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in America. Look,

1:02

there's a difference between experiencing trauma

1:05

in your life and hashtag trauma.

1:08

You know, what I want to take on is

1:10

hashtag trauma. You know, people

1:12

who feel the need to

1:14

stay and wallow within

1:16

their self-pity so that they can get

1:19

as much attention as possible from their

1:21

social media friends. What

1:25

could go right? I'm

1:28

Zachary Carabell, the founder of The Progress

1:30

Network, and I am joined as always

1:32

by my co-host, Emma Varvalukas, the executive

1:34

director of The Progress Network. We

1:36

spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about

1:38

politics. We talk about culture. We talk about culture wars.

1:41

We've ranged far and wide. We

1:43

probably haven't done quite enough on

1:46

science. We've talked to

1:48

astrophysicists. We've done some

1:50

on artificial intelligence. But

1:53

today we're going to talk to a

1:55

cognitive psychologist about what's going on in the

1:57

mind. Who are we? What

1:59

is it? the learning of

2:01

these fields and research

2:04

over the past decades, how has that

2:06

illuminated human consciousness, human

2:09

intelligence, how we think, how

2:11

we act, who we are. And

2:14

we probably should have these conversations a little bit more,

2:16

but we're really excited to have

2:19

one today. So Emma,

2:21

tell us who we're going to talk

2:23

to. Today, we're talking to Scott Barry-Kaufman.

2:25

He's a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist,

2:27

and his work explores the depths of

2:30

human potential as such. He's also the phone

2:32

and director of the Center for Human Potential. He

2:35

hosts a podcast called The

2:37

Psychology Podcast and is author-editor

2:39

of nine previous books, including

2:41

Transcend, Wired to Create, and

2:43

most recently, Choose Growth, a

2:45

workbook for transcending trauma, fear,

2:47

and self-doubt. Welcome

2:54

to What Could Go Right, Scott. You

2:56

have an interesting career.

2:59

One thing I was struck by, because you

3:01

wrote a book a bunch of years ago

3:03

called Ungifted, which is a great title.

3:07

And I think you had been put into some

3:09

special learning programs as a kid, and one of

3:11

the things you were trying to show in the

3:13

book is, and in your

3:15

work, is that the way in which we've scanned

3:17

for what we call intelligence is flawed, and it

3:20

funnels people into a very particular pathway, and we would

3:22

do much better in looking at this

3:24

differently. So I want you to talk

3:26

about that. I'm also interested in the

3:28

degree to which, even though your background,

3:30

my background, Emma's background, are in what

3:33

we would call traditional elite

3:35

education, higher education, whether

3:37

or not the result of all those

3:39

mechanisms that you talk about that screen

3:42

for intelligence end up creating,

3:44

if not, hot house flowers in those

3:46

particular environments, then a particular type

3:49

of intelligence that then

3:51

leaves by the cultural and social

3:53

wayside, all sorts of other intelligences

3:56

that we could all benefit much more from, and

3:58

are therefore, I suppose, under you. Interesting.

4:01

Well, you know, the field of human

4:03

intelligence is really rich and fascinating, exciting.

4:05

There are a lot of misconceptions about

4:08

it. You know, the whole

4:10

idea of different types of intelligence, there is

4:12

something called general intelligence. Some

4:14

people are generally smarter than others. That's a real

4:16

fact. You know, you can go on Twitter if

4:18

you want to test that hypothesis. See if it's

4:20

true or not. You know, there are people, there

4:22

are some people who are able to reason and

4:25

process information quicker and learn

4:27

quicker across multiple situations, kind

4:29

of devoid of the content

4:32

or the domain. With that

4:34

said, there are group factors. There are

4:36

different components of general intelligence such as

4:38

visual, spatial, verbal, and it goes

4:41

on. I think that we

4:43

all have our patterns of strengths of cognitive

4:45

strengths and weaknesses, but on average, there still

4:47

is, there is meaning in IQ. You know,

4:49

it's not a meaningless construct and I've never

4:51

argued that it is. I think

4:53

there's a lot of nuance with the field of

4:55

intelligence and a lot of my research

4:58

is trying to show that nuance

5:00

and also not use IQ testing as a

5:02

way of limiting potential, but only using that

5:08

information as a way to activate

5:10

potential in all people. So I

5:13

don't like how a lot of the policy

5:15

decisions have been

5:17

made regarding IQ testing in K through 12.

5:19

That's something I've definitely criticized, but I do

5:21

still think that the intelligence

5:23

matters. Scott,

5:25

I'm curious if you have any other pet

5:28

peeves having done so much research across

5:30

self-actualization, human intelligence, psychology.

5:33

I mean, it's hard

5:35

to summarize everything that you've looked at. Any

5:38

other pet peeves when it comes to

5:40

concepts that have traveled into the mainstream

5:42

that you feel like it's not actually

5:44

helpful or are misconceptions that

5:47

are harmful? IQ

6:00

tests do tend to, on average,

6:02

score better at diversion thinking, but correlation

6:04

is not extremely high. And

6:07

a lot of people who

6:09

are very smart intellectually don't

6:12

have a great imagination or are not very

6:15

high in the personality trait openness to experience.

6:17

That's a separate trait. I

6:19

also really can't stand this chart that

6:22

seems to go around about what you're capable of

6:24

achieving in your life based on various IQ bands.

6:27

Jordan Peterson, I don't know if you've heard of

6:29

the psychologist Jordan Peterson. Unfortunately, or

6:31

fortunately, I don't know. He's

6:35

obsessed with these bands

6:37

and has done videos that

6:39

I think cause a lot of damage showing he's

6:42

like, this is what you're capable of in life.

6:44

If your IQ is this to this, this, this,

6:46

you could, if it's between this band and this

6:48

band, sewage work is the best for

6:50

you. If it's with a missing band

6:53

and this band, then you can maybe consider being a

6:55

doctor or a lawyer,

6:57

et cetera, et cetera. And I can't tell

6:59

you how many young men have emailed me

7:01

panicking over these Jordan Peterson

7:04

videos that they are not able to

7:06

do things, anything in life. I try

7:08

to correct, help as much as I

7:10

can by responding compassionately. They've

7:12

never actually tested their IQ. They're

7:15

just freaking out over a Jordan Peterson video.

7:18

Who's anyone else to tell you what

7:20

you're capable of unless you try? I

7:22

was going to ask that, like who actually knows their IQ?

7:25

I don't know what my IQ is. I've never tested

7:27

my IQ. Most people don't. You know,

7:29

they try to guess. I

7:31

think there are a lot of

7:33

self-limiting beliefs that people have, people

7:36

getting in their own way. Yeah, I'm just a

7:38

big believer in just going for what your dream

7:40

is and as corny as it sounds.

7:44

And as far as taking tests, you know, Emma,

7:46

you mentioned before we got on that you had

7:48

taken Scott's tests on his website, which don't require

7:50

an email. I like

7:52

taking online IQ tests and Enneagram tests

7:55

and personal. I mean, it's just, it's

7:57

a fun way to... when

8:00

you have to do something else. So I've

8:03

taken any number of online IQ tests and

8:05

what's fascinating about those is how

8:07

completely different they all seem in what they're asking

8:09

and how they're assessing. I haven't done the ones

8:12

where you have to then pay for your results.

8:14

Like I do stop at that point. We have

8:16

a boundary. Yeah. So Scott,

8:19

I want to move to your

8:21

book Transcend, which I read recently.

8:23

You take the very

8:25

infamous Maslow's Hierarchy of

8:27

Needs, that pyramid that everyone's familiar

8:30

with, and you redo the pyramid

8:32

into a sailboat. So I have a two-part question. First,

8:34

tell us about the sailboat, because I think it's really

8:36

interesting. And then after that, I really want

8:38

to talk about vulnerable narcissism

8:40

and what that is. Sure.

8:45

So the sailboat model is my reimagining

8:47

of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from a

8:50

static sort of pyramid where

8:53

it depicts life as some sort

8:55

of video game that you have to reach some

8:57

level before you can get to the next level.

8:59

And then you never have to worry about the

9:01

lower level of needs ever again. It's just not

9:03

in line with the reality of human development. And

9:05

also, Maslow never drew a pyramid.

9:07

So it's also a misrepresentation of Maslow's work.

9:11

I think the sailboat's a better

9:13

reflection of the journey of self-actualization.

9:15

We're in the sea of the

9:17

unknown, trying to reach some port

9:19

that we have in our mind, some goal,

9:21

some dream, higher-level dream. And whiz can come

9:24

crashing down us at any point. We

9:27

can get holes in the boat

9:29

and then get stuck and feel

9:32

insecure. But we ultimately have to open up

9:34

the sail if we want to grow and move.

9:39

So there's these different components of the sailboat

9:41

that I think really map all nicely to

9:43

its security versus growth. Can you

9:45

talk a little bit about where those

9:47

needs are in relation to the sailboat? Like

9:49

what's the boat? What's the sail? Where are

9:51

we going? Yeah.

9:53

Well, where we're going is up to you, my

9:56

friend. But I can say the rest of it.

10:00

comprises the needs for security and

10:02

for connection and need for self-esteem

10:04

and then the growth. I

10:07

have the sale is the need for

10:09

exploration the need for love and the

10:11

need for purpose i think the

10:13

deep integration of love. Exploration

10:16

and purpose nicely represents what

10:18

growth is and that

10:20

the needs for security connection

10:22

and self and self-esteem nicely

10:24

reflect the stability of feeling

10:26

like you're in your own body that

10:28

you're connected to your body that you

10:31

have a strong foundation to move

10:33

around the world. It's catastrophic when

10:36

your self-esteem is so

10:38

uncertain that you really

10:40

need to rely

10:43

on everyone else for your

10:46

own self-esteem and that really gets us

10:48

in the territory of vulnerable narcissism as

10:50

you mentioned which is a great example

10:52

of this chronically uncertain self-esteem that can

10:54

lead to violence in outwardly

10:57

as well as inwardly. So

10:59

vulnerable narcissism maybe define that for

11:02

people i think a lot of

11:04

people think of narcissism as grandiose

11:07

narcissism which is like. Chest-thumping

11:09

on the best i'm

11:12

inherently superior to others entitlement. But

11:15

researchers are getting some to

11:17

some more finally green nuanced.

11:20

Can you can do test now and we

11:22

do this in our studies where you don't

11:24

just ask questions on this psychological entitlement scale

11:26

like if i was on the titanic i'd

11:28

be the first person i should be the

11:30

first person to have a life. These

11:33

are all the extra that's actually a question

11:35

on the psychological entitlement scale. And

11:38

there are people who say yes they want to

11:40

one to seven rating and

11:43

how would you how would one determine. What

11:45

your ranking in that order should should

11:47

you are not. Yeah

11:52

yeah yeah if you score high in psychological time

11:54

you'll put a seven to that question that's the

11:56

point yeah. But

11:59

the thing is. You can

12:01

more finely grain not just ask

12:04

that question, but you can say different

12:06

reasons for the entitlement. So if I was

12:08

on the Titanic, I'd be the first person

12:10

to get a, I should be the first

12:12

person to have a lifeboat because dot, dot,

12:14

dot. And the first one

12:16

is grandiose narcissism, which is because I'm inherently

12:18

superior to everyone else on the boat. But

12:21

then there's another one, number two, which

12:24

is dot, dot, dot, because I've suffered

12:26

in the past more than anyone else

12:28

on the boat. And that's

12:30

vulnerable narcissism. Vulnerable narcissism is feeling like

12:33

you're entitled to special privileges because you

12:35

have suffered more than, you believe you

12:37

have suffered more than others and you

12:39

deserve it, or your own perceived fragility.

12:41

Like I am more fragile, you know,

12:44

I'm more sensitive than anyone else on

12:46

this boat. That's wild. I

12:48

didn't know about this test. I mean, it's hard to picture

12:50

a situation in which you sort

12:52

of feel like you have a greater

12:54

right to live than 2000 other souls

12:56

because you've been more harmed. But

12:58

I guess that is in fact a real place. Hello,

13:01

Israel Palace Grand Conference. Are you

13:04

watching the news? You

13:06

watching the news? That is absolutely

13:08

a legit response, you know, that my pain is

13:10

worth way more than other people's pain or my

13:12

suffering is worth way more than other people's suffering,

13:14

which I know we do all the time. It's

13:17

just, it's another magnitude

13:19

to do it like with

13:22

that level of consciousness, right? It's one thing

13:24

to do it. It's one thing to act

13:26

on it. It's actually

13:28

the stating of it on a test that

13:30

I find is of another order entirely. Like

13:33

the unconscious, because you have to be conscious enough

13:36

when you're writing something down on a test. Well,

13:40

the thing is, you know, I mean, it's anonymous.

13:43

You know, people, when they do tell the

13:45

truth, when it's on

13:47

an anonymous survey, we, you

13:49

know, in the Atlantic, there's a whole article that

13:51

features my work on the dark triad. People

13:54

who are high on dark triad, I mean, they're honest

13:57

about their traits and characteristics. They

14:00

have insight into it dark triad people

14:02

know they're dark triad But

14:04

you know, they're actually proud of it, which is the

14:07

point of the point of that, you know, they're proud

14:09

of it They're not they're not ashamed of it You're

14:11

really speaking from a worldview of a

14:13

light triad person which maybe it's hard for

14:15

you to like see the world through

14:17

the eyes of a dark triad person, but Dark

14:20

triad people are very proud of their assholery

14:23

Okay So maybe now we have to stop and explain

14:25

what's dark triad and what's light triad and if we

14:27

should all be happy that Zachary It's apparently light triad

14:32

Or maybe I just want people to think that

14:34

I'm baby are you a viral narcissist? That's the

14:36

next thing we gotta check Well,

14:38

that would be Machiavellianism, which is one

14:40

part of the dark triad dark triad

14:42

comprises Machiavellianism, which is manipulation of others

14:45

maybe manipulating other people's perceptions of you narcissism

14:49

and Psychopathy actually

14:52

some have argued that the dark tetrad

14:54

exists, which is sadism every day everyday

14:56

sadism Every day sadism is

14:59

is that you go around your

15:01

everyday life really enjoying and

15:03

getting pleasure from humiliating and

15:06

Embarrassing people and the light triad

15:09

the light triad is a whole different world, you know,

15:11

it's like a breath of fresh air I mean a

15:13

light triad person. I'm like, I want to be your

15:15

friend So light triad people

15:17

tend to score high in the opposite

15:19

of Machiavellianism. We call it Kantianism another

15:22

aspect of the light triad is Humanism

15:25

so treating people every individual with

15:27

dignity and respect and then

15:30

there's faith in humanity Which is the third one

15:32

third a member of the light triad which is

15:34

even though you recognize human imperfections You still believe

15:36

at the end of the day that people are

15:38

basically good at heart So you haven't gone into

15:40

over into cynical world quite yet We'll

15:46

be right back after this break What

15:48

should lead the

15:50

news and why If you're curious about this

15:53

question then check out the news

15:55

meeting a podcast that takes you into the newsroom to hear how journey

16:00

and how new humans make decisions

16:02

about which stories matter most. Every

16:05

Monday and Friday, three journalists pitch their stories

16:07

to tourist editor James Hardy, editor of The

16:09

Times newspaper and director of BBC News, about

16:13

which stories should lead the news and why

16:15

that's the one that matters the most. The

16:18

news meeting is a lively, informative, and

16:20

occasionally competitive podcast, and listeners also get

16:22

to have their say. So listen

16:25

to the news meeting and tell them we sent you. BP

16:30

added more than $70 billion to the

16:32

U.S. economy last year by

16:34

making investments from coast to coast, investments

16:38

like building charging hubs for fleets

16:40

of electric buses in California, and

16:43

starting up new infrastructure in the Gulf

16:45

of Mexico. It's

16:47

and, not or. See

16:50

what doing both means

16:52

for energy nationwide at

16:54

bp.com/Investing in America. Welcome

17:01

back to What Could Go Right. I

17:04

mean, for me, just like you

17:06

did with the Maslow and sort

17:08

of refining or progressing an earlier

17:11

theory, you're building upon a

17:13

lot of other work. You're building on things that

17:15

a lot of human beings have tried to articulate

17:17

maybe in a more atomized way, right, and bringing

17:19

it together in a more, what's

17:21

called a unified field theory of

17:23

human consciousness. And I think there's

17:25

always great value to that. You

17:27

know, the challenge of distilling types,

17:29

right, well, one, there's the

17:31

kind of the 80-20, meaning if you

17:33

get most of the bell curve of

17:35

humanity, but what about the outliers, right?

17:37

So that's always a question. Can any

17:39

theory incorporate the outliers? What

17:42

does one do about that? Do you just accept that there

17:44

are always going to be individuals who do

17:47

not fit any particular box easily?

17:49

Yes, absolutely. I mean, what

17:51

we do is they're not boxes. The

17:54

research suggests that

17:57

you can classify within each

17:59

person. in their constitution of light versus

18:01

dark traits. In fact, we have a

18:04

scale online, it's you can go to

18:06

sulfactualizationtest.com, you can take the

18:08

test and it'll say how much Yoda is within you

18:10

and how much Darth Vader is in you and

18:13

using their scales. So what

18:15

we've published papers looking at the

18:17

proportion of within each person

18:20

that you're light versus dark and very

18:22

few people are pure dark. We estimate

18:24

about 7% of the human population. Now

18:26

they cause all the havoc in the

18:28

world, right? But it's amazing what

18:30

only 7% of the human population can

18:32

do for the rest of the 93%. But

18:36

with that said, most 50% are a

18:38

mix of light and dark traits, so

18:40

that's true. But interestingly enough, about 43%

18:43

are pure white, so

18:46

that's kinda cool. That's nice, that's a

18:48

sweet thing to think about. I

18:51

think most people really do mean well. I think that

18:54

when you trigger

18:56

or activate their defenses, people

18:58

turn into assholes and that's part of

19:00

human nature. But I think as

19:03

long as you don't activate

19:06

their defenses in an extreme way, I

19:08

think most people really want to do

19:10

good in the world and want to at least

19:12

be seen as good. I mean,

19:15

my feeling about this is a piggybacking onto what

19:17

Zachary said, which is, am

19:19

I now supposed to avoid dark triad

19:21

people? Is it

19:23

like if you have some dark triad

19:25

in you that that's something you're supposed

19:27

to be working on, like a self-improvement

19:29

project? What

19:32

do I do with this in my

19:34

day-to-day life, I guess? From

19:43

which perspective? I

19:46

guess there's a few different ones, right? I guess

19:48

if you find out that you're entirely light triad,

19:50

you can be like, yes, great person.

19:52

I'm gonna float off into heaven now.

19:54

But can we use the knowledge of

19:57

what's your light triad and you want to avoid? of

20:00

dark triad people, is that what

20:02

would make sense? Or

20:04

from the opposite perspective, let's say you find out

20:06

you're full of dark triad traits, but Sliverview

20:09

wants to not do that anymore. Can

20:11

you work on that or is that just how you

20:13

are? No, I mean, I think with

20:15

all personality traits, I don't think it comes down to

20:18

something that's immutable. Throughout the course of your

20:20

day, you know, your personality

20:23

is really your patterns of

20:25

behaviors and thinking and

20:27

motions. We're not talking

20:29

about like you are this, there's no

20:32

one who's an introvert 24 seven, there's no one

20:34

who's an extrovert 24 seven, there's no one

20:36

who's an asshole 24 seven, no one who's

20:38

a good person 24 seven. I

20:40

think a lot of little scores on the light

20:43

triad, a downside for them is they can tend

20:45

to be people pleasers. And

20:48

I've really been really

20:50

interested in helping people

20:53

pleasers like recognize how much they're

20:55

causing so much suffering to themselves

20:57

by not being able to set

20:59

appropriate boundaries and to not always

21:02

immediately spring to action every time they

21:04

feel empathy for something. Yeah, I mean,

21:06

that sort of brings to mind the

21:10

Buddhist life is suffering or the

21:12

pain aversion principle and that seems

21:14

to motivate a huge swath

21:16

of human behavior, not

21:18

to be morbid, just to be frank, right?

21:20

We're all mortal, we all have to face

21:23

the prospect of death and the attempt to

21:26

chronically avoid the potential

21:28

pain of that or the potential pain of

21:30

anything else creates all sorts of massive

21:32

issues, including what you just said, which is

21:35

if it's not pain inflicted

21:37

upon others, it could well be pain

21:39

inflicted upon oneself, right? Oh, definitely, I've

21:43

been studying, I've been really interested

21:45

in cells who

21:47

are involuntary cell men and

21:51

they're linked to vulnerable narcissism. Most

21:54

in cells are not violent against others, most

21:56

of them have suicidal ideation and are anxious

21:58

and depressed. So

22:00

i think vulnerable narcissism tends to lead to

22:03

more internalization was grandiose narcissism tends

22:05

to lead to more externalization of.

22:08

Violence is it possible to

22:10

have like a vulnerable narcissistic

22:13

culture or highly insecure culture

22:15

something like that are we in one. Hello

22:19

jen this jen whatever

22:22

this jen is called now. Yeah,

22:27

i think we're living in the age of

22:29

vulnerable narcissism. Okay. Yeah,

22:32

that's what i've said that before. Whereas

22:36

i think in the 80s, you

22:38

know, the self-esteem movement shifted

22:40

in to the

22:42

grandiose narcissism age. Now

22:46

i think it's shifted into a vulnerable

22:48

narcissism age. You know, there

22:50

was a time, you know, where young

22:52

kids felt entitled to everything because they

22:55

felt in my high self-esteem. I'm

22:57

better, I praise me, you

22:59

know, i get the award, i want the trophy,

23:01

i deserve the trophy because

23:04

i'm better than everyone else. But now

23:06

everyone wants the trophy because they're a

23:08

person of color or their gender or

23:10

their, you know, whatever sort of

23:12

intersectionality wheel it is, you know, victimhood or

23:14

suffering. That means i

23:16

deserve a greater piece of the pie. I think

23:19

you really are seeing that now. Now i recognize

23:21

what i'm saying might be controversial and you might not want

23:23

to touch what i said with a 50-inch pole but i

23:26

think that's the truth. You know, this question

23:28

of grandiosity

23:30

and yes, it's true. Like there are

23:32

definitely people who will hear what you

23:34

just said and react viscerally without necessarily

23:36

thinking through the reactions, right? I mean

23:38

we live in a world of increasingly

23:40

subcategories of people each of whom are

23:42

claiming some degree of, you know,

23:45

preeminence of, and there's

23:48

a side note. I mean the thing about intersectionality and

23:50

for those who are not steeped in academic

23:52

jargon, you know, it's the idea of... So

23:55

my cynical way of describing intersectionality is that no one

23:58

could agree about whether race, gender, or gender. or

24:00

class or all these things was the primary negative

24:02

motive cause of history. And so we'll just

24:04

all agree that it's all of them. That's

24:09

my brief and

24:11

not so pithy explanation of intersectionality. But

24:14

the question about grandiosity and culture, you

24:16

could argue that the United States in

24:18

particular and the British Empire

24:20

in the 19th century, any great imperial state

24:22

has been fueled by

24:25

its own self-delusion and grandiosity, which has both

24:27

allowed it to do great harm to others,

24:29

but it's also fueled it to

24:32

push the boundaries of scientific innovation

24:34

and creativity and change. So it's like,

24:36

how do you, when

24:38

you aggregate this to a collective level, how

24:41

do you separate out, this is a little

24:43

like Emma's question before about, is

24:45

it all bad to be, is all dark triad

24:48

dark in its consequences? How do you

24:50

separate out, we seem

24:52

to celebrate heroically grandiose narcissistic

24:55

figures. Great point, Zachary. Really

24:58

great point. We do. I mean, we don't

25:00

celebrate and we elect them into office. I

25:03

mean, it's not like we just celebrate,

25:05

we make decisions that put

25:07

them in positions of power. But

25:10

also look, there are more, research

25:12

shows they're more attractive for mates,

25:15

at least at first. And then

25:17

you get to about the nine month mark

25:19

of dating and the person, the spell, the

25:21

narcissistic spell breaks and you're like, holy

25:24

shit, I'm with an actual asshole. Not

25:26

someone who's charming and amazing. But

25:30

so there is something

25:32

within us that is attracted

25:35

to people with supreme

25:37

confidence because we want more

25:39

of that ourselves. So we

25:41

align ourselves and try to be

25:43

close to it as much as possible, thinking

25:45

it'll rub off on us in some way.

25:47

But what often tends to happen is they

25:50

really exploit us and use

25:52

us. And we find out someday that our

25:54

dream that it'll rub off on us and

25:56

we'll become more confident actually

25:58

leads to a situation. where we've been

26:00

taking advantage of and we're the schmuck,

26:03

or that's how we feel. So I think

26:05

that's the reality of that. I'm dropping some truth bombs

26:07

on you guys today. I assume that's what you wanted.

26:09

That's why you invited me on this podcast. Of

26:12

course. I mean, I think it's really interesting

26:14

to talk about this also in relation to

26:16

trauma culture. I'm

26:19

always caught in this tension between it

26:21

really, on the one

26:23

hand, it's helpful, like all these pop

26:25

psychologists on Instagram talking about trauma.

26:29

There's a lot of ideas that I've had, that

26:31

have been personally helpful to me. On the

26:33

other hand, like if a Walmart person talks about their

26:35

trauma, I'm just gonna jump out the window.

26:40

Am I alone here? Oh

26:42

no, that's the topic of my next

26:44

book. Do you

26:47

wanna give us somewhat of a preview? Well,

26:50

I haven't announced it or talked about it

26:52

yet anywhere, but that's

26:54

a major theme of my next

26:56

book, I should say. Look, there's

26:58

a difference between experiencing trauma in

27:00

your life and hashtag trauma. What

27:03

I wanna take on is hashtag trauma.

27:06

People who feel the need

27:08

to stay and wallow within

27:12

their self-pity so that

27:14

they can get as much attention as possible

27:16

from their social media friends and

27:18

get clout over it is a

27:20

whole different story. Research actually shows

27:22

an interesting, and I wrote about

27:25

this for Psychology Today, zero correlation

27:27

between those who are actually

27:29

highly sensitive people and score

27:31

high on HSP scales and

27:33

high sensitivity signalers. High

27:36

sensitivity signalers are people who don't actually, they're

27:39

not actually highly sensitive, but they signal in

27:41

every situation like, oh my god, I can't

27:43

deal with that or I need to get

27:45

out of that thing, that homework

27:47

is too hard for me because I'm a highly

27:49

sensitive person. Those

27:53

people tend to score high on the dark triad traits. So

27:57

that's the deal with that, the highly

27:59

sensitive signal. are also

28:01

Machiavellian and... I

28:03

tend to be. They tend to be. Most

28:06

people who are, who've

28:08

gone through legitimate trauma don't

28:11

want to talk about it incessantly. They

28:13

really, I have a lot of

28:15

compassion, of course, for I don't

28:18

want to sound like I can come across here like I don't

28:20

have a compassion. You know, people

28:22

who've gone through horrible, terrible things, there is

28:24

a process to help them heal

28:26

and to move forward with their lives. But

28:29

most of those people don't

28:33

enjoy constantly ruminating and talking about it on

28:35

social media. They don't do it in a

28:37

way where they're like, hey, everyone, look at

28:39

me. I've had trauma. Aren't you so proud

28:41

of me? It doesn't make any

28:43

sense. Yeah. I mean, you

28:45

know, the reality is right. Anything that happens to any

28:47

of our loved ones and friends is

28:50

deeply impactful to us, right? Our subset

28:52

of us. You know, if my mother

28:54

has cancer, if my

28:56

children have struggles, that's a

28:58

major issue. But it is not a major

29:00

issue for others other than

29:02

us, right? It's like my trauma is

29:05

a major issue for me. To

29:07

expect it to be a major issue for

29:09

someone else is a stretch. To expect some

29:12

compassion if it comes up is something else

29:14

entirely. But I think there is

29:16

a fetishizing of trauma collectively

29:19

that, you know, look, these

29:21

things may be cultural

29:23

pendulums insofar as things that

29:26

have been ignored and neglected, which

29:29

is excessive in one direction, then gets

29:31

excessively attended to another. And, you know,

29:34

you use the Kantian imperative. We could

29:36

use the Hegelian imperative. Maybe this is

29:38

all just human beings in

29:40

a continual state of Hegelian evolution.

29:42

We have a thesis and then we have an antithesis

29:45

and then we have a synthesis and then that happens.

29:47

You know, it's like a thing. I don't know. Yeah.

29:51

Yeah. Well, a lot

29:53

of related to this is the idea of triggering.

29:56

And I have said on social media,

29:58

and it pisses off. a lot

30:00

of people, your triggers are

30:02

your responsibility. You can't expect

30:06

that everyone should tiptoe around you and

30:08

mind read all of your traumas and

30:10

all of your past history of triggers.

30:13

You have to take a certain sense of responsibility

30:15

for changing your

30:17

environment in ways, like you are the one

30:19

with the knowledge of what triggers you. So

30:22

I don't like this idea of like, let's

30:25

say someone gets triggered over something and

30:28

then they blame it on someone else and

30:30

say, I was traumatized, I shouldn't have

30:32

to do that or you shouldn't look

30:34

at me that way. There's

30:37

a certain sense of responsibility, I

30:39

think, that people aren't taking in

30:41

this trauma-obsessed and trauma-blamed. People

30:43

are blaming everything on their traumas. Down

30:47

to like my back pain. Oh, I read

30:49

the body keeps the score, so my back

30:51

pain must have to be related to that

30:53

time when I was three years old and

30:56

whatever happened to me. People, it's

30:58

really out of control and it's out of

31:00

control in a way that's not in line

31:02

with the science. A

31:04

lot of the science shows that there's a lot of things that

31:07

we do with trauma that is really just

31:09

a narrative. All there

31:12

are are potentially traumatizing

31:14

situations, PTSs or experiences,

31:16

PTEs, potentially traumatizing experiences.

31:18

Doesn't mean the trauma

31:20

is the narrative and

31:23

how you've interpreted it and

31:25

your memory of it. Just

31:28

memory is not a direct recollection

31:30

of anything. It's a reconstruction from

31:33

everything we know in cognitive science. So there's a

31:35

lot of nuance here that I just think gets

31:37

lost on hashtag trauma.

31:41

Yeah, I mean, people are really reactive

31:43

about this issue. Like I shared a

31:45

piece from Freddie DeBarr in

31:47

our Progress Network newsletter recently and

31:50

I've only ever gone as heated

31:53

a reaction to something when I questioned

31:56

some impact of

31:58

climate change. That was a lot. Also during

32:00

the pandemic, I think people were feeling a

32:02

little bit stir crazy. But, uh, yeah,

32:05

I was kind of shocked. And they were

32:07

like, you are not taking seriously. This

32:09

person is punching down on people with trauma. And

32:11

I was like, I don't think they're punching down

32:13

on people with trauma. I think that we're just

32:15

losing in pop culture, the ability to get beyond

32:18

this. I mean, the whole, there's a,

32:20

and there's a whole, you know, backlash

32:22

against the body keeps the score now and

32:24

about the, what the, what the basis of

32:26

that was. And, you know, maybe this is

32:28

partly the way of just like, there's, was

32:30

it backlash against Maslow's hierarchy or, or in

32:32

your case, an evolution of it.

32:35

But there is this human tendency, right? We,

32:37

we like simple frameworks and we like easy

32:39

answers and they're

32:41

comforting. You know, it's, it, and

32:44

our contemporary world, a lot of what had been

32:46

filled by religion as a simple framework was filled

32:48

by a lot of, I

32:50

guess, pop theories, right? Because they,

32:52

they, they simplify what's complex or

32:55

they, they make us their

32:58

comforting answers to difficult problems,

33:00

but they don't tend to stay for

33:02

very long. Right. They,

33:04

they, they tend to move, move on. I'm

33:07

curious about your work in terms

33:09

of the choice not to be an academia, right?

33:11

The choice not to be a professor. I

33:13

see being a tenured faculty member,

33:15

very limiting, for

33:18

certain kinds of people. And

33:21

very empowering and wonderful for other kinds

33:23

of people. I am the

33:25

kind of person who values my

33:27

freedom more than anything else

33:29

in my life. I value

33:31

my intellectual freedom. I value

33:34

my creative expression. I

33:36

love writing books, which

33:38

are viewed less excitingly with the

33:40

tenure committee than scientific

33:42

papers. I love public outreach. Always

33:45

loved that in graduate school. Uh,

33:48

while I was getting my PhD, I had

33:50

the opportunity to write a blog for psychology

33:52

today and I loved it. And

33:54

my advisor had a meeting with me. He

33:57

thought it was an intervention. He said, we

33:59

need to. have an intervention, he said, you know,

34:01

you're not going to get tenure someday. If

34:03

you keep writing psychology today articles, and I

34:05

said, fuck tenure then I

34:08

saw that. So I was like,

34:10

that I'm out. And I never looked

34:12

back. And here I am, I make a full

34:14

time living doing a podcast. So I

34:16

don't it's for me, I was, my

34:19

grandmother always said, I'm very stubborn. When

34:22

it comes to I like to call it integrity. I like

34:26

to call it authenticity and integrity. My

34:28

grandmother calls it stubbornness. Maybe she has

34:31

a point. But if you tell

34:33

me, you know, you can't do what you love

34:35

to do, I will immediately react in the opposite

34:37

direction and say then I'm out with all of

34:39

you guys. Does that make sense?

34:41

You know, most people defend the tenure

34:43

and defend the academic system as preserving

34:46

the very things that you just said, you

34:50

value and aren't in it like

34:52

free freedom of expression and autonomy.

34:55

What you think there's freedom of intellectual expression in

34:57

academia right now. And you know, my experience too,

35:00

of a lot of academia was that it

35:02

wasn't necessarily the antithesis of

35:05

that, but it definitely was

35:07

not the preserve of that.

35:09

universities are breeding ground right

35:11

now for intellectual suppression. You

35:14

know, that controversial. I

35:16

think amongst a certain kind of people, it's not

35:18

controversial. Not being an

35:20

academia, my question is always how

35:23

much of that feeling is based in reality

35:25

as far as like, this really is across

35:28

the board in all universities at a

35:30

high percent. And how much of

35:32

it is it exists, it's an issue. So

35:34

we're going to pull it out and be

35:36

like, hey, there's something going on here. It

35:38

depends on what topics you're studying. Intelligence

35:41

research, I don't think is

35:44

very well funded, or appreciated. Genetics

35:46

research, you know, can be, you know,

35:49

there are certain there's certain topics that if you study them,

35:52

they're, they're, you know, suppressed because

35:55

they don't fit within a left

35:57

ideology and it's 90%. are

36:00

on the left, you know, in academia. I'm

36:03

not saying I'm not on the left, but I'm just saying that

36:05

I'm just getting a fact of what the situation is. It's

36:07

interesting, right, that you have to caveat that when you

36:09

say it, but I guess that's

36:12

the time we're in. I also think it's

36:14

a real shame that certain, if you study certain

36:16

research topics, you're put within a certain political camp.

36:19

That really bothers me as well. That really

36:21

bothers me as well. Regardless of my political

36:23

leanings, I like to think that I am

36:25

a progressive human being and want and

36:29

love helping people change. That's what

36:31

I mean by progressive in

36:33

a positive way. Yet, you

36:35

know, if I study IQ or intelligence

36:37

people, like you're a genesis. It's like,

36:39

what? It's like, why are you kidding me?

36:43

Have you read my books? Anyway, they're

36:47

all about helping people flourish, you know,

36:49

but people just make automatic judgment calls.

36:52

Well, Scott, we could have had a

36:54

multi-hour conversation with you. We

36:57

didn't even get into the right brain, left

36:59

brain fiction, which we'll just leave

37:01

as you can look up what Scott's written

37:03

about that. I was crushed that

37:05

my casual use of

37:07

that easy dichotomy is

37:10

proving to be facile at best and

37:13

incorrect at worst, but life goes

37:15

on and I will learn my lesson accordingly. You

37:17

have a wide range of work, really

37:20

interesting writings about creativity and consciousness.

37:23

That will all have to wait to a subsequent

37:25

conversation. Well, we could absolutely, you know, we could

37:27

talk again someday. I really

37:29

appreciate what you both are doing. And

37:32

I really, I sense that you all

37:34

are truth seekers, which is why I dropped a lot

37:36

of truth bombs today. Scott, thank you so much for

37:39

joining us today. And I encourage all of you

37:41

to go take the free test on his site.

37:44

Emma, what's the URL? So you

37:46

wanna go look it up? selfactualizationtest.com.

37:48

I took like four of them today. They were really fun.

37:51

All right, thank you, man. Thanks, Scott. Thank you,

37:53

guys. We'll

37:56

be right back after this break. Welcome

38:04

back to What Could Go Right. That

38:06

ended up being more of a controversial discussion

38:08

than I think I expected, which

38:11

is good, by the way. Good. Good

38:14

controversial. Not bad controversial. But I do think there's

38:16

a lot that we talked about and a lot that Scott pointed

38:18

to that, you know, will push people's

38:21

buttons. And I think it's important. Like

38:23

the one thing I look, I do tend to agree

38:25

with, I think we are all primarily

38:27

responsible for our own triggers. By responsible,

38:29

I don't mean it's our fault. I

38:32

mean, it's our responsibility to navigate

38:34

them more than it is

38:36

the responsibility of others to anticipate them,

38:39

which is different than having like told a friend group, you

38:41

know, this is an issue for

38:43

me and then continually write like we're not

38:45

talking about rank insensitivity

38:48

and disrespect. But if

38:50

you don't know someone, you don't know their background, you

38:52

know where they're coming from, obviously, then then the bar

38:54

should be much higher to assume ill

38:56

intent or to assume triggering intent. And I think

38:58

that's a really, it's a really important point.

39:00

It's obviously one that, you know, X number of people

39:03

listening right now are probably going to go, no, no,

39:05

no, no, that's ridiculous or think that that is blithely

39:08

indifferent to whatever

39:10

it's blithely indifferent to. I

39:12

mean, my position about trigger pointing is that it supports

39:14

the idea that we were talking about in the end

39:17

about never getting over trauma. If

39:19

you had something

39:21

happen in your life and immediately after you

39:23

don't want to read about that topic, you

39:26

don't want to talk about that topic. You

39:28

don't want to encounter that topic. I think

39:30

that's totally fair. But a certain

39:32

amount of years later, not that anyone's on a

39:34

timeline, but trauma is meant

39:37

to be integrated and processed and

39:40

not sat in. So

39:42

I don't think we should design a

39:44

world that is implicitly

39:46

telling people to stay in that

39:49

period right after something really

39:51

bad happens, because then

39:53

you just are also implicitly communicating

39:55

that people don't have the kind

39:57

of resilience to get over even

40:00

worst of the worst of the worst. And I think that that's

40:02

not a good idea to communicate that. All

40:04

right. Well, on that note, we probably should

40:06

have appended a trigger warning to the beginning

40:08

of the podcast saying that this podcast will

40:10

question trigger warnings, but we didn't do

40:12

that. All right. So let

40:15

us turn to if not

40:18

news you can use and at least

40:20

news that you could use to hear.

40:22

I like that. Exactly.

40:29

All right, Zachary, we are starting off with

40:31

something that is

40:34

very validating to me personally, because

40:36

in what could go right podcast

40:38

history, we are going to be proven right about

40:42

our economic

40:44

predictions. So Congressional Budget Office

40:46

and the Federal Reserve both put out some

40:48

thoughts and anticipated stats out right

40:51

at the end of 2023. Looking forward to

40:53

2024 at the time.

40:57

Now we're in 2024 and the good news is

40:59

they think that we are probably going to avoid

41:02

a recession, that we are going to have that

41:04

mythical soft landing. Infestation

41:07

has been much better behaved in the second

41:09

half of the year. headline inflation is down

41:11

to 3.1% in November from 9.1% in June

41:14

of last year. Core

41:18

prices rose last month 0.3% from October. That's a three

41:20

and a half percent

41:23

annualized rate. Is

41:25

inflation vanquished? It's

41:28

certainly meaningfully coming down and

41:30

I see no reason on

41:33

the path that we're currently on

41:35

why inflation shouldn't

41:37

gradually decline to levels

41:39

that are consistent with

41:41

the mandate

41:43

and targets. The

41:47

Congressional Budget Office projects the economy will grow 1.5%

41:49

in 2024 smaller than they originally thought that's going

41:51

to bounce

41:53

back to 2.5% growth in 2025. Inflation hopefully

41:55

going down. to

42:00

2.1%. They

42:03

think that the unemployment numbers are going to rise.

42:05

So 2023, they're at

42:07

3.7%. They think they're going to go

42:09

to 4.4. Fed's a little bit more optimistic.

42:11

They think they're going to go to 4.1.

42:14

But altogether, that's painting a picture

42:16

that is rosier than what

42:18

most people were describing six months ago, except

42:21

for us. So go us. So the weird

42:23

thing about recessions is they don't get called until

42:26

usually well after they're over

42:28

and done by, and

42:31

they're called by the National Bureau of Economic

42:33

Research, called as in when are

42:35

things determined to have been a

42:38

recession. That determination usually happens a

42:40

year plus after there has been a

42:42

recession. So people feel a recession

42:44

long before one is officially declared,

42:47

although if it's bad enough and

42:49

there's really strongly negative GDP growth

42:51

for two consecutive quarters, which is

42:54

one of the definitions, then obviously that's more

42:56

evident, although even then GDP gets revised and

42:58

revised and revised and revised over the subsequent

43:00

years. So it is possible

43:03

that we were briefly in a recession. What if there

43:06

was a recession and no one noticed kind of thing? It

43:08

is certainly clear that we

43:10

have avoided what most people thought was

43:12

unavoidable, which is that in the most

43:15

aggressive fed cycle

43:17

of interest rate increases since

43:20

the early 1980s, that we

43:22

would inevitably have some sort of recession,

43:24

unemployment would go up, wage growth would

43:26

go down. And for the time

43:28

being that hasn't happened. I think it's more luck, luck

43:30

in the sense of the feds gotten lucky by, in

43:33

my view, being overly aggressive and not

43:35

having the negative consequences. But

43:37

that being said, here

43:40

we are. And it's

43:44

been pretty wild that that's

43:46

been avoided. The one thing that's also

43:48

wild is how many people are convinced,

43:51

utterly convinced that unemployment is up, wages

43:53

are down and we're in a recession.

43:55

Meaning contrary to all

43:58

numbers, A large

44:00

percentage of people, particularly people under 30, think

44:03

that things are quite different than they are,

44:05

which either means the numbers are completely wrong

44:07

or people's perceptions of reality are skewed by

44:10

all sorts of legitimate insecurities

44:12

about the future of the political situation, more

44:14

in the Middle East, and just

44:16

sort of like post-COVID, weird uncertainty

44:18

time. Personally, I'm in the camp

44:20

that thinks that that's mostly from inflation, that people

44:23

are looking around still and are having sticker shock

44:25

and are just kind of waiting for prices to

44:27

go down. People will feel better generally about the

44:29

economy, but certainly, I heard on the radio the

44:32

other day in the state, someone was like, there

44:34

are so many people looking for jobs right now.

44:36

And I was like, someone did not tell this

44:38

lady that, and I'm sure there are people looking

44:41

for jobs, but someone has not told

44:43

her that the unemployment rate is super

44:45

low, particularly for historically the neediest

44:47

people in the US. Yeah, and

44:49

part of the problem is lessening inflation

44:51

doesn't actually mean the prices are going down. It

44:53

just means that the rate at which they're going

44:55

up is going down, and that's

44:58

going to be a problem in 2024. All

45:00

right, let's move on from the economy. We'll

45:02

see what happens this year. I

45:04

have a story from the last moments

45:06

of 2023, and I am anticipating significant

45:08

pushback on this, but I'm going to

45:10

bring it to you anyway. So

45:13

people may not know that in 2008,

45:15

there was a convention on cluster munitions.

45:17

So cluster munitions being a kind

45:20

of explosive device that has several

45:22

smaller explosive devices in it. So

45:25

it sort of explodes these little bomblets

45:27

everywhere, which sounds

45:29

awful. And the second

45:31

awful thing about them is that a lot of

45:33

them, when they land, they don't explode immediately. So they

45:36

can be hidden somewhere and explode months,

45:38

years later, and harm civilians even

45:41

a long time after an active war. And

45:44

in 2008, 112 countries agreed

45:47

to destroy their cluster munitions

45:49

stockpiles, clear the cluster munitions

45:51

remnants, so kind of like the

45:53

mine clearing that has taken up until now,

45:56

for instance, in Cambodia, it's a similar process,

45:59

and assist victims. of cluster munitions.

46:02

The last of the 112 countries that

46:04

agreed to this did clear their stockpiles

46:07

at the very end of 2023. That

46:09

was Peru and the

46:11

other countries that agreed to this

46:13

convention that achieved this in

46:15

2023 were Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa. So

46:21

that's everyone that signed on to the convention

46:23

in 2008. They have achieved their goals. The

46:26

big massive caveat to that is that the

46:28

countries that you would really care about most

46:31

about producing and using and having

46:33

cluster munitions are not party to this agreement.

46:35

So the kind of big baddies of

46:38

the world, including the US, Russia,

46:40

India, Israel, North and South Korea,

46:44

Singapore, Turkey, Poland, all these places that

46:47

have kind of, I don't

46:49

know how to say this, may

46:51

be particular reason to have weapons

46:53

on hand. They have not agreed

46:55

to this. They still have lots of cluster

46:57

munitions. White House

47:00

national security spokesman John Kirby says

47:02

Ukraine's forces have made notable progress

47:04

in their offensive against heavily entrenched

47:06

Russian troops in the South. CBS's

47:09

Deborah Pata traveled to the Eastern front

47:12

lines for a rare look at the

47:14

use of cluster munitions supplied by the

47:16

United States. The

47:19

controversial US supplied cluster

47:21

munitions, which sometimes fail

47:24

to explode, endangering

47:26

civilians long after a war

47:28

is over. But artillery commander,

47:30

most of the countries, they are

47:32

crucial because they can cover a

47:34

wide area using only one shell.

47:38

I think this one can, Rick sounding very

47:40

Pollyannish, where it's like 112 countries

47:42

that weren't at war anyway and probably will not

47:44

go to war, have destroyed their weapons. But these

47:47

other ones that are, have

47:49

not. But in general, I do think that

47:51

these sort of stops and starts toward

47:55

a world where that is less armed to

47:57

the teeth or certainly less armed to

47:59

the teeth with certain types of weapons, which

48:02

has been part of

48:04

the international dialogue since the

48:06

end of World War I. I don't

48:09

think we should look at this

48:11

cynically just because it remains

48:14

an uphill struggle to get the large

48:16

armed countries that really matter, like the

48:18

United States, China, Russia, to back

48:21

off of those weapons. Because we live

48:24

in real time, so everything is messy and

48:26

noisy, and there's a lot of one-step backs

48:29

that you're aware of, even if

48:31

you can sometimes be aware of the two

48:33

steps forward. That is, if you even believe

48:35

in the two-step-forward one-step-back equation. And so, yeah,

48:37

I would say

48:39

to those who say, well, come on, who cares if

48:41

100 countries that aren't even making the weapons destroy

48:44

the weapons they bought from the countries that are still

48:46

making them and could potentially use them? Nonetheless,

48:49

a global move that says, hey, this is

48:52

not... If there is just

48:54

war, you don't need cluster

48:56

munitions to fight one. And so,

48:58

we're just not going to accept this, just like

49:00

we haven't accepted the use of

49:02

biological and chemical agents, let alone nuclear. I

49:06

didn't realize when we started the Good News portion

49:08

of the podcast that would involve talking about

49:10

so much morbid, macabre,

49:14

depressing stuff. Yeah. Well,

49:17

we've always said that it is good news

49:19

within context, and also it's more of a

49:21

recognition of acknowledging movement,

49:23

even in a really ugly

49:26

set of human realities, is still

49:29

necessary. That's expecting

49:31

purity and brightness

49:33

and daisies as

49:37

the definition of the human condition

49:39

is ridiculous, but recognizing change and

49:41

motion even within challenge

49:43

and ugliness is part of the

49:45

task and requires some effort. Yeah,

49:48

well said. That's it

49:50

for today. All right. Thank

49:52

you all for listening. We will be back next

49:55

week. What

50:05

Could Go Right is produced by Andrew Steven,

50:07

executive produced by Jeff Umbro and the Plug

50:09

Bomberate. To find out more about

50:11

What Could Go Right, the Progress Network, or

50:13

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50:15

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