Cathy O'Neil (data scientist on shame)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Experts.

[1] I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Jeremiah Weekly.

[2] Hello.

[3] Hello.

[4] Sharon Smanen.

[5] Now, rest assured, Monica's on this episode, but right now it's just you and I. It's just you and I. Sharing our love to give you.

[6] What a blast here.

[7] Sharon and I are on a little trip to Disney World.

[8] like two little boys.

[9] Yes, two grown men with no children.

[10] Father's son trip to Disney World tomorrow and there's going to be a lot of souvenirs.

[11] Erin, they'll be in Mickey Mouse Hat, ears, yeah.

[12] We have a wonderful guest today.

[13] Kathy O 'Neill, as a Ph .D. in mathematics from Harvard and is the author of the best -selling book Weapons of Math Destruction.

[14] She recently founded Orca an algorithm auditing company.

[15] She has a new book, which we discuss in -depth, called The Shame Machine, Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation?

[16] Aaron, you didn't meet her.

[17] I didn't, but I see what she's doing there with that title.

[18] Yeah, you kind of get it.

[19] Yeah.

[20] I love someone who's, well, I just can't comprehend being smart enough to get a degree in mathematics from Harvard.

[21] No. It's not for us, is it?

[22] No, it's not.

[23] It's not for us.

[24] The only thing for us is sharing this bed together.

[25] Okay, Kathy O 'Neill, please enjoy.

[26] And check out her book, The Shame Machine.

[27] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[28] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[29] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[30] Oh, my God.

[31] We almost had a real crisis, Kathy.

[32] We almost wasted a coffee.

[33] Big trauma.

[34] You can rest easy now.

[35] We're back.

[36] Okay.

[37] I'll try to make do over here.

[38] Just checking with your heart rate, just to make sure, though.

[39] You know, I don't want anyone proceeding if they're...

[40] No, I've been there.

[41] I've been there.

[42] Where are you at?

[43] I'm in Brooklyn right now.

[44] You're in Brooklyn.

[45] I'm in my friend's attic.

[46] Oh, you're in an attic too.

[47] Oh, attic on attic.

[48] Now, do you ever get over to Emily Pizza?

[49] Do you eat meat?

[50] I do.

[51] Have you had the burger at Emily's down the street from your house?

[52] I'm not sure I know where Emily's is.

[53] I just went to something called milk and honey for lunch.

[54] Oh.

[55] Oh.

[56] We don't know that.

[57] But Emily, she has a couple locations, but the one in Brooklyn has the best burger.

[58] It's insane.

[59] We think about it.

[60] We talk about it all the time.

[61] It's incredible.

[62] Enough said about that.

[63] Are you a Brooklyn native?

[64] No, no. I lived in Manhattan for 15 years, but I moved back to my hometown, which is Boston.

[65] Okay.

[66] Boston.

[67] Now, proper or one of the enclaves, what are we talking?

[68] Well, I grew up in Lexington, then I went to Berkeley for undergrad, and then I came back to Harvard for grad school.

[69] And I lived mostly in Somerville, but now I'm living in Cambridge.

[70] Okay, so, first of all, Berkeley, what a fucking place to matriculate.

[71] Did you love it?

[72] I loved it.

[73] I'm surprised, in fact, that you don't live there.

[74] Everybody I went to college with still lives there.

[75] I mean, that's how great it is.

[76] But you can get addicted to it, you know, you could get addicted to that lifestyle.

[77] Oppenheimer famously, could have lived anywhere, independently.

[78] wealthy.

[79] Yeah, they're a little soft, to be honest, those folks that are still there.

[80] I love them, but they can't handle seasons.

[81] Oh, good point.

[82] Yeah, they don't have any edges.

[83] Yeah.

[84] So we can just track your career, your life, Boston, Berkeley, then Harvard, then working at MIT.

[85] Then you get into finance in 2007.

[86] You can do four years there.

[87] Yeah, well, I first was a Barnard professor.

[88] It's like, I moved to Columbia and Barnard for work.

[89] And then I was like, you know what?

[90] I'm looking around here in New York, and I'd like to be like more part of the scene, and I would like to get paid better, to be honest.

[91] Yeah.

[92] And so, yeah, I joined a hedge fund in 2007.

[93] I got the job offer in 2006.

[94] And the reason I mentioned that is because there was no whiff of any kind of scandal or kerfuffle or financial crisis in 2006 when I was making my plans.

[95] Well, no, people were just drunk on buying credit default swaps and no one knew what they meant and people were just willy -nilly purchasing them like crazy.

[96] Correct, yeah.

[97] Within a month of entering, like it started happening in the hedge fund inside the finance.

[98] I don't think other people outside really noticed for a whole year, but it was apparent, at least in August to 2007.

[99] That was something was really wrong.

[100] Right.

[101] The default rate was rapidly climbing and no one could track any of these securities, right?

[102] They had all been bundled.

[103] It was just all becoming obvious, right?

[104] What a web, the whole thing was on shaky footing?

[105] Is that accurate?

[106] The equities group had to, like, sell everything in August 2007.

[107] Like, that's how bad it was.

[108] People were like, we have no idea what's going on.

[109] And, you know, nobody was trusting the other banks overnight.

[110] They didn't trust that they'd open in the morning.

[111] And the public just doesn't know for so long.

[112] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[113] Well, and even when they knew, it was even sold to them as horseshit.

[114] In my opinion, you could correct me. You know this better than me. No, you joined Occupy.

[115] Right, you joined Occupy.

[116] But I think the average understanding of that event was a lot of people borrowed money they couldn't pay back.

[117] That's kind of how it was sold.

[118] And above that, you could say, okay, well, Well, also a lot of policies were sold to people predatorily.

[119] Okay, that's one level.

[120] And then, oh, these people didn't even hang on to these.

[121] They just bundled them and got rid of them right away, too.

[122] So they hadn't taken the risk.

[123] And then even worse is, I forget the number, but I want to say it was like there was really only $59 billion in bad assets.

[124] But on top of that $1 .4 trillion in derivatives had been built.

[125] And among those trillion dollars in credit default swaps, so it's like what we were told is really the nugget.

[126] Yeah.

[127] Well, I would even say that narrative that you just said was the Tea Party perspective, actually.

[128] You know, let's blame the borrowers on the shenanigans that the derivatives markets were up to.

[129] You mean the first thing I introduced?

[130] Yeah, yeah.

[131] Okay, okay.

[132] The story that was told.

[133] I got you.

[134] The story that was told to the public, that was an understandable and appealing narrative because then they could blame people of color for getting loans.

[135] You know, it was just the racist approach to the description.

[136] But from my perspective, inside finance, it was a correct.

[137] corruption problem.

[138] Credit default swaps was a big part of that, but the underlying corruption was the AAA ratings on mortgage back securities in the first place.

[139] Like, basically, they were mathematical rubber stamps that were lies.

[140] And that allowed the inflation of that entire market, including the credit default swap market, which, by the way, like, I left the hedge fund to go work in a risk company that managed the risk of a hedge fund I went to worked at as well as all the banks and other hedge funds.

[141] Because I still at that time was naively thinking this was a mathematics problem.

[142] and I even worked on the credit default swap risk model.

[143] Oh, you did.

[144] Yeah, I revamped it.

[145] This was post -crisis because I was like, yeah, we really didn't know what the risk was there.

[146] Let me look into it.

[147] And I was like, oh, yeah, we were really lying to ourselves about the risk.

[148] And here's a better way of looking at the risk.

[149] And the clients were like, we don't want a better way of looking at risk.

[150] We want the bad way of looking at risk.

[151] So for me, it was just corruption.

[152] We also want to ignore the fact that we've hugely incentivized people to see the bankruptcy of other institutions that they have credit default swaps on.

[153] So don't even worry about the fact that we've just, mobilized and incentivized all these people to destroy everything that they have a swap on.

[154] It's its own weird conflict of interest.

[155] Yeah.

[156] Okay.

[157] That's not what we're here to talk about.

[158] Let's first start with your last book, which was Weapons of Math Destruction.

[159] And although I didn't read it, I did watch your TED talk where you get into algorithms.

[160] And today I was interviewing someone else, a favorite author of mine, and I got to talk about algorithms in a way I couldn't have previously done.

[161] So I want to thank you.

[162] I think they seem really, really complicated and hard to understand.

[163] But the way you broke it down was incredibly simple to understand.

[164] So would you walk us through an algorithm?

[165] Sure.

[166] And by the way, it's by construction.

[167] They're meant to be intimidating.

[168] Much like these credit.

[169] The derivative market, yeah.

[170] Yeah, it's the same kind of thing.

[171] The algorithms I talk about are predictive algorithms.

[172] We're trying to predict the future based on the past.

[173] And all you really need for that is a bunch of historical data and a definition of success.

[174] And what you're doing is you're saying in the past, things like this were successful or things like that were failures.

[175] And so when you're presented with like initial set of conditions right now, you could say, oh, this looks more like things that were successful than it looks like things that were failures.

[176] So we're going to predict that this will be successful.

[177] That's it.

[178] It's just a pattern matching situation.

[179] Of course, it depends on that data and it depends on a very, very specific and precise definition of success.

[180] Right.

[181] I was going to say what you're brilliant at pointing out is that they are sold to us as the apex of objectivity.

[182] And in fact, by setting the success goal line.

[183] It's an opinion.

[184] An algorithm is an opinion generator.

[185] Yeah, it is.

[186] It's an agenda that is sort of inserted into the whole system by whoever controls the algorithm.

[187] I think my example in my TED talk was cooking dinner for my kids, which is an algorithm.

[188] I'm trying to predict success.

[189] For me, success is my kids eat vegetables.

[190] For my kids, success isn't the same thing, right?

[191] They have a different agenda.

[192] But because I'm in charge, because I'm the mom and I'm in charge, I have the power, which is typically who gets to choose this stuff, I get to insert my agenda.

[193] Just like Facebook gets to insert their agenda in the newsfeed algorithm.

[194] And their agenda is to keep us on Facebook.

[195] And they do that by outraging us, essentially.

[196] Yeah.

[197] I don't think people love thinking about the reality that the business model is, ultimate goal is you would spend 24 hours a day for the rest of your life.

[198] Yeah, that is the objective of the company.

[199] Yeah, they want us to become addicted to that situation, whatever that situation.

[200] is.

[201] It's weird, though, because it's so slippery, right?

[202] Like, you can kind of understand it from a logical point of view of any company.

[203] Like, Target wants you to spend all your money there.

[204] Yeah.

[205] Every company wants you to spend all your energy, money, assets, and resources at that place.

[206] So, in theory, it makes sense until you start taking into consideration that it's psychological, it's emotional information, it gets slipperier.

[207] Let me frame it this way.

[208] Chemical companies want to sell their product and they don't want to deal with like cleaning up you know toxic chemicals that's a cost to them that's a constraint if you will but they don't want but they have to deal with because of rules if we didn't have rules about pollution then chemical companies would pollute more right and so my feeling about facebook or other social media algorithms is they also should be paying for their externalities or they should be constrained to have limited externalities they shouldn't just be allowed to do whatever they want because they want to just like chemical companies can't also I will say there's a paradigm we all kind of accept or traditionally we've accepted, which is, you know, GM is only so powerful in their persuasion that a Red Corvette will get you a lover.

[209] They're going to put it in a commercial, but you're probably going to combat that with very little personal experience.

[210] I think it's when the devices of persuasion are actually better than we are, that it's not a fair fight.

[211] Yeah.

[212] That's how we need to distinguish the technology versus the conventional Madison.

[213] avenue marketing machine.

[214] Yeah, no, you're right.

[215] In some sense, the complaint about Facebook could just boil down to, they're too good at it.

[216] I think that is what it is.

[217] They hijack us in ways that I would argue are pre -rational.

[218] That's why we use the word trigger so much nowadays.

[219] They trigger us to react in ways that we haven't thought through, and they don't give us mind space to think through them because that's where they want us.

[220] Well, there's just all these new elements that were unimaginable, which is like the immediacy of the product.

[221] So if I do get convinced by that commercial for a Corvette, I can't buy it right now in this moment where I'm hot for it.

[222] I got to get a loan.

[223] I got to drive down there.

[224] I got to do all this stuff.

[225] Maybe there's one.

[226] Maybe there isn't.

[227] Like, it's just an entirely new concept in our market that the second you would want to use their product, you can.

[228] That's a really good point.

[229] I think the immediacy of it combines with that pre -rational triggering to just make not only us want something, but us grabbing something immediately.

[230] And when you combine that with what they're actually offering us, which, dare I say, is love.

[231] They're offering us community.

[232] They're offering us connection and approval.

[233] Those are very, very hard to resist for most people.

[234] Even if it's ultimately approval in the wrong way to no end, we will still want that in the moment.

[235] A thousand percent.

[236] And then also they're trading in a whole new currency, which is interesting.

[237] So previously you'd be limited by whatever your budget was to buy a certain product.

[238] As you say, you couldn't live at Target spending all your money.

[239] There'd be a limit.

[240] It's got a hard stop.

[241] Your appetite is exhaustible.

[242] You know, I've done it.

[243] You could eat Ben and Jerry's.

[244] You probably can't get through more than three or four pints.

[245] Even if you're, like, really committed to it, you will exhaust yourself.

[246] But your attention is inexhaustible.

[247] It doesn't know an end.

[248] I think you said it right.

[249] Like, we have limited funds, especially over time we'll notice.

[250] Like, oh, my God, I just spent $400 every time I go to Target.

[251] I can't go to Target.

[252] Don't let me go to Target.

[253] It's avoidable.

[254] The resource.

[255] that's being tapped at Facebook is our attention and our time.

[256] And it's weirdly harder to look back and measure that accurately and regret it appropriately.

[257] So we'll just be like, oh, I find myself here.

[258] I used to be on Facebook until soon after the 2016 elections.

[259] And I just remember clearing my cash on my computer, like clearing all my history and cookies, simply because I realized at some point that I was just idly clicking the F in a new tab and just F, and just F, return because it would fill in Facebook for me. And I was doing it kind of without thinking.

[260] It was running in the subconscious now, yeah.

[261] Yeah.

[262] And I'm sure that's true for most people.

[263] Not only does it leave you less time to think through your choices, but I guess I would also say that it fills gaps in time that you're not measuring at all.

[264] That's what I mean when I say you automatically go there.

[265] You don't even think about it.

[266] And so it's like waiting for the bus.

[267] You don't expect waiting for the bus to be a important moment.

[268] in your development.

[269] But it could be.

[270] Oh, sure.

[271] Now it can't be.

[272] 1 ,000 % you get seated.

[273] You're by yourself.

[274] So you pop that sucker out until the menu gets there.

[275] Okay, menus here.

[276] I'm paying attention.

[277] I put in my order, I'm back.

[278] Okay, now my drink comes in.

[279] I put it down for a second.

[280] Yeah, and it's just every...

[281] No one's by themselves anymore, ever.

[282] No one's bored.

[283] I've been on a quest to be bored since I started having kids.

[284] You know, I've been like, when do I get to be bored, you know, and it's just never happening because I really want to be bored.

[285] So I watch a lot of baseball.

[286] I try that.

[287] I'm still not bored.

[288] because I'm doing other things and one of the things I'm doing is checking Twitter.

[289] I somehow can't stop.

[290] I'm amazed you're not bored with your kids.

[291] I have kids and 90 % of the shit you have to do with them is so inane.

[292] You're participating.

[293] You want to be a good person, but you're like, holy crap, we're throwing this ball again.

[294] I think I'm less good than you, actually.

[295] I'm kind of like, oh, do you enjoy that game?

[296] Go for it.

[297] Go play it.

[298] There we go.

[299] Okay.

[300] So we're not saying anything that everyone else hasn't already observed and the social delimited a great job of it and so many people do a great job of it.

[301] But it does make sense to me that you're not.

[302] next exploration after math destruction would be, oh, okay, what actually fuels the algorithm?

[303] What is it that captivates our attention?

[304] What is fueling all of this?

[305] And I have to imagine this is one of the areas you could pretty easily point to to being a key ingredient for the success and acceleration of all this, which is shame.

[306] It's one of my favorite topics.

[307] I can't imagine you know anything about me, but I attempt to be someone who's fighting against it at all times.

[308] I talk about it endlessly.

[309] Here's my definition.

[310] Yours might be different, but guilt is I did a bad thing.

[311] Shame is I am a bad thing.

[312] And I think these are really key things to delineate between.

[313] I think one thing's useful, one thing's destructive.

[314] I think when people think they're a bad thing, they don't love other people because if they don't deserve it, why would someone else?

[315] It's a real fast -spreading cancerous condition, shame, in my opinion.

[316] So how did you approach this topic?

[317] What do you think you've looked at that's novel about your view of it?

[318] Were there people also that maybe led you here?

[319] I don't know.

[320] Bray Brown writes a lot about it.

[321] I love her take on it.

[322] I don't know who encouraged you.

[323] Tell us how you ended up on Shane.

[324] I really think you've thought a lot about it, and I appreciate talking to you about it today.

[325] So I will say that a lot of the times, because I talked about the dark side of algorithms, I talk about feedback loops.

[326] I talk about how algorithms set out to solve a sticky, difficult social problem, like who is a good teacher, and can we get rid of bad teachers?

[327] And it not only fails to do that, but it makes the problem work.

[328] I would often be asked, like, oh, does that explain Facebook?

[329] Does that explain like all the terrible anti -democratic things happening on Facebook?

[330] And I'd always be like, well, partially, but there's something else going on there, which is just humans are sometimes terrible.

[331] And so that was kind of setting the stage for me to being like, what is it?

[332] It's happening exactly.

[333] But that is not actually exactly how I was directly motivated to write the book.

[334] How it was directly motivated was, in fact, I was interviewing teachers about this terrible algorithm, the value added model, which I did talk about in my TED talk.

[335] And I would ask them, when you were told you were fired based on the score, did you ask to understand the score?

[336] And they would say, I did ask, but that was told it was math and I wouldn't understand it.

[337] And I was just like, what did you do next?

[338] Did you punch them?

[339] I'm a mathematician.

[340] As a mathematician, I would say, no, that doesn't work on me. Like, if you can't explain it, that's your problem.

[341] But what I realized is that they're not mathematicians.

[342] And in fact, they think they're not math people.

[343] And so when they were told it's Matthew and understand it, they felt ashamed.

[344] And so at the end of the day, the power underlying that terrible algorithm that fired lots of teachers randomly because it was a random number generator, the power was shame.

[345] Well, just to be clear, because it's really fun the way you roll it out.

[346] It's not that it was a random number generator.

[347] In practice, it turned out to be one, because when you plotted who got scored what and you took the fact that some of the teachers were teaching two different grades, you look at the graph of everyone and it's just a big fucking shotgun splatter.

[348] There's no pattern to be observed whatsoever.

[349] But I can't imagine their intention was like, let's just randomly grab teachers and toss them.

[350] They did a terrible algorithm.

[351] They didn't think they had to be accountable for it, even though the whole point was accountability for teachers.

[352] They themselves didn't find any reason to be accountable.

[353] My running theory, by the way, is that this was an attempt just to disempower the union.

[354] Like if you can sort of fire people arbitrarily, then you have power over the union.

[355] I don't think it was meant to be mathematical.

[356] I think it was meant to be a tool, a mechanism.

[357] A sort of oppressive mechanism was fueled, as I said, by like shaming people for not being math people.

[358] And it worked.

[359] I mean, that was the most depressing part of it is that it worked.

[360] Most of the people I talked to stopped asking questions.

[361] And I was like, what is this power that makes people silent, that makes them seed their power, their rights even, for their own job.

[362] That's powerful.

[363] And I was fascinated by that.

[364] And I was like, that's shame.

[365] I need to look into this.

[366] Because of the systematic nature of it.

[367] Because it wasn't just one teacher.

[368] It was like every teacher I talked to.

[369] And it's crazy.

[370] Well, it's the greatest weapon that the con man has.

[371] You know, it's like no one wants to go to the police to acknowledge that they have been duped.

[372] Yep.

[373] That's true, too.

[374] It's so shameful.

[375] So it's like the most underreported thing correlating with sexual assault.

[376] It's like any of these things that carry with it, some public shame, people would just rather not do it.

[377] When you think about what, what people who had been abused by priests had to go through in order to be able to tell their stories, you realize that that was also systematic.

[378] It was systematic shame to maintain power.

[379] Shame the victims, and they will be too ashamed to go, it's a silencing tactic, and it works.

[380] And I will say that, like, even then, I was like, that's really interesting, but I wasn't yet going to write a book until I've discovered my own shame, which I didn't know I still had.

[381] I grew up fat and my parents were constantly putting me on diets, and I talked about that in the book.

[382] And I remember skipping school for like weeks in order to avoid the presidential fitness test weigh in after many, many terrible experiences of that.

[383] And I dieted constantly as a young woman.

[384] At some point I stopped.

[385] I started having kids, having a perfectly good career.

[386] And I was like, I don't need to feel ashamed of my body.

[387] I have other identities and other things that I can be proud of.

[388] But at some point, my dad basically died of diabetes.

[389] my brother had been diagnosed.

[390] He's a couple of years older than me. I had all the risk factors.

[391] I was like, man, I really want to avoid getting diabetes type two, I mean.

[392] And I found out that bariatric surgery was a diabetes cure.

[393] So I started looking into it, and I was just inundated with shaming ads.

[394] And I was like, fetal position every hour.

[395] And I was like, oh, wait, I recognize this.

[396] This is what I saw with the teachers.

[397] Really quick, can I just ask specifically, like, what brand of shaming?

[398] Because the thing I know about this story is the shaming for having even gotten in a procedure, which is another backside of the whole thing.

[399] So what part of this shame cycle was this?

[400] Literally just Google searching bariatric surgery.

[401] As soon as you do that, you are identified by the ad tech.

[402] By the way, I used to work in ad tech after I left finance.

[403] I worked in ad tech.

[404] I know how it works.

[405] And I was like, I could explain this to myself.

[406] Why is this affecting me emotionally so much?

[407] But as soon as my Google search terms identified me as somebody vulnerable to fat shaming, I'll shorten it to that, I was inundated with, oh, liposy.

[408] oh before after pictures oh here's another surgery here's a diet like you probably are fat and you should probably feel bad about it all of the ads i saw were like that i've been criticized because we had a show called race to 270 so one of my friends recently sober has not been paying attention to his health for 14 years two years sober he's got kids he wants to live he wants to lose weight he started at 3 30 my friend charlie he owns a crossfit he's a gym nut so i've set like a ten thousand dollar prize if charlie could get to two seventy first he would get it and if aaron could get down to two seventy first and it was this comedic 10 episode thing weirdly and probably they tied and on the same day we're both two that's impossible that happened and i got all these really angry comments from people going this is diet culture i have an eating disorder you're perpetuating and just like all this rage and anger that this show at these two people who wanted to do this, did it, and me who wanted to observe it.

[409] Well, it's a bummer for me, because I don't think of myself as someone who's perpetuating anything like that, as someone who expressed a desire to lose weight, not become diabetic, all these things.

[410] What's your take on that?

[411] Do you see their point of view?

[412] Oh, sure.

[413] First of all, a lot of people don't recognize fat shaming, even when they're doing it.

[414] But I do think you are fat shaming, the audience, because you're framing it as a choice.

[415] So now we're just diving deep into my book where I talk about what is inappropriate shame, I call it punching down shame.

[416] And the answer is it's inappropriate if the person that you're shaming has no voice or no choice.

[417] Well, that's not the case.

[418] So the person is on the show.

[419] They've expressed this interest.

[420] I've not told anyone they need to lose weight.

[421] So that right there, just your first criteria has not been met.

[422] Let me define choice.

[423] Everybody has a choice to go on a diet.

[424] You're right.

[425] And many people can maintain a diet and even lose a lot of weight for some amount of time.

[426] The statistics on success of diets are non -existent.

[427] I go to a lot of trouble in my book pointing out how bad the science is on losing weight because people who fail just drop out of the studies.

[428] And so the very few people that are followed are the people who are successful, at least for the length of the study, which is usually not very long, because people gain the weight back.

[429] And it's just a fact, a statistical fact, that almost nobody successfully diets long term.

[430] Almost nobody.

[431] Okay, so can I just push back on that?

[432] So I'm a raging addict, very openly raging addict.

[433] The success rate of people trying to recover is fucking abysmal.

[434] It's very low.

[435] The greatest treatment center in the world, I think, Hazleton, maybe it's 21 % at a year marker.

[436] I'm not ever going to say people can't get sober.

[437] I'm not going to ever say people shouldn't try to get sober.

[438] It sounds to me like you're saying you can't lose weight.

[439] So when you imply you can, you're going to make someone feel bad.

[440] I don't believe you should call addicts morally repugnant, not having willpower.

[441] That shouldn't be done.

[442] That's shaming.

[443] But to acknowledge that people can get sober, I'm not seeing that that's a problem from the thing I have.

[444] And likewise, if someone wanted to have a drinking show, I would have to choose to think they're shaming me somehow that they love drinking.

[445] Like, I can't drink.

[446] I can't do it.

[447] You could have any show you'd want about drinking.

[448] So I'm trying to marry what I know about being an addict and how there had been for years, stigma to, about being an alcoholic and whatnot, and that's very true.

[449] There's also fat shaming.

[450] Absolutely.

[451] What Bill Maher does to people, that's fat shaming.

[452] Let me sort through a little bit.

[453] There are various levels of choice, and I'm not claiming that there's no choice ever at all with anything.

[454] Some people, very, very few, statistically, can lose weight.

[455] Very few.

[456] And by the way, the definition of losing weight successfully is typically like five pounds over two years.

[457] It's very small because people typically gain weight back.

[458] That's just a fact.

[459] I don't need to argue with a bit about it.

[460] Yeah, yeah.

[461] I'm saying so far we have the same example.

[462] Addiction is the exact same way.

[463] Now, let's do another example, like quitting smoking.

[464] Some people can really quit smoking.

[465] I mean, a lot of people have quit smoking.

[466] So I'd say there's way more choice exerted in that situation than in losing weight long term.

[467] But then on the other hand, there are some people that have a lot of trouble quitting smoking.

[468] And so I would suggest that when you talk to people about just quit, just quit.

[469] if you make it seem like just a choice you're making and if you're not making the right choice it's on you that's shaming to those people who can't quit likewise as you point out i definitely think of addiction in the category of less choice than one would assume when one is telling them one to make that choice i'm not saying there's zero choice as you point out and of course i very much support people who can learn how to be sober but i don't want to assume it's easy and that's the problem with the shaming is that it's assuming it's easier than it is.

[470] It's assuming it's an easier choice than it actually is.

[471] Back to your example.

[472] It's like, hey, this is fun.

[473] My friend wants to do it.

[474] It's a fun choice for him to make.

[475] It's the healthy choice.

[476] If you frame it that way, then the people are like, I've tried dieting 25 times.

[477] It never works.

[478] I end up sicker and fatter.

[479] And I really don't appreciate you making this seem like it's an enjoyable entertainment.

[480] See, that's where we will fundamentally disagree.

[481] I'm not making a show about you, person who's saying that.

[482] This isn't a show about you.

[483] Not unlike if you have a show that's called, what do they do?

[484] They do Sober October.

[485] I'm not sitting at home going, you're saying that I could just quit in January.

[486] They're not talking about me. I have nothing to do with that.

[487] If my friend Aaron wants to lose weight and he says it, he's a person with full agency, and he's expressed that he wants to do it.

[488] And now we figure out and we go on his ride as he does, what does that have to do with anyone but Aaron?

[489] One of the examples I have is the biggest loser, which is more extreme.

[490] By the way, I should mention that I don't know about your friend Aaron, so I don't want to speak out of turn about how you dealt with it.

[491] But I do want to say that as a fat person, watching the biggest loser was extremely humiliating.

[492] On behalf of those people.

[493] Tell us how, and tell us how you would feel in that situation, they should feel in that situation.

[494] For people who don't know, the biggest loser was a television reality show about taking really, really fat people and putting them on extreme diets with extreme exercise under doctor care, supposedly, and then giving the prize to the person that lost the most amount of weight.

[495] Now, one of the things to keep in mind is that the follow -up of these folks is that they were not well off.

[496] Many or most of them had gained all their weight back.

[497] Many of them were very sick.

[498] It just seemed like a freak show of misunderstanding and pseudoscience.

[499] It was like do all these crazy things to your body so that we can see you atone for your sins of eating too much.

[500] So we can see you humiliated in public.

[501] And so that we can actually think that you've finally become moral and worked really hard to be acceptable to us when in fact it's not going to help you.

[502] It's just a short -term humiliation.

[503] And then we're going to forget about you and go on to like the next freak show.

[504] That's how it feels.

[505] Stay tuned.

[506] more armchair expert, if you dare.

[507] We've all been there.

[508] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[509] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[510] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter whose body was found at home by his son, Except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[511] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[512] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[513] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[514] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[515] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[516] What's up, guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[517] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[518] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[519] And I don't mean just friends.

[520] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[521] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[522] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[523] Kathy, I think I misunderstood you.

[524] Did you say you got a surgery, or you wanted to, to avoid becoming type 2?

[525] I did get it.

[526] And I haven't gotten diabetes.

[527] In fact, my blood sugar is now normal, although it was in a pre -diabetic zone.

[528] So why is the decision you made fine and the decision someone else makes?

[529] Because it was a choice.

[530] It was actually a choice.

[531] It was hard.

[532] The insurance company made me jump through a lot of fat -shaming, humiliating hoops to get approved, even though I was clearly fat for a long time and eligible, but they still made me do all these crazy things to prove how irreversibly hopeless my fatness was.

[533] But it was ultimately a choice, and I did it, and I don't have diabetes.

[534] That's very different.

[535] By the way, I've been on a lot of diets.

[536] They don't work.

[537] They don't work for most people.

[538] People will say to me, AA doesn't work, and I need to tell them it didn't work for them.

[539] It worked for me, you know.

[540] You don't think that's shaming to them?

[541] To say that it worked for me, that's the fact.

[542] That's a reality.

[543] has worked for me. I haven't drank in 18 years.

[544] I couldn't do it prior to that.

[545] I tried every single thing and it didn't work.

[546] And so if you asked me how I got sober and I say, I went to AA and they say, A .A. doesn't work.

[547] For you, it didn't work.

[548] For me, it worked.

[549] You can't say because it didn't work for you.

[550] It doesn't work.

[551] Right?

[552] We would agree upon that.

[553] Of course.

[554] It did work for you.

[555] And I'm glad it worked for you.

[556] And it worked for about six million Americans.

[557] And it didn't work for about 30 million Americans.

[558] I think it's in some sense a problem of the English language.

[559] We shouldn't be saying it works, it doesn't work.

[560] Because I'm a mathematician, maybe I think this.

[561] Maybe it'll never fly.

[562] But I would like it to say, this works 60 % of the time.

[563] This works 5 % of the time.

[564] And you were very lucky to be in the percent where it works, but most people aren't.

[565] And so I just feel like we should have sympathy for people for whom these treatments don't work.

[566] And we should congratulate the people for whom they work.

[567] Yeah, the problem is the reality must be said, is she shitty as the outcome is for rehabilitation from addiction, it's abysmal for sure.

[568] Mm -hmm.

[569] Still the most successful one is the 12 -step program.

[570] That also has to be super relevant.

[571] But that's relevant only if it's going to work for you.

[572] It's not relevant at all for whom it doesn't work.

[573] Once it doesn't work, they're just like, okay, now I'm up Schitt's Creek.

[574] And people are telling me to try it again, and it doesn't work for me. So that's not a solution for them.

[575] Right.

[576] So what should they do?

[577] Just indulge in addiction.

[578] I don't answer that question.

[579] I'm only talking about the shame.

[580] Well, no, I'm saying you have a friend who's suffering from addiction.

[581] You want to help that person and you say, okay, the most successful version of it is that.

[582] And then they go and they go, well, that doesn't work for me. And then what do you say?

[583] That's my question.

[584] Well, then you look at a different treatment, obviously, if there is one.

[585] There aren't any other successful ones.

[586] Look, I mean, I can't solve people's actual problems.

[587] What I try to talk about with the shame book is that by shaming them, you're making those same problems worse.

[588] And I think you started out talking about shame that way.

[589] I think we agree on this.

[590] Yeah.

[591] So I'm saying don't pile on with shame.

[592] Like you have a problem.

[593] You're addicted to something and this particular treatment doesn't work.

[594] If it happened to my son, I would say, I love you.

[595] That's what I would say.

[596] I wouldn't say, I can solve your problem.

[597] I also wouldn't say, well, you didn't try hard enough.

[598] Yeah.

[599] I don't know.

[600] People get the surgery and then they gain weight.

[601] So someone would say that surgery doesn't work.

[602] And you would be just as fine to say it worked for me. Actually, I did gain weight, but that wasn't what I was going for.

[603] I wasn't going for weight loss.

[604] I was going for diabetes.

[605] Great.

[606] Let's say that for you, it worked for your goal, and someone else may say, I tried to do it to head off getting diabetes, and I have diabetes.

[607] It works more consistently for diabetes than it does for weight loss, by the way.

[608] Oh, I believe that.

[609] I believe that.

[610] Yeah.

[611] Okay.

[612] So tell us how people are profiting from how it's a big ingredient in the algorithm.

[613] them.

[614] I would love to see an actual meta -analysis of the total amount of tweets that are sent, what percentage of them are an attempt to tell someone they're a bad person.

[615] I have to imagine it's double -digit or above.

[616] Yeah, probably.

[617] And to be clear, like, I think there's sort of two forms of the shame industrial complex.

[618] The industries that profit from shame, there's the traditional ones that profit directly by shaming you directly and then make money.

[619] And I would even say like pharmaceutical companies and the sacklers with the opioid epidemic.

[620] They were very directly shaming people with addiction.

[621] Their famous email was, blame the addicts.

[622] Yeah, they're criminals and...

[623] The rehab centers are shame -based.

[624] They don't use the best treatment.

[625] They don't use the medically assisted treatment because they don't think that addicts should get a replacement or whatever.

[626] That's shame -based.

[627] And they make money off of that.

[628] Then there's the cosmetics industry, shaming people for aging.

[629] They directly shame you.

[630] They sell you a product that doesn't actually work.

[631] And then you're a repeat customer because you feel it's your fault that it doesn't work.

[632] And of course, weight loss is an example of that.

[633] One of my favorite examples in that traditional sense of the shame industrial complex is this product for making teenage girls feel bad about the smell when they get their periods and selling them a product to deodorize their vaginas, which is not only unnecessary but likely leads to use infections, which just how happens is also sold by that company, Vagosil.

[634] So that's a great example of like, we're going to make you feel ashamed of something.

[635] You're going to buy this product and it's not going to help you at all, but it will make money.

[636] I see that cycle, but do you acknowledge that some of its chicken or the egg?

[637] There are people that don't like the smell of their vagina and want to change it.

[638] But then that's not the approach for it, though.

[639] That's not a medically appropriate thing to do.

[640] Yeah, I'm just saying people want things.

[641] There is a chicken or the egg.

[642] People desire whatever they want, a harder penis.

[643] Now, are they shaming you in saying you're not a man if your penis isn't erect?

[644] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[645] But I'll tell you, men wanted erect penises long before Madison Avenue.

[646] A lot of these things are picking up on something that we're vulnerable about.

[647] You're right.

[648] In fact, that's why it works so well.

[649] But, I mean, it also creates vulnerability where people didn't have them, right?

[650] I don't think most teenage girls ever thought about that, but it creates in them a question, don't you feel ashamed of that?

[651] And then, well, on inspection, yes, I guess I do feel ashamed of that.

[652] What should I buy?

[653] It pushes on our bruises.

[654] You're right to think that people do want, you know, hard penises.

[655] And of course, ED is a great example of an industry that thrives on shame.

[656] And so is sinility, by the way.

[657] Another shame industry that's pointing at sort of older men, like Previgin, which is a fake product to try to make you feel smart when you're getting older.

[658] It focuses on your shame of senility in aging.

[659] And it doesn't do anything.

[660] But it's costly.

[661] So it's making profit off of your shame.

[662] Here's my fear.

[663] We're painting with an extremely broad brush.

[664] Right now, I don't think we're being specific enough to say some segment of our population is highly motivated by shame.

[665] There's a huge variation in strata among shame, how much shame they have.

[666] Some people are making decisions out of shame.

[667] Some people are not making decisions out of shame.

[668] If someone wants a pill that would make them more agile in thinking, I would want that pill.

[669] If it weren't addictive and I didn't think there were any downsides, I like being mentally agile.

[670] I might make that decision without any sense of I'm being shame that my mental capacities are failing me, right?

[671] I just think there's a huge spectrum of people on planet Earth.

[672] Some are in a shame spiral.

[673] Some are living with tons of shame and some people aren't.

[674] But the marketing is using shame to try to get as many people as possible.

[675] Well, that's the thing is like, so if they're trying to make their product very attractive, what may attract you is that you feel shame and less than and impudent in some way that this will answer.

[676] And another thing is just the product looks good you desire it.

[677] I mean, those are two distinct camps.

[678] Yeah, they're hoping to get everyone.

[679] Yeah.

[680] They are using shame tactics to get as many people as possible.

[681] And it might not work on some people, like some people might not feel shame from it, but others will.

[682] Exactly.

[683] I think it's just a little cynical to say like, okay, erectile dysfunction medicine, we can embarrass these men into buying this product, certainly.

[684] That's true.

[685] Also, it could be like men want boners later, and here's a product they can give that to you.

[686] One's really a cynical view of it, but my guess would be like some percentages is doing it because they're embarrassed and some's doing it because they want to party.

[687] Yeah, no, you're right.

[688] I'm not saying that all the customers are being provoked by shaming marketing.

[689] I'm saying that shame is a method of marketing.

[690] to provoke purchases, and it works.

[691] Yeah.

[692] I saw it like crazy when my wife was pregnant.

[693] It was like, are you going to have it in a bathtub?

[694] Are you going to have it in the lawn?

[695] All these mini tests that will prove your level of dedication to this experience.

[696] Yeah.

[697] There's a lot of mom shaming.

[698] Yeah.

[699] Their first question to you when they find out you're pregnant, are you going to have a natural birth?

[700] Are you going to have it here?

[701] Are you going to do it this way?

[702] And it's like, I don't know why that would interest anyone how they're going to get the kid.

[703] Yeah, no, that pissed me off when I was pregnant.

[704] I used to react to all questions like that by saying, I actually just changed my middle name to epidural.

[705] Thank you very much.

[706] And unfortunately, never actually got my epidural on time.

[707] But anyway, so I agree with you.

[708] I'm not saying that people only buy products out of shame.

[709] I'm not saying that.

[710] I'm saying that shame is a very successful provocation by marketers.

[711] And it's done deliberately.

[712] There was this article I read about Japanese women not buying razors to shave their legs.

[713] So the marketing team for this beauty product just like, well, how do we provoke them to feel too hairy, to feel ashamed of their hairy legs?

[714] Then they'll be good customers.

[715] You know, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

[716] Yeah, trying to create a market where one doesn't exist.

[717] By shaming.

[718] I call it old school shame industry, because I want to contrast it with the new version, which is the social media platforms.

[719] They don't directly shame us.

[720] They just get us to shame each other.

[721] They provoke us to shame each other.

[722] And they do, as we said earlier, They do that very, very efficiently.

[723] And the way they do that is, well, you could say we do it to ourselves to some extent, but it's very, very contingent based on the design of the platforms.

[724] We're surrounded by our friends and like -minded people much more than any notion of a community in the past.

[725] In the past, the community would have really different people, older people, younger people, people who don't agree with us.

[726] But on social media, we've honed a very tight community.

[727] And I didn't mention this earlier, but the primary goal of shaming is, to get somebody to conform to a rule to the norm that they're seen to be breaking?

[728] I'm an anthropology major.

[729] I say that all the time.

[730] They make fun of me, but it's relevant.

[731] It served an incredibly useful function when we lived in a group of 100 people.

[732] It's how we self -monitored one another and kept it egalitarian and we kept people following the norms and there was the threat of exclusion.

[733] Exactly.

[734] Yeah, so we're hardwired to do it.

[735] We're hardwired for it to be a conflict between what we personally want and what the community needs us to do.

[736] So, like, don't hoard food in a famine.

[737] we will be expelled from the community if we do that.

[738] That's why shame matters to us as an existential threat to our sense of self within the community.

[739] So the primary goal of shame, especially in this context of a healthy shame, is, hey, follow the rules, conform.

[740] The second goal, especially when you have somebody who just refuses to follow the rules, is important, is we're going to set an example of you so other people don't do that.

[741] And then the third goal is to perform shame, because as a performer of shame, I'm, I'm the cop.

[742] I'm righteous.

[743] I'm telling you what the rules are.

[744] And I'm maintaining my righteous position.

[745] And the thing about online performance of shame is that you pretty much don't have those first two things.

[746] Like you're usually trying to shame a sort of different norm group.

[747] So those people don't even agree with the norm.

[748] They're not going to conform to it.

[749] They're also not going to be set up as examples for anyone in your group because your group agrees with you.

[750] And that group doesn't.

[751] So that's not going to happen.

[752] So really the only thing you got left here is the third goal, which is you're performing shame.

[753] And I interviewed a psychologist, Molly Crockett.

[754] She found that people get direct pleasure center stimulation by performing shame.

[755] And not only do you get that buzz when you do it, but when you get congratulated by your inner circle by reposting or retweeting or liking or sharing, then you get a bunch of more buzz.

[756] So essentially what I'm suggesting is the design of social media.

[757] conditions us to do this useless, I would even argue, backfiring type of lobbing shame grenades to other norm groups that makes you feel good and makes your people like you and makes you feel righteous, but it does nothing to actually maintain rules.

[758] Yeah, and in fact, it gives them more resolve to be in the bubble they are.

[759] You just confirmed what they think about the other group and that they're right and steadfast in their original assumption.

[760] Yeah, exactly, because it's not just that you try to shame me with respect to a norm I don't agree with, but I don't agree with it, so I'm going to ignore you.

[761] No, nobody ignores that.

[762] Because at the end of the day, this is a serious threat of expulsion.

[763] It is seen that way.

[764] It is seen like, you tried to punch me in the stomach.

[765] Fuck you.

[766] And I'm going to double down on, first of all, hating you.

[767] And second of all, whatever it is the norm that I disagree about.

[768] So you actually have this kind of backing each other into each other's corners.

[769] aspect, which is the opposite of getting someone to conform.

[770] So even though we think we're doing something righteous, we think we're getting people to know the rules, we're actually almost making the rules further and further apart.

[771] Yeah, in its most simple form, we're using rules that worked in a game of 100 people.

[772] That was the average 100 -gathering size.

[773] And we're applying it to 2 billion people, I guess, on Facebook or whatever the number is.

[774] And it's like trying to play a card game that's built for four people with 60 people.

[775] It literally can't happen.

[776] You ask the question, is it counterproductive to call out racist, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics?

[777] And if so, when should someone be canceled?

[778] I'd love to hear when you think it should be done.

[779] You just kind of touched on that, but I would like to take it to the extreme because I think a lot of people feel like they're entitled to some righteousness on certain things, typically the ones they believe in and the ones other people believe in, that should be the outlist.

[780] But I want to know what you think on those specific items.

[781] We touched on my notion of inappropriate shame because we talked about the notion of choice.

[782] I think in order to appropriately shame somebody, they have to have the choice to conform.

[783] And that's a little bit easier to think about when you're talking about masks or vaccines than it is when you're thinking about losing weight or removing an addiction.

[784] I also argue that you should only shame people when they have voice.

[785] And what I mean by that is they should have a chance to defend themselves and also the chance to be seen conforming, which is to say the chance to be tracked long enough to be redeemed.

[786] They should have that opportunity of redemption.

[787] So what that doesn't look like is shaming someone you don't know on Twitter or Facebook, even if they made a mistake because you will not keep track of them.

[788] You will not care about what happens to them.

[789] They will never be redeemed.

[790] What it does look like is shaming somebody who is in power, who will stay in power and saying, hey, you said you were going to live up to these ideals, but you're not living up to those deals, you have that choice, you're not making the right one, and I'm watching you.

[791] That's holding the power accountable.

[792] That's what I call punching up shame.

[793] And it is totally appropriate.

[794] You know, it doesn't always work, but it is appropriate.

[795] So to your question of being canceled, I think most people who complain about being canceled, almost by definition have a voice, right?

[796] Because you're hearing them complain.

[797] When you think about who really, really was canceled historically, but I mean historically, I just mean in my lifetime, I I definitely think first and foremost of all the young black men who were sent to prison in the crack epidemic.

[798] Their lives were canceled.

[799] They had almost no voice and they continued to not have a voice.

[800] So I think we should really think about what real cancellation looks like.

[801] That isn't to say that there isn't a cancel culture, but there's a distorted set of complaints around cancel culture because we are hearing most of the complaints coming from people who made a mistake, had a choice, and have a voice, and that's why we're hearing them complain.

[802] There are plenty of people that we're not hearing from, that do suffer from cancel culture.

[803] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[804] I have not discussed this because I was repulsed by the global reaction and most grossed out that it took over the news cycle above the Ukraine, but I think this is really relevant because my fear of punching up as a concept, as a blanket concept, punching up is fine, is the reaction we just saw to the Will Smith smack.

[805] To me, that is a real, real, dangerous cure -all.

[806] So, Will Smith smacks somebody on stage.

[807] The country kind of unilaterally, white people, start using the word violence, assault.

[808] They ban them from the Academy Awards for 10 years.

[809] And he's a man with power.

[810] So this is someone we should definitely say, this is unacceptable.

[811] and we should be so outrage that this happened.

[812] My take on it was as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, whose mother was abused, who was an addict, was okay person who's saying this is unacceptable.

[813] A, did you watch your mother get beat up?

[814] When your mother was assaulted verbally, then what came next was that physical abuse?

[815] Two, did you up in a neighborhood where if you got in trouble you could call the police and they would come help?

[816] Were the normal channels of the system opened to you?

[817] If someone insulted you or your friend at school, could you tell the principal it would be addressed?

[818] If you allowed someone to insult your girlfriend, the next day they steal your shit and the third day they beat the fuck out of you?

[819] Unless all those things have happened to you, you are not in a position to be casting this judgment on this situation.

[820] And the relish which people had to jump in and label them a violent assaulter, I think ultimately was hugely racist.

[821] I think if Robert De Niro had slapped Dustin Hoffman in the face, people would have said it was silly, it was embarrassing, it was wrong.

[822] This other reaction to me reeked of that.

[823] So I'm curious what you think about punching up on that specific situation because I just watched it and it seemed to be ubiquitous.

[824] Honestly, I agree with you.

[825] I still don't quite understand why there is so much reaction.

[826] I just sort of feel like I could easily put myself into his shoes and I could easily imagine overreacting of someone insulting my wife.

[827] just can.

[828] In fact, the way I was thinking about it is different.

[829] I was thinking that it was punching down on her because the way Chris Rock referred to her was as if she had a choice about her haircut, right?

[830] So that is the position I put myself in as Will Smith.

[831] Like, you just punch down really hard publicly against my wife.

[832] And it felt like a punch in the stomach to him because he felt her pain.

[833] Given that, I'm not surprised at all that he lost his composure.

[834] I would also add that he really apologized in a genuine, heartfelt way.

[835] I'd go to some length in my book talking about the fake apology.

[836] And the example I have is Harvey Weinstein, which is not irrelevant in this context.

[837] Like the most lawyered up fake apology of all time, where he didn't admit to doing anything wrong.

[838] I think of shame as having four stages, if you don't mind me laying these out.

[839] I would love to hear all four stages.

[840] The first one is sitting in shame, which is extremely painful.

[841] The second one which we go to as fast as we can is what I call cognitive dissonance and denial.

[842] So we sort of like, I'm not a bad person.

[843] I couldn't be a bad person.

[844] So I didn't do that wrong.

[845] And then you immediately go into denial because you cannot live with cognitive dissonance.

[846] It's just too painful.

[847] So you're just like, I'm not going to look in the mirror because I don't want to see my body or I'm just going to pretend I didn't do those things, which is where Harvey Weinstein was when he wrote that apology, right?

[848] Yeah.

[849] The third stage, which most people never get to, to be honest, I'm not trying to claim that people transcend shame.

[850] And I'm also not claiming that even if they do get to the third and fourth stage, that they don't go back to the first in a split second because they do often.

[851] And I have.

[852] But the third stage is reckoning as a person.

[853] You reckon with here's the part I actually played in that.

[854] Or for me, it was like, yeah, I tried diets many, many times.

[855] And even though society is telling me that's what I need to be doing, it's not working.

[856] And I cannot do it anymore.

[857] And then the fourth stage is when you're like, not just on your own behalf, but on behalf of people who have gone through what you've gone through or people that have gone through what you made, that person go through.

[858] You understand it as a social justice issue.

[859] What would this look like for RV1C?

[860] It never happened.

[861] But the first one, he like reckoned with what he actually did.

[862] And then the second stage would be he reckons with how men in power do this.

[863] Should be a statistical statement, not all men in power, obviously.

[864] Everybody can hear whether you've reckoned with what has actually occurred in an apology.

[865] And what was amazing to me about Will Smith is that he had.

[866] He was like, I did this and I feel bad about it.

[867] And for me, it's like, well, what else can he do?

[868] Well, also, we don't have the right to be more offended than Chris Rock is.

[869] We don't get to advocate for Chris Rock and decide how we feel worse than Chris Rock feels about it.

[870] You don't then have a right to be less fine with it than he is.

[871] It does seem like, why would you bother?

[872] And I think you're right.

[873] I think the reason people bother is because they like hating Will Smith, because he's so talented and he's black.

[874] Well, and there's a great, great fear.

[875] There has been since 1720 that these black people are.

[876] are going to rise up and lose control and assault the white people because we're owning them.

[877] It's this original fear.

[878] It was the plantation owner that knew at any moment he could be killed.

[879] It's why there's a parallel between countries who own slaves and gun ownership.

[880] It's an embedded fear that the black man is gonna lose control.

[881] I'll go even farther.

[882] I don't just talk about the four stages of shame just for individuals.

[883] I talk about it for society.

[884] And I do think that as a society, white shame is stuck in stage two.

[885] We are in denial.

[886] And that kind of fabricated narrative is exactly what it looks like.

[887] When we're in cognitive dissonance, oh, it's not that we're racist.

[888] It's that the black men are violent.

[889] That is white shame stage two.

[890] We haven't gotten to the reckoning.

[891] I had some limer of hope after the George Floyd killing that some people are ready for the reckoning, but it's just not happening.

[892] Yeah, I like to be compassionate to every person.

[893] I feel bad for every person on planet Earth.

[894] The human experience is not a cakewalk.

[895] Shame is one of the driving components for the lack of reckoning with the past because individuals feel like they're going to be asked to take on the sins of the slave owners.

[896] They're afraid to be shamed.

[897] They're afraid of feeling shame.

[898] It's still, shame is this humongous driving force of even the denial of it.

[899] I say this on here.

[900] Often, I'm in a very lucky position that I can say this, and I won't get canceled, I'm racist.

[901] It's a spectrum.

[902] It's out of 10.

[903] I have some racist bias.

[904] Hopefully I'm a 2 out of 10.

[905] But the stakes of saying that come with it canceling quite often.

[906] So because the stakes of it and the shame machine is so strong, no one feels safe to acknowledge what imperfections they have.

[907] I agree.

[908] There is a barrier to overcome with the reckoning.

[909] By the way, I'm also racist.

[910] I'm not afraid of being canceled about it.

[911] I think everyone's racist.

[912] The weird aspect of it is that it's actually less painful to do the reckoning than people think.

[913] It's not sitting in shame.

[914] It's not going back to stage one.

[915] It's going to stage three, which is more like observing the actual facts.

[916] But it's not just the pain itself of shame.

[917] It is saying, yes, this is what actually has happened and continues to happen.

[918] And I will just add that white culture has no problem being proud of our ancestors.

[919] but we're totally afraid to be ashamed of our ancestors, and we just cannot have it both ways.

[920] Yeah, I will say from the AA perspective, you come to find out this thing we're so afraid to own because we're certain it comes with ostracizing is not the case.

[921] When you own it, it's actually inviting.

[922] People feel more comfortable.

[923] They feel less judged.

[924] They feel more included.

[925] They feel less shame about being imperfect.

[926] The thing you're so afraid of by owning your indiscretion, you think it would repel people from you.

[927] And I would argue 400 episodes in has been proven weekly.

[928] It attracts people.

[929] Yeah.

[930] It's like when you hear a real apology, you really do want to forgive the person.

[931] Truly, we can feel it.

[932] You're so right.

[933] It's like when you see someone say it, you go, oh, man, I've stepped in it too before.

[934] Man, I've fucked up too.

[935] Like, I've been there.

[936] Oh, I have compassion for this person.

[937] It's an appeal to our humanity that we often can step up to the plate for.

[938] and it's much harder when people just are in denial that they ever did anything wrong, that they're not perfect.

[939] Yeah, it's a superpower.

[940] You know, it is.

[941] Vulnerability is the antidote to shame, and I've yet to see it fail.

[942] But yet it remains very terrifying for us.

[943] I've never heard someone describe AA that way.

[944] It almost sounds a little bit like it's sort of a process to get into the reckoning, which I hadn't thought about.

[945] Oh, yeah, there is.

[946] It's the most magical thing in the world, the four -step.

[947] I've detailed it on here before.

[948] I'm going to ask you, Kathy, list 100 people you're resentful at, right?

[949] Well, we all have people who are resentful at.

[950] That's a fun thing to do.

[951] I'll list all these people.

[952] The next column is, what did they do?

[953] So I hate Mike.

[954] What did Mike do?

[955] Mike always goes to my boss and tries to get me fired.

[956] Okay, great.

[957] Column three, what does that threaten in my life?

[958] It threatens my financial security.

[959] That's column three.

[960] Fourth column, what role do I play in that?

[961] Well, if I'm not late, Mike has nothing to tell my boss, right?

[962] So I do have some agency over whether he has anything to tell me. Here's the magic of it.

[963] You might have 300 people on your resentment list.

[964] I promise you, if you ever did one of these, you'd have three fears.

[965] We all have about three fears.

[966] They're not the same, but I've taken many dudes through the steps.

[967] All of us are being completely governed and driven by about three fears.

[968] And all these other people, they just randomly trigger those three fears.

[969] Yeah.

[970] And so that right there is like just learning, oh, I'm driven by these fears.

[971] fears.

[972] My conflict with people is driven by these fears.

[973] I'm the source of these, or minimally, if I got rid of these, I wouldn't have these conflicts.

[974] And then the process of making an amends.

[975] You make the amends nine times out of ten, you've convinced yourself this person is going to say, fuck you, I never want to see you again.

[976] But again, they see that you're sincere.

[977] You've worked your ass off to get to this point.

[978] You have a commitment to be a different person.

[979] And 90 % of the time, even higher, the person's very forgiving.

[980] And it forces you to act your way into thinking different.

[981] I dig it.

[982] There's a lot of God stuff that's not for me, but whatever, I just get over it.

[983] I can deal with it.

[984] The other alternative being dead is worse than me having to say God a lot.

[985] That's true.

[986] Well, the shame machine is out now.

[987] The shame machine, who profits in the new age of humiliation?

[988] I'm sure many of the listeners will have read Weapons of Math Destruction, so that was a tremendous success and a bestseller, and I hope everyone checks out the shame machine.

[989] and really I hope and maybe you would want to make a plea to people just at least acknowledge how much joy you get out of shaming someone like if you just allow yourself to admit oh yeah you just killed a stranger by not wearing your mask you know whatever that thing is you feel so good but just acknowledge you're getting a perverse pleasure out of it and maybe that could help I mean what do you think is the easiest way to ask people to challenge their own shaming actually the first thing I want people to get out of the book or maybe just this conversation is to observe shame because I think it's kind of invisible to a lot of people.

[990] It just happens so fast and they're triggered so deeply that they're like, what just happened?

[991] So be aware.

[992] The second one is, yeah, hesitate before you pile on shame, especially with your children.

[993] I just don't do that because that's the easiest way to transfer shame is to your children.

[994] But even in general, choice and voice, so don't exaggerate the choice.

[995] That's really what I mean to say.

[996] Don't make it seem like an easy choice when it's not an easy choice for that person, and make sure that they have the voice, that they will be seen to be redeemed if they do improve their behavior.

[997] And the final thing, as I would say, is like, shame doesn't always work, even if it's not inappropriate.

[998] It doesn't work.

[999] It often doesn't work.

[1000] What's required for it to work is that it's appropriate, number one, that the person shares the norm that you're appealing to, but also that there's a sense of community trust, that they know that you're asking them to do something that don't really want to do for the sake of a community that they care about.

[1001] And that's the context.

[1002] To be honest, it doesn't really look like shaming at that point.

[1003] It looks like persuasion.

[1004] It looks like Zelensky asking Western leaders to step up and help him win the war against Russia because they believe in democracy.

[1005] He's a great shamer, by the way, Zelensky.

[1006] It looks more like a persuasion with the threat of shame rather than direct shame.

[1007] Well, thank you, Kathy O 'Neill.

[1008] I think you're in a very tiny group of full -on mathematicians with Dr. Degrees of Mathematics.

[1009] You're a unique bird.

[1010] Oh, Eric Lander.

[1011] He started as a mathematician, yeah.

[1012] Yes, he did.

[1013] He went to the same math camp I went to.

[1014] Oh, my gosh, crazy.

[1015] Did you have a pen pal in the Eastern Block like he did?

[1016] Actually, I went to the Eastern Block when I was 13 by myself.

[1017] That's another story.

[1018] Okay.

[1019] Because I had a neglectful family life myself.

[1020] Yeah.

[1021] They were just like, yeah, you can get hungry.

[1022] He'd call me in his block time.

[1023] Oh, my God.

[1024] This is it.

[1025] So did Eric.

[1026] He went during the height of the Iron Curtain.

[1027] All right, well, Kathy, thank you so much for your time And I hope everybody checks out the shame machine out now.

[1028] Be good.

[1029] Thank you.

[1030] Or don't.

[1031] Be however you want to be.

[1032] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1033] Take two.

[1034] Okay.

[1035] Well, I sang you a really beautiful song and it wasn't captured.

[1036] Well, because you had an issue.

[1037] I'm here to sing.

[1038] you a song that's why i've called you on the phone song song how you doing i'm good this is so fun i love when we communicate when we're not together i mean i prefer to be together but it is fun i know but i'm having a lot of fun already yeah you're in orange red look i'm in orange oh then i'm in orange too yeah i'm in the orange state oh my god yeah you are Ding, ding, ding.

[1039] Okay.

[1040] The most incredible thing that's ever happened, happened today.

[1041] Well, give us some backstory, please?

[1042] Five months ago when the date for the Formula One race was announced in Miami, I immediately rented a house.

[1043] I was so nervous they were all going to be gone.

[1044] It didn't matter.

[1045] There were plenty of houses available.

[1046] No one he was even in Miami.

[1047] They were all in Fort Lauderdale.

[1048] It doesn't even matter.

[1049] Went with Charlie, Eric, Ryan, Aaron, and Matt.

[1050] and we had the most fun five -day trip to Miami, rented a boat, 34 -foot hydrasport, with three, 400s on back, beautiful boat.

[1051] We really explored the Miami boat culture.

[1052] We drove the boat in downtown Miami.

[1053] Like, imagine driving a boat through Manhattan.

[1054] That's what you can do there.

[1055] You're in between the skyscrapers.

[1056] It's crazy.

[1057] We drove the boat out to an island on one of the keys, this little tiny island, and then I got to see jet ski culture.

[1058] Like, I know all about motorcycle culture.

[1059] I know about car culture.

[1060] This was like a ton of kids on fucking hot rotted up jet skis own in this island and it was incredible.

[1061] And then in the bay where all these boats anchored and we anchored and then a little dingy came over and asked if we wanted to order food.

[1062] It was like a food truck, but on the water and we had all this fried food.

[1063] Oh, it's delicious.

[1064] Then the race was fantastic.

[1065] Max Verstappen, who started in third on the grid, he led almost every lap of the race.

[1066] He just had a dominant performance.

[1067] I was so excited.

[1068] Okay, then that's over.

[1069] Fun trip to Miami.

[1070] Then Aaron and I are going to Orlando because I'm working to Orlando on Thursday.

[1071] We literally just randomly picked, oh, this looks halfway between Miami and Orlando or close, West Palm Beach.

[1072] We've never been.

[1073] I put my finger on a hotel.

[1074] Let's go here.

[1075] Great.

[1076] We don't do any research, nothing.

[1077] We get here, room's not ready.

[1078] We go, let's eat at the restaurant downstairs while we're waiting.

[1079] We're sitting there talking, just Aaron and I. And I'm looking over and I'm like, God, that woman looks so much like Hayes, our friend, Huey, and Hayes, who I've talked about a bunch on here.

[1080] I go, that can't be her, whatever.

[1081] Stere at her for five minutes, convincing myself it's not her.

[1082] Finally, I walk over, it's her.

[1083] It's crazy.

[1084] Hayes is here.

[1085] And then Huey's here.

[1086] So then she calls Huey down.

[1087] Oh, my God, you got to get onto the pool.

[1088] She won't tell him why.

[1089] He shows up.

[1090] He looks like he's traveled through time when he sees me. He's so confused.

[1091] So now we just went out to eat with them, and we just got done eating at a steakhouse across the street.

[1092] Very fun, very sim.

[1093] It's so sim.

[1094] Neither of us live in this state.

[1095] We've never talked about this location, and we're both here.

[1096] Makes no sense.

[1097] I can't believe it.

[1098] But you had fun at the race.

[1099] I bet a lot of people want to know about the race.

[1100] Okay, so the race, here's the thing about going to the live race.

[1101] The environment, as you know, it's an 11.

[1102] It can't be beat.

[1103] The energy, the noise, the people, it's wonderful.

[1104] But I can't concentrate on the race the way I can at home.

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] You went to Georgia.

[1107] in the same time frame.

[1108] I did.

[1109] And I thought of you a lot because there was all kinds of coverage of the race on the television.

[1110] Oh, really?

[1111] Oh, yeah.

[1112] Like this person's there, this, they kept equating it to Super Bowl and, you know, it was very fancy.

[1113] Michael Jordan was there.

[1114] I don't know if you caught a glimpse.

[1115] Well, there's a photo.

[1116] Do you see the photo?

[1117] It's Lewis Hamilton, Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady.

[1118] Yeah, it's ridiculous.

[1119] Oh, you're looking at three of the greatest in their field ever.

[1120] It's really wild that they could be commensurate at the same time.

[1121] I know.

[1122] It is crazy.

[1123] Oh, my God, speaking of that, when I was home, my family and I, the four of us, watched King Richard.

[1124] It was exciting because the four of us haven't watched a movie together in so long.

[1125] It was really lovely.

[1126] But also the movie is incredible.

[1127] It's so good.

[1128] It is so good.

[1129] Oh, wow.

[1130] And he's really good.

[1131] Like, he's, He deserves that award.

[1132] He's an incredible actor.

[1133] He really is.

[1134] We don't need to get into any of the other stuff, but it was really, really good.

[1135] And then I was thinking so much about Venus and Serena, and I was like, God, it's amazing.

[1136] That story is so incredible.

[1137] The achievement is so incredible.

[1138] Like, his role really is, too, in the whole scenario of their lives.

[1139] Like, there's a lot of negative stuff about him out in the world, and I think that's real and worth saying, but also they would just not be who they are without him.

[1140] Mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

[1141] Well, every one of these stories, whether it's an Olympian or Tiger Woods and his dad, You just don't get one of these prodigy kids by not driving them relentlessly to perfection.

[1142] That's what it takes.

[1143] Now, my take on it, you know, is I don't give a shit about winning.

[1144] Like, who cares?

[1145] That's my own personal thing.

[1146] I just don't care.

[1147] I'd way rather have a fun relationship it with my kids and then be great at something.

[1148] I don't care.

[1149] Yeah, but you're lucky, right?

[1150] Because, like, that's his whole thing.

[1151] It comes up multiple times in the movie where he's telling other people, no, no, no, they're not going to be on the streets here.

[1152] They're not going to live this life.

[1153] Like, this is their way out, and I'm making sure of it.

[1154] Yes.

[1155] So, right, I have the luxury of not being afraid for my daughters if they don't become great at something that they're going to be victims.

[1156] When I hear a ding, ding, ding.

[1157] Yeah.

[1158] I dance with Venus Williams this weekend.

[1159] Oh, my God, wow.

[1160] She likes without a paddle.

[1161] Oh.

[1162] That's what she said.

[1163] Well, it was really sweet because, of course, after we watched it, I was doing a deep dive on all these interviews and stuff with them.

[1164] And they are such Will Smith fans.

[1165] Or they were.

[1166] Yeah.

[1167] But, like, they grew up on Will Smith.

[1168] And it's so fun to see for them.

[1169] That their favorite actor played their dad.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] And I think they were just so pleased with the way he did it.

[1172] And it's really good at the movie follows mostly.

[1173] It stopped.

[1174] once Venus gets a little bit famous, basically.

[1175] So she's still young.

[1176] She's like 14 is when the movie ends.

[1177] So it's really about that journey there.

[1178] It's really focused on her because she's the one that he was really pushing through, you know?

[1179] There is a, like we said it a couple times when we were watching, like Serena's not really shown in this movie very much or she's kind of an afterthought in this movie.

[1180] And then there is this scene where Venus is about to have like, this crazy match when she's 14 that's going to prove that basically she's like the best in the world and Serena's kind of standing there and the dad goes up and says I know this is really exciting for you but I'm sure it's also hard too and she says yeah and he's like your sister is going to be number one in the world there's no doubt about that but you're going to be the greatest of all time oh he said that to serena and she is she is considered the greatest tennis player of all time.

[1181] Oh, really?

[1182] I didn't know that.

[1183] And then, like, in one of the interviews or something, they were like, was that real?

[1184] And she said, yeah, he really said that to me. And it's like, oh, my God.

[1185] It's just so, it's so inspiring.

[1186] It's very cool.

[1187] I'm going to watch it now.

[1188] I've been watching Euphoria.

[1189] Oh.

[1190] Per your suggestion to get back into it.

[1191] And what a powerful show that is.

[1192] Oh, my gosh.

[1193] Oh, boy.

[1194] Yeah, I recommend it because of everyone, and I've said it to a lot of people.

[1195] A lot of parents, understandably, are reluctant to watch Euphoria.

[1196] I've heard that from a lot of people like, ugh, I just, like, don't think I can do it.

[1197] And I get it, but it's so good.

[1198] It's so well done.

[1199] I think that's crazy.

[1200] To me, that's like, I'm not going to watch a movie about a teenage serial killer.

[1201] Why?

[1202] Because your kid's going to become a serial killer?

[1203] Yeah, but, I mean, also, I don't think people should watch something that's going to make them spiral out.

[1204] Like, if they're not ready to watch something, that's okay.

[1205] I'm only saying they should view it in the same lens as they view every show they watch, which is you're not watching a show assuming that's what's going to happen to your kids.

[1206] Yeah, but everything you're seeing is about all these kids in high school, these different kids, and they're all pretty fucked up.

[1207] I agree with you, but no one was watching 90210, 100, like, oh, no, my kids are going to be rich.

[1208] It just, you decide, you decide which things you think is going to have some crazy impact.

[1209] Yeah.

[1210] You know, you get to decide.

[1211] Yeah, that's scary.

[1212] I get it.

[1213] I don't not understand it, but I'm saying it's something that you can work through mentally and go, oh, well, I don't have that fear.

[1214] It's like my mom being afraid of getting attacked by a bear, and I said, well, you know, your odds of getting hit in the head with a coconut are much higher.

[1215] And if you can frame it and you can compare it to other things, it can help you navigate that fear.

[1216] I don't think people need to be fearful.

[1217] Their kids are going to turn out like Sendai.

[1218] I think it's, you know.

[1219] I mean, I agree with you.

[1220] I just also, it's such an intense show.

[1221] I mean it is so you are your cortisol levels watching it are just like ah I mean it's so intense and I don't even have kids and it was so intense so I could see being like maybe that's a pest there's a billion shows maybe that's not the one I'm going to choose to go to sleep to yeah but it is incredible and it's so well done and like the I think the addiction is portrayed really well yeah how do I feel about that I don't.

[1222] I'll throw out that I don't.

[1223] I think it works well for a TV show, but addiction is an isolating tool.

[1224] And she's like, she's so involved with everybody all the time and she's out and about.

[1225] Like, it doesn't take the turn that her level of addiction on the show takes.

[1226] How far are you?

[1227] Maybe episode seven.

[1228] But like the almost the signature sign of addiction is isolation in your addiction.

[1229] And so that's kind of interesting that she's not isolated at all.

[1230] I don't know, there's some stuff that it has to be to be a TV show.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] You want to see addiction, watch intervention.

[1233] That's the life of an addict, and it doesn't really resemble hers in that show too much.

[1234] All it's about is a human who has lost control.

[1235] To me, that's what the story is as much as...

[1236] Yeah.

[1237] I guess for me, the relatable part, obviously for me, the relatable part is not the drug part, because I don't have experience with that.

[1238] I guess it's just like seeing the impact that it's bigger than...

[1239] Oh, the stuff with their sister's so heartbreaking and her mom and...

[1240] Yeah.

[1241] This is rough.

[1242] I love the boy.

[1243] I know.

[1244] So much with the tattoo under his eye.

[1245] He is so cute.

[1246] It's crazy.

[1247] He is.

[1248] You got to finish.

[1249] There's this little part where he like sings a thing and it's like, whoo.

[1250] Oh.

[1251] Okay, so this is for Kathy.

[1252] O 'Neill.

[1253] We talked about what are underreported crimes.

[1254] According to the American Medical Association, sexual violence and rape in particular is considered the most underreported violent crime.

[1255] Common reasons for individuals not reporting crime include fear of not being believed in security and fear of getting into trouble.

[1256] Hate crimes are also rarely reported.

[1257] In fact, over a 12 -year period from 2004 and 2015, more than 250 ,000 hate crimes in the United States went by unreported, according to a federal report released last year.

[1258] Property crime is another that often goes unreported, defined as, quote, taking or destruction of one's property and considered to include burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

[1259] There are around 40 % of such crimes that go unreported by victims every year in the States.

[1260] Often this is due to the belief that the crime is not considered important enough to bother law enforcement officers with.

[1261] Other times victims will have a personal relationship with the offender, and be reluctant to get them in legal trouble.

[1262] I think that's part of the sex crime stuff, too, is they often know their attacker and it's a whole...

[1263] Yeah.

[1264] Wait, do you want to say hi to your brother?

[1265] Yeah.

[1266] Hi.

[1267] Hi.

[1268] Hi, best friend Aaron Weekly.

[1269] I love you.

[1270] I love you.

[1271] You look beautiful.

[1272] Did you have a fun time at the race?

[1273] Yeah, the best time.

[1274] The best trip ever.

[1275] Not kidding.

[1276] Yeah, it's so good.

[1277] Tell her about the horizontal line team.

[1278] Oh, yeah.

[1279] Yeah, the horizontal lightning was, we had two nights of it.

[1280] It's so hard to explain, but, yeah, let's go to Miami.

[1281] Let's get to experience it.

[1282] Maybe just reassure me that horizontal lightning is not cocaine.

[1283] No, horizontal lightning is not cocaine.

[1284] I wish I would have thought of that.

[1285] Yeah, that's great.

[1286] Yeah, it's God doing a cocaine.

[1287] up there, laying lines in the sky.

[1288] Are you going to come visit us anytime soon?

[1289] I'd like to.

[1290] I'd love to see your face.

[1291] Yeah, it's overdue.

[1292] Ruthie and I were talking about it.

[1293] I'll make it happen.

[1294] You just hold down the fort and I'll make it happen.

[1295] We'll do.

[1296] I love you.

[1297] I love you too.

[1298] Bye.

[1299] This is too long to set up, but I'm going to try to tell it to you anyways.

[1300] When we grew up in Michigan, and because since we are kids, we drove cars for GM.

[1301] And of course, the coolest thing you can do is drive Corvettes.

[1302] So when Aaron and I would be at a bar and we'd run into someone we hadn't seen in years, they always, I can't tell you how many times people said this to us, you guys still driving them Corvettes?

[1303] So that's been a bit of ours for 35 years.

[1304] So when we fell in love with the horizontal lightning, we kept going, you guys still going down to Miami me to watch that horizontal lighting.

[1305] Wait, what is that?

[1306] A car?

[1307] No, like, you know, lightning comes down vertically.

[1308] But the lightning storms are so incredible.

[1309] It was just going sideways back and forth across the sky.

[1310] Oh, my God, cool.

[1311] I thought it was a euphemism.

[1312] No, it was really horizontal lightning.

[1313] Oh, my God.

[1314] Okay, how many people do you think are on Facebook?

[1315] I think 2 .1 billion.

[1316] Wow, you're really close.

[1317] 2 .91 billion.

[1318] Whoa.

[1319] You forgot.

[1320] Not a nine.

[1321] Noin.

[1322] I left out basically the population of America, Mexico, Russia, and England.

[1323] I know.

[1324] That's what's so stupid when you look at this number.

[1325] You're actually not close at all.

[1326] Yeah.

[1327] But you're very close.

[1328] Yeah, if you think of 2 .1 and 2 .9, kind of close.

[1329] But when you think of 800 million people, you're like, you've missed, you know, a lot of people.

[1330] Too many.

[1331] Okay.

[1332] This was just an interesting for me thought because we talked a lot about ding, ding, ding.

[1333] Race of 270.

[1334] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[1335] In this episode.

[1336] So I have to say both things.

[1337] One, not that this needs to be like a taking side situation.

[1338] I thought it was a very good debate, conversation.

[1339] I thought both of you respected each other and the way you spoke.

[1340] But I believe in Race of 270.

[1341] I agree with you.

[1342] But, and I don't think I would have been able to say this without going on this trip.

[1343] So I was home and my mom had texted me. And I don't want to throw her under the bus, really.

[1344] but she had texted me a few days before I was coming home and she was like, are you watching this trial?

[1345] This Johnny Depp Amber heard trial.

[1346] Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

[1347] And I just said, no, I'm not because I wasn't.

[1348] I wasn't following anything.

[1349] And she was like, oh my gosh, it's crazy.

[1350] It's so interesting.

[1351] And at that point it was only Johnny Depp's testimony.

[1352] But she said that she was like, well, right now it's only his.

[1353] But like, it seems really nuts.

[1354] And she was enjoying this.

[1355] As so many people are and should be And I have no judgment on that But of course I read it And I was like, oh, but I'm not going to enjoy that So yeah, yeah, okay And then she was like, well, we'll watch it when you get here And I was like, oh, okay Is it just on like TV all the time?

[1356] Oh, it's all public, very public And so who's airing it?

[1357] What network?

[1358] No, not like NBC, like random channels like court TV on YouTube.

[1359] Oh, okay, okay.

[1360] You can find it if you want to find it.

[1361] And then there's just tons of clips.

[1362] Like people are kind of following the clips, I think mainly.

[1363] I kind of brush it off.

[1364] Sure, we'll watch them.

[1365] I get there.

[1366] We're like 15 minutes into my homecoming.

[1367] And we started talking about the trial.

[1368] And I was like, you know, I'm just being honest.

[1369] For me, it's just all sad.

[1370] To me, that whole thing is very sad.

[1371] very toxic relationship to damaged people who are hurting each other.

[1372] Like, I'm not all that interested in watching it.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] And, you know, she's like, yeah, but, and then just like, she's just enjoying it.

[1375] Yeah, it's good for her.

[1376] She deserves it.

[1377] Yeah.

[1378] She's having fun with it like a lot of people are.

[1379] Again, I understand it.

[1380] Intellectually, I can fully understand why that's appealing.

[1381] Yeah, well, because they're royalty.

[1382] and you're like looking behind the royal curtain in some way, right?

[1383] Yeah, I think people feel that about public figures.

[1384] Then we're starting to watch it, and I am just cringing the whole time.

[1385] I'm like, ugh, there's lots happening, and I don't really care who's lying and who's not lying.

[1386] Obviously, their relationship is just toxic, and they were obviously, for real, felt like they were in love, and now they're here, and, like, ugh.

[1387] Like, it just, I really don't like it.

[1388] So, first of all, I understand why it's enjoyable.

[1389] And there's something cathartic about it.

[1390] And it's also that thing, that principle, we talk about a lot where, like, gossip serves a purpose and this person has great power and blah, blah, blah.

[1391] So I have zero judgment of anyone that's enjoying it.

[1392] I'm glad for them that are enjoying it.

[1393] I wrote this long thing about this topic, which is I'm just not in favor of profiting or filling a news cycle with people's trauma.

[1394] And even if it's the result of their trauma, I wish we more quickly just saw trauma and we didn't all get horny for it.

[1395] I think the Will Smith situation is also in that world where it's just like, you know, there's backstories here that are probably rough and that's why it all leads to this.

[1396] So in general, I just as personally, I would love it if the news and the headlines and Twitter and all these places didn't really profit so much from other people's trauma.

[1397] And again, I don't know the detail.

[1398] So please forgive me if it's obvious she's lying or he's lying.

[1399] I don't know who's lying.

[1400] But it doesn't matter.

[1401] I've heard one thing, and it was a recording of a fight they were having.

[1402] And I can say based on that recording that, yes, neither of them have the skills to be in a relationship.

[1403] Yeah.

[1404] You know, and they should.

[1405] And so I just kind of got sad.

[1406] And then the overarching conclusion I had is like, what anger can get you and righteous anger can get you is, it would make you willing to be incredibly humiliated just to hurt the other person.

[1407] They're both suffering hugely from this because they want to hurt the other person.

[1408] At least it was what it seems like, having not followed it.

[1409] I don't know.

[1410] I just hate it.

[1411] For me, a thought that actually popped into my head was a line that close to what she said.

[1412] That Kathy said?

[1413] Yeah.

[1414] I kept thinking, this shouldn't be fun.

[1415] This isn't fun.

[1416] This is sad.

[1417] This is actually a tragedy and it's not fun is what I think about that trial and then she was kind of saying that about race to 270 and I again I disagree but it made me think like oh in her head you know it's a fun show which it is an incredibly fun show and she's very connected to it.

[1418] She feels like that she feels like but this is so hard This is actually such a hard thing for so many people And to make it fun for her feels triggering And that is fair for her to be triggered No, I'm not against her, like I respect how she feels about everything She and I clearly feel different Like I like Celebrity Rehab I like the show intervention I'm an addict who had a very hard time quitting But I like it And we're just different that way 100 % There's probably other addicts that, in fact, I used to talk about how much I love celebrity rehab and there were dudes in AA that were like, that's so fucking bogus that they're putting it on TV and they're like making money off these people who are struggling and I'm like, sure, all that's a part of it and you're watching people go through the process.

[1419] So if you're an addict, you're connecting, you see yourself in them and you might recognize, oh, I do the same thing.

[1420] I am an addict.

[1421] I need to address this.

[1422] Like, when it all comes out in the wash to me, it's positive.

[1423] But some dudes didn't think so.

[1424] Yeah.

[1425] It was just interesting because I kind of could only see it from our perspective.

[1426] From our perspective.

[1427] On that, you know, I don't have a personal experience in that realm.

[1428] So I'm looking at it from a little bit from my realm, from our realm, for making a show and having it be fun and being excited about it and whatever.

[1429] Anyway.

[1430] Yeah, the one then I guess I left thinking like, huh, do I need to rethink about it?

[1431] Mind you, I never watched the biggest loser?

[1432] certainly my notion of it is like people who wanted to lose a lot of weight who came on and lost a lot of weight and won prizes for it it sounded like for her it was making fun of or that there were shame tactics and I don't I don't know again I haven't seen it either but I guess her whole point on shame is that it's happening in places we don't necessarily know or are that aware of yeah that it's in in hidden places, and it is driving a lot of the ship.

[1433] I certainly think so.

[1434] I agree with that.

[1435] Anyway, so I'm not going to watch any more of the trial.

[1436] Oh, okay.

[1437] But if you do watch it, update me. Okay.

[1438] So I know what's going on in the world.

[1439] I mean, I've actually thought to myself, well, I need to watch some of this because everyone's talking about it.

[1440] I don't know what the fuck anyone's talking about.

[1441] Like, I hate to say this.

[1442] I like the idea that if she was lying, he was like, I'm not going to just let you lie about this.

[1443] I'm going to fight you.

[1444] I do like that.

[1445] That's the notion.

[1446] That's what a lot of people think.

[1447] Yeah.

[1448] And again, I don't know what's real or what's not real, but I, of course, I get scared by the notion someone could say something.

[1449] And then to respond would be to be against me too.

[1450] That's a dangerous proposition.

[1451] I guess what's so hard is when you have a literal trial about a relationship, like nobody's right, really.

[1452] Right.

[1453] Probably.

[1454] It's too.

[1455] complex to say like she's lying or he's lying.

[1456] I think even if you've got a relationship with both people are pretty self -actualized and healthy and can communicate.

[1457] At best, in those relationships, you might agree on about 70 % of went down.

[1458] You're like, okay, yeah, I can see where I said that.

[1459] I don't know that this happened.

[1460] You know, like even in a great relationship, you might hit 70 % that you agree.

[1461] You had the same experience.

[1462] It's murky.

[1463] It just is.

[1464] And, like, I think to think of it on such a surface level or such a black and white level, which a trial is.

[1465] It's literally judging a verdict.

[1466] Like, I don't understand how people are even attempting to do this.

[1467] Yeah.

[1468] Like, I don't like it.

[1469] And then yet I'm so happy your mom's enjoying it because I want Norma to be happy.

[1470] I want people to enjoy what they want to enjoy, yeah.

[1471] And I saw her planting schedule.

[1472] Yeah.

[1473] That's impressive.

[1474] That's where you get your tape labeling from.

[1475] I would have thought maybe you got that from your dad, but now I see it's from Nirmala.

[1476] Yeah, let me see if I got any other fake.

[1477] Also, Aaron did several cameos while we were on the trip, and they're so good.

[1478] And he talked Charlie into it, by the way.

[1479] Oh, wow.

[1480] He talked Charlie into joining.

[1481] So now Charlie's on cameo, too.

[1482] I don't know what his handle is, but, of course, everyone should get an underpriced cameo from Aaron Weekly.

[1483] 100%.

[1484] Do it.

[1485] One other thing on this topic, We both of us watched the James Corden response to Bill Marr.

[1486] Yeah, it was so great.

[1487] It's really good.

[1488] It's worth watching.

[1489] Oh, last shout out.

[1490] I finished the Kanye documentary.

[1491] You have to watch it.

[1492] I've started it.

[1493] It's wild, isn't it?

[1494] Yeah, that also makes me, things just make me sad lately.

[1495] Watching him how hard he was trying to get recognized.

[1496] Just obsessive to the max.

[1497] How much you have to talk about yourself when you're trying to do that?

[1498] And it just, it's, it's, on the outside who's not in that world, it's like, oh, my God, shut up about yourself.

[1499] And then you watch him transitions.

[1500] And then he's, you know, as he feels more confident, he does that less.

[1501] And it's just such a great, like, Jay -Z never brags about himself.

[1502] Like, you want to know who's the shit?

[1503] It's a person who's literally not bragging about themselves.

[1504] That's who's the shit.

[1505] Yeah, and also, I feel sympathetic to it.

[1506] You know what?

[1507] He was a fucking nerd.

[1508] And I say that with love.

[1509] Like, for him to have to occupy that space.

[1510] bass, hyper masculine, hyper braggadocious, hyper swagger.

[1511] And he's a fucking nerd, I mean, to the core.

[1512] It made me, like, compassionate towards him.

[1513] And he's a genius.

[1514] Like, when you fucking hear college dropout for the first time, and you're hearing some of these songs come together, I mean, I loved college dropout.

[1515] It's so good.

[1516] Even hearing him again, I was like, I was dancing, watching it on the plane.

[1517] It's next level, that album, and this ride he took.

[1518] And then the third episode's all about, like, just where he's at in the last few years.

[1519] And it's like, I just have a ton of compassion.

[1520] Me too.

[1521] And I'm also not a proponent of saying that's an okay tradeoff if you're hurting people.

[1522] Both things are true, right?

[1523] Like, he is a genius.

[1524] But to me, I think I've gotten to the point where I'm like, he is.

[1525] And he's contributed a ton.

[1526] And he has major mental health issues that affect a lot.

[1527] of people.

[1528] Oh, big time.

[1529] I'm just saying it'd be convenient if you could be ramped up in a visionary when you needed to be, and then you could turn it off for the rest of your life, but sadly that's not how it works.

[1530] It's an all -in package.

[1531] Well, I love you.

[1532] It was so fun to get to see you and talk to you.

[1533] Your screen is frozen for some reason.

[1534] Oh, no. I know.

[1535] I hate it.

[1536] No, I hate it.

[1537] It's got an exclamation point.

[1538] I'm moving around and I'm doing a dance.

[1539] Oh, what?

[1540] I'm missing the dance?

[1541] Yeah, there's a whole dance happening.

[1542] Oh, my God.

[1543] I don't know.

[1544] I just see a blurry, a blur with an exclamation point.

[1545] Can you see me still?

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] This is horseshit.

[1548] Well, I love you, and I can't wait to see you Friday.

[1549] I hope you have a really lovely rest of your trip.

[1550] I'm so happy you boys had so much fun.

[1551] Thank you.

[1552] And guess what?

[1553] Aaron and I might even end up going to Disney World.

[1554] Oh, yeah.

[1555] I can't wait to hear about it.

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] I got a room facing the park for the fireworks display.

[1558] Oh my God.

[1559] Living the dream.

[1560] Well, you know, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but my dad is putting in, he's up to his package for the sin.

[1561] Things are going to, well, you better buckle up, man, because the ride he put you on and was already pretty stratospheric.

[1562] So, buckle it.

[1563] I love you.

[1564] Okay, I love you.

[1565] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1566] You can listen to.

[1567] every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[1568] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.