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Where are we and what are we doing?

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We are doing Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast, which is uh about actual

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evolutionary psychology by actual evolutionary psychologists, and we are The

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Davids.

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I'm David Pinsoff, and you are David Petrozowski, uh Dave uh for

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coordination purposes, and we are um here on the podcast and also on Earth and in

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between those, we're both in California right now.

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That's true.

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And you are about to hear some lovely music that I composed.

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David, today we have Josh Schnodgrath on MLS in the German way.

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Is it a sh or a s?

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I think I'm going German.

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I've I lived long enough in Germany that occasionally German five.

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I don't think no, probably I have no idea.

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Okay.

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Do you want to say it?

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So I I I for some reason.

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I thought it was the S, just snodgrass.

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Snodgrass, yes, it is, yes.

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I don't know why.

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For that moment I was slightly German.

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Um uh we had a wonderful conversation.

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Yes, really fun.

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We talked about all things evolution and health, uh the intersection between health and

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psychology and social networks.

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Uh We talked about market integration, how societies transition

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from more of a forager subsistence mode to a market

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economy and the effects that has on mental health and physical health.

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What else do we get into, Dave?

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Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the bottom line on this episode was that moving from a

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hunter-gatherer, hunter-for-cultural um maybe living into like a modern market thing, which

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is something like the Schwar are experiencing, is neither all good or neither all bad.

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And it's not at all straightforward to just say the move has positive consequence or

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negative, or or even what the things are that cause that.

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Um so I I like think a nice analogy for this episode that we talked about was either like

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historical change or even if you just move from one place to another, you know, there's

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like good things and bad things.

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You miss certain things about the past and you like certain things about the future, but

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there's things about where you live now that are not so great and things about the past or

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where you used to live that were better.

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And I think that's generally just true for for what Josh is finding as well.

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That's true.

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In general, a good bet with science is that things are going to be more complicated than

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you think.

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And and this episode is no exception to that rule, but thankfully um using an evolutionary

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perspective helps you navigate the complex complexity and make sense of it.

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And Josh is a wonderful example of uh using uh the evolutionary lens to clarify what is

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going on with these complicated interactions between health, mental health, biology,

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ecology, et cetera.

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Yeah.

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And I think this episode returned to an older theme of the podcast that we've we have

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always been on but haven't hit explicitly is like if you take a

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evolutionary approach or you don't um uh that mode that was a

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negative.

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So let me start over by not saying a negative, but if you integrate biology with psychology

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and evolution, it's a more humane way to think about people because it forces you to think

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about what is good for human flourishing.

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And I think this conversation was a highlighting that point again, which we was something

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we've covered in the podcast, especially in earlier episodes.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So without further ado, further ado, enjoy.

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So thanks for being here.

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Um, this is great.

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Um, maybe we can get right into it.

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Um David and I have talked and we talked about the evolution human behavior

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um paper lassitude.

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Uh-huh.

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And when I saw this paper, and the argument as I understand it is that lassitude,

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which I think I even had to like double check because I hadn't come across that word.

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It was not in my uh lexicon, so I learned a word, um, is the emotion of being sick,

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but it's the emotion.

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Um, I thought this was one of the coolest thing.

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I think it won the Margot Wilson Award for the best paper in the journal of the year.

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So congratulations.

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Um what uh how is that an emotion?

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Tell us about how do you end up writing a paper about that?

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Tell us the whole story.

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Yeah, no, I'm happy to.

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I will start out by saying I'm not gonna take a whole lot of credit for it because I feel

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like the grad student at the time, Josh Schrock, who was writing it, did so much

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amazing work to bridge, in many ways, to bridge me, me and Larry and kind

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of all our thinking, right?

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And so I mean, I will I'm sure we'll talk more about the the Schwar project, you know, but

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but sort of out of that kind of grew this bigger perspective of like, okay, how do we

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actually do many of the things that had originally been our intention when Larry and I

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started the Schwarz Project, which is actually integrating human biology, human behavioral

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ecology, evolutionary psychology to get at these bigger questions, right?

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And so I feel like over the course of the Schwarz project, we'd kind of touched on some of

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those things and had smaller little projects that really truly brought those together, but

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there hadn't really been much of the sort of bigger sort of theorizing about how all this

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stuff works.

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And so sort of simultaneously we had the disgust work going on, which we could talk about

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later as well.

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And then Josh Schrock really thinking about lassitude.

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But it really grew out of these conversations about changing environments, right?

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So, like one of the big parts of the Schwar project is trying to understand this market

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integration process, this social change, this environmental change.

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And it's so often been focused in at least the human biology literature on the, you

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know, the increase in chronic diseases like, you know, cardiovascular disease and

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diabetes, and not so much focused in on infectious disease and parasitic disease, with the

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exception of like, oh, well, people get vaccinated and infectious disease loads go down as

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chronic disease goes up, right?

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It's very simplistic.

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And so it clearly wasn't simplistic from, you know, from the work that we started doing,

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you know, like there's this complex relationship between these immune changes to

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what's happening in the environment.

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And so it then became clear that, like, not only did we really have to think about this in

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a sophisticated way, just from a physiological standpoint, but that the behavioral

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piece mattered as well.

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And so I just think that was such a great example of like really us in the project being

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able to reach what we had wanted to do from the very beginning, which is really think

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through like, okay, how do we understand the connection between these underlying

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biological processes and then the behavioral pieces, and then start to

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think about it in an evolutionary perspective, as well as how the environment

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that people are living in in the course of their lifetime is shaping things as well.

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So, really basically, like the, I think the piece that I'm most excited about is just

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like really bringing back in the behavioral piece into the human biology.

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Because I mean, as you guys both know, so oftentimes we've got the like behavior people,

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right, living in this HBE and evolutionary psych world.

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And we've got these human biologists kind of living in another world, but they're not

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really connected.

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And so this was very much like, yeah, what like how do we actually look at these emotions

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as adaptive and relevant to these biological systems and

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functional in terms of dealing with environments as they're

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changing in the context of human, social, political, and economic change?

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Amazing.

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Yeah, and just to kind of uh for for people listening at home to clarify.

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So Schwar, uh, Schwarland and the Schwar, we've had several people on.

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So we've had Clark Barrett, uh, Chris von Ruden, we had Mike Gervin on.

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Oh, nice.

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These are all folks who've worked with the Schar Schwar.

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People know that is the Schwar Project, you mentioned Larry who is Larry Sugyama, who we

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will have on, who's a colleague of yours, um, who you know, we we we know, I know um he's

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an academic sibling of mine.

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Um, uh is the Schwar Project a subset of people studying?

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Can you what is the is that um is that something you and Larry started within the

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collection of people studying the Schwar?

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Or can you clarify what that is?

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Yeah, it was, you know, Larry Larry had been working with um John and Lita, right.

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Don John Tubi and Lita Cosmudis for many years, sort of thinking about starting these types

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of projects, right?

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That we needed more of those international projects where there's different environments

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and different social systems and things like that to be able to really understand these

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relationships, these evolutionary processes.

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And so Larry started working in South America and was working with

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Clark Barrett.

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And but then I think Larry started to gravitate to working with the Schwar community.

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So he'd been working with Shiviar before, and there's some papers published in the what

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late 90s, early 2000s.

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But those ones were very like those are the Shiviar are very small populations.

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And so I think it really became clear to Larry that if he wanted to study something like

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market integration, that it was going to be something that required a huge amount of data

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collection in a number of different realms, and that there was really no way to do that

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with Shiviar, both from the perspective of needing a large population to be able to look at

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the variation you get.

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And secondarily, it was going to require a decent sized team to be able to measure these

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different things in different people.

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And the prospect of working in these small Shivyar communities was basically impossible.

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So then Larry started working with Schwar, who um are a much larger population, so over

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50,000 at the time when Larry, you know, in the early 2000s.

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And there was also this huge interest in working with him and then us because they

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were sort of in had this really challenging relationship with the Ecuadorian government.

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And sort of Ecuadorian government came in like, hey, we're going to do a health survey.

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Here's all that data.

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Now do what you want with it.

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And so when I came to Oregon, Larry was Larry had a student, Aaron

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Blackwell, who's gone on and done amazing things.

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And um, and they basically had been given a ton of health data from Schwar saying, you

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know, like we've got all this health data.

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Can you help us interpret this and write this up?

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And then so they did and brought me in as well.

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But then it also sort of opened the door to an opportunity to a larger project to be able

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to start doing work that really was big in the sense of uniting these

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different fields and really thinking about how do we measure these different things that

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are changing with market integration?

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How do we do it in a way beyond just the rural versus urban or you know

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something like that?

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How do we think about this as you know the the level of the country, the level of the

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regions, the level of the communities, the level of the household, the level of the

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individual.

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And so because the Schwar communities were interested in collaborating and then also

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large enough, it just be and had a huge amount of variation across and within them

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that it just created this prospect for launching this study.

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but it was going to then also require a lot of human power in that, which then became, you

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know, Aaron Blackwell first, and then a number of other grad students who were really

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important in that.

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So that then simultaneously was happening while Mike, you mentioned Mike Gervin.

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Mike was setting up the Chimani project in Bolivia.

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And so we ended up kind of oddly enough, independently coming up with almost identical

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names of this life, you know, health life history projects.

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And so, but what's been fascinating about those is we've really approached them in

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different ways, right?

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Like how we're gonna set up those studies.

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And in many ways, there's a lot of overlap in what we as the Schwar project and they as the

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Chamani project are interested in.

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They really started focusing in on aging as the thing that that kind of organized

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it.

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And part of that was funding, right, through NIH.

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And we sort of look more at market integration, right?

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And obviously we're interested in aging too.

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And the projects have kind of grown together, right?

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And so we'll have sometimes where we're sharing data, and we've got, you know, ones where

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we're comparing between the groups.

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Um, but it's also interesting because you know, you look at these populations that sort of

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superficially look very similar, right?

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They live, you know, they're both in tropical areas and not far from each other, But then

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there's some actually subtle differences between Schwar and Chamani.

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You know, obviously there's cultural ones, but also like even environmental ones, like with

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the extent of pathogen exposure being much more extreme in the Chamani, much less in the

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Schwar, which actually leads to whole different pathways and different health risks

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between those two populations that could easily have been dismissed as like whatever

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they're Amazonian populations, they're probably pretty similar.

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Actually, surprising differences there.

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So it's been really cool to have those two projects going simultaneously and sort of

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seeing how they're making decisions at every level from the science to the you know the

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ethics of community work.

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And just, you know, we both learn from each other, and it's been there's been some cool

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opportunities for collaboration.

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Cool.

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I mean, what are some of the biggest um insights and discoveries you've made in terms of

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progressing through these two different projects?

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Um what have you learned about the effects of, say, market integration on health

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or or um you know the different ecological factors that might play a role here as well?

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Yeah, I'll answer that second part first, which is those ecological factors like presence

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of tapeworm, for example, just seems like a minor difference, right?

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But it you you find quite a bit of tapeworm in the area of the chamani and very

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little in schwar areas, but it seems to have a huge effect in terms of like

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hemoglobin levels and anemia risk, and immune systems are developing

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differently for people who are exposed to different things, which then is going to

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influence their experience of disease, even with chronic diseases, right?

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So that's an example, I think, of one small ecological thing that actually seems to have a

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really big effect.

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I think the other piece that we're so we're in the we're in the midst of sort of planning

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a big kind of market integration and health paper that's an update to one that we published

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in 2013.

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And I think, I think a big contribution that we've made is that the model, as I kind

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of alluded to before, the model for market integration and health used to be very simple.

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It was sort of like people are adapted to their environment and then westernization happens

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and it knocks people out of adaptation, right?

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And this is sort of just very vague language, if not well conceptualized, in my opinion,

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but that knocks them out of adaptation.

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And then that lack of adaptation, or you know, whatever you want to call it, sends them

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into higher risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

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And so I think we approached it as like that's theoretically kind of problematic, but also

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like the way that people have approached this scientifically has been very limited.

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And so the way that we approached it was okay, how do we look at these different levels of

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influence, right?

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So community versus region, that kind of thing.

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And then how do we understand it in terms of the different health conditions, right?

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It's not just cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but it's also mental health.

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It's also osteoporosis.

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It's also these other things that are happening.

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And really trying to pull it apart to say, like, what actually is driving these changes?

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What is it about the environment that is, is it running through a stress access?

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Is it running through a nutrition access and access?

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Is it running through something else?

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And so really trying to look at those details.

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And I think what we've really shown is that yes, there are some big regional differences,

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but the bulk of it is actually playing out like within a community and often within a

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household, right?

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That like how people are experiencing this, you know, market integration,

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it's rooted in their behaviors at an individual level in terms of whether that's their

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foraging or you know, types of foraging or the decisions that they're making about this,

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that, or the other thing.

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So I think in some ways it's super, it's really complicated this perspective of market

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integration.

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And one saying, like, we actually have to look at this in a really sophisticated way to

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really understand how all these factors are are playing out.

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And I think we're seeing similar things in terms of how the Chamani project has approached

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it as well.

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And I think we've dug in more on market integration and measured it at more of a sort of

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fine-grained level than they have, but we're seeing the same kinds of things in terms of

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just a lot of variation.

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It's not just Western foods come in and everything changes, but how people navigate that

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relationship with every aspect of the the sort of social the larger

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social context really matters.

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So a a simple sort of naive perspective, which it seems like you're taking

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issue with is that, you know, the more integrated I am with markets and with the Western

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world, uh, the more likely I am to have these Western uh diseases like heart disease or

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these mental health problems, um, or you know, or or or osteoporosis, whatever these these

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things are that are afflicting Western populations, the more engaged I am with the market

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economy, the more that's just gonna thrust me into maladaptation.

283
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Um and so you might naively expect just a simple relationship with you know market

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integration and poor health.

285
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But it seems like what you're saying is that that relationship is is not so simple.

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I mean first of all, do do we see relationship there at all?

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Um and and you know if so, what what what are the mediators and the moderators of that

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relationship?

289
00:19:16,510 --> 00:19:17,950
Yeah, no, that's a great question.

290
00:19:18,030 --> 00:19:20,990
And and the reality is there's no simple answer to that.

291
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I would say that even trying to measure health, like what is relevant there, right?

292
00:19:26,270 --> 00:19:28,510
And so like is it life expectancy?

293
00:19:28,670 --> 00:19:30,350
Is it healthy life expectancy?

294
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Is it prevalence of diabetes, or is it some sort of set of all of those, right?

295
00:19:36,030 --> 00:19:41,630
I think in general there have been with with increasing market as market integration,

296
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there have been some positive effects, right?

297
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:50,480
And often that's related to access to vaccines, for example, or some of the sort of quote

298
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:54,720
unquote modern medical care that people that people experience and some levels of

299
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development, like access to clean water and things like that.

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But the reality is when you start to look at those details, like it kind of, you know,

301
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:04,640
there's so much variation.

302
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:09,050
And one of the nice things about the Schwarb, you know project is that we've been able to

303
00:20:09,050 --> 00:20:13,850
set it up where we're working with in dozens of different communities so that we can see

304
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this play out.

305
00:20:15,210 --> 00:20:19,690
And so, for example, one thing that we see is some of those more remote communities,

306
00:20:19,850 --> 00:20:22,810
they're not having problems with lack of clean water, right?

307
00:20:22,890 --> 00:20:27,530
They're small populations without domesticated animals, and they're they're actually able

308
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to move around quite a bit in a relatively undisturbed environment.

309
00:20:31,930 --> 00:20:37,240
But as they start to experience market integration, things get worse, And then

310
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:44,040
as they continue on that, things get better and worse simultaneously, right?

311
00:20:44,120 --> 00:20:49,640
So initially they start to have larger populations, more domesticated animals,

312
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more issues with you know pathogens coming from those animals or from you know whatever,

313
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more humans being in the same location.

314
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But then as they get bigger, there tends to be more market access to antibiotics and things

315
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:09,230
like that, which then can deal with some of the issues, but then start to also bring in

316
00:21:09,230 --> 00:21:14,670
those risks for diabetes and heart disease that, for example, are coming from

317
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the fact that now market foods are more available.

318
00:21:18,270 --> 00:21:24,190
And so it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's almost infinitely complicated in terms

319
00:21:24,190 --> 00:21:25,790
of trying to pull that all apart.

320
00:21:25,950 --> 00:21:31,630
And I feel like our first 20 years of this project is starting to make some progress on

321
00:21:31,630 --> 00:21:37,500
this about the sort of trends and all those different factors that drive this and even how

322
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we set up our studies.

323
00:21:39,180 --> 00:21:45,020
But it's pretty interesting that we're we're 20 years into this, and it feels like,

324
00:21:45,100 --> 00:21:47,660
oh yeah, we've had a bunch of successes, right?

325
00:21:48,060 --> 00:21:53,580
But I feel like we're still just really learning how to set this all up.

326
00:21:53,740 --> 00:21:55,100
And it's been really interesting.

327
00:21:55,260 --> 00:22:00,380
I'm now part of this group called Pecan that's um that Herman Ponzer has been running out

328
00:22:00,380 --> 00:22:01,230
of Duke.

329
00:22:01,550 --> 00:22:03,790
And we've been meeting now for three years.

330
00:22:03,870 --> 00:22:08,510
And it's a bunch of people who do this kind of work with small-scale populations.

331
00:22:08,670 --> 00:22:13,630
So people who work with the Hadza and people who work with, you know, the Chamani and

332
00:22:13,950 --> 00:22:14,350
others.

333
00:22:14,590 --> 00:22:19,950
And so having these conversations about market integration and taking those first steps to

334
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basically say, like, how do we actually set this up to be able to compare and contrast

335
00:22:25,580 --> 00:22:26,780
between populations.

336
00:22:27,100 --> 00:22:32,620
And like, how do we, what is our our relevant variable here in terms of looking at health

337
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and longevity or whatever it is?

338
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And then what are the factors that are going to influence this?

339
00:22:37,500 --> 00:22:42,620
And that's been, it's been, I feel like we talked as Pacan as this group for a couple of

340
00:22:42,620 --> 00:22:42,780
years.

341
00:22:42,860 --> 00:22:47,900
And we finally, about a month ago, when we all met together, got to a really cool place

342
00:22:47,900 --> 00:22:52,610
where we can say, like, okay, here's how we test this across different groups.

343
00:22:52,770 --> 00:22:58,530
And here's how we may be able to come up with some general ideas about how all this works,

344
00:22:58,770 --> 00:22:59,090
right?

345
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But that it's just surprising.

346
00:23:01,730 --> 00:23:05,810
We're like 20 years into the Schwar project and a few years into Pecan.

347
00:23:05,970 --> 00:23:11,490
And we're just getting to the point where we can sort of start to make some can draw some

348
00:23:11,490 --> 00:23:17,360
conclusions about the general principles of how all this operates, and then look

349
00:23:17,360 --> 00:23:22,960
at individual populations as whatever, complying or deviating in different ways.

350
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:29,760
So it seems like what you're saying is the modern relationship we see

351
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:35,680
between sort of non-market societies slowly integrating into market societies

352
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:40,720
is sort of analogous to the historical process of human beings themselves moving away from

353
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:45,950
hunting and gathering, moving into agriculture and sedentism, and then developing more

354
00:23:45,950 --> 00:23:47,950
sophisticated economies and technologies.

355
00:23:48,190 --> 00:23:53,470
Or at first, when humans uh you know began, you know, uh concentrating together in large

356
00:23:53,470 --> 00:23:58,510
agricultural settings, uh it just became a huge petri dish for lots of different pathogens

357
00:23:58,510 --> 00:24:03,230
spreading from uh from livestock to people and from people to one another, given that they

358
00:24:03,230 --> 00:24:06,260
were in in larger, you know, uh concentrations.

359
00:24:06,420 --> 00:24:11,620
Uh that combined with the agricultural diet and our lack of adaptation to those new foods

360
00:24:11,620 --> 00:24:12,420
that we were eating.

361
00:24:12,580 --> 00:24:16,900
So at first, it seemed like the uh economic development of humans was a really bad thing

362
00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:17,940
for us in terms of health.

363
00:24:18,100 --> 00:24:23,060
But then slowly, gradually, as economies developed, um, we started developing more

364
00:24:23,060 --> 00:24:28,830
technologies, antibiotics, vaccines, new ways to mitigate the health problems

365
00:24:28,910 --> 00:24:34,350
and cope with the the problems arising from this new agricultural processed diet.

366
00:24:34,510 --> 00:24:37,630
And then eventually uh we started seeing positive health effects.

367
00:24:37,790 --> 00:24:42,190
So there was kind of we had to get over this hump of of sort of negative uh health effects

368
00:24:42,190 --> 00:24:44,510
in order to get to the some of the positive trends.

369
00:24:45,310 --> 00:24:49,760
And it seems like what you're suggesting is that that may be a similar dynamic at play as

370
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,520
communities like the Shuar, the Chumane begin to transition into a market society where at

371
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:55,280
first it may have negative effects.

372
00:24:55,440 --> 00:25:00,880
Um, and and maybe once you get some of the positive effects of, say, antibiotics, uh, those

373
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:02,240
those effects might diminish.

374
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,680
And so it might be a similar process of sort of get getting over this hump.

375
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:06,800
Absolutely.

376
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:08,800
That's definitely a good way to look at it.

377
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:13,520
And then on top of that, we're starting to then see some of the negative things that

378
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:14,240
happen, right?

379
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:19,630
So that some some of the chronic diseases, also mental health issues start to come, you

380
00:25:19,630 --> 00:25:23,710
know, become a major issue for a lot of these communities, especially indigenous

381
00:25:23,710 --> 00:25:29,710
communities, as you know, they're sort of they're they're more in these market systems, but

382
00:25:29,710 --> 00:25:32,590
yet there's a huge level of inequality there, right?

383
00:25:32,750 --> 00:25:37,950
And so you start to see the mental health challenges, you know, really becoming much more

384
00:25:37,950 --> 00:25:43,100
common in these populations, as well as you start to see things like immune dysregulation,

385
00:25:43,180 --> 00:25:43,420
right?

386
00:25:43,660 --> 00:25:49,260
Start to see this sort of initial movement towards dysregulated immune systems that leads

387
00:25:49,260 --> 00:25:51,580
to autoimmune diseases and allergies.

388
00:25:51,740 --> 00:25:57,260
And so, yeah, you see like even those characterizing this law, the swath of

389
00:25:57,260 --> 00:26:02,060
changes, there are these positives that happen after you these initial negatives, but then

390
00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:05,340
a whole set of new negatives come online, right?

391
00:26:05,500 --> 00:26:10,750
And so again, depending on what we're focusing in on in terms of the health issue, it can

392
00:26:10,750 --> 00:26:14,590
look like something that got way better or way worse.

393
00:26:14,750 --> 00:26:18,750
And so how do we characterize the collection of those different things?

394
00:26:19,070 --> 00:26:19,310
Yeah.

395
00:26:19,390 --> 00:26:21,470
I had a much more prosaic example, David.

396
00:26:21,550 --> 00:26:25,390
I like the example of history, which is just like even as a as a just individual human

397
00:26:25,390 --> 00:26:31,150
lifespan, if I move to a new place, I often uh find when I move to the next place,

398
00:26:31,300 --> 00:26:36,420
um, that I'm I'm trying to live the lifestyle that worked in the place I lived previously

399
00:26:36,740 --> 00:26:38,020
and apply that to the next place.

400
00:26:38,100 --> 00:26:39,700
And it happens at different scales.

401
00:26:39,940 --> 00:26:41,940
But then you realize, oh, this doesn't work here.

402
00:26:42,020 --> 00:26:43,060
I have to modify things.

403
00:26:43,140 --> 00:26:47,140
And then you also realize even once you get settled in the new place, there are some pros

404
00:26:47,140 --> 00:26:48,820
to the new place, but there's some cons.

405
00:26:48,980 --> 00:26:53,460
And I'm hearing it's the same, it's exactly the same thing historically or society, social

406
00:26:53,940 --> 00:26:54,420
society.

407
00:26:55,350 --> 00:26:55,670
It is.

408
00:26:55,750 --> 00:27:01,270
And it's really that navigation at an individual level of like those things that work and

409
00:27:01,270 --> 00:27:06,550
what you're familiar with, and then the constraints and opportunities that are shaped by

410
00:27:06,550 --> 00:27:11,430
the environment that you come from and the environment that you're going in, or you stay in

411
00:27:11,430 --> 00:27:14,310
the same place and your environment is changing over time.

412
00:27:14,470 --> 00:27:19,430
And so, you know, there I think the the the piece that I would like to see develop that

413
00:27:19,430 --> 00:27:24,390
I've really been pushing some of our, you know, my collaborators and grad students to go is

414
00:27:24,390 --> 00:27:30,320
that oftentimes the way we've looked at market integration has been very much like the

415
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:32,400
material conditions changing, right?

416
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:37,280
In terms of like, okay, here's your behavior, here's your physical activity level changing,

417
00:27:37,360 --> 00:27:42,720
or here's your percentage of foods coming from market sources, or here's your access to a

418
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,800
TV, or those kinds of things, right?

419
00:27:45,170 --> 00:27:50,290
But on top of that, I think there's also like the cognitive piece of like how do we make

420
00:27:50,290 --> 00:27:51,010
sense of that?

421
00:27:51,170 --> 00:27:56,610
And so we've started to do some work sort of taking some of like Bill Dressler's ideas in

422
00:27:56,610 --> 00:28:01,330
terms of like these congruities and incongruities of how we make sense of what's a good

423
00:28:01,330 --> 00:28:01,650
life.

424
00:28:01,730 --> 00:28:06,850
And and so, you know, like um Melissa Liebert, who was one of the grad students who worked

425
00:28:06,850 --> 00:28:12,080
early on in the Schwar project, She's finished and is now actually tenured faculty at

426
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:13,760
Northern Arizona University.

427
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:18,160
But some of the work that she's done, a bit of it published, some of it still in process,

428
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:23,920
has been looking at like kids and how things change and how they perceive things.

429
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,880
And so even at the level of like a six-year-old or an eight-year-old, they've got different

430
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:34,730
ideas of like what it means to live a good life, and that they're different between

431
00:28:34,730 --> 00:28:40,650
remote living Schwar communities, who those kids are often saying, like, clean water

432
00:28:40,650 --> 00:28:46,250
and trees and things like that, to then some of the urbanized Schwar who are saying, Well,

433
00:28:46,410 --> 00:28:51,210
what it takes to live a good life is a cell phone and a TV and things like that.

434
00:28:52,100 --> 00:28:57,780
the ability of those individual kids to meet those desires,

435
00:28:58,100 --> 00:28:58,420
right?

436
00:28:59,060 --> 00:29:01,460
Vary in those different places, right?

437
00:29:01,620 --> 00:29:06,660
So your ability to have, you know, and you're you're in a group of 50 people living in a

438
00:29:06,660 --> 00:29:12,180
remote area, and what you need to have a good life is good social relationships, good

439
00:29:12,180 --> 00:29:13,140
environment.

440
00:29:13,570 --> 00:29:15,810
most people can meet that, right?

441
00:29:15,890 --> 00:29:21,650
Whereas you look at then people living in, say, a market center of 10,000 people, and you

442
00:29:21,650 --> 00:29:26,850
look at then what kids want, inequality is going to play out big time.

443
00:29:27,010 --> 00:29:31,570
And you're going to have kids who are six to eight years old who really want cell phones

444
00:29:31,570 --> 00:29:36,560
and access to all these different things or ability to travel, but yet there's a huge range

445
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,480
of variation between individuals.

446
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:42,560
Some individuals are able to provide that for their kids and others aren't.

447
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:48,560
And so that ability to kind of reach what you want is going to have huge

448
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:50,400
effects on mental health.

449
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,440
And it's going to have huge effects on stress and then understanding stress's effects on

450
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:55,760
the body.

451
00:29:55,920 --> 00:30:00,850
So I think the next step really is doing more of that kind of work to really understand

452
00:30:00,930 --> 00:30:05,410
like how people make sense of it, not just how their bodies experience it.

453
00:30:06,210 --> 00:30:06,450
Yeah.

454
00:30:06,610 --> 00:30:11,890
I'm I wanna unpack this this relationship between uh mental health and market integration

455
00:30:12,050 --> 00:30:16,610
because um I would imagine it's it's a complicated one and and there there might be some

456
00:30:16,610 --> 00:30:21,490
moderators and mediators to that relationship and and and particularly there's complexity

457
00:30:21,490 --> 00:30:25,330
surrounding how you're measuring mental health and what mental disorders we're looking at.

458
00:30:25,650 --> 00:30:27,320
So there could be stress, anxiety, depression.

459
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,400
I'm not sure what it is you're measuring and and where the the relationships are strongest.

460
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:36,520
But I kinda just want to unpack like w what is going on there uh and and and what you see

461
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:40,040
as as the the the causal mechanisms that are uh at play.

462
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:41,640
Yeah, great question.

463
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:46,440
I think that often it's kind of playing out in terms of like some people are approaching

464
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:50,920
this with the sort of epidemiological tools where it's like, okay, let's measure whether,

465
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,910
you know, percentage of individuals that have, you depression, or you know, either people

466
00:30:55,910 --> 00:31:01,910
who have been diagnosed or people who have behaviors that, you know, as they ref, you know,

467
00:31:02,150 --> 00:31:07,910
in an interview or a questionnaire, would be classified as depressed if they had

468
00:31:07,910 --> 00:31:09,750
access to a mental health professional, right?

469
00:31:09,910 --> 00:31:14,070
So there's people who are approaching it in those sort of that epidemiological lens.

470
00:31:14,230 --> 00:31:19,480
And what we see is populations, especially indigenous groups that are going through market

471
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:24,040
integration, you're often seeing the increase in in in these things, right?

472
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:29,960
And obviously it's complicated in the sense that like how individual cultures

473
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:33,320
make sense of depression is going to vary a lot.

474
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:39,160
And so those standard tools to applied globally have their limitations, right?

475
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:45,010
But what you can see is definitely more mental health issues, especially

476
00:31:45,010 --> 00:31:48,770
around anxiety and depression in those communities, right?

477
00:31:49,010 --> 00:31:53,170
And then there's the other approach, which is sort of coming more out of anthropology and

478
00:31:53,170 --> 00:31:58,770
human biology, which is it's partly about prevalence of these, but it's also more about

479
00:31:59,010 --> 00:32:03,890
measurement of anxiety or mostly stress, right?

480
00:32:03,970 --> 00:32:09,380
And so trying to understand both the subjective experience of stress, but more the sort of

481
00:32:09,380 --> 00:32:12,740
biological experience of stress through biomarkers.

482
00:32:12,980 --> 00:32:18,500
And so what we see is, you know, let there, and we can chat more about this too, is like,

483
00:32:18,660 --> 00:32:24,580
you know, with measuring stress at a biological level, the body is experiencing it

484
00:32:24,580 --> 00:32:25,860
in different ways, right?

485
00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:31,710
But we're often seeing increase in chronic psychosocial stress

486
00:32:32,030 --> 00:32:35,150
as people are going through this process of market integration.

487
00:32:35,390 --> 00:32:40,270
Obviously, there's a lot of factors that influence that, but that is something that people

488
00:32:40,270 --> 00:32:45,310
are experiencing in general more of as they're going through market integration.

489
00:32:45,470 --> 00:32:51,400
And I think, you know, some of it in my mind connects to social, like a lot

490
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,800
of it would connect to like social networks and sort of social support.

491
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,080
And then also with sort of feelings of control.

492
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:05,000
And so I think oftentimes in these types of new environments that people are moving into or

493
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:10,120
having the environment change around them, that oftentimes as you're starting to introduce

494
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:15,720
whatever, new economic systems and, you know, increasing population sizes and

495
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:21,410
increased inequality, you have perceptions of people being able to control their

496
00:33:21,410 --> 00:33:27,250
environment and their own circumstances less, in that that tends to lead to higher

497
00:33:27,250 --> 00:33:32,690
levels of psychosocial stress, whether that's a measured in the HPA axis,

498
00:33:33,010 --> 00:33:38,770
axis in terms of like cortisol levels being higher or dysregulated, or in an

499
00:33:38,770 --> 00:33:42,050
inflammatory axis, or other ways to look at things.

500
00:33:42,210 --> 00:33:46,180
I mean, that's that's just a general character characterization, and there's a lot of

501
00:33:46,180 --> 00:33:47,620
factors that influence it.

502
00:33:47,780 --> 00:33:53,700
But in general, we're seeing more chronic psychosocial stress as people go through

503
00:33:53,700 --> 00:33:59,460
more market integration and are more within living within these complex sort of Western

504
00:33:59,540 --> 00:34:00,900
type environments.

505
00:34:01,620 --> 00:34:02,420
That's that's interesting.

506
00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:08,490
So it seems like part of it is kind of the mundane thing where moving into any new place or

507
00:34:08,490 --> 00:34:12,730
culture or setting where things work differently is going to be stressful because you

508
00:34:12,730 --> 00:34:15,050
understand how things work less.

509
00:34:15,290 --> 00:34:15,530
Right.

510
00:34:16,410 --> 00:34:21,770
Um so that that I want to set aside that mundane part and focus on what I think is the more

511
00:34:21,770 --> 00:34:26,330
interesting part, which is you're you're you're also uh seeming to argue that uh it's

512
00:34:26,330 --> 00:34:28,570
affecting people's social relationships.

513
00:34:28,730 --> 00:34:34,330
Um and that in turn is having these negative uh uh physical health effects in terms of

514
00:34:34,330 --> 00:34:37,800
stress and uh mental health uh effects as well.

515
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:43,800
Um, and I I'm curious about that because you know, naively you might think, you know,

516
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:48,280
you're you're more integrated with you know a market economy, you're you're meeting more

517
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,360
people, uh, your social network is expanding.

518
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,560
You might think that might have a positive effect on your social relationships.

519
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,480
You know, you're you're you're forming new opportunities, new working relationships, you're

520
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,440
with with people in different um work environments.

521
00:35:00,570 --> 00:35:06,570
Um so why when when these social relationships seem to increase, do we see uh

522
00:35:06,570 --> 00:35:10,330
deterioration of people's uh uh social support systems?

523
00:35:10,570 --> 00:35:12,250
Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great question.

524
00:35:12,410 --> 00:35:17,210
I do think for some people, for a subset of people, it does get better, right?

525
00:35:17,370 --> 00:35:20,010
And and I think that there are more opportunities.

526
00:35:20,170 --> 00:35:23,450
There may be ways that they connect with people in new and different ways.

527
00:35:23,530 --> 00:35:27,050
There's travel opportunities, there's ways to make money, those kinds of things.

528
00:35:27,260 --> 00:35:33,020
I think often though, a larger segment of people are finding less

529
00:35:33,020 --> 00:35:34,220
stability in this.

530
00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:39,980
So that they may be doing wage labor without a lot of support and a lot of

531
00:35:40,220 --> 00:35:45,340
predictability, that they may be going off to whatever, you know, some somewhere that's

532
00:35:45,340 --> 00:35:50,060
distant from you know where they grew up and where their family is, and that all of a

533
00:35:50,060 --> 00:35:55,150
sudden they're, you know, working in the city that's 200 miles away and they're not making

534
00:35:55,150 --> 00:35:57,470
a whole lot of money and they're sending some back.

535
00:35:57,630 --> 00:35:59,630
They're trying to come back when they can.

536
00:35:59,950 --> 00:36:04,590
And the relationship that they're in the relationships that they're in in those new

537
00:36:04,590 --> 00:36:09,950
communities are ones where they're very hierarchical and there's a lot of in inequality in

538
00:36:09,950 --> 00:36:10,110
them.

539
00:36:10,190 --> 00:36:10,430
Right.

540
00:36:10,590 --> 00:36:16,590
So I think it's it's it's the details of what happens with these, the quality of those,

541
00:36:16,750 --> 00:36:22,560
you know, relationships and and sort of like the level of ine inequality w within them.

542
00:36:22,720 --> 00:36:28,640
So so it definitely it's not universally a bad thing to to have these changes in terms of

543
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:30,720
like social networks and things like that.

544
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:36,560
But I think often the way it plays out is that more often people tend to be more

545
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:42,560
exploited and it and it and it disrupts social networks that that are going to

546
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,930
be really useful for whatever for people staying afloat.

547
00:36:47,090 --> 00:36:51,570
I know that some of the some of the studies that we've done, we've asked people like in our

548
00:36:51,650 --> 00:36:57,170
in our questionnaires or surveys about like their social networks and can how many people

549
00:36:57,170 --> 00:37:02,130
do you have that you can go to that if you're in an emergency and you need money or you

550
00:37:02,130 --> 00:37:05,010
need to get taken to the hospital or things like that.

551
00:37:05,250 --> 00:37:07,330
How many people and who are those people?

552
00:37:07,490 --> 00:37:13,200
And I think that oftentimes going out of one of these communities leads to that

553
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:18,320
disruption of those, those, the social support that's going to be necessary when things get

554
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:18,640
bad.

555
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:19,200
Right.

556
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:19,760
Yeah.

557
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:25,600
And and is the idea too that in just as the example of history or personal life

558
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:30,240
experience, you try to find the principles that work across locations.

559
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,080
So would the long-term goal be something like given that this is a natural experiment, um,

560
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:42,130
if somebody has more family around or less, or has more predictability in their job or

561
00:37:42,210 --> 00:37:43,730
less, which is harder to code.

562
00:37:43,890 --> 00:37:48,290
But I think the ideal would be that it's as you're saying, it's not as simple as just in

563
00:37:48,290 --> 00:37:49,410
the market or not.

564
00:37:49,650 --> 00:37:55,490
It's sort of coding these more situation specific things, but that will still

565
00:37:55,490 --> 00:38:00,000
happen across instances and seeing if those factors are at least protective.

566
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:01,440
Is that the long-term goal?

567
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:02,640
Absolutely.

568
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:03,200
Yeah.

569
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,920
And really trying to understand that those details of like, yeah, perceptions of control,

570
00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:12,960
perceptions of autonomy, perception of social support, those kinds of things.

571
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:16,560
And so, you know, again, keep saying perception, right?

572
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:22,370
Because sometimes like measuring the absolute number of these things doesn't really

573
00:38:22,370 --> 00:38:24,290
get at how people perceive them.

574
00:38:24,370 --> 00:38:28,770
And that's going to be shaped by the culture, that's going to be shaped by history, that's

575
00:38:28,770 --> 00:38:30,450
going to be shaped as individuals.

576
00:38:30,690 --> 00:38:33,490
And so, but yeah, really trying to understand those details.

577
00:38:33,650 --> 00:38:39,570
I mean, I feel like it's funny being 20 over 20 years into this project and sort of still

578
00:38:39,570 --> 00:38:45,440
feeling like we're laying the foundation for getting some of these big questions

579
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:45,920
answered.

580
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:51,760
I feel like, again, we've like been really productive, but it's it's so like some of these

581
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:57,680
larger patterns and generalizations are just so hard to get at that it's really

582
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:03,090
taken like setting up this enormous project, right, which is measuring like many, many,

583
00:39:03,170 --> 00:39:09,010
many hundreds of variables and working with, I think we're over 3,500

584
00:39:09,010 --> 00:39:11,890
people over these 20 years.

585
00:39:12,050 --> 00:39:18,050
And so, and and yet I still feel like it's almost like pilot data in some ways, like to set

586
00:39:18,050 --> 00:39:18,690
stuff up.

587
00:39:18,930 --> 00:39:20,050
So it's cool.

588
00:39:20,130 --> 00:39:25,570
And now an increasing number of studies are using kind of our approaches.

589
00:39:25,730 --> 00:39:31,560
And then now we can compare and contrast with, for example, groups going through similar

590
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:37,080
processes in Malaysia or East Africa or other places, but it's still, I don't know, I

591
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:43,480
to me, it still seems like we've done a bunch, but there's still so

592
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:49,240
much potential to really get at those, like, how do we really understand the big processes

593
00:39:49,240 --> 00:39:51,640
and and why they exist the way that they do?

594
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:52,120
Yeah.

595
00:39:52,310 --> 00:39:55,510
It even reminds me, like, I mean, there's work on just even like there was experimental

596
00:39:55,510 --> 00:39:57,670
work, I think, in the UK on advertising.

597
00:39:57,830 --> 00:40:03,830
And if you just remove what is presumably the effects of the perception of relative

598
00:40:03,830 --> 00:40:05,670
deprivation by removing advertising.

599
00:40:05,750 --> 00:40:09,510
So, you know, advertising is largely like you're deprived, you should buy this product and

600
00:40:09,510 --> 00:40:10,630
not be deprived anymore.

601
00:40:10,790 --> 00:40:15,140
There's there were slight in this as an experiment in a natural experiment, there were

602
00:40:15,140 --> 00:40:19,300
slight changes in well-being, even just by removing the ads people were exposed to.

603
00:40:19,460 --> 00:40:23,620
So this is a a real world example of exactly the thing you're describing, which is like

604
00:40:23,780 --> 00:40:28,580
even that is just one study, but you're doing this natural experiment across many things.

605
00:40:28,820 --> 00:40:31,940
Trying to measure people's experiences or perceptions is really hard.

606
00:40:32,340 --> 00:40:34,980
Yeah, but that proximity piece is so important, right?

607
00:40:35,140 --> 00:40:40,410
And so, like, are you seeing other people getting more of these things that you might want

608
00:40:40,490 --> 00:40:41,930
or that now you really want?

609
00:40:42,090 --> 00:40:46,890
And so in the past, human biologists have measured that in like distance to these different

610
00:40:46,890 --> 00:40:51,290
communities, or are you in a neighborhood, a poor neighborhood that's right next to a rich

611
00:40:51,290 --> 00:40:51,770
neighborhood?

612
00:40:51,850 --> 00:40:56,010
But yet with advertising, you're you're bringing you're doing that in a different way.

613
00:40:56,170 --> 00:41:01,450
And and so I think one of the challenges has been with the Schwartz project is that you

614
00:41:01,420 --> 00:41:05,500
know, we've set it up and we're doing this work, but every year it changes.

615
00:41:05,660 --> 00:41:11,180
And so, like, you know, oftentimes we'll have enough, we'll collect data over 10 years to

616
00:41:11,180 --> 00:41:12,780
really address a question.

617
00:41:13,020 --> 00:41:17,260
But then are all those 10 years and those communities equal?

618
00:41:17,420 --> 00:41:17,740
Right.

619
00:41:17,820 --> 00:41:19,180
And and it's accelerated.

620
00:41:19,260 --> 00:41:25,100
Like the last five years has accelerated even faster with the sense of like, now there's

621
00:41:25,100 --> 00:41:27,100
these like little internet cafes.

622
00:41:27,260 --> 00:41:32,330
I guess they're not really that, but like access to Starlink in the middle of the forest

623
00:41:32,490 --> 00:41:36,810
where you were all of a sudden getting connection on the internet in a way that literally a

624
00:41:36,810 --> 00:41:39,610
year before there was no opportunities.

625
00:41:39,850 --> 00:41:45,530
Or like all of a sudden this road goes in and it totally changes this entire region in

626
00:41:45,530 --> 00:41:46,570
terms of their access.

627
00:41:46,730 --> 00:41:52,000
So like it's cool from a sort of natural, you know, like experiment standpoint, but I just

628
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,880
wish the natural experiment would like slow down.

629
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:56,560
Slow down exactly.

630
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:58,400
Like I want to compare this versus this.

631
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:00,080
I don't want it like everywhere.

632
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:00,720
Yeah.

633
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:02,320
Your time machine.

634
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,920
If somebody's got a time machine, if somebody has a time machine, please contact Josh,

635
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:06,240
please.

636
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:06,720
Yeah.

637
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:07,600
Yeah, exactly.

638
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:13,200
And I think, you know, we're also really we're we really focus in on doing this work

639
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:14,640
ethically and responsibly.

640
00:42:14,720 --> 00:42:20,160
And and and I think really Larry has been fantastic and has been the push on this: is like,

641
00:42:20,370 --> 00:42:25,170
how do we how do we work with communities that they're getting something out of this,

642
00:42:25,250 --> 00:42:25,490
right?

643
00:42:25,570 --> 00:42:30,690
That it's not just us, obviously, it's not just us coming in and taking and then

644
00:42:30,690 --> 00:42:35,650
reproducing stuff and then like essentially the parachute research model, but it's one

645
00:42:35,650 --> 00:42:41,570
where like, how do we navigate this where like they are getting as many things

646
00:42:41,570 --> 00:42:44,130
out of this that they want as we are?

647
00:42:44,290 --> 00:42:50,140
And so what that translates to is we're not always controlling

648
00:42:50,140 --> 00:42:51,260
where we go, right?

649
00:42:51,420 --> 00:42:55,660
It's kind of like, you know, we work with the Schwartz Federation and the the leadership

650
00:42:55,660 --> 00:42:56,700
within Schwartz.

651
00:42:56,780 --> 00:43:02,140
And then we sort of navigate like, okay, what are the communities that are

652
00:43:02,460 --> 00:43:05,900
possible to work in because they want to work with us?

653
00:43:06,060 --> 00:43:10,620
But it may not be perfect in the sense that, like, if I got to choose or Larry got to

654
00:43:10,620 --> 00:43:13,260
choose, we'd be like, oh, let's pick this, this, this, and this.

655
00:43:13,340 --> 00:43:18,130
And we've got our whatever five communities designed scientifically.

656
00:43:18,370 --> 00:43:23,970
It's the reality of it is there's some of that, but also this like,

657
00:43:24,130 --> 00:43:26,450
okay, well that we can't really do that.

658
00:43:26,530 --> 00:43:29,250
So let's try to find a way that works for everyone.

659
00:43:29,410 --> 00:43:34,850
So it's just, I think it's the reality of doing this work with people, you know, in

660
00:43:34,850 --> 00:43:36,690
communities in a responsible way.

661
00:43:36,850 --> 00:43:42,130
Obviously international is is really makes it really clear because of you know working with

662
00:43:42,130 --> 00:43:45,120
indigenous communities, but find the same thing here.

663
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,240
I do work with homeless communities in Eugene.

664
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,480
And you know, it's the same kind of thing.

665
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:56,480
It's like, how do we figure out how it's mutually beneficial and how we balance the sort

666
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,880
of ethics of it with the science of it?

667
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:01,840
Because that's the way you have to do it.

668
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:08,640
Yeah, one of the many pitfalls of doing research on humans rather than rats, which you can

669
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:10,480
just pick up and you know put wherever you want.

670
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:11,600
Exactly.

671
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:12,240
Yeah.

672
00:44:12,450 --> 00:44:15,490
Uh with humans you have to, you know, offer them something that they want.

673
00:44:15,570 --> 00:44:15,810
You know.

674
00:44:16,130 --> 00:44:16,690
Yeah, right.

675
00:44:16,850 --> 00:44:17,810
Exactly.

676
00:44:18,610 --> 00:44:20,290
Yeah, it gets really challenging.

677
00:44:20,770 --> 00:44:21,090
Yeah.

678
00:44:21,250 --> 00:44:26,610
Um, speaking of of of what humans want, I want to return to an idea that you touched on uh

679
00:44:26,850 --> 00:44:32,690
um earlier that uh is you know sticking with me, this idea of, you know, what a good

680
00:44:32,690 --> 00:44:38,210
life means and how that differs between um people as they

681
00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:40,720
navigate this transition into market economies.

682
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:46,880
And so you you mentioned that um, you know, prior to this transition, people's life

683
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:50,080
aspirations or what they view as a good life are are much simpler.

684
00:44:50,240 --> 00:44:56,000
It's just if they have access to clean water and and friends, like that's that's good

685
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:56,240
enough.

686
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,800
That's that that's what it means to to live a good life.

687
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:04,830
And yet that changes such that people's aspirations get much higher once

688
00:45:04,830 --> 00:45:09,790
they transition into uh market economies, where it's it's no longer enough to just have

689
00:45:09,790 --> 00:45:11,390
clean water and friends.

690
00:45:11,470 --> 00:45:17,390
You also need the cell phone, the TV, uh w whatever it is that that the the market is

691
00:45:17,390 --> 00:45:17,630
offering.

692
00:45:17,950 --> 00:45:19,230
Or or you think you need, right?

693
00:45:19,550 --> 00:45:20,190
Or you think you need it.

694
00:45:20,350 --> 00:45:21,150
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

695
00:45:21,470 --> 00:45:26,760
Um and so I I'm I find that puzzling and interesting.

696
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:33,080
So why why shouldn't I be ecstatic if I'm living in a in a market economy and I

697
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:34,520
have all the clean water I want?

698
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,560
And I have these amazing new technology, I have air conditioning.

699
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,680
I have, you know, maybe I have a uh a cell phone or or whatever.

700
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:45,080
Maybe I have these all these new amenities that are above and beyond my basic needs, and my

701
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:46,200
basic needs are being met.

702
00:45:46,410 --> 00:45:47,770
Why shouldn't I be ecstatic?

703
00:45:47,850 --> 00:45:51,130
What what is it about this new environment that makes me unsatisfied with that?

704
00:45:51,290 --> 00:45:53,610
Whereas I was satisfied with it in the previous environment.

705
00:45:53,850 --> 00:45:54,090
Yeah.

706
00:45:54,250 --> 00:45:58,250
I it's yeah, that it's it's such a it's it's so interesting to think about.

707
00:45:58,410 --> 00:46:03,370
So I think part of it is that you start to see there there's going to be variation in who

708
00:46:03,370 --> 00:46:04,170
gets what, right?

709
00:46:04,330 --> 00:46:06,810
I think that's always true in these market economies.

710
00:46:07,130 --> 00:46:12,680
And that often is particularly true in these fast transitioning communities, right?

711
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:17,960
So, like a market center, right, like in lowland Ecuador or wherever it is in the world

712
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,800
that we're talking about, is gonna have a huge amount of variation.

713
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:26,360
And some people who are really doing well and got access to all these things, and then the

714
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:30,440
other end of the spectrum where people are really struggling and are sort of the exploited

715
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:31,400
labor class, right?

716
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:37,390
So some of it is that it's not equally distributed, and it's not that the society says,

717
00:46:37,550 --> 00:46:41,710
okay, here we're going to give everybody their basic needs, right, in terms of food and

718
00:46:41,710 --> 00:46:42,830
water and things like that.

719
00:46:42,990 --> 00:46:46,430
And then you've got all these opportunities above and beyond that, right?

720
00:46:46,750 --> 00:46:48,110
That's not happening.

721
00:46:48,270 --> 00:46:52,110
It's kind of like, here's all these things that are rapidly changing, right?

722
00:46:52,190 --> 00:46:55,390
And people are getting access to some of them and not others.

723
00:46:55,470 --> 00:46:58,190
And other people are getting access to almost none, right?

724
00:46:58,510 --> 00:47:04,080
And then there's the exposure to just all the

725
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,520
variation in terms of what's out there, you're seeing it, right?

726
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:11,760
So it's not just that you've got some opportunities and not others, but you're seeing

727
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,760
another individual, you know, that's sort of keeping up with the Joneses or whatever it is

728
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:21,600
that like I'm now seeing on advertisements or TV, or I'm in a large

729
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:27,050
society that, or I'm in a large community that's now 10,000 people compared to like

730
00:47:27,050 --> 00:47:28,090
200 people.

731
00:47:28,250 --> 00:47:33,770
And the range of variation what you have in the 200 person community versus in 10,000 is

732
00:47:33,770 --> 00:47:34,090
different.

733
00:47:34,170 --> 00:47:36,730
So that inequality becomes really obvious.

734
00:47:36,810 --> 00:47:42,170
And so that that becomes something psychologically, not and also

735
00:47:42,490 --> 00:47:45,050
practically in terms of those things, right?

736
00:47:45,290 --> 00:47:47,690
Becomes they becomes really meaningful.

737
00:47:47,820 --> 00:47:53,580
So not to say that market economies are bad or that these transitions are bad at all, but I

738
00:47:53,580 --> 00:47:59,580
think it it naturally, maybe naturally is not the right word, but it typically becomes

739
00:47:59,580 --> 00:48:02,140
one where there's a huge amount of inequality.

740
00:48:02,380 --> 00:48:08,060
And and and so oftentimes it's the indigenous populations

741
00:48:08,220 --> 00:48:12,860
that tend to experience the bad end of the inequality, right?

742
00:48:13,020 --> 00:48:18,370
And I actually had a review paper now about 10 years ago with Claudia Vallegia, who that

743
00:48:18,370 --> 00:48:22,610
was looking at indigenous communities around the world as they go in through market

744
00:48:22,610 --> 00:48:23,250
integration.

745
00:48:23,410 --> 00:48:29,010
And universally, you see these communities, you know, because of racism and

746
00:48:29,010 --> 00:48:33,970
discrimination and various different things in all these different locations lead to them

747
00:48:34,610 --> 00:48:39,570
experiencing market integration in a different way than some of the majority communities.

748
00:48:39,810 --> 00:48:44,700
So I think it's just all about the details here in terms of, yeah, like theoretically,

749
00:48:44,780 --> 00:48:50,220
there's a whole lot of these amazing things that people get access to, but the

750
00:48:50,220 --> 00:48:56,060
inequality matters, and then it also matters, I think, how our bodies and minds

751
00:48:56,060 --> 00:48:59,500
are designed by evolution to deal with those environments.

752
00:48:59,660 --> 00:49:04,780
I I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I think a lot about the like what

753
00:49:05,470 --> 00:49:11,310
psychologically it means to be in a town of whatever, 200,000 or

754
00:49:11,310 --> 00:49:17,310
a million versus in a town of or a small community of 50 people, in terms of who

755
00:49:17,310 --> 00:49:22,990
you know, the relationships that you have, the faces you see, the

756
00:49:23,310 --> 00:49:25,870
status differences you're exposed to.

757
00:49:26,030 --> 00:49:31,760
Like in some ways, I just think we're not designed to live in these, whether it's us

758
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:36,240
talking in the United States or whether we're talking about these indigenous communities

759
00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:38,560
transitioning in a place like Ecuador.

760
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:45,440
So am I am I correct in in reading you uh and and saying that um a big part of what we

761
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:51,200
strive for or aspire to in life is really dependent on the people around us and

762
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:52,910
what they have compared to us.

763
00:49:52,990 --> 00:49:55,790
And a lot, there's this huge social comparison element.

764
00:49:56,190 --> 00:50:00,670
And in some sense, you might expect that from an evolutionary perspective.

765
00:50:00,910 --> 00:50:04,110
And that fitness is a relative uh thing.

766
00:50:04,270 --> 00:50:07,630
You know, um, it's about you know some doing better than others.

767
00:50:07,790 --> 00:50:11,070
Uh competition is integral to Darwinism as we know it.

768
00:50:11,230 --> 00:50:16,440
And so when I'm stri when I'm deciding what I should strive for as an organism, uh it makes

769
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:21,400
sense for me to evaluate that striving relative to my competitors in the environment.

770
00:50:21,720 --> 00:50:26,920
And insofar as I'm doing better than the people or the organisms around me, then that is a

771
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,640
good sign from an inclusive fitness perspective.

772
00:50:29,720 --> 00:50:33,960
Or if my family is doing better than the families I see around me, that is a good sign that

773
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,360
my inclusive fitness is in a good place.

774
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:36,920
Right.

775
00:50:37,720 --> 00:50:43,470
And so it could be that, you know, if if I'm living um in a in a

776
00:50:43,470 --> 00:50:48,750
different type of social setting where um maybe the the best maybe there's just not a lot

777
00:50:48,750 --> 00:50:50,430
of accumulatable wealth.

778
00:50:50,990 --> 00:50:51,230
Right.

779
00:50:51,470 --> 00:50:57,070
And and the best that people can do really is just have clean water uh and and and good

780
00:50:57,070 --> 00:50:59,870
friends and that's really like as as good as it gets in this place.

781
00:51:00,030 --> 00:51:03,870
Whereas if you move to a different place where as as good as it gets is like 10 times

782
00:51:03,870 --> 00:51:09,540
higher up in terms of the amount of stuff you have, then all of a sudden what I should

783
00:51:09,540 --> 00:51:14,500
strive for changes dramatically because now I'm I'm comparing myself to a different set of

784
00:51:14,500 --> 00:51:14,820
people.

785
00:51:15,060 --> 00:51:17,540
Um and my my competitors have changed.

786
00:51:17,700 --> 00:51:22,420
And all of a sudden I've moved from a place where I, you know, you know, perhaps somewhere

787
00:51:22,420 --> 00:51:25,540
in the middle of the hierarchy, I've entered into a new social system where I'm at the

788
00:51:25,540 --> 00:51:26,580
bottom of the hierarchy.

789
00:51:26,740 --> 00:51:30,900
So when when these communities are transitioning into the market uh economy, they're not,

790
00:51:30,980 --> 00:51:35,950
you know, uh moving right into the top of the of the economic stratum of that society.

791
00:51:36,030 --> 00:51:39,630
They're moving into the bottom of the economic stratum, both socially and economically.

792
00:51:40,110 --> 00:51:40,670
Absolutely.

793
00:51:41,390 --> 00:51:47,390
And so uh uh uh am I correct in in seeing that this is really a phenomenon of of social

794
00:51:47,390 --> 00:51:48,110
comparison?

795
00:51:48,190 --> 00:51:50,270
Aaron Powell I think a lot of it is, right?

796
00:51:50,430 --> 00:51:56,140
And I think it it in some ways we're just not designed to deal with the levels of

797
00:51:56,140 --> 00:52:01,420
inequality and the various factors that that are gonna be used to evaluate people, right?

798
00:52:01,500 --> 00:52:05,900
And at one level we could say like, what does it really matter if we have a TV or it really

799
00:52:05,980 --> 00:52:10,860
matters, but we really do know that it matters and people even in the US, right, are

800
00:52:10,860 --> 00:52:13,980
evaluating people based on wealth and things like that.

801
00:52:14,060 --> 00:52:17,020
And it can have effects in terms of fitness, right?

802
00:52:17,180 --> 00:52:17,420
Right.

803
00:52:17,660 --> 00:52:22,150
It's obviously super complicated given all the other factors, but it's it's still relevant,

804
00:52:22,230 --> 00:52:22,550
right?

805
00:52:22,710 --> 00:52:28,630
But I feel like we often get very disconnected from the like, what do we

806
00:52:28,630 --> 00:52:30,630
actually need and what do we want?

807
00:52:30,790 --> 00:52:31,110
Right.

808
00:52:31,270 --> 00:52:36,150
And that oftentimes there's just so many messages in a place like the US where it's just

809
00:52:36,150 --> 00:52:39,110
like, oh, you need this to be happy or whatever.

810
00:52:39,190 --> 00:52:44,580
And what I'm not sure it's it's it's like even the language around this or the variables

811
00:52:44,580 --> 00:52:47,060
that we're looking at are not necessarily the best ones.

812
00:52:47,220 --> 00:52:50,580
Like, is happiness the thing that we really want to focus in on?

813
00:52:50,740 --> 00:52:54,740
And or is it finding meaning in your life or those kinds of things?

814
00:52:54,820 --> 00:52:54,980
Right.

815
00:52:55,140 --> 00:53:00,260
And so I don't know, I guess my for me as a human biologist who's spending a lot who spent

816
00:53:00,260 --> 00:53:05,220
a lot of my career focused in on market integration and health, and simultaneously have

817
00:53:05,220 --> 00:53:10,930
done a lot of work on sort of larger trends in human evolution and human evolutionary

818
00:53:10,930 --> 00:53:11,410
history.

819
00:53:11,570 --> 00:53:16,930
I guess I keep on wanting to sort of step back and be like at a root level, what do we as

820
00:53:16,930 --> 00:53:22,690
humans, whether whatever society we're living in, what do we need to be

821
00:53:22,690 --> 00:53:27,570
healthy, to be happy, or whatever it is that we're evaluating this?

822
00:53:27,730 --> 00:53:30,690
And oftentimes it's not that complicated, right?

823
00:53:30,850 --> 00:53:34,840
I mean there's always going to be haves and haves nots, and there's always going to be

824
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:35,400
competition.

825
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:41,240
I mean, I think that's normal, but it doesn't have to be the way that we've designed

826
00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:44,200
societies and in like Western societies, right?

827
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:49,960
And so oftentimes it's it is about social relationships fundamentally that really

828
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:50,440
matter.

829
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:56,440
It's about individuals who feel like they have autonomy to be able to reach whatever their

830
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:02,010
potential or do things that are meaningful or do things within a society that matter to

831
00:54:02,010 --> 00:54:07,690
that society to get access to the foods that we need to survive and whatever

832
00:54:07,930 --> 00:54:08,730
thrive.

833
00:54:09,130 --> 00:54:12,090
It's really not a whole lot of things that we need.

834
00:54:12,330 --> 00:54:17,930
And so I think we're just in some ways we've totally lost the plot

835
00:54:18,250 --> 00:54:24,060
in places like the US, I think, in terms of being able to evaluate like what is human need

836
00:54:24,300 --> 00:54:29,820
and desires and then how does that map on or how should we try to map

837
00:54:30,460 --> 00:54:36,060
human society or country and politics onto those basic human

838
00:54:36,300 --> 00:54:38,460
physical and psychological needs.

839
00:54:38,860 --> 00:54:40,140
Yeah it's really weird.

840
00:54:40,300 --> 00:54:44,220
There's this thing called human factors engineering, which I'm sure you you know about

841
00:54:45,210 --> 00:54:48,250
you've you've heard of, but just saying it for out loud for people.

842
00:54:48,410 --> 00:54:52,970
Um, which is, you know, designing like a cockpit around like how a human thinks, right?

843
00:54:53,050 --> 00:54:54,330
So it's more intuitive.

844
00:54:54,410 --> 00:54:59,610
Uh and and and even like urban planning or things like that, ideally one would have that.

845
00:54:59,770 --> 00:55:05,770
And I think I hear what you're describing is there's this weird paradox where people

846
00:55:05,930 --> 00:55:11,050
are aware that they're unhappy or happy based on their local conditions.

847
00:55:11,450 --> 00:55:17,140
But there's another layer of in essence human factors engineering of a

848
00:55:17,140 --> 00:55:17,540
society.

849
00:55:17,700 --> 00:55:20,260
Whether in probably no no one person is doing it, right?

850
00:55:20,340 --> 00:55:22,580
It's just this dynamic emergent outcome.

851
00:55:22,900 --> 00:55:28,900
But that different places end up in different sort of parts of this landscape of

852
00:55:28,900 --> 00:55:30,020
human flourishing.

853
00:55:30,420 --> 00:55:35,060
And we're doing this weird thing of everybody sort of is like, yeah, the vibe here feels

854
00:55:35,060 --> 00:55:35,620
good or worse.

855
00:55:35,700 --> 00:55:39,490
Like you experience this when you go to a nice place or worse place, or like I know in

856
00:55:39,490 --> 00:55:43,650
Germany I felt a little bit better, even though it was still Western, you know, because

857
00:55:43,730 --> 00:55:49,650
there and and I don't but what I found surprising about that was I was conscious of

858
00:55:49,650 --> 00:55:55,250
the experience of the difference between the US and Germany, but I had to be intellectual

859
00:55:55,250 --> 00:55:59,330
about it to figure out what it was, and I'm still not even sure it's right.

860
00:55:59,810 --> 00:56:04,370
So there's this weird thing of like our evolved psychologies are really good at detecting

861
00:56:04,610 --> 00:56:06,930
displeasure and producing.

862
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:12,440
I don't want to I don't want to reify that we're like dumb evolved organisms that aren't

863
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:16,840
smart enough to figure out the structural differences we need, but I'm kind of getting at

864
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:17,000
that.

865
00:56:17,240 --> 00:56:20,200
Maybe that's too cartoonish, but I feel like that's a little bit true.

866
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:23,720
No, I think you're I think you're exactly right on with that.

867
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:29,160
I mean, I do feel like we sort of we we've got this evolved psychology, and then we're

868
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:34,970
situated within, I mean, cultures and histories at a particular time period,

869
00:56:35,130 --> 00:56:35,450
right?

870
00:56:35,610 --> 00:56:37,530
That we do go these different directions.

871
00:56:37,690 --> 00:56:43,370
And I do feel like sometimes we we, yeah, we we evaluate in particular ways and and

872
00:56:43,370 --> 00:56:48,970
almost just get away from those basic, not basic needs, but just the kind of ba

873
00:56:49,210 --> 00:56:53,450
perspective on what we need to do well, right?

874
00:56:53,530 --> 00:56:55,130
At a basic level.

875
00:56:55,290 --> 00:57:00,720
And but it is very interesting how different societies go, like the

876
00:57:00,720 --> 00:57:06,320
directions they go for totally weird reasons, like historical factors, too.

877
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:06,640
Right.

878
00:57:06,720 --> 00:57:12,480
And and and there are some comparisons you can make with non-human, you know, like primate

879
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:16,560
species, for example, that live in highly social environments like baboons.

880
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:20,960
And, you know, if you've ever read any of Robert Sapolsky's work, right, there are times

881
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:26,590
where, you know, like baboon societies have things happen to them that are not

882
00:57:26,590 --> 00:57:28,430
related to fitness or anything like that.

883
00:57:28,590 --> 00:57:32,990
They may take out certain individuals and leave other individuals, and then it goes a

884
00:57:32,990 --> 00:57:34,190
totally different direction.

885
00:57:34,350 --> 00:57:40,030
And you may have these baboon societies that are just really non-functional and

886
00:57:40,030 --> 00:57:45,760
highly unequal just because of weird historical factors related to

887
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:50,000
whatever tourism by some like lodge in Kenya or something like that.

888
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:56,000
And so it's really interesting to see like we have that ability to get shaped by

889
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:57,200
that so rapidly.

890
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:02,320
And now we've got this modern world that's whatever, because of inequality and because of

891
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:07,760
consumption and sort of this situated within capitalism, it really pushes us in a lot of

892
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:08,400
different directions.

893
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:10,480
And we know it doesn't feel good.

894
00:58:12,510 --> 00:58:18,030
But like getting out of that or having the perspective to understand that is

895
00:58:18,430 --> 00:58:19,150
really hard.

896
00:58:19,310 --> 00:58:23,630
And it also goes back to what we were talking about before, which is, but at some level,

897
00:58:23,710 --> 00:58:25,310
there's a lot that's good, right?

898
00:58:25,470 --> 00:58:29,950
Like I love that I go and like turn on the tap and I don't have to worry about you know

899
00:58:30,190 --> 00:58:31,390
dirty water coming out.

900
00:58:31,470 --> 00:58:33,870
And that's true for most places in the US.

901
00:58:33,950 --> 00:58:39,120
And and so there's a lot that's good, but I think psychologically, like we've we've really

902
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:40,720
messed things up a lot.

903
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:41,520
Right.

904
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:46,160
And and and certainly there are other axes, right, whether it's physical activity or sleep

905
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,680
or diet or things like that, that also have their own challenges.

906
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:55,440
But like I feel like we just keep getting away from or not having our understanding of

907
00:58:55,440 --> 00:59:00,850
evolution inform how we design our societies, right?

908
00:59:01,090 --> 00:59:05,490
I I've been really wanting to write a book on this topic and I just haven't had the time to

909
00:59:05,490 --> 00:59:05,890
do it.

910
00:59:06,130 --> 00:59:11,810
But I so I started teaching a class on this and and so I settled on this um it's called

911
00:59:11,970 --> 00:59:17,010
evolutionary medicine and how to live a long, healthy and meaningful life.

912
00:59:17,250 --> 00:59:21,650
And it's been it's been interesting sort of figuring out like, okay, how like how do you

913
00:59:21,650 --> 00:59:22,930
even approach this?

914
00:59:23,250 --> 00:59:28,720
And and it's it's you know, and and and of course, for me, my my experience, like what I

915
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:33,920
was initially trained in is looking at energetics and diet and change, you know, whatever,

916
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:39,120
whether that's long-term perspective on diet or whether that's market integration and

917
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:40,320
dietary change.

918
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,200
But then there's all these other factors that matter.

919
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:48,570
And so, like, how do I design a 10-week class where it's like, okay, this week we're

920
00:59:48,570 --> 00:59:51,530
talking about this, and this week we're talking, and it's I love it.

921
00:59:51,770 --> 00:59:55,530
But the conversations are just so all over the place.

922
00:59:55,690 --> 01:00:00,570
But I think at the end of the day, most people are like, what are we doing with where we're

923
01:00:00,570 --> 01:00:01,050
living now?

924
01:00:01,210 --> 01:00:06,330
Like, here are the good things that are great about our society and help us thrive as

925
01:00:06,330 --> 01:00:06,730
humans.

926
01:00:06,810 --> 01:00:08,170
And then here's all this other stuff.

927
01:00:08,250 --> 01:00:09,930
And wait, why are we doing that?

928
01:00:10,090 --> 01:00:10,410
Right.

929
01:00:10,490 --> 01:00:15,770
So it's it's really fascinating to try to map on sort of our evolved biology and

930
01:00:15,770 --> 01:00:21,700
psychology with the pace of change and the crazy societies

931
01:00:21,700 --> 01:00:22,660
that we live in.

932
01:00:22,820 --> 01:00:25,940
I think, you know, the US being a prime example.

933
01:00:26,340 --> 01:00:26,500
Yeah.

934
01:00:26,660 --> 01:00:26,820
Yeah.

935
01:00:26,900 --> 01:00:28,500
I I also like this idea.

936
01:00:28,740 --> 01:00:32,660
It comes back to what we talked about earlier, which is this uh David's analogy of sort of

937
01:00:32,660 --> 01:00:37,220
this historical change, where, and it's what you were saying a second ago, Josh.

938
01:00:37,460 --> 01:00:41,380
I feel like you know, people used to build buildings during the Industrial Revolution that

939
01:00:41,380 --> 01:00:44,020
were just really bad, you know, like unsafe.

940
01:00:44,180 --> 01:00:46,170
And then things got better that way.

941
01:00:46,250 --> 01:00:48,010
And then you know, we were putting lead in things.

942
01:00:48,090 --> 01:00:49,690
And then we like learned, oh, that's bad.

943
01:00:49,850 --> 01:00:55,850
So like physical stuff, chemistry, but we are still in the dark ages psychologically in

944
01:00:55,850 --> 01:00:59,850
terms of like common knowledge of how to build a large-scale society.

945
01:01:00,010 --> 01:01:05,770
And I I think maybe in a broad sweep of history, the fact that psychology and

946
01:01:05,770 --> 01:01:11,530
understanding what you need to have a good life mentally is such a new science compared to

947
01:01:11,530 --> 01:01:15,960
the effects of chemicals on the body or like what makes a good building or not.

948
01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:18,200
We're we're just further behind on that part.

949
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:20,760
No, I think that's such an important observation.

950
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:22,680
I feel like I completely agree.

951
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:26,840
And yes, there's all these other things that we need to learn more about, right?

952
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:30,920
Whether that's like that this thing is toxic and leads to problems and you shouldn't

953
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:32,920
consume it or you shouldn't be exposed to it, right?

954
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:35,240
That's that there's progress needing to be made.

955
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:40,890
But I think your point that we have made a lot of progress, a huge amount of progress is a

956
01:01:40,890 --> 01:01:41,610
really important one.

957
01:01:41,770 --> 01:01:45,610
But psychologically, like we are still very much in the dark.

958
01:01:45,690 --> 01:01:51,450
And I think because so oftentimes psychologists have been focused in on

959
01:01:51,450 --> 01:01:53,290
sort of what's normal, right?

960
01:01:53,370 --> 01:01:58,170
Rather than characterizing the variation or focusing in on the US rather than the

961
01:01:58,170 --> 01:01:58,650
international.

962
01:01:58,810 --> 01:02:03,300
And obviously this stuff is changing and has been changing for several decades now, but

963
01:02:03,300 --> 01:02:04,740
we're way behind, I think.

964
01:02:04,980 --> 01:02:08,820
And then also, and this is going back to one of the ideas that I was talking about

965
01:02:08,820 --> 01:02:14,580
initially, which is the way that we've set up these different fields, like human

966
01:02:14,580 --> 01:02:20,580
biology and evolutionary psychology, is one where like the human biologists who really

967
01:02:20,580 --> 01:02:25,460
understand the physiology and the manifestations that change us and lead us to negative

968
01:02:25,460 --> 01:02:31,330
health are not the ones who know a whole lot about psychology and our evolved

969
01:02:31,330 --> 01:02:33,570
brains and kind of how we perceive things.

970
01:02:33,730 --> 01:02:39,010
And so I think some of those just the way that academic disciplines have grown up in the US

971
01:02:39,170 --> 01:02:44,610
and in other places too have really prevented us from getting at some of these

972
01:02:44,610 --> 01:02:45,330
connections.

973
01:02:45,490 --> 01:02:50,180
And that really it's that integrative work that's being done now, but only in the last

974
01:02:50,180 --> 01:02:54,740
several decades, that's really putting these pieces back together that should have been

975
01:02:54,740 --> 01:02:57,140
obvious pieces even a hundred years ago.

976
01:02:57,460 --> 01:03:01,140
Yeah, it's weird too, because policymakers, especially like, I mean, forget about

977
01:03:01,140 --> 01:03:06,180
academics, but even just like policymakers, you don't often hear about people talking about

978
01:03:06,180 --> 01:03:08,580
like people's mental well-being.

979
01:03:08,740 --> 01:03:12,500
Or if they are, it's almost sort of like a trope of this is a bleeding liberal.

980
01:03:12,660 --> 01:03:16,890
So, I mean, like a good example I would say is like breastfeeding and we know there's

981
01:03:16,890 --> 01:03:21,930
really good data that if if you know w all these people worried about like people getting

982
01:03:21,930 --> 01:03:26,170
dumber and like using that as a political cudgel like the best thing you could do for a

983
01:03:26,170 --> 01:03:28,730
developing brain is like let it breastfeed for two years.

984
01:03:28,890 --> 01:03:29,850
That's like what we're just saying.

985
01:03:30,010 --> 01:03:34,010
How many people talk about that or how many people talk about like what we should put in

986
01:03:34,010 --> 01:03:39,940
food because it affects how well people feel and like can think and be productive

987
01:03:40,020 --> 01:03:40,180
members.

988
01:03:40,660 --> 01:03:42,980
Like that's not a discussion, and that's sort of weird.

989
01:03:43,060 --> 01:03:43,220
Right.

990
01:03:43,860 --> 01:03:44,420
Absolutely.

991
01:03:44,500 --> 01:03:49,620
I I teach a human growth and development class and I talk about these ideas about like, you

992
01:03:49,620 --> 01:03:54,260
know, what we know about breastfeeding and both from the science Western sort of scientific

993
01:03:54,260 --> 01:03:58,660
model, but also what we know from hunter-gatherer societies and other small-scale

994
01:03:58,660 --> 01:03:59,300
populations.

995
01:03:59,650 --> 01:04:01,170
And it's so interesting.

996
01:04:01,250 --> 01:04:07,170
It's so already ingrained in like the minds of people that, like, okay, your your

997
01:04:07,170 --> 01:04:10,290
statement I completely agree with in terms of like the best thing we could do for a

998
01:04:10,290 --> 01:04:14,610
developing brain is you know breastfeeding for at least a couple years, right?

999
01:04:14,690 --> 01:04:19,570
And then you're close to you know the mother, and there's so many benefits of this, right?

1000
01:04:19,810 --> 01:04:24,700
But immediately people are like, but like that's gonna make them dependent, right?

1001
01:04:24,780 --> 01:04:29,260
Like that, like all of a sudden, like the you to be a good American, you know, that kid

1002
01:04:29,260 --> 01:04:33,980
needs to be in another room separate from the parents from like literally day one.

1003
01:04:34,140 --> 01:04:37,420
And like, no, like not not really.

1004
01:04:37,580 --> 01:04:41,900
Like, and you know, and if you're it if you've ever been a parent, you know that that

1005
01:04:41,900 --> 01:04:43,970
doesn't generally feel right.

1006
01:04:44,290 --> 01:04:50,290
But then situate that within these ideas of what it means to be independent and the the

1007
01:04:50,290 --> 01:04:55,970
importance of that in terms of the sort of American spirit, and then parents working and

1008
01:04:55,970 --> 01:04:59,330
trying to like manage their lives and their careers.

1009
01:04:59,410 --> 01:05:04,050
Yeah, and then this little infant that like you're just like, can you just go to sleep?

1010
01:05:04,210 --> 01:05:04,450
Right.

1011
01:05:04,610 --> 01:05:06,610
So there's like so many layers of it.

1012
01:05:06,770 --> 01:05:12,360
But I do feel like, yeah, we're we're rarely connecting down to the

1013
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:17,720
evolved biology and psychology that is going to help us understand all of these different

1014
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:23,560
things and what we need, what we want, and then I guess how we would manage that in the

1015
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:25,960
context of this complex and changing world.

1016
01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:26,360
Yeah.

1017
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:27,720
I wonder I'm looking at David.

1018
01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:30,600
I mean, David's one of David's things is common knowledge.

1019
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:36,630
And I think if you can moralize something by pointing to it, then you create common

1020
01:05:36,630 --> 01:05:36,870
knowledge.

1021
01:05:37,030 --> 01:05:41,110
So if there's something like this chemical makes causes cancer, and look, here's a baby

1022
01:05:41,110 --> 01:05:43,830
with cancer, that's really vivid.

1023
01:05:44,230 --> 01:05:48,870
A lot of this stuff that we're talking about, it's hard to get common knowledge because

1024
01:05:48,870 --> 01:05:54,710
it's so abstract, because somebody could very easily um say it's kind of

1025
01:05:55,030 --> 01:05:59,670
could make a counterargument, and there's not a lot of sort of common ground to look at

1026
01:05:59,670 --> 01:06:03,860
yet, as evidence to say, look, we need this.

1027
01:06:04,340 --> 01:06:08,260
Um, and so I wonder if that's part of it too, that it's just hard to it's hard to have

1028
01:06:08,260 --> 01:06:12,660
common knowledge yet around these things that would make life better, even if everybody

1029
01:06:12,660 --> 01:06:13,780
individually agrees on it.

1030
01:06:13,940 --> 01:06:18,660
It's just that nobody else thinks that everyone else thinks that they would want this too,

1031
01:06:18,740 --> 01:06:18,980
you know.

1032
01:06:19,540 --> 01:06:20,100
Absolutely.

1033
01:06:20,260 --> 01:06:21,300
That makes total sense.

1034
01:06:21,460 --> 01:06:25,130
And it's just so bloody complicated too, right?

1035
01:06:25,210 --> 01:06:31,050
And and so even just thinking about like whatever dietary recommendations or something like

1036
01:06:31,050 --> 01:06:36,890
that, like the sort of common knowledge, conventional wisdom, the like how

1037
01:06:37,130 --> 01:06:42,890
do you do that given all the different messages and the different factors that are gonna

1038
01:06:42,890 --> 01:06:43,930
influence that, right?

1039
01:06:44,010 --> 01:06:48,970
So it's both like, am I getting the energy I need, the protein that I need, the microbiome

1040
01:06:49,130 --> 01:06:54,280
that I need, like all all of all of those are people are

1041
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:57,640
hearing in from so many different sources.

1042
01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:02,040
Like there's the, you know, whatever what you learn in school, and then the, you know,

1043
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:07,960
whatever things that you learn from books versus advertising versus social networks

1044
01:07:07,960 --> 01:07:09,000
and social media.

1045
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:15,080
And I think it's hard to have a simple message that's right, that then it

1046
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:17,640
could become something that is common knowledge.

1047
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:18,280
Yeah.

1048
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:24,350
And mean it's a job for cultural evolutionists to tag where ideas come from and then figure

1049
01:07:24,350 --> 01:07:25,390
out how they got shaped.

1050
01:07:25,470 --> 01:07:25,630
Yeah.

1051
01:07:25,950 --> 01:07:26,430
Yeah.

1052
01:07:26,750 --> 01:07:28,110
And then reshape them.

1053
01:07:28,350 --> 01:07:29,390
Yeah, exactly.

1054
01:07:29,950 --> 01:07:35,630
Yeah, I mean, why do you think that is it just a disciplinary convention or a

1055
01:07:35,630 --> 01:07:40,910
historical thing that we need to get over that psychology and biology and health are so

1056
01:07:40,910 --> 01:07:43,230
separated in terms of how they're studied?

1057
01:07:43,390 --> 01:07:44,400
Um, is it more than that?

1058
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:48,880
Because it seems to me like they should be and are so deeply intertwined.

1059
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:54,800
Like uh getting sick is is affected by behavior and the types of activities I engage in,

1060
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:59,920
the people I hang out with, the decisions I make, that determines my level of of uh

1061
01:07:59,920 --> 01:08:01,280
pathogen exposure.

1062
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:06,080
And likewise being sick also affects my behavior in countless ways, as you've written about

1063
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:07,120
with lassitude.

1064
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:12,450
Uh stress, likewise, the things I do can affect my stress levels, which affects my my

1065
01:08:12,450 --> 01:08:12,850
health.

1066
01:08:13,010 --> 01:08:15,250
And being stressed also affects my behavior.

1067
01:08:15,410 --> 01:08:19,890
And so pretty much every aspect of our physical health and our biology has this

1068
01:08:19,890 --> 01:08:22,770
bi-directional relationship with brain and behavior.

1069
01:08:22,930 --> 01:08:27,010
And yet we're studying them as if they're separate, disconnected things when they're

1070
01:08:27,010 --> 01:08:28,530
fundamentally intertwined.

1071
01:08:28,690 --> 01:08:32,610
Uh so, like why why do you think that the these two things are are just are seen as so

1072
01:08:32,610 --> 01:08:33,490
separate and so different?

1073
01:08:33,730 --> 01:08:34,050
Yeah, yeah.

1074
01:08:34,210 --> 01:08:35,620
Yeah, that's a great, great point.

1075
01:08:35,780 --> 01:08:36,500
Great question.

1076
01:08:36,740 --> 01:08:41,780
I think that, yeah, I think most people recognize that these things are all intertwined.

1077
01:08:42,020 --> 01:08:46,500
I think the the reasons, I guess two things that come to mind as really important.

1078
01:08:46,900 --> 01:08:50,980
One is sort of a positive and one's a real negative, but they both contribute to that.

1079
01:08:51,140 --> 01:08:55,620
I think at one level, kind of this reductionism can be useful, right?

1080
01:08:55,700 --> 01:09:01,550
Like, okay, let's just take a subset of this and let's kind of focus in on it and then have

1081
01:09:01,710 --> 01:09:03,230
specialization in that, right?

1082
01:09:03,310 --> 01:09:07,630
And and that certainly, you know, it really comes out of the Western scientific model.

1083
01:09:07,710 --> 01:09:12,510
And certainly there's been a huge number of successes based on that, right?

1084
01:09:12,750 --> 01:09:15,310
But I think we've reached the limit of that, right?

1085
01:09:15,390 --> 01:09:21,150
And I think the the recognition that there is a limit to that is something that's really

1086
01:09:21,150 --> 01:09:21,630
important, right?

1087
01:09:21,710 --> 01:09:26,700
So in some ways I see that as like positive things, but then it's kind of got to a point

1088
01:09:26,700 --> 01:09:29,820
where it's now starting to have negative implications.

1089
01:09:29,980 --> 01:09:30,860
So that's one.

1090
01:09:31,020 --> 01:09:36,140
I would say the other is just kind of the history of like, especially in the US and how

1091
01:09:36,140 --> 01:09:40,780
sort of science and social science and humanities and sort of different ways of

1092
01:09:40,780 --> 01:09:46,300
understanding the world have jockeyed for position over the course of the 20th century.

1093
01:09:46,460 --> 01:09:51,890
And that I think many of the things that were happening in the 1960s and 70s

1094
01:09:52,210 --> 01:09:54,610
really are still reverberating, right?

1095
01:09:54,690 --> 01:10:00,530
In terms of like, I see a lot of these different fields and different effects on this.

1096
01:10:00,690 --> 01:10:03,410
But just one perspective coming from human biology.

1097
01:10:03,570 --> 01:10:08,290
I've been super frustrated with many of my, you know, human biology colleagues, and I'm

1098
01:10:08,290 --> 01:10:13,010
obviously not going to name names, but people who have this very old school view of like,

1099
01:10:13,330 --> 01:10:18,900
well, you know, the brain evolved, and then then basically like it stopped evolving and

1100
01:10:18,900 --> 01:10:23,780
then really culture is really everything and there's not really this sort of a I mean I

1101
01:10:23,780 --> 01:10:28,420
don't have to tell you guys this right and that like it's all about culture and let's let's

1102
01:10:28,420 --> 01:10:34,260
forget about talking about like selection and like whatever right and then

1103
01:10:34,260 --> 01:10:37,270
let's just focus in on the body, right?

1104
01:10:37,430 --> 01:10:41,030
As totally disconnected from the brain or the mind.

1105
01:10:41,190 --> 01:10:44,310
And that let's just focus in on these physiological systems.

1106
01:10:44,470 --> 01:10:48,950
And that's like, I mean, I've actually read some like textbook chapters that I got as a

1107
01:10:48,950 --> 01:10:49,190
reviewer.

1108
01:10:49,350 --> 01:10:51,030
And I'm like, are you insane?

1109
01:10:51,190 --> 01:10:54,230
Like this can't, that doesn't work like this, right?

1110
01:10:54,310 --> 01:10:59,350
And like if you step back and think about it, like this couldn't exist this way.

1111
01:10:59,430 --> 01:11:01,910
But yet it's so entrenched in the like

1112
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:09,600
anti-sociobiology training that in fragmentation of fields

1113
01:11:09,760 --> 01:11:12,400
that like we're still haven't put this all back together.

1114
01:11:12,560 --> 01:11:18,240
And I think part of it is then the way that those fields then developed

1115
01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:23,280
and they have different opportunities for funding and sort of some of them are science and

1116
01:11:23,280 --> 01:11:24,320
some of them are not.

1117
01:11:24,400 --> 01:11:30,150
And that that whole piece of it has just really we it didn't start out in a

1118
01:11:30,150 --> 01:11:31,110
good place, right?

1119
01:11:31,270 --> 01:11:35,830
In terms of just this, like, you're in, you know, you're coming into my territory and like

1120
01:11:35,990 --> 01:11:36,310
whatever.

1121
01:11:36,390 --> 01:11:41,430
I mean, I really think it's in many ways as simple as some of those conversations that were

1122
01:11:41,430 --> 01:11:46,950
going on, especially in the sort of 60s and then EO Wilson sociobiology.

1123
01:11:47,270 --> 01:11:50,070
Like we're still there in some ways.

1124
01:11:50,230 --> 01:11:55,350
And there are effects of that that I think people would deny that it's related to that, but

1125
01:11:55,350 --> 01:11:57,700
it a hundred percent is related to that.

1126
01:11:57,940 --> 01:12:03,940
So I think r you know, obviously, you know, there is some need

1127
01:12:04,100 --> 01:12:09,060
to sp to focus in on individual systems and things like that to really understand.

1128
01:12:09,220 --> 01:12:14,580
But I think stepping back and saying, like, the the way that we move forward on all this

1129
01:12:14,580 --> 01:12:20,390
stuff is integration of of of and understanding this across these different

1130
01:12:20,390 --> 01:12:26,150
physiological systems and that like it's not this brain you know body dualism

1131
01:12:26,230 --> 01:12:32,230
like it's all we're all it's our it is us right and it is one thing and it is in you know

1132
01:12:32,310 --> 01:12:38,230
it's all connected all the time for every reason and and even those things that

1133
01:12:38,310 --> 01:12:44,070
like yeah I don't know I I you know like all of those things that are so

1134
01:12:45,340 --> 01:12:50,780
seeming obvious in some ways, but yet difficult to understand, make total sense when you

1135
01:12:50,780 --> 01:12:52,620
think about it all as one, right?

1136
01:12:52,700 --> 01:12:57,580
Like one example I always give is just kind of like the gut microbiome and how that's

1137
01:12:57,580 --> 01:12:58,780
connected to mental health.

1138
01:12:58,860 --> 01:13:01,900
And right, we know that there are these relationships between that.

1139
01:13:02,060 --> 01:13:06,300
And I think at one level, people are like, How is that even possible that like what your

1140
01:13:06,300 --> 01:13:11,890
gut microbiome biome composition is and that's affecting your like whether you

1141
01:13:11,890 --> 01:13:15,170
experience PTSD or anxiety or depression.

1142
01:13:15,330 --> 01:13:17,810
But at another level, like of course those are related.

1143
01:13:18,130 --> 01:13:19,650
Like we're these are our bodies.

1144
01:13:19,810 --> 01:13:22,690
Like our brains are literally made out of food.

1145
01:13:22,770 --> 01:13:28,770
Like eat only Twinkies for a month and tell us how how your mental health Abs Absolutely.

1146
01:13:28,930 --> 01:13:34,640
So it's it kind of like you step back and look at it and it's almost comic, except for that

1147
01:13:34,640 --> 01:13:39,760
it's painted us into these weird corners where we're doing these things either

1148
01:13:39,760 --> 01:13:43,920
academically or societally that are not necessarily helpful.

1149
01:13:44,240 --> 01:13:44,400
Yeah.

1150
01:13:44,560 --> 01:13:47,600
I also wonder, I mean, I I I completely agree with everything you're saying.

1151
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:51,040
And I think it's also alluding to something you said earlier, which is just like there's

1152
01:13:51,040 --> 01:13:54,000
this institutional selection dynamics too.

1153
01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:58,650
So like a lot of this stuff, there's this community of people who they can do an

1154
01:13:58,650 --> 01:14:02,250
intervention by doing something to your body when you go into that building, right?

1155
01:14:02,330 --> 01:14:03,850
And that's like medical stuff.

1156
01:14:04,570 --> 01:14:09,770
Um, or in I think like the the the exception that proves the rule is when you can give a

1157
01:14:09,770 --> 01:14:13,850
drug for a mental disorder, it's still medical, it's within that umbrella.

1158
01:14:14,010 --> 01:14:18,410
But when it's a mental thing, that the solution is a structural one, yeah.

1159
01:14:18,730 --> 01:14:24,170
Either changing the the person's immediate small scale social world or

1160
01:14:24,420 --> 01:14:29,380
the larger literal like social community, like what cues are they exposed to?

1161
01:14:29,940 --> 01:14:31,700
That's a whole other ballgame.

1162
01:14:31,860 --> 01:14:36,660
And I think like that's that's the other spot place of that dualism where it's sort of like

1163
01:14:36,820 --> 01:14:40,980
what are the things that you can intervene by just like poking on the body and then there's

1164
01:14:40,980 --> 01:14:41,620
everything else.

1165
01:14:41,860 --> 01:14:42,100
Yeah.

1166
01:14:42,260 --> 01:14:42,580
Yep.

1167
01:14:42,820 --> 01:14:43,380
Absolutely.

1168
01:14:43,540 --> 01:14:47,700
And this class that I was talking about, this this how to live a long, healthy, meaningful

1169
01:14:47,700 --> 01:14:53,210
life, it's really trying to walk that line of like, what can you do as

1170
01:14:53,210 --> 01:14:56,490
somebody or to somebody versus the structural.

1171
01:14:56,650 --> 01:15:02,650
And I feel like, you know, you've either got a literature and sort of guides of like

1172
01:15:02,730 --> 01:15:04,090
that are all about the individual.

1173
01:15:04,250 --> 01:15:06,810
Like, here's this information, do this thing, right?

1174
01:15:06,890 --> 01:15:10,730
Like you got to make this change in your diet or you got to change this sleep.

1175
01:15:11,050 --> 01:15:13,530
And it's all very individualistic, right?

1176
01:15:13,770 --> 01:15:19,160
And it is also one where it's often really problematic because you're an individual

1177
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:21,080
situated within a context, right?

1178
01:15:21,480 --> 01:15:26,360
Or the other end of the spectrum is ah, you can't do anything as an individual.

1179
01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:32,600
We really have to change all these structural factors, which in some ways has got an equal

1180
01:15:32,600 --> 01:15:36,680
number of problems in the sense that it becomes like, well, I can't do anything.

1181
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:39,800
So, like, are you going to change my society now?

1182
01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:41,560
And so I I don't know.

1183
01:15:41,640 --> 01:15:45,000
I I I think a lot about the like, how do we do both?

1184
01:15:45,170 --> 01:15:45,410
Right.

1185
01:15:45,570 --> 01:15:51,090
How do we how do we think about individuals having agency and information and making

1186
01:15:51,090 --> 01:15:51,890
decisions?

1187
01:15:52,210 --> 01:15:57,410
And then also how do we make these changes in society and how do we have those things

1188
01:15:57,410 --> 01:15:57,970
integrated?

1189
01:15:58,290 --> 01:15:58,610
Yeah.

1190
01:15:58,850 --> 01:16:02,450
We've become an anarchist podcast over the course of the hour and a half.

1191
01:16:03,890 --> 01:16:05,010
Absolutely.

1192
01:16:05,410 --> 01:16:06,850
I like this, yes.

1193
01:16:07,410 --> 01:16:13,010
Yeah, no, I I I very much like that way of thinking because you don't want to go on either

1194
01:16:13,010 --> 01:16:17,700
end of the extreme where you're focusing too much on individual behavior and you're saying,

1195
01:16:17,860 --> 01:16:18,660
Hey, you're doing it wrong.

1196
01:16:18,740 --> 01:16:20,820
Do this differently, and you're putting it all on you.

1197
01:16:20,900 --> 01:16:24,500
When in many cases, people are just making the the best out of the situation that they're

1198
01:16:24,500 --> 01:16:25,060
in and dealing with it.

1199
01:16:25,300 --> 01:16:26,100
Trying to get through the day.

1200
01:16:26,420 --> 01:16:30,340
Trying to get through the day, like dealing with the hand that you know the world has dealt

1201
01:16:30,340 --> 01:16:30,580
them.

1202
01:16:30,820 --> 01:16:34,580
And you know, it's in some sense you gotta change the hand that they're being dealt if you

1203
01:16:34,580 --> 01:16:35,380
want to change their behavior.

1204
01:16:35,540 --> 01:16:38,820
On the other hand, if you say that it's all these larger structural things, like that that

1205
01:16:38,820 --> 01:16:42,470
leads to a certain kind of helplessness, Like, oh well, what the hell can I do anyway?

1206
01:16:42,550 --> 01:16:43,670
Why, why even bother?

1207
01:16:43,910 --> 01:16:49,750
And so we have to, you know, navigate, find some middle ground between um over uh

1208
01:16:49,910 --> 01:16:55,830
emphasis on the individual and and overemphasis on the larger things that we can't control

1209
01:16:55,990 --> 01:17:00,870
and and find some middle ground where we can both do things as an individual and start to

1210
01:17:00,870 --> 01:17:03,670
think about how we can maybe design society differently.

1211
01:17:03,990 --> 01:17:04,230
Yeah.

1212
01:17:04,470 --> 01:17:10,260
I think groups of face to face people is a good that that I think is like a simple middle

1213
01:17:10,420 --> 01:17:10,820
ground.

1214
01:17:10,980 --> 01:17:16,500
I think like often those that that that range is typically like in person, face to face,

1215
01:17:16,740 --> 01:17:17,540
small groups of people.

1216
01:17:17,620 --> 01:17:17,780
Yeah.

1217
01:17:18,100 --> 01:17:18,660
Abs absolutely.

1218
01:17:18,900 --> 01:17:24,500
And and so I think a lot these days, especially with AI and all these like things that make

1219
01:17:24,500 --> 01:17:26,900
it even more difficult to know what is real.

1220
01:17:27,220 --> 01:17:31,930
I think a lot about the like sort of re-localizing, right?

1221
01:17:32,010 --> 01:17:33,690
Rather than the sort of globalizing.

1222
01:17:33,770 --> 01:17:38,730
And obviously you don't want it all sort of provincial and very focused in internally and

1223
01:17:38,730 --> 01:17:41,770
then doesn't know how like what's out there and how to interact.

1224
01:17:41,930 --> 01:17:47,530
But I think so much argues for changing the

1225
01:17:47,530 --> 01:17:49,050
scale of this, right?

1226
01:17:49,210 --> 01:17:54,660
So that that community or neighborhood or whatever that means Actually, is

1227
01:17:54,660 --> 01:18:00,260
what's most important and also allows you to know who you're

1228
01:18:00,260 --> 01:18:05,780
interacting with and also have a chance to make these changes that are going to meaning be

1229
01:18:05,780 --> 01:18:10,500
meaningful to you and families and you know, neighbors and things like that.

1230
01:18:10,740 --> 01:18:11,140
Yeah.

1231
01:18:11,380 --> 01:18:15,810
How this is a weird question, but how important is have you come across as just like a

1232
01:18:15,810 --> 01:18:17,810
mundane thing like transportation?

1233
01:18:18,210 --> 01:18:24,130
Um, so you know, like you go from like the the bush to the city, and like is

1234
01:18:24,130 --> 01:18:27,890
that a factor that you guys have looked at where like what's the means of actually just

1235
01:18:27,890 --> 01:18:29,010
getting around?

1236
01:18:29,250 --> 01:18:31,810
Are you interacting with people when you're getting around?

1237
01:18:32,290 --> 01:18:34,450
The scope of the scale of getting around?

1238
01:18:34,770 --> 01:18:36,610
Yeah, we've tried to get at that.

1239
01:18:36,690 --> 01:18:41,060
I mean, I think part of that is like, you know, approaching it from a physical activity

1240
01:18:41,060 --> 01:18:43,940
standpoint and the that that influence, right?

1241
01:18:44,100 --> 01:18:49,700
In terms of how much you're physically like walking to where you're going in the day versus

1242
01:18:49,700 --> 01:18:52,340
driving, or there's that's one.

1243
01:18:52,580 --> 01:18:58,180
Another is like the distance you go and sort of how that connects to market integration and

1244
01:18:58,180 --> 01:19:03,940
some ideas, some ways of um operationalizing market integration really get at that,

1245
01:19:04,100 --> 01:19:09,610
like transport or movement of people, because it's going to be related to

1246
01:19:09,850 --> 01:19:14,410
exposure to ideas or different languages or whatever it is that we're talking about.

1247
01:19:14,570 --> 01:19:20,410
Um, and then yeah, then just trying to get at what the range of variation is that you see

1248
01:19:20,570 --> 01:19:22,330
because of that movement.

1249
01:19:22,570 --> 01:19:28,360
Um, and so trying to get at those things, but not not easy to quantify or not

1250
01:19:28,360 --> 01:19:29,560
easy to make sense of.

1251
01:19:29,720 --> 01:19:34,600
I mean, in some ways it's easy to quantify, but like what does that actually mean in terms

1252
01:19:34,600 --> 01:19:35,720
of the exposure?

1253
01:19:35,880 --> 01:19:41,880
So it's it's definitely important, but exactly how it's important or why it's important,

1254
01:19:41,960 --> 01:19:46,920
I think, is is one that I don't think we know the details of, but it always is relevant in

1255
01:19:46,920 --> 01:19:47,560
these models.

1256
01:19:47,870 --> 01:19:48,030
Yeah.

1257
01:19:48,110 --> 01:19:51,790
And is it like where I can spend time with my family more or less?

1258
01:19:51,950 --> 01:19:53,950
Can I do it with my family, interact with them?

1259
01:19:54,030 --> 01:19:56,910
You know, like yeah, like those are all things that are hard to quantify.

1260
01:19:56,990 --> 01:19:57,150
Yeah.

1261
01:19:57,470 --> 01:19:58,030
Absolutely.

1262
01:19:58,190 --> 01:20:02,270
But yeah, getting at the social networks and and like what is the extent of that?

1263
01:20:02,350 --> 01:20:08,110
And I feel like a place like the US is at a extreme in the sense of lots of mobility,

1264
01:20:08,270 --> 01:20:13,710
lots of movement, but also simultaneously lots of loneliness and isolation.

1265
01:20:13,950 --> 01:20:15,470
Yeah, for sure.

1266
01:20:16,580 --> 01:20:20,740
Well, Josh, we're we're coming up on an hour and a half and I wanna make sure that we've

1267
01:20:20,740 --> 01:20:23,780
covered everything that that you're that you've wanted to cover.

1268
01:20:23,940 --> 01:20:28,900
Is there anything that we have not talked about that you're particularly excited about and

1269
01:20:28,900 --> 01:20:30,500
would and would like to talk about?

1270
01:20:30,660 --> 01:20:33,540
Any new uh uh direction you're pursuing?

1271
01:20:33,780 --> 01:20:37,060
Um what what what have we missed so far in this conversation?

1272
01:20:37,490 --> 01:20:38,530
Yeah, no, this is great.

1273
01:20:38,610 --> 01:20:43,090
And I've been trying to sprinkle those things that I'm most excited about into the

1274
01:20:43,090 --> 01:20:44,290
conversation so far.

1275
01:20:44,450 --> 01:20:49,010
But I think, you know, for me, really the the big thing that really excites me, which

1276
01:20:49,010 --> 01:20:53,490
hopefully has come through with this, is really integrating, you know, and really

1277
01:20:53,490 --> 01:20:59,490
integrating across anthropology and to psychology and biology and really thinking

1278
01:20:59,490 --> 01:21:04,980
about like just the ways that we take these sort of methodological

1279
01:21:04,980 --> 01:21:10,420
differences or theoretical differences and really recognize that we're often looking at the

1280
01:21:10,420 --> 01:21:13,940
same thing, and that we each have ways to contribute to that.

1281
01:21:14,100 --> 01:21:19,780
And so I think for me, like where that's most coming out is like the market integration

1282
01:21:19,780 --> 01:21:25,700
research and really thinking about ways to do this that really get at all the

1283
01:21:25,700 --> 01:21:31,450
ways that environments, both social and physical and biological environments, change

1284
01:21:31,450 --> 01:21:34,010
with these larger economic processes.

1285
01:21:34,170 --> 01:21:40,010
So I'm I'm just super excited that we're now as a field getting to a place where

1286
01:21:40,010 --> 01:21:45,930
we can compare across places and use similar approaches and really integrate across these

1287
01:21:45,930 --> 01:21:46,810
different domains.

1288
01:21:46,970 --> 01:21:50,220
So anyway, those are the things that I'm most excited about these days.

1289
01:21:50,460 --> 01:21:50,620
Yeah.

1290
01:21:50,780 --> 01:21:54,860
Is there any s resource like so if a student is listening, somebody's listening and you

1291
01:21:54,860 --> 01:21:57,740
mentioned you're gonna you're you might be writing a book and it sounds like there are

1292
01:21:57,740 --> 01:21:59,740
maybe there's things already that do exist.

1293
01:21:59,980 --> 01:22:05,900
If somebody's interested, are there books or papers or conferences or journals

1294
01:22:05,900 --> 01:22:10,940
where people can look to find this integration of these it sounds like roughly three or

1295
01:22:10,870 --> 01:22:12,630
four different things.

1296
01:22:12,790 --> 01:22:15,430
I feel like there are places that that's starting to happen.

1297
01:22:15,510 --> 01:22:21,510
I wouldn't say it's universally in all of these, but I feel like some of the the the I'm

1298
01:22:21,590 --> 01:22:25,270
I'm always excited about the Human Biology Association meetings.

1299
01:22:25,430 --> 01:22:30,470
And now even more excited as we're starting to integrate more of the evolutionary

1300
01:22:30,470 --> 01:22:36,380
anthropologists who typically used to meet with the AAA meetings, are now starting to meet

1301
01:22:36,380 --> 01:22:37,740
with the human biologists.

1302
01:22:37,820 --> 01:22:43,020
And it's a cool opportunity because all of a sudden you've got very different people in

1303
01:22:43,020 --> 01:22:48,460
terms of their training and how they approach their research now in the same space who are

1304
01:22:48,460 --> 01:22:50,060
talking about the same issues.

1305
01:22:50,140 --> 01:22:55,180
And I think the really lovely thing about those meetings is the scale of it isn't too

1306
01:22:55,180 --> 01:22:55,980
large, right?

1307
01:22:56,140 --> 01:23:01,510
I mean, I think that some things like the AAA meetings where you have 4,000 or 5,000 or

1308
01:23:01,510 --> 01:23:06,710
whatever it is, number of people are really hard to do those kinds of have those

1309
01:23:06,710 --> 01:23:08,790
conversations and do that integrative work.

1310
01:23:08,950 --> 01:23:13,110
But I think at the level of two or three hundred people at a meeting, like it's actually

1311
01:23:13,110 --> 01:23:19,030
very doable to start to have those integrate, those conversations with other people who see

1312
01:23:19,030 --> 01:23:22,150
the world and approach the world and research in different ways.

1313
01:23:22,310 --> 01:23:26,540
So I'm I'm very excited about the potential for the human biology meetings.

1314
01:23:26,780 --> 01:23:32,060
I also think that Evolution Medicine and Public Health, that journal is kind of a cool, um,

1315
01:23:32,300 --> 01:23:36,220
cool journal in terms of one that's bringing together people in different ways, right?

1316
01:23:36,300 --> 01:23:39,420
It's people kind of across the spectrum of anthropology.

1317
01:23:39,660 --> 01:23:44,460
But then evolutionary medicine has had such interesting contributions, right?

1318
01:23:44,620 --> 01:23:45,820
Coming from different places.

1319
01:23:45,900 --> 01:23:50,870
And so some of it is the anthropologists and human biologists, but in other places it's

1320
01:23:50,870 --> 01:23:53,430
more like the evolutionary psychiatrists.

1321
01:23:53,510 --> 01:23:56,630
And so they're sort of coming into it with a very different perspective.

1322
01:23:56,790 --> 01:24:02,630
So I'm liking how that journal and the and the conference that goes with that are

1323
01:24:02,630 --> 01:24:08,630
grow, you know, now reaching a a really cool time that they um, you know, that

1324
01:24:08,710 --> 01:24:13,110
that that it really is starting to bring together those different perspectives in the way

1325
01:24:13,110 --> 01:24:15,830
that I think a lot of us was hoping that it would.

1326
01:24:15,990 --> 01:24:17,830
It really is being realized.

1327
01:24:18,420 --> 01:24:19,220
That's fantastic.

1328
01:24:19,380 --> 01:24:23,380
And uh the Schwar project itself, does it have a website or it does, yeah.

1329
01:24:23,460 --> 01:24:25,780
I think it's SchwarProject.org.

1330
01:24:25,860 --> 01:24:27,140
I could be totally wrong with that.

1331
01:24:27,380 --> 01:24:29,060
We can put it in the we put it in the show notes, yeah.

1332
01:24:29,300 --> 01:24:31,140
But I but I will put a plug in.

1333
01:24:31,380 --> 01:24:36,900
We just had a special issue of American Journal of Human Biology that was published.

1334
01:24:36,980 --> 01:24:40,900
It actually the full thing came together about two months ago.

1335
01:24:41,060 --> 01:24:47,060
And the last paper in that was my paper that I led, which was uh basically like a

1336
01:24:47,150 --> 01:24:52,990
how we navigate political, you know, practical and ethical challenges of

1337
01:24:52,990 --> 01:24:54,750
doing this long-term work.

1338
01:24:54,910 --> 01:24:57,790
And so it was one that actually took about two years to write.

1339
01:24:57,950 --> 01:25:00,670
There's like 10 of us as co-authors on that.

1340
01:25:00,830 --> 01:25:06,190
But a lot of it was me and Larry Sugiyama sort of talking about like the whole like all

1341
01:25:06,190 --> 01:25:10,190
these challenges, but also situating it in sort of the history of it.

1342
01:25:10,350 --> 01:25:15,760
So some of the conversation that we had earlier today about the history of that project is

1343
01:25:15,760 --> 01:25:17,040
all within that article.

1344
01:25:17,200 --> 01:25:22,880
And it's open access, it's in uh the latest, one of the latest issues of American Journal

1345
01:25:22,880 --> 01:25:23,840
of Human Biology.

1346
01:25:23,920 --> 01:25:27,760
But there's 10 other Schwar articles in that special issue.

1347
01:25:27,920 --> 01:25:33,360
So anybody who's interested in the Schwar, right, definitely check out that special issue.

1348
01:25:33,440 --> 01:25:34,800
Definitely check out the website.

1349
01:25:35,120 --> 01:25:35,440
Awesome.

1350
01:25:35,520 --> 01:25:36,320
That's fantastic.

1351
01:25:36,480 --> 01:25:40,110
Uh Josh, uh, do you only do difficult things?

1352
01:25:40,270 --> 01:25:44,430
Uh from this impression or from this conversation, I get the impression that you're not

1353
01:25:44,430 --> 01:25:48,110
afraid to tackle very hard things like you're even talking about the political and ethical

1354
01:25:48,110 --> 01:25:48,590
things.

1355
01:25:48,670 --> 01:25:52,910
Uh uh, do you have a um a guilty pleasure that's uh that's something?

1356
01:25:53,390 --> 01:25:54,110
Yeah, I don't know.

1357
01:25:54,190 --> 01:25:59,870
I had some some sort of psychopathology, I think is the way I'm department head too, right?

1358
01:26:00,350 --> 01:26:04,910
You seem like you're having a great time tackling like incredibly difficult huge projects

1359
01:26:05,240 --> 01:26:07,400
with huge uh important implications.

1360
01:26:07,480 --> 01:26:08,840
It's a it's a it's a virtue.

1361
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:10,040
But yeah, it's uh yeah.

1362
01:26:10,600 --> 01:26:15,560
Maybe I think the other piece is just having done this for a long time and and you know,

1363
01:26:15,640 --> 01:26:19,960
Larry and I working on this and sort of running, keeping this project going.

1364
01:26:20,440 --> 01:26:25,240
We've you know, we often see other people who are starting out projects and they'll ask us,

1365
01:26:25,320 --> 01:26:28,870
you know, about you know what we're doing or how we've made decisions.

1366
01:26:28,950 --> 01:26:33,670
And it became really clear that many of the most of these projects kind of exist in

1367
01:26:33,670 --> 01:26:34,310
isolation.

1368
01:26:34,390 --> 01:26:40,390
And you see what you see in a paper or here in a conference presentation, excuse me, but

1369
01:26:40,390 --> 01:26:43,590
you don't see sort of what's under the hood of the project.

1370
01:26:43,670 --> 01:26:49,510
And so I sort of, I guess maybe I'm at that annoying career stage or age where I'm just

1371
01:26:49,510 --> 01:26:52,840
like, you know, these are the things that we should be writing about these.

1372
01:26:52,920 --> 01:26:55,720
So like these sort of ethics of the community work.

1373
01:26:55,880 --> 01:27:00,040
I've also got another paper that I'm working on right now with some other colleagues that's

1374
01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:05,320
all on data sharing and sort of balancing that, like, yeah, we should from a scientific

1375
01:27:05,320 --> 01:27:07,720
standpoint share data.

1376
01:27:08,120 --> 01:27:13,410
But we should also really be thinking about what does that mean for certain communities,

1377
01:27:13,490 --> 01:27:17,490
especially indigenous communities, and sort of the commodification of data?

1378
01:27:17,650 --> 01:27:21,410
And so, how do we balance those and how do we deal with those tensions?

1379
01:27:21,490 --> 01:27:27,010
And so I don't know, some of it I think just comes from like wanting to share wisdom, such

1380
01:27:27,010 --> 01:27:32,210
as it is, from the kind of work that we're doing and the and the different challenges that

1381
01:27:32,210 --> 01:27:32,930
that pop up.

1382
01:27:33,010 --> 01:27:37,170
And I think oftentimes when we'll say something about these different projects, people are

1383
01:27:37,170 --> 01:27:40,560
like, oh wow, I didn't think about that.

1384
01:27:40,800 --> 01:27:44,960
And so I think that's like, okay, that's clearly an indication that we need to do these

1385
01:27:44,960 --> 01:27:46,080
kinds of things.

1386
01:27:46,240 --> 01:27:47,120
Um yeah.

1387
01:27:47,280 --> 01:27:48,400
So I don't know.

1388
01:27:48,480 --> 01:27:52,960
Yeah, wanting wanting to tackle challenging problems because I think that also leads to

1389
01:27:52,960 --> 01:27:54,720
some of the biggest successes.

1390
01:27:54,880 --> 01:28:00,720
But then also just wanting to share kind of the the the dark underside or whatever of

1391
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:05,120
like how this stuff actually happens and how you make it work on the ground.

1392
01:28:05,360 --> 01:28:05,680
Yeah.

1393
01:28:05,870 --> 01:28:06,190
Cool.

1394
01:28:06,350 --> 01:28:08,590
As David says, thank you for your service.

1395
01:28:10,110 --> 01:28:15,150
To all of our anthropology, uh everybody who's doing the hard, uh, not just in the lab

1396
01:28:15,150 --> 01:28:15,310
stuff.

1397
01:28:15,390 --> 01:28:15,470
Yeah.

1398
01:28:15,790 --> 01:28:16,830
We're all a little crazy.

1399
01:28:16,910 --> 01:28:18,350
I think that's part of it.

1400
01:28:19,630 --> 01:28:20,190
All right.

1401
01:28:20,430 --> 01:28:22,270
Well, on that note, thank you so much, Josh.

1402
01:28:22,350 --> 01:28:23,950
This was a really fun conversation.

1403
01:28:24,270 --> 01:28:24,430
Yeah.

1404
01:28:24,590 --> 01:28:26,030
Thank you for sharing that wisdom with us.

1405
01:28:26,270 --> 01:28:26,750
This is great.

1406
01:28:26,830 --> 01:28:27,070
Yeah.

1407
01:28:27,390 --> 01:28:27,870
This is great.

1408
01:28:27,950 --> 01:28:29,630
I really enjoyed it as well.

1409
01:28:31,870 --> 01:28:32,270
All right.

1410
01:28:32,350 --> 01:28:33,710
Well, you're still listening.

1411
01:28:33,880 --> 01:28:39,560
We did another episode of Evolutionary Psychology the podcast, which means it is time for

1412
01:28:39,560 --> 01:28:41,880
us to tell you to support us.

1413
01:28:42,280 --> 01:28:42,680
Great.

1414
01:28:42,760 --> 01:28:43,400
You just did it.

1415
01:28:43,480 --> 01:28:45,480
And you told everyone they're still here.

1416
01:28:45,880 --> 01:28:46,680
Uh great.

1417
01:28:46,760 --> 01:28:47,640
Thanks for listening.

1418
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:49,240
We'll see you next week.

1419
01:28:49,560 --> 01:28:49,960
Yep.

1420
01:28:50,040 --> 01:28:54,360
Uh kind review, Patreon, social media, you know the you know the rest.

1421
01:28:54,760 --> 01:28:55,320
Yeah.

1422
01:28:55,560 --> 01:28:57,080
I yeah, good.

1423
01:28:57,490 --> 01:28:58,530
Punked period.

1424
01:28:58,690 --> 01:28:58,930
All right.

1425
01:28:59,090 --> 01:28:59,250
All right.

1426
01:28:59,490 --> 01:29:00,450
See you guys next week.

1427
01:29:00,610 --> 01:29:00,850
Yeah.

1428
01:29:00,930 --> 01:29:01,090
Bye.

1429
01:29:01,330 --> 01:29:01,650
See ya.