Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Escape the Echo Chamber" with Stephanie Lepp

Transcript

"Escape the Echo Chamber" with Stephanie Lepp · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

0:00
G'day, humans! Welcome to Safe Space, for dangerous ideas.
0:06
I hope you're feeling okay. I hope you've got your head on straight.
0:09
I hope you're not just like a cat in front of a laser pointer,
0:12
constantly following the jingling, jangling keys
0:15
that the media are trying to throw at you, this election cycle.
0:18
Today we have a bomb for you.
0:20
We have an opportunity for you. We have a vision of what the future could look like,
0:24
what conversations could look like, what civilization could look like.
0:28
If we were all a little less hunkered down in our rival camps,
0:32
I know this is not exactly the moment at which everyone wants to hear
0:36
some big cumbaiar message of comedy when all you're trying to do
0:40
is stop the other side from gaining power and ruining the world.
0:44
But there's an insight to be had that Stephanie left today's guest
0:49
brings to us, which is worthwhile.
0:52
And the inside is this.
0:54
The alternative to the phony choice between any two strident positions
0:58
is not just some squishy compromise, some midpoint between two extremes.
1:04
There can actually be a genuinely new way of looking at every controversial issue
1:10
informed by the best of all sides.
1:14
And if instead of hunting for the worst in our opponent's positions,
1:18
we decided to harness the best, we would actually be able to create something new,
1:22
something new that maybe a quorum of people from the center could use
1:29
to construct something more beautiful politically.
1:32
That may sound extremely airy fairy and it is when I put it like that,
1:36
but Stephanie puts it into practice on of all places, X, Twitter,
1:39
perhaps the least conducive place to nuance.
1:42
And this is a fabulous conversation about her project,
1:45
which is called Faces of X.
1:47
She's a producer.
1:48
It's a short series of short videos.
1:52
And she should tell us about it so I won't preview it.
1:55
But we basically wrestle with partisanship and ideological capture
1:59
and both sidesism and how we might think more broadly in sort of free up perspectives,
2:03
this election cycle.
2:05
Remember, one election is only one election.
2:08
Go outside, touch the grass, hug your families.
2:12
Remember that at the end of the day, most of what you're seeing on your social media feeds
2:17
and on cable news is all a circus.
2:20
There are bigger things at stake.
2:22
And one of those bigger things is our ability to get along as human beings
2:25
as part of a collective civilization.
2:28
We're all in this together.
2:29
No one knows that more than the one.
2:31
You know what I mean? It's Stephanie Lynn.
2:33
Yeah, well for Americans, you have the right accent.
2:37
So it sounds like you know what I mean.
2:39
It's so much Stephanie, it's amazing.
2:42
Everyone, everyone eat a thing I'm brilliant
2:45
or they think that I think that I'm brilliant
2:48
because I have a fancy accent.
2:50
I mean, it's so sad that it really doesn't go both ways, right?
2:53
We do not sound smart.
2:54
Oh no, you're a bunch of idiots.
2:56
Just to get put on the straw.
2:59
Is there anyone we sound smart?
3:01
Is there any little country or culture in the world that's American?
3:05
Well, there are so many different American accents though.
3:08
That's true, that's true.
3:09
There are American accents that sound smart.
3:11
There's the very old school patrician Northeast New England accent.
3:17
Okay.
3:18
You know, the kind of accent where people speak kind of like that.
3:21
That sounds like a 1950s movie.
3:23
But people still speak that way in parts of New Hampshire.
3:26
Right, but the reason it sounds smart is because it sounds more British.
3:31
Not because it sounds more Irish.
3:34
Maybe, yeah.
3:36
And maybe like the kind of California tech bro way of speaking
3:42
has an affectation of smartness.
3:45
You know how California tech grows?
3:48
That's where I live, so I'll take it.
3:50
Okay, tell me if this resonates with you.
3:53
If you're a regular listener, you'll know I'm a bit of a science nerd.
3:56
So I'm kind of interested in biohacking and how we can optimize our focus and attention,
4:01
especially when our attention is being pulled in so many directions
4:04
and we've got so many distractions in our lives.
4:07
Yes.
4:08
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4:10
It's called magic mind.
4:12
Yeah.
4:13
And I've been using it every day.
4:14
And listen, I'm the type of person who takes psyllium husks every day.
4:19
I take linseed, which Americans call flax seed
4:22
and sunflower seeds and almond meal and all that.
4:25
But since taking magic mind, I must say I do feel focused
4:30
and mentally clear and motivated and productive
4:34
and a little bit less stressed.
4:37
It's not a coffee replacement.
4:39
It has l-thienine in it, which makes the caffeine last all day,
4:43
because caffeine doesn't actually give you energy.
4:45
It just sort of blocks your brain's ability to recognize that you're tired.
4:49
This doesn't do that.
4:50
It doesn't give you the caffeine crash that you get from just having coffee.
4:55
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4:59
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5:01
And it lifts your mood.
5:03
There's marcha in it, the highest possible grade marcha.
5:06
Great.
5:07
And one of the best newer tropics on the market.
5:09
You might have heard a lot about newer tropics and the impact on your brain.
5:12
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5:13
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5:14
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5:42
Sounds good.
5:43
Take this wherever you want.
5:44
But I'm interested in what made you start this.
5:46
But I'm also more interested in this whole question of,
5:49
because kind of both sides is a...
5:52
Yeah.
5:53
Our desire to...
5:54
Like the moment people hear about a mission that involves trying to get both sides
5:59
to understand each other, a familiar retort is,
6:04
well, then you just stand up with some sloppy mushy soup of both sides
6:09
as I'm where you're sitting in the middle of whatever two extremes happen to be,
6:13
you know, on the playing field at any given time.
6:15
Right.
6:16
Well, yeah, I...
6:19
I mean, I'm not coming...
6:21
I'm actually not really coming from the perspective of trying to get people to listen to each other so much.
6:26
Like, I know a lot of the bridging field does come from this kind of orientation around civility
6:32
and, you know, mutual respect.
6:36
And I think that's very important, of course.
6:39
And I'm actually coming from the perspective of like,
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do you or do you not want to deeply understand the issue you care so much about?
6:50
And if you do, it behooves you to take the insights no matter where they come from.
6:56
What if the other side has no insights?
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And sometimes that sometimes there is a side, let's say,
7:02
or a perspective that is not worth including, for sure.
7:07
But that can be true about...
7:09
That can be true about the country, you know.
7:14
I mean, the way that I kind of simplified is it's highly unlikely that one side is entirely right.
7:22
That's just tribalism.
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It's also unlikely that both sides are equally right.
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That would be both sidesism.
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It's most likely that most of us are partially right and some of us are more right than others,
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which doesn't make for a great tagline.
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The tagline might be uncomfortable conversations.
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So I do want to get to the two sides or multiple sides,
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how you synthesize them.
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But let's just pause for a moment on telling the difference between issues that are worth doing this exercise for or not.
7:58
Because when you say it's not possible that half the country can be wrong.
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Of course, it is in some cases possible that half the country is wrong.
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I mean, half the country, half of Germany like the Nazis in the 1930s,
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half of Americans are wrong about the sense of climate change.
8:14
Half of Americans are wrong about the 20 years old.
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Whether the election was stolen totally, totally.
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So what are you doing in those situations?
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I love it.
8:25
You went straight to the deepest question.
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I mean, it's like anything synthesis can be weaponized.
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If I want to convince you of something that is center left,
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then I make the center of the thesis, the left, the antithesis,
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and then presto.
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The synthesis is the center left thing that I'm trying to convince you.
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So yeah, we have to keep our wits about like,
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how do we prevent ourselves from synthesizing synthesis in order to convince ourselves
8:54
of something that we want to believe?
8:56
I mean, that's a...
8:59
We have just gone deep.
9:00
And I wonder whether we should take a three-minute detour
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for you to explain.
9:04
Give us Hagel 101 here, right?
9:08
I remember my philosophy, first year philosophy,
9:11
but not everyone knows about theses, antithesis, and synthesis.
9:15
Yeah.
9:16
So what's that all about?
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Well, I mean, should I explain what phases of X is
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or just start with Hagel 101?
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No, just start big and we'll go to good.
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Hagel 101, it's very simple.
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It's just the idea of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
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So thesis is some idea, antithesis is some opposing idea,
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and then the synthesis integrates the insights
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from both of the ideas and articulates a more comprehensive
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or a bigger picture idea.
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And...
9:47
Right, and then the...
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Any good synthesis becomes a new thesis, right, in our evolve.
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It's not like we end there.
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A good synthesis becomes a new thesis in our evolving
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understanding of reality.
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Yes, and...
9:59
Ideal.
10:00
And yeah, right.
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Well, and maybe just descriptively, even if it weren't ideally.
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Right.
10:06
I mean, the reason I invoke Hagel, and I'm not sure if you have,
10:09
I haven't seen you'd actually mention his name.
10:11
I don't mention his name, but he's in there.
10:13
Yeah.
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But the reason I invoke him is because this was his descriptor
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or basically just how history unfolds.
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Like it or not, that the way that human kind of thought evolves
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is someone comes up with an idea.
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Another person pushes back on the idea, you know,
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a third person kind of finds the best bits of both,
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and whatever that new conclusion is, becomes the new idea,
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which gets pushed back on, which gets synthesized.
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And we call it evolution for a reason, right?
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And how do we know we're evolving and not devolving?
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Well, did it include more perspectives?
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Did you have a more comprehensive understanding of the thing?
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Oh, that's interesting.
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Yes, right.
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Okay.
10:53
So you could think of a positive evolution of human thought
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as being defined as an expansion of kind of the number of perspectives
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and the separation of the great, a greater number of perspectives.
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Which is why...
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Which is why...
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Insular.
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Sorry, go ahead.
11:10
No, no, no, you go ahead, sorry.
11:11
Well, yeah, just let me ramble for a moment and try to tease this out.
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An insular, indigenous tribe in the hills of Papua New Guinea
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has a worldview and a set of beliefs that might function for them
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for tens of thousands of years.
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But are we saying that...
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Yeah, I guess where we can be sort of Western showvinistic enough to say
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that that worldview is less comprehensive than a worldview
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that incorporates the points of view of the tribe
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and also rocket science and also revolution by natural selection
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and also cosmology.
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I mean, I would say so.
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But that...
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Yeah, that is very much where I'm coming from.
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Which is why I also speak in terms not of changing our minds
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but of expanding our minds.
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Yes.
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Like, can we integrate more?
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And ultimately, what we're trying to grasp is infinite.
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There is a beautiful and paraphrasing Albert Einstein
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but he has this beautiful quote where he talks about how
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it is an optical delusion of consciousness to believe there are separate things.
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There is one whole we call universe and our task is to develop our capacity to perceive it.
12:34
You didn't paraphrase.
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I was just reading along from your Twitter.
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Well, that's that is that is actually paraphrased.
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Oh, is that paraphrasing?
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Yeah, he didn't actually.
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It's a longer, it's a longer quote.
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Oh, okay.
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But it is, you know, so...
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Well, you got the, you got the inaccurate quote, verbatim.
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I got the, yeah, yeah.
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I love it.
12:52
So congratulations.
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Thank you.
12:54
Thank you.
12:55
But that is, yeah, that is what we're, that's, yeah.
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So talk about the, before we get to faces of X,
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talk about the climate that we are, don't talk about.
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I had a one interview to do that.
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Talk about, tell me a story about this.
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Yeah.
13:08
So there's a climate that has been emerging since the development
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of social media.
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Yeah.
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And perhaps also partly contributed to by demographic change
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as people sort of self-sort into different parts of the country
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and different communities and whatever else you want to throw in there,
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where I think a lot of people have a visceral sense that it's getting
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more difficult to talk about issues and find common ground than it was
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when Walter Cronkite just sat in front of us for half an hour
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every evening and told us what to believe.
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What is that doing to our ability to have an idea, have an opposing idea,
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have a synthesis and move forward?
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Because some would say that it, that that wasn't necessarily in a healthy situation
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when we all got out news from, no, it's gone from, yeah, the gatekeepers
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to now like the tower of Babel.
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I do, I do, I do have faith, but yes, I've heard you describe
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social media as where nuance goes to die.
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It doesn't have to be that way and it's not.
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Yes, it does.
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But we'll get to that.
14:17
Well, the algorithms are largely stacked against us.
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And you may not know this about my, I was the executive producer
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at the Center for Humane Technology.
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You might be familiar with that organization from the social
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dilemma.
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So yes, I'm with you on the social dilemma and the algorithms
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are stacked against us because the dominant social media
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business model is designed to maximize engagement.
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean, if you're saying that the social media doesn't have to be the place
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where nuance goes to die, if only the algorithms were completely different
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and prioritized, a totally different set of metrics than social media's
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business model is predicated on, then I can agree.
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And that just wouldn't be social media in any meaningful,
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whether way that we currently use the word.
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But we can call it, we can call it elephant feet if you want.
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Like we can choose whatever mouth sounds we want to just
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pull back this new technology where we communicate without it being necessary
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for the company's bottom line.
15:14
Right.
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And now you're going upstream and you're going to have to go like
15:18
the upstream from social media upstream to the fiduciary duty.
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Now we're getting into phases of capitalism territory.
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But you can even go upstream of that.
15:27
But just to, yeah, I mean, I think I will say I think the success
15:33
of long form thoughtful podcast like yours is a hopeful testament
15:39
to the fact that people actually like there is a demand.
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There is a demand for content that helps people expand their hearts and minds.
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And yes, in order for that content to be properly amplified,
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we are going to need to change the business model and the political
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and economic context in which technology is funded, developed and used.
16:01
How would you do that?
16:03
Let's just pause on that.
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This is a long preamble before getting to phases of X.
16:07
But it's all interesting to me.
16:08
Like, can we just pause for a moment?
16:10
Sure.
16:11
Performing the business model of social media so that it doesn't divide us?
16:14
Sure.
16:15
I mean, if I can, if we've already talked about Hegel, so we're getting nerdy.
16:18
So I'm just like, I'm going to get nerdy again.
16:21
Yeah.
16:22
Okay.
16:23
There is a beautiful framework.
16:24
We're going to go through Proust.
16:25
We're going to go through Descartes.
16:27
So there is a view.
16:29
Her name was Denella Meadows.
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She was a brilliant systems theorist and she came up with a framework.
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It's the 12 leverage points for intervening in a system.
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12 leverage points for changing a system.
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And the leverage points that are lower down, it's like they're easier to push on,
16:48
but they make less change.
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It's like putting on a bandaid.
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It's like, okay, we stopped the bleeding, but it's not really like dealing with the root cause of this thing.
16:55
And then all the way up on the higher end is something like changing the goal of the system,
17:00
which is really hard to change.
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But if you change that goal, you change everything.
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So when you ask, like, how are we going to change?
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So it's like, we need to push leverage points all the way up and down the scale.
17:11
There's not.
17:12
So yeah, you can, you can like build a new tool that has like different metrics built into it.
17:18
And that's really cool.
17:19
But as long as you're operating within the context of the fiduciary duty to maximize short-term shareholder value,
17:25
you're still going to run into it.
17:26
So, you know, this is.
17:27
That's a bit pessimistic for me, Stephanie.
17:29
You're basically saying that we need to overhaul, you know, the financial,
17:33
the overhaul the economic system that we live in.
17:36
Isn't there a.
17:37
A simpler, I mean, so the.
17:40
If you want to stay just.
17:42
That's social media.
17:44
Yes, exactly.
17:47
How do we change the way that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg can make a fortune without deranging us?
17:53
Okay.
17:54
And yeah.
17:55
Well, I mean, that maybe I'll just stay a little lower in the leverage points and just speak directly to social metrics.
18:03
I mean, you brought it up.
18:04
I think it would be.
18:06
I mean, we could ask ourselves, like, what would.
18:10
What would.
18:11
What would be the metrics that would show us that Twitter was, you know, like a healthy,
18:18
like a healthy marketplace of ideas.
18:20
Like, what if it was like, instead of likes, it was likes by people who usually don't like the same thing?
18:27
What if it was like the emotional tone of your tweet?
18:32
What if it was like, you know, like new follows and unfollows between people who otherwise do not have any.
18:40
You know, interconnections in their social graph.
18:43
Like, you could totally come up with a series of metrics.
18:46
I like it.
18:47
Keep doing it.
18:48
We're coming up with it right now.
18:49
We're going to make a billion dollar step.
18:52
I mean, the whole business model thing is like a home.
18:55
It needs to be based obviously on something other than engage, which needs.
18:59
Which means that it needs to be based on something other than the ad model, which.
19:03
Some platforms are not based on or trying to like win themselves off.
19:08
So wait, you just dropped a quite a lot into that.
19:10
So you, you, you flew straight past.
19:12
It needs to be based on something other than engagement.
19:14
A lot of people who aren't social media won't necessarily understand how important that.
19:20
That button is right.
19:22
The way that social media companies get paid.
19:25
It's by maximizing the time that we spend on the website.
19:29
Right.
19:30
By maximizing our engagement, which means how much we share or like or comment on posts.
19:36
And what keeps us most engaged are the worst angels of our nature.
19:41
That's right.
19:42
So nuance and sophistication and like understanding and compassion.
19:47
We look at briefly go and scroll past.
19:51
But if there's something that completely owns and demolishes a side that we hate.
19:55
All reinforces preconceptions that we already have.
19:58
We pump our fist in the air.
20:00
We like it.
20:01
We comment.
20:02
We enter an argument about it.
20:03
We forward it on.
20:04
And all of that stuff.
20:05
The algorithm goes, oh, this is good content.
20:07
This is stuff that gets people connected.
20:09
You know, Mark Zuckerberg's original vision for the Facebook.
20:11
We're a connection machine.
20:13
We bring build human connection.
20:15
And it's obvious that it builds a kind of human connection.
20:19
But the idea that any and all connection between any and all human beings is by definition good.
20:26
Is belied by the fact that you could have a couple of terrorists talking to each other on a walkie-talkie.
20:33
And that wouldn't be good connection, but it would be human connection.
20:36
And it's hard to trust his like what he's saying about connection when you know the metrics that he's pursuing.
20:43
Like he's not the metrics.
20:46
He's, you know, checking himself on isn't like how many amazing French, you know, it's like, did we or did we not hit our quarterly targets?
20:54
So it's really hard to.
20:55
Wait, where was your brain going with how many amazing French?
20:57
Well, I want to know what that what's that metric.
20:59
I want something.
21:00
Which is a great.
21:01
How many amazing French maids are dancing in the nude?
21:05
How many amazing French croissant can I eat in a day?
21:09
I was going to say friendships that I love that you thought it was.
21:13
That's amazing.
21:14
No, definitely.
21:15
That is probably the most important metric.
21:18
How much French cheese can I buy cheaply at Costco?
21:23
Yeah, that's really what our civilization is going for.
21:27
Look, small wins, Stephanie, maybe start with French cheese and then cheese.
21:33
Start with naked French maids eating croissant and cheese.
21:37
That sounds like a civilization I want to live in.
21:40
Exactly.
21:41
Okay, so yes, so you would change the metrics and you would understand that, you know, when
21:47
when Russia's henchmen are intervening in an American election, that is a form of connection,
21:53
but it's not the form of connection that you would necessarily want just to pick a random
21:58
example.
21:59
So you might get rid of engagement as the metric.
22:02
You said you might reward things like new connections between people who otherwise don't
22:09
want to buy on other things.
22:10
Is there anything else in your grab bag that you can think of?
22:13
I mean, I feel like I should also just mention people who are doing amazing work on this,
22:18
because so new public, Eli Pereser, their team, it's called new public and they are actually researching
22:30
exactly this question.
22:32
And what are the metrics that would like indicate that a social media platform is actually benefiting
22:40
us.
22:41
And then, yeah, there's also a group called Zebra's Unite that really think for them everything
22:47
is downstream of the governance model.
22:49
So for them, it's like, yeah, which I don't disagree, but it's like how are these companies
22:56
like owned and managed and how are decisions made and it all kind of flows from there.
23:02
So what would it look like to have a cooperative, I mean, yeah, they are much better versed.
23:07
Okay.
23:08
Yeah.
23:09
Yeah.
23:10
Okay.
23:11
So let's name them.
23:12
Yeah.
23:13
Great.
23:14
Okay.
23:15
And if you want to leave that sort of economic question and get to the content of, you know,
23:20
let's talk about this.
23:22
So you come up with this idea out of this miasma of disagreement and false binaries, which is what?
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Which is explain what phases of X is.
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Uh-huh.
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Yeah.
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So it's really just, yeah, if you wanted to, let's say, help people in this miasma of ideas,
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help people transcend this kind of binary thinking, what would you do?
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You know, phases of X is just, is one answer to that question.
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It is a series of short videos that integrate different perspectives on culture war issues,
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like gender abortion and race, you know, keeping it light.
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And the format is very simple.
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I use the Hegelian triad that we just talked about.
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So thesis antithesis synthesis.
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It's the same person playing all three.
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So steel manning the thesis and the antithesis steel like really faithfully representing the different sides of the debate.
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And then synthesis walks in the door.
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Again, the same person wearing a different outfit and attempts to articulate an integrated perspective.
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I will say though that even though, you know, the, you know, its faces are gender faces of abortion,
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it's these issues.
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Ultimately, the series is not really about the individual issues.
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It's ultimately about cultivating our capacity to integrate different perspectives and, right, perceive the wholeness, the wholeness that Einstein so beautifully talked about.
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Let's, let's have a listen to one of them just from the gender episode, right?
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So this is Buck Angel.
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