Absolutely Mental Season 3
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
180.4537
Summary
Ricky Gervais joins Sam to discuss the pros and cons of having a dog or a cat, and why he doesn't have one. He also explains why he thinks a cat would be better than a dog, and what he would do if he did have a pet. It's a great episode, and one you won't want to miss! The third season of Absolutely Mental is now available on Amazon Prime and Vimeo worldwide, and the other two are available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover and Audio Book format. You can also get a free copy of the entire series for only $99.99. If you enjoy this episode, the other episodes in Season 3, as well as the first two seasons, are all available at AbsolutelyMental.co.uk. Enjoy. Sam Harris Make Sense? - The Making Sense Podcast, Episode 3 - Season 3 is out now, and is available on Prime Video, Vimeo, and also on Kindle and iBook. You can get a copy of Season 3 for free on Amazon, and it's also available on Audible, and Audible. It's free to watch on the Kindle, and on Vimeo. We're working on making sense of it all, so don't forget to check it out! We'll post it out on the App Store and amazon too! Subscribe to make sense. and review it on your favourite podcasting platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and subscribe on Podchaser, and we'll read it on the Making Sense podcast on the podchaser. if you're listening to the podcast. Thank you for listening to Making Sense. - Sam Harris' Making Sense - Thank you, Sam's Making Sense, and I hope you enjoy the podcast and share it on all of your comments and subscribe to the making sense podcast on your social media platforms! - P.S. to let us know what you think of it! Tweet me what you're making sense? and tag us in your thoughts on the podcast! :) - Sam's Insta: or do you have a question or thoughts on it's good or bad? or any other podcasting advice? and we'd like it to be featured in the next episode? on Insta-tweet it's a tweet about it? :) or your answer is a star rating or review?
Transcript
00:00:24.620
Okay, well we have released the third season of Absolutely Mental, so today I'm previewing
00:00:33.060
that for you, so you get to hear from Ricky Gervais.
00:00:37.020
It is always great fun for me to speak with him.
00:00:40.100
Anyway, if you enjoy this, the other episodes in Season 3, as well as the first two seasons,
00:01:06.460
I actually have a question for you that I've been forgetting to ask before we move to anything
00:01:13.620
We're at the moment where we're deciding whether or not to get a pet.
00:01:18.520
My two girls want a pet, and it's the dog versus cat conversation.
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I notice you're always tweeting pictures of your cat, but I know you're also a dog lover.
00:01:39.960
I talk about this in my stand-up that I know about 200 dogs by name.
00:01:47.580
But there's two reasons why we don't have a dog.
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With a dog, I can't stand that look on their face.
00:02:02.620
When I was growing up, I used to go on holiday with my mum.
00:02:06.440
My dad used to look after the house and dog sit.
00:02:08.380
And that was his holiday too, because he could get drunker.
00:02:11.480
And when we came home, our dog pretended to be ill, like come out limping or something.
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And the vet said, yeah, it's just, he doesn't want you to go away again, you know.
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So they do have, I mean, they do have emotions very human-like, very close to us, that attachment,
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that, you know, what looks like, you know, fear, shame, gratitude, unlike a cat.
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But the other reason, if I'm honest, I don't think I can live through 15 years of knowing
00:02:51.140
Every cat I've had to put down, I've been in a state.
00:02:55.980
But you do think there's less of an emotional attachment to a cat in the end, no matter how
00:03:02.260
No, I think there's less of an emotional attachment from a cat.
00:03:06.720
So, you know, I can personify pretty much, I can feel sorry for a car that's left in the
00:03:15.780
But, yeah, I do think because there's a genuine, it looks like human camaraderie from a dog
00:03:27.920
There's still something about the cat that sits on you because it wants to be warm.
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And I feel with a dog, and I could be totally wrong, and you know more about it than me,
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That's like saying you shouldn't have friends or family in case they die.
00:03:51.080
Or I shouldn't have had the kids in the first place.
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There's something else in the world we're leaving them.
00:04:05.340
And if you're going to have a dog, I feel you've got to have a dog 24-7, and it's your
00:04:09.180
friend, and you've got to be with it, you know.
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And as I say, it's okay to leave a cat for a couple of days if it's in its own environment
00:04:19.320
For all the pain you eventually go through and the inconvenience and remembering to walk
00:04:25.780
it, feed it every day or whatever it is, I think that's, I can't imagine not being
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You don't think that's the toxoplasmosis talking?
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It's a brain parasite you get from exposure to cat feces.
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No, I, you know, I honestly still try and keep away from pets' feces.
00:05:02.780
I like to, you know, I let a dog lick my face, but that's where I draw the line.
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Well, that's putting a lot of faith in the dog's behavior.
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The dog, the dogs famously don't draw the line too well themselves.
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Of course, of course, children should have pets.
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I think it's also a learning process as well, that attachment and then that early loss,
00:05:30.700
Well, the thing for me is I always grew up with dogs, so I don't have a, you know, I have
00:05:34.360
a very clear sense of what it's like to have a dog and how great that is as a kid.
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You know, with dogs, there's degrees of stuff and lots of.
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Yeah, and you don't know until you open the box.
00:06:03.840
So, I still know they've got to get a, yeah, get one of each.
00:06:09.720
That's the longer negotiation that I've noticed directed at my brain.
00:06:13.680
I think it also, I think it also teaches them duty.
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You know, you can't, you can't suddenly go, I don't feel like doing this today or feeding
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So, I don't know, I guess some people are allergic to dogs, but I never seem to encounter
00:06:27.700
people who are, who, who admit to a dog allergy, but, but I, I do know people who are seriously
00:06:34.800
And so, what happens when, when someone with a cat allergy shows up at your house?
00:06:38.380
Well, I think you know, I think you know, don't you, by then?
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I mean, it's very, very rarely that one of you gets and suddenly realizes.
00:06:50.960
It's the, it's the actual dander, isn't it, of the cat and dog?
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And that's why the Labradoodle was invented, because they found out that poodles are sort
00:07:02.060
So, they bred poodles with everything, and then you can get most breeds of dog if it's
00:07:09.520
I think that's mostly for the shedding, though.
00:07:11.500
People just, like, not having the hair all over their clothing.
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I thought it was because it, that there were, there were, you were less, people were less
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In Los Angeles, I think it's all about the hair.
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You've got your black clothing that you don't want.
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Well, that's, uh, that's the other thing as well about cats and dogs, um, that the,
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uh, black cats are the last one to be left in rescue homes.
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But now the worst, the worst crime, right, is people don't want black cats because they
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don't Instagram well, which is, like, the most infuriating, shallow reason I've ever
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I mean, I just, uh, if there's, if you want to get more annoyed at the world, just know
00:08:06.140
So, and, so what kind of breed of cat do you have?
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That's a good looking cat you keep Instagramming.
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A moggy, a big old, normal rescue cat, a big, fat, healthy tabby, just to, yeah.
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Don't buy these 5,000 pounds designer dogs that have been from sort of horrible farms and
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I have another question that was on my mind to ask you.
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Have you watched any of this new Beatles documentary?
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Let's talk about that when you do, because it's pretty interesting.
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It's an interesting experience of anthropology, watching these guys interact and create.
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It's one of those things that you get around to five years after, I think.
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I go, no, I'm not going to watch it because everyone else is.
00:09:10.140
Well, my question, I think this might be right up your alley, because I remember a few
00:09:17.020
years ago, I think when we first came in contact with each other, you sent me, you've done
00:09:21.800
a sort of an epic essay, as I remember, or a small book, whatever you'd call it, on
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I think that was our first connection when I sent it to you.
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As I remember, it was mostly about the morality of lying.
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I watched this thing that was more about the anthropology and the psychology of lying and
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Do you know the lying experiment they did with different sample groups?
00:09:49.620
I know some experiments, but I don't know what you're referencing.
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So they got a group of people, a lot of people, they told them they were doing a test, but not
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what it was, or what they were testing, obviously.
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And what it was to answer as many questions, I think they were just math questions, as many
00:10:12.540
They would mark it themselves and then shred the papers.
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Now, what they didn't know was they weren't really shredded, so people could tell if they
00:10:19.540
So they got a dollar for every question they got right, right?
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And then they did another experiment where instead of getting a dollar per question, they
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got a token per question, and they had to go somewhere else to cash it in.
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And because of that one-step removal of responsibility, like they weren't ripping off the person they
00:10:50.480
And then they did another experiment where before they did the test, they just said, oh, we're
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They're going to tell them what was going to happen.
00:11:05.580
So I think it was about social responsibility and guilt, which is fascinating that if you're
00:11:12.900
going to lie, and I just wonder where it came from, because it's obviously part of our
00:11:18.280
It's obviously due to group selection where I suppose it was more important, wasn't it?
00:11:26.920
Very rarely now lying is a matter of life and death.
00:11:30.400
And I think a lot of our moral decisions are, you know, our conscious sort of mind suppressing
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our instincts that might be bad or might have been, you know, more useful before.
00:11:43.960
But apparently it exploded with the advent of language.
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But there's always been lies in our evolution, even down to, you know, camouflage is a lie.
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And, you know, pretending you're poisonous when you're not and things like that.
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And I just, I wonder if you know more about the psychology of why we lie, because I think
00:12:05.620
Well, you know, I had a total change in my outlook on this topic.
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It's really one of the, I can count on, I think, one hand and even just a couple of fingers,
00:12:16.860
moments in my life where my relationship to a whole set of behaviors and norms and just,
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you know, something that was kind of background became suddenly foreground and, you know, just
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I had a change in how I decided to live as a person.
00:12:34.620
And it was based on this course I took in college and as a freshman.
00:12:39.000
And it was just a course that analyzed whether lying was ever ethical.
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And it was just this machine for producing people who came out the other side of it convinced
00:12:57.000
I mean, there's kind of self-defense situations.
00:12:59.920
I view lying now as sort of the first step on the continuum of violence.
00:13:03.800
So that when you're dealing with someone who you really can't collaborate with, this is
00:13:11.080
This is somebody who is, to one or another degree, your enemy.
00:13:13.980
And you're now deciding how much violence you need to use to get them out of your life.
00:13:21.000
A lie is, you know, ethically permissible and even necessary in that case.
00:13:26.820
You know, so if you're thinking about whether you have to punch this person in the face,
00:13:29.720
well, then obviously you could be thinking about whether to lie to them first.
00:13:34.280
But generally speaking, I mean, everyone who took this course, it was really a fantastic
00:13:39.900
professor at Stanford, Ron Howard, was a very influential course in the lives of many people
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because he just deconstructed this background assumption that everyone had that some amount
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of lying was not only normal, but inevitable and socially desirable.
00:13:59.760
That, you know, white lies were an expression of compassion generally, and you just have to
00:14:05.480
There's no way to navigate social space without...
00:14:07.500
You must agree that white lies are from empathy and compassion, and where you want
00:14:15.160
I mean, there's lots of steps here, isn't there?
00:14:17.040
Because telling the truth doesn't mean blurting it out when you're not...
00:14:22.600
So, you know, if a little kid says to you, you know, am I ugly?
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I mean, whatever you think, surely the better thing to do is, no, of course you're not.
00:14:32.640
I mean, who would argue that that's the ethical answer?
00:14:35.620
Well, so there are situations where, yeah, so first, as you point out, a commitment to
00:14:42.600
telling the truth doesn't require that you just blurt out everything you're thinking
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like you have, you know, some neurological disorder.
00:14:51.280
And it also doesn't, you know, it doesn't prevent you from kind of curating the kinds
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It's like, because you can't say everything on any given topic.
00:15:01.160
So there is no burden to say absolutely everything you think or could possibly think about someone
00:15:08.000
So you're filtering by what's true and what's useful, right?
00:15:12.240
And so sometimes it's not useful to say something and there's no need to say it.
00:15:18.800
I mean, so you can keep a secret, for instance.
00:15:21.420
Oh, you know, I'm not a fan in general of keeping too many secrets.
00:15:26.060
You know, if someone says, how much money do you have in your bank account, the truth
00:15:32.320
So you can just say, that's none of your business.
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So it doesn't require a lie to carve out different zones of privacy.
00:15:38.700
But in the case you referenced here, there are situations where you're not in a relationship
00:15:48.980
No, I went straight to that because I think parents lie all the time for the child's own
00:15:55.420
But actually, no, but the truth is, I have found that we have really never needed to
00:16:01.500
I'm only aware of once telling a lie to one of my daughters.
00:16:13.360
I just, we'd done a Google search for photos for something.
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I forget what the search was, but she was very young.
00:16:23.900
And we came upon a, a, an old woodcut, uh, you know, like a 14th century woodcut of, you
00:16:30.680
know, somebody, you know, somebody being decapitated.
00:16:33.600
And she said, well, you know, what, what was that?
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I just got to try to try to move by it as quickly as possible.
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She said, well, what, what, what was, what's happening there?
00:16:40.740
And I said, oh, that was, um, that was a very, a very old and impractical form of surgery.
00:16:53.640
Well, that's interesting because, so do you, have you never pretended there's a Santa?
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And that was actually the, the most common question I got in response to that book line.
00:17:06.520
So I have a whole argument about why you, you don't need to lie about Santa.
00:17:09.460
But the interesting thing is I heard from dozens and dozens of people who remember what
00:17:16.800
it was like to learn that Santa didn't exist and to realize that their parents had been lying
00:17:22.780
to them about it and they remember how betrayed they felt by their parents.
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And, and, and it was actually, it was actually a wound in the relationship.
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They just felt like they never quite trusted their parents.
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I mean, I just, you know, uh, what about, like, I could say, but my, my mom lied to me
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about there being a God, but I, I wouldn't, I mean, it's ambiguous whether she was lying or
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But in that case, I think she probably believed it.
00:17:55.380
Also, I did hear from many fundamentalist Christians who said, oh yeah, my parents never
00:18:00.380
lied about Santa because they didn't want us to think they were lying about Jesus.
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So they were, they were scrupulous about Santa.
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That's interesting as well to give another, a comparable piece of information, more credibility.
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I think that we've got to decide what constitutes a lie because I think you'll be very, you're
00:18:27.400
What a lie is when it comes to talking to kids.
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I mean, because if they ask you something and you say, I don't know, and you do know, that's
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It's pretending not to have heard their question line.
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You know, I think there's an ambiguity to what lying is.
00:18:53.260
It's incredible that you say that confidently, even that you say it, whether it's right or
00:19:04.860
You know, and I only ever mean white lies, of course.
00:19:07.560
You know, because here's the thing, it almost never, I mean, the truth is, I'm almost never
00:19:14.120
in a situation where it's remotely tempting, where I even see, it's like we live in three
00:19:20.280
dimensional space and it's impossible to visualize, you know, the fourth dimension.
00:19:25.160
For me, the dimension, you know, where I'd have to point where it's tempting to lie, it
00:19:41.160
What would you say when they say like where, when someone dies, a family member dies, where
00:19:48.680
Well, I mean, so the honest truth there, and so this is just a kind of a happy accident
00:19:53.580
because you and I are in slightly different camps here.
00:20:01.380
Like, I have, I can get into the details of why it's intellectually credible to think
00:20:11.440
But I don't, I just, I can, that's a big blank spot on the map for me.
00:20:17.060
So you genuinely say, you genuinely and honestly say you don't know.
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These poor kids have got to ask the right question to get an answer, haven't they?
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They've got, they've got, they've got about 15 questions to put you on the spot.
00:20:46.260
I'm like, I'm like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates in a deposition.
00:20:51.460
Do you ever take the fifth when your kids are asking you about stuff?
00:20:54.680
No, but, but in truth, there's really, if you're, once you recognize that you're on
00:21:04.580
And you, you have the, the interests of this person at heart, then it's just a question
00:21:10.000
of how best to communicate the truth to a child generally.
00:21:14.600
And so like, so in the case of, of like that decapitation woodcut, right.
00:21:20.140
The, I mean, there's been many versions of that sort of thing that, that came up later,
00:21:24.100
you know, like one of our daughters would hear us, you know, talking about something
00:21:28.160
that's, you know, something horrible that had happened out in the world.
00:21:31.520
And, you know, she would ask, you say, you know, what are you talking about?
00:21:34.140
What, and the honest truth is, listen, there are all kinds of things that happen in the
00:21:41.600
No, but that's, but that's sort of my point because your argument is a bit of a circular
00:21:46.520
If we're trying to find out what's best to tell a child, that includes whether the truth
00:21:52.600
is the best thing to tell a child, because we don't know the reaction.
00:21:55.660
So you might find out that sometimes lies are better for the child in the greater scheme
00:22:07.360
I think there are a few cases, there are cases in extremis, right, where you're in some
00:22:12.440
sort of emergency where it's easy to imagine, or at least it's plausible to argue, that a
00:22:20.000
well-crafted lie is the compassionate and even life-saving, you know, artifice that you
00:22:27.260
need, whereas the truth, however well-intentioned, is going to run risk of serious harm.
00:22:32.800
But generally, I just have not been in that situation.
00:22:35.060
And it's always honest to say, listen, you know, we're your parents and there's all kinds
00:22:41.560
of things we know that, you know, we'll eventually tell you, but right now, you know, you don't
00:22:49.560
And I think that's probably erring on the side of caution.
00:22:52.740
And you're probably, and you've still got, you know, a lot of maneuvering at your disposal
00:22:58.080
It's not like you, you know, you haven't gone to the point of no return in either way.
00:23:05.900
I think in general, but I think that if you take lies by themselves, in general, they are
00:23:13.320
But when they're connected to the rest of the world, all those knock-on effects, what you've
00:23:18.820
said before, what caused me, I think it is ambiguous whether always, and I only mean
00:23:25.200
in the sense of like, act versus rule utilitarianism, right?
00:23:33.440
Someone having a heart attack on the grass, of course you walk on the grass.
00:23:38.140
So taking that as a metaphor, there must be many, many situations where certainly immediately
00:23:51.260
And again, I'm only talking if it's a compassionate lie, if you're protecting the feelings of someone
00:23:57.360
I think that if you're protecting your own feelings and your own reputation, giving yourself
00:24:01.060
an advantage, because that's what a lie does, isn't it?
00:24:03.560
It gives you an unfair advantage in the world over someone else who's left in the dark.
00:24:10.980
Well, it is the very, I mean, psychologically speaking, it is the temptation to lie is always
00:24:18.300
born of the sense that your interests and the interests of the other person have now diverged,
00:24:25.800
Like you have a view of the world that you now can't share, or it would be too awkward
00:24:30.500
to share, or you're now, you're for whatever reason, not disposed to share it with this
00:24:35.360
And you don't want to give them access to reality as you see it, because you think in some way
00:24:44.060
And so it is the very definition of selfishness, even if you have told yourself this story that
00:24:52.000
Rarely do people, in my experience, think it all the way through to the end and actually
00:24:57.060
believe that if they were the other person, they wouldn't want to know.
00:25:02.120
So, usually the so-called compassionate lies are born of just this feeling of awkwardness
00:25:08.200
that it's just, you don't want to be the one to say this.
00:25:11.320
But if you were the other person, you would want to know, right?
00:25:14.980
Like if, you know, I mean, the great example in my life that came pretty early for me was
00:25:20.160
I had a friend who was a screenwriter who had been working on a script for probably a
00:25:26.740
And, you know, he asked me to read it and he asked me what I thought of it.
00:25:34.980
But the truth is, I also thought he was, you know, very smart and a very promising writer.
00:25:40.660
And, you know, it's like he has gone on to have a great career as a screenwriter and
00:25:46.520
And the net effect of me telling him that I thought that script was terrible was that
00:25:53.320
forever after he knew I was being honest with him whenever I said I thought something
00:26:00.440
It's like now I'm someone, I mean, this is now decades old, but I've always been someone
00:26:05.700
he could trust to calibrate, you know, what he, and it's not to say that my opinions are
00:26:10.340
always right, but he knew I wasn't bullshitting him ever.
00:26:14.340
And that's something, at least with my, you know, with our daughters, I mean, given how much
00:26:19.220
we've emphasized the value of honesty, they just know we're not going to lie to them.
00:26:27.400
It's like, because you have to, what you have to price in is how meaningful praise becomes
00:26:37.560
That's a very different kind of praise you're getting from people who are just giving it
00:26:42.700
because that's what they do, because it's too awkward to say anything critical.
00:26:45.820
So your decision, outside your own personal integrity, is that this is better for the
00:26:53.860
To learn the lesson that never lying is a reward for all those things.
00:26:59.140
Would there ever be a case, could you imagine, where you'd want them to lie?
00:27:04.780
Yeah, in a self, in some kind of self-defense situation, when you're dealing with someone
00:27:09.500
who, you know, you can't trust and who's, who you don't, you're treating this person
00:27:13.820
as a kind of dangerous object because that's the, you know, that's what they've become.
00:27:18.340
So you count it almost as self-defense, so the metaphor is violence with, I get that.
00:27:23.520
And even there, there are, you know, it's worth considering whether the truth might not
00:27:29.920
I mean, so like the classic cases, you know, the Nazis show up at the door and you have
00:27:33.540
Anne Frank in the attic, the Nazi at the door says, we're looking for a little girl.
00:27:39.560
Now, obviously, in the general case, the ethical thing to do there is lie and say, no, sorry.
00:27:46.260
But if you were actually in a stronger position, the truth would be better.
00:27:51.580
I mean, what you actually would want to happen.
00:27:57.060
And if you make another, if you take another step, I'm going to put a bullet in your face,
00:28:04.300
I mean, that's probably the best example we could ever have here.
00:28:07.420
But to take it as a metaphor as well, the world is full of us not being in charge of
00:28:16.360
And I sort of agree with you in principle, definitely, that I don't lie.
00:28:29.100
Because I know it's wrong, but also I couldn't stand, I couldn't stand it.
00:28:36.580
As I said loads of times, when you come to my party, I can't come to your party.
00:28:40.680
Now, the reason I can't is because it's awful and I don't want to be there, right?
00:28:46.960
So that's an interesting, I'll remember that next time I invite you to a party.
00:29:04.900
And you'd go, oh, he always gives blood at the orphanage.
00:29:23.800
Okay, but this is a great example, which is, yes, it is tempting to lie in those cases.
00:29:30.520
But, you know, once you set yourself the rule that you're just not going to lie, even in those socially awkward situations, two things happen.
00:29:41.660
One is it holds a kind of mirror up to your life.
00:29:45.960
Where you are then forced to recognize, okay, I'm one, I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to go to these kinds of parties.
00:29:56.360
Is that like, what does this say about me that I don't want, you know, that the truth is I don't want to go to this party.
00:30:03.920
And two, it holds a mirror up to all of these relationships that you might not want to have, right?
00:30:11.000
Maybe you just don't want this person to think they should keep inviting you to the party you don't want to go to, right?
00:30:17.760
Yeah, well, it does depend on whether it's like, yeah, friends, family, best friends, acquaintance, annoying acquaintance, somebody, exactly.
00:30:24.220
Of course, there's a sliding scale of wanting to go to the party or not.
00:30:28.820
But it was just that I was, the only reason I came up with that was that I'd say, okay, no, I know what you're saying, really.
00:30:36.680
Yeah, I think that's a white lie because it's for their good and the truth would hurt.
00:30:40.340
I'd say, no, I don't like you enough or that your party would not be as good as me sitting in my pants watching Netflix, right?
00:30:47.580
But I suppose I'm really protecting myself, aren't I?
00:30:51.260
That I'm doing, I'm getting the best of both worlds.
00:30:53.900
I'm staying in and watching Netflix in my pants, which is what I want to do.
00:30:58.580
And I haven't heard their feelings, so they might like me still.
00:31:05.500
I mean, there are certainly relationships I have where I could honestly say, I'm sorry, I just, I really just don't feel like going.
00:31:14.140
I just wanted to stay home and watch Netflix, right?
00:31:16.600
And that would not be, because of the nature of the, you know, all past communication, that would be fine.
00:31:22.100
I mean, the person's not going to take it personally.
00:31:25.020
And, I mean, actually, this reminds me of something that Annika discovered when she was, when we, I think we just had our first daughter.
00:31:33.520
And, you know, she's being asked to various situations.
00:31:37.400
And because she was never telling a white lie to get out of, you know, having lunch or going to parties or whatever it was, she was just constantly being honest about how exhausted she was, how overwhelmed she was, how just like, sorry, I don't want to go.
00:31:52.500
And she realized that most people don't do that.
00:31:58.520
You almost get like an Instagram fake image of how good everyone's life is and how much they're holding it together when really they're just, they're, they're telling, they're busy telling white lies to get out of situations that they're just too exhausted to be in.
00:32:13.240
And once you start telling people how exhausted you are, you unmask that in your network of friends and everyone confesses, yeah, I just, I couldn't go.
00:32:22.240
I just couldn't bring myself to go because I was so tired.
00:32:26.360
But, I mean, the script example, that happens to me a lot, right?
00:32:33.980
But I already know, however bad it is, I'm never going to say anything too terrible about it.
00:32:40.060
What I do is I try and find one good thing about it.
00:32:43.320
And I just say that, I go, oh, I like the so-and-so, good so-and-so, good luck with it.
00:32:47.540
You know, I could never say, I mean, how honest were you?
00:32:51.200
I mean, I know, again, this is not my best friend.
00:32:54.080
I'm assuming this is not, this is not my best friend.
00:33:00.780
So you're saying you would be honest with your best friend?
00:33:08.400
I'd still be, I'd still do it with compassion, but I'd be a lot more honest because I care
00:33:17.180
Okay, but what if you had a friend, what if you had a friend who was spending all their
00:33:21.140
time trying to do something that you really thought they were not cut out for, right?
00:33:27.620
I think the example I use in the book, I think is with an actor, you know, someone who wants
00:33:33.500
to be an actor and wants nothing more than to be the next, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio.
00:33:37.520
But for a dozen reasons, you think this whole project, this whole life course is doomed,
00:33:45.240
Like there's no way this person is going to make it as an actor.
00:33:49.560
Well, I'd still keep my mouth shut because I could be wrong.
00:33:53.460
I wouldn't want, if I was the person to say, you'll never make it, give up.
00:33:58.380
If I could see that alternative reality, if I was God, and I suddenly see that in five
00:34:03.260
years, he actually does something and he gets a lucky break and he's massive.
00:34:07.300
I don't want to be the one in my reality that destroyed his dreams because I don't know
00:34:15.840
So that uncertainty is the inaccurate description of the truth as you see it, right?
00:34:23.660
You could say, listen, I, this is just my opinion, but honestly, I think you should, you
00:34:32.120
Like that, you know, but you've established that the more you tell the truth like that,
00:34:35.720
the more brutally honest you are with people, the more they respect your opinion.
00:34:39.540
So now me being brutally honest about how terrible he is has much more chance of him
00:34:49.640
So, so, but you just have to think of what might be a good thing, or he might be depressed
00:34:54.660
not doing, because people can do the thing they love and never get anywhere.
00:34:58.840
But actually have had a, had a happier life doing it, you know?
00:35:02.420
Well, okay, but, but yes, but that's that, again, this is a conversation.
00:35:05.720
And that's more of the truth you're, you're putting out.
00:35:10.880
I'm just throwing up little, I suppose, counter examples or upshots really, because it is a
00:35:19.780
I mean, it comes down to the shoot one person and the other nine go free or all 10 get shot.
00:35:26.900
There's a certain amount that goes, it's not up to me to shoot anyone.
00:35:37.380
It's, I think it's totally valid morally to go, who the fuck are you handing out?
00:35:44.860
But, but you just have to visualize, you just have to visualize the complete situation.
00:35:49.240
Here we're talking about someone who has asked for your opinion.
00:35:53.540
And you, if you, if you imagine, it's just the golden rule.
00:35:57.360
I mean, what would you want to know in there, if you were in their place, if you were trying
00:36:02.500
to be an actor and you actually didn't have the talent for it, or were the people closest
00:36:06.400
to you thought you didn't have the talent for it and they weren't telling you?
00:36:10.160
Now, ah, but now I'm an expert in the know that can genuinely help him.
00:36:15.340
You see, I think the important thing is here that I'm not, well, people come to me and show
00:36:20.120
me their scripts because they know I'm in, I've made my way.
00:36:26.320
So, it's not just my opinion, it's how useful I am because I could give them golden nuggets.
00:36:32.500
I could give them, you know, so I think we have to take that out of it.
00:36:35.920
I think, I think we have to, I don't know what, I can't think of an example, something
00:36:44.300
I think that is more interesting because it's just purely my opinion and whether that's
00:36:52.480
Well, I'm glad we've, we've had this conversation because it's been something I've been wanting
00:36:56.880
to tell you and I'm just going to be brutally honest.
00:36:59.800
I don't think this stand-up comedy thing is going to work out for you.
00:37:05.740
When you started like that, it was very well done and there was a little, there was a little
00:37:12.940
I actually, for one second, then I thought this is going to be a joke.
00:37:17.140
But for one second, I thought, what the fuck is he going to say?
00:37:23.580
I don't want to be the one to brutally hurt someone's feelings for one second, even if
00:37:33.000
But the thing, I just do, I do think the golden rule is the right heuristic here because you
00:37:38.240
just, it might be the case that you wouldn't want to know if you were in their shoes and
00:37:42.820
then, then it becomes more interesting to consider whether you should tell them anything.
00:37:46.740
But if you really, if you know you would want to know, I mean, it's, I mean, I've, I've
00:37:50.700
seen situations where all of the friends of this person are having a conversation behind
00:37:56.380
their back and no one is telling the person how they're, I mean, and we're talking about
00:38:03.460
That's really unfortunate and, and awkward and a little bit sad and because we're assuming
00:38:12.100
But you, you say the golden rule and, uh, I think there's, there's a bit of a luxury
00:38:18.020
to saying that because when you say, um, I'd want to know it, so, so do you, that's arrogant
00:38:25.540
And just because I can take, like, I can take insults, I can take trolls for me to suddenly
00:38:33.540
So I'm going to just troll someone on Twitter and do a devastating thing.
00:38:43.160
But that's too, that's an adversarial situation.
00:38:45.060
I think the, yeah, I mean, you can, you can correct for what you know of the difference
00:38:53.920
But I mean, the truth is you very quickly train the people in your life.
00:38:59.440
I mean, once you start being rigorously honest with everybody, then people don't ask your
00:39:08.660
You know, I mean, I'm almost never in a situation where someone's asking me my opinion and then
00:39:14.280
I discover this mismatch between, you know, my valuing honesty and their expectation of,
00:39:21.040
you know, me just blowing smoke and, you know, they walk away unhappy.
00:39:25.320
Like that, that hasn't happened for decades that I'm aware of in my life at this point.
00:39:30.460
I know, I know now if I ask you so much and you go, I don't, I don't know.
00:39:51.760
Well, that's a very interesting one as well, because just going back to your kids asking
00:40:01.320
Again, that's very convenient for you, because this is my thing with when people mistake agnosticism
00:40:07.520
with atheism, right, that one's knowledge and one's belief.
00:40:13.580
So your kids could say, what's your best guess though, Dad?
00:40:27.100
I'm going to say my friend Ricky over here believes.
00:40:31.820
And that's why we're not going to invite him to the next party.
00:40:35.680
I mean, I am a, in general, I'd say, if anyone asked me, I'm, I think, you know, lying is wrong
00:40:46.680
I think it's something to be proud of, but I still, I still wield that with a bit of compassion.
00:40:54.460
And I've put it in, I've put it in fiction as well.
00:40:56.560
Like the film, you know, I did with our mutual friend, Matthew Robinson, the scene in that
00:41:01.260
where I lie to my mum, because there's nothing to gain from that.
00:41:09.200
What would be the point of saying, you're, you're going to the ground, your worms meet
00:41:14.480
So that's an example there of clearly, I could say it's a good lie, even though you could
00:41:21.140
also say it made me feel better that I didn't have to go through that awkward thing and see
00:41:25.980
I think that's, that's quite clearly and distinctly an example of what we, we have to agree on
00:41:34.460
Well, again, yeah, there are situations where you're not, you're now no longer relating to
00:41:42.900
I mean, it's a paternalistic situation where you're saving a child or you're saving an old
00:41:47.760
person or someone with, with dementia, you're saving them some emotional distress.
00:41:55.060
And I think, and I think in those cases, yes, you're, it is sort of like, you know, it's
00:41:59.800
different, but it is like the self-defense situation where you're, it's no longer, you
00:42:03.960
know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're
00:42:05.540
Well, with those two caveats, with nothing to gain or lose, whether, yeah.
00:42:09.700
And, uh, self-defense, I think I'm in agreement.
00:42:12.720
I think there's, there's one variable here, which we haven't mentioned, which is, is probably
00:42:16.960
the biggest, certainly one of the biggest reasons not to lie is that it eliminates a
00:42:24.420
kind of cognitive overhead that people have that is completely unwieldy.
00:42:29.680
And, and, and it is, it's a serious, it's a continuous basis for embarrassment and reputational
00:42:35.840
harm, which completely goes away, which is you, when you know you're going to tell the
00:42:40.200
truth in any situation, there's nothing to keep track of.
00:42:44.320
You don't have to remember what you said last time.
00:42:46.620
You don't have to think about what you told some other person who may have told this person.
00:42:50.940
And there's just a seamlessness to your life where, so if your story changes, honestly,
00:42:57.820
well, then you, then it's like, I don't, it doesn't matter what I said last time.
00:43:01.120
I might've believed that last time, but now I'm just telling you how things look to me
00:43:05.880
I agree, but I don't think we can treat morality and lying and all those things like a science.
00:43:11.040
I still think there's a, there's a certain amount of dogma to it that if you say it's always
00:43:15.180
wrong to lie or what, I, I, I, I, I think there's no, it's not, it's not always, but it's,
00:43:20.160
it's not always wrong to, to shoot someone in the face either.
00:43:23.540
I mean, that's, no, it's not, it's definitely not.
00:43:34.380
In fact, it's probably better to lie to them and then shoot them in the face.
00:43:41.860
I, I, uh, I think there's an ambiguity of what lying is as well.
00:43:45.580
I think there is a convenience of sidestepping the lie that isn't totally honest, but with
00:43:51.960
all those caveats, I think we're in agreement that in general, it is always better to tell
00:43:58.400
And I think the truth will out anyway, because there's only, there's delusion as well, isn't
00:44:04.940
And there's like, you know, people denying the facts that are in front of them.
00:44:13.780
It's dangerous to humanity, of course, but on a very personal level, I think, yeah, you
00:44:20.420
probably do have a better life and everyone around you has a better life.
00:44:24.140
If you're all, if they're all honest and everyone knows they're honest, that, that is surely
00:44:29.940
the best society we could have because we only have to undo all these fears of heaven and
00:44:37.040
hell because we started them in the first place.
00:44:39.780
You know, a secular society from the last living person, you know, the oldest person in a society who was brought up secular and logical and that probably wouldn't have those.
00:44:53.600
We probably wouldn't see those fears starting, would we be, it would be, I don't know.
00:45:00.520
Is it, is it better to tell kids there's, to not know, to not give your best guess, not to give the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
00:45:08.300
I mean, how, what, what, what, what does death, what does death mean to a 10 year old?
00:45:14.740
The lie is, is always the stark lie of, you know, certainty about heaven, say, you know, so, you know, grandma is definitely in a better place and we're going to see her again.
00:45:27.340
It doesn't even make sense given the fact that people are still assimilating every death as though it were a genuinely bad thing.
00:45:39.320
I mean, people are bereaved, they're sorry to not see the person again in their life, but if it were actually true that you were sure that she went to a better place and that you will be reunited, it's just not a bad thing.
00:45:55.520
Death is just, I mean, and so insofar as you can, I mean, the temptation to believe this is that insofar as you actually can believe this about death, it does remove the sting in death.
00:46:12.240
I can't, you know, I don't even, I care less about humanity and society when we're talking about this sort of thing than I do about what does it do to one six year old when you're brutal.
00:46:26.620
Is it, I don't know whether we know it's good or bad yet.
00:46:29.240
I think we know that the thing, the thing you actually want to be able to teach a child in order to equip them to be a sane and well-integrated human being is not that there's this fictional world or this world, you know, this world about which no one can be sure that rectifies every problem, every apparent problem in life.
00:46:53.380
The good people go to the good place, the bad people go to the bad place, and you get everything you want after you die.
00:47:00.720
It's actually to equip them emotionally to deal with reality insofar as we have every reason to believe it exists.
00:47:08.480
So you want a child who learns that grief is part of life, and it's an expression of one's love for that person, and it's totally healthy and predictable and understandable, and it bonds you to other people with this force of compassion.
00:47:25.840
I mean, we're all in this circumstance together, and it's, I mean, the very interesting thing about the pretense of certainty about the afterlife that religious people indulge is that it isolates truly grieving people.
00:47:40.480
I mean, when you're a fundamentalist Christian, and your husband dies, and you're just, you're actually miserable, right, and insofar as you're paying lip service to the idea that they might be in heaven, and you're going to see them again, you are actually bereaved, right?
00:47:59.300
You're surrounded by people who are just aiming their happy talk at you, saying, you know, it's all for the best, and he's with Jesus, and you're isolated in your grief.
00:48:09.200
You're not actually getting real compassion from them.
00:48:12.240
You're getting a fantasy that is not meeting you in the moment of your grief.
00:48:17.240
Well, okay, well, in conclusion, if, you know, you want the truth, and you want kids to grow up knowing the harsh realities of life to prepare them, I think you should not only get them a dog, but get them a very sick dog.