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Why We Love Competition · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Bronze Metal host Abraham and.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I am your Ruined Friendships Over Games host Shane.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the things that people and animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: talk about various cultural traditions that employ lots of humans
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: working against and with one another.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, and so today we are talking about competition, the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: greatest of human attributes, the thing that makes us all
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: work together really well, right, sure or something like that, yeah,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: or the opposite or not yeah, yeah or not that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But anyway, if you are joining us for the first time, welcome.
• 0:59
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• 1:03
  Speaker 1: coming back for more because you've listened to us before,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: then welcome back. We're happy to have you here, all
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of you really. Just if you're listening, we appreciate you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11
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  Speaker 1: of course go to our web store and pick up
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  Speaker 1: some merch, join us on Patreon, or just go out
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and tell a friend. And I'll talk more about all
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of those things at the end of this discussion. But
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: today we're going to be talking about competition, as Shane
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: already you said. But first, of course, it is January
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: twenty second, which means we are wishing you a happy
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Celebration of Life day.
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  Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, and for those of you who are watching
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  Speaker 2: the video that heard us talking about the cold for
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  Speaker 2: our Patreon exclusive content today is come in from the
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  Speaker 2: Cold Day.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed, it is Dance of the Seven Vales Day. Okay
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: that sounds ominous or something.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a library shelfie day like that.
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  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. National Answer Your Cat's Question Day. If you
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  Speaker 1: don't talk to your cats about catnip, who will?
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  Speaker 2: Hmm, this is your brain on catnip. It's National Blonde
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  Speaker 2: Brownie Day. I think blondies are underrated, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: They are very good. Yes, absolutely, And if you would
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  Speaker 1: like to spice up that blondie a little bit, it
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is National Hot Sauce Day. Putting hot sauce on brownies.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on with you, but sure.
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  Speaker 2: I think the spiciest to brownie should be is maybe
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  Speaker 2: with cinnamon. And that's that's as far as it goes.
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  Speaker 1: That's pushing it.
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  Speaker 2: That's pushing it. Yeah. It is National Polka Dot Day,
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  Speaker 2: So if you are a wrestling fan and you like
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  Speaker 2: Dusty Rhodes, then that's a good thing to celebrate.
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  Speaker 1: All right, all right? It is Roe versus Wade Day.
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  Speaker 1: I guess Remembrance Day.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Awkward. It's a cancer talk day.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. It's Energy Saving Week.
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  Speaker 2: I like that.
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  Speaker 1: It's Healthy Weight Week, so be a healthy weight I
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  Speaker 1: guess sure. It is Hunt for Happiness Week.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have to have a license for that?
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  Speaker 1: Yes?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, these days? Yes, because this is this is a
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  Speaker 2: couple of days after the inauguration, So yes, I think
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  Speaker 2: that they have they have monetized happiness at this point
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  Speaker 2: in time. It's International Hoofcare Week.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. It is National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week. Yup.
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  Speaker 2: I like that. And it's also no name calling Week.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if I can make it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not going to be abiding by
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  Speaker 1: that one. I will be calling names, yes.
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  Speaker 2: Like Steve or Eric.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. Bob. Anyway, as I said, we're not actually
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  Speaker 1: talking about holidays. Those involve little in the way of competition,
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  Speaker 1: But we are going to try and unpack competition, what
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  Speaker 1: it is, why we do it, all of the factors
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  Speaker 1: therein because in all of our episodes, we just take
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  Speaker 1: some topic and we try and understand it the best
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  Speaker 1: we possibly can as it relates to the behavior and
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  Speaker 1: things that we do. The behavior, just behavior and things
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  Speaker 1: that we do. This is a longer discussion mostly just
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: meaning that this is a full length episode because on
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Mondays we instead release what we call mini episodes that
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: are just like fifteen ten minutes long. Yeah, this is
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a lengthy well, we just don't have any converstrations. It's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: really really all comes back that, right, nothing more specific
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  Speaker 1: beyond that. But let's go ahead and dive in then
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to our topic. And sometimes it is helpful to understand something,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the topic at hand or whatever, just by like describing
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  Speaker 1: it exhaustively. Sometimes that will paint enough of a picture
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  Speaker 1: that you kind of got the why, even if you
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: haven't gotten to the why. And so there is going
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to be an element of that here. We're still going
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  Speaker 1: to get to a very important why. But let's start
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  Speaker 1: by describing this exhaustively and before you turn this off
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  Speaker 1: because you heard me essentially say, be prepared to be bored.
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  Speaker 1: That's not what I'm saying. I do think we intentionally
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: structure these episodes so they have a nice arc to them,
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  Speaker 1: and we tend to save the most I want to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: say bombastic, but that's not it, our most enthusiastic points
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  Speaker 1: for sort of the end where we're we're culminating everything
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  Speaker 1: we have discussed and learned into a single hizah answer.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. You can't move into the house until the foundation
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  Speaker 2: is built.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so we're starting with the foundation, which is
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  Speaker 1: still interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's talk about competition. Competition is effectively striving
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  Speaker 2: against another person or another group to win or gain something.
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  Speaker 2: When there is a desirable resource or outcome that is
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  Speaker 2: limited with respect to all for whom it may be relevant,
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  Speaker 2: those seeking that resource must struggle against one another to
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: claim it for themselves. Now, this could be in games,
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  Speaker 2: this could be for resources in the world. Greg Graffin
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  Speaker 2: is a really great book that is about all of this.
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  Speaker 2: A competition in like the natural world, so like it's
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  Speaker 2: it's happening everywhere around us.
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  Speaker 1: Bonus recommends, I guess that commend Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, Yeah, yeah it's great, it's a great read.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, great. And so essentially this is what is
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  Speaker 1: meant by a zero sum game. If you ever look
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  Speaker 1: this up, people are going to often talk about competition
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  Speaker 1: as a zero sum game, which basically means for one
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  Speaker 1: person to win, someone else has to lose. Necessarily, that's
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  Speaker 1: just part of the condition. Is me winning means you losing,
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  Speaker 1: or there could be a bunch of people who win
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  Speaker 1: some people who still lose, like squid.
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  Speaker 2: Game, right, right, exactly exactly now. Of course, evolutionarily speaking,
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  Speaker 2: competition is a key concept in understanding natural selection. So
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  Speaker 2: in order to understand natural selection, you have to understand
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  Speaker 2: how we compete for resources when there are finite resources
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  Speaker 2: and organisms typically to get their share of the resources.
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  Speaker 2: What it means is that some survive and some do not.
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  Speaker 1: And some will then pass on their genes and some
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  Speaker 1: will not. In that, as a quick side note, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people will hear and use the phrase survival
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  Speaker 1: of the fittest, and this is a pretty gross over
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  Speaker 1: generalization of how evolution in this particular sense as it
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  Speaker 1: relates to competition might work, and so for example, like
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  Speaker 1: if you just take the weakest runt in a litter
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  Speaker 1: of many animals whatever, like this litter of babies from
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  Speaker 1: some species, they might be the weakest one, but they
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  Speaker 1: also might just happen to be the closest to a
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  Speaker 1: particular resource, and therefore always be fed, always be satisfied,
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  Speaker 1: always be sheltered. Or the smallest animal of a species
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  Speaker 1: may be less likely to be preyed upon and therefore
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  Speaker 1: more likely to survive predation attempts. Whatever the circumstantial contextual
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  Speaker 1: variables are going on here, that's the thing that's going
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  Speaker 1: to influence survival. Luck is a decent amount of it,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right, And I think, of course,
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  Speaker 1: like the most aggressive can win in some of these,
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  Speaker 1: but they can also injure themselves if they seek fights
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  Speaker 1: too often. If they're too aggressive, they might have a
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  Speaker 1: less supportive network and are less likely to have protection
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  Speaker 1: from the elements because those are sort of being taken
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  Speaker 1: by others. And so there's a lot of people who
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  Speaker 1: think of this, like to be a survivor, you have
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  Speaker 1: to be an alpha, And I'm like, actually, all you
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  Speaker 1: kind of have to do is be lucky, smart and
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  Speaker 1: have like a good social support network.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Like the idea of the lone wolf is
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  Speaker 2: laughably ironic, and wolves are one of the most iconic
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  Speaker 2: representations of the power of working in a cooperative group.
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  Speaker 2: Humans tend to be social, cooperative creatures, and the ones
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  Speaker 2: that are not tend to be ostracized and isolated and
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  Speaker 2: left out in the cold. There's really great studies on
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  Speaker 2: like specifically men and how men as they age they
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  Speaker 2: have less and less friends and their networks get smaller
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  Speaker 2: and smaller and smaller, and a lot of the characteristics
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of the traits that go along with
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  Speaker 2: that are those traits that go along with like alpha men,
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  Speaker 2: like the people that go out and they're like that
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  Speaker 2: toxic masculinity like I'm strong, I'm tough, blah blah blah
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  Speaker 2: blah blah. They tend to end up being by themselves
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  Speaker 2: and dying alone in their lives and dying miserably as
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  Speaker 2: a result of that. So the lone wolf thing doesn't
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  Speaker 2: really work, doesn't really work out for people, does not work.
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  Speaker 1: So, yes, many animals compete for food, shelter, and mates
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  Speaker 1: by fighting for or for by blocking competition, and that's
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  Speaker 1: obviously an example of how competition shows up in the
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  Speaker 1: animal kingdom aside from humans because we are also animals.
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  Speaker 1: But one of my favorite examples of this is the
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  Speaker 1: Galopa ghost turtles. I think we've talked about this. Do
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  Speaker 1: you remember this Shane talking about how glaphost turtles fight. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is what happens when Galopa ghost turtles are like
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  Speaker 1: fighting for a mate. So first you've got these two.
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  Speaker 1: They're very large, these these turtles are. They're very large.
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  Speaker 1: They face off, they glare at each other, they might
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  Speaker 1: even butt their heads a little bit. And then what
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  Speaker 1: they do for the real competition is they raise their
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  Speaker 1: heads up as high as they can, and the tallest
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  Speaker 1: one wins.
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  Speaker 2: I just I love the game of tallest turtle. That's
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  Speaker 2: my favorite game, right.
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  Speaker 1: I just think that that's so funny because I'm it
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  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense too. Like fighting has a
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  Speaker 1: pretty extreme cost, like it could be your life, and
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  Speaker 1: so like having a species that depends on that is
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  Speaker 1: a species that is not long for this world. So
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  Speaker 1: species that have other ways of competing that do not
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  Speaker 1: result in like death or permanent injury are more likely
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  Speaker 1: to be successful anyway. So I think that's just a
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  Speaker 1: very lovely example.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm writing a children's book now called Tierry the
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  Speaker 2: Tallest Turtle, and it is about how cooperation is so
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  Speaker 2: important and how being the tallest doesn't necessarily mean that
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  Speaker 2: you win.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Except when it does.
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  Speaker 2: Except when it does. I don't know. I feel like
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  Speaker 2: Terry the talas Turtle is a really great title for
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  Speaker 2: a children's book. So I'm putting out. I'm copywriting it
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  Speaker 2: right now. Great, and then I'll have that published sometime
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  Speaker 2: in the future.
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  Speaker 1: Great. So thank you for that love that this is
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a sales pitch for a future book.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of sales pitches, here's an ad. After you
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  Speaker 2: have heard some ads competing for your earspace, let's get
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  Speaker 2: back into what competition actually is. So competition is a
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  Speaker 2: is the foundation of many of our institutions and our
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  Speaker 2: cultural practices. As humans, we like to compete a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Our politics are decided by competitions where people vie for votes,
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  Speaker 2: lawyers compete to win or quote unquote win a case,
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  Speaker 2: as opposed to just finding out what happened and deciding
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  Speaker 2: an appropriate course of action. The economy is heavily influenced
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  Speaker 2: by the extent, at least specifically in capitalistic spaces, by
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  Speaker 2: the extent to which businesses compete with one another for
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  Speaker 2: people's money and compete to have like the greatest amount
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  Speaker 2: of income coming in right. Gambling competes with the house
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  Speaker 2: or other players to win money, sports, athletic competitions, eating competitions,
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  Speaker 2: battle of the band, spelling bees, racing, video games, board games,
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  Speaker 2: world records, college applications, valedatory and neighborhood holiday that creating competitions,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: baking and cooking competitions, blank Ninja warrior, trivia and quiz shows,
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  Speaker 2: ugly sweater competitions, TikTok challenges any extent to which they
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: are a thing in the future if they are there,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and so on and so forth. By this at this
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: point in time, it may not even be a thing.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: That may not be a thing.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: As of three days ago, and on and on and
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: on and on so so. Competition is like it's in
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  Speaker 2: your every day in so many different ways. The only
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: game I could think of that it's not very competition
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  Speaker 2: heavy is like Animal Crossing, which is like the easiest
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  Speaker 2: and most mellow game on the world, and you don't
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  Speaker 2: have to compete for anything, which is really nice.
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  Speaker 1: SIMS is not a very competition heavy game that's true.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, sims as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and you made me think of that with
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: animal crossing because I think they share a DNA if
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  Speaker 1: you will.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, for the purpose of this conversation, we are mostly
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  Speaker 1: discussed recreational competing because we've been talking about competition in
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  Speaker 1: a sort of relatively abstract sense up into this point
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  Speaker 1: where it's like anything where there is some struggle against
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  Speaker 1: another group of others, but really for competition, what we're
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  Speaker 1: kind of thinking is like, why we seek out competition?
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  Speaker 1: Why do we seek why do we play games? Why
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  Speaker 1: do we have all these things built into our culture
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  Speaker 1: where we have competition? And this does require I think
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  Speaker 1: a slight refinement to the definition in terms of competition
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  Speaker 1: as it relates to recreation, and so competition in the
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  Speaker 1: playful sense is maybe better defined as behavior that is
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  Speaker 1: reinforced by performing some action to a criteria better than
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  Speaker 1: an opponent or opponents, although that there have been some
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  Speaker 1: who have pointed out that sometimes the point is to
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  Speaker 1: just keep the game going as long as possible, right,
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  Speaker 1: But that has more to do with play than competition directly.
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  Speaker 1: For example, we'll just pick one type of competition ping pong.
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  Speaker 1: This involves for those of you who are to wear
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  Speaker 1: I guess strike a ball with a paddle. So there's
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  Speaker 1: a table set up, there's a little net in the middle.
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  Speaker 1: You're striking a ball with a paddle in such a
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  Speaker 1: manner that it lands on the table in a specific range,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: so on the opponent's side, and that the opponent cannot
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  Speaker 1: successfully return the ball according to the same criteria, and
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  Speaker 1: so that it's like an example of how that's set
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  Speaker 1: up in the Olympics. Some of the sports are not
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  Speaker 1: necessarily competing directly with someone in a head to head
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  Speaker 1: like you would in ping pong, but instead you are
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  Speaker 1: performing a skill that is then being evaluated by form, speed, endurance,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: or complexity or difficulty and without mistakes. And then that
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  Speaker 1: score is then being compared to other athletes performing similar
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  Speaker 1: skills and receiving a score. And so then the highest
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  Speaker 1: scoring person wins, even though they're not doing something like
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know, passing a ball back and forth. Similar idea
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  Speaker 1: though it is this idea of the performance meets a
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  Speaker 1: criteria that exceeds an opponent or another group.
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  Speaker 2: Right absolutely now, animals do have some versions of competition
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  Speaker 2: that are creational as well. So many large toothed animals
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  Speaker 2: like dogs, cats, and rats. They'll wrestle, gently bite at
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: each other in the form of play and sometimes like that.
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  Speaker 2: It's really interesting because that will be used as like
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  Speaker 2: play and competition will be used as like a teaching
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: opportunity as well for like social skills, but also like
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: maybe hunting and stuff like that too. Absolutely, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: so some cool things there. Big horn sheep will headbutt
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  Speaker 2: even when they're not competing for mates, they're just bored
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: or maybe as a playful interaction apeful wrestle, bite, tickle,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: and chase each other. Even fish might chase each other
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: or sometimes push objects away from one another in silly
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: aquatic games of keep away, which is really fun.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we kind of saw that with some of the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: orcas and like dolphins and stuff. I found a video
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  Speaker 1: of someone who was essentially playing keep away with dolphins
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: with like a handkerchief or something they brought in the water.
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  Speaker 1: The dolphins would grab it and try and keep it
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: away from either another dolphin or from the human, and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: then the human would try and keep it away from
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  Speaker 1: the dolphins and they would There's no actual like survival
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  Speaker 1: points to this. It seems like it's just for the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: experience of participating in that space, right.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: Another consideration here is that competition is lucrative a f
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  Speaker 1: NASCAR generated more than four hundred and twenty five million
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  Speaker 1: dollars in twenty twenty three, although this decreased in twenty
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: twenty four. Gambling, which as we've talked about before, is
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  Speaker 1: a form of competition with other players or with machines
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  Speaker 1: or the house, that generated more than twelve billion dollars
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. It's best year ever for profits.
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  Speaker 1: Video games, most of which contain a competitive element, not
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: all of them, but like most of them do. They
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: generated almost two hundred billion dollars in twenty twenty three. Sports,
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  Speaker 1: maybe the most archetypal version of competition that we think of,
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  Speaker 1: generated approximately four hundred and eight billion dollars in revenue
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and twenty twenty two, which is expected to grow to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: over six hundred billion dollars by twenty twenty eight. Those
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: are some large numbers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a lot of money. I mean, I'm shocked
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  Speaker 2: that NASCAR doesn't make more, but I guess they have
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  Speaker 2: less competitions during the year, and I think that like
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: they are, they're pretty specialized. Like It's not like a
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: you know, a basketball team playing multiple home games right
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: in there in their city. It's you know, it's one
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  Speaker 2: race per year per city, maybe two races. Like I
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: live in a NASCAR town, so like it's Nascar is
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: like in my blood's in my dna. I even have
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: a Nascar tattoo. No big deal, but it's one of
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: those things where it's like it's so ever present, it's
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: so in my world that I would expect it to
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: make more. Not that four hundred and twenty five million
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: dollars is not a lot of money, but I would
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: expect that to be a lot more.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: You know, like poor NASCAR only making four hundred and
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, you only made half a billion dollars. Oh so sad.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So I guess the equipment's more expensive than like a
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: baseball bat, so that also probably plays a role on
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: it pair fair So all right, So playful competition seems
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: to be something that we do in a variety of forms.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: But why do we seek it out at all? Besides
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: the money part, why are we as spectators so invested
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: in it or as humans that compete a lot? Why
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: do we get so competitive why do we see it
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: out in our own behavior and even just watching the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: behavior of others. Why is it so prevalent in our world?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Well, we may answer that we'll do our best to try.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Let's start by digging into some of the research that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: some people have done, or what they call research at least.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: There was a nineteen ninety five study in Personality and
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Individual Differences that was the name of the journal, in
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: which they interviewed college students about their motivations for competition.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So take that as you will. You know, another study
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: asking college students, They weren't actually evaluating people who are competing,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: They're just like, why do you compete? So anyway, that's
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the thing that people do, And it happened again here
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and anyway. What they found was that the most powerful
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: motivation identified by the participants was a desire to outperform
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: their opponents, so essentially to win. Like, sure, the reason
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: for them to compete was to be on the winning
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: team or be the winning person.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that. I mean, I like to win.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: There's something really fun about winning, you know. But we'll
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: talk about kind of like what winning actually stands in
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: for and all that stuff too. As we go now.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: This type of outcome is governed by several factors that
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: likely contribute to its value. Winning itself has like a
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: set of probably generalized values that we look at. A
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: sense of accomplishment, praise and acknowledgment from a broad audience,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: including authority figures, financial gain, social recognition, a confirmation of
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: one's own mastery of skills, evolving the competition, and the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: satisfaction or rush that comes from having exerted yourself and
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: achieving the highest reward for doing so, as opposed to
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the losers who exerted themselves and failed to achieve that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: desired outcome. So take that everybody who lost to me.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Indeed, So that's sort of the first primary thing that
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: they identified is that they wanted to win. And obviously
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things going on with winning as well,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: like winning, Is it winning itself or is it the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: variety of factors, probably both, maybe a lot of the latter.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: But the second most powerful motivation that the participants identified
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: in this study was that the competition itself, just competing
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it pushed them to strive for greater mastery in their skill.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: If they weren't in a situation where they were demonstrating
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: performance against someone else, then they likely would stop pushing
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: themselves at all past a certain point, like they'd try
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: up until like a that's probably as good as I
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: can do type level, right, Yeah, but having someone else
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to compare their performance against gives them sort of a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: new threshold of performance to achieve. So like, if that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: person's doing this well, then I need to do better.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And that's maybe more than they would have pushed themselves
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to do without that other person. Sure, if there's a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: lot of those other people again, like that just sets
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunities for raising the barfect has
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: also even been reported in many other sort of competitive spaces.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: In music competition, amongst runners, pretty much every other form
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: of competition is this sense of being pushed to be better,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: like to essentially be really really good at a particular skill,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: and being good at something is mostly relative to other
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: people who are good at that skill.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I saw that that was really
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: evident in skateboarding, right, Like, I feel like skateboarding is
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: one that that is like a constant like or like
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: you could say extreme sports, but specifically I grew up
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: like watching skateboarding and being really interested in that. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I remember when Tony Hawk landed a nine hundred, everybody
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, what do we do now? And then
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: now everybody was now everybody can land a nine hundred. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: like that's like a normal behavior now, and like it's
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: just what you did up. Yeah. Yeah, somebody just landed
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a ten eighty not too long ago, and it's like, oh, okay,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: so nine hundreds. That's that old school stuff, you know.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So I think I resonate with that motivation quite a bit, like, oh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: you can do that. I bet I can do that too,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: watch me.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh I know, one hundred percent. I completely agree.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like there have been many times, and actually
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: music for me is one of them. Like learning to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: play the drums and wanting, you know, seeing other people
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: be really good. I'm like, well, I want to learn
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: what they're doing, and then even surpass that, I want
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to do something they can't do. Yeah, And there's that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: dynamic back and forth.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: You're like the Goku of drumming.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Sure, but not the Goku of podcasts. Is ads.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: At this point in time, we're talking about motivations and
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: like reported motivations that people have for competing.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by the specific study from the nineties right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: By the specific study. So one was that sense of
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: accomplishment all those things. The second one is comparing and
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: kind of upping the threshold against other people and seeing
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: their comparative behaviors. The third most important reason they gave
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: in the study was the competition was a way to
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: show case their talents and competencies. So essentially they earned
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: some social validation of their efforts in competitive arenas. So
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: they would engage this behavior, they would compete, and they
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: would get social validation as a result of that competition.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just sort of like, Wow, you're so good
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: at this, You're such a tremendous athlete or whatever. Yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: just the recognition. The fourth reason was external rewards. This
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: came up a lot in other sources as a perceived
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: reason for competition, and this kind of blends with the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: others in a way, But basically they're saying that their
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: motivation for competing was that they would do so because
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: it would earn them praise, financial rewards, or some other
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: kind of tangible benefits or external benefits from their efforts
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in the competition.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then finally, and arguably what I would say
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the most concerning one is that some people reported that
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: they liked competing because it gave them an opportunity to
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: be aggressive and exert dominance in a socially acceptable way.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: These people should probably go seek mental health service or
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know why, and they'll just become cops.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: They probably do.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I listen, I had a lot of coffee
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: this morning, so I'm feeling I'm feeling some kind of way.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So zest.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little I'm a little spicy day. No,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: But I think I think there is like, like I
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: understand the idea of oh I can go on a
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: football field and I can hit somebody and not get
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: an assault charge. Like I understand like that how that
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: line of logic can show up in somebody's brain. Like
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I've never had that where I was like, I'm gonna
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: go play baseball. I'm gonna hit somebody as hard as
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: they as I can when I'm playing. Like I've never
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: had that, But I could see somebody and I've played
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: with people who have had that mentality and it's a
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: little bit scary.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And why I'm so bad an athlete because
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: when I go on the field, I'm like, I hope
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that I don't hurt anybody and that they don't hurt me.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: You would tackle someone to go I am so sorry.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like I'm pushing you over now, please
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: embrace yourself for the fall so you don't get hurt.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you are like passivist to the extreme. I love it.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Here, let me put a pad down for you just
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: in can pay attention.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Do you want to hit me back? I'm so sorry?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: All right. So those are some of the findings, if
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you will, from asking a bunch of college students what
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: their motivations are for competing. Whether or not that is
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: a great representation, I'm sure there's at least something to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: be gleaned from the answers that they gave, probably from
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a pre selected list. But other psychologists have also weighed
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: in on this idea of competition with their own ideas.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: And one thing that is commonly said about competition from
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: most sources that are like people who would call themselves psychologists,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is that it is a combination of a few factors.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: There's neurological factors that is, you have a brain, biological
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: factors that is, you inherit the capacity for competitiveness. Personality
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: factors that is, you're competitive because you're competitive and environmental factors,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that is, circumstances are likely to foster competition, right, including
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: extandric awards and social social relevance and that sort of thing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So those are like, well commonly see them. They're like, oh,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: we're competitive because of neurological, biological, personality, environmental factors. I'm like, okay,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: so we're alive, we're biological organisms, and we're like circumstances
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: are probably involved in that somehow. I probably throw away.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Two of those, right right exactly. You know, it's funny
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: because it's like that's just such a it's casting a
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: wide net. I mean, not that not that you couldn't
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: account for some of those things or like make a
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: justification for those, but it is such a wide net.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, a cake is a cake because it's
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: got icing and flour and egg. It's like, but there
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: are other things that have icing, a flour and egg
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: that you can't define it by. So I don't know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: it's just I feel like that's kind of a cop out,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Like a meat loaf.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly exactly, thank you for that. I mean, is
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: a meat loaf of cake? I guess it depends on
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: your definition. We're not gonna into that today.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably somebody would call it a cake.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now. And in two thousand and nine study, they found
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: that performance was negatively correlated with the number of people competing.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean, you ask, Well, essentially, the
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: more people that were competing, the worst people did on average.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Phenomenon they dubbed the n effect. That is, as more
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: people were included in taking a test, test scores decreased.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: They showed this by telling a group of people taking
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: a quiz that there were more or less people taking
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: the same quiz. Basically, they were told that there were
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: only ten people taking the quiz up to there were
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: one hundred people taking a quiz, and people finished more
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: quickly if they were told that there were only ten
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: people taking the quiz, which is really interesting.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So I guess they interpreted finishing quickly as meaning they
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: were being more competitive. And they also specifically said that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: when there were more people that people were less motivated
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to compete, and that's why there were higher scores when
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: there were fewer people or when they believed there were
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: fewer people. I am unclear though from this because I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: was reading a report of the study and didn't dig
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: into the actual numbers themselves because that felt unpleasant to do. Sure,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: it was unclear the extent to which that could be
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: affected by the math of large numbers of people in
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a group, Like basically, the more people there are, the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: more the distribution, like the Bell curve will shift toward
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: an average of the overall population, right, And so it's
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: difficult to say if like people scored higher because you
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: had more, like fewer of them, and it just happens
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to be the case that like they represented that part
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: of the distribution, and as you get more and more
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: people that the Bell curve shifts down a little bit
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: from what that group shows up like. And also whether
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: or not you can interpret the scoring higher as having
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: anything to do with their actual motivation as it pertains
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to the number of people in the group. So, right,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: it felt like it was taking a few leaps that
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't probably personally take if I were trying to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: understand this phenomenon, But that was what they at least
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: came back with.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Sure, I think it's fair.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Now others are a bit more speculative when it comes
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to their hypotheses regarding motivations for competition or some of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the factors that sort of contribute to why we like
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to compete. But they offer some potentially useful insights, so
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: we'll go through them. There was a source that I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: found that had thirteen factors implicated in our drive to compete.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The first one they list was an evolutionary drive as
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: we sort of started with, which just pertains simply to survival.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And then the next one they give is like a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: dopamine rush, which is that sense of like it feels
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: good to win. We get a sense of like accomplishment, relieve, satisfaction,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. There's like the good feels when we win.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Are these ranked in order or just kind of
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: like noted.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: It's mostly just noted. Yeah, they didn't actually explicitly say
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: there's when there was a particular ranking to this. That's
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a good question.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's why I just wanted it, like for
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: for the listeners out there. We didn't want you to
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: think this was a definitive list. We're not doing a
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: listical here.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I do imagine people would hear this and think
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: that I was trying to put them like this was
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the order given in a verst specific reason, but I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: got the impression it was they just happened to be
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: in this order.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the order is arbitrary, folks, The order is arbitrary.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: The third reason they gave was social comparison theory. They
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: just think that people like comparing themselves to other people.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: There was also the argument about personal growth, which was
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: they enjoyed being good at something. I know personally I
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: like to have I like to do things and like
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: get better at stuff. So that's always cool to see,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: very much so. But it's also like hard to go
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: back and look at things I used to do and go, oh, yeah,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: now what was I doing? You know, So I have
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: that like that ick that goes along with that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I feel the same way. And that does correspond to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: with that other nineteen ninety five study where that was
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: something that people reported.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Oh interesting.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Also team social dynamics, and there's this the sense of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: succeeding with a sort of bonded group of people who
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: are working together toward a goal. Sure, and so there's
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the social dynamics of the team and them being successful.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Another one they gave it innovation, which is the desire
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to like lead discovery, to make a name for yourself
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: by pushing technology or science or accomplishment whatever to like
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: come up with something new and sort of have be
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: attached to that thing. And that's like another aspect of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: competition that they give.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that one society expectations. There may
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: be cultural variables to just push people towards competition and
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: make it competitive. I would imagine that Sparta probably had
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: a tinge of that. That's a point to say, in
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the least to least, Yeah, I feel like I feel like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: you know, everything I've read about it seems like a
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: little bit competitive and cultural influences, like stories and traditions
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: of competition like this is you know, our family is,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: you know, like I think of my my family specifically,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: my family's from Pittsburgh, and so everybody talks about how
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: much like we are Steelers fans, we like been passed down,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Like I had never been to Pittsburgh before I became
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: a Steelers fan. It's just so happened that it was
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: passed down as part of an influence from my family.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure there are economic incentives, so earning money means
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: outperforming another who was also trying to earn money, and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: this could be just businesses as well out competing one another.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: But that sort of relates to the zero sum game
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: as it pertains to financial resources as one variable that
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: sort of influences competition. And another that they that they
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: give is kind of interesting and I think related to evolution.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And that's what they just call it adaptability, And essentially
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that is being able to adjust to your circumstances as needed,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: particularly to adjust a strategy to overcome some particular obstacle.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: So it's it's been generally able to overcome obstacles, I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: think as a motivation for competing.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Sure that makes sense. Sporting spirit which they reference. They
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: kind of describe it as a force for self improvement,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: mutual respect, and the pursuit of excellence. Some people may
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: just that, I guess is what they're saying. Balancing competition,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: so a blend of competition and cooperation, being able to
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: work together but also compete with people, like a healthy competition,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Like you know, you're close with somebody and you like,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: you know, jab at him and poke at him to
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: kind of compete there and then just to thrill the challenge.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: There might be an urge to do well against some criterion.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I know personally, I set criterion for myself and then
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: I challenge myself and I compete against myself in a
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: lot of different ways. Yeah, and so like I could
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: see that coming up as well.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like like at the end of every year, we
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: do a little wrap up where we discuss that. Well
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it's more recent we haven't done this every year, but
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: at the end of the year, we've started a thing
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: where we do a wrap up and we talk about
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the year. And I'm currently thinking, like, at the end
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of this year, I want to have read more books
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: than I did last year. Yeah, and so it's sort
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of a self competition thing. So anyway, that's the list.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I personally felt like some of the suggestions they gave
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: overlapped with other suggestions at least a little bit. Yeah,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: but yeah, that's okay. You know, I understand where they
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: were coming from trying to enumerate this list, and sometimes
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: unfortunately ads overlap the podcast. Ah, okay, we're at the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: point now, I think where when we're talking about competition,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: we would like to offer the insights that we as
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: trained professionals might have to try and bring some additional
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: perspective to it, whether or not correct or you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: we're not basing this off of us study we did
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: or anything. It's our understanding essentially of how things work.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: We'll try and unpack this a bit, so I think
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: first I'll say that there's a lot of merit to
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: some of the arguments that were put forth by others.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I think that they gave some reasonable direction at least
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: to start with, if not good answers to begin with
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: or in and of themselves. So I'd like to unpack
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: this in essentially two ways. The first is I would
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: like to speak to the factors that I think are
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: almost indisputably accurate about why we compete. And then the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: second aspect of this is to try and really unpack
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: that why. That follows the answer to the first part,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: which is like enlisting what I think factors are pretty indisputable,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: because I think when we talk about parsimony, we've brought
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: this up so many times on the podcast, what that
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: quite literally means, and we think about like Aukham's razor
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: is cutting away the unnecessary. And so sometimes a good
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: place to start is like what is the thing you
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely must have? Like, there's no way this part is wrong,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: it's core, it's central to it, and then some of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the other things we can see in the peripheral or
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: maybe less important. So let's start with the things that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: we as I said, are indisputable. They have to be
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: part of it, right, and we know that they are,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Like there is all the evidence that they're part of it,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and no evidence that they're not part of it.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Right. All sources and researchers conclude the competition is driven
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: at least in part by scarcity of resources, social factors,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: and cultural expectations. So there is this piece where the
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: outcomes are rare. There is a social factor where there
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: are multiple people or there is like some kind of
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: like in some spaces too. There is like the comparison
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: to the self, so there is like myself in context
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: of other people too. And then there is the cultural
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: expectations of discussing around gaming or around competition or like
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: the pro social behavior around resources, whatever it might be.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: But it's resources, social factors, cultural expectations. Those three things
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: in part drive competition and competitive behaviors.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you just can't get away from Let's
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: start with the first one. Scarcity of resources. You just
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: can't get away. This is everywhere like that. Again, it
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: seems like it is core. It is a thing that
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: has to be part of it, and it certainly makes
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: sense in the economic competition where you have, as I said,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: it is in fact a zero sum game, particularly in
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a capitalistic version of it. Right, even if you were
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to take this into spaces like recreational settings such as
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: sports and that sort of thing, this might be the
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: scarcity of the resource that's being vied for. Here is
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: money that a team or an individual player earns, or
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: other economic opportunities that you might earn, like such as sponsorships.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: But even simply when there aren't huge financial motivations, there's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: often like a trophy, some symbolic representation of a reward,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and that's limited because only one team gets to walk
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: away with that trophy. Right, you look at like the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: big sports competitions, ultimately one person's walking away with the
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: trophy at the end of the bracket or whatever the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: series of competitions are that unfolds, and you know, often
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: there are like three winning positions you have, like first, second, third,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: but sometimes there's only the one, the one winning position.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: So as a form of allocating resources, where we have
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: scarcity of resources, whether or not we created that scarcity
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: or it just happens to exist in a circumstance. One
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: way to do that, to allocate those resources is through competition.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: There are other ways, but one way to do it
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: is through competition. So it does seem like that's inherently
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a feature of competitive spaces, is that there's something that
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is limited that is being invied for by groups or individuals.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Right, And resources don't necessarily have to be tangible, Like
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: the resource could be attention from a group of people.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: It could. That's true, Like, I think it's important to
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: know that when we say resources, we're not just talking
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: about like tangible like life saving resources. We're also talking
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: about like the social attention that goes along with it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: We're talking about the accolades that go with it, that
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: all the other things that are like maybe in more
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: intangible that people might compete for.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Right, Because again, not everyone in that competition will receive
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: the same allocation of resources at the end, the ones
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: who performed the best according to whatever the criteria are
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: be at points when it's like a game or certain
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: thresholds of performance as in the Olympics, whatever that is.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Like at the at the end, there's like someone will
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: get the most amount of whatever sort of that resource is, which,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: as you said, could be things like attention.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Right now, social and cultural factors are clearly very important
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: and such an important aspect of competition that we can't
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: really make an argument without them, right. The stories that
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: we tell in books, movies, television shows, and even songs
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: frequently employ the heroic journey or other forms of competition.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you get into storytelling and the idea
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: of like man verse blank, like that is competition at.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Its course, absolutely, yeah.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Even man verse man or man Verse self is also competition.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: There are so so, so so so many sports movies
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: specifically that also are like entertainment about competition, about sports
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: that are about competition, right, Yeah, So we tell each
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: other the competition is good. We uplift people when we
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: win and when we drive out those evil forces or
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. We raise children to compete in
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: sporting events. I mean, I grew up playing sports. From
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: the time time I was four, I was competing the
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: minute I could walk. Yeah, yeah, I was barely walking
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and talking, could barely hold a baseball bat, But I
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: was still competing. Right, music recitals and in school, we're
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: doing that our economies, our politics, our policies, our values
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: all include or even predicated upon having competition in some
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: level way, shape or form. Cultures around the world teach
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: competition almost as an assumption about how society can, should,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and does work, whether or not other factors are involved.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Socio cultural practices are an enormously powerful reason for us
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: to engage in competitive behaviors.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that's it's an important one to highlight
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: here is because again it's inextricable, Like we don't have
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: to ask, well, do we create systems that incentivize competition? Yeah,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: look around, It would take you one second to find
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: an example of competition anywhere around you. Like, our species
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: does this a lot, right, and various cultures do it
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: more or less to varying degrees, but like we do
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: it a lot, which means that there is like because
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: so much of what we do is cultural is and
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: we do as a group as a society. It means
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: that we support those systems, we create them, we enforce them,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: we incentivize them, like they are there. And so like
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: those those factors there that we've talked about, like you
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have some kind of scarcity of resources, and we teach
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: each other from the moment we're born, the competition is
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: good that like we know that those are going to
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: be hugely important driving factors that you cannot extricate from
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: this idea of competition, right, So that, I think is
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: why it's important to make sure we're really clear. And
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: that's sort of the first part here of like where
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: did they definitely get it right? I think it's in
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: those two things. And you know, another aspect of this too,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and we're starting to get now into a little bit
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: more of the why. But this is a little bit
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: more on the front end because this is something that
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: they talked about is relatedly to all of this, particularly
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the part you were just you were just talking about
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: with culture is that, as we and a billion other
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: people have pointed out, we are a very social species
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and often competition takes the form of teams. Even when
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: it's like a single person competing, they often have like
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a team in their corner supporting them.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Box.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: If you think of like yeah, boxing, you've got someone
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that's like over there on your side. In an eating competition,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: you usually have like your little cheering section, your people
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: who are there to watch you or whatever. Or in
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: for example, we have in gymnastics, there's a team of
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: people competing as individuals and activities, but they still celebrate
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: as a team, like they represent a team thing. So
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: it's like, even though it's some Owe Biles doing amazing
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: athletic things, she is still part of Team USA. So
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Team USA is cheering on some own bios even if
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: they don't do as well as she did. It's important
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: for the team as a group to have, like any
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: one of the team to do well means that the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: team did well, and so like this whole team thing
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I think is really important.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the Olympics, they you know, individuals will
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: get medals, but oftentimes when they report the number of
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: medals out, like they don't say like, oh, Simone Biles
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: got da da da dah. They'll say team USA got
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: blank metals for the entire competition. They report it out
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: by team and by country, like they put countries against
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: each other in competition.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Right exactly now.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Teams are small groups of people who support each other,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: so we are often driven to do things that will
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: satisfy the expectations of our teammates and support others in
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the same way. We cheer in satisfaction when one of
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: our team members does well. We cry together in disappointment
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: when we fail, how meaningfully we do. Our best in
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: our team is met with praise and acknowledgment from our team,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: even when we fail as individuals. And the social cooperation
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: and bonding pieces that are here and the stuff that
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: happens in that and a team specifically, specifically a team
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: environment is extremely relevant to understanding competition. Like we get together,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: we cheer each other on, we support each other when
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: we are competing against and this can go this can
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: get really dark. Right we get on a team and
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: we compete against another or like you know them, and
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: like you can see how competition can get into some
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: dark spaces and turn into oh, this is actually like
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: becoming a little bit like internalized, like where we it's
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: us versus them, and that can get into some dark places.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: We won't do that today too much, though.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, Well, arguably you could think like a
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: gang is kind of like a team, and it sort
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of has a similar element to it in that sense,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: like there's some support of one another, there's a sort
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: of social cohesion in that group, and that's kind of
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a they're also predicated oftentimes on violence and destruction and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: causing harm and things of that nature, and so that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: can be one of the dark spaces that one ends
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: up in. But yeah, the whole thing here is that,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: like there is a hugely important social dynamic aspect of
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: forming a tight group of people with a shared vision
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and a shared goal, a shared drive where they're supporting
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: each other and they're also encouraging each other and they
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: hold each other to the highest possible standards, and that
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: forms like, like that's really important. We're so social that
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: like those things are very meaningful to us when we
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: have these groups that we're like really striving together towards
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: some goal. Right as we all listen to this, we're
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: striving toward learning, and unfortunately we are sometimes bested by ads.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: All right, so we are we're sort of at this
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: final part here where we're trying to understand the big why.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Here you hear us talk about like social dynamics and
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: teams are really important. We talk about like in society
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: we sort of like foster a competitive spirit from birth
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: till death. I mean that there's a scarcity of resources.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: But then you might still ask, but why why why
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: does society set expectations for And then also reinforce competition.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Why would scarcity of resources lead to competition and not
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: something else, Like we could do a lottery system, or
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: maybe the strongest person gets the resource, or the people
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: who need it most get the resource. There's different ways
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: we could allocate this besides competing for it. Why would
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: teams foster a sense of competition just because we belong
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: in this group? Why would we compete? So we'll do
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: our best to talk through that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Right. So, without being able to give an exact answer,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: we're still working out as a species. We don't really
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: know and researchers are still investigating it. I think one
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: thing that we can do is rule out. We can
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: rule in and rule out some factors. First, we are
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: inclined to think that it is epi phenomenal, epi phenomenal. Yeah, phenomenal, yes, Abraham,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: what does that word mean?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do this as a vocap Yeah. Essentially, what
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: this means, broadly speaking, is that it's like it's like
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: a byproduct. It's a side effect of what we're talking about,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like in very late terms. That's not it precise definition,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: but that's how you could think of it here, is
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that it's like incidental to the fact that something else
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: is going on.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, sure, So what we're saying here is that
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: competition is a byproduct of language and evolution, not inherently
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: part of those systems. People argue that we have an
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: innate urge to compete, but I don't know that that's
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: the case. What feels like in innate urge? Maybe instead
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: that our language enables us to compare and rank things.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Our societies are entirely or nearly entirely language driven, and
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: our social bonds with people seem to work the strongest
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: and small groups. This is evidence in part by the
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: fact that no other species seems to compete like we do.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I certainly haven't seen wolves wearing gold metals
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: they unless some human has put it on it. I'm
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: just saying. Now, Sure, there are some purely social competition
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: examples and other species, but we would point out that
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: those species also seem to have relatively robust communication systems themselves. Also,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: our competitions are staggeringly more ubiquitous and include larger groups
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: of people than anything else in the entire animal kingdom.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: So what we're saying is, in some competitiveness is an
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: accident formed by the circumstances of our language and social world.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, And I mean like like people will point to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: orcas will gather on these large groups, and they'll dive,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: and they'll play, and they'll maybe even sort of compete
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: seemingly for some food resources. They'll share a lot of
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: food resources. But there's a lot of that, and I
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: would say like they also are doing something that looks
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: a lot like language. And so I feel like in
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the spaces where we have the behavior that is the
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: closest to language, it seems like competition is kind of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a byproduct of that. And I don't know that they're
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: doing anything quite as complex as we are, but also
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: their competitions aren't as complex as like an economy, So
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: it does seem to be elevated, if you will. It
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: seems to be more complex, more intense than humans. But
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: animals do it to some extent, not quite the way
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that humans do it. And where animals do it, it
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: seems like they also are doing some version of what
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: looks like language, even if it's not quite as complex
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: as our languages, They're still doing something which is which
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: is really neat right. Another thing about this too, I
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: think that you sort of brought this up, and it
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: didn't occur to me until you did. Is that competition
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: actually might teach social skills in a really important way,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and that we learn some of the things about what's
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: okay to do and not to do when we're in
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: competitive spaces, when we're working in a team or when
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: we're competing against others, because competition in a recreational sense,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and even with humans in almost every other sense, is
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: not meant to explicitly be harmful. It's just meant to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: meet some performance criteria that is better than your opponent
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: or opponents, right, And so I think that like there's
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: an aspect of this that is you you learn grace
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: through failure when you compete and you lose, and you
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: and you learn how to tolerate that loss. There's an
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: aspect of like playing your role where you aren't necessarily
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the star, but you play an important contributing role to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: the competition of the success of your team. There's just
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: responding to the needs of the group. So, like, I
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: think there is an element of competition that also has
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: this this value that humans have of just how we
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: interact with one another socially in a way that is
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: pro social and constructive, even when it's in these spaces
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: where we're like trying to win a trophy or trying
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to win a race or something like that.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. And the second thing that seems apparent when
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: it comes competition is that competition is fun. We seek
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: stimulating activities. It's a privilege afforded by generally having our
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: own our other survival needs met. So if we are
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: meeting all of our needs and we want to play games,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: this is a really great way to play games. Most
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: people don't need to escape predation, catch our food, fine
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: shelter every night, or or every time the weather is bad.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: We're pretty If we're pretty stable, then we're going to
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: compete more. Probably we have solutions for problems for survival.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: So what do we do. We seek other activities to
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: spend our time on. For many of us, it takes
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: the form of stimulation, where and we seek to perform
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: at or above some criterion. Again, competition requires some criterion
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: in which we have to compete against or try to achieve.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: It might be setting a personal best record for running
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: or reading books per year. It might be joining a
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: sports team, it might be a fantasy football league, or
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: it might be a poker night. We seek fun. One
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: of the most thrilling forms of fun comes from a
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: combination of luck and skill, and competition is exactly that,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: a combination of luck and skill. Usually more of the
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: latter than the former, Right, it's usually more skill than luck.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: You have to outskill somebody, not out luck somebody. But
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: competition does include luck, and I think that combination of
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: things makes it really fun and kind of unpredictable.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly, right. Yeah, the level of skill is like the
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: most important thing we're usually interested in, but there is
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: If it was always that, then, as you said, we'd
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: always know the outcome, right, So there is definitely going
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: to be some randomness thrown in there that looks like
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: luck or some version of that. But yeah, so I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: think that to me paints one of the clearest pictures
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: here is like I think that what we know about this,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: as a sort of just to wrap it all up,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: is that, like there is an element of scarcity of resources,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: whether or not those are manufactured or real. We as
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a species, in pretty much every culture in the world,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: seem to foster and create at least some instances of competition,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: if not making it endemic to pretty much everything we do,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: which is very much the United States, although incidentally, we
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: don't fight fair here. We just fight. Yeah. Yeah, fairness
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: out of the window. And there's the social aspect of teams.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: In addition, I think that this is largely a byproduct
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of language and the fact that we are very social creatures,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and the fact that competing is fun, it is stimulating,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it is engaging, It keeps us, It keeps us busy
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: and engaged and like doing something and doing something is fun,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: like it's better than doing nothing, and so we seek
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: out some version of it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, those my summary highlight of all the things.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you nailed it.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, great, So I think that is what we have
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to say about competition. Is there anything you would like
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to add before we move on to our next stuff.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I think we covered it. I think it's complex and
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: it's interesting, and it can lead us in dark places.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: But I think that overall, it's quite a fascinating thing
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: that we do, and.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: It's almost inescapable. It is a very significant part of
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: what we do, and I think that we've more or
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: less unpacked at least some reasons we definitely do it
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and some that might be reasons that we do it.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: But if you disagree with us, we would like to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: hear from you. If you would like to tell us
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: how much we got right, we'd like to hear that
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: even more. You can reach out to us in all
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: the ways. Primarily you can email us directly at infowwdwwdpodcast
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: dot com, or you can reach us on the social
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: media platforms. Now that meta has also moved to a
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: system of like facts don't matter anymore, we might be
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: bailing on them as well, but we're definitely over on
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky at the very least. So Yeah, maybe as
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the other social media companies fall, that will be where
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: we spend all of our time, but that's where we
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: currently We're currently in other platforms, Yeah, but the time being,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: But as knowledge takes a punch to the nose, we
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: might escape the places where the punches are flying the fastest.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Anyway, if you've made it this far, thank you so
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: much for being with us. I'm going to read some
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: credits really quick, and then after that, what we're going
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: to do is we're going to share some fun recommendations.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: They're unrelated to our topic and just a thing that
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: brought us joy that we're sharing with you as a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: thing you might check out yourself, or is just something
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: we think we would advise generally speaking. But before I
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: do that, as I said, I need to give credit
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: where credit is due, and one of those includes our
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: plug for ways to support us, which, as I mentioned
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: at the top of this, means you can go to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: our merch store. We sell all kinds of goodies over
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: there that have our logos. Some of them even say
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: witty things. You can pick some of those up. They
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: will be shipped directly to you, and then you will
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: have podcast merch And boy, what a wonderful nerd you
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: are if you chose to go that path isolate you
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: and I appreciate that choice and so will everyone else.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Or you can get as a gift for someone else,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: maybe a gag you're like, ha, you're wearing podcast merch.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: What a nerd. Either way, go to our store and
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: buy something and send it somewhere. If you don't want
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: to do that, you can join us on Patreon, and
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: when you do that you'll get access to behind the
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: scenes content, bonus content, early episodes, ad free episodes, all
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the good stuff. And in addition to that, you will
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: get recognition from me because every Wednesday when we record,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: when we publish one of these full length episodes, you'll
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: hear your name because you were one of the generous,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: lovely few who have made the choice to join us
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: over on Patreon and help us keep this going. And
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: that is Mike, m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Olivia,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Brian Ashley, and Kiera.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Yeah, you're the best, and thank you yes,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: so you have out competed everybody else, making you the
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: best of everyone.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Boom, wrapping it up, beautiful love love that tie up there,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I like, Boz. If you can't do that or you
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: don't want to again, you can always go leave us
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a rating, interview and just spreading word of mouth, like
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: like I've described before. I think that is most of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: the podcasts I listened to. Someone told me to check out,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and then I listened to them, and now I'm subscribed
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: to them and I listen to them every week. And
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: so you tell someone yeah, and here we are. So
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: if you tell someone, maybe that will be their journey
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: as well. Maybe not, but at least you tried, so
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: we appreciate it either way. I think that is it
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: except that Nope, that's not it, because I can't do
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: this podcast by myself. I need a team of people
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: to help me. They are the best. And that is
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: running in fact checking from Shane and myself. Sound engineering
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: in production is by Justin and our social media coordinator
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: is Emma Wilson. Now, Shane, before we recommend anything, do
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: you have anything else to add before we move on?
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: No, just a big thank you to everybody.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, let's recommend some stuff. Yeah, after this head.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Recommendations. So I'm gonna recommend a book because I like
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: books and I just finished this one. I got this
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: book through the Book of the Month Club, which is
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: a really cool program that like basically just ships you
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: a book that you choose every month. Like you get
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: access to these these really cool, interesting stories. You get
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: to choose the type of books you like, and they
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: give you like a selection of five and you get
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: a new book every month. It's it's pretty cool, and
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: you get it cheaper than you would buy at the store.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Like you get like you pay like a monthly fee
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: and you get it's like I think it's twenty bucks
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: and then so twenty bucks. You get like a brand
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: new hardcover with a dust jacket and all that. It's
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: really cool. So I had this couple of years ago.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: I got this book. I hadn't read it yet. It
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: was called The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I had.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Never read this author. I believe it's her debut novel,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: and it was. It's about a family, and this family,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: it's the family of Isaac Severy, who is this like
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: world renowned mathematician. Everybody wants his most current math, mathematical equations,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: all the stuff, and he passes away by a parent
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: suicide and ends up leaving this equation to his adopted granddaughter.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Is this fiction or nonfiction?
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: It's fiction. It's fiction.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, say so far this all could be nonfiction.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a thriller and so I won't spall too much.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: But it takes it takes place in the from the
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: viewpoint of the adopted granddaughter and the adopted grandson, who
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: are siblings and like biological siblings, and they are not
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: mathematically inclined, and so that's kind of like one of
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: the weird things is like, why would the grandfather leave
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: it to this daughter who has no idea what math is,
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: and then it also takes place in the eyes of
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: the son of Isaac Severi. It's really fascinating how all
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: of those are tied together and like basically this confluence
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: of variables to come in and create this really interesting,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: really fascinating kind of look at how people react to
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: death and personal relationships and how predictive or non predictive
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: that could be through chaos theory. So it's a really
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: great read. I could not put it down once I
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: started it.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: So it almost sounds like a combination of Da Vinci
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: code and like Sherlock Holmes is that kind of close a.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Little bit, but more modern and really more people centered
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: than mystery centered. Like the mystery is there, but it's
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: like really the interactions with the people and like relationships
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: that make it really interesting.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Oh cool, all right, Yeah, the Last Equation of Isaac
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Severy by author Nova Jacobs.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's it.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I am also recommending a book. This book has
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: just one word. It's called bonk and this is by
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Mary Roach. For those out there who have read Mary Roach,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: she is a pretty famous and prolific nonfiction author. She
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: takes whimsical deep dives into some topic and then writes
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: about the sort of history and science of that topic,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: with lots of examples and lots of sort of wit
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: and commentary included. And she seems to travel everywhere to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: do research for her books and then does these intermittent
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: but very large scale publications. And so the subtitle of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Bonk is The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, So
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: it is essentially a book about the history of sex,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: particularly as it pertains to research and science about sex.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I think it does just a really beautiful job of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: illustrating both why we need science of this and also
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: like being kind of funny and lighthearted and engaging and
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: telling good stories, and like she handles it very well.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: And I think there are people who could read this
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: where it'd be a little cringey. She's not that there
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: are people who would handle this who would be very
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: dry and boring. It's not that it is a very
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: nice balance of like science and humor and storytelling to
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: understand the sort of the science of sex and research
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: about sex.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, I've added to my list based
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: on your definite your description of it, so it's already
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: on my wishlist.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Awesome, and I mean sex as an intercourse, not sex
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: as in like biological gender assignment type things.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, all right.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: So that's what we have to say about about books.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Just go check those out, let us know what you think,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: or just go check them out, don't let us know
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: what you think. Either way, good for those authors.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look for that.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: But as I said, you can reach us on the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: social media platforms and I already went through all the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: credits and everything. All right, perfect, Well, then we'll wrap up.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: There is there anything that you would like to add
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: or anything that I forgot before we say our goodbyes? Nope,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: not today, Okay, catch us next Monday for a mini
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: but otherwise, this is Abraham.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: And this is Shane.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: So yah.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: day