0:00

I think that the internet takes really basic

0:02

intrinsic desires like to be seen, to be

0:04

heard, to find

0:06

some sort of connection to other

0:09

people. These incredibly basic social desires

0:11

have become exploited in ways that

0:13

a lot of us understand but

0:15

can't necessarily see the extent of

0:17

on an everyday basis. Hey,

0:22

this is Kelly Corrigan. Welcome to Kelly

0:25

Corrigan Wonders. I am so

0:27

psyched today. I have a woman named

0:29

Gia Tolentino with me in conversation. If

0:31

you haven't heard of her, you will.

0:34

She's a 32-year-old intellectual phenom. She writes for

0:36

The New Yorker and came out with her

0:38

first book of essays called Trick Mirror. She's

0:40

part feminist and part radical thinker and part

0:43

cultural critic. I learned of her from my

0:45

husband and when he was reading Trick Mirror,

0:47

he kept poking me in the shoulder and

0:49

saying, wait, wait, wait, you got to hear

0:52

this. We'll be right back with Gia

0:54

Tolentino. This is Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

0:59

This episode is brought to you by Progressive.

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in all states and situations. Hi,

1:46

I'm Kelly Corrigan.

1:53

Welcome back to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm

1:55

here today with Gia Tolentino. She's a

1:57

writer for The New Yorker. She's whip

1:59

smart. and her book trick mirror

2:01

is very high on my

2:04

list of recommended readings. Hi,

2:11

how are you? Good, how are

2:13

you? Good, I'm really glad to meet

2:15

you. So you have talked a

2:17

lot about like deep fundamental changes in

2:19

society and also in yourself that

2:21

you've observed in yourself and

2:23

that made you somebody that I

2:25

wanted to talk to about human

2:28

nature. So I'm wondering about the

2:30

relationship between environment and an individual and

2:32

how those two things drive change and

2:34

like kind of who's in charge of

2:36

how people change. Are we in

2:38

charge of it or is the environment just pushing us around?

2:41

I was just rereading

2:43

an Atlantic article about

2:46

those children that were

2:48

left in Romanian orphanages in the 80s where

2:51

like an estimated 170,000 infants and children had

2:53

been consigned to these orphanages.

2:59

They had been left to

3:01

feed themselves in cages

3:04

basically like they would get a bottle

3:06

propped between the bars. They had no

3:08

human contact for almost their

3:10

entire lives and they stopped

3:13

crying completely because they never developed the cause

3:15

and effect that would lead them to think

3:17

that another human would help them, which is

3:19

I think something that we think of as

3:21

being a fundamental human quality. You know I

3:23

mean I just had a baby and it

3:26

is this you know she needs help, she

3:28

cries for it, she sees me, she cries

3:30

louder because she knows I'll get it and

3:32

all throughout the last six months with this

3:34

baby I've been thinking about this question like

3:36

how much were born as who we are.

3:39

She was born with a certain temperament. It

3:41

continues to be that temperament. My parents always

3:43

tell me that I've been the same since

3:45

I was like three but I was reading

3:48

this article the other day and I was

3:50

thinking I don't know that there's so much

3:52

that's so fundamental about who any of us

3:54

are that wouldn't have been utterly destroyed by

3:56

an environment that extreme. It was a reminder

3:58

that maybe

4:01

it's not as fixed as I thought. Do

4:04

you think that our environment, you know,

4:07

vis-a-vis the internet, let's say,

4:09

or reality TV, is

4:12

having a bigger impact

4:14

on us than we even realize? Yeah,

4:18

I think that that is one of

4:20

the most pernicious aspects of

4:23

what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism, which

4:25

is, you know, effectively the economic

4:27

model that the whole internet runs

4:29

on. I mean, one of the things that I

4:32

always think about is the way that

4:35

algorithmic incentives are becoming our deep emotional

4:37

ones in many cases. I mean, QAnon

4:40

exists because a

4:43

handful of social networks have

4:45

been organized around certain

4:47

emotions being incentivized, certain

4:49

types of group

4:51

action being incentivized, certain types

4:54

of compulsion revolving

4:56

around kind of self-determination

4:58

and identity and self-righteousness and

5:00

rage. Like, these are the things that are

5:04

economically fruitful for these companies. This

5:07

is the type of human behavior

5:10

that is reinforced

5:12

over and over again. And then

5:14

you end up with

5:16

people with a really, really, really true, deep

5:19

belief that this is how the world

5:21

is. It becomes a way for people to

5:23

understand the entire world and understand their place

5:26

in it. And that is meaningful. You

5:29

know, it's just formed by

5:31

these completely artificial economic

5:33

incentives. And I

5:35

think that the internet takes really basic intrinsic desires,

5:39

like, to be seen, to be

5:41

heard, to find some sort of connection to

5:43

other people. These incredibly basic

5:46

social desires have become exploited in ways

5:48

that a lot of us understand but

5:52

can't necessarily see the extent of on an

5:54

everyday basis or really see any

5:56

road out. if

6:00

it's the fact that we

6:02

all come into the world with

6:04

this need to connect, and then that

6:06

some set of people aren't naturally finding

6:08

that connection, and then someone offers that

6:11

set of people that opportunity to

6:13

be a part of something larger than

6:15

themselves, which is like the defining feature

6:18

of the human race, right? Like as

6:20

Yuval Harari says, we started as insignificant

6:22

as jellyfish, and 70,000 years later, we're ruling

6:25

the earth, and the way we're doing it is

6:27

that we're flexible, and that

6:30

we can collaborate across massive numbers of

6:32

people who are essentially

6:34

total strangers based

6:36

on this shared fiction. And

6:39

so if that's all the case, if that's

6:41

the absolute seat of our power as

6:43

a species, and then

6:45

something's offering you like something

6:49

that looks like connection, that looks

6:51

like the chance to collaborate and

6:53

coordinate and cooperate and exercise

6:56

these superhuman features

6:59

and desires, that

7:02

thing will win. Right. In

7:04

what ways do you feel manipulated? Right

7:07

now. Like I think specifically,

7:09

I feel most overtly manipulated by the

7:11

way in America, healthcare is tied to

7:14

specific kinds of employment. And

7:17

it's hard for me to imagine what

7:19

kind of choices I might have made if that

7:21

weren't the case. You know, I'm

7:24

in a lucky position right now. But

7:27

I would say that, you know, almost every decision

7:29

I've made in my adult life has been rooted

7:31

in the desire to keep

7:34

myself and people

7:36

I love away from the

7:38

possible economic devastation of sickness.

7:40

That's so interesting to me. That's the last thing

7:43

on earth I thought you were going to say.

7:46

Did you have healthcare growing up? Yes.

7:50

But sometimes

7:52

not. Sometimes the parents couldn't pay

7:55

for it. Yeah, I didn't have healthcare in

7:57

college. And it's

7:59

just something You know they have been

8:01

thinking about in the pandemic because

8:03

you know that the one kind

8:05

of safety net that people have

8:08

against sickness is tried to pass

8:10

Implement Yeah. So. I want to

8:12

talk about an. Identity. And he

8:14

says identity according to have or

8:16

arrow is not something that we

8:18

neatly possess and reveal that something

8:20

we understand through narratives provided to

8:23

us that others. So. I wanna

8:25

Now what is your. Opinion about why we

8:27

tell and retail stories. Why do we

8:29

tell in retail store is is because.

8:32

That is the only

8:34

way. We

8:36

can understand anything about the world

8:38

and is we don't tell stories

8:40

about ourselves and the world around

8:43

us then mean. Effectively

8:45

function in the world like animal. There's

8:48

no other way to situate yourself

8:50

even to say mean, there's there's

8:52

a story. In any

8:54

sentence you could say about.

8:58

Yourself or anything. One

9:01

of the things he said that was super

9:03

interesting was said the. The thought

9:05

of social media like kind of the endless

9:07

school that classes and frontier I as I

9:09

can any. Moment you could be

9:12

bouncing from Syrian refugees to

9:14

assert on sale from J

9:16

Crew to your friends grandmother

9:18

died. And that it.

9:20

Because. Each box is the

9:22

same thing is. You

9:25

could lose the ability to

9:27

separate that. Than off from

9:30

the profound. How

9:32

do you think? Storytelling. This

9:34

super fundamental thing. the human nature and how we

9:36

learn and how we remember not to touch the

9:38

hot stove or go by and I blush where

9:40

the lions waving. How do you think that. Fundamental.

9:45

System. Of communicating information

9:47

and and deciding what's important

9:49

and what's mine is being

9:51

altered or degraded. By.

9:53

Social media. i

9:55

i would guess say it

9:58

is probably insurance you perception

10:02

that scale is

10:04

confusing, right? Like I think

10:08

in moments of sweeping historical tragedy, you

10:14

know, if you stub your toe, it's

10:16

still gonna hurt, right, if someone

10:19

slights you, it's still

10:21

gonna hurt. Like something that I think about a lot

10:25

is how John McPhee, I

10:27

think once put it in one of his books,

10:29

if you measured all of time by the distance

10:31

between your shoulder and the tip of your finger,

10:34

and you sliced off the very, very end

10:36

of your fingernail, you would erase all of

10:38

human existence, right? And that's all of human

10:40

existence, let alone like the mood I woke

10:42

up in this morning, right? And

10:44

yet the mood you woke up in this morning is

10:47

meaningful to you. Yeah, and

10:49

at the time you're in that mood, it

10:51

is your world. And so I

10:53

think that the

10:56

difficulty of extricating the banal from the

10:58

profound and the, you know,

11:00

the personal from the larger context

11:02

of your community or your country

11:04

or your world, I

11:07

think that things that are objectively

11:09

not in proportion to each other

11:11

have probably always seemed proportionate

11:16

as long as people have been telling stories. Like if

11:18

there's a version of this when you're hearing the news

11:20

over the radio, there's a version of this when you're,

11:23

you know, getting little pamphlets distributed off

11:25

the printing press, but I do

11:27

think the internet instantiates

11:30

or exacerbates just the scale and

11:32

the volume and the speed. The

11:35

pandemic has been, you know, yet

11:39

another extremely confounding way to confront this,

11:41

right? I mean, I've had

11:43

the luckiest possible pandemic experience, you know,

11:45

I've gotten paychecks, I've been working at

11:47

home. I've had kind

11:49

of a pandemic of

11:53

like almost transcendent gratitude, I would

11:55

say. And yet early on, especially

11:57

in March and April, you know, I would

11:59

be refreshing. statistics and

12:01

looking at, you know,

12:03

graves being dug on Hearts Island. And

12:06

then I would pick up my banana bread and I

12:08

would be depressed, you know,

12:10

and the banana bread would be the thing that did it. Right.

12:13

Right. And then also, you made

12:15

a point somewhere in Trick Mirror about the

12:20

pain involved in being aware of things that

12:22

you can't do anything about. And

12:25

that, and that, of course,

12:27

it's more apparent to us than ever

12:29

all of the things that are

12:31

going wrong right on around the world

12:35

that we have absolutely no hope

12:37

of having any impact on. And I

12:40

wonder if, like I'm

12:42

an old nonprofit person, I worked for 10 years

12:44

raising money for United Way. And

12:47

you know, there's always this idea about

12:49

like issue fatigue, people become

12:51

immune. And then I had breast cancer in

12:53

my 30s. And I remember the way the

12:55

doctors were talking to me. I was like, what?

12:58

Whoa, like slow down. You are telling me that

13:00

I'm going to be in chemotherapy on Monday. I

13:02

have a one year old and a two year

13:04

old. You are going to have to say that

13:06

a couple more times and a little softer. But

13:09

then you realize that with distance, that's all they

13:11

do all day. Just go from one room to

13:13

the next. They go for 18 women

13:15

all day long. They say you're going to be in chemotherapy on Monday.

13:18

So exposure, press and

13:20

zest and maybe makes it

13:23

harder for us to access the empathy

13:25

that could activate compassion

13:28

and solutions. And

13:30

so if the internet is

13:32

increasing access and exposure, then

13:35

maybe it's decreasing empathy, compassion

13:37

and action. I

13:39

tend to think of this more like the

13:42

particular stage of capitalism that drives this

13:44

iteration of the internet is

13:48

also behind other mechanisms

13:50

of active disempowerment that

13:52

go beyond emotional capacity.

13:54

Anyone that is on the

13:56

internet too much knows the feeling of being

13:59

kind of jumpy. and numb

14:01

and anxious and wanting

14:03

to do something and

14:05

maybe being overwhelmed. And feeling cheap.

14:07

Yeah, sometimes I feel cheap. Yeah,

14:10

exactly. It's like as all

14:12

these civic spaces have shrunk and in actual

14:14

life, as people's free time

14:17

and actual life has shrunk, the internet

14:19

is providing these really cheap substitutes and

14:21

these little intersisies of spare time

14:23

that people do have under these

14:26

current new models of work where

14:29

the workday is essentially unlimited because it was

14:31

on our phone. And if it's not, then

14:34

you can also monetize your spare time by

14:36

picking up groceries for Instacart or being a

14:38

task grab it or driving for Uber. I

14:41

mean, it's like the colonization

14:43

of free time with

14:46

the obligation to produce because of the

14:48

stage of capitalism that we're in with

14:51

everything getting so much more expensive

14:53

and pay not rising to

14:55

pick it up. It

14:59

leaves the internet as this

15:02

substitute for

15:05

the civic life and

15:07

community that we want, but it also, the internet is

15:10

the thing that's also

15:13

driving kind of the colonization of

15:15

the self and the actual

15:18

life. So you talk about

15:20

drugs and religion and certain

15:22

overlaps and then you also talk a little bit about this

15:24

thing. You share this research about enclosed

15:26

cognition. And that

15:28

got me thinking about this idea

15:30

of ourselves as less active

15:32

drivers of our own thoughts and feelings and

15:34

beliefs and actions and more

15:37

like reaction machines to certain

15:39

inputs. So can you just

15:41

start by explaining enclosed cognition? I

15:44

think it makes sense in a

15:46

common sense way where your environment

15:48

and the scripts around the objects

15:50

in your environment determine your

15:52

actual cognitive reactions. Like if you put a

15:55

white coat on someone and tell them that

15:57

it's a scientist coat, they will do slightly

15:59

better on. and like sample math problems.

16:01

But if you put the same coat on the

16:03

person and tell them it's a painter's coat, they'll

16:05

do slightly worse. You know, so

16:07

it's just this basic concept of

16:10

how suggestible we are to

16:13

the scripts that we are given, which I

16:15

think makes instinctive sense, you know? So

16:18

if we're that suggestible, and

16:20

it's really like an outside in

16:22

kind of suggestion, do

16:25

you think happiness is just a chemical reaction?

16:27

And if so, does it matter? I

16:31

don't think happiness is just a chemical reaction at all. I

16:33

think, well, insofar

16:36

as, you know, every thought or

16:38

every emotion or sensation we ever

16:40

feel manifests as a chemical reaction,

16:43

even if you do think of it as a chemical

16:45

reaction, what would

16:48

that change? Well,

16:50

here's where I'm coming from on the

16:52

question partially, is I have this 17

16:54

year old, and she's awfully curious, since

16:56

she was listening to some podcasts

16:59

about neuroscience. And

17:01

it totally changed

17:03

her relationship to her own emotions. In

17:08

the sense that she, as she

17:10

would put it, she said, I'm not such a

17:12

sucker for, like say a

17:14

little wave of anxiety. I

17:16

think, oh, that's just these neurons responding to

17:19

this input, and maybe I had too much

17:21

caffeine or I need to do some jumping

17:23

jacks and like change the neurobiology

17:26

a little bit, like shake off some

17:28

endorphins and get the serotonin. And like,

17:30

she started to think of things almost

17:32

like a soundboard way where you could

17:34

just do these little things that dial

17:36

up and down certain, oh

17:38

yeah, chemical reactions. And the

17:42

idea of looking at it through that frame

17:45

just made, the whole thing was less scary to

17:47

her. It was like, oh, this is just a

17:49

thing that happens before you take a test or

17:51

give a speech in front of your class or

17:53

try out for the next, the varsity team or

17:56

whatever. It is an interesting

17:58

point of view because it... Take

18:00

some of the terror out

18:03

of negative emotions for sure, I think. Mm-hmm.

18:06

You know, it's interesting hearing you talk

18:08

about this. I

18:10

personally process

18:13

my emotions almost completely physically. Almost

18:16

can't not. Like, I actually, this is a

18:18

huge problem for me because I never feel

18:20

stressed, but I have incredibly high blood pressure.

18:23

I would rather feel emotionally stressed and

18:25

not have high blood pressure. But

18:28

I can't. I know that certain circumstances in

18:30

my life have taught me the

18:33

sort of coping mechanism of the repression

18:35

into the physical or something. But it

18:37

also does seem to be a kind

18:40

of semi-innate thing that I've had because

18:42

I've always been very even-tempered. When

18:45

I'm upset, I have always thought of

18:47

it as, okay, here are the levers that you

18:49

should pull. You know, I used

18:51

to have a note under my computer that was

18:53

like, you know, do you need a night to

18:55

yourself getting stoned and listening to music

18:57

and writing? You know, do you need to take a

18:59

really hot shower? Do you need to take an hour-long

19:01

walk? Have you not been in the sun for a

19:03

while? Do you need to go to a concert? Like,

19:05

I very much feel myself as like

19:10

a little bit of a soundboard in that way. I

19:13

also have a 19-year-old, and she's learning how to

19:16

move around her dial such that she

19:18

can be more psychically comfortable in any

19:20

given situation. And I

19:22

feel like watching these two people

19:25

figure themselves out, the machinery of

19:27

themselves, is part

19:30

of what I'm observing growing up

19:32

to be, which is I

19:34

understand better and better and better how I work. I

19:36

know what a day needs to have in it,

19:38

and I know what little notes to leave myself

19:41

under my computer. So the other

19:43

thing that you point out was that, of

19:45

course, there are these lab rats who,

19:48

when the feedback is rare and irregular,

19:50

such that you get on social

19:52

media, let's say, they will keep

19:54

pushing the pressing your

19:56

food dispenser forever and ever and ever. makes

20:00

me feel really anxious in the same

20:02

way that, say, social dilemma

20:04

made me anxious, which is, oh

20:07

my God, this system has

20:09

got us at

20:11

the human nature level. Like,

20:13

it knows exactly how to

20:16

wire this thing for the

20:18

animal that we are. Do you feel

20:20

that way? Yeah. One of the

20:22

things that I try to remember is the internet doesn't

20:24

have to be like this. The

20:26

ways in which, broadly speaking, human

20:28

behavior has been changed by the internet, the

20:32

kind of ontological questions of what exists and how

20:34

do we know it exists and how

20:37

do we know anything, the ways that the

20:40

basic idea of shared knowledge

20:42

has been destroyed, obliterated by

20:45

the internet, by social media.

20:48

It's not an inevitability with the

20:50

internet. It's not an inevitability of

20:52

connection. It's because

20:54

the internet is set up

20:56

along the lines of contemporary

20:58

capitalism where there

21:00

are no guardrails, there

21:03

is no value system

21:05

other than what will create

21:07

the most profit at any

21:10

given time. The internet is

21:12

organized around opposition. It

21:15

profits off opposition and heightened emotion and

21:17

compulsive use. It doesn't have to be

21:19

one like that. Wikipedia is

21:22

non-profit. It doesn't monetize

21:25

aggression, disinformation, compulsive

21:29

use, and people use it in a healthy way.

21:32

If there were even rules about regulating algorithms,

21:35

the internet would look different. The

21:38

system has been set up to work so perfectly

21:43

with our nature. The

21:45

system that's been set up to habituate

21:49

us to constant compulsive use

21:51

of something we mostly dislike.

21:55

That is... It's

22:01

not inevitable, right? We weren't

22:03

created to exploit ourselves in

22:05

this way. This is a

22:08

specific incentive of capitalism

22:14

seeming natural and inevitable

22:17

and final and totalizing.

22:20

Right. It's a specific necessity

22:22

to bring profit out

22:24

of any digital action

22:26

that we take that

22:29

creates this sort of lab rat system of

22:32

irregular and increasingly

22:35

shrinking rewards. It's interesting because

22:37

I have tried in many ways

22:39

to wean myself off of it. The

22:42

thing that existed, it's a pre-internet when I

22:44

was a kid, I

22:46

would read while I was rollerblading. I

22:49

would read every second of the day,

22:52

I wanted input. Like

22:54

everyone did, we would read the shampoo bottles over

22:56

and over in the shower. Like everyone did that.

23:01

I remember I just always wanted

23:03

input. I couldn't sit

23:06

the same way that four-year-olds sit at restaurants

23:08

with their parents with an iPad in front of

23:10

them. We think like, oh my God, the

23:13

internet screen, whatever, tragic. I was doing that

23:15

with my books and if I didn't have

23:17

a book, which we thought was spectacular. Right.

23:19

I would go nuts. I think about that

23:22

desire for stimulation being natural and in a

23:24

lot of ways. Thank

23:28

you for Frank and we'll be right back with

23:30

Gia Tolentino. Before we do, I want to

23:32

thank everybody that's visiting me on Instagram

23:34

at Kelly Corrigan and sharing your notes on

23:36

each episode. It's easy for me to

23:38

see what you think. Are

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24:24

Hey, welcome back. This is Kelly Corrigan and

24:27

this is Kelly Corrigan-Wenders here with the New

24:29

Yorker's Gia Tolentino, talking

24:31

about human nature. So

24:36

let's talk about, you

24:38

grew up in this Houston mega church that you

24:41

called the Repentagon, which is pretty brilliant. And

24:43

you said that you've been walking away from it pretty much

24:45

as long as you were in it, but that a lot

24:47

of your ideas about what makes a good and

24:49

moral leader are rooted in Christianity. So

24:52

I wanna get a religion

24:54

in general and if you think it will

24:56

always exist for as long as there is man, and

25:00

what you think the roots of its power are for

25:02

good or for evil? Yeah,

25:04

I do think it will always

25:06

exist in some way. Like I

25:08

don't think that certain permutations, like

25:10

I don't think monotheistic religion is

25:13

inevitable, but I do think

25:15

that maybe the most fundamental story we

25:17

end up telling ourselves about being alive

25:19

is that, I mean, it's a

25:21

way to, the

25:24

only way to reckon with existence

25:26

and smallness is

25:30

to think that of

25:32

some sort of purpose and

25:34

to think of some sort

25:37

of power greater than

25:39

you. I think

25:41

it's hard, you

25:43

know, even within the frame of atheism, both

25:46

of those ideas are

25:48

very much in play. And

25:51

I think that, like what

25:53

other narrative do you make out

25:56

of being here other than,

25:58

yeah, there's some. sort of purpose and

26:00

there's some sort of thing that's more powerful than me.

26:04

And that's where you are with it right now. Oh,

26:06

me? Me

26:09

personally? Sure. Yeah,

26:12

I mean, I don't think of, I don't

26:14

believe in like a divine purpose. And

26:17

I think, but I do think

26:19

that there are many things more

26:21

powerful than me. So you

26:23

did a stint in the Peace Corps after

26:26

UVA, and you've got

26:28

TB, tuberculosis, and your hair

26:31

started falling out, and you lived in

26:33

this kind of grueling environment. So

26:35

I wondered for that reason, and

26:37

maybe many others that I don't know, how

26:40

do you think about suffering? Oh, well,

26:43

my experience in the Peace Corps, I would not

26:45

classify that as suffering whatsoever. But

26:48

that is, back to the question of scale,

26:50

that was something that I

26:52

found really difficult just because I did have hard

26:55

times with various things. And

26:59

even as I knew with every fiber

27:01

of my being that whatever, quote

27:03

unquote, hardship I was experiencing, well,

27:07

absolutely minuscule and completely

27:09

ridiculous, given the fact that

27:11

at any second, if I wanted to, I could

27:13

press an eject button and leave and return to

27:15

the land of grocery

27:17

stores and express shipping,

27:20

that was not a sufficient way to talk myself

27:22

out of having a bad day. Right,

27:26

right. But I also wonder about

27:28

what you were witnessing and thinking how hard

27:31

it was to make impact, and

27:33

that very grown-up realization that

27:35

I've had myself, which is I'm

27:40

throwing everything I've got at this little

27:42

problem, and I don't know if

27:45

it's really gonna add up to all that much in the

27:47

end. Yeah, that was, I

27:50

think, my year in the Peace Corps was

27:53

my real education in the

27:55

gap between intention and

27:57

impact, and a real... sort

28:00

of permanent education in how

28:04

kind of all-encompassing systems are

28:06

and how I could spend

28:10

a year of my life trying to

28:12

do something so little.

28:15

Like I tried to be a good teacher and

28:17

I built a little library in this village and

28:19

you know it

28:21

was just so absolutely insignificant compared

28:24

to the global

28:26

historical factors that had made a

28:29

specific village that I was in, what it was

28:31

and the specific conditions for kids

28:34

and for women, what they were and

28:36

there was just absolutely nothing I could

28:38

do to really

28:40

even mitigate it. But

28:43

then it was a lesson in the same thing that you know it's

28:45

like all we have is the kindness

28:47

that we can show on an everyday basis to the

28:49

people around us and that's best on nothing

28:51

and that matters too. You know and also

28:53

the kind of like

28:56

coming to a country with

28:58

this do-gooding energy structured

29:00

around American power, you

29:04

know I left feeling really gross and embarrassed

29:06

about that American power. Yeah. We

29:10

had Melinda Gates on the podcast and it

29:12

would be great for people to listen to that

29:15

vis-a-vis this conversation because she talks a lot about

29:17

coming in there with all your fixed energy and then

29:20

having to sit down on the mat and

29:22

listen and watch and observe and figure

29:24

it out from the

29:26

inside what if anything you

29:29

could do to help

29:31

the system help

29:33

itself. You know like what little measures

29:37

could you take that would last,

29:39

that would stay, that would become

29:41

homegrown in a well. So

29:45

this is kind of a trippy question but I feel

29:47

like you'd be a really good person to like sit

29:49

around a dorm room late at night with and talk

29:51

about this kind of stuff with but

29:53

what experience would you like to give everyone if

29:55

you could give everybody one experience that would make

29:57

the world just better? What

30:00

would it be? Well, you know, my usual

30:02

answer for this is that this is a

30:04

question you get a lot. I can't believe

30:06

I thought I was being so original and

30:08

you're like, well, my typically I think,

30:10

well, no, no. So because I

30:13

have written about drugs and because I

30:15

am kind of openly enthusiastic about psychedelics

30:17

or, you know, drugs in general, you

30:20

know, I don't mean that callously. And

30:22

obviously there are very many cases in which people

30:24

shouldn't use drugs. But I am like kind of

30:26

a very pro responsible, you

30:29

know, individual situational drug use.

30:32

And one of the things that has come up is

30:34

like, do you think that everyone should get

30:37

outside themselves with, you know, experience the

30:39

ego death that comes with tripping? And

30:41

I'm usually like, if it is appropriate,

30:43

absolutely. You know,

30:45

but I think my actual answer to this

30:48

is every person should have the

30:50

experience of being able

30:52

to love somebody and

30:54

being able to receive and

30:56

count on love. You know,

30:59

like I think I think that's absolutely the answer.

31:01

And I was I think

31:04

I was thinking about that vis-a-vis that article

31:06

I was rereading about the, you

31:08

know, this test case of these orphans

31:10

in Romania who were

31:13

robbed of something that we think

31:15

of as an almost instinctive and

31:17

inevitable situation. And

31:21

you know, they were most of those kids

31:23

were never able to form attachments

31:26

because they didn't understand that it was a

31:28

thing that their mind or body could do.

31:31

And that really, you know, like

31:34

a life without that is

31:36

really, really hard to reckon with. So

31:40

this is another one of those trippy late night

31:42

questions, which is what would you genetically alter in

31:44

human beings to make us a better species? And

31:46

the thing I was thinking about so often when

31:48

I was reading Trick Mirror was, like, should

31:51

we be more suspect, like a little

31:53

more skeptical around the horn, like of

31:55

what's being put in front of us and

31:57

also our own quote, Cerebral

32:00

opinions? Well, it's interesting

32:03

still ways in which.

32:07

Believing. Anything and then refusing to believe anything

32:09

in front of us. Are things kind of

32:11

go together right and the new? With

32:13

a conspiracy thinking? And that's exactly what

32:15

it is. It's like it's believing nonsense

32:18

that refusing to believe actual information in

32:20

those reactions are very. Twins.

32:22

I think com. Like.

32:24

It I I don't think that we have. When.

32:27

We have both and access of

32:29

credulous nurse and in excess of

32:32

skepticism right now that I. Am.

32:36

I was thinking about this question because

32:38

so like in Denmark, they offer. Like

32:40

a universal sort of prenatal

32:43

down screening. Two Mothers and

32:45

they have. Essentially.

32:49

There. Are no children born with Down South

32:51

raid and in the I just rather sad

32:53

cause. So taken. With that, yeah, And.

32:56

That is such a complicated thing.

32:58

My instinct was like if I

33:00

had added out the gene that

33:02

causes cancer, something that would save

33:04

people from unnecessary physical suffering. You

33:06

know that I would even begin

33:08

to touch with all of our

33:10

all of our emotional ill. It

33:12

was. Everyone was empathetic that I

33:14

think that. Either

33:16

you take any of those spots

33:19

one one step further. And too hard

33:21

to say standby. Denmark has given Mother's

33:23

the opportunity to. Is this the case

33:25

to be made? At that time marches

33:27

better off with no kids have

33:30

done that. It's it's. really. Confusing.

33:33

It's like all of our. I

33:35

mean all of the things I like about myself. I

33:39

wouldn't want to. Excise

33:41

from a. Nice

33:44

because you know I don't know

33:46

fake as as others to super

33:48

answer can't. In. Our relationship

33:50

between the things that we don't like about

33:52

ourselves on the way that we relate to

33:55

the world, and possibly things that we really

33:57

do like about ourselves or related to those

33:59

other things. Yeah, I mean, I

34:01

definitely think that people's best and

34:03

worst qualities tend to be really

34:05

closely linked closely related Yeah,

34:08

I mean one thing I've thought about a lot over the years

34:10

that comes up is I don't

34:13

I don't have any more idea than I had 20 years

34:15

ago when I first started wondering about deep

34:18

insecurity and where it comes from

34:20

and Everybody knows somebody

34:22

who's who's riddled with it Way

34:25

down in there and they're functioning in the

34:27

world they're operating but it's like an invisible

34:30

crippling that Seems to

34:32

really block everything that we've both agreed is what

34:34

it's all about like to love and be loved

34:37

like it's really hard to Do that if you're

34:39

not really sure you're worth it So

34:41

maybe it would be whatever enables people to love

34:43

and be loved That that's

34:46

what I would want to make sure that everybody had

34:48

sort of been yeah And then but you know,

34:50

it's been but it's back to your first question

34:53

Which is like I think there

34:55

are cruelties that we can enact on each

34:57

other that can remove that genetic ability, right?

35:00

Right, right. That's right. And I I really

35:03

like to believe that it is there to

35:05

begin with Yeah, and that it gets destroyed

35:07

in those cases where you're with adults and

35:09

you think oh my god There's

35:12

there's a hole in you that cannot be filled and

35:15

I think I don't know I don't know what

35:17

your story is well enough to pinpoint it, but

35:19

I don't think I don't know that people are

35:21

born that way It's interesting that

35:23

I think for some people the

35:26

combination of temperament and circumstance

35:29

Weans them towards there's a hole that can never be filled

35:31

this is why I hate the sort of institutions

35:33

of surveillance capitalism so much is because

35:36

they are formalizing a Daily

35:38

hole that can never be filled that

35:41

there is no Facebook

35:44

without it. There's no Instagram without

35:46

it Really no Google without

35:49

it either and that seems such

35:51

a Misuse

35:53

of our freedom. It's

35:55

such a misuse of what

35:58

it is to want to

36:00

be connected to other people, to want to

36:02

be seen as the people we are, to

36:04

be seen as people that are like better

36:06

than we are. It's such

36:09

a misuse of retraining

36:11

people into the idea that there's a hole

36:13

that can never be filled like on a daily basis

36:15

in our pockets and in our faces before we go to

36:17

bed. When I think like most of

36:20

us spend our lives trying

36:24

to remind ourselves that that's not the case,

36:26

right? Right. Yeah, that's interesting.

36:29

So you said that you're an easy target for

36:31

reality TV or a kid who has kind

36:33

of cast yourself through your hat in the

36:35

ring for this funny show and that you

36:37

were happy and ensconced at UVA in the

36:39

Greek system before you went back as a

36:42

journalist to see it differently and more closely

36:44

maybe. And that you have

36:46

liked rather torturous fitness regimes like the

36:48

bar method. And

36:50

most recently that motherhood has brought on

36:52

a total ego death. And

36:54

I'm so knocked out by your

36:57

sort of forever inside outside way

36:59

of being. And I wonder what

37:02

makes you feel like

37:04

totally, completely holistically

37:07

alive. Oh, I love

37:09

this question. I mean, anything.

37:12

I think, okay, the most, like

37:14

I could just rattle it off like being

37:18

in the middle of a crowd at a

37:21

concert, being out dancing at 4am,

37:23

just walking around in the sunshine like

37:25

I was earlier, you know,

37:29

like sitting across a

37:32

table from someone and

37:34

really getting into something

37:36

with them. I

37:39

mean, it's almost easier to answer what doesn't,

37:41

you know, and I think that the things

37:43

that make me feel

37:45

most alive are the things that make

37:48

me feel either extremely small or extremely

37:50

large or both at the same time.

37:53

You know, it's like that. It's this kind of

37:55

feeling when you're like when you're hiking, right? And

37:58

I think that that is the feeling when you're going out dancing. thing.

38:01

It's when you have like kind of an oceanic

38:06

feeling of bigness

38:08

and smallness. And

38:12

that can be triggered by,

38:15

like luckily

38:17

my little pleasure-seeking brain can sign

38:20

but really easily,

38:22

I think. That's such a gift. It is

38:24

such a gift. To be able to tap

38:26

into it, you know? Yeah. And

38:28

we did a podcast with this guy named Dacher Keltner from

38:31

Greater Good Science Center and he's a

38:33

big academic thinker around awe.

38:37

And he talked about the power of kind

38:40

of putting yourself into

38:42

a context where you feel very

38:46

small. Yeah. And

38:49

how weirdly enlarging that can

38:51

be. Okay, last question. You

38:54

said, we've got nothing except our

38:56

small attempts to retain our humanity,

38:58

to act on a model of

39:01

actual selfhood, one that embraces culpability,

39:03

inconsistency, and insignificance. Do you

39:05

think the values are there but we don't really honor

39:07

them with our behavior, that we can't really get our

39:10

behavior to marry up to what our

39:12

values are? I think that

39:14

there are just so many things

39:16

about, so I guess that sentence in

39:18

the book that I wrote that to me,

39:20

like actual selfhood, it feels like smallness. What

39:23

did I say? Inconsistency,

39:25

insignificance, culpability. Yeah, like that's really

39:27

the fundamental thing of what it

39:30

feels like to be alive.

39:33

But I think

39:35

that capitalist individualism and I

39:38

think that selfhood as it

39:40

manifests on the internet, it

39:43

sets up a model of

39:45

selfhood that's the opposite of those things, that

39:47

makes people want to believe

39:50

that they're consistent and glossy

39:52

and righteous and correct and

39:55

that they matter a

39:57

lot. And

40:04

I think that it's

40:06

not something that's wrong with ourselves,

40:08

the tension of the

40:10

one reality and the other desire, like that

40:12

will always be there. But I think

40:14

that it's the specific systems

40:17

that incentivize one end of

40:19

it above all else. Like

40:22

that's what I would want to change, not anything about

40:24

us. Right,

40:27

right. That's great. Thank

40:29

you so much for going there with me,

40:31

for having this big, heady conversation about human

40:33

nature. It's so fun to get to know

40:35

you a little bit. Yeah, thank you so

40:37

much. As

40:42

I'm sure you can tell, I valued every

40:44

minute that I spent with Gia. I

40:46

think she has such a special mind.

40:49

These are my takeaways. One,

40:52

the internet is doing the

40:54

hard work of meeting human

40:57

nature's deepest desires to

40:59

be seen, to be heard, and to connect.

41:02

Two, for a decent percentage

41:04

of the population, picking a job

41:07

is mostly about securing healthcare.

41:10

Three, we are not good at scale.

41:13

We can't really internalize the difference

41:15

between the banal and the profound. Four,

41:19

we think differently depending on what

41:21

we're wearing. Five,

41:24

even-tempered people might also

41:26

have terrible indigestion. Knowing

41:31

yourself comes down to knowing what levers

41:33

to pull in any given mood to

41:35

write your own shit. Smart

41:39

people crave inputs. They

41:41

read while they rollerblade. Eight,

41:44

it is devastatingly hard to make a

41:47

difference. The gap between

41:49

intent and impact can be

41:51

maddening. And yet, small

41:54

kindnesses do matter. And

41:57

nine, people's best and worst

41:59

qualities is The thinking like

42:01

say a teenagers foolish

42:03

persistence and of invincibility

42:05

and their daring. Creative.

42:08

Solutions. I want

42:10

to thank to a talent. He now I want to

42:12

thank the team a colleague, organ wonders that

42:14

seem to Terry and Katie, daisies and a

42:16

courses. In George. And I want

42:19

to thank you the listeners Who Sarah episode.

42:21

And social media. In reading your

42:23

reviews, it's a taste. As I

42:26

said, Kkk members. Have.

42:44

Asked we are conducting surveillance

42:46

gets now you are audience

42:48

better. It won't take long

42:50

and it's easy to visit.

42:52

survey. Cr ask.org

42:55

last seven Hervey

42:57

half years. Into.