We resist change and surprises—but shock can shift our lives for the better

Summary

TED Radio Hour: We Resist Change and Surprises—but Shock Can Shift Our Lives for the Better

Host: Anoush Zamorodi
Episode Release Date: December 13, 2024
Description: Exploring the transformative power of shock and surprise in driving personal and societal change, featuring insights from a satirical movement founder, a psychology professor, and a cognitive scientist.

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Introduction: The Power of Shock

In this episode of the TED Radio Hour, Anoush Zamorodi delves into the concept of shock value and its role in catalyzing change. From viral conspiracy theories to personal upheavals, the show examines how unexpected disruptions can lead to productive dialogues, foster connections, and ultimately inspire positive transformations.

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Segment 1: Birds Aren't Real – The Satirical Conspiracy

Speaker: Peter McIndoo
Timestamp: [00:25] - [23:51]

Overview: Peter McIndoo introduces the world to the Birds Aren't Real movement, a satirical yet impactful conspiracy theory that posits birds are actually surveillance drones deployed by the U.S. government. Initially presented as a farce, the movement gained significant traction, blurring the lines between satire and genuine belief.

Key Points:

• Origin of the Movement:

  • [01:03] Peter recounts the rally in Washington Square Park, NYC, where thousands gathered to protest the supposed government plot to replace birds with drones: "We flooded the streets. We had banners, we had signs... because of a tragedy, because... 12 billion birds died at the hands of the United States government."

• Growth and Media Response:

  • The movement employed elaborate tactics, including fake evidence and actors portraying ex-CIA agents, to convince the media of its legitimacy. By [09:23], Peter reveals that the movement was a deliberate satire designed to critique how easily misinformation can spread: "Our goal was to convince the public that our satirical movement was a real one."

• Revelation and Lessons Learned:

  • In [10:54], Peter discloses that he ultimately revealed the truth to prevent the movement from spiraling out of control. This revelation highlighted the profound impact of shock value in shaping public perception and discourse: "It was never supposed to... So in 2021, I broke character, revealed the movement was a farce on the front page of the New York Times."

• Impact on Public Dialogue:

  • Peter discusses the challenges faced when interacting with genuine conspiracy theorists: [19:45] "What if by talking to conspiracy theorists like they're ignorant and stupid, we're actually pushing them farther away from the truth we want them to see?"

Notable Quotes:

• Peter McIndoo: "It is my moral obligation as one of the few privileged enough to know this, to share it with you." [03:46]
• Peter McIndoo: "My life would be so much easier if I never even learned this." [04:07]
• Peter McIndoo: "Birds aren't real in general?" [23:37]

Insights: The Birds Aren't Real movement serves as a powerful example of how shock and satire can challenge deeply held beliefs and expose the vulnerabilities in our information ecosystems. It underscores the importance of approachability and understanding when addressing misinformation, rather than shaming or alienating those who hold unconventional views.

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Segment 2: The Psychology of Perversity

Speaker: Paul Bloom
Timestamp: [23:51] - [39:21]

Overview: Psychology professor Paul Bloom explores the concept of perversity—acts committed simply for the sake of being wrong or causing disruption. Through his Perversity Project, Bloom collects and analyzes everyday examples of such behavior to understand the underlying motivations.

Key Points:

• Defining Perversity:

  • Bloom distinguishes between destructive and benign perverse acts, emphasizing actions done without rational motivation: [24:18] "They seem to be cases where people know something is wrong and they do it, not despite the fact that it's wrong, but because it's wrong."

• Examples from the Perversity Project:

  • From minor annoyances like singing off-key intentionally to more harmful actions like vandalism, Bloom illustrates the spectrum of perverse behavior: [27:17] "Causing people pain is wrong, but that's exactly why I did it."

• Psychological Motivations:

  • Bloom discusses how being told not to do something can ironically increase the desire to do it. He cites studies demonstrating that restrictions can lead to heightened rebellion: [38:44] "A lot of our perverse actions are in response to people telling us not to do what we want to do."

• Cultural Implications:

  • The segment highlights how societal responses to certain behaviors, like the Tide Pod Challenge, can inadvertently encourage the very actions they aim to prevent: [38:13] "Consumption of the pods shot up, not down. Nobody's going to tell me what to do."

Notable Quotes:

• Paul Bloom: "One of the great quirks in human interaction is that a perfectly rational being... is going to be less effective at life than someone who's a little bit crazy." [41:07]

Insights: Understanding perversity provides valuable insights into human behavior, especially in contexts where control and autonomy are at odds. Bloom's work suggests that embracing curiosity and reducing shaming can mitigate the negative effects of perverse actions, fostering a more empathetic and effective approach to managing societal challenges.

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Segment 3: Navigating Personal Shock and Change

Speaker: Maya Shankar
Timestamp: [39:21] - [53:35]

Overview: Cognitive scientist Maya Shankar shares her deeply personal journey of navigating unexpected life changes, including losing her ability to play the violin and enduring multiple pregnancy losses. Her story exemplifies how shock can lead to profound personal growth and redefinition of self.

Key Points:

• Early Life and Passion:

  • Maya describes her intense dedication to the violin from a young age, highlighting the profound impact of her musical identity: [43:02] "My right shoulder is slightly elevated compared to my left, and my spine is slightly curved because of all the hours I spent, you know, in that violin position."

• Life-Altering Injury:

  • At 15, Maya suffers a severe injury that forces her to abandon her music career. This abrupt change triggers an identity crisis: [45:59] "I was wearing blinders and I was on this speed train trying to become a professional violinist."

• Recovery and Rediscovery:

  • Through perseverance and a shift in focus, Maya pursues higher education and a successful career in cognitive psychology, demonstrating resilience and adaptability: [46:15] "It can be more sturdy to anchor your identity not to specific pursuits, but to the underlying features of those pursuits that really make you tick."

• Personal Loss and Continued Growth:

  • Maya opens up about the emotional toll of pregnancy losses and the ongoing process of redefining her role as a parent: [50:37] "I'm asking myself how this unexpected challenge might change what I'm capable of, what I value, and how I define myself."

Notable Quotes:

• Maya Shankar: "What is my through line? What is the defining feature of the things that I love to do?" [46:42]
• Maya Shankar: "Change is scary because it involves loss of some kind... when an unexpected change happens to us, it can also inspire lasting change within us." [47:43]

Insights: Maya's narrative underscores the transformative potential of shock and unexpected change. By reevaluating core passions and embracing internal shifts, individuals can not only recover from major setbacks but also discover new dimensions of their identities and capabilities.

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Conclusion: Embracing Shock for Positive Transformation

Throughout this episode, TED Radio Hour illustrates how shock—whether through societal movements, psychological impulses, or personal crises—can serve as a powerful catalyst for change. By challenging established norms, understanding the motivations behind disruptive behaviors, and navigating personal upheavals with resilience, individuals and communities can harness the unexpected to foster growth, empathy, and innovation.

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Closing Remarks: Anoush Zamorodi wraps up the episode by reiterating the significance of public media in fostering informed and connected communities. She encourages listeners to engage with NPR's offerings to continue exploring thought-provoking ideas that shape our world.

Notable Closing Quote:

• Anoush Zamorodi: "Human relations. We are so weird and complicated and strange and delightful." [41:14]

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Additional Resources:

• Peter McIndoo: Full talk available at ted.com
• Paul Bloom: Latest book and talks available at ted.com
• Maya Shankar: Full talk available at ted.com

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Production Credits:

Produced by Katie Monteleone, James de La Housie, and Harsha Nahada. Edited by Sanaz Meshkanpour. Executive Producer: Irene Noguchi. Audio Engineers: Patrick Murray and Gilly Moon. Theme Music by Ramtin Arablouei. Partners at TED include Chris Anderson, Michelle Quint, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Balorzo.

Transcript

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

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[Anoush Zamorodi]

This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

[Peter McIndoo]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Delivered at TED conferences to bring about the future we want to see around the world to who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're gonna find challenge you.

[Peter McIndoo]

We truly have to ask ourselves, like.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Why is it noteworthy and even change you? I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Anoush Zamorodi. I want to start with a story that, well, it might seem unbelievable.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Birds aren't real. Birds aren't real.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

On October 15, 2022, thousands of protesters gathered in Washington Square park in New York City.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Go home, birds.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Go home, birds.

[Peter McIndoo]

I get flashbacks to that, to that moment, to that rally all the time because it was the most beautiful moment of my Life. There were 3,000 people of all ages, all races, all beliefs coming together for a shared truth, something we can all agree on. We flooded the streets. We had banners, we had signs, we had our bagpiper with us just to commemorate and remember why we're there, which is because of a tragedy, because, you know, 12 billion birds died at the hands of the United States government. And they've never received justice for that. So we're here to avenge them.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

We're gonna march around New York City and we're gonna take the city.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

This is Peter McIndew.

[Peter McIndoo]

I'm the public information officer for the Birds Aren't Real movement, which has been active since 1976.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Since 76, but you've not been involved since then?

[Peter McIndoo]

Oh, no. I'm 25 years old. Kind of a brief history of the movement is it started when animal rights activists and anti surveillance activists learned about the government's plot to replace every bird with a surveillance drone. And they teamed up to create a movement called Birds Aren't Real to protest this.

From 1969 through 2001, the US government murdered over 12 billion birds in the American skies.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Here's Peter McIndew on the TED stage.

[Peter McIndoo]

They did this using poisonous toxins dropped from airplanes. It was contagious and murdered all of the birds over the course of about 40 years. For each bird, the government Killed. They replaced it with a surveillance drone replica in disguise, designed to spy on the American people. The proof that birds are robots is all around us. If you start looking. For starters, birds charge their batteries on power lines. They also track civilians using a liquid tracking device. Over the years, as I began putting this information together, there were times I wished I never even learned this. My life would be so much easier. But I always come back to this. It is my moral obligation as one of the few privileged enough to know this, to share it with you.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So this whole thing, it got big. You went to CNN headquarters to protest their coverage of the movement.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Cnn.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

You went to Twitter headquarters to protest their logo.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

We are here today to protest grossword brainwash imagery.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

What's your overall strategy here? How does it work?

[Peter McIndoo]

Yeah, so we have a van that we drive around the country. We hold rallies. That's my primary responsibility as public information officer. I drive around the country in a van that we covered in decals, kind of full of facts and, you know, questions that we want people to ask when they're driving. Like, have you ever seen a baby pigeon?

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

You ever wonder. I've never seen a baby pigeon.

[Peter McIndoo]

Why they come out of the factory as adults. Throughout my time doing birds not real, I've had multiple kind of people come forward and seen some leaked documents that prove that they come out of the factory as adults. So there's no organic growth from baby to adult pigeon.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So back to Washington Square. You had the van parked there, presumably, since it was Washington Square park in New York City. There were a lot of pigeons.

[Peter McIndoo]

There were a lot of pigeons. And any time that, you know, a flock of pigeons flew over the crow, there would be just a cacophony of boos. It was like a heavenly choir to my ears, just hearing everyone collectively, you know, come together and let. And let the government know that we know what they're doing and we don't like it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

How shocked would you say people are when they first hear about your theory that birds aren't, in fact, real?

[Peter McIndoo]

Yeah, that's a tough one. Unfortunately, I try to tell people what's going on, and they look at me like I'm a freak, and they'll scream at me, telling that, tell me I'm the. I'm the problem with this country. You're so stupid. But that's why I'm doing this. It's clear we have a lot of work to do. And so I'm hoping, you know, my grandchildren will be living in a world where, being a Birch Brewer, there is the norm, you know, where it's weird. If you believe in birds, you know, that's this old. That's boomer belief. You know what? You know, we know we know the truth. So that's the world I'm working toward. And, you know, that is what drives me forward every day.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

All right, tell us who you really are. That was really fun, by the way.

[Peter McIndoo]

That was fun. My name is Peter Mac and do. But I do not believe the birds are robots. And that is a character that I just did that I've been playing for years and years now. I started this by accident in 2016.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

What? How does one do that by accident? What do you mean?

[Peter McIndoo]

It was an actual accident, I swear. I was in Memphis, Tennessee, visiting a friend. It was shortly after Trump got elected, and there was a rally happening in Memphis. It was a woman's march, and there were also people in red hats shouting things at them. And it was just kind of this. This chaos. And I'm not really sure why I did this. I think I was just maybe overwhelmed or maybe it felt like there was so much madness happening, but I decided to pick up a sign and write my own thing on it. So I wrote on the sign the three most random words I could think of to pair together, and as you can guess, they were Birds aren't Real. And then I started walking around chanting, birds aren't real. And people were asking me, what does that mean? And unbeknownst to me, I was being filmed the entire time. The next week, I started being sent pictures of Birds aren't Real spray painted on walls in Memphis and high school classrooms, writing it on the chalkboard, chanting it in the cafeteria. No, no kidding. And I was sitting looking at all this and just thinking, I would always regret it if I didn't try to lean into that energy that was already there.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

We live in an attention seeking age, with companies and influencers vying for our eyeballs, one upping each other with outrageous and shocking images. It can feel exhausting and exploitative. But what if being jolted out of the everyday can actually be helpful? Today on the show, shock value ideas about how provocative stories, surprising actions and bolts from the blue can set the stage for productive dialogue, connections between adversaries and ultimately positive change. For Peter McIndoo, birds aren't real started as a funny bit to make people laugh or to ruffle some feathers. But he decided he wanted to see how far he could take the farce.

[Peter McIndoo]

Our goal was to convince the public that our satirical movement was a real one and to See if the media would believe what we were saying to do this. I played this character that I just showed you. We held rallies, put up billboards. We even sent the media a lot of fake evidence. We hired an old actor to pose as an ex CIA agent confessing to his crimes. We sent them a historic email leak called Poultry Gate that came out of the Pentagon, where we forged hundreds of fake emails exposing elites and government officials in the bird drone surveillance plot. It didn't take much to convince the media after just one summer holding rallies like this. It became nationally syndicated news on tons of local news stations that we were a real movement that had been around for 50 years. And there was a resurgence happening where it was coming back. And there was a radical new leader, myself, bringing the movement back as the rise of conspiracy theories swept the nation. At this point, I'm sitting on my couch watching the media report on my fake movement as a real one and figured it was probably time to come out of character one, because we'd accomplished what we came there to do. But also, I didn't want this to snowball on anything. It was never supposed to. So in 2021, I broke character, revealed the movement was a farce on the front page of the New York Times.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I mean, it's pretty impressive how much you committed to the bit. And I read that it was partly because you identified with the character, because you grew up in an environment where you were exposed to some conspiracy theories. So what was your childhood like?

[Peter McIndoo]

Yeah, like you said, I grew up in kind of a hyper conservative religious community where I was homeschooled in the outskirts of town, in Arkansas, actually. And a big reason why I was homeschooled is because there's a conspiracy theory that's still very prominent to this day, that the Common Core school system is brainwashing children. So that's a big reason why I was homeschooled, but still had some access to the real world. And I had neighbors when I was very, very young who were Muslim. And I remember asking my parents about what they believed in, and they said that they believed in their God, just like we believe in ours. And I remember thinking, oh, well, then how do we know that ours is the one you know? And that was before I was a family friend gave me a book called the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. So that was one of the first books I read in my teenage years.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Wow, A family member gave you that book?

[Peter McIndoo]

Well, he's a very close friend of my dad's, which I've always respected. They do have very different beliefs.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I mean, that's actually a very constructive way to talk to you, by giving you a copy of Joseph Campbell.

[Peter McIndoo]

Yeah.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

And showing you the power of story.

[Peter McIndoo]

Yes, it really was. Because that book talked about the power of story and myth and how maybe we weren't so different from those neighbors after all. And yeah, I think that a big part of the way that I got through that was through humor and not making fun of my surroundings, but definitely joking about them a lot.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

When we come back, how Peter channeled that curiosity to grow his fake movement and walk the fine line between comedy and condescension on the show today. Shock Value. I'm Anush Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED radio hour from NPR.

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[Anoush Zamorodi]

This message comes from grammarly231. That's the average number of apps used by many companies. This leads to a lot of context and tab switching, which can drain employees focus, costing your company. Grammarly can help because it uses AI that works in over 500,000 apps and websites. Join over 70,000 teams who save an average of $5,000 per employee per year using Grammarly. Go to Grammarly.comenterprise to learn more.

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[Anoush Zamorodi]

Hey, it's Manoush. This past year we have brought you stories about AI relationships, climate change, neurotechnology, dinosaurs, privacy, human behavior, and even one about what it means to create thriving public spaces.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

All of these public spaces that we take for granted, you know, all of this social infrastructure.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

We work really hard to bring you all of these stories because that is our public service. Kind of like a park or a public library and libraries are these beautiful hubs that can take on the shape of whatever community that uses them really needs. Public media is infrastructure that we all can use. It's free and it's for everyone. And our mission is to help create a more informed public. So this time of year, I want to thank you for listening and to say that one of the best ways you can support this public service is by signing up for npr. Plus, with one subscription, you are supporting all the work that NPR does and you get sponsor free episodes and perks across NPR's catalog of 25 podcasts. It's a great time to join because Throughout December and January + listeners have access to even more insights from TED speakers to help you kick off 2025. Right from making big life decisions to being more hopeful to carving out time for what is important to you, we have got you covered. Just visit plus.NPR.org you can also find the link in our episode notes. And the other way you can give is to make a [e-mail] your gifts are tax deductible either way. Thank you so much for being here. And now let's get back to the show. It's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. And today on the show Shock Value. Before the break, we were talking to Peter McIndoo about how he started a viral and fake conspiracy movement called Birds Aren't Real. From the start, Peter didn't want it to seem like he was making fun of anyone.

[Peter McIndoo]

You know, that was a thought from the beginning of Birds Aren't Real is that this could be a very shallow project. So I remember at the beginning looking at it less like a conspiracy theorist satire, but more like just this absurdist belief satire that could be applied to either side of the political spectrum. And so from there, it was really interesting. When the idea was growing, it sort of became this Rorschach test for who people thought, you know, believed something ridiculous. And a lot of people think that, you know, the other side, you could say, or people that, you know, disagree with fundamental core beliefs of theirs are crazy or brainwashed.

There were hundreds, maybe thousands of instances over the years where strangers would approach me, you know, they'd see me in public and I'd see them notice me. They'd walk up to me with complete disdain on their face. They thought that I was a real conspiracy theorist. And time and time again they'd come up to me and they would tell me how stupid I am, my out of character self may interpret these interactions as a funny response to someone that fell for the comedy project. But instead I felt the emotions of the character. I felt emboldened and I felt sad and angry. Like they didn't even take the time to know me. And in those moments when those people were talking to me, they could not have been more ineffective at what I would assume they really want. Less conspiracy theorists in the world. What if by talking to conspiracy theorists like they're ignorant and stupid, we're actually pushing them farther away from the truth that we want them to see? Because what happens when someone tells you that you're stupid? You're all wrong. You're the problem. You'll feel judged and dismissed and most importantly, you'll feel othered. Which may lead you to look for safety in those who are like minded to do what they have been doing for you. Affirm yourselfhood, give you a sense of identity, belonging. These are some of the most basic human desires.

I think as the time has gone on, we started building more of a character and a person out of this Birds aren't Real guy to where, you know, he wasn't just this random guy who shouts on the street. Because that's really not who conspiracy theorists are. A lot of the time, you know, they're talking about these forums that they're on online and they really don't have a lot of real life friends or community. And so as the time's going on, it really hasn't even been about the bird robot thing at all. It's been about a character that is finding purpose and meaning and community through this idea. And that is what's making him go deeper and deeper into it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Did you ever have conversations with real conspiracy theorists?

[Peter McIndoo]

There was one time that I, and I'm happy that it was just one time, you know, because at the first rally we ever held was in Springfield, Missouri. I didn't know who's going to show up. I didn't know if we'd have 20 people show up. I didn't know we'd have a bunch of, you know, old men show up, really believe this, you know. And so we showed up and it was just all a couple hundred actually just like Gen Z kids who totally understood and got the wink in the eye. And from there, you know, that's when I learned that that really was our whole audience. But there was one time at the CNN rally, actually this guy walked up to me and starts talking about how he's a member of this, you know, very elite family with his famous name and he was saying, you know, I love how a lot of the information, the. A lot of the information you present is absurd, but, you know, but. But it's true. But it's true. You know, the way you present it is absurd, which is a smart way to get it out to people. But. But it is true. And later that day, I got an instagra from this guy, said, oh, my God, that's the guy from the rally. And I opened up his profile, and it was just years and years of thousands of posts of conspiracy theories. Oh, yeah. Which I think that a lot of times it is. One conspiracy theory can lead to another, and then reality really can kind of unravel. And, yeah, that was the first time that I'd ever experienced that. It kind of shocked me at how similarly he spoke like the character and how much he identified with it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Did you ever have anyone who was angry at you about this, about Birds.

[Peter McIndoo]

Aren'T Real in general?

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Yeah, like, this is not funny. Like, conspiracy theories aren't something to laugh at.

[Peter McIndoo]

Yeah, there have been people who have said that. And I really think it's important that we can talk about these things in a space that's not intense. I think comedy is a very disarming way to enter a thought space. You can enter this idea through something with levity, and then once we're past that, then we can maybe get into some ideas in a more disarmed way. Obviously, there are a lot of harmful conspiracy theories, and that's important to talk about too, is that there are some ideas that are truly hateful and very hurtful. But I think that with the general person in our life that believes in conspiracy theories or that friend group where someone says something that makes us raise an eyebrow and responding to that in a way that isn't shaming, but that is curious about how they got there. If we can have more people talking about it like that, looking at the problem as an issue of belonging rather than belief, that might be the most productive thing we can do to fight the problem of misinformation.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

That's Peter McIndou. He's the founder of the fake movement. Birds aren't Real.

[Peter McIndoo]

We are planning on running for president ourselves as a movement, not as a person in 2024. This is a TED Radio Hour exclusive.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Oh, thank you for that.

[Peter McIndoo]

Of course.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

And you can see his full [e-mail] on the show today. Shock value, which can include the irresistible desire to do something bad. And if we're going to talk about being bad, psychology professor Paul Bloom suggests that there's no better person to start with than the original bad boy, St. Augustine.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

So Augustine wrote a very famous book called the confessions about 1600 years ago. And it's famous because it tells the story of his youthful descent into sin and his subsequent conversion to Christianity. And he begins book two with this great line.

[St. Augustine]

I propose now to set down my past wickedness and a carnal corruption of.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

My soul, which sounds like Augustine's about to dish out some pretty racy stuff.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

But the sand he spends the most time talking about is, you might think it's fairly mild.

[St. Augustine]

There was a pear tree near our vineyard, weighed down with fruit, alluring neither in appearance nor in flavor.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

And one day, 16 year old Augustine and his buddies decided they were going to steal those pears.

[St. Augustine]

And we carried off from there enormous loads of fruit, not to our meals, but rather to cast before swine.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

And that was it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

That was it.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

That was, that was the beginning and the end of the sin. But it fascinated Augustine because he said, look, why did I do this?

[St. Augustine]

Behold my heart, God, Behold my heart.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I wasn't hungry. I threw most of the pears to pigs. I had nothing against the person who owned the orchard. And he concluded that he did it because he had no motivation for wickedness except for wickedness itself.

[St. Augustine]

If any part of one of those pears passed my lips, it was the sin that gave it flavor. I had no motivation for wickedness except wickedness itself. I was foul and I loved it.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

He wanted to do it simply because it was wrong. And unlike his sexual sins, where he had, you know, motivations, he had drives. He understood what he was up to. This fascinated and horrified him. This seemed to him like a glimmer of pure evil.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Paul loves stories like these.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I love it because it's so paradoxical.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Because sure, we sometimes do bad things because we think that we're actually in the right, that morality is on our side. We fight back because we're overwhelmed with anger at injustice or because we want to get revenge against someone who's wronged us. Usually we have some sort of reason. But stealing pears just for the hell of it?

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

These perverse acts fall outside all of that.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Perverse as in illogical, irrational.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

They seem to be cases where people know something is wrong and they do it, not despite the fact that it's wrong, but because it's wrong.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So in an attempt to understand what drives us to do these thoroughly unhelpful acts, Paul launched the Perversity Project, where he asked people to submit their everyday examples of doing Wrong just for the sake of it.

[Paul Bloom]

So one of the first stories I got was flirted with a woman's boyfriend. Knowing fully well he liked me. I knew I could steal him if I wanted, but I didn't want to do that. I just wanted her to feel uncomfortable whenever the three of us were in the same room.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Here's Paul Bloom on the TED stage.

[Paul Bloom]

Causing people pain is wrong, but that's exactly why I did it. And in fact, this is the plot of the Dolly Parton song, Jolene. Sometimes it's self destructive. A young man wrote to me, ice skating on a pond, dark and frozen spot 30 yards out. Instead of avoiding it, I skate towards it, knowing but wondering. Knowing but wondering. And splash. But not all the stories I got had that kind of nature. Some were a little bit more benign. Here's one of my favorites. When I was in a professional choir, at every concert, I felt the desire to sing a few notes very incorrectly on purpose. To this day, I don't completely understand why someone else wrote me. And this is the sweetest, saddest little example of modest perversity. Sometimes I walk on the grass instead of the path just because I know it's wrong.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

You know, I think my favorite from your survey is the ice cream guy. You remember that one?

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

This was, this was, I think, the first entry I got from the Perversity Project I did.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

You hit the jackpot right from the start.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I just loved it. And he wrote on one occasion in my early 20s, I was out with a friend. He decided to get himself ice cream. And before he had a chance to try it, I stuck my finger in it. I played it off as a joke, but really I had a sudden thought, man, it would be messed up if I just jammed my finger in his ice cream. And for full clarity, he didn't use the word messed up.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I mean, there's something about a person who decides to give you an entry for your perversity project that they have a sort of self appreciation or they're trying to understand their own motivation. It does not pass them by that something wicked was within them or they wanted to shock someone. They know themselves well enough to have recognized that this was what was happening when they committed these acts.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I think that's exactly right. It is the kind of sweet spot where people know this is strange. This is outside of the usual. And a lot of the perversity examples that we could talk about don't make sense to the person doing them. And one of the theories that I'm interested in for why we do this, which is to shock others, to shock and scare and impress others in a nice way. You just want to surprise or sometimes amuse other people. It could be funny. On the other hand, in the extremes, perversity becomes terrible. It becomes people doing cruel, rotten, violent things simply, you know, for the sake of doing them.

[Paul Bloom]

Psychologists have long been interested in violent, disruptive, perverse acts and the kinds of people who do them. An example people often give is the Joker from the Batman comics. In Christopher Nolan's film the Dark Knight, Alfred, Batman's butler, describes the Joker by saying, some men can't be bought, bullied, recent, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. And psychologists have thought up a need for chaos scale that gives you a bunch of statements, and how much you agree with them will tell you how much you want to watch the world burn. So just do this quietly in your head. I need chaos around me. It's too boring if nothing is going on. Sometimes I just like destroying beautiful things.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I have spent back in the day covering a lot of political protests, and oftentimes we saw that they would be completely nonviolent and rational. And then you would see the anarchists show up in black hoods and things would just descend into utter chaos. Not because they felt strongly for either side of the issue that people were protesting, but because they just wanted to mess things up.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Yeah. And I think there you see the dark side of perversity, where there are some people around who just want to make trouble. And sometimes the making trouble can be funny. They may want to amuse people or surprise people in a benign way, but sometimes they might really want to hurt people. They might want to destroy things and hurt people. And there's something apolitical about it. You know, they'll dress up, they'll put on masks, and at root, they don't care what the demonstration is about. No, but if they could throw some rocks and get some trouble going, their day is done. They tend to be male, they tend to be young. I think many people age out of it. It's kind of in a sort of hormonal rage of being a teenager, but it is the scary side of perversity. And then there's another side, which I think is more common and something really worth knowing, which also connects to politics, where people don't like being told what to do. Part of a perverse actor is somebody who wants to maintain their autonomy, they want to maintain their freedom. And there's a lot of evidence that if you tell people, look you are forbidden to smoke. Look, you must take these vaccines. Look, anybody who votes for this person is a total moron. Don't vote for this person. Some proportions say, okay, I'll do what you tell me to, and some proportions say, the hell of that, I'm going to do the opposite. And I think political scientists underestimate how often people go to polls and do what they are told not to do just because they are told not to do it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Okay, so these acts can be troublesome, but you also think that they can be pretty interesting, maybe even positive. And you use the example of the art world and certain pieces of art.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Yes, maybe the most. The newest one was by Banksy.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Yeah, we had a lot of interest.

[Peter McIndoo]

On it, as you can imagine, where.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

He had a canvas girl with a balloon. It was on auction at Sotheby. It was all set up in a frame. And then the moment the gavel went down, a machine in the frame started activated and the artwork was partially shredded. And if you go to YouTube and you watch it, people are shocked. They had never seen anything like it. They were horrified. But this became classic and people thought it was wonderful and ingenious and clever. Maybe the origin of modern art started when Marcel Duchamp, when there was an art competition in New York and they said, send in any artwork you want. So he sent in a urinal and they said, no, no, no, no, no, we're not accepting that. We're talking about art. And he said, it is art and there's a big debate. And then the conception of what art is change.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Yeah.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I think society and science and art wouldn't work unless most people play by the rules. But these geniuses who are often weird people and often perverse in other ways as well, make things more interesting. They push us to different levels.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

When we return, Paul explains why telling someone not to do something will just make them want to do it even more. On the show today, Shock Value. I'm Anoosh Zamorodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Stay tuned. This message comes from Saladyne. Yesterday's approach to storage can't meet the demands of today's AI ambitions. Bigger, faster and more energy efficient Solidigm solid state storage solutions are optimized for AI. Learn more at storageforai.com this message comes.

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[Anoush Zamorodi]

It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zamorodi and on the show today, shock Value. We were just talking to psychology professor Paul Bloom, who is endlessly fascinated with what he calls acts of perversity, basically being bad just because you can.

[Paul Bloom]

Edgar Allan Poe, describing perversity, described talk about imps, little magical demons in our heads that cause us to do terrible things. But like I said, I'm a psychologist. I don't believe in imps. I think what we do has reasons, has motivations, and I think for perverse actions there's a range of them. One of them was mentioned by Augustine. So later on, after describing the incident with the pairs, he writes, I would not have done it by myself. My satisfaction did not lie in the pairs that lay in the crime itself committed in league with a gang of sinners. The social force drove him.

[Maya Shankar]

A warning for parents Tonight, the Tide Pod Challenge is the latest fad among.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Jonah Berger gives this great example of the Tide Pod Challenge where it is a few years ago, kids would just like be sticking Tide Pods in their mouth and filming it.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I mean, this is nothing to laugh at.

[Maya Shankar]

It's no joke.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

They do look yummy. I understand.

[Maya Shankar]

Can cause serious health problems.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

We are going to get legal thoughts.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Yeah, let's not do that.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

We should really say it is not safe to put Tide Pods in your mouth. No, but actually, maybe we shouldn't say this because the company that owned Tide Pods, I think Procter and Gamble put up some extremely expensive ads, keep laundry.

[Maya Shankar]

Packs out of reach and away from children.

[Paul Bloom]

Berger points out when this ad came up, consumption of the pods shot up, not down. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. I want to be an autonomous free being or take threats of reprisal. There's a lovely study by a team of political scientists which asked the subjects to imagine that they're an ambassador to a country and they're deciding whether or not to have sanctions towards that country in one condition. The dictator says, if you do sanctions towards our country, that's okay.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

I won't do anything.

[Paul Bloom]

In the second condition, the dictator says, if you do sanctions towards our country, I will unleash terrorist attacks against you. What's the stunning finding from us is that in the second condition, not the first, they were more likely to do it. A lot of our perverse actions are in response to people telling us not to do what we want to do, and it makes us want a le more to do that thing.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

So much of global conflict involves sending off a message saying, don't expect me to be reasonable.

[Maya Shankar]

Mm.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

Don't expect me to only care about my own best interests. And people talk about the evolution of our minds, the evolution of emotions. Say, this is where emotions like losing your temper, like rage come from. Rage is an honest signal that I am about to make threats that are not reasonable. But nonetheless, I'm going to follow up on. It's one of the great quirks in human interaction that a perfectly rational being, a perfectly intelligent rational being who weighs the cost and benefits, a Mr. Spock, is going to be less effective at life than someone who's a little bit crazy. And we're being grim. But it also works for positive things, too. Who would you find most compelling? Somebody who says to you, I want to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, because the benefits of being with you outweigh the costs. You were the most attractive, promising mate I have seen based on searching for last little while and up until I find somebody better than you, I will stick with you. Or would you rather have somebody who's sobbing at your feet and said, I am so crazy in love with you, I will never leave you. You are the one for me. And now the second person isn't thinking rationally. You know, dude, cost benefits. But, but, but he's much more of a. Of a compelling. Making much more compelling deal. Love is basically a sort of irrational bet that when somebody better comes along, you're not going to stray.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Human relations. We are so weird and complicated and str. Strange and delightful.

[Birds Aren't Real Activist]

We are. We are. We are perverse.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

That's Paul Bloom. He's a psychology professor at the University of Toronto and professor emeritus at Yale University. His latest book is the Story of the Human Mind. You can see his [e-mail] and thank you so much to J.C. howard for giving voice to St. Augustine on the show today. Shock value. We've talked about perverse thoughts and outrageous conspiracy theories. But what about a shock that's more personal? The kind of shock that can upend our big plans in Life when it.

[Maya Shankar]

Comes to navigating change and trying to sustain hope during hard times. As someone who's not a particularly spiritual or religious person, I try to have as open a mind as I can day to day. That's my soft landing. It's human psychology.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist. That was not what she wanted to be when she grew up.

[Maya Shankar]

When I was 6, my mom went up to her attic and brought down my grandmother's violin that she had brought with her from India to the United States. And I just remember being so captivated by the instrument. I was really close to my grandmother and I knew she had played it as a little girl. And so I very quickly asked my mom if I could have a quarter size violin of my own to play.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Maya's childhood revolved around her violin.

[Maya Shankar]

My focus each and every day. When I woke up, it was always about the violin. Like, that's what I woke up thinking about. That's usually what I fell asleep thinking about. Kind of remarkably, my parents never had to ask me to practice music. Seemed like it was striking at something that was so intrinsic.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

At age 9, she was accepted into the Juilliard School.

[Maya Shankar]

We lived in Connecticut, and every Saturday, my mom and I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning and take a train into Manhattan. And I would have, you know, up to 10 hours of classes. And then we'd come home and, you know, get back at around 10 or so at night.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

After years of intensive training, her hard work paid off.

[Maya Shankar]

When I was a teenager, the renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman invited me to be his private student. This was around when I was 13 or so. And so I was like living the dream. Minouche. I really was.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

What was the dream like? What did you envision for yourself?

[Maya Shankar]

It was really when Perelman took me on as a student that I received that vote of confidence that, hey, maybe I could actually do this. Maybe this could really be my career. You know, I had a special schedule at school to accommodate more practicing. Even physically, my body grew around the violin. So, you know, to this day, my right shoulder is slightly elevated compared to my left, and my spine is slightly curved because of all the hours I spent, you know, in that violin position. Yeah, it really became an extension of my body.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

And then that brings us to one day when you were 15?

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah. So I was at summer music camp. I was practicing this very, very technical, very challenging passage of a Paganini Caprice. I overstretched my finger on a note and I heard a popping sound and was alarmed to Find that it wasn't a string that had popped that actually attended in my left hand.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Mm. Well, how did you respond?

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah, I responded really poorly. I was. I was frustrated. I was very impatient. And so every day and probably 200 times over the course of the day, I would, like, touch my hand, move it around and see whether maybe things had improved. And then they wouldn't have improved. And then I would pick up the violin and think, you know what, I'm just gonna, like, bulldoze my way through this injury. And I played through months of pain, you know, just using anti inflammatories and trying my best at physical therapy. I was just willing to do anything at all.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Did it work? Like, were you.

[Maya Shankar]

It didn't work? No, it didn't work. And so eventually, doctors suggested surgery that didn't help me. Finally, I was told I had to stop playing altogether. When I lost the violin, I expected to grieve the loss of the instrument. Right. And grieve not being able to play anymore. But I did not expect that I would grieve the loss of myself. Without it, I really felt unmoored. And sometimes it's when we're thrown these big changes in our lives that it brings to the surface just how much certain things in our life matter to us. Right. And how defining they were.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So Maya started to ask herself, who was she, if not a violinist?

[Maya Shankar]

Because, you know, I was wearing blinders and I was on this speed train trying to become a professional violinist. And so I closed out all these other worlds. And so it's not just about discovering other pursuits. It's about rediscovering myself at this more fundamental level.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

But it turned out, once a high achiever, always a high achiever. Maya ended up earning a PhD in cognitive psychology from Oxford University. From there, she served in the Obama administration as founder and chair of the White House Behavioral sciences team. Now she's a behavioral scientist at Google. And a couple years ago, she started her podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, which is about, you guessed it, life changing moments.

[Maya Shankar]

So I realized through that experience that it can be more sturdy to anchor your identity not to specific pursuits, but to the underlying features of those pursuits that really make you tick, that light you up. And when it came to the violin, what I really loved about music is that it gave me the ability to emotionally connect with other people. And that underlying passion persisted. I mean, that's a core part of who I am. It gave me, like a through line because I. Well, I lost the violin. And since then, I've lost the ability to do other things, or maybe life took an unexpected turn. But I can still find that same love of human connection in other pursuits. And so I would urge people who are listening to ask themselves, like, what is my through line? Right? What is the defining feature of the things that I love to do? And can I find that elsewhere when life throws me a curveball?

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Maya Shankar continues from the TED stage.

[Maya Shankar]

Change is scary for a lot of us. For one, it is filled with uncertainty, and we hate uncertainty. Research shows that we're more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance. I mean, we'd rather be sure that a bad thing is going to happen than to have to deal with any uncertainty. Change is also scary because it involves loss of some kind. By definition, we're departing from an old way of being and entering a new one. And when we experience a change that we wouldn't have chosen for ourselves, it's easy to feel that our lives are contracting, that we're more limited than before. But when we take this perspective, we fail to account for an important that when an unexpected change happens to us, it can also inspire lasting change within us. We become different people on the other side of change. What we're capable of, what we value, and how we define ourselves, these things can all shift. And if we can learn to pay close attention to these internal shifts, we may just find that rather than limiting us, change can actually expand us.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So clearly you have bounced back. Are you. I don't know, is grateful the right word? What do you. When you think back on that moment and where you are now, can you draw a straight line?

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think it's too high a bar for all of us to try and reach gratitude in the face of every change. That might be unreasonable, but one thing that I felt time and time again through all of the changes that I've endured is that there's a huge amount of self discovery and growth that happens along the way. And there's so much mystery around the ways in which change in turn changes us inside. You can take two people who are experiencing the same external change situation and their internal response is markedly different. And I think when we can tap into people's internal states as they're navigating change, that's where the true wisdom lies. Often we're united by our psychological response to any situation. So someone going through a divorce might find the Most resonance in the story of a cancer patient who feels their body has betrayed them in some way. And I think there's a hopeful message there. I think it helps us feel connected across all of the challenges that we face in our lives.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

You mention that you are going through another change yourself, or you had an idea of what your life was going to be like, and it's not working out exactly how you'd pictured it when it comes to starting a family. Are you okay to talk about that?

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah. So in 2020, after years of fertility treatment and trying to match with a gestational surrogate, we found this wonderful woman, Haley, who is pregnant with our baby girl. My husband Jimmy and I were just over the moon that finally this dream of parenthood was coming true. And then we found out that Haley had miscarried.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

Oh, gosh.

[Maya Shankar]

And I remember thinking in that moment, wow, I feel so unprepared for this change. Like, I might have navigated change earlier in my life, but, man, the emotional, like, gut punch of this is so overwhelming, and I don't feel like I have the tools needed to get through this moment. And I felt really discouraged and just felt like I needed help and I needed human connection. Fast forward about a year and a half, and Haley was now pregnant with our identical twin girls, and we were again, so thrilled. And then, unfortunately, she miscarried. Oh. And I. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And I. And I think more recently, I've been reflecting on my current journey when it comes to parenthood. And one thing I learned with the violin was, what is it that I loved about the violin and can I find that elsewhere? And I think in the domain of parenthood, I'm asking myself a similar question, which is, what was I craving from parenthood and can I find that elsewhere?

[Anoush Zamorodi]

I mean, it also sounds like a very organic process. I don't hear you slipping into clinical speak in any way, you know, saying, well, I'm just suffering from PTSD or whatever else. You're not labeling it. You're talking about the human experience.

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah, I think that I. That's how I'm processing. This is just as a. As a human experience.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

So a hard one.

[Maya Shankar]

Yeah.

I've always wanted to be a mom, but becoming one has been difficult. And my husband and I have had to navigate pregnancy losses and other heartbreaks over the years, and now I'm not sure what will happen. I'm asking myself how this unexpected challenge might change what I'm capable of, what I value, and how I define myself. I'm still figuring things out. But what I can tell you right now is that I'm imagining a future me who is expanding her definition of what it means to parent, who's perhaps finding what she craved from motherhood in other places. At a minimum, this exploration has allowed me to loosen my grip on the identity of mom just a bit, and I found it freeing. I'm beginning to see change with more possibility, and I'm hoping you can, too. Thank you so much.

[Anoush Zamorodi]

That was Maya Shankar. She hosts the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. You can see her full [e-mail] thank you so much for listening to our show today. Shock Value this episode was produced by Katie Monteleone, James de La Housie and Harsha Nahada. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkanpour. Our production staff at NPR also includes Rachel Faulkner White, Matthew Cloutier and Fiona Gurin. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and Gilly Moon. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Michelle Quint, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Balorzo. I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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