# Ep60 "Can we think better by wrestling with conflicting ideas?"

An episode of [Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1677842672), 27 May 2024, 56 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/534dc725-2971-42a1-b1bf-afaa0107416e/cc868f00-7ec5-475c-87e8-b17d0020a616/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=bee00526-7528-4581-b6b6-afaa01083a3d

Why do we believe our own truths so strongly? What is steel-manning, and why is it so important? What does any of this have to do with F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Keats, or the future of our society? This week's episode deals with polarization and what we might do about it. Join Eagleman and his guest Isaac Saul, who works to represent different points of view in his newsletter Tangle -- all in the name of the intellectual humility that can blossom from grappling with conflicting ideas.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Why do we all believe our own truths so strongly?
[0:09] Speaker 1: And is there any possibility that we can at least
[0:12] Speaker 1: see other points of view? What is steel manning and
[0:17] Speaker 1: why is it so important? What does any of this
[0:19] Speaker 1: have to do with f Scott Fitzgerald or John Keats
[0:23] Speaker 1: or the future of our society? Welcome to Inner Cosmos
[0:29] Speaker 1: with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author
[0:32] Speaker 1: at Stanford, and in these episodes we come from the
[0:36] Speaker 1: perspective of the brain to understand why and how our
[0:39] Speaker 1: lives look the way they do. Today's episode is about
[0:53] Speaker 1: something that I've talked about on here before, which is
[0:56] Speaker 1: the extreme and seemingly growing rization that characterizes much of
[1:02] Speaker 1: our society at this moment, and I'm interested in it
[1:05] Speaker 1: from the point of view of neuroscience. I'm not banging
[1:08] Speaker 1: on about any particular political position here. What I'm interested
[1:12] Speaker 1: in is how we come to form our truths and
[1:16] Speaker 1: why we each believe in them so strongly. For all
[1:20] Speaker 1: of us, with whatever political issue, our intuition usually is
[1:24] Speaker 1: to say, well, I know that I'm correct about this,
[1:28] Speaker 1: but the important part to point out is that, depending
[1:31] Speaker 1: on the issue, roughly half of the society has a
[1:34] Speaker 1: different point of view than you do, and on almost
[1:37] Speaker 1: any hot button political issue, you'll find that the people
[1:40] Speaker 1: on the other side of the issue have exactly the
[1:43] Speaker 1: same dedication and passion that you do, the same absolute
[1:48] Speaker 1: belief that they are right and that you are misinformed. Generally,
[1:52] Speaker 1: it's hard to see this with politics, and I don't
[1:55] Speaker 1: want to ruffle any feathers here, but I just want
[1:57] Speaker 1: to point out that it's often easier to see this
[1:59] Speaker 1: with something like religion, whatever deity you were brought up with.
[2:03] Speaker 1: You tend to think, okay, well, I know that's right,
[2:06] Speaker 1: and I know that the other two thousand religions on
[2:08] Speaker 1: this planet are all diluted and incorrect. But of course
[2:13] Speaker 1: each of those people is looking at you and thinking
[2:15] Speaker 1: exactly the same thing. The way the atheist community sometimes
[2:19] Speaker 1: phrases this is we are all atheists. I just believe
[2:24] Speaker 1: in one fewer God than you do. And it's always
[2:27] Speaker 1: a worthwhile exercise to think about what your beliefs would
[2:31] Speaker 1: be if you happened to be born into a different religion,
[2:34] Speaker 1: Let's say, on a different spot on the globe, where
[2:37] Speaker 1: everyone that you cared about, your mentors, your hero is
[2:41] Speaker 1: your relatives all believed in that deity. So ask yourself,
[2:45] Speaker 1: what would be your worldview? Now, if there were a
[2:49] Speaker 1: single truth about which deity is correct, you might expect
[2:53] Speaker 1: that that would spread everywhere equally. So you'd look for
[2:56] Speaker 1: evidence of a grassroots takeover of Ottestanism in Mecca, or
[3:02] Speaker 1: maybe a blossoming of Islam in North Dakota. But that's
[3:06] Speaker 1: not what we see. We all take whatever our culture
[3:09] Speaker 1: pours into our nervous systems. Now, I use this as
[3:13] Speaker 1: an example only to illustrate that it's easy to recognize
[3:16] Speaker 1: that there are many points of view on things that
[3:19] Speaker 1: we feel our fundamental truths, and for better or worse,
[3:23] Speaker 1: people can hold these truths with absolute conviction and take
[3:27] Speaker 1: up arms over this stuff, and we might be able
[3:30] Speaker 1: to get ourselves to a point of realizing that if
[3:33] Speaker 1: you were brought up in a different place, you might
[3:36] Speaker 1: have a different point of view. Okay, now you've heard
[3:40] Speaker 1: me talk about on other episodes. Is that the brain
[3:43] Speaker 1: is locked in silence and darkness inside your skull and
[3:47] Speaker 1: its whole life. It's just trying to make a model
[3:50] Speaker 1: of the world out there. We slide into the world
[3:54] Speaker 1: half baked, and we each experience a very thin trajectory
[3:58] Speaker 1: in this world. We're born in a particular spot at
[4:02] Speaker 1: a particular moment in time, and we have a handful
[4:05] Speaker 1: of experiences that shape our view, and the massive flexibility
[4:10] Speaker 1: of the human brain, what's called brain plasticity, is what
[4:13] Speaker 1: allows us to absorb our local experiences and shape our model.
[4:18] Speaker 1: So we each end up with an idiosyncratic model about
[4:22] Speaker 1: what makes sense. But the interesting thing is that our
[4:26] Speaker 1: human brains are generally terrible at seeing outside of their
[4:31] Speaker 1: own walls. We generally believe that our view of the
[4:35] Speaker 1: world is the correct view, and we're typically likely to
[4:38] Speaker 1: think that anyone who votes differently than we do is
[4:42] Speaker 1: a real problem because they are misinformed or stubborn, or
[4:46] Speaker 1: at the extreme, they're simply evil. So we have limited
[4:50] Speaker 1: internal models combined with a sense that we know the truth.
[4:55] Speaker 1: This is just the way that brains work, and for
[4:57] Speaker 1: much more detailedness, please listen to some of my previous episodes,
[5:01] Speaker 1: which I've linked in the show notes on Eagleman dot
[5:03] Speaker 1: com slash podcast. Now, one of the things that's been
[5:07] Speaker 1: hard to miss is watching millions of humans on both
[5:11] Speaker 1: sides of society doubling down and saying that they need
[5:14] Speaker 1: to protect our democracy, which is being threatened by the
[5:18] Speaker 1: other side. And part of what makes me feel dismayed
[5:22] Speaker 1: is that I have intelligent friends on both sides of
[5:25] Speaker 1: the aisle, and many of the people that I know
[5:27] Speaker 1: and love are truly unable to see the viewpoint of
[5:31] Speaker 1: the other side. People on both sides claim to have
[5:35] Speaker 1: logic on their side, and morality and the statistics, and
[5:40] Speaker 1: they feel certain that they're right and the other side
[5:42] Speaker 1: is wrong. And for that matter, a lot of people
[5:44] Speaker 1: feel certain that there even are clearly definable sides, even
[5:49] Speaker 1: though so much of political life on Earth's complexities in
[5:53] Speaker 1: which issues go with which. And again, what this comes
[5:57] Speaker 1: down to is the limitations of the internal model. Without
[6:00] Speaker 1: real effort, we have a difficult time putting ourselves at
[6:04] Speaker 1: other people's shoes. And it would be one thing if
[6:08] Speaker 1: only a few people had this other point of view.
[6:10] Speaker 1: But in the case of current political upheaval, it's usually
[6:13] Speaker 1: the case that about half of the humans that you
[6:16] Speaker 1: spin with might be on the other side of some issues.
[6:19] Speaker 1: So it's not just a few people with a wacky opinion.
[6:23] Speaker 1: We're talking about millions of people who genuinely feel differently
[6:27] Speaker 1: about some issue. Than you do. And the question is,
[6:32] Speaker 1: is there a way for us to expand our internal
[6:35] Speaker 1: models to at least see their point of view, not
[6:37] Speaker 1: even agree with it, just understand what their perspective is
[6:41] Speaker 1: and why. Now we're all familiar with the problem that's
[6:44] Speaker 1: currently worsening our political discourse, which is we all tend
[6:48] Speaker 1: to seek out the people who agree with us, and
[6:51] Speaker 1: it's a self reinforcing loop such that we tend to
[6:54] Speaker 1: believe that most or all sane and reasonable people agree
[6:59] Speaker 1: with us. But the question for today is is there
[7:02] Speaker 1: any meaningful way that we could combat this tendency to
[7:07] Speaker 1: retreat into our own echo chambers and at least here
[7:11] Speaker 1: with the other side of the political issue is saying
[7:13] Speaker 1: and how they're feeling, and to appreciate the complexities and
[7:18] Speaker 1: diversity of opinions on the other side. There's a great
[7:21] Speaker 1: quotation from the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald who says, quote,
[7:26] Speaker 1: the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability
[7:30] Speaker 1: to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same
[7:34] Speaker 1: time and still retain the ability to function. And the
[7:38] Speaker 1: poet John Keats, who was a believer in this concept
[7:41] Speaker 1: as well, he called this ability negative capability, which he
[7:45] Speaker 1: just meant as a person being capable of being in
[7:50] Speaker 1: uncertainties and mysteries and doubts. So there's some nodding to
[7:55] Speaker 1: this in the intellectual community, but we're not seeing a
[7:58] Speaker 1: great deal of this in the political media. This holding
[8:01] Speaker 1: two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, well
[8:04] Speaker 1: why not. I suspect there are at least two issues here.
[8:07] Speaker 1: The first is that we all like to believe our
[8:09] Speaker 1: own truths in the second is that people often feel
[8:13] Speaker 1: that they will seem smarter and get more followers if
[8:16] Speaker 1: they take a hardline position and say I understand this
[8:20] Speaker 1: with crystal clarity, I have no doubts.
[8:23] Speaker 2: Now.
[8:23] Speaker 1: This is true for politicians and also for media outlets,
[8:28] Speaker 1: which are rewarded for speaking the language that their constituents
[8:32] Speaker 1: want to hear. And of course we see on all
[8:36] Speaker 1: sides of the spectrum the media that say, look, we
[8:40] Speaker 1: only care to tell the truth. Everyone else might be
[8:43] Speaker 1: a liar or misdirected, but we're finally going to get
[8:46] Speaker 1: this right. We see this on all sides, and what
[8:49] Speaker 1: this represents is our certainty that we know the truth
[8:53] Speaker 1: and if we could just shout it loudly enough and
[8:56] Speaker 1: start our own website, then everyone would see the wisdom
[8:59] Speaker 1: of what we're saying and come to agree with us.
[9:02] Speaker 1: And you may know that I made a triptich of
[9:04] Speaker 1: episodes on this issue of the meaning of truth and
[9:08] Speaker 1: truth on the Internet and truth in media. Those were
[9:10] Speaker 1: episodes forty to forty two. And if you heard my
[9:13] Speaker 1: argument there, you'll know that I think this notion of
[9:16] Speaker 1: telling the truth in media is a lost cause because,
[9:21] Speaker 1: with the exception of a very few factual issues, most
[9:25] Speaker 1: of telling a political story is interpretation, which is to say,
[9:30] Speaker 1: even putting aside the fog of war issues, the issue
[9:33] Speaker 1: of perspective determines which facts make it into your story
[9:37] Speaker 1: and which do not. So the question I want to
[9:40] Speaker 1: ask say is this, is there a different approach to
[9:45] Speaker 1: news telling? Is there a way to think about doing
[9:48] Speaker 1: this totally differently? And I think one of the cleverest approaches,
[9:52] Speaker 1: which is attempted every once in a while, is to
[9:55] Speaker 1: build something that instead of trying to pick aside and
[9:59] Speaker 1: fight and die for it, but instead works to say, look,
[10:03] Speaker 1: there are multiple points of view here. Let's genuinely dig
[10:07] Speaker 1: into the complexity of the issues and try to see
[10:10] Speaker 1: if we can build a more multi dimensional understanding. Instead
[10:15] Speaker 1: of the typical approach of saying I have my team
[10:18] Speaker 1: and the other team is simply misinformed or misanthropic. And
[10:22] Speaker 1: one such attempt at making a site like this is
[10:25] Speaker 1: from a journalist named Isaac Sahl, who runs a newsletter
[10:28] Speaker 1: called Tangle. The idea of Tangle is to present different
[10:34] Speaker 1: sides of the same argument to understand something about the
[10:37] Speaker 1: complexities therein. It's not about saying both sides are right
[10:42] Speaker 1: and we're going to land in the middle. Instead, it's
[10:44] Speaker 1: about saying, wherever you might land, can you do this
[10:47] Speaker 1: with curiosity and intellectual humility and a meaningful level of
[10:53] Speaker 1: self education on the position rather than tribalism and assumption.
[11:00] Speaker 1: Big fan of what sites like Tangle are working to do,
[11:05] Speaker 1: so I called up Tangles founder Isaac Sahl to talk
[11:08] Speaker 1: with him about this. Okay, Isaac, it's so great to
[11:15] Speaker 1: have you here. You run a newsletter called Tangle, which
[11:19] Speaker 1: I'm a giant fan of, and one of the things
[11:22] Speaker 1: that has struck me as amazing is that you tell
[11:26] Speaker 1: your readers if they disagree with you, not to throw
[11:30] Speaker 1: vitriol your way or or you know, unsubscribe, but to
[11:35] Speaker 1: tell you why they disagree and to make their argument
[11:38] Speaker 1: to you. So tell us about that, tell us about
[11:41] Speaker 1: Tangle and how you came to run a newsletter like that.
[11:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So first of all, thanks for having me.
[11:48] Speaker 2: You know, I'm Stan of the show, glad to be here.
[11:50] Speaker 2: It's been fun listening to you guys last few weeks.
[11:53] Speaker 2: You know, I have kind of two genesis stories. I'd
[11:55] Speaker 2: say the first one is just that I grew up
[11:57] Speaker 2: in a really politically divided place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
[12:01] Speaker 2: Bellweather County, Bellweather State. Obviously, Pennsylvania kind of goes where
[12:05] Speaker 2: the presidential election goes. So I just grew up around
[12:08] Speaker 2: a lot of people who had very different political views
[12:11] Speaker 2: than each other, and so I saw how those divides
[12:14] Speaker 2: manifested and also how people kind of talked through those
[12:17] Speaker 2: divides in real time. And have a lot of friends
[12:20] Speaker 2: and family people I love and care about who have
[12:22] Speaker 2: different political views, which I think just makes me a
[12:25] Speaker 2: little bit more open minded to them. And then the
[12:27] Speaker 2: second kind of genesis story was just being on the
[12:31] Speaker 2: inside of media organizations and kind of seeing how the
[12:34] Speaker 2: sausage was made. And it became very clear to me
[12:38] Speaker 2: early on that a lot of media organizations are catering
[12:41] Speaker 2: their content to their audience. You know, we have a
[12:43] Speaker 2: term for it now, audience capture. The idea that you know,
[12:47] Speaker 2: an audience likes something, they like a certain tone or
[12:50] Speaker 2: a certain editorial slam, and so news organizations give them
[12:53] Speaker 2: more and more of that because they recognize that's what
[12:57] Speaker 2: the audience wants. And we've created a lot of echo
[13:00] Speaker 2: chambers and bias and you know, confirming people's preconceived notions.
[13:05] Speaker 2: And when I decided to go out and start my
[13:07] Speaker 2: own media company, I was just looking at a blank
[13:10] Speaker 2: page and that was super exciting for me to think about,
[13:14] Speaker 2: how could I tear this whole thing down and start
[13:16] Speaker 2: from the beginning. And what are some of the ethos
[13:19] Speaker 2: that I would want a news organization to have. And
[13:23] Speaker 2: one of them is that I want us to be
[13:26] Speaker 2: really open minded and fair. Another is I want to
[13:29] Speaker 2: make sure we're representing people from across the political spectrum
[13:33] Speaker 2: and not just presenting people with arguments reviews that they
[13:36] Speaker 2: already believe. And the third is that I want my
[13:40] Speaker 2: audience to be involved in the conversation and the production
[13:44] Speaker 2: of the content and feel like their voice is heard
[13:48] Speaker 2: and feel like they can actually interact and learn from
[13:51] Speaker 2: the news and talk to me or our staff, or
[13:54] Speaker 2: have a space where they can kind of express themselves.
[13:57] Speaker 2: You know, I look at the comment section on Facebook
[14:00] Speaker 2: on an article, and a lot of people see, you know,
[14:03] Speaker 2: craziness and people spouting off and fighting, and it's always like,
[14:08] Speaker 2: don't look at the comments section. And when I go
[14:10] Speaker 2: and do that, I see something that I think is
[14:13] Speaker 2: a gold mine for people who care about issues, people
[14:17] Speaker 2: who want to express themselves, people want to be involved
[14:19] Speaker 2: in the conversation, And so I try and invite those
[14:22] Speaker 2: people in a bit. And frankly, I learn a lot
[14:24] Speaker 2: from my readers when they write in and tell me
[14:26] Speaker 2: about why they view the world a certain way. It's
[14:28] Speaker 2: almost always illuminating.
[14:30] Speaker 1: Now a lot of folks, especially in this moment in time,
[14:34] Speaker 1: seem less interested in instigating dialogue than in terminating it.
[14:39] Speaker 1: So why do you think that is what's happening? And
[14:42] Speaker 1: do you feel that this time is different than previous eras?
[14:47] Speaker 2: Look, I mean, anybody who takes a dive into the
[14:52] Speaker 2: history of free speech will learn pretty quickly that what
[14:55] Speaker 2: we're living through right now is not a particularly unique thing.
[14:58] Speaker 2: I think beach goes through expansions and contractions, and it
[15:03] Speaker 2: always has throughout you know, civil society. There were times
[15:06] Speaker 2: when the idea of a printing press was exactly the
[15:10] Speaker 2: same way we talk about you know, the internet today,
[15:13] Speaker 2: that this would be too big and too easy to
[15:17] Speaker 2: disseminate information, and we needed to limit this thing because
[15:21] Speaker 2: it was so scary that someone could write down their ideas,
[15:24] Speaker 2: you know, print a thousand copies of them, and cover
[15:27] Speaker 2: a city in them, you know, in a matter of hours.
[15:29] Speaker 2: And we went through the same thing with the radio.
[15:31] Speaker 2: We went through the same thing with the Internet, and
[15:33] Speaker 2: it's something that's going to happen over and over again
[15:35] Speaker 2: throughout society. And I'm sure there's communication methods we haven't
[15:39] Speaker 2: even considered yet that are coming down the pike that
[15:42] Speaker 2: are going to make it a lot easier to you know,
[15:44] Speaker 2: transmit thoughts or ideas and create all sorts of different issues.
[15:47] Speaker 2: And I don't want to downplay the idea that you know,
[15:51] Speaker 2: misinformation or bad information is a you know, a threat
[15:57] Speaker 2: to democracy or a threat to an informed populace. It is.
[16:02] Speaker 2: There are certain things about it that are really problematic.
[16:05] Speaker 2: The Internet has a lot of really dark corners, and
[16:07] Speaker 2: it's really easy for people to sort of sit in
[16:09] Speaker 2: their own echo chambers and be radicalized. I mean, there's
[16:13] Speaker 2: a plethora of evidence for that. But the way to
[16:17] Speaker 2: sort of address these issues is almost never to eliminate them,
[16:24] Speaker 2: and oftentimes it's not even good to quarantine them, because
[16:28] Speaker 2: what you basically do is you just put people off
[16:31] Speaker 2: into their own silos. You put them into their own
[16:33] Speaker 2: little corners of the Internet where they're only interacting with
[16:37] Speaker 2: the people who agree with them, and it just pushes
[16:39] Speaker 2: them further into the fringe. And you know, there are
[16:41] Speaker 2: a lot of examples of this. I think the number
[16:44] Speaker 2: of people who have been quote unquote canceled or silenced
[16:48] Speaker 2: and the people who have done the cancelation or silencing
[16:51] Speaker 2: have gotten what they want is quite limited. You know,
[16:54] Speaker 2: I could think of maybe two or three people who
[16:57] Speaker 2: have I'm like, oh, I forgot that person existed because
[17:00] Speaker 2: they got canceled or they got kicked off a platform
[17:02] Speaker 2: or whatever. Most of the time, what happens is like
[17:05] Speaker 2: what happened to somebody like Alex Jones, where you know,
[17:08] Speaker 2: he becomes a martyr by being silenced, and then he
[17:11] Speaker 2: builds his audience in his own space where nothing he
[17:14] Speaker 2: says or does gets challenged. And then you know, you
[17:16] Speaker 2: look at something like January sixth, and who's there standing
[17:20] Speaker 2: on the White House lawn on a table giving instructions
[17:23] Speaker 2: on a megaphone. It's Alex Jones with a bunch of
[17:25] Speaker 2: his supporters. And yeah, maybe we haven't seen him on
[17:28] Speaker 2: Twitter for five years, but guess what, he's still building
[17:30] Speaker 2: a massive audience, speaking to millions of people, and he's
[17:33] Speaker 2: just doing it in a space where his perspectives are
[17:36] Speaker 2: never getting challenged. So I think that's the kind of
[17:38] Speaker 2: illustration of why silencing these you know, quote unquote dangerous
[17:43] Speaker 2: people is a really dangerous thing to do, and why
[17:45] Speaker 2: I prefer to have the engagement and have it out
[17:48] Speaker 2: and let the audience sort of make up their minds.
[17:51] Speaker 1: So I love your point of view and your approach
[17:54] Speaker 1: to this. Why do you think it's so rare? As in,
[17:58] Speaker 1: why are you one of the few people who's running
[18:00] Speaker 1: a site like this?
[18:02] Speaker 2: You know, it's a question I asked myself a lot,
[18:05] Speaker 2: because when I started, I recognized that there was a
[18:10] Speaker 2: desire for this from people. But I also remember when
[18:16] Speaker 2: I first launched Tangle that I was not confident that
[18:20] Speaker 2: it was going to work. The idea that I was
[18:22] Speaker 2: going to bring a bunch of people from across the
[18:26] Speaker 2: political spectrum under one roof and convince them all to
[18:29] Speaker 2: trust me and to trust my news, and to trust
[18:33] Speaker 2: us as a place to provide them balanced perspectives. It
[18:36] Speaker 2: was really daunting. It seemed kind of unrealistic, and in
[18:40] Speaker 2: a lot of ways, I thought, this probably isn't going
[18:43] Speaker 2: to work, but it's worth trying. And I think most
[18:46] Speaker 2: people who are looking at the media as a business
[18:50] Speaker 2: understand that the best way to make money and the
[18:53] Speaker 2: best way to grow is to give people the red
[18:56] Speaker 2: meat that they want. You know, I mean the vast
[18:58] Speaker 2: majority of trash and viewers on a station like Fox
[19:03] Speaker 2: News or a website like the New York Times dot
[19:05] Speaker 2: com or whatever it is, they're political junkies. They are
[19:08] Speaker 2: people who are going back to that every single day.
[19:11] Speaker 2: You know, they represent maybe five or ten percent of
[19:13] Speaker 2: the population. And if you can capture that group and
[19:17] Speaker 2: keep them coming back day to day and keep giving
[19:20] Speaker 2: them what they want, keep giving them ammunition for their
[19:22] Speaker 2: arguments and their worldviews, that's a really good way to
[19:25] Speaker 2: build a subscription, you know, a subscriber base. It's a
[19:28] Speaker 2: really good way to build an audience for primetime television.
[19:31] Speaker 2: It's a really good way to build an advertising business
[19:34] Speaker 2: that has consistent traffic and metricks. And so I think
[19:37] Speaker 2: there's a lot of business stuff happening in the media
[19:39] Speaker 2: space that's sort of influencing these things. I had a
[19:43] Speaker 2: vision for a subscriber supported news outlet where people were
[19:48] Speaker 2: coming to us because they trusted us, because they wanted
[19:51] Speaker 2: to understand the news better, because they wanted to get
[19:53] Speaker 2: out of their bubbles. And I thought we could sell
[19:56] Speaker 2: it to them if the content, you know, followed through
[19:59] Speaker 2: on the promise, and we've been able to do that.
[20:02] Speaker 2: But you know, I have one hundred thousand plus subscribers
[20:05] Speaker 2: on my newsletter, which is a huge number, and I'm
[20:07] Speaker 2: super proud of it. And five years ago, if you
[20:09] Speaker 2: told me that, I would have been really happy that
[20:11] Speaker 2: we hit this milestone. But two million people watch Fox
[20:14] Speaker 2: News every night, you know, The New York Times has
[20:16] Speaker 2: two million subscribers. That Huffing and Post still gets hundreds
[20:20] Speaker 2: of thousand of hits a day. So there's a lot
[20:23] Speaker 2: of people who are competing with that make us look
[20:26] Speaker 2: like a small fish still. But I think that, you know,
[20:30] Speaker 2: we're a growing movement of people who are interested in
[20:32] Speaker 2: stepping into this kind of media ecosystem, and I hope
[20:36] Speaker 2: it keeps growling.
[20:53] Speaker 1: So I just want to touch on this issue about
[20:55] Speaker 1: the extremes about you said maybe five percent of the
[20:58] Speaker 1: people are going for the extreme things. That leaves a
[21:00] Speaker 1: lot of people somewhere in the middle. And so what
[21:05] Speaker 1: opportunities do they have, for example, from the point of
[21:07] Speaker 1: view of candidates. You know, we have a system that
[21:10] Speaker 1: tends to privilege people who take extreme positions, and so
[21:15] Speaker 1: what does this mean for our political system?
[21:19] Speaker 2: I had nothing great. It's not I would say the
[21:23] Speaker 2: news is not super optimistic in that sense. You know.
[21:27] Speaker 2: I got the chance to interview a guy named Hiram
[21:30] Speaker 2: Lewis who co authored a book called The Myth of
[21:33] Speaker 2: the Lefts and the Right. Really fascinating guy who talks about,
[21:37] Speaker 2: you know, basically, we're not operating around a left and
[21:40] Speaker 2: right political orientation that is fixed and we're all moving.
[21:45] Speaker 2: Those political orientations are actually moving, and it's really just
[21:48] Speaker 2: tribal motivations and kind of tribal dynamics that are driving
[21:52] Speaker 2: what constitutes being a conservative or what constant's being in liberal.
[21:56] Speaker 2: And one of the things that he said to me.
[21:58] Speaker 2: That has always stuck with me, which I really like
[22:01] Speaker 2: is most voters go to the voting booth, and what
[22:06] Speaker 2: they are doing effectively is like being a shop or
[22:09] Speaker 2: going to a grocery store where you're looking for a
[22:11] Speaker 2: bunch of things. You want to go pick out all
[22:13] Speaker 2: the things you want, and you get to the grocery
[22:15] Speaker 2: store and there's one card A that's just full of
[22:19] Speaker 2: half stuff you really want and half stuff you really don't,
[22:21] Speaker 2: and one car card B full of half stuff you
[22:24] Speaker 2: really want and half stuff you really don't. And you
[22:26] Speaker 2: just have to pick one of the carts, and you
[22:28] Speaker 2: pick the one with more stuff that you really like
[22:30] Speaker 2: and less stuff that you really don't. And that's what
[22:32] Speaker 2: most American voters you're doing. And I think it's true
[22:35] Speaker 2: of Democrats, and it's true of Republicans. And what's really
[22:38] Speaker 2: interesting about it is the dynamic we have in our
[22:42] Speaker 2: country right now is a lot of people who go
[22:45] Speaker 2: to the grocery store and pick cart A. Look at
[22:48] Speaker 2: people who go to the grocery store and pick cart
[22:50] Speaker 2: B and think you're totally insane. I can't believe you
[22:53] Speaker 2: would do that, like you're a nut. Even though there's
[22:56] Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff in card b they want to
[22:58] Speaker 2: and a bunch of stuff in there cart that they
[23:00] Speaker 2: don't really want, but they have a hard time seeing
[23:03] Speaker 2: that about the other person. And there's tons of dynamics
[23:06] Speaker 2: I think that drive that, you know, whether it's the
[23:09] Speaker 2: media polarization, which is an issue that I'm trying to solve,
[23:12] Speaker 2: Whether it's the fact that, you know, we only talk
[23:15] Speaker 2: about the people who are on the fringe when we
[23:17] Speaker 2: talk about the other side, or the fact that in
[23:20] Speaker 2: American society today, people are becoming a lot more siloed.
[23:23] Speaker 2: So it's not just that we consume news that you know,
[23:27] Speaker 2: affirms a lot of our priority. It's that we also
[23:29] Speaker 2: spend time with people in our social lives who mostly
[23:32] Speaker 2: agree with us politically. So, you know, if you're a
[23:36] Speaker 2: conservative living somewhere in rural West Texas, you might not
[23:40] Speaker 2: know very many in Muslims. And so the things that
[23:43] Speaker 2: you see about Muslims on the news are the things
[23:45] Speaker 2: that we all see about Muslims on the news, and
[23:47] Speaker 2: you don't get to learn or meet somebody who maybe
[23:50] Speaker 2: is not what you see characterized on the news, And
[23:53] Speaker 2: that goes every direction in our country and it creates,
[23:58] Speaker 2: you know, a really dangerous sort of boiling pot, which
[24:01] Speaker 2: I think is part of what we have right now.
[24:03] Speaker 1: So I want to return to this issue about what
[24:06] Speaker 1: makes you care about taking this middle position, about standing
[24:10] Speaker 1: in between the two carts and saying, look, I get it,
[24:12] Speaker 1: there's some good stuff in here. There's some good stuff
[24:14] Speaker 1: in here. You said that you grew up in a
[24:16] Speaker 1: place where there were different opinions and so on, but
[24:19] Speaker 1: still a lot of people grew up in that. What
[24:21] Speaker 1: is it that allowed you to feel like, all right,
[24:23] Speaker 1: I want to tackle this. I want to represent everyone's
[24:26] Speaker 1: point of view here so that we can understand each other.
[24:29] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to address
[24:31] Speaker 2: something you just said, because it's something I try and
[24:33] Speaker 2: talk a little bit about in my writing, which is
[24:36] Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be a middle my own personal
[24:39] Speaker 2: perspectives and my own views. I'm not just trying to
[24:42] Speaker 2: find some middle ground. I actually think doing that is
[24:46] Speaker 2: an ideology of its own. If you're always looking for
[24:48] Speaker 2: what's between the left and the right, you're just going
[24:51] Speaker 2: to land on a bunch of half baked solutions. Sometimes
[24:53] Speaker 2: the people on the left are right, sometimes the people
[24:55] Speaker 2: on the right are right. I try and just take
[24:57] Speaker 2: it issue by issue, and I don't know. I consider
[24:59] Speaker 2: my self a moderate and open minded, but I don't
[25:02] Speaker 2: consider myself, you know, middle on a lot of the
[25:04] Speaker 2: really contentious issues. Sometimes I'd land there, but I try
[25:07] Speaker 2: and you know, come to it organically and not seek
[25:09] Speaker 2: it out. In terms of like the the motivation for
[25:13] Speaker 2: starting Tangle, I mean, part of it was the classic
[25:17] Speaker 2: entrepreneurial thing, which was I wanted a product and I
[25:21] Speaker 2: went looking for it and I couldn't find it, and
[25:24] Speaker 2: so I thought, oh, it wouldn't be that hard to
[25:26] Speaker 2: make that. I mean, I would go read the news
[25:30] Speaker 2: and there'd be a story about Donald Trump's border wall,
[25:33] Speaker 2: and in order for me to feel like I had
[25:35] Speaker 2: a full understanding of all the arguments about whether a
[25:39] Speaker 2: border wall was a good or bad thing, I'd have
[25:41] Speaker 2: to read the Wall Street Journal opinion page. I'd have
[25:44] Speaker 2: to watch Fox News. I'd have to read the New
[25:46] Speaker 2: York Times opinion page. I'd read an article on the
[25:48] Speaker 2: Huffington Post. I'd read a piece from some immigration lawyers
[25:51] Speaker 2: who are on the left or at the ACLU. I
[25:53] Speaker 2: would listen to some conservative podcasts like Ben Shapiro or something.
[25:57] Speaker 2: I would go to twenty different sources and I'd six
[26:00] Speaker 2: hours doing it, and then at the end of all that,
[26:03] Speaker 2: I'd feel like, Okay, now I kind of have some clarity,
[26:05] Speaker 2: and I've seen a bunch of the arguments on this issue,
[26:08] Speaker 2: and God, I really wish there was a place that
[26:11] Speaker 2: I could just go get that and not spend half
[26:14] Speaker 2: my day doing it, and it would just take ten
[26:16] Speaker 2: or fifteen minutes. And I went looking for that product
[26:19] Speaker 2: and I didn't see it anywhere, and so I started
[26:23] Speaker 2: a product that I felt fulfilled that need and figured
[26:25] Speaker 2: I wasn't building the person who wanted that. I think,
[26:28] Speaker 2: you know, some of our growth has definitely confirmed that
[26:30] Speaker 2: there's a lot of people out there, and over time
[26:33] Speaker 2: the newsletter, in the podcast and the YouTube channel and
[26:36] Speaker 2: all the stuff we have, it's just become a lot
[26:38] Speaker 2: more personal because people want to know who's providing the
[26:41] Speaker 2: news to them. So early on readers would say, hey,
[26:45] Speaker 2: it's like, thanks for explaining this story. Cool to see
[26:48] Speaker 2: what the left and the right are saying, but I'm
[26:49] Speaker 2: really curious, like what do you think? And that was
[26:52] Speaker 2: like the genesis of my take, which is a section
[26:55] Speaker 2: in the newsletter where I share my own personal opinion
[26:58] Speaker 2: on stories and that's one of the engage parts of
[27:00] Speaker 2: the newsletter because people are really interested in the kind
[27:04] Speaker 2: of personal element and the person that is providing them
[27:07] Speaker 2: this information why they view things certain ways. And I
[27:10] Speaker 2: try not to just make that section a little mini
[27:13] Speaker 2: opinion piece. I try and address the arguments that we
[27:15] Speaker 2: just laid out in the newsletter and talk about why
[27:17] Speaker 2: so I'm resident with me and why they don't. And
[27:20] Speaker 2: I go to it with, you know, just humility, with
[27:22] Speaker 2: the acknowledgement that my position is not the right one
[27:25] Speaker 2: and I'm trying to learn and figure out what i believe,
[27:28] Speaker 2: just like a lot of Americans are.
[27:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the key, is intellectual humility. One
[27:33] Speaker 1: of the things that I find so remarkable about your
[27:36] Speaker 1: newsletter is first of all, you present the what the
[27:40] Speaker 1: left is saying, what the right is thing. Even within
[27:42] Speaker 1: those there are different voices representing different points of view.
[27:46] Speaker 1: Then you tell your opinion. But the important part is
[27:48] Speaker 1: then you say, look, I'm really aware, I'm trying to
[27:51] Speaker 1: see my own blind spots, and so next week I'm
[27:55] Speaker 1: going to write from the opposite point of view. I'm
[27:57] Speaker 1: going to stealman the other point of view and represent
[28:02] Speaker 1: that and try to see my own blind spots, and
[28:04] Speaker 1: that is so rare, and I'm still I'm trying to
[28:08] Speaker 1: figure out what makes you do that? And why isn't
[28:12] Speaker 1: everybody trying to do that?
[28:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean I, first of all,
[28:17] Speaker 2: from a personal perspective, I find that exercise exhilarating. I mean,
[28:21] Speaker 2: I genuinely find it really interesting and fun, and it
[28:24] Speaker 2: excites me to challenge myself that way, and it excites
[28:27] Speaker 2: me to see people write in and make an argument
[28:30] Speaker 2: I haven't thought of. I think I have a curious disposition,
[28:33] Speaker 2: and I'm open minded, and I'm speaking publicly about issues
[28:37] Speaker 2: that I really care about, and so I want to
[28:39] Speaker 2: get them right. So the idea that I can go
[28:44] Speaker 2: back and read an article I wrote a few weeks
[28:46] Speaker 2: ago and then write an entire opinion piece criticizing the
[28:50] Speaker 2: thing I just wrote that exercise for me is actually
[28:53] Speaker 2: really fun and rewarding. But I'll say candidly that I
[28:58] Speaker 2: wasn't always like that, and it wasn't always easy for
[29:01] Speaker 2: me to do that. And one of the things that
[29:02] Speaker 2: made it easy was the actual exercise of doing the
[29:05] Speaker 2: newsletter every day, and that is created in me, you know,
[29:09] Speaker 2: like a muscle that I think I've trained the same
[29:12] Speaker 2: way I trained muscles going to the gym, where I
[29:16] Speaker 2: have taught myself that it's okay, it's okay to just
[29:19] Speaker 2: like step out of my own belief step out of
[29:23] Speaker 2: my own viewpoint, and try and put myself in another
[29:25] Speaker 2: person's perspective or put myself in another person's you know,
[29:29] Speaker 2: ideological framework, and explore that a bit and think along
[29:33] Speaker 2: those lines and play with it and going there. It's
[29:36] Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of people feel like
[29:38] Speaker 2: they can't go do that because if they do, they'll
[29:41] Speaker 2: never return to their core self or their values. And
[29:44] Speaker 2: it's not true. You can sit down at your computer
[29:47] Speaker 2: and write a five hundred word piece making an argument
[29:50] Speaker 2: for a position you don't believe, just to see what
[29:53] Speaker 2: it feels like and what comes out of you and
[29:55] Speaker 2: what positions come up and what ideas come up. And
[29:57] Speaker 2: then you can delete it and never publish it or
[30:00] Speaker 2: do anything with it, or you can show it to
[30:01] Speaker 2: people and try and get feedback on it. And that
[30:03] Speaker 2: exercise doesn't change who you are fundamentally. It just makes
[30:07] Speaker 2: you a little more open minded. I think teaches you
[30:09] Speaker 2: to empathize with people who maybe you disagree, and I
[30:13] Speaker 2: was fortunate enough that I did that publicly through Tangle
[30:16] Speaker 2: with a community of readers who are interested in that,
[30:18] Speaker 2: and they gave me a lot of positive reinforcement for it.
[30:21] Speaker 2: You know, Like we published a piece today where I
[30:24] Speaker 2: took the position that Israel should not have it like,
[30:28] Speaker 2: not engage in a ceasefire in Gaza, which is not
[30:31] Speaker 2: a position I believe. I've been writing a lot about
[30:33] Speaker 2: how I want Israel to make a ceasefire deal, and
[30:38] Speaker 2: I said today I'm going to step out of that
[30:41] Speaker 2: view and try and articulate the best arguments against my position.
[30:44] Speaker 2: And you know, I've read fifty emails that have come
[30:47] Speaker 2: in in the last hour and a half since we
[30:48] Speaker 2: published that piece, and forty eight of them have been positive.
[30:52] Speaker 2: You know. They are people saying, thank you so much
[30:54] Speaker 2: for doing this. I know you don't totally believe all
[30:57] Speaker 2: these things, but it's so fascinating to watch you go
[30:59] Speaker 2: through this process, and it's helping me better understand the conflict,
[31:02] Speaker 2: and getting that positive reinforcement makes me want to do
[31:05] Speaker 2: it more. So I'm very lucky in that sense, you know.
[31:08] Speaker 2: I mean, I'm getting some of that feedback that it's
[31:10] Speaker 2: clear people are interested in this kind of.
[31:12] Speaker 1: Thing, and when you do this, I know you try
[31:15] Speaker 1: to be really careful to make sure that you're bringing
[31:18] Speaker 1: readers in and you're not stopping anybody at the door
[31:21] Speaker 1: from wanting to come in, and so you're careful about
[31:24] Speaker 1: language and the language choices you make.
[31:27] Speaker 2: So tell us about that. Yeah, sure, you know. This
[31:30] Speaker 2: is something that I care a lot about because what
[31:32] Speaker 2: I've learned over time from doing this is it's often
[31:36] Speaker 2: not the content of the argument that sends people scurrying
[31:40] Speaker 2: away from you know, your perspective or your writing. It's
[31:44] Speaker 2: the language that you're using to sort of communicate it.
[31:47] Speaker 2: And so one of the classic examples that I give
[31:50] Speaker 2: that I think is really relevant in the media space
[31:53] Speaker 2: is the ways in which we talk about illegal immigration
[31:55] Speaker 2: in the United States. Anybody can go do this right now.
[31:58] Speaker 2: If you go to funews dot com and look up
[32:01] Speaker 2: a story about, you know, President Biden's border policies, you'll
[32:06] Speaker 2: see Fox News referring to legal aliens or illegal immigrants.
[32:10] Speaker 2: And if you go to the New York Times and
[32:12] Speaker 2: look up stories about Biden's border policies, you'll see them
[32:15] Speaker 2: referring to undocumented immigrants and that language choice might seem
[32:20] Speaker 2: not that important to somebody who is really a political junkie,
[32:23] Speaker 2: but to people who really care about that issue, that
[32:26] Speaker 2: those language choices matter a lot. And we found early
[32:31] Speaker 2: on that people would write in and say, you know,
[32:34] Speaker 2: I saw you refer to undocumented immigrants, and it's clear
[32:38] Speaker 2: that you're on the left, so I've unsubscribed, And it's
[32:40] Speaker 2: like they didn't even get to the arguments. They just
[32:42] Speaker 2: saw that language choice, and to them, that's a tip
[32:45] Speaker 2: that we are taking some ideological stance. And so, you know,
[32:50] Speaker 2: sometimes we would do articles where we mixed it, where
[32:52] Speaker 2: we do some undocumented and some illegal immigrants, and then
[32:56] Speaker 2: you know, people on the left would write in and say, like,
[32:58] Speaker 2: no person is a lead goal, you're dehumanizing immigrants. I
[33:02] Speaker 2: thought I was getting something better than this. I've unsubscribed
[33:05] Speaker 2: from the newsletter. And so we looked at our whole
[33:09] Speaker 2: you know, vocabulary across the website and started thinking about
[33:13] Speaker 2: ways in which we could find a little bit more
[33:15] Speaker 2: neutral language that still articulated the thing we were trying
[33:19] Speaker 2: to get across to our readers or listeners, so you know,
[33:22] Speaker 2: on the question of immigration. Our solution to that was
[33:25] Speaker 2: we refer to illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants as unauthorized migrants,
[33:29] Speaker 2: which is actually the legal term that something like the
[33:32] Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security will use to describe somebody who's
[33:36] Speaker 2: coming to the country illegally. And we find that that
[33:39] Speaker 2: doesn't offend the sensibilities at either side. It articulates exactly
[33:42] Speaker 2: what we're trying to say, and it keeps people focus
[33:45] Speaker 2: on the arguments we're presenting and not just the language
[33:47] Speaker 2: choices we're making. And you know this is relevant for abortion,
[33:51] Speaker 2: drug policy, every issue you can think of under the sun.
[33:55] Speaker 2: There there are language choices like this that readers are
[33:58] Speaker 2: really keen on, and it's a good way to kind
[34:00] Speaker 2: of get people's barriers down and make it so you
[34:03] Speaker 2: can communicate with them a little bit more openly.
[34:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so glad you're really thinking about these trip
[34:09] Speaker 1: wires and removing those so you can get everyone in
[34:12] Speaker 1: to talk about these issues. So, as a neuroscientist, what
[34:15] Speaker 1: I'm really interested in is how we each have our
[34:18] Speaker 1: internal model of the world and we believe our truths.
[34:22] Speaker 1: We believe our models are complete, and we have those
[34:25] Speaker 1: From your point of view, why do you think it's
[34:26] Speaker 1: so difficult for people to see both sides of an issue,
[34:31] Speaker 1: or usually more than two sides, all sides of an issue.
[34:34] Speaker 1: Why is that such a challenge for people generally?
[34:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I don't this is probably closer
[34:40] Speaker 2: to your expertise than mine, to be frank, and I
[34:43] Speaker 2: don't want to, you know, step out of my lane here.
[34:46] Speaker 2: But from what I understand from reading a lot of
[34:49] Speaker 2: you know, people like Jonathan Haate who write a lot
[34:51] Speaker 2: about the way our brains work, and you know, the
[34:54] Speaker 2: competing things that happened and reasoning, what we know is that,
[34:59] Speaker 2: you know, use is the analogy of the elephant and
[35:02] Speaker 2: the rider, that our emotional response is like this ninety
[35:05] Speaker 2: percent part of our brain, this kind of instinctive response
[35:08] Speaker 2: we have to certain ideas to certain politicians or whatever
[35:12] Speaker 2: it is. That's the elephant, and then there's the rider,
[35:15] Speaker 2: that's the ten percent logic reason that's trying to control
[35:18] Speaker 2: this emotional thing. But sometimes we've lost the battle before
[35:21] Speaker 2: we even you begin. There's tons of super interesting political,
[35:27] Speaker 2: you know, poly sized studies about this stuff. Like, for instance,
[35:31] Speaker 2: one of the things that I've read about is a
[35:34] Speaker 2: study where people are shown the image of a politician
[35:38] Speaker 2: for about three seconds, and then the image is removed.
[35:42] Speaker 2: Then there's some the image of another politician for about
[35:44] Speaker 2: three seconds. The image is removed, and then they're asked
[35:47] Speaker 2: to vote on which politician they like more. And then
[35:50] Speaker 2: they do the same experiment again with people where they
[35:54] Speaker 2: show them these politicians and then they spend twenty minutes
[35:57] Speaker 2: explaining the views and they do the same thing and
[35:59] Speaker 2: the results are almost identical. And so what the researchers
[36:03] Speaker 2: take away is that a lot of times people are
[36:04] Speaker 2: making their minds up in a split second, just like
[36:07] Speaker 2: literally based on how somebody looks, all the things they
[36:10] Speaker 2: can assume about them, just based on their appearance and
[36:12] Speaker 2: what they look like, and that by the time they
[36:14] Speaker 2: get to know their actual views and policies, you're only
[36:18] Speaker 2: moving like ten percent of the population. Kind of a
[36:20] Speaker 2: scary thought, right, I mean, really like whoa. But it's
[36:25] Speaker 2: reflective of the fact that we are a tribal species,
[36:29] Speaker 2: you know, like there are people that we've interacted with,
[36:32] Speaker 2: there are people that we've spent our lives growing up with,
[36:35] Speaker 2: people that feel foreign, are different from us, and when
[36:38] Speaker 2: push comes to shove, those kind of like instinctual based
[36:42] Speaker 2: lizard brain type responses do a lot of the driving.
[36:45] Speaker 2: And you know, to the point I was making earlier,
[36:48] Speaker 2: I think it's a muscle you have to flex. It's
[36:51] Speaker 2: something you have to be very intentional about to do.
[36:54] Speaker 2: Everybody's capable of it. But I don't think it's something
[36:56] Speaker 2: that comes totally organically to people to just you know,
[37:00] Speaker 2: be open minded about the views or ideas or politicians
[37:04] Speaker 2: or whoever they're considering. That's right.
[37:06] Speaker 1: We all have a drive for certainty where we feel like, hey,
[37:09] Speaker 1: look I know the truth, I know it's right and
[37:11] Speaker 1: what's wrong here. Do people ever look at what you
[37:14] Speaker 1: are doing and accuse you of being wishy washy?
[37:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they do. That's something I get a lot.
[37:22] Speaker 2: I mean, the common accusation is, you know, both SiZ
[37:26] Speaker 2: ism or what about ism or you know whatever else.
[37:30] Speaker 2: And look, I get it if you're somebody who has
[37:33] Speaker 2: a strong political view about an issue and you sign
[37:38] Speaker 2: up for our newsletter or start listening to our podcast
[37:40] Speaker 2: and you hear me talk about an issue and take
[37:43] Speaker 2: a squishy stance on something where you know, sometimes I'll
[37:46] Speaker 2: just say I actually don't know. I mean, I'll literally which,
[37:49] Speaker 2: by the way, everybody should do a lot more. But
[37:51] Speaker 2: I'll just say I don't you know, I don't know
[37:54] Speaker 2: like I feel conflicted about this. I don't feel confident
[37:56] Speaker 2: saying strongly that what my view is one way or
[37:59] Speaker 2: the other. Here's why I feel conflicted, and I'm just
[38:01] Speaker 2: not sure where I land on. You know, whether Congress
[38:03] Speaker 2: should pass this bill or not. And people feel strongly
[38:07] Speaker 2: about that issue, will you know, write in accusing me
[38:10] Speaker 2: of being wishy washy or whatever else, and my response
[38:15] Speaker 2: to them, like the standard response is I understand why
[38:18] Speaker 2: you feel strongly about this issue, and I can see
[38:21] Speaker 2: very clearly you know why this matters to you, what's
[38:23] Speaker 2: important to you about it. If you were looking for
[38:26] Speaker 2: somebody who's just going to give you something in black
[38:29] Speaker 2: and white terms all the time, I'll tell you right
[38:31] Speaker 2: now you're not going to get that here. And this
[38:33] Speaker 2: isn't the news outlet for you. I think there's a
[38:35] Speaker 2: lot of people doing that, and I hope you keep
[38:38] Speaker 2: reading them and you keep engaging them and supporting them
[38:40] Speaker 2: if you like their work. But to me, it seems
[38:43] Speaker 2: like we are actually the place you should be spending
[38:45] Speaker 2: some time with to get a little bit more of
[38:47] Speaker 2: the gray. And that response oftentimes goes over well, sometimes
[38:52] Speaker 2: it lands a little condescending or off putting or whatever,
[38:55] Speaker 2: but oftentimes people are receptive to that and they're appreciative
[38:58] Speaker 2: I took the time to write back or answer them somehow,
[39:01] Speaker 2: and so I just try and you know, be authentic
[39:03] Speaker 2: about what we're trying to do and who I am
[39:06] Speaker 2: as a person. And people typically, you know, they reply
[39:09] Speaker 2: positively when you just transparent and authentic and put a
[39:13] Speaker 2: little effort in.
[39:27] Speaker 1: One of the things that I've been writing about and
[39:30] Speaker 1: talking about in this podcast is the way that I
[39:34] Speaker 1: possibly the only way that I see of trying to
[39:37] Speaker 1: bring sides a little bit closer together is the complexification
[39:42] Speaker 1: of allegiances, by which I mean understanding. Okay, well, look,
[39:46] Speaker 1: you know I feel strongly about this issue and you
[39:47] Speaker 1: feel the opposite about this. But you know, we actually
[39:50] Speaker 1: have this in common, and we both like to surf,
[39:53] Speaker 1: and we both like this kind of dog, and we
[39:55] Speaker 1: both have children at the same elementary school, and we
[39:58] Speaker 1: love the you know, activities there. And so when things
[40:01] Speaker 1: get tangled like that, then people find it a little
[40:05] Speaker 1: harder to completely dismiss the person and say you're my enemy.
[40:10] Speaker 1: So I'm just curious, you know, your newsletter I think
[40:14] Speaker 1: goes a long way to doing that. What would you
[40:16] Speaker 1: see in terms of the ways that we can entangle
[40:20] Speaker 1: the allegiances that people have in our society.
[40:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I get a lot of emails that
[40:27] Speaker 2: I think ask a really similar question in a different way,
[40:30] Speaker 2: which is, you know, my niece is like a radical
[40:34] Speaker 2: socialist and I don't know how to talk to her
[40:37] Speaker 2: about politics. Or my neighbor is a diehard Trump supporter
[40:41] Speaker 2: and he flies the Trump flag and it freaks me out,
[40:43] Speaker 2: but you know, I want to learn more about him,
[40:45] Speaker 2: and you know, do you have any advice about how
[40:47] Speaker 2: to approach this the conversation or whatever? And you know,
[40:52] Speaker 2: depending on the context, I think one of my common
[40:55] Speaker 2: go to answers is just like, have you ever tried
[40:58] Speaker 2: grabbing a six packup ear and ocking on their door
[41:00] Speaker 2: and asking if they want to spend a little time together?
[41:02] Speaker 2: I mean, genuinely, like, people are social creatures. We're typically curious,
[41:09] Speaker 2: you know, we're typically peaceful if people approach them in
[41:13] Speaker 2: a peaceful manner. And I don't think it's particularly dangerous
[41:19] Speaker 2: to just try and go open a conversation with somebody
[41:22] Speaker 2: who you recognize might feel really differently about your worldview.
[41:28] Speaker 2: One rule that I have, I like a rule of
[41:30] Speaker 2: engagement I have about doing that is just try your
[41:36] Speaker 2: best to ask two or three questions before you make
[41:40] Speaker 2: any statements. And so like, when I'm speaking to somebody
[41:44] Speaker 2: who's somebody new and what will happen to me because
[41:47] Speaker 2: of my work, and you know, someone might know me,
[41:50] Speaker 2: or somebody a friend tells them that I write this
[41:51] Speaker 2: politics podcast, they'll come over and just like start drilling
[41:55] Speaker 2: me with political stuff immediately, you know, like spraying me
[41:58] Speaker 2: with their opinions whatever it is, are peppering me with questions,
[42:02] Speaker 2: and I my rule is just like, don't like get
[42:06] Speaker 2: on your stool and start pontificating out of the gate.
[42:12] Speaker 2: Do your best to ask like two or three questions,
[42:14] Speaker 2: earnest questions, like real genuine questions, and hear the person,
[42:18] Speaker 2: listen to them, pay attention to what they're saying, and
[42:21] Speaker 2: just try to understand them a little bit better before
[42:23] Speaker 2: you start trying to explain anything to them, or you know,
[42:26] Speaker 2: convince them that your position's right. And that exercise to
[42:30] Speaker 2: me has always you know, entangled me in some sort
[42:33] Speaker 2: of societal fabric way where they'll say something or I'll
[42:37] Speaker 2: hear something that they that they offer that makes me
[42:40] Speaker 2: think of a friend or a relative, or you know,
[42:43] Speaker 2: I recognize a little bit of who this person is
[42:45] Speaker 2: or where they're from, and I can connect them to
[42:47] Speaker 2: some other part of my life, and that makes me
[42:49] Speaker 2: a little bit more empathetic to whatever else is coming
[42:52] Speaker 2: out of their mouth, or maybe some positions they have
[42:54] Speaker 2: that I find a boor or whatever it is. And so,
[42:57] Speaker 2: you know, I think earnestly asking questions is genuinely you know,
[43:01] Speaker 2: spending time with somebody trying to talk to them is
[43:04] Speaker 2: a good strategy. And I know it sounds so cheesy
[43:08] Speaker 2: and corny, and people can pretend it's not true, but
[43:12] Speaker 2: it is really genuinely true that the vast majority of people,
[43:16] Speaker 2: not just in the United States but all across the world,
[43:19] Speaker 2: you know, they they care about their family, They care
[43:22] Speaker 2: about safety and security and eating having food on their
[43:25] Speaker 2: table and taking care of their kids, and you know,
[43:29] Speaker 2: growing up in an environment that's kind of safe and
[43:31] Speaker 2: boiling off some steam and having some fun and you know,
[43:34] Speaker 2: everybody smiles and everybody laughs. Everybody can do that. Everybody
[43:38] Speaker 2: has that capacity, and you can reach people who feel
[43:41] Speaker 2: unreachable if you're you know, asking the right questions or
[43:45] Speaker 2: coming into I think with a truly open minded posture.
[43:48] Speaker 2: So that's kind of what I preach and I think
[43:50] Speaker 2: it's effective in my personal life.
[43:52] Speaker 1: Have you thought about how to get this into the
[43:55] Speaker 1: education system with high schoolers and college students? Plus what
[43:59] Speaker 1: you mentioned before about the value of steel manning the
[44:03] Speaker 1: other side's argument, if we could work this into our
[44:06] Speaker 1: educational system and even this, you know, the simple thing
[44:10] Speaker 1: of okay, ask two or three questions before you say
[44:12] Speaker 1: your thing. How would you think about getting that in there?
[44:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, So one of my big goals for Tangle actually
[44:18] Speaker 2: is to get more engagement at the high school and
[44:22] Speaker 2: college level. I have a partnership with a poly side
[44:25] Speaker 2: professor at Georgia State University who actually sells a digital
[44:29] Speaker 2: poly side textbook, and Tangle is part of the textbook,
[44:32] Speaker 2: so included in the textbook yard daily editions of Tangle
[44:36] Speaker 2: every day, which is really cool. And we have teachers
[44:39] Speaker 2: from all over the country who are high school teachers
[44:42] Speaker 2: who are subscribers to the newsletter of the podcast and
[44:45] Speaker 2: have written in and told me, you know, they're using
[44:47] Speaker 2: editions that we've written about controversial issues as sort of
[44:50] Speaker 2: jumping off points for their classes. You know, it's a
[44:53] Speaker 2: really big problem. I think the education side of it
[44:57] Speaker 2: and bringing kids up, you know, in an environ that
[45:00] Speaker 2: teaches them to be a lot more open minded, and
[45:03] Speaker 2: we need to do it at that age. I mean,
[45:04] Speaker 2: the question you're asking, in my opinion is really the
[45:07] Speaker 2: right question, is how do we get the next generation
[45:11] Speaker 2: to a place where they're a lot more open minded
[45:13] Speaker 2: and inquisitive and you know, tolerant of the other side
[45:17] Speaker 2: or people who have different political views in them, because
[45:20] Speaker 2: I think we're seeing a hardening right now. And you know,
[45:24] Speaker 2: I think the really the really cynical part of me
[45:28] Speaker 2: feels in some ways like, you know, the people who
[45:31] Speaker 2: are in their fifties and sixties and seventies, they are
[45:35] Speaker 2: not lost, but it's you know, it's like a euphemism
[45:38] Speaker 2: that it's so hard to you know, teach an old
[45:41] Speaker 2: dog nutrix. For a reason, it's it is, And we
[45:44] Speaker 2: need to focus on, like the young people and our
[45:46] Speaker 2: generation who are coming up next and are entering a
[45:51] Speaker 2: society that is really black and white and really hard
[45:54] Speaker 2: and really ideological right now and break them out of
[45:57] Speaker 2: that because it's getting worse in a lot of ways.
[46:00] Speaker 2: And I think we have a small window to kind
[46:03] Speaker 2: of course correct that. So I'm doing my best to
[46:07] Speaker 2: you know, spread tangle to the masses, and I hope
[46:11] Speaker 2: model some of this, you know, model the way that
[46:14] Speaker 2: I want to see people go about this. But the
[46:17] Speaker 2: more participants the better, and kind of spreading the word
[46:20] Speaker 2: is really one of the only good ways to fight
[46:23] Speaker 2: back against some of the stuff we're saying.
[46:26] Speaker 1: Let me trill into that for one second, because I
[46:28] Speaker 1: know that some people are of the opinion that the
[46:31] Speaker 1: young people are the ones that it's hard to teach
[46:34] Speaker 1: new tricks to and that as people mature and they gray,
[46:39] Speaker 1: they think, well, you know, maybe this we've had I've
[46:41] Speaker 1: seen more things now, I've known people with different opinions.
[46:45] Speaker 1: I'm just curious that you mentioned fifty sixty seven year
[46:49] Speaker 1: olds are the ones that are less plastic in their
[46:52] Speaker 1: views and the young people are more plastic.
[46:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I mean, I guess I've
[46:57] Speaker 2: heard that framing too, and haven't thought super deeply about
[47:02] Speaker 2: the kind of counter to that. I would say. My
[47:04] Speaker 2: perspective is folks who are older and have been around longer,
[47:09] Speaker 2: I think have a better understanding of the complexity and
[47:14] Speaker 2: the gray that exists between the black and white, but
[47:17] Speaker 2: they're less willing to move out of whatever their positions are.
[47:22] Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what I'm more articulating,
[47:26] Speaker 2: is that, you know, if you're a sixty five year
[47:29] Speaker 2: old and you're a lifelong Democratic voter and you know
[47:34] Speaker 2: you think Trump is the worst thing you've ever seen
[47:37] Speaker 2: in the history of US politics, I am way more
[47:39] Speaker 2: skeptical that in the next fifteen years you're going to
[47:42] Speaker 2: change your mind about that position than I am if
[47:45] Speaker 2: you're a twenty year old college student who feels that way,
[47:49] Speaker 2: and I know you're about to go through this next
[47:51] Speaker 2: phase of your life and your world's going to change
[47:54] Speaker 2: and your world's going to evolve, and you know, I
[47:58] Speaker 2: think it's true. I think you make a great point
[48:00] Speaker 2: that a lot of the longer you are around, I
[48:03] Speaker 2: think the more you realize that the world is not
[48:05] Speaker 2: black and white. But I think people also become more
[48:09] Speaker 2: fixed in their positions and less willing to kind of
[48:11] Speaker 2: have their mind changed by other people. And part of that,
[48:16] Speaker 2: I think, part of what scares me I think about
[48:18] Speaker 2: this moment right now in particular, is that we're in
[48:23] Speaker 2: this weird kind of societal moment where a lot of
[48:25] Speaker 2: younger Americans are entering a space where, you know, silence
[48:30] Speaker 2: is complicity. There is a perception that if you are
[48:34] Speaker 2: not tapped into or have a strong opinion about certain
[48:38] Speaker 2: issues that our country is facing, that you are somehow,
[48:42] Speaker 2: you know, part of the problem rather than somebody who's
[48:46] Speaker 2: just ripe to become educated or learn more about an
[48:49] Speaker 2: issue or whatever else it is. And so people feel
[48:52] Speaker 2: really really compelled to take sides and sort of this
[48:55] Speaker 2: blue versus red culture war that we have right now
[48:57] Speaker 2: that I don't think has always existed the past. And
[49:01] Speaker 2: so a lot of young people that I know and
[49:04] Speaker 2: I'm seeing, you know, on college campuses across the country
[49:08] Speaker 2: are jumping into issues, you know, headfirst in a way
[49:12] Speaker 2: that I'm like, yes, you should care about this, you
[49:14] Speaker 2: should be thinking about this, Like I love seeing this
[49:17] Speaker 2: civic participation and whatever else it is. But they're doing
[49:21] Speaker 2: it because it's it's almost like a social phenomenon. It's
[49:25] Speaker 2: a community thing. It's not it's not necessarily like an
[49:28] Speaker 2: educational thing that pushed them there or an interest in
[49:32] Speaker 2: you know, going really deep on this topic and learning
[49:34] Speaker 2: about all the complexities. It's like, oh, all my friends
[49:37] Speaker 2: are doing this thing, or you know, all my friends
[49:39] Speaker 2: have picked this side, and I feel like I need
[49:41] Speaker 2: to go pick this side. And there's a really really strong,
[49:44] Speaker 2: you know, social pressure, I think in part because of
[49:45] Speaker 2: social media and just also how divided the rest of
[49:48] Speaker 2: the country is. And I really want to get to
[49:50] Speaker 2: those kids and try and just like teach them that,
[49:54] Speaker 2: you know, it's okay to change your mind. It's okay
[49:56] Speaker 2: to not have a position yet, it's okay to say
[49:58] Speaker 2: you're still learning, and it's okay to feel really radically
[50:02] Speaker 2: passionate about a certain issue if like you spent the
[50:05] Speaker 2: requisite time to learn about it, and that that's kind
[50:08] Speaker 2: of like what I'm hoping to get out there a
[50:10] Speaker 2: little bit. And I think sort of the distinction I
[50:13] Speaker 2: see between the older and younger generations.
[50:16] Speaker 1: One more question. So you and I both think a
[50:18] Speaker 1: lot about how to maintain curiosity and hopefully humility about
[50:23] Speaker 1: our political opinions. But it's tough, right and you recently
[50:27] Speaker 1: posted on x that things seem so fraud right now
[50:32] Speaker 1: that sometimes you feel tempted just to run back to
[50:35] Speaker 1: your side to people who agree with you and just
[50:39] Speaker 1: quit talking about it and quit being out there in
[50:41] Speaker 1: public advocating for curiosity and humility.
[50:44] Speaker 2: So how do you stay strong on that?
[50:47] Speaker 1: How do you stay somebody who says, you know what,
[50:49] Speaker 1: I'm going to keep trying to understand the different sides
[50:53] Speaker 1: of this.
[50:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I pace myself, you know.
[50:58] Speaker 2: I think one thing that's really important for someone who's
[51:02] Speaker 2: in my line of work is that, you know, you
[51:05] Speaker 2: can't spend ten hours with your head down just reading
[51:09] Speaker 2: the news and watching you know, videos of what's happening
[51:13] Speaker 2: in war zones across the world, or you know, congressional
[51:16] Speaker 2: hearings or whatever else it is. You actually have to
[51:19] Speaker 2: separate yourself from that and go live your day to
[51:22] Speaker 2: day life and experience the world as it is right
[51:24] Speaker 2: in front of you, to stay really grounded and to
[51:27] Speaker 2: understand that, you know, not everything is what's happening on
[51:30] Speaker 2: the kind of political fringes and whether it's in congress
[51:33] Speaker 2: or in war zones or whatever else it is. So
[51:36] Speaker 2: I try really hard to just like get some space
[51:39] Speaker 2: from that and take breaks and live and experience, you know,
[51:43] Speaker 2: the things that I'm talking about myself. And I also
[51:47] Speaker 2: just think we are sort of programmed in a way
[51:50] Speaker 2: to remember and focus on and emphasize the negative feedback
[51:57] Speaker 2: we get and not necessarily the positive feedback we get.
[52:00] Speaker 2: And I know in my work, when somebody writes in
[52:05] Speaker 2: really critically or says something that's really sharp or biting
[52:09] Speaker 2: about something I've said or my writing, that's the thing
[52:12] Speaker 2: that I spend all day thinking about. It's not the
[52:15] Speaker 2: email from somebody telling me your news source is like
[52:18] Speaker 2: the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so
[52:19] Speaker 2: glad to be a subscriber. And I could get ten
[52:22] Speaker 2: of those emails and one of the kind of biting ones,
[52:26] Speaker 2: and I'll think about the biting one the rest of
[52:27] Speaker 2: the day, and I just dismissed the other ten. And
[52:30] Speaker 2: so I've tried to be a lot more intentional about like,
[52:33] Speaker 2: you know, focusing on the people who are standing up
[52:37] Speaker 2: and clapping and saying we want more of this, like
[52:39] Speaker 2: this is what I've been looking for, and remembering that
[52:42] Speaker 2: like those people are relying on folks like me to
[52:45] Speaker 2: kind of step into the fray. And you know, as
[52:49] Speaker 2: I like to say, like I'm going to war with
[52:51] Speaker 2: partisan news, like that's the battle that I have is
[52:54] Speaker 2: that there's a lot of people out there who are
[52:57] Speaker 2: intentionally turning the temperature up when they don't need to.
[53:01] Speaker 2: That's going to happen organically. We don't need to manufacture that.
[53:04] Speaker 2: But they're doing it on purpose, and I'm trying to
[53:07] Speaker 2: fight against those people. That's sort of my quote unquote
[53:11] Speaker 2: enemy is the people who are trying to turn the
[53:13] Speaker 2: temperature up. And I just want people to be more
[53:16] Speaker 2: informed and have a more holistic view of things. And
[53:19] Speaker 2: when I feel that exhaustion, I just like step away,
[53:23] Speaker 2: give myself a little bit of a break, and then
[53:25] Speaker 2: try and focus on and remember the people who are
[53:27] Speaker 2: I know are like rooting for us and rooting for
[53:30] Speaker 2: me and rooting for my company, and want what we're
[53:32] Speaker 2: doing to kind of prevail, and hope that they just
[53:35] Speaker 2: stick around and keep supporting us.
[53:37] Speaker 1: Well, keep up the strong work, Isaac. There are many
[53:40] Speaker 1: of us who are rooting for you, and we thank
[53:43] Speaker 1: you a lot.
[53:44] Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate that man.
[53:50] Speaker 1: That was my interview with Isaac Soahl from Tangle. I
[53:53] Speaker 1: highly recommend his newsletter, which is one of the few outlets,
[53:57] Speaker 1: along with some others that I list in my show notes,
[54:00] Speaker 1: that operates at a different level of curious intelligence. It
[54:04] Speaker 1: doesn't simply plug into our limbic systems to get us
[54:08] Speaker 1: angry and verify that we're right and those others are wrong.
[54:12] Speaker 1: But instead this pushes us into the prefrontal cortex, forcing
[54:16] Speaker 1: us to think about multiple points of view. One does
[54:20] Speaker 1: not have to agree with the other points of view,
[54:23] Speaker 1: and one may still feel dismissive towards them, but at
[54:26] Speaker 1: least one sees that reasonable people can hold different points
[54:31] Speaker 1: of view, can wrestle internally with deeply uncomfortable issues, can
[54:36] Speaker 1: even feel lost and confused about issues. Rather than pretending
[54:41] Speaker 1: that everything is black and white, this sort of approach
[54:44] Speaker 1: values a wide embrace of society rather than dismissing half
[54:49] Speaker 1: the population. If we have any hopes of retrieving a
[54:54] Speaker 1: more communicative and less polarized world, it's only going to
[54:58] Speaker 1: be having a willingness to expand our viewpoint just a
[55:02] Speaker 1: little bit, to not assume that everything is our way
[55:06] Speaker 1: or the highway, and to force ourselves at all moments
[55:11] Speaker 1: to see and celebrate our common humanity.
[55:21] Speaker 2: Go to Eagleman dot.
[55:21] Speaker 1: Com slash podcast for more information and to find further reading.
[55:26] Speaker 1: Send me an email at podcast at eagleman dot com
[55:29] Speaker 1: with any questions or discussion, and check out and subscribe
[55:33] Speaker 1: to Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each episode
[55:36] Speaker 1: and to leave comments until next time. I'm David Eagleman
[55:41] Speaker 1: and this is Inner Cosmos.

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