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Beat Your Genes Podcast & More

Living Wisdom Library Q&A
2022-05-06
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there we go hey where are you I am a little town in Connecticut oh my God you're here on the on the crazy Coast you got it yeah oh how's everything going up there all good we just uh we had uh our our little friend Melissa just got herself uh through graduation freaking amazing they said it couldn't be done instead it could be done but it is it's done I Gotta Give It To You ivy league people they do graduations you know nice and Regal they they extra doses of the pump and the circumstances yeah that was very good yeah well that's good that they're doing like in person was it sort of normal-ish compared to I mean you were at Harvard's you know three years ago so right like yeah everybody it's in an indoor-like Cathedral Place yeah oh okay kind of like when you're it was kind of like your ceremony your graduate the the the actual departmental ceremony yeah yeah oh interesting okay the big the big the big yard right big yard so yeah but it was good and uh you know nice organ music and you know looks like it looks like you're in Italy you know that yeah yeah oh I'm so happy for her is she is she like off to the woods with her kayak now like since it's party time absolutely well let's see what we've got here we don't have just a reminder to people that we mostly take our questions from um not the chat so much as the the little q a tool so there's um you can ask questions in the Q a and you can also upvote them um and we will more or less go in the order that they are uploaded um and then you know just kind of depends where we go so um so that's there for people looks like a couple are coming in uh oh this is interesting is hypnosis a valid adaptation I've never heard it framed quite quite with the the implicit assumptions there that is a really God that's that that's the value of us having these kinds of uh totally having thousands of people that are kind of up to speed uh you know on how it is that we think about things now um I'm not I'm not actually I can't tell you that I understand what hypnosis is and the um so that it uh I I it may be more than one thing it is is kind of uh where does that we stand on this thing so uh it's clearly to whatever extent that there's something odd happening it must be activating it's not likely to be something that uh what was an adaptation itself in other words it's a hypnosis is a way to activate some adaptation that's already there for some of the reason so the um so I think that in the same way that um but that I've talked a few times about uh oh I I don't know if I told you this you may know this uh have you heard me talk about my ability to control pain basically you discovered meditation right yeah but not I mean I discovered but actually it turns out Jen there's a name for that reaction oh yeah somebody's one of our people wrote to me and said oh no there's a name for this oh interesting it's a known uh it's a known physiological reaction that has the tingling in the back of your neck and the forehead oh yeah like it's actually a known Reef it's like a reflex and that reflex so it um undoubtedly I mean I think we know that it involves quite an endorphin storm yeah so now why it is that that um I think that the reason why that's doable uh is be probably because of some kind of submissiveness and and a a uh cohesion to you know submitting to Alpha whatever receptivity yeah exactly because then we know there are personalities that are you know immune to hypnosis and yeah be immune to these other things as well they're just too too disagreeable too yeah yeah we're not gonna hypnotize Allen there's no way okay yeah so the uh but I think that probably hypnosis has to do something with that the way to activate that mechanism that activated under under certain conditions of um where you're going to be vulnerable but you had to trust somebody and you trusted them because they're in higher authority you know all of that is part parcel of this reflex so whatever else hypnosis does uh I have no idea because it's probably not all the same thing yeah it's probably half a dozen different little adaptive mechanisms that people are calling hypnosis so uh anyway great question and we'll have to leave it open and probably somebody in our Somebody Sometime will listen to this and say oh I know something you know I learned something yeah yeah it's really interesting because you know what we would call hypnosis is on occur or it's on a Continuum right because there's there's all kinds of you you can behave in unconscious ways that are under someone's control if they prime a survey question you know like you're you've been mind controlled you've you've been you've been LED in the direction they want you to go and you're not aware of it and so like where do we kind of draw those sharp demarcations that this is you were acting under the spell of proper hypnosis versus I just tapped into some latent vulnerabilities and and I know a little bit more about how that works than you do which you know there's all kinds of that stuff going on with advertising with you know obviously survey design and all kinds of things so it's it's really interesting to think about really good great all right uh other question in the queue here can hypertension exacerbate neuroticism um I've noticed that people with hypertension tend to become even more neurotic the problem is their neuroticism becomes a heart rate trigger and the body has no capacity to deal with it leading to an emotional and physical Snowball Effect um on an already high-end person well first of all I think I think what your thinking hypertension is is not what hypertension is you're um so there might be other things that that could do what you're talking about so if you if a person has for example an atrial flutter uh they've got some kind of dysregulation in the in the uh you know the electrocardio function then things like that can then cause there to be more anxiety okay yeah hypertension per se doesn't do that so hypertension is in fact asymptomatic uh you people don't have any idea that they're hypertensive there is no correlate uh that you can feel that's why it's called the silent killer I think people who have like short-term hypertension you know who who have eaten a lot of salty food and and sort of can can have um next day shortness of breath there there can be a little bit of that but it's it's you're going to be so habituated if you have chronic hypertension that you're not going to notice that difference but I've had a lot of people report to me that oh if I go off plan and I eat a lot of salty food I've got like you know I feel it the next day and have trouble um managing my my breath essentially and that could be a definite anxiety trigger so in that specific circumstance yeah yeah but that that's hypertension but again the hypertension just happens to be a concomitant of the person's uh compromised cardiovascular situation exactly right sure so that but anyway the long and short of it is I think the deeper question that the person is asking is can can physiological problems exacerbate psychological uh problems yes they could uh particularly along these lines where there's there's some Avenue into the constellation of reactions that take place under high adrenaline so if you increase heart rate you know shortness of breath these are all part of the adaptation involved in in an adrenaline rush to save your life under under threat and so if you have something else that's causing that uh causing one of those reactions what the what the brain does is it's actually monitoring several systems at once uh because because well God knows we can act like there's this ingenious designer the watchmakers I'm a watchmaker uh I actually made it so that you can be vaguely aware of something that is actually causing your adrenaline to rise and not know what it is and not have not have recognized it in any way consciously but what can happen though is that then your heart rate starts to increase now that your your your mind can actually observe and then then it basically goes to the process of oh [ __ ] our heart rate is up what the heck is going on we're in trouble now the way we know this in other words the way this was teased out by can it be that if you uh uh if you suddenly you've got some hard irregularity will that cause you to be anxious uh that that's been teased out with studies where they have uh slipped people epinephrine I.E adrenaline without them knowing it and so when that happens people don't say hey I'm a little amped up what they say is I'm really nervous they must be under threat and they're kind of upset about it and then they're worried which is a really interesting thing for the mind to do rather than just simply say huh for some strange reason my heart's pounding more and my Palms are sweating a little bit they don't do that it's an integrated thing so this the circuits that that give rise to the whole reaction are essentially there's bi-directional causality uh is really what the person is asking with the basic question can there be bi-directional causality and the answer is yes well this is the whole idea I mean I think of two things with this question the first is um the efficacy of beta blockers um and so when you know I use a beta blocker when I'm flying because I'm scared of flying um and the lack of physical symptoms I mean that's really all it's doing is sort of suppressing the slowing your heart rate a little bit you're not getting the sweaty Palms you're not getting the adrenaline response and so so then I don't you know attach to the adrenaline adrenaline response and get more worried essentially is what happens if I'm if there's turbulence and I start to feel myself getting scared it makes me more scared um and then the other thing it it Harkens back to is the the difficulty of getting sober in early days where you know you've been told um withdrawal if you can be deadly which it can be and and it's more rare than people think it is but it can be um and so you start to feel some scary withdrawal symptoms you start to have some Tremors you start to have some hallucinations um and you start to convince yourself you feel your your heart racing you're like oh my God I'm gonna have a seizure you know I'm and that just makes you more you get more uh anxious and eventually that leads many people to try to self-medicate by drinking um and like I'll do I'll deal with this tomorrow rather than go through it today so there's definitely feedback loops between physical cues and and emotional states yeah yeah good all right all right what else do we have here here okay Maureen is pointing out a scale of how hypnotizable someone is that Harvard and Stanford have scored so she has a link to that here that's that's cool um is that's going to correlate with openness and agreeable yeah totally yeah yeah those are those are going to be the main things which is why we know where Alan is we can we can plant him with great accuracy David Copperfield or whoever else like it's our best party trick I used to do this with astrology but this is this is way more accurate all right uh why am I so diligent with my eating habits when I'm single a few months a few years ago I was single training three times a week doing marathons and eating very strict Whole Food plant-based met my boyfriend four years ago who's vegan as well and have slowly started adding vegan processed foods I'm 5'3 my boyfriend's 6'4 most days I keep Pace with him um I want to get back on track but don't know how there's always Temptation um and she adds that she's gained almost 15 kilograms during the pandemic still a normal BMI so this was a very fit person um wants to be as fit as before and start eating clean again I mean this is just this is a classic question this is the the case of the changing cost benefit analysis yeah yeah just took the words right out of my mouth so just to reiterate how it is that that Jen and I think and that is that all Behavior of all animals at all times is nothing other than the muscular reactions that are due to motor neurons that have been uh that have been essentially dictated to by other circuits in the brain that are running cost benefit analysis uh on on the value of all your behavioral options and so you are constantly you know if you're a super simple animal if you're a spider you're probably running extremely simple alternative courses of action uh undoubtedly you are running some in other words there'd be no reason for a brain at all if there wasn't some cost benefit analysis to run so you're making choices which means that you were ruling out something in favor of something else that is uh the and and it's the brain is doing that on the basis of information processing so um the the behavior is not random them uh it's it's no I always have like little people keep up in my mind you know what I mean whenever I say anything it's like yes but Jeffrey Miller will say Jeffrey Miller will say well actually there's moments when the best solution for a problem is to generate completely unpredictable random Behavior Uh I.E protein Behavior so but that's a different argument and a different question so but the issue is there's a reason why you're doing what you're doing and the reason why you're doing what you're doing is your mind has selected that option uh to indulge rather than to be you know tight and clean it it selects those options on you know and it's done so recurrently many times in the last couple three years the um it's simply running the cost benefit analysis uh on Gene survival Gene survival estimates and so you're it's it's a very notice how unimportant it is to say well okay well I'm 25 pounds overweight how valuable is it for me to lose a quarter of a pound answer it's really not so that's about what you're going to lose in the next two or three days if you if you really tighten the ship you might lose it you can really tighten the ship yeah you really tighten the ship you do a great job you'll lose a quarter of a pound so as a result um you know you're there's just not there's not a lot of short-term incentive and so what's happening is that the the brain is continually uh it's not plotting an integrated set of Behavior Uh particularly over the long term against the genetic codes dictates remember eating rich food is uh according to the genetic code that is the smartest thing that you could possibly do for both your survival and your reproductive success in every case every time always no exceptions yeah there's no exceptions so there's the the every woman in the natural history of this species um the songs the last couple of generations the uh it was always made you sexier to eat the richest food that you could get your hands on okay so the problem was never being overweight and looking like you might be pregnant the problem was always being underweight and making and having it look like and be that you weren't quite fertile yeah so so there's no comparison in the choices there so the only uh the only thing that can happen is that people can learn the causes of excess weight they can learn that the causes of the excess weight are are the result of obeying your instincts and doing what your instincts are telling you is the sexiest healthiest smartest thing that you could possibly do and to actually go against that well we can kind of predict how easy that's going to go and so we're going to expect that that's going to be a very tenuous cost benefit analysis there will be rarely executed consistently now when is a rep executed consistently well probably if someone is either under incredibly intense social pressure from Alan goldhammer and they've lived with that [Laughter] or or they are we don't recommend by the way we also recommend that we don't we both you've literally lived with them I've basically lived with them I don't recommend it hahaha yeah you're just being 15 to white feet away in the office there where you worked with yeah and close it up and he would drop by the I lived on campus they'd drop by any time and God forbid you've got coffee in the coffee maker you're under the Sword of Damocles he's got the keys to every building [Laughter] oh my God that's funny I love that yeah all right so the point is is that you're running the cost benefit analysis the cost benefit analysis routinely comes up that the right thing to do is eat the rich food and so you're you might thinking that you can somehow reason uh uh the pleasure trap and then go against your instincts you have to understand how how deadly that would be if the instincts were designed that way right if they were that flimsy yeah they couldn't be that Quincy in other words somebody back you know six thousand years ago could suddenly get the idea some open person that the good idea was to eat dog [ __ ] okay it's like actually that's a really bad idea so and then hypnotize everybody into eating dogs okay instincts gotta kick in at some point in Kool-Aid people yeah if they don't have it like taste what it would actually tastes like so the uh yeah so the bottom line is is that that all that's going on now she's gained 30 pounds and she's a small person so that is no small problem so that's a you know that that individual is definitely that didn't happen by accident either that's a lot of calories so excited shift in in her calorie density and probably it's because of the guy and the guy is six foot four and probably slender and it can eat anything he wants Sarah just says she's eating like you bite for bite with them you know that and that happens in a lot of relationships you make dinner together you have the same size meal you're just eating the same food and it's yes that was Gourmet corn chips he's slurping up guacamole and everything's great and he's he's fine no I don't know any men that can eat guacamole with no problem in front of women who are trying to lose weight and not feel bad about it foreign [Laughter] all right so any in any event that there's how do you get back on track you know with great difficulty that that's how you do it yeah that's how that's gonna work really not much more to say about that okay all right all right this is this is a completely different question do you think cryptocurrency will be the dominant currency sometime in the future very I know one of your favorite topics um you know I I I have not I don't know enough about any of us to to um comment very intelligently I my guess is that the answer is no and that is because let's let's just follow some really basic logic and um and and it's essentially that that a major uh there's a there's only a few ways to get resources um you can you can create them out of your own effort you can take them from other people by force you can defraud them by tricking them um I don't know what else and you could trade honestly with them okay yeah so there's really only at least popular option right exactly exactly so the uh the governments what governments do typically is that they engage in fraud and force the um they also engage in in effectively to to greater or lesser extent they will also engage in trade in other words they're they're there's Cooperative possibly democratic system where where people vote themselves some taxes and when in those taxes they're they're exchanging their their uh their labor for government services reasonable okay but that's usually not enough for the people that are operating the government there's it's there's too tempting to try to steal more resources from the populace and so they'll do so by the use of currencies uh where they will inflate currencies if they inflate currencies they are they and their minions are the direct uh first recipients of of money that has been that is devaluing the existing currency so that's that's incredibly an unbelievably valuable tool um which is why it is that cars and houses cost 10 times what they use that's uh there's no reason for that there's no reason why those prices couldn't have been stable or even declining but the fact that they have gone up 10x since I was a kid uh basically tells you that the government has has assaulted people that save money and and essentially uh essentially taken money from uh from unsuspecting people that don't know what's going on that's the government okay so my mother every year with her little social security check which when she earned that social security check uh and retired at 65 that you know 1150 a month is actually quite a lot of money okay so that that was that that was quite a bit Yeah in 1995 1200 a month was you know I think my my apartment you know I had a nice apartment for like 800 okay so a nice apartment and an expensive area of of the country uh that was about what that cost was I actually had a really nice home rented in a very nice area of Dallas for about twelve hundred dollars so in other words my mom's social security check could have rented that very nice home in Dallas there's no way in hell I got home now is probably three thousand to rent it so what has happened to my mom's social security check that she has over the last 25 years they have confiscated 60 to 70 percent of its value okay so how did they do that they inflated the currently very gently so that nobody really knows what's going on I mean some people do they do uh but this is a way to this is the way that governments uh confiscate money there's been famous inflations all over the world many times recently I think in Turkey they debased the currency and everybody lost all their money so I think we had a oh this is a yeah this comes for everybody eventually yeah yeah so the uh so the point of all this is that the crypto people will say Hey listen this we've got a way around this [Music] um interesting uh and and you know we're gonna do this because the the governments are not trustworthy well there's a reason why the governments get away with it they they not only get away with uh pretending they're going to do a bunch of stuff for you to get your tax money and then don't do it that's called fraud they also trade and they'll they actually do something that's worthwhile and then they also borrow a bunch of money and debase the currency and so they steal uh through a very slick mechanism that's not going away people they are the the the control they have over commerce is extraordinary they have the guns at the bot at the at the end of the day they are in charge and if you don't do what they say they can they can men with guns will come to your house and take you away and then they'll sell your house and they'll take the proceeds and they'll put it in the government coffers in other words they're in charge so the crypto folks who you know I think I love seven eight about seven out of eight people who's enthusiastic about crypto in other words these are freewheeling free enterprise libertarian-esque in other words I enjoy talking to them do I think yeah they're very open imaginative smart you know what I mean yeah probably paranoid of governments like all the things that I like however yeah do I think the cryptocurrencies are going to take over World Commerce no I don't because the governments ultimately have control they have control the infrastructures that are involved they have control of um it's uh you know they they could just say hey we're it's pretty simple to shut down cryptocurrency it's a beautiful idea that you couldn't but it seems to me that it would be very simple to do so so you simply make uh you make it that that anybody that ever trades in crypto you turn in your turn in your friend that has some crypto and you get a big government bonus well you know this is like yeah you know don't don't think that people will turn in their mother to the IRS sure of course yeah so yeah I think that that ultimately a a basically a Subterranean unmarkable and freewheeling system that defeats governments I think is not very uh likely so I don't think I I think they're interesting and I don't know what their future is uh I think they're super interesting I think they've leveled the threat at governments and so governments are responding and governments are going to be extremely Savvy and they have tremendous resources to direct at any problem that cryptocurrency could come up with it would result in governments uh currencies and therefore their their uh their monetary dominance and Military dominance I think that I don't think you're going to get around that problem with cryptocurrency that's what I think so I I'm hopeful I remember Barry Gibb when when he was they were releasing the album for Staying Alive you know this the follow-up movie yeah Saturday Night Fever uh they said well you know do you think there'll be an uh are you hoping for another phenomenon he goes because now we're not hoping for another phenomenon but we're praying for one uh that's the correct attitude uh situation and that's how I feel about cryptocurrency I'm not home from the cryptocurrency it's going to have a significant impact on World Commerce but I'm praying that it will so we'll see oh interesting yeah I mean I have I have a sort of me jerk paranoid you know dark view of human nature and government sort of reaction to the whole discussion where I think I mean there's lots to tease out here and it's a really interesting puzzle um but my feeling is that we will see the ascent of pseudo crypto this this kind of um the digital currency that is that is going that is that is coming that we have established is you know it's on its way will come in in the Trojan Horse of crypto um I mean I see these ads on Instagram with LeBron you know Pimpin crypto.com yeah I mean this sort of like instruments of the regime telling me to use crypto which makes me very suspicious of like official crypto um and and so the co-optation and the and the you know the sort of alignment with digital currency that is actually just a instrument to surveil you and and gather more analytics about you and control and manipulate your psychology and your and your behavior um that that will look like crypto um and whether that's Bitcoin itself or it's something it's some something I my suspicion even extends to bitcoin itself I'm not I'm not entirely sold that Bitcoin is the independent Venture that we'd like to think it is I have not ruled out but it is Cia manufactured um it's not impossible no it's really not impossible right yeah I think I think uh Elon Musk of course is in in the news for good reason um tweeted out at some point the the name of the purported inventor of Bitcoin was was the first letters of like the top five Japanese companies at the time um so it was it was an interesting little you know like if you if you were going to put to put a name together you put it together you know with social Sheba and with Samsung and with whatever else it was so it was a very interesting little observation that of course Elon musk's mind would wrap itself around um and there's plenty of other there's plenty of other conspiracy conspiratorial observations on this topic if people care to look for them but the the whole thing just I think to the point that you you want to engage in crypto in a legitimate way you're still you're reporting I mean when I filed my taxes this year it asked me did you trade any crypto you know and and they know if you're if you're trading on real exchanges you're using your social security number you're you're using your real identity um it's only if you're really in the sketchy corners of the of the dark web um where your transactions are very vulnerable um and and can be intercepted at any point um and you lose your whole wallet and everything else so I just yeah I I don't think crypto as we'd like to think of it is the future but I do think um pseudo crypto is definitely the future and a lot of people are going to be tricked by it yes and right in the and you can see that pseudo crypto is going to pave the way for people finding out that they're in a cashless economy right right now the government has 100 surveillance uh overall economic activity which is what what I consider to be one of the biggest dangers that we face in the next decade so oh well like I said well not hoping but praying you're optimism thank God one of us has some optimism [Laughter] even if it's just in the you're still in the game yeah yeah oh man all right what else we got okay are are either of us watching the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard trial not not vigilantly I do I have picked up Little Bits here and there um are you aware of any of it Doug I'm just aware that there is trial but I have no idea what it's about yeah yeah it's it's been interesting because the the whole they're actually if you haven't watched it I'll send you the clip of um he his team had a psychologist come to the stand and it was it was one of the most remarkable things I've seen in modern Court TV ever because this this woman who is you know looks like Kim Basinger in Batman she's got like the tussled bun and the the studious glasses but she's very well spoken and she she gets into this conversation where the the um Amber's attorney is pushing her and saying well isn't it true that that most people with borderline personality disorder have childhood trauma and she says no that's not true um we know that some people who are diagnosed with BPD have childhood trauma we also know that some do not and we we know that it has a genetic component I'm like what am I watching what corner of the simulation did we just steer ourselves into it was really amazing to see on on a mainstream discussion of the topic so yeah so it's been fascinating because of the the the pivot around her alleged uh you know mental health diagnoses um and and how that plays into the dynamic between the two of them and whether she does or does not have borderline and what does that mean and we need to be careful not to stigmatize it even though she's potentially the actual abuser here who's been defaming him it's it is it is quite fascinating stuff that um I haven't been watching it enough to say anything who's suing who for what they're both suing each other is my understanding he started a defamation suit because of an op-ed that she wrote um implicitly accusing him not by name but but you know the Assumption was that it was him she wrote an op-ed I think in the Washington post about um kind of in at the height of the metoo movement about what she had been through um and he contends that that got him fired from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and you know was it was a huge detriment to his potential income yeah um and then she is doing back I I'm not sure what her grounds are that that's that's not true or that his defamation suit defames her who knows what it is I'm a little confused about the details but um yeah they're going after each other so and his whole team has gone first and so he's sort of I think the consensus is more sympathetic around him right now because she hasn't fully presented her version of events um but that's going on now so it's it's definitely uh interesting stuff yes very good all right all right had a few people ask me about that excuse me um Joanna pseudo crypto is just uh pseudo as in false you know the the pseudo as a term for saying it's it's not real it's it's it's tricking you it's like like pseudo esteem we'll talk about sometimes so okay uh you've mentioned to be more aware of dairy and Smoked Meats for children I am up to speed and subscribe to the whole food plant-based world but I just wanted to get your direction on where I can learn more about the ideal diet for infants children I'm assuming they need a slightly higher caloric density diet given their growing bodies um another angle to add is their greater propensity for allergies who's the best source of info on this many thanks on kids specifically I'm not sure I I don't know that there really is a concern about kid-specific diets so it's it's you know in the Stone Age the kids weren't eating any different food as soon as they could chew real food and eat it they're not eating any different food than the adults so it's McDougall diet and call it good don't worry about it all right that answers that all right this is an interesting question I have been in this situation even as uh not a full-blown introvert but someone with introverted Tendencies how can they how can an introvert avoid gossip and constant office talk without giving an impression of being standoffish or unfriendly read that to me again I'm a little confused by that question how can an introvert avoid the gossip in an office place without giving off the impression of being standoffish foreign that in other words in other words they're going to avoid it because they're introverted they're going to be shown away from people that if they do that then it looks like they're standoffish which in other words it could be like they're rejecting they're rejecting a social process as opposed to avoiding it a little bit different right and I think this is only an issue for if you've got some agreeableness along with your introversion um because the the fact that it didn't immediately register with your nervous system like I've been in this situation because you you feel the pressure the agreeableness feels that social pressure where it's like oh they're going to think that I don't want to you know they're judging me for not wanting to engage in this you know sort of fundamental social process yeah uh about it because I I'm you know I I I I'm so disinterested and uh I mean I I'm so used to sending people signals that I'm not interested in listening to or joining their little group right uh that I I think yeah and I I'm aware that I'm doing this in other words yeah and I'm I'm not meaning to be unfriendly but I'm just making sure I'm it's it's you know social repellent if anybody's ever watched Dr Lyle at the true north give a lecture and and count the seconds for how long it takes him to get out of the room very fast yeah that has his idea yeah he's like gotta get to lunch people yeah [Laughter] sorry yeah so it's definitely this is this is an agreeable definitely a female especially in a in a sort of um iterated workplace where you're building the relationships and it's it's you you are there is a feeling if you're not I mean I I remember having the intuition when I was very young and one of my first real jobs that even though I wasn't a smoker it was important for me to go out with my boss who was a smoker um and take her smoke breaks with her because the other employees did and if I didn't you know get in on that whole that was where that's where things got done it's like Lyndon Johnson at the urinal you know I was going to be cut out of important decisions if I if I didn't put myself in that situation and and happily inhale the secondhand smoke um and so I think a lot of it is you know just kind of sucking it up and playing along to as much as possible um where you don't you're not completely opting out of those necessary office Place Dynamics which are just part of working in an office because if you are so introverted that you're not participating participating at all um then you really are uh you you can't I I think you can't really hedge against those assumptions that are being made about you and your intentions I would also say uh the actually it's it's an interesting question because I have little tactics that I've used across my lifespan that I I I'm barely conscious in other words I am very conscious of them because they're good consciously recognized strategies that I don't think about it very much when I think about this because it's such a rare thing for me to even give any consideration to if I'm in a situation like that then what I'm going to do is I'm going to be intermittently Pleasant yeah right right and in fact I'll even go a little further than that I'll be intermittently complementary sure even though I may reject you basically I may blow you and your people off like six times in a row the seventh time I'm gonna come in there and say wow that's really cool okay and then I'm out okay that way I know I'm not being completely out grouped sure yeah I'm saying so I'm dangling the little carrot in that gee you know I don't I I'm basically I I put off the aura that I'm unaware that there's an in-group out group process happening oh right you're just you're just you're just socially gonna do it yeah I know that's powerful well the other thing this goes hand in hand with the other really powerful strategy which is to say nice things behind it people's backs oh yeah so so you when you're at the water cooler and you're forced to have some conversation with somebody you you drop a little piece of Gossip that is very complimentary about somebody else in the office because it will get back to that person and then it's like oh well they said that about me like that that's nice you know like that person and so you just see that systematically for everybody in the office you call those Easter eggs yeah no you're not engaging in the negative gossip that you're just you're this sort of weird socially clueless but really positive person that nobody can say anything bad about that is exactly the right place to be yeah yeah so if those things are possible but I I know it's it's tough you know being a true like having having strong introvert Tendencies it's also challenging because usually introverts um you know you're gonna have favorites there are going to be one or two people in that office that you do like who kind of vibe with you who you're going to be happy to go escape from everybody else and go have lunch with and that contributes to the in-group out group thing so you have to kind of guard against that um and uh and you know just maintain should I try to be apply these techniques as consistently as possible across the board yeah it's actually a good technique though that I just came up with the name for it's called blur the lines oh yeah yeah it was just by smearing your little bits of flattery around across all lines nobody knows where the hell you are it's really good good General strategy yeah you can't go wrong with being positive right that's that's uh and so that's what I would tell our introvert just you know from time to time just say something positive write to the person or uh to about them to one of their good friends that's all keep it right there minimal it's little bits tiny little bits of energy I just uh been reminded that there is on the childhood nutrition question there is the um there's the original becoming vegan by Brenda Davis and uh vasanto Molina um and then they have a follow-up to that called nourish the definitive plant-based nutrition guide for families um so that's if you're really interested in specifics a good resource for you um fair enough or you can just you know or you could eat them sweet potatoes if you eat a McDougall diet yeah I I grew up on sweet potatoes and and you know I don't know blueberry baby food whatever whatever it was whatever it was on sale probably yeah yeah all right okay we got a couple of other questions scared introvert conversation is always a challenge with anyone outside of my closest Circle I'm often quiet even with family however having the ability to build rapport seems to have an advantage in business that I would like to leverage uh is there a skill that can be built here and where might I turn for this I'm thinking a Victorian ladies being trained in conversation I can only talk about the weather so much so yeah we kind of answered this with the last question related but um I yeah I would say yeah I had you know you know I specifically instructed um more than one client about how to how they could get through dates uh by by literally having several questions memorized as well as um not just questions but knowing that the person on the other side would essentially Echo a question so whatever it is that you ask them about they're going to ask you about and so then you set it up for an Easter egg to be found where you've got a little one minute story so we would actually write little one minute stories uh so that when the question would come back at us we would then have some self-effacing pleasant little uh story to tell not a long story a short story we actually it's got a beginning a middle and an end and it takes about a minute so by doing that I've been able to make people much more effective okay so uh and so the same thing in general conversation there's going to be questions for you to be looking for um what's what's interesting about this question is that extroverts don't have any problem with this at all they don't even know what the hell we're talking about no if you're if you're an extrovert if you're a true 80th to 99 percentile extrovert this description of what an introvert goes through makes no sense to you whatsoever you're like what do you mean you're just basically a social ID without any in addition at all I mean I I've watched this you know sitting behind people on a plane the two people that have never met and it's a couple of extroverts bumped into each other and you know 2016 and 26d and it's like good God people oh man how much verbage can we have about nothing I I've actually been been sanctioned by flight attendants for that before particularly like during my drinking days when I was much more extroverted and I meet some like-minded crazy person on a flight I'm still Facebook friends with some of those people yeah um because it's like oh my God you know we could just talk talk and you know you eventually get hushed yeah you people so anyway I know yeah so the introverts you need to talk to me because God knows I'm like I'm sitting in that chair like don't ask me anything well I am now now that's that's where I live now but not in my 20s not with a beer in my hand that's right so yeah so this is all about uh how are you gonna survive you're going to survive with some questions that you you're you know you can always go to so I can give you an example of um it occurred to me there's some high principles that are that are useful and one of them is that people on the other side of these things whether they whether they have any recognition of it all which they vaguely do that they're seeking status okay so the so if we can be figuring out some way to give them status that's like a really rich golden ore out of a gold mine and so because then they could just take off on that so I can remember um sometime you know 15 years ago getting cornered at one one dinner that I had to be at with a vegan group that I thought here I am now I'm stuck like there's no way out in fact I'm going to have this happen to me on on Tuesday night I'm gonna get cornered in this very same situation it's coming okay yeah so the good news is that these people don't know me at all um so as a result of that is going to be much easier than when people know about me and then they want to Horn in and talk okay not that I'm some fancy thing but you know if uh if if John mcdougall's Not There Michael greger's not there and you know Anthony Lynn's not there and Alan goldhamer's not there well then I'm the most interesting thing that there is at their table so what the hell so uh anyway so what do you what did I do I started realizing okay if they have kids you're safe because they will talk talk ask them about their children yeah they're really good to go oh well then what does he do then oh how long has you been doing that oh does he have fun doing that well you must be so proud so anyway this is this may sound Machiavellian particularly if you're an extrovert you're like why would you even be so devious and be thinking the answer is it's painful for us we think our adaptive and conscious thinks that you people are infecting us with something trying to get away from you totally totally so anyway that so we it doesn't come naturally to me Small Talk does not come naturally to me the only thing that comes natural to me is the high principle conversation that kind of struggling actually to me so you and I could talk all day long and we are never bored and that was from the jump right yeah so that and is so the people that listen to us you know probably many of them are introverted studious they've read things you know I'm saying and they probably recognize exactly what I'm talking about a distinct feeling of significant discomfort you know among among strangers okay so this is you know what am I going to say I just had this happen at this little graduation lunch there's seven people that I only know one of them I know The Graduate the other five I'm like oh nice to meet you nice to meet you and I'm feeling alive I'd rather be in a dentist office getting my moles pulled I mean I think the thing to for introverts to understand is that what extroverts are doing the reason extroverts have such an easy time it's weird because I've lived in both worlds so what's happening in an extrovert on extrovert Dynamic is that they're competing for air time um so they're they're talking like they're not even listening to the other person's story they're drafting their own while they're list like the other person's going on they're gearing up for their own performance and then it gets lobbed back and forth and it's the competitive air time thing and so you're if you're an introvert and you're in a social situation the other introverts aren't a problem they're not coming up and harassing you only extroverts are so all you have to do is get them to talk about themselves um and that's what they want to do anyway and so you just sit there and ask questions and nod and smile and you you have to do nothing else because they will just think you were the best the number of times I've been told you're such a good listener or you're the you're a great conversationalist because I've said nothing if you've got a customer you just you 'd lob them softball after softball and you know you don't even have to explicitly say wow that's amazing and give them status in an explicit way you just give them airtime airtime is status because they they will infer that you were just so fascinated by them because you want to hear more and more and more about them um and so they'll think like you're just the greatest thing in the world and so it's it's painful but it's a strategy that you can survive um that's massage the misery mathematize the misery 18 minutes then that's something I have to go do set a timer on your phone for you know if you know if you're at a reception for that that starts at seven o'clock set a timer at 7 45 so your phone chirps and you're like oh my goodness you know this is reminding me that I need to go I don't know check in with my mom or take some medication or make something up and extract yourself from the situation all right let's see what else do we have here okay so this is interesting I'm curious about your what your thoughts are on childhood learning homeschooling unschooling Etc I'm trying to gain an understanding of what is useful in adding into our routine and what is not I.E extra reading educational shows life experiences how much of learning comes from Human individual interest and IQ versus exposure and reinforcement okay um let's talk about not just children and education let's talk to education more broadly the development of who it is that they are as a human Etc um I think uh probably the best metaphor that I've ever seen is from the sort of hybrid half psychodynamic half Behavior geneticist uh Dr Eric turkheimer so um uh turkheimer has a uh is a weird dude by the way the very weird dude very smart dude very weird dude very misguided dude yeah the the metaphors fabulous which is that the way you want to think about about he's going to say personality but I'll say not unlike the entire person's entire resistance um he looks at personality like basically like what the genes do is they give you all of the building materials for the house so yeah it's beautiful it's like 2 000 square feet and it's got these really expensive Stone and then it's got there's a it basically what happens is somebody piles a whole bunch of materials for this home out on a lot okay and then there's going to be a house built you know some architect with a reasoning process is involved is going to build this 2000 square foot house out of these materials okay now some other architect could come along on a similar lot with exactly the same materials those two houses are going to look an awful lot of Life they're gonna they're gonna feel a lot of light but they're going to be different okay and so this is this is what turkheimer is is is basically saying environmental effects are going to cause these little shifts that that these two houses are not going to be exactly the same but they're going to be very similar because they're made out of the same stuff yeah your your child's quote educational experiences are taking place every nanosecond that they're awake so I don't you know I don't really think that [Music] um a case can be made for the following process let's suppose that you are a bizarre Freakazoid dominance hierarchy climbing academical freak and you've given birth to something that is highly academical and highly intelligent got a lot of drive but it's only 75 percent as much of a freak as you okay so you are the 99.7 percentile uh conscientiousness they are merely 96 okay so what it is that what is it that you would like to do I want him to do one hour a day on his math homework his his uh honors math homework after his homework's done and then I wanted to do 45 minutes on the violin and then I wanted to do them you know 52 minutes on the we get the idea so the mom is such a fanatic and such a nut that she's going to drive drive drive drive and I cannot tell you at the end of that that her drive might not have been the difference of that kid getting into Harvard or not because the kid may have mommy have forced a resume on that child that is so extraordinary that by God they get under the net and they get to get into Harvard as opposed to Duke no offense to my friend Rick Seidel who went to him okay I mean it's an okay school you know all right all right no it's no shame no shame in a Duke degree that's right so Jared one that's just a woman of Charity right there that's right that's right yeah let's do let's look at that so we have the same genetics that that instead you know the the tiger mom died you know in I don't know in an auto accident and the kid got raised by the ant tiger mom's wife or sister who isn't quite as much of a net as a result the kid winds up at Duke okay so kid winds up at Duke the kid winds up at Goldman Sachs anyway okay but winds up with slightly less cache at Golden socks and a slight southern accent maybe who knows but the point is is those two houses look extremely similar that's the point and so uh but we're not going to say that you know in other words we I wouldn't want to say something that is obviously disprovable by saying if you drive somebody like hell with a whip and you have them have singular focus on something that that that that that is a necessity or could be incredibly important in their ability to be extraordinary in that in some limited competitive domain that is truth okay the um now what does that mean for that person's existence I don't know that it means anything good for its existence but it might be a source of some temporary exhilaration and it might be exhilarating for the parent Etc what do I really think you ought to do let the freaking house build itself for God's sakes your job is to just have a decent lie that isn't full of centipedes because Jen hates centipedes like let's make sure that you know your job as a parent is if you can do it let's not have your kid be raised in the gutter okay I mean all things being equal if you're in the ghetto because that's all that you can afford and that's where you are then those are unfortunate circumstances and you do the best you can um uh but and that's fun that's fine in other words as long as we wind out of there not dead and nobody shoves heroin in its arm then we'll probably you know we're gonna find a way you know if if we we've got materials that are going to be uh acceptable for life's challenges in a number of ways we're gonna be okay all right yeah but would we prefer to not be there of course we would prefer to not be there well what what what if we're on Sycamore Street in Des Moines Iowa you know in in a 1200 square foot house with two or three brothers and sisters and dad works at the Mill and everything's is what it is fine as far as I'm concerned that's as good as growing up in Beverly Hills that that is a that's a place where that kid is absorbing information about what it means to be a human adult what the challenges are what are the competitive issues in life Etc that's as good as it gets that is I'm going to consider that functionally equivalent to basically anything that any enriched environment that you could possibly create okay you're like well I think that they should go to get to class and make sure that they have to read the classics and really if the kids inherently interested they'll read the classics and if they're not inherently interested they won't I think the kids should do chemistry and blah blah no go ahead Chen this thing I'll get a lot more out of the classics if they are self-directed and you know read it at a point where they're genuinely interested in it rather than it being shoved down their throats you know so I I get a lot more at reading Hobbs now than I did when it was required reading as a college freshman um not that I didn't value it then but it's like so much richer and more interesting now with with life experience and directed interest and everything so this is not an opinion so I'm not voicing an opinion I'm actually reporting the hard-won truth that is that has come out of the last 50 years of research and education and personality development okay so this is all you know all beautifully summarized by Robert plummet in Blueprint so all of the educational efforts in the world are going to amount to a hill of beans and at the end of the day there's going to be two things that are going to matter how smart is the kid and what is the nature and direction of their motivation that's it okay so your kid is inherently motivated to pass and get decent grades Etc in fourth grade fifth grade sixth grade seventh grade and quite frankly if they're not there's not a damn thing that you're going to do that's going to quote help their educational process at all because their educational process is determined by two things their their native abilities and how motivated they are okay with a tremendous environmental blowtorch blowing at them from One Direction you can temporarily influence what it is that they do and possibly there are short-term achievements that it will have no impact on what their life looks like okay that is a pile of material dumped on a lot that's what it is yeah that house is going to build itself and it's going to look kind of wet it's going to look like what do we want to do well we want to have that lot be a pleasant place to have it be sitting I.E the General Social ecology that you grow up in you know your job as a parent is okay let's let's attack life is a problem that of of interesting things that we're trying to have have fun and be smart about how we're doing things so that we don't have unnecessary tragedy I.E that's all we're trying to do here we're trying to have as much fun as we can and Escape unnecessary tragedy and and you know life has challenges people want your stuff including in not just people bacteria and viruses want your stuff too there is there are challenges to existence um uh that that are inevitable and there are inevitable conflicts and difficulties in in the life process so your kids can have bumps and bruises heartbreaks and disappointments and moments of Triumph and excitement Etc we're just trying to have fun okay uh don't be worried about enriching your child's education your child uh may be extremely interested in things that you see no value in that you're not seeing the world through their eyes and Let It Go they'll figure it out all right I got myself muted because I've got some background noise here but I think we're about we're about uh overtime anyway so should we should we wrap up one more one more I'll keep my mouth shut and well it's a big it's a big one here so why is the Great reset displayed to the public the way it is if their goals were hidden from the general public wouldn't it be easier to achieve I think the answer to that's pretty quick is that they can't help it they if there's too much status and bragging about it um and and so it's human nature it's the fallibility of of just being proud of yourself for you know Dr Evil can't help but kind of talk about his plan so like I can't believe I'm going to get away with it I'm sorry for this kind of thing I actually to interrupted my own excitement because it's a great question I actually think there's a serious possibility that that's what will defeat it um I I think it may not but if they are defeated it will be because of their status sticking which is ironic is all hell yeah well it's a it's a consistent lesson of history that hubris is what undoes great great men great regimes great Empires great plots I mean it's always it is the key vulnerability yeah totally I mean it's in it's on all the religious Traditions all the myths all the stories all of the all of the Kings and Emperors it comes down to getting a little too big for your britches and uh not being able to to keep your mouth shut when you should and and exercise humility yeah no so it's definitely it's a vulnerability of the of the plot they are not remotely humble no no well there's a sense of profound superiority as we've talked about you know in many Hawk blocks um just that that there is no sense that they're not in the right um historically and ideologically and and so how can how can you help but brag about that and you know advertise for um people who are complicit in your mission so that could be a whole other show for sure so all right well we'll onto our on to our next thing gotcha so we'll uh for those that might be interested we're gonna do hot hot box soon on Sunday right we're doing it I think you you and I are recording and then it'll be out a few days after that so yeah cool good yeah I'll feel a rant coming get ready for ranting all right great to see you Jen yeah likewise I just texted you about the the next thing on our calendar so let me know okay okay bye
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