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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!
Hey, Sean.
Shawn:Hey, Scott.
Scott:You're back in your office.
Shawn:I am. Yeah. I finally stopped playing musical rooms, and I landed back in my office. So we're done with little bit of home improvements we were working on earlier this last couple weeks, so it feels good to be back in my normal sort of chair.
Scott:That's awesome. How was your transition from summer into fall going?
Shawn:Outstanding, it always is. For me this is my favorite time of year so no complaints ever to be had unless we're having an Indian summer where I think Indian summer is where summer lasts longer in which case you know you'll hear some grumbling but it's just beautiful here in sort of the Northeast you know and Virginia is just beautiful at this time of year and so we're making the most out of it for sure getting outside a lot.
Scott:That's awesome. Yeah cooling off a little bit here in the Pacific Northwest. It's funny when I was a kid I hated the overcast and you know if it's raining and it's drizzling forever you know everything is horrible And now I've been back for a couple of years after being gone for twenty five years and I just I love it. Mean I love the summer, but when it starts getting cool and it's you know just a little bit overcast, every time the sun comes through the colors just launch at you. Mean talking third phases or fourth phases.
Shawn:I was gonna say for me it's kind of like that whole, and this might tie into a conversation we end up sort of veering into, know here soon but it's like I never understood people who were just like, you know, I only love summer. I only like I can find something amazing about every one of the seasons and it's just the fact that you know you have seasons at all it's just such a miraculous thing to me and so now I will rank them in order of preference but you know and you could be a summer girl or a fall girl for sure but yeah there's things I love about it each of the seasons, but if I had to pick one that I love the most, it's probably fall.
Scott:Yeah. So if you don't mind me taking that as a a segue, I I Yeah. If you don't have anything sort of top of brain that is an itch you need to scratch, I think one of the things that we've talked about a bunch at 2 Parachutes is, you know, picking up threads that we ended on and and kind of pulling those as we, as we pull our rip cords. Yeah. And so, if it's all the same to you, at the end of our last, session, once we signed off, we started talking about language and words and stuff.
Scott:The segue is, when you're young, you love summer and you hate winter, or you love winter and you hate summer. And then as time goes on, you change. And I think language changes as well. And the interesting thing to me about language is just how much we rely on it and how cumbersome it is. I mean, look at what you and I are doing now.
Scott:I'm taking an idea in my brain and I'm trying to get you to understand what it is by making noises with my mouth. And all language is that way. And all language has as its foundation, you know, agreement what the noises mean. But, you know, part of it comes, part of confusion comes and part of the problems between people come, you know, when we're making these noises, when we're speaking to each other and we either don't understand or even worse, we think we understand. I used to laugh when I was at the bureau in the intelligence community when FBI people were talking to CIA people.
Scott:I I would joke that it was like talking to an Australian, an American talking to an Australian. You think that since you understand the words, you understand the conversation, and it takes you about a half hour to realize you don't understand, neither of you really understand what you're trying to communicate, because even though the words are the same, the meaning is different, and it's subtly different enough that you don't realize that you're actually not communicating. I wonder if you've had that experience or just what you think about that.
Shawn:Sure. No, I love language and I love the implications of language as a tool of the human race, right? Like how we use it and sort of how it evolves are all very interesting topics for me personally, because my career thus far, you know, really I think anybody, I hate saying that because you use it no matter what, it doesn't matter what your career is. I think it's just are the consequences of how well you communicate or not, you know, might, you know, start to take a little bit more shape and have a little more consequence depending on what you do in life. Certainly use an informer intelligence, you know, sort of professional, I'm sure it has to matter, you know, with great consequence in certain scenarios that if you're not getting across your point to your person on the other side of that conversation, there's gonna be a very material consequence to that one way or the other.
Shawn:In the work that I've done in the last almost twenty years now as a sort of, you know, national global security professional, it has been of the utmost consequence. If, you know, if you're talking to a partner on the other side of a very consequential topic, know, where you're talking to the Iraqi government about how to manage, you know, the ISIS problem or ISIL, whatever they were calling it at any given day, that's gonna bear some pretty serious consequences if you don't understand each other. I think that language is there's so many different ways, roads I could go down, but I guess if I would just to kind of start us off here is that one thing, if I took away anything from all of those years of working with foreign partners and interagency partners, being somebody who was often representing the state department but often liaising with you guys at the FBI or with the military, you know, Department of Energy, etcetera, is that the one of the initial keys of success for understanding, you know, other stakeholders that you're working with towards a shared goal, maybe you come from very different cultures or perspectives, is having in place at least a baseline agreed upon terms of reference document, right?
Shawn:Or like, you know, we say this, this is what we mean. That sort of shared vocabulary is really important because then you may have a different sort of like I said, cultural perspective on what is a priority or what is not or how you interpret what you're talking about. But if you at least have the vocabulary down, you know that when I say a square, mean a square. I don't mean a circle or I don't mean a maybe square. You know, I know it's hard probably for people contextualize although I'm sure the audience in their own experience probably has been through a similar experience or has similar relatable perspective on that.
Shawn:But yeah, just you had mentioned something in our last podcast that makes me think of that, which is, you know, and I don't, you might maybe refresh us on the conversation you were talking or the situation you were speaking to, but it was, you know, how do we define the term respect and how do we use that in common parlance as you say, like with just, you know, in a social media context or with each other in a work context or in a personal context. And I think that for a lot of people in America right now, there has been sort of this language shift where it's like, we say certain things and what used to be commonly understood and probably commonly defined are now turning into a series of like words that don't actually mean the same thing to different people anymore. And that is going to be the beginning of the end of civil discourse because the minute you guys get off of the same page in terms of what the fundamentals are, then it's chaos. It's verbal chaos because you don't know what anybody needs at any given time. Right.
Scott:And what's worse is maybe you think you do and that's a great transition and I, you know, I want to steer us in that direction too because in some ways when you're in an environment where you actually have a translator because the person you're communicating with or trying to communicate with doesn't share a common language with you. Or you're communicating with somebody in a language that one of you is not very good at. It's easy to see that there's going to be a lack of communication there. And in structured sort of government to government situations, you can have a document which talks about. Yeah.
Scott:You know, definition of terms but you know, the interesting thing is when you're, you know, when you go to a dinner party and you're seeing old friends and you're meeting new friends, it's the, you know, talking to an Australian again. It's you don't realize that you don't share a common definition. And it, know, you talk about respect, and I think probably I was talking about that term respect because even though I don't have a lot of pet peeves, the common usage in the last sort of fifteen or twenty years of the term respect really bothers me because people use it to mean something that if you look up the definition of respect, it actually doesn't mean. This notion of we need to respect other people's opinions. It's interesting.
Scott:It actually takes me back to an old science fiction story, and I think it was written by Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein. It was a short story about Robert Heinlein, by Robert Heinlein about some technology. And one of the characters, you know, made a statement saying, well, you know, I'm entitled to my opinion. And it was in a some sort of legal proceeding. And in the story, the judge says, well, you're, you may be entitled to your opinion, but since your opinion is not based on knowledge, your opinion is not due deference.
Scott:And so it's one thing to have an opinion. It's another thing to be thoughtful and and to recognize, well, this is my opinion, but I need to learn more. And what I see in the common parlance is people use this term respect, and we need to respect everybody regardless. And and I don't agree. I think I think we need context, and we don't need just external context, but internal context.
Scott:And so what I did a few minutes ago is I just looked up, I just punched into my Google search the dictionary definition of respect. And it's interesting. The primary definition of respect says this. It is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
Shawn:Mhmm.
Scott:The second the secondary, which is sort of this modern creep, in my opinion, is due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others. And I think that's where we get this mix up, is you have one word that due to a common misusage, is now really being diluted. And when someone comes in and says, Well, we need to respect everybody, I absolutely put on the brakes because to me, respect means that first definition. It means that the person that we're being asked to accord respect to has done something impressive that triggers that deep admiration. And a person can do that in one realm and not do that in another realm.
Scott:You know, somebody wins a Nobel Prize for physics, I admire them. I respect their ability in physics. But if they start talking about socialism, for me, I do not respect that, because I do not believe that socialism works. I think socialism well and truly and always hurts people. And I do not have respect for a person's, opinion in favor of socialism.
Scott:And I think our common parlance now would tell us, well, you have to respect their opinion. And I go, no, I don't. And I think the alternative word is actually dignity. If a person stands up and says something with which I disagree, I will accord them the dignity certainly of being able to speak, but I don't admire them. Don't respect them for having an opinion that I think is wrong.
Scott:But and and this is the the 2 Parachutes Podcast.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:Maybe it's our slogan, I don't know yet. But when you disagree with somebody, if you accord them the dignity of speaking, but you don't feel pressured to admire them for something that you disagree with, that takes you down the path of not ridiculing them. That is so important. What you see nowadays in the common parlance is I disagree with you, and so the societal pressure is to respect you and I don't respect you so I'm going to ridicule you instead. We have to find this middle ground where we it's sort of the Charlie Kirk way and the Ben Shapiro way in some ways which is I disagree with you and here's why and it's okay if we disagree but I do think you're wrong.
Shawn:It so there's so much there for me I'm trying to pick a lane you know because there's a lot yeah
Scott:so sorry about that what I felt myself
Shawn:yeah so I was
Scott:shooting away with you from you on the wind
Shawn:the analogy I would use is like normally you've got you know one rip cord and, know, so you know you're gonna go one way or the other do something but I feel like I've got 10 I need to try to pull and it's like I'm gonna pick one. I think this is so important. I think in today's society especially when we're in a social media context or, you know, kind of this not in person in other words, right? Like when you're in person, I still think we are humans are mostly adhering to the rules of engagement established by human society, right? Whereas like, you know, if I'm in a situation and somebody is speaking, even if I disagree with it, like I'm not gonna rudely interrupt, I'm not going to, you know, criticize them in a very aggressive way or, you know, probably at all, if I'm to be truly honest, right?
Shawn:Because again, societal niceties and politeness still rule the day. I feel like we're seeing less and less of that though, as time goes on, it's like the lesser qualities of human engagement on, in an online context are now starting to seep into in person human interactions. And so we see a lot of this with regard to, you know, and it could, you know, let's try to be objectively partisan, you know, sort of agnostic here in the Charlie Kerr context. I think Charlie did a really good job most of the time, not all of the time. There are clips where you'll find where he's a little snarky or he's a little condescending or a lot condescending even.
Shawn:But fundamentally I trust the integrity of his intent. Okay. And so that allows you to kind of get over those little hiccups of like, well, it wasn't articulated perfectly or he got a smear or he got, you know, he was also getting pretty violently most of the time from the other side, which is, you know, I'm sure that anybody in that situation is gonna eventually lose their cool. And since you're recording this twenty four hours, yes, you're gonna catch him in imperfect moments.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:It happens on on the other side of the spectrum as well, though, because, you know, we well, I was gonna use that as a good case for the left, but then I just realized that it's actually just a demonstration of their bad behavior, which now I'm regretting bringing that up, you know, because I feel bad because, you know, because not all people on the left are terrible and rude and mean, but you are seeing a lot of that behavior where they just have the fundamental inability to interact with somebody who is on the opposite spectrum of political sort of thought from according them the dignity of a respectful interaction. It, you know, in the sense that we're going to keep this. So, and maybe that's not the term, maybe it's a civil, you know, I should be calling it a civil interaction versus a respectful, And language changes and words evolve, language is a living thing. So, you know, what is true for one definition, you know, the 1800s is not going to necessarily be the same in the 2000s, right? So we know this and a lot of that is societal deciding, you know, where we're gonna go with this use of term.
Shawn:So to some extent it's natural for things to change their intention or meaning and evolve and the language will sort of, you know, kind of slowly or increasingly rapidly evolve. But I think that what it comes down to is what is the intention here? What are we trying to convey? And then making sure that we use or mirror or map as best we can to, okay, fine. If what you're saying is you want me to respect you, I need you to tell me what does that mean to you?
Shawn:Because then I can make a decision about whether or not I can comply. And if respecting you means I have to agree with you, that's not gonna happen. If respecting you means I have to sit back and give you space to speak your mind, I can do that. But is there a better word we could be using that we can both agree means that? Like civil, right?
Shawn:A civil discourse versus a respectful one, for example. So we just have to figure out what is it that we're actually trying to ask of the other person and then see if that word is the right word because we have to come to agreement on the term. And if we can't come to agreement on the term then the conversation, especially if it's in a facilitated deliberate forum, like a podcast or whatever, you you don't you're just it's gonna be chaotic because then we're not even arguing against the same within within the same rules. And
Scott:and Yeah.
Shawn:We're not getting anywhere.
Scott:Yeah. And it's the the the language matters because the language reflects the and describes the the content. And so, you know, to to grab your example and and move move with it, you know, if if a person wants another person to respect them, if you look at the number one definition, what that request actually means is, I want you to be impressed by me. Mhmm. I want you to be impressed by what I did.
Scott:And that that is person a demanding that person b hold a particular opinion, which demanding that, I think, is the problem. If you're gonna have a conversation that is civil and that and and I love that you use the word civil and I use the word dignity because it it's it's flavor for the the pot of stew that we're you know metaphorically building on the oven here on the stovetop here. But if for me, if I want somebody to hold to hold a certain opinion and they don't, then I think it's my responsibility to articulate why they should, but it's also my responsibility to recognize that they may not. And the the challenge today, I think, is two things. One, we don't really have examples of people who really disagree engaging in civil discourse.
Scott:And I think the only one that I can really think of and I would be happy for anyone to share a more modern example of this is when Gore Vidal and William F Buckley spoke to each other. And these were two men who were on the opposite of virtually everything. And you could tell when they spoke to each other that they really detested each other but they were never ever rude. I mean, and they detested each other. I I could never tell watching them if they detested each other personally or if they just had this this really deep disdain for what the other thought.
Scott:But it never devolved into name calling and and it it was always. Communication on the ideas and and that's sort of the second thing that I think. Been injected into the common parlance and and is something that we as human beings need to pull back, which is this notion of if you if you agree with somebody who's on the other team, then you are by definition wrong and you need to be expelled. And that very quickly became if you listen to somebody that's on the other team, if you have a discussion with somebody on the other team, then you are not with us and you need to be expelled. And that is the the road to we're we're not gonna talk.
Scott:We're not gonna figure anything out. And my my critique of that is that it is inhumane because what you're doing if you won't speak to another person, if you won't even listen to another person, is you're being so shallow and insecure. You're so concerned that something bad will happen in that interaction that you're not acknowledging that the other person is another person. You're not acknowledging their humanity, and that's why I consider that rejection and ridicule to be inhumane. And you see it in political circles, and I think you sort of, you
Shawn:know Pundits.
Scott:To varying degrees
Shawn:of pundit the political pundits too are are really bad at that. You know? Well, it's politicians and it's pundits and it's the sort of most French fanatics who support those both of the other two things. Right? And for me, it is boy, this strikes at something I think so important.
Shawn:I will say, I think there are a few people who have historically done this quite well. And I think that there is a, there have been platforms and forums where this has happened more frequently and sort of more, you know, deliberately, right? There used to be really credible news shows, right, you could meet the press used to be one of them, where you would regularly have a round table of political pundits who were very diverse. They were on the right to left spectrum, know, from sort of hardest fringe elements and kind of migrating back in towards that center. I thought George Will, you know, George Stephanopoulos, those folks typically would differ on kind of their perspectives.
Shawn:But they did a good job at objectively approaching any given policy position or, you know, kind of whatever the trend was at the time that they were discussing in American service society. I think there are interviewers who do a pretty good job at this who probably have done less good of a job in recent years as this polarization has become magnified, but who still make at least a somewhat good faith attempt and show evolution on things. I think Christiane Alampur is one of those interviewers, I think that, oh gosh, who's the South Asian guy who's really articulate? He's kind of a handsome guy, he's older now, but I can't think of his name. I'll think of it, it'll come to me.
Shawn:You know, he's one of those people who I think can do that. Now in the sort of more pop culture y sense, I think somebody like Bill Mardis does a really usually pretty good job of this. He can be annoying surely, you know, but most people can, we all have that, you know, where it's like, I think he gets a little too impressed by his own impressiveness, you know, and he can veer off into that. That's part of his stick is he's he because he's also kind of a comedian though, right? And so as a comedian, so that satirical, you know, sort of sharpness is part of his persona.
Shawn:It's part of his model. And I think it's very successful for him. And I think it's pretty defensible. Right. You know, he's not like, he is making fun, but he does it in a way that you just feel like fair enough.
Shawn:You know what I mean? You know, where there are others who I think are a little bit harsher. Again, I've talked in the past. I really like Megyn Kelly. I watch her stuff.
Shawn:I, you know, I find her to be intellectually strong and solid and reliable. But boy she's got this mean girl edge. You know what I mean? That she starts going down and she like fixates on certain things that I think are extremely beneath who I believe she is as a personality, you know, who a lot of people rely on for credible information. And so I guess where I was going with that is I do think there's models out there and more current than kind of what you were describing.
Shawn:Just not regularly seen or seen as such. Right. And I would love, and I do see a trend pivoting back to this though. It's almost becoming back in vogue because it's so absent that it's now being perceived as like, you know, a unique thing, right, which people always, you know, gravitate towards, which is the reintroduction. Because now you see people like Jillian Michaels and, you know, a bunch of other pundits who I can't, they're lesser known, they're not as famous, They're getting a lot of traction.
Shawn:They're getting a lot of traction in social media broadcasting. And I think that's important because what I think is it is our collective response of fatigue with the childishness and the rudeness and the the the clickbait. Like, just it it it's it's just gross. You know what I mean? Like, it it it is so beneath us and and yeah.
Shawn:So what I hope is that more of that of what you're describing is making a comeback. And and and I hope we're part of that. I hope we're part of that, like, wave.
Scott:Yeah. And it's I I hope we are too. And, you know, listening to you just yanks me in the direction of, you know, what's the what's the practical solution? Because the way that I'm hardwired is outcomes. And Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. It it it matters how we get there. We need to recognize the humanity in people who aren't us. We need to obey law. We need to not be mean.
Scott:But we still need to get to this point where And again, we started talking about language, So here's my term. It's childish. It is what I would have expected from my children when they were all under the age of 10 and they were arguing with each other. When they disagreed and they got frustrated, they went immediately to name calling. And what I have seen, and I think that I agree with you that maybe we're beginning to see a bit of a trend away from this just because it's maybe the general society is getting tired of it.
Scott:Maybe. Hopefully, general society is beginning to understand that it's it's just not productive to look at something, respond viscerally with either great joy or great hatred, and then wait for the next click baity thing to come. But how do we foster the adult conversation? How do we foster what I do think is part of the friendship that you and I have personally and what we're trying to do here on 2 Parachutes Podcast, which is be thoughtful, be dignified, be civil, have opinions, but be willing to have your mind changed. And if somebody is aggressively coming to you and saying, well, if you don't feel this way, then you're hurting me.
Scott:I I I think we need to be grown up enough to to gently and kindly have a conversation that says, you know, part of living in this world is is you're going to have your feelings hurt and not always are your feelings hurt by somebody who wants to hurt your feelings. And a part of you getting your feelings hurt may very well be, it may not be, but it may very well be as I'm having a conversation with somebody who wants me to feel a certain way about them. It it may very well be that this way that you feel about yourself, you are so uncertain about that you need the endorsement of people around you and strangers around you. If you really believed what you want me to agree to, it wouldn't matter what I think.
Shawn:That's right.
Scott:Because because
Shawn:That confidence.
Scott:You know you know what it is. Now, if if the criticism is, well, you don't agree with me and therefore you are treating me poorly. Okay. That's now a different thing. And to give a concrete example, the easy one and the clickbait one, so, you know, hit the little button that shuts me off if I'm going too far with this.
Scott:But if you have a transgender person, it is one thing to say, I understand, sir, that you are born a male and you are now living as a female, and you want me to agree that you're female. I I don't agree that you're female. What I see is, you know, a dude in a dress. Mhmm. Okay.
Scott:That that hurts your feelings. I don't intend to hurt your feelings, but I that's actually my opinion. And if I tell you I've changed my opinion, I'm lying to you, isn't it enough that you think you're a woman? That's one thing. But if I then say, therefore, I'm not gonna consider you for this job like anybody else.
Scott:I am going to not sell you, my house even though you're the the highest bidder. Now that's different.
Shawn:If
Scott:if I am gonna treat you with a lack of humanity because I don't agree with your self identification, that's fundamentally different. That now goes into the realm not of opinion but of humanity. And I, just as Scott Olson, I firmly believe at the at the core of me, my number one value of four values, my number one value is humanity, and that is recognizing that other people aren't me. Yeah. And there is value in understanding who that person is.
Scott:Not agreeing, not supporting or detracting, but recognizing. And I don't see that in the world, but it's a huge ask. It's a huge ask. I can't, you know go to the world and say, hey the world would be better if everybody's like Scott Olsen.
Shawn:It's not
Scott:true. The
Shawn:most effective people who are able to be advocates that produce meaningful results or change in human society, regardless if we're talking on like a local or a massive scale, are the people who are the most approachable, the people who aren't going to be so easily offended by stuff like that because they do have an integrity about their intent and a strong foundation of belief that is built on a bedrock of confidence in that belief, right? Like somehow along the way that's what they got. And I don't know if this is a perfect example but it's for whatever reason it was the one that kept popping up in my head as you were kind of talking, which is, so you've heard of I'm sure both these people, Greta Thunberg who's the Swedish young lady who's like a climate advocate and apparently now like you know a Palestinian advocate recently you know and that whole thing was just wild but let's set that aside. And Malala Yousafzai, I can't pronounce her name, Yousafzai, what is it? I spelled it to try to make Yousafzai, okay, the Pakistani young girl who was shot and almost killed you know by like I think it was like the Taliban or something maybe it was like they caught her going to school.
Shawn:I don't remember she had her whole face like it was just she barely made it and the poor thing was just you know was a whole thing right?
Scott:So Because she went to school. Yeah.
Shawn:Because she went to school, right? And so the difference between these two young ladies is they, because they're about the same age I think. And so as they have gotten older and gone from those sort of teenage like, you know, icon years into young adults and now Malala I think is like 28. I think Greta's probably a little younger maybe or maybe she's 28, but she acts like she's 17 or 16, like, you know, because she just kind of the what I'm trying to say is the juxtaposition of how they practice their advocacy. Like, Thunberg is very hostile and aggressive and condescending and ugly and rageful and mean, and Malala is lovely.
Shawn:She is and arguably went through the harder of the two. Like, as far as I know, Greta has never gone through a trial like that. You didn't almost die because you went to school. Calm down. Maybe calm down, you know, the rage.
Shawn:Right? Malala is full of love and light and energy and humor. And so if I juxtapose the last couple of times I saw each of these young ladies on video was this horrifying, like, you know, Thunberg screaming, like mouth open Rachel and just like, ah, like, you know, like, because the Israelis took me hostage and the Israelis are like basically eye rolling. They're like, calm down, like, queen. Like, you know, calm down, queen.
Shawn:You know what I mean? You're fine.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:And Malala on the other hand, it was in a video recently with this Indian comedian. Right? This woman who god. What was her name? Zarna I think it was Garg.
Shawn:Okay. Again, I'm probably butchering all these names. And the video, it took me a minute to realize what was happening because Malala's like on a couch. Okay. And she's just like, I'm getting therapy.
Shawn:And the whole shtick for the Indian comedian is she's, she's the almost therapist, meaning not qualified at all. Like, Malala is, it was a very self deprecating hilarious skit about like, I was almost shot and killed by the Taliban for going to school. I have a lot of trauma. I feel like, and like the Indian, almost surface is like, but like, I don't understand. You're very smart and you've had all this success and you have like a doctor or a master's or whatever.
Shawn:Like, okay, but like, and you're, okay. So you're married and you're living a good life. Why are you whining? She's like, why are you whining about your sadness? You're amazing.
Shawn:Know, and so but it was like a skit. It was a whole deliberate joke. But the juxtaposition between again and it all goes down to like practicing not just language but how you present yourself within that language construct to the world, how you advocate, how you engage with others. The one represented by Greta is a very condescending, a very patronizing sort of like, I'm this little Swedish girl who knows more than all of you idiots. And I'm better than everybody.
Shawn:I'm better than I'm smarter. I'm more conscientious. I'm more, empathetic. I'm more involved. I'm more ever, I'm more.
Shawn:Malalas is this quiet, like I survived. I'm going to help as many girls as I can to make sure that they have unfettered access to education worldwide. And I'm going to stay in the background and just do my work and do my advocacy and put the people on whose behalf I am advocating first.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:You know what I mean? And it's such a tremendous difference. You feel drawn to one. You wanna support. I'm like, where's the charity that I go to donate to that?
Shawn:You know? And the other one, you're just repulsed by.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:And it's just, you know, you're just like, I happen to love Palestinian people. I happen to very strongly support, you know, their goals of a state. And, you know, and I do take issue with the Israeli government governments, not people, not their faith for some of the things that have happened in the last sixty years. But if I were not like that, I would be probably repulsed by the palace. Would be just like, oh, that's your champion.
Shawn:I'm done. I don't want any part of that. Right? So it's like you're sacrificing the cause for your own self glorification and narcissism.
Scott:Yeah. And that's the I I understand. I see the picture that you're painting. The way that I process it is it's external versus internal. You know, the the Thunberg model is everybody has to do what I say and the risk in that model is not everybody does and that's the the ridicule and the name calling and the screaming.
Scott:In my opinion, is driven by fear. If I don't get everybody to agree then I'm done and fundamentally what that means is she thinks she's not enough. Yeah. It's not enough for her to say the things that she's saying. It's not enough for her to have her opinion.
Scott:She needs everybody else. The other young lady, the one who got shot, and thank you for taking a shot at, well, bad language.
Shawn:That was God, the pun, oh lord. Wow.
Scott:Sometimes the pun is appropriate. That one is not appropriate. Thank you for making an attempt to pronounce her paper right it's not that she doesn't care what other people think it's that what other people think isn't going to change what she thinks and she is going to continue to do what she can in the situations that she's in to help and that's the mature part that is the I cannot turn the tide of the world I cannot do everything for everybody but I can do what I can do I am just one person, but I am also one person, that phrase. I can do what I can do within my sphere of influence and, you know, the the rest of it will unfold the way that it unfolds. And and that is the the internal maturity.
Scott:And, you know, I think that Gore Vidal, as I'm going back into ancient history, is a good example of somebody who's incredibly liberal, who I personally disagree with as much as William F. Buckley disagreed with him. But he didn't need William F. Buckley or me or anybody to agree with him. He believed in what he believed in.
Scott:And I think what we see in public discourse and certainly as political discourse, and this may just be the nature of the beast. In politics, you need people to vote for you, and so you need to convince them to vote for you. And there are two ways to do that. Get them to agree with you or you figure out what they want and you agree with them. You know, the chicken in every pot.
Scott:Oh, we're gonna vote for that guy. You know, I'm gonna cap rents. Oh, we're gonna vote for that guy. And but the the problem that I have with that process is that it lacks humanity because you have a person interacting with all of society to get them to do something rather than interacting with society by starting with recognizing that they're human beings. And, you know, anyone who has political power.
Scott:Who does anything that hurts somebody I think is one of the most more morally reprehensible things that can be done and II recognize that people will say okay Olsen, you're a conservative dude and we have all these homeless people. What are you doing to to help them? And and that's that's a fair question. And the way that I would analyze all of the social programs is, you know, not are we, you know, are we paying attention to this? Are we doing what we can?
Scott:It's, is what we're doing to help actually helping? And I think that if we look at social programs, whether it's, you know, low income housing or public assistance or food stamps or, you know, health care, whatever, I mean, you know, if we look at the Affordable Care Act and the subsidies that are the the reason for the government shutdown right now, for me, as an aside, the Affordable Care Act is not affordable. If it were affordable, we wouldn't have to subsidize the premiums. So it's not affordable care. It is unaffordable care.
Scott:And so we're trying to do something so that when people need the expertise of the medical profession, can get it. But what we've done isn't working. It doesn't produce the outcome. There are many ideas out there that, you know, we're gonna we're gonna build housing that's inexpensive. We're gonna let people live there for free.
Scott:I would be surprised if anyone could show me an example where that type of system has resulted in people moving off the streets and into this housing and living, you know, clean, productive, dignified lives.
Shawn:Right.
Scott:And so I'm not saying, hey, here's the answer. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that just throwing time and money and sound bites at something doesn't actually help people and it's a challenge to help people. So
Shawn:my response to that, reaction to that at least is you know, and again I think this is all well within the theme of communication because it's how humans in societies collectively or, you know, sort of sub collectively, if you think of the collective as the nation and the sub collective as your state, your city, your neighborhood, It's how we talk with and among each other to achieve shared goals, to produce a sustainable lifestyle that everybody can feel good about. And what you're describing is very relevant because what happens I think a lot, at least my interpretation of what I see on the left in their policies is that they wanna abdicate power to the federal mandate so that, you know, it can kind of force community and force what ultimately should be a local solution. And I say should be a local solution because what it requires is let's just run with your example of the homeless situation. Well, to me that is not just a state problem. That is a city and a local neighborhood problem.
Shawn:Like you all need to be practicing good old fashioned in person empathy and collective action to keep your sphere of existence in a condition that you feel good about. And if you see homeless people, I don't need you to worry about homeless people in New York if you live in California, you take care of you San Francisco, how about that? Let's start there. And how about it be you guys taking care of it, your city, your situation. And this ultimately in my opinion is problem with communism or any kind of socialist structure where you have a lot of responsibility being sort of given to the state, meaning big state, not little state, you know, is that the more you outsource compassion and responsibility for each other's well-being, the less likely that is going to sustainably or regularly happen.
Shawn:Because it's ultimately at the human to human level that you have to exhibit the care because you have a vested interest in the outcome because you live there. I don't have a vested outcome or vested interest in the outcome as a bunch of politicians sitting on Capitol Hill because I'm gonna go back to my state in Nebraska or Nevada or wherever, okay? And it becomes easy for things to become distant and not important because it is not your community. And so then you just see a bunch of like, that's where the birth politics is where you see a bunch of political bargaining and juggling. It's like horse trading behind the scenes between a bunch of shady politicians who were just like, oh, well, I'll give you this if you give me that.
Shawn:That's not authentic. That's not real. That's not genuine compassion. That's removing the human element out of it. And it's commoditizing that in a political way.
Shawn:Right? So I think that there's the, you know, the answer to the homeless problem is localize, make it a local issue and then handle it how you're gonna handle it. And if your city stumbles upon a great model, then wonderful as a confederation of States in this nation, we should learn from it. Let's learn from that model and maybe try to adopt it. Boom, collaboration, support, reinforcement, localization, humanization couldn't get any better than that.
Shawn:Think, but what we have substituted for actual activism is this armchair online activism, which is just a bunch of nasty words and a bunch of like challenge to it, you know, anybody's opinion outside of our own. And it is not only is it eroding this sort of humanity and everybody, because now everybody's just riled up. And now, you know, and I might not have been mad two years ago, but now I'm just mad because now you're just pissing me off. You know what I mean? Because you're not producing solutions.
Shawn:You're not producing real empathy, wearing but this cloak of martyrism as if you are the only people who care about the well-being or the health, you know, and humanity of others. And yeah, I think that's a dangerous road for us to go down. But no, I don't know where that leaves us in terms of our communication. I just know that if we start sort of getting offline a little bit and going more into our communities, and if we start being more careful and deliberate with the use of words when we're engaging with each other, we have to be wanting to work towards shared understanding at minimum, but ideally towards negotiating some kind of a way to live together. Even if we hold these very different perspectives, you know, when you mentioned the transgender issue, like they have to know that there is a large, I would argue, probably the majority of Americans who are never gonna get on board with what they are with that what the left is trying to enforce in America.
Shawn:And it's not because we're all bigoted, hateful, unenlightened, you know, idiot Christians. You know what I mean? Like, because it because that's kind of the the the sort of, like, bucket you're put in if you even remotely wanna have a conversation that goes counter to what their very rigid belief is in that position.
Scott:Yeah, and I would add that to the list of reasons why central planning, whatever you call it, communism, socialism, fascism, Nazism. All of those isms are all about central planning. And the problem is that it makes communication terribly difficult. If you have 50 families in a neighborhood and there are a couple of people living on the street and they are empowered to help those people, communication is much easier than if you have The United States and homelessness is going to be solved by a bunch of people, like you say, that are necessarily somewhere and are somewhere is Washington DC. And they they don't they don't have a face to the problem.
Scott:And they they can look at statistics. We have X number of people living on the street, but they don't know what it smells like. They don't know what it looks like because it's too much. There are too many situations for a central planner to understand. As we're talking about this, there's the communication problem.
Scott:Central planning aggregates problems, so they're too big to actually effectively solve. When government is central planning, there is now one solution. There are not innovative solutions, different people in the marketplace. Like New York City, this Mandame candidate is talking about how we're gonna have government run stores. You know why supermarkets are good in The United States?
Scott:It's because if you have a supermarket that's run by a private entity and another private entity comes in and says we can do a better job than those guys they're going to build a supermarket kitty corner across the intersection and and try and beat them and and that's what drives innovation. So in government, if you're looking at just the government coming up with one solution, that solution may work and may not work. And if it doesn't work, you have nothing else. And then
Shawn:And if anything, Scott, it drives dependency because then you're now reliant.
Scott:Exactly. And that takes us to the fourth problem. The fourth problem, which is the government is the sovereign and the sovereign is immune from lawsuit. And that's why when you look at socialized medicine programs around the world that have bad outcomes, you don't see people suing doctors. And if you see them suing the national health system, it's only because in the national health system statute, it says the government may be sued for this.
Scott:But governments are have sovereign immunity. Citizens cannot sue the government for damage. So if you go to a government run supermarket and you open your can of tuna fish and you get botulism, you can't sue the government supermarket. That's the other problem with it. But to to pull us back to what we're talking about in terms of communication that you you can't communicate when there's too many people and maybe that's maybe that's part of what we see in the the the social parlance today with with online social media systems is we're not communicating because there's too many people.
Scott:You can't have a conversation. You've got, you know, 147 characters or, you know, a ninety second video that you can do. And, you know, how do you communicate a thoughtful statement of opinion on a complex issue? It's difficult, and it's just easier to say, I hate this guy. I hate that guy.
Scott:I agree with this, and I, you know, this is good and that's bad. And so there's not there's not going to be an easy solution to it. But I think part of it is, as we pull ourselves back through, staying away from ridicule, having civil discourse, being thoughtful, I think part of all of that comes back to the root of what we've been trying to talk about today, which is understanding what the words mean. And I think it really starts with understanding that sometimes we haven't thought enough about the words that we use. And so we think we know what they mean, but they don't, but we don't.
Scott:And then taking that next step where even if we thought about what we think words mean, considering that the people we're talking to don't understand what they mean. And I don't mean necessarily in the public discourse. I mean, I've been married and divorced twice. And that is a resounding endorsement of my inability to communicate one on one with another person. And, you know, even with all the tools that are out there, you know, for couples to to learn and to manage and to move through that, you can sit with your very best friend and still not understand what they're saying and still not even be aware that they
Shawn:that's right
Scott:that you don't understand and you know and maybe you know maybe as we drop down and get a toe on the ground. It's it's this if you're sitting with your best friend you are going to presume that they don't have evil intent. And so if you misunderstand, go to the side of the ledger of, oh, we just misunderstood each other and now we understand each other better. If you come in with a presumption of bad intent, you voted for Donald Trump, therefore you suck, and if there's a misunderstanding, it's your fault. Well, you voted for Joe Biden, and therefore you suck, And you voted for Kamala Harris?
Scott:You know, you have evil intent, and so it's your responsibility to understand. Maybe we'd be better off if everybody came in presuming good intent until evidence to the otherwise, but also taking responsibility for the communication.
Shawn:That's a true.
Scott:Sounds very high functioning, doesn't it?
Shawn:No, it's very aspirational and I think that is you know responsible humans and adults that are trying to navigate a better world than the one that we're currently you know all living in. I think it's a good first hard but really attainable step and I know I'll challenge myself to that as well. You know leading with joy and leading with a sense of I care about the outcome of this conversation because I care about you, I care about people in general, even if I disagree with them. You know, as a Christian, I'm called to love all of God's children and I do, but it's hard to remember that when they're screaming at you telling you that you're an evil Nazi and, you know, and and it's but that doesn't mean that we abdicate the responsibility to to to love them fiercely. And and so, know, I think it's a great call to action and I will take the challenge Scott because I know I have a thin skin sometimes and I get really riled up but I know people are like you said people are scared and I honestly believe that and they think the same thing by the way of those on the right.
Shawn:The folks on the left think that they think that the right is just a bunch of scared people which is why we need God and why we, you know, but I think that there's some truth to both sort of positions that like there's fear on both sides. I don't think it's always as much as people think, but I think what's happened is that insecurity, that fear are being nurtured and incentivized by the online platforms that facilitate online interaction. You know, that is maybe that's where we kind of wrap things up with a segue into another future conversation is, you know, is Congress taking enough action on, you know, managing, regulating sort of, you know, responsibility for certain algorithm impacts on their consumers, you know, these big tech companies and whatnot. Now I'll be like you in the sense that I will always lead with, I believe the intent is not, you know, don't think, and maybe I'm just flat ass wrong Scott, but, and I'm sure in certain cases I am and there have probably been historically cobbles of rich men just like sitting around a table and orchestrating, like, you know, how are we gonna fleece humanity today?
Shawn:But I don't think Mark Zuckerberg was one of those guys. I think he was a kid who did a thing. It became huge, and he is probably still trying to figure out how to keep up with it all. You know?
Scott:Yeah. And and I think that that makes a a really important point, which is there's a difference between presumptions, which is what you go into a situation that you don't understand with, and conclusions, which is what you leave that situation having examined it with. And so your presumptions drive your mindset and they can influence your conclusions if you're not thoughtful. But the idea that you would go into a situation recognizing that you don't understand everybody and presuming good intent until such time as it's clear that there's bad intent.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:The off ramp there, the the danger there is, oh, well, you just, you have to go in with an open mind and and never think bad of somebody. It's like, no. It's part of being thoughtful is starting from a functional place where you're not presuming that somebody is really good or really bad but understanding that you don't know and examining it and then when you come out the end, if the person is good, is well intended, but you're doing things that maybe they don't understand or bad, that's one thing. If somebody is is evil intended, if it is a cabal of people twiddling their mustaches and plotting the downfall of their enemies, if that's what it actually is, then that's what it actually is. But you don't get there by taking a snapshot of somebody and going, oh they've got a mustache, therefore they're twiddling it, and therefore they're evil.
Scott:And I think that's part of the message, you know, yourself up to succeed at understanding the truth of something. And then when the truth is revealed, do not hold back from what might be a negative opinion. It's okay to say, I think you're a horrible person, if you have facts and inferences from those facts that buttress that opinion. And again, I think somebody's a horrible opinion, it's my view that they're a horrible person. It shouldn't drive their view of themselves.
Scott:Right. So yeah. Well, was Can't believe we've done another hour.
Shawn:That was a dense conversation, but it was one worth having in my opinion. So thanks for that jump. That was fun.
Scott:Yeah. I will go on record in saying I thought we were going to go in a couple of different directions, but we never seem to know where the wind is going to blow us. But thank you again for another great hour, Sean. I truly value this friendship. It's wonderful.
Shawn:Yeah. I love riding the current with you, Scott.
Scott:Alright. I'll talk to you later.
Shawn:Till the next jump.
Scott:Bye.