Based Camp - Based Camp： Min-Maxing Emotions

00:00:00.000 And so one thing we talk about with our kids is like, does this make you feel good?

00:00:03.200 And this is what we talk about was like negative emotions, right?

00:00:05.280 Like, does it feel good to be angry?

00:00:07.260 Does it make you more efficient to be angry?

00:00:08.740 There are very, very few scenarios in which emotions like anger are going to make you

00:00:15.700 more efficient or make you happier in the long run.

00:00:18.660 Maybe with something like grief, this could be different.

00:00:20.860 I disagree.

00:00:21.280 I think it's very rarely of utility.

00:00:23.640 And so we talk through, okay, well, if it doesn't make you happy, what can we do to

00:00:27.420 get over it?

00:00:27.860 And the core thing that gets over an emotion like that is one, contextualizing it is not

00:00:32.220 appropriate and two, interrupting it.

00:00:34.840 A lot of emotions are just feed cycles, like a can of Pringles.

00:00:37.820 Once you pop, you can't stop.

00:00:39.740 And just about walking away from the Pringles, having a glass of milk.

00:00:43.320 So our kid, three, when he gets angry, we're like, well, do you want to keep being angry

00:00:47.920 or do you want to take a few breaths?

00:00:49.160 And so he'll go, no, I want to take a few breaths.

00:00:51.360 And so he'll go, and it helps it pass.

00:00:55.960 Would you like to know more?

00:00:56.840 Hello, gorgeous.

00:00:59.040 Hello, Simone. 0.69

00:01:00.540 Today, we are going to talk about our little theories on how different emotions work.

00:01:06.400 And I wanted to start with humor.

00:01:10.100 Do you want to go into our thesis on how the humor emotion works?

00:01:15.020 Yes, but first I have to credit you because you are the one who came up with this.

00:01:19.300 And I think it's so endearing how you did.

00:01:21.120 It was all by observing our children and discovering what it was that made them laugh, which was really

00:01:25.840 interesting.

00:01:26.840 So your theory and model of humor, which you were going to articulate better than me after

00:01:31.220 I sum it up poorly, is that that which is funny is something that is surprising, but it makes sense.

00:01:37.820 Yes.

00:01:38.140 And I think that there's two other types of humor that exist where comedians sometimes get trapped with them, but they're not actual humor.

00:01:45.880 One is a I'm scared response, which is really bad.

00:01:50.760 But like a lot of you get in and really like tense situations where like you are socially scared or like actually threatened and like laughing to deescalate to be like, I'm not threatening.

00:02:01.460 One, you see this in children, but in adults as well.

00:02:05.100 And I think a lot of comedians, they'll build these routines that are really like emotionally cringe because they see people laughing at them.

00:02:11.860 But that is not that is not like a pleasant laughter.

00:02:16.020 I think for most people who experience it, obviously, the human experience is really broad and these comedians are appealing to somebody.

00:02:22.040 And one is somebody is breaking social norms and you are lacking because you're kind of threatened by the fact.

00:02:26.920 To decrease tension.

00:02:28.200 Yeah, where it creates tension and people are breaking social norms.

00:02:31.380 So this other type of humor is one where you will be much more likely to laugh at almost anything somebody says if you're attracted to them.

00:02:38.780 So if you are attracted or aroused by somebody, you will just laugh at anything they say sometimes.

00:02:44.380 And this is to, I guess, convince them.

00:02:47.160 One of my favorite studies on this showed that both women and men said they appreciated a sense of humor in a partner.

00:02:52.600 But for women, what that meant is that the person could make them laugh. 1.00

00:02:56.880 But what the men meant by this is that the person laughed at their jokes.

00:02:59.800 And that's what they meant by humor.

00:03:00.200 Isn't that sweet?

00:03:01.200 I just thought that's so sweet.

00:03:02.760 That's so cute.

00:03:03.460 I don't know.

00:03:03.960 It's sociopathic.

00:03:05.360 I mean, as a maybe area.

00:03:06.820 Okay.

00:03:07.220 Anyway, but so the main type of humor, the type that you should be aiming for as a comedian is this makes sense.

00:03:14.500 Within the context that has been built for me.

00:03:17.020 So in a fictional world, you can build a fictional world where things deviate along certain lines.

00:03:24.300 An example here would be like SpongeBob SquarePants, right?

00:03:26.440 Like that's a somewhat consistent fictional world with rules, right?

00:03:30.820 And so something can make sense in that fictional context but still be very surprising to you and thus cause you to laugh.

00:03:38.200 Like you're like, oh, I didn't expect that, but it makes sense.

00:03:41.280 And these are the best types of humor with this.

00:03:44.740 It's humor where it's like an idea you're not supposed to think.

00:03:47.380 And that's why it was surprising to you where you're like, oh, oh my God, what?

00:03:51.800 So yeah, all the cancelable Netflix slash HBO comedy specials that involve like people shitting a brick because someone says stuff they're not supposed to say.

00:04:01.080 It's humor that's surprising, but it makes sense because it's something that you're not allowed to say, but it's kind of true.

00:04:08.020 And that's where that kind of humor comes from.

00:04:10.020 Then there's like words in context, but you're not supposed to say that.

00:04:13.820 So it surprised me to hear that.

00:04:15.980 But you can also subvert this.

00:04:17.380 Like you're going to say one thing, like the people think the joke, oh, I know where the joke is going to end.

00:04:21.020 And then you go in another direction and that surprise, but makes sense in the other direction I went in.

00:04:25.500 It's funny.

00:04:26.520 It's especially funny if it really makes sense for a character.

00:04:29.160 So you can also do this with a character where a character is in a situation where you think, oh, there's a generic way that people respond in this situation.

00:04:39.500 But this character then responds in a different way that is surprising, but makes sense given the priors they've set up around that character.

00:04:47.720 Well, and then there's the word based ones.

00:04:49.200 Like a lot of dad jokes are like word puns.

00:04:51.660 Like, oh, how do you know it's a dad joke?

00:04:54.780 I don't know.

00:04:55.720 How do I know it?

00:04:56.780 It's a parent.

00:04:59.160 Oh, but you see right there, it fits this theory of humor that we have, which is that was surprising.

00:05:05.160 I didn't expect it, but it made sense.

00:05:07.440 And where I think that really makes you laugh is it makes sense along multiple spectrums.

00:05:14.400 Exactly, exactly.

00:05:15.300 And there's another type of humor that I particularly like in which it's more like a narrative based humor where a comedian will describe something even pretty mundane in life,

00:05:25.200 but just using words that are not the typical words used to describe it.

00:05:28.560 A really good example of this is describing snakes as danger noodles.

00:05:32.980 And it's like, oh, yeah, like it is.

00:05:35.980 It is funny because it is a danger noodle.

00:05:38.620 Like normally you'd be like, it is a snake.

00:05:40.960 Don't touch it.

00:05:41.740 But saying danger noodle, not safe to boop sounds like, oh, it's surprising, but it makes sense. 1.00

00:05:47.080 And I love it.

00:05:47.720 And I'm laughing.

00:05:48.180 A great example of this, you want to talk spicy, is Bronze Age Pervert. 1.00

00:05:51.620 One of the things you liked in his book was that he would write hormones.

00:05:54.900 His comedic misspellings.

00:05:56.380 Yeah, like he spells hormones, W-H-O-R-E-M-O-E-N-S.

00:06:00.080 And it's funny because it's surprising, but it makes sense.

00:06:02.720 Well, it makes sense given the character that he has set up for himself in books and how much of this is his actual character or not, I don't know.

00:06:09.720 Yeah.

00:06:09.900 But it makes sense in regards to his character.

00:06:11.800 So even with us, we might do things like, oh, well, there's nothing more perverse than building a relationship on love.

00:06:17.640 And people laugh at that because they know that we're like this really anti, they're like, oh, that makes sense.

00:06:23.000 Anti-love.

00:06:23.540 Characters, I know of them, right?

00:06:25.340 So they laugh at that.

00:06:26.740 Okay, so we've gone over humor.

00:06:29.000 Any other areas you want to touch on on humor?

00:06:31.500 No, but I would love to hear other people's theories.

00:06:35.200 If you think that this is like, next time you watch something that you think is funny or something like that, watch for these different types of humors.

00:06:43.340 And personally, something to always be vigilant was, especially if you're a guy while you're flirting, is there a big difference if somebody laughing because they're aroused, laughing because you're in this one, like, good type of humor, and laughing because they're terrified of you?

00:06:58.580 Oh, that's big.

00:07:00.080 Yeah, because like, so some people say, okay, well, men and sometimes women have a fight or flight response when very threatened, but women may also have a tend or befriend response.

00:07:10.500 And I know that for sure, when I am in pain, I am smiling and laughing.

00:07:14.660 When I'm terrified, I am smiling and laughing.

00:07:17.460 So, yeah, that is a really important point to bring up, Malcolm.

00:07:19.940 I'm really glad you brought it up.

00:07:21.040 Some guys optimize around it because they're like, oh, I understand how to be funny with women. 0.92

00:07:24.720 No, no, no, no.

00:07:25.580 And really what they've learned is how to absolutely terrify the people in their own dates.

00:07:28.880 Terrifying, yeah.

00:07:29.820 Not great, not great.

00:07:31.340 Not a great thing to accidentally learn.

00:07:33.080 No.

00:07:34.040 Side note, how and why did humor evolve?

00:07:36.580 So I think our kids offer a great example of this because this is where I really came up with the theory was in interacting with our kids and seeing that when I did something that was surprising and made sense, you know, the kids would start to laugh.

00:07:49.440 And my theory here is that the laughing that the kids are doing is saying to the adult, what you just did has almost clicked for me, but it hasn't totally clicked yet.

00:08:02.180 It sort of makes sense, but it's still surprising in context.

00:08:06.700 So I'm giving you this positive reward mechanism, e.g. seeing me laugh, so that you repeat what you just did until it stops being funny or, you know, in the case of kids, it's no longer surprising.

00:08:20.640 Then the question is, okay, then why did it continue to adults?

00:08:23.320 And one of the things we always say is evolution is a cheap programmer.

00:08:25.620 And I suspect here that the reason why this didn't end in adults, probably similar to, like, lactose intolerance, you know, that's something that was supposed to be edited out of adults, but then, you know, within certain populations stayed in adults and it kept in the adult population.

00:08:39.280 Um, is that this not stopping laughing thing was actually a courtship ritual where, uh, it probably started primarily women to men, given the other things we talked about, where a woman would laugh at something the guy had just done, which was basically a sign to the guy, oh, do that again.

00:08:58.300 In the same way that kids would do it again.

00:09:00.380 So they were hijacking the pre-existing parental system to get the guy to redo specific behavior.

00:09:08.940 Um, and it increased the bonds of the relationship more quickly, which led to more efficient courtship rituals.

00:09:14.960 How about let, let's talk about offense.

00:09:18.720 We love offense.

00:09:20.180 Offense is a great emotion.

00:09:21.480 We built a whole holiday around offense.

00:09:23.740 Why don't, why don't you go into our thoughts on offense?

00:09:25.660 Right.

00:09:26.140 So we think offense is so delicious and so wonderful and so important to lean into because it is a sign that an idea credibly threatens your worldview.

00:09:37.080 So for example, people often think an offensive thing is just an insulting thing or just a repugnant thing, which is not true.

00:09:44.220 For example, if somebody called me, um, a fat cow, I would be like, not offended at all because I can tell like from my weight, from my BMI, I am technically not fat.

00:09:53.980 However, if someone called me ugly, I would be offended because I kind of know that I'm ugly.

00:10:01.480 So you are not ugly, but because you're my husband, you're so perfect.

00:10:05.140 Even in a world in which I wasn't ugly, although my face is technically deformed, so I am technically ugly and I have acne and all these other things.

00:10:14.760 I'm still, I just covered it up with makeup.

00:10:18.360 I was like, I was like, I can't deal with serious on camera. 0.87

00:10:20.840 Anyway, I would still, I am, I am female and it is cultural tradition to think that you're ugly as a female. 1.00

00:10:25.360 So anyway, if someone said that to me, it would be offensive because it threatens my worldview that I would like to think of myself as someone attractive because I am very vain.

00:10:34.420 And yet I kind of know that's not true.

00:10:37.860 So like that's offense and why offense is so important is we strongly believe from our, our value set that if you are wrong, you should, you should change your mind.

00:10:48.140 You should be corrected.

00:10:49.500 And, and things are only offensive if you kind of in the back of your mind are like, you're not sure that it's totally wrong.

00:10:57.300 And this is especially to his ideologies.

00:10:58.940 So ideologies are particularly offensive.

00:11:01.380 Yeah. Like if you're a climate change believer and someone's like climate change is a hoax, that's very offensive.

00:11:07.620 If you think of them, they're stupid or just like out, but if it generates that offense emotion in you, then it means there's likely something there that you're afraid of engaging with. 0.92

00:11:19.340 And afraid is the wrong word that you are reflexively protecting yourself against engaging with. 0.99

00:11:25.720 That is what the offense emotion does.

00:11:28.180 And some cultures really prey on this where they create this mindset in people because different cultures, they spread like a sort of mimetic viruses.

00:11:36.800 Right.

00:11:37.460 And some, obviously these viruses, like once they've infected a person, one of the ways they prevent other cultures or mimetic sets for coming in and displacing them.

00:11:46.900 Is they train the person and recondition the person to see all offense as violence or much more threatening than it is to them so that they do not engage with any idea that might be offensive to them.

00:12:00.900 Where offense in this context really just mean threatening to the virus, capable of dislodging the virus.

00:12:07.940 And so you'll get these entire communities that are based around protecting oneself.

00:12:16.100 Right.

00:12:16.320 Exactly.

00:12:16.660 So what they'll do is they'll say this person said something offensive.

00:12:20.680 They won't even know.

00:12:21.460 But then the entire community that's infected with this virus just won't engage with any content that person is producing because that's even better.

00:12:29.340 Like once the virus says, okay, if somebody does something that's offensive to anyone within our community, we know they might be capable of dislodging the virus from any other individual in the community.

00:12:38.160 And therefore we need to train our community to not engage with it.

00:12:41.580 And that is the very last thing.

00:12:43.120 I'm creating an intergenerationally durable culture for my kids.

00:12:45.940 I want it to survive because it's the best.

00:12:49.640 I don't want it to survive because it prevented them from engaging with any other idea.

00:12:56.400 And, and, and again, this is something you see with, with everything from ultra, ultra progressive community to some like religious cults, right?

00:13:04.680 This idea of don't engage with anything that offends any member of our community.

00:13:07.840 Now, after offense, a great emotion is anger.

00:13:10.760 Do you want to go into what causes anger in people?

00:13:13.900 Yes.

00:13:14.540 And it is not as Yoda says.

00:13:16.900 Fear leads to anger.

00:13:18.160 Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.

00:13:21.020 It's not.

00:13:21.980 Malcolm again came up with this theory because he's the one who's capable of.

00:13:25.460 I'm the psychology nerd.

00:13:27.800 I'm the modeling people nerd.

00:13:29.060 No, you're the one who can miraculously and amazingly like think things through five steps ahead.

00:13:34.640 Whereas I'm like barely even with the current step.

00:13:38.840 But anyway, your theory for anger, and I definitely think this, this aligns.

00:13:42.240 And it also aligns well with the other models is people become angry when they are not treated in line with their expectations.

00:13:48.840 And this can be, at first I was like, I don't really understand this because I don't really expect anyone to treat me a certain way because I kind of just don't trust or like anyone. 0.98

00:13:59.620 I just assume people are going to be complete bastards. 0.96

00:14:02.320 You don't really get angry. 0.99

00:14:03.180 And well, so that's why I usually don't get angry.

00:14:06.180 But there have been instances in which I felt extremely angry, like literally cried with rage.

00:14:11.740 And every time I find myself literally crying with rage, it is when I have to deal with a bureaucracy.

00:14:17.800 It's when I have to deal with a DMV.

00:14:19.360 It's when I have to file paperwork.

00:14:20.420 It's when I'm at a hospital and they're not doing the scan that I want because there's, there's some weird thing that like didn't get filled out that is exactly for the requirements and my insurance isn't paying for it the right way or something like that.

00:14:31.500 And these are all the times that I have cried with rage.

00:14:34.340 And it is because I, I don't believe systems should be so massively inefficient.

00:14:39.900 And I think that systems should treat humans in a different and more efficient way.

00:14:43.380 So even then it's not just people not treating you in the way they do expect.

00:14:48.160 It could be even life circumstances, not treating you.

00:14:51.100 Yeah.

00:14:51.280 Of this happening with a, a non-sentient object could be like a car, like you're twisting it and it makes a little bit of noise.

00:14:56.940 Like it's about to turn on.

00:14:57.760 It doesn't turn on.

00:14:58.440 Well, you expect a car to turn on when you turn the keys.

00:15:00.680 Yes.

00:15:01.180 You get angry.

00:15:02.060 How dare this car.

00:15:03.100 Yes. 0.99

00:15:03.320 You want to punch the car. 0.96

00:15:05.060 Yeah.

00:15:05.280 It doesn't turn on when you're hitting the remote or you see this classically with something like a golfer, right?

00:15:09.420 So they're trying to hit the ball and you think they're following all the steps to hit the ball, right?

00:15:14.260 And it just doesn't go right.

00:15:15.480 And they get angrier and angrier every time it doesn't go right, which it can affect some more and they get angrier still.

00:15:21.440 But where this sort of anger can become really problematic is when you have a society in which there are mismatched expectations.

00:15:30.480 So one place this gets really toxic is in relationships.

00:15:33.500 When one person has an expectation that their partner treats them in a certain way and then the partner doesn't treat them in that way and it causes an anger response.

00:15:42.080 And then that anger response, because the other person doesn't expect the person to get angry.

00:15:45.520 They think they're treating them within the cultural expectations of what they expect in terms of how they expected they were supposed to treat their partner in a relationship.

00:15:51.780 And then that generates anger in them.

00:15:54.260 And then this other person is like, why are you angry?

00:15:56.900 You're the one who wasn't doing what you were supposed to do.

00:15:58.740 And then that generates anger in them.

00:16:00.380 And this is why things like relationship contracts, point of another podcast, are so absolutely critical.

00:16:06.600 But you also have this in the real world.

00:16:09.440 So an example of where I would talk about here is proper pronouns in terms of misgendering.

00:16:16.140 Is one person, this happens when you have mismatched cultures where there is like a persistent mismatch of cultures.

00:16:22.560 Where one cultural group thinks that they're supposed to be gendered one way. 1.00

00:16:26.380 And another cultural group thinks that gendering should be done in another way.

00:16:30.600 And so the one group genders the way they think that they're supposed to gender.

00:16:34.340 And then this generates anger in the other group because they're not.

00:16:37.120 And then they get angry.

00:16:37.920 And then the other group thinks that they're not supposed to be corrected on these sorts of things.

00:16:40.800 So then they get angry.

00:16:41.840 And you can create this sort of like pointless, persistent anger, which is caused by cultural expectations.

00:16:51.440 Now another instance in which anger gets really bad is when it's reinforced as the correct emotion was in people.

00:17:00.460 So another type of you who's angry is when they culturally feel validated in that anger.

00:17:06.040 So one of the things that I've experienced before, and I don't know if other people have, is somebody else comes to you and they're like, oh, you should be really angry about that.

00:17:15.000 And you weren't really angry before, and then you start to get angry because they've created this narrative that the anger is justified.

00:17:23.080 And that's why one of the worst things a partner can do is if you come home and you tell them about someone at work who is pissing you off, is tell you, oh, you're justified in those emotions.

00:17:32.360 Because then those emotions build and they get worse.

00:17:34.640 You're not making it better by doing that.

00:17:36.640 Instead of talking through why do you think they're doing this, is their intention to slight you, is it a cultural mismatch, mismatch an expectation.

00:17:45.700 I mean, of course, the same as misgendering, same as office.

00:17:48.740 If a person could be doing it as an intention to slight you, they could be doing it to make you angry because for some reason you're part of a different cultural tribe than them.

00:17:56.420 And they think your cultural tribe's enemies, so they're going to like just do whatever they can to hurt you.

00:18:00.340 But in other instances, it could just be that they're a different cultural group than you.

00:18:03.720 Yeah, actually, let's let's dig into this both like the the ways you can feed emotions and when that's toxic and when that's good, because in our family, for example, we're very strict about not condoning feeding negative emotions.

00:18:25.220 And so you would think that sort of like in general, as a family, we're like super emotionally oppressive and just like shut it down, don't feel it, etc.

00:18:33.800 But we actually invest a ton in feeding positive emotions like you, Malcolm, are constantly leaning into playfulness, joy, gratitude.

00:18:44.800 You're constantly complimenting me.

00:18:46.280 You're constantly making me feel like the most beautiful person in the room, the best parent ever. 0.98

00:18:50.080 I don't do that just to masturbate those emotional subs. 1.00

00:18:53.060 Right. You do it functionally. 0.99

00:18:54.240 Like there's a functional reason for it.

00:18:56.100 I mean, you work for me and you're more efficient when you're happy.

00:18:58.680 So I know that's the thing.

00:19:00.120 That's the thing for my own benefit.

00:19:02.080 Well, it is.

00:19:02.780 But and that's what we want.

00:19:04.240 We want to optimize for here is sociopathic use of emotions.

00:19:07.620 Right.

00:19:07.980 So like people have heard about probably the like the punching bag study where like when when people were encouraged to.

00:19:14.140 Most people haven't heard of this.

00:19:15.420 So talk about it because almost everybody gets this wrong.

00:19:18.040 Right.

00:19:18.400 So a lot of people believe that sort of like if you let off steam, you are reducing like emotional buildup pressure.

00:19:25.180 And therefore you will feel.

00:19:26.040 Punching a punching bag. 0.95

00:19:26.580 Yeah. Whereas it was found instead in one study that when people were encouraged to let their anger out on something like a punching bag that actually increased their anger versus that they just did something else like a control activity.

00:19:39.220 So this this basically is to imply that if you lean into an emotion, if you indulge it, if you if you talk with people who are like, yeah, you should be mad.

00:19:47.860 Like you like yell or scream.

00:19:49.860 It's going to make it worse.

00:19:51.160 It's kind of we think the same with grief, crying, being offended, all these things you can feed.

00:19:56.420 Well, I mean, let's talk about anger for a second here.

00:19:58.800 Right.

00:19:59.080 In terms of how you let that eat at you.

00:20:03.100 You know, when when my kid gets angry.

00:20:04.980 Right.

00:20:05.440 He'll get angry because something doesn't align with his expectations or he's in a bad overlay state.

00:20:09.260 What does an overlay state mean?

00:20:10.100 So an overlay state is with like the filter that all your emotions are coming through.

00:20:14.700 Think of it like a tint on your glasses or something like that.

00:20:17.340 That makes everything redder or something.

00:20:18.740 Now, humans can experience these for reasons that they don't have conscious access to.

00:20:25.520 So a great example is you can inject someone with adrenaline and they will be more irritable.

00:20:32.120 It basically get angrier more easily at things, even if they know they were injected with adrenaline.

00:20:37.920 You can't help it.

00:20:39.000 Like right now, I'm I'm I'm experiencing insanely high levels of estrogen because we're doing egg retrieval with IVF.

00:20:46.240 And I'm like literally injecting like pretty significant amount.

00:20:49.380 You get angry much, much.

00:20:51.020 You almost never normally get angry.

00:20:52.540 Like I'm behaving horribly and I know I'm behaving horribly, but I also can't seem to help it.

00:20:57.640 So overlay state acting as this filter.

00:20:59.420 So kids, this happens a lot.

00:21:00.880 They'll know they're feeling bad, but they won't be able to put a finger on why.

00:21:04.340 So every little thing they're like, kind of like that door closed.

00:21:07.160 And they'll get really angry that the door is open, like close the door.

00:21:09.360 And then you close the door and they look around and the anger hasn't gotten away.

00:21:12.700 And so they're like, give me that egg.

00:21:14.160 Like that's the new thing that they absolutely have to have.

00:21:16.880 And so one thing we talk about with our kids is like, does this make you feel good?

00:21:20.040 And this is what we talk about was like negative emotions, right?

00:21:22.120 Like, does it feel good to be angry?

00:21:24.100 Does it make you more efficient to be angry?

00:21:25.520 There are very, very few scenarios in which emotions like anger are going to make you more efficient or make you happier in the long run.

00:21:35.540 Maybe with something like grief, this could be different.

00:21:37.640 And I disagree, I think it's very rarely of utility.

00:21:40.500 And so we talk through, okay, well, if it doesn't make you happy, what can we do to get over it?

00:21:44.720 And the core thing that gets over an emotion like that is one, contextualizing it is not appropriate.

00:21:49.600 And two, interrupting it.

00:21:51.700 A lot of emotions are just feed cycles, like a can of Pringles.

00:21:54.680 Once you pop, you can't stop.

00:21:56.680 And just about walking away from the Pringles, having a glass of milk.

00:22:00.160 So our kid, three, when he gets angry, we're like, well, do you want to keep being angry or do you want to take a few breaths?

00:22:05.920 And so he'll go, no, I want to take a few breaths.

00:22:08.180 And he'll go, and it helps it pass.

00:22:12.480 Now, the final emotion I wanted to talk about here was shame.

00:22:17.020 Shame.

00:22:17.340 So shame happens when you, yourself, don't live up to the self-image you have of yourself.

00:22:26.120 So we all have these images of the type of people we want to be, the type of people we want other people to see us as.

00:22:32.840 And we feel this shame emotion when we don't live up to that self-image.

00:22:38.980 And this can be a persistent problem when a culture creates an expectation of ourselves, which is just completely unreasonable, which some cultures do.

00:22:50.520 They just create these completely unrealistic expectations of us.

00:22:55.700 And then they use those to beholden us to the culture because we're never living up to who we want it to be.

00:23:01.560 Now, I think that in a way that can be useful.

00:23:03.200 Well, Simone and I, we hold very high cultural expectations of ourselves, and I do, to some extent, always have some base level of shame because I'm never being the person I know I have the potential to be, which is who I expect myself to be.

00:23:16.880 However, I think there's a big difference between this sort of like 10% shame all the time and like 80% shame all the time.

00:23:23.740 And so I think that that's a good shame.

00:23:26.300 And shame can be very damaging, right?

00:23:28.000 Like it's discovered with a masturbation, for example, that when you are ashamed of it, when you think that it's a bad or evil thing, then you're really going to experience a lot of the negative effects of it.

00:23:36.700 Whereas like if you're-

00:23:37.420 You actually experience very few negative effects from masturbation if you're not ashamed of it.

00:23:40.560 And this is just in the studies.

00:23:41.880 And you also will consume it more.

00:23:43.340 So one of my favorite studies is if you look at like Pornhub by in sort of like Utah, by the percentage of conservative Mormons in that area, it like goes up the more that I think it was.

00:23:53.200 Or it might have been Catholics in it.

00:23:54.580 I can't remember.

00:23:55.060 This study was either done with Mormons or Catholics, but it was looking at zip codes and porn consumption and religiosity.

00:23:59.620 And the more religious people were, the higher the rates of porn consumption were.

00:24:03.060 Now, part of me thinks that what this study is getting wrong is these are the people who don't know about like the truly kinky sites. 0.54

00:24:07.760 And so they're going to Pornhub.

00:24:09.540 Yeah, they just don't know.

00:24:11.100 They're not connoisseurs.

00:24:12.060 That's the problem.

00:24:12.520 Yeah, no, they're not connoisseurs.

00:24:13.360 Their friends aren't giving them good recommendations.

00:24:15.340 That's very sad.

00:24:16.480 But I mean, I think that the big takeaway here is one, we find that there's a lot of,

00:24:20.280 it's a lot easier to navigate your emotions when you understand the underpinnings and you can then affect the constraints.

00:24:25.860 You can affect the inputs and also understand them and act on that because often emotions are a sign that there's something,

00:24:32.260 I mean, we see them as a signal that should be acted on or not acted on,

00:24:35.660 but certainly a signal that's indicating a thing that you might want to know about.

00:24:38.400 It's kind of like a pop-up window and you need to either exit out or be like, oh, I need to troubleshoot this issue.

00:24:42.840 But the other thing is that you should learn to not feed some emotions, but also leverage other emotions,

00:24:48.960 be it shame, be it joy, be it gratitude, in a way that is instrumentally useful to you.

00:24:55.060 And sadly, Malcolm, we must, well, not sadly, actually.

00:24:58.180 We need to go indulge in the emotions of joy and gratitude and playfulness with our children now

00:25:02.500 because it's daycare pickup time.

00:25:04.180 But I love these conversations.

00:25:06.000 And thank you for coming up with these fun theories.

00:25:08.860 Like these have come up over the span of maybe like five years and they've gotten more unique and interesting over time.

00:25:15.740 And thank you for coming up with these fun things and inspiring all these amazing conversations.

00:25:20.300 I love talking with you and I feel like they're only going to get better with each new year.

00:25:23.880 So thank you for talking with you too, Simone.

00:25:25.940 You are just the most amazing partner that you go through this stuff with me and you help keep me honest with myself and my expectations for myself.

00:25:34.520 And you ensure that those expectations are always high.

00:25:37.940 I keep your shame levels maximum.

00:25:39.980 You're welcome.

00:25:40.500 Isn't that what wives are all for, right? 1.00

00:25:43.060 Yeah.

00:25:43.820 All right.

00:25:44.340 So what do you want to do for, I'd love it if you put on a pizza for me because I haven't done it.

00:25:47.240 Oh my God, I'm doing pizza too.

00:25:48.220 Yes.

00:25:48.500 Okay.

00:25:48.760 Pizza night.

00:25:49.400 100%.

00:25:49.960 All right.

00:25:50.680 See you soon.

00:25:51.540 Yeah.

Based Camp - July 28, 2023

Based Camp： Min-Maxing Emotions

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