Ever found yourself suddenly noticing your "unique" car model all over the roads or wondered why certain historical figures dominate our textbooks? Prepare to have your mind expanded as Joe and I, Adam, take you through an enlightening exploration of cognitive biases on the Idiots Guide. Joe and I dissect the mental traps that lead us to see the world through a distorted lens, from the frequency illusion to the overrepresented tales of successes like those of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Picture this: you're seething with road rage or witness someone stealing and think, "What's wrong with people these days?" Our episode doesn't hold back as we delve into the darker consequences of dehumanization, a cognitive bias that can justify harm and perpetuate conflict. We unravel the psychological threads that allow such behaviors to manifest, from the derogatory dehumanization in warfare to the subtler forms in our daily encounters. But it's not all grim – we also pause to marvel at the underestimated intelligence of species like Orcas, challenging our anthropocentric views and urging a more nuanced appreciation of animal smarts.
Wrapping up this mind-bending episode, we reflect on the importance of staying vigilant against the subtle biases that shape our actions and judgments. Through a mix of humor and hard-hitting truths, Joe and I aim to arm you with the awareness you need to make more informed decisions and view the world with a fresh, critical eye. So come and join us in hacking your way to a clearer understanding of the human mind, where the only thing we promise is that you'll never look at your biases—or Orcas—the same way again.
Ever found yourself suddenly noticing your "unique" car model all over the roads or wondered why certain historical figures dominate our textbooks? Prepare to have your mind expanded as Joe and I, Adam, take you through an enlightening exploration of cognitive biases on the Idiots Guide. Joe and I dissect the mental traps that lead us to see the world through a distorted lens, from the frequency illusion to the overrepresented tales of successes like those of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Picture this: you're seething with road rage or witness someone stealing and think, "What's wrong with people these days?" Our episode doesn't hold back as we delve into the darker consequences of dehumanization, a cognitive bias that can justify harm and perpetuate conflict. We unravel the psychological threads that allow such behaviors to manifest, from the derogatory dehumanization in warfare to the subtler forms in our daily encounters. But it's not all grim – we also pause to marvel at the underestimated intelligence of species like Orcas, challenging our anthropocentric views and urging a more nuanced appreciation of animal smarts.
Wrapping up this mind-bending episode, we reflect on the importance of staying vigilant against the subtle biases that shape our actions and judgments. Through a mix of humor and hard-hitting truths, Joe and I aim to arm you with the awareness you need to make more informed decisions and view the world with a fresh, critical eye. So come and join us in hacking your way to a clearer understanding of the human mind, where the only thing we promise is that you'll never look at your biases—or Orcas—the same way again.
Today on the Idiot's Guide we're talking about. Are we thinking the way we think we're thinking? Say that 10 times fast. Or are there outside influences to our everyday thinking? Cognitive biases are a real thing. You're saying it 10 times fast and the British are angry. The British are angry All because of a pinch of salt. The last time we dealt with this kind of outrage was when the Sons of Liberty tossed crates of tea into the Boston Harbor.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Hassel. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide. So I think that this time I'm probably not going to spend a lot of time talking, because this is like right in your lane specifically, and we've done a couple episodes like this where you know I honestly I just I make sure I am thoroughly disqualified, right at the front of this. That way, you know, nobody has any hope or expectation of me. In the rest of the time, I mean I'll agree and be like, yeah, well, you don't say, but other than that, I'm like way, way out of my league in this. So but I think you know it's some of the things like our conversations that we have and you know, even in the sense of some of the stuff that I've done, as far as even mental health, therapy and that kind of stuff is, you know, determining how, the way that we think and the way, the way we process, the way we perceive things, the way we look at stuff is all. You know all kind of forms, even even what we say, like when we communicate something. You know what lanes and avenues does all that you know come from? Or how is it influenced? And you know, and if you, if you think and feel like you're not influenced by all of those external you know things, then you're wrong, because you're influenced every single day by all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1:I mean, if that weren't the case, then we wouldn't have commercials or marketing or anything on the radio. You wouldn't hear about products and you're like huh, for some odd reason I want a cheeseburger. You're like why I'm thinking Arby's? Like why do you think that is that way it's? It's directly in line in what we're talking about. And so you know, I hope that I've communicated enough to where I understand the marketing principles, but this is actually going to the sense of saying what my marketing principles are doing to someone's brain. Right, and that's where we're headed today. So, without further ado, joe, take it away.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about cognitive biases. So cognitive biases have a really complex definition, but it is so. This comes from Wiktionary. Again, we try to get as many of our definitions from Wiktionary, but it is a systematic deviation from norms of rationality and objectivity in judgment or perception, in other words. In other words, it just means that we move away from what is normal for reasonable or objectivity when we make judgments, decisions or how we see the world around us. So everything that we see here understand is slightly skewed, simply because of our own biases. Now, in looking at Wikipedia and I know a lot of people don't like Wikipedia I'm going to get on a Wikipedia.
Speaker 1:You say that in your cringe.
Speaker 2:You're like I'm going to get on a Wikipedia soapbox real quick and this will. If anyone in the future ever has a question on why we use the Wikipedia, you can come back to this point to understand why. Okay, wikipedia, while it does have a lot of people that go in there and can change things, it's all regularly reviewed. It is peer reviewed, so individuals who are within the industry or within the group that is being discussed, whether it's a science or whatever the field is those the individuals that are reviewing it. But it's up to date, it is always up to date and they list their references in the articles. I have an old set of encyclopedias and I say old, they're from the 1970s.
Speaker 1:That's old.
Speaker 2:So well, it's not that old. It's only about 50 years old. In reference to knowledge and access to information yeah, but it's not 100 years old, it's not 150 years old, All right. In that 50 year old encyclopedia there is still a huge section that talks about the behavioral and learning differences of different races. It is a very racist encyclopedia, but it is the world encyclopedia. But even just 50 years ago there were scientists that were very much saying that other races were not as capable as people who were white or of European descent.
Speaker 1:You know what's sad is? I imagine that whoever wrote that piece in the encyclopedia would just be absolutely just destroyed in our current setting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they've got diagrams, they've got explanations, they've got.
Speaker 1:There's a diagram about why this is. Yes, it is Just cringe.
Speaker 2:It's. I mean, we were showing this to our daughter's a little while back about, because I was talking about Wikipedia and why it's good and why encyclopedias are not. Yeah, because encyclopedias. By the time the article gets written and you've got so many people that are putting articles into these encyclopedias. By the time it gets published, the information in encyclopedia five, 10 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you are so behind when you are reading printed encyclopedia, which is the academic North Star for information, but it is so old so out of date. We should be getting rid of encyclopedias altogether because they are not sources of information. Wikipedia is I will stand on the hill, I will die on the hill of Wikipedia because it is a great source of information. So there's my soapbox.
Speaker 1:In the wealth of blog posts and things like that that are out there. You're like, hey, I got this from this blog and this person put out the top 10 of this. I'm like you know, honestly, I can ask AI to do that now and not, I mean not bad and I, and it'll do it in 15 seconds.
Speaker 2:Most blog posts are not from the experts.
Speaker 1:Wikipedia is and that's what I mean is is, in reference to this, is saying like when you are referencing where you are getting your sources from your information and that's being referenced at the bottom of your Wikipedia post, you're more qualified than blog posting. That typically has more credit than you know, than Wikipedia does. Honestly, like Wikipedia could go with a name change and they'd be fine, yeah, but because they had a black mark way back. When you know, all of a sudden you know they, they, they, they, they get. They're listed on the on the naughty list and they're like no, that's not true.
Speaker 2:And if anyone's looked into the Wikimedia foundation, you know what the rules are. That goes into being qualified as someone who can edit these articles, what articles you're allowed to edit. It is a very complex process, okay, so stop looking down on Wikipedia as a source of information. It is way better, way better than encyclopedias.
Speaker 1:So okay, so back to you know. Anyway, we're headed thinking about my thinking what?
Speaker 2:back to and this kind of goes in with those cognitive biases is that we automatically assume that encyclopedias are better because they're older and traditionally written on paper and racist. Traditionally, they're the way every all the academics go. That's the only way you could get information.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it's not that way anymore and we need to recognize those older biases and move on.
Speaker 1:I remember it was like 15 years ago. I was, you know, writing a college paper and having to learn how to cite a website when you know when I, when I use that as a source, and then having this list of, like, what isn't qualified, and Wikipedia was it's always on there.
Speaker 2:It really irks me, but anyway. So on Wikipedia, when you look up a list of cognitive biases, there are 188 of them, and someone has gone through and actually created a nice little infographic of all of the 188 cognitive biases. It's a really great infographic, it looks really great, it splits it up into four different categories and really good. So if you're interested in looking at more of these, that's definitely where I'd recommend going to look these up and get more information on them. All we're going to talk about today is about five different cognitive biases that we all run into on an everyday basis. It's something we deal with every day. Not all these biases do we run across every day, but I think these five we do.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things to mention is the fact that they're not exclusive to where you're stuck in one bias at a time. It is multiple biases functioning within our judgment. Each, you know, throughout our, throughout our days. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think one good way of looking at a cognitive bias in. If you've ever done any kind of therapy, you will probably have learned the perceived communication principle. So if you've done any kind of family counseling or couples counseling or anything like that, what you say is not always what the other person hears.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And what you hear is not necessarily what the other person said.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so, and and that's just because you are perceiving it differently than what the intent of the communication was. And I think that's kind of a good way of illustrating what cognitive biases are is, what's actually happening is framed by your receiving of the information and all of your background experiences. Okay, so the first one we're going to talk about is the frequency illusion. Okay, and so this is again here's definition. I think this one came from Wikipedia, not Wiktionary cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it. So the idea is you, you suddenly learned a new word, so you know the dictionary or word of the day, calendar or whatever, and there's that word on it, and all of a sudden you are seeing it everywhere.
Speaker 1:I think about this. Like you get that car and you're like man, nobody else has this car. You know, I drive a Nissan Ultima, okay, and when I got that Nissan Ultima, I was like man, this is, this is awesome, like it's so cool. And then I got home my wife goes you didn't notice that our neighbor has, like, right next to you has the exact same car? I was like my mind has a sunroof, you know like, but it's, it's like. You know like, nobody has like a white Subaru outback. And you're like. And then you get to an intersection where there's seven of them and you're like man, I need to move to a different state. You know it's, it's. I. Always I use that as kind of. That's what it made me think of in this one was just like yeah, no, keep seeing it now.
Speaker 2:And I have a Toyota Camry and it's the special edition and so they didn't make a lot of these. You know, dealers were limited to how many they could get, but it's the blue special edition. I love blue, as anyone who watches the podcast can tell. But since buying it, I mean there were not that many, but I think I have seen, at least in our area driving around, there are four other blue special edition Camrys and they stand out to me. I mean I see hundreds of cars a day but none of them stand out to me. But I always notice when I see that other Camry special edition. You know it, just it stands out to you. Or when you're listening to a Shuffled's playlist, it seems like there is one that comes up more often than others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll do that on like a playlist that I have. That I've done and I always hit, you know, like I open up the playlist and I hit play because it's already set to shuffle. But I'm like dumb algorithm, gosh, it always starts with the same song, you know, and it always does this as the next song. And you're like how is that possible? I have like 40 hours on this playlist but it actually doesn't.
Speaker 2:We just think that that's happening because it's a frequency illusion. We just notice that one and ignore all the other times that it starts when it's not that, and so that's the bias. And the reason we're talking about these is I actually had a couple of instances this last week where a lot of these biases came into play, and a lot of them on the same day, and it's like, oh, wow, that's that. Wow, that's that. And so I was like oh okay these are something we should probably talk about.
Speaker 1:Just so you know, listener, it's not normal to just analyze all your biases in one moment, but that's okay because that's how Joe rolls.
Speaker 2:And I think you should. You should be cognizant of your biases, because it really can affect the way that you interact with people around you.
Speaker 1:Wouldn't that make you biased against your biases? Yes, is that a double negative?
Speaker 2:It should hopefully bring you back to normal objective thinking. So it's a positive plus a negative, which?
Speaker 1:balances out to zero. It's a negative, and a negative Biases are typically.
Speaker 2:Well, subtracting a negative, so negative minus a negative equals neutral. Right, we'll rationalize this somehow. Yeah, so one thing that really gets me. We talked a couple of weeks ago how I do not speed on the road and, for the most part, I don't like it when there are speeders on the road, but to each their own. And this happened to me a little while back, when I realized that this was a bias. I would see cars speeding down the road and be like man, everyone speeds. There are so many speeders on the road and it occurred to me on one trip that no, there's not. And the reason for that? I've actually got the math here why this is a bias when it comes to speeders.
Speaker 2:So if you're seeing bad behaviors on the road, this could be someone cutting you off, this could be someone not using their blinker well, which is common in Utah. It could be any number of things that happen, but you assume it happens in a greater frequency than it really does. And part of that is if you're driving down a highway, if it's a four lane highway, I would assume that in your little segment of cars you're interacting with, there are gonna be about 12 or 11 other vehicles in your little segment, okay, so four cars ahead of you, four cars behind you, three cars to either side of you, so again a four lane road. And so you are interacting with these 12 cars and generally they're the same cars if you're all going the speed limit or within some reasonableness of the speed limit. And so you are going with these same vehicles on the road and then you see a car pass you and then another one pass you, and another one pass you and you think I've got. So there are three people that passed me let's assume that you've got a 15 minute drive and there are six cars that pass you. Okay, you're in a group of 12, six people just passed you, speeding. You assume that that's a high number, that's 33% of the cars that are speeding, because six cars plus your 12, 18, six of them speeding 33%, a third of all people on the road are speeding. That's what your immediate thought is because you've got this immediacy of interaction when, in reality, if you think about the entire segment of that road, not just your little part of it, but the entire segment, so your little segment, given the proper trailing distance length of cars I actually did the math on all this.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am neurotic is 573 feet. So in one mile of road, considering normal traffic not too much traffic, not sparse there are nine segments, or 108 vehicles in one mile of a highway. Okay, okay, if you drive for 15 minutes going 60 miles an hour, that is what is that? 1,620 vehicles in that entire 15 minute travel from where you started to where you end. Okay, and so within that 15 minutes you had six people speed past you. Okay, so it's not six out of 12 or six out of 18, it's six out of 1,620 vehicles in that segment, and so 1,614 are all following the rules, dude varying degrees, and so that actually comes out to 0.37%, and so not even 1% in this example of drivers are speeding.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how special I was on the highway until you just did that math.
Speaker 2:Now again this is assuming, just seeing six speeding drivers. It gets more frequent every year, it seems. And again, I say it seems because this is a very long time, and I say it seems because this is a frequency illusion. I noticed them more since they become more annoying to me. I'm becoming that old guy sitting on his porch, aren't you kids?
Speaker 1:Everybody honks at why you like driving down the road 13 under the speed limit.
Speaker 2:I do not go 13 under the speed limit. But this is the frequency illusion. Is that we assume that because we see things in greater frequency, or the segment that we're comparing it against is a lot higher than it really is. We do this a lot every day. Things like this happen Going to the grocery store, seeing something at the grocery store, seeing people at the grocery store, everything like this happens.
Speaker 2:We have to take a step back and recognize this is an illusion this isn't real and we need to reevaluate how we make decisions based on reality, not on a cognitive bias.
Speaker 1:It's wild to think of all of the possibilities of where that actually happens, how consistent this is, because our natural tendency is to always be writing a particular narrative and some people it's more negative. They're always everybody's picking on me kind of a thing. And then you have others that are like why are they so happy and joyful? And they're still dealing with a frequency illusion that just the way that it's impacted is different than the other person. But it's weird. I'm trying to think about my interaction as I go along each day, if I go to the store and something's out of stock and I'm like why this is unheard of.
Speaker 2:It's always out of stock. It's always gone.
Speaker 1:I never find this here Like.
Speaker 2:But it's just because the few times that you have gone to get it it's not been there. Every other time it's been there, right, but that one time it wasn't. So they're picking on me.
Speaker 1:That's what they're doing. That's exactly it. They see me down the road at the stop sign and they're like, okay, call ahead and make sure that this shelf is cleared.
Speaker 2:So the next bias talk about is survivorship bias. Now, this one's a fun one. So growing up, my dad wanted me to become a skeptic, so, and I really appreciate him for this, and one thing that he always told me he always told me a lot of things about being a skeptic, but one thing that relates to this is winners write the history books, and that's a fairly common idea that a lot of people understand. But the winners write the history, not the losers cause. The losers lost Right, and so history is very biased toward the winners. So you think about now this is a really extreme example Okay, but World War II, you've got Hitler in the Nazis and you've got the Allied powers, yeah, so you've got England or Britain, america, people fighting against Hitler.
Speaker 2:Okay, if Hitler had won, his ideology would have been the correct ideology, correct Because he won. He writes the history books, right. He tells the people we won because we were right, the Allies won, and so that ideology continued. Now, objectively, the Allies were the correct ideology. But this is how that bias works, is that, even if you've got a wrong ideology, if you win, that's what persists. We see this in China and North Korea. They won and so their ideology is correct.
Speaker 2:They teach people this we are right, everyone else is wrong mm-hmm and so the idea of Winners write the history books is an example of survivorship bias, in that we only see the examples of the survivors, we don't see the examples of those that didn't survive. Survivors tell their stories, the dead don't.
Speaker 1:I think what's interesting to me and and maybe this is a different bias this makes me think of, like, the five-star review. You know, so, yeah, you know, in customer service world and like you know, a lot of what we do is business oriented, so this is kind of leaning in the direction of marketing. Yeah, there's this. There's this common thread of you know conversation where people say you know, only the people who have something to complain about Typically are gonna go on and give a review, mm-hmm, so you're, you have a consistency of more negative impact of that in this bias. That to me doesn't sound like the winner or the survivor. That sounds like the person who was impacted negatively and is venting about it and telling and and is able to basically survive to tell that story. That that's the only thing. Like that.
Speaker 2:It's kind of weird because it's not necessarily winning, it's just making a difference in this right, but and yeah, it does kind of apply and I've got an example here that kind of goes along with what you're talking about. Okay, and so this is from Abraham Wald. He was a statistician and they were trying to get better Armor for the bombers in World War two, okay, in order to help them survive. So those of you that are watching on the YouTube version of this, this is the picture. So it's a plane showing all of the areas where the planes that survived came back.
Speaker 1:Did you make that?
Speaker 2:No, this this. This is just an illustration example you can find on Wikipedia. A lot of people use the same example.
Speaker 1:I'll put it on the video, so yeah.
Speaker 2:You can go to Wikipedia, find who wrote this I don't think the person who that did this. I've seen this multiple times on a lot of other videos, so I don't know if the person on Wikipedia was the original person that created this. Okay, someone else did. I don't know the attribution.
Speaker 1:We aren't taking credit credit, we're just using it.
Speaker 2:And so what this shows? It shows a plane and it shows where all the bullet holes were For the planes that they were studying, all the red so we've got you know, along the center of the plane, the tail wings, the wings on the plane showing all these bullet holes, but there are areas where it's absent.
Speaker 1:I imagine Like that is the luckiest person on earth For bullet holes to be all through the center of the plane, but like where the cockpit and the engine are like no bullet holes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and was smart enough to recognize survivorship bias in His statistics. So your first thought is okay. Those areas where there are a lot of bullet holes, that's where you need to reinforce the plane. Yeah when, in reality, it's the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:The areas where there are no bullet holes are the ones where you need to fortify the plane, because those are the ones that didn't survive right and so you know, when you're looking at the statistics here, it looks like all the ones that you see these areas, but those are the ones that actually survived and you need to take into account. There are those that didn't yeah.
Speaker 2:And so when you're looking at the reviews on, you know your one-star reviews or anything like that You've got to take into account. These are people who are upset with the product, but there are a lot of people who just didn't review, who may have liked the product, but they just had nothing to complain about and most of the time that's what's that.
Speaker 1:You have to press the, the people who have a good experience. Or like, hey, do you mind, please, can you like even our podcast? Like, hey, you have something to say, say something you know? Like, please, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you've got these holes or these blank spots in those reviews, and those are the ones that didn't survive.
Speaker 1:So I know it's opposite.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, I get it kind of backwards, but it's the same bias.
Speaker 1:I like that, the kind that the way of thinking about this is is looking at this and going. Man, like my, my mentality of going that cockpit is is, you know, oddly Lucky on the plane that's covered in bullet holes in other spots. But you're right, if I fortified all those other spots, guaranteed that planes going down the next time, yeah. But if I, if I were to think of it opposite of that and fortify the areas that have no bullet holes, because if I were to go research the the crash sites of these other planes, I'm very fairly certain it's going to be One or two rounds into those certain areas that ended that whole planes trip, yeah so another example of survivorship bias is when we think about Successful people that don't have a college degree, and so we assume, hey, I don't need a college degree because so-and-so was successful without it.
Speaker 2:So that's the idea. Hey, this is. You know, we had people survive, so we've got Bill Gates, steve Jobs, mark Zuckerberg, walt Disney. None of those individuals had college degrees. They all became super successful. We think, oh, I can do it too. Hold on a second. That was four examples there. Now they're long lists of other people who were successful, but Not that many in comparison to the number of college dropouts.
Speaker 2:Yeah and that's the whole. Is that because they're not famous, we don't know that they were college dropouts and are Not making any money, living paycheck to paycheck? You know we don't see those. Therefore we ignore them. The reality is, if you don't have a college degree, you are significantly less likely to become like Bill Gates. Then you are to become like him.
Speaker 1:Does Elon Musk have a degree?
Speaker 2:I meant to look that up, but I did not like that.
Speaker 1:I don't think he has a degree. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:I think he's one of those on that list, he wasn't on the list, so I think maybe he does have a degree. I looked at a few different lists for famous people. Yeah, without degrees. Those were obviously the big ones that most people would know about. That know the names. One list had, I think, 39 different names on them. I, oprah Winfrey, was on that list. I didn't verify that she doesn't have a degree, so I don't necessarily want to say that she doesn't. Yeah, all of these individuals I did verify they do not have college degrees, but it's just. It's one of those things and sometimes people are attributed has having not having college degree when they actually do. So one of the individuals that it was on this list was Albert Einstein. That he didn't have a degree.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, he actually did. He got a four-year degree for teaching math and science and then he got his doctorate. So, even though people say that Albert Einstein at least on this list didn't have a degree, so he's someone to look up to scientists genius. No, he did have a degree. He went to four years of undergrad and then did his graduate program, and so he does have a PhD.
Speaker 2:Oh, Okay so there are some people that get your attributed. So, like said Oprah Winfrey, I have not verified that she doesn't have a degree, so do not take my word on that. That was from a list that I found online. Always look up the information that you find, do the backup because, again, like we talked about with Wikipedia, you know this was a post that seemed to have some kind of validity behind it, yeah, but Albert Einstein was on the list and he has a degree. So, and on Wikipedia is where I found all the information for the years that he went and got his degree, with the backup information, with his. You know what his doctoral thesis was, everything. So alright.
Speaker 1:What's the next bias?
Speaker 2:Okay. So the next one is attentional bias, so a person's perception is affected by selective factors in their attention. Okay, so, given our background, certain things attract our attention more than others and therefore we pay attention to that more, okay, okay. So one thing that happened to me was I was having some workers over at my house and I noticed one of them was a heavy smoker. So immediately my thought was oh, he'd be so much more successful if he didn't smoke. Now, these are intrusive thoughts. These are not things you say out loud.
Speaker 1:These are just the inherent people who say that stuff yeah, and you're like that was a dumb thing, okay, but these are the inherent biases that come in.
Speaker 2:These are the first thoughts that you have, because they're biases. Now, I grew up in a Household where you don't smoke, you don't drink. Family members did, but you learn that that's you know. You are taught or develop over time this idea that they're unsuccessful because of X, y and Z. Therefore it becomes a bias. And so this person that was over at my home was Unsuccessful because he smoked, and that's what caused me to stop and think wait, why would I even think that? Why is that something that's coming into my mind that that is in no way True, but a lot of times we see that in we create that that's true, but but not really.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:So we talked about Walt Disney. Walt Disney was a heavy smoker, yeah, and yet he was extremely successful. So why would we equate Smoking to being unsuccessful if there are a lot of examples of people who are successful?
Speaker 1:and smoke. What's the? The other one you were, you were saying and then was Barack Obama, barack.
Speaker 2:Obama Is a smoker. I mean, I didn't know the.
Speaker 1:United States. Yeah, I definitely get this, this one's strange because, like, I never think that this is how this goes and that that it's actually a bias. But you're right. Like I think about other individuals, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, like you know, barack Obama was the one that really surprised me, was like, was like yeah, he's a president, presidents, don't smoke. And you're like why not?
Speaker 2:You know like right.
Speaker 1:I Mean you're right. Like society wise. We have all these things that say don't do this, this is bad for your health. I was like, well, that's probably not the last thing that they did, you know. Or the first thing that they did that was bad for their health. Like, yeah, that's, that's normal behavior. But you know, just to just to Disqualify them from smoking because they're in a presidential role.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so the idea that we have this attentional bias, that we pay attention or perceive certain things because they are more pertinent to us, can lead us down the wrong path, can cause us to judge other people for something that has absolutely nothing to do with how they live.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so it it really comes down to again just stopping yourself, because these biases, they just kick in.
Speaker 1:Yeah they.
Speaker 2:They are part of the cognitive process that help us to survive. Now, whether that's, you know, good or bad, they help us to survive. So the example I like to use of this is the reason these biases developed is if you imagine that you are an early human living in Africa and you are out gathering or hunting and you see something in the grass shake, your first thought is not I'm going to stand here and analyze and think about what could that possibly be. Is that maybe just the wind? Is that maybe a predator? And then you're dead.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm going to get my racist encyclopedia out and determine with the charts what is in the grass Exactly.
Speaker 2:Your first instinct is that's a lion, I'm out of here. Whether it was or not, that is the instinctual bias that has been developed in order to help our species survive, and so that's why these biases are there is to help us to survive. Now we're well beyond that lower level survival instinct and we should work better at avoiding these cognitive biases, because they don't help us to survive anymore. They just create this division among people.
Speaker 1:Well, if you see a lion's tail waving in the grass in the city, the zoo has a problem, right, and you have a problem now.
Speaker 2:But that is where these cognitive biases come in, is they were instinctually developed to help us to survive. Think first or act first, think later, and so that's where they come in, and so we need to stop ourselves and think first, but it's you're never going to have that 100% of the time. Let me just be clear Right, these are there to help us to survive. They are built into our genetics. As far as biases, the specific biases like what we are specifically biased against, is developed Because of society or the things like that, but the fact that there are biases is instinctual. Hopefully I made that clear.
Speaker 1:Yes. So the next one I actually really I'm kind of excited about because it's something I kind of talk about, but I'll let you talk about it so is this dehumanized perception?
Speaker 2:Yep, okay, so this one. We actually talked about the last podcast of the one before, when we were talking about the border crisis and I gave the quote from the TV show West Wing.
Speaker 1:And I found the actual quote.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to read the actual quote from this. It's from the episode inauguration, part one, for anyone who wants to reference here. Why is a Kundanese life worth less to me than American life? I don't know, sir, but it is. It's this idea that another life is worth less than a life that you are connected to. Now, this could be your family's life is more valuable than your neighbor's life.
Speaker 1:I actually wrote down the like, copied the definition that came from the Wikipedia thing, and it kind of adds a little bit of perception, I believe, to the whole of what this is. It's the psychological means to facilitate atrocities, torture and genocide.
Speaker 2:I mean in the extreme, yeah, but we've got to remember that that's an extreme version of this perception bias, but we have to. What got us to that point to allow that to happen? Is we allowed little things every single day?
Speaker 1:Well, I imagine this if you were to take a cult okay, a cult leader, in their, their conditioning or training somebody to be part of that cult, it's sociopathic behavior. But what they're doing is they're trying to psychologically manipulate you into thinking that you as a member can only thrive under that leader and that that somehow in that commune or community of cult followers you are, you are superior or separated or made apart from the rest of society. Similar in the psychological pattern development that happens. The military trains this way and this is something that unfortunately comes with you know a lot of over the years. I mean, you go back historically to every conflict that we've ever been in and you hear you know the slang terms for the enemy, somebody that is. You know any conflict that you can. You can think there is a slang term that is used by military forces when we're referring to and I'm not going to say any of those I mean.
Speaker 1:But you know, you know, because they're racial you know what they are right, you.
Speaker 1:If you think of a racial word, it was developed because of this principle. That was trained in the military and, honestly, like I can say for myself my experience, I was trained to go to the desert and fight an enemy there. There's, there's words that we were, that we learned to identify a potential enemy, and the goal in using those words was to separate that person or individual from their humanity so that it made it easier for me to justify firing around at that person. Yeah, and you know, because otherwise, yeah, yeah, you, I don't want to pull the trigger. It's another human being, that's a life that I could potentially take. How could I do that?
Speaker 1:And a lot of people like that is devastating in thought, but but that's, that's the level that they have to train individuals to dehumanize an enemy, so that you have no hesitation. The problem is then you now have I. This is something that I struggle with. I don't mean to say that I'm racist in this, but I can't think of another word when I'm describing individuals from that area. Yep, I have a hard time going like somebody in like Middle East, you know, and I just kind of like geographically explain people in culture, because I like, if I refer to that individual, it's it's a racial slur and it's rude and people like people you know are just taken back by that. So that's, that's, that's my idea and understanding of dehumanized perception.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know whatever. Whether there's justification for it, you know. Whatever the reasoning behind it, it is a real bias that exists and it exists for everyone. No matter how hard you try not to have the dehumanized perception, it will exist for you in one way or another.
Speaker 1:When you're driving down the road and somebody is driving Joe's speed limit and and you're like that grandma, yeah One, there's two, two marks. You said they're old and they're female. Yeah, exactly. So you have no idea.
Speaker 2:But there's been a large rash of road rage, instance where someone gets out and actually kills the other driver.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's they. They have so dehumanized other drivers. They just see it as a vehicle and not as the people that are in those vehicles. Think about even simple theft. So steal something from a grocery store you assume, oh, it's not going to hurt them. You've dehumanized who the people are that are there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there are actual people that actually get harmed when you steal, but you see your value as higher than the value of someone else. And again, even something as simple as taking something from a grocery store or in military action in border conflicts, dehumanized perception is a real facet of everything that we do. Yeah, now again, this goes back to thousands, thousands of years of conflict between different groups land conflict, ideological conflict. That's where this bias comes in, and it is a strong cognitive bias that all of us have it really is yeah.
Speaker 2:It is vital that we try to remove these biases as much as possible. You have to stop dehumanizing people simply because they have a different background, because it leads to so many problems and it starts small. You know, there's a great line that I like from now again, this is just a movie, it's a Marvel movie, but Captain America, the first one, or the first Avenger, I think, is what it's called where the scientist who developed the serum or whatever says most people forget that the first country Hitler took over was Germany. He didn't. Not everyone was for Hitler, he just took over the country and killed anyone that was in opposition. And so it's that idea that it can start small. It doesn't start with a major conflict. Every day we need to be cognizant, be aware of these biases so we can remove them.
Speaker 1:On the mental health side of things, I've had a pretty good share of this in my life, and one of the things that I had to learn how to recognize is when you're talking to somebody and they're communicating about someone else. So let's say I'm talking to someone, you, joe, about a friend of mine, and you know that friend, their name is Bartholomew. Okay, but instead of using the word Bartholomew or Bart, okay, no, not Bart Simpson. But when I say that monster or that menace, okay, that is a term that dehumanizes that individual so that it validates your. If I think that that person is a monster, I can say Bartholomew is acting like this, okay, that's fine. But when I refer to them outside of their name, so it removes their identity and call them by what I think they are. That's dehumanizing and it's also a very, very huge red flag for a narcissist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So a lot of this. Again, we're talking about cognitive biases. These are things that we encounter every day and we need to be aware of them. Try to undermine our own biases so that we can think objectively, so that we don't have these poor judgments that are made. So the last one. So we'll move on from that one. I know that was pretty serious conversation.
Speaker 1:No, that was good.
Speaker 2:But the last one here is anthropocentric perception. So this is the tendency to reason about unfamiliar biological species or processes by analogy to humans. So we think of animals and we add analogies to humans. So this isn't anthropomorphizing, so that's giving human characteristics to animals. This is just thinking of animals in a human way.
Speaker 2:So we don't like death. Therefore the trees outside don't like death. So I mean, but death in nature is an important part of the process. Things have to die. Pine trees are a perfect example of this. Many pine trees, only the pine cones only open with fire, and so without fire those pine trees will never propagate. And so fire has to be part of that natural process. But we don't like fire, and so we for a lot of years, a lot of years in the United States, stopped forest fires. Well, the reality is, the forest needed those and we were actually damaging the forest by preventing them. And so now things are changing to where we're allowing those things continue, allowing forest fires to happen, and hopefully not human-made forest fires, but allowing them to continue because they're an important part of the process. So this is anthropocentric perception.
Speaker 1:I'm an environmentalist?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so also anthropocentric thinking can lead people to under-attribute human characteristics to other organisms. So we think that other animals are less intelligent than humans are because they're animals. We think about them as being. We just tend to under-attribute to these animals. What human characteristics are Now we don't wanna go over, we don't wanna go under. So they're kind of opposites anthropomorphism and anthropocentric perceptions.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that I may like in the idea of what this is. It has a lot to do with this comparison. So it's not necessarily thinking one is superior. I think we were having a conversation yesterday about the difference between a scientific perspective versus a biblical or religious perspective, and in that the value of human life in essence is, or the thought of human thinking and that sort of stuff seems superior on this and validated for certain situations. Well, if you analyze certain economies that aren't human or homo sapien, you can see thriving economies in the way that they are in certain animal species or insect species or all of these different things. So you can see how there's some serious development there. But we always do this comparison to go well, at the end of the day, I'm still or, biblically speaking, it's God ordained dominion. So it is regardless how smart you think you are, I'm in charge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the examples that we talked about were Orcas. I try not to call them killer whales. I would ask our listener please don't ever call them killer whales. They get offended, they do kill really bad Well that, in a way, I mean it's not dehumanizing because they're not humans, but it does dehumanize them and makes you more ready to fight back because they're killers.
Speaker 1:They're one of the most dangerous fish to fishermen. They are. They're not fish, they're mammals. They're one of the most dangerous animals in the ocean to the human life.
Speaker 2:No, they're not. Yes, they are. No, they're not Now for economy. Yes, because they will steal off of fishermen's lines. But no, there was actually. So I can't remember this killer whales name.
Speaker 1:Orca get it right Ah see, this is the problem.
Speaker 2:I keep doing this. I try and try to make sure I call them Orcas, but it's just ingrained to call them killer whales because of what I grew up with.
Speaker 2:Orca lives matter, they do but there was one, an Orca. I can't remember the Orca's name but it was, I believe, in South America where they were. I think it was I don't remember where it was years ago when I looked this up, because I love Orcas, I think they're fascinating. But they actually worked in tandem with the fishermen of this small community, and so they would go out and the Orcas would work together to corral the fish that these fishermen were catching. They would bring in the catch and then the fishermen would take what they wanted and they would throw all of the scraps to the Orcas.
Speaker 1:That's a good deal.
Speaker 2:It is, and that's exactly what it was and it wasn't. They didn't train the Orca to do this. They worked as a pair, as a team. They both developed this idea that if we work together, they did this independently.
Speaker 1:It's like a sheepdog. They're the same color pattern as a sheepdog, only again it didn't have to be trained.
Speaker 2:They were intelligent enough to learn and develop this process and understand that they could work together. And because they were working together, they both got a greater catch. So they were better fed, they were, it was less energy for more food, and so that's really cool, it is. And so Orcas are extremely intelligent. Recently they've catched them playing catch with each other. Just like we play catch, we play ball. They happen to be doing it with sharks. They kill the shark. I think it's sharks and they I really hope the shark is still alive.
Speaker 2:Sharks are dolphins. It might be like butthole-nosed dolphins, but what they do is they kill it and then they just start tossing it back and forth to each other.
Speaker 1:So they're civilized, they at least use a dead animal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you think about football, rugby, soccer, I mean all of those we use dead animal skin. I don't think we do anymore.
Speaker 1:In a bladder, you know, not so much anymore.
Speaker 2:But earliest forms, and we kick the ball through the ball, toss the ball. All this, it's really no different than what these Orca are doing right now with his dead sea life.
Speaker 1:And so we see I imagine this like playing catch with an animal head.
Speaker 2:You know, like the Wee-Kaw, we just take the head and we're like yeah, catch dude, you know it, just ugh that may be where it started, but that's I mean it's gross now, but back then.
Speaker 1:it was normal, Probably okay.
Speaker 2:But yeah and so, and they teach each other how to play catch. You know, there's generational. They have different dialects, they have different languages. It really is a cool thing to look at Orcas and recognize the level of intelligence that they really have. And when you look back I wouldn't say that they're necessarily on par with where humans are today. But if you look back maybe 10, 20,000 years ago and look at where Homo sapiens were, I would say there's probably an equatable balance to where the Orcas are now and where humans were then.
Speaker 1:I remember reading some article talking about the creation of some form of a ball that they used animal skin to do. That's primitive. It was a primitive play toy thing that they had found in an archeological dig and I was like that's pretty cool that this is like you know. I mean you go back 2000 years and it's normal, like you can see those sports done. But to go back to where early caveman, you know caveman's offensive nowadays, you know so easy a caveman can do it.
Speaker 2:I think they're either proto-human or early Homo sapiens is the appropriate terms.
Speaker 1:So not to offend them if they're listening, but they were able to find these toys that they had made with animal skin to play around with. So yeah, I mean like if you're thinking that early development probably resembled the same thing that they're doing, you know, these Orcas are doing with a shark, yeah, but the anthropocentric perception is that these are so different from humans.
Speaker 2:They don't have hands, so how can they function? They don't walk on land, they've got flippers and all these other things, and so how can we see them as being the same as human Right? And that's the anthropocentric thinking? Is that we don't, we under attribute these human characteristics to them because they are so different, or with other things, we, you know, we're just trying to add traits to them that really aren't there. But again, it just comes down to the idea that, you know, we have to be cognizant of these biases either too much or too little, because it can happen both ways and try to be very objective about the perception that we have of the world around us.
Speaker 1:So I think you know one of the things this is I'm going to do this real quick but just recognizing that biases are everywhere. Biases are daily things, biases are on top of biases, like thinking about the way we think we're thinking is not actually thinking. Typically, we don't think about how we're thinking, but putting a little bit more thought into that. I'm just having fun with this now. But really being mindful of this is. I mean, I went through cognitive processing therapy and it was being mindful of the distortions that our brain can create and recognizing, calling it what it is, and so I don't need to think about like oh, that was an anthropomorphic perception, I don't even.
Speaker 2:I said that wrong, but but Well, there is anthropomorphic anthropomorphism, this was anthropocentric.
Speaker 1:Whatever A word, but you know, I think no, that was last week.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. I think one of the other things in perception here and this is just maybe thinking that you know one is superior over the other one is you never think well, you would probably think this, but this is coffee versus tea. If you were to ask someone from Britain, you know what these boorish Americans drink, caffeinated, and how they make tea in a microwave Blech. Why would you do this disgusting thing? So the journalist is Jill Lawless. She writes for the Associated Press in London. She caught onto a thread that was happening on X, formerly known as Twitter, and I've learned that there's ways to say X, formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no one just says X anymore. They always add formerly known as Twitter or formerly Twitter.
Speaker 1:I'm still curious what do you call it if it's not called a tweet at this point Like oh he.
Speaker 2:Musk did say exactly what he wanted. Them called.
Speaker 1:He has another name for I have to find out. I'm not on.
Speaker 2:Twitter, so I have no idea.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I don't tweet. A US scientist brewed up a storm this is the cover for this has brewed up a storm by offering Britain advice on making tea. Oh goodness.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, dangerous waters. They meant well, they're a chemist, so they completely understand all of the ingredients that are going on and what they're all doing at the same time. When you drop a tea bag into that hot water, okay, okay, let me say this Not all of its tea bags, it's tea, leaves tea, whatever Loose leaf flowers, you call it what it is, as long as it's between three PM and seven PM, depending on whether or not you're having tea time or high tea. That will determine what kind of food you eat. If the sandwiches have crust, it's high tea. If they don't have crust, it's tea time. Yeah, I did some research. Oh no, no, it's. It's serious. The British get very serious about stuff.
Speaker 2:This is a big deal.
Speaker 1:So when someone chimes in, especially an American chiming in about the holy grail of beverage in Great Britain, ooh, the author's name is Michelle Frankel. She says one of the keys to a perfect cup of tea is a pinch of salt. So the tip include. It's included in a book that she just recently came out with, steeped. The Chemistry of Tea came out, published like Wednesday, just this last week, and by the Royal Society of Chemistry. So, like for all the people who are qualified to speak into this, they're more than Britain is qualified. She's qualified to speak into this.
Speaker 1:But it's not so much that you're like making like salt water, like the Boston Tea Party thing, it's not like that, it's enough. The idea and the concept is salt neutralizes the bitter receptors on our tongue. So when you put a pinch in there, not enough to taste, just enough to be in the water Once it hits our receptors we won't get the tannin from the tea because of that. So it makes for a smoother tea experience. But most Britain, most British people are gonna be. They're gonna say, well, hey, like this is how arrogant of you, first off pompous. I can't believe you would even do this. You know what was the popular stirrupite sees America's as coffee-swilling boars.
Speaker 1:Alrighty then, so there's this, go back and forth. There's an etiquette guide DeBretts wrote on X. It says don't even say the word salt to us, okay, and these are pros that are going back and forth. Well then somebody kicks in from the US embassy in London and this like lights up. So they say from there, they say the good people of the UK, that the good people, the reassuring the good people of the UK that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain's national drink is not official United States policy. So let us unite in our steep solidarity and show the world that when it comes to tea, we stand as one said one tongue-in-cheek post. The US embassy will continue to make tea in the proper way by microwaving it. So this, yes, this is wow. They just they started hitting it.
Speaker 1:So she talks about a hundred different chemical compounds found in tea, puts the chemistry to use with advice on how to brew a better cup is what the publisher says. So like it's very meant well, in this book it's a good thing, but just lit up, I mean, and really what it is. It's like I mentioned the sodium ions in the salt block, block the bitter receptors in our mouths so we don't taste the tannins. That's a really, really good thing, but it was all kind of tongue-in-cheek but I didn't mean to do that one. That one's great. Wow, we're getting a lot of them today. So she told the Associated Press I kind of understood that there were. It would hopefully be a lot of interest. I didn't know we'd wade into a diplomatic conversation with the US Embassy. So I wonder if we're just a more caffeinated society, is what she said. Coffee is higher in caffeine, of course. Or maybe we're just trying to rebel against the parent country.
Speaker 2:A little more wound up.
Speaker 1:I think you know being the rebellious little kids that we are. It's probably more appropriate for what this is we're like. Yeah, I got to tell you what to do.
Speaker 1:My kids look forward to telling me something that they learned that I don't know, and they're like ha ha, did you know you're wrong? All right, so we have reached the end of our show and but before we go, I just need to let you guys know life's too short, don't take yourself too seriously. Keep laughing and keep learning, and remember idiots have way more fun. Check your shoes. I'll see you guys next time.