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Bryan Caplan on Epicureanism, Agency, and Self-Help (Episode 158)
20 Plays12 minutes ago
Bryan Caplan, economist and bestselling author, discusses practical wisdom from modern economics and ancient philosophy.
He argues against medicalization of human behavior, champions personal agency, and reveals why appeasement often beats confrontation. Caplan shows how lessons from economics can serve as self-help and why creating a "social bubble" – the modern version of an Epicurean garden – might be the smartest way to navigate modern life.
The conversation spans Epicurean and Stoic perspectives on death, social obligations, and the thinker Thomas Szasz.
The Myth of the Rational Voter
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Philosophical Foundations and Brian Kaplan's Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
One of the best areas where Epicureanism and Stoicism agree is on not worrying very much about what the common opinion is. And if you think that something is a good idea, yes, by all means, listen to other people and hear why they think that it's not such a good idea. But after having given it a lot of deliberation, if you still think that there's something different that so would be a good idea to do, go ahead and do it. And don't worry about Just fitting in. Welcome to Stoa Professor Brian Kaplan. Brian Kaplan is a professor of economics at George Mason. He's a New York Times bestselling author. He's written many excellent books, such as The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids,
00:00:46
Speaker
build, baby build, and we're going to be talking about his collection of essays today. Self help is like a vaccine. Thanks so much for joining. Fantastic to be here. So one summary of this collection of essays that I'm curious to get your reaction on is in a way you're sort of like a modern Epicurean where the Epicureans, they have this emphasis on prudence, the pleasant life,
00:01:15
Speaker
They were known amongst other ancient Greek philosophers for sort of retreating to the garden instead of you know fighting for glory or political prestige. So I think that that maps on well perhaps to you know your emphasis on appeasement, creating a bubble. And of course Epicureans also thought that friendships were exceptionally important and that was an essential part of their philosophy and you talk a lot about that. So what do you think about that ah characterization?
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm a huge fan of Epicurus. He's definitely my favorite ancient Greek philosopher. And I would also just say that per word of his writing that we possess, I think it's hard for anyone not to say he's the best per word. He just has, we only have about 10 pages of his stuff and all of it's good. like be yeah I think it'd be hard pressed to find any paragraph where you just say, oh, that's a pointless paragraph, doesn't do anything. Whereas you could be a huge Aristotle fan. And I think you still admit there's a lot of stuff that could be cut pretty easily.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, sure,
The Nature of Advice and Human Behavior
00:02:10
Speaker
sure. That's funny. So one question, another question I have here is, so people, they love giving advice. We love to consume it. We've had plenty of good advice from Epicurus, the Stoics, even some religious advice throughout the ages. So why aren't people more happy now?
00:02:27
Speaker
Mostly, people don't take good advice. This is what Epicurus thought, and it's what I think, which is pretty obvious when you'll notice, first of all, of course, there's just young people who haven't heard the advice yet. And then when they do, it's like, well, yeah, I don't feel like doing that. It's a very common problem. I mean, a lot of it comes down to human impulsivity. Stoics cannot be unaware of humans acting impulsively.
00:02:51
Speaker
We have a lot of impulses that maybe were functional in some distant prehistoric time, but now just don't suit the modern world. And we can get a lot of value just by impulse control, thinking a little bit, I mean, even something as simple as wait 10 seconds before you respond as it does work.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, so you think it's mostly as simple as impulse control, um mismatch between environments in the past or environments you get today. I think those those are the primary ingredients. or Yeah, I do. you know It's always tempting to go and blame the media or society and then you realize, well,
00:03:30
Speaker
But this stuff is itself a response to and human beings and what they're looking for, to go and say that we think stupid stuff because the media tells us stupid stuff. Well, why do you think they tell us stupid stuff? Because they think we're going to listen to stupid stuff. You see, you might say, well, the problem is the general nature of the consumers. And I'm a victim thereof. All right, maybe that's the right story. But in general, trying to come up with some external theory of what's wrong, rather than say the fault basically lies within the mind of the people who are acting is it's a real cop-out.
00:04:05
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think that's exactly right. you know this It always seems strange to blame the media when it's largely driven by consumers, of course. there There's some sense in which it makes sense. You could say, well, it's not like anybody on their own would start being coming true start becoming worried about shark attacks. It's some combination of people are just looking for anything negative, and then there's a business where they say, hey, we can make money, sell them something negative. I don't know about shark attacks.
00:04:31
Speaker
So in a sense, you would say that if the media didn't exist, then many of the panics that we have wouldn't happen because there'd just be no way to coordinate on them. And yet still, it's not the media is shoving the stuff down our unwilling throats, but rather, they're just trying to figure out, gee, we got so many great things to tell them. And which of the things can we should we tell them that we'll get the biggest reaction? Yeah, yeah. What do what do you think about the theory that It sort of starts out cynical, but maybe ends up in an optimistic place. I sort of thought that when people are looking for advice, they're not really looking for solutions for their problems. They're maybe more just consuming something they like to do and maybe people's lives where they aren't so bad and people mostly do what they want to do. and the There's meant plenty of sensible advice. They'd rather just not apply it because yeah they they feel like there their needs are being met as things stand. yeah What do you think about that story? There's definitely some people who request advice but don't have any intention of listening to it.
00:05:27
Speaker
The advice that gets ignored the most, of course, is the unsolicited advice. yeah and yeah It's not surprising that the unsolicited advice gets ignored. or of The solicited advice, there I think that most people actually solicit a device are in the market to go and get some advice because they're genuinely just unclear about how to act.
00:05:47
Speaker
course i would probably If you're saying what fraction of advice is solicited, yeah it's probably at like 10, 15% of advice is solicited and the vast majority is just unwanted advice. In terms of the reason why people ignore the unsolicited advice, I'd say and probably the main reason people ignore the unsolicited advice is that it's not very good advice.
00:06:07
Speaker
um then as to why do people ignore the solicited advice, I think there it's more of it's too hard. It requires impulse control. When someone says, yeah, how can I lose weight before it's empty? It's like, well, reduce calories, increase physical activity. Yeah, but besides that, those two things just sound really painful. I don't feel like doing those.
00:06:27
Speaker
But I wouldn't go with this Ben Glascian story of people's lives are just fine the way they are, so they have no need to get advice or there's not much room for improvement. I do think there's just a lot of room for improvement. you know Even really
Social Dynamics: Appeasement vs. Assertiveness
00:06:40
Speaker
simple things like learning about the sunk cost fallacy in economics, that improved my life noticeably, 1%, 2% anyway. And if just one very simple point that can be taught to an attentive audience in five minutes can make your life one or 2% better, that's a huge gain.
00:06:58
Speaker
and Right, right. Yeah, very good. So one way, ah or I suppose, a common line of advice, self-help thought is to encourage people to be assertive and such. In a way, you cut against that by saying, look, it's appeasement that's underrated, not so much assertiveness. yeah Do you think that you think that's right?
00:07:16
Speaker
can i know mean I think it's very fair. i mean I point out that officially, appeasement never works. right you know like All because of Munich. It's like, all right, so Munich didn't work out, but like nothing works out all the time. If you just look at the general policy of listening to what people want and then if it's a token thing, just give it to them and see whether that calms them down.
00:07:38
Speaker
think That is something that we're doing all the time, and yet there's almost no explicit defenders of appeasement. And what I wanted to do in those essays was to take a stand and favor appeasement. Say, look, it's really underrated. This theory that if you give in to people on anything, then they'll just start ratcheting up their demands to infinity like Hitler. That's just not how most people are.
00:08:00
Speaker
And a lot of it is that most people are not actually consciously trying to be parasitical or predatory. Rather, they have, possibly, in a very unreasonable way, gotten it in their heads. They're entitled to one very specific thing. And then if you just give them that one specific thing, which often doesn't cost you much, commonly actually really does shut them up but permanently.
00:08:22
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's ah very underrated. mean I mean, I would say that you know there's a couple of different senses of assertiveness. So there's assertiveness is aggressiveness, where there's someone who is in your face and you just try to escalate until they back down. And I think that really is quite overrated.
00:08:40
Speaker
there's a certainness in the sense of just opening up your mouth and talking to people and seeing whether you, they would give you a chance. I think that still probably is underrated. I don't, I didn't have much dating advice in this book, but I've written two other essays subsequently. One called She's the One and the other one called He's the One. My most effective advice I think is if you want to go and ask someone on a date, just ask them.
00:09:05
Speaker
you know Think about it for five minutes about the best way to approach it, but don't just sit there paralyzed with fear of what if I'm rejected. It's like, well, if you're rejected, then objectively speaking, you're no worse off than you were before. you so you know before you were You didn't work with that person, now you're not with that person. A little oversimplified, maybe it will really complicate your experience, but still,
00:09:26
Speaker
I mean, like the kind of person that would just hate you forever because you p politely said, hey, would you ah would you be interested would you be interested in going out with me? I think that's real rare. Right, right. Yeah, I suppose this is maybe a good case where of mismatch where Perhaps when we were in smaller groups and such, things like appeasement would mean people would extort you. Being rejected by a single person would be terrible for your standing. But in the modern world, you know you're never going to run as that person on the bus again. or Yeah. Be plausible, though, of course, also the person who's super aggressive is another person that people don't like in a small group. and you know I mean, if you're physically strong enough to back it up, then maybe you can get away with it, but the rest of us can't.
00:10:13
Speaker
That's true. Yeah, appeasement is sort of, I think it's you one one of your quips, which is that um governments do things that are bad that sound good, or markets do things that are good that sound bad. And appeasement sort of sounds bad, but that it does seem like a good strategy in many of our interactions. Do you think there there are other forms of ah advice in our social social world that are ah have that same shape character? We're just being really friendly to people. It's almost foolproof. like The number of times being really friendly to people backfires That's 1% less. like The number of times that people fail to even say hello to another person that is actually useful to them, never mind that they you might actually make a new friend, it is kind of shocking to me. not really only I say only kind of because I was a kid once too and I too was afraid to go and ask the waiter for the salt. You can really see this with kids where they'll want they want their parents to go and like get salt for them. like
00:11:09
Speaker
I want salt, but i I'm afraid to ask, like what do you think could go wrong with requesting salt? Sure. You might say, well, if I ask in the wrong way, if I say, give me the salt, stupid, then that will cause problems. OK, I suppose that could. But like were you really thinking of saying the words, give me the salt, stupid? That would be a strange way to talk to someone.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Just to stick on this ah line of appeasement a bit longer, I think a lot of people are concerned that if you're piecing with people, you youre you're you're just being a pushover of some sort. You're not sticking up for yourself in the right way, which I think is ah a mischaracterization, obviously, of what you're saying. But what is the heuristic or thought for thinking like, when do I need to stick up for myself? When is a conflict worth having?
00:11:59
Speaker
I mean, I would say, first of all, if there's repeated interaction, that's step one. If it's just one time, then I would almost always appease. But if there's repeated interaction, and if the person has a track record of responding poorly to generosity, and also if you think you're actually in a position where if you asserted yourself, that you could get you could actually get what you're looking for. I put those those things to together those three things together. Those are cases where I think asserting yourself doesn't make sense.
00:12:29
Speaker
But ah yeah like normal normal interaction, someone bumps into you with a shopping cart at the grocery store. like I always apologize over that, even when I think that the person was negligent, just because it's like, well, I'm never going to see this person again. And then you like then there's also, like is it possible that I am the one that done something wrong, that I am actually to blame here? It doesn't seem so. but What would a panel of just 10 strangers who saw all the facts think? Would they all agree with me? So that's another good thing to consider. And yeah then finally, like, are you even in a position to be making demands?
00:13:06
Speaker
you right yeah know like if you If you're someone where you're totally expendable and the other person really could easily replace you, then it's like, well, hmm, I could go and assert myself, but probably just going to get fired over it. so you know like A good way that I like to think about it actually is that by appeasing people, you increase your number of options, increases the pool of people that like you and we would be interested in dealing with you again.
00:13:30
Speaker
And that is a much better way of protecting yourself from a bad situation than going and trying to have a confrontation, which I think often just makes things worse. Whereas if you just are widely known to a lot of people, especially in your profession as just being a good person that's easy to get along with, then instead of having to caught get a big fight and then some hope that you win. It's like, well, I could just go and switch to point one of my other options. It's also one where it does give you the confidence in the rare cases where asserting yourself does make sense. Say, well, if this really goes badly, I've got a lot of other friends and I could go and turn to them. And so I've got options.
00:14:08
Speaker
right right yeah nice I think it's also related to argument that meekness is underrated, right and that it's a core part, I think, of of the modern world, this ability to get along with others in different social contexts. Often we know we praise the iconoclast, the founder type, but most people don't belong in that mold, or even the founder type has many places where they they're not playing the incessant contrarian who's trying to force their will on everyone else around them.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, and I say this not because I'm naturally me, quite the opposite. And so you might say, well, there are some people who really are naturally meek, and maybe they do need to get a little nudge to go and assert themselves more. I guess people are in the top 10% of meekness. I think I would advise them to assert themselves more.
The Concept of a Social Bubble
00:14:53
Speaker
But on the other hand, people that are in the bottom 90% like There's just a lot that you can get for yourself. just and she In terms of just sheer prudence, it's like not being a tax on other people, not being a burden, going and listening and trying to understand it from other people's point of view, it does make people like you. and you know As I like to say, friendship rules the world. You really want people to like you. Just from a totally selfish point of view, it's really good if people like you. Even if this particular person doesn't seem especially useful, it's like, well, it's another person on the menu who might one day have things work out.
00:15:28
Speaker
why do Why do you think so many people um promote this idea of the founder or the CEO who forces their will on others and sees that as much more praiseworthy than perhaps the the company man or the the middle manager who is lower on the hierarchy as it were? yeah Well, i mean it makes sense that you would like to be the super high status person. makes a You can see why people idolize them. If only I could be that person, then my life would be so great.
00:15:56
Speaker
But it's kind of like saying, if I could be a professional basketball player, I'd be a multimillionaire. It's like, well, are you even in the running for that? Are you even the best player at your high school? And it's like, no, well.
00:16:07
Speaker
then I can understand your admiration, but it's also just not a realistic role model for you. And you might think that every person who's super successful, they just have a lot of useful lessons to teach everyone regardless of how modest their ambitions are. And you know, open to that or give them a listen. But still, it's important to distinguish between advice that's just generally good, like work hard and try to improve.
00:16:30
Speaker
from advice that's very specific to being someone who's at who who is the alpha, which is you like get everyone to listen to you and like i and pursue your idea single-mindedly. Do you have an idea that good? Most people don't. mean Most people who start businesses don't even claim to have an original idea. There's, I think, a great NBR paper just trying to find out why do people have their own businesses. and Mostly it's for autonomy and not because they think they've got a new idea.
00:16:59
Speaker
gotcha got yeah I suppose there's the thought, perhaps we don't praise think ideas like meekness and appeasement so much because when when we see ourselves acting as meek, that's evidence we're not the person in the sense that that we want to be. Right. and mean and And just in terms of impulse control also, I noticed that when I was raising my kids, I was reading them the story, Mouse, which is this horrible Holocaust story. Well, it's a great story, but it's horrible. And they really didn't like the idea that just going and attacking the Nazi guards wouldn't work.
00:17:30
Speaker
They're like, why don't why you know why doesn't he go and attack them? Because then he'd get killed. But he got a weapon. You're reading the same story as me. Do you see any weapons in the story? It's like, OK, well, there's got to be like, OK. Sometimes like like you're interested in a really tough spot. And while like you're angry and you want to go and fight back, you just don't have any good way of doing it.
00:17:53
Speaker
It is very impulsively satisfying to hurt someone that's hurting and to hurt back someone who's hurting you. And then the question is, like, is it actually going to work? You know, which, as you mentioned, of course, it's a very epicuring perspective, just looking at it from the point of view of prudence. And you might say, you know, from, say, a Christian point of view, it's like not about whether it would work. So, well, it's partly about whether it would work at minimum. Don't go and attack someone if it's going to blow up in your face. That's stupid.
00:18:22
Speaker
Right. Yeah. it You also have the stoic line thinking Epicureans agree on this as well that these sorts of acts shouldn't be considered in anger because that's when you're you're you're just not as smart. You're just not thinking you through things properly or going to be blinded. So one of the thought or kinds of advice, perhaps self-help advice you give in the essays is to craft a social bubble. I wonder if you could share more about that.
00:18:51
Speaker
Right. So much of what people are suffering about is stuff where they actually have no control over it. People get upset about the news. They get upset about the political state of their country. They get upset about you know the young people these days. And for all these things, like yeah you can't really do anything about it. Why are you getting upset about something that you can't do anything about? It's like, hmm.
00:19:13
Speaker
Well, what do you mean by can't do anything about it? And that's really where the idea of my beautiful bubble comes. It's like, well, in one sense, I can't do anything about the young people these days. There's just too many of them. I'm only one person. I'm not going to go and change what people under 20 are like. But on the other hand, what you can do is try to isolate yourself from things that bother you. And that is the idea of the bubble. Originally inspired actually by Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, where he had this survey set up.
00:19:43
Speaker
Basically to shame elites about how they were not part of real America. That was the original purpose of the surveys, like how many NASCAR games ah or a NASCAR races you've ever watched. And then he knew a bunch of leads would say, I guess, never watch NASCAR. Like, did you understand? like 99.8% of all Americans have gone to an NASCAR race exaggerated. But anyway, like, aren't you ashamed to live in a country where you're so distant from what a typical person is like? Shouldn't you try to just be a regular normal person in society? And that was a lot of the point of the survey. Really it was to shame elites about their own elitism. I mean, it didn't work on me because like, well, why should you be ashamed of that?
00:20:24
Speaker
Like why, like, why is there this obligation to just be a regular person in your society? Why and not not instead lean into it and say, yes, well, I understand that these are the normal things in my society, but I've thought about it and that doesn't minimum seem like a good idea for me. Maybe it's just a bad idea in general. And then, and rather than trying to go and get rid of your bubble, why not try to acknowledge it and and be be mindful about it, say, oh yes, well, I've kept out a bunch of things that I don't like from my life.
00:20:54
Speaker
Why not try to keep out a bunch more things? And then once you've done that negative task, then what could I put into the bubble? So yeah, it's very much inspired by the Epicurean notion of cultivating your garden. So yeah, like don't have people that really aggravate you in your bubble and also try to make a lot more friends so that your bubble is not lonely. And as I think I see in one of the pieces, I'm not advocating purging people or defooing.
00:21:20
Speaker
You familiar with de-fooing? I don't know. What what is de-fooing? I don't know. That is actually. De-foo is de-family of origin. and So I believe Stefan Molyneux made the, coined the term and got a bunch of parents upset at him because guess what? They got de-fooed by their kids after listening to Stefan Molyneux. Not saying that, but you know just to let things go down to a lower level of commitment. So you don't need to actually purge people, but if there's you know a relative that aggravates you,
00:21:50
Speaker
Don't go and try to start a fight with them at every family gathering. And yeah, maybe like also at the margin, you don't need to invite them to so many things if they're really that unpleasant. you know Don't maybe people' feel like they have to choose. It's them it's it's them or me. yeah Then you wind up losing a lot of people that you actually would like to have.
00:22:08
Speaker
but so yeah That is the main idea, and I do try to put that into practice. I've got 10 steps for what kinds of things should you be doing. ah But you like i mean a lot of it is just sort of getting rid of this category of love to hate. i don't hate what you Hate viewing, hate experiencing. like look it's It's true that it is a mixed pleasure, but I still say the pleasure overall is just swamped by the unpleasantness.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's, um there's certain pleasures that one shouldn't pursue, of course, either because they have this sort of treadmill type effects, you have that pleasure initially, and you want more of it, you want more of you can't ah stop searching for it and such, or because of course, they cause pains down the line. And perhaps a
Philosophical Roles and Personal Well-being
00:22:52
Speaker
a lot of So much news media has character like that, where it's it's not this sort of self-sustaining type pleasure, or has of course worse worse effects down the line. Am I right?
00:23:08
Speaker
but Well, I think this is an interesting place because the Stoics and Epicureans ah agree on some lines of thought here, but disagree on others. So where they agree is they think so much of the world is out of your control and things like paying attention to national news. I mean, maybe it's important for some people, given their social situation, their the role and such, but for most people on the margin, they can do less of it.
00:23:29
Speaker
Right. and And especially when you realize that the news is not a statistically accurate representation of the world, the idea that you need to watch it to know what's going on, it's like, no. When you watch the news, you don't know what's going on. You know, a very tiny, so heavily selected and curated sample of what's happening on Earth with two enormous and well-documented biases. One is just extreme pessimism where the media is there trying to go and find the worst things happening on a planet of 8 billion people, which makes it really easy to find terrible stuff. and The other one, of course, in the US at least is an extreme left-wing bias. so You put those two things together and it's like, yeah like basically, I get to get a very left-wing, very pessimistic take on the world, and how is that informing me better than
00:24:18
Speaker
just looking with your own eyes. yeah As an economist, we're used to telling people don't rely upon anecdotal evidence. I'll still say anecdotal evidence is super reliable relative to the news. yeah wrote about Excuse me, youre not anecdotal, first-hand experience. First-hand experience is what it is. First-hand experience is much more reliable than news, you know if you're on just on things like how common is terrorism? Well, according to the media, it's happening all the time. It's like one of the worst things in the world, and yet first-hand experience tells you it never happens.
00:24:44
Speaker
which is slightly exaggerated, but your first-hand experience is way closer to the truth than the media where they would have you think that terrorists are lurking behind every corner, and there's totally not. right right Yeah, so I think the Stoic and ah Epicurean approach agree ah there. um Where they might disagree is, um so the Stoics had this idea of what they called role ethics, where you have different roles in society. The fundamental one is we're all humans, we're all rational creatures, so we should you know pursue knowledge.
00:25:16
Speaker
ah But then we get more specific. You know have relationships, some of them chosen, others unchosen, familial relationships, political relationships, and such. And I thought it was important for you to fulfill those roles. And a classic critique, of course, of the Epicureans is that they retreated to the garden and ignored these relationships.
00:25:35
Speaker
So how do you think about the arguments that the social bubble strategy doesn't take things like familial relationships, obligations to our neighbors and such seriously? How do you how do you think about that kind of objection?
00:25:50
Speaker
I mean, of course, I'm going to start by saying, well, normally your family and your neighbors would be in the bubble unless they'd done something really objectionable. Sure, sure. I mean, I would start with that. I mean, there is the question of, well, suppose that your dad is unpleasant, but you're reasonably grateful to him because he did a lot of stuff for you. And it's like, yeah, well, potentially maybe you would be better off just You're paying very little attention to him. But andrud but still, like the know prudence isn't the only virtue. And so there's some offsetting concerns. So probably I would just focus on that. And like I'm not saying that prudence is the only virtue. ah I'm saying that prudence is a virtue and also is very poorly pursued by most people, ah you especially with regards to these things that you you don't have any control over.
00:26:38
Speaker
um you know yeah So I thought you were going to go in a different direction and just say, you know, someone who retreats into their bubble and they ignore all the good they could be doing in broader society, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think i think the first, but the first, the first move you, I think you made make sense, which is that at least as far as I stated the objection, it was a misunderstanding of of the view, which is not, it's not saying that you ought to ah say reject familial ties and he really ties or whatever, just cause you want to or something like this. Like there was probably some threshold where, and I think the stoics would agree with this too, where
00:27:11
Speaker
They wouldn't say, you know, you need to give your abusive mother a phone call every weekend or something like this. and There's some point where, you know, that that tie is just not strong enough. And maybe Epicurean Stokes might disagree a little bit about where that point is, but this view isn't saying that you shouldn't take familial obligations.
00:27:28
Speaker
So you're thinking the Stoics would say, would at least be more inclined to keep calling the abusive mother despite the lack of- Yeah, maybe so. Or and maybe a place where there's a little bit more ah disagreement was in the political case where the Stoics thought it was important for you know citizens to be a good citizen. That was one of the roles that they thought romans the Romans and Greeks, of course, thought thought this was very important. Whereas the Epicurean view is, you could retreat to the garden. You don't need to pay attention about what's going on in the forum or something of this sort. So I think that's closer to ah where you predicted the question is going, which is that you have a kind of role in your community to be to doing good things. Maybe that's both an altruistic type role and also, you know, this community in some sense gave you the life you have and you have an obligation or a debt back to it. So those are the sort of the thoughts that motivated that kind of view.
00:28:17
Speaker
yeah so so so what do you guys guess What do you think about that version of the ejection, which I think does make more ah more contact with ah what you're saying? I would start with, like do you have good reason to think that your participation would improve things?
00:28:29
Speaker
So that's that's a really basic question. like Why exactly do you think your views are so superior to those of other people that it's important for you to participate and share your views with them? and So just begin with that kind of self-reflection. Yeah, are my views really that good? so that like Do I really know that much more than other people? You might say the kind of person that would even ask themselves that question, the answer is almost always going to be yes, my views are better.
00:28:53
Speaker
So it's like, all right, well, least least do at least we at least we thought about it. So that that's step one. And then your second step is there's a lot of different ways that you could go and fulfill your obligations for you to be charitable. Why specifically is political participation the one that you're so focused on?
00:29:10
Speaker
ah Jason Brennan in this book, The Ethics of Voting, goes over, look there's all these different ways that you might go and contribute to the world. And if you just think in terms of the effective altruist movement and their principles, it's like, well, it seems like participating in elections or in political discussion in general is probably one of the least helpful ways, or least effective ways to improve the world.
00:29:33
Speaker
And probably at the other extreme, you've got earning to give, where you just try to get a higher earning job and then donate a lot of money to proven causes like malaria reduction. so ah mean and the And the idea that you need to do a little bit of each thing is in one where if you just read a little bit more widely and effective altruism, it's like that's a really dumb way of thinking about it. It would make a lot more sense just to put all of your charitable energy into the one thing where you actually can do the greatest gain.
00:30:02
Speaker
Unless of course you are Bill Gates or someone so rich that your participation can actually flip the order of priority. But most of us, you could put every charitable dollar you're ever going to spend into malaria nets without changing the ranking of malaria nets on the hierarchy of valuable causes. Whereas know Bill Gates, he might really be rich enough that he could actually donate so much like, oh gee, I solved malaria. Now what? Almost none of us are in that situation.
00:30:27
Speaker
right right Cool. Is there anything else you wanted to say on the social bubble strategy or and any other from any other advice on that long list? like I'd say it requires a lot of self-control because our inclination, you're not you're not physically isolated. Rather, it's just a setting up a psychological barrier between yourself and bad things in the world, which means you still do encounter it and people are very tempted impulsively to go and participate and to get involved in a way that upsets them without really improving things very much.
00:30:57
Speaker
And like also just notable how like, what are the odds that if you went and participated in the dialogue that you would change anyone's mind? This is definitely a triumph of hope or experience. How often do you actually change anyone's mind on anything? And yet people keep arguing. and And especially when it's like, so did you even imagine that what you're saying could persuade a person? Like anytime that you see someone social, you fools fail to appreciate in the whole history of humanity as any monologue beginning with what you fools fail to appreciate ever change anyone's mind.
00:31:30
Speaker
It's been a long time, a lot of words have been spilled, so I suppose it's worked at some point, but in your own first-hand experience, does this ever work? No, then why are you talking to people in this way, which upsets you and antagonizes them? Why not go and try to do something positive?
00:31:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah. So
Perspectives on Death and Identity
00:31:49
Speaker
so the one key part of the the social bubble strategy, of course, is ah sealing yourself off from a lot of these ah distractions, I suppose, like social groups where engagement and whatever their activity they're doing, whether it's politics, gossip, or what have you, makes your life worse. um But the other part, of course, is that cultivating your garden aspect, which I think does does involve a serious amount of intentional efforts to do well.
00:32:17
Speaker
You're thinking about gossip. like One of my favorite questions to ask friends when people would be gossiping is, so what what good is happening? What good is happening? Tell me something good that's happening. Or when my daughter says, how was school? Fine, what happened? Nothing. is said Tell me the best thing that happened all day. That is, I think it's just a really good way to shift the conversation, get people thinking in a positive way, and then they share something positive with you and you feel better about it. It's a much better way of interacting with other people.
00:32:48
Speaker
One of the ah sw switching gears a little bit, I suppose, one of the things Epicurus, many of the other ancient philosophers talked about is one of the keys to becoming happy was facing the fear of death. How important is that to your worldview? Yeah, I mean, honestly, my mom just died recently. So I was just at a memorial service and been thinking about it a lot.
00:33:13
Speaker
I know there's some people who feel like they actually can get at some level of peace just by thinking about death. um you know Obviously, it's much easier if you think that there are some afterlife rewards and things are actually going to improve for you and there's a bunch of people that you miss that you're going to get to see again. I just think that's wrong. It's total wishful thinking.
00:33:33
Speaker
um like The main thing that I do think about actually is, you know like and no one take this the wrong way. up So don't be afraid for me, you shouldn't be. But mean I do think a lot about when my life becomes hopeless, when I am in constant pain and I know that nothing's ever going to prove for me, then I am very big on suicide.
00:33:57
Speaker
as the best thing to do. and and um So there, I would say that you Epicurus' point about how like well how be like you're not sitting around miserable, that there's a long time before you existed, why you should be so miserable if there's a long time after after you exist. right There's something there.
00:34:12
Speaker
ah Still, I wouldn't say that it actually gives me any big comfort. I mean i do get comfort just from so from knowing I never actually need to live in agonizing pain for for years, except in some very rare circumstances. I never need to go and put my family through seeing me with severe dementia. I just have to plan ahead and be prepared.
00:34:33
Speaker
So that does give me a austere sense of comfort. I'm not saying I'm like jumping for joy or anything like that. sure like I would very much love to have healthy life forever. I love the idea of life extension. I haven't been sold on any of it actually working. My best friend, Robert Hanson, has a whole cryonics contract. When he walked me through his reasoning, most of us came down to he had a very low standard for personal identity.
00:35:01
Speaker
to the point where it's like, well, why don't you just say that as long as people keep reading your books, you're still alive. And then that's immortality because his version of immortality to my mind was really no better than that. So like I'll upload myself into a computer. It's like best case scenario. It's a copy of you. It's not you. It's like, no, it's not.
00:35:22
Speaker
yeah Why do you care about the upload? Why I think it has any sense of personal continuity with yeah exactly with you. yeah that's That's a running argument I have with Robin of mental continuity as what it means for to have continued existence, not similarity.
00:35:38
Speaker
yeah so You sound like you've got a very deep background in philosophy. so you know Type identity versus token identity is an idea I've never quite got across to Robin. As an engineer, it's like, well what difference does it make? everything like As long as you've got type identity, who cares about token identity? It's like, you should care if you're the token. and
00:35:56
Speaker
yeah I think there is a kind of person who does prefer type identity accounts of ja just about anything. yeah like like from the you like If you're so like an engineer designing a machine, it's like they're interchangeable parts. What difference does it make? and yeah As we know from Nagel, if there's no answer to the question, what is it like to be a brick? so Yeah, like true bricks are identical, whatever. they like It doesn't matter to them, but on the other hand, if you are a conscious being and like you you either you or your copy can be saved,
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah. Makes a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that's right. The Stoics also had the same view about suicide as well, where they you know they have this, ah ah Epictetus talks about the open door. He says, look, suicide is in a sense always an option whenever you're experiencing a given pain.
00:36:45
Speaker
you There's a sense in which, and it's always a sensitive matter and difficult to know exactly how to put this, but there's a sense in which you know by choosing to continue to exist, you should take some comfort in the fact that and I'm choosing to do this for a reason. I know it's going to end, and I'm not taking that open door. I'm not taking that option, which is always available. Of course Epicure says the same thing where he's arguing with people who say life isn't worth living, and he says, well,
00:37:11
Speaker
highly yeah just ah Just to slightly modernize, it like look there are a lot of high cliffs here in Greece. so And you know the fact that you and haven't haven't done it shows to me that you don't even believe what you're saying. So why should I keep arguing with a person who doesn't believe his own position? Right, right. Yeah, I think yeah i think that's right.
00:37:31
Speaker
so you know needless Needless to say, like you know yeah if you're young and upset, don't kill yourself. right ah Almost certainly it will pass. right yeah um there There's this great scene in the movie Little Miss Sunshine where there's the grandfather who's a drug addict and his grandkids find out and he says, look, don't do drugs at your age. It's crazy to do them. At my age, it's crazy not to.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It goes back to those points about impulse impulse control and such, I think, especially important, I think, for younger younger types to know. It is crazy to be thinking about at their age. Yeah. All of these little suicides I've known seem like terrible mistakes to me. But on the other hand, psychiatrist Thomas Soss, you know, he killed himself because he was in a horrible medical situation and he wrote about how he would do it. And he did it. ah My hero.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, sauce is certainly underrated as well. um
Agency, Medicalization, and Personal Responsibility
00:38:32
Speaker
And you have a very nice paper on him, I should say. Thank you very much. I liked it. And he liked it actually, which really made me feel good that I thought he might dislike it. So it's like, oh, he knew might not like the way an economist is trying to re reformulate what he's saying, but he was on board. Yeah. Yeah. I think it works well in preference and budget constraints is a good way to put a ... Yeah. I'll often recommend that essay to people who want to know about SAAS, but maybe have a hard time getting into and so and so his work.
00:38:58
Speaker
Yeah, the books of aphorisms are actually best. and So I think anyone who likes the Stoics or Epicurus will appreciate the untamed tongue, but which is, yeah he actually wrote a bunch of books of aphorisms. I say that one is the best.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah, untamed tongue, words to the wise, also quite good. Since we're just we're on this topic, and listeners might be interested in in SAWS. In terms of self help, I know it's a big question, of course, but in terms of self help or ideas that are SAWSian in this most recent book, self help, like a vaccine, you know, what what would you pick out if you were to sort of locate his, his influence in the work?
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah, actually, the title essay. So the book is called South Albus Like a Vaccine. That's just the title of the initial essay. And it begins with one of my students, Andrew Biggs, writing during COVID, saying, oh, no, Andrew Biggs. Sorry. i'm Either way, I'm sorry, Andrew. But in any case, um just saying, look, yeah like you know people that are ah you know you overweight Americans, they know they're endangering their lives and that their COVID risk is much higher, but they just can't stop.
00:39:59
Speaker
And I said, look, none of the facts that you presented shows they can't stop. It shows they don't stop. Doesn't mean they can't stop. There is a world of difference between can't and don't. And we what what we can say is if someone does something, we know they can. But the fact that someone doesn't do something does not show they can't.
00:40:17
Speaker
That was the main point of the essay, is saying that it's very important to distinguish these two things. And two and then it's like, well, how could you even tell the difference? Say, well, like ah one thing that I say in my SAS essay is the gun to the head test. like you know if When the incentives get really strong, does behavior change?
00:40:36
Speaker
ah Again, i'd say like even then, I would say, well, that doesn't absolutely prove that they couldn't, but at least it's interesting to know. And then I say, look, if you're willing to go and take these I just can't kind of excuses for all this other stuff, why not take that kind of excuse for people who have vaccine reluctance, which was at the time, of course, a huge issue.
00:40:55
Speaker
At the time, people were heavily moralizing vaccine relu but vaccine reluctance, saying, like, you horrible, ridiculous, fools, monli you bad people. ah you know And no one was willing to say, look, I just can't do it. Obviously, you totally can to stick your arm out and don't run away when you get injected. You can.
00:41:14
Speaker
ah ah Yes. um so That definitely was was a big influence. and you know there's There's a few other essays along the same along the same theme. ah It's very popular for people to say, I can't when what they really mean is I don't want to. This is something I've been pushing. There's the psychologist notion of social desirability bias, which says when the truth is ugly, people lie.
00:41:37
Speaker
people are you People realize, that for example, they say, do you want to come to my party Friday? Oh, I can't. All right. ah Can't doesn't really mean can't you're not going to be chained to a wall. You're not going to be on Mars. um It's really just a polite way of saying I don't want to. But then what about when someone says I can't stop drinking. Well why don't we think of that as being akin to I can't come to your party rather than I can't lift 10 million pounds. i say Yeah it is a lot more like that. Again we can just see from how people change their drinking behavior when they're being monitored or when they're worried they're going to get divorced if they don't stop drinking.
00:42:12
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, I think people haven't completely internalized the fact that people change their behavior when the price of alcohol and the substance change. yeah um And then of course, as you say, there are social consequences to to drinking. you know People do do change their behavior. So I think that is significant evidence against some of the more determinist type views about a substance abuse.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yeah, but I think a lot of this is closely related to medicalization of human behavior. And what's striking is you most people refuse to medicalize most stuff. For most stuff, it's still matter of choice or immoral condemnation. But then there's this strange list of stuff where you stop saying it's a choice, you stop going and criticizing the character or someone who does it and just says and just say they can't help it.
00:43:02
Speaker
and That's, of course, inimical to improving things. and yeah yeah So if you just realize that you know we have a very we have a tendency to understate how much is in our power, that means that you are understating your ability to improve your life. Yeah, yeah. and It can't be especially harmful for the individuals in a question, I think, sort of changing themselves.
00:43:27
Speaker
you know It is an excuse for why you keep doing so doing the wrong thing. It's like, I can't do anything else. So if you're not planning on changing, then it is a convenient it is a convenient claim to say that it was outside of your power. But on the other hand, um maybe you would have actually fixed things if you really took seriously how strong your agency was.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I do think those stoics are very good on agreeing, and they have sort of you a radical agency. you know what's What's up to you, ah and how you think essentially, and your beliefs, ah of course, just composed are composed by your judgments, your decisions. Those are completely up to you. Everything else that flows, out that's outside. And in a sense, it's not ah ultimately up to you, but your decisions, your judgments, essentially how you think that's, you know you have you have the power over that.
00:44:17
Speaker
Well, one question along these lines that I've curious to get your take on is, it seems like medicalization in particular is a way of conflict avoidance, where you just have the adolescent with mental health issues. Those are medicalized such that the family in a way can just put whatever behavioral issues they're having with their child out to some third party without having a large blow up in the family.
00:44:44
Speaker
um Likewise, for many substance abuse type cases, and it's a way of not facing problems directly, but perhaps that's, in many cases, that's not so bad. you know It's good to avoid some of those direct ah conflicts and get a third party involved. you know what do What do you think about that? Well, I mean, going back to appeasement, I was saying appeasement makes the most sense when there is some small, discrete demand someone's making. like are Just go and say it's not a big deal. that ah We took East Timur from you. like like yeah It's in Indonesia. It's just like half of an island. Who even cares? All right. there is or you So we're just going to give it back. It's like half of an island. What's the big deal? um I think a lot of appeasement. so yeahlthough you know the key The case for appeasement is strong when there is a minor, highly symbolic demand, which often has to happen in real life. So like, just apologize for stepping on his foot. and It's like, well, he stepped on my foot too. It's like, still, just apologize for stepping on his foot. The keys that you're talking about are ones where
00:45:43
Speaker
People wouldn't even be thinking about outsourcing it to a third party in the mental health industry unless it were a severe problem. So I think and you know those are cases where the appeasement is just a lot less effective and really does have big downsides. You just say, we're just going to put up with someone with a severe drinking problem as long as they go to AA meetings and they've relapsed 20 times. it was like yeah That's where I would say, ah don't stand stop appeasing in that case.
00:46:09
Speaker
ah I think actually one of the essays here, ah and I think it is in self-help is like a vaccine. you know there's the you know I just make the point of, you know imagine that you've got a neighbor and they have a brother who's a habitual alcoholic and they let them sleep on their couch 20 times, but each time they go and they trash the place and steal money. ya and Then finally, your neighbor cuts off the person the the alcoholic relative and says, you're not welcome here anymore.
00:46:33
Speaker
right ah Would you condemn the your neighbor knowing nothing else? And it's one where it's like, like you know would I do that? or would you like maybe would Maybe you would have given them more chances, but do you really have the confidence to say that neighbor is terrible? 20 times is nowhere near enough times. And it's like, I think you'd have to be pretty crazy to say, yes, definitely the neighbor's in the wrong, and so the and and they should just keep putting up with this kind of bad treatment from the other person.
00:47:03
Speaker
right so In that case, the idea of a person saying, look like I just think I've done enough and I don't want to do anymore is reasonable. But then if there was someone who says, like I think that I paid enough taxes to go and so and solve poverty and I don't think I should have to pay anymore, that person generally does get harshly condemned.
00:47:21
Speaker
And it's like, at least listen to the person. Maybe they have done a lot. And like, why are you so quick to take the side of other people over this person? Maybe the person has already paid millions of taxes, and they don't think they've seen much improvement from it. And their like their
Recognizing the Good in People
00:47:35
Speaker
patience is at an end. That's funny. um so as So many intellectual types are drawn to a kind of ah hatred of humanity.
00:47:48
Speaker
I suppose, of one kind of or another. yeah like how do you how' even I'd say hatred of humanity is even stronger than misanthropy, but yeah, whatever whatever the word for hatred of humanity is. Yeah. well How do you defeat that? I think it's something that's very common amongst, of course, many famous intellectual types, but also a tendency and and younger people get interested in philosophy, perhaps, or ah questions about politics and such. ah kind of mean I think I would just start by saying, even if you're right, it's not a constructive strategy to act on. You should be focusing on finding the good people that you do get along with rather than condemning people you don't get along with. I mean, I would say, look, suppose you're right. Suppose 99% of people are terrible.
00:48:27
Speaker
Still, it is not productive for you to spend time talking about how terrible they are. that What's productive for you is to go and try to find the 1% that are not terrible. So I would start there.
00:48:38
Speaker
and But besides that, I think I would go, let's see, I think it is actually Epictetus who has, that no, no, it's Marcus Aurelius actually, who has this list of exercises for how to go and feel better in society. And some of them are consistent with them to stand through me, like saying, wake up every day and say that I'm going to hear a bunch of unreasonable stuff and unfair stuff and just to get ready for that. But another part is like, could it possibly be that I'm the person who's being unreasonable and unfair? Like, like what what is it exactly they have seen that has made them that way?
00:49:08
Speaker
know If I were in their shoes, would I really act so differently? These are also other very reasonable questions. or the he like What exactly is it they're doing that's so awful? right And often in today's society, it's like, well, they have some terrible political views. Like, well, do they actually have any power? Are they ever going to have any power? like No, it's just some nobody. And I don't like their political views. It's like, well, why don't you think about the things that they do that do make a difference? Maybe the person is a wonderful parent. Maybe the person is a loyal worker. Maybe they're a good friend. So before you go and just say that person is unbalanced terrible, why not go and at least do a full inventory of the main good things, and the main bad things they're doing?
00:49:47
Speaker
And you you know keeping in mind, does or do the bad things they're doing even matter? Do they even change anything really? Or is the person just a nobody? um you're saying you like you may like I think that does wind up giving you a much more favorable picture of human beings because most people's main thing is not just going and spouting stupid political views. Most people, they they got a job.
00:50:08
Speaker
um Yeah today so most you but even today most people do like have had kids most adults You know will or have had kids It's like well this person is someone that allows another person to be born and to be raised Even when you see someone, you know, like, you know, there's people that I know, like, I don't really like that person very much, but that person's the only father that kid has. So it's like really good for that kid. And like, I don't, the kid hasn't done anything bad really. He's just a normal kid. Like, why wouldn't like, don't you want that kid to have a father? It's like, so like that person's doing one really good thing just by being that kid's dad.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's
Epicureanism vs. Stoicism
00:50:47
Speaker
always a good reminder. Do you have any thoughts on on stoicism? Well, I have you here. I think you want to share it as stoics or people inclined towards that philosophy. Yeah. I mean, a lot of what I say, the overlap between epicureanism and stoicism is so strong, there's barely any difference. I mean, I would say that the stuff in stoicism that seems odd or wrong to me is like not doing ah not actually trying to enjoy things that are right in front of you and just depriving yourself for no real reason.
00:51:16
Speaker
mean So no you like maybe you would consider that unfair, but ah yeah maybe it is. But it does seem like there is not a lot of effort in stoicism to just try to enjoy life as much as you can, which I would always encourage people to do. Well, not always, but like generally encourage people to do. And like you know like aren't there a lot of really enjoyable things that you could be doing? And have you done those things?
00:51:38
Speaker
ah yeah like you know that you know The focus on duty, I think, is fine, but I think that probably Stoics have what seems to be an exaggerated sense of all their duties. So the like the list of duties and the intensity of the duties seems implausibly high to me.
00:51:54
Speaker
um So like this is one where there is just a clash of intuitions. ahivia but like So like why is your duty so strong that you've that it will like require you to sustain from so many of the good things in life? I mean, do you have any particular like specific decisions or moral issues where you think that you have different answers? Well, maybe ah one i ah concrete historical case is you have Stoics in the Stoic opposition against Nero taking a hard line stance against ah essentially who they saw as a tyrant. um And they were you know willing to put their lives on the line
00:52:40
Speaker
not willing to ah appease Nero's performance, performances, you know doing things that would obviously get them either exiled or worse. So I think that's that might be one example where the stoics just take the hard line and you think. yeah ah so like Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of sensitivity for that. so Like I have watched the movie Valkyrie about the, about for Stauffenberg and it's a very accurate, historically accurate movie many times. Like, right. That's the kind of thing we're like, maybe I would try to talk me out, talk my sons into going and killing Hitler with me because like we don't do it. Nobody else is going to do it. And like, we're going to come up with a much better plan than anyone else is likely to do. And we've got a lot of follow through. So let's go ahead and kill Hitler. That seems like a case where.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's like it's worth going and and like the gain is so great. And yes, you are plausibly giving up your lives for this, but it's such an enormous gain. On the other hand, when it's a very token gain or symbolic gain, that's one where I would say that I'll say, well, look, I'm just not going to go and drink one glass of wine because that violates a stoic principle. I don't know. Are there any stoics who will refuse to drink a single drop of alcohol in order to go and get some great good accomplished? yeah I'm not not a drinker, but yeah Yeah, for alcohol in particular, no, I don't think so. so ah Stoics were actually known for, like Cato the Younger is known for being quite the drinker apparently. um So alcohol in particular, perhaps not. It's odd, right? Because you say you're like, especially being heavy drinker, like you're much less likely to fulfill your duties when you're under the influence and what are you getting? Mere pleasure. Honestly, I will say, like like
00:54:19
Speaker
i Pleasure in general, life I've enjoyed it a lot. right and you know if someone If someone is in a situation where they could go and without having any other facts, just make their life more pleasurable, and like ah it does seem odd to me to say no. Really, like the only
Economics as Self-help and Homeschooling Advocacy
00:54:35
Speaker
case where I would be inclined to say no is, you know should Hitler while he's awaiting hiswa his execution go and enjoy ga a game of chess or something like that? It's like, no, you should suffer. but usually You need to do penance for all of your for all of your evil.
00:54:48
Speaker
But you know it's just some normal person is like, you should I sit here and be bored or should I go and and I got nothing else I could be doing or should I go and try to do something I enjoy? So yes, it's by all means. yeah there are Yeah, perhaps folks do you have more of an emphasis on self mastery or something like this, or some more smaller decisions like this. um But I should also ask, is there anything else you wanted to touch on before we before we hop off here? anything Any other important ideas we think we have? There's a few other things. One is, it hasn't come out that much, but I am an economist, so ah a big part of what I wanted to do in this book is to rethink economics as a body of self-help, but not just a body a body of policy advice for governments.
00:55:29
Speaker
I know there's some economists who just hate the idea of economics to self-help because they have the idea everyone's optimized already anyway so that we have nothing constructed to help people and my reaction is like why would you sell your feels so short you're telling people to walk out of a bad movie because either it's just like suffering for free so why not do it this is good advice I mean never mind things like get a diversified portfolio of investments for retirement that's also good advice ah the other thing is that One quarter of this book is on homeschooling. I am a homeschooler. I homeschooled my older sons from grade seven through 12 and then during COVID, I was homeschooling all of my kids. This is another case where a lot of people don't do it just because it's weird.
00:56:13
Speaker
and i said like like If you're concerned that society will go and mess up your kids' lives because you did something weird for them, then that's something to consider. I think the actual evidence is that the discrimination of the world against homeschoolers is now quite low. And if you use the extra flexibility of homeschooling to excel, then I think you can that it's easy to actually to make homeschooling and yet positive in terms of success.
00:56:41
Speaker
ah So, again, I would think about, so you one again, one of the most useful, yeah era one of the best areas where Epicureanism and Stoicism agree is on not worrying very much about what the common opinion is. And if you think that something is a good idea, yes, by all means, listen to other people and hear why they think that it's not such a good idea. But after having given it a lot of deliberation, if you still think that there's something different that so would be a good idea to do, go ahead and do it. And don't worry about just fitting in. So homeschooling is one example of this. I actually met a dad and son in India where he told me that it was one of my essays to convince his wife to let him homeschool his son. So I was like, all right, great. And he's saying, yeah, very cool really unusual in India, hardly anyone in India is homeschooled. And he wanted to give it a try. Um, so this was a way of saying, yes, well, like I understand there's a lot of objections to it, but I thought about it a lot. And I think it's a good idea. And let's move forward with it. Even though it's unpopular.
00:57:36
Speaker
Yeah, very good. Yeah. I was, I was homeschooled and up until high school and I thought it was a good way to spend a, spend my hours ah as opposed to in some elementary school somewhere. All right. And I guess the one other thing is you can get
Closing and Listener Engagement
00:57:50
Speaker
both the paperback and the ebook on Amazon. So it's real cheap. I haven't raised prices despite inflation. So it's 12 bucks for the paperback and 9.99 for the book. Perfect. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining. My pleasure. Great talking to you.
00:58:06
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more.
00:58:25
Speaker
Stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyer.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.