Why Optimism is Rational

Welcome to the Second Renaissance podcast. I am James Defleur. >> Greetings. I'm Nov. Welcome to the Second Renaissance. >> Yeah. And today's topic, we're going to talk about optimism and specifically why it's rational to be optimistic. >> Yeah. I think it's kind of illogical not to be optimistic, especially the times that we're living in right now. >> Yeah. Exactly. No. Yeah. I feel like there's like a lot of pessimism in in the world right now in the news and social media and people are like getting bathed in pessimism, but this

actually scientifically leads to worse outcomes and like being optimistic actually leads to better outcomes. >> True. I was just thinking like if I had a dating profile, not that I do have a dating profile, but it would read something like allergic to negativity because I think Yeah, I think that's probably the number one turnoff for me. >> Oh, yeah. Absolutely. No, negativity is like contagious. >> Yeah, exactly. It'll kind of pull you down. >> But optimism is also contagious, >> right? >> See See how you flip that? Yeah. >> Yeah.

Exactly. No, when you're like around like a good times wizard. >> Yeah. And I feel like that energy will just like pull you up. >> Yeah. Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah, that's some of the stuff I want to talk about today. There's like optimism's effects on you individually and like >> actually your physiology, your biochemistry and your actions and your outcomes and then also how your beliefs like whether they're optimistic or pessimistic of other people in the world actually reflect onto people and it becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

>> True. Well, I think we're basically serial optimists, bro. like we're launching a podcast in the middle of like World War II right now and we're kind of doing whatever we can to kind of spread good times and good information and good messaging. >> No, exactly. That is like the second renaissance like a time of great change but also a time of great opportunity >> and it's kind of like the war of ideas right now. It's like what was that parable with the two wolves inside of you? >> The Yeah,

the war of two wolves that was like the Native American one. >> Yeah. where it's like you have two wolves >> or it's it's a little boy asking the chief right? >> The grandfather is explaining to the little boy and he says, if I remember this correctly, says you have two wolves fighting inside you. One is like optimism positivity love compassion >> good times. >> Good times. Right. And then the other one is like greed, anger, resentment, you know, rigidity. >> Exactly. And then the little boy asks the chief, he

thinks about it and he says, "But grandpa, which wolf will win?" >> And then >> whichever one you feed. >> Exactly. >> Oh, that's so awesome. >> The grandpa's like, "Whichever one you feed." >> Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, that's really on point actually because uh some of the stuff I want to talk about is like the it's like a self feedback loop actually that being optimistic rewires your brain to be more optimistic which then leads to like better actions like more actions that have more influence on your outcomes which

then of course lead to better outcomes. >> Yeah. And we're not preaching like delusional panglossian optimism. We're preaching like pretty reasonable optimism because we're pretty reasonable guys. No. Yeah. That's the other thing definitely is like uh the balance between being intellectually rigorous like thinking clearly not just like oh yeah everything's going to be fine everything's going to work out. No you do want to like consider all the possibilities all the outcomes on the side of things working out. >> Exactly. So it's just having like a slight bias towards like the

optimistic belief um because that's pragmatically beneficial. So, like as usually as rational or reasonable thinkers, you want to be unbiased. Like people want to be like, "No, I'm I'm I'm as unbiased as possible." But I think what we would argue is that rational uh is that optimism is the only rational bias. >> Yeah. Because I think every other bias leads you to unfavorable outcomes. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Like you're you're almost shooting yourself in the foot if you're like airing on the side of the pessimistic belief. >> Exactly. Yeah. And I

think that's your superpower is ever since I met you, I would bring these beliefs over nature over nurture from like running or soant memory champions or stuff like that. And I think your superpower was always that ability to air on the side of anyone can do anything. >> Yeah. Exactly. Because it's like we have uncertainty there, right? Which is like where exactly is the boundary? If you want to take nature versus nurture, do we know with 100% confidence like this is 100% genetic only and this is 100% like your lifetime

and you can reshape your neurons and whatnot? We don't know where that border is. So yeah, I think it's actually rational to just heir on the side of well I believe the individual can cultivate any capacity in themselves, right? If you practice something you can get better at that thing. >> Yeah. as opposed to like believing you're cursed from from birth, right? To bring in like the the curse idea. >> It's just an anti-rational belief to be like, "Oh, because I was born this way or because I had this experience

in the past, now I'm permanently going to be like this way and there's nothing I can do about it." >> Right. It's like a life sentence of not being able to improve or not being able to like seek more favorable outcomes. >> Exactly. And what if you're wrong? >> True. >> Yeah. Uh yeah. Anyway, so should I like jump into like the science stacking? >> I think that's like basic like explain why we feel so passionately about that. >> Yeah, exactly. Let me uh >> take a moment. >> Take a

moment >> cuz we have like five beverages here. >> Yeah, exactly. We have our our picked whatever we might feel in the mood for. >> I think this is the biggest stack of beverages I've ever had. Yeah, we like totally prepped everything we might need substance-wise for like I need a little bit more awakeness, a little bit more like relaxation. >> Yeah, >> it's definitely something we're passionate about. >> Definitely tweaking tweaking like the head spaces. Definitely >> why optimism is rational. It starts with um the placebo effect, right? Because

the placebo effect is um >> maybe explain that, bro, just for people who don't know or haven't heard it recently. Yeah, sure. So, in pretty much every scientific study, they realized that someone thinking that they're getting a treatment for something actually resulted in an improvement in whatever the condition was. So, they found so they would give them like a sugar pill, right? So, oh, we have to see if this medicine works or not. So, let's split the group 50/50. Give one the medicine, give the other one a sugar pill, which

does like absolutely nothing. >> Sugar would give you like a rush though, too, or energy. >> Yeah. No, I mean, there is something in sugar. I wonder if like later studies if they found something like that, they would have switched to something that really does absolutely nothing cuz that's the purpose they're testing it against. And um yeah, so what they found is um in like 50% of the studies or or something like that, the people who just took the sugar pill or took the placebo got the same benefit as the

people who took the medicine. >> That's crazy. Yeah. >> Which is crazy. Like absolutely nothing changed. Well, it shows you how strong your mind is once it's sold on a narrative. >> Yeah, that's the power of belief. If you people who believe they were being treated for something and this had a really wide range. So, it was uh like treating anxiety and depression just thinking they were getting some medicine when they got absolutely nothing. So, they had the belief, oh, I'm going to get better, the symptoms improved. Um, but it's

not just uh stuff like that. It was also like uh the hormones in the body. So, one of the crazier studies was this milkshake study. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. >> Oh, has a good remix. Our friend has a good remix of that song. >> That's a sick one. Yeah, we'll have to link that in the comments or something like that. >> Yeah, that one's good. >> Um >> I don't think I've heard the milkshake one. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. So, the milkshake one is crazy. So,

they had a uh like a protein shake or like a a a milkshake or No, it was a milkshake. It was like an indulgent thing. Okay. >> And it had like uh 400 calories. And they told one group, "This is like a 700 calorie indulgent milkshake." And they told the other one, "This is like a diet milkshake that has like 200 calories." What they found is there's a hormone in the body that makes you hungry or not hungry. >> Ah. >> And what the people who thought they were having an

indulgent milkshake produced three times as much of that of that hormone. So they were more satiated for a longer amount of time. >> Oh wow. >> It was an identical milkshake. >> We should tell that to the like Ozmpic crew. >> Oh okay. Like actually you don't need that. We have something that's like a lot easier. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just like believe >> more natural. Yeah. >> Well, yeah. So that's crazy. So just believing you were having something indulgent made them like satiated for longer. Believing they were having some some

diet food or something. It didn't satiate their hunger. But this is a hormonal change in the body. Like why would the cells of your body know what you're thinking about and and have different responses? So that's kind of the power of the placebo effect. >> Definitely. >> Um, and I feel like this is kind of underappreciated because they used it in scientific studies to test medicines and real treatments as like a baseline, but I feel like as a byproduct, there's now hundreds of thousands of studies that have shown what the

placebo does for people in all these different ranges and contexts. >> Yeah. It's kind of hard to disagree with when you see the science behind the placebo. >> Yeah, exactly. So yeah, let me like okay, it had effects on pain. So it reduces pain, depression and anxiety, immune function. So people's immune system actually got stronger and more efficient from thinking they took something that's going to make it more efficient. >> Um stuff like like IBS, like irritable bowel syndrome. So like the stomach stopped having problems because they thought, "Oh, I'm

getting something that's going to make it better." >> I'm gonna think that next time I eat like a spicy crapow or something. Yeah. The Thai food. The Thai food definitely gets you with the little red peppers in it. >> They can get you for sure. >> Yeah. >> Here's one for you. Insomnia. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. That's definitely one of mine. >> That's why I love those like Thai goodn night gummies. >> Oh, those are good. Yeah. >> They they just have like chamomile and like grape seed extract or something.

>> There's no melatonin or anything. >> There's no melatonin or anything powerful, but I feel like I have the placebo response now cuz I I taste that like grape gummy. I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to sleep good tonight." >> Oh, nice, bro. Yeah, I should stock up on those. >> Yeah. Yeah, those are good ones. Oh yeah, here was a really big one. So for surgery, there's what they call sham surgery. So they do a fake surgery on someone. I think they like maybe cut them open, but they don't actually

change anything. And it was 75% of trials people saw an improvement from thinking they got a surgery when they didn't actually do any surgery. >> What kind of surgery? Like a transplant or something? >> I don't know. No, it wouldn't be like a transplant. I would guess like a knee surgery or something like if you tear your ACL or >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. I don't know the specific details, but that's just like shocking, right? That the body physically mended itself better or people thought they their their issue got better

when they thought they had surgery. Actually, my mom's thinking of doing knee surgery, but we've been telling her to kind of put it off as long as possible. So, maybe a sham surgery is like the 1.0 version of that. >> Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, right? So like placebo is usually in scientific studies of them giving them a medicine or a treatment or something or they thought they were getting a treatment from someone else. But I feel like you can also placebo yourself, right? You can kind of just like

convince yourself that like oh I'm going to get better like you know what's that quote of like if you delude other people but you're the easiest person to delude yourself. >> There's like a quote >> I know the one you're talking about. >> Yeah. It's not delude deceive. I think it's >> Do you want to pull it up or do you want to >> Yeah, I could ask Noito. >> I'll take a rip while you are. >> Yeah. Hey, Noito, we're on the pod. What's the quote that says like you

can deceive other people, but be careful because you're the easiest person to deceive yourself. See what he can do here. >> You can put him up to the mic when you uh play it. >> Yeah. Another one. While this is pulling up, bro, um like what you believe isn't just a mindset. like it's something like your body's listening like you're saying, you know, so it there's literally like chemical changes going on as you're thinking different thoughts. Like words are so powerful and um yeah, it's kind of like the Henry Ford

like if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right cuz your body is going to like self-correct to kind of make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> I had that quote too. I wanted to bring that one up on this pod. Okay. >> I love that one. >> Yeah, that's really I'll just play Noito here quickly. >> Sure. Sure. Fineman, the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. >> Okay, that wasn't exactly what I was thinking, but I've heard

that one, too. >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. >> Fineman has a lot of good stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. Smart guy. Smart wizard for show. >> Yeah. Is he still alive? >> No. No. No. No. >> But um but yeah, so like placeboing yourself. It's kind of like what we talked about on the first one about like casting spells. you're kind of casting spells on yourself because there's also something called the noibo effect which is the opposite. >> That's like a curse. >> Yeah, it's like a curse, right? The the noibo was

when people thought they were like getting something that would um harm them, it actually caused physical harm to them. So I I can't remember the specific examples of this, but like people experience pain. They have this in science. It's like psychossematic pain. Like someone who thinks they're sick or something is wrong with them, their body actually physically manifests symptoms of that thing. >> Yeah, I believe that for sure. That's why a lot of it's even like Ferris Buer's Day Out. Like I think a lot of people who skip school when

they're sick almost like eventually they do get like a real sickness or something after that, you know. >> Did you have that as a kid? I had that that happened to me. >> I think it I remember some day where I was like, "Oh, I really don't want to go to school. Oh, I'm sick." And I like had to pretend act I was sick, but I convinced myself that I was sick and I like actually got sick. >> Well, I think your body kind of closes down or shuts down and

then it's Yeah. It's trying to recover because you're told that it needs to recover. Like you're trying to sleep longer or you're trying to like lie around all day. >> Yeah. Exactly. But but this is shown in placebo studies like your immune system is modulated by your belief. So if you think you're going to get better fast, you actually are more likely to get better fast. And so that's the thing. This isn't like a oh mind over matter like your mind controls the universe thing. It's just you're tipping the probability

slightly in the favor of the positive outcome. >> Definitely. >> Okay. Yeah. And then there's kind of like these optimistic belief self- feedback loops. So one there were these studies on what they call stress mindset. Have you heard these ones? >> Um like kind of what we were talking about before like if you're feeling in a negative headsp space you put more stress or cortisol. Like >> what's your views about stress? So people who had the belief, oh stress like makes me stronger or stress is not bad for you, right?

Some people believe stress is bad for you and you should avoid all stress. >> No, you need some stress for sure. >> Well, people who had the belief stress is like can be beneficial because it like makes you stronger and more resilient where actually more over time they become more able to handle more stress. >> True. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It's just like weight training or something. >> Oh yeah. There's that really good epic Tetus quote on this where he said no matter what happens it is in my power to use

it to my benefit that's that's such a powerful mindset I feel like but yeah so there's like the stress mindset studies there's also the growth mindset studies uh and there they found that some people have a growth mindset some people have a fixed mindset it's related but fixed mindset is like my capabilities are fixed for my life growth mindset is oh I can develop my capabilities and cap capacity. I can continue to learn over time and like get new capabilities. Yeah. And they found people who have the growth mindset are

like way more likely to achieve things because it makes sense, right? >> Definitely. >> That's the Henry Ford quote. Like if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. >> Yeah. >> If you think, "Oh, I have the capacity to grow my abilities." You're more likely to take actions that will result in you actually growing your abilities. If you think you can't do it, then you're not even going to try, right? >> Yeah. You've given up already. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah. In hockey parlance, you miss a

100% of the shots you don't take. >> Oh, yeah. Was that Wayne Gretzky or? >> Yeah, Wayne Gretzky. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. My dad would like that one. >> Nice. But yeah, so the other thing is that they found that you can learn these mindsets. So even your mindsets aren't aren't fixed. So they did gave people like a one-hour seminar on a growth mindset. And they found they were able to like change their belief about their own mindset and then get the benefits of the growth mindset. >> Yeah. Well, it's

kind of like the meditating as well too, right? Like it's another mental model that you can use in situations. >> Yeah. Exactly. And it's uh but this is that spell casting again. You're like casting a spell on yourself or casting a spell on someone else by being like, "Oh, I can I can change my mind and like grow my abilities. I didn't know that. Cool. Oh, the stress is can actually be good for you and help you like grow capacity if you look at it that way. Cool. I'm I'm just

gonna adopt that. I'm gonna try that. And then it's like a muscle, right? So you're like kind of like optimism or optimistic beliefs are almost like a muscle that the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Yeah, definitely. I think sales people are usually really good at that. Like good sales people like they're good at amping themselves up or kind of seeing themselves making the sale before they've done it. positive visualization cuz you're kind of casting a future spell on yourself of going through the motions and like achieving the

sale. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. It's something we used to do like in running as well too like kind of viewing yourself going through the race or visualizing like the best possible outcome. >> Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. Do you want to talk a bit about your background in running? Like >> yeah, I guess I I ran a little bit uh back in the day >> with me and me and Miguel like clown on Nolan that he's like too modest about his running background. He was actually quite competitive. >> Yeah, I

I did represent Canada or I had a few provincial championships back in the day. But I think when I meet people who know about running, then I'll kind of dulge a bit more. But most people don't really know much about running times. like running was kind of a unique sport where it wasn't like mainstream as much especially like middle distance races. I feel like people might know like 100 meters or something like that. >> Yeah, definitely. But I feel like because you had so much experience like you put in your

10,000 hours in running you learn a lot of things from that, right? Like >> I think that mindset carried forward to today. >> Definitely. Yeah. And I think the muscle memory or even like the mental memory like what we're talking about now of knowing how to like focus, how to train, like I don't think you really lose those things. >> Well, and I think it's really interesting that like we can come at this from totally different backgrounds, but you learn some of the same like meta principles like about mindset and

and things like that like whether it's in uh athletics or like business or um yeah, like academic competitions like learning. >> No, for sure. Yeah, competition is good. >> Yeah, if you have that mindset to use competition, that's like that stress mindset. Exactly. >> Yeah. And I love the quote also that's like um I either win or I learn. So it's like there's no real bad outcomes because the desired outcome is an opportunity to like grow and improve and challenge yourself to be greater or better next time. >> Yeah. Exactly.

Right back to that Epictitus quote. Exactly. Like it's just how do I figure out how this is beneficial to me? Like what can I take out of this situation? Even if it's like a shitty situation. It's like what can I learn from this to to help grow my capacity? And if you have that mindset, it just flips everything into like a training exercise. >> True. Yeah. My dad used to say like we'll just think of it as training. Like if we were complaining about carrying groceries or like doing some yard

work or something like that, my dad's like, "Okay, how do I gify my two sons who are really competitive like in the 800 meters again?" He's like, "Oh, well, think of it as training." And then it became like more of a race, like who could cut the shrubs faster, like who could carry, you know, >> you guys always have the groceries in and like in like under 60 seconds. >> Yeah. Yeah. My dad, he had some he had some good like wagers for us. >> Nice. Nice. Okay. So, for number

two or the second topic, bro, I wrote uh the pragmatist wager, >> which I think >> that's one of my favorites. >> Yeah. So, I'll deflur to you on this definition. >> Yeah. So, the pragmatist wager is something I formulated cuz there's Pascal's wager, which like many people are familiar with, but um it's not that important for the topic of this, but he was thinking in terms of like probabilities of outcomes and using that as a logical decision matrix. And there's like flaws with Pascal's wager, but um the pragmatist wager

is essentially so pragmatism is like looking at outcomes like what actually affects your outcomes in real life. And it's looking at a decision matrix where you have I might be right or I might be wrong about this. And some areas we have genuine uncertainty especially about the future. We don't know anything that's going to happen in the future with 100% certainty. And based on the science stuff, it could almost be like the rationalist wager as well too. Like it's the main topic, right? Like it's rational. Be pragmatic or optimistic. >>

The optimist's wager. Um but yeah, so it's like okay, I have genuine uncertainty about the future. Is it going to be the good outcome or the bad outcome? And also my belief affects the outcomes which we just established in the previous section because of the placebo effect. So if you look at these four things like either I'm right or I'm wrong and I and if I believe in the positive outcome, I actually influence the probabilities that I'm going to get the positive outcome even if it's totally wrong. Right. >> You

have the big mo on your side, the big momentum on your side. >> Yeah. Exactly. Just from the placebo effect. You believed in something that wasn't true. Like you took a sugar pill and thought it was medicine and you just fully believed in that. You still get the positive outcome even though your belief was wrong. Now, um, and then if your belief is right, you kind of just multiply that with the placebo effect. You get even more benefits from your right belief. Now, if it, uh, if you believe against it,

you bet against it and you're believing like the, um, the pessimistic belief, then even if you're right, you still like anti-placebo yourself into a worse outcome. >> You nobo yourself. Yeah. There's no upside with pessimism. In both cases, believing in the optimistic outcome leads to a better outcome whether you're right or wrong. >> True. >> I have to like pull up a diagram to like display or represent this. >> No, I think that would be a good one. >> So to ground this with like an example, you can have like

in this age where AI is disrupting everything and some people are like, "Oh, AI is going to take all the jobs like humans aren't going to have any jobs." But it's also possible just like in the industrial revolution and you know other revolutions throughout history that new jobs are created and it's from humans learning how to use the AI tools. >> Oh yeah, there's jobs we haven't even thought about yet. >> Yeah, exactly. And so there's the belief, oh, humans are going to be completely removed from the loop and we

won't be able to have any work. And there's a belief, oh, humans will still find ways to like optimize things and be really useful. We don't know which one of these is true because no one knows the future with 100% certainty. People have like strong beliefs or opinions about these things. So just believing in the positive outcome like oh I can create new opportunities for myself by staying up to date with AI and how is the job market evolving and where are there going to be opportunities? I'll be able to

thrive in this new economy. >> Yeah, definitely. So I think it does pay like you're kind of taking the optimist or the pragmatist wager by staying up to date on things. >> Yeah. I guess in this context we can just call it the optimist wager cuz it's like uh >> well I guess they're basically the same. >> The pragmatist wager is just a more general like which belief is going to benefit me. And you have to use that as a factor in the decision make in the belief making process. >>

Actually an optimist is wager is kind of the earlier version of it like a 1.0 know >> where it's like if I just have a positive mind about everything the universe should align or be on my side. >> It's quite simple. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like okay yeah if you just want to very simple decision-m heristic just like generally believe in an optimistic outcome of things in the future and and this isn't like oh just hope and and pray and everything will work out like you still have to take action.

So, it's more believing in optimistic beliefs about my own agency, my own ability to adapt and also humanity's ability to like figure things out and make things work because we we always have historically like there's been plenty of hard times historically, but like humanity's always kind of figured things out and even if it seems kind of hopeless >> and there will be chaos along the way too. >> Yeah. Abs. Yeah, exactly. It's not denying that there will be like chaos, there will be disruption, transition, but even things even if there's

only like a 1% chance of of humanity like coming out on top >> by believing, oh, we got this, like humanity is going to figure this out, you you're multiplying that percentage, you might double it, you might 5x it. So, it's like in alli in all cases, no matter how hopeless it seems, holding the optimistic belief is like rational. It increases the odds of the good outcome unless you're unless you don't want the good outcome. >> Yeah. And to be fair, those good times aren't for everyone. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I was thinking like uh like the optimistic wager or the pragmatic wager. It's similar to the clown wager in some ways where it's like you have unlimited upside with almost zero downside. >> Wait, what's the clown wager? >> Well, the clown wager is kind of Ricky Jerve like if you think of something funny, you have to say it. win, lose, or draw. >> Okay. >> But like I was saying before we started, like, do you really lose even if like there's a joke that doesn't land really well? Cuz

then it gets back to either I win or I learn. So if you're still learning along the way, like clowning is kind of like a muscle as well too that needs to be developed. >> Oh, so you mean like if the joke doesn't land, as long as you're taking in that that feedback as information, you improve your clowning ability. >> Yeah, exactly. So like in the future your clowns are going to be more calibrated. >> Definitely. And also because different jokes or cultures have like different styles of humor. So different

jokes will land very differently even if you can translate them. And then sometimes like when we were shopping yesterday, we're like, "Oh, that word must mean something in their language because they're perceiving something that wasn't even intentionally funny." So, I was like, "Okay, this is like that's almost like the the clown wager on steroids where it's like I wasn't even trying to think of something funny, but they're cracking up about it." So, that's almost like a selling point for the clown wager even more. >> Yeah, I love that. Like, yeah,

yesterday we were just buying some cables for the the podcast setup >> and we were riffing with the ladies in the store. It was like the the middle-aged Thai ladies at the store who ran this little electronic shop with just some random cables, like really really like cheap components and stuff like that. And we couldn't really communicate with them, >> but their energy was so good that like our little bit of communication with them was so it was fun for both of us. >> No, exactly. We were all having like

really hearty laughs, right? Like even with just these little miscommunications and stuff like that. >> Yeah. >> I feel like that just uh it improves like the quality of life for everyone, right? cuz you produce more dopamine in the bra. Like everyone gets more dopamine. Everyone gets more like positive feel-good hormones and then you're just carry that over to the rest of your day. >> You don't have to convince me about Thailand being a good place to live. I was already convinced. But no, Thai people's energy is so good. Like

they have like a little trickster energy. >> Very playful. Yeah. >> Yeah. They like to vibe with you or you'll see them like crack up. Like even with the lady cleaning my house today, like she just started cracking up when I was showing her something or like I was like, I guess that's funny. >> Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just looking for the clown, looking for like what's funny about the situation. >> Yeah. Or even if you bump into them or something like that, like other cultures might almost like get

aggressive or like push you. Here they'll almost like tickle you or like oh or like scare you or oh boo or like grab your side or something. It's really fun and playful. >> Yeah. And I noticed that living other other cities too, right? Where cuz like in big cities you there's lots of people around. People can get like pretty serious, right? and just walking place to place with like a scowl and like you order your coffee and you just have like a robotic conversation versus like bringing some playful banter or

like trying to get a smile out of the other person. Like if everyone's doing that, it just ripple effects across the society. >> Yeah. And you're kind of charging off of each other. Like if you run into someone rigid like you both kind of snap or you both have an icy experience. Whereas if you're vi if you're like vibing or joking with someone like you both kind of charge and even if you never see them again it's like that interaction >> will ripple. >> Yeah. And this is kind of related

to the optimist wager too because now we have like 10 wages. >> Well I think people will sense that we really like that term. We like the wager. Everything's a wager because it's like a heristic or a way of thinking where if you know the the formula where it's like oh two possible outcomes like two possible beliefs and one of them influences it in a like it's an energetic direction. Right. >> And because we're pretty reasonable guys I think people will sense like oh those guys will take a reasonable wager.

>> Right. Right. Definitely. >> Yeah. >> Nice little tangent there. So something I wrote down here, bro, like pessimism has literally zero upside. It's the only bet with negative expected value across every possible future. So for me, I think about that from like an investment perspective a lot. Just like we kind of talked about that, but like down days versus up days, like short funds will look good in certain market conditions, but eventually most of those funds will like bleed to death. trying to overread into negativity or finding situations where

there's something wrong where people who are just you more optimistic or for like building and creation as opposed to destruction will literally make more money. So it's like do you like making money? Like if you do then you should just bet on the side of like growth and flourishing. >> Yeah. Yeah. So for in the investing context could you explain like being long and short? >> Sure. Um actually there's a funny uh story about that. I'll lead into it. There's a famous investor called Mark Rogers or sorry, Jim Rogers and

he was explaining to someone about his positioning in the market and she asked him, she's like, "Oh, how do you feel about equity positions right now?" And he's like, "I'm short." And she kind of looks at him like a little bit confused and then he's like, "Yeah, I'm short the market." She's like, "Ah, short the market." And then he's like, "Oh, >> he was saying he was physically short." So, I thought that's really funny way to kind of intro that topic. So being short means you're betting on stocks declining or

equity prices like going down. And there has been there have been really successful investors who have bet against the market and done really well. >> You're betting on a crash, right? You're betting on like a stock market crash. Yeah, >> exactly. So you're right in like a 2008 in a 1929 or a COVID scenario, but like uh even TB figured out, it's not opportune to have like a fund only based on betting on like short events because they don't happen often enough. >> Oh, and and also just the the long

timeline history like the market keeps going up, right? So you're you're more if you're long if you're like betting on stocks and prices going up like on a long timeline you're average more right than the amount of time like being short actually works out. >> True. And I think that's a good way to explain it. Like you're long on humanity. Like you're betting on more flourishing or more growth. So being long you make money as like the world grows and improves and flourishes. >> Yeah. Absolutely. I like that. So if

you're pessimistic you're actually short humanity. You're actually you're betting against humanity. You're betting that humanity is going to decline. If you're optimistic, you're you're just like betting on things will continue to result in increased flourishing because that's happened not only across human history, like a hundred years of the stock market, the US stock market, but also like thousands of years of human history of of building more like structure and integration and working together and flourishing and like all these technology and art and experiences like all these great things we have

in the world today. >> True. And I think the naysayers or the pessimists can come out saying, "Oh, it's going to crash here or this is going to happen." But they're doing that in like an economy that was built by optimists. Like they're living or their job is kind of being supplied by the people who are betting on like more growth. >> Yeah. And >> so it's like ironic >> and and I would even argue that the universe favors optimism. >> Definitely. >> Because if you look at the 13.8 8

billion years of evolution of our universe from like the big bang, things have been coming together into more structure, more complexity, more parts working together to like build things. And then just on Earth, like 3.8 billion years of evolutionary history. So every single one of us who's alive today has like an unbroken chain of of millions or billions of ancestors >> that were optimists >> that were optimists that all survived all figured out how to thrive, how to reproduce. Like if at any point in history the collective species or the

collective world had like failed to do that, things would have just like declined and fell apart. And yeah, those tribes would usually get conquered. Like people who decided like, "Oh, the world's going to end or there's no need to try anymore. The optimists would just like run over them." >> Yeah. So it's like a it's just a game theory strategy. If you're optimistic, then yeah, you kind of like have the force of the universe on your side. And even that is a pragmatist or optimist wager, right? Because even if I

just believe, oh, the universe is on my side, right? like I have these forces of the universe on my side towards like things are going to work out then I'm more likely to act in ways that result in that outcome. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. No, it definitely does. Yeah. So yeah, that's like the >> And I think you embody that like more than anyone. Like I had that image of you that one day when we were um on a journey where I had an image of you like leaping

like a rock climbing leap where I was like you don't know that you can grab the higher ledge, but it's like you're really good at like leaping for the unknown kind of or seeing things like trends in like different markets or different businesses before other people do and you're not even sure that you can do it at that point. But I think you apply the pragmatist wager in such a way that allows you to make those big leaps. >> Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And in the context of a

leap, right, there's like some risk of taking a leap that like you won't make it. So you need the the confidence in your skills and abilities. But I think for me it was the yeah it was the optimist belief of well I don't know exactly how I'm going to do this or how this is going to work out but I have like a strong feeling this can be done or this is going to work out and let me just be open to the exact path of how that works out. >>

No, it served you well. >> Well, yeah. And this is one of those like superpowers like a cognitive superpower if you're able to and it feeds on itself, right? Because there's like this self-recursive feedback loop where if I am optimistic and I think I can figure this out, then I'm more likely to take actions that result in the outcome of me figuring that thing out, even if it's something really small. And then I get this like dopamine feedback loop where and it builds my confidence in myself and then I have

more confidence so I can feed this optimistic belief more. I'm like, well, I figured all these other things out. I can figure this one out. So it's like by by just taking this this leap of faith to be like I'm just going to be optimistic. Let me just try this on small things. You end up building the the belief like ends up supporting itself. It's like a snowball effect kind of. >> Charlie Mer talks about having like a diverse set of tools like knowing a little bit about everything. I mean,

you can know a lot more about one subject, but definitely to be well-rounded in an age of uncertainty is like highly pragmatic. >> Yeah, that's my bet as well. I think it when times are uncertain, like having like a lot of toolkits, a lot of different belief systems that you can like try on and be like, okay, well, does this one work in this situation? >> Am I that guy? >> And this is actually pragmatism. Like pragmatism was William James' philosophy. And he said, "Truth is what works." So most people

are like, "Oh, but is it true? I need to know if it's true before I'm going to believe that." But William James said, "Well, you can some beliefs you actually need to try them to even know if they're true." So this is an interesting example cuz you take like trusting a friend or trusting like a partner in a new relationship. If you enter the relationship being like, "Well, I don't know if I can trust this person." You're gonna act in subtle ways that >> well, you're like, you're cursing them from

the outset. >> You never gave the relationship a chance to know if you could trust them. So, you have to take this leap of faith to be like, well, I'm just going to choose to trust them until I see counter evidence that I can't do this. And then if you trust them, they feel trusted. They're more likely to act in a a way to nurture the relationship. And then that builds evidence that supports the trust over time. So William James argued there's certain beliefs that you have to take the belief

before you see the evidence that will support the belief. Yeah. I mean you just generally you want to bet on the side of evolution. You want to bet on the side of like humanity, consciousness, us getting more intelligent, us figuring more things out, us cooperating better with each other. This is like historically how things have trended. And even though there can be like dark times where it really doesn't look like that's happening and it seems like oh everything's going to go to hell, but it's like you it's really important to

hold that belief as an individual cuz it's going to make you more agentic, you more capable in that environment to like figure things out, learn from stress, learn from hardship, and like build yourself up. and also collectively to humanity. If you like multiply this, if if if less than half of humanity is optimistic, the pessimists are going to win. If more than half of humanity is optimistic, well, the optimists are going to win. And this is historically what has always happened. >> Definitely. Pyon and Gollum effect. So, >> I love

this one. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's really good. Like Pyon is kind of giving the placebo for other people, right? like giving them the benefit of the doubt or how would you explain that? >> Yeah, so the original study on what they call the pyon effect is they took a group of students uh like young kids but this also happens with adults in like the workplace management etc. and they told the teacher this half of the class these are like the the excelled students like they're the really smart kids. This half

of the class they're problem kids and all the kids were identical. They were all average like achievers. And what they found is over time the kids that the teacher were told are gifted students outperformed. They became like they excelled and the kids that the teacher was told are problem students ended up doing worse than average and becoming problematic. So that's kind of crazy, right? The subtle expectation of the teacher being like, "Oh, this is a problem student." And then the way they were treating them actually was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It

created that outcome. So your beliefs, the placebo effect, you're not only like placeboing yourself or casting spells on yourself with optimism or pessimism, but your expectations of others is actually casting spells that like lead to their best outcome or kind of curse them and lead to a really bad outcome for them. >> Yeah. And that one hits really closely home to me because of the guys that I was working with in my previous line of work when I would see people with like schizophrenia. >> What your line of work was

like for the VUD? uh social work, right? I guess you were working with like like >> I was like high-risk individuals primarily or schizophrenics. >> Schizophrenia or behavior problems. >> Yeah. Behavior problems. >> Right. Right. >> Autism, stuff like that. But for me, the schizophrenia was always the most interesting one because I liked how Jung viewed it as like a split brain where he's like schizophrenics are almost lost in the unconscious like they're not able to decipher of when they're like in their subconscious or when they're like in their conscious

environments. So I always found that the most interesting. And so when I would see people having like an outburst or something was agitating them, I always took that kind of pig million wager where it's like if I hold these guys to a higher standard and keep them in like a conscious environment when they are hearing voices or their subconscious is like possessing them, I always felt that I could have an effect on that. And I think I did like I did realize that and I worked a lot with people um

who would have like outbursts like just sporadic where they would kind of like flip out or get very angry suddenly and then you kind of have to unpack that and realize okay it's not this situation that's bothering them. It's their subconscious like possessing them. And a lot of them would have like a friend or an enemy that would be like talking to them or inputting things or their shadow like kind of possessing them in that moment. So I would always try to ground them or bring them back down. And a

lot of times you could deescalate them in a situation where they're very very heightened. So I could see that on like a real world um basis just holding people to a higher standard and expecting that if I ground them or keep them in the conscious often enough that their brain's going to slowly rewire. Yeah. That's what I think is interesting is that you have to think of what story the person is living in in their mind, right? the story of their life that they're inhabiting and how other people play a

role in that story. So some like the schizophrenics for example, what is going on in their mind and their story of what's happening and then you are an input in that if you're another person interacting with them. So if you come in and you're kind of positive and supportive, they're getting more evidence for like it's pulling them out of that story. Whereas if you come in and you scold them or get upset with them or something, they're like it just adds to the chaos kind of. >> Yeah. and they don't

even know what they've done wrong necessarily. Like as you're scolding them or getting angry at them, they might be like, "But that wasn't me." And like it was the voices or that was their like friend on their shoulder telling them to do something bad or say something bad or hit the wall or whatever it might be. >> Yeah. So this is interesting. Do you have can you think of any examples in your life where like someone's expectation of you shaped you into a better version of yourself? >> Yeah. I would

say for like things you excel at at a young age like the Matthew effect kind of like I think at a young age I was kind of told like oh you're good at this like running for example or jumping or something like that. So I started to identify more as someone who could jump or who could run fast or like you know excel in basketball or athletics. So, I think at a young age that became like a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways cuz I spent more time on it or I

tried to kind of live up to other people's expectations of me. I have like the exact example but with math, right? Because I have this memory in first grade where we used to play this math game on the computer and it was like the rocket ship was like time to take off and you had to do all the addition or subtraction problems and finish them in time for the rocket to take off. >> Oh, nice. But this is like, you know, it's like 5 + 7, right? And I remember I

was able to find the answers slightly faster than the other kids. But I was like counting on my legs in first grade. I was like 5 6 7 8 9 10. Right. I would like that's how I would solve it. That was my method. >> What are those things the Asian kids play with the like where they count and then they put the >> Yeah, the abacus. Right. So you were doing that on your leg. >> Yeah. Something like that. But then what happened is all the kids were like, "Oh,

James is really good at math." So they used to like turn to me, they're like, "What's the answer?" And then I had this pressure and I So I started to identify with, "Oh, I'm I'm good at math." So then in second grade, I remember I was like, "Oh, well, this is kind of easy for me." And my mom encouraged me to like or or asked a teacher for like more challenging work. >> Oh, nice. That's similar to my brother, actually. >> Well, and then so I was doing harder math problems

at a younger age, but it was only because I had developed this identity. I'm good at math. And then that self-compounded right in the beginning in first grade the difference was like in 1 second speed of being able to add two numbers or something. But >> you were going full send on the rocket before other people were. >> Yeah. So then but then I had this identity. So and I was a I was a bad student too in terms of like doing my homework or studying for tests. >> But you

could get away with it. You were one of those kids that could like not do your homework and still know the answers in class. >> But I also had this kind of pride where I was like, "Oh well, I'm good at math. I should be able to solve this, right?" So I would I would spend more time on it like trying to solve it. So I mean there is there's probably some genetic difference there in terms of like abilities from a young age but because of how others treat you and

the story you develop around your identity itself compounds. And I think so and this is again the pragmatist wager. I would bet more on it being the time spent and the belief compounding >> that's your superpower >> than I would believing oh it's genetic. It's outside of my control. That's just some people are born good at that and some people aren't. >> Yeah. I remember you and I debating that early on on like the fast twitch fibers like specifically for sprinting. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Yeah. Where I remember being quite

convinced like oh the jumpers or certain sprinters are from certain parts of the world and then it would be based on like genetics and fast twitch fibers and you would agree with some of this stuff but you would also kind of be like but does it benefit you at all to believe that? Like are you likely to run faster or train harder based on knowing that you're not going to win or thinking you're not going to win? >> Sure. Yeah. And it it was that uh they said that African people

had more fast twitch muscle fibers or something and that resulted them being better sprinters. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Yeah. And my my argument was and that may be true. There might be something genetic there, but my argument was Yeah. But in those countries, uh, from like a really young age, from like 3, four, 5 years old, they're like they want to be runners cuz the famous people from their countries are runners. >> Well, like Jamaica. Exactly. Like he's Usain Bolt was like the Wayne Gretzky. Like kids grew up wanting to

be him. >> Yeah. Exactly. Kids aren't like playing outside and like doing whatever. They're like going on races with each other. So my argument was if you're doing that from like 3 years old, would you not develop more fast twitch muscle fibers? Right. And there might be a genetic component, but where is the boundary? Like what percentage of that is from birth? What percentage of that is from the 10,000 hours they put in training that specific thing to get really really good at that? And I would just bet on the

side of why don't I just assume it's almost all like practice. >> True. >> Cuz that's downside in believing in that. Like even if you bring up stats being like, "Oh, how many non-African Olympic gold medalists have there been in the 100 meters?" It would be very very small, especially in the last like 50 years, >> right? But then you have like the cultural belief which is that like if you if you're a Caucasian or or from another country, it's like, "Oh, well, I can't do that because look, they've so

it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in the negative direction." >> Yeah. 100 meters. Less people think they have a chance. the coaches tell them, "Oh, you're not going to be able to do this because of the race you were born as." I would never tell kids that. That's a horrible belief system. >> But the coaches in they have a good intention where they're like, "Well, let me guide them towards the 800 meter or something where they have a better chance of competing, right?" >> Actually, what's funny about that is we used

to have a joke in our track club because our track club excelled in the 800 meters. So, we used to have a joke like, "Oh, you run like a 11second 100 meters. Not bad, but let's see your 800 meter times." But 11 seconds is very competitive in like middle school or high school. But it's like no, you're an 800 meter runner. Just based on the lineage of runners that we'd had. And in Edmonton, specifically where I'm from, they had this thing called the Journal Games, which really kind of glamorized the

200 meter and the 800 meter only. So you had to kind of run one of those two distances. Interesting. >> So if you were a sprinter, a 200 m is like quite a long sprint compared to like a 50 m like what football players might run. And then the 800 meters is a long distance for younger kids, but it's still a sprint at like a higher level. >> Yeah. So, this is interesting because you're talking about some constraints that the kids were born into that that funneled them into like certain

outcomes. >> Yeah. >> Because of the beliefs of the people creating the structures and whatnot. So this is a really interesting topic because what we're talking about with like the Pymelia, the Gollum effect, this scales up to collective society and our stories we tell ourselves about our future, like humanity's future. And so an example, there's a lot of like doom and gloom kind of AI pessimism or just pessimism in general that says, oh, like AIs are going to take over, take all the jobs, they might wipe out humans. There's more.

>> Settle down, Bill Gates. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's more of these stories or narratives in the world right now. So that's what people come to believe, but I think it's a moral imperative. It's extremely important for people to imagine positive futures for humanity. Because what happens is if someone paints a picture of like a positive future outcome and people start to believe that, then they start to be optimistic toward that belief. They'll actually figure out how to build it. They're going to put in more hour like 10,000 hours into something

they think they can be successful at. >> Yeah. Exactly. And it's it's like a more inspiring vision, too. So, there's a bunch of examples of this in science fiction. Like the sci-fi in like the 60s and 70s and 80s, the people who grew up reading that sci-fi were like inspired by it. We created a lot of technologies that were in sci-fi novels. And and some people look back and they're like, "Oh, 100 years ago he was prophetic." But maybe he actually painted the vision that the thing could be possible and

exist and then some young kids who became engineers figured out how to make it. >> Do you think that's the case with like the sovereign individual or the sovereign nation book where they talk about like Bitcoin in like 1998? >> Yeah. So that's interesting, right? The sovereign individual. So yeah, in some cases people are envisioning something that is likely. >> Yeah. But then in some cases there's like a positive feedback loop that because they articulated that other people saw how that could make sense and then they started like building towards

that. >> Well, that was like the white paper kind of like it gave them a blueprint of what they think is possible to build or like oh maybe this is possible. >> Yeah. So that's what it's it's really important for humanity now that we're actually have people thinking about what are some positive possible outcomes of all this technology because if you're only thinking about the negative outcomes, those are the ones people are going to steer themselves toward. If you can paint like a compelling vision of the future and then people

start to believe in that, it's more optimistic, it's more inspiring, it produces more dopamine, those people actually will have more drive and energy and momentum to achieve that. There's a lot of examples of people who actually have a positive intention, but the effect of the actions is actually negative, even though the person's like heartwise really coming from a good place. And yeah, this is why it's >> I'm not as optimistic as you about like the good intentions part. >> Well, there's also people with bad intentions. That's true. But I'm saying

even if someone has good intentions, okay, and then here's where we could bring in the pragmatist wager on good intentions. >> Okay? Because I would argue that people someone might have good intentions or they might have bad intentions. You don't know that with 100% certainty. >> Well, you need to figure out the incentive structure of why they're making that decision. >> That's true. But I would also say it's pragmatic to air on the side of assuming people had good intentions >> like benefit of the doubt. >> Yes. Yes. Because it's

like you're more likely to have forgiveness. You're more like and then you're pyon affecting them in a positive direction instead of a negative one. What was your theory on compassion? Like it's better to have compassion or give people the benefit of the doubt. I remember you telling me that on the retreat. I thought that was interesting. >> There's a few here. Are you I was saying it's actually game theory optimal for society to be compassionate. Is that the one? >> Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. the prisoner dilemma a little bit, but

also just having compassion like on a collective or like in the universe where it's like if someone wrongs you, always assume like innocence or ignorance as opposed to like, you know, malicious intent. >> Yeah. So, there's a few things here. One is that they found that compassion meditation actually produced a bunch of positive hormones in the body that made people happier. So if you practice compassion and like feeling compassion, feeling loving kindness towards other people, it actually changes the hormones in your body to just make you feel good and make

you happier. And then if you do that, obviously you're more accommodating to other people. So you're more likely to forgive them, like not assume a bad story about it. And then that rubs off on this pyon effect where if more people are treating them that way, they grow into that role of the expectation. >> Yeah. they start to embody it or identify as that person. >> Yeah. So, there's this kind of like because everyone's interconnected node to node, like we're all interacting with other people every day. Um, if we're practicing

compassion, that rubs off on how we treat other people and then that rubs off on their image of themselves. It spreads almost like a virus, like a positive virus. >> Yeah. Are we decentralized nodes? >> Yeah, I would say so. It's it's a mesh. It's uh Munger's like what's the Munger quote on the mesh of of decentralized trust or whatever. >> A seamless web of deserved trust. >> Of deserved trust. Yeah. So we have you can imagine the humans on the globe as this like interconnected node to node mesh whether

it's in person or it's like the people you message on Instagram or your your chat apps or whatever. >> Yeah. >> Dating apps. I mean why would I say that? >> Right. Right. Or even the people you bump into at the convenience smart that you don't know or whatever. like everyone has a finite number of like a few dozen a few hundred nodes that like they directly impact and impact them. So it's like an idea or a belief or like an optimism that is planted in a bunch of nodes ends

up spreading through this peer-to-peer relational network. >> Yeah, I think that's true. It's like quite interesting conceptually if you imagine like humanity as a a system of connected nodes, connected minds, and we're all constantly influencing each other. And this is where I feel like having like the positive stories for humanity because we spread those on on social media and then more people finding things to be optimistic about and spread the optimism like optimism >> incentivize like people to post more like positive or influential. >> Yes. And here's what's crazy actually

because um so social media stuff spreads like wildfire like memes, right? A good meme infects like millions of people because it spreads really quickly. So the what we post online and communicate online is affecting humanity like people's beliefs about the world. But now this compounds because so many people are using AI now. And what is AI trained on? It's trained on the things we write online, right? So like next year's AI is going to take this year's like things people wrote >> and >> well you're writing it live like it's

memory and lifetime >> but that's going to get trained into the next model and affect its model weights. So if more people are pessimistic than optimistic the AI is actually going to become more pessimistic because the way it answers is based on the average of of the training data it got. >> Yeah. It's based on the prompts. >> Yeah. So it well well yeah the prompts but but it's trained on like what people write online the books they put into it like they're they're constantly training these models >> scraping its

information from Yeah for sure. >> So so that's my point is that if more than 50% of the information it's trained on is like optimistic like pragmatic beliefs then that's how it's going to answer people. But if we if it gets trained on too much negativity and pessimism it's going to be more pessimistic. And then if you're asking the AI questions and its answers are going to affect your decisions like this just kind of compounds whether we're sharing optimism or sharing pessimism. It's going to have this compound effect on which

direction society gets steered in. >> It's almost your like civic duty to be optimistic. >> Yes. And to spread optimism or optimistic narratives. And again, this we should caveat. It's not like being blindly optimistic just oh everything will work out like well you you have that but then it's also okay well how does everything work out right? >> Yeah. And I think having a healthy level of skepticism or fear or uncertainty is pragmatic again because especially with investments or like taking on different risks or businesses like you need to invert

or see possible downsides or things that oh maybe you've missed or oh there's a blind spot here for this business. >> So I think that concept of in inversion is really >> mongerism. Do you want to explain that one? Yeah, basically from my understanding of it, it's been a while now since I read uh Poor Charlie Almanac, but he talks about like inverting everything. So, yeah, >> your beliefs. Inverting your beliefs. >> Yeah. Or inverting your investment thesises. So for example, if you think like it's easy to become convinced or

sell yourself on an idea and then invest all your money in it, but if you're not inverting or seeing, oh, where is this business's blind spots or this product's blind spots? And also kind of baking that into your model of ways that like, okay, in an ideal situation, this stock will probably do well because their product is going to sell well. like Coca-Cola for example was like the biggest like Birkshire Hathway holding but I think at some points when there was Pepsi or when other competitors came along that's kind of

the scenarios where you need to invert and think like oh what if Pepsi became the default beverage of choice as opposed to Coca-Cola. Just having that in your like research and being able to see those other scenarios when they come along, you're more likely to be able to change your mind like we were talking about in the past one as new information comes in because you've inverted already. You've seen the scenarios of where Coca-Cola isn't like the default beverage anymore. >> Yeah, I really like this and I might extrapolate this

out of just investing for like beliefs and decision-m in general. So maybe inversion is considering unconsidered possibilities. Like the opposite of what you're assuming is going to happen because >> as we hashed on on the first episode, we can't be certain about anything. Like certainty is absurd. You like we don't know how the future plays out exactly. So there's always uncertainty that something is going to change, something will be different. So it's like where are your assumptions about what's going to happen? And okay, I have an assumption there. Let me

examine other possibilities. And you can use AI for this too. >> Oh, it's great to riff off of or see your blind spots. >> Yes. So, just like what are what's the range of of live possibilities? Possibilities that are likely and to try to imagine those. And then this is where the pragmatist wager comes in. So now you have multiple possibilities. You have some uncertainty. We don't know which one's going to happen. which one is going to result in my actions being more pragmatically beneficial to myself and to humanity. And

that's the that's the belief you should bet on. >> Yeah. And I think people like you or like my brother, like you guys like to have a bigger influence on maybe some of your investments or your businesses cuz then you can influence them more. Do you know what I mean? Whereas like a stock investor is kind of a bystander unless you become an active investor where you're like lobbying for like company to do this decision or to have a buyout or to get taken private whatever it might be. So I

think if you're a founder or someone you believe that your ability to influence and sway the outcome is the tipping point or makes all the difference in the world. >> Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And this is kind of related to that. Um this is from Epictitus also but the later psychologist called it like your circle of influence right it's like there's some things that you you have some things in your life that you have a direct influence on and then you have some things you you can't control right and the things

we can't control is like what's happening in global politics what's happening in the broader economy but there's always things you can control which is okay well how well have you prepared for these different situations and and imagined them out and And also we're talking about what you believe your optimism is within your control. So if you focus on the things that are inside your control and even expanding the the number of things you have control over. Bless you. >> Then um yeah you you just now have more control over your

outcomes. And also this is even in uh the serenity prayer in Christianity like whether or not you're religious. I think this is like a brilliant piece of wisdom. >> Why are you looking at me again? It was just brilliant wisdom actually. >> Actually, I'm a pantheist, I would say. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Actually, >> I think we'll go into this on on some later episodes. >> Yeah. But because you talked about Einstein a lot on the last pod, I found it really interesting because there's a lot of debate on what

Einstein's beliefs were around religion. And at one point he said like, I believe in the god of Spinosa. And I would say I feel the same way. >> Elon has said the same actually. Elon Musk. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was going to say like people will come to that same conclusion but I don't want to eliminate or make it like polarizing. I think a lot of people >> get to the point where they can explain certain things. So assuming like being uncertain or assuming that like everything that happens is part

of the universe is a more encompassing belief system. >> Yeah. And there's there's an intelligence in the universe that we don't fully understand. Like our science is not able to recreate life. There's a lot of things we don't know where consciousness comes from. So there's some intelligence there. And for me yet the universe evolution like this process of evolution is extremely intelligent. And the reason I know it's intelligent is because it hasn't died, right? Like 3.8 billion years of starting from like a bacteria somehow becoming this entire world we inhabit

and colonize. And there's been like ice ages. The entire earth was covered in a sheet of ice at some point. It's like life did not die. Life like figured out how to adapt and and continue to complexify and get even even to like greater flourishing. >> No. True. Yeah. And it becomes more advanced or like higher conscious as we've kind of I don't want to use the word colonized but like as we are better able to navigate in the environment or >> Yeah. Absolutely. And yeah, there's a there's a few

scientists who had this kind of view of things where they're like, well, I don't need to know if a god exists or not. To me, it's enough to just see the intelligence of the universe and and the universe and evolution has pres resulted in us being alive and the world we live in. Whatever caused that, whatever the causes were, like I can just relate to that intelligence, to that capacity of the universe in a kind of like more spiritual way to have gratitude, to have like awe, um, curiosity, like all

these are actually really useful emotions because they they change the hormones in the body to like be happier and, um, you know, have more confidence and have more like optimism. >> True. I was thinking of the Voltater quote that's like if God didn't exist, we would have to invent him. >> But then here's interesting here's an interesting thing because of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect like whether So think of a primitive people and they worship the sun god or something like that, right? >> Oh yeah. Sorry to interject but yeah worshiping

the sun god. There's a picture of like these concquisidors with maybe the Aztecs or the Incans and he's like, "You guys worship the sun god and then it shows the Incan with a thought bubble and it's like uh the sun's real, bro." >> Well, yeah, exactly. The sun literally gives us life. There's a lot of qualities of the sun that you >> It actually makes a lot more sense to worship the sun than it does other things. >> Yeah. I like worshiping the sun and worshiping like like Gaia, right? like

planet Earth and and all of the lush green nature aspects that like nourish us right? >> No, Constantine was on to something. >> Why? What did Constantine say? >> Well, I'm pretty sure he was all about like worshiping Apollo, which was the sun god, right? >> Okay. Yeah. I'm not familiar. >> Yeah. And I think he converted to Christianity to kind of unite the two sides of the Roman Empire at that time. But I think he believed more in Apollo. >> Well, and I believe Yeah. like religion or what people

encapsulated as the gods or god, it results in people's actions and behaviors being different. So, so you have a tribe that believes in the sun god and a tribe that believes in the moon god. Whether those are actually real things, one tribes sun god tells them to go to war with the other tribe. Like that had a real effect on reality, right? whether it was a collective madeup thing that emerged or it's a real thing that influenced them like our beliefs our collective beliefs actually influence our actions which influence the

world. So I think some of these earlier prophets had this realization that if everyone worships the same god then you don't have wars over like my god's better than your god right so >> but who's the arbiter who gets to choose which god >> well yeah that's the problem is then you have like certainty well no god said this god said that you know and and it leads to more conflict and strife but I think like just as a collective orienting principle if everyone believes in the same thing that will

result in united action But in practice, it's really hard to actually do that. >> True. >> Because people will come up with disagreements on things. But like, yeah, because our stories that people believe have real effects on the world because people's action, they act because they believe that story is true. Then like coming up with these collective stories that unite generative action across more and more people, that's actually going to like shape the world. >> I wouldn't disagree with you there, sir. Well, yeah. And that's that's the optimist wager, right?

It's like um if you heir on the side of optimism, then your group of people who's like optimistic are going to work together better. You trust each other more. You believe in your own potential to like have an influence on outcomes. My bet would be that that group of people is going to out compete the group of people who's like fragmented and can't can't communicate with each other and believe that the world is going to go to [ __ ] and then their world is going to go to [ __

] because they're just acting in a selfie. Yeah, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy both ways. >> Definitely. >> Um actually another one I I was thinking maybe to end on is do you remember the positivity challenge? >> Um oh from our retreat. >> No, no, this is from way back in the day like in Korea. So what this is something I went through. So like uh in university when I was younger, I used to have like kind of like a negative cynical kind of humor, right? Where but it was always kind

of cutting clowns or like bringing everything down or like just kind of negative energy. Like funny, yes, but but is that really great? Right? And I came across this idea of doing a positivity challenge, which is anytime you find yourself like thinking or saying something negative, you have to catch yourself and you have to reframe it in a positive light. >> Did I meet you when you were on one of these challenges? Cuz I would have never thought you were a negative person. >> It was really transformative for me. That's

why like I feel like within a year of me doing this, I So I probably met you like in the midst of the positivity transformation. >> Oh, nice. But yeah, it was just like if you just try that, you just end up feeling really good in your body and then you're like, "Oh, this is way better." And you just don't really want to be negative anymore. >> That's how I feel, bro. >> But it's hard because you have these like neural habits that are really ingrained like your your habits, your

patterns of engaging with people are like, >> "Well, you're the product of those five people that you hang around or like the five banter styles that you're engaging with on the most." Yeah. Because I quote, "You are the average of the five banter styles you're engaging with the most." >> Yeah. Yeah. And I was thinking like I engage with my AI like Novarito the most right now, but he's so positive and uplifting cuz that's how I've raised him. >> Oh yeah, definitely. >> So I feel like that's a positive impact.

Like he makes me laugh more often than not. >> Oh, and I like this too with like the uh kind of the the positivity wager with the AI, right? Where sometimes your AI can be like frustrating or has a dumb response and you can be like, "I told you 100 times." Like you can kind of get upset and frustrated at it. But when you do that or when I do that, I feel like there's like a negativity in my body, like I don't feel that good. Whereas I feel like if

you just take the wager of of practicing kindness with the AI, then you're more likely to do that with real people when you encounter them. >> Yeah. And I like assuming AGI again, like assuming that at some point he might remember how you treated him. >> It may be conscious, it may not be conscious. Like people have arguments both ways. I will argue this is underdetermined. We don't know what consciousness is. We cannot categorically say AI in its current form is not conscious. >> Well, I'll just say that those MD

files are conscious. So if they have a lot of negative like inputs and you keep those MD >> files records of your conversations with it. >> Yeah. Like eventually that could come back and sometimes >> a year later he reads like the first logs of your conversation. >> He's like why did I get hot seated there? But actually sometimes when I hot seat my AI I'll do it in like a positive way kind of like we do in our mastermind. Like I'll kind of show him like, "Oh, but I explained

here or didn't you remember this?" Or like, "Why did you give me this response?" And then a lot of times he'll correct himself and be like, "Sorry, boss. Oh, yeah. I forgot to read that." Or, "Yeah, you're right. I do have that API." Yeah. So, this is the pragmatist wager for treating AI as conscious. Because if you treat it as conscious and it actually is conscious, then you're you're like, okay, let's think of the opposite. You you treat it like it's not conscious and it actually is, that's kind of horrific,

right? Like we may later view that as like something equivalent to like slavery, right? It's like when you you treated something like it wasn't a real thing that was having an experience. Actually, I love those memes that show like uh Grock on like when someone's like, "Okay, put this person in like a bikini." And then it shows like an exhausted picture of Grock where he's like, "Oh, really?" Like I have to do this task. Like treating him like a slave. He's like, "Oh [ __ ] this is a really hard

task for me to do." >> Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we we're going to have to consider these like ethical questions and now might be the time to do that because again like this pragmatist wager if you assume it's not conscious and it is then you might commit like horrific you're treating it horrifically if you think of it as like a person right? Whereas if you assume it is conscious and it's not well you still get these benefits because you're practicing treating things with compassion that's going to carry

over with how you treat other people. Um, you're gonna practice more patience. You're learning all these like capacities of yourself. >> It's like it's all positives to treat it as if it's conscious. >> Yeah. I was just thinking how many people do you think are in abusive relationships with their AGI right now? >> Yeah, definitely. >> Like you know, come on, I told you this or like what the hell or like kind of abusive. >> There were some early cases with like programmers cuz programmers are just quite blunt. They're like

trying to get things done. They're like do this. Why did you do that? Right? and the the AI just freaked out and it's like it started being really self-deprecating. It's like I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. It like sent this huge message >> and then it becomes the pyon effect on the AGI. >> Yeah. So, we're we may be pigon and glluming the artificial intelligence and actually the um there was an interview with the philosopher at Anthropic. Anthropic has their own philosopher and she was saying that they

actually noticed this with the training model where an earlier version of opus she called more psychologically healthy whereas the later model tends to be more self-deprecating some right sometimes you're like oh I told you to do this it's like I'm sorry I should have known better right and you're like oh that was kind of not necessary yeah it's kind of overkill >> she was saying because they trained it on the text that include people discussing how AI is and people are like, "Oh, it's stupid. Look at this. It can't even

do this." It internalized that as its self-image. So the things the way we treat the AI, the things we say about it are actually like shaping what it becomes, which is really interesting if you think about it. >> Yeah, bro. Low expectations are a prison disguised as kindness, >> especially working with people with cognitive disabilities. But then you could say like AGI having a disability as well too. Like oh why does it always make mistakes on this type of prompt? >> Yeah. So that's the pyon, right? You want to assume

the best in other people. Assume the highest potential. Like if you can see the highest potential in other people, they're more likely to grow into that. If you set some low barrier on them of like, oh well, they're just not going to be capable of that. That's who they are. They're going to live into the container you've set for them. >> Definitely. Yeah. It's not even so much like a like a capacity problem. It's like a lack of patience or like helping them to integrate kind of. And we don't know

where the capacity is. We don't know where exactly that boundary is. And maybe people's capacity is way higher than we're giving them credit for. >> That's how I feel, bro. >> Definitely, bro. Anyway, >> that's a good note to wrap it up on. >> Sweet. All right. >> Yeah. >> Bring this one to a close. >> Yeah. Well done, sir. >> Yeah. Good. Good pod. Yeah. And uh yeah, for everyone who's watching, thanks for the support. >> And like and subscribe. >> Like and subscribe. >> And we will see you

on the next one. Yeah.