← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
The Backwards Law: Stop Chasing Happiness. Become Anti-fragile Instead. | Gad Saad PT 1
01:24:28
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- [00:00]
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Tom Bilyeu
If your goal is to be better at life, your first assumption gonna be to pursue happiness. But that is a mistake. Happiness is a result that cannot be directly pursued. It can only be born of a set of behaviors becoming antifragile and pursuing truth and authenticity. Here is controversial YouTuber author and award winning professor Gad Saad with the Surprising Path to Happiness. So as you think about the way to orchestrate happiness, one I think it's important to define happiness if it isn't the sort of passing, momentary happiness of eating a bowl of ice cream or having good sex. But those are actually both parts of this thing. What is that cocktail of truth and freedom? Is that the only parts of the cocktail?
- [01:47]
Gad Saad
Right? So the, the eat, the watching the porn, having the good sex, eating the ice cream, then the juicy burger. Those are the dopamine hits, right? They're tickling my pleasure center. So they're, they're ephemeral, they're passing. Happiness in the way that I'm using the term, in the way that most philosophers have written about the topic would use the term is through the serotonin system, right? I mean, I'm sitting on the proverbial porch when I'm 85. I'm looking back at my life and I'm saying, you know what? I've lived a good life. I've built a great marriage, I have great kids, I've had a job that has given me infinite purpose and meaning. I've got an incredible group of friends that I trust. So it is in that enduring sense, existential sense, sense that I'm feeling content in myself. So eating the ice cream is great. It can give me a momentary hit of dopamine rush, but it isn't what I mean by happiness. You want to talk a bit more about the know thyself, the. The authenticity part?
- [02:44]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, if that's a key part of this. Before we do that, though, I want to. So when I talk to people about happiness, which is always how people package the question, what I'm very careful to migrate them to is don't worry about happiness. Happiness to me is the transient thing, the. What you're talking about in the serotonin system I would call fulfillment right now. I think fulfillment has a very knowable recipe, and I want to see if we agree on that or if we have a convergence at the definition level, in which case I'll want to get your specific definition. So my recipe for fulfillment, which is, I think, the neurochemical state that people long for, not just when they're 85 on the porch, but from moment to moment, because fulfillment, to me is the thing that can survive grief. You can be fulfilled and grieving at the same time. You can't be happy and grieving at the same time. So for me, it's. It's based on evolution. So I know a secret about your future that I won't rat you out here, but you and I share an obsession.
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Gad Saad
Can I. Can I just say what the context, please? You had asked what is my next book possibly about? And I shared it with you, which we won't discuss.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yes.
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Gad Saad
Yeah.
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Tom Bilyeu
So super intrigued. I want people to understand that evolution has planted these what I'll call biological algorithms in your brain. So there. There are things compelling you to act a certain way, feel a certain way all the time. And so working hard is one of those. You can understand from an evolutionary perspective why you would need to work hard. So you need to work hard. Whatever you're doing, you're going to work hard to gain a set of skills that allow you to serve not only yourself, but other people. And as long as it's a set of skills that you find intrinsically interesting so that your goal is exciting to you. That, to me, is the shortest recipe I can think of for what actually leads to the quote, unquote, good life. Does that feel accurate?
- [04:37]
Gad Saad
It is accurate. I would cover the other end of the evolutionary story. I have a section in the book on the mismatch hypothesis, which is an evolutionary principle that explains why in some cases we stray away from happiness or mental health or physical health. Because it's also relevant to our existence. Existential happiness. So the mismatch hypothesis, Tom, is the idea that a behavior or a preference that might have been adaptive in our evolutionary past becomes maladaptive in the contemporary environment. So the classic example of that phenomenon would be our gustatory preferences. So we've evolved the preference for fatty foods. Now, you and I might have different preferences. I might like juicy steak, you might like chocolate mousse, but we probably both prefer those two foods or sources than, say, raw broccoli or tofu. This is correct, right? And the reason for that is very simple. Because your ancestors and mine evolved in an environment of caloric scarcity and caloric uncertainty. Therefore, it would have made sense for them to have evolved those preferences, which are then passed down in today's environment where there isn't caloric uncertainty or caloric scarcity. Then we get some of the biggest killers, colon cancer and heart disease and high blood pressure and diabetes. Many of these are preventable based on the types of foods that we eat. So that's an example of the mismatch hypothesis in evolutionary medicine. But let's apply it, say, to how we live our lives in terms of social relationships. We've evolved, as you probably heard, the Dunbar number is something that the evolution anthropologist Robin Dunbar talked about that roughly, we've evolved around 150 people around us in our evolutionary past. But then we have very tight relationships with these concentric groups. Of these 150 people, social relationships are the most important thing to our happiness. As a matter of fact, I'll come back to Dunbar's number in a second. I quote in the book the main finding from 80 plus years of research at Harvard longitudinally tracking people. The number one factor that describes how well you will feel later in life is the quality of your social relationships, even more so than your cholesterol levels. So don't worry about taking a statin to lower your LDL scores. Make sure that you have two, three, four friends that you really trust and love and you can engage in reciprocal rituals with, right? And so Dunbar's number expects us to have these tight bonds. Now, I could live in New York surrounded by 8 million people, and yet I feel unbelievably alone because I'm not instantiating any of those tight reciprocal bonds. So I am with 8 million people, and yet I'm incredibly lonely. And so one of the ways by which we can apply evolutionary principles to happiness is seeing some of these mismatches and how we can resolve that mismatch. So that we can be happier.
- [07:37]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that's really interesting. Okay, so we know that we can become misaligned, but we also know that there are these programs running in our mind, one of them. So if we're going to use that shared definition, a big part of this is you have to know what's exciting to you. So we come back to know thyself. So how do you come to know yourself? And how do you deal with things like where your need. Because you and I are very different. I'm. I am very much a pleaser. I'm not disagreeable at all. I would score very low on disagreeability. So how do you deal with. When you have a thing to be authentic to yourself, you have to constantly face that. When, how do you come to recognize that? And how do you recognize the difference between a thing that you should embrace about yourself and something you should try to change about yourself?
- [08:31]
Gad Saad
Those are big questions. So let me give you an example of this kind of know thyself perfectionism, something that I regrettably suffer from. So in one of the chapters of the book, I talk about everything in moderation. So the sweet spot, which Aristotle had spoken about more than 2,000 years ago when he argued that, for example, a soldier who is too cowardly is not good. A soldier who's too reckless in his courage is not good. The best soldier is the one who is somewhere in the middle. And so what I argue in that chapter is everything in life amounts to finding the sweet spot in that domain. There is no law of nature that is more ubiquitous than the inverted you. Too little is not good, too much is not good. The right point is somewhere in the middle. So perfectionism, for example, if you're not in the least bit perfectionist, then let's say you're an author, then your work will suffer because you don't have any attention to details. You'll be sloppy, your references will be poorly cited. Right. If you are on the other end of the curve where I lie, which is when you receive the galley proofs of your book, instead of rejoicing that you're in the final step, you go into a complete full blown panic attack. Because this is the last time that I will have a chance to pick up a typo or a comma that's out of place, I end up spending an inordinate amount of time rereading the book to catch that typo. Well, it would have made a lot more sense pragmatically to recognize that it's okay if there's a typo And I could have spent those two weeks doing something a lot more productive. That gives me a lot more bang for my buck. Well, but I have to have the humility and the introspection to be able to say I suffer from perfectionism. What can I do to change it? So the old cliche is, you know, the first step is to recognize that you have a problem. And you can only do that if you're truly humble within yourself. Same thing when I, you know, lost a lot of weight, I could have jumped on the Lizzo bandwagon and said, you are healthy at any size. Or I could have listened to my physician and to myself and to the mirror that said to me, you need to lose weight. People don't live to be 100 if they are 50, 60, 70 pounds overweight. So it takes honesty and takes introspection. It takes authenticity, it takes humility. Put it all together, hopefully you make the necessary changes.
- [10:53]
Tom Bilyeu
It's interesting. So one thing I think a lot about is what I call frame of reference. So frame of reference, the easiest way for me to explain it is it is the distorted lens through which you view the world. There is no such thing as seeing objective reality. I think that we, we live in a simulation in a metaphorical sense, but it borders on literal. Because your brain is encased in total darkness. Light never reaches your ey. Colors don't exist objectively. They exist only in the simulation where you're taking photons of a certain wavelength and you, for whatever evolutionary reason, our eyes have chosen to interpret that as certain colors and. But they don't really exist. And so once that reality sinks in for people and you realize everything, your every intake, the way that you frame the world, see it, all of is your brains trying to deal with the overwhelming amount of complexity. And so it simplifies it into a useful fashion, but it is by nature a distortion. And so once you realize, okay, everything that my brain is doing is a distorted version of what's really there, and it's being distorted by my beliefs and my values and my beliefs are actually a choice that hopefully are grounded in reality, but not always. And once you realize, okay, I can begin to shape my frame of reference now, not unhinge it from reality because you want to be as predictively accurate as possible, but you're going to build that frame of reference, and when you take over that process, you realize I get to choose the things that I care about. I get to choose the things that I believe about myself. And then that is going to play out in whether or not something is fulfilling or it makes you happy, because if it's in alignment with your values. So I'll go back to you prize authenticity in a way that I'm sure a lot of people don't, because someone may equally prize getting along.
- [12:47]
Gad Saad
Yes.
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Tom Bilyeu
Like, it's better to get along and to be a bit more of a chameleon and. And be able to justify that. So how do you help people navigate that? Like, are there ways I struggle with this.
- [13:00]
Gad Saad
Sorry. I struggle with this when I go after someone on social media. I, by the way, when I say go after, I don't go after them personally. I go after a position that they've taken. I don't wish ill on anyone. And sometimes it seems as though I'm being personal, but I really am. I don't try to frivolously insult. But if you say something insane and I think that, you know, this is really dangerously wrong, then I will weigh in. Well, I've known some people that I've hesitated to go after because I had multiple codes of conduct that were pulling me in opposing directions. So to your point about how do you navigate this? So on the one hand, there's a code of conduct of, you know, you always defend the truth no matter what. It's a deontological statement. They are absolute truths, absolute principles that are inviolable that should never be violated. Okay, versus. So that's comparing deontological versus consequentialist. Consequentialist would be it's okay to lie if I'm sparing your feelings. Deontological would be it's never okay to lie for most things. We are always operating in consequentialist world. It makes sense. But for certain things, freedom of speech, presumption of innocence, journalistic integrity, those should be deontological principles. And so I've struggled at times where someone that I know personally, and therefore there's a different code of conduct. I've had dinner with you, I've been to your home. And therefore the Middle Eastern honor and shame culture kicks in that I don't want to embarrass you publicly. Now I'm struggling, do I go after this person? They are a friend, but they're saying some real bullshit. And so usually what happens is I will bite my tongue until the authenticity, deontological thing supersedes the being nice to someone that I know. So it's a struggle. We all have. But at least the fact that I am introspecting about what to do is the right Approach, Right. That means I'm struggling with a real conundrum. And so if you don't have the capacity, take for example, a narcissist, a truly malignant narcissist, they can't do the calculus that I just engaged in. Right? So a narcissist will say, I never make mistakes. I don't need to ever apologize. I've had narcissists in my nuclear family. Well, it's very difficult to have a healthy relationship if you proclaim as a universal statement, I never make mistakes. I never need to apologize. We all make mistakes. I apologize to my dog. If she greets me at the door and I don't give her the proper attention because I'm caught up in my thoughts, I'll go back, say I'm sorry, right? I'm humble enough to apologize to my dog. So there is no magic recipe other than having the humility and introspective capability to navigate through these conundrums.
- [15:55]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay? So as we try to navigate those, you're breaking things into the two camps, the sort of never dos and the conditionally do's. How does one do that? Well, so let's take truth and freedom, which are, I think, two very important things, because I have a North Star of human flourishing. And so everything that I do, I'm trying to aim it towards what improves human flourishing for the largest number of people, what decreases human suffering. But most people don't have a North Star. They've never thought about it.
- [16:35]
Gad Saad
Right.
- [16:36]
Tom Bilyeu
So do you have, like a set of principles that you've knowingly walked through that people will need to walk through in order to be happy? Like, do you have things that you're. Like, these are the things that are
- [16:46]
Gad Saad
inviolable as relating to the deontological versus everybody.
- [16:50]
Tom Bilyeu
So if you think about this, your book feels like an instruction manual. So if I think about your book as an instruction manual and I think about, okay, you have to be the architect of your happiness and you have to do the work, then I want to get really specific about what that work is. So first to me is, what's your North Star?
- [17:08]
Gad Saad
Right.
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Tom Bilyeu
And then it's okay, what are the things that if you don't do, you will inevitably violate that North Star. So I'll give one, which the thing I find myself thinking about more and more is right now, freedom of speech is coming under attack. And when I think about my North Star is human flourishing. I don't think you can get there without freedom of speech.
- [17:28]
Gad Saad
I couldn't agree more. Right. I mean, freedom of speech is everything. I mean, it truly is. Now, I say this both as someone who comes from the Middle east, where that's not an enshrined universal value. Right. Freedom of speech in the Middle east, as has been throughout the entire history of the human condition, is really a consequential thing. Yes, you have freedom of speech, but don't criticize religion. X. Yes, you have freedom of speech, but don't criticize dictator. Y. Yes, you have. Right. And that's why I get upset, by the way, when I see contemporary public intellectuals. Exactly. Committing those types of deep moral transgressions. Right. Yes, I believe in freedom of speech fully, but surely not for the Orange Himmler, Donald Trump. Yes, I believe Orange Himmler. Right. Yes, I believe in the presumption of innocence principle in American jurisprudence. Certainly not for gang rapist Brett Kavanaugh. Sure, there is no real evidence that he did any of those things, but we can't take a risk with this guy. And so let's presume that he is guilty because after all, it's only a job interview. Right? Sure, I believe in journalistic integrity, but it was perfectly fine to suppress the Hunter Biden story because otherwise Orange Himmler would have become president. So you see how in each of those three examples that I just gave it, there's a deontological principle that you always adhere to, but somehow, because you've suddenly become a political tribal person, you're now willing to violate using a consequentialist calculus. This is wrong. And that's, by the way, one of the reasons why, when I've gone after some of the folks that we might know in common, I really did it advisedly because at first I thought, you know, I don't want to burn a bridge with this person. They're a nice person. I went after another person recently, by the way, in a contrary to pragmatic calculus. Let me explain. There's this gentleman who has a very large show, not Joe Rogan level, but one that I certainly would have wanted to get on given that I am trying to promote my book. So now there is this tug, this pragmatic tug. On the other hand, this gentleman is peddling some full positivity bullshit that's really pissing me off. So am I going to be quiet and pragmatic so that I can get on her show and sell a couple of thousand extra copies, or am I going to be authentic and say, cut it out. Guess which one I chose?
- [20:04]
Tom Bilyeu
Cut it out.
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Gad Saad
Cut it out. But again, then not I regret it after, but because I sometimes go after people in a uniquely God style, they then get offended. But my purpose was never to offend them individually. It's that I'm attacking their position with satire. With satire. And that can be quite punchy, right? So Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I'll mention his name since I don't know him personally, although the full positivity guy, I also don't know personally Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Have you seen his recent famous clip where he. So he's a physicist, so I've had
- [20:42]
Tom Bilyeu
him on the show.
- [20:42]
Gad Saad
Okay, yeah, but you don't.
- [20:44]
Tom Bilyeu
I haven't seen the recent thing, but
- [20:46]
Gad Saad
he basically said, look, look, it's very clear. Gender is on a spectrum. And I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember the exact words, but you could go look it up. I just did a sad truth satire on this whole thing where he says, look, today I wake up and I feel 80% male. And then I might put on some makeup, and then I'm now more female, Right? So already he's saying something insane, which is your. Your mask, you know, your maleness or femaleness is defined by the accoutrement that you wear. And so I said, okay, well, let. How can I attack such a ridiculous thing through satire? So what I did is here's the. Usually, if you hear the following words in the sad household, you know, trouble is coming up. I call my. My daughter and I say, bring the Halloween wigs. When I. When I make that, when I give that instruction, you know there's going to be trouble. And so I take. I took all the wigs, I looked at the camera, I said, look, I completely agree with Neil DeGrasse Tyson because he's super smart, because he's a physicist. And so look, Now I am 100% male. I am the epitome of manhood. And now watch how I'm going to transition into female as I wear different wigs of different lengths, different colors, and then I put lipstick either 25% of my lips, 50%, 75, or 100. And so I literally took verbatim what he said and mocked it into oblivion. And it went viral. Now, I didn't do that because I'm a mean guy who is trying to hurt Neil DeGrasse Tyson's feelings. But Neil DeGrasse Tyson has an obligation. He's a public intellectual who has a large platform. If you're going to go and use your scientific imprimatur to say it is settled, gender is on a Spectrum, I'm coming after you. That's called authenticity.
- [22:35]
Tom Bilyeu
So now we get into another part of your book which I think is really important, which. Which is variety. Now, you will, and I'm sure we'll talk more about other areas, but one of the areas you say variety becomes important is intellectual.
- [22:47]
Gad Saad
Oh, yes.
- [22:48]
Tom Bilyeu
And so this is. And the person, one of the people I think you were making oblique reference to that I'll drag into the light here, Truly with love is Sam Harris. So I recently had him on the show, and I disagree with Sam around freedom of speech very much, but I think the way that people are dismissing him is a mistake. And so the reason I think that is because he's grappling with a problem. Again, I think he's come to the wrong conclusion, but he's grappling with a real problem. And I want, because of epistemic humility, my absolute, just pervasive, not only fear that I'm wrong, I know I am frequently wrong. And so I want challenges to my ideas, which you also talk about in the book. Again, guys, this is a book about happiness, but you're really giving a value stack that I think is critical for people to work through in their own lives in order to actually make this real. Real. You're talking about. People really do have to understand you. You have to want to be challenged. That's going to be the thing that makes you stronger. You have to want intellectual, even variety in your life. And so where this gets very difficult, I think Sam is being authentic. So for him to look himself in the mirror, even though from the outside I look at it and go, sam, that's a wrong conclusion. Not only is it wrong, it's dangerous. But he's on the opposite side of that intuition saying, tom, not only have you come to the wrong conclusion, but it's dangerous. And so the problem he's dealing with, I think these are not his words. This is my interpretation. What he's dealing with is the realities of a world driven by algorithm, where ideas have extreme velocity and they're all crushed down into memes, so there's no more depth, there's no more nuance. It's headline that is fed to you algorithmically, so you're being manipulated and you don't even know it. And the ideas come at you so fast that. But even if you're smart, you're not going to be able to hold a nuanced position on that thing. You don't have time to think through all of the ideas. And so in grappling with that. Again, I don't agree with his conclusion, but I really think he's approaching the problem sincerely.
- [25:04]
Gad Saad
I do think that he's authentic. So contrary to the full positivity guy who I think is putting on kind of.
- [25:10]
Tom Bilyeu
I think I know who you're talking about, but I don't know him.
- [25:13]
Gad Saad
Right. I don't know him either, personally. It almost just can't be that a functioning adult can spew some of the vacuous platitudes that he puts out on his Twitter feed. It's impossible. We can conquer war through love. Oh, geez. If if only the Nazis had been more loving, then we wouldn't have had
- [25:33]
Tom Bilyeu
it, you know, okay, that's ridiculous, I admit. But here, you have to anchor to something. Yeah, right. So, for instance, when I had Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the show, he said, I don't think I'm right for your show. And I was like, whoa, why? And he was like, you're trying to bend everything to empowerment. And I was like, these are not the actual words he used, but this is the punchline. And he was right. And so. But I'm not being fake, but at the same time, it forced the interview into an angle. So I think, look, we're talking about Lex Friedman.
- [26:05]
Gad Saad
Yes.
- [26:05]
Tom Bilyeu
I think, okay, yes. So do not know him, have never met him. Do I think that he owns a position that puts him into. At times he's being silly and naive, but I fall into the same bucket of trying to make things like you can take control and you can find your way out. So I understand how I'm just as guilty of something. So if I look at my own behavior, I'm like, what am I trying to do? I'm trying to anchor my life. I need a way to think about the world. I need a way to organize the complexity. So just as my eyes don't go, there's 17,000 photons in this wavelength bouncing, bouncing off of that quarter inch of thing. It just goes, that's gray, that's blue. Right? And so, ah, now I can deal with the world. He. We all need an orienting mechanism.
- [27:03]
Gad Saad
Yeah.
- [27:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Now, if all of us go, there's limitations to my orienting mechanism and I have to distrust myself, then you probably are in better shape. And I will speak for myself. If you made fun of one of my ideas through satire, one, I'd be like, I made it. And then, two, I'd be like, it does sting, man. I won't lie. But at the same time, it's kind of how I think about Dave Chappelle when he makes fun of white people. I'm like, dave Chappelle is one of the most insightful people I've ever seen in my life. Never met him, but oh dear God, do I think that we need him. And so I'm like, word like I find it funny.
- [27:50]
Gad Saad
But that's what antifragility is, right? I mean, yes, Nassim Taleb is the guy who kind of popularized that term, but the concept of antifragility exists since the time of certainly Seneca. So I have, in one of the chapters of the Happiness Book, I have an epigraph from Seneca where he basically argues that strong trees are and that have deep roots are precisely those that have been exposed to severe wind stressors. That, that that's why they then become non brittle trees that haven't been exposed to wind stressors then break off very easily. Well, of course, that anti fragility concept, squeaky doors don't break. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger that those concepts, those maxims apply to your ideas being scrutinized, right? So for example, when I went after Sam Harris's ideas, or when I go after the full positivity of Lex Friedman, in my view, someone with testicular fortitude would basically say, hey God, why don't you come on my show and let's hash it out? Or hey, why don't I come on your show? Because right there, there has never been a context where I've said something and that I wasn't willing to stand by it because for better or worse, when I say thing, good luck to you if you want to debate me on it. Because just like you, I have epistemic humility. I'm very modulated about what I know and what I don't know. When I know something, I walk with the swagger of someone who knows it. But there's a million things that I know almost nothing about. So if you ask me what has been the repercussions of the legalization of marijuana in Canada, you know, you're Canadian. What do you think? You know what, Tom, I. I know very little about this. I'm not going to try to wing it. I simply don't know enough to offer you an intelligent answer. But if you take the positions that some of these gentlemen, other gentlemen have taken in the public sphere, then expect guys like me to say, I'm calling you out on it. Now, a someone with strength, with a spine says, let's hash it out. But then when you Block me and all this kind of stuff. People thought, oh, I'm hurt. I don't care if you block me or not. What it does to me, it's a dishonorable act. It comes from my Middle Eastern background perhaps. Right. You don't block. You fight and fight. Not physically. You fight the ideas and so. And go back to happiness. The reason why people say, you know, you always seem to be, you know, twinkle in your eye, you always smile. Because I'm confident within my personhood. There are no fissures in God. So even though I'm not a tall person, I walk as though I'm 15ft tall. Why? Because I exactly don't have to remember 73 stories. There's only one story I remember. It's called the truth. And so that's why I think truth and freedom are so fundamental. Not just as an existential, philosophical thing, but to my flourishing, to my happiness, why I'm smiling all the time because I have a non fractured personhood that's really, really important.
- [30:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so here's truth and freedom, which were not on my list of things to talk about, I think are going to become very important as we march forward. So here's my fear. Truth is slippery. It's actually surprisingly difficult to define and to agree on what is true.
- [31:10]
Gad Saad
And, and I sounding like a postmodernist.
- [31:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. So follow me. So this is where it's grabbing a hold of when people identify the wrong answer to a hard problem, it's still worth going, are they well meaning people now? If they're not well intentioned people. Okay, now we, we have to address that thing. And I think post modernists don't make sense to me until I think about the will to power. Once I frame them with will to power, then I understand them and I use a mental exercise. So my background is filmmaking. So I often think as a writer writer. And I think, okay, what would I. For this character to act this way, what would need to be true about their backstory or their motivations when, when I write them from the perspective of this is somebody with who's deeply insecure and they have a will to power. Suddenly click, everything makes sense and I can predict their behaviors. So that one I'll set aside. But I will say that the. I get how they end up stacking that argument up and I get how a potentially well meaning person ends up there. Especially with the complexities of the human experience where it's like you do want to be cool and you do want to rise up ranks and you May not even put words to. Oh. The way for me to climb up the hierarchy is by playing this linguistic or laying a linguistic trap that I know people will walk into, and now I can leapfrog them. And you really don't think about the second and third order consequences of what happens to a society when you do that. And even if you do, you probably think that you're one of the prison guards instead of the prisoners.
- [32:34]
Gad Saad
And so that's a Zimbardo reference.
- [32:36]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't know who that is. No, that was a. Oh, prisoner.
- [32:39]
Gad Saad
Prisoner. So there was a famous experiment in the 70s conducted by a Stanford professor.
- [32:45]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, yeah.
- [32:45]
Gad Saad
Where he was studying obedience to expected norms. And so half the students were placed as corrections officers, the other were placed as prisoners. And then what ended up happening is that the officers assumed their roles. So, you know, assiduously that he had to end the experiment. So I thought that's what you were referring to.
- [33:06]
Tom Bilyeu
No, I was unfortunately referring to the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
- [33:14]
Gad Saad
That.
- [33:14]
Tom Bilyeu
So that. That book changed me fundamentally. You can actually track in the timeline of guests that I bring on and questions that I ask. You can see the demarcation point of having read that book.
- [33:26]
Gad Saad
Wow.
- [33:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Because it was like, oh, people end up as the guards. They don't end up as the person hiding Anne Frank in the attic. Right. So it's like, yikes. That was a terrifying realization about how easy it would be for me. Me to just like, not want to be tortured. So I do the torturing.
- [33:47]
Commercial Narrator
Who.
- [33:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Which is why my opening question about facing that. So, anyway, back to truth.
- [33:52]
Gad Saad
Yeah.
- [33:52]
Tom Bilyeu
So you have this thing. I think it is difficult to define. I think it. It is very hard. So as if. If truth and freedom are gonna. You can't get to a eudaimonic state where it.
- [34:06]
Gad Saad
It.
- [34:07]
Tom Bilyeu
It's fulfillment. It's a depth of thing about living the good life without defining those.
- [34:14]
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- [34:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Night.
- [34:58]
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- [35:14]
Gad Saad
Right. How.
- [35:16]
Tom Bilyeu
How did you define.
- [35:17]
Gad Saad
So it depends if. If you're talking in the scientific context, not in the happiness context, which is in the. For the current book. So. So I do actually have a chapter in my last book, the Parasitic Mind, titled How to Seek Truth. I mean, literally, that's the title. And there. There's a distinction between two types of truths. There are axiomatic truths. Those are mathematical truths, right? So there's a mathematical property, and within the closed system of that mathematical system, something is true or false, right? So mathematical logic. Logic operates using truth and false statements. Okay, how about empirical truths? Right? So how do we know when is it that we've acquired enough empirical evidence to say that something appears to be true, even though even there it is provisionally true? Because in science, we always talk about provisional truth. If in 300 years, you falsify the position that we held to be true for 300 years, then it's back to the drawing board. Okay? And so in the. So this is in the parasitic mind, not in the happiness book. I talk about the building of nomological networks of cumulative evidence, which is a mountain.
- [36:25]
Tom Bilyeu
No, logical.
- [36:26]
Gad Saad
Yes. Nomological network. So it's. It's where you are creating triangulation of evidence stemming from many different distinct lines of evidence, which then demonstrates that your position is unassailable. This sounds very abstract. So let me give it with this concrete example. Let's suppose I wanted to prove to you, Tom, that the sex specificity of toy preferences is universal. It's not a social construction. Typically, social scientists view toy preferences as a social construction. Mommy and Daddy teach Johnny to play with the blue truck. They teach Linda to play with the pink Barbie. In light of the current movie. And that's what starts us on a cascade of gender role specialization. Okay, The. The opposite viewpoint is that these toy preferences are actually universal for specific biological and evolutionary reasons. So if wanted to prove to you that it is not social construction, how would I go about doing that? So I'm going to build you now, in front of your audience, a nomological network of cumulative evidence that's going to make it very difficult for you to Argue away from that position. Okay, I'm going to get you data from around the world, very, very different cultures that show that people with radically different environments adhere to those sex specific toy preferences. Now, that's already pretty compelling, but I'm not going to stop there. I'm going to get you data from developmental psychology, whereby I take children who are too young to be socialized by definition. In other words, they haven't yet reached the cognitive developmental stage to learn. And I could show you that they already exhibit the penchant for either trucks or dolls. Now, already there, there. I'm putting the epistemological noose around your neck. But I'm not going to stop there. The nomological network is going to be much bigger. It's going to be a tsunami that's going to hit you. I'm going to get you data from comparative psychology. Comparative psychology is where you demonstrate the universality of a phenomenon across different species. What if I get you data from vervet monkeys, from rhesus monkeys, and from chimpanzees that shows that they exhibit the same sex specific toy preferences that human infants do? So now let's step back. I've gotten you data from across cultures, from across species, from developmental psychology, but I'm not going to stop there. How about I get you data from 2000 years ago where on mausoleums in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, little boys and girls were shown playing with exactly the same sex specific toy preferences we have today? Now, I'm showing you that it's across time. Not. Not satisfied yet. How about I hit you with pediatric endocrinology? Little girls who. Who suffer from congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is a endocrinological disorder that maximizes their behavior. What do you think happens to their toy preferences? They become like those of little boys. So now I've gotten you data from pediatrics and medicine. So you see how I'm hitting you with different lines of evidence. I'm building a nomological network and it's going to be very hard for you to argue away. That's what allows me to walk into a room. Room of 400 social scientists, imbeciles. And to be able to walk with this swagger because I've done my homework. On the other hand, you asked me about legalization of marijuana. What do I say? I haven't built the nomological network for that. I don't know enough about that, Tom. So you got me there. I don't wing it. I don't fake it. I don't pretend that I'm the professor who's all knowing. I know what I know and I know what I don't know. Confucius said that already. So. So that epistemic humility, in a sense in a circuitous way, allows me to be happy in a philosophical sense because I'm never questioning what I said yesterday or tomorrow. I'm very authentic. I present myself to the world. Take it or leave it.
- [40:25]
Tom Bilyeu
Wow, that was a very compelling argument and helps myself and anybody trying to understand how you end up building that web of true truth. Now, there's another thing. So I will routinely make my expert guests deeply uncomfortable by asking them questions that they that are outside their field. And of course their initial answer is marijuana. I don't know about that. Sorry, I can't give you any data. But what I'm always curious in is how people approach novel problems. So I used to teach a business class called Business Decision Making. Worst name ever. My fault. I chose it.
- [41:02]
Gad Saad
You know that my doctoral dissertation is in psychology of decision making.
- [41:06]
Tom Bilyeu
Of course I know that.
- [41:08]
Gad Saad
Go ahead.
- [41:09]
Tom Bilyeu
No, I'm so fascinated by your background. I know it well. So that class, the. That was me trying to work backwards to what has made me a successful entrepreneur. And the answer wasn't that I was the best copywriter. It wasn't that I was the best salesperson. It wasn't that I was the best at organizing things. It was that I understand how to solve novel problems. So not just problems that I've never seen before, problems nobody's ever seen before. So how do you approach that? How do you think through it? Now, that does not mean that I always make the right decision. I absolutely do not. But part of my process is understanding how to learn from mistakes, something I call the physics of progress. But how do you. So you get nomological. We. We've got unlocked. That was incredible. Now, what do you do when you approach a problem you've never seen before? No one's ever seen before, but it still has to be dealt with.
- [42:03]
Gad Saad
Phenomenal question. It speaks to something that you mentioned earlier, but then we skipped pie by it when you talked about intellectual variety seeking. So when I. So I have a chapter on variety seeking. I talk about food variety seeking, sexual variety seeking. We'll talk about exercise variety seeking. And probably the section that I spent the most time on was intellectual variety seeking. And I'm going to come to your question about the knowledge novel situations. So there I contrast the specialist to the generalist. The idea is, so let's say in academia, and we talked about this briefly before we came on I came on the show. Academia rewards hyper specialists. You stay in your lane, you know a lot about a very, very small problem, don't ever step out of the lane. But the truly biggest thinker are exactly those that violate that tenet are the ones who are polymaths in their core being. And so one of the things that I talk about in that section I have this exercise of who are the 10 historical figures that you'd like to have dinner with if you could bring them? And I list all mine and why. And the number one guy, the guy that I would most want, I don't obviously know what his personality would be like, but based on, on what he presented to the world is Leonardo da Vinci. Because Leonardo da Vinci is the ultimate generalist. He's, he is a painter of great renown, he's an anatomist, he's a futurist, he's an engineer, he's a scientist. So he's, he's wearing many hats. And so I don't think you can solve some of the most important novel problems if they're not at the cusp of interdisciplinarity. The mapping of the human genome required experts in many, many different fields putting their brains together as a supra brain. And it's that, that the multitude, the buffet of expertise that allowed us to crack the human genome. So in my own academic career, I've to a fault violated the stay in your lane tenet because I've had universities, some of them very prestigious universities, who were quite keen on hiring me. And then the thing that, that ended it, other than me being rather irreverent and rather not gentle spoken, is the fact that they said your CV is all over the place. You don't seem to have a unifying, you know, area of research. Well, actually that's wrong because what is usually unifying across all my various studies is the evolutionary lens. Now it is true that I've published in medicine, in politics, in advertising, in, in decision making, in bibliometrics, but typically for each of those various disciplines I'm infusing some evolutionary angle. So they thought of it as scattered. I think of it as, you know, the ultimate polymath generalist. And so I don't think you can really crack some of those novel problems if you don't have. Here's another term you're going to like if you don't have a consilient synthetic way of thinking. Consilience is a term that was was reintroduced into the lexicon by E.O. wilson, who's the Harvard biologist who recently passed away. Great book, by the way. I recommend for all your readers to read it after they buy the Sad Truth About Happiness. The book is called Unity of Knowledge. Consilience basically means, well, exactly that unity of knowledge. So physics is more consilient than sociology, not because physicists are smarter than sociologists, but it's because physicists have a tree of knowledge that is coherent. They all agree on some fundamentals, whereas in sociology we can't agree on what's man or woman. Then there's going to be very quickly a bifurcation in our worldviews if we can't agree on that fundamental fact. So having a consilient mindset, being a generalist, in my view, are probably the best ways to crack novel problems.
- [46:02]
Tom Bilyeu
Wow. Okay. That's really interesting. You're right that I love that consilient idea. I had not thought about that. That you've also introduced. I think one of the things that maybe I find most uneasy about the fact that there's this bedrock thing that my generation grew up. You. It didn't even think about it. It was the. The most obvious bifurcation was men and women. And there were so many things and so boys and girls. One thing that will lead to happiness. I'll be very curious to see if you disagree with this is your ability to predict the future accurately. And I think our brains are a prediction engine. That's what makes it so valuable. That's what it's optimized for. And whether that's predicting movement, maybe that's how it all started, but certainly its predictive abilities go way beyond that. The thing that you have said is most important. There are two things in your book. You say marriage, getting your spouse right and then getting your work right.
- [46:59]
Gad Saad
Yes.
- [46:59]
Tom Bilyeu
And if you get the main love of your life and your career here, if you do those well, then. Then you're golden. And to that point, the reason I'm very uneasy about the world not being able to agree on what a man and woman is, is that I've been married for 21 years. It is by far the greatest joy of my life. And I'm talking. I've made a lot of money. And I'm just here to tell you, as powerful as money is, it will not bring to your life what a thriving marriage will. Not in a million years. So. So my wife becomes predictable to me when I think of her in classic feminine ways. And she becomes unpredictable to Me when I think she's like me. And at the beginning of our marriage, it was very confusing because I didn't think about it. So I just assumed that she was like me. So I did not have the consilience. Is that the word of knowledge at the time? And was blind to the fact that I didn't have the.
- [47:56]
Gad Saad
That.
- [47:57]
Tom Bilyeu
And so there was so much friction. And a lot of that friction has worked out over time by literally spending research hours on what are the differences between men and women.
- [48:07]
Gad Saad
Right.
- [48:08]
Tom Bilyeu
And as the two of us did that, we were like, oh my God, that's why you act like that. And it just became so much easier to deal with.
- [48:16]
Gad Saad
So there's a famous scene in King of Queens. I don't know if you remember. Do you remember that that sitcom?
- [48:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Never watched it, but I know it.
- [48:25]
Gad Saad
It's. It's basically kind of this affable blue collar guy, Kevin James, he's married to Leah Remini.
- [48:33]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes.
- [48:34]
Gad Saad
Is that the former Remini? Is that how you pronounce it?
- [48:37]
Tom Bilyeu
Former Scientologist. I don't know.
- [48:38]
Gad Saad
That's right.
- [48:39]
Tom Bilyeu
That's how it said.
- [48:40]
Gad Saad
And they're having a fight because his. She has a friend or he. I don't know. I don't know the exact details. But there's this chef, he's a portly fellow, he likes to eat a. There's this friend who's a chef who's cooking him all these meals. So he's chatting with her on the phone, she's cooking him meals at work, whatever it is. This is the friend, Leah Remin, whichever, gets jealous. And they're now fighting about the fact that he says, but, you know, I'm not having sex with her. I'm not being unfaithful to you. And she says, of course you are being unfaithful to me. So now they have a big fight as to what constitutes infidelity. Let me bring. Bring evolutionary psychology into this, because as I watched that episode, I could literally link every word that's mentioned from the script writers to a fundamental evolutionary principle. I discussed this actually in my 2011 book, the Consuming Instinct. So there's great studies that show that men and women, to your point about understanding these differences, are equally romantically jealous. So it's not that men are. Are more jealous than women or vice versa, but here is the evolutionary insight. The trigger is different for men and women. There are two types of infidelities. There is sexual infidelity and there is emotional infidelity. So if I bring in people into the lab. And by the way, the study that I'm describing was done by David Buss and his colleagues, who's a pioneer of evolution psychology and a good friend of mine who actually wrote the preface of the Consuming Instinct. You bring in people into the lab and you actually put physiological measures on them so that you know that it's an autonomic response that you're measuring. It's not that they are, you know, altering their answer to, for impression management or whatever. So you can do skin conductivity thing, you can do heart, you know, blood pressure, you can do. There's all kinds of ways you can measure autonomic responses. And now I'm going to read you one of two vintage yets about your partner, your husband or wife. Let's do both. Irrespective of whether it's for a man or a woman. You're sitting right here in the lab, Tom. Your wife is having some really juicy sex with the super sexy Greek gardener. Mul that in your little head for a while. Now let's see the stress level or. Hey, Tom. So now this is the emotional infidelity. Hey, your. Your wife goes to lunch with her, with his. Her colleague, who's this really fun, affable guy. They joke around, they talk about their shared values. So it's emotional. Absolutely no sex. Guess what happens to the difference between men and women? Men respond much more harshly when cued with sexual infidelity. Women respond much more harshly with emotional infidelity.
- [51:41]
Tom Bilyeu
That's so crazy to me.
- [51:42]
Gad Saad
That is why I am the godfather. Okay, so, so now why is that? What's the evolutionary reason? The greatest threat to a man's evolutionary interest is paternity uncertainty. Therefore, the thought of my wife going with another man. We're a bi parental species. I don't like the idea of being cuckolded. Therefore, I've evolved the emotional, cognitive and behavioral systems to really respond harshly to sexual territoriality Infractions, on the other hand, for women, not that they are, are terribly pleased if you cheat on them sexually, but they're more displeased if you cheat on them emotionally, because that is a greater predictor. You mentioned earlier, I want to predict it. That is a greater predictor of the likelihood of your man packing his bags and leaving, either literally or metaphorically. Okay? And therefore, that's why, by the way, when a man often cheats on a woman and now he's trying to assuage her anger, what does he say? Say whether. Right.
- [52:42]
Tom Bilyeu
It meant nothing.
- [52:43]
Gad Saad
Exactly. It meant nothing. I Don't even remember her name. I'll never see her again. Why? Because he is assuaging the fact this is not a repeat thing. There's no chance there could ever be any emotional entanglement involved here. So this gives you an example, number one of the value of evolutionary psychology and the value of something as practical as why men and women so often speak. Speak in completely non intersecting ways. Because we're not using theory of mind with the other sex. Right? So for example, when men send, if you forgive the term, dick pics to women, they are exactly engaging in a violation of theory of mind. Because what are they doing? They're saying, I get titillated by visual stimuli. Therefore it must be the case that women are titillated in exactly the same way. Guess what, Einstein? They're not.
- [53:36]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you know how badly I want my wife to want me to send her dick pics? It's so I feel dumb because I know that she doesn't, but I can't help wanting her to want me to do it. I know better. So I don't. But like, yeah, I get it, I get it.
- [53:53]
Gad Saad
So that by the way, when I lecture to my university students about, you know, first class, you know, why am I going to teach this whole course using an evolutionary lens sense, I usually will come up with a few of these examples like they're all young people that have boyfriends and girlfriends that where they get jealous. And so that's how I grip them because I explained to them that it's not understanding evolutionary theory is not some, you know, highfalutin, you know, scientific thing that is void of practical value. It allows me to understand why people want the corner big office. It allows me to understand. I always tell them, I guarantee you there'll be three, four people in this room and that in the next two, three years, years will send me an email saying, oh, I just had a fight with my husband and wife. And it's exactly because of lecture three from your course, I remember you said about romantic. So that, and I guess that speaks a bit to the next book that I might be writing, the Power of Evolutionary Thinking.
- [54:51]
Tom Bilyeu
No, Huge. Okay, so wrapping up on variety of ideas. What is it about variety that matters? Because it isn't just challenging your own ideas, it's also in the book you talk about the most eminent scientists will have the broadest interests outside of their field.
- [55:14]
Gad Saad
Exactly.
- [55:15]
Tom Bilyeu
So what's at play?
- [55:16]
Gad Saad
Well, that. Because that is a proxy measure of them having that mindset of consilience. Right. I can both Be. Be a photographer and a Nobel Prize winner. And what I have multiple. So, for example, let's give a concrete example. Analogical reasoning.
- [55:35]
Tom Bilyeu
Analogical. Analogical, like from analogy?
- [55:38]
Gad Saad
Yeah. The ability to draw analogies to demonstrate a mechanism is actually often an important scientific tool. You're much less likely to be able to do analogical reasoning well if you're not someone who has multiple interests. Because by definition, once I have multiple interests, I'm able to analogize from domain A to domain B, hence allowing me to build bridges between these otherwise disparate areas. Right. And so I can connect many parts by being able to have that synthetic mindset. And so from a practical perspective, having a penchant for intellectual variety seeking makes sense. But just from the banal perspective of the number of, of ecosystems that I would like to visit in my life, there's a million buffet dishes of intellectual pursuits that I'd like to navigate. I don't want to just be the very narrow guy. Now, there are very clear practical reasons why researchers are very narrow, because it allows them to build economies of scale. I already have the methodology set up to run these studies ad infinitum. I already know the literature really well. It's very hard for me when I want to publish, publish a paper, as I did on sex differences in ocd and why that has an evolutionary signature. Well, now I have to do the hard work. I'm not an OCD researcher. That's not my area of specialty. Now I have to get uncomfortable in going to learn a whole new area to hopefully have the chutzpah to contribute to that field. But guess what? Life is exciting that way. I'm sampling from many, many dishes of intellectual spaces. And so just from that perspective, it's so much more exciting. Which, by the way, links up to chapter in the book, which is the title of the chapter is Life as a Playground. Right. It's everything is play. Right. Science itself is the highest form of play. What is science? It's puzzle making. Right. There's a bunch of variables. I don't know which ones cause which other ones. And now let's have fun and figure out the story. Here you were mentioning you're a story, you love stories, right? Well, we are a storytelling animal. And science, science is telling a compelling story, using evidence to back it up. So having that playful mindset, sometimes being humorous, sometimes being variety seekers, sometimes being sarcastic, life is so much poorer if you don't have that mindset.
- [58:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Play is very interesting. But there's also something that's tickling in my mind about what you were talking about in terms of having a broad set of interests that I want to see if I, if I can pull this out so we've got the ability to make cross connections. And if I'm not mistaken, the people, the only people that have won multiple Nobel Prizes have always been at the intersection of two different disciplines. Like they've been a biologist and a chemist or something like that. I'm not sure.
- [58:44]
Gad Saad
Do you know, not exactly that it is true that many of the biggest breakthroughs in science happen at the intersection of disciplines. I think what you're referring to is what you mentioned earlier, which is Nobel Prize winners on average have greater number of broad interests than non Nobel Prize winners. In other words, there is something unique about the, the broadness of interest that Nobel laureates have outside their areas of expertise. They're also photographers, they also love ceramics. They also take tango classes. Richard Feinman was a bongo player. And so they're not just these geeks that only know this one little thing.
- [59:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I'm not even sure yet what I'm trying to piece together, but I have a feeling, and it could be tied to the playfulness, but even thinking about my own life, that there. Because I have multiple areas of interest, there's something about the way that they put me into. They have a similar response that I get when I'm meditating. It's a similar response that I think people get when they do psychedelic drugs, drugs that is very tied to this idea of you have a better ability to think in analogy. And it's when I think of why meditation works. It puts you in a calm and creative state. But that's not interesting in and of itself. It's only interesting because areas of my brain that wouldn't, that normally would not connect begin connecting.
- [60:10]
Gad Saad
Right.
- [60:11]
Tom Bilyeu
And when you are able to draw on a bunch of areas where, where. I mean, maybe not a full blown expert, but you've got some pretty deep experience. You've encountered other minds, you've encountered other ways of thinking about the problem that are sometimes radically different. You're able to really take the 3D object that is our lives. That's definitely analogy. I don't mean that literally, but you're rotating it and now looking at it from a completely different angle. And if you've ever seen those shadow sculptures that are made up of like a thousand, what look like pieces of giant junk, and then you move the light and suddenly it, it creates a shadow that's like a person's face or it may even become a sculpture of the person's face when seen from one angle, a different angle. And that feels like part of the puzzle. And that. That is certainly part of my addiction to learning new things. And maybe it just comes back to your nomological sense. So recently, I have found a new passion, which is history. History, which, literally, until I don't know, maybe 18 months, two years ago, I didn't think about at all. And now, all of a sudden, which.
- [61:23]
Gad Saad
Which type of history is it American history? Is it European history?
- [61:27]
Tom Bilyeu
It's been more about. My anchor was trying to understand how wrong bad ideas go. So this started with. I had an awakening to wokeness, which you and I were talking about before we started rolling. So it completely caught me off guard. I didn't know it was a thing until it was fully baked, right? And so I encountered it in its final Pokemon form, and it. It took me so off guard, I was like, what the is this? It was completely disorienting. And so it. It was like that moment where I'm seeing the entire world now from a totally different perspective that I did not even know existed. And so I was like, how, huh? And I didn't have to. Your point, if somebody had asked me, like, why is. Why does it unnerve you that gender is a spectrum? Like, why do you have a, like, huh? Like, an uneasy feeling when somebody says that? Because I don't have a problem with any. Somebody's transgender. I don't have beef with that. Live your life, do you think?
- [62:30]
Gad Saad
Me too.
- [62:30]
Tom Bilyeu
But yet, when somebody's like, gender is a spectrum, then I'm like, hmm, that doesn't sit well with me. And I'm not sure why yet. And so, anyway, as I start going down that road, I realize, oh, actually, my bigger problem is people saying that I'm bad for questioning that. So my real beef is people saying I can't look at an idea. And so this is all for me. A lot of this really kicked off during COVID So I also have people telling me I can't question anything about that. So I start to get this really uneasy feeling about why are people telling me I can't look at ideas? I have just enough stubbornness in me and real problem with authority that I was like, I need to wrap my head around what this is, because I'm being hit with ideas that are too subtle, and I don't know how to combat them. Obviously, you discover Jordan Peterson as you go on this journey. And so I start looking at. He was the one that introduced me to the Gulag Archipelago. So I read that it was like, holy, you learn about Mao, you read about Mao, then you just start thinking about humans very differently. So anyway, it's, it's been things like that. So I haven't targeted a given area at first. It was just learning about Mao, Mao, Stalin and Hitler and really getting my head around that. And then the American west and how people can kill and not seem to have a problem with it. So anyway, that's a long winded answer
- [63:43]
Gad Saad
to a very simple question. I'm going to tie a few of these things together. So we were talking earlier about how you can incorporate evolutionary thinking in many different disciplines. So there is a very, very small, small group of people who are called Darwinian historians, whereby they study historical realities using a Darwinian lens. You follow what I mean now? So what would be an example of that? So there is a woman called Laura Betsik, who is a Darwinian historian, one of the few who could call herself that, where she did a study, a content analysis of the Old Testament, which is a historical document where she wanted to demonstrate that the content, content of the Old Testament contains certain fundamental evolutionary principles. So what did she do? So we know from evolutionary theory and just from life in general that one of the ways that men, well, the main way that men vary in terms of their sexual opportunities is their social status. All other things equal, the higher my social status, the more sexual opportunities I, I have. Okay. Because that is the universal attribute that women seek most often, irrespective of the culture and irrespective of the fact that the way that social status is measured varies across cultures. In one culture, it might be the number of cattle that I have. And the other culture, it might be that I have an Ivy League degree. And another one, it might be that I have how many zeros I have in the bank account. But what is clear is that no woman has ever said, give me a apathetic peer shop shaped, nasal voiced, unemployed guy, let's have sex. I'm really turned on.
- [65:26]
Tom Bilyeu
That's the guy.
- [65:27]
Gad Saad
That's the guy. Okay. So what she wanted to demonstrate in doing a content analysis of the Old Testament is that if you look at male protagonists in the Old Testament and you code, their status are they, they're a king, they're a prophet, they're a general, they're a soldier, they're a farmer, they're a slave. And then attribute, well, calculate how many women or concubines or wives are attributed to them. You should exactly see that the higher the status of the male protagonist in the Old Testament, the more women he has. And guess what? That's exactly what she found. So in this case, she's looking at arguably the most important historical document in Judeo Christian tradition. And she's applying a Darwinian lens, which speaks to our earlier discussion when I talked about Darwinian literary criticism, which is looking at actual documents, conducting an analysis of those documents, say, literature, using an evolutionary lens. So that's the reason why I love evolutionary psychology so much. Because once you learn the coherence, the parsimony, the explanatory power that the framework gives gives you, you're done, man. You've solved all the world's problems. At least you can explain all of
- [66:46]
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- [67:17]
Gad Saad
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- [67:47]
Tom Bilyeu
That's really interesting. So bringing this back to how we ended up here, which is the idea of new perspectives. As you get a wider body of knowledge, you're able to see things from a different perspective. Once you you can line up those perspectives now all of a sudden you can rotate the object however you want to see things from a given lens. That's very useful in terms of understanding other people. And there's really two ways I think incessantly about what I want this show to be and what I want people to take away and what the unifying factor is which either on camera or off, I may try to persuade you to try to bring more unity to your brand is one. I don't want to get trapped in an oversimplification. Two, I really want to be exploring different things, different perspectives. The reason I want to explore different perspectives is so I can see life, the beautiful game of life from as many different angles as I can one so that I can't be controlled by it. So you know, the Matrix has you kind of thing. If you understand the Matrix and how it works, works then you can, I mean in, in a metaphor, you can manipulate it to your will. In reality, you, you can get close to the idea of a reality distortion field where not. You're not really sort of changing the construct of the Matrix. But when somebody's been parasitized by an idea it doesn't have to infect you because you understand how ideas come to be. And so, so helping myself and then letting the audience go along for the journey of oh, here's a new perspective to look at this thing from to your idea of nomological thinking. It's very interesting. So understanding other people and understanding how the world works and by understanding others you will understand yourself, which is where this whole interview started.
- [69:41]
Gad Saad
But by the way, one of the. As someone who studies decision making I end up being horrible at making certain decisions. Notwithstanding that, you know how they say, physicians heal thyself. So linking what I'm about to say to knowledge. So one of the most perplexing situations in terms of my experiencing choice paralysis happens in the following situation. My wife and I and kids are, let's say, leaving on a trip. Therefore, I know I have to pick a book or two to bring with me on vacation.
- [70:14]
Tom Bilyeu
I empathize with this so hard I'm going to get a cramp.
- [70:17]
Gad Saad
Really a hundred percent. So I. And so my wife will look at me, say, we're leaving in two days. Please begin your agony because I will sit like a complete homeless guy in my study because I've got hundreds of books that I've yet to read. And I just keep going through all of them saying, oh, maybe I think it's this one. No, I think it's this. I think this is the one. And then I start panicking about the fact that there is so much knowledge only in that room that I've yet. So imagine whatever knowledge I have right now, however little or much it is there is so little that I know compared to what I could know. And then I have this really difficult, anxious moment. And then I pick a few books. Maybe you want to ask me which books I picked for this trip, please. So I brought a book by Edith hall, who's a classicist.
- [71:04]
Tom Bilyeu
How do I know that name?
- [71:05]
Gad Saad
She's a classicist who. And there's a book on Aristotle That I'm reading.
- [71:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Definitely not why I know her. Okay.
- [71:12]
Gad Saad
That's not how you know her.
- [71:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Definitely not. I wish I did. I never read a book on Aristotle.
- [71:15]
Gad Saad
I brought another book that's by a libertarian. I can't remember the name of the book but it's basically kind of government stay away, out of my business. I'm uniquely attracted to that topic because
- [71:27]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't like we're gonna get to that part of the interview.
- [71:29]
Gad Saad
Oh, let's do it. But just to finish that point, I don't like some 21 year old cop sitting lying in wait in my residential neighborhood to make sure that I didn't cross the street. When the sign didn't say to cross, when there aren't any cars around and it's a one way street. And I think I've got the neuronal power to be able to look and see. There is no car, so I can cross. Yet he' hiding there. And if I cross when the this thing didn't say, he either gives me a warning or asks for my ID and gives me a jaywalking ticket. That's not how I want society to be organized. And so I was actually. This is a real story that pissed me off. And so I, I got this book because I want to read what this guy is talking about in terms of libertarianism. So those are the two books I brought.
- [72:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that's that. I really get that. So for me, when I go away on trips, it's the only time in the year that I'll read a fiction, fiction book. And so I.
- [72:23]
Gad Saad
That's one more time than me by the way.
- [72:25]
Tom Bilyeu
That's interesting. So you never, never.
- [72:27]
Gad Saad
And I, and to. I, I recognize that that's a fault because there is tons of amazing classic stuff that I would be enriched by that's completely invisible to me because I just have a strong aversion to reading, to reading fiction. Maybe you can help me.
- [72:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, let me walk you through my decision making process. So as a kid it was the only thing I would read. And so it opened up me up to that world. I owe, and I know that this is not going to be a name you love, but I owe Stephen King a debt of gratitude. And he, he is the reason I read and reading changed my life.
- [73:00]
Gad Saad
Yes.
- [73:01]
Tom Bilyeu
And I still remember the opening line of the first book that I read by him, that Carrie. No, the first book was the Gunslinger, the Dark Tower series. And my dad made an appeal to me because I said I'm never reading another book. This is garbage. I don't know why people do this or like this. And he said, look, I'm to recommend one more book. If you don't like this book, wow. Never bother you again. Yeah. And so he gave me that book. From the first line I was like, holy, this is interesting. So that changed my life. So for a long time it was just fiction. And then I got to the point where you've given me such a cool way to understand what I've been chasing all these years with nomatological.
- [73:40]
Gad Saad
Is that the right. Nomological.
- [73:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Nomological. Thank you. I'll listen to the interview over and I'll. I will eventually learn this word. So the, the being able to really see the problem from a lot of different perspectives and the way I always explained it to people is I read in swarms. And so I'll pick a topic and I'll try to see it from all different angles. And that I realized the density of information in a non fiction book comes so right rapid that I just couldn't bring myself to read fiction anymore because it was so slow. You get an insight but the book usually takes one topic, explores it like a theme, and then you get their take on the theme, but just the, the density of information isn't there. And so I shoot it for probably more than a decade. And then I might have been at my wife's encouraging, she was like, we're going on vacation. Why don't you take a fiction book? Because you're sort of lamenting that you never read fiction anymore. Why don't you take it? And so I did and I found it incredible. And because in vacation I'm not in a. I need the information to come fast. I just want to relax and enjoy something then I can enjoy it, but I can't enjoy it the rest of the time.
- [74:51]
Gad Saad
Wow.
- [74:51]
Tom Bilyeu
And so, but on vacation I will read one fiction book and it's a joy.
- [74:56]
Gad Saad
Please email me after the show your five books that you think I must be reading in fiction fiction world.
- [75:04]
Tom Bilyeu
The bad news is I read so little fiction all I can do is recommend the ones I liked, which you may hate, but I will happily. Okay, so I don't know that I made a great pitch for why you should be reading more fiction, but that's.
- [75:16]
Gad Saad
I'll make a pitch for why I should be reading more fiction. So we, we touched upon this before we started rolling. So the field of Darwinian literary criticism argues that the reason why we love literature so much and it grips us and it titillates us is because it is typically covering a set of fundamental evolutionary imperative. And we discussed those earlier. Right. Parent child conflict, sexual jealousy, paternity, uncertainty, the stuff of life, the evolutionary dramas. And so I think that there are ways for me as an evolutionist to see these mechanisms at play when it's encapsulated in a powerful story. We are a storytelling animal. So why don't we I look for some of these evolutionary signatures in a great piece of literature. So that would be my pitch as to why I should be reading more fiction.
- [76:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, Deep look into the human condition. One book I really want to read. Not books, I don't even know which books he wrote. But Dostoevsky.
- [76:18]
Gad Saad
Yeah.
- [76:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Is someone I just hear people that I respect.
- [76:21]
Gad Saad
So I did read. So about 25 years ago knowing myself and my weaknesses, knowing that I don't nearly know enough fiction as I should considering myself a well read person. I said I'm going to read Crime and Punishment. I bought it and I probably got through a third of it. Not. And I didn't stop because I got bored just because something else grabbed my interest. So it's interesting that you mentioned Dostoevsky because I really tried to go after him.
- [76:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that, that's one I would regret if I never read the sort of greats especially of for whatever reason they have a reputation because I cannot vouch for it. But Russian liter literature, when you talk to people like what are those game changing looks at humanity which you're absolutely right about. What makes reading fiction interesting is that those guys come up.
- [77:12]
Gad Saad
Do you have any speculative reasons as to why you think the Russian authors are uniquely capable at generating that literature?
- [77:20]
Tom Bilyeu
So we are now at your version of not knowing about weed legalization in Canada.
- [77:25]
Gad Saad
Right.
- [77:26]
Tom Bilyeu
So approaching a novel problem just based on things that I've heard. I'm not even sure that, that I would have enough information on how to approach it. So if I wanted to go figure out that answer then I would have to triangulate around the things that I've heard people say and it's things like they take an unflinching look at the complexities of the human experience.
- [77:46]
Gad Saad
Interesting.
- [77:47]
Tom Bilyeu
And so I have a feeling that it's something like given the conditions of a country that has really struggled with freedoms that you, you run into the best and the worst of humanity you run in. And again, I'm. I'm guessing, but this is if you want to understand how that's a lot
- [78:05]
Gad Saad
better answer than I would have given you about legalization of marijuana. So I think you were being Quite humble, because that sounded like a professor of literature speaking. Wow.
- [78:14]
Tom Bilyeu
As the Brits would say. I'm blagging it right now. So, yeah, that's what I want it to be. How about that? And if it is that, then, wow, do I really look forward to reading it? Because this goes back to the. The way that I'm approaching history. Why am I approaching it that way? In fact, I'm gonna. Maybe at the risk of losing the audience, there's some. A person I want to talk about. I don't even know who to invite on the show to talk about it, so we'll try it against you. I'm reading a book on Churchill right now, and he is beyond fascinating.
- [78:46]
Gad Saad
I just watched the movie.
- [78:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Really? With Gary Oldman.
- [78:49]
Gad Saad
Yeah.
- [78:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, phenomenal.
- [78:51]
Gad Saad
Just watched phenomenal.
- [78:52]
Tom Bilyeu
A very small part of what makes him interesting. Right. To me. So do you know much about his background?
- [79:00]
Gad Saad
I mean, he was a soldier. He said some pretty frontal things about his disdain for Islam. I know that there are some very famous. There's some very famous quotes that he has about, you know, his aversion to Islam. Interesting. And not much else. I don't know much about him.
- [79:15]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay. So here's what I find interesting. Keeping in mind, I'm sure he has abhorrent beliefs on many things that I would. It would curl my eyelashes.
- [79:23]
Gad Saad
Right.
- [79:24]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm not a throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of guy. So I reading about his life. So he was one, even as a young man, he wrote a letter to his mom and he said, I hunger so much to have a reputation for physical bravery that basically, I'll do anything. And so he sent himself into war zones, and I'll hear stories about, like, Americans that go over to fight in the Ukraine. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Like that people voluntarily, like, go to another country to fight. I just. I don't. Braver than me. Like, all the accolades, whatever. I just can't imagine. And so reading that was the first time again, I've suddenly had a glimpse into the complexity of the human condition. And I saw a guy who had something he wanted to prove so desperately that he was willing to risk his life. Life. And I was like, whoa, that's interesting. I'm not saying good or bad. I'm just saying that's interesting. And then he becomes a politician in the UK because he really believes in, like, wherever you live, you should be. You should go for your country, you should believe in your country. And he even said about Hitler, he said, look, The. I respect that he is. He wants to be a good German and he's proud of his country. Now, nobody thought Hitler was a bigger psychopath and needed to be stopped than Churchill, right? So the fact that he can parse, like, hey, it's good. I think it's right that people should be. Should be pro their country, even if they're on the losing side, because he was right. And I'll get to this in a minute. He fought in World War I, right. He beat the Germans and obviously would have thought that they were terrible, horrible, but he still understood, like, you should be proud of, you know, where you come from. And so that whole idea was very interesting to me. But so you get this guy. He really believes that you should stand up for your country. Goes into politics because he thinks that's going to be the best way that he can serve. He gets put in charge of a part of the military, and I forget it might have even been in or around Lebanon. Oh, God.
- [81:36]
Gad Saad
Oh, is that right? Yes.
- [81:37]
Tom Bilyeu
I can't swear to it.
- [81:38]
Gad Saad
So maybe that's where his Islamic aversion comes from in that region.
- [81:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Right now we are outside. This is now data. And I can't give you data. I can only give you my interpretation, interpretation of the man. But anyway, so he has a region that he's in charge of, and he puts a plan together, executes it, and it doesn't work. And so he's now out, and he gets kicked out of that. He's basically out of the government. And he already, I think, at that point, wants to be prime minister one day. But he's probably in his early 30s at this point. He doesn't become prime minister, I think, till the 60s. So he then is like, how do I earn my way, way back this has himself sent to the front lines of World War I, says, I want to be in the literal trenches. They're like, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're. You're. Whatever, master. Sorry. I don't know what his rank was, but it was high. And they were like, that is so unorthodox. Why on earth would you do that? And he said, because that's the honorable thing to do. If I can't serve in the government, I want to be on the front line. I want to be as much in danger as a my troops are. And he said he would go on the front lines, and immediately everybody thought he was this brash. And he said within 48 hours, they would be on my team because I was courageous. I would go like, he said people started being afraid to other biographers maybe is a better way. Other biographers have said people would start out, like they would be afraid to go on patrol with him because he seems so unafraid to your earlier point about there's like, an optimal curve and maybe he was a little bit too far. And so he would just, like, talk, like, hey, I found a hole in their lines. And people like, you need to be quiet. And so people said he wouldn't flinch. Like, if bombs would go off near him, he doesn't flinch. He would hear a bullet crack next to his head. He wouldn't flinch. And people like, what are you doing? He's like, the. The bullet's already gone by. What does ducking now mean? Right? I mean, just like, really, really insane. So I bring him up as an example of somebody who has horrendous flaws. And yet, like is also incredibly interesting. And if people can begin to parse these things out and really begin to understand a new perspective, a new way to look at themselves, to look at the way world becomes very, very interesting. I think you only find some of these perspectives by looking at religion and history. And I think those things, because they're the biggest moments, right? They are the things that survive the longest, that there's there. There is a glimpse into the complexity of the human condition that I want forever, everyone, and I want. I accidentally found my way to that in this time of such tremendous uncertainty because of what we were talking about earlier with Sam Harris. The velocity of information, everything being forced into a meme, and just the difficulty there is in holding a nuanced position.
- [84:47]
Gad Saad
Speaking of religion, you mentioned religion history. Yesterday I appeared on a show I don't know if they'd want me to mention, which I guess I posted already on social media. I didn't know that they were quite religious as a outfit. Now, I'm not someone who's very religious. I'm very much steeped in my Jewish identity, But I'm not, you know, I don't go to synagogue, you know, 25 times a year and so on. But there was an incident that. Not incident, but there was something that happened that actually was incredibly touching. So the gentleman who picked me up to drive me to the location, he works at this outfit. It's about an hour and a half away. We're staying. We're in Newport beach, about an hour and a half away, picks me up, I do the show, and then drives me back to our condo in Newport Beach. He says, do you mind if I pray? For you before we leave the car. Now, I'm not someone who typically would have expected, you know, I didn't know exactly what to do. Of course I want to be respectful. So I said, sure. So he kind of puts his hand and he starts, you know, speaking to, you know, father, blah, blah. But it was so touching, it was so pure that even though I'm someone who's not particularly religious, I can really appreciate the purity of spirit that this guy had.
- [86:06]
Tom Bilyeu
I love that.
- [86:07]
Gad Saad
It was just. It was really. It was magical. And it didn't suddenly convert me to being a whatever, but I just. And that speaks in a sense to tolerating the fact that people can have completely different worldviews, but yet we have. Can truly coexist. And I don't mean that in the full positivity sense. I can attack religion in a quite caustic manner only when religion tries to make claims that are within the realm of science. So if you make a religious claim that I know contradicts a scientific tenet, then I will come after you. Not because I hate religious people, but because you're making a religious statement or proposition that I think I know to be false. But the idea that people could be religious. As an evolutionist, I fully understand the fact that the default value for most people is to be religious. It actually takes a clear outlier to be a non believer. And so I thought that yesterday's brief moment was really special. And when I got home and my wife asked, so how was it? And I told her the story, her first reaction was, well, how did you react? I mean, it's not. I don't sit and do grace at the table. And so for a guy to put his hand on me and start doing these sort of incantations. Incantations to God, but in a very pure, lovely way was. Was actually quite beautiful.