The Gullibility Episode

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – "The Gullibility Episode"

Release Date: January 28, 2025
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Production: iHeartPodcasts

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1. Introduction to Gullibility

[01:13] Josh Clark:
Josh and Chuck open the episode by addressing their solo format, expressing hope that they won't "crash this joint." They segue into the topic of gullibility, sparked by recent listener interactions and the societal observation that America may be experiencing peak gullibility.

2. Defining Gullibility

[03:20] Chuck Bryant:
Chuck introduces the concept of gullibility, referencing Stephen Greenspan’s book Annals of Gullibility: Why We Are Duped and How to Avoid It. He differentiates between credulity—believing something without evidence—and gullibility, which involves an active response to being potentially conned.

[05:23] Josh Clark:
Josh challenges the distinction between credulity and gullibility, arguing that gullibility fundamentally involves believing without verification, regardless of intent or awareness. He emphasizes that gullibility is not merely about trust but about the lack of critical evaluation.

3. Factors Influencing Gullibility

[07:15] Chuck Bryant:
Chuck outlines Greenspan's four factors contributing to gullibility:

• Situational: Social pressure, such as peer influence in financial decisions like cryptocurrency investments.
• Cognitive Issues: Lack of expertise or knowledge in a specific area, preventing proper evaluation of information.
• Personality Traits:
  • Impulsivity: Acting without forethought increases susceptibility.
  • Low Curiosity: Lack of interest in verifying information.
  • High Need for Independence: Overconfidence in personal judgment can lead to vulnerability.
• Emotion: Positive emotions can cloud judgment, making individuals more open to persuasion or scams.

[09:25] Chuck Bryant:
He shares anecdotes illustrating how overconfidence and a high need for independence can paradoxically increase the risk of being duped, highlighting that these personality traits can undermine critical thinking.

4. Research Findings on Gullibility

[12:00] Chuck Bryant:
Discusses a study from Macquarie University, which developed a self-reported gullibility scale. The study validated that higher gullibility scores correlated with increased susceptibility to phishing scams.

[13:48] Josh Clark:
Mentions a University of Toronto study revealing that older adults (60-90) without cognitive impairments are no more likely to be scammed than their peers. Instead, factors like low conscientiousness and honesty levels were significant predictors of fraud victimization.

[15:13] Chuck Bryant:
Highlights findings from the University of Leicester, indicating that childhood traumas and bullying can increase gullibility in adulthood by undermining trust in personal judgments.

5. Trust vs. Gullibility

[41:10] Josh Clark:
Explores the nuanced relationship between trust and gullibility, referencing researcher Toshio Yamagishi's work. Yamagishi's studies reveal that high-trust individuals are not inherently more gullible. In fact, they often exhibit greater discernment, enabling them to trust appropriately without being easily deceived.

[45:21] Chuck Bryant:
Echoes the sentiment, explaining Yamagishi's emancipation theory. Trusting individuals are freer to make positive changes in life, as trusting does not equate to being easily duped. Instead, it fosters healthier social connections and opportunities.

6. Strategies to Avoid Being Gullible

[50:05] Josh Clark:
Shares practical tips from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance to protect against scams:

1. Acknowledge Susceptibility: Recognize that anyone can be scammed.
2. Avoid Overconfidence: Stay humble to prevent falling prey to deceit.
3. Control Emotions: Don’t make decisions based on heightened emotional states.
4. Ask Questions: Seek additional information without fear of appearing uninformed.
5. Evaluate the Source: Assess the credibility and reliability of the information source.

[51:21] Chuck Bryant:
Emphasizes the importance of these strategies, urging listeners to stay vigilant and informed to minimize the risk of being deceived.

7. Listener Mail

[53:32] Chuck Bryant:
Reads a listener's email from Reverend Dr. Mark Oldenburg Steckmiller, sharing nostalgic memories of visiting an automat with friends and participating in a unique musical performance. Chuck and Josh express appreciation for Mark's contribution, encouraging more listeners to share their stories.

8. Conclusion

Josh and Chuck wrap up the episode by reiterating that gullibility is influenced by various factors beyond mere trust. They highlight the importance of discernment, critical thinking, and informed decision-making in safeguarding against deception. The hosts encourage listeners to educate themselves further on the topic and apply the discussed strategies to enhance their resilience against scams and manipulation.

Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Bryant [03:20]: "This is on gullibility. And this, you know, we were just talking offline that there are, I think, a hundred different ways to approach this kind of topic."

• Josh Clark [07:15]: "You don't have to act on it. And that to me, is the baseline of gullibility."

• Chuck Bryant [15:26]: "Another trait they found on the gullibility scale, if you were very gullible, was belief in paranormal activity."

• Josh Clark [41:21]: "You can trust people and think the best of people and still not be gullible."

• Chuck Bryant [45:21]: "It's how Yamagishi sort of thought about it when he talked about his emancipation theory, which is if you're trusting, you're kind of... You can get stuck in this cycle."

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Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And we're flying solo again, which means we hopefully won't crash this joint. And this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. How are you, man? You still sick, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, this is kind of. I mean, I don't like playing it this close, but it's kind of fun to be a little more current with, like, listener mails and updates and stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it keeps us on the edge, where we need to be.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So this will be out on Tuesday, I guess, in real time. This is the day after the Automat oyster stew debacle.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know if it was a debacle. That turned out to be a pretty.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good app, and Aaron Cooper already came through.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, good. I haven't seen it yet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's funny. I'm okay. You know, things subside in the early afternoon, so I'm actually feeling a little better than I was, like, 20 minutes ago even.

[Josh Clark]

But, man, that's crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I just. I gotta go to the doctor and just get it over with.

[Josh Clark]

You do. I heard that there's a really bad norovirus going around, and that's gotta be what you got, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Going around Mexico City, going around the world. Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Mexico City's included.

[Chuck Bryant]

This feels bacterial diverticulitis related.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's true. I forgot you got that. Yeah, well, there's still a norovirus going around, so don't catch that too.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll try, but I'm hanging in there. I'm working on less than 300 calories a day for five days now, so I am a shell of a human.

[Josh Clark]

You're gonna look lean and mean, buddy. Have you been doing push ups?

[Chuck Bryant]

I can't do one pushup right now.

[Josh Clark]

There's no way. Well, Chuck, I guess it's entirely possible since I haven't seen you, I've just, you know, been talking to you while we record. I have no idea whether you're actually sick or not. And it's entirely possible that you're fooling me right now. And if you are, I would argue that doesn't make me gullible because I generally believe you're trustworthy. There's no reason to believe that you're not sick. So really, you'd just be a shameful, dirty liar and I would be the hero in this situation.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. This is on gullibility. And this, you know, we were just talking offline that there are, I think, a hundred different ways to approach this kind of topic. And sometimes that's, like, freeing, and sometimes that's really frustrating. And I think this one was a little frustrating. Livia put together a great article, I think, but it's just a hard one. When I pitched it to her, I was like, you know what? I feel like, especially here in America, we're at peak gullibility as a nation. And I just wondered, is there any science of that? Are people more gullible than others? And can science be gullible? And this is what we came up with.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Interestingly, yes, science can be gullible. On the other hand, you could argue that Americans aren't more gullible than usual, that there's actually just different factors involved that make people want to believe things. Maybe it's weird. I think one of the reasons why it's so hard to wrap our head around is social psychologists are still trying to wrap their head around it. Totally. And you know what happens when social psychologists get a hold of something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, it's an oyster stew party.

[Josh Clark]

It's a little unsteady as they figure it out. That's right, it's an oyster stew party. So I think it's not us, is what I'm trying to say. And you, dear listener, if you're like, what is going on? It's not you either. It's social psychology.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I guess we can start by talking about. I mean, we're talking about a lot of different people, a lot of different people that study this kind of stuff. A lot of different studies, some of which make more sense than others. But this guy, Stephen Greenspan, is an author. He wrote a book. He wrote the book on it. Annals of Gullibility, why We Are Duped and How to Avoid It. And one sort of important thing he does up front is say, hey, there's a difference between credulity and gullibility. Credulity, as if you'll believe something just without looking at all the evidence. And gullibility means you have an active response to perhaps being conned.

[Josh Clark]

I take issue with this right out of the gate.

[Chuck Bryant]

I kind of did, too.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's a terrible distinction because I think you can totally fall for something and be duped and you be the only person who knew that, who knows it. Somebody could say something that duped you and they don't stop and focus to get like that. That. That question of whether they duped you or not answered. They just keep going on. But you know you've been duped. You don't have to respond to a Nigerian prince email or send somebody a bunch of Walmart cards to get out of some random federal case that's against you to have been gullible. You just have to believe it, usually in the absence of any kind of supporting evidence and sometimes in the presence of contradictory evidence. That's gullibility, in my understanding, that you're believing something without bothering to go check it out. And that to me, is the baseline of gullibility.

[Chuck Bryant]

I totally agree. I thought that definition was really weird. And I'm glad both are in here, though, because sometimes it's a nice contrast. But along the lines of what you were saying, there's a group of researchers, social psychologists from Macquarie University. There can be a lot of Aussies in this.

[Josh Clark]

You can say that name better than that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Macquarie. Oh, like Aussie style.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

McQuarrie.

[Josh Clark]

Although anytime you do that, you sound like Murray from Flight of the Concord.

[Chuck Bryant]

Murray present. Alessandra K. Tunis.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe that's what I'm going with.

[Chuck Bryant]

Defined it much in the way you would and I would, and I think a lot of people would, which is simply the propensity to accept a false premise in the presence of untrustworthy clues. That's it. That's it. You don't have to act on it.

[Josh Clark]

No, you can just believe what's up with the. And no one in the world could know besides you that you believed. And you're still gullible in that sense. The thing that really stood out to me that we'll talk about a lot more though, is you could make a really good case that people aren't as gullible as other people think they are. And I found that kind of reassuring. We'll talk about that later. But I don't want anybody to get the impression that we're just like, yep, people are generally stupid and here's how they fall for stupid stuff. And you're probably stupid too. That's not actually what the science of gullibility has turned up.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. And there's a lot of factors, and this is where I think Greenspan did kind of hit on something. His four factors of gullibility. Situational, like, if there's a lot of. If everyone else is doing it and there's a lot of social pressure, like all the bros are investing in the same cryptocurrency and it's at a great price. And you're like, oh man, I gotta get in there. All the guys are, you know, everyone's in on that. So there's social pressure where you can fall for something. Cognitive issues like. Well, as we'll get to later with our senior friends, sometimes there's like legit brain cognitive issues. That's a different thing than this. But this is just lacking expertise. And you can't evaluate what you're being told because you're just not, I don't want to say smart enough. You're just not an expert in whatever that is.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You're not informed enough in that particular thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What else? Personality is another one. If you're impulsive, this is a big one. Yeah, big one. If you're low in curiosity and you're like, I don't care, just tell me what to think. I'm too lazy to go figure it out myself. I got better things to do than think. Or if you have a high need for independence, and this struck me quite a bit, because if you're independence minded, you don't need smarty pants pencil neck college boys telling you what's right or what's wrong or what's true or what's false, you can figure it out yourself. And those people are actually at high risk of being duped, which is really surprising. But if you stop and think about it, it makes total sense. They're overconfident and That's a huge factor in being gullible.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I totally think it makes sense because it happened to his cousin.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Emotion can play a big factor in a lot of ways. And we'll talk about some of those with some studies later on. But one way is, let's say we're specifically talking about being kind if it gives you a positive feeling, whether it's somebody catfishing you and making you feel loved or some sort of financial thing that you think might provide for your long term security. Or like, oh man, no one else knows about this deal but me. I'm so smart for getting in on the ground floor here, that kind of thing.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And strangely, ironically, almost as if he did it on purpose. Cause it supports everything he wrote about Stephen Greenspan, the author of that book about gullibility. He finished his book and shortly afterward he was informed by, I guess his stockbroker that he had lost a bunch of money by investing in Bernie Madoff's.

[Chuck Bryant]

Content scheme with the ironies. Huh.

[Josh Clark]

So he was like, even the guy that researched this and wrote the book on gullibility can fall for it. That's a really great little tidbit. But I think it also goes to show just how specific gullibility is. Because I don't get the impression that Stephen Greenspan was like, this Madoff guy is making a lot of really great points and this is incredibly high risk, but I'm going to go along with it anyway. Like, he went through a stockbroker and everything. So yeah, there's only a certain amount of gullibility. It's just Bernie Madoff is like shorthand for fooling people, you know what I mean? Totally not to pick on Steven Greenspan or anything like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I feel very bad for him despite his poor definition.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So some other people have said, well, we really want to show off as social psychologists, we're going to create a gullibility scale. And in fact, Alessandra Tunis from Macquarie University, I'm not even going to try that one. But it's Australian for university. Sorry, Australians. There's this beer called Fosters that here in America we think you drink a lot of. And in America the ad campaign says Fosters. It's Australian for beer.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love that you barely use an accent. You just say it seriously. And that gets the point across.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It makes people pay attention.

[Chuck Bryant]

Australian for beer.

[Josh Clark]

Got it. That's the best I can do. That's how I think Australians talk.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So this gullibility scale was self reported, basically. Like self reported meaning do you think others. Do you perceive yourself as gullible? And do you think others perceive you as gullible? And then they filled in with some other questions like how persuadable are you? And stuff like that. And it actually, for a self reported study, which a lot of those can be tough, this seemed to work out pretty good for them, don't you think?

[Josh Clark]

It did. Because they backed it up. I can't remember what it's called, but they tested the validity. They tested the validity of this self reporting panel and found that the people who reported themselves or scored the highest on gullibility on this test were more likely to click a link on a phishing email than people who scored low.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So it seems like a valid test. And one of the things I went and looked it up, Chuck, and one of the questions wasn't even a question. It was, you are very persuadable. And the only option to check was yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ah. What?

[Josh Clark]

I'm kidding.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man, this is so upsetting.

[Josh Clark]

It's all right. You're not at 100% at all.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't think you would take advantage of this today.

[Josh Clark]

It was more the joke. I wasn't trying to take advantage of you. Although I realize now that I did. It's okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

All for the show on that scale, they found some traits that were common among those that scored high in gullibility. Social intelligence was one of them. That'll keep coming back over and over. Vulnerability, emotionality, which we've talked about a little bit. Weak sense of self, which also comes up in different ways. I think you found an article about how parents can wreck kids by not giving them self confidence. Right. And they'll end up gullible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, pretty much. And depending on. And it doesn't even have to be like, you're such a stupid kid every day. It can just be things like where your opinion is not really heard or validated or just all sorts of little missteps that parents can make that make parenting a living nightmare. You can carry on as an adult and it can make you doubt your own opinion so you're not going to speak up. It can make you be afraid of looking stupid so you don't ask questions because you don't want to seem like, I didn't immediately get it, so I'm going to look dumb if I ask these questions. There's a, like, it just sets you up for being more likely to be a victim of being duped than somebody who has a lot of Confidence.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I have a good friend who had a pretty bad stepfather. And the abuse in this situation was exclusively. He made him feel stupid at every opportunity.

[Josh Clark]

That is so wrong. That guy should be in jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's passed on now, but it's. I can't think of any. I mean, there are all kinds of things that are worse, obviously, but something so damaging for such a small person to do that to a child and literally, like, oh, you think so? Like, you know, just that's how he was talked to his whole life growing up. It's awful.

[Josh Clark]

That is rough.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he's super gullible.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is he really?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, actually, I don't think so.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, you got me back. There you go. We should just do that to one another, like every minute or two.

[Chuck Bryant]

One thing we should mention, though, because this pops up a couple of times and I think it's super fascinating, is another trait they found on the gullibility scale, if you were very gullible, was belief in paranormal activity. Yeah, just park it right there.

[Josh Clark]

But I guess that depends on whether paranormal activity is real or not, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I guess so.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, that's described from a point of view where you're just like, that's all fake anyway. So. Yeah, duh. One of the things about social intelligence that's worth pointing out, so that's basically a package that you can have. Some people are much better at it than others. But basically everyone alive in a society has some degree or other of this package of skills that form social intelligence. Like whether or not you're good at conversation, whether you are good at effective listening, what your knowledge of, like, social roles and social scripts are, and then awareness of, like, what make other people tick and then what people think of you. And you put all this together and if you have like high emotional or social intelligence, you're going to be able to navigate interactions with other people much better than somebody with low intelligence. Part of that is not getting scammed by somebody by being able to be like, you're a scammer and I'm not going to send you a Walmart gift card. No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's a trait, I think, that you can't necessarily teach, but is really beneficial to have as a human.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I admire people with high social intelligence because it's not just, you know, being able to spot a scammer. It's. It's being able to see the best in other people. And I think to bring out the best in other people and let them bring out the best in you and that's just. It's maybe in another life, maybe in the next lifetime.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, buddy, I think you're great. They did another study at the University of Leicester where they found that childhood traumas can really affect you later in life in terms of gullibility, like any kind of bullying, a death of a family member or something like that. It leads you more susceptible to fall for tricks later in life. And apparently they say it could be because that kind of trauma just makes it hard to trust your own judgments and, you know, I guess everyone else's.

[Josh Clark]

Intent for sure, and then some people, because it's actually kind of counterintuitive. You think if you've gone through the school of hard knocks, I think is the way that the study put it, you would think that they'd come out like much more world wary and suspicious of people and so they'd be less likely to fall for a scam. But no, instead, like you said, they question their own judgment for having gone through what they went through.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's terrible.

[Josh Clark]

It is. It is very terrible. Childhood is just fraught, you know, it really is. It's a wonder any of us can function in any like, real way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I know. I mean, we're pretty good parents, but I often think, like, how are we messing her up? Because I know we are in some way.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. I mean, I can't imagine, like that's gotta just keep you up at night sometimes if you think about it too much, you know, I sleep pretty good. Good. You just wake up to throw up every hour.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I think just try to limit that stuff as a parent. Like, you can't be perfect. I mean, my brother's a perfect parent, but there's only one.

[Josh Clark]

Scott.

[Chuck Bryant]

Another thing I thought was interesting, and this makes total sense, is if you rely on your intuition a lot, you're a lot more vulnerable to being duped by something just like, you know, some people have a good gut and some people think they have a good gut but do not.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Another one that really stood out to me though, that this, this I would not have predicted is the more cynical you are. Studies have found, I like this. That the likelier you are to be gullible or duped. And the reason why actually makes tons of sense. Again, if you're cynical, you think you've got everything figured out. Like you're just. You think the world sucks and everybody's trying to take advantage of you and the government's constantly screwing you over and everyone's going to try to get an angle on you. That's cynicism. Right. At least in the modern sense. And it's actually a lazy shortcut to experiencing reality because on the one hand, you lose out in opportunity costs. You miss a lot of great stuff. Like, you might not make friends that you could have made because you were suspicious of this stranger chatting you up at the outset or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But as far as gullibility goes, you're. If somebody comes along and talks to you in your language, they can pull one over on you much more easily because they are tapping into your cynicism, which, again, is just lazy shorthand for a experiencing reality. It's based largely on intuition and supposition and not necessarily taking each experience and looking at it based on the facts as a unique thing. It all has this one cast to it that's the same, and that's just not how the world actually works.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think that kind of suggests that if there's a country with an authoritarian leader in place, the simple sort of easy to understand radical solutions that are pitched out oftentimes in those situations are very easy to fall for if you're a gullible person, because that itself is a mental shortcut. Well, we just gotta do this for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And then, conversely, too, not being cynical requires way more brain power and thought and just participation than being cynical does. Like, you have to actually, like, ask yourself, like, is this true? What kind of source is this coming from? I might need to go do some research. I might need to ask people. It's just so much easier to be like, nope, they're screwing me over. I don't even need to bother to look into that because you're also defending yourself at the same time from getting taken advantage of again. Until somebody comes along and is talking your language. And then you will oftentimes fall for whatever they're saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll take a break and talk about Mood right after this.

[C]

I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional and the host of welcome to the Party, your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf, featuring interviews with top players on tour, like LPGA superstar Angel Yin.

[Chuck Bryant]

I really just sat myself down at.

[Josh Clark]

The end of 2022, and I was like, look, either we make it or we quit.

[C]

Expert tips to help improve your swing, and the craziest stories to come out of your first friendly neighborhood country club. The drinks were flowing, twerking all over the place, vaping.

[Josh Clark]

They're shotgunning.

[C]

Women's golf is a wild Ride full of big personalities, remarkable athleticism, fierce competition, and a generation of women hell bent on shaking that glass ceiling. Welcome to the party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to welcome to the party. That's P A R T E e on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, presented by.

[Chuck Bryant]

Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

[D]

Hey, you guys. I'm Katherine Legg. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet. And I've got a new podcast. It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm gearing up to make history, competing in some of the world's most notorious racing events, starting at the Indy 500. Join me as I travel from racetrack to racetrack in my quest to continue a memorable career in racing. I'm also gonna bring you inside stories with legends of sports, new faces from the next generation of auto racing, and conversations with the people who've supported me throughout my career. We'll be getting into everything from karting to nascar, even Formula one. Whether you dream about being a pro athlete or an astronaut, we're talking about what it takes to make it. Listen to Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legge, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your podcast, presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, everybody. Chuck and Josh here. And I was recently a guest once again on one of my favorite podcasts. It's called the Puzzler with old pal and friend of the show, AJ Jacobs. AJ Gives really fun and funny word puzzles to guests like me, like Ken Jennings, like Dax Shepard, and hopefully like Josh would be so great on this show.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's definitely on my to do list.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you gotta be on it. It's a lot of fun. Sort of like wordle or Connections, but for your ears. And I think we should play everyone just a little clip. It's a puzzle that I have to convert movie titles from the metric system back to their actual title.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

From my second appearance on the Puzzler right now.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so I'm gonna give you a title of a movie, and you have to reconvert it to the imperial system. All right, this is gonna be great. Here we go. The green 1.6 kilometer is. I would say it's the Green Mile. Exactly. The Green Mile So subscribe to the puzzler with A.J. jacobs to tease your mind and tickle your funny Bo. All right, we're back. We promised to talk a little bit about mood, because the fact is, you are not always gullible or always not gullible. Everybody could get duped at any time. That changes from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, depending on a lot of factors like mood. If you're really, really tired, if you're super distracted, if you're upset, you may not notice something that can make you fall for a scam. Also, the same holds if you're in a really good mood. You know, if you're just feeling great about everything, you're like, yeah, yes to life, yes to everything. There was a study in 1938 by a researcher named Gregory Razran who found that giving a free lunch made people more receptive to a political message. And apparently, that is sort of where, like, the sales lunch started. Taking people out to sell them something and feeding them. You are more likely to close a deal. And I'm sure the same thing like golf course sales. Things like the salesperson's not out there beating the person in golf that they're selling to. I guarantee it. I don't know how that works, but I imagine you're letting them win and feel good about stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Think about how good you have to be to purposefully lose at golf.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I could play bad golf on purpose, and I'm not gonna. Oh, really? Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, I take that one back and on exit it, so. Yes. But on the contrary, if you are upset, if you're sad, if you're depressed, if you're mad, if you're in a low mood, you are actually more likely to pay attention to granular things. I think it actually kind of ties into rumination just thinking about stuff. You're turned inward. So if somebody comes along and tries to sell you something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

It's going to be harder to slip it past you because you're paying attention more than somebody who's like, yeah, whatever, let's have another round.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So overall, if you think about people who might be gullible, you might think, if you're gonna stereotype it, like people, like kids, very young people, very old people, and people that aren't very well educated, obviously. But it's not necessarily true.

[Josh Clark]

What?

[Chuck Bryant]

There is a lot of factors, one of which I mentioned earlier, you can get a lot of skewed studies about the gullibility of someone who's older, because if you're older, you're more likely to have a cognitive ability that's literally keeping you from being able to determine whether something is true. But they've also conversely found that sometimes they're a little more protected because they're constantly had their children and everyone else saying like, no, no, no, watch out for scams. They're trying to scam you. Everyone's trying to scam you.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Yeah. So it's like a self fulfilling prophecy that they are less likely to be scammed because they're so vigilant. That's amazing to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So there was this one study that kind of backed all this up from the University of Toronto and they found they looked at adults 60 to 90 who handled their own finances. They didn't have any diagnosed cognitive issues. And they found that people who had reported being victims of a fraud, there was nothing that really happened, or there was no characteristic demographically, anything like that that made them different from anybody else. The only thing that seemed to really kind of stick out was that they, the people who had been scammed before were low, had low conscientiousness. One of the big five.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They were less honest, humble, which is another, another kind of personality trait from a different scale.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that from what I could see, the honesty thing means they, they explained it like you're, if you are low on honesty, you're more likely to try something that might be a scam because you might get rich quick or something like that. You're more willing to take a shortcut, say than somebody who would score higher on honesty, which put you at greater risk. Yeah, but that was about it. There wasn't like, you know, the older you get or the less educated you are in this group, you're more likely to get scammed. It was some other stuff entirely. But they found also that people who do experience cognitive decline do tend to get taken advantage of more, which is really messed up and sad. But it's true. And as a matter of fact, they've started to. Some people have started to push this idea. Like if you fall for a scam, you should immediately be tested for Alzheimer's or dementia because there's a high correlation with getting scammed as an older person and the early, early developments of cognitive decline.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

It's got to feel terrible. I mean, it's bad enough to feel like you're getting scammed, but then to stop and be like, well, is this it for me? In my mind?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, thankfully nothing like that's ever happened. To my parents, but you hear the stories all the time, and it's just, you know, it's tragic and shameful, for sure. There was a study in 2018 that I thought was pretty interesting. A woman named Monica T. Witty. Another Aussie, when talk about, like, being catfished, which is if I guess I threw that word out, assuming everyone knows it. That's like, when you get scammed in a sort of a romantic thing online by someone who's pretending to be someone they're not generally.

[Josh Clark]

We should do an episode on that sometime because I just don't. I don't. I mean, I get it, but I don't understand, like, where it started or anything like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's put that down. That would be super interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do you remember the Notre Dame football player?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought he was. Isn't he, like, the Dolphins quarterback now, or.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he. I don't think he's in the league anymore. He played the NFL for a little while, but he was a linebacker for Notre Dame that was famously catfished. And, like, you know, smart, handsome, young athlete guy. So it's not like just, you know, the lonely loser in the basement that falls for stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

Have you heard about the lonesome loser?

[Chuck Bryant]

He still keeps on trying.

[Josh Clark]

He does.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Little Riverman. So good. 2018. Monica Witty did one on sort of catfishing, but really just romance scams is what they called it. And she said if you fall for something like that, you obviously will be a little more impulsive in sensation seeking. And so if someone's building up about all these great stories and these big travels and, you know, it's always. It's never just like, well, I'm just kind of sitting around at home like. They always present themselves as offering some new, exciting life, it seems like. Right. But she also found that they were more highly educated than average. And Livia, I think, is on the money, kind of speculates that could be. And I think it's true. When we did our thing on online dating, it's generally people that are college educated that participate in online dating a little more statistically. But also maybe that if you're more educated, you just think, like, I'm not gonna fall for catfishing. I know all about that. And this is not that.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Overconfidence. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then you're on that hook.

[Josh Clark]

And then another thing about being online, too. The Better business bureau back in 2000, 2015, I think they looked at a. I guess a bunch of their, like, scam complaints that came in just to see who reported them, and they found that people between 25 and 35 were more likely to lose money on a scam than older people, which is totally contrary to what people think of when they think of people who get scammed. And one other. One of the explanations that they came up with is, in part, younger people are just online more. So they're just more likely by the numbers to have scams presented to them, which means that they're more likely to probably go for a scam than, say, people who are online less.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, I agree with that. In the old days. I think that's changing because I've never seen a generation as phone addicted as boomers are smartphone connected. Oh, man, you don't hang around a lot of boomers, do you?

[Josh Clark]

They have Gen Z beat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Every boomer I know just obsessively stares at their phone and looks things up and.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought they all had, like, flip phones that only dial numbers.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. They want to show you all the information in the moment.

[Josh Clark]

I gotcha. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right in the middle of dinner at a nice restaurant, even.

[Josh Clark]

I guess I've not experienced that, But.

[Chuck Bryant]

I do think that that generally is true.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, fair enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

I just want to take a shot at boomers.

[Josh Clark]

Well, then that makes it even less understandable that 25 to 35 year olds would be more likely to be scammed. I don't know, maybe that generation is just more trusting these days or something like that. Actually, I got to take that back, because as we'll see, trusting being trusting is not necessarily correlated with being gullible.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which I think we'll get to in a minute before or after the next break. But can we talk about science? Because this is one thing. When I sent Livy the idea, I was like, I think I'd read an article about scientists being gullible. And I was like, no, not scientists. But it turns out they very much can be. Because a lot of times when you are that well versed in a field, you might. You might kind of think you know it all and like, oh, no, I know what I'm doing. And so you might be more apt to believe a result that isn't accurate because you think you did it the right way. Like, that's just one aspect of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Another aspect is, like you said, people in science typically know a tremendous amount about their field, but they can make a mistake and think that that understanding, that depth of understanding will just apply to other fields as well that they just don't know as much about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that's another way they can fall prey to it. But also, scientists like to be right as much as anybody else. And, you know, I don't remember what episode we did this, and I think it was about the. The just reproducibility crisis in science papers, if I remember correctly. But just how, like, the scientists don't set up experiments to disprove their hypothesis. They set em up to prove their hypothesis. That's how you get published. That's how you get celebrated. Like, nobody wants to hear about you failing, even though that's what science is meant to be. That's a. That's a part of it as well, just wanting to be right. So if somebody comes along is like, yep, you're right. Let's, let's. Let's use that to explain this other thing that's actually not true. The scientists might go along with it, because if it is true, then it will prove their. Their hypothesis and make them very famous. And they'll probably end up having an HBO movie made about them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that was probably a scientific method, huh?

[Josh Clark]

Maybe, maybe. But I mean, we definitely talked about papers just being. Some of them just being outright fraudulent because their experiments are set up incorrectly. It could have been scientific method.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, or like the little student in Rushmore that faked the results.

[Josh Clark]

Always like that part. I remember that part.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, Max has his sort of little budding girlfriend at the end, and he says something about she won some science award and I think she had to give it back or something. And he's like, why? She said, I faked the results.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It didn't work, so I faked it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought that was so her line where she tells Bill Murray that she won't dance with them, it was a little out of nowhere.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I get that.

[Josh Clark]

A little harsh, I think, is what I'm trying to say.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Who doesn't want to dance with Bill Murray?

[Josh Clark]

I do.

[Chuck Bryant]

You and Lucy Liu. All right.

[Josh Clark]

Wait, Lucy Liu doesn't or does want to dance with Bill Murray?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I don't think she does. They were on Charlie's Angels together and had some words.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's right. I remember that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So I doubt if she's dancing with Bill.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Wait, I just. Before we go to a break, I was saying I would like to dance with Bill Murray.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Just want to make sure that no one walks away to this ad break thinking that I don't want to dance with Bill Murray.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I was being sort of opposite with my Lucy Liu joke.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, you know, I'm not firing on all cylinders. I'm doing my best.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not either, apparently.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll be right back. And Josh will lead off with a little bit on trust. Stop. You should know.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. LinkedIn knows hiring is a big deal for small businesses. Not only because small businesses are wearing so many hats, but also because every hire is crucial for a growing company. And that's why LinkedIn pairs you with the best candidates using data that you won't find anywhere else.

[Josh Clark]

From unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. No wonder that based on LinkedIn data, 72% of SMBs using LinkedIn say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates.

[Chuck Bryant]

So post your job for [e-mail] that's LinkedIn.comSYSK to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

[C]

I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional and the host of welcome to the Party, your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf. Featuring interviews with top players on tour like LPGA superstar Angel Yin.

[Chuck Bryant]

I really just sat myself down at.

[Josh Clark]

The end of 2022, and I was.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, look, either we make it or we quit.

[C]

Expert tips to help improve your swing, and the craziest stories to come out of your friendly neighborhood country club. The drinks were flowing, twerking all over the place, Vaping.

[Josh Clark]

They're shotgunning.

[C]

Women's golf is a wild ride full of big personalities, remarkable athleticism, fierce competition, and a generation of women hell bent on shaking that glass ceiling. Welcome to the Party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to welcome to the Party. That's P A R T E e on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, presented by.

[Chuck Bryant]

Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

[D]

Hey, you guys, I'm Katherine Legge. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet. And I've got a new podcast. It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm gearing up to make history, competing in some of the world's most notorious Racing events starting at the Indy 500. Join me as I travel from racetrack to racetrack in my quest to continue a memorable career in racing. I'm also going to bring you inside stories with legends of sports, new faces from the next generation of auto racing, and conversations with the people who've supported me throughout my career. We'll be getting into everything from karting to nascar, even Formula one. Whether you dream about being a pro athlete or an astronaut, we're talking about what it takes to make it. Listen to Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legg, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Presented by elf beauty, founding partner of iPhone women's sports.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, we're back, everybody. And I mentioned before that trust is not necessarily correlated with gullibility. And I love that. That just makes me feel good about the world again.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, you can trust people and think the best of people and still not be gullible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so we'll kind of explain why. But there have been study after study after study that basically say, yeah, that's actually true. Like, you can have a high level of trust, be tested for that kind of thing, and you are not more likely to be gullible. And in fact, it seems that if you are a higher trusting person, you're actually less likely to be gullible compared to, say, like, the cynic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Like, there's this researcher named Toshio Yamagishi who's considered one of the most prominent researchers in gullibility and trust out of Hokkaido University. I know how to say Hokkaido. I don't know why I had trouble with that at first, but one of the things that Yamagishi did in the 1990s was to tell people who scored high in trusting this and other people who scored low. About the story of Bill and Chuck, I think you should take it because Bill's got a great story.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I kind of understand this, but not 100%, but I think I get it. So what he would say is, Bill, your friend Bill stayed at a hotel for a week. He was only charged one day. Do you think he would tell the cashier about this even though there's, like, no chance, let's say there's no chance of him getting caught later on. Do you think he would do that? And people who scored high on their trustworthy score, like, people who were trustworthy, they were more likely to say that Bill would do the honest thing. But when he added in a twist here, which is to tell them some negative things about Bill, like, by the way, just want to let you know, Bill also cut in line the other day.

[Josh Clark]

He also makes his stepson feel stupid.

[Chuck Bryant]

He also makes his stepson feel stupid. But if he added in a couple of nuggets like that, negative things about Bill, the people who had high trust in people generally put a lot more weight on that additional information than the other people did. The people that were low in trustworthiness.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But the bottom line was, even with positive information like Bill littered. But he also cut in line, if you took all of the tallies, you would see that people who are low in trusting others and people who are high in trusting others, they had about the same scores. So this research from Yamagishi and others shows that you can trust other people and it doesn't open you up to being taken advantage of. And that just doesn't make any sense, because just the idea of being gullible means that you're trusting what somebody else is saying. That's the popular conception of it. But as we've seen, really the idea of gullibility is trusting what somebody says because you either don't care enough to go figure it out yourself, because you don't feel like thinking for yourself, because what they're saying confirms your biased beliefs, not that you just trust people in general. And the explanation that I saw that really kind of drives it home for me, Chuck, is that people who have high trust are also more discerning. So they would have probably a better social intelligence than people who don't trust as much. And that makes sense, because if you don't trust people like the cynic, you're actually protecting yourself. You're guarding yourself. You know that. That you are probably not as discerning as other people. And so rather than get yourself into trouble time and time again, you just keep people at arm's length. You don't really trust them. Whereas if you are high trusting, you are better at discerning. And that either means that because you're good at discerning, you have the freedom to trust other people, because you can be confident in your judgment of other people. And you're probably not going to take advantage, be taken advantage of, or if you are just a trusting person by nature, you have to have a higher discernment or else you're going to be taken advantage of. Either way, high discernment and high trust go hand in hand.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that can be a very Freeing thing. And that's how Yamagishi sort of thought about it when he talked about his emancipation theory, which is if you're trusting, you're kind of. Or if you're untrusting, I guess you're kind of shackled in a way because you may just be stuck in a place because why hire a different person to do it? Because they're just going to be a scammer too. And so you can get stuck in this cycle. But if you free yourself from that with his emancipation theory and you break those shackles and you start trusting people, it makes you much more apt to make a positive change in life because you trust somebody or something or some situation.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because at base you can go through life not trusting other people and you can make it all the way to old age and die at pretty much the same, the same age that you would have had you trusted people. But again, you're missing out. There's opportunity costs to not trusting other people that people who do trust other people are not missing out on. And you're just not connected as socially. And research after research after research shows that social connections are like the number one predictor of living to a healthy older age. So you're actually robbing yourself by just not trusting other people. But again, it's kind of understandable if you were taught that your judgment is questionable, either through trauma, through a jerk stepdad or whatever. It's understandable. And I'm not, I'm not sure if that's something that you can learn to break out of, although I sincerely hope it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. There are people that think we are actually not as gullible as everyone thinks. There's this writer, Hugo Mercier, who wrote a book in 2020 called Not Born Yesterday. Great title for a book like that. And he's like, people are less gullible than we think. And there are a lot of criteria people use to work out if they believe something or not. And we're better at it than we all think we are. Most people, or I guess in his idea, most people are actually looking for well informed or well intentioned information or if it has logic to it, if it's logically strong, or maybe people are less like this, which is I'm just gonna accept something or I'm sorry, not gonna accept something as a new piece of information because it's not something that I have found to be true. He argues that people are less like that than they say.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And people also judge other people to be more likely to be duped than they are, more gullible than they are. But yeah, his whole message is like, no, we're actually as a group, as a species, not all that gullible. What appears to be gullibility is actually just somebody not caring enough to argue a point or they're accepting information, but they're hanging on to it loosely. Olivia, I thought, this is awesome. She pointed out that if you are shown, like a AI generated baby peacock that looks super cute and has huge eyes and is colorful and is nothing like what a baby peacock really looks like, if you're not like a peacock researcher or you. Your job doesn't depend on positively identifying baby peacocks. It doesn't really matter if you think that that's what they look like because you're holding onto it loosely enough that if somebody comes along and it says, that's not what baby peacocks actually look like, you're not going to like, that's not the hill you're going to die on. You're going to be like, oh, that's crazy what AI can do, or, oh, it got me. Or just be like, great, I now know a baby peacocks look like. And that's his point is that's not gullibility. That's just not stopping to analyze, you know, whether it's true or not. Because it just isn't that important right then.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. He also points out in the book, when it comes to, like, propaganda, that propaganda isn't something that can usually really completely change someone's mind. What propaganda is good at is taking someone who already has those beliefs and putting them on turbo speed and reinforcing them. Even like the Nazi propaganda machine he contends probably wasn't making someone anti Semitic. But if you were anti Semitic, then it really drove you down that road at a pretty fast pace.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because it came at your beliefs and said, yep, go for it. Like, that's what. That's the official line now is antisemitism.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And also similarly, political ads don't. Don't really work.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's what they say.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that makes me wonder, though, if that's just being suspicious of the messenger because of polarization, that you're not going to be like, let's hear what this opposing political party has to say about Medicare. I'm really interested. I'm going to keep an open mind. No, it's like this message is from the opposing party. I'm just going to laugh at it because it's just so full of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, I think political ads are terrible and ridiculous and so overvalued. But I feel like these days it's less like, it's more just beating that drum of like, aren't you mad? Aren't you mad? Go vote. Go vote.

[Josh Clark]

I know, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The thing is though is this, none of this is to say that people don't get scammed. There's a group called the Global Anti Scam alliance, which sounds like a scam itself. They came up with a report. Done. They came up with a report that found that worldwide people lose a trillion dollars to scams every year. Man, that's a lot of money. But some of these same researchers are like, hey, there's actually some short, like easy stuff you can walk around in your head with to use to apply to new information to protect from being gold. Which is actually a word.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's hear it. Do you have a list?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One of them is the first step is to admit that you're as susceptible to being scammed as anybody else.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. Yeah. Just a reality check.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, it also puts the kibosh on being overconfident, which again can increase your chance of being duped.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Don't make emotional decisions like we talked about. Keep a lid on impulsivity. Don't respond to like act now, supplies are running out. Kind of like, come ons. Don't respond to false scarcity. Like remember people hoarding toilet paper?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Those are emotional decisions. You want to just stay cool and level headed. Another one is ask questions, ask for more information. Don't be afraid to look dumb. That's, that's a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. And then consider the source. Is there any supporting information? And when you put all this together, you are probably going to come up with a good decision or understanding. And if you're being gulled by somebody, that's a real word you are probably going to say. I don't believe what you're saying. You, sir, are a cat and a scoundrel. Please get out of my face before I smack you with my glove and.

[Chuck Bryant]

We have to duel, we get, I'm sure anyone who works for big companies get these and maybe even small companies do this. But when they send out the test, like the test phishing emails and then like the next day you'll get an email that's like, did you fall for it?

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

It's always, I'm always nervous. I'm like, oh God, did I click on that thing that, you know from, you know, Facebook Gold au. It's usually there in the email address, you know.

[Josh Clark]

Well, at least the next day when they send out the email, they ask if you fell for it. They don't show like a list with pictures of all the people who did.

[Chuck Bryant]

They should do that. Just pictures of everyone.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else. I think, you know, we did a pretty good job on this one.

[Josh Clark]

I agree. And that is no fooling. And if you want to know more about gullibility, go do some research yourself on it. That's kind of the point of not being gold, which is a real word. And since I said that, it's time for listener. Man.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is a great current listener mail from yesterday's I'm sorry, Thursday's rather episode yesterday to us on automats, right? Hey, guys. Two friends and I gave each other a graduation present from high school in 1970 and spent a week by ourselves in New York where we went to the automat and it was still great. In 74 years later, this gets so good. Four years later, as a senior in college, a group of us did an independent study in humor in music as an excuse to do a concert of Bach stuff. I got to be the soloist in the Concerto for Horn and Hardart.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he sent a video. Unfortunately, it was just audio. I mean, it sounded like a hoot. And really it was great. But I wanted to see everything because here's what they did. This piece is for orchestra and also a table filled with various household items to play. Ideally, they should have been picked out of an automat on stage in order to play them. However, this is beyond our set construction abilities. We did have the recommended. We did at least have the recommended banner overhead reading in Latin. Less work for mother. Along with trying to master the rather challenging music, it involved me running around Gettysburg with a pitch pipe trying to find bells, pots, aooga horns, and lots of other items that played specific notes. This is so great. Thanks for speaking those wonderful. Sparking those wonderful memories. I discovered you during COVID and have been an extremely faithful listener ever since.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that is from the Reverend Dr. Mark Oldenburg Steckmiller, Professor Emeritus of the Art of Worship and the Music Chair at Gettysburg United Lutheran Cemetery. Pronouns. He, him.

[Josh Clark]

Wow. Also the most interesting person we know now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally. Reverend Mark. Write in more, please.

[Josh Clark]

The Doctor. Reverend Mark.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Doctor.

[Josh Clark]

Reverend Esquire.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Reverend Doctor. Sorry.

[Josh Clark]

Either way. Yeah, pretty impressive. Thanks a lot, Mark. I'm just going to call you Mark for now because I feel like we're on a first name basis. That was a great email, great story. And if you want to see if you can top mark, you can send us an email too. Send it off to stuffpodcastiheartradio.com.

[D]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

[C]

For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever.

[Chuck Bryant]

You listen to your favorite shows. Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer. If you're just as curious as I.

[Chuck Bryant]

Am about the way things are built.

[Josh Clark]

Then tune into my podcast, BuildingOne. I speak with some of the best.

[Chuck Bryant]

Product builders out there.

[Josh Clark]

I've always been inspired by frustration. It came back to my own personal.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pain point, so we had to go.

[C]

Out to farmers and convince them.

[Josh Clark]

Following that, curiosity is a superpower. You have to be obsessed with the human condition.

[Chuck Bryant]

Listen to Building One on the iHeartRadio app, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila and we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much and women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect.

[C]

Podcast network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Or wherever you go to find your podcast.