Episode 9: One Serious Salamagundi

Join us for a fascinating feast of sky-high thought salad! From tipping points, Octopus fears, and bull poop asymmetry to ovular fricatives, carpet monkey mamas, and Gish Gallop prevention, we’ve stacked it with a hodgepodge of ingredients so interesting you would never imagine these would taste so good together. It’s all the brain food you can eat so dig in! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Recording in progress. Yes! It worked. It worked. We did it. How are you? I am doing well. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you. I have one word for you this morning. Oh my God, what? Salamagundi. Salama Gundi? What's it mean? Okay, if we have time later, I'm going to talk about it. I know we have a bunch of ad hoc and addendums first, but I would love to talk with you about Salamagundi later.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I want to hear about. I am very and I like that we're keeping the suspense alive so people can listen to the whole episode. Perfect. So I want to start with an addendum to our discussion about the hundredth monkey. I did look it up, and the story comes from 1950s research on the Japanese macaque monkey. And it lived on an island, and researchers used to feed these monkeys sweet potatoes. And one of the researchers noticed that in 1953, an 18-month-old female named Imo discovered that she could wash the potatoes in a stream or in an ocean to remove the sand. And so what happened is she taught her mother and other young monkeys to wash the sweet potatoes. And over time, researchers noticed that by like 1958, this behavior had reached critical mass. They call it the hundredth monkey. And scientists said that it spread from one island to the next. In 1979, it was popularized by Lyle Watson as a way to describe collective consciousness. Now, did this happen? Yeah, they observed it in real life. Does this mean that it's proof of collective consciousness? So the scientific community has largely debunked it. I am still a believer in collective consciousness, though. So I will say that even though this was observed, it wasn't, it wasn't proof.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Our friend Patrick says absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And so that's really important to remember because just because something has not been scientifically proven, 98% of what exists has not been proven. So that doesn't mean it isn't, but it's really important to recognize when there isn't an evidence base for something and that there isn't scientific evidence. That's why it got debunked or discredited because it was very different than the actual study and what they were finding. And the actual study is really interesting. It talks about normal social learning, that this spread of potato washing was an example of social transmission. Younger monkeys copy each other, and then the older monkeys who refused to take on the new habits, they eventually passed on. And so it was left up to the younger groups or the closer-knit groups to actually spread the behavior.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Two points. One, what Patrick said, I was listening to a podcast the other day about the neuroenteric system. So the brain-gut connection. And the speaker was a Harvard professor who was saying that just because we don't yet have proof of this or that doesn't mean that it's not true, that it doesn't exist. The other thing it reminds me of this whole social learning is do you remember the diffusion of innovation model from graduate school?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yes, we had to learn that in neural science.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah. And so I was thinking about this last time we were talking about technology, and we were talking about how it spreads. And so there are early adopters and late adopters. And so this potato washing made me think of that diffusion of innovation. Like for the monkeys, this was an innovative feature. And then it gradually spread from one monkey to the other, and then ultimately to different islands.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

And what I read is that despite it being debunked as a parapsychological phenomenon, it's a really powerful metaphor in sociology and organizational change to describe concepts like tipping points or social contagion or how a really radical new idea can shift from being an exception to the mainstream norm within human cultures. And the tipping point concept is real because in sociology, a tipping point's a point in time when a group or many group members change their behavior really rapidly and dramatically by adopting a practice that was previously rare. And I looked up the tipping point because you said that the other day. And I thought, what's the etymology of that thing? So it's really fascinating to me. Some of it's also actually kind of disturbing. It's quite heavy, but it was first used in physics. And in physics, it referred to adding a small amount of weight to a balanced object until the additional weight caused the object to suddenly and completely topple or tip, hence the tipping point. That's so interesting. Yeah, and so we use really common expressions like the straw that broke the camel's back or the domino effect or reaching a critical mass, like you said, in similar ways to describe when things topple. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

You used the word social contagion and it made me think of emotional contagion. Do you remember that book, Emotional Contagion? It's by Elaine Hatfield and Richard Rhapson, I think. Basically, the idea is that we can catch emotions from one another without realizing it. So we unconsciously mimic other people's expressions and behaviors, their facial expressions, voice tone, body postures. For instance, if a baby begins to cry, other babies around it will start to cry, or a laughing audience causes somebody else to laugh, or how for me, watching a Hallmark show, somebody starts to cry on the show and it makes me want to cry. There's actual evidence that we catch other people's emotions and that we have physiological reactions to other people doing something. So if somebody's right, if somebody's going to pick something up or going to put something in their mouth, if you are studying the observer's brain waves, you'll find if you're going to pick something up, it'll find that my brain waves, my motor neurons are activated, just watching you.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Do you remember there was a book? It was called The Something Mind or The Something Brain. And when I say this, you'll remember. I know exactly. And the experiment they did, it related a mimicry, and it was the octopus in the jar. Do you remember that experiment? No. I thought you were going to say something completely different. Please keep going. Okay. So the octopus in the jar experiment was they had an octopus in a rather large jar, and they would hold a little bear up to the jar. And when they'd hold the bear up to the jar, this is absolutely horrible. So take a deep breath. But when they'd hold the bear up to the jar, they would put an electric charge onto the water and it would give the octopus, let's just say, a little tiny shock. Just for our purposes here, so we can make it through the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

So it would give the octopus a tiny little shock. And when it would, the octopus would go back and its legs would go out. And every time it would do this physical posture. And so they would do that. And every time the electrical charge would come in, the bear would come in and it would do this pose. Well, they started putting the bear in front of it without the electrical shock. And the octopus, as soon as it saw the bear, would do the pose. Oh no. That's so awful. I know. It's terrible. But one of the things that was very fascinating about this experiment is that they then brought in another octopus and they put it in a jar next to the first octopus. And they took the bear and they put it in front of the first octopus, and the octopus made the posture, made the pose, the afraid pose. And the other octopus saw it do that. And when they put the bear in front of the other octopus, the other octopus did that pose. Oh wow. Oh wow. But that to me, in terms of mimicry and social contagion, that helps us understand why people do the things that they do, even if they're not experiencing exactly that themselves or if they've watched somebody else experience it.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Are you talking about the book Mindsight? Because I was gonna say something about mirror neurons and mindset. I don't know if you ever read the book by Dan Siegel. It's one of my favorite books of all times. And he talks about mirror neurons, which are the neurons in our brain that help us feel felt by another human being. It's basically like an empathy neuron, I would say. He suggests that because our brains constantly influence one another, calm people help calm other people. Anxiety can spread through the room, or children absorb emotional patterns. So it's basically an explanation of emotional contagion, like why it happens, but it's also what helps us feel felt by another human being. If you had to pick a nonfiction book to read, I would pick that one. It is just so good. It's called Mindsight by Dan Siegel. What an excellent example. One other thing I want to say is about the octopus is did you ever read Remarkably Bright Creatures? I didn't read it, but I watched the movie version of it. Oh my god, Danielle, right? So it's even more atrocious knowing what, and also the octopus teacher was a documentary, knowing what we know uh about the octopus. I mean, you cannot, it's so brilliant creature. You cannot experiment. It's just not okay. Or any creep or any creature, or eat it. Oh yes, you cannot eat an octopus now.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

No moss.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

No pulpo, no moss, especially once you really I mean, anyway, that's a whole nother topic.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

That is a whole nother topic. Do you remember the video of the little Brazilian boy who was given pulpo, was given octopus by his mom? And she took this video of him and he was eating it, and he all of a sudden stopped and he said something like, Mama, what is this leg or what is this piece or something like that? And she says, Oh, that's pulpo. And he said, Pulpo, pulpo, like the animal, pulpo, and she said yes, and he stopped and he just stared at the plate. And you could tell his little brain was all of a sudden realizing, and he says, No, and he pushes the plate away. He says, No, I don't eat animals. And he was saying this in Brazilian Portuguese, of course, but they had the subtitles on the bottom. And he says, No, don't eat an animal, and she didn't know what to do. And he says, pulpo es animal, and she says yes, and he says, vaca es animal, like cow is an animal. And so then he starts going through all the names. No, no, no, no, no. No, we do not eat these anymore. Pupo es animal, vaca es animal, pollo es animal. Like it goes, and he recognizes that, yeah, these are all animals, my love. These are we were eating these. I remember you sent me that video. Your jaw will just drop seeing this video. That was beautiful. I know he's very sweet. Well, I digress because we were talking about 100th monkey and the point.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

So that was the first addendum. So the second addendum I wanted to say was about ambition. I just had a couple more thoughts when we left our last call. And I was thinking that not being ambitious, it doesn't mean that you're lazy or you lack motivation. And it's interesting because the phrasing does impact things for me. If somebody said, Oh, he lacks ambition, I guess I would kind of think of laziness. But if somebody said he is not ambitious, I would think of it more as he's not power hungry. So it's just the wording, but it made me think what are the differences between ambition and laziness and motivation?

SPEAKER_03 11:37

It's crucial because that taxonomy of the difference between ambition and achievement became very important for you because you said you were going through some kind of an application or a survey, and they asked you the question, are you ambitious? Right. Well, if you subscribed to the personality typing definition, and that's what this survey was checking in on, let's say it was for a new job and they want to know if you're ambitious. Well, we learned in episode eight that in personality typing science, ambition is directly related to creativity, productivity, and career success. So if they ask you that, they want to know is this person going to be successful? Are they going to be creative? Are they going to be productive? But let's say they were asking from a different perspective. Let's say they were asking from the Adler perspective or the perspective that ambition is a pathology of people that have low self-esteem and imposter syndrome. Maybe their perspective and the reason why they put it in there is because they want to know if you have that aspect of ambition. So the taxonomy becomes really important because you said on your survey, no, I'm not ambitious. Well, that could have been the end of the interview for you because their version was the one that said whether you're going to be successful. Whereas another organization might have wanted to know if you're going to have an inferiority complex. And that's why you look at ambition. So that was very curious to me.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Well, I think that's why online forms are so what's the right word? Misleading, because they're out of context. You know, when you just have to check a box, you're not giving the full context of something, or even medical forms, let's say. There's not the full context behind why you're giving that answer.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Yes. And it drives me crazy as an it depends person. And I know I drive you too crazy as an it depends person. But when you ask me a question, there's just so much complexity to what people ask often that the answer can't just be yes or no. It's it depends on where you're coming from and where I'm coming from. One of my professors said a very wise thing to me that I always reflect on. She said, There's no such thing as communication. And she was one of the foremost researchers in communication research in the United States. She said, There's no such thing as communication. There's only minimizing miscommunication. Because so many people have so many different perceptions and complexities and directions that they came from and ways they were raised that we are we can think we're saying the exact same words, but they carry a completely different weight. That's really important to make that point. Wow. Say it again. Say it the way she said it again. Well, if I said the way she said it, she would be looking at me in an angry way and wagging her finger about something I did wrong in my dissertation.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

I know exactly which professor you're talking about, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

I refuse to name them. But she was brilliant, by the way, and very, very impressive person and researcher. But she said there's no such thing as communication. There is only minimizing miscommunication.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah. So it's so interesting because I think people forget that part of communication is not just the words, it's the facial expressions, it's the tone of voice, it's the cadence, the body language. And I think people aren't aware of themselves. I once had a really wonderful boss and mentor, you, who helped me be mindful of my facial expressions and body language in nonverbals, nonverbal cues. You could be agreeing and smiling, but have a different kind of body language that shows that you're really irritated, even though you have a fake smile on your face, you know.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Or not having a poker face and saying one thing, but your face gives away everything.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah. In the job I had after we worked together in the conference room, they had a picture on one end. And so I would sit across from this picture on the wall that had like a reflection, and I could see myself. And I would specifically sit there so I could monitor my face.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Oh, that's so smart.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, yeah. And now on Zoom calls, of course, you can just see yourself.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

And yes, what a great way to learn though. What you're doing because you're not always on a Zoom call. I mean, it feels like we always are on Zoom calls, but we're feels like I'm always on a Zoom call.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

What I thought you were going to say, one of the things important to communication, not only saying what you have to say, is having it be understood. Because that's one of the things that I think people forget is that they're saying things and they understand what they're saying, but they're not trying to ensure that the person that they're speaking to is actually understanding what they're saying. And so that's why active listening is so important. Watching those body cues, watching those signals, but also listening to what they're saying and then repeating back to them. Okay, help me understand, or is it correct that you're saying, or can you repeat what you said to make sure? Because research shows that when we start speaking, people listen to only, I'm going to make this number up, so forgive me, but it's something like they only listen to the first eight seconds of what we have to say, or 10 seconds of what we have to say, and then they start thinking about how they're going to respond. So everything we say after that then gets lost in this huge cloud of them thinking and half listening and I'm glad you just said that because I thought it was just my family.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

No, but it turns out it's not. That's good to know. I took a discourse analysis class once, and the professor pointed out that I start many of my sentences with the word listen. I say listen and then I talk because I'm not always used to people actually listening.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

So that is such a good point. I mean, especially in certain cultures, and I keep talking about being from an Italian family. I mean, just go to one holiday and you'll understand why that would be it's really true.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

And I do it too. I'm the exact same way, but I try hard not to. Anyway, I digressed again. I do have other addendums. We've been talking through a couple of episodes about the Catellus family that I used to babysit for, who I love. They're famous now, as far as they're totally famous. I know, I know, it's wonderful. And Evan, the younger one, has the band Melody Bridge. And I wasn't sure if Ian, the older one, still plays music. Well, Ian got in touch with me, and it was so wonderful to hear from him. Randomly, or did you listen to the podcast? He listened to the podcast because I tagged his brother. He listened to the podcast and he just called to catch up. And it turns out he does play music, and it's I'm got chills just thinking about it. He plays more like worship music, very spiritual music, and his voice is gorgeous. I asked him if he has the name of a band. He doesn't yet. He plays sometimes with his brother, but he is still playing music. And so I thought that was very important to note.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

You sent me one of his songs, and I agree with you. His voice, it's so lovely, and the way that he comes across, it's just a beautiful song. And who knows, maybe we can have him on one day and he can sing for us because that yeah, it was enchanting.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

It was exactly it was, it was beautiful. And what was weird is that it really spoke to what I've been feeling in my life lately. So then he sent it to me and I'm like, oh my god, like how did he know? You know, like amazing.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

One of those sad winks, yep. One of the reasons why I would like to have him on is because it would be really fun to ask him what you were like as a babysitter.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Oh my gosh, I wonder if he remembers. But yeah, I would be curious about his perspective. I was really like casual and easy as a babysitter. I was just like, yeah, just brush your teeth. I didn't even have to. He wrangled his two younger brothers, and they were just so good. I loved babysitting them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

I did also want to say, and this makes me so sad, but I looked up Mr. West Herasta that we were talking about last week. Oh, yeah. His name is Chris West Herasta. And when I first looked him up, there was all this stuff about being a Buddhist scholar and a Buddhist writer and a teacher. And I was excited because I was thinking that it was current, but I looked further and I found that he passed away in 2007. Yeah. That was a good one. Oh, that was so long ago. Yeah, almost 20 years ago. Yeah. But I did want to give that follow-up and just say I'm glad that he's still remembered.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

And you said he was a Buddhist, so he crossed the bridge and in his belief system, he is in an amazing place right now.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. Yes. So those were the addendums. I do have a couple of new items I want to talk about, but first I want to see if you've got addendums.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

I do because I have addendums to your addendums. Oh my gosh. And I didn't want to interrupt you in the middle of them, but they are related to some of the things that you talked about, which were some of the things that we talked about in the last episode. The first one is related to the hundredth monkey. Okay. Some debunking going on with that. And it made me think about something I brought up in a much earlier episode called the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle. Do you remember me talking about that?

SPEAKER_02 21:10

I do, and I've been wanting to hear ever since.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Okay, so the bullshit asymmetry principle, I'm not sure I should keep saying it because I noticed that after we post our podcast, it gets a rating and it says whether it has a clean rating or not. And I'm sure what flax what would be the unclean version? I hope it would be more than just saying that word, but you have no idea. You never know. So I'll just I'm going to say the bull hoop asymmetry principle.

unknown 21:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

So, but it's also known as Brandolini's Law. And it was coined by this Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini in 2013. And Brandolini was saying that there's this massive imbalance in time, energy, and effort between fabricating a claim and then fact checking it or debunking or determining. Discrediting it. So he basically said that while misinformations or falsehoods or fallacies can be created in just a few seconds, refuting them requires really careful and time-consuming research and evidence gathering and really good communication skills to communicate them. This for me is very important because in public health we have some challenges with misinformation and miscommunications. And now these terms like fake news have become really popular in mainstream society and pop culture. But this asymmetry dynamic, it creates these incredible challenges in communication and information ecosystems. And it's actually consciously used as a strategy by people who use it or wield it to influence others to think or behave a certain way or disrupt processes or systems. And there's three challenges in particular. Now, remind me as I start going through this that we have three because I'm sure that my thought frame is going to derail with this one because it's just so fascinating to me. So the first challenge of this asymmetry dynamic is information overload. And it's that misinformers intentionally use tactics like there's two that are called the gish gallop and the fire hose of falsehoods to overwhelm opponents with a rapid series of claims that are physically impossible to fully debunk in real time. And this stood out to me so much because you said something to me once and it was so wise, and I never forgot it. And you were talking just now about your course in discourse, and you said to me that you were really frustrated because somebody was arguing and they were arguing well and they were talking quickly. And you said you were frustrated because just because they can debate better than me or argue better than me doesn't mean they're right or what they're saying is true.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah, it's interesting because we I think we saw the gish gallop uh method. I knew what that was because I'd looked it up before in some of the presidential debates. And it's true. People that are overwhelming you or interrupting you or not really giving you a chance to say and discombobulating you basically. And right, just because you can argue better doesn't mean you're right.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

And for people that haven't heard of it before, the Gish Gallop's a debate technique, an actual debate technique where a speaker intentionally overwhelms their opponent with this barrage of weak or misleading or irrelevant arguments. They don't have to be actual good arguments because they know that their opponent can't address them in the limited time they have available.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

And then the second one is that fire hose of falsehoods or fallacies. It's kind of similar. The Rand Corporation came up with that label. It's a modern propaganda technique. It's used by people and governments, and that's also meant to overwhelm audiences. It uses multiple channels at the same time. It's continuous and repetitive because communication science discovered that humans often mistake repetition for the truth. If they hear a falsehood again and again and again, it can become truth. And then that fire hose fallacy also embraces chaos. It offers all these different and contradictory narratives just for the purpose of confusing listeners. And it has nothing to do with the truth. It focuses on emotional appeals over factual accuracy. So I would say, too, that RAND report, it's got a full psychological breakdown on that approach. And then it's also got ways to defend against it. So things like pre-bunking, so we can forewarn an audience about misinformation before they're exposed to it, so that when they hear the misinformation, they think, uh-uh, somebody already warned me that this is going to come out. And then also inoculation is another technique that Rand talks about. It's building audience resistance by exposing them to the weakened versions of the arguments they'll face. So you're talking about social contagion. Well, if people have already been inoculated against the misinformation, then that can help them resist the misinformation when it comes up. And then the last one is filling the vacuum. So reaching the audience first with factual narratives so that they have this information rather than reacting to the myths and having nothing to fill that vacuum of lack of information.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

That's so interesting. Now, is all of that underneath the first challenge?

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Bless your heart. I love you. Thank you for meditating my train to read. Okay, so trying to stay on track here. So that was one of the three challenges of the bull poop asymmetry effect. The second one is cognitive biases because correcting claims takes so long, the false information often gets repeated and takes hold first. And then the third challenge is the burden of proof. So the people that create misinformation, they often shift the burden of disproof onto their audience or critics and then force them to do the heavy lifting. So when a critic protests something as misinformation or fake news and says, no, that's not true, then the person that created it will say, Oh, you don't agree? Cool, then prove me wrong. Right. And then the critic has to deal with the asymmetry of what it takes to respond to a false claim versus the very quick nature of that false claim.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

So other than the solutions that the RAND report gives for information overload, what did he say could be done to combat this or oppose this?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Yes, I'm so glad you asked that. Because one of the things that I like to train in is critical thinking. There's different ways we can address misinformation. One is just knowing that these techniques exist and that they're not only out there, but they're being used all the time. Another way that we can counteract it is not being so quick to just believe what someone says, no matter what credentials they have or what they say or how confidently they say it, or whether they're friends of ours, or whether they're on a podcast and they talk about the hundredth monkey and you really want to believe it. And then three, always fact-check, always fact-check. Three is pausing after you are aware that the techniques exist and after we're not so quick to believe. Pausing and using our critical thinking skills to actually consider what's being said and then fact-check it. Just check on it, just do a quick search because most of the time when people come to me and say, is this true? I'll say to them, I don't know. Did you check it? Did you look it up? And they haven't. And I will literally search for three seconds and I'll find out right away that it's not true. And one of the ways that I do that is whatever you want to know if it's true or not, put that in with the word scam. Oh, right. I do this right away. Yes, and right away you'll see it will come up with, oh, scam, da-da-da-da-da, and it will give you the correct information.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

It's interesting. There are some sites they specifically debunk or affirm certain news, like Snopes. That's one of them.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Yes, I was just going to say Snopes is one of the ones that I really like because they cover a range of topics, but there's another one too, and it's by a major source, and I can't remember it either, but we'll look that up and we'll come back to that. I can't either. Yeah. Yeah. So those are some ways that we can address those things. That's why I wanted it from the 100th monkey. I thought that was a good way to segue into the bull poop asymmetry effect.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

And just the title of it is interesting. I know.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

So that's one of the addendums to your addendum on the 100th monkey. And then another addendum I had is about ambition. In episode eight, we talked about avant fear dagsu. You really do that well. Thank you. Because I kind of learned how to sort of pronounce that more corrector-ish. Avant means evening. Avant fear dagsa, four days evening walk. I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

I'm so proud of myself.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

I'm so proud of you. Thank you. A side note that I am missing is a crucial element that Dutch native speakers include and also Germans and some other languages. And that's that raspy sound. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do know what you're talking about. I learned that it's called a uvular fricative. Oh my god, I love that. Uvular fricative. Yes, you know the uvula that comes down in the front of our throat. Yeah. When there's a g in English, we pronounce it as g, right? Good. Yeah. But when the Dutch use it, they constrict their throat and then they force air through that gap and it scrapes across the uvula. So their G's and also their CHs sound like as in. Yes, yes. That was great. You're sounding kind of like between a gr and a purr. Like you were purring a little bit. It felt like I was purring. Yes, but it was great. Thank you. I'm I'm by no means an expert, but as in we say van Gogh in English, but van Gogh is the way that we say it. Yeah. Or avant vier dachse, right? Okay, yeah, yeah. And Germans use it too, like the musician Bach, and then the Scottish use it in words like loch, like those little inlets where the Lochness monster lives. Yeah. But I digress again. So we talked about avant vierdachse as a symbol of Dutch values, like work-life balance and allowing school children to be children. And you asked, based on our discussions about ambition versus achievement, were the Dutch ambitious? Yeah. Well, my YouTube algorithm caught my searches for avant fear dachse, and it started serving me everything you could imagine about the Netherlands. Anything you want to know, I can tell you now. But one of the things I got was a video by a fascinating articulate YouTuber called Frami Kwame, I think his name was. And the title of it was called The Invisible Wall: What the Netherlands Reveals About Belonging. Oh, interesting. It is. And in it, he talks about his experiences as an immigrant from Ghana to the Netherlands. Because remember that Ghana was once a Dutch colony. And he explains that his first impressions when he emigrated to Holland was why the Dutch don't have curtains on their windows and you can see right into their house and into their life. And he coming as a new person to the country, he construed that as a Ghanaian. I don't know if that's how you pronounce a person from Ghana. As welcoming or warmth, like we're here, come on in. But he says in the Dutch culture, it's actually got its roots in moral transparency and accountability. And he learned that saying we will not hide ourselves from you is not saying come in. Interesting. Yes, I thought so too. So back to the question about are the Dutch ambitious? In his video, he mentions the Dutch word, oof, let's try this ranour. I don't, that's horrible. Again, I'm gonna have to keep working on that. Trying to use my uvular fricative, but it translates to enough. Oh, and it represents that practical Dutch mindset of knowing when to stop chasing excess and how to be satisfied with what you have and the value of setting boundaries around your time and energy. Oh my gosh, I love this. I know, and it's tied to several Dutch beliefs about ambition. And so when I saw that, I thought, oh, this is what we were talking about. So do you want to hear about it? I want to hear. So the first one is social egalitarianism. That's basically the belief that all people deserve equal social status and rights and opportunities, regardless of their background. And there's another famous Dutch saying that I'm not even going to try here, but it translates to just act normal. That's already crazy enough. And it reflects that social egalitarianism mindset. It tries to encourage a balanced, grounded lifestyle, and it discourages here's your ambition and what we talked about last time about some people that are ambitious just wanting to be recognized. It discourages boasting, it discourages demanding special attention, and it discourages pursuing unnecessary extremes, rejecting the negative aspects of ambition. I'm so surprised that there actually was an answer. Yeah, and the other aspects of the Ganuk is work-life balance, which we talked about a little bit, the pursuit of Ganuk or enough. It helps prevent burnout, but it helps prevent the glorification of burnout. Because in some cultures, what have we said? It's kind of this glory, it's a badge of honor to be burnt out because that means that you worked so hard that you got burnt out. So rather than constantly striving for maximum productivity, the Dutch prioritize living a simple, comfortable life where working enough is sufficient.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Oh my gosh, I really like that. And it reminds me of that good enough job book, you know, that book, The Good Enough Job, where it's basically saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Yes. And I wonder now that you say this, I wonder if it's rooted in this Dutch idea of Nixon, because that's the last concept here. Nixon translates to doing nothing. And this practice is rooted in the idea that having enough means you don't always need to be achieving. And it's an art, it's the art of purposefully doing nothing, like intentionally staring out a window or intentionally daydreaming without a specific goal or purpose. And it's primarily a way to give your brain a rest and reduce your stress and prevent burnout.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

I'm so curious now about stress research with the Dutch, and you know how they have research on meditators and cortisol levels and things like that. Because it seems to me like it would be similar with Dutch people, like just staring out the window would have the same result. But I wonder if it does. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Yes, so interesting. More will be revealed.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

You do make me you make me want to learn more about the Dutch. Yeah. So thank you. That was really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Yes, definitely. And then I have some new things too, but you had some new things as well. Those were the only uh addendums that I had to your addendums, I think.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Okay, yeah, I do have some interesting things that I discovered this last week. One of them is the term white widow. Have you heard of that? A white widow?

SPEAKER_03 36:44

White widow, no.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Yeah. So I'm reading this book called Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna. You would love this. It takes place in southern Italy, and it is an Italian term for a woman back in the early 1900s whose husband emigrated for work and left the family behind. They call that a white widow.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Wow. So they're still alive. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

But they, oh, but they're not there. And they, yeah, they just kind of left the family. And then the other thing that I learned this week is I read an article about a man who was found, found dead, but fully preserved after being in a glacier for 28 years. And the article was talking about how climate change is melting glaciers. And part of the result of that is that people who have gone missing are being found in the ice, fully preserved.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

It's amazing. There are going to be so many layers of humans that are found, I would imagine, in the permafrost and all of the different layers of ice that end up melting.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah. And then the article was saying that it's the extreme cold temperatures, the lack of oxygen, and the lack of microbes, it just drastically slowed down the rate of decomposition and it preserved for 28 years, like you can still recognize this person. I just thought that that was an interesting article this week. I was like, wow, who knew?

SPEAKER_03 38:08

That is interesting. And that aligns with things I've been seeing about Mount Everest, that there were people that have been missing, that they weren't able to go up and reclaim their bodies because of storm conditions and because it dumped so much snow and it dumped so much ice over the years. And so there's just been a grave there that maybe they marked, or maybe not even a grave, but that slowly people are becoming uncovered and they're able to return them to their families. Along the same lines, I've been reading about massive lakes that have been drying up that have been revealing villages and shipwreck and all kinds of artifacts that have been covered in huge amounts of water for hundreds and even thousands of years. Oh my gosh, I want to read about that.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

That's really interesting. In this particular article, they were talking about the sense of closure, but also the renewed sense of grief that some of the families were feeling, you know, discovering the remains of their loved ones. It was an interesting article. I'd be curious to read the one that you just mentioned about the lakes drying up.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

There's been quite a few of them, and it's a major lake. I can't remember which one in particular it is, but I'll definitely get that to you. The article that you had sent me, one of the discoveries was a couple that were shepherds and they were tending, well, I guess they weren't shepherds, but they were tending their cattle flock. Yeah. What herd? Maybe cattle? Herd, herd.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Oh, but don't you love that? All those different words for collections of animals, like a murder of crows? Murder of crows, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Oh, we'll definitely have to have an episode of the colours. Yeah, we do, we do include that. They said that they both fell down a crevasse with some of their herd, and nobody had ever heard from them after that or seen them, and they found them. And so they were able to restore them to their families. But the same thing, they were almost perfectly preserved with everything that they had fallen down with. Yeah. I mean, it's just incredible.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

The last new topic I have sort of relates to what we were discussing earlier with mirror neurons, because our bodies and minds have developed these intricate systems for synchronizing with other people, and it shapes our neural development, our gene expression, it regulates our stress. So I was reading this article by a psychiatrist named Pamela Cantor. She's a child and adolescent psychiatrist. And she was explaining that the human brain weighs about two and a half pounds and consumes roughly 25% of the energy that your body uses in a given day. Oh yeah, I know. Who knew? And that brain cells have a problem, though, because they can't store oxygen and glucose. So the only way that the brain gets energy is through blood perfusion. And blood perfusion is basically where blood travels through the brain and delivers oxygen and glucose. Okay. And so one of the ways to create blood perfusion is through human connection. And that when you have human connection, there's a cascade of neurochemistry that's activated. It's led by the hormone oxytocin. It's joined by dopamine and several other chemicals. And specifically, oxytocin has this enormous influence on the vasculature of the brain that drives blood perfusion. So the technical term for this, which I love, is called neurovascular coupling. Neurovascular coupling. Yep. And so what she was saying is that she was talking about teens, I guess, because their brains are still developing, but I do think this would be true of older people as well. She was saying that nurturance leads to brain growth. She says that this is why love matters not only as a feeling, but as a biological event. And that kind of reminds me of our, we always discuss the idea of the carpet monkey mama with Romanian orphanages, where even though the infants were fed, they weren't nurtured, they weren't spoken to, they weren't loved, they weren't held. And so their brains developed to be measurably smaller in the absence of connection. And so basically the gist of her article was she says when screens outpace time with other humans, the oxytocin system won't be stimulated. And the neural cocktail that energizes the brain, reduces stress, drives curiosity and engagement is dramatically reduced. Perfusion to the brain decreases. The neural pathways that grow with connection don't get built. And so I think it's really interesting, especially because I was saying this past weekend to a friend of mine that it literally feels during the week like I'm holding my breath at the bottom of a pool. And on the weekend, I come up and I'm like, and I can breathe. And it's what I was referring to was that during the week, I get so tired with the work day. I work remotely that by the end of the day, I'm too tired to do anything. So I don't really see people and I don't connect and I feel uh brittle from it. And then on the weekend, I feel like I'm a plant that just got watered.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

And oh my God, there's people because you have more blood pure perfusion going through. And you have more neurovascular coupling then. Yeah. When you're talking to those people, oh my gosh, that's so fascinating to me. Isn't it? I think yes. And as an aside, can you tell that instead of saying interesting, I've been using fascinating this week because I noticed I use the word interesting too much. This, I love this. I would love to learn more about this and understand this more. When you talk about the carpet monkey mamas and the orphanage and that very famous study, it made me think about something really beautiful that one of our guests, Rich Morey, said a couple of weeks ago. His song was about love. I had asked him a question about that. And he said, I really do think love is so important. And he said, I have no evidence for that, but what I do have. Have evidence for is what happens when you don't have it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

And so what you just said really made me think about the way he expressed it so much better than I did, obviously. But when he said that, whoa, that was really powerful to me.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

And to love the way that we're meant to. And the way that we're made, love. And the way that we're made. Yeah. And it's it's true what she says that love is not just a feeling, it's a biological event. I was like, oh my God, with oxytocin. And then oxytocin plays a role. And you know, I love science. So this was just it was just more information that backs up the idea that we need human connection. Mirror neurons back up that idea. She says in this article, we are made to connect. We are not. Like Rich said, we're made to love. Yeah, she talks in here about here. This is what she says that we are social creatures and that our brains have a social core that didn't evolve to solve abstract math problems. That's true. Um, but instead to navigate the complex terrain of social relationships. And back to, I think, the very first episode, or maybe we talked about this in the episode where we had Shannon, the swimmer, that whales have a very enlarged part of their brain that is for their social connection. And I think that part of what's happening is that evolution cannot keep up with technology. So we are here and evolved to do one thing and be one way, but some of the systems we've created go counter to that.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

Yes, brilliant. Whoa, there's a lot going on in my head right now with all of those things that you talked about. You mentioned something, and that was carpet monkey mama. Yes. Do you want to mention? You describe it. Well, we won't talk about it because it's huge, but Bowlby was a researcher that came up with attachment theory. And in attachment theory, one of the experiments that they did was they had baby monkeys and they took them away from the mothers. And with some of the babies, they gave it back to the mother, but they weren't allowed to go near or touch the mother. And then some of the baby monkeys, they had nothing in the cage. And then other monkeys, they gave them this monkey made out of carpet that looked like the size a mama monkey would be, and it had a bottle sticking out of its chest. And so each of the baby monkeys, they had those different environments. And what they found is that the baby monkey that had what we call the carpet monkey mama, it fared better than did the monkey who had the actual mama in the cage with them but wasn't allowed to touch them. That's a really cursory explanation. And some of it might be a little bit inaccurate, but the point was that even if they have the mother there, if the mother doesn't touch them, what ends up happening is over time they end up having these attachment disorders because of that. Even the monkeys that didn't have anything did better than the monkeys that had the mama but weren't allowed to touch them. And then of course the ones that didn't have anything didn't do as well as the monkeys that had the carpet monkey mama there.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Thank you for explaining that.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

Yes, that's just a quick explanation. But one of the things I just wanted to mention, and this is, I think, a good example of how misinformation can be created, and this is how misinformation gets created is I noticed that you said that the brain uses up 25% of our energy expenditure during the day. Yeah, that's what it said. Yeah, and then the blood perfusion is related to that, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

So the blood perfusion is when blood flows through the brain, it delivers oxygen and fuel to the brain.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Yes. And so, and that uses up 25% of the energy and fuel during our day.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah, so the blood perfusion is stimulated by oxytocin.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Okay, and so if I was going to take these pieces and put them together and say that being with people creates this neurovascular coupling. The neurovascular coupling creates this blood perfusion. The blood perfusion uses up 25% of our energy expenditures during the day. Then actually, what we're saying is that by being around people in your social network, you could lose weight. I love it.

unknown 48:17

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

I love that. Now that has absolutely no backing, but again, that just shows kind of how we can take these pieces and put them together. So, well, it makes sense, right? Misinformation. Yeah. This is correct, and this is correct, and this is correct. Just a hodgepodge of different things coming together and then claiming that they're true. Speaking of hodgepodge, do you want to know about Salama Gundi?

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yes, I almost asked you earlier, and I'm like, don't ask, don't ask. She's gonna tell you. Yes, tell me everything.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

I stumbled upon this when I was looking for other words and phrases to express our everything but the kitchen sink Danish cookie tin chocolate sampler platter episodes where we talk about a mishmash of different topics. And I came across Salama Gundi. You can say it's Salamagundi or Salama Gundi. And I have to tell you, once you say it, you can't stop saying it. It's so much fun. So, you want to know about the etymology of it? Yes, okay. It is a famous eccentric 17th century European salad in upper class households. Oh my gosh, what's in it? Yes, exactly. Okay, so Wikipedia says that it's really more of a concept than a recipe, but it's a huge, grand, showstopping centerpiece of a party table that's built with dozens of wildly different, seemingly disconnected ingredients. The term salmagundi historically became used outside kitchen language, they think starting with the French, who had the word salamagundis to describe a disparate assembly of things or ideas or concepts or people forming an incoherent whole. And then it seemed to appear in English for the first time in the 17th century as a dish of cooked meats, seafood, vegetables, fruit, leaves, nuts, and flowers. And it was dressed with oil, vinegar, and spices. Oh wow. In the 18th century, that's when there started to be some recipes for Salama Gundi. The earliest one was in a book called A Collection of Above 300 Receipts in Cookery, Physic, and Surgery for the Use of All Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses by Mary Ketteby. I love all these long titles back then. Me too. Do you want to hear the recipe? The first recipe. Okay, ready? I'm gonna take a deep breath first. Okay. To make a cold hash or salad magundi, take a cold turkey, two cold chickens, or if you have neither, a piece of fine white veal will do. Cut the breasts of these fowls into fair dices and mince all the rest. To the quantity of two chickens, you must take eight or ten large anchovies, wash and bone them, eight large pickled oysters, ten or twelve fine green pickled cucumbers, shred the oysters, the anchovies, the cucumbers, and one whole lemon small. Mix them with the shred meat, lay it in the middle of the dish, lay the dices of the white part round the dish with halved anchovies, whole pickled oysters, quartered cucumbers, sliced lemon, whole pickled mushrooms, capers, or any pickle you like. Cut also some fine lettuce and lay round among the garnish, but put not oil and vinegar to the minced meat till it comes to the table.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Oh my gosh, you read that so well. That was great. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

So there was a later recipe for it in the late 18th century that added boiled eggs, parsley herring, beetroot, and red cabbage. And then it would be laid in rows according to taste, and then the rows get narrower and narrower towards the top, and at the top there was butter.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Oh my gosh, it's so funny because you said laid in rows, and I didn't hear R-O-W-S. I heard R-O-S-E. And so I was like, oh my God, they're eating the roses, but that's well, it's actually it is true.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

It's so interesting you said that because the original recipe, the reason why this book is called Receipts in Cookery, Physic and Surgery for the Use of All Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses, is because the original salads that formed the foundation of this were medicinal herbs. Oh, interesting. So they would use sweet violets, roses, and broom. I'm not sure what broom is, and I didn't look that up, but that's how it started because people wouldn't eat things that weren't cooked, like fruit, raw fruit, you'd never use it. It had to be something that was cooked. But this was different because it started out as raw medicinals, and then they just kept adding things and adding things on to it.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

That's so interesting. As a total aside, it made me think of Olivier salad. Have you ever had that? No, I think I'm pronouncing it right. It's Russian salad. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's got peas and carrots and eggs and pickles.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I just call it a Russian salad. Oh, okay, with quote unquote Russian dressing. It's like the creamy Thousand Island kind of dressing.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

It is so good. My dear friend Rimma made it for me once, and I'm telling you, I just love it. But I think it's also called Olivier salad.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

Oh, it's so nice.

SPEAKER_02 53:21

I'm gonna know that's gonna be next time that'll be an addendum because I'll look that up.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Oh, I love it. There's also a Salamagundi stew. Oh. Because yeah, there was, speaking of asides, there was a Salamagundi Club in Greenwich Village that was founded in 1871 that was originally called the New York Sketch Club. And it's where this group of students at the National Academy of Design in New York and their friends and guests would gather every week on Saturday nights to talk and create, kind of like a form of the Paris Salons we talked about in the episode where we were talking about Gertrude Stein. Everything comes back to Gertrude Stein. And they would serve Salamagundi stew at each meeting.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. Yeah, I know. Were those meetings? Like when was this?

SPEAKER_03 54:07

That well, that's interesting because that started in 1871, but over time it changed and grew, and then they got a new place, and it ended up being a really famous place for art exhibits and art auctions and art classes, the Salamagundi Club. And it was just for men originally, but there was their sister club right around the corner called the Pen and Brush. And the object of the pen and brush was recreation and the promotion of social dialogue. Oh my gosh, we need these kinds of things nowadays.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

That is just so lovely. Actually, in Tampa, I haven't been, I haven't been yet, but I want to go, is a place called Tampa Hackerspace. And apparently it's like a co-working space that also has all the equipment for like woodworking and metallurgy and sewing. It's got all this different equipment you can go and use if you've got a membership. So I want to check it out.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

That's amazing. And did you know? Have you been to the Tampa library lately? The one on Ashley? No, they have the most incredible classes. They don't have geology. Yes, but they have a 3D printer and they've got all kinds of crafting equipment. And I couldn't believe the calendar of classes that they had. I'm gonna do that. One of the next, yes, one of the next episodes. I'll bring it up just because it gives people really good ideas about things that they can do their spare time.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

This has been so exciting and wonderful and enriching. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

Yes, thank you so much. And I hope you just have a beautiful weekend and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 55:41

You too. Bye bye.