Kind: captions
Language: en
evolutionist pulled a simulation over
your eyes that optimizes you for
survival and not accuracy tragically
this prepares us for savanas not cities
and that makes Modern Life very
difficult to navigate well but joining
me today is legendary biologist Robert
spolski and we're going to take a hard
look at the hidden truth while there is
no God there is no Free Will and nothing
happens for a reason you can still
massively improve your
life let me ask ask right now I think
there's a lot of people that feel lost
they feel lazy they have no sense of
what to do with their lives and given
that there is no God no purpose and no
free will how do people go about
improving their lives right off the bat
what I think that's tapping into is one
of the misconceptions about the notion
that there's no free will which is that
is synonymous with oh my God if
everything's determined nothing can ever
change and all you need to do is look at
the world around you and know that like
people change dramatically societies
change all of that changes the brain
changes there's this whole trendy sexy
field of
neuroplasticity about how the brain does
all that yeah change
occurs where people get into trouble is
when change has occurred they conclude
thus I chose to change
and that's where you are predicating
your whole stance and the notion that we
are captains of our ships and there's
free will and all of that and that's not
the case in the slightest when we change
it is because we have been
changed by a certain
circumstance and why have we been
changed in the particular way that we
have because all those prior
circumstances that made us who we are
over which we had no control brought you
to that moment so that you were going to
respond to this stimulus in the way that
you did and would change you in the way
that it did so we are capable of being
changed and even better once we are
changed in a particular way it can even
lead us to modify our Behavior so that
we're changed in that way even more
so and nonetheless we are not sitting
there and exercising free will when we
decide you know I'm no longer a Buddhist
and instead I'm a nudist now or
something so here's the way that I
approach life is very much that um
everything is Downstream of biology and
ideas and I've said many times on the
show that on my Tombstone I wanted to
read you're having a biological
experience because as somebody that has
um really I have been changed profoundly
so I don't need to take any credit for
that but but the just empirical evidence
is I went from hardly being able to get
myself out of bed uh because I had a set
of
ideas uh just based on what I had
encountered the home I grew up in my
personal genetics and the things that I
respond to but all of that led me to a
point in my early 20s where I had a hard
time getting out of bed I'm talking I
would lay in bed for four to five hours
a day every day and it was really only
shame that eventually got me moving uh
so I would even take credit for that but
ultimately I I had biology that was to
the point where I could receive the
ideas and then once I encountered those
ideas I was able to put together what I
call a frame of reference that and I'll
I'll be as careful as I can I know I'm
going to slip up in terms of language
that makes it sound like that I'm in the
driver's seat uh but have have a frame
of reference that is uh puts me in a
position where I am on a path to
improving and getting better and so when
you look at my life over a long period
of time again without needing to clap
for
me but as I've accumulated these ideas
it's had a profound impact on my life
the quality of my life uh my emotional
tenor the financial outcomes all of it
and so I became obsessed as somebody
who's worked in the inner cities I've
seen up close what it looks like when uh
somebody hasn't been given the right
environment with which to build uh their
biology uh with which to get the right
set of ideas and it's absolutely
devastating and if I try to map out in
my own mind what it means to exist in a
world without free will I start actually
thinking of myself as a change agent as
a uh a capsule that carries ideas that
when other people encounter those ideas
some of them will be changed and so that
to me is the frame for this conversation
is going to be what are the things that
people need to do to their biology
because they are hearing this right we
can make that assumption so they're
hearing this so now they're encountering
these ideas we'll assume that they're at
least fertile enough soil that the ideas
will take plant not all of them will but
it's just a more useful assumption um
what ideas would you want to plant in
people's minds during this time that
will be most fruitful if they want to
move in a positive direction
for people to learn enough about the
biology and its interactions with
environment and how it turns us into who
we are out of our control all of that to
recognize that blame and
judgment and a sense of
entitlement and self-satisfaction and
none of those things make any sense at
all and all they do is send people in
about bad Direction either of wanting
people to be treated less well than
average because if things that they've
done that you were willing to decide
they were responsible for or deciding
that you should be treated better than
average because of things that you've
done that in actuality you did not earn
and did not deserve and that you were
just handed by random luck in life and
if people come out of that that you know
deciding you know judgment is almost
always a suspect concept and it doesn't
make a whole lot of sense to ever hate
anybody because that's like hating you
know plants that grow with some Toxin
and that have made you sick it's just
you know outcome of stuff and that no
matter how good you are at
something um that doesn't entitle you to
more consideration of your needs than
anybody else deserves what do you think
are the evolutionary reasons why we have
that proclivity so people bend towards
not even bend they are yanked towards
the illusion of Free Will and as I
really sit like whenever somebody asks
me about this if I'm being interviewed
I'll say yeah Free Will is an illusion
but it really doesn't matter we'll get
to the societal implications because I
know that's an important part of your
book and and your stance but on an
individual life I don't think I think it
is far wiser to act as if you have free
will because that frame of reference
will uh put you in a more empowered
mindset which I think makes you more
fertile for good ideas to take hold um
does that seem to you why we would from
an evolutionary standpoint have
developed that delusion well it
certainly can be the the fuel of
motivation um and that is something that
obviously is highly adaptive in many
circumstances um it's also incredibly
protective psychologically me we are a
weird species in that we are the only
ones out there who know that inevitably
at some point our hearts are going to
stop beating
whoa bummer and the only way to function
is to have evolved a very unique
capacity for
self-deception we are a species that can
generate enough
circumstances where we know that bad
news is coming and we can't do anything
about it and where that could be
crushing that it has become adaptive to
decide that we actually have more agency
than we do in reality and I think the
best way to appreciate that is to look
at a disease of people who were not able
to do
self-deception and who were not able to
rationalize away reality and what that
is is clinical
depression these are people who are
pathologically prone towards seeing the
world for what it is and they're like
poster children for showing the
psychologically protective effects being
able to
decide that things are going to be okay
and you are the master of your fate and
then that sort of thing it's good for
our mental health until it turns out not
to be good for our mental health so how
do we walk that line because that's one
of the questions I had reading your book
is uh Why Try So fervently to pull
people out of a delusion that as you
just said is better for their mental
health well because it turns out it all
depends on who the person is um I would
bet
anybody who would go out and buy this
book about the neurobiology and
philosophy of the Free Will debate and
all of that and actually go and read it
my guess would be they're not homeless
my guess would be they had enough
protein in their diet when they were a
kid and the opportunity of schooling
that they actually know how to read and
can comprehend it I bet all sorts of
things about them in other words they're
one of the lucky ones and there's this
ironic pre-screening that anyone who has
the luxury in life to sit around and
think about are we captains of our own
fate and what does biology tell us and
how about Aristotle and all that that we
are the lucky ones who have wound up in
this position and thus what being being
convinced that there's no free will does
is take the wind out of a lot of our
accomplishments what do you mean I
didn't earn having my corner office and
being a CEO what do you mean I didn't
earn my Advanced college degrees I
worked hard I were there are all those
nights where my roommate went to parties
and I stayed and studied and said I
earned this I earned this I earned love
by being like a kind person or empathic
or whatever and like whoa bummer that's
deflating to hear that if it's true I
don't believe it blah blah that I did
not earn any of this that none of this
reflected the core of the me in there
with all these wonderful positive
attributes but what that mostly means
though to me is most people on
Earth rather than being given privilege
and power and
you know efficacy and all of that
because of traits that they didn't
really earn that they had no control
over and they just locked out with most
people on Earth instead are suffering
deprivations and being ignored or
neglected or considered unworthy of
attention or because they're getting
treated badly because of stuff they had
no control over so virtually by
definition anyone who's going to go and
read a book like this is going to be
bummed by it and and feel like oh my I
can't work that way because look I
busted my ass in grad school or whatever
um and the people whose lives are being
made a lot tougher by the fact that it's
all
random um all that there's no free will
does is free you from the myth that this
is a just world and people get what they
deserve it's very interesting so when I
I I really tried to parse through okay
what do I want people to do with this
information and from my perspective and
I'll be very interested to see if we
agree on this from my perspective the
the only reason I want people to
acknowledge that free will uh doesn't
exist is that if you do not understand
your own biology you're going to derail
so if you don't understand that you have
a bias towards ingroup then you're going
to treat people in the outg group
ridiculously if you understand that you
have a pensent towards in group but that
you can and this is something that I
learned from you so much what we're
going to talk about today I've learned
from you but um take Sports you look at
somebody that's of a different ethnicity
that in one instance you clock as an
outgroup and then if they're wearing a
jersey of your favorite team you
suddenly clock as an ingroup so
understanding the way in which the way I
always say it is your brain is messing
with you your brain is optimized to keep
you alive long enough to have kids that
have kids now that's not the thing that
I focus on what I focus on is how do you
have what I'll call a good life and it's
probably worth us defining that uh so
for me my nor star is I'm trying to um
move the individual and society as an
echo of the individual towards increased
human flourishing and decreased human
suffering now I'm going to make the base
assumption you're not a sociopath and
all of that because sure the thing that
makes Hitler flourish is going to be
very different uh than what I hope makes
the vast majority of humanity flourish
but that that's sort of my Northstar and
so to get people to understand your
brain is not optimized for Joy it's not
optimized for pleasure it is optimized
for survival in a historic evolutionary
environment that we're no longer in and
so there is this wild mismatch between
what you what will make you thrive today
and your impulses so that's where I root
around okay this is why I'm trying to
get people to understand this is is
there any of that that um you focus on
as well or are you interested only in
that societal echo of hey morons you're
acting foolishly and you're holding
people accountable for things that make
no
sense well no I think framing things and
you've got the perfect word for it in
terms of The evolutionary mismatches
that we deal with with we've got you
know Paleolithic appetites and suddenly
we've got fast food and and obesity
epidemic all of that I mean the the
mismatches is a really useful Concept in
terms of all of this um we have a
mismatch in that our building blocks of
agency our building blocks of a sense of
efficacy and of registering with those
around us
were built with 99% of human history
spent in small hunter gatherer bands
where you did have
efficacy and your opinion counted
because everyone's opinion counted very
egalitarian by the best guesses and
these were familiar and you
registered and you had a sense of
efficacy and now we're in a society
where you know just to mention once we
stumbled into idiocy of inventing like
socioeconomic status after inventing
stuff and the unequal distribution of
stuff once we get into
that we can have somebody who's born
into poverty and I'm not exact on the
statistics but in this country there's
now something like a 90% chance that
they will still be in poverty as an
adult in other words they can be subject
to a world of lack of control
control and lack of agency and lack of
Free Will and a pretty bruising kind of
way that's very novel for humans um I
think that's one aspect of the mismatch
in that our tendency to delude ourselves
into thinking we have more agency than
we actually do um didn't have that much
of a chance to go off the rails it was
pretty focused in reality back when we
were being like 99% of humans and it's
this current world instead where it is
so destructive for so many
people to be taught that they deserve
what they get when I think about the way
things are I'm always looking for what
is the evolutionary explanation of how
that would come to pass like why if if
we don't have free will and we are just
bil balls bouncing around something is
selecting for that and when I think
about meritocracy is probably a good
place to start when I think about
meritocracy that isn't going to go away
uh no matter how many people recognize
that they don't have free will and one
idea that I love of yours is this idea
that we are machines that are aware of
our Machin but aren't comfortable with
with our Machin and when I think about
okay if I could get everybody to just
snap not think about
meritocracy um I don't think it will
work and the reason that I don't think
it will work is as much as it pains me
to say this there are machines meaning
us I'm using your word uh that are
better at things than other people and
whether we should or not we value
different things right so once you have
an evolutionary algorithm running in
your brain that says not only do I Want
You To Survive I want you to pass on
your genes to the Next Generation and I
want them to survive so now that
algorithm creates what I'll refer to as
a simulation so it it is not trying to
show you the real world right we only
see
0.35% of the available electromagnetic
spectrum so it's like we already know
this is a gross simplification of what's
there and if it's simplifying it's
making decisions of what to show what
not to show and it's making those based
on that desire for survival so now I'm
like okay uh if that's true then the
things that we have now theoretically at
least are selected for because they do a
good job of that and since we are
optimized to be good at things that
allow our genes to pass forward there's
already a hierarchy of values you're
never going to be able to get people to
ignore that some machines are better at
those things that we value than others
does that make sense totally um
and two levels of
response um the first amid that picture
of yeah we are driven to pass on copies
of our jeans all of that but then you
get somebody who joins some group that
involves celibacy
or then you get somebody who adopts a
child from the other side of the planet
who Bears virally no genetic relatedness
to them and yeah there are strong trends
that have been sculpted by Evolution but
you know we specialize in the ID
idiosyncrasies of being exceptions at
every possible turn I mean there's not a
whole lot of evolutionary biology that
could explain like giving up your life
for somebody on the other side of the
planet and setting like that so we are
we are shaped by Evolution but we we
manag to have a lot of wiggle room with
it but in this larger sense now of
like what do we do with the fact
that we are machines who could know our
Machin what do we do with the fact that
we kind of want to have a world in which
dangerous people can't do damage and
where competent people the ones who were
doing difficult stuff how do you do that
and in some ways dealing with the
dangerous people is a lot
easier
and quarantine models of All Sorts that
are out there that that people who are
asking not for reform of Criminal
Justice System but replacing it entirely
what's the much harder one for my money
is the flip side um which is how do you
deal with the fact that it makes no
sense whatsoever to like decide that
someone who has the skills to remove
that brain tumor from your head and can
do that amazingly well and is totally
unique in that regard blah blah all of
that um it's really hard to construct a
world in which they will not somehow
feel
entitled my wife Lisa struggled
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trouble seeing but I worked so hard to
get there being able to work so hard is
another biological attribute just like
having like good dexterity with your
fingers so they can like suture you
without like making a mistake kind of
thing um I think it's in the realm of we
need to make sure it's only competent
people who are doing brain surgery on
you and we need to have them motivated
enough so that they've gone enough
sleepless nights to learn how to master
this and to do all that yet somehow have
the person rather than thinking I've
earned extra consideration I earned to
be able to be in the front of the line
because of how skillful I am and here's
where I'm getting utopian ridiculously
for them to mostly just feel
gratitude and pleasure at seeing what
their hands are able to
do wow I looked out wow sit me down at a
keyboard of a piano and look how it
turned out that I'm the sort of person
with the sort of nervous system where I
can now play something that moves people
to tears wow how cool is that that I
walked out and got to be like someone
who could experience that experience
knowing that you were able to generate
this okay so that's totally ridiculous
that we're going to think of making
people go through like years and years
of neurosurgery residencies and like all
of the agonies of that and the enormous
emotional investment and everything else
in there that they will come out the
other end and say yes all I do is feel
gratitude that the randomness of the
universe has put me in a position where
I can help people by removing their gleo
blastomas you know that one's going to
be an uphill battle
obviously and there's that bias that the
people listening to this will probably
be tilted already in a direction where
there's something they've worked hard at
and they're good at and all of that
and asking that we just have like
gratitude for how Randomness turned out
with us
that we were given the gifts to make
less pain in the world around all these
other machines yeah you got to get a
pretty high futin State of Mind where
that's going to work um maybe all we
could do with that sort of a low Rend
version of the solution is just
recognize how inappropriate a sense of
entitlement is in all sorts of domains
because you can do something fancy in a
scout with with a scalpel doesn't mean
you are a better person than somewhere
else and that seems like a plausible
thing to try to train Society in um it's
not too
lunatic to get people to the point where
a really really skilled
neurosurgeon and a really really skilled
garbage
collector can both feel good about
themselves and feel good that they
locked out to have disability but not
that they're somehow better than the
person next to them who can't do that
this is a very complicated idea so um as
somebody who really focuses I was going
to say takes Pride but I know better uh
as somebody who focuses a lot on
usefulness I I want things to be useful
I want to put useful ideas out I want to
take useful ideas in so I know a part of
what we're going to want to touch on
today is very much what the societal
implications are for this and how we can
improve societ Society criminal justice
system I know is an example you use a
lot that'll be a good one to talk about
um before we get to that though what I
have a mantra in business which is don't
try to change Behavior try to leverage
it and I feel and you obviously
acknowledge it you say look it's going
to be a tall order to get people to do
it I'm stepping into the utopian Zone
but um when I hear these ideas I start
thinking okay well how do we make sure
that these become useful how do we get
them to generate momentum so that life
really can be better now you
didn't expressly push push back on my
northst star so I'll assume for now that
we're both on board with um we want
people to thrive and we want to reduce
suffering as much as possible um I I
know that I believe that getting people
to um the point where we give them as
good of a shot as humanly possible to um
bi logically be ready to absorb useful
ideas and to encounter those ideas as
much as possible so I obsess a lot about
education and what that looks like in
fact before we started rolling talking
to you about I'm so grateful to you
you've put so much content out into the
world that just makes it more likely
that people are going to encounter those
ideas okay so anyway going back to the
idea of don't try to fight Behavior try
to leverage it don't try to fight
biology try to leverage it so we've got
like Evolution has selected for things
and one of those things is that and I
think you have said this in the past we
are a hungry species we hunger for so
many things and I think about when
somebody comes to me and is like you
know hey I'm really struggling in my
life the first thing I say is Go serve
somebody else get out of your own head
go do something awesome for somebody
else we are evolutionarily wired for
that because we're a social creature and
so you want to do things that elevate
not only you but other people so I just
I'm not fighting the biology I know you
will get something positive out of that
and then the other one though is
progress make progress in your own life
set a goal and work towards that I I
make video games I assume you know
nothing about my background but we make
video games here and so all day long
we're thinking about reaching into
somebody's brain and squeezing the
dopamine centers to um get them to want
to engage now for now just assume that
I'm not an evil schmuck that's just
trying to get all the money in the world
and that my whole reason for existing is
implanting empowering ideas and
entertainment but nonetheless we have to
think about that and so
when I want to get to the point where
these ideas are not encountering sort of
utopian like whatevers like this is
never going to happen I want to say what
what's real like meritocracy is not
going away because people value things
and they what we may change what they
value fair enough but they're going to
value a thing and they're going to want
to get good at that thing and they're
going to want to be praised for doing
that thing and they're going to want to
feel that they're better for doing that
thing and it's like we've already run
the experiment monks are people that are
like hey I'm not an idiot I recognize I
need to be grateful I need to see a
blossoming flower for what it is and
really see it and understand a rock and
know that there's nothing good or bad
but thinking makes it so just Nobody
Does it so it's like this tiny tiny
fraction so do you think that I'm
misunderstanding what we what will be
easy to get us to do and what will be
hard to get us to do I agree completely
it's very very hard it seems to get
around the problem of motivation and
drive and even dirty words like ambition
and things of that sort in a context of
there being no free will um amid that
though we can show over and over that we
can manage that in some domains because
we have already Managed IT okay so a bit
of social conditioning you meet someone
and you shake their hand and they say oh
you have beautiful eyes and we're all
conditioned to say thanks and most of us
who were sensible say thanks and then a
quarter second later realize how idiotic
that is wow thanks for praising me for
my choice of photo receptor genes
um you know that's a domain where we've
made some progress to that most people
would feel sheepish if the other person
went on for too long most people would
be willing to point out the realities of
agency or lack thereof if someone tried
to introduce a law that people with your
eye color get treated better in society
um most people would see the fallacy of
that so we accomplished that in that
domain um we're able to navigate a world
in which people can appreciate eye
color and where in
general the person complimented for it
does not come out of that feeling
entitled that they earned their eye
color and I don't know enough about the
history of people liking eye colors and
such but I'm sure there was a time in
the past where with a mindset where
basically every attribute that anyone
had that was positive was a sign that
they had a good Soul because Beauty on
the outside and Beauty inside were
exactly the same and intertwined and and
disease is God's way of punishing you
and that whole there was a time in the
past where someone said you have
beautiful eyes would know that they were
being complimented about their Moral
Moral anchor because the two go hand in
hand and then we kind of learned n that
actually has nothing to do with it it's
just like so you can say oh thanks
because you're socialized and you say
that and like if you come out of it
feeling like you have earned that
compliment for your eye color that's
ridiculous yet at times in the past
there's people who would have
interpreted exactly that way we're in a
mindset now that your eye color is not
some sort of index of your as a person
we manage to get there and we can manage
to get there in other domains as well
like there are people somebody with
photographic memory may think it's kind
of cool or find circumstances where it's
advantageous I there being circumstances
where photographic memory is not
advantageous but we are of a
sufficiently informed mechanistic world
at this point
that they don't think they had anything
to do with their photographic memory or
the fact that they happen to have
perfect pitch or something like that and
if people praise them too much for that
they're able to feel a little sheepish I
not I don't know I just read a page and
I remember it what I just glance it and
I remember it I had nothing to do with
it I can just hear a C sharp in my head
anytime I want and it's always like
perfect down to like a couple of Beats
of you know
vibration that's how I turned out we've
been able to get to the point where some
of those ways in which we can be
appreciated for some positive attribute
we can accept the appreciation while
accepting actually we had nothing to do
with it and I'm not sure I would be
comfortable in a world in which only
people with perfect pitch get to have
covid
vaccines we've done that in some Realms
we could do it more but it's not going
to be easy okay so uh let me ask do you
believe people should build their
self-esteem yes and just
because I am of the place and time to if
nothing else see that as instrumentally
a good thing people will work harder if
they have good self-esteem people will
be able to put their shortcomings into
proper perspective and realize that
something bad may be bad but it's not
the entire world and it is not your
destiny things like that are protective
and efficacious and that's often a good
tool to have to make somebody feel
better
self-esteem like great example where
that intersects with all of this um a
domain where we used to
see room for blame and labeling and
insights into lack of motivation all of
that is you know when I was a kid if you
know I had trouble learning to read and
I simply was not getting there and it
would be very easy at that time for me
to be labeled as LA or unmotivated or
whatever and then Along Comes scientist
about 30 years ago and discovers that no
you can have some screwy thing happening
with the layering of neurons and like
layer four of this part of your qu text
and as a result like curved Loop letters
you tend to reverse them when you're
looking at them and you have
dyslexia and that's great we just
figured that out that's great on a very
concrete level um
because people could then learn what to
do what to do for people with dyslexia
so they could learn to read more readily
it gives you sort of more insight into
the outliers but what it also does bring
it back to this is like in the old bad
world where you're screwed up cortical
layering in this part part of your brain
instead is interpreted as laziness and
lack of motivation is your
self-perception and your self-esteem is
built around that for the rest of your
life and one sees all the ways in that
become self-defeating and like these
endless wow it wasn't until I was 40
that I was diagnosed with this learning
difference and all those years that I
felt myself being this yeah self-esteem
is a good thing to build up for efficacy
thereafter self-esteem is not a good
thing if it feels entitlement but it
certainly has its place and we can see
those circumstances where we decide
we're watching agency where there wasn't
and the outcome isn't great and the kid
still isn't learning how to read and
they are being taught what their
self-esteem is going to mumble you know
in their ears for the rest of their
lives now now that's a pretty bad thing
what should people build their
self-esteem
around well
given that none of it makes
sense and we're all machines and it
makes no sense for a machine to feel
good about itself and that's irrational
except when it makes the machine work
better except when one has learned the
contingencies well enough that the right
kind of self-esteem will make someone
Kinder will make them more likely to
feel somebody else's pain will Foster
all sorts of good stuff yeah in those
cases if your self-esteem is built
around you know the world is going to
have been a better place because a whole
bunch of molecules came together
randomly and formed that thing that I
called
me that's a good reason to have
self-esteem now going going back to cuz
here is the confounding variable you
were talking about people understand
that their eyes are just their genetics
and they didn't do anything to deserve
it which obviously I totally agree um
but at the same time Beauty has power uh
I didn't do anything to deserve being
six feet tall but I can reach things
that my wife can't so how I coming at it
from my perspective I wouldn't want
people to build their self-esteem around
something that they didn't earn just
because I don't think it will
return um anything super useful but this
is where I'd want them to start leaning
into the delusion of Free Will and say
but I would want you to for instance
just to use your example to say hey go
out of your way to be more kind and
doing things like that that you're now
putting attention and energy into uh
that I would say build your self-esteem
around that now again this goes back to
Northstar for me everything is adding up
to you want to do things that increase
human flourishing your own and others
decrease human suffering your own and
others um but I would encourage them to
do that do you at that point have such a
a reaction to the illusion of Free Will
and the negative consequences that you
see to that which I the word you've used
the most like if we were to do a word uh
diagram entitlement would just be this
gigantic glowing red orb um
are you so concerned that the illusion
of Free Will creates a sense of
entitlement and probably self-defeating
right because it's going to create
entitlement in people who think they're
awesome and it's going to create a sense
of self-defeating I'm lame I'm not
worthy and people who fall out of step
for whatever reason which could go back
to natal prenatal epigenetic I mean
before they're even born um are you so
afraid of that that you would never want
somebody to lean into the like hey like
I know Free Will doesn't exist but I
operate my daily life like it does maybe
the conclusion is you know some nice
pragmatic pragmatic thing which is like
it's it's impossible to imagine how
we're supposed to function if we really
really reject an ocean of free will all
the time I've thought this way since I
was 14 and I can't imagine it or pull it
off
99% of the time um because it's really
really hard maybe what we should do in
the face of reality of how hard this is
because we are people of our place and
time and things that intuitively seem
just intertwined with our sense of
efficacy and our goodness and our well
you know intentions and all of that
maybe save the effort for when it really
counts maybe save it
for
when you know judgment is really
consequential
when people really are causing damage if
they secretly believe they're a better
person than somebody else for something
had nothing to do with when people are
okay with a society running on myths of
like any kid could grow up to be
president kind of thing yeah put your
effort into the rare ones of those and
like if you want to feel good about
yourself because your eye color you know
go ahead it's not the end of the world
um
you know save it for where it matters
and I think what is amply
clear is in a world in which the
organizing myth is we get what we
deserve and effort somehow is coupled
with outcome um there'll be no shortage
of finding places where it really
matters let me ask you when you think
about the the grips of the biology the
biases that we have the things that we
are in the grips of what are the ones
that make you most concerned obviously
we have entitlement which I think if I'm
understanding you correctly entitlement
is born of thinking that you have
earned height Beauty intelligence
whatever whatever um what are other
traps that we fall into that for
tomorrow to be better than today we need
to get people out of one of the biggest
ones is one of those uphill battles in
terms of like how we're wired up in some
very fundamental way which is in the
right setting a setting of a feeling of
righteousness all of that we like to
punish we like to punish individuals and
translating that into like actual
biology like one of the most reliable
ways of getting dopamine running and
anticipation and all of that is to have
somebody think that they are going to be
able to punish someone for an infraction
and that they are doing something
righteous and you see the same thing
with rats you get a rat that is being
stressed and is secreting stress
hormones and it gets to bite another rat
a complete innocent bystander and the
first rat stress hormone levels go down
it feels better and you see the same
thing in non-human primates you know
displacing aggression displacing
restation and then especially inventing
cultural trappings that tell you this is
actually like good civic duty that one's
really tough because if you're trying to
say it makes no sense whatsoever to have
a world in which there's any blame or
punishment damn but it kind of does feel
good to punish like I know of this guy
who's coming up for what four five
different criminal trials in the next
year and I will be very very pleased if
the outcome is if he's locked up for
years to come and maybe even like feels
lonely in the
process but yeah that really doesn't
make sense um I mean I see this all the
time and in like at a point a few years
ago I I I do a lot of work with public
defenders offices with murders and
trying to teach juries about how screwed
up brains can be and how like they will
will like virtually be guaranteed to
make the wrong choice at various
junctures all of that and there was some
guy who went into a house of worship
with an automatic weapon and mowed down
a whole bunch of people and it was
completely horrifying and a few days
later I'm listening on the radio saying
well the alleged shooter here was a rain
today and it was decided they're subject
to Federal hate crime charges also and
that makes them eligible for the death
penalty and my first thought was yeah
fry the guy just son of a they and
then two seconds later I think what are
you talking about you're working on a
death penalty case right now and seeing
okay maybe what we have to settle for is
after two seconds of saying yeah fry the
son of a to remember no that's
actually it's not by chance this person
turned out this way and I have no idea a
like what their view of the world is and
how much pain and damage got them to
that point blah blah blah all of
that so maybe we should not expect our
first reflex to be saying oh what a poor
guy that circumstances made him a
damaging individual my heart goes out to
him and my task is to love the unloved
or to love the
unlovable
um know be pissed off and want him to be
fried two seconds later and then somehow
in there get into your
algorithm to stop and look back on that
and see if this actually makes any sense
maybe that's what we have to settle for
doing amid you saying what are the
things that I see is really
insurmountable whoa two seconds of
thinking about this guy being like
flayed by you know the whole town square
watching him be decapitated and horses
pull his limbs apart it whatever yeah
okay okay let's St for a second this
doesn't make any sense maybe in the face
of like okay we really like punishing
get people to the point where they can
feel the pleasure in that and then three
seconds later um we have taught the more
meta level of how we think about things
to reflect on does this actually make
any sense it's interesting I think we're
going to have
to Define what makes something make
sense because this what you're saying
makes sense to me in a very stable
Society where we have a way to
quarantine people but again I look at
everything from an evolutionary
perspective now whether the following
stat is accurate or just directionally
correct I heard that roughly 80% of
people in the Navy Seals uh score very
high on the um psychopathy scale if I'm
not mistaken and that's because from an
evolutionary standpoint you need people
that can kill just without remorse
because you live Liv an insanely
dangerous world where there were people
that were coming to kill you they did
not think of you as human you were other
they were going to uh take everything
you own they were going to take your
women they were going to rape them and
they were going to kill you like very
bad things happen on on an evolutionary
time scale it it is just a Litany of
tragedy and horror and you know
obviously right now there are two hot
Wars going on that I'm aware of maybe
more
uh October 7th was a level of horror
that was just startling to behold and so
it's like oh yeah humans really are
capable of just an insane level of
violence and
dehumanization and so when you say it
doesn't make sense it's like it feels
like a maybe in this current time in
this country it doesn't make sense but I
get why from an evolutionary perspective
it was select Ed for how do you think
about
that well one of
the the
great sort of bugaboos about sort of
evolution and sort of the first Decades
of social darwinists saying what is is
what was meant to be and sort of
naturalistic fallacy all of that is this
notion that what evolution rewards is
aggression and domination and passing on
more copies of your gen and a lot of
what both evolutionary biologists who
like sit there and do math modeling and
evolutionary biologists you sit and look
at animals including humans is you know
this concept of alternative strategies
like there's lots of different ways in
which humans succeed and passing on
copies of their genes and baboons and
like one thing I've seen in my of
studying baboons is the guy who was able
to walk away from every stupid
provocation instead of getting into a
fight when you look at his whole
lifespan he will have left more copies
of his jeans than the guy who fights his
way to be Alpha and is there for eight
months be before somebody breaks his arm
in a fight like nice guys yeah it's not
just nature bloody tooth and Claw and
it's not just that nice guys finished
last um one manifest ation of that is
like I am by Nature extremely
pessimistic but I have to admit some
retrospective optimism um looking at
sort of the the Hoban picture you you
painted just now one of the things that
all sorts of nice socialized
Anthropologist will come to blows about
is when did our ancestors invent
Warfare and there's one school of
thought that says we have common dissent
from a shared ancestor of chimps about
six seven million years ago and overwhel
overwhelmingly what it shows is our
entire history is a species has just
been blotched with organized violence
and warfare and such and sort of citing
certain contemporary studies of
indigenous populations and rates of
violence and such and paleontological
records of how often you're finding an
arrow head stuck in somebody's like
skull when you dig them up kind of thing
and then meanwhile the alternative
school is that when you look carefully
there's actually no evidence of
organized Warfare up until we invented
agriculture about 12,000 years ago up
until we became sedentary up until
either because of Agriculture one
notable case where people had the
greatest fishing hole on Earth in North
Kenya about 12,000 years ago and were
willing to be violent to defend it but
as soon as you had people become
sedentary and start farming and start
generating Surplus and being able to
make things and also having Surplus time
you could invent things like a standing
military you could invent things like
hating somebody because they've got more
stuff than you have and I'm quite
convinced by the evidence suggesting
that humans did not invent organized
violence
until like the last 10 12,000 years or
so and you look carefully at say the
anthropological records looking at
contemporary hunter gatherers and how
often they're violent and overwhelmingly
it's built around they are keeping out
people who are trying to come in and
take their land because they want to
like cut down the forest and things like
that Amazonian
circumstances you go through it and I
think the good news
is we haven't been a species reflexively
organizing into massive violence against
each other for all that long of a time
it's a pretty recent
invention that said what the best
evidence suggests is that
individual hominins have been killing
each other at the same rate in every
sort of culture on Earth over individual
conflict kind of thing
everywhere you look when you spend
enough time say studying Kalahari hunter
gatherers in
Botswana and like if you're studying a
band of 30 of these people you're G to
have to watch them for like 55 years
running to get enough observations to
tell you what their their violence rate
is like compared to downtown in Detroit
over the course of a year but when you
get enough of those data there's
basically the same ratees of some guy
killing some other guy over reproductive
access of some guy killing some woman
over a perceived rejection of overtures
of some guy killing some other guy over
an honor
violation yeah that we've been doing
forever and that proves to be a very
tough one no degree of punishment in the
form of a death penalty does much for
Crimes of Passion whether you were
talking about like an ancestor two
million years years ago or people in
most cultures on Earth including all
those nice swell heartwarming cter
gatherers you come home and you find
your loved one in bed with somebody else
and your impulsive Crime of Passion
there is going to be pretty unchangeable
by external contingencies of
punishment so that aspect of us I think
is really really longlasting the notion
of a whole bunch of homonyms coming
together and working in a Cooperative
way with the willingness to have a
hierarchy of command to go and try to do
damage to somebody else's equivalent
group that's not all that baked into our
our Legacy I don't
think that's the first time I've heard
that that is very interesting now
knowing your own work on chimps chimps
will band together and do Patrol parties
and raid other chimp groups and kill
them off um
given that are that sounds more to me
like organized military it's not exactly
a standing army but it rhymes with it um
so given that we are on that same
evolutionary
tree why do you think that it we don't
have that in our just Eternal
past well for a very simple reason first
off I wish I had had the luck to spend
decades with chimps but I SP them with
baboons who are baboons sorry they're
not they don't make tools like that
they're not as smart but they're plenty
interesting when it comes to primates
being awful to each other in interesting
ways
um well exactly what you bring up was
the driving force and Notions of like
our demonically violent past because our
closest relative historically is chimps
six seven years million years ago we
share 98% of our DNA or so and yeah they
have organized violence they kill each
other they kill each other in ways where
the males in one group will
systematically kill all the males in
another group and take over their
territory and expand that and whoa look
this we've got this Legacy of six
million years back and all of that and
there's one word that shows how this is
not really the case bonobo
bonobo
chimps pygmy chimps they used to be
called bonobos have a completely
different social system they are female
dominated they have virtually no
aggression nothing like that has ever
been seen in a bonobo they solve every
source of social tension with sex and
sex of every stripe you could imagine
they're totally groovy all of that and
you look and oh we share 98% of our DNA
with bonobos as well they are as close
of cousins as chimps are and even
separate of the fact that we're not
chimps we're not bonobos we solved our
own
evolutionary selective challenges in a
you unique way all of that you know
we're as closely related to the most
groovy pacifists out there in the
primate world as we are to murderous
demonic chimps so that does in that one
and some of the most influential writing
about our supposed inevitability of
violence because of our shared chimp
ancestry predated our knowledge about
bonobo social behavior and bonobo
genetics and what the genome looks like
okay very interesting um it doesn't seem
self-evident to me that if we're related
to both of them equally and we are in
today's age certainly capable of extreme
violence look I I may be optimistic
where you're pessimistic I think the
vast majority of humans just want to get
on with their day and they're loving and
kind uh but we do have these weird
evolutionary quirks that make other
people the outgroup US the ingroup we
have Envy uh so there are things that
will then trigger that murderous rage we
are
also uh i' be very interested to see if
there are studies on this but as an
entrepreneur I will tell you that people
crave certainty and that when you give
them certainty you can get them to
follow you and people are so very
malleable and if you give them Something
to Believe In and then say hey but we
have to go kill these other people uh
they'll they'll be here for it if things
are bad enough and you need look no
further than the um rise of the Third
Reich and anybody unfamiliar with that
history is is it's just absolutely
astonishing and I am a big believer uh
in what Soulja nson said which is the
line through good and evil runs through
every human heart so when I look at
those stor St I go oh God I have all
those same uh the same ability to be
manipulated to come to just hor
horrifyingly erroneous conclusions so
anyway bringing it back to the monkeys
given how far off the violent or far off
the beaten path to violence that we have
proven that we are capable of going when
I look at bonobos who uh have every
groovy flavor of sex as you were saying
and I look at at least in contemporary
Society uh even now like there there is
a shame there is a sense of that needs
to be in private so I don't feel a ton
of kinship there um and