:29:16.540 --> 00:29:20.460
contexts where the you know the outside threat is not necessarily another human group, but

00:29:20.460 --> 00:29:23.260
it's a environment that is is challenging.

00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:24.780
That's super interesting.

00:29:24.940 --> 00:29:30.860
Um it it the way I'm thinking about that, I I I'm not familiar with this this work on

00:29:30.860 --> 00:29:33.650
how people react in the context of natural disasters.

00:29:33.730 --> 00:29:39.170
But it seems like, you know, uh when disaster strikes, we want to try to solve that problem

00:29:39.170 --> 00:29:44.690
via collective action and via producing uh resources together to get through it.

00:29:44.850 --> 00:29:49.330
But if collective action and the production of resources doesn't work for whatever reason,

00:29:49.490 --> 00:29:54.450
then all of a sudden we start to register the fact that uh resources are in fact limited,

00:29:54.610 --> 00:29:59.760
uh, which means that we are in zero-sum relationships with one another, such that the more

00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:01.200
I get, the less you get.

00:30:01.280 --> 00:30:06.720
Uh, and as soon as we start to register that fact, uh, then cooperation begins to break

00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:08.800
down or in some sense becomes zero sum.

00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:13.040
So I can cooperate with Dave to exclude you from the resource.

00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:18.530
Uh and when that starts to happen, um we need useful narratives.

00:30:18.610 --> 00:30:21.170
Like maybe the reason we're excluding you is because you're a witch.

00:30:21.250 --> 00:30:24.930
It's not because we're selfish and greedy and we want more stuff for ourselves and we're

00:30:24.930 --> 00:30:26.610
callous toward your suffering.

00:30:26.690 --> 00:30:27.570
It's that you're a witch.

00:30:27.730 --> 00:30:33.410
And that helps us exclude people from the zero sum resource without paying reputational

00:30:33.410 --> 00:30:35.090
costs for the exclusion.

00:30:35.570 --> 00:30:40.210
And so what might be going on is that initially we try to solve our problems via positive

00:30:40.210 --> 00:30:45.800
sum cooperation and the production of new resources such that my gain is not necessarily

00:30:45.800 --> 00:30:49.480
your loss, because if we're all growing the pie, then we can all get a bigger slice.

00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:54.200
But as soon as the pie stops growing and there's limited pie for everyone, then uh

00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:57.800
competition starts to uh take place.

00:30:58.120 --> 00:31:03.800
And there could even be cooperative competition where we cooperate to displace or exploit

00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:05.960
or exclude um other people.

00:31:06.440 --> 00:31:12.360
Um and so I think the crucial variable there seems to be uh to what extent

00:31:12.350 --> 00:31:16.990
the the interaction is zero sum or positive sum and to what extent resources can be

00:31:16.990 --> 00:31:19.470
multiplied uh rather than being fixed.

00:31:19.870 --> 00:31:22.830
I'm just kind of running my mouth here, but that's sort of what what what's coming to mind

00:31:22.830 --> 00:31:26.910
as as uh a a way to uh strategically explain what what you're talking about.

00:31:27.310 --> 00:31:28.270
Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:28.430 --> 00:31:34.030
I I've been thinking about a lot of these things in um terms of like two constructs of uh

00:31:34.110 --> 00:31:37.710
you so when you get into a group and you have the potential to create something of value

00:31:37.790 --> 00:31:41.780
that there's um two sort of inputs into these systems that are really important.

00:31:41.940 --> 00:31:46.180
One is what I'm just calling cooperation energy, which is basically like how much are we

00:31:46.180 --> 00:31:48.980
ready to do stuff together and just put energy in?

00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:53.460
And another one is coordination capacity or coordination energy, which is like, you know,

00:31:53.620 --> 00:31:58.660
how much are we actually able to have the resources flow, have the information flow in ways

00:31:58.660 --> 00:32:02.340
that allow us to do things that are, you know, better than the sum of our parts, right?

00:32:02.580 --> 00:32:07.630
And you have this really interesting situation where like say there's the three of us if we

00:32:07.630 --> 00:32:13.230
all have high cooperation energy and coordination capacity slash energy that actually

00:32:13.230 --> 00:32:18.670
means that the reality is that our group is a pretty non-zero sum thing because

00:32:18.990 --> 00:32:22.990
we're all doing this and we are actually creating things that are greater than some of

00:32:22.990 --> 00:32:23.470
those parts.

00:32:23.630 --> 00:32:29.120
But as soon as we start to worry, like, oh, well, you know, is Dave really

00:32:29.360 --> 00:32:33.280
in, you know, or did he oh he didn't do this thing he said he was gonna do?

00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:37.840
Is that because he was busy, or did he is he just not really motivated anymore?

00:32:38.080 --> 00:32:43.840
The thing falls apart, unravels very quickly because it actually becomes a zero sum

00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:48.880
situation where it's just okay, well, whatever we've created already is what's there, and

00:32:48.880 --> 00:32:50.400
how are we gonna split the pie?

00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:50.960
You know?

00:32:51.280 --> 00:32:56.950
So these recursive loops that happen in these social interactions

00:32:57.270 --> 00:33:03.110
are so, so important to um allowing cooperation to be

00:33:03.110 --> 00:33:06.710
maintained and the beliefs about alignment, right?

00:33:06.870 --> 00:33:12.870
Like that that can turn a situation that is positive some into one that's

00:33:12.870 --> 00:33:15.110
zero sum, just like that as well.

00:33:15.350 --> 00:33:20.900
So I think understanding the computational structure of these systems, both in our minds

00:33:21.060 --> 00:33:25.700
and then what happens in the interactions when you have multiple individuals, right, and

00:33:25.700 --> 00:33:30.500
you're processing the information about, you know, both your beliefs and your feelings and

00:33:30.500 --> 00:33:35.780
your spidey sense about like, you know, the people, um, and then also the actual outputs of

00:33:35.780 --> 00:33:37.620
what's happening in your group, right?

00:33:37.780 --> 00:33:42.710
Like um, you know, it are you actually creating something that is of value?

00:33:42.950 --> 00:33:48.470
And uh I actually I went to Burning Man for the first time um a few weeks ago.

00:33:48.550 --> 00:33:52.470
And I think there's a lot of really interesting dynamics along these lines that are

00:33:52.470 --> 00:33:55.590
actually happening at Burning Man in these camps.

00:33:55.750 --> 00:34:00.870
There's a lot of sort of costly signaling of cooperation effort, of the capacity to

00:34:00.870 --> 00:34:05.590
coordinate, to build these elaborate camps, to build these, you know, art projects that you

00:34:05.590 --> 00:34:07.110
then literally burn.

00:34:07.350 --> 00:34:13.120
Um To me, so much of what is going on there is costly signaling

00:34:13.120 --> 00:34:17.520
of the cooperation energy and the coordination capacity.

00:34:18.240 --> 00:34:23.840
And, you know, and that's, I think, not just signaling to the outside world, but you're

00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:25.280
signaling to your own group.

00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:31.280
Like, hey, we can do this stuff and we are ready to put in the effort to do these things

00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:34.000
together that we benefit from collectively.

00:34:34.530 --> 00:34:39.010
So I think it's a really it's a really cool place to potentially study some of these

00:34:39.010 --> 00:34:39.410
things.

00:34:39.730 --> 00:34:40.610
That's that's amazing.

00:34:40.770 --> 00:34:45.410
I the thing you said about the cleanup and then the county won't let us is really ringing

00:34:45.410 --> 00:34:50.210
in my ears too, because I also think this is a way to understand how bureaucracy gets

00:34:50.210 --> 00:34:56.060
things wrong or it's a vocabulary for understanding how to design a bureaucracy where if

00:34:56.060 --> 00:35:00.860
you have rules or institutional structure where the cooperation energy, is that the right

00:35:00.860 --> 00:35:01.020
term?

00:35:01.180 --> 00:35:03.900
Cooperation energy, um, is there.

00:35:04.300 --> 00:35:09.900
But for for probably well-intended reasons, if you don't really engineer an

00:35:09.900 --> 00:35:15.740
organization structure, whether it's a government or a a university or your house, you

00:35:15.740 --> 00:35:20.300
know, it could be at lots of different levels, yeah, you can really screw things up where

00:35:20.300 --> 00:35:23.770
people just feel like this is a this is bullshit.

00:35:23.850 --> 00:35:25.210
Like the structure doesn't work.

00:35:25.370 --> 00:35:30.570
And I think a lot of like the felt like I don't trust the government or I don't feel like

00:35:30.570 --> 00:35:36.090
people care about me, you could be living in a very, very affluent, very

00:35:36.090 --> 00:35:37.050
safe world.

00:35:37.130 --> 00:35:42.410
But this fundamental need to feel like, man, if like if I can't even clean up the dirt on

00:35:42.410 --> 00:35:48.240
my driveway, What that's telling my evolved psychology, there's no way that like people are

00:35:48.240 --> 00:35:54.240
going to help me if like my kid gets sick or if like somebody tries to like steal from me.

00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:55.920
Like I don't trust anybody, right?

00:35:56.080 --> 00:36:00.800
And like that's a very um rational response from the evolved psychology.

00:36:01.040 --> 00:36:05.360
And it might be there's a good rule for the mud cleanup, but I think like it sounds like

00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:11.280
we're missing an entire aspect of our evolved psychology to just come to this person and

00:36:11.600 --> 00:36:17.310
do something to prevent everyone's evolved psychology from feeling

00:36:17.310 --> 00:36:22.750
like nobody's looking out for me in this kind of like modern bureaucratic world.

00:36:23.550 --> 00:36:23.790
Yeah.

00:36:23.950 --> 00:36:29.950
I I think also, you know, maybe with not as uh, you know, high stakes for

00:36:29.950 --> 00:36:34.350
feeling like nobody's gonna be looking out for me, but still extremely important.

00:36:34.670 --> 00:36:39.710
The kind of things that, you know, happen in corporations and big institutions when you

00:36:39.710 --> 00:36:45.400
have bureaucratic blocks that actually prevent cooperation energy or coordination

00:36:45.560 --> 00:36:49.160
capacity and energy from kind of forming like I call it a vortex.

00:36:49.240 --> 00:36:50.600
I think that just like is kind of intuitive.

00:36:50.680 --> 00:36:54.520
It's like you have this feedback loop, this energy can build, people are seeing others are

00:36:54.520 --> 00:36:57.400
doing it, and they're seeing that, and they're like, oh, I'm gonna put more in.

00:36:57.560 --> 00:37:03.000
Um, but you know, if you have bureaucratic systems that actually interfere with that flow,

00:37:03.080 --> 00:37:07.800
you know, interfere with like a new project happening that actually would be really great

00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:11.470
to see to fruition that would benefit the whole institution.

00:37:11.630 --> 00:37:16.350
But you have, you know, systems that, you know, they're designed to protect the institution

00:37:16.350 --> 00:37:18.110
or to protect individuals.

00:37:18.270 --> 00:37:24.270
But if they get in the way of actually those new things arising and collecting that energy

00:37:24.270 --> 00:37:30.030
that allows them to move forward, then we're, we're, we're losing a lot of potential value

00:37:30.030 --> 00:37:35.980
in these institutions that have gotten sort of mired in these bureaucratic processes, which

00:37:36.060 --> 00:37:40.300
you know, we need a lot of those, right, to prevent exploitation of big institutions,

00:37:40.380 --> 00:37:40.540
right?

00:37:40.620 --> 00:37:45.260
Because a big institution is, you know, a source of resources and energy and people's time

00:37:45.340 --> 00:37:45.900
and all of that.

00:37:46.060 --> 00:37:50.380
And so you, you know, there are incentives to try to hijack the institution, right?

00:37:50.540 --> 00:37:55.100
So you need to have these systems, but then how do you have those systems to protect it

00:37:55.260 --> 00:38:01.020
that also allow the good things to not lose energy because of that friction?

00:38:01.250 --> 00:38:01.570
Yeah.

00:38:01.650 --> 00:38:01.890
Yeah.

00:38:02.050 --> 00:38:07.570
You don't want an autoimmune attacked uh institution where it's just all defense, uh

00:38:07.650 --> 00:38:08.530
defensive institutions.

00:38:08.770 --> 00:38:09.010
Exactly.

00:38:09.890 --> 00:38:10.210
Exactly.

00:38:10.290 --> 00:38:10.530
Yeah.

00:38:10.610 --> 00:38:10.850
Yeah.

00:38:11.010 --> 00:38:11.490
Yeah.

00:38:11.730 --> 00:38:11.970
Yeah.

00:38:12.050 --> 00:38:16.770
I mean, it occurs to me that there can be a negative feedback loop where the more that the

00:38:16.770 --> 00:38:22.450
cooperation uh vortices are being blocked or interfered with, the more that resources

00:38:22.450 --> 00:38:24.290
become limited and zero sum.

00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:30.720
And on top of that, whoever has the the political power to to do the interfering, to

00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:36.480
to stop the vortices, well, that power itself becomes a zero-sum limited resource that that

00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:37.680
people fight over.

00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:42.240
And it seems, and then it becomes where you know the only way to get ahead in this society

00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:48.290
is to acquire the power to to stop these vortices and producing things collectively

00:38:48.290 --> 00:38:49.650
is no longer the best strategy.

00:38:49.730 --> 00:38:54.130
The best strategy is just trying to cozy up to whoever's in power and climb the power

00:38:54.130 --> 00:38:57.330
hierarchy, and it becomes just a zero sum world.

00:38:59.410 --> 00:39:03.730
That sounds so much like what is going on in Locke System R.

00:39:04.050 --> 00:39:04.130
Yeah.

00:39:04.210 --> 00:39:05.490
It's like, oh, that's so glum.

00:39:05.570 --> 00:39:06.130
That's so sad.

00:39:06.850 --> 00:39:10.530
Sorry, I'm dispositionally inclined to take things in the one direction.

00:39:10.690 --> 00:39:12.050
I apologize.

00:39:13.060 --> 00:39:16.740
It's also it feels very much like a low trust society too, right?

00:39:16.820 --> 00:39:20.580
Or like a society transitioning, you know, like I've we've all like lived different enough

00:39:20.580 --> 00:39:25.460
places, you know, like you go from like very variability and even even within a culture, a

00:39:25.460 --> 00:39:30.260
culture like a a country or something, you know, you go to a high trust or low trust

00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:34.660
institution, or even just like friend group or you know, social thing.

00:39:34.740 --> 00:39:40.170
It just feels this this feels like it's describing uh the kind of grammar of that high or

00:39:40.330 --> 00:39:42.410
low trust continuum to some degree.

00:39:42.810 --> 00:39:43.130
Totally.

00:39:43.290 --> 00:39:43.450
Yeah.

00:39:43.530 --> 00:39:47.450
I mean, there's tons of literature on like how there's just more uh political and and

00:39:47.450 --> 00:39:50.730
governmental corruption in in low trust society, which which makes sense, you know.

00:39:51.290 --> 00:39:55.050
The government is preventing cooperation from uh from uh taking place.

00:39:55.210 --> 00:39:57.850
And it's also a limited sum resource itself, right?

00:39:58.170 --> 00:39:58.250
Yeah.

00:39:58.410 --> 00:40:01.290
If the rules don't work, if the rules don't work, you can't follow them.

00:40:01.370 --> 00:40:03.530
You know, like you gotta get stuff done some way.

00:40:03.610 --> 00:40:03.770
Yeah.

00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:04.400
Yeah.

00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:10.800
And and also, I mean, it is fundamentally the case that cooperation at the lower level is

00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:14.080
often threatening to the institution at the higher level, right?

00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:15.840
I mean, that's what a revolution is, right?

00:40:16.080 --> 00:40:21.920
And so um there, you know, there is a uh uh you know

00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:27.070
an evolutionary process kind of of like institutions that are able to suppress uh

00:40:27.070 --> 00:40:30.510
cooperation at the lower level that could undermine the institution.

00:40:30.590 --> 00:40:32.990
And it doesn't even have to be like a full-on revolution, right?

00:40:33.070 --> 00:40:38.190
But it could just be like, you know, things happening at the lower level that change the

00:40:38.190 --> 00:40:40.670
rules of operation of the institution, right?

00:40:40.750 --> 00:40:43.710
Because, you know, you could think of an institution as kind of like an entity of like

00:40:43.710 --> 00:40:44.510
algorithms, right?

00:40:44.590 --> 00:40:45.950
Of like how it's operating.

00:40:46.110 --> 00:40:50.830
And that that set of algorithms is going to persist to the extent that it is good at

00:40:50.830 --> 00:40:53.150
keeping those algorithms in existence.

00:40:53.470 --> 00:40:58.880
So there's a really interesting sort of emergent, like you know,

00:40:59.200 --> 00:41:04.480
computation of institutional evolution that comes from approaching it in this kind of way.

00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:04.960
Yeah.

00:41:05.120 --> 00:41:07.520
You just describe schools too, right?

00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:12.320
Where uh where kids like have their own dynamics and then schools are the institution.

00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:16.880
I've also thought, I mean, uh, if you know, you've I I I would I would love to get your

00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:17.760
thinking about this.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:23.430
I've often thought, as like a group psychologist person, that a lot of the conflicts or

00:41:23.430 --> 00:41:29.430
cooperation across cohorts is really interesting too, because that lower level cooperation

00:41:29.430 --> 00:41:33.750
can also be like these damn kids and like, you know, get off my lawn and all the like

00:41:34.070 --> 00:41:36.310
grexing about uh kids these days.

00:41:36.390 --> 00:41:41.990
Like it seems like a common trope that um, you know, once you get older and you have stuff,

00:41:42.070 --> 00:41:45.820
the kids are threatening, you know, to some degree or not, uh, depending on what they're

00:41:45.820 --> 00:41:46.060
doing.

00:41:46.140 --> 00:41:50.380
But that can be some of that lower level cooperation too, whether you're a school as an

00:41:50.380 --> 00:41:54.060
institution or just like the older cohort and you have your status scheme.

00:41:54.540 --> 00:41:54.700
Yeah.

00:41:54.780 --> 00:41:57.180
I mean, if if you kind of think ancestrally, right?

00:41:57.340 --> 00:42:03.260
Like it would usually be the case that the people who are older are the ones that are kind

00:42:03.260 --> 00:42:06.700
of the keepers of whatever institutional structures there are.

00:42:06.780 --> 00:42:12.570
And those institutional structures without outside influence will come to

00:42:12.570 --> 00:42:15.290
represent the interests of the older generation more, right?

00:42:15.450 --> 00:42:19.770
And we know from parent offspring conflict, right, that you don't have completely aligned

00:42:19.770 --> 00:42:24.410
interests between parents and offspring, or you could say between older generations and

00:42:24.410 --> 00:42:25.530
younger generations, right?

00:42:25.770 --> 00:42:29.770
Because, you know, you have cohorts that could sort of collude about rules, et cetera.

00:42:30.010 --> 00:42:35.130
And so, you know, to the extent that, you know, we're products of our evolved psychology,

00:42:35.370 --> 00:42:41.200
where, you know, as an older human, you may want to have uh, you know,

00:42:41.520 --> 00:42:47.440
uh uh your offspring actually doing things that are more, you know, beneficial for

00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:50.640
the your descendants as a whole, right?

00:42:50.880 --> 00:42:52.400
Versus um for each other, right?

00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:57.600
So then you get this sort of tension between maybe the older generation um wanting to have

00:42:57.600 --> 00:43:02.960
institutions that are more cooperative and younger generation wanting to have more autonomy

00:43:03.120 --> 00:43:06.530
and you know be able to do the things that benefit them the most.

00:43:06.850 --> 00:43:12.290
Um now that doesn't mean that it's always like actually best for younger people to just do

00:43:12.290 --> 00:43:15.730
what benefits them the most because oftentimes they don't have the context.

00:43:15.810 --> 00:43:19.970
They can't understand, oh yeah, actually there are outside threats we need to cooperate and

00:43:19.970 --> 00:43:23.810
collaborate on, or there's just a coordination problem that needs to be solved.

00:43:23.890 --> 00:43:27.410
And you know, someone who is older can help to solve that coordination problem.

00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:30.880
So then we get into this trust and alignment issue again, right?

00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:36.960
It's like, do the kids trust that the, you know, information and the influence that is

00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:41.440
coming from the, you know, older generation is actually for their benefit or are they

00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:42.240
suspicious of it?

00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:44.160
And the answer is both, right?

00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:46.400
And like you go through these periods, right?

00:43:46.720 --> 00:43:50.690
You know, it's pretty normal for kids to go through periods of trusting their parents and

00:43:50.690 --> 00:43:54.930
then rebelling against everything their parent does or says just because their parents says

00:43:54.930 --> 00:43:55.170
it.

00:43:55.490 --> 00:43:59.170
So we can, I think, understand a lot of that in this context.

00:43:59.250 --> 00:44:03.730
And then some of that kind of you know scales up, I think, into these intergenerational

00:44:03.890 --> 00:44:09.010
conflict issues and these, you know, like, you know, well, what should these institutions

00:44:09.010 --> 00:44:09.570
be serving?

00:44:09.650 --> 00:44:15.490
And how do they balance individual autonomy with like, you know, top-down control and all

00:44:15.490 --> 00:44:15.970
of that?

00:44:16.660 --> 00:44:20.020
I love the frame of like ancestor descendant conflict, like more generally.

00:44:20.100 --> 00:44:25.060
It's like one of my like favorite theories that people don't talk about enough because you

00:44:25.060 --> 00:44:29.060
know it does, it's just you know a generalization of parent offspring conflict.

00:44:29.220 --> 00:44:34.820
But you know, it really um it really shows well what happens when you add cultural

00:44:34.820 --> 00:44:39.140
influence, when you um, you know, look at it over multiple generations, right?

00:44:39.220 --> 00:44:43.410
It really is the case that like you know, our great great great grandparents, uh,

00:44:43.650 --> 00:44:48.050
ultimately their genes would benefit if all of their descendants would cooperate as if

00:44:48.050 --> 00:44:48.850
they're all one.

00:44:48.930 --> 00:44:49.170
Yeah.

00:44:49.250 --> 00:44:49.490
Right?

00:44:49.650 --> 00:44:50.850
Like evolutionarily.

00:44:51.090 --> 00:44:55.730
And then, you know, you look across societies at like lots of spiritual traditions and you

00:44:55.730 --> 00:44:56.610
see the golden rule.

00:44:56.690 --> 00:44:59.010
It's like, okay, where do you think that came from?

00:44:59.170 --> 00:45:04.690
You know, it's it probably came from that psychology of like you should, you know, do unto

00:45:04.690 --> 00:45:06.370
others as they do unto you.

00:45:06.610 --> 00:45:12.260
And uh, you know, that's that is the thing that would be most beneficial for the

00:45:12.260 --> 00:45:14.020
ancestor of all of those individuals.

00:45:14.180 --> 00:45:14.740
So Yeah.

00:45:14.900 --> 00:45:15.140
For sure.

00:45:15.540 --> 00:45:17.220
The intergenerational conflict conference.

00:45:17.380 --> 00:45:21.300
We got to get going on that and come up with a with a catchy name for it.

00:45:22.500 --> 00:45:23.060
That sounds funny.

00:45:24.020 --> 00:45:28.340
That's actually a really interesting idea because you know, the so much of the dialogue

00:45:28.340 --> 00:45:33.620
about intergenerational issues really focuses on the cooperation side, which yes, obviously

00:45:33.700 --> 00:45:34.740
we should be thinking about that.

00:45:34.820 --> 00:45:40.030
And we should be thinking about, you know, future generations and past generations and

00:45:40.030 --> 00:45:41.470
information flow and all of that.

00:45:41.630 --> 00:45:46.510
But if we don't appreciate and understand that there's also this conflict dimension that is

00:45:46.510 --> 00:45:50.670
being managed on both sides, where there's vigilance about that on both sides, then that's

00:45:50.670 --> 00:45:56.590
actually going to get in the way of us figuring out how to work effectively with future

00:45:56.590 --> 00:46:00.350
generations and older generations currently alive today, right?

00:46:00.430 --> 00:46:02.430
To have a positive future for everyone.

00:46:02.670 --> 00:46:02.830
Yeah.

00:46:02.910 --> 00:46:07.540
Ooh, and just to editorialize one thing there, that it might be is institutional

00:46:07.540 --> 00:46:13.460
propaganda, because uh you if you have a scientific body that's sort of

00:46:13.540 --> 00:46:16.340
it's like paternal, it selects for paternalism a little bit, right?

00:46:16.420 --> 00:46:18.580
Where it's sort of like we know the right thing to do.

00:46:18.740 --> 00:46:22.260
And so a conference that's all about like, well, you gotta respect the autonomy of the

00:46:22.260 --> 00:46:27.670
upstarts who might not accept the pre-existing structure, it's kind of threatening, right?

00:46:27.750 --> 00:46:32.310
Like it's pretty subversive to sort of be like, well, actually, the things that the kids

00:46:32.310 --> 00:46:37.110
are doing that's outside of the purview of like the PTA and the principal and the teachers,

00:46:37.270 --> 00:46:38.310
we have to respect that.

00:46:38.470 --> 00:46:42.310
You know, you're not gonna get a lot of like, you know, funding for that, probably.

00:46:43.350 --> 00:46:44.150
Or you might.

00:46:44.230 --> 00:46:46.710
Um, but it's a particular way to frame it, I guess.

00:46:46.790 --> 00:46:47.030
Yeah.

00:46:47.110 --> 00:46:47.350
Yeah.

00:46:47.750 --> 00:46:47.910
Yeah.

00:46:48.150 --> 00:46:53.520
It's interesting to connect this idea of inter intergenerational conflict back to this uh

00:46:53.760 --> 00:46:55.760
positive sum, zero sum distinction.

00:46:55.840 --> 00:47:00.480
Because if we're in a positive sum ecology where we're producing lots of stuff and each

00:47:00.480 --> 00:47:04.640
generation has more stuff than the previous generation, well then the offspring are gonna

00:47:04.640 --> 00:47:08.160
win in the parent offspring conflict because they have more stuff than their parents, they

00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:12.160
have more skills and experience, uh, they're wealthier in various ways, and the parents

00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:13.280
have less bargaining power.

00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:18.670
And so uh in those types of societies, like you know, the societies we we live in where uh

00:47:18.830 --> 00:47:23.310
the economy is is growing uh pretty fast and each generation is wealthier than the previous

00:47:23.310 --> 00:47:27.470
generation in terms of standard of living, then all of a sudden, you know, uh the okay

00:47:27.630 --> 00:47:31.150
boomer mentality arises and respect for elders kind of goes out the window.

00:47:31.310 --> 00:47:37.150
But if we're in a limited resource ecology where um the only way to uh acquire resources

00:47:37.150 --> 00:47:42.920
is to gain political power, cozy up to uh i the existing people with

00:47:42.920 --> 00:47:47.240
power, uh, you know, respect your elders, then all of a sudden, you know, you you the only

00:47:47.240 --> 00:47:50.520
way to really get ahead is to get on the good side of your elders, right?

00:47:50.600 --> 00:47:52.040
Because they're the ones who control everything.

00:47:52.200 --> 00:47:53.240
Resources are limited.

00:47:53.320 --> 00:47:55.480
Uh we're not producing more stuff each generation.

00:47:55.560 --> 00:47:57.720
We just have to fight over the existing stuff.

00:47:57.880 --> 00:48:03.400
Um and in that case you get these kinds of gerontocracies um where respect for

00:48:03.400 --> 00:48:06.950
elders is is you know more politically important.

00:48:07.190 --> 00:48:11.510
Um so I think there's another uh connection there between the you know the various threads

00:48:11.510 --> 00:48:12.310
we've been talking about.

00:48:12.950 --> 00:48:17.190
Yeah, yeah, we can actually look at this in terms of like the sort of pools or the pies,

00:48:17.350 --> 00:48:17.590
right?

00:48:17.750 --> 00:48:23.590
So um in a you know zero-sum situation, um, you know, all of the pies are fixed,

00:48:23.670 --> 00:48:26.630
but also like the familial pie is more fixed, right?

00:48:26.710 --> 00:48:32.520
And so you're gonna have more um uh uh more of a sort of

00:48:32.520 --> 00:48:37.000
need to manage that that conflict among offspring and also between parents and offspring,

00:48:37.080 --> 00:48:37.240
right?

00:48:37.320 --> 00:48:40.840
You have both higher offspring offspring conflict and higher parent offspring offspring

00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:41.320
conflict.

00:48:41.560 --> 00:48:47.320
In a more zero sum situation, um, it's not necessarily that the offspring are

00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:50.360
gonna win, but kind of everybody can win, right?

00:48:50.680 --> 00:48:55.800
Because you don't have a limited pie that you then have to spend your energy fighting over,

00:48:55.960 --> 00:48:56.120
right?

00:48:56.200 --> 00:49:00.590
You can use your energy to get more resources for whatever that pool is.

00:49:00.830 --> 00:49:03.950
And everybody can have uh, you know, a beneficial outcome.

00:49:04.110 --> 00:49:10.030
So, you know, if you think of um even just like, well, if everybody has limited time and

00:49:10.030 --> 00:49:14.990
energy, in a zero-sum situation, you're gonna use a bunch of that time and energy fighting

00:49:14.990 --> 00:49:15.790
over the pie.

00:49:15.950 --> 00:49:20.110
Um, versus in a non-zero sum situation, you're gonna use some of that limited time and

00:49:20.110 --> 00:49:24.990
energy to make the pie bigger, as long as you understand, right, that that's possible and

00:49:24.990 --> 00:49:29.660
you understand that everyone is gonna be doing that, that we're all gonna be working to

00:49:29.660 --> 00:49:30.620
make that pie bigger.

00:49:30.780 --> 00:49:36.060
Um, so then that shared, you know, that common knowledge and shared understanding comes

00:49:36.060 --> 00:49:37.100
into play as well.

00:49:37.340 --> 00:49:37.580
Yeah.

00:49:37.740 --> 00:49:43.420
There's also an uh David, the argument you were just making about um uh gerontocracies also

00:49:43.580 --> 00:49:48.850
has argue there's an argument anthropologically or orthographically about um even just

00:49:48.850 --> 00:49:49.490
siblings.

00:49:49.650 --> 00:49:53.730
It's not as the the Sullaway argument that it's always older or younger, I think I'm not

00:49:53.730 --> 00:49:54.690
sure that pans out.

00:49:54.770 --> 00:49:59.410
But I think this idea that, you know, in Athena, just as you were talking about, like you

00:49:59.410 --> 00:50:02.450
can have this strategy of I'm gonna expand the pie.

00:50:02.610 --> 00:50:05.090
And that's where you don't like, you don't cozy up to your parents.

00:50:05.170 --> 00:50:07.010
You're just like, I'm gonna go strike it out of my own.

00:50:07.090 --> 00:50:09.490
You know, I'm gonna go to California and mine for gold or something.

00:50:09.620 --> 00:50:09.860
I don't know.

00:50:09.940 --> 00:50:10.820
I'm in California.

00:50:10.980 --> 00:50:15.060
Um but you know, the but canonically the older sibling is like, Oh, I respect my parents

00:50:15.140 --> 00:50:17.300
because I'm gonna inherit the farm or something, you know.

00:50:17.460 --> 00:50:21.540
So um so the same kind of thing I think even can happen in families, whether or not it's

00:50:21.540 --> 00:50:23.460
older or younger kind of might vary.

00:50:23.540 --> 00:50:24.340
But yeah.

00:50:24.660 --> 00:50:25.060
For sure.

00:50:25.220 --> 00:50:25.540
Yeah.

00:50:25.940 --> 00:50:29.940
Are you um uh just completely d uh uh Athena, do you have siblings?

00:50:30.020 --> 00:50:31.540
Are you older, younger only child?

00:50:31.620 --> 00:50:37.300
If you I'm the I'm the older sibling, and my younger sibling is the more like

00:50:37.630 --> 00:50:38.510
institutional one.

00:50:38.670 --> 00:50:43.150
So he's, you know, uh worked in the State Department and is a lawyer.

00:50:43.230 --> 00:50:48.510
And uh um, and I'm more the, you know, one who's always sort of like going off and and

00:50:48.510 --> 00:50:53.310
doing weird and interesting things and literally focusing on how do we make the pie bigger.

00:50:53.470 --> 00:50:54.590
Like that's my work, you know.

00:50:54.670 --> 00:50:56.030
Like take that Frank Solo.

00:50:56.670 --> 00:50:56.990
I'm kidding.

00:50:57.070 --> 00:50:58.430
He's the wonderful wonderful person.

00:50:58.510 --> 00:50:59.550
I actually yeah, yeah.

00:50:59.790 --> 00:51:02.350
Um how in and I don't want to get too meta here too.

00:51:02.430 --> 00:51:07.180
This has been wonderful, but you talked earlier about you know, you reserve, I forget what

00:51:07.180 --> 00:51:08.300
the percentage was, 20% of the year.

00:51:08.540 --> 00:51:09.020
Like twenty percent.

00:51:09.180 --> 00:51:10.060
Yeah, twenty percent of my time.

00:51:10.140 --> 00:51:10.380
Yeah.

00:51:10.620 --> 00:51:16.300
I I talk to a lot of academics, especially academics who may be not early, like right early

00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:21.580
career, but sort of, you know, post-tenure, there's a little bit of like fear people

00:51:21.740 --> 00:51:27.100
encounter where they say, look, you know, like it's it's scary to do something new or

00:51:27.100 --> 00:51:28.540
uncertain or something I like.

00:51:28.620 --> 00:51:31.500
Like I do I just even deserve to pursue that.

00:51:31.740 --> 00:51:37.090
Um for people who are who are listening who might be in that situation, do you have any

00:51:37.170 --> 00:51:43.090
like I I I think you're um you're living as an academic uh I would

00:51:43.090 --> 00:51:46.690
say you're one of the best examples of living your best life if I can put it that way.

00:51:47.810 --> 00:51:51.010
So do you have any advice for people who feel scared to do that?

00:51:51.170 --> 00:51:54.850
Who feel like, oh I don't know there's this thing I really do care about but I don't know

00:51:54.850 --> 00:51:56.290
if anybody's gonna like it.

00:51:56.780 --> 00:52:00.540
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but yeah, is there is there any advice to that or

00:52:00.540 --> 00:52:06.540
how what what would be helpful um uh or what was helpful for you to to sort of go

00:52:06.540 --> 00:52:06.940
through that?

00:52:07.100 --> 00:52:10.540
Because I think that's something that everybody struggles with, especially if they get a

00:52:10.540 --> 00:52:13.740
little bit of success and then there's sort of the uncertain future.

00:52:14.060 --> 00:52:14.700
Yeah.

00:52:14.940 --> 00:52:18.140
Well, I I would say two two main things.

00:52:18.300 --> 00:52:22.090
So one is don't wait to start doing it.

00:52:22.250 --> 00:52:26.330
There's never going to be the time where you're like, oh, I now have the time to spend 20%

00:52:26.650 --> 00:52:29.210
of my time on the things that I'm most excited about.

00:52:29.530 --> 00:52:34.890
You just have to make the time and you have to trust that that is going to pay off

00:52:35.530 --> 00:52:37.930
in the short term, medium term, and long term.

00:52:38.250 --> 00:52:42.650
In the short term, it'll pay off because you will be less burnt out.

00:52:43.020 --> 00:52:45.580
You will start to find that joy again.

00:52:45.740 --> 00:52:51.500
You will feel more aligned with your own goals and

00:52:51.820 --> 00:52:56.940
the energies that you uniquely bring to whatever space you're in.

00:52:57.820 --> 00:53:03.740
In the medium term, it'll pay off because those things that you start with

00:53:03.820 --> 00:53:09.580
at 20%, those are things that you are gonna be more uniquely able to

00:53:09.580 --> 00:53:10.540
contribute to, right?

00:53:10.620 --> 00:53:14.690
So they're gonna be projects that you know aren't things that people are already looking

00:53:14.690 --> 00:53:15.810
at, probably, right?

00:53:16.130 --> 00:53:20.450
Or you're gonna go and learn about something in another discipline that then you bring to

00:53:20.450 --> 00:53:24.850
your discipline and you do something that otherwise wouldn't have been possible with that.

00:53:25.170 --> 00:53:30.690
So in the medium term, you'll have new projects, um, they will be more innovative, and you

00:53:30.690 --> 00:53:35.490
may even find that you are able to get funding that you couldn't before.

00:53:35.650 --> 00:53:39.730
So, for me, the best example of this is the human generosity project.

00:53:39.940 --> 00:53:43.700
That started for me as a 20% of my, it was even less than that.

00:53:43.780 --> 00:53:47.460
It was literally one day a month that I was spending on it.

00:53:47.540 --> 00:53:53.460
So it was like technically five uh 0.5% of my time that I was spending on that.

00:53:53.940 --> 00:53:58.980
And um that started just because I thought it was really interesting.

00:53:59.140 --> 00:54:04.340
Lee and I had started talking about making a model of uh need-based transfer systems.

00:54:04.500 --> 00:54:08.100
And I really thought it would be a one and done thing, but it was just something I was

00:54:08.150 --> 00:54:08.870
interested in.

00:54:09.110 --> 00:54:14.950
So um for you know a better part of a year, Lee and I would um

00:54:14.950 --> 00:54:19.430
just spend to pick one day a month and either I would drive from Philly to New Jersey and

00:54:19.430 --> 00:54:22.230
we would work in person for that day, or vice versa.

00:54:22.390 --> 00:54:25.590
So you know we took the time to do that in person too, which is much more positively

00:54:25.590 --> 00:54:26.550
reinforcing, right?

00:54:26.630 --> 00:54:29.910
Than like having a project where you're just, you know, doing it remotely.

00:54:30.140 --> 00:54:33.900
Um, and that ended up growing into the human generosity project.

00:54:33.980 --> 00:54:39.100
You know, we got um, you know, funding from multiple agencies, you know, for it, you know,

00:54:39.180 --> 00:54:44.140
and foundations, including a $2 million grant from the Templeton Foundation for that

00:54:44.140 --> 00:54:44.540
project.

00:54:44.700 --> 00:54:48.460
And it grew into, you know, something that then wasn't the 20%.

00:54:49.100 --> 00:54:52.300
It was in the, you know, more the bulk of my work.

00:54:52.540 --> 00:54:58.490
Um, and then so in the you know, medium and long term, then your portfolio starts

00:54:58.490 --> 00:55:02.410
to reflect the things that you're really excited about and interested in.

00:55:02.730 --> 00:55:07.850
And you also will learn, like as you're as you're working in these spaces, like with the

00:55:07.850 --> 00:55:12.010
Human Generosity Project, I really I did think it was just gonna be, you know, initially

00:55:12.090 --> 00:55:17.130
this one paper we would do, but the results that we got were much more interesting than I

00:55:17.130 --> 00:55:19.050
initially thought because it was an agent-based model.

00:55:19.130 --> 00:55:22.480
So you, you know, the things emerged that we weren't expecting and it was like, oh well, we

00:55:22.480 --> 00:55:25.040
should now do this other model and then we should put it in a network.

00:55:25.120 --> 00:55:31.120
So it had an energy of its own that, you know, I couldn't have known what the potential

00:55:31.120 --> 00:55:36.560
was there without spending that time just exploring this because I thought it was

00:55:36.560 --> 00:55:41.360
interesting and exciting and just worth it for me as a human because I wanted to know what

00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:42.960
was happening in the system.

00:55:43.360 --> 00:55:46.990
So you have to trust that those payoffs will come.

00:55:47.230 --> 00:55:52.750
Um, and that those initial that initial payoff of just being less burnt out is so valuable

00:55:52.910 --> 00:55:56.590
because you know, then you'll you'll be able to bring better energy to the other projects

00:55:56.590 --> 00:55:58.190
that you have going on as well.

00:55:58.430 --> 00:56:04.190
So, um, so so that's you know, one piece of advice like don't don't delay

00:56:04.350 --> 00:56:07.470
that you know, you'll get benefits in all of these, you know, terms.

00:56:07.630 --> 00:56:12.860
Um, and then the other thing is uh, you know, if you're an academic or you're you know

00:56:12.940 --> 00:56:18.140
you're trying to sort of work within this existing system where you know you have to have

00:56:18.300 --> 00:56:23.340
certain number of papers in these right journals you have to have you know colleagues that

00:56:23.500 --> 00:56:28.860
um you you know cultivate relationships with where they you know respect you as a serious

00:56:28.860 --> 00:56:34.860
scholar and all of that um it can be a challenge to balance you know having these

00:56:34.940 --> 00:56:39.930
you know side projects some of which people might not really be able to readily understand

00:56:40.170 --> 00:56:44.810
with the current sort of, you know, epistemic states that they are in, right, within these

00:56:44.810 --> 00:56:45.690
subdisciplines.

00:56:45.850 --> 00:56:50.010
And so there is, you know, often some discomfort around that, right?

00:56:50.250 --> 00:56:55.530
Because, you know, you're operating in a world that has sort of a

00:56:56.010 --> 00:56:58.970
shared uh set of assumptions.

00:56:59.210 --> 00:57:03.540
And if you start doing things that are outside of that world of that shared set of

00:57:03.540 --> 00:57:07.940
assumptions, like you have to be ready for, you know, dealing with that discomfort,

00:57:08.020 --> 00:57:10.260
especially as you start presenting that work.

00:57:10.420 --> 00:57:15.380
And, you know, people are like, oh, well, that doesn't fit my model for what's happening.

00:57:15.620 --> 00:57:18.980
So, so yeah, so you have to be, you have to be ready for that.

00:57:19.140 --> 00:57:25.090
But I think that, you know, there is a sort of higher goal of like how do we make science

00:57:25.090 --> 00:57:30.690
better, which involves us actually all doing that and all being ready to step outside of

00:57:30.690 --> 00:57:33.170
the assumptions that are all shared and push that.

00:57:33.330 --> 00:57:37.650
So, you know, so if you can, you know, be happy knowing like you're you're actually doing

00:57:37.650 --> 00:57:42.210
something good for science as a whole by pushing those boundaries, then I think that'll it

00:57:42.210 --> 00:57:45.490
will make everything better for everyone in the sciences.

00:57:45.730 --> 00:57:45.890
Yeah.

00:57:46.050 --> 00:57:48.370
For that second part, is it hardest at first?

00:57:48.530 --> 00:57:54.460
Because if you're, for example, um doing something that isn't part of the value

00:57:54.460 --> 00:57:59.820
system of your, you know, uh personnel committee or something at your university, but

00:57:59.820 --> 00:58:03.100
you're doing this thing that you know is going to be impactful.

00:58:03.660 --> 00:58:08.860
In the beginning, I would imagine um you're not getting cues from the outside world because

00:58:08.860 --> 00:58:13.020
it's just starting, but you're getting all the frows, the bur the frows, the bur the

00:58:13.020 --> 00:58:17.020
furrowed brows, frows, furrowed brows of your of your colleagues.

00:58:17.100 --> 00:58:20.620
But then when you actually start going out and you see, oh, look, I'm making this impact,

00:58:20.670 --> 00:58:21.790
You're meeting people.

00:58:22.030 --> 00:58:22.750
Is that fair?

00:58:22.830 --> 00:58:24.750
Like it's actually hardest at the beginning.

00:58:25.150 --> 00:58:25.390
Yeah.

00:58:25.790 --> 00:58:31.390
And I think also, you know, one thing that you can do at the beginning is, you know, find

00:58:31.390 --> 00:58:37.070
the other people who are starting to think in these ways and also give your own brain the

00:58:37.070 --> 00:58:38.750
cues that that's your environment.

00:58:39.070 --> 00:58:39.390
Right.

00:58:39.550 --> 00:58:45.500
Um, and uh to the extent that they can also sort of help support your work.

00:58:45.660 --> 00:58:50.140
So, you know, I had this experience as a grad student working on things that were really

00:58:50.140 --> 00:58:54.140
outside of, you know, the way that people were working, using methods that people weren't

00:58:54.140 --> 00:58:54.380
using.

00:58:54.540 --> 00:58:59.100
So, you know, I taught myself how to do agent-based modeling actually as an undergrad and

00:58:59.100 --> 00:59:01.820
then was using that in my dissertation.

00:59:01.980 --> 00:59:06.350
Um, and nobody on my committee had any expertise in agent-based modeling because it was

00:59:06.350 --> 00:59:06.910
still super new.

00:59:06.990 --> 00:59:09.470
So it's like it wasn't even really being taught at all.

00:59:09.550 --> 00:59:14.910
In, you know, I actually taught one of the first agent-based modeling graduate courses at

00:59:14.910 --> 00:59:19.310
Portland State University right after I graduated from Reed because I was only one of the

00:59:19.310 --> 00:59:20.350
only people who knew how to do that.

00:59:20.430 --> 00:59:24.430
So, you know, so then I was in a grad program that didn't have any expert, I was the expert

00:59:24.430 --> 00:59:24.990
on it.

00:59:25.230 --> 00:59:30.350
And um, I honestly don't know whether I would have been able to actually graduate with a

00:59:30.480 --> 00:59:34.640
dissertation on agent-based modeling, if it weren't for the fact that I was already

00:59:34.640 --> 00:59:37.280
published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, right?

00:59:37.440 --> 00:59:43.440
So like I was able to, you know, have enough connections sort of in the world

00:59:43.440 --> 00:59:46.880
of people who were working on these questions in this domain.

00:59:46.960 --> 00:59:52.000
And then, you know, was able to get a paper published that went through peer review, you

00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:57.090
know, and luckily, like, you know, the it got sent to reviewers who understood enough about

00:59:57.090 --> 01:00:01.730
what I was doing that they were able to validate, yes, this is an important contribution.

01:00:01.890 --> 01:00:04.850
So then I was able to graduate, you know, with a PhD.

01:00:05.250 --> 01:00:10.530
Um, even though my committee, you know, they honestly said, like, we can't evaluate this

01:00:10.530 --> 01:00:13.010
method and this approach because we're not experts in it.

01:00:13.170 --> 01:00:18.850
So um, so you kind of have to curate the environment around you, um,

01:00:19.170 --> 01:00:25.020
uh, both like in terms of the social intellectual interactions you're having and

01:00:25.020 --> 01:00:27.660
then also the sort of institutional piece, right?

01:00:27.820 --> 01:00:32.300
Whether, you know, going through peer review, finding the right journals, you know, all of

01:00:32.300 --> 01:00:36.860
that so that you can get your work out there and um, you know, have it have that stamp of

01:00:36.860 --> 01:00:40.700
approval that then lets you navigate within the system more effectively.

01:00:40.940 --> 01:00:41.260
Yeah.

01:00:41.820 --> 01:00:42.060
Yeah.

01:00:42.210 --> 01:00:47.650
And what you're talking about reminds me of uh a blog post uh of yours that I read a while

01:00:47.650 --> 01:00:47.810
ago.

01:00:47.890 --> 01:00:52.850
It's uh that's been sticking with me about the experience of serendipity.

01:00:53.330 --> 01:00:58.930
Um so could you talk a little bit about what you think this this feeling is and what

01:00:58.930 --> 01:01:03.650
function it might be serving and how it connects to uh all the things you've just been

01:01:03.650 --> 01:01:08.050
talking about, about building new networks of of collaboration and exploring new ideas.

01:01:08.450 --> 01:01:09.250
Yeah, absolutely.

01:01:09.410 --> 01:01:15.180
So uh I love this idea of, you know, we were talking about this earlier too, like

01:01:15.260 --> 01:01:16.700
when we feel this sort of magic, right?

01:01:16.780 --> 01:01:20.940
It's like, oh, something's happening and like I don't know what it is, but like it feels

01:01:20.940 --> 01:01:25.420
like we're connected and like, you know, it's something greater than like it's some higher

01:01:25.420 --> 01:01:26.140
thing, right?

01:01:26.300 --> 01:01:31.820
And I think that like literally that feeling is related to our

01:01:31.820 --> 01:01:37.250
brains detecting that there is a positive cooperative opportunity there.

01:01:37.410 --> 01:01:43.330
And I use the language of positive assortment, which is this principle in

01:01:43.330 --> 01:01:49.090
evolutionary biology and especially in the evolution of cooperation, that if

01:01:49.090 --> 01:01:54.930
cooperators can interact with each other more often than would happen at random.

01:01:55.090 --> 01:01:56.850
So that's the positive assortment, right?

01:01:56.930 --> 01:01:59.010
The cooperation with cooperation.

01:01:59.330 --> 01:02:05.080
Then that allows cooperators to get higher payoffs, right, than they otherwise would,

01:02:05.240 --> 01:02:09.800
which can scaffold the evolution of cooperation or just the emergence of cooperation when

01:02:09.800 --> 01:02:13.080
you have individuals that can, you know, choose their strategies, right?

01:02:13.400 --> 01:02:18.680
So, so the idea is basically that, you know, when when we're in a situation, we start, we

01:02:18.680 --> 01:02:22.200
have a conversation with someone, we meet someone, and we're like, wow, like this feels

01:02:22.200 --> 01:02:27.720
like there's there's something special here that what we're feeling is this like sort of,

01:02:27.800 --> 01:02:33.790
you know, emotional readout of positive assortment and the potential that is there

01:02:33.790 --> 01:02:38.110
for actually doing something together that um is cooperative.

01:02:38.270 --> 01:02:42.270
We have, you know, maybe we're also detecting cues that we would be good at coordinating.

01:02:42.430 --> 01:02:45.310
Maybe you're having a really animated conversation, you're sharing information, you're

01:02:45.310 --> 01:02:48.430
like, wow, we can really interoperate effectively, right?

01:02:48.510 --> 01:02:50.910
So I think that that's sort of what we're tuning into.

01:02:51.070 --> 01:02:56.840
And um I uh I I made a a follow-up post where I kind of break down a little bit more

01:02:56.920 --> 01:02:59.880
like what the cues are that I think we're we're detecting.

01:02:59.960 --> 01:03:04.360
Um, you know, one of those is the alignment, which we talked about, um, and then the

01:03:04.360 --> 01:03:09.800
cooperation energy and uh the coordination energy capacity.

01:03:10.200 --> 01:03:16.150
And then I think also uh actually a separate category is um the absence

01:03:16.150 --> 01:03:18.630
of exploiters or hijackers.

01:03:18.870 --> 01:03:23.350
And I actually distinguish that from the cooperation energy because I think that there's a

01:03:23.350 --> 01:03:27.590
difference between like, oh, I have a bunch of energy that I want to put into this thing

01:03:27.590 --> 01:03:32.470
right now versus, you know, maybe not, maybe you're just a little more passive, but you're

01:03:32.470 --> 01:03:33.830
not necessarily exploiting, right?

01:03:33.910 --> 01:03:39.620
I think that's, you know, versus someone who's there sort of with the intention to hijack

01:03:39.620 --> 01:03:40.500
and exploit.

01:03:40.660 --> 01:03:46.260
And I think we have a specific detection system for that cheating that is different from

01:03:46.340 --> 01:03:50.340
like detecting maybe like less effort or less engagement.

01:03:50.580 --> 01:03:54.100
Um, so even though you might be able to say, uh you might be able to say they're on some

01:03:54.100 --> 01:03:58.820
sort of spectrum, I think the way our brains work is actually we kind of pull those out as

01:03:58.820 --> 01:04:02.980
sort of separate things because um they're they're different in terms of the opportunity

01:04:02.980 --> 01:04:04.660
and threat profile that they offer, right?

01:04:04.740 --> 01:04:08.870
Like if there's an exploiter in your midst, then you probably want to just walk away from

01:04:08.870 --> 01:04:09.990
that group entirely.

01:04:10.150 --> 01:04:15.030
Um, versus if there's, you know, maybe some variation in like how energized people are,

01:04:15.190 --> 01:04:19.590
like that's something that can be modified by the environment and the feedback and and all

01:04:19.590 --> 01:04:20.150
of that.

01:04:20.790 --> 01:04:24.390
Yeah, no, it it certainly resonates with my personal experience.

01:04:24.550 --> 01:04:28.470
Like if you're with a group of people and there's like one asshole in the group, you can

01:04:28.550 --> 01:04:31.860
like feel the energy of the group change when the asshole leaves the room.

01:04:31.940 --> 01:04:33.620
You know, it's like, oh, they're they're gone.

01:04:33.700 --> 01:04:39.060
Now we can just like work together as as cooperators, you know, without the burden of this

01:04:39.060 --> 01:04:42.340
person, like, you know, creating this suffocating vibe.

01:04:42.580 --> 01:04:42.820
Yeah.

01:04:42.980 --> 01:04:45.540
Um, and uh, I think that that rings true.

01:04:45.620 --> 01:04:50.980
And I mean it's I think it's unfortunate there hasn't been more work on this psychology

01:04:51.060 --> 01:04:53.700
because it feels like so central to so many things.

01:04:53.860 --> 01:04:59.710
Um yeah, I think that part of why there hasn't been um enough work on it is because,

01:05:00.190 --> 01:05:03.950
you know, it feels like a woo or magical thing, right?

01:05:04.030 --> 01:05:09.310
And like, I mean, like, and literally like the my inspiration for writing this piece was um

01:05:09.630 --> 01:05:15.230
being at a music festival and somebody giving me this sticker that said, you know, find the

01:05:15.230 --> 01:05:15.470
others.

01:05:15.550 --> 01:05:19.310
And it was, you know, somebody we were like dancing and hanging out and chatting and and

01:05:19.470 --> 01:05:22.430
she was like, Oh, you're like one of my people, and like, here's the sticker.

01:05:22.750 --> 01:05:24.200
And then I was like, find the others.

01:05:24.280 --> 01:05:25.720
That sounds like positive assortment.

01:05:25.800 --> 01:05:27.960
And then, you know, my brain just kind of started like going.

01:05:28.040 --> 01:05:33.560
I'm like, huh, you know, like maybe there is something like really important about what is

01:05:33.560 --> 01:05:37.160
happening in this, like, we have a good vibe together thing.

01:05:37.320 --> 01:05:41.880
Um, and you know, sometimes that gets facilitated by, you know, people drinking or doing

01:05:41.880 --> 01:05:43.480
other substances or whatever, right?

01:05:43.560 --> 01:05:47.710
Like that maybe their nervous systems are in a more calm state and they can be like, you

01:05:47.710 --> 01:05:51.870
know more receptive to that so yeah I think that's also an interesting tangent that we

01:05:51.870 --> 01:05:57.550
could we could go down but um regardless I think it's uh you know it just there's there are

01:05:57.550 --> 01:06:03.550
a lot of things that kind of academics you know often don't take seriously because they

01:06:03.550 --> 01:06:08.030
seem like they're they're they're too much just about like the things that we do as humans

01:06:08.110 --> 01:06:08.990
and that's not really science.

01:06:09.070 --> 01:06:14.590
It's like no actually that is the science you know um I you know I had some colleagues uh

01:06:15.040 --> 01:06:19.440
I have some colleagues who, you know, a few years ago when um you all know Jamie Krems, you

01:06:19.440 --> 01:06:23.760
know, who's like made this amazing career like on friendship, um, and very early on there

01:06:23.760 --> 01:06:27.680
were some senior colleagues who basically said, you know, well, that's not a topic.

01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:30.240
That's not a that's not a social psychology topic.

01:06:30.560 --> 01:06:34.400
And it's like, well, that's the point because it is, it's like it should be, right?

01:06:34.480 --> 01:06:37.280
It's like such an important thing um for humans.

01:06:37.440 --> 01:06:41.890
And so I think you know, there's often these blind spots that come from like, you know,

01:06:42.050 --> 01:06:47.170
well, if it isn't something that already has a history of, you know, being worked on.

01:06:47.410 --> 01:06:51.970
And if it's something that involves like human positive emotions and it can seem like a

01:06:51.970 --> 01:06:55.730
little fuzzy, then it's like, oh, that's not a serious topic, you know?

01:06:56.290 --> 01:06:59.810
But but actually, like, what are our po positive emotions for?

01:06:59.970 --> 01:07:00.130
Right?

01:07:00.290 --> 01:07:04.210
They are to direct our energy and attention and effort.

01:07:04.530 --> 01:07:08.770
And I think we just need to pay a lot more attention about what is going on computationally

01:07:08.770 --> 01:07:13.120
with those, especially when it comes to these emergent properties that can happen when

01:07:13.280 --> 01:07:18.640
there's a potential for cooperation and coordination and doing things that you could not

01:07:18.640 --> 01:07:20.000
literally otherwise do.

01:07:20.160 --> 01:07:20.480
Right.

01:07:20.640 --> 01:07:22.960
Um if you have if you have people who are aligned, right?

01:07:23.040 --> 01:07:27.920
And they know they're aligned, they have, you know, energy to work on things together and

01:07:27.920 --> 01:07:32.430
they are effective at dividing labor and communicating, like you can get so much done.

01:07:32.670 --> 01:07:32.910
Yeah.

01:07:33.070 --> 01:07:37.790
This that what you just said really reminded me of like a it felt like very John Tube-ish.

01:07:37.950 --> 01:07:39.870
Like at the point is like go to the woo.

01:07:39.950 --> 01:07:44.590
Like you be secure in your science enough that like there is no woo.

01:07:44.670 --> 01:07:45.710
It's all science, right?

01:07:45.790 --> 01:07:46.830
So just you can go to it.

01:07:46.990 --> 01:07:48.750
You don't have to be insecure about that.

01:07:48.830 --> 01:07:49.150
Yeah.

01:07:49.230 --> 01:07:49.390
Yeah.

01:07:49.790 --> 01:07:50.830
Go to the vortex.

01:07:51.070 --> 01:07:51.630
Yes, exactly.

01:07:51.790 --> 01:07:52.510
So yeah, true.

01:07:52.830 --> 01:07:54.590
No, but it's like security, right?

01:07:54.670 --> 01:07:59.150
Like you have to be like self-confident and like not worry about it.

01:07:59.310 --> 01:08:03.520
Because there will be people who don't take it seriously, like which is like the whole

01:08:03.520 --> 01:08:04.960
history of science, like right.

01:08:05.040 --> 01:08:09.920
Like nobody took everyone who made progress seriously at some point.

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:10.400
Right.

01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:11.200
For sure.

01:08:11.360 --> 01:08:16.240
Yeah, as long as you have the right intellectual foundations, I think you can you're free

01:08:16.240 --> 01:08:20.960
to explore and you know go forth and you know find whatever excites you because you can be

01:08:20.960 --> 01:08:24.470
s secure in those foundations, you know, like natural selection.

01:08:24.550 --> 01:08:26.470
Humans are evolved organisms.

01:08:26.550 --> 01:08:32.310
You know, uh, we have motivational and emotional structures that uh facilitated um

01:08:32.390 --> 01:08:34.470
uh fitness in ancestral environments.

01:08:34.550 --> 01:08:38.790
Like those are our intellectual foundations, you know, with game theory and like how

01:08:38.790 --> 01:08:40.310
strategies interact with each other.

01:08:40.390 --> 01:08:46.150
Like as long as you live in that framework, you can do whatever you want, explore any idea.

01:08:46.310 --> 01:08:48.440
Like it it's it's you know, anyway.

01:08:49.160 --> 01:08:49.480
Exactly.

01:08:49.560 --> 01:08:54.120
Well and and now we get back kind of full circle with the sort of institutional discussion

01:08:54.280 --> 01:08:54.840
too, right?

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:57.800
And the, you know, ancestor descendant conflict, right?

01:08:57.880 --> 01:09:01.960
Like we can even think of, you know, that as like, you know, well, are you participating in

01:09:01.960 --> 01:09:07.160
the environment that I have created where I have status and you're gonna do things that

01:09:07.160 --> 01:09:11.890
contribute to my status by working on, you know, this this topic that I have developed, and

01:09:11.890 --> 01:09:15.890
then you know, you're sort of part of my extended phenotype, right?

01:09:16.130 --> 01:09:21.010
Or are you gonna say, oh no, like actually what we should be doing is in a decentralized

01:09:21.010 --> 01:09:23.330
way, trying to understand all of the things.

01:09:23.570 --> 01:09:27.890
So, you know, like grad student, I want you to go and do this thing that you're interested

01:09:27.890 --> 01:09:32.930
in and figure this out, and like I will help you, even if it's not the next paper in my

01:09:32.930 --> 01:09:33.970
legacy, right?

01:09:34.130 --> 01:09:38.780
So I think that you know, thinking about how all of these things interact with the

01:09:38.780 --> 01:09:43.740
institutions that we've built around learning, around research, around, you know, sort of

01:09:43.740 --> 01:09:49.500
building the um knowledge commons, right, that we have as humans uh is a whole other layer

01:09:49.500 --> 01:09:50.060
and level.

01:09:50.220 --> 01:09:54.780
And uh it's it's kind of exciting now though, because there are things that we can do with

01:09:54.780 --> 01:09:58.030
this sort of like global knowledge commons that we couldn't before.

01:09:58.190 --> 01:09:59.310
So uh yeah.

01:09:59.390 --> 01:10:04.590
So I'm optimistic in general about, you know, kind of where things will go with uh our

01:10:04.590 --> 01:10:10.350
ability to you know look at these topics that maybe have not been central

01:10:10.590 --> 01:10:13.870
in the academic study of you know human psychology.

01:10:14.270 --> 01:10:16.510
On that last point, there's a lot of things you can do.

01:10:16.670 --> 01:10:20.830
Can you tell people, because I don't even like I, you know, I don't I don't know you that

01:10:20.830 --> 01:10:22.030
well, but we know each other.

01:10:22.190 --> 01:10:23.900
Um what do you do?

01:10:23.980 --> 01:10:27.900
Like I'm I'm confused about like what is the zombie apocalypse?

01:10:28.060 --> 01:10:31.420
Um like you do so many cool things and I always want to be like, what I want to talk to

01:10:31.580 --> 01:10:34.060
Athena and find out like what these things are.

01:10:34.220 --> 01:10:38.620
Can you tell the listener who either knows you, knows you well or doesn't know you at all?

01:10:38.700 --> 01:10:42.220
Like what are some of the things you've done just to give people an idea of what they want

01:10:42.220 --> 01:10:46.700
to look look into you more or the kinds of things like what what what are you doing or what

01:10:46.780 --> 01:10:48.220
have you done or what are you gonna do?

01:10:48.380 --> 01:10:48.860
Yeah.

01:10:49.180 --> 01:10:49.420
Yeah.

01:10:49.530 --> 01:10:49.850
All right.

01:10:49.930 --> 01:10:52.170
Well, I can kind of put it in three buckets.

01:10:52.330 --> 01:10:58.010
So um the first bucket is uh the work that I'm doing at ASU and really

01:10:58.090 --> 01:11:04.010
like in the academic environment with cooperative futures at ASU, which is um

01:11:04.250 --> 01:11:09.290
this new entity that really is about how do we take the science of cooperation and apply it

01:11:09.290 --> 01:11:11.050
to emerging challenges.

01:11:11.290 --> 01:11:16.780
So, you know, that includes relationship with technology, especially navigating our future

01:11:16.780 --> 01:11:17.580
with AI.

01:11:17.740 --> 01:11:19.340
We have lots of workshops.

01:11:19.500 --> 01:11:24.060
We have a um a summer academy and a winter academy on the topic.

01:11:24.300 --> 01:11:27.660
Uh, we have um uh artist residency.

01:11:27.820 --> 01:11:31.900
So, like right now, Shane Moss um is our artist in residence as a comedian.

01:11:31.980 --> 01:11:37.450
We're um doing a bunch of events uh where we're sort of working on how do you

01:11:37.450 --> 01:11:42.090
communicate with the public using comedy about issues like what's going on right now with

01:11:42.090 --> 01:11:43.450
AI, for example.

01:11:44.570 --> 01:11:50.570
Within that, we also have other labs, one about heritage fermentation and

01:11:50.570 --> 01:11:51.930
interspecies cooperation.

01:11:52.010 --> 01:11:58.010
So, what can we learn from the way that you have uh you know cooperation at very, very

01:11:58.010 --> 01:12:01.770
high levels happening inside these sort of fermentation systems?

01:12:01.930 --> 01:12:07.000
Um, how can that also uh how can that understanding influence human health as well, right?

01:12:07.160 --> 01:12:13.000
So looking at that essentially cellular cooperation um among different species.

01:12:13.320 --> 01:12:19.240
There's also a focus on looking at our bodies um as cooperative systems uh and

01:12:19.240 --> 01:12:22.840
cancer and other diseases as a breakdown of that cooperation.

01:12:23.000 --> 01:12:27.030
Um, it includes also like some of the things that we were talking about with genetic

01:12:27.030 --> 01:12:29.910
conflict and uh you know conflict with other entities.

01:12:29.990 --> 01:12:33.910
So you can you can kind of bring all of those things in this in that domain.

01:12:34.150 --> 01:12:40.070
We're also interested in these questions about how we build uh educational and academic and

01:12:40.070 --> 01:12:42.150
research institutions going forward.

01:12:42.230 --> 01:12:47.910
Um and also uh another lab focused on storytelling and that as a

01:12:47.910 --> 01:12:53.500
mechanism for coordination and cooperation um that uh kind of

01:12:53.500 --> 01:12:59.260
helps humans to work through the practicalities of uh you know how to operate especially in

01:12:59.260 --> 01:13:02.940
new domains and and uh uh with you know new problems.

01:13:03.180 --> 01:13:08.940
So so at ASU right now that's my focus and and really trying to bring um diverse

01:13:08.940 --> 01:13:14.710
disciplines together at ASU around these topics and then have events where

01:13:14.710 --> 01:13:20.230
anybody can come, you know, for for workshops for these academies, um, and uh, you know,

01:13:20.550 --> 01:13:21.350
sort of building that out.

01:13:21.430 --> 01:13:23.110
So that's my ASU focus.

01:13:23.190 --> 01:13:26.790
There's a lot of opportunities for you to be involved, whether you're at ASU or not.

01:13:27.110 --> 01:13:32.710
Um now I'm also building a company outside of

01:13:32.710 --> 01:13:38.240
ASU um called Agentic Intelligence Systems, and that's all about how do we take the science

01:13:38.240 --> 01:13:43.120
of cooperation and build that in to all the layers of the tech stack in AI.

01:13:43.280 --> 01:13:48.800
So from how we do sort of multi-agent interaction, how you figure out if agents are

01:13:48.800 --> 01:13:54.720
aligned or not aligned, how you correct when things are kind of going off track, um, to

01:13:54.720 --> 01:14:00.080
actually building a foundation model that uses these principles of cooperation.

01:14:00.320 --> 01:14:04.190
Um, so that's something I'm extremely excited about.

01:14:04.270 --> 01:14:09.470
And there's, you know, uh that's it's early.

01:14:09.550 --> 01:14:12.190
We're right now um kind of in our seed round for that.

01:14:12.350 --> 01:14:14.670
So very excited about that on the building side.

01:14:14.830 --> 01:14:16.270
It's really, really cool to build stuff.

01:14:16.510 --> 01:14:20.990
Also, just want to say like if you're a person who, you know, likes to build things, what

01:14:20.990 --> 01:14:24.430
you can do right now with vibe coding is amazing.

01:14:24.510 --> 01:14:28.440
And especially if you have a background already in coding, you understand recursion and

01:14:28.440 --> 01:14:33.720
feedback and you know what it's possible to do, then um, you know, you can just uh

01:14:34.440 --> 01:14:40.040
the the extent to which you can kind of take those coding abilities and use that with

01:14:40.360 --> 01:14:42.360
uh AI right now is is amazing.

01:14:42.440 --> 01:14:45.640
So I would highly encourage people to to do that just as an aside.

01:14:46.280 --> 01:14:52.120
And then on the sort of more um arts and experience and uh you know my like

01:14:52.120 --> 01:14:58.030
20% um side, I have a lot of um things that you know for me help

01:14:58.270 --> 01:15:01.630
me be uh in my creative space and where I like to be.

01:15:01.710 --> 01:15:07.390
So I have my um uh Substack not for peer review where I you know

01:15:07.630 --> 01:15:12.110
put out ideas that um like you know my positive assortment idea things that I'm just like

01:15:12.190 --> 01:15:14.590
you know I I just want to get this out to everyone quickly.

01:15:14.750 --> 01:15:20.460
My my original intention with that was actually to um start publishing things from my

01:15:20.460 --> 01:15:24.700
stacks of notebooks because I have stacks of notebooks, you know, going back to when I was

01:15:24.700 --> 01:15:25.820
uh an undergrad.

01:15:26.140 --> 01:15:30.140
Um, but I literally haven't even been able to crack those notebooks because there's just

01:15:30.140 --> 01:15:33.260
been so many things that I'm like, oh, I'm thinking of this now and I want to get it out.

01:15:33.420 --> 01:15:36.860
So um I want to make more time for that in the future.

01:15:37.020 --> 01:15:42.940
Um, but then there's also uh things that others can kind of come and join in

01:15:42.940 --> 01:15:43.420
this space.

01:15:43.660 --> 01:15:48.010
So uh I mentioned this show that Shane and I are producing.

01:15:48.090 --> 01:15:54.090
Um it's called Surviving AI, and it's a variety show about how we have a positive future

01:15:54.090 --> 01:15:59.370
with technology, has you know a comedy set in it, then it has a science panel, a science

01:15:59.450 --> 01:16:02.490
and expert panel about AI in the future.

01:16:02.650 --> 01:16:06.650
And then we always have an art segment at the end where we have artists that use AI,

01:16:06.810 --> 01:16:12.200
artists that don't use AI, And there's a you know performance and audience engagement kind

01:16:12.200 --> 01:16:17.640
of about, well, you know, how does AI impact how we interact as humans and

01:16:18.120 --> 01:16:19.640
art as a lens for that?

01:16:19.880 --> 01:16:24.280
So we've done that in a number of cities and we'll continue to do that.

01:16:25.240 --> 01:16:27.560
And then the zombie apocalypse world.

01:16:27.640 --> 01:16:32.440
So the zombie apocalypse medicine meeting, um, that is coming up at the end of October.

01:16:32.520 --> 01:16:38.070
It's October 26th through 28th in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which is a wonderful

01:16:38.550 --> 01:16:40.390
little Victorian town.

01:16:41.270 --> 01:16:47.030
And essentially that meeting is about creating a very playful frame

01:16:47.350 --> 01:16:52.390
for engaging about uh topics that are kind of scary,

01:16:52.950 --> 01:16:57.190
frontier, like what you know, how are we actually going to navigate this future given how

01:16:57.190 --> 01:16:58.470
things are unfolding?

01:16:58.710 --> 01:17:04.360
Um, and uh I like to say it's you know sort of all topic all topic zombie and apocalypse,

01:17:04.520 --> 01:17:09.400
which actually really means um, you know, anything having to do with like zombification,

01:17:09.480 --> 01:17:11.320
manipulation, parasitism, right?

01:17:11.400 --> 01:17:13.000
All of that is fair game.

01:17:13.320 --> 01:17:16.200
And also, you know, cooperation is a part of it too, right?

01:17:16.280 --> 01:17:20.280
Like, how do you, you know, because you can, you know, influence others and hijack them in

01:17:20.280 --> 01:17:21.480
ways that are good for them.

01:17:21.640 --> 01:17:26.670
Um, and then the sort of apocalypse side is like, well, what is the the future?

01:17:26.750 --> 01:17:28.430
What's a positive future we want to make?

01:17:28.510 --> 01:17:29.710
What are the barriers to that?

01:17:29.870 --> 01:17:35.870
Can we kind of playfully engage about you know the apocalyptic future as a way of

01:17:35.870 --> 01:17:41.470
actually um creating uh like a low stress

01:17:41.470 --> 01:17:44.910
environment to engage about things that are actually really challenging?

01:17:44.990 --> 01:17:47.950
And you know, sort of storytelling and that framing helps a lot.

01:17:48.190 --> 01:17:53.060
Um, one of the things I didn't really realize at first when I started the Zombie Apocalypse

01:17:53.140 --> 01:17:58.020
Medicine meeting is that the sort of language and framing of the zombie apocalypse would

01:17:58.020 --> 01:18:03.940
also create a shared language that let people kind of drop their jargon and you know,

01:18:04.100 --> 01:18:10.020
sort of talk playfully about zombification and zombies and you know the the the apocalypse.

01:18:10.100 --> 01:18:12.980
And um, that's been been really fun.

01:18:13.060 --> 01:18:17.330
And it it's you know, honestly, it's also just like a self-selection kind of thing, right?

01:18:17.410 --> 01:18:21.570
So you you invite someone to come to zombie apocalypse medicine meeting.

01:18:21.810 --> 01:18:25.650
And I would say more than half of people are just like, no, and they don't even want to

01:18:25.650 --> 01:18:25.890
talk.

01:18:25.970 --> 01:18:27.330
They're like, what are you even talking about?

01:18:27.410 --> 01:18:27.650
Right.

01:18:27.730 --> 01:18:29.570
And then half the people are like, oh, that's interesting.

01:18:29.650 --> 01:18:32.210
And maybe they'll like talk to you a little bit about it.

01:18:32.370 --> 01:18:37.780
Um, and then it's something like, you know, five to 10% of people are like, oh fuck yeah.

01:18:37.940 --> 01:18:38.020
Yeah.

01:18:38.180 --> 01:18:40.580
And they get it and they're like, I'm I'm coming.

01:18:40.820 --> 01:18:44.660
You know, and so then when you get all of that that that five percent of the fuck yeah

01:18:44.740 --> 01:18:50.580
people in the room together, then that creates this environment where you know those are

01:18:50.580 --> 01:18:55.140
the peers that are then saying, Yeah, like push those boundaries, ask those questions,

01:18:55.300 --> 01:18:58.740
like, yeah, nobody's working on that, and people should be working on that.

01:18:58.950 --> 01:18:59.110
Yeah.

01:18:59.270 --> 01:19:01.430
And that's kind of the magic of Zam.

01:19:01.830 --> 01:19:06.310
And uh, you know, a lot of really awesome things have come out of Zam.

01:19:06.470 --> 01:19:09.350
It's it's almost like a like a melting pot, right?

01:19:09.430 --> 01:19:13.110
Or not even a melting pot, because like people will connect who might not otherwise

01:19:13.110 --> 01:19:15.990
connect, they'll share information, new projects will start.

01:19:16.070 --> 01:19:20.880
Um, you know, that it's like that, it's a collective like 20%, right?

01:19:20.960 --> 01:19:25.200
Where it's like, okay, we all like stuff that we're all excited about is happening in this,

01:19:25.280 --> 01:19:27.760
and we can find other people who are also excited about it.

01:19:27.920 --> 01:19:32.000
And then that can, you know, lead to that sort of snowball effect where those things can

01:19:32.000 --> 01:19:35.280
then become part of our more serious scholarship, right?

01:19:35.360 --> 01:19:38.560
That can enter into the institutional structures that exist.

01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:39.040
Yeah.

01:19:39.200 --> 01:19:39.680
Awesome.

01:19:40.400 --> 01:19:43.840
Um, and and we talked before we started recording about music.

01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:49.150
Um Is there I feel like the Z the Zam is the if that's that's the acronym.

01:19:49.310 --> 01:19:53.470
Um I'm imagining a lot of like bluegrass, but maybe there's no music at all.

01:19:53.550 --> 01:19:54.350
I have no idea.

01:19:54.670 --> 01:19:57.310
Yeah, we we have actually had um bluegrass.

01:19:57.390 --> 01:20:01.950
So the uh the surviving AI show that were the first one we ever had, we had bluegrass

01:20:01.950 --> 01:20:05.470
musicians um at the end, the one that we're doing at ASU.

01:20:05.550 --> 01:20:07.310
Um we have bluegrass musicians in it.

01:20:07.390 --> 01:20:12.240
And for many of the zombie apocalypse medicine meetings, um we've also had the Apocalypse

01:20:12.240 --> 01:20:16.240
Roadshow, which is the alternative book tour that I had for my book, A Field Guide to the

01:20:16.240 --> 01:20:17.040
Apocalypse.

01:20:17.360 --> 01:20:22.720
And that, so we've actually did the shows like as part of Zam too and uh had bluegrass

01:20:22.720 --> 01:20:23.440
musicians in.

01:20:23.520 --> 01:20:29.520
And I, you know, one of the things that I like to do in my 20% is, you

01:20:29.520 --> 01:20:31.440
know, write music, play music.

01:20:31.680 --> 01:20:36.770
And um some of the music that I write and play is actually about uh putting into a

01:20:36.770 --> 01:20:41.090
storytelling context the uh work that I do, right?

01:20:41.170 --> 01:20:45.970
So I have a, I have a song that I do um that is it's called the O So Trois Song.

01:20:46.050 --> 01:20:49.970
And it's basically the story of this field work that I've done over the course of, you

01:20:49.970 --> 01:20:55.890
know, um more than a decade and you know, others on our team have done that explains what

01:20:55.890 --> 01:20:58.840
happened at all these field sites, but it's very playful.

01:20:58.920 --> 01:20:59.960
There's swearing in it.

01:21:00.040 --> 01:21:01.560
It's a sing-along, you know.

01:21:01.800 --> 01:21:06.680
It was like literally the first sing-along that ever happened, you know, in the Harvard

01:21:06.680 --> 01:21:08.920
book uh program that they had.

01:21:09.000 --> 01:21:11.000
So, like, as I went and did the road show there.

01:21:11.080 --> 01:21:15.480
So, you know, I'm I'm always like kind of peppering those things in, like, where it's like,

01:21:15.560 --> 01:21:19.560
okay, can you know, fit this in here in an institutional context where it might not

01:21:19.560 --> 01:21:20.440
otherwise happen?

01:21:20.600 --> 01:21:25.010
But um, but yeah, more generally, like music is a very big part of my life.

01:21:25.330 --> 01:21:31.090
And um I just this weekend was um collecting data at the Pickin' in the Pines

01:21:31.170 --> 01:21:32.370
Bluegrass Festival.

01:21:32.530 --> 01:21:37.970
Um it's a pilot study that we have um looking at physiological synchrony when people are

01:21:37.970 --> 01:21:38.930
jamming together.

01:21:39.090 --> 01:21:44.530
And um, that really came out of my experience um where like I, you know,

01:21:44.690 --> 01:21:50.380
literally have some of the best peak experiences of my life in jam circles where

01:21:50.380 --> 01:21:54.700
you're playing music and you're all entrained and you're, you know, you're you're doing

01:21:54.700 --> 01:21:56.460
something that you're like, how am I even doing this?

01:21:56.540 --> 01:21:59.260
Like something, something magical seems to be happening.

01:21:59.580 --> 01:22:02.940
And, you know, for me, it's like, well, what is that magic?

01:22:03.020 --> 01:22:03.260
Right.

01:22:03.420 --> 01:22:07.020
It's uh I I have to try to understand what's happening there.

01:22:07.180 --> 01:22:12.390
And so uh so yeah so we have, you know, this this study we collected data from nine

01:22:12.390 --> 01:22:17.750
different groups jamming with we had physiological sensors on them and we recorded the

01:22:17.750 --> 01:22:18.550
audio as well.

01:22:18.710 --> 01:22:24.470
So we're going to be able to look at, you know, how the acoustic features of their playing

01:22:24.470 --> 01:22:26.550
relate to their physiological synchrony.

01:22:26.870 --> 01:22:32.470
We also had groups that are professional musicians that jam together, social jamming in the

01:22:32.470 --> 01:22:34.790
campground, and groups with amateurs jamming.

01:22:34.870 --> 01:22:39.030
So we're going to be able to compare, you know, and uh contrast a little bit.

01:22:39.190 --> 01:22:44.880
And uh we already have another festival um that is ready to

01:22:44.880 --> 01:22:48.640
collaborate with us um because they were you know the person who runs it was super excited

01:22:48.640 --> 01:22:54.560
seeing what we were doing so um I'm uh I'm really really pumped about that because that was

01:22:54.560 --> 01:22:56.880
like definitely a twenty percent of my time project, right?

01:22:57.120 --> 01:23:02.570
And now it's like okay we, you know, I have a I have colleagues that you know flew in from

01:23:02.570 --> 01:23:04.410
Georgetown and from UCLA.

01:23:04.890 --> 01:23:06.090
You all know Greg Bryant.

01:23:06.170 --> 01:23:11.210
He's um part of this study too and two grad students who got on the project and then and

01:23:11.210 --> 01:23:14.730
now we have all these people in the music world and festival world who are excited about

01:23:14.730 --> 01:23:14.890
it.

01:23:15.050 --> 01:23:20.250
And I even heard from um one of the professional musicians that the musicians were talking

01:23:20.250 --> 01:23:22.810
about it backstage and they're like, oh that would be cool.

01:23:22.890 --> 01:23:24.010
I'd be interested in doing that.

01:23:24.090 --> 01:23:25.130
I want to see what's going on.

01:23:25.290 --> 01:23:29.100
So you know that's that like that energy of that vortex, you know.

01:23:29.180 --> 01:23:31.500
It's like, okay, we started this thing, it's in this 20%.

01:23:32.060 --> 01:23:36.780
Um, but you know, these grad students are excited, you know, all my colleagues are excited,

01:23:37.100 --> 01:23:41.260
the person who runs the festival is excited, somebody who runs another festival is excited

01:23:41.260 --> 01:23:42.060
and wants it to happen.

01:23:42.140 --> 01:23:44.140
The musicians are like, we would want to do this.

01:23:44.220 --> 01:23:48.380
So um, you know, and then it's like, okay, I guess this is not gonna be a twenty percent

01:23:48.380 --> 01:23:49.020
project anymore.

01:23:49.100 --> 01:23:51.980
It's like, you know, it's coming into the the mainstream.

01:23:52.140 --> 01:23:55.500
So um to me that's uh it's super exciting when that happens.

01:23:55.830 --> 01:23:56.550
That's awesome.

01:23:56.710 --> 01:23:57.110
Awesome.

01:23:57.190 --> 01:23:57.510
Yeah.

01:23:57.910 --> 01:23:58.390
All right.

01:23:58.630 --> 01:24:01.510
Well, I mean, I think that's a pretty good note to uh to end on.

01:24:01.670 --> 01:24:06.070
We we rarely end on a positive note because we've covered a lot of dark topics on this

01:24:06.070 --> 01:24:09.990
podcast, but I'm glad to end on a more joyous and optimistic note.

01:24:10.150 --> 01:24:13.350
Thank you so much for uh taking the time to be with us today, Athena.

01:24:13.510 --> 01:24:14.550
Yeah, and it's so fun.

01:24:14.790 --> 01:24:15.510
Oh, sorry, Athena.

01:24:15.670 --> 01:24:19.350
Oh, I'm just gonna say it was so fun talking to you, but it's like you know, like sometimes

01:24:19.430 --> 01:24:23.640
you you know do podcasts and you're like, oh, we're like trying to like learn from each

01:24:23.640 --> 01:24:25.080
other and like have a good conversation.

01:24:25.160 --> 01:24:28.120
And this just felt like, oh, we're just like shooting shit about cool things.

01:24:28.200 --> 01:24:29.800
And I love it when that happens.

01:24:29.880 --> 01:24:31.000
So yeah, no, totally.

01:24:31.080 --> 01:24:34.840
And uh you know, I just like whenever we have people on to I always think about like what I

01:24:34.840 --> 01:24:40.600
think about like as you were wrapping up, I just think like you uh I imagine you, you're

01:24:40.600 --> 01:24:44.120
sort of like guys, you know, we're allowed to just like do this fun, interesting stuff.

01:24:44.440 --> 01:24:45.240
You realize that right?

01:24:45.400 --> 01:24:51.190
And like I think many people I've talked to have been inspired by your um, I

01:24:51.190 --> 01:24:54.870
don't think it's too much to say, like courage to do that kind of thing.

01:24:55.030 --> 01:24:59.590
And I think that uh I wish there were more people like you and thank you for being in the

01:24:59.590 --> 01:25:01.030
evolutionary behavioral sciences.

01:25:01.190 --> 01:25:05.430
I think it's much better for you being in it, and I think that um I think there will be

01:25:05.430 --> 01:25:08.390
hopefully many other people who follow and have been inspired by you.

01:25:08.470 --> 01:25:09.750
So thank you for doing it.

01:25:10.070 --> 01:25:11.990
Well, thank you so much for saying that.

01:25:12.150 --> 01:25:17.840
And also let me say to everyone if you do it, you set an example to

01:25:17.840 --> 01:25:21.120
others that it can be done and that it's okay to do it.

01:25:21.280 --> 01:25:26.320
So you are not just helping yourself, you are helping others realize they can also do it.

01:25:26.480 --> 01:25:30.720
So you kind of have a responsibility to do it, not just to yourself, but to the rest of the

01:25:30.720 --> 01:25:31.200
world.

01:25:31.520 --> 01:25:31.920
Yeah.

01:25:32.240 --> 01:25:32.800
All right.

01:25:33.040 --> 01:25:33.440
Awesome.

01:25:33.760 --> 01:25:34.240
Great advice.

01:25:34.400 --> 01:25:35.680
Long live the vortex.

01:25:36.000 --> 01:25:36.400
Take care.

01:25:36.640 --> 01:25:37.520
Yes, join the vortex.

01:25:37.920 --> 01:25:38.720
Join the vortex.

01:25:39.630 --> 01:25:40.590
Athena, thank you so much.

01:25:40.910 --> 01:25:42.110
It's not a cult, don't worry.

01:25:44.990 --> 01:25:46.270
It's okay, maybe.

01:25:51.470 --> 01:25:53.550
What a lovely vibe for this episode.

01:25:53.710 --> 01:25:56.270
Yes, as we're talking about vibes and and woo.

01:25:56.590 --> 01:25:57.710
Yeah, and vortexes.

01:25:59.070 --> 01:26:00.910
That's that was always a confusing word for me.

01:26:01.070 --> 01:26:02.110
The plural of vortex.

01:26:02.350 --> 01:26:04.350
Yeah, I think it's vortices, isn't it?

01:26:04.740 --> 01:26:05.700
Uh sure.

01:26:05.860 --> 01:26:06.820
Uh yeah.

01:26:07.300 --> 01:26:09.700
That's also a word I think would be difficult to spell.

01:26:09.860 --> 01:26:11.540
Spelling was never one of my strong suits.

01:26:12.020 --> 01:26:13.380
Yeah, uh, that's true.

01:26:13.540 --> 01:26:18.100
But um, if you're still here listening, that means you've emerged from our vortex with

01:26:18.100 --> 01:26:18.900
Athena.

01:26:19.220 --> 01:26:23.940
Um, we engaged in a fun cooperative uh interaction.

01:26:24.100 --> 01:26:29.700
And if you want to join the vortex and help us help you and others

01:26:29.700 --> 01:26:35.150
spread these interesting ideas, you can uh write us a kind

01:26:35.150 --> 01:26:35.870
review.

01:26:36.190 --> 01:26:38.910
You can say nice things about us on social media.

01:26:38.990 --> 01:26:41.310
We have a Patreon page where you can support us.

01:26:41.390 --> 01:26:43.790
Is there anything else uh listeners can do, David?

01:26:44.190 --> 01:26:49.950
You know, play a mandolin or a banjo or a guitar or a bass and join a bluegrass band or

01:26:49.950 --> 01:26:51.230
just play some music with somebody.

01:26:51.390 --> 01:26:52.350
Get a harmonica.

01:26:53.070 --> 01:26:55.070
Play some music or enjoy some music.

01:26:55.310 --> 01:26:55.950
Yeah.

01:26:56.260 --> 01:26:56.740
Great.

01:26:56.900 --> 01:26:57.380
All right.

01:26:57.540 --> 01:26:58.900
Um, great advice.

01:26:58.980 --> 01:27:00.660
So David, it was lovely to talk to you.

01:27:00.740 --> 01:27:02.740
And uh well, have a great week, everybody.

01:27:02.900 --> 01:27:07.620
Um and just just cooperate in a in a lovely way with somebody this week.

01:27:08.020 --> 01:27:08.660
Yes.

01:27:09.220 --> 01:27:09.780
All right.

01:27:10.020 --> 01:27:10.660
All right.

01:27:11.060 --> 01:27:12.100
I'll see you next week.

01:27:12.340 --> 01:27:13.540
See you next week.