Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Nostalgia: Altruism

Transcript

Nostalgia: Altruism · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to why we do what we do. I'm still doing
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it for the hell of it, host Abraham.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I am your Bleeding Heart host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: release these nostalgia episodes, which are a re release of
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a previous episode, and then at the end of that discussion,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we come back and just put a little a little
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: topping on there, add a little little krem de la creme,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: extra contents to say, what's happened the last several years
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: since we last published this, what are our thoughts, if
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: they've changed or evolved on this topic, etc. And that's
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: what we're doing today. This is a nostalgia.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Yes it is, and so we are going back and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: revisiting our episode on altruism. I gotta say, originally my
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: view on altruism was pre cynical. I'm sure when you
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: listen to the episode, but you know, it's been five
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: years since we've talked about the subject, and I'd like
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to return to it and we'll see if my thoughts
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: have changed.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Very good, I appreciate that. Yeah, dear listener, If you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: are joining us for the very first time, this is
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: like the first time you ever decided to listen to
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: an episode of ours and you've never heard anything else,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: then thanks for joining us. We're happy to have you here.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy what you here in this discussion
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and that you keep coming back for the future episodes
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. If you're a returning person,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: then welcome back, or are so glad that after your
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: first choice to listen, you came back a second time.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Anither way, If you'd like to support us, you can
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: join us on Patreon, leave us a rating, and review,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: like subscribe, tell a friend. I'll talk more about those
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: things at the end of this discussion. But if you
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: are here on the day that this publishes, you are
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: on top of your stuff. And it is July fifteenth,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: which means be a dork Day, yep, and happy be
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a dork Day to you and to you Shane and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to you Abraham. It is also I Love Horses Day. Yeah,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it is National give something away Day. Hopefully not a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: whore I mean may maybe it's been nice to give
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: away a horse, but also love your horse.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I get me. Isn't that the whole
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: is net where gift horse comes from.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't look it in his mouth.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: That's what. Don't look at the mouth. Yeah, that's a
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: real problem. It is Developmental Disability Professional Day. Love that.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very important. National Stamp Out Spiking Day. I think
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: this has to do with spiking drinks. But there's a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: day dedicated to the that movement.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes there is. It is National Gummy Worm Day.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. It is National hot Dog Day or hot Dog.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I can never hear the word hot dog and not
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: think of like the Mickey Mouse Club, which was like
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a show that my daughter watched when she was little,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: and they would do the hot dog dance and they'd
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: go hot dog. And that's every time I hear the word.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: You don't need to I think of Joey Chestnut a whole.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Different relational frame. So now I've got Mickey Mouse and
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Joey Chestnut linked together because of a tube meet.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, good, good for you.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So strange happy that exists now, Yeah, thanks, National hot
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Dog Day. I also think of Ferris Wheels because of
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Coney Island. So it is National pet Fire Safety Day.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Speaking of hot dogs.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're we're gonna end up doing a mini on
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: hot dogs at some point in time. It's gonna be
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: a real problem.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what happened.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Why we do what we do really took a turn
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: when they did the hot dog episode.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: This was there jump the shark moment. It's National Respects
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Canada Day. I do I do respect Canada.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, somebody, I think it was Don Henley from
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the Eagles. Somebody put out a song called the fifty
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: first State, and I think it was aimed to talk
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: about how, like, you know, we are neighbors and we
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: should be getting along. But like I think it was
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: really titled. I don't think they should have called it
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the fifty first Tea. Yeah.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's a little bit of a trigger
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: for some people at this point.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, ye, yeah, yeah yeah. It's National
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Tapioca Pudding Day.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I love tapioca pudding. Actually learned how to make my
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: own tapioca pudding several years ago. I haven't done it
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in a while though.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Of course you have these random skills. It's great, it's right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: It's random. It is take your poet to work day,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: not against their will. Hopefully, yeah, yeah.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I mean I keep my poet ready to go for
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: work just for this day. Yeah, they have to make
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: sure it feeding water your poet. It is National baby
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: food Week.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Baby food baby is the poet. It must be fed. Yes,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: National Ventriloquism Week.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, creepy, it is Operation Safe Driver Week.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And it is rabbit week. Lookout, lookout for those wast
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: cly webbits. Yeah, all right, Well, we don't just talk
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: about the holidays, even though it kind of seems like
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that's all we We actually talk about other stuff, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: we're here specifically to talk about altruism and the way
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that these nostalgias work. If this is your first time,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: is we're going to play that whole entire episode that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: we originally aired, and then we're going to come back
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: after the end of that discussion and just add some content,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: some stuff to our thoughts, does anything new, if our
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: thoughts have evolved, et cetera. And then if you're joining
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: us for the first time, you won't already know this.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: But then we end each of our full length discussions
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: by providing some recommendations about something. It's usually unrelated to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the topic we just discussed. It's just here's a thing
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I'm recommending, and that's a fun thing that we do,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and I look forward to it because it's fun. So
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: stick around through all of that and get to the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: new stuff at the end. Get to hear those recommendations,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and then we'll have you on your way. And I
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: appreciate you being here in the time that you took
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: to to listen to the things that we had to
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: say about this. But I think that we're about ready
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to jump in. But let's give a little background here.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: The original episode on altruism was published on February second,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Uh those were the days.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah for those of you who can think, who think
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: of that date? Yeah, that was the before times. Yeah,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: that was shortly. That was like right before. That's like
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: a month before the pivot. So we talk about times
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: in history, the major inflection points that signaled like a
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: change in direction.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that time was one of those.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, for sure. The original intent was to evaluate
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: whether altruism could even exist, since it was you know,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: it involves the some type of naturally occurring reward as
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a result of engaging, like people are going to give
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: you stuff for it, And we got to talk about
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: this in a little bit in the episode. I think
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: what we discovered was a bit more complex. My original
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: thought was again, I don't think that it exists, and
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: then getting into the episode, I think I landed somewhere different.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But I do think and we're going to see this
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: as we go. The research hasn't changed all that much.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Give you a spoiler alert, despite the fact that we
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: went through a pandemic in the middle of from the
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: time this episode was aired until today.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: All Right, with that, I think we are ready to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: transition to the OG episode. Play that and then come back.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Are you ready for the jump? Yeah, let's party, all right,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: see you on the other side. Here's younger Shane and Abraham.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to Why We Do what We do.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I will be your host, Abraham, and I'm Shane. And
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: so today we are going to talk about something selflessly. Yeah, selfishly.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: There's no benefit to us about this topic, none whatsoever,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: or is there, So let's step right into this.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Shane fortunately did a lot of the did primarily all
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the Lake work on researching this, so we want to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: kick us off. Shane.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have very strong opinions about this one, so
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it'll it'll come out as we go through perfect. Yeah. So, Abraham,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I have a question for you. Have you ever donated anything?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I've donated lots of old things that I didn't want anymore.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I've donated some old board games and clothes and books
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And I recently, just in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: last couple of years, maybe in the last year, actually
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: have finally, this late in life, gotten into donating blood
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and platelets. And interestingly, as we record this, not that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: this means anything to anybody else out there, but I'm
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: going to be scheduled to donate platelets later today.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Oh nice. So is that altruistic or benevolent? I don't know.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: We'll have to figure that out. Have you ever volunteered
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: your time?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Volunteered? I was forced to do community service once volunteered. Yeah,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I did volunteer for a couple of campaigns. But that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: almost seems evil in retrospect.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's some like straight up Malpeesians type of stuff.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: But I feel like I have volunteered my time for
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: small amounts of things. How about you. Have you donated
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: or volunteered your time?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I have. I was also always under the
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: impression that I couldn't donate blood or platelets or anything
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: because I was for Like when I was younger, I
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: was told I couldn't because I had tattoos and you
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: had to wait like a year to do it. Same
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: now I guess that's not the case, which is awesome.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I definitely volunteered in school. Actually that's how I got
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: into the field that I'm in, as I volunteered with
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Special Olympics and spent a lot of time with that, oh,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: which was awesome and wonderful, but also as a means
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: to an end of the time because it was as
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: much as I loved doing that, it helped me get
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: my scholarship.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So there's some stuff there, right. Another one too, is
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: like paying it forward, right, so like buying somebody's coffee
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: or you know, just kind of doing some outreach like that.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Like I used to do that at Starbucks. I would
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: either like every now and again, just like drop a
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: free coffee on somebody, not literally, but like be like, hey,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: here's a free coffee for you.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Just from the roof.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Enjoy this, ah, and just like throwing throwing cups of
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: coffee out. Funny story, one time I saw a person
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: coffee is so valuable. I saw a person get hit
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: by a car in the parking lot and not drop
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: their coffee, Like they were walking and they got hit
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: by a car and they fell to the ground, did
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: not spill a drop of their coffee, but they have
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: their priorities straight, Yeah, they didn't. It was wild. So
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I gave the person a free coffee for surviving that.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: So anyway, I guess the thing when we kind of
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: talk about this is why do we do these things?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Why do we donate, why do we volunteer? Why do
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: we do these things for other people when there's no
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: overt benefit to us, Right, there's not really anything that
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: we're getting out of it. We're just doing it to
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: quote unquote be nice. So why do we do these things?
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: And some people will try to explain this away as
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: altruistic behavior or you know, this idea of altruism, which
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: is we do things for the benefit of others, right,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Think there are also those who argue, and we'll get
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: into this more, but that we don't ever do anything
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: just for other people, that there's always some kind of
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: self gratification that occurs.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of like the two sides of this
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it's people believe that there are there there is no
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: benefit to the human person or or self, and so
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: they're going to do things just for the goodness of
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: good and then other people will say it's great that
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: you're doing that, and we don't want to say that
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: it's a bad thing, but there's still some benefit to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the self. And so that's kind of what we're going
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: to try to unpack here a little bit. So some
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: other questions we want to answer to within the idea
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: of altruism is going to be what is it and
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: is it helpful? And I think that's the thing, is like,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: it's great that we can define this, but is it
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: helpful to really know what this is in general or
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is there something more beneficial to know?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a great point that we always
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: want to start with making sure that we're on the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: same page about what we're discussing, and so defining our
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: terms seems appropriate. And so one definition that we have
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: here is the principle focus on concern for the happiness
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of other living things.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty simple, right, Just like I'm concerned about
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: somebody else, I'm concerned about their well being, I'm concerned
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: about what they are, like how they're feeling or what
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: they're going to get out of this whole situation. Now.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: A primary aspect of that includes the idea that actions
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: are taken regardless of the outcome to the person engaging
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: in the act. So I'm going to engage in this
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: behavior to benefit somebody else simply because I want that
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: person to benefit without any regard to what happens to me,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: without any regard of benefit. And I think Kurt Vonneguet
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: has a really great quote, being a humanist means engaging
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: in good or it's something along this line, is like,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: being a humanist means that I do good things regardless
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of the promise of benefit or promise of heaven or
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: something like that. It's a really great kind of perspective.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of what altruism is all about, right,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Like that's what they kind of say. So, but ultimately
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: what this means is that altruistic acts and altruistic behavior
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: itself is selfless. There's no benefits of the person, nothing
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: comes to the person that's engaging in the behavior. They're
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: just doing it to do good.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: They're not motivated by some reward or some promise of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a reward or something like that. Now I'm thinking about
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: with my donating platelets thing they do occasionally try and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: give me like some kind of ticket, Like I think
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I've gotten free tickets to the rib cookof which is
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: like cool, thanks guys. And I think I also got
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: free tickets to like a beer fest, and so as
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a teetotaler, I'm like cool, thanks guys. You know me
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: so well, it's funny.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: It's funny to think of, like you going into donate
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: platelets and it's to benefit some other living thing, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: then you get tickets to go to a barbecue, which
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: does not benefit those living things.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Accurate. Well, my platelets weren't for the animals anyway, I suppose.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Oh man, the opposite of altruism is ads. All right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: we're back, But now did you run across in your
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: research whether or not there has to be something aversive
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: about the altruistic act to like you do it even
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: though it sucks for you.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, we do talk about that. Now. There are some
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: times where people will go above and beyond, and we'll
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: kind of touch on this later as we talk about
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: pathological altruism, where it gets to the point where you're
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: engaging in so much good that it actually becomes harmful
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: to you. Like it's benefiting everybody else, but it becomes
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: a detriment to you as the self.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: They explored that a little bit on The Good Place
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that show that I talk about at NonStop. Oh do
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: they Yeah, So essentially, I don't want to give away
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: too much, but there is a character who is described
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: as essentially being the best person who's ever lived, and really,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: upon closer inspection, they discover that he's like making himself
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: miserable all the time and having a crappy life just
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: so that he can, I guess, maximize his goodness so
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: he can.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Continue to be the best person that ever lived.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it kind of starts to look both
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: sad and in ways kind of gross, sort of like, wow,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: you're like really driven by this one thing, and it
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: seems to be it almost turns back on itself and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: almost becomes selfish in a way.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And that's one of the arguments that we're
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: going to make here, or I kind of dig into
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: a little bit so for the sake of clarity and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: just kind of getting into the definition and really kind
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: of understanding what we're talking about selflessness. Refers to the
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: idea that there is no benefit for a certain act
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: or for certain acts. So when we talk about selflessness,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: we're talking about engaging in behavior doing things that are
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: completely selfless, which means that we are not gaining from
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: engaging in these behaviors. The person engages in some act
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: without promise of reward is simply put, they do it
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: just to do good. They do it just because out
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: of the goodness of their hearts. That's why people do
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: these things.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Right, They're just all about the Nike.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Just do it. They've gone full call on Kaepernick on this.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So cool. All right, Well, there are definitely a lot
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of different perspectives on how you might break down some
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: ways of thinking about altruism, and so one of them
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I'll begin with here is the social evolution perspective, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this one essentially states that you engage in altruistic activities
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: or altruistic behaviors because it benefits the community and improves
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: your sort of tribes, the tribe that you belong to,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: their chance of survival within the sort of larger context
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and setting that you're in. So you do something for
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the long run, for the greater good, because it benefits
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the tribe that you identify with that you're a part of,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: which might even be like the entire species. But generally
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are thinking about just their immediate community,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: which can be any size. You know, it could be
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the country or the state, or the city, or the neighborhood,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: or even just the household you're in.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you see this one sided a lot.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: This particular perspective cited a lot. It's like one of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: the primary reasons why people might engage in it. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: when we start getting into like the idea of evolutionary
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: traits that are related to this, this is kind of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: where it comes from, this idea that the community benefits
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: as a result of the behavior that you engage in.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Lack ants like that's humans are just just big, clumsy
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: ants really with with the worst sense of smell.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And not very strong.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: We're not very strong either, yet we've got a lot
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of It's amazing that humans have made it this far.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It kind of is I mean, it really speaks to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the importance of our language and how that contributes to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: our quote unquote intelligence. And I think about this a lot. Actually,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: because our species has no natural defensive traits, we have
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: no natural hunting capabilities. We have no anything. Really, we're
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: very weak, ill equipped creatures, and yet somehow we've managed
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to dominate the entire planet and then destroy it. And
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: surely because we can behave with respect to things that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: aren't there.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just think of it like this,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Like you mentioned, like our hunting capability. It's like our
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: sense of smell sucks, and a lot of us have
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: to wear compressed minerals over our eyes to see better.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're slow. We don't have any natural weapons,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: but like we don't have claws, laws suck. The one
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: thing I can say is we do have pretty fantastic
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: eyes relative to most other species. Like, we don't have
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the best eyes on the planet, but we're in like
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: we're in the top. We're in the the one percent
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: club in terms of a good vision go humans. Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So anyway, So, so social evolution is one of those those
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: perspectives they talk about with altruism. There's a benefit to
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: the community. So it's not a direct benefit to the self,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: but the self has like this residual benefit if the
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: community does well. Right, So I'm gonna keep framing it
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: back to this idea that altruism doesn't exist, okay, by accident.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: There's also something called reciprocity, and so the idea of
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: reciprocity when we talk about altruism is that if I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: help others, then there could possibly be a benefit of
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: them reciprocating the help. So you'll see this a lot
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in communal places, where if I put my neck out
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and I help you, then eventually one day, if I
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: need it, hopefully you'll help me. And that's kind of
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: even the idea of like Social Security in the United States,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: where it's okay, so I'm going to pay into this
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: thing with the idea that hopefully people continue to pay
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: into it so that I'm taking care of in my
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: old age when I retire. So reciprocity speaks to that
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: idea is I'm going to engage in it. I'm doing
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: good now. I'm paying it forward now with the idea
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: or the possibility that it's going to come back to
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: me later.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Right, So would you include in this the sort of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: pay it forward. I so sort of I'm going to
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: stop and help someone on the side of the road,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: not thinking that that person necessarily is going to help me.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But if I sort of put that out in the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: world that when someone needs help and you stop and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: help them, then next time I need help, someone might
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: stop and help me. Does that do you like that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: fits into this?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I think pay it Forward is a little bit different.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I think that it does kind of just say like, Okay,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: well I'm gonna buy this person's coffee because but I
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: feel like it's hard to ignore that idea of like, well,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: maybe it'll come back to me. We do good. I
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: think people do good for good's sake, and it's maybe
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: like the primary motivator, but there's probably this piece where
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: you go back and you're like, Okay, well it's going
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: to come back to me some way, like if I
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: put good out there, Like because I hear this all
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the time when people say like, oh, you just put
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: good energy out and it comes back to you. That's
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the kind of stuff you receive and that's very arm cherry.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: But anecdotally you hear that and it's like, well, that
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: just means that you're putting that out there because there
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: is a promise of some benefit later, or even like
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: just a chance of some benefit later. You're gambling with
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: the idea that there's a benefit later.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: You know that really just highlighted for me that doing
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: good for goodness sake that Christmas song, and that they're
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: specifically promoting do good for goodness sake so that Santa
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: will give you presents. So I'm sort of it just
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: it just occurred to me how ironic it was that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that is even in that song.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird, right, Like, I guess my thing will
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: be And I'll just as a quick caveat because i
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: know I'm getting off topic here, but the caveat is
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: like if it's good, then it can't be bad, right like,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: which is like a very like non committal thing, but
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: like if you're doing good, even if there is like
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the want of reward, like you're still doing good and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: there's still some kind of like benefit that comes out
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. I think that's a good point. I'd like
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to come back to that when we're sort of making
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: our take homes.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So I think in line with this reciprocity idea is
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: another idea called the or sort of referred to as
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: resource availability, really suggesting that we engage in altruistic actions
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: because helping another person may lead the access to resources
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: at a later time. And I think that some somewhat
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: similar to it might lead to help at another time.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: This one just says instead of help, it's resources which
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: can be helped. But this sort of a similar idea.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think all those kind of relate to
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: the idea of social evolution too, where it all ties
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: back to like, if the community benefits, then I'm going
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to get help. There's resources available for me in the community.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: It's all there, right, It all ties back to like,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to benefit from this on some level, but
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to continue to help because that means that
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: our community is going to thrive and our species will survive.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So there are some people that also think that there
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: are there's some research, I should say, on the idea
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: of there's there being some kind of neurological process related
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to altruism. And what this kind of posits is the
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: idea that there's a subgenual cortex or the septal region
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: essentially with neurological processes it's activated and thought to be
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: related to social attachment and bonding. So there are some
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: people that have the perception that altruism has to do
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: with bonding in those social attachments, and it does have
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: that biological process. Now, this would suggest that giving, in
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: particular helping and all that results in pleasurable neurological processes,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: which I could say from my perspective, I've given, I've donated,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: and I've felt good about it, you know, like that's
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: felt good. And so what you'll see too though, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: then kind of what they've posited here is that individuals
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: with damaged venture medial prefrontal cortex is actually struggled with
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: making moral decisions, like they would struggle with helping others
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: and making those things that are and we're getting into
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: like this idea of moral and morality, which is a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: little bit nebulous, but sure they would struggle with these
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: ideas of moral decisions and helping others. And that kind
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: of suggested that there was a neurological or a biological
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: process related to altruistic decision making.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Got it, Yeah, that makes sense. I'm thinking about the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: fact that how your brain would even interpret something as
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: being a good act requires a lot of semantics. And
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: so while I understand that way are biological organisms in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: our brain is critically important, I think the context that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: allows us to access that as being important is a
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: really interesting feature of how we would determine whether or
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: not we would expect our brain to register that is
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: being semantically important and therefore registered as something to feel
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that sense of reward. I'm just thinking again that when
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: we reduce it to something of just saying like, oh,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this part of our brain becomes activated, then I feel
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: like that doesn't tell me very much, and I think
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that perhaps we could do better.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we lose a little bit of nuance related to it, right,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Like we lose some of the things that go into
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: you know, because at the end of the day, you've
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: got if things are paired up and you go I
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: always I can't help but have that behavioral bent and
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: it's like, well, like why is it important to be
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: good to others? Like why does this feel good? And
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: it's because it's probably paired up with something. But I
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: think that there's yeah, it doesn't tell us much except
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: that we just kind of lean back on that idea
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, it's our brain, and it's like, well,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: that doesn't tell us literally anything about why it shapes
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: up or where it forms or anything like that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And nevertheless, I guess maybe to play my own
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: devil's advocate, But just thinking about that, this idea of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the social bonding and all of that sort of stuff
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that it From an evolutionary perspective, it does make sense
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to say that we would be bio logically sensitive to
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: feeling reward when we help our own species.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can understand that perspective.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, So as nuanced as that is not, I think
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: that does help me wrap it inside of a context
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that makes sense to me. I think everything makes a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: little more sense than the context of evolution to me.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And actually a lot of the research will kind
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: of point that direction too, which is cool. Here's an
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: example of a company that is not giving back. Here's
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: ned and we're back.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about psychological altruism. Sounds so fancy.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: This position posits that there is motivation to increase one's
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: own welfare through help to others, and so in contrast,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: psychological egoism instead would argue that there is no true
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: altruism because any benefit, even intrinsic benefit, negates the definition
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: of altruism and cancels out the selflessness. And as we've
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: discussed in many of these there is often a component
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of reciprocation or reward or return on your investment and help.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And what I'm unclear on this position is whether intention
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: is important. Do you do it with the motivation that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you'll have that reward or you do it just because
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you think it's a good thing to do. But then
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the reward is that it feels good and maybe even
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: get a reward later down the road, but you weren't
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: expecting that, or maybe you weren't even expecting it to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: feel good but it does anyway, or you know, I'm
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: not sure if that's important inside of this one, but
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the basic argument just seems to be that altruism can't
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: really exist because anything you do that is supposed to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: be good or benefit somebody else ultimately benefits you in
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: one capacity or another, even if you don't want it to.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's actually the biggest point of contention when
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: it comes to altruism in general, is that you've got
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: this idea that, on one hand, selflessness, you can do
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: good for good's sake, And there is some it feels
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: good and all that, but that's still defined as altruism
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: and altruistic types of intention and all that underneath that
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: psychological altruism definition. But then psychological egoism comes in and
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: goes Nah, there's no such thing, because there are other benefits.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Even if it is like just something just volunteering because
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: it feels good, or or donating platelets just because you
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: want to help people, even those things under psychological egoism
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: will argue that those things feeling good is a benefit
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that you receive, which makes it inherently not selflessness. That's
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: the biggest point in contention within the argument of altruism.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And I didn't really see anything about intention. I didn't
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: see a lot of research or discussion around that. It
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: was more so the outcome or the benefit of the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: actual act itself.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem to suggest that really what's at
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: play here is nothing can be altruistic in the sense
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of it being completely selfless. Because as selfless as you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: might try and be, even feeling proud about the fact
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that you did the right thing or knowing that you
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: did the right thing, and maybe even if you don't
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: feel proud, you know that you did the right thing
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: could be enough to be the sort of again, as
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you said, that self reward in a way.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's where the definition is so critical, because
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: that at one point in time, what are you defining
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: as benefit, What are you defining as like, you know,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: benefiting the organism, worth the community, or anything like that.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And that's where it gets hairy because some people will say,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: here's the complete definition, which includes any sort of feeling good,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: neurological or biological process, and other people will be like, well,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: that doesn't really count. We're talking about tangible rewards or
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: it really depends on what your definition of reward and
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: benefit is. In this context, everything is nothing and nothing
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: is a Oh, welcome to our podcast on existential crises.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So there is a sociological perspective on it, but it
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: is very similar to social evolution, so we don't need
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: to spend too much time on that. It does kind
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: of share some of the same characteristics where altruistic behavior
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: benefits the community as a whole, benefits the species as
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: a whole, and promotes that pro social behavior. But I
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: think the last point I want to touch on in
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: this area and this subject, as far as these perspectives,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: is this idea of pathological altruism. This is kind of
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: when help goes wrong, like when helping people goes wrong,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and like you're doing so much good that it's actually
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: doing you harm and impacting your health. And your well
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: being and stuff. And I imagine this is a pretty
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: prevalent problem in any helping profession, where it's like you
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: are just going out of your way to help people
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and help people and help people, and you're burning yourself out.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: And we could talk all day about self care, but ultimately,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: what you see with pathological altruism is that you're engaging
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: in all this help, You're engaging in all these behaviors,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: You're doing all these things, and you're willing to help
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: to the point where it becomes a deficit to yourself,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Like you are doing all this stuff and it's actually
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: causing you more harm than good, and it actually results
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: in a level of harm to the volunteer, Like it
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: could be health outcomes, it could be financial burdens, all
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: these things, you go into, all this debt just to
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: help people you're sick, like, it could be all these things.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: But pathological altruism can become a pretty serious problem for
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: some people.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Who that's scary.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Could you imagine helping so much that like
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: you die from it?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: The movie So Pounds comes to mind, yes, yes, without
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: spoiling too much about it, I mean the movie is
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: pretty old now, I think it's twelve or thirteen years old.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: But even still, we have somebody who's willing to literally
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: give everything that they have, literally everything that they have, everything.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Literally everything.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: That sounds to me like this idea of pathological altruism.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: But then again, there is some benefit to that guy, right,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: like there is relief.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Sure, that's fine, Well, that was dour. Let's ask the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: gods what they think about this.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: In my research on altruism, it brought me to the
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: discussion of religion and spirituality, which I think, as part
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: of the human experience, is important to note, especially when
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: you're talking about giving and doing good and those being
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: like kind of basic tenets of a lot of major religions,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: it's worth noting. So as far as like a religious
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: perspective of altruism goes, it's very prominent in Buddhism mechanism
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to promote happiness, the idea within Buddhism. And this is
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: a sweeping generalization, so if I know, there are more
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: specific sects and there are more specific breakdowns and denominations
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: of these different religions. So but kind of coming across
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: my general research around this, what you see in a
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: lot of like Buddhist types of viewpoints. Is that you're
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: giving back to the world and living things, and essentially
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: it serves a purpose to improve one's happiness and support
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: spiritual growth. So I think I always go back to
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: like this idea of karma and what karma is, and
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: essentially karma is you do good, you are giving back,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: and you are treating the world well, and you kind
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: of go into all this, but ultimately what karma is
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: is like a look this really cool token economy, right
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: like if you really think about it, like you, so
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you're racking up these these points essentially, and this is
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: this is how I understood it. So if I'm wrong,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: please give us feedback and stuff. But how I understood
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: it when I was studying Buddhism and when I spent
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: time as a zend Buddhist for a little bit, was
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: that you rack up points, and you rack up good points,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: and you rack up bad points, and you kind of
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: have this score when you pass away, and then that
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: score translates into what you reincarnate into at the end
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: of your life, until your spirit becomes so enlightened that
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: you can move past this mortal coil.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So life is like a giant arcade and as you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: acquire more and more tickets, you can use those tickets
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to buy something like an upgraded life. Or if you
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: don't get very many tickets because you're not doing very good,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: then you are going to turn into a beatle.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yep, yep. That's my very general and very probably pompous
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and insensitive understanding of it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: And not a beatleism John Ringo, George or.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Paul or the fifth one, whoever he was.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: The gunman on the grassy. No.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: So.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Other religions such as Jainism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, et cetera,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: also have some form of altruism in their basic teachings
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and often use this idea of sort of be good
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to others and versions of the Golden Rule as a
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: way to build the more of altruism into their guidelines
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and their doctrines and whatnot.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: And most everybody is familiar with some version of the
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Golden Rule, like you, there's so many out there, and
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: it's amazing to see that, you know, across the globe
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and across centuries that people kind of they try to
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: teach this general thing of like be good to others,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: do unto others as they would do unto you, like
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. You know those phrases, and you'll see
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that translated in a bunch of different ways and interpreted
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different ways, And here are couple. It's
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: generally universal teaching. But what you'll see is that it's
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: not that different of an idea. So according to ancient
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Greek texts, you'll see the quote or the term avoid
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: doing what you would blame others for doing, which I
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: think is a pretty good thing. Like if I'm going
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: to be mad about somebody doing something, I'm not going
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to do that same thing.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of the opposite. It's like, don't do
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: what you don't want other people to not do.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Right. It was interesting. There were three appeals. There was
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: a what to do, what not to do, and impawer
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: ethic appeal to the golden rule, which is like do
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: good to others so they'll do good to you, don't
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: do bad so that people don't do bad to you,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And do what feels good to you or feels good
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: to others, so they do what feels good to you.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: It's like, it was like a strange kind of thing
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Well, it kind of makes sense too, because it's sort
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of like a lot of the things that I prefer
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: others wouldn't. So just saying treating them how I want
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: to be treated would actually be very considerate. But treating
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: them how in the manner or the general kindness with
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: which I like to be treated, which is to say,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: treat them in a way that I expect they would
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: want to be treated, is what would be going on
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: with that in pathic one. But if I may quote
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: from the Bible, quote you shall not take vengeance or
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: bear a grudge against your kinsfolk, love your neighbor as
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: yourself I am the Lord end quote, Leviticus nineteen eighteen.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: All right, So another one too that you'll see in
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: TOBD four fifteen is due to no one what you yourself dislike.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: So again like it's pretty much don't.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Be a jerk right from the off mal profit tobit
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: another one quote, none of you truly believes until he
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: wishes for his brother and what he wishes for himself.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: End quote. And I'm not entirely try to say this,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: and Nahuawei's forty fifth hadth thirteen from Islam.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it either, So
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I don't want to I don't even want to attend it,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: but what I'll say is that the key point here
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: is that the teaching here is consistent with just being
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: good to people, and it's probably great for establishing kind
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: of a moral compass within those contexts to help each other.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: But is it actually altruistic? Because there seems to be
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: a benefit of the person you're talking about religious teachings.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Within each of those religious teachings or spiritual teachings, there
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: is a promise of reward in the afterlife. So at
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: that point in time, by definition, can you call that altruistic?
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Fair enough?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Can't we segue into what the scientists and the science
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: says yes.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: So, as we were kind of digging into the research,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: what I wanted to ask is does altruism exist? Can
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: it exist? And kind of those things that we asked
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: at that at the top of the episode. Now, as
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: a quick note, as I was doing my research and
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: pulling some articles on this, what we found is that
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of the research was done in the seventies
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: and eighties. There's not a lot of current research on this.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: There's usually a lot of comments on this, and there
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: seems to be expansions on this, so you'll hear us
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: reference pro social behavior a lot, because that's kind of
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: where it seems to have gone. But there's a lot
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: of talk and a lot of debate around the idea
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of altruism versus benevolence, and so that's kind of where
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: the research is going to go in the last like
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I would say, two to three decades.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: So are we just a few decades behind the level
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of interest in this? And no one's going to listen
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to this episode?
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: That's us, you know, we're right on topic with the eighties.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: All right, So from Stitch, Doris and Rotor, and this
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: is in twenty ten, so there one of the more
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: recent ones. They wrote a chapter in altruism and discussed
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: further understanding from the psychological egoism perspective as we had
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: described earlier, the one where doing good that always benefits
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you and so it's not really altruistic. And so they
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: describe understanding what ultimate desire means as an end goal
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: for altruistic behavior as well as a desire for the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: wellbeing of others. So essentially there's no convincing argument that
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: these are really in any way different from one another.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: The sort of psychological altruism versus the egoism. Further, evolutionary
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: theory provides little support on either side of egoistic versus
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the altruistic debate. Rather, the argument is made that a
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: social psychology accounting of altruism is the most appropriate and
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: work by Batson and colleagues has moved this theory forward.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And you have some of the research from bats And
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to describe here as well.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Do you think anybody's ever studied adtruism? And we're back.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: So the chapter that we just talked about is from
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: twenty ten. Now, a lot of the bats And research
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: is from the eighties, so we've mentioned that before. And specifically,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the article that I want to cite here is bats
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty seven that discusses pro social behavior as
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: both egoistic and altruistic. And this is where it's still
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: gets money, because like, you've got people on one side,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: you've got people on the other, and then you've got
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Batson here like it's both and you're like, okay, all right.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: So essentially, what Batson says is that if the goal
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: is to benefit the self, and this is kind of
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: where it gets into intention. If the goal is a
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: benefit the self, then egoism is at play, right, the
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: idea that I'm working to benefit the self, I'm doing
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: this for selfish reasons, not selfless reasons. Right. So if
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: the goal is the welfare of others, though, then altruism
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: is the primary player. And so in this scenario you
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: have to understand what intention is and motivation is to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: be able to call it either altruistic or egoistic in
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: terms of the type of behavior you're looking at. But
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the article posits that to assume all pro social behavior,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: because we're talking about behavior that benefits others and it's
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: good for the community and good for the person and
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: all that that all pro social behavior. If we are
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: looking at it as self serving, it's cynical, which made
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: me realize how cynical I am as a human being.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, no I am. I'm not
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: only am I skeptical, I'm pretty cynical. Now. What Batson does, though,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: is he brings up or they bring up a way
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: to categorize contemporary pseudo altruistic views into three specific types.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: So first, you're looking at altruism as a pro social
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: behavior and not motivation. So altruism is a specific action,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: it's not something like a theoretical or hypothetical construct. Right,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: So pro social behavior as a behavior, not motivation, pro
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: social or altruism as pro social behavior seeks internal rewards. Okay,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So if you're looking at it as seeking internal reward,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: then that's one way to look at it, and the
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: other one is altruism as pro social behavior to reduce
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: aversive arousal. So in that context being I'm going to
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: engage his behavior to avoid things I don't like and.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe specifically things like avoid feeling guilty.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of what Batson proposes in
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, and so from then on, I mean,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of research on pro social behavior, but
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: it doesn't really tackle that idea of altruism as specifically cool.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that one sounds to me. So that seems
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: like the first time that anyone really has described the
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: idea of that intention or motivation piece in terms of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: how important that is in determining whether you would call
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: something altruistic or not. In two thousand and five, Bernstein
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Bernstein say Bernstein, the Bernstein bears.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that's that's I don't want to that's that
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: puts me right into the Mandela effect, and I can't
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: do that right now.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Bernstein in two thousand and five discusses how altruism and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: social benefits have genetic links, where altruistic behavior directly serves
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: kin as a result of associative pairing and non can
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: or non family, and altruistic behaviors toward those non family
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: are described as a division of labor rather than it
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: being altruistic, which is to say that it's sort of,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I guess, sort of sharing responsibility in a way.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: In this particular bit too. This is because this is
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: another chapter. What they do talk about is this idea
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: that while it's good, it's not necessarily altruistic, it's benevolent,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: and the idea that you're still helping people and there's
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: still a reward. It's like you're you're doing no harm. Essentially,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: you're doing no harm and doing good. And that's what
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: they're looking at here. I mean, when you look at
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: like specifically like ethics books and stuff, they talk about
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: this idea of beneficians and non Malfesians, and that's kind
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: of where this is going. It's benefesians doing good.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: There's this other one too. Ferguson, Farrell and Lawrence in
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, and this is specifically with respect
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: to blood donations and why I kind of wanted to
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: talk about this with myself and found that participants in
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: blood donations responded more readily and were more likely to
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: donate blood when the marketing campaigns and discussions around donating
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: were described as as you pointed out, that benevolent, and
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: they were less likely to donate when the message around
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: donating was considered altruistic. And I think for myself, I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: always think about it in terms like what's motivating for
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: me is thinking about they actually get to use this
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to help somebody else, and so somebody else really benefits
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: from having whatever I donate platelets. And one thing I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: did want to point out I was going to mention
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: earlier is it takes like upward of seventy or eighty
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: minutes to donate platelets, and by the time it's done,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I am just completely wiped out. I'm just gonna pass
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: out and take an app for a while. So I
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: always leave and I do feel good about it. I'm like, hey,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I really hope that it'll helps somebody, and then I
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: go take a nap. But anyway, I always do feel
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: really good about it and the actual experience itself, although
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I think they do a really good job trying to
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: make it as comfortable as possible. Is just something that's
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: difficult to make very comfortable because you're sucking platelets out
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: of your body.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I remember reading something years ago that talked about how
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: human medicine is barbaric. Like if you think about it,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: like surgery is incredibly barbaric. You're cutting people open, you're
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: taking blood and all that, and it's like this, really,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: it's this really intense thing.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: That's why you got to just open the chakras and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: let the chie in so that it can do its
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: work by sticking needles in your skin.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Oh me, on, my chakras aren't aligned. But I mean,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: if you think about that, like going back to this
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: whole idea of beneficians and non Malfesians and altruism all
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: this stuff, right, you said, it feels good, but there
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: is not a lot of benefit directly to you as
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: the organism to lose blood and lose platelets like that.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of health benefit to that.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Not that I'm aware of. No.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Blood letting was a thing that happened for a while
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: and people were like, I don't know, It's just it's
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: one of those things that there's not a lot of
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: benefit to you directly, but it is helping people, and
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: that's that's that piece where it's like, that's the difference
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: with benevolence versus altruism.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Got it?
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: So, Racquelin and Losi twenty eleven actually provided a pretty
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: complex accounting of the mechanisms by which altruistic behavior occurs
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: within a video game setting, involving delayed discounting. So we're
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: not going to get into delay discounting too much right now,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: because that is an entire topic in itself.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I can really quickly summarize this as the value of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: an outcome decreases over time, like the further out it
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: is from when you're to reach it, which is to
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: say that the longer you have to wait to get something,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the less valuable the thing you're waiting for becomes.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: There you go. I couldn't have said it better myself.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: So essentially, in this article, what they do is they
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: propose that there are three specific contingencies by which this
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: type of behavior occurs. So, first, behavior is motivated to
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: avoid being considered a freeloader in a social setting, so
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: they don't you don't want to be that person that's
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: getting like that's being considered like kind of like you're
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: tacked on, you're lazy, you're just kind of along for
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: the ride and you're getting all the benefits. So there
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: is like a social context there, which goes back to
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: some of those social leanings we talked about before. Another
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: contingency they talk about is players consider the contingencies beyond
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: the current scenarios. So they're engaging in behavior that's gonna
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: benefit in that moment, but they're also looking at what's
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: happening way after. And that's part of the latest counting
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: pieces is they're looking at like kind of they're not
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: maximizing their reward right now because there's a potential for
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a larger reward after they leave that setting. And then
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: the final example they include here is that the behavior
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: balances cost themselves and to others. And so what reference
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: here specifically something called social discounting. And what's happening is
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: they're finding some discrepancy between the good that's happening to
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: themselves or the good they can produce versus the good
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: it's happening to somebody else, and the good that they
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: can produce, and they try to counterbalance all that within
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: that context. Now, what they also say in this is like,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: those are three very specific contingencies and specific scenarios related
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: to the organism in that context, but all three of
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: them contribute and they actually compliment one another. All three
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: of those different scenarios compliment one another as part of
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: the constellation of what they describe as altruistic behavior. So
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: that's how they kind of break that out. And that's
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a very complex way of looking at altruistic behavior instead
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: of getting down to like the immediate contingencies.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I really like the phrase constellation of altruistic behavior. I
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: feel like that'd be a good album name or maybe
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: something to go on a T shirt or a button
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I'm all about it. Let's do it, so look out
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: listeners for cool buttons coming sweet.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I want to make like a fake constellation and then
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: have it say something like a constellation of vulture behavior.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: But I don't know what the constellation should be of. Hmm,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it should be something funny.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, a platelet probably wouldn't look.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: It's just a disc, it's just a circle.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: To say, a blood cell will just look like a
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: doughnut exactly. So I think that brings us to our conclusions.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: We can kind of wrap it up here because there's
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: not a lot to say beyond that. I think my
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: question here at the end of all this and my
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: conclusion would be, like, knowing all this and kind of
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: talking about this, is any of this helpful and understanding
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: or even just kind of is any of this is
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: helpful with altruistic behavior?
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I think it is helpful to understand what people have
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: said and thought about this topic over time, and I
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: think it's useful to also continue to have discussions around
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: what we mean when we use this term, because people
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: use this term, and when we want to promote this
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: idea of that pro social behavior, we want to promote
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the idea of doing things for the good of the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: larger sort of human context. Then yeah, I mean, why
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: not try and discuss that and really have an understanding
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: about what that means. So I don't think that we
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: added anything necessarily to the definition or that we have
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: answered the question of whether or not people are altruistic
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: or why they do altruistic things, but we have at
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: least been able to bring more discussion to this idea.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, I think at the end of
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: the day, there's not there's just no there's no real
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: clear agreement. I think there's a lot of debate around
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: this topic in particular. Still, I think it's one of
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: those questions where it's almost become philosophical or ethical or
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: moral even in that realm, Like when you're kind of
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: conceptualizing all this, right, the idea is, well, what does
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: this really mean? And to me, it's like it's great
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: to kind of dig into that and what does it
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: really mean? But I think that the other side is, like,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: as great as that part of it is, I don't
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: think that there's as much utility in having that discussion
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: when it comes down to the idea that like we're
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: just still it doesn't really matter or where the intention
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: is coming from. To me, it's like, if we're doing good,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: we're doing good. If there's a benefit in helping people
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: and it's helpful, I think that to me is the
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: more important outcome. And that's kind of where this entire
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: discussion was driven For me, is like it's cool to
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: understand it. It's cool to understand where it's coming from
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: and how it's formed and what those motivations are, But
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: the more important thing is like there is a benefit
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and it's helpful and people are doing good.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I completely agree. I think it's worth avoiding talking about
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: altruism almost in the sense that it's bad. If we
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: talk at this idea of egoism, it almost makes it
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: sound like it's bad to say that when you're doing
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: altruistic things, you're just being selfish. That doesn't really help anybody,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: because what that doesn't motivate anyone to want to do
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: those good things? Right, And so if just saying every
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: good thing you do is selfish is bad, well then
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: why would you do those selfless good things that are
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: supposed to be selfless? And so, yeah, I completely agree
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that doing good things is good. Like whether or not
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: you benefit from them, it's still good. And on that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: spectacular point that we probably just made ads all right,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: let's get back to it, Like, just imagine it this way.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Do you have student loans from going to grad school?
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Yes? I do.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Let's imagine someone is like, I'm going to go pay
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: off Shane's student loans, all of them one hundred percent
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: paid off, so that I get a really big tax
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: break this year. Are you going to be upset? With
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: that person because they got a tax break. No, yeah,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you just got cleared of your student loans. Like, we're
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: not going to complain about this. So like the fact
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that someone benefited from it does not make it a
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: bad thing to have done. Now, if they benefited from
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: it in a way that caused someone else to suffer, well,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in that case, we don't necessarily want to push that.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: But just because you gained something from it is not
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: necessarily a problem. And I actually think that's why there's
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: been this shift in the terminology from instead of calling
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: some thing altruistic since we really weren't able to define
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: that as a species, to using a different term that's
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: maybe more parsimonious as you described, such as pro social
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and or pro social behavior, and another one that I
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: think also really works inside of this, which is benevolence.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: You know, this is maybe being magnanimous is another term
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: that makes more sense. And I like pro social the
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: most personally, because I think that that doesn't indicate in
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: any way that it has to lack reciprocation. It just
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: indicates that you are doing good things or things that
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: are supposed to be good for other people, and that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: in and of itself is a perfectly laudable, appropriate thing
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it. One of the biggest takeaways too,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: is like, depending on the definition, altruism either exists or
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. Right, And you can't say the same thing
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: about pro social behavior. Pro social behavior exists, it's defined well,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: it's clear, like you can see the action related to it.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: But like altruism, depending on how you define it, it
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: either exists or it doesn't. Like it's either there or
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: it's not. But I think at the end of the day,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: just do good, you know. And I think that's kind
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: of what it comes down to for me, is like
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: whether you're doing it for selfish reasons or not, do
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: good as long as you're not hurting anybody.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Darn definitions.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Ah, So I will kind of where I want to
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: wrap up the conclusion is with this quote from Kurt Vonnegut.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I want to make sure I get it right. Okay, Okay,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: go for it. This is directly from him. So he says,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I am a humanist, which means in part that I
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: punishments after I am dead or I think that's a
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: good place to end. So thank you Kurt vonnigaet for that.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the new parts of what
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: we have to say about altruism, all truism, all truism.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about it. So obviously, when you listen
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: to the original episode, the hosts were bright and shiny
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: and hopeful, and it was right before the pandemic hit. Yeah,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: and as you imagine, since the pandemic, since COVID. I
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: think one of the things, like this is not an
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: episode about COVID, but this is a part of this
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: conversation has to include the change in research patterns from
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: the time that COVID happened until today, and you're going
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: to see that in some of the literature that we're
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: going to share. So what we've seen in the body
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: of literature specifically to at least behavior analysis and when
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: it comes to well being, is that one, there were
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: increases in telehealth research across the board because people were
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: doing so much more telehealth because they were home. We
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: started looking at research around the impacts of COVID nineteen
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: on first responders and helping professions, and I think that's
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: really valuable in the context of understanding altruism and altruistic
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: types of behaviors and pro social behavior. We have to
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: look at people who are willing to give and sacrifice
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: and what that looks like in the toll that has
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: been taken on them. And also just generally speaking, the
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: effects of COVID on mental health. And so we saw
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: these big bursts of these articles that came out right
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: after the world shut down and we started going through
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the initial stages of the pandemic.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: And there's probably something to be said in another conversation
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: about the effects that's had on some kids who were
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: at some very important developmental stages and went through a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: very long period of time without socialization. And we met
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: some of these kids and they're kind of weird. We
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: call them COVID kids because they're weird. Yeah, because they
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: weren't around people.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: It's just a huge gap, and they were learning opportunities,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: right and like so like they missed a year, I
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: mean a year a year and early intervention in early
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: learning is huge, it is.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a huge amount of lost time. So anyway,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I don't mean that actually disparagingly, that's all of all
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the kids are wonderful, but it's just something we noticed
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, this seems like these I'm seeing more
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: and more of this among some of the kids for
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: whom they just missed those opportunities during that time.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: But anyway, we bring this up because this trend of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: shifts and research and priorities and thoughts around these things
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: is visible even in the altruism research. So let's take
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a quick look at what has been done since we
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: last discussed this and since we last met. So that
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: episode was probably recorded in January of twenty twenty, came
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: out at the beginning of February. That was before there
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: was really the idea that we were even that close
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to a pandemic of any kind. There's a study that
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: was published in twenty twenty, which means it was done before,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: or it could have been done during twenty twenty, but
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: it came out in twenty twenty by I'm going to
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: say cow maybe Chow h and friends. And this study
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: evaluated the use of financial incentives to alter pro social
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: contributions to an online review community, specifically Amazon reviews, and
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: found that financial incentives actually reduced the quality of the reviews,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: where reviews that were incentivized were shorter and less specific
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: and it does kind of I think, actually make a
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: lot of sense to me to think that if you're
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: not leaving a review because you have something to say,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: but because someone's asking you to say something andah, in
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: a sense broadly coercing you to say something, that that
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: thing that you have to say is going to be
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: less genuine, less authentic, and less meaningful.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's pretty much what they found was like
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: people who were more willing to share reviews in the
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: app sense of like a particular reward, we're more likely
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: to have authentic, accurate reviews and more comprehensive reviews than
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: those who were incentivized. Like, what they found is like
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: the sentence structure actually dropped to like a single sentence. Wow,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: They're like this is good, and so like it became
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: more of a volume game than it became like an
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: actual quality review thing. So super interesting stuff as far
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: as like just understanding how incentives can actually demotivate people
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: to do a higher level of things.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Boy, and that's going to take some unpacking, I think
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: to help understand, because I think that people are going
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: to walk away from that with that understanding, with the
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: wrong understanding. Yes, so we might need to come back
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: around to this, but this is actually one of the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: reasons that journals don't pay reviewers is that if you're
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: someone who's willing to take the time and sit down
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: and do a review, that's different than someone whose job
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: it is to sit down and do a review and
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: like how much you're and what you're going to bring
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: to the table. It gets into a lot of complexities
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: about language and values and things of that nature. But yeah,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: the idea that you're financially incentivizing someone to state their
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: pinion about something can actually backfire in a big way,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: depending on a lot of factors. So again, don't take
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the wrong lesson here. Reinforcing behaviors has an important place,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: and obviously like when you're correctly externally creating contingencies that
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: are like monetary in that way. But anyway, a thing
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: that they found that's worth noting.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, iwa Moto and friends in
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty, and this was late twenty twenty. They had
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: found I believe that they had done this in December
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty. Okay, this was or at least it
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: was published, so like it was in this timeframe. So
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: they suggested that mindfulness meditation may improve pro social behavior
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: in some ways. So what they did was they looked
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: at a donation game where they included three hundred and
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: twenty six subjects and required mindfulness meditation prior to engagement
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: with the game for one of the groups. So one
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: group did not get mindful meditation and instruction, the other
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: group did. Those who engaged in meditation prior to the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: game were two point sixty one times more likely to
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: donate in the game than the control group. And there
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: were a couple other things they found here too. They
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: actually controlled for sociodemographics, so like every group was like
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: made up of similar like a similar demographic makeup, so
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: like they were able to control for that a little bit,
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: and they found that there was a higher rate of
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: change for those who did not go to college and
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: those who were under twenty five. Interesting, both groups contributed
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: nothing in the control group, so like the folks who
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: did not go to college and the folks that were
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: under twenty five contributed nothing during the control group, but
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: they found a much higher rate once they received this meditation.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: So that was kind of an interesting finding.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is interesting. Another one Sparrow and Friends
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one found that as we age were
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: more likely to engage in what could be defined as
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: altruistic behavior. This is loosely defined here is socially desirable
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: responding that benefits others. There are some factors that play
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: a role, though, including physical ability, cognitive state, social access,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Further, altruistic behaviors may rapidly decline in advanced old,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: which is definitely something I see. I think we see
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: among the voting population. Yeah, who go aggressively the other direction. Yeah,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: it's really bizarre and wear red hats. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: so there's that.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Now. Parent in twenty twenty three used restaurant tipping as
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: data to evaluate gender differences and altruism related behaviors, and
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: they found some interesting things in this. Now, I again,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: when we talk about some of these studies, I think
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: it's it's important to understand that what we're ultimately talking
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: about is pro social behavior and like giving behavior, not
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: necessarily like people are kind of like lumping these in
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: as what could be described or defined as altruistic behaviors.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: But it's a little like we kind of talked about
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the episode or even this might have
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: been off air where it's like it depends on how
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: you define it and what you want to include and
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: what your inclusion criterion is, right, So like that makes
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: it a little bit challenging. But what parent found was one,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: women are more likely to tip higher when the altruism
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: is cheaper, So they basically found that like they were
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: more likely to tip when it didn't cost as much
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: or the risk wasn't as great, okay. Where they also
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: found that men are more likely to tip higher when
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: the altruism is expensive, so like there's maybe a greater
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: risk or they're more likely to step in in to
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: provide a higher rate of whatever giving they're engaged with.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: And then it actually found three that women are more
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: sensitive and responsive to the price of altruism, so they
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: were kind of like more likely to respond individually to
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: pro social circumstances. I guess is what they're saying. What
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I found out of this this study was nothing. I
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: found this useless.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: That's that's a very weird way to try and parse
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: those things out. That feels like a very social psychology
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: way to ask that question.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just went, I went, how is
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: this useful? Yeah, Like, what is this telling us and
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: arguably like gender binary studies like this just go I
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: kind of go.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, they don't.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: It doesn't really do anything for me.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably one of those statistically significant where it
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: was like this one was three point two one five
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: and this one is three point two one five one
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: more likely with the biggest pool of participants, that's statistically significant.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, right, yeah, but is it significant though? Like
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: is it? What is it?
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Try again? Yeah, Cameraon and Friends in twenty twenty four
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: found that across nine studies and three thousand, six hundred
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: and nineteen participants, let's round that up to a cool
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: thirty seven hundred thirty six hundred. They'll rundown. That's technically
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: how rounding works. The occurrence of psychological distress, burnout, anxiety, depression,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: and PTSD were present among large group of aid workers,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the people who do a lot of this work that
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: is to help others and oftentimes at risk to themselves
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and great personal effort and energy expended and maybe lost
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: sleep and stress and those sort of things.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah and so, And the reason this study came up
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: in the altruism research is because they were looking at
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: helping professions. So they were looking at people who get
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: into fields because they want to help and they want
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: to give, and they were finding that, especially after COVID,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: there was a huge burst in psychological distress among folks
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: that work in this type of profession. So, you know,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: they were basically saying that, like there was a for
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: those folks who choose to work in spaces that have
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: altruistic motives, they are at risk of a higher rate
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: of mental health concerns because of something like this. That's
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: kind of what they were ending up on.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: So makes a lot of sense. Yeah, people who listen
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: to ads are at a higher risk of mental health distress. Okay,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: we're back. We just sort of wrapping up putting a
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: bow on this. I think together what we could sort
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: of glean from this information is that altruistic behavior is
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: more likely pro social behavior that can be subjected and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: influenced by many factors, financial influence, personal values, apparently meditation,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: and that high rate altruistic behavior can produce negative effects
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: if it's not managed and supported appropriately. I do think
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that they're all of this does sort of again bring
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: up the question of like what is altruism and in
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: depending on how you just choose to define it then,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: like it may or may not even be a thing.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Like if altruism is you do something for the benefit
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: of others and it has absolutely benefit to yourself, I
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: just don't think you can manufacture a scenario where that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: is plausibly true. But if you want to say altruism
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: is you just do something that had the primary motivation
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: is to help others, whether or not you get a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: benefit out of it, then fine, Like we could call
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: those altruistic behaviors, And there's probably a meaningful reason to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: categorize such behaviors because it does sort of speak to
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: someone's motivation to generally try and put good out in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: the world, Like they're likely to do something that helps
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: other people even when they don't have a direct benefit
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to themselves. Is actually kind of a reasonable predictor of
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: what their behavior might be in certain circumstances. So I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: could see that being a reasonable way to classify that. Yeah, awesome,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Well I think that's what we have to say about
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: altruism revisited part do kind of.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we just kind of land on the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: same thing, which is like it there's lots of and
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: I just feel like, just try to be good to people,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: and I think you'll be okay. It doesn't matter if
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: you call it altruism or not.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But with that, we're going to go and wrap
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: this one up. If you'd like to tell us your
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: thoughts on anything we said here in the previous episode
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: or the updated information we've provided, you can reach out
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: to us at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. That's our
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: email email us there. You can also reach us on
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: the social media platform and we do look forward to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: hearing from you. If you'd like to support us, you
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: can leave us a rating, a review rating a five
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: stars or ten or however many that it goes to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: a review that says nice things, and you can also
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: like and then subscribe to make sure you catch all
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: future episodes. Financially, you can support us by going to Patreon.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: If you go there, you get ad Freak episodes, early episodes,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: bonus content, and at the end of our full length
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: discussions such as this one, I'll read the names of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: the people who have taken the leap to help support us,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: because it is so kind and generous of them to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: do this. So a giant shout out and thank you
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: to Mike, m Megan Mike t Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Kiara and Charlie for continuing to help us BEG podcast
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: all this time, for so many years in many of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: these cases.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, thank.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: You to my team of people, without whom I cannot
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: make this writing and fact checking from Shane to myself.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you for putting together this nostalgia Shane.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm happy to write some notes and hang out
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: and talk about things.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: Very altruistic of you, you.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Know, I have my moments. I'm a giving man.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Indeed generous, generous. Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: And speaking of generous, our god, Emperor, Lord of All
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: producer Justin, who.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Was always gives never taste, Yes, who.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Is absolutely the best and most wonderful. So thank you
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: to my team of people. I think with that we're
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: ready to give some recommendations.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it recommendations.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: I'm recommending a movie. It came out in the last
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: year or so I remember when exactly. This is a
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: sequel to a horror movie, so be warned. If you're
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: not into horror movies, this is probably not for you.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: But there was this horror movie that came out called
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Ready or Not, And the idea of that one was
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: that this woman marries into this family and as a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: part of the ritual, they have to choose a game
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: to play on their wedding night that the whole family plays,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: and normally it's just a game unless they pull the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: hide and Seek card, in which case it now becomes
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: a murder game where they're actually trying to kill each other. Sure,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: long story short, the girl survives and the rest of
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: the family does not. This innocent girl, who like just
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: sort of married in this family didn't know their crazy past.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: This movie picks up literally at the exact same scene
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: that the previous one ended and goes on to an
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: even crazier story and it is just bonkers and it's
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: so much fun. And it didn't get the highest ratings.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: But I was like, I honestly don't know why. I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: think because it's a female led sequel, because like all
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: star cast in this, like they had so many people
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: in here. Elijah Wood is a main actor. Kevin Durand
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: is in it. Briefly, we've got the returning actor whose
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: name is Samara Weaving, and then a new actor joining
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the cast as her sister who is Catherine Newton. It's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: also got Sarah Michelle Geller Sean hat to See, which
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: people will know from the pit recently, if I mean,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: he's been on tons of things, is a super prolific actor.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: But those some of the new stuff, Nestor Carbonell, lots
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: of like star studded cast, and it's just it's so
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: much fun. It's a ridiculous, over the top, fun horror movie.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: And I thought the writing on it was fantastic and
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: it was just really entertaining. So if you're into that
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: sort of thing, go check it out, ready or not
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: to here I.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Come so fun, it looks like it's a lot of fun,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: so I was like looking forward to checking it out.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, streaming on Hulu, which means I think Disney Plus now.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, all right, speaking of Disney Plus and Hulu,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: I'm also going to recommend a thing to watch. It
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: is a show. It is the fifth season of this show,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: and it is The Bear. But I am also recommending
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the episode Gary that goes along with it. It's a companion
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: episode that is just beautiful. So if you've not watched
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: The Bear, it is a very accurate depiction of what
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: it's like to work in a restaurant. Yeah, as somebody
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: who's worked in a really high octane restaurant. Yeah, it's
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: pretty accurate. But it's got so much heart and it's
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: so beautiful. I feel like it is an absolutely beautifully
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: shot show and absolutely so far, I have not finished
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: up season five, but it takes place in a single day,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: which I mean for the most part, which I think
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: is a really cool choice and a lot of fun
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: and also just really stressful, like the entire show.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Is, Yeah, for sure.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: And then Gary is really cool because it's Richie and Mikey, who,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: by the way, Richie has become I think my favorite
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: character on the entire show. Richie and Tina I think
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: are the best.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: And so it's Richie and Mikey and they go to Gary,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Indiana for a what Michie Richie calls a mission, which
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: is just amazing and incredible and funny and sad and
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: all the things that go along with it. And it's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: an hour long and it is just so great, such
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: a great, great addition to this this entire show. So yeah,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: so go watch it. Go watch the Bear if you
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: haven't watched any of them. Start with the first one
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: because it's really good.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I second that I finished this season and strong
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: recommend for sure. That actually may have been my recommend
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't just also watched Whether or Not to
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Here I Come. So Yeah, the bear love it all right.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I think that's what we have to stay up about this. Thanks,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: thank you all for listening. Thank you for recording with
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: me today, Shane.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: Anytime, thank you. This is Abraham, This is Shane.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: Yep. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: and we hope you have an awesome day