Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we consider some recent comments from Denzel Washington on how in modern American politics, we're all slaves to information and being manipulated by both sides.
We'll also, later on, we'll also weigh in on the recent exodus that people we've seen from Twitter and Twitter X over to other social media platforms for commenting and so forth. And we'll finish up by reacting to some recent studies on how being bullied may change the brain.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who, when it comes to his podcast, sometimes wonders aloud, are you not entertained? Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to step into the arena and put on a show today?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yes, sir. Ready to be a gladiator? Let's go.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: All right. All right. Now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you hit subscribe and like the show on your podcast platform on YouTube. Doing so really helps the show out.
Now recording on November 19, 2024. And in doing an interview promoting his new movie Gladiator 2, Denzel Washington shared some interesting perspective or thoughts, observations on the state of American politics, the Democratic, you know, elections and all this other stuff post 2024 election. In relevant part, he noted that, you know, that basically, or he said, you know, quote, that we're all slaves to information, you know, suggesting that, you know, what we're seeing, you know, may not be the whole picture and in fact isn't the whole picture. And we, but we're reacting to that and then also that we're being manipulated by both sides. And so now some of this may have been tongue in cheek because he also was saying, hey, so because of all this, just go to the movies, which obviously he's promoting a movie right now. But these points, they're interesting to take a look at. It's interesting questions in terms of, generally speaking, like we've done books, the Righteous Mind and things like that. People think they're in control of their thoughts, you know, and, and how they're, you know, how they're processing information. But there's been a lot of information out there saying that actually, you know, like with righteous information, you got the, the, the, the, the elephant in the writer and then. Or, Right, yeah, Righteous Mind and, and so there are a lot of things out there that suggest that we are much more dependent on what we see and what's put in front of us, maybe more importantly than we think as far as how we're reacting, how we're Perceiving things. And then also whatever unconscious things are going on in our mind, we're much more a slave to that as well, you know, and how we react to those things that are put in front of us. So jumping right in Tunde is Denzel, right, that we're all slaves to information and we're being manipulated by both sides in our. In our democratic system.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: I'll say he's probably right about several things that you just mentioned. One is that, yeah, we're being influenced and manipulated by information. And, yeah, we should all probably just go to the movies a little more, too.
So the. And so, yeah, I mean, that's.
I think anyone that has spent any time watching a few of our discussions definitely would understand and appreciate that you and I would probably agree with his overall stance about, you know, us as humans, you know, we can't be manipulated, persuaded, influenced, whatever words that one wants to use, by certain types of information. And we just did the recent show on the book Nexus, which really, we broke down the difference between information and truth. So I think there's something to be said there where I'll. Where I'll say that again. And I don't want to sit here and like, knock Denzel Washington for these comments because like you said, I mean, he just being interviewed, someone sticking a microphone in his face. He's probably just talking off the cuff a bit, but again, and trying to.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Get attention, you know, like, literally trying to get attention because, you know, hey, we want you to go see the movie, so to speak.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so, but I feel like. I just feel like. I don't think he. I want to assume he's not intending this, but this kind of trap of this both sides ism. And you know, that. That both sides are manipulating you with information, which is true. But I just think that there's a traditional way of political communication, which I know that politicians have lied, and that's something that most people feel is common among politicians.
And they may lie about, you know, what their policy goals are or about going to war about some country, you know, or something like that. So.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Mass destruction.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's what I mean. Like, we've all experienced this kind of stuff, and that's serious. I mean, you know, lying us into a war is serious, you know, versus just saying, you know, I ate something for breakfast that I didn't eat. There's. There's different things, a spectrum of lying. But I would separate the kind of traditional, normal political behavior that we've all been accustomed to seeing with Maybe the level of disinformation that we've begun to see in recent years from certain pockets of the American political sphere. And that's what I mean about outright deceptive tactics, whether it be, you know, editing what people have said in interviews to make it look like they said something they didn't say.
Certain ways that certain networks use chirons to discuss, you know, to describe what someone is actually talking about when they don't actually let. That they don't actually let their audience see the person speak. But so. And, you know, or like we've seen before certain images because images are so powerful of, you know, let's say people crossing the border, quote, unquote.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: That there was the famous one that you see you cite from time to time where it's like, there's something in the Middle east, like people going over.
Yeah.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: And they were like, yeah, this is on the southern border.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: I guess all brown people breaking down a fence look the same. So. But that's my point of saying so that's my point is saying that that's why I'm not going to sit here and knock Denzel for, you know, just talking off the cuff. But I do think it's worth. That's why we're having a discussion just kind of pointing out that yes. Is information used to manipulate. Yes. For all of us, including over the. The best place is Madison Avenue. Right. The American marketing and. And getting us to eat certain foods and all this kind of stuff is great.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Want to buy things that we don't need.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, so that's my thought, man. So I'll pass it back to you.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: But yeah, no, no, I think it's interesting. I think it's really a reality check that, you know, like, again, and he's doing this as part of promoting a movie. So it's supposed to be kind of to get you to talk about it. And so, yeah, hey, we're here talking about it.
But I think that, you know, manipulation has such a negative connotation, whereas influence is more kind of has less of a negative connotation. But, yes, politics from all sides, as you pointed out, are trying to influence us. And part of that is to manipulate or whatever. And the reason is, is that they want. They're trying to get you to care about something, to care enough to either give money or to show up at a polling location and pull a lever, you know, and so forth. And so what we've seen, you know, with a lot, if they get up there with a bunch of spreadsheets and you know, start going through line by line, hey, this is what we gotta do, you know, with our budget and this is what we gotta do with this and that. A lot of times people won't care, won't show up, anything like that. It's just like people are bored. So trying to get you to participate in care and sometimes people be fired up about stuff involves trying to influence you, trying to influence you by tapping into your emotion because again, tapping into your intellect for a lot of people won't necessarily get them to be fired up about stuff. So I think part of the nature of large scale democratic politics is trying to figure out ways to get masses of people to care about things that, you know, sometimes may be kind of remote from them, you know, like. And so that's why you see a level of manipulation. Now I do agree with you that there, there's, I think that the scale of manipulation and, and deceit can vary across the political spectrum. Also what your, what the manipulation of the influencing might be doing being done in service of, you know, are you manipulating people to try to get away with a crime or are you manipulating people to try to get them to care about the climate, you know, going crazy and say, hey, we got to make some changes here so that we can maintain a habitable earth, you know, And I think that matters too. You know, what you're trying to do. Like parents, you know, manipulate, slash influence their kids all the time. Are you influencing your kids to take drugs? Are you influencing your kids to try to do good in school and to not take drugs? You know, like, so what, you're doing it in service of matters. And then I agree with you also the scale of it. Like, are you, how close to the truth are you presenting the truth in a way that will tug on emotional strings and which would be manipulation? You're, you're presenting truth in a way. And again we, we just did Nexus talking about truth and information and how they're not the same thing. But either way, are you presenting information that's. Say it a different way. Are you presenting information that is truthful and doing so in a way that is, quote unquote, manipulative because you're trying to pull on people's emotional strings or whatever or, or are you presenting information that is false or that is misleading to try to then influence people to go one way or the other? And so all of that matters. You know, human interaction inherently involves manipulation and influencing. And so what, that's not the notable piece. The notable piece is what's going. What's either the scale of, you know, whether you're. How truthful are you being in that one, and then two, what is it being done in service of?
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's interesting because we did this show some time ago about the research biologist and neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, who was the one that had a book about he basically, his research has brought him to the conclusion that human beings don't have free will. So I still have a problem with that because probably I want to believe that I have free will, but. No, but it's like the more and more we start thinking about these things, the more I can appreciate where he's coming from because again, I'm not sure I'm totally bought into it. But as we have this discussion, it reminds me of this idea that, yeah, if we're all susceptible to being kind of moved and persuaded or influenced, you know, I agree the word manipulate does have a negative connotation, but. But into certain different kind of acceptances of truth, let's put it that way, then maybe we don't have the type of free will that we believe we had. And I think you and I have again, this is now maybe touching on conversation we've had just in the last year or two on our show. I mean, the amount of just kind of time we've given to topics like social media and how, you know, the imperceptible changes. And I think most of us, which.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Was cool, you know, the Social Dilemma, that would just. I think that's a very important thing. The Social Dilemma is a movie we did a while back. And all of these are in our archives, by the way, but not all of them are video. But Social Dilemma, you know, their video, there'll be audio, you know, but even whether it's in podcast platform or on YouTube, it'll be an audio format for some of these. But the money quote from that Social Dilemma movie was that social media is able to create imperceptible changes in behavior in its users. So you can change you without you perceiving and knowing that you've been in are being changed.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: So.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: But go ahead.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: No, and I think, and that's because, I think, look, you and I, plus every our audience now watching or listening to us, I think we can all relate to having seen people in our own personal networks in our lives that are in a much different emotional and mental headspace now than they were just 10 or 15 years ago. And that's why I think like when you look at the way that our culture has gone. It's not all about some of these political discussions that we've heard are the working class versus this. I think a lot of it has to do with some of these things and some imbalances in the system, but those imbalances were there 10 years ago. So it seems to me that people have been persuaded, manipulated influence, however you want to say it, to accept certain things that have now become cultural norms that weren't cultural norms such a short time ago that I don't know if we've seen this kind of rapid change without it being forced, like, meaning, you know, an authoritarian or some kind of war happening. And you're just forcing this change on a society. Society. This has become maybe the first time in human history that. And I'm hesitant to be that emphatic about it, but I can't think of another time when kind of just the society, through kind of just business and technology made such a cultural shift amongst a large group of people, you know, a large nation and also the world. And so, and I think that's why we're seeing things like the rise of authoritarianism around the world, not just in one country. Maybe that's why we saw this election in 2024, globally being the worst for incumbent government since 1905 or whatever that stat is. And I think it might be because the. We have all been influenced by social media, the Internet, YouTube, things like that, to just either accept a different type of discourse or to accept that our fellow man is not.
Is somewhat more of an enemy or a threat than we otherwise thought just a decade ago. So that's what's got me thinking, like, yeah, maybe our free will isn't as free as we think because we're so easily manipulated by just these kind of, you know, outside forces.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: You could sum that up by saying that we're all slaves to information.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So we should just go watch. No. What's the thing about his remedy? We should go watch more movies.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Yeah, go, go watch Gladiator 2 apparently.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: But go, go get more information.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: But I think part of it, though is, and I like, again, I think that what he's saying here is designed to create attention and all that stuff. So, I mean, but I think it's very helpful. Like, understanding this can be helpful to you. Just like, why do people write books like the Righteous Mind or Nexus and things like that? Why do we read those and get around and sit around and talk about them and stuff? And of course, why do we publish those conversations we have about it, but at least being aware of this, being aware social dilemma and like, hey, the social media is changing you. If you're on it, by the way it presents information, what it presents to you and so forth, it is changing you and being aware of it can help, you know, help you manage. Whether it's help you, it may or may not help you. This is to your point, on whether we have free will. It may or may not help you avoid being changed or being a slave to the information, but at minimum you can at least sometimes be able to take a step back and realize that you are, when you're plugging in like that, you're plugging into something that is affecting you in ways that may or may not be something that's beneficial for your best life, you know, so you may need to, you can take control. At least some say, look, I'm going to pull back sometimes because I know if I plug into this, it's going to have me feeling a certain way or behaving a certain way and I got real stuff to do with my life. I got to, you know, I got to go earn a living or I got to do this and that. So because it's not something that you have to, it's not something you have to be a part of all the time, you know, like. And so like Denzel said, you can just go watch a movie, you know, like, and not sit there and be, you know, doom. There's something called doom scrolling, you know, that people do voluntarily, you know. So, you know, I think it's.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Imagine if there was doom driving, like you just drive yourself into a wall. I wouldn't do that. You know, I would be saying like, what's wrong with this guy? You know, he's driving his car into a wall and hurting himself.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: No, no, for sure, for sure. Yeah. So I mean, maintaining perspective, you know, it can be helpful for your own kind of ability to cope, you know, because as you said, the world is changing and it's changing very fast, you know, and you've talked to me offline a lot of times, like, man, like you'll, we'll see something go on or somebody do something and people kind of shrug their shoulders. You're like, man, I can't imagine in the 1980s or you know, something like that if this would have happened then people would have flipped out, you know, or whatever. And like so, and you've said that to me so many times about different behaviors that it's just like, yeah, I mean it's just people or whether you'd be desensitized to it or see some greater evil because of the information they're getting that, oh well, it doesn't matter if this person, person is, you know, a liar, a cheater, steal all this other stuff. We got this other greater evil that we have to beat back. And you know, all of that is based on the information, you know, that you're getting and so forth. So I think that there's wisdom in this. And yeah, I mean, maybe the answer is to just go see a movie because again, like it being, being able to opt out, you know, we're not, we're not. Unless Elon Musk gets his way and we're all plugged up to a neural link at some point. We're not required to be plugged in at all times. We still can't step away. And you know, maybe that's what's needed sometimes. Just again, maintain your sanity and be able to continue to focus on what's important in the day to day part of your life.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, so yeah, that's it.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say. So yeah, we can wrap this part up, wrap this part up for the discussion. We appreciate everybody for joining it. Join us for parts two and three of our today's discussion and we'll talk to you then.
All right, for our second part of today's discussion. There have been reports circulating and just activity that we've observed where since the 2024 election people have, people have been leaving Twitter and Twitter X. And it's interesting because a lot of times people will announce that they're leaving Twitter X, which I don't. I guess that's for the benefit of their followers or whatever because as we'll get into later, people want to take their followers with or with them or keep, keep the following that they had or maintain a level of following, but take it to a different platform. And so we've seen like blue sky. There's been a lot of reports as far as that's growing. Some people have been jumping to threads or both, you know, going to these different places and it's almost like a reshuffling or at least to some degree, you know, Twitter still. Twitter slash actually still very large, but a reshuffling of where the many of the more engaged users of the text based social media are doing it. So what are your thoughts, Tunde, on this recent exodus from Twitter? Whether it be the reasons people are given from getting out or just the that we've reached a Tempe point maybe and people are not wanting to necessarily plug into a platform that has. That operates in the way that Twitter X does or, you know what, just generally. What's your thoughts?
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think it's like, I think it's interesting. This is a true story of the free market. Right. That somebody created, you know, another platform. It's been around for, I think about two years. It wasn't popular, but when the shift in X happened, in terms of, you know, just. We all, most people watching this probably are aware of the shift after Elon Musk bought X, that he's just opened up the floodgates to what he considers freedom of speech.
And it's basically become a platform for antisocial behavior in general. And so there's a lot of people that don't want to be in a platform like that, just like there's a lot of advertisers that don't want to advertise in a platform like that. And so it makes sense to me that with another option, we see millions of people moving to this new platform. My concern is someone, Elon Musk, to me, has displayed that he is really not a free market person and he likes to control everything and not a free speech. Yeah. So I know the show isn't about that, but my concern would be that as if he continues to have such proximity in a new administration that, you know, Blue sky might be in a conversation similar to what TikTok was just a year ago, you know, that they might try and ban it for some reason. So to me, it's an example of the free market at working and being allowed to work. And so in my opinion, I hope it continues because why not have a platform, another platform that's diverse. And I don't mean diverse in, like, race and stuff. I just mean diverse in thought. And that allows another option.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: No, let me, let me, let me jump on that, because I think the free market piece is. Yeah, this is what, this is why you want to market. This is why you don't want monopolies, you know, or just one option. Because when that one option begins to change the way it operates too, and, you know, it's not just who it is posted and who's posted or posts, the types of posts that are now allowed to circulate or that are even boosted up. It's also the way that the algorithm has been changed. Like, everybody has to see Elon Musk tweets. And, you know, there's certain, like they've studied in terms of whether politically, like political leanings, like certain Types of posts will get priority over others, notwithstanding any payment. But just, you know, like he's changed the thing to be kind of his personal toy, you know. And so if you don't have an option in a marketplace, then that gives him, you know, the kind of power that Americans, at least from the way that Americans have operated historically, look frown upon. We like markets, we don't. We like competition. And so that you have that, you can have potential competitors that create a reasonable facsimile of this. And so you can choose to take your business to either where you like the service best, or if you want to avoid supporting financially someone like Musk or whatever, it's good to have that option. It's interesting you already jumped to kind of the last part, like maybe the third topic of this subject talking about, like maybe we're going to see some abuse of power, come here to force everybody to be on it later on.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Let me just jump in on that. The reason I say that, James, is because, I mean, I don't want to pick on Elon Musk, but I'll just say it just to get my thought out is he appears to be someone that, okay, yeah, he can, I'm sure. But actually, I don't know, he looks pretty sensitive.
But anyway, it's just that the idea that he seems to be the type of business person that doesn't like competition, that when now that he's kind of made it across a certain bridge financially and business wise, he appears to be the guy that pulls up that bridge. And it's seen with, you know, a lot of this talk we hear about tariffs is because he's in the future president's ear, because he doesn't want EV competition, not only from China, but he also wants to hurt the ability for American carmakers like GM and Ford to also pursue it. That's why he wants to get rid of the $7,500 tax credit, because there's enough Tesla's already, you know, he's got a market share that he doesn't want to lose. So my point is it to your point as an American and American culturally, not a South African that came here, my attitude was always free markets and competition and anti monopolistic. And so that's just my concern, as I want to speak on that, is that Blue sky is an example of the free market. But my concern is that we have kind of oligarch forces now that are going to be taking control that don't seem to like competition. They want to hoard everybody for themselves.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Well, that's kind of the, one of the features of the oligarchy is that to control everything for themselves. One of the interesting discussions here that I noted, and we'll have some stuff in the show notes as far as just, you know, where we were reading about this stuff, but the amount of discussion that's gone on as far as people not wanting to lose or leave their following that they've built up in Twitter over so long and what that reminded me of was kind of the techno feudalism. You know, we did the book Techno Feudalism a while back and it talked about how this, the power imbalance that happens with these platforms, it almost becomes a feudal type of situation where the owner of the platform is the feudal lord and the people who are creating on the platform become very dependent on the feudal lord, but they don't have any kind of ownership interest there, but they're dependent on it, and they're dependent on the feudal lord to continue to do what they want to do, so to speak. And they're doing all this stuff that benefits the feudal lord without being paid by the feudal lord. They may be able to monetize it in other ways from other people, but not from the place that host what they have. And so this dilemma that you're seeing, people have where they're like, oh, you know, I like, yeah, I'd love to leave X but you know, I can't, I don't, I can't replicate my following over there and you know, and so forth. And so like this dependency that, you know, like that X will have or that people will have on X is very interesting to me because again, it's a dependent, it's a one way thing more or less. Like they give you a platform, you know, a place to speak from, and then you can try to monetize that elsewhere. But the hesitancy to say, hey, I can't jump because that will mess up my ability to do everything else I do while. Whereas again, that person, they're not paying Twitter, X is not paying you. So it reveals this kind of dependency in the relationship which also, just briefly, I'll throw these both towards you. It's interesting to me because the discussion of, okay, yeah, we'll leave Twitter and we'll go to Threads, it's like, it's just that that was an interesting kind of move anyway because it's like, okay, well, I don't want to be dependent on the whims of one person. Elon Musk, as far as, you know, my, my Twitter, so When Elon Musk decides up and decides, okay, yeah, I want to boost right wing content or I want to do this and that stuff, I don't want to be dependent on that or I want to bring a bunch of people in that do a bunch of slurs and make things crazy. Like you have no control over that. But I mean, I'm not saying that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are the same, but you still, if you go to Threads, you're still dependent on the whims of one person. You know, as far as how the.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Platform is going to feudalism is a great, you know, way to put it. Yeah, you're just have a landlord feudal lord.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you're just going to a different feudal lord. And so but you're still dependent on it without any kind of checks, without any kind of balances in terms of that. Now there's still the competition, but you then might be walking into the same situation of okay, I'm going to go build up my following over here and then Zuckerberg is going to wake up one day and decide to make some changes that is devastating for you. And then you're like, oh no, I can't leave here either. So it seems a little bit short sighted, but so is him.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Because as you're describing, I'm thinking, yeah, feudalism is not uncommon in the human experience, in human history. I mean the best record, you know, I guess well known is that just the whole European feudalism model from the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: China is where China has China long history in America.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: I mean think about sharecropping in the southern United States in the first half of the 20th century was feudalism. I mean people lived on the land and you know, they didn't have a choice and you know, they had a landlord and all that stuff. And so this is how humans have organized. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that once the new technology, which is almost like a new world, you know, the kind of metaverse in a sense.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: It'S a new land. It's a new land basically like new land that is land is being, you know, set up in a feudal type of way. Yeah.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: And that, yeah. That it wasn't set up in a democratic way. It was set up the way that real land was set up, established over here. Human history, which is the guys with the biggest guns and the most money take that land and control it. And then everyone else kind of got to listen to them. So maybe part of our human experience over the next generations will be how to democratize, maybe more the Internet and all this stuff. But for now, it appears that exactly what you're saying, that the system is futile. Maybe Blue sky will be able to allow a different type of environment because of the way that they allow the user to also be participant in how the algorithms are set. So that's something kind of new. But, you know, I wanted to share this because as you were talking, it made me. They reminded me when you said about people announcing that they're leaving X because they want their followers to follow them. You know, that reminded me I'm not shared on the show, but I mean, you know, this well, that I got off Facebook in 2019, that December 5th.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: I remember you had your tipping point.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I had my tipping point. But. But you know what was interesting, because when he said it, it reminded me that's what I want to share with the audience.
I wasn't monetizing my presence on Facebook. I was just there personally looking at friends and family who were my contacts and all that. But part of this psychological attraction and kind of the way that they get you hooked is I was scared to leave. It took me a while to leave it because I kept thinking like, oh, I don't want to miss out on seeing this or that person, or I don't want to miss out on, you know, seeing a person from high school 30 years ago that I haven't talked to once in the last 20 years.
So it took me some time to really have to work on myself and say, you know what? Because I had to do things like remind myself, what do humans do before 10 years ago? You know what I mean? Like, you know, like our parents, generations or grandparents. You know what, if you really cared about somebody and you were friends with them, you stayed in touch, and if you didn't, you didn't. And that was life. And I was so. I had. And so as you said that, it reminded me of how, you know, I don't want to say that they do this on purpose, these platforms, but our human desire to be connected, you know, be in a community, it is scary when we feel we're going to be cut from that. And when you said what you said, yeah, they might be. They want their followers to follow them. Part of that is the feudalism of the landlord, Whether it's Twitter or Facebook or whoever controls all their resources and their income.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: So for them, it's like it controls their connectivity.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and it's almost like if in the old landlord days of feudalism, If a guy could actually leave his feudal lord by picking up his whole plot of land, you know what I mean? Like, and then his family and said, hey, guys, okay, we're gonna sneak off tonight so I can have you guys over here with me. We can get away from this guy, and we'll still be able to farm and eat and all that. Now it's. I want to. For people, not like I was, but people that monetize this stuff, if they leave Twitter to go to Blue sky, that could be the end of their financial wellbeing, too. So you're right. They need to kind of create this social connections.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah, there's the monetizing piece, and then there's the social connections. Like, you know, and one of the pieces we'll have in there from NBC News, one of the guys who made the switch was like, I'm looking at it. Blue sky has enough of the academics that I deal with and the, you know, like, the trade professionals that I deal with that I can still roll with it. Like, it's good enough for me. So he was. He was weighing, does it have enough of the social connectivity for me to be able to move, or do I need to stay over here? Because the connections that I'm looking for, this is the only place I can get them. So, I mean, looking at it in that way is just like, in. It's.
They get your connections, you know, like that you. You make your connections through them. They're your intermediary, and then kind of, you are beholden to them to maintain those connections. And so, yeah, how can you then. If you want to go somewhere else, how can you then maintain, whether it be connections for.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: For.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: For monetary purposes, monetizing it, or just connections? Because this is what you like to do, you know, and you want to be able to exchange ideas and so forth and thoughts. And so it's.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: I mean, it brought me right to techno feudalism when I. When I read this. And like, oh, man. Like, yeah, the struggle of, you know, of deciding. Oh, man. Like, it's a heavy decision for people.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, and that's why I wanted to share that, because as your tithes and I haven't thought about in a while, but I was like, yeah, man, this reminds me of when I left Facebook. Like, it wasn't that easy. And I wasn't. You know, again, I wasn't.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: You weren't. Yeah. You weren't half as in deep as, you know, like, a lot of the people that we're looking at right now.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: I Know, we want to finish out, but it just. I didn't want to say that. It makes me realize the. We've talked about this and I know it's something that people have heard in our culture generally, that this epidemic of loneliness and this conversation actually giving me a new perspective on that. Because, number one, it's the fact that millions, so many tens of millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions globally, are so dependent on the feudal lord, you know, the techno feudal lord for their entry into relationships. And a community is actually something that can be manipulated in a very negative way. Because I was thinking, like, think about again, to pick on Elon Musk here just because he's been the one that's been very public about de. Platforming certain people that he, like you said, he's not really about freedom of speech. He's about control. So.
But think about, I mean, imagine like people that really, like, they don't maybe have that many real connections, at least in person, you know, people in proximity with them, and so they're really using these platforms. Man, if somebody just said, oh, I just don't like the type of person you are or what I've seen you post and I'm just going to take you off this platform. Again, there's no rights for the consumer on that. Right? Like, yeah, there's no. You're not going to go to court and say, well, he kicked me off and I had like 25 really close friends and I'm now depressed and this and that. So I need to let you know the government's not going to be like an advocate like Elon Musk. You got to let you know, this person back on because they're having a mental breakdown now. And so I just think that. And I'm not saying the government should do that. I'm just making the point that these are the little offshoots that we don't see until they appear in our society. Because these technologies are so new. Because who would ever thought that human beings would congregate in communities behind a screen and that would be emotionally almost just exactly as satisfying as real interaction.
So, you know, we got a few.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: The last thing I wanted to, like I mentioned the term a couple times, but I wanted, just wanted to touch on, just briefly, is the idea of this being like the 2024 election in the aftermath being a tipping point for people? Because the first thing I thought when I noticed this was, or when I saw this phenomenon happening was just that the way Twitter was operating had not, did not change in the beginning of November, you know, like all of the things that people were complaining about or why they need to get out for the most part have been in place for months, you know, or a year or so, you know, like the way Musk has operated the platform has not, you know, has not been something that, you know, like I said, it wasn't some big switch, you know.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: November 20th, November 5th, 2024, you know, here's how we're going to do it now. And so, you know, it's interesting to me how events external of Twitter, you know, which based on the timing of this, you got to think that this has something to do with how the election went, but based on the timing of it, that it events external to social media, like real world events, then caused people to make moves in, you know, in the Twitter sphere or out of the Twitter sphere, so to speak. And you know, like again, without anything actually changing there, you know. So I think that how tipping, that's kind of how tipping points can work, though. You know, tipping points, like the impetus can be there and then something else happened and then it starts this, this the ball rolling for something, you know, like that, you know, again, it has. It's not directly related to anything that Musk did in November on Twitter, you know, like, so to speak. So I thought, you're right.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: It's emotional. Yeah. And here's the interesting thing too, James. I'm going to assume that had Kamala Harris won, I'm not going to say everybody, but a majority of the people who have left Twitter to go to Blue sky may not have left Twitter. They might have just stayed.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: That's kind of what I said, you know, whereas. But all the reasons why they're saying they're leaving now.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: I'm just saying those are all still present, you know, like all of those reasons are still there. And so like, I've looked at Twitter skeptically for a long time, you know, at this point for this reason, because it's like, yo, like, if this guy is out openly manipulative of the, of the algorithm, you know, openly, you know, like trying to unfairly boost some things and unfairly minimize other things, like, that doesn't sound like a good social media place.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: I'm just smiling because I wonder if we're going to get deplatformed from Twitter now that we have this show.
Maybe I'll. Maybe I'll send it. When we do, when the video comes out, I'll send it directly to his account.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Hey, man, it doesn't seem like they're in the business of kicking people out right now. Seems like they're trying to hold on to people, but I don't know. Maybe not. But. But no, I think. I think we can wrap this conversation from there.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: So. But we appreciate everybody joining us on this second part of the episode today. Join us for part three, and then if you haven't checked out, check out part one as well, and we'll talk to you then.
All right, for our third topic today, we wanted to discuss some recent research that's been published talking about how being bullied changes the brain. And it went into detail as far as just the parts of the brain that were changed and then kind of giving some thoughts as far as what that would mean or why that would. Effects that would have. But I mean, to me, the biggest piece about it was that these. When we're talking about bullied, we're talking about ongoing type of thing. Like, not something like somebody is antisocial to you one time or whatever, and you never see that person again, but kind of that ongoing thing and how when that happens in adolescence, and yet for young people, it can affect them throughout their life. Not just, you know, where we would think psychologically, like that's kind of known, you know, but that if it's extreme, it can affect psychology. But actually the physical changes in the brain, you know, which we know, the brain's dynamic and does adapt and change based on our experiences and so forth. So I just wanted to kind of get your takeaways on that. And, and also, you know, I do want to get to, at some point in this conversation, just kind of whether society's doing enough or, you know, is. Is. Has done enough, or whether they have not done enough on dealing with. With bullying. You know, as our societies get more and more crowded.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point at the end about the fact we're getting more and more crowded, because I just feel like, obviously bullying since, you know, before we were humans, I mean, you look at a chimpanzee or baboon tribe, they're bullying each other. Yeah. Primates are doing it. So it's clearly part of the.
Of our primal existence. And so I do think. But it's a good point. You make that as, as, you know, we have 8 billion humans now, not 1 billion or half a billion.
You know, I guess with more proximity, we could see more behavior like this. But no, it's, it's. I find this type of research fascinating, actually, because it continues to, you know, the research in this area of this kind of. The development of our brains continues to improve, and it continues to have me believe that many of our. Maybe this goes back into what we just discussed, you know, earlier in this. In this. In our show, this today about free will or the lack thereof. And, you know, the idea of things like trauma in childhood and how all of us experience the world in the first, let's say, 15, 20 years of our lives really does seem to have some sort of hardening effect and affects the rest. How we deal with our own existence for the rest of the journey, you know, while we're adults and into older age. And so that's why, to me, this is very interesting because obviously, I would assume that persistent bullying could affect someone's behavior or how they see themselves or all that stuff as they get older. But what I found interesting about this article is now the research is done to confirm that, and that's what the article is discussing about, you know, someone that's heavily bullied.
And it was talking about how, as a teenager, like, around 14, 15 years old, that the parts of the brain that are still developing and haven't hardened yet. And it's just. It's understandable when you read that stuff that, yeah, if someone's brain is forming at a time where they're under a high level of stress constantly.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Then, yes, it makes sense that when they're in their 40s or 50s, they may have a difficult time dealing with stress or even their own emotional state, like dealing with themselves. And I think that's real. And then we see how that manifests out. Now, when you're looking at older people and how they behave sometimes. When I say older, I just mean adults, people our age, and maybe even older.
Because I've seen over my lifetime just adults behave in a way where I realize, man, that person is not behavioral responding to that actual thing in the moment. Seems like they're triggered off some sort of emotional memory that this thing brought back, and it's, like, real. Like they. Like that thing just happened to them that happened 20 years ago. So almost, I guess, maybe, as I say that, I realized bullying appears to be a form of. Or create a lasting form of ptsd. Yeah.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: And that people are kind of triggered in another context. Yeah.
I found the studies to be very interesting, and we'll have links to the piece that we were getting this from in the show notes. But I found that them observing the physical changes was very interesting to me. It was very speculative on, okay, well, this means this or this or this is happening, because of this, obviously, you got to start somewhere. I mean, that's stuff that you have to continue to flesh out.
I think that, though, when we're talking about this, I think you put it in a good frame in terms of bullying.
It manifests itself for a person as stress. You know, like. And so, yes, and we. If you said that stress at a young age or at any age can change the brain, nobody would be like, oh, people like, oh, yeah, of course. Like, we kind of are gathering that. And so. And then, you know, like, you said the PTSD type of thing because that high level of stress concentrated in a moment. And then you were talking about a time when the brain is rapidly developing then. Yes. You know, like, this is. It's almost like, of course, but how can we do. Or, like, how does this make it more urgent? Or is this like, okay, we're confirming something that we kind of already felt, which is. I'm kind of in that latter territory. So to me, the question I have and where I go to a lot of times is, okay, well, are we doing enough either as a society and are we doing the right things as a society? Because, yeah, I. We both thought back to the idea of, like, well, primates do this kind of stuff. You look at, you know, like a troop of chimpanzees and something, you'll have people that are bullying, people that are getting bullied. And one of the things that you and I have talked about, and I think you shared a story with me one time as far as how to deal with that, like how individuals or these troops deal with bullies is. Is not about necessarily an. In one individual standing up and just, you know, putting their foot down and fighting back, so to speak. But it's always about a group, you know, like, so you have a. A coalition of people who. Who bind together and are able to then withstand or make themselves not a target. Because instead of if you're going to bully one person, that's a different target. Then if 10 people are together in an alliance, so to speak, or a coalition, like, if you bully one of them, all 10 of them are coming back at you. And so these types of techniques also go back into our primal nature, so to speak. And so I just wonder, like, while it's. Our society right now focuses a lot on adults intervening and making sure that this kind of stuff is minimized or limited or leaving less space for this type of stuff to happen. But, you know, our approaches to dealing with bully bullying may need to evolve as well, because what we're Seeing here is just, okay, yeah, yeah, this stuff is serious. It does create lasting and lasting effects. And so let's try to do stuff that can help people learn how to not make themselves a target or keep themselves from being a target or how to. To work with other people to then. Or seek out other people who they can, who potentially can. They can stand with, to not allow themselves to be a target of it. And so I just, I wonder if enough of that is happening as far as, hey, here's how you can not make yourself as prone to bullying. And ironically, the more being more crowded potentially opens up more avenues for that, because this is a much harder situation to deal with. If it's a group of 10 kids or eight kids and one kid gets picked on and it's like, well, you don't have many options for people to stand with him. But if it's 100, then it's like, hey, you might be able to make some connections there to. To help yourself out.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: You know, it's a good movie that, that actually shows that this, this will show our age as well to younger people. Remember the movie Revenge of the Nerds?
I mean, seriously, Because I'm thinking about each guy, Each one of those guys on their own wouldn't have lasted two days in that school.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: But they actually had their little community of the nerds. Right. They were able to get their revenge. So. So it is. Yeah, you're right. That. And, And I'll give you a different example again, give you my anecdotal me example. So I was having some, you know, and I'm never had anything really bad happen with the cops, but, you know, I was getting pulled over a bit and worried that, you know, they looking at me, you know, where I live and stuff like that and getting curious. So I did a test and I went and bought some military T shirts, like Navy SEALS teachers. I started wearing those and I stopped getting pulled over.
And I just. You know what I realized, because I feel you're bullies. Don't like somebody that has some sort of network. Right?
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: And I realized that, you know, in the alpha male world, you know, you got a cop here. But then they might look at military. Okay. But then they also probably thinking that, okay, if this guy is in some sort of elite part of the military, he's probably got a network. If I mess this guy up, I'm probably gonna have to answer to somebody tomorrow. And it's funny, it worked. And it's sad to say that you.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Have connections, you know, like that's very interesting.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: So the point is, is that at 46 years old in my own country, I got to behave like this to avoid potential bullying from representatives of the state. Right. Like, if we want to get really technically about it. But it's, but it's like you're saying it's, it's a tactic to, to say, okay, let me, let me, let me get through this stuff so I don't have to deal with maybe somebody's attitude if they're looking to treat me a certain way. And I think that's the real sad thing. I think reading this about how the long term negative effects on human beings is from bullying, because I feel like part of what we're seeing also, and I don't want to get too esoteric with this, but I guess I will now that I said that.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: Apparently you're heading down that road.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm heading down that road. But I almost feel like sometimes the way we deal with each other in our own culture in America, I see, like it's a bunch of adults who have this collective trauma from their own childhood of something could be abandonment, could be bullying, could be child abuse. Because like you're saying in the prior discussion we just had about the platform Twitter X, what surprised me was once Elon Musk bought it and took the guardrails off the glee and excitement that so many of our fellow Americans had running in there saying, I can finally use the N word. I can finally be antisemitic, you know.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: And that's, I can finally go treat other people like dirt.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Like basically saying that I can finally, I can finally dominate someone else. That kind of was the end message. Right. Without being, you know, interrupted to do that. And that's what I'm saying. Like, that's when I was like, well, that's just a different type of mindset to me. Like, I'm just not frothing at the mouth to go hurt someone else. But that's also because I wasn't hurt when I was a kid. I wasn't bullied in that way. I wasn't hurt by my mom or, you know, my family didn't ban to me or beat me or anything. So I'm an adult that doesn't want to, you know, I don't walk around either subconsciously wanting to put pain on someone else or consciously getting some sort of satisfaction from hurting someone else. But I'm realizing, and I guess because of all the social media and all this discourse we have, there's so many people in our country as adults, not kids. Because we know kids can act in all kind of ways, but as people our age or even older that are. They get like a joy. This schadenfreude or this. I want to own this other group or this other person. And it's just, it's sad, but I think that's a, that's an offshoot of trauma from when they were young. So it's, it's interesting to learn all this stuff.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: It's quite, quite a diagnosis. Dr. Tunde?
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Hey.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Hey.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: So come back for the marriage counseling conversations. Those are fun.
I actually put my glasses on in my lab coat.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, you gotta, gotta have the glasses for that one man to be believable. So. But no, I, I mean, I, I can follow what you're saying. I mean, I think that some of that, though, is again, go back to like, the, the documentaries you can go watch on chimpanzees or, you know, whatever, you know, like these primates, and you will see, you know, these types of behaviors amongst some of the group and then others, Others of the group that know how to band together then to who? The ones who don't walk around looking for somebody to hurt. You know, they have to band together and that's how they can deal with stuff like that. So I think that all of these are like. My question is more so for the people who want to avoid being bullied and the people in society who want to try to make, make reduce. Bullying is while, okay, yes, we should do something, you know, that adults, you know, like, yeah, do something, but at the same time, are we doing enough as far as to make sure people are equipped to deal with this themselves? Because while I do, I do believe, and I mean, you're looking at the research that your brain can change based on your exposure to stress at a young age, it could change your exposure to stress at a young age. Like, having the ability to deal with that stuff is very important. One, and then two, your brain can change as you continue to age too. So if you can remove yourself or avoid stressful situations after a period of stressful situations, your brain can. Can change in other ways too and change in positive ways. So we're not like, most of the time, our bodies are. Can evolve over time, you know, and so most of the time you're not stuck with if, you know, if something bad happens at 15, you're just stuck with that forever. It may take effort, it may take work, it May take, you know, making sure the situations you're in are conducive to you being better and so forth. But, you know, we're not stuck with, generally speaking in life, we're not stuck with wherever we are at a given moment. And so the. The ability. And then forming community. Forming community so that you can avoid this. So that. And that also is a way to be able to heal from this, you know, because community support, you know, are ways that you can then kind of unwind some of these negative effects, you know, and so forth. So. But, yeah, I mean, I think you.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Can do all that, man. You can do all that. Or you could just buy a military T shirt.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: I was gonna say, yeah, you can set up, like, I see a shot with military T shirts.
[00:50:32] Speaker B: Guaranteed to stop bullying the other ones that work too. One of my friends, true story. Just for the.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: Giving away all your stuff for free.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: No, his dad's a. His dad was a firefighter, so we were in our 30s. He would wear his firefighter T shirt. So when he got pulled over, you know, from the Puck Cops again, they would. That quick second of seeing that he might be a firefighter would get them to, you know, not approach him in a certain way.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: That's wild.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: So the new thing is just buy the right T shirt.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. Right, right, right. Project that you are a part of and, you know, like, there. There you go. So. All right. But I think we can wrap this episode from here. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it, you know, Check out part one, Part two, if you haven't already subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, Send it to a friend. Until next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Lana.
[00:51:22] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to.
