Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Truth About Conspiracy Theories | Journalist, David Farrier

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

This week’s episode is with David Farrier.David has always been drawn to the stranger side of life, reporting and hosting across a range of news and entertainment programmes for TV3 New Zealand for nearly a decade.For many, David’s name conjures up images of grown men tickling each other in boxing rings. That’s not because it’s a hobby of his, but because his critically-acclaimed 2016 documentary Tickled, which is still cemented firmly in the minds of any who watched it, follows the largely unknown subculture of Competitive Endurance Tickling.Following its release, David was quickly approached by Netflix to create Dark Tourist, an eight-part docuseries about, you guessed it, dark tourism—those who forgo sandy beaches to instead visit places that are historically associated with death and tragedy. His stories from this show are… unbelievable.David now co-hosts Armchaired and Dangerous, a monthly podcast with Armchair Expert’s Dax Shepard and Monica Padman about conspiracy theories, and last year launched a newsletter named Webworm that is a joy to subscribe to.In this conversation, we discuss why he’s drawn to the stranger and more dangerous sides of life, how conspiracy theories are growing, how they’re changing the world we live in, and some strategies for dealing with that one whacky uncle over the holidays._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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in the United States of America. And in this episode of Finding Mastery, I want to drill down into how we talk to people who have spiraled into conspiracy theory belief. And beyond that, look at why people are believing these things in the first place. It's an incredibly strange time to be alive. It gets stranger every day. And I'm hoping that this conversation will illuminate a few of these things. All right, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist, and I'm fortunate to work with some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers across the planet. Now, the whole idea behind these conversations behind this podcast is to

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That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash findingmastery. Now, this week's conversation is with David Ferrier. David is drawn to the stranger side of life. He's been reporting and hosting across a range of news and entertainment programs for TV3 New Zealand for nearly a decade. And David's name conjures up images of grown men tickling each other in boxing rings. And that's not because it's his thing. But in 2016, he had a critically acclaimed documentary titled Tickled. And once you've seen it, it is hard to get those images out of your mind. But I'll bet that you weren't aware that there's a largely unknown subculture of competitive endurance tickling.

But following that release, this is why we're getting into this podcast. David was quickly approached by Netflix to create Dark Tourist. It's an eight-part docu-series about, well, you guessed it, dark tourism. Those that forego sandy beaches to instead visit places that are historically associated with death and tragedy. So his stories from the show are unbelievable. And right now, he co-s Arm Chaired and Dangerous. It's a monthly podcast with armchair experts, Dak Shepard and Monica Padman about conspiracy theories. And last year he launched a newsletter named Web Worm. That's a joy to subscribe to. In this conversation, I mean, he said it in the ominous

intro, but we discuss why he's drawn to the stranger, more dangerous sides of life and why you might be too, and how conspiracy theories are growing and the impact that that is having on all of us, how they're changing the world we live in. And also we talked through some strategies for dealing with that one wacky uncle over the holidays. This one, this is fun now. Now with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with David Ferrier. David, how are you? I'm really good. It's another surprise, surprise sunny day in Los Angeles. So I'm happy. We are at the time of recording. We're the week of the US holiday Thanksgiving. And I'm curious if you're going to celebrate Thanksgiving. I know that your origin story did not begin in this country, but I'm curious if you're going to celebrate with

the country. Yeah. I mean, I'm flattered that I've gotten invited to some Thanksgivings. It's something we don't do in New Zealand at all. We don't do Halloween, and I know that's a huge thing here, and we definitely don't do Thanksgiving. It's awkward now because I'm choosing between a few different Thanksgivings and also Friendsgiving, which is a thing that I hadn't heard of, which is like a bonus festival just for friends. So the origins of Thanksgiving are incredibly questionable, but I like the idea of eating a lot of food. Okay, let's start. Listen, I have followed your work for a long time. I love how your mind works. And in some respects, you are like a social grenade. I think you walk into a social setting, you pull the pin,

the thing gets said, people look at you sideways, and you're really good at getting straight to the truth of things. And so the origins of Thanksgiving are incredibly questionable. Yes. I'd love to hear your take on that. Let's start there. as a white person who's gone through their life with a pretty privileged, I've had a pretty privileged lot thus far. And so, you know, when you look at how this nation was founded and how the original custodians of this place I am now, America, are treated currently, yeah, Thanksgiving, it's a lot less appealing than the sharing of food and friendship makes out. You know, I was talking to some friends a couple of weeks ago and was incredibly surprised to learn that, you know, they were probably my age. They were sort of mid to late 30s. And at school, you know, before the Thanksgiving break, they'd all

dress up as pilgrims and be told this really watered down history of how America came to be. And I think it's only recently we're having these discussions, not just in the United States, but we're having them in New Zealand as well well looking at history a little bit more honestly and how a lot of the original inhabitants of these colonized countries have been treated and where that has left all of us now let's go to your origin story i want to know a little bit about like what yeah how you're growing up and we don't need to spend too much time but just frame from a framework perspective you know like it's a little bit of a backstop what was it like growing up i want to know what was capturing your attention when you're younger and i also want to know like what was the dinner table or

breakfast table like you know what were the conversations like with the family? Yeah, I mean, I grew up in New Zealand, which is very far away from where I am right now in the States. And weirdly, I came over here about six months ago, and I was meaning to go back to New Zealand, but they closed the border to keep COVID out. So I'm kind of stranded here at the moment. Happily stranded. I like being here and I find America pretty fascinating. But my upbringing, I was one of two children. I've got an older brother. I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian home. So I think, you know, my family was, I had a great upbringing. There was no like, I think when you bring up conservative Christianity, people sort of might think, oh, what was that like? I had a great time. I had a really good, you know, my dad was a veterinarian.

I love animals. That's thanks to my dad. Every animal under the sun would end up in our house. And so I had a pet goat at one point, which would follow me to school that I'd literally tie up outside the school gates when I went in. It was like a very idyllic childhood, like cats and we had like chickens and a dog and different parrots and parakeets. So I had a great upbringing. I think one thing that did play into where I went later in my life is I had a pretty narrow worldview, and that was a pretty religious worldview. You know, I was raised in a certain form of Christianity that didn't allow for a lot of

nuance in the way I viewed the world. And so I think when I left for university and started to fall away from that belief system, I was just kind of delighted about the types of people that existed in the world and the different belief systems and the different ways that people live their life. And so I really leaned heavily into that. And I think where I went in my documentary work from that was leaning into some of the more, I guess, left field groups, whether it was, you know, I started in pop culture journalism and I was drawn to like metal music because it was such a different set of people. And I love subcultures and subgroups. And I think a lot of that was from having an upbringing where it was pretty narrow and I had you know my friends

and and my my school and my family all believe the same thing and I'm sort of delighted now I mean the best thing about being alive I think is just the the huge array of different ways we can live this life and I think that's like fascinating and I think it should be celebrated. That's probably what led to your interest in expanding and pushing up against the edges of tourism and different worldviews and the way people organize their free time. And so I would like to hit on that series that you did. And the meat of what I want to talk about is conspiracy theory. And so where do you want to start? Do you want to start with dark tourist or do you want to start with conspiracy theory? We can, I mean, we can talk about dark tourists because that was a show that I made, I suppose,

before I started writing extensively about conspiracy theory culture. And yeah, it was a blast. And it's sort of an interesting thing to talk about that documentary series now at a time when we kind of haven't been able to travel as much so it it kind of feels exciting to revisit that in a way quick flyover is that you identified how many how many episodes was uh we did eight episodes eight i was gonna say eight or ten so eight episodes where you went to places that like were right on the fringe you know name a few of them to get a flavor um for folks that don't know yeah i mean we we traveled all over the place we're in in kazakhstan uh we were in uh we visited various places in japan we're in all around europe you know yeah it was it was a no fukushima actually we're in fukushima we wanted

to go to chernobyl um but we ended up choosing to cover the nuclear tourism found in fukushima and i guess the idea of dark tourist was that you know there's this area of tourism which is the opposite to what you expect you know instead of going to a beautiful beach or you know going to some wonderful idyllic place there's a certain subset of travelers that want to push what they see and what they do. And so they travel to places basically where something terrible has happened. And, you know, morally, this threw up a bunch of really interesting questions, because often a lot of people traveling are traveling from a place of privilege and suddenly, you know, disaster tourism comes into this. And, you know, should we be traveling to these places where awful things have happened for our own?

Is it education or is it entertainment? You know, so these are the kinds of things we were wanting to look at. And, you know, it led to some pretty fascinating places i mean my favorite the favorite episode for me i think was um probably the most morally sort of compromised episode which was meeting pablo escobar's um hitman um popeye and and you know narco tourism is this big thing where you know popularized in large part at the time due to narcos on netflix um And people were suddenly invigorated by Pablo Escobar and his story. And so people would flood to these different locations from Narcos, the TV show, which were also locations in reality. And so he ended up spending some time with Popeye.

And this is a man that had killed over 300 people, had executed his pregnant girlfriend. I will literally never meet anyone, be very surprised if I ever meet anyone in the rest of my life that was as morally objectionable to Popeye. And yet he was also, and I'm curious what your take is on this, he was also incredibly charismatic and I felt safe around him. I felt zero danger despite him objectively being the most dangerous person I'll ever meet. And he was carrying a gun at the time. I don't know what i got to quiz this guy about what made him tick and why he did the things he did and how he saw himself he's dead now from cancer but he um you know how he saw himself in society a lot of which hated him for what he had done i've got three questions hit me yeah how did you get up on the edge to ask him the dangerous questions? The, and the dangerous question would be one of intimacy. It would be one of truth and honesty,

which might not hold up his public image, right? So there's a, there's the marketing mind that he would have to know who he is in the world around him. And he needs to hold up that image of being an absolute psychopath, right? A controlled psychopath. So how did you do that? And in an honest conversation between you and I, did you go to the edge or did you hold back because of your own fears uh i think it was it was a bit of both i you know there was one point during the conversation where i said to him just very like point blank you executed your girlfriend and your unborn child

um and and that was by the way i loved when you asked that i was like oh god you know like how is he going to respond well yeah i had to bring it up because the thing is i i couldn't spend time with him and put him on screen and just sort of treat him as a wacky eccentric person that he is like i had to sort of i felt in that moment and i wasn't expecting to say that but i had to sort of just confront this one symbolic thing which you know he killed 300 people yes but i think that very visceral thing of executing his girlfriend and child uh was just this visceral thing that needed to be stated and i wanted to him to have him to sort of awkwardly grapple with that a little bit in the moment. And the joy with shooting documentary is cameras are on him, cameras are on me.

And you get that whole awkwardness and weirdness of that scenario. And I think, yeah, it was awkward and it was weird. But in saying that, I wasn't there alone with him. You know, when you're filming, I had a translator there for one thing so language in a way was a safety net for me because I would ask that question to his face but it would go via a translator and I think that that made it easier for me to do that and I think it was less a less brave way for me to communicate if i if we were speaking the same language then that may have been more difficult to do i think and and then the added thing you know one of my best friends um was there filming that you know i know him from new zealand i knew our sound

operator we had a producer there so there were people there and i think sometimes the things and maybe i shouldn't talk myself down, but sometimes when you seem brave or on camera, you are surrounded by a team and they are brave also. And there's safety in numbers. So that also gives me the bravado to do some of that stuff and to ask some of those questions. Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Yeah, I appreciate that. To answer your question um are you familiar

with the dark triad it's a psychological theory i've run into it a little bit in my conspiracy theory ramblings but please refresh me because i think it it says a lot yeah so the dark triad is a personality cluster where somebody represents three very dark personality traits. One is Machiavellianism. So the ability to, you know, really be clever in the way that you are bringing people around for your own gain, right? So there's Machiavellianism, psychopathology, which speaks for itself, and then narcissism. And so people of the dark triad are very dangerous, potentially violent, but very dangerous because it's all about them. They can woo you in, make you feel a certain way, but they have the psychopathology, which is the absolute, you know, ultimate game that they play is whenever they get backed into a corner, they'll just flip the chessboard.

You know, so you can't, you can't really work with psychopaths in a constructive way because of the outburst and the violence and the, the nature of which they work from is different than 99 point whatever percent of the population. But you take all three of those as a cluster and you he was probably just that and his the cameras fed the narcissism the machiavellianism was the kind of the swoon that he was able to help you love him and then um or not love him but you know have it oh there was there was a lot of affection there he was you know i have good memories of him and was a lot of affection there. He was, you know, I have good memories of him. And then the psychopathology is, eh, you don't know what you're going to get, you know? And so that's, it's a long way of answering your, your question. Yeah. And I think I find, I find being around these people fascinating. I mean, I think,

uh, you know, there's, there's a documentary I'm, I can't talk about much right now because I'm sort of finishing it off. But I think I'm hanging, I'm spending a lot of time with someone that has at least two of those traits. And I think just to be in the presence of someone like that, it's just fascinating because it's like being in a way with an alien. They think in such a different way to you. And it's just so, there's such a disconnect there. And you occasionally will connect on little points, but largely you won't. Like they're just marching to the beat of their own drum.

And yeah, it's sort of terrifying and fascinating at the same time. But something in me really likes spending time with those sorts of people, mainly partly because they make for a good story perhaps. But I think part of me does just like how fucking weird it is. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous.

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and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Oh yeah. I mean, the most manipulative, the most selfishulative the most selfish the most charismatic and um the quote-unquote most crazy you know and so yeah that's a good subject for you know for a lot of reasons oh goodness okay when when you were on the um how do you pronounce it mckinney manor yeah mckamey manor mckamey manor oh my god people like i want to encourage folks to go watch just that episode when i watched you get geared up for that i thought oh my god david is a madman like i love david for his you know his ability to get right on the edge because i i would say i think of myself in many lights that way and i was second guessing myself in that episode the entire time

like as soon as they put that thing in your mouth the dentist whatever contraption that opened your your jaw up i was like i don't know i just don't know what it was it was it was a you know mckamey manor is i guess it's an extreme haunt would be a charitable way to describe it. It's a guy waiting list for this thing um his haunt and the haunt is basically just him finding different ways to torch you and the idea is that you get through to the other side it's torture yeah this isn't this isn't haunt like uh ghosts and goblins and monsters jump out around corners this is true torture no he'll waterboard you or he'll he'll trap you in a freezer with water and lock it. He's got a mechanism that he'll almost like a fishbowl that he can like lock around your neck.

So you're sort of in the bowl with water. He is really good psychologically at preying on your fears. And, you know, I didn't get very far at all. But, you know, part of the first thing he did was he just takes away your freedom very quickly. So I was gagged. I was blindfolded. My mouth was sort of wrenched open with this device so that he had access to it all the time, which is an awful thing just to even sort of say. But there's something when you have your mouth open and you can't close it and it's just locked there which is just an objectively

awful feeling that i find hard to describe and then he puts headphones on and he's blasting really loud music so you can't hear anything or you don't know where you are and part of the initiation before we went into the haunt was you know hold on hold hold on, hold on. What? Yeah, why are we doing this again? Yeah, why are people doing this? Well, I get this fascination with the edge and the extremes, and I do kind of get it. You know, it's like the 10th level of a mud run. What's it called?

Like a, you know, like a- I know, I know. Yeah, there's courses. Mud buddy, or I'm blanking on it. I don't know why I'm blanking on it. But then there's like a Spart you know like i know you might know that yeah there's courses my buddy or i'm blanking on i don't know why i'm like but then there's like a spartan race and then there's kind of the ultra kind of spartan races stuff under bob wire and people you know like like there's just levels this and i'm watching you go through it and think i was like okay like he's he tapped out and i was laughing my ass off david we tapped out because it was like it was, he tapped out and I was laughing my ass off, David, when you tapped out

because it was like, it was quick now. And so, and, but as soon as they put that thing in your mouth, I was like, I don't know. I don't know. It's the ultimate kind of like, like you said, like a control manipulation, freedom, autonomy stripped away. And yeah, I'm like a school child right now now but can you talk about what happened when you were when you were like about to tap out oh it was just it was panic that had been building because you know in the show it's you know a couple of minutes but for a couple of hours he had me in a field doing like yoga stretches but occasionally he'd just come along and kick me really hard and you didn't know when the kick was going to come or when you were going to get pushed over and it just it starts annoying initially and it gives you a fright but then eventually you just

become it becomes very very tiring this this sort of slowly wearing you down and so when it came to that point and this was with my crew so when it came to that point, and this was with my crew around me, they came to a point where I was going to go alone with him. The cameras weren't going to be allowed to follow and I'd just be left alone with him to do what he wanted. And that was the point when, you know, when we went, we talked about this a lot because we knew this point was going to happen in the shoot

where he doesn't allow cameras to go beyond the certain point. There's two things. We're making a documentary, so it's not particularly helpful. You know, if you're not shooting it, it's like it doesn't exist, right? So what's the point? But in my own mind, I'd kind of talked myself up because I sort of thought maybe I can do this and I can be, you know, brave, whatever that word means and go through with it. But when it came down to being alone with him, my brain just said, no, it was just an absolute, I must get the hell out of here immediately. And so I gave the signal, I was released and it was really emotional. Like I cried and sort of blubbered a bit and it was, it was just such a

relief to be free, think and i was just it was panic it was that idea of being alone with this man with no help being restricted in that way that i was that it was just like i can't do this you because you don't even have a chance if you want to run you can't run because you're just completely tied down so yeah i decided that wasn't for me and just like in sadomasochism there's a code word right just like in bondage and or you know other kind of more pain meets pleasure sexual experiences there's a code word that folks will develop and he gives you a code word and he honored it he did honor it yeah he he messes with you as well because in the big contract there's this huge health and safety waiver that

you sign at the beginning and it's very performative as well as legally covering his covering his own ass but meaning that you could die you could be maimed yeah it was a limb you could you're not the most terrifying the most terrifying list you've ever read and part of it in there was like there is no safe word so in the back of your mind you're also thinking will he actually release me if i give my safe word so he did in this case but you know you go online and there's there's a number of facebook groups that are very opposed to what he does and there's some there's some pretty horrible stories in there uh so i'm surprised that no one has died in this thing i think there's been a heart attack at one point uh but it's

yeah it's terrifying and i'm it's it's surprising that it's allowed to run yeah it is surprising and two adults can do just about anything as long as they're consenting to their own experience right and not harming others like i'm maybe there's a legal mind that can of course correct me on that but that's at least the way it seems uh in the united states but all that being said is i loved this i loved this episode i loved your series i don't know when i saw it it was handfuls of years ago and uh thank you you just like so you just like seeing me in discomfort basically no because i was putting myself in it you know this is the narcissist right in all of us i was putting myself in it like could i would i and

actually you know it's funny dark triad light triad is i'm i'm playing on that narcissism in this podcast even is that i'm going to start asking you like eventually some harder questions. And my hope is that people are listening and answering it for themselves. Right? So we put ourselves, if we do it well, we can use our imagination and put ourselves in scenarios from an extraction to learn. And that is part of the hope. We don't always have to go get our teeth knocked in to know what it feels like to have your teeth knocked in, you know, and to know how to better position yourself to maybe take it in the chest rather than the teeth. You know, I don't

know. Yeah. And I think a lot of, a lot of, I think podcasting is a great place to explore that. And I think also, yeah, the way I try and make documentaries is from a, you know, you're sort of really following me into a situation. And I like to think that an audience can go along on that journey with me. So I'm glad you had that experience because, yeah, that's kind of the idea of it. Yeah. Well done. Well done. And so let's flip over to conspiracy theories. When did did when did you first get interested in conspiracy theories and i just i'm looking for an age not necessarily a full story probably when i got the internet which would have been around 12 13 and suddenly being able to jump online read about

the loch ness monster bigfoot which was which was stuff I'd always really liked just from seeing them in books. Suddenly I could go online and find all this information. And that very quickly went into the moon landing, JFK. Conspiracy theories just captured a part of my imagination. And when I was a kid, I was very engaged by them and excited by them. And then, of course, the X-Files came along when I was a teenager, and that sort of solidified things even more. I loved that stuff so much. It felt, when I was younger, teenage years, plus 20s, it felt more innocent. And could be the a bias that i have when i look back and i think about the loch ness monster and ufo sightings and jfk and and and yeah certainly

there's like the big government aspect to it with ufos and jfk and other stuff but i don't know if it my experience of conspiracy theories now feels very different. No, I think that's, I think that's really fair. I think, I think, and,

and my relationship with them has changed. I mean, that was when I was a kid when I started writing about them in my sort of role as a journalist beginning of last year, you know, the pandemic was kicking off and we had a few New Zealanders lighting 5G cell towers on fire. And I noticed that was happening in Britain as well. And it was happening in the United States. And there was this idea that 5G was somehow going to

damage your body in some way. That later combined with COVID conspiracy theories, that 5G was a vector for the virus all this kind of stuff and in new zealand what i noticed was that it was you know a lot of the communities being affected by these conspiracy theories were places that really did need those 5g towers you know um they needed them to communicate during a health crisis and suddenly um they were being burnt down which was alarming so that's just like a really small example of a conspiracy theory today being yeah being having consequences and you know obviously we'll get into this but you know conspiracy theories yeah

used to feel lighter and more engaging the moon landing jfk of course there are conspiracy theories that you know conspiracy theories are real you know watergate happened um you know so there's that kind of stuff but then what it feels like today is where and certainly here in the united states there's such a black and white view of the world and you're in this camp or you're in that camp you're left or right and the conspiracy theories have kind of amped up with that to the point where you know politically obviously there are some different issues that weigh into things but you suddenly end up with you know a bunch of people trying to you know and successfully getting into the one of your biggest houses of power here you know and rioting and um and that's madness you know how did we get here and that's a question

i ask myself every other day okay let's start at the top what is the definition or working definition of a conspiracy theory? Well, I guess it's this idea that people have come together to conspire to cover up the truth in some way. So, you know, a conspiracy can be small. It can be big. And, you know, historically, people in positions of power have been trying to screw over the little guy forever. You know, conspiracies exist. It's a thing. I think the meaning, though, of conspiracy theory, especially in the last couple of years, and certainly since the rise of something like QAnon has taken place, has sort

of changed its shift. Whereas I think if you spit it out, if you spat out the word conspiracy theory, spit out that phrase today, people wouldn't sort of think of that basic definition. They'd sort of probably more think of here are a group of people that believe something that is completely at odds with reality. And how did we get to this point? I think it's a very different, it means a very different thing now to what it did, you know, two, three, four, five years ago.

Was it, so, okay. I don't want to complicate this because I want to get into QAnon. I want to get into some of the vaccine stuff. I want to, you know, I want to get into these a little bit more because I'm looking from a distance. So I'm not in QAnon. into some of the vaccine stuff i want to you know i want to get into these a little bit more because i'm looking from a distance so i'm i'm not in q anon i don't have a vaccine conspiracy not not announced like i value science and it's a funny thing when you bump up against somebody that um is vaccine fearful or whatever they're like you should look it up it's like this deep fear that they don't want to be duped and you know and that's the phrase like look it up search it up like you know you would put that in your body man you have not done your research like wait

on yeah you got to do your own research right do your own research phrase it's a you know look it up so i think that it's a it's like the snake eats its tail and it it's a circular fallacy and logic that um is is crazy making and it makes me feel crazy when i talk to a conspiracy theorist until i poke like three levels into something and then it kind of the straw man kind of falls down but you hold on i'm'm saying all that because I want to ask, this is where I get a little confused sometimes. Let's go back to 10 BC, right? So there's this dude running around.

Or no, Judaism is predominant as a religion. And then 15 years later, 20 years later, there's this person that's changing everything, Jesus. And so are those folks, were they conspiracy theorists that the Savior has come, come to find out that it's one of the most powerful institutions over the last 2000 years, one of them? So was that a conspiracy? Were they conspiracy theorists at that time? No, I wouldn't view the early sort of members of the Christian church as conspiracy theorists. I think, you know, you can believe in a cause and that's just a belief system that you hold. It doesn't have to play into that. I think what becomes

really fascinating with conspiracy theories is that religion certainly comes into it. I mean, nearly any conspiracy that you poke around and dive into comes down to powerful elites being involved and those powerful people often being um jewish you know there's a hugely anti-semitic push to a lot of conspiracy theories it often goes back to like blaming a big bad and that big bad in a lot of people's minds is often jewish that happens with q anon it happens with all the big conspiracy theories whether you're talking about the illuminati um the knights templar it all has this deeply anti-semitic bent to it you'll often get to that in any conspiracy theory where does that come from that's new to me oh god i mean it's it's

complex and it comes from a lot of places but it it comes down to where does anti-Semitism come from, right? I mean, it's this awful thing that we live with that exists and it's something that fuels conspiracy theory culture. I mean, that is a whole other topic that i almost don't feel qualified enough to dive into but it's this idea that the jews are always painted as the ones pulling the strings and i think even a lot of really innocent conspiracy theories will end up going back to that point and a lot of people talking about conspiracy theories don't know this it's like they're looking at a surface level but go deep enough and it gets pretty pretty hateful pretty quickly wow okay let's there's also this thing this other thing just quickly and it is

religion you know being raised in a religious home i do find this fascinating. A lot of, and this is generalizing, which is not a great thing to do, but it's also sort of true. A lot of people that get deep into a belief system, and it is a belief system like QAnon, who believe that these, you know, Q is some insider that is dropping this information about this cabal that controls the world. Donald Trump isn't on it. He's still president, etc. A lot of these Q believers are also like very religious people. And they have been raised in a belief system where there is this very literal war being carried out between good and evil it's super

simple there's like behind the scenes angels and demons are literally having this fight here on earth it's like it's very it's it's very like cinematic and epic and exciting and it's exactly what these conspiracy theory beliefs tickle. It's that bit of us that wants to blame our problems and our shortcomings on like a big bad. And I think religion has kind of primed a lot of people to believe in the types of language and the types of beliefs that Q holds, that there is this battle going on and that you're a soldier fighting and yeah, we're going to run into Congress because we're here to do battle. And it's that kind of language that is evoked that's deeply religious and marries up to a lot of the QAnon stuff incredibly closely. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth.

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What is the central message for, from, or of QAnon? What is that, when you strip it down, what does it get to? The big bad is, I'm not sure I know what the big bad is because it seems like QAnon is the big bad. Yeah, no. They're not a big bad. Are they a big bad? Is QAnon a big bad but yeah no the the they're not a picture are they a big bad is q9 big bad or no no qq you know q anon refers to a group of believers that believe that q this person is this secretive character uh that is leaking information about the government. So QAnon is the movement.

The big bad really is the liberal elite that is controlling the world and that Donald Trump wanted to fight and bring down. That's why we saw a lot of the, um, you know, arrest Hillary Clinton slogans that were coming out. You know, it's the liberals. And again, it will inevitably at some point lead back to the Jews being bad. It's it's it's we're into sort of pretty crazy territory here. Like it is pretty mad. And I think the pandemic has probably increased people's stress and worry to the point

where they're looking for someone to blame and Q gives them an infrastructure and a hero in Donald Trump to see a possible way through where things might get better. Of course, they're not going to get better anytime soon. When you're doing this work, did you reveal to yourself like oh my god i actually i've bought into some conspiracies and as you're doing the work you're like how did i do that or have you always kind of been on the outside of conspiracies looking at them with a curiosity i think you know early on i think when i was a kid you, I think I found it exciting to think that maybe the moon landing had been faked to put America in a much more positive light and it had all been shot on a Hollywood set. But that's when I was a kid, you know, I sort of found that stuff exciting. I think as I've been writing about this stuff in the last couple of years, I'm trying to think if there is one that I have.

I don't think I've gone down the rabbit hole. I look at everything objectively and slightly cynically, and I think that just stops me from jumping down. I mean, a lot of it is just so, you know, there are levels of conspiracy as well. And if you're talking about conspiracy theorists. I mean, if you take something like 9-11, for instance, not all 9-11 truthers, as they call themselves, are the same. the less extreme end that would think that that terrorist attack was used as an excuse by the United States to go to war and claim some land and claim some oil and all the rest of it. There's others at the other end that will say maybe, well, not the other end, just a little bit further along that continuum, that will say, oh, you know, maybe the American government knew that was going to happen and maybe they didn't do anything about

it and it just sort of happened and that was used as the excuse. To the other extreme end where there are multiple bombs planted in the towers, there are no planes, they're holograms, they didn't even exist and the government orchestrated all this so we could invade another country. So on that continuum I think if it makes me a conspiracy theorist that I think the United States used 9-11 as an excuse to invade another country, count me in. I'm a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that there were holographic planes and bombs were planted in the towers. So there are different levels to this belief of conspiracy theory culture. And I think that's an important thing,

especially like around any sort of holiday time, if you're meeting with like that slightly mad uncle or unhinged relative, to kind of establish like where they are on the spectrum so that you're not instantly writing them off. And maybe you can have some sort of shared discussion because we all are suspicious of power so sort of see where you are on that continuum and see if there's any common ground and go from there okay so i've i i would like for you to comment on the psychology of people that are attracted or engaged in conspiracy as a worldview, as a model of modern

society. I would like to hear just your findings about that psychology. I'm wondering if it's similar to the psychology around people who join cults, but I'll pause that for a minute. And then I want to get to the practical solutions because I've read some of your practical solutions to talk to the uncle or the cousin or whomever that is a conspiracy theorist or that's actually probably not even the right way to say it somebody who who follows a conspiracy i don't i don't agree with you so

yeah i think it's so it's open it's so they're so wonderful your comments are so wonderful but i want to i want to double click on those with you so can you start with like the makeup of people that you know organize their worldview around conspiracies or yeah well i think one thing that is surprising i think in a way is that know, they're not a bunch of idiots. Like there are some incredibly smart, savvy people. That's right. That can believe some really outrageous things. And I think it's really easy just to go, I'm smart.

You're dumb. They're not. They just have gone down a rabbit hole. You haven't. And I think as a general rule, I think people that go down these rabbit holes into conspiracy theory belief have a distrust for authority in some way and a skepticism and don't like being told what to do. And that can be a really healthy thing. And I think also when it comes to COVID, I think some of the people that are skeptical of the vaccine and being around this vaccine so tricky, because yeah, the government has screwed a lot of people over before.

Doesn't mean they're always going to. So I think it's a skepticism. It's a worry about authority. And it's also, that's part of it. I also think it's people who feel disenfranchised and want answers to why their lives didn't turn out the way they wanted them to. So you see this in a lot of middle America, I think. And you see a lot of mom and dads joining up to QAnon and they've had a tough time. And that conspiracy theory tells them very specifically why they're being kept down and why they're failing because these huge power structures um some of them

you know trapping children in basements and draining from for adrenochrome are keeping them down it might get outrageous but that whole idea of the being a reason behind their lives not being as fantastic as they wanted them to be is a big part of it super clear those are four or maybe five very distinct variables that would lead somebody to it and i understand it when you say it that way and from that i can understand your position about like a come from a place of compassion, working with people. The trick for me is, and maybe you can make a recommendation and I'll share with you like where I was like, oh man, I don't know if I can do that. But so do you want to start with maybe some recommendations, you know, over the holiday

seasons or next time you're together with somebody? And I'd love to know what you disagree disagree with because i think i i i disagree with myself sometimes and i and i i jump between yeah but no i think you know a big thing is not to shut down for one thing don't get angry um try and find a point of shared understanding as i mentioned earlier like if you're going to talk about a theory try and find where you maybe have some common ground instead of just instantly saying no you're an idiot you know so if it's on 9-11 like start to talk about how yeah like you know i i perhaps don't trust the government either but maybe you know and just sort of open up the conversation as opposed to shutting it down. Another thing I think is a really good technique is something that I certainly didn't invent

called steel manning, where you kind of go and learn that theory better than they know it themselves. So instead of just like saying, oh, you're stupid, have questions about it, like know their belief system better than they do and question them on it like why you know how does this make sense to you and sometimes you know the opposite of strawmanning knowing that theory better than they do and really questioning them about it if you explain the theory back to them better than they know it it can start to create some like dissonance in their brain when they hear it back. And something you'll find with many believers is they don't actually know what they believe that well.

It's similar with a lot of religious belief. You know, a lot of Christians don't know the Bible that well. They kind of know how it makes them feel and what it gives them. They don't really know a lot about the actual text. They probably haven't read the bible um cover to cover i so it's the same thing with conspiracy theories a lot of people don't know the theory that well so if you can like lay it out for them better than they do and believe me if you lay out all the details of many conspiracy theories they do sound batshit insane that may help to cut through

those are just yeah that's something steel manning is something i i really do stick by but tell me what you find tell me what you find um sort of difficult about about dealing with with this stuff and maybe how i've suggested dealing with it uh when you say it the way you just said it i'm gonna sound like a complete like lunatic like off the hinge when it comes to personal relationships, which I, um, so, all right. So what you just described is really thoughtful and from straw man to steel man, you know, and, and to be curious is how I hear about it. And so there's a, um, a healthy, um, space between your sense of how things work and being curious about how they work.

And so I totally get it. I like that part of it. My experience has been with people in my peer group and my family is that I know folks that have ascribed well to conspiracies and they're really smart. So I understand like the straw man effect, you know, and I said earlier at the top, like when you triple click three in, like it starts to fall apart. Your point batshit crazy. When you do it with really smart people, there are other things that they can employ. And sometimes like they'll find the logic that will hold up. Like logically, there can be some things that hold up to your point. I though I am not going to spend enough time to go down the rabbit hole that these

very intelligent, disciplined, discerning humans in my family and my peer group have done. I don't have that time, energy, nor interest. Absolutely. So the steel man approach doesn't hold up there for me. And so I can use curiosity. I can use thoughtfulness. I can use sound logic. If then, a priori, I can get to some argumentation without arguing about it.

And then, and then if I find at some point it turns really personal and it, I am telling you, it does not turn personal. It does not turn personal from me, but as soon as you are employing some sort of curious logic and then frustration happens and there's a moment of vulnerability because, oh my God, the thing is falling apart in front of this person that I'm trying to convince that all of a sudden it's like, well, listen, you can't be that stupid, Mike. You can't believe that the government's got your back. You can't believe that you really think that, you know, and all of a sudden, and then I'm i'm referencing so you know where i'm you know the person i'm talking about and the point of the conversation so then i've got to use all of my

psychological skills to to breathe to you know but so i don't want to engage anymore okay so you're saying engage and go with it and i'm saying as a as a first principle i agree i agree with everything you say and i and i think i think you've self-care is a big part of this as well. Oh, good. Okay, good. And you've got to look out for yourself first and not drive yourself bonkers. And I think it's going into it knowing that, look, logic may sow some seeds of doubt that long-term may cause change. They say that coming out of a conspiracy theory belief set takes a couple of

years you're not going to snap someone out of it the best you can hope is to seed a little bit of doubt in the brain that will like slowly set off some dominoes in their own mind that they have to come to terms with certain people in q anon certain things went too far and now we're seeing people start to slip out of that belief system but But you're arguing with the belief system. Logic isn't always going to cut through because it's like you're sitting down with your 90-year-old beautiful grandma who has this really deeply seated religious belief. She believes maybe the earth is 10,000 years old.

Stuff that is objectively, scientifically doesn't hold up particularly well. You get stuck into her. She's not going to come around with your science that you're quoting at her because it's at such odds with what she feels and what makes her life worth living in a way and what gives make sense of the world. And it's the same if you're beautiful yeah it's the same way when you're dealing with like your aggressive uncle who's sort of yelling at you it's a belief system and he's invested a lot of time in it and a lot of thought in it and if you're just sort of coming in and telling him he's stupid you why would he ever believe you like it gives his life focus and drive, and it's given

him a community as well, because chances are he's on Facebook and has met a lot of like-minded people that he gets on with. And it's given him, again, during a pandemic when we've all been very isolated, it's given a lot of people a second family, this stuff. It's a bunch of people who all have the same shared language. Just like religion, they've got the same sort of heroes and they've got the same language. If they say a phrase, they're going to understand what it means. It's like a club. It's like a cult. It's all those things that logic around the Christmas table, dinner table isn't going to, it's going to do nothing. So I get you you i just like to think that at some point you can try some of these things and they might start to make a bit of their brain

wobble but you're not going to snap anyone out of it i and so this is this is what i've appreciated in my response right is that as soon as it gets personal and i oh yeah it will it will it will it does yeah because it's there's a protection mechanism at play and i i'm not going to call someone stupid but when i peck at like trying to understand there's a defensiveness that kicks up and as soon as it gets that way you know personal i'll in my mind i think of the mark twain the great mark twain quote you know you can't argue with stupid people they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience you know like like so and i'm and i'm not thinking they're stupid but i can't understand

the logic in it and then it gets personal and then i go you know i really appreciate you and um we're just not going to see this one through. And then I'll grin. And then all of a sudden it's like, the thing I hear back, I'm thinking of one cousin is like, well, one day I think you'll see Mike. You know, it's like, oh my God. It just, like, there's just kind of no way through it. You know, I'll tell you a funny one.

You've heard this, right? A family member or somebody says, supposedly the spanish flu supposedly they landed on the moon it's like oh my god it's just you can see the framing coming in right and you can see this battle like impending like on the horizon yeah that's exactly right okay so all i mean it sounds fun it It's really not, but I am like, so you're saying use some logic, curiosity, and just, you know, enough space in there that you're dropping little seeds because one day it might unfold for them. But while they're in it, it

almost feels like there's a shrink wrap that's taken place and they're trying to pull you into that like vacuum shrink wrap, you know, and, um wrap you know and absolutely yeah you can only the only thing you can hope to do is seed a little bit of doubt in there they have to come to that decision themselves because it's a it's a deeply personal decision they've come to to believe in these things it's not it's not just sort of so-called facts they've read that have won them over. It's an explanation for this terrifying world that they're in. And that's not something you give up lightly. I mean, the fact we're all on this planet and don't really know why we're here. It's like we wake up every day. We don't know how we got here. We don't know what happens when we die. It's fucking terrifying to anybody. And when you add in a lot of the other pressures that are going on

it's it's not a surprise that people try and reach for these sort of tried and true stories that are that are you know millennia old that there is a big evil force out there out to get you you know it's that same it's that same storytelling of like good versus evil that that plays into this and it gives you an explanation for things so yeah it's big stuff we're talking about you know yeah it really is it's a deep belief systems but how do you get to the flat earthers like you i know you've taken a dive you can't you can't you can't flat earth is there's no i mean you can show a flat earth uh various science experiments you can demonstrate to them really clearly that that the earth is not flat there is there is curving involved in there somewhere but again it's like you know i went to a flat earth

conference in new zealand um a couple of years ago. They've certainly made it there. They're not just in the United States. And it's a club. Everyone knows each other. There's YouTube stars there. They've got their own language, their own celebrities. And there's no getting through to a lot of that stuff. And again, most flat earthers are a form of Christian. And there's some wonderful Christians. I'm not saying Christians are all conspiracy theorists. But there is a big crossover there because a lot of the proof they get for their flat earth beliefs are from biblical scriptures and the way that they see the world with heaven being above, hell being below, and different references in the Bible that was written when people didn't have an understanding of how the solar system was put together. So the religious crossover, it just comes up so much. And I think I feel really strongly about that because of my upbringing and coming up in an upbringing where I was given the answers to things that made me

feel like, to be frank, like I was superior to other people. I had the truth. I had the answers. I knew where I was going when I died. I knew that there were these like evil forces going on behind the scenes. I believed all that till I was about 17 and it gave me structure and I would hear people tell me about fossils and the fossil record and I just had like little I just put that in one other part of my brain and just carry on with what I knew to be true because it was way easier and it came with community and it came with friends and the idea of dumping that belief was like shame was an element of it because it's like i've been wrong about this the whole time and also you just like lose a culture like you risk being cut off from from various people in

your life because of that change the same thing with a lot of this conspiracy stuff it's so you know you're not going to snap people out overnight but i like to think that you can try and at the very least it like helps your debating skills and helps you to like keep your cool a little bit it is good training there i do like that about it and so you've seen you've, you've written about some really bizarre, twisted stories about people, you know, in the world. Like it's up on the fringe with stuff, which I love about you and your work. And I'm curious about your view of the future. Are you optimistic?

Do you have a pessimistic view? Like, how do you think about the future from a humanity standpoint? I mean, I am pretty pessimistic, which I think confuses people because I am a pretty upbeat, happy person. Like I, I'm a happy person. I I'm lucky enough that I don't get depressed and I don't suffer from depression. I find things in each day to be excited for. Looking at the planet as a whole, though, I think, you know, I make no bones about it. I'm, I guess what you'd call in America, a liberal. I'm left leaning. That's just the way I am. I believe in science. I believe that

the planet is on fire and we're not doing enough to change that. I think since Donald Trump, in part, instilled this idea that we can create our own reality and that everything that we don't like is fake news those ideas are spreading and I think when we pair that up with the demise of the planet I don't know how we're going to be able to come together and actually come up with a solution because things are dire you know things are on fire and we're not doing anything about it we're just sort of muddling on with our own silly little problems here on earth so i'm encouraged by the next generation i think some kid will if they're going to save us it will probably be them and not elon musk. I'm slightly concerned about where the power does lie in society,

whether it's with Mark Zuckerberg and the likes and Jack Dorsey and the way that we're using social media and the way that we're interacting with each other and what that's doing to us. Yeah, I see a lot of reasons for pessimism and not a lot for optimism. Just here in Los Angeles, looking at the homeless population and how that is just utterly ignored. It almost comes down to individuals to help come up with a plan because the government certainly doesn't seem to be helping. And that's just outrageous to me. I don't understand it. I don't understand why there isn't some sort of universal healthcare system here. I don't understand why when people in America get sick, they have to attempt to go viral on some

fundraising page to get medical treatment. Everything seems bad a lot of the time. And so I feel, sorry, I'm r ranting on now but i feel pretty pessimistic about things and i don't quite know what to do i mean how do you feel about things depressed now that you get to the truth of it no um yes i okay so i recognize much of what you just talked about and i will tell you that because of what you just talked about. And I will tell you that because of what you just shared, there was nothing out of place that the purpose of my company and which happens to match up to my life purpose, but we've got a small, powerful team that is squarely anchored in this way. So I'm going to say yes and this is how, right? Is that I also have this deep appreciation

for just how remarkable the human capability is and how untapped our resources are. I don't think we're using them properly. And so the purpose of my company is to help people live in the present moment more often and you go wait a minute that's not what tech is doing that's not what you know like tech is pulling us away from that right and we're also pulling more we're pulling further away from feeling pain so when you say what you said i feel it and when i feel it i say oh i can't sit passively so i must do something and so that is i believe that to be true for most people

and this is where mirror neurons empathy centers compassion centers this is where bonding relationships part of the deep history of our DNA and genetic coding is, is embedded that, that there's, we want to do something to help, to, to help others. And so here's the purpose to help people live in the present moment. Why? Because they'll get to the truth of things. When you get to the truth, you'll access that agency to want to help. And we need each other. So when we get to the present moment, we understand our capabilities. We get to the truth, you'll access that agency to want to help. And we need each other. So when we get to the present moment, we understand our capabilities. We get to pain.

And then we'll want to take action. And we need each other. So then we'll take care of each other, take care of the planet, and then eventually, hopefully, take care of machines. We are running, in nine years' time, David, you're probably very familiar with this, in nine years' time, we will have a machine that is smarter than every other human. Not put together. Yeah, if that's in 10 years, I find that a terrifying prospect. I do too. We're not ready for a machine to watch us and go, oh, I see how you do it.

I'm going to do the way you do it better. Oh, no, absolutely. Because the second a machine can do it better, there's very little need for us to even exist. But to me, the scarier point is they can already process faster, but they struggle with feeling and the emotional component and to learn in an integrated way. That being said, is imagine if a computer smarter than the smartest person was observing human behavior at scale and said, I'm going to do it the way you do it. And I'm going to do a little bit better. I think if they watch the news, if they scrape the internet, if they listen to phone calls, you know, I think that they're going to say, right, greed. Okay. You know, scarcity, you know, contempt, jealousy, you know, like,

I think we're going to get into some anger and mistrust. And so then imagine if that computer has another hundred buddies and then 10,000 buddies, you know, that are just like them. I think we've got trouble coming. So we're going to need to love these things. But how do we do that? We've got to love our planet. We've got to love people. We've got to love ourselves.

And it begins with getting in touch with the pain that we're feeling so we can do something about it. It's complicated in some respects. You know, what you talk about i think yeah acknowledge i think there is this idea and i know you've talked about this before about pain being a bad thing to be avoided at all costs and i think yeah i agree with you completely that we need to feel we need to feel those emotions to actually be called into action to actually help if we just you know i think sometimes if people are too happy and too content they become the most useless um meat sacks on the planet because they're just doing nothing.

They're content. It's like nothing good is going to come from that. You're just going to become nothing from that. We are becoming intolerant to distress. And that's a real thing that actually leads to unhealthy people is a distal uh intolerance to distress so part of like helping people understand capabilities is to help them feel pain and i'm not not sadistically but like not like russ mccamey no exactly right exactly but more like a cold shower or sitting with your emotions you know like labeling an emotion with another

person. How about it? Start there. But so all that being said is that I want to ask you a question is that you have this outlook that is bleak. And then you say you don't fall into a state of or an experience of depression. Like, how do you do that? I think that that's that's quite remarkable yeah that's a really good question i think i i mean maybe this is a problem i find enough to and to enjoy and to find wonder in in the day-to-day that keeps me that keeps me positive and focused but the problem with that is and what i think is difficult with this is that's necessarily, I don't see how that can translate to helping a planet that is completely crippled by power structures that don't want to help. And that's my difficulty in all of this. Because as humans, we're very good at thinking in our own timeline, in our own world. I think we're really good at

predicting and looking forward maybe five or 10 years, maybe back about 10. Beyond that, we're pretty useless. We don't see patterns. We don't see things that have happened before. We don't know that for every government intervention, whether it's wearing seatbelts or the last vaccine roll that we had to have, there's always people that say, no, I'm not going to do that i want my freedom we don't remember this stuff so it's like every new problem we get it's like we're experiencing it for the first time and and that worries me that we just get so stuck in like just the day-to-day whether we i enjoy that or whether i don't and we we need to be able to look beyond that for any type of hope of saving the planet. And that's where I think when you're talking about intelligent machines and potentially AI, the one joy in AI is that it will be smarter than us.

And if it's on our side, can potentially come up with a solution that we can't because humans are terrible at coming up with solutions together en masse. Like we're terrible at it. We can't do it. So there's your answer. It's like curiosity, you know, is your anecdote to the bleak outlook, you know, the pessimistic outlook of the future. So curiosity would be it. And then the other part is you're exactly right, is that we do need something more intelligent to get us out of the mess that we've created. And if we can not other the machines, and so the reason we would other them is because we're afraid of them.

And if we treat them like a stupid adolescent, or we treat them like the enemy because we're afraid of them and we other them, they will feel that at some level potentially. And then this thing flips on its head. Yeah, we're toast. Yeah. So we really do need to work from our own pain and suffering to be able to understand this agency that is born, that is natural for people. The agency is a natural thing to move in an agentic way out of love and eventually love self, others, the planet and machines. I think in that order is going to be pretty flippant important.

But anyways, I agree. Listen, yeah. Oh, do you do? Okay, cool. David, I love this conversation. I love your logic. I love the simplicity of how you lay out an argument and get, draw right into the clarity of the position and how to string along from thought one to thought two. I love it. And so where can, I feel like I can spend a lot more time with you, but I want to honor your time. Where can people follow your work? Yes. I write a lot on a newsletter called Webworm, which is webworm.co. You can sign up for that. There's a free version.

There's a paid version. You certainly don't have to pay me. All my conspiracy theory writing, I always write for free. I never want it to be paywalled. I do a monthly podcast with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman called Armchair and Dangerous, where we kind of break down and discuss conspiracy theory culture. I do that once a month. But yeah, I think webworms where mostly you can follow my stuff. I tweet, but increasingly I think Twitter is just the worst of society where we're just breaking really complicated ideas down

into very few words, which isn't helping anyone. So yeah, I'm putting more effort into writing these days. And yeah, some of my old documentary work, it's up on Netflix and HBO. So you might enjoy that. I love your way, David. I find you to be really courageously open and explore um super introspective and thoughtful there's a kindness that exudes from you um i think you're able to stay wide and also drill in and as you drill in you don't get lost in the drilling it's like it it makes sense there's a framework that you're working from and i would imagine that people love being your friend because you have a just you actually despite the worldview of the

future you have a very positive outlook of people i think relationships matter to you and you're invested in them and i think that you know you probably run a little stressed you know there's a little bit of anxiety that sits underneath of that and yeah there is yeah stop looking into my soul oh yeah and so listen um occupational hazard i guess but i i have appreciated uh this conversation so i'm wishing you kick-ass success in everything that you're doing and if there's a place we can play in the future, let me know. I've enjoyed sharing and learning from you. So thank you, David. No, thank you. That means a lot. And I think kindness is the one thing that we have to try and tap into. And yeah, curiosity is a good thing. If anything, if you want to stay sane around conspiracy believers that are driving you

a bit crazy, just sort of observe them. And it's interesting. It's fascinating. And don't treat it like a battle. Just treat it as a bit of like weird Christmas entertainment. All right. So say hi to Dax and Monica. And I'm wishing you the best.

I will. Yeah, I'm seeing them next week. Oh, I may see them tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Awesome. Take care. Okay, bye. Bye. All right.

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