The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1069: Can Doc's Fault Be Denied in Friend's Suicide? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Your friend's suicide leaves you questioning their psychiatric care. Is someone liable, or does the system just fail sometimes? Welcome to Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your best friend since middle school took their own life while under psychiatric care, and you've discovered concerning details about their treatment, including billing after death and continued prescriptions despite missed check-ins. With their family reluctant to pursue legal action, how can you channel your grief and anger into meaningful change? As a successful, independent woman in your 30s with no desire to have children, you're questioning whether you actually want a relationship. Dating apps leave you anxious and disinterested, yet something keeps pulling you back. Is your conflict avoidance masking deeper relationship fears? You run a music school and you've just learned that one of your most engaging teachers, who mentors impressionable students aged 8-14, believes in the flat Earth theory and other conspiracies. Do you let this talented instructor go now, or wait to see if their objectionable beliefs affect their teaching? You've reconnected with a high school friend and started dating, but his divorce decree prevents new partners from meeting his children for six months. You want to respect boundaries but feel this rule is excessive. Is there a reasonable way to move past this awkward stage sooner rather than later? [Thanks again to attorney Corbin Payne for helping us answer this one!]  Recommendation of the Week: Homemade matcha lattes. Episode 924: Chris DeArmitt | Rethinking Plastic’s Environmental Impact was controversial (as expected). Listeners wrote in with questions and criticisms about Chris' industry ties and scientific claims — and he was kind enough to answer all of them! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1069 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the gauze curtains keeping out the blinding light of these fiery life conundra, Gabriel Mizrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories,

secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better-informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from arms dealers and undercover agents, astronauts, national security advisors, rocket scientists, and generals. This week we had Yuval Noah Harari, author of Nexus and Sapiens.

He's been on the show before, always just fascinating. We discussed AI. We talked about how stories drive humanity. This was a really deep and philosophical conversation with an incredibly bright mind, and Yuval was there, too. We also had a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on higher education. You know the joke's good when you laugh at your own joke to make sure everybody else understands that you're just kidding. That's the mark of a banger. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites,

and delve into weird, random corners of our highly questionable pasts. Speaking of which, before we dive into ye old dumpster fires, wild story I wanted to share with you guys, I don't remember what sparked this, but I actually, I do remember what sparked this. I bought a sweater online, and I was like, this looks like the sweater I used to wear when I was doing crazy security stuff back in Detroit in the 90s, and it's sort of like a nostalgia version of that. And I bought the sweater. And I was like, when's the last time I wore that thing? And the last time I wore that thing was when, and let me finish here before you gasp too loudly,

I was helping a parent kidnap their own children from an abusive spouse. So I actually was working with a security company and with the cops were sort of with us, but it was kind of shady. I was literally 18 or 19. So I'm not super looped in on the details. Was this the same group of people you were working with when you went to the drug dealer's apartment? Yes. Yeah. So we sort of had like a vigilante streak where we were like, okay, the cops are like going to look the other way and even be around just in case people start shooting or whatever, but they're

not allowed to help with this particular thing. So with the drug dealers, it was like, we may or may not know that apartment 3A is a drug dealer. We don't have a warrant or anything, but you guys are the security company for the landlord, so technically you could enter. This is kind of the same thing. It was kind of like, we know that this person has a custody battle with a. This person and this person is abusive, but we can't just go in, like, nab kids. But you guys, theoretically, could entice the children outside and give them to the parent,

and this abusive a-hole is probably not going to do anything because he's not even supposed to have them. And so, yeah, basically we took these young kids out of a window, and it was so dangerous looking back, because it was like, we have to be quiet, and the kids have to be quiet, and it's like, you're trying not to wake up the alcoholic abusive father who's, like, hopefully not armed, but is definitely crazy and violent. This is wild. Yeah, it was, there were so many things I did back then where I was with adults and I was like,

this seems like a really bad idea, but I'm with grown-up, so it's definitely going to be fine. Like, that's not how this works at all. I can't believe they let you do that. Like, there's just not on the books, right? No. So weird. A lot of people are probably like,

why would they drag a teenager into this? So the reason I was able to do a lot of this stuff and it wasn't just like leave Jordan at home, the reason I was able to do this is because a lot of the guys didn't have vehicles. I had a vehicle. Also, and this is awful, but it's true, if you're a person of color and you're driving a vehicle around certain neighborhoods at night, people are like, okay, well, what's this? If you're a white dude and you're driving that same vehicle or a nicer vehicle as in my case, around neighborhoods at night, everyone's just kind of like, okay, whatever.

So I didn't attract attention. I had a nice SUV with tinted windows. You know, it wasn't a nice, nice SUV, but I had a car that didn't have a bumper falling off of it, and I was in Detroit, right? So it was like, okay, some dude from the suburbs driving around, no big deal, clean cut, doesn't look like a thug or a drug dealer. So I would keep the guys in the car, you know, drive them to and from work. Some of the guys had questionable paths and didn't have driver's licenses or like weren't supposed to be driving. Wink, wink, nudge, right?

And so I was transport for a lot of that. My car was clean. There was a lot of reasons I was able to do stuff like that. Also, there were cops that were kind of like cool about everything and there were cops that weren't and some of the cops were kind of racist and some of the cops, you know, so it was like, all right, it was good to have, frankly, one white dude there who they would, you know, maybe talk to it. What's interesting was these aren't white cops. They were actually cops that were also African American. They were just really like, oh, everybody else is a thug. And there

there were so much corruption in this precinct in Detroit. It was absolutely insane. I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, they're just running off the books operations with high schoolers. Yeah, I'm guessing there are other things in the department that are not quite right. Everyone else was in their 20s and 30s, of course, or even older. But the other thing I think that was quite interesting about this. And because I look back and I go, why did the cops deal with this? I think it was all just like paid. I think it was like, can you help me get my kids back?

Well, I can't while I'm on duty, but I can also be on duty and like maybe pay these guys to do it and just sit my car outside so that homeboy comes out with his gun. It's like, we're cops. So these families were paying the cops? That's what I think. That's illegal too, right? Yeah. Of course, you can't pay a cop to, like, enforce something for you while they're also, like, on duty as a cop. You can pay a cop to be doorman security when they're not working, but they can't roll up in a squad car or two and just park it outside and be like, we're the muscle for this particular operation.

Oh, and by the way, we hired these knuckleheads to open the window and take your kids out of it. So they were subcontracting it out to you. That's what I think. Wow. Fascinating. Yeah. I'm glad that didn't go a different way, man. Dude, yeah, I know.

That's wild. But man, couldn't beat the money. I was making like $5.25 an hour at a movie theater, and then I switched to like $50 an hour cash under the table overnight. It was unbelievable. I was like, wait a minute. Are you kidding me for stuff like this? All I had to do is risk my life.

No big deal. All right. One more thing. We were talking with our editor, Jace, this week, and we all thought it would be interesting to do a whole episode about people's dreams. You know, what do they mean? What might they be trying to tell you, almost like a feedback Friday letter written by your unconscious

mind, I suppose. So if you've had an interesting dream lately, it could be intense, could be funny, could be long, could be short, could be literally anything. Send them our way Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com, and if we get enough of them, we can do a whole episode on it. It could prove quite fun and interesting. All right. As always, we've got fun ones. We got doozies. Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailback? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. A few weeks ago, my best friend since middle school killed himself in his early 30s after struggling for years with depression, anxiety, and who knows what else. Oh, man, I am so sorry to hear this. This is so tragic. It's been heartbreaking for a number of reasons, but the one that's been getting under my skin the most is that he seems to have been under psychiatric care

doing ketamine therapy. Not only did the staff working with him not pick up on his feelings and intervene, he had been planning this for nearly a year. They billed him for a no-show appointment two days after his death, and still haven't checked in a few weeks later. I also discovered that he didn't submit some check-ins after treatment, but they continued to prescribe him meds, which he claims to have been under the influence of while writing his suicide letter to us. Oof, those are some tough facts. Many in my friends' community are of the opinion that this was his choice and that we have to accept it, almost excusing it as some kind of brave, autonomous decision to end his suffering. But I feel like if you're in and out of therapy and online prescribing clinics for over a decade and being actively

treated, there is some responsibility on the medical professionals in charge of your care. I now know that he was getting different medicines, not all of them psychiatric, from a few different doctors, and there was no one on top of the holistic situation. All of this hit home for me since I recently left a psychiatric practice slash scam, where the head doctor was outsourcing everything to less experienced nurse practitioners, not following up with me and my partner, and didn't seem to be invested in our care. I now have a lot of regrets, and I go back and forth about what to do. I think I should have tried to get involved in my friend's care, knowing what I know about unscrupulous doctors. But that also feels like a weird fantasy, since I don't feel it's my

place to discuss such sensitive topics with friends. But then I've started to feel like keeping all my opinions to myself isn't helping my community, and I should be more vocal about things that feel wrong. The family doesn't have the appetite for a lawsuit, and honestly, I don't know that settling for some money will solve this problem. Even if the clinic were shut down or reprimanded, which I doubt it would be, I'm not sure how you punish every negligent doctor or clinic out there. What can be done about these bad actors, so others don't go through this pain? Was my friend's death inevitable? Should I not be upset about what looks to me like negligent care? And is it just in the nature of our society, which values freedom and individual responsibility

to put the onus on individuals to ensure that they are getting appropriate care. Signed, hoping you can advise on how to try to address the bad guys who contributed to my friend's demise. What a sad story, and what an intense set of questions. So, first of all, like I said, you've been through something absolutely heartbreaking here,

and I am so sorry that you had to say goodbye to your friend in this way. I have a couple friends from middle school, and the bond goes deep, man. That's a long time. And if I lost one of them, especially to suicide, I would just be devastated. So my heart goes out to you, to this guy's family, it really does. Your friend, he was obviously in a lot of pain, and he clearly was not getting the help that he needed, the help he deserved. So on top of feeling the pain of this very big loss, you're also left with a lot of anger.

And I can hear that in your letter. I get it. There's a lot to be angry about here. And this is complicated because, yes, your friend was working with people who might or might not have been taking appropriate care of him. You say they didn't pick up on a lot. his suicidal ideation, his true feelings. They build him for a no-show two days after his death, which even if that is an innocent administrative error, not a good look, not very sensitive, although it's unclear if they even knew that he died, so that's another thing. They still haven't checked in a few weeks later, which again, not very thoughtful, but if this is a large clinic or this is their policy, they might have patients go radio silent all the time. And then there's

this thing about how your friend didn't submit some check-ins and they kept prescribing a medication, which that sure sounds a lot like America, but yeah, probably not the most. responsive treatment when you're dealing with a controlled substance. We haven't heard from this guy and he didn't do the thing that we need in order to give him a refill, but here's a refill anyway. I mean, come on. And to top it all off, it sounds like he was working with a patchwork of different doctors. It wasn't holistic.

There wasn't any one person overseeing his care, which again, you know, hashtag American health care, I suppose. So I totally appreciate why you're so frustrated with these doctors. At the same time, though, it's hard to know what conclusions to draw here. Because, yes, these people absolutely should be monitoring patients. closely, especially if they're offering experimental treatments like ketamine. Yes, they should be more on top of their patients. But also, who knows how your friend was behaving in his appointments, what he was telling these doctors. We know he didn't submit some check-ins, so that's already one way

that he might, might have made it hard for his doctors to truly know how he was doing. And if that speaks to a larger pattern in the way he engaged with his doctors, it's possible he also helped contribute to this very tragic outcome. I mean, look, if his doctor said, how's your mood today? Are you having any thoughts of suicide? And he was like, yeah, not bad. No, not thinking about the bad thing. I'm not sure how they could have known how much danger he was actually in. You also said he was in and out of therapy, which I know you meant, hey, this person's in and out of therapy, so maybe keep an eye on him. But I also wonder why he was in and out of therapy. If he had a hard time sticking with the process, if going in and out prevented him from having a strong relationship with

one clinician who could be his point person on this journey, who could have helped him navigate this crazy system, who could have been on top of his mood and his suicidal thoughts and helped keep him alive. What I'm getting at here is, your rage makes total sense to me. And I think it's hard to know where to direct that rage. You could point to the doctors and clinics that might have failed your friend. You could point to the larger system that allows patients like him to slip through the cracks. You could point to these medications, the treatments. You could point to your friend himself, but not always taking care of himself as well as he should have. You could point to his family, to his community, to society. I mean, how wide do you go? How far back do you go? It's

literally endless at this point. My hunch is that all of these people and systems bear some responsibility for what happened to your friend and that your friend had a responsibility to engage with these people and systems in a way that could have helped in the most. Now, you might say, and I get it, you might say he literally wasn't able to. He was depressed. He was anxious. And these people should have been there for him. I hear you. You're not wrong. But even someone in a really dark place can go, hey, I'm struggling, I don't know what to do, I'm confused, I don't know who my point person is, I'm not submitting these check-ins, I don't see the point, help me see the point. And I don't mean to speculate too much about your friend's mental state

over the last year. I think that's part of what's so maddening about this situation as well, that you just don't really know if he was healthy enough to make good decisions. Obviously, that was part of it. But at a minimum, I do think we have to make some room for his agency here, alongside these doctors' potential culpability. It's a very fair point, Jordan. Holding multiple facts in her head at the same time, that's a big part of her job right now. You know, as you zeroed in on from the start, this letter contains a lot of pain, a lot of sadness, and a lot of anger, all very normal feelings after her death, especially after

her suicide. But what she brings to those feelings, like we talked about last week, how she makes sense of those feelings. I think that's what's going to determine a lot of her experience in this grief. I thought it was really interesting and actually extremely insightful on her part when she said, you know, this hurt even more for me because I just left this weird psychiatric practice where the doctor pawned me off on other people, wasn't really invested in our care. I get that.

That's legit. It's also very worrisome that she and her friend were both missed by their doctors and how many millions of people around the world are probably going through the same thing. It's also important for her to separate out her feelings about her own experience in that treatment from her feelings about her friend's experience and maybe to ask her. herself, whether she might be looking for a way to get angry at that doctor who failed her by noticing all the ways that her friend's doctors failed him, which, to your point, Jordan, is a bit of a mixed picture?

And if she is, why is she doing that? Is it cathartic to get angry? Is it easier to get mad at these doctors from afar than to get mad at the ones she dealt with? Is there something gratifying, maybe even compulsive or addictive about her anger? I don't know. Does forgiving these flawed doctors who are working in a limited system, who are also working with complicated patients, does that maybe feel like failing or admitting defeat? I think these

are all fair questions and just a few things to sit with. So was your friend's death inevitable? It's a complicated question. It wasn't inevitable in the sense that under better care, with better doctors in a different system, with perhaps a different approach, he might have gotten the help that he needed. It wasn't inevitable in the sense that he might have been able to advocate for himself better or seek out the providers he needed or engage with them in a more productive way, but given that this was the way your friend's story played out in a world where you cannot change the variables, and where keeping him alive, let's remember, was not your job as much as you loved him. In a way, yes, it was inevitable. Doesn't mean it was fate, but all of these

factors conspired to make it really hard for your friend to stay alive. And that is a profound tragedy. What's definitely not inevitable is what you take away from his death. Your relationship to these feelings you now have, how intense they are. And again, what meaning you make out of them? That is under your control. And when the time is right, when this grief isn't so fresh, I think you will find your mind turning toward those questions and away from this very raw, very overwhelming sense of anger you feel right now. Agreed, Gabe. As for what to do about these bad actors, so others don't go through this pain, well, like I said, I'm not 100% sure that these are bad actors. They might be. They also might not be.

It's hard to know how to parcel out the blame, how to know what was in these people's minds and hearts, something you might want to remind yourself of when you get heated about them. Could the family sue them? Sure. And hey, maybe that's appropriate. If they really truly failed him, maybe there's a legit malpractice case here. I just don't know enough to say. But you're right, one lawsuit is not really going to change an entire system.

And it obviously can't change the past. And the money won't ever make up for the loss of your friend. And as for your banger of a final question, is this just the nature of our Western society to value individual responsibility to put the onus on patients to ensure that they're getting the care they need? Well, it's a hard one to answer. I might be biased because of these very same values that you are a little skeptical of. I think you can tell that I feel your friend bears some responsibility here. I hope that doesn't sound callous or insensitive. That is not my intention whatsoever. I know how complicated this is. But I think it's important to recognize that even someone who's suffering can look for every possible resource, every possible advantage. And that's compatible with saying this system failed him, you know? Both can be true.

And both are what you now have to live with. And that can be really hard. In a lot of ways, it's easier to live with only one feeling like anger or one narrative. Like these negligent doctors failed my friend. It's a lot easier to do that than it is to live with many feelings. Anger and sadness and compassion and acceptance and also openness to other new feelings that might pop up. And also multiple narratives like these doctors. might not have cared for him very well, and my friend might have made it hard for them to care for him

very well, and he operated in a system that is limited, and that life is really hard for some people, and sometimes there is very little you can do to save them. That's a lot to contain, but that sounds closer to the reality of what happened here, based on what you shared with us. The question is, can you make room for all of that? Can you tolerate the ambiguity of all of that, and bear the pain of not having an easy villain here in order to be in true contact with life. I think that's one of the things that this morning process is going to show you.

Amen, Gabe. That's exactly right. Her letter was kind of about mental health and individual responsibility, but I think it's really about the intensity of grief. Yes. And how to live with all those complex feelings that the loss of a friend brings up, especially somebody who chose to take their own way out.

I also think it's about control to some degree. She's going, I should have tried to get involved in my friend's care, knowing what I know about unscrupulous doctors, and she might be beating herself up for not intervening in some way that would have saved her friend's life. But feeling responsible for keeping her friend alive, when it doesn't sound like she even knew what he was going through. That's just as strong a position as saying, everybody is responsible for themselves, which our friend here seems to take some issue with. Again, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, or it's both. So that's something else to

consider, whether all of this anger you feel and this wish, to have gotten more involved, if those might just be more ways of controlling a situation that so soon after his death feels very out of control. Absolutely. And to her credit, she did say that that feels like a weird fantasy and that she might not have had the relationship with this guy to warrant that level of involvement in his life. Again, as hard as it is to accept, it was his responsibility primarily to take care of himself. And if he didn't let you know how desperate he had become, if he didn't come to you and say, this isn't working, I'm really worried. I'd literally don't know what you could have done. And I still don't know that it would have been your job.

All that to say, I'm so deeply sorry that your friend took this path. It breaks my heart, but that was his journey. And now you're on yours, which includes deciding what to do with the anger and pain that you feel. I promise you'll find the right answers over time. In the meantime, allow it all, take care of yourself. Please talk to someone if you need to. Check out a support group, turn to your friends, maybe the friends you had in common, find some community. You're all going through it, and you guys have a lot to process and work through. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. Now, I know you're all waiting for an absolutely horrific ad pivot here.

But sadly, and I hate to disappoint, even I am not depraved enough to make a joke after a story like that. Stick around for our sponsors. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. It is your support of our sponsors that keep us going. All the deals discount codes and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable in one place.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals is where you can find it. Please consider supporting those who support the show. All right, back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 30-year-old single female trying to navigate the dating world, but I'm not sure I should be. I'm on multiple dating apps,

but they always induce a high level of anxiety when I match with people and they don't end up in actual meetups. I also swing between matching with several people I think I could be interested in and losing interest in them in a few days. and I feel like the worst version of myself on dating apps, not only judgmental, but also flaky and inconsistent. Okay, I just want to say this is how everyone I know feels about dating apps. You are not alone here.

Nope. The apps are great in a lot of ways, and they totally flatten and distort us in other ways. I don't know how much you should beat yourself up for that. It's kind of like almost by design, but I hear you that this has been uniquely hard for you. It's so interesting to me that she's sitting there swiping and she gets super anxious when her matches don't end up in coffee dates, but then she's losing interest in people she thought she was interested in,

and those people are probably left with the same feeling. That's funny, yeah. But that's what I mean, right? Everyone on dating apps is going through this. And the apps themselves make people kind of disposable because you're like one swipe away and then you don't go back. It's like, whatever. And that sucks.

That's a flawed system in many ways. To be honest, I'm not sure if I should even be in a relationship. I'm highly independent with a great life. I have a handle on my career, hobbies that fulfill my creation, side, great friends and family support. And since I don't want to have children, I don't feel an impending timeline to find a partner. Relationships take a ton of work, and I don't think I want to put my energy towards something with such a low probability of making me happier. What I feel I would get out of a partnership, emotional support, help around the house, physical intimacy, intellectual

conversations doesn't seem to outweigh the hard work that a good relationship entails. Am I just burned out in the dating world is my conflict avoidance holding me back from finding something awesome signed continuing to swipe right when I don't want to bite, fight, or disrupt my great life. Wow, what an interesting letter. Really took a turn there in the second half. It started off like dating apps suck and turned into, am I even meant for partnership in this life? Which is obviously a much deeper question. So look, it's possible that you were just burned out in the dating world. My sense, speaking as a married father of two who's been out of the dating game for a decade. Yeah, did you take yourself off the table even before Tinder came out?

So it's funny you should mention that because I remember very specifically, Tinder was brand new and I'm in L.A. And I'm swiping and I'm like, these photos don't look real. And I put my profile on there and I was like, no, these are all like oddly professional. The women are all a little bit too good looking for just a random dating app. And then it came out like, yeah, these are just kind of like start. They're just fake. It was just fake nonsense so that the app wasn't empty.

Oh, interesting. And it didn't really work. And I got a couple of matches, but it was like people I would never really be interested in. I was just like swiping right on everyone, which is what most men do in these apps, which is why they're flawed initially. But yeah, that was right in the, and then I met Jen and I was like, whatever. And I remember for months and months and months after that, Jen's friends were like, I don't want to pry or metal, but I saw Jordan on Tinder. And she's like, I know, because he's tried to delete his thing there of zillion times and it doesn't work. Oh, wow.

And I've emailed them because they didn't want people to delete their profile because if people leave, it shrinks the user pool. So for a while, they either had, in air quotes, an error, or simply did not allow you to really take yourself off the app. It was just there. And I remember up to a year later, people were like, I saw Jordan on Tinder. And she's like, yeah, we've tried.

It's not, we can't do anything about that. Not a great look for a dating coach. They're like, he's a total cat. He's still hanging out. Yeah, still hooking up. Even when Jen and I live together, people would be like, he's on Tinder. And it's like, yeah, but his location says L.A.

and he hasn't touched the thing. And she's like, I remember she was like, are you on there? And I was like, check my phone. The app is not even on my phone. I don't have any idea. We logged in and it was still like two matches. So obviously the photo was not effective. Yeah, but it was just like, yes.

So yes, Tinder was brand new when I was out of the market. That's a long way to say I looked like a loser online. Perfect. Anyway, it's exhausting. It takes time. You get excited. You lose interest. That's what apps are.

People pop up. They go away unless they want to go away, in which case it's impossible for them to go away. But yes, it's totally possible that you are a little run down and out of inspiration. But your second question makes me think there's probably a lot more going on here. You're highly independent. You're self-sufficient. You have a very rich life.

You're fulfilled in all these other ways, which those are wonderful qualities. I commend you for them. Honestly, you sound like a catch. And these qualities, especially the highly independent thing and the self-sufficiency thing, those can also be a response to certain fears or conflicts around partnership. Your story might be, I don't need. a partner. I'm highly independent. I got all these other sources of fulfillment and connection. Or the story might be, I'm highly independent. I have all these other sources of fulfillment

and connection because I'm somewhat averse to being in an intimate relationship and everything that that entails. And actually, I kind of maybe suspect that both of these things are true. Both, yeah. It's hard to say which one came first. Absolutely. When you say relationships take a ton of work and I don't think I want to put my energy toward something with such a low probability of making me happier. Yeah, quite a statement, isn't it? A lot going on in that sentence. of all, the idea that any relationship she ends up in is going to be more of a burden than a gift, which, yes, relationships obviously take work. They're not always fun, but she's already anticipating that it will be more work than it will be joy. And second, that a romantic relationship has a

low probability of making her happier, which, to your point, Jordan, in one way that speaks to how awesome she already is, a partner would just be a bonus in her life. And in another way, it might kind of speak to a cynicism that could serve to keep her unencumbered. Right. But also, to be fair to her, that might be a fair conclusion to draw based on the people she's seeing on these apps? If she's losing interest a lot, maybe she's just not very impressed by the dating pool. And she's like, why even bother?

Yeah, she's like, these gibronies? I don't think so. Could be. I also wonder if the being interested in people and then suddenly being uninterested in them thing, feeling somewhat judgmental, feeling flaky, feeling inconsistent, if those are also symptoms of a process that she's going through when it comes to dating. Like, maybe these people on the apps are super lame, and she's just like, I thought they were interesting, I'm over it now.

But she might also be in touch with certain feelings like excitement or hope or just vulnerability, that she then feels the need on some level to temper or shut down. And what that looks like is, I'm getting flaky, I'm inconsistent, I'm losing interest. but it might actually be one more way to distance herself from people. Well, that's an interesting theory. And it kind of fits in some way I can't quite put my finger on with her other big question. Is my conflict avoidance holding me back from finding something awesome? Yes, which is a really good question.

Yeah, it's super interesting because she actually didn't mention anything about the conflict avoidance until then. But it sounds like she's on to herself here a little bit. She's saying the hard work involved in a good relationship won't be worth it. But what she might really be saying is, I'm afraid of all doing all. doing all that hard work. Exactly. Or I'm put off by the idea of having to do that hard work with somebody. Yeah. Which might be her anticipating the discomfort of confronting a very real other person with their own stuff in a relationship. And also maybe some, I don't know, maybe a little bit of shame about being vulnerable and intimate with somebody in the first place. Again, it's so hard to know how we really

feel about things sometimes because, I mean, our stories about ourselves, about other people, about how we feel about dating or how our lives work, they can be so clever. On one level, we're hearing from an accomplished self-sufficient person who doesn't need a partner to be happy, who might not even really want a partner because her life is already pretty great, and on another level, we're hearing from an accomplished self-sufficient person who does want a partner. Otherwise, she wouldn't be on the apps, right? But who might also have some fears and conflicts around partnership, which might have led her in part to be this accomplished self-sufficient, occasionally little judgmental or flaky person in the first place.

I don't think she would be writing in with this question if she absolutely did not want a partner in her life. I think she knows that there's a part of her that does want it and is ready to confront the part of her that doesn't want it. For sure, wow, insightful. The question she's grappling with is, is it worth the cost? Is there a net gain here, or am I just going to be staying up until midnight every other night talking to my partner so we can make it work

when I'm already freaking happy, which is funny because you can tell she's kind of like type A, like I think about everything rational. which I can dig that. My thoughts there are, if you find the right person, and that can be hard, but it's not impossible. When you find the right person, it is worth the cost. And the cost, it won't feel like a cost. It feels more like a rewarding investment that leads to more closeness, more growth, ultimately more joy. Now, that doesn't mean it'll always be fun. It doesn't mean you'll never feel difficult feelings. You obviously will. But with the right person, the relationship becomes a way to explore and address and hopefully heal a lot of that stuff.

And that's what it's all about. So my advice to you is, a hand in the dating world, whether it's on the apps or going out or just generally being open to people, it's okay to take breaks, it's okay to be a little flaky on there. I wouldn't hide from the world. And sure, keep having high standards, keep being discerning. Like I said, you sound like a catch, you deserve somebody great, but also notice how those standards and judgments operate for you. If they're moving you closer to the kind of person you want, that's great. If they're moving you away from people in general, that's a moment to check in with yourself and see if you're self-protecting a little bit too much. And yes, wanting to avoid conflict will be an obstacle to having

close, meaningful relationships, romantic or otherwise, but this is not an insurmountable obstacle. Everybody has that fear to some degree. We all need to learn how to speak up, assert our needs, hear someone out, risk hurting them, have difficult conversations. It's a skill just like any other, but it's a skill that can touch on some very tender parts of one's personality, and those are the parts you might need to build up just a little bit. My hope for you, and this is, gonna sound weird. My hope for you is that you meet some interesting people, you get into some little fights along the way,

I think that'd be great practice for you. And then you'll know what your capacity for conflict really is, whether it's worth it for you. You're in a nice position. You don't need a partner to survive. You don't need someone to fulfill you in every way. You're not on an urgent timeline. A person would just be a bonus.

So if you engage with anyone, you're doing it because you want to. What I'm hearing you want is to grow, both as an individual and as a partner. So stay in the game. The apps will always be annoying to some degree, but you can make them slightly less annoying in the way that you relate to people.

And you don't need to meet everyone. You just need to meet one. Love your curiosity, love your courage. You got this. Good luck. I got to say, Gabe, I do not envy people using apps to date now. I just feel like it's one hand tied,

but two hands tied behind your back, dating-wise with this stuff. Unless you're like super hot, in which case, then you're going to get a ton of matches. And then the game is screen out all the jack wads, which takes more time. is harder, probably, now that I think about it. Anyway, a problem I'll never have.

You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier. If your father-in-law is sending you on family business trips to a war zone, your Holocaust denying nephew has eaten up the family estate with his inheritance, or your boyfriend has been accused of abusing his children and you don't know who to believe, whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com.

We're here to help, and we keep every email anonymous. By the way, our newsletter, We Bit Wiser, comes out every Wednesday. It's a two-minute read. It's a great companion to the show, and it's highly practical. It's just a bite-sized gem that you can apply right away. Jordanharbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. All right, what's up next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I run a small business in the Midwest that is part music school, part after-school program. The kids study music, but they also learn accountability to others, setting and meeting goals, practical application of skills, stuff like that. I'm also big on nurturing a strong culture amongst those associated with my business, from the kids to their families to my staff, which means the

kids tend to form strong relationships with our instructors. They act less like teachers and more like respected coaches that the kids look up to. So the instructors I hire obviously need to have a solid music skill set, but a great attitude and knowing how to be a cheerleader for the students is almost more important. I do background checks to ensure that I'm hiring people with a clean record, but I've also had to learn to be a strong judge of character. I feel I've become pretty good at this, but just like any relationship, nuanced aspects of a person's personality generally present over time. Recently, I was having a casual conversation with one of my newer hires, and he started talking about a documentary he watched on YouTube about the government's experimentation

with MK Ultra. As he continued to passionately talk about his beliefs, he disclosed that he doesn't believe the earth is round. I was having a conversation with a legitimate flat earther. I was more baffled than anything else. But now I find myself slightly concerned about some of the beliefs this instructor holds and the influence he could have on the students. The kids he works with are between 8 and 14 years old, impressionable enough to believe some of the crazy theories to which he subscribes. While I'm not aware of this employee sharing his flat earth beliefs with any of his students, I'm not sure what I can or should do if it ever happens. While I don't agree with his employee's beliefs, I also feel a responsibility to make sure that he feels as comfortable as any other

employee should this information about his beliefs get out to other staff members. Are flat earth beliefs protected under employment laws in any way? What responsibilities do I have to the students at my music school and their parents? Can I share what I've learned about this employee with other employees who may benefit from this information? How would you handle this? Signed, I don't catch flack for my employee's ideas being whack. Gabe, whenever I hear about flat earthers, I'm always like, are you serious, man? I can kind of appreciate some other conspiracy theories. Even if I totally disagree with them, I can usually make out some kind of weird logic.

Like, 5G towers cause COVID. Okay, they were putting up 5G towers at the same time COVID happened. Like, it's bad science, but it's, you know, like, okay, there's a coincidence there. People are scared. They don't understand 5G. They don't understand COVID. Okay, I get it. I disagree, but I get it.

But flat earth is just, it is the dumbest possible bargain basement conspiracy theory. It has no basis in reality. You have to be a truly next level moron. Dumber than even the Holocaust denier we heard about a couple weeks ago to believe the earth is actually flat. There are experiments that we did in middle school that you can do yourself at home right now that will prove that either the earth is curved or entirely round and then tell your friend in Australia to do it.

And when they have the same results, you have your answer. So working with somebody like this, especially when they're an educator, in quotes, obviously, I get why it's throwing you for a loop, why you're tied up and knots about this. Although the fact that this guy believes the earth is flat, as opposed to say that the Jews made off the Holocaust, I do think that lowers the stakes here a little bit. True. This is definitely, like, on the quadrant, this is in the ridiculous quadrant and not the dangerous quadrant. But it's dangerously stupid, but it's more like everyone's laughing at you, not questioning whether or not you're a Nazi. So there's that. Right. But I get our friend here's

concern because who knows what YouTube videos Mr. Brosky is recommending to his 10-year-old drumming students who are not mature enough to know that it is total bullshit. Right. Or what are those kids' parents going to think if they hear their kids talking about Mr. Brooskey's super cool flat-earth video at the dinner table and then they come to our friend here like, what kind of school are you running, dude? Right. Like I'm paying you to teach him how to play guitar. I don't want your dumb-ass ideologies seeping into him. He's going to Harvard, okay? No, It's a liability for you, for sure, if you have people like this working with or for you. So first of all, U.S. employment law protects workers from discrimination based on certain protected

characteristics, race, religion, gender, disability. My understanding is that conspiracy theories, especially ones like flat earth, are not specifically protected under federal employment laws and will not be anytime soon. The only even potential wrinkle is if a flat earth belief is connected to a sincerely held religious or philosophical belief. Then an employee might be able to claim protection under anti-discrimination laws that protect religious freedom. And employers are required by law to reasonably accommodate religious beliefs and practices

as long as it doesn't cause undue hardship to the business. So my totally unofficial legal take, and FYI, this was not my legal specialty even when I was a practicing attorney. So take everything I say with a huge grain of salt. My hunch is that any flat earther, they would just be so hard pressed to prove that their beliefs are tied to a sincerely held religious or philosophical belief. And philosophical, they don't mean my philosophy is that I don't believe in science. This is like Buddhism or some kind of belief system that goes deep and that other people have, not just your weird-ass stuff that you

make up. If anything, it's your weird subreddit doesn't count. Yeah, stuff from your weird subreddit just does not pass muster. It does not qualify. The bar is a little too high. If anything, these folks usually pride themselves, by the way, on being free thinkers or whatever. So that would basically tank their case for being a protected class. Like, yeah, there's only a few. of us and we meet on Reddit. Like, okay, this is not someone who didn't hire you because you're Muslim. Okay, it's totally different. Also, outside of religious or philosophical claims, employers like you generally have the right to set standards for how their employees should conduct themselves. And they're 100% allowed to discipline or terminate employees for promoting

conspiracy theories if they disrupt the workplace, violate company policy, impact job performance. So if you tell Mr. Browski and the rest of your staff, hey, company policy is we don't talk about XYZ things with our students, we don't bring up ideas that are controversial or inflammatory or too outside the scope of music and leadership. And then Mr. Broowski goes ahead and tells Timmy like, hey, here's a TikTok about how the earth isn't around. Wake up and stop being one of the sheeple. Especially if Brosky gets agro about it or is teaching suffers as a result of it, that could be grounds for legitimate discipline or termination. We also quickly ran this by an attorney friend of ours. And his take was, if Mr. Brosky merely holds weird views,

but he isn't disruptive about them, he probably can't be fired for cause. But if Brozky's out there publicly representing your brand and he's somehow linking your brand with these weird views, it'd be dicier. Also, your state, and by the way, our friend here included his state, but we left it out,

your state is an at-will employment state. What that means is, in general, employers can terminate employees for any reason at any time without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal. The only exceptions, discrimination, retaliation, public policy exceptions, and contracts that include specific termination conditions. But our attorney friend's advice was, if you give an employee a reason, you open yourself up to a

claim of improper termination. In an at-will state, you can fire someone for absolutely no reason, but you can't fire them for a wrong or improper reason. That's exactly right. That said, I think your response here depends on how vocal this guy is being about his conspiracy theory and also what kind of person he is in general. If he generally keeps the stuff to himself, if he's not talking to his students about weird stuff all the time, like if he's just a great teacher who happens to hold these kooky ideas,

and if he's generally respectful and he adds a lot to your school, I might just let this go. He might have just whispered this to you because he felt safe and he would never bring it up with his students. Right, but then if he's saying it to his boss, I think he's even more likely to say it to a 12-year-old who's an even better audience for nonsense than a grown man.

That's my two-sense. Well, fair point. And do you want to wait until he does bring this up with a student to put your foot down? Yeah, it's tough. So look, you could say to him, listen, Brosky, that idea you shared with me the other day, totally your right to believe what you want to believe. I'm not telling you what to think. I just want to remind you that company policy is to not share our personal beliefs with our students. Keep it focused on the music, the accountability stuff, the goal setting stuff, be a cheerleader to them. That's what we're about. And leave it at that and document that conversation somewhere so you have it in writing. He should get the message, and if he doesn't, then you have grounds to discipline him and you have a paper trail of having to address the issue multiple times. And if he doesn't improve, then you can consider terminating him if it actually comes to that. In my view, you do have some responsibility to your students and their parents to protect these kids from whack-a-doodle slash actually dangerous ideas. Whether this particular guy is actually going to inflict these ideas on these kids

in a way that's actually dangerous. I'm not too sure about that. Agreed. Also, flat earth isn't even the worst of them, right? But who knows what else this guy believes? If he's willing to believe the earth isn't round, I'm guessing he's also susceptible to other possibly more damaging ideas. I don't know how much you have to gain from sharing what you've learned with the other staff. That might end up feeling like gossip a little bit more than anything else.

Maybe it'd be helpful to tell a couple colleagues, like, hey, if you hear Brodsky talking about any kooky ideas around the students, give me a heads up. I need to know about that stuff. But then you're turning your staff into informants and they're going to talk and it's going to create a little bit of drama and Brosky might hear about it and that might be a whole other headache. So my take is give him a very broad, very gentle warning about what's appropriate to share with students, not calling out his belief specifically, keep an eye on them,

keep your ear to the ground when it comes to how students and parents feel about him and just go from there. I have a feeling this is not going to turn into a huge issue. But if it becomes one, you're going to definitely want to cover your arse, both with this teacher on the employment side and with the parents. And good luck. You know what's lower than a flat earthers IQ, Gabriel? The prices on the fine products and services

that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all in one place,

Jordanharbinger.com slash deals. or email me Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I am happy to dig up codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. All right. Back to Feedback Friday. Gabriel, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe.

I recently reconnected with someone from high school. We've each been married and divorced since then and have started officially dating each other. He has two children who are in elementary school. He has them overnight a couple nights a week. We're serious enough that the idea of me meeting them has come up. But here's the thing. Part of their divorce decree, his ex-wife insisted that they not introduce any new romantic

partner to the children until they've been with said a partner for at least six months. I absolutely love that this man is a dad. I think he's probably a really good dad. And I love kids. I'm a kick-ass aunt. He's seen me in action. I want to be sensitive toward his children, of course, and I'm not above being considerate of their mom. But six months feels like a really long time to be dating someone without knowing this huge important part of him. And he agrees, it's a long time to be seeing me without knowing how I am with them. His therapist agrees as well, and suggested that we use group gatherings with friends who also have kids, so there are multiple kids and multiple grownups, to sneakily let us meet without breaking the rules. That seems fine,

but I don't exactly want to depend on arranging group gatherings just to see him be a dad and for him to see me with his kids. Whenever I do meet them, we agree that it should be as dad's a friend, and we'd refrain from any PDA. I'll wait if I have to, and I certainly don't want to create or participate in any drama, but it really feels like his ex-wife is maintaining control under the guise of protecting her children. Also, let's not forget that I've actually known him longer than she has. I don't want it to be a crime to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his parents and kids. How should I handle this? Can you help brainstorm some workarounds? Do I just need to know my place here? What's normal? What's right? Signed, breaking free of this frustrating decree,

so my new dude can see that I'm more than just a great ante. Huh. Interesting question. Well, this wouldn't be a crime. It would just be a tort. But that's just me flexing that law degree. I got to use it at least once a year. So I get why this is frustrating. I take your point. We wanted to get a good handle on the legal side of things here. So we reached out to attorney and friend of the show, Corbyn Payne. And Corbyn said that this 100,000, percent depends upon the language in the divorce decree and on the law in your state. And he wanted to stress this isn't legal advice and that you and your boyfriend have to consult an attorney in your state before taking any steps. But Corbyn did say that any missteps here could have serious

consequences. Your partner's ex-wife could bring a lawsuit for a contract breach and or a contempt action, which by then you're talking about a crime. But again, it depends on your state's laws. There might be a few other grounds in there as well. Always state dependent. So Corbin was pretty clear here. He said that he cannot stress enough. The in-advite. of violating a court order. Doing so can result in fines, sometimes jail time. It's also going to indicate to a judge that your partner can't be trusted to do with the court orders. That can have a devastating impact upon any future custody issues between him and his ex-wife. And while penalties for breaching a contract are less severe, for example, there's usually no jail time, it could also

have implications for any further custody fights. Now, his ex-wife could theoretically consent to an earlier introduction to the kids, although based on your letter and the fact that your boyfriend hasn't asked, that sounds unlikely. But Corbyn said that he does have some leverage. It sounds like this is a serious relationship and you meeting the kids is almost inevitable. If you've been with this guy for several months, Corbin doesn't think it's unreasonable for him to ask for you to be introduced to the kids a month earlier, whatever, for the holidays. Now, his ex can decline. That's her prerogative, but then he can offer to be accommodating to his ex when it comes to her introducing a new partner to the kids. Or he can make some other arrangement to secure.

cure her agreement. So there are options here. There's a conversation to be had. Another thing Corbyn pointed out, these six-month waiting periods, they do have their benefits. In that time, your boyfriend might be able to mention you or talk you up to his kids, and that might actually be a good thing. Might give his children time to acclimate to the idea of their dad's new partner, maybe even to get excited about having you enter their lives. So in Corbin's view, this six-month waiting time is best used to take a potentially awkward situation and turn it into an opportunity to lay the groundwork for success. And just FYI, in Tennessee, where Corbyn practices,

that's how judges expect former spouses to use this waiting time. So it would probably be worth reaching out to his ex or the plan to slowly introduce the children to you if she's willing to act in good faith. She'll respect and engage with the plan, maybe even agree to an earlier introduction. If she acts in bad faith, that can actually be used against her

in any future fights over custody. But again, before you guys do any of this, talk to an attorney. Figure out what your boyfriend has a right to do, what he does not have a right to do, anything that might be in a gray area, and if his ex won't agree to anything, then he should stand firm on what he has a right to do,

avoid what he doesn't have a right to do, and play it conservatively with the gray areas. For his part, Corbyn loved the therapist's idea about having some group hangs, interacting with your guy and his kids without being introduced as his partner, but again, before you do that, attorney. And in a move I did not see coming,

Corbin's actually pitched a dark Corbin idea, which is a first for the show. He said that if the ex-wife doesn't play ball, maybe thinking about giving the kids just really nice Christmas gifts, because we all know that that has been known to set people off, which I love this idea, just a little pinprick here. Yeah, that's hilarious. Just get them an Xbox on a 65-inch flat screen TV, a call it a day. That's right. That should do it. Just a little stocking stuffer. So it's interesting, Jordan. I might fall into the don't meet the kids yet within the six-month window camp. Why? Tell me.

Well, first of all, we don't know why they included this clause in the divorce decree. Sure. Maybe there was some good reason for that. I don't want to speculate too much. I'm guessing our friend here would have told us if there was a big reason, but maybe one party feels that the other party might bring somebody around too soon, or maybe they know that their kids are young and impressionable. They just want to protect them.

I know our friend here feels that this is the ex-wife controlling her boyfriend more than protecting the kids, but we don't know that for sure, do we? Yeah. Or maybe it was just boilerplate divorce decree stuff that was in there and they're like, fine, but there's a reason that clause is often included in these things. Yeah, like Corbyn said, one purpose for this waiting time is to sit with a new relationship, slowly introduce the idea to the kids, but more importantly, six months, not that long, in my opinion. I mean, look, this situation is unique.

They've known each other since high school. They really like each other. They're excited. It's frustrating. I get it. But if they're doing well, I'm not sure what the harm is in waiting six months to meet the kids. Our friend here is eager to get more data on how they fit as a family and how they are as parents separately together. So again, I get it. Although didn't she say that he's seen her in action as an

aunt? She did say that. So it's not like he has zero data about how she is with kids. It's not like he has to wait six months before he finds out that she's secretly terrible with children or something. Exactly. So I'm of the mind that six months are going to fly. I'm guessing at least a month, maybe more has already passed since they reconnected. So it could only be four or five months. It could be three months, which is really not a lot. And in the meantime, they can really invest in their relationship and make sure they're totally solid and see how things develop before meeting the kids, which everyone in this situation seems to agree is a pretty big step. So part of me is going, like, what's the rush?

Is anything catastrophic going to happen if she can't meet his kids immediately? I hear that, but I think what she's saying is I'm not some random girl he met on Tinder last week. We've known each other since we were like 15 and this woman is standing in the way of our relationship. I kind of get that. Well, again, she might be or she might just be holding to an agreement that's designed to protect their kids from other partners who are, like she never imagined that it would be

the person he went to high school with. Right. It might not be about stopping her kids from ever having another woman in their life. And in the meantime, there is still a conversation to be had with the ex-wife. She could meet her a couple times. She could build that relationship, show her that she's normal and collaborative, respectful of their family, and that their relationship is solid. And then when the time is right, this guy can just ask his ex-wife, like, hey, is it cool

if Lainey meets the kids a couple months early. I don't know if it's out of the realm of possibility that she takes that in and goes, yeah, okay, I see that you, you know, this is fine, why not? And if she doesn't, then yeah, they'll probably just have to wait it out and it's very frustrating, but not fatal. Fair enough.

So there you have it. An actual lawyer's take, the dark lawyers take, a far worse lawyer's take. That's me in case it wasn't clear. And Gabe's take, in a rare dissenting opinion on this generally unified judicial bench of life conundra, Be patient, be creative, be flexible. I hope you get what you want here.

But if you and your boyfriend end up going the distance, I think this period will also feel like just a footnote in the grand scheme of things and might only make the foundation for your relationship with these kids even stronger. And good luck. All right, my recommendation of the week this week is homemade matcha lattes. So you've probably heard me talk about my life-changing trip to Japan this year.

One of the highlights was doing this tea ceremony in Kyoto with some family friends of ours. they run an incredible tea dojo there. They walk you through every beautiful detail of the ritual. It was truly one of the coolest things I've ever done. And by the way, if any of you ever go to Japan, just drop me a note. I'd be happy to give you my Japan wrecks and introduce you to the school, if you'd like. But anyway, when I came home from that trip, I was asking myself, how in the world do I keep this Japan magic alive in my life in L.A.? Can I make macha lattes at home so I don't have to go to some bougie cafe every single day to enjoy one?

So it's actually extremely simple. All you need is some macha powder, a macha whisk, and one of these cool macho bowls, although that's actually just a bonus. You can do it in any cup, but it's really fun in the bowls. It is so easy, and the ritual of making it, you know, you're like taking the ladle and putting the powder in the bowl and then taking the whisk and whisking the water back and forth, and it goes like, that little, it's just very fun, very meditative. I'm a big fan.

And then if you want to turn it into an actual latte, you just heat it. up some milk. I do almond milk, obviously, or oat milk. Yeah, of course you do. Pour it in and, you know, bam, you have a macho latte and you don't have to drive 15 minutes and pay $9 for it. It's great. So I'm going to link to a set that includes the whisk, the ladle, the bowl, the strainer, all of it. It's not super expensive and it's a good place to start. I'm also going to link to some macha powder to get you started. If you guys want to do this at a home too, I think you'd love it. And then if you ever go to Japan or specifically Kyoto, you can upgrade your gear later because they have amazing stuff there, and that's super fun too. You know, Jen also loves her macho lattes. We have the bowl and the

whisk and the powder. I get why it's so fun to make. Oh, and Domo Aragato for using our Amazon affiliate links in the show notes for our recommendations of the week. Also, case you don't know, there's a subreddit for our show. If you're on Reddit, hanging out there, join us over at Jordan Harbinger, the subreddit. We discuss the episodes, the guests, the advice on Feedback Friday. It's a lot of fun. Go there and check it out if you are a Redditor. All right, before we wrap up today, I wanted to give you guys an update on the plastics episode we did with Chris DeArmit sometime back. That was episode 924. As I suspected, this turned out to be quite a controversial episode. Fascinating but controversial, a lot of you guys wrote to me after the episode saying Chris was fascinating and authoritative and the interview was thought-provoking, but there seemed to be contradictions in his arguments, or at least we have some big questions. So we passed them along to Chris. He generously responded to every single one. And these emails kept trickling in over the months. We saved up a bunch of them so we could do an update all in one go. And I realize this isn't the usual Q5 banger y'all usually get, but it is super interesting and

very important. Plus, it's fun to see how a guest responds to some fiery emails from our listeners. So thanks for hanging out with us while we talk about whether plastic is really going to ruin our planet, our bodies, and our lives, or if it's actually pretty innocent and or better than the alternatives. So first off, a lot of you wrote in saying, there's no way plastic is better than paper or metal or other materials, and how is it possible that it doesn't just stick around forever, especially in the ocean. To that point, Chris's take is that plastics degrade similarly to other organic materials, breaking down into carbon dioxide, water, and biomass under aerobic conditions. He provided references to studies showing that plastics degrade more quickly than many other

materials in marine environments. In fact, Chris maintained that in many cases, plastics are actually found to be the safer choice in life cycle assessments. According to him, life cycle assessments show that plastic bags and drink containers have lower environmental impacts compared to alternatives like paper or metal cans. He also pointed out that transportation plays a large role in environmental impact and plastic bags. They just require fewer trucks to transport compared to paper bags. For example, Chris argues that tetrapak containers are not easily recyclable due to their mixed material composition. His argument is that human behavior and improper disposal, not the plastics themselves, those are the real issues contributing to pollution. So when a country dumps container load

ships of plastic crap and garbage into the ocean, that's the problem, not the manufacturing. of plastic. But, and I'm sympathetic to this argument, a lot of you did not appreciate that Chris puts the blame for plastic waste onto consumers. And I can understand that. His response to that was the plastics industry gets undue blame for pollution and that the real issue is littering by individuals, not corporations. A lot of you asked about those huge piles of plastic you see sometimes in the ocean. Chris's response there was he's actually trying to debunk the idea that there are massive floating islands of plastic in the ocean. He claims that these are just pure fabrication. He also pointed to what he says are decades of scientific data that show no significant

increase in oceanic plastic pollution, despite rising plastic production. Then a few of you brought up the whole microplastics concern. This is one of the things that terrifies me, right? These like tiny little plastics, micro and nanoplastics in the ocean, or anywhere. Chris's take there was these microplastics have been extensively tested and according to him, they've been shown to be as harmless as clay. Obviously not every single one, but a lot of them. So he criticized the studies that claim microplastics are harmful. In his view, they're often methodologically flawed. He also challenges what he considers common misconceptions about BPA, endocrine disrupting-discuals, and plastic toxicity. This is sort of, again, another hot take, because this stuff's scary, man. Chris's take is that a lot of

these arguments come from environmental groups, which he generally doesn't seem to be a big fan of. In his view, these groups often tell the public's scary, but fictional stories to generate donations. He actually pointed us to a report by the former president of Greenpeace that says that that's essentially their business model. I'm not saying I agree with them. I don't know enough about how these groups work. I'm just letting you know what Chris says. I know the president, former president of Greenpeace has come under fire for that stuff and people call him a grifter. Like maybe that's true, maybe not. But the top criticism we heard from you guys was Chris is actually biased in his pro-plastics view because he has financial ties to the plastic industry. That is obviously a fair point.

One I knew about before I had him on. Perhaps I could have shown more of a light on that in the interview so I could have given Chris a chance to explain. In fact, one of you even went so far as to say, and I quote, this guy is one of the biggest industry shills in the game. He loves to portray himself as an objective scientist, but his funding comes from big plastic, which he often fails to mention, which Zing, and another listener said, Chris De Armit is trained as a scientist, but he is not a scientist in ecologically related or human medical fields, which could give him some authority to have an informed opinion on the dangers of plastic. That listener also pointed out that he hasn't published any of the perspectives he shared in the show in pure reviewed journals.

To these criticisms, Chris respectfully defended his credibility, said that his opinions are based on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, many of which he linked to and which will include in the show notes. So look, all of the emails I got about this episode were super eye-opening. They challenged me to think yet again about when to feature potentially controversial guests like Krista Armit on the show. I got to say, though, the way you guys engage with his arguments, speaking to his claims, sharing your own research, respectfully disagreeing. It really just made me appreciate how smart and thoughtful all of y'all really are. The whole show fam. And what really meaningful debate should actually look like. It also made me think about why I have guests like this on the show. So, as you know, I declined in the past to have RFK Jr. on the show sometime back because I knew he'd bring a ton of misinformation to our conversation, and I just don't have the deep expertise to meaningfully push back and set the record straight. And even if I did, that would turn into a tedious debate, not an interesting long-form interview.

I also didn't have the deep expertise to fact-check Krista Armit. Just to be totally clear, I cannot assess all of his counter-arguments either. just sharing them with you, but I know that Chris at least comes with some credibility in a reasonable degree of good faith. And it's funny, people have been accusing me lately of doing controversial episodes for the sake of audience capture, which is patently ridiculous, or to appease an audience of crappy psycho people. My feeling is that's an unfair accusation. I think it's important to have conversations with anybody, I'll say almost anybody, who's going to engage and argue in good faith, even if that means they make some mistakes. I will not have somebody on the

show who blatantly lies to us, and I have to just ignore that, especially in ways that can harm people, like with their health or the health of their children. And some of you might think, well, Chris is blatantly lying because he has ties to the industry. And I appreciate that argument, but I don't believe that Chris was blatantly lying for money. I think he's presenting data, data that, to be totally clear, I do not have time or expertise to personally verify. That is why I appreciate y'all's emails. And the takeaways from that data, they can obviously be debated. And I know that I'm going to get more emails with more counter arguments to Chris's counter arguments. I can't go through them point by point. I always love hearing from you. We're all ears.

But at some point, we got to put the discussion down. In the meantime, though, I'm going to include a link to a document someone created where they went through Chris's book and they fact-checked his claims and sources. So if you want to dig deeper, definitely check that out. But anyway, the idea I come back to time and time again is, it is better to not get something right 100% of the time than to not even try to talk to some of these folks, which, As we all know, just creates and maintains these echo chambers that I'm trying so hard to break out of. And most of you, including the ones who tore into Chris's arguments, actually shared that same view. So thank you to Chris for coming on, for engaging thoughtfully with all these counter arguments,

and to all of you for adding to this debate and making the show even richer. Go back and check out Yuval Noah Harari and our Skeptical Sunday on Higher Education, if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It is not. Shmoosy. It's all there on the thinkific platform at six-minute networking.com. Dig the well before you get thirsty folks. Build relationships before you need them.

Once again at six-minute networking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website at Jordan Harbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, and discounts, ways to support the show. All at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on all social media. You can find Gabe on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger,

Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, and of course Gabriel Mzrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing things you hear on the show. Ditto Corbin Payne. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show on how Big Pharma broke American health care and

what we can do to repair it. Prior to the pandemic starting, Americans live 3.3 years less than the citizens of 19 other wealthy countries. And in those two years of the pandemic, that 3.3 years less grew to 5.3 years less. I think it's a very powerful testimony of the fact that our health care system is not as well-oriented towards producing health as the health care systems of the other wealthy countries. Here's the problem, Jordan. The drug companies have paid for the research. The drug companies have analyzed the research. The drug companies have written up most of the research. These written-up manuscripts that are brief summaries of the whole study are then submitted to journals for publication. When they're submitted to journals in the period, reviewers and the medical journal editors look at these manuscripts, they don't get to see the underlying

data. The drug companies have one primary mission. We've got to remember this. It's not to make us healthier. It's not to improve the quality of our lives. It's to maximize the financial returns to their investors, and they do it very well. That's their job. That's what they do. They do it. They are world class, and they fight tooth and nail against it. And as you were saying, the wealthier they get, the more money they have to fight anything that's going to threaten their profits. But even when they blow it completely with a disaster like Vioxx that killed 40 to 60,000 Americans, even then they break even. Nobody went to jail about that.

And that is the introduction of the conversation about why is this happening? How could this possibly be happening? To hear John Abramson's take on how our health care system can be overhauled to benefit people over profits, check out episode 709. of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger Show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast, focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much, what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not, the through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got

thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.