How to Confidently and Effectively Engage With Conflict with Amanda Ripley

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Amanda, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me, Kwame. Good to be here.

Yes, it is great to have you. You came highly recommended, so I'm excited to have this conversation. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do. Sure.

I've been a journalist for 20 years and I write books. I spent most of my career writing for Time magazine in different places. And somewhere along the line, I'd say about five years ago, I started to just feel like journalism wasn't working the way it was supposed to work. And that was deeply disturbing because I'd kind of gone long on journalism in my life. It was part of my identity. It still is. It felt like journalism was really important, but it wasn't having the effect that journalists wanted to have. And so by that I mean people distrusted the places that I was writing for. About half the country actively distrusted the places I was writing for and believed they were not telling the truth on purpose. No amount of facts and argumentation seemed to change people's minds when it came to politics in particular. And it just felt like curiosity was dead. And that's like my whole thing. That's all I got, you know what I'm saying? So I went through this whole kind of midlife crisis about what, you know, how to be useful in this hyper polarized time and ended up totally transforming how I think about conflict by studying and learning from people who work in conflict differently than journalists. So this would Be people like you, people who work in negotiation, people who work as psychologists, people who do gang violence, interruption, who work as diplomats or rabbis or all kinds of people who understand conflict intimately but very differently from journal. So that's sort of my. That's where we are right now. That's how I got here.

This is great. And so what we're going to do, audience, is we're going to have an open conversation. Speaking of curiosity, I'll just mobilize mine. And we're going to dig deeply into your experience and your perspective here and kind of break the typical flow of a standard episode. And so I think what would be interesting to do is explore that transformation that you had. So you said that you started to see conflict differently. Can you describe how you saw it before versus how you see it now?

Yeah. So forever since I was a baby journalist working for David Carr, who was my editor at Washington City Paper, I was a brilliant editor, a very generous, larger than life person. He and every editor told me, you need conflict in every story. It was like, just taken, as a matter of fact. You need conflict. You need characters, right? That's what makes a good story, is that tension. So I. And I. So I think, you know, I always figured I was very comfortable with conflict. That. That's like my bread and butter, right? It's conflict. I covered crime, I covered education, which actually had a lot of conflict. I covered terrorism and disasters for many years. But then one day I was interviewing a woman who used to be a journalist covering politics on Capitol Hill and then became a conflict mediator, so totally changed her career. So she went from, you know, the belly of the beast covering Congress to trying to help people through conflict. So I asked her, what would you. Let's say you were forced to go back to journalism. What would you do differently? And she said the most surprising thing. She said, I would go deeper into conflict. And I said, what? Because people are always, it seems like, you know, the public is always mad at journalists for doing too much conflict, right? So here she was telling me, no, no, no, we're not doing enough. And she said the thing that she'd learned is that journalists often hover around conflict, right? And they sometimes inflame conflict, intentionally or not, but they don't kind of go into it or get underneath it and try to really ask different questions and understand, like, what's really going on. Often it's like they're watching a tennis match, right? He said this and she said this, and back and forth and back and forth. And then can you believe it? He said this. And no, you're never really kind of getting to, you know, what. What you and your colleagues might call the interests, right? You're just at the sort of position level. Do I have that right? Am I using the right.

Absolutely.

So the things that negotiation researchers have known for a long time, I'm not sure journalists always know. So journalists know a lot about fear and storytelling and emotion and those kinds of conflict emotions, but not a lot about how to get underneath the conflict and figure out what's really going on. And about the psychology of human behavior in conflict, typically. I mean, there are, you know, exceptions.

Obviously, but in general, that's fascinating. And so it sounds like now in your journey, digging into conflict, what you're doing is you're exploring it on a deeper level so you're getting a better understanding of. Let's actually use the journal, the journalistic terms that you described, like the characters in this play. But you're getting into their roles. You're finding out what those motives are and why they do what they do. Am I understanding that right? Yeah.

Yeah. And even goes down to the technique. So in all the years I spent writing for national outlets, nobody ever coached me on interviewing. Nobody ever listened to me interview anyone. Nobody ever gave me feedback about interviewing anyone. You know, I got a lot of feedback on my stories, right? On my drafts of stories, but not on the process. So along the way, and when I was going through this whole existential crisis, I got some mediation training, right? And early on, of course, there was training in active listening techniques. And my immediate thought was, well, I know how to, you know, I know how to listen. I mean, this is what I do, right? I interview people. It's been, you know, it's actually the most ridiculous privilege of my life is that I get to parachute into people's lives and ask them, you know, pretty deep questions. So I went into it kind of cocky about. About my ability to listen. And what I learned pretty quickly is that, you know, nodding my head and furrowing my brow and, you know, doing those things isn't really listening. Like, the best kind of listening as you know, is proving to the other person that you're really trying to get them even. Even as you disagree, maybe especially as you disagree, right? And so you have to literally prove it by. By distilling what they've said into the most elegant language you can muster, playing it back to them and checking if you get it right, which was very different from how a typical interview would go, right? So that that probably is the thing that's changed my day to day life the most, professionally and personally. Like every interview I do, I tend to loop people. I call it looping because I trained with Gary Friedman, who's a mediator who teaches looping for understanding. But it's just another form of active listening, right?

Absolutely. And I like this because one of the things that I talk about a lot in the trainings is the fact that it's not enough to listen. You need to prove that you're listening. It's like you're playing a game where the other side is also the referee. Right. They get to determine whether or not you scored in terms of listening. And so when I always ask them, just invite them to correct me. So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying xyz. Is that right? Good. And I'll keep on doing that until I get my point. And so what ends up happening is for the other side, it sounds like you're a generous listener, and it seems as though you're really interested in learning more. And that, in fact, encourages them to share more, too, because we often talk about active listening as a skill. Right. I think that's important too. But we don't recognize just how important it is as an encourager because it changes the way that people share when you change the way that you listen.

Totally, totally. Amen to that. I mean, I think I actually wish there was a different word. Like the word listening feels a little too small for what it actually is. So I don't know. Have you come up with a good. A better word?

I haven't, but Joe Nabarro did. And so in his episode Everybody Check that out. I think Maria, our head of content and marketing, came up with a cool title. So I don't know what it is. Skills booster, something like that. But with Joe Navarro, and he said, active listening is garbage. Don't throw active listening out the window. I was like, joe, no, what happened? And he said, this is what it is for me. He said, it's benign curiosity.

Huh. Interesting.

Benign curiosity. And so it's like if you go to a different country, somebody you. You want to hear about somebody's trip. Oh, what do you do? Oh, that's really interesting. Tell me more about that. Oh, that's fascinating. And so you ate that food. How did it taste? I've never heard of it. Oh, that's really so it's almost like childlike curiosity where I just want to absorb information and it strips the judgment that's often associated with our tone when we disagree. And it goes back to what you said. I genuinely want to understand you, regardless of whether or not I agree.

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Right? It's like. Like an anthropologist might interview you as opposed to, you know, your mother. Like they just genuinely. There are no judgment, you know? Yeah, no, it's so true. And I mean, I think to your point, that the piece of it that I didn't know at least, and I've now trained hundreds of journalists on this, and there's also a learning curve, typically for them is what happens afterward. So in order to listen, people need to be heard. So it becomes this game of chicken, right? Like, who's going to listen first? And if you as the journalist prove you're really trying to get this person, not agreeing, but trying to get them, and they see that it changes everything that happens next. So Guy Ichikov has done some really good research on this where he found that once people feel heard, they say less extreme, more nuanced things. So think about the implication for journalism, right? Like if I'm interviewing someone and they don't feel heard, which is most of the time for most people, all, you know, in life, then they're gonna keep saying more, more and more extreme things. But if they do feel heard, they're going to reveal a little bit more ambivalence. They're going to be a little bit more open to other information, even information they maybe don't want to hear. So it is like the skeleton key to conflict, right? It is this. Whether we call it benign curiosity or, you know, I think Chris Voss calls it tactical listening. And so whatever that is, proving someone to someone that you are really trying to understand them is just a magical power. I mean, it really is.

Absolutely. And it's so funny that people often think so tactically about these conversations about how to persuade somebody, and they're trying to do these different psychological approaches, and those have their place, for sure. But the reality is that in the vast majority of these conversations, if you just approach it with some curiosity, ask great questions, and listen effectively, people have a miraculous ability to change their own minds without you having to do very much.

Yes, yes. And they're the most persuasive person. Right. As you've said on this show, I think nobody is going to persuade you as well as yourself. So especially in conflict, Right. When people are dug in, when there's emotion involved. So that is the trick, though, is, like, how. How do you sustain curiosity in yourself? Right. Even when everything in you wants to believe you, you know what they're going to say next and you know who they are, and it's not good. Like, I don't know, how do you do that yourself?

So for me, again, I have to think very strategically about who I am, and it's going to be different for different people. And I've mentioned it on the podcast for a while, for people who have listened for a while, they're probably going to find this really fascinating because I had the first guest on who talked about strengths in, like, 2018, 2017, and I said, you know what? I need to take a strengths finder test. Had another guest on two years later, you know what? I need to take a strength spider test. Well, I finally took it. Okay. And so here were the results. When I showed it to my friends, they were shocked. And so number one for me was competitiveness. I am very competitive, so that wasn't surprising. For me, seven out of the top 10 were strategy. So very strategic. Not surprising. I've played 16,000 games on chess.com. that's how I unwind. And so that wasn't surprising. Now, what was surprising is that we got the full report, 34 strengths. Saw 1 through 34. Number 34 was empathy. Empathy was dead last. And so for people who have listened to the show and hear the way that I approach conversations, that would probably be shocking because I talk about it all the time. But it helped me to recognize empathy as a skill, and it helped me to understand why I'm able to listen and empathize well is because I'm competitive, and I recognize it's the best strategy to be effective. And I listen competitively because I turn it into a game for myself. So I say, I have no clue where this person is coming from at all, but I bet I can ask questions that are so good and that I Could figure it out. And so I'll stay in that mode for, like, 30, 40 minutes, just focusing completely on them. Because I know I'm like, kwame, you listen. You practice this skill a lot. I know you can figure this out. And so it turns into a conversation that's very generous and completely focused on them. And for me, it's a game that I play to focus on them. Because I know I have a tendency to get competitive in a way that could be detrimental. So I take that competitive nature and turn it into something more benevolent, more charitable, and more generous in terms of listening.

Oh, wow. So maybe we have a better phrase here. It's competitive listening. Like you're trying to show maybe yourself, I guess, and the person that you can do this, you can investigate. Sort of like a detective as opposed to. As opposed to like a judge and jury. Is that right?

Exactly. Yeah. I think that's a fair way of conceptualizing it. Because in my first book, I have a section called the Benefit of the Benefit of the Doubt. And so the way I go into these conversations is I genuinely believe that this person is doing the very, very, very, very, very best they can, given their perspectives, their understanding, and their skill set. Now, depending on who they are, that might not be very good in this moment. And so it helps me to be more productive during the conversation. And so for me, I say, I bet this person didn't get up and say, I'm planning on being evil today. I bet in their head there's some rationalization that makes sense, and I need to figure it out right now. I don't know. How does this behavior make sense? And then thinking back to my buddy Dan Oblinger, who was on the show a while back, talking about how to deal with deception, even if people are lying to you, he says, lying is an opportunity because for some reason, this person thought that lying to me was their best option. I need to figure out why that is. That's fascinating. Right? And so I think about it in terms of, like, a story, too. Some stories are nonfiction, and some stories are fiction. I find both endlessly entertaining. And so when I depersonalize it and try my hardest to understand, regardless of how I'm feeling, it helps me to be more effective in the conversation.

That's interesting. And I think it's a special challenge for reporters, right? Because let's say you're interviewing a politician, right? You kind of go into it with the opposite, exact opposite mindset. Like, it's like this person is lying to me on purpose. Everything they say is suspect. They are not. They don't have the public's interest at heart. And I'm not saying this is the right way to go into it, by the way, but that is the. That is often the. In a sort of adversarial us versus them culture, like politics or the legal system or other things. It's the opposite, isn't it? It's the opposite assumption, and it's sort of designed to give you what you expect. On the other hand, right? There are, like, you know, when I interview politicians, they are not. They are not. I mean, they have an obvious reason not to tell me the unvarnished truth. Right? So. But there's a reason to your point, and that's always worth considering. Like, what is it? What is it they're trying to convey and why?

Yeah, exactly. And I think really it's going to be different for different people because there are going to be some people who are very low in competitiveness and they will hear what I said and they would say that is repulsive. Why do you think you think in that way? That's very strange. Right. And I think what it is, is understanding who you are and what works for you, understanding your unique triggers as well. Because if you get triggered and emotional, then you're. It's going to affect the way that you listen. And when it. When your ability to listen effectively is impacted, then it affects your ability to encourage them to share information. And when it comes down to it, negotiation is an information game. And so I know I cannot be effective without appropriate information. And so there's only. There's some information that can only get from them. So it helps me to see a lot more value in the. In the way that they're approaching it.

Yeah, it's. It's tricky because it is. Like, I appreciated this, I think you said this in the past on a podcast, that what we're asking people to do is not normal. Like, it's not normal to hear something that you find offensive or threatening and get curious about it. And I think it's good to just. It was helpful to me to just have that acknowledged and acknowledge that you actually can practice it enough that it becomes more automatic. Would you agree?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I think you're a great example of that, too, because you have an entire career of listening differently than you do now, and you were able to make that transition.

Yeah, yeah. And you have to practice it. I mean, it's not. To your point. It's not natural, evolutionarily or otherwise, to get curious in a situation where you feel triggered. So I think, you know, practicing it. Actually, I actually find when I tell people about, you know, looping or active listening and trained journalists, I'm like, you know, practice it with your kids. If you have little kids, it's a great way to practice it, because they're always coming at you with some complaint or emotion. Right. Like, that's what they do. And if you can distill it for them and play it back and check if you got it right, you find, like, half the time, that's all they wanted. You know, that's actually all they wanted. And then they'll go do the thing that you. As opposed to arguing with them or ignoring them or ordering them or, you know, sometimes it's actually much easier to just make them feel heard.

Absolutely. And so active listening is a critical part of parenting. And like you said, sometimes it is the whole battle, not even half the battle. It's the whole battle. And a lot of times, what ends up happening is our goal to just shut things down and save time is actually the thing that makes us take more time in these conversations.

Yeah, we're like, I don't have time to, like, make you feel heard, but it turns out it's, like, much faster. Journalists often say this to me. They're like, yeah, this is all good, but I don't have time for that. Like, I'm on deadline. And what we work on is, you know, sometimes, yes, sometimes being curious does take more time, but the listening thing we're talking about does not necessarily take more time, and it can save you a lot of hard heartache.

Absolutely. And to that point, with kids, too, because I know that a lot of times, you know, I'm at work during the day, during my. My peak hours of energy, but it's like in the morning when I'm rushing to get to work, and then in the evening when I'm exhausted from work, that's when we spend the most time. And so we're under duress. And I'm like, I just want to leave. I just want you to go to sleep so I can relax, you know, and we're frazzled and we're under higher levels of duress, so. You're absolutely right. These. These are opportunities for us to practice our listening. Because for me, in my experience, listening at work, as a mediator, as a lawyer, as a negotiation consultant, whatever it happens to be, it is so much easier. But the more personal the relationship becomes, the more difficult it is to execute.

Yeah, I'm the absolute worst at the most important arguments I have, which are with my husband, Right. I actually find the kid thing a little easier depending on the, depending on the situation. But because they're just their kids, I mean, they're irrational, like, you can't, you don't expect them to be like, you know, adults. And you have a lot more power, I mean, honestly, in that situation. So. Yeah, yeah, that's something I am constantly working on. But again, the more you practice it in those easier conflicts, the easier it gets in the harder ones, right?

Absolutely. And one of the things that I thought was interesting about you is that you have, you draw the distinction between some conflicts that are productive, like good conflict, and then some bad conflict. Can you tell us about that distinction?

Yeah. So I kind of went into writing this book, High Conflict, trying to figure out, you know, what does it look like for societies to get out of conflict? You know, can I find stories and research about that? And I realized pretty quickly, right, that that was the wrong question. Conflict is not the problem. You know, we need conflict. We need the kind of thing that pushes us to be better as individuals, as groups, as countries. We need to stand up for ourselves. We need to ask questions. So I think of it as good conflict. Like, you know, the late Congressman John Lewis used to talk about good trouble. Right. The kind of conflict that is necessary, like good trouble is the kind where you, you know, can get angry and it can be stressful and it can be hard and unpleasant and questions get asked. And you can actually see this in the, in the data that in good conflict arguments, more questions get asked and there's more satisfaction afterward. And even if no one changes their mind, there's more movement in the emotion. So in good conflict, you experience anger, frustration, impatience, annoyance, fear, sadness, but then like glimpses of humor, understanding, surprise, and then back to anger, frustration. So it's like a galaxy of emotion as opposed to just one or two where you're really stuck. Right? And I think that movement, that sense that you're going somewhere is the distinguishing feature. Right. Of good conflict. Whereas high conflict, which is typically more unusual but now seems to be everywhere, is the kind, is the kind where it can really start small, but it becomes an all consuming kind of conflict where it's conflict for conflict's sake. Right? So it becomes almost like a perpetual motion machine where the original dispute fades into the background and that us versus them dynamic takes over. No questions get asked. Because again, we think we know, we think we know what the other side is up to. And there's a sense that you're not making any progress. So one of the ways to tell if you're in high conflict, in my experience, is if you have the same arguments with the other side or person in your head over and over, and they don't go anywhere, you know, and then even when you talk to someone who agrees with you, who's on your side, you don't feel better. Right. Like, you just. You're kind of stuck in this. In the. In the murk of the high conflict, and it becomes the kind of thing that gradually starts to make everyone involved suffer. To different degrees. Right, to different degrees. But it takes a real toll. And you don't get the progress you get with good conflict. So that was, for me, a really helpful distinction, is not. It's not conflict that's the problem. As you know, it's the kind of conflict that brings out our worst instincts, particularly in really emotional, collective conflict.

This is interesting. And so, Amanda, from your perspective, the distinction between high conflict and good conflict, would you say it's more in the process or. Or the outcome?

I would say is much more about the process. Yeah, it's much more about. It's less about what the argument's about. And because I've seen. I've seen good conflict be about really hard things, and I've seen high conflict be about really silly things. You know what I mean? So it's much more about the. How do you. Are you able to retain dignity? Is a word that comes to mind. Your own and the other person's. That doesn't mean you don't criticize them. It doesn't mean you don't agree. You know, you have to agree. And this is a distinction that I think. It's frustrating to me how often we get trapped in thinking that we either have to have high conflict, let's say, in politics, like we've got now, or bipartisan unity, you know, like, I don't think those are the only two choices. And you can see that. Right. Like, we're were trapped in that kind of false dichotomy. Whereas in good conflict, you know, I've seen. I've. I've, you know, as a reporter, been able to sit in on conversations between, you know, people talking, having really deep, difficult conversations about, you know, the Confederate flag or who really disagreed deeply. Right. But do it in such a way that doesn't collapse into dehumanizing each other, you know, that keeps open the possibility, however remote, that they don't know everything.

This is really interesting because I think so many people are focused on the destination, that they don't think about the journey. And what it sounds like is that. And you correct me if I'm wrong here, the destination could be the same place. So, for example, in good conflict, you could ultimately walk in a circle where you. You address the issue in different ways, you share, you're asking questions, you learn from them, they learn from you. There's a variety of different emotions, and then ultimately, you settle in more or less the same place. But it could be good conflict. Then you could have the same situation, but it's bad conflict, and everybody is approaching it in a. Only experiencing a narrow set of emotions, which would be anger, hostility, disgust. Like that narrow set of negative emotions toward each other. There's no curiosity, there's more, just attacking. And then they end up in more or less the same place. And one could be good conflict and one could be bad conflict, Even though in terms of the practical outcome, it looks from the outside looking in that they ended up in the same place.

Yeah. And I think you might be in the same place, but you've got your peripheral vision. So in good conflict, you can see things that you miss in high conflict. Right. Like, just as a quick example, right now, Democrats think that there are twice as many Republicans who have extreme views on various things than actually do, and vice versa. Republicans think there are twice as many Democrats who have extreme views. Also, both sides dramatically overestimate how much the other side hates them. Right.

Wow.

Yeah. So you see how that changes your behavior, right? I mean, you'd vote for anyone to avoid having someone in office who hates you.

Mm.

Okay. So those are mistakes that you make in high conflict all over the world. I mean, it's just a very human. You lose your ability to see things clearly. And that's true always. Right. We all have biases and, you know, blind spots. But it gets worse when you're in that constant state of feeling threatened and also feeling morally superior.

It seems as though in good conflict, it should be a transformative experience for everybody involved. Even if you end up in more or less the same place, like, nothing changes, Something could change in good conflict, for sure. But even in a situation where we more or less stay in the same place, I could leave the conflict different than I started because I say, you know what? Because I ask questions and learn from you. My perspective has changed in a way that helps me to see the situation more holistically. And so I'm. Yes, it's not a situation where I now agree with you, but I can understand where you're coming from. And I'm better for it.

Exactly. Yeah. And I think it makes you more effective in your quest. Right. Because you understand the dialect, the moral dialect, the other person is speaking better. Right. So when an opportunity arises, maybe it's a year from now, maybe it's five years from now, when an opportunity arises, you can see, oh, this actually might work, because it actually speaks to the other side's moral values, which I don't agree with. And mine. Right. So you're able to see opportunities that otherwise get lost. Because, you know, the thing about high conflict is you end up fighting about a lot of stuff, only some of which matters. Right?

Yeah.

And so you waste a lot of energy. You. You fight a lot internally, like any. In my experience. And I'm sure there are exceptions. Any institution or organization that goes really deep on us versus them thinking, and where there's an orthodoxy and a good versus evil, eventually you start to turn on each other. So there's this real danger in every. You know, I ended up following a bunch of people who had shifted from high conflict to good conflict. And in every single case. So a politician in California, a former gang member in Chicago, an activist in England. In every case in high conflict, they start mimicking the behavior of their adversaries without realizing it. So they do the thing, you know, that they went into the fight to stop. So the politician went into politics and to make it less toxic and more inclusive. And in a matter of months, he was making it more toxic and less inclusive because he was sucked into the magnetism of high conflict. So that's the real diabolical danger of high conflict is that you start to do to harm the thing you care most about, usually without realizing it.

And so how does somebody who recognizes they're in the middle of high conflict, how do they do change it and turn that into good conflict?

Well, there's a few things that the people I followed all did. So they were in really different kinds of conflicts all over the world. Personal, political, professional. But the patterns that I saw, which may. May be useful, are that they, first of all, they always did something to distance themselves from the conflict entrepreneurs in their midst. Right. So these are the people or platforms that exploit conflict for their own ends, often for profit, but sometimes even more often for attention or a sense of belonging or camaraderie. Right. Recognizing who those people are and creating some distance. So, you know, to take an extreme example, the gang leader in Chicago moved across town and he was able to do that, and it made a huge Difference, because it slowed down the conflict. Right. So when his cousin was just tragically killed, he didn't know right away who did it. He didn't have people coming to him right away agitating for revenge. Right. So you slow down the conflict for other people in less, you know, high stakes conflict, it might mean changing who your lawyer is in an ugly divorce dispute or changing who's on your social media feed or which cable news pundit you're watching. Right. Noticing who is really delighting in every twist and turn the conflict makes. And by the way, all of us can be that person. We all can act, especially journalists. Right. As conflict entrepreneurs. So, you know, I don't, I don't think it's useful to just like demonize them. Right. But it's important to notice that, that pattern and get curious also about why, why they're doing that. You know, what is going on there.

It's so interesting to use a culinary example. Tell me if this makes any sense. If not, we can just edit it out and I'll sound perfect. Anyway, so it's almost like a marinade. Imagine you are the dish being cooked, and then if you are marinating in some very spicy, spicy sauce, you're going to be spicy too. And once you remove yourself from that, then the spiciness from the people around you stops seeping into you and then you can see things more objectively and you don't feel the need to respond in kind.

Yeah, it's like a social contagion, right?

Exactly.

AKA marinated. Yeah. I mean, there are especially in powerful group identities. Right. Like you. We know from the research that when someone you care about gets an electric shock, you feel it, like you got it. Like the part of your brain that processes pain experiences that. And the same is true with social pain, like humiliation. Right. So it doesn't even have to happen to you for you to feel social pain and react accordingly. So the more you can kind of distance yourself from people who, for example, conflict entrepreneurs will often frame everything as a humiliation because it tends to really foment and escalate conflict for a lot of reasons. But that's something to look out for. You know, is it, is it really humiliating or does this guy just keep saying it is? You know what I'm saying?

That's a good point. That's, that's really, that's a really, really, really good point. And sometimes it becomes difficult to see where they end and you begin because everybody starts to become, like you said, that social contagion. We start to become One nebulous blob of like minded people. And I mean, it's the hive mind. That's what happens. And I think, especially when we think about today, how easy it is for things to get polarized, how divisive things have become. I think it's really important to stop and ask ourselves whether or not this is good conflict or whether or not it's high conflict. It's a distinction that I don't. I think this is the first time I've heard it described in this way and it's been really, really, really helpful for me. And then with the time that we have left, I would ask when it comes to, on, let's say on the, on the like the globe scale or the global scale or the national scale, because I think you already did a really good job of describing what it is that we can do to remove ourselves from high conflict and start to change that. I think that's really helpful. Changing our environment. Now, when it comes to the global scale or the national scale, what are the things that we can do to address that?

I think a lot of the things that you talk about all the time apply here for good conflict. Like you cultivate good conflict with curiosity, with asking different questions, with making sure you're really listening to people. Right. With not assuming you know everything about them. But then I think what you're asking is how do you take that to scale? Like, how do you deal with that across a country or a political system? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. So some of the things that I think have been helpful from studying other conflicts elsewhere that might be useful here are, first of all, you have to reduce the power of these binary choices. We know from decades of research that when you divide humans into like two opposing groups, bad things happen. Like, it just doesn't go well. So we know from the research that countries that have more than two political parties tend to have more trust and less polarization. Not always. There are exceptions. Right. But on average, that is one way. And that feels impossible. Right? Like, oh my God, we'll never have a third party in the United States. Right. At the same time, there are incremental changes you can make. So like, have you ever heard of ranked choice voting?

No.

Yeah, it's like this idea where you vote for your top three or four candidates for mayor, say, so if your top choice doesn't get enough votes, your votes all go to the second choice you chose. And this actually is now being used in Alaska and Maine and New York City's mayoral election June used ranked choice voting. So there are places actually doing this even in the US and one of the things it does, while it doesn't necessarily introduce a third party, it does complicate that binary, right. That sense you either win everything in election or you lose everything. That winner take all mentality, which I think right. From negotiation, we know is like bs. Then that idea that if I win, you lose and vice versa, that's what it does is it's sort of. And it has this really intriguing effect on the candidates. Right? Because if they're worried about being your second or third choice, they're not as incentivized to. To castigate their opponents. Right. Because, you know, if you're a supporter of their opponent, they don't want to insult you because you, you know, they want you to pick them as your number two or three choice. So it complicates those kind of arbitrary, oversimplified stereotypes we make of the other.

I think that's a great point, and I think this is the beginning of an incredible campaign. Amanda Ripley for president.

Yeah, that's. That's not happening. But I did. I do remember listening to one of your podcasts where you talked about how you originally thought about going into politics. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And I remember thinking, God, I wish. I wish he could. I wish he'd done that selfishly.

There are a lot of people who want other people to be.

Exactly, Exactly.

Yes. Yes. So between us two, we have two people not going into politics, but we will, you know, we'll have the candid candidates on if they want to. Come on.

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