Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Conversation with Gena Gorlin -- Defining a Life of Genuine Ambition | Yaron Brook Show

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Conversation with Gena Gorlin -- Defining a Life of Genuine Ambition | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1: You were right.
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Speaker 2: I mean the photos out there, I just know lot.
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Speaker 3: Of hids of lat self interest and an individual loss.
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Speaker 1: This is the show, all right, everybody.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to your one Books show on this Monday, January twelfth,
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Speaker 3: twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: I think the year right.
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Speaker 3: Second show today and we have I'm excited to have
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Speaker 3: Gina with me. Gina Golan is joining us and of
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Speaker 3: course available to take your questions. As you know I think.
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Speaker 3: Gina is a clinical Associate Professor of psychology at ut
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Speaker 3: University of Texas, Austin and a licensed therapist. She's a founder,
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Speaker 3: entrepreneur coach. She works with leading innovators in Silicon Valley
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Speaker 3: and globally and excitingly, and what we're going to be
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Speaker 3: talking about, she is in the final stages of finishing
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Speaker 3: up a book. No, it's final compared to how much
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Speaker 3: you've already done, final stages of completing her first book,
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Speaker 3: which will be published by Penguin Random House. So a
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Speaker 3: big mainstream publisher. Welcome to Gina, Thank you so much.
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Speaker 1: So tell us about the book.
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Speaker 3: This is exciting.
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Speaker 2: Yes, So the book organically emerged out of my substack
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Speaker 2: as I was angling for it to do at some point.
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Speaker 2: That's why I started Substack originally Building the Builders. Then
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Speaker 2: I rebranded it the Psychology of Ambition, partly in anticipation
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Speaker 2: of the book, But it's really a summation of everything
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Speaker 2: that I've learned, frameworks, tools that I've developed to date
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Speaker 2: for addressing the needs that the what I see as
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Speaker 2: underserved psychological needs of ultra ambitious people who are building
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Speaker 2: new things. So whether that's you know, literal like entrepreneurs, founds, company,
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Speaker 2: you know, leaders, or really anybody who's trying to live
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Speaker 2: a really purposeful, productive life and drink it to the
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Speaker 2: leaves because you know, fundamentally, see, ambition is something that
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Speaker 2: we all ought to strive for.
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Speaker 3: So is this is it focused on helping people become ambitious?
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Speaker 3: Was it about people who are ambitious, you know, aligning
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Speaker 3: their psychology with that ambition.
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Speaker 2: That's a really good question, I would say, at least
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Speaker 2: kind of on a first gloss. It's more the latter.
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Speaker 2: I think this book will appeal to people to the
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Speaker 2: degree that they already identify with the idea of ambitious
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Speaker 2: is or the idea of you know, like aiming high,
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Speaker 2: of trying to do big things, or trying to make
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Speaker 2: their life count, so they would already identify it as ambitious.
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Speaker 2: But part of the thesis of the book is that
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Speaker 2: ambition is not the default, and that there are lots
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Speaker 2: of counterfeits for ambition that we've really easily fall prey to,
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Speaker 2: even when we start with that genuine, idealistic urge, you know,
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Speaker 2: that the kind of genuine you know, the spirit of
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Speaker 2: youth as Rand wrote about it, that then easily gets
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Speaker 2: co opted by kind of secondhanded you know, status ladder climbing,
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Speaker 2: or by virtue signaling, or by following some existing template
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Speaker 2: for a good life or for for success that isn't
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Speaker 2: actually tailored to our fully lived life. And so in
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Speaker 2: fact the book is also a primer for becoming genuinely,
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Speaker 2: authentically ambitious and fundamentally ambition.
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Speaker 1: Getting you on the right track once you've deviated, yes, in.
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Speaker 2: Large part, but also teaching you how to build a track,
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Speaker 2: you know, because there's there's no track already laid out right,
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Speaker 2: and that's a big part of the building process. In
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Speaker 2: building our life, we also build a conception of how
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Speaker 2: we want our life to go, and we also build
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Speaker 2: you know, a particular we build a career, We build relationships,
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Speaker 2: we build the the integration of all of those things
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Speaker 2: in the particular ways that we want them to feed
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Speaker 2: off of each other. So all of it has to
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Speaker 2: be built, which is a big part of the books them.
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Speaker 3: And it seems like the people you work with pamiliarlready
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Speaker 3: people who are ambitious that you know they're they're in
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Speaker 3: silicon value or way and they're starting own companies, so
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Speaker 3: they're already in that in that process. So what do
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Speaker 3: they need at that point? What is what is it
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Speaker 3: that that that they come to you for or that
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Speaker 3: you're providing them a whole lot?
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Speaker 2: Have not to say I'm providing I mean, I hope
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Speaker 2: I'm providing a lot. To your earlier question, they need
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Speaker 2: a whole lot, and I hope at least I scraped
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Speaker 2: the surface in terms of trying to fulfill those needs. So,
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Speaker 2: I mean, this is kind of one of the big surprises.
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Speaker 2: Whatever people ask me, like, what are the biggest learnings
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Speaker 2: the biggest surprises for me from these what now six
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Speaker 2: issuears of working almost exclusively with entrepreneurs with founders, and
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Speaker 2: one of my biggest surprises has been just the extent
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Speaker 2: to which they don't have their act together, the extent
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Speaker 2: to which their their skill sets, their talents, their psychology
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Speaker 2: is spiky, you know, to such a degree that you
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Speaker 2: just if you saw them in the context of like
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Speaker 2: how they talk to their wife or girlfriend or or
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Speaker 2: a partner, or in the context of how they prepare
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Speaker 2: their meals, you would think, like, this person couldn't lift
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Speaker 2: a finger to like to make a penny for the
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Speaker 2: life of them. But they're building multi billion dollar companies
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Speaker 2: and somehow they have been able to marshal their strengths
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Speaker 2: to find a compensation for their deficits in such a
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Speaker 2: way as to still do something really amazing and for real,
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Speaker 2: not you know, not just going through the motions, like
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Speaker 2: they actually had to really break through insight. They actually
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Speaker 2: penetrated into an industry and saw what nobody else saw,
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Speaker 2: you know, or they really kind of like they built
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Speaker 2: the kind of network of great people that they were
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Speaker 2: then able to somehow leverage. So that's one of the
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Speaker 2: big surprises. But in terms of what they need, there
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Speaker 2: are tech trends by stage of you know, entrepreneurial journey,
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Speaker 2: and so early on in the journey they need resilience
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Speaker 2: in the face of massive stress and uncertainty, you know,
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Speaker 2: So the kind of basic core fundamental like self confidence
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Speaker 2: and what I call self trust, which I think is
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Speaker 2: in some ways even more fundamental epistemic trust in your
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Speaker 2: own ability to update your judgment in light of new
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Speaker 2: evidence and to not bys yourself at e fact. So
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Speaker 2: they need to have the kind of earned credibility with
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Speaker 2: themselves that like, if you know, I will read the
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Speaker 2: writing on the wall, if the you know, if customers
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Speaker 2: are not chomping at the bit, if we have to
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Speaker 2: chase after them, and if that seems to continue after
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Speaker 2: several small pivots of the same basic product or of
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Speaker 2: the same basic you know, use case, then I will
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Speaker 2: not be afraid to say this isn't working, you know,
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Speaker 2: and we need to pivot. And I will not be
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Speaker 2: afraid to ask for help, and I will not be
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Speaker 2: afraid to admit that I suck at this and that
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Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm doing, and I, you know,
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Speaker 2: I'll be able to kind of look my imposter syndrome
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Speaker 2: in the eye and reckon with the fact that, yeah, no,
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Speaker 2: I signed up for something that by the very nature
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Speaker 2: of it, it requires that I'd be a constant in
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Speaker 2: bacillin beginner who doesn't know what they're doing. Because if
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Speaker 2: someone already knew how to do this, they would have
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Speaker 2: done it and the company would exist and I couldn't
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Speaker 2: make this bet, you know. So that's a huge part
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Speaker 2: of it. And then across stages, communication is a really
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Speaker 2: core need, and you know, with that the emotional self
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Speaker 2: awareness and the even just the kind of humanistic attitude,
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Speaker 2: the humanistic mindset of believing that other people can be
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Speaker 2: gotten through to believing that you can actually find win
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Speaker 2: win alignments with co founders with employees, you know, and
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Speaker 2: that sometimes firing an employee is actually the win win solution,
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Speaker 2: and that it's not going to either destroy them, you know,
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Speaker 2: or make you into a terrible person, but you know
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Speaker 2: that actually it's much worse for both of you the
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Speaker 2: longer you kind of, you know, keep them on out
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Speaker 2: of fear or pity. So those are some major things.
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Speaker 2: And as the so as you get put past what's
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Speaker 2: called product market fit, like once they've sort of like
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Speaker 2: figured out their core value proposition and their scaling, then
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Speaker 2: it's all leadership management people issues like and also just
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Speaker 2: who am I now that I don't get to be
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Speaker 2: the scrappy founder in the garage and I don't get
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Speaker 2: to ever touch a line of code. Now I'm you know,
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Speaker 2: the storyteller who's always fun raising or hiring, who is
9:02
Speaker 2: just constantly dealing with people and becoming a people person
9:06
Speaker 2: or reckoning with the fact that they don't want to yep,
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Speaker 2: and kind of either way, you know, being honest with
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Speaker 2: themselves and making the tough choices that actually align with
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Speaker 2: their you know, best life.
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Speaker 1: And is all of this in the book.
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Speaker 2: That's a tiny little subset of so much larger list
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Speaker 2: of Yes. I mean, I guess if I put it,
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Speaker 2: if I categorize the major themes in the book, it
9:31
Speaker 2: would be so One of the major major themes is
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Speaker 2: the idea that death is the default, and that I
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Speaker 2: have gotten a ton of leverage out of this formulation
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Speaker 2: ever since I kind of put words to it, The
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Speaker 2: idea that by default, entropy takes its you know, course,
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Speaker 2: and everything falls apart and we die, and that that's
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Speaker 2: not a function of vice or a villain ten or
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Speaker 2: of some you know, cosmic malevolent scheme.
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Speaker 3: It just is.
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Speaker 2: It's just it's just nature. It's just the second law
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Speaker 2: of thermodynamics, and that all the good things around us
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Speaker 2: were built, We're painstakingly built through trial and error, through
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Speaker 2: messy co founder dramas and breakups, sometimes through you know,
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Speaker 2: hangings and which trials that you know, scientists had to
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Speaker 2: undergo and still stand their ground and should be able
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Speaker 2: to kind of appreciate just how hard all of that
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Speaker 2: was and is, and just be able to kind of
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Speaker 2: get the perspective like, no, right, I'm not supposed to
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Speaker 2: already know what I'm doing. It's not supposed to be easy.
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Speaker 2: The universe doesn't guarantee me any wins. It doesn't you know,
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Speaker 2: guarantee my company's default dead. My relationships are default dead.
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Speaker 2: And on the flip side, look what's possible in the
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Speaker 2: face of all this entropy somehow? Nonetheless we built skyscrapers
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Speaker 2: and we set you know, humans into space and you know,
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Speaker 2: maybe soon to Mars, and so basically the default is
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Speaker 2: not destiny. And so like that dual perspective turns out
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Speaker 2: to actually get a lot of ROI return on investment, epistemically, motivationally,
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Speaker 2: because then it really kind of helps ground why it
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Speaker 2: is that we need to build, you know, why we
11:21
Speaker 2: need to be productive, that the default is not well,
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Speaker 2: you know, we just kind of coast and we watch
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Speaker 2: video games and somebody it periodically feeds us and we
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Speaker 2: live a you know, a life that's mindful and focused
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Speaker 2: on the present moment and not worry about it. Like, no,
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Speaker 2: the default is that, you know, you rot and die,
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Speaker 2: and so that's the kind of what gets it off
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Speaker 2: the ground. And then there's a lot in the book
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Speaker 2: on motivation and how we kind of build our values.
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Speaker 2: That values aren't just sort of intrinsic and innate that
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Speaker 2: we we develop them. We build them through iterative work,
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Speaker 2: you know, through engagement with projects in the world, and
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Speaker 2: that there's not some like some predetermined purpose for us
12:07
Speaker 2: or some predetermined good that we really need to build
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Speaker 2: that for ourselves. You know, you build a purpose, you
12:13
Speaker 2: don't find your purpose. And then there's a lot of
12:17
Speaker 2: material on sort of all the implications of that for
12:22
Speaker 2: how we kind of manage problems like quote unquote work
12:27
Speaker 2: like that kind of just rethinking a lot of the
12:31
Speaker 2: commonplaces that we hear in the culture, like you need
12:34
Speaker 2: work life balance. No, so what you're saying work isn't
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Speaker 2: part of life, and like it's already game over once
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Speaker 2: you've split these two parts of your life, you know,
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Speaker 2: into these like beakers that you have to somehow keep
12:47
Speaker 2: in some made up balance, but rather you know, like,
12:50
Speaker 2: how do you actually want to integrate all the parts
12:52
Speaker 2: of your life so that they're all sustaining and fueling
12:55
Speaker 2: each other. And then how do you build knowledge? And
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Speaker 2: what are all the ways that we lie to ourselves,
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Speaker 2: all the ways that ignorance is the default, you know, like,
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Speaker 2: how do we uphold the high bar of intellectual ambitiousness
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Speaker 2: rather than the more commonplace intellectual humility. You know, don't
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Speaker 2: pretend like you ever know anything, don't ever be certain. Well, no, actually,
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Speaker 2: if you want to achieve big things, if you want
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Speaker 2: to be ambitious, then you have to know a lot
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Speaker 2: and you have to be right a lot. Also, that's
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Speaker 2: really hard and it has to be earned. And so yeah,
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Speaker 2: you'll go through long stretches of not knowing anything, but
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Speaker 2: don't settle for that, you know, and actually hold the
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Speaker 2: high bar. And then there's lots of advice around thinking
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Speaker 2: from first principles kind of learning some of the lessons
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Speaker 2: of Silicon Valley's best thinking on this in terms of
13:45
Speaker 2: how do you actually discover new ideas and then how
13:51
Speaker 2: do you bring them to market? You know, how do
13:52
Speaker 2: you actually tell a compelling story? And how do you
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Speaker 2: make your knowledge emotionally real to yourself. How do you
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Speaker 2: build win win relationships? How do you communicate in a
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Speaker 2: way that it's both honest and respectful and constructive. When
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Speaker 2: do you say no to you know, to relationships, to jobs,
14:17
Speaker 2: to versions of your life? And then how do you
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Speaker 2: build your psychology to actually internalize all of these ideas
14:25
Speaker 2: that had been presented in the book up to that point.
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Speaker 2: It's a long book.
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Speaker 1: It's a long book. Yeah, one hundred and thirty.
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Speaker 2: I'm trying to whittle it down from one hundred and
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Speaker 2: thirty thousand words, which is already whittled down from some
14:43
Speaker 2: even more ungodly number.
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Speaker 3: Of verses that Yeah, how do you how do you
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Speaker 3: find the founders that you work with or the entrepreneurs you.
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Speaker 1: Work with respond.
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Speaker 2: I mean it's somewhat of a selection effect because the
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Speaker 2: ones I work with are the ones who respond well
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Speaker 2: and want to work with me. I guess pave me
15:03
Speaker 2: a lot of money to you know, pedal my wares,
15:07
Speaker 2: but I find that they respond well on average. There's
15:13
Speaker 2: a wide range in terms of what lands and what
15:16
Speaker 2: resonates and what doesn't among my major like rallying cries,
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Speaker 2: among the mantras that feature in my framework. One of
15:27
Speaker 2: the most commonly useful has been this idea of kind
15:33
Speaker 2: of checking our misanthropy at the door. That founders I
15:38
Speaker 2: have found disproportionately have an implicit in effect cynicism about
15:47
Speaker 2: other people and about what people are capable of. And
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Speaker 2: I've wrote a subject post kind of describing the developmental
15:54
Speaker 2: history of that psychology. As I've come to understand it
15:58
Speaker 2: that you're kind of boring the one player character you know,
16:04
Speaker 2: usually in a random community of not of NPCs, as
16:09
Speaker 2: you know, as bounder, psychically, as a non player character
16:12
Speaker 2: of you know, of lemmings, of of secondhanders, you know,
16:17
Speaker 2: whichever terminology you want to use. But you know, you're
16:20
Speaker 2: kind of a fish out of water. You're the only
16:23
Speaker 2: nerd and the only obsessive you know, like hacker kid
16:28
Speaker 2: amongst a bunch of more kind of preppy, mediocre, not
16:33
Speaker 2: you know, particularly thoughtful peers. Your parents laugh at your
16:38
Speaker 2: ambitions with the best of intent, but you know, I
16:41
Speaker 2: hear so many stories of like, yeah, my parents nicknamed
16:45
Speaker 2: me Gollum because you know, I would get so obsessed
16:49
Speaker 2: with my interests. Yeah, and so so they kind of
16:55
Speaker 2: grow up and to cope with the loneliness and this
16:58
Speaker 2: like just the feeling of a nation and you know,
17:01
Speaker 2: being misunderstood. They kind of they can't even grapple with
17:06
Speaker 2: the idea that you know, everyone in the like you all,
17:08
Speaker 2: everyone in the world sucks except me, Like that seems
17:12
Speaker 2: like such a taboo thought and also just an unbearable thought,
17:15
Speaker 2: and so they kind of turn it in on themselves.
17:17
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm the one, you know, I'm just so obsessive,
17:21
Speaker 2: I'm weird, I'm autistic, I have all these you know problems,
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Speaker 2: I'm the weird one, and so you know, I'm this
17:29
Speaker 2: burden on society. But you know, somehow they'll have to
17:33
Speaker 2: put up with me, and they kind of internalize this
17:37
Speaker 2: defect is kind of you know, self deprecating narrative, but
17:40
Speaker 2: deep down they've never checked the original belief, the original premise,
17:43
Speaker 2: which is still sitting that you know, nested in their summer,
17:46
Speaker 2: which is like everyone sucks, everyone's mindless, everyone's a lemming
17:52
Speaker 2: except for me, and this is an arid wasteland of mediocrity,
17:56
Speaker 2: and somehow I have to live here. You have to
17:59
Speaker 2: navigate this well. And so even at the point where
18:01
Speaker 2: like they've gone through why Combinator, and they've met some
18:03
Speaker 2: of the great living builders and entrepreneurship, Like, it doesn't
18:07
Speaker 2: actually penetrate that the hidden mindset, It doesn't check the
18:11
Speaker 2: belief because they've never even admitted to having the belief.
18:15
Speaker 2: That it's not explicit, and so they'll somehow twist it
18:19
Speaker 2: to fit the narrative like, well, sure, those repeat founders,
18:23
Speaker 2: they can afford to hire great people and they're able
18:26
Speaker 2: to be you know, like for other people in some
18:30
Speaker 2: shiny fictional universe that's not mine. It's possible to find
18:35
Speaker 2: great talent, it's possible to actually expect excellence and to
18:39
Speaker 2: keep a high bar. But not for me, because remember,
18:42
Speaker 2: I'm defective and obsessive, and this is an antisocial in thisiness,
18:46
Speaker 2: and so it ends up becoming this vicious kind of
18:49
Speaker 2: you know, anti pattern where they hire mediocre people because
18:52
Speaker 2: that's all they can you know, they assume that they
18:54
Speaker 2: can get, and then they're really resentful and frustrated, and
18:57
Speaker 2: that just reinforces their original unche you know, belief that
19:01
Speaker 2: people sack and so then they also lower their own
19:05
Speaker 2: bar at some point on you know, their own performance,
19:07
Speaker 2: because what can I really get them? What do you
19:09
Speaker 2: what can you do when you have to deal with
19:10
Speaker 2: people and you know, and it just kind of propagates.
19:15
Speaker 2: And then so I called that piece the hidden belief
19:18
Speaker 2: that kills great startups because I just see it over
19:21
Speaker 2: and over and I mentioned this because of everything I've written,
19:25
Speaker 2: this is the one that's most often been communicated to me, Like,
19:32
Speaker 2: you know, how did you you looked inside my head?
19:35
Speaker 2: Did you write this about me? Like I've had founders
19:38
Speaker 2: who I had one call with them. At the end
19:40
Speaker 2: of the call, I would send that links check this out.
19:42
Speaker 2: This could be useful, and the founder would like look
19:46
Speaker 2: at it on the call, the kind of skim it
19:49
Speaker 2: for a minute and look at me and like, did
19:52
Speaker 2: you did you just write this based on our call?
19:56
Speaker 2: What is going on? Like this is really creepy. You're
20:00
Speaker 2: inside my mind? So that's really resonant. You know, there
20:03
Speaker 2: are various things that I found are extremely resonant and
20:07
Speaker 2: that just don't get set often. You know, you're an
20:10
Speaker 2: underserved population because you're ambitious, not because of anything that's
20:14
Speaker 2: wrong with you, or you know, it's actually good to
20:17
Speaker 2: want to make money and that that can actually you
20:20
Speaker 2: know that there's no mission without margin and that you
20:24
Speaker 2: you know, if you get cynical about profit, then you
20:28
Speaker 2: should not be in this line of work.
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Speaker 3: You know, a lot of that kind of do they
20:32
Speaker 3: do You find that they have that kind of cynicism about.
20:37
Speaker 2: Either they I mean and the way that I mean
20:39
Speaker 2: you know more about this and for than I do.
20:41
Speaker 2: But the weird political landscape and how it's affected Silicon
20:45
Speaker 2: Valley has led to this bizarre bifurcation into there are
20:49
Speaker 2: still the kind of like recovering woke tech founders and
20:53
Speaker 2: tech you know, uh execs, leaders, et cetera. But they're
20:57
Speaker 2: kind of confused, you know that they don't know who
21:00
Speaker 2: they are anymore, but they're still kind of occasionally feeling
21:03
Speaker 2: like they need to pay homage to this or that
21:05
Speaker 2: DEI whatever, you know. And then there are the trumpee
21:08
Speaker 2: tech founders who like, okay, now I'm just gonna let
21:11
Speaker 2: it all hang out. But then the cynicism doesn't go
21:14
Speaker 2: away just you know flips right. It's like, oh yeah, no,
21:17
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely gonna I'm gonna cheat and steal and do
21:19
Speaker 2: whatever I gotta do because it's you know, the strongest
21:23
Speaker 2: man wins. Yeah, and it's even worse on that side
21:26
Speaker 2: of things.
21:27
Speaker 3: So and how many how many of them attorney to
21:30
Speaker 3: religion as a way to deal with that.
21:33
Speaker 2: It's a good question. So I again, I think I
21:36
Speaker 2: have a skewed sample because the ones who find me,
21:39
Speaker 2: they like my substack, they resonate with my work. I'm
21:43
Speaker 2: pretty sure, you know, if they do even a cursory
21:45
Speaker 2: Google search, they know, you know, I'm affiliated with Ari
21:49
Speaker 2: and an objectism, And so I don't think I get
21:51
Speaker 2: the super religious ones very often. But yeah, I mean
21:55
Speaker 2: definitely there's been somewhat of an uptick in like last
21:58
Speaker 2: couple of years. I mean, I again, I see the
22:02
Speaker 2: bifurcation of that. There are founders who are kind of
22:04
Speaker 2: still very much in the like Buddhist meditation, you know,
22:09
Speaker 2: let's do yahuasca and get and try to become enlightened
22:15
Speaker 2: kind of camp. And then there's more so the kind
22:20
Speaker 2: of searching within Christianity and within the more right coded
22:26
Speaker 2: philosophical traditions kind of camp.
22:29
Speaker 3: Ohlas, So who'd you say the book is for?
22:35
Speaker 2: I've given that so much thought, and my current working
22:40
Speaker 2: answer is that it's for anybody who already sees themselves
22:47
Speaker 2: as ambitious as striving to be So the phrase that
22:53
Speaker 2: I coined at one point while I was auditioning publishers,
22:57
Speaker 2: was high agency humanist. This is actually before Jason Crawford
23:02
Speaker 2: came up with his like techno humanist you know manifesto
23:05
Speaker 2: that there's some overlap in our circles.
23:08
Speaker 3: You know.
23:08
Speaker 2: So that's language that's sometimes useful for me too. But
23:11
Speaker 2: the kind of I mean it's definitely not you know,
23:15
Speaker 2: just tech people or just founders or or anyone slice
23:20
Speaker 2: anyone like industry per se. It can be college students,
23:24
Speaker 2: it can be athletes, that could be you know, homemakers
23:27
Speaker 2: who are rethinking what it means to be a homemaker.
23:30
Speaker 3: You know.
23:31
Speaker 2: So I really think of it as and this is
23:32
Speaker 2: sort of my substack audience and from what I can
23:34
Speaker 2: tell my Twitter, you know, audience such as it is,
23:37
Speaker 2: is this eclectic mix of people from like the rationalist community,
23:40
Speaker 2: people from the parenting and education kind of you know spaces.
23:44
Speaker 2: People obviously be in tech and orship objectivists, or people
23:48
Speaker 2: who are in that general kind of libertarian ish you know,
23:51
Speaker 2: part of the culture that people who think of themselves
23:55
Speaker 2: as thoughtful, ambitious and trying to think outside the box,
24:00
Speaker 2: you know, like there whether that means they're a great
24:02
Speaker 2: tribe or heterodox this or that, or you know, they're
24:06
Speaker 2: not necessarily in some camp, but they're also trying, you know,
24:11
Speaker 2: to kind of self create in some way and they
24:14
Speaker 2: haven't quite figured out how, and they're getting into various
24:16
Speaker 2: failure modes in the process, but they have that drive.
24:23
Speaker 3: So generally, people to drive people who are trying to
24:26
Speaker 3: make their life better.
24:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and consciously so I mean people who, you know,
24:31
Speaker 2: when they see a book on the builder's mindset and
24:34
Speaker 2: New Psychology of Ambition, we're working title, you know or
24:37
Speaker 2: whatever in that vicinity ends it being like that intrigues them.
24:42
Speaker 3: Them. You talked about self trust before. How do you
24:51
Speaker 3: establish self trust? And how much does an objectivist epistemology
24:56
Speaker 3: play into that.
24:57
Speaker 2: It's a great question. I gave a talk in twenty.
25:05
Speaker 1: We've already decided we're bad on dates.
25:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly, Yeah, we're not to be light upon authory.
25:14
Speaker 2: She is not the timeline, but I think maybe twenty
25:18
Speaker 2: seventy anyway, you can easily find it under its title
25:21
Speaker 2: just Earning your Own Trust, The Psychology of Honesty. So
25:25
Speaker 2: that was at an OCONN, I mean I know it,
25:27
Speaker 2: Uh no, it was twenty nineteen because I was pregnant
25:30
Speaker 2: with Alice, my first kid, and that was actually like
25:33
Speaker 2: a salient part of it anyway. And at that point
25:35
Speaker 2: I told the story of how, you know, I had
25:37
Speaker 2: been studying Randon objectionism since high school and so that
25:42
Speaker 2: had been at least, you know, over a decade at
25:44
Speaker 2: that point, and I was just figuring it out so
25:49
Speaker 2: and that I couldn't have figured it out, or at
25:51
Speaker 2: least it certainly would have been a much longer and
25:55
Speaker 2: sort of less kind of and muddier journey to kind
26:02
Speaker 2: of conceptualizing and then actually psychologically internalizing self honesty as
26:08
Speaker 2: a virtue and as a practice, if not for objectivism,
26:10
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I'd gotten the core idea that
26:14
Speaker 2: faking reality is the kind of card the only quote sin, right,
26:19
Speaker 2: and why not because of some the antological, you know,
26:22
Speaker 2: categorical imperative, but just because it doesn't work. Reality is
26:26
Speaker 2: what it is, and when you fake it, it doesn't
26:28
Speaker 2: make it so. And then but it wasn't until years later,
26:33
Speaker 2: when I was already post college and sort of journaling
26:37
Speaker 2: about the latest emotional upset that I was kind of
26:43
Speaker 2: trying to sort through and realize that I was that
26:46
Speaker 2: I basically didn't trust my judgment, and then that kind
26:48
Speaker 2: of sent me into this intellectual I want to say spirals.
26:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I have a good spiral that actually had
26:55
Speaker 2: a resolution on the other side, but it kind of
26:58
Speaker 2: led me to make those connecttions for the first time
27:01
Speaker 2: between Okay, so Rand talks about you know, not lying
27:04
Speaker 2: to yourself and not taking reality, But how does that
27:06
Speaker 2: actually connect to why I end up miserable in these
27:09
Speaker 2: moments and why so many things are hard, for why
27:12
Speaker 2: I procrastinate, and why I trust somebody else's opinion of
27:17
Speaker 2: you know, my writing, or of what happened to me
27:19
Speaker 2: over my own. And one thing led to another, and
27:21
Speaker 2: then I just saw all of the different places in
27:23
Speaker 2: life where this comes up, and just how pervasive it is,
27:27
Speaker 2: and that it's character logical, and you know, it's a
27:32
Speaker 2: long stance. It's not just one premise, but it's like
27:34
Speaker 2: a bunch of interconnected premises and kind of assumptions and
27:38
Speaker 2: expectations and self judgments and so like I have to
27:41
Speaker 2: somehow re engineer that whole structure, you know, And like
27:46
Speaker 2: a decade later, I was ready to give a talk
27:48
Speaker 2: on it, and another fish years later, I feel like,
27:53
Speaker 2: you know, I'm I've got a pretty solid foundation. But yeah,
27:58
Speaker 2: so objectivism was a very starting point.
28:01
Speaker 3: So so in redoing all those assumptions and rebuilding it all,
28:08
Speaker 3: give us a hint in terms of what that takes
28:11
Speaker 3: and what's involved.
28:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so the kind of like the MVP. Wow,
28:17
Speaker 2: I've really become like inundated in these techy concepts. The
28:22
Speaker 2: minimum viable product, so you know, of a practice of
28:26
Speaker 2: self honesty is just to catch yourself when you're bessing
28:30
Speaker 2: and just you know, that's the rep to be able
28:34
Speaker 2: to notice it. Wait a minute, is this am I?
28:37
Speaker 2: You know Matt calls it being cognitive? My husband Matt,
28:40
Speaker 2: that's kind of his shorthand for. But like, okay, wait,
28:43
Speaker 2: am I actually what am I after? Right now?
28:46
Speaker 3: You know?
28:46
Speaker 2: Am I after? Am I arguing this to myself or
28:49
Speaker 2: to sell, you know, to whoever because I believe it
28:51
Speaker 2: and it's really important to me to get the facts right.
28:54
Speaker 2: Or am I arguing is to myself because I'm really
28:56
Speaker 2: scared of what it would mean if it were untrue,
28:58
Speaker 2: or because I really don't want to look wrong to
29:00
Speaker 2: this person or to myself, or because it just seems
29:04
Speaker 2: like way too much work to have to like unravel
29:08
Speaker 2: this assumption that I've had for so long, or you know,
29:10
Speaker 2: for any of the myriad reasons why we might light
29:13
Speaker 2: ourselves and to take the stigma out of that. So
29:16
Speaker 2: that's a I would say, especially for this audience, which
29:19
Speaker 2: I imagine leans objectivists and leans moralistic in the way
29:24
Speaker 2: that I have seen we objectivists, you tend to lean
29:27
Speaker 2: by default when we get into it that there's going
29:31
Speaker 2: to be this flinching tendency to not want to come
29:36
Speaker 2: clean with ourselves about our own dishonesty and not want
29:40
Speaker 2: to admit that, like the we evaded, you know, that
29:44
Speaker 2: we've been telling ourselves a story that's not actually truth motivated,
29:49
Speaker 2: that's serving some psychological function for us, and that is
29:54
Speaker 2: a huge, huge mistake. It's unnecessary because you know, there
29:58
Speaker 2: is no vengeful God waiting to smite you down. There's
30:00
Speaker 2: just your life and what you make of it. And
30:03
Speaker 2: the more time and opportunity you give yourself to be
30:07
Speaker 2: anchored in reality and to you know, get things right
30:11
Speaker 2: for the sake of having an accurate mental map you know,
30:14
Speaker 2: of the world you're living in, the better off you'll be,
30:18
Speaker 2: you know, and it's between you and you. There's nobody
30:21
Speaker 2: else to account to, and so there's no shame, there's
30:24
Speaker 2: no you know, yeah, like it's a choice. But the
30:27
Speaker 2: nature of choices is that you know, we make them
30:30
Speaker 2: in a context, and that we can help ourselves make
30:33
Speaker 2: better choices depending on the kinds of conditions that we
30:37
Speaker 2: create for ourselves and the kind of thinking that we're
30:39
Speaker 2: you know, kind of willing to do. And so that's
30:41
Speaker 2: the biggest thing, is to just take the stigma out
30:43
Speaker 2: of it and to realize and to actually actively pride
30:47
Speaker 2: ourselves on every moment of like admitting something hard, even
30:52
Speaker 2: just like I am not as sure of this as
30:54
Speaker 2: I have been acting like I am, or as I've
30:57
Speaker 2: been you know, I've been talking a big game about
30:59
Speaker 2: this particular thing. And polity, you know, about about Trump
31:03
Speaker 2: or about you know, I mean, politics is like a
31:04
Speaker 2: notorious you know, Petri Dish for bs, right, because nobody
31:08
Speaker 2: knows what they're talking about and so detached and kind
31:11
Speaker 2: of impersonal, and yet you know, so easy to kind
31:14
Speaker 2: of get ourselves riled up and attach our identities to it.
31:17
Speaker 2: And so it's a great arena for practicing self honest, Like,
31:20
Speaker 2: what have I been going around and parroting? Would have
31:23
Speaker 2: I been like getting all up in arms about that
31:26
Speaker 2: I don't actually understand that I don't actually like could
31:30
Speaker 2: I steal man the opposition the best possible case of
31:34
Speaker 2: the opposition, you know, if there's somebody on the other
31:37
Speaker 2: side or on some you know, other side, that's rational,
31:41
Speaker 2: that's honest, Like what might their position actually be? And
31:46
Speaker 2: how do I know they're wrong? And how do I
31:48
Speaker 2: know I'm right?
31:48
Speaker 3: And do I know?
31:49
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't and can I you know, So that's
31:52
Speaker 2: a really that's low hanging fruit. And then you know,
31:55
Speaker 2: in our relationships and our kind of in our decision
31:58
Speaker 2: making about you know, whenever we have a conflict, whenever
32:01
Speaker 2: there's a trade off between you know, comfort now but
32:08
Speaker 2: at the cost of some longer term goal or where
32:11
Speaker 2: we're not even sure do we actually want this goal?
32:13
Speaker 2: Do we want to write this paper? Do we want
32:15
Speaker 2: you know, why are we pushing it off the last night?
32:16
Speaker 2: Just kind of taking those opportunities to notice what's in
32:19
Speaker 2: our you know, like what we're saying to ourselves and like,
32:22
Speaker 2: is there you know, what's fishy here? Just like we
32:24
Speaker 2: might you know, like notice that our friend is bsing us,
32:30
Speaker 2: you know, and we don't disown the friend, but we
32:32
Speaker 2: might call their BS if we're a good friend. Right,
32:35
Speaker 2: it's kind of being that friendly BS caller to ourselves
32:40
Speaker 2: over and over systematically over a long period of time,
32:45
Speaker 2: and you start accruing the benefits right away, and there
32:48
Speaker 2: are benefits to be accrued over a long time. You know,
32:51
Speaker 2: you don't accrue the full benefits until you've really kept
32:54
Speaker 2: at it for a while.
32:56
Speaker 3: How much is is all of this motivated by second handedness?
33:01
Speaker 3: People carrying way too much about what other people think
33:03
Speaker 3: of them and other people's views.
33:07
Speaker 2: I mean a fair amount of it, I was. I mean,
33:09
Speaker 2: these things are all inner twined in my experience, and
33:15
Speaker 2: there's no one pathway. So you know, again, this death
33:19
Speaker 2: is the default idea. It does so much work for me,
33:22
Speaker 2: and so one of the ways it's clarifying for me is, okay,
33:25
Speaker 2: second handedness is the default. By default, we don't have
33:29
Speaker 2: our own views on things, but we have to have
33:31
Speaker 2: some view, and so we kind of just, you know,
33:34
Speaker 2: by osmosis, we absorb the views that are in our milieu. Right,
33:38
Speaker 2: so by default we're going to be secondhanded until we
33:40
Speaker 2: actually build something firsthand, both in terms of knowledge, you know,
33:44
Speaker 2: and in terms of actual you know, achievement you know,
33:49
Speaker 2: and worth and by the same toke you know, self
33:52
Speaker 2: doubt is the default. So it might be that first
33:54
Speaker 2: you start out anxious and doubting yourself and doubting your decisions.
33:58
Speaker 2: Maybe you have some gen and maybe you know you're
34:01
Speaker 2: a band kid or you're you know, you try it
34:04
Speaker 2: like you're really academically motivated, but at some point you
34:07
Speaker 2: struggle to keep up with your own goal, or at
34:09
Speaker 2: some point you realize like, you know, I'm just checking boxes,
34:13
Speaker 2: but I don't actually know what any of it adds
34:15
Speaker 2: up to, or it's meaningless. So you realize like there
34:16
Speaker 2: are other people who dropped out of high school to
34:18
Speaker 2: go build something real, and now suddenly you feel like
34:20
Speaker 2: a loser who's never accomplished anything, you know. And then
34:23
Speaker 2: at some point you start measuring yourself against some secondhand,
34:28
Speaker 2: you know, benchmark, because now you don't know. It's like
34:30
Speaker 2: you've been on board. You don't have your own yardstick anymore, right,
34:34
Speaker 2: and you haven't figured out well, then if that's not
34:36
Speaker 2: how to be a good kid or a good person,
34:39
Speaker 2: then then what is? And you latch onto the first
34:42
Speaker 2: available you know template, right, and so then now now
34:45
Speaker 2: secondhandedness is starting to kind of you know, infuse itself
34:50
Speaker 2: in your soul or vice versa. You start out really
34:54
Speaker 2: like enticed by what other people, by the confidence that
34:57
Speaker 2: the cool kids seem to project, and so you start
34:59
Speaker 2: imitating and copying them, and then that leads you to
35:01
Speaker 2: be really unsure of yourself and other contact.
35:04
Speaker 3: You know.
35:04
Speaker 2: So it can develop in any number of ways. But
35:08
Speaker 2: the but by default, none of this stuff will already
35:11
Speaker 2: be online for you, you know, until you build it.
35:15
Speaker 3: So uh, any sense of when the book is going
35:20
Speaker 3: to be available, I'm sure people are wondering.
35:24
Speaker 2: I have been brained to maintain a healthy patient non
35:32
Speaker 2: specificity about it will be some I mean, if I
35:36
Speaker 2: have to give a ballpark at this point, I would say,
35:38
Speaker 2: you know, the one to two year range. Like that's
35:40
Speaker 2: just how these things. How long these things take, as
35:43
Speaker 2: I've come to understand, and Penguin, you know, is one
35:46
Speaker 2: of the one of these.
35:49
Speaker 1: So you don't stop bugging who about the book?
35:52
Speaker 3: Yeah?
35:52
Speaker 2: So, but I will keep everybody posted and hopefully I'll
35:55
Speaker 2: have the pub date sooner than that, so at least
35:58
Speaker 2: we'll online at that point, you know, I'll start to
36:00
Speaker 2: be able to like release little soundbites of it, and
36:03
Speaker 2: I'll have a cover at some point, so it won't
36:05
Speaker 2: be two years till you see something of the book,
36:07
Speaker 2: until you can maybe even pre order the book, but
36:10
Speaker 2: it could be two years until you actually put it
36:13
Speaker 2: in your hands.
36:14
Speaker 3: When is say something about the substack? So where can
36:18
Speaker 3: people find you on the substec So I.
36:21
Speaker 2: Write the Psychology of ambition. So if you look up
36:25
Speaker 2: my name and the Psychology of Ambition should be the
36:27
Speaker 2: first thing, first, one or two things at least the
36:30
Speaker 2: pop up. I'm pretty sure if you just google psychology
36:32
Speaker 2: of Ambition, I still am the first to come up,
36:34
Speaker 2: and one of the only By the way, this is
36:36
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I stacked out Psychology of Ambition.
36:39
Speaker 2: So they realized no one there is no other psychologist
36:43
Speaker 2: that calls them all that. You know when I say
36:46
Speaker 2: it's an underrepresented problem, Yeah, you're.
36:49
Speaker 3: Number one, Yes, number one? And then right is psychology today?
36:54
Speaker 3: The case for ambition is that you.
36:57
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I don't think so. For all I know,
37:00
Speaker 2: it might cite.
37:01
Speaker 3: Me a case of ambition motivation.
37:06
Speaker 1: Hmm, oh, it is.
37:10
Speaker 2: The psychology and philosophy.
37:12
Speaker 1: Who's that ambition? I haven't seen it used to be
37:15
Speaker 1: a virtue. Somewhere along the way it became a vice.
37:19
Speaker 3: So bad.
37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait, I wonder if any of these people, I'm
37:24
Speaker 2: not gonna assume that they're citing me, but I'll take
37:29
Speaker 2: a look later behind the scenes, because I because some
37:32
Speaker 2: of these are new, right, the years look pretty recent.
37:37
Speaker 2: That's interesting, Yeah, but I don't know if any of
37:39
Speaker 2: them are actually call themselves psychologists of ambition. And normally
37:44
Speaker 2: there you know, it's a kind of there's a nod
37:46
Speaker 2: to there's some healthy ambition you could have, but there's
37:49
Speaker 2: also unhealthy ambition. You got to be careful to toe
37:52
Speaker 2: the line and so on, which is true strictly true,
37:55
Speaker 2: but the emphasis is almost always on well just don't
37:59
Speaker 2: you know, don't set your site's too high, and don't
38:02
Speaker 2: let it get you know, toxic, and don't get too
38:05
Speaker 2: attached to outcomes and so on.
38:07
Speaker 3: National Answry for Health has the headline is ambition and
38:11
Speaker 3: its psychopathologies.
38:13
Speaker 2: Yep, there you go. That's that's pretty standard. That is
38:16
Speaker 2: what you would typically see up until this point.
38:20
Speaker 3: All right, good, so you're number one. Is that's an
38:22
Speaker 3: easy way to find you, and it takes it takes
38:24
Speaker 3: you straight to the substack and you guys can sign
38:29
Speaker 3: up and excellent.
38:31
Speaker 2: That's easy means welcome, Yes, and I will be keeping
38:34
Speaker 2: my subscribers regularly updated on good book progress.
38:39
Speaker 3: Let's let's jump to some of these questions and then
38:42
Speaker 3: we'll see where we go from there. Mono tropical tropical
38:50
Speaker 3: from Australia. I don't know what time it is in Australia. Now,
38:54
Speaker 3: what do you think of attempts to argue for a
38:57
Speaker 3: reason in motion dichotomy and humans on the differences between
39:02
Speaker 3: the two sides of the brain. Left brain is viewed
39:04
Speaker 3: as logical, well, the right is viewed as holistic and intuitive.
39:09
Speaker 2: I mean, so briefly speaking, I don't think any serious
39:12
Speaker 2: scientists really trucks at that theory at this point, that
39:15
Speaker 2: the left right brain theory, I mean, any modular theory
39:19
Speaker 2: of the brain, any like theory in which we have
39:21
Speaker 2: these clear partitions. You know, there's the triune theory, where
39:25
Speaker 2: there's the mammalian part and then there's you know, the
39:28
Speaker 2: reptilian and the mammalian and the higher cognitive you know,
39:33
Speaker 2: think the human. The serious scientists have disavowed any such
39:38
Speaker 2: kind of literal, strict partitioning because there's just too much
39:42
Speaker 2: overwhelming evidence that it's all so interconnected and that every
39:46
Speaker 2: function it kind of overlaps with and mediates and enables
39:51
Speaker 2: other functions and structures and functions do not neatly map
39:55
Speaker 2: onto each other, and the brain is just doesn't work
39:57
Speaker 2: that way, even if the like even granting for a second,
40:01
Speaker 2: the kind of neophrenology idea that you know, we have
40:05
Speaker 2: this very strict left brain right brain separation, and the
40:08
Speaker 2: right brain does all the creative stuff and the left
40:10
Speaker 2: brain does all the you know, rational intellectional that still
40:15
Speaker 2: wouldn't map on or be evidence of a reason emotion split, because,
40:21
Speaker 2: for one thing, emotions have rational content, and for another thing,
40:26
Speaker 2: our reasoning includes a lot of automatized premises and associations
40:32
Speaker 2: that we kind of pull into our reasoning process, and
40:35
Speaker 2: a lot of our reasoning happens within what's now called
40:39
Speaker 2: the default mode network, when we kind of just are
40:41
Speaker 2: left to our own devices and we're free associating versus
40:44
Speaker 2: there's a different and it's very much bilateral. You know,
40:47
Speaker 2: there are plenty of different brain areas that are implicated
40:49
Speaker 2: and that are all kind of lighting up and supporting
40:51
Speaker 2: each other, and it's a very different kind of reasoning
40:55
Speaker 2: when we are given like a top down kind of
40:58
Speaker 2: metacognitive auction, like think of, you know, every word that
41:03
Speaker 2: starts with a nest or whatever, and then like then
41:05
Speaker 2: it's a very difference endorse lateral prefrontal control network that
41:10
Speaker 2: lights up. None of it maps cleanly, and reason and
41:15
Speaker 2: emotion wouldn't map cleanly onto any of the existing conceptions
41:18
Speaker 2: of brain areas anyway, I guess that's what I think
41:22
Speaker 2: of it.
41:24
Speaker 1: Okay.
41:24
Speaker 3: Baker asks what is meant by visibility in relationships? What
41:31
Speaker 3: is its importance in close pertional relationships?
41:34
Speaker 2: A great question. I've thought a lot about this concept,
41:38
Speaker 2: and so I'll first I'll answer how I typically use
41:43
Speaker 2: it and understand it, and then I'll say, like that,
41:45
Speaker 2: I think there's some some variance in connotation. So the
41:49
Speaker 2: way I typically understand visibility is in terms of an
41:54
Speaker 2: effect kind of being understood and being seen in terms
41:59
Speaker 2: of or values, your kind of your achievements, you're you know,
42:06
Speaker 2: just like what you believe, the thoughts you've come your
42:09
Speaker 2: inner world being reflected in another who gets it. You know.
42:13
Speaker 2: It's like, oh yeah, this person gets me. I feel seen,
42:16
Speaker 2: I've been, you know, and it doesn't always have to
42:20
Speaker 2: be a person. Could be like, you're reading a novel
42:22
Speaker 2: and this character gets it. This character is actually describing
42:26
Speaker 2: this inner experience that you thought you were alone, you know,
42:28
Speaker 2: and having more that you couldn't even fully put words to.
42:30
Speaker 2: But now you're really wow, Yes, this is the loneliness
42:33
Speaker 2: or you know, this is the kind of longing that
42:36
Speaker 2: you know. I know a lot of people myself included,
42:38
Speaker 2: who first read Rand's novels, have this kind of experience
42:41
Speaker 2: where it's like you're finally seeing your own soul kind
42:46
Speaker 2: of reflected back to you. And so that is a
42:48
Speaker 2: broad sense of visibility that I think is a real,
42:52
Speaker 2: you know, human need and a tremendous value in relationships.
42:55
Speaker 2: But there's another sense of hissibility. This is I have
42:57
Speaker 2: to credit many arguments, not conversations over the years with
43:01
Speaker 2: Greg sell Mary about this, mainly maybe Matt a little bit,
43:05
Speaker 2: although I can't remember how much of this he contributed.
43:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes the two of them blur together in terms of
43:10
Speaker 2: like the specific arguments they make form a kind of
43:13
Speaker 2: philosophical front. But anyway, but there's another sense of visibility,
43:18
Speaker 2: which is the the concrutization of your internal values and
43:27
Speaker 2: you know, and premises in the form of another, whether
43:31
Speaker 2: that's another, whether that's a person. You know, like I
43:33
Speaker 2: am in love with this person because this person like
43:35
Speaker 2: embodies what I love about humanity and about the world.
43:39
Speaker 2: You know, this person embodies ambition or embodies that kind
43:43
Speaker 2: of like integrity and honesty that I so value in
43:47
Speaker 2: myself and in you know, and that I that I
43:50
Speaker 2: spend so much of my you know, effort and life promoting,
43:54
Speaker 2: and like I can see it embody, I can see
43:56
Speaker 2: it concretized in this person. And arguably, you know, Greg
44:02
Speaker 2: say would argue that that's the more important form of visibility,
44:05
Speaker 2: that it's really being able to kind of see your
44:07
Speaker 2: values embodied and concretized, which is related, right fact, But yeah,
44:15
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, they're complementary, and you need
44:17
Speaker 2: both and visibility and inspiration. I the way I used
44:22
Speaker 2: to conceptualize it at least is like these are the
44:24
Speaker 2: kind of two of the spiritual needs that relationships serve,
44:28
Speaker 2: you know, apart from all of the more transactual needs,
44:32
Speaker 2: you know, like obviously we trade goods and we you know,
44:36
Speaker 2: share resources with each other, but more fundamentally and kind
44:39
Speaker 2: of on that more spiritual level, we inspire and we
44:44
Speaker 2: give visibility to each other.
44:46
Speaker 3: But yeah, so how much does the concept, if it all,
44:50
Speaker 3: enter into the book? What's the idea of psychology of ambition?
44:55
Speaker 2: The idea of being seen and seeing in relationships as
45:01
Speaker 2: important definitely comes up. I don't remember if I use
45:04
Speaker 2: the terms. I maybe use it once, so it's not
45:06
Speaker 2: you know, it definitely doesn't feature extensively.
45:08
Speaker 3: But but do you think like an employmental leadership is
45:12
Speaker 3: that we're visit, you know, being.
45:14
Speaker 2: Seen and I mean so I mean any communication that
45:20
Speaker 2: has any kind of stakes to it, which I think,
45:22
Speaker 2: you know, if you're bothering to communicate because you know,
45:25
Speaker 2: you have some sort of value at stake and something
45:27
Speaker 2: that you're trying to trade with another human and so
45:30
Speaker 2: whether that's employer employee, whether that's a lot of the
45:33
Speaker 2: current relationship work that I do in coaching is with
45:37
Speaker 2: co founding teams, so you know, a collaborator, a colleague,
45:41
Speaker 2: but also or a friend or a romantic partner, you know,
45:44
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. A lot of the same
45:46
Speaker 2: kind of basic tool applies. There's a talk I did
45:50
Speaker 2: at ocon at another okon called Deeper Connection through Mutual Selfishness,
45:54
Speaker 2: where a lot of the kind of early material on
45:56
Speaker 2: this topic I was already kind of be viewed at least.
46:04
Speaker 3: So big, I think, is a follow up and visibility?
46:06
Speaker 3: If someone in a relationship where they are not getting
46:09
Speaker 3: any visibility and yet giving it constantly, what might that
46:13
Speaker 3: indicate about the relationship? What can they do about it?
46:18
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like there's not a win win values
46:22
Speaker 2: alignment and you know, a win win trade happening in
46:25
Speaker 2: that relationship. I mean, I would have questions about how
46:28
Speaker 2: much do they need visibility and what is the nature
46:30
Speaker 2: of that and why is it being you know, is
46:33
Speaker 2: it being withheld?
46:35
Speaker 3: Is it that you know? What are the.
46:39
Speaker 2: Imbalances in this relationship and how problematic are they? More importantly,
46:44
Speaker 2: like what value is being exchanged? You know, So to
46:48
Speaker 2: the extent that I mean, the way the questions were,
46:50
Speaker 2: I would imagine, like the giftalta that I'm getting is
46:54
Speaker 2: this is a relationship where one person is being walked
46:57
Speaker 2: over and is an effect prostrating themselves for the other
47:02
Speaker 2: and is not getting their needs met, In which case,
47:05
Speaker 2: that to me is a you know, a common example
47:08
Speaker 2: of a relationship that neither needs to be repaired or ended,
47:15
Speaker 2: depending on you know the nature of the problem, but
47:17
Speaker 2: that you know and that the person being walked all
47:20
Speaker 2: over has agency and responsibility right in that relationship, that
47:24
Speaker 2: they're also playing that playing a part in not setting
47:27
Speaker 2: their boundaries, not expressing their needs, not being selfish appropriately,
47:32
Speaker 2: and you know, rationally selfish for both their sakes about
47:36
Speaker 2: the fact that this isn't working for me, this is
47:38
Speaker 2: not sustainable, You're not actually meeting my needs.
47:43
Speaker 3: I hope that answers the question, Richard, do you think
47:47
Speaker 3: rand would have insisted on using the wood selfishness if
47:52
Speaker 3: she had raised toddlers?
47:55
Speaker 2: Woof interesting would she have been? I have no idea.
48:01
Speaker 2: First of all, I would like to disclaim anything that
48:04
Speaker 2: comes out of my mouth from this point forward and
48:06
Speaker 2: answer me this question, because I can't possibly no answer
48:09
Speaker 2: to that counterfactual. I can speak to my own experience
48:14
Speaker 2: raising toddlers. I don't really use the word currently. It
48:19
Speaker 2: doesn't Actually you know where I get concerned about it
48:22
Speaker 2: is when we're reading like fairy Tale, we're reading children's
48:28
Speaker 2: books or watching movies, and inevitably it comes up as advice, right,
48:32
Speaker 2: and this selfish prince who only cared about vanity also
48:36
Speaker 2: comes up, which is an interesting one. We've had conversations
48:38
Speaker 2: with our almost six year old about you know, oh yeah,
48:41
Speaker 2: this person's really vain, by which she means either that
48:45
Speaker 2: they're kind of like superficial and you know, I'm thinking,
48:49
Speaker 2: or in some cases like actually that they're really like
48:52
Speaker 2: concerned with their appearance and it's all kind of packaged together.
48:54
Speaker 2: And so Matt and I have both kind of pushed
48:56
Speaker 2: on this, like what's wrong with caring how you look?
49:00
Speaker 2: If you're thoughtful about you know, like that maybe the
49:03
Speaker 2: more helpful concept here is like thoughtful versus unthoughtful, you know,
49:07
Speaker 2: or kind of mindless, where vanity kind of packages these
49:11
Speaker 2: things together. And same whenever we encounter selfish, like I
49:14
Speaker 2: either just skip over it, but now I can't do
49:15
Speaker 2: that because she reads fluent Lanso. She'll just read it
49:18
Speaker 2: and just internalize it with my never having any say
49:21
Speaker 2: over it. So then I'll just I'll open a conversation
49:23
Speaker 2: about selfish here, you know, And does that mean, like,
49:28
Speaker 2: you know, what is really going wrong in this relationship
49:31
Speaker 2: between you know, Cinderella and the stepsisters, And is it
49:35
Speaker 2: that they're you know, that they like they don't care
49:37
Speaker 2: about her, they care about them, But like they're kind
49:39
Speaker 2: of jealous, aren't they, And they're really mean spirited about
49:43
Speaker 2: trying to make things worse for her instead of trying
49:46
Speaker 2: to make things better for themselves.
49:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
49:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question, because I do think about, like,
49:51
Speaker 2: when is it actually useful to bring in selfishness as
49:55
Speaker 2: a term? And I don't find it as often useful
49:58
Speaker 2: as I don't know, as one assume, given that it
50:01
Speaker 2: features so prominently in OBJECTIVESM but maybe I should. Maybe
50:04
Speaker 2: I'm shying from it, you know, to the detriment of.
50:09
Speaker 3: My I mean, it's tricky given that the entire culture
50:13
Speaker 3: have used it in a completely different way than we do.
50:16
Speaker 2: And it's so it's it's a hilt to die on,
50:18
Speaker 2: Like if you're going to choose it as a hill
50:19
Speaker 2: to die on, go ahead, But then you've got to
50:21
Speaker 2: die on it in the sense of like you have
50:23
Speaker 2: to do a lot of work to then unpack what
50:26
Speaker 2: is normally meant by you mean, but where you could
50:29
Speaker 2: achieve most of the same result by just using different words.
50:33
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you are sort of then conceding, Okay, well,
50:35
Speaker 2: this is just going to be this package deal that
50:37
Speaker 2: I'm not touching.
50:38
Speaker 3: I think you have to at least at least seed
50:40
Speaker 3: the possible seed in their mind, the possibility of something
50:43
Speaker 3: good here. Yeah, I mean, I think they're too young
50:47
Speaker 3: to comprehend the totality of the meaning of the concept.
50:53
Speaker 3: But at least it's possible to seed, you know, when
50:56
Speaker 3: it's used in books and in the movies. Maybe maybe
50:59
Speaker 3: they're not used it quite right, Maybe they don't.
51:01
Speaker 2: That's not what they mean, that's right exactly. Like the
51:05
Speaker 2: more important thing is that I you know, I want
51:07
Speaker 2: my kids to understand a that like caring about their
51:11
Speaker 2: own needs and well being in happiness is good and
51:14
Speaker 2: necessary and important, and that it doesn't come at the cost.
51:18
Speaker 2: You know, that relationships are either win win or lose lose.
51:20
Speaker 2: This is one of my big mantras that it's not
51:22
Speaker 2: you know, kill or be killed. It's not you versus them.
51:25
Speaker 2: It's like you lift do you want to lift all boats?
51:28
Speaker 2: Or do you want to destroy?
51:32
Speaker 3: Andrews says, in an ideal society, would psychology be more
51:36
Speaker 3: aimed at optimizing for happiness rather than removing eurosis?
51:40
Speaker 1: I think focusing on that's right.
51:43
Speaker 2: No, sorry, I was just making sure I heard was
51:45
Speaker 2: it in an optimal in.
51:46
Speaker 3: An ideal society, an idea optimizing for happiness, or would
51:50
Speaker 3: it be removing some neurosis. I think focusing on strong
51:53
Speaker 3: rational mental patterns could kill most wiki irrational mental patterns
51:59
Speaker 3: formed in you.
52:01
Speaker 2: That's interesting, good question. So I think it would be
52:06
Speaker 2: configured somewhat differently I do. I think there would be
52:08
Speaker 2: more interest in an emphasis on what I call ceiling raising,
52:13
Speaker 2: you know, which I've staked out as my distinctive mo
52:19
Speaker 2: as a psychologist, because nobody else, by and large cares
52:22
Speaker 2: about it, at least in clinical psychology, meaning in the
52:25
Speaker 2: you know, the study of mental health applied psychology, where
52:29
Speaker 2: most of the emphasis has historically been on alleviating dysfunction
52:35
Speaker 2: or suffering or illness. But a few things to say
52:39
Speaker 2: about that. One, there's a whole field of positive psychology
52:42
Speaker 2: that's just all about that, where the whole emphasis you know,
52:46
Speaker 2: from Martie Seligman from a bandura for like, the whole
52:52
Speaker 2: kind of a fairly long tradition now in psychology of
52:56
Speaker 2: like more humanistic psychologists and explicitly what they call positive
52:59
Speaker 2: psychologists who like they've been trumpeting this exact you know,
53:03
Speaker 2: point in this exact need that like we need to
53:05
Speaker 2: not just focus on reducing suffering and you know, minimizing
53:10
Speaker 2: distress and symptoms. But we need to like actually care
53:12
Speaker 2: about flourishing and optimism and gratitude and well being and
53:17
Speaker 2: so and so on. That said, it's somewhat of a
53:19
Speaker 2: superficial field today by and large in the sense that
53:25
Speaker 2: the concepts aren't that, you know, kind of robustly defined
53:29
Speaker 2: and usually measured with self reports, you know, self report
53:32
Speaker 2: questionnaires that ask you for your subjective well being on
53:34
Speaker 2: a scale of one to ten, you know, And and
53:38
Speaker 2: often they're kind of measuring like state rather than more
53:42
Speaker 2: enduring trade level differences in you know, I feel hopeful
53:47
Speaker 2: and optimistic after I read this little vignette about somebody
53:51
Speaker 2: helping somebody across the street. And often the emphasis is
53:56
Speaker 2: very much on the kind of usual, you know, ethical
54:00
Speaker 2: strains of what you know of beneficence and generosity and
54:04
Speaker 2: charity and helping others versus productiveness and ambition and achievement.
54:12
Speaker 2: You know, though there are little pockets of psychology that
54:16
Speaker 2: deal with those two. To the last part of the question,
54:20
Speaker 2: can most psychological ills or remember house but most like irrationalities?
54:26
Speaker 3: What was it ye cure most weak irrational mental patterns
54:33
Speaker 3: formed in youth. So could you the strong just the
54:36
Speaker 3: positive cue from the negative in a sense?
54:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think it depends on the scope that
54:42
Speaker 2: we have in mind when we refer to these weak,
54:46
Speaker 2: irrational mental patterns. If we mean, you know, like you
54:50
Speaker 2: have some errors of judgment, like you know, you think
54:55
Speaker 2: that you should be altruistic and sometimes that sort of
54:57
Speaker 2: features in your choices about where to money, and then
55:00
Speaker 2: you learn the positive ideals you know, and premises that
55:04
Speaker 2: you sort of correct your thinking, you know absolutely or
55:06
Speaker 2: you yeah, I mean there are various errors you could
55:13
Speaker 2: hold growing up that simply simply it's not you know,
55:18
Speaker 2: it's not a simple matter to be onboarded to an
55:21
Speaker 2: entire positive rational philosophy and then to like study it
55:25
Speaker 2: and understand it and work your way through how what
55:28
Speaker 2: does the what do these different concepts actually mean for
55:30
Speaker 2: my life? And how do they relate to each other?
55:32
Speaker 2: And what does it look like when I'm embodying them
55:34
Speaker 2: versus not? I mean, that's a lot of work anyway.
55:37
Speaker 2: If even if we just kind of assume you're under
55:41
Speaker 2: you you're studying the positive rational you know, perspective, but
55:48
Speaker 2: also you do have a lot of unlearning to do
55:50
Speaker 2: typically even in the routine case where since childhood you've
55:54
Speaker 2: assumed that you know everyone sucks well, you know, as
55:58
Speaker 2: I've mentioned, like that's gonna show up in all sorts
56:01
Speaker 2: of subtle behavior patterns and habits that you formed that
56:04
Speaker 2: you don't even realize are in any way connected. Like
56:06
Speaker 2: you tend to kind of just go and do it
56:08
Speaker 2: yourself if somebody doesn't understand your feedback right away, or
56:11
Speaker 2: you know, you tend to either kind of quickly give
56:13
Speaker 2: up on people, or you give them like endless chances
56:17
Speaker 2: despite the growing resentment and never actually fully tell, you know,
56:21
Speaker 2: like fully communicate to them why you're upset with them,
56:23
Speaker 2: because deep down you don't believe they could change anyway.
56:26
Speaker 2: But like, those are not the kinds of things where
56:28
Speaker 2: now I have a positive view, So those all just
56:30
Speaker 2: melt away, like you actually have to, you know, notice
56:33
Speaker 2: those patterns and watch for them and deliberately disrupt them
56:38
Speaker 2: time and again in a bunch of different contexts before
56:41
Speaker 2: you can really generalize a new perspective and sort of
56:46
Speaker 2: like really build it into your soul.
56:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's finn help. Can you recommend books on your plasticity?
56:56
Speaker 3: I've read two of Normandulg's books, in Hardwiring Happiness, I'm
57:02
Speaker 3: interested in what it takes to change your mind versus persuasion.
57:07
Speaker 3: Peacoff's Out of Thinking got.
57:08
Speaker 2: Me thinking about this, So I guess depends on when
57:13
Speaker 2: you say neuroplasticity genans specifically on like that neural neuroscientific phenomenon,
57:20
Speaker 2: or is that a term of art we're using just
57:23
Speaker 2: for psychological change, because that's a much broader topic, and
57:29
Speaker 2: I can probably recommend more books on that broad topic,
57:32
Speaker 2: whereas I don't know if there's any one book that
57:35
Speaker 2: I could like give an unqualified recommendation for with respect
57:40
Speaker 2: to the narrower topic of neuroplasticity, because you know, I'm
57:43
Speaker 2: not a neuroscientist. I haven't been following that sort of literature.
57:47
Speaker 4: The books I do know she's talking about psychological change
57:50
Speaker 4: works too, Okay, Okay, I mean in that case, yeah,
57:55
Speaker 4: there's such a vast library if possible bookstrat it.
57:59
Speaker 2: I guess would it be a cop out to recommend
58:02
Speaker 2: one of my articles first as a sort of as
58:05
Speaker 2: an entry, But I cite various things in that article,
58:08
Speaker 2: so that would also pread some It's actually not on myselbject. Well,
58:12
Speaker 2: I refer to it on my subject, but I couldn't
58:14
Speaker 2: repost the whole article because it was copyrighted. So it's
58:18
Speaker 2: in defense of rational in defense of radical self betterment,
58:23
Speaker 2: where I kind of outline my approach to psychological change
58:29
Speaker 2: as it occurs, you know, in therapy and coaching, and
58:35
Speaker 2: I kind of follow several examples of figures who've exemplified
58:41
Speaker 2: this process. Including one of those figures is Marshall Linehan,
58:44
Speaker 2: who herself is a psychologist who developed a pioneering form
58:49
Speaker 2: of treatment called dialectical behavior therapy. Her book, her memoir,
58:54
Speaker 2: called Building a Life Worth Living, which is a title
58:56
Speaker 2: that I almost would you know, would have stolen had
58:59
Speaker 2: she not right. Isn't that a great deal? Yeah? And
59:03
Speaker 2: the book is mixed, it's all over the place. It's
59:07
Speaker 2: spiky in the way that you know, interesting ambitious people
59:10
Speaker 2: tend to be. But at its highs, it is so
59:13
Speaker 2: so high in my estimation, it's really she's a true
59:17
Speaker 2: pioneer and you know, wacky and has all sorts of
59:22
Speaker 2: weird views. But it's okay because you know, you take
59:25
Speaker 2: these it's always on us anyway to you know, mine
59:30
Speaker 2: for gems and to separate the weed from the chaft.
59:32
Speaker 2: So her book and kind of her whole approach is
59:35
Speaker 2: what I'd recommend. But yeah, in defense of radical self
59:38
Speaker 2: betterment is my article where I cite a bunch of stuff.
59:43
Speaker 3: Wes asks do you think a healthy adult that has
59:47
Speaker 3: never had an interesting sex should see a therapist?
59:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I absent more context which I'm loth to proceed.
1:00:01
Speaker 2: More contexts probably find defense. I mean, there are actual
1:00:07
Speaker 2: I've learned of physical conditions that actually would make it
1:00:13
Speaker 2: really you know, unnatural and hard to develop, like sexual arousal,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: and I mean they're rare, but they exist, you know,
1:00:21
Speaker 2: And like, there are obviously so many different contexts somebody
1:00:24
Speaker 2: could find themselves in where you know they're in the
1:00:27
Speaker 2: like I guess I would also ask what do you
1:00:29
Speaker 2: mean by healthy adult? Like everything else is going great
1:00:33
Speaker 2: for them. They have a flourishing career and great friendships
1:00:36
Speaker 2: and they're living a full, happy life, but they just
1:00:39
Speaker 2: don't want any romance. You know, Well, then who's to
1:00:43
Speaker 2: say that they're not fulfilled as they are? And then
1:00:46
Speaker 2: maybe they just haven't met the right person. But that
1:00:49
Speaker 2: also doesn't feel like a typical case, right, It feels
1:00:53
Speaker 2: like if somebody's got no interest in sex, like, probably
1:00:57
Speaker 2: there are some you know, insecurities are in him missions there,
1:01:00
Speaker 2: or there's some history of whether it's trauma, or whether
1:01:03
Speaker 2: it's you know, kind of weird religious views that have
1:01:06
Speaker 2: been inculcated, or be it like insecurities about appearance, or
1:01:13
Speaker 2: there's some fetish that just like has no you know,
1:01:16
Speaker 2: opportunity to kind of get actualized in data day. You know,
1:01:22
Speaker 2: there's just so many possible reasons why someone might kind
1:01:27
Speaker 2: of want to look into that.
1:01:28
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't assume, but it probably makes sense to
1:01:32
Speaker 3: see a therapist and see where it goes.
1:01:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's like if if the person at
1:01:38
Speaker 2: you know, if it's a first personal question, then yes,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Like if a person themselves is thinking, hmm, should I
1:01:44
Speaker 2: see a therapist? I don't seem to have any interest
1:01:47
Speaker 2: in sex, Yeah, go for it. It's the questions on
1:01:51
Speaker 2: your mind. Probably worth getting some thought partnership to figure
1:01:56
Speaker 2: it out.
1:01:57
Speaker 3: So yeah, any advice on how how to find just
1:02:00
Speaker 3: generally how to find a good therapist.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: Ah, Yeah, I knew the question would come up. So
1:02:05
Speaker 2: I so I'm a broken record here. I wrote a
1:02:08
Speaker 2: post on this very question. I mean, it's good, right,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: The whole point of writing these posts so that then
1:02:13
Speaker 2: I can just refer people to my post. And this
1:02:15
Speaker 2: piece in particular was in that kind of spirit because
1:02:19
Speaker 2: I get this question so often, and I feel so
1:02:22
Speaker 2: bad for just the sheer dearth of reliable you know,
1:02:28
Speaker 2: information on where there are competent providers or who is competent,
1:02:32
Speaker 2: or what you can expect from them. So I wrote
1:02:35
Speaker 2: this kind of little primer. So it's called The Builder's
1:02:38
Speaker 2: Guide to Finding a Therapist, right, That's what it's called. So,
1:02:42
Speaker 2: and it is on my substack. But if you just
1:02:44
Speaker 2: google the Builder's Guide to Finding a Therapist, then it's
1:02:49
Speaker 2: the first thing you should see.
1:02:50
Speaker 3: Perfect, all right, let's see, Richard, when I took objectivism
1:02:56
Speaker 3: through ranch fiction, I found I had psychologe logical resistance
1:03:01
Speaker 3: to pride and conflicts with pride versus mercy. What resources
1:03:06
Speaker 3: can my psycho therapist and I used to help me
1:03:10
Speaker 3: overcome issues like this?
1:03:14
Speaker 2: Okay, So issues like having trouble with pride and pride
1:03:22
Speaker 2: versus mercy. I'm not sure why those are on one
1:03:25
Speaker 2: accesses like justice versus mercy, but I mean as far
1:03:29
Speaker 2: as pride goes, I mean, I would say, you know,
1:03:34
Speaker 2: there's the whole canon of like cognitive behavioral therapy kind
1:03:38
Speaker 2: of tooling for for building self esteem and for developing
1:03:44
Speaker 2: you know, for kind of checking our premises when it
1:03:48
Speaker 2: comes to our own kind of self deprecation or our
1:03:50
Speaker 2: self doubts about our worth and kind of where we've
1:03:53
Speaker 2: learned that, I mean, particularly more modern quote third wave
1:03:59
Speaker 2: approaches that kind of also help you look at the
1:04:03
Speaker 2: function that our own kind of self deprecations are serving,
1:04:08
Speaker 2: Like what would happen to like checking the fear that
1:04:11
Speaker 2: might make it scary or hard to admit to feeling
1:04:15
Speaker 2: proud of yourself, Like what is the fear? Well, I
1:04:18
Speaker 2: will turn out to be full of myself or people
1:04:22
Speaker 2: will think I'm stuck up and they so what and
1:04:25
Speaker 2: why would that be bad? Then they're not going to
1:04:28
Speaker 2: want to associate with me anymore? Okay, good? Is that true?
1:04:31
Speaker 2: What is my evidence? You know, like actually just surfacing
1:04:34
Speaker 2: those underlying assumptions and then subjecting them both to you know,
1:04:39
Speaker 2: rational uh kind of scrutiny and testing. So you know,
1:04:44
Speaker 2: from a kind of CBT standpoint, there's cognitive restructuring figuring
1:04:48
Speaker 2: out like why do I actually you know, I feel
1:04:50
Speaker 2: this because I think what And then there's exposure, which
1:04:54
Speaker 2: or what I call, you know, collecting corrective experiences by
1:04:58
Speaker 2: acting opposite, by kind of doing the thing that feels scary.
1:05:00
Speaker 2: And in this case, I'd be like, what happens when
1:05:02
Speaker 2: I just own my accomplishments? What happens when I say
1:05:06
Speaker 2: out loud, I'm really proud of myself? It feels uncomfortable?
1:05:10
Speaker 2: And what you know, do people look at me weirdly?
1:05:14
Speaker 2: Does it feel arrogant to have said it? Does it?
1:05:17
Speaker 3: Actually?
1:05:17
Speaker 2: You know, oftentimes each time you do it, you're kind
1:05:21
Speaker 2: of surprised, and it maybe violates some of those expectations
1:05:25
Speaker 2: assumptions and provides rewards that you might not have anticipated.
1:05:30
Speaker 2: And so slowly, you know, it becomes more second nature.
1:05:34
Speaker 3: Good hopefully a solf of Richard. Let's see, not you
1:05:39
Speaker 3: I would algorithm? What is narcissistic? Supply?
1:05:45
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm just gonna go ahead and own
1:05:48
Speaker 2: this one that I am not. Off the top of
1:05:50
Speaker 2: my head, I do not remember that term.
1:05:52
Speaker 3: But you know, a lot of questions about narcissism. Let's see,
1:05:56
Speaker 3: what is the difference between a narcissist and a sociopath?
1:06:00
Speaker 3: Is it only a matter of degree.
1:06:02
Speaker 2: So okay, So if we want to get definitional here
1:06:07
Speaker 2: based on the dice, you know, the DSM, and based
1:06:11
Speaker 2: on our existing definitions and classifications such as they are.
1:06:16
Speaker 2: First of all, a sociopathy. Sociopathy is a kind of
1:06:20
Speaker 2: outdated term we now mostly talk about psychopathy. Sociopathy is
1:06:25
Speaker 2: the kind of more specifically kind of socially focused version
1:06:30
Speaker 2: of psychopathy. Thoseygopthies still pretty social. Mostly it has just
1:06:34
Speaker 2: been reconceptualized not as like specifically that you're anti you know, people,
1:06:39
Speaker 2: but that you're kind of you generally lack conscience and
1:06:41
Speaker 2: remorse and you're I mean, it's you know, I often
1:06:46
Speaker 2: have laughed at the kind of ridiculousness of this particular
1:06:49
Speaker 2: DSM category because it's basically the catch all for like
1:06:53
Speaker 2: the bad person disorder antisocial personality in particular, and the
1:06:58
Speaker 2: psychopathy is like the bona fide version of anti social
1:07:01
Speaker 2: precidsey sort of where you need it to be even
1:07:02
Speaker 2: more kind of developmentally early and you need various other criteria.
1:07:07
Speaker 2: But anyway, psychopathy is you know, you lack kind of
1:07:10
Speaker 2: conscience and empathy and like moral but whatever kind of
1:07:16
Speaker 2: moral standards, and you sort of get off on hurting
1:07:19
Speaker 2: people in effect or on getting a rise on you
1:07:25
Speaker 2: kind of you seem to need some sort of stimulation
1:07:28
Speaker 2: via getting like extreme or intense reactions or via getting
1:07:33
Speaker 2: people to do things because you don't seem to like
1:07:35
Speaker 2: experience the kind of spiritual value that one might otherwise
1:07:38
Speaker 2: get from a human connection and relationship. And then narcissism
1:07:44
Speaker 2: is the excessive. And so depending on which kind of
1:07:50
Speaker 2: narciss there's grandiose and there's quote unquote vulnerable narism. But basically,
1:07:54
Speaker 2: and it's when you have a an overinflated self view
1:07:59
Speaker 2: as person zenoge too, you know, to the people around you,
1:08:04
Speaker 2: and as reflected in your own kind of apparent beliefs
1:08:07
Speaker 2: and statements about yourself. Any psychologist who like seriously studies
1:08:11
Speaker 2: narcissm or who thinks about it for even a tick,
1:08:14
Speaker 2: would tell you it's an insecurity driven you know, diagnosis.
1:08:18
Speaker 2: It's not actual, it's not high self esteem. You pretend
1:08:22
Speaker 2: self esteem, so you know, they're not the same thing
1:08:26
Speaker 2: at all, but sometimes they might overlap or they might
1:08:28
Speaker 2: look similar externally. And also there are real questions we
1:08:32
Speaker 2: should be asking about are these even gonna end up
1:08:34
Speaker 2: being like natural kinds, you know, as we learn more
1:08:37
Speaker 2: about mental health issues, so not you have.
1:08:42
Speaker 3: A your algorithm follows up with what is your psychological
1:08:46
Speaker 3: analysis of Donald Trump? Oh? God, has he lived a
1:08:50
Speaker 3: life of genuine is inevitable?
1:08:54
Speaker 1: Wait as what genuine ambition? Has he lived a life
1:08:57
Speaker 1: of genuine ambition?
1:08:58
Speaker 3: Well that was easy, and he set you up with
1:09:02
Speaker 3: a narcissism before.
1:09:04
Speaker 2: So I know, I I mean, I almost you know,
1:09:07
Speaker 2: I had to inhibit saying Trump, but then he just
1:09:10
Speaker 2: went ahead and put it on a platter for me.
1:09:14
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, if there's such a thing as narcissism,
1:09:16
Speaker 2: then Donald Trump is a narcissist. I think at this
1:09:18
Speaker 2: point it's fairly safe to say so. And no, I
1:09:22
Speaker 2: do not think he has lived a life of genuine
1:09:23
Speaker 2: ambition by any possible stretch, by any remotely sensible definition
1:09:30
Speaker 2: of any of those terms.
1:09:32
Speaker 3: So Richard follows up with that you mentioned self doubt
1:09:36
Speaker 3: as a default.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: Would you elaborate on that?
1:09:44
Speaker 2: By default? Again? You know, as I mentioned before, we
1:09:47
Speaker 2: don't know what we're doing if we venture into any
1:09:49
Speaker 2: sort of remotely you know, challenging or new or difficult,
1:09:54
Speaker 2: I mean, really anything we do for the first time
1:09:56
Speaker 2: you know, it's like we pick up an instrument, we
1:09:57
Speaker 2: pick up a new field of study, We're gonna have
1:10:04
Speaker 2: very little knowledge and very little context, right, we're building
1:10:06
Speaker 2: skills from scratch, and so at first, like we're not
1:10:08
Speaker 2: gonna have a lot of sort of like fluency in
1:10:11
Speaker 2: knowing even you know, what put to put in front
1:10:14
Speaker 2: of the other. And to the extent that we're either
1:10:19
Speaker 2: expecting to already have some form of like mastery or fluency,
1:10:24
Speaker 2: to the extent that we're kind of gauging our ability
1:10:27
Speaker 2: or our you know, like our capacity, our worth, our
1:10:29
Speaker 2: potential based on how we're doing at a given point
1:10:34
Speaker 2: in time in any given you know, endeavor that we
1:10:38
Speaker 2: haven't mastered, like we're going to doubt ourselves and we're
1:10:41
Speaker 2: going to feel inadequate. And that's where imposter syndrome becomes
1:10:44
Speaker 2: such a common, you know, phenomenon for anybody doing anything hard.
1:10:48
Speaker 2: I do think, you know, it's the default, only downstream
1:10:54
Speaker 2: of the fact that having these kinds of like artificial
1:10:59
Speaker 2: standards of worth and standards of competence is the default,
1:11:02
Speaker 2: because you know, it's hard to come up with a
1:11:05
Speaker 2: real meaningful metric of progress or a real meaningful you know,
1:11:10
Speaker 2: a benchmark of success or two even though like what
1:11:12
Speaker 2: what are we trying to be success? What actually matters?
1:11:14
Speaker 2: What is important? You know, how fast do we need
1:11:16
Speaker 2: to be progressive? Doesn't matter that we're slower than you know,
1:11:19
Speaker 2: Johnny over here, And like do we have the same
1:11:22
Speaker 2: goals as Johnny has? What do we want to ultimately
1:11:24
Speaker 2: do with this? You know, like whatever the instrument that
1:11:28
Speaker 2: we're learning, or the sport that we're playing, or you know,
1:11:30
Speaker 2: with like why do we need to get good grades?
1:11:32
Speaker 3: Right?
1:11:33
Speaker 2: It's really hard to kind of form a first handed
1:11:36
Speaker 2: conception of of like the good and the truth. And
1:11:42
Speaker 2: so to the extent that we kind of by default
1:11:46
Speaker 2: will tend to latch on or just kind of we
1:11:50
Speaker 2: have on hand kind of these more artificial, like superficial
1:11:57
Speaker 2: metrics that almost never accurately map onto the actual difficulty
1:12:03
Speaker 2: of learning something right or the complexity of like actually
1:12:05
Speaker 2: mastering a skill. And so we'll we'll tend to feel
1:12:12
Speaker 2: will inadequate to the task or will tend to doubt
1:12:15
Speaker 2: whether we're doing it right right, And just I mean
1:12:18
Speaker 2: it's also not all self doubted is unhealthy, right, like
1:12:20
Speaker 2: in some cases, yeah, no, you should be drouting whether
1:12:23
Speaker 2: this is actually the right path for you.
1:12:25
Speaker 3: You know, so will there be an audiobook?
1:12:29
Speaker 2: Cobb asks, I believe that is in the contract.
1:12:34
Speaker 3: Good So yes, uh, cobbs, As my intuition is that
1:12:37
Speaker 3: pornography is harmful to mental health, are they rigorous psychological
1:12:43
Speaker 3: studies that demonstrate the home?
1:12:46
Speaker 2: I don't know about rigorous. I'm sure there are many,
1:12:49
Speaker 2: many studies. I haven't, you know, read up on them closely.
1:12:54
Speaker 2: It's not my area of expertise. It's an area I've
1:12:58
Speaker 2: actually been wanting to get more exposure to, not just
1:13:01
Speaker 2: poor and specifically, but just like sexual psychology, the psychology
1:13:04
Speaker 2: of sex gender, not only because it's so in the air,
1:13:08
Speaker 2: but because I think it's another neglected, generally understudied area
1:13:14
Speaker 2: of life, given how important it is. I'm sure there
1:13:18
Speaker 2: are studies that speak to correlations at least, if not
1:13:22
Speaker 2: like causal pathways to various kinds of mental health challenges.
1:13:26
Speaker 2: I mean, I know there are. I couldn't like cite
1:13:29
Speaker 2: a specific other, but you know I've seen them around
1:13:32
Speaker 2: and seen in other context. You know, there are treatments
1:13:36
Speaker 2: for porn addiction, right, and those treatments usually involve treating
1:13:40
Speaker 2: comorbid or like co occurring depression anxiety, social anxiety disorder,
1:13:46
Speaker 2: you know, kind of attentional difficulties, kind of issues that arise,
1:13:52
Speaker 2: insecurities that arise, but also that can give rise to
1:13:57
Speaker 2: watching lots and lots of port Ye.
1:14:01
Speaker 3: CAB. Is Trump derangement syndrome recognized as a legitimate mental
1:14:09
Speaker 3: disorder in clinical psychology? And is there any basis for
1:14:12
Speaker 3: this for its inclusion in the DSM.
1:14:16
Speaker 2: It is not, And no, I do not think it
1:14:19
Speaker 2: has has any basis in rigorous scientific epitymiological studies.
1:14:27
Speaker 3: And if you're not deranged by Trump, there's something wrong with.
1:14:29
Speaker 2: You indeed, indeed, I mean sure, but not like in
1:14:33
Speaker 2: some bonafide clinical sense, right then that would be quite
1:14:36
Speaker 2: the high.
1:14:37
Speaker 3: Prevalence monotrophic says, what do you think of the gut
1:14:41
Speaker 3: being thought of as a second brain due to the
1:14:45
Speaker 3: influence of gut microbe microbiome exerts on the central nervous system.
1:14:53
Speaker 2: What do I think of that? I mean a gain
1:14:55
Speaker 2: not an area of this is not within my main
1:15:00
Speaker 2: areas of expertise. I'm sort of peripherally aware of cool
1:15:03
Speaker 2: research on biome, you know, like factors and treatments coming
1:15:09
Speaker 2: out or preventive, you know, prophylectic treatments. But I mean
1:15:14
Speaker 2: the idea that it would be a second brain seems overwrought,
1:15:19
Speaker 2: seems like an overreach. But you know, I'm not. We
1:15:23
Speaker 2: are mind and body, and so there are certainly plenty
1:15:26
Speaker 2: of bidirectional influences between our physical and psychological health and state.
1:15:33
Speaker 3: Yep, Nicola, Any thoughts about this small, Any thoughts about
1:15:43
Speaker 3: Sigmund Freud and Calum.
1:15:46
Speaker 2: Many thoughts embracing himself? Oh godre we go us off
1:15:53
Speaker 2: to the races.
1:15:55
Speaker 1: That's too open end of a question.
1:15:58
Speaker 2: And for me, I'll be all good. You know, who
1:16:01
Speaker 2: could make any question an open ended question? Is let's see,
1:16:05
Speaker 2: let me keep it brief. I'll give you like the
1:16:07
Speaker 2: first fractals and then we can double click on anything.
1:16:12
Speaker 2: I think they both deserve a great deal of, you know,
1:16:17
Speaker 2: credit as fathers. I mean Freud in particular sort of
1:16:21
Speaker 2: the father of my field, clinical psychology, kind of was
1:16:24
Speaker 2: the first to really turn it into like a discipline
1:16:28
Speaker 2: of study, you know, the psyche and not just you know,
1:16:32
Speaker 2: what we say on the surface, but what's going on
1:16:34
Speaker 2: under the surface, under the hood, you know, which we
1:16:36
Speaker 2: have all continued to be interested in across different traditions.
1:16:39
Speaker 2: We just obviously have different accounts of like what's subconscious
1:16:44
Speaker 2: or unconscious and where does it come from? And what
1:16:47
Speaker 2: accounts for it, you know, it not being conscious, and
1:16:50
Speaker 2: how do we make it conscious? And so on. And
1:16:52
Speaker 2: there's obviously much wrong in my view with Freud's theories
1:16:57
Speaker 2: and is kind of a whold worldview, but I think
1:17:00
Speaker 2: we owe him a debt. Jung, I would say somewhat similarly.
1:17:05
Speaker 2: He you know, I actually I think he was more
1:17:07
Speaker 2: proto scientific in some ways than Freud. I think, like
1:17:10
Speaker 2: he kind of ventured far and wide in terms of
1:17:14
Speaker 2: his theorizing in a way that wasn't quite as like,
1:17:17
Speaker 2: I think, as clinically grounded. I mean, Freud obviously also
1:17:20
Speaker 2: went far beyond the data, but Freud like attempted at
1:17:25
Speaker 2: least to operationalize his kind of psychological concepts and categories
1:17:34
Speaker 2: by reference to observation, and Jung and his sort of
1:17:40
Speaker 2: theory of archetypes, you know, largely draws on sort of
1:17:43
Speaker 2: like a philosophical inheritance that he's pretty like loose and
1:17:47
Speaker 2: poetic about. But like, you know, I think there are
1:17:53
Speaker 2: some really powerful like ideas and influences from him. That
1:18:00
Speaker 2: have continued to bear fruit. So I'm not totally down
1:18:03
Speaker 2: on it.
1:18:05
Speaker 3: Okay, let's see alone musk Okay, here you go. Alone
1:18:12
Speaker 3: said that he has used ketamine to manage depression. What
1:18:16
Speaker 3: does scientific evidence effectiveness of ketamine and treating depression?
1:18:23
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to give you like the perfectly
1:18:24
Speaker 2: up to date like most recent you know, effect size,
1:18:31
Speaker 2: but I last I checked there there's really promising research
1:18:37
Speaker 2: on ketamine as another potential adjunct treatment slash alternative treatment
1:18:44
Speaker 2: for non responders. You know, there are there are lots
1:18:46
Speaker 2: and lots of different experimental treatments for depression. There's ect
1:18:49
Speaker 2: you know, where you like, electrocute somebody's brain, which works
1:18:53
Speaker 2: bizarrely well for reasons that we still can't begin to fathom.
1:18:57
Speaker 2: But for specifically cases of really severe treatment resistant depression.
1:19:01
Speaker 2: You know, there's obviously SSRI eyes, you know, different kind
1:19:04
Speaker 2: of classes of antidepressants, the therapy, ketamine and kind of
1:19:09
Speaker 2: some of the other more recent experimental kind of pharmacological treatments.
1:19:14
Speaker 2: They seem to be promising for like subsets of the
1:19:16
Speaker 2: population that don't respond well to other treatments, and I
1:19:19
Speaker 2: think that's cool. And ketamine in particular might interestingly interact
1:19:23
Speaker 2: with therapy or with certain kinds of like therapeutic learning. Again,
1:19:27
Speaker 2: this is all based on probably outdated kind of research
1:19:31
Speaker 2: archives that I'm digging through, but where there have been
1:19:34
Speaker 2: some cool studies that like actually someone with OCD who
1:19:38
Speaker 2: is given ketamine, then like there's this kind of window
1:19:42
Speaker 2: of openness to new learning and sort of kind of
1:19:46
Speaker 2: breaking of old associations and forming of new ones, such
1:19:50
Speaker 2: that in therapy if you do an exposure that exercise
1:19:53
Speaker 2: where you kind of like if you have contamination of CDA,
1:19:56
Speaker 2: you touch a toilet and then you don't wash your hands. Yeah,
1:20:00
Speaker 2: you're you're quicker to learn and quicker to then, you know,
1:20:04
Speaker 2: let feel less distressed the next time that you touch
1:20:07
Speaker 2: a contaminant. So that's cool.
1:20:10
Speaker 3: Cobb asks, can you discuss your pH d thesis onmin nation?
1:20:18
Speaker 2: Just you said it funny?
1:20:20
Speaker 3: I'm sure I did articulated what would I use?
1:20:26
Speaker 2: You're probably not the worst off, right, I used it many,
1:20:29
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sure often, and I hope well, but anyway, sure,
1:20:34
Speaker 2: quickly I did my dissertation research on so rumination was
1:20:41
Speaker 2: kind of like my big interest and the motivating kind
1:20:47
Speaker 2: of question. The mechanism I wanted to better understand. But
1:20:52
Speaker 2: the study itself was a study of different strategies for
1:20:56
Speaker 2: recovering from a failure experience and re engaging in goal
1:21:00
Speaker 2: pursuit after an initial setback, and so technically so rumination.
1:21:06
Speaker 2: You know, we measured rumination tendencies and rumination during task.
1:21:09
Speaker 2: But the specific research question was actually more positively framed.
1:21:14
Speaker 2: It was around the value of basically kind of thinking
1:21:18
Speaker 2: about your why, like what is the what is the
1:21:21
Speaker 2: value of getting better at this task? But basically thinking
1:21:25
Speaker 2: about the how, so like, what is a specific strategy
1:21:28
Speaker 2: I can use to kind of do well or get
1:21:30
Speaker 2: better on this task? And doing both in succession of
1:21:35
Speaker 2: how and the why, and I, you know, my thesis was,
1:21:38
Speaker 2: my hypothesis was that you actually get sort of compounding
1:21:42
Speaker 2: benefits from thinking through both you know, the why and
1:21:46
Speaker 2: the how, kind of both the value and and the execution,
1:21:52
Speaker 2: so you know, like and that bore out specifically for
1:22:00
Speaker 2: participants who tended to ruminate a lot, which was very
1:22:04
Speaker 2: cool to see because they were the ones I thought
1:22:05
Speaker 2: needed it the most because they're because what they do
1:22:08
Speaker 2: by default is well on how terribly they did and
1:22:11
Speaker 2: what this means about them as terrible people who will
1:22:13
Speaker 2: never amount to anything.
1:22:14
Speaker 3: Yep, so cool. Copps says, how long, how long waged
1:22:21
Speaker 3: should goals be? Many entrepreneurs talk about decades long, decade
1:22:26
Speaker 3: long goals, but I don't find goals beyond a few
1:22:30
Speaker 3: months motivating.
1:22:33
Speaker 2: How long term should goals be? I mean, it definitely depends,
1:22:38
Speaker 2: And I don't think there's one right length of one
1:22:43
Speaker 2: right duration for all your goals, because you know, you
1:22:46
Speaker 2: might have reason to set extremely short term goals depending
1:22:49
Speaker 2: on what you're trying to learn or what you're trying
1:22:52
Speaker 2: to accomplish or build, or what's the kind of epistemic context,
1:22:56
Speaker 2: like do you even know that this is something you
1:22:59
Speaker 2: liked do in which because you know, maybe your goal
1:23:01
Speaker 2: is just like to spend a week exploring something, or
1:23:04
Speaker 2: do you know that this is something there's a need for,
1:23:07
Speaker 2: which case your goal might be to, you know, ask
1:23:09
Speaker 2: around and see if there's a need for this thing
1:23:12
Speaker 2: or and also you know, it depends partly on what
1:23:15
Speaker 2: what are you committing to like and and what are
1:23:19
Speaker 2: the kind of dependencies between what you like, whatever it
1:23:25
Speaker 2: is you want or are setting your sights on, you know,
1:23:27
Speaker 2: and what you need to like what are you know,
1:23:29
Speaker 2: what stepping stones you need and kind of just like
1:23:32
Speaker 2: what time needs to pass right in order to get So, like,
1:23:35
Speaker 2: if you want kids, you should have some long term goals, yep,
1:23:39
Speaker 2: because whether you like it or not, the next eighteen
1:23:41
Speaker 2: years of your life are going to be a certain
1:23:44
Speaker 2: way and there will be constraints. And so you know,
1:23:46
Speaker 2: if you have in other words, either you have a
1:23:49
Speaker 2: goal of raising a family or you don't, or you
1:23:53
Speaker 2: have some other goal that's in congruent with that, and
1:23:56
Speaker 2: like you can't do that one short term, right, and
1:23:59
Speaker 2: so there are lots of other things like that. We're like,
1:24:03
Speaker 2: that's right. So if you're well, you can't if you're
1:24:05
Speaker 2: going to get if you're going to raise investments for it, right,
1:24:09
Speaker 2: you can if you're just tinkering, right, And it's easier
1:24:12
Speaker 2: than ever to do that in the age of AI.
1:24:14
Speaker 2: You can be an you know, a solopreneur and you
1:24:17
Speaker 2: can sort of like ship products as you build them
1:24:21
Speaker 2: and see what sticks. And like that's a perfectly tenable,
1:24:25
Speaker 2: you know, way to make a living. And for some
1:24:27
Speaker 2: people that's actually really preferable to the kind of venture
1:24:32
Speaker 2: backed you know, kind of high growth startup model. But
1:24:36
Speaker 2: if you're going to take millions of dollars from investors
1:24:39
Speaker 2: who are betting on you to execute on a very specific,
1:24:43
Speaker 2: long term vision of capturing a market with a new product, yeah,
1:24:47
Speaker 2: you're going to like you know, you are defrauding those
1:24:51
Speaker 2: investors if you're not, in fact, thinking long term about
1:24:54
Speaker 2: what you're planning to do and how long you're willing
1:24:56
Speaker 2: to you know, stick it out. So it's really contextual.
1:25:02
Speaker 3: Good Let's see, Andrew, have you been? Some of it
1:25:04
Speaker 3: tells a story he told Rand tells the story he
1:25:08
Speaker 3: told Rand what attracted him to objectivism was he saw
1:25:12
Speaker 3: that other ideas will be s. She said she was disappointed.
1:25:18
Speaker 3: What about seeking the truth.
1:25:22
Speaker 2: For exactly?
1:25:23
Speaker 3: Do you think seeking the truth is motivation by love
1:25:27
Speaker 3: in action? Wait?
1:25:29
Speaker 2: Is that a question?
1:25:30
Speaker 3: Ye?
1:25:31
Speaker 2: Sorry, The question is do I think motivation by truth is?
1:25:35
Speaker 3: I think that's seeking the truth is motivation by love
1:25:40
Speaker 3: in action.
1:25:41
Speaker 2: I think it's an instance of it, certainly. And this
1:25:45
Speaker 2: is assuming like you're seeking the truth in a context
1:25:48
Speaker 2: where like you have reason to be really curious and
1:25:51
Speaker 2: this is something you really want to know and need
1:25:53
Speaker 2: to know because it's going to have, you know, implications
1:25:56
Speaker 2: for your life or your studies or you know, it's
1:26:00
Speaker 2: not truth in this like platonic sense of just you know,
1:26:05
Speaker 2: contemplating in the Ivory Tower, how many angels fit on
1:26:08
Speaker 2: a pin or whatnot. But yeah, I mean to the
1:26:11
Speaker 2: extent that you see the value of knowledge for life,
1:26:19
Speaker 2: then absolutely.
1:26:22
Speaker 3: So.
1:26:22
Speaker 1: Richard S.
1:26:23
Speaker 3: Rank concludes the Selfishness without a Self essay with quote
1:26:29
Speaker 3: the split psychopistemology of compartmentalized compartmentalized minds, citing men who
1:26:36
Speaker 3: seek refuge from irrationality in their work. How do you
1:26:40
Speaker 3: counsel founders who do this?
1:26:44
Speaker 2: So you're talking about, sorry, the compartmentalism. So the line
1:26:46
Speaker 2: is that.
1:26:49
Speaker 3: So they have ertionality in their life and they so
1:26:52
Speaker 3: they seek work as a refuge from there.
1:26:56
Speaker 2: I mean that's a phenomenon that occurs. I mean, you
1:26:58
Speaker 2: can be compartmentalized in any number of directions. Again, compartmentalization
1:27:02
Speaker 2: is the default, right, It's one of the defaults. And
1:27:06
Speaker 2: I think since Musk was mentioned earlier, I think he's
1:27:10
Speaker 2: a really salient modern day example of how much it's
1:27:14
Speaker 2: the default, where he's the same man who brought us
1:27:18
Speaker 2: private space flight, Like who thought from first principles? From
1:27:24
Speaker 2: maybe I buy a rocket and I you know, like
1:27:27
Speaker 2: fund some space exploration to wait a minute, I can
1:27:30
Speaker 2: just build rockets myself. It's cheaper to do and it's
1:27:34
Speaker 2: wildly overpriced. And by the way, maybe we can actually
1:27:36
Speaker 2: send them into space way faster and way cheaper. You know,
1:27:39
Speaker 2: Like the same man who brought us that is also
1:27:44
Speaker 2: the same man who who cites conspiracy theories on Twitter
1:27:49
Speaker 2: willy nilly and renames it x because of some lifelong vendetta.
1:27:53
Speaker 2: Like yeah, this is the same man, but it's too
1:27:56
Speaker 2: these are very different versions of this man, and clearly
1:27:59
Speaker 2: he has not integrated himself. And it's you know, it's
1:28:02
Speaker 2: not an easy thing to do, and so you can
1:28:05
Speaker 2: see it. You know, definitely there are people who drown
1:28:08
Speaker 2: themselves in work, but I mean even that, like it's
1:28:11
Speaker 2: an over pathologies of like maybe in fact they love
1:28:13
Speaker 2: their work, but they have no idea how to apply
1:28:15
Speaker 2: that same agency and intentionality to their love life. Or
1:28:20
Speaker 2: you know, think of Hank creerdon right, who thrives in
1:28:23
Speaker 2: his work and loves work and it's so assertive in
1:28:25
Speaker 2: his work, but then has no idea what to do
1:28:28
Speaker 2: with Lilian and thinks that he's a blaggered for you
1:28:32
Speaker 2: know his attraction Todagny and that it's evil to sleep
1:28:35
Speaker 2: with her, and like, so.
1:28:37
Speaker 1: What do you counsel founders.
1:28:40
Speaker 3: Who have this, which this comp compartmentalization.
1:28:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean again like there's just no one compartmentalization.
1:28:53
Speaker 2: Like so there are founders who there are? I mean
1:28:57
Speaker 2: I could like just rattle off a couple of versions.
1:29:00
Speaker 2: Like they're founders who they're so thoughtful with customers and
1:29:06
Speaker 2: they love customer development and they love just like really
1:29:09
Speaker 2: getting inside, you know, the mind and the kind of
1:29:11
Speaker 2: workflow of you know, like an engineer and figuring out
1:29:14
Speaker 2: exactly the product to build for that engineer. But when
1:29:16
Speaker 2: they have to get in front of investors, it's like,
1:29:20
Speaker 2: you know, these people can't be reasoned with. They just
1:29:23
Speaker 2: they're just after my you know, they just want a
1:29:26
Speaker 2: quick buck and like and I don't have anything really
1:29:29
Speaker 2: to say to them, and this is such a waste
1:29:31
Speaker 2: of my time, you know. Or when they're you know,
1:29:34
Speaker 2: out with friends or when they're dating, they're like super
1:29:37
Speaker 2: you know, inhibited and shy and insecure, even though here
1:29:40
Speaker 2: they're like they shine on sales calls and customer I
1:29:44
Speaker 2: mean I see this all the time. This is such
1:29:46
Speaker 2: a common phenomenon, it's like and oftentimes the move is
1:29:51
Speaker 2: actually just to notice that and then to really consciously
1:29:54
Speaker 2: think about how to apply the skills you already have here.
1:29:58
Speaker 2: How do you see, you know, let's actually think about
1:30:00
Speaker 2: dating as a sales funnel. Let's just see how that goes.
1:30:03
Speaker 2: Let's just make a CRM. I mean, this is more
1:30:06
Speaker 2: than one client of mine. Where are the one founder
1:30:08
Speaker 2: who They had to make their CRM, like their you know.
1:30:11
Speaker 1: Customer situation's management.
1:30:14
Speaker 2: To manager, thank you, right, like the spreadsheet that they
1:30:17
Speaker 2: use for their sales funnel, for their fundraising funnel, and
1:30:20
Speaker 2: then they had to track the DMS that they send
1:30:23
Speaker 2: per week, and then they had to track, you know,
1:30:25
Speaker 2: through the funnel, like how many messages they were responded
1:30:28
Speaker 2: to and how many of those yielded a date, and
1:30:30
Speaker 2: like it worked, and you know, and they started out
1:30:33
Speaker 2: like I'm undtable and there's nobody out there who could
1:30:36
Speaker 2: possibly be attracted to me, And like two weeks later, oh,
1:30:40
Speaker 2: I just had this amazing conversation with a girl.
1:30:42
Speaker 3: That's great. Cob asked. Steve Jobs said that using hallucinogenic
1:30:48
Speaker 3: drugs gave him clarity about life's purpose. Is that possible,
1:30:54
Speaker 3: given the lucinogens do not provide objective knowledge about the
1:30:58
Speaker 3: real world.
1:31:00
Speaker 2: That's a great question. So it's not only possible, it
1:31:02
Speaker 2: is demonstrable that this happens to some people. And other
1:31:08
Speaker 2: things that happen to some people are people have a
1:31:11
Speaker 2: near death experience. You know, they like almost get you know,
1:31:15
Speaker 2: they get run over by a car, or they have
1:31:17
Speaker 2: a cancer diagnosis that like you know, could have easily
1:31:20
Speaker 2: killed them and they had to go through chemo, or
1:31:23
Speaker 2: you know, any number or like they're you know, they
1:31:26
Speaker 2: survive an assault, god, you know, any number of things,
1:31:28
Speaker 2: and then they emerge from it with a new sense
1:31:30
Speaker 2: of purpose and a new sense of clarity and like
1:31:32
Speaker 2: now I understand that life is precious and what life
1:31:34
Speaker 2: is really about, right, Or like they have a child,
1:31:37
Speaker 2: and then like they just put away the last cigarette
1:31:40
Speaker 2: that they're ever going to smoke, and after like twenty
1:31:43
Speaker 2: different quid attempts that were totally futile, and they never
1:31:46
Speaker 2: seem to be able to quit, even though they went
1:31:48
Speaker 2: through programs and smoking sensation protocols. In this they see
1:31:52
Speaker 2: the strip that says they're having a baby, and they
1:31:54
Speaker 2: put away the last cigarette they're ever going to smoke,
1:31:57
Speaker 2: you know. So okay, Well, what is it about psychedelic
1:32:01
Speaker 2: trips that for some people result in these or you know,
1:32:04
Speaker 2: like new found insights or these transformations. Well, I think
1:32:08
Speaker 2: it's in a way a common pattern that we see
1:32:12
Speaker 2: across a bunch of these shakeups, where people are thrust
1:32:17
Speaker 2: out of their kind of normal, default, status quo, day
1:32:20
Speaker 2: to day existence and they're pushed to question things that
1:32:25
Speaker 2: they hadn't really questioned before, right, They're pushed to rethink,
1:32:28
Speaker 2: to kind of like think fresh in some way about
1:32:31
Speaker 2: like what actually am I here for and what actually
1:32:34
Speaker 2: is important and what really is life about? And by
1:32:37
Speaker 2: doing that sometimes now, by the you know, most people
1:32:40
Speaker 2: who have a psychedelic trip, they don't end up transformed.
1:32:43
Speaker 2: They don't end up with brilliant insights, or they might
1:32:45
Speaker 2: say they do, and then a week later, you know,
1:32:47
Speaker 2: it's a flaky breakthrough, their back to where they started.
1:32:49
Speaker 2: But some people actually really do they like leverage that
1:32:54
Speaker 2: experience because, you know, having never actually taken a psychelic
1:32:57
Speaker 2: to date, you know, curious to try it sometime and
1:33:00
Speaker 2: control of my like my understanding is it's a wild
1:33:04
Speaker 2: and wacky experience where you really like just see the
1:33:08
Speaker 2: world in a whole different way, and it's bizarre and
1:33:10
Speaker 2: you don't know what's happening, and it's sort of like
1:33:13
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, but we can approximate that sort
1:33:15
Speaker 2: you know, when we're like drunk or high or sleepy
1:33:18
Speaker 2: or you know what, Like there are certain ways that
1:33:20
Speaker 2: our brain can kind of get rejiggered. And you know,
1:33:23
Speaker 2: I mentioned ect earlier where you literally just shock somebody's brain.
1:33:27
Speaker 2: Why would that cure someone's depression, But it does, you know,
1:33:31
Speaker 2: literally the reboot where you unplug and replug, but it's
1:33:35
Speaker 2: the brain.
1:33:36
Speaker 3: Ye.
1:33:36
Speaker 2: So you know that's my general take on it, all.
1:33:41
Speaker 3: Right, the best Tom says, just wanted to shout out Gina.
1:33:46
Speaker 3: She is my coach and this has such an impact
1:33:49
Speaker 3: on my life.
1:33:50
Speaker 1: Highly recommended.
1:33:52
Speaker 3: Why thank you, it's very nice.
1:33:54
Speaker 1: Tom uh Rah. Thoughts on the assund and on Thomas
1:34:03
Speaker 1: s z a s as.
1:34:07
Speaker 2: The mental illness denier. I think he's wrong, but I
1:34:13
Speaker 2: think that he was responding to other wrongs that needed,
1:34:18
Speaker 2: you know, responding to I think you know, there wasn't
1:34:24
Speaker 2: still is though not to that same extent. A lot
1:34:27
Speaker 2: of you know, over pathologizing and sort of you know,
1:34:30
Speaker 2: reductionistic kind of over medicalizing of psychological challenges, problems of living,
1:34:38
Speaker 2: you know, as at least some subset of mental health
1:34:40
Speaker 2: disorders turns out to be in context where either you know,
1:34:45
Speaker 2: so Sauce's view is it's actually society that's broken and
1:34:49
Speaker 2: you know, and bad. Like the individuals themselves, nothing's wrong
1:34:53
Speaker 2: with them, that's really just that they're being you know,
1:34:55
Speaker 2: kind of put into this kind of straight jacket sometimes literally,
1:34:58
Speaker 2: you know, of social norms that are kind of restrictive
1:35:01
Speaker 2: and arbitrary. I mean, that's wrong. And if you've ever
1:35:06
Speaker 2: actually encountered real mental illness, then you know that it's wrong. Yep,
1:35:09
Speaker 2: there is real mental illness. There's mental illness that is
1:35:12
Speaker 2: you know, organically it caused or at least instigated, where
1:35:17
Speaker 2: there is a break from reality that's quite sudden, and
1:35:20
Speaker 2: that is you know, very rapidly ameliorated with any psychotic medication.
1:35:27
Speaker 3: Right.
1:35:27
Speaker 2: There is such a thing as bipolar disorder where somebody
1:35:29
Speaker 2: has really discrete episodes where they are extremely high energy
1:35:36
Speaker 2: and they don't need any sleep and their mind kind
1:35:39
Speaker 2: of gets untethered from consequences and you know, kind of
1:35:44
Speaker 2: concrete the constraints and they see these kind of grandiose
1:35:50
Speaker 2: possibilities everywhere, and then those same people have awful, terrible
1:35:54
Speaker 2: nose dives into depression at other times. And you know,
1:35:57
Speaker 2: and it is not for any inherent error in their
1:36:01
Speaker 2: thinking per se. So I think he's wrong, you know,
1:36:05
Speaker 2: but he had good points about what was wrong with
1:36:09
Speaker 2: the other side.
1:36:13
Speaker 3: All right, Still a lot of questions, Richard, as a
1:36:17
Speaker 3: young mom, how do you counsel founders who want to
1:36:21
Speaker 3: stop both a business and a family. It seems like
1:36:24
Speaker 3: a massive cognitive load.
1:36:27
Speaker 2: It's sertain it is not just cognitive, but you know, temporal, financial,
1:36:34
Speaker 2: every kind of load, emotional. And I know multiple founders
1:36:40
Speaker 2: who've done it, and I know ones who've thrived at it,
1:36:44
Speaker 2: partly in ways they might not have thrived if they
1:36:47
Speaker 2: didn't try to do both, in the sense that like
1:36:50
Speaker 2: children are you know, yeah, that takes so much time
1:36:53
Speaker 2: from out of you, and they're you know, depleting in
1:36:55
Speaker 2: many ways, but also more fundamentally, they're really energizing their
1:37:00
Speaker 2: little balls of joy and energy and growth and learning.
1:37:03
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to probably tear up if I
1:37:05
Speaker 2: go on, and any brothers, and you know, it depends
1:37:10
Speaker 2: so much too on life circumstances that do they have
1:37:12
Speaker 2: help and do they have you know, parents nearby who
1:37:15
Speaker 2: they can actually trust to watch the kids? And are
1:37:18
Speaker 2: they both founders or is one of them a founder
1:37:21
Speaker 2: while the other one is mostly home with the kids?
1:37:23
Speaker 2: And does that work for them both that stage of
1:37:25
Speaker 2: their life? There are lots of ways that I've seen,
1:37:27
Speaker 2: you know, founders make it work. But yeah, it's hard,
1:37:30
Speaker 2: It's really really hard.
1:37:31
Speaker 3: Andrew, So do you find a lot of STEM thinkers
1:37:34
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs are repressed in their anger responses? If so, how
1:37:38
Speaker 3: do you counsel them about that?
1:37:41
Speaker 2: That's interesting? If you adjust asked about like, do I
1:37:45
Speaker 2: find they're repress I would say, yeah, I mean STEM entrepreneurs.
1:37:47
Speaker 2: I mean, partly through the confound that they're mostly men,
1:37:51
Speaker 2: like they're above average repressed compared to women, slash people
1:37:56
Speaker 2: in other fields. But anger in particular, that's interesting because
1:38:00
Speaker 2: I would say that I don't think is differentially common
1:38:04
Speaker 2: in STEM engineer type, you know, tech people of matters
1:38:09
Speaker 2: as compared to like fuzzy fuzzy humanities social science, you know,
1:38:15
Speaker 2: like psychologists or or artists or creatives. Because anger generally
1:38:21
Speaker 2: is an emotion that tends to be taboo, and that
1:38:23
Speaker 2: especially as we're growing up, we are not encouraged to
1:38:27
Speaker 2: express our you know, anger, disapproval. I mean obviously depends
1:38:31
Speaker 2: on the family we're growing up in the culture. But
1:38:34
Speaker 2: I've seen this a lot. You know, it's a common
1:38:36
Speaker 2: kind of pattern where somebody's really not got a kind
1:38:40
Speaker 2: of healthy repertoire for assertively expressing anger, and so either
1:38:46
Speaker 2: they tend to kind of turn it on themselves and yeah,
1:38:48
Speaker 2: repress it and kind of outwardly express it either you know,
1:38:53
Speaker 2: as like self doubt or or as burnout, or as frustration.
1:39:00
Speaker 2: And but like that's kind of a morphist diffuse frustration
1:39:02
Speaker 2: rather than like, I am so mad at you for
1:39:05
Speaker 2: repeatedly failing at your commitments and not even seeming to care,
1:39:09
Speaker 2: you know. So, I mean it's super common, but I
1:39:11
Speaker 2: would say a cross across the board.
1:39:13
Speaker 3: Yep. Rob thoughts on irving Goffman and symbolic interaction.
1:39:22
Speaker 2: Again, I don't think I have anything really authoritative to say.
1:39:25
Speaker 3: I'd have to go back and brush up, Cobb, says
1:39:29
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan. Used disrespect and doubt from others is motivation
1:39:34
Speaker 3: to work hard? Isn't that a form of secondhandedness?
1:39:37
Speaker 2: It's a great Chris So yeah. I mean, he's a
1:39:40
Speaker 2: fascinating study in the builder's mindset and and you know
1:39:44
Speaker 2: the psychology of ambition. If you if you guys haven't
1:39:48
Speaker 2: seen the documentary The Last Dance, I highly highly recommend it.
1:39:52
Speaker 3: Really good.
1:39:53
Speaker 2: He so it's a really good question. And I've thought
1:39:55
Speaker 2: about this my take on his his sort of rage
1:40:03
Speaker 2: tactics where he would get really resented, he would like it,
1:40:07
Speaker 2: I mean, and he said this himself, that he would
1:40:09
Speaker 2: invent slights so that he could get himself all riled
1:40:12
Speaker 2: up for the game. So no, I definitely don't think
1:40:16
Speaker 2: it's secondhanded in that it's so self driven, like he's
1:40:20
Speaker 2: the one making stuff up and in a very strategic
1:40:24
Speaker 2: way in order to motivate himself and he and in
1:40:27
Speaker 2: order to motivate his team. And it's like idiosyncratic to
1:40:32
Speaker 2: him the things that would piss him off, you know,
1:40:34
Speaker 2: so like that this is not coming from any other
1:40:37
Speaker 2: source or from any and he doesn't actually care what
1:40:40
Speaker 2: any of these other people think. It's very much about
1:40:42
Speaker 2: like he's going to be the best in the sense
1:40:45
Speaker 2: and like he is gonna a chief peak greatness as
1:40:47
Speaker 2: a basketball player. It's not even there, Like I don't
1:40:50
Speaker 2: think I mean at the point where he was many
1:40:53
Speaker 2: heads above every other basketball player, clearly he was not satisfied,
1:40:58
Speaker 2: you know, to just stay at that level of like
1:41:00
Speaker 2: he wanted to be better. So it can't be secondhanded
1:41:03
Speaker 2: at that, but right, like you can kind of really
1:41:04
Speaker 2: see that he holds his own bar and he has
1:41:06
Speaker 2: his own standards and his own reasons for playing and
1:41:09
Speaker 2: for wanting to win. What's really interesting about it is, Yeah,
1:41:13
Speaker 2: it seems like this really like negatively motivated competitiveness, right,
1:41:20
Speaker 2: And I think it's really hard to know, of course
1:41:22
Speaker 2: without knowing him and talking to him and having direct access.
1:41:26
Speaker 2: But from the documentary, from things I've read and heard,
1:41:31
Speaker 2: I actually think it was net healthy in a weird way,
1:41:36
Speaker 2: where like I might not, you know, like if I
1:41:38
Speaker 2: were coaching him and if he were soliciting advice on
1:41:41
Speaker 2: you know, look, I really need to bring my best
1:41:45
Speaker 2: at games. I need to get myself into the mindset.
1:41:47
Speaker 2: It's a fragile mindset, like it really you know the
1:41:49
Speaker 2: level of like focus and energy and just like relentless
1:41:53
Speaker 2: you know, physical mental exertion that it takes to achieve
1:41:57
Speaker 2: what he would achieve routinely in games like It's it's superhuman,
1:42:02
Speaker 2: Like most of us probably have never experienced anything remotely
1:42:04
Speaker 2: close to that like level of peak performance. And to
1:42:08
Speaker 2: do it, you know, like it takes fuel, and it
1:42:10
Speaker 2: takes different kinds of fuel for everybody. And this is
1:42:12
Speaker 2: in the book about just like the kind of the
1:42:15
Speaker 2: fragile art of fueling and maintaining that kind of motivation
1:42:21
Speaker 2: to build motivation, you know, to work to exert effort
1:42:24
Speaker 2: towards something really hard. And for him, like what it
1:42:28
Speaker 2: represented deep down? And he, I mean, how would we know?
1:42:33
Speaker 2: Said that. He talks about it later and kind of
1:42:35
Speaker 2: reflects back on like what was he even doing there?
1:42:38
Speaker 2: Why was he doing it? And it's a kind of sharpening.
1:42:42
Speaker 2: It's like a making salient in the moment of like
1:42:46
Speaker 2: I want this and I'm going after it and nothing
1:42:50
Speaker 2: and nobody is going to stop me, right, So like
1:42:53
Speaker 2: in a certain way, it's like a hack. It's a gimme,
1:42:55
Speaker 2: you know, just like people will like rub their rabbit
1:42:58
Speaker 2: foot or whatever before you know, game, or have their
1:43:00
Speaker 2: little rituals where it's not like they actually think there's
1:43:03
Speaker 2: some sort of magical property to the rabbit. It's like
1:43:06
Speaker 2: this is my cue to myself to get into game
1:43:10
Speaker 2: mode and to give it all and to leave it
1:43:12
Speaker 2: all on the floor.
1:43:14
Speaker 3: Yep.
1:43:15
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, there's more to say about it, but yeah,
1:43:20
Speaker 2: I'm sure gone on long enough.
1:43:23
Speaker 3: What valuable insights and psychology of ambition have you learned
1:43:27
Speaker 3: about regarding ambitious high functioning au DHD autism.
1:43:33
Speaker 1: Plus the newest Yeah, like myself?
1:43:37
Speaker 3: How about insights that can help people with au DHD.
1:43:42
Speaker 2: So I've written a little bit about at least the
1:43:47
Speaker 2: ADHD part of that compound. So check out my subsec
1:43:54
Speaker 2: post from ADHD Skeptic to adderall enthusiast. I do want
1:43:59
Speaker 2: my specifig personal story and take I guess might without
1:44:05
Speaker 2: having more specifics obviously, I would say the big failure mode,
1:44:10
Speaker 2: big error mode. That's just like really ubiquitous right now.
1:44:13
Speaker 2: When it comes to these kinds of diagnostic labels and
1:44:17
Speaker 2: the kind of the ways that we use them in thinking,
1:44:21
Speaker 2: is that we're pathologizing phenomena that are completely natural and
1:44:30
Speaker 2: normal to the human experience. That package together like difficulty
1:44:37
Speaker 2: maintaining focus and motivation with having really bespoke interests that
1:44:44
Speaker 2: you take really seriously that you're really intense about and
1:44:47
Speaker 2: that weird people out because you're so intense about them,
1:44:50
Speaker 2: which you know, which look like asd ON or is
1:44:57
Speaker 2: no longer a SD, which look like high functioning autism
1:45:00
Speaker 2: to people who are on the premise of looking for it,
1:45:05
Speaker 2: and which can then kind of result in a whole schema,
1:45:10
Speaker 2: whole identity that then you kind of like index on
1:45:13
Speaker 2: and that ends up becoming in some ways of self
1:45:15
Speaker 2: fulfilling prophecy. That doesn't mean that, you know, sure like
1:45:17
Speaker 2: there is a real phenomenon of autism, that you know,
1:45:20
Speaker 2: there is a spectrum of you know, like the various
1:45:24
Speaker 2: kinds of traits, both on the kind of executive functioning side,
1:45:27
Speaker 2: the ADHD and like the theory of mind you know,
1:45:30
Speaker 2: social kind of a saprocity side with autism. I just
1:45:35
Speaker 2: I would think much less in terms of diagnostic categories
1:45:39
Speaker 2: and much more in terms of like the actual experience
1:45:43
Speaker 2: and the actual you know, like the descriptive concepts for
1:45:46
Speaker 2: what you as an individual are dealing with, what you're
1:45:50
Speaker 2: up against, what your challenges are, what you want, what
1:45:52
Speaker 2: you need, and to just assume that it's healthy and
1:45:58
Speaker 2: normal until proven otherwise, and treat it as a problem
1:46:02
Speaker 2: of living, because problems of living are hard enough, you know,
1:46:07
Speaker 2: and a lot of the same advice turns out to apply.
1:46:12
Speaker 2: And don't hesitate to take medication if it helps you,
1:46:16
Speaker 2: believe it or not, that advice goes hand in hand.
1:46:18
Speaker 2: You don't even need a diagnosis. E subt legally.
1:46:23
Speaker 3: Cobb ask what do you think of Jonathan Heights's analysis
1:46:27
Speaker 3: as psychological differences between liberals and conservatives? Any evidence supporting
1:46:31
Speaker 3: the analysis?
1:46:34
Speaker 2: I straightforwardly hate his analysis. He leverages the kind of
1:46:40
Speaker 2: evidence that social psychologists leverage for their theories, which is
1:46:44
Speaker 2: like you ask people questions on your questionnaire where you've
1:46:49
Speaker 2: you know, written questions aligned with your pre existing theory,
1:46:52
Speaker 2: and then as long as they sort of loosely cluster
1:46:54
Speaker 2: into like correlated items, then you know, you further correlate
1:47:00
Speaker 2: them with whether people endorse this or that attitude again,
1:47:03
Speaker 2: you know, as befitting your theory, and then if you
1:47:06
Speaker 2: see correlations, then that strengthens your belief in your theory,
1:47:10
Speaker 2: and never mind whether it replicates. I mean that's probably
1:47:16
Speaker 2: you know, like an overly dismissive account of the research,
1:47:22
Speaker 2: that the kind of empirical body of work, although I
1:47:26
Speaker 2: don't actually I actually think it's probably fair. I mean,
1:47:29
Speaker 2: and if we just if we look at the theory
1:47:31
Speaker 2: on its face, it's a theory of innate moral attitudes
1:47:38
Speaker 2: premises that have evolutionary explanations. You know, like some people
1:47:46
Speaker 2: they evolved, you know, like they have a really kind
1:47:50
Speaker 2: of over developed sense of like harm avoidance because you know,
1:47:55
Speaker 2: of course, when we were in the cave, like we
1:47:56
Speaker 2: needed to keep bad stuff from happening to us. Some
1:47:59
Speaker 2: people they have this overdeveloped sense of like in group
1:48:03
Speaker 2: cohesion because you know, they needed to like keep close
1:48:06
Speaker 2: to their tribe to keep away the other tribes because otherwise,
1:48:09
Speaker 2: you know, they would get killed by the other tribe.
1:48:12
Speaker 2: And some people and like that's why some people believe that,
1:48:16
Speaker 2: you know, we should have capitalism, and why some people
1:48:19
Speaker 2: believe that we should be communists and so on and
1:48:21
Speaker 2: so forth. Like, I mean, judge it on its merits
1:48:25
Speaker 2: correlations aside.
1:48:27
Speaker 3: Anyway, cobosays, how should one deal with irrational urges? Is
1:48:33
Speaker 3: resisting them through shield will power the right approach rarely.
1:48:39
Speaker 2: At least certainly rarely in a sustained way as a
1:48:42
Speaker 2: long term strategy, I mean, in moments, it might be
1:48:45
Speaker 2: if you kind of have a like a context that
1:48:48
Speaker 2: you've already established for yourself of like this is a habit,
1:48:51
Speaker 2: I know where it comes from. It doesn't serve me
1:48:53
Speaker 2: in these contexts, and trying to break it, and so
1:48:56
Speaker 2: like absent some better strategy that doesn't that's you know,
1:49:01
Speaker 2: like going to kind of last me longer. That's not
1:49:04
Speaker 2: going to deplete me. I'm just going to power through.
1:49:07
Speaker 2: But I know I only have to do this for
1:49:09
Speaker 2: ten minutes, you know, or I know that tomorrow I'm
1:49:11
Speaker 2: going to be out of harm's way or out of temptations,
1:49:13
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm not going to be going to
1:49:15
Speaker 2: these parties with them, you know, where everybody's drinking, except
1:49:20
Speaker 2: for this one time that I really needed to land
1:49:22
Speaker 2: a customer. And so I like, I'm just you know,
1:49:24
Speaker 2: like I don't have time to come up with a
1:49:26
Speaker 2: strategy where I'm like holding a glass of water and
1:49:29
Speaker 2: you know, fulfilling my need in other ways, and so
1:49:31
Speaker 2: I'm just going to have to try to like brute
1:49:33
Speaker 2: force it. But it's you know, brute forcing. It just
1:49:36
Speaker 2: means like we've, for whatever reason, been unable to fully
1:49:43
Speaker 2: capture the context of knowledge for ourselves in an emotionally
1:49:48
Speaker 2: embodied way. For why we don't want to do this right,
1:49:52
Speaker 2: so like optimal, like ideally you want to be able
1:49:56
Speaker 2: to capture it whenever you can, because it's you know that,
1:50:00
Speaker 2: it's it's better for you.
1:50:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's car But is it true that psychologists still
1:50:08
Speaker 3: have no idea how sexual orientation is formed?
1:50:13
Speaker 2: Yes, that is indeed the case last I checked.
1:50:17
Speaker 1: But Gina is going to work on this.
1:50:19
Speaker 3: Maybe is the next project will I.
1:50:22
Speaker 2: That's that's a big.
1:50:23
Speaker 1: As sex more more more generally sex.
1:50:26
Speaker 3: That's what you said.
1:50:27
Speaker 2: I will look into it as a matter of personal education,
1:50:31
Speaker 2: not promising that I'm going to be writing the next
1:50:33
Speaker 2: book on it. But who knows. Life is long?
1:50:36
Speaker 3: It is long, Well, it's long from where you're you are,
1:50:40
Speaker 3: it's it's a lot shorter from where I am.
1:50:43
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, with life extension research being what it is,
1:50:47
Speaker 2: you'll outlive us up.
1:50:50
Speaker 3: Well okay, maybe, uh let's see if one has a
1:50:54
Speaker 3: question someone, well, in a committed relationship, how can one
1:50:59
Speaker 3: eliminate that attraction?
1:51:03
Speaker 1: Interesting eliminate it?
1:51:07
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I would first just back up a step,
1:51:10
Speaker 2: you know, and just first ask like what's happening here?
1:51:14
Speaker 2: And what do I want here? And what does you know?
1:51:16
Speaker 2: What does this mean for the relationship?
1:51:19
Speaker 3: What is it? Like? Why?
1:51:19
Speaker 2: You know, is this a problem?
1:51:21
Speaker 3: Even?
1:51:22
Speaker 2: How is this a problem?
1:51:24
Speaker 3: Is it?
1:51:24
Speaker 4: Does it?
1:51:25
Speaker 2: Is it a symptom of something that's not quite working
1:51:27
Speaker 2: in the relationship? Should I, you know, should we talk
1:51:30
Speaker 2: it through? Like is this something to kind of you know,
1:51:33
Speaker 2: share with my partners? This is something that I you know,
1:51:35
Speaker 2: this is just like a superficial passing thing, in which case,
1:51:39
Speaker 2: like just kind of letting it pass might be the
1:51:43
Speaker 2: most efficient solution. It really just depends. So I wouldn't
1:51:46
Speaker 2: assume that, like you have a job of elimination to do,
1:51:50
Speaker 2: you know, introspect be curious monotropic.
1:51:56
Speaker 1: What do you think of the argument from Daniel G.
1:51:59
Speaker 1: M Man that mental.
1:52:01
Speaker 3: Illness are largely caused by disorders in the brain.
1:52:06
Speaker 2: So, like the anti sauce perspective.
1:52:09
Speaker 3: It seems like the flip side of sasas.
1:52:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's also wrong. I think they're both wrong,
1:52:15
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, the truth is much more
1:52:19
Speaker 2: mind body integrated. And it's not neither reduction, you know,
1:52:24
Speaker 2: neither attempting to reduce psychological phenomena to mind nor to
1:52:29
Speaker 2: body are going to cut it because you know, we
1:52:32
Speaker 2: are integrated organisms.
1:52:34
Speaker 3: So cop says, I struggle to function without caffeine as
1:52:38
Speaker 3: a common problem, and it makes me feel like a fraud,
1:52:42
Speaker 3: as if my caffeinatedself isn't my true self?
1:52:46
Speaker 1: Is that an irrational? Is that irrational?
1:52:49
Speaker 2: Well? Do you feel that way about food? So, like,
1:52:52
Speaker 2: if you don't eat, for you can't three days or
1:52:56
Speaker 2: a week, or if you don't drink, or if you
1:52:58
Speaker 2: don't sleep, like you probably become a really dysfunctional zombie
1:53:02
Speaker 2: at some point. So like, does that mean it's not
1:53:04
Speaker 2: the real you when you do get sleep or when
1:53:06
Speaker 2: you do eat, Like, you know, caffeine, though stigmatized in
1:53:10
Speaker 2: some circles, is another you know, it's a resource that
1:53:15
Speaker 2: we bibe in order to get certain needs met, and
1:53:20
Speaker 2: sometimes we might over you know, over rely on it
1:53:24
Speaker 2: relative to whatever costs it might have, Like if we
1:53:26
Speaker 2: get terrible headaches when we don't have access to caffeine,
1:53:30
Speaker 2: or you know, if we end up with withdrawals that
1:53:33
Speaker 2: are really painful, or you know, or throw us off kilter,
1:53:38
Speaker 2: or you know, like or if there are the cardiac facts,
1:53:41
Speaker 2: God forbid, if you're like really guzzling gallons of coffee,
1:53:44
Speaker 2: but in and of itself, you know, it's a resource
1:53:48
Speaker 2: like the many others that we use in order to
1:53:50
Speaker 2: function at our peak and to be our full selves.
1:53:53
Speaker 2: So I would definitely not feel ashamed of it.
1:53:59
Speaker 3: Shows umans were largely tableau ussa. Would men and women
1:54:03
Speaker 3: be far more similar in a fully rational society?
1:54:10
Speaker 2: I would have to clarify what we mean by fully
1:54:12
Speaker 2: tabula rasa like as opposed to what as opposed to
1:54:15
Speaker 2: what we are so like, I don't know if you
1:54:20
Speaker 2: like in the sense that brand meant that, you know,
1:54:22
Speaker 2: we don't have innate knowledge or innate ideas. Obviously, we
1:54:25
Speaker 2: have a lot of other stuff that's innate. We have
1:54:27
Speaker 2: a temperament we have, you know.
1:54:30
Speaker 1: So I think the question is and women innately different?
1:54:36
Speaker 2: I see, I think that that's in some ways yes,
1:54:41
Speaker 2: and you know, in important in the important ways for
1:54:45
Speaker 2: most of the debates around this topic. No, but like
1:54:49
Speaker 2: with respect to their sexual physiology and psychology, Yes, that's
1:54:56
Speaker 2: the main I guess that's what I say.
1:54:58
Speaker 3: That has to have some psychological cool manifestation.
1:55:03
Speaker 2: But I mean, I don't think that like like in
1:55:06
Speaker 2: this specific cause. I don't think like has to in
1:55:08
Speaker 2: some like metaphysical or deterministics that's like it's an empirical question,
1:55:12
Speaker 2: what does this particular biological difference, you know, entail? And
1:55:16
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it's really so just to be fair,
1:55:19
Speaker 2: I think there are all sorts of things we actually
1:55:22
Speaker 2: just don't know how to parse between culture and you know,
1:55:26
Speaker 2: innate sex difference, And so I don't know the answer
1:55:29
Speaker 2: as fart like if you mean, if we control away culture,
1:55:33
Speaker 2: which maybe is the real kind of question being asked here,
1:55:36
Speaker 2: is like completely you know, controlling for all the ideas
1:55:41
Speaker 2: floating in the kind of more ras, the norms, you know,
1:55:44
Speaker 2: implicit kind of schemas floating around about kind of gender
1:55:47
Speaker 2: roles and what we're suppose how we're supposed to differ,
1:55:51
Speaker 2: like what would be left of those differences? And I
1:55:54
Speaker 2: actually just don't think we know, But I do think
1:55:56
Speaker 2: that you know, there we know some things with more
1:55:59
Speaker 2: confident and other things, but we don't know anything with
1:56:02
Speaker 2: perfect confidence because we haven't been able to run that experiment.
1:56:04
Speaker 2: You know, we know a cross like cross culturally, certain
1:56:06
Speaker 2: things remain and certain things vary as a function of culture.
1:56:12
Speaker 2: We know, like in more like gender egalitarian countries, you
1:56:17
Speaker 2: actually end up with less gender diversity in certain specific
1:56:20
Speaker 2: fields like like nursing and I don't know, like computer
1:56:24
Speaker 2: science and they like that, but don't quote me on that,
1:56:26
Speaker 2: So like, why do you know some sort We know
1:56:29
Speaker 2: boys will play with trucks no matter how much their
1:56:33
Speaker 2: parents like refuse to use gender pronouns or have any
1:56:35
Speaker 2: gender talk at all. And we know girls will play
1:56:37
Speaker 2: with dolls and want to be princesses. So like they're
1:56:40
Speaker 2: clearly certain innate things, but we don't know how far
1:56:43
Speaker 2: they go sance culture.
1:56:45
Speaker 3: No, All right, what are some is neil? What are
1:56:53
Speaker 3: some other signs of ADHD other than not being able
1:56:57
Speaker 3: to focus? I never had a hard time with sitting
1:57:00
Speaker 3: at a desk for a long period of time, but
1:57:03
Speaker 3: learning has been a struggle both at home and at work.
1:57:08
Speaker 2: So okay, So the question is what are the symptoms
1:57:11
Speaker 2: apart from not being able to focus? Not being able
1:57:15
Speaker 2: to focus? So it's highly variable. What particular mix of
1:57:21
Speaker 2: symptoms you have to have six out of nine of
1:57:23
Speaker 2: either of two sets of symptoms inattentive or hyperactive in
1:57:28
Speaker 2: order to get a diagnosis of ADHD. And I mean
1:57:32
Speaker 2: you could literally just look them up online, just like
1:57:34
Speaker 2: what are the nine of each? For the very literal
1:57:37
Speaker 2: answer to that question is super easy to just like ADHD,
1:57:40
Speaker 2: DSM symptoms or DSM criteria. But it's you know, on
1:57:44
Speaker 2: the end attentive side. I mean, I'm sure to think like,
1:57:47
Speaker 2: is it actually more more useful for this question for
1:57:50
Speaker 2: me to brattle off symptoms or more useful maybe to
1:57:53
Speaker 2: address the metal level questions? Not an actual kind. This
1:57:57
Speaker 2: is a loose a cluster of characteristics, behaviors, you know,
1:58:04
Speaker 2: kind of faculties that people tend to differ on, but
1:58:08
Speaker 2: like on a smooth continuum, there's no sharp cutoff. We're like,
1:58:10
Speaker 2: now there's this set of people who like have all
1:58:12
Speaker 2: of these problems, and then there's everyone else. O're here
1:58:14
Speaker 2: like it's a smooth distribution. And I would again think
1:58:19
Speaker 2: less in terms of am I disordered and more in
1:58:22
Speaker 2: terms of like what is hard for me? And why
1:58:24
Speaker 2: is it hard for me? And how do I get
1:58:27
Speaker 2: what I need? And maybe you know, by the way
1:58:30
Speaker 2: psychostimulate medication works for everyone regardless of whether they're diagnosed
1:58:33
Speaker 2: with ADHD. Interesting, but I could go into that, Marph,
1:58:39
Speaker 2: how many more questions do they just keep coming? Here?
1:58:42
Speaker 3: No, I've stopped them, so I discovered them one, two, three, five, five.
1:58:48
Speaker 1: One questions nice to make kids.
1:58:50
Speaker 3: So at the end of these lives, Yeah, okay, so
1:58:53
Speaker 3: does the phrase listen to your heart have a serious
1:58:56
Speaker 3: role and introspection? I interpret the phrase is folks are
1:59:00
Speaker 3: seeing as focus your brain on your body's feelings.
1:59:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a metaphorical, you know, turn
1:59:09
Speaker 2: of phrase. So it really just depends on how you're
1:59:12
Speaker 2: interpreting it and what you know, like what it connotes
1:59:15
Speaker 2: to you, and that seems like a fine connotation, and
1:59:18
Speaker 2: that that seems like a useful thing to sometimes do.
1:59:22
Speaker 2: So it's just I don't think it's that precise, you know,
1:59:24
Speaker 2: as a prescription, But if it's sort of poetically useful.
1:59:27
Speaker 3: Then by all means, call says three cheers, a psychology
1:59:32
Speaker 3: based on an objectivist philosophy.
1:59:33
Speaker 2: Base cool, three cheers, cool, three cheers.
1:59:39
Speaker 3: Okay, Kim's got an idea for a new book. I'm kidding,
1:59:42
Speaker 3: but the question is a new book, Tips for Raising Kids?
1:59:46
Speaker 2: Will hmm, that is a new book. A right working
1:59:52
Speaker 2: on that book, so I'll yes, there you go. I mean,
1:59:55
Speaker 2: not exactly, that's not the exact libble, but it's a
1:59:58
Speaker 2: book on agency and education. So the new normal, he
2:00:02
Speaker 2: calls it, but it's it will have many such tips.
2:00:04
Speaker 3: Good.
2:00:05
Speaker 2: So yeah, I wouldn't even know where to start.
2:00:06
Speaker 1: But too big of a question.
2:00:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Steve O says, what is the effect of sleep deprivation?
2:00:14
Speaker 3: Is it like being drunk or worse? My mother says
2:00:17
Speaker 3: she works for years on hardly any sleep. What do
2:00:20
Speaker 3: you make of that?
2:00:22
Speaker 2: I mean I would ask what she means by hardly
2:00:25
Speaker 2: any So like if you get you know, if you're
2:00:28
Speaker 2: sleep deprived, I don't remember if it's I think it's
2:00:30
Speaker 2: like forty eight hours, you start to hallucinate pretty reliably
2:00:34
Speaker 2: if you actually aren't sleeping at all. You know, if
2:00:37
Speaker 2: you're sleeping like fewer hours than you would need in
2:00:41
Speaker 2: order to get at least one really good solid like
2:00:43
Speaker 2: deep sleep, you know, rem cycle, then you're gonna have
2:00:46
Speaker 2: all sorts of crazy cognitive deficits. You're gonna have, you know, trouble,
2:00:50
Speaker 2: You're gonna look like you have all sorts of diagnoses
2:00:53
Speaker 2: at that point, you know, And I mean there's also
2:00:55
Speaker 2: just going to be individual differences and like do you
2:00:57
Speaker 2: you know, well, is it like you're drunk? Well, what
2:01:00
Speaker 2: are you like drunk? Because some people are violent drugs
2:01:03
Speaker 2: some people are pleasant sleepy drugs, you know, same with
2:01:06
Speaker 2: sleep deprivation, but that it has pretty severe effects. You
2:01:09
Speaker 2: you know, really if you get go to the extremes,
2:01:13
Speaker 2: that is, that is for sure. But also yeah, people
2:01:15
Speaker 2: are highly very like there are people who actually just
2:01:18
Speaker 2: function on relatively less sleep than other people. But you know,
2:01:22
Speaker 2: within a certain band, yeah, a certain range if you
2:01:29
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know anybody who could function and
2:01:31
Speaker 2: I don't think that you know, science would would suggest, like,
2:01:33
Speaker 2: you're not gonna be able to do less than four
2:01:35
Speaker 2: hours consistently.
2:01:36
Speaker 3: I think I've I've not, I've done forty eight hours
2:01:40
Speaker 3: or over forty eight hours. The only thing I would
2:01:42
Speaker 3: suggest is don't drive.
2:01:44
Speaker 2: Yes, please, God myself. Forty hours without sleep on please don't.
2:01:50
Speaker 3: Not a good? Yeah, not a good. Yeah.
2:01:53
Speaker 1: I survived, but it was by luck, not by any virtues.
2:01:57
Speaker 2: I'm really glad.
2:02:00
Speaker 3: I was young. I couldn't do forty eight out anyway
2:02:02
Speaker 3: close to forty eight hours today. But but yes, I
2:02:06
Speaker 3: think I think adrenaline if you're working straight, if you're
2:02:09
Speaker 3: engaged in an activity and you're really working hard, and
2:02:13
Speaker 3: you can you can go for a while, but then
2:02:15
Speaker 3: you collapse and and and you need to catch up,
2:02:18
Speaker 3: and you need to catch up. You need to make
2:02:20
Speaker 3: it up.
2:02:20
Speaker 2: You're just not gonna it comes back. There are no
2:02:23
Speaker 2: free lunches, and there are no all nighters.
2:02:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've all done all nighters. Yeah, so it's it's doable,
2:02:31
Speaker 3: but you have to make it up ultimately.
2:02:34
Speaker 2: I just got to pay it back.
2:02:35
Speaker 3: Okay, you want talk about talk about sleepless As a
2:02:38
Speaker 3: new parent, sad stories about children make me project onto
2:02:44
Speaker 3: my own children and feel deeply saddened. Is that healthy
2:02:49
Speaker 3: or necessary?
2:02:52
Speaker 2: All sad stories about other children?
2:02:54
Speaker 1: Just make sure yeah about other children?
2:02:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it right.
2:02:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:03:00
Speaker 2: And whether or not it's necessary or healthy, I get it.
2:03:04
Speaker 2: It's hard to not do or feel, I mean, and
2:03:08
Speaker 2: to some degree, like yeah, naturally it would be weird
2:03:12
Speaker 2: if you didn't feel any feelings, you know, if it's
2:03:14
Speaker 2: like a really vivid, you know, story that you can
2:03:17
Speaker 2: easily imagine, you know, like happening with your I mean,
2:03:20
Speaker 2: so I think some like within some range, I would say, yeah,
2:03:25
Speaker 2: it's completely healthy and unavoidable and probably reflects you know,
2:03:30
Speaker 2: like that you have a well functioning emotional apparatus and
2:03:33
Speaker 2: you love your kids past a certain range to the
2:03:36
Speaker 2: extent that it becomes all consuming, to the extent that
2:03:39
Speaker 2: it starts intruding upon. So a very common postpartum mental
2:03:45
Speaker 2: health challenge is actually postpartum OCD, where you get intrusive thoughts.
2:03:50
Speaker 2: And this also happens in pregnancy, that's even more common
2:03:52
Speaker 2: postpartum where you know, even if you never had it before,
2:03:56
Speaker 2: or if you're just like a little bit low key
2:03:57
Speaker 2: anxiety prone, like it can just really really flare up
2:04:01
Speaker 2: postpartum where you've got constant intrusive thoughts of like harming
2:04:05
Speaker 2: your baby or something bad happening to your baby, or
2:04:07
Speaker 2: you know, being like molesting your baby, and there's all
2:04:10
Speaker 2: kinds of just horrible, awful thoughts that feel like, oh
2:04:13
Speaker 2: my gosh, like if I'm thinking these things and maybe
2:04:15
Speaker 2: I'll do them, or this makes me a bad mom.
2:04:17
Speaker 2: All of that is wrong. All of that is treatable,
2:04:22
Speaker 2: and nothing is bad or wrong about you if you're
2:04:25
Speaker 2: having thoughts like that other than just that they're distressing,
2:04:28
Speaker 2: and they can be brought under control, you know, whether
2:04:34
Speaker 2: it's some formal therapy or even sometimes by just kind
2:04:37
Speaker 2: of realizing that that's what they are and that it's
2:04:40
Speaker 2: normal and okay and not indulging them, not kind of
2:04:43
Speaker 2: letting them, not feeding those narratives.
2:04:48
Speaker 3: All right, last question call ask of thoughts about Stephen
2:04:54
Speaker 3: Pinker at oconn.
2:04:57
Speaker 2: Thoughts. It's really cool. I'm excited to see him. I'm
2:05:02
Speaker 2: not sure what more specific pass I could have with
2:05:04
Speaker 2: this stage.
2:05:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what the is going to be or
2:05:07
Speaker 1: I have no idea, no idea.
2:05:09
Speaker 2: I'm excited to see him. I did a long I've
2:05:13
Speaker 2: actually done a public conversation with him before, the one
2:05:15
Speaker 2: on his Rationality book that you can all find on
2:05:18
Speaker 2: YouTube if you want, just you know, put in both
2:05:21
Speaker 2: our names or rationality YadA YadA. And he was really
2:05:24
Speaker 2: fun too, you know.
2:05:26
Speaker 1: It seems like a fun guy to talk to.
2:05:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was going to be great.
2:05:32
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it.
2:05:33
Speaker 2: I get to catch up with them.
2:05:36
Speaker 3: Good.
2:05:36
Speaker 1: Well, thank you two plus hours, all.
2:05:40
Speaker 2: Right, good job, that was fun as always. Thank you
2:05:43
Speaker 2: so much. Absolutely, thank you all for the thought provoking questions.
2:05:50
Speaker 1: Right, and yeah, I'm sure we could go on for
2:05:54
Speaker 1: many more.
2:05:54
Speaker 2: Hours, no doubt. But the sleep awaits.
2:05:59
Speaker 1: Sleep, definitely eight.
2:06:00
Speaker 3: I'm too, always ahead of you and uh, maybe I'll
2:06:06
Speaker 3: see you in Austin soon maybe.
2:06:08
Speaker 2: Ye counting on it good and and then New Orleans
2:06:12
Speaker 2: after that, there
2:06:13
Speaker 1: You go, Thanks Gine, thank you, and good night.