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everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy.

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Today is Monday, May 27th, 2024,

0:49

and I'm the host of the show, Cara

0:51

Santa Maria. And as always, before we dive

0:53

into this week's episode, I do want to

0:55

thank those of you who make Talk Nerdy

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that's because of the incredible help from

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people just like you. So this week I want

1:38

to thank my top patrons. They include Anu

1:41

Baravaj, Daniel Lang, David

1:44

J.E. Smith, Mary Neva,

1:46

Brian Holden, David Compton,

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Gabrielle Efharmio, Joe Wilkinson,

1:50

Pascuali Gelati, and Ulrika

1:53

Hagman. All right,

1:55

let's get into it. So this is

1:57

kind of a different one this week.

1:59

I have... I had the opportunity to speak

2:02

with author Amanda Montel,

2:05

but I did it in

2:07

a different setting than usual.

2:09

I was lucky enough to

2:11

interview her for a virtual

2:13

event that was recorded live

2:15

with the Toronto Public Library.

2:18

So what you're hearing now is that event.

2:21

We made a deal to be able to

2:23

play it right here on the show, which

2:25

is really, really wonderful.

2:27

So I want to thank the

2:30

Toronto Public Library for that opportunity.

2:33

So Amanda Montel is a

2:35

New York Times bestselling author.

2:37

She wrote the previous books,

2:39

Cultish and Word Slut. She

2:41

also has a podcast called

2:43

Sounds Like a Cult, and

2:46

she studied linguistics in school.

2:48

Her newest book is called,

2:50

The Age of Magical Overthinking,

2:52

Notes on Modern Irrationality. So

2:55

without any further ado, here she is.

2:57

Amanda Montel. Hello,

3:00

everyone. I'm really excited to dive into

3:03

this conversation with you, Amanda. And

3:05

I thought maybe to get started, you

3:08

could share an excerpt from your book that

3:10

maybe tells us a little bit about why

3:12

you wrote it and what your sort of

3:14

personal kind of investment was in it. Happily,

3:17

yeah. I'm gonna read for like five

3:20

minutes from the intro of the book,

3:22

which is called, Make It Make Sense,

3:24

an Intro to Magical Overthinking. And

3:26

I wanna preface by saying that my cat,

3:28

Claire, is in the room with us. And

3:31

she has a lot of thoughts on the subject matter.

3:34

She's not very well decorated degree

3:36

wise, but her hot takes are

3:39

steaming, very. Okay,

3:42

here we go. The attempts I

3:44

made to get out of my own head were

3:47

sundry and full of nonsense. I

3:50

visited a petting zoo for adults. I

3:53

tried learning to meditate from a British computer voice.

3:56

I stacked up on an unregulated nutrition

3:58

powder called brain cancer. My

4:01

brain felt like this. In

4:03

the last few years, Dread for No Reason

4:05

became one of my most frequent Google searches,

4:09

as if the act of typing my feelings to

4:11

a robot would make them go away. I gorged

4:14

myself on podcasts about women who'd snapped,

4:17

at once repulsed and tantalized

4:19

by those who wore their madness on their

4:22

sleeves. How good it

4:24

must feel to snap, I said. My

4:27

most cinematic attempt at mental rehab involved

4:30

picking herbs on a farm in Sicily

4:32

under a light pollution-free sky. At

4:35

night here, the stars are so close,

4:37

they could find our mouse, the

4:39

herb farmer told me, sending my heart to

4:41

my throat. With

4:44

varying degrees of success, I

4:46

was doing everything I could think of to defect from the state of

4:49

overwhelm and consumption that had become my

4:51

life in the roaring 2020s. Anything

4:55

to gain some perspective on the mental

4:57

health exigency I'd been experiencing and

5:00

trying to rationalize for the better part of

5:02

the decade. Every

5:05

generation has its own brand of crisis. Those

5:08

of the 1960s and 70s were about

5:10

gaining freedom from physical tyrannies, equal

5:13

rights and opportunities to vote,

5:15

learn, work, mobilize. They

5:18

were crises of the body. But

5:21

as the century turned, so did our

5:23

struggles inward. Paradoxically,

5:25

the more collective progress we made,

5:27

the more individual malaise we felt.

5:30

Discourse about our mental unwellness

5:33

crescendoed. In 2017, Scientific

5:36

American declared that the nation's mental health

5:38

had declined since the 1990s and

5:41

that suicide rates were at a 30-year

5:43

high. Four years

5:45

later, a CDC survey found that 42% of

5:47

young people felt so sad or hopeless in

5:49

the last two weeks that they

5:51

couldn't go about their normal days. The

5:54

National Alliance on Mental Illness reported that between 2020

5:56

and 2021, life

6:00

line were up 251%. We're

6:03

living in what they call the information

6:06

age, but life only seems

6:08

to be making less sense. We're

6:10

isolated, listless, burnt

6:12

out on screens, cutting loved ones

6:15

out like tumors in the spirit of boundaries,

6:17

failing to understand other people's choices or even

6:20

our own. The machine is

6:22

malfunctioning and we're trying to think our way out

6:24

of it. In

6:27

1961, Marxist philosopher, Frantz Fanon

6:29

wrote, each generation must out

6:31

of relative obscurity discover its

6:33

mission, fulfill it or betray

6:36

it. Our mission, it

6:38

seems, has to do with the mind.

6:41

Let's get the head a little bit. Broadly,

6:45

magical thinking describes the belief

6:47

that one's internal thoughts can

6:49

affect external events. One

6:52

of my first exposures to the concept

6:54

came from Joan Didion's memoir, The Year

6:56

of Magical Thinking, which vivifies grief's power

6:58

to make even the most self-aware minds

7:01

deceive themselves. Mythologizing

7:03

the world as an attempt to make

7:05

sense of it is a unique and

7:07

curious human habit. In

7:09

moments of fierce uncertainty, from the

7:11

sudden death of a spouse to

7:13

a high-stakes election season, otherwise reasonable

7:15

brains start to buckle. There

7:19

she goes. All right, Claire.

7:21

Thanks for joining. She's forged. All

7:26

right. Whether it's the conviction that

7:28

one can manifest their way out

7:30

of financial hardship, thwart the apocalypse

7:32

by learning to can their own

7:34

peaches, stave off cancer with

7:37

positive vibes, or transform an abusive

7:39

relationship to a glorious one with

7:41

hope alone, magical thinking

7:43

works in service of restoring agency.

7:46

While magical thinking is an age-old quirk, overthinking

7:49

feels distinct to the modern era, a

7:52

product of our innate superstitions

7:54

clashing with information overload, mass

7:57

loneliness, and a capitalistic pressure

7:59

to know. everything under the pin. In 2014, Bell

8:02

Hook said, The

8:05

most basic activism we can have in our

8:07

lives is to live consciously in a nation

8:09

living in fantasies. You will

8:11

face reality. You will not delude

8:14

yourself. To become

8:16

as aware as we can of the

8:18

mind's natural distortions, to see

8:20

both the beauty and iron folly in them.

8:23

This, I believe, ought to be part of

8:25

our era's shared mission. We

8:28

can let the cognitive dissonance bring us

8:30

to our knees, or we can board

8:32

the dizzying swing between logos and pothos.

8:35

We can strap in for a lifelong ride.

8:38

Learning to stomach a sense of irresolution

8:40

might be the only way to survive

8:43

this crisis. That's

8:45

precisely what this exploration of cognitive biases

8:47

has helped me do, even

8:50

more than Sicilian stargazing. Writing

8:52

this book has been the one

8:54

thing that's kept the buzz in my

8:56

head at a decibel level I can

8:59

stand. The Zen Buddhists have a word, koan,

9:02

which means unsolvable riddle. You

9:05

break the mind in order to reveal deeper truths

9:07

and reassemble the pieces to create something

9:09

new. I wrote this

9:11

book as a yearning, a Rorschach

9:13

test, a PSA, and

9:16

a love letter to the mind. It's

9:18

not a system of thought, but rather

9:21

something more like koan.

9:23

If you have all but lost

9:25

faith in others' ability to reason, or

9:27

have made a cornucopia of questionable judgments

9:29

that you can't even explain, my

9:31

hope is for these chapters to make some sense

9:33

of the census, to crack

9:35

open a window in our minds, and let

9:38

a warm breeze in, to

9:40

help quiet the cacophony for a while, or

9:43

even hear a melody in it. Thank

9:47

you. Thank you. So something really

9:49

comes up for me at the beginning.

9:51

And that is, you know, I think

9:53

about my experience kind of dedicating my

9:55

life and my professional career to scientific

9:58

skepticism, critical thinking,

10:00

neuropsychological humility through both

10:03

my sort of public science

10:05

communication work, but also as a psychologist,

10:07

as you sat down to write this,

10:09

how did you sort of put yourself

10:11

on that dialectic? Were you somebody who

10:13

was like pretty credulous, was like, I

10:15

believe anything everyone tells me? Or were

10:17

you already something of a skeptic? I'm

10:22

probably the worst of both.

10:25

So I mean, I guess

10:27

a little bit of context is that I

10:29

grew up the daughter of scientists. My dad

10:31

is a neuroscientist. My mom is a cancer

10:33

cell biologist. And so like our religious

10:36

text was, you know, the

10:39

dictionary, like books

10:41

by Darwin. We like had a shrine

10:44

to like a theory of everything in

10:46

our home, you know, like we literally,

10:48

Merriam-Webster's dictionary was on a pedestal in

10:51

my living room growing up. It was so

10:54

reverent that I remember a friend in middle school entering

10:56

our house and being like, is this the Torah or

10:58

the Bible? And I was like, babe, it's the

11:00

dictionary. So yeah,

11:03

I mean, my parents

11:05

definitely instilled in me

11:08

sort of a disdain

11:10

for mysticism and

11:12

a real respect for

11:15

scientific inquiry and skepticism.

11:17

And yet I was

11:19

the sort of like theatrical,

11:22

melodramatic one of the families

11:24

who loved theater and ritual

11:27

and pomp and circumstance. And so

11:29

like squaring those two drives was

11:31

always kind of difficult for me

11:34

and made me feel like somewhat of a black

11:36

sheep. But I

11:38

yeah, I think of myself

11:41

as someone who is deeply skeptical,

11:44

but that can border on

11:47

like you know, like

11:49

I went into writing my last book,

11:51

which is about the language of cults

11:53

from Scientology to SoulCycle. So this wide

11:55

spectrum of cult-like groups. I went in

11:58

thinking like I think no. many of

12:00

us probably do when we watch cult documentaries or

12:03

start investigating cults in various ways. I was thinking

12:05

like, I would never join a group like this.

12:08

I am a true skeptic. No one

12:10

could ever convince me of these totally

12:13

ridiculous ideologies. And then of course, as

12:15

I started looking more into it, I

12:17

was like, actually, wow, a lot of

12:19

these techniques of influence have really shown

12:21

up in my life, maybe not in

12:23

the canonical cult context, but in

12:26

one-on-one dynamics that grow to resemble cults

12:28

and things like that. And I had

12:30

a similar, well, same,

12:33

same, but different sort of approach to this book,

12:35

where I was thinking like, I

12:39

am so audacious to think

12:41

that like, I could possibly get

12:43

ahold of my cognitive biases by just

12:45

like learning more about them. And

12:48

instead, it's sort of just this

12:50

whole investigation of cognitive biases and

12:54

how that relates to this phrase that

12:56

I'm coining magical overthinking has really been

12:58

an exercise in humility and

13:02

embrace of my own irrational

13:04

tendencies that are really like universal

13:06

and incredibly human

13:09

and just trying to really

13:11

notice where my mysticisms are

13:13

serving me and where they're

13:15

not serving me and

13:18

to extend that compassion toward others as

13:20

well. Absolutely.

13:22

And that really makes me

13:24

think of two things. I wanna put

13:26

a pin in the cognitive bias conversation

13:28

because that's the next thing I wanna

13:31

get to. But first that phrase, magical

13:33

overthinking. So sort of in that

13:35

excerpt, you mentioned magical

13:38

thinking, we kind of know what

13:40

we mean when we say that.

13:42

Maybe it's things that are supernatural

13:45

or things that are

13:47

like pseudo-religious

13:49

or spiritual, things outside of

13:51

the natural testable scientific realm.

13:54

But overthinking, this is a

13:56

modern and kind of new

13:59

approach. Combining the two

14:01

help us understand a little bit

14:03

better. What is magical overthinking? Yeah,

14:06

well, I really conceive of it

14:08

as this clash between our resource

14:11

rationality, the ways that

14:13

we make decisions in everyday life

14:15

are really predicated on our limited

14:17

time, limited memory storage, limited cognitive

14:20

resources in various ways. And that

14:22

throughout human history has caused us

14:25

to jump conclude a lot of

14:27

things, to infuse a sort of

14:29

like cosmic logic into events that

14:32

don't make other kinds of

14:34

sense to us. And that's a coping

14:36

mechanism and it's very human and it

14:38

has for a long time not been

14:40

all that much of a problem. We've

14:43

always used cognitive biases

14:45

and our imperfect decision-making strategies and

14:47

at times, really superstitious magical thinking

14:49

as a way to make sense

14:51

of the world enough to survive

14:53

it. But my argument is

14:55

that the problems that we are now tasked

14:58

with contending with every single

15:01

day are simply more abstract

15:03

and complex and disembodied than

15:06

the problems our brains develop

15:08

to handle. And that is

15:11

what's causing so much of

15:13

the overthinking that we're experiencing.

15:16

I have found that this

15:19

idea of like thought spiraling and

15:21

overthinking and underthinking all the wrong

15:24

things, spiraling out at

15:26

night over some Instagram

15:28

comment that you can't parse out exactly

15:30

what it means, but then jumping to

15:32

conclusions about some subject matter that you

15:34

truly know nothing about, but you're like,

15:36

oh yes, I feel very confident in

15:38

my conclusions about that. That

15:40

is such an interesting problem. I'm like,

15:43

why are we not like whoring

15:45

over these more complex ideas or

15:48

instead like up at night thinking

15:50

about like some dumb thing we said three years ago at

15:52

a party, so I really

15:54

find that yeah, our cognitive biases,

15:56

our innate decision-making strategies are just

15:59

like. clashing with modern

16:01

society and that collision is

16:03

what I'm referencing as

16:06

magical overthinking. That makes

16:08

sense. I think it's

16:10

so relevant for where we

16:12

are all today, completely

16:15

social media

16:18

addicted, completely doom-scrolling every single

16:20

night of our lives. I'm

16:23

curious, one of the things that you

16:26

talk about quite a bit in the book

16:28

is this concept of cognitive biases. These things

16:31

that we all fall victim to, these are

16:33

just kind of like evolved

16:35

ways of thinking that help us make sense

16:37

of the world. I have

16:40

long thought that, I

16:42

don't know, confirmation bias is kind of

16:44

the mother of all cognitive biases. It

16:46

subsumes quite a few of them, but

16:48

I'm curious which ones you chose to

16:51

focus on the book and why. Yeah,

16:54

so this sort of lens

16:57

or motif of the book, my

16:59

way into exploring this really massive

17:01

idea of magical overthinking was through

17:03

cognitive biases. This is a term

17:06

coined by the late behavioral economists

17:08

and real life besties Amos Tversky

17:10

and Daniel Kahneman. Daniel Kahneman just

17:12

passed away three weeks ago, which

17:14

was like, so it felt magic

17:18

of superstition. I immediately

17:20

projected some superstitiousness. Coincidence?

17:23

Yeah. Coincidence? Yes. The way

17:25

that the human mind tends

17:27

to misattribute cause and effect

17:29

would lead me to think

17:31

the other way. Anyway, yeah,

17:34

but anyway, I remember coming

17:36

across an infographic that laid

17:38

out like 200 plus of

17:40

the cognitive biases

17:42

that have been described over the

17:44

years and selecting the 11

17:47

that I use as sort of themes

17:49

for each of the chapters in the book

17:51

was a pretty intuitive process. I mean, all

17:54

on their own, these different cognitive biases aren't

17:57

difficult to understand actually. you

18:00

can read, you can pretty easily

18:02

absorb like an academic paper about

18:04

confirmation bias or zero sub bias.

18:06

And I think that's really cool.

18:08

These papers are not necessarily like

18:11

the most accessible in the entire world,

18:13

but it's not like jumping right into

18:15

a physics paper, you know, like it

18:18

actually, concepts are not that difficult to

18:20

understand if you dig in. But

18:23

I basically, I read

18:26

a bunch of papers and it

18:28

became clear to me intuitively, which

18:30

ones felt the most urgent

18:33

relevant to the larger zeitgeist. I

18:35

could immediately upon reading about the

18:37

halo effect see how it applied

18:39

to the cycles of celebrity worship

18:41

and dethronement that we see in

18:43

our society. I could immediately see

18:45

how reading a few papers on

18:47

proportionality bias could explain

18:49

the like mass embrace of

18:51

Instagram manifestation gurus that I

18:53

was noticing in my community.

18:56

And so that was like a really intuitive

18:58

process. But it was also nice to have

19:01

the constraint of cognitive biases to to know

19:03

where to go in the book, because otherwise, I

19:05

think the subject could have been really unwieldy. What

19:11

about the phenomenon

19:13

that occurs when somebody

19:16

who is putting in a lot of work to

19:18

know, know they bias,

19:20

you know, this idea of neuropsychological

19:22

humility, sort of, I know I'm

19:24

going to fall victim to these

19:26

things. This is a very human

19:28

experience. So trying to understand myself

19:30

better may make me a little

19:33

bit more aware and therefore a

19:35

little less likely. Yet

19:37

something kind of happens when you start

19:39

to operate in this way that you

19:41

see them all around you. And I'm

19:44

curious, how have you navigated the social

19:46

component of being aware of cognitive biases?

19:48

You know, when do you say something?

19:50

When do you not? When do you

19:52

not want to be that person who

19:54

steps in? What's that been like for

19:57

you having put so much effort into this work? I'm

20:00

totally that person with my close

20:02

friends and family. I

20:05

think it would not play well

20:07

to be in some kind of

20:09

debate or

20:12

argument with someone that you don't know particularly

20:14

well, not like I'm constantly arguing with people

20:16

that I know particularly well, but you know,

20:19

if I'm engaging in some exchange of ideas

20:21

with someone, I mean like noticing that a

20:23

particular cognitive bias, whether it's like survivorship bias

20:25

or whatever it is, and like clocking that

20:27

in the moment, you know, you just like

20:29

a note, I would not know, I would

20:31

not have thought that. But

20:35

it, I mean, something that I

20:37

learned while researching the book that

20:39

at first seemed disheartening, but

20:41

now I feel like is a

20:43

hopeful sentiment is that we're

20:46

pretty bad at changing other people's

20:48

minds with facts, like it's not

20:50

effective, you know this, but

20:53

we're pretty okay at changing our

20:55

own minds and like reframing things

20:57

for ourselves. So, you know, as

21:00

I move through the world,

21:04

behaviors in other people or in

21:06

myself that would otherwise seem so

21:08

confounding to me that I

21:10

might write them off or myself off

21:12

as like maybe fundamentally

21:14

evil or like a ding dong,

21:16

like just someone who does it

21:18

to make sense and whose behavior

21:20

like has no rationale and that's

21:22

like they're a bad person or

21:25

I'm a bad person, I'm now

21:27

able to sort of identify the

21:29

motivational factors, not really as an

21:31

excuse, but as an explanation and

21:33

that makes, it helps me forgive

21:35

myself, it helps me forgive other

21:37

people instead of just like

21:39

writing off us all as these like

21:41

hopeless nincompoops. And so that's

21:44

been really healing. It's

21:46

also really indicative of a sort of

21:48

growth as opposed to a fixed mindset

21:51

and somebody who Believes

21:53

or endorses things like

21:55

rehabilitation. There's a very

21:57

kind of classic study.

22:00

Where psychologists. Asked. People

22:02

do you believe an evil? Like the

22:04

concept of pure evil, and those who

22:06

tended to believe and cerebral were less

22:08

likely to endorse things like rehabilitation and

22:11

prisons and they were more likely to

22:13

endorse as long sentences and keeping people

22:15

out of the public sphere. And so

22:17

it's interesting that there is that correlation

22:19

between if you can attribute somebody is

22:22

action. To. Their previous experiences, their

22:24

life, you know, lots of circumstances. you're

22:26

gonna be more flexible in your thinking.

22:28

and yeah, some people can change and

22:30

grow and learn new things which I

22:32

think is an important component of. You

22:34

know, being aware of your magical a

22:37

gopher think eggs wanna turn to the

22:39

queue in a and just to remind

22:41

everybody who's watching right now if you

22:43

have questions still hadn't put them in

22:45

the queue and a to them going

22:47

to be I'm pulling from that throughout

22:49

the our So with that one here

22:52

from receive Cooper. Who said? I'm wondering

22:54

if this A or it's content

22:56

with more Relevant for women. As

22:58

the author began to write it,

23:00

I would imagine that over thinking

23:02

would cripple all indiscriminately Know that

23:04

it doesn't raise an interesting question

23:06

about sort of is there a

23:08

gender components to your approach to

23:10

this blocks and with there any

23:12

crossover with sort of modern feminism

23:14

or conversations about the patriarchy? Yeah,

23:16

oh definitely any. My legs, I

23:18

have a biased lives of corps

23:20

and so I'm gonna be attracted

23:22

toward. And scenarios that feel

23:25

up lickable to me. Silks Yeah,

23:27

there are gender dynamics discussed in

23:29

in this. Book. Is

23:32

that has you know are from

23:34

a more feminist perspective. There is

23:36

a chapter in the But and

23:38

called the Shit Talking Hypothesis and

23:40

that addresses and cognitive bias of

23:42

zero Sunday as which some might

23:45

recognize our tendency to think that

23:47

another person's gain inherently means your

23:49

loss on that which isn't always

23:51

true and as almost never true

23:53

when applied to sort of abstract

23:55

modern currencies like Success or Beauty

23:57

or Clouds Of That Was. One

24:00

very much up likable too stiff

24:02

competition with limited resources like mates

24:04

and foods many millennia ago else

24:06

I'm and because of my lens

24:08

and my personal interests and who

24:10

I am, I wanted to explore

24:12

Zero Some bias in the context

24:14

of social comparison. And you know

24:16

women are found to make more

24:18

upwards social comparisons and downward identifications.

24:20

Meaning like when they surveys in

24:22

all of the people that follow

24:24

and or instagram feed or a

24:26

room full of people the wolf's

24:28

attends, you compare themselves only. To the

24:30

people that they perceive as superior, not now

24:33

this as a result of conditioning. Best. That

24:35

was so interesting and is hop

24:37

slang really of lickable to my

24:40

own life and and healing to

24:42

learn about and by another Another

24:44

person writing the age of Magical

24:46

overs engage with a different backgrounds

24:48

different gender identity I'm sure would

24:50

have chosen different subject matter and

24:52

but in fact most like but

24:54

I'm I'm not a behavioral economists

24:56

the and I'm using these cognitive

24:58

biases as a motif some by

25:00

formal behavioral economics books written by

25:02

Ph D that are fascinating and

25:04

which I say. It's throughout this book

25:06

and usually are written by men. Are

25:10

idiots up? You feel like they're the lot

25:12

out there on how the self applies to

25:14

ah yeah to those who have been socialized

25:16

males and I thought it would be fun

25:19

to I'm sort of apply them in a

25:21

more intimate context. And.

25:24

You know, Yeah, sometimes the more. Were.

25:26

Barely Guns metics to people. Ah yeah,

25:28

I love it. and I'm curious. You

25:30

know because he were sort of talking

25:32

about your own personal experience and learning

25:34

these things in writing the books and

25:36

how much you related to this zero

25:38

some bias. Are there any other by

25:40

a sees that you came across or

25:42

that you did a deep dive on

25:44

that? You were like? that's me. I

25:46

do that all of us saw him

25:48

I need for work on the oh

25:50

the like. all of them. You know

25:52

I mean there's one that I that

25:54

I sunshine. It's on briefly in. my chapter

25:57

on the sunk cost fallacy which is are

25:59

up for to think that resources

26:01

already spent on an endeavor, money, time,

26:04

but also emotional resources like hope or

26:06

secrets, justify spending even more.

26:08

There's a study that I quote

26:10

in that chapter that has to

26:12

do with additive versus subtractive solution

26:14

bias, so we as human beings

26:16

quite naturally, but especially those of

26:18

us who grow up in consumerist

26:20

societies, when faced with a problem,

26:22

our tendency is to want to

26:24

add a whole bunch of variables

26:26

to the equation as an attempt

26:28

for a solution, when oftentimes

26:30

the much more efficient but less

26:32

intuitive solution to the problem would

26:35

be to take something away. So

26:37

the study that I cite pertained

26:39

to inviting participants to solve

26:41

a problem involving colored blocks,

26:43

it was like a spatial

26:45

puzzle, by either adding or

26:48

subtracting colored blocks and the

26:50

vast majority of people opted

26:52

for the much more cumbersome

26:54

additive solution of putting more

26:56

colored blocks onto the assortment.

26:59

Very few people decided on the subtractive

27:01

solution which was much quicker and more

27:03

efficient, which was just to take one

27:05

single block away to solve the problem.

27:08

And this was mind blowing to me

27:10

because it has applied to so many

27:12

arenas of my life. In that

27:14

chapter, I talk about a one-on-one

27:17

sort of cult-like relationship that

27:19

I justified as a

27:22

victim of the sunk cost fallacy to myself

27:24

for years and years and years, every time

27:26

the relationship got especially bad, I would dig

27:28

my heels in, I would

27:30

justify my efforts and this additive

27:32

versus subtractive solution by itself was really interesting

27:34

because it made me reflect and realize, oh

27:36

yeah, like during our most painful moments in

27:38

that relationship, I thought, you know, we'll fix

27:40

this problem, not breaking up.

27:43

No, no, no, that never even occurred to

27:45

me. I was like, we should go on

27:47

another vacation or we should replace all our

27:49

furniture. Like it was this very- Let's have

27:51

a kid. Yeah, let's not- Thank God, oh my

27:53

God, thank God. I had a whole bunch of cats though.

27:56

I was like, trust will solve it. I regret none of my

27:58

cats. But yeah. But so

28:00

that's a high stakes example. A lower stakes example

28:03

might be, you know, I this is a real

28:05

example for my life I was looking at my

28:07

junk drawer in my house the other week and

28:09

it was such a mess I was like, you

28:12

know what I need to do I need to

28:14

go to the container store and get some like

28:16

really aesthetic acrylic drawer organizers Like that'll solve my

28:18

junk drawer problem. It's like just throw

28:21

things away, you know so

28:23

becoming aware of bias fees like that has

28:26

actually had like a real Serviceable

28:29

effect on my life. That's one that

28:31

really comes to mind It's

28:33

really interesting as you're kind of sharing this with

28:36

us because I am a you know I'll

28:39

admit it I love a good poker game

28:41

and so many of these things have allegories

28:43

in poker You can almost be the microcosm

28:45

at the table and then the macrocosm in

28:47

real life And so it makes me curious.

28:49

Are you a gamer at all? Do you

28:51

play poker? I play poker

28:54

with my family Yeah,

28:56

I really try not I'm not a gambler

28:58

I really try not to fall victim to

29:00

some cost fallacy when playing poker like I

29:03

will fold so fast Maybe too fast. My

29:05

skill in poker I would say was is probably

29:09

Reading this is not a skill Poker

29:12

is fun for me because I love how

29:14

bad my dad's poker face is and I

29:16

just I'm highly you're very

29:18

good at reading your father specifically at the

29:21

point Like Karen and Mean

29:23

Girls when she's like my boobs can tell

29:25

when it's about to rain Actually,

29:27

they can tell when it's raining. That's

29:30

me. Sorry. I shouldn't say the word boobs and my dad in

29:32

the same Move

29:35

on So

29:40

there's there's an interesting question here in the

29:42

chat from I think it's wine

29:44

saying I could be pronouncing that wrong And

29:47

it says could the fashion of political

29:49

promises or lies set the example for

29:51

the mask to follow with magical thinking

29:53

and Maybe I'm misinterpreting but

29:56

I would add to that or to make

29:58

it more of a compound question and obviously

30:00

Obviously, this is an event for the

30:02

Toronto Public Library. We're here in Los

30:04

Angeles, so the political spectrum

30:07

is a little bit different that

30:09

we're operating under. But

30:12

I often think about the executive branch

30:14

specifically, but I think this applies to

30:17

all of, well, other than for us,

30:19

the judiciary. But the executive and

30:22

the legislative, it's all about making a

30:24

promise to get elected. Got to get

30:26

that promise out, got to get elected.

30:28

It's all very short-term thinking as

30:30

opposed to that cycle is almost

30:33

inducing, in my mind, the need

30:35

for a lot of cognitive biases.

30:38

So I'm curious if you've really

30:40

grappled with the relationship between our

30:43

political spectrum

30:45

and how these cognitive biases play

30:47

into the masses. Definitely.

30:50

I mean, politics

30:52

and the political landscape are

30:54

a flavor throughout the book.

30:57

Obviously, you cannot discuss confirmation bias

31:00

without addressing politics. I addressed the

31:02

Supreme Court in that chapter. But

31:04

the one that really springs to mind,

31:06

and it springs to my

31:09

mind in particular because of my background

31:11

in linguistics, is this cognitive bias that

31:13

I address in the book called the

31:15

illusory truth effect, which is very simple

31:17

but fascinating. It describes our truly

31:21

irresistible penchant to believe

31:23

something is true just because

31:25

we've heard it multiple times. I'm

31:28

actually writing an essay for The

31:30

Guardian right now about how this

31:32

shows up in political

31:35

discourse. It's such

31:37

a deceptively simple idea that

31:39

repetition could make you think

31:41

something is true even when

31:43

it's not. But it's actually

31:45

so profound and

31:47

shocking how studies

31:50

by social scientists like Lisa Fazio

31:52

have proven that even if you

31:55

know something is implausible, like

31:57

fish, breathe water, or like, mara-dulce, or something,

31:59

you can't do that. is the biggest planet

32:01

in the solar system. If study participants hear

32:04

a phrase like that enough

32:07

in the course of a study, they

32:09

will start to internalize it

32:11

as true. And so when you,

32:13

I mean, again, human beings are

32:15

only resource rational, we are, we have

32:17

a lot of cognitive limits, we have

32:20

temporal limits, etc. And so we're doing

32:22

our best with the information given to

32:24

us. But now in

32:26

21st century America, and as our

32:28

society becomes ever more complex, these

32:32

decision making strategies just like aren't

32:34

good enough, you know, it's like

32:36

repetition is no longer the best

32:38

clue that something is true in

32:40

the era of disinformation and misinformation

32:43

spread. And so

32:45

I was actually I was speaking to some

32:47

scholars just this week for this guardian piece,

32:49

I was like, how can we resist the

32:51

illusory truth effect? They were like, Oh, we

32:53

really can't like an awareness of it is

32:55

not helpful for this one in particular. But

32:57

they were like, you know, we can do

33:00

we can harness what disinformers are

33:02

so good at. And we can

33:04

use that to spread real facts.

33:06

So I like you thought for

33:08

public health messaging. Yes. Like we

33:11

know that repetition is extremely effective.

33:13

It's not annoying to remind people

33:15

of true facts, even if they

33:17

already know, you know, we need

33:19

those reminders. We know that rhyme

33:22

helps people we know, we know

33:24

that like rhetorical strategies like rhyme,

33:26

and like easy to read fonts,

33:29

and, you know, easily recognizable rhetorical

33:31

patterns, we know that those things

33:33

help with processing fluency, make us

33:35

feel like things are more accurate.

33:37

So use them to spread

33:40

real facts, you know, like constantly spout

33:42

just things that are true. Like, well,

33:44

we won't tire of it. So

33:47

you know, it makes me wonder

33:49

a little bit about the different

33:51

flavors or the different severities of

33:54

magical overthinking, you know, very

33:56

often we have people in our lives, we

33:58

ourselves fall victim. them to

34:01

pseudoscience that is really

34:04

believable because there's always a bit of

34:06

a kernel of truth in it. It's

34:08

a slight twist of the

34:10

rational evidence to support an agenda. And

34:13

that's what we often

34:16

consider the tinfoil hat

34:18

style beliefs like flat

34:20

earthism or even something

34:23

like anti-Vaxxerism. And

34:26

it's sort of easy to put them on

34:28

a continuum, but these cognitive

34:30

biases really contribute to

34:33

all of this type of magical thinking, don't

34:35

they? Do you see a difference in how

34:37

you get from like here all the way over

34:39

to there? Oh,

34:41

well, yeah, definitely. I mean, algorithmically,

34:44

you could like start

34:47

by following a sort of

34:49

like maybe slightly woo-woo holistic

34:52

mental health influencer online, let's

34:54

say. And then

34:56

the more you engage with

34:58

their like most absolutist nuggets

35:00

of wisdom, you can start

35:03

to tread into conspiratorial

35:05

thinking. I have

35:07

seen that happen. The whole

35:10

like conspiratuality movement is growing

35:12

and becoming such a problem for this

35:14

very reason. Conspiratuality is a fantastic word

35:16

for those who don't know it. I

35:18

didn't coin it. I coined in 2011

35:20

an academic paper, but it's a combination

35:22

of the term conspiracy theory

35:25

and spirituality. And it defines

35:27

this like emergent, well, really

35:29

like skyrocketing movement of believers

35:32

who subscribe to two core tenets, one

35:34

being that we are on the brink

35:36

of a paradigm shift in consciousness and

35:39

the other that there is an evil

35:41

elite secretly controlling the sociopolitical

35:43

order. And there

35:46

are, yeah, there are like some mainstream

35:49

appealing aspects to questioning

35:51

the status quo and

35:54

not Just believing

35:56

at face value, everything that the government says and things

35:58

like that, or, you know, taking a step back. they

36:00

do no more. Ah, Good. Taking your

36:02

your your mental health treatment your own

36:04

hands you know having skepticism of the

36:06

medical authority things like that on but

36:08

there is a point pass which it

36:10

can go too far and when you

36:12

start going to var that is when

36:14

sort of pernicious. Beto.

36:17

Conspiratorial gurus who are more accessible than

36:19

ever who online are able to spread

36:21

rhetoric more easily than ever. I can

36:23

then take advantage of of of those

36:26

people who didn't start out that extreme.

36:28

but you know because of the ways

36:30

that algorithms worked in the ways that

36:32

everybody has access to them or can

36:34

can definitely escalate. or and and I

36:37

don't want to be like alarmist about

36:39

it's not like everybody who engages with

36:41

like a holistic life coach on Instagram

36:43

will like fall into Q and on

36:46

territory. but. Their rhetoric

36:48

overlaps. And. Under us

36:50

and we we don't because of.

36:53

The excess information in the ways that

36:55

our brains process information that the that.

36:58

We can be taken advantage of such

37:00

that that that transition from. Believing.

37:02

Something that may be as a little bit

37:04

duluth so to speak but not that harmful.

37:07

Falling off a off the deep end into the more

37:10

you and on sept that is that is happening more

37:12

and more. And. It's kind of

37:14

hard to position that line in the sand

37:16

that threshold right because we can talk about

37:18

stats harmless but that over there is harmful,

37:21

but there's so many different ways to define

37:23

that it could be harmful. For mental health,

37:25

it could be economically harmful. It could be

37:28

a socio politically harm fall, and sometimes. It's.

37:30

harmful before you realize it's harmful and

37:32

the mixer and yeah i'm i'm glad

37:35

you're reading this up because there's a

37:37

chapter in the book called i swear

37:39

i manifested this and this is the

37:41

one in which i argue that hardcore

37:43

conspiracy theories and these seemingly innocent ideas

37:46

of manifestation are powered by the same

37:48

time is bias disproportionality bias the a

37:50

their tendency to believe that big events

37:52

or even just big feelings must have

37:54

had a big cause it's the only

37:56

way that makes proportional sense arm and

37:59

you can attribute this to conspiracy theories

38:01

like the government must have engineered COVID

38:04

or, you know, be seemingly innocuous ideas

38:06

like my vision board is the reason why

38:08

I have an amazing new job. Um, and

38:10

you know, sometimes people will

38:12

feel a little bit like threatened by

38:14

this suggestion that manifestation is conspiratorial in

38:16

any way. But I also make the

38:18

argument that like, look, a lot of

38:20

human beings are, most of us, I

38:22

would say are naturally conspiratorial in some

38:24

aspect. Anyone who's ever made a gross

38:26

misattribution of cause and effect or like

38:28

projected intentionality into something where there really

38:30

was none has a pinch of conspiracy

38:32

theorists in them. I don't know how

38:34

many people can relate to, uh, you

38:37

know, your phone not working and you being like, why are

38:39

you doing this to me? That's

38:41

not, you know, your phone conspiring

38:43

again. You often feel

38:45

like kind of paranoid that way. And

38:47

that paranoia can really blow up and

38:50

be exploited more quickly than ever, I

38:52

would say, um, on math in today's

38:54

society. But yeah, like yes, you're, you're

38:56

completely right. Like a manifestation ideas of

38:58

manifestation. Like for some people they're, they're

39:00

really good and they're not that harmful,

39:02

but for some people they actually are

39:04

harmful before you even realize it before

39:06

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and I think an example that comes

40:44

to mind for me just out of

40:46

my own practice. So I'm a psychologist

40:48

and I work very often with people

40:50

who are quite ill, specifically with people

40:52

who have cancer. And I specialize in

40:54

working through the end of life. And

40:57

so often the most pernicious

40:59

thing that I come up against is

41:01

the antithesis of, well, I thought good

41:03

thoughts and so that was going to

41:05

keep me alive. Well, then, you know,

41:08

keep going with this analogy. That means

41:10

then if you get sicker and sicker

41:12

and sicker, you tend to blame yourself

41:14

like you weren't thinking positively enough when

41:17

that has nothing to do with

41:19

how cancer destroys body tissue. And

41:21

I think that and it's such

41:23

a hard thing to work on

41:25

undoing those beliefs. There's so much

41:28

guilt and shame when I'm working with

41:30

these patients. That makes

41:32

a ton of sense. And I yeah,

41:34

it reminds me of like the the Mukherjee

41:36

quote, he's the author of the Emperor of

41:39

All Melodies and Song of the Cell where

41:41

he says, you know, positive thinking surely will

41:43

not hurt as you, you know, navigate an

41:45

illness like cancer. But positive thinking

41:48

does not cure cancer just the way

41:50

that negative thinking doesn't cause it. And

41:53

yet, like, practicing optimism is a

41:55

worthwhile endeavor, no matter what the

41:57

causes and effects are. thinking

42:00

positively if you can manage it

42:02

engaging in an optimism practice just

42:05

feels good. It might not

42:07

lead to like an outcome other

42:09

than feeling a little better along the

42:12

way and yet it's still engage worth

42:14

engaging in and yet

42:16

yeah we don't like things to happen at

42:18

random. Like we want there to we want

42:20

to believe that there's agency it's the same

42:23

reason why like a little kid will blame

42:25

themselves for their parents divorce you know it's

42:27

because like accepting that bad

42:29

things happen way outside of your control

42:31

makes the universe feel chaotic and you

42:33

know believing that you caused something negative

42:36

to happen at least means that the

42:38

world isn't that chaotic but

42:40

yeah accepting that sort of thing is I

42:43

still struggle with it you know I want there to be some astral

42:45

rationale for everything that I do

42:47

I want the seeds that I

42:50

plant in life to bloom into

42:52

you know flowers later and sometimes life doesn't

42:54

work out that way I I narrative eyes

42:56

the living daylights out of my life I

42:59

always want to tell myself that like my

43:01

life is a movie and there are plant

43:03

plants and you know I'm like planting a

43:05

seed here and that's gonna be fruitful later

43:07

and life isn't life isn't always like that

43:10

and I will always be on a journey

43:12

to accepting that. Yeah I mean we all

43:14

want things to feel just and even in

43:16

a cosmic sense we want there to be

43:19

justice and that's I think one of the

43:21

hardest lessons in life to learn is

43:23

that we sit with ambivalence and

43:25

sometimes we don't have control you

43:27

know and what do we do

43:29

when we're in that moment instead

43:31

of grasping for control you know

43:33

one thing came up for me

43:35

when we were talking about individuals

43:37

who believe in pseudoscience or who

43:39

tend to engage in magical overthinking

43:41

and I wanted to know how

43:43

you parse or how you grapple

43:47

with the distinction between the

43:49

sort of practitioners of Wu

43:51

and the receivers

43:53

of Wu you know do you see

43:55

them as the same do you

43:57

because I think we can tend to sometimes blame

43:59

them of victims when I

44:02

personally believe that there's a big

44:04

difference between somebody who has like

44:06

a monetary or sociopolitical agenda versus

44:08

somebody who is just reading this

44:10

stuff and internalizing it. Oh,

44:12

absolutely. I mean, we

44:14

both live in Los Angeles where there is

44:16

a lot of sort of metaphysical,

44:20

magical overthinking practices

44:23

happening. And from

44:26

time to time for fun

44:29

or for anthropology, I

44:32

will engage in some of that, you know, because

44:35

it feels good. It can

44:37

be a community practice to

44:39

engage in a ritual that

44:41

doesn't make logical sense or

44:43

that won't actually cause something

44:45

to happen differently later on.

44:47

You know, some of my

44:49

wisest, most educated friends really

44:51

indulge in tarot and astrology.

44:53

And I think it's a

44:55

piece of culture here. Like,

44:57

you know, astrology in some of

44:59

my communities serve the role of like sports

45:02

discourse in others. So

45:05

it's fodder for conversation. It's a

45:08

framework for trying to understand certain

45:10

phases of your life or your

45:12

personality. And I think like to

45:14

an extent and with that twinkle

45:17

in your eye, engaging

45:19

in that sort of talk is not

45:21

harmful or reading horoscopes or whatever, you

45:23

know, like I think I think it

45:25

can all be in good fun. And

45:29

yeah, absolutely. I do believe that there

45:31

are people who are taking

45:34

a dogmatic approach to those

45:37

subjects and charging $35 a

45:40

month for their bespoke manifestation technique.

45:42

And if it doesn't work on

45:44

you, well, that's your fault. And

45:47

there's so much of that

45:49

that really exploded in

45:51

particular during the pandemic when we

45:54

were all grasping for agency and

45:57

answers. And there were more than

45:59

a few. like manifestation

46:01

TikTokers who were like, I'm pivoting.

46:03

It was almost in like an

46:05

MLM style, like a multi-level getting

46:08

pyramid scheme style, like harnessing that

46:10

widespread fear and uncertainty to rebrand.

46:15

Yeah. You know, I think

46:17

about sort of your mention of

46:19

astrology is a great example of

46:21

this like community engagement that is

46:23

almost in some ways like a

46:25

secular religion and just like religion,

46:27

it can offer so much benefit

46:29

to individuals lives until it

46:32

doesn't or unless it doesn't, you know?

46:34

And just like in religion, some of

46:36

the leaders and practitioners can be very

46:38

moral and very just, and some of

46:40

them can utilize that power in a

46:42

way that is really immoral and really

46:44

unjust. And so it really does seem

46:46

like the metric here is harm once

46:49

again, but that's a really hard thing

46:51

to pin down. Definitely,

46:53

especially when the harm is

46:55

so cerebral, like, you know,

46:58

and that is so much

47:00

of what I was trying to confront in

47:02

this book is like, I feel okay. Like

47:05

I feel in terms of

47:07

like my physical body to my knowledge,

47:09

like I'm okay right now. And

47:12

yet why do I wake up in fight or flight

47:14

every day? Like what is going on? And

47:17

I, yeah, I think that the onslaught

47:20

of identities that

47:22

we're forced to compare ourselves to every single

47:24

day, the

47:26

news that we have a civic

47:29

responsibility to consume, but are also

47:31

sort of exploited

47:33

to consume by media companies and,

47:35

you know, fear mongering, click baits

47:37

and such, there is just this

47:40

tension going on between our, yeah,

47:44

our digitally motivated culture, our

47:47

capitalistically motivated culture, and the way

47:49

that our minds are able to

47:52

manage information. Absolutely.

47:54

So we've got a new question from

47:56

Florence McCambridge. This is a great

47:58

one. She says, I love you. I loved cultish and

48:00

I cannot wait to read your take on

48:03

overthinking. I'm just curious how you decide what

48:05

to write about and how you know whether

48:07

something is a book or more of an

48:09

essay or an opinion piece. Oh,

48:12

great question. Let's see. Well,

48:15

it's not like I'm constantly

48:18

like inspired by a million

48:20

book ideas. I

48:22

do know people who are like that and were like

48:24

hyper creative who are, you know, every single day they're

48:27

like, oh, this could be a book. This could be

48:29

a book. This could be a book. I got like

48:31

one decent book idea every three years. You know what

48:33

I mean? I am

48:36

not plagued by the muse. The

48:39

muse finds me, you know,

48:41

just as much as I really need her. And

48:45

I would say that my book ideas

48:48

tend to stem from the project that I'm

48:50

currently working on. So my first

48:52

book was about language and gender, sort of quick

48:55

and dirty crash course in feminist, real linguistics called

48:57

Word Slut. And that book

48:59

really inspired me to take an even

49:01

deeper interest in language and power and

49:03

the relationship between the two. That

49:06

interest naturally led me to want to write

49:08

about cults and the language of cults, also

49:10

because my dad grew up in one against his

49:12

will. And so I

49:15

felt like a personal connection to that. And

49:17

then it was during my research for cultish

49:19

that I really started reading about cognitive biases

49:21

in a formal way for the first time.

49:23

And not only could they explain so many

49:25

of the cult mechanics that I was looking

49:27

into, but my own daily behaviors and so

49:30

many of the confounding behaviors that I was

49:32

noticing and others as well. And

49:34

so I thought it would be cool to

49:36

write essentially like an essay collection where every

49:39

chapter is dedicated to a different cognitive bias.

49:42

And then, yeah, but I

49:44

do want to write fiction next. And

49:47

I will say that, yeah, and the novel

49:49

idea that I'm currently

49:52

outlining was also sort

49:54

of inspired by a little

49:56

bit of this book and a little bit of

49:58

what I've written before. Obviously

50:00

in a completely different genre because it's narrative and

50:03

I get to make up stories but that's

50:05

something that I've been craving also is just like

50:07

leaning more into narrative writing and how do

50:09

I know if something is a book rather than

50:11

just like a sort

50:13

of one-off article? Oh,

50:15

that's a great question. Well,

50:18

certainly if something does not

50:20

feel evergreen, if a subject

50:22

matter feels like it has a

50:24

timely urgency like it's only

50:26

gonna have a week-long shelf life or

50:28

like a year-long shelf life, that's probably

50:30

better suited to a one-off

50:32

article or a podcast episode.

50:35

But these are questions that I ask myself like

50:37

every time I set out to write a new

50:39

project, I always ask myself like, why me? Like

50:42

why am I the right person to write this

50:44

piece? Why does it need

50:46

to be in this medium, a book

50:48

versus a podcast episode or something else?

50:51

And why now? Like why is this

50:53

a message that people need to hear now? And

50:57

will it be a message that people need to

50:59

hear in 10 years? And if the answer is

51:02

yes, then maybe that's more of a book project.

51:04

Sorry. Yeah, it's such

51:06

a beautiful kind of component

51:09

of curiosity and of like utilizing the

51:12

scientific method that as we dig into

51:14

a question, more questions come. And so

51:16

hearing that like kind of each book

51:18

opened up a new world and built

51:21

upon itself is fascinating.

51:23

And I'm curious, do you ever sort of

51:25

along that same line, do you ever write

51:28

an essay that then grows

51:30

and grows and grows and becomes like a

51:32

full-length book? Did any of these start as

51:34

earlier seeds, like you did a podcast episode

51:36

or an essay and then it sort of got bigger and

51:39

bigger? Yeah, well, I'll

51:41

say this. This is

51:43

me really revealing something that

51:45

I wouldn't ordinarily talk about.

51:48

But my first book, the

51:50

concept for that book was really based

51:52

on this like very

51:55

cringe-tastic series

51:57

of short YouTube videos that I was making when I was like

51:59

20 years old. 23. I was

52:02

making these like fun poppy

52:04

videos about language, gender, and pop

52:07

culture, and I didn't

52:09

really know why I was doing it other

52:11

than that I was trying to sort of

52:13

find my perspective and my tone as a

52:15

maker of things. And I

52:17

would not have necessarily predicted that that little

52:19

YouTube series would end up being the sort

52:21

of proof of concept for my first book.

52:24

But that's why it's just, it's, you

52:26

don't always have to have a project fully and

52:28

perfectly fleshed out in your head to just kind

52:30

of like start making things. I

52:32

think, you know, like, what is it perfection

52:34

is the enemy of good, you know, you

52:36

just kind of if you

52:39

want to make things, I think it's

52:41

okay for them to be really

52:43

flip shot in the beginning and not in

52:45

the right medium. And truth

52:47

is, that's really the only way to make things.

52:50

Because if you wait until it's perfect, you're just

52:52

never going to start right like create, if you

52:54

have something you want to create, now is the

52:56

time to do it. Yeah. So

52:59

we, I want to be honest on time,

53:01

we've got about five minutes left.

53:03

And there's a great question in

53:05

the Q&A from Genevieve Quintin, that

53:07

says, so many popular

53:10

self helpbooks rely on

53:12

magical overthinking. There's a fine

53:14

line between wanting to improve or better

53:16

yourself and just thinking that people are

53:18

just not thinking or trying enough positive

53:20

thoughts to improve. And then like blaming

53:22

people for not trying hard enough. Is

53:25

that a source of magical thinking that

53:27

you explored sort of when does it

53:29

dip into magical thinking, you know, because

53:31

we all want to be better. Yeah.

53:33

We all want to improve. Totally. Yeah.

53:37

I do address in some places

53:39

throughout the book where self help

53:41

can get sinister. And yet at

53:43

the very same time, there are

53:45

some sort of nuggets

53:47

of actionable wisdom in

53:50

the book that were just like

53:52

the tidbits of knowledge

53:54

that I learned from the empirical

53:56

studies that I was citing, like,

53:58

you know, I didn't intend for

54:00

them to feel self help. But

54:02

I couldn't not include the fact

54:04

that like 80% of knitters in

54:06

this one study knitters with depression Said

54:09

that after knitting they became happier.

54:11

I was like, oh my

54:13

god. I gotta gotta get into knitting And

54:18

it's not like that is not meant to be self-help

54:20

like you need to knit if you have depression but

54:23

Naturally, it started making me think like

54:25

oh What what what is something I

54:27

can do with my hands because clearly

54:29

there's something about doing something Repeat

54:31

with your hands that amounts to maybe

54:34

a gift that you could give someone

54:36

that you made like there's something in

54:38

there And so yeah, I think like

54:40

of course Anyone who

54:42

is not like perfectly content and I

54:44

don't know if I know anyone who's

54:46

perfectly content Well,

54:48

I want to you know absorb Wisdom

54:50

from various places that they could maybe

54:53

apply to their life And I I'm

54:55

pretty skeptical of people who claim to

54:57

have some kind of transcendent wisdom I

55:00

I'm much more inspired by little fun

55:02

facts from scientific studies that I can take

55:04

or leave at my discretion I

55:07

love that and it reminds me literally last week

55:09

when I was working in the hospital One of

55:11

the patients that I saw was knitting and that

55:13

was how she was passing her time because she

55:16

had been there for a while And it's it's

55:18

not fun spending a lot of time in the

55:20

hospital and she had so many cool pieces that

55:22

she had made um, yeah,

55:24

I I it's it's

55:27

such an important component this understanding

55:29

of like Skepticism

55:32

critical thinking it's not about stripping the

55:34

fun out of everything It's not about

55:36

being the stick in the mud and

55:39

it definitely does not mean that one

55:41

is not still open-minded Right.

55:44

I think that sometimes one of my big struggles

55:46

and maybe the last question that i'll ask you

55:48

is When you take

55:50

a skeptical perspective or you say well, you

55:52

know, I saw this study and it actually

55:54

says Like Sometimes I Feel

55:56

like the response to that is you're just

55:58

not open-minded enough. I'll.

56:01

Drago. With that a little bit so I'm

56:03

curious if you've experienced that. your cell. Yeah.

56:07

Well yeah there are t v

56:09

ago from time to time. yeah

56:11

maybe someone might perceive me as

56:14

a party pooper or and when

56:16

his attempt things you like. Over

56:19

explain the punchline of a joke it's

56:21

like to sleep with is it else?

56:23

Is it so much funnier when you

56:25

do better assists? Yeah, exactly. But

56:27

the sport like and I set

56:30

this up in a part of

56:32

the intro that I didn't read

56:34

but like this whole book was

56:36

an exercise for me is in

56:38

learning to live in the in

56:41

between like know always pin that

56:43

swing that seesaw between skepticism and.

56:46

Imagination. You know truth and beauty

56:48

late. I don't think we have

56:50

to choose are like steak, our

56:52

claim on one perspective or another.

56:54

I think it's good to be

56:56

able to swing back and forth

56:58

between the two and know when

57:00

it's appropriate and what's not and

57:02

not to feel like. Ideologically

57:05

attached to skepticism versus

57:07

the new age or

57:09

whatever. Arms yeah, I'm

57:12

oddly and ironically. Writing

57:14

this book just made me wanna be more

57:16

mystical sometimes. But

57:20

but so so interesting. Well everybody I

57:23

wanna thank you for joining us for

57:25

this Our the book is. The

57:27

age of magical over think. Tanks Amanda

57:29

Thank you so much for being here. Thank

57:32

you so much to the audience and for

57:34

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