Based Camp - Shaping Culture and Self at the Meta Level

00:00:00.000 So we would also argue that when it comes to crafting culture or changing behavior on a very big meta scale, one of the things you can do that's very meaningful if you are someone in the media or you are a government is like literal.

00:00:13.160 It is propaganda, but create more archetypes for pro-social behavior, for types of behaviors that you want to elevate.

00:00:22.680 And this is actually something that we saw back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.

00:00:26.160 There were literal propaganda slash instructional videos by organizations like Coronet Films that were distributed throughout high schools and middle schools that showed ideal behavior through these little vignettes.

00:00:36.860 You can have a huge volume of media all with the exact same model being shown to people and the exact same types of toxic behavior.

00:00:46.620 Yeah, like the trope of the wife or girlfriend who's always like rolling her eyes at and sort of like pulling her husband down a peg like, oh, like my husband.

00:00:55.180 There's very few depictions of wives that aren't like secretly smarter than their husbands now.

00:01:00.260 Or that are like snide toward them and dismissive.

00:01:02.800 Would you like to know more?

00:01:04.580 Hey, Malcolm, one of the things that I really I love about you and loved about you since the moment I met you was that honestly you more resemble like a superhero or like fictional character, like a caricature of a person than like a real human.

00:01:19.540 And I love that that has evolved into something of a more nuanced life philosophy or even like psychological philosophy of yours.

00:01:28.360 And I think it'd be really fun to talk about it.

00:01:30.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:01:30.780 I'd love to dive deep into this.

00:01:32.040 And I think the the point we're going to get to in this is that I hate to say this.

00:01:37.540 I choke on these words, but oh, no, I think representation actually does matter in media and we'll get to why representation matters.

00:01:45.900 And it doesn't matter in the way that progressives think it matters and the way they're optimizing our representation is probably not the best way to optimize our representation.

00:01:53.200 But the representation actually has a huge effect on our emotional states and the way we construct our self narratives.

00:01:59.660 So first, let's talk about how human emotional states work within this theory.

00:02:07.520 So a theory of mind, when you use the term theory of mind, what you're talking about is our ability as humans to mentally emulate the mind of somebody else or mentally model the mind of somebody else and predict what they are going to think or do next.

00:02:23.940 This is very useful for for all sorts of things like when you are having an argument with someone in your head after you stop talking to them and you are emulating their positions in that argument.

00:02:35.340 This is what you're using.

00:02:36.280 You're using or if you're hunting an elk and you're trying to imagine what the elk will do next so that you can properly track him.

00:02:44.700 Yes, yes.

00:02:45.320 But it's something that we I mean, with humans is where we do it more often is like fake arguments you're having with someone in your head.

00:02:51.420 And then you come up with the right answer a while back and then you think, OK, how are they going to respond to that and everything like that?

00:02:55.740 We just do it very naturally.

00:02:57.560 And one of my areas of research when I back to be a neuroscientist was in schizophrenia research, specifically translational neuroscience as it relates to schizophrenia.

00:03:06.000 And it's a math from where I studied something, but I always had a weird idea of what was going on in schizophrenia.

00:03:11.600 So one of the most common symptoms in schizophrenia across types is auditory hallucinations, right?

00:03:18.060 Where you might hear whispers or somebody talking to you.

00:03:20.460 What I hypothesize might be going on, and this would actually explain a number of other schizophrenia symptoms, is that they have a hyperactive theory of mind running in the background all the time.

00:03:33.620 So using transmagnetic stimulation, you can do something where you hyperactivate a portion of a person's brain so it can become activated with less of a threshold.

00:03:43.880 So an example here would be like you hyperactivate the part of their brain that's associated with like the letter A.

00:03:49.420 And then you show them the letter A and they'll say A.

00:03:52.400 And they won't mean to say A, but they'll just be forced to say it because the neurons around that area were firing.

00:03:58.200 It was already hyperactivated.

00:03:59.900 And then it just forces a full saying of it.

00:04:02.580 So in schizophrenia, what I think is it's this theory of mind system which is hyperactivated and activates accidentally all the time.

00:04:07.960 And that's also what causes magical thinking.

00:04:10.300 This is if you see an arrangement of items in the store window and you assign agency to it, like it's trying to tell you a message, right?

00:04:16.660 It's also what would describe paranoia, right?

00:04:18.640 Okay.

00:04:19.160 What really is paranoia?

00:04:20.560 It's applying agency, like a theory of mind, to some external force, like a government or something like that.

00:04:27.700 Oh, that helicopter, that must mean that this other entity is thinking X or Y, right?

00:04:32.540 And just so many weird and seemingly disparate schizophrenia symptoms can be seen from this hyperactive theory of mind.

00:04:39.400 So this theory of mind is very important to how all humans work.

00:04:42.540 Now, what we hypothesize is that the primary way that we as humans process emotions is through having a theory of mind of ourselves quietly running in the background of our brain and then correlating our environmental circumstances against that theory of mind and determine how emotionally we are supposed to react and then outputting that emotional state.

00:05:10.080 This is why, for example, if you're a little mad about something and then a friend comes to you and they're like, you should really be a lot more mad about this than you are.

00:05:17.360 Can't you see how bad what they did is?

00:05:19.260 And you begin to get really angry about it all of a sudden.

00:05:22.200 So if I can recap, basically, most people subconsciously have a model of who I am, like their character sheet of I am this fancy woman or I am this powerful man or I am this creative quirky artist.

00:05:36.100 And then when life circumstances happen, when you are about to react, there's this internal question of, well, how would the quirky artist react?

00:05:45.260 And then that's how you react.

00:05:47.120 And that's why Malcolm is saying that sometimes people can even prime or prompt this of, well, you should be outraged.

00:05:52.580 And then suddenly you're like, I should be outraged because we're not that clever.

00:05:57.160 We're not that conscious.

00:05:58.200 We're not that kind of thing.

00:05:59.000 We're not that stable as sort of internal characters.

00:06:02.180 But this is meaningful and why this theory of Malcolm's is really meaningful and why I love it a lot is that if this is true and based on like our anecdotal experience, we have, we find it to be compelling.

00:06:14.360 It means that if you change the way that you view yourself, if you recontextualize yourself, if you change that character sheet, you can also change the way you react to things.

00:06:24.800 So, for example, if you view yourself as a delicate person with severe trauma in their past and high anxiety issues and all this other baggage, obviously, when bad things happen to you, you're going to react in a way of, well, I can't get out of bed today.

00:06:39.500 Great. Like now everything's ruined. If you see yourself as a spoonie, well, my pain is too great. That's, that's it.

00:06:45.000 I only have three spoons today and I just spent them getting out of breakfast and, or sorry, getting out of bed and eating breakfast.

00:06:50.660 So this means that if you rewrite that character sheet, I'm a resilient person.

00:06:54.600 I react to things very optimistically. Whenever a problem comes up, I'm smart and resourceful and I look on the bright side and I solve it.

00:07:01.580 But we actually believe that you can react much more favorably and optimally to situations, be they positive or negative.

00:07:10.840 But it's very hard to rewrite this internal character sheet. You can really only do it during what we call quote unquote, flex, flex periods.

00:07:17.860 So these are periods in an individual's life where like they're moving or they're about to start college or they're about to start a new job and moving.

00:07:24.240 And we're a lot of your environment is changing. A lot of your friend group is changing. Just a lot is changing in your life.

00:07:29.440 And during these moments, people can genuinely reinvent themselves.

00:07:33.040 And, and keep in mind, what I'm saying here is it's not exactly like you have an internal character sheet.

00:07:36.840 It's like you have a model of a person running off of an internal character sheet that you've created.

00:07:41.300 Now what's important here, and this is where representation comes into all of this, is these character sheets are not fully flexible.

00:07:49.660 It's very hard to say, I want to be this type of person or this type of person or this type of person, like to fully build out the character sheet.

00:07:55.820 What we really often do is stitch together a few stereotypes or things that we have seen portrayed in media or within our socially evoked set within our environment.

00:08:08.420 And then stitch those things together into a character and utilize that character.

00:08:14.780 If you do not have many things in media that are healthy, that you can use, or many things in media that, that are, that are like, you feel you can identify with.

00:08:26.400 So some people, they can identify with an individual in media, regardless of that individual's ethnicity.

00:08:31.020 Other people, where their ethnicity is much more important to whoever they happen to be at the moment, they will have a genuinely hard time identifying with different ethnic, different ethnicities when they see it in media.

00:08:45.780 And what's important to note here is character archetypes are often associated with a few ethnic groups.

00:08:52.940 And this is true, even in progressive media, they will, they will maybe color up the media.

00:08:57.420 They'll add more black and brown people, but they will still give those people often black and brown approved personalities because if they give them an overly quote unquote white-ish personality that they would be seen as, I don't know, not culturally authentic or something like that.

00:09:13.620 And you even see this for other groups.

00:09:15.320 So if you're like Irish and you really identify with Irish, there are like four ways of being Irish portrayed in media.

00:09:21.960 There are not that many.

00:09:23.460 If you're a Romani or a gypsy, if you're using the more offensive term, but the term that most people know, there are not that many Romani stereotypes presented in media.

00:09:34.080 And if that's an important part of the way you see yourself, you're going to really struggle.

00:09:38.460 You're going to really struggle.

00:09:39.160 So let's like, first, I want to jump back to the concept of flux periods. 0.98

00:09:42.860 We're not just pulling this out of our asses.

00:09:44.780 This is also something that shows up in other areas. 0.97

00:09:47.560 Like when it comes to behavioral changes that even governments try to enact.

00:09:52.580 For example, the UK had this one sort of department for enacting behavioral changes that they called the Nudge Unit informally.

00:10:00.080 They did a lot of research on when they were able to successfully change behavior to intervene and help people change their behavior for the better in a way that improved health outcomes or spending or whatever it might be.

00:10:09.680 And they found that very similarly, they didn't call them these, but periods of flux were the key times when they were able to do this.

00:10:17.140 For example, one really common period like this is when someone becomes a first-time parent.

00:10:24.100 So this Nudge Unit, for example, found that when it came to enacting interventions around parenting, helping people do better things for their children, really only first-time parents changed their behavior.

00:10:35.980 And once people had gone past that, they just already firmed up their identity as a parent.

00:10:40.420 So it became really hard to change it.

00:10:42.260 So other examples of flux periods, because I think it's important to know like when you're even going to have the capacity to make changes like this, is graduating from college, graduating from high school, getting a new job, moving to a new state, getting married, the death of a very close loved one.

00:10:56.680 Like these very fundamental life changes where either the stage dressing or the stage or the characters in your drama of life are changing.

00:11:06.700 And so that's something that's really important.

00:11:08.880 And it's not just like character archetypes that really help in helping you establish a new character.

00:11:14.360 Because again, we're just not really creative.

00:11:15.560 Like we need to see almost like training data, like AI.

00:11:18.720 Like we need training data to understand what the common responses are of a certain archetype.

00:11:23.500 So this is why it's really helpful.

00:11:26.740 And it also is why what you expose yourself to in media and also what the broader media landscape exposes people to is going to shape culture and society.

00:11:36.640 So we would argue that one thing that could really help, for example, with pronatalism, a cause that really matters to us, is more media that shows what it's like to be a functional, happy family, to be a parent that isn't miserable or stressed out.

00:11:50.100 It was a reasonable number of kids, like five kids, not like two kids.

00:11:54.160 You don't keep a population stable if every woman expects you kids. 1.00

00:11:58.040 Because I mean, what does the media show now?

00:12:00.020 The Duggar family.

00:12:01.280 Then they're not ideal.

00:12:04.400 And there have been other small snippets.

00:12:06.280 For example, in Stranger Things, there's this one side plot that shows a house with many children.

00:12:11.960 But it's also the kind of environment that would seem very unpleasant to a parent.

00:12:17.360 I mean, we still think it looks awesome.

00:12:18.960 It looks exactly like our house.

00:12:21.080 It's like a chaotic house full of feral children who are very passionate and colorful, which is great.

00:12:28.240 But like also doesn't look very appealing to many people who want to have a non-stressful life.

00:12:33.420 So we would also argue that when it comes to crafting culture or changing behavior on a very big meta scale, one of the things you can do that's very meaningful if you are someone in the media or you are a government is like literal.

00:12:47.200 It is propaganda.

00:12:49.600 But create more archetypes for pro-social behavior, for types of behaviors that you want to elevate.

00:12:55.960 And this is actually something that we saw back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.

00:13:00.080 There were literal propaganda slash instructional videos by organizations like Coronet Films that were distributed throughout high schools and middle schools that showed ideal behavior through these little vignettes.

00:13:11.280 And yeah, I mean, it's just something that's incredibly helpful and incredibly underrated.

00:13:16.880 I'd say another area where this becomes really damaging for people is when, and this happens in media and all societies, they associate certain character archetypes with attractiveness in either males or females.

00:13:31.180 And so when a woman wants to see herself as attractive, she will begin to adopt these character archetypes, which can often be very intrinsically toxic. 0.93

00:13:40.040 A great example of this that has really gotten popular recently is the crazy young girl.

00:13:45.260 So we see this in Harley Quinn, we see this in Jinx, we see this to be like, if you are an attractive woman in modern media, there are just not that many character archetypes.

00:13:57.660 And that's a big one in terms of the social landscape right now, right?

00:14:02.100 And that is really toxic when we are elevating the status of mental instability and associating it with being hot.

00:14:15.260 Um, or, or, or being a desirable female. 0.64

00:14:20.160 Which is, which is really toxic.

00:14:21.840 What are some other ones that you've seen in media where you're like, wow, this is a really toxic character that people are having modeled for them.

00:14:27.880 Oh, well, I mean, pretty much every depiction of relationships is, is pretty toxic.

00:14:33.280 I remember when House of Cards first came out, like the first few episodes and we're like, oh my gosh, is this finally like a dynamic couple that like broadly works together on things and coordinates and is aligned in their goals.

00:14:44.520 And then it just like completely goes off the rails, gets toxic, it's semi-abusive, like it's just horrible.

00:14:51.480 And there are so many other shows that, that supposedly depict power couples.

00:14:56.680 And people have told us like, oh yeah, I love this power couple on this show.

00:14:59.860 And like genuinely their behavior is toxic.

00:15:02.400 They don't communicate.

00:15:03.340 They don't have aligned incentives. 0.74

00:15:04.500 They're very selfish. 0.99

00:15:05.500 They play, they like mental games with each other or they like shit test each other, but in a really toxic, non-productive way. 1.00

00:15:12.900 It just blows my mind. 0.96

00:15:14.800 Like where, where are the functional relationships online?

00:15:18.700 So it's also no surprise to me that people don't have good relationships because no one is modeling them at all.

00:15:24.800 This is a great point where I think many people can be like, no, there's lots of stereotypes of what it's like to be a family when I look at TV and then it's okay.

00:15:32.240 The Simpsons, family guy.

00:15:34.000 The, the, that's what I'm going to say, American dad.

00:15:36.360 What I'm saying is, is you look at these and the, the couple dynamics are so similar across shows.

00:15:42.600 Yeah, they're very uncreative.

00:15:44.480 The, the rare show, but the point that we're making is because there's a lot of media out there, there could be a feeling that there are a lot of ways of structuring yourself and ways of structuring an identity or a relationship being modeled, but that's not necessarily the case.

00:16:00.120 You can have a huge volume of media, all with the exact same model being shown to people and the exact same types of toxic behavior.

00:16:09.340 Yeah.

00:16:09.820 Like the trope of the wife or girlfriend, who's always like rolling her eyes at and sort of like pulling her husband down a peg, like, Oh, like my husband.

00:16:18.880 And like very few depictions of wives that aren't like secretly smarter than their husbands now.

00:16:23.280 Or just that are like snide toward them and dismissive.

00:16:25.740 Like, I mean, we've had, I've personally had problems where like in public, I start acting like that merely because one, like I'm, I'm way too autistic to know how to actually act in public.

00:16:36.540 So of course I'm just taking my training data and acting how I understand wives to act in public. 0.97

00:16:41.740 And so we've had, especially earlier in our relationship, like I'm literally just like using training data to behave a certain way.

00:16:48.400 And I was like, Simone, why do you keep throwing me under the bus?

00:16:51.100 This is really bad.

00:16:52.760 And I'm like, what do you mean?

00:16:54.780 I'm not doing anything.

00:16:55.680 I'm just doing what wives do. 1.00

00:16:57.040 And I'm like, well, not my wife, but I, but it's also important that like we challenged that and we were able to work on that.

00:17:02.540 And I'm able to, to point that out because it is, it is really important.

00:17:08.440 If you're in a relationship with someone and you see them modeling these sorts of bad behavior patterns to immediately call them out and, and not like psychologist nonsense, right?

00:17:18.680 People are like, oh, I need to go to relationship counseling or go to a psychologist and that's who I changed myself.

00:17:23.280 No, just like nut up, man.

00:17:25.220 If you're doing something and it's not aligned with who you want to be, because these models we build of ourselves, they're not who we want to be.

00:17:32.100 It's just like short form.

00:17:33.440 I guess this is who I am right now.

00:17:34.980 And we, we can fall into them.

00:17:36.380 If it's not aligned with who you want to be or which you want to be like as a relationship, nip it in the bud as quickly as possible, because the more one of these behavior patterns replicates over time, the harder and harder it's going to be to change without changing your environment.

00:17:50.480 But I would say, so another thing that this, this model of behavior, I think dovetails really well with is our general principle that when it comes to encouraging behavior in our kids, it's really like show, don't tell.

00:18:03.900 Like the best way to encourage certain behavior is by modeling it, not by telling you to do it.

00:18:09.300 And again, like kids, just like humans use training data to determine how to behave.

00:18:14.180 So if you provide examples, you're more likely to see those examples be followed.

00:18:18.820 I also feel like that's one reason why parents can feel like really self-conscious around their kids in public, because they feel like your kids in public are like your drunk self, like what you look like behind the scenes and like without inhibitions.

00:18:33.400 So people get really, really embarrassed because their kids start saying stuff that like they would say behind.

00:18:38.420 And I actually think actually a really important thing about kids and drinking and stuff like that is I think that to a level, we all have like underlying pre-programmed behavior patterns.

00:18:48.180 And it's one of the reasons I like drinking with people is because I think you can begin to see those come out.

00:18:52.800 And this is separate from these narrative building things.

00:18:54.800 So, I mean, alcohol lowers inhibition and through that, I think that speaking of alcohol personality types, you see like one of four predominant personality types and individual motivators when somebody gets drunk.

00:19:08.580 Because you are dripping away the inhibition that they are using to suppress the way they actually just like biologically interact with the world.

00:19:17.400 And you see this with kids as well, right?

00:19:19.520 Like some people, when they get drunk, they just get really happy all the time.

00:19:22.540 It's just happy about everything.

00:19:24.160 Some people just sad about everything, right?

00:19:26.540 Some people just angry about everything.

00:19:28.960 Simone, when she gets drunk, she just gets incredibly loving of me. 0.99

00:19:32.500 Just wants to hug me all the time.

00:19:34.180 Tell me how much she cares for me.

00:19:35.440 I want to do a lot more than that.

00:19:36.580 It shows me what I like about it.

00:19:39.840 It shows me that underneath this controlled exterior, who you really are as somebody who's just constantly suppressing.

00:19:47.660 Who just wants to ravage you.

00:19:49.460 Flays of affection.

00:19:50.920 And it's sweet because you wouldn't be productive.

00:19:53.160 We wouldn't be able to move towards our actual objectives if you acted like that all the time.

00:19:57.460 But it's sweet to know what's under the hood.

00:20:00.340 And it's definitely something I see in our kids, which one of our sons, Torsten, he'll just do this thing where he'll start getting really good.

00:20:06.580 Really excited.

00:20:07.380 You can see him start jiggling to himself.

00:20:09.080 And he'll run up and give me a hug.

00:20:10.640 And what clearly happened there is he got in his mind this idea, oh, I'm going to give dad a hug.

00:20:15.440 And then he's just, oh, I'm so excited because he's about to give someone a hug.

00:20:19.400 And then he goes and gives me a hug.

00:20:20.560 And it's sweet that I can see that in you.

00:20:23.660 I don't know.

00:20:23.980 What do I come off as as drunk?

00:20:25.480 What's my actual personality?

00:20:29.740 It varies.

00:20:31.180 Mostly just happy.

00:20:32.840 I mean, but also you show that in reality, too.

00:20:35.360 I think you're one of those people whose, whose filter, like inhibitory filter is very low.

00:20:41.760 Like you just show what you are.

00:20:43.740 Yeah, you're right.

00:20:45.340 But also so rarely have you actually gotten sloshed.

00:20:48.180 Just pretty much that one time when my mom did a Wiccan prayer circle around you.

00:20:54.280 That's like the only time I've seen you destroy yourself.

00:20:57.320 We did it.

00:20:58.840 We did like a normal wedding, Simone and I.

00:21:00.860 But Simone's mom, she was very hippy dippy, training to be a shaman and everything like that. 0.99

00:21:06.540 So she asked us to come back to her hometown because she was like, Mike, the people in my hometown didn't get to experience your wedding.

00:21:12.400 But I'd love it if they could go to some ceremony we put together.

00:21:16.500 Not like a wedding, obviously, but like a after ceremony.

00:21:19.420 And then leading up to it, she drops.

00:21:21.400 She goes, could you guys wear your wedding outfits?

00:21:23.060 I really like those.

00:21:24.220 You still have them.

00:21:25.240 So could you put those on?

00:21:27.100 And then she's like, I love your vows.

00:21:28.440 Would you mind doing your vows again?

00:21:30.260 And then she freaking ambushes me with two concentric rings of people like moving in opposite directions doing. 1.00

00:21:38.500 And she did like this.

00:21:39.460 She goes, I want to read something.

00:21:40.920 And it's like this shamanistic thing about trees and roots and nature.

00:21:46.760 And Simone is looking in my eyes.

00:21:50.000 And I remember the way you described this.

00:21:52.560 Don't move, Malcolm. 0.99

00:21:53.460 Just don't do a goddamn thing. 0.99

00:21:56.580 I didn't do anything. 1.00

00:21:57.960 I didn't do anything.

00:21:58.480 I didn't know your face is like bright red, just bubbling up.

00:22:04.200 And then after that, you just got hammered.

00:22:07.080 I have never seen you so freaking drunk in my life.

00:22:10.760 And I think at that point, you just. 0.96

00:22:12.280 I am so anti all of that nonsense.

00:22:17.580 But I respect your family.

00:22:19.840 And so I'm being very courteous.

00:22:21.340 But it was such a.

00:22:24.580 That was very hard on you.

00:22:26.440 It was actually, it was very sweet.

00:22:27.960 It was very sweet that she wanted me to get married in, in her cultural way and her culture or the culture that she had adapted was a very Wiccan pagan culture, which is very different from my cultural value set.

00:22:39.220 And I would have gone along with it had she told me going into it anyway.

00:22:42.880 It's, it's, you gotta keep family happy, right?

00:22:47.180 But it is that that was the one time you saw me get really drunk.

00:22:50.700 Yeah.

00:22:50.820 But again, I just, I just think that you broadly sober is pretty much the same as you drunk.

00:22:57.240 You're just one of those really genuine people, which is one of the reasons why I really like you.

00:23:01.700 I think it's great, Simone.

00:23:02.720 I really appreciate it.

00:23:03.840 Well, so what, what would your advice be for someone who's like, all right, I don't like the way that I react to things.

00:23:10.560 I react to angrily to things, or I, I don't like the anxiety that I have, or I just feel like I could respond in a more opportunistic and, and optimal way when life throws me curve balls.

00:23:22.440 What would your advice be to them on one, creating a flux period, like manufacturing one, because you can't necessarily make someone in your life die or leave your job and move to a new place easily.

00:23:34.520 That's not something you can do all the time.

00:23:36.380 So what advice would you give on that front?

00:23:38.040 What advice would you give on designing a more optimal person?

00:23:41.080 First, look for an upcoming flux period.

00:23:43.260 Those are easiest.

00:23:44.540 If you're going to go to college in a year, like best just to use that one for you.

00:23:48.240 But also if you're broadly not satisfied with who you are in your life, it may be worth creating a flux period through leaving your job, where you live, starting something new.

00:23:56.840 This is only something you do if you feel like you have like real major self work to do.

00:24:01.000 Right.

00:24:01.680 But then in addition to that, how do you create it?

00:24:04.400 I think the most important saying is getting excited about who you're going to become and beginning to build a picture of that.

00:24:10.880 And this is something that I think most people can model or remember having done when they were going to start high school or college or their first job.

00:24:17.660 We all have some period in our life where everything was going to change and you began to think about, oh, I could be a different person.

00:24:24.240 What does that person do?

00:24:25.540 Who are they?

00:24:26.660 How do they do their hows?

00:24:27.980 What are they?

00:24:28.720 And as you get excited about becoming that person and you begin to put a lot of effort into modeling, this is what that person does.

00:24:35.480 This is what they do every day.

00:24:37.760 It makes it a lot easier to slip into that role.

00:24:40.920 If you don't have good social archetypes or what that character looks like, right, which can be really hard for people, then especially people who don't have a lot of experience with the sort of like creativity or whatever, right?

00:24:53.680 Try to create your own.

00:24:54.880 This is where things like role-playing games and stuff like that can have active utility in your life is that you can learn how to act like and pick up and think like another character and test different archetypes that you can then build into yourself during your next flex period.

00:25:12.400 Because who we are, like people are like, no, I am who I really am.

00:25:17.020 What do you mean who you really are?

00:25:18.340 Like the serendipitous things that happened to you throughout your life that you had no control over.

00:25:23.140 So you're just like a sticky ball that's been rolling down a dirty street.

00:25:26.620 That's who you really are.

00:25:27.780 Or are you someone who has intentionally constructed their internal character?

00:25:32.160 That seems like much more you than a you that was chosen serendipitously for you.

00:25:38.440 Any conscious decision on your part?

00:25:40.860 I mean, would you have any additional advice?

00:25:43.060 Yeah, I think I'd add that also to our earlier points, the media that you choose to consume really does matter and that you will probably start to passively model behaviors that you see.

00:25:54.320 So if you're watching or consuming a lot of media, and this isn't just like TV shows and movies, it's also music that just models bad behavior that isn't going to help you if you're depressed and you're listening to a bunch of sad songs and watching shows that are really depressing with people who are dysfunctional and mentally.

00:26:12.400 Okay, that's gonna that's gonna prime you to do all that bad stuff.

00:26:16.360 I know the research on priming is now going through replication crisis, but it's going to give you bad training data.

00:26:21.980 I would also say that and this is, I think, a lot harder to deal with the people that you surround yourself with may need to change, because they very much reinforce who you are.

00:26:33.040 And many of them will not want you to change and I've changed myself pretty significantly since I've met you, Malcolm, and a lot of that.

00:26:40.960 It was notable to see how some people were very openly against the new me and they did all sorts of things to both shame me for changing and try to change me back.

00:26:56.600 So you may have to break up with friends and family or move away from them or stop spending time with them or just set really clear boundaries like this is the new me.

00:27:04.200 I mean, of course, they built a relationship with the previous person that was valuable to them when you become somebody new is somebody more aligned with your actual value system, you become less useful to them at the friend you're no longer who their friend was like why wouldn't they?

00:27:20.300 Yeah, but I mean, I think it's important to acknowledge that this stuff is really hard.

00:27:25.880 And I think it's one of those things where unfortunately, the vast majority of people are going to hear this and they're going to say, well, nope, like I've had people, people be like, oh, you've had three kids, like, how are you so thin?

00:27:39.260 And I'm like, oh, it's easy.

00:27:40.440 I just weigh and measure everything I eat and make sure that I eat the same number of calories that I burn every day.

00:27:45.700 You exercise how many hours a day?

00:27:47.700 I don't know. Yeah, I like I work from a treadmill desk, but I think the more important thing is just the calories.

00:27:52.020 But they're like, oh, yeah, I'm never going to.

00:27:54.120 Sorry, you are underselling four?

00:27:57.000 I mean, I'm probably walking two miles an hour, four hours a day.

00:28:01.480 Okay, four to five hours a day. She's exercising every.

00:28:04.800 That's not walking two miles an hour is not exercising. It's like slowly moving while typing.

00:28:10.400 But my point is like most people like.

00:28:13.000 But a exercise desk and elliptical, you are hugely underselling how much you exercise.

00:28:18.600 Yeah, because I'm autistic and that's my stimming.

00:28:20.580 But that's also, I think, really important.

00:28:22.680 We sometimes talk about the sinfulness of exercising for vanity.

00:28:26.300 And what we're talking about with this type of exercise is exercise that's not useful for health reasons and that distracts you.

00:28:32.460 So you can't work. Right. You can't do other productive things.

00:28:35.840 The type of exercise you're doing is totally efficacious because it is in no way interfering with your ability to get productive work done.

00:28:44.200 So you're just doing two hard things at the same time.

00:28:47.060 And I deeply admire that you're somebody who works to combine those things.

00:28:50.740 Well, it's not it's not admirable because I can't focus while sitting.

00:28:53.760 I hate sitting like I can barely cope with sitting down for these.

00:28:57.980 You know what I mean?

00:28:58.820 But anyway, I think this is one of those interventions where it does involve a lot of genuine sacrifices and a lot of hard work.

00:29:05.600 And typically when we talk with people about this and we're like, yeah, you can have the life you want.

00:29:09.760 You can have the body you want. You can have all these things.

00:29:12.340 Here's what needs to happen if that's what you want.

00:29:14.580 And people just like, no, no, not happening.

00:29:17.720 Which is so funny to us.

00:29:19.140 It's like, how can you complain about not having what you want if you're not willing to sacrifice stuff?

00:29:23.760 I mean, I guess ultimately it means that they don't want the thing that much and they want immediate satisfaction and comfort.

00:29:29.280 They want it less than the things they have now.

00:29:31.240 Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:32.120 Or I think a lot of people, they may actually want it more than the things they have now, but they're not sure they're going to get it.

00:29:38.460 So keep in mind, you're always applying like a variable.

00:29:40.740 Does this actually work to any big thing you're trying?

00:29:43.320 Yeah.

00:29:43.720 And two, you also like, there's some people who just are psychologically not structured for action.

00:29:53.060 And there's some people that are psychologically structured for action.

00:29:56.860 And both of us come from environments that sorted for people psychologically structured for action intergenerationally.

00:30:04.040 But what I mean is like you're in, you grew up in the San Francisco area, right?

00:30:07.480 Like family moving to the San Francisco area are people who at least immigrated twice, likely three times in their history.

00:30:15.820 So you've already selected for people willing to immigrate, right?

00:30:19.240 And to a high risk, high reward environment, either the Gold Rush or Silicon Valley or any of the other various things that was going on in San Francisco.

00:30:26.520 My family's from Dallas, Texas, right?

00:30:28.880 Again, almost everyone who's living there immigrated at least twice in their family history and likely three times.

00:30:35.400 And they were immigrating because they just didn't want to be wherever things had become too civilized. 1.00

00:30:42.740 So they just kept moving to the edge of civilization, to the edge of civilization.

00:30:45.820 And I think that that's really apparent in my personality and worldviews that I am to an extent shaped by that.

00:30:52.080 Well, and so for that reason, for us to be like, no, all you have to do is this is like, it's not perfect.

00:30:57.880 And no, not everyone's going to be able to do it.

00:31:00.300 But still, I mean, at least we anecdotally have found that this model is really effective.

00:31:03.940 And we think it's worth considering if right now you don't react to life in a way that makes you happy.

00:31:10.500 If you're not happy with your outcome when you respond to various developments.

00:31:17.960 Yeah.

00:31:18.600 Well, I love you so much, Simone.

00:31:19.920 I am so lucky to be with a woman who worked so hard to change herself into this amazing person you are today.

00:31:29.020 I really admire and am humbled by who you've become.

00:31:34.220 I appreciate that, Malcolm.

00:31:35.560 I only really was able to make those changes because you allowed me to.

00:31:38.620 Like you showed me that I could become who I wanted to be instead of who society left me as.

00:31:44.720 And I really appreciate that.

00:31:45.860 I separated you from your friends and brainwashed you.

00:31:49.100 How many people have met us and at first thought like, this was a, are you okay, Simone situation?

00:31:56.920 And then they get to know me and they're like, oh.

00:31:59.780 Oh, yeah.

00:32:00.800 We've had a lot of people do that.

00:32:02.440 They'll try to get Simone alone.

00:32:03.780 They're like, hey, what's, what's going on here?

00:32:06.040 You seem to like.

00:32:06.740 No, no.

00:32:06.960 By the time they even get me alone, they're like, oh, at first I thought this was one of those brainwash situations.

00:32:11.220 And now I see, nope.

00:32:14.480 Anyway.

00:32:15.360 Yeah.

00:32:15.780 Love you a lot.

00:32:16.920 I love you a lot.

00:32:17.900 And I, I'm glad I did such a good job brainwashing you that they can't even tell that you're, you're, you're unsavable to them.

00:32:24.140 They get to you and they're like, ah, this one's already gone.

00:32:26.660 He's lost.

00:32:27.260 Yeah.

00:32:27.760 Good job, Malcolm.

00:32:29.920 Bye.

00:32:32.280 All right.

00:32:32.900 Kids.

00:32:33.220 Kids.

Based Camp - September 05, 2023

Shaping Culture and Self at the Meta Level

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