0:00

Welcome to You're Wrong About,

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end of the summer edition.

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We hope that you're doing well out there,

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and for you this week we have a

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re-release of a bonus episode

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that we did summer of last year.

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This episode was our first

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experiment in having a listener

0:28

call-in type thing. We loved

0:30

it so much that as you can see

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we've done it a few more times and

0:34

are excited to do it more in the future. And

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this episode is on the subject of

0:39

changing your mind. How do

0:41

we do it? When do we do it? Why

0:44

do we do it? And what does it take? We

0:47

originally put this episode out on Patreon

0:49

and Apple Plus subscriptions where we have

0:51

our bonus episodes. We have a new

0:53

one coming out soon where I will

0:56

be talking with Blair Braverman about Baby

0:58

Island, if you know you know. And

1:01

we put this out as a bonus because this

1:03

was an experiment. It was something new we were

1:05

trying. It was out of our usual format. And

1:09

now that this kind of thing is in our usual

1:11

format, we wanted you all to hear it. We'll

1:14

be back with a brand new episode in two weeks.

1:16

We can't wait to see you then. Happy

1:18

back to school. Happy sweater weather. Happy

1:21

not going back to school and

1:23

walking past the glue sticks and Target knowing

1:25

that you don't have to buy them unless

1:28

you want to. Welcome

1:39

to You're Wrong About, the podcast where

1:41

sometimes Alex Steed is here. Hello.

1:45

I'm so happy to be here, Sarah Marshall. I'm

1:48

so happy to have you here. You

1:50

came to me with an idea for a bonus episode

1:52

of You're Wrong About that initially I was

1:54

like, no. And then after about 12 hours,

1:57

I was like, yes, let's do it. I

1:59

think you're right. for saying no initially

2:01

was right on, which was I'd initially

2:03

said it's like let's open

2:05

a phone line so people can get

2:08

in touch with feedback and we'll turn the

2:11

feedback into a bonus episode. And

2:13

you as a person who receives more

2:16

unsolicited feedback day to day than I

2:18

do, I can understand not

2:20

wanting, you know, because of audience

2:22

scale and gender, I think

2:24

changes this a lot. So

2:27

you as a woman who again

2:30

has like an audience of large

2:32

scale get a

2:34

lot of unsolicited feedback,

2:37

I can understand why the idea of

2:39

an open call for more of that

2:42

would be off putting. But

2:44

you I think had suggested, you know, could

2:46

we narrow this down in a way where

2:48

we're not sort of asking for an inbox

2:50

of fire? And

2:53

then you had suggested, you know,

2:55

I'd love to hear about instances

2:57

in which people have changed their minds. This

3:01

is a thing that seems to happen

3:03

on a rare and rare instance.

3:06

And it was illuminating to find that

3:09

the reasons that people change their minds happen

3:12

for all sorts of reasons. Like

3:14

you could find a card on the

3:16

street and think that it's a sign for you to

3:18

change your life in some way or

3:21

something just extremely catastrophic and antithetical

3:23

to your worldview happens and makes

3:25

you reconcile that you have to

3:27

pivot. Yeah, we love talking about

3:30

pivoting in the 2020s. That's

3:32

one nice thing about our culture. Everyone

3:34

has to pivot three times a year to keep

3:38

chasing their health insurance around. This

3:41

is true. So I am curious

3:43

what made you decide

3:45

that this is the prompt you wanted to go with? Well,

3:48

I guess it's just the thing that I'm

3:50

most curious about. You know, the show is

3:52

so much about trying to present people with

3:54

all the available information, wiping

3:57

away the mythology that grows around

3:59

top. topics like mold, like going out

4:01

and cleaning mold off statues. It's the

4:03

secret garden. That's all I want to

4:05

do is the secret garden. Did

4:08

you ever read the secret garden? No, I did

4:10

not. The garden is a

4:12

metaphor for the little girl's heart. They

4:16

repair the garden and their little

4:18

souls, little British child souls. Beautiful.

4:23

And so much of what's

4:25

happened in America in the past few

4:27

years has been disheartening to me partly

4:30

because there's been this revelation

4:32

about how much information,

4:35

how many people are able to just

4:37

ignore like how there are so many

4:39

people in America who can be presented

4:41

with information that would seem

4:43

to completely support an obvious point and can

4:45

just be like, no, I don't

4:48

care what your fakes, you're part of the

4:50

deep state or whatever. And

4:52

then how much non-existent information

4:54

people are able to fabricate and

4:57

how many people have

4:59

a worldview ruled by conspiracy

5:01

theories and so forth. And

5:04

so I think I used to think that changing

5:06

people's minds was like comparatively easy and you were

5:08

like, here are the facts. And they were like,

5:10

oh my goodness, there are the facts. Well, this

5:12

changes everything. And instead, it

5:14

seems like at least half the time and

5:16

that's like a generous assessment. People

5:19

are like, so? And

5:22

so I'm very curious about just like

5:24

not taking this moment for granted and

5:26

being like, instead of just expecting this

5:28

of people, what if we looked

5:30

at how it happens for people? Yes.

5:34

I think it's an interesting exercise

5:36

to engage with your audience

5:39

of you're wrong about specifically

5:41

because to

5:44

get beyond just learning that you

5:46

were wrong about something and

5:49

that being an important

5:51

step obviously, you need to

5:53

also be aware

5:56

of the fact that changing your mind

5:58

is a good thing. Or

6:00

can be a good thing and can be an important

6:02

thing and is a key to growth and I am a

6:06

fan of You're Wrong About,

6:08

I've been for a long time and

6:10

this show is great

6:12

because it always shows me like different like

6:14

layers and dimensions of things that I hadn't

6:17

considered before but in a lot of ways

6:19

like You're Wrong About can also serve as

6:21

substantiating confirmation bias because like a lot of

6:23

listeners are like I knew

6:25

it, you know what I mean? It's not like

6:28

I had the opposite opinion. Right.

6:30

It's not like I get

6:32

so many listeners who are like yeah, I

6:34

always love time you're

6:36

hurting and it is prepared to be

6:38

totally thrown ass over T Kettle by

6:41

your reassessment of her. Totally

6:43

and it happens, I think it happens sometimes with

6:45

people that people aren't willing to offer grace to

6:47

or people that come up in one way or

6:49

another in the show that folks

6:51

didn't realize they were kind of in on the pile

6:53

on in one way or another but there's a lot

6:55

of people are just like I knew that the media

6:57

narrative was what it is.

7:00

It's really great to hear someone

7:02

not gaslight me about that and

7:04

to encourage you

7:06

know looking at the media critically in a

7:08

way that is only recently in part

7:12

of the popular dialogue. It's a lot of

7:14

people being like I always suspected it was

7:16

capitalism all along and now it's good

7:18

to have evidence and also like a ton

7:20

of people over time who have been like

7:22

I used to believe the opposite of this

7:24

and I thank you and but I

7:27

would say that yeah like with our

7:29

core audience is not like people who

7:31

love Reagan who are eager to be

7:33

told how much Reagan talked.

7:36

Right right. What is

7:39

the time in your life that

7:41

you remember is like one of the most monumental mind

7:44

changes? Well I was going to tell

7:46

the story about how I decided to become a

7:48

lawyer and then decided not to become a lawyer

7:51

which was a really interesting year but instead right

7:53

now I'm going to tell the story of how

7:56

I discovered the true meaning of entertainment

7:59

Which my. It allegory for this

8:01

is there's a movie called Sullivan's

8:03

Travels from i think the early

8:06

thirties with Veronica Lake him Zola

8:08

Mcrae and it's about this I

8:10

think movie studio executives who. Has

8:13

been very successful making comedies and he's like

8:15

I'm going to take to the road and

8:17

pretend to be a tramp without a dollar

8:20

to my name so I can learn what's

8:22

happening in the real America and make a

8:24

movie. Of this book by

8:26

Sinclair be seen, who's gay com

8:28

bodes Ill and Steinbeck it and

8:31

Sinclair parody of course. and so

8:33

he trump's around and he made

8:35

Veronica Lake character. And.

8:38

He it at some point,

8:40

naturally. His. Head on the

8:42

head and loses his memory and

8:44

ends up on a chain gang.

8:46

So the chain gang as welcomed

8:48

into a church by a black

8:50

congregation to watch. Movies.

8:53

And. So they show a

8:55

goofy Tarzan Sullivan. Has

8:58

a revelation and realizes that like

9:00

he has to make comedies because

9:03

everyone is sufferings. And

9:05

the true meaning is it means is that

9:07

everyone is suffering and needs to last through

9:10

that. I remember watching that in college and

9:12

being like i love this movie what a

9:14

great moral and then getting older and being

9:16

like I don't really believe that though and

9:18

then the last couple years being like now

9:20

I believe that I believe that now like

9:23

I I am Sullivan. Slugs

9:26

Beautiful. What about you So

9:28

pre? you're wrong about. Weed.

9:31

We've been friends for over a decade and

9:33

for your own about you you change my

9:35

mind about a number of things that I

9:37

know that you didn't ask me to come

9:39

on to talk to you about times that

9:41

you have changed my mind but that has

9:43

happened. One is I had never considered the

9:45

Jack Mccoy was a bad character. until

9:49

skill or or not about your as

9:51

a great character but like bad in

9:54

his out and lawyer about our in

9:56

in his or sam waterston character in

9:58

law's the law and order series who

10:00

by the way is returning for season 22

10:02

of one of the shows. Can't kill McCoy.

10:04

Can't keep a good Irishman down. He's

10:08

the Harry Reid of the Law and

10:10

Order universe. You also changed

10:12

my mind about everyone's just trying their

10:14

best. Like most everyone is just trying

10:16

their best. I think for a long

10:18

time I have had pretty

10:21

unintentionally puritanical Calvinist expectations of

10:23

labor and morality and showing

10:26

up and doing the thing.

10:28

That's been being undone in

10:31

one way or another since I was like a punk

10:33

kid, but I wasn't able to

10:35

find the vocabulary for a lot of that

10:37

until we started our friendship and that's been

10:39

meaningful to me. And then the third, when

10:42

I was a kid and

10:44

getting into punk, I still had a lot

10:46

of, I wouldn't say like right wing, but

10:48

definitely like libertarian tendencies. And

10:51

I made a zine and I handed it out and some of,

10:53

I think some of those tendencies were hinted

10:56

to in some of the zine articles

10:58

and this guy, Dugan Murphy,

11:01

who is still around and he runs these

11:03

like kind of you're wrong about history

11:06

tours of Portland, Maine. He

11:10

reached out and was, I believe

11:12

in an anarchist then

11:14

and is probably would still consider

11:16

himself an anarchist. And he very

11:18

gently was like, I absolutely understand

11:21

how you have

11:23

come to some of these conclusions. Here's

11:25

some pushback and here are the reasons why

11:27

I think that those conclusions are wrong. I

11:30

think you're coming from a good place. I'm

11:32

a punk. I love zines. Like I'm glad

11:34

this is happening, but here's where I'm at.

11:36

And it fundamentally changed my openness

11:39

to other ideas on the

11:41

spot, changed my worldview

11:44

or my willingness

11:46

to pursue other worldviews very quickly. And

11:48

I consider that one of the most

11:50

important pivot points of my life. And

11:54

how old were you? Like 15? 15, yeah. Yeah.

11:57

Wow. I feel like a lot of your

11:59

stories are about like people treating you

12:01

as if you're capable of adult but

12:03

from a young age. I feel like

12:05

that's been influential. Those are

12:08

always the standouts. I saw someone on Twitter

12:11

who I think is involved in

12:13

education in one way or another

12:15

say something of teenage boys that

12:17

was scarily resonant, which was it

12:21

feels like the

12:23

trend with white teenage boys is

12:26

that with everything

12:28

they encounter in their already existing

12:30

sort of worldview that is implanted

12:32

and informed and everything they sort

12:34

of run into online, et cetera,

12:37

the natural pathway for them is to

12:39

end up all right unless there is

12:41

an intervention. I

12:43

could have seen that happening for me if

12:45

Dugan hadn't reached out

12:47

and been like, hey, I'm

12:49

glad you're thinking. But

12:52

it seems like you could add an extra

12:54

step. Yeah, it feels

12:56

like it's like you're sitting at the top of a

12:58

water slide and you don't know that. Potentially,

13:01

you're just like, boy, this feels cool and refreshing.

13:04

And then some older anarchist needs to be like, do

13:06

you know that that's a water slide? Yeah,

13:09

totally. So thanks, Dugan. Thanks, Dugan. Thank

13:11

you to all the Dugans. You're

13:14

a Dugan. Oh,

13:17

gosh. That's the

13:19

goal, certainly, to be just an older

13:21

anarchist. I mean, I think

13:23

that just the philosophies of mine that

13:25

you were just talking about are in

13:27

harmony with that story because my whole approach to

13:29

looking at

13:33

the things humans do, sometimes things that make

13:35

you want to cover your eyes, one

13:38

of the tenets of that is reminding

13:40

yourself of the points at which you

13:43

are vulnerable or could have been vulnerable

13:45

if things had gone differently for you

13:47

and how the

13:50

household you're born into, the

13:52

resources you have, the resources you don't

13:55

have, the trauma you endure. Almost

13:58

all of this is just the luck of the drama. Aside

14:02

from all the other reasons

14:05

why it doesn't make sense to judge

14:08

someone's entire character on their worst

14:10

decision making. I don't know.

14:13

I don't know what I do and don't mean to

14:15

excuse, but I was stupid at 15. Yeah,

14:18

most 15-year-olds are like, if

14:21

not stupid, then at least naive

14:23

or ignorant of something or another,

14:25

right? That's fair to say. Absolutely.

14:28

And I don't even mean that of the views. I

14:30

just mean it's like I only, you know, my

14:32

entire universe. And I

14:35

was bright, but I was stupid.

14:37

Yeah, me too. Exactly.

14:40

Yes. And like,

14:42

it's a malleable time. I think that you're

14:44

like very adult in some ways and very

14:46

childlike in other ways. I'm

14:49

very excited to hear what

14:51

everybody has to say and everybody's stories. Let's

14:54

get into it. Howdy,

14:59

Sarah, and you're wrong about fans. So

15:02

the time I remember the most when

15:04

I changed my mind was early

15:07

in my marriage, my husband

15:09

was discussing his salary openly with his

15:11

friends. And I remember feeling extremely mortified.

15:13

Like how could he be just saying

15:15

his salary and he's just talking about

15:18

his salary and it really, really bugs

15:20

me. And so later, because

15:23

I am the person who is always

15:25

right, capital A and R, I

15:28

talked to him and I said, hey, I'm really uncomfortable

15:30

with you just voicing your salary

15:32

like that. And you know,

15:34

that's now that we're married, that's like part

15:36

of my financial holdings as well. And so

15:38

like, I just think we need to keep that

15:40

information private. And he said, oh,

15:43

why? And in

15:45

my head, I was thinking, come

15:47

on, where are the good reasons? I

15:49

know I have the good reasons in here somewhere. I feel

15:51

strongly about this. So come on, Bri, just give

15:53

me the good reasons. I know they're there. Yeah,

15:56

unfortunately, it took me a day or two to

15:58

continue thinking about that to say. whoa, there

16:02

are no good reasons. Oh

16:05

no, I just think this because it

16:07

was what I was told. The

16:09

more I thought about it, the more I

16:12

came across all these super good reasons to

16:14

always talk about your salary and to always

16:16

be honest about how much money you make. So,

16:21

yeah, lesson is always be

16:23

open to change and never

16:26

just blindly believe anything your

16:28

white boomer parents told

16:30

you when you were growing up. Oh,

16:32

and tell everyone your salary all the time, because that's

16:34

how we get the power back from the bosses. Okay,

16:37

love you. Bye. I changed

16:40

my mind about astrology in the last

16:42

couple of years. And I think

16:44

I had this knee jerk reaction to

16:46

the influx of astrology memes that cropped

16:49

up around like 2016 onward. This is

16:52

a very human thing, of course, that happens

16:54

where one, a popular thing is

16:57

so out of control

16:59

with hype that an individual just retreats into

17:01

a crab shell of pettiness. And

17:04

along with that popular thing, there

17:06

is just an avalanche of technical

17:08

information or a lore that

17:11

an individual just can't be bothered to engage

17:13

with for lack of interest. But

17:15

I was also raised as what my

17:17

dad might term a hardcore atheist, by

17:20

which it's meant that the ideology is

17:22

not just there is no God, but

17:25

any claim to know or believe

17:27

is intellectually inferior to the

17:30

alternative. And any tolerance

17:32

of that claim or belief is

17:34

also intellectually inferior. And that is

17:36

a rotted way of thinking that

17:38

I have not vibed with

17:40

since I was a young teen. But I

17:44

also never thought to apply it to my

17:46

perspective on something like astrology. I thought people

17:48

who were into it were also

17:51

inferior, deluded, and wanted easy

17:53

excuses for their toxic or

17:55

even just annoying traits. brought

18:00

me to a shift on that was learning

18:03

that astrology is way more than the month

18:05

you were born and a gemstone sold to

18:08

you like a Disney

18:10

princess or something. And

18:12

two, that astrology is a centuries

18:15

old tradition of how we make

18:17

sense of ourselves and the myriad

18:19

of beautiful, gross, contradictory things about

18:22

ourselves. And three, the

18:24

occult is a belief or the

18:27

acknowledgement or conceptualization of a higher

18:29

power, is as meaningful

18:32

a form of art or way of thinking or

18:34

inhabiting the world as any other bullshit that I

18:36

can think of. The

18:38

people who really shit on it, I think often

18:40

worship at the altar of capitalism or quote

18:44

unquote objective truth, which are

18:46

both far more poisonous to

18:48

the individual and collective body.

18:51

Now, anyway, about a quarter

18:53

of my time is now spent reading

18:55

through astrology charts of politicians I hate

18:57

and my favorite rom-com pairings, Julia

19:00

Roberts of the Scorpio and Richard Giers

19:02

of Virgo. I'm just saying. Hello.

19:07

I thought you might be interested

19:09

to know that this prompt has

19:11

sent me flashbacks to my GCSE

19:13

English exam and it had

19:16

a creative writing prompt as the

19:18

final question. And this was the

19:20

prompt. They were asking us to write about

19:22

a time when we changed our minds. And

19:25

in this paper, I just threw a total

19:27

blank. I couldn't think of anything that

19:30

I'd changed my mind about. And

19:33

I ended up doing the one thing

19:35

our teachers literally said, don't

19:37

write about this. They said, don't write about the

19:39

beach because for some reason, everyone

19:41

writes about the beach. But

19:43

I can think of anything. So I don't even know how

19:45

I made it, how I made it

19:47

about changing your mind. I think I just said I

19:51

used to think that beach was boring, but actually it's

19:53

pretty. I, who knows?

19:56

So I thought you might like to know that

19:58

I'll be listening to this. of all

20:01

the amazing things I could have written about.

20:04

And I can't wait to hear everyone's much

20:06

better ideas. So yeah, lovely podcast

20:08

and lots of love from the UK. So

20:12

the big time I changed my mind is

20:14

when I went from thinking

20:17

Mystery Science Theater was pointless to thinking it

20:19

was one of the funniest things I'd ever

20:21

seen in my life. Couple

20:24

of times I've changed my mind would

20:26

be, well, for

20:29

context, I'm a food

20:31

service scrub, lifelong most

20:33

likely. And

20:35

I have done naturally

20:38

a ton of job interviews.

20:40

And there have been a ton of

20:43

times where I'll be almost

20:45

to a job interview. I'm in my

20:48

car, I'm in my little cute

20:50

little outfit, you know, to be

20:53

professional, almost there. And then

20:55

I just turn around because the

20:58

vibes are off and I can't

21:00

explain it. Don't know why this happens,

21:02

but sometimes you just feel it, you

21:05

just know. So

21:08

probably the most significant time

21:10

that I've changed

21:12

my mind, I guess, in life

21:14

recently was a job thing. Coming

21:16

out of school, I was

21:19

still working in the field I'd been working in since

21:21

high school and really didn't want to do it.

21:24

Then finally I get a job

21:26

offer in my dream field and

21:29

I did it, I was really, really good at

21:31

it. I got promoted really quickly and

21:33

I was super miserable the entire

21:35

time. I was

21:38

also dealing with my dad, had

21:40

terminal cancer at the same time.

21:43

And I really

21:45

wanted to stick with it because it had

21:47

been so hard to get there and because

21:49

there were things about the work that I

21:51

genuinely enjoyed doing, but it was

21:54

just sort of this slow boiling point where I

21:56

looked up one day and realized that I kept

21:59

watching. TV shows and being like, oh, it's

22:01

so weird how people think that, you know,

22:03

happiness exists. So, I ended

22:06

up going back into the field I

22:08

had originally left and really finding

22:11

something I enjoyed, I guess.

22:14

My job now is something that gives me

22:16

genuine pleasure, which is

22:18

really nice and not super

22:20

common. I

22:22

am glad it turned out

22:24

the way it did, I guess, to the extent that

22:27

I can be. I'm glad to have ended up in

22:29

the place that I'm at. But it's

22:31

weird because I look back on it and I'm

22:33

like, well, how much of that was not liking

22:35

the work and how much of that was the

22:38

life circumstances and how much of that was not

22:40

liking the workplace specifically. But I

22:42

think it was kind of eye opening for me in terms of realizing

22:45

that the thing you do for work

22:48

doesn't have to be a certain level

22:51

of professionalism or adult.

22:53

It can just be something that you

22:55

like doing. And your life is probably

22:57

the most important thing. My

23:01

name's Maggie and this is a story

23:04

about the time I changed my mind

23:06

on my entire career path. So, I

23:09

studied in undergrad. I

23:12

got a biology degree with a

23:14

minor in forensic science and my

23:16

plan was I was going to

23:19

be a forensic scientist. I wanted

23:21

to be helpful. I

23:24

wanted to do that classic thing

23:26

that everybody thinks that they can

23:28

do and change the system from the

23:30

inside. And I was very passionate about

23:32

trying to help

23:35

homicide victims' families and particularly

23:37

I was interested in helping

23:40

clear the backlog of sexual

23:42

assault kits that existed. And

23:45

so, that was kind of like my whole

23:47

thing for all of undergrad. And

23:50

then senior year, the last semester there

23:52

in March or April when it was

23:54

like down to the wire and people

23:56

were already applying for jobs, we

23:59

take this field. trip out to a

24:01

crime lab in somewhere in southern

24:04

Illinois. We do a walkthrough of

24:06

it basically and it just the

24:09

weird obstinance of all of the

24:12

like old law enforcement guys and

24:14

all of the people that even

24:16

worked in the lab was

24:19

just like so apparent immediately and I

24:21

was so uncomfortable the whole time. The

24:23

thing that like pushed it over the

24:25

edge like I was already on edge

24:28

the whole time and then somebody asked

24:30

a question of like well

24:33

what happens if you get it wrong and the guy

24:35

just shut down and is like well getting it wrong

24:37

is not an option and blah blah blah so I

24:40

was like oh okay.

24:43

So this was so soaked in the law

24:45

enforcement mindset there is really

24:49

no getting around this and I

24:51

am witnessing the carceral

24:53

system up close in a way

24:55

that I thought really naively it

24:57

would not be touched if you know

25:00

we were doing science forensic science and

25:02

so I basically

25:04

decided then and thereafter you

25:07

know studying my entire undergraduate

25:09

career to do this

25:11

thing hey I am not going to do that

25:14

so now I am a bacteriologist it

25:16

is pretty neat. Yeah I changed

25:18

my mind for the better and

25:21

chose to be a scientist to

25:23

help with communicable diseases studying

25:25

parasitic worms instead of contributing

25:28

to our bogus criminal justice system

25:30

and a bunch of bogus

25:33

funk science. Thank you so much for your time I

25:35

love the show so much. One

25:39

of the most important things recently

25:41

that I changed my mind about

25:44

is true crime content and

25:46

I have always been a big fan

25:49

quote unquote of true

25:51

crime and continued a

25:54

lot of documentaries, podcasts, read

25:56

books about the topic and

25:59

I always thought that it was

26:01

was for research purposes, kind of

26:03

learning about killers, how

26:05

their mind works and how they operate.

26:07

And it's kind of,

26:10

at first, you think it's kind of

26:12

keeping you safe because you know what to look out for

26:14

in other people. But then I

26:16

read an article and actually, it

26:19

pushes a lot of people who already

26:22

have anxiety to feel

26:24

even more anxious about other people around

26:26

them. We're kind of looking out

26:28

for subtle differences in people

26:30

that can tell us whether they're good or

26:32

bad, just by the way that they're acting.

26:35

And I think a lot of the time,

26:37

true crime content pushes

26:39

the people who are seemingly

26:41

liberal in every other aspect

26:44

of their life into pushing

26:47

for really stringent prison

26:49

sentences and mandatory

26:51

minimums, which we know don't work and

26:54

we know discriminate against

26:56

people of color more than they

26:58

are used against white people. And

27:02

once I'd started to notice

27:04

those little issues that

27:07

was brought up in the article, I

27:09

couldn't stop hearing it. And now I

27:12

fully changed my mind on true crime

27:14

content. I do not consume

27:16

near as much

27:18

as I used to before. I do still

27:20

listen every now and again because it

27:22

was a big part of my life.

27:25

And if it's the

27:27

right podcast, that actually does go into

27:29

what happened and just what happened and

27:31

doesn't kind of read into the

27:33

extra stuff. I do think

27:35

it can be quite useful to understand

27:38

how things happened. But

27:40

other than that, I think it's exploitative.

27:43

I think it is causing a lot

27:45

of anxiety issues in people. And

27:47

I think it's making us distrustful of

27:50

people as a whole. The

27:53

most prominent example of this was at

27:55

the start of 2020. I

27:59

was, formerly in the camp

28:01

of there are just some

28:03

bad apples in the police and

28:06

not all cops are

28:08

bad and it's just about

28:11

weeding out those rotten apples. But

28:14

after everything in 2020, I really started

28:16

to educate myself. I

28:21

tried to read up, especially by

28:23

POC voices

28:26

and I changed my mind. And

28:29

now I am firmly of the

28:31

belief that we should abolish the

28:33

police. I always

28:35

kind of figured myself as someone who

28:37

was on the right side of history and I'm

28:41

a little bit ashamed. I couldn't

28:43

reach that verdict sooner, but

28:47

that's my story. I'm sure

28:49

there are plenty others just like it. I

28:52

used to love old houses. I

28:55

loved the interiors, the exteriors. I used

28:57

to walk down an inner

28:59

city row of these

29:01

hundred year old cottages untouched

29:04

over the generations and I would feel

29:06

this palpable sense

29:08

of gratitude that either

29:10

incidentally or through intentional policies

29:14

they were around for me to see. And

29:17

my mum works in historical conservation

29:19

so I felt grateful

29:21

for that too. But

29:24

I've completely changed my mind on the subject. You

29:28

see we have a very severe housing

29:30

crisis in Australia, specifically a lack

29:34

of housing which has

29:36

led to prices becoming extremely

29:38

unaffordable. And

29:41

one of the big, almost the

29:43

biggest cause of this is that

29:46

there are so many rich homeowners

29:48

who simply don't want the price of their

29:51

house going down. And

29:53

the various zoning

29:55

restrictions or historical

29:58

restrictions. really

30:01

allow these people who already

30:03

own a home to drive

30:06

up the price and if

30:09

they own multiple homes they

30:11

drive up the price of rent and

30:14

I always thought there would be some

30:17

enlightened middle ground on this. I

30:20

guess I hadn't really thought it through entirely but

30:23

my half-formed notion was oh there's got

30:25

to be an inner city car park

30:28

or some industrial

30:30

warehouse that you could convert into

30:32

apartments. It should be

30:34

easy enough to just build enough apartments for

30:37

people to live in and leave those

30:40

beautiful aesthetic areas

30:43

that I loved so much intact but we

30:46

need houses where people want

30:48

to live and you

30:50

can't trust a system that

30:52

is by the homeowners for

30:54

the homeowners and

30:57

every time I see a roll

30:59

of cottages now I

31:01

just think about how many people could live

31:04

in this inner

31:06

city apartment block at a

31:08

time when we need roofs

31:10

over people's heads. Hi

31:19

Sarah, my name is Case. I

31:22

was raised believing giving money to

31:24

homeless people was morally wrong and

31:28

assuming they should just clean up and

31:30

find a job because otherwise my

31:32

money would be turned into their next drug

31:34

purchase. It wasn't

31:36

until I started dating my partner who

31:39

taught me that one it doesn't matter

31:41

what they spend that money on because

31:44

two they are suffering

31:46

hurting and needing so much more

31:48

than I am and

31:51

that whatever I could give would go

31:53

so far in their survival to allow

31:55

them to be a little human And

31:58

I counter that now by our. I always

32:00

having lots of fills in my wallet. To.

32:03

Help folks whenever I can. Because.

32:05

It will never hurt me more

32:08

than how much it will. Help

32:10

them. Hey.

32:13

You're wrong about. So

32:15

for a long time I would

32:17

say that I don't want to

32:19

have children myself, but I would

32:21

consider having them with the right

32:23

person. So a couple weeks ago

32:25

I was reading this long discussion

32:27

and lying about myths and regrets

32:29

of motherhood. He made me change

32:31

my mind of a why. I.

32:34

Don't want to have children. I

32:36

read a lot of comments like

32:38

mothers who didn't really choose to

32:40

the mothers women who felt conned

32:42

into motherhood So one of the

32:45

com in says you should ask

32:47

yourself. Would you Do it?

32:49

On your own. By yourself, Forgettable

32:51

your husband, forget about your support

32:53

system. Would you still want to

32:56

go through a pregnancy and have

32:58

a child if you had to

33:00

do it alone and that com

33:02

and change my mind and made

33:04

me realize that as amazing. As

33:06

ah having a great partner is it

33:09

is not a good reason. To.

33:11

Have a child. It's great support and

33:13

it's good to have. It is surely

33:15

helps, but it's not. Sufficient.

33:18

Enough reason to bring the child

33:21

into the world. It's if you

33:23

lose a partner if something happens

33:25

to your relationship. If something happens

33:27

during your life, you hadn't this

33:30

for another person and. You

33:32

didn't really want it. I. Hope this

33:34

helps. I.

33:37

Remember being in a restaurant with

33:39

my good friend? And a

33:42

kid was acting out because. The.

33:44

Sundance and we both looked at each other

33:46

and this was. Probably. Or

33:48

early two thousand. he didn't have any

33:51

cares about the to sell and only

33:53

in some kids just need a good

33:55

like a good spanking, a good whatever.

33:59

For. Both the. of immigrants, this was

34:01

just how we grew up.

34:03

You know, sometimes a kid needed a

34:05

good whack. Fast

34:08

forward, I have two young kids and

34:11

I have not hit them, I will not hit them. We

34:13

don't spank, we don't do any of that. And

34:16

I don't think that was an active decision or a thing

34:18

I made up my mind about until I

34:20

had children, until I started doing all

34:23

this research or things you just

34:25

didn't know about. And now you're like, oh, everything

34:28

I thought about how

34:31

you raise a child, or how

34:33

you interact with children, or how

34:36

you best lead them

34:38

is definitely maybe wrong

34:40

or not what I thought it

34:42

was. I think

34:44

it really helps that there's like a

34:46

whole generation of people actively trying

34:49

to dismantle what their parents did

34:51

or how they thought was just

34:53

the normal way and

34:55

continue to change their mind about it. Of

34:58

course, people, children should

35:00

have privacy and I shouldn't really police

35:02

every single tone and their emotions are

35:05

growing. Like, it really makes

35:07

sense, it was just something that

35:09

I had to actively change

35:12

my thinking about. And

35:14

we'll probably continue to change as my kids

35:16

get older. It kind of makes

35:18

you think, well, what

35:20

else am I thinking about, Rowan? Hi,

35:26

my name is Megan and I wanted to talk about a time that

35:30

I changed my mind about something. And

35:33

I would say about nine

35:35

or 10 years ago, I

35:37

had a good friend who had made a decision that

35:40

she was going to have a home birth. She wanted

35:42

to have her baby at home. I

35:44

had just had my baby there previously

35:48

and decided that this was a crazy

35:50

thing for someone to do. I just

35:52

could not fathom what in the world

35:54

she was thinking of and I really felt that way. I

35:56

felt very rooted

35:59

in the fact that she was... making a decision that

36:01

could be harmful to her and her baby.

36:03

And looking back even in this memory now,

36:06

I'm realizing that I probably said some of

36:08

those things to her directly. Such a

36:11

good friend. Where I just

36:13

felt like this is crazy. And

36:15

after she had her baby, I remember

36:18

going to see her that afternoon and she

36:21

was at home in her bed nursing

36:24

her baby just looking

36:26

wonderful and lovely and eating

36:29

food from her kitchen. And I kind of

36:31

had this moment of just, this

36:33

is lovely. I'm

36:36

now a midwife who I actually

36:38

do deliver babies in the hospital,

36:40

but I'm a huge advocate for

36:43

women who are low risk and healthy and good

36:45

candidates for having a baby at home. That

36:48

actually it's safer in this

36:50

country to avoid going to a

36:52

hospital if you are a good candidate to stay

36:54

out of the hospital. I went

36:57

a complete just 180 from feeling

36:59

like you're going to kill your baby

37:01

if you have your baby at home.

37:04

She's not feeling like if

37:06

you want a healthy baby and a healthy

37:08

delivery and you're

37:10

an appropriate candidate, being at home is

37:12

probably the better option. So that's my

37:15

story. Thanks. Liz

37:19

here. I'm a long time listener of

37:21

the podcast. I didn't enjoy the

37:23

sex I was having with men, though I

37:25

pretended to often for my own safety. And

37:28

it was definitely made worse when like even

37:30

the smallest amount of consent was taken away

37:33

by my ex. So

37:35

after a series of less toxic

37:37

relationships with men following that one,

37:39

I changed my mind about

37:41

men in general. And I came out to

37:43

my parents as who I am, which is

37:45

a lesbian, changed my mind

37:47

as well about wanting a fixed relationship in life

37:50

and decided that I'm going to be my own

37:52

primary partner in all of this because at the end

37:55

of the day, I belong to me.

38:00

Hi Sarah. I change

38:02

my mind all the time, but

38:04

I will say one of the biggest times I changed

38:07

my mind on something that I was really hard set

38:10

on is when I started

38:12

going to therapy a few years ago and met

38:15

my therapist Bernie. One

38:17

of the patterns he saw me was I

38:20

was conditioned from many

38:23

vantage points in my life to

38:25

be a pretty affable

38:28

helper personality and

38:30

I didn't know how to turn that

38:33

off and sometimes that would result in

38:35

me becoming a

38:37

very serviceable and manipulated

38:41

person in a lot of my

38:43

relationships. And you

38:45

know when you are in

38:48

friendships or relationships with people who take advantage

38:50

of that you start

38:52

to get beaten down in ways especially

38:54

in your communication skills at

38:57

least I was and he pointed out

38:59

to me you know Rachel when

39:01

you were in this kind of personal assistant

39:03

mode you feel like you have

39:05

to read between

39:07

the lines of what people are saying to make

39:11

them happy in ways that

39:13

are not your responsibility. You know you do

39:15

not have to take

39:18

anything they say outside of

39:20

face value and that was eye-opening for

39:23

me I was like wow because up

39:25

until that point I thought I had

39:27

to be everything to

39:29

everyone all the time and then I realized

39:33

I can't sustain a life

39:35

that way. I'm not a mind reader I

39:38

shouldn't have to be and people who treat me the way

39:40

that I should as if I should are not people

39:43

I should be willingly

39:46

engaging in conversation with and

39:48

that opened doors for

39:50

me and made my life a whole

39:52

lot better. I'm

39:56

Tom Mirdebob I'm a professor of psychology

39:59

when I was at the end of

40:01

my undergraduate education, say, 96, something

40:04

like that. I thought a lot

40:06

about what I ought to do next, whether

40:09

I might go into literature, become

40:12

an English professor, literature professor,

40:14

or something like that, or

40:16

go into psychology, into science.

40:19

And I thought a lot about it, and

40:21

I developed this opinion that the only ethical

40:23

thing to do was to go into science,

40:25

because in science I could discover facts, and

40:28

facts would be how I could

40:31

improve the world and improve people's

40:33

lives. And

40:36

therefore the only ethical thing to do would be to go

40:38

into science, since I had some capacity

40:40

to do that, and I've changed my mind

40:42

about that. So

40:44

what changed my mind, one,

40:46

is that I learned how difficult

40:49

it is in science to, first of

40:51

all, find out something that's definitely

40:53

true. And

40:55

second of all, to get something

40:57

that's true back out into

40:59

the world in a way that definitely helps people.

41:03

It's not impossible that it's hard, maybe

41:06

especially in psychology. Two,

41:09

I learned about

41:11

the reproducibility crisis in

41:13

psychology, where it turned out

41:15

that a fair number of people were

41:18

doing psychology in such a way that

41:20

they basically ended up writing stories with

41:22

some numbers attached. I

41:24

didn't mean to, and hopefully we're

41:26

doing better now. But

41:28

a fair amount of what I learned in

41:30

graduate school turned out to be a nice

41:32

story, as opposed to something that had a

41:34

lot of evidence behind

41:37

it. And

41:39

the third thing was that

41:41

one time while I was jogging,

41:43

it really occurred to me that

41:46

like many other times I was jogging while

41:48

listening to a story, and

41:50

that listening to that story really

41:52

felt like it was doing some

41:54

good for me, which

41:57

is, of course, something that psychologists could study.

42:00

largely haven't and largely don't have

42:02

the resources to. And

42:06

so I concluded that knowing

42:08

what the right ethical field to go

42:10

into and thinking that

42:13

I knew what that was in 1996, not

42:17

so much a mistake, it's just something that you can't

42:21

really know all that

42:23

easily. Hello,

42:26

my name is Rachel. My sister is

42:28

four years older than me. We've always

42:30

been really close. And about maybe when

42:32

I was seven or eight years old,

42:35

we were at this restaurant with my family. And

42:37

I always got chicken tenders and fries. I was

42:40

a ticket eater when I was little. And so

42:42

we were putting everything into go boxes as we

42:44

were wrapping up dinner. And my

42:46

we would, you know, draw on the boxes with crayons,

42:48

you know, while we were waiting for our parents to

42:50

finish up the bill. So I'm drawing on my box

42:53

and I write Rachel's chicken. And then my sister took

42:55

the box and was drawing on it. This is

42:57

three who's four years older than me. And she

42:59

wrote Moo. And I said, Why

43:01

did you just write Moo on my

43:03

chicken? I wasn't the logic wasn't there.

43:06

And she looks at me. And she

43:08

goes, Rachel, chicken comes from

43:10

cows. I'm younger than her. I'm like

43:12

seven or eight. And I look at her and I'm like, No,

43:15

it doesn't. But she's my older. I'm like,

43:17

am I wrong? Is she wrong? I had

43:19

genuinely no idea in this moment who was

43:21

right. And so I turned to my parents

43:23

and I'm like, Hannah thinks chicken comes from

43:25

cows. And they look back at

43:27

me and they're like, uh, what? Turns

43:31

out after some investigation, Chick-fil-A just

43:33

thoroughly confused her because their mascot

43:35

is a cow. And it says

43:38

eat more chicken. So

43:40

she thought chicken came from cows because

43:42

Chick-fil-A cows were always telling her to

43:44

eat more chicken. And honestly, I

43:46

can't really blame her. And she got

43:49

you wronged about by me. And that

43:51

was a pretty funny moment that I

43:53

definitely never let her live down. Hello,

43:55

my name is Tasha. I live in Brooklyn and oh my

43:57

god, so many things I could talk about. things

46:00

in horny 70s cookbooks. Anyway,

46:02

I've changed my mind about tons

46:05

of different things over the course of my life. And

46:08

I've also changed my mind about

46:10

changing my mind and whether or not it's

46:12

a good thing. So I grew

46:14

up evangelical and the key to getting into heaven

46:16

and being a good person and making sure that

46:19

your kids get into heaven are good people is

46:21

like maintaining this set

46:23

of very specific pretty rigid correct

46:25

beliefs, like no matter what. So

46:28

growing up changing your mind wasn't framed

46:30

as like growing or adapting

46:33

to new information or things like that.

46:35

It was framed as losing your faith

46:37

or being inconsistent, all of which is supposed

46:39

to be bad, right? But

46:42

two things stand out. You

46:44

can change your mind and still have consistent values.

46:46

In fact, that might even be a hallmark of

46:48

it. So like you love your

46:50

neighbor, you love your kids, and

46:53

you're constantly learning how to do that

46:55

better in more practical ways. I

46:58

also wish that we were all a little more

47:00

comfortable just being wrong about things and knowing that

47:02

that doesn't mean that we're stupid or bad. A

47:05

lot of resistance that I see to learning seems to

47:07

be because people are scared. They're like, Oh, if I'm

47:09

wrong about this, then I guess I'm just a bad

47:11

person and everyone's done with me forever. But that's not

47:14

really true. Being wrong about stuff

47:16

doesn't mean that I was bad. It doesn't mean that

47:18

other people are bad. It's

47:20

really what you do once you have evidence that

47:22

you were wrong about something important, like are

47:24

you able to love the truth and the

47:26

people around you more than you love the

47:28

sense of security of being right about things?

47:31

Anyway, thank you for telling me all the things that I've been

47:34

wrong about over the years. I've learned a lot from your show

47:36

and I love it. Bye.

47:39

I was raised by very conservative

47:41

parents who always voted Republican.

47:44

And when I was young, I often

47:46

parroted talking points back to them because

47:48

it made me feel smart.

47:51

It made them praise me. And

47:54

it wasn't until I moved away from home

47:56

at the age of 18 and I

47:58

began to learn more about the world. world and

48:00

I was exposed to a wider

48:02

variety of people and

48:05

I realized that they were not the

48:08

monsters that my parents had made them out

48:10

to be and my political

48:12

beliefs have completely changed and

48:15

I'm very grateful for that. I'm

48:17

grateful that I had the opportunity to

48:19

be exposed to the wider world and

48:22

now that is probably the greatest change

48:24

I've ever made. I believe

48:26

I changed my mind and I changed my

48:28

heart too. So

48:32

I was raised in a

48:34

pretty Christian household and

48:36

homeschooled for my entire life.

48:40

I was also raised by a mom who

48:42

at the time really hadn't figured out modern

48:45

technology and also didn't really

48:47

understand my unfettered

48:50

access to books at the library. So

48:53

something that I changed my mind about

48:55

was when I was younger I was

48:58

taught that conversion therapy

49:00

was a valuable

49:03

option. People would kind of speak at

49:05

my church who were victims of conversion

49:07

therapy, you know, talk

49:09

about how great it was for them

49:12

and at the time I was like, yeah, that seems

49:15

to work out good for them. You can live

49:17

your life not in sin. Easy

49:20

peasy, great. But as

49:22

I got older, started kind of making choices

49:25

for myself, I went

49:28

on kind of an internal campaign to

49:31

read more diverse books. And

49:33

so one of the things that I did was I found a

49:35

list about LGBTQ

49:38

recommendations. And one

49:40

of the books was the Miseducation

49:43

of Cameron Post.

49:45

I read that book and,

49:47

you know, had this

49:50

fictionalized first hand account of

49:52

what it was like to realize

49:54

that you're queer. And then also

49:56

you'd be forced to go to conversion therapy

49:59

and just how damaging

50:01

that was and abusive

50:05

and it really changed my

50:07

perspective and my belief

50:10

in you know people

50:12

using and promoting conversion therapy. Yeah

50:15

I'm pretty ashamed of the thoughts

50:17

that I used and beliefs that I

50:19

had when I was younger but I

50:21

was also just really happy that I

50:24

was fortunate enough to have kind of

50:26

the unfettered access to

50:29

the internet to find

50:32

lists of those books and then also

50:35

not a really restrictive library

50:37

card. So if my

50:39

mom had not I was reading that I would have definitely been

50:41

in trouble but luckily she didn't and I

50:44

get to be a better person because of

50:46

it. Hello

50:48

my name is Rachel so

50:50

growing up I've always been

50:53

extremely stubborn very independent ask

50:55

anyone in my family and

50:57

so growing up I always thought to myself

50:59

I would never be in an abusive relationship

51:02

because I'm just too stubborn and it wasn't

51:04

because I thought people who were you know

51:06

abused by their partners were weak or anything

51:08

like that I understood that

51:10

though they were manipulated and controlled

51:12

I just thought that I was

51:14

too stubborn to ever fall under

51:17

someone's control. Well fast forward

51:19

to meeting 18 brand new in

51:21

college and I met this guy

51:23

on Tinder and it ended up

51:25

being a very abusive relationship mostly

51:27

just emotionally but I didn't even

51:29

realize that it was domestic violence

51:31

until after the relationship when a

51:33

therapist told me about the domestic

51:35

abuse cycle and I knew a

51:37

good abusive relationships were but I

51:39

had no idea about the abusive

51:41

cycle and it just all made

51:43

so much sense and I couldn't

51:45

believe that I had fallen into it

51:48

but he manipulated me so much and I thought

51:50

I loved him so much that I never considered

51:52

it abuse which is new slash

51:55

how a lot of people in abusive relationships

51:57

are they love their partners so much they

51:59

don't consider how they're

52:01

treating them as abuse. And

52:03

something about the domestic abuse cycle

52:05

is that the victim can get caught

52:07

up in it and not

52:10

necessarily be abusive themselves, but can partake

52:13

in some of the abuse that happens

52:15

because they're fighting back. So

52:17

it's really important, I think, for people to know

52:19

what the domestic abuse cycle is and what

52:22

it looks like, because that is such an

52:24

insight into abusive relationships and how they work.

52:26

And had I known that, maybe I would

52:29

have actually seen what was going on at

52:31

the time. So that's my you're

52:33

wrong about. I was wrong that I would never

52:35

end up in an abusive relationship. And unfortunately,

52:38

I don't want anybody to relate to this,

52:40

but I think people could relate to it. And I

52:42

think it's really important just considering

52:44

the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial

52:46

that's going on. It's important

52:48

for people to know what an abusive

52:50

relationship even is. It's not just someone

52:53

yelling or hitting. It's a cycle, a

52:55

continuous cycle that people get trapped in.

52:58

Nobody ever means to get trapped in this

53:00

cycle. It just happens. I

53:04

changed my mind about love when my husband threatened

53:06

my cat. I used

53:08

to believe that love, once you'd gotten married, was

53:11

forever. I wanted to spend my older years with

53:13

the same person I'd spent my younger years with.

53:16

I believed in always. And

53:20

I knew that sometimes when men are

53:22

unhappy, they are angry. I

53:25

knew that the man I loved got angry sometimes, but

53:28

he showed me anger I'd never seen before after we

53:30

got married. He told me he hated me.

53:33

He called me disgusting, and he called

53:35

me a burden. And he asked

53:38

me to give up more and more parts of my life.

53:41

My job, my friends, my

53:43

family. And I

53:45

gave them because I believed that love

53:47

meant making one person happy. When

53:51

his anger was directed at me,

53:53

I thought, well, love

53:55

is forgiveness. But when

53:57

he angrily said, you're lucky I

53:59

didn't. Kill that fucking cat. I

54:02

decided that it was time for me to get a job. And

54:05

now that I have a job, I intend

54:07

to pay my own rent. And

54:10

as of today, I live

54:12

alone with my cat. I

54:15

changed my mind about love. It

54:18

does not exist forever. It

54:20

exists as long as it is taken care of.

54:33

And that's our episode. Thank you so much

54:36

for listening. Thank you for being

54:38

with us. Thank you for sharing your story if you're one

54:40

of the people who did hear or in

54:42

another episode or will in the future. We

54:44

hope you do. We listen to

54:46

everything that everybody sends in and it

54:49

makes our hearts and brains bigger and we

54:51

love you so much for it. See

54:54

you in two weeks. Thank

55:00

you.