Valuetainment - Episode 428： How Dopamine Gets You Addicted to Porn, Politics, Sex & Drugs

00:00:00.000 30 seconds.

00:00:01.800 Did you ever think you would make it?

00:00:04.200 I feel I'm so close I could take sweet victory.

00:00:07.620 I know this life meant for me.

00:00:10.740 Yeah, why would you bet on Goliath when we got Bet David?

00:00:14.580 Valuetainment, giving value is contagious.

00:00:16.420 This world of entrepreneurs, we get no value to haters.

00:00:19.160 How they run, homie?

00:00:20.140 Look what I've become.

00:00:21.400 I'm the one.

00:00:22.480 I'm Patrick, baby, host of Valuetainment.

00:00:24.000 Today I'm sitting down with Daniel Z. Lieberman.

00:00:26.500 Professor Daniel Z. Lieberman.

00:00:27.900 We talk about the effects of dopamine and why power, politics, sex, porn, marriage, love,

00:00:35.960 all of these crazy things we talk about in today's sit-down.

00:00:40.120 And I got him to admit, what was his favorite magazine as a boy?

00:00:45.480 And you're going to be shocked what magazine.

00:00:47.300 This professor, Daniel Z. Lieberman, tells us his favorite magazine and other things.

00:00:51.820 It's just a fun interview.

00:00:52.920 Enjoy this session here.

00:00:53.960 Dr. Daniel Lieberman, thank you for coming out.

00:00:55.980 That's a pretty strong statement right there to say, determine the fate of human race.

00:01:00.800 What do you think about that?

00:01:02.240 Well, you know, it is pretty strong and it gets a lot of attention.

00:01:06.760 But we didn't write that title until we finished writing the book.

00:01:09.960 And the second last chapter in the book is all about the ways this chemical, dopamine,

00:01:15.780 could bring the world to an end.

00:01:17.380 And you know, we're hearing about it all the time.

00:01:19.200 I think the first time it was used, what was it, 1957, some timeline I read about, some lady, Karen.

00:01:25.220 I don't know if it's, maybe you can tell us about it, where the word dopamine came about.

00:01:29.080 Yeah.

00:01:29.440 So, originally, we thought that this chemical was simply a precursor molecule

00:01:33.940 to make a different chemical in the brain called norepinephrine.

00:01:37.760 That's closely related to adrenaline, the fight-or-flight molecule.

00:01:42.720 So, it was just thought that it was this intermediate step, not important.

00:01:47.380 Then it turned out that it was a neurotransmitter in its own right.

00:01:52.400 A neurotransmitter being a chemical the brain uses to process information.

00:01:56.840 Since then, we found out it's probably one of the single most important neurotransmitters

00:02:02.700 in the brain, responsible for an unbelievably broad variety of behaviors in human beings.

00:02:08.160 Have we already figured out enough of this, or is there more to learn about this dopamine?

00:02:13.240 You understand what I'm saying, right?

00:02:14.180 Yeah.

00:02:14.360 Are we at a place where our data is clear enough, where we can trust the data and the studies

00:02:19.600 that are coming out, or are we still years behind it?

00:02:22.460 There's always more to learn.

00:02:23.920 Yeah.

00:02:24.040 And psychiatry, the study of the brain, I think could be considered the youngest of the medical

00:02:30.120 scientists, simply because the brain is so complex.

00:02:34.760 That said, if you Google the different molecules, Google Scholar, which looks at the medical journals,

00:02:42.900 the most articles you're going to find, the most hits, are going to be dopamine.

00:02:47.220 That's the one scientists are most interested in.

00:02:50.300 So, we don't know everything there is to know, but we know a lot.

00:02:53.680 And a lot of the studies, the most important studies, have been replicated, so we can have

00:02:58.080 a fair amount of confidence.

00:02:59.320 I'm looking forward to getting more educated on this dopamine thing that we're talking about

00:03:03.600 here.

00:03:03.760 And it's not a drug, but it plays as a form of it.

00:03:06.720 But here's the thing before we get into it.

00:03:08.820 What made you want to say, I want to study brains?

00:03:11.900 I mean, at what point did you decide, I want to be a psychiatrist?

00:03:14.380 How did that happen?

00:03:15.540 Well, when I was in college, I studied philosophy.

00:03:18.560 I went to a special college called St. John's College.

00:03:21.920 What's special about it is there are no textbooks, there are no lectures, and there are no tests.

00:03:27.520 What you do is you read original sources, the great books of Western civilization, and you

00:03:33.120 get together in small groups and discuss them and write about them.

00:03:36.900 So, I came out of there thinking, all right, it's all about the human mind.

00:03:41.440 That's where everything that's beautiful comes from.

00:03:43.980 It's where everything that's ugly comes from as well.

00:03:45.720 It's where everything that's important comes from.

00:03:48.160 But I didn't know what I wanted to do.

00:03:49.620 So, I went to Japan because I had no job, and a friend of mine was Japanese.

00:03:54.540 He said, I get a job over there teaching English.

00:03:56.820 And while I was there, I ran across the writings of psychologist Carl Jung.

00:04:01.780 And reading him, I decided, that's what I want to do.

00:04:04.880 I want to spend my career studying the brain.

00:04:07.040 What did he say that inspired you?

00:04:08.760 Was there any specific thing that stuck?

00:04:10.280 It was the way he showed that the human brain is a combination of two things.

00:04:18.720 One is volition.

00:04:20.340 That's the choices that we make.

00:04:22.700 The other is the biological substrate.

00:04:25.760 That's the material we've got to work with.

00:04:29.120 And I think that that second part, we neglect.

00:04:32.200 You know, it's easy to say, well, I can't control my body, especially as you get older, Patrick.

00:04:37.500 Yeah, that's true.

00:04:38.420 Absolutely.

00:04:39.060 It's tougher to get up in the morning.

00:04:41.060 It's tougher.

00:04:41.500 It gets tougher to get a lot of things to get up, you know, in the morning.

00:04:44.440 Yeah.

00:04:44.720 Get older.

00:04:45.160 But yeah, so.

00:04:46.040 But we think about our mind.

00:04:47.460 The thing between our ears is we have total control over it.

00:04:49.880 I want to think about a giraffe.

00:04:51.140 I want to think about a cup of coffee.

00:04:52.780 I can think about anything I want.

00:04:54.400 And that's absolutely not true.

00:04:58.060 The biological substrate of our brain, including the neurotransmitters like dopamine in our brain,

00:05:04.060 they determine so much of our experience.

00:05:06.740 And a lot of people don't realize just how much that is.

00:05:11.120 Is there any linkage between why you wanted to study this or with anybody in your family upbringing

00:05:16.460 where you're like, this reminds me of the experience I had with my dad or my mother or my sister or my uncle

00:05:21.480 or somebody where you said, I want to go deeper.

00:05:23.680 Because, you know, sometimes when it comes to health, a lot of my friends who are doctors

00:05:28.440 or they go into this mode, there is somebody in their lives that inspired them to go even deeper.

00:05:33.640 Was there any of that for you or not at all?

00:05:35.720 There really wasn't.

00:05:36.580 I came from a family of lawyers.

00:05:38.720 My father was a lawyer.

00:05:40.040 My grandfather was a lawyer.

00:05:41.460 My uncle was a lawyer.

00:05:43.080 And I was pretty sure I was going to be a lawyer.

00:05:45.860 And so one year, one summer, I worked in my father's law firm.

00:05:50.100 And I'd never been more bored in my life.

00:05:52.560 I said, I'm not going to become a lawyer.

00:05:53.780 So you know you were going to do it right after that.

00:05:55.640 Yeah.

00:05:55.940 So you go from lawyer to wanting to be a study philosophy?

00:05:58.700 Well, you know, I thought that I was going to be an engineer because I loved science.

00:06:02.260 Got it.

00:06:02.880 And then you know how when you're in high school, colleges send you this PR stuff?

00:06:07.200 Mm-hmm.

00:06:08.240 So St. John's College, their PR stuff is a list of the books you read.

00:06:13.500 Plato, Aristotle, The Iliad, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Newton, Einstein.

00:06:19.780 I looked at this list and I said, I got to read these books.

00:06:22.760 I don't think I can be an educated person without reading these books.

00:06:26.060 What a great way to market, by the way.

00:06:27.760 Yeah.

00:06:28.200 What a great, I mean, if you know, because somebody's going to read and say,

00:06:30.900 I don't care to know about any of these guys.

00:06:32.140 But someone's going to read and say, I want to know everything about these guys.

00:06:34.580 So it's going to attract the people that you want.

00:06:36.420 Were you always a reader and have an interest in philosophy?

00:06:38.920 I was always a reader.

00:06:39.620 Okay.

00:06:39.840 Not necessarily an interest in philosophy, but I was the kid who wanted to stay inside

00:06:44.440 and read while other people were out playing football.

00:06:46.340 That was you.

00:06:47.160 So you're like the four-point-something GPA.

00:06:49.140 You did great in school, the whole nine, that kind of a kid.

00:06:51.160 Not quite that good, but yeah, I read a lot.

00:06:53.980 Yeah, you read a lot.

00:06:54.540 Yeah.

00:06:54.820 That's cool.

00:06:55.600 My kid is, this summer, he read 70 books.

00:06:58.420 Very proud of this kid.

00:06:59.400 Yeah, he's seven years old.

00:07:01.220 Oh, my gosh.

00:07:02.300 He's all about reading.

00:07:03.300 And every time I start reading something, he just wants to come next to me.

00:07:06.020 It's one of the things I wanted to pass to these kids because I don't jump high.

00:07:09.780 I may be 6'5", but I don't jump high.

00:07:11.640 I don't play good basketball or baseball.

00:07:13.440 If you ever see me throw a first pitch, I threw a first pitch at a game a month ago,

00:07:17.700 and it was the most embarrassing first pitch you'll ever see in your life.

00:07:20.920 So the only thing I can pass on to these guys is, hey, if you get reading going,

00:07:24.080 because that's what changed your dad's life.

00:07:25.820 But okay, so your dad's a lawyer.

00:07:28.080 Your grandfather's a lawyer.

00:07:29.080 The same grandfather that he told me that was in Germany or the other side?

00:07:32.180 Different one.

00:07:32.300 Different other side.

00:07:32.960 Yeah.

00:07:33.160 Okay, how about that grandfather, if you can talk about him?

00:07:35.100 Because he's got an interesting story.

00:07:36.320 He's got an interesting story.

00:07:37.240 Yeah.

00:07:37.400 My father and my father's family were born in Germany, and they were Jews, and they had

00:07:43.480 a big family there.

00:07:44.680 They'd come from Poland, and my grandfather was a furrier.

00:07:48.980 He made fur coats and that sort of thing.

00:07:52.160 And he moved to Berlin because they needed people in that industry there.

00:07:59.260 Nazis came to power, and people started saying, hey, you need to get out.

00:08:03.540 He didn't want to get out.

00:08:04.860 He had his life there.

00:08:06.040 He had his store there, his business there.

00:08:08.160 He said, look, I was invited here.

00:08:10.460 No one's going to do anything to me.

00:08:11.680 I'm working hard.

00:08:12.600 I'm a good citizen.

00:08:14.400 Of course, he was wrong.

00:08:16.720 And he waited and waited and waited.

00:08:18.660 He had an apprentice that he was teaching the business, young German man, member of the

00:08:24.640 Nazi youth.

00:08:25.460 Get out of here.

00:08:26.060 One day, he comes, he said, you got to get out.

00:08:29.460 Tomorrow, it's going down.

00:08:31.180 They're going to take you, your whole family away.

00:08:33.820 Out now.

00:08:34.940 They left that night, little suitcase, left everything behind, made it out one step ahead

00:08:39.800 of the Nazis, came to the United States.

00:08:41.640 You ever seen the movie Pianist?

00:08:42.940 I haven't seen that now.

00:08:43.860 Okay, if you haven't seen it, it's a really, really good movie.

00:08:45.940 The whole story is this guy that played very good piano, and the Nazi soldiers took a

00:08:50.020 liking in him when he would play, and they kind of helped him save, and he helped some

00:08:53.120 guys, but it's a very similar story.

00:08:55.140 When you hear these stories, it's very admirable to have that kid do something like that, knowing

00:08:59.260 he's part of the youth Nazi.

00:09:01.420 It just tells you, even then, there's some heart in these kids to say, I want to save

00:09:05.700 this guy's life.

00:09:06.480 That's the beautiful part of the story.

00:09:08.240 Yeah.

00:09:08.800 So what did your grandpa end up doing when he came out here?

00:09:11.060 He opened up a furrier in Buffalo, New York.

00:09:14.520 That's where I was born.

00:09:15.200 Successful?

00:09:16.580 Yes, I would say successful.

00:09:17.640 Okay.

00:09:17.860 You know, he didn't have a chain of them, but he had one, and he had a good middle-class

00:09:22.400 life, sent my father to law school, sent my uncle to medical school, American dream.

00:09:28.840 Are you kidding me?

00:09:29.440 That's great.

00:09:30.200 That's exactly.

00:09:31.360 Okay.

00:09:32.020 So you're raised in this family, and by the way, mother's side, what did your mom, your

00:09:35.480 mother was?

00:09:36.100 They had been in Buffalo for a number of generations.

00:09:38.900 Okay.

00:09:39.360 Yeah, they came.

00:09:40.880 Interesting story on that side of the family, if I can tell it.

00:09:43.140 Sure.

00:09:43.380 My great-grandfather was in the Russian army, and they were involved in some kind of retreat.

00:09:49.320 I don't even know what war it is, but his boots fell apart, and he couldn't walk all

00:09:54.180 these miles, so they had to leave him hidden in some town.

00:09:58.340 The rest of his company, they make it to the town they're going to.

00:10:01.360 They all get on a train.

00:10:02.560 Train is bombed.

00:10:03.640 Everybody is killed.

00:10:05.460 His family thought that he had been killed, too, and I don't know, months, years later,

00:10:09.820 he shows up.

00:10:10.560 He said, hey, I missed the train.

00:10:11.640 My boots wore out.

00:10:13.340 Wow.

00:10:13.940 Yeah.

00:10:14.260 So I feel pretty lucky to be here on both sides.

00:10:16.680 So you got right jeans right there.

00:10:18.540 I got luck.

00:10:19.580 So they meet in Buffalo.

00:10:21.440 Yeah.

00:10:21.680 Are you a Bills fan or no?

00:10:23.440 I've been in the past.

00:10:24.980 But not right now?

00:10:25.580 I've suffered enough.

00:10:26.380 Okay.

00:10:26.820 Got it.

00:10:27.100 I used to be a die-hard Bills fan when I came to the stage.

00:10:29.840 You did.

00:10:30.260 I was a Thurman Thomas, BB Bryce Popp, you know, Bruce Smith, Doug Flutie, all of those

00:10:36.240 guys.

00:10:36.480 I was a die-hard Bills fan, but that's a whole different.

00:10:38.820 They're doing actually pretty okay right now.

00:10:40.100 They are, for once.

00:10:41.300 So you go from there.

00:10:42.840 You go to St. John.

00:10:43.980 You study all these philosophers.

00:10:45.500 Which one of the philosophers stuck out to you, not in Japan?

00:10:48.740 I'm talking about here, all these people you're studying.

00:10:51.040 Who stuck out to you as the one that had the biggest positive influence, and was there

00:10:55.240 anybody who said, this guy's off?

00:10:57.580 Yeah.

00:10:58.320 So I think the one that had the biggest positive influence was Plato.

00:11:01.640 You know, he wrote about Socrates.

00:11:02.860 And he wrote about how you really need to carefully test the things you believe with

00:11:10.400 reason.

00:11:12.200 Because the things that we intuitively think are true...

00:11:15.520 It's tough to do for a lot of people.

00:11:16.880 They're not always true.

00:11:17.580 That's right.

00:11:18.240 And, you know, intuition is effortless.

00:11:20.900 And that's not to say it's valueless.

00:11:22.820 Intuition is effortless.

00:11:24.040 It just comes to us.

00:11:25.880 It's a gut feeling.

00:11:27.040 And it can be enormously valuable.

00:11:29.460 And it's often right.

00:11:31.540 But we've got to test it.

00:11:33.100 And it takes effort to test it with reason.

00:11:36.120 And a lot of times we skip that step.

00:11:38.800 But he made the point that that's very, very important.

00:11:42.020 And some interesting things come out of it.

00:11:43.900 I mean, he asked the most fundamental questions.

00:11:46.300 What is justice?

00:11:47.580 What is the good?

00:11:49.620 And got some very interesting things that came out of it.

00:11:52.820 So that's Plato.

00:11:53.520 How about the one that was the most wackiest guy?

00:11:55.400 Because, you know, philosophers, they have a very interesting...

00:11:58.180 They can be pretty wacky.

00:11:59.400 Yes.

00:12:00.120 Yeah.

00:12:02.580 Boy, I wasn't a big fan of the existentialists.

00:12:08.100 You know, the existentialists, the way I interpreted them, and I'm certainly not an expert in existentialism,

00:12:13.080 but they basically say, there's no help out there.

00:12:16.200 You're on your own.

00:12:18.160 There's no God.

00:12:20.100 There's no meaning.

00:12:22.400 You have to create all the meaning yourself.

00:12:24.440 You live in a cold, meaningless universe.

00:12:28.060 Deal with it.

00:12:29.660 You can't buy that one.

00:12:30.680 No, I don't buy that.

00:12:31.300 How about stoicism?

00:12:32.280 What did you say?

00:12:32.720 I like stoicism.

00:12:33.220 Or, you know, Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius.

00:12:36.700 Right.

00:12:37.160 Nothing is good or bad.

00:12:38.540 It's only how you perceive it.

00:12:40.100 Yeah, I think it's a beautiful philosophy.

00:12:43.380 I think, though, it may be a little bit over-optimistic in terms of the strength that human beings have.

00:12:49.800 These guys were amazing that they could do that.

00:12:52.660 They could live their life that way.

00:12:54.540 I think it's pretty tough for the ordinary person, though.

00:12:56.700 To live that way.

00:12:57.400 And remember, they did this at a tough time.

00:12:59.320 Today, wouldn't it be easier to live that today versus then?

00:13:02.900 Maybe.

00:13:03.780 Maybe.

00:13:04.580 You know, things have gotten a lot better for us from a material sense.

00:13:07.760 Yeah.

00:13:07.940 I'm not sure things have gotten any better from an emotional sense, though.

00:13:11.320 Let's talk about that.

00:13:12.300 Tell us more.

00:13:13.140 I mean, it's easy to go out and buy a cell phone.

00:13:15.360 It's easy to go out and buy a new car.

00:13:17.400 But is that going to get you happiness?

00:13:19.820 It's one of the things we talk about in the book, that there's a difference between wanting something and liking it once you get it.

00:13:26.900 There's a difference between your brain driving you to collect resources that are going to be useful from a survival evolutionary point of view.

00:13:37.940 There's a difference between that and living a happy, fulfilling, satisfying life of contentment.

00:13:42.920 And I'm not sure all of the prosperity and technology we have helps us all that much with the latter.

00:13:50.440 You don't think.

00:13:51.660 So let me ask you this.

00:13:53.540 So, you know, scriptures, different religions, they all talk about contentment, you know, finding ways to get to that point.

00:14:00.560 What would the world look like if everybody was content?

00:14:07.340 It wouldn't.

00:14:09.140 Yeah.

00:14:09.620 So contentment.

00:14:11.560 You see what I'm saying?

00:14:12.940 That's right.

00:14:13.440 It wouldn't work.

00:14:14.420 No, it wouldn't work.

00:14:15.060 It wouldn't work.

00:14:15.740 Because I like I think about that, right?

00:14:17.960 You sit and I say, OK, let's just say you and I sit down and we agree on everything.

00:14:22.640 What a boring dinner.

00:14:24.320 Yeah, that's right.

00:14:24.700 Can you imagine if we go to dinner and we're sitting on time and we're like, OK, yeah, I agree.

00:14:28.380 How about this?

00:14:29.300 Cool.

00:14:29.600 How about this?

00:14:31.100 Fine.

00:14:31.560 All right.

00:14:32.000 So, you know, you want to go, there's got to be a little bit of that, I feel.

00:14:38.260 That's right.

00:14:38.700 You've got to have the spark.

00:14:39.620 Right.

00:14:39.760 You've got to have the spark of conflict.

00:14:41.360 I think so.

00:14:42.320 Because, you know, when a lot of people come and tell me, like, how do you view world peace?

00:14:47.780 Tell me what you think about world peace.

00:14:49.380 When somebody says, we've got to have world peace, how do you process that?

00:14:52.600 As a psychiatrist, how do you process that?

00:14:55.140 It's a beautiful idea.

00:14:57.420 It's probably realist.

00:14:59.100 It's unrealistic, though.

00:15:00.280 It's unrealistic.

00:15:00.660 It's not the way the human brain evolved.

00:15:02.760 We evolved to fight because we grew up, I mean, we evolved in very difficult circumstances.

00:15:08.300 Do you think that's OK?

00:15:09.180 I don't think that's the right way to look at it.

00:15:12.480 I don't think it's a value judgment.

00:15:13.840 I think it's a fact.

00:15:15.240 That's the way our DNA is in our body.

00:15:18.640 And we can't do anything about it.

00:15:19.800 So you're making it like a law of gravity.

00:15:21.780 It's just going to be that way.

00:15:23.040 There's nothing we can do about it.

00:15:24.220 That's it.

00:15:24.620 See, I kind of agree with you there.

00:15:26.180 But sometimes you've got a lot of people that want to force change.

00:15:30.740 And when you try to force change, you create enemies.

00:15:33.240 I don't know if you ever read the book by Dr. Hawkins, Power vs. Force.

00:15:39.240 I don't know if you've ever read the book Power vs. Force.

00:15:40.960 It was on one of Oprah's top 10 lists 20 years ago, something like that.

00:15:45.900 And I read this book 17 years ago.

00:15:48.480 And he says that everybody has certain levels that you go through from the lowest level to

00:15:52.640 the highest level of consciousness, enlightenment being at the highest, then it's peace, joy,

00:15:58.000 love.

00:15:58.900 And then one of the highest levels he has below love is reason, learning how to reason.

00:16:04.580 Then below reason is, I think it's willingness, acceptance, neutrality.

00:16:11.160 Meaning I can sit down with you and you can have a view and he can have a view and I can

00:16:15.120 get along with both of you guys because I can be neutral and kind of be able to have the

00:16:18.160 same relationship with both.

00:16:20.680 And then the first lowest level of consciousness he says that it's in a good area is courage.

00:16:26.220 You have the courage to face your fears.

00:16:28.720 And then below it at the lowest, I think it's shame, apathy, grief, pride, anger, desire,

00:16:36.420 like sex desire, not desire to do something big with your life.

00:16:39.800 And he breaks these levels down.

00:16:41.840 Very, very interesting when you think about it.

00:16:43.820 So for me, it's when you said a world peace, can it exist?

00:16:49.360 You know, I don't think it's something that is a good thing or a bad thing.

00:16:52.200 It's a fact.

00:16:52.700 It's something that's going to happen.

00:16:54.280 How do you teach for all of us to learn how to reason better?

00:16:59.580 How do we do that?

00:17:00.480 How do we get a society to be open to reasoning more with each other?

00:17:04.960 How do we get to that kind of a place?

00:17:07.000 I think the first step is to identify the challenges.

00:17:09.820 Because an important question is, well, why don't we reason all the time, right?

00:17:13.900 Why aren't we rational creatures?

00:17:16.560 Because a lot of times when we behave irrationally, we're hurting ourselves more than anyone else.

00:17:21.560 So, you know, we've got these biological drives that are manifested in the organization of our brain anatomy.

00:17:32.560 And that's the same with other animals.

00:17:34.780 We've got a lot in common with other animals.

00:17:36.620 We share 50% of our genes with bananas and 99% of our genes with chimpanzees.

00:17:43.600 So 50% of my genes are tied to bananas?

00:17:47.340 They're the exact same genes as bananas have.

00:17:50.300 Get out of here.

00:17:51.540 50%.

00:17:52.020 Really?

00:17:52.620 Yeah.

00:17:53.000 99% same as chimpanzees have.

00:17:56.240 Maybe that's why that art sold for $120,000 with that banana sticker.

00:17:59.620 I don't know if you saw that.

00:18:00.260 That's my brother.

00:18:00.680 That's my brother.

00:18:02.840 I recommend you.

00:18:04.480 So 50% with bananas.

00:18:06.380 That's right.

00:18:06.920 So then 99% with chimpanzees.

00:18:08.780 That's right.

00:18:09.560 What's the 1% that's different?

00:18:11.460 1% is what makes us human.

00:18:13.520 And in that little tiny piece that makes us human, we got reason.

00:18:17.820 And reason completely changed the story.

00:18:21.000 Because in some ways, reason has allowed us, not completely, but to partially sever ourselves

00:18:27.880 from our biological roots.

00:18:32.140 We have to eat.

00:18:32.960 We have to get calories.

00:18:34.720 We're at the mercy of the physical laws.

00:18:37.520 But our brains can rise above it and look at abstract laws.

00:18:43.560 And that ability to reason is what has allowed us to become the dominant race on this earth

00:18:48.960 through technology, through inventions, through the ability to, in some ways, act against our

00:18:56.240 biological nature when that's in our best interest.

00:18:59.500 But we have to remember it's hard because reason is powerful in what it's able to do,

00:19:05.800 but it is weak in terms of its motive force inside of our brains.

00:19:10.500 Meaning?

00:19:10.980 Our instincts are much more powerful.

00:19:13.660 So if I instinctually want something, maybe it's food, maybe it's sex, but my reason tells

00:19:19.460 me, hey, maybe that's not the right thing for you to do.

00:19:23.720 It's going to be tough for reason to win that battle.

00:19:26.460 No doubt about it.

00:19:27.560 Instinct is a lot stronger.

00:19:29.500 So instinct wins over reason.

00:19:32.100 Does it have anything to do with pleasure and pain or not at all?

00:19:36.340 I think it does.

00:19:37.380 I think it does.

00:19:38.600 You know, one of the things I do is treat people with drug addiction.

00:19:42.380 And in that case, you really see the battle between reason and instinct.

00:19:47.420 In drug addiction, instinct in a way has been twisted to want nothing more than to use drugs

00:19:53.660 that's destroying a person's life.

00:19:55.780 So it's a little bit different than ordinary instinct, but it's so powerful.

00:20:01.620 People will give up their jobs, their families, their health, their homes.

00:20:06.100 They'll give up everything to feed their brain with this toxic substance.

00:20:10.800 And their reason knows that this is the wrong thing to do, but it's powerless.

00:20:15.640 And so what they try to do is use willpower.

00:20:19.380 They say, all right, I know what the right thing to do is.

00:20:21.680 I will simply will it to be thus.

00:20:24.920 It doesn't work.

00:20:25.980 It doesn't work.

00:20:26.700 Willpower is like a muscle in that it fatigues very easily.

00:20:30.560 And I can give you an example of that if you're interested in it.

00:20:33.140 Sure, yeah.

00:20:33.880 So they did this study called the Chocolates and Radishes Study.

00:20:38.480 They brought people in a room, and on the table was freshly baked chocolate chip cookie

00:20:44.020 and a bowl of radishes.

00:20:47.440 And half the people, they said, hey, go ahead and eat the cookies.

00:20:50.620 The other half, they said, you can only eat the radishes.

00:20:54.200 Afterwards, they had them work on a problem that was impossible.

00:20:57.500 They didn't tell them it was impossible.

00:20:58.520 And they timed how long they worked at it.

00:21:02.180 Who do you think worked at it longer?

00:21:03.860 Chocolate.

00:21:04.560 Yeah, because the Radish people had already used up all their willpower, not eating the cookies.

00:21:09.620 Get out of here.

00:21:10.360 Yeah.

00:21:11.180 So willpower is weak.

00:21:12.560 Very interesting.

00:21:13.440 So we teach them, it's better to be smart than strong.

00:21:17.540 If you're going to a party where alcohol is going to be served, and you're an alcoholic

00:21:21.360 and you can't drink, don't rely on willpower.

00:21:24.460 Use strategy.

00:21:25.240 Bring a sober body who can look after you and make sure you're not going to drink.

00:21:30.520 Figure out some way to outsmart instinct rather than trying to take it head on with willpower.

00:21:37.800 Can you work on it enough where you're eventually strong on your own?

00:21:42.940 Is that a permanent strategy?

00:21:44.480 It's a permanent strategy.

00:21:46.920 You can strengthen your willpower.

00:21:48.440 That's what the Stoics did.

00:21:49.960 The Stoics were like willpower superheroes.

00:21:53.460 But it's hard to do.

00:21:55.180 And hard to do why?

00:21:56.840 Because why?

00:21:57.740 Just because of the nature of the willpower circuits.

00:22:01.000 They're just not that strong.

00:22:02.960 So is it a transferable thing to somebody else?

00:22:06.160 Or some people are wired to have a stronger willpower than somebody else?

00:22:09.380 I think they're wired.

00:22:10.440 Oh, you believe that?

00:22:11.340 I think it's just like muscles.

00:22:12.920 You know, I can build up muscles, but I'm never going to be like a bodybuilder, right?

00:22:17.200 So a big part of it's genetic.

00:22:19.500 And then some of it is exercising, whether you're exercising your will or your muscles.

00:22:24.440 You can build it up a little bit.

00:22:26.060 I just don't think it's a good strategy to rely on it.

00:22:29.020 And that's been your experience of dealing with people that are on drugs.

00:22:31.760 Absolutely, yeah.

00:22:33.500 So what role does dopamine play there?

00:22:36.560 So, you know, a lot of people have heard about dopamine as the pleasure molecule.

00:22:41.060 And that's one thing it does.

00:22:42.920 Dopamine was originally made to make us desire things that will benefit us evolutionarily

00:22:49.520 and reward us when we do it.

00:22:51.340 So eat when you're hungry.

00:22:53.220 Drink when you're thirsty.

00:22:55.380 Reproduction.

00:22:56.260 Winning competitions.

00:22:57.780 These are natural things.

00:22:59.080 The reason why drugs are so dangerous is because they short-circuit these survival pathways.

00:23:07.200 They hijack the dopamine system.

00:23:10.440 And instead of gently stimulating it like winning a competition would do or eating a nice meal,

00:23:16.080 they slam it with a chemical blast that outweighs any natural behaviors.

00:23:21.740 Now, your brain develops priorities in large part based on how much dopamine it's going to get.

00:23:30.140 All right?

00:23:30.820 So remember the old show, Let's Make a Deal?

00:23:33.680 Mm-hmm.

00:23:34.120 All right, what do you want?

00:23:35.420 A hundred dollars or what's behind door number two?

00:23:38.860 There's a good chance what's behind door number two is like a car or something, right?

00:23:42.440 So they always pick door number two.

00:23:44.020 Mm-hmm.

00:23:44.220 That's going to give you more dopamine, all right?

00:23:47.580 Now, what would you do if something you value is at risk and your child's life is at risk?

00:23:54.540 You're going to go after your child, of course.

00:23:56.280 That's going to give you more dopamine beyond any moral, rational thing.

00:24:01.200 You're going to instinctively save your child.

00:24:04.040 Now, the thing about drugs is because they artificially stimulate this circuit,

00:24:10.060 they produce more dopamine than any other natural behavior.

00:24:14.780 Any.

00:24:15.300 Any.

00:24:16.460 And so when we see some poor guy out on the street who's lost his family, his job, his home, his money,

00:24:24.280 for his drug, we say, geez, that looks completely irrational.

00:24:29.100 From the inside, it's rational.

00:24:31.400 To him or to you?

00:24:32.520 To him.

00:24:33.020 To him.

00:24:33.400 It's rational to him because he's choosing the bigger dopamine hit.

00:24:37.480 It's just as rational as giving up the $100 for door number two.

00:24:42.920 It feels like the right thing to do.

00:24:45.880 What drug produces the highest level of dopamine?

00:24:48.280 Do we know that?

00:24:49.960 Cocaine produces pretty high levels.

00:24:52.440 Heroin produces pretty high levels.

00:24:54.060 Is heroin higher than cocaine?

00:24:56.680 I don't think so, but heroin does other things as well, which makes it more addictive than cocaine.

00:25:03.400 I had a friend who committed suicide, and he was taking 50 Vicodins a day.

00:25:08.280 My best friend in the world.

00:25:09.520 And I took him to a rehab center in Tarzana, 14 days.

00:25:14.020 It was like 400 bucks a day, and he was able to stay disciplined for a while.

00:25:16.940 And eventually, God, I was good, and he got back on Vicodin, couldn't get off Vicodin.

00:25:21.240 Eventually, one day, May 5th, he's done, and obviously, he's not here with us.

00:25:25.840 And many people came back and said it was suicide because of him taking too many Vicodins.

00:25:29.440 What is it with Vicodin?

00:25:31.080 Doctors have told me.

00:25:32.000 Vicodin and heroin are the two toughest ones to get off of.

00:25:34.400 What makes it so tough to get off of those two things?

00:25:37.520 It's twofold.

00:25:38.740 It's reward and punishment.

00:25:40.840 The reward is that when you take it, it not only stimulates dopamine, it stimulates different

00:25:46.940 kinds of pleasure molecules as well.

00:25:49.900 Dopamine is a rush of pleasure.

00:25:52.400 It's like the pleasure you feel when you're excited and enthusiastic about something.

00:25:56.960 It's the pleasure you feel when you hit the home run or score the soccer goal.

00:26:01.940 But there's a different kind of pleasure.

00:26:03.220 There's a contentment pleasure where you feel like everything in the world is perfectly okay.

00:26:09.760 Heroin, Vicodin, the other opioids, they give you both of those.

00:26:13.500 And that's an unbelievably seductive feeling.

00:26:17.300 They give you both of those.

00:26:17.760 They give you both of those.

00:26:18.920 I don't know of any other drug that does.

00:26:21.020 I don't know of any natural behavior, maybe except outside of sex, that gives you both

00:26:26.560 of those things.

00:26:28.340 And so it's seductive and it's dangerous.

00:26:30.700 That's the reward.

00:26:31.920 The punishment is that if you get addicted to it and then you stop using it, you go into

00:26:36.440 horrible withdrawal.

00:26:38.440 And it's painful.

00:26:40.100 It's a terrible, terrible experience.

00:26:42.200 So it's got you on both sides.

00:26:44.080 It's incredible.

00:26:45.100 Yeah.

00:26:45.260 I mean, have you seen the movie Johnny Cash Walk the Line?

00:26:47.540 I didn't see that.

00:26:48.440 Oh, my gosh.

00:26:49.540 I mean, you're missing a few movies, right?

00:26:51.660 I'm not a big movie guy.

00:26:52.660 You're not a big movie guy?

00:26:53.600 I'm not a big movie guy.

00:26:54.280 Walk the Line is mandatory.

00:26:56.540 I mean, I think if you went to my school of psychiatry, you would have to watch Walk the

00:27:00.460 Line.

00:27:00.640 It'd be mandatory, right?

00:27:02.040 Before we study Plato or Aristotle, you've got to watch philosopher Johnny Cash.

00:27:06.080 You had a lot of good philosophies in life.

00:27:07.700 But there's this one scene where he's in bed and he's trying to go through it and you're

00:27:12.720 seeing him sweating and the guy's coming from the other side to sell him the heroin

00:27:16.700 and the drugs that he's addicted to and his father-in-law comes out with a shotgun to

00:27:20.860 throw, you know, scare the other guy.

00:27:22.500 It's a real unique scene because it shows the example of how it all starts.

00:27:26.540 Lamar Odom did an interview recently and he said, guy asked him a question, how'd you get

00:27:30.760 into cocaine?

00:27:31.640 And this video went viral.

00:27:32.960 He says, he says, you know, he was a weak guy, you know.

00:27:37.640 I used to party in LA.

00:27:38.980 I'd go to all these clubs off of Sunset and he was always there.

00:27:41.900 He was always a weak guy.

00:27:43.160 He says, one day he gets invited by this swinger couple, okay.

00:27:48.200 They invite him over and they say, hey, I want you to come over.

00:27:50.140 My wife likes you.

00:27:50.880 It was kind of confusing.

00:27:51.620 I've never done this before.

00:27:53.080 So he says, then they tell him to try cocaine.

00:27:54.960 He says, the first time I tried cocaine.

00:27:57.060 Every other time I tried, it was about experiencing what it was like the first time I did it.

00:28:02.280 Is that pretty common with all of them or no?

00:28:04.300 It's very common.

00:28:05.320 It's very common, yes.

00:28:08.460 Dopamine responds to novelty.

00:28:10.540 It responds to things.

00:28:11.800 And we can relate to that.

00:28:14.560 Think about you buy, I don't know, you buy a new coat.

00:28:18.420 It's a beautiful coat.

00:28:19.880 You wear it for the first time.

00:28:21.420 It gives you all kinds of pleasure.

00:28:23.080 You're never going to get pleasure like that again from wearing that coat.

00:28:26.340 Once you do it again, you don't get the same burst of dopamine.

00:28:30.520 Is it similar to puppy love?

00:28:31.920 Like your first puppy love where you, is it where that puppy love you're never going to experience again?

00:28:38.460 Or, you know, is it kind of like that?

00:28:40.700 Maybe, maybe.

00:28:42.080 Love is an amazing thing.

00:28:43.660 Falling in love is an amazing thing.

00:28:45.440 I think every time we fall in love, the entire world is brand new.

00:28:51.400 I think falling in love is special.

00:28:53.440 So it's different than...

00:28:55.080 Yeah, I think falling in love gives you what nothing else can give you.

00:28:58.920 But think about, you're working, you get a big promotion, you get a big raise.

00:29:03.440 You get that raise for the first time, you see that big paycheck, you got tons of dopamine.

00:29:08.440 Second month, third month, fourth month, little by little.

00:29:12.140 You don't think so?

00:29:12.540 You don't think like, if I go from $10 an hour to $20 an hour to first time I make six figures,

00:29:17.620 or first time I make a million, you're thinking six figures produce more dopamine than a million did?

00:29:22.280 That's what you're saying?

00:29:23.680 No.

00:29:24.200 What I'm saying is, you're not making six figures.

00:29:27.380 You're getting a paycheck every month.

00:29:28.780 Gradually, it's going up.

00:29:30.540 Yeah.

00:29:30.920 Or, you know, let's say...

00:29:32.780 So when I was a resident, when I was training to be a psychiatrist, I was getting paid very, very little.

00:29:37.600 Then I became a faculty member, and my paycheck just jumped.

00:29:41.520 First time I got that paycheck, I was in seventh heaven.

00:29:44.620 Second time I got it, oh, this is great.

00:29:46.900 Third time, fourth.

00:29:47.640 By the fifth time I got the paycheck, it was the same old, same old.

00:29:50.840 Got it.

00:29:51.260 Yeah.

00:29:51.580 So it's similar to that when you get into cocaine or drugs like that.

00:29:56.140 Yeah.

00:29:56.580 Do they all pretty much fall into the same category?

00:29:58.540 They do.

00:29:58.900 Okay.

00:29:59.060 They all do that.

00:29:59.800 So what is the difference between a dopamine experience I have from drugs, you know, from sex, you know, from high, from alcohol?

00:30:10.820 How different are those things?

00:30:14.180 Well, I would say the dopamine experience itself is probably similar.

00:30:20.480 But remember, the brain's very complicated.

00:30:23.220 And so in addition to dopamine, you've got all kinds of other chemicals doing their thing at the same time.

00:30:29.580 It's more like a symphony than a single instrument playing a tune.

00:30:33.340 So what's going to make all of these different dopaminergic experiences different are the different instruments, the other neurotransmitters, brain chemicals that are going on.

00:30:44.240 So, for instance, if I'm addicted to alcohol, if I'm addicted to cocaine, if I'm addicted to sex, I can't have enough sex.

00:30:53.200 I'm a sex addict.

00:30:54.160 I'm an alcoholic.

00:30:55.060 I'm a drug addict.

00:30:56.000 Mm-hmm.

00:30:56.320 Is it extremely different, or there's a lot of similarities?

00:30:59.980 There's a lot of similarities.

00:31:01.540 There's a lot of similarities.

00:31:02.900 And it's always chasing what you don't have.

00:31:06.040 I write about a patient in the book who is a sex addict.

00:31:09.220 And, you know, he's one of these guys who would go to bars, and he'd pick women up and take them home, and he'd sleep with them.

00:31:15.280 And what he started to notice was that as soon as he had sex with them, he completely lost interest in them.

00:31:23.140 They were nothing to him after he had achieved that conquest.

00:31:27.600 What's interesting is that that moment when he lost interest in them became earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier.

00:31:35.020 And it got to the point where he gave them his line.

00:31:38.640 They agreed to go have sex with them.

00:31:41.020 He lost interest at that moment.

00:31:42.780 He didn't even want to have sex.

00:31:44.240 As soon as the conquest was complete and the sex was now a sure thing, he lost interest in it.

00:31:52.100 And that's the thing about dopamine.

00:31:54.360 Dopamine doesn't give us pleasure for things we have.

00:31:57.820 It can only make us want more.

00:32:00.300 And that's where we got the title from, the molecule of more.

00:32:03.440 Once you get it, dopamine shuts off.

00:32:07.720 Once you get it, dopamine shuts off.

00:32:10.260 So how different is drugs, alcohol, sex versus social media?

00:32:15.920 All right.

00:32:16.580 Well, let me say a little bit more about once you get it, dopamine shuts off.

00:32:20.520 Okay.

00:32:20.760 Because I think the best way to understand that is with buyer's remorse.

00:32:24.860 You think about something that you were incredibly excited about buying.

00:32:28.620 Okay.

00:32:28.820 And you imagine, for example, I got a Mazda Miata, which I absolutely love.

00:32:34.640 So much fun to drive.

00:32:36.240 Before I got that, I would spend hours and hours on the internet reading about it.

00:32:40.620 You know, going to these sites where owners were talking about it.

00:32:44.640 And I was so excited.

00:32:45.920 I thought my life is going to be completely different once I got it.

00:32:48.560 I love this thing.

00:32:50.120 I've had it for 10 years.

00:32:51.220 It's a wonderful car.

00:32:52.440 But once I got it, I stopped going on the internet to read about it.

00:32:55.780 I enjoyed it, but it was no longer excitement.

00:32:59.140 I didn't exactly have buyer's remorse, but my attitude about it changed from desire, excitement,

00:33:05.200 and enthusiasm to just kind of more of a quiet enjoyment.

00:33:08.840 So, let's talk about social media.

00:33:14.180 Social media gets you addicted by always promising you more.

00:33:19.260 There's always this sense, if I'm not on social media, I'm going to miss out on something.

00:33:24.200 I need to get more clicks.

00:33:25.860 I need to get more likes.

00:33:27.660 I need to get more friends.

00:33:30.440 Have you ever been kind of scrolling through your social media, looking at these different stories,

00:33:35.540 looking at these different posts, and you realize, I'm miserable.

00:33:40.360 I should be doing something else.

00:33:41.720 This is boring.

00:33:43.120 This is making me sad.

00:33:44.940 But you can't stop.

00:33:46.280 Because what you're afraid of is that there's something down there that might be important.

00:33:51.260 There's something down there that might give you more, might make your life better.

00:33:55.560 And so you just can't stop.

00:33:57.180 And that's dopamine pushing you along.

00:33:59.940 How different is it with when it was TV and no social media and people watching TV at night

00:34:05.040 or consuming the news by reading the newspaper?

00:34:07.820 How different is it today than then?

00:34:09.360 The difference is that the news was almost never about you.

00:34:16.820 Social media is all about you.

00:34:19.060 And that gives you the biggest dopamine hit.

00:34:21.580 Because remember, the point of dopamine is evolutionary success.

00:34:26.600 So dopamine is always scanning the environment.

00:34:29.460 What has the potential to influence my future well-being?

00:34:33.660 You look on the news, all right, the weather report does.

00:34:37.540 You know, the traffic report does.

00:34:39.360 Maybe there's something that's going to influence you.

00:34:41.540 But most of it really doesn't influence you all that much.

00:34:44.920 With social media, everything does.

00:34:47.480 And that's why you get so much more of a dopamine hit.

00:34:50.780 And why it can be wonderful.

00:34:53.460 It can be pleasurable.

00:34:54.820 We can make all kinds of great connections.

00:34:57.080 But with great power comes great danger as well.

00:35:01.300 What's that?

00:35:01.820 What's the worst danger?

00:35:02.780 What's the worst thing that could happen with this?

00:35:06.640 The danger is that it's no longer a tool to make your life better.

00:35:10.960 However, it becomes a sink where it absorbs all of your time, all of your focus, all of your energy, and everything else around it shrivels.

00:35:21.660 Everything around it shrivels.

00:35:24.500 So you stop paying attention to the people in your life because all you're worried about is getting more dopamine off of social media.

00:35:30.560 That's right.

00:35:31.240 It's the holiday season.

00:35:32.340 Yeah.

00:35:32.500 We get together with friends and family.

00:35:36.100 This is our chance.

00:35:37.560 Maybe we only see them once a year.

00:35:39.580 This is our chance to enjoy them.

00:35:41.500 We all pull out our phones and we start scrolling.

00:35:44.040 I was doing a radio interview the other day about the holidays.

00:35:47.300 And the interviewer was telling me about how Christmas had been the favorite time of year for his mother.

00:35:53.180 And she was gone now.

00:35:54.640 And every Christmas, the most meaningful thing he did was think about her and remember those past Christmases he had with her.

00:36:02.500 It's such a beautiful thing.

00:36:04.080 It's such an important moment for him.

00:36:06.300 And it tells us we've got to appreciate what we have now.

00:36:10.180 There's going to come a time when the people we love are no longer with us.

00:36:14.360 We need to put away our cell phones and make those memories.

00:36:18.160 Enjoy them while they're here.

00:36:20.640 Those messages have been made over and over and over again.

00:36:24.360 What I'm asking is what is the worst, what are the consequences of us being addicted to social media, Instagram, Twitter, texting, Snap, all of the YouTube.

00:36:36.580 What is the worst long-term consequences we could face with this?

00:36:41.520 Well, how about the end of the human race?

00:36:44.140 You think so?

00:36:45.020 Yes.

00:36:45.540 Tell me why.

00:36:46.080 So, you know, earlier we were talking about the advantage of modern society compared to ancient society and all the fantastic stuff that we have right now.

00:36:59.540 We've got so much amazing, cool stuff.

00:37:03.500 We've got all kinds of things we can buy.

00:37:05.860 We've got all kinds of things we can experience.

00:37:09.740 We've got great jobs.

00:37:11.420 We do years and years and years and years of education.

00:37:16.020 Something's got to give.

00:37:17.640 What is it that we're giving up for all of these things?

00:37:21.240 The answer is children.

00:37:23.300 Once an economy reaches a certain point of prosperity, the members of that economy lose interest in reproducing.

00:37:31.480 All of the developed nations have a negative population growth rate.

00:37:35.800 In order to keep the human race going, each woman needs to have 2.1 children.

00:37:42.300 Two children to replace her and the father and one to replace people who die before they have a chance to reproduce.

00:37:51.260 In all developed countries, the birth rate is less than 2.1%.

00:37:55.500 Even in developing nations, we're seeing this happen.

00:37:59.740 It's falling and falling and falling.

00:38:02.020 We don't have a solution.

00:38:03.220 There are some countries where they're now paying people to have children, and even that's not working.

00:38:09.160 As we get more and more gadgets that attract our attention, they become substitutes for family.

00:38:19.080 And ultimately, the human race is simply going to collapse unless something changes.

00:38:23.480 So, interpretation.

00:38:24.880 Are you trying to tell everybody that's watching this to set the phone aside and have sex with somebody right now?

00:38:29.060 That's exactly what I'm trying to say.

00:38:29.960 That's what you're saying.

00:38:30.720 Yes, that's right.

00:38:31.420 That's what you were trying to say.

00:38:32.680 So, you're promoting more sex is what you're promoting.

00:38:35.540 That's right.

00:38:36.000 So, we're going back to the Woodstock days of just let's get together and have sex with each other.

00:38:40.220 And listen, promoting, I'm not the first one to promote sex.

00:38:42.660 In Singapore, they had this holiday called National Night.

00:38:46.720 It was co-sponsored by Mentos, the fresh maker.

00:38:49.380 And it said, let your patriotism explode.

00:38:52.620 Let your patriotism explode.

00:38:56.500 Mentos, you got to go over there.

00:38:58.720 You're in the wrong country, man.

00:39:00.240 We got to move you over there and tell us how it is when you come back.

00:39:02.780 The question is if Bumble is there and if Tinder is there.

00:39:08.680 That's the biggest factor.

00:39:09.900 We have to make sure you can still swipe right or left over there.

00:39:12.180 Let me go back to what you're saying.

00:39:13.300 In all seriousness.

00:39:14.440 Okay.

00:39:15.240 So, this could cause us to not have enough babies.

00:39:18.960 Okay.

00:39:19.520 We need to have 2.1 babies to continue the number.

00:39:22.460 And everybody right now is less than 2.1.

00:39:24.580 Now, the argument on the opposite side, I hear a lot of people saying this.

00:39:28.080 We're having way too many babies.

00:39:29.260 What if eventually we are overpopulated?

00:39:32.000 Then what happens?

00:39:32.660 Then you got climate change people talking about the fact that the more population we have,

00:39:37.040 we're producing carbon dioxide.

00:39:38.560 That's not good because of the whole, you know, the theory.

00:39:41.120 The greenhouse, you know, the whole theory about the fact that sun's coming in and it's

00:39:47.320 going out and it's getting thicker so it's staying in here.

00:39:50.220 It's getting hotter.

00:39:51.500 Climate's changing.

00:39:53.060 So, your argument is complete opposite.

00:39:55.120 We need to keep having babies versus people are saying let's not.

00:39:58.120 Because China right now, you're limited.

00:39:59.540 You can't have, I think their limit is to one baby per family right now.

00:40:03.540 They changed it.

00:40:04.200 When did they change it?

00:40:05.080 They changed it some time ago because what they realized was they were getting negative

00:40:10.260 population growth.

00:40:11.800 The problem with negative population growth is you need young workers to support the older

00:40:17.400 retired people who are drawing pensions.

00:40:20.660 And what happened with China with their one child policy is that they now realize they don't

00:40:26.900 have enough young people to support the pensions of the older people.

00:40:29.940 Is this a recent thing?

00:40:30.960 Like five, ten year thing?

00:40:32.140 Because.

00:40:32.740 At least ten years.

00:40:33.800 At least ten years.

00:40:34.260 At least ten years.

00:40:34.880 So, but am I allowed to have as many as I can?

00:40:37.900 I believe so.

00:40:39.300 And in fact, I believe.

00:40:39.980 Can you check that car real quick?

00:40:41.320 I'm actually really curious.

00:40:42.080 Check that.

00:40:42.400 I think the Chinese government has actually done a 180 degrees.

00:40:46.160 And they're now encouraging people to have more children.

00:40:48.780 That is amazing.

00:40:50.120 Because you're going to get social unrest otherwise.

00:40:53.020 How are you going to pay the pensions of all these old people?

00:40:55.980 Somebody may say they've got one and a half billion people there, though.

00:40:58.920 They've got a lot of people.

00:41:01.000 But for an economy to grow, you've got to have a growing population.

00:41:07.020 So, the number you're saying is 2.1.

00:41:12.160 You know, but you're saying they're not having more kids today because we are on the phones

00:41:16.320 all the time.

00:41:17.640 And even at night, if you're on your bed, you're looking at your phone.

00:41:20.140 Many people are falling asleep watching their phones.

00:41:22.040 So, the last thing you're thinking about is what?

00:41:24.020 Hey, babe, you want to mess around or something?

00:41:26.360 And you're already too tired to have sex because either she fell asleep or you fell asleep on

00:41:29.960 your phone.

00:41:30.840 So, that's causing it to be less.

00:41:32.380 And I tell you what the bigger problem is, is pornography.

00:41:36.140 Pornography is so easily available today.

00:41:38.800 And it is an addictive thing as well.

00:41:40.920 When I was a kid growing up, if you wanted pornography, you had to go to the drugstore.

00:41:45.040 Pick up a magazine and hope the person across the counter wasn't a member of the office of sex.

00:41:49.120 What was your favorite magazine?

00:41:50.040 Let's see if you can admit.

00:41:51.220 What was yours?

00:41:52.040 You know, I was a penthouse fan.

00:41:54.200 I was also a penthouse fan.

00:41:56.260 I was also a penthouse fan.

00:41:58.460 I'm so proud of you.

00:41:59.800 What a special moment.

00:42:01.780 A professor and an entrepreneur agree.

00:42:04.300 But I tell you one time, I'm going to tell you the funniest story.

00:42:06.660 One time I come home.

00:42:09.240 I'm 13, 14 years old.

00:42:10.740 And you know where you hide the penthouse.

00:42:12.160 You know, you hide underneath.

00:42:13.200 Under your feet, Patrick.

00:42:13.520 So my mom comes and she's crying.

00:42:17.640 And I said, why are you crying?

00:42:20.800 She says, I just saw something.

00:42:23.100 I'm very disappointed in you.

00:42:24.980 I said, what are you disappointed in her?

00:42:26.240 So she says, come with me.

00:42:27.220 So I go to the room and I see all my best pictures sitting on top of my bed.

00:42:31.720 And she says, what is this?

00:42:34.640 I said, mom, what do you want me to masturbate to?

00:42:36.560 I have to masturbate.

00:42:37.740 These are my favorite.

00:42:38.380 I said, don't even wrinkle that one.

00:42:39.660 That's one of my favorite ones.

00:42:40.600 So I started setting them aside and she was nice enough to not tear them apart.

00:42:43.360 But I had to find a different place to hide it.

00:42:45.460 So kids, if you're watching, it's a good place to hide.

00:42:48.120 I don't know if you've done this one or not.

00:42:49.460 The drawer.

00:42:49.960 You know the bottom drawer.

00:42:50.960 Yeah, it's much better.

00:42:52.020 I've used that one too.

00:42:53.100 But my mom knew the bottom drawer.

00:42:54.680 So I had to get good tape.

00:42:56.500 And you bottom drawer on the, what do you call it?

00:42:59.480 So this is the drawer.

00:43:00.600 The bottom of the drawer.

00:43:01.540 I tape it right here.

00:43:02.780 She never found it again.

00:43:04.360 Legit place.

00:43:05.060 That's a tip right there for you.

00:43:06.120 By the way, don't tell your mom and dad.

00:43:07.280 Parents, make sure they don't watch it.

00:43:08.620 And then one day she took it at Goodwill and somebody got a surprise, right?

00:43:11.860 Somebody else got the surprise.

00:43:13.400 But okay.

00:43:13.960 So I agree.

00:43:15.300 You know, because porn is more available today.

00:43:18.240 And by the way, you know, yesterday's video we were making.

00:43:20.120 We were making a funny video about the whole annual review I was telling you about.

00:43:23.800 One of the examples was watching porn at work.

00:43:27.180 As crazy as this sounds, I cannot tell you how many people.

00:43:31.340 I've ran sales offices for 20 years.

00:43:33.620 I'd walk into one of my sales guys' office.

00:43:36.380 I'm like, buddy, over here, honestly, you know, what do you do?

00:43:39.840 So you're really in the mood.

00:43:42.460 But even in the stall, you're sitting there.

00:43:44.820 And, you know, you're the next person next to you in the stall.

00:43:46.700 You're like, I'm at the bathroom right now.

00:43:49.940 So I agree with you.

00:43:51.120 So what is the worst effects that porn can have on our lives?

00:43:54.500 Right.

00:43:54.880 So pornography stimulates dopamine, just like drugs and food and all of these other things.

00:44:01.040 And, you know, when we talk about people being addicted to something, what we want is we want

00:44:07.320 to look at the influence it has on their life.

00:44:09.660 Is it taking up large amounts of time in which they could be doing something else?

00:44:14.920 Is it interfering?

00:44:16.500 And, of course, pornography does that.

00:44:17.920 People who get addicted, they'll spend hours and hours per day.

00:44:21.260 Is it interfering with relationships?

00:44:23.220 With pornography, it's a big yes.

00:44:25.440 People who spend too much time watching pornography, they have trouble performing with regular sex.

00:44:33.560 And the reason is that just like with alcohol, you might start out with some beer, maybe some wine.

00:44:39.340 You progress to hard liquor, mixed drinks, and finally you're just drinking the vodka right out of the bottle.

00:44:45.040 Same with pornography.

00:44:45.760 You start out with tame stuff, and little by little, you go up to more and more extreme acts.

00:44:51.960 When you're with a real human being, it just doesn't do it anymore.

00:44:55.940 And so a lot of people have erectile dysfunction.

00:44:59.060 They don't even want to have sex with real people.

00:45:01.940 One guy's quoted as saying, I'd rather stay at home and look at pornography than go out on a date

00:45:07.140 because the pornography woman never says no, and she never asks anything of me.

00:45:11.900 That is crazy.

00:45:12.460 But I've heard it so many times.

00:45:14.040 You're not the only person saying this.

00:45:15.180 And so I've had buddies say, like, you know, Pamela Anderson did an interview on porn.

00:45:19.960 Have you seen this one?

00:45:20.720 I haven't seen that, no.

00:45:21.060 It's incredible.

00:45:21.900 By the way, Pamela, if you watch this, I'd love to have you here and talk about this topic

00:45:25.320 because I think so many young men can learn from the way she describes it.

00:45:29.780 She says, so one day she talks to her son about sex because, you know, the whole porn situation.

00:45:36.540 So she says, I'm out there dating, and all of a sudden I'm going out there and I'm going on dates

00:45:41.460 and I'm having sex and guys are trying stuff on me.

00:45:43.820 And they're slapping.

00:45:45.400 I'm like, I don't like that.

00:45:46.760 And they're trying things thinking that's what women like.

00:45:50.940 That's what women like.

00:45:51.200 Because what they see in a porn thinking that's exactly what everybody wants to do.

00:45:56.340 And then when they do, somebody's disappointed, not realizing these are professional porn stars.

00:46:00.340 I ran a gym in Chatsworth, okay?

00:46:03.240 I don't know if you know, Chatsworth 20 years ago was the 80% of porn was producing Chatsworth.

00:46:08.960 80% of porn in the U.S., whatever porn people watch, 80% was producing Chatsworth.

00:46:14.180 So I'm the weekend manager at Chatsworth, and I'm shutting down the gym.

00:46:18.260 These porn stars would come to me and they would say, hey, man, you know, can I use the gym?

00:46:21.520 We just want to do a quick 30-minute shoot at the end.

00:46:23.960 You know, I'd be in the pool.

00:46:25.540 They're having sex.

00:46:26.340 It's all over the place.

00:46:27.340 We'd have to send these guys home all the time.

00:46:28.680 Obviously, my young guys, everybody wanted to stick around.

00:46:31.100 They enjoyed it, huh?

00:46:31.740 They wanted to participate and contribute to society with these porn stars.

00:46:34.900 I imagine it's not that sexy, though, when you're actually seeing the porn stars shoot on the set.

00:46:40.860 When you're 21 full of testosterone, it's very sexy.

00:46:44.140 It's good enough.

00:46:44.600 I mean, listen, it's very sexy.

00:46:46.660 Some of us, you're taking notepads and trying to take notes.

00:46:49.440 But the point is, the sex with porn stars, with the camera off, is just, you know, different than a sex with, you know, on camera.

00:47:01.860 So a lot of, so Pamela Landry is telling her son, saying, listen, if you're going to have sex with your girl, just know, all these other things you saw there, she's probably not going to like it.

00:47:09.300 Okay, so if you want to ask, ask first if she likes it before you do, because you may have, like all of us, if you've dated, if you've been with, you know, many sexual partners, you'll always come across to one that likes to be hanging off the top and a rope and freaking hit me with this.

00:47:26.380 And I want you to bring this, you know, all these weird things to use.

00:47:30.100 I had a very interesting girlfriend of mine in the army that liked a lot of extracurricular activities.

00:47:36.340 But then you realize most of them are not really into that kind of stuff.

00:47:40.740 So porn completely disappoints men thinking girls want to do that.

00:47:46.640 So what is the biggest threat with porn when virtual reality and augmented reality comes out?

00:47:52.480 Yeah.

00:47:52.760 I mean, you're sitting there and you're watching the porn.

00:47:55.360 What effects do you think this is going to have long term?

00:47:57.080 Same thing, kids, not going on dates.

00:47:59.380 Same exact issues.

00:48:00.360 It's going to make it worse and worse and worse.

00:48:02.060 Yeah, we're going to get the virtual reality.

00:48:03.500 It's going to become increasingly more real.

00:48:06.600 And we're going to have, it's going to create unrealistic expectations.

00:48:11.820 Just as pornography has created this unrealistic expectation for Pamela Anderson's son, it's going to be like Netflix.

00:48:20.420 Netflix knows what kind of movies you like.

00:48:23.360 These porn channels are going to learn what kind of women you like, what you like the women to do.

00:48:29.620 And it's going to know you so well that no flesh and blood human being is going to be able to compete with the pixels.

00:48:38.620 And we're going to be less and less interested in human beings and more and more interested in pixels.

00:48:43.840 You think so?

00:48:45.800 I think so.

00:48:47.480 Yeah.

00:48:50.600 Hopefully, things will get bad enough that we begin to realize, hey, this is a dangerous thing.

00:48:55.300 We've got to start looking at this the way we look at alcohol and cocaine and realize that this taps into our brain in such a powerful, primitive way that it's going to destroy our life.

00:49:10.040 And yeah.

00:49:10.460 I think so.

00:49:11.080 I mean, you go back to biblical times that we talk about the city of Corinth, right?

00:49:15.740 You know, they say the oldest occupation in the world, you know what it is, prostitution, right?

00:49:21.520 Right.

00:49:21.960 So is this really something that is a new thing that we're going to experience and it's going to really have that kind of a dramatic effect?

00:49:30.040 Because, you know, sometimes my concern is when we go and we sell fear, obviously we all know fear sells, dramatically fear sells.

00:49:39.560 When the market tanks, infomercial guys are blowing up because they know how to sell anything during that time because fear sharpens listening when you're afraid you'll listen.

00:49:47.620 Sometimes I think we have to be a little bit more careful in this.

00:49:52.420 You could disagree with me on this.

00:49:54.140 Because sometimes we turn something as a crisis into an 18-year-old thinking about it.

00:50:03.820 So because they think it's even a bigger problem, sometimes they even get more obsessed about it.

00:50:08.820 And in their mind, they think it's going to be terrible for them versus not even paying attention to something a little bit and just kind of telling them to, you listen, it is something you've got to be careful with.

00:50:17.520 And then eventually it phases out.

00:50:18.680 My dad, I would tell my dad about my kid.

00:50:20.840 I'd say, you know what, dad, I'm having a big problem with my son right now, my first son.

00:50:24.940 He says, what is the problem?

00:50:27.580 I said, you know, you realize he's doing, you know, he wouldn't pick up after his stuff the other day.

00:50:31.980 He says, he's a year and a half.

00:50:34.520 What are you talking about?

00:50:36.040 And so then he got two and a half years old.

00:50:37.760 I had a different problem.

00:50:38.500 I'm like, I don't know.

00:50:39.760 I just, I'm concerned because, you know, when I tell him what to do, you know, he's just, he's two and a half years old.

00:50:46.220 Then he, you know, I don't know.

00:50:47.480 When I talk to him sometimes, I don't think he's really talking to me.

00:50:50.460 And he's four years old.

00:50:52.200 So every time that I thought something was an issue, it lasted two, three, four, five, six months, and it went away.

00:50:59.000 And it went away because he graduated that.

00:51:01.420 And sometimes for us, go back and think about the biggest thing you had to overcome when you were a kid or I was a kid.

00:51:06.080 So we were like, oh, somebody thought we're never going to get rid of it.

00:51:09.180 Yeah.

00:51:09.500 And then eventually got rid.

00:51:10.740 You think sometimes we have to all to be held responsible to not make, turn molehills into a mountain because the next generation is going to have a unnecessary fear injected into them that could prevent them from fulfilling their own life?

00:51:25.060 What do you think about that?

00:51:25.780 Well, you know, I think you make a very good point.

00:51:28.080 If I sound like I'm on shrooms, just say, Pat, you sound like you're high.

00:51:30.520 If I have a point, just tell me I have a point.

00:51:32.540 I think you've got a point.

00:51:33.340 Okay.

00:51:34.020 I think that human beings have good sense.

00:51:38.240 And a lot of times the good sense wins over our destructive, instinctual reactions.

00:51:45.660 But look at cigarettes, for example.

00:51:50.080 Cigarettes are a terrible product.

00:51:51.640 They're extremely addictive and they kill you.

00:51:54.160 Absolutely.

00:51:54.900 Right?

00:51:55.120 More than marijuana, by the way.

00:51:56.360 Yeah.

00:51:56.740 That's right.

00:51:57.320 That's right.

00:51:58.380 Now, at some point, we as a society realized or decided, I don't know if we're right or wrong, we decided we have to start putting some restrictions on cigarettes because the product is simply too dangerous.

00:52:12.140 Nicotine is a drug.

00:52:13.340 It stimulates dopamine.

00:52:14.680 It stimulates it too hard.

00:52:16.320 And so when people get addicted, they lose control.

00:52:19.160 We kind of felt like the basic good sense that human beings have is no match for this terribly addictive drug.

00:52:29.040 Let me tell you why I think pornography might lead us in this direction.

00:52:32.080 Let's say that we had two women.

00:52:33.540 One was beautiful.

00:52:34.620 One was kind of plain.

00:52:36.540 One cared about your happiness more than anything else.

00:52:40.640 The other was a normal, selfish human being.

00:52:44.580 You'd obviously go for the beautiful one that cared about you.

00:52:48.940 Now, what if she was a robot?

00:52:51.060 Would that matter to you?

00:52:54.460 100%.

00:52:55.020 It would?

00:52:55.920 Absolutely.

00:52:56.540 Why?

00:52:56.780 Let's say that physically, she was indistinguishable.

00:53:01.960 No.

00:53:03.340 Because of feelings to me.

00:53:05.980 I see where you're going with this.

00:53:07.040 Because feelings to me to know that I sincerely believe you chose to love me and accept me matters to me rather than fabricating that feeling by recoding you in a way where you love me just because I coded you properly.

00:53:22.860 The robot would love anybody, but the human being is only going to love you.

00:53:29.040 I think that that's a very good point.

00:53:30.780 I mean, there are things about human beings that are unfathomable depths.

00:53:37.440 And if anything is going to save us, that's what's going to save us.

00:53:40.260 Those unfathomable depths that you can't get from a computer.

00:53:45.240 A different way of watching porn.

00:53:47.080 I mean, we view porn.

00:53:49.940 So, look, if you're watching this interview and watching porn, turn off the porn.

00:53:53.480 I'm just telling you, turn the porn off and pay attention to the interview here.

00:53:57.240 So, okay, so we've gone drugs.

00:53:59.000 We've gone alcohol.

00:54:00.400 We've gone sex.

00:54:01.800 Did we really go into sex in depth?

00:54:03.240 We kind of did.

00:54:03.940 We did.

00:54:04.280 We did do love, though.

00:54:05.240 Okay, let's go to love.

00:54:06.100 Let's go to love.

00:54:06.540 Because I know we said love is very different than everything else.

00:54:08.520 Yeah.

00:54:08.900 So what's on your mind with love?

00:54:10.560 Because love confuses the hell out of all of us.

00:54:12.480 We become different human beings.

00:54:13.760 Oh, yeah.

00:54:15.940 Some people say that love is the most intensely pleasurable experience that human beings have.

00:54:23.120 And we're talking about falling in love.

00:54:25.820 We might call it passionate love.

00:54:28.140 You know, you see so many movies about it, so many books about it.

00:54:30.980 It plays a very, very central role.

00:54:33.420 And when you fall in love, you feel like the world is brand new.

00:54:36.980 It's a very dopaminergic experience.

00:54:39.140 And that's a wonderful thing.

00:54:42.140 But the problem with love, of course, is that it doesn't last.

00:54:45.960 And people always want to try to make this passionate love last.

00:54:49.880 And they can't do it.

00:54:52.260 And a lot of people don't understand that.

00:54:54.780 And they think that when the passionate love comes to an end, on average it lasts 12 months,

00:55:01.240 when the passionate love comes to an end, it means the relationship has come to an end.

00:55:06.300 Something has gone wrong in the relationship.

00:55:09.140 One of the things we write about in the book is that's not true.

00:55:13.180 That's simply the normal way the brain works.

00:55:16.240 Passionate love lasts about a year, and then it turns into something different.

00:55:20.820 It turns into something called companionate love.

00:55:24.360 It's no longer using dopamine.

00:55:26.720 Dopamine is about excitement.

00:55:28.440 It's about more.

00:55:29.480 It's about the future.

00:55:30.980 That's what passionate love is.

00:55:33.000 You know, rosy future, happily ever after.

00:55:35.760 My life is never going to be the same.

00:55:37.440 Companionate, though, uses pleasure chemicals in the brain that are about the present moment.

00:55:44.240 It's about satisfaction and contentment.

00:55:47.420 It's about the deep satisfaction of having another person's life deeply entwined with your own.

00:55:53.660 So, when you fall in love, you've got to be ready for that shift.

00:55:58.840 You've got to look for it when it comes and say, yeah, it's sad that the rollercoaster ride of passionate love is over,

00:56:05.960 but this is a deeper, more enduring love that in some ways is a better ride than the rollercoaster.

00:56:13.180 You know, most people can't comprehend what you just said.

00:56:16.860 It's a very deep topic, what you just said, because, you know, the whole idea of newness, right?

00:56:24.540 You have sex with somebody.

00:56:25.820 Like, the moment you date somebody and let you say, guys, get sexual, what time you get off work?

00:56:29.960 You want to go to lunch over here?

00:56:31.280 I'll pick you up.

00:56:32.380 You have a car.

00:56:33.320 You go in the backseat.

00:56:34.020 And then you do that for the first 90 days.

00:56:35.680 And then, yeah, you're having sex, but not like before.

00:56:37.680 Then 12 months later, it's not anymore.

00:56:39.440 And then you're like, hey, what's up?

00:56:40.440 Yeah, you know what?

00:56:41.000 I'm good.

00:56:41.360 I'm tired, and I'm just going to stay in, right?

00:56:43.320 And then you go to the next one, wanting to chase the next thing, that experience that.

00:56:47.280 And a lot of time in marriage, this comes to an eventual point where it's tough to kind of make the marriage work.

00:56:53.380 What do you do when you get to that point where you sit there and you say, I love you, but I'm no longer in love with you?

00:57:02.600 You've heard that statement before, right?

00:57:04.020 Well, a lot of people say, I say, so what's happening between the two of you guys?

00:57:06.880 Pat, I'm not going to lie to you, man.

00:57:07.800 I love her a lot.

00:57:09.680 I'm just not in love with her anymore like I once was.

00:57:12.920 What does that mean when people say that to you?

00:57:17.040 Well, that's normal.

00:57:18.200 That's what happens to everybody.

00:57:21.020 And we just, our brains were simply not wired to have this in love feeling last forever.

00:57:28.840 You know, companionate comes from the word friend, companion.

00:57:35.200 And so you don't have this person you're absolutely insane over.

00:57:39.640 And by the way, there is a way to bring back sparkles of that passionate love, which we can talk about.

00:57:44.000 But it's not an everyday thing.

00:57:45.940 But instead what you have is this loyal, deep friendship with another person.

00:57:51.360 And that's a pretty nice thing to have.

00:57:55.580 Loyal, deep friendship with another person.

00:57:59.200 How does one in that moment know the fact that whoever else you date a year later is going to become not passionate love, companion love?

00:58:10.940 How do you decipher between the two?

00:58:13.120 It's a very hard thing to do.

00:58:14.840 Yeah.

00:58:14.880 I mean, you know, what is the divorce rate right now in America?

00:58:17.520 50%?

00:58:17.940 It's about 50%.

00:58:18.640 Okay, that's not, you know, so what do we have, what are we getting wrong in this place?

00:58:23.640 Because you've got one community that's saying man is not built to be monogamous, right?

00:58:29.300 It's not, I'm not built to be with one person.

00:58:31.520 I don't know if you've seen Hugh Hefner make the argument.

00:58:33.340 It's a very good argument he makes.

00:58:35.020 And then you have.

00:58:35.900 It's wrong, by the way.

00:58:37.280 So tell me more.

00:58:38.380 Yeah.

00:58:39.100 I interrupted you.

00:58:40.060 I love that.

00:58:40.480 Go ahead, please.

00:58:40.920 Yeah, it's wrong.

00:58:41.560 It's wrong.

00:58:42.300 Human beings have a very strong mating for life instinct, just like swans and prairie voles.

00:58:49.560 It's not perfect.

00:58:50.880 You know, we have divorce.

00:58:52.220 We have infidelity.

00:58:54.100 But if you, the World Health Organization looked at global statistics and they found out that by the age of 50, more than 90% of people all over the world have been married at least once.

00:59:07.600 Now, that's not to say that they were absolutely faithful, but marriage is an intention to have one individual for life.

00:59:15.520 And 90% of us, at some point in our life, at least had that intention, and many of us kept it.

00:59:22.340 Have we kept it because we want to keep it?

00:59:25.600 Or have we kept it because of some kind of a church or a belief that has made us believe that it's the right thing to do,

00:59:34.100 where at some point this religion was used in a way to control the populace of not, you know, pissing off each other.

00:59:42.020 And I don't flirt with your wife because natural instinct, if I mess with your wife, you're going to be upset at me.

00:59:46.560 If you flirt with my wife, I'm going to be upset at you.

00:59:50.240 Is it a natural from us?

00:59:52.560 Or how much of it is an institution or church or religion pass it down to us where we believe that?

00:59:57.840 What do you think?

00:59:58.880 You know what I'm asking, right?

00:59:59.800 I do know what you're asking.

01:00:01.080 Human beings are incredibly complicated.

01:00:03.600 You know, inside our head, we think there's one person, me.

01:00:06.800 But it's actually this seething cauldron of competing motivations and goals.

01:00:12.740 So we talked about drugs.

01:00:14.580 The drug addict wants his cocaine.

01:00:16.640 The drug addict also wants to be a good father.

01:00:19.420 Now, a lot of the time the cocaine's going to win, but we've got these competing drives.

01:00:24.980 So when you get married, there's a big part of you that wants to be a good husband for the rest of your life, but you can't help it.

01:00:32.840 You're a human being.

01:00:33.800 You've got these competing drives that you see a pretty woman and you want to have sex with her.

01:00:39.440 So we've got these things like the church, our community, our government, that have been built up to support one of these drives.

01:00:50.380 And if we don't think that's the right thing, nobody keeps us in the church these days.

01:00:54.920 You know, in the old days, if you wanted to be part of society, you had to go to the church or the synagogue or the mosque.

01:01:00.380 These days, it's much more of a choice.

01:01:02.000 A lot of people choose to do it, though, because they're identifying with one of those competing drives.

01:01:09.720 They're saying that, yeah, I know I've got these interests in other women, but I don't like that part of myself.

01:01:18.160 I like the good husband part of myself.

01:01:20.020 And so I'm going to surround myself with these institutions that's going to help me stay a good husband.

01:01:27.120 And I think that they're acting prudently because how many people have an extramarital affair and two years later say, best thing I ever did?

01:01:38.580 No, you don't hear that.

01:01:39.420 You don't hear that.

01:01:40.040 But we know it's not a good idea, just like we know eating that third donut is not such a good idea.

01:01:46.880 It's a primitive drive that doesn't necessarily have our future happiness in mind when it makes us eat that third donut or have the extramarital affair.

01:01:55.720 What a way of you putting it on.

01:01:57.080 Oh, my gosh.

01:01:57.980 So the three institutions you said, church, religion, government, what was the other one you said?

01:02:02.760 Community.

01:02:03.480 Your community.

01:02:04.260 Yeah.

01:02:05.000 Powerful.

01:02:05.860 Very powerful what you just said right there.

01:02:08.340 Regarding anything else you have to share on the love side?

01:02:11.320 Yeah, there was something I wanted to say.

01:02:14.100 Just give me a second.

01:02:15.280 We can come back.

01:02:16.060 If it comes back.

01:02:16.700 Let's come back to it.

01:02:17.460 Yeah, no problem, because that topic is a deep topic.

01:02:20.680 Let's go into politics, okay?

01:02:21.960 So politics for me is, and then we'll go into domination because I'm curious to know what you're going to say.

01:02:26.860 By the way, I haven't even gone through my notes.

01:02:28.220 Just the conversation alone, I'm enjoying this, just so you know this.

01:02:31.240 And I told you earlier, Daniel Lieberman, you know, there's two of you.

01:02:35.680 Yes, that's right.

01:02:37.380 And both of you guys professors.

01:02:38.760 So it's kind of like, you know, it's conflicting which is which, but I know you've done your own speeches and his.

01:02:44.440 But the next one is politics.

01:02:46.300 You know, for me, sometimes I look at people and I say, you just feel like a liberal to me, okay?

01:02:56.400 In my mind.

01:02:57.760 And I'll see someone and I'll just say, you feel like a conservative to me.

01:03:01.860 And I'll see someone and I'll say, you're an independent.

01:03:05.040 You're trying to play it safe.

01:03:06.740 You're just kind of trying to stay in the middle, neutral.

01:03:09.040 You don't want arguments.

01:03:09.800 You're just kind of trying to, I totally understand.

01:03:11.620 I respect your point.

01:03:12.720 I respect your point, right?

01:03:13.780 And it doesn't take long to realize if somebody's a Democrat or a Republican or a liberal or a, you know, conservative.

01:03:19.600 It doesn't take hard.

01:03:20.540 A few minutes of conversations, you can kind of figure out where people are leaning.

01:03:23.620 It's not hard to ask those questions.

01:03:24.880 I've asked this question from Jordan Peterson.

01:03:28.060 I've asked it from so many different people.

01:03:29.960 Myself, I'm curious to know what your answer is going to be.

01:03:32.100 Are we born somewhat liberal or, you know, and are we born, some of us, from the day we're born, we're liberals, a part of us, and we're conservative, a part of us?

01:03:42.560 What are your thoughts on that?

01:03:43.640 I think the answer is yes, but I think it's a very, very small tendency.

01:03:48.780 And the reason why I say that is that if you look at individuals, it's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to find something they're born with that is leading them to a particular political ideology.

01:04:03.100 But if you look at very, very large groups of people, thousands of people, little tiny things will come out in the averages, and we can see that.

01:04:13.800 We can see that.

01:04:14.780 People who have different kinds of upbringings, people who have different kinds of genes, there are very, very subtle influences that we can bring out in the averages.

01:04:23.680 So it's not genes.

01:04:24.800 So you're saying it's a small percentage.

01:04:26.960 It's not a big percentage.

01:04:27.560 It's a small percentage, yeah, but it is genes.

01:04:28.820 Yeah, because for me, I say, a guy asked me one time, how do we come up with political beliefs?

01:04:33.300 I said, listen, tell me if you agree with us or if you see it's different.

01:04:36.140 One is cultural.

01:04:37.940 You were born Christian.

01:04:39.240 You were involved in a Christian church, and everybody there was conservative, so you kind of grew up in that environment.

01:04:46.200 So tradition.

01:04:47.400 The other one is you had a falling out with somebody.

01:04:50.440 Your dad was a Republican.

01:04:51.600 He made a lot of money but wasn't around, so you become a Democrat because you hate Republicans because all they care about is money.

01:04:56.160 Or you grew up in a family that was a Democrat.

01:04:59.360 They were all, let's just say, financially, they weren't doing well, and they were just kind of voting for a certain party, and you're like, okay, I don't want to go that route because I don't want to live that life.

01:05:07.880 I'm going to go be a Republican.

01:05:09.060 So you fight whatever somebody lets you down in your life, so you go and become the opposite that somebody does.

01:05:15.880 You'll hear this very common with some names.

01:05:18.460 Then the other one is somebody took a liking into you.

01:05:21.020 You grew up with not even any political beliefs.

01:05:22.680 A coach liked you, a professor liked you, a teacher liked you, and they became a father figure or mother figure that you didn't have in your life, and they happened to be a Republican.

01:05:32.120 They happened to be a Democrat.

01:05:34.120 And you say, no one in my life has been this interested in me as this man is.

01:05:37.220 I'm loyal to his beliefs.

01:05:38.500 I'm going to be a Republican.

01:05:39.420 And then there's people that just kind of want to, they had a big life-changing event that happened to them.

01:05:45.520 You were in your house, and somebody came in and shot you with a gun, and you didn't like guns, and now you say, everybody needs to have a gun because I've got to protect myself.

01:05:54.380 No one will ever come and shoot somebody, my father or somebody, I need to have a gun.

01:05:58.020 So a life-changing event that takes place.

01:06:00.500 Would you say there's any other things outside of that that determine, end up somebody being a liberal or a conservative?

01:06:08.660 Well, first of all, I think you make a great point that we believe that our political views are based on reason, but reason probably plays a very small role.

01:06:17.940 It's the things you mentioned.

01:06:19.620 And sometimes you see videos on YouTube where they go to people on streets and they read them something that a politician said, and they say, what do you think about that?

01:06:27.340 I agree completely.

01:06:29.100 Well, it turns out it was said by someone on the other side of the spectrum as you.

01:06:32.140 They say, well, I disagree completely.

01:06:34.080 But, you know, I'm going to go out on a limb, and I'm going to say, I think biology has something to do with it.

01:06:41.360 Tell me why.

01:06:42.940 So, you know, it comes back to the whole thing about the brain chemicals.

01:06:47.020 We've talked a lot about dopamine.

01:06:48.520 Sure.

01:06:48.940 Dopamine looks to the future, getting more, making the future a better place.

01:06:54.780 We haven't spoken quite as much on what we call the here and now neurotransmitters.

01:07:00.280 Those are the neurotransmitters that help us to experience the present.

01:07:04.240 And typically what we experience in the present are sensory inputs, which you see here, taste, smell, touch, emotions, and interpersonal relationships.

01:07:14.020 So some of those chemicals are going to be oxytocin, endorphin, endocannabinoid.

01:07:19.220 If you are born where the future-oriented dopamine circuits are a little bit stronger, you're more likely to be liberal.

01:07:28.880 If you're born where the here and now circuits are a little bit stronger, you're more likely to be conservative.

01:07:34.840 And again, it's a small piece, but if you look at large groups of people, you can see the differences.

01:07:39.480 Very interesting.

01:07:40.800 Can you talk about what you write about in your book when you said in Hollywood they measure to see what percentage of money was given to Obama versus Romney?

01:07:49.300 The numbers are astronomically different.

01:07:51.300 Can you elaborate on that, on how that comes about?

01:07:53.660 Yeah.

01:07:54.040 So there are some people who we might call dopaminergic.

01:07:59.100 All right?

01:07:59.640 These are people who are very much focused on the future.

01:08:02.700 Your listeners, I think, tend to be very dopaminergic.

01:08:05.700 They're entrepreneurs.

01:08:06.580 It takes an enormous amount of motivation, an enormous amount of drive to be an entrepreneur.

01:08:12.940 I tried, by the way, and I failed, which is a great experience.

01:08:17.880 And so it makes you more dopaminergic.

01:08:20.580 Where else do we see dopaminergic people?

01:08:23.180 Well, Hollywood, they're not entrepreneurs as much.

01:08:26.440 We're seeing a different kind of dopaminergic person.

01:08:29.460 People in Hollywood are notorious for excess, right?

01:08:33.360 They always want more.

01:08:34.880 It's never good enough.

01:08:36.580 It doesn't matter how many starring roles you've been in, you always need to have another.

01:08:41.620 It doesn't matter how many mansions you have around the world, you always need another one.

01:08:46.060 We were talking about marriage and how the divorce rate among the general population is 50%.

01:08:51.800 During the first five years of marriage, in Hollywood, the divorce rate is 80%.

01:08:56.740 Get out of here.

01:08:57.480 Because it's never good enough, right?

01:08:59.320 Is it because it's never good enough or is it because temptation's all around you?

01:09:02.760 It's probably a little bit of both.

01:09:04.340 But I think it's more it's never good enough.

01:09:06.800 So Hollywood is a very dopaminergic place.

01:09:09.380 And we clearly see that there is a strong bias towards the left in Hollywood.

01:09:14.500 Almost all of the financial donations that were given were given to Democrats.

01:09:20.100 Same thing in Silicon Valley.

01:09:22.100 This is where we see the dopaminergic entrepreneurs.

01:09:26.380 In Silicon Valley, they give all their money to the Democrats as well and very little to the Republicans.

01:09:32.020 Interesting.

01:09:33.880 Why is that, though?

01:09:37.420 Liberals have a name for themselves.

01:09:39.660 They call themselves progressives.

01:09:42.120 Liberalism is about making the world a better place.

01:09:46.060 The criticism of it is that they try to make the world a better place by achieving utopia.

01:09:51.680 And the only way you can do that is by having total control over society.

01:09:56.020 But the goal is to make the world a better place, to plan our cities so that they will be less polluting and easier to get around,

01:10:07.200 to determine what kind of education our children need, to tell people, hey, you've got to wear helmets when you ride your motorcycle,

01:10:16.360 to say our health care system is not working.

01:10:19.140 Let the government take it over because the government knows better and the government will fix it.

01:10:24.720 It's about progress, and that's a very dopaminergic thing.

01:10:29.360 So where you find dopaminergic people, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia,

01:10:35.780 you find people who lean towards the progressive side of the political ideology.

01:10:40.880 How about the other way around?

01:10:42.120 The other way around are people who are more focused on the here and now.

01:10:47.380 You see, they're more likely to be conservatives.

01:10:49.900 What does the word conservative mean?

01:10:51.540 It means keeping what we've inherited from our forebears and not letting it change, conserve.

01:10:58.540 So it's the opposite of dopaminergic change.

01:11:02.460 You see this these days, especially among blue-collar workers, that segment of our country feels like things are changing too fast.

01:11:10.600 I can't keep up with all of these politically-collect rules I have to follow.

01:11:16.320 I can't keep up with, you know, there used to be two genders.

01:11:19.760 Then maybe there were three, four.

01:11:21.460 Now nobody knows how many genders there are.

01:11:24.340 They feel like things are moving too fast, and they're the brakes.

01:11:28.560 The liberals are the accelerator in the car, and the conservatives are the brakes.

01:11:33.280 They're saying, hold on a minute, let's not lose all of the good things we've inherited from the people who came before us.

01:11:42.340 You know who Dennis Prager is?

01:11:44.040 Yeah.

01:11:44.660 Dennis Prager once said, conservatives are wise, liberals are smart.

01:11:49.860 He says, I've never met a liberal who is wise.

01:11:52.500 There's no wisdom on the left.

01:11:54.700 There are a lot of...

01:11:55.280 You can't say that.

01:11:56.220 I can't say that.

01:11:57.280 You seriously think there's no wisdom on the left?

01:11:58.760 I know it.

01:11:59.260 I don't say it.

01:12:00.140 I know it.

01:12:00.680 I lived it.

01:12:01.280 I went to Columbia.

01:12:02.560 My professors were brilliant and had almost no wisdom.

01:12:05.700 So you're saying the left is smart, the right is wise?

01:12:08.080 Yes.

01:12:08.700 You're really saying that?

01:12:09.480 Yes, that's exact.

01:12:10.200 No, not the people, the ideas.

01:12:13.320 What do you think about what he's saying?

01:12:14.880 Yeah, you know, on average, liberals do have a higher IQ than conservatives.

01:12:21.440 It's not much.

01:12:22.300 It's just a few points.

01:12:24.040 And again, it's an average.

01:12:25.140 But what is IQ measuring?

01:12:27.740 IQ is measuring a dopaminergic ability to figure out problems.

01:12:33.500 Your IQ will predict how well you do in school.

01:12:37.200 It will also predict how much money you make in your career.

01:12:41.220 But it does not predict how happy you're going to be.

01:12:44.820 Having high IQ doesn't help you decide who to be friends with.

01:12:48.920 It doesn't help you decide who to marry.

01:12:51.800 It doesn't help you decide where to live.

01:12:54.320 These are things that are not subject to IQ.

01:12:58.280 So you know what?

01:12:59.440 Liberals have higher IQs than conservatives.

01:13:02.240 But conservatives are happier.

01:13:05.380 Holy moly.

01:13:06.700 Is this actual proven study?

01:13:09.760 Yeah, yeah, it's true.

01:13:10.580 Gallup.

01:13:11.700 Can you send me?

01:13:12.840 We've got Gallup polls that show that.

01:13:14.680 Oh, that, that.

01:13:15.380 If you, if you, if we get the link, I want to put, if you want to see the link, we'll get

01:13:19.200 the link.

01:13:19.580 We'll put the link below for you to see it.

01:13:20.740 That's great.

01:13:21.060 So conservatives live happier lives than liberals do, even though liberals on average have a

01:13:28.480 higher IQ than conservatives do.

01:13:31.720 Yes, that's right.

01:13:32.640 And it makes sense because if you want, if you're very dopaminergic.

01:13:39.020 Interesting to me.

01:13:40.100 I mean, I'm already like, I'm still thinking about it.

01:13:42.160 Go ahead.

01:13:42.580 Keep saying.

01:13:43.160 If you're very dopaminergic and you want to change the world, happiness is your enemy.

01:13:49.380 You, you were talking about, what if everybody is content?

01:13:52.420 Nothing happens.

01:13:53.300 Only some people in our society can be content.

01:13:57.640 We need the unhappy, dissatisfied people to move us forward.

01:14:03.660 So I think it's time to smoke weed.

01:14:05.680 So if you want to light it up, we're getting a little too deep right now with these conversations.

01:14:10.480 But okay.

01:14:11.580 That's very interesting with the political side.

01:14:13.720 Any other research or studies you did on the politics side that, you know, gave you some

01:14:20.320 kind of a trend to say, this is another thing that we can talk about to, to learn about the

01:14:24.280 whole liberals and conservatives.

01:14:25.980 Yeah.

01:14:26.300 We looked at some very interesting research that showed ways in which scientists could

01:14:30.120 actually manipulate people's political beliefs and make them either more conservative or more

01:14:35.720 liberal.

01:14:36.400 Scientists.

01:14:36.940 Yeah.

01:14:37.380 How?

01:14:38.540 Ways that you would be very surprised.

01:14:40.760 Let me, let me talk about ways in which they were able to make liberal people more conservative.

01:14:45.800 They took a bunch of students and they had them fill out these questionnaires,

01:14:49.800 looking at their political ideology and they could give them a score, how liberal, how

01:14:54.280 conservative they were.

01:14:55.500 They divided them up into two groups.

01:14:58.040 One group, they had to fill it out and there was a hand sanitizer nearby.

01:15:04.840 The presence of the hand sanitizer made them more conservative.

01:15:08.360 The presence of the hand sanitizer made them more conservative?

01:15:11.720 That's right.

01:15:12.160 The other group, there was no hand sanitizer.

01:15:14.260 On average, this group filled out their questionnaire in a more conservative way than the other group

01:15:18.600 did.

01:15:18.820 Why is that?

01:15:20.840 The reason is the hand sanitizer is a sign of threat.

01:15:26.080 It reminds you that you are at risk of becoming infected.

01:15:30.360 It's a tiny, subtle intervention, but it reflects a much larger intervention that we all understand.

01:15:37.420 Terrorist attack make the country more conservative.

01:15:40.820 If there's an election coming up and there's a terrorist attack around the time of the election,

01:15:45.480 the polls shift in favor of the conservatives.

01:15:48.200 Wow.

01:15:48.960 Because when you feel under threat, you say, I need to protect what I have.

01:15:54.260 It's when you feel safe that you say, let's take some risks.

01:15:58.520 Let's make the world a better place.

01:16:00.260 That's dopamine.

01:16:01.260 That's dopamine.

01:16:01.540 That's dopamine.

01:16:01.660 That's dopamine.

01:16:01.740 And just the hands.

01:16:03.300 Now, what's funny is election season's in November.

01:16:06.520 Yeah.

01:16:06.940 That's flu season.

01:16:08.220 So, when you go to your polling place, you might see a little thing of hand sanitizer sitting

01:16:13.280 on the table.

01:16:14.440 I don't think they know.

01:16:15.540 So, if the RNC or the DNC is watching this, the RNC needs to get a bunch of hand sanitizer

01:16:26.340 under, like, polling right outside here.

01:16:28.260 Let me put some hand sanitizer, and the DNC's got to pull all that stuff out.

01:16:31.420 That's right.

01:16:32.120 That is so interesting.

01:16:33.320 Some guy once said that when you go to the bathroom, you know those signs that said employees

01:16:39.020 must wash their hands?

01:16:40.840 Those are advertisements for the Republicans.

01:16:44.100 Are you kidding me?

01:16:45.820 Who did this study?

01:16:47.380 I can't remember.

01:16:48.180 In the book.

01:16:48.720 It's in the book.

01:16:49.200 That's crazy to me.

01:16:50.780 Now, we can do it in the other direction, too.

01:16:53.060 So, different group of scientists, very similar kind of questionnaire, and they told people,

01:17:00.340 imagine that you have superpowers and nothing can hurt you.

01:17:03.860 Yeah?

01:17:04.540 I just want you to spend five seconds just imagining you have superpowers and nothing can hurt you.

01:17:11.320 Shifts people to more liberal.

01:17:13.380 Because it's the opposite.

01:17:14.460 You take the threat away.

01:17:16.320 A lot of conservatives have fears.

01:17:19.120 How are immigrants going to change the country?

01:17:22.380 How are people who are different from me going to threaten my way of life?

01:17:26.580 If you can lower those fears, they will become, in subtle ways, not traumatic, but in subtle

01:17:33.580 ways, more liberal.

01:17:36.840 Who's better for society?

01:17:38.080 Or do they both need each other?

01:17:38.920 We need both.

01:17:39.820 Cars need both an accelerator and a brake.

01:17:41.860 I love that.

01:17:42.200 We need that balance.

01:17:43.000 See, I'm right there with you.

01:17:44.400 Yeah.

01:17:44.520 I fully.

01:17:45.040 That's why you have a left wing and a right wing.

01:17:46.520 I think I'm fully with you on this.

01:17:49.720 So, like currently right now with impeachment, is the wise decision being made or the smart

01:17:54.560 decision being made?

01:17:55.400 You know, we're talking about theory.

01:18:00.660 When theory turns into practice, it becomes much more complicated.

01:18:05.360 Because opinions tie to it or?

01:18:06.980 There's just so many other things at stake.

01:18:13.020 So, is impeaching the president a liberal thing to do or is it a conservative thing to

01:18:18.740 do?

01:18:19.000 Is it a dopaminergic thing to do?

01:18:20.700 Is it a here and now thing to do?

01:18:22.540 It's just a game of power.

01:18:25.240 You know, a lot of people will say, well, this is my political ideology.

01:18:29.320 They get to Washington, D.C. and a lot of times it just becomes about what's convenient.

01:18:34.800 What will get me power?

01:18:35.940 What will get me reelected?

01:18:38.460 You know, we saw the Tea Party come out because what the conservatives were finding-

01:18:43.320 That's the last time you heard about them.

01:18:44.340 You haven't heard about them for eight years.

01:18:45.820 Haven't heard about them for a long time.

01:18:47.040 Long time.

01:18:47.340 Yeah.

01:18:47.700 Michelle Bachman, all those guys that were coming up.

01:18:49.740 Yeah.

01:18:49.960 Yeah.

01:18:50.320 Yeah.

01:18:50.580 But they came for a reason.

01:18:51.880 The reason they came is because conservative voters elected Republican politicians.

01:18:57.520 The Republican politicians went to Washington and behaved in liberal ways.

01:19:03.840 They expanded the government.

01:19:05.440 They raised taxes.

01:19:07.320 The Tea Party said, we're electing you guys and you're growing the government.

01:19:13.800 And so the point is that when you have real people doing real things, theory breaks down.

01:19:19.000 When you have real people doing real things, theory breaks down.

01:19:24.180 Yeah.

01:19:24.420 And I wonder how many times like the one party is mimicking the other side's habits and they don't even know they're doing it.

01:19:29.720 Yeah.

01:19:30.060 You know what I'm saying?

01:19:30.480 Oh, you're going to do this to me?

01:19:31.440 I'm going to do this to you.

01:19:32.320 But you doing the retaliation is not your way of doing things.

01:19:36.460 You're retaliating like a liberal or you're retaliating like a conservative because you're mimicking what they're doing to you.

01:19:42.760 And so it's a form of revenge.

01:19:43.940 But you're not being true to your own way of thinking.

01:19:45.840 That's exactly right.

01:19:47.260 You react instead of act out of reason.

01:19:49.660 You react out of emotion.

01:19:51.260 Yeah, because sometimes you're like, they're not acting like liberals.

01:19:53.640 They're acting like conservatives.

01:19:54.940 And they're not acting like conservatives.

01:19:56.320 They're acting like, what the hell is going on?

01:19:57.600 You're confused sometimes nowadays.

01:19:59.940 You used to defend a war.

01:20:01.820 Now you're not defending the war.

01:20:03.220 You used to say the war is bad.

01:20:04.540 Now you want to do more war.

01:20:05.500 What's going on over here?

01:20:07.060 And they're losing a bit of their identity sometimes.

01:20:11.840 I mean, the theory of the republic is that we elect people to represent our views.

01:20:17.360 But how many laws are passed that the majority of Americans don't want?

01:20:21.360 Yeah, that's okay.

01:20:23.240 So let me ask you.

01:20:24.200 So you got people that come out of high school, people that go to college.

01:20:28.200 And there's those that say, I just want to go make my money, make millions, leave me alone.

01:20:33.500 I'm going to be a libertarian, whatever.

01:20:34.680 I'm just going to go do that part.

01:20:36.080 And then there are those that go into politics and they say, oh yeah, I'm going to have control

01:20:41.780 in the laws I'm going to make.

01:20:43.320 And I'm going to be able to get to control people with the decisions that I want to make.

01:20:46.600 And I'm going to go this side.

01:20:47.460 Now some people go into politics to want to do good.

01:20:49.480 But some people go into politics for power versus freedom.

01:20:52.420 Do you see a trend with people who chase money, they're typically seeking freedom versus

01:20:59.180 those who chase power, they're seeking, you know, chase politics, they're more seeking

01:21:04.260 power.

01:21:05.780 Do you notice that?

01:21:06.740 Because sometimes you're from academia, okay?

01:21:09.820 So I went to Harvard's OPM program, okay?

01:21:13.720 And OPM program, you know what the program is.

01:21:15.740 It's the owner-president management program.

01:21:17.740 You have to do a certain amount of top line revenue and they bring people from 60 plus

01:21:21.760 countries, 140 CEOs, founders, you kind of spend three weeks together on campus.

01:21:26.180 So I went there and I experienced what it was like to be on the campus.

01:21:29.460 And I watched all the professors.

01:21:31.020 90% of them were all liberal.

01:21:35.660 I went during the time where Trump and Hillary were debating, one of the debates, I was there

01:21:40.440 at the chow hall with a thousand of them.

01:21:43.480 And not one person was, you know, hey, great.

01:21:47.760 Everybody, oh, you're such a this, you're a bigot.

01:21:50.860 It was crazy.

01:21:51.500 I'm just kind of sitting there watching everybody just to kind of get a feel.

01:21:55.140 So to me, sometimes I wonder if academia and politics, they're going to have power and

01:22:01.140 decision-making process to see that they can have a little bit of control over you.

01:22:05.580 And the guys that go on the money and, you know, business side, they're just kind of

01:22:09.760 trying to be like, leave me alone.

01:22:11.320 Do you see that as a trend with the wiring or not really?

01:22:14.160 Yeah, I think the academia is a little more complicated.

01:22:17.200 And if we have time, we can get into it.

01:22:19.160 But let's just talk about politicians and business people.

01:22:22.600 So somebody starts a business, they want that business to grow and be successful.

01:22:30.740 Of course they do.

01:22:31.940 There's absolutely no question about that, right?

01:22:34.520 Somebody goes into government, they want the government to grow and be successful.

01:22:40.620 And so I think that there is naturally going to be some conflict between the two of them.

01:22:46.080 Because people go, look, let's take the best view of this we can.

01:22:51.780 People go into government to make the world a better place.

01:22:55.480 If you don't have power, you can't make the world a better place.

01:22:59.500 They believe that or that is the truth?

01:23:01.840 Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

01:23:04.460 Okay.

01:23:05.240 You know, not all of them do.

01:23:07.860 But again...

01:23:08.640 I think they're going for the right cause, by the way.

01:23:10.180 Yeah.

01:23:10.480 I mean, humans are complicated.

01:23:12.000 There's both.

01:23:12.740 I think there's both.

01:23:13.320 So they want to grow the government so that they will have the power, the levers, to make

01:23:20.200 the world a better place.

01:23:23.020 They need to collect taxes in order to spend money on building roads and bridges.

01:23:28.280 And so they want to collect more taxes so they can build more roads and bridges.

01:23:32.320 The people who are running their own business, though, they want the opposite.

01:23:37.560 They say, look, all of your taxes, all of your laws, all of your regulations are making

01:23:42.220 it impossible for me to be successful.

01:23:44.500 Leave me alone.

01:23:45.640 Give me my freedom.

01:23:47.280 So I think in some ways they both want the same thing.

01:23:50.480 They want to maximize the good they do while they're on this earth.

01:23:54.900 But at the same time, they're in conflict.

01:23:57.500 Who gets in the way of the other person the most?

01:24:01.060 I'm not sure about that.

01:24:02.600 You're not sure about that?

01:24:03.800 I'm not sure about that.

01:24:04.580 Really?

01:24:04.960 You're not sure about that?

01:24:06.400 Well, the government's probably going to get in the way more just because the government

01:24:09.580 has a monopoly on power.

01:24:11.420 Of course they do.

01:24:12.120 If you're not doing what it likes, they can use force.

01:24:15.600 The business people can't use force.

01:24:17.680 I mean, a negative review on Yelp for a congressman does what?

01:24:20.820 Nothing.

01:24:21.520 Yeah.

01:24:21.740 A negative review for a small restaurant business owner.

01:24:24.680 Look what it does to them.

01:24:25.540 We can put them out of business.

01:24:26.680 Yeah.

01:24:26.880 You can go to DMV and talk about the receptionist sucked.

01:24:29.420 No one's going to read about it.

01:24:30.220 No one's going to change.

01:24:30.620 You can go to a restaurant and say the waiter was terrible.

01:24:33.020 His name is John Doe.

01:24:33.960 That guy's fired.

01:24:34.920 Yeah.

01:24:35.200 He's going to get written up.

01:24:36.200 So, you know, it's interesting on the perspective there.

01:24:39.560 I'll tell you an advantage business has, though.

01:24:41.440 Tell me.

01:24:42.040 So government is rigid and inflexible.

01:24:46.440 There's basically one idea.

01:24:49.280 And it's tough to move.

01:24:50.640 It's tough to move.

01:24:51.720 And when you pass a law, either it works or it doesn't.

01:24:55.220 If it works, it's terrific.

01:24:56.400 If it doesn't, it's terrible.

01:24:58.540 With businesses, you've got 100 businesses starting up.

01:25:01.880 99 of them fail.

01:25:03.960 And so you've got all of these ideas being tried out.

01:25:07.380 All kinds of flexibility.

01:25:09.280 All kinds of variety.

01:25:11.120 So I think that's the advantage of business.

01:25:13.480 You've got a whole lot more flexibility.

01:25:15.500 You've got the ability to try thousands of ideas and pick one that works and let all of

01:25:20.640 the others fail.

01:25:21.420 Yeah, and that's a good point.

01:25:22.900 You know, an old colleague of mine called me and I had a lengthy conversation.

01:25:27.240 Very successful guy.

01:25:28.740 While I was in Detroit, he said, you know, Pat, you've got to realize I'm not an entrepreneur

01:25:32.000 like you.

01:25:32.500 He works for a very big company that's controlled by a very big company.

01:25:37.260 And he said, I want to come up with an idea.

01:25:40.200 It's going to take me 6 to 12 months to get somebody to look at it.

01:25:42.000 I've got to go committee, committee, committee, committee, committee.

01:25:43.980 Yeah.

01:25:44.160 You guys come up with an idea or the entrepreneur.

01:25:45.560 But you can execute it the same day or the next day.

01:25:47.840 That's right.

01:25:48.200 You have that.

01:25:49.120 And it's okay if it fails, too.

01:25:50.600 It's okay if it fails.

01:25:51.780 And the thing that's happening, which is kind of a, is a lot of these too big to fail companies

01:25:58.840 are starting to become governments of their own.

01:26:01.500 That's right.

01:26:01.900 And they're experiencing that within.

01:26:04.560 And it kind of hurts the people that are the entrepreneur thinking within it.

01:26:09.260 And they're either leaving or they kind of have to say, look, I have to kind of figure

01:26:12.180 this out and stay here.

01:26:13.200 Yeah.

01:26:13.340 I don't know what's going to happen.

01:26:14.020 So last thing that I want to talk to you about, you talk about domination in the book

01:26:17.840 and dopamine.

01:26:19.200 Why domination and dopamine?

01:26:21.420 I mean, how do those go together?

01:26:23.020 Yeah.

01:26:23.300 So dopamine is all about maximizing future resources.

01:26:27.920 Now, we've mainly been, and there's different circuits in the brain that use dopamine.

01:26:32.580 We've mainly been focusing on the circuit we call the desire circuit.

01:26:36.020 That's the thing that makes you want things.

01:26:38.040 It gives you energy and motivation.

01:26:40.560 It's the thing that makes you want the donut and the sex.

01:26:42.660 Okay.

01:26:43.000 There's a different circuit, though, that we call the control circuit.

01:26:46.680 And from an evolutionary point of view, it's a newer circuit.

01:26:49.880 It goes up here in the frontal lobes.

01:26:52.480 And it takes a longer-term view of the future.

01:26:56.860 So the desire circuit may say, I want to eat that donut.

01:27:00.860 The control circuit may say, you know what?

01:27:03.140 That might make us happy for about 30 seconds.

01:27:06.320 But if we look ahead a month, a year, five years from now, we're going to be better off

01:27:11.440 not eating that donut.

01:27:12.780 So it's the control circuit that gives us a much more sophisticated way of maximizing our future resources.

01:27:21.060 And it allows us to use tools like abstractions, such as science, mathematics, language.

01:27:27.860 And this is where we really see the powerful tools the human brain has for changing the world and making it better.

01:27:34.280 Please, go ahead.

01:27:36.140 And that's about domination.

01:27:37.960 We're using this long-term, sophisticated control circuit to absolutely dominate our environment.

01:27:44.940 To dominate our environment or dominate an industry or same thing?

01:27:50.200 It's really about dominating our environment.

01:27:52.480 Dopamine always wants more.

01:27:54.560 So it's really about squeezing as much resources as we possibly can.

01:27:58.540 Think about what science does in terms of our ability to get calories out of an acre of land.

01:28:05.020 With every agricultural advancement, we're growing more and more food in smaller and smaller areas.

01:28:11.360 It's getting the most we can out of our environment.

01:28:13.740 Where do you put the people that become heavy-duty world leaders?

01:28:18.280 Are they more dopamine-driven?

01:28:20.760 Or what makes them want to go through the pain of being a world leader or president?

01:28:24.800 Whether you put Hillary there or Bill there or Donald Trump there or Obama or Reagan or Bush or some of the even world leaders on the other end.

01:28:35.400 I mean, Erdogan from Turkey and some of these guys have become dictators.

01:28:38.820 What causes someone to want to have that kind of power and influence and put their body through and their emotions through the pain that comes with it?

01:28:46.320 Yeah, it's brutal.

01:28:47.720 It's brutal.

01:28:48.220 Is it dopamine?

01:28:48.840 It's dopamine, yeah.

01:28:50.160 They just want it at the highest level.

01:28:51.620 They want it more than everybody else.

01:28:52.820 Yeah, that's right.

01:28:53.760 They want power more than anything else.

01:28:55.340 I mean, you look at these leaders.

01:28:56.680 They are not happy.

01:28:59.000 Most of them.

01:28:59.620 You look at Xi, the leader of China.

01:29:02.460 Boy, what a miserable experience that's got to be, right?

01:29:06.160 I mean, he's trying to keep absolute control.

01:29:09.840 Things could fall apart at any moment.

01:29:11.540 He's got to deal with the trade dispute with Hong Kong.

01:29:14.800 He's got all of these things.

01:29:17.140 It's got to be absolutely miserable.

01:29:18.800 Why would anyone want to be that unhappy?

01:29:22.940 And why would you sacrifice everything for that level of unhappiness?

01:29:27.540 It's not reason.

01:29:28.860 It's instinct.

01:29:30.020 It's brain chemicals.

01:29:31.520 It's primarily dopamine.

01:29:33.580 It's instinct.

01:29:34.460 So I want more power.

01:29:37.180 I want more control.

01:29:38.860 And let me ask you, if somebody is more driven by a communistic philosophy than the democracy

01:29:45.080 that we have here, does that mean the person of communistic philosophy wants even more power

01:29:50.040 and control than another person?

01:29:52.660 It's hard to say.

01:29:54.200 It's hard to say.

01:29:54.880 I think that people view communism in different ways.

01:29:57.320 I mean, ideally, when you have communism, the government is supposed to shrivel up and dry

01:30:02.180 off, right?

01:30:03.620 Right?

01:30:03.880 I mean, I think that's what Karl Marx said.

01:30:06.060 Once communism is perfected-

01:30:08.040 It's not possible.

01:30:08.520 It's not possible.

01:30:09.420 Of course not.

01:30:10.180 No.

01:30:10.340 But I think that, yeah, it's not possible.

01:30:12.560 It's not possible.

01:30:13.280 No.

01:30:13.660 It's not possible because everybody is ... I just had a conference call right now, okay?

01:30:19.940 Right before you, and when you were out there, I was just doing a conference call, and the

01:30:26.220 conference call that I had was with my main guys, not my executives, because we have a

01:30:32.180 couple hundred executives.

01:30:33.300 It was with my vice presidents.

01:30:35.880 These are guys that are all making very good money for themselves, ranging from a quarter

01:30:39.460 million to a couple million here.

01:30:40.820 They're doing good for themselves.

01:30:42.260 And the conversation went about, you know, why are you waiting on me?

01:30:48.720 Like, this is you.

01:30:50.720 You take the lead and do this part.

01:30:52.560 Now, a lot of them were doing the right thing, so it's not everybody.

01:30:54.480 It was like half of the group I was talking to about taking the responsibility where you

01:30:59.080 go lead this initiative.

01:31:00.480 This is your initiative that you're leading.

01:31:03.260 And he said, does that make sense?

01:31:04.140 I said, I'm not your boss.

01:31:05.900 I said, I'm telling you, I'm not your boss.

01:31:07.220 You're not my employee.

01:31:09.780 You're all your own business owners.

01:31:11.840 You're running your own franchises.

01:31:13.140 You're on independent contractors, franchise model, but you're running your own deal here.

01:31:16.940 Why are you relying on me?

01:31:19.160 In a communistic philosophy, everybody's relying on one person to make, because what I'm already

01:31:25.560 doing, I'm saying, you know what?

01:31:26.960 No problem.

01:31:27.800 You know best for me.

01:31:29.460 Make the right decisions for me.

01:31:31.400 You see what just happened?

01:31:32.400 Yeah.

01:31:32.560 Please make the right decisions for me.

01:31:34.360 Who wants that responsibility?

01:31:36.580 He said, you want to be God.

01:31:38.000 Why would anybody want to have all the right decisions?

01:31:41.040 It sounds terrible to me.

01:31:41.760 It sounds terrible.

01:31:42.780 Yes.

01:31:42.940 And you've got some people that are still using that regime, and it's going to be interesting

01:31:46.520 to see how long they'll...

01:31:47.320 What's always funny to me is when some people want that regime, but they've never lived under

01:31:53.040 it before.

01:31:53.800 Yeah.

01:31:54.140 When some people think, can you imagine what if the right virtuous person showed up, and

01:31:58.260 they did this?

01:31:59.580 Yeah.

01:32:00.100 Yeah.

01:32:00.240 You know, a lot of it sounds like coaching.

01:32:02.740 You know, you read a lot of books, and people have never coached.

01:32:05.200 You know, power of this, and power of positive thinking.

01:32:07.200 You've got to do this, and you go watch Belichick.

01:32:09.440 I mean, if Belichick wrote a book on coaching, you realize it's like, some people will be

01:32:12.900 like, if he actually wrote what he does to coach, actual, not, you know, what you read

01:32:19.700 about him, written by somebody that...

01:32:21.760 It's a very different world to be a general, to be a coach, to be a leader than it is to

01:32:25.540 do anything, but...

01:32:27.100 I think pretty much everything looks different from the outside than when it's really...

01:32:30.120 No doubt about it.

01:32:30.740 This is why sometimes you read the books, you wonder, like, is it really about him or

01:32:33.560 not?

01:32:33.900 You know, you hope to see the darker side of the person, because everybody's got it.

01:32:37.660 I want to know that part of the person.

01:32:39.440 Yeah.

01:32:39.640 I don't want to know all the...

01:32:40.500 Like, we learned about you, like Hustler Magazine, when you were a kid.

01:32:43.180 See, that's great.

01:32:43.880 Penthouse, not Hustler.

01:32:44.900 I'm sorry, Penthouse.

01:32:46.040 My apologies.

01:32:47.080 It's Penthouse Magazine.

01:32:48.640 You are officially human, okay?

01:32:50.440 Here's a professor, a psychiatrist, you know, a doctor who's talking about that.

01:32:55.240 I want to know those things, because sometimes that makes the rest of us think we can also

01:32:59.500 be human.

01:33:01.120 So, I got to tell you, brother, I cannot even tell you how much fun I had with you.

01:33:06.040 I'm not going to lie to you.

01:33:06.980 I had no idea what to expect.

01:33:08.180 Sometimes I bring the educators and professors, and within 30 minutes, I'm knocked out sleeping.

01:33:13.580 You just don't know I'm asleep.

01:33:15.160 But I had incredible time with you.

01:33:17.180 I don't know...

01:33:17.540 How long have we been talking, by the way?

01:33:19.040 An hour and a half.

01:33:19.640 An hour and a half?

01:33:20.220 Wow, it just went by.

01:33:21.060 That's the point.

01:33:21.720 Most of them, yes.

01:33:22.560 To spend an hour and a half to get it, this is a very interesting topic.

01:33:25.420 What I want to tell you guys is, if you haven't yet read this book, it's a very, very important

01:33:29.020 book for you to read.

01:33:30.140 Having said that, Dr. Daniel Z. Lieberman, thank you so much for coming.

01:33:34.400 Thanks so much for having me.

01:33:35.020 I really enjoyed it, man.

01:33:36.100 I really did.

01:33:36.800 Thanks, everybody, for listening.

01:33:38.020 And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.

01:33:42.620 Give us a five-star.

01:33:44.060 Write a review if you haven't already.

01:33:45.520 And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,

01:33:49.520 Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

01:33:51.480 Just search my name, PatrickBitDavid.

01:33:53.240 And I actually do respond back when they snap me or send me a message on Instagram.

01:33:58.240 With that being said, have a great day today.

01:34:00.040 Take care, everybody.

01:34:00.800 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - February 14, 2020

Episode 428： How Dopamine Gets You Addicted to Porn, Politics, Sex & Drugs

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