Andy Norman: The Search For A Better Way To Think | The Tyler Wagner Show #1053

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Andy Norman with us. He is the award-winning author of Mental Immunity and the founder of CIRCI, an institute dedicated to protecting minds from manipulative information. So welcome to the show.

Thanks Tyler, nice to be here.

Grateful to have you on. So first question I have for you, and this is probably typically the first question you get, but you do a pretty interesting thing. So when you were younger, or maybe not when you were super younger, but like, what was it that made you even interested in this topic?

Yeah, well, I was in college, and yeah, you know how sitting around having a few beers and, uh, kvetching about all the problems in the world. I was doing that, and, and I was reflecting on our species' sort of sorry lack of wisdom. I mean, everywhere around around us, we see people doing foolish things. And so complaining about it, my friend turned to me and he said, Andy, why don't you quit complaining and do something about it? Um, so a week later I declared myself a philosophy major, and I've been studying human wisdom and its opposite ever since, and trying to figure out how we can all become just a little bit wiser.

That's awesome. Yeah, okay, so I think this is going to be one of my favorite episodes because I talk about that a lot with my friends too.

Okay, sounds good.

And it's strange though, because I like, um, because you said philosophy major, like I've— and I'm trying— so I've read some Nietzsche, I've read some Carl Jung, and I'm forgetting who it was. There's some quote though that's like basically something along the lines of like, when you think— when you isolate yourself and you think everybody else is doing the wrong thing then you might want to reflect or something. Like, I don't know, but it's interesting because I do feel that way all the time. But then again, I always try to center myself and try to think like, why do I always think I'm right? Like, there's something wrong with that too.

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of built into the way we experience things that we assume we're right about stuff, right? And when everybody else is thinking something different, it's tempting to just say, oh, they're all wrong, I'm right. It's hard because that stokes the old ego, right? Because that's true. Well, in my case, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. So no, that— I just think that's, that's interesting. But I have had many of those, uh, conversations as well. Um, so, and this is just me looking at the first thing, and I, I happen to be— and maybe you're not gonna like me too much after this, we'll see— but like Alex Jones, I, I think that he seems to be correct often. But yes, he has made some huge errors, for sure. Yeah, I think he would agree. Conspiracy theories, though, like, what's your overall thoughts on those? Let's start there. And then I have some other questions.

Yeah. So a conspiracy theory offers a very simple story about where a lot of the world's problems come from. There's this big giant cabal of conspirators, and they're, they're the unseen forces behind all of the things that's wrong with your life. It's a really seductive story. And when people feel desperate, conspiracy theories appeal to them. It gives them a sense that they— it gives them a sense that they can control a situation that feels out of control, because if you can take down the conspirators, you can take back control.

That makes sense. Okay, right.

And, and what's— but when you study how conspiracy theories work, I see people like Alex Jones using those seductive stories to hijack people's minds, to, to basically manipulate people into clinging desperately to his fantasies and stories. Now, I don't follow Alex Jones closely. Um, I, I, I— you may know more about some of the cases where he actually gets things right. I, um, I'm not familiar. I, I know this— I'm familiar with the stories where he's caught out saying something outrageously wrong, and not just outrageously wrong, but tailored to stoke anger and outrage. And like when he claimed that the Sandy Hook shootings were a—

He just got sued for that, right? I think it was like $40 million he got hit or something.

$40 million. And if you listen to some of the news coverage on it, some of the parents who lost children in that fight then had to face years of death threats from Alex Jones followers. And people who bought Alex Jones's nonsense. And these— that just— it just turned a tragedy into like this ongoing hell for many parents who didn't— who deserved much better. And Alex Jones did not care enough about the truth. He didn't care enough about what's right and what's, um, and what might alleviate their suffering. He simply peddled the nonsense because it made him money. And the people who follow Alex Jones because they find his conspiracy theories seductive or whatever, they're helping to underwrite his operation, which I find detestable.

Yeah, that makes sense. That was definitely probably his biggest error, um, for sure. Um, I would say— well, I'll say two things, right? So I've read the, the 48 Laws of Power, right? And one of the things that it says— I, like, I would imagine Alex Jones probably read that book. And the one law of power. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it's literally in his name, InfoWars. So one way to draw the crowd towards you is essentially to just go against the entire mainstream, and that seems to be his core marketing strategy.

That makes sense to me. And, and, and one problem with, with waging an information war in order to gain followers and influence and money is that you turn what should be a peaceful space into a battle zone. So when you turn— a culture should be a nurturing place where we can all thrive together. And when you prosecute culture wars in order to pursue selfish ends, a lot of times you're tearing at the social fabric in ways that harm us all in the long run. and, and I think that, I mean, humanity makes progress when we stop vilifying each other and really try to understand each other. Um, and, and when people like Alex Jones push us in the opposite direction, I, I think he's actually, um, moving us away from progress towards human well-being.

Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting because I think, um, And I wasn't trying to, um, make this whole thing about, about him, but I, I think it's a very interesting topic because when I think conspiracy theory, he's the first thing that like pops in my mind.

Yeah, I think he's a very, very, uh, vivid example, so it's worth exploring.

Yeah, yeah, right. And, and the thing is, I think for his followers, which I don't know if I would say I'm a follower, but I would just say I can give you the, the perspective of one of his followers.

Okay.

And I think what it comes down to is that the mainstream media and politicians, it's very clear that they all don't necessarily have our best intentions in mind.

Sure.

So what Alex Jones talks about a lot is he— and I would say this probably isn't 100%, like, of course he's doing some of this for money, let's be clear. It's just this, it's not a charity, so he's doing something for money for sure. But his followers would probably say that it's not mostly about the money. It seems like he really does actually care to bring up the truth. And the reason they would say that is like— and it's arguable to say like, what's enough money? But, you know, he's made enough that he doesn't really have to be working anymore, probably.

Um, I don't know, believe he's made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So then you could argue, but then that's kind of the same argument with Trump where it's just like, I don't think that's it. You need to dive deeper. You can't just say like one line like, oh, Trump doesn't need to be the president. So because of that, everything he does is correct. Right? Whereas the other politician needs the $400,000 a year salary. He gave his away, which means he's always right. That is an inaccurate way of thinking. You know, right?

I mean, the temperatures in the culture wars have risen alarmingly in recent years, and it's because so many Americans have fallen in the thrall of people who vilify. Now, I've been saying for years that the American democracy is rigged in favor of the influential and the rich and the well-connected. I mean, I think that's true, and a better democracy would have much better safeguards against corruption so that our government could serve us ordinary Americans better.

Yeah.

Um, the— and, and, and I, I'm enough of a fan of Bernie Sanders to, to be pleased when— in fact, Joe Rogan tells me he's a fellow Bernie Sanders supporter for similar reasons. Bernie calls out those— the corruption where he sees it, and and tries to argue that we're better than this. Um, the problem with saying the system is rigged again and again and again and again, um, is that it can cause people to become cynical, and, and it can cause their fears to spiral out of control. So, so to some extent, right, political insiders manipulate American politics to advance selfish private interests over the public interest. That happens all the time. But notice how easily it is to slide from there to there's a giant conspiracy in Washington. And by the way, it's a bunch of pedophiles in the basement of a pizza shop, and I better grab my gun and go solve this problem.

No, you're right. It does. It goes very far, very quickly. That is for sure.

So you have to be careful about the doubts and questions you entertain. So my academic research is on how questions work to help people think better. And questions are one, and doubts are a wonderful way to poke, to flag problematic ideas. But when, when the, when questions become so automatic in your mind that you just, or doubts become so automatic, that, that's not skepticism, that's cynicism. And I'd argue that a lot of what starts off as admirable critical thinking— let's look into this and really find out, let's get to the bottom of this story— you know, you, you go into it with the right attitude and you go down a rabbit hole, and before you know it, um, you've become cynical and angry. And, and people can't— you can't think clearly when you're cynical and angry.

Hmm, interesting. You're actually— you're shining a light for me because I think like anything government related, I've kind of— maybe that's I don't know the exact definition of cynical, but I just think anything government-related at this point seems to all be with not good intentions. And that's not the right way to think. I know that's not true, but it seems that way.

You know, it's— I like the fact that you are willing to admit that and acknowledge that it's a— that's a little too simple, right? I mean, it's, it's so tempting to just say politics is all corrupt. Democrats and Republicans are equally corrupt, a pox on all their houses, I'm just going to ignore it, right? That's tempting because it's a way to kind of wash your hands of the whole thing and saying I'm above this. But if we don't engage and try to make our democracy work better, then the worst people among us are going to seize the reins of power and run it for their private interests. So Politics is messy, it's ugly, but we have to engage in it anyway. And I think to some extent, and I'm like you on this, Tyler, I've often fallen under the spell of the idea, to hell with all of it, I hate politics, I'm above politics. I've been there, I've done that. But I think I've come to believe that that's kind of a cop-out.

Yeah.

Right? It's a way of saying, let other people worry about the messy, ugly stuff, because I'm too pure for that. Yeah, but if too many people do that, what happens to a democracy? It can fail.

Yeah, and I think actually on Rogan they kind of talk about this a lot, that it's— that's kind of the issue, right? So they talk about like people they would want to run, right? So I think one person that, uh, Rogan mentioned was like Jordan Peterson. Whether you like him or not, they're like he would be potentially like a good leader in some fashion in politics, but it seems that he doesn't have any interest in politics. So it's like all the people that we would want to be our leader are not crazy enough to get in the political— so then we're left with the crazies, or what?

One way to put, put that is that if you, if you want power, that ought to disqualify you from having power.

Yes, yes, great way. Okay, but okay, agreed. Now how would we, how would we effectively solve that, you know? That's tough.

Well, it's a wonderful question and it's a hard one, and I don't by any means have, uh, the answer. One of my philosophical heroes, um, is an ancient Greek philosopher named Socrates, and his student was a playwright named Plato who wrote a bunch of really cool dialogues about Socrates. Plato thought really hard about this problem for much of his life and talked about it endlessly with a lot of really thoughtful, interesting people. And he came to the conclusion that societies work best when the wisest among us get to make the decisions. The way he put that is that he said the philosophers should be kings, which doesn't sound— that sounds self-serving, doesn't it?

A little bit.

And as a philosopher, I want to like that idea, but I recognize it's a little bit self-serving.

Gut was like, yes, I agree, but maybe not complete.

But yeah, okay, I'm happy to have non-philosophers be leaders if they're wise enough and they care enough about the common good.

For sure. No, me too, me too. Um, so yeah, let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about the book. So as a whole, um, what inspired you to write the book and tell us a little bit about what it's about?

Yes, so if you look closely at how human minds deal with bad information, you see some people who are really good at spotting the bad information and screening it out, or when they find bad information that's already taken root in their minds, they're really good at weeding it out and chucking it. And then other people really struggle to to distinguish good information from bad. They let in a lot of bad stuff, and they start believing lots of things that aren't true, believing lots of things that are actually bad for them, bad for the people around them, bad for their societies. Um, and, and it can, it can even curdle into something like delusion, right? Or, I mean, whether you're on the left or the right, you can I could cite examples of places where bad information has caused people to become delusional, right? And neither the left nor the right has a monopoly on delusion, right? But there's this really fascinating new research that basically says that just like our bodies have immune systems that weed out infectious microbes, So your body's immune system, Tyler, its job is to spot the bad guys and weed them out, like COVID, coronavirus, or the influenza virus, or smallpox. Your immune system has evolved to spot those, or it's either, it's partially evolved, but it's also learned how to spot things that can harm it. And neutralize them. Now here's the new thing: we've known that for about a century. Now it turns out that the mind has an immune system that functions in almost exactly the same way to try to spot bad information and neutralize it, but it doesn't always work very well. Yeah, yeah. So, so we have to learn how to care for our mental immune systems so that we become good at spotting the bad information and shedding it and to help each other spot. Like, so you'll do a much better of spotting my bad ideas because I'm blind to the badness of my own ideas, right?

For sure.

Yeah. Like where I have bought into a mistaken assumption or a myth of some kind, political, religious, whatever, you're more likely to spot it than I am, and I'm more likely to spot, um, the bad ideas that have taken root in your mind. So the— so the way to get good at this is to listen to other people raise objections to your beliefs and to take them seriously. Yeah, does that make sense?

100%. And then I actually didn't really know— like, I love— the reason I love doing podcasts, I, I always used to just say it was just out of curiosity but now I'm seeing that what you just said is maybe closer to the truth of why I do it. Because I am— although as we started this, I believe— this sounds so messed up— but I believe I'm more correct than most. Let's put it that way. Maybe everyone does, I don't know.

Can I just, can I just say something about that? Um, psychologists have been able to prove There's something like 90% of people think they're smarter than average.

Oh, okay, great. So I'm not crazy. That's cool.

Or only as crazy as the rest of us.

Oh, that, that's probably more accurate. So, um, but what I mean is like, I am very open, like, even— and I like having conversations, uh, with, with the other side, let's put it that way. And I don't even like to say it that way because I more like to say like Hey, and just politics is the easiest way to put it, but you're a Democrat, I'm Republican. My first like gut reaction to that is, oh, you're a Democrat. It's not that I don't want to talk to you. It's more, I am so curious as to why you chose that path.

Well, and curiosity is a wonderful attitude to have, especially when you run into beliefs that don't make sense to you, right? Yeah. —and if you come— so suppose you bump into an idea that seems foreign and wrong to you, you can come in just and just say, "That's bullshit," like immediately. And if you do that, you deprive yourself of a learning opportunity, because chances are there's some truth in that idea that offends you so much. So if you come at it with curiosity, the way you like to, you're much more likely to learn from the other person and make evolve your own thinking to a higher level.

100%. And I think that's why what I've come to realize is like the more data you can collect, meaning like more conversations, more people you work with or whatever it might be, just the more that you can and not just more, you have to actually be present and listening and taking it in. Yes. Then I've come to find like, it's not that I actually think I know more necessarily. It's more that I just have so many data points that when I talk to people, I'll be triggered. I'm like, oh, that was the 12th. I've done almost like 2,000 interviews now, like a lot. So, oh, the 1,200th interview, I remember that was Jim and he taught me about this. And it kind of is like stored back there somehow.

It's a wonderful place. I mean, it's a cool line of work you're in where you get to kind of learn. So I read an article about Joe Rogan that said he's basically kind of jacked his put his mind into the internet because he had a steady stream of like really impressively interesting, thoughtful people, if I say so myself. Yeah. And, um, you know, I mean, that guy can just like learn through a fire hose. Now, I don't know to what extent— so Joe has lots of data points, you have lots of data points. That's part of the battle, is to be open enough to collect all those data points. But then the challenge becomes, how do you weave them together into a sort of a coherent worldview. And that, and that's tricky too, right? Because sometimes this data doesn't fit with that data, and you got to decide which one will I keep and which one will I chuck? And what's the story that, that, what's the, how do you get meaning from the data? For sure.

No, I agree. And that, that's where those conversations over a few beers happen.

And that's nothing's better than beer to lubricate.

So I'm curious on like, um, and maybe there's some, uh, well, I'm sure there is in the book, like, what are some of the most, uh, like, manipulative things that you've come across? And whether you can say names, companies, governments, whatever it is, I'm more just interested in like what happened to the people that were manipulated.

Yeah, um, so, so, uh So we talked a little bit about how conspiracy theories can manipulate minds. I've got a colleague and a friend who's doing some really interesting stuff on how, kind of like, how peddlers of faux medicines, of fake medicine, how they peddle their stuff. It's like, "Here's the stuff that they don't want you to know about," and "they" is some shadowy, right? And and they try to sell you on something that probably won't help you. And when people are suffering with health issues and they need hope, it's really easy to grab on to something that claims to work. There are a lot of people out there who will use this fact to take your money. And so, so this friend of mine actually teaches a course for high school kids and college kids, which— where the students get to design their own fake advertising campaign, their own manipulative advertising campaign. That's pretty cool. It's like, so you teach kids, you give them some of the tricks, and then you say, okay, here's the medicine you have to sell. It doesn't really work, but you need to make it look like it works. And how are you going to sell people? And the kids get together in groups and they brainstorm and they come up with stuff and they draw their own, you know, storyboards and everything. And the process of doing that, like imagining how you would snooker other people and part them from their money, helps to strengthen your own mind's immune system so that other people can't do it to you.

Ah, and then there's the couple rare ducks that use it for bad, right?

I was just having this conversation with The woman who came up with this approach is called active inoculation. It's a process where you engage kids in an activity that's fun, but that basically inoculates them by heightening their sensitivity to certain manipulation techniques. Her experience is that it's overwhelmingly positive in its effects. But if some of her students go on to to serve evil with these same tricks that they're using.

Could happen, right? And, and we could both potentially agree that not— and I don't know this teacher at all, so I want to be clear on that— but that, you know, she would obviously like that to be the truth too, right? So that might be a little skewed.

Well, so that, that makes it worth watching. I mean, I think if I were going to do something like that in the classroom I've taken a slightly different approach to sort of teaching critical thinking in my philosophy courses over the years, but if I did use that technique, and I'm dying to try it on a class, you know, you'd have the fun part where you're actually playing at manipulating other people, but then you do a debrief afterwards where you have a heart-to-heart talk with the kids about, you know, how did that make you feel? And, you know, how would you feel if somebody used this technique to swindle you out of thousands of dollars? Right, so there are ways to kind of engage people's moral sensibilities so that they don't just stay in the manipulative mindset. The idea is to give them a taste of what it's like to manipulate others so that you can be better at spotting other people's manipulations and less likely to do it yourself.

Yeah, see, that's what's so interesting with advertising and sales is I found, um, Because I've been running a company for— since I was 12 years, I keep saying, because my birthday just happened. So since I was 19. And my first thing that I started to be like hungry for learning was advertising and sales, right? Because that's like kind of the— you know, you need to have a good product and service, obviously, that's the core. But above that, you need good marketing and sales. And you always hear like salespeople make the most money, like all these things. So I just went down this whole pathway. And I came to this. It's an interesting thing because it feels like sales feels sleazy to me. Like it feels— and the techniques they teach, like one I can think of that I won't say his name, but he just taught this. I saw it on YouTube and I'm certain that it works because it makes complete sense, is essentially if you want somebody to believe something, you first like give a confession, right? So meaning like this, so say if like I can give an example. So you'd be like, oh, here, I'll use an example. So say like If Burger King wanted to sell their burgers, they would first say, hey, look, I want to be honest with you, we do not have the best french fries. Like, we don't. There's other places their fries are better. But one thing that is not even considerable as an argument: our burgers are better than everyone in town. It's not even a discussion. And people will believe the second statement more because of that honorable confession that first happened.

That makes sense to me, right?

And you could use that in bad ways, right? I mean, because, yeah, it's messed up a little bit.

Well, and it's interesting here, right? Because, um, I mean, there's— there are plenty of non-manipulative ways to try to influence other people. Like, if you try to inspire other people, that's not necessarily manipulation. If you try to teach somebody else— so, I mean, especially when you're I mean, I think all good teachers develop a pretty clear sense of the difference between teaching and indoctrination. I mean, there are, I think, a vanishingly small number of people in the teaching profession who want to indoctrinate people, or who do in fact indoctrinate people because they're confused about the difference between teaching and indoctrination. But in my experience, people who go into the teaching profession are overwhelmingly concerned to actually open minds and help people think for themselves. For sure, for sure.

Yeah. And I, um, by the way, what I always mean is just like books and courses that I had taken, um, not like professors and stuff, but like I just think— and, and to go further, what I've concluded with my business is after going through all these tactics and everything, it basically just came down to honesty. Like just getting on the phone and literally just asking the customer like What are you trying to get out of this? And if what they say is something I can deliver, then I'm like, okay, well, we can do that. Here's how. If you want to become a client, you can. And if we can't deliver, I just say we're not a good fit. And that seems to work fine.

As a guy who's spent more time teaching ethics than selling stuff, I can approve.

I can give that the ethical stamp of approval. Yeah. And like, What I— because I've had feedback on it. A lot of times I get feedback, and it's because it is what it is. People will literally say, like, though— I actually had somebody say, you sold me by not trying to sell me, right? So, and then what's kind of freaky about that is then it gets in my head, and then I'm like, oh, this is a tactic. So if you want to sell something, act like you're not trying to sell it, and then they buy.

It's easy to get— yeah, it can become a hall of mirrors when you think about this.

Yeah, hopefully people got something out of it. So if you want to sell things, there's two ways to do it.

Yeah, well, I think if you— so imagine, I mean, let's just take a couple clear cases, right? So if these— there's some subtle gray area space where you're doing a little bit of selling, but also more just— or honest selling versus— and it can bleed, one can bleed into the other. But there's also, just remember, there's, there are clear cases. If I try to swindle you out of your money and I don't care if that makes you worse off, that's unethical selling. Yeah, right. But if I, um, want to help you acquire something that might make your life better and, and sell you in honestly believing that it's a win-win for both sides, there's nothing ethically problematic about that.

Agreed. Now wait, let's talk about this, right? Because this is where this gets interesting, is— and these are some books that I've read, and actually I think there's one, but again, I don't want to say names on this because it's just my take on things. But there was one book I read that was like, as long as you— and maybe this passes the ethics stamp I want to see— but basically it was like, as long as you believe your product or service is going to help the other you can use any manipulation that you want because the outcome is good, right? So as long as that's true, any way you get them there doesn't matter. Now, I think that's flawed. I don't agree with that. Tell me why. Okay, well, because it's based upon what you think is good, which could be flawed in itself. Okay. So that's— and I think we all kind of believe our own BS in a sense, right? And whether we're aware of it or not, some are literally trying to take advantage, and others truly believe— okay, I want to be very clear, I think this guy is great, but just an example that's coming to mind would be like Tony Robbins, right? And I want to be clear, I've never heard that— like, he seems amazing, I haven't been to his things, his books are awesome— but I would say maybe that logic could be flawed there, that like he certainly is dead set on believing that his practices will change your life Yes. So because of that, and I'm not saying that he's done this, but I'm just saying because of his overwhelming belief in that, I would guess that maybe he would consider doing anything to get somebody to go there because he knows that it will change their life, you know what I mean? And that's tough. I don't know, what do you think?

So, um, yeah, this, that sets off a an avalanche of thoughts. A friend of mine teaches the business at the University of California, Berkeley, and he's just— and he wrote a book about how to calibrate your confidence to the evidence. And he opens his book by telling a story about how he sort of fell under Tony Robbins's— but he really became impressed with Tony Robbins and that what Tony Robbins, the inspiration that Tony was handling that really spoke to him. But then he talked about an evolution away from the idea that more confidence is always better. So, so there are a bunch of people who basically say, if you just have more confidence in yourself, you'll— you can succeed. There's— it's kind of— that's a little bit self-helpy. Tony, I think, does some of that, and sometimes he inspires people to really make their lives better. But there's— but there are risks associated with that message, right? Because sometimes people end up blaming themselves if, if things don't go— if they're not successful in the way they'd hoped. Like, if I only had my shit together, of course I'd be as successful as Tony Robbins, but I guess I'm inferior or whatever. Yeah, right. So I, I don't, I don't know Tony's stuff well enough to, to say I do. I'm somewhat skeptical of the whole kind of positive thinking is all you need to be successful stuff. I do know, I'm aware that positive thinking can sometimes make the difference between success and failure, but it's not the only factor, and you can't emphasize that factor to the exclusion of all others. Definitely, definitely.

So then, and also though, to the, to the initial point though, because I'm curious, like, how would you I don't know if call it diagnose or how would you look at that equation of it? Let's just actually say that it wasn't a belief, it was certain, right? Like, let's just say it's like, like somebody is dying of hunger. And for some reason, they don't like— they won't eat food, right? The only way for them to live is to eat the food at the end. So the only— and the only way to get them there is to unfathomably manipulate them into thinking that this is a good idea. So that we can both agree it's not a belief, it's certainty that if this person doesn't eat food in the next couple days, they're dead. So in that case, any manipulation you can think of should be okay, right?

I, I think, uh, I can probably imagine a few counter-examples, but, but yes, I— but for the, for the majority of cases of the kind you're talking about Yes. I mean, so manipulate— so lying to somebody to save their lives, just to simplify it down. Yeah, perfect. Can often be the right thing to do.

Ah, okay, cool. And that passes the ethical stamp? I mean, I think so.

Um, one example philosophers use on this is imagine you're harboring Jews in your basement and the Nazis come to— the Gestapo comes to the door and says, do you have any Jews in your basement? I don't know about you, but I'm lying to them, right? Or at least, or at least I hope I'd have the courage to lie to them.

I agree. No, I just had that, the movie, I think it's Inglourious Basterds or whatever, it's that first scene there. So I was envisioning, I don't know, it ended well for them, so that's why I was thinking. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah.

So it's easy to imagine cases where, um, you can serve a larger good by being less than completely honest, and maybe you can— and being dishonest is a form of mind manipulation. So, and here's a, I think, a benign form of being less than completely honest. I want to get a kid interested in in physics. And so I tell a super oversimplified story about relativity theory and how space and time can bend. Now, I simplify it to the point where it's just dead wrong, but it works to get this kid excited about it and makes him go on to study physics. Teachers do that kind of thing all the time. They give a simplified version of reality, which technically isn't quite right, but But it's enough to scaffold up your understanding.

Yeah, that makes sense. That's so interesting. That's why I love talking about this stuff, because it really isn't black and white. Like, it is kind of, but it's not. Meaning, and this is what I would maybe argue, another big thing that I'm curious on your thoughts in is like a lot of people, a lot of discussions I have about politics is, are the politicians that either you or I think are not doing the right thing, is it ill-intentioned or is it by accident? And obviously it's a case-by-case basis, but the argument of that it's ill-intentioned is it's like, okay, if you made it that high in politics, you're not dumb. Like, you can't be. I mean, it would be unlikely, right, that you— it just— that would be unlikely. So if that— if that's the case, then the decisions you're making that are harmful to others down the line, would you— would say are probably ill-intentioned?

So you're constructing an argument here, and it's an interesting one, that anybody who gets sufficiently far in politics has to play kind of a corrupt game, and therefore they ascend to their position of power with corrupt intent. And so that, barring sufficient reason to the contrary, we should be distrustful of politicians.

Yeah, I think this is where we started, actually.

Yeah, yeah, like all good conversations, we looked back on it. But, but so, so yes, um, I mean, look, there's a certain amount of just having to play the money-raising game to succeed in American politics, and you've got to kiss up to people, and you have to promise people things to get enough money to win public office. And oftentimes that makes our officeholders compromised. Yeah. Right? They're beholden to special interests and they're going to put those interests of their donors ahead of the interests of the people they're supposed to serve. And that's a structural problem with the way elections work in America. And it's one that makes me cynical about about our— sorry, it makes me despair about our country's future. But I've also become aware that how easy that is to become kind of cynical to the point where you're no longer part of the solution, but instead you're just washing your hands of it and you become part of the problem. For sure. Caution you. I mean, I think your argument is an interesting one. It's worth thinking about, it's worth paying attention to. And It's more complicated than that.

Yeah, like don't bail out, like stay involved basically.

Yeah, and sometimes you have to vote for the lesser of two evils even if it doesn't—

Yeah, right. So it is, uh, it seems to me that like with our current— like the system is broken, the foundation's broken, that's the core problem. And then we as humans are put in tough situations and we can all agree I agree with what you just said that like, how easy would it be to be young and be like, I want to change the world. I want to be the president, right? And have good intentions. And then your first— and I don't know all the rankings, but you get to your first ranking and you realize very quickly that to get to the second one, you have to do something corrupt. And then it's an internal battle. Well, it's like, okay, if I do 5 corrupt things, I'll get to the top and then I'll start doing the good things. You know? And that's— I could see very easily how you could be caught up in that. That would not be hard to be caught up in.

As they say, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Exactly. And the only other thing I wanted to— I could actually talk to you for like hours, um, because I love philosopher talk and stuff like this.

It's fun. Oh no, not everybody does, but it's my favorite, dude.

So like, um The other thing I was thinking about is like, I could see how, as we were talking about like the swindlers, like, and like the people that would get your money, or like the people that would sell the products, um, like whatever it is. The argument I could see on that is it's like, is the argument of you have a family and then you have the people outside your family, okay? Family's struggling. So in your mind, you— people can rationalize anything, right? And this is where you kind of believe your own BS. The argument of the crook, let's say, and that would be a very direct thing, like you're literally stealing. I'm not talking about like, yeah, I'm just talking straight up like, you know, your product sucks, but you know that people are buying it and you're stealing. But you could still argue that like you weren't able to feed your family, but now you are. And even though you're doing it in the wrong way, your family is better off because of this. Now, we can both agree that's wrong, but for the person doing it, they value their family over people they don't know. And that's where it becomes interesting. It's like, okay, what if it was literally life and death? Like, their family couldn't eat. The only way— but then you could say, go get a job at McDonald's.

It's— well, no, you're right. I mean, um, I think, uh, it was the novelist Sinclair Lewis or something who said It's very hard to get a man to understand something if his job depends on his not understanding it. I like that. Or his income depends on it, right?

Yeah, no, I get exactly what you meant.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, but, and of course, just refusing to understand is only one kind of moral compromise. There are many others, as you point out.

Yeah.

I mean, look, yeah, I'd have to have a certain amount of sympathy for the guy who, who went ahead and sold addictive opioids because his own family needed to, because he needed to put food on his own family's table. But if the guy's selling addictive opioids so that he can buy a second limousine and, um, and a beach house, no.

Yeah, yeah. We're on the same page. That makes sense. Um, so yeah, man, I had fun, uh, talking with you. I know we kind of went a little bit off topic, but, um, oh dude, that's so sorry because I, I did scan through, uh, your stuff, but now I'm just looking back and in your description here I forgot that it said this. It says the flat, uh, flat earth is bad. So dude, I actually saw a YouTube video of a guy, I can't remember his name. He made some good arguments.

I'm just saying. For there being a flat Earth?

Yeah, I don't believe it, but it was damn convincing.

So look, you said confessions can sometimes help people win people over. I remember watching a movie about how the moon landing was faked 30 years ago. And thinking, holy crap, it was fake, that was really convincing. And now I know better. Um, and so yeah, I mean, I've been there. I think we— I think everybody's been fooled by this kind of thing, right? And, and one of the important takeaways there is humility. We all need to be humble and willing to acknowledge how susceptible we are to bad information.

Yeah, no, and that's kind of what you talk about. I think you're right, that is the first step of like, is actually getting out of how we started, of how I was saying I'm normally right, right? Like getting out of that bullshit circle and being like, who cares if I'm— that's the ego talking— who cares if I'm more right or less right? But rather accepting the fact that in any situation I could be right or wrong, both are equally fully available, and I just need to be fully open to either option.

Yeah. And, and, and, uh, another or related point would be it's great to feel right, but just because you feel right doesn't mean you are right. And, and, and if you— and, and real rightness is objective, not subjective. No.

Yeah, I'm gonna cry myself to sleep tonight about this. All the things I thought I was right on apparently are out the window. Still smiling though. You're still laughing. I'll be okay. Um, well, no, dude, thank you for coming on. I want to leave it to you. If there's anything we didn't cover that you want to talk about, please do. And then, like, book, website, all that stuff.

Yeah, I'll just mention, um, my current work. Um, the book you mentioned came out a year, year and a half ago. Um, started off on Joe Rogan's podcast, but the response to it has convinced me to invest a lot of time and effort in this really exciting new approach to combating mis- and disinformation, and it involves helping everybody develop stronger defenses against, against, in part, malicious information, so that we, so that our society isn't constantly torn apart by self-interested purveyors of nonsense.

That's a good way to say that. Wait, what's the title again of the book?

Oh yeah, sorry, the nonprofit, the research institute, we call it CIRCE, C-I-R-C-E, and you can find us online at cognitiveimmunology.net, and you can learn more about this really exciting new science and this fantastic new way to help everybody think, think more clearly and better. Perfect, man. Thank you for coming on again. Hey, my pleasure, Tyler. Thanks for the opportunity.