Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry:
Hello and welcome to Chasing the Viathan. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here with Dr. Lixing Tseng, distinguished research professor of animal behavior, ecology and evolution in the biological sciences department. And Dr. Lixing, it's wonderful to have you here today.
Lixing:
Thank you very much, PJ. It's wonderful to talk with you.
PJ Wehry:
Now tell me where did the idea for this book come from?
Lixing:
Oh, the idea has been, it's a long history.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah,
Lixing:
Oh,
PJ Wehry:
sure.
Lixing:
I always enjoy nature. And I studied, I have been studying this animal mimicry, camouflage, communication, sexual selection. One common theme is they all cheat. They
PJ Wehry:
Hahaha!
Lixing:
all cheat. So, well, so a few years ago, that was six, seven years ago, I met a Princeton University Press Editor and she said, well, why not write a book for us? I said, what to write? I said, well, probably I have two. One is cheating, the other is about monkeys. And she said,
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
well, cheating sounds more interesting. So
PJ Wehry:
Gotcha.
Lixing:
I had a wonderful time working on that until... until we have this new president who was not afraid of doing these things. So I suddenly felt, well, gosh, that topic is far more than I thought. So I gradually ventured into your expertise that is philosophy and the social consequences, philosophical issues about that.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
That as a result, That is the last chapter. And so far, not many people have appreciated that. But actually, that is the most creative part of it. I challenged the count about his, what is the default promise that nobody should cheat. I challenged his promise. And I worked on consequential list. ideas as to how we can deal with cheating. So this is probably the most important part, but so far no reviewers, no people have ever talked with me about that. I'm glad that you bring that up.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, so and let me say so it's the liars of nature and the nature of liars from Princeton University Press. Can you talk to us a little bit before we jump into that last chapter that's obviously important to you. About the kind of evolutionary psychological side of it.
Lixing:
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's all evolutionary psychology, but it's evolutionary biology and the psychology combined. And basically, they share a common origin anyway. It's called a social biology, but nobody talks about that anymore after E.L. Wilson died last year. So it's basically about how we use evolutionary theory or theories to approach to the cheating issue. So
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
everything comes together in light of evolution. As to how cheating could evolve, why cheating is just in every organism possible, you see as a strategic option. So from the lowest level of viruses cheat, bacteria cheat. and the genes cheat, the chromosome cheat, cells cheat, all the way to plants, the organisms, brainless to the most sophisticated animals such as whales, dolphins, and humans, of course, and
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
primates and humans, of course.
PJ Wehry:
Well, yeah, we know that humans cheat for sure. So explain to me, what is your definition of cheating? Because I'm sure most people are asking right now, how does a blind or brainless cell cheat?
Lixing:
Yeah, cheating is basically during the communication part of it. When animals talk to each other, talk is... It can be seeing each other, could be hearing each other, could be sniffing each other, but when animals communicate, there's always, you know, there is a possibility for one animal to emit false information. So
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
that is cheating. But also, I actually define cheating in a different way. Cheating actually, there are two kinds that's corresponding to the tongue in cheek, the first law and second law of cheating. Basically I refer to first law as during the communication one animal or one organism, typically animal, sends out false information that would benefit to itself while at the cost of the recipient. So that's during the communication you send out. false information rather than honest information. The other one is deception. Deception is very different. Deception is based on taking advantage of another organism's, typically animals, another animal's cognitive weakness, cognitive bias, for example. And in humans, we all know that in terms of color, we are more sensitive to red color. than to any other color and that's the reason stop signs, traffic lights, all use red as stop which is more important right and during the Cultural Revolution in China if you know that one there was a time because the red color is related to communism movement right and they actually decided to switch red and green. The red as go and green as stop, turned out to be there were more accidents.
PJ Wehry:
Hahaha
Lixing:
So they were forced to switch back. But also in stock market, for example, when people make money and in Hong Kong, for example, red means the market goes up, you make money, which is good. The green means the market goes down, which means you lose money. So yeah, these kind of symbolic, but market may be okay, but when you switch traffic lights, that is problematic. So
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
yeah, we all have these biases and weaknesses. For example, we cannot hear ultrasound. We cannot feel infrared, for example. And these are the areas that we could be easily fooled. Commercials even based on our preference, for example. The commercials typically use this kind of deception. For example, you go to a local market, you pick up a meat product, it says 95% fat free. Actually it is what? It is 5% fat.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
So the commercials, the people in this advertisement try to appeal to the kind of positive biases. so as to promote their product. Pretty much all commercials are like that. And it's legal. See now you see the difference. Deception is mostly legal while lying is not. Lying is not because if something does not work, you say it's working. That is lying. And it is liable.
PJ Wehry:
Yes, yes. I mean, so my day job is I'm a digital marketer. So when you talk about, I mean, these kind of classic things like, why don't we charge, you know, $7 or something, we charge $6.99. It's because
Lixing:
Exactly.
PJ Wehry:
we're taking advantage of these, these cognitive biases.
Lixing:
Yeah.
PJ Wehry:
Uh, um, can you like, I'm still fascinated and I'd love to work my way up the chain as it were. Um, If you're willing to do that, how do two blind, um, Cells like how would how would they emit false information? How does that work?
Lixing:
You mean cells.
PJ Wehry:
Yes
Lixing:
One good example is treating in cells is cancer cells.
PJ Wehry:
Okay?
Lixing:
Cells have the so-called pre-programmed death. So when a cell is born, it is already, it's fate is already determined because the genes control the cell. You do the work and you die as needed. But cancer cells are not. Cancer cells cheat their death. They refuse to die. They keep, they actually, there is, there are mutations that overrun, that's programmed. pre-programmed cell death and so that these cancer cells keep producing, keep replication, and keep surviving without dying. So that is one of the most important cases is the Hela cell, which is nowadays you can find in all major cancer research centers all over the world. Their cell or these cells are originally from an African American woman who died of cervic cervical cancer in 1953. Yet her cell, helicell, continues to exist. So they called immortal cells. So these
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
cells basically by changing some kind of mechanisms by mutation they cheat their fate.
PJ Wehry:
So, and how does that line up with the kind of emitting false info side of things? That they're cheating death.
Lixing:
It's the... you have pre-programmed genetic wiring that eventually will, for example, after 50 generations, the cells die. Most of our body cells are like that, after 50 generations
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
are dead. And that's the reason our longevity is limited,
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
because you have to fight these limited number of generations. But some mutations will actually change. these programming
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
and they keep going on. So which basically means cell reproduction out of control. These are
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
rogue cells.
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
When they are out of control, they take over everything of your
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
body and that's the way we die.
PJ Wehry:
But if we could become, yeah, nevermind. Immediately my mind is like, well, if the cancer cells can become immortal, if we could become cancer, but that's probably not a viable solution. To live forever, right? Like,
Lixing:
Well, the solution is that if
PJ Wehry:
yeah.
Lixing:
we can find the way they cheat,
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
we can outsmart them. And that's
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
now is a new philosophy of medical research against cancer.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm. Hmm. Fascinating.
Lixing:
So
PJ Wehry:
And so.
Lixing:
basically we fight cancer by fight cheating
PJ Wehry:
So as we talk about, as we kind of move up, you know, the cover, you have bugs on the cover here. Talk to me, like, how does that evolve as it goes further up the chain? When you talk about what's an example in the animal kingdom of this kind of cheating.
Lixing:
Well, it's because it is a strategic option. Cheating is always a strategic option. When everybody, for any species, for example, when everybody is honest, there is always a niche for profiting from being dishonest. So that's the reason. Whenever you have a communication in whatever way it is, there is always a possibility for some individuals to be dishonest. to cheat and benefit more for themselves while at the cost of others.
PJ Wehry:
And is that kind of what you call in chapter two the hackers and suckers, right? The ones
Lixing:
Yes,
PJ Wehry:
that...
Lixing:
yes exactly, exactly.
PJ Wehry:
And so what are the advantages, you know, and then chapter three you get into eavesdroppers, imposters, and con artists. Do you mind just walking us through those concepts? So I think we understand that like they're the ones who the ones who cheat and the ones who get cheated, right? The cheaters and the cheated, the hackers and the suckers. What does eavesdropping and imposters, what does that teach us about?
Lixing:
The eavesdropping is basically wiretapping of others' private conversation.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
For example, you can have two individuals talking to each other and another two animals say it's probably easier for us to connect. Two animals are communicating with each other and a third one comes in and takes advantage of their communication weakness. For example, the most obvious is this cuckoo. Cuckoo,
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
yeah, the cuckoo probably would be the best example. You have a most typically a warbler. Warblers make a nest. Warblers don't know their eggs. So basically, they follow a rule that is everything in... every round object in my nest are my chicks whatever coming out are my chicks so this is kind of very rough rule but cuckoos actually lay eggs and their eggs mimic the warbler eggs in their nest so as to break in the warbler's cognitive system so now you see this is the sort of like a use job
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
using your weakness for their benefit so that's the way they can successfully parasitize on woeful nest making woeful as their free nanny.
PJ Wehry:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And as you're sitting here and you're talking about this, you talk about as a strategical option. What's the other option? You know, you talk about Chapter Four, infidelity and the rise of honesty. I mean, the other option is cooperation, right? Is
Lixing:
Yes.
PJ Wehry:
being honest to work together. Can you talk a little bit about what the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches?
Lixing:
being honest is working together that is always advantageous to all the parties involved. However, natural selection does not work on that level. Natural selection works on individual level. For example, you and I, we are talking to each other and we try to make this program available and improve the quality of it. if you get more from me so it's a relative you see that if it's a relative you if you get more from me i would feel that's unfair
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lixing:
so i have the sort of although both of us uh would benefit from cooperation but if i get less from the from the cooperation and you get more now suddenly you have
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
It makes me worse, so I would refuse
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
to cooperate, right? So,
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
it's about the relative benefit. It's not absolute benefit all the time. That's the reason, for example, if we spent $100, I give you $10 and I keep $90. You would feel... Betrayed and although in the nine ten dollars a far better than nothing
PJ Wehry:
Right. Right.
Lixing:
But because the the spirit is on fear then you you will refuse to cooperate with me and this kind of scenario is called the automaton game and It's it's it's discussed often By philosophers as well as well. Yeah, it's it's
PJ Wehry:
Yeah,
Lixing:
about fairness
PJ Wehry:
I've heard of it before, and it's kind of interesting because you do have some people will, but it's rare, will just choose the absolute value, right? But that's a very difficult choice to make. Like, that's not the way that we're wired.
Lixing:
That's right. It's we are wider for relative fitness or relative benefit. And that is also the reason. I wrote an article for the Time Magazine. I tried to find why monkeys, apes, non-human monkeys and apes, as brainy as they are, they never are. develop anything like they can have large scale cooperation. Multiple monkey or ape groups work together to build, for example, a great wall or even a cobblestone road that would be easier for them to travel. They don't
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
do that. The reason being why? Because they don't do that. Although
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
they are smart, but they don't do that. Why? Because they don't do that. For their view, it is whether they can profit from cooperation. And they use cooperation as often as deception. So they do cheating and cooperate all the time. They are free to do. So which means when cheating is not controlled, the benefit of cooperation will not prevail. Although the opposite of cooperation is huge, and that is human civilization, right? We have been on the rise in terms of cooperation from small tribe, within tribe to among different tribes to villages, to towns, to cities, to nation, to the global level. And that is fundamentally cooperation. The opposite is unlimited. But if you
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
just look at, for example, how much I can get from that and you are free to do cooperation as well as to do cheating and then people would not be willing to cooperate because it's all about zero-sum game. You gain and I lose and I gain, you lose.
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
So that is the major stage of our civilization that we found a way to control. dishonesty, to control cheating, so that the truth can prevail. When truth can prevail, cooperation is not intimidated. Cooperation actually is incentivized, encouraged. Suddenly you find, wow, our civilization blooms.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm. And so is it is it honesty, the rise of honesty that is the catalyst for innovation?
Lixing:
Oh, of course, without that, what you can build? It's
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
all about zero sum game. I gain, you lose. It's just like that. That's the reason you ask chimpanzees, you ask gorillas. What else they could do? The best they could do is what? Tool use, a stem of grass, so they could use to fish for termites, and rock use, and... learn for seven years of how to maneuver two rocks to crack nuts. And that's
PJ Wehry:
So.
Lixing:
it.
PJ Wehry:
So part of your thesis, like a major part of your thesis here, is this idea that it's not so much that flat difference in IQ between humans and chimpanzees, as it is the social IQ that has allowed humans to escape the prisoner's game.
Lixing:
That's exactly the social
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
IQ is a solution for cooperation. And not only so, we need these legal moral systems so as to control the downside of manipulation. These are sort of like a zero sum manipulation. If we can control that, if we can control dishonesty and the truth can prevail and knowledge accumulates. And our cooperation gets bigger and bigger because the incentive goes up for large scale cooperation. So that is important. Although you know, you think of Ching Pan Zee, whenever I watch Ching Pan Zee, I'm always amazed by their intelligence. I'm always amazed by how much they can understand. I love these short video clips from YouTube or from TikTok. And this is just always amazing to see some episodes that are, they are so humanly, yet they never arrive at the stage of, we can call civilization, no way. Even they are inferior to ants.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
You think about ants, some of the ants could build millions of them huddled together to build an ant raft, to survive the flood. and there are ants that could build, army ants could build bridges to cross these canopy, for example, and these leaf-cutting ants actually have their own agriculture. They cut leaves and use their leaves to grow fungi, which are their crops, the sort of their mushrooms, and they live on these mushrooms together, and I mean they also use antibiotics. to kill off these fungi and bacteria that infest their crops. And
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
that is amazing.
PJ Wehry:
Right. Yeah, I mean, that's one of those things my kids love watching documentaries on bugs, and one of them is ants. And ants are one of, if not the most successful species on the planet. The amount of ants on the earth are insane, and it's largely due to what you're talking about.
Lixing:
Yeah, there is more, a recent article published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Science indicates that there are far more ants than we previously estimated.
PJ Wehry:
Really?
Lixing:
Yeah, they are one of the most successful groups. But of course, each ant colony are mostly genetically related, so the blood is thicker. then water works out in these situations. But in apes and monkeys, which we are part of the member, they do not have this large scale kinship. So
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
we have to work on cooperation with non-king members.
PJ Wehry:
And that's when you even as you're talking about the ants will form a raft in a flood to survive together But chimpanzees won't work together apart from maybe like their children To save each other is that would that be a correct way to talk about this?
Lixing:
Yeah, that's equivalent of saving their children, for example.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
But, you know, their group size is so small, the members only mostly interact with each other within their group, which is about a few dozen individuals. So that kind of small scale cooperation will not lead you to work on major projects such as build a, build a Notre Dame for example. There's
PJ Wehry:
Right,
Lixing:
no
PJ Wehry:
right.
Lixing:
way you can do that.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah. Yeah. And also will limit the growth of things like language because you don't have to you don't have to communicate across vast differences, right? Like
Lixing:
Yes, exactly. That's a great point. Language communication is for using for large-scale communication. But within the family, you can have gesture. That's
PJ Wehry:
Yeah,
Lixing:
enough. That's
PJ Wehry:
right.
Lixing:
enough. Or
PJ Wehry:
I
Lixing:
the
PJ Wehry:
mean.
Lixing:
facial expression gesture, that's enough.
PJ Wehry:
I mean, this is where we see like, you know, among twins, because they're so close, and if they're just worked on cooperating, they'll create a private language, right? But not,
Lixing:
Yeah.
PJ Wehry:
yeah, maybe I don't know if that exactly I don't
Lixing:
That's
PJ Wehry:
know if
Lixing:
a
PJ Wehry:
that.
Lixing:
great point. I haven't thought about it.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah,
Lixing:
Now
PJ Wehry:
anyways,
Lixing:
you see,
PJ Wehry:
I.
Lixing:
that's a spark. You talk with people who have different backgrounds.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is really fascinating to me. I've never, um, I have an approach like evolutionary biology and psychology together. I've talked to maybe a few people about this on this show, but it's just, it's such an open field for me and I always learn something every time. So thank you again for, for come on the show. Um, I, you talk here about, and this is fascinating to me because your definitions have emitting false info for your benefit over the other entity. or taking advantage of the other person's bias, you know, or other entities' bias. But then in chapter seven, you have the liars who lie to themselves. How does that work?
Lixing:
Oh, that's a wonderful topic. We always have better feeling about, I should not say always, we typically, most people always have higher self esteem for themselves than they really are. So that's the kind of issue that was actually observed by many people, but nobody really got into. answer the question why until this guy by the name of Robert Travers in the 1980s he was the first actual biologist
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
who looked into that issue and came up with the explanation that is well they really needed because why because when you cheat the problem is it's not easy to cheat because
PJ Wehry:
Hahaha!
Lixing:
you try to tell a story that is differently If you try to tell a story that is different from what it really is, what really you know and it's hard, right? Because you always suffer the Freudian slip.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
That is being a hypocrite. It's not easy either.
PJ Wehry:
Right, right.
Lixing:
I once worked as a bilingual interpreter in a conference.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
Turned out to be because I was fluent in both English and Chinese.
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
I could speak very fluently but only with one language at a time. If I had to switch back and forth the two languages really crossed. I realized it was hard because I was thinking probably in English but I had to speak in Chinese or vice versa and
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
frequently so the kind of switching mode modes are not fast enough. So my mind was totally crossed. It's the same thing we have this mental load when we try to tell a false story while we know it is different. So Bob Chirvers was saying that you see if you can fool yourself you actually can fool other people better because
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
you suppress the kind of reality you only tell one story, you will not suffer that kind of internal mental conflict. And so he calls it cognitive load. So the
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
cognitive load is not exist existing and you can cheat better. And even if people poke down on you, you are lying, you are cheating and you realize well I believe that's the case. You are innocent. You will not lose social credit. So that's the, there's only one upside. There's only one upside without downside, no matter what you do. So being fool yourself, you can fool other people better. So that was his interpretation. And later on in the 90s, two Cornell University professors professors, actually one was student I believe, Dunning and Kruger, tested the psychology students. You know, psychology students are always guinea pigs, right?
PJ Wehry:
Right, right.
Lixing:
Always guinea pigs. So, vast number of psychological studies are done on psychology students because that's the way they get credit. So, they tested on students they found that the good performers tended to be more realistic near what they do and what they are, what they believe they are. So they gave the kind of tests and graded their performance, but before they reveal the results to the students, they asked the students to rate themselves.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
So the poor performers tended to rate far higher. then the reality was
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
incognito ability, in some other skills and all these things. So they were surprised that the worse people are, the higher they rank themselves, so they are deceiving themselves in a way. So that is also the case for Americans, for example, 90% of Americans believe they are better than average drivers.
PJ Wehry:
Yes, I've heard that stat, yes.
Lixing:
Yeah, and they are better in social skills.
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
Right? 90% of them are better in social skills.
PJ Wehry:
than the average, like something's not, yeah, yeah.
Lixing:
Yeah, that's right. And teachers and professors believe 80% or 90% of them believe they are better than average.
PJ Wehry:
Mwahahahaha
Lixing:
And doctors believe they are better than average. Stockbrokers,
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
lawyers, always think they are better than average, you know, so many of them. So we know that the quality of the service we receive actually should be highly discounted.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, and this is the role of excuses, right? Like,
Lixing:
Yeah!
PJ Wehry:
people will look at real indicators of success, right? If you get a number you're not comfortable with, you'll have an excuse for why it doesn't match up with your internal representation, right?
Lixing:
Absolutely, absolutely. And the interesting thing is women tend to be statistically, not individually, but statistically, tend to be more realistic
PJ Wehry:
Ha!
Lixing:
than men. Although they also tend to fall victim to the so-called Dunning-Kerruger effect. Basically, it's overrate yourself,
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
overrate yourself. So that's always the case. So if we want to be are more realistic, ask your spouses,
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
ask your female friends, they may give you a better injection of reality.
PJ Wehry:
Oh man, my wife is really gonna like this episode.
Lixing:
Hahaha!
PJ Wehry:
As you're talking about this, it's really fascinating to me because even in philosophical literature, religious literature, psychological literature, there does seem to be habits formed about lying and truth telling, and that's why it's important to, you think about someone like Marcus Aurelius in Meditations, he talks about always tell the truth because eventually you'll believe your own lies and that kind of seems to be uh i'd never put it together that the reason that people who lie a lot tend to eventually believe their own lies is to reduce the cognitive load Is that like does that all connect together my understanding you correctly?
Lixing:
Yeah, that's right. I actually can give you some statistics actually.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
Being self-esteem is so important
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
and some poor performers reject reality while cling for self-deception. And normally that's okay unless, for example, you are in the critically important field such as, for example, you invest. your investment advisor for example and then invest in the company when you lose money and you try to fool yourself by believing that well a market must be wrong, I'm correct, you lose more and that is the kind of situation you need to self-criticism to
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
pull yourself out. And that is more important. You realize that you are wrong and that is wrong. Your loss is made and it losses loss. You move on seeking for greener pastures. And there are some other places you can make the money back rather than you got stuck with a losing position. I mean, this is consequential, but most of the time it's not a problem. It's not a problem. However, people who live in the complete reality actually faces, tend to face more challenges. Face more challenges because everything, when they are good, they are good, but when they are not good, you know, we cannot be good in every field. We all know that. We have our strengths and weaknesses. But if you only see your weakness all the time, you feel depressed.
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
depressed people tend to be more realistic when they are not statistically. Statistically, I don't know the connection okay here. When you become more, whether it is because you are more realistic and you feel depressed or the depression makes you more realistic. But this is the kind of area we can ask more questions and pursue
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
more scientific research in especially psychology.
PJ Wehry:
Correlation's a lot easier to establish than causation.
Lixing:
Yeah, that's absolutely the case.
PJ Wehry:
Right, right, right, that makes sense.
Lixing:
So at least we can see that it's probably being overly realistic is not that good, right? We
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
all need a little bit of self-esteem, even at times it is unrealistic. So that kind of part of our mentality is always with us. probably critical for our survival. So we can actually look into that issue more from evolutionary perspective, why we tend to be a little bit of, more or less of narcissistic.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
So narcissism
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
may not be all bad after all.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lixing:
It's just too much and now we are in trouble.
PJ Wehry:
Right, right. Even as you're talking about this, I remember hearing, and I don't know if it's the only area, but one of the main areas that pessimists beat optimists is in the area of gambling, because the optimist will always assume they're going to win or their luck is going to turn, and a pessimist, if they lose, they're afraid they're going to keep losing, but if they win, they just want to take their winnings and run because they know their luck's going to change.
Lixing:
Hehehehe
PJ Wehry:
And so I don't know, I'm trying to make connections here and that's really interesting to see. There are clear cases where confidence can help you, maybe even being overconfident, but where confidence also can hurt you. How does this play into competition? So for instance, like when you're facing an opponent and you think if the opponent's better than you, is it better to be more realistic or more overconfident?
Lixing:
That's a good one. Unless you have to assess the possible consequence. That's
PJ Wehry:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Lixing:
what I would do. I would do. If you have a gun, I would not compete with you if I don't have anything.
PJ Wehry:
Right, right.
Lixing:
So if you are a lot larger physically, clearly most, clearly stronger than I am, I would, nothing else. We just have bare fists. And I would not engage in the competition, physical competition with you. But
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
otherwise, if for example, some of the less consequential things or the consequences are harder to estimate, and then
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
it's better for you to try
PJ Wehry:
Ah, yes.
Lixing:
and assess along the way, right? And having the kind of strong confidence will benefit you because... Probably it's just a little bit of your consequence of conflict consequence and that will make a huge difference between winning and losing. So I think this is part of the evolutionary process. Why overconfidence is often selected. But of course I discussed about some of the modern societies, these fatal, large scale deadly consequences that were not associated with our tribal societies.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
in the Stone Age, for example. And these
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
are the kind of things our human weaknesses cannot really overcome. So
PJ Wehry:
And
Lixing:
we
PJ Wehry:
what
Lixing:
need
PJ Wehry:
would those
Lixing:
a
PJ Wehry:
be?
Lixing:
system. Yeah, most of the air crashes are due to overconfidence.
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
Yeah. But that would never happen in a Stone Age society.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm. Why? Why wouldn't that happen? Oh, because there's no airplanes. Sorry. I
Lixing:
That's
PJ Wehry:
thought it was
Lixing:
right.
PJ Wehry:
a psychological
Lixing:
That's right. So the way our mind, our mind is built is different
PJ Wehry:
Yeah
Lixing:
from the society we're living. So this kind
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
of mismatch shows us some of the weaknesses that we have to be aware of
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
and try to overcome.
PJ Wehry:
So for instance, in a Stone Age society, it might be fatal for you to misjudge a jump, right? But most of the time, if you miss a jump, you're just gonna get hurt. But if you miss with an airplane, you're gonna die, right? And so is everyone who is in the airplane.
Lixing:
Yeah, and everybody else, yes.
PJ Wehry:
Yes, yes.
Lixing:
There is one thing in psychology nowadays they call the behavioral economics. One
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
rule in behavioral economics which is I believe is absolutely should be aware of for everybody is that whenever something goes wrong, you do not fix people, you fix the system.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
Now you see because people are built based on pretty much on a stone age situation. But nowadays you will see some of the decision-making processes don't work well is because we're no longer living in these kind of all the time and then you need a new system to prevent making that kind of that kind of decisions. So that's the reason you fix the system. Do not try to fix people's errors.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's very difficult to fix people. It's easier to fix systems, generally speaking.
Lixing:
That's exactly it is, yeah.
PJ Wehry:
So you wanted to get to the last chapter. I wanna be respectful of your time. So talk to me a little bit about living with lies and deception and this kind of consequentialist framework that you have kind of mapped out.
Lixing:
Yeah, this is a topic that you would love to hear. We have been told since very young age, cheating is bad. We should be honest, absolutely. And we use George Washington as an example, George Washington cannot lie. I cannot lie. And of course that's part of it was real, part of it was pretty much spinning. But at least we have a model to learn from. And that is actually is wrong because if you are too honest to living in our society, which means you communicate the honest information, you will hurt a lot of people. While
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
you yourself get hurt as well. So I call it the perils of honesty. Of honesty. For example, why lies are absolutely necessary. It is a confirmation to other people that my intention is good. I say PJ. you look very good and your voice is really good. I mean partly it is true and partly it may not be true at the same time but you feel good at it. You feel good at it and you would see me as a friend or at least friendly as a potential
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
ally and you see me as a good person as well and you feel well you feel good so it's a winning situation.
PJ Wehry:
Mm.
Lixing:
But if I say PJ, hey PJ, you are getting old, you are balding, you look sickly when I meet you and I don't know you really a lot. And you look at me, who's that guy? Who do you think you are? You know, that kind of thing. And you suddenly have this what? Distrust,
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
disrespect and all these
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
things. So actually we need the lies. to confirm our good intention. And we keep telling these lies, these white lies, I call it pro-social. I call it pro-social lies. Because it's other concerning. I make you feel good, and you have a wonderful day. And you have a good feeling about me as well. So I get the social credit, I get trust from you, and you feel good, and
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
we build a friendship.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
And we confirm each other. Every time I meet you, PJ, you look good. You are great. You can do it. And all these positive things. Yeah. But if you tell truth all the time, it's brutal. It's brutal.
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
So these
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
kind of white lies, pro-social lies, are absolutely necessary. So I negate Emmanuel Kant's position that you cannot lie. I think that is... are not working in our society. I actually find that the deontological position is
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
not acceptable. And we evolve as consequentialist. We
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
assess benefit and cost for
PJ Wehry:
Mm.
Lixing:
us and for others all the time. Rather than we stick to a certain rule, we believe that is we must stick to, that is wrong. And probably it's good for academic discussion or for court. because you needed to follow a strict logic. But for it is not the kind of, at least mostly not the situation our brain evolved in. So I think that is, of course, Kant did not know evolution, and did not know how our brain works. And of course, in a way that he proposed a very strict approach to communication of truth versus non-truth. That is understandable, and but it's not realistic. And so I actually separate three kinds of lies. Pro-socialized should be encouraged actually not to control, and self-serving lies, which means I benefit from it, but will not hurt you. Their lie is acceptable. And that kind of lie is is yes, libel, deception, cheating.
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
And that kind of cheating is pretty much the basis of commercial advertisements.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
The companies, the products get exposure and sell more, but without hurting. Actually
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
slightly benefiting the consumers because they know what it is, but they may not realize there is some water there, the whole some water. But then you have this anti-social lie that is benefiting the the cheater or anti-social cheating that is benefiting the cheater while at the cost of the potential recipients. And that kind of lie is exactly we want to control. And
PJ Wehry:
Right.
Lixing:
that lie is at least it's minor, it's not acceptable, but in terms of major way it's criminal.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, right. I mean, you're intentionally harming the other person through communication. So I'm looking at this and as you talk about these pro-social lies, and you kind of mentioned this, if you came up and told the bald truth, it would be brutal. It'd be tiring. But part of it too is, and you mentioned at the beginning, that if I didn't know you and you came up and started telling the truth, but some of this is you think making these or creating these pro-socialize can create the goodwill that leads you to be able to talk about the truth. Is that part of the goal of pro-social?
Lixing:
Yeah, pro-social is, we know that among strangers, people don't criticize each other in a superficial way. But among good friends, friends tell each other, well, this may not make you look good. For example, that is a mild criticism, but actually is helping your friends. But between two strangers, at least in American culture, people don't criticize. So people avoid criticizing each other. When I started writing for books, for example, that was 20 years ago. That was the longest kind of skill I began to build. I learned my harder way. I asked everybody, my friends,
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
some of them are not so close, to criticize my writing. And everybody said, well, your writing is fantastic, great.
PJ Wehry:
Ha ha
Lixing:
And
PJ Wehry:
ha!
Lixing:
every time I submit... I got rejected and a few rounds I began to realize that just the people did not want to offer their criticism in case of hurting my feeling. Hurting my feeling. So now you see if I have a close friend who was a good writer at that time, I could have written like five more books already. So it took a while, a few years for me to realize my... weaknesses and then it began to turn upwards so my writings have been increasingly more common and suddenly this cheating book, the Liars of Nature book actually became popular
PJ Wehry:
Mm.
Lixing:
because I have to solve my writing ability first but I was living in my own lie for so many years So, I mean, it would be so much nicer if I had a few close friends who would criticize me 20 years ago.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, right. And you can't trust a stranger's opinion. And so that's why if
Lixing:
That's
PJ Wehry:
you don't
Lixing:
another
PJ Wehry:
want to just
Lixing:
thing,
PJ Wehry:
say,
Lixing:
yes.
PJ Wehry:
right. So yeah, I could see. The other thing, and I'm curious about this, you talk about these pro-social lies. And right, you don't want to come up and say, you know, oh, You look sickly, balding, ugly, whatever, you know. But if someone is those things, and some of this is good manners seems to be that you are, almost seems like you're defining manners as someone who is good at deceiving. Because you can't, if you walk up to someone and you completely lie, if they're very sick, and you're like, wow, you look really good, then they'll, that doesn't work either, right? Um...
Lixing:
No, that's, that's, if you meet that kind of people, this is actually cultural or society specific.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
Different societies have different standard of being socially acceptable way of lying versus honest dishonesty. That's always,
PJ Wehry:
Okay.
Lixing:
I have been telling my kids, my kids, as I have written in my book, my kids are way more honest than they really should. So
PJ Wehry:
Ha ha!
Lixing:
as a result, they are being under-setting themselves.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
Under-setting themselves. Because people judge other people whether this person is honest or not. It's not based on whether you tell the truth or not. It's based on the societal standard of
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
this is acceptable, this is not. If everybody sends out a partially polished... slightly exaggerated resume and that is the resume people would consider and accept. If you send out the resume, honestly you list 10 of your weaknesses, nobody would give you an offer, right? No God body would give you a job offer because you only list your weaknesses without promoting your strengths and that is the peril, part of the peril of honesty. we have to follow the societal standard and we encourage the these pro-socialized while try to control the anti-socialized. So you could see that without separating these three kinds of lies or cheating in general because it also includes deception.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
So if we can do not tell you three kinds of cheating and really It's just that we are creating a very cruel society for ourselves.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
And not to mention that people are not trained to prevent being taken advantage of. That
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
is, I talked about the children's development. Children must be trained to deal with adult world of these lies and deceptions. So that's
PJ Wehry:
Mmm.
Lixing:
the reason you play peekaboo with kids, you play last dice, you play hide and seek. These are all deceptions.
PJ Wehry:
Mmm.
Lixing:
And the magic of it, for example, these are all deceptions. But you actually use these tricks to train children to be prepared to tell honesty from dishonesty in the adult world. Otherwise, these children will not do well.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
Yeah, they often fall victim of not only cheating but also criminal cheating.
PJ Wehry:
Right. What we call naive, right?
Lixing:
Exactly,
PJ Wehry:
Uh,
Lixing:
naivety.
PJ Wehry:
gullible.
Lixing:
And there's
PJ Wehry:
Yes.
Lixing:
one kind of people by the name of probably I have not talked about this one in the book
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
Because the book is concise
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
which I could write that book into like a 400 pages, but the
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
Princeton University would like to see a shorter book Some people some readers don't like it
PJ Wehry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lixing:
So there is one case of a special genetic people with genetic defect called Williams syndrome. These people have a big chunk of DNA missing from the chromosome number seven in their body. So including about two dozen, slightly over two dozen of genes missing in one of the chromosomes. So what happens was that these people are super friendly they see each other see other people as trustworthy everybody everybody they are super nice super social but the problem with them is that they are always now they have no ability to tell people are fooling them people are cheating cheating them or not so being super nice now you see it is a world that is not the kind of world we would live in. And these people often have to be protected. Why? Because if I got this kind of Williams syndrome or with the 25, 26 of the genes missing in my chromosome number seven, you tell me, write me a check of $1 million, I will do it. You see, this is exactly, I fall victim so easily. So it's in our genes as well, and now to be ready to defend for ourselves, to protect ourselves in terms of learning these tricks, learning there are honest people in the world, most of them, while there are dishonest people in the world. And that is critically important for children to be integrated into the adult world over time.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm. Yeah. Well, one, that's fascinating. And I've really enjoyed this conversation. As we kind of wrap up here, what is one takeaway you would leave for our audience?
Lixing:
One takeaway is that we should value truth as much as possible
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
by controlling the specific type of cheating that is anti-social cheating and If we can control anti-social cheating we can build a better society. We can protect people from falling into victims, especially senior citizens. Senior
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
citizens are the most vulnerable. Why? Because their cognitive abilities are in decline and they are easy for them. It is easy for them to fall victim to new scams, especially
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
digital scams.
PJ Wehry:
Yeah.
Lixing:
So this is something that we can do and also we have to control this information. I actually made suggested a proposal for Google
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
to
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
actually control these self-media. for spinning these lies to attract more fans, more followers, by providing sort of kind of ranking system in terms of honesty, and then ties that to the kind of profit-sharing program, especially, for example, the kind of consequential issues such as our political system, our election,
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
our health. information about health for example. And you know what, I have not written in the book, but for those who during the COVID pandemic, for those who get double dosage of vaccines,
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
actually is far less likely to die. Actually for those who believe in this anti-vaccination campaign, actually these people who did not accept this kind of vaccination and they are 14 times more likely to die.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
So regardless of their political beliefs, we would like to see far more of these specialist senior folks could live with us, including some of our friends and loved ones,
PJ Wehry:
Mm-hmm.
Lixing:
could have survived if there would be no anti-vaccine campaigns.
PJ Wehry:
Hmm.
Lixing:
So you can see it's consequential as well.
PJ Wehry:
Right, right. Dr. Lixing, it's been an absolute honor having you on today. Thank you for coming on.
Lixing:
Thank you so much, PJ.