WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.480 This is Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast. 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:06.560 Uh I am co-host David Petrozuski. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:08.320 Almost forgot your last name there. 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:13.600 Well, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be that difficult to forget my last name. 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:15.840 Um I was gonna well it doesn't matter. 00:00:15.920 --> 00:00:19.760 I was gonna say David Pinsoff, but then I had already said my I'm so I yeah. 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:21.040 So you're David Pinsoff. 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:22.320 I'm David Petrozowski. 00:00:22.650 --> 00:00:26.570 And this is Actual Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast, Actual Evolutionary Psychology. 00:00:26.890 --> 00:00:28.570 By Actual Evolutionary Psychologists. 00:00:28.890 --> 00:00:29.610 Enjoy 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:43.290 David, today we have a wonderful guest, Patrick Durkey. 00:00:43.450 --> 00:00:48.970 Patrick does work confronting our folk intuitions about constructs like personality, for 00:00:48.970 --> 00:00:49.210 example. 00:00:49.370 --> 00:00:55.020 So he's done work with people like Aaron Lukashewski confronting the idea that as 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:59.660 psychologists had sort of traditionally assumed personality was just there existing in the 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:03.820 mind, he's been doing work kind of thinking about well, what would an adaptationist 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:04.620 approach to this be? 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:09.340 And very much in the Michael Graziano point of sometimes the first step is the wrong step, 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:14.780 and assuming naively that the intuitive constructs like personality exist in the mind is 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:15.820 sort of the wrong step. 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:21.010 And so this is a lovely example of confronting what is personality, or what else do we talk 00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:21.170 about? 00:01:21.250 --> 00:01:22.450 Status, like what is status? 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:22.770 Yeah. 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:23.170 Yeah. 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:28.050 I mean, you m you might think uh naively that status is a simple thing, and status seeking 00:01:28.050 --> 00:01:30.050 and status hierarchies are a simple thing. 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:35.890 But in this episode, we really delve into the unfathomable complexity of what 00:01:36.050 --> 00:01:41.170 status is and how it touches on virtually every aspect of our lives, how it interacts with 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:47.090 our personalities, um, how we look for niches to fill in our social world, and how social 00:01:47.090 --> 00:01:52.440 ecologies can affect our status seeking strategies and how you know moral progress can 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:54.760 change what status games we play. 00:01:54.920 --> 00:02:00.520 Um, we even get into inspiration and what it means to be inspired to pursue a 00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:01.800 particular endeavor. 00:02:01.960 --> 00:02:04.280 Uh, this was a really fun, uh, wide-ranging conversation. 00:02:04.360 --> 00:02:05.160 I think you like it a lot. 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:09.800 It was an inspirational episode, and we even get into like what our emotions or 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:10.520 personality. 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:16.390 What is personality from the perspective of like is personality sort of in a weird way the 00:02:16.390 --> 00:02:17.750 opposite of what free will is? 00:02:17.910 --> 00:02:21.590 Like I like this very cool thing that we're getting into. 00:02:21.670 --> 00:02:27.430 So by drilling down into the mechanistic details of the adaptations, we're also sort of 00:02:27.430 --> 00:02:32.070 making the familiar strange to use that lovely quote that John Alita used that was a quote 00:02:32.070 --> 00:02:32.950 from William James. 00:02:33.110 --> 00:02:38.470 So this is a lovely, inspiring, um, and and and nicely strange 00:02:38.470 --> 00:02:40.630 episode with Patrick Durkey. 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:41.620 Agreed. 00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:42.740 Enjoy. 00:02:45.540 --> 00:02:47.940 Patrick Durkey, it's lovely to have you here. 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:54.180 Um you are an expert in status, in personality, 00:02:54.500 --> 00:03:00.420 uh in different types of status and how personality traits might affect status acquisition 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:03.780 and how good you are at seeking status. 00:03:04.260 --> 00:03:09.790 Um why don't we begin at the beginning and just try to define what status is. 00:03:09.870 --> 00:03:11.390 What exactly are we talking about? 00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:14.670 Oh Jesus, starting with or personality. 00:03:15.710 --> 00:03:16.830 The hardest possible problem, I guess. 00:03:21.550 --> 00:03:26.110 Generally, that's or justice or truth, whichever one is easiest. 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:27.390 Reality. 00:03:28.190 --> 00:03:28.750 Yeah. 00:03:29.150 --> 00:03:34.700 Well, I think if you like look in the literature, like the definition of status that I 00:03:34.700 --> 00:03:40.540 think you'd see most often is something like the average kind of differences in attention, 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:47.020 deference, control over resources, basically, that people have within a group. 00:03:47.340 --> 00:03:47.580 Okay. 00:03:47.980 --> 00:03:53.900 And yeah, I think that generally, like that's kind of the definition I've I've been working 00:03:53.900 --> 00:03:54.140 with. 00:03:54.220 --> 00:03:58.860 Um, but maybe just because that's the definition that is out there in the literature. 00:03:59.100 --> 00:03:59.260 Okay. 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:05.230 I think like really what like I've been trying to work towards is more like, yeah, what 00:04:05.230 --> 00:04:11.230 is status like within the mind in a computational sense, or is status 00:04:11.230 --> 00:04:16.510 even a thing in the mind per se, or is it an emergent kind of thing that comes out of the 00:04:16.510 --> 00:04:20.350 computation is going on in the mind and what those computations actually look like, I 00:04:20.350 --> 00:04:20.830 guess. 00:04:21.150 --> 00:04:21.390 Hmm. 00:04:21.550 --> 00:04:26.510 So if if people pay attention to me and listen to what I say, and if I tell them to do 00:04:26.510 --> 00:04:31.360 things and they listen to me and they do it, and I have lots of stuff, then by your 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:35.040 definition and by the definition in the academic literature, I have high status. 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:36.480 Yeah. 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:37.040 Okay. 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:43.520 Um, and it seems to me that we also kind of need an explanation for why all 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.480 those things go together, because in theory they could be decoupled. 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:50.080 It could be that I have lots of stuff, but nobody listens to me or cares what I have to 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:50.320 say. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:54.320 Um, it could be that everyone obeys my every command, but I'm very poor. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:59.830 Um so uh why do you think these things go together? 00:05:00.390 --> 00:05:06.150 Um I guess they the behavioral outputs like deference, attention, like might be 00:05:06.150 --> 00:05:11.430 outputs of of similar systems or the same system that depend on the same inputs, I suppose, 00:05:11.590 --> 00:05:12.230 is one. 00:05:12.630 --> 00:05:18.310 And one of those inputs might be something like yeah, resource holding potential, which is 00:05:18.390 --> 00:05:23.200 you know, from the animal like ecology literature, like then organisms 00:05:23.520 --> 00:05:29.280 ability to take or defend resources from other organisms and oh and 00:05:29.280 --> 00:05:31.680 also willingness to to do that. 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:32.240 Right. 00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:32.640 Okay. 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:36.640 So the so I maybe, you know, if you have lots of stuff, maybe I'll listen to you because 00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:38.640 you have the power to give me some of that stuff. 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:44.080 Uh and I'll obey your command because if I do, then then maybe you'll share your stuff with 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:44.320 me. 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:48.960 And if I'm rude to you or I don't listen to you, uh, then you're not gonna share your stuff 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:49.280 with me. 00:05:49.440 --> 00:05:54.250 Is that and so uh are there different types of status? 00:05:54.410 --> 00:05:57.370 Uh because I know a lot a lot of people in the literature think there are different types 00:05:57.370 --> 00:05:57.850 of status. 00:05:57.930 --> 00:06:00.330 Where do you fall uh in that debate? 00:06:00.810 --> 00:06:04.810 Yeah, I mean in the literature, you know, the biggest kind of popular distinction is 00:06:04.810 --> 00:06:10.730 between dominance on the one hand and prestige as different forms or 00:06:10.730 --> 00:06:15.450 different strategies or different routes to attaining status. 00:06:15.770 --> 00:06:20.760 And so, like, yeah, it gets a little dicey for me anyway, because I think really there's 00:06:20.840 --> 00:06:23.240 like one stat there's status. 00:06:23.400 --> 00:06:28.360 And they're I view dominance as prestige as different routes or different strategies to 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:31.400 attaining status, at least that's in the literature. 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:35.800 Um, but you I think it's also probably possible to think about these as completely like 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:38.910 distinct forms of status. 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:44.750 Um and maybe they're not even leading to the same outcome as like having status as an 00:06:44.750 --> 00:06:45.870 outcome of these things. 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:51.070 And I think that that's contributed to a lot of confusion maybe in literature and in my own 00:06:51.070 --> 00:06:54.990 mind about like what what it is we're actually talking about when we're talking about 00:06:54.990 --> 00:07:00.830 status and the role of dominance and prestige in human 00:07:00.830 --> 00:07:02.350 status hierarchies. 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:06.680 Um I've been thinking a bit about status myself. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:11.320 Um and I kind of want to run a definition by you, or at least how I'm thinking about it and 00:07:11.320 --> 00:07:12.520 see if you agree with me or not. 00:07:12.760 --> 00:07:12.920 Yeah. 00:07:13.080 --> 00:07:18.600 Um so I've been thinking about status as uh common knowledge of a 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:24.440 person's relative value as a social partner and its downstream consequences 00:07:24.440 --> 00:07:26.760 on uh coalitions and alliances. 00:07:27.970 --> 00:07:33.890 Um, so this doesn't really assume that much because we already should have systems in 00:07:33.890 --> 00:07:37.330 the mind for evaluating uh the value of different social partners. 00:07:37.410 --> 00:07:41.810 Given that we are in a marketplace of partners, we're shopping around for potential 00:07:41.810 --> 00:07:47.410 friends, for potential mates, uh, for potential people to lead us in uh joint 00:07:47.410 --> 00:07:48.370 activities. 00:07:48.530 --> 00:07:52.560 Uh, we have some choice about who we're going to collaborate with. 00:07:52.640 --> 00:07:56.400 And in order to make good choices in that marketplace, we need to have some way of 00:07:56.400 --> 00:07:58.800 computing the value of different choices. 00:07:59.040 --> 00:07:59.520 Right. 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:05.120 Um, and so if someone is just really valuable as a social partner, then it benefits me to 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:09.680 pay attention to them and to try to uh be nice to them and form a relationship with them 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:11.360 just because they're higher value. 00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:17.510 Um, and then the common knowledge of it uh is important because uh if I think you're really 00:08:17.510 --> 00:08:21.110 awesome but everyone else thinks you suck, well then you're not actually very awesome 00:08:21.270 --> 00:08:26.310 because a big part of your awesomeness is uh common knowledge of that awesomeness. 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:32.070 Because um uh if you have lots of people who will take your side or 00:08:32.070 --> 00:08:34.790 cooperate with you, you're gonna be a much more valuable partner. 00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:38.470 But if everybody hates you and I'm the only one on your side, that's gonna be really bad 00:08:38.470 --> 00:08:39.110 for me. 00:08:39.510 --> 00:08:44.580 Um so uh it's not just your value, it's also we all need to know that everyone knows that 00:08:44.580 --> 00:08:47.380 you're awesome or that you're superior as a social partner. 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:51.700 Uh and once we all have common knowledge that you are a really good social partner, well, 00:08:51.780 --> 00:08:55.700 it benefits us all to take your side in conflicts. 00:08:55.940 --> 00:09:00.740 Um and to try to form political alliances with you. 00:09:00.900 --> 00:09:04.180 Uh if there's some sort of political conflict where you're going to benefit and someone 00:09:04.180 --> 00:09:07.940 else is going to pay a cost, uh if you're the better partner, then it benefits everyone 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:09.190 else to take your side. 00:09:09.270 --> 00:09:13.350 And if I know that everyone's going to take your side, then that benefits me even more if 00:09:13.350 --> 00:09:15.750 I'm going to take your side because I'm going to be in the majority. 00:09:15.910 --> 00:09:19.910 And so when there's common knowledge of your superior value, that creates a strong 00:09:19.910 --> 00:09:25.830 political incentive for all of us to have your back, to take your side, to oppose 00:09:25.830 --> 00:09:28.630 your enemies and support your friends. 00:09:29.110 --> 00:09:35.060 And to avoid ganging up on you and and gang up on your rivals, say, or 00:09:35.060 --> 00:09:39.540 to imitate you to try to signal our loyalty to you. 00:09:39.860 --> 00:09:41.220 Uh so that's how I'm thinking of it. 00:09:41.380 --> 00:09:46.900 It's common knowledge of a person's relative social value and its political implications. 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:49.140 What do you what do you think about that way of thinking of it? 00:09:49.220 --> 00:09:50.580 Aaron Powell Yeah, I like that a lot. 00:09:50.660 --> 00:09:55.380 I think it's closely aligned with like how, for example, Aaron Luchesky and I have kind of 00:09:55.380 --> 00:10:01.030 talked about it too, which is kind of thinking about it like status is 00:10:01.110 --> 00:10:06.310 or like your representation of somebody's status in your social world is kind of capturing 00:10:06.390 --> 00:10:12.390 like your assessment of the collective like welfare trade-off ratios that people 00:10:12.390 --> 00:10:13.750 have towards that person. 00:10:14.150 --> 00:10:18.790 Where but I like the way you put it too just recognizing somebody's like relative social 00:10:18.950 --> 00:10:21.270 value as a cooperator or something like that. 00:10:21.430 --> 00:10:25.920 Um and yeah, because again, that helps you, like you said, to kind of figure out like what 00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:31.520 are some good strategic alliances to make, what who should I support in conflict, um, who 00:10:31.520 --> 00:10:36.400 should I defer to because they have XYZ people backing them up and that sort of thing. 00:10:36.560 --> 00:10:41.120 And that's very similar to, for example, like when I took a class with with John Patton 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:44.880 back in the day, like right at the beginning of when I was getting into evolutionary 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:50.290 psychology, it's very similar to how he viewed status as well as this kind of like 00:10:50.610 --> 00:10:55.890 marker of who's got the coalitional support behind them and who has more coalitional 00:10:55.890 --> 00:10:56.130 support. 00:10:56.210 --> 00:11:01.410 And again, that and that really does tie in with the biological literature in a lot of 00:11:01.410 --> 00:11:05.490 ways, just with more individuals when it comes down to resource holding potential. 00:11:05.650 --> 00:11:11.170 It's if things came down to a in a conflict over a resource or a decision, 00:11:11.490 --> 00:11:16.780 um, who has more resource holding potential in order to win that that 00:11:16.780 --> 00:11:17.580 conflict. 00:11:17.820 --> 00:11:22.060 And it the thing that makes it trickier in humans, or apparently seemingly trickier in 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:27.420 humans, is that the way you get more people on your side in the conflict is not by forcing 00:11:27.420 --> 00:11:30.140 them, probably, to fight for you. 00:11:30.380 --> 00:11:34.220 Maybe that works in some situations, but probably an easier thing is to have people just 00:11:34.220 --> 00:11:40.140 genuinely want you around and want you to continue to exist and 00:11:40.140 --> 00:11:44.690 want you to have things your way, either because that benefits them or because they 00:11:44.690 --> 00:11:50.130 actually value so value you so highly that they just want you to have uh things a certain 00:11:50.130 --> 00:11:50.290 way. 00:11:50.770 --> 00:11:51.650 Uh that's yeah. 00:11:51.810 --> 00:11:53.170 Oh go ahead, David. 00:11:53.730 --> 00:11:59.730 Um I was just gonna maybe segue into where personality fits into this 00:11:59.730 --> 00:12:00.370 picture. 00:12:00.850 --> 00:12:06.740 Um do some personality traits lend themselves to status seeking 00:12:06.740 --> 00:12:08.020 or higher status? 00:12:08.260 --> 00:12:12.580 Um do we seek status in different ways based on our personality? 00:12:12.660 --> 00:12:15.620 Uh what do you think is the role between personality and status? 00:12:16.020 --> 00:12:22.020 Yeah, so I think it might help, yeah, to kind of back up into still stay in the maybe 00:12:22.020 --> 00:12:24.260 the status realm a little bit and figure out, yeah. 00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:28.500 So if you want to know like what personality traits might be useful for getting status, 00:12:28.660 --> 00:12:32.820 navigating style status hierarchies, maybe we should make a little bit more explicit, like 00:12:33.060 --> 00:12:35.930 what well, how do you get status in the first place? 00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:37.610 Like, what is the currency of status? 00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:41.130 I think, and which we've already kind of been talking about a little bit with this like 00:12:41.210 --> 00:12:44.810 dominance versus prestige distinction and figuring out like what is status. 00:12:44.970 --> 00:12:49.770 So I guess if we were gonna work with like this definition that status is like this 00:12:49.770 --> 00:12:55.530 collective recognition of basically other people valuing you and being willing to 00:12:55.530 --> 00:13:01.480 come to your defense or your aid over in a conflict, 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:07.000 then we have to figure out like how do you get people to increase their valuation of you is 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:07.720 the key there. 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:10.680 Just going back like to the logic of costs and benefits, right? 00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:12.520 That's something we've talked a lot a lot about. 00:13:12.680 --> 00:13:15.880 Is it should be generating benefits for people. 00:13:16.040 --> 00:13:21.210 So either you're really good at generating benefits for people, or at least you're willing 00:13:21.290 --> 00:13:24.250 and and or you're willing to try to do those things. 00:13:24.410 --> 00:13:28.890 So this is actually a like a to be comment at one of my talks like as my first year of a 00:13:28.890 --> 00:13:29.530 PhD student. 00:13:29.610 --> 00:13:34.250 I was talking about some of my status work and talking about yeah like generating benefits 00:13:34.250 --> 00:13:35.930 versus generating costs. 00:13:36.170 --> 00:13:41.320 And he was basically like well shouldn't you split these into like ability and willingness 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:41.960 to do these things? 00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:43.560 Cause maybe they don't always go together. 00:13:43.640 --> 00:13:48.760 You can be able to generate costs, but I mean able to yeah, able to inflict costs or able 00:13:48.760 --> 00:13:52.920 to generate benefits, but you're not particularly like willing to do any of those things. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:58.520 And that really changes the kind of calculus for me as a potential victim or beneficiary 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:01.480 of those said costs or benefits. 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:05.080 To know, you know, are you willing to impose costs on me? 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:06.520 Or are you just able to? 00:14:06.790 --> 00:14:08.710 Are you willing to generate benefits? 00:14:08.790 --> 00:14:11.030 Do you specifically want to generate benefits for me? 00:14:11.350 --> 00:14:13.430 Or are you just able to to do that? 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:17.830 And also I would imagine if it's obligatory, like which is a weird way to think, but sort 00:14:17.830 --> 00:14:21.430 of just there's some things where I can't control it or you can take advantage of it. 00:14:21.590 --> 00:14:27.510 So if I just am really good at doing something, um, just for example, no, but yeah, like 00:14:27.750 --> 00:14:31.350 you know, like I don't know, like I'm I can build really good wells or something, uh 00:14:31.430 --> 00:14:36.380 something dumb example like that, but then you benefit, it's an externality, but I can't 00:14:36.380 --> 00:14:41.180 monopolize it, then my willingness doesn't matter in that context. 00:14:41.260 --> 00:14:41.500 Yeah. 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:43.260 Yeah, exactly. 00:14:43.420 --> 00:14:44.940 And so it's it is like separable. 00:14:45.020 --> 00:14:46.220 They don't always have to go together. 00:14:46.300 --> 00:14:51.020 You don't have to be both able and willing, but both of those are aspects of the decision 00:14:51.020 --> 00:14:54.540 about like how much status or how much uh of another person value you. 00:14:54.700 --> 00:15:00.110 Um that's a really interesting point, Dave, that the there is an aspect of be of 00:15:00.110 --> 00:15:04.270 benefiting from someone that is independent of willingness. 00:15:04.430 --> 00:15:06.910 Like you could just benefit me by accident, you know? 00:15:06.990 --> 00:15:07.070 Yeah. 00:15:07.390 --> 00:15:11.950 Just by uh for example, building a well that maybe you're just building the well because 00:15:11.950 --> 00:15:13.390 you personally want water. 00:15:13.550 --> 00:15:18.350 Uh well, as soon as you build that well, um, it's available for me to use as well. 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:23.200 And so you may hate me and you may not care about me at all, but you your mere ability to 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:28.400 build the well is a benefit to me in the same way that you know a a tree's existence is a 00:15:28.400 --> 00:15:30.640 benefit to me if I can sit in its shade. 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:35.360 Uh the tree doesn't actually care about me, but its its existence uh is beneficial to me. 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:39.040 So that's another aspect that you can think of as willingness, ability, and the 00:15:39.040 --> 00:15:41.520 externalities of the person's activities. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:46.610 Yeah, I I even wonder like some famous people sort of sometimes complain about people 00:15:46.610 --> 00:15:49.730 feeling or like feeling like people don't actually care about them. 00:15:49.890 --> 00:15:54.130 Um, and I wonder if that's like an example of this psychology where you're like, like if 00:15:54.130 --> 00:15:58.930 I'm buddies with Harrison Ford, I'm walking down the street, I get status just by virtue of 00:15:58.930 --> 00:16:00.770 like being around him, right? 00:16:01.090 --> 00:16:05.490 From me as the hanger on, I'm just sort of looking at it as like I'm using Harrison Ford to 00:16:05.490 --> 00:16:09.700 get some status because just the knowledge that like I have a picture with him or I'm just 00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:11.380 next to him gives me status. 00:16:11.540 --> 00:16:14.100 Harrison Ford can't sort of control that. 00:16:14.260 --> 00:16:14.980 Um, right. 00:16:15.140 --> 00:16:20.660 And so I think that that expression that um that people aren't actually 00:16:20.660 --> 00:16:26.420 interested in me, um, because they're using me to get status in some other way suggests 00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:30.500 like that there's the psychology assessing whether it's obligatory or not. 00:16:31.150 --> 00:16:32.990 So it uh it's really complicated. 00:16:33.390 --> 00:16:33.550 Yeah. 00:16:33.790 --> 00:16:38.750 Willingness, ability, externality, these these are hard problems for the mind to solve. 00:16:38.910 --> 00:16:44.830 Um because it's not clear, you know, just by looking at someone's behavior, listening to 00:16:44.830 --> 00:16:49.310 what they say, it's not clear how to carve that up into things they can do, things they're 00:16:49.310 --> 00:16:53.230 willing to do, things that are just happening by accident as an externality or as a 00:16:53.230 --> 00:16:55.310 byproduct of their activities. 00:16:56.060 --> 00:17:00.780 Do you have any inkling about how we solve these problems of how we figure figure out like 00:17:01.020 --> 00:17:06.700 who's capable of conferring benefits or who's willing or or whose uh 00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:08.700 activities are beneficial to us? 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:14.300 Yeah, I think at like a certainly a a rough kind of level, it's something I've been 00:17:14.300 --> 00:17:14.700 thinking about. 00:17:14.780 --> 00:17:19.630 But I also like recognize like something I came to recently and doing some, I guess I call 00:17:19.630 --> 00:17:23.870 them agent-based models, like trying to figure out how an agent figure out like what things 00:17:23.870 --> 00:17:28.990 increase status, like what things like how much how important is cost infliction versus 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:32.510 benefit generation in getting status in my local community. 00:17:32.670 --> 00:17:38.110 And at least in the models that I've been working with, like I have to already imbue the 00:17:38.110 --> 00:17:41.600 agent with an idea of benefit versus cost. 00:17:41.760 --> 00:17:45.040 And obviously I have no idea how how that really works. 00:17:45.360 --> 00:17:49.440 Like how do we know whether something is is a benefit or or a cost? 00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:53.040 Like I guess Daniel Sneeser's work touches on the value. 00:17:53.120 --> 00:17:55.680 How do you figure out what the value of things are? 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:01.390 And maybe some of that is over deep evolutionary time you can get some good priors 00:18:01.710 --> 00:18:03.390 going about certain things. 00:18:03.550 --> 00:18:08.750 But a lot of things related to status, I think are pretty culturally variable or variable 00:18:08.750 --> 00:18:14.750 across contexts or across time, about their relative usefulness or their relative 00:18:14.750 --> 00:18:16.910 cost or benefit potential. 00:18:17.230 --> 00:18:21.390 And so it it would require, yeah, an agent to kind of figure out through an organism to 00:18:21.390 --> 00:18:26.760 figure out throughout development and like what are the relative values of different acts 00:18:26.760 --> 00:18:29.480 or characteristics or events? 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:33.320 Like what events should I want to happen versus not want to happen? 00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:38.200 What are some characteristics that would be good to cultivate or skills that would be good 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:38.760 to learn? 00:18:38.920 --> 00:18:43.400 Or what are some actions that are are good to do for status versus not good to do for 00:18:43.400 --> 00:18:43.880 status? 00:18:44.090 --> 00:18:49.610 So kind of the way I'm putting it together now is yeah, trying to say like if an agent is 00:18:49.610 --> 00:18:55.370 born in with some like rough, maybe some rough priors, that costs and benefits are 00:18:55.370 --> 00:19:01.210 a core dimension or two dimensions of accruing status in your local, 00:19:01.370 --> 00:19:06.650 in your local social world, then how do you just figure out the relative importance of 00:19:06.650 --> 00:19:06.970 each? 00:19:07.130 --> 00:19:12.490 Yeah, like of all the things you could do, what's like the rank ordering of things that 00:19:12.490 --> 00:19:16.980 would be good for generating benefits and then what's like the rank order of things that 00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:22.500 would be good for inflicting costs or characteristics that would allow me to uh inflict 00:19:22.500 --> 00:19:28.100 costs versus generate benefits and then using those things try to basically 00:19:28.100 --> 00:19:33.940 bootstrap your way to an idea of what what is the status value of these things like if I 00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:38.900 were to do this act versus this act, how can I get a rank ordering of what skills would be 00:19:38.900 --> 00:19:43.750 good to cultivate or what events should I seek out or avoid and that that kind of stuff. 00:19:43.830 --> 00:19:48.710 And at least in like, you know, my little cartoonish simulator world, you can kind of do 00:19:48.710 --> 00:19:53.990 this from some early observations, like throughout development, you can get a sense of when 00:19:53.990 --> 00:19:59.430 people have done this thing, either maybe I get through communications or gossip or 00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:03.270 whatever between other people, or just from observations of people's emotional reactions. 00:20:03.430 --> 00:20:06.870 You can maybe assign like that seems like more of a cost than this thing. 00:20:07.110 --> 00:20:09.910 People didn't like this as much as this thing, that kind of thing. 00:20:10.230 --> 00:20:15.700 And from there, you can kind of correlate, okay, what's like the like the value of these 00:20:15.700 --> 00:20:19.540 things with the status that I see out there in the world. 00:20:20.020 --> 00:20:24.580 And once you have that kind of correlation, then you can for a given act that you haven't 00:20:24.740 --> 00:20:30.020 maybe you haven't seen the the status value of hunting a particular animal or something. 00:20:30.100 --> 00:20:30.500 You don't know. 00:20:30.580 --> 00:20:35.860 It's an empty slot in your mind, but you you know how much people like that thing or don't 00:20:35.860 --> 00:20:37.460 like the taste of it or whatever. 00:20:37.620 --> 00:20:42.790 Then you can use your predictive model that you've generated about like the lay of the land 00:20:42.870 --> 00:20:47.830 in terms of what's the association between value and status or benefit generation and 00:20:47.830 --> 00:20:53.030 status to like get an estimate of the status impact or the status value of hunting that 00:20:53.030 --> 00:20:55.270 thing that you've haven't hunted before. 00:20:55.510 --> 00:21:00.070 And if that is a higher status value than maybe alternative things that you could hunt or 00:21:00.070 --> 00:21:04.070 alternative actions you could take, then that's a pretty good way to kind of figure out 00:21:04.070 --> 00:21:06.150 what should I do to try and increase my status. 00:21:06.950 --> 00:21:12.480 It's it seems like a a really important and underappreciated subsidiary problem is 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:18.480 knowing what uh courses of action are even uh likely to achieve your goals. 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:24.560 So like maybe I figure out that being a great basketball player is gonna get me lots 00:21:24.560 --> 00:21:25.200 of status. 00:21:25.600 --> 00:21:29.840 But whether I am capable of becoming a good basketball player is itself another problem I 00:21:29.840 --> 00:21:30.550 need to figure out. 00:21:30.710 --> 00:21:34.630 Maybe I'm never going to be a good basketball player and it's a waste of time and energy 00:21:34.630 --> 00:21:35.350 for me to try. 00:21:35.510 --> 00:21:37.430 Maybe I should try to do something else instead. 00:21:37.590 --> 00:21:42.230 So in addition to computing the value of being a basketball player, I need to estimate my 00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:47.350 own capability or my own likelihood of actually achieving that goal or how achievable or in 00:21:47.350 --> 00:21:49.030 control that thing is. 00:21:49.270 --> 00:21:54.040 Maybe the things that give me high status or give people high status are completely out of 00:21:54.040 --> 00:21:54.600 my control. 00:21:54.840 --> 00:21:56.360 In which case, we know what do I do then? 00:21:56.440 --> 00:21:57.960 Or maybe it's totally in my control. 00:21:58.120 --> 00:22:01.240 Uh and and I'm, you know, I stand a really good chance of being a good basketball player 00:22:01.320 --> 00:22:02.680 and I should really invest in this. 00:22:02.840 --> 00:22:05.800 Um and so that that to me is another interesting problem. 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:11.800 And I suspect um our the emotion of inspiration might have uh evolved to 00:22:11.870 --> 00:22:12.670 solve that problem. 00:22:12.750 --> 00:22:17.630 That if there's a really high likelihood that investing time and energy into this activity 00:22:17.630 --> 00:22:22.030 is going to pay off in the long term in terms of my status, I should feel really inspired 00:22:22.030 --> 00:22:24.830 and energized to invest in that activity. 00:22:24.990 --> 00:22:29.710 But if if there's nothing I can do to become uh a good basketball player, I should feel the 00:22:29.710 --> 00:22:30.670 opposite of inspired. 00:22:30.750 --> 00:22:31.630 I should feel depressed. 00:22:31.710 --> 00:22:36.590 Or I should I should withdraw from that activity and look for other more inspiring uh uh 00:22:36.590 --> 00:22:37.310 investments. 00:22:37.470 --> 00:22:39.310 Uh, do you do you buy that way of thinking? 00:22:39.710 --> 00:22:40.400 Yeah, I like that. 00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:45.440 That's kind of like a direction I was kind of hoping to head next after like trying to lay 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:50.480 out some groundwork for how the mind might solve the problem of just like what contributes 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:51.280 to status? 00:22:51.520 --> 00:22:55.120 What are the things an organ an individual in my group or me could do? 00:22:55.280 --> 00:22:58.720 Or if somebody did this thing, how much status are they likely to get? 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:04.080 And then from there figure out, okay, now how do I, as an individual, navigate the status 00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:04.880 hierarchy? 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:07.650 Um, what would be s a good thing for me to try to do? 00:23:07.730 --> 00:23:10.930 Because yeah, obviously there's some things that maybe wouldn't be a good route for you, 00:23:11.010 --> 00:23:11.490 like you said. 00:23:11.730 --> 00:23:15.730 Yeah, and I've kind of been thinking I haven't thought about inspiration per se, but I have 00:23:15.890 --> 00:23:19.250 one project that has been like languishing for far too long. 00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:25.410 It is I've been trying to like work out a distinction between two emotion programs 00:23:25.410 --> 00:23:27.410 for navigating hierarchies. 00:23:27.570 --> 00:23:33.480 I'm not gonna say the names of the emotions uh Because because yeah, I just feel like the 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:37.320 the language, the full terminology of emotions can get in the way sometimes here. 00:23:37.480 --> 00:23:42.520 But basically, I think there's one like emotion program that is basically just trying to 00:23:42.520 --> 00:23:48.360 figure out who has status and coordinates behavior in an appropriate 00:23:48.360 --> 00:23:48.600 way. 00:23:48.760 --> 00:23:53.160 You know, like don't get into con unnecessary conflicts with people who have higher status 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:56.710 or you know, show deference, whatever, just by tracking who has status. 00:23:56.790 --> 00:24:01.110 Like the input is just somebody else's status or a status increasing characteristic that 00:24:01.110 --> 00:24:01.830 somebody has. 00:24:02.070 --> 00:24:06.070 It gets activated and you do appropriate behaviors, you know, the rough sketch of it. 00:24:06.230 --> 00:24:10.550 But there's another one kind of going along with what you're talking about, which is 00:24:10.550 --> 00:24:12.870 figuring, okay, like how do I get status? 00:24:13.030 --> 00:24:18.790 How do I learn the skills and characteristics that will allow me to get 00:24:18.790 --> 00:24:19.350 status? 00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:24.120 And there I think there's another emotion program which tracks other dimensions in addition 00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:26.440 to like, does this person have status? 00:24:26.760 --> 00:24:32.600 On top of that, it's also, yeah, like, is this does this person have status in the 00:24:32.600 --> 00:24:37.400 domain or in an area that I am trying to get status in? 00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:42.600 So if I'm an academic, you know, are they also an academic? 00:24:42.910 --> 00:24:47.310 And also it's tracking things like, yeah, is this a skill that is, I don't know, 00:24:47.470 --> 00:24:50.350 cultivatable or practicable or something like that? 00:24:50.510 --> 00:24:55.710 You know, um, something that you could work on to improve versus oh that they're just tall 00:24:55.790 --> 00:24:58.430 and that get like, you know, that's not something you change. 00:24:58.670 --> 00:25:04.670 Um, and so there I think that's like the beginnings of a new kind of set of 00:25:04.670 --> 00:25:10.440 inputs and a new set of outputs that are designed to maybe try to emulate that 00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:16.200 person, learn from that person, you know, seek closeness to that person. 00:25:16.440 --> 00:25:21.880 And I think that's more of like uh yeah, a different kind of strategy for cultivating those 00:25:21.880 --> 00:25:25.640 skills, finding basically like role models or people to emulate. 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:31.480 And then just to go another step, because in that realm, if you're just based on those two 00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:37.410 inputs of um, you know, this person maybe is getting status or they 00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:43.170 have status, and they have skill in an area that I'm trying to get status in, basically. 00:25:43.410 --> 00:25:47.330 Then you could also run into this problem where you don't want to necessarily be emulating 00:25:47.330 --> 00:25:48.450 competitors. 00:25:49.330 --> 00:25:53.810 Or you don't want to maybe you can't like buddy buddy up with competitors, or maybe it 00:25:53.810 --> 00:25:57.570 would be like it would hurt your status to acknowledge that they have status. 00:25:58.220 --> 00:26:02.300 Um and in that case, I think then you also need to have this other input being tracked, 00:26:02.380 --> 00:26:03.980 which is like, is this a competitor? 00:26:04.140 --> 00:26:10.060 And maybe there's lots of cues to that, like age or uh yeah, I don't 00:26:10.060 --> 00:26:11.900 know, age is one I'm thinking of right now. 00:26:11.980 --> 00:26:13.420 Uh but I don't can't think of others. 00:26:13.660 --> 00:26:15.180 Age, gender, that kind of stuff. 00:26:15.260 --> 00:26:18.700 Maybe or just like the nature of the thing, right? 00:26:18.890 --> 00:26:22.490 Where it's sort of like if you're a really good musician and I'm a good musician, but we 00:26:22.490 --> 00:26:26.890 play different instruments, just a stupid example, versus we play the same instrument and 00:26:26.890 --> 00:26:28.730 the kind of music we play is just rival. 00:26:28.970 --> 00:26:32.650 Like like you can there's only one lead guitar, you know, and that's what I want to do and 00:26:32.650 --> 00:26:33.290 that's what you do. 00:26:33.370 --> 00:26:33.530 Yeah. 00:26:33.770 --> 00:26:34.010 Yeah. 00:26:34.570 --> 00:26:35.130 For sure. 00:26:35.450 --> 00:26:35.610 Yeah. 00:26:35.690 --> 00:26:39.850 And so I think those there's like those three kinds of I don't know if they need to be 00:26:39.850 --> 00:26:44.720 entirely separate emotion programs, but the I think they can be they lead to different 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:49.840 outputs and they track some at different inputs, even if they have overlapping inputs. 00:26:50.080 --> 00:26:54.800 And I think, yeah, the way I've been thinking about it is like they're kind of what folk 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:59.600 terminology of like respect versus admiration might be. 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:04.560 Like respect is kind of like that baseline one that's just tracking like what do who has 00:27:04.560 --> 00:27:05.200 status? 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:10.400 What are did you do something that's status worthy of like you know, respect, whatever? 00:27:10.790 --> 00:27:14.150 And then admiration, like who do I emulate? 00:27:14.390 --> 00:27:19.670 Um, and then maybe envy is more like that other one of like this you're competing in the 00:27:19.670 --> 00:27:24.550 same in the same area and you need a different set of of outputs in order to solve that 00:27:24.550 --> 00:27:24.790 problem. 00:27:25.110 --> 00:27:26.150 Yeah, I I like this. 00:27:26.230 --> 00:27:30.790 What what you're both saying is like this idea of status as a learning problem is super 00:27:30.790 --> 00:27:31.110 cool. 00:27:31.350 --> 00:27:33.990 And David, I love this idea of um inspiration. 00:27:34.230 --> 00:27:38.310 I just looked up like what are inspiring movies, and one of them, the top on the list, is 00:27:38.310 --> 00:27:38.870 Rudy. 00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:43.020 And if anybody doesn't know the story of Rudy, you know, it's like this kid who's like 00:27:43.020 --> 00:27:48.060 small, doesn't think he's going to make it on college Notre Dame football, which is like 00:27:48.060 --> 00:27:50.380 the storied prestigious thing. 00:27:50.620 --> 00:27:52.620 He just works really, really hard at it. 00:27:52.780 --> 00:27:57.900 And just by virtue of being the underdog, it's this inspirational story of the underdog by 00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:03.790 means that are not traditional or were opaque and doesn't have like he's not strong, you 00:28:03.790 --> 00:28:06.830 know, like an underdog story is not like, well, my dad's a senator. 00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:11.950 I'm, you know, six foot five and, you know, super muscular and, you know, and like an and 00:28:11.950 --> 00:28:14.110 I'm look and I'm playing on the Notre Dame football. 00:28:14.190 --> 00:28:18.750 Like that's a terrible movie, you know, but this is like he's he's a janitor, you know, and 00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:23.900 he's like, you know, cleaning the stands, but he loves this the team and his heart is in 00:28:23.900 --> 00:28:28.060 it, and he wants to be affiliated with the group. 00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:31.260 Um, and there's no guy, like you know, there's no guile. 00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:34.780 It's all just sort of I love the team, and he doesn't want his own status. 00:28:34.860 --> 00:28:37.100 And this is an inspirational story. 00:28:37.260 --> 00:28:43.180 Um, it suggests that the means, there's a system that always keeps 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:45.260 the outcomes there that we might want. 00:28:45.340 --> 00:28:51.170 Like, you know, I I watch somebody I learn that uh being uh 00:28:51.410 --> 00:28:57.170 winning a fight is a good thing but I might be small you know and I can't 00:28:57.170 --> 00:29:02.210 actually do the same thing like I can't win the fight like the big guy I just saw it would 00:29:02.210 --> 00:29:06.610 be a bad design to dump that as being a good thing even if I don't think I can do that now 00:29:06.770 --> 00:29:11.660 because maybe if I team up with four other small guys, we can still do it. 00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:11.980 Right. 00:29:12.140 --> 00:29:17.260 So I think like there's this really interesting, complicated compositional structure where 00:29:17.260 --> 00:29:21.020 there's sort of what are the expected reasonable means? 00:29:21.420 --> 00:29:23.820 What are the ones that I can probabilistically do? 00:29:23.900 --> 00:29:28.220 But then there's like some outcomes where it's like unlikely, but there's always interest 00:29:28.220 --> 00:29:33.740 and attention on if I discover unsurprising means, means that I didn't see, 00:29:34.090 --> 00:29:34.810 attend to that. 00:29:34.890 --> 00:29:39.130 And I think that's what like movies like Rudy or underdog movies in general, I think like 00:29:39.210 --> 00:29:45.050 why people watch them is because it's providing the input of this is an outcome that 00:29:45.050 --> 00:29:46.010 people would want. 00:29:46.650 --> 00:29:51.610 But I'm there's a there's a scenario here of it's surprising given what the can 00:29:51.610 --> 00:29:54.250 preconditions are that this outcome happened. 00:29:55.520 --> 00:29:55.840 Yeah. 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:56.320 Yeah. 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:02.400 And a lot of like like the motivational self-help industry is about trying to 00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:07.040 inspire people and making them think that they're more capable of achieving high status 00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:08.560 than they might have thought. 00:30:08.800 --> 00:30:14.160 Um and it's an interesting question why we're so vulnerable to to being uh 00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.310 misled about those like because a lot of people just really are you know, probably not 00:30:18.310 --> 00:30:18.870 gonna make it. 00:30:18.950 --> 00:30:21.830 Like not everyone can be a rock star, not everyone can play for the NBA. 00:30:22.150 --> 00:30:25.670 Like, you know, uh, you know, we we like to tell people, Oh, you can you can achieve your 00:30:25.670 --> 00:30:27.910 dreams, but like not everyone can achieve their dreams. 00:30:27.990 --> 00:30:29.270 That's the sad fact of reality. 00:30:29.350 --> 00:30:31.510 But but but we love to hear that we can. 00:30:31.750 --> 00:30:32.630 Like w why? 00:30:32.790 --> 00:30:34.470 It seems like um we should be skeptical. 00:30:34.550 --> 00:30:38.150 We should want to you know know the truth about, you know, what our chances are and you 00:30:38.150 --> 00:30:41.590 know, you know, pursue activities where we have a good chance and abandon them when we 00:30:41.590 --> 00:30:42.390 don't have a good chance. 00:30:42.470 --> 00:30:46.780 But it seems like we we w we have these kind of we're prone to these kinds of delusions 00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:50.220 where we where we think we can be the best but we we actually can. 00:30:50.380 --> 00:30:53.500 That seems maladaptive, I I think it seems it's kind of mysterious. 00:30:53.580 --> 00:30:53.820 I don't know. 00:30:54.060 --> 00:30:58.300 It's it's like the Red Bull phenomenon where it's sort of like it even like there's a whole 00:30:58.300 --> 00:30:59.660 category of advertising, right? 00:30:59.740 --> 00:31:03.900 Which is sort of like you're a kid and you're like, this is an amazing like mountain biker 00:31:03.980 --> 00:31:07.820 and he drinks Red Bull and it's like that has nothing to do, you know, but you're a kid and 00:31:07.820 --> 00:31:09.260 you're like this is a high status thing. 00:31:09.340 --> 00:31:13.500 Like he's an awesome skateboarder or he's like, you know, or somebody's a really good 00:31:13.500 --> 00:31:14.140 singer. 00:31:14.530 --> 00:31:15.810 what shoes do they wear? 00:31:15.970 --> 00:31:20.930 You know, like it doesn't matter, but the fact that there's leakage um of these things, um, 00:31:21.170 --> 00:31:22.530 which yeah, is interesting. 00:31:22.610 --> 00:31:26.530 And I mean, I obviously like I think there's probably I mean Patrick, you've probably 00:31:26.530 --> 00:31:28.930 thought about like this kind of thing. 00:31:29.010 --> 00:31:29.890 Like I what do you think? 00:31:29.970 --> 00:31:33.890 Is it like that the world is causally opaque and there's sort of an error erring on the 00:31:33.890 --> 00:31:36.130 side of you don't know if the shoes matter. 00:31:36.290 --> 00:31:38.580 So if you can get them, why not? 00:31:38.900 --> 00:31:39.140 Yeah. 00:31:39.300 --> 00:31:41.860 There's a couple things like, yeah, in those those threads. 00:31:41.940 --> 00:31:46.260 Like one is like, yeah, like why are we so do we seem gullible to be like, oh yeah, I can 00:31:46.260 --> 00:31:47.380 attain like a lot of status. 00:31:47.460 --> 00:31:48.500 I can be a big shot. 00:31:48.740 --> 00:31:52.180 And like that, yeah, I guess I don't know how like culturally widespread that is. 00:31:52.260 --> 00:31:58.180 So that might be like a really just like a one of our quirks in the in the like the Western 00:31:58.180 --> 00:31:58.420 world. 00:31:58.500 --> 00:31:59.060 I don't know. 00:31:59.300 --> 00:32:05.130 But also if it's if it is really uh like a more culturally widespread 00:32:05.130 --> 00:32:08.970 thing then you know the first thing that comes to mind is like some kind of like if you you 00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:13.050 know you shoot for the stars at least you'll land a long on the moon or whatever kind of 00:32:13.050 --> 00:32:17.930 kind of thing like a a little bit of an error management maybe approach um to be like well 00:32:18.090 --> 00:32:24.010 you have to really like be trying for the top to hopefully that you land somewhere else 00:32:24.220 --> 00:32:25.900 um in order to be motivated. 00:32:26.060 --> 00:32:27.420 That's like one potential thing. 00:32:27.580 --> 00:32:30.940 But then even as I'm saying it, I'm like, I could see that backfiring pretty hard. 00:32:31.100 --> 00:32:34.540 You know, people are just like, Yeah, that person really thinks they're hot shit, like 00:32:34.700 --> 00:32:35.580 they're not. 00:32:35.900 --> 00:32:39.580 And yeah, so I I I do think that's an interesting problem to to try and unpack. 00:32:39.660 --> 00:32:43.900 And I I don't have a a good answer for that one right now. 00:32:44.140 --> 00:32:49.890 Um, but then as f yeah, as far as like that phenomenon of like why the hell can 00:32:50.130 --> 00:32:55.570 pro athletes or you know other high status people basically like be used to advertise 00:32:55.730 --> 00:33:00.050 things that aren't actually like crucial to this success most likely. 00:33:01.250 --> 00:33:02.610 Like it's causally irrelevant. 00:33:02.690 --> 00:33:04.450 Like, yeah, it's it's along for the ride. 00:33:04.530 --> 00:33:04.690 Yeah. 00:33:04.930 --> 00:33:05.170 Yeah. 00:33:05.410 --> 00:33:09.490 And that's kind of one of those problems that led me to think a little bit more about like, 00:33:09.570 --> 00:33:15.540 yeah, like what kinds of what problem is our mind trying to solve or capable of 00:33:15.540 --> 00:33:19.860 solving when we're when we're trying to tackle this problem of how do I get status? 00:33:20.180 --> 00:33:25.620 Because yeah, the world is causally opaque, and this is a pretty wicked like 00:33:25.940 --> 00:33:31.700 computational problem, like as a as a field, or I across all 00:33:31.780 --> 00:33:36.980 science, like the figuring out causes is is like one of the most difficult problems. 00:33:37.450 --> 00:33:42.970 Um and in psycho psychology, we do a pretty uh crappy job of it. 00:33:43.210 --> 00:33:46.090 Um and it is pretty crazy when you think about it. 00:33:46.170 --> 00:33:50.330 Like we have, you know, thousands of researchers working over decades trying to figure out 00:33:50.330 --> 00:33:53.050 this problem of like what is the cause of success? 00:33:53.210 --> 00:33:55.450 Like that's the holy grail of the social sciences. 00:33:55.610 --> 00:33:59.690 Like, what causes the desirable outcomes that we're all seeking in life? 00:33:59.930 --> 00:34:04.090 And we've thrown so much time and money and manpower at this problem, and we still haven't 00:34:04.090 --> 00:34:04.490 figured it out. 00:34:04.570 --> 00:34:06.170 We're still confused as all hell. 00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:10.840 And yet, in order to survive and reproduce, our minds have to solve this problem. 00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:16.920 They have to figure out what is the causal process for getting 00:34:16.920 --> 00:34:18.360 status and resources. 00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:22.440 Because if our, you know, if if the mind didn't figure that out, well, we, you know, our 00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:25.720 minds are not going to be descended from the minds that failed to figure that out. 00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:28.760 We're going to be descended from the minds that figured out that problem. 00:34:29.080 --> 00:34:33.210 And so it suggests that our minds might actually be better at this, or our our intuitions 00:34:33.210 --> 00:34:38.090 might actually be better than this than um legions of social scientists with uh millions of 00:34:38.090 --> 00:34:40.010 dollars uh to spend. 00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:43.930 Um yeah, I think that's definitely possible. 00:34:44.090 --> 00:34:48.330 Like I think that it's possible that our mind might have evolved to actually get at the 00:34:48.330 --> 00:34:50.250 causal effects of these things. 00:34:50.490 --> 00:34:53.130 That's one thing I'm trying to work out now. 00:34:53.210 --> 00:34:58.620 It's like the pretty early stages of this project, but trying to see like uh because in 00:34:58.620 --> 00:35:03.180 data science, right, there's this distinction between getting at causes, getting at causal 00:35:03.180 --> 00:35:07.180 effects, versus getting a really good predictive model of outcomes. 00:35:07.420 --> 00:35:11.420 And they're oftentimes, or most of the time, those models won't be the same. 00:35:11.580 --> 00:35:14.540 Like a good causal model that gives you like a good causal effect. 00:35:14.700 --> 00:35:18.700 What's the effect of buying the shoe on my status? 00:35:19.530 --> 00:35:24.970 that to get that model, that causal effect estimate correct, your statistical model or your 00:35:24.970 --> 00:35:29.930 model of of the world will be pretty different than just a giant like predictive model of 00:35:29.930 --> 00:35:30.570 status. 00:35:31.130 --> 00:35:36.090 And because of in data science, at least the way statistics work, you know, a good 00:35:36.090 --> 00:35:40.090 predictive model can have totally biased causal effects. 00:35:40.410 --> 00:35:43.370 And they would be totally wrong if you were to take them at face value. 00:35:43.450 --> 00:35:48.280 But it can help you really well predict an outcome that you want to predict. 00:35:48.520 --> 00:35:48.840 I see. 00:35:48.920 --> 00:35:53.160 So for example, like let's say great white shark attacks are always on the fore in my mind. 00:35:53.240 --> 00:35:57.000 So just like if you're like, well, are they selling ice cream that day? 00:35:57.240 --> 00:35:59.640 And maybe that like correlates really well. 00:35:59.800 --> 00:36:03.160 So it's really predictive of whether or not, because like, for example, that's like when 00:36:03.160 --> 00:36:04.600 the sharks are, when it's weather's warm. 00:36:04.680 --> 00:36:06.600 When weather's warm, people buy ice cream. 00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:12.210 So, like, probabilistically, predictively, it's really good to put in the model, but it has 00:36:12.210 --> 00:36:13.730 no effect causally. 00:36:13.890 --> 00:36:17.810 Like the person selling ice cream and buying ice cream is no causal relation, but it's just 00:36:17.890 --> 00:36:18.930 it's a good predictor. 00:36:19.650 --> 00:36:24.130 Because it could be, especially if you for some reason, you know, you you can't observe how 00:36:24.130 --> 00:36:26.530 many people there are on the beach that day. 00:36:26.770 --> 00:36:26.930 Exactly. 00:36:27.010 --> 00:36:32.290 So that's your information about that, then that's going to help you give get a good 00:36:32.290 --> 00:36:33.090 predictive model. 00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:37.810 But then yeah, like increasing or de artificially decreasing the number of ice cream sales, 00:36:37.970 --> 00:36:43.400 closing the ice cream shop will change the Exactly. 00:36:43.480 --> 00:36:47.560 So yeah, we know that when people buy more when there's a really high number of ice cream 00:36:47.560 --> 00:36:49.160 cones sold, there's shark attacks. 00:36:49.240 --> 00:36:53.320 So we should prevent shark attacks by reducing, we should stop people buying ice cream. 00:36:53.400 --> 00:36:54.520 And that that's silly. 00:36:54.600 --> 00:36:54.920 But yeah. 00:36:55.160 --> 00:36:55.400 Yeah. 00:36:55.640 --> 00:36:55.960 Yeah. 00:36:56.200 --> 00:37:01.720 But uh like the thing that kind of what I'm trying to get out of this project is to look at 00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:07.730 like w in under what circumstances, under what like causal structures of the world 00:37:07.970 --> 00:37:11.410 will a predictive model be like good enough? 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:14.130 Like because that's what like that's what we're really looking for, right? 00:37:14.210 --> 00:37:18.050 We're looking for like what might be good enough to work for an organism. 00:37:18.210 --> 00:37:19.650 It might not be the most optimal thing. 00:37:19.810 --> 00:37:24.050 Like I agree, the most optimal thing would be like a good causal model or some magical 00:37:24.050 --> 00:37:26.290 system that figures out the causal structure of the world. 00:37:26.450 --> 00:37:31.890 And for some problems, that might be totally feasible to do, but for other problems, it 00:37:31.890 --> 00:37:34.460 might it might not be feasible to do that. 00:37:34.620 --> 00:37:38.860 And I kind of this I'm working on some simulations now, which hopefully I'll talk about at 00:37:38.860 --> 00:37:44.780 HBest this year, which is kind of showing that at least under some circumstances 00:37:45.900 --> 00:37:51.340 which might look similar to how at least I think of the causal structure of status, like a 00:37:51.340 --> 00:37:55.650 predictive model could be pretty decent, could get you pretty far. 00:37:56.050 --> 00:38:00.770 And if if we have like these mechanisms that are kind of just following predictive models, 00:38:00.930 --> 00:38:05.570 then you might actually expect that people will just pick up on these erroneous cues and 00:38:05.570 --> 00:38:06.050 use them. 00:38:06.130 --> 00:38:08.050 Like what shoes do people wear? 00:38:08.210 --> 00:38:10.530 You know, what watch do they do they wear? 00:38:10.690 --> 00:38:13.490 That that that kind of stuff that isn't actually causally relevant. 00:38:13.730 --> 00:38:18.130 But it's just because you have this predictive model, it's gonna pick up on those things. 00:38:18.450 --> 00:38:24.200 And maybe that's like an an an outcome of the something weird about 00:38:24.200 --> 00:38:29.160 our our world or something that there are the all these like extra erroneous cues that 00:38:29.160 --> 00:38:31.320 actually like aren't part of the causal structure. 00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:33.960 Uh, but yeah, that's another kind of empirical question, I guess. 00:38:34.360 --> 00:38:38.280 Yeah, can we make it concrete just so like you know, just so sort of like uh there's an 00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:41.560 example, like let's say the this problem of learning. 00:38:41.720 --> 00:38:47.720 I'm a kid and I see somebody fishing, and they get a lot of fish, a lot 00:38:47.720 --> 00:38:51.240 more than I've ever seen before, and everyone's really happy about that. 00:38:52.050 --> 00:38:54.770 Um, so that's like the event. 00:38:55.730 --> 00:39:00.850 And there's lots of things, lots of ways to carve that event up. 00:39:01.010 --> 00:39:06.930 And is the idea sort of what you're saying that um there might be privileged categories. 00:39:07.090 --> 00:39:12.930 So, like the lesson I could draw from that is like providing people with a lot of fish 00:39:12.930 --> 00:39:18.610 is a good thing, or providing people with a lot of resources is a good thing, or um things 00:39:18.610 --> 00:39:23.360 that are hard to catch that people like is a good thing. 00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:25.120 You know, that's one issue. 00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:28.080 Another issue is like, well, how do they catch a lot of fish? 00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:31.760 Like I could try to fish there another day when they're not there. 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:36.560 I might look at all the things they're using, like the physical accoutrements, and then say 00:39:36.800 --> 00:39:37.680 copy what they do. 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:43.750 And maybe that's where like the sneakers and the watch kind of parasitize on because 00:39:43.750 --> 00:39:45.910 we're sort of like, I don't know why they caught a lot of fish. 00:39:46.070 --> 00:39:47.990 If I did, I wouldn't catch a lot of fish myself. 00:39:48.070 --> 00:39:48.790 So I don't know. 00:39:48.950 --> 00:39:51.670 So maybe I should just emulate everything. 00:39:51.750 --> 00:39:53.430 So I'm gonna wear the same, you know. 00:39:53.590 --> 00:39:57.750 So like I'm gonna wear the same shirt color, even though I don't know if that's relevant. 00:39:57.910 --> 00:39:59.910 So I'm gonna overimitate in a way. 00:40:00.150 --> 00:40:06.120 So is the idea that there's these sort of pre-privileged structures that are part 00:40:06.120 --> 00:40:07.240 of the predictive model. 00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:08.440 Is that sort of what you're saying? 00:40:08.520 --> 00:40:11.240 In the in the context of this sort of fishing example? 00:40:11.640 --> 00:40:11.960 Yeah. 00:40:12.120 --> 00:40:13.560 Like for the fishing example, right? 00:40:13.640 --> 00:40:19.080 Like I'm just gonna imagine there's like it's cold weather that day. 00:40:19.400 --> 00:40:23.640 And I don't know if this is true about fish, but let's say when it's cold, like the fish 00:40:23.640 --> 00:40:28.040 are more active, they're like near the surface or something, they're hungrier, whatever. 00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:33.870 And when it's cold, people are more like want to wear a jacket or wear some fur or 00:40:33.870 --> 00:40:34.510 something, you know. 00:40:34.670 --> 00:40:40.670 And so you have this confound of of weather that's leading to this new cue of 00:40:40.750 --> 00:40:44.910 like, what is this fisher who's who's going to catch more fish than usual? 00:40:45.070 --> 00:40:49.470 Like, oh, he's wearing something different than typical, or well, you know, whatever, and 00:40:49.470 --> 00:40:50.510 he catches more fish. 00:40:50.670 --> 00:40:52.910 And so you have the confound there, the weather. 00:40:52.990 --> 00:40:58.960 So you don't if you if you don't have a pre-built system that like kind of removes 00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:04.800 or holds constant weather in figuring this stuff out um or controls for it basically 00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:10.800 like you're you won't be able to you might mis uh apply the correlation between like the 00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:16.800 sweater wearing and the fish as a causal effect, thinking that you can wear a sweater and 00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:19.040 that's gonna let you get more fish. 00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:19.520 Right. 00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:20.400 Right. 00:41:22.090 --> 00:41:22.410 yeah. 00:41:22.650 --> 00:41:25.530 And then Hume's problem of induction, right? 00:41:25.610 --> 00:41:30.730 Like every time that you see, and this is like famously like uh philosophically in language 00:41:30.730 --> 00:41:35.130 learning, that any one instance, there's an infinite number of things you could sort of 00:41:35.130 --> 00:41:36.730 learn from that instance. 00:41:36.970 --> 00:41:40.810 Like the person was successful because it was a Tuesday, the person was successful because 00:41:40.810 --> 00:41:43.850 they were wearing a fur coat, the person was successful because it was a Tuesday and they 00:41:43.850 --> 00:41:45.930 were wearing a fur coat, like all kinds of crazy stuff. 00:41:46.090 --> 00:41:52.040 And what you're saying is without some built-in ways of narrowing that down in 00:41:52.040 --> 00:41:57.560 this context of learning about status or maybe status inner inner inter 00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:04.280 um interpenetrated with uh like event cognition, you know. 00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:08.760 So sort of like what leads to catching fish, or what are the things that plausibly might do 00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:09.160 that? 00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:12.120 Without that, it's you're really out of luck. 00:42:12.600 --> 00:42:12.840 Yeah. 00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:17.890 And obviously, that's like a whole nother like research area people I'm sure are are 00:42:17.890 --> 00:42:22.930 looking into and and like but the status problem is that there's like hundreds of things 00:42:22.930 --> 00:42:27.810 that people are doing and even figuring out like you know which of those things actually 00:42:27.810 --> 00:42:31.890 change their status is is another like a level of that problem. 00:42:32.450 --> 00:42:38.340 Um and so yeah again this is like um really early in trying to even like define 00:42:38.340 --> 00:42:41.380 like this problem in like little statistical models. 00:42:41.540 --> 00:42:47.460 Uh so I don't know how much more I can really say about it, but it it like 00:42:47.540 --> 00:42:52.660 it seems like there will be some problems that are intractable, like you can't solve them 00:42:52.660 --> 00:42:56.020 as an organism with your experiences. 00:42:56.500 --> 00:43:01.140 Um, especially if you can't do the interventions yourself because they're too costly or 00:43:01.140 --> 00:43:04.420 they're too inefficient, like you would have to do, you know, hundreds of these 00:43:04.420 --> 00:43:07.620 interventions yourself to really know the causal effect or whatever. 00:43:08.030 --> 00:43:13.470 And in that case, like the you know, the better than nothing system to 00:43:13.630 --> 00:43:18.990 evolve might be a just a prediction model that makes some mistakes, but it's right often 00:43:18.990 --> 00:43:24.590 enough in getting the relative, like it might be wrong for every actual causal effect, 00:43:24.830 --> 00:43:29.790 but about figuring out the relative which things tend to be better than other things out of 00:43:29.790 --> 00:43:34.990 a hundred things, it could be useful for getting like a rough estimate of that 00:43:35.760 --> 00:43:38.080 And helping you rank order that in your head. 00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:44.320 I think considerable insight can be made here by dividing this into two 00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:47.040 different problems that are intimately related. 00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:49.200 So the first problem is just how do I get status? 00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:52.000 How do I intervene on the world to get status? 00:43:52.160 --> 00:43:54.400 And with that, uh uh prediction is not enough. 00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:55.360 I need causality. 00:43:55.440 --> 00:44:00.010 I need to know what causal processes are going to increase my status. 00:44:00.330 --> 00:44:03.850 But there is a second problem that I think is too often overlooked and is extremely 00:44:03.850 --> 00:44:05.850 important, and that is a coordination problem. 00:44:06.010 --> 00:44:11.530 And that is how do I reach agreement with my community about who is high status and who is 00:44:11.530 --> 00:44:12.250 low status? 00:44:12.570 --> 00:44:17.370 And for that problem, I don't necessarily need to know the causal structure of the world to 00:44:17.370 --> 00:44:18.330 solve that problem. 00:44:18.440 --> 00:44:22.120 I just need to know how to predict who people are going to listen to and pay attention to, 00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:25.480 who people are going to side with and who they're not going to side with. 00:44:25.800 --> 00:44:28.040 And for that, correlation is enough. 00:44:28.200 --> 00:44:34.120 If people who wear fancy suits and use big words are high status, uh, it doesn't matter 00:44:34.120 --> 00:44:36.920 if the fancy suits or the big words cause the high status. 00:44:37.080 --> 00:44:41.890 As long as everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that those are high status traits, 00:44:42.370 --> 00:44:46.610 then it benefits me to go along with the group and assuming that these are high status 00:44:46.610 --> 00:44:47.010 things. 00:44:47.490 --> 00:44:50.850 And as soon as you have that coordination that we've all coordinated on, the people who use 00:44:50.850 --> 00:44:54.370 big words, the people who wear fancy clothes, these people are high status. 00:44:54.610 --> 00:44:59.570 Well, all of a sudden, I can take advantage of that by imitating those high status words, 00:44:59.650 --> 00:45:03.730 by wearing the fancy clothes and tricking other people into thinking that I'm high status 00:45:03.730 --> 00:45:07.170 because they've already coordinated on the fact that that thing is high status. 00:45:07.490 --> 00:45:08.050 Right. 00:45:08.420 --> 00:45:14.420 Um and so it it may be it's it may be not merely that um uh the 00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:18.980 causal problem is is too hard to solve and therefore we just settle for the the you know 00:45:19.060 --> 00:45:19.860 the correlates. 00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:25.620 It may be that the correlates in some cases are enough because of this important aspect of 00:45:25.620 --> 00:45:28.580 coordination uh that is at the at the heart of it. 00:45:28.740 --> 00:45:33.070 And and when you have when coordination enters the picture, you can have um a 00:45:33.070 --> 00:45:37.150 self-fulfilling process where people are high status for being high status, where they 00:45:37.150 --> 00:45:40.110 don't actually have any special ability to generate benefits. 00:45:40.270 --> 00:45:44.830 But because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that they have those abilities, they 00:45:44.830 --> 00:45:45.870 have high status. 00:45:46.110 --> 00:45:50.670 And and in cases like that, the status bubble can burst uh once we all gain common 00:45:50.670 --> 00:45:53.860 knowledge that the person isn't all they're cracked up to be. 00:45:54.100 --> 00:45:58.820 And so um I I think it's another aspect where where coordination, common knowledge, is a 00:45:58.820 --> 00:46:03.780 really uh overlooked and important part of the of the process here with with status. 00:46:04.100 --> 00:46:04.260 Yeah. 00:46:04.580 --> 00:46:06.580 Yeah, I like that that extension. 00:46:06.740 --> 00:46:10.500 Like I have been thinking about it as a yeah, there are like these purely predictive 00:46:10.580 --> 00:46:14.630 problems, or could be purely predictive problems, which is just like, oh, of my peer group 00:46:14.710 --> 00:46:18.790 without knowing anything about causal structure of status, can I predict who's gonna be sta 00:46:19.030 --> 00:46:19.990 higher status in the future? 00:46:20.150 --> 00:46:22.390 Like that's just a good predictive model to have. 00:46:22.630 --> 00:46:27.110 And so there, yeah, you but then uh also the causal structure stuff, which is like what can 00:46:27.110 --> 00:46:27.430 I do? 00:46:27.590 --> 00:46:29.990 How do I intervene on the world to get status? 00:46:30.150 --> 00:46:35.260 Um, but I hadn't that thought too much about this, like the self-fulfilling prophecy on top 00:46:35.260 --> 00:46:40.460 of the predictive models then becomes part of the causal structure of the world, 00:46:40.700 --> 00:46:41.340 actually. 00:46:41.820 --> 00:46:43.900 And I I like that, I like that take. 00:46:44.540 --> 00:46:44.860 Yeah. 00:46:44.940 --> 00:46:49.580 And then of course you're kind of like the coordination games that we play when we're 00:46:49.580 --> 00:46:53.820 competing for status, you know, they change a lot and they fall apart. 00:46:53.900 --> 00:46:58.090 Uh when it becomes common knowledge that we are competing for status. 00:46:58.330 --> 00:46:59.770 Um yeah, cool. 00:47:00.010 --> 00:47:04.650 Yeah, I'll definitely have to think, yeah, what happens at like the I guess that's like the 00:47:04.650 --> 00:47:10.570 second order effects of having these prediction models working and trying to predict what 00:47:10.570 --> 00:47:13.770 other people think about this the hierarchy and stuff like that. 00:47:13.850 --> 00:47:15.050 I I'll I like that. 00:47:15.290 --> 00:47:15.450 Yeah. 00:47:15.530 --> 00:47:17.450 And homage to Catalonia, George L. 00:47:17.610 --> 00:47:23.240 Orwell, it's his story about joining uh the Franco uh fighting against the fascists in 00:47:23.240 --> 00:47:29.080 Spain in 1930s and he's with the anarchists and the um but he talks about when he moves to 00:47:29.400 --> 00:47:34.200 when he goes to Spain in the beginning um because it's sort of like a a class based 00:47:34.200 --> 00:47:40.120 revolution uh he was wearing like a suit and a tie and a collar and 00:47:40.120 --> 00:47:43.800 he's on the train to Spain and everyone's like you can't wear that like you're gonna be 00:47:43.800 --> 00:47:49.650 like ostracized Um, and so like he he quickly picks up on like that the local 00:47:49.650 --> 00:47:55.570 ecology is like the more working class you look, the higher status you're granted. 00:47:55.810 --> 00:48:00.530 And then months later, when he's actually like fleeing Spain after the um he like fights in 00:48:00.530 --> 00:48:05.410 the war and sort of the the class-based revolution didn't pan out, it flips again. 00:48:05.490 --> 00:48:10.290 And now he actually escapes and isn't even questioned on the train out of Spain by sort of 00:48:10.290 --> 00:48:13.340 dressing up and looking kind of bougie bougie bougie. 00:48:13.660 --> 00:48:18.780 Um, and so like that was an example of it's exactly this thing of what 00:48:18.780 --> 00:48:22.620 counts as given status completely flipped. 00:48:22.780 --> 00:48:26.780 And he was able to sort of from the local ecology pick that up and it flipped like within 00:48:26.780 --> 00:48:28.700 the course of a year or something like that. 00:48:29.100 --> 00:48:29.740 Yeah. 00:48:29.980 --> 00:48:35.900 And my example that I often think of of with this is at least from my memory of the 00:48:35.900 --> 00:48:40.190 COVID 19 like early days pandemic, which could be could be flawed, and this isn't like a 00:48:40.190 --> 00:48:41.550 value judgment or anything. 00:48:41.710 --> 00:48:47.070 But I just remember early on the the narrative was you know uh 00:48:47.390 --> 00:48:53.230 N95 masks were scarce, and so you know, we should be saving those for 00:48:53.390 --> 00:48:54.830 healthcare workers. 00:48:55.310 --> 00:49:00.030 And and so yeah, I think like implicitly maybe I was like, if I saw somebody wearing an N95 00:49:00.030 --> 00:49:03.870 mask, maybe I might have thought they were a little selfish or or something like that, you 00:49:03.870 --> 00:49:04.030 know. 00:49:04.510 --> 00:49:09.280 But then later on, as uh I don't know, supply chains or whatever caught up with those d 00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:13.920 those demands, you know, it became like people should be wearing an N95 mask. 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:15.040 And they're totally flipped. 00:49:15.120 --> 00:49:17.520 Then if you're not wearing one, I'm like, what are you doing? 00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:19.520 Don't you know like those cloth masks? 00:49:19.680 --> 00:49:21.760 Maybe they don't do maybe they don't do like anything at all. 00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:23.600 I don't know, whatever I thought at the time. 00:49:23.760 --> 00:49:26.880 But but yeah, you can see those kinds of dynamics changing all the time. 00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:31.840 The the value of the same action changes not just in our lifetimes, but yeah, over weeks or 00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:34.170 months or yeah, minutes. 00:49:35.690 --> 00:49:37.290 Yeah, this is this is awesome. 00:49:37.370 --> 00:49:39.210 And I can imagine too, like it's a weird question. 00:49:39.450 --> 00:49:40.570 Again, it's instinct blindness. 00:49:40.650 --> 00:49:43.370 We're sort of like obviously like high status, that's obvious. 00:49:43.450 --> 00:49:45.370 Like, why would we even need to study that? 00:49:45.610 --> 00:49:48.730 I think it's really to your credit, but I imagine it's difficult. 00:49:48.890 --> 00:49:52.890 Um, and I don't know what the reception of this work has been outside of Evan Evolutionary 00:49:52.970 --> 00:49:55.930 Approach, but like one of the things taking an evolutionary approach or cognitive science 00:49:55.930 --> 00:49:59.210 approach gives you is this outs kicking you out of your instinct blindness. 00:49:59.290 --> 00:50:04.780 But this really strikes me as like uh something that hasn't been studied outside of like a 00:50:04.780 --> 00:50:06.300 very narrow set of people. 00:50:07.180 --> 00:50:08.540 Status like I don't know. 00:50:08.620 --> 00:50:10.940 There's not a cognitive science of status, is there? 00:50:11.260 --> 00:50:13.580 Yeah, it's big in social psychology for sure. 00:50:13.740 --> 00:50:17.580 Um especially looking at more like surface level things of like, yeah, what what 00:50:17.580 --> 00:50:19.900 personality characteristics are associated with status. 00:50:19.980 --> 00:50:24.380 And but it's not so much, at least in in my view, it's not so much of like how does status 00:50:24.380 --> 00:50:27.010 work at a deep like kind of computational level? 00:50:27.170 --> 00:50:31.810 How do we given that this navigating status hierarchies is probably like a fundamental 00:50:31.810 --> 00:50:33.410 problem that our ancestors had to solve? 00:50:33.570 --> 00:50:34.850 Like, how do you solve this? 00:50:35.010 --> 00:50:38.690 Because it's not like it's not like every other adaptive problem, it's not like the problem 00:50:38.690 --> 00:50:39.410 of finding mates. 00:50:39.490 --> 00:50:41.330 I don't think it's it's it's different. 00:50:41.410 --> 00:50:45.810 So you need different machinery to to solve that, even if it helps you find mates and stuff 00:50:45.890 --> 00:50:46.450 like that, right? 00:50:46.770 --> 00:50:52.340 And and to also just clarify, like, you're not thinking about this from the perspective of 00:50:52.660 --> 00:50:57.140 status seeking the way we usually think about it in a folk way, which is I think like a lot 00:50:57.140 --> 00:50:59.540 of people are like, oh, there's somebody who's just trying to seek status. 00:50:59.620 --> 00:51:05.460 They're not actually like interested in like their job or like their mate, or they're not 00:51:05.460 --> 00:51:06.260 serious. 00:51:06.420 --> 00:51:08.100 They're really in it for the status. 00:51:08.180 --> 00:51:12.900 And I mean, I think that is a real evolved entry, but I think you're you're talking about 00:51:12.900 --> 00:51:18.250 just no below the surface, there's just evolve software for 00:51:19.050 --> 00:51:24.970 you look out and you're like, okay, I gotta eat, I gotta have like social support. 00:51:25.290 --> 00:51:27.770 How can I not be an asshole? 00:51:28.010 --> 00:51:29.130 What do people like? 00:51:29.210 --> 00:51:34.810 And what can I do so that I have support and that people don't think I'm an asshole? 00:51:34.970 --> 00:51:39.370 So I think like a lot of bad things get thrown under the rubric of like status seeking, but 00:51:39.370 --> 00:51:43.380 I imagine a lot of good things, like as just kids learn up of like when you're mean, other 00:51:43.380 --> 00:51:44.740 pu kids don't want to play with you. 00:51:44.820 --> 00:51:49.860 Like that's part of figuring out like what to invest in for status. 00:51:50.020 --> 00:51:52.020 And I don't think it often gets framed that way. 00:51:52.100 --> 00:51:54.020 Is that consistent with how you're thinking about it? 00:51:54.100 --> 00:51:59.460 Like that yeah, that caveat that it's not the folk category status seeking. 00:51:59.700 --> 00:51:59.860 Yeah. 00:52:00.100 --> 00:52:04.980 If in fact I think I've in my head, at least like implicitly, maybe not explicitly, like 00:52:05.220 --> 00:52:09.290 pretty much framed it as just like you're just trying not to lose status. 00:52:09.370 --> 00:52:10.410 You're not trying to go down. 00:52:10.570 --> 00:52:15.290 Like many people might not really care that much about the going up and up and up and up, 00:52:15.370 --> 00:52:19.530 like becoming like the you know, top of the hierarchy or whatever. 00:52:19.770 --> 00:52:25.610 But I would wager that like nobody is like, yeah, like I want to go down in status, like 00:52:25.850 --> 00:52:26.650 nobody. 00:52:26.970 --> 00:52:29.690 And so I think that's really what it's more about. 00:52:29.770 --> 00:52:35.640 It's about like avoiding the problems of that come with yeah, losing social support, uh 00:52:35.720 --> 00:52:41.720 like ostracism and yeah, defensive and the conflict, and about yeah, mediating these kind 00:52:41.720 --> 00:52:42.120 of conflicts. 00:52:42.200 --> 00:52:46.440 So, I mean, that's one of the hypotheses from the animal literature about like what is what 00:52:46.440 --> 00:52:51.400 are hierarchies before, you know, what if hierarchies have a function, what is it? 00:52:51.480 --> 00:52:56.600 And it's to maybe stabilize like intergroup conflict over resources. 00:52:56.840 --> 00:53:00.650 And so if you're pushing, you know, I don't think many people are just gonna keep pushing 00:53:00.650 --> 00:53:06.010 and pushing like for uh I think this probably well calibrated to kind of figure out like 00:53:06.090 --> 00:53:10.250 what seems reasonable and just don't wanna be losing status 'cause that's where, you know, 00:53:10.330 --> 00:53:13.130 you'll lose you'll get a lot of costs, I guess. 00:53:13.450 --> 00:53:13.690 Yeah. 00:53:13.850 --> 00:53:14.730 No, that's a great point. 00:53:14.810 --> 00:53:20.140 I think um the folk concept of status, I think, ties much more to 00:53:21.100 --> 00:53:27.020 the offensive version of status or the being superior to others rather than uh the 00:53:27.020 --> 00:53:29.180 avoidance of being inferior. 00:53:29.420 --> 00:53:35.420 And I think that's why we often see status seekers as assholes, is because it's much more 00:53:35.420 --> 00:53:39.020 of a threat to me if you're trying to be better than me, if you're trying to outdo me. 00:53:39.180 --> 00:53:43.260 Because if you're trying to outdo me, then my status is going to fall uh as a result of 00:53:43.260 --> 00:53:43.900 your pursuit. 00:53:44.060 --> 00:53:47.470 But if you're just trying to avoid looking worse than me, You're just trying to avoid 00:53:47.470 --> 00:53:49.150 getting ostracized or ganged up on. 00:53:49.230 --> 00:53:50.350 That's much less of a threat to me. 00:53:50.430 --> 00:53:53.390 And it's, you know, more understandable and sympathetic. 00:53:53.630 --> 00:53:59.470 And so the problem is that our folk concept of status is mainly framed in terms 00:53:59.470 --> 00:54:00.590 of superiority. 00:54:00.750 --> 00:54:06.670 And that's why we often lose status for overtly seeking status, is 00:54:06.670 --> 00:54:11.600 because people interpret it as a threat to them and they interpret it as uh as as a kind of 00:54:11.600 --> 00:54:16.000 selfishness, because if I'm trying to be better than you or to others, then that benefits 00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:20.640 me and it hurts others, and the benefit to me is smaller than the cost to others, and so 00:54:20.640 --> 00:54:23.120 that gets framed as a kind of selfishness. 00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:29.200 Um and that uh unfortunately, um because you can lose status for overtly seeking 00:54:29.200 --> 00:54:33.670 status, that creates a kind of you know volatility where if we all gain common knowledge 00:54:33.670 --> 00:54:36.950 that that we're all just trying to be better than each other, then we all look worse than 00:54:36.950 --> 00:54:37.510 each other. 00:54:37.590 --> 00:54:40.230 Uh, and we have to do something else to gain status. 00:54:40.310 --> 00:54:43.590 Or at least I've I've written a lot about that, and I think that might underlie a lot of 00:54:43.590 --> 00:54:46.950 the the arbitrariness and volatility of our of our status symbols. 00:54:47.030 --> 00:54:51.750 And I can get you know status for for these weird random things like powdered wigs or you 00:54:51.750 --> 00:54:55.910 know uh wearing a certain type of clothing, you know, baggy clothing versus you know 00:54:56.070 --> 00:54:57.270 tight-fitting clothing. 00:54:57.430 --> 00:55:00.150 Um What's weird about powdered wigs, David? 00:55:01.060 --> 00:55:01.780 Well, it's interesting. 00:55:01.860 --> 00:55:02.740 I was reading about this. 00:55:04.580 --> 00:55:06.580 It is I find powdered wigs so funny. 00:55:06.660 --> 00:55:12.420 It's it's I mean, I think the fact that we find them funny is like it's it's the remnants 00:55:12.420 --> 00:55:13.620 of that status game collapsing. 00:55:13.780 --> 00:55:17.860 I think status games collapse once we realize that they're just funny, that they're just 00:55:17.860 --> 00:55:18.340 ridiculous. 00:55:18.980 --> 00:55:21.220 Um, you know, as historians have written about this with dueling. 00:55:21.300 --> 00:55:24.470 Like dueling used to be taken very seriously, but now we just find it funny. 00:55:24.630 --> 00:55:25.750 Like it's just kind of hilarious. 00:55:25.990 --> 00:55:27.670 The Looney Tunes like engage in dueling. 00:55:27.750 --> 00:55:30.790 It's just a it's just a macho pissing contest that's like this stupid thing. 00:55:31.030 --> 00:55:32.870 But like at the time, people took it very seriously. 00:55:32.950 --> 00:55:37.270 And if you were to laugh at it, that would be uh a huge, you know, hugely taboo. 00:55:37.350 --> 00:55:40.550 Um, and so I think these status games collapse when we all just realize that they're 00:55:40.550 --> 00:55:42.070 ridiculous pissing contests. 00:55:42.310 --> 00:55:46.070 And probably many of our current status games are likely to collapse at some point in the 00:55:46.070 --> 00:55:49.800 future when we realize that they're ridiculous pissing contests. 00:55:49.960 --> 00:55:55.960 Um, and uh predicting which status games are likely to be stable and persistent to 00:55:55.960 --> 00:55:59.560 the future versus which ones are likely to collapse, I think that is also part of the 00:55:59.560 --> 00:56:01.240 adaptive problem of inspiration. 00:56:01.400 --> 00:56:06.360 It's not merely um, you know, what kinds of status um uh are likely to pay off or or are 00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:07.480 worth investing in. 00:56:07.720 --> 00:56:11.480 It's also like, is this status game going to be stable into the future or is it gonna turn 00:56:11.480 --> 00:56:15.370 into a laughing stock next year or in five years, right? 00:56:15.450 --> 00:56:20.410 It's it's gonna suck if I try to invest in being good at dueling, if dueling is just gonna 00:56:20.410 --> 00:56:23.210 be funny and stupid uh next year, right? 00:56:23.610 --> 00:56:29.210 Um, and so I think another part of inspiration is is the status game around something 00:56:29.370 --> 00:56:32.170 that isn't uh framed as status? 00:56:32.330 --> 00:56:36.010 Like is it is it the pursuit of something higher and noble or altruistic? 00:56:36.090 --> 00:56:39.290 Uh and that is a cue that it's gonna be stable into the future. 00:56:39.450 --> 00:56:45.320 And so I think what inspires us is a person who um invests a lot of time and energy 00:56:45.320 --> 00:56:50.760 into a status game without caring about status, and then gets showered with status. 00:56:50.840 --> 00:56:51.240 Right. 00:56:51.400 --> 00:56:52.600 That's really inspiring. 00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:54.360 Because it suggests that yeah. 00:56:54.760 --> 00:56:56.360 Yeah, or shows us like how to do it. 00:56:56.520 --> 00:56:58.280 Or like it's like you can do it too. 00:56:58.360 --> 00:57:02.840 Or like you see a avenue of like, you know, a great teacher, a book inspired me. 00:57:03.080 --> 00:57:04.760 And your claim is the readout. 00:57:04.840 --> 00:57:10.680 That's the readout of I see a path towards doing this thing that has these positive 00:57:10.680 --> 00:57:11.880 attributes. 00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:12.760 Right. 00:57:13.070 --> 00:57:14.030 Exactly. 00:57:14.430 --> 00:57:20.110 Um so yeah, no, that's I've I've been just thinking about this this stuff a lot 00:57:20.110 --> 00:57:20.750 lately. 00:57:20.910 --> 00:57:25.870 Um and I I think inspiration is a really interesting topic that's underappreciated 00:57:26.990 --> 00:57:27.950 evolutionary science. 00:57:28.350 --> 00:57:34.000 Yeah, especially if it like as a way of separating it from maybe admiration and envy and 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:40.000 and respect, even though it's maybe a hierarchy navigating emotion, like yeah, the the 00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:42.320 outputs might not involve emulating people. 00:57:42.400 --> 00:57:46.000 They're just like a motivation to do a particular thing. 00:57:46.400 --> 00:57:47.280 Or yeah. 00:57:47.520 --> 00:57:47.840 Yeah. 00:57:48.160 --> 00:57:48.320 Yeah. 00:57:48.400 --> 00:57:50.400 A teacher inspired me, a book inspired me. 00:57:50.480 --> 00:57:50.880 I like that. 00:57:50.960 --> 00:57:56.880 Like that explains that that it's all I I I like this what you're both saying is and again, 00:57:56.960 --> 00:58:02.910 it's very counter instinct blindness where it's it's it's the deep structure of is 00:58:02.910 --> 00:58:06.030 this a way to make a living in the world? 00:58:06.190 --> 00:58:08.910 Sort of, you know, and I think like people recognize that at some level. 00:58:09.070 --> 00:58:13.390 Like you kind of have to be like, I want to do something that excites me, that inspires me. 00:58:13.550 --> 00:58:19.550 And I think what people mean by that is they detect a possibility of doing well and 00:58:19.550 --> 00:58:25.080 being able to do well such that there will be rewards greater than 00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:28.520 the default expected rewards, right? 00:58:28.680 --> 00:58:33.480 Like it's sort of this thing of like, oh, I discovered something that I might be better at 00:58:33.480 --> 00:58:39.240 than m most people or that I thought, and then I might get more out of than most people or 00:58:39.240 --> 00:58:40.200 that I thought. 00:58:40.920 --> 00:58:42.760 If you really reduce it down. 00:58:43.320 --> 00:58:43.560 Yeah. 00:58:43.720 --> 00:58:45.000 Yeah, that's interesting. 00:58:45.630 --> 00:58:50.750 And I think another cue to you know this status game being worth investing in, um, and 00:58:50.750 --> 00:58:55.550 being stable over the long run is has it been stable in centuries past? 00:58:55.710 --> 00:58:58.750 Have my ancestors been playing this status game for generations? 00:58:58.990 --> 00:59:00.830 If so, that's a really good one to invest in. 00:59:00.910 --> 00:59:04.830 Because you know, if it's lasted for generations, then it's not going to become a laughing 00:59:04.830 --> 00:59:05.710 stock next year. 00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:06.240 Right. 00:59:06.640 --> 00:59:08.160 Uh and so that should be inspiring. 00:59:08.240 --> 00:59:12.240 If if I'm doing the same thing that, you know, my ancestors have done for generation after 00:59:12.240 --> 00:59:16.560 generation, you know, um uh it still gets to me. 00:59:16.640 --> 00:59:20.960 I was watching Moana with my daughter, and there's this scene where sh where uh Moana 00:59:21.040 --> 00:59:24.720 discovers that her ancestors were explorers for generations, and you know, the whole movie 00:59:24.880 --> 00:59:28.080 they were telling her that she shouldn't go out and explore because it's too dangerous, and 00:59:28.080 --> 00:59:31.440 then she realized that the things that she really wants to do, like her ancestors have been 00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:32.400 doing it for generations. 00:59:32.480 --> 00:59:35.200 It was really beautiful, like it moves me when I when I see that. 00:59:35.360 --> 00:59:41.130 Um and um so I I think another part of it, you know, is is doing something that has 00:59:41.130 --> 00:59:44.810 been done um for for many generations into the past. 00:59:45.130 --> 00:59:49.450 Um anyway, I'm I'm just uh going off on on my thinking on this topic but I'm curious. 00:59:49.770 --> 00:59:54.650 I like that especially as like a like a storytelling, cultural storytelling as a kind of 00:59:54.650 --> 01:00:00.340 way of you know, teaching or helping our status navigation systems learn what 01:00:00.340 --> 01:00:03.780 are good status games that are worth coordinating around. 01:00:04.020 --> 01:00:08.980 Because I mean and there might even be, yeah, some cultural evolution to that too, where 01:00:08.980 --> 01:00:14.500 you're like, yeah, like we don't want our next generations coordinating over stupid 01:00:14.500 --> 01:00:20.430 status games that lead to conflict or harm our our culture or our group. 01:00:20.590 --> 01:00:25.150 And so kind of like I don't know, inoculating them or yeah, trying to get that implanted in 01:00:25.150 --> 01:00:30.110 them early on, kind of like with storytelling about what your ancestors have done could be 01:00:30.110 --> 01:00:34.670 like one of those kind of cultural technologies to help prevent some of these like 01:00:34.990 --> 01:00:40.830 pointless status games and try to push them towards ones that like s seem 01:00:40.830 --> 01:00:45.150 to have been beneficial generation after generation kind of thing. 01:00:45.620 --> 01:00:45.860 Yeah. 01:00:46.020 --> 01:00:50.340 I mean no no one gets inspired about wearing baggy pants because those are going to go out 01:00:50.340 --> 01:00:52.500 of style uh in a few years anyway. 01:00:52.660 --> 01:00:56.660 But people might get inspired about like wearing the religious garb of their ancestors that 01:00:56.660 --> 01:00:59.220 the their ancestors have been wearing for for generations. 01:01:00.180 --> 01:01:05.700 I mean there is on the baggy pants thing right like this is going to be embarrassing to to 01:01:05.700 --> 01:01:10.670 admit, but like I think you know, as somebody I grew up wearing like really tight skinny 01:01:10.670 --> 01:01:11.230 jeans, right? 01:01:11.310 --> 01:01:11.390 Yeah. 01:01:11.550 --> 01:01:16.590 And I used to put on like baggy pants or whatever, like I got bought a pair of pants from 01:01:16.590 --> 01:01:17.710 somebody by somebody else or whatever. 01:01:17.790 --> 01:01:20.430 And I'd be like, the aesthetics of these are like I hated them. 01:01:20.510 --> 01:01:22.270 They were they were all wrong and stuff. 01:01:22.510 --> 01:01:28.430 And since that trend has changed, like the aesthetic sensibility that 01:01:28.430 --> 01:01:30.440 I have has changed. 01:01:30.520 --> 01:01:33.480 And I I like the baggy silhouette. 01:01:33.800 --> 01:01:37.400 Now something that I would have felt totally uncomfortable in before. 01:01:37.560 --> 01:01:43.560 So yeah, like I even though even knowing that it will change, I was still inspired by that. 01:01:43.640 --> 01:01:48.440 You could view that as inspired by that new aesthetic to enjoy it. 01:01:49.240 --> 01:01:52.690 And embarrassingly, like I've got some wide pants on. 01:01:52.850 --> 01:01:53.650 Like you know. 01:01:53.890 --> 01:01:54.210 Yeah. 01:01:54.370 --> 01:01:59.090 I mean, it's all it's kind of embarrassing to like look at the silly things that people 01:01:59.090 --> 01:02:00.850 used to wear in in previous genera. 01:02:01.010 --> 01:02:04.290 I know sometimes like when I look at pictures of people wearing bell bottoms in the 70s, 01:02:04.370 --> 01:02:05.490 like they're so ridiculous. 01:02:05.570 --> 01:02:07.730 Like I can't believe people thought that was cool. 01:02:07.810 --> 01:02:08.690 And and yet people did. 01:02:08.850 --> 01:02:13.010 I'm sure at the time, like it felt like really cool, but now it's not cool. 01:02:13.250 --> 01:02:14.400 Um yeah. 01:02:14.560 --> 01:02:19.200 I our our sense of aesthetics is so interestingly blended with with status and hard to 01:02:19.200 --> 01:02:20.960 tease apart from status. 01:02:21.440 --> 01:02:25.040 Yeah, I feel like you all talked about this maybe on like another episode. 01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:29.360 Yeah, and I I feel like if I'm remembering your kind of intuition of the explanation, 01:02:29.440 --> 01:02:29.600 right? 01:02:29.680 --> 01:02:30.720 I think I think I liked it. 01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:36.350 It's like then in a sense, like keeping up with these like changing aesthetics is 01:02:36.830 --> 01:02:42.830 oh yeah it was David it was David's wife saying that you've lost it is yeah it yeah it is 01:02:43.070 --> 01:02:48.750 it is kind of like there's a skill like it is maybe showing like that you're I don't know 01:02:48.910 --> 01:02:52.270 still trying to impress somebody or you're trying to be relevant. 01:02:52.430 --> 01:02:55.950 I'm not saying this is necessarily the thing that you should be striving for, but it is 01:02:55.950 --> 01:03:00.510 communicating maybe something if you're still trying to keep up with some trends even if 01:03:00.510 --> 01:03:02.830 they are things that will collapse soon. 01:03:03.460 --> 01:03:06.340 That you're sa socially savvy enough to be aware of the trends. 01:03:06.660 --> 01:03:10.900 Because they're often pretty subtle and hard to you know notice um and pick up on. 01:03:11.060 --> 01:03:14.740 And if you can pick up on those trends, then you're going to be pretty socially competent. 01:03:14.900 --> 01:03:19.300 And picking up on other subtle cues and avoiding embarrassing yourself, like that's that's 01:03:19.300 --> 01:03:20.020 a good skill to have. 01:03:20.100 --> 01:03:23.220 I think it's it's a kind of social coordination ability. 01:03:23.460 --> 01:03:25.300 Um that's another dimension of status. 01:03:25.670 --> 01:03:25.830 Yeah. 01:03:25.910 --> 01:03:31.670 And I think a lot of stuff uh is explained by understanding this issue that it's about the 01:03:31.670 --> 01:03:34.310 audience and that there may not be a uniform audience. 01:03:34.390 --> 01:03:40.390 So like kids are signaling and negotiating status with themselves at some level. 01:03:40.550 --> 01:03:44.630 So, you know, like the like the old man, like these kids in their baggy pants, you know, 01:03:44.710 --> 01:03:46.150 it's like and the kids don't care. 01:03:46.310 --> 01:03:50.800 The kids are doing stuff to piss off the older adults, or they or the older adults just 01:03:50.800 --> 01:03:53.040 like it's not part of their status scheme. 01:03:53.200 --> 01:03:58.880 Um, and so I I think the idea that this is all about status 01:03:59.360 --> 01:04:05.200 is with respect to an audience, and that audience may or may not be as many 01:04:05.200 --> 01:04:06.640 people as possible, right? 01:04:07.040 --> 01:04:10.880 Um, and I this also comes back to this definition because the definition is like sort of 01:04:11.120 --> 01:04:14.410 how do others listen to you or defer to you? 01:04:14.650 --> 01:04:16.090 And there's two paths to do that. 01:04:16.250 --> 01:04:21.530 One is everybody, but another one is you really commit to like a narrow subset. 01:04:21.850 --> 01:04:22.090 Right. 01:04:22.250 --> 01:04:26.890 So you can imagine sort of like I'm generally like well respected, like take it back to Pat 01:04:27.050 --> 01:04:30.330 and like Kanambo, like in the village, and everybody listens to me. 01:04:30.730 --> 01:04:36.420 Or maybe like, you know, I'm just really like I'm a very partisan person and 01:04:36.420 --> 01:04:41.460 like the the this particular group, like half of them hate me, but the other half really 01:04:41.460 --> 01:04:41.860 like me. 01:04:42.020 --> 01:04:43.780 Those are two different ways of having status. 01:04:43.940 --> 01:04:48.900 One averages out to zero, but but still might be pursued, you know. 01:04:48.980 --> 01:04:51.060 And I think like, have you thought about that too? 01:04:51.220 --> 01:04:57.130 Like how status um it's not it's not 01:04:57.130 --> 01:05:01.370 maybe universal uh in the sense of who the audience is for either. 01:05:01.530 --> 01:05:02.010 Mm-hmm. 01:05:02.570 --> 01:05:07.610 Yeah, I mean I I I think this is kind of also in line with with what you're saying, but 01:05:07.610 --> 01:05:13.610 yeah, like as far as you know, we're talking about like value to some number 01:05:13.610 --> 01:05:19.360 of other people and ultimately those other people, the people who you're trying 01:05:19.360 --> 01:05:24.160 to be valuable to, or to have them have a high welfare trade-off ratio so that they'll back 01:05:24.160 --> 01:05:30.080 you in a conflict, like that group, I think only needs to 01:05:30.080 --> 01:05:34.800 be as big as or the right people 01:05:36.790 --> 01:05:40.950 to be stronger than the opposing coalition. 01:05:41.830 --> 01:05:47.510 And in some cases, probably in a lot of cases, for like at least ancestral contexts of 01:05:47.510 --> 01:05:50.950 human human groups, like you probably just want the most people. 01:05:51.270 --> 01:05:57.190 But especially in I don't know, our world, if there's one group of people that has a lot of 01:05:57.190 --> 01:06:01.350 guns, and the other group people, and the rest of people don't really have a lot of guns, 01:06:01.510 --> 01:06:06.720 you can pretty easily have more resource holding potential by just trying to get those 01:06:06.720 --> 01:06:11.840 people who have a lot of guns to really like you and want to defend you, you know, even if 01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:14.080 there are way more people in the other group. 01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:14.640 Right. 01:06:15.040 --> 01:06:19.440 So I think there probably is some of this, like you can or like more simply, right? 01:06:19.520 --> 01:06:25.280 If there's like a few warriors and a bunch of people who are not warriors, they 01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:31.280 don't fight, then like mono monopolizing the warrior group can get you status, 01:06:31.360 --> 01:06:37.350 even if as a whole, the rest of the group doesn't value any value you and wouldn't come to 01:06:37.350 --> 01:06:42.470 your aid in a conflict, as long as you at the group, the inter, like, yeah, your little 01:06:42.470 --> 01:06:48.070 coalitional level, you have more power, then I think that can be a stable way of of 01:06:48.070 --> 01:06:52.310 getting status by you know dominating another group. 01:06:52.470 --> 01:06:57.270 But really the way you're getting these group of people to come to your aid is probably 01:06:57.270 --> 01:06:58.870 through benefit generation. 01:07:00.560 --> 01:07:03.680 For them, for for the for the stronger coalition. 01:07:03.840 --> 01:07:04.080 Yeah. 01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:08.320 And that's why I think like defining groups, which is something that like obviously, you 01:07:08.320 --> 01:07:12.960 know, you're working on for me, like I got to kind of that point and I was like, I don't 01:07:12.960 --> 01:07:14.080 know what a group is. 01:07:14.720 --> 01:07:18.080 So I don't know how to define like yeah, these things. 01:07:18.240 --> 01:07:22.160 And I think that's we need a definition of how do we carve up these different groups, how 01:07:22.160 --> 01:07:26.210 do we know like who is our coalition versus the other coalitions. 01:07:26.610 --> 01:07:26.690 Yeah. 01:07:26.770 --> 01:07:29.650 And and yeah, I think it's an inference within that software. 01:07:29.810 --> 01:07:32.610 Like I don't yeah, I don't think it's like a thing out in the world. 01:07:32.690 --> 01:07:33.090 Yeah. 01:07:33.490 --> 01:07:33.810 Yeah. 01:07:33.970 --> 01:07:38.530 I mean, let me add another layer of complication to this already hugely complicated mess, 01:07:38.690 --> 01:07:42.210 where you know it's hard enough to figure out what the status landscape is now. 01:07:42.290 --> 01:07:44.370 And that's an important part of the adaptive problem. 01:07:44.530 --> 01:07:49.560 But another hugely important part of the adaptive problem is forecasting what the status 01:07:49.560 --> 01:07:52.280 landscape is likely going to be in the future. 01:07:52.440 --> 01:07:56.760 So it may be that the people with the guns have all the status, or at least they they have 01:07:56.760 --> 01:07:59.080 all the power now because they have guns and we don't. 01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:04.280 But um, if I can forecast that that situation is actually precarious, because those people 01:08:04.280 --> 01:08:09.870 with guns are actually resented by everyone in the community, And they're viewed as 01:08:09.870 --> 01:08:11.310 predatory and selfish. 01:08:11.390 --> 01:08:12.750 And there's an uprising of people. 01:08:12.830 --> 01:08:16.350 And though they're small now, they seem to have morality on their side. 01:08:16.430 --> 01:08:19.550 And morality is itself a kind of focal point for coordination. 01:08:19.710 --> 01:08:25.150 And so it might be better off for me teaming up with the band of rebels who right now are 01:08:25.150 --> 01:08:26.910 weaker and right now have lower status. 01:08:27.070 --> 01:08:31.630 But because they have the moral high ground, I can forecast that the status landscape is 01:08:31.630 --> 01:08:35.550 going to change if I team up with these people who have the moral high ground. 01:08:35.950 --> 01:08:41.360 And so that adds another aspect of this of choosing the status game that is that has more 01:08:41.360 --> 01:08:46.880 moral gravity, um, because that is a good sign that that status game is going to grow and 01:08:46.880 --> 01:08:52.880 be more stable into the future than ones that um are more fragile, are more um, you know, 01:08:53.120 --> 01:08:58.240 selfish seeming, are more likely to collapse, um, etcetera. 01:08:58.670 --> 01:09:02.350 Of course, so you now get now you gotta throw morality into the whole picture, which is its 01:09:02.510 --> 01:09:04.510 old you know whole nother complicated mess. 01:09:04.670 --> 01:09:04.990 Yeah. 01:09:05.310 --> 01:09:05.950 Yeah. 01:09:06.350 --> 01:09:06.590 Yeah. 01:09:06.670 --> 01:09:07.070 I mean it's a lot of things. 01:09:07.230 --> 01:09:12.670 What sucks is that it's like the status is just connected to literally every issue in the 01:09:12.670 --> 01:09:13.790 evolutionary social sciences. 01:09:14.190 --> 01:09:18.750 It reminds me again, this is the to be quote of like everything, the the canonical example 01:09:18.750 --> 01:09:23.310 of evolutionary psychology is high school social dynamics, which is you know, it's also 01:09:23.310 --> 01:09:27.460 this thing of like the the trope of like the high schooler who peaks during high school, 01:09:27.620 --> 01:09:30.980 you know, where you're sort of like, Well, what what genre of kid am I gonna be? 01:09:31.140 --> 01:09:36.740 Am I gonna be like a a nerd, you know, a theater kid, a music kid, a jock, or you know, 01:09:36.980 --> 01:09:42.020 popular, or and you know, you can imagine at some level there's machinery for sort of being 01:09:42.020 --> 01:09:44.420 like, you know, what are my proclivities? 01:09:44.500 --> 01:09:46.180 But then, like, what's future-proofing this? 01:09:46.260 --> 01:09:50.890 And you know, that the the kind of trope of, you know, oh man, high school was like the 01:09:50.890 --> 01:09:51.290 best thing. 01:09:51.450 --> 01:09:55.690 And then, you know, the person whose life is sort of terrible and low status after high 01:09:55.690 --> 01:09:56.170 school. 01:09:56.410 --> 01:10:01.290 It's sort of we we sort of laugh about that, but I think it's the readout of the system of 01:10:01.290 --> 01:10:06.970 like, oh, they kind of either were a victim or judged incorrectly about how 01:10:06.970 --> 01:10:08.810 future-proof the status game was. 01:10:08.890 --> 01:10:12.650 You know, they thought like, you know, being the captain of the football team and being 01:10:12.650 --> 01:10:18.000 kind of a bully and like, you know, dating the the pretty girl was the way to get status, 01:10:18.160 --> 01:10:18.880 and that worked. 01:10:18.960 --> 01:10:24.480 But then, like, the nerd who was didn't have a lot of status and maybe got picked on in 01:10:24.480 --> 01:10:29.040 high school was like, Well, I'm really smart and like I'm gonna be fine once high school's 01:10:29.040 --> 01:10:33.200 over, you know, and like has a really good job and has a good life, but then like has high 01:10:33.200 --> 01:10:37.280 status, quote unquote, according to other metrics. 01:10:37.520 --> 01:10:42.850 Um, you know, I think seeing that as as a trope, I think is a readout of this sort of like 01:10:43.090 --> 01:10:47.170 issue you're talking about, David, which is sort of like you can be wrong about which 01:10:47.170 --> 01:10:52.050 status scheme you sort of uh tie your fortunes to. 01:10:52.610 --> 01:10:52.930 Yeah. 01:10:53.330 --> 01:10:57.170 I I I think this this ties in a lot to moral progress as well. 01:10:57.410 --> 01:11:00.960 Cause a lot of a lot of moral discourse is about, you know, you know, in the next 01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:05.440 generation, our forebears are going to look back at us and and see that we were barbaric 01:11:05.440 --> 01:11:08.320 for, say, eating factory farmed meat or something like that. 01:11:08.480 --> 01:11:12.960 And a big part of you know the moral discourse game is finding issues that our forebears 01:11:13.120 --> 01:11:15.440 are going to look back at us and condemn. 01:11:15.600 --> 01:11:20.000 And if we can find that now, then that's that's a forecast of the future status landscape. 01:11:20.080 --> 01:11:23.210 And that is a good investment to invest if invest in now. 01:11:23.290 --> 01:11:27.450 So if I see that, you know, this eating factory farm meat business, this isn't looking 01:11:27.450 --> 01:11:27.610 good. 01:11:27.850 --> 01:11:32.250 This this status game is gonna is gonna collapse pretty soon, and and the vegans are gonna 01:11:32.250 --> 01:11:34.330 end up looking morally superior to everyone else. 01:11:34.410 --> 01:11:37.370 So I better get in on this veganism business now. 01:11:37.450 --> 01:11:41.930 Um and I'm making kind of a moral status game forecast for the future. 01:11:42.090 --> 01:11:46.170 Um and I think you know that might be part of this as well. 01:11:46.250 --> 01:11:51.720 Um but before we get too wishy-washy into abstract theoretical stuff, I want to anchor us 01:11:51.720 --> 01:11:55.880 into empirical stuff, which you've done a lot of really cool empirical stuff, Patrick. 01:11:56.120 --> 01:12:02.040 Um so um you've done work on how good people are at 01:12:02.040 --> 01:12:05.480 figuring out what is going to get them status and what isn't. 01:12:05.640 --> 01:12:09.320 So could you talk about your work on on that question and how how good are people at 01:12:09.320 --> 01:12:10.760 figuring this stuff out? 01:12:11.270 --> 01:12:14.950 Yeah, I was just gonna say this sounds like a good segue into like the personality stuff. 01:12:15.030 --> 01:12:18.950 Now we're talking about yeah, like all these differences and how well people are predicting 01:12:18.950 --> 01:12:23.750 future status games versus yeah, predicting all these things about status, right? 01:12:24.230 --> 01:12:28.550 Yeah, that's basically like so after doing or not after, but while doing the status kind of 01:12:28.550 --> 01:12:32.310 stuff, learning, trying to learn more about like how do these mechanisms work at like a 01:12:32.310 --> 01:12:34.780 species typical level, yeah. 01:12:34.860 --> 01:12:39.420 I kind of got sucked into like thinking about the individual differences in these things, 01:12:39.660 --> 01:12:43.260 because there's so many spaces for these individual differences to creep in. 01:12:43.420 --> 01:12:47.900 Like, you know, we've hinted at a whole bunch of different little systems in the mind that 01:12:47.900 --> 01:12:51.980 all design are designed to like pick up on certain inputs and produce certain outputs or 01:12:51.980 --> 01:12:53.500 estimate different things. 01:12:53.820 --> 01:12:58.860 And any like differences there in any of those systems that creep in for whatever reason, 01:12:59.020 --> 01:13:04.890 either due to differences in developmental calibration or genetic noise or you 01:13:04.890 --> 01:13:10.810 know facultative calibration, whatever, like um they can produce differences in 01:13:10.810 --> 01:13:11.130 behavior. 01:13:11.210 --> 01:13:12.970 Like that's kind of the whole thing that we're talking about. 01:13:13.050 --> 01:13:16.650 Is like, are you going to pursue becoming a football player or an academic? 01:13:16.890 --> 01:13:22.890 Like somewhere your mind uh estimated one to be a better strategy than the 01:13:22.890 --> 01:13:23.450 other, maybe. 01:13:23.610 --> 01:13:28.970 And maybe that was incorrect or or something, but it led to differences in behavior, a 01:13:28.970 --> 01:13:34.300 choice, that then will lead to other aspects of your everyday behaviors changing too, and 01:13:34.300 --> 01:13:38.140 the way you think and feel will be changing too over time. 01:13:38.300 --> 01:13:44.220 And so, really, like I think these kinds of things, obviously not just hierarchy navigation 01:13:44.220 --> 01:13:48.620 mechanisms, all the psychological mechanisms in our head and individual differences 01:13:48.620 --> 01:13:54.530 therein, like are the true personality 01:13:54.530 --> 01:13:56.050 generators, so to speak. 01:13:56.130 --> 01:14:01.170 Like these are the things that produce differences in behavior that over time accumulate 01:14:01.170 --> 01:14:06.690 into these, you know, tendencies or dispositions, uh, 01:14:06.930 --> 01:14:11.810 average differences in thoughts, feelings, and behavior, which is like what personality is, 01:14:11.970 --> 01:14:15.220 according to personality psychologists. 01:14:15.540 --> 01:14:21.300 And yeah, so I started to just think about like how does differences in our ability 01:14:21.300 --> 01:14:25.860 to estimate the status impacts of different things, like how might that play into 01:14:26.500 --> 01:14:27.460 personality? 01:14:27.940 --> 01:14:32.500 And I this this is kind of like a first pass of trying to figure out like, can I measure 01:14:32.500 --> 01:14:32.900 these things? 01:14:33.060 --> 01:14:36.420 Can I measure differences in this like accuracy of the system? 01:14:36.660 --> 01:14:37.940 What would that look like? 01:14:38.180 --> 01:14:43.610 And then can I tie those parameters to broader traits 01:14:44.410 --> 01:14:50.170 like motivations um and hexaco traits is kind of where I was at there. 01:14:50.330 --> 01:14:56.170 And I I didn't make really big predictions beforehand, uh in part just because I view 01:14:56.170 --> 01:14:58.330 this work kind of as ex exploratory. 01:14:58.490 --> 01:15:03.610 Like I think the the theory is there in the thinking that there are psychological 01:15:03.610 --> 01:15:08.520 mechanisms that pay attention to these inputs and these outputs and individual differences 01:15:08.680 --> 01:15:13.560 and how people map these inputs to outputs will lead to behavioral differences. 01:15:13.640 --> 01:15:17.000 And sometimes those behavioral differences might be obvious, but I think there's going to 01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:23.000 be a lot of like non-intuitive ways in which our personality terminology, like the 01:15:23.000 --> 01:15:28.120 words that we use to describe people, which is what like our personality scales are 01:15:28.120 --> 01:15:34.070 ultimately tapping into, they're gonna map onto those things in non obvious ways. 01:15:34.230 --> 01:15:38.550 Uh so that's kind of why I view this as exploratory, even though I think it's fundamentally 01:15:38.550 --> 01:15:40.150 rooted in in theory. 01:15:40.870 --> 01:15:46.790 Um and yeah, basically, like what we found is people who are better at or at least 01:15:46.790 --> 01:15:52.710 have a closer assessment of the impact, status impacts to what other people say tend 01:15:52.870 --> 01:15:55.830 to be themselves like more motivated to get status. 01:15:55.910 --> 01:15:57.190 They're more status driven. 01:15:57.350 --> 01:16:00.880 And of course you can imagine different like causal structures at play here. 01:16:00.960 --> 01:16:05.920 Like it could be somewhere in your head there's a a motivational there, there's a 01:16:05.920 --> 01:16:11.840 motivation somehow representing how much you pay attention to status cr status 01:16:11.840 --> 01:16:12.480 information. 01:16:12.720 --> 01:16:17.040 And because you pay attention to more status information, that leads to more accurate 01:16:17.040 --> 01:16:17.920 estimates. 01:16:18.320 --> 01:16:20.720 And then that's why they're correlated. 01:16:21.230 --> 01:16:26.830 Or it could be maybe there's some other reasons why some people's status impact assessment 01:16:26.830 --> 01:16:28.830 systems or whatever are more accurate. 01:16:29.070 --> 01:16:32.750 And then as you're going through life, you know, you're getting feedback. 01:16:32.910 --> 01:16:36.670 Like if you have a really accurate one, you're probably going to be rewarded more often 01:16:36.670 --> 01:16:37.310 with status. 01:16:37.390 --> 01:16:43.320 And so it kind of feeds this motivation for status, versus if you're 01:16:43.320 --> 01:16:46.360 inaccurate a lot of times, maybe you don't get that feedback. 01:16:46.440 --> 01:16:49.960 And so you you actually learn that maybe status seeking is not a good strategy for me. 01:16:50.120 --> 01:16:52.200 So you kind of don't have that motivation as strong. 01:16:52.440 --> 01:16:54.920 So and it could be both or you know, whatever. 01:16:55.000 --> 01:16:58.600 But I think there's multiple causal pathways that could lead to that. 01:16:58.840 --> 01:16:59.960 Um yeah. 01:17:00.200 --> 01:17:03.400 And then I was just gonna ask a clarifying question. 01:17:03.480 --> 01:17:06.760 How did you measure uh accuracy of assessment? 01:17:07.170 --> 01:17:07.410 Yeah. 01:17:07.490 --> 01:17:13.410 So basically we have like these lists of acts, characteristics, and events, like 240, 01:17:13.490 --> 01:17:16.210 whatever things that you could do or somebody else could do. 01:17:16.530 --> 01:17:21.970 And you know, in this in this research, we're basically asking like a large group of people 01:17:22.130 --> 01:17:27.170 if somebody did this thing, would this increase or decrease their status in your eyes? 01:17:27.330 --> 01:17:32.370 Or sometimes it's in the eyes of others in your community, whatever the exact prompt is. 01:17:32.720 --> 01:17:36.640 So we use that or I use that as like the kind of criterion. 01:17:36.800 --> 01:17:40.160 So that's like as close to the ground truth as I think I'm going to get. 01:17:40.240 --> 01:17:42.640 And there's all kinds of issues with that, of course. 01:17:42.720 --> 01:17:44.960 Uh, but it's a way of estimating kind of the ground truth. 01:17:45.040 --> 01:17:48.480 What's the average status impact across different groups, let's say. 01:17:48.720 --> 01:17:52.480 And then I ask another group of people who are like the main subjects. 01:17:52.720 --> 01:17:55.210 They go in and I give them the same things. 01:17:55.290 --> 01:17:59.210 And I say, like, if this were if you did this thing or it happened to you, like what do you 01:17:59.210 --> 01:18:01.050 think would happen to your status? 01:18:01.530 --> 01:18:07.290 And then you can basically, like, in a sense, get a sense of like what is the 01:18:07.290 --> 01:18:10.730 difference between the criteria and each person's estimate. 01:18:10.970 --> 01:18:12.970 And you can get a couple of different parameters. 01:18:13.050 --> 01:18:18.040 Like, one is do they tend to overestimate how beneficial things are? 01:18:18.520 --> 01:18:21.160 Do they tend to underestimate how beneficial things are? 01:18:21.320 --> 01:18:22.600 That's one parameter. 01:18:22.840 --> 01:18:25.000 Kind of like, yeah, a continuum. 01:18:25.160 --> 01:18:29.240 And then the another parameter is like, do they have the rank ordering right? 01:18:29.320 --> 01:18:34.280 Like how well correlated is their estimate of the world with the, you know, the objective 01:18:34.280 --> 01:18:35.240 criterion. 01:18:35.990 --> 01:18:41.430 And so with those two, you can kind of treat them as different parameters that index like 01:18:41.430 --> 01:18:42.790 the accuracy of the system. 01:18:42.870 --> 01:18:45.590 Or that's how I've been treating these parameters anyway. 01:18:45.750 --> 01:18:50.870 So you could be like have a really good rank ordering of things, a good correlation between 01:18:50.870 --> 01:18:54.870 what you think and what most people think, but you just tend to think that things tend to 01:18:54.870 --> 01:18:59.400 be better than average, or you could tend to think that they're worse. 01:18:59.560 --> 01:19:05.000 Or you could have just like a you know, almost like messed up rank ordering of what things 01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:05.320 are better. 01:19:05.400 --> 01:19:11.000 You think this is like, you know, being good at basketball is better than being good at uh 01:19:11.640 --> 01:19:12.440 something else. 01:19:12.760 --> 01:19:16.280 I have no examples, but yeah, it could be totally flipped or whatever. 01:19:16.570 --> 01:19:22.410 And so basically I find that people who are have a better like rank ordering, a more true 01:19:22.410 --> 01:19:26.810 rank ordering or a rank ordering that corresponds more to other like the average rank 01:19:26.810 --> 01:19:30.890 ordering of people tend to have higher motivations for status. 01:19:31.130 --> 01:19:35.210 And they also tend to think that things are better for status than they are. 01:19:35.770 --> 01:19:38.810 So they overestimate the status benefits of of acts. 01:19:39.450 --> 01:19:43.370 But it's still but the relative rank ordering about like which things are better than other 01:19:43.370 --> 01:19:44.730 things, they're still good at. 01:19:45.640 --> 01:19:48.600 So it's like in a way, it's like they're not inaccurate. 01:19:48.680 --> 01:19:52.600 They just kind of think like everything just seems better to them, you know? 01:19:52.920 --> 01:19:53.480 Hmm. 01:19:53.880 --> 01:19:54.200 Interesting. 01:19:54.280 --> 01:19:56.760 And how are you how you're measuring status motivations? 01:19:57.160 --> 01:20:00.760 That one's just like the standard kind of I used a couple different self-report scales. 01:20:01.000 --> 01:20:06.920 Like there's uh Kenrick has one in the fundamental uh motives, and then 01:20:06.920 --> 01:20:11.000 there's another one, I forget the the author, but they're like the standard kind of like 01:20:11.270 --> 01:20:15.510 self-report, personality type uh motivation questions. 01:20:16.150 --> 01:20:16.630 Interesting. 01:20:17.030 --> 01:20:22.950 Because if if I recall, it seems uh I think that status motivation, 01:20:23.030 --> 01:20:28.230 depending on how you measure it, is correlated with like dark triad traits like narcissism, 01:20:28.390 --> 01:20:31.590 manipulativeness, um, psychopathy. 01:20:31.910 --> 01:20:33.830 Um, is that correct? 01:20:34.480 --> 01:20:36.320 It probably depends on on how you measure it. 01:20:36.400 --> 01:20:39.680 I don't remember off the top of my head what the correl because I do have like honesty 01:20:39.840 --> 01:20:41.840 humility in the in this study. 01:20:42.320 --> 01:20:45.120 I don't remember exactly what the correlation was. 01:20:45.520 --> 01:20:46.480 But it yeah. 01:20:46.640 --> 01:20:51.120 It probably depends on exactly the wording of like what goes into those status motivation 01:20:51.120 --> 01:20:51.520 questionnaires. 01:20:51.760 --> 01:20:55.600 Is it like I want to be better than other people, I want to be superior, I like to be in 01:20:55.600 --> 01:20:56.080 charge. 01:20:56.320 --> 01:21:01.070 Or is it like I want others to value me and like you know, uh that kind of stuff. 01:21:01.470 --> 01:21:06.510 So because because yeah, like I do have the honesty humility scale, and that was another 01:21:06.510 --> 01:21:12.350 finding from that basically that study is that people who are low on honest 01:21:12.510 --> 01:21:17.870 humility, meaning like people who probably it that would correlate with the dark triad. 01:21:18.030 --> 01:21:21.390 If you're low on honesty humility, you'd be higher on dark triad traits because they're 01:21:21.470 --> 01:21:23.390 like, you know, super highly correlated. 01:21:23.790 --> 01:21:29.580 Um, they actually tended to be like less accurate in the rank ordering of things. 01:21:29.820 --> 01:21:34.460 So they tended to think that things mattered more for status than they actually did, but 01:21:34.460 --> 01:21:39.500 they were less accurate about what those things were exactly. 01:21:39.820 --> 01:21:44.540 So you know, the story that I can kind of think about in my head or my way of interpret 01:21:44.780 --> 01:21:49.900 interpreting this is like, you know, your motive, you you think things are better for 01:21:49.900 --> 01:21:55.170 status than they are, and the things that you think are better for status are are actually 01:21:55.170 --> 01:21:56.530 not better than some other things. 01:21:56.610 --> 01:22:02.610 So maybe things like trying to be assertive or uh trying to be trying to always 01:22:02.610 --> 01:22:06.450 get your way or show that you're better than other people, like you might think that those 01:22:06.450 --> 01:22:09.330 are good, but they're most people think that they're not good. 01:22:09.490 --> 01:22:14.050 And so you do behaviors that other people interpret as being like 01:22:14.050 --> 01:22:19.890 Machiavellian or you know not humble, you know, and 01:22:19.890 --> 01:22:25.300 that filters into your your story of what your personality is. 01:22:25.860 --> 01:22:26.420 Basically. 01:22:26.980 --> 01:22:31.780 So it suggests that assholes might be just bad at status seeking. 01:22:31.860 --> 01:22:34.500 They might not realize that being an asshole is low status. 01:22:35.700 --> 01:22:40.580 Yeah, I think some I think that might be some of what of what's going on here and we have 01:22:40.580 --> 01:22:46.020 an another study not looking at status things, but I think assholes, people, people that 01:22:46.020 --> 01:22:49.470 either other people think of assholes and then might think of themselves as assholes 01:22:49.550 --> 01:22:54.510 because other people think of them as assholes, like they might just be less accurate at 01:22:55.310 --> 01:23:01.230 estimating these important social things uh that go factor into these decisions and 01:23:01.230 --> 01:23:06.670 behaviors and things people say, and that influences that how people how much people think 01:23:06.670 --> 01:23:07.950 they're an asshole, you know? 01:23:08.110 --> 01:23:13.080 Uh to to defend assholes, which I don't want to do, but just from a purely scientific 01:23:13.080 --> 01:23:16.520 perspective, it's sort of, I think there could be an argument that it's sort of similar to 01:23:16.520 --> 01:23:21.880 like being a criminal, which is sort of if you ask people like, would it be good to like 01:23:21.880 --> 01:23:22.520 rob somebody? 01:23:22.680 --> 01:23:24.040 Everyone would be like, That's terrible. 01:23:24.280 --> 01:23:25.000 Don't do it. 01:23:25.240 --> 01:23:30.200 But the the problem is you get the benefit from doing it to one person, you know. 01:23:30.360 --> 01:23:36.290 So like it might be a thing of uh somebody is like I think a thing is very common 01:23:36.530 --> 01:23:42.130 is women who sort of seem vulnerable, and like some asshole dude is like really 01:23:42.210 --> 01:23:44.610 manipulative or controlling of her. 01:23:45.250 --> 01:23:50.930 Most people would say that that's a bad thing, but the benefits that 01:23:50.930 --> 01:23:56.680 guy's getting are sort of flowing through her, and is he's sort of protecting himself from 01:23:56.680 --> 01:23:58.360 like the the rest of the social world. 01:23:58.520 --> 01:24:04.200 So, in other words, like he's he's in he's a strategy getting a benefit from 01:24:04.440 --> 01:24:10.440 one particular person, even though most people would argue what he's doing is wrong. 01:24:10.520 --> 01:24:16.280 And that's where like the crime metaphor comes in, where it's sort of like the costs aren't 01:24:16.280 --> 01:24:17.800 always what everybody thinks. 01:24:17.960 --> 01:24:22.840 It might just be you're this this asshole is still getting a benefit because the way that 01:24:22.840 --> 01:24:26.610 they can exploit a small subset of the population. 01:24:27.490 --> 01:24:32.050 Or like in their group like their group of people, their peers, like the status game 01:24:32.050 --> 01:24:37.170 they're playing is actually that like you have maybe it is like you need to control, you 01:24:37.170 --> 01:24:39.570 know, your spouse or whatever, or it is that you need to control it. 01:24:39.730 --> 01:24:43.170 You're just you're uh you're things to be cool, you know, that's it. 01:24:43.490 --> 01:24:48.960 You're in some sort of um uh um you know, I don't know, what what are these uh 01:24:48.960 --> 01:24:53.200 pickup artists, you know, or like your that's your that's your status community, right? 01:24:53.360 --> 01:24:55.120 And so you're just that's what you're doing. 01:24:55.200 --> 01:24:55.600 Yeah. 01:24:56.000 --> 01:24:56.240 Yeah. 01:24:56.400 --> 01:25:00.560 And that's where I think my like the way I've empirically tried to do this anyway, it 01:25:00.560 --> 01:25:05.600 breaks down because it really I think we need to be at the level of like individual groups. 01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:06.000 Right. 01:25:06.240 --> 01:25:10.480 And the people in those groups and define the status criteria within those groups because a 01:25:10.480 --> 01:25:15.930 lot of what my work might be capturing is just deviations from like the average, 01:25:16.090 --> 01:25:17.450 whatever the average group is. 01:25:17.530 --> 01:25:22.490 So it's kind of not the exact comparison I want to be making, you know, but just trying to 01:25:22.490 --> 01:25:25.210 delineate like how how do what do I model this? 01:25:25.370 --> 01:25:29.370 Because that's kind of where I'm trying to see my work or where I see my work heading is 01:25:31.450 --> 01:25:36.570 with individual differences, trying to like model the actual parameters within these 01:25:36.570 --> 01:25:38.250 psychological mechanisms. 01:25:38.540 --> 01:25:44.540 and you like getting an estimate, for example, of like uh how well is your 01:25:44.540 --> 01:25:50.140 situation detector for devaluation functioning? 01:25:51.180 --> 01:25:54.300 And then, you know, what is your set point for devaluation? 01:25:54.380 --> 01:25:58.060 What's your threshold for how much you'll tolerate be being devaluated? 01:25:58.220 --> 01:26:03.810 And then, like, what behaviors do you view as being having high utility for 01:26:03.810 --> 01:26:06.530 solving the problem of being devaluated? 01:26:06.690 --> 01:26:10.930 Like all of that within the shame s shame system, those could be different parameters. 01:26:11.570 --> 01:26:17.090 And I want to be able to measure those parameters somehow and then link them to the these 01:26:17.090 --> 01:26:23.090 traditional lexical concepts in personality to try and give us an explanatory account 01:26:23.090 --> 01:26:28.920 of what these lexical descriptive uh dimensions are, like the big five and 01:26:29.080 --> 01:26:29.960 hexaco. 01:26:30.920 --> 01:26:35.400 So, so to get so personality, because we're we're starting in on this, but I want to just 01:26:35.400 --> 01:26:37.000 make sure it's clear for everybody. 01:26:37.240 --> 01:26:43.240 So, one idea is that in a world where there are no differences between people, 01:26:43.480 --> 01:26:48.760 there's sort of just state-dependent paths where you just happen to be exposed to comic 01:26:48.760 --> 01:26:54.550 books, and David gets exposed to jokes and I get exposed to bike riding and 01:26:54.870 --> 01:27:00.870 we um we just start down the path of maybe this is a status 01:27:00.870 --> 01:27:06.310 game we'd like to pursue and the mystery of 01:27:06.630 --> 01:27:11.990 personality is why are there stable differences or correlated differences 01:27:12.310 --> 01:27:14.230 among individuals? 01:27:14.710 --> 01:27:19.780 And I guess the idea is that at some level that's driven by 01:27:20.580 --> 01:27:25.860 a commitment to a particular strategy and an assessment of the cost of switching? 01:27:25.940 --> 01:27:31.540 So, for example, if you're down the path of comic books or bicycles or telling 01:27:31.540 --> 01:27:36.420 jokes, every moment you spend investing in that, 01:27:37.110 --> 01:27:42.870 there's more of a switch cost and an opportunity cost to switch to the next thing all SQL. 01:27:42.950 --> 01:27:48.710 So even on a world where there's no differences or proclivities, just by simply being 01:27:48.710 --> 01:27:53.670 exposed to like one kind of status game versus another, you might get just by virtue of 01:27:53.670 --> 01:27:58.230 this evolved design of calculating what are the switch costs, you might start to get stable 01:27:58.230 --> 01:27:58.710 differences. 01:27:58.870 --> 01:28:03.460 But then in addition to that, and what I just said is oversimplified, you get this extra 01:28:03.460 --> 01:28:09.220 thing of there's an assessment of is this body envelope good at riding 01:28:09.220 --> 01:28:11.700 bikes versus telling jokes versus comic books? 01:28:11.780 --> 01:28:14.100 I mean, it's a dumb example, but you get the idea. 01:28:14.340 --> 01:28:20.020 And then that kind of somehow you sort of feel out 01:28:20.500 --> 01:28:26.020 how am I doing if I invest five units of effort in each three of these things, how many, 01:28:26.180 --> 01:28:30.230 how many cues of success or status do I get? 01:28:30.390 --> 01:28:32.630 And maybe that also affects things. 01:28:32.870 --> 01:28:34.550 So is that the way you're thinking about it? 01:28:34.710 --> 01:28:40.390 Is that really what personality is or the stable differences 01:28:40.390 --> 01:28:41.030 between people? 01:28:41.190 --> 01:28:44.950 And we haven't talked about like the personality types yet, because we can talk about that 01:28:44.950 --> 01:28:45.430 in a second. 01:28:45.510 --> 01:28:51.460 But is this the idea that there's sort of an underlying sort of contingency rules in human 01:28:51.460 --> 01:28:56.900 beings and that leads them to invest in certain activities or 01:28:57.220 --> 01:28:58.500 have certain goals. 01:28:58.580 --> 01:29:02.420 And that is in a weird way that's part of personality. 01:29:02.580 --> 01:29:03.940 Is that the claim? 01:29:04.500 --> 01:29:07.780 Yeah, I think that's part of the part of the claim anyway. 01:29:08.340 --> 01:29:14.190 But really like I think mm the claim that I'm making, and I I think the like people that 01:29:14.190 --> 01:29:19.470 I've worked with on this also would agree with this is any any psychological system that 01:29:19.470 --> 01:29:25.230 we're talking about, whether it's shame or you know the status impact estimation system 01:29:25.470 --> 01:29:31.470 or your plant learning systems, um all of these things, you know, if 01:29:31.470 --> 01:29:37.240 we think about them like bits of code, they have more or less maybe some separable pieces. 01:29:37.400 --> 01:29:41.960 So like I like I've been thinking a lot about emotions for this because I like how there's 01:29:41.960 --> 01:29:43.080 these different pieces. 01:29:43.240 --> 01:29:48.440 And in particular, I like this like cybernetic view, which is slightly different from like 01:29:48.440 --> 01:29:53.720 the typical view, but or the way we frame things typically in the evolutionary 01:29:53.720 --> 01:29:54.840 psychological sciences. 01:29:55.000 --> 01:29:56.040 But I don't think it's at odds. 01:29:56.120 --> 01:29:59.160 I think it's just like maybe a helpful analogy for this example. 01:29:59.400 --> 01:30:02.360 So like imagine just a thermostat, right? 01:30:02.510 --> 01:30:07.390 So a thermostat in a house, it has a few different components to it that allows it to do 01:30:07.390 --> 01:30:07.950 its job. 01:30:08.190 --> 01:30:14.110 Like one of those components is a uh like basically a temperature detector, like a 01:30:14.110 --> 01:30:15.310 thermometer or whatever. 01:30:15.390 --> 01:30:18.270 And that allows it to detect the ambient temperature. 01:30:18.590 --> 01:30:24.030 And then there's also a set point, which is like the internal setting of like what the 01:30:24.030 --> 01:30:27.470 temperature should be set by the user or whatever. 01:30:27.960 --> 01:30:33.560 And basically the job of this comparator is to try using the ambient temperature index 01:30:33.960 --> 01:30:36.520 to determine is that above or below it, right? 01:30:36.760 --> 01:30:42.120 And then depending on whether it's above or below it, it will turn on uh like the air 01:30:42.120 --> 01:30:42.600 conditioning. 01:30:42.680 --> 01:30:46.280 It will do some kind of output or they call it a control element. 01:30:47.080 --> 01:30:51.480 And so if the temperature is higher than it ought to be, higher than the set point, then 01:30:51.480 --> 01:30:56.350 you turn on the control element and it should blow the cold air, not the hot air. 01:30:56.510 --> 01:30:58.750 But if it's lower, it should blow the hot air, right? 01:30:59.070 --> 01:31:04.990 So that's the way, like the species typical thermometer, that's the way it works. 01:31:05.470 --> 01:31:11.470 But I think in the in the biological world, probably even in like the like machine-made 01:31:11.470 --> 01:31:14.750 world, there are problems that can creep into any point of those systems. 01:31:14.990 --> 01:31:20.020 Your ambient temperature detectant thing could be inaccurate. 01:31:20.180 --> 01:31:24.740 It could think it's two degrees hotter than it is always, or it could just be like kind of 01:31:24.740 --> 01:31:27.220 like randomly, unreliably wrong. 01:31:27.460 --> 01:31:31.460 And that, whatever that is, it's going to feed to the comparator. 01:31:31.620 --> 01:31:34.980 And the comparator could also be different from thermostat to thermostat. 01:31:35.140 --> 01:31:39.620 Some might have the desired temperature 78, some is 76, so on. 01:31:40.070 --> 01:31:45.110 And so both of those things, if they're different, which they could, you know, be different 01:31:45.110 --> 01:31:49.510 in different combinations across different thermostats or across different people, they're 01:31:49.510 --> 01:31:53.910 going to lead to different behaviors in the thermostat, whereby like some thermostats 01:31:53.990 --> 01:31:56.150 you're going to be like, why is that thermostat going on all the time? 01:31:56.310 --> 01:31:58.870 Or why does it never go on at the times we need it to? 01:31:59.030 --> 01:32:03.910 Um, and you might be make some judgments or describe that thermostat in different ways, or 01:32:03.910 --> 01:32:07.430 just be like, I don't know, my house is too hot, or my house is too cold, or it's never the 01:32:07.430 --> 01:32:08.870 right temperature, or whatever. 01:32:09.140 --> 01:32:13.780 And I think that those folk judgments of like my thermostat isn't working correctly, or 01:32:13.780 --> 01:32:15.780 it's like always too hot or too cold. 01:32:15.940 --> 01:32:20.580 It those that's kind of like personality, the concepts of personality that we have. 01:32:20.900 --> 01:32:26.420 And then really, like I think if the if personality was a thing, like a real thing, 01:32:26.820 --> 01:32:32.340 at the functional level, it would be the differences in those set in those 01:32:32.340 --> 01:32:34.180 components of the system. 01:32:35.070 --> 01:32:39.710 And so I think for things like emotions, for example, using that thermostat example, like 01:32:39.870 --> 01:32:45.070 you have situation detectors that are looking for and integrating cues of adaptive 01:32:45.070 --> 01:32:45.470 problems. 01:32:45.550 --> 01:32:48.670 Like what's the probability that I'm being devalued right now? 01:32:48.990 --> 01:32:54.430 That feeds to some comparator, like a set point of like what is an acceptable amount of 01:32:54.430 --> 01:32:55.070 devaluation. 01:32:55.150 --> 01:33:00.190 Like maybe for most people that's zero, but there could be some fluctuation in there due to 01:33:00.190 --> 01:33:02.670 genetic noise or who knows what, you know. 01:33:02.910 --> 01:33:08.800 And then that's gonna turn on the control elements that do stuff to fix the 01:33:08.800 --> 01:33:10.160 devaluation, right? 01:33:10.640 --> 01:33:15.520 And then just to complicate that that one component a little bit more is like obviously we 01:33:15.520 --> 01:33:18.560 have more than just like turn on the hot air, turn on the cold air. 01:33:18.720 --> 01:33:23.680 You know, there's maybe there's like run away, there's lie, cover things up, 01:33:24.350 --> 01:33:26.830 fight people, like draw attention to yourself. 01:33:26.910 --> 01:33:28.110 Don't draw attention to yourself. 01:33:28.270 --> 01:33:34.270 This menu of control elements that themselves have some utility assigned 01:33:34.270 --> 01:33:39.470 to them, maybe that you've learned throughout development or have some strong priors for, 01:33:39.550 --> 01:33:40.590 or whatever. 01:33:40.830 --> 01:33:45.870 Um, and individual differences in those settings, in tandem with the individual differences 01:33:45.950 --> 01:33:50.780 in the set points and the uh the situation detecting 01:33:50.780 --> 01:33:54.460 mechanisms, like they're going to lead to differences in behavior. 01:33:54.540 --> 01:33:58.940 It might be strategic, but it could just be like there's a ton of differences out there in 01:33:58.940 --> 01:33:59.260 the world. 01:33:59.420 --> 01:34:00.540 It's maybe random. 01:34:00.700 --> 01:34:03.340 Maybe they don't even really go together that much. 01:34:03.820 --> 01:34:08.700 And it's helpful for me as somebody interacting with a bunch of other thermostats or 01:34:08.700 --> 01:34:14.130 whatever to know what these differences tend to look like and just be able to describe them 01:34:14.130 --> 01:34:19.090 to other people and make predictions about like which thermostat I want in my house or you 01:34:19.090 --> 01:34:22.930 know which person I'd want to cooperate with, or you know, who's going to be good at this 01:34:23.010 --> 01:34:23.570 or not that. 01:34:23.730 --> 01:34:27.730 And I think that's what the difference detecting you know mechanisms are trying to do is 01:34:27.730 --> 01:34:33.490 label label things about people, recognize things about people conspecifics 01:34:33.650 --> 01:34:38.450 that is good to know for decisions about who to cooperate with, who to mate with, et 01:34:38.450 --> 01:34:39.010 cetera. 01:34:39.360 --> 01:34:45.280 And because like obviously that was an oversimplified example of like how our psychological 01:34:45.280 --> 01:34:47.440 mechanisms would work using the thermostat example. 01:34:47.520 --> 01:34:52.320 But like already, that's a lot to try and track for I I would think for a brain. 01:34:52.400 --> 01:34:57.600 So like if you just have some summary variable that's like this thermostat is often wrong 01:34:57.600 --> 01:35:02.720 in this way, that could be enough to let you f make these decisions without having to know 01:35:02.720 --> 01:35:06.000 exactly like where in that system things are wrong. 01:35:08.830 --> 01:35:12.030 So so what is a uh a niche? 01:35:12.350 --> 01:35:18.350 What is niche diversity and how do niches contribute to personality 01:35:18.350 --> 01:35:18.990 variation? 01:35:19.550 --> 01:35:20.190 Yeah. 01:35:21.150 --> 01:35:25.230 Um well defining a niche is I think harder than I I gave it credit for. 01:35:25.390 --> 01:35:27.390 And this isn't my work, I I would say. 01:35:27.470 --> 01:35:33.280 Like this is, you know, uh Aaron Lukachewski, Mike Gervin, and and and 01:35:33.280 --> 01:35:36.720 Chris von Ruden push who pushed this stuff forward. 01:35:36.800 --> 01:35:40.160 I just came along as a grad student and was like, look, I found this data, like, let's do 01:35:40.160 --> 01:35:40.880 it again. 01:35:41.120 --> 01:35:46.880 Uh and I do think that this work needs to be pushed on still quite a bit, but I guess the 01:35:46.880 --> 01:35:52.850 definition of a niche is like some segment of the social world that that 01:35:52.930 --> 01:35:56.450 that you're living in, that you make your living in. 01:35:56.690 --> 01:36:00.610 And it's the way in which you make your living within the within the social world. 01:36:00.930 --> 01:36:06.770 So like some birds they look for seeds on the ground, some dig for worms, some burrow 01:36:06.770 --> 01:36:07.250 into trees. 01:36:07.330 --> 01:36:08.450 Like those are different niches. 01:36:08.850 --> 01:36:13.820 They have different affordances and different things that would be useful for doing well in 01:36:13.820 --> 01:36:16.060 that niche versus not doing well. 01:36:16.380 --> 01:36:21.580 They basically evoke different kinds of behaviors depending on what niche you're in. 01:36:22.140 --> 01:36:27.260 And because of that, they're going to lead to different traits being prominent in some 01:36:27.260 --> 01:36:28.780 niches versus others. 01:36:29.820 --> 01:36:35.740 So if you know, if you're in a world, let's say you're a bouncer at a club, like what are 01:36:35.740 --> 01:36:41.210 some traits that you think would be helpful for you to do your job to make money there? 01:36:41.930 --> 01:36:42.570 Yeah. 01:36:43.370 --> 01:36:47.770 It'd be like, I don't know, maybe being a little disagreeable, being strong and scary. 01:36:48.010 --> 01:36:48.410 Yeah. 01:36:48.650 --> 01:36:53.770 You know, being good with people, maybe, or versus a banker, like maybe you just have to be 01:36:53.770 --> 01:36:59.210 really detail oriented or not get bored very easily or something like that, you know? 01:36:59.370 --> 01:37:04.140 And so they're of course different people select into these things too, but then you're 01:37:04.140 --> 01:37:07.580 still rewarded differently in these different niches for different behaviors. 01:37:07.820 --> 01:37:07.980 Right. 01:37:08.140 --> 01:37:13.020 And so the the argument is that this, depending on the niches people go into, especially if 01:37:13.020 --> 01:37:18.220 people were to sort randomly into niches, then once you go into a niche, you get pulled in 01:37:18.220 --> 01:37:19.500 these different directions. 01:37:19.740 --> 01:37:24.940 So like before I became an academic, maybe I didn't think all that deeply or spend all that 01:37:24.940 --> 01:37:28.700 much time reading, you know, of two kind of academic papers. 01:37:28.860 --> 01:37:31.870 But now then once I went into that niche, then I spent more time doing that. 01:37:31.950 --> 01:37:36.670 So it changed my behaviors, it changed my thoughts, how I feel about doing these things. 01:37:37.150 --> 01:37:40.270 And so that kind of pulls people's traits in different directions. 01:37:41.790 --> 01:37:46.670 So at like a simple kind of level, descriptive level, like that's what we would expect to 01:37:46.670 --> 01:37:50.430 happen if people respond to the incentives of niches, which I think is kind of 01:37:50.430 --> 01:37:53.150 uncontroversial that people respond to incentives. 01:37:54.900 --> 01:38:00.900 And the the cool insight of of that work uh is that just with that 01:38:00.900 --> 01:38:06.740 simple process happening across different populations, if 01:38:06.740 --> 01:38:12.020 populations have more niches that are more unique, more different from one another, 01:38:13.620 --> 01:38:18.290 then you're gonna get more types of people, basically is is the take the takeaway that 01:38:18.290 --> 01:38:22.690 you're gonna get more personality dimensions, more different combinations of traits that go 01:38:22.690 --> 01:38:24.930 together in more different ways. 01:38:25.330 --> 01:38:30.930 And you know, there's simulations backing that up by Paul Smaldino, um, and then a couple 01:38:31.090 --> 01:38:35.730 empirical studies like at the country level, kind of giving some support for uh 01:38:35.810 --> 01:38:41.720 correlations that you would expect to find if these processes were actually 01:38:41.720 --> 01:38:44.440 operating on human personality. 01:38:44.840 --> 01:38:50.760 And so the takeaway from this is that like these dominant personality models, like the big 01:38:50.760 --> 01:38:55.560 five hexco, these kind of low-dimensional models of personality, like they're not 01:38:55.560 --> 01:38:58.920 necessarily going to be human nature. 01:38:59.080 --> 01:39:02.040 Like they're not the human personality structure. 01:39:02.120 --> 01:39:07.410 They're an emergent phenomenon that comes out of the way the human psychology were, where 01:39:07.410 --> 01:39:10.770 even if it was so simple, all it does is respond to incentives. 01:39:11.890 --> 01:39:15.330 That interacting with environments, different environments will produce different 01:39:15.330 --> 01:39:20.130 combinations of traits, which then look like more or less personality dimensions, depending 01:39:20.130 --> 01:39:22.530 on how many different niches there are. 01:39:22.850 --> 01:39:27.090 And so it's kind of pushing back against like the dominant view in psychology, which has 01:39:27.090 --> 01:39:32.290 become the dominant view since like the 80s, that the big five is what is what it is. 01:39:32.370 --> 01:39:36.610 Like that is human personality, and it's the same more or less everywhere. 01:39:37.080 --> 01:39:39.080 and that somehow it's in us. 01:39:39.240 --> 01:39:44.040 Like Costa McCray, like the biggest proponents of the five-factor model of personality. 01:39:44.200 --> 01:39:48.760 Like, I don't think it's uncharitable to say that they literally think there are like basic 01:39:48.760 --> 01:39:53.240 biological dimensions that correspond to extroversion and neuroticism and conscientiousness 01:39:53.320 --> 01:39:55.160 and openness and agreeableness. 01:39:55.400 --> 01:40:00.810 Um, whereas this view says, no, there's nothing resembling the big five in our 01:40:00.810 --> 01:40:01.770 biology. 01:40:02.010 --> 01:40:07.850 There's a whole bunch of little machines doing different tasks to solve different adaptive 01:40:08.090 --> 01:40:08.730 problems. 01:40:09.290 --> 01:40:11.210 And we should figure out what those things are. 01:40:11.450 --> 01:40:16.250 But but they might produce patterns of behavior that look like the big five, and we need to 01:40:16.250 --> 01:40:17.450 figure out maybe why. 01:40:17.610 --> 01:40:19.370 Why did that why does that get produced? 01:40:19.450 --> 01:40:22.410 You know, part of the story might be this niche thing. 01:40:22.730 --> 01:40:23.930 Uh, but that's interesting. 01:40:24.300 --> 01:40:25.180 might be another story. 01:40:25.260 --> 01:40:31.260 Like I should point out, like uh Matt Zefferman, he has been doing some simulations related 01:40:31.260 --> 01:40:37.020 to this niche, uh kind of contradicting this uh niche diversity 01:40:37.020 --> 01:40:42.060 viewpoint, highly highlighting that some of what we find, or maybe even entirely what we 01:40:42.060 --> 01:40:47.980 find, could itself be a a measurement artifact of the of the problem with exporting, you 01:40:47.980 --> 01:40:53.510 know, these personality inventories developed for a particular population, like 01:40:53.670 --> 01:40:59.350 in you know, US, European populations, to other places, you 01:40:59.430 --> 01:41:04.470 you're artificially like deflating the amount of uh personality variation that you see in 01:41:04.470 --> 01:41:05.030 these places. 01:41:05.110 --> 01:41:09.270 So that's totally uh I I looking at a simulation is like I think it's a convincing, 01:41:09.510 --> 01:41:10.550 convincing argument. 01:41:10.710 --> 01:41:13.190 And it's something we need to do a lot more work to tease apart. 01:41:13.270 --> 01:41:17.590 But I think the strength of the the niche diversity hypothesis and I mean Masswork is like 01:41:17.750 --> 01:41:20.710 personality structure probably doesn't look exactly the same everywhere. 01:41:20.920 --> 01:41:25.880 And there's no reason to expect that it should, because different minds will interact 01:41:25.880 --> 01:41:30.200 differently, or even a universal the universal human mind interacting with different 01:41:30.200 --> 01:41:33.880 environmental contexts and cultural contexts will produce different patterns of 01:41:33.880 --> 01:41:39.800 covariation, which is what defines personality structure currently 01:41:39.800 --> 01:41:41.560 in personality science. 01:41:41.800 --> 01:41:43.410 Like this is a whole different discussion. 01:41:43.570 --> 01:41:47.650 Like that probably shouldn't be how we define personality structure, maybe. 01:41:47.730 --> 01:41:53.170 If we're looking for some like something more like deep part of human nature, we shouldn't 01:41:53.170 --> 01:41:57.890 be relying on like how do things tend to covary and how do we describe those covariations 01:41:57.970 --> 01:42:00.130 with our adjectives out there in the world. 01:42:00.370 --> 01:42:04.900 Maybe we should be thinking more about like what is the the design of the human mind? 01:42:05.060 --> 01:42:06.180 What parameters are in there? 01:42:06.340 --> 01:42:11.540 What parameters might have correlations among them or have causal dependencies on one 01:42:11.540 --> 01:42:17.060 another that creates these different patterns of covariation that we see out there 01:42:17.300 --> 01:42:20.340 at the level of observable behavior? 01:42:23.060 --> 01:42:24.020 Very cool stuff. 01:42:25.050 --> 01:42:30.410 Yeah, I mean it suggests to me that we're too quick to reify 01:42:30.410 --> 01:42:36.170 personality dis uh differences that um exist in our particular cultural 01:42:36.170 --> 01:42:42.170 context but need not exist in the same way that if we were to go into a a jungle 01:42:42.170 --> 01:42:47.290 and try to map the the variation in turn and in subsistence strategies of all the different 01:42:47.290 --> 01:42:52.940 animals in that jungle, and maybe we have a nocturnal diurnal dimension or like specializes 01:42:52.940 --> 01:42:57.020 in eating fruit versus leaves versus other versus bugs dimension. 01:42:57.180 --> 01:43:01.020 And we say this these are the only dimensions by which animals vary. 01:43:01.420 --> 01:43:06.700 Well, uh, if we go into the Arctic or into a desert, uh, our map of the variation is gonna 01:43:06.700 --> 01:43:07.420 be completely different. 01:43:07.580 --> 01:43:07.900 Right. 01:43:08.380 --> 01:43:13.740 It's not that these are uh inherent differences that all animals need to have, it depends 01:43:13.740 --> 01:43:18.460 on that particular ecology and what types of affordances are available to the different 01:43:18.550 --> 01:43:19.190 animals there. 01:43:19.350 --> 01:43:24.630 And I think the same is true of our cultural ecology, that there are different 01:43:24.630 --> 01:43:27.030 opportunities for different types of people. 01:43:27.270 --> 01:43:28.870 And that leads to covariance. 01:43:29.110 --> 01:43:34.390 So, like in an environment where I can make a lot of money as a bouncer, you know, uh 01:43:34.950 --> 01:43:40.710 physical strength and toughness and uh willingness to use force, 01:43:40.870 --> 01:43:44.560 like those things are going to intercorrelate on a questionnaire. 01:43:44.800 --> 01:43:50.800 Uh, but if I'm in a place where uh uh a bouncer does not exist as an occupation, um 01:43:51.200 --> 01:43:55.280 or w you know, in a place where if I'm strong, maybe that's going to enable me to be a 01:43:55.280 --> 01:43:55.920 better hunter. 01:43:56.000 --> 01:44:01.520 And there's a norm that hunters have to share uh their meat, well then in that environment, 01:44:01.600 --> 01:44:03.920 maybe strength will correlate with generosity. 01:44:04.160 --> 01:44:04.640 Right. 01:44:04.880 --> 01:44:09.970 Uh and that's you know, uh that doesn't necessarily mean that um there's an inherent 01:44:09.970 --> 01:44:13.250 connection between strength and generosity on the one hand and strength and, you know, 01:44:13.410 --> 01:44:15.010 toughness and meanness on the other hand. 01:44:15.170 --> 01:44:20.770 This is just dependent on uh the affordances in the environment and what opportunities are 01:44:20.770 --> 01:44:23.650 available to different types of people. 01:44:24.770 --> 01:44:25.090 Yeah. 01:44:25.410 --> 01:44:29.170 I think that's a big part of the story of personality structure for sure. 01:44:29.570 --> 01:44:29.810 Yeah. 01:44:30.120 --> 01:44:34.600 I mean and it could be that the just one quick thing, like and it could be that there still 01:44:34.600 --> 01:44:38.280 is heritable variation in things like extroversion, openness, whatever. 01:44:38.680 --> 01:44:39.400 Well we know that it is. 01:44:39.640 --> 01:44:39.720 Yeah. 01:44:39.880 --> 01:44:40.040 Yeah. 01:44:41.400 --> 01:44:41.480 Yeah. 01:44:41.880 --> 01:44:42.200 Sure. 01:44:42.280 --> 01:44:43.960 And that could, you know, tip the scales. 01:44:44.040 --> 01:44:48.520 Like if I'm deciding what niche to pursue to to fill or what status game to play, like if 01:44:48.520 --> 01:44:53.750 I'm naturally a little more, say smart, maybe I'll I'll go into this particular niche. 01:44:53.830 --> 01:44:57.590 Or if I'm naturally a little more physically strong, maybe I'll go into this niche, or I'm 01:44:57.670 --> 01:45:03.110 naturally a little more extroverted and socially adept, maybe I'll go into this niche. 01:45:03.590 --> 01:45:07.590 So you'd still expect individual differences to matter and sort of pushing you into one 01:45:07.590 --> 01:45:10.710 niche or another that you might have a comparative advantage in. 01:45:11.190 --> 01:45:13.030 Um so that that still makes sense. 01:45:13.110 --> 01:45:17.430 But you know, once you enter that niche, it's going to create um a feedback loop where I 01:45:17.500 --> 01:45:23.180 continue to cultivate those traits and and that's going to cause uh different types of of 01:45:23.180 --> 01:45:23.900 covariation. 01:45:24.140 --> 01:45:28.860 So maybe in an an initial maybe initially I'm like just a tiny bit more extroverted than 01:45:28.860 --> 01:45:29.260 average. 01:45:29.340 --> 01:45:34.940 But if I go into um say uh marketing or or or uh or a field that or 01:45:34.940 --> 01:45:39.100 networking, uh that's going to increase my extroversion even more because I I've 01:45:39.100 --> 01:45:40.220 specialized in that niche. 01:45:40.300 --> 01:45:44.860 And so what began as a very tiny difference uh uh gets magnified into a much larger 01:45:44.860 --> 01:45:47.850 difference as I uh continue to invest in that niche. 01:45:48.090 --> 01:45:50.170 Um but anyway, you were gonna say something, Dave. 01:45:50.890 --> 01:45:54.170 Uh oh, Patrick, do you want to respond to that before I go on to something? 01:45:54.570 --> 01:45:58.570 No, I mean I do think like even I think the behavioral genetics research backs this up. 01:45:58.730 --> 01:46:04.570 Like a large chunk of personality variation in the population can be attributed to 01:46:04.650 --> 01:46:06.090 like truly like random. 01:46:06.330 --> 01:46:08.330 Like they don't, it's the non-shared environment. 01:46:08.410 --> 01:46:09.690 It's the gloomy paradox. 01:46:09.770 --> 01:46:10.570 We don't know what it is. 01:46:10.730 --> 01:46:12.330 It's just like randomness. 01:46:12.490 --> 01:46:12.650 Yeah. 01:46:12.890 --> 01:46:18.740 And then uh a big chunk of it is some genetic, you know, proclivities, 01:46:19.060 --> 01:46:21.940 or at least of just having genes in c in common, right? 01:46:22.100 --> 01:46:25.860 But that doesn't mean that that like there are extroversion genes or whatever, of course, 01:46:25.940 --> 01:46:26.180 right? 01:46:26.260 --> 01:46:31.380 Like the something being heritable doesn't make it or attribute to genetics doesn't make it 01:46:31.540 --> 01:46:33.060 like a a real entity. 01:46:33.460 --> 01:46:37.620 Um and then for personnel, it's like the the shared environment is super tiny. 01:46:37.700 --> 01:46:41.540 So I think a lot of it is like these small proclivities that maybe push you a little bit in 01:46:41.540 --> 01:46:47.190 one direction, And then just like the snowballing effect of like a lot of non-shared kind 01:46:47.190 --> 01:46:51.030 of things adding up over time uh as a result of that. 01:46:52.150 --> 01:46:52.550 Yeah. 01:46:52.870 --> 01:46:57.910 Do you think my question was gonna be, do you think like so with the big five, like uh uh 01:46:58.070 --> 01:47:01.190 uh extra version, you should probably go through just for audience members who don't know 01:47:01.270 --> 01:47:05.510 like what the big five or hexico things are, which you could just like list what they are. 01:47:05.750 --> 01:47:08.980 But do you is this an accident? 01:47:09.380 --> 01:47:15.300 Like in the sense of are there other um common dimensions of variation 01:47:15.620 --> 01:47:19.060 that just haven't been stumbled upon? 01:47:19.460 --> 01:47:25.220 Um or or have they been stumbled upon because they 01:47:25.540 --> 01:47:30.740 are the most reliable dimensions of variation, whether or not they correspond to like the 01:47:30.740 --> 01:47:33.860 little machines, like in the same way, like I think the computer metaphor, which like I 01:47:33.860 --> 01:47:39.010 know the Aaron, you know, so like just imagine laptops, like some laptops are heavier or 01:47:39.010 --> 01:47:41.810 lighter, some laptops are hotter or cooler. 01:47:42.050 --> 01:47:47.570 You can imagine like those that are deep dimensions of variation that are pretty orthogonal 01:47:47.570 --> 01:47:52.370 to, or like, you know, some may be faster, slower, or whatever, louder, or you know, so 01:47:52.370 --> 01:47:57.300 they're very indirectly related to the function, but they're pretty stable differences. 01:47:57.460 --> 01:48:01.700 And if you thought, well, the way that the laptop works is heaviness or lightness or 01:48:01.700 --> 01:48:03.220 fastness, you'd be wrong. 01:48:03.380 --> 01:48:03.540 Yeah. 01:48:03.780 --> 01:48:06.660 But you can see why those attributes hang together. 01:48:06.980 --> 01:48:12.900 Is that sort of um can you connect up this laptop metaphor to how you're thinking 01:48:12.900 --> 01:48:14.260 about personality? 01:48:14.420 --> 01:48:15.940 And then this, and then the related question. 01:48:16.020 --> 01:48:20.980 Sorry, this is a complicated one, is just then what is is the question of like 01:48:21.890 --> 01:48:25.170 are what's up with these big five? 01:48:25.250 --> 01:48:29.410 And are there really big twelve and we haven't found the other seven or no one bothered to 01:48:29.410 --> 01:48:29.730 look for them? 01:48:29.890 --> 01:48:30.930 Or what do you think about that? 01:48:31.170 --> 01:48:31.570 Yeah, yeah. 01:48:31.650 --> 01:48:34.690 I'll take the that question first about like where how do we get here? 01:48:34.770 --> 01:48:36.210 Are these useful? 01:48:36.690 --> 01:48:42.690 Um and I I think like okay, so the history of this stuff is right, like Gordon Alport and 01:48:42.690 --> 01:48:46.690 whoever like looked in the dictionary, got a bunch of words that people used to describe 01:48:46.690 --> 01:48:49.860 people's tendencies, and then took those words. 01:48:49.940 --> 01:48:53.940 And over decades, researchers gave these all these different adjectives and asked people 01:48:54.180 --> 01:48:57.620 how much does this describe you, or how much does it describe your best friend, or we all 01:48:57.700 --> 01:48:58.340 that stuff. 01:48:58.580 --> 01:49:00.580 So, like hundreds, thousands of words. 01:49:00.740 --> 01:49:04.180 I want to say like 4,000 or 6,000 words or something like that. 01:49:04.500 --> 01:49:08.980 All these ratings, from those ratings, they can get the correlations among all these 01:49:08.980 --> 01:49:14.260 adjectives, and they boil them down with factor analysis or principal components analysis 01:49:14.580 --> 01:49:17.060 into some lower number of dimensions. 01:49:17.590 --> 01:49:22.230 And I think the first one, yeah, let's say something like 16, but then they found some 01:49:22.230 --> 01:49:28.150 mistakes and then like literally decades of people redoing this, like all through the 50s, 01:49:28.310 --> 01:49:29.750 60s to the 80s. 01:49:29.830 --> 01:49:32.870 People were doing this and debating over personality structure. 01:49:33.110 --> 01:49:35.670 And it they kept converging as I understand it. 01:49:35.750 --> 01:49:39.990 And you can look back and see they just keep finding something like the big five, which is 01:49:40.150 --> 01:49:46.100 uh extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, neuroticism, and 01:49:46.100 --> 01:49:47.380 conscientiousness. 01:49:47.620 --> 01:49:53.460 And those describe the patterns of correlations that they that they found in those 01:49:53.460 --> 01:49:55.380 6,000 adjectives, right? 01:49:55.620 --> 01:49:59.300 So it's a useful summary of all these different ways that people vary. 01:50:00.100 --> 01:50:02.180 And I don't think that's a mistake. 01:50:03.030 --> 01:50:05.510 Although the hexaco does highlight that. 01:50:05.750 --> 01:50:11.590 Because the the hexaco, the difference there is just like in 2000 or whatever, they went 01:50:11.590 --> 01:50:12.550 back to the dictionary. 01:50:12.630 --> 01:50:13.350 They started over. 01:50:13.510 --> 01:50:17.590 And they added just some words that weren't that were excluded from like the original 01:50:17.590 --> 01:50:21.190 lexical approaches because they didn't want words that had to do with like moral valuation 01:50:21.430 --> 01:50:25.030 moral evaluations to be considered for personality. 01:50:25.270 --> 01:50:29.600 And as I understand it, you know, the hexago folks, they included those words, redid 01:50:29.600 --> 01:50:32.800 everything again, and lo and behold, they get another dimension that basically has to do 01:50:32.800 --> 01:50:33.680 with like morals. 01:50:34.160 --> 01:50:35.360 How big of an asshole you are. 01:50:36.080 --> 01:50:36.160 Yeah. 01:50:36.240 --> 01:50:37.120 So it's like, okay, yeah. 01:50:37.200 --> 01:50:39.360 So anything that we didn't include is not going to be there. 01:50:39.440 --> 01:50:44.720 If we included things like physical characteristics in that original word count, which some 01:50:44.720 --> 01:50:48.480 European personality psychologists probably would have wanted to do, or intelligence, like 01:50:48.560 --> 01:50:50.240 there's nothing about intelligence in there. 01:50:50.320 --> 01:50:52.480 Yeah, then we're missing those dimensions too. 01:50:52.910 --> 01:50:57.150 And the point is that they're as useful as they're gonna be for describing all the words 01:50:57.150 --> 01:51:01.230 that you wanted to dis that you included as being worthy of describing in the first place. 01:51:01.550 --> 01:51:01.870 I see. 01:51:02.110 --> 01:51:05.790 And coordinated, musical, funny, those aren't all left out. 01:51:06.030 --> 01:51:07.230 Yeah, they're they're not really in there. 01:51:07.310 --> 01:51:10.990 Like they've no doubt they're gonna correlate with some of the big five anyway. 01:51:11.310 --> 01:51:16.110 But but uh yeah, I think these things are it just solves it solved the problem of like 01:51:17.140 --> 01:51:20.020 uh coordination for personality psychology. 01:51:20.100 --> 01:51:22.180 What traits are we gonna coordinate about studying? 01:51:22.340 --> 01:51:26.020 Because everybody originally was like studying their own random personality traits, give 01:51:26.020 --> 01:51:27.460 them their own random names. 01:51:27.700 --> 01:51:31.700 And at least this way we have some random names that everybody agrees on, and like we're 01:51:31.700 --> 01:51:33.220 gonna study those things. 01:51:33.540 --> 01:51:39.140 And the the problem, if which there is a problem with this stuff, is I think the sleight of 01:51:39.140 --> 01:51:44.910 hand of reification, circular reasoning, which uh some people uh 01:51:45.230 --> 01:51:48.830 Simon Bogue, I think, has a really cool paper called like verbal magic. 01:51:48.990 --> 01:51:54.510 And it's this combination of circular reasoning and and reification where I think the field 01:51:54.590 --> 01:52:00.510 like to do the slide of hand, maybe completely unaware, but where it's just like 01:52:00.590 --> 01:52:06.430 these things which were originally descriptive constructs became the explanatory construct. 01:52:06.590 --> 01:52:11.740 They're the they they stand in place of like learning about what are the actual underlying 01:52:11.740 --> 01:52:12.060 mechanisms. 01:52:12.220 --> 01:52:14.620 So it's like it's it's going back to your computer analogy. 01:52:14.780 --> 01:52:18.780 It's like saying, Oh, we learned like the most important ways that computers are different 01:52:18.780 --> 01:52:24.300 from one another is that they differ in speed and functionality and size and 01:52:24.300 --> 01:52:26.060 clarity of the screen. 01:52:26.220 --> 01:52:29.420 And therefore, like I know how to make the best computer. 01:52:29.660 --> 01:52:30.700 Like I know how to do it. 01:52:30.860 --> 01:52:35.690 And then you know, you sit down and you're like, Okay, I gotta just imbue this computer 01:52:35.690 --> 01:52:37.770 with speed and all these things. 01:52:38.010 --> 01:52:39.130 But you don't actually know how to do it. 01:52:39.530 --> 01:52:40.010 Yeah, exactly. 01:52:40.490 --> 01:52:41.770 You got no idea how to do it. 01:52:41.930 --> 01:52:46.650 And if you wanted to do that, you would need to understand like mechanistically how the 01:52:46.650 --> 01:52:52.570 things on the computer contribute to these emergent qualities of speed and 01:52:52.570 --> 01:52:57.210 functionality and size and clarity of the screen and and all these things. 01:52:57.440 --> 01:52:59.920 Um, and I think that's where we're we're at right now. 01:53:00.080 --> 01:53:06.080 Like we have a like a consumer guide to personality of like what are the main things 01:53:06.080 --> 01:53:11.520 that people that humans are paying attention to and labeling about other people, at least 01:53:11.520 --> 01:53:13.040 in the Western world. 01:53:13.280 --> 01:53:17.680 Uh and then, but we don't have a good idea of like what are the underlying mechanisms 01:53:17.680 --> 01:53:23.680 driving those things, or how do those underlying mechanisms produce different 01:53:23.850 --> 01:53:27.610 dimensions that people care about in other cultural contexts. 01:53:29.690 --> 01:53:29.930 Yeah. 01:53:30.170 --> 01:53:33.930 There's also a meta science thing I've did I've noticed when I wrote the difference 01:53:33.930 --> 01:53:38.650 detecting paper, and maybe this happens in personality too, which is you also fight the 01:53:38.650 --> 01:53:39.050 data. 01:53:39.290 --> 01:53:41.130 We have data and therefore it's real. 01:53:41.290 --> 01:53:41.450 Yeah. 01:53:41.690 --> 01:53:47.290 Which is that if you have a ton of data for these personality characteristics, that 01:53:47.290 --> 01:53:53.220 magic uh inference of this is a real thing, that sort of it's not 01:53:53.220 --> 01:53:57.220 warranted in the same way you could say I have a ton of data that like some computers are 01:53:57.220 --> 01:53:58.340 faster and slower. 01:53:58.500 --> 01:54:02.340 But that doesn't warrant the claim that like faster and slower is like how the machine 01:54:02.340 --> 01:54:02.740 works. 01:54:02.900 --> 01:54:03.140 Yeah. 01:54:03.300 --> 01:54:06.900 But people use that all the time to be like, of course, we've got tons of data. 01:54:06.980 --> 01:54:09.380 Like, look, people vary on, like, we have a ton of data. 01:54:09.460 --> 01:54:11.460 Like, how can you say it's not a mechanism? 01:54:11.780 --> 01:54:12.660 Yeah, totally. 01:54:12.820 --> 01:54:18.050 And I think there's actually a paper by uh Costa and McRae called like four, I don't know 01:54:18.050 --> 01:54:21.730 if it's four ways or five ways, the big five are basic, where they're basically saying, 01:54:21.810 --> 01:54:23.970 like, this is all the evidence that these are real things. 01:54:24.130 --> 01:54:25.090 Like it's heritable. 01:54:25.170 --> 01:54:26.850 We got all this cross-cultural stuff. 01:54:27.170 --> 01:54:31.250 And like I I feel like a paper needs to be written that just goes because none of them are 01:54:31.250 --> 01:54:33.970 actually reasons to believe that those are real things. 01:54:34.130 --> 01:54:38.770 They're just convincing at an intu at like a in intuitive level, like, oh yeah, this must 01:54:38.770 --> 01:54:39.490 be like thing. 01:54:39.570 --> 01:54:43.490 You think of things are heritable, or there's lots of genetics supporting that that it's a 01:54:43.490 --> 01:54:43.890 real thing. 01:54:44.050 --> 01:54:49.120 But no, like educational attainment is is heritable, but like there isn't a educational 01:54:49.120 --> 01:54:50.480 attainment entertainment. 01:54:52.160 --> 01:54:52.320 Yeah. 01:54:52.400 --> 01:54:55.040 There's no weight is not a mechanism in a computer. 01:54:55.200 --> 01:54:58.400 Like it's just it's a weird category mistake, you know. 01:54:58.480 --> 01:55:02.320 It's just but it yeah, it's real in a different way than you mean it, and you're meaning 01:55:02.320 --> 01:55:04.720 real in a very specific way that doesn't follow. 01:55:05.040 --> 01:55:05.200 Yeah. 01:55:05.360 --> 01:55:07.040 That's actually something I kind of wanted to ask you. 01:55:07.200 --> 01:55:13.070 Like I was listening to the the podcast about free will, and um if I can, you know, 01:55:13.230 --> 01:55:16.590 briefly summarize it, which hopefully this is right. 01:55:16.910 --> 01:55:22.510 You have two like your your explanation of what free will is as a concept, 01:55:22.670 --> 01:55:28.350 anyway, is that it's a it's like the placeholder or it's a marker of things that are 01:55:28.350 --> 01:55:32.190 levers that I could pull on or could be pulled on in order to change somebody's behavior. 01:55:32.510 --> 01:55:33.790 Yeah, that's how David put it actually. 01:55:34.270 --> 01:55:34.670 Is that fair? 01:55:34.830 --> 01:55:37.550 So yeah, that's that was David's characterization, which I thought was lovely. 01:55:37.630 --> 01:55:37.710 Yeah. 01:55:37.950 --> 01:55:38.110 Yeah. 01:55:38.340 --> 01:55:38.580 Cool. 01:55:38.660 --> 01:55:38.820 Yeah. 01:55:38.900 --> 01:55:42.580 And so that got me because I was like, oh, I like, yeah, what is free will as a concept? 01:55:42.740 --> 01:55:44.340 What is like personality as a concept? 01:55:44.500 --> 01:55:45.300 Why do we have that? 01:55:45.620 --> 01:55:49.540 And kind of like I I don't know if this is right, but my intuition is like almost like the 01:55:49.540 --> 01:55:50.180 flip side of that. 01:55:50.260 --> 01:55:55.300 It's kind of like the things, if there's an equation of behavior, like free will is some of 01:55:55.300 --> 01:55:57.060 the variables that are open to be changed. 01:55:57.140 --> 01:56:00.260 You can put in a different number there, convince somebody to put a different number there. 01:56:00.420 --> 01:56:06.020 But personality as a concept, not like the individual personality dimensions, it's like a 01:56:06.130 --> 01:56:09.250 recognition of the things in there that are less able to be changed. 01:56:09.410 --> 01:56:13.090 I'm not going to say like totally unable to be changed, but it's like more like the 01:56:13.090 --> 01:56:18.130 constants in the equation or things that would take longer to to change than just like 01:56:18.130 --> 01:56:21.650 trying to, you know, change their minds, so to speak, or or whatever. 01:56:21.970 --> 01:56:22.530 That's awesome. 01:56:22.690 --> 01:56:23.170 I like that. 01:56:23.330 --> 01:56:27.890 And maybe like the I'm sure you thought like maybe then also like, you know, like uh sex 01:56:28.130 --> 01:56:30.760 morph or age morphs would also go into that, right? 01:56:30.920 --> 01:56:35.240 Where it's sort of like you're not gonna convince a baby to start walking, you know, or 01:56:35.320 --> 01:56:38.360 like, yeah, or I'm not gonna convince a grumpy person to be cheerful. 01:56:38.440 --> 01:56:39.240 That's that's awesome. 01:56:39.320 --> 01:56:39.720 I love that. 01:56:39.800 --> 01:56:40.520 That's really cool. 01:56:40.840 --> 01:56:41.080 Yeah. 01:56:41.240 --> 01:56:44.760 So I was like, yeah, I've never even thought about like what what is it, what is it as a 01:56:44.760 --> 01:56:45.080 concept? 01:56:45.160 --> 01:56:45.800 What is this even for? 01:56:45.880 --> 01:56:46.520 Yeah, why do we have to do that? 01:56:46.680 --> 01:56:50.440 Yeah, why would an evolved organism think personality exists and why would it have that 01:56:50.440 --> 01:56:51.320 intuitive entry? 01:56:51.480 --> 01:56:53.080 But that's a really uh that's awesome. 01:56:53.160 --> 01:56:56.280 That's like a really clear functional reason why it would. 01:56:57.230 --> 01:57:02.270 I love this because it's a good it's a good psychology of psychology, which it it explains 01:57:02.270 --> 01:57:08.190 why personality psychologists were less interested in uh physical variation and say 01:57:08.350 --> 01:57:10.350 variation in intelligence, right? 01:57:10.590 --> 01:57:14.670 Uh because these are physical, if I'm taller or shorter, or stronger, or weaker, or 01:57:14.670 --> 01:57:18.750 healthier, or sicker, or whatever, those aren't levers that I can really pull, right? 01:57:19.060 --> 01:57:23.220 Um and so it it's natural that when when we're thinking about personality, we're focusing 01:57:23.220 --> 01:57:26.020 on the stuff that we can't we can change, um, right? 01:57:26.180 --> 01:57:27.700 Are the the levers that we can pull. 01:57:27.780 --> 01:57:29.700 So we're not gonna be interested in in physical stuff. 01:57:29.780 --> 01:57:33.140 We're not gonna be interested in, you know, how quick witted or dim witted you are because 01:57:33.140 --> 01:57:34.660 that seems like it's harder to control. 01:57:34.820 --> 01:57:38.180 We're just gonna focus on the stuff that that or actually no, I'm am I getting it 01:57:38.180 --> 01:57:38.420 backwards? 01:57:38.900 --> 01:57:41.540 I think it's a little bit backwards, but but not completely. 01:57:41.700 --> 01:57:46.970 Like I think it's it's a marker of what things are less changeable than the levers you 01:57:46.970 --> 01:57:51.130 could pull on in like an everyday interaction to change to get you to behave differently? 01:57:51.370 --> 01:57:52.650 Or like change the incentives. 01:57:52.730 --> 01:57:58.250 Like incentives can just be changed, I think, you know, or like I could try to change a 01:57:58.250 --> 01:58:02.890 belief that you have, that would then pretty in if I can change your belief like in the 01:58:02.890 --> 01:58:04.810 moment, it will have an impact on your behavior. 01:58:05.050 --> 01:58:09.520 Whereas I think personality is a stand-in for the things that are like less able to be 01:58:09.520 --> 01:58:09.840 changed. 01:58:10.160 --> 01:58:13.920 Maybe not totally unchangeable, but just a little bit more fixed. 01:58:14.080 --> 01:58:20.080 Like for example, how accurate your thermostat detection ambient temperature is, 01:58:20.160 --> 01:58:21.200 or the the set point. 01:58:21.280 --> 01:58:23.200 Like maybe those are just a little bit harder to change. 01:58:23.280 --> 01:58:26.880 And as a human navigating the world, it's helpful to know that there are some things out 01:58:26.880 --> 01:58:28.560 there that are a little bit more fixed. 01:58:28.720 --> 01:58:33.360 And so if I'm gonna try to change somebody's behavior, it narrows the space of like what 01:58:33.360 --> 01:58:36.670 should I be trying to poke on in order to change their behavior. 01:58:36.830 --> 01:58:42.110 I should poke on the free will things, you know, not the God and then to your point, like 01:58:42.270 --> 01:58:46.270 it highlights some of this like the folk differences, the psychology of psychology. 01:58:46.510 --> 01:58:50.830 European personality psychologists included back in the day, from what I understand, 01:58:50.990 --> 01:58:56.110 intelligence was part of personality, height, physical stature, muscularity, athleticism, 01:58:56.190 --> 01:58:58.030 these are personality traits for them. 01:58:58.430 --> 01:59:02.350 It's the American school, like Gordon Alport, I think, who kind of excluded that kind of 01:59:02.350 --> 01:59:02.510 stuff. 01:59:02.670 --> 01:59:07.980 So these folk intuitions about what counts as personality is itself like 01:59:08.220 --> 01:59:13.980 baked into our concepts of personality, or or no, our science of personality and our yeah, 01:59:14.060 --> 01:59:14.700 what we count. 01:59:14.860 --> 01:59:15.900 And it's possible, yeah. 01:59:15.980 --> 01:59:21.820 Like your height is less changeable than maybe some of your anger pronenessness, but 01:59:22.380 --> 01:59:25.100 maybe weight isn't or musculature isn't, you know. 01:59:25.180 --> 01:59:25.740 So anyway. 01:59:26.470 --> 01:59:26.950 That's interesting. 01:59:27.110 --> 01:59:32.950 So i it it it then would predict that domains of human variation that we intuitively think 01:59:33.110 --> 01:59:38.790 that we can change very easily, that those domains would be less likely to be considered 01:59:38.790 --> 01:59:41.190 personality traits, quote unquote. 01:59:41.430 --> 01:59:45.830 I'm trying to think of a of a good example of something that we think can be easily 01:59:45.830 --> 01:59:46.310 changed. 01:59:46.550 --> 01:59:52.480 I don't know, like um uh your willingness 01:59:52.480 --> 01:59:55.280 to um make me a hot dog, right? 01:59:55.600 --> 02:00:00.400 Um that totally depends on my um whether I can give you ten dollars to to make me the hot 02:00:00.400 --> 02:00:02.640 dog if you're a hot dog stand or whatever. 02:00:02.800 --> 02:00:05.520 It's totally uh in my power to control, right? 02:00:05.680 --> 02:00:07.120 Uh that's not a personality trait. 02:00:07.280 --> 02:00:11.120 The fact that you that you have a hot dog stand is not a part of your personality, right? 02:00:11.520 --> 02:00:15.630 Um so I don't know, maybe maybe th that's a uh one way of thinking about it. 02:00:15.790 --> 02:00:20.510 The the stuff that is easy to to manipulate through, say, money, through you know, 02:00:20.750 --> 02:00:24.030 reciprocity, that those things will not be viewed as personality traits. 02:00:24.350 --> 02:00:28.030 Um whereas people that can't things that can't be changed so easily, those will be more 02:00:28.030 --> 02:00:29.790 likely to be viewed as personality traits. 02:00:30.190 --> 02:00:30.670 Yeah, yeah. 02:00:30.910 --> 02:00:35.520 Or like in in that in that equation of how likely I am to make you a hot dog, or like will 02:00:35.520 --> 02:00:36.560 I make you a hot dog, right? 02:00:36.640 --> 02:00:38.800 Like there's some things that go into that equation. 02:00:38.880 --> 02:00:44.080 Like one of them is the incentive structure to motivate me, and and the other part is maybe 02:00:44.080 --> 02:00:49.040 some aspect of like how much I like helping people in general. 02:00:49.280 --> 02:00:53.440 And so like depending on that how much I like helping people, which maybe is a little 02:00:53.440 --> 02:00:59.250 harder to change, let's say, you know, like then you for you it'd be helpful to know like 02:00:59.330 --> 02:01:03.330 kind of where I stand on that personality trait of being willing to help people in order to 02:01:03.330 --> 02:01:07.490 know how much you need to offer me or whether it's even possible to offer me enough to make 02:01:07.490 --> 02:01:09.010 you a hot dog, you know. 02:01:09.650 --> 02:01:14.610 So it's like a it helps, I think it could help guide decisions if you have these little 02:01:14.610 --> 02:01:20.420 kind of placeholders in this these equations of like other people's behavior to to 02:01:20.420 --> 02:01:25.300 figure out like what what are the levers I can pull on, how strong do I need to pull on 02:01:25.300 --> 02:01:29.780 those levers for different people out there out there in the world. 02:01:30.100 --> 02:01:30.420 Yeah. 02:01:30.660 --> 02:01:36.100 And I like that like emotions too might be different or another part or in between where 02:01:36.100 --> 02:01:41.220 it's sort of so personality is sort of differences, but then there's also emotions which 02:01:41.220 --> 02:01:45.140 are sort of universal and common but also really dictate behavior. 02:01:45.370 --> 02:01:49.610 Um, so you know, it might be like, well, you have a particular plan about hot dogs, and 02:01:49.690 --> 02:01:53.530 like, you know, that's right, like really easy to push on the hot dog serving lever. 02:01:53.690 --> 02:01:59.370 Um, but then like, you know, if you see something that's objectively scary, like a 02:01:59.370 --> 02:02:05.370 explosion or somebody gets killed, for example, there's things that like whether we intend 02:02:05.370 --> 02:02:11.130 it or not, or plan it or not, our evolved psychology sort of takes over of like we're in a 02:02:11.200 --> 02:02:15.840 dangerous situation and we can predict our behavior, other people's behavior is like we're 02:02:15.840 --> 02:02:17.520 having this emotion of fear. 02:02:17.760 --> 02:02:22.640 And it's independent of like the that that's sort of like a universal lever. 02:02:22.720 --> 02:02:24.160 But then there's individual differences. 02:02:24.240 --> 02:02:30.000 Like maybe Patrick is like deathly afraid of like snails and he sees a snail 02:02:30.240 --> 02:02:31.520 and he like runs away. 02:02:31.600 --> 02:02:35.760 And he, you know, but David, you and I would only run away if like we saw somebody killed, 02:02:35.840 --> 02:02:36.160 you know. 02:02:36.320 --> 02:02:41.110 And so so we can then we know that like that's like a personality difference attached to 02:02:41.110 --> 02:02:42.070 this universal. 02:02:42.470 --> 02:02:47.350 So I like this idea that it's all kind of compositional predicting behavior or 02:02:47.350 --> 02:02:51.590 interventions on future behavior, get to get back to the interventionism. 02:02:52.150 --> 02:02:57.750 Um so yeah, I like personality fitting within that or emotions fitting in that and why we 02:02:57.750 --> 02:03:00.310 would have these entries or and then also like free will. 02:03:00.390 --> 02:03:01.190 Like it's the planning. 02:03:01.350 --> 02:03:03.420 Like I this is a really that's cool. 02:03:03.500 --> 02:03:04.140 I hadn't thought of that. 02:03:04.220 --> 02:03:05.740 And I I like that kind of thing. 02:03:05.900 --> 02:03:09.660 Yeah, like you can almost kind of try to figure out like what are all these personality 02:03:09.660 --> 02:03:12.300 concepts or things that personality psychologists are studying. 02:03:12.380 --> 02:03:12.460 Yeah. 02:03:12.620 --> 02:03:14.060 Like how did we even create these things? 02:03:14.140 --> 02:03:16.700 Why would we create these things with our evolved psychology? 02:03:16.860 --> 02:03:18.300 And I like the emotions one too. 02:03:18.460 --> 02:03:22.620 Like somebody I don't know who actually wrote this, but somebody once, an economist, was 02:03:22.620 --> 02:03:25.420 explaining like a game theoretic model of anger to me. 02:03:25.580 --> 02:03:31.370 And it was basically like the argument was something like anger is almost like a 02:03:31.450 --> 02:03:35.450 well, it's similar to Aaron Cells in this bargaining tactic, but it's it's like I'm in this 02:03:35.450 --> 02:03:36.170 new mode now. 02:03:36.330 --> 02:03:36.490 Yeah. 02:03:36.730 --> 02:03:38.010 The me that you know is gone. 02:03:38.250 --> 02:03:38.490 Exactly. 02:03:38.730 --> 02:03:40.570 And you're you're arguing with this thing now. 02:03:40.650 --> 02:03:40.730 Yeah. 02:03:41.050 --> 02:03:42.250 So you have to satisfy this thing. 02:03:42.810 --> 02:03:43.370 Yeah, bargaining. 02:03:43.770 --> 02:03:49.050 And having an emotion concept, maybe it like allows us to deal to navigate that and yeah, 02:03:49.210 --> 02:03:54.140 either use that or exploit it or navigate other people having those emotions, something 02:03:54.140 --> 02:03:54.380 like that. 02:03:54.700 --> 02:03:59.660 Yeah, there's a classic paper Hirschlife or Emotions of Guarantee as guaranteers of threats 02:03:59.660 --> 02:04:00.940 and promises or something like that. 02:04:01.100 --> 02:04:01.340 Okay. 02:04:01.580 --> 02:04:02.860 From like the 80s or something. 02:04:03.020 --> 02:04:03.500 Sorry, yeah. 02:04:03.580 --> 02:04:03.740 Yeah. 02:04:04.060 --> 02:04:04.300 Yeah. 02:04:04.540 --> 02:04:10.540 But I think you could see this stuff like in like in personality, there's I'm not super 02:04:10.540 --> 02:04:14.060 infamiliar with this debate, but I know that there are some personality researchers like 02:04:14.300 --> 02:04:18.540 who differ in whether they think motivations should be included in the definition of 02:04:18.540 --> 02:04:19.820 personality or not. 02:04:20.150 --> 02:04:24.470 And I think this is again where like our folk psychology psychology is coming into play. 02:04:24.790 --> 02:04:29.590 If you feel like your motivations are like the things that you can pull on, change 02:04:29.590 --> 02:04:33.750 somebody's motivation in a given moment, versus you feel like motivations are more like 02:04:33.750 --> 02:04:35.350 these basic drives. 02:04:35.590 --> 02:04:40.360 So depending on which one you think is like what people mean by motivations, then you're 02:04:40.360 --> 02:04:44.040 gonna be more or less likely to want to include that in the definition of personality. 02:04:44.200 --> 02:04:48.920 And at least these debates, or maybe we don't need to be having these debates, it's just 02:04:48.920 --> 02:04:54.200 like trying to figure out exactly what the thing is that we're trying to talk about in the 02:04:54.200 --> 02:04:54.680 first place. 02:04:55.080 --> 02:05:00.360 Yeah, like the essence of the nature, like somebody's lazy versus industrious versus um 02:05:00.680 --> 02:05:03.960 stingy versus lecherous versus gluttonous, like this. 02:05:04.040 --> 02:05:06.840 It feels very old-timey to have those be personality traits. 02:05:06.920 --> 02:05:12.650 But as you said, maybe that's it's predicated on like there's some essence essential human 02:05:12.650 --> 02:05:14.890 nature that if we include it, it's right. 02:05:14.970 --> 02:05:17.930 And if we don't include it, it's wrong, as opposed to the right way to think about it, 02:05:18.010 --> 02:05:22.250 which is these are all like difference detecting systems. 02:05:22.330 --> 02:05:23.850 And there's no right or wrong. 02:05:23.930 --> 02:05:25.850 It's just we have these. 02:05:26.010 --> 02:05:26.250 Yeah. 02:05:26.730 --> 02:05:31.040 It it also maps onto our our discourse, like the way we talk about these traits. 02:05:31.200 --> 02:05:37.040 Like if I say Dave is lazy and that's why he's not uh showing up to the podcasts, you might 02:05:37.040 --> 02:05:39.600 say, no, he's not lazy, he's just not sufficiently motivated. 02:05:39.680 --> 02:05:42.480 You're not giving him a good enough reason to show up to these podcasts. 02:05:42.560 --> 02:05:45.680 You know, maybe maybe it's your fault, or maybe it's it's it's the listener's fault. 02:05:45.760 --> 02:05:48.880 They're not you know being generous enough on our Patreon page, and that's why he's not 02:05:48.880 --> 02:05:49.120 showing up. 02:05:49.280 --> 02:05:53.200 It's not that he's inherently lazy, it's just the situation that he's in. 02:05:53.440 --> 02:05:58.080 And so the relative importance of the situation versus Dave's innate characteristic is 02:05:58.080 --> 02:06:02.930 going to determine whether Dave is quote unquote lazy or judged by us to be lazy. 02:06:03.090 --> 02:06:06.690 It's going to depend on the relative influence of different factors in determining his 02:06:06.690 --> 02:06:07.010 behavior. 02:06:07.090 --> 02:06:11.730 And a lot of our gossip, I think, is trying to pin down whether a person is inherently 02:06:11.730 --> 02:06:17.730 smart or lazy or shy or uh uh nervous or whatever, or or whether it's 02:06:17.730 --> 02:06:21.250 just a a product of the specific situation that they happen to be in. 02:06:22.140 --> 02:06:22.380 Yeah. 02:06:22.700 --> 02:06:23.340 That's really cool. 02:06:23.580 --> 02:06:25.420 Is is is the personality literature. 02:06:25.500 --> 02:06:26.780 I mean, David, that's so lovely. 02:06:26.860 --> 02:06:31.020 Is the is the personality literature Patrick acknowledging that all this is for predicting 02:06:31.020 --> 02:06:31.660 behavior? 02:06:31.900 --> 02:06:35.820 Is that or is that not a part of the I mean it's probably acknowledged in there, but I 02:06:35.820 --> 02:06:38.620 wouldn't say it's the main take on what's going on. 02:06:38.780 --> 02:06:42.860 Like it's if anything, like the closest you're gonna get to that is just like recognition 02:06:42.860 --> 02:06:44.940 that it's descriptions of behavior. 02:06:45.150 --> 02:06:45.550 I see. 02:06:46.190 --> 02:06:51.470 Like the social cognitive theories of personality, for example, and thinking like Fleason. 02:06:51.550 --> 02:06:55.710 And like they recognize that like these traits that we talk about as traits, like they're 02:06:55.710 --> 02:06:58.190 descriptive summaries of behavior. 02:06:58.350 --> 02:07:02.270 And there's a trait, what they call trait explanatory side of things. 02:07:02.510 --> 02:07:08.190 But like maybe this is too harsh, but I think they're like basically agnostic andor lost 02:07:08.190 --> 02:07:09.870 about what those things are. 02:07:10.080 --> 02:07:14.240 Whereas that's the value I think the adaptationist evolutionary approach brings, is it 02:07:14.240 --> 02:07:19.600 tells us like what should we expect the things are that are explaining the personality 02:07:19.600 --> 02:07:21.920 traits in the descriptive sense that we see. 02:07:22.080 --> 02:07:25.040 Because it tells us, well, there should be things in the head that solve all these 02:07:25.040 --> 02:07:28.320 different problems, and we can get a sense of how they might work and what their different 02:07:28.320 --> 02:07:32.960 parameters are by doing a task analysis of those things and figuring out how to robot solve 02:07:32.960 --> 02:07:33.200 that. 02:07:33.360 --> 02:07:37.280 And then you go and try to do that empirically and test, measure those little things, those 02:07:37.280 --> 02:07:43.110 parameters, and see if they do indeed link up to these descriptive uh labels that we give 02:07:43.110 --> 02:07:45.110 to people's personality traits. 02:07:45.350 --> 02:07:49.990 Uh but so much of the field, especially because like so many people who use personality 02:07:49.990 --> 02:07:53.110 scales, they're not they wouldn't, they probably wouldn't identify as personality 02:07:53.110 --> 02:07:53.670 psychologists. 02:07:53.830 --> 02:07:58.310 They're just like using them because I don't know, correlations, p-values, whatever. 02:07:58.470 --> 02:08:02.390 And like it's just implicit in the way everybody thinks about these things and writes about 02:08:02.390 --> 02:08:05.430 them that they're that they're somehow causing things. 02:08:05.780 --> 02:08:09.540 but these descriptive things can't cause much. 02:08:09.700 --> 02:08:14.340 Like they they can probably have caused some things, maybe, like, but they're not I don't 02:08:14.340 --> 02:08:17.540 think they're the main causes of behavior because they're not real. 02:08:17.860 --> 02:08:23.700 They're you know, they're abstract summaries of average tendencies, so right, yeah, 02:08:23.940 --> 02:08:24.180 right. 02:08:24.340 --> 02:08:29.270 Like the faster computers uh can do the do this thing better. 02:08:29.750 --> 02:08:30.230 That might just be a good idea. 02:08:30.470 --> 02:08:35.110 It'll predict too it'll predict buying prices and stuff like that. 02:08:35.350 --> 02:08:36.070 But yeah. 02:08:36.230 --> 02:08:40.790 You don't want to mistake that for being causally relevant for like the performance itself. 02:08:41.110 --> 02:08:41.590 Right. 02:08:41.990 --> 02:08:42.230 Right. 02:08:42.390 --> 02:08:46.710 Maybe one day we'll build a super fast computer that's faster than any computer before and 02:08:46.790 --> 02:08:47.670 will take over the world. 02:08:47.830 --> 02:08:51.510 I feel like that's a lot of the the um the arguments you hear about AI because it's 02:08:51.510 --> 02:08:51.910 reified. 02:08:52.310 --> 02:08:53.270 It's gonna be so fast. 02:08:53.430 --> 02:08:53.830 Yeah, exactly. 02:08:54.070 --> 02:08:58.740 It's gonna be so fast, it's gonna hit the threshold of fast so fast that it's gonna become 02:08:58.740 --> 02:08:59.460 human like. 02:08:59.700 --> 02:09:00.260 Yeah, exactly. 02:09:00.660 --> 02:09:02.740 That's actually the the the base logic of it. 02:09:02.820 --> 02:09:03.620 Yes, exactly. 02:09:03.780 --> 02:09:08.100 The base logic is it's gonna get so fast it's gonna become exactly like a human. 02:09:08.500 --> 02:09:08.660 Right. 02:09:08.820 --> 02:09:13.220 It's the the exact same thing where we're reifying intelligence as a real thing when um 02:09:13.300 --> 02:09:15.140 it's all it's a whole bunch of different things. 02:09:15.220 --> 02:09:18.420 And then we extrapolate that into like, oh, if we build an AI, it's gonna be super 02:09:18.420 --> 02:09:21.940 intelligent and it's gonna do all the things that we can do, but better, it's just gonna be 02:09:21.940 --> 02:09:24.590 like a wish-granting genie that can do anything. 02:09:24.910 --> 02:09:25.230 Yeah. 02:09:25.630 --> 02:09:26.110 Um anyway. 02:09:26.510 --> 02:09:30.190 Although even without that, I've seen some arguments about like even just if we were to 02:09:30.190 --> 02:09:34.670 increase like the speed of things by a lot or and it could make copies of itself, you don't 02:09:34.670 --> 02:09:35.870 even need superintelligence. 02:09:35.950 --> 02:09:38.030 It but it could very it could take over the world. 02:09:38.110 --> 02:09:42.670 It could you know with just in increases in speed and productivity that go along with that, 02:09:42.830 --> 02:09:48.140 like somebody could use that to do a lot, a lot more, have huge impacts on the world, even 02:09:48.140 --> 02:09:49.660 without the computer being super intelligent. 02:09:49.980 --> 02:09:50.300 Oh yeah. 02:09:50.620 --> 02:09:51.180 No, exactly. 02:09:51.420 --> 02:09:52.220 Yeah, no, no, no. 02:09:52.300 --> 02:09:57.180 I mean, I think the the I well, I mean, David's point, I think, right, is like we should be 02:09:57.180 --> 02:10:03.100 worried about any technology for for the usual reasons of like humans using it to like 02:10:03.340 --> 02:10:09.170 coerce others and take stuff from them or hurt them, uh, and wield it that way, 02:10:09.330 --> 02:10:14.690 as opposed to like that there's some magical spirit that's all of a sudden gonna become 02:10:14.930 --> 02:10:17.730 curiously like a human but a superhuman. 02:10:17.810 --> 02:10:18.530 Um yeah. 02:10:18.690 --> 02:10:19.170 Yeah. 02:10:19.410 --> 02:10:19.650 Yeah. 02:10:19.810 --> 02:10:20.450 Yeah. 02:10:21.250 --> 02:10:24.130 Uh Patrick, should we have asked you anything? 02:10:24.850 --> 02:10:25.250 Yeah. 02:10:25.490 --> 02:10:28.850 I mean, I did actually because I watched this or I listened to this, I did actually come 02:10:28.850 --> 02:10:29.570 prepared with one. 02:10:29.650 --> 02:10:34.530 It's not really a ask me something, but it's just like a hobby horse I want to get on for a 02:10:34.530 --> 02:10:34.770 second. 02:10:35.650 --> 02:10:38.400 So I said I don't know. 02:10:38.560 --> 02:10:40.640 Ask me how I feel about posters. 02:10:40.800 --> 02:10:41.440 Yeah. 02:10:41.920 --> 02:10:45.680 Posters like in a dorm room or posters on a scientific conference at a scientific 02:10:45.680 --> 02:10:46.080 conference. 02:10:46.320 --> 02:10:50.720 Uh Patrick, how do you feel about posters at a scientific conference if I got the question 02:10:50.720 --> 02:10:50.880 right? 02:10:51.200 --> 02:10:51.760 Yeah, yeah. 02:10:51.920 --> 02:10:56.880 I think that we need to stop printing out fancy posters and going through all jumping 02:10:56.880 --> 02:10:57.760 through all these hoops. 02:10:57.920 --> 02:11:00.990 Just put up some pieces of paper, five pieces of paper. 02:11:01.230 --> 02:11:01.710 I've seen that. 02:11:02.190 --> 02:11:03.630 When I say formatted, I do this. 02:11:03.870 --> 02:11:04.030 Okay. 02:11:04.270 --> 02:11:06.350 Yeah, because I'm just like, why are we doing all this? 02:11:06.510 --> 02:11:09.470 Like, we don't need to have this extra random veneer. 02:11:09.710 --> 02:11:11.390 Like it can be just as legible. 02:11:11.550 --> 02:11:15.230 Don't need to jump through, carry a giant tube around on a plane. 02:11:15.390 --> 02:11:18.670 In part because like I'm lazy, I don't want to do a big poster. 02:11:19.070 --> 02:11:22.240 And and so I also don't like standing out. 02:11:22.320 --> 02:11:26.640 So I'd rather just everybody, you know, got get got on board with printing out pieces of 02:11:26.640 --> 02:11:27.120 paper. 02:11:27.600 --> 02:11:28.480 You heard it here first. 02:11:28.800 --> 02:11:29.840 This is very tractable. 02:11:29.920 --> 02:11:30.960 I I think this is very important. 02:11:31.040 --> 02:11:31.680 I think it's tractable. 02:11:31.840 --> 02:11:35.040 It's the lowest costs for students and universities. 02:11:35.440 --> 02:11:40.400 But seeing then, Patrick, if we adopted this, it would be less of a compelling status 02:11:40.400 --> 02:11:40.720 signal. 02:11:41.040 --> 02:11:41.920 I know, I know, yeah. 02:11:42.160 --> 02:11:46.560 It wouldn't be it would be less costly of a signal, and then I couldn't use it to judge 02:11:46.560 --> 02:11:50.650 people based on you know how much time and energy they've put into it and then what do 02:11:50.650 --> 02:11:55.690 people I mean, because some people put them back up in their walls and like 02:11:56.650 --> 02:11:58.090 I mean if you really want to do it, fine. 02:11:58.170 --> 02:11:59.290 If you're gonna put them up somewhere. 02:11:59.450 --> 02:12:02.330 I've never put a poster up anywhere after it goes in the trash. 02:12:02.570 --> 02:12:06.570 Uh but they used to print cloth ones and you could use it like as a tablecloth. 02:12:06.650 --> 02:12:10.330 I mean, a lot of it is like provisional data often, you know, so it's not even like the 02:12:10.330 --> 02:12:11.450 final word on the thing. 02:12:11.530 --> 02:12:11.850 Yeah. 02:12:12.170 --> 02:12:13.770 Yeah, I just mean I don't know. 02:12:14.040 --> 02:12:14.600 I like this. 02:12:14.760 --> 02:12:14.920 Okay. 02:12:15.080 --> 02:12:16.360 So yeah, you heard it here first. 02:12:16.520 --> 02:12:21.880 If you can so no sh what's the what's the like one sentence summary as like just no 02:12:21.880 --> 02:12:22.440 posters? 02:12:22.680 --> 02:12:24.840 Basically do a data blitz presentation. 02:12:25.240 --> 02:12:26.360 Put a bunch of graphs and tables. 02:12:26.600 --> 02:12:26.920 Put them up. 02:12:27.000 --> 02:12:27.320 No words. 02:12:30.600 --> 02:12:31.880 It can still be nice and aesthetic. 02:12:32.120 --> 02:12:34.520 It just we don't need to, you know, go to the phone. 02:12:34.760 --> 02:12:38.600 If you're gonna put words on a put on a poster, I might as well just read a paper, right? 02:12:39.160 --> 02:12:44.110 Yeah, you know some nice headers, you know, some headers and headers and captions on the on 02:12:44.110 --> 02:12:44.510 the figures. 02:12:44.590 --> 02:12:48.750 And then if I have questions about what the figures mean and what the charts mean, I can 02:12:48.750 --> 02:12:52.270 ask the person and the person's right there and they can tell me in their own words what is 02:12:52.270 --> 02:12:52.750 happening. 02:12:52.910 --> 02:12:53.070 Right. 02:12:54.430 --> 02:12:58.350 I'm not sort of me just like awkwardly standing there and reading a paragraph that I was 02:12:58.430 --> 02:13:02.110 like when I could have just read that paragraph in the privacy of my own home on my own 02:13:02.110 --> 02:13:02.190 time. 02:13:02.350 --> 02:13:02.670 Yeah, yeah. 02:13:03.070 --> 02:13:05.790 I mean I'm not even getting into that side of the poster stuff that I'm gonna do. 02:13:05.900 --> 02:13:07.420 the social, the awkward social interaction. 02:13:07.660 --> 02:13:08.380 I'm gonna stand that way. 02:13:08.540 --> 02:13:09.980 I just mean just like the poster itself. 02:13:12.780 --> 02:13:15.660 Yeah, we gotta think of better ways of of communicating. 02:13:15.980 --> 02:13:17.900 Honestly, an interpretive dance would be better. 02:13:18.060 --> 02:13:20.860 Maybe we should have poetry slams for our for our projects. 02:13:21.020 --> 02:13:23.500 It would be more effective, I think, more memorable songs. 02:13:24.220 --> 02:13:25.980 That can't be turned into a status game, right? 02:13:26.300 --> 02:13:30.860 There used to be an HBES, um, the human behavior evolutionary society back in the day, and 02:13:30.860 --> 02:13:33.100 I was a young graduate student while this was still happening. 02:13:33.180 --> 02:13:38.650 It was so um not um attended it was like there were not many people going to it 02:13:38.810 --> 02:13:44.650 early days that it wasn't very um competitive to get in and 02:13:44.650 --> 02:13:50.650 there would literally always be one or two posters done by I mean to just put 02:13:50.650 --> 02:13:56.330 it like bluntly like crazy people where there'd be like glowing like chakras coming around 02:13:56.490 --> 02:13:56.730 people. 02:13:56.970 --> 02:14:00.570 And so there was always, you know, like they were kind of referred to as like tinfoil hat 02:14:00.730 --> 02:14:05.580 like it would just be like this really weird like you know the seventh dimension harmonics 02:14:05.580 --> 02:14:09.900 are causing people to like act selfishly and then there was just like a so david it 02:14:09.900 --> 02:14:15.020 reminded me of your just all pictures because those were often those posters stood out 02:14:15.020 --> 02:14:20.940 because they had usually very strange graphics um almost religious like um and you 02:14:21.020 --> 02:14:25.650 you know you could usually tell because either it'd be a hundred point font or a one point 02:14:25.890 --> 02:14:31.170 font, um, you know, with four words or ten thousand words on the poster and really 02:14:31.330 --> 02:14:34.850 interesting, um, really interesting pictures. 02:14:35.010 --> 02:14:35.490 Yeah. 02:14:35.810 --> 02:14:36.450 Yeah. 02:14:37.250 --> 02:14:41.570 Maybe we haven't quite figured out the optimal way to have research conferences. 02:14:41.730 --> 02:14:45.250 Maybe this is the best we can do is the poster PowerPoint format. 02:14:45.490 --> 02:14:46.050 I don't know. 02:14:46.260 --> 02:14:46.580 Yeah. 02:14:46.740 --> 02:14:47.060 Yeah. 02:14:47.700 --> 02:14:48.580 That's all I'm asking. 02:14:48.820 --> 02:14:50.340 Yeah, I think that's reasonable. 02:14:50.820 --> 02:14:56.500 And to just make it a meta science point while we're on it, is uh as a 02:14:56.500 --> 02:15:02.500 PSA, like glossy, well published like really highly produced things are 02:15:02.500 --> 02:15:05.460 not uh a good proxy for truth either. 02:15:05.700 --> 02:15:05.940 Right. 02:15:06.420 --> 02:15:10.020 Like somebody writing something on cardboard, yeah, like that's one issue. 02:15:10.100 --> 02:15:15.650 But like some of my favorite papers, like John Patton papers, are like low, low production 02:15:15.650 --> 02:15:18.850 quality, you know, old school, black and white. 02:15:18.930 --> 02:15:22.130 And then like, you know, there's a lot of journals now that have like really pretty 02:15:22.130 --> 02:15:24.850 pictures, but that doesn't mean that it's better science. 02:15:25.170 --> 02:15:26.050 Absolutely. 02:15:26.290 --> 02:15:26.930 Yeah. 02:15:27.490 --> 02:15:28.690 So yeah, we're doing it. 02:15:29.010 --> 02:15:34.440 We should just hand draw hand drawn uh eight and a half by eleven. 02:15:36.280 --> 02:15:42.280 I don't know about that, but it rewards people with good legible writing, so and 02:15:42.280 --> 02:15:42.520 drawing. 02:15:42.840 --> 02:15:43.000 Right. 02:15:43.160 --> 02:15:47.800 And if you're starting a podcast, don't bother editing it and putting high in high 02:15:47.800 --> 02:15:50.840 production values or exactly it's really self serving. 02:15:51.560 --> 02:15:52.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:15:52.440 --> 02:15:57.480 The real podcasts, you know, don't edit anything out, and they just do real talk and they 02:15:57.480 --> 02:16:02.270 include all the ums and uhs and mistakes and they're boring sometimes. 02:16:02.430 --> 02:16:03.070 They're boring sometimes. 02:16:03.310 --> 02:16:04.670 There's no show notes. 02:16:04.990 --> 02:16:05.470 Mm-hmm. 02:16:05.710 --> 02:16:05.950 Yeah. 02:16:06.590 --> 02:16:07.870 Those are the best kinds of podcasts. 02:16:08.110 --> 02:16:08.750 Yes, exactly. 02:16:09.070 --> 02:16:11.630 We should give a lot of status to those kinds of podcasts. 02:16:12.030 --> 02:16:12.750 A lot of funding. 02:16:12.830 --> 02:16:15.230 More funding is needed, as Daniel Speaker would say. 02:16:15.390 --> 02:16:15.710 Yes. 02:16:15.950 --> 02:16:19.790 Well, Patrick, um uh what are you what what are you working on really quickly next? 02:16:19.950 --> 02:16:21.710 What's your next big thing? 02:16:22.460 --> 02:16:27.980 Uh all these things still probably mainly trying to tie these parameters of emotions that I 02:16:27.980 --> 02:16:33.020 was kind of talking about, like situation detecting algorithm differences and set point 02:16:33.180 --> 02:16:36.300 differences to these broader personality traits. 02:16:36.540 --> 02:16:40.700 And then the other one is kind of this more meta question that we kind of hinted at here. 02:16:41.180 --> 02:16:46.690 Uh trying to differentiate between, yeah, these more prediction based subtasks of adaptive 02:16:46.690 --> 02:16:51.250 problems, like the one uh that that David kind of mentioned, of like just trying to predict 02:16:51.410 --> 02:16:56.850 like who among my peers is gonna get status, or predict who will my peers tend to think is 02:16:56.850 --> 02:17:01.410 worthy of status, versus the causal side of things, which is how do I intervene on the 02:17:01.410 --> 02:17:06.130 world or how can the world be intervened on in order to bring about certain changes? 02:17:06.290 --> 02:17:12.180 And I think figuring out like the space of adaptive like the complexity 02:17:12.180 --> 02:17:16.820 of different adaptive problems and what kinds of cognitive machinery could solve those 02:17:16.820 --> 02:17:16.980 problems. 02:17:17.060 --> 02:17:21.860 That's kind of like something I'm excited about, but also like honestly slowly, slow, very 02:17:21.860 --> 02:17:23.220 slowly getting into that. 02:17:23.300 --> 02:17:26.180 But yeah, anybody's interested in those things, like reach out. 02:17:26.260 --> 02:17:28.180 I'd love to talk and and chat. 02:17:28.580 --> 02:17:28.980 Cool. 02:17:29.190 --> 02:17:29.590 All right. 02:17:29.750 --> 02:17:31.110 Well, thanks so much for being on. 02:17:31.190 --> 02:17:31.830 We really appreciate it. 02:17:31.910 --> 02:17:32.470 It's great talking to you. 02:17:32.630 --> 02:17:33.190 Thanks for having me. 02:17:33.430 --> 02:17:33.590 Yeah. 02:17:33.670 --> 02:17:33.910 Yep. 02:17:33.990 --> 02:17:34.150 Yeah. 02:17:34.310 --> 02:17:35.830 And thanks for doing the podcast. 02:17:36.630 --> 02:17:38.150 Thank you for coming on. 02:17:38.630 --> 02:17:39.190 All right. 02:17:40.710 --> 02:17:42.150 David, you're still here. 02:17:42.470 --> 02:17:43.110 I'm still here. 02:17:43.190 --> 02:17:43.750 Are you still here? 02:17:43.910 --> 02:17:45.350 I am still let me check. 02:17:45.430 --> 02:17:46.390 Oh, yep, still here. 02:17:46.470 --> 02:17:46.630 Okay. 02:17:46.790 --> 02:17:47.990 Uh and you're still here. 02:17:48.230 --> 02:17:53.350 So um if you liked the episode, please subscribe. 02:17:53.580 --> 02:17:59.180 Um, you can click like, you can make comments on social media, um, preferably 02:17:59.340 --> 02:18:00.380 neutral to good. 02:18:00.460 --> 02:18:02.300 And you know, we're on Patreon. 02:18:02.540 --> 02:18:02.860 Yeah. 02:18:03.100 --> 02:18:04.380 Call a friend. 02:18:04.940 --> 02:18:10.940 Yeah, neutral third party, disinterested, shout it in the streets, buy David a fanny 02:18:10.940 --> 02:18:12.140 pack, send him French fries. 02:18:12.300 --> 02:18:15.020 I think that's almost shouted from a mountaintop. 02:18:15.260 --> 02:18:17.340 Um, yell it to people on the street. 02:18:17.420 --> 02:18:23.110 Don't do anything, be kind to yourself, give yourself some time and space, 02:18:23.270 --> 02:18:24.150 take care of yourself. 02:18:24.310 --> 02:18:25.990 I think these are drugs. 02:18:26.070 --> 02:18:26.310 Yeah. 02:18:26.950 --> 02:18:27.270 Yeah. 02:18:27.350 --> 02:18:30.870 Um well and it depends on the drug and what the context is, but yeah. 02:18:31.190 --> 02:18:31.750 Yeah, yeah. 02:18:33.510 --> 02:18:34.950 Don't be arrogant. 02:18:35.030 --> 02:18:37.030 If you think you're arrogant, you're probably not. 02:18:37.190 --> 02:18:38.470 If you don't, you probably are. 02:18:38.630 --> 02:18:40.870 I think these are all things we've covered in outros. 02:18:41.350 --> 02:18:41.670 Yep. 02:18:41.750 --> 02:18:42.630 Yeah, maybe take it. 02:18:42.870 --> 02:18:43.270 Anything new? 02:18:43.350 --> 02:18:45.030 Anything new, Fanny Pack? 02:18:45.910 --> 02:18:47.820 Uh no, not really. 02:18:48.380 --> 02:18:49.340 French fries. 02:18:50.140 --> 02:18:50.460 Okay. 02:18:51.420 --> 02:18:52.300 Uh I don't know. 02:18:52.460 --> 02:18:53.740 Watch Star Wars again. 02:18:54.140 --> 02:18:55.260 The old ones or the new ones? 02:18:55.500 --> 02:18:55.820 The old ones. 02:18:55.980 --> 02:18:56.460 The OG. 02:18:56.860 --> 02:18:57.260 Yeah, they're good. 02:18:57.420 --> 02:18:58.140 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:18:58.300 --> 02:18:58.540 Okay. 02:18:58.620 --> 02:18:58.860 Yeah. 02:18:59.420 --> 02:18:59.980 All right. 02:19:00.300 --> 02:19:00.860 Uh good. 02:19:01.180 --> 02:19:02.540 Well, see you next week, David. 02:19:02.700 --> 02:19:04.380 Yep, see you next week.