Escaping the Narrative

Scott and Shawn talk about ways to interact more productively in the public discourse. It's all about doing the hard work of interacting with other people!

What is 2 Parachutes Podcast?

The Two Parachutes Podcast is a collaboration, well, more like a conversation, between a CEO and an FBI Agent. Shawn Baker-Garcia and Scott Olson first met when they were working at US Embassy Baghdad; Scott for the FBI and Shawn for the US State Department. Over the years they’ve worked together, given advice and assistance to each other, and now see that the synergy which comes from open, civil, and thoughtful discussion is very much needed in the modern discourse. Join them as they dive into everything interesting to humanity. The goal of 2PP is to recreate the experience most people have had when they stumble into an insightful conversation with a new acquaintance at a conference or a dinner party. The kind of conversation that makes the rest of the room stop talking and listen. The kind of conversation that gets your mind working as new thoughts tumble out. Let the 2 Parachutes Podcast drop into your world!

Scott: 00:03

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of the 2 Parachutes Podcast. I am one of your co hosts. I'm Scott Olson, and I am together, as always with the other co host who is Shawn Baker Garcia. Shawn, how are you?

Shawn: 00:18

I'm doing fantastic, Scott. Thanks so much.

Scott: 00:22

Awesome. Well, today, we are thinking about how to get out of the narrative and part of that is as you're participating in the public discourse I think is the term we're using these days, part of getting out of the narrative is how do you get out of the fight And I wonder what what your thinking is on on how to escape the narrative, how to maybe not get pulled into the river and and swept along with the current, which is interesting because we're the two parachutes podcast, and we recognize that when you jump out of the plane and pop your chute, you're gonna get pushed by the wind. But Yeah. What's your thinking in ways that that people can establish a little bit of control so that they could be more productive about participating in the discourse or at least not to be driven crazy by what they see in the discourse?

Shawn: 01:20

It's a great question, Scott. And, you know, just to provide the audience or listeners a little bit of context, you and I have a lot of conversations off line and, you know, that are non recorded, or that we record and then choose not to publish. And so a lot of what this 2 Parachutes Podcast is attempting to do is serve as a conduit for telling, not telling, showing all of us about, you know, how can we all do the hard work of interacting in a way that helps us to broaden understanding, have better relationships, better conversations, you know, to expand our thinking while focusing our sort of, you know, positions on any given thing in life. Where this whole idea of getting trapped by, you know, the public narrative or within broader discourse. So if you're in the middle of an online interaction and, you know, these days everything seems to be politicized, there's either a right or a left, you know, wing sort of response or reaction to it, which is why Scott also said, how do you get out of the fight?

Shawn: 02:31

It's not, you know, how do you get out of the break the narrative? And what we mean is sort of like where there is a, you know, artificial binary narrative where it's you're either with us or against us or you're for this or you're for that, which then necessarily usually is in some way, kind of conveyed as or perceived as a fight like, you know, because that creates a very us versus them mentality. And so in doing the hard work of interacting, is in keeping with our podcast, mission objective, it's sort of becoming, is to think about this. You know, most of us spend our days, you know, doing a fair amount of like professional or social interaction online. We see, you know, a lot of traditional as well as social media that we're consuming, which is, you know, putting out, you know, clickbait headlines and, you know, reels that are designed to, you know, sort of weaponize or, you know, compress conflict, you know, in some way.

Shawn: 03:34

And so Scott and I got to talking because, I don't know Scott, we should. So my example was the whole halftime and this is kind of timely, although by the time this publishes and people see it, it might not be anymore. What I was calling to mind was I thought it was very funny that if all you had was media to understand what was happening in the world and you focused on the Super Bowl halftime show as a sort of subset of society and culture, There's really two narratives that kind of emanated from that sort of phenomena. One, the folks on the 8% fringe on the right where basically it's anti American or it's un American. It's a slap in the face to NFL you know, stakeholders and audience members, to Americans broadly.

Shawn: 04:24

And so their solution to it was to, you know, through Turning Point USA, to to set up a a sort of alternative halftime show, which was family friendly and and sort of, you know, celebratory, kind of in the theme of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday and, you know, great. The left on the other hand is like, well, you know, this is a broader story of America and not just The United States as an American country but in in the broader context of The Americas, right? From south to north, where at the top of which is Canada and you know, it it's, you know, in fact, the opposite of that. It is, you know, family sort of friendly, which it you know, arguably, depending if you could understand Spanish or not, it may or may not have been, you know, we won't go into that. But so so there it is.

Shawn: 05:09

Right? So if you were one of the 120 plus million viewers, that sort of had your channel tuned into the Super Bowl halftime show, the narrative going around the Internet was that it was a liberal success and victory and and sort of a, you know, a thumb at the nose at the sort of conservative right movement, which only their show got something between five and six million. I don't know the numbers for each definitively, but those are broadly accurate. So it was treated as sort of a referendum on the progressive position, which, and I'm like, well, hang on now. There's a lot of nuance kind of involved in that analysis.

Shawn: 05:52

And I think there's some causality flaws in the conclusions being drawn, right? Which you as a lawyer with legal training and a litigator, you have a really great kind of background uniquely speak to that. But really what it made Scott and I kind of realize is like, we need to talk about this because we're not getting anything out of that discussion because it's either the left one or the right one. It was good, it was bad. And I'm not even sure that's the right question, let alone the right construct.

Shawn: 06:28

You know what I mean? Like, what are we trying to assess or surmise from this kind of moment in American history and culture in 2026? Or is this just a way to showcase that like there's so much more to these discussions and these like left right positions that people are just not getting because you're immediately being asked to commit to a know, kind of like the symbolism of it without any relative discussion about was it objectively entertaining or good or, you know, interesting or bad or, know, like, or what was the motivation behind the NFL to do this? Like what was, you know, from a business perspective, are they trying to expand, you know, and franchise outside of The United States into a lot of countries and cultures that like this kind of a halftime show might resonate with? So is it a marketing ploy?

Shawn: 07:22

Like, you know what I mean? There's so many non nefarious things that inform the outcome, but you're relegated to this very superficial like analysis and potentially, I would assume faulty conclusion, you know, drawn about. Yeah, so over to you. I'm yeah.

Scott: 07:41

There's, you know, as always, there's so much there and I'm sort of like, you know, darting around with my eyes on screen here for those of you that are actually watching instead of just going about your day and listening to the audio. I want to sort of grab two things and maybe move forward with those as we get pushed around by the wind here. And, you know, the the the first one, I think, sort of goes to this issue of, you know, how do you get out of the fight? And, you know, with due regard to folks who love the fight, they, you know, they love the debate and it kind of doesn't matter what the issue is. They just, they love the debate and everyone has friends like this.

Scott: 08:33

I have an acquaintance through a mutual friend and you know, we get a group of guys together to catch up every once in a while and we go and we meet at a bar and we're having drinks and we're talking and this dude is is unrepentant and he will actually say that yeah, he loves the argument. He loves the fight and it it doesn't really matter to him what it is. He just, he wants that argument because it's fun for him and it's interesting and it's revealing and he'll, you know, he'll challenge everybody in a way that is, you know, at first sort of took me aback. It's like, dude, why do you care about this? And he's like, I just, I want to know why you said that and what you think because I think you're wrong and here's why and I'm like, oh, okay.

Scott: 09:21

Well, here's why and and half the time he'll go, oh, okay. I I get it. And the other half the time, he'll come back and and say, well, here's why I think you're wrong about that stuff and he just he likes that level of engagement not everybody does but you know for me the the football halftime show is not on my radar. And and part of getting out of the fight to sort of pull back around to my, where I started, is, you know, just because it's a thing, just because it's a thing that exists in the world or somebody says, you know, at some point there's got to be a way for most of us to stop and go, do I care about this? Do I care about this enough to have the fight?

Scott: 10:13

And I think the interesting thing is that this pulls us to the root of brain function. And I am not an expert in brain function. I'm reading a fascinating book right now off and on it's called Thinking Fast and Slow. It's written by a guy named Daniel Kahneman, and it's fascinating about, the part of the brain that is reactive, and it's the survival mechanism. And the survival mechanism is anything that comes in gets paid attention to.

Scott: 10:45

And that's why we make a big deal out of things that aren't a big deal. Sometimes, and we were laughing before we turned on the the recording just today, you were telling me a story about an experience that you had, know, arguing about something with your husband that, you know, after the argument, it's like, wait why did we fight about that? Who really cares? And maybe it is a sign of maturity to be able to look at stuff like that in real time and go I don't care. But the other challenge is if you see this argument, particularly if it's with somebody that you're close to and you care about and you say I don't care and they're not at that same point of understanding what's important or what's not.

Scott: 11:36

If the heat is coming into that and you say, well, this issue is not important enough for me to even argue about, My experience is a lot of times the reply you're going to get is, you know, how can you say that? And that comment comes from a person who is in the emotion of it and doesn't want to back off because if I'm emotional about it then it's important and that's a part of the problem with the narrative about being caught in the narrative because it's it's difficult to effectively say this doesn't matter, the halftime show actually doesn't matter and that's part of the challenge is you know getting out of the fight when it doesn't matter. It actually takes judgment and it takes presence of mind. Wonder where you are on that or if there's a more effective way when you're sort of being required to engage with something or you're in an environment where the environment is engaging on something as if it were important and you don't see it as important.

Shawn: 12:50

Well, I think that where I stand on that is individuals are going to decide for themselves like where on the scale of importance in their life where an issue is, like if they come across something that's like, you know, being discussed in a hostile or heated manner. So, you know, I think that to keep I think our goal here is to try to illuminate for people that, you know, we see a lot of really painful divisiveness. We talk about it almost every episode, you know, just because that's how prolific it is right now. It's just you cannot get away from it. You know?

Shawn: 13:29

And actually, the Super Bowl is a really good example. Well, I mean, well, it hasn't been a good example of that for for some years now because I think, my first recollection of, you know, kind of professional sports being, at least in the NFL context, politicized is kind of when Kaepernick, you know, was started taking a knee, and then that was around the whole kind of, Black Lives Movement moment. And, but since then, you know, what used to feel like, having a safe space to just enjoy, you know, like, one of the few things left to Americans that regardless of politics, you could enjoy, you know, and not that everybody's a football fan because they're not, but those who are, you know, that's, you know, a place where you could go and, you know, you could still, find camaraderie and, you know, congeniality and, you know, because you're there for for the the thing, not not for politics. But, you know, so if you find it important, then then I think then then you have to pick battle. Like, is this something is the conclusion that was being drawn in this particular context about a halftime show, is there a they're there for you?

Shawn: 14:37

And if so, you know, then it's up to you how you wanna engage in fight. If there's no they're there for you, then, yeah, I think it's really easy to just say that's not a fight I need to pick with anybody because it doesn't I don't have a dog in that fight or a stake in that investment. Right. Like but if you're going to, like, have an opinion or, you know, if you're somebody like me who who was really invested in in in the the NFL Super Bowl and, you know, I'm not as invested in the the halftime shows. I actually don't care a lot about those.

Shawn: 15:10

Like I literally, I see it as just a disruption to my football. I'm just like, okay, get it on with, let's go, let's go, let's go. I don't have a, you know, but it's easy to get caught up in everybody's like online kind of heated discourse about things. And so then for me, I just have to remind myself, you know, before rushing to some kind of interpretation or meaning, I maybe want to understand the context of how was this musician selected. And so I actually, I'm not saying I did like bench research or anything, but like I looked into it because it was a good question.

Shawn: 15:52

And what that initial question did was reveal many, many layers of information that I had no idea. I had no People then talking about, well, Jay Z picked him. Like, Jay Z, like, why is he involved in all this? This this is crazy. Like, what does that mean?

Shawn: 16:08

And so, what I did was end up learning about sort of how the NFL what the bureaucratic structure is for them to make these decisions and to design these halftime show programs. And it was all very business logical. You know what I mean? Like, if you were taking again, take the political hat off and just say, you know, what is the reality behind, you know, kind of why they did this? And, you know, it was much more likely that it was due to, you know, business expansion and marketing interests and all of these other things rather than, you know, making a political statement or or, you know what I mean?

Shawn: 16:54

Or and there was probably some I'm not going to say there's no political like thought that went into it in the sense that they have a constituency. That constituency is actually pretty diverse in the political divide, the demographic. So, so I don't know how to answer your question exactly. I just know that like, you know, for me, what I'm starting to realize is I don't need to fight about everything. Not everything is as important as other things.

Shawn: 17:24

I have to decide for myself what matters. And then I have to decide what is my objective. If I'm upset by something, I have to really take a second to reflect on why that is. Like, what am I upset about? What am I afraid of?

Shawn: 17:36

What am I, know, where's the anxiety coming from that's leading to the irritation, which then sometimes can turn into anger. You know what I mean? Which then sometimes turns into an interaction online or in person that results in a fight. You know what I mean? So it's not an easy process, Scott.

Scott: 17:55

Absolutely. But that's why it's the hard work of interacting.

Shawn: 17:59

I love it.

Scott: 18:00

Yeah, it's not an easy process and I think the way that you get to an effective outcome is by recognizing that it's not easy because now you have a choice. It's not easy, Do I not do it because it's not easy? Or do I do it even though it's difficult? That's a choice. And of course, we don't advocate for too much here, but we certainly advocate for let's do the hard work as a value judgment.

Scott: 18:33

It's better because even if you recognize that it's hard work and you choose not to, still have made a choice and so you own it. That's what what takes the uncontrolled emotion out of it and there's a difference between uncontrolled emotion and controlled emotion. If you're angry about something, you understand why, you understand what you're afraid of, it's it's controlled and so the anxiety isn't there as much as if you're, you know, responding to something and you you feel out of control and you feel anxious because you haven't done the hard work of understanding your emotion. It takes the uncontrolled emotion comes out of a situation when you understand. You understand not only what the controversy is, but you understand why the person or the people or the entity that engaged in the behavior that is causing you this uncontrolled emotion happen.

Scott: 19:30

So you look at the halftime show and you know my principal emotion is that I don't care too much, but I was in a room, was over at a friend's house with a small group of people you know watching the Super Bowl and so we're all eating snacks while the halftime show is on, but we're talking about it and nobody in that group was particularly either very in favor or very opposed to it, but understanding the notion that maybe in business and you hear that phrase, there's no such thing as bad publicity, you get buzz with controversy and so going in any direction rather than trying to please everybody is what creates a buzz and it creates attention and it creates this oh you know that American football no longer wants to be in The United States. Wants to be around the world. Then you start looking at, you know, over the last number of years, preseason football games have been played in Western Europe. And you look at the NFL's efforts to expand its presence around the world because that's the only place that expansion can come from. So once you understand, oh, this is a business decision to expand, oh, okay, so it's not really about this other stuff, can take the energy out of it.

Scott: 21:09

Now you bring that to everything else. Bring that to everything else. Bring that to every political debate ever. The the political debate is about power. It's about getting people elected so that your stuff and your friends can be made into law.

Scott: 21:30

And we get a little hijacked by, you know, thinking that the debate and the outrage is going to answer the question. The question is answered by who wins the election and then who wins the vote in whatever legislative body gets controlled by the people who are elected to be members of that legislative body. And so, we get spun up and participate in this narrative in an uncontrolled emotional way, because we don't stop to understand, you know, why is this person behaving the way they're behaving? And I think the other thing that kind of jumped out at me was the way you started describing your opinion on this is something that I would fact check. You know, it's the presumption that people go into this, making that decision about what matters to them.

Scott: 22:32

And think what actually happens is people have interaction with something, they have a strong emotional reaction to it, and it's very hard to back off of that emotional reaction because if you say oh I didn't understand then you're basically saying oh my emotional reaction was bad and so now I either have to admit to the world that I'm bad or I have to admit to myself that I'm bad and I think part of our message maybe a little counterintuitive yeah part of the message of getting out of the narrative and getting out of the fight is that it's okay to have emotions you know and I remember when my kids were little you know telling them it it's okay to be angry you know it's not okay to break stuff I mean, you want to break your stuff, you're not going to have it after it's broken and you know, so don't get mad and break your stuff and then come to me and say, know, dad, I want more stuff because I busted my stuff. There are consequences but I think the the problem has its root in the concept that the way we feel is bad or we have to have some sort of restriction on what we do and I don't mean, you know flail around and you know without control I mean owning who you are if you're angry about something it's okay to be angry about it it's not okay to be violent Yeah.

Scott: 24:04

But it's okay to be angry. If you're happy about something, it's okay to be happy about it. Even if the world doesn't agree with you that you should be happy about it. But it's starting with this notion that the way that you respond to the input from the world is okay because you know if nothing else it tells you a little bit about who you are but how you respond, how you communicate back, you know, some people need a pause. Some people don't need a pause.

Scott: 24:38

Some people need to think. Some people don't need to think but it's it's understanding too that as you're working through how you're feeling and your decision making about what to do. It's understanding it's a decision making process instead of, well, I got mad so I did this. But it's also understanding that everything you do has a consequence. It may not be a huge consequence, but there's a consequence and you can't avoid consequence even if you want to.

Scott: 25:17

And I think that people that go into the public forum and do a thing and then get upset because they face a consequence. My response is, you know, you're taking a principled stand and now it's unpopular and you know positive things are happening to you, but negative things are happening to you. It's not a fairness question. You know you mentioned Colin Kaepernick and I think that what he did was courageous because he took a stand that he thought was right. Where I depart from him is he thought he was treated unfairly.

Scott: 26:03

There are consequences for going into the public forum and doing things that a great percentage of the people watching you disagree with. And I think part of maturity is saying, yeah these people are visiting a negative consequence on me for me doing what was right and I still think they were wrong but I'm not going to feel sorry for myself because what I'm doing is important. Yeah. That's where I depart. And you know, fair enough.

Scott: 26:36

I do not know Colin Kaepernick and everything I know about, you know, what he did and the impact it had on him, I get from news and news isn't necessarily accurate. But I use that as an example to illustrate the point rather than take a shot at him. Know, as an aside, I think that in order to communicate, you have to use examples that are in the public forum. And Of have to recognize that, those examples aren't necessarily things that you know all the details about. But the point is to illustrate the point and not to be right or wrong about the illustration that you're using.

Scott: 27:15

And it may sound like a cop out, but I don't believe it is a cop out. It's about communicating. I don't know if that shakes anything loose for you.

Shawn: 27:22

Yeah, it does actually. I think as you were talking about sort of like emotional validation and just, you know, we're human beings, we're emotional creatures. We are, of course, you know, especially since, you know, a lot of us of a certain age, you know, maybe like the, you know, the 45s and olders, or maybe even by this point it's 50 and older. As I get older, my scales get weirder and I'm like, wait, where am I? Am I, you know, so maybe it's actually 50 and older, is that, you know, we grew up on Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley and, you know, Ted Koppel.

Shawn: 28:01

We grew up on a traditional media that, you know, probably wasn't perfect, I understand, but was more sort of professionally objective than, you know, I think what anybody born in the nineties, you know, was exposed to. Right? Like, because they would have started coming of age at a time when, you know, the Internet and nontraditional media was on the ascendant, and there just isn't the same level of journalistic or professional standards, you know, that govern the Wild West of the Internet, you know? And so, a lot of us, you know, I think are reacting emotionally to news or to storylines that are deliberately designed to, like, rage bait us. You know what I mean?

Shawn: 28:51

And so what I would say, you know, is that, like, well, yes, absolutely, we are all entitled to our emotional responses, reactions, particularly when there are events happening that give us great pain either on behalf of ourselves because we've been through a thing or because it's a cause that we care deeply about and it's hurting others that we care about. I will say as just a and again, I will always frame this in the context usually of myself as cautionary tales because when you're online, the internet isn't always, mostly actually probably isn't showing you like the average person's reaction. You know what I mean? It it sort of prioritizes, the most emotional reactions to the most click click rage bait reels and, you know, headlines, because in the same way that you were talking about, there's no bad press, there's no bad clicks. You know what I mean?

Shawn: 29:57

And so it's an algorithm designed to kind of get things stirred up, right? You know, because that's what's gonna get people, you know, views and make people money. So, you know, I would just, you know, say one thing that I I find myself, you know, trying to assess how can I be a better, you know, consumer of media, traditional or otherwise, you know, social in particular? How can I be a better citizen of my country, a better patriot, a better community member, you know, a better person of faith, specifically a better Christian? And, you know, where I see myself is that, like, to reduce the heat, right, in public discourse right now, not because there's anything wrong with the with robust debate.

Shawn: 30:47

You mentioned your buddy who loves the debate. I'm all about that too. I love the I love a good tussle, you know, but only if it's grounded in facts. Like if there's no rules of the road, then it's not really competitive. You know what I mean?

Shawn: 31:00

Because it's just a cat fight at that point. There's no way to stress test for real kind of debate competency if, you know, if the entire argument is purely subjective or the points being made are purely, you know, sort of your hair is ugly. You know what I mean? Like, that's not a debate, you know? It Ridicule.

Shawn: 31:27

Yeah. Well, there you go. There, that that's it. And that's what you are always so passionately like advocating for is that sort of unfair fight, right? And I'm not talking about fairness in the grand scheme of like life's unfair kid.

Shawn: 31:42

We all know that. But like, there is like, you know, sort of rules of engagement that that we, you know, as humans kind of have agreed to abide by, you know, to keep society kind of, you know, cohesively moving along. You know, it's if we're overreacting and we're throwing mud and, you know, just getting down into the, you know, kind of the dirt with how we If we're fighting dirty and we're not actually exercising any kind of intellectual rigor or even not even intellectual logical, just common sense rigor, then then that that for me is not fun. Those types of fights aren't fun because they're not, they don't mean anything because it, you know, yeah.

Scott: 32:26

Well, and and all the all the running commentary with with, know, thousands and tens of thousands of participants, that's not a useful debate. I mean, I'm gonna age myself here by referring to Robert's rules of order, but you know, you look at Prime Minister's questions in UK, or even more entertaining in Australia, you know, and it's basically a room full of people yelling at each other and the fellow in the wig with with the the hammer, you know, saying order order because otherwise you just have clamor and I think a lot of what we see in the public discourse, know, somebody says something and then there's this clamor that comes afterwards and it's it's you know the the measured calm people generally aren't the people that are participating in that clamor. I think it's the the people that are just responding and shouting are participating in the clamor. So the question then becomes, you know, is it entertaining for you or is it not? And is it productive for you?

Scott: 33:48

And is it not? And I think that if you're interacting with that clamor, and you get swept away in it, you know, the question then becomes, how do you interact with what's in the world without getting swept away? And it's, I think it begins with something that you mentioned, which is, you know, understanding the facts. I think that it starts with the, you know, the presumptions. Everybody who says something basing what they say on some kind of factual presumption and this is the hard work of interacting which is not taking as given the factual presumption and one doesn't need to attack to identify what that presumption is and to begin examining whether that presumption is true.

Scott: 34:49

Just in terms of technique, I read a great book. It's called Thinking in Bets and it's by the poker player Annie Duke and just having that little bit of access to how her brain functions is wonderful and it's in my view it's brilliant and I have used this technique ever since I read the book and it's highly effective. You know, somebody says something and my response is, I bet you couldn't prove that, you know, it's if particularly in the climate change conversations that have been going on for such a long time now, you know, people will say something And when I say, wow, I'm not certain that's true, but I bet you couldn't prove it. And all of a sudden it becomes, you know, they've read something on the internet, not really even read the thing that caused them to believe this, but they they actually don't have access to facts. I mean, there are some people that speak intelligently to the evidence of climate change, but most people who are upset about it can't.

Scott: 36:01

And it's a great neutral way that prevents escalation to say, you know, if I had $5, I wouldn't put it on the proposition that you could prove that. Yeah. And it's great technique. And the other thing is something that you've stabbed around a little bit in this episode, which is one of my favorite things, which is correlation. You know, there is so much out there that sounds great that factually isn't true.

Scott: 36:30

And I'll do another one that'll annoy folks, so get ready to be annoyed. People steal things because they're poor. Poverty causes theft and I'll use Annie Duke technique. I doubt whether anybody can prove that and the way that I'll frame the question, the way that I'll make my offer is generally if something correlates, particularly in science, if you do that experiment over and over again it'll give the same result or the same range of results. And so if poverty causes theft it means that every single person that's poor steals, and the fact of the matter it's not true.

Scott: 37:15

The contrary would also be true every single person that's rich doesn't steal. That's not true. There are some rich people who steal and there are some poor people who don't steal. And you know, it's funny to me that you know some folks who say well you know the problem with theft and petty crime is poverty so we need to solve poverty are the same ones who will say well the reason that rich people are rich is because they stole. It's like well then being rich doesn't solve the theft problem.

Scott: 37:51

Getting rid of poverty won't solve the theft problem. And I'm not saying that poverty is good and we shouldn't do something about it. We should. I'm not saying that theft is good and we should leave it alone, but the correlation sounds great because it allows us to have sympathy for people that are doing bad things so that we don't have to address the truth, which is some people steal because they made a bad call and it's not good. And there need to be consequences for that because it's not good for our society, our living together to have people who steal.

Shawn: 38:32

Can I ask?

Scott: 38:33

Yeah.

Shawn: 38:33

I was just gonna ask you a question. I was trying to look up really quick so if you saw me kind of looking distracted. You and I talked earlier this week about when I was in community college and I took a logic course. That was literally the first class I signed up for out of high school because I love this sort of wordplay and logic, know, architecting, you know, if you will. So my question, and I love the cause, is it causality?

Shawn: 39:00

Is it appropriate to call it false causality? Meaning like, you know, if this, then that, and it doesn't always, you know?

Scott: 39:08

So you have to distinguish between my brain is a legal brain and I'm a legal litigator. I was a deputy prosecuting attorney for the first six years of my professional career. So I would call it causality. But somebody who is a philosopher or a logician expert in logic would have a much more precise term for it. I would defer to that because that level of detail just makes my head spin.

Scott: 39:38

But I'm happy with you using that term for purposes of our conversation. Consequences be damned.

Shawn: 39:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, so I think that for me, it is such an important logic fallacy that I think we need to talk more about, not just like you and I, but like I think that just in journalism and media, in sort of public, the public forum of discourse needs to be addressed because I think that there is often, you know, sort of like false conclusions, causality, with how we're drawing conclusions about certain things, right? We're not looking at the body of evidence all the time. We're frequently kind of looking more at, you know, what is the feeling or the emotional reaction or the interpretation even versus, you know what I mean? Like, because this is like, sometimes it's like secondhand information because you're watching pundits and they're giving you their interpretation of what you hope and assume to be objectively, like, you know, acquired facts.

Shawn: 40:56

But you don't always know, right? Because again, journalistic standards and media standards, I think, have declined because there's less accountability. And if you have all of the linguistic loopholes that kind of get you out of having to hold yourself accountable to talking about, you know, you know, objective truth or or facts, then, you know, there are ways around it and and it's not necessarily considered dis or misinformation. You're just like, well, is it a sin of omission just because I didn't include this other stuff? You know what I mean?

Shawn: 41:26

Like, there's, so so I love, the concept. You know, I think that it is important, you know, as we kind of try to make our way in this brave new like world that we all live in, where it's really difficult to get to the pure facts of an event. Like if you see some current event and it's going on, it's really, really difficult, you know, because before you even have five seconds to assess what's happening, your team, you know, jerseys have come out and come out with a conclusion. And it sort of disincentivizes you in a way, I suspect, from doing the hard work of knowing what is objectively true or not because are, by wearing the jersey, you're accepting certain sources that you trust, which is sort of like a very understandable human shorthand because we all have like a lot of very normal stuff to deal with in our day. So it's like, okay, well, have these five pundits that I go to as my sources of like, are gonna do the hard work of interpreting the facts for me.

Shawn: 42:41

And then I'm gonna trust them. But even those people, if you, you know, even if you, they are people who, like, like, somebody I, I really respect a lot is, you know, David Betpatrick. Like, so he's, or, Patrick Bet David. Sorry, I'm dyslexic. Sorry, PBD.

Shawn: 43:01

Yeah, PBD is like, hey. And I don't agree with every single thing he says or anything, but what I love about him is I love his, interview style. I love his debate style. I love his, you know, logic, thought processes, you know. And what I love about it is that it is, he makes it really clear for me to know where I disagree with him because he lays out his position so like clearly and so like transparently in the sense that this is my experience as a businessman or as like, you know, a second first generation like American or whatever the case is and then, he gives you his analysis and his, you know, responses to something But because he does that in such a clear way, I'm like, oh, I see where he's coming to this conclusion and why based on his worldview and his experience, he is inclined to interpret that this way or to feel this way, I disagree and here's why.

Shawn: 44:02

Because I have my own worldview and experience and like, you know, and so it would be great if more people held themselves to that standard. You know what I mean? Among content creators, among, you know, those who are seeking to influence the public space, you know, because like, you know, and I think there's others who do that pretty well. But you know, sometimes they, you know, nobody's perfect and they do often, you know, kind of sometimes fall into the politicization trap where it's like, well, now you're just being emotional about it because of your team jersey and, you know, whatever. That's fine.

Scott: 44:39

Yeah. Well, but but I I think there's a a really important and interesting core point here which is and so I'm pausing because I'm about to say something and I want to make and I'm thinking is this true or is this actually what I think? Which is a little ironic because I think that most disagreements actually aren't about conclusions, they're about facts. Know, it's taking climate change as an example, you know, if the climate is actually changing the way the climate industrial complex says it is, then I'm with them on their conclusions that we, you know, we gotta do things to to mitigate. Setting aside for a later day the question of are the things that are being proposed to spend a bunch of money on actually going to mitigate, the first question is, are the facts correct?

Scott: 45:50

Is the climate of the planet changing the way that folks allege it is or or is it not? And knowing facts is not easy. I mean, Super Bowl game. The last Super Bowl game that I watched, and I'm not much of a football fan, I watched the whole thing, there was a point where there was a catch that was bobbled a little bit and the ball came very close to the ground. And the question was, did the ball touch the ground and therefore it was an incomplete pass?

Scott: 46:26

Did the ball not touch the ground and therefore it was a complete pass? And the interesting thing is one camera angle clearly showed the ball not touching the ground and another camera angle of the same thing clearly showed the ball touching the ground. And it's remarkable to me that, you know, a fact can be true and false depending on the angle you're looking at it. And it was not metaphorical, but it's a great illustration of the metaphor. And it's actually the facts that matter.

Scott: 47:03

And as we sort of back away from the conversation we're having and get back to, you know, how do we get out of this narrative? How do we get out of the fight? How do we get out of being sucked into this fight or flight response and our, you know, our quick brain, our lizard brain, know, our you know whatever you want to call that brain that you know looks at something that may be a threat fills in the threat and makes us run or get ready to fight. How do we deal with that when we're doing a deep dive into facts? And the reason the hard work of interacting is hard is because it's making us take our lizard brain and stop it and go, let's really look at what we know.

Scott: 47:55

And you know, I think there are two things. First is the way that our lizard brain works. Again, Daniel Kinnaman, thinking fast and slow. It's you know when a human being is out in the world we are soft and slow and weak and most other animals, even small ones, have teeth and claws that humans don't have and so when we see the leaf fluttering the smart thing to do is presume it's a lion and roam. Even if it's probably wind, if it's probably wind, you're probably going to be okay until the one time it's a lion.

Scott: 48:40

And so your brain evaluates that in the way quickly, in the way that is going to keep you most safe. Even if your conclusion is false, it's still going to keep you safe and that's what we're struggling with when we deal with this. And I think the other thing that we need to recognize beyond how our brain is functioning is a lot of times when we're being sucked into the emotion of this, we're actually not threatened. We're not physically threatened. When we doom scroll and we look at what all these people are saying and people are rude and people are crass and they're sort of behaving badly, it's actually not a threat to us even though our brain is processing it as a threat.

Scott: 49:30

But approaching things from the standpoint of is this really true? Or is it not? Is a good initial step to getting out of that narrative and getting out of the fight and finding happiness outside of the clamor.

Shawn: 49:50

Wow, this is okay. First of all, let me just say the first thing that popped in my head in what a great title of a book would be like the wind and the lion, Like, colon, like, you know, and then lead with whatever the subtitle is, you know, which is a look at like the human fear experience. Right? You know what I mean? And like how that makes us react.

Shawn: 50:12

So, like, the, you know, kind of like

Scott: 50:13

The the human fear experience.

Shawn: 50:15

That's really

Scott: 50:16

what a lot of this is about. Yeah. The human fear experience.

Shawn: 50:20

So just

Scott: 50:20

Sorry to interrupt you, but you got me all excited.

Shawn: 50:22

I know. I know. I I'm so I'm so with you on this. That's the first thing that came to my mind is that's really getting to the core of I think what we're dealing with here with like why humans are, you know, kind of where we're at in, you know, sort of how we treat each other and how we're interacting with one another. Another sort of principle that I kind of hear coming from this, and you can correct me if this is wrong or not kind of in alignment with your intent, but you and I chatted before the sort of recording, the recorded session.

Shawn: 50:58

And I said, I was trying to organize my thoughts. And so, I kind of fed chat GBT a bunch of stuff. I said, hey, give me some, like make logical sense and give me kind of a checklist of, you know, what are things I can do as an individual to sort of like, what do you call it when you sort of like tamp down the fire? There's a word I'm thinking like that I can't think of for some reason right now. It's because I'm all okay.

Scott: 51:23

I would would call the the uncontrolled emotion.

Shawn: 51:26

Yeah.

Scott: 51:27

Distinguishing uncontrolled emotion from from emotion.

Shawn: 51:31

Well, like, well, but just generally turning down the heat where where things are getting too hot. You know what I mean? Like, let's just, know, just turning down the heat a bit. And one of the things that it came up, because ChatGPT is really funny with its little It likes to produce quips, clever quips, the core thing, it's like, okay, Sean, if you remember nothing else, remember this, which is slow down your Or no, how did it say? Slow down interpretation faster than the internet speeds it up.

Shawn: 52:10

Right? Because does that make sense? Like, as I say it, like, yeah. And that's, A, it's not easy to do that, because of the lizard brain situation that you're describing is humans are predisposed to like make really rapid decisions when it comes to their safety and security as a primitively built in design. So, that's the wind and the lion, right?

Shawn: 52:38

You know, kind of situation. Like, you know, because you don't have time to make a miss, like the the the cost benefit analysis there is air on the side of conservatism and caution. You know what I mean? Because if it's a wind, fine. If you make a mistake and it ended up being the lion, that's not a mistake you can afford to make.

Scott: 53:01

Yeah. And that's a that's a crucial insight. Think that's really wonderful is that that the you know, the the Walter Cronkite days, you might have yelled at your TV, but you wouldn't know if the person in the next house was yelling at their TV. Now you know, and that impacts you and it makes things faster and our our fast brain is the one that fills in the gaps with things that aren't necessarily true to keep us safe but safety issues are issues that trigger fear and that fight or flight thing. And so it's the speed of information and the speed of interaction that is putting us in that animal brain where we fill in stuff that we believe is true that actually isn't true.

Scott: 54:08

And so the question becomes how do we pull away from that and we're getting to the segment of our show where we really need to focus on how. Not that we have the answer to everything, but I love that you engaged with ChatGPT and pull up this list because it's the beginning of, okay, we have a bit of understanding of what's driving this, but how do we get off that train? You know, we can't just say, well, slow things down. That's not going slow down. Yeah, can't just make our animal self preservation brain not do what it's doing.

Scott: 54:52

It's going to do that. So how do we do this? And I'm interested in what you found on your list and and how you think those things work and and what other sort of. How do you get yourself out of the clamor? That's my new favorite word, by the way.

Scott: 55:10

I have to figure out how to spell it, But I really think that that's what a lot of the public discourse is. It's clamor.

Shawn: 55:16

Oh, clamor. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I think that's right.

Shawn: 55:19

It's it's essentially noise, right? Like, that's the thing is, you know, if if they make enough noise, then we can't hear anything else. You know what I mean? So, you know, what the list kind of came up with, and again, keep in mind, this is very much tailored to me, you know, and I won't read the entirety of it. I'll just cherry pick some things that I think were really insightful from where I'm sitting based on what I know my frailties are as a human being, was, so it bucketed it into three things, before you react, during a conversation, and just personal sort of best practices or habits.

Shawn: 56:03

And so the thing I took away from the before you react that I thought hit me the hardest was ask myself, do I know this or am I reacting to how this event or information was presented? That's just a basic like, you know, because again, that reduces the trigger response, right? Like, and so, it's far too easy for people to be triggered in 2026. And defensively, it's because people are deliberately out there trying to trigger us. So of course, that's successful campaign.

Shawn: 56:38

But now we need to, you know, take accountability for our own reactions and actions as adults. You know, you mentioned the sort of, you know, principle of consequences and it's the same thing. It's like, okay, fine, I had childhood trauma, you know, who hasn't? Everybody's gone through something, you know, but at some point you become a fully responsible adult who has the benefit of understanding, Okay, you know, there's things that happened to me in my past that sort of have dictated certain behaviors that are not healthy or life affirming or whatever the case may be, I now have to make a choice as to whether or not I'm going to break the cycle and let the next generation do better because my kids do better so that they don't have to carry this trauma, or am I gonna just go ahead and concede and just let this define me for the rest of my life? So that's how I took it.

Shawn: 57:31

Before reacting, asked myself, do I really know that this is happening? Or is it just how it's being packaged? The second thing is during the conversation, you might be having whether that's online or in person, There were a couple of things that stood out to me on this one. You know, I I think that, you know, and and my husband is really good about this. He he he always really back not back checks me.

Shawn: 58:02

He he logic checks me on all this a lot, which is that, you know, if I'm saying, well, they or, you know, otherizing, they want this that, you know, this party wants this and this is their intention, you know, is, you know, so avoid being the mind reader or intention, you know, and sometimes you can read pretty clear intent because, you know, if it's in your party platform, then I'm not hypothesizing this. That's not, you know, me being an Oracle. That's just you saying something and me seeing you doing a thing. And now, yes, to me, that's a clear one plus one is two. But if there is not such clarity in intent, I personally would like to give people more often the benefit of the doubt, you know, and not pretend to read their mind and know their intention.

Shawn: 58:53

And then also I like the action of, you know, I don't have to agree with everything. Like, I can partially agree with something. I can say, hey, I really support ICE, but hey, I also really hate how they're engaging with the residents of Minneapolis. I think it could be done better. Like, that that, you know, and again, there are other nuances to that whole debate and conversation, you know, that kind of were on the other side of that, you know, law enforcement piece, which is, you know, citizens rights and to protest and, you know, what is in the realm of reasonable or not.

Shawn: 59:25

And there's a lot of cases, you know, to be made on that. But again, that's for me, it's like I don't have to go all in on every single event, you know, with a monolithic reaction. So that's it. And then the final thing I'll say is just in terms of personal daily habits and practices. I think that for me and the Super Bowl halftime show was a really good example of this, is that exposure does not equal endorsement.

Shawn: 01:00:04

Okay, so what that to me, the example of the Super Bowl, what that means is just because 120 some odd million people watch that versus the TPUSA show doesn't mean that the 120,000,000 people are on your side. You know what I mean? That's not a that goes back to the causality conclusion, right? Like, are you drawing the right conclusion from that statistic? And I don't think that that would be an accurate representation of the facts.

Shawn: 01:00:36

I think that there were a lot of various reasons why people probably, you know, because again, mostly because people just, again, it's, you know, if the internet is to be believed, you know, eight to 10% of the fight is really happening on the left and the right in the most volatile context with a fringe eight to 10% of people doing that mudslinging. The rest of us are just like, man, I just want to watch the Super Bowl. My kid wants to watch the halftime show. It's on. I don't care.

Shawn: 01:01:04

Like, you know what I mean? Like, you watch it, you know, if you want, like, you know, so yeah. Those are my sort of core takeaways for how I can personally better do the hard work of interacting to try to tamp down, you know, the heat, but also to just be more, you know, aware of like what are the facts rather than what are the emotions surrounding the facts, you know?

Scott: 01:01:29

Yeah. And I I I love that because, you know, what you're describing is hard. And that's the point. It is the hard work of interacting. And I think the only sort of seasoning that I would add to the great plate of food that you've prepared here metaphorically is, you know, it goes back to the top of the show, which is, you know, how do we get out of the fight?

Scott: 01:01:55

And it's recognizing even though our animal brain says there are two things you can do. You can stay in fight or you can run away, which is basically fight or concede. That's those aren't the only options. Certainly in the in the public discourse, you know, like you say, you can you can partially agree and partially disagree. You can, you know, challenge facts, challenge correlation, and what are you doing when you ask about facts or you ask about causation and you start saying well we all need to take a community college class on logic so that we can have better discussions over our cocktails.

Scott: 01:02:39

You are doing the work of understanding. And it's not the mealy sort of, well I'm going to take a walk in the other person's shoes. I'm going to try and experience what this person I disagree with has experienced so I can understand them. It's not that. It is engaging based on your own opinions and based on your own emotions, which in order for your brain not to be broken you need to recognize that you're feeling an emotion whether it makes you feel good or bad but it's looking at the looking at the thing rather than the person.

Scott: 01:03:24

You're looking at the leaf rather than the lion and you're going I'm really going to understand why I think this is a threat, why I think there are two things that I can do rather than 50 things that I can do, and recognize that you're actually not walking through a jungle deciding whether you're gonna live or die. You're living in a world where sure there are threats here that can physically hurt you, but not the immediate level of threat that comes from, you know, walking through a jungle, you know, metaphorically and even even literally and understanding that we have this responsive component of our brain that is always going to be responsive, but doesn't necessarily act in our best interest when we're not physically threatened. And that's the understanding piece. So whatever the mechanism is, I love your list, because it's an entrance into how do we deal with this sort of instinctive way that we respond to things being fast. And it's not to get rid of our brain, it's not to, you know, go out into the world and say we've got to slow this down.

Scott: 01:04:50

And it's not just a third way. There are many different ways. So everybody who's stuck with us through this hour, thank you so much. Head out there and do the hard work. The great thing about hard work is it's so rewarding.

Scott: 01:05:10

You don't have to feel bad. You don't have to feel angry, unless you want to. But you know, you don't have to, you can have controlled emotions, not uncontrolled emotions.

Shawn: 01:05:22

Yeah, I agree, hear, hear. That's a great wrap up too, I think, a really great session, Scott. I appreciate your brain and, you know, the opportunity for us to be able to reflect for our audience members. Hopefully y'all have taken something out of this useful. And like Scott said, like, let's get out there and do the hard work of interacting.

Scott: 01:05:43

Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much, Sean. I will see you on the next one.

Shawn: 01:05:48

Sounds great. See you next time.

Scott: 01:05:49

Alright. Bye.