How to Save the World w/ Tim Urban
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The escalating thing that can happen with tribal ism and IT goes here, and then they said this and that we hate them more, we need them more. And now they are showing these pictures of these dead kids.

And this on before, you know, IT like there's just kind of media going on just confirm confirm they will sit around for three hours at a dinner talking about how right there are the entire dinner and everyone, of course, agrees because if you don't agree, awful person, do not in the group. I think these people in amErica right now, lots who would cheer. I know I was murdered for being jewish tomorrow we would say, this is that part of the struggle that needs to have. But if I met them to them, different context, I lovely person, and they were thinking about me, ah.

I love that guy, great guy. No dependent day. The thing that brings us all together is a new external villain is another other.

We are very online creatures. Were both writers like we are online? I don't know how the average person is going to to make IT in this information environment.

Tim urban, welcome to the pie wires pod. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. Uh, so tim is, I mean, tim and you are one of my favorite writers. You are one of my favorite internet personalities.

You've written a book just recently, which is what we're going to talk about today, called what our problem a self help book for societies. And I think write off the bed and this is gonna kind of maybe this will be a different sort of podcast for us. It's not just the news I do want to talk about your book.

I want to talk about some of the frameworks that you've lay down for sort of diagnosing a lot of the problems we're experiencing in the world right now. I think probably the high level problem, you can correct me if i'm wrong in a second, is just this like relentless polybius ation that makes IT impossible for us to come together and think kind of freely in any way. Um we're going to talk about that where I talk with the framework were going apply to some stuff today.

And um I think first, just when I I started reading the book, like is there are couple of things about you as a writer that I really like and one is just your fun kind of might be fun there. There's a really you have a really smart approach to input o graphics. Um you do this thing on like page one or two where you lay out all of human history on on on like little squares is like each square I think is is two hundred and fifty fifty uh what was IT years three years a thousand page .

book yeah so you .

you when you see that when you play out all of human history in two hundred and fifty years, increments. The the sort of most of that, like massive amount of that is just hunter gather, no recorded history. We're living in this very narrow band.

You do this other thing which is not in pogram hic, but you introduced the idea of technology as this um and I agree with you, this is something that I i've have struggled with throughout authorities and they're kind of come to this conclusion with out of martial clin technology is good to ebed it's ort of it's it's really neither. It's just a way that we do more with less. And there are are good things about IT and bad things. But the more technology we have, this sort of crazier things can become. And when you see history in that narrow, narrow band, when you see like all of the things that have happened um you know just the last few pages of of of history, let's say we're talking from like jesus Christ to present day that's nothing that snap of a finger technology, the accelerating power of technology, has put us in a situation where the world might look so radically different in just twenty five or thirty years that it's like inconceivable to us today and with that comes problems um IT IT comes may benefits we I talk about my paralyse all the time the benefits but there are also significant problems and when IT comes to information technology particular it's like one of the very new problems we're dealing with is um is I think communication, social media and and what that means for us um maybe right off the bat um if you want .

to just maybe lay down .

the premise for you for your book i've been talking about IT for a second here. I want you to have just like come and tell of the audience know what I was you were trying .

to accomplish here yeah um I just I I D like to write about know the future and future technology and um just like kind of imagining what are twenty fifty and twenty one hundred are going to be like get now there's many crazy exciting things and some of them are scary and some of them are really um exhilarating to think about.

And then I mean around me in the society and I was like, I don't think we're going to like get there if we don't like that, none of that matters if we if like that the societal house were living in is like the import beings are starting to weaken, increase le like it's like, it's like this is the house that we will lead to Carry with us into this future of the house is it's like this easy, comfortable figure so to me I was like, what is know that we have more knowledge than we ever did before. We have more technology, more prosperity than we ever did before by most meat? Rics, um why are we kind of descending into so many of these things that you know these um you know I would read about mccarthy m and i'd say what I was so recent, you know you read about you know about bore to the holocaust.

This was so recent. How could people but behave this way? How could you know people like you know ah and eat more and more? We're seeing, okay, that's how people make that weeks were doing. We're doing little traces of this thing and that thing in, you know you go back to like, do you know sale in which burnings and in the witch house and you like, you know, mabe, we're not what not burning which is but I like, I get IT now I see how a bunch of people know worse than your your map could do really bad things. You could just see IT and and IT comes to come with this collective madness that happened. So basically, you know, course is just also the crazy, like you said, political polarization ation the fact know there's there's such collective wisdom that we can have you know we can we can understand the nature of know we're going understand um the nature of space .

time and I wanted stop you right there because that part wisdom and so you you mentioned that .

like my handful .

of times throughout the book and I think it's such an interesting word that we don't use almost ever in society anymore IT almost sounds like mister colour something in people. The people just don't use that word. But I agreed that that once you said IT, I thought, wow, that is truly what we are missing right now. You can feel that if just there is a abroad lack of wisdom, yeah so it's like um which is maybe like a train scent that beyond even what is objectively true and not true like you can build a weapon of mass destruction through immersion m but like wisdom is is like what is the utility of different intelligence .

and it's like what wisdom is is is only for example. It's like understanding long term consequences of things that happens, understanding patterns, understanding like, you know, want to talk about, know you have individual and their wise. Maybe they have an understanding of what makes a good marriage or what makes a good life for whatever.

But you know, you check what the collective it's like. It's a wise society. You know, really knows their history.

They remember, they know the patterns. They can see them coming. They are because of that.

They can understand the consequences of certain policies, certain rhetoric, certain kind of arrangements of discourse in a way that people before them didn't. But they have the benefit of the hindside. So they have wisdom. And what IT feels like today is you still have lots of individuals, many are many that I fell on twitter, who seem to fully still wisdom, the modern, you know.

the the lessons .

that we've all learned. And and then yet there's this, there's this kind of other strain that is deeply unwise, like like falling into every single trap, like just making every amateur error. And that force has this kind of like IT, almost like IT has this so good. It's like a living thing and it's like growing and it's spreading.

I think IT would be helpful is to get into some examples right now before we get into your framework for thinking through a lot of the problems we're facing. And before we even get into examples, I started something earlier that I didn't fully finish, which is your style as a writer.

And I think IT is linked to this with something I feel when i'm reading your work as if I have like a very thoughtful friend sitting next to me, trying his absolute best to see IT from all sides, to be apathetic and to kind of like step outside of himself. And I can, I can feel that in you that like intense desire to be fair, and you're, I able to say, like much more fair than I am. I am like more of A, I would say, like war time writer to a certain stand.

I am like, I find an idea. I murder the idea. I saw myself in some of the, in some of the, I think you like diagnose as will get into that later, like where I would perhaps fall .

into some of them about that. I maybe it's because I happen to agree with you on ninety nine percent of the things so but I you are you're definite have a lot of sess for sure you and that like you you know um but but you I I I don't think your um like uh small minor are like unfair about what you say. I think most of what you say is like bought on so I .

give yourself you um but I will say just like what you established me was a certain letter of trust and a big part of that was kind of taking IT from angles and so maybe you before be given to your framework what I would love is just a couple of examples like what are some examples of may be just the problems before we I don't want gollum ns or uh or genius yet were getting to those in a second. The latter none of that, but just like some high level problems that we are facing as a society um that we want to overcome in order to you know build a Better world.

So I mean, you know this is so so so we had this capacity for both collective wisdom, but also just collective intelligence. Again, can discover the, discover the atomic particles. I no human can do that.

But collectively, where we're like a it's like there's a species that is way smarter than humans, that is our collective brain. And he can do stuff that none of us can begin to do. And so this is part of why humans are amazing. And we can call the stuff like human rights and cause stuff like, you know, just the concepts of fairness and and ethics and the stuff that no other animal beginning to do right on the other hand, we have this crazy capacity to for collective madness, like just stupidity, evil um just just in psychopathy, basically just like just a collective everything had and we keep you both this is what you know a kind of incense to think about.

You know, we evolved to be a successful tribe a long time ago, and that tribe had to both be able to solve problems and CoOperate and and really useful ways, and then also needed turn into A A giant, know a group psychopath and murder other people. Because the ones who. Where IT like that, they didn't sucker around where he was existent.

Al, right. And I I think one thing you do a really good job of is you explain, I mean, that is a problem that is baked into us at probably some kind of genetic level that we don't even understand, but in the context of a technologically advanced world is no longer just a small, the problem of a tribal two. It's the problem of you, the fate of humanity.

What happens when that collective madness that we know we are capable of, we just saw what, I mean, cov IT was a collect. You, I think you name you, you talked about, you did, you talked about cover in the book, like that was a collected madness. There are moments of that in different ways that were you are experiencing a collective manner. You have all sorts of the examples from the top and from the social justice movements where like to our history, we've seen recent collective mamas are now in middle east. It's like very clear that we are in the middle of man is and it's it's polar ized like you see two collective memory ses, I mean, i'm maybe a little more consistent like I I I don't know that i'd been expressing everything on this because I don't know I don't really want to be getting into the little lest for pole, but my group chats are like wild and I am sort of I find myself stepping back and being like every minute in Michael moderate here this is croy yeah I when you have the technology to animate an entire people um the take your desire so I would say that like maybe the high level it's like that adam bomb drop is what I am worrying about yeah I know .

it's it's like you see um you're seeing people you know like I am you and i'm seeing people marching the streets who would cheer if someone murdered me today write and yet and yet if I met that person, that someone who would cheer for that in a different context and they went and met my my baby and they went and they came over and, uh, we hosted them and they and we went to their we would love each other and think, oh, what a great person and they be they be incredibly empathetic, lovely person.

That's the crazy. This is like this. We have this weird switching ahead to turn into complete mei accident.

I was say unless you're unless you're unless you're in israel and I think they don't care, there is no way that you're going to meet and are going .

to be a nice thing that even the crazy st people there, if you get them in a different, totally different context. No, look, of course, you know maybe of some people you know who are who like there there's no if you are a due or whatever like you you like they like you're just the devil but like it's just in amErica the the know march is happening and it's uh I think the people in amErica right now, lots who would cheer if no, I was murdered for being jew's tomorrow they would, they would say, this is that part of the struggle that needs to happy if.

But if I met .

them and know them in different context, I would think a lovely person and they were thinking about me and I love the guy and this is that weird? Like we have and and but the negative side IT almost always happens as a collective you know just just know you have as a crazy rent renting person on the street corner. Usually it's that um kind of crazy psychology happens in this big collective and that looks reads like both fairmont people can and something like twitter as much as much as I think it's an incredibly positive thing in many ways right now for in a time like this is also you know social media um it's like spreads psychopathy uh and IT comes in IT like thermo es and like which is something in people's head that .

just turn them into legitimate I got activated as survival instagram when I feel IT myself right now I feel this pool when those your time at those people, those protest the records, is what I so like in the early days, especially if I think saturday IT was like very, very, very clear with those parades were, with those celebrations were. And I look at that and I feel like I don't want that in my country like I feel like unsafe for my loved ones if that is what we are becoming and um and that once that is in your head that like oh my like I literally that all saturday and sunday I was talking about my sister and her kids and like that that becomes very, very, very hard to remain rational at a moment like that once like once that kind of worms in and you see people going on on twitter, IT is very like, yet collective manisty us begins even and IT escalate.

So it's like what happens as you have these. So you don't read a book recently by to buy a throw stock. Well, our outrage machine and basically talks about how we think of empathy is purely a good thing, right?

Empathy makes you and not feel for others and makes you feel love for them, whatever. And actually, empathy, while IT can be great, is the is is the lever that pulls the psychopathy switch. IT is when you're going to see dead children on whatever side that you feel like you're on, that's onna.

Suddenly you're going to start to feel like kill them all crazy. It's right. And so what happens is if you look at d actually i'd wrote a senior thesis is in college about L A T V. This is the back in two thousand and four.

But you know what I noticed there is like in order to kind of in order to deflect um criticism of themselves, like the leaders in these dictators in the middle, whatever a lot of them would um you know IT was such a an obvious tactic to just broadcast like dead palestinians like whatever because IT just creates this IT just is is just IT deflects all of this anger that have and so it's like the amount of um of this that is generated by a kind of propaganda and P R. And that there are natural people dying. They like a bit, but but like specifically kind of showing certain things over and over. It's triggers certain psychology.

I want to introduce two concepts um from your book and then disagree with a little bit yeah so or maybe maybe not I just read this stuff, but let's start so there the concept of the letter and then there is something a little bit later, which is like sort of optimal states are not optimal states I would say like um uh final states or something of different kinds of thinking. One leads to the genuine. One leads to the gollum.

M, I think that the genie gollum thing was really interesting. It's like a very uh, colorful and devote their way of talking about some of these ideas as they come alive and sort of dominate us online. But I want to start with the the higher level. One latter of thinking, can you just break that out? How people think about ideas on the left or wrong letter.

Basically we have like the what you think access. All right, that's politics. There is far left and left and center and right. And for right, right, that's the orizondo. We also could lay like what people think about any policy. And you have one extreme here in the other three in the montand these all these horizont do what you think x axis and IT felt like we badly needed to how you think axis um where at the top you know um and I call IT a latter and you could overlay on any what you think access and at the top you're just you're deep down, deep down. True motivation is is if if you just trying to figure out what's right and as you quick down, you start to have a routing interest for a certain position um and you want kind of be right more than get IT right and as you get to the bottom you become like a full fledge is valet who there's nope amount of evidence that could ever change your mind um because you are you you now basically are a faithful disciple of a certain idea you know the boss in your own head anymore. You you live to serve that idea and to protect IT and you you not let IT info, you won't ever believe in info that no contradiction and you will seek out your Cherry pick in for that does and it's not that you're this all stuff and awesome thinking you I I don't change my mind is that you are you given up the rains and your head you're out the boss in your own head you're at the top humbly searching for truth and variably saying, I don't know about all kinds of stuff because who couldn't know about everything you're actually you know you seem humble but you're also you kind of like, you know you're you're the alpha dog and you're own head and you're saying none of these ideas you have a permanent if something proves that wrong, it's out and you'll change your mind about anything so it's a spectrum right is hard to be the very, very tough especially about the political things and things that but .

all my bedroom but very top of IT you have the scientist yeah when .

I don't mean career scientists, as we learn plenty of current, we don't down that latter about their scientific .

as is the scientific method.

the scientific method, right? The scientific of thinking. We were just like hypothesis and then look for evidence. And then if it's a sure, if it's not, it's not and if something this shoes is out and then we have to certain topics like politics, religion, certain things you are less stand, you know nutrition, how you raise your kids are certain topics that really they bring our our identity starts being attached to our ideas and your identities attached to our ideas.

Changing those ideas is not just all on to kick this idea of my head because it's wrong only to be a little smart. No, it's that I have an identity crisis here. Actually, an actual fighter flight part of your brain literally lights up in FM is when those ideas are chAllenged because it's like you feel like it's a personal like dangerous attack most because it's an attack on your and so when that happens, we sink down on the latter and there's nothing that can change our minds.

So this is like an individual. This is how they are individual thinking. Someone comes to me and says something is some stronger opinion about anything in the news.

The first i'm going to ask is that where do they stand? Where do they stand? Where do they think? no.

Where, whose, what kind of thinking is this person? Where what part of the latter were they on when they came up this idea? And i'm trying to learn about that before I know whether or trust.

Okay, so. I'm thinking whether I should kind of lay down my push back now or get into the goal idea. Folks, I feel like they are related. These are related. So why lets do now tell me the the gene versus the gollum, right?

So, so, so we would like you know simplify have four wrongs and a lot of we can simplify to like high wrong thinking which is like truth first .

even there's a little confirmation by a the sic s to the truth um and in the end .

there is enough even if you have some confirmation bias and if there's a really good evidence against your idea will change your money. That's the definition when you cross below that mid point, you're a low wrong thinker and now even if you you you you think you're good thinker, you you find evidence to stop. But deep down there's nothing that could actually make you say I was wrong about this, then you're you're a lot wrong thinking.

And so I you say, you know, there's simplifies kind of ways of thinking. Now this is as an individual, all of us kind of go up and down in that letter. And when I was about to talk a little bit about earlier with kind of we can have collective wisdom and intelligence, and we also can have collective stupidity and madness sing evil and those happen, uh, that that to me, that is is that if you that this this individual way of thinking, they have emerging property, so a bunch, so grouping of people to get there. Rather there is your text threatened or class or work, just an individual, marry couple or whole political party.

There's there's an intellectual culture that a takes over and that intellectual culture can either serve the the purpose of truth ultimately where it's like cool to disagree, cooler change your mind saying I don't know makes you sound smart out stupid and and disagreement is kind of the culture where it's like they never going to know that takes him personally um and so so so I call that an idea lab idea, lab culture, intellectual culture and down below you've echo chAmber culture, right so echo chAmber or culture basically is low wrong thinking on a mass scale. Low wrong thinking collectively where the group itself does what the individual low wrong thinker does when they say i'm not going to change mine there's I won't listen to evidence to disagrees the group now punishes socially punish es people who say something that contradicts the say, good belief of the group and at something and and they're constantly together like sourcing sources, sourcing information that confirms their bach just confirm, confirm the city around for three hours of the dinner. Just talking about how right there are the entire dinner.

And everyone, of course, agrees because if you don't agree, you an awful person, you're not in the group anymore. So that's echo chAmber culture. When I when I thought about is that now these are just affect each individual. What kind of the culture your surprise ourself with that they have these collective, this emerging property.

So the emerging property of ideal lab culture of collective hydron thinking is what I call like a gene and it's this thing I said you we none of us know how to how to discover ah the sublime ic particles or get to mars alone but the genius can where genius can can janus can have wisdom its like that's like this this super brain, when Oliver and brains connecting neurons with each other and everyone can disagree with, which everyone can say what they're really thinking. Now you have this thing that smart of than any human. That's what I color.

On the other hand, echo chAmber culture is that makes another kind of giant and emergent property, that is, uh, this giant I called gollum m this big kind of dumb giant and and the gene while is wise and intelligence smarter than any human. The golm is like just mindless and has no as a psychopath, thinks that you know, know, know, kill the people, whoever else that if you're not in my ingredient, an awful person. Those people are bad.

We are good. It's just tribal ism kind of. It's a tribal sm as a character and I call IT. It's gold men. When I see, you know, eight marches in the street that are chanting awful things, I just, I don't see much of people I see this tramping like, god zil like 有 big goal。

M O K. So I thought was also vehicle chAmber, the sort of breeding ground of the golem? Um you you mentioned the the quality of enforcement or the tool of enforcement is the taboo which shack IT strikes me is true um I would say that probably it's not just mobs of people chatting things in the street that our gollum s any mob of people chanting anything in the street, whether we like IT or not, is a gollum n like I think that there so okay.

So I guess the question I have is while you framed all of these things on a gradient from the best to the worst or the most, the most aspirational to the least, that maybe the most dangerous I kind of have seen a place for. I've see there's utility in zell, I think, and there's utility in the gollum that I want us to maybe have a quick discussion about. And I want to start with just when we're talking about the selection of ancient knowledge, which feels like a very antithetical to um somebody at that to top wrong as a scientist using the scientific method, you look at something like a dietary laws in the old testers and it's like you should not be eating shellfish or port or what not and ninety nine point nine percent of people who follow these faith just blindly adhere to that.

And it's silly. That makes no point. I eat shelf sh all the time and poor come totally fine because I live in a world of refrigeration. But that ancient knowledge that went unchAllenged and um you know i'd never most people throughout time where maybe in these religions, perhaps following there was utility in the following that guidance even though they weren't thinking about IT.

And um so just like write off of the bad that wants obvious because we understand IT and it's like, oh probably not a law because IT saved a lot of people's lives. Know in the bible, in the old testament what other knowledge is in there that is also serving some kind of utility that we just don't understand and has been passed on. And and so in this way, maybe like there, there are ideas that you can follow that that.

Are saving your life and and so I see like this there's this this tension in yes, we should be interrogating ideas but I don't know that everything that hasn't been fully interrogated should be discarded and in fact um you know the high level thing, all this polar arizon that we're looking at um this just increasingly in new toy century was the most violent century in history. I think IT just in terms of raw numbers of deaths. All of IT kind of coincides with the decline of faith in the west, which is like the decline of this inherit knowledge structure.

Now people have thought, works for faith. And I understand it's extremely bloody and it's extremely violent. And maybe the only difference is technology. But right, just right there, before we get to the gollum n, do you maybe see what i'm saying that I just understand what is your what is your review?

I do see what you're saying. And I think I think that the the, the so what you're saying is that sometimes there is an idea that is it's ideal if everyone just would believe that would be best for everyone. And there in in an idea like that if there is kind of widespread no.

i'm saying this ilitch of faith has perhaps protect does in ways that we don't even understand. And so as we discard these things, we could be in danger in ways that we don't even understand.

I I think with faith that I think that is I I used to they are like a lot of kind of ford you know people who who used to center left whatever what says they they went through a similar path for um they know on twenty two thousand eight and two thousand and six and twenty twelve thought you know the the Christian right was the big problem Christianity no religion was bad.

Um and I think like I think like like me, a lot of us have come around and realize that um that we are a religious species and we will be religious about something and maybe that the thing that's gone through two thousand years of trial and error and actually has a bunch of incentives to behave well to your fellow human is not the worst thing and that yeah when you're replaced with some political religion that was invented yesterday, um you know IT has no kind of moral under um you know structure underneath IT. Um that's how you get things like the the nates and know stalin and just like movest, just like mass death and you know yes, religion also causes this mass death, but you know kind of american version of Christianity for all it's false. Like I know if there's there's on the left seventy percent I think of people on the left, just like very similar number to the right, consider themselves Christians like one thousand hundred and ninety and owns dog like thirty five on the left, on the right has remained the same that gaps gotten filled by something that's pretty nest.

So I think you're making a totally good point here. Um I think that the only issue is that if if you relying on like you know you saying that some silly is good and sure you have to get lucky, you have to hope that the things people are being jealous about happen to be serving us in some way and so often they don't. And at least if you have independent thought, you know you can you sometimes will lose the benefit of like mindless electors towards something that happens to be helpful.

But you also cure yourself of all, I think, in generally of a net positive if you just turn people into more humble independent thinkers. Yeah you going to lose something. But the problem for me isn't that necessarily that we're losing gellatly of one kind.

It's that we're getting zeleny of another current and and um and you know it's something like a shellfish whatever in you know that I still think we can arrive at so much of here's what's actually we're using the scientific method and then people can feel a hundred percent about IT because of the good for good reasons because they actually had no IT. And they have the institutions that can figure this stuff out and they trust those institutions so we can get to a really you know um kind of strongly held views about good things the other way. But so I D that I think election is always like a bad thing.

Like you're saying. It's just that I think that if that's the rule, you going to have somebody bad worse, so somebody more bad tribes doing bad things that you will have good em. I think if you look at history.

I I agree I mean the first for just I agree that there are all sorts of things in the sort of ancient inherited acknowledge that are wrong and counterproductive and even dangerous, often dangerous.

I just have increasingly the sense that it's Linda, it's survived for a reason um IT was beneficial and the modern world has untethered me from that to such a degree that i'm a little bit blind right now and and maybe we are always a little bit blind like you can only interrogate so many facts about your world, and independent thinkers can only think through so much these stories in the bible. For example, they feel like coated in front, like super, super well bound tight coded bits of information. These stories like the variables and what not.

Um there's a lot in there that um we've thrown away. And I think yeah you could rethink through everything for the modern world, you to make a lot of changes. But until we get there, I would something to rest on on top of.

So i'd also say that, you know, maybe if I could press a button and you know, we just kind of go back in time to a time when most people are kind of blindly following the bibo, whatever would be Better than today, maybe um but that's not we're happening like there's also just the fact that in the modern world of the internet, and I think you IT was vital, you going to see a breakdown of those religious assumptions.

And i'm not hearing you're right, but I not hearing anything from so let's just call IT what IT we're talking about. The left's new faith is this intersection like oppression based woke ideology, whatever you want to call IT that thing. And then you have on the other side, let's talk about like islam m ism or something like a graphical concert, like super right wing factory. Alcohol at its most extreme, which is like fifteen to twenty percent um of practitioners were talking like prison state status, religion um the kind of like what people think of when I was in college, I used to think about the Christian right, which was like a completely made up idea in my head I was thinking .

about radical is really .

like these are the two like these are the two faith that I see at work in the world right now and A I don't want either and so what is like your mass defense from that but some other kind of like.

well be I don't I look I just think that the idea that that um we'll have giant masses of new Young people kind of um blindly believing one of the old ideas that two thousand years old, I just think that that's unlikely to happen. Maybe there's a big wave of you know, knew, you know, born again whatever but to me I just think that for you know, for Better or worse, I think that those days are not here anymore and you're going na have more and more people affecting from the old things because the internet is to share a break, things down and your these silos and therefore, given that fact, I think that we would love to start training a lot of people on independent thought because at least a bunch of independent thinkers are not going to end up chanting for, you know, the death of innocence like that's not that in the budget independent thing I just don't do that IT was when everyone hands over their independence to this collective got column that you had total psychopathy so um I just think yeah I said I think that at least that's Better than than .

that comes to the gollum uh you do this interesting. You talk you kind of take the h the american historical contact of this and you demonstrate how when you have a collective column, for example, strong nationalism in the twenty of century, I is kind of the infographic that use you like the american patrol looking gollum, and beneath that gollum, you had to red in the blue. Yeah um they were able to get along because they have is like higher, like level .

and lower. okay. So think like tribal sm we think of about tribal ism is my team were sure, but actually there's different layer.

So if you go to if you go to one thousand and fifties, if people think that was a time of relative unity politically, you elected this moderate ison. How IT wasn't even sure which party he was going to run for me in the totally different of time. But actually it's not that we are any less tribal. It's that the tribes m was distributed. So you had some people whose minds were just fixed on patriotism bia amErica verses first teller and then sov union.

Then you also then below that you have some people who are um so worked up about republican first, democrats is going to win the presidency what's or or whatever and then below that you had with the edge party just these factions hated each other and they would actually so the the the down below and those actions encourage people to actually they hated their own brother and their things so much that they would go with the the kind of the cousin are in the other party over anything besides my brother so that that was a force of unity of above in the national reversions bluing. And like what you had the um the national thing was a sense of unity that kind of calm down the red versus blue thing so each of these defuses, the other layers right and kind of is healthy in some ways is distributed tribes from the top to hide to the low level. And then you see for both three different reasons, the factions we we rely politically, all those factions kind of change.

And now with IT becomes much more two teams. And if you're done on that team, you're not thought that you we're going to fight within our party. You're out of the party and you're in the other party.

And now you have this ideological kind of consolidation. And then we stop having the heart real, serious, scary threat of soviet union hit larger than soviet union when we lose our real fear there, which loses our, which takes our tribalism down. And noch, and suddenly, and then you have these media stations popping up, fox, M, S, B, C.

right? I'll get to the broadcast in the second, but IT IT doesn't. U.

S. First tailor was highly tribal. But, but, but, but.

but IT was one form. And IT helped to fuse the national hatred of each other.

right? So there .

was a utility detector. Of course, we all.

Any day in in this the whole time. So will depend this day. The thing that brings us all together is a new external villain, but it's another other so there's .

the area around if you start having um the republicans fighting about truth, that's onna make the red versus blue and calm down a little bit because muslims start to fight about know something that's going to calm down the the tribal sm so we lost that. And in the U S. IT basically all consolidate into this one layer of national red versus national blue.

And it's this concentrated tribes. And and that's when things get scary. That's when things we become really psychotic.

So the thing that i'm struggling with is because IT just seems like what was really beneficial was having a common enemy. And that is still really bad. Like IT is still IT seems like hardwired into us to be searching for the enemy period. And obviously. An external is Better, seems much healthier than an internal, but an external is still really bad.

But a little bit of patriotic m and a little bit of like wall americans is healthy. And because the goal going to its extreme, you have a hard course in the hoban. People hate crime in immigrants and step.

So we don't want to go there. But it's like a little bit right now. We have so little, that little and lue people from across the all americans. And no one says, and likewise, by the way, let you know when israel palestine picks up, you know what it's making muslims who are in fierce battle with each other, different sets and different political groups you see they're saying, I love you, brother here you know any .

don't like each other until there's a war with this real and IT defuses .

IT when there's this real we don't have that right now on you. You don't have like this, this israel, we don't have something and that's what I think it's like algeria. You see that this is used to kind of, uh, similar the national stuff s because they going to all focus on the other thing.

And and america, I don't have that right now, something that all americans can say. Of course, I prefer any american over. I think no one.

no one has that. Yeah um IT seems when you are at war you need to go lum to survive. What do you think about that?

So ah yeah, this is why we all have the quickly to do this, including me. U we have the switch that will make us suddenly just kind of crazy and would be thinking, good kill, kill as many people. We just madness, evil, right? We all have IT.

And it's because we evolved in a world where these golden were tramping around our and and if you couldn't, when you needed to form an even bigger golm and defend yourself, you're done. So the people didn't have that switch. There's aren't around anymore. And so um I do think like if if your your countries invaded, you know that the time when you you need to you need to form psychopathic gollum at yourself and at IT or so you're gone.

So this capacity is the thing, the reason that every person on the planet has its capacity, because every person on this planet has an ancestor who survived because of this capacity, has many.

many ancestors that .

survived both the goal, amy I and the gene.

Because in peacetime, CoOperation is how you, you became me know use prosperous and you have food and you you know you so um but what I what subsets is you know what we it's like yes, if literally the U S. Has invaded ed, okay, you know we should always just former gollum and just become to try to defend themselves.

But until that time, I do think that switch is very you know it's it's um we are very um uh prone to set to switch IT because our bring things are still in fifty thousand bc. And there's there's this group of that we don't like on twitter and IT makes us studdenham tivat and it's no one's going to kill us right now. Right now, ninety per ninety nine percent of the time goals are activated.

It's not first because it's it's existent, al. It's because it's just our nature. And then what happens is those golden activate each other and an escalates until maybe you do of a civil war, you do at something. so.

I I was just going to say another unna thing about that online is just how often the golden manifest in the stupidest way possible over the stupidest things imaginable. So it's like like the entire like let's just say like the entire like like really almost everything with gender, like the the gender golm ns are so crazy and they're go at their straight up go lumb, up like their goal and up right like like a train swimmer or something like that is what's driving people not you know .

you're in the presence of this kind of low run or chAmber psychology when, you know, if you say something, even if it's something that ninety percent noral people would just say, obviously you get this incredible negative reaction because you given an existential threat to the gulp. So golden, so genius, are actually very robust right now. You can bring disagreement, and they say, great.

They throw off disagreement. Golden are, they're strong with, they are riddle and they are fragile. And they, their entire being, is glue together by agreement, by hundred percent is electric agreement.

And in any doubt, with in the group or outside the group has to be squash immediately. This is they on bats for me, because they can't handle any form of that. The goal bets away, right? The switches, the psychopath switches, go off once there is doubt. So you will see IT, when you notice, is a crazy strong reaction to any decent you're looking at that psychology.

The internet itself strikes me as I uncertainly structural. It's built to be a kind of ideal lab and yet IT seems like it's maybe fAllen a lot. It's fAllen pretty sure in in this respect. What do you think is causing that?

I I think I think there really is a good and bad story here and that, you know, like the the people I follow on twitter, I do because I wrote this book, I follow a lot of sallets on both sides of every issue because I just want to see what they are saying, even though imagine.

well, your food must be very fun now.

But that's not the majority, the majority people. I follow our people who I think they're extremely well reason and and you know wrong thinking.

So I do feel like i'm getting because when I go on twitter for a few hours, I come out with a bit more no on understand and I am moving the humble about something I thought and I and and I just I just feel like I am it's versus by living like if one thousand nine hundred and eighty and I just around the same twill people at worker in my friend group, i'm going to be maybe more in an ecco chAmber than I am now. So I think the internet really is um a place where ideal lab culture can spread. The problem is the current first I felix to result kind of A V one of social media. Maybe we were in v two of social media algorithms. And I think maybe in twenty thirty years will look back and say, oh my god, those algorithms just totally um hardwired .

to misery engines to stop .

the switches, the stop, or you you can bring people down. And so you'll see they'll be one completely wrong, infuriating, ly worded like tweet that is misleading, intentionally misleading in propagate right. And on twitter right now, not only is that tweet do really well amongst the people who is targeted, B, C, no, seven thousand.

Two weeks. My god, this is so. But also it's been passed around all the people who hate that side and it's making them really angry.

And it's making and it's making IT feel like there's no reason over there. And so I think that right now you do have these, the the the escalating thing they going to happen with tribal ism. And IT goes here, and then they said this and that we hate them more, read them more. And now they are shown these pictures of these dead kids and this one before, you know, I like there's just kind of media going on that the internet is really good at producing that. That's the social media, the the way tribal media has let's so .

you talked .

in the in the book.

you talk about the different broadcast in narrow cast and throughout the twenty of century we had more of a broadcast model where um you had a handful of media giants speaking to everybody and that forced people more to the center. And h IT seemed like a much more ascended intel actual model even though it's .

missing .

a lot of details. Um the narrow cast model which begins I don't know where you would say IT begins but you you cited uh in one thousand nine and ninety six was um both fox and m bc reformed and certain ly by the internet. Now we're living in a new media world which is entirely narrow casm.

By that we mean smaller entity speaking to very niche audiences, giving them basically exactly what they want to hear. Um IT seems like it's framed in such a way as as broadcast would be sort of a Better in some in some way, uh maybe in most ways than the narrow casting which feed the colum like demons. And yet I would just quickly introduce this idea that what we're seeing right now, while infuriating on the topic of israel in gaza, like we IT, seems like, you know, we can't come to agreement on something in earlier days.

So, uh, the twenty th century was a time of war, like big nationalistic work constantly. And in america, like I thought about how iraq was the most recent example of this. But before that, I think the much worse example of the reason that we all hate ourselves now in america, I think, is vietnam, which was a really horrifying war in my dads of vietnam.

That and its very complicated. And I think the only way vietnam could happen was the broadcast model. I think in a narrow cast world, I don't know that viet now would have happened.

I think that's a really good point. I think that there's there's such a clean, clear story about the negatives of transitioning from broadcast another cast. And I think that viana ce, a private example of the upsides of narrow cast outsides of social media. I think that vietnam, the america's would have figured out that was a stupid war and that that was you know whatever, in couple weeks yeah and I took the over a decade instead um as I do think that there is something I think that you know, there's just a lot more real info out there and there's you again, actually twitter has a lot more info than the the mainstream media. You really you you want to see what's going on now and what everyone thinks about IT and like um IT happens quickly on twitter now that the sides .

form and everything you all I had had a disagreement with a Smith about this, he said kind of denied that he was on twitter during the weekend terrorist attacks, uh um israel and that he was getting always news from the near times when I was like, that's just I don't believe you everything I I would not have known what was going on in israel where is not for my life feet of carnage, which is perhaps not healthy but I certainly think like I am immune to the to the I was immune to the cover to the new york times was giving on saturday night lot.

And that was because I was looking at IT, right? Like I was actually seeing the people kidnapped. I was actually seeing the death.

It's not just seeing IT. It's like on twitter because again, that depends you follow, but I follow a wide varieties are on twitter. I go on and a couple hours later, i've seen all the pictures. I've seen the claims that the pictures are not real. We ve seen the people refute those claims.

I immediately the notes on the notes.

i've seen ten different takes on history. I've seen ten different takes on comparing, you know the rising antisense m to another time ready have seen all these know israel palestine to liberia and other people comparing IT to h algeria, and other people comparing IT to the us. You know, the slaves and and I also in my head, I have a little media where I think how high run each of those thinkers is from my own experience in the past.

So each time I also have taking certain things with different grains, assault and two hours later I have such a rich, nuanced, I feel like picture what's going on um you know and I figured to the new york times, even if they were completely the most unbiased, just trying to see the truth is just one point of view and it's a couple journalists trying to do IT. Um and then of course you have the issue that the the the mainstream ted is P R for whatever said that they want to do P R for in addition to doing the news. So that is a massive upgrade over now.

Great to the new york k times today is partially less trusty because of the new cast model, at least cbs, abc and A B C. In the sixties. I think that would be more trust ready maybe in the new york times today, but in definite more trusted than M S N B C, fox news today, I think, uh, for a typical issue.

But on the other hand, so it's like so so for understanding an issue like something is happening right now. I'll take today over that. But this is huge, huge other story about the downside here about how this became a model where he used to be the business model was be accurate and seem totally neutral.

Because if you start to seem bias, you're going to lose have the country, you're going to become a laughing ing stock. If you seem inaccurate, if you get proven, nbc seems to be wrong more than the other two, you're done. Then in nineteen, right mid nineties, you start to have these fox use that think kind of pioneer.

And I was like, way to second. The countries got a really travel. We can have a whole other business model and we throw accuracy neutrality out the window that totally, you know, but we threw largely at the window and instead tell one try what they really want to hear.

And it's just a completely different business model. And then suddenly a hundred copy cats come on because it's a brilliant business model today and that makes the time of money and social media algorithms. And I think that this is very its stokes travellers M A very hard core way.

Yes, I would say the broadcast monopoly was captured ideologically like fox. When IT comes out every day, they're saying we're going to give you the real truth because you you know you've been like to the reason the message resonated was because people knew that they were not getting the entire truth if they were getting a very biased version of that. Like, people are always gonna imperfect.

I so the unbiased, right, like I am very biased. Everything that we write a firewire as biased. It's bias.

It's biased by our perspective. And I try and own that and say this is who we are. This is how I see things.

This is what I want to happen. Like you take everything what i'm saying with a grain assault. Um I think that the narrow casting feels it's weird to where it's both IT feels healthier.

But then also what you were to describe on twitter, having to go on to twitter for couple hours in download, every crazy opinion and history that exhAusting and um I don't like we're very online creatures. Were both writers like we are online. I don't know how the average person is gone to make IT in this information about one .

thing you can start to do is you can find proxies. You can say, you know, this person i've now seen five or six times seem to have a new on to view, or maybe these two people. So i'm just to listen to this person's podcast, and that's, I want to get unity.

I vented that that they are high wrong thinker. They can go do all that looking what's going on and twitter, and they can come back and at least trust them. Of course, a lot of people end up trusting a hard course that who agrees with them instead.

But this is a Oliver. John Oliver is this for people? Joan joo gan is this for people like these are, and I listen, I guy, I like joe rogan, but both of them are very clearly speaking.

Joes, more honest about IT. Maybe that is like, yes, me, my perspective or whatever. John Alice, doing the classic sort of john steward thing, who I also used to love, was like that.

But it's no leader.

And I I was in the court to.

I was in that chance to work. I think that that rogan will, if he has a viewpoint, he'll say IT and piece off his base, piece off off the center right hard court and make them really angry by defending, you know, pretty and something. I don't see that from journal. I don't think he is the willingness, I don't think he is I don't think get necessarily is particular. I don't think that the H B R, whatever he I don't think he's even allowed to.

We didn't see IT briefly from to go back to our original code, john, to were during covet, I feel like, was one of the main reasons we would have happened eventually, which was so stupid. But when we had this sort of intellectual embargo on the lab league and we couldn't talk about the virus perhaps coming from the covet factory, Stewart was the .

one who was lying. No, I was so excited for him to come back and just be like of reason. And he comes back and he started reading, Robin, the Angels ideas. yeah. Like, I was so disappointed I was be cooler than that.

Yes, I thought he was about to shake the world and then I was the old people who are saying dumb things like you. He's not the john's. He still .

doesn't want to pissed off like what people like all the other. And just like this is a small group of people that most no one agrees with in you going to be one of these big voices that just can't disagree with them.

I I want to maybe wrap IT up with an idea that so we have these three works for thinking about um for thinking about thinking you know thinking about navigating our uh this this information ecosystem that we live inside of um how now facing I mean a series like the terrorist attack that I saw were like unlike anything i've ever seen or even a mp IT was horrible um and we're just very clearly entering now a period of total war because I mean like real crazy violence is what we're approaching and with that's going to come in sane tribal ism.

It's going to become my thing very hard to function online, as I don't want to call myself reasonable, because I am often not reasonable, but I am more reasonable than what I am seeing online. right? Arrow, and how do you advise navigating this right now? You know, you've study this for years. You've the history book in this kind of the cell book, like what do we do? How do we learn about the world right now in the world that is so fraught with information and just emotion?

Just take to be aware of what we're seeing. Me see golden forming to .

at least .

see IT forward. IT is understand that this isn't like these people are evil, but that there's a psychology psychological switch in our heads that has been switched and to to just see you see propaganda for what IT is to know that the people you're going to try to need to convince or onna have um a tendency to be really travelled too kind of be manipulated by a lot of the propaganda.

And if if he just has start there and we just kind of like understand this is what humans have done through out history or doing a lot of IT, you can see people doing IT. Now, this is how IT works. This is how propaganda works. This is how tribal ism works.

I think that at least prepares us Better to a avoid falling into the pitt falls, our cells, and be like, figure out, you know, I just try to know, to retweet the people that are being high rock, regardless of whether they agree with you, are not like to try to add you off, roll in a boat. And those know, steering on one side points us toward this in as a fork in the river. And one style is going to just kind of other destruction weight down down the road.

And the other side we can get out of this and going to look a much happier world. What side of the boat are you panel? You know? And it's like, you know, if that's the first technique.

put your own mass go westerman me with the dark castle and the and the exactly I thought about all throughout you're opening of this book.

right? It's like just first just panel on the right side yourself just try to know to simmer those things and to uh and to call out and be brave some courage. You know like only people know what the right things to say and they don't want want to tweet IT they don't want to say IT out legs. They just why why would you want to but you know that that means you're taking your paddle out of the water and you know put your paddle in the water and steer in the right side and then maybe try to how maybe try to convince others to do the same.

Because when you're not paddling, you know it's like you're still being paddled. People are paddling.

oh yeah. And so many people right now, you just in the time, like this thing, I don't unlike going to get involved, I want to a deal the repercussions in this. And so, okay, great. But you're lowing like the boat to go a certain direction. You not this is a kind of a lack of courage um and you know so encourage can be contagious when you get out there starts saying something, you know other people will to um so I think I think dad was part of our god sand just so much trouble on last few years with you know I think I think with woks of and with magical ff like I think you have just a lack of merge your people that think this is madness and known saying and so just not to learn from that not .

do IT again amazing um thank you so much for joining me. Um you guys should definitely check out tems book again. IT is what's our problem? Self help as a self help book for societies that's what's our problem. And tim, what is your hand?

Twitter are just timm's way.

but why? That's what that was. Yeah check out a way.

But why? Um this uh, this was great. Thanks again. thanks.