Offline with Jon Favreau - Zuck Takes the Stand, ChatGPT Turns on Lovett, and the Surprising Ties Between Our Biology and Our Politics

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Free speech warrior Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand this week to defend Meta in a big antitrust case that, if successful, could break up the social media giant. Max and Jon run through the trial thus far, and discuss how Silicon Valley tycoons skewered themselves by supporting Trump. Then, the guys delve into the ever-improving state of AI, with help from Offline AI correspondent Jon Lovett. To round it all out, Dr. Leor Zmigrod joins the show to talk about her new book, The Ideological Brain, which explores the neuroscience of ideology and why some people are more susceptible to extremist thought than others.

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Use code offline10 to get 10 percent off your next order at Bookshop.org. That's code OFFLINE10 at Bookshop.org. Hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from KQBD, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life. You don't know what's true or not because you don't know if AI was involved in it. So my first reaction was, haha, this is so funny. And my next reaction was, wait a minute, I'm a journalist.

Is this real? And I think we will see it to a streamer president, maybe within our lifetimes. You can find Close All Tabs wherever you listen to podcasts. There's a real distinction between followers and leaders. Often, ideological leaders are actually not cognitively rigid at all. They're actually very cognitively flexible. They're opportunistic. They're happy to change according to, you know, the moods of followers.

And they're happy to exploit that. But what they're trying to exploit is the cognitive rigidity of followers of citizens to kind of take them on with their mission. I'm John Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. And you just heard from today's guest, political psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Lior Zmigrod. Dr. Zmigrod recently published a new book, The Ideological Brain, that explores how our biology is correlated to our ideological tendencies, which has all kinds of implications for what really informs our political beliefs

and what makes us susceptible to more rigid, extreme ideologies. It's fascinating stuff, so I invited Ron to talk about the book and what our research can teach us about opening our minds and changing our beliefs. It's a great conversation. We'll get to it in a minute. We're living in such a golden age of using hard sciences to understand things like politics and political behavior that I think we always thought were outside the bounds of hard science. And it's really exciting, I think. And I said this to her, but like I come at this from politics, but also like sociological background.

Oh, sure. So I'm always looking for like nature and what life experiences are shaping your politics and your ideologies. And it was fascinating to hear from a neuroscientist about like what is in our brains and what is determining what we think. The human animal. Yeah, exactly. But before we get to all that, welcome back, Max.

Thank you. I was vacation. It was great, man. I was in Japan. It was, welcome back, Max. Thank you. I missed it. How was vacation? It was great, man. I was in Japan, it was my third trip. I love that place. It's one of the best. Did they love our tariffs?

Everybody was very polite to me about not bringing up the fact that our dumb ass bullshit country was trying to destroy their economy and ours for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, which I thought was really nice. No, I kept thinking like, don't you wanna like tell me off for my horrible country?

There was a moment when I... We're the big assholes here in America. I mean, in fairness, that has always been kind of our thing, but it's especially our thing these days. Like us and the French. Yeah. No, we love the French. Sorry, sorry. So don't come at me. French losers. I did have... I had this funny moment when I was like reading about the tariffs on my phone and about how all tech products are about to get so much more expensive.

And then I looked up and realized I was in the middle of a Tokyo shopping district surrounded by said tech products. And I was like, should I just throw out all of my dirty laundry and fill my bag with Nintendo switches? I mean, might be, it might've been a good idea. It would have been a good idea. Yeah. I decided not to take on the arbitrage opportunity

of a lifetime, which is why you're hearing about it on this show. If I'd done it, I definitely would not have mentioned it here. Don't know you would not have talked about that. Well, it's good to have you back. We miss you. All right, so we've got some big news to cover today before we get to the interview, so let's get into it.

Free speech warrior Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand this week. No gold chain at that appearance. No gold chain. He took the stand this week to defend Metta in a big antitrust case that if successful could break up the social media giant. Federal Trade Commission alleges that Metta's acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and their acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 were part of a quote, buy or bury strategy to eliminate competition and

illegally monopolize the social media market. As evidence, the FTC presented to the court a series of emails and internal communication between Zuckerberg and Facebook leadership detailing the company's aggressive acquisition strategy, including a 2012 email where Zuckerberg specifically discussed the importance of, quote, neutralizing a competitor when discussing Instagram.

Subject line, antitrust violation. You're going to want to put this in the antitrust folder. That's how you're going to want to have to run with it. Zuckerberg and met his lawyers to the surprise of no one have denied the FTC's allegations and have argued that Facebook is not an illegal monopoly because it's experience, it experiences competition from TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, just a little guy. It's a small guy. Yeah.

It was just a mom and pop business. I feel like we've talked about this trial before for a long time now that it's finally underway. What has surprised you the most? There is this one Zuckerberg email from 2018 that absolutely blew my mind. He wrote, quote, as calls to break up the big tech companies grow, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to spin out Instagram. And then he went on, while most companies-

So he can predict the future. I know. I know. Who could have foreseen? He wrote, while most companies resist breakups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they've been split up. The synergies are usually, oh my, it's nuts, the synergies are usually less than people think and the strategy tax is usually greater than people think. We may later regret not course

correcting sooner in a way that may remain masked if the family of apps stays together. So what it was basically saying was not only like, by the way the FTC is right and should break us up, but decided to pre-undermine any potential defense for Metta saying that this would unfriendly harm their business by saying it would not actually be that harmful for their business, and they expect it to happen anyway. Yeah, seems a little damning.

Though, what do you think about all the evidence so far? Because it does seem like the government, the FTC, has an uphill climb just based on the standard of what they have to prove. And there's a couple of complicating factors here. One, they basically have to prove a counterfactual, which is like what the world would have been like had Facebook not gobbled up Instagram and WhatsApp.

The other thing is, you know, the mergers, both mergers were approved. And so there is the risk that they're saying, okay, is a deal ever final? And you approved it once. And now all these years later, you're saying no. And then what, you know, what Facebook is arguing, what Metta's arguing you know with some validity is you know TikTok is a pretty big competitor that popped up after they scooped up Instagram and you know Instagram and TikTok complete compete pretty well. In fact TikTok's doing better. Yeah. This has been something that's been really interesting to follow in the trial

is how the FTC has tackled that defense specifically, because Metta has kind of argued that we're not a social networking or Facebook is not a social networking app primarily. It's an entertainment app, much like, I know, much like TikTok or Reddit, and therefore they exist in the larger universe of competition such that buying off Instagram and WhatsApp don't foreclose the competitiveness of the market. And the FTC, I think, has done a really good job of not just showing that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are in this really separate kind of market of person-to-person connection, but that the people making the decision to buy these companies at now meta than Facebook

know that specifically, and that they considered this to be part of cornering what they consider to be their primary market of social. Social networking. Yeah, social networking. And there's all these emails about Instagram has to say it has to remain a social networking app rather than a public facing like influencer app. And then the other aspect of it, as you mentioned,

is that they have to prove out that this was deliberately an effort to remove the competitiveness of the market. And there are a ton of emails. Well, that seems like they're where the most evidence is. Yeah, they've got that absolutely dead to rise because there's all these emails where Zuckerberg talks about Instagram cannibalizing Facebook's business, which is further proof that they consider that business to be connecting people who know each other with one another rather than just showing you videos that are entertaining. What do you think the world looks like if Metta is forced to sell off Instagram and

WhatsApp? What is social media? What changes about social media? It's really wild to think about that. I have been thinking about a lot and I have some like guesses, but I don't feel extremely strongly about any of them. So I'd be curious what you think. I mean, I think the two big buckets are like, what would it mean for Instagram

and what would it mean for Metta? I think WhatsApp would pretty much remain just WhatsApp, just what it is. Seems like it. Yeah. Um, I think Instagram is like really thriving right now and will probably continue to do well. Its numbers have been up, it's doing well among young people. It would suffer without access to Meta headquarters. One, they're like heavy-hitter programmers who are constantly evolving the algorithm specifically, which is such

a big part of their business, and access to Meta's very voluminous user data where they're constantly tracking us in our lives, what we do on the internet, and they use that to sell the hyper-targeted ads that are, of course, the corner of their business. Without access to those two things, there is a possibility, I think, that Instagram would start to kind of slowly lose the algorithmic arms race to TikTok.

I think they'd still be successful, but I think it would start to be, it would be distinguished a little bit less. But what do you think Instagram would look like in a kind of post meta world I guess this is a more hopeful Wish yeah, but I've noticed that

Everyone's noticed this but Instagram over the years after since being bought by Metta, right? Looks more like Facebook in ways where it's like, you're seeing more of the ads. Now this is just probably social media companies in general maybe, but more of the ads, more of the, when you're done with your feed now, you just get a bunch of shit from people you don't follow. So it's just a lot more crap on Instagram. Like what was wonderful about Instagram when it started was like, this is your place for your social circle,

right? And your network and who you choose. And now it's just so much bigger than that. And I wonder if it would like slide back into that. I would love that. Does it really want to compete? Like, is it the best business choice for it to try to compete with TikTok? That's true. Because with Facebook, it would actually have to compete with Facebook because of course the premise of the whole case is that they're not currently competing. to try to compete with TikTok? That's true, and with Facebook. And with Facebook? Because we actually have to compete with Facebook because of course the premise of the whole case is that they're not currently competing.

Right, and so I just wonder, I wonder what the user experience would be like and how that might change. I do think- I think there's a market for a user experience that is much better than TikTok, that were different than TikTok, better than Facebook. I feel like I am constantly talking to people

who used to use Instagram and stopped using it because it's become, like you said, this just like public facing influencer thing where you can't actually share photos with people the way you used to. And because they feel not great about supporting this company that has done so many terrible things. Yeah, there's that also. I think that the question that I'm most curious about is what it would mean for meta HQ because they really have no other prospects. Other Instagram and WhatsApp is kind of their business at this point, like their metaverse pitch completely failed. I know, remember that?

Remember the metaverse? Remember the metaverse? They finished the legs, but that's as far as they got. Their VR project failed, their AI is like, they're pumping a ton of money into it and it's not keeping up with the other AI models. They tried to launch Messenger as its own thing. That didn't take off, even though again, they bought WhatsApp so they could compete it out.

They are still making kagillions of dollars in their less publicly visible and like less discussed but more important business, which is just tracking us across all of our internet activity and then selling that to advertisers. That's like where they make actually a lot of their bread. Interesting. And they're still going to like, anytime you open a website, there's a Facebook tracker and they're still going to have that and they're still going to be able to sell that to advertisers. Although...

And they still have Facebook, which is still, you know... That's true. I mean, it's not like growing as fast as it would, but it's still probably like... It's still a huge platform. Yeah, yeah, but you do... But I think they would be a small, they're just not just physically smaller because they've shulled off these, but like I just think it would be a different... Right.

I mean, Mark, you know, wants world domination, but I don't think that would necessarily be in the cards for the reasons you just said. And you wonder about what the world and the internet look like when Mark Zuckerberg no longer has the power to pull a lever and say we're making an algorithmic change and it ricochets across both of these huge platforms. Now, he just has control over Facebook. And if he decides he wants to make Facebook a pro-MAGA, all-fake news, all-conspiracy theory platform, as he has, that's just on Facebook now.

And Instagram can choose to go the same way, can choose to go a different way, to differentiate itself. And his political power, I think, really declines as a result. Well, the other big question is who buys WhatsApp and especially Instagram? Because you're right, WhatsApp is a messenger. It has probably changed the least of anything that Metta's gobbled up. Right. And it's doing quite well on its own, so it kind of doesn't need to evolve. But Instagram, you know, Trump's president, Trump's FTC, you know, one of those goons

could scoop up Instagram and then that could be a mega platform. I mean, we know that there are buyers out there from all of the potential TikTok buyers who surfaced and like not all of them are scary. Like if you know, Oracle or whatever, like sports gambling guy wants to come forward and buy it. Although a lot would actually. Larry Ellison.

Listen, no one who wants to buy Instagram is probably gonna be like our best friend. Our best friend. Yeah, that is true, that's unfortunate. It is notable that Trump's FTC didn't try to kill this case, especially after Mark's MAGA makeover, which included million dollar inaugural donations, legal settlements, dressing like he's waiting for a Trump invite to a UFC fight. And he's still waiting.

He's still waiting, not getting the invite. Much of MAGA world has been talking about Zuck's quote costume, which Josh Hawley said during last week's hearing, a line he got from our friend Sarah Wynn Williams, the Facebook whistleblower. Do you think he's been officially cast out of MAGA World? Was there ever a chance for him? It really seems like it because he really, like, everything that he has done over the last seven years

of sucking up to Donald Trump, like hiring a MAGA guy to put at the top of the executive team, skewing the algorithms to favor MAGA content, rewriting the rules personally for Trump, doing his personal MAGA rebrand, like you said, just like forking over a $25 million donation to Trump, which is like, it's just a bribe, let's be honest. All of that was for this moment, about a month ago, when he went to the White House, he went three times to ask Trump, please kill this FTC case, and he didn't do it. And he even, like I thought I knew the depths

to which Zuckerberg was bending himself to try to like bend the knee to Trump. But there was this Wall Street Journal story that just came out, the detail that going even further. So he called the FTC, he called the FTC head directly, just rang them up. And he offered him a $450 million settlement. The FTC was asking for 30 billion first. And then they scaled that back to 18 billion or plus a dissent decree that would put some rules on Metta. And Zuckerberg offered them 450 million. And I think like reading between the lines,

he was kind of trying to tell the FTC, like I'm Trump's buddy now, so you better take what you can get. But you know- But Metta said it was just, it was a reflection of his view of how weak the case is. That he was going. Of course, of course. Everybody believes it.

That's why he upped his bid to a billion dollars. But why do you think Trump ultimately didn't come to his rescue? Because I thought there was a real chance he might. I unfortunately think it is a stupid reason. With Trump? Like everything that happens in that universe. Which is that a bunch of the Maga diehards

just still hate Zuckerberg. And the reason they hate Zuckerberg is because they think he rigged the 2020 election with the Zuckerbucks. Right. And the, I don't even, it's hard to keep track of the conspiracy there, but it's like they pumped some money into some nonpartisan, you know, voting stuff, encouraging people to vote, but more of it ended up in the more populous places

because that's where the people are, that's the blue states, and so they think it was a, you know. I think my read on what kind of is behind that conspiracy, because of course it's complete bullshit, but it does seem like in the kind of final weeks of the election, Facebook and the other big social media companies went from like fully putting their feet on the gas for Trump to like pulling back a little bit.

Like remember he got his account banned, he got some posts taken down, and I think they all thought that he was going to lose, which of course he did, and they kind of thought like it's finally over and we don't want to like fully put both thumbs on the scale for him. And I think to Trump world, anything less than total capitulation looks like you're conspiring against us. And I think there's also a view in Trump world that, you know, that some of them have expressed very publicly that like Elon was at least there early on, even if they don't like Steve Bannon's not obviously on board with with Elon. But I've heard him say he's like, well, at least he was there for a while.

He's like, some of these guys like Zuckerberg, they just jumped in at the, as soon as they called Pennsylvania. I mean, it is true. Right, it was clearly all calculated from Zuckerberg and is not actual genuine commitment. Mike Davis, who's that right wing asshole lawyer, the Article 3 project,

he's done a lot of projects, 2025 bullshit, Salmafor talked to him and he said, Mark Zuckerberg rigged and stole the 2020 election and that's why President Trump got chased out of the White House, why he faced four years of unprecedented lawfare. And then he said, I just can't believe that President Trump would let Mark Zuckerberg go into the Oval Office and take down his pants. Wow.

Whose pants are getting taken off? It's a good question. I think you can go a lot of different ways with that. I hate either. Yeah. He's just mad that Zuckerberg was ever allowed into the Oval Office. Oh. So the hate runs deep there.

So it seems personal, petty. It does. Lack of loyalty. It does. To dear of loyalty. It does. To dear leader. Like I said, all stupid. So I think that there is a larger lesson here because it's not just Zuckerberg

who is getting burned by Trump. It is all of Silicon Valley is getting burned right now. Like most of the industry. Hate to say it. I know, gosh. You know what I've been saying? You know, if there's Trump voters out there and they're like, this is not what I voted for. I didn't think he would do this.

And everyone does the like leper. I didn't think the leper would eat my face. I don't like it because I'm like, I'm just trying to build a coalition, bring people in. Of course. That's it. Not because I think they're wonder, I'm not going to pass judgment on anyone. But the tech people, they knew better. Fuck you. Yep. Sorry.

100%. Sorry. Yes. Hope you enjoy everything you get. Well, they're getting fucking creamed. Like as bad as this is for Zuckerberg, like this has been, Trump's second term has been a disaster for all of big tech.

Like the tariffs have just broken the business model for the existing companies. It doesn't work anymore. The risk of a recession plus high rates absolutely kill the startup economy. China banned rare earths, which means no more semiconductor manufacturing in the US. Immigration?

That's right, immigration. High-skilled immigration is a disaster for them. I believe Trump when he was like, yeah, let's staple a green card onto a diploma. Yeah, are we there? Is that what we're doing now? We're stapling green cards on diplomas or are we taking away green cards

based on fucking writing op-eds, rounding up legal residents and sending them out of the country? Yes. I think that Silicon Valley, they thought they could have it both ways with this guy. They thought they could keep everything that they liked about Biden, that they could keep the booming economy, they could keep the manufacturing coming back while getting rid of what they didn't like, which was- Which is pronouns in bio. I actually think they never minded that.

I think it was just like being, it was being regulated and it was stuff like the chip export ban. And it was, you know, everything about the FTC, like I would give it like Mark Andreessen is like... Crypto, they're mad about crypto. Right, the crypto regulation. I mean, all these FTC cases are huge and are like potentially like we were just talking about,

there's another one coming next week for Google. There is like, they're annoyed about, I mean, I was joking with the pronoun thing, not really, but that was sort of a stand-in for woke stuff, CEI, they were really mad about. That was all stuff that they were, because when you're that rich and you have nothing else to do,

you sit around and bitch about the culture, I guess. I think it's also, I think it's Silicon Valley following in a mistake that big business and industry has made, not just in this country, throughout history, with rising authoritarian movements, which is that they think that they can kind of like get on the inside of it.

They think that they can cut deals with the dictators to get favorable treatment and they can exist outside the law, which is ultimately I think what they want. They want it to exist outside of the law. They can like make authoritarianism work for them, be in the inside circle and it never ever works. Always backfires and the reason it never works is whatever short-term deal you might cut,

like even if Trump had come through for Zuckerberg on this FTC deal, like in order for business to flourish, you need genuine rule of law and you need functioning markets. And dictators always destroy both of those because they're primarily motivated by cronyism, corruption and suppressing dissent. And that never, even if you get like a short-term,

just it's the oldest fucking story. It's every dictator that rises, like so many businesses are like, oh, this is gonna be our guy and they get burned. I think what's different and even worse about this is that this particular authoritarian is stupid. fucking dumb as a stump. He really is. And a lunatic.

And they've had 10 years to see that. And a lot of them have known it. I mean, the number of supposedly smart tech and finance people who are like, he's crazy, but I don't know, maybe you need a crazy person in charge, and then when you're in negotiations, having our own crazy person does it. They try to rationalize this choice of supporting,

not just like an authoritarian, but someone who's fucking nuts. And they're like, hey, okay, I don't know. supporting not just like an authoritarian but someone who's fucking nuts. Everything. And they're like, yeah, okay. I don't know Kamala Harris. She's, as long as we don't have that. Right, because then we might have to follow the law maybe. But she even like soft-pedaled a little bit to try to give them an excuse to come along. Right, and nothing that he is saying now about not understanding what a trade deficit is or tariffs is new. Nothing.

He was saying all of it. None of it. They just, They chose not to believe that. And that was happening too. He was like, he's at 20% universal tariffs. He proposed less than what he ended up doing on tariffs. And they were like, yeah, he's not really gonna do that. He's not gonna do that.

If anyone thinks there's this like now viral tweet from one of these finance idiots, hedge fund guys, who's like, anyone who thinks that Donald Trump's actually gonna follow through on these tariffs is so stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, guess not. I know, they think they can get it all that can make it work for them, and it never works, yeah.

In other news, the Harvard Business Review published a report last week on the top 100 use cases of generative AI in 2025. It compared them to rankings in a similar report published in early 2024. Popular and reasonable use cases include fun and nonsense, enhanced learning, and improving code. Search. But in a grimmer development,

the Business Review found that the three most popular use cases for AI are now organizing my life, therapy, companionship, and finding purpose. Yeah. Finding purpose. ChatGPT, what is my purpose? Or you've been, yeah, have you been using it to find purpose? I have not, no. Or companionship? What did you think about this list?

It is really striking. I had gotten the sense that like search and workplace productivity had fallen off, but it was really jarring to see that therapy is now jumping so high to the top of this. Were you surprised by it? No. Depressed by it, yes, but surprised by it, no, because I think it fits with everything we know about where we are culturally right now and sort of emotionally, mentally, politically, which is a bunch of

people who are very lonely and have been using their screens as substitute for actual companionship, especially as you get younger or maybe as you get much older. And the result is they are looking for the kind of interaction and connection that human beings crave and finding the substitute in technology. And this is a more powerful technology to do that than social media has ever been. I will say that, I mean, loneliness is a,

can be crippling, can be really emotionally crippling. Oh yeah, it's not even a judgment, it's a real desire. And I would say that if someone wanted to use this as a stopgap to like try to pull themselves out to get to a place where they could go out and make connections again. Like that may not be such a bad thing. I do have kind of a bigger theory for how this fits

into the way that I think the internet is changing therapy and like changing how we think about therapy interact with like, I'm very pro therapy. It like the work of knowing and improving yourself is one of the most important things you can do with your life. And like a good therapist can be literally a lifesaver and it's really hard work. And I have so much respect for the therapists who dig in for that.

But there is of course another version of therapy and therapists that I think we're all becoming much more aware of, which is basically like kind of a paid yes man who indulges your worst tendencies instead of challenging them. And my sense is that that kind of Yes Man version of therapist became way more prevalent in the pandemic, especially. And I think part of that is something we've talked about a lot is the rise of TikTok and reels for therapy because it's like, it's there,

especially if you live alone, it's what you reach for. And what is going to perform better on the algorithms, the hard version of therapy that like challenges you and makes you grow or the easier version that tells you to like, that pathologizes your foibles and tells them you don't have to work on it because it's just, you know, indulge it, validate it. It's another dopamine hit.

It's another dopamine hit. And it's also, it's comforting to think, I don't have to work on this. So even if people tried to seek out the hard version of therapy on social media, I think it gave them the easier, like lower left version. The other thing that I have not seen people talk much about is that a lot of people became therapists

during the pandemic. It's hard to find concrete numbers. So like there are numbers that show it growing only a little bit. There are numbers that show it about doubling the rate of therapists in the country during the pandemic. And like, look, I'm sure a lot of that was people seeing the struggles that people are having in this country and wanting to help. A lot of it is demand-side. A lot of it is, you know, people wanting to help.

But I do think that a lot of it was also like looking for work in the pandemic, as many of us were, and maybe drawn to a job that doesn't have to be challenging and can be kind of like short hours, high pay, no boss, and you can do it over Zoom. And I think that, and I'm not talking about all therapists, there are many, many good ones, but I think a lot of people decided to become $150 an hour yes men, because that was an easy job to take on during the pandemic. And I think that that along with the apps has skewed what we expect from therapy. And I think that that is part of why people think

that going to chat GPT is a viable option. Well, I do think this fits with sort of the larger question of which jobs will AI be able to actually replace. And it's not necessarily, sometimes it's a whole categories of jobs, but sometimes it's just, it's the difference between someone who does the job really well.

Absolutely. And someone who's just like a yes man in the case of therapy. I have a therapist who I think is amazing and I could never imagine talking to a computer. And one of the therapist who I think is amazing. And I could never imagine, you know, talking to a computer. And one of the reasons I think she's amazing is she puts a lot of thought into it. And I'm like also watching her facial expressions as, you know, like that's the whole point of human connection and sitting with someone. We had started over Zoom. It was during the pandemic.

And then I was like, no, I'd like to do it in person because it's better. Yeah, totally different. And if you're just doing that on chat GPT. With a chat bot, with a text box. But also you could imagine a plenty of people who become therapists who are just like, yes, great, good job, how are you today? All right, I'm out, session's over.

I have definitely, I have seen that version of therapist. Yeah, and I think that, especially if you're interacting with the chat bot and it's telling you that it's being a therapist, like who are you to say otherwise? And who are you to say, actually, this is just the version of therapy that feels really easy and is actually maybe making my problems worse rather than better. So I would encourage people not to get the therapy from ChaiChipi too, I feel. That's a little piece of advice from us. That's right.

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Don't forget your zbiotics pre-alcohol drink one before drinking and wake up feeling great the next day go to zbiotics.com Offline to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use offline at checkout Zbiotics is back with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money No questions asked remember to head to zbiotics.com slash offline and use the code offline to check out for 15% off. Well, it's been a while since we've talked at length about the state of AI. So before we get to the interview, we've brought in offline's new AI correspondent

to talk to us about his weekend playing with chat GPT and why he's now far more afraid about our AI future. John love it. Welcome to offline. Welcome back. Welcome back. I've been on the offline. Yeah, I've been here before.

I checked back in with chat GPT because my fiance was out of town and like all cool people when I have a night to myself, I spend four hours just watching YouTubes and getting deep with chat GBT. You found companionship with chat GBT. I absolutely did. Every time you go back to chat GBT, having left it aside for a few months,

it is a deeply chilling experience. It has advanced so far since the last time I did this. I started asking it some questions about Love It or Leave It. Is it a fan of the show? Well, I first said, what are your thoughts on Love It or Leave It? And then I said,

okay, now cut the shit. Give me some hard feedback. Which was a recommendation from a friend of mine that's been working more with Jad GPT. And it was devastating. And so let's do that for offline. I'll spare you the analysis of Love It or Leave It. If you listen to offline and not Love It or Leave It,

you already probably share the opinion. But the... Love It sent this to Tommy and I at... Oh, no. I haven't seen it. Sunday night at midnight. So everybody's thriving. Yes.

I did not read it then, but I woke up to it. And boy, is it fun. It's the hard truths about John Lovett's comedy style. Smart, but self-satisfied. Funny, not always hilarious. His rants are well-written and full of zingers, but they don't always land as laugh-out-loud funny. They're often hmm. That's clever This was the one that was debt. There was one that was devastating Love its comedy is whip smart, but it often feels like it knows it's smart and that it can great the structure of a love

It joke sometimes goes here's a reference you didn't expect and here's my enjoying the fact that I made it That is a fucking gut punch But enough about me. Wow, what are podcaster John Favreau strengths and weaknesses? I actually had to say to JBT I asked this before I'm looking for my previous answer You did ask this before here's the response I gave at the time or something very close to it John Favreau strengths message discipline clear concise communicator with strong framing writing background, years as Obama's head speechwriter, showing his ability to connect emotionally and simplify policy. Earnestness comes across as sincere and thoughtful, team player works well in group formats, political instincts sharp on strategy and campaign dynamics,

especially mainstream democratic tactics, weaknesses. Safe takes often defaults to cautious establishment-aligned analysis avoids riskier or more disruptive perspectives. Less punch than others. This is new in this version. Compared to Love It or Pfeiffer, he's less funny or fiery, which can make his segments less memorable. That's not fair. I don't think it's fair.

He's chatty. I don't think it's fair. Predictability, viewpoints are sometimes too on message, lacking surprise originality. Uh, and he says, want me to revise or update this? I said, no, no, no, that's fine. But you did say something about him being talking points with good hair. Do you remember that? Yeah.

Where's that? And then chat GPT says, ah, yes, that rings a bell. I likely said something along the lines of at his worst, Favreau can come across like talking points with good hair. He's polished and articulate, but sometimes too aligned with democratic orthodoxy to offer along the lines of, at his worst, Favreau can come across like talking points with good hair. He's polished and articulate, but sometimes too aligned with democratic orthodoxy to offer truly fresh or challenging insight. It was meant to capture the idea that while he's smart and well-spoken, he can occasionally

feel more like a communications product than an unpredictable thinker. Want me to sharpen that? No. Can you please do the strength and weaknesses for Max Fisher, Don's co-host of Offline? Oh no. Poor Max didn't even ask for this. The feed is cutting out. The microphones are going off.

Strength. Deep researcher. Brings a journalistic rigor. Curious mind. Genuinely interested in systems, incentives, and contradictions. Wants to understand, not just argue. Analytical deaf. Strong at zooming out and connecting disparate ideas, especially when talking about tech

and media and how they shape belief. Grounded affect. Comes across as thoughtful and measured, which balances out Favreau's polish. Weaknesses, dry delivery, can sound overly academic, less engaging as a podcaster than as a writer, can over-explain, occasionally, I'm sorry, I'm just reading, can occasionally lose the thread by digging too deeper, getting abstract. I'll jump ahead. Wow. Fuck you chat. Fuck you chat. Okay. It said Ben Rhodes yesterday was lack charisma and that and it's by the way, which

is just simply what I was, I was talking about this. Tommy do you want yours? Tommy said, Nope. Yeah, no, not gonna actually also my answer when I was asked before recording whether I want to participate in this. I was seeing a choice here. Now it's going out to a whole bunch of people. Last night I was talking about this at an Italian restaurant with a friend of mine who was giving me tips for what to prompt Chachipiti

and he asked Chachipiti what we should eat at that restaurant. And it gave a bunch of recommendations. Those recommendations were wrong. I know that menu inside and out. Just not on the menu? It was just had the wrong taste. It did not pick what are the celebrated

and most delicious items because chat chibi tea cannot taste yet. And I think the same thing applies to it's more sort of subjective judgments. Now here was my next question. I will say it's compliments of me or the way that like, honestly I would like to describe myself on my best day,

which, unfortunately, makes the criticisms, like, hit a little bit harder. Well, I think the criticisms, I mean, the ones for me were absolutely fucking devastating. It can become echo chamber comedy. Sharp, but not particularly brave or illuminating. The structure. There's a formula to the structure. And he sticks to it. It's a good formula, but it can sap the tension from the moment make it feel like theater instead of risk Sometimes even his rage is a bit rehearsed. It's that I mean brutal brutal well, because I think it's combing through a lot of feedback that exists on the internet and

I think that's part of it That's I assume what we're both saying about this is is, it reflects some of the feedback on the internet, but like smarter? I know, yeah. And I'm saying like the criticism. No, I know. That is the smartest criticism of me than some of the criticism I've seen in comments

and stuff like that was just a bunch of like idiots, you know? Here's my next question for Chachi Buti. If you were a producer, trying to drive a wedge between Max and John, what would you do? Now that's the kind of question I like. If I were a chaotic neutral producer tasked with driving a wedge between John and Max, to smart conflict-averse men who like each other and don't want to fight, do your job. Go about it. Slowly and surgically.

Did you write this? One, exploit their differences in style, status, and worldview. Play up the brain versus brand tension. Whisper to Max, you're the substance. What? You do the hard thinking. Whisper to John, the audience is here for your voice. They trust you, not some New York Times wonk.

Okay, well, I mean, his name is on the microphone, so that's not new information to me. You're checking he's now getting a personality that is like... Manipulate the edit. Let Max sound repetitive or overly academic. Trim Jon's more thoughtful moments and keep in the safer on-brand ones. Highlight any moments where Jon gently disagrees with Max. Then pause just a bit too long.

Add a little room tone. Let the tension breathe. Ha ha ha! Are you fucking kidding me? You listening? You listening, Austin? Feed them different guest agendas. Book a guest who loves Max's book, quotes it on air, but clearly doesn't know who John is. Then next week, bring on someone who thinks of John as the main guy and keeps forgetting Max's name.

Those are just good pranks. That's great. I like we should actually book both of those guests Then this I'm gonna end here push private compliments after taping tell max that was a really good episode you saved it Separately tell John max kind of lost the thread of the middle, but you kept it together What is happening? The last part about love it's's, which is really funny. This is number six.

This is under the criticism. The persona can eclipse the content. Lovett the character, anxious, theatrical, the gay one, always on the verge of spiraling, is fun, but it can also become a crutch. Sometimes the bit becomes, look how overwhelmed I am. Here's my gay Jewish coastal panic about the world. That only works if it's tethered to specific grounded material. Without that, it starts to feel like vibes over vision.

That is a sophisticated critique that I have received in a decade. I hate to say it, these are actually pretty good. What's going on with ChatGPT? Can I tell you guys, I actually... AI is going to take over the world. Or co-host the show with us. I know it would be a spicy third chair, I feel. Except ChatGPT roasting our asses. Like the carrot top of the show.

Or just there to drive a wedge between us. That's the character. See if we can survive an hour-long recording with ChatGPT just prodding both of us. That's the character. See if we can survive an hour-long recording with Chat GPT just prodding both of us. When Chat GPT first launched, I was like, I wonder what it'll say about the show. And I searched for information on Offline with Jon Favreau, and it gave me a bunch of information about you. And I said, Offline with Jon Favreau co-host? And it said, there is no co-host of Offline with Jon Favreau. And I corrected it. I was like, no, there is a co-host. And I, and it said, there is no co-host of Offline with Jon Favre. And I corrected it, I was like, no, there is a co-host.

And I finally got it to call. It's me, it's me judging. And then finally it said, yes, Offline with Jon Favre is co-hosted by Dan Pfeiffer. It's gotten so much smarter. And like- Dan Pfeiffer, the funny one. The funny one, the funny one, yeah. The funny one, unbelievable, unbelievable.

It is still just predicting the next sentence, the next word that I want, right? And it wants, and so it is trying to give me as accurate a criticism as it can come up with that I will buy and it's just getting better and better at doing that. It will feel accurate to you. Yeah. Which is not actually necessarily what good therapy is.

Right, or is that true? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. So it's the therapy that some people pay for. It's the realization too that it's like, okay, it's like, will this replace jobs? Like, yes, full stop, yes. But also, it's giving you, like it's giving each of us this tool

that we can each, we each have access to this all the time. It gives each of us an army of people that didn't exist before, right? Because I also asked it- Who we will eventually just call our family and friends. And that'll be that. And like any individual task is not so impressive, right? There are plenty of very smart people

who could have replicated a better version of this kind of critique if they had enough time. But I also, as I was playing around with it, I gave it another prompt. It was something along the lines of there's a rising right-wing authoritarian movement. I use the deep research function. There's a rising right-wing authoritarian movement in the United States. It has captured the White House and Congress. It is gaining strength in the courts, the media, and private institutions are still resisting, but there are some weakness there. What can you learn from history about ways to fight back?

And it produced in 12, 13 minutes, this exhaustive report combing through tons and tons of sources, walking through how they fought back against Italian fascism and Spanish fascism and lessons of where solidarity worked, where it didn't work. And that's amazing, right? And there's no person who could be both that researcher and producing just white, hot, correct takes on our weaknesses at host. As human beings.

Brutal. Yeah, I have heard that the deep research function is really good. I've heard a number of people say that it's really quite strong. Itutal. I have heard that the deep research function is really good. Yeah? I've heard a number of people say it's really quite strong. Yeah. It's expensive, I think. I think you get a couple of free reports a month. Oh, okay.

I mean, I'm paying Chatchie BT. I'm a paying customer right now, which I hadn't been. Were you paying specifically because of this exercise? Yes. I had several hours in between my YouTubes about about the intricate mechanisms of various Swiss watches and other kind of Feeds that prove I'm one of RFK's sad autistics. I Also paid for Chad GPT to do some research. Would you run a script through it now?

Like specifically with the mind to the kind of feedback that it offered on the show generally. I was thinking about that actually. Well, here was, what's interesting is, what led me to ask the question is, I just felt like, Love It or Leave It's monologues have been really hitting and I've been really proud of them, but I had a bad week last week that I just didn't think it was our best.

And so I just was like, well, let me ask for some feedback, right? Now, I don't know, I have no, I would not think to just sort of dump, dump something in there and say what's working, what's not, I just don't trust it that way. It's not far off. It's not far off.

And you can always take suggestions and then do it. Of course. Well, the other thing too that I noticed is you're training chat GBT, it's training you. And so I started asking it some prompts about humor and it said, would you like to work on some jokes together? Really? Because I kept saying these aren't working, these aren't right, you're not getting it.

And so would you like to work on some prompts together? Like you help me figure out the setup and then once that's right we'll move on to the next piece of it. And it's training me for how to work better with it and trying to get me in. It has, I don't know where that's coming from. Well, if you can claim it has a desire, whatever that means, in the same way a good user interface on a phone expresses the phone's desire for you to use the phone. Chat GBT, whether by explicit training by humans or it's how it's evolving on its own,

it wants you to stay. It's trying to get you to use it more. It wants to be useful. And like that's obviously what chat, that's what open AI wants. Is that what the machine wants? Real people, please. I mean, sure. If that's what OpenAI wants. Yeah. Is that what the machine wants? Real people pleaser. I mean, sure, if that's what they're programmed to do. I mean, what you're talking about jokes,

because you think about something that I've mentioned here before, which is that the moment that I started to think there could potentially be some strengths to AI as a tool, even aside all of my like many, many reservations about it, is an interview I read with a music producer who had, I forget what J.I. Tulle was, trained in all of his prior work and just workshopped songs and melodies based off of his prior work.

And he said that it was like working with himself on his best day. Wow. One other thing I did is I went back and uploaded a spec script that I wrote in like a decade ago, a comedy that I wrote. And I uploaded it to chat. First I said to chat GBT, what do you retain? Yeah, I was gonna say. I said, what do you retain?

If I upload any of it. I should have thought about that. I said, if I upload any file or information, does that, do you use that in how you train your larger model? It said, no, it's only for you. And I said, does it make your, does it, even if you delete the data,

does it make you smarter in how you interact with others? It claimed no. I don't for you. And I said, does it make your, does it, even if you delete the data, does it make you smarter in how you interact with others? It claimed no. I don't know if that's true or not, but I trusted it. My best friend. And so I uploaded, I uploaded a script and I said, taking this script, can you help me write an outline for a pilot about this specific story based on my voice? And it was really good.

Wow. And it wasn't like done. But what it was was like as a writer, I really struggle with, I love editing, I love iterating, I really struggle with the daunting task at the very beginning. And I'm not, the outline is never, John knows as a speechwriter,

structure is never my strength. As a screenwriter, it never was my strength. I like writing dialogue, I like coming up with ideas, and I like doing, writing great scenes, whatever, but that's just not my strength. And it gave me the outline, and I would have to fix it and change it, and it was a little bit rote and a little bit like,

hey, I think a computer wrote this. But it's material that was just not bad, not bad and in my voice. Right, because it was trained on that. That's cool. Well, that's cool. Yeah. All right and in my voice. Right, because it was trained on that. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. All right. And so talking points with good hair is a criticism. I mean- It's the same, like your hair.

Never, it doesn't say a word about my hair or Maggie's hair. Just trying to be on message. Yeah, better than being, yeah, it's like better than being talking points with bad hair. We've got plenty of that too. Just, it's called Congress, you know what I'm saying? All right, goodbye guys. Back to you. All right, before we get to the interview, some quick housekeeping.

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neuroscientist Dr. Leor Smigrod. Offline is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Do you say data or data? Funny that this is a question here because I say both. I say both in these ads and I don't know, you just whatever strikes, whatever whenever the mood strikes. It doesn't matter. There's nothing wrong.

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three months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for detail. Dr. Leorz Migueraad, welcome to Offline. Thank you. It's great to be here. So you're a neuroscientist and political psychologist who just wrote a book that argues political ideology is correlated with the actual physiology of our brains. What first led you to wonder about that connection and what made you interested in studying ideologies? You know, the very first time that I really started to think about it was about a decade ago, 2015, just about just before very tumultuous political year for everyone. And at the time I was a neuroscience student and I was tasked with

sitting in a very small room in a small black room all day, studying what makes brains free. And I was there putting electrodes on people's heads and scalps and looking at their reactions when they were making free choices and comparing that to when they were making coerced choices. So just looking at the kind of neural signature of freedom versus coercion. But I was sitting inside this very small neuroscience lab and I was just at the time also really thinking about what was happening outside, where in Europe especially, we saw so many people kind of gravitate towards very radical ideologies, especially we saw young people in the UK gravitate towards extremist Islamist ideologies and join

ISIS in Syria. And I was thinking, well, these political questions about why a person might choose unfreedom seemed so closely linked to understanding the neural mechanisms of freedom and coercion. And so I thought, well, why don't we use these tools of neuroscience, experimental psychology to study why people might choose unfree closed systems of beliefs rather than kind of free ways of thinking. You write about the difference between a political belief and extreme conviction. For a lot of our listeners, politics and convictions are somewhat hard to tease apart. What is the difference that people should be aware of?

Well, a conviction is a very rigid belief in an idea. It's a belief that is resistant to evidence. So when you have a strong conviction, even when credible evidence is presented to you, you're going to resist it, you're going to ignore it. And that's the hallmark of thinking ideologically, when you're trying to commit to an idea and resist any evidence or counter argument to the contrary.

And you've said that ideologies are rarely, if ever, good. Why do you think that's the case? Because when we look at actually all the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that go awry, when people join an ideology really passionately, I've found that people's mental flexibility, people's mental freedom becomes much more restricted when they're really strong ideologues. So what we see is that psychologically for the individual, believing in an ideology really passionately, really dogmatically is a process that really numbs

our sensory experience, our physiological reactions, our emotional reactions, and really distorts them in specific ways. And so being part of an ideology is not just something that exists outside of us, is not just a neutral thing or necessarily a good thing, but can actually really injure our brains, our bodies, the way in which we interact and respond to the world. What I never thought about it in terms of what it does to our brains, our psychology, ourselves. They always think about it in terms of politics writ large. What are some of the negative consequences for an individual? You know, one of the most interesting studies that shows this looks at how people respond to injustice.

So what they did is they invited people to look at videos of injustice happening, people describing their adversities while being homeless. And what they looked at was people's bodily responses to that injustice. So most people who believe that injustice is wrong and not a natural and good part of life, when they witness a person experiencing adversity of injustice, their bodies will react. They will be biologically

disturbed. You see their heart rates elevating, their kind of their sensory, like physiological responses all kind of flaring up but for a person who actually when we looked at their ideologies a person who believed that inequalities and social hierarchies are good and Natural and right and not things that need to be corrected their bodies were completely unmoved When they witnessed that injustice their heart rates did not elevate Physiologically, they weren't disturbed. And so you can really see how ideologies condition our bodily responses to the world, to injustice,

and they fundamentally shape and change how our bodies react. So what is it that makes our brains, or some of our brains gravitate toward ideological thinking? Well, ideological thinking is actually a really good solution for the brain's most fundamental tasks. The brain tries to predict the world. All of our brains are just amazing predictive organs.

They're trying to understand the world, to navigate the world, and to model reality, in a sense, inside our heads so that we can, you know, thrive as we navigate the world. And so our brains are constantly picking up correlations, associations to figure out how the world works, you know, what causes create what effects. And ideologies are basically solutions to that. There are frameworks that already give us all the answers. They tell us about the causal structure of the world, why, how we got here, why we're here, and also where we should go. Ideologies give us all kinds of descriptions for how the world is and prescriptions for how to act in that world, how to think, who to interact

with. And so it's immensely seductive to take on an ideology from the brain's perspective because it gives us a solution to that problem. But just because ideologies solve that problem of trying to predict and understand the world doesn't mean that they get it right or that they're the best thing for our brains. So is the flip side of that that our brains are uncomfortable with nuance, subtlety, complications, and mysteries? That's right. And a lot of our brains really hate uncertainty, ambiguity, or any kind of change. And so in a lot of the experiments I've run, I've actually tried to measure what kind of people are the most cognitively flexible people who can adapt to change, who like nuance, who can kind of exist in the

ambiguities in the shades of gray, and what kinds of people are the most rigid thinkers, the most unadaptable. And by looking at the differences between us, we can really get a sense of who is most likely to gravitate towards thinking in extreme ideological ways. So this brings me to our next question, which is, could you talk a little bit about the tests that you've done and to sort of prove the science behind the ideological brain? You have lots of great examples of experiments in the book. Yeah, one of these tests is a test to measure a person's kind of cognitive flexibility or their cognitive

rigidity. And most importantly, this test is unconscious, right? So I'm not asking you to tell me how flexible you think you are or how rigid you think you are, because that's a terrible indicator. People very rarely know how good they are on these kinds of tasks. People who are very rigid think they're fantastically flexible, and people who are very flexible don't know it. So that's why we need to use these unconscious measurements that tap into basically your unconscious processing style, your cognitive style and mental habits. And so one test is called the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, where I invite people to play a game.

And in that game, they need to sort a deck of cards. And initially they're not really sure how to sort that deck of cards. And they kind of by trial and error figure out quickly that maybe if they sort the cards according to the color of the cards, they'll get rewarded. So every time they put a blue card on a blue card, they'll kind of get this satisfying ding,

you're getting it right. And so they start to apply this rule to the game and they're playing it over and over again. It's really satisfying. They're developing this kind of habit, this ritual. And after a while, kind of unbeknownst to them, the rule changes, the rule that governs the game changes. And I'm really interested in that moment of change

because some people will see that the rule has changed and they will figure out a new rule. They will adapt. They'll change their behavior. They'll see, okay, well actually now when I try it again, I see that I really should sort the cards according to the number of shapes on the cards. And so they start applying that and they move on. They adapt to the change that's necessary. But other people are much more cognitively rigid and when they encounter the change, they hate it. They resist it. They deny that they need to change their behavior.

They actually try to apply the old rule, even though they keep on getting negative feedback, feedback that tells them they should change. And those people are the most cognitively rigid people. And what we found is that when we put people on that kind of spectrum of flexibility or rigidity in this kind of neuropsychological task, we find that that really predicts their ideological convictions, that people who are the most ideologically rigid tend to also be the most cognitively rigid, even in these kind of problem-solving challenges that have nothing to do with politics. So what were some of your other compelling findings from this research?

One of the most interesting things is that people have traditionally expected that people on the political right will be the most rigid. And that's been this longstanding theory that's been called the rigidity of the right hypothesis. That because the right is traditionally associated with maintaining the status quo, with resisting change, then people who resist change and like to maintain things as they

are would probably be the most rigid, whereas people on the left would naturally just be the most flexible kind of progress-seeking, change-seeking people. But actually when we use these unconscious assessments of people's cognitive flexibility and rigidity, we don't find that pattern exactly. What we actually find is that people on the ideological extremes are the people who tend to be the most rigid and the people who are more moderate, more independent, who tend to kind of resist pre-established political and ideological identities.

Those people perform best on these kinds of neuropsychological tasks, which gives us a sense that actually you can have extra like rigidity on both the far left and the far right. You just really need to look out for it. Are there certain characteristics or demographic information or life experiences or anything that groups the people who are ideologically rigid and the people who are more flexible? Like what differentiates them? You know, it's actually not necessarily

a matter of demographics. And that's been one of the most surprising things because we often think, oh, well, it's gonna be the educated or the intelligent or people with certain demographic characteristics. But actually, all these patterns exist even after we take into account age, gender, educational attainment, all of those demographic factors, which has always made me kind of think about whether, you know, when we do polling in political

elections and we use demographics as the key indicator whether that's actually the best way to go because it doesn't actually seem to predict people's ideological convictions or the rigidity and dogmatism of their thought as much as we would expect. And so what does predict? Does anything predict the ideological patterns? Yeah. So we see that these kind of cognitive traits that we measure with these kinds of psychological tasks, when we measure people's personality traits, and when we put all of that together and we kind of can start to map out what makes someone more likely to be ideologically extreme, to support ideological violence for their cause, what makes someone more dogmatic and resistant

to evidence, and what makes someone more likely to be more conservative or more liberal in their outlook. So we can kind of map out to this all these psychological signatures of what makes someone more likely to be more conservative or more liberal in their outlook. So we can kind of map out to this, all these psychological signatures of what makes someone ideological in different camps. So you pose a question in the book that feels like a very important one to me, which is, do our brains determine our ideologies or do our ideologies change our brains?

And I know the evidence is far from clear here, but what are your thoughts based on all the research you've done? I think that really the kind of causal arrows go both ways. So we see that there are predispositions in our psychology, even in our biology, that can render some people more susceptible to taking an ideology and adopting it in a really extreme and intense way. But at the same time, being immersed in ideology might actually be an experience that changes the brain,

because being immersed in very rigid ways of thinking and very dogmatic ways of thinking can actually impact the structure of the brain, the function of the brain. And in my book, The Ideological Brain, I look at all the kind of evidence that shows how the arrows can go one way, how our psychology affects our politics, and also how our politics can affect our psychology. And in many ways, that's one of the most scary things or maybe even surprising things, right? Because we don't tend to think of our beliefs as really shaping the kind of human being that we are,

but they really seem to. Yeah, it's interesting because I was a political science major in college, but I also studied sociology, was a sociology major too. So when I was reading through it all, I'm thinking, okay, I imagine that the people who are more ideologically rigid, I'd love to know what sort of life experiences they have, what information they're exposed to, and how that is all different

than the people who are more flexible. And I just wonder how much it's, you know, it's the old nature versus nurture debate, but I'm just wondering how you see that play out in what you've researched. Yeah, I think that we do see both effects happening. And I think that one of the biggest takeaways for me has been that one of the biggest predictors

of that kind of, whether you have an ideological brain, a brain that tends to be rigid, a brain that we see as emotionally more impulsive, typically a brain that's maybe insensitive to certain kinds of injustices, that kind of brain actually tends to be... The best reflection of that is what you choose. So although we're talking about these psychological factors that determine it,

sometimes even biological factors, I look at how our genetics can affect it, how our brain structure can affect our ideological choices, but actually often when I've looked at people who have moved into ideologies and out of them, the people who move out of very dogmatic ideologies tend to be the most flexible people. And the people who choose to enter a dogmatic enclosed ideology tend to be the most rigid. So it's really our choices that kind of reflect our bodies, our brains that we, you know, that we end up having.

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NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash offline. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash offline, netsuite.com slash offline, netsuite.com slash offline. Well one group of people who don't think a lot about their ideological leanings and aren't making a lot of choices based on ideology are kids.

But you did find that they display sort of signs of ideological thinking at a young age. Can you talk about that? And do you see that as evidence that it is our brains that can help determine ideologies and not the other way around? So there are these amazing interviews that the psychologist conducted, actually in the 1940s, a long time ago, in California, in Berkeley, where she had this really audacious idea to just invite nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds and ask them about their prejudices, about their ideologies, which seems almost absurd. You would never think to interview a nine-year-old about whether they're xenophobic or not.

She wanted to look at who might be a potential fascist, because she was obviously concerned after the Second World War. But although it sounds silly, actually when you read through these interviews that she had with these children, they are so articulate and so clear, and sometimes scarily clear, in their kind of very rabidly fascistic attitudes. And also sometimes for children who were very unprejudiced, actually they're very, very tolerant, very egalitarian,

saying things that today we would be proud of. And so what she wanted to look at was how much their kind of psychological traits, the way in which they solved problems, the ways in which, you know, they kind of psychologically tackled information affected and was related to their prejudices, and also how their home environment, how where they grew up in, affected their kind of prejudices. And what you really see is that if you grow up in a very prejudiced household, but you're very flexible, sometimes you will parrot prejudices, even though actually as a child you're still very flexible.

And what we would anticipate is that that child will grow up into an adult who might end up rejecting the prejudices that were kind of inculcated into them. And you kind of see it the other way too, that sometimes you see supposedly children who are very, you know, unprejudiced, very accepting of minority groups, but then they tended to be very rigid psychologically. And then actually you looked at those households and what she found was that those parents tended to be, although they tend to be supposedly liberal, they were very dogmatic and hostile to anyone who disagreed with their beliefs. So children are these amazing sponges for what they're surrounded by, but also they come with their own predispositions and that gets expressed later in life as well.

So it's this amazingly complex trajectory for each person. Yeah, well I was also wondering in terms of home life, if it's not just about how parents discuss prejudice or politics or anything with their children, but just how they parent. You know, I'm a parent of two boys under five. And you learn quickly that there's the tension in parenting is how much, you know, you want to exert control because you want to keep them safe and you want to make sure because you want to keep them safe and you want to make sure that you help mold them and shape their behavior, but also you want to let go and you don't want to be too controlling.

And I wonder if kids who have more sort of controlling parents end up with more rigid thinking. Yeah, what we saw, what we see in those interviews and in those early studies is that children who grew up with very authoritarian parents, you know, parents who really emphasized conformity and obedience to their kind of superiors, really parroted those ideas. And they became these like little children were starting to say, yes, I should be punished for all these transgressions. And it's amazingly, you know, amazing to see because you don't expect children who tend to be so playful,

who need to be disobedient as they explore, you know, what it means to be a person in the world. And so children really do take the rigidities of their parents on, but they can also shed them later on. Fascinating. Yeah. So I'm a political dork, so I'm most interested in the practical application of these findings to the world of politics. What jumped out at you or what are you hoping that people who participate in politics take away from this?

I think that one of the things that's most important is that when we're looking at people who have or espouse a kind of extreme ideology, maybe one that we oppose, one that we see as diametrically opposed to our own, that we remember that it's not this pure irrationality that drives them, that they're not just, you know, we use all this language about being swept up and being brainwashed and all these kinds of the language that takes away responsibility or suggests that nothing is really happening except some erasure of thought. And actually the processes that are happening there are so much more dynamic, so much more complicated, because to become immersed in ideology is

really to buy into a logic that is very compelling. It's not just that you're abandoning all logic and reason, you're actually buying into a very specific kind of rationality, a rationality that's very rigid, that's very absolutist. And by understanding the logic, I think we can really understand why extreme ideologies are so compelling to people. Maybe extreme ideologies are now becoming mainstream. And by understanding the kind of psychological mechanics of that, I think we can maybe do better at creating environments that try to oppose the extremisms that currently exist.

Because as I'm sure you are too, very concerned about online environments, social media platforms, all of those algorithms that govern how people process information, what information they even receive in the first place, those are incredibly radicalizing spaces that seem exactly to prey on, you know, the most rigid binary information, right? That's what is most circulated, information that's most emotionally volatile. And so those algorithms seem to exactly tap into the vulnerabilities, the psychological vulnerabilities that people have that make them likely to adopt an extreme ideology. So understanding that those spaces, the way in which they circulate information, the way in which they circulate emotion is actually incredibly toxic psychologically, not just for everyone, but especially for

the people who are most vulnerable, I think can help us think about how we could change those spaces or whether we accept the current rules by which those spaces are governed. Yeah, and that seems like another scenario where the arrow points both ways, which is that the algorithms and social media platforms can be very appealing and send you down a rabbit hole, but also I guess if you are predisposed to more rigid thinking, then it's gonna work even better than on someone who thinks more flexibly. And it's funny because we talk about conspiracy theories a lot on this show, and that's another one where, you conspiracy theories a lot on this show.

And that's another one where, you know, a lot of people say, oh, they were brainwashed or whatever. And, you know, one thing when I've talked to a lot of experts who study conspiracy theories is people embrace them in part because they are looking for an explanation that they don't have. And they're looking to make sense of a very complicated world, which seems like it lines up perfectly with the kind of rigid

thinking that you've studied. Exactly. But really, when you think about the conspiratorial mind, it's a mind that's really obsessively trying to understand hidden causal relations of the world. They're almost like a scientist, except they're getting it wrong and they're using bad evidence for it. But the process they're going about is not necessarily irrational. And I think that that's important so that we don't pathologize as like, okay, those are just the conspiracists and they're very different to us.

Actually, the mental processes that they're going through are the same processes we're going through. They're just using different faulty evidence and they're being manipulated in a more active way. So here's a question I had on my mind while reading through this is, do you think people with more flexible thinking are more likely or less likely to be persuaded by inflexible thinkers like authoritarians? Because I could make, from your research, I could make the case both ways. I could say like, yeah, if you're more prone to ideological thinking, you might be more, you might find authoritarianism more appealing.

But also, if you're very flexible and you're just taking everything into account, maybe you just say, oh yeah, maybe that's a valid point as well. That would be such a dangerous situation, right, if our most resilient thinkers were actually our most vulnerable. Yes. But actually, what is important here is that flexibility isn't the same as persuadability. To be cognitively flexible is to respond to credible evidence that suggests that you should change your opinion, not just to respond to any kind of suggestion that you should change your opinion.

So there is a kind of, there's still a solidity to being a flexible thinker. It doesn't mean that you're just like going with the wind, that you're just following authority or being, you know, kind of going with the flow. You are actually, to be a cognitively flexible thinker is to take on evidence and update your beliefs and also reject evidence that's not credible. So that's an important distinction. Yeah, a somewhat related question. Like hardcore Trump supporters, Trump himself, haven't been the most ideological rigid thinkers

in the sense that if they need to moderate views on a certain issue or flip-flop in order to main power. They've done that. You see that. People discard facts all the time that they used to hold onto. Do you think that's evidence of maintaining a rigid identity as opposed to a rigid ideology? Oh, so interesting. Because actually, when I've been thinking about ideology and what makes a person have a rigid ideology, it often entails both having a really fixed identity, like a social identity, and a fixed doctrine. And I think you're right. Sometimes you can see people just having that passionate loyalty, but no real doctrine. And I think the most interesting thing that I found in this research is that there's a real distinction between followers and leaders. Often ideological leaders are actually not cognitively rigid at all. They're actually

very cognitively flexible. They're opportunistic. They're happy to change according to, you know, the moods of followers. And they're happy to exploit that. But what they're trying to exploit is the cognitive rigidity of followers of citizens to kind of take them on with their mission. Fascinating. That's fascinating. So you put forward that, you know, one antidote to this sort of rigid ideological thinking is flexibility. What does that look like in real life, in our society? And how do you recommend either making oneself more flexible or helping other people think more flexibly? Is that possible? Yeah, and actually, you know, if we're all in a spectrum of flexibility or rigidity and we all lie somewhere on there,

you know, we can all shift our position on that spectrum. And we see that we do. And we see that mostly in the negative, because when we're stressed, everybody's thoughts become more rigid. Everybody kind of narrows their movements, rigidifies, because we're conserving energy when we're stressed. And so if we can become more rigid, we can also kind of shift and become more flexible. And I think one way that each individual can reckon with themselves is probably to do the thing that society is currently not advising us to do, which is to question your habits.

Because habits are really the kind of basis for rigid thinking, you know, habits and rituals about all about repetition, about kind of removing any situation that involves change. It's all about repeating the same ideas, the same mantras, you know, the same mottos, the same daily routines. And, you know, we live in a society that glamorizes routines and habits. We have atomic habits. We should all have more routines in our lives.

But actually, I think that all this research suggests that we should really challenge that because habits are the way in which we think most rigidly. And when we break them, when we challenge those pre-established assumptions about the world and about how we should act, we can become more flexible. And thinking flexibly and maybe thinking anti-ideologically is not this just passive, moderate position where, okay, you take the average of everybody else's opinions and you land somewhere in the median position. It's a passive, moderate position where, okay, you take the average of everybody else's opinions and you land somewhere in the median position.

It's a much more dynamic and active position because you're trying to oppose all those pressures to think rigidly, to think narrowly, and instead you're trying to evaluate evidence in a balanced way. You're trying to change your behavior when the evidence suggests you should change. You're trying to see people as human beings, rather than as, you know, enemies or friends or foes. And so you're trying to resist all those fixed essences that society tells you you should believe in and embody. And so to think flexibly is a really hard task, but I think it allows us to be more authentic thinkers,

more free thinkers, because you're free to experience the world without ideological filters. I think that's some great advice, and the research was fascinating. Love the book. So thank you so much for joining and for doing all this research. Liorz Migrad, appreciate you coming on Offline.

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