Speaker 1: 0:17

You don't have to have a solution yet.

Speaker 2: 0:20

I mean it takes, oh yeah, why not?

Speaker 1: 0:23

Well, we have to talk first.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Oh, but I mean I got to be full banter focused. I can't be like.

Speaker 1: 0:30

You can't half banter, I can't half banter. You don't do hanter.

Speaker 2: 0:34

I don't want to half-ass my banter.

Speaker 1: 0:37

What's the worst that could happen in a half-ass banter situation, you think?

Speaker 2: 0:40

I get canceled Right. I mean, that's the worst case you banter yourself right off a cliff. Right yeah. You're just like I'm like, well, let me tell you, but your, brain is just like chaining words together, and here are some controversial opinions about things. Oh no, what have I done?

Speaker 1: 0:58

What have I done? All right, I'll let you focus.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Do you think that with cancel culture, there's like a? Do you know, lapelle de Voie? Have you heard of this, lapelle de Voie?

Speaker 1: 1:11

No, I don't know this one.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Lapelle de Voie. It's a French phrase that means the call of the void.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:18

And what it means is, when you're walking along a cliff, you get this weird feeling that you just should throw yourself off the cliff.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Lemming disease. You suddenly get infected with lemming disease.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Yeah, that's called Le Pelle Du Void. So now that cancel culture, you can basically ruin your entire reputation by just saying words that come out of your mouth hole In a way.

Speaker 1: 1:39

we constantly have this lapel de voie around us everybody do you think there's such a thing as cancel cultural appropriation? Cancel cultural appropriation what?

Speaker 2: 1:51

does that look like? What is that?

Speaker 1: 1:53

I don't know, I'm just trying to smush words together and see what that would be cancel cultural appropriation.

Speaker 2: 2:00

So that's like. So I like appropriate someone else's. Cancel culture.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Yeah yeah, so so you're offended on behalf of someone else? I'm trying to think.

Speaker 2: 2:10

I mean, I've heard of people talk about that. Like you, you know what you know. Oh, that's, that's you know. Like, imagine two white people and then one white person's like uh, you're, you're being insulting, you're being offensive to latinos and it's like there's no latinos here. Right, it's like, but you should right you know.

Speaker 1: 2:25

So is that, is that a? Is that a?

Speaker 2: 2:27

permissive thing or not?

Speaker 1: 2:28

yeah, right, right that's a good name for it, though you can because, then because then the other one, the other one person can be like well, you're practicing cultural cancel, cultural appropriation. And then the first person would be like, completely lost they'd be like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what I do. Am I being bad? I don't understand which side of this thing is supposed to be the side of anything and then it's just two confused white people right standing around talking, for they just shouldn't be talking well, and then you just tweak.

Speaker 1: 2:58

you tweak their nose, you grab their wallet, you gotcha and you run away the other direction while they're confused.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Gotcha yeah, oh God.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Just scamper off with a few bills.

Speaker 2: 3:10

I'm going to take those dollar, dollar bills, y'all. Is that cultural appropriation? What I just did there?

Speaker 1: 3:16

I don't know, but I feel like I need to cancel cultural appropriation yeah, you are about to cancel cultural appropriation?

Speaker 2: 3:20

You are about to cancel cultural appropriation.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I'm just like how do I sign off of that? Let me Google how to sign off of a Zoom call permanently so it never comes back.

Speaker 2: 3:27

What do I? I like to mix up the solutions so that they're not all Like we did a climate solution.

Speaker 1: 3:41

Like a chemist, you like to mix up solutions that's, that's right.

Speaker 2: 3:45

And then they all turn purple and green. So I don't like to all like. What have we done recently? We did like we did a smattering of things we did diet. Uh-huh, it's like a mental you had, uh, you had a demented shirt design idea oh, oh, by the way, I've taken that to a tailor.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Oh, by the way, you sent me pictures of one that you made, yep, and it was pretty interesting Okay.

Speaker 2: 4:11

It was remarkably easy to accomplish.

Speaker 1: 4:14

When you were explaining it to the tailor, were they cutting you off Like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:18

So I didn't make the little Caesar and I didn't make the Pharaoh, I made the muscle shirt, the most sort of simple one, the Batman the flap. And all I had to do I didn't even use a flap. All I had to do was cut away cloth and then reattach it, like on the front of the shirt.

Speaker 1: 4:37

shirt so the for listeners. We're talking about an episode, maybe three or four back where yeah solving sweat about how you can affect climate change with doing less laundry, with a different design of a shirt.

Speaker 2: 4:49

But yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, all that makes perfect sense, of course, but of course you'll have to go back, but anyways I will have that, uh, today.

Speaker 2: 4:57

It's done today, yes, so I will go and get it after we're done recording and then I will be able to wear it to our next episode. I'm going to give him two more shirts and be like okay, that was V1, v0. Here's two more shirts I'll pay. He's charging me 25 bucks a shirt, so it's kind of an investment, but I'm willing to pay 200 bucks for this idea, right?

Speaker 2: 5:19

Okay, okay to pay 200 bucks for this idea, right, okay, okay. So I so I'm gonna give them two more shirts 50 bucks and and I'm gonna say okay, you did the first one and we're gonna try it on and it's like well, is it work? You know what can we make better? Here's two more shirts. Make another one better, come back, try on again. Okay, make a third one, and the third one is gonna be like a grand slam.

Speaker 1: 5:36

I'm convinced it's gonna be like a total iteration. You're all about iteration.

Speaker 2: 5:40

And then I told him yeah and then I told him I'm gonna bring all the rest of my shirts and he can just alter them all to be like this, because this is exactly what I want, you know he's just sitting at night and his family's like, what are you doing? And he's like, ah, there's this weird guy this guy, well, the tailor, so I mean he must have he must have crazy armpits because he does not want any fabric touching him does not he?

Speaker 2: 6:04

maybe I could say I'm allergic to cotton, and then the rest of your body yeah, he's like.

Speaker 1: 6:11

You don't like have vampire burning going on on your back there, homie my whole body would be covered in hives, right.

Speaker 2: 6:17

I'd have to wear like wool and I guess if you were allergic to cotton you'd wear silk and wool and stuff. That's true.

Speaker 1: 6:22

You said your idea was children's bill of rights. You had an idea for more cathedrals.

Speaker 2: 6:28

You had an idea, oh, yeah, we did a bunch of little ones.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah so we've got a lot.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Okay, I've got.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Okay, I think you're not a huge God fan, so I've got one that goes with. I'm not a huge.

Speaker 2: 6:44

God fan Yep, and me neither, me neither. And so I've got one that goes along with that. I've got one that I've got a good atheist idea. Oh, okay, okay, a big one. So most people say one of the biggest problems with Should we start, should I do?

Speaker 1: 6:57

it Sure. Is it? Should I do it Sure? Welcome to Solutions from the.

Speaker 2: 7:01

Multiverse.

Speaker 1: 7:02

I'm Scott Maupin.

Speaker 2: 7:10

My name's Adam Browse and we come to you every week here for a little chat where we talk about a new idea from. Adam's bag of tricks. Yeah, I'm a professor, scott's a comedian and we just keep it light and have fun and talk about totally new ideas which I've found. There's like nowhere you can find new ideas. There's no like dedicated. There used to be ted, ted used to be.

Speaker 1: 7:26

You know, you want new ideas ted dead, ted is dead, that's dead. Baby, oh baby ted's dead.

Speaker 2: 7:32

Ted's dead pulp fiction yeah yeah, um, so yeah, so ted's basically dead. They basically just say ideas you already know mostly now. But yeah, I was looking around for like because I'm such an addict of new ideas. I was like I just need to find a publication that just does new ideas. And, you know, the only thing I can find is like science journals, which of course, you know it's new ideas because it's like research, but there aren't like new for other things.

Speaker 1: 8:00

It's very hard to find those. Do you get to a manic state where you're running through the halls and you're like new ideas.

Speaker 2: 8:05

New ideas and people are like.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Adam, I have this idea where I have it, and you're like no, I've heard it.

Speaker 2: 8:08

I've heard it. I don't want it. Yeah, it's old, I want new, new, new, I want more Right One of the arguments that religious people often kind of come down to. I think even if they don't really believe sort of really that God exists, they might think that God is like a good fiction to have, because it's hard to think of how to be a moral person or why you should be a moral person for some people without God. Now, I think you and I would say that's not actually that convincing.

Speaker 2: 8:45

I'm a real person, because I don't go around murdering people, because I don't want to be a murderous asshole. I don't need God to make me not.

Speaker 1: 8:56

But a lot of people say that.

Speaker 2: 8:57

A lot of people say that.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Yeah, you're describing what's kind of like a placebo deity, where you're just like I believe in an uber parent who's going to punish me if I do wrong, and that keeps me on the straight and narrow, or maybe not even me maybe like criminals and stuff, like hey, we need to punish criminals. The royal.

Speaker 2: 9:18

If we just say we're going to punish them because we don't like them, that's not as convincing as we're going to punish you because an almighty deity says that the actions you took are inherently against the deity's laws.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Then you just get that begrudging like it's going to hurt you more and it's going to hurt me. I'm not going to enjoy this, but I just have to for your own good.

Speaker 2: 9:42

And also, what about on the positive sense? What about times when the laws are evil and you need to say I'm going to break the laws deliberately because they're evil, like races, like if you had an apartheid South Africa and you were like a religious person? You could be like, no, you are defying God's laws person. You could be like, no, you are defying God's laws. Even if you didn't believe in God. You'd want something.

Speaker 1: 10:09

You'd want some grander arbiter of what was moral than just what people had agreed on, or some tyrant had sort of said, is the law. If I were to be and I'm probably out of the age bracket of this now, but if I were to be conscripted into military service, at this point I feel like, even though I'm not a believer of religious things, I feel like my first stop would be like yeah, I can't go there because it's against my beliefs.

Speaker 2: 10:31

Conscientious objector yes, exactly, so this is the story of my dad. So my dad was a conscientious objector to Vietnam, okay, and he got his full conscientious objector status, which was quite rare at that moment.

Speaker 1: 10:44

It was like wait, that's only an official hold on. Forgive my ignorance, oh yeah, objector isn't something that you just self-label yourself as you know, like I'm vegetarian now, or what it's like an official you have?

Speaker 2: 10:55

uh, it's an, it's an official status yeah, it's a designation of the federal government gives you and if, if you have it, it's called your CO status. If you have your CO status, then you cannot be conscripted in the military, but that you can still be forced to do civil service for two years or three years or whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:12

So, my dad which seems fair honestly, yeah, yeah, so my dad and honestly, if I'm going to be conscripted which I can sort of accept, a trade-off like where they're like, yeah, you get a lot from society, maybe give some back like and if you're not going to voluntarily, let's make it mandatory at a young age or whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Yeah, I get that I just, this was just for the war, this was just I'm like oh, but I'm like I don't want to fight, I don't want to shoot and violence people, but like I can shore up and do home stuff and build sandbags and keep places safe.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Yeah, and that's what my dad did. So he did actually community health work in Detroit, okay, and his main job was they actually gave him a car to drive around.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Of course it's Detroit, which was great.

Speaker 2: 11:59

They've given everyone cars in Detroit, so he got a car and his job was to go around and give tuberculosis medication to black people, essentially in the ghetto of Detroit. Wow which wasn't nearly as bad as it was now. I mean, the ghetto in the 60s was like a bunch of middle-class families, sure, but now it's a sort of segregated part of Detroit. Well, it wasn't legally segregated, but you know. No, I know they had it glomerated into one part of Detroit, the black people what?

Speaker 1: 12:25

In the 60s there was heavy racial segregation in large cities. I'm shocked, right exactly.

Speaker 2: 12:30

So he would go around and give people medication and then that's what made him want to be a doctor.

Speaker 2: 12:35

So then he became a doctor after that, because of his community health work that he did Anyways, like community health work that he did anyways, and he became a job. And but here's the thing, here's the thing, the way he got his co status was because he wasn't catholic anymore but he had attended the seminary for high school and so he would, was like on the track to being a priest, and then stopped and kind of became a hippie and kind of lost, you know, lost connection to the religion and didn't really love christianity very. He was more of a Zen Buddhist, more of a kind of hippie.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Did he have long hair? Yeah, he had long hair. I think he wore a leather jacket.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Yeah, he wore a leather jacket with fringe on it. Okay, so hold on. He made yogurt he made his own yogurt, he's like I'm going to be a priest man.

Speaker 1: 13:17

He's like no, not a priest Got long hair. I'm getting a leather jacket. I'm moving to Detroit Rock City. They're going to give me a big old muscle car and I'm going to drive drugs around in it. Being the guy, I'm the candy man.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Oh, your dad was cool, he became a Detroit drug dealer instead of going to Vietnam. But the point was, in order to get his VCO status, he kind of cosplayed back as a hyper-religious Catholic and then he wrote this whole dissertation on just war theory using Thomas Aquinas, and he got a letter of recommendation from one of his former colleagues at the seminary who was then at the Vatican. So they sent on Vatican stationery this letter of recommendation that my dad was this, this total, you know, war, anti-war, pacifist, catholic, yeah, and and then he got his co status from that. So he did exactly what you would do, which is sort of you know it seems like it should be easier to get that official stat hopefully like it's.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Not everybody has those connections able to get it really easy. Of course, your dad is dr detroit, that's right.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Legacy, legacy legacy Driving through Detroit with his shades on and his leather jacket.

Speaker 2: 14:23

I was going to say I get it because I've been paying dues at the Zen Center for seven eight years. Oh, okay, so I'd be able to say I'm a Buddhist Buddhist or pacifist, so you can't make me go to war.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I have two cats.

Speaker 2: 14:34

But here's the thing. Let's go back to the. I don't do an ethic, an ethical theory that doesn't require god in order to create, uh, ethical outcomes okay, and you know we've talked about it before, but we're going to talk about it again minimizing avoidable misery, misandry, minimum misaccordianism misaccordian.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Oh, I almost had.

Speaker 2: 15:01

It, misandry is the hatred of people why is that in my brain?

Speaker 1: 15:04

Hatred of men.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Really Misericordia is to hate men.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Why do I know that word?

Speaker 2: 15:10

It's like it's the opposite of.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Misericordianism.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Yeah, misericordianism. So this is the idea. So this idea comes from biology, from nature, from evolution, and so, instead of having to rely on like a deity that's supernatural, you just can. Actually, you can show that human beings are actually wired by nature. It's our nature to try to be instinctually motivated to reduce avoidable misery, and there's caveats to that. What does it mean to be an avoidable misery versus an unavoidable one?

Speaker 1: 15:43

Right, what's misery versus, just like you know, difficulty, you know, is it is it misery? To do exercise every day, which is for my overall general health, or is that not?

Speaker 2: 15:56

you know Right, Right, and is it, and is it also like you know? You might say you know what is avoid is avoidable right, like what is a necessary suffering, what is what is unavoidable suffering. And is that really? Can we really be sure of that? And you know there's a lot of uncertainty because we're uncertain beings, right, we're beings with limited knowledge and with bounded rationality and with cognitive biases that, in a snap decision, will influence our perceptions Finite time span within which to operate Right, and so we have to make decisions on timelines that are not of our choosing.

Speaker 2: 16:34

And so there's all these what are called epistemics, all these epistemic problems, but you can kind of separate those from the question of, well, what's the actual moral thing to do, and then you can say, well, that's kind of clouded by better and worse epistemics. Right, if you know all the circumstances, you know all the conditions, you can perfectly predict the future, then you're going to make a better decision, but there won't be a debate about what's actually moral. Anyways, the reason why I think this is the case is because of evolution, which, again, evolution, not God, right, this does not require any kind of supernatural being, nor does it require any kind of weird, like you know, sort of theoretical, philosophical thing that you have to sort of believe, kind of on faith. Like, for example, kant also tried to create an ethical theory to replace God, so that you didn't need God and you could still have ethical decisions.

Speaker 1: 17:28

And that was called, as you know, Kant's famous theory no, that was Jesus, that was God.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Oh sorry.

Speaker 1: 17:36

The golden, the.

Speaker 2: 17:37

Kantan rule. The Kantan rule, yeah, no, it was called the categorical imperative.

Speaker 1: 17:43

That's my next guess. Yeah, it's the CI. Cut me off the.

Speaker 2: 17:45

CI, the rule. Yeah, no, it's called the categorical imperative. That's what? That's my next guess yes, the ci off the ci, the categorical imperative, okay, which which we don't necessarily need to get into, but it was an inherently logical.

Speaker 1: 17:52

So he used logic, or what he would call pure reason or just logic yes in order to derive this theory of behavior from logic, and he tried to kind of treat logic, as that makes sense, we have to have an agreed upon set of rules in order to interact with each other in certain well, that's that's what's called contractualism.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Okay, so what you just described is contractualism. We must have sort of rules that we use to kind of you know, interact with each other.

Speaker 1: 18:22

That's what, and therefore good and evil comes from those contracts.

Speaker 2: 18:25

But then, what about evil contracts? What about evil laws?

Speaker 1: 18:28

you know, how do you?

Speaker 2: 18:29

how do you find out if a law is?

Speaker 1: 18:31

evil if you're always bound by the contracts that you're in a lot of things feel like, a lot of ethics feel like. To me, they evolve naturally just from like practice, like you're like, oh, I don't. I like the freedom to have things and leave them here and then be able to go out and not have everything that I own with me at all times. Other people also enjoy that, and so we agree with each other that stealing is wrong, because the alternative is I have to carry everything with me all the time.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Because if I drop anything Although you're pretty strong, scott If I drop, anything and leave it, and someone else comes along and stealing is not wrong, they can just take it and go.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Right right.

Speaker 1: 19:08

And I'm like, okay, I understand that, so I don't have to push around a cart with everything.

Speaker 2: 19:12

But the problem is, if you really just are a pure contractualist, then we can all just contract to have slavery be legal, and now we have slaves and there's nothing wrong with that because it's legal, because it's in the contract, and that's a problem because there are things that are legal that people still consider wrong and there are things that are not illegal that are still people consider wrong as well. Even if you don't have a law against certain things, people still think it's wrong.

Speaker 1: 19:46

We can't contract a bunch of people into slavery without completely the we in. That needs to be everybody.

Speaker 2: 19:55

So you can't put a section of your we I don't know Right, but now you're starting to do non-contractual things, like treating human beings as having some kind of inherent value or some kind of inherent moral worth or autonomy, although that's not contractual. Now you're starting to take a kind of you know, it's a diff, that's another theory, but it feels natural.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Like I would I treat others with some sort of inherent moral worth because I want to be treated with. I extend the behaviors. I'm an animal right. I extend the behaviors I want to be treated with. I extend the behaviors. I'm an animal right. I extend the behaviors I want to receive.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Well, that's the golden rule right there. Yeah, I do unto others, but that's just. That's also behavioralism, but the problem is animals stuff no animals just take what they need and kill things and they don't care. Like my cat just rips, you know. If a bug gets in the house he just rips it to shreds and like eats it for fun. You know animals, just you know they are kind of kind to their own kin.

Speaker 2: 20:51

That's what I'm thinking Like to their own kind, but not to anything else, not to any other being Sounds like, kind of sounds like humans, I mean no, no, human beings are quite interesting that way.

Speaker 1: 21:05

That's what I we're kind of like cats and dogs, but we are rough on pigs and cows.

Speaker 2: 21:09

Well, more or less, More or less. Well, I think this gets into the question of unavoidability right. I think we say it's not nice to be a butcher, but then people think but we really got to eat and people are going gonna eat meat because it's an extremely energy dense it's like the most energy dense form of food in existence right, and so people are gonna eat.

Speaker 1: 21:30

Someone who can, you know, operate?

Speaker 2: 21:33

so somebody's got to do that you know and so it becomes a kind of unavoidable. Now if tomorrow you said we have lab-grown meat and it costs exactly the same and it doesn't kill animals, a a lot of people would be like that's better, I mean if it literally was indistinguishable they would just say immediately yeah, let's do lab-grown meat.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Would you eat lab-grown human meat? Oh my God.

Speaker 2: 21:53

I was just listening to a podcast about this earlier this morning.

Speaker 1: 21:58

I don't think I would because?

Speaker 2: 21:59

well, because you have to think of the downstream effects, right? So if I'm eating human, lab-grown meat and then other people know that there's all kinds of risks to my status, but I mean, it doesn't actually matter, right, it's just proteins and if it was lab-grown, it doesn't matter at all, but it would have all these connotations that would have negative effects.

Speaker 1: 22:17

So I wouldn't do it for that reason. That's what they were talking.

Speaker 2: 22:24

They were also like.

Speaker 1: 22:25

I worry about weakening the barrier between that taboo right, making it so it's not weak in the cannibalism taboo.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Sure, let's soften that a little bit. If there's one thing we need to soften in the world, it's not racism or you know these things, it's.

Speaker 1: 22:35

It's the cannibalism taboo the state has been controlling us too long yeah, the deep state keeping us back, keeping us from eating people. Come on, here we go.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Solution for today. Scott, uh-oh cannibalism no, what?

Speaker 1: 22:48

no? Really glad we are in separate cities, right did you hear about the cannibal he?

Speaker 2: 22:54

he passed his brother in the woods oh my god wow, um so cannibalism, jokes, you know jokes. So here's the argument for why least avoidable misery is stronger than Kant's thing, which is like this logical thing that I don't think is very credible Right or other sort of theories like contractualism, which we already saw is problematic because we can contract anything.

Speaker 2: 23:22

The golden rule is problematic because actually what we want for ourselves is not what other people want for themselves and therefore actually we shouldn't use ourself as a measure. That's not actually right. We should use other people as a measure. We should say what do you want and then provide them that right it should be. The what's called the platinum rule is superior to the golden rule, so like the golden rule is not great, platinum rule is pretty good, but we'll get. I think the platinum rule is coincident with this idea of misericordianism.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Well, what other thing is coming to mind that falls in with this? Is the Hippocratic Oath.

Speaker 2: 23:53

The first do no harm.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Which is like not focused that's more the intent than the impact where it's like harm could happen, obviously, but I'm trying not to yeah. But the problem is what?

Speaker 2: 24:07

about when you do need to do harm in order to make the best outcome still occur, the least miserable outcome still occur. You need to do some deliberate harm. Trolley problem. Trolley problem or abortion for the life of the mother.

Speaker 1: 24:26

There's lots of examples. Sure, let's make it way less theoretical.

Speaker 2: 24:28

Well, I mean, that's not theoretical, that's true, yeah, that's like what people fight about now, right on the laws are fighting about this. But yeah, if you think, well, the mother's going to die or the baby's going to die and it's an either-or case and it really is either-or, it's not like some imaginary, maybe trolley problem, like it really is. People are like, well, we don't know the baby, we do know the mom, you know that's a lot you know um, and so there's more suffering involved in the in that anyways complicated issue.

Speaker 2: 24:55

But but it does come down. Yet at some point you have to face these really complicated um and and and fraud issues and people won't necessarily all agree, but you, you have to sort of, but you have to see whether you can make a better case. But let's get back to the biology of it. So why would it be our instinct to reduce avoidable misery? I think it's very easy for people to say no, our instinct is to be selfish jerks. That's our instinct.

Speaker 2: 25:22

And actually it's only society and maybe our contracts and you know things like and fear of punishment that actually make us behave well or something. But that's that's not true. Though that's not true if, if everyone was just behaving well because of fear of punishment, we would, a society would like immediately grind to a halt, right, right, because it's too expensive to police everyone, every single person would be like need another person to be a policeman, to like watch them, otherwise they would just constantly, you know, cheat and fraud and steal and kill and and do stuff for their own self-interest sure, and I think that there's some degree of that, that, would you know, there's some degree of shenanigans that happen, but some of it is just thwarted by our natural wanting to not do bad things to each other.

Speaker 1: 26:10

To a degree, you know what I mean. We just have a natural inclination. There is one, I think, so, I think humans have empathy, and empathy lets us see ourselves in the other person, and that's why it's so frustrating when people draw racial lines or they otherize other groups because they're like ah, I can now figure out a way to feel less empathy toward these people because I feel like they look less like me, so therefore they are less like me, so you're saying empathy, but remember psychopaths total psychopaths are extremely empathetic.

Speaker 2: 26:48

They know exactly what their victims are thinking and feeling and then use that to manipulate them and kill them and take advantage of them. So actually empathy itself not actually a moral thing that doesn't lead to greater moral behavior or is kind of some impetus to moral behavior. You need something in addition to empathy in order to make it actually moral.

Speaker 2: 27:12

And actually you don't need empathy if you have this other thing, which is what I call misericordia, misericordia, the urge, the feeling of distress at the distress of others. You feel distress. It's like distress others, you feel distress, it's like distress resonance. You feel distress because they're distressed. Okay, so here's where it comes from in nature, and we already talked about it a little bit. Animals feel it for their young and their kin. This is well documented. This is called the Hamilton rule. The Hamilton rule says that in nature I would die. Any animal would would.

Speaker 1: 27:45

The joke is I would die for eight of my cousins or three of my brothers day but you have to say it like a snappy rhythm, right, if it's the Hamilton rule, I would die for eight of my cousins, three of my brothers. Yeah, there you go, it's a different him. Fine, it's a biological ethical rule, but so this guy Hamilton I'm just trying to make you a billion dollars, sorry.

Speaker 2: 28:09

He figured out that animals show concern. They will take sacrificial, risky behavior in proportion to the blood, the thickness of the blood they share with another animal. So if it's like your brother, you'll take way riskier behaviors to help the brother. But if your cousin, you'll take way less risky behaviors.

Speaker 1: 28:31

This is true, I mean in my real life. I would also think this checks out. You know what I mean as humans. Yeah, blood is thicker than water, you know.

Speaker 2: 28:41

But for animals it's like this is the law of the jungle, this is the reality. But with humans it seems like we evolved to have this misery, for the misery of others, to extend beyond our kin. Sure, to have a mind we have some sense of, we should. If it's no risk to us, or if it's a proportional risk to us, we should do what we can. So this kin relationship, this kin genetic relationship, should be extended. Human beings, extend it out to all, all beings, not just to our kin you Sorry, my cat Corn Dog was getting into a bag that had food that's in plastic containers, but apparently not strong enough.

Speaker 2: 29:50

Strong enough. Corn Dog has powers. He's very good.

Speaker 1: 29:56

So yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:58

The way we can illustrate this is there's a classic ethical scenario, which is the drowning child scenario. You ask a group of people or anybody Would you like to? Drown a child. If you had the option of drowning a child and then cannibalizing them, what would you decide?

Speaker 1: 30:17

to do. Oh, that's the famous police test where you go would you like to drown a child. They say, yes, you go. Now we are arresting you.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Oh my God, that's entrapment so most people who you ask that they'll say I would help the child. I would jump in the water and help the child, even if it would hurt.

Speaker 1: 30:34

You know, destroy my expensive shoes, ruin my expensive clothes even if it would destroy your expensive shoes, you would save your child because you say it's worth.

Speaker 2: 30:41

You know, your shoes are 500 bucks, your suits, without you know, 2 000 bucks. You got 25 bucks for the clothes and you're on your way to a job interview. If you jump in the water, you're not going to make your job interview. You're probably going to get the job. It means you're going to be out a few months salary because you got to keep looking for another job yeah, plus you're wearing five grand and apparently you're doing okay in your previous job because you're wearing some snazzy outfits.

Speaker 2: 31:02

Well, you try to keep it. The reason why you keep that, the reason why you keep that dollar amount kind of increasing, is because then you turn it around on people and say, well, why don't you make a two thousand dollar donation today to unicef? It'll save two or three kids lives.

Speaker 2: 31:17

Oh, and they go and they and they back away and they go. Well, I don't know. But you say if the kid was right there and you were there, and they were there and you could do something, then people are like I would just do it, I'd do whatever it takes. Yeah, when you're like.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Is someone going to whip out their phone and video me making a donation to UNICEF and is that going to be on the evening news and make me like a really cool person?

Speaker 2: 31:41

You think they're thinking that no, people don't say that they like a really cool person. You think they're thinking that no, people don't say that they don't say I would do this because I would look cool.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Well, the sociopaths do, but most people don't. Oh, whoops, Scott's outing yourself as a total sociopath.

Speaker 2: 31:50

You're the opposite of a sociopath.

Speaker 1: 31:51

No, when I see a drowning child, my first step is I go hey, everybody come here come, chill out, dude, I'll be there, just do something for yourself. And then I gather the group, and then I dive in and make myself a hero.

Speaker 2: 32:11

So people would jump in and save this kid. But if you took any animal in that situation it would just chew its cud and look out at you at the ground. Maybe a dog that was connected to your family and perceived your family as part of its kin might try to help and you see videos like that online and stuff right. But if you just had some animal that had nothing to do with you, it would not give. It would no give no. But a human would care if it's a child, even if it was an animal struggling out in there the human might throw, throw a stick out or try to do something to help the animal.

Speaker 2: 32:40

you know so. And so humans have this thing that other animals don't have, which is this urgency, this panic that other animals only have for their kin's well-being. Humans have for not only our kin but other humans, and not only other humans but other animals, and not only animals but for even abstract beings like nature or the souls of our ancestors or our souls after death. If we believe that our souls after death have a mind and will experience suffering, we will take actions today to try to prevent that suffering of our soul after death. It's very strange but we do that. We have this panic instinct for reducing suffering. So it's upon this instinct that you can base, and we should base, morality this is morality, this is the basis of morality, is this instinct to prevent and ameliorate avoidable misery for all beings with a mind, which includes ourselves. So we also try to avoid misery for ourselves and for others.

Speaker 1: 33:36

Okay.

Speaker 2: 33:38

Anyways. So why has this evolved? Why did human beings evolve to have this? Well, it goes back to why did human beings evolve to have this? Well, it goes back to proto-homos, Proto-homos.

Speaker 1: 33:50

The proto-homos. Hey, the proto-homos, okay.

Speaker 2: 33:52

So there was the homo sapiens. That's just one species of the homo genus, right, Right. So there were these homo erectus homo, you know, astropithecus. There was all these homo genus species, monkeys who were hanging around in the Rift Valley in Africa. Dr Justin Marchegiani Are these different than Neanderthals?

Speaker 1: 34:09

Are those a different…. Dr Tim Jackson, neanderthals, I think, are also part of the same genus.

Speaker 2: 34:13

They're a branch of the homo genus. So all these different homos were walking around and what was happening was there was the Rift Valley in Africa had what's called. This is called the climate pulse theory of human evolution, okay, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

Speaker 1: 34:31

Of course, of course. So basically there was climate change over tens of thousands of years.

Speaker 2: 34:38

Oh, you're going to keep talking about that. Yeah, so these pulses would take this very rich, fecund, plentiful area of the Rift Valley, which is currently Tanzania and Kenya, and up into Ethiopia and Egypt and stuff. That's all the Rift Valley. I don't think it actually goes that far north, but Kenya and Tanzania, northern Tanzania, southern Kenya Am I doing my geography right? Anyways, that area, especially Tanzania, that's where homo sapiens and a lot of homo genus species evolved. It was partly because people believe it was because the climate changed and we go from wet, plentiful to dry savanna with not plentiful resources, and so the humans would evolve different strategies to survive better whenever that pulse would happen, down to more scarcity and then, as it pulsed, more plentiful, whatever, there was fewer pressures on humans, and then it would pulse Anyways. So one of these pulses produced Homo sapiens, who do this cooperation really well. We cooperate incredibly well, and this cooperation, I think, goes back to this instinct to avoid the least avoidable misery for everyone through what's called the prisoner's dilemma. Have you heard of the prisoner's dilemma?

Speaker 1: 36:02

I have called the prisoner's dilemma. Have you heard of the?

Speaker 2: 36:04

prisoner's dilemma I have.

Speaker 1: 36:05

This is where we separate two people and we have them each. We have them each. We tell them that the other person is going to crack first, right or right?

Speaker 2: 36:14

they're arrested for a crime. You've both been arrested.

Speaker 1: 36:17

I'm going to go easy on whoever gives up the information first, then then you'll get to get off. But if you don't confess, and so, they both get off if neither one of them talk, but the idea is one of them will talk and you know that your other person will talk, so you want to talk first, because that will get you right if you talk first and they don't.

Speaker 2: 36:39

If you confess and they don't, you get off. If, if you both confess, you both get the worst case, you both get 10 years in prison. If both of you don't you get off. If, if you both confess, you both get the worst case, you both get 10 years in prison. If both of you don't confess, you each get one year in prison. So it's like the total is less, but you still have to go to prison for a year. So the idea is the prisoners might both confess because and then they both get the worst case scenario right, right.

Speaker 1: 37:01

So this is if they were in the same room together, if they could communicate room together. They would not turn on each other and they would just both go.

Speaker 2: 37:09

Okay, neither one of us is talking, we're both safe, right, but separating would make some of the doubt this is the key thing for cooperation is the ability to collaborate without having deep ties and connections with each other. Right, so you can collaborate in group, you can connect and collaborate with people, you know. But the real advantage is to connect and collaborate with other groups and with nature and with like entities, like animals, like entities around you that you can collaborate with. That's like hyper, hyper. Advantageous dilemma is what's called the closed bag exchange. Same exact setup. You have the drugs, they have the money, you you're going to do a closed bag exchange you could put in, you could put bricks in yours and they could put bricks in their bag and you could both screw each other right, or you could both cooperate and now both of you get. You know, one gets the money, one gets the drugs and you could keep trading and it's better, right.

Speaker 2: 38:00

So the closed bag exchange is the same as the prisoner's dilemma, except for it models exactly cooperation. Okay, if you take a human and you say if you take a being, an animal, and you say this animal has the instinct to reduce avoidable misery that it's aware of, it will more often than not do the prisoner's dilemma. It will do the closed bag exchange. It'll cooperate without the need of communication. Okay, it will do the closed-bag exchange. It'll cooperate without the need of communication because it will identify I'm going to act in such a way that leads to the least avoidable misery for everyone. And so that instinct enhances cooperation. And cooperation, especially between people who can't talk, is enormously evolutionarily advantageous for this early homo genus, this homo sapien genus. Probably other homo genuses had this a little bit too, but it seems like homo sapiens had it, maybe more than other ones. So this is why we can say God is dead.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Sorry, sorry everybody, but we actually don't need a sort of fictional God and we don't need to believe in God to still have a very strong moral theory moral law moral compass, and that moral compass can be based entirely on our own evolved natures, which is to reduce avoidable misery for every being that has a mind that makes sense there you go.

Speaker 1: 39:31

I like it no ethics without yeah, without the, uh, the deity top dog involved.

Speaker 2: 39:37

Yeah, people often say why? How well, evolution. If evolution is all there is, how can we have right and wrong? How can we have a moral law? People often say that here it is. Yeah, that's a very common argument.

Speaker 1: 39:49

I don't find that to be a puzzling part.

Speaker 2: 39:52

Well, I think it's because evolution is considered to be the law of the jungle, right? Anybody just kills anybody else, and whoever survives survives.

Speaker 1: 40:00

That's what people think of Darwinian evolution right, I guess, but I'm a being and I've existed and I've never felt the need to kill and be killed.

Speaker 2: 40:08

You know like to live in that way that seems like fiction to me, but people would say that's because of society. Society's created an unnatural environment around you.

Speaker 1: 40:17

Sure, maybe it is, but it makes it very easy for me to suss out the idea that ethics aren't coming from a magical place, that they're just like natural.

Speaker 2: 40:29

Well, but wait a second. If it's coming from society, then it's not natural, right. It's like riding a bicycle or taking a phone call is not natural, or is building society as part of our natural inclination?

Speaker 1: 40:38

Is it all natural?

Speaker 2: 40:39

Yeah, are we able to do things that are natural? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Or society is an emergent property of a natural instinct. And then you know, I think it kind of outgrowths from our, from our particular human inclinations. You know, we're not. We're not like oh man, we kept building another city, shoot.

Speaker 2: 40:56

It's like yeah, that seems to be what we're drawn to do, like we seem to do that, at least right now so there you go, all you, all you atheists out there, yes, or theists, it's okay, you know, if you're a theist and you believe in god, or if you're eighths, if you, if you, if you want to believe in god still and you like this, well, you probably have to still square evolution so you're giving people god if you can say they want to believe in god's skill.

Speaker 1: 41:20

Still you get permission.

Speaker 2: 41:21

You can because you can say evolution made us compassionate and that's what God intended was for humans to be compassionate, so that Jesus was compassionate Without that there's all sorts of words you could use Without that then Jesus wouldn't have been-. If we had been sharks, then Jesus would have never been compassionate. He would have never given himself to save everyone, whatever. All the Christian dogma would have never occurred because he would have been a shark. We would have been smooth as hell dude Sharks just kill.

Speaker 2: 41:47

They're murderers, they don't care. Instead, he needed a compassionate great ape, and so evolution. God did it. So evolution would make a compassionate great ape, which?

Speaker 1: 41:58

is the human being. There we are, so there's the other side.

Speaker 2: 42:02

Anyways that's the solution. If anybody wants a little theology, slash ethics. Rework your ethics from the ground up and you can read my book the Future of Good which talks all about this, and I talk about the neurobiology of how this all works and how it evolved through the amygdala, and I cite all the research around the amygdala and psychopaths who have repressed amygdalas is evidence that this is really the way it works.

Speaker 1: 42:29

Now you found out your psychopath information by going and interviewing Hannibal Lecter, style like going to a room with crazy leather face masks.

Speaker 2: 42:39

Yeah, actually, the research, a lot of it comes from Madison, wisconsin, uw-madison. There's. A lot of it comes from madison, wisconsin, uw, madison, there's a lot of psychopath research.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Maybe it's because they have that murder lake that they're, that their city is surrounded by, where people kill each other in the moat every so often that's. I don't know what that is, but sounds like that might be the cause so yeah, well, cool, all right thanks god for putting up with my philosophical ramblings, but I thought it was ethical of me to do it was compassionate, that's deeply compassionate. I was my, uh, that was my way of oh, I don't know how to good deed, my good day. I was avoiding your misericordianism.

Speaker 2: 43:20

Yes, misericordian, yes, there we are it would have caused me so much suffering for you to be like.

Speaker 1: 43:25

I didn't want to do that. I can't put up with this crap. Can I just say?

Speaker 2: 43:28

you're welcome. Thank you, all right, and thank you everyone for hanging around. That's right, enjoy the Solution. Never before heard of Theory of Ethics.

Speaker 1: 43:39

Indeed. See you again next time. All right, take care. Bye-bye, bye, thank you.