Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at some of the revelations in the, quote, Facebook files that the Wall Street Journal has been publishing and then really get into and expose the truth on how Facebook and Facebook owned Instagram really work and how they affect us.
And later on, we're going to look at some recent, a recent study that looks at why the Dutch, who apparently on average are the world's tallest people, are getting shorter.
And looking at how we see these fluctuations in population as far as average height, you know, and so. And now that is sometimes tied to things that make sense and other times is something that people haven't really been able to make out.
Joining me today is a man who is smoking on the mic, like smoking Joe Frazier. Tunde Ogun, Lana Tunde. Are you ready to take the people through how not a damn thing has changed and they gotta protect their necks?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: I'm just upset you set me up with a smoking reference without telling me and now I'm stuck without a comeback. So let me be embarrassed and start this show.
So let's go, let's go, let's go.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: No comment, no comment.
But now we're recording this on September 20, 2021. And this past week, we've seen the Wall Street Journal do some serious reporting with leaked documents and lots of research and so forth, like the real kind of media type stuff, you know. And they've released a series of stories and there's more to come, apparently, but a series of stories with. They contain some pretty serious information on how Facebook gets down really, and how they're affecting us.
And the three big themes we've seen so far are how Facebook treats elite or celebrity users that's different than other users.
How bad Instagram is from, like, how it's been studied internally and so forth, how bad it is for young people, particularly young women, and also how the algorithms give huge boosts of prevalence to content that's divisive or misinformation and so forth, because that's deemed to be more engaging or that ends up being more engaging.
So to get us going, Tunde, what has your reaction been to seeing these stories and these revelations? Or is there anything that stands out to you the most?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: No, I mean, I'm not surprised. That I think is maybe my biggest takeaway, that when I saw this expose from the Wall Street Journal, it didn't surprise me that Facebook had knows These things. I think it's been well documented outside of finding leaked research from Facebook's own internal kind of researchers that there is detrimental negative effects to social media for not only our society in general. And I think you and I, even when we did the Social Dilemma documentary review on air here about a year ago or so. Yeah, we, that that documentary specifically pointed out to the rates of increase in teen. Of depression in teenage girls from 2013 going forward.
So this information was out there. But obviously it's surprising.
All I'll say is I'm not surprised. But it's, it's, it's telling that a company got this information that their product does this kind of harm not only to society. But. And you and I have documented well over our kind of podcast career about this, the damage done to things like our societal discourse and our democracy. But generally we focused on the adults. I think this was the eye opener, is that they internally, let's say the leadership of Facebook was told internally by their own research staff that this was affecting young people and children. And that's where, you know, I know I've seen this already in the media. But the analogy to things like tobacco and other products that not only are harmful to society generally, that's why I won't compare this necessarily just like to directly to fossil fuels. Like, we know that Exxon and certain companies understood that their products caused harm to the earth much earlier than the rest of us did.
But that's more of a greater remote though. Yeah. And that's also a greater good conversation. This is where executives got research that told them that they're hurting kids and they're making young women and I'm talking teenage girls more susceptible to suicide, to having mental health issues.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: No, that's what I mean. Actually, let me jump in.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: This is more sinister to me that.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: They overlook, but it's also more of a proximate thing like the fossil. Exxon knows in 1970 that there's stuff. Cause you know, it's greenhouse gases and it could cause climate change. In 1970, the idea of climate change was so remote. But you can actually understand why somebody like, oh, the world is huge. Even if it does, It'll be like 300 years from now. We'll have to.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, they'll figure it out.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: This is like this stuff is happening to people, people tomorrow. Or you know, like it's happening right now. It's, it is similar to tobacco in the sense that they understand, like, hey, this is harmful to people. People are drawn to this stuff. They get they can get addicted to it, but we can make a lot of money on it, so let's roll with it. And that's actually what was the biggest. The shock to me was how intimately they understood this. They being Facebook, understood this stuff. This wasn't like, there's no plausible deniability here. This is like they know, they studied it and. But they, in public, they feign like, oh, we don't know for sure, and yada, yada, yada. Like, this is one of those things where I look at them and say, of course this is this way. But you can understand how somebody who is in a position to benefit from it might try to convince themselves otherwise. But it's like, no, they, they didn't even convince themselves otherwise. They knew. And they just say, hey, them's the breaks. And it's like, oh, man, you guys are really, you know, like, taking us. You guys really don't care. Like you're just taking us down, down the tubes, you know, for, for a short, quick.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: But yeah, no, and it's, and it's. And that's what I'm saying is that just like, that's why it does remind me of tobacco. Because remember, I mean, I should say, remember, you and I weren't. We were probably alive, but by the time we were young, they stopped all this. Remember that tobacco companies were allowed to market to kids like teenagers? Remember back in the day, before the Internet and before cable tv, there was a lot going on in terms of publications. You know, remember like Mad Magazine, Crack magazine. There was a bunch of stuff that was for teenagers kind of things. And tobacco companies were allowed to advertise in those publications. Yeah, and in comic books, for example, you know, the old Superman comics and all the stuff that kids used to read in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And so what happened is once the research came out that tobacco is long term harmful and the general society understood it, they were prevented from at least marketing to kids. The idea was eventually like, it was.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Like it happened right away, though.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Well, and just like, just like with alcohol and firearms, you know, we kind of say, look, you should be an adult. You should be above the age of 18 before you can start doing this stuff on your own. And I think, you know, this might be the moment where our society, unfortunately, through Facebook's inability to be transparent and so now being caught with kind of their hand in the cookie jar knowing that they knew certain things to which the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was just on Capitol Hill in March of this year of 2021.
We are here in what, September when this stuff comes out. So six months ago, telling Congress that he recognizes and understands through the research of his company that social media has positive effects to mental health.
So what it tells me is, you know, he's being just like when we talked about how we got into Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, where the policymakers cherry pick the intelligence from the intelligence services.
This guy is cherry picking information from his research analysts. And because I'm pretty sure there's somewhere buried in another study that there are some positive benefits to mental health.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: You know, they can find it.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: They really wanted to find it.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: They have all this data, they do.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: All this, like, if I'm lonely and I miss my friends from high school and it's been 30 years since I saw him, I'm sure that you can say that there's an uptick in my emotional state if I get to see him on Facebook. But you're right, it's avoiding the total negative effects that, that he clearly is avoiding the conversation about what they know is negative to our society and to the future of our society. Our kids.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, I would say that that's one. I mean, they also have the other two big revelations or two kind of themes. The way they treat elite or celebrity users differently and how the algorithm is really geared towards just pushing divisive content as much as possible because that's considered to be more engaging.
That part I think we've all known, you know, we've seen that in practice as far as how Facebook works, like, to. To be. You have to be controversial, so to speak, in social media. And in order to get picked up, really, you know, like, if you get out there and say, hey, you know, all good here today? You know, like, that's not stuff that people are going to react to, and therefore that's stuff that's going to get buried. So I think that one was one that was a little more like, just kind of like, of course, you know, like. And then how they treat the users, I thought was different. Treat the users differently, was different in the sense that the theme you can find with all of these is the kind of just unabashed and remorseless pursuit for profit because through them, for them, profit is engagement. So if they deem a user to be more inclined to get more, you know, like more engagement because they're a celebrity, because, you know, whatever, they're going to use kid gloves on it, they're not going to do much to, to, to. To anger that person because they want that person posting because whatever they post is going to be more engaging. And you know, with the teenage girls, they're just preying on them, you know, or with, with, with children, they're just preying on them. They are in a time in their life when they're more susceptible to some of the pressures. And so therefore they're going to be unable to put it down, so to speak. Or I mean, shoot, adults are going to be prone to that stuff too. But at minimum, you know, with children it's even worse.
And then even with the, excuse me, with the last piece where you're talking about rewarding divisive content, the same thing. It's all about pursuing without regard for consequence, engagement, because engagement is what they sell. And so, you know, and ultimately it ends up just being, you know, a true, you know, capitalist story, you know, like where you have unregulated capitalism, where when that happens, then the businesses, I mean, you might as well have kids in coal mines, you know, with unmet regulated capitalism. Like that's how it's going to work. Like they're going to find the quickest, most direct and easiest path to a dollar and just bang that until society regulates them and tells them they can't do that. And so ultimately.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Let me, let me, it's good.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Well, let me like just finish up.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: And then I want to help you clean that up.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Ultimately what it is basically is that this is the signal that we need that we like, hey, we can't just let leave this to its own devices because the quickest and easiest ways to the greatest profit are things that are harmful to society.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think just to help you clean that up a bit, because I can hear someone, you know, someone listening, saying, oh, this guy sounds like a socialist commie talking about capitalism this and that.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: See that would be a close minded person though, because, well, that might be.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Let me help them.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: So you're not gonna clean it up for them though. Their mind's already made up.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Well, let me go.
So the bottom line is. No, but to your point that anything unregulated can cause harm. And that's my point.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Like if we drove without any regulations, without seatbelts, without lines on the street to tell us where the lanes are, without stop signs and stoplights and our ability to obey those and the regulation is through laws. If we run a stoplight and a cop sees, we get pulled over.
And then going into the capitalist side, that's where we get back to things like healthy regulation of, let's say the financial system that Bernie Madoff's can't exist running Pozny schemes without being reprimanded. And we just talked about it. Regulation of things like tobacco, alcohol, firearms, that we don't market these things to children and all that. So what you're saying is we've got a new industry. Like we all know technology over the last 20 years has really disrupted our society and we need to do a better job. And I think this is where it's interesting. I think they're coming from different angles and for different reasons. But it's landing on the same thing that in the rare moment of bipartisanship in today's maybe societal discourse in the United States, both kind of the quote unquote left and right are looking to do something about big tech regulations. And this idea that this section 230 was done in 1996, 25 years ago, and a rapid acceleration of, of just how technology has permeated all our lives, it does speak to the need to really address this from a regulatory standpoint.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Well, let's save that for the end when we talk about what the answers are. I'll say this though. Anyone who hears that unregulated capitalism or there's a need for regulation with market systems and capitalism and immediately jumps to socialism and communism is just uninformed. Is that person out there saying that food companies shouldn't have to tell you what's in their product? Is that person out there saying that gas companies should be able to put lead in their, in their gas? You know, just because that's the market and they shouldn't have to tell you about it. Like there's a certain level of regulation that everyone understands is important to having an economic system. And so if you want unregulated capitalism, go to Afghanistan. You know, like that that's going to be, you know, like you just do whatever your dollar gets you. That's what you get. But so I don't think, I mean, I appreciate what you're saying as far.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: As how, you know, we just have different approaches.
I'm trying to stroke them, you're trying to give them the okay. You trying to get the olive branch. Yeah, give the olive branch and you wanna throw the hammer, but it's okay.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: And I'm like, well, but no, because I'm saying like that is such a knee jerk reaction to where if you hear certain words and you're like Pavlovian, and you're just like, oh, I heard regulation. And immediately your brain goes like, that's like Pavlov's dog. I mean, it's so. It's not something that it's helpful that you do that. But we also have to keep in mind that there is a certain level of regulation that nobody's out here disputing. And I'm not saying these people need to be shut down. All I'm saying is that this is kind of showing us that, okay, here are the holes that will be exploited if we allow them to just do whatever they want to do. And that happens in industry. And that's when we need to step in, you know, like, whether it's. Like I said, whether it's child labor or whatever you want to do. So, like, we can move on from there. The. Oh, well, go ahead.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Well, one thing I had because I wanted to also, I was thinking as I was reading this, you know, I got off Facebook in 2019 completely.
And so with a little bit of distance now, I kind of. It's amazing to see their growth since I haven't been on it. So I'm really. I don't want to ever get back on it, actually.
But it got me thinking, reading all these articles that, you know, this is another example where we don't ask questions of like, okay, so what's really going on here? Because it made me rethink about it.
They never charged me to get on their platform, right? I never paid a penny to Facebook to be on their platform, to see my friends, to do all that. And so I started thinking about, let me go look at their revenue, how much these guys make. You know, this year, there's projected by the end of 2021 to be in excess of 100 billion in revenue, which is pretty amazing. I mean, just in revenue alone, that's. That's amazing. So, but I'm looking here at the last since 2017, every year they just keep growing. So in 2017, they earned 40 billion in gross revenue, had 15 billion of earnings. 2016 was, you know, 55 billion. 20. Sorry, 2018-2017-4020-1855. 20, 19. 70 billion. 2020 was 85 billion. So you're talking about a company that four years ago was generated a gross of 40 billion and today generates 100 billion. And so my point is, is that. So I started thinking, well, if I'm not paying to be a member or anything like that, clearly they're not just growing their revenue through membership and all that. That gets back to what we've been talking about. They're selling our data. They're selling ads to people to divide us. They're Selling like you're saying the algorithms are selling the most divisive entry points for people that want to continue to make money off disrupting not only our society.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: But they're selling, they're selling attention. They're selling the attention of their users. They're selling the data which is what to put in front of the user. But really the core of it is they're selling the user's attention. And so these things, what we're seeing is that keeping people's attention can have negative consequences. Keeping people's attentions at all costs can have negative consequences. And so. But their business model is that they. You're looking, if you're looking, it's no different fundamentally than broadcast television. You know, except we know with when they have your data as well, then it's like, okay, we know this person likes this or likes that. And so.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: And also I'll add to that, in broadcast television, we can't interact back. That's the thing, right? Like this whole thing about the one one of the articles was talking about, when people start getting in disputes and all in the comment section that, that they just look to post the thing that will get the most negative comments. Interaction.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Well, but that doesn't affect like from a business model standpoint that again, that's a metric on how you measure how much attention you're getting. But even still, it's no different. I mean, I'm going to remember they.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Can then sell ads and also sell space for content from, let's say, people that are looking to disrupt the narrative. Right. Like, we all learned about what happened with the way that certain actors not only use the 2016 election, but even 2020 election, they're all paying for that space too. So Facebook is kind of like saying we just don't see what's happening, but we're still making money off all this commotion that's going on. So that's what I'm saying. It is a profit center for them to allow this kind of societal dysfunction to actually continue.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Well, yeah, they take the money to promote it further.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: And that's what I'm saying. They went from 40 billion four years ago to now 100.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Clearly they're doing their interest.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: That's what I mean.
And that's what reminds me, that's why I just want to finish up on reminding me about tobacco and other commodities. Because we learned through the social Network that in 2018, data became the most profitable commodity in the world that surpassed oil and became a $1 trillion annual market.
So it kind of Goes back to like we said about climate change or tobacco. It seems like sometimes in our, in societies, whatever is the hottest commodity that's making the most economic, you know, kind of progress and greasing everyone's wheels, the harm to society ends up kind of being looked at as a secondary issue.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: And you know, kind of see that clearly. I mean, but that's not limited to just successful. I mean there are plenty of that do that of all degrees of success. But we got to keep moving though. I want to ask you this. How much of the problems we are seeing is it Facebook slash social media and how much is just people?
Like all of this stuff still comes back to our humanity? When you're talking about treating celebrities with preference, that happens. You go to dinner, that'll happen. You know, like as far as kids and these, like, I've seen these same type of discussions as far as young, young women, for example, with the magazines at the checkout, at the grocery store, like that type of stuff. Now that's not, as you've pointed out in the past, constantly bombarding them in their face all the time when they go home and everything like that. And even with, you know, the third piece, as far as reward, rewarding, divisive content, cable news pretty much has become that now. Like as soon as you took the Fairness doctrine out when they came, when news had to behave a certain way, had to behave in a, in a newsy way, as soon as they had to be entertainment, they went straight to the most divisive stuff. For the most part, the most divisive stuff has proven to get the most eyeballs in cable news. So how much of this are we looking at Facebook? And how much should we be looking at as far as like, well, this is maybe just us.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: I think it's both, man. I think, yeah, obviously part of it is humans because, you know, obviously we're reacting to this stuff. But I think this is, this is goes back to where I've said, like, we may be starting to hit that point of singularity where like tech is moving too fast for our own human ability to kind of keep up with it through our evolutionary state. Because I think what's happened, and we've talked about this on various discussions on different shows, like the idea of think about fight or flight responses, that we're still conditioned as we were when we were hunter gatherers, you know, thousands of years ago to, to secrete certain stress hormones and all that. When the tiger or the lion was chasing us on the plains, the same triggers that secreted those, those hormones back in the hunter gatherer days are our minds react to triggers online the same way.
So all the stress, things like that. And that's why we're seeing that we're not getting chased by lions and tigers anymore. But even those, you know, you were stressed out for maybe 10 minutes over maybe one week period because you either got eaten by that lion or you didn't. But now we've got people constantly on their phones having these stress hormones and these chemical secretions in their mind and their emotional state, like literally on 24 hours a day, because it's a part of what I would call, you know, the ecosystem. My favorite word, social media, is one part of it. Then the social media is also in cahoots with the cable news.
And then so people get off their phone and on Facebook and they go turn on the news, and then they're stressed out again.
And if it's a kid, maybe they go and turn on a reality show to get shown how good someone else looks on that reality show, but they don't look good. And then they go back.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: I'm just saying, like, yeah, you can feel bad about you. If you feel bad about your appearance, you can feel bad about your appearance in a lot of different places.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And so. And I think maybe one of the things with the kids is even with television, I mean, parents had at least an easier way of regulating when a kid's in their house. I mean, now so many things happen in a parent's home without them realizing because the kid's on their phone in their room and they think, you know, they think the kids in the room being quiet or studying or doing something, and then. And then, you know, they're on a phone. So. And I think obviously I could hear someone saying, well, you know, you should just take the phone away from the kid and all that. And yeah, that's true. You know, there's obviously a 10 of parents.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: You know, you hear a lot of doubt in your mind when you say something or when I say something. You hear a lot of people doubting us, don't you?
[00:22:52] Speaker B: No, I just got a lot. I got a lot of devil's advocates in there.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying.
I can hear somebody telling me that this is some bs but screw them, right?
[00:23:01] Speaker B: I'm in the. I'm in the business of risk management, sir.
I'm always looking for.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: I get it.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Where's the risk around the corner.
I'm looking for those shaking, you know, the tall grass shaking. And let Me see what's. What's behind there. Is it going to eat me or not? And so, but that's. That's what I'm saying is that. So now we're talking about. Okay, now we got to get on parents, right? So let's say. I'll commend you and myself, we're attentive parents. We try and regulate the amount of time for our kids online.
Unfortunately, we know that probably 50% of all children in the United States probably have parents that don't pay attention, and 50% do. But that's a lot of kids. And you're talking about now. And this is what I've shared with you in the past in private conversations. We're almost living through a private. Like, sorry, we're living through an ongoing experiment of humanity because in 30, 40 years, what's our society gonna look like if half the teenagers today are literally stressed out and in depression already, before they even get to work and have a real job and before they have their own kids?
What are we doing here? And what kind of society are we going to have?
[00:24:05] Speaker A: No, I agree with you, man. But see, now, I think that if this is something that is that we can separate out the specificity when it deals with. When you deal with mass media, whether it be social media or even, you know, cable news or whatever, or even Netflix and, you know, that type of entertainment media, because when you're dealing with mass media, your risks and the issues you're dealing with are amplified.
And so I think the fact that Facebook is such a multiplier of all of the normal concerns that we have, that we have to look at it more closely. And so when you have that if Facebook was an innocent actor or any social media or news media, whatever entity was an innocent actor, if they weren't purposefully trying to figure out how best to pull strings on people in order to maintain their attention, then you may look at it differently, but that's not what's happening. They are actually actively looking to exploit weaknesses in the human psyche. Like, that's the game plan. And so we have to look at it from that standpoint. And now in the old days, and I'm saying old days, like 200 years ago, companies had to. Part of their charter had to be being for the social good. Hey, hey, hey, that's. Don't look at me as some. Whatever that. That's America at its founding. You know, companies in their charter, social good was a part of that, as it was required to that.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Are you telling me the founding Fathers are socialist commies, sir.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Apparently, if that's one of your trigger words, if that's one of your trigger words, then that's what I'm saying. Don't look at me. But either way, that's not the. That's not the case anymore. That, that was taken out. You know, like one state took it out, then the rest of the states had to take it out or else, no, nobody would form a corporation in any place but that one state. But either way, my point being is that we understand that we don't have the guardrails inherently on what corporations can do as far as exploiting us. And so that's why when we see these things, we have to be able to respond and respond in a way that lowers this amplified risk or constrains this amplified risk that we're dealing with when so many people can be got with one scoop. You know, like, even with. If you compare it to a magazine that's sitting at the cash register at a grocery store, that still can't affect as many people in one swoop. And we're compared to that, to something on Instagram that can affect a lot of people. And then there's a repetitive nature. It's already in your home. It's over and over and over again. So that, I think, is what you have to recognize here is that, yes, there is a certain level of inherent humanity here, but these are risk and concern amplifiers. And because they're amplifiers, we have to deal with it differently. I mean, in the same way that because you can drive faster in a car than you can run or walk, you have to be more careful as far as how fast people drive. Like, there's no. When you're walking on the sidewalk, there's no speed limit for walking. They're like, oh, if you walk faster than, you know, six miles an hour, we're going to pull you over and arrest you. Like, no, because the risk is only so big because you can't go that fast. Well, on the highway you can go much faster. So in a vehicle, in a car, you can go much faster. So you have to put more guardrails on it.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: The highway is communist, but the sidewalk's not exactly. This is interesting.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: I'm learning it's unregulated.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's unregulated capitalism. But the highway is a socialist.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Wherever you are, however fast.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Now I got it. So now I'm going to have to try and drive my car on the sidewalk. That's interesting. So anyway, but one of the things I was going to mention was because you're right. Is it the humanity or the Facebook? And one of the things I was thinking of was, you know, Facebook provides a lot of things that on their own aren't necessarily evil.
But, you know, let's just say we've got a society with a bunch of people on various sides of the spectrum. Right? And you and I have talked about this in any society, and I think this has been, you know, scientifically confirmed. You've got about 10% of the population that's sociopath. That's just the nature of how humans are born. Right. There's going to be a certain percentage of sociopath, certain percentage that's susceptible to depression maybe more than others, certain percentage as this or that. And even. And you might have, you know, 1% that are schizophrenic and other type of issues that are pretty serious. And I'm not here to make fun of them. I'm just saying that when you give a platform like Facebook now to 3 billion humans, then if you just theoretically connect them all. Correct. And now they're all connected. If you have 10% of anything, that's 300 million people that are gonna receive maybe information a certain way, like that an election was stolen or that a country is this doing this or that, or that a politician is doing this or that. Right. Whether it's positive or negative, whether it's Democrat or Republican, doesn't matter.
People that aren't on one edge or the other of the spectrum, like you and I and many others can take that information and we can say, okay, let me process this. Let me kind of do some research and see. Certain people will take that information and run with it in a way that can be very aggressive.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: And the point being is that Facebook then will take the people who run with it and do divisive stuff with it.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: And amplify them. Because that's more engaging than the people who are well adjusted and say, oh, that's a pretty interesting thing you say, but I'd have to see more proof. That's boring.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: They're not gonna amplify that.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: And what it does provide too, again, without just in a vacuum. Something like anonymity is fine. To be anonymous doesn't mean it's good or bad. It's just a definition of no one knows who you were when you did something. But think about what happens when you have, like you said, human beings in these large groups getting emotionally disturbed and now getting aggressive with each other on these comments. People behave in certain ways when they have anonymity, that they would never behave in person.
So the person that's calling that young lady fat and fat, shaming her online.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: You know, some of them might, some.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Of them, 90% would not. I mean, yeah, there's outliers that would be assholes and just say, oh, you know, you're a fat. But most people aren't, that aren't indecent like that. Like, they don't treat other people to their face. And so I think this is also the first time in human society, like you said, We've put 3 billion people that technically can somehow connect with each other in a platform where they can also have a certain form of an anonymity and they're, you know, and this is what happens. And so that's why I wanted to say, like, I don't think it's, it's, it's like I, I think it's a combination of the humanity and then the access to the triggers and the responses and then the other part, just to get off my high horse, because I've joked with you about this comment that misery loves company. Right. So I think that unintentionally, like, I don't think this is something that when Mark Zuckerberg founded this company in 2004, he set out to do, but unintentionally, people that are miserable, think about it. If you're unhappy with your life, you're unhappy for whatever reason, whether it's you're mad at your parents, how you're brought up, whether you're someone as racist or has a religious bigotry in you or something, then when you see people either having a good time online or you see people from the group you don't like, think about it. If you're already miserable and you're unhappy, you're going to try and make their life miserable and you're going to start talking smack and all that, trying to upset them. And so just like sometimes I have people say some pretty not nice things to me on the street and all that.
You know, when I was younger and I was less secure about myself, that stuff would bother me. I think about it for a few days, this and that. Now I can just keep going.
But I can't imagine being a teenager at 15 years old, because back then I was insecure and I was still forming who I am as a person to have this constant.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: That's the part of the problem here is that they're attacking of the vulnerable.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: People in an age very vulnerable.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Bullied, preyed on. And then also unintentionally. I mean, this isn't necessarily bullying, but yeah, young ladies who are seeing all this fakeness, like all these, you know, plastic surgery and all that, and they're looking at themselves, you know, that's why it was a shame to hear that in the UK, I think 13% of young women to teenage girls said they specifically thought about suicide due to Instagram.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that was one of the revelations.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: And it's just like, what are we doing to these kids? That's all I'm kind of saying.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and it surrounds them. I mean, and I think you make a good point, you know, just as far as how, like, most people aren't antisocial, but social media almost promotes the people on the edge to be more antisocial. And then it amplifies and surrounds us with the antisocial people, and so it becomes a crazy thing. Well, but I want, I want to keep moving here because I want to get to if. I mean, the answer. This may be a quick section or a short section, but what is the answer here? And I want to say one of the things I think is important to, to remember when we're talking about social media. This applies to, to media in general, as long as it's not like a pure message board or something like that. And that is that Facebook, for example, Instagram, when we're talking about the algorithm, what we're talking about is they are curating what you see. It's not just in the order of things posted amongst people you're friends with or that you follow or whatever. They just show you that stuff. They're actually curating it. So they're not actually passive in terms of this. And I think that's always important to remember. A lot of times I don't think people realize that when you become a curator of information, you are different and you should be treated differently than just a houser of information. You're not just. You're not just providing a platform for people to say things. You are providing a platform for people to say things and then you're deciding which one of those things is shown to people, which one of those things is shown to people repeatedly. All, you know, in this case, it's all about what's going to generate the most attention, what's going to keep people's attention. And so anytime we look at an answer for something like this, I think we have to account for the fact of the curation, you know, and so, but I'll let you Go. And then I'll, I'll give my thoughts and then, you know, we can wrap this section up.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean that's pretty much was, was my thoughts there about the kind of misery loving company that, that, that people will, will, like you said about, you know, most people aren't antisocial, but you get them behind a cover and it goes back to, you know, what's a good. Actually. And I, and I apologize. Guy, think about this till right now. So I didn't have a chance to prepare. I don't remember who the scientist was, but there was a study in the 19, either late 50s or 60s, and you'll recognize when I say it, it's the one where they had the guy in the lab coat and they had. It was fake, but the person who was the test dummy didn't know that. And so they were telling somebody to press a button and they were going to electrocute someone behind the curtain.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: And they weren't really electrocuting him, but they wanted to see how, how when you couldn't see the victim and you were given an order how far this could go. And this, this study came out after, you know, the whole Holocaust and Second World War when, you know, humanity and kind of science was trying to figure out how could all these people do this to other people?
And they kind of found that, I mean this Facebook isn't necessarily taking orders part of it, but the anonymity part.
When you kind of don't really have a connection to the victim and you don't see their pain and all that directly, it's easy for a lot of people to look the other way.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: And I would say ordinarily or otherwise wouldn't like, obviously the sociopath will do it anyway. But that's the, as you pointed out before, that's a smaller number, but more people, when they can't see the victim, when they can't see what happens, even if they know what happens if they can't see, removes this kind of social block that a lot of people thankfully do have.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: And I would say this, I mean, just talking about hearing myself say it, it's a good example of that. When you're not faced with something regularly, you may overlook it. And I think it's kind of like these young ladies who are on these social media things are suffering in silence because the rest of us aren't really seeing it. And it's not really. Obviously it's all mental. It's not something we really see.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Well, that's the importance of the studies is that it at least allows us to know that it's something that is actually happening. Because the other piece about it is that the people who are suffering think it's just them. And so it's hard for society to get a handle on the scale of it and honestly for people to get the political will to do something about it. Because as long as it's anecdotal, as long as when it hasn't been studied and the studies aren't public, it's difficult for society to react. And so for me, when I look at what we can do, I think one, I think, and you kind of touched on this a little bit when you're talking about like smoking or whatever. I think we should consider age appropriateness as far as unfettered use to these things. Like if this is that harmful to people in a developmental stage in their life and it is that accessible and that effective at being harmful, then we have to look at some other way to control it. And I mean this, this is going to again, get down into that regulation aspect. And I don't have all of the answers. Like what I do see and what we all need to look at is are the problems and then figure out ways that you can address these problems that aren't overly or unnecessarily punitive or restrictive. And so whether it be age ranges, whether it would be establishing that there's a different kind of liability, if you're going to be a curator of information, of false information in particular, if you're going to curate false information, there's going to be a different legal standard that you're held to as opposed to, again, just being somewhere where people can publish something if you're just.
And where you'll see this difference. And I mean, now I'm going to go into a little bit more detail just because I'm an attorney and I deal with this stuff. Sometimes Internet service providers deal with a lot of the same things. As far as when you talked about Section 230, which gives it limits liability or gives it prevents people from having liability for things. If they're just hosting places where people can put stuff, they're not liable for what the person, what somebody else says, so to speak. That's generally what that's about.
Internet service providers allow you to put up a website.
They don't promote your website though. And so they would be, I look at as a different standard than Facebook, who allow you to post content. You can put up a website full of false information. But GoDaddy is not going to be sitting there promoting it because it brings more people to your website, you know, for them to make money. Like, that's not what GoDaddy does. Whereas Facebook, you can put up a Facebook page full of false information and. And Facebook will actively promote this without you paying them any money. Now you can pay them money to promote it more, but without you paying them any money, they'll actively promote your false stuff because they deem it as being more engaging and therefore they'll be able to sell more advertising based on it. So they're curating information. I think the distinction between a curator and just someplace where something can be put should be considered when you're coming up with solutions for this stuff.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree, bro.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: So, no, it's gonna be a pickle no matter what, man. There's not gonna be.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: No.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: And it'll be some trial and error too. And that's gonna be another one of those things where, like, it's not going to be smooth sailing as we try to find some type of.
Of setup here where it's not actively destroying society. You know, like, it's not going to be pretty. It's going to take some trial and error and some things that. There may be a little overreach. You got to pull back or there may be we do something that's not enough. And so that part of the process, ideally we can get through that or get to that and through that part of the process with people who care and aren't just trying to rile us all up. But we know that's not going to be the case. You know, people just have to be discerning as far as how they receive information and that. I mean, it's hard to say that, obviously, because you're saying, oh, well, be better to the people as far as what you receive and how you react. But I mean, ultimately, if we're going to be a government of people by the people and for the people, that's going to be. End up being a part of it as well.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think just like tobacco, fossil fuels, all that, you know, like I said, that's why I pointed out 2017. Four years ago, they made 40 billion. This year they'll make over 100 billion.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: That's jarring.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: They're not gonna stop it on their own.
You know what I mean?
[00:39:57] Speaker A: It'd be crazy to stop on it.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Why would they? Yeah, if I was a Facebook shareholder, I wouldn't want them to. And that's where, you know, then that's where.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: Well, if you were shortsighted. Because what can end up happening in these type of situations is that it could be whatever if they don't get it. That's what you hope is that they realize that they get it under the control themselves. And so therefore when society steps in, society won't be so punitive that to try to just bury them. And so. But most of the time, as you point out, most of the time people say, hey, I'll take my chances. I got lobbyists too.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: I mean, I think this whole expose means. And the fact that I cited that in March the CEO of Facebook was in front of the US Congress saying that our research tells us that social media promotes better mental health, tells us exactly what they've made their. They're not gonna self regulate. So now we gotta get socialists and.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Commie on them, in the words of Tunde or anyone who has that Pavlovian reaction. But we can move on from there.
Now you're a tall guy, you know, so like you've told us about all of the many great times and amazing things you've done as an NCAA basketball player.
And so I wanted to talk about this with you as far as this average height thing. So we saw a study this past week or past few weeks and it went into like the premise of the study and of the reporting is that Dutch, 1, Dutch are the tallest on average people in the world. And two, they're getting shorter in the last 20, 20, 30 years or whatever. And so on average. And so don't know what to make of that though because like, does average height of a. Of some selected group really matter? Particularly when you're talking about millions and millions of people and there's people who immigrate and all this stu. Other stuff does, you know, does average height matter? And then obviously the point being is that in these. Is that there's more to it than just genetics.
So, you know, like, what's your thought on, you know, these kind of trends that we see? Because the article actually pointed out other trends in height that were kind of shocking, you know. So just your reaction to this as far as either the particular, the frontline premise as far as the Dutch, or even some of the other stats that we saw?
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Yeah, the other stats were pretty interesting.
No, it's funny. First of all, let me clear it up for you. I did some amazing things off the bench, cheering my teammates and in practice making sure that a couple guys that actually had great NBA careers from my college basketball team did very well.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: So your height serves you well, with that.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So my height did serve me well. Had I had another 6, 7 inches, I might have joined them in the league. But, you know, I was only blessed to be six foot four and not six' ten.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: So.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: But no, on a serious note, it's interesting because I even thought about it while reading this. Number one, it reminded me about recently, the one we just did, I think last week about the jaw and the teeth, that some of it is our nutrition and how we eat in the modern time affects our physical development. So just like the jaw, they're talking about height here. And it sounds like what they're saying about specifically this Dutch issue might be poor quality of diet post 1980, that they started eating more processed foods. Fast food franchises started creeping into that country, all that. So it's interesting that our style of food and consumption being exported isn't always making people shorter and fatter in other parts of the world. Yeah.
Which is interesting because remember, and I've lived overseas, they do have different regulatory things in the various countries about what they allow even American franchises in terms to put in the food.
So what got me thinking is we got the opposite issue of there's so much hormones in our chicken and our meat in the United States and fast food generally, especially back in the 80s and 90s, that you had girls in middle school basically looking like they were fully developed by 13, 14.
And it's like the opposite.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Well, what we mastered in this country though, and to the point you're making is we mastered the art of the cheap calorie.
And so. And part of that was because our science erroneously thought for so long. And I think people still think this is that calories are just calories. It doesn't matter what they are. Macronutrient distribution doesn't matter like where the food like. And so we mastered the cheap calories so nobody will starve because they don't get enough calories. But people aren't as nourished. But here's the thing that I think is important. When you're talking about average height, what you're really talking about is bringing up the bottom a lot of times with the aver height. And so what they're with these things, like perhaps what you're to your point, the diet amongst the lower classes, if it's so bad, that'll bring your average down. So that's why I wonder what to make really of the average with these things. Because average really is taking all the people and saying, okay, what's the average? But what's the average, as far as people that eat regular food and aren't just scrounging, I don't know. But the thing that was the most fascinating in this to me and this. Forget processed food, America, all this other stuff. They said that women in South Korea had gained 20 centimeters in average height in the years between 1914 and 2014. So in 100 years, you know, that's almost like that. That's almost a quarter of a meter, basically. Like, that's. That's like. That's more than. I would say. I'm doing quick math in my head, but that's more than a half of a foot.
And so that's like, whoa. Like, how does people get that much taller? That much like. And that's not a society where you have a bunch of people coming and going. And so I think that there is another step to be trying to understand from here. I don't know that we got there yet, but it may, again, maybe it's just make it so that you don't have people that are so destitute that they. All they eat is carbs or something like that. Like, they get some protein, they get some healthy fats or whatever. And so your average comes up then.
And maybe, you know, like, again, maybe it just. It's just that. But that type of change in 100 years, I would think that that's like something that would take a million years or, you know, like.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: No, that's fascinating because what's A centimeter is 2.2 inches, I think.
So you're talking about, you know, maybe 8 inches. Yeah, something. I mean, that's like almost 10. I mean, that's like. Yeah. Going from like 5 foot to 5 foot 8. That's a huge difference. Yeah, that's a pretty big difference. So that's probably more of a fascinating discussion, which. Not for this show, but more of how different human societies probably were just up until a few hundred years ago.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Remember we talked about the caffeine thing.
It's similar in the sense that.
Just observe. But that's what I'm saying, to observe that much of a change that quickly is like. That is a. That's something you would imagine it's something big in terms of the way that they're living. And so, I mean, it's.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we still have certain people that are humans, Homo sapiens, but they've evolved much differently than, let's say, we're used to seeing our society. I mean, there's still pygmies in the Congo, like, literally bush People that live in the jungle that the tallest, you know, man is 4 foot 5. Yeah. And they're just. But they're humans. They just evolve different. Because in the jungle, if you're my height, you know, you're going to run into a tree and not get too far.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: So.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: So it makes.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: And that's. But that's the kind of evolution we're used to seeing. Like you.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: There are populations that are taller or shorter or thicker or, you know, built for different things because their environment even. You could point to the size of nostrils. You know, large nostrils are conditioned to breathe warm air. Narrow nostrils are conditioned to bring cold. Breathe cold air because it warms it up. And then. And then they're like. We can look at all types of adaptations, you know, in human beings based on where their ancestors spent a lot of time. But this is just one of those things that it's like. So if, like this be like the pygmies all of a sudden being 5ft 5, what happened here, you know, after centuries and millennia of being something else? And so, like I said, I think.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: That maybe that means they. A McDonald's hamburger from the U.S. how about that?
[00:47:46] Speaker A: With. With beef from Australia.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: No, no, they didn't have the Australian beef. They got the hormones. Yeah, there you go. That's what I'm saying. The beef was from like South Texas, man. You know, good old.
Stick the syringe in there and pump them up, man.
You'll have your first hear that, man.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: And think you're anti American.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: No, no, I'll say that. I'm pro pygmies being in the NBA, I want to see the first point guard at like 6 foot 1. He'll be like the tallest pygmy in history.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean, I think like I said it was.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: He'll get more playing time than I did. How about that?
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Well, no, but I think that, like I said, I don't think. I think there's another shoe to drop here like this. But just seeing even more than the Dutch part was the, The Pete. Seeing that South Korean women thing is how they're growing. You know, they're on average so much taller. Because that. There's nothing in our. Like, even with diet, like. Okay, so that is discussed that your diet can play a role. Other environmental and developmental things can play a role. Probably stress, things like that can all play a role, you know, but genetics still play a huge role. So one of the things that's. Being that people are understanding more now that they didn't Even, you know, 20, 30 years ago is how our genetics are in part hardwired. But there's also what's called epigenetics, which is what genetics, what genes are turned on and which are turned off. And that's based on lifestyle conditions and all that kind of stuff. And so perhaps with height there's something to that as well in terms of that's something you can turn on or turn off. And if you tell people that, man, whatever it is that the South Korean women were doing, people are going to.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: Be doing that all over the world.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: You know, people, oh, we can get six inches, we can get eight inches. Like it's such a big change that, you know, like, I think this is, I think this is the beginning. Hopefully this is the first thing that we've heard about this that's going to go somewhere crazy.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: No, but I think your instinct of thinking there's probably a lot more factors into this that, you know, science will continue to learn and all that is probably accurate because obviously like you're saying that's a huge jump, you know, almost 10 inches, let's say 20 centimeters in 100 years for one human population.
But you're right, we could look at things like diet. Also. I think one thing that we can say, let's say from 1900 to 2000, you know, let's say that 100 year period, what has continued to go en masse is human globalization and kind of everybody around the world kind of coming together. And I think, you know, the mixing of all these different groups over the last 100, 200 years has probably made the world more of a level playing field as relates to things like height. Whereas, you know, you might have looked in the year 1800, where my dad's from a Nigeria, in a place like the Netherlands. And on average maybe those people in those regions were a foot taller than everyone else in the world. Now they might only be 3 inches taller. Because also people are saying like people.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Are kind of regressing to a mean.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: Yeah, because also look at like my example. My dad moved to Washington D.C. and met my mom, who's European. And they have.
So my point is, is that that didn't happen, you know, 300 years ago. People just didn't move like that around the globe. So I think forget the globe, man.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: People didn't go outside of villages.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. So, you know, you're mixing up. Yeah, you're mixing like maybe, maybe there was just a greater influx of people able to travel through Korea, you know, before the whole, you know, war with America in the 50s and all that, but just, you know, from Southeast, the war with America.
Through Southeast. Yeah, and you're right, through Southeast Asia, other Asian nations, maybe Indian immigrants and other countries from the region. You know, they, people were passing through and things were just, you know, people were mixing.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: No, I actually, I think, I think the takeaway is a little different than that. It's more so. It's the habits and the things that you like, the nutrition and the habits, as those become, those are spread much more than actual human beings are spread.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: You know, that could be the case too.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so that cultures. Yeah, exactly. That caused more of a regression, you know, because certain cultures may have had access to things that let them grow.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: More or not to bring in a few things from other shows. So the Korean bases, which, you know, I'm a fan of having us sitting there since the end of the Korean War, allowed for the cows to be imported from the American cattle ranches so then the Korean women could get the hormones. See, I got it all on the.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Got it all covered, man.
[00:51:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, I mean, I think.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: We can wrap it up from there, but I mean, I think we talk about this only because like I said, I think this is the first kind of shoe to drop. I think there's another one here or another two or three that are going to come behind this because hey, man, if you, if you, if they isolate though something, hey, if you do this with your kids from when they're 3 years old to 10, this is what's going to happen. The world's going to go crazy, man. I think that, like that's going to be, hey, I'm, I'm a, I'm a patent attorney, man. If anybody comes up with that patent, that person is going to have more.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Money than anybody or just your luck, they'll come out trying to put 3 to 10 year olds on social media. What about that?
[00:52:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that'll be it.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: We gotta end this video.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Tell us it'll be. Get on social media and that'll make you grow six inches.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: We gotta end this show before I try and connect the six degrees of Kevin Bacon about the hormone on the cattle and how it gets from point A to point B globally. So yes, yes, you might as well.
[00:52:50] Speaker A: Bring us up, but yeah, we appreciate everybody for joining us as we take it through these two topics. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: I'm the guy sitting on the edge of the bench.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: Hey, but you're keeping, keeping the starter sharp though. Yeah.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: All right.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: So. But no, we appreciate it.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Again, I still got a uniform.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: It was no and yeah, subscribe to the podcast, call it like I see it, rate us, review us, tell us what you think, and we'll talk to you next time.
I.
