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How Mimetic Are You? · Armstrong & Getty One More Thing

0:00
Speaker 1: How mimdic are you? It's one more thing.
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Speaker 2: I'm what was that word, mimedicmdic, mimedic, mimedic, mimetic with
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Speaker 2: an eye medic.
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Speaker 3: I'm very frustrated with myself because, uh, you know that quote.
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Speaker 3: I'm always thrown around about how I'm still looking.
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Speaker 1: For it as I speak at Do you think you're
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Speaker 1: better than me? Yeah?
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Speaker 4: That quote guys, You guys are children.
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Speaker 1: No, that's your quote.
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Speaker 3: So, uh, the quote had to do with how women
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Speaker 3: in large part and low testosterone males filter information, not
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Speaker 3: through Is this true?
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Speaker 1: But more?
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Speaker 3: Is agreeing with this going to make me safer? In
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Speaker 3: other words, people who can't defend themselves physically need more
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Speaker 3: consensus because they need more tesperately to be part of
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Speaker 3: a group to protect themselves physically.
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Speaker 1: It's an adaptive mechanism.
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Speaker 3: So that is one of the reasons why young women
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Speaker 3: in particular m M it's such a priority for them to
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Speaker 3: form alliances and to be seen as part of the group.
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Speaker 3: And you see that in peer pressure, you see that
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Speaker 3: in universities, screaming and screeching slogans that don't make any
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Speaker 3: sense whatsoever, but it's and I can't remember the specific
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Speaker 3: term for it. But again, it's not like rugged individual
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Speaker 3: appraisal of truth. It's like if I go along with this,
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Speaker 3: will that make my life better?
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Speaker 1: Anyway?
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Speaker 5: Okay, you're talking about like generally, Like if I'm in
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Speaker 5: a like standing around with a group of people, somebody
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Speaker 5: could say something completely stupid, whack job. I know is
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Speaker 5: not true. I hate politically, but I'm not gonna say anything.
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Speaker 5: I don't think it's because I got low t I
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Speaker 5: just don't want to argue with them in that setting.
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Speaker 5: But it doesn't change my beliefs an me. You mean
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Speaker 5: like you actually like.
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Speaker 3: Go along with it, Yes, or at least you pretend to,
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Speaker 3: much more actively than you're talking about. And if you're
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Speaker 3: younger and more impressionable, And this is what we're going
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Speaker 3: to get into with mimetic thinking, it tends to kind
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Speaker 3: of seep into you and it becomes what you believe.
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Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting on this topic. I was
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Speaker 3: reading Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal. He's talking
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Speaker 3: about the whole Jake Tapper book and Joe Biden's senility
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Speaker 3: and all that stuff, and he mentions all through this
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Speaker 3: period The Times New York Times, Thomas Edsull wrote countless
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Speaker 3: three thousand word pieces citing academics on mister Trump's incipient Hitlerism.
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Speaker 3: His constant subject was voter attitudes. Yet not once did
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Speaker 3: the ancient and esteemed mister Edsull acknowledge that the three
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Speaker 3: year long Russia fraud even happened or had any role
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Speaker 3: in causing one hundred and fifty two million Americans in
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Speaker 3: twenty twenty and twenty twenty four to repudiate the Establishment
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Speaker 3: in favor of mister Trump and know this isn't strange.
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Speaker 1: Are intensely social animals.
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Speaker 3: Our psychology and behaviors are rooted in evolved obsession with status,
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Speaker 3: i e.
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Speaker 1: Are standing with others.
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Speaker 3: According to a Population Reference Bureau, one hundred and seventeen
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Speaker 3: billion humans have existed since our species emerged two hundred
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Speaker 3: thousand years ago. How many of these humans ever used
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Speaker 3: their brains for any purpose other than servicing their need
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Speaker 3: to be in accord with those around them. Yet, had
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Speaker 3: journalists been honest in the expected journalistic way acknowledging what
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Speaker 3: was in front of their faces, the past ten years
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Speaker 3: would have been completely different. So anyway, he's talking about
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Speaker 3: the fact that we just we want to be esteemed.
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Speaker 1: By our peers.
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Speaker 3: We want to be raised up in the tribe, and
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Speaker 3: so we go along to get along, as they say.
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Speaker 3: And one of our brilliant observant listeners sent along this
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Speaker 3: essay by a fellow by the name of Luke Burgess.
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Speaker 1: What is mimetic desire?
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Speaker 3: And he says, nearly everyone unconsciously assume there's a straight
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Speaker 3: line between them and the things they want. I wake
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Speaker 3: up one day and suddenly realize that I want to
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Speaker 3: run a marathon. Amazingly, all my friends had a similar
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Speaker 3: realization when they hit their mid thirties. Two or I
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Speaker 3: get the brilliant idea that substack is objectively the best
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Speaker 3: publishing platform for my long form essay writing based on
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Speaker 3: all the data, right around the time that everyone else
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Speaker 3: in their mother seems to be arriving at the same conclusion.
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Speaker 3: And he says, I decided to get a dog during
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Speaker 3: COVID because well, I've been wanting a dog for a
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Speaker 3: long time, and now seems like as good a time
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Speaker 3: as ever. Never mind that I'm the only one in
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Speaker 3: my friend group who hasn't. And these guys share pictures
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Speaker 3: of their puppies on Instagram along with the rest of
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Speaker 3: the world.
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Speaker 1: On a nearly daily basis.
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Speaker 3: In each of these cases, I've convinced myself that my
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Speaker 3: desire is independent and autonomous. I want to pursue things
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Speaker 3: just because it makes sense, or it's the right thing
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Speaker 3: to do, or it's what I authentically want or need
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Speaker 3: to be happy.
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Speaker 5: I decide that I want to wear this color shirt
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Speaker 5: has nothing to do with the fact that it has
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Speaker 5: become popular, Right, Yeah, I just like the color. This
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Speaker 5: all happens beneath my conscious awareness. Very few people question
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Speaker 5: why they want the things they want at all. This
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Speaker 5: assumption that my desires are all my own, this story
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Speaker 5: that I tell myself is what the French social scientist
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Speaker 5: Drenage Gerard called the romantic lie. The lie is that
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Speaker 5: I want things independently, or that I choose all of
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Speaker 5: the objects of my desire out of some kind of
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Speaker 5: some kind of secret desire chamber in my heart, that
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Speaker 5: I know a good thing when when I see it,
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Speaker 5: that I know what's desirable and what's not unaided.
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Speaker 1: Then he goes into the.
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Speaker 3: Example of Julius Caesar. He was an excellent romantic liar.
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Speaker 3: So this is this is a distraction. Well, No, the
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Speaker 3: Julius Caesar examples specifically.
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Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, is somebody suggesting that this is bad though,
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Speaker 5: that we should fight against this, or is this okay?
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Speaker 5: This is just playing out this part of human nature.
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Speaker 3: I think what they're pointing out is you'd be better
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Speaker 3: off if you better understood what's going on in your
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Speaker 3: own head.
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Speaker 5: Oh that's scary, because I don't know if I want
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Speaker 5: to wear unpopular clothes, get dogs at the wrong time,
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Speaker 5: you know, have a haircut that nobody else likes.
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Speaker 1: Or whatever. Just start reading some stack. Yeah, right, having
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Speaker 1: iguana instead of a dog. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: The truth between us and the things we want is
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Speaker 3: never straight. It's always curved. It goes through or around models.
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Speaker 3: Here's one called mediated desire. Models are people, groups are
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Speaker 3: things that help us know what we want. And then
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Speaker 3: he quotes Hermi and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which
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Speaker 3: is one of Shakespeare's more entertaining places. Oh, hell, to
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Speaker 3: choose love by another's eyes, the plot being that this
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Speaker 3: one guy decided everybody was hot for this check, so
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Speaker 3: he was too. That's that is a horrible summary.
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Speaker 1: Please don't write an angry email. I just want to
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Speaker 1: keep moving.
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Speaker 6: That does happen?
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Speaker 5: I remember that from high school, which I didn't realize
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Speaker 5: at the time that was a weird thing that happened
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Speaker 5: a few times, a couple of times, and the rehearse also,
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Speaker 5: and then with a distance of hindsight, it was like,
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Speaker 5: how did she be him become I mean, not to
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Speaker 5: sound crueler, but she wasn't that great? I mean, why
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Speaker 5: was everybody thinking she was the person and then that
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Speaker 5: other person super attractive?
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Speaker 3: Why was nobody interested in her? And sweet and kind
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Speaker 3: and the rest of it. But yeah, you kind of
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Speaker 3: didn't notice till your buddy was hot for her. Anyway,
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Speaker 3: he says. It's hell to know we've chosen anything by
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Speaker 3: another's eyes, but we do it all the time. We
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Speaker 3: choose brands, schools, and dishes at a restaurant by them.
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Speaker 3: Humans have a built in instinctual radar for most of
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Speaker 3: our basic needs, like animals do for trapped outside in
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Speaker 3: the cold, freezing, Nobody needs to tell us to seek warmth,
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Speaker 3: basic survival sustenance.
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Speaker 6: Not true.
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Speaker 5: Animals need radio weather people and TV radio.
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Speaker 3: Stay in the shade today it's hot, yeah, exactly. Basic
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Speaker 3: survival sustenance, sex, warmth. These are all instinctual needs for
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Speaker 3: which we have biological mechanisms to guide us. If I'm
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Speaker 3: starving and see a juicy steak and a piece of
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Speaker 3: wood in front of me, I don't need much help
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Speaker 3: to determine which one I should eat. My body tells
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Speaker 3: me what to choose. But these things are not desires
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Speaker 3: per se. It's more important appropriate to call them needs.
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Speaker 3: A desire, on the other hand, is an object that
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Speaker 3: we pursue for which there's no purely instinctual basis.
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Speaker 5: I don't want to think about this too much so
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Speaker 5: because then you start getting into so I'm not.
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Speaker 6: The unique human being I think I am.
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Speaker 5: I bought this car, these shoes, watching this show, live
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Speaker 5: in this all because of some sort of wanting to
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Speaker 5: fit in fit in.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't want to think about that.
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Speaker 3: Maybe it's the benefit of the fact that this is
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Speaker 3: the second time I've approached this, because I've gotten past.
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Speaker 1: Your animal like reaction to this wisdom.
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Speaker 3: Oh, by the way, if you'd like to sign up
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Speaker 3: for my how to be Condescending workshops, we've got openings
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Speaker 3: next Tuesday. No, so, I've had a chance of noutilists
8:49
Speaker 3: through a little bit, and this is a very long essay.
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Speaker 1: I don't think it's Paywaald.
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Speaker 3: We'll we'll post it under May twenty seconds hot links
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Speaker 3: at Armstrong and getty dot com. I'll getty you guys
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Speaker 3: in a few minutes. But in digesting this, and I
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Speaker 3: tell you what, do I read one more part? No,
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Speaker 3: I'll just get to the punchline.
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Speaker 5: Maybe if you hadn't skipped the Caesar part, I would
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Speaker 5: understand it.
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Speaker 3: It's the I came, I saw I conquered thing. But
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Speaker 3: he was just he was deluding himself anyway. I think
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Speaker 3: what it boils down to is we're made over. You know,
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Speaker 3: even before Homo sapiens were in control, we had you know, predecessors,
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Speaker 3: so we've been around for long term time. As an animal,
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Speaker 3: we're made to say, huh, they may have a point,
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Speaker 3: or wait a minute, we're all a tribe here and
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Speaker 3: and my friends who protect me and love me or whatever,
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Speaker 3: and we eat together, and they think this thing. I
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Speaker 3: need to take it seriously or I think that's a
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Speaker 3: flaw or demeaning at all.
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Speaker 1: Really we're insulting a lot of what is.
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Speaker 6: Evolutionary is pretty easily explained.
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Speaker 5: It just I don't like to think about it because
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Speaker 5: I would like to think I'm more you know, not
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Speaker 5: just doing that, but yeah, it makes sense. You look
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Speaker 5: at that family over there, they're surviving. I should probably
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Speaker 5: pay attention to what they're doing because they're surviving.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: It gets interesting when it extends to things that are
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Speaker 3: completely abstract, like what color pants or how high your
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Speaker 3: genes should rise. Of course, some of that's just social acceptance.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it all fits together.
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Speaker 1: Or oh, sure, is the wood in the house dark now?
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Speaker 5: I thought it was light. No, it's back to dark now. Okay,
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Speaker 5: so it's going to become light again in like fifteen years, yes.
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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and then he gets into the concept of desire.
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Speaker 3: Desire always needs something to latch onto. It can't stay
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Speaker 3: free floating. In this sense, it operates like a bicuspid
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Speaker 3: that has to be attached to a substrate, a rock, or.
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Speaker 1: Some other surface that's like a clam or a muscle
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Speaker 1: or whatever.
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Speaker 3: As soon as it becomes detached from one thing and
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Speaker 3: immediately attaches itself to something else, another model, there is
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Speaker 3: no end to desire because there are always more models.
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Speaker 3: The overnight bitcoin millionaire doesn't start wanting less or even
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Speaker 3: simpler things. He starts taking an interest in rare fish aquariums,
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Speaker 3: Nordic cooking, and traveling to obscure places he reads about
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Speaker 3: in his Monocle magazines.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what that is.
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Speaker 6: Desire.
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Speaker 3: According to Renege, your art is always for something we
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Speaker 3: think we lack, or else it wouldn't be desired at all.
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Speaker 3: Desire is not object oriented, as we commonly assume. Desire
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Speaker 3: needs to find fulfillment in never finds fulfillment in any
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Speaker 3: particular thing.
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Speaker 1: It just goes from one thing to another, to another
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Speaker 1: to another.
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Speaker 5: That has certainly been my experience in something I've talked
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Speaker 5: to my specifically my youngest son about always always wanting
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Speaker 5: something that is gonna make.
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Speaker 6: Him happy, and obviously it never works.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I was visiting my parents' church years and years and
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Speaker 3: years ago, and I wish I had gotten or kept
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Speaker 3: a written copy of the sermon. They ended up leaving
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Speaker 3: the church because the guy was the minister was a
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Speaker 3: bit of an egotistic dick, or at least so they said,
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Speaker 3: and my parents would never be harsh about that sort
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Speaker 3: of thing unless it was true. But the guy was
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Speaker 3: a hell of a good speaker, and his sermon was
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Speaker 3: about lust and not sexual lust, although he touched on
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Speaker 3: that but he was talking about how exactly what this
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Speaker 3: is about, how your desire will move from one thing
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Speaker 3: to another to another if you let it run wild
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Speaker 3: and you're not aware of what it's doing. It's like,
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Speaker 3: I've become acutely aware that I like to look at
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Speaker 3: real estate porn, as I've called it through the years.
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Speaker 3: I just I'm really interested in real estate in general
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Speaker 3: as a market, but I will look at like, really
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Speaker 3: nice houses for sale four weeks after I've bought a house,
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Speaker 3: and I've realized it's a lust, like it gives me
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Speaker 3: a shot of endorphins, and how it would be cool
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Speaker 3: to own that house or to live there or whatever.
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Speaker 3: And now I've intellectualized it because I try to be
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Speaker 3: aware of this stuff. Am I emotionally attracted to this?
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Speaker 3: Why do I want that? Why am I going along
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Speaker 3: with that? And I've realized the minute you buy that house,
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Speaker 3: you'll be doing this again, hawk to trot for another one.
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Speaker 3: It's a desire that always wants to latch onto something new.
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Speaker 4: I laughed in agreement, because I was thinking about that.
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Speaker 4: I go on Zillow and Redfinn and all of those
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Speaker 4: real estate websites all the time. Just look yeah, And
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Speaker 4: I'm not on the market. I just moved, you know,
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Speaker 4: I'm I and I love my home. But I have
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Speaker 4: so much fun looking at these homes and going, oh
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Speaker 4: my god, if I could, if you know, if I
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Speaker 4: could live there, that would be pretty and cool. But
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Speaker 4: you're right, if I moved there, I would still be
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Speaker 4: doing this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And so the point of the sermon was that recognize
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Speaker 3: lust in all of its forms. You know, you move
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Speaker 3: from for dudes, woman to woman to woman straight dudes.
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Speaker 1: Do you have to say that these days?
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Speaker 3: I guess anyway, because he keeps lusting for something new
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Speaker 3: and different, and you're never gonna satisfy it.
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Speaker 1: You're just gonna keep doing it.
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Speaker 3: And you ought to be aware of that and be
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Speaker 3: more disciplined as a Christian or you know, just whatever
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Speaker 3: sort of person you want to be.
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Speaker 1: Giggley giggity giggity giggity. All right, do you want to
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Speaker 1: hear the Caesar stuff? No, I don't good. I don't
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Speaker 1: want to tell you. I think we rolled enough tape.
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Speaker 1: I feel like that was asking if we wanted homework.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's funny, you.
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Speaker 5: Know, Joe.
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Speaker 1: I also lest for real estate.
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Speaker 3: I find myself I was squat in one house, and
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Speaker 3: then I get to see the other house and I
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Speaker 3: go squat over there. I think, why am I squatting
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Speaker 3: in this stump? I'd be happy if I was squatting
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Speaker 3: over there.
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Speaker 5: When you get there, you squat, and what happens, Well,
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Speaker 5: I guess that's it.
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Speaker 6: That's a good ending. Michael, You're a treasure.