Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're gonna take a look at the use of trigger warnings and the debate that's happening over whether they're actually helping people like they're intended to or not, and or even in some cases, could be harmful to some people, and particularly people that they're actually trying to help the most.
And later on, we're going to react to India being the first country to land on the moon near the south Pole, which is an area of the moon thought to possibly contain water in the form of ice. So it's. It's a place where people have been trying to land or, you know, trying to target to go land. And there have been attempts that haven't been successful lately as well, but India did it.
So joining me today is a man who is the heartbeat of this podcast, Tunde Ogun. Lana Tunde. Are you ready to get right back in the middle of this?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta go to a cardiologist. Let's make sure we don't have heart disease. You gotta put it like that, you know?
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Well, I don't think we're having any problems with the podcast. What are you trying to tell me, man?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: I don't know. That's why I just want to make sure I'm healthy, that's all. Remember, I'm middle aged. I'm all stressed out.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: I think I might have triggered you, man.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, you did. That. Was that. Should I had a trigger warning?
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Just in time for the show.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Oh, man. So we're recording this on August 28, 2023. And when it comes to trigger warnings, which over the past 20 years or so have been increasingly used to give people, you know, intended to give people notice of the presence of certain content in something, in some kind of material that could be triggering. And, you know, the purpose is to give people who've experienced trauma kind of a heads up that that's coming and they can prepare themselves and not kind of hit them out of the blue. But there's recently been a substantial amount of debate on whether not only does this work actually when you give people a heads up, do they then deal with it better? But also, could the trigger warning itself be something that creates some kind of stress and trauma?
So to get us started, tunday, what do you make of this idea that trigger warnings, which, like I said, it's been a trajectory of people using them more and more. Now, whether you agree with people using them or not is beside the point, just that people have been using them more and more. And now you look up and there's this debate and there's academic support, you know, studies and so forth, that these things may be ineffective at best or counterproductive at worst, at least for some people. And this debate is happening in many cases amongst people who were former advocates of trigger warnings. So, you know, what do you think about this?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's fascinating and a great topic of discussion, especially in today's just climate, of how we all are dealing with each other, I think, in our culture and our society, because I think this is a great example, as I was reading more and more into it, of how I think, you know, what do they say? The road to hell is paved with well intended good intentions? Yeah. And I think this is one of those, not to be so dramatic, to say this is the road to hell, but meaning to your point about some of the researchers that maybe 20 years ago were really advocating for trigger warnings have now developed, some of them, a counter view that these things have been harmful. And I think this goes back into a little bit of what we've discussed at various points in the show, too. The idea of science is really to constantly try and prove its own theories wrong. And that's what I appreciate about some of these things we've been discussing lately is these are things that appeared. I mean, the idea of warning someone that's been through trauma, that they may be traumatized if they see or experience something again through our kind of just consumer market of media and things like that, I mean, on its surface, it does sound like it would be something that would be helpful for general society.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Logically, it sounds like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. If you give them a heads up that it's coming, then they can kind of prepare themselves and you won't hit them out of the blue, like, logically, that makes sense.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yep. And so, but then in preparing for today, I mean, and I'll share these things as we go through the show, I just started thinking about, like, my own life and certain things that I've been through and, you know, realizing that, you know, I think the new way that some of these researchers are looking, this is actually accurate. That, of course, there's a balancing act, I think, with many things in life, and obviously people that have experienced serious trauma, like rape, you know, real bad abuse when they were kids, things like that. I mean, I don't think I want to make it very clear that in this conversation, our intent isn't to say that people who have experienced trauma should just get over it. But I do think that. So there is that kind of trauma which stands on its own, but I do think there's the kind of regular micro infractions and kind of the day to day stuff that we deal with on each other.
And I think that, yeah, that people being in their safe spaces too much, I can see, definitely has a negative effect long term for society, and especially when it's young people who aren't allowed to develop their emotional skills to deal with adversity. So.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, also being in safe spaces, just kind of taking that a little further. There is a. I think there's a term for it called socialization that happens. Like, you know, I have younger kids, and so that's something I've made it a point to try to make sure that I'm doing with my kids in terms of, like, to me, school is a lot about, there's. There's the learning, like, academic stuff, but a large part of school is socialization. Like, how do we learn to interact in groups as human beings and interact with different people? Different people are different, and so forth, because it's not. Part of the problem that we have in a lot of situations is everybody's projecting all the time. So everybody's saying, oh, well, I look at things a certain way, so therefore, everybody looks at things that way. And in a situation like this, you're looking at, okay, the trigger warning, I think it comes from a good place, but definitely the people who kind of came up with the logic like it sounds logical to me, but they were people that probably would have appreciated heads up. But the situation you could, where you can walk into a trouble there is that you're assuming that everybody would appreciate the heads up or that there aren't any keyword, unintended. Key phrase, unintended consequences that would happen when you say, hey, here's a trigger warning. Here's a trigger warning. And in the sense that, and that's some of the stuff that's being uncovered now is like, you're actually training people to be triggered or look, making people sometime in some cases making them feel more fragile by saying, hey, this is something that might throw you off and so forth. So. But I wanted to say, first off, I think this is a good, that we're trying stuff. You know, like, if this is something that might help, let's give it a try. But the key piece is to keep an open mind. And if it's not working the way we planned, then maybe we got to reevaluate. And that's what, that's what we're seeing right now. But I'm not going to knock people for trying to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes and say, hey, how can we help this person? If you're wrong, you're wrong. Just don't hold on to that belief forever. Just say, okay, I'm wrong. What else can we do? Or what can we do to make things better? If our initial thought didn't work as planned, then be flexible.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that flexibility, look, that's going back to science, that's obviously to theories. Continuing to be proved wrong gets us closer to the rights. And so once at least, it helps.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Us with the process of elimination.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Yeah, and look, it's kind of like the margarine and butter right margin was developed as a way to say, okay, you know, we've got a growing population, suburbs. Not everyone's on a farm, and you can't get, you know, milk and fresh butter out as quickly. So here's a way. It's processed and it can sit on a shelf for a while and, you know, that was seen as a way to help society.
And then, you know, a generation or two later that they discovered, yeah, this stuff is worse than actual natural butter. And so I think that we have to give, you know, like we're saying, when new things are tried, it naturally takes time for us to see how society is affected by it and then to make adjustments. And unfortunately, there are some people that might have a negative experience with it along the way. And like you said, that in this case, the idea of trigger warnings, I think, well intended, as we're saying. But like, one of the articles that got us into our private discussion, that got us thinking about doing this as a topic, you know, the author was someone that used to advocate for trigger warnings, but she said she started realizing that as she's just posting stuff in her social media and discussing things. Like, she said she had an experience that made her want to throw up.
And then someone wrote back in her comments, hey, be careful, you know, you should have put a trigger warning out there for people with eating disorders. And then she said she posted a video of, like, that she just thought was funny and cute of this group of cats kind of attacking a dog. And someone, like, got on her hard, like, in a serious way saying, hey, you shouldn't have put that out there because that could be a trigger for someone that's been through domestic abuse. And that's what I'm saying, like, it's interesting because I thought, yeah, that that's when kind of people are just taking it too far and want to complain about anything. I mean, at some point, you know, we've all seen videos about cats that are. That are funny and make us. LAUGhtER and I think that's where that equilibrium is for our society to figure out and continue to figure out is, you know, what's too much in terms of constantly this criticism of what other people are doing and this cancel stuff and all that, that happens with every kind of group in America.
And what are things that really, that we should be respectful about someone else's kind of journey if they've been through something traumatic?
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Well, you're saying. You're talking about finding a line. But I took that actually a little differently in the sense that what I took the point being the biggest takeaway there from is that people basically, by using trigger warnings, by introducing the concept of trigger warnings, basically, in some people's minds, I'm not here to say who's going too far, but in some people's minds, the idea that where they are, has to be free of anything they could possibly object to. That expectation grew out of that. Like, that expectation, I would say, in general, is an unreasonable expectation. Like the expectation that I should never see something that I find objectionable is unreasonable.
But it created that expectation amongst people. And then if you create that expectation, it's actually easier to hurt that person because then they're operating not from more of a defensive standpoint. Sometimes I see things on topic x, and it bothers me, and I'm just like, all right, well, whatever. And again, I'm not coming from a place of extreme trauma, but where the rubber meets the road on this stuff, honestly, is. There's a couple pieces we're gonna share in the show notes, one from the Atlantic, but the other from the New Yorker. The New Yorker piece talked about how and a lot of the academic studies that have been happening and over the past five years or so, and they're looking at and seeing that with people who. Where trauma is central to their identity is something that's something where you can. That oftentimes will predict more PTSD, but those people oftentimes can be harmed the most by trigger warnings. And so that's like, if that's the case, you know, if that's something that the research is showing, then it's even when, without the caveat of, hey, we understand certain people have serious things of trauma. And, you know, like, we're not necessarily talking about that. But even without, if they're, if they're potentially going to be harmed most by the use of use of trigger warnings, you got to re evaluate the whole thing, and that's what's happening. And again, that's not to say that people who said before, oh, we shouldn't do that stuff, that they're vindicated, because trying stuff is important, and it's not always about, oh, well, this won't work, so we're not gonna try it. Oh, well, this won't work, so we don't try it. You gain, even if the solution you ultimately come to isn't, doesn't produce the ideal result, you do gain valuable information that you can use to build the next iteration of solutions. And so we're gonna talk about space later, and it's like, well, if they only shot rockets into space or tried to shoot them into space in the 1950s and sixties, they only shot rockets that they were 100% sure would go all the way, you know, to wherever they were trying to go in space, then the space program would have never got off the ground. They had to say, okay, let's try this. You know, we got a 70% chance this is going to work, let's try it. And if it doesn't work, then we'll take the information we got from that to build the next one. But if we just didn't try it, like, hey, we're not trying anything until we're 99% sure it's going to work. And it's like, well, we'd still be trying, you know, because you're not going to be 100% sure on some doing something. And a lot of times until you do it, particularly when you're dealing with unpredictable things like billions of people or millions of people or thousands of people who are all different and who all process things in oftentimes unique ways.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: And I think that's where, you know, I mean, look, the idea of social norms and things like that are, I think, part of this discussion because as our culture and our society kind of transitions to the next generations, you know, Gen Z and the millennials kind of becoming adults and getting their thoughts in here. I mean, part of it is, and I like the way you said the studies from the last five to ten years, because it's another reminder that a lot of this mental and emotional scientific research is pretty new.
You know, it's kind of, a lot of things kind of began in the nineties in terms of looking at these type of parts of our emotional psychology. So this is a new frontier of science, and we should expect that we'll see more changes in the coming decades. But I think one of the things that we need to be careful for, and I think that's what might be a little bit annoying to some of us, older people, you know, people over 40, let's say, is that there's a lot of younger people that we are. We've been removed from there. Like, we didn't go to school, like, ten years ago in terms of high school and middle school. We weren't in university in the last ten years. And a lot of those environments have changed. And I found in that article in New Yorker an interesting point. They say in 2014, the American association of University Professors criticized the use of these kind of what they call in the university setting, general content warnings instead of, I guess, trigger warnings. Using that term, and I quote, the organization of professors, their statement was, the presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in the classroom is at once infantilizing and anti intellectual. It makes comfort a higher priority than intellectual engagement, and it singles out politically controversial topics like sex, race, class, capitalism, and colonialism for attention. So let me unpack that, because there's a lot in there. One is the last part of what it says, it singles out politically controversial topics. Goes back to, like you're saying, for some people, just putting the trigger warning has them then focusing on those things primarily, which then reinforces their own internal PTSD about the subject, in a sense, for some. And then the second is.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: And it's also almost like a. It's like a unconscious suggestion, almost that. And that was some of the. Yeah, like you said. Yeah, you're actually. It's a warning means that, like, if it's stop sign, warning, stop sign ahead, there's a stop sign there. Like, you need to stop. And so the use of the term warning is almost like it's happening. You're about to be triggered, you know, like. So it's almost like. Becomes a. You know how our brains are, you know, powerful. It's almost become self fulfilling at that point, but go ahead.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Well, there's. There's one on that I specifically want to come to, but I want to get through this. Come back to. But I want to get through this, this extra, because I saw a few things in here that the thing about, um, that is infantilizing and anti intellectual, and it makes comfort a higher priority than intellectual engagement. That's where I thought of the other example from the Atlantic article where she said, gave the example of exercise and working out that we are, most of us in today's world are comfortable with the idea that if I'm going to get in shape and I'm going to start working out, it's going to cause a little bit of pain and soreness for a while, right. Because I'm pushing my body in a way that is uncomfortable, but I know that I'm doing this for a longer term benefit, whatever that means to someone working out. It could be walking, could be weightlifting, whatever, but you're going to be sore, especially when you start. But most people that end up pushing through that see a lot of benefits. And that article to me was very good because it was the first time I had heard someone then make that analogy with the mental and emotional side of life that sometimes just getting pushed emotionally or challenged intellectually, you might be upset and pissed off in the short run at whoever challenged you or went against the grain of whatever you thought, but in the long run, having more of those experiences, again, let's be very clear here, as long as they're kind of more what we would consider a healthy dialogue or confrontation, we're not talking about somebody being emotionally and psychologically abusive to another person for a long period.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Of time before you, before you jump from. Because I wanted to, I wanted to add something because the exercise piece I thought was incomplete in this.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Let me just finish this point, because I just want to make the point that I would, I would say that in like a college classroom setting would be somewhere where I could say someone's being pushed intellectually versus being abused emotionally for a long period of time. But go ahead.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and that, that's, that's kind of explained it. Yeah, no, that's context specific. And a lot of these are, and like, that's kind of the thing is, it's hard to come up with hard and fast rules for things like this across the board, particularly because I thought the exercise example was a, was going down the right path, but it was incomplete in the sense that if you have a broken leg, then the pain you would experience trying to take a walk would not be beneficial. Pain you would have to get, allow the broken leg to heal. And then you do some kind of rehab, rehab. A lot of time is painful, and then you could take the walk and your muscles might feel, oh, I haven't done this in a long time. So then you feel that, that good kind of hurt, so to speak. And so, but with, when you're talking about physical ailments, it's easier to. For our society, it's easier to see and identify. Okay. Yeah, you got this issue with the knee. So until we, you know, reattach this ligament and, you know, do through surgery and stuff, and then we have these specific things you're going to do through the rehab process. Like, we can chart it out by the day as far as when you are not able to experience any. When you can't try to push yourself through any pain, when you can start trying to push yourself through pain. Like, we have it all charred out, but the. With the emotional side and the mental side, we just don't. We don't know. A lot of times you are, like, trying to fly blind in many respects. So I get the kind of struggle that that is as far as, okay, well, how do we push people to grow yet? How do we also note, I beat people down, not tell the person, the broken leg, like, get out there and walk it off, you know? And so it's very difficult to do from, you know, from just the emotional stand. But go ahead real quick.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah. The broken leg analogy, to me would be someone who faced what we were on today's discussion are differentiating to be from an emotional and, let's say, intellectual standpoint, serious trauma.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: So, you know, like somebody suffering from severe PTSD or even moderate PTSD. Like. Like.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And I.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: My point is, is that's not always diagnosed. And so, of course, if you have a broken leg, whether it's diagnosed by a clinical practitioner, you know, like, oh, yeah, this is, like, there's. It's just harder to know when the line is from. Oh, I've just. I've experienced trauma, and it's troubling for me. It's hard for me versus. Okay, well, now I'm in a. You know, I've crossed the line where it's. Yeah, actually, yeah, it's more serious than that. And so that's kind of what I mean. Like, it's still. It's not hard and fast like it is from the physical.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Well, I'd say.
And a good example would be something we've discussed privately, which I think, you know, we have permission to have this discussion on air because as two black american dudes, we've talked about things like racism and how that is a. There's certain things that are triggering for black Americans that they could feel that this is someone being racist to me, is. And then there's obvious ones, like the use of the n word, for example. Right. Then there could be subtle ones that are more cultural stereotypes, like someone making a joke about you eating watermelon and fried chicken. And.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: And there's several levels of this, by the way, because. Well, let me. Let me throw out a couple of them, because then you have the age, and you've talked to me about this, where some. Sometimes you'll see older black people are triggered in different ways than you might be. And then we know that they'll be. That people that are younger experience different types of things. And then also you can see amongst, like, black people aren't a monolith, you know, like, which America's kind of picked up on a little bit, but kind people react differently to that. Some people can see that kind of stuff, keep their nose to the grind and keep.
It might bother them, but you might not know, or you won't know enough. And then some people, like, it shuts them down. And it's like, it's trauma, it's stress. It's all of that. So it's not to say that the people, that it shuts them down. There's something wrong with them, so to speak. But it's definitely like, the range of responses that you will see gives you a fair kind of snapshot. Like, you take a whole society and you got to spread that out. And that's how it is. People can be triggered by different things and then depending. And then depending on what they've seen, where they've come from and so forth, and then their love, how they respond.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: To, you know, it's a good one. I had a real life conversation with a white woman who is in her early mid sixties. And she, this is back probably in the 20, 2021, 21 time when everyone was stuck on home on Zoom, and we had that George Floyd Summer, and she was in some kind of women's leadership group with just other women around the country. And there was.
She was telling me this story because she was like, tune, why this lady gets so mad at me, right? And so she says that the lady, you know, just did read something, and it was just, you know, did. It was her turn to do a presentation, I guess, of whatever they were talking about. And she says that after the. And you're gonna smile when I say this, after the. The lady was done that she said, that was an awesome presentation, and that was so eloquent and. And you were so articulate and that the lady, like, chewed her out. Why are you saying that about me? Isn't that. And I explained her. I go, look, that that was a triggering thing for that lady. I don't know. The lady's past. But there's a lot of black Americans that when they're the only one in the room, you know, sometimes there is.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: A history that, like, a patronizing type of history.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah, like, oh, you're so well spoken, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: You're not like the rest of the black.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah. You're not like the other black people, people that are stupid and can't speak English. And of course, we can take offense to that. And so that's what I was. But I felt bad for this lady because she genuinely was like, what did I say? You know, like, I didn't, I didn't intend, like, for this.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: And that's another example of that, though, is like, if that same thing would have been said to you, you might have been like, oh, that wasn't right. But you probably wouldn't fly, just your personality. You wouldn't fly off the handle. You know, you might say something like, hey, you know, like, that's, there's something to that more than what you might have known, you know, yada, yada, yada. But, and so that's kind of the thing. And so when you're dealing with triggered, like, I think we have to apply that kind of mindset when we're looking at trigger warnings as well. And just the sense that the trigger warning itself is a stimuli, and that's kind of what these new studies are showing. It's a stimuli itself. So using it doesn't just say, everybody doesn't take that and say, okay, I'm ready now you can give it to me. You know, some people are triggered automatically, and then when you have that, you then create, you can create these unintended consequences that then filter down further. And so there's another concept, though, like, almost a reverse concept or just, it's in the same lane, though, that I wanted to ask you about because it's just related. And that's with the post traumatic growth that people are talking about. And the reason why you could say these are kind of adjacent is just in the sense that post traumatic growth, both trigger warnings and post traumatic growth assume a traumatic event and, you know, that someone has experienced, and then the trigger warning is like, hey, you know, we don't want to hit you with something out of the blue that might, you know, bring that back in your mind. You know, trigger you in an unfortunate way. Whereas the post traumatic growth is looking at it from a different angle, just saying, like, people who are able to process and, you know, like, it's not to say again, not to assign a value to people, you know, this person is better than somebody else, but be able to process it and turn trauma into something positive in their life. And so what from this theory, post traumatic growth, what was your view on that? And you think this is something that we can maybe learn from and try to figure out the secrets to making that something that more people can experience or kind of take advantage of?
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought that was. I mean, to me it's profound that I've never heard of this till now, honestly, till just. We started looking into this. This is one of the ones I saw that the researchers first, kind of the psychologists that developed this theory first came up with it in 1996 and published papers. And that also made me realize, like, we only focus as a society on PTSD, not this PTG. And it's again, our pension as humans to kind of focus on the negative a lot.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Well, but also the PTSD we see as something needing our assistance, whereas the PTG, it's like, oh, yeah, no, but.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Like you said about your thing, trigger warnings that a lot of these things can get our mind already in a place to. To think. So if we. I feel like as a society, if we just helped. Not saying that you got to ignore PTSD, but if as people come into traumatic events, especially if they're, like, I say, more micro. I mean, I get it that if someone's really, you know, you see your parents murdered in front of you or something, those aren't things that I would say, oh, you know, just get up.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: I get what you're saying. But, like, more. So, like, if we made it, like, made it known that this was one of the pathways as well, thing like that, that's common.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Like, it seems like one of the things I read from the American Psychological association, an article on their site, is that the researchers at least that wrote this piece believed that at least eight, or they said as many as. Not at least, but as many as 89% of people they studied that go through a traumatic experience, actually go the direction of the post traumatic growth. So I think found that kind of positive. Like, okay, it seems like a majority of people can go through something tough and grow and our species wouldn't have survived, basically. Yeah, it's interesting. That's what I mean. So it's. And that's the part in learning about this and reading that. I just started thinking about my own life. Like, okay, what has happened? Certain things have happened to me. Like, you know, both you and I faced racism being called the n word when we were young, but it didn't stop us from trying to pursue certain avenues and goals that we had in life. I was thinking about first time I interviewed with a guy when I was 22 down here in Miami. He told me, I'll never make it in this industry. And he was really negative on me. And I just. My attitude was like, well, remember, though, I'll go somewhere else.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: One other thing, though, one other thing. The different levels of this and talked about is that not everyone believes, and this seems like a core belief in you, not something necessarily that you, you know, you maybe can convince yourself, you know, because people can convince themselves almost anything. But do you believe that words can cause harm? Seems to be like a threshold question, even for the trigger warning. People like, the people who do not believe that words can cause harm, like that they aren't affected by the trigger warnings at all one way or the other, you know? So the studies that they've done are always focused on, like, the first question, I guess, that is, do you think words can cause harm? If they say no, then they keep. They do the rest of the study, but they're nothing. They're not giving us any information, so to speak, because they're not internalizing, you know, the. The wording, any or the words that could be triggering anyway.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, no. And it's interesting because, like, one of the things that the study from 96, they said they look for positive responses in five areas. Appreciation after a traumatic incident. So then this is, I guess, how they define if someone's going through taking that incident, and their mind and emotional state is kind of doing the post traumatic growth from it. Appreciation of life.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Well, they use a variety of scales. The one you're about to give is one of the scales that has been used.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Relationship with others, new possibilities in life, personal strength and spiritual change. And I started thinking about my own again, experience. You've lost a parent. I've lost both parents, but my mom dying in 2015 was pretty traumatic. I know we both have our own, you know, you have your own growth from that. And then I was thinking about when I was hospitalized with COVID two years ago and how that changed my appreciation for life and how my outlook on things. So that's what the interesting thing with reading with this was. I started thinking, like, yeah, just as a 45 year old guy, I'm not gonna sit here and say I've been through so much. But, you know, we all go through things in life. And I thought, you know, one of.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: The interesting things about the post traumatic growth was one of the factors that allowed people to experience that was openness and being open to change. Part of the thing was that if you have your mind set on a certain type of thing or put in another parlance, which is overlapping but not the same thing, just that a lot of people, and then again, the people that tend to have a lot of the worst reactions from traumatic situations. And again, this isn't, again, put any value judgment or anything on that. It's just that if trauma, if people internalize that and it becomes part of their identity. And examples you just gave, basically you did not saying that, you know, again, no value judgment here, but you, those did not become part of your identity. There was, you approached that with a level of openness which, you know, might give you a. The ability to try to experience some growth from that because of the openness you came with. The other thing I want to make, the point I want to make on this or that I thought was very interesting in this section was they were talking about how resilience, which is something, you know, we hear about that and all that. But that's not per se, that's not necessarily post traumatic growth, like displaying resilience can go down the road of post traumatic growth. But post traumatic growth is broader than that. Post traumatic growth is actually not just dealing with it, but taking these things and becoming, moving the ball for yourself, becoming something different. But that's where the openness comes from is that if you're not open to that, you know, open it to experience. And then the other factor, by the way, was extroversion helped, you know, in terms of people that were more predisposed to turn trauma into post traumatic growth.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, some of the other thing, I mean, it's funny, like, I guess as just doing this topic, I started thinking about trigger, I just remember something where, again, and a lot of these things I find happen when people who aren't exposed to other people or cultures end up meeting, you know, because I think that's something that probably has helped both you and I, maybe in our life journeys not be triggered as much or maybe deal with it in a certain way is we both seem to have been exposed at an early age to various cultures and experiences.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Let me jump in real quick. I'm going to say, because I want to tie that back to something I said earlier, because that's exactly true. And what it is, it's expectations. Remember, so much of your life experience is in the context of your expectations. And so when your expectations are one thing and then you experience. You know, if you experience a after expecting b, then you might be very disappointed. But if you experience a after experiencing a, then you might be great, like, but if you weren't experiencing that in the first place, it might not have affected you the same. And so that's something that it's all about having those expectations. And those expectations, a lot of times are defined by your life experience up to that point or just the environments that you're in.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's funny, like, one of the triggers I realized was the city of which I reside in the city of plantation in Florida, because I remember that when I was on social media years ago on Facebook or something back in the last decade, when all this stuff about the police, the shootings and brutality was all the videos are being shared, which I guess they're probably still being shared. I'm just not on social media anymore.
I just remember seeing somebody in my Facebook feed. Something happened in the city of plantation where I guess a cop did get aggressive with some guy, and somebody caught it on video.
And, you know, the side of the cop car door says plantation police.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: And the comment section. I mean, these guys were on fire. Like, oh, my God. They actually have a police force called the plantation police, and look what they're doing. They're rounding up black people and all this. And meanwhile, I'm sitting here saying, man, this city is actually pretty calm, and there's a lot of black people in plantation, and we don't seem to have a lot of issues at all, actually, with the police or anybody. It's pretty, pretty. And it's just. I just realized that, yeah, if you're not used to being here, of course, that's probably triggering to see, as a black person, to see a police car that literally says plantation police. And that guy got a black guy on the ground in front of his car. That's gonna trigger somebody.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: And you're not making it any better, saying, yeah, there's a lot of guys, black guys in plantation. That's their. Their concern.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: No, I'm saying there's a lot of black people here, but things are okay.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: I know, but I'm.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: But it was a good reminder to me that. Yeah, that's not a trigger for me because I'm used to the city of plantation. Exactly. You're gonna live here, I think.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: I don't. You and I might have talked about this a long time ago, that there were some people that had an issue with calling plantations.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah. They wanted to change it because it.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Was triggering for them and again, it just. It gets into, okay, like, is that really, you know, is that causing that much harm to someone? But we're gonna do that then at what point where does that inside?
[00:33:55] Speaker B: And you can almost say, like, the word plantation actually just describes a certain type of location. American culture has melded it with american slavery.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: There's a lot of these, though. Like, I even I remember computer, you know, well, I was a computer guy, you know, decades ago, and you have certain drives, and you got master drive, slave drive.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: And so it's just one of those things. But those aren't necessarily. And that's where I want to end this at is those aren't necessarily recalling direct trauma. And so there is a difference when we talk about the trigger warnings and their use and their application, when they trigger more abstract concepts for people, and then they complain about that versus when they trigger actual trauma. And so we got to be very careful when we're talking about the abstract comments, because that's what I talk about as far as you create these sanitized environments where I don't even want to be reminded of these abstract comments or context, you know, these abstract things. And then, you know, like, so then I live in this safe space all the time, and I may not be able to grow some resilience and build resilience to be able to when things don't go.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: And the sad part is, is that it's also, I think it does come from just, you know, that I'd say this. Those who have less exposure are probably to other cultures, other, you know, just, you know, knowledge, history, all that are probably more likely to be triggered by these abstract things. And I think you. You helped.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: But it's also a personality thing, though. Like, there's a personality component, too. But go ahead.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah, let me finish. Cause you. You helped me kind of put the words on what I said earlier, which is when I kept saying, you know, we're not talking about people that get raped and, you know, have real, like, I've had friends that were in their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, you know, people have been through some real traumas. Right. And I think you said it best that it's some of these adjacent things, I think in our society more because of social media and the Internet that people get triggered by. And then they, like, totally, like, it drives them into this emotional state. And it's a great point you make about the computers and there's a master drive and a slave drive, because think about it.
That's also, if you're a black american like us, but you've never been exposed to history outside the United States or other groups and all that. It's almost then a self centered way to think that your group's the only one ever been enslaved, meaning there's people around the world, including human Europeans, have been enslaved throughout history. So to just call something a master in a slave drive and to only think, let that trigger you. Yeah, like, let that trigger you about that. Because I could say, look, there's.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Well, in the other piece, though, but because I want to keep this moving. The other piece on that, in addition to what you just said, is the person, trust me, the person who is reacting to a master drive and a slave drive and a computer was never a slave. You know, so, like, again, it's more an abstract thing. Now, granted, there's cultural, you know, baggage and stuff like that, and I'm not diminishing that, but again, it just. It is more of an abstract thing.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: That is bothering me, and I think it's everywhere, like. Cause if someone. You know. Cause I don't want to. Let's not just speak on black people, right? If it's. If it's a jewish person might get offended if you just criticize how Israel as a nation deals with Palestine or its neighbors. Right. You're not saying something anti semitic. You might be saying something more geopolitical, but it might trigger someone. There's, you know, the thing about the white evangelical Christian Americans who get offended sometimes. Someone that said, happy holidays, and the guy got mad at me. He, merry Christmas, man. Because it triggered him to think that, you know, everyone's attacking christians. So I just want to put that out there, that we just want to.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Try to defend as many people as we can right now.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not just black Americans we're beating up. It's. Everybody does it. But. And then one last thing before we move on. The quote, it makes comfort a higher priority than intellectual engagement by this group of professors. Reminded me of our governor and some of these people around the country that are changing. Not trying, but they are changing our public school system and how we teach. And remember, our governor said it out of his mouth. We don't want to teach anything in school that might cause a kid to feel guilt or some kind of shame. And I just didn't, when I read this part, I was like, yeah, it makes comfort a higher priority than intellectual engagement. So instead of challenging kids to learn about history and all that, we're just gonna make the next generation comfortable. And that's probably doesn't end up working better than challenging them intellectually and allowing us to have these tough conversations. Yeah. So that's all I'm off guard.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: Definitely doesn't. I mean. Cause that's why those. But even that's a great quote that you pulled. But they're speaking of an academic context. And that's why I would say like you're comparing comparison to the Florida thing was actually right on from that standpoint. I mean, just real quick, do you have any thoughts as far as how societies can better create, you know, balance, creating kind of welcoming spaces, you know, while not creating like an overly fragile mindset? Because as we noted earlier, like this is especially important with the youth because, you know, like this is not, these aren't people with 50 or 60 years of life experience to then balance it on. This is like we're, this is how we're, this is all we're exposing them to. And you've already talked about how when you limit what you expose people to, it can throw off how they can deal with things when they're exposed to things beyond that.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a very good question, man. And I think, you know, with the, with the advent of kind of the Internet and all the stuff that is gumming up the works of how we communicate with each other, I think that, you know, that the kind of thing remains open on that. Right. It will probably have to have this show in another 20 years and see how it evolved. But the problem is, is that everybody is using these, and I like the way you put it, this kind of abstract triggers as a way to continue whatever their cultural meme is. If they don't like this group, then anything that that group does, like, think about the illegal alien thing that if a, this weekend a white dude just went into Jacksonville, Florida and shot three black people dead at a store because they were black.
Certain media doesn't react to that the same way that when an illegal alien kills an american, that becomes a huge trigger. You see what I'm saying?
[00:40:03] Speaker A: So that's going into another discussion though, because that's actually the weaponizing of triggers in order for ratings.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: That's what I'm getting at, is that, that's why when. Just to answer.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Well, that's not telling me how we can do better jobs.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: No, that's why my, I guess that's. I'm answering. My concern is I don't see us doing a better job because for ratings and eyeballs and clicks on the Internet, we, our system is now abusing triggers and everybody is getting triggered, and everyone feels like a victim, and that's not good. You know what I mean?
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Like, I mean, I think my answer to the question actually is that we just got to keep trying stuff. Like, and that's the, like, this was an attempt, you know, the use of trigger warnings. Now we have more information and say, okay, well, that's not, it's not getting us closer to the outcome that we're having. But there's also just that. So you try stuff, but then the other, the flip side of that is that how do you build a better person, so to speak, like, how do we, how do we expose people and, or teach them in ways? And this is societal, but this is.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Also just triggered village. You're gonna indoctrinate my kid.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: This is, this is societal. No, no, this is a societal. This is village. But this is also household. You know, like how they, like, pay if you're parenting. That's part of what you're doing with your kids. Like, your job with your kids is not just to feed them and to clothe them, you know, it's also to prepare them for the world, you know? And so what tools do we need to do to give the next generation the ability to cope with stuff like, that's kind of stuff we gotta be thinking about.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: That's the sad part. That's why I'm negative on it. Because the parent triggered, but the world CRT and all this stuff woke, it's all triggering the parents that are preventing the kids from learning.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: Well, the world is more complex now and more connected now than it ever has been. And those two being related, you know, like it might have been equally as complex as far as social constructs and stuff like that, but not as connected. And so now we have to deal with everybody's stuff all mixed into the same pot because everything is so connected on, online and so forth. We're going to have to do better. Like, it's just if you are running down the street, the margin for error to not fall off, you know, the side of the road is much higher than if you're driving down the street at 90 miles an hour. But we got to manage that. We want to drive cars. We got there. We have a higher, or, excuse me, a lower margin for error when we want to drive fast than when we want to walk fast or run fast. So it's the same thing. If we want to have interconnected world, we have a lower margin for error, and we're going to have to do better. But part of doing better. Like I said, you got to try stuff societally, you have to engage in a village sense, and then you have to try, you know, try it to make. Be conscious of it. I mean, and that's why you have a show on it. You know, in a sense, it's like, pay attention to this kind of thing. This is not something that you can kind of get by on autopilot in general, which, you know, we tend to like to do a lot of times.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: So you're asking me to be emotionally attentive to myself and actually work on myself and challenge myself.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: Hey, man, you're asking people to do that physically, so I think I can ask people to do that emotionally.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just saying, I think you're gonna not have a lot of takers on that one. That's the unfortunate thing, because that actually would cause people to have to look at themselves internally and do some work, which most people don't want to do.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Hey, man, well, if we had a shot and you could get once a week to make you emotionally well adjusted, I'm sure we could get everybody on board with that, right?
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Just like Ozempic we did last week.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be the. That'd be. That's the answer, probably.
No, I don't mean that so. Because they got. They got shots for that. That'll numb your brain, and that's probably not the best idea. The best way to.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: It's called a shot of whiskey. Come on, dude.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: But you need it more than once a week.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Give me some gentleman Jack, bro.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Depending how many shots, I might only be able to go into week. So, let's see.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: That's because you're old, Mandy. But the second topic we wanted to discuss today was. I mean, it's quite. If you pay attention to this kind of stuff, it's pretty exciting.
The country of India, they have landed their rover, Chandrayaan three, Shantian three, and they landed it on the moon. So they flew it to the moon from the earth. They flew it to the moon. They landed it, and they landed it by the south pole, which is kind of where, you know, there's been a lot of attention on the south pole of the moon, because the belief is, is that there might be water there, ice, you know, but. But, you know, h two o there, and if you got h two o there, then you can. You know, you can melt it. You know, if it's ice, you can melt it. You could. They. They can make hydrogen based fuel from it. They could do a lot of stuff. And so, you know, it's a big part of being able to, to do more with the moon than like, we haven't really advanced too much from what we do with the moon in 60 years. And so from your, you know, I wanted to get your thoughts on this. You know, Michigan, India's mission being the first successful landing by the South Pole. Russia had one that blew up, you know, not long ago trying to, trying to land there. And do you also, you know, so I want to ask you about that. Then the landing, but then also India, you know, like, hey, you know, is this, are they taking a step up here as far as, you know, like the, they're a nuclear power now. They, they got stuff, they got things running around out and on the moon, you know, is this we seeing them ascend to it at a higher level as far as nation?
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think they're now the only the fourth nation that has had some sort of trip to the moon. So I think that does put them in a special kind of category of advanced nations that have the scientific and research and the budgets to be able to do put all this together. So I think the answer is yes.
One thing I found interesting is they're trying to get their probe off of the moon in the next two weeks because apparently something will happen where, um, the moon, that, that part of the moon will have a nighttime, they said the temperatures drop to -382 degrees fahrenheit. Like, I can't even fathom how cold that is. No, yeah, you know, like something I just, I'll just freeze into a stone and break in half.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Um, yeah, like, that's so that's beyond our, our perception. Yeah, yeah, that's.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: But I think, you know, look, this is the long arc of just kind of human expansion. I think, number one, just like our moon landing in 69, you know, we should commend the Indians in terms of just the country, the culture, the people that, you know, they did another great thing for humanity. They showed that we can continue to do this space exploration. And to your point about potentially if there's water there, you know, one thing that's going to get serious as more countries start doing this is, you know, we're going to be just like we do on earth. We're going to start fighting for natural resources on asteroids and other planets. So if they're the first to tap into some fresh water on the moon, maybe if we start having scarcity of fresh water on earth, they'll be the ones selling it to the rest of us, I mean, you know, these are the waters that, of course, it's all about resources, man. Yeah.
There's a lot of metals and all that. Yeah. So that's that. And then the other thing I just find interesting is the fact that we're having this conversation in this way, like, because I think we often treat nation states like this, and again, we're triggered, right? We're going back to the first one. It triggers us to see another country that is doing something in an advanced way that only we, or maybe now only we and the Chinese and the Russians have done, which is really have a space program, because it's like, okay, there's somebody else that might be big and bad on the block. And so, yeah, I do think, just to finish off my answer, a country with a billion, four people, a country with a rich history of its own empire and all that before they were colonized by the British. A rich history of education and knowledge and scientific, you know, history, I think. Yeah, they're, they're in. They're playing in the big leagues.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: And, you know, that would be my answer.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Well, no, I. To me, it's exciting. And I maybe, you know, like, I'm that person you're talking about. I'm not upset that they did it, but I'm happy. I'm like, hey, so maybe everybody can not add everybody, but now we can start doing, like, the fact that we kind of went to the moon and then kind of just chilled on that and didn't really weren't advancing it anymore. I'm happy for a little competition here, you know, so, like, hey, let's see who can do this next. Let's see who can do some. The next step and so forth. So I think there is a more exploration is good, you know, like, more, more. Let's have more things to do than just sit around and yell at each other all the time. Let's have more things to think about. Besides, this person did me wrong. That person, you know, is trying to replace me or this and that. Like, this. This is all, like, a lot of the issues that we have in our country, in the United States in particular, you know, like, come from us not having constructive things to focus on a lot of times, you know, like, they're self inflicted type of things. Now there's hunger, there's all that. But even with that, it's, we, we are, you know, we're put into this mind of scarcity, you know, when we don't necessarily have to be, but things like this these type of projects can increase. Like, purpose is very important. And so a lot of times when there's no purpose that the society understands that they have, then you do kind of devolve into this. Everybody cutting, Eddie throwing at his other's neck and all that. And I said, so I like the idea of somebody doing something that has never been done before, some country doing something that's never been before. And other countries like, hey, let's focus on that. Let's, let's put, let's work together in our country and do something. So I'm, I think it's cool that they did it. I'm really interested to know if there's really water there because it's all good for all the speculation and postulation and everything like that, but let's actually see if there's water there. I don't think they're going to be selling it back here. I don't know how they're going to get it back. But you can use it while you're there. You know, you don't have to take all your water with you and all your fuel with you if you can get there and make some. So, yeah, I'm excited by, like I said, I think that it's good to, for cultures, societies to work towards stuff, to work towards stuff that they have to do together and not just everybody on their own all the time.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, this is another, we're going to continue to see more of this over the coming decades and generations because remember, there was a, there were, there were, you know, there was a time in world history when there were, you know, a lot of empires and there was a lot going on in terms of around the world and the last 5600 years. You know, we lived through the era of the european colonialism and the Europeans dominating a lot of their subjects. And I would say India is a great example. You know, prior to the british empire dominating them, they were one of the top, you know, groups of people building ships, you know, commerce and trade, thinking about their in between China and Europe. So the Silk road and all that stuff we hear about back in the day, the Roman Empire going east, all that kind of touched India. And we know of things like the Taj Mahal, their ability to do architecture like that before this modern era. So I think this is another example that they're now in a club of only four nations in the world. And it shows a lot. Like we said, it's their ability to have the budget to keep this going and do this because they crashed. They tried it in 2019, apparently, and crashed just like the Russians did this year. And so they went back at it and they have the scientific power, the engineering power, all that. And so just, yeah, there's no, there's no now denying that India is a superpower of the world. You know, as, as we look at.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: That, yeah, the world, more people doing big stuff in the world is a good thing. You know, I think for humanity. And as far as India, you know, and the potential ascendance that it's having, I mean, yeah, I mean, I mean, that's a lot of people. You know, it's like, yes.
And so from the stand, that which creates difficulties and, you know, provides advantages.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: You know, so what's going to happen? And, you know, like, I know you're talking about the cycles and so forth. I mean, the world history at most points in world history, you know, you can't really, you couldn't have accurately predicted how things are going to play out over the next hundred years or 500 years or whatever. We tend to focus only on things that are happening now or immediately before us and say, oh, that's how the world's been forever. But the world's been a lot of different things for a lot of, you know, over a long period of time. And so the I look at with India, if they're coming, then that's more, that's going to be happening in the world. That's more people trying, ideally trying to solve the problems that we have and given examples of here and what we can do and so forth. So that would be a good thing. I look at it as more the merrier, and again, I look at that kind of stuff and maybe this is just, I am a competitor at heart and I'm like, hey, then this gives us more the reason in the United States to step up our game, whether it be on the moon or whether it be trying to take care of the people better, create a system that works better or preserve our system, so to speak, and not just let it devolve into the whims of whoever.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: Or we can keep banning books for kids in school so they can know how to make rockets when they grow.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: Up or anything that makes us uncomfortable, we can remove completely from the display.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Maybe we'll remove the story about the Indians going to the moon because it'll make an american kid feel uncomfortable. Right?
I thought only we did that.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a good one right there. I think I'm done after that.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: I had to knock you out with that one.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: We got the 20 years done.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: You're done.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: I'm done. 20 years.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: You don't.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: They're going to take out of the history books.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: No one but America went to the moon. That's it. Yeah.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: I think we could end on that note.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: So that's cool.
[00:53:29] Speaker A: But again, it is still, like, it's progress.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: On a serious note.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Hold on. Progress is a good thing, you know? So, like, I think that's something to be celebrated. And again, now it's. It. You celebrate it. You know, they tip your cap and then you get back to work, you know, and then try to be the next one that takes the next step now.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: And on a serious note, I know that was a fun joke, but I want to end here on a more of a sapiens from the book. We did a show on a while back type of theme, and you make a great point that we can't predict what will happen in the next hundred years. And this is where I feel that China is very well positioned. Sorry, China, India. Let me correct myself there. I was going to say, like China, they have the huge population. They also have a very rich cultural history that they have a lot of pride in and reaching back on now, just like the Chinese.
But unlike the Chinese, one advantage that they had from, you know, the british colonization is they, the British left behind their legal and parliamentary system. So they are. Even though I know there's some criticisms now about Modi doing a little bit more of a. Doing some undemocratic things, I think traditionally, at least in my lifetime, India was seen as a democracy with that many people, which I think is pretty amazing.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Largest.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And the fact that they have a very strong legal system. So I do think that, you know.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: That are things just to full, fully explain it, that, which are things that tend to be predictors of success from nationwide. And that's, you know, all that kind of stuff goes to places like that.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So I just think that it's. It's, it's. They. This is another sign that they're gonna be rising in the future, and we should all take note.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: Cool. All right, man. Well, we appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of call. Like, I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:55:29] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Iguana.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you guys next week.
