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How Disgust Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. You and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck, Brian over there, and um,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry and this is discussed and stuff you should
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: know about. Disgusted. You gotta say it like that. I'm
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: excited about this one, Chuck, And I don't know why.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I have no idea. I think you do. If you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: stopped and really thought about that's fine, that's fine. But
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: if you stopped and thought about it, you would say, yes,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I know exactly why, Josh. And it is as follows
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: colon quotes, because this is one of those things that
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: science hasn't fully explained, which means there's a lot of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: interesting theories, which means we just get to like talk
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: smack the whole time. It's interesting. This is one of
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: those where I was reading it and I was I mean,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it was sort of interesting, But then I was like,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't wouldn't even study this? I I that's I mean,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that's a good question. That's a good question. I think
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I'm fascinated by it, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure one of the reasons these I mean
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to to dedicate your career to studying disgust. It is
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: kind of a bizarre idea. But one of the main
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  Speaker 1: researchers in the study of discussing a guy named Paul Rosen.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: He's kind of like the godfather, maybe even the father
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  Speaker 1: of the field. Yeah here, but he's been doing it
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  Speaker 1: longer than anybody, so he's the He's the pappy um
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  Speaker 1: as they say in the Hills. Uh. He has said
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  Speaker 1: that to him, discussed is the thing, the emotion, the
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  Speaker 1: experience that makes humans human, that that it is discussed
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  Speaker 1: that separates us from the other animals that were sure
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  Speaker 1: the animal kingdom with so much so that we actually
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: may use discussed to separate ourselves from the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the animals. Okay, that's pretty fascinating and it's worth exploring too,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: because I think it says a lot about us as
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  Speaker 1: as humans and as animals. So that's why that's the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: answer your question. How about that? All? Right? Now, I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: get why somebody would want to study I guess I'm
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: talking about allocating funds to study it. Oh, gotcha. It
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: just seems like a strange thing to sink money into. Well,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, if the humanities are going to sink money
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  Speaker 1: into anything. What makes us the most human would be
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that make it? It makes sense according to one guy, Right,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I love it. Let's talk about gross things. Okay, so
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: we're going to so so this, this whole idea of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: studying it, of studying disgust is actually pretty new. Um.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Rosen didn't really start until like the seventies, and it
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't until the nineties that it really got it really
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: picked up, um, which will kind of get into. But
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  Speaker 1: prior to that, it was basically just philosophers who who
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: were talking about disgust. Right, Yes, I think, uh, I'm
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: not sure about studying, but at least as far as
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I think, it seems to me like it was more
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of a like where's the boundary as far as what
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  Speaker 1: can we write about? What can we talk about, and
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  Speaker 1: what can we perform and still sell books and tickets?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right Like we want we want people to to be
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: tantalized at the thought of being grossed out or disgusted,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: but not actually be disgusted. And it's a fine line
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  Speaker 1: that's walked, you know, no, of course, and it's subjective,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it is. But the other thing about discussed that's pretty
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: interesting is it also appears to be universal. It's like
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  Speaker 1: it's a universal reaction. But what discuss people is not universal.
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  Speaker 1: It's culturally bound, I guess right, maybe personal too, sure,
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  Speaker 1: I think totally personal. So the the overtime, like as
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you know, discussed kind of moved out of the realm
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  Speaker 1: of philosophers and into science. Um. There were a couple
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of people who kind of made contributions early on in
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  Speaker 1: the field. One was Charles Darwin. He wrote a treatise
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  Speaker 1: on it, and his big thing was that disc gust
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: was related to taste, which is true to an extent,
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  Speaker 1: but that was Darwin's big thing. And then later on
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  Speaker 1: there was a guy, a psychoanalyst named andrews ang y'all.
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  Speaker 1: And ANDREWS. Sangiel basically said that, um, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: discussed is not really related to taste. It's the it
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  Speaker 1: comes from the idea or the thought of putting something
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  Speaker 1: horrific into the mouth, which again kind of makes sense
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  Speaker 1: to a certain extent. But then when Rosen and friends
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  Speaker 1: came along, it really started to take off and they
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  Speaker 1: actually managed to kind of categorize disgust into a few categories,
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  Speaker 1: which is what you do when you categorize things. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there's uh, the first one is core discussed, and that's
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  Speaker 1: what you think of if you like, you know, if
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  Speaker 1: poop er, I mean, everyone has their own triggers, but
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: if like vomit or feces or like a like in
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  Speaker 1: trails or something like, that's cord discussed. That's an encounter
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: with some sort of like physical contaminant that makes you,
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  Speaker 1: you know, make that face right, and that face specifically.
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  Speaker 1: That's another universal thing too, apparently the faces. It's called
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the gape, which is your mouth is open, your tongue
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  Speaker 1: may or may not be sticking out, your nose is wrinkled,
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  Speaker 1: and your upper lip is is raised. And just like
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  Speaker 1: I don't do that with my mouth open, though, so
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  Speaker 1: you just kind of do the the nose wrinkle in
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  Speaker 1: the upper lip. I guess like this, but I don't
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  Speaker 1: open my mouth. So that's why I sort of like,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know when it comes to stuff like this,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I'm a little when they make these sweeping statements like
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: everyone makes this face. Well, everyone may make a variation
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  Speaker 1: of a face of like kind of there's like a
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  Speaker 1: universal set of of characteristics to the face that you
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  Speaker 1: could choose from that would fall into disgust like that.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you choose anything but maybe your
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  Speaker 1: natural reaction. But like I don't open my mouth, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: when I read that, like everyone opens their mouth like, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's not true. So um that I think one of
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  Speaker 1: the reasons why there is like this idea of it
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  Speaker 1: being universal is because evolutionary psychology is we'll see has
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  Speaker 1: said like, yes, this is our realm, We've got this,
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna explain this one, and to fully explain it,
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  Speaker 1: it basically has to be universal. So I think that's
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  Speaker 1: another thing about the point where the study of disgust
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is right now, Like there's a lot of good ideas,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: some of which have kind of been shown to be
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  Speaker 1: probably true thanks to the Wonder Machine, but it's still
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  Speaker 1: it's not fully explained, and so there are some ideas
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and descriptions that make it seem kind of wacky too, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: for sure. Um. That second kind of discussed getting back
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to that was animal nature discussed, which is apparently these
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  Speaker 1: are things that in anything that reminds us that we're
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  Speaker 1: really animals, and that that could there could be a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: wide range of things they're from, Like some people think
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  Speaker 1: people eating with the hands is disgusting, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that would qualify under animal nature because like you're eating
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  Speaker 1: like an animal. Let's say, um, sex uh, and we'll
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: get into that more later. But apparently there's a baseline
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  Speaker 1: discussed for sex, which I'm not so sure about that
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  Speaker 1: one either. And then hygiene, uh is another one. Poor
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  Speaker 1: hygiene is the animal nature discussed. Yeah, And another one
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  Speaker 1: is the like, like you said, entrails something that's called
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  Speaker 1: the um, the body envelope, the ideal body envelope being violated,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's like there's a deformity or there is like
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: some sort of um, like an open wound or something
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  Speaker 1: like that. They think that this whole animal nature thing,
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  Speaker 1: that all these things remind us that we are animals,
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  Speaker 1: and that discussed can be triggered by um, that reminder
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  Speaker 1: that we are that we are in fact animals, which
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  Speaker 1: is kind of weird, but we'll get into explanations for
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  Speaker 1: that later. I can't wait. That's right. And the final
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  Speaker 1: one is moral discussed, which uh. And this is one
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  Speaker 1: where you know, you can be disgusted with someone's behavior
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  Speaker 1: or uh, you know, disgusted with like something a politician does,
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  Speaker 1: or disgusted with racism or bigotry something like that. Right,
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  Speaker 1: And that one makes like the least amount of sense
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  Speaker 1: if you think about it like that. Okay, the first
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  Speaker 1: two were just kind of like, all right, we're like,
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  Speaker 1: it's animal related. We might have issues with being animals,
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  Speaker 1: so we're we're kind of disgusted by ourselves at the
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  Speaker 1: thought that we're animals. Maybe it's a bit more of
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  Speaker 1: a stretch than that Core discussed, Like Core discussed makes
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  Speaker 1: the most sense out of all of them. Agreed. Uh, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I don't even think that the moral discussed. I
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  Speaker 1: think that's a different type of thing altogether. So that
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  Speaker 1: that other people have proposed that that like they're like
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  Speaker 1: some people have said, well English speakers are just misusing
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  Speaker 1: the word discussed. They're talking right. Well, they've done they've
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  Speaker 1: done studies of people in the Wonder Machine that shows
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  Speaker 1: that the region of the brain, the anterior insula that's
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  Speaker 1: usually um, that usually lights up when you're shown a
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  Speaker 1: picture of like dog poop and said you're gonna eat this,
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  Speaker 1: you know, your your anterior insula lights up. That same
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  Speaker 1: region lights up when people are disgusted with um other
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  Speaker 1: people morally, Like remember the ultimatum game. I don't remember
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it used to come up all the time back in
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  Speaker 1: the day in our episodes. But so if somebody was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: given a really really low offer to take it or
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  Speaker 1: leave it, offer that was so low and so unfair
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  Speaker 1: that the person said, I'm just leaving it. I actually
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  Speaker 1: don't want this free money because I find it insulting.
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  Speaker 1: That same part of the brain that that is triggered
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  Speaker 1: by um, like fecal disgust, is also triggered UM, which
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  Speaker 1: supports the idea that there actually is a moral dimension
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  Speaker 1: to disgust and that we experience it in the same way.
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  Speaker 1: That's interesting. It is interesting, but it is like the
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  Speaker 1: it's the most tenuous of those three, I think. So
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  Speaker 1: the way this all started out there there are a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of theories, but it makes sense that it might
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  Speaker 1: have ah been sort of an offshoot of distaste, which is,
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  Speaker 1: you know, your body is conditioned thanks to you know,
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  Speaker 1: evolution too. If you eat something that's bitter or rotten,
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  Speaker 1: like your instinct, your taste instinct is to throw it
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  Speaker 1: out and get rid of it. Uh, And it's a
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  Speaker 1: defense mechanism to save your life. And so the idea
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is that discuss developed out of that and that it's
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  Speaker 1: just simply an evolutionary trait. Uh that could have you know,
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  Speaker 1: saved took Tok's life, you know, however many years ago. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and there's there's evidence apparently that this this distaste, which
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is basically is in an involuntary reaction, is like dropping
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: something that's hot, like you don't stop and think like wow,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this cooking pan is about five on the five fifty
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: degrees fair at height, and then you'd drop it. I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: should probably drop it like you just dropped the pant.
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  Speaker 1: Distaste is the same exact thing, and they've actually seen
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  Speaker 1: it elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Um, So we've probably
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  Speaker 1: experienced distaste since before we were humans, and it's just
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  Speaker 1: spitting something out that doesn't seem right in a in
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a um an effort to I guess, keep the body
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  Speaker 1: from becoming polluted with disease, right, And they think that
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: distaste somehow became a behavior that was laid over this
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry discussed has was a behavior that became laid
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  Speaker 1: over this existing structure of distaste. Yeah, And that's interesting
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  Speaker 1: to me because that means that it becomes all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden, It's not like you have to eat poop
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  Speaker 1: to be disgusted, like the mere sight of poop now
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  Speaker 1: can discuss somebody, uh, and that just happened over time,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I think. So that is why Rosen says this is,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: like discussed, is the defining characteristic of human entity, because
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: they suspect that other animals, at the very least almost
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: all other animals don't have the cognitive capacity to use
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: their imagination to imagine themselves eating poop and see in
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  Speaker 1: and being disgusted by it as a result. Right, So
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  Speaker 1: that's why they say discussed separates humans from from animals,
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  Speaker 1: because it requires imagination to go from an involuntary reaction
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  Speaker 1: of spitting out food to not even getting to the
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  Speaker 1: point where the food is in your mouth. You can
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  Speaker 1: imagine that you would have that reaction and experience the
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  Speaker 1: emotion of disgust. So you don't have to go through
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that process, that actually very dangerous process of eating something
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  Speaker 1: rotten to figure out that you shouldn't be eating it.
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  Speaker 1: You can imagine it beforehand. And that's the function that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: discussed at least core discussed provides humanity. It advances us.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: We don't have to learn through trial and error over
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and over again not to eat rotting meat. We just
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  Speaker 1: know on some very basic level that that is a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: disgusting thing to do when we have a reaction to it.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Are you want to take a break? Yeah, all right, everyone,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be right back right after this with more disgust.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So I think we should go back to Took took
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: um and just like how this actually may have worked
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: back in the day. Uh, let's say Took Took and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: his buddy mock Mock are strolling along the tundra. You know, Chuck,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: after eleven years, I am surprised that we have a
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: new character, and I'm very pleased. Yeah, well, don't get
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: used to him, because mack Mok is he's about to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: die for mock mom. So it Took Took and mack
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  Speaker 1: mak are walking along the tundra. Um they find a
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: an old dead antelope, and mock Mock is like, well,
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  Speaker 1: this doesn't smell great, but I'll tell you what, I'm
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: gonna eat this thing because I don't have this genetic
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  Speaker 1: trait because my mom eat this stuff. Uh, and it's fine,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and Took Tooks like, I don't know, my friend, it
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: looks and smells gross. Um, I do have this genetic trait,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna pass on that, So mock Mak's like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you're a sucker. I'm gonna chow down on this rotten antelope.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And then mock Mock gets sick and dies before mack
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Mak can have any babies. And then if this happens
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: thousands and tens of thousands of times over a huge population,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you can see how over time it would be like
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: any physical evolutionary trait that might evolve over time, and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Tuk Tuk's family is thriving today
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: in the United States, all healthy descendants of Took Took
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and mock Mok is long gone, right, And because Tuk
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Tuk was able to pass along his genes of being
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: disgusted by rotten meat, and mock Mock died before he
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: could pass his genes of not being discussed along, So
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: nature or natural selection or revolution selected for for Tuk
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Tuk's right right, And Tuk Tuk was a prolific lover,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: as we all know. And I imagine mock Mock in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: his dying words gasping, I regret never having seen the ocean. Probably,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: so it's a good Mock Mock. Everyone doesn't know, but
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it's true that was so chuck um. That's the that's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the evolutionary psychology basis for explaining how disgust came along
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and was passed along, right, And it makes sense on
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a very basic level, but it starts to get less
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and less sensible, as you've already pointed out, as we
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: start to add more and more inputs of disgust. Right, like, yes,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: it makes sense that either uh, somehow the idea of
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: not eating meat was passed along, either genetically or even
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you could say tuk Tuk went back to the hunter
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: gather tribe and said, hey, let me tell you what
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: happened to mock Mark. It was crazy. He ate some
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: rancid antelope, which I guess we all kind of thought
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: was okay up to this point. But let me tell
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: you steer clear of the ransid antelope. You don't want
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to have anything to do that because it just killed
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: moch Mock and everyone trusting took took and not just
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: assuming that he hit mock Mock with a rock or
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: something out in the wilderness and left him to die,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that he actually did die from eating antelope. This became
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: passed along. This is another way it could have happened,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and that this like ancient knowledge. We just lost, um
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: where the ancient knowledge came from that was actually took
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: took seeing mock mak die, and instead it just became
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: something that, um, we came to think of as like
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: instinct over time you just don't eat rancid meat. But
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: really what it is, rather than being passed along genetically,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it was am I guess a meme uh an idea
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: that was passed along generation to generation and it became
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: so ingrained that we just confuse it for genes or
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: instinct as well, which is another ex nation of it.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: But both of them have like an evolutionary component to
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: it for sure. Yeah, and then over time that even
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: changes to where, um, like it's not like humans, Like
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: let's talk about a human body, then like a dead
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a dead human body, a corpse. Let me get my
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: poking stick. Well, you probably wouldn't poke it because your
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: evolutionary instinct is to probably just stay away from that body. Well,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: that's so the stick is for. And it's not just
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: because like well it maybe partially because a dead body
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: just might creep someone out, but there's also an evolutionary
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: basis to avoid that body, get it out of the house.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And bury it because it's may have been diseased. Uh
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And they've even done studies. There was a study in
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand four in Biology Letters, just the greatest teen
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: science mag out there, Tiger Beat in Biological Scientists. Uh So,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Biology Letters said that they didn't study where they found
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the images of objects that held what was called a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: potential disease threat. We're rated as more disgusting. So this
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is just the idea that um again, because of evolution,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: we are have trained ourselves to avoid somebody who looks sick. Okay,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: now we get to another big chink in the armor.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: If you ask me, where did we get the idea
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: that a body caused disease and that you could become
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: polluted by some weird magical transference of this disease by
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: handling or coming in close contact with the body like
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: pre germ theory. Pre germ theory. Germ theory is very new.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: It's about a hundred and fifty years old. Almost on
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the nose. We're talking about people's aversion to dead bodies
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and corpses for eons before that, hundreds of years, if
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: not thousands and thousands of years, right, maybe even more
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: like what if like, I mean, what if someone just
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: going to like back in the day where people like,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: oh that's great, come here and give me, give me
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: some sugar, right, or were people always sort of repulse
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: by that? Yeah, I I don't know, and we we
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: don't We don't know. We can't say. We can only
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: go as far back as any like historical reference as
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: we can find. But you can make a pretty good
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: case that an aversion to to something like that or
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a dead body goes back much further than germ theory.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: So you you come to that question, where do we
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: get this idea? Where do we get this understanding on
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a very basic fundamental level that corpses are to be
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: avoided so much so that we are disgusted by them.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And even if you're not disgusted, like I want to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: wretch if I see a dead body in person, which
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: may be surprised. I think a lot of people would
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: be very surprised that if they actually did see a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: dead body, they would be they would probably wretch. That
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: depends on you know, what's going on the state it's in. Yeah,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: if it's viscerated or something like that, or the smell
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I think also to um, but the the the idea
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that that there's something that is keeping you from avoiding it,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: whether the creeps, whether it's discussed, whether it's some form
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of a version that is that is acting to put
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: distance between you and the polluting entity. This dead body. Um,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: where did that come from before germ theory? That's my
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: big question that I haven't seen answered anywhere. It's where
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: did we get that? Again? Was it somebody handled the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: dead body and like became directly sick from it, so
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: obviously that even like Took Took could say, yes, the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: dead body caused this, so we should steer clear of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: hanging out around dead bodies. Or um, was there some
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: sort of awareness on on a very basic level that
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: that we haven't figured out how to explain yet that
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: that kept generations and generations of humans relatively healthy before
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the advent of germ theory and our understanding of it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: It is a bit of a mind experiment. It is like, uh,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that this perhaps the very sound of someone very ill
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and hawking up, you know, phlim. It sounds gross, but
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: like like you say, though, before germ theory, before they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: knew that that would make that was sickness, or that
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: made someone sick. Maybe people were like, come in here
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and do that in my face that I love that sound, right,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: but it just doesn't seem likely. It's like a s
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: MR to me. I don't know, man, It's very hard
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: to wrap your head around. And also, if you remember,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in our Great Stink episode prior, right prior to germ theory,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: there was miasma theory, which was the smell of something
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: directly polluted you and made you sick that associated with it.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: But even that, it's like, so, okay, what what made
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you think that the smell? What makes you think that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a dead body, which in and of itself isn't giving
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: off any actual signals that it will make you sick
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: if if it's decayed enough and you like interact with it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: What about that made us associate sickness a transference of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: sickness that transferences. It's an invisible magic transference of pollution
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: from the dead body to you, the person who's handling
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the dead body. That is that is significant and remarkable
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that we came up with that. That's what I think
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: is is just so fascinating about all this. Yeah, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I think this thing about the contingencies plays into because uh,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and it's funny. I have to admit when I read
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: this the word contingencies in my head, I was adding
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a letter or something, and I kept saying in my
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: head as content genesis, and I was like, what is
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that content genesis? And finally that's all contingencies Correctly, I
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was like, man, am I drunk? Like what's going on?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So anyway, there are content genesies. That's like facetious. I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: had that same uh facetious when yeah, what do you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: think it's said? Or sounded like fastidious or something like that,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and I kept sounding it out and then finally I
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's facetious. Yeah, but you were probably
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like twelve and not a professional broadcaster. I think you
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: had in your eye that was all. So these contingencies
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: um in humans at any time, there there are many
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: contingencies at work within us, competing against each other. So
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: if you go back to Tuk tuk and mock mock
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: um mock mock uh died, Let's say he did feel
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: some disgust, but it wasn't like but he was also hungry,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So that's the competing content genesis and his desire to
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: eat or and not desire his need to eat overcame
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: his low level disgust of like, well it's not doesn't
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: taste great, But I have this other contingency that says
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I have to eat, so I'm going to eat the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: thing and he doesn't die. Right, then it's a little
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: more complicated. It is more complicated, and if you step
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: back and think about it evolutionarily, it would make way
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: more sense for us to not maintain a sense of
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: disgust and be able to eat like rancid meat and
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: then instead learn like like basically develop a gut biome
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that will will kill any any bacteria decay that could
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: make us sick, so that we we could have like
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that many more things that are available for us to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: eat when we're hard up. That makes way more sense
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: through natural selection and evolution than learning to not eat something.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And I think that's sort of the thing too, though,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Like the the winning contingency is ultimately going to be
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the one that it makes you more fit for you know, replication,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: right right, so you would for you yea for cloning
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: self self cloning, so the the but yes, so if
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you have more available food that you can gain energy
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: from in the environment, that would make more sense to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: adapt to that rather than to adapt an aversion to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: stential food source. Right, So that's one question. And then
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: you can also kind of um lay that right over
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: sex as well too. Right. So this this explanation of
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: why we might be a verse, why we have competing
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: contingencies for sex. Right, Like, you want to be attracted
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to your mate because you're a person you you find
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: attractive is probably going to be um a good match
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: for you reproductive wise, epecially right, And then yes, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: then if if you if you are trying to reproduce
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: with somebody you're disgusted by, they might not be a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: good match. Reproductive wive was evolutionarily it makes sense, that's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a that's a that's a mental gymnastics right there. To me,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it makes more sense to just say, here's an example
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: of evolution screwing us up, of natural selection screwing us up.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: We developed an ability to feel this gusted by sex
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: because it reminds us that we're animals, and so we're
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: missing out on sex or at least deriving pleasure from
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: sex because we are possibly disgusted by the act of sex.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: If we step back and think about it in the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: right way, right, you see what I'm saying, So there's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of holes here, which is why I mean,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I've got both of my six shooters. I'm about to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: start shoot them in the air out of Glee because
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it's been a while since we had an episode like this. Yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Another thing that I found interesting too from this was
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the the just the mer reaction. Apparently most people open
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: their mouths I keep mind shut, but regardless, we all
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: have a discussed reaction. I guess if you don't, then
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you're probably a serial killer. Like if you saw someone
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: like open up and smell like rotten meat and literally
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: just kept this stone face, We're like, that smells really bad,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Like they they're clearly sociopaths, right, And that's what Rosen
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: was saying. That's why I discussed is the it's it's
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the defining human care acteristic because that person would seem
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: non human in that sense, they be a robot kind of. Yeah.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But so if people make this face like that is
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the cue, Like you don't even need to smell the milk.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: If I walk in the kitchen and Emily pours some
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: milk and it, uh, well, I was gonna say, I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: see it clump out of the thing, But that wouldn't count.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Like if I see Emily just smell the milk, she
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: makes her disgust face. I don't need to smell it. No,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: But why is it that there is a chance that
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Emily or anyone, yes, who will say smell this? Never? No,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that's okay, thanks for the warning with the wrinkled nose
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and raised up her lip. I know, but when you're married,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it's like, no, it's usually I smelled it, like you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: have to smell it, right, No, I don't want to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: smell it. I've suffered um. So that becomes like, all
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, a something that like bonds communities together
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and cultures together even, right, But which which is another? Okay?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: So this then we get to the explanation or the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: moral explanation of disgust of how seeing somebody involving cheating
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: or some sort of unfairness or racism or just something
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: some really anti social um violating behavior that you you
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: experienced disgusted at the very at least people say use
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the word disgusted. I'm disgusted. I mean maybe it is
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: the same thing. So that's that's I mean, that's what
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: that one Wonder Machine study said. And the other the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: other way that they backed it up. There's a really
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: interesting article by Rosen Johnathan Hight, who actually was a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: contributor in our super Stuff Guide to Happiness if you remember,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and then um a guy named um Oh McAuley. What
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: is Clark mcaulay. They're kind of like this big three
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: triad and in the study of disgust as the only three,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: there's a couple others, but yeah, kind of. But they
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: in the paper they basically say, okay, so you get
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the wonder machine evidence suggesting that our actual brain, the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: part of our brain responsible for experiencing disgust, is lighting
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: up when somebody gives us an unfair offer of money.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: That's one thing. But also they go around the world
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and say that in Japan, in Spain and Portugal, um,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: all over the world. Whatever that society or or languages
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: culture's word is for disgust, they routinely use it to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: describe things like the experience of seeing somebody hold poop
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: up to their mouth, and the experience of being treated
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: unfairly or seeing somebody racist. So it's not just people
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in English misusing an English word discuss, which means actually
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: bad taste. In older Middle English, Um, it's it is
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: there is some sort of moral component to discuss. It
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: seems like well, even the word distasteful, like is rooted
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: in the word taste. That's that's a similar thing to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: like behavior can be distasteful and uh rotten, analoge can
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: be distaste, especially if he's a real jerk. Right. Um.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: The other interesting thing about the work that Jonathan Hate
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: did was this tying it to political ideological ideal ideology. Jeez,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: what is wrong with me today? Uh? I thought that
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: was super interesting because they did research and they found
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: that people who are more sensitive to discussed and tend
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to be more socially conservative, and that can be exploited.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So when you go to a major news outlet that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: may be conservative, that is why you were more likely
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: to see photos of h unwashed or sick immigrants approaching
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the border and not like pictures of like the handsomest,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: most fit immigrant approaching the border, because that will, at
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: least according to this study, they they have higher powerful,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: more powerful emotion of disgust. Right. It's it's hijacking your
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: ability to experience moral disgust because apparently it's really really
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: easy to come up and poke, to push a person's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: disgust buttons and from from what the study says is
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: that this happens a lot way more than we're cognizant
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of and that if we can make ourselves cognizant of it,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: we could actually defend against it a little more. Yeah.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're not gonna Fox News isn't gonna put
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the guy you said it. You said, they're not gonna
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: put the guy that looks like Antonio banderis in the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: immigrant caravan as they're from out you okay as their
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: front page lead photo. You know, it's gonna be the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: person that's on in the on the stretcher that's sick
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and dying, and that's going to cause this reaction of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: disgust like g I they c g I flies like
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: flying around the person. Can't you see Antonio banderis walking
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: up in a video and going this wall is too sexy? Um.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And then the other interesting thing about that that whole
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: study that he was doing, the hate was doing was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: they also found that people make harsher judgments when they
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: are exposed to a disgusting simulus. So uh, and it
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: usually was a smell like the smell of of a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of a tooty booty, a shot duck. Um, and if
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you smell this flatulence, you would react more harshly towards
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: like a photo of something right now that might discuss
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you just a little bit. I want to know the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: methodology of this study pretty badly, Like did they was?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: It was just one of those things where they just
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: kind of suddenly the area between you and the researcher
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: filled with the fart smell? Well, where do you get
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the fart smell? Is there a synthetic or I think
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: there is? You probably like it's a novel the joke shop.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: They picked up like a spinning bow tie. While they
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: got there, they canned fart too. Right, They're like, thank you,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: here's your ten dollars and have a good day, and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: they shake their hand. There's a buzzer, right exactly. So um,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: But I mean, like is this so? Were they were
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: talking about something like you know how, what kind of
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a prison sentence would you excuse me, what kind of
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: a prison sentence would you give to somebody? And like
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: this this fart smells this kind of comes up, but
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: like they're just not talking about it. I would guess
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: that's how you would have to do it right, dude.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I had a stranger asked me the other night if
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I farted? Oh yeah, had you know? I was at
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the Fleetwood Mac concert standing in the beer line, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: this guy in front of me turned around with his
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: wife and fully just said did you fart? And I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: went nope, And I was like, I would tell you
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: if I did. Did He looked at his wife and go,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: did you fart? But then we got to talking and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, guys, I hate to tell you. I said,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I don't even smell anything, so I think you're looking
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. And then he felt like I
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was a little drunk, so I didn't care. I was
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: playing along. But then he felt like really bad and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: was overapologetic. I was like, dude, you're gonna ask someone
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: if they farted, don't then turn around and be weirdly
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: ashamed of that, right, get all weepy, just own it?
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: So um, yeah, does the guy not know the whole
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: he who smelled it? Delta? Idiom it was the first
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: date and that was the deal. Maybe he did. Yeah,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: he really played it off well at Southside. All right,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: should we take a break? I think we should? All right,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go fart in the hallway. We'll be right back.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Chuck. We'll be right back. All right,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: it's back, Chuck is back. Now everything's fine in here.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: And um, we are still talking about disgust. Let me
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: let's let's let's um just kind of go over this
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: real quick one more time. Okay. So we started out
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: with this this mechanim miss of distaste um where we like,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: involuntarily spit something out that's gross that occurs elsewhere in
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. And then over time we figured out
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: how to create a new um adaptation, a new behavior
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that is overlaid over that same brain circuitry where we
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: spent something out, and we call that disgust. And it
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: was it originally started out as an aversion to things
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: like poop and vomit and and that kind of stuff.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And then that evolved even further because at some point
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: we said we're better than animals, and I don't like
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: to be reminded of an animal. And I guess that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: desire to not be reminded of an animal developed so
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: much that it became overlaid over that disgusted emotion that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: had been that had hijacked the distaste emotion, and then
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: at some point finally it reached moral um, the moral structure,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and that hijacked the animal and the core and the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: distaste to where now just the idea of somebody behaving
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in a certain way can disgust us. And the whole
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: thing that really kind of changed to make it human
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: was the the addition of um imagination and symbolism to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: these ideas, so that we didn't even have to taste
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: or smell or see anything anymore. Just thinking about this
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff could disgust us. And that's where we're
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: at and discussed research, and that's where we're at in
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the podcast too. Frankly, Wow, that's a nice recap. Thank you,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: all right. So, uh, culturally, you know, it depends on
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: where you are in the world and what you might
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: be disgusted by. So while while it is universal, it's
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: not like every single thing is universal. Um. People uh
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: eat things in some parts of the world that other
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: parts of the world might think are disgusting. Um. And
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that again is a thing that basically says, I'm a
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: part of this family, I'm a part of this culture,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'm a part of this group. Um. The fact that
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: like all eat eyeballs right out right out of a fish,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: right up a fish said to scoop it out and
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: eat it. Right. Um, I might think that's disgusting, but
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that's not like necessary, Like taboos are not the same. Uh,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And cultures all over the world. Yeah, whether it's food,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: apparently they think maybe even you know, well, cannibal cannibalism. Obviously,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: some cultures don't view incest as um as taboo as
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: as other cultures do. So some of the things that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: we would think would be universally disgusting aren't universally disgusting.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And the whole idea of food too shows that you can,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: um learn to not find something disgusting or never find
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: it disgusting at all because you were just raised in
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a culture that eats this food and values it. But
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: to somebody else from outside of the culture, when they
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: see that food, they are disgusted by it. So yeah,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of lack of universality in disgust that
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: we might assume would be there that actually isn't. Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I mean vegetarianism and veganism is a perfect example. Uh.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Someone can eat meat until until they're in their mid
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: twenties and then all of a sudden switch to veganism,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and a year later, the mere sight of meat might
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: discuss them, whereas the year before they were challenged down
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: on it. Which I would guess that's just like you
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: were structuring your brain circuitry basically, right, Yeah, I think
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: so probably, I mean that would make sense. But so
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: something that never disgusted you before can become genuinely disgusted
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: or the other way around, huh, I imagine. Well, yeah,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I mean you can learn to eat other cultures foods
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: that you were disgusted by previously and eat meat now
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, yeah, you can also learn to eat
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: broccoli over time. BROCCOLI's good, it's it's not though it
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: really is roast in the oven the lish Okay, I
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: will give you that. Roasted BROCCOLI's okay. But if it's
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: steamed or just like floppy in any way ship or form,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I've had bad experiences with it over over the years.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: It sounds like someone's overcooking your broccoli. Not anymore, but yes,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I think Dad used to used to overcook it quite
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: a bit. Yeah. I go for al dente when it
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: comes to most vegetables. Yeah, but roasted roasted is good
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: mushy is a is a food quality that kind of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: discussed me. So, uh, food preparation is important. Like I know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: we're just kind of kidding about the broccoli, but like,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: let's say, um, an eggplant or a squash. If you
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: cook that thing until it's really mushy, it's it's really
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: gross to me. But I will totally eat an eggplant
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: if it's nice and firm. Yeah yeah, I mean yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: texture is enormous with it. It also affects taste too,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: which doesn't make any sense except for like it's part
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of the experience of it, right, Yeah, but true disgust
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: happens for me. I think it's not just like I
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: don't prefer that, like mushy food really really grosses me out. Well,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: there's something that that um that it actually hit a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: pond early on, and this is that like disgust is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: it goes around our conscious thought, right, Like you're not
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: like this this broccoli is is not to my preference.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: It is way too floppy and mushy, and i'd be
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I prefer to not have it in my mouth anymore so,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and you spit it out and it just falls back
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: onto your plate instead you put it in your mouth,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: especially if you're not expecting it to be mushy and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you start chewing it like you expected to be good.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Your reaction without even thinking it's going to be spit
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: it out probably, and you might you might not actually
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: spit it out, but that will be your first reaction,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and you might have to stop yourself, like bring your
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: napkin up to your mouth or whatever. And that's one
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of the things that like really kind of is a
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: hallmark characteristic of disgust. When it is experienced, it goes
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: around our intellect and our our um conscious thought. It's
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: a basic reaction. Yeah, and it can also get out
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of hand as far as the uh if the idea
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: is that at its root, we're trying to avoid disease
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and dying. Um. We've all heard of of cases phobia
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: is really that developed um and pathologies out of fear
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of germs or dirt or cleanliness. UM. Anyone who's ever
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: seen the great movie Safe by Todd Haynes, Um. That
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: was a movie about that where this woman sort of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: slowly unwinds and eventually ends up in a in a
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: like a a community where everyone is obsessed with this
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: kind of compulsive cleanliness. Who's the woman, It's Julian Moore.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen that yet. Is it pretty good? It was?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: It was great, I mean it was. It's a long
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: time ago. So it's like in the early nineties, I think,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: like some of her earlier work. But that's just an
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: example of how, um, how that can happen and how
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: it can get out of hand until basically you have
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: a compulsive disorder that may have started out of a
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: legit environmental like discuss reaction to disease, right, Yeah, that well,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that's what they think is the basis of possibly all
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of it that has to do with disgust or like
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a drive to to feel clean or to get rid
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: of germs or to be afraid of germs, that kind
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of thing. That it's it's your um, your being indoctrinated
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: into disgust when a little too far in your brain,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: your brains disgusted reaction just became too powerful, and now
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: it has this kind of crippling effect on your life. Yeah,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: but it can also like it's oddly there are things
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with disease and dying that
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: have been kind of labeled as disgusting and ed points
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: out acne as one of them that might trigger a
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: disgust reaction in some people. And it's really completely harmless.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: It is, but it's playing upon in an inadvertent way,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: our predisposition to be grossed out by things like disease. Yeah, sore,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a pox, a pustule. It has nothing to do with that.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: It just kind of resembles it in the exact same way.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: People find slugs and snails disgusting, uh, And they suggest
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that it's because they look like they're covered in mucus.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Even though it's not actually mucus. It reminds us of mucus.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: So we're disgusted at the thought of touching one of
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: those things. Same thing. They're not disease carriers, but they
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: remind us of it. That's the key, because disgusted works
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: hand in hand with human imagination. I got Emily one
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of those poppet pals. Have you seen those? No? What
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: is it? You know how she's pretty obsessed with with
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: zip popping and she doesn't watch she's not one of
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: those people who watches the stuff on YouTube. But it's
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: just like a personal thing. But they saw it on
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Shark Tank. There's this thing. Now it looks It's about
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the size of a bar soap, but it's made out
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: of silicon. It's kind of a squishy, rubber rectangular bar
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and you squirt to this like, uh, I don't know
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: what it's made of. It's it's almost like Chrisco or something.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Um I think it's plant based and you fill it
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: up with that and the top of it is covered
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: with all these little dimple holes and you pop them
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: and it comes, it comes sneaking out just like like
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the best pimple you've ever seen. That's amazed. So I
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: kept like trying to imagine that, like this was going
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: on the person's face, and it's like just to basically like, here,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: keep busy with this and leave my face alone. Yeah,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you just whatever, You set it in your lap and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: just pop away. That's really awesome, man, it's it's it
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: was really satisfying for it too. I thought she might
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: be like, no, this is not the same, but she
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: was obsessed with it first. That's awesome. Couple of days
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that's Is there any great human thing that Shark Tank
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: hasn't give given us? I don't know, I can't. I
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: can't think of one. Um Umi has a thing for
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: cauliflower ear, and she'll sometimes watch videos of cauliflower ear
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: being drained and it's like, I can't hang man wrestler. No,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: not not that I know of, but Mr Chance I
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: guess right, she better have Mr Chance fining. She comes
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: in and she finds you like on the carpet, rolling
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: your ear on the floor. Didn't that how wrestlers get it?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I think they get it from like a trauma to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the ear, like a punch of the ear, like a
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: an impact of the ear, and then like it swells
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: up and then it turns into like scar tissue or
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: like just pussy infected edema. Well, which is why they
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: wear the ear covers. Yes, well, that and to look cool,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to look kind of cool somehow. Um so that offsets
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the singlet, which is the least school thing you can wear.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: It's pretty uncool. I have to say, sorry wrestlers, but
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the entire rest of the world thinks that the singlets
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: look uncool. It's not just us. Oh boy, So let's
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: talk about the disgust scale real quick? Do you have that? Yeah?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't even look at this because I
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: thought it might be fun if you just went through
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: a few of those with me. Okay, well, this is
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: a great idea, Chuck, get into a game still innovating
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: after eleven years. I'm so proud of us. So John
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Paul Rosen and John Hight and a couple of other
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: people came up with the sorry Clark McAuley and Clark McAuley.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say the third person. They came
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: up with a disgust scale. Okay, So, Chuck, between zero
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and four, zero being strongly disagree and four being strongly agree,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: meaning it's very untrue or very true about you. Please
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: indicate how much you agree with each of the following
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: statements or how true it is. Between zero and wet
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: three four zero strongly disagree it's very untrue about you,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and four is strongly agree very true about you. You
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: might be willing, sorry, I might be willing to try
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: eating monkey meat under some circumstances. Strongly disagree. Four. That's zero, okay, zero.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: It would bother me to be in a science class
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and to see a human hand preserved in a jar. Obviously,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: that would not bother me, because when I saw the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: human head in a bucket, very famously, my reaction was, Huh,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: there's a human head whereas a person with me was
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: really disgusted, right, yeah, and I think understandably. So, um,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: I love that story. Okay, here's another one. I never
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: let any part of my body touch the toilet seat
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: in public restrooms. Agree or disagree, untrue or true. I'm
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: just gonna ditch the numbers because it's confusing me. Okay,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I don't That doesn't really bother me that much. I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: know that probably really disgusted you. Uh no, well yeah,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I just have to go to another place. Oh when
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I do that, I don't mind. Man, I know that's
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: gross probably, but whatever. Okay, here's one more um from
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: this one. Then we're gonna do another set. You're ready. Um,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I would rather eat a piece of fruit than a
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: piece of paper. Well, yeah, I'd rather eat a piece
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: of fruit. Okay, Okay, I think that's just like a
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: baseline one that they use. Okay, so then between zero
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: and four rate these not disgusting at all? Are extremely disgusting.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Just say one of those two. Okay, you see maggots
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: on a piece of meat in an outdoor garbage pail,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: very disgusting, you, I agree. Your friend's pet cat dies
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: and you have to pick up the dead body with
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: your bare hands. Um, not disgusted, just sad. Okay. I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: mean I've done that with all of my animals that
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: have passed. I took care of the bodies, right. I
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: think this leaves out that it was hit by a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: car and it's now part of the road. Basically, Yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: that's a medium disgusting and sad. Okay. Yeah, well yeah,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: it said you're about to drink a glass of milk
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: when you smell it is spoiled, And then in parentheses,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: weirdly enough, it says because Emily just changed it under
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: your nose and said, smell this, that's weird. Um. Yeah,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the smell of turned food grosses me out a lot. Okay, Uh,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: while you're walking through a tunnel under a railroad track,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you smell urine. I've been in New York enough times,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: it's not that big of a deal. It still gets me. Man,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: I think smelling urine is worse than smelling poop for
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: some reason. Really Yeah, interesting? Okay. Two more, you see
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a man with his intestines exposed after an accident. Yeah,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: that's pretty high up there. Yeah yeah, I think so too.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: And then last chuck, you see someone put ketchup on
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: vanilla ice cream and eat it. Yeah, that's gross, Okay,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: although it's interesting though when I thought about the bodies
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and trails, like, I don't love it, but I can
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: watch like a surgery. It's not my favorite thing, but
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not like fully disgusted. But if it's an accident,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I think that so it might be a contextual thing
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: as well. So one of the things that I experience
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: when I see like some something in surgery, and I think, yeah,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: context definitely has a lot to do with it in
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: that case too. But if I see like a surgery,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: like remember there used to be that TV network that
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: was nothing but surgery. You remember it was in like
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the late eighties, early nineties, I think, um, but uh,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: to see that, I'll get like faint right like, And
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the side of blood. It's like the
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: site of viscera. I get a little faint, and it
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: never made sense to me. I think definitely as part
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: of it too. But I think also part of the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: disgust reaction is that your heart rate and blood pressure lower,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: which would explain why you start to feel faint. Like
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I don't feel queasy or nauseated or like I'm gonna wretch.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like I need to sit down for a second,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: which is I guess it is still part of the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: disgust reaction. It just isn't the the the nausea version
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: of it's but it's still revulsion, but a weird, fainty version.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: So in the med school sitcom that we star in,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: when they pull the sheet back, you start saying, how
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: don't feel two good guys, and we're like, yeah, you're
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: so funny, and then all of a sudden you hit
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: the deck. I think the way I would play it
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: is even more straightforward, where my eyes just go up
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: in the back of my head and I fall backward
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: in response to the sheep being pulled. It's a good move.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I can't wait for that movie to come out. Ah,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you got anything else? I don't think so. I'd be
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: surprised if you did. We've gone on for a good
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: six seven minutes beyond when we should have stopped. I
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: think I like that game aspect of that one that
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: was one. Oh. Your score, by the way, indicates that
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: you do experience disgust from time to time. I'm not
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: a serial killer, no, no, uh, And I don't know
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: if you guys heard her not, but Jerry also gave
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: her answers as well. That's right. Uh. If you want
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to know more about disgust, you can just go look
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: at some weird stuff on the internet. It's out there
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: for you. Uh. And since I said that it's time
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: for listener mail, I'm gonna call this one of the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: many dyslexia emails we got. Those were really rolling in
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: from people who have overcome dyslexia and adults living with dyslexia. UM.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: So this one is from from a fellow Atlanta named
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Audrey Short, and she says this, Hey guys, I have dyslexia,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and I was so happy to hear you talking about
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: my learning disability. I was diagnosed when I was about
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: ten uh and went to the Shanks School in Atlanta,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: which is specifically for children with dyslexia. In fact, she
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: sent in a following follow up email just to clarify that, um,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: we learned how to read and write using a technique
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: called Orton Gillingham. When I left after the fourth grade,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I could actually read. More importantly, I love to read
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and devoured every book I could get my hands on.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: While I graduated top of my class. I had to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: work twice as hard as my classmates to keep up
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: with the required readings and homework. Uh. My peers seemed
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to think that my extra time I received for exams
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: was the reason I did so well, not the countless
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: hours on late nights I spent um learning the material.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: While this bullying did affect me, did not discourage me
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: from pursuing my education at college. I attended Miami University
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and Ohio, graduating this May with a three point nine
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: nine g p A Biochemistry and Physics. I planned to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: tend a PhD program at Harvard or you see, Berkeley.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying this to brag, but to tell other
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: children with dyslexia to keep trying. I know so many
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: students are afraid to ask for extra time or accommodations
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: because they don't want to be bullied or stand out.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of my dyslexia because, uh, it has forced
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: me to learn how to stand up for my student rights.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I've made it to where I am today by utilizing
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the tools given to me, like extra time. And I
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: want to encourage people with learning disabilities to seek help
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: because you are intelligent and your unique perspective just might
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: change your field entirely. Nice Audrey, Audrey Short great and
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Audrey that is great emails, so that kind of replaces
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: that whole like, look, this famous person made it. You
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: can just tell people, let me tell you about Audrey Short.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I agreed. Okay, way to go, Audrey, that's fantastic. Congratulations
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: early on um graduating with a three point nine nine man,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: that's impressive, and good luck in grad school too. If
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, like Audrey did,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you can go onto stuff you Should Know dot com
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: and check out the social links there. You can also
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: send us an email. Send it off to Stuff podcast
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: dot com