One of my favorite authors, Michael Easter, we talk Scarcity Brain, his new book, also author of Comfort Crisis. Can t recommend that book enough. Fix your craving mindset and rewire habits to thrive with enough. Michael Easter
00:00:49.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:57.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:20.000And how is that hurting us in a lot of different ways, everything from our health to our mental health.
00:02:24.000And I think one of the revelations of the book is that, you know, we live in a world now where technology knows so much about us, the apps we're on and how we spend our time online that we're really being pushed into more than we ever have been before of purchases, of food, of all these different things.
00:02:42.000So let's just define our terms, scarcity.
00:02:45.000Scarcity is actually usually considered to be a negative term, but we live in overabundance.
00:02:51.000Most of our problems are because of a surplus, too much screen time, too much sugar, too much carbohydrates, too much entertainment, too much idle time.
00:03:01.000When in past, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, as you build out in this book and also in Comfort Crisis, that these are new problems, that actually the problems that are facing our species have never been problems before.
00:03:12.000And so we have this hardwiring that is supposed to allow, you know, try to deal with scarcity when we really have problems with abundance.
00:04:03.000But the public isn't welcome in the traditional sense of a casino.
00:04:06.000So this place is used entirely for research on human behavior and figuring out how can we get people to sort of do what we want in the casino.
00:04:15.000And it's not just funded by the gambling industry.
00:04:18.000It's also funded by a lot of big tech companies.
00:04:20.000And while I was there, I talked to a slot machine designer who unpacked this idea of the scarcity loop.
00:04:27.000And it explains why people spend so much time on, for example, slot machines.
00:04:33.000People will play for hours and hours and hours doing this behavior that doesn't seem to make sense, right?
00:04:37.000Everyone knows the house always wins in the long term.
00:04:46.000You got an opportunity to get something of value that'll enhance your life, but you don't know when you're going to get it and you don't know how valuable it's going to be.
00:04:53.000And then three, you can quickly repeat the behavior.
00:04:56.000So if you think of a slot machine, you got an opportunity to win money.
00:04:59.000On any given game, you could lose, you could win a couple bucks, or you can win thousands of dollars.
00:05:04.000And then you can play and play and play.
00:05:06.000Now, the reason this is important and why it's not just gambling companies who are invested in this casino laboratory is you can put this system in a lot of other things to get people to repeat behaviors that are fun in the short term, but can hurt them in the long run.
00:05:21.000So for example, it's really what makes social media work.
00:05:37.000And as this thing sort of ripples out, especially as we start to spend a lot more time on our phones, but it's not just in our phones, but I think the best case, the best case studies are in our phones.
00:05:47.000You just see that people start to make some decisions that they maybe otherwise wouldn't.
00:05:53.000So Michael, let me ask you about addictions.
00:06:12.000Well, I think the intent of people who are designing, say, apps or even foods, I mean, there's just as there's a casino laboratory, there are hundreds of labs across the country trying to figure out how do we give people the perfect mixture of sugar and salt and fat so they end up eating more.
00:06:28.000You know, I think that the intention is to get us to use the product more, to buy more of the product.
00:06:36.000And unfortunately, the more incentives there are to use a product, probably the more likely it is going to be addictive.
00:06:43.000So most of the most addictive behaviors and substances, they all tend to fall into this scarcity loop.
00:06:51.000So for example, with drugs, it's not just the chemical impact of the drugs that people get addicted to.
00:06:57.000They often get addicted to the search for drugs, right?
00:07:00.000They don't know when they're going to get drugs, and that's really alluring to people.
00:07:03.000And then they finally get them and it's like, great.
00:07:05.000And then they use them and then they got to reuse them again.
00:07:06.000That's the same architecture that you see in a slot machine, the same architecture that you see in social media use.
00:07:12.000Pretty much all animals get really attracted to unpredictable rewards and we can't seem to look away.
00:07:19.000And identifying those kind of patterns is super important.
00:07:59.000It's an unpredictable reward game, right?
00:08:01.000So when you get a ping on your phone, you go, okay, you got an opportunity to get information that could enhance your life, but you don't know what it is, right?
00:08:08.000It could be an email saying, hey, we got this great guest to come on the show that you've been trying to get for a long time.
00:09:03.000So I want to dive in throughout the hour of practical ways people can understand, you know, how they are preyed upon by some of these products and some of these, but it's also just, you know, kind of educating yourself on the latest neuroscience breakthroughs of exactly how our brain is wired.
00:09:21.000And I mean, we are a largely addicted country to a lot of different things, right?
00:09:26.000And, you know, being able to get to the fundamental parts of the part of the brain that is being taken advantage of by the rigging of the apps, the games, the products, and the feedback loops to create these types of applications.
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00:10:42.000So, Michael, on page 81 of your book, Scarcity Brain, you say something that could be considered a thought crime where you, I think, very kindly challenge this idea of addiction as an incurable disease, right?
00:10:56.000And you go through a series of studies here.
00:10:59.000So, this is important because some people will say, There's nothing I can do with my alcoholism problem or with other addiction problem.
00:11:07.000I have an addictive personality and it cannot be cured.
00:11:11.000You're careful in the way that you challenge it, but you do it very factually, where you say, quote, Sattell, who is a researcher here, says the implication of blaming addiction on brain chemicals like dopamine is that addicts should just be taking dopamine blockers, medication that blocks the release of dopamine, but that doesn't work.
00:11:28.000And it says they're not alone in their ideas, that there's a growing community of people that believe that you actually can change the brain of someone who's addicted.
00:11:37.000So, give our audience some background here, and let's dive into this.
00:11:42.000Yeah, so we've traditionally thought of addiction in two ways in the U.S. We've thought of it that an addict is a bad person, and so they are deserving of punishment.
00:11:50.000They're making this negative choice day in, day out.
00:11:53.000And then we've thought of it as a brain disease.
00:11:55.000That is to say, they have zero agency in this thing, and it is just a result of chemical phenomena in the brain that is causing them to make these choices.
00:12:03.000It turns out that both ways, in my opinion, are not a great way of looking at addiction.
00:12:09.000So I tend to see addiction as more of a symptom of something else underlying, and that people who are addicted to a substance often use the substance to solve a problem in the short term.
00:12:21.000So you tend to see that people who become addicted to alcohol or drugs, that substance solves their problems in the short term, right?
00:12:33.000They might have lost their job and they're trying to solve for that.
00:12:37.000But the problem is, is that repeating that behavior, it leads to long-term problems.
00:12:42.000Now, the upside is that because you're using this thing to solve a problem, if you can find a more productive way to solve whatever the underlying problem is that's leading you to use substances in a way that is harming you in the long term, you can often get out of it.
00:12:57.000And you see this in, there's a fantastic case study from the Vietnam War.
00:13:01.000So during the Vietnam War, about 20 to 25% of our soldiers in Vietnam were using heroin.
00:13:08.000So at the time, it was thought, you know, if you use heroin one time, you're going to become an addict.
00:13:12.000And President Nixon didn't want a bunch of addicts coming back into the United States of America.
00:13:17.000So we set up this program that was called Operation Golden Flow.
00:13:21.000If you, as a soldier, wanted to come back from your time in Vietnam back to the United States, you had to pass a drug test.
00:13:28.000Now, if addiction is a brain disease and people have zero agency over this, they're just sort of slaves to these neurochemicals, then you would assume that, well, 20, 25% of those soldiers got left in Vietnam.
00:14:03.000These soldiers were in Vietnam and they're in a literal war zone where they're seeing all kinds of terrible things from war every single day.
00:14:12.000And using a drug allowed them to escape that terrible, terrible reality that they were in.
00:14:17.000And it allowed them to feel better for a little bit of time.
00:14:20.000But once they were out of Vietnam, they no longer needed that escape from drugs and were able to quit drugs.
00:14:26.000So I think that the metaphor there is that in the United States, you tend to see drug problems rise and fall in areas that tend to have more problems.
00:14:39.000And there's a lot of different complicated reasons, but I think that's a larger thing you tend to see.
00:14:43.000Some of the most exciting discoveries in neuroscience show how much your brain can actually change at almost any age.
00:14:49.000And this is, again, it's underreported.
00:14:51.000We get almost nothing but negative news.
00:14:53.000But this is something, one of the most famous examples is when they did brain scans of the cabbies in London, where they found that the hippocampus was actually significantly larger because the grid of streets in London are indecipherable to any human being.
00:15:13.000In fact, you cannot become a certified London cabby without passing a test called the knowledge.
00:15:18.000And actually, to get, it's a big deal.
00:15:20.000And they found when they scanned the brains, spatial awareness, which goes to the hippocampus and understanding maps and turns, that London cabbies had like a 10 to 20% bigger or more active hippocampus than just a random person in London.
00:15:31.000And most of the people didn't get the job until their late 20s or early 30s, which then goes to show that you can actually change your brain far more than people realize.
00:15:39.000And that goes against all the garbage of the early 20th century, not garbage, but the psychologists said, oh, no, you are who you are from like two years old.
00:15:51.000Your agency, your ability to make choices should actually give you hope.
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00:16:58.000Do you have any reaction to this idea that brains can change?
00:17:01.000New neuroscience breakthroughs are showing us just how quote-unquote plastic the brain is, the London Cabby example being one of the most famous.
00:17:11.000I mean, everything changes the brain, right?
00:17:13.000Everything we do, this conversation we're having right now is changing our brain.
00:17:17.000But I think the problem is that especially the NIH and NIDA with the overseas drugs and research around drugs, they tend to imply that changes that happen in the brain because of drugs make you unable to make a decision.
00:17:31.000Now, that's not, that's not, and we see that in plenty of anecdotes.
00:17:35.000And I think that the real problem with that message is that it tends to leave people hopeless.
00:17:41.000So there was a great piece of research out of the University of New Mexico, and it basically looked at alcoholics.
00:17:46.000It tracked them over the course of a year.
00:17:48.000And it found that the number one reason for relapse among alcoholics was believing that they had an incurable disease, because that's the problem, right?
00:17:57.000It's like the NIDA is saying, hey, this is a disease, but oh, by the way, we don't have a cure for it.
00:18:05.000And why fight against something if it's not something you can change?
00:18:08.000When the reality is, is that the vast majority of the data suggests that most people who have or have had a substance addiction, they get over it over time.
00:18:18.000And a lot of that occurs due to how the brain changes over from ages 15 to 25.
00:18:24.000And people, I mean, as simple as it sounds, a lot of people tend to age out of it.
00:18:28.000And there is a belief that you are captive to your patterns.
00:18:32.000And yes, you could just build new neural pathways.
00:18:35.000Now, old ones, you know, in the book Dopamine Nation by Anna Lempke, she highlights that it's very easy to go back to old addictions if you're not careful, right?
00:18:45.000Once those pathways are built, they're still there and it doesn't take a lot to dust them off.
00:18:49.000But you could build new exciting ones with, and the best example of this is you could walk into any room and five people say, hey, what is one food that when you smell it, you do not want it because you threw up when you're all of a sudden you have an association, right?
00:19:03.000So for me, it was like breakfast sausages, right?
00:19:05.000Just so happened, I used to love them, ate too many when I was 10 years old, didn't have a great experience afterwards.
00:19:10.000And for literally the next decade, if I smelled breakfast sausages, I had to leave the room.
00:19:13.000Now, that's irrational to someone that didn't have that experience, but it took a while to build a new neural pathway.
00:19:19.000Michael, apply that to what you've learned in the book and you talk about in the book Scarcity Brain.
00:19:24.000Well, I think the number one driver of behavior is our environment.
00:19:28.000So let's go back to that example I gave about soldiers in Vietnam.
00:19:32.000It's like, why did they stop using drugs?
00:19:34.000Well, because their environment radically changed, right?
00:19:37.000The reason that they were using drugs in the first place was removed.
00:19:40.000And so as part of this book, I traveled to Iraq, which didn't have a drug problem.
00:19:45.000And then because the country was destabilized and Syria fell and started shuttling in this drug called Captagon, which is analogous to methamphetamine, you start to see addiction rise.
00:19:57.000And most of the thinkers in that country say, you know, the reason we're having this problem is because you have a lot of people who have gone through psychological trauma due to war.
00:20:06.000Number two is that they don't have a lot of ways to deal with that that are productive.
00:20:10.000And then three, we have this sudden abundance of a substance that can allow them to escape from their problems, at least in the short term.
00:20:19.000And so I think the message for the average person is that if you have a addiction, you need to ask, okay, well, why am I doing this thing in the first place?
00:20:43.000You're going to have to go through some hard situations.
00:20:46.000But on the other side of that is growth.
00:20:48.000And that is kind of the universal message in my work is that oftentimes you have to go through short-term discomfort in order to get a sort of greater long-term benefit.
00:21:11.000So let's talk through some of the practical kind of things that you recommend people do.
00:21:16.000And you get into this later on in the book here.
00:21:19.000And you talk, it's broken into different categories, happiness, information, stuff.
00:21:23.000And so for someone that, I mean, obviously read the book and they'll get the information.
00:21:28.000But what was one of the, you know, when you start to write a book, I'm sure you have some idea in your head of what you're going to discover or how you're going to go.
00:21:34.000What was one of the big surprises that really opened your eyes in researching this book?
00:21:39.000Because you do such thorough, in-depth research where you were so shocked where something you previously believed was challenged and you have a 180 different perspective when it comes to addiction and what you call the scarcity brain.
00:21:57.000I think that honestly, it was this scarcity loop because the reason I started on this path in the first place is noticing that people play slot machine.
00:22:07.000I live in Las Vegas and there's slot machines everywhere and people play them around the clock.
00:22:12.000And you go, why are people doing that?
00:22:15.000And when this leads me to the casino laboratory, it makes you realize, oh my gosh, there are places where people who are very, very bright sit around thinking about how can I get people to do this behavior that I know is going to drain them of their money in the long run.
00:22:32.000And so the realization that in many ways we have the chips stacked against us.
00:22:37.000Now, that doesn't mean we're helpless, but we do live in a world where technology has advanced at such a rate that it is harder than ever to, I think, avoid some of these bad behaviors.
00:22:49.000So example, with addictive substances, now that you see fentanyl being put in everything, that's when you really see the death rate over addictions spike.
00:22:59.000And so we kind of live in a world where everything is faster, everything is stronger, everything is more easily available.
00:23:05.000And it's, I mean, the social media companies also have groups of very, very smart people that sit around and say, how do I get a seven-year-old addicted to a screen, right?
00:23:14.000Which is really scary and sick when you think about it.
00:23:19.000So let me ask you, Michael, you also have an entire chapter that you dedicate here talking about, I'm trying to actually have a note here.
00:23:28.000It's like not a Benedictine monk, something of that, right?
00:24:28.000And so I went and I spent a week at a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico outside of Silver City and lived with these guys, worked with them, prayed with them, ate with them, did everything they did.
00:24:40.000And I think my takeaway from that is that, you know, we live in a world where we're always trying to chase the next thing that's going to make us happy.
00:24:46.000And we often think that it's going to be the purchase or the raise or, you know, the promotion at work or, oh, once we get married, now everything's going to be perfect.
00:24:54.000And I think that these Benedictine monks taught me that really what makes people happy is finding something higher than yourself and letting that guide you, which often leads you to help others, to realize that you're not the center of the universe and to take actions that ultimately help the world around you to do the next right thing.
00:25:14.000So are you alluding to kind of just at the very least, not, I mean, I'm very religious, but just a transcendent that something is above you, that it's not as introspective and it's more duty bound and that you're trying to aim for something higher?
00:25:28.000Yeah, I think that when you look at what gives humans meaning and gives humans deeper reward, it does tend to be things that are hard, that take work, that take effort.
00:25:39.000So for these monks, you know, they're subverting everything in their life to worshiping God and trying to get closer to God.
00:25:47.000And I don't know if that's the path for everyone, but I do think that you have to subvert yourself in some way and help others, because that's another thing that these monks are doing a lot of.
00:25:58.000And so I think that really it does come down, living a good life really does come down to am I helping others?
00:26:03.000Am I realizing that I'm not the center of the universe?
00:26:07.000And am I not thinking that, you know, happiness is going to be found in the next drink or the next meal or the next time I purchase a new car?
00:26:18.000I'm going to read this from the book, page 261.
00:26:20.000My first day was followed by more of the same.
00:26:22.000Wake early, go to the chapel, eat a meal, break, go to chapel, eat a meal, break, do work, break, go to chapel, eat a meal, go to chapel, sleep.
00:26:29.000I found something like serenity in the repetition.
00:26:33.000I felt calmer and more connected, not socially, but to myself.
00:26:36.000Living that schedule also gave me more respect for the monks here.
00:26:40.000So, Mike, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you actually to compare and contrast the feeling you had with the monks to the feeling you had in the Alaskan wilderness when you wrote Comfort Crisis.
00:26:49.000What similarities, differences, and lessons do you think you could pick from both?
00:26:54.000Because those are two very unusual experiences that actually might have a lot in common.
00:27:27.000You know, I talked to someone the other day who told me they had taken this four-week vacation to Spain.
00:27:32.000Two of the weeks they did the Camino of Santiago, they walked the Camino hard, they're carrying all their stuff.
00:27:38.000Two weeks they went to Abiza at this really nice resort.
00:27:44.000And she looked back and said, Those two weeks on the Camino where I was actually having to do something that was challenging, that I was in nature, that I was present, that I wasn't focused on my cell phone the entire time, that I actually had to work to get the things that I enjoyed.
00:27:58.000Those were far better than when I went to the resort and could just hit a button and a cocktail appears, or I can check my email 50 times a day.
00:28:06.000And so I think that that is kind of the thread between those two experiences.
00:28:10.000It's exactly, it's against how every marketing campaign in America works, but it's 100% true.
00:28:17.000It's paradoxical when you think about it, which is you actually have to work harder.
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00:29:38.000Well, we live in a world where this scarcity loop that I talked about, I think, has really captured us in a lot of ways.
00:29:43.000Now, the upside is that you can get out of it.
00:29:46.000So, really, the first step is becoming aware of it, realizing that, oh, this is why I fall into these behaviors because I'm falling into this loop that is a sort of ancient part of the human brain.
00:30:23.000So the average person today owns 10,000 items at least in their home.
00:30:28.000And one of the reasons for this is that if you want to buy something now, you can do it immediately.
00:30:33.000Whereas even 20 years ago, you had to get in a car, you had to go down to the store, you had to walk the aisles, you had to do all these things.
00:30:38.000So I think even if you're having problems with buying too much online, simply setting a boundary that says, okay, I'm only going to purchase things in person.
00:30:48.000And just having that pause and the effort of having to go to the store will reduce your buying frequency.
00:30:54.000And I lay out all different ways that you can use that you can alter this loop to whether it's eat less, spend less time on social media, get a hold of your finances, buy less stuff, all these different ways that you can flip it to do something good.
00:31:08.000It's the opposite of every one of these like self-help people.
00:31:10.000They say you need more, you need extra.
00:31:38.000So you see a lot of modern purchases simply being, I'm on the couch, I'm bored, I don't know what to do.
00:31:42.000I open Instagram, I get an ad for this perfect product that fits me, and I think I need to buy it.
00:31:47.000But by taking the lens of purchases, and this really helped me reframe what I buy, thinking in terms of gear, which is items of purpose to complete a task, right?
00:31:59.000Gear is something that you buy so you can do something with it.
00:32:02.000There's an end game, there's an outcome rather than stuff, which stuff is just stuff you buy.
00:32:07.000You know, you don't know why you buy it.
00:32:12.000So framing your purchases through gear rather than stuff, I think can be a good way to align whether you're spending your money in a way that is going to actually improve your life rather than just lead you with more stuff and less money in your bank account.
00:32:26.000So in closing here, you know, we talk on this show a lot about legislation.
00:32:30.000Is there anything in all your research have you done, is there anything that legislative you think you could be done?
00:32:34.000You know, mental health crisis, you know, social media restriction time.
00:32:38.000I know you probably don't get too much into that, but is there anything that just is glaring and obvious in your opinion?
00:32:43.000Where like if America could come together, both sides together and do X, the country would be better to help solve some of these problems.
00:32:51.000I think we need a lot more clarity on how, whether applications or industries that use this scarcity loop, how they are using it.
00:33:01.000I think that having that clarity would be good to know.
00:33:04.000You know, everyone likes to criticize the casino and the gaming industry, but the reality is that the gaming industry is highly, highly regulated.
00:33:12.000There's all these things that you could do to a slot machine to make it more addictive, but they can't do it because the government goes, okay, like let's keep some reins on this.
00:33:20.000But that doesn't happen with social media.
00:33:23.000And if you look at the rise, especially in teens and youth with mental health problems, I think you see a very, very strong correlation to social media.
00:33:33.000And that just goes back to how teen brains are changing.
00:33:36.000And so I think trying to get some rails on how, why, when, where teens can use social media, I think that's probably a smart thing to do if we want the mental health of our country to improve over time.