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Understanding Bias, Belonging & the Future of AI · Speaking of Meaning

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Welcome back,
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everybody,
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to Speaking of Meaning,
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Better Communication,
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Greater Impact.
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SPEAKER_03: Today, I'm joined by Howard J. Ross and Jake Ross.
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SPEAKER_03: This is a special moment for me because Howard J.
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SPEAKER_03: Ross is one of the world's leading experts when it comes to bias,
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SPEAKER_03: diversity and inclusion.
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SPEAKER_03: He doesn't know this,
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SPEAKER_03: but he is the reason why I started working in the field of diversity,
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SPEAKER_03: trust and bias.
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SPEAKER_03: And Howard has written several books.
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SPEAKER_03: One of my favorite is Everyday Bias,
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SPEAKER_03: identifying and navigating unconscious judgments in our lives.
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SPEAKER_03: And it is the best seller, according to Washington Post.
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SPEAKER_03: His work has again inspired me.
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And in almost every workshop,
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every training,
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every speech,
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I include his work.
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I'm also joined by Jake Ross and Jake has a master's in applied
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psychology,
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SPEAKER_03: and he focuses on belonging in the workplace.
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SPEAKER_03: And he is also the CEO and founder, belong together.
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SPEAKER_03: And he's also the chief operating officer of an AI startup.
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SPEAKER_03: Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
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SPEAKER_02: Ibrahim, thank you so much.
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SPEAKER_02: What a lovely, lovely introduction.
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SPEAKER_02: I think my father would have loved it.
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SPEAKER_02: My mother would have even believed some of it.
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SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate that.
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SPEAKER_02: Really,
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SPEAKER_02: I tell you,
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SPEAKER_02: at this stage of my life,
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it does mean something to know that the work is out there and
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people like you are
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SPEAKER_02: using it.
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SPEAKER_02: So really, I deeply, deeply appreciate that.
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SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
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SPEAKER_03: It's an honor to have you here, Howard.
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SPEAKER_03: I have a lot of questions for you, by the way, just so you know.
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SPEAKER_03: Good.
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SPEAKER_03: Jake, welcome to the show.
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SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Ibrahim.
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SPEAKER_01: It's really a pleasure to be here with you.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to be here with Howard,
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SPEAKER_01: my father,
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who I will say his work in bias and particularly his leaning
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towards belonging in
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SPEAKER_01: the study of group dynamics has also inspired me to be here,
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SPEAKER_01: although it's kind of a more of a direct line.
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SPEAKER_01: So I guess I had a cheat code.
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SPEAKER_03: Good to have you, Jake.
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SPEAKER_03: All right, guys.
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SPEAKER_03: So I'm going to start with Howard.
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SPEAKER_03: Howard, you have decades of experience in this field.
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SPEAKER_03: And if you could tell me of all the experience you have,
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what have you learned or uncovered about bias as it relates to
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communication and
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SPEAKER_03: decision-making?
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It's really funny,
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Ibrahim,
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because when I got into this field,
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I really stumbled into it.
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I kept looking around and noticing the way people were behaving
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in ways that seemed
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SPEAKER_02: so irrational.
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It was a little bit like picking up a rock when you were a kid
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and seeing all the
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SPEAKER_02: bugs underneath,
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SPEAKER_02: and all of a sudden there was a whole world to explore there.
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SPEAKER_02: I think it's by my nature,
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SPEAKER_02: I'm a bit ADD,
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SPEAKER_02: so by my nature,
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SPEAKER_02: if you put me one place,
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SPEAKER_02: I'm like,
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SPEAKER_02: what about that,
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SPEAKER_02: that,
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SPEAKER_02: and that?
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SPEAKER_02: And so here we are.
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I think there was one moment that I think captures it more than
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anything else.
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SPEAKER_02: When I was doing the research for the book,
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SPEAKER_02: this was probably back in 2012,
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SPEAKER_02: 2013,
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SPEAKER_02: or everyday bias I'm talking about now.
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I was sitting at a writing desk upstairs in my house and where
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I was working a lot.
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SPEAKER_02: And one day I was just,
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SPEAKER_02: my wife came in and I was just sitting here staring and she said,
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SPEAKER_02: are you okay?
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SPEAKER_02: And I said, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: I said, I just read about the hundredth study about bias.
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SPEAKER_02: And I realized now that I have no idea what I think.
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and i think that that that was sort of the crystal of it which
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is the way i say it
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is that people are not rational we're rationalizing and when we
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really begin to
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understand that when we really begin to understand how much of
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our thinking how
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much of our communication how much of a reaction is just that
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it's reaction
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stimulus spot the response you know somebody presses that
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button on the on the
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SPEAKER_02: jukebox and that song in our head begins to play and at first that feels
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almost like hopeless like well what chance do we have if we're
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that irrational was
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the first way it occurred to me but then at some point i began
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to realize that if
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we really embrace that if we really understand that and accept
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that that's there
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and begin to turn the inquiry inside as much as outside to ask
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ourselves where is
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that thought that feeling that reaction coming from that that
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can be liberating
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SPEAKER_02: beyond anything we've ever experienced hmm hmm
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SPEAKER_03: And I know you wrote in the book, Everyday Bias, we are not rational.
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SPEAKER_03: Just like you mentioned, we are rationalizing.
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SPEAKER_03: Yes.
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SPEAKER_03: And it is my favorite quote.
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And this is exactly the one I use when I give presentations and
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trainings in bias and trust.
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Because I think we,
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just like you've said before,
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I think we all believe we are rational and
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SPEAKER_03: We make rational decisions,
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and most of the decisions we make are probably influenced by
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our unconscious bias.
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SPEAKER_02: Well, there's no probably about it.
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SPEAKER_02: They are.
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SPEAKER_02: We know this for sure.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: this whole way,
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SPEAKER_02: particularly in Western civilization,
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SPEAKER_02: the whole way we do this goes way back.
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SPEAKER_02: It goes back to Plato 2,500 years ago, who wrote in...
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SPEAKER_02: In Phaedra's dialogues,
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he talked about how emotion were the horses and rationality was
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the charioteer who
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SPEAKER_02: kept the emotions in play.
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And so for 2,500 years in our culture,
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we've worshipped at the altar of rationality.
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SPEAKER_02: Are you sure you're being rational about it?
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SPEAKER_02: Are you sure you're not being too emotional about that?
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SPEAKER_02: The problem is that when we really look at the way the brain works,
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SPEAKER_02: what we realize is that emotion drives almost all of our decisions.
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SPEAKER_02: And in a lot of cases,
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our emotional reaction to the things we're dealing with occur
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before we're even
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SPEAKER_02: aware of them,
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SPEAKER_02: before we even have any sense of consciousness about them.
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So we're already in the path of reaction before we even are
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realizing what's going on.
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So it requires us to look at ourselves and to look at others in
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a different way.
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SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
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SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
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This reminds me of Daniel Kahneman's,
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I don't remember exactly the title.
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SPEAKER_02: Thinking Fast and Slow.
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SPEAKER_03: Thinking Fast and Slow.
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I think he mentioned something about the fact that we make
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decisions based on
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SPEAKER_03: emotions and we justify with logic.
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SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
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SPEAKER_02: Exactly right.
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SPEAKER_02: Jake, anything you want to add to that?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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it actually also brings to mind the work of Dan Ariely in
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Predictably Irrational,
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which sort of takes that behavioral economics standpoint to
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another level of
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SPEAKER_01: looking at how can we reliably count on people to be
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SPEAKER_01: unreliably rational, as it were, or reliably irrational, I should say.
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And looking at this way that we can see how these biases
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survive because they're
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SPEAKER_01: not being looked at,
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but it's built into the way that we engage with the world
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because we have to
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SPEAKER_01: respond,
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SPEAKER_01: we have to react,
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SPEAKER_01: we have to
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SPEAKER_01: Act before thinking,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: as Howard has often said,
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SPEAKER_01: if a car is coming towards us,
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SPEAKER_01: we don't think,
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SPEAKER_01: oh,
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SPEAKER_01: it's coming.
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SPEAKER_01: What should I do?
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We jump out of the way and then all of a sudden are struck with
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this experience of,
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SPEAKER_01: oh,
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SPEAKER_01: wow,
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SPEAKER_01: a car almost just hit me.
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SPEAKER_01: When,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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we have these biases baked into our worldview because they keep
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us alive and our
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brain simply can't process the kind of information that would
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have us stay on top
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SPEAKER_01: of every individual element of the world around us.
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The problem is that the biases in our worldview get baked very
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deeply into our
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SPEAKER_01: systems for interacting with the world,
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which is how we come to biases influencing every individual
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relationship and
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SPEAKER_01: interaction in our day-to-day lives.
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SPEAKER_03: And this is all at an unconscious level.
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SPEAKER_03: So we're not aware
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SPEAKER_03: of what is happening.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: not only are we not aware,
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but we're very fortunate in a way that we react before we
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become aware because if
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SPEAKER_02: we were waiting for our awareness to kick in,
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SPEAKER_02: it might be too late.
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SPEAKER_02: Look, Kahneman gives a great example.
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SPEAKER_02: He talks about you're driving in a car,
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SPEAKER_02: the car in front of you hits its brakes and the taillights come on.
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SPEAKER_02: If you were to go to your rational mind, what am I supposed to do now?
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SPEAKER_02: Okay, you'd end up in the backseat of that car, right?
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SPEAKER_02: But what happens is for most people,
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your foot hits the brake pedal before you've even had a chance
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to think because
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SPEAKER_02: over a period of time of driving,
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SPEAKER_02: this is why,
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SPEAKER_02: by the way,
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SPEAKER_02: it's so important that...
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young people who are learning to drive for that first six
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months or a year,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: drive particularly safely until they can build up that muscle memory.
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SPEAKER_02: But for most of us who've been driving for a while,
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SPEAKER_02: the red tail lights go on,
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SPEAKER_02: the foot hits the brake,
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and then we have a reaction response to what's going on after
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we've already saved
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SPEAKER_02: our lives,
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SPEAKER_02: potentially.
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SPEAKER_02: So it's important for us to understand,
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SPEAKER_02: like Jake said,
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SPEAKER_02: that this is survival that's driving this.
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SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
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SPEAKER_01: I'd just like to add one other piece,
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which is that that sort of perfectly depicts what underlies all
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of this work,
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SPEAKER_01: which is that these biases,
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SPEAKER_01: these experiences,
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SPEAKER_01: they're practiced.
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And they are learned and reinforced over a long period of time,
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which means two things.
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SPEAKER_01: One,
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it means that we are absolutely a product of our environment
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and that we can...
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SPEAKER_01: There's a great...
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SPEAKER_01: There's a great line in a song from a musical artist called Magic Giant.
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SPEAKER_01: It says, you want to change the world, but how's your hometown?
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And this sense that we can broaden our worldview outside of the
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understandings that
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SPEAKER_01: are baked into us as children is sometimes...
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SPEAKER_01: It's the reason why people...
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SPEAKER_01: Act one way as, you know, protest or politic and act another at home.
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But the other thing and the really important piece to look at
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and the reason why
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SPEAKER_01: this work still matters,
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even though the world has its own evolving challenges with this
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kind of language,
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SPEAKER_01: is that things that can be learned can be unlearned.
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SPEAKER_01: and can have attention brought to them.
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SPEAKER_01: As Carl Jung said,
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SPEAKER_01: until the unconscious becomes conscious,
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SPEAKER_01: it will rule our lives and we'll call it fate.
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SPEAKER_01: And there's an opportunity there to bring to the present.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've learned that.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's old behavior.
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SPEAKER_01: Or as I'm sure the listeners can all relate to as a favorite.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's my mother.
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SPEAKER_03: It sounds like self-awareness.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: look,
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I think if we think about almost any mental health practice
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that anybody's ever
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SPEAKER_02: taken on,
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SPEAKER_02: whether it's therapy or transformational programs or,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: stuff that's built around spirituality,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: I can't think of any self...
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self-development program that doesn't include some element of
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turning that
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SPEAKER_02: flashlight on yourself,
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SPEAKER_02: as a good friend and teacher of ours,
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SPEAKER_02: Michael Schieser,
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SPEAKER_02: likes to say.
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SPEAKER_02: We live life with a flashlight pointing outside.
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SPEAKER_02: We live life looking at that, looking at that.
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SPEAKER_02: Why do they do that?
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SPEAKER_02: Why do they do that?
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SPEAKER_02: I hate when they do that.
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SPEAKER_02: But what we don't do is say, why does that trigger me?
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SPEAKER_02: Why am I getting so reactive to a simple comment that somebody made?
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Or why am I,
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you know,
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so challenged by or so frightened by or so upset by?
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SPEAKER_02: Or why do I tend to diminish what that person says?
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SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't ask ourselves those questions.
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SPEAKER_02: And often when we do, you know, the light bulb can pop on.
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SPEAKER_02: I never forget one day my wife and I,
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SPEAKER_02: Jake's mom and I were in the kitchen and she asked me,
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SPEAKER_02: can you take out the trash?
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You know,
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I have,
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just to be clear,
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I have no problem taking out the trash.
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SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm a big boy.
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SPEAKER_02: I do that all the time.
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SPEAKER_02: But for some reason, at that moment, I noticed I got ticked off at her.
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And I just stopped for a second because there's no reason to be
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ticked off at her
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SPEAKER_02: and say,
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SPEAKER_02: hey,
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SPEAKER_02: honey,
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SPEAKER_02: would you mind taking out the trash,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: But I stopped.
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SPEAKER_02: And as soon as I stopped, I saw it.
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SPEAKER_02: I laughed out loud.
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SPEAKER_02: And she said, what?
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SPEAKER_02: And I said, no problem, mom.
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SPEAKER_02: I'll take it out.
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And I realized what had happened was my mother and I used to
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have these righteous
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SPEAKER_02: battles over taking out the trash,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: So I became at that moment seven years old.
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SPEAKER_02: My wife became my mother.
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SPEAKER_02: But fortunately,
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SPEAKER_02: in the context of the notion that she also does this work with us,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: she knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that.
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And so when we begin to realize that,
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we really unlock the keys to our consciousness.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: it gives us the keys,
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SPEAKER_02: I should say,
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SPEAKER_02: to unlock our consciousness,
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SPEAKER_02: to give us a view of how we're thinking,
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SPEAKER_02: why we're thinking the way we are.
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And then when you look at people like Hanuman or Ariely or some
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of the other
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SPEAKER_02: incredible social scientists,
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Sukhvinder Obi up in Canada and people all over the world who
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we've studied with...
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SPEAKER_02: They begin to give us a window into how the mechanism works,
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SPEAKER_02: which makes it more accessible to us.
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SPEAKER_02: Just like when you know how a car works,
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SPEAKER_02: you have a better way of dealing with operating a vehicle.
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SPEAKER_03: This is very interesting.
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And I'm also curious,
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Jake,
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because I know you're a founder and CEO of Belong Together.
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SPEAKER_03: It sounds like it is related to diversity, inclusion, bias as well.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: so I actually,
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SPEAKER_01: I did want to correct one small piece from the introduction,
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SPEAKER_01: which is that there is a small word missing in my background.
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SPEAKER_01: My master's degree is in applied positive psychology.
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SPEAKER_01: Positive psychology, yeah.
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has sort of run in parallel to Howard's in a lot of ways,
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and it's converged more and more.
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SPEAKER_01: But interestingly,
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SPEAKER_01: so the source of mine is,
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SPEAKER_01: my focus is much more in the realm of belonging and community inclusion.
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SPEAKER_01: The reason why is because I joined a...
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personal growth community,
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a group in when I turned 20,
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I was a very low point in my life.
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And it was a community that's focused very much on community
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healing and lifting up
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SPEAKER_01: people who need help so that we can help ourselves and help others.
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And it has been one of the most foundational elements of my
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life has been being a
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SPEAKER_01: part of something bigger than myself,
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SPEAKER_01: where I belong to something bigger.
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SPEAKER_01: Now, I have three older brothers, but they're much older.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a half-brother and two stepbrothers.
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SPEAKER_01: So I grew up after two years old, an only child.
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SPEAKER_01: And as I'm sure you can imagine,
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SPEAKER_01: knowing exactly how prolific my father's work is,
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SPEAKER_01: he was very busy.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I got a lot of heart and a lot of emotion, but not a lot of time.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I had this childhood wound of being lonely.
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SPEAKER_01: And I had this frame that
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SPEAKER_01: Whatever happened in my life,
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the end-all be-all was going to be that I was going to feel
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better when I was a
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SPEAKER_01: part of something bigger.
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SPEAKER_01: And getting to do this kind of work as a child into adolescence,
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SPEAKER_01: into early adulthood,
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alongside and even just participating or observing my mother
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and father's work.
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My mother is also a brilliant practitioner in the field as
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well,
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although she's fully retired.
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SPEAKER_01: But...
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SPEAKER_01: Getting to witness that,
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SPEAKER_01: I got to see what it looked like when people let down their guard,
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when they actually looked at the biases and the walls that they
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put up in between
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SPEAKER_01: one another.
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SPEAKER_01: So that sort of inspired my direction into studying psychology.
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But this group that I joined sort of in the realm of recovery,
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it helped me realize that
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belonging to something bigger than ourselves isn't just
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something that feels good.
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SPEAKER_01: It actually inspired me to recognize that it's a foundational life force.
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And so when I ended up returning to college at 24 to study at
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UC Berkeley,
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SPEAKER_01: I studied at the Greater Good Science Center and under Dr.
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SPEAKER_01: Keltner in looking at belonging in the workplace,
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orienting towards the workplace outcomes that Howard and my
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mother Leslie were
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SPEAKER_01: building their career around.
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SPEAKER_01: And so when it came time to look at these,
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SPEAKER_01: these biases and these pieces,
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SPEAKER_01: it all was just in my mind,
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SPEAKER_01: a,
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SPEAKER_01: another barrier to the interpersonal connection.
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SPEAKER_01: So,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: fast forward now 10 years,
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SPEAKER_01: I,
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SPEAKER_01: after having gotten my master's degree and worked in a variety of,
16:29
SPEAKER_01: of community gathering,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: community building and event production roles,
16:33
SPEAKER_01: I've created this organization where
16:36
SPEAKER_01: My goal is very similar,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: but with a slightly different language,
16:40
which is that much like the relationship of positive psychology
16:44
to clinical
16:45
SPEAKER_01: psychology,
16:47
clinical psychology looks at healing or someone wants to
16:51
describe it to me as
16:51
clinical psychology is kind of like getting from a one to a
16:54
five and positive
16:55
SPEAKER_01: psychology is kind of being more in the range of six to 10.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: So my work on community building and belonging is less oriented towards
17:05
SPEAKER_01: addressing systemic problems and systemic fractures,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: not because they're not there,
17:13
but because I think that there's an easier access point to
17:18
opening people up to
17:19
SPEAKER_01: doing that deeper level work,
17:20
which is to have them feel like they're a part of something
17:22
bigger than themselves.
17:24
And that in my career and in this particular adventure that
17:29
I've been on with Along
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Together looks like gathering for a purpose.
17:34
So one place that I tend to orient towards purpose-driven
17:37
gathering is around music.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Um...
17:41
I love live music and so I put on community centric events
17:45
where people can come
17:46
SPEAKER_01: together and part of it involves a live music performance and so on.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: But at the foundational level,
17:54
SPEAKER_01: the thesis of my work is people are more effective,
17:57
SPEAKER_01: more productive and more
17:59
loyal to something larger than themselves and when they feel
18:02
like they belong.
18:04
And that operationally speaking also looks like workplace
18:08
coaching and team
18:09
SPEAKER_01: building and things of that nature.
18:11
I work with people at any time that I'm able to meet with them
18:16
because it really is
18:17
what gives my life purpose is to see people light up when they
18:20
realize they're part
18:21
SPEAKER_01: of something bigger than themselves.
18:23
SPEAKER_03: And I can tell that sounds like it's your passion.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: I can hear that and I can see it as well and I can feel it too.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: That's a big part of my why.
18:34
And it's one of the reasons why this project working with
18:36
Howard has been such a
18:37
SPEAKER_01: delight because as his...
18:42
area of interest has grown and evolved more in the direction of
18:46
belonging.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Mine has as well.
18:48
And so we've gotten what started as we got to send each other
18:51
articles that we
18:52
SPEAKER_01: could both share and enjoy has ended up in,
18:54
we actually get to collaborate and speak together and create
18:57
presentations and do
18:58
SPEAKER_01: things like this with you.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: Great.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: You mentioned something interesting.
19:02
You mentioned AI,
19:04
and I know that you're working with the book Everyday Bias.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: You're writing a new edition, Howard.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: And you're co-authoring it with your son.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: Would you like to talk about that and tell me what will I,
19:17
SPEAKER_03: as a reader,
19:18
SPEAKER_03: expect from a new edition?
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Well,
19:21
SPEAKER_02: there's some of it,
19:21
which is just really upgrading some of the research and
19:25
following up on some of the
19:26
SPEAKER_02: stuff that,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:27
SPEAKER_02: first looked at when the book came out originally in 2014.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: You know,
19:32
SPEAKER_02: in today's world,
19:33
SPEAKER_02: 11 years,
19:34
or actually it'll be 12 years because it'll probably be the
19:38
summer before it gets
19:40
SPEAKER_02: actually out and the book actually gets released.
19:43
So 12 years is an eternity given the world that we're living in
19:46
right now.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: And so there's been a lot of new research.
19:48
And so,
19:50
you know,
19:51
a significant part of the book is just taking the essential
19:54
resources
19:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:55
SPEAKER_02: content of the book that was there before and upgrading it,
19:57
SPEAKER_02: bringing in new stuff,
19:58
SPEAKER_02: new research,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: upgraded studies.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: Some of the studies may have been debunked.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: So we want to get fresh studies to give us more, better information.
20:05
But I think the really exciting part of the book is the part
20:07
that Jake really,
20:08
um,
20:09
uh,
20:11
SPEAKER_02: was the point person I'm bringing in,
20:12
which is to look at this new world of electronic communication
20:16
interaction that
20:17
we're dealing with and how do these biases that we see so
20:20
prevalently in human
20:21
SPEAKER_02: interaction occur when,
20:23
SPEAKER_02: and it impact us when they're on,
20:25
SPEAKER_02: for example,
20:25
SPEAKER_02: social media,
20:27
SPEAKER_02: when it is AI.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: And some of the stuff has been fascinating.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: I'll let Jake talk a little bit more about this,
20:33
SPEAKER_02: but just one example,
20:34
SPEAKER_02: for example,
20:35
we found out that AI actually transfers bias to people more
20:39
prevalently than other
20:40
SPEAKER_02: people do.
20:41
And at first you think,
20:43
how can you believe the machine rather than your friend more?
20:47
SPEAKER_02: But when you think about it,
20:49
SPEAKER_02: as is usually the case,
20:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:50
when you step back and think about some of these results that
20:52
you first say no to,
20:53
SPEAKER_02: there is some logic to it.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: You know,
20:55
SPEAKER_02: there are two things in particular that affect this,
20:57
SPEAKER_02: not only two,
20:58
SPEAKER_02: but two in particular.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: One is AI is so obsequious.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's designed to make you feel good.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: It's designed to sound right, to sound confident and to be nice to you.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: So there's no part of you that, you know, that relate.
21:13
The more you do it,
21:14
the more you relate to it as a being as opposed to a machine.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it's funny.
21:18
I just was listening to a story this morning on the radio about
21:22
a new study that
21:22
SPEAKER_02: shows like the ridiculously high number of American young people,
21:27
SPEAKER_02: like 42,
21:28
SPEAKER_02: 43 percent,
21:29
SPEAKER_02: who are now using AI for friendship.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: Ascent.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, because in their loneliness, that becomes their friend, right?
21:37
SPEAKER_02: So the one part of it is the obsequiousness.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: And the second part is we know it knows more than us.
21:44
And so when you've got something that's nice to you and you
21:46
know knows more than
21:47
SPEAKER_02: you,
21:47
SPEAKER_02: you're going to have a tendency to believe it more.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: And so we can kind of understand why.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: So when, who is it?
21:52
Musk's Grock went off the rails a couple of months ago and
21:56
started calling itself
21:57
SPEAKER_02: MetaHitler or whatever it was,
21:59
SPEAKER_02: people were watching that say,
22:02
SPEAKER_02: get pretty deeply affected by it.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And so that's just an example.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: But Jake,
22:07
I'd love for you to talk about some of the other research that
22:10
went into that,
22:11
SPEAKER_02: particularly around AI.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm very happy to talk about this.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Where to begin on that?
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Well,
22:21
SPEAKER_01: the first thing that I'll say is that it's interesting because when you,
22:27
SPEAKER_01: when you refer to 11,
22:29
SPEAKER_01: 12 years being an eternity in the realm of,
22:32
SPEAKER_01: of diversity,
22:33
SPEAKER_01: equity,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: inclusion,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: bias research in the world around us,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: 11 to 12 months is an eternity in the acceleration of AI and technology.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that there's, there's a lot of ideological pieces
22:46
SPEAKER_01: in the book that are going to be really important to and hold true.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: But it's also important to recognize that,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: we,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: for example,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: there's one particular piece where I talk to,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I talk about sycophancy and AI,
23:00
SPEAKER_01: which I promise won't be gone by the time that the book comes out,
23:03
SPEAKER_01: but,
23:04
SPEAKER_01: um,
23:05
SPEAKER_01: But there is a piece to it,
23:07
which is we asked ChatGPT to give an evaluation essentially of
23:12
the chapter.
23:12
And it responded with a sycophantic response celebrating the
23:16
critique of it as sycophantic.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: It was so on the nose that we quoted it, in fact.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: But the larger point to that is that that was GPT 4.1.
23:27
We're now at GPT 5.2,
23:30
and it's been two months since the manuscript went in.
23:34
So it's really important to recognize before even going into
23:38
any of these pieces
23:39
that the speed at which AI is accelerating means that the
23:43
ideological elements are
23:44
more important than anything that are going to refer to the
23:48
actual practical
23:49
SPEAKER_01: capabilities of the technology.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Now,
23:52
SPEAKER_01: that being said,
23:54
SPEAKER_01: before I dive in a little too much further,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: I would like to do a slight shameless plug,
23:58
which is the reason why I enjoy working for the company that I
24:02
do is that I work
24:03
SPEAKER_01: with a lot of really extraordinary thinkers and AI ethicists and safety,
24:11
SPEAKER_01: notable AI safety folk.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: And the tool that we're building,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: which is called the multiplicity.ai,
24:17
actually runs a query through all of the frontier AI models and
24:22
then summarizes the
24:23
SPEAKER_01: agreements and disagreements.
24:25
So what it can do is it can help spot places where one is
24:28
giving what looks like
24:30
SPEAKER_01: false information,
24:31
whereas another three or four are giving what looks like true
24:33
information.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: And it's not to say that any of it actually results in truth,
24:38
but part of the reason why I feel very aligned working with the
24:42
company that I work
24:42
with while also doing this work on the side is that it actually
24:46
does help create
24:47
another layer towards mitigating bias in the way that we derive
24:53
information from
24:54
SPEAKER_01: AI.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: And that tool is actually live now.
24:57
But turning back towards the book and what people can expect to
25:01
be different in this edition,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: the whole of what I just shared is a start,
25:08
but one of the things that's really interesting to me as both a
25:14
community builder
25:15
in the world today and also a person in my 30s who grew up on
25:20
the cusp of the
25:22
SPEAKER_01: growing age of virtual communicative technology is
25:27
is that what it means to be a member of community has
25:30
foundationally changed in my lifetime.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Now,
25:33
SPEAKER_01: certainly that's true of everybody that lives in the world today,
25:36
SPEAKER_01: and it will be true of everybody who ever lives in the world.
25:40
As just a foundational point of fact,
25:42
the way that technology is accelerating everybody
25:46
SPEAKER_01: From now on,
25:47
whoever lives on planet Earth will be able to say that what it
25:51
means to be a member
25:52
SPEAKER_01: of the virtual world has changed in your lifetime.
25:56
But particularly because of the dawn of social media having
26:01
occurred around the
26:02
SPEAKER_01: time that I was an adolescent,
26:04
I got to watch as social structures came apart and reoriented
26:10
themselves into the
26:11
SPEAKER_01: sphere of a place like Facebook or Instagram.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Pardon me.
26:17
And part of what I talk about in the chapters that I
26:20
contributed the most to is
26:22
looking at how the algorithmic orientations towards allowing us
26:27
to narrow the scope
26:29
of the amount of information that we consume caused it to be
26:34
easier to lean into.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: again,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: my apologies,
26:40
cause it to be easier to lean into the way that these digital
26:45
systems tell us what
26:46
we want to hear and show us what we want to see and introduce
26:50
us to who we want to
26:51
SPEAKER_01: be introduced to.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: And it holds steady across the observation of,
26:59
SPEAKER_01: we largely look at Facebook,
27:00
SPEAKER_01: but looking at Facebook and LLNs,
27:03
SPEAKER_01: large language models,
27:04
SPEAKER_01: or the chat-based AI that are most prevalent right now,
27:08
people would prefer to hear what they want to hear know what
27:13
they want to know and
27:15
learn what they want to learn then be challenged to see that a
27:19
different way and
27:21
one of the things that we see in the world at large is that the
27:24
combination of the
27:25
death of the third place particularly as described by robert
27:29
putnam in bowling
27:30
SPEAKER_01: alone but in general
27:32
that people are less likely to encounter and engage with one
27:36
another face to face
27:38
SPEAKER_01: in an arbitrary in-person space has people much more likely to
27:47
SPEAKER_01: limit, to conscientiously limit their exposure to differing ideologies.
27:52
And what we're seeing in AI and the particular reason why I
27:57
feel that this book is
27:59
necessary reading for anybody who's engaging with an AI system
28:03
in any form,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: which by the time this comes out will be a majority of the human race,
28:08
SPEAKER_01: if I had to guess.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: People need to recognize that
28:17
SPEAKER_01: you very easily can
28:20
convince these tools to tell you exactly what you want to hear
28:24
and form a coherent
28:26
SPEAKER_01: worldview based on confirmation bias.
28:30
And the ease of access to information and the limitation on
28:33
checking our own biases
28:35
SPEAKER_01: has us continue to nourish that.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: And without examining those biases,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: and I'll turn it back to you,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Howard or Ibrahim,
28:45
SPEAKER_01: around how we examine those biases,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: but without examining those biases and without examining
28:50
SPEAKER_01: our inclination towards the self-fulfill,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: the self-fulfillment of confirmation bias,
28:57
SPEAKER_01: we end up living in a world that doesn't mirror reality.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think,
29:02
SPEAKER_02: I think that the,
29:03
SPEAKER_02: the thing that's really startling,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Heber,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: you can hear it in some of the things that Jake's saying is,
29:09
SPEAKER_02: um,
29:09
SPEAKER_02: the general,
29:11
SPEAKER_02: the generational shift,
29:13
SPEAKER_02: um,
29:13
SPEAKER_02: that this is created in a remarkably short period of time.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: that profoundly impacts almost every part of people's life experience.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, how often do I go out?
29:25
SPEAKER_02: Who do I go out with?
29:26
SPEAKER_02: What does friend mean?
29:28
SPEAKER_02: You know,
29:29
how do I know if the people who I'm friends with online are
29:33
even what they say they
29:34
SPEAKER_02: are,
29:35
SPEAKER_02: the same gender or any other identity?
29:38
SPEAKER_02: You know,
29:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
29:39
SPEAKER_02: all of this stuff,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:41
SPEAKER_02: how much time I have to spend engaging in certain activities?
29:44
SPEAKER_02: How much time do I spend looking at my phone?
29:47
SPEAKER_02: You know,
29:47
SPEAKER_02: I remember when Jake was at the start of the moment,
29:50
SPEAKER_02: Jake was probably about 12 or 13 or something and our
29:54
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
29:54
SPEAKER_02: maybe a year or two older than that,
29:56
but he and a friend and my wife and I went somewhere and the
29:58
two of them were
29:59
SPEAKER_02: sitting in the back seat and they're both on their phones,
30:01
SPEAKER_02: you know?
30:01
SPEAKER_02: And at some point,
30:03
SPEAKER_02: at some point,
30:04
SPEAKER_02: either Jake turned to Mark or Mark turned to Jake and said,
30:06
SPEAKER_02: yeah.
30:07
And I realized that they were,
30:07
they were three-way conversing with,
30:09
with somebody else.
30:11
We're talking to each other except to acknowledge what was
30:13
talking on the phone.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this is the nature.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: Of course, nothing unusual about that in today's world.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: But I think that what we don't understand is yet,
30:23
SPEAKER_02: and we're just beginning to understand it,
30:24
SPEAKER_02: are people out there like Jonathan Haidt,
30:26
SPEAKER_02: for example,
30:26
SPEAKER_02: who's,
30:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:28
SPEAKER_02: ringing alarm bells about this.
30:30
is the impact this is happening on the very social order that
30:33
jake was addressing
30:34
before the sense of belonging the sense of genuine true
30:37
connectedness like what
30:38
does it really mean to belong does it mean having 10 500
30:43
friends on facebook or
30:45
linkedin or whatever i mean is that really belonging to
30:47
something in some cases it
30:49
can be i have communities online that i'm a part of which are
30:53
deep and rich and
30:54
SPEAKER_02: people really engage in real life conversations
30:57
um and um and are and are as powerful as getting together you
31:01
know in some cases
31:02
with a group every week and then there are others which are
31:05
people pretending a lot
31:06
and talking but not actually sharing a lot and so it's um i
31:10
think it requires us to
31:11
be much more discerning and i think one other aspect of this is
31:15
really important is
31:16
of course the core issue i think that that all of us are
31:19
dealing with which is the
31:21
SPEAKER_02: lack of a central source of truth anymore
31:23
SPEAKER_02: You know,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: when I grew up,
31:25
SPEAKER_02: the New York Times or the Washington Post said something,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm old enough to remember Watergate,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: for example,
31:30
SPEAKER_02: or the Pentagon Papers or things like this.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: When the Post or the Times or they printed something,
31:35
SPEAKER_02: people on the other side politically didn't like it.
31:37
They didn't like the fact this information was getting out,
31:40
but it wasn't called fake news.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just discarded and pretended like it wasn't real.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: But now, of course, when we go online and you can get, you know, a...
31:50
SPEAKER_02: an AI thing to give you a fact, which may not even be a fact.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because it's not always right.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: They make mistakes.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they draw from an article that was posting false information,
31:59
SPEAKER_02: and yet they use that as a source to draw from.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: So the tool that Jake's company is working with is going to be,
32:05
SPEAKER_02: I think,
32:05
really essentially helpful because it will help us cut through
32:08
all that and get to
32:09
the point where we have a much greater chance of discerning
32:11
what's actually going
32:12
SPEAKER_02: on,
32:12
SPEAKER_02: what's the actual information that's out there.
32:15
that we can base this on and not different interpretations of
32:18
it based on how a
32:19
SPEAKER_02: particular AI might have been programmed or who gave the input to it.
32:25
Is it fair to say that the project you're working on,
32:28
is it some kind of a fact checker as well?
32:33
SPEAKER_01: It has that quality.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to be conscientious about using the word fact to
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Without very specific substance,
32:50
SPEAKER_01: because facts are facts,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: and information that we gather from AI does not always mirror facts.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: Now,
32:58
it does have the quality that by asking multiple systems at the
33:04
same time,
33:05
SPEAKER_01: the same question,
33:06
we can see if three or even four LLMs say the same thing or
33:11
agree on the same
33:12
SPEAKER_01: foundational point,
33:13
then one can reasonably assume that it is certainly much closer
33:18
to the truth.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: Or rather,
33:20
SPEAKER_01: as I'm more fond of saying,
33:21
much further from falsehood than what would be the case if it
33:27
was asked of a single
33:28
SPEAKER_01: system.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: Um,
33:30
SPEAKER_01: and,
33:30
SPEAKER_01: and this is important because,
33:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:32
even while writing the book and we used chat GPT to do a number
33:37
of research tasks
33:38
and we had to check our work because there were times
33:41
particularly in asking for it
33:42
SPEAKER_01: to find quotes for us when it hallucinated quotes,
33:46
SPEAKER_01: uh,
33:46
and in fact fabricated and misattributed quotes to authors that
33:52
we had to,
33:53
SPEAKER_01: that we had to,
33:54
SPEAKER_01: to double check the work on.
33:58
Again,
33:58
with with fact and as I become fond of saying objective truth
34:03
ain't what it used to be.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's really important to say like,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: yes,
34:09
this could be used as the multiplicity could be used as some
34:13
form of facts checker.
34:16
But it can only be called that when the output can be verified
34:21
as fact,
34:22
if that makes sense.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: The idea being that we love the idea of getting it closer to the truth,
34:28
SPEAKER_01: but we're not claiming that we can deliver on truth,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: nor should any of the AI firms that are out there be doing so as well.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Either, excuse me, be doing so either.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: This is fascinating.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm looking forward to, did you say in the summer?
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Howard?
34:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: The book will be coming out in the summer.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:49
SPEAKER_03: All right.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: All right.
34:51
SPEAKER_03: I'll make sure I get a copy of that.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Great.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: Howard, in the book, Everyday Bias, I know a new edition is coming.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: I did some research.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: I've read your stuff.
35:04
SPEAKER_03: And your work bridges neuroscience and social science.
35:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:11
SPEAKER_03: And so my question to you is,
35:12
what do our brains do when we encounter different perspectives
35:19
or people we assume
35:22
SPEAKER_03: are different?
35:24
SPEAKER_03: And how does that affect communication and meaning?
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a deep question.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really at the heart, I think, human communication.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, first of all, I think...
35:39
You know,
35:39
we have to recognize that we are fundamentally oriented towards
35:44
safety.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: It is for Frabi's reasons.
35:47
You know,
35:47
survival is the most important thing we got going for us,
35:49
right?
35:50
SPEAKER_02: So we're fundamentally oriented towards survival.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: So any difference that occurs as threat to us
35:58
SPEAKER_02: the threat response will be the first thing we'll feel.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: In fact,
36:00
there's some research that shows that it takes as much as 20%
36:03
more biological
36:05
SPEAKER_02: energy,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: more glucose production,
36:07
more brain energy production for us to see something positive
36:10
and something
36:10
SPEAKER_02: negative.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: In a way, you can get that.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, let me make sure it's safe before I can engage, right?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Because we want to stay safe.
36:18
And so the nature of what happens when we encounter something
36:23
that's different from
36:24
SPEAKER_02: us is we sort out where we can be safe to it and where we can connect.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: Now,
36:29
one of the reasons that's so important for us to understand
36:32
today is because the
36:34
SPEAKER_02: binarization of society that we're dealing with,
36:37
SPEAKER_02: not just here in the United States,
36:38
SPEAKER_02: but all over the world,
36:40
SPEAKER_02: You know,
36:40
we've moved from I like to say we've moved from a bell curve
36:43
society where most
36:44
SPEAKER_02: people are sort of,
36:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:45
SPEAKER_02: we're sort of issue oriented.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: I'll use U.S.
36:47
terms here just because those are the political terms I'm not
36:50
familiar with.
36:50
But I might agree with somebody on civil rights and disagree on
36:54
foreign policy and
36:55
SPEAKER_02: agree with somebody on economic terms,
36:57
SPEAKER_02: but disagree on something else,
36:58
SPEAKER_02: you know.
36:59
And that's,
36:59
for the most part,
37:00
the way we've operated as that sort of bell curve.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: And then there were some people on the extremes.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: But what's happened,
37:05
SPEAKER_02: and there's data that shows this,
37:07
SPEAKER_02: what's happened over the course of the last 30,
37:09
SPEAKER_02: 40 years is we've moved down to what I call a dumbbell curve society,
37:12
SPEAKER_02: where everything's on the end and nothing's in the middle anymore.
37:15
And we know that there is some extraordinary research that was
37:18
done around this.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: It's called the outgroup homogeneity effect.
37:21
And what it teaches us is that if you take two groups of people
37:25
who are different,
37:27
SPEAKER_02: and you ask them to solve a problem,
37:29
SPEAKER_02: for example,
37:30
SPEAKER_02: you put them in the same room working together,
37:33
SPEAKER_02: they will have a tendency to be able to usually move towards compromise.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: But if you put them in separate rooms,
37:40
they will begin to identify everybody in that other room as
37:43
being the same.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: In other words, all Republicans are the same.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: All Democrats are the same.
37:49
And that will have a tendency to push people towards moving to
37:53
the more extreme points of view.
37:55
And so we're in this very weird place right now where we've got
37:59
all this access to
38:00
people and communicating with people that we've never had
38:03
before in history,
38:04
SPEAKER_02: all the technology that we've been talking about.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: And yet at the same time,
38:08
it seems to be moving us more and more into tribalism than it
38:12
does bringing us
38:13
SPEAKER_02: together.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that when we look at bias in that regard,
38:18
SPEAKER_02: It's a whole nother load of information to strengthen our biases.
38:23
If I have a natural tendency to think that people who voted for
38:26
a certain political
38:26
SPEAKER_02: person,
38:27
SPEAKER_02: for example,
38:27
SPEAKER_02: is a certain way,
38:29
SPEAKER_02: and then I begin to see everybody who voted for them as the same –
38:35
SPEAKER_02: Then when the most extreme of those people does something,
38:39
SPEAKER_02: I then associate that with everybody.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: And it makes that bias more rigid, more solid.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And we've seen this, of course.
38:45
We've seen it here when people on the left think everybody who
38:49
voted for Trump is
38:51
like the people who marched in Charlotte with the tiki torches
38:54
and the signs that
38:55
SPEAKER_02: said Jews will not replace us.
38:57
And everybody on the right now says that everybody on the left
39:01
is the same as the
39:02
SPEAKER_02: people who were...
39:03
you know,
39:03
participate in saying anti-Semitic things in college protests
39:07
against Gaza.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like everybody gets thrown into those extreme buckets.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: And obviously that makes it much harder for us to reach each other.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Jake, something you want to add to that?
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
39:16
SPEAKER_01: I think that,
39:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: and we talk about this in the book as well,
39:18
that there's a companion part to the outgroup homogeneity
39:24
effects as well,
39:24
SPEAKER_01: which is social identity theory.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: And social identity theory sort of works the other direction,
39:29
SPEAKER_01: which is that outgroup homogeneity effect is that you,
39:33
SPEAKER_01: who exist in that group that is not mine,
39:35
SPEAKER_01: all look and behave a certain way.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: And then there's the other side,
39:38
SPEAKER_01: which is social identity theory,
39:40
SPEAKER_01: inclines us to see the same in the people that we identify with.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that we see,
39:46
SPEAKER_01: particularly referring to American politics,
39:48
SPEAKER_01: and it's been interesting,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: it's interesting,
39:50
SPEAKER_01: particularly in the different spaces that we occupy,
39:53
SPEAKER_01: because I live in the Bay Area in California,
39:57
SPEAKER_01: which is this...
40:00
SPEAKER_01: relatively speaking, quite a liberal bubble.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: Whereas Howard lives in Virginia,
40:04
SPEAKER_01: which has a very different socioeconomic and sociopolitical landscape.
40:12
So it's interesting because one of the things that happens in
40:16
spaces that I occupy
40:17
SPEAKER_01: is that I see this sense of
40:21
We are all this,
40:23
and they are all that,
40:24
the outgrip of the Hobbit humanity effect.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: And then when I go visit my family,
40:28
SPEAKER_01: I start to look at how there are people,
40:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:32
SPEAKER_01: and we go visit DC proper as well.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of frustration, actually.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
40:39
SPEAKER_01: I would,
40:40
SPEAKER_01: in my experience,
40:41
SPEAKER_01: even more so,
40:42
SPEAKER_01: frustration on the moderate right,
40:46
SPEAKER_01: excuse me,
40:47
SPEAKER_01: of people who...
40:50
SPEAKER_01: very actively are told who they are.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: And people in this particular example,
40:58
people who voted for Trump are told that they carry the
41:01
characteristics of all of
41:02
the worst characteristics of any person who represents that
41:06
group in any way,
41:06
SPEAKER_01: shape or form.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: When in the reality,
41:08
SPEAKER_01: a lot of people,
41:09
SPEAKER_01: particularly on the moderate right,
41:11
SPEAKER_01: a lot of people are single issue voters.
41:14
And so there's there's this quality there where the out group
41:17
homogeneity effects actually
41:20
increases the influence of social identity theory because if a
41:24
whole group of
41:24
SPEAKER_01: people to whom you may actually think you belong more,
41:27
SPEAKER_01: or at least to some extent,
41:29
SPEAKER_01: tells you,
41:30
SPEAKER_01: you don't belong here,
41:32
SPEAKER_01: you belong there with them,
41:33
then all of a sudden this deep foundational need that we as
41:38
human beings have,
41:40
and it's built into our genetics as far back as giving birth to
41:43
hyper-vulnerable
41:44
SPEAKER_01: offspring that need to be cared for in community.
41:46
But if they tell me that I belong there and I don't steal that
41:53
I belong anywhere
41:54
SPEAKER_01: else,
41:54
then I will start to identify inside of a group where I feel a
41:58
sense of belonging.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: And over a long enough period of time,
42:02
my beliefs stop becoming more important than the beliefs of the
42:05
place that feels
42:06
SPEAKER_01: like home to me.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Abraham, I can share a story with you.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: Something actually happened that kind of points to this a bit.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: For about 10 years,
42:16
SPEAKER_02: I did a monthly radio show on National Public Radio about workplace and
42:23
SPEAKER_02: diversity-related issues.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: And I did one of the shows one day.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: I forget what the topic was we talked about that day,
42:27
SPEAKER_02: but I got back to my office and I get a phone call.
42:30
And this guy says to me,
42:31
he says,
42:32
listen,
42:32
I was wondering if I could bend your ear a bit.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: He described himself as a 50-ish year old white guy.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: He's a computer programmer or some kind of tech-related job.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: He said he'd been liberal his whole life.
42:49
But he had gotten concerned lately because there were some
42:52
layoffs in his company.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: And he was the one who let go.
42:56
SPEAKER_02: And they kept a lot of younger Asian people.
43:00
SPEAKER_02: practitioners I get.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: And so he had concerns about this and he wrote a piece about this,
43:06
SPEAKER_02: like a blog,
43:09
SPEAKER_02: just what it was to feel like this 50-year-old white man,
43:11
SPEAKER_02: is this the end of the time for me?
43:13
And he sent me the blog and it wasn't by any means overtly
43:16
racist or anything.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: It was really, he was expressing his concern.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: What's his role in society moving forward?
43:22
SPEAKER_02: Well,
43:22
SPEAKER_02: somehow,
43:23
people in the American Nazi Party got a hold of this blog and
43:29
posted it on their
43:30
SPEAKER_02: site,
43:30
and it became one of the most popular blogs of that particular
43:34
period of time.
43:34
And all of a sudden,
43:35
he had all of these people reaching out to him and wanting him
43:38
to engage.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: And he called me because he said,
43:41
SPEAKER_02: I just,
43:42
SPEAKER_02: when I was hearing you speak,
43:43
SPEAKER_02: and I think I was talking about belonging at the time.
43:45
SPEAKER_02: He said,
43:46
SPEAKER_02: when I was hearing you speak,
43:47
SPEAKER_02: I could feel like I'm feeling myself getting sucked into this,
43:50
SPEAKER_02: this community,
43:51
SPEAKER_02: this place where I know I don't agree with them,
43:55
SPEAKER_02: but it feels so good that I'm getting all this acknowledgement.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: And I think that this is exactly the way it happens.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: We need to have a home.
44:02
We know now that Maslow was wrong,
44:04
that the lowest long rung of the ladder is not survival.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: The lowest rung of the ladder is actually belonging,
44:10
SPEAKER_02: which is why we know things like suicide bombers.
44:12
You know,
44:12
obviously,
44:13
if survival was the lowest rung,
44:14
nobody would be a suicide bomber.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: But if if if giving your life for the good of the greater good,
44:19
SPEAKER_02: the greater community is is a sign of belonging.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: Right.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: So and like Jake said,
44:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:24
SPEAKER_02: we learn this when we're bored,
44:26
SPEAKER_02: because as babies,
44:28
SPEAKER_02: immediately we know that if we don't belong to somebody,
44:30
SPEAKER_02: we die.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:31
SPEAKER_02: it doesn't take it doesn't take long for us to realize that that person,
44:34
SPEAKER_02: whether it's mom,
44:34
SPEAKER_02: dad,
44:35
SPEAKER_02: grandma,
44:35
SPEAKER_02: grandpa or the orphanage,
44:36
SPEAKER_02: somebody has got to be taking care of us for us to survive.
44:39
And so we can see how if we divide the world into them versus
44:43
us with no bridge in between.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: and then we know that everybody has to fit somewhere,
44:48
SPEAKER_02: then by demonizing everybody over there,
44:52
SPEAKER_02: we give them no choice but to go over there.
44:54
And that's why it's so important as we try to bridge this gap
44:59
in our society.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, we can't do it with everybody.
45:01
There are going to be some people who we're just not going to
45:03
be able to reach and
45:04
SPEAKER_02: some people who we're going to be too triggered by to want to reach.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: We're human beings.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't see the Dalai Lama sitting here.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: But that we know that if that's the case,
45:15
SPEAKER_02: then we need to stop for a second and say,
45:19
SPEAKER_02: okay,
45:20
SPEAKER_02: where's the humanity in that person?
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Even though I think their ideas might be completely stupid,
45:24
SPEAKER_02: completely wrong,
45:26
SPEAKER_02: even immoral,
45:27
there's still a human being over there who's having these
45:29
thoughts and ideas.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: And even if you look at
45:32
SPEAKER_02: You know,
45:32
SPEAKER_02: somebody who's,
45:33
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:33
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
45:34
SPEAKER_02: President Trump is the easiest one for people to point to.
45:36
But you could also look at this and look at his environment
45:38
growing up and say,
45:39
SPEAKER_02: clearly,
45:39
he had some difficult challenges to deal with in dealing with
45:42
his own father.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there are times when we can be.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: Now,
45:45
that doesn't mean it allows for any behavior to be justified
45:48
any more than a rabid
45:50
SPEAKER_02: dog is fine.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: just because it's sick.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: No, it's still dangerous, right?
45:54
SPEAKER_02: The fact that it's sick is the cause, but it's still dangerous.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: But nonetheless,
45:58
SPEAKER_02: I think it gives us a greater chance to reach people and to realize,
46:01
SPEAKER_02: like Jake said,
46:02
that an awful lot of people do not vote based on agreeing with
46:07
the other person.
46:07
They just agree with that person more than they agree with the
46:10
other choice that they had.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: When I wrote my last book,
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Our Search for Belonging,
46:15
I interviewed over 100 people who voted for President Trump in
46:17
the first election,
46:18
and 54% said they voted more against Hillary Clinton than they
46:21
did for Trump,
46:22
SPEAKER_02: as an example.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't that they liked him, they just liked her less.
46:25
So I think it's important for us when we look at this from the
46:28
standpoint of how
46:29
SPEAKER_02: people interact,
46:31
that this being pulled into a point of view in order to fit in
46:35
is a huge impact on
46:37
SPEAKER_02: us.
46:40
SPEAKER_03: And so once we are pulled in and we identify with the group,
46:45
SPEAKER_03: over time,
46:45
SPEAKER_03: do we start behaving like the most extremes in the group?
46:50
SPEAKER_02: Well,
46:51
SPEAKER_02: we may not end up behaving like the most extremes,
46:54
SPEAKER_02: but we certainly end up often justifying the extreme behavior.
46:59
We find a way to,
47:01
because human beings are rationalizing and not rational,
47:03
right?
47:04
SPEAKER_02: So here I am.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm now associated with this team.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: A member of my team does something that's appalling.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: I can't say that was appalling because that would...
47:14
SPEAKER_02: be a break for me from my team.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: So instead I say something like, oh, I didn't read the story yet.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: Or you see it in politicians, these politicians all the time.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: Well,
47:23
SPEAKER_02: I didn't hear the actual quote or I didn't see the actual story or,
47:27
SPEAKER_02: well,
47:28
SPEAKER_02: they said it a little differently than I would say.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: You know,
47:29
SPEAKER_02: it's sort of like,
47:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to talk about this move at all because I'm in this quandary.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: You know,
47:35
SPEAKER_02: I have to belong to this group in order to survive,
47:37
but belonging to this group means that I have to accept certain
47:40
things that I know
47:40
SPEAKER_02: are wrong.
47:41
SPEAKER_02: And that could occur on both sides of the equation.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
47:45
SPEAKER_03: It surely does, because I remember when I used to live in the U.S.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: and something would happen.
47:51
SPEAKER_03: Let's say President Obama back then would give a speech.
47:55
I would put on Fox News and you would hear a totally different
48:00
story and then you
48:01
SPEAKER_03: would put on CNN.
48:02
It would be completely different,
48:04
as if we're living in two different complete words.
48:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: We are, in fact.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: It's like you sometimes you say, what color is this guy in your world?
48:12
SPEAKER_02: You know,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: it just it feels that it feels different because,
48:14
SPEAKER_02: like you said,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: and I did that for a long period of time.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: I actually used four different stations.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: I used CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and BBC.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: And and I would follow stories over a period of time.
48:27
SPEAKER_02: And you're absolutely right.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: It was just staggering, staggering.
48:32
not only the stories that were covered,
48:33
but what was not even talked about.
48:35
When sometimes one station is spending half their show talking
48:39
about a topic that
48:39
SPEAKER_02: doesn't even show up on the other station.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: And even before you watch the channel, you already know
48:48
the perspective they're going to have on a certain topic or a
48:52
certain speech,
48:53
for instance.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's,
48:55
SPEAKER_02: I think,
48:55
SPEAKER_02: one of the challenges that we have in our current environment because,
48:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:59
SPEAKER_02: it used to be ABC,
49:00
SPEAKER_02: NBC,
49:00
SPEAKER_02: CBS here in the States was pretty,
49:05
SPEAKER_02: it was all pretty much the same news.
49:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, they didn't vary within five degrees of each other.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: You know,
49:11
Huntley Brinkley was a little bit more conservative than Walter
49:13
Cronkite was back
49:14
SPEAKER_02: in the day.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, we're talking about
49:17
SPEAKER_02: you know, five percentage points, maybe.
49:20
And of course,
49:21
the economic model behind it was you were speaking to the
49:24
marketplace.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: You wanted to get as much as the marketplace as possible.
49:27
So you didn't want to piss off half the marketplace by taking a
49:30
strong position one
49:30
SPEAKER_02: way or the other.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: And on top of that,
49:32
SPEAKER_02: of course,
49:33
it was generally considered to be unethical in those days for
49:36
news people to have a
49:37
SPEAKER_02: point of view,
49:37
SPEAKER_02: unless it was specifically said,
49:39
SPEAKER_02: this is an editorial.
49:40
And they would have these guys come on at the end and they have
49:43
a white shirt and a
49:43
SPEAKER_02: tie and they say,
49:44
SPEAKER_02: this is an editorial.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: They, you know,
49:46
SPEAKER_02: Now,
49:46
SPEAKER_02: of course,
49:47
SPEAKER_02: because the economic model has changed,
49:50
SPEAKER_02: cable news does not need the whole marketplace.
49:52
All they need is like 22% of the marketplace in order to have a
49:54
big win financially.
49:56
And they know that the best way to keep that and to get that
49:59
loyalty for that
49:59
SPEAKER_02: marketplace is to throw them red meat,
50:01
throw them stuff that they really want to hear that they're
50:03
really going to believe
50:04
SPEAKER_02: in.
50:05
And of course,
50:06
you know,
50:06
none of that gets mitigated in most cases by another point of
50:10
view.
50:10
And so we get more and more and more this sense of a different
50:14
reality that you're
50:15
SPEAKER_02: talking about.
50:16
SPEAKER_03: Mm-mm.
50:19
SPEAKER_03: So,
50:19
SPEAKER_03: gentlemen,
50:22
SPEAKER_03: so far we've talked about bias and the idea that bias is,
50:29
SPEAKER_03: quote,
50:29
SPEAKER_03: unquote,
50:30
SPEAKER_03: natural.
50:32
SPEAKER_03: we all have bias.
50:34
And so how can we reconcile that idea that bias is something we
50:38
all have natural
50:40
SPEAKER_03: with the aspiration to communicate with fairness,
50:46
SPEAKER_03: respect and depth?
50:49
SPEAKER_03: I'll start with Jake.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: Um,
50:56
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
50:57
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I see a lot of is that our biases,
51:02
SPEAKER_01: so as we've talked about,
51:04
SPEAKER_01: our bias for car slams,
51:07
SPEAKER_01: the brakes,
51:07
SPEAKER_01: we slam the brakes.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: This is just a biased orientation towards survival.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: And the
51:13
SPEAKER_01: At its core, most of it is.
51:17
And now what survival means is a little bit different because
51:21
what we know from
51:23
brain scans is that the area region of the brain that activates
51:28
when we feel
51:29
SPEAKER_01: physical pain,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: which is Howard,
51:31
SPEAKER_01: if you would place the dorsal posterior insula.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: I never remember that one.
51:36
The dorsal posterior insulate becomes active when we experience
51:40
physical pain,
51:40
and it also becomes active when we experience social pain and
51:44
social isolation.
51:45
And so it's an interesting environment that we live in where
51:50
the experience of
51:52
SPEAKER_01: fear,
51:52
SPEAKER_01: of fight or flight,
51:54
SPEAKER_01: and of the somatic experience of feeling pressed for survival is not...
52:02
SPEAKER_01: is not exclusive by any measure to things that are actually dangerous.
52:08
And what we find is that our biases that would otherwise be
52:13
reserved towards life
52:14
and death situations get allocated to what our somatic
52:17
experience of life and death
52:18
SPEAKER_01: situations are.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: Now,
52:21
SPEAKER_01: for the brain in particular,
52:22
SPEAKER_01: that makes sense to us because in the evolutionary environment,
52:26
SPEAKER_01: without tribe,
52:26
SPEAKER_01: we would die.
52:28
And so it's one of the cornerstones of my inspiration for the
52:33
work that I do is
52:35
this quality that we have as human beings to be biologically
52:39
oriented to belong.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: And there's a great deal of study of molecular cellular biology,
52:47
SPEAKER_01: oxytocin,
52:50
SPEAKER_01: the brain,
52:53
all of these different ways that we notice that our bodies are
52:56
oriented toward
52:56
SPEAKER_01: survival.
52:59
Coming back to your question of how do we show up inside of
53:03
these biases,
53:05
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that happens in the world today is that when,
53:08
SPEAKER_01: and this is particularly true of people in more liberal spaces,
53:14
SPEAKER_01: which is that when people make a social faux pas,
53:18
SPEAKER_01: it is treated as dramatically more egregious than it is.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot less compassion for it.
53:25
Now,
53:26
that's not to say that there should be compassion in certain
53:29
places,
53:30
abject racism.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I don't have compassion for it.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: I just don't.
53:36
I can recognize humanity and not have compassion for a person
53:39
who declares a person
53:41
SPEAKER_01: less than another.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: However,
53:44
if a person makes a microaggression or says something that is
53:50
offensive at some
53:50
SPEAKER_01: level that they don't understand,
53:53
It's very important to recognize,
53:55
I mean,
53:55
I do stuff like this sometimes too.
53:58
It's really important to recognize that people are trying our
54:02
best to celebrate and
54:05
SPEAKER_01: acknowledge people in a way that has them feel human.
54:10
SPEAKER_01: But it's important to remember that when you look at a person,
54:13
you're looking at every teacher they've ever had and every
54:16
experience that's ever
54:17
SPEAKER_01: made them believe a certain way.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: So,
54:20
SPEAKER_01: again,
54:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of dancing around this question,
54:23
but to directly answer the question from my point of view and
54:27
my opinion on this
54:29
and my belief is that the way that we combat these biases in
54:33
the world is that when
54:36
SPEAKER_01: they emerge,
54:37
SPEAKER_01: we treat them in both ourselves and in others with compassion.
54:43
There's a really core element to recognize,
54:47
which is that most people want to love each other.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: And when an orientation comes elsewhere, it is most often fear.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: Now the layers of that fear are very different,
55:01
SPEAKER_01: but if we can be with a person who is,
55:04
SPEAKER_01: oh,
55:04
SPEAKER_01: I said this thing,
55:05
SPEAKER_01: it comes from a bias.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: This is my learning.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: This is where I learned this thing.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: I would like to be better.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: I would like to be different.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: I would like for you to feel safe and I would like the feedback
55:16
SPEAKER_01: If we can treat that with compassion,
55:18
then people will come to understand that those biases aren't
55:21
keeping us safe
55:22
SPEAKER_01: anymore.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: And once we can do that,
55:24
SPEAKER_01: it stops being,
55:25
SPEAKER_01: oh,
55:25
SPEAKER_01: I can't say the wrong thing for pain of being ostracized.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: And it starts to be, oh, that's an old pattern.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for catching that.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to work on that.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: And the other side is that then you have to work on it.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think you can hear what Jake's saying,
55:45
SPEAKER_02: that as an old teacher of mine used to say,
55:47
SPEAKER_02: everything always starts and ends with awareness.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: So imagine this for a second.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: Do you have any children?
55:53
SPEAKER_02: I do with three.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: You do.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have three children.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you've had days like this, I'm sure.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: We all have.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: Any parent has.
55:59
SPEAKER_02: Have a tough day at work.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: You're busy as hell.
56:02
SPEAKER_02: Maybe something not particularly...
56:05
pleasant happen and you come home and all you want is your
56:09
chair the newspaper and
56:10
a glass of wine and leave me alone but you walk in the door and
56:14
your kids and your
56:15
kids are there daddy daddy daddy right they're reaching up
56:18
their arms now now
56:20
SPEAKER_02: There are times when we forget who we are and we just tell them,
56:24
SPEAKER_02: just leave me alone,
56:25
SPEAKER_02: go play,
56:26
SPEAKER_02: you know.
56:27
SPEAKER_02: But for most of us,
56:28
SPEAKER_02: we hope that what we could do at those moments is to stop and say,
56:31
SPEAKER_02: okay,
56:32
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm in a crummy mood.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: It's not their fault.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: They're my babies.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden we hit a switch.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: When we do that, when we get that awareness, that reaction lessens up.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: And there's actually,
56:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:45
SPEAKER_02: interestingly enough,
56:47
SPEAKER_02: 2,500 years ago,
56:47
SPEAKER_02: the Buddha said,
56:49
SPEAKER_02: what we can observe,
56:49
SPEAKER_02: we are not.
56:50
SPEAKER_02: And that by the very fact that we are watching ourselves react,
56:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying to myself,
56:55
SPEAKER_02: okay,
56:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm taking my bad day and I'm putting it on my babies.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: I've pulled myself out of the amygdala, the fear center of the brain.
57:02
I'm now sourcing myself in the observational aspect of the
57:05
brain,
57:06
the neocortex of the brain.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: And that discharge of energy then softens.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: The amygdala is that reactive part.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: When you're hysterical, it's likely historical, right?
57:16
SPEAKER_02: But when we get more aware,
57:18
SPEAKER_02: we can say,
57:19
SPEAKER_02: okay,
57:19
SPEAKER_02: I noticed that my machine is reacting,
57:22
SPEAKER_02: but I don't have to let it run me.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit,
57:25
SPEAKER_02: the metaphor I often use,
57:27
SPEAKER_02: it's like stepping on the clutch in a standard transmission automobile.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: When you step on the clutch, the motor doesn't stop running.
57:34
SPEAKER_02: The motor is still buzzing away.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: It's just not moving the car forward anymore.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: And so awareness allows us to do this.
57:40
clearly something's triggering me let's say i go into an
57:43
interview and i walk into
57:44
the river i meet the person for the first time and i have that
57:47
thought something
57:47
about this person i don't like now that's happened to everybody
57:50
right you meet
57:51
somebody you have that now if i'm aware i could stop and say
57:55
okay stop time out for
57:56
a second i might even say to the person you know i'll be right
57:59
back i just forgot
58:00
SPEAKER_02: something step outside check in with myself and say either
58:04
SPEAKER_02: Who is this person reminding me of?
58:06
SPEAKER_02: Because I haven't even said anything yet.
58:07
SPEAKER_02: So it can't be them, right?
58:08
SPEAKER_02: You don't know them.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: Who is this person reminding me of?
58:13
SPEAKER_02: And even if I can't think of that,
58:14
SPEAKER_02: I can say,
58:14
SPEAKER_02: they're clearly reminding me of somebody or something.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: Let me take a breath and be with them instead of that.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't mean it's going to fix it 100 percent,
58:23
but it makes it much more likely that we could be with the
58:25
person in front of us
58:26
rather than projecting whoever we were projecting onto that
58:29
person when we first
58:30
SPEAKER_02: met them.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: And so that's where awareness and taking those times.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: That's why in the book we talk about the pause model,
58:36
which is an opportunity to stop and look at what's going on and
58:41
ask ourselves a few
58:42
SPEAKER_02: questions that gives us a chance to say,
58:45
SPEAKER_02: OK.
58:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it is appropriate to be nervous here with this person.
58:50
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it is appropriate to be especially safe with this person.
58:55
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe there's no reason to assume that.
58:57
But it gives me at least a much greater chance to be able to
59:00
see that and to be the
59:01
one who gets to make the decision as opposed to it happening
59:04
just automatically.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
59:07
So is it harder to be self-aware and to pause and ask yourself
59:15
questions when you
59:19
SPEAKER_03: are tired,
59:20
SPEAKER_03: scared,
59:23
SPEAKER_03: exhausted,
59:24
SPEAKER_03: and so forth?
59:25
SPEAKER_02: Objectively, yes.
59:26
SPEAKER_02: Objectively, yes.
59:27
It's also harder when the particular reaction you're having is
59:32
tied into a deep
59:32
SPEAKER_02: trauma in your life.
59:35
SPEAKER_02: You know,
59:35
SPEAKER_02: so,
59:35
SPEAKER_02: for example,
59:36
SPEAKER_02: if you have a woman who's been sexually abused or traumatized,
59:40
SPEAKER_02: then we know that that's a huge percentage of women.
59:44
Something that happens in that domain may have a stronger
59:48
reaction to her than the
59:50
exact same thing happening to somebody who hasn't had the
59:52
previous experience.
59:54
That we each have our own internal mechanism that's been
59:57
designed over the course
59:59
SPEAKER_02: of our lives to deal with survival in certain circumstances.
1:00:02
And so it's why I remember we used to do these exercises in the
1:00:06
early days of life.
1:00:08
of doing diversity training and we would have people share a
1:00:11
story in their life,
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: something that had happened at a time when they felt different,
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: when they wouldn't made them feel less than.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: And people would often talk about things,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: getting parents getting divorced or obviously racial or gender.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: One time this woman shares, starts to share.
1:00:27
And she was a very highly accomplished person in this
1:00:29
particular company.
1:00:31
And she starts to share that her thing was that when she was a
1:00:34
kid,
1:00:34
she was left-handed.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: And when she was a kid,
1:00:36
it was still in the times when they used to force left-handed
1:00:39
kids to write with
1:00:40
SPEAKER_02: their right hand.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: This was back,
1:00:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: just before my time that stopped,
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: like I remember my father's office.
1:00:47
And she's weeping openly and talking about the fact that
1:00:50
because because of this,
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: she had to get she she had gotten a B in handwriting.
1:00:56
It was the only time she didn't get an A in her whole college
1:00:58
and her whole high
1:00:59
SPEAKER_02: school experience or whatever school experience.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_02: And clearly, you know.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: dramatically upset over being left-handed versus right-handed,
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: not exactly the kind of thing that we put high on the level of,
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: identities that cause people to be excluded.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: And yet for her, that was a traumatic incident.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important for us to recognize that we each,
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:01:19
you can't externally look at these things and think you
1:01:22
understand why they're
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: affecting people the way they are.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: But we can be sensitive and compassionate,
1:01:28
SPEAKER_02: as Jake's saying,
1:01:29
SPEAKER_02: to that there's something going on there.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: one other great example,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: Stephen Covey in his book,
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,
1:01:37
SPEAKER_02: talks about being on a train one night.
1:01:39
Guy gets on with three kids and they're running around and
1:01:42
wrecking havoc and
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: pulling people's newspapers.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_02: And the guy's just staring straight ahead and doing nothing.
1:01:46
And Covey finally loses his temper with the guy and says,
1:01:48
why don't you take care of your kids?
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: And the guy says,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:01:51
we just left the hospital and their mom died and I just don't
1:01:54
know what to do.
1:01:55
And he talked about all of a sudden he shifted from frustration
1:01:58
to complete
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: compassion for this man and for the children.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: So understanding each other's stories.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: And this is where the work that Jake does with his community gatherings,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: where not only their people aren't just getting together to sing music,
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: they interact with each other.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: They do exercises.
1:02:13
It's like a workshop where people are being more intimate with
1:02:17
each other and
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: getting to know each other more.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we're all looking for.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: We're looking for that sense of belonging with people around us.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_03: Anything you want to add, Jake?
1:02:30
SPEAKER_01: No, I think that that really does sum it up.
1:02:33
Obviously,
1:02:34
Howard is more experienced when it comes to a specific topic of
1:02:36
bias.
1:02:38
My frame of reference for this often tends to be more on the
1:02:41
side of compassion.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned,
1:02:44
a lot of what exists in my life I owe to a recovery community
1:02:49
where the whole
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: narrative is it doesn't matter what you've done,
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: it doesn't matter where you've been.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: you can belong here and be a part of something.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: it's,
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: it's often said in that particular world,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: we're,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: we're here to help love you until you can love yourself.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: So it is, it is.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: and that's why after 11 years,
1:03:12
SPEAKER_01: I still keep coming back,
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:03:14
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:03:15
SPEAKER_01: but you know,
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: my most,
1:03:17
SPEAKER_01: most of my frame lives within this space of,
1:03:20
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: No matter who a person is or what they've done, they are still human.
1:03:25
And sometimes it can be more difficult to be face to face with
1:03:31
that because human
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: beings can do really awful and tragic things.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_01: And also it is a human being who is doing that.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: And there are always layers.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: Always.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:03:44
I think we need more of this perspective in this world right
1:03:48
now because it seems
1:03:50
SPEAKER_03: like we're so divided.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_03: Watching the news.
1:03:55
And I know you've also talked about it,
1:03:56
Howard,
1:03:57
how politicians talk to each other.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_03: Back in the days, we would disagree on certain issues.
1:04:03
But nowadays,
1:04:05
if I'm disagreeing with you,
1:04:07
you're not only not competent,
1:04:10
you're also the enemy.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: And we need more of that right now.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_03: Compassion and seeing the human in one another.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: I think,
1:04:22
SPEAKER_02: I think unfortunately we've gotten to the point where,
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: that lack of compassion,
1:04:28
SPEAKER_02: that sense of cruelty is,
1:04:30
SPEAKER_02: is celebrated,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: um,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: by people.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: I hate to get political about this,
1:04:36
but this incident that just happened this past week with this
1:04:39
American producer,
1:04:41
SPEAKER_02: director,
1:04:42
SPEAKER_02: Rob Reiner being murdered and and President Trump's reaction,
1:04:47
SPEAKER_02: which which even people in the Republican side have been appalled by.
1:04:51
But it's like you look at this,
1:04:52
you say never in history would an American president
1:04:56
SPEAKER_02: state, but make a statement like that.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: literally we've had a civil war for God's sakes,
1:05:00
SPEAKER_02: but there never would an American president do something like that.
1:05:02
There's just a certain level of civility we expect from people
1:05:06
at that high level of government.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: And yet we've gotten to the point where
1:05:12
that happens now again he's not singular i'm not suggesting
1:05:15
he's the only one it's
1:05:16
just a glaring example right now um but i think that it's um
1:05:21
this is unfortunately
1:05:21
where we are right now where you know show them show them how
1:05:25
tough you could be
1:05:25
show them how mean you can be um becomes becomes a currency of
1:05:29
value and i think
1:05:30
that's very sad at a time when we need kindness more than ever
1:05:35
do you think we've
1:05:35
SPEAKER_03: been getting used to that that it doesn't bother us anymore
1:05:39
SPEAKER_02: I think this is a problem, is that I think we do get numb to it.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, how many times can you get outraged by the same thing?
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: And I think,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: when we live in an environment which has become an outrage festival,
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: I've pretty much stopped watching the news.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: I follow the news every day.
1:05:56
I get news streams and I intentionally get news streams from
1:06:00
different sides of the
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: political spectrum.
1:06:03
But TV news has become nothing but an outrage factory,
1:06:05
a 24-7 outrage factory.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: So unless there's some live event happening that I want to see,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: speech somebody's giving or election night or something like that,
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: we generally don't watch the news.
1:06:14
We generally get our news through various different sources
1:06:16
because it's more
1:06:17
SPEAKER_02: dependable and it's less outrage-oriented.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so much of the way the news is being designed now.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_02: It's not by accident.
1:06:24
It's being designed this way because they have people who are
1:06:27
studying what causes
1:06:29
people to emotionally react and therefore get more tied into
1:06:33
your station.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: And so that's being done on both sides of the political spectrum.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_02: And we know there are alternatives here at the States.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: PBS NewsHour is out there.
1:06:41
Everybody says,
1:06:41
I wish we could have someplace where they just told us the
1:06:43
news.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_02: That's what they do, but nobody watches.
1:06:46
So it's this dichotomy between what we think we want,
1:06:48
but what we also respond to is different.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_03: So basically, we're only exposed to things we want to hear.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_03: And things that confirm our own biases and deeply held beliefs.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: We live in an echo chamber of our own making and participation.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_03: And just like on Facebook or social media,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_03: if I don't like a post or if I don't like somebody's opinions,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_03: I can just unfollow them and just follow people I agree with.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_02: And over time,
1:07:21
SPEAKER_02: the algorithm is designed to have you see only things you agree with or
1:07:24
SPEAKER_02: overwhelmingly things you agree with,
1:07:26
SPEAKER_02: gotcha.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: well,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: and I think,
1:07:29
SPEAKER_01: pardon me,
1:07:29
and I think that there's a really important thing to look at
1:07:32
with that as well,
1:07:33
SPEAKER_01: which is that they're feeding each other,
1:07:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:07:40
this choice of how we engage with confirmation bias and it
1:07:45
becoming so easy.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: John Pike talks about this in The Coddling of the American Mind.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_01: We've become so sensitive to things that elicit discomfort.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_01: And the reason why is because they're so easy to avoid.
1:08:00
And,
1:08:01
you know,
1:08:01
all of a sudden things that were...
1:08:04
Now,
1:08:07
there's a trade-off,
1:08:08
right?
1:08:09
We used to be a lot more comfortable with things that really
1:08:11
didn't have a place in
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: our world at all.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_01: Certain ideologies, viewpoints, even certain language.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_01: However,
1:08:18
SPEAKER_01: in avoiding those things entirely,
1:08:20
SPEAKER_01: and like you're saying,
1:08:21
SPEAKER_01: we choose to unfollow somebody who we don't like,
1:08:24
SPEAKER_01: all of a sudden our worldview gets very selective.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_01: And it's important to recognize that
1:08:34
SPEAKER_01: I make the joke,
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: objective,
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: true thing,
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: what it used to be,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_01: but there's also this really important distinction,
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: which is that there is so much more information in the world.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: So much more of the world is publicized.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_01: We can see,
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: we can hear,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: we can engage with,
1:08:52
we can talk to so much more of the world than we've ever had
1:08:56
access to before.
1:08:58
And it's continuing to increase to the point that we're
1:09:01
building onto these
1:09:02
SPEAKER_01: online spaces where people spend their whole lives.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:09:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:09:07
I had a friend who I was a groomsman in a wedding with another
1:09:15
person who had only
1:09:16
SPEAKER_01: met the groom three times in person.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_01: But they played video games together online every single day.
1:09:23
And the third time they had met in person was when he came to
1:09:25
be a part of the wedding.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_01: So,
1:09:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:09:27
SPEAKER_01: we,
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: we just,
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: we are,
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: we're part of a much bigger world and part of the human lens of,
1:09:33
SPEAKER_01: of consumption of information is that we can only understand so much,
1:09:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: and when we're blasted with these bits of information,
1:09:41
particularly when those pieces of information are
1:09:44
advertisements that are tailored
1:09:45
SPEAKER_01: to what we are,
1:09:46
SPEAKER_01: what our online profile thinks that we want to see,
1:09:49
there's less space to really review the practical humanity of
1:09:53
what's around us.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: Jake,
1:09:56
maybe it might be helpful to take a minute and just talk about
1:09:58
Barry Schwartz's
1:09:59
SPEAKER_02: work on the paradox of choice and how that impacts it.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the very short answer is that we get decision paralysis.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_01: Barry Schwartz,
1:10:10
who was actually a guest lecturer during my time in grad school
1:10:13
and is a consistent
1:10:15
SPEAKER_01: partner of my grad program,
1:10:17
SPEAKER_01: really cool guy.
1:10:20
He writes about the paradox of choice and decision paralysis in
1:10:23
the sense that when
1:10:24
SPEAKER_01: we have a choice between one,
1:10:26
SPEAKER_01: two,
1:10:26
SPEAKER_01: even three things,
1:10:28
SPEAKER_01: it's a lot easier for us to have an understanding.
1:10:31
But as the amount of things that we need to choose from grows
1:10:37
and bombards us at
1:10:38
SPEAKER_01: every level,
1:10:39
SPEAKER_01: where do you want to go to school?
1:10:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
1:10:40
what does that mean about the socioeconomic environment of the
1:10:43
place that you're
1:10:43
SPEAKER_01: going to live when you get there?
1:10:45
SPEAKER_01: How does the meal plan affect your health?
1:10:47
SPEAKER_01: How does that set up, set you up for X level of job?
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: this job is interesting,
1:10:52
SPEAKER_01: but is that even going to be here in three or four years because of the
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: advancements of technology and the way that things are going?
1:10:59
SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
1:11:00
SPEAKER_01: instead of doing all of that,
1:11:01
there's all of these other options for who I can be in the
1:11:03
world and online that
1:11:05
SPEAKER_01: don't necessitate a college loan and all of these things.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_01: And I just,
1:11:09
SPEAKER_01: I use college in particular because I live in a college town,
1:11:11
SPEAKER_01: but the,
1:11:12
SPEAKER_01: the idea being that,
1:11:15
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:11:16
SPEAKER_01: the more
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: The more we are experiencing what people would call freedom to choose,
1:11:24
the less free we actually are to be a part of the lives that we
1:11:27
want to live
1:11:28
because we're so overwhelmed by how we direct our attention at
1:11:31
any given moment.
1:11:33
And the fact is that that level of overstimulation as
1:11:38
programmed by the people who
1:11:39
build and uphold our society is not going anywhere because it's
1:11:44
too advantageous.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
1:11:45
SPEAKER_02: so put that in the context of absorbing information now,
1:11:50
SPEAKER_02: just what's happening in the world on a daily basis.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: When I was growing up,
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: then my number would be 75 in January,
1:11:55
SPEAKER_02: but when I was growing up,
1:11:57
SPEAKER_02: you had a newspaper that came in the morning,
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: a newspaper that came in the evening.
1:12:01
You had a half an hour of news in the morning and a half an
1:12:04
hour of news at night,
1:12:05
SPEAKER_02: and then occasionally magazines,
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: Newsweek,
1:12:07
SPEAKER_02: Times,
1:12:07
SPEAKER_02: et cetera,
1:12:07
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
1:12:08
That was it,
1:12:09
really,
1:12:09
for the most part,
1:12:10
unless you were somebody who studied a field.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_02: So pretty easy to look at that information that's there,
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:12:19
SPEAKER_02: and glean what's going on and know which side you're on.
1:12:25
But it's also pretty easy to allow all of that information in
1:12:28
because it's not an odious amount.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: Half an hour morning,
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: half an hour at night,
1:12:31
SPEAKER_02: read the paper with breakfast,
1:12:32
SPEAKER_02: read the paper after dinner,
1:12:34
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
1:12:35
SPEAKER_02: But now we've got thousands of times more information available to us.
1:12:40
SPEAKER_02: It's not possible.
1:12:41
It's not even conceivably possible for anybody to even read a
1:12:44
fraction of it on a daily basis.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_02: So what people will do is they will try to simplify that choice.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_02: Now, how do I simplify that choice?
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: One way to do that is I'll go to this...
1:12:53
source this Substack or this person's writing or this person
1:12:57
this magazine whether
1:12:58
it's the atlantic or breitbart or whatever you particularly
1:13:01
like they become my
1:13:03
default i let them choose the stories that i should see now
1:13:07
that's fine if it's
1:13:08
something like the magazine this week which is designed to pull
1:13:12
in or 1440 as an
1:13:13
online source like that where these are these are new sources
1:13:16
that are designed to
1:13:17
say here's what these people are saying but here's what these
1:13:19
people are saying and
1:13:20
SPEAKER_02: give you a sense of both but
1:13:22
SPEAKER_02: Unless you've chosen one of those,
1:13:23
SPEAKER_02: and sadly,
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: like the PBS comment I made earlier,
1:13:26
SPEAKER_02: not a lot of people use those sources.
1:13:27
SPEAKER_02: What people will go to is,
1:13:29
I like the Atlantic because I'm liberal and the Atlantic really
1:13:32
schools Trump.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_02: Or I like Fox because I'm conservative and they really schooled Obama.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_02: And so our choices get simplified because they're easier,
1:13:41
but they're also less fulsome and more reinforcing of our
1:13:47
already point of view.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_03: And then we go to work and we find diverse environments.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_03: And gentlemen,
1:13:59
SPEAKER_03: I know our timing is running out,
1:14:03
SPEAKER_03: but I would like to talk to you about the book Reinventing Diversity.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_03: Why did you write that book?
1:14:13
Well,
1:14:14
I wrote that book back,
1:14:15
let me say,
1:14:15
started doing research for that book probably...
1:14:19
SPEAKER_02: 10 years before I wrote it.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_02: It was my first book.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_02: And what I found was I got into the diversity space.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been doing this work for more than 40 years now.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_02: When I first got into the diversity space,
1:14:32
SPEAKER_02: the way we did the work was,
1:14:34
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:14:34
SPEAKER_02: I used to call them find them and fix them training.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_02: So you come in a room and it's like,
1:14:38
SPEAKER_02: who's the racist,
1:14:38
SPEAKER_02: who's the sexist,
1:14:39
SPEAKER_02: and how do we fix you,
1:14:40
SPEAKER_00: you know?
1:14:41
SPEAKER_02: Not very effective, well-intentioned, but not very effective, right?
1:14:46
SPEAKER_02: And what I began to realize was that,
1:14:49
SPEAKER_02: first of all,
1:14:49
SPEAKER_02: that this was more than just a social justice issue,
1:14:53
SPEAKER_02: that there really were deep business implications to this,
1:14:56
deep societal implications for this beyond just fairness in
1:15:00
terms of getting the
1:15:01
SPEAKER_02: best out of our people,
1:15:02
SPEAKER_02: giving people the opportunity for success in life,
1:15:06
SPEAKER_02: helping people in terms of their health and well-being,
1:15:08
SPEAKER_02: lots of different things.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15:11
And I began to notice that there were certain things that that
1:15:13
just seemed wrong headed to me.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_02: One was that this notion that
1:15:19
SPEAKER_02: That diversity was something that needed to be,
1:15:22
SPEAKER_02: was a problem that needed to be fixed,
1:15:24
SPEAKER_02: as opposed to a body of distinctions that it was valuable to understand.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, for example, you know, you're in Sweden.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_02: I've done work in Sweden, as I've shared with you.
1:15:36
Before I went to Stockholm to do work there the first time,
1:15:39
I think I was there twice.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15:41
You know,
1:15:41
I took some time to go online to understand Swedish business
1:15:45
practices.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_02: And are there any cultural patterns that I needed to know that,
1:15:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:15:50
things that were particularly liked or particularly offensive
1:15:54
in that culture when
1:15:55
SPEAKER_02: doing business?
1:15:56
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, that was where I was going.
1:15:59
If you're going to France,
1:16:00
it's helpful to learn to speak a few words in French.
1:16:02
You know,
1:16:03
so understanding these differences impact the way we interact
1:16:06
with each other.
1:16:07
So the first aspect of it was this whole notion of
1:16:09
understanding it as culture and
1:16:11
understanding the different aspects of culture that different
1:16:14
people bring and how
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: do we learn to work together
1:16:17
across these cultures in a way that sometimes could benefit us
1:16:20
because this group
1:16:21
brings something that we don't have and we bring something that
1:16:23
they don't have,
1:16:23
SPEAKER_02: right?
1:16:23
SPEAKER_02: So that was the first aspect.
1:16:25
SPEAKER_02: The second aspect was very at the heart of what we've been talking about,
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: which was the whole unconscious bias conversation,
1:16:31
SPEAKER_02: which at the time,
1:16:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:16:33
SPEAKER_02: 15 years ago was really only being spoken about in the academy.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't much in the way of,
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:16:41
SPEAKER_02: diversity practitioners really weren't talking about it.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_02: But for me,
1:16:45
SPEAKER_02: it was the key that unlocked the door in a lot of ways,
1:16:48
SPEAKER_02: why it was that good people did bad things,
1:16:50
why it was that people who were so intelligent and so rational
1:16:53
could say things
1:16:54
SPEAKER_02: that were so startlingly dumb.
1:16:57
SPEAKER_02: And so when I got that,
1:16:58
it really shifted also this notion that what's driving that
1:17:01
person is that they're
1:17:02
SPEAKER_02: a bad person,
1:17:03
SPEAKER_02: which is kind of the way that,
1:17:05
the way in the early days we were taught to do this work was if
1:17:07
you teach everybody
1:17:08
SPEAKER_02: to be a good person,
1:17:09
SPEAKER_02: they'll do the right thing.
1:17:10
But I started to see more and more good people who did things
1:17:12
that weren't
1:17:13
SPEAKER_02: particularly on par,
1:17:14
SPEAKER_02: you know.
1:17:15
SPEAKER_02: And so that was the second part of it.
1:17:16
And then the third part was that a lot of diversity work at
1:17:19
that time was being
1:17:20
SPEAKER_02: done through special activities,
1:17:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:17:22
SPEAKER_02: International Food Day in the cafeteria,
1:17:24
SPEAKER_02: Black History Month,
1:17:25
SPEAKER_02: Women's History Month,
1:17:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:17:26
SPEAKER_02: all these kind of special events.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_02: And there's nothing wrong with these special events.
1:17:31
In some cases,
1:17:32
they could be really valuable if they're used the right way.
1:17:35
SPEAKER_02: But what other business issue of import do we handle in that way?
1:17:39
SPEAKER_02: If we have a safety issue, we don't just say, oh, put on a safety day.
1:17:42
SPEAKER_02: We look at our systems.
1:17:43
SPEAKER_02: We look at our structures.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_02: We say, where's the lack of safety?
1:17:45
SPEAKER_02: How do we improve that safety?
1:17:48
SPEAKER_02: If we start to look at these issues of diversity and identity that way,
1:17:52
SPEAKER_02: we say,
1:17:52
SPEAKER_02: okay,
1:17:53
SPEAKER_02: so let's study how we hire people.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_02: What do we notice about our hiring patterns?
1:17:56
SPEAKER_02: We notice that...
1:17:59
SPEAKER_02: 22% of the people who apply for jobs at our company are African-American,
1:18:02
SPEAKER_02: let's say,
1:18:03
SPEAKER_02: but only 10% of the people who are hired are African-American.
1:18:06
SPEAKER_02: So we need to explore that.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_02: Is that just coincidence?
1:18:09
SPEAKER_02: Could be.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_02: Could be that it just happens that they were less qualified for the job.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_02: Or it could be that this is a sign of bias.
1:18:14
SPEAKER_02: But by asking the question, we at least know where to look.
1:18:17
So the whole idea of bringing in a systemic way of looking at
1:18:20
this and not seeing
1:18:21
SPEAKER_02: it as just,
1:18:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:18:22
SPEAKER_02: fixing people was the important part of that.
1:18:24
So for me,
1:18:24
it was a declaration of a new way to go about this work at that
1:18:28
time.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_03: Do you think we suffer from diversity fatigue?
1:18:40
SPEAKER_02: I think that there were...
1:18:43
SPEAKER_02: I think particularly post-George Floyd,
1:18:45
there were people who made some decisions that did things that
1:18:51
weren't really well
1:18:52
SPEAKER_02: thought out.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_02: It was coming a lot from people's pain.
1:18:58
SPEAKER_02: And I think it contributed to the backlash reaction that we're having.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_02: But I do think it's important for us to recognize that this reaction,
1:19:06
SPEAKER_02: these attacks on DE&I are politically motivated.
1:19:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is something that happened.
1:19:11
The justification for them lately has been the Gaza protests
1:19:16
and demonstrations and
1:19:17
SPEAKER_02: the anti-Semitism.
1:19:18
But I was attacked back in 2020,
1:19:21
years before that ever happened by people on the right.
1:19:24
So I think what you've got is you've got people who've decided
1:19:27
that the status quo,
1:19:29
that is
1:19:30
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:19:31
the power of white people is something that they think is
1:19:33
important to keep in
1:19:34
society and things that take away from that are dangerous and
1:19:38
threatening and who
1:19:39
SPEAKER_02: want to stop the work for that reason.
1:19:41
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately,
1:19:42
some of the stuff that happened post-George Floyd gave them
1:19:45
ammunition to work on.
1:19:47
So,
1:19:47
for example,
1:19:47
I had somebody who called me who I've known for many years
1:19:51
professionally.
1:19:51
SPEAKER_02: We're not friends, but professionally known for many years.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_02: And he's always been on the liberal side of these issues,
1:19:57
SPEAKER_02: pro-civil rights,
1:19:58
SPEAKER_02: pro-LGBT rights,
1:19:59
SPEAKER_02: etc.
1:20:01
SPEAKER_02: And he shared with me,
1:20:02
he said he had a stepchild who has a stepchild who at the age
1:20:07
of 12 wanted to
1:20:08
SPEAKER_02: transition.
1:20:10
SPEAKER_02: And and he said that he completely supports if that's their path.
1:20:17
And he worries that 12 years old is too early for a child to
1:20:21
make that decision.
1:20:22
And he was sort of,
1:20:23
you know,
1:20:24
betwixt and between about those two feelings.
1:20:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:20:26
And he shared this with some younger members of his team and
1:20:29
they virtually canceled it.
1:20:31
SPEAKER_02: Called him a transphobe,
1:20:34
SPEAKER_02: just said he was a bigot because he was concerned and asking a question.
1:20:40
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't help.
1:20:42
SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't help when people act that way.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:20:44
I think we've got to get off of our righteousness on all sides
1:20:48
of this conversation
1:20:49
SPEAKER_02: and realize that our righteousness is actually what the real enemy is.
1:20:53
SPEAKER_00: That righteousness is the enemy.
1:20:55
And the more we can get off of our righteousness and remain a
1:20:59
little bit open to at
1:21:00
SPEAKER_02: least try to understand where people are coming from,
1:21:03
SPEAKER_02: we've got a much greater chance of bridging that divide.
1:21:06
SPEAKER_02: And it's not easy.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_02: I lose my temper just like other people do.
1:21:09
SPEAKER_02: I try to maintain it, but there's sometimes you...
1:21:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, you got to back away.
1:21:14
SPEAKER_02: You got to say, you know what?
1:21:16
SPEAKER_02: This is a conversation for me to be in.
1:21:19
SPEAKER_03: We're human beings.
1:21:20
SPEAKER_03: Our righteousness is the enemy.
1:21:23
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:21:23
SPEAKER_03: That's well said.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_03: There's a new quote for you to use.
1:21:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:21:33
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
1:21:34
Jake,
1:21:34
is there anything that I should have asked you that I haven't
1:21:38
asked you?
1:21:41
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the question.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, the truth is, I don't think so.
1:21:44
SPEAKER_01: I feel like we sort of covered the stuff that's important to me.
1:21:49
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:21:50
SPEAKER_01: Spend more time in communities.
1:21:51
SPEAKER_01: Spend more time with people you love.
1:21:53
Expand the definition of what people you love looks like and
1:21:56
then go love more people.
1:21:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's kind of my MO.
1:22:02
And it's really a treat to get to do this work in such a way
1:22:06
that has the thing
1:22:07
that's most important to me get to align with the things most
1:22:10
important to my
1:22:10
SPEAKER_01: father and such that we can create...
1:22:13
this body of work together that gets to have him contribute in
1:22:19
the dwindling years
1:22:20
of his active contribution to his career and in the budding
1:22:24
years of mine.
1:22:25
SPEAKER_01: So it feels, it's really cool to get to carry a legacy and
1:22:29
It's really an honor to get to have conversations like this in
1:22:32
particular with
1:22:33
SPEAKER_01: people who hold him in such high regard.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_01: The truth is my whole life is filled with such people.
1:22:38
But particularly in moments like this,
1:22:41
it's really special to get to reflect on...
1:22:46
that other people are inspired by this work in the way that I
1:22:49
have oriented my life
1:22:50
towards feels like an affirmation and acknowledgement that I'm
1:22:54
on the right path,
1:22:55
SPEAKER_01: which even when the heart knows that it's still always good to hear.
1:22:59
So I'm really grateful to get to be here and for the invitation
1:23:06
to be a part of
1:23:06
SPEAKER_01: this conversation.
1:23:08
SPEAKER_03: You're welcome.
1:23:10
SPEAKER_03: It's great to have you here.
1:23:11
I find it fascinating that you're introducing also AI and bias
1:23:17
to the conversation.
1:23:19
I am looking forward to following this and seeing where this
1:23:22
will lead to.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_03: Because AI is part of our lives these days.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_02: It certainly is.
1:23:29
SPEAKER_02: And it's not going anywhere.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say, and for the future.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:23:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:23:33
SPEAKER_03: And for the future.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:23:35
Ibram,
1:23:36
can I leave people with one thing that's really important that
1:23:38
came out of this research?
1:23:39
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's something.
1:23:41
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
1:23:41
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
1:23:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:23:42
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
1:23:42
You know,
1:23:44
we've all seen these bumper stickers,
1:23:46
you know,
1:23:46
practice random acts of kindness.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it feels like some old 60s thing.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_02: They should have peace signs up around it or something.
1:23:54
We've got some new research that's been coming out over the
1:23:57
last couple of years
1:23:58
SPEAKER_02: that shows that when you do take the moment for a random act of kindness,
1:24:02
SPEAKER_02: saying hello to the toll taker,
1:24:03
SPEAKER_02: asking them how their day is,
1:24:05
SPEAKER_02: nodding at that person on the street as they walk by,
1:24:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:24:08
SPEAKER_02: these micro behaviors,
1:24:09
SPEAKER_02: that it not only is nice for that person,
1:24:13
SPEAKER_02: but you actually get a hit of oxytocin yourself.
1:24:17
SPEAKER_02: That when you do things like that, it will lift your spirits.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_02: It will make you happier.
1:24:22
SPEAKER_02: And so what I would leave people with is we always have that moment.
1:24:25
It's a little bit like that famous little Lauren Isley story
1:24:29
about the star
1:24:29
SPEAKER_02: thrower,
1:24:30
SPEAKER_02: which people I'm sure have heard,
1:24:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:24:32
SPEAKER_02: that...
1:24:32
SPEAKER_02: Guy goes up on the beach and he sees somebody.
1:24:34
SPEAKER_02: It looks like they're dancing on the beach.
1:24:36
SPEAKER_02: But when he gets closer,
1:24:37
SPEAKER_02: he realized the person is reaching down to throwing these starfish,
1:24:39
SPEAKER_02: which have been washed up by the tide.
1:24:42
He's throwing it back in the water and goes over and says,
1:24:44
why are you doing this?
1:24:45
SPEAKER_02: He says, well, if they're left out in the sun, they'll die.
1:24:47
SPEAKER_02: And he throws the guy and the guy looks still left and right.
1:24:49
SPEAKER_02: He says, there are hundreds of them here.
1:24:50
SPEAKER_02: You can't possibly think you're making a difference.
1:24:53
SPEAKER_02: He picks one up and says, made a difference to him.
1:24:55
SPEAKER_02: And so every act of kindness,
1:24:57
SPEAKER_02: every act of consideration,
1:24:58
every time we stop ourselves and find that humanity in
1:25:02
ourselves and reach out to
1:25:03
SPEAKER_02: connect to humanity,
1:25:05
SPEAKER_02: the other person,
1:25:06
SPEAKER_02: it's like putting another stone in the other side of that scale.
1:25:10
And that's something that every single one of us has an
1:25:13
opportunity to do every
1:25:14
SPEAKER_02: single day of our lives.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_03: beautiful.
1:25:17
SPEAKER_03: This was actually going to be one of my last questions.
1:25:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to ask it,
1:25:23
but you have to come up with a different answer because you
1:25:25
already gave me one.
1:25:29
SPEAKER_03: This question is also for Jake, of course.
1:25:33
SPEAKER_03: That is,
1:25:34
SPEAKER_03: if you could give only one piece of advice of all the knowledge,
1:25:41
SPEAKER_03: all the books you've written,
1:25:44
SPEAKER_03: all the books you've read,
1:25:46
SPEAKER_03: your experience,
1:25:47
SPEAKER_03: you could only give people one piece of advice for a better,
1:25:51
SPEAKER_03: more meaningful life.
1:25:54
SPEAKER_03: What would it be?
1:25:57
SPEAKER_03: And I'll start with Jake, if you're ready.
1:26:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
1:26:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_01: I think if I were to really,
1:26:09
SPEAKER_01: well,
1:26:09
SPEAKER_01: if I were to boil it down to very,
1:26:11
SPEAKER_01: very simple,
1:26:13
SPEAKER_01: love others,
1:26:15
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:26:15
SPEAKER_01: just love others,
1:26:18
SPEAKER_01: but to take it up to one sentence,
1:26:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:26:19
SPEAKER_01: Gandhi,
1:26:20
SPEAKER_01: Gandhi said,
1:26:20
SPEAKER_01: be the change we wish to see in the world.
1:26:25
I think that at least the way that I've always related to that
1:26:28
in my life is it
1:26:28
SPEAKER_01: feels like a lot of pressure.
1:26:29
SPEAKER_01: And my orientation to that is slightly different in the world around me.
1:26:37
And it's very similar to what Howard just noted about making
1:26:41
one little piece of
1:26:41
SPEAKER_01: difference,
1:26:42
SPEAKER_01: which is
1:26:43
SPEAKER_01: Sure, be the change you wish to see in the world.
1:26:45
SPEAKER_01: But I think more importantly,
1:26:47
SPEAKER_01: in a world that feels overwhelmingly scary and increasingly so every day,
1:26:51
SPEAKER_01: be the good that you need to see in the world.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, if it feels like...
1:26:59
SPEAKER_01: we live in a world where there's not enough kindness, bring kindness.
1:27:04
If it feels like we live in a world where there's not enough
1:27:08
generosity,
1:27:09
bring generosity.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_01: Because it's true.
1:27:11
I think most people orient to the starfish thing as every
1:27:15
starfish we throw is just
1:27:18
SPEAKER_01: a tiny bit and doesn't really make a difference.
1:27:20
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is
1:27:23
SPEAKER_01: That actually every little bit of difference gives even just,
1:27:27
SPEAKER_01: if it gives even just one person faith in humanity,
1:27:30
SPEAKER_01: that's the good that most of us need to see in the world.
1:27:34
SPEAKER_01: So,
1:27:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:27:35
SPEAKER_01: take on the changes that feel appropriate,
1:27:37
SPEAKER_01: but always be the good that you want to see in the world.
1:27:43
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
1:27:44
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
1:27:47
Yeah,
1:27:47
I would say,
1:27:48
Ibrahim,
1:27:49
I would say my advice to people would be slow down.
1:27:53
You know,
1:27:53
so much of what we're talking about happens because people live
1:27:56
in reaction.
1:27:58
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:27:58
SPEAKER_02: we're like,
1:27:59
like those old things with the ping pong balls on mousetraps
1:28:02
and one starts and
1:28:03
SPEAKER_02: pretty soon everything is reacting.
1:28:04
SPEAKER_02: We're just, we're, we've become reaction machines.
1:28:06
SPEAKER_02: And if we just slow down, the breath can be really helpful.
1:28:11
SPEAKER_02: Take a look inside.
1:28:13
SPEAKER_02: What's the next best appropriate step for me.
1:28:15
SPEAKER_02: You're not always going to make the right one,
1:28:16
but at least you've got a much greater chance than if you're
1:28:18
just a reaction
1:28:19
SPEAKER_02: machine.
1:28:20
SPEAKER_02: And I think that in today's world,
1:28:23
it's especially important also in terms of slowing down that we
1:28:26
disengage at times,
1:28:27
particularly from these machines that we've got carrying around
1:28:30
all the time and
1:28:32
SPEAKER_02: give ourselves a break.
1:28:33
And there are a lot of people who are starting to take a
1:28:35
Sabbath day from machines,
1:28:37
SPEAKER_02: which is really interesting.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_02: And I've started to play around with that a little bit,
1:28:41
SPEAKER_02: taking certain breaks for times,
1:28:44
SPEAKER_02: even for a couple of days at a time.
1:28:46
SPEAKER_02: So those are a couple of thoughts.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_03: Be the good you want to see and slow down.
1:28:56
SPEAKER_03: Gentlemen, Howard and Jake, thank you so much for this conversation.
1:29:00
SPEAKER_03: I could go on for another two hours.
1:29:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so could we.
1:29:03
SPEAKER_02: I think I could too.
1:29:04
SPEAKER_02: It's been totally fun.
1:29:05
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for inviting us.
1:29:07
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_03: And Howard, you know you've inspired me a lot.
1:29:11
And I don't think you have an idea of how much you've inspired
1:29:15
me to not only keep
1:29:18
SPEAKER_03: going and talk about these difficult subjects,
1:29:22
SPEAKER_03: but also to bring more awareness and to keep fighting because...
1:29:28
i think that we can talk about diversity we can talk about
1:29:31
trust inclusion and bias
1:29:34
and it's difficult sometimes it can be messy but i think if we
1:29:38
have the right
1:29:39
intentions and if we see the good in other people then we can
1:29:46
achieve beautiful
1:29:47
SPEAKER_03: things so please continue to inspire people continue to do what you do
1:29:54
SPEAKER_03: And Jake, I wish you all the best.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_03: I will follow your work and I'll make sure to read your chapters as well.
1:30:02
SPEAKER_03: The book coming in June, Everyday Bias, the new edition.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_02: We'll have to get together again after the new book comes out, Ibrahim.
1:30:09
SPEAKER_03: Please, please come back.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_02: Will do.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
1:30:12
SPEAKER_02: And thank you so much for your words.
1:30:14
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how much it means to me.
1:30:15
SPEAKER_02: It really means a lot.
1:30:16
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:30:17
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
1:30:20
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening to Speaking of Meaning.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_03: If today's episode helped you see communication in a new way,
1:30:27
SPEAKER_03: share it with someone you care about,
1:30:29
SPEAKER_03: a friend,
1:30:29
SPEAKER_03: a partner or a colleague who wants to grow.
1:30:32
SPEAKER_03: And don't forget to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
1:30:37
SPEAKER_03: I'm Ibrahim.
1:30:38
SPEAKER_03: Until next time, better communication, greater impact.