0:00 About twothirds of Americans are actively self- silencing and outright lying about things that matter to them. >> And when enough of us do [music] that, all we hear from is the fringes and the results of collective illusion. Entire groups end up doing something that almost nobody really wanted. [music] Imagine if only 10% of the people around you hold some fringe belief. But you think it's 80%. Your life is just diminished because you're not living authentically. >> What was the biggest collective illusion being run on you that shaped who you thought you could become? I was a Harvard professor for a dozen years, but I was also a high school dropout with a 0.9 GPA. You have to work really hard to do that poorly. I just assumed there was something wrong with me. If you're acting in ways that you don't believe, you will not respect yourself. Do I actually believe this and I realized I didn't. Your group actually agrees with you and
0:46 you just don't know it. There is shared humanity that really is there and that age of courage that's coming. It's necessary and you have a role to play. We have the habit of living in a lie. >> What does that look like on an individual level? >> If the problem is an illusion, then the answer is Hey everyone, welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast. Our guest today is a Harvard trained social scientists, co-founder of the Think Tank Populace, and one of the world's leading experts on the intersection of individual psychology and collective behavior. Dr. Todd Rose, thank you so much for being here. >> Thanks for having me. >> What are collective illusions and why should anyone care to listen to this conversation?
1:32 >> So, collective illusions, it's just a a phenomenon where most people in a group end up going along with something they don't privately agree with simply because they incorrectly think that most everybody else agrees with it. So, as a result, entire groups end up doing something that almost nobody really wanted. So, you can think of it like this. It's it's like group think but you're wrong about the group. >> And why is that such an important thing to reflect on? Like what are the direct costs of an unexamined group think that is inaccurate to begin with? >> Yeah. So this is the funny part is like so we've known about collective illusions in research for about a hundred years. Um, up until the advent of social media, we didn't really think
2:17 it was something that was such a big phenomenon that it warranted a lot of attention because think about you most of the time you think you tend to think your bias is that other people are just like you. I like this so everybody likes this. So this is the opposite, right? You believe something and you're just convinced everybody else doesn't. >> It's like so it was like how can we be that wrong about others? And so, but we'll talk about how this happens. Um, and you'll see why this is a big problem today. But, but here here's the cost and and why people should care. Group think alone is bad enough, right? So, as soon as I just start going along with the crowd just because that's what they expect, I lose my individuality. I lose my self-determination. Um, that's not
3:03 controversial. But now imagine that you gave up your own judgment on things you believe in and care about because you thought that's what your group wanted from you, but your group never did. And so now you conforming to that phantom is actually destroying the very group that you're conforming just to be a part of. And so collective illusions do double damage. They harm the individual because they as you start self- silencing not not expressing who you really believe you are. We know from research there are incredible cardiovascular consequences. There are psychological consequences. You become less trustful of others, more resentful. Your life is just diminished because you're not living authentically. But
3:50 collectively, it starts to tear at the very fabric of what holds us together as a people. Right? So this group that we I was bound to and now I'm literally actively working to undermine it even though I think I'm trying to get closer to it. >> And so we're seeing that across the board. So we see at the collective level plummeting levels of social trust, high levels of resentment, this sense of isolation from other um and we think it's because we just don't have anything in common anymore when in reality it's just a social lie. I think this is one of the more exciting conversations that I have been looking forward to on this on this podcast for a while because in the pursuit of knowing who you are, you first start to parse through all these unconscious previously held
4:37 beliefs and paradigms that you were born into for better or worse that become the lens in which you look at reality through and completely limit what you think is possible for your life, the levels of happiness and fulfillment and all of it. I remember early in the days like maybe 10 years ago hearing a quote first from I think Earl Nightingale. Most quotes on the internet are completely unattributable you know but uh that the opposite of courage is not cowardice but that is conformity. >> Yeah. >> And we really do live in this hall of mirrors you know. I I think another great one from Kulie. I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am. So maybe you could set the stage for how
5:24 hardwired we are >> like through the lens of evolution anthropologically speaking. >> Uh what is that wiring that is now been enacted? >> And I'll get to that. I want just circle back to what you just said because I think it's really important. You know, you've done a phenomenal job. It's been so fun. So first of all, I I almost was embarrassed. I didn't realize this podcast existed. And as I got to dig in, I was like, how did I not know this? Right. So now I'm like obsessed with it. You've done a a phenomenal job. I I mean, know thyself. Easy to say, extremely hard to do, right? Getting us out of these paradigms we've internalized without even realizing it and trying to live more consciously and intentionally, right? That that's hard enough, right? And what
6:10 we're talking about here is another layer that comes from external like the social layer that can also distort our ability pull us away from truly knowing ourselves and living authentic lives. So like being aware of both of these things is incredibly important. So to your question though on the on the social side of this so it's fair to ask like wait how could we be so wrong about each other? I mean, and all you have to know is like we can talk about this that we do a lot of work where there are now like foreign countries that are actively weaponizing this concept uh to drive us apart. It's it's kind of bonkers. But it doesn't really even take a bad actor to have a collective illusion form. And all you have to do is know two things about how your brain works u to get this. The
6:56 first is we do have this bias to belong, right? We we do all else equal would prefer to be with our groups, not against our groups. Makes tons of sense from a survival standpoint, right? We're not a we're not a lonewolf species, right? But at least my second thing you have to know, if you're going to conform, if you're going to try to go along with your group, you kind of have to know what your group believes or else what are you conforming to? And this is where it's it's hilarious. I mean, my background is in neuroscience, and it's just this is how your brain estimates group consensus. You would imagine I would have thought given how important it is that you are right about your group your brain would have super sophisticated like way to calculate what does my group believe. >> The shortcut that's evolved is the
7:43 loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. Crazy. Loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. Now it must have worked to have evolved, right? It must have it must have been like okay well this worked good enough but you put it into a social media age and you can start to see a problem. So if you take just uh what was Twitter is now X but this this generally holds for all social media platforms 80% of all content is created by only 10% of the users and that 10% not remotely representative of just about anybody. They are extreme on almost every social issue. So imagine
8:28 if only 10% of the people around you hold some fringe belief, but you think it's 80%. Unless you're willing to go against your group, then you're more likely just to self- silence, say nothing, or start lying. Say what you know you need to say to be part of the group. And when enough of us do that, all we hear from is the fringes and the results of collective illusion. And from our research and others, we found right now today in the United States, this is where we have the data, about twothirds of Americans are actively self- silencing and outright lying about things that matter to them. >> It's pretty wild. But I I have to say one thing, if you don't mind, you can cut me off anytime. Uh let's go back to
9:14 that first part of conformity. >> Yeah. because because it's funny. It's like when I say we have a hardwired bias to that, it's I unbelievably hardwired. So, one of my favorite uh studies a colleague of mine did in the Netherlands because I just can't believe he got money to do it, frankly, he was like um he wanted to know, this is about a decade ago, like how far does that conformity bias really go? Right? And so, he tried to pick what he thought was the most subjective thing you could imagine. So, why would you conform? Which is, who do you think's good-looking? >> So, he has this he does this thing where he gets some people and he puts them in an fMRI scanner and he shows them a couple hundred faces, different faces.
9:59 And your job while you're in the scanner is to just rate them. It's like hot or not. [laughter] It's like a fivepoint Lyard scale. Five yes, and you know, one, no, thank you. And he's like, I just want to want to see like really is conformity that deep cuz it's so subjective, right? Beauty's in the eye behold her. >> So the the the trick was every time you rated a face, you're like, "Oh, that she's hot. Five, right?" Um immediately after you rate it, a number appears right above the line that that's supposed to represent what the average of everybody who had done the study before. like how did they rate this person? But it was all a lie. There was no other group. Instead, what it did was at about a
10:46 quarter of the time, it was engineered so that whatever you said, your group and you are exactly the same. You said five, group says five. Amazing. And then a quarter of the time, you say five, the group says as far away from that as possible. So, you're just really, really out of step with your group. Meanwhile, we're recording your brain as you're doing this. It's kind of remarkable on the the trials where you're told that your opinion is the same as your group or the group. It triggers a dopamine reward response in your brain. Same brain areas that hard drugs activate, which is what makes them addictive. On the trials where you're off, it triggers what's called an error signal, a cascading signal through your brain
11:33 using special neurons that basically swamp everything else. They disrupt attention, memory, everything. Just saying something's wrong. Pay attention. Okay. In this study, so they go through those motions, they get those responses, and then at the very end, they go, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Um uh your your your scores weren't recorded for some reason. Can you just do it again real fast?" They have to do it again. Only they don't show them the the group scores anymore. Not surprisingly, almost everyone shifted their belief about who was good-looking >> to align with the group and they didn't believe that they did. >> They had no idea that they had conformed. So when I say we have that bias, it is deep, right? And it's a survival mechanism and part of
12:18 >> knowing ourselves and the benefits that come from that is in part being able to overcome that bias without giving up our shared humanity. Mhm. >> Because again, we've evolved for millennia where our survival is fundamentally based on our ability to cooperate and be a part of a tribe, right? And so we now live in modern society, not tribal groups, where we still have this tribal wiring within us. And now in the social media age, it creates all sorts of problems, >> especially when you say the minority is the loudest and representative of the extremes on on the political spectrum on all sorts of topics. And and uh that creates assumptions about what we think the majority of people out there are. A
13:04 level of divisiveness and separation that seems to just be the like just how things have been and how things are going to be. And it doesn't include the nuance, the realization that we actually have way more in common than we have separate. >> Exactly. Right. So, um, at our think tank, uh, populace, we're probably most famous now for our work in what's called private opinion research. So, because everyone's lying, [laughter] it's pretty shocking. Like, literally every demographic group in the country is outright lying on multiple issues that matter, >> different issues, right? Gen Z's lied about different things than millennials and but but what's interesting is so we have methods that get around the social pressure and can get at ground truth about your private views. We didn't invent the methods but they work really
13:50 well and we have more private opinion data on the public than any other organization. I'm quite sure of it. And when you get into that private layer it is shocking how much we have in common. Like it is shocking. Like I I it I I mean we do this for a living and I'm still surprised by it. Like you remove I mean there's stuff we do we are we do disagree on you know obviously but it's a small sliver compared to the stuff that we still have in common. But when you turn it around and ask okay but what do you think most people believe? >> You get a completely different picture. >> We are so convinced that most other people don't share our values our aspirations our fears. Um, and again, it if you wanted to destroy a society, but you couldn't do it militarily or
14:37 economically, this is very clever. Get them to turn on each other by believing that they're no longer we the people. One example of that with your research, uh, when polling and doing the private research with what we think Americans want, could you shed light on that? Because there's this subconscious race society what we feel like is towards status and fame and power and money. Seems like oh that's what everyone wants. So >> this was one of the most surprising things because we've done this we've studied you know the kind of country you want to live in what you want from key institutions you name it we've studied it. The most surprising finding that we from my perspective has to do with the kind of lives we want to live right. So we did uh we called this the success index. We looked at um trade-off
15:24 priorities, dozens and dozens and dozens of them for what could constitute a good life for you. And the methodology we use is called conjoint. And it so it forces trade-offs because in life you can't have everything >> time and money, right? So what do you really want and what are you willing to sacrifice for it? So this method is it's the same method that say like um Apple uses to figure out the right combination of features and price point in an iPhone. If I asked you, do you want an OLED screen? you'd say, "Sure, you want that more than a phone jack. You want that more than you want to pay $200 more." That's a different conversation. So, we applied that same methodology to these social issues. Um, and in the the success stuff, the good life stuff, it it included everything from, you know, being the richest person, you know, to having a family and everything in between. Okay. Well, when in private,
16:12 you get a picture. We we look at your trade-off parties and then we ask you immediately, well, what do you think other people would say on these things? We believe that most everybody else defines success and a good life almost exclusively in terms of status just like you said. And to put a finer point on it is wealth, power, uh we've done this now uh several times. Uh the time before we did it that the number one thing we thought everybody wanted was fame. Like they just want to be famous. In reality, it was dead last in private. and what you look at in private which becomes really remarkable. All the status variables are in the bottom cortile. Every single one of them >> out of over 70 traits is there. >> Yeah, there's like 72 tra this time. I
16:59 mean it was like as comprehensive you could get on every every theory of what a good life is all of our we did focus groups all in. What are your trade-off priorities? >> You think most everybody else around you wants status. They don't. They don't. And what what emerges, what's what's actually quite uh heartwarming, frankly, is what we have in common about a good life. The number one trade-off priority is contribution. That people want to do work that has a positive impact on other people. That's the number one trade-off priority for the majority of Americans. That that I was like, that just can't be true. It doesn't sound anything like what I assume it's like. And uh also in
17:44 the top 10 for every single demographic including Gen Z was their view of a good life was being actively involved in their community >> which I definitely I was like there's just no way. Yeah. >> I mean cuz I'm like well then just do it like but no. Um and what what's really interesting about that is we also measure uh achievement on all these attributes right these are your parties. How you doing on them? Being involved in your community was the lowest level of achievement of any top priority. In fact, in our research, more people reported being debtree than involved in their community, like the level they want, which is just crazy, right? It's like how And so we we dig in and say, well, what it seems like you could just do it, so why aren't you doing it? And there's like two obstacles
18:31 every time. One, the collective illusion. It's like, I don't think anyone else cares. So, am I Why would I go? I'm gonna go show up and clean up the park. I'm gonna go show up and help, but no one else wants to do it. Like just, you know, I'm going against my group. The second is they just didn't know how. >> We just lost that layer of just like get involved and help out. So, it's like it's so interesting because here's the problem with that. You'd say, "Well, okay, well, fine. The good news is in private we've got we actually want to be decent people. It's like it's about character growth spirituality like you name it. This is the bundle of things we care about." But the pool of approval from the group is so powerful because look, I want to be successful. I'm proud of the work that I do and I wouldn't mind that you recognized it. Nothing wrong with that.
19:16 But you could, if you're not careful, it can slip really quickly into, well, wait, if I knew what you thought was successful and praiseworthy and did that, then you'll think I'm successful. So, we we sort of inadvertently sort of start choosing. It distorts the choices we make to optimize for praise from our group than aligning to who we believe we really are. And what what's interesting is we also study how achievement on your priorities leads to higher life satisfaction or not. No amount of achieving on what other people think is a good life increases life satisfaction at all. And yet if we take your private priorities and move you just 20 points, the typical American was like about 50% achievement. Move it
20:02 to 70, which sounds like a lot, but given that it's like I want to be a I want to have a family, I want to be in the community. I want to contribute. Yeah, you can do that, right? We're not talking about everybody going to Yell or something right? >> If you just move it that 20 points, it corresponds with an increase in life satisfaction. That's the equivalent of getting a 50% pay increase. >> Wow. So that's right there available for us to it like really improve the the quality of our lives and we just by these collective illusions start to really do damage to us personally and then also collectively. >> So I'm really looking forward to examining some of the most prevalent collective illusions. That way we can start to poke holes in them, see them for what they are, put the puzzle pieces out of the box, so to speak, so we can see like the the lenses we're looking
20:49 through. But quickly before we do that, because you mentioned there are [snorts] institutions, industries that profit on keeping us divided and silent. >> So what are your thoughts on that? >> So the it's pretty awful. So let's just be clear. Um yeah, there definitely are people like it's it's sort of the usual suspects, right? If you think about it, like politicians actually benefit enormously from you from you seeing people who aren't just like you as other >> binary political system. >> Yeah. >> Um because and you see it right now in our system where we have this affective polarization is the term that's used which is we hate each other and we literally don't even know why. We we we don't we're not even arguing about
21:34 policies anymore. You're just you're not just wrong, you're bad, right? And it's almost like moral at this point. And so it's like every they benefit a lot if I can convince you that you have very little in common with other people and so you stay close to your tribe and it you know is me as the leader of it really benefits quite a bit. Right. >> Yeah. Bonding the uh over the mutual hate of an out group rather than the love of an inroup. >> It's actually incredibly potent because from a neuroscience standpoint we have a negativity bias, right? like like loss and threat are about three times more powerful in your brain than reward. >> So the fear and and the bonding over the hatred of something is incredibly potent. And this is why you see on social media without without these
22:20 companies they get they get a lot of blame, but it's like the algorithms they've developed were not intentional. They just want to optimize engagement, >> right? And so anything that just tries to optimize engagement will almost always end with negativity, outrage. So because we'll tell people will tell you, "Oh, no. I want I don't want I don't want to be told what I want to hear. I don't want to hear all this bad news. I want to hear good stuff. I want No, you don't. Like you have to really cultivate that >> to to to get it. Most people will fall into that like rage scrolling, doom scrolling. You're just like if you're spending time, you just are so like frazzled and frustrated. Um but what we've seen um and I'm I don't mind sharing this like so we're we're a part of a multi-organizational effort that um
23:06 has been looking at the ways that foreign countries have recognized this and have weaponized um social media to be able to generate these collective illusions. So, it's now public, but uh China got hacked on their cognitive warfare division >> where it it got released. This is literally exactly what they're trying to do. They're like, "Hey, wait. If we just use So, like TikTok was a great one because it was it if you think about it, it's not who you follow. It's not your friends. It's verality. It's what's pushed to you. It's a great weapon." >> Yeah. I don't know to what degree. So, like the Tik Tok over there versus here is like completely different. They [laughter] don't have Tik Tok, right? It's called something else. And it was like all like science projects and so this was a weapon which is why it got
23:52 taken out of their hands. Um and and by their own admissions this is what they were doing and they're still doing it and so is Iran. So is Russia. Uh Venezuela was involved in some of this before. But um and that's just public knowledge now. And you think like well why would they spend so much money doing this bot farms these armies of bots and now with AI bots? It's frightening. Um, so it turns out on social media if only 5% of the interactions are with bots, the bots can completely determine group consensus. And conservatively about a quarter of all your interactions are actually with bots and you don't know it. >> 1/4 of all interactions on social media are with a bot. >> Yep. That's that's not our research. That's been done by a bunch of other people. It's pretty conservative. And
24:37 what's crazy is they used to be the dumb bots. you know, they'd have a stupid account with a little egg instead of a profile. You know, you're like, "Okay, you know, it's crazy." Now, with AI, it is frightening. So, they'll have these sleeper bots that will go into non-political spaces, non-cont spaces that like you're in a Reddit forum about football or something. And there's like Steve that I think I've been interacting with for like three years. And the AI is learning the language of the group. And then when it's time to activate it, it'll slowly start to in introduce fringe ideas >> and amplify. And it's gotten so sophisticated that that's the game now. The game is not disinformation. It's can I get you to believe that your group believes something that it doesn't. >> Do you feel like we do have a small
25:23 window to wake up to what's happening because of the exponential rise of AI and how that's going to get more and more proficient? >> Yep. This is this is the urgency of it which is there's not really a technological solve here right it's a human problem >> it's a personal problem >> right most of the time with uh tech when technologies come into society and they transform those societies let's take like for example all the way back to um going from the spoken word to the written word right if you believe Plato uh Socrates really really didn't like that right he said it's going to damage our memory If by memory you mean reciting Homer, that's definitely true. >> But it seemed kind of obvious that if you went from spoken to written, there
26:08 were some real upsides that you could gain as a society to have stuff written down. One of my favorite aspects of that is like I mean Aristotle was one of the first print natives of his time. The very basis of Western logic emerges once you could actually write stuff down and he could compare, right? When it's linear in your head, it's much harder to be able to do that. So even the basis for how we think right now is derived from that technology. But if you think about it, if you're living back then, it's like, yeah, there should be upside. But that upside was only getable once you acquired a completely artificial skill called literacy. If you can't read, it's definitely not a better deal because at least we could all gather around the campfire or stand, you know, and listen and share in that. And the
26:54 powers that be sort of recognized that and hoarded that skill arguably till the reformation, right? Like sort of took an act of God to democratize that. And until then, it really wasn't a good trade-off. And so here we are right now and AI is coming in at a time when we're the perception of polarization is really high, distrust is high, resentment is high, and the the choices that are being made about the algorithms themselves. We're going to have to live with those consequences for a very long time. And so to me, that the real question about AI is not issues of safety, although look, those are real. We should we don't want to destroy humanity. I don't I think those things tend to be overblown historically. >> It's really what's it for?
27:41 And unless we get clear about our values and what we want, right, greater greater understanding of ourselves, the ability to live better lives, these tools will continue to be tools of manipulation and propaganda um and and fairly dystopian if we're not careful. >> Yeah, I think there is this indignation that what you just shared can cause, which is actually like really important. I feel that need to have a rebellious spirit towards a society that wants you to conform to a sort of hypnotic rhythm in a slumber. >> And so if the opposite then taking it the other way of conformity is courage, it's taking courage again against a society that whether it's attributed to malice or just the way things have been, you know,
28:27 going for for a while to to go against the grain. Um, and quite frankly, to speak plainly, to speak what can seem like common sense can feel like a rebellious act in a society that is conformed to uh really shame anything that's outside of the way they've been thinking. >> Yeah. >> And it Yeah. It makes me think, you ever see that old video of like that one dude who's like out at a dance rave or something? He's like he's like the one side of the hill. >> Yeah. The side of the hill. >> And you're like this goofy like [laughter] what is he doing? He's like dancing around like, "Okay." I'm like, "Is he on drugs? Is he what's going on?" And then one other guy comes over. >> Uhhuh. >> And then so now there's two. Is this the talking? Yeah. >> And then all a sudden by by the end everybody >> Mhm. >> He starts and it takes that courage cuz
29:14 you look like you are completely out of step. Everybody else's just sitting on the side of the hill. >> It was just kind of suntanning and relaxing and you're over there dancing like an idiot, right? And then pretty soon it turns out that's kind of what everyone wanted. They just didn't have the same courage, right? What do you think are the collective illusions that are most normalized that we'll look back a 100 years from now and just be completely astonished and baffled by just much like we would looking back at slavery or you know these different you know it's um right now we've tracked about a hundred different collective illusions in our society right now. So they're just all over the place. Um I think it our society our our time is going to be defined by this very phenomena like that that like this is so ubiquitous that this was the first time you could never trust your brain again to tell you what
30:01 your group thinks can't there's just no way which is okay once we accept that >> then we have now there's no other choice but courage right because again we could be having this conversation just about group think like so you still should have the courage to be yourself and be authentic even when your group disagrees with you. This isn't that, right? This is your group actually agrees with you and you just don't know it and so your behavior is actually undermining the group and you become proof to everybody else in the group that this is what we believe, right? So it's it's actually like which in some ways should give you more courage, right? If you knew before you self- silenced, before you outright lied to be with what you think your group wants,
30:47 if you just thought for a second and said, "There's a really good chance I'm just wrong and that most everybody else agrees with me." Like, if if if you knew that to be true, like what would you do? I don't think you you silence yourself as quickly. It still takes courage, but you got to know like it's a coin toss whether you're even right about your group at this point. So some of the things I think we can go through a few of them. A lot of the the illusions that are most prominent not surprisingly end up being political because most things when when it comes down to some collective decision that we all have to live with and you have a binary political system, [laughter] it it tends to foster these kind of illusions. But I'll give you a couple of examples and they're not any one side. They're all over the place. But like um you know a few years ago we we were able to work
31:33 directly with the Biden administration and President Biden on one specific one. So remember the defund the police movement >> at its peak 61% of Democrats publicly said that they supported defunding the police. >> In private it was 9%. >> There's a big difference. Right. And what's funny is is most people like well I don't really want to def I mean I'd like to reform it. I I think they should not violate our rights, but but I don't like get rid of police, right? So, here's one where So, we get a call and we spent some time with the White House at the time. They're like, "Well, we read your book. Um, can you talk us through what do you think? What are we not seeing?" So, we give them this data. And they're like, "No, we we agree with you on most things. This one though, I think you're wrong." Like, "Oh, how so?"
32:19 Oh, we get calls like, "Right, like like from like 20 people over and over again, you I was like, "Yes, loudest voices repeated the most." >> So, we um we ended up getting one line in the State of the Union address at the time, uh which was when he said, "It's not defund the police, it's fun the police." And the reason I bring this one up is um if you're not careful because it can seem like, well, so what, right? So, we don't tell the truth about what we think, you know, but there can have pretty rapid consequences. in this case policies in in states including in some parts of California where we implemented policies because we thought that's what people wanted only to have to walk back those policies because they turned out to be pretty disastrous. So there are real consequences that so it's we also saw um in our data and this will speak
33:06 to another real problem with collective illusions and why you got to deal with them right now. It's that if you don't shatter the illusion right now, this generation's public lies, these collective illusions tend to become next generation's private opinion because they kids don't know we're lying, right? They internalize stuff. I'll give you a pretty rapid example of that. So, right after the 2020 uh election where on the right it was all like the election was stolen, it was rigged, right? We were tracking um a majority of Republicans publicly said the election was stolen. Privately they did not believe it. >> It was it was in like the 20% range. You know what I mean? But it's like this matters, right? Like suddenly we we think we all uh don't believe in the
33:53 integrity of our elections >> in a pluralistic democracy. That's super dangerous, right? It's one thing if we really believe it, then let's talk about it. >> But you're just saying what you think you're supposed to say. >> Um and certain people benefit from it. [laughter] So, we do that. I I still think um when I come back to uh a couple things that I think are really important. The the stuff we already covered. I actually don't think it it sounds almost not that important. What kind of life do I want to live? I actually think it's one of the most consequential ones where like hold on. We all kept chasing this thing that we all knew was a dead end. Like yes, it's not to say having followers and fame is bad, but it's like not the ultimate aim, right? But we keep doing it and we keep
34:39 reinforcing it and our you know, we we do a lot of work with um Hollywood and other like creatives who um you know because it's like listen like on this fame one um a good example of this is do you remember Modern Family? So they they actually did a whole episode around the private opinion data and the illusion. >> It was season 10, episode 13 for anyone that wants to go back and watch it. And it's just like, wait a minute, they realized the the showrunners like we're under the same illusion. >> So when we want to write a story about a successful character, we like well we just want it to be relatable to our audience. So we think our audience believes fame is or success is fame and and status. So you obviously are going to show someone who has that. Meanwhile,
35:25 what you're doing is reinforcing the illusion over and over again. And so there's ways that we can use culture, which is really important to shatter the illusions. Yeah. >> Um but the problem is that the the the cultural culture makers are often under the same illusions. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Hey fam, a quick share. If you have been feeling sluggish, you might not need more sleep or caffeine. You could just be dehydrated. And hydration is not just about drinking water. It's about having enough electrolytes that support your body to properly absorb that fluid. Element contains a sciencebacked ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium that helps regulate your appetite, curb your cravings, and improve your brain function. There's no sugar or artificial colors. I also love their 12 oz cans. The black cherry pineapple are personal
36:12 favorite. And they also just released their new lemonade iced tea, which is a very lightly caffeinated better for you iced tea. And I thought it was tastefully done. It's amazing. If you want to try them out, you can get a free 8count sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with any purchase. And for if any reason you do not like it, it's just not your vibe, they will give you a no questions asked full refund and you don't even have to send it back. That's drinklement.com/nolyself. I hope you enjoy. Not to overly romanticize this notion of like, you know, choosing like kind of radical path towards originality and authenticity, but when you think of like the matrix and red pill, blue pill, you know, I'm curious what kind of what through line do you draw there in terms
36:58 of our own individual life when we start to examine these things and how what your conception of authenticity and returning back to original thought is as nothing exists in a vacuum and there's always some sort of influence society and and just in the epochs of time we live in a 100redyear segment of slice of humanity like there's going to be a certain set of beliefs that we think are even available for offer let alone >> um yeah so what anything come through in terms of like taking the red pill here what does that look like on an individual level >> I think about it taking the red pill as you know look as you know I mean the expert on this. It's incredibly at its
37:43 best best case it's still incredibly hard to really know yourself. And to me authenticity requires some aspect of that, right? Um I have a a particular definition of authenticity I think is important because often we talk about we think it's like accuracy. And so a lot of like I'm a reformed academic, right? Like a lot of a lot of academics were like, "Well, you say you know yourself and I gave you a test and you were not even close, so you clearly don't know yourself." I'm like, "Okay." Right? Like, but it's really when you look at authenticity, it's less about accuracy and it's more about am I making choices that I believe align with who I believe I am right now. Right? I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong, but that's not the
38:29 point. It's who's making the decision. And you know when when you look at all the benefits of authenticity in terms of a life well-lived in terms like like personally interpersonally and society they all acrew from that aspect of it not necessarily that you were even right but if you can get on a path of the choices are mine and they're they align with who I believe I am. Accuracy sort of happens over time. Right? if I am free to to make a wrong choice and learn from it, I'll figure out pretty quick what I really prefer and don't prefer or value or don't value. >> Um, and so to me, I would say uh the time we're in right now and the red pill is just >> whatever value there was to conformity, that value is largely gone now because
39:16 of collective illusions. because the value was largely you know what I'm going to give up my own individuality a little bit uh for for what I believe is just cohesion for the group whatever you know there's something whether you like that or not there is at least some value you get there right yeah >> go along to get along um but now that's just not even the case you're probably wrong to begin with so there's like very little upside to abandoning your own judgment and uh basically giving up the responsibility you have for your own life. Um, and so we're at a point where I believe the just like literacy was a skill that that you needed for the print technology to actually matter. I actually think this ability to develop
40:01 the skills to know yourself, not as a time one I I got it, I'm done, but as an ongoing process of authentic living is going to be the new skill that if you can get that right, then these technologies become phenomenal for you. And if you can't, they become the thing that that traps you in ways that'll be extremely hard to get out of. Because in the era we're leaving, the industrial age, it was such brute force, right? You're in these standardized environments, you know, they don't fit. They just you can feel it almost the oppressive sort of nature of it. In an incredibly customized world where everything's personalized, you will you can be manipulated this way and you'll thank them for it because you'll think it's personalized.
40:48 >> Yeah. It makes me think of the uh it's not just the things that cause us pain or suffering in life is not just the things we don't know, but the things we think we know that just aren't so. >> Aren't so. That's right. [laughter] Love that quote. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like what's interesting is I I really do think um when you look at let's just take it over the next decade. I think you'll see that we're about to enter we're going to go through some it's going to be bumpy for a bit, right? That's pretty normal. I think you're going to see an age of courage emerge as we realize like all things we just said that there's just there's not a there there to this other approach. Whatever value conformity brought you, the downsides now are just so profound. not just for you but for us
41:33 >> that even if if I just wanted group cohesion and the group to function this conformity basis for it is not a good basis for it right groups that really flourish are groups that enable both cohesion but also enough uh devian in views right to actually keep it flourishing. What do you say to those that are listening right now that have gone or are currently going through the period where they start to stop self- silencing and they're going against the grain of what their town that they grew up in and the family belief systems and it can feel quite lonely to stop first self- silencing and and discover what your own truths are and what your own opinions are and be surrounded by people that
42:21 just don't believe it. You feel like you're kind of outcasted from Yeah. you know, >> and and that's a real that's a real thing, right? So, let's be clear. When you start realizing, I'm going to step into courage, it's not all upside all the time, right? There will be some pain. Um, but, you know, I would I would put it this way like most of us end up conforming because we really want to belong to something. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. But I think we've gotten to the point where we confuse belonging with fitting in. What's the difference? >> Belonging is I'm as as my co-founder uh Panio taught me, right? Belonging is I am accepted, valued, and even loved for who I really am. And fitting in is I
43:06 will accept you if if you hold this belief. If you do this thing right, then then I'll give you all the things that you want. But most I would argue most of what we call belonging right now is just fitting in. So we have to give up part of who we are to get that sense of okay maybe someone else gives a damn about me. Um, and so you know how like um you see those uh documentaries like where I'm going to go eat McDonald's every day for you know was it superized me or what I can't remember you're like >> watch their health just tell off over like two months and you're like wow right >> so it's a funny thing right >> from a from a a standpoint of food we've evolved to have two mechanisms right that sense of satiation right that tells
43:53 us to stop eating and then there's nutrition Well, throughout evolution, those things were really related cuz the things you ate were whole foods and so that so you know, you got enough, you're done. >> Now that we can engineer processed foods that are basically addictive, right? Fat sugar salt >> we'll feel satiated, so we think we're getting the same thing. >> Yeah. >> And it's it's only down the road that we realize we weren't getting nutrition and we're profoundly sick and unhealthy. I think the same thing is true in our desire to belong. We're so used to this unhealthy substitute and that we don't realize that it's not really belonging. And I I would argue that that as you find that courage, I mean, you deserve to belong, right? It
44:40 is there for the taking, but part of that step into the courage is there will be people in your life, there will be groups that you are a part of that are just no longer good for you, right? And that's scary and it can feel lonely. But the other side of that, right, just just recognize right now you're not happy. Like there's something wrong in your life or you wouldn't even be thinking about this. Um, and so the status quo isn't good enough. And I would say what's what's pretty interesting is I think when people step into this courage, they often think that it has to be sort of anti-conformity, anti like I'm going to go against the group. It's like don't don't be the don't be the the the the contrarian just for its own sake. They're the most predictable people on the planet. whatever the group believes. I know you'll believe the opposite, right? Don't do that. Right?
45:25 It's not about being against the group. If what you believe is is aligns the group, great. It's fantastic, right? But it's the courage to follow your own conviction. Um, and what's really remarkable is people tend to think that if I go against the group, I will be ostracized. You know, it, you know, I'll be kicked out of the group. That can happen. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. So often when we find that courage, we kind of are a little bit like an about it, right? Like we just come out guns and blaze and like you're an idiot. You're wrong. Let me tell you, I just agree with you. Well, no one wants to be talked to that way. >> Yeah. When it's coupled with self-righteousness and moral superiority. >> Yes. And then and then you're like, "Wow, look at all the grief I just got." Yeah. Cuz you're an right? Like, so when when you when you think about the other person and their inherent dignity and you treat them with
46:12 respect, you're going to be shocked at how receptive people. It doesn't mean they're going to agree with you, but people want to be understood, right? They want, but when you just come and moralize to them and tell them how wrong they are and everything they value is just stupid or or bad, don't be surprised when they get defensive. >> But the ability to say, you know, look, I man, I really respect you, but but I because I respect you, I want to share. I I actually have a different view of this. You know what I mean? You'll be shocked. >> Lead with respect, and you'll be shocked at how many people will stick with you. Yeah. When you were referring to the substitution of whole foods for sort of, you know, calorie inflated
46:58 uh highly processed foods and it's not nutritious to us in the same way that we previously have been. And you take that same analogy and take it over to the connection space, right? We have this illusion of connection online, which of course is a double-sided sword. There's so much good that comes from it, >> but it often does give us this >> faulty surrogate for real connection and in-person connection. And I'm curious your thoughts how when you go for me I know when I've spent periods alone in silence I think community is very important but when you take time away from stimulus from the people in your life and from the technology in which people are coming in through into your life
47:43 >> you can start to disabuse yourself of the deeply held and ingrained beliefs that are societal norms and can start to arrive at whatever degree is your own truth. you know, not that there even is one with a capital T, but in that direction like you said, what are your thoughts there? >> Oh, look, I'm 100% and I think that the the secret in this is the moderation, right? You you you do want to take the time to get off the technology to separate from cuz >> you you you made a really good point. Our normal lives are really just stimulous response. Stimulous response. If you if you just really pay attention to a given day, it's kind of surprising. You think, wait, was I in charge of my day or was I like led around by my nose, you know, and it's like, so in that sort
48:29 of kind of chaotic environment, it's extremely hard to reflect in any meaningful way. So carving out space for that reflection, the removal for for a time. It's not for nothing that most spiritual traditions have some form of that ritualized. You know what I mean? Like I'm not Jewish, but my that that shab like they they shut off all technology and it's like get back to person. You don't get the technology. You don't this and you have to just connect. >> Yeah. And it's like you don't have to be religious to realize, oh, there's some value to that because it it buys you something in the same way that it doesn't give you you do need to be in community too. But you you are you are
49:17 the best contributor to your groups when you show up as yourself, right? Because think about it. If if a group if everyone thinks the exact same, you're actually not necessary. Like you're just like a frontline infantry in the war, right? It's like just put you out there. It's when we show up with respect and and and belonging and we are bringing different perspectives and different lived truths and things like that to the same kind of problems that we start to get somewhere. So let's say somebody goes on that journey. I think that it can be an endless rabbit hole to keep examining the ways in which we're programmed, right? You know, um and you're familiar are you familiar with Renee Gerard's met theory? I'm I love you. This [laughter]
50:03 is if I could wave a magic wand >> Yeah. >> and tell like everybody should have to understand Rene Gerard. Mimemetic rivalry, mimetic desire is so profound, right? We imitate as a species >> and not just behavior. We imitate desire. >> And I mean now I'm just going to say, but the thing that me is like, oh shoot, okay, so I'll just want something because you want it. Mhm. >> And I won't even realize that that was the source of my wanting. And when we when we converge on something that's sharable, it is perhaps the single most bonding thing we could ever have. So religious experience, spiritual experiences, they have that in common, right? They're sharable. And so we can the second is not sharable though,
50:48 >> you get the rivalry, >> right? And it and pretty soon you will lose. You won't even remember why you were fighting anymore, right? And then the problem is as as Gerard showed us is that like that cycle, you know, ultimately requires the scapegoat to stop, right? It just descends into all against all. And the only mechanism that that society would figure out, well, was the actual scapegoat, right? And that always requires violence against them to settle it back down for a while. And you know you see other uh religious traditions would try to do something like substitute animal sacrifice for the human sacrifice right >> that stopped working for a while and and as Rene who was a convert to
51:34 Christianity right from atheism um his view was that that actually what was interesting about Christianity at its core was that it focused on on the scapegoat right and made you confront the fact that you were going to destroy so an innocent person for your own sins, so to speak, right? >> And it was [clears throat] like and that the idea that you were given a completely different path. This doesn't work anymore. >> The ritualistic sacrifice to keep the violence down doesn't you're going to need a new way of behaving, a new paradigm to see the world. So a turn the other cheek isn't isn't pacifism. It's a or love thy neighbor as thyself is incredibly hard to say you have to see the other person as your equal. like and you were so you were offered a different
52:20 approach to solve this fundamental mimisis problem >> and of course we didn't [laughter] >> but I think nowadays it's like it's funny because it was always a problem but I think almost ironically in an age of abundance material abundance where uh it doesn't get us out of social comparison right and and the sense of unfairness and that I'm not I'm being screwed has nothing to do with absolute difference It's relative deprivation. >> So, ironically, the more we have as a society, the more opportunities there are for a medic rivalry when you think we go the other way. Now, >> just to close the loop on this, >> the way out of that, if you think about it is >> even though we can through mimisis end
53:06 up desiring the same things, we don't have to. That's not an automatic thing. The more in touch we are with our own individuality and subjective values, the more we can partake in a society that's pluralistic, right? Like like the fact that, you know, I might think this watch is worth a certain amount of money and you're like, who in the world would pay that much money? Well, I would. I like this, right? We value different things. That's that's not something to look at and go, "Well, that's weird. I want you to value what I value." No, you don't. you're glad that I'll waste my money on a watch and not want the same thing you do because then we're going to bid up the price of whatever you want. So, the more people live authentically to their own individuality, >> the more space we make for all of us to live great lives and and the more we put a dampening on the negative consequences
53:53 of mimemetic rivalry. >> So, well said. And we could pull countless examples from history where this has driven atrocities throughout time. you know, whether it's something just a little bit more hilarious like the tulips of uh >> when was that? [laughter] >> Yeah. It's like the the tulip craze tulip craze when they were worth their weight in gold and >> it was like it was like mo it was like it's the equivalent of like Bitcoin now, you know? Although it probably has some but like it's like oh we all think we all want this. You're like yeah we're literally paying a year salary for a tulip bulb that a year ago was utterly like worthless. Yeah, it was like they were plentiful and now we're all collecting them like they're the greatest thing ever. One of my favorite parts about that though, by the way, is uh the the guy that wrote the book way
54:40 back when on the tulip craze, >> Charles Mc. >> Yes. Yes. Exactly right. This is great. >> Turned out he fell for one too. >> Oh yeah. >> Like just a couple years later. >> Oh yeah. >> The railroad scale where everyone thought that there was a pump and dump on building railroads all across the colonized parts [laughter] and he was like >> everyone thinks this. So he dumped a bunch of money into it and lost his shirt. So it's like that was a cautionary tell for me. I'm like the guy that wrote the book >> on how we all go crazy collectively. >> Yeah. >> This literally fell for the same thing cuz everybody else wanted it and he couldn't help but but go along. >> Yeah. No, I mean so from that through Nazi Germany to slavery, you can see how dangerous group think in this hard wire, this kind of mimemetic
55:28 wiring within us. Uh is can lead to so many like horrible atrocities on the planet and has. And I'm curious cuz you said you referred to like the more that you're you get clear on the connection with yourself in the face of whatever social norms are present, you can actually have clarity to see them for what they are. And it becomes hard when it's so pervasive, right? It's like when you're in water, it just becomes like a fish doesn't really know what's in water, right? It's just it is what it is. It's in it. And so it's like asking the question is like what is the water if we are the proverbial fish that we're swimming in right now? And we mentioned, you know, a few different collective illusions. Um there's there's so many.
56:13 But I I think it's so important and what I try to with conversations on this podcast too is not to tell people what to believe, but to like deconstruct how how strongly we hold so many things that we do believe so we can have a more of an open receptive mind towards the different possibilities that are available to us. Um, so yeah, I I love that you got so juiced up with the mimedic stuff and >> what's what's interesting too from this sort of trying to get to the heart of like look most of what you think is just what you've internalized from your society like I said and that's that's just and look there's some upside to that like we we learn socially like so we have to make all the same stupid mistakes over and over again right it's good to learn from each other and then we we carry
56:58 that over from generations and we call it culture, right? There's there's wisdom and there's nor norms and so that that that create a a pressure on us and what we believe and how we behave. And what's really interesting is I think one of the most important things as a society that we could be doing right now seems so simple that we take it for granted. But if you think about the norms that emerged in pluralistic liberal societies around tolerance, we just take it for granted now. And now we're willing to burn that down so our side is right to the point where it's like even just associating with someone who disagrees you disagree with is complicity. >> Mhm. >> That serves some people's purpose really well when they want to control you. But
57:44 what's important is through these norms of like what does it mean to be part of this community? It means that I let you hold your opinion like like that's what it means. So you can literally incentivize our need to belong by ensuring what it means to be part of the group >> is that we actually live this way. >> And so it's like we take it for granted because we've had generations who have lived with these liberal norms, >> but they're under attack right now. And it can be so easy in this era of outrage and tribalism to think that it's worth sacrificing that for the win >> for the group, but you're literally burning down the the hay stack to find the the the needle, right? It's not worth it. >> Hey fam, one thing that brings me a lot
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1:00:02 societal change happens very quickly at a scale that you just seem unimaginable any other way. um because I'm not having to change your mind, right? I just have to get you to see accurately that other people agree with you. So, a modern example, we'll come back to Velvet Revolution. Um if you look at say marriage equality in the US, fastest change in public opinion ever recorded 2003 only 30% of Americans agreed with uh gay marriage. 2017 it was 70%. That exponential change in public does not happen if people privately disagreed with it. >> It right >> because the the flip side was interracial marriage. If you if you look at approval for interracial marriage, it
1:00:49 took decades of linear change because people just weren't comfortable with it. So I have to change your mind. >> But changing your mind doesn't change the next person's mind, right? So it's just that slow process under a collective illusion. as more people start speaking up, it creates permission for other people by lowering the cost of courage >> and then it just goes. And so, um, in the marriage equality example in 2003, I I believe was the year in Chicago, they had a a a convening of activists and scholars trying to figure out where do we go from here. And the consensus was do not push for marriage. The public's not ready for it. It will backfire.
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