Rob Henderson Transcript
00:19.96
cactus chu
So The thing that I want to start this interview with is that I think something that's very notable about you is that you can draw long-term and generalizable insights from a lot of the interactions that you had in your own personal experience and back it up. A lot of coherent Arguments. So Just go about explaining how you do that and what goes through your mind when you're in a lot of these types of social situations.
01:09.40
Rob Henderson
Ah, yeah I mean what I'm in the situations themselves I don't necessarily you know there's no like sort of conscious calculating or deliberation really going on a lot of I Guess a lot of what I write about. Is inspired by sort of after-the- fact, Reflections. So if I'm in a situation and you know I'm just sort of doing whatever comes naturally and you know, but maybe I notice something is off or I notice that people behave in a certain way that I was surprised By. Then maybe later on you know, maybe when I exit the situation and I'm you know I think a lot. So Maybe you know back and I'll sort of reflect on what happened and then that's when I'll start writing things down and sort of ah you know deliver some of my interpretations of what might have happened. Oftentimes This isn't even immediately after I mean some of the things I've written about yeah, they've been years and years ago and I just now sort of with the benefit of hindsight and maybe a little bit of maturity and. Yeah, probably informed by some of the research that I've done and readings that I've completed that I can reanalyze or reexamine some of the things that happened in my earlier adulthood or or at my youth or something. So yeah, it's but the process itself is it's I don't even know if I could like what like explicitly. Outline How it goes. It's really just sort of thinking and then it's like almost like like sort of pattern association of you know I'll read something in a paper and it'll just sort of stick with me and then later on I'll make a connection when I'm in an interaction or vice versa where I'm in interaction and then years later I'll come across something in a paper. Or whatever and just think like oh yeah, maybe that was what was um, what was going on there.
07:18.56
Rob Henderson
This was like um you know, just a gathering like a social group of people gathering and there was ah you know so people were sort of deciding should we go out tonight should we not go out and it was mostly the the women in the group who were trying to decide whether they wanted to go out or not. And then you know sort of say okay, let's go out and then ah one of them I said you know do you guys think I should change you know do I do you think I should um you know put like my my clubbing outfit on because we were all kind of dressed casually just because we're hanging out for that day. And ah, you know, ah you know one of the looks most of the girls were like ah you look fine. It's fine and I'm worried about it. You look great, how you are 1 in particular was like insistent that she not. You know that she did not change at all and with that this woman just you know went upstairs and changed and came down and. And I found it interesting that you know so this person was like you know, do you guys think I should change? Everyone says no and then one insists that she says no and she goes up and does the opposite of everyone's opinion and um. And you know at the time I didn't really make much of that like ah, whatever you know, just especially at that point I must have been like 22 or something not particularly reflective. But then years later you know once I read a little evolutionary psychology and sort of understood a little bit more about you know, just how people are um. I sort of recognized that in that case, what I think was happening was this. You know this woman was um, you know I think she wanted to probably hear from her friends that she looked good. You know even without sort of sprucing herself up. But then you know the one who was insistent that she shouldn't change herself was relatively less attractive than you know, many of the other women in that group and from my perspective what was probably happening was that she. You know, didn't want her friend to outshine her anymore than maybe she already was so that's just like a small example but at the time I really had no awareness of this and you know yeah so so that's like an example of maybe you know what learning a little bit of evolutionary psychology and sort of understanding a little bit more about what's going on with people that. Little things like that maybe at first glance, don't make sense where someone says should I change everyone says no and then they do it anyway. Suddenly it starts to make a little more sense.
12:09.96
cactus chu
So yeah I think the danger of this type of rationalization is that there are all kinds of things that could be the possible explanation and especially with something like Evo psych or with psychology in general there is a kind of replication problem. So you're not.
12:19.00
Rob Henderson
Um.
12:45.24
cactus chu
You're never completely sure if 1 thing or 1 explanation is really the right choice and the same deal is true with this kind of like especially with this kind of like individual thing right? If you're trying to kind of take that theory and project it back to real life.
12:47.20
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah, that's.
13:04.16
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, there is always a good point and it's true there. There have been some replication failures in you know the social sciences and the medical sciences I mean really in a lot of ah you know a lot of the disciplines. But um, you know so.
13:35.74
cactus chu
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, my audience will know all about that. So.
13:42.74
Rob Henderson
And okay, so so yeah I mean it's always ah, it's yeah of course it's always a tricky game to to pick you know studies who maybe won't replicate and then apply them to isolated situations I take that point but you know I think for for a lot of at least the sort of sexual and gender dynamic stuff in evolutionary psychology. It has held up pretty well I think. Much or most of it has survived a lot of the replication endeavors. Um, so that's yeah, that's one point and then yeah I mean another thing is like it's ah yeah to to use the research and then and then try to particularize it to. 1 point is also ah dangerous and I mean of course it depends. You know if you're just writing a story and a recollection and you know there's probably no harm in that. But if you're trying to maybe strategize for the future that can also be tricky at the same time though. I mean if you know one of them you know that. You know if your readers are familiar with the replication crisis. They're probably familiar with ah you know a lot of the um you know, sort of the pitfalls of thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman so actually I'm not even sure if this what I'm about to say has replicated but 1 principle I remembered from that book.
15:43.18
cactus chu
Yeah.
15:52.84
Rob Henderson
Is ah, that people have a tendency to generalize from the particular but not particularized from the general and so essentially you know the research that he cites and I think he may have carried it out himself if you know people and and and I think this actually makes sense to me. People will hear stories. I mean this is basically how the media works right? like people hear stories and then like that becomes their framework for understanding. You know they hear 1 isolated case of a plane crashing and then they immediately date their priors and think the police should be exactly right? I think I saw.
16:50.58
cactus chu
Oh yeah or a police shooting or a vaccine side effect right? It's crazy and it's not isolated one side or the other.
17:04.60
Rob Henderson
Yeah I think I saw in the year it was your substack. You had a really great post about how you know these sort of isolated stories in the media can really warp our understanding of the world and about probabilities and so that's a problem right? But that's how most people I think sort of think about. Social situations and planning for the future are just sort of these isolated anecdotes or you know these sort of very extreme cases that they see on the media or social media. Ah, in contrast what I try to do and I don't always succeed is at least I attempt to do the opposite of that and try to find. Studies statistics meta-analyses and then also just sort of you know, ah philosophy old school sociology things that that appear to be ah ah a little a little bit more robust than you know a story that some you know someone posted on Twitter or some sort of you know, an Instagram story or something like that. But of course there's no sort of perfect way to to understand things. but I think that's definitely better than the sort of isolated anecdote case.
19:09.62
cactus chu
Yeah, basically I see this as the question of being an operator in the kind of business sense of being able to aggregate noisy data points that you can't necessarily control. So if you're running a business or you're running a small team.
19:25.74
Rob Henderson
Um.
19:46.72
cactus chu
Ah, small part of a business you're going to run into problems and you're essentially going to need to pivot and change and adapt and you can do this in 1 of two ways if you're failing at something you can adapt in a way that kind of overcorrects or you can adapt in a way that under-corrects and. Making those tradeoffs essentially making those decisions I think is very important and really it has something that's quite dark and maybe quite quite counterintuitive about the real world or at least about the world as which of which we've kind of conceived it which is that. In order to make sense of the world. You really have to change these behaviors within yourself in a very immeasurable and kind of spectral way. So I've seen you especially in some of your other podcast appearances.
21:14.54
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah.
21:40.19
cactus chu
I've seen you do this in a very insightful way I think where you don't overapply. You don't overcorrect but you also don't undercorrect as well and I think a great example of this is when you draw your experiences when you draw from your experiences at Yale. So Do you want to just talk about that for a bit.
22:13.40
Rob Henderson
Ah, yeah yeah I be it's you know this is ah my experiences at yale were unexpected and I think to some degree probably I guess set me on the path that I'm on now. Ah, not just in terms of my you know? Oh yeah I studied psychology at Yale and I'm studying psychology at Cambridge but also like you know in terms of formal education but also in terms of I guess the way that I think about class and about status and. Sort of the class differences and the desires for status and those kinds of things. Um, you know I guess like I am okay so one of the things that happened when I was at Yale was this, you know, massive student eruption. You know. Probably yeah, a lot of your listeners will know what happened in 152 with the christakass and the Halloween costume controversy that was my first semester at Yale. You know I just spent I just did an enlistment in the military before I got to yale. You know before that I grew up in sort of low-income situation growing up in foster homes and so I was just a very unique and different environment to me to go to a place like Yale and I had some understanding of that going in that you know these students were going to be from probably rich families many of them and they were probably like very academically adept. Many of them come from. You know, expensive private schools or had tutors and you know probably had ah you know more more well read or whatever and so I had some what I guess you know anxieties around that pardon. Oh yeah, yeah, well so that was one but then I but I had no idea about like this.
25:31.30
cactus chu
Preconceptions. Oh.
25:42.32
Rob Henderson
so economic capital I understood that right there was going to be this sort of gap between us and in terms of our academic preparation. You know I barely graduated high school. Um whereas you know, many of them. They probably all got like in a 4.0 or or above or whatever valedictorian types. But then I didn't understand this sort of cultural capital aspect where people would you know communicate and use different kinds of vocabulary, different kinds of language and so on and it was tricky for me at first because you know at first it seemed like everyone was stridently opposed to. You know these 2 professors the crysocass and with you know this email that they sent out and whatever. Yeah, yeah, so that was my perception right? but it wasn't the case you know upon reflection.
26:59.94
cactus chu
Yeah, and for the audience this is the same situation. We were talking about Richard Hanania quite a few episodes ago. Um, but yeah continue.
27:28.42
Rob Henderson
You know I distinctly remember so when I was still yeah that that first semester I sent an email actually to Jonathan Haidt sort of just because I knew you know by that point that he was sort of 1 of the few ah prominent professors in the world or in the us who were. Ah, who who was who who were sort of challenging this narrative about these professors at yale being racist or sex or whatever there was like bigoted and I sent up an email saying like you know, just I guess asking for advice and telling what was going on and. He wrote back something along the lines of you know, maybe you can take solace in the fact that you know it's not all the students right? like he said like I'd imagine that it's not literally 100% of the students who were calling for this. You know, even the protesters and the you know the students who were marching around and I thought about it and I was like you know what? that's right, it's probably. Maybe 10 percent 20% at the most who are doing this and that gave me a bit of comfort but and and so so that was like you know. So what? My belief about the campus has changed from all these students being just totally out of their minds to okay so it's just a small number. But then I realized well then why are they controlling everything like the conversation right? Like why is everyone else afraid you know, even if 80% of the campus is either neutral or actually disagrees and and and and saw nothing wrong with what the krysokass did. Why are they remaining silent and that was when I started to realize like oh actually majorities don't matter. You know if you are strong and strident and vocal. Ah you know a minority of people. Um, they can exert their will and and I saw that firsthand and so that actually changed my mind a lot about sort of you know the power of majorities and. All of that stuff which I think like hanania he's talked a bit about this too with ah with some of his writings. So.
31:00.90
cactus chu
Oh yeah, What do you think of his hypothesis that it really matters that it's women like when he was talking about the situation with me he had this very striking quote which was basically that like. You have the same people if you have the same people doing the same thing to the christocass but they're all men um that it's just that it's just kind of repulsive that it's that no one no one bats attention to that kind of um, that kind of like vice signaling or that kind of weakness signaling if it's if it's men doing it. Yes.
31:57.90
Rob Henderson
Yeah I don't know I mean I did. I watched those videos . I wasn't actually in the silimon courtyard when Nicholas was getting yelled at but like I was a student at that time and like you know within the week you know those videos were circulating around campus already. Um and there was one like you know 1 male student who did like to get up in his face and I don't remember what he said exactly. But oh I remember yeah I think Nicholas Kstakus was trying to appeal to their you know whatever they're sort of universal ethics or principles. You know, basically saying like you know? Yes, we're different. Yes, we have these differences but. You know, of course we can all come to understand each other something like that this sort of classical liberal line and you know this this ah young man walks right up to crusakus and says you know we're not the same presumably because he's black and Nicholas Kurstakus is you know a white Greek American guy and so he goes up to the nickla. We're not the same, you know, adoos has a few other words. And that was it I mean and yeah I guess it was okay so I guess that interaction was a bit different and that he wasn't like screaming at him. It was a sort of ah a more domineering sort of low vocal tone kind of like you know? yeah.
34:25.63
cactus chu
Yeah, and it was actually kind of coherent right? It was kind of making a point even if it's not necessarily like a correct 1
34:24.80
Rob Henderson
We're we're y so yeah, yeah, and I think it it and it went better I guess because Nicholas understood what he was saying and so there was like there was the possibility for like a mess like a shared mutual understanding whereas with the ah.
34:52.12
cactus chu
Mm.
35:02.52
Rob Henderson
You know the young women who were screaming at Nicholas it was ah you know I don't think like there was any there was no way for any kind of shared mutual understanding there and and I'm not even sure that was the point whereas it did seem like the young man wanted to just get Nicholas to acknowledge like yes I understand we're not the same. Fine like fair enough like there's no, you know you can't argue with that. But with the women who were screaming at him and it wasn't that with yeah, they weren't making points right? So that's that's interesting I mean you know hit on his whole thesis about ah you know women's tears and everything it's it's provocative. It's interesting. You know I think in some cases anyway, I'm inclined to agree because I know there's some truth to that. The fact that if um, if you're a man and a woman is screaming at you in public you have very few options for how to react to that and so that is kind of ah you know that is kind of a button that you know 1 sex can press that the other can't in order to to exert their you know their will I'm curious with that work between women you know I don't know if a woman could sort of scream in that way like if it was Eriica christokus in that courtyard if it had been Nicholas's wife I wonder how the the young women would have would have reacted to her. You know I'm curious what you or Richard would say about that.
37:35.58
cactus chu
But the problem is that it's performative right? It's not actually between. They're not actually trying to convince Nicholas Christakis of anything , they're trying to appeal to a kind of authority and like a statistically male authority right? so.
37:47.12
Rob Henderson
Um.
38:00.38
Rob Henderson
yeah yeah yeah I get that but I mean you know the whole protest was because of Erica's email and now I wonder if it had been a female like you know female faculty member who had been in charge who you know occupies that powerful position if they would have used a different approach or a different strategy.
38:17.42
cactus chu
Yeah.
38:39.84
Rob Henderson
To? um, you know I guess to sort of get her to yield and acknowledge there that they were right or that she was wrong in some way you know there's different. Yeah. Yeah, different different ways to do that. But I do wonder? Yeah, if it's 2 women how that would play out because yeah, if it's 2 men and 1 man so you know suddenly bursts out and screams like that. Um, yeah I mean very very quickly that can escalate into violence. Um, so so yeah, especially in a sort of a group setting like that. It's great. Paper I think from Rob Kurzban at the University Of Pennsylvania or least he used to be there. Um, but he had this, you know one of his findings of something like ah if 2 men are arguing the likelihood that it will escalate into violence I think it triples if there's an audience present. So. I think there is something about that that um, you know when you know because obviously a man can't punch a woman so you know that's just so so yeah there the the degen dynamics there are fascinating.
40:25.98
cactus chu
That's interesting.
40:46.40
cactus chu
Yeah I think I don't know what's very interesting to me is that you ask basically anyone in the kind of non-western world where you ask anyone in China or in India or in Africa and they'll tell you that this is kind of obvious even if they're kind of. Scientists they're more empirical style researchers. This is just something that's seen as very foundational and it really is, it really is quite striking because I don't think that you.
41:36.80
Rob Henderson
Are.
42:02.44
cactus chu
I don't think that if you roll the dice a lot of times on western civilization that they always go blank slate right? I think there are actually a lot of times. Let's say we have a world without say hitler as a unique villain Hitler just never comes. Maybe there's still World War II but it's just like the German leader just wants land. Or something like that I don't think we I don't think we run into at least this extent of blank slates I think it doesn't really take hold and and gets to the point where it can deny so many I mean this is maybe a bit more contentious but.
42:56.20
Rob Henderson
Um, is that.
43:09.94
cactus chu
A lot of other results that are just obviously true.
43:06.48
Rob Henderson
Is that because so so is the just so I understand is that because so you think that because the reason the blank slate ideology sort of captured. You know the educated classes in the west are a response to. You know, naziism and eugenics and that kind of thing and so in order to sort of spark the backlash because before that you know eugenics was a sort of more progressive way it was championed more by progressives and so then with Hitler.
44:17.12
cactus chu
Oh yeah, yeah, Hitler is this kind of unique villain and it's and he's actually cited or like he's actually referenced explicitly in a lot of these communist doctrines about basically lysenkoism.
44:14.50
Rob Henderson
Suddenly there was this backlash that is what you're sort of getting at.
44:39.38
Rob Henderson
Um.
44:54.40
cactus chu
You can't agree with Hitler you can't have these kind of same western notions that hitler kind of bases ideas on even like correct correct parts of them or correct ones that um, that Hitler also referenced like genetics and so so they came up with like all sorts of other bullshit about how crops actually work even and and of course.
45:16.94
Rob Henderson
Um.
45:33.92
cactus chu
When applying to their society as well And of course there's no shortage of Communist intellectuals in the west these things proliferate in that way and you can look at explicitly a lot of these arguments that they make and.
45:30.20
Rob Henderson
Um.
46:02.60
cactus chu
They often do. It's not so subtle right? The reference to Hitler is not so subtle.
46:04.20
Rob Henderson
Yeah, well is it even isolated to the west I mean you know the like communism did capture parts of Asia as well. I mean China is still, you know, the most prominent example of a communist country. And existence today and they also held to blank slate ideologies and you know so during the yeah, yeah, yeah, the cultural revolution.
46:45.56
cactus chu
No, no okay at the time of mal perhaps but I had a tweet about this as well where I was talking about the point that my point was this China is essentially China's essentially rational rational. Ah, communism or rational state planning. Let's say and the west is like lyanchoist capitalism. That's the kind of fragmentation that we're looking at right now where China is hyper aware of individual differences. China is hyper aware of biological factors. Yeah.
47:44.20
Rob Henderson
Oh today? Ok yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, but but I mean like his yeah well today I get like you know China's doing I mean they're they're openly ah doing sort of genetic.
48:01.38
cactus chu
People who are managing this stuff have much more technical backgrounds than say like the Us senate.
48:19.60
Rob Henderson
Are they like genetic engineering or manipulation or something like gene editing for IQ and all these kinds of things today? Yeah, that's true. But I mean historically ah yeah, like sort during the time of Mao and the cultural revolution in Cambodia as well during the kaber rouge regime. So.
48:57.48
cactus chu
Yeah, there's certainly a history of it.
48:54.26
Rob Henderson
Yeah I mean I think just it's ah it's it's It's naturally appealing I think I So So it's possible I mean I liked the the line used earlier about you know if you roll the dice multiple times maybe abling Slate wouldn't have come up I don't know I mean I think I think that idea of like e. Quality is at least the desire for it is sort of to some degree intrinsic not not not necessarily like the the belief but the desire for it like the belief in that like I don't think you know it's it's it's necessarily natural for people to believe like oh yeah, we're all sort of equally. Tall and equally smart and equally talented and attractive and so forth. But I think the desire for not necessarily equality but the desire that no one is sort of better than them or treated better than them seems to be intrinsic based on my understanding of a sort of Hunter gatherer.
50:38.28
cactus chu
Yeah, that's envy right.
50:42.62
Rob Henderson
Ah, literature anthropology. Ah yeah, sort of these firsthand reports and so forth I mean there's a great book I reviewed a while back um hierarchy in the forest by Christopher I think it's bam is how you pronounce his name but he's ah a well-known anthropologist who basically documents this. Across various hunter gatherer societies and sort of digging into anthropological and archaeological research. Um that you know these sort of small-s scale communities. They are extremely preoccupied with status and equality and making sure of that.
52:00.42
Rob Henderson
Primarily the males I mean 1 of the interesting things from that book is that um, it's like cross-culturally seems like the adult males have roughly equal status whereas the women and the children are subordinate to them and of course even among the adult males. There are sort of ah. Like soft leaders but they don't really exert. Ah, their will or their dominance. They sort of shepherd the guys but like the other men but they don't um, they don't come on too strong. They sort of help to crystallize agreements. There is this sort of an interesting form of democratic decision making. Among the adult males in in these groups at least you know sort of so so anyway, um, yeah, and and so so I think like there is something I mean and and of course like the the book is replete with these very interesting accounts from you know anthropologists who visit and you know these guys will say like you know any anytime.
53:22.94
cactus chu
You know it's kind of manipulative instead of being explicit.
53:50.60
Rob Henderson
Someone in our tribe likes to take down a big animal immediately. We all start mocking him and making fun of him. You know, teasing him for how he runs or how he dresses or you know ah making fun of how he laughs like basically they're trying to cut him down because he did this great Thing. He kills this big animal and helps to feed. The group but they don't want him to think too much of himself. They don't want him to grow arrogant and so immediately all the other men start trying to ensure that he lets him know that hey just because you did this great thing doesn't mean that you're so special. Okay. And I think that Urge is present in all of us and and so I think you know in the modern West It sort of expresses itself in these blank slates where we don't want to acknowledge that. But it's interesting, right? B Blank Slate isn't for everything. It's you know we don't say this for um, you know sense of Humor. Or I think even for things like work ethic. It seems like most of the blank slate stuff I think is primarily isolated to like intelligence and maybe a couple of other traits but not for not for everything.
55:44.74
cactus chu
I Mean at the far end you even deny like sex differences like biological sex differences. But okay, you can say that that's like a specific set of insane people. Um, what's really interesting to me is that we don't have the same kind of rationalist revolution.
55:48.72
Rob Henderson
Ah, okay, yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's a good point.
56:24.68
cactus chu
Where we're We're looking at things empirically and we're kind of getting rid of these instincts Tribalism. Um the naturalistic fallacy that biases us towards certain directions. But this one seems to be very glaring. Seems to be at the scale of if not greater than racism like this kind of envy seems like something that is that would be on the top of my list of impulses to remove and if we can do it with racism which I think we've actually done a fairly good job of at least containing if not removing then.
57:10.70
Rob Henderson
Um.
57:33.54
cactus chu
I Don't see why we can't do it with this like this seems if if anything to me like intuitively this seems easier. Yeah, this kind of desire , this kind of desire to hide differences, to like to like to sweep them under the rug.
57:36.24
Rob Henderson
You're talking about and B. Okay.
57:53.50
Rob Henderson
Yeah, that is interesting I mean so so I'm making my way through this book I sort of dip in and out of it. Ah, which is called envy, a theory of social behavior by helmet choke I think is his name. He's like a German or Austrian guy. Um. And so and and he talks about how sort of functional advanced societies have managed to contain this impulse of envy and I think it's spot on I mean it's like yes envy is innate. It's natural to experience it sometimes. But there you know cultures can sort of contain it dial it in a little bit or dial it up if you want I mean I think a lot of what happened in in a lot of the communist countries actually and and in nazi Germany for that matter a lot of that was sort of. Driven by envy and you know certain people in prominent positions sort of stroking it and cultivating it and and in using that to to obtain power for themselves. So yeah, it is um I think it's very dangerous right? Like a lot of them. And the political divide seems to be almost like what's worse: envy versus greed right? and I think the belief is that on the right, you know this is very broadly speaking that the right is sort of driven by greed and the left is driven by envy and both of those things are, you know, not. Yeah, this is sort of disreputable motives. But arguably envy is worse because it you know it tears things down whereas greed can arguably at least if that's sort of channeled in the right way can build things up so but I guess you could say that for mv 2 to some extent. But yeah I think you're right in that. Um. Just because something is inevitable something like envy or something is intrinsic a natural part of human nature that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing you can do about it and there are ways to to yeah to to thwart it or to to channel it in in more productive ways I mean one of the um, ah. Um, the interesting findings are in the sort of this within narcissism. So so research on narcissism one of the components of narcissism is actually this kind of ah this admiration you know sort of this seeing other people do well. And admiring them and then this other aspect of narcissism is this envy of sort of wanting to tear them down and so you have these sort of 2 dueling aspects. Yeah they're in conflict but but but but we all feel it right? like we've all felt.
01:03:02.44
cactus chu
So those are in conflict.
01:03:12.20
Rob Henderson
You know, sort of seeing someone do something really great and admiring it and being impressed by it. But we've also had the experience of seeing someone do something great or do well and feeling like you know why them and not me you know or that's not fair or try to make excuses for why they were able to do it and you couldn't or whatever and I think there are ways to sort of um so you know sort Of. Ah, suppress one and and and maybe cultivate the other gratitude too right? Like gratitude is natural but it seems like there's absolutely nothing in our culture that is helping to cultivate gratitude and and and it almost sounds corny right? There's all these sort of um, weird ah responses now.
01:04:20.86
cactus chu
Yeah, go to Church Bros drink, go to church children.
01:04:23.38
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, well not even that right? like if you like you know if you say something that that has like a whiff of gratitude or or kindness or something often times people will you know? So if you post something nice on Twitter you know something about like 3 things you're grateful for. Oftentimes I think you'll get some kind remarks too. But often you'll get some like nasty response to um, whereas if you post something you know 3 reasons you know 3 reasons there you know there are problems in the world. 3 problems in the world something like that like something negative. Um, you won't get the same I think degree of of ah you know people trying to tear you down and response. So um, yeah, yeah, anyway, all this is say that you know things that are natural can be can be sort of promoted or or suppressed I agree with that.
01:05:55.32
cactus chu
Yeah, they can be increased or decreased even if they're going to be there and 1 question that ties into a lot of what you've already worked on is why does this seem so much so much more popular among the kind of quote unquote elite class. I mean what you would expect is for the richer people to want to kind of flex their advantages and you'd want the poorer people this is the kind of marxist conception is that the poorer people will rise up and be against those kinds of systems. But in reality it's kind of the opposite way.
01:06:46.56
Rob Henderson
We.
01:06:58.34
Rob Henderson
Well, what are we talking about like what's like this system or or what yeah class structure. Oh right? Oh interesting. Um, think of the blank slate idea. No, that's that's that's true I mean like no like.
01:07:04.14
cactus chu
And I'm wondering why you think that is.
01:07:13.98
cactus chu
That kind of idea that some people are better than others that some people are naturally better than others. Yeah.
01:07:35.24
Rob Henderson
I remember like when I first encountered for example, ah like like the intelligence research when I was an undergrad I started like reading about because they don't teach you that I mean it's funny I studied undergrad I got a Bs in psychology at you know one of these fancy universities and like I think I had 1 or 2 sort of. Lectures where one of the professors mentioned intelligence but it was just sort of in passing and then I started reading on my own and I'm like oh this is like this is like a sort of rock solid finding in psychology which is pretty rare. And no one's talking about it. But then I talked to my mom who grew up. You know, sort of a working class low income community. Whatever and like I asked her about just sort of what did I say something like um, you know do you think that people are sort of born smart or do. You think that they sort of learn to be smart, you know through their experiences or through schooling or whatever she was like some people are just some people are born. You know you should acknowledge that you can sort of learn and sort of grow in that way, but some people are just sort of born with it. But That adds and I've talked to other people with friends from back home and whatever and like it's not not at all controversial. Ah that to say that. Yeah some you know you say like oh I hope your kid grows up to be smart or something implicitly believing that like it is kind of a roll of the dice to some degree and yeah i. My feelings just through having sort of private conversations and you know maybe ah you know, maybe after a few drinks or something a lot of people in the sort of upper middle and upper class. They do ah. Believe that a lot of this stuff is genetic or that they have you know sort of questions about the the sort of blank slate ideology but there has been this sort of taboo that's created this kind of chilling effect where they won't openly acknowledge it and they have to say that you know the reasons for disparities or the reason for. Kids who aren't doing well or whatever it's purely due to some sort of environmental or economic factors and so I think it's become this sort of fashionable to some degree . I would call it a luxury belief. You know everyone is born exactly the same and the only reason for these differences is because of um, you know, whatever situational factors and in the long run I think this does sort of create unrealistic expectations for certain kids and you know for other kids they are sort of.
01:12:29.46
Rob Henderson
Brought up to believe that you know the only reason why they are able to do what they do is because of you know, sort of these situational factors too which I think is also sort of taking something away from them. Um on the other hand though I don't like to overstress too much. You know, just the. I think smart people on the 1 hand are interesting . On the one hand they do adhere to this blank slate ideology but part of the reason they do like part of the motive for it is because they overvalue intelligence right? like if or or I guess any other factor but I guess and specifically in this case, it's about iq is that. You know they wouldn't become so touchy and adhere to this blank slate ideology unless they believed that this is a very special trait that they themselves somehow assign like ah, a lot of a lot more value than they should to it.
01:14:08.62
cactus chu
I don't know I think it's quite frankly I think it's super underrated like there's all of these mechanisms Richard actually talks a lot about this stuff like civil rights law that essentially bans IQ tests. It's kind of awful and I think just in general society would.
01:14:33.18
Rob Henderson
M.
01:14:47.70
cactus chu
Would be much better if this was brought out and became a lane of explicit competition. But I've always had this kind of phrase and I want to talk about this before you kind of give your opinion on it. This is kind of like a tool.
01:14:50.68
Rob Henderson
And I'll.
01:15:23.28
cactus chu
But it is used very craftily and very kind of subtly. It's something that's cultivated over a long long period of power from Legacy or legacy power. Let's say we inherited power against new power. So.
01:15:49.36
Rob Henderson
Are.
01:16:00.42
cactus chu
Let's just throw away a lot of narratives that are obviously false. Okay, so a narrative that's obviously false is the powerful against the powerless because the powerful just beat the powerless. That's what power means there is the narrative of old power against each other and we kind of know what that looks like that's called Prestige and we kind of know in general.
01:16:07.50
Rob Henderson
Um.
01:16:38.64
cactus chu
How they compete and they generally just agree on the rules and we know what new power versus new power looks like. It's called the market. What we don't know and what I think has settled through politics is this fight of old power versus new power and very central to this fight is how we think about it.
01:16:36.18
Rob Henderson
Are.
01:17:17.66
cactus chu
Explicit Competition. How we think about who is better than who and this is kind of showing my cards here . I did have a lot of thoughts about this and you can hear it throughout the podcast that this type of self deception or at least public deception. Maybe they know deep inside but this type of public deception is really trying to just bar the doors behind them and say no no more new Power. We want to hold on to what we have.
01:18:14.66
Rob Henderson
That's interesting I mean what? just what immediately comes to mind is the debate around ah free speech and I yeah I don't think it's.
01:18:34.40
cactus chu
Oh yeah.
01:18:37.40
Rob Henderson
I mean I guess to some degree. It's still going on but I remember a couple years ago at least this battle was raging and this question was going about. You know how it is possible that you know it used to be the lefties who loved free speech and the whole like free speech March or whatever it was at Berkeley and. You know, whatever, like you know and it was the sort of conservative Christian right-wingers who were, um, constantly trying to shut down speech and things have flipped and how did free speech become a conservative value and to me like it was. It was pretty obvious all along. I mean I don't want to say it was obvious all along. But. Early on anyway that I mean free speech is just for the people who like basically if you don't have power. You're going to advocate for neutrality and freedom of speech that when you have power you don't want freedom is a freedom of speech in and of itself is not like ah it's not a. I guess ah is like a natural kind or it's not ah inherently. Ah, yeah, well, it's counterintuitive but it's not necessarily. It's not like ah it doesn't naturally belong.
01:20:39.76
cactus chu
It's super counterintuitive. It goes backwards.
01:20:49.80
Rob Henderson
Politically to one side or the other I think like people have this sort of oh the left is this open-minded free tolerant. Whatever and so they naturally assume that therefore they own this concept of freedom of Speech and this is where all this confusion comes from where things have flipped around and and you know, but that he's not true like power wants. Like you said, power wants to contain itself. They don't want challengers and freedom of Speech is basically you know this ability to to sort of criticize and ridicule and challenge and you know undermine and and whatever. So all of those things are threatening to whatever. Ah, whoever is powerful. Whatever the regime is, that's in power and so. Then you know you respond with content moderation policies or whatever to eliminate people who may um pose a threat to you and so I think that it too, like the whole raging debate about free speech, is sort of this old power versus new power idea where you know. Freedom of speeches for the powerless. Um, it just happens to be that I mean and a lot of these arguments are confused right because you know freedom of speech for the Powerless. So Why are people who are supposedly without power trying to argue against it and it's like well maybe maybe they're not as powerless as you think.
01:23:15.34
cactus chu
Yeah I mean this is the kind of setup I want to have leading into your idea of Luxury Beliefs and I think you describe them as beliefs that convey status upon the elite while inflicting costs upon the poor or something like that right? so. Tell me about how you came to discover this idea and ah, really, what implications it has for what we're talking about now.
01:24:03.56
Rob Henderson
Ah, yeah, so luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes. Um, this idea I mean so there's a few different parts to it. So just very briefly i. Um, of course ah through my firsthand experiences at yale coming from an unusual background and seeing first time what was going on with these students who come from these affluent backgrounds. Some people have challenged me on you know oh what does upper class mean when you talk about luxury beliefs and I mean to me. Of course like there's actually no airtight definition I mean even you know I've I've read like a lot of the sociological research. Um, you know, sort of discussions of class. So one one I think ah useful, kind of hard and fast definition and is that Babra class. Ah it includes but is not necessarily limited to people who. Um, attend or have graduated from an elite university who have at least 1 parent who graduated from college right? So if you're sort of you know a continu and they call it a continuing generation student as opposed to a first generation student.
01:26:21.78
cactus chu
M.
01:26:19.58
Rob Henderson
Um, who you know who attended a top 2 university and you know at elite schools um in the US something like 80% of the students on campus fall into that category. You know, only about 20% of our first gen students. The vast majority are continuing gen so this is you know I think a good enough generalization. And these people tend to occupy the top quintile of income and occupational prestige and all sorts of things. So anyway, um so the upper class. Um and then and then in addition to those experiences of you know these students are you know. The way that they like the things that they get offended by, the kind of vocabulary that they use, the beliefs that they hold, plus my reading of um Thornton Weblin you know he wrote this great book called the theory of the leisure class. Ah, and 99 he fabellin was ah, an economist and a sociologist who was writing about the um, the elite of his day. You know these people who would basically signal their status there of material goods through expensive hobbies. You know he writes about you know the men in their expensive tuxedos and women in their evening gowns attending these fancy events and beagling and golfing and butlers. You know he even called butler status symbols too like almost saying like you know they don't even actually like having the butler. They don't necessarily need it but they just like other people to know that they have 1 um, and then I would read I later read some of ah Pierre Board's work. He wrote this great book called distinction. Um, or he talks a lot about things like tastes and habits and customs and he talks about what he calls the triarchic structure of social class ah these sort of class encompassing so membership into the upper class encompassing these 3 qualities of I think it was like ah education. Ah yeah I mean it was yeah it was literally like education income. And then yeah, your sort of habits and your mannerisms you know what he called habitus, your sort of outlook of the world too and so so realizing like okay so you know classes have always existed and sort of this important overlooked aspect of American life. Read Paul Fussel's work too. He wrote a book. Great book called class a guy to the american status system and I grew to realize like okay so you know I grew up thinking classes about money. Maybe it had something to do with education too. You know going to college was this respectable thing where I grew up and you know a lot of the sort of poor parents wanted their kids to go to college.
01:31:27.22
Rob Henderson
Ah, but you know it was sort of my belief. Oh they want to go to college because they want to make money but then I would you know learn about you know people who already had money but they still wanted to go to college then I went to college and realize like okay but these kids are rich and they're at Anyle University but there's still this sort of anxiety around them. There's still this feeling of you know lack. And you know I came to realize like oh there's this other component too about the way the beliefs that you express go a long way to establishing your position and to obtaining jobs and getting into graduate school and yeah, whatever medical school law school. Whatever.
01:32:24.42
cactus chu
Um, yeah.
01:32:44.86
Rob Henderson
And so all of these things you know the sort of reading and the interactions and everything sort of gave rise to this belief that oh like luxury beliefs have replaced luxury goods. You know, in part because luxury goods have become more affordable. It's. Clothing and material items are a noisier signal today of someone's social class. You can't necessarily tell just by someone walking down the street. You know you can't necessarily immediately tell if this person is rich or poor, whereas one hundred years ago it was much easier to do that? Um, but. Now if you hear you see someone walking on the street but then you have like a 15 minute conversation with them and ask them a few questions and the way that they express their opinions in the way that they talk suddenly you'll have a much better signal of their class. You know whether they were educated where and and so forth. And so the luxury beliefs have become that sort of ah that kind of metric of class and status.
01:34:30.46
cactus chu
Yeah, it was really interesting hearing your work for the first time and maybe this is the closest thing to like and to like me talking about my background that anyone will ever get because I really dislike doing that but I kind of come from an outsider perspective I was ah I was. Children of immigrants growing up basically like a suburb of Toronto are pretty pretty poor. Not that we were never. We never had problems with food but we had problems like we got evicted once? Um, but essentially I had this weird situation where. I did well on some math contest and got invited to ah to a magnet school basically and then from there I had another that school had a very good program which was essentially leading to the international olympiad in informatics which I eventually did and so I had this network of people who I still consider to be like. Far just like way higher quality people than a lot of the people at these kind of ivy league colleges or these kind of prestige colleges and and really it's like night and day because there's like there's mit and then there is like everything else and I know mit is technically not ivy league school but like the people at mit are just. So many high quality thinkers than even Harvard Harvard is also relatively good. Um, but like just going to like here's my here's my kind of experience right? So I would like to go to it and I have a kind of math background.
01:37:05.48
Rob Henderson
Now they're not.
01:37:31.98
cactus chu
Ah, computer science background. I go to mit I can talk to strangers. They might not even be in math they might be in like biology or something and they'll have really interesting and intriguing things to say they'll have like novel stuff that they're that they're really constantly talking about and and like cycling through them and even if they're like takes on politics their politics are like super interesting they're they're not like they're not predictable at all. But you go to even Harvard and I think Harvard is like the least bad one. There is this kind of not just conformity. There's this kind of hyper not necessarily sensitivity in the kind of political sense in the kind of like snowflake sense but sensitivity into as in like a hyper awareness of the. The present situation and trying their best to kind of like a game. Whatever social interaction. It is and this ends up just ending up with them not expressing that many interesting ideas and it just seems like very unfortunate.
01:39:08.20
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, that isn't I mean they're big there I mean I've been to Harvard a couple times but I'm assuming like the the students at yale weren't that much yale is probably crazier I think it was Matthew Iglesia had this I think it was it was like higher variance you know.
01:39:37.62
cactus chu
Yeah, Yale is the worst one y'all's the worst one.
01:39:43.98
Rob Henderson
well yale loss yeah well yale yale lost I mean yeah it's the worst but then some way I think it was him or someone else a comment. Maybe it was like Yale has a higher variance because they also have a lot of great people too. Um I think what happened is that like you know Yale Attracts you know it and then cultivates this kind of lunacy and then. You know it sparks this sort of a backlash of like you know students who group together I mean I was a member. You know, like the Buckley program and some of these great ones. Yeah this so this university does have a lot of great people too. But I think a lot of it is like a response to what's going on on campus and they cluster together and they're like oh just find me a sane person that they group together. Whatever. So anyway. I. I think you're right that it is there. There's this kind of sensitivity. There's this prickiness and this height. Yeah, this hyperawareness I mean yeah, there's this concept in psychology called self-monitoring of like you know whether you're a high or a low self monitor and I think a lot of students at ivy League schools top your schools are high self monitors.
01:41:25.68
cactus chu
Yeah.
01:41:39.30
Rob Henderson
Very aware of how they come across to other people. How other people come across to them overanalyzing every gesture. Um, you know every kind of statement and the way that it's expressed and so forth. Um, you know and this gives rise to a ton of. Anxiety I mean I you know I would say that like kind of the the I mean if you include prescription meds like the amount of drug use that I saw on campus rivals like any kind of like poor dysfunctional community that I that I lived in growing up and so um, yeah, it's.
01:42:45.38
cactus chu
Yeah, so like you know who jon wong is right? she she wrote a book called inn and one of the most striking data points from that book is that and the and the percentage of people I think from 14 to 24
01:42:50.46
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, she's great.
01:43:21.56
cactus chu
Ah, with anxiety disorders went from like under 25% to around 60% a little over 60% from I think 80 s to when did she write the book like 28 Twenty Fourteen 2015 oh is it that old.
01:43:30.90
Rob Henderson
Um, that.
01:43:42.00
Rob Henderson
Things like 2009 okay thinking of a different book of hers I don't know I yeah, there's she's she's written a few books. So it's possible I'm getting that. Yeah, but but but either way that's an insane statistic whether it's 2009 and 2014 or whatever. Um I mean I am.
01:43:59.12
cactus chu
Ah.
01:44:20.16
cactus chu
Oh 2017 funny seventeen igen yeah if you wrote a book as a millennial as well. But this one's about Gen Z.
01:44:17.64
Rob Henderson
Yeah,, that's that that's ah, really okay, okay, good. Yeah I mean it's fascinating. Yeah okay I'll have to check that one out. But yeah, that is ah that's wild and I mean I would imagine like much of that you know these anxiety disorders and she's she's written about narcissism too. That a lot of this is actually isolated within the sort of upper Strata. You know the kids of upper and upper middle class families. Um, oh is that what it was? 60% Overall Ah what.
01:45:11.62
cactus chu
I mean I don't think 60% of people are in the upper strata. Um, yeah, yeah.
01:45:28.92
Rob Henderson
But wait a minute and that doesn't even make sense to me that that many kids would eat like even get a diagnosis for this because I don't think yeah that yeah, ah.
01:45:45.52
cactus chu
I Think okay here's the methodology I think they pulled. They essentially pulled up the symptoms so they did the same kind of diagnosis test as you would have and you know how this works right? You don't literally pull every single person but you kind of take a random thing. All.
01:46:04.76
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah, right? Yeah well I'd be curious then like were these I mean were these sort of convenient samples of like you know what? like undergrads or like you know families. Ah, that are somehow associated with the University or did they literally like take like a representative sample of the us or or did they control for socioeconomics I mean yeah, be curious to know that's that's an insanely high figure then if that's like yeah, so anyway I thought thought that was 60% of um I thought you meant 60% of of ah University students something like that. But um.
01:47:08.96
cactus chu
No, no yeah so it actually makes a lot of sense to me because a lot of what they are considered like a lot of these questions basically of diagnosis for anxiety disorders. A lot of them are considered virtues.
01:47:09.26
Rob Henderson
Yeah, that's wild.
01:47:37.64
Rob Henderson
Um.
01:47:46.40
cactus chu
Right? And of course they're phrased differently. They're phrased in a more neutral way in these kinds of diagnoses. But for example, like the endless promotion of high empathy. This is something that I think is just extremely disastrous because really like empathy is a kind of emotional impulsiveness right? that. This is what it is and is it. It's almost kind of this weird hedging behavior where it's like okay, our kids can't control themselves because. They're all on social media and stuff like that. So we're going to encourage them to have empathy and do you know what that is? That's the manifestation of their social media addiction in their ordinary interactions.
01:48:58.80
Rob Henderson
Yeah, well so there was a I mean I'm sure you're familiar with this book and many of your listeners against empathy by Paul Bloom Excellent book that delves into the you know the the problems with empathy critiques some of the ah you know the sort of pro-empathy advocates.
01:49:18.26
cactus chu
Oh yeah.
01:49:35.20
Rob Henderson
And it is really ah I mean yeah I think that book did absolutely zero to contain the spread I mean it's gotten worse I think that book came out in like 20162017 and things have only gotten worse from there. But it's ah yeah I think sort of all of this stuff. yeah yeah I mean the kind of book that. Ah.
01:50:00.90
cactus chu
Yeah, well, it's a rational book right? It's not reaching these people.
01:50:10.66
Rob Henderson
You know? yeah against empathy is going to attract a certain kind of person and obviously not the people who are pro empathy or or even you know somewhat sympathetic to empathy, but but yeah, it's ah the the whole like I didn't even realize this I've I've been having I guess wait held are you cactus.
01:50:46.82
cactus chu
We don't we don't talk about that on the podcast but like ah I've been I and I'm in my 20 s.
01:50:47.32
Rob Henderson
Okay, well and guessing you're younger. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay so you're younger than me I've had a few conversations with yeah people who are like you know like whatever yeah ah, younger millennial Sorry I'm getting a call here. Ah.
01:51:28.98
cactus chu
No.
01:51:24.80
Rob Henderson
Okay, yeah, yeah, younger millennial or um, yeah, younger millennial or or what like gen z types like yeah late teens early 20 s and they're telling me because I'm not on Tiktok I'm not really like you know, whatever just up to speed on on like. Ah, kind of culture. But apparently there is this whole like glamorization of oh and and I've read some of Freddie de boer stuff. He's written about this too. Apparently there is this kind of glamorization among young people of mental illness and mental disorders and it seems like a cheap way to perform a mental disorder.
01:52:34.60
cactus chu
It's an identity group. Yeah so.
01:52:32.34
Rob Henderson
Yeah to obtain status I think a lot of it honestly. So I found this really interesting tweet. It went viral. You know it had I don't know 5000 retweets or something but it was this. It was this black woman who tweeted something like um, you know and and I think it was meant to be sort of tongue in cheek but it was something like. You know every time you call a white person out on their bullshit you find out that they grew up poor are our um, you know lgbt and have a mental disorder and.
01:53:31.58
cactus chu
Sir.
01:53:30.76
Rob Henderson
And you know it was sort of this kind of joke about like you know, white people. Whatever and so then like all these comments were like yeah that's True. You know a lot of people were agreeing with her and to be This was really interesting because of course it's just a tweet.. It's an isolated case. Whatever but I do think there is this kind of motive here like a lot of um. Especially a lot of like kind of young white kids who are or basically I guess anyone who isn't a member of a you know, historically mistreated group who can quickly adopt that identity by saying that they're bipolar or have dissociative identity disorder.
01:54:47.42
cactus chu
Um, I just want to tap because the Hangania sign and ask you like if if which which um, which sex of white people are doing this.
01:54:42.48
Rob Henderson
Or what have you because then immediately they get put into that victim category.
01:54:58.20
Rob Henderson
I don't know I don't know you know ask ah ask gene twangy um I'm not sure but you know but I think it's funny. You know I would love to see which of these like where this has spiked the most I mean I know gene herself has shown these sort of spikes in narcissism. But 1 thing I haven't seen.
01:55:37.94
cactus chu
Oh yeah.
01:55:37.60
Rob Henderson
Ah, you know any of these you know people who claim to have a disorder without actually getting an official diagnosis from a doctor. They just claim they have it and make some Tik Tok videos or something you know they never claim to have a narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial or psychopathic personality or.
01:56:16.59
cactus chu
Don't encourage them.
01:56:13.84
Rob Henderson
Like sadistic or you know and any of these kinds of darker Cluster B Disorders borderline right? like none of these are ah you know adopted as identities and you know I guess like. Those don't garner the same kind of sympathy I mean that in itself is interesting like which personality disorders get you you know confer status versus which which don't.
01:57:03.90
cactus chu
I Mean have you heard of the term word cells.
01:57:05.58
Rob Henderson
Um, is this the shape rotator meme? Yeah, right? Yeah yeah, a little.
01:57:16.24
cactus chu
Yes, yes, yes so I had the inventor of that term. He's like a machine learning engineer. So we talked about machine learning. I had him on the podcast. Yeah ruin Yeah, he's awesome and ah.
01:57:35.52
Rob Henderson
Oh ruined Yeah, Rune's great. Yeah.
01:57:54.78
cactus chu
I think that this is really like saying something about 2 kinds of parallel worlds that you can live in right? you can choose to live in the kind of high verbal world where I think these things really work and you can live in the kind of statistical or numerical world where they don't and. It is very interesting to see because I'm kind of on the border of these things. Of course I do very wordelly things in public. I run a podcast and I read a newsletter. Um, but but my day job is mostly not that right or like almost completely not that um, and so what I see is what I see.
01:58:58.62
Rob Henderson
Are you with a shape rotator? Okay, right, right.
01:59:12.26
cactus chu
Ah, yeah, yeah I do like machines. I like to literally do machine learning as my day job. So yeah, um so what I really see ah actually know we can. We can return to this. What are your thoughts on the word cell and shape rotator I think because I feel like I'm missing a very good moment here.
01:59:35.34
Rob Henderson
Oh I don't know, I mean I've I like I've never actually personally been but I've listened in 1 a few pockets I listen to Kyle Cashew's podcast and some others. She's great. Um.
01:59:50.50
cactus chu
I can get Rob Henderson on record about worth sales and today for potatoes.
02:00:08.86
Rob Henderson
And I follow him on Twitter. He's you know he's he's he's good on Twitter too. Um I be I I think there's something to it right? like obviously well, there's actually more than two subdomains of intelligence but like you know this is you know that's just like getting into the weeds of like whatever empirical research. But I think of it as a kind of a meme and as a shorthand heuristic. There is something there about how you can have a tilt one way or the other um a lot of people who've taken the sat or the gre or any kind of standardized test like that you know there's. You know there's usually a little bit of a disparity right? like in an iq in general There's this idea called positive manifold which basically means that if you score high on one subdomain of iq. You tend to score high on all of them you know and if you take any IQ tests that you score high you'll tend to score high on any of them. This kind of the whole principle behind g but um. Even still, right? like you. You can see these distinctions and actually the higher up you go in iq the more distance there is between the subdomains the more sort of scatter. There is so if you're really good at math you tend to be higher than average in your verbal skills.
02:02:18.20
cactus chu
Yeah, yeah.
02:02:26.90
Rob Henderson
But there is going to be a larger gap between those two. So I think like when you get to the point where you're interacting with really smart people which Rune does which I'm sure you do you know? then you will sort of notice a larger gap between them. But the thing is like even if. You know, even if you score really high in your quantitative skills and your verbal skills maybe aren't quite as high. Your verbal skills are still way higher than the typical average person and so I think that's also important to keep in mind it sounds like ah you know if you're a really good word seller or whatever words you know if you're a word seller then um. Then what? Then you're then you're sort of ah like really deficient in your math Skills. You're deficient maybe relative to a lot of the people you interact with in your daily life and other highly educated people. But your math skills are still going to be better than the average person. Um. But yeah I think it's ah you know it's fun and it's interesting and I know it got a lot of ah Journalists upset So I'm I'm all for it.
02:04:22.52
cactus chu
Awesome! Awesome! Yeah so I've kind of set the table here. This is usually what I do in podcasts: I load all of the ideas that either I had or end that I want to introduce or that of course that my guest had and then we tackle one really big problem.
02:04:51.14
Rob Henderson
Okay.
02:05:00.80
cactus chu
Really big question and here's how I want to frame the question I actually talked about this a little bit with Steve Shu which is that you have these old institutions right? You have these old prestigious institutions, you have journalism, you have universities, you have kind of state bureaucracies. And you see this springing up this this blossoming really of informal circles around them so you might have attached to a university an informal circle of people who all know each other's tech skills who all know each other's strengths and weaknesses and can refer each other both to jobs. New projects and really get these things started like if you look at something like as infamous as say or famous I guess as The Paypal Mafia which includes elon and which includes Peter Thiel David Sachs a lot of people who are famous for building things and also famous for influencing things now then they're they're all. These types of prototypical networks that are springing up partly enabled by social media where the people who want to have explicit competition hierarchies basically can.
02:07:09.80
Rob Henderson
Interesting. Okay, so so is the idea here that that because of social media and because of what this I guess this new ability to create Networks This is what upsetting the sort of ah.
02:07:44.20
cactus chu
Yeah, and the fact that the yeah and the fact that the establishment has kind of committed to them ah committed themselves to this to this status competition essentially status that is untethered to reality or untethered to.
02:07:44.54
Rob Henderson
Establishments and the old ways that people made networks.
02:08:04.60
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah.
02:08:20.38
cactus chu
Kind of basic facts about some people being better than others I think really yeah.
02:08:17.78
Rob Henderson
I mean it's really interesting to see you can see it with like I mean you mentioned earlier so you have a substack I have a substak now you're doing you know you're doing this podcast a lot of people now. Do you know, a lot of smart people now are kind of going independent or semi-independent. And I mean you can see like it seems like every 6 to eight months you know some legacy media outlet does a hit piece on substack or you know tries to undermine it or undercut it in some way and I think a lot of that is driven by this. You know this fear of market competition. You know this whole you know you're you're a paradigm earlier of new power versus old power. Um, yeah, substack is attractive like I mean even if the vast majority of substags aren't, you know, particularly interesting right? like you quickly discover you know, like based on who you follow and who you know and whatnot like the good the good content rises to the top and I think like most people who. Whose substexts are well known are at least as good as you know the typical average piece. You'd find it in any legacy media outlet. You know in terms of quality and so forth and so um, you know I'm reminded of this ah i.
02:10:26.24
cactus chu
Oh yeah.
02:10:38.76
Rob Henderson
Yeah I guess it's so it somewhat connects there was this interesting piece I think it was in foreign policy. Um, it was basically ah this story of this influencer she had like this huge Instagram account. Like I don't know half a million followers or something and she had produced her own video content or whatever she was doing very well you know as a social media person and I guess she you know she posted some tweet about how she got a job as a sports reporter. For I don't know if it was Espn or some like you know like prominent outlets and you know when she announced it like you know she got a ton of flak from all of these people in her comments section. And these were people with ivy league degrees. You know people who went to Columbia Journalism school or you know they went to harvard and studied english or whatever it was like people who jumped through the hoops you're supposed to jump through in order to become ah you know a reporter a or whatever on Tv right to get that kind of a job. And here's this person. I don't know if she went to college or not or if she did. I'm guessing she didn't go to like 1 of these fancy ones but they were upset because she played a different game and then she sort of won the same prize that they were all competing for. They're like wait a minute you know I went to an elite school and I studied the right subjects and worked at these sort of low-level media outlets and so forth. And this person you know didn't do any of that. She just gathered a huge following and an audience who's you know of course to some degree. They're interested in what she looks like but maybe also interested in what she has to say and they were furious at this and I think there is something here about like why there are these? um. You know these very things like these complexities around social media. It's not just about like you know opinions being expressed and whatnot but they also really want to control who gets to have an audience and who doesn't.
02:14:44.78
Rob Henderson
And knows all right? But yeah I am so so that was sort of my interpretation of what's going on with like the sort of yeah I mean I think there's like a lot of envy going on a lot of power games. But yeah I think so. Situation now is I mean it seems like the quality will eventually go out but there is a sort of ah we're in this sort of like ah the dip right now where the battles are still raging.
02:15:53.96
cactus chu
Yeah, and you know what you do in the diff you buy the dip um that would probably be not a great thing to do right now. This is not investment advice. But what I find very interesting is that there is this kind of Dur narrative about.
02:16:08.26
Rob Henderson
Or all right.
02:16:32.68
cactus chu
Essentially things creeping through legacy institutions things like quote unquote wokism, this kind of social progressive ideology, the kind of self-censorship so on and so forth and what I really see is that there's something creeping back in the opposite direction and it started with tech. Maybe it's because I'm one of the few people who actually like it. Quite adjacent to tech I'm surprised that someone like David Sachs hasn't talked more about this. But there's this creeping back in the other direction where people who are really at the top of that kind of talent hierarchy, this kind of explicit competition hierarchy are just saying we've had enough of this. We're going to do an explicit competition. Werenna talked about how good we are. We're gonna we're gonna like we're gonna talk about very very technical ideas and we're gonna basically like self-s sort through our own kind of private networks but I don't think this is just tech anymore I think most people who are into physics are doing this most people who are into hard sciences are. Catching up and it'll go in the other direction and I think like you said with substack. There's already this being done with independent journalism. Although maybe it's a little bit different right? It's not quite the same thing with kind of, um, purely measurable skills like that. But. You do have the situation I think where there is this piggy backing off of legacy institutions where the kind of social mechanisms that have existed before are just kind of being subverted right.
02:19:26.81
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, I mean I do see that happening I guess 1 question I would have about this is like how without the you know legacy institutions whether it's the university system or you know. Where you used to work I mean because like the subset is ample is easy. But I mean I guess like the physics and tech ah domains are instructive here too is that like 1 way you quickly identify quality is based on you know. You have a degree and where did you last work and so you know what I'm seeing with you know with writing for example, a lot of the people who are raking it in on substack. You know they fled legacy media outlets. Um. And a lot of the sort of academics and intellectuals and techies who are also sort of clustering together that's in large part they trust one. Another's competence and and their skills because of their association with legacy institutions or you know so. I guess like in the future. You know what will we continue to use those same metrics or how will you quickly identify I guess like who's worth collaborating with and whose network. Do you want to join? Um, if not with those institutions, I guess this is sort of a. And an ongoing discussion about how we should sort of try to prevent it. You know the ideologies and the dogmos from taking over these legacy institutions or should we, you know, sort of give up and move on and try to find another way to learn something else to build something new. Um. But in the interim right? Like how do you How do you determine you know who's how do you find quality and and in such a you know in a world with so much information so much noise and so forth.
02:23:29.12
cactus chu
Yeah, so here's the thing and maybe this is a bit different with maybe this is a bit different with writing I think it is but in a lot of places you can find quality just by sorting by quality right? Just by explicitly saying like here's what we're gonna measure guys.
02:23:38.32
Rob Henderson
Um.
02:24:06.76
cactus chu
If you want this job. Do it. Ah and that's the thing. It actually takes a lot of obstruction and a lot of ideology to basically just like Ban Iq tests Ban basic competence tests Richard Taania said that.
02:24:03.54
Rob Henderson
Um.
02:24:40.34
cactus chu
Um, probably if you try to give Journalists a statistics exam in order to have a job qualification. It would go against Disparate impact you have to have this very thick ideology to like to like infect the world with stupid right? like moving things into it might be kind of in. Instinctive in some way because of envy or whatnot but covering up and hiding explicit hierarchies is really difficult because as it turns out, there are plenty of things in real life that you can just assess and that are highly correlated with ability whether it's your ability to work on past engineering projects past. Software projects so on and so forth or just like an Iq test and in fact I think even if you have say a more social mechanism like just like who do you have in your personal network. Even then if you have a judgment that's being made that's at least somewhat correlated with.
02:25:52.92
Rob Henderson
Um.
02:26:31.14
cactus chu
The kind of explicit quality of someone with what they're actually good at, what they're capable of doing in the real world, then I Really don't think that this is nearly as difficult a problem as most people suggest that it is maybe in more subjective fields. This is not quite the case. But even then I think about the Social Network Mechanism. It's worked pretty well. It's worked pretty well for the kind of heterodox space for the kind of basically like independent independent style writers and yes, some of them are from legacy institutions but also some of them aren't. And I think those people are doing fairly well too.
02:27:36.52
Rob Henderson
yeah yeah I mean I guess I agree with that like if you have a free market system where people can spot talent the way they want and there will be sort of filtering mechanisms that arise organically that people can determine who's talented and who's not and I mean yeah, there's a. You know, many writers have discussed this. The one that comes to mind is the evolutionary psychologist Jeffrey Miller in his book who writes about how universities are essentially ah you know schemes to can like hoard talent. Ah, because you know basically IQ tests would be cheap and efficient and quick and the universities want to charge you know extortion at prices essentially for like a 4 year long iq and conscientiousness test. Um. So. So yeah I mean I think if there was a way to you know? what? like if there is a way to make those things freely available then maybe maybe it would work and we wouldn't necessarily need to you know to to use these other sort of noisier and more inefficient and prolonged. Mechanisms to pinpoint talent. So. So yeah I mean if there is a way to do that I think there I mean that would be that would be a good thing I mean a lot of you know, basically people people in power want to hold on to it and they want to prevent methods you know other kinds of methods for this I mean you know. Part of the reason why universities are like why there are so many for profit universities and whites become so pervasive despite like I think the US has something like a 45% college dropout rate. Um. So something like half of high school seniors. Go on to this is in the US go on to go to college and then about half of them drop out. Ah, but despite this we have all these universities open and part of it is because like you have all these people with graduate degrees who want jobs and so they never want to see a university shut down.
02:31:29.64
cactus chu
Oh my goodness.
02:31:48.00
Rob Henderson
Yeah I was seeing all these articles in the wall street journal in The New York Times all of these outlets saying you know because of the pandemic because of the lockdowns. You know a lot of these schools aren't receiving as many applications as they had in years past and you know there's this stagnation and a lot of it is spun as this. Um. Crisis in higher education. But I was reading and thinking maybe this is good. You know like most people don't need to be going to college. It's not you know, like maybe we can find other ways like you're saying to to find talent and not everyone should be going right? like spending 4 Years
02:32:53.34
cactus chu
Yes, absolutely.
02:32:54.10
Rob Henderson
And then like you know, but but again like half of them are going to drop out anyway, if if a lot of these students knew upfront that there was a 50% chance that you know maybe you wouldn't graduate depending on your sort of field of study and you know there's all so this belief that if you go to we we get these like sort of broad statistics that are. You know they don't necessarily represent your actual individual odds of success but you know people oh if you get a bachelor's degree. You're going to earn a million dollars more in your career or something like that. But that's like you know this sort of aggregate statistic across all majors. But then if you get a bachelor's degree from you know, maybe? ah. Certain universities in a not so lucrative discipline may be like your odds of graduation are low and then your sort of lifetime expected earnings are not that much higher than if you hadn't gone there Brian Kaplan writes about this too that there's just a lot of misunderstanding. Yeah there's a lot of misunderstandings I think about about college. So.
02:34:40.70
cactus chu
Yeah, the case against education.
02:34:51.48
Rob Henderson
So yeah.
02:34:56.90
cactus chu
It's not only that. But it's a basic kind of statistical argument like people say . I've heard this from plenty of University students that their guidance counselor essentially told them you should go to University because the average person who goes to University makes more money.
02:35:20.56
Rob Henderson
Yeah, right right.
02:35:31.20
cactus chu
Like either the mean or the Median and it doesn't take a lot of statistical understanding to know that this makes no sense because of course the person who's going to be most on the fence. The person who's the marginal person really considering should I or should I not go I feel like that's going to be quite far from the average. And of course you have a lot of exceptions but it turns out that it turns out that you have all these people who either did not graduate at all or graduated and have student debt and can't find Jobs. It's like you introduced all of these marginal people. Of course you're bringing down the average and of course you're introducing people. Who are very likely to be below that average and not actually getting the value out of it. So the funniest thing is that this is kind of like a math test right? It's like if you fall for this then maybe you especially shouldn't be going to college.
02:36:47.52
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah.
02:37:05.22
Rob Henderson
Well, you know, high school guidance counselors. Maybe maybe? ah maybe they too would fail. Ah, the statistics test. Um, yeah I mean there was a paper that came out a couple years ago basically looking at. You know the americans verbal iq over time and what they found was that the average college graduates verbal iq has declined since the 1970 S right? So you know I don't. I don't exactly remember how much lower it was but you know it was noticeably lower. Ah, compared to the 1970 s and you know I think in 1970 s something like 15% of americans had bachelor's degrees whereas today. It's around 30 or 35%. Ah so you know twice as many or more compared to the 1970 s have have. Bachelor's degrees. But what was interesting about that paper is that um overall ah verbal iq remained the same right? and so basically from 1970 to I think it was like 2016 or whenever the end of their dataset was an overall verbal IQ was exactly the same but among college graduates that had declined. And what could possibly explain this. Well basically what happened is that college doesn't actually change anything right? like going to college doesn't raise your iq at all essentially like everyone's iq remains the same college graduates iq slightly lowered. But the reason is because more people went to college and those people who went to college. Had lower verbal skills and they went to college and they never didn't really ah, boost their icube through those 4 years of education so you know this is very much like the sort of ah what is it like the sort of human capital versus signaling model.
02:40:24.56
cactus chu
So no of course not.
02:40:34.70
Rob Henderson
Doesn't really seem like education contributes to human capital. It doesn't really seem to boost intelligence. I mean I know Brian Kaplan has written at length about how inept college graduates are at you know, basic reasoning and statistics and writing and arguments and all that kind of stuff. Ah, you know before and after like a lot of the studies he sites are like you know they take college freshmen and have them do these kinds of tests and then then take them when they're seniors and do the same thing and there's really no difference at all in their ability to tell a reason or or ah, ah, whatever. So so. So yeah I mean yeah the point is that like you know college purports to be this thing where they're sort of teaching you to learn but you know doesn't it really seem to to be the case I mean at least as measured by a queue test. It's arguable I guess that maybe they're learning something else or the 4 years of something but but definitely not um, you know it's not making you smarter. In terms of your sort of formal intelligence.
02:42:24.36
cactus chu
Yeah, and what's very interesting here is that you can have people who are kind of already very eminently successful people who get kind of high paying jobs people who obviously have technical skills. Who had these technical skills before going to University and they'll still attribute their success to the University and it's quite strange to me. Maybe.
02:43:12.92
Rob Henderson
I wonder if that's just sunk cost. You know I mean you spent 4 years and you want to believe it was for something like no one wants to believe that they spent 4 years at a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand plus dollars and it was all just. You know, jumping through some bullshit hoop to to signal to your employer that you're you know, like not dumb and you're willing to work hard like I think you want to believe like that was it did something to you. Has it changed you? Whatever I mean, I know I get that you know you don't want to, you don't want to feel like that was just time wasted. Um, and I think just naturally that's probably a healthy impulse too like I think it's you can very much fill yourself with despair if you think like all of these experiences you think meant something were actually just you know things that you went through but you would have become the same person you were anyway.
02:44:47.56
cactus chu
Yeah, so you have this very interesting point on a podcast I think which is ah basically that the number one value that you get is not even the signaling from universities. But instead the dating pool and. I Kind of want you to explain that.
02:45:20.50
Rob Henderson
All right? Um, yeah I mean essentially when you enter a university I think I'm actually drawing a lot of this. I'm probably cribbing from Brian Kaplan too um which is yeah when you enter a university. Um, you're so especially like a topsier university you're surrounded by people who are of course very smart. They're sort of selected through this filter mechanism and now. Ah yeah, that's sort of who you can date now I mean it's it's yeah, even if. Even if you're sort of down on your luck. Ah, but you have you know if you you go to Harvard or something and you have this degree and maybe you're not doing so well in your career and what have you just by dint of the fact that you have that that badge um people will you know like like women or whoever like yeah, whatever people will be willing to date you. Just because of where you went to school and because like it's um, it's sort of this. Ah this yeah amulet that allows you to access this kind of higher quality dating pool. Um. And in fact I think Kaplan even does he? Yeah he reports some studies and it was this is all in sort of this was in the case of against education about. Um yeah, how assorted mating has been on the rise and it's not just him. There's been other research on this too. But yeah, sort of mating has been on the rise. Ah. You know, basically in the past there was a lot more sort of educational and socioeconomic disparity between husbands and wives you know I think it was usually going one way right? Where usually the husband would go to university and whatever and maybe become an executive and marry his secretary who didn't go to college at all. Something like that or a doctor who would marry his nurse and back then you know in the 1960's nurses didn't really require a ton of education like they do now because credentialism got out of control. But anyway, so so so what's happened now is that because more people are going to college and because of geographical sorting and all of this stuff now people are. Going to college and then they don't go back home right? Like if you're from some podunk town in Ohio or Northern California like me you don't go back there right? like you go to a university on one of the coasts and then you relocate to San Francisco or La or Boston or New York or Miami and. You know and then you are around people who graduated from university just like you in these sort of urban metropolitan areas and that is sort of your dating pool for the rest of your life now and the sort of flip side of this of course is that a lot of these other places languish and.
02:50:42.38
Rob Henderson
You know these these other you know the the dating pool for them. Gets worse right because a lot of the human capital the attractive dating options who maybe in times past would have either returned or maybe never gone to college in the first place would have stayed in their local communities. They you know relocate and then they go you know. Ah, move to move to cities where they're more economic and romantic opportunities. So this is yeah the I mean this sort of mating thing is a massive contributor to inequality I read 1 paper showing something like 2 wo-th thirds of the economic inequality over the last fifty years can be attributed to assortments of mating of you know, basically educated and affluent people. Marrying 1 another and I mean it's like that's you know that's just how it goes right? Like what's what's interest.
02:52:08.82
cactus chu
If you mean the increase or the or the raw it equal because I think like I think the raw inequality is just like there's there's just a lot of variance there right? So like 2 two thirds I'm very skeptical of that. Okay, okay, that makes more sense.
02:52:20.00
Rob Henderson
The it it's it's the increase yeah that yeah no no you're you're you're right yeah was it was the increase that's a yeah that's a good correction. Um. And and and what's funny is that this is well-known right? like people know that like you know you met you go to college you meet people you whatever like you date someone there you date. So like you you become a young professional and you stick to that dating pool or yeah, now you're on the apps but you know you sort of filter for the right kinds of people that you like um. But then when you point this out, you know people get very touchy about this. This is another one of those like everyone understands it but you're not allowed to talk about it. There was ah there was this controversy a few years ago I don't know how long ago this was now but the princeton mom. Ah, controversy where this Princeton Alumna she was ah ah, an older woman. She had a daughter at Princeton at the time she wrote this op at no no no no no this was before that this I don't know this was like 20 I want to say like 2013 or something I read it. You know after the fact, but.
02:54:00.78
cactus chu
Oh is this the person who cheated to get in. Okay.
02:54:18.44
Rob Henderson
I follow this controversy after it all sort of passed and blown over. But I guess this ah older Princeton Alumna who had a daughter at Princeton she wrote an op ed in the student newspaper basically telling the young Princeton women to find a husband while you're a student there and her reasoning was like you know something like. You'll never be around so many eligible bachelors who are worthy of you ever again in your life basically saying like Princeton did all the hard work for you like they they know how to pick smart kids they know how to do this and that and the other so you should be on the lookout because when you leave it's going to get harder for you. Because you're never going to be around. You know, interacting with dozens or hundreds of people around your age. Ah who are interested in the same things you are who are sort of ah in terms of personality and fit and all that stuff. So so but then she got skewered for this right? like how dare you tell.
02:55:48.30
cactus chu
Oh yeah, totally okay. Early.
02:55:56.98
Rob Henderson
Women that should be getting married. You know they should be obviously focusing on their careers, who cares about relationships and romance and marriage. Those things are terrible. You should be working a hundred hours a week and getting into law school. But anyway, so that was um, that was like. You know the sort of vitriol that was thrown out this woman who was just basically just trying to share a piece of wisdom who was a little bit older who you know had ah had a lesson she wanted to impart. Um, so so yeah I mean all of this stuff is going on and yet if you shine a light on it then suddenly? ah. You know you see the claws come out.
02:57:07.20
cactus chu
What's your reaction to that like what's your reaction to this kind of careerism.
02:57:08.16
Rob Henderson
I mean it's tough I mean on the one hand I respect it. You know a lot of the stuff we've been talking about like sort of competition and talent and working hard and all that stuff like I'm all for it like that's just ah, you know Dispositionally I'm inclined to like that kind of stuff i. I think there's something admirable about having a mission and working you know a hundred hours a week or whatever it is to fulfill it. But what I'm seeing with careerism and credentialism is like the goals that people are choosing aren't theirs.
02:58:20.90
cactus chu
Yes.
02:58:16.50
Rob Henderson
It's you know, like yeah I guess this is sort of tied into like the whole girardi and mimetic kind of thing but a lot of these students are you know they're not building their dream or or working toward the thing that they've always wanted. They're they're working towards getting into law school. Not because they love the law or legal philosophy or whatever they're trying to get in because they don't know what else to do and because they know what'll impress other people. Um or you know getting a job at I don't know Jpmorgan or something. It's not because they love finance some of them do to be fair so people really do love this stuff. But. I would say more than half are doing it for reasons other than their own desire and I think that is um, you know, not not not the best approach.
02:59:44.80
cactus chu
Yeah I think the people who are really into finance are working at like jump trading or something they're not doing. They're not doing with Jp Morgan like the kind of super the super like edgy or nagy but like wild off stuff that's like actually I don't know I don't know that much about jp Morgan in particular.
02:59:55.16
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah.
03:00:23.62
cactus chu
But it's usually at these kinds of new things like I said old of your old versus new old versus you.
03:00:19.36
Rob Henderson
I mean well the people that I know who are working in banking and consulting finance like some of them are happy but they seem to be a minority most of the people who work in those fields think of them as like. Ah. You know, starting points or temporary or launch pads or whatever I mean you know telling themselves you know this is just temporary and I'm just going to work here for a couple years and save up some money or you know get the line on my cv ah because you know it still you know it still looks good to have worked at Mckinsey or something and then you can use that as a. You know as a pivoting point to do something else, but you know I think you get sort of a lot of these people who are addicted to prestige and they actually don't know what they want other than prestige like prestige becomes an in and and itself even though they're sort of burned out and miserable. Um. And it creates this sort of spiral of competition: a bunch of people working towards something they don't even want.
03:02:18.68
cactus chu
Yeah, here's the thing with like here here's the thing with kind of meeting someone and this is what I meant by like the reaction to careerism earlier I think that like I don't know I'm just kind of like very grateful to to even have the kind of skills and they.
03:02:32.18
Rob Henderson
Um.
03:02:55.86
cactus chu
And the opportunity to live in a world where I can just make like a very like maybe not not kind of like not kind of like absurd kind of like billionaire money or like or like um, kind of like founder money but like just working like a middle of her class like software engineering job like that's that's very nice for for me like. I don't I don't think that's like I don't think that's a bad fade at all and it's like would I rather be kind of like single and like ah like a high high millionaire or something like that or would I rather like have ah have a very good partner who I love being with can have like a long-term relationship with I think I think like. That is actually much more preferable and I don't know if people are really like I don't know people are really like lying to themselves there when they say like really they care about their career like how much do you really care about your career like how much of like a jump. Do you really need to sacrifice?
03:04:47.18
Rob Henderson
Yeah, yeah I mean I'm skeptical of you know career in itself being the you know being the driver I mean I've I've cited this statistic in various places about how um sociometric status which is basically defined as respect and admiration from peers.
03:04:53.96
cactus chu
Something like that right this seems like something that's very sad.
03:05:26.52
Rob Henderson
A stronger predictor of well-being and self-esteem than socioeconomic status and so I think just a lot of you know, basically ah a lot of the preoccupation and striving for you know, occupational success and money and all those kinds of conventional. Ah, desires. What's really going on is that people just want to be liked. You know they want to be, they want to impress their friends. They want to be admired. They want to you know I guess yeah, maybe they want to attract a romantic partner or something like that. But you know I don't think that the career in and of itself is the goal for many people. Yeah, you take your point I mean like the the idea that you can make money like even me like just the fact that that you can make money pressing buttons on a laptop is just like mind blowing to me, you know like I would have never guessed that this is something that you can you know it was like ah in the realm of possibility. So yeah I mean it's ah. It's ah something that maybe a lot of people don't don't really step back and think about just you know the ability to to do that is just you know something something to be to be grateful for I remember during the ah during the lockdowns or shortly after the lockdowns. I visited my barber and he was telling me about how you know he had to shut down his shop and so like to to make extra money when all the businesses were closed. He took some kind of roofing job and this was like in the winter in England right here in Cambridge. And he was like you know freezing my fingers were frozen and like you know, yeah dangers of ice and slipping and all these kind of stuff and he is like I'm just so glad to be working inside again and you know that was like oh yeah, like of course you know like but this is something that you know if you've only ever worked inside your whole life. That's something you would never think about.
03:08:21.90
cactus chu
Oof.
03:08:56.20
cactus chu
Yeah, so what I've been really trying to think about is how to translate this kind of emerging network structure which I think already exists for jobs for opportunities for intellectual work and try to translate it to the dating circle.
03:09:05.96
Rob Henderson
The.
03:09:36.10
cactus chu
Because this is kind of like my own personal kind of side project or something like that and I didn't have the language for this but I basically like I'm a big fan of basically setting your friends up and trying to get good at matchmaking and understand what personality types go together.
03:09:58.98
Rob Henderson
Fifth.
03:10:10.88
cactus chu
Do you have any advice on doing that? What do you think? Ah, do you think there are any tips for doing that?
03:10:11.82
Rob Henderson
Ah I mean just off the top. What I like in terms of personality. Surprisingly you know I looked a little bit at assortative mating research and like the big 5 personality. There's very low correlations. Between couples on that like shockingly low. Um yeah, like like yeah some of the like I think yeah, some of them weren't even statistically significant and and the ones that were they were just extremely low so it doesn't seem like personality matters that much. I mean to be fair like this was I don't know when this study was like 2005 maybe things have changed. Um the things that did seem.
03:11:34.20
cactus chu
But isn't there a correlation with like neuroticism and just relationships going badly like not necessarily like nothing thing but just like just like regardless the partner is like I thought this was a result.
03:11:39.54
Rob Henderson
Um, ah oh interesting. Okay, that's but that makes sense I mean we So what? what I was thinking of is like concordance between.
03:12:08.10
cactus chu
Yeah, like matching.
03:12:07.12
Rob Henderson
Individuals and a yeah and and in there I think neuroticism is not correlated or maybe it's yeah, but the thing is like correlations are tricky right? like but in any case like so so personality maybe not it makes sense to me though. Like if you have 1 or 2 people who are extremely high in neuroticism that will create difficulties in the relationship. Um, and yeah I'm sure like if 2 people are very high and or like 1 are both in conscientiousness or or agreeableness that maybe that would help um to stabilize the relationship. Um, but in terms of just like concordance between pairs what I so are between individuals in ah in a romantic pairing. Some of them are obvious and and these are things that like you know I guess you would just think anyway like so so one of course is education. You know, extremely high, but this just goes back to a sort of mating that people who are similarly educated tend to go.
03:13:44.88
cactus chu
Yeah, how much is this like availability like people just like meeting each other at universities. How much is it?
03:13:49.92
Rob Henderson
Um, so that's something that I'm wondering about. I mean you know back during the 70 s I saw this study on iq in married couples and. There was ah yeah, so I think the average IQ difference between men and women was 10 points. Um, they didn't specify which way but I mean given how things were back then and just like generally how mating tends to work out I would guess that the man was usually higher but the average difference was 10 points in iq um.
03:15:00.42
cactus chu
Wait I don't think that that makes any sense because like the mean the means are the same right? This is a very well replicated result that the means between men and women are the same and unless like okay actually there is a way where this makes sense which is basically that like all of them you have a lot of yeah.
03:14:58.34
Rob Henderson
And like you know.
03:15:09.10
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah, a lot of men are not getting married. Yeah yeah, which which which.
03:15:39.50
cactus chu
A lot of low Iq line. You're not getting married which should I guess make sense too. Yeah, but it would also be that a lot of low Iqe men are not getting married and similarly higher Iq women are also not getting married.
03:15:42.80
Rob Henderson
Yeah I mean not everyone was married in 1970 right or whatever this study was 1975 um so so yeah.
03:16:07.50
Rob Henderson
Which she actually does. Yeah that makes me mean there was some study I think it might have been like Jordan Peterson or someone who cited his um you know something he had said which is yeah if you're a man like.
03:16:16.96
cactus chu
But I guess maybe it makes sense.
03:16:37.21
Rob Henderson
There's like a threshold. Basically where if you're a man and you're below a certain amount then your odds of getting married or cut by some number you know and and and then for women it's the opposite where like once you're above a certain iq range then your likelihood of getting married becomes much more difficult which so so. So. So yeah I think there is something there. Um. Today I don't know though, like I actually don't know if there is much of an IQ difference between individuals and in married couples. I would guess it's probably shrunk since the 70 s but I actually don't know um, but education. Right is ah and I think yeah I take the point though that it could be availability where you're just around those kinds of people. But I think it does capture something right? like you know, probably index is a bunch of your sort of interests and curiosity and um. What like shared background knowledge about various kinds of topics and so forth. Um, and then just sort of general culture and customs and all that stuff that just makes things easier to get to know someone? Um, and then ah you know some other interesting ones that heighten weight are fairly low in their correlation. They are but they're very small. Um, smaller than I would have expected. Um, so.
03:18:58.72
cactus chu
Wait, Yeah I don't. I feel like height is not really a correlation like I feel like in general women want to date taller men but I think statistically that's true as well. Um, but I don't really see the kind of opposite right? I don't think taller men want to date taller women.
03:19:10.00
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah.
03:19:26.52
Rob Henderson
Ah, no, but I think it just naturally happens that way where you know if you're a tall woman. You probably only sort of direct your attention at taller men like taller men are probably okay. But I think even then right like I've never actually had a conversation with a particularly tall man about.
03:19:37.46
cactus chu
I
03:20:02.80
Rob Henderson
Their own height preferences but I would guess like even things like leaning down to kiss a woman right? Like if you're 6 four you probably don't want to date a woman who's 5 1 right? I think most guys would be like an average guy with data five one woman fine. But if you're 6- 4 like that, that might be uncomfortable, right? Like not even just ah. You know, just as a sort of physical comfort thing. Um, so I think that probably has something to do with it, wait right? like and I think like that's probably because you know overweight people have a difficult time dating and so they probably do have to date people who are similarly um you know sort of in you know higher b a my category or whatever.
03:20:45.68
cactus chu
Yeah, it's there.
03:21:16.60
Rob Henderson
So yeah I be the but but yeah, have you noticed any patterns or or or sort of things that increase success for matchmaking.
03:21:41.22
cactus chu
Have I noticed any patterns ? It's a very good question. Ah I think for me, it's kind of weird because I usually try to set up people for long term relationships right? and I'm very. Very kind of like personally against this kind of hookup culture stuff. I think it's a waste of time. Um, but I think in general there's just just kind of like an underexploited market. It's actually okay, I'm going to like to change my language there because I think that's like a very. That's a very bad way to phrase it. It's like an economics way. It's like a technical term but like basically there are a lot of there are a lot of women who are looking for a type of man who is like not the type of man who would be on like that who would be like typically on the dating market or even like asking other people out or. And there's a type of man who's looking for women who would typically also not be on the dating market and who they typically intuitively would not ask out either and so the greatest success I've I've been I've been having is just like. And here I defined success in like so at least like getting the relationship started I've gotten 0 marriages so far which is unfortunate but like these are like these are like 20 somethings. So you can't. I still have my fingers crossed for some of them. But yeah, just basically like setting up these types of people who are maybe more shy, maybe more introverted. Ah, maybe more kind of maybe going more in shape , not not too charismatic, but really like deep thinkers. Ah yeah I think that if you are at this this is maybe like a startup you can do. Okay, if you are like ah A. Ah, a person who's very good at making social connections and is also kind of like high iq at a top university then just like finding a lot of people who are in these categories. Both men and women try to set up some like arranged dates for them and maybe this. Maybe this is actually like a very profitable ah enterprise as well. I think because I I feel like the the people who are in those categories probably like pay a lot of money for that I think that's like because because it's like genuinely valuable I think I think it's like genuinely valuable I think I would find myself in one of those categories as well. And I would like to pay money for something that seems like something that would be very beneficial. Maybe maybe that's how you are.
03:26:36.34
Rob Henderson
Dude people are having a really tough time in dating right now I mean like yeah I think a lot of people would like I mean there are a lot of people who we don't hear about right because like. Yeah people who love Hook Hookup culture and and all of it like they're They're pretty vocal about I mean to be fair like a lot of the anti- hookup culture people are are equally vocal. But I think there's just like a vast group out there who are interested in just a sort of stable long-term committed relationship and it's really hard. To find someone who's also interested in that same thing. Um, right? because we basically removed all these sorts of norms around romance and dating and so forth and so now no one really knows what anyone else wants like it used to be presumed right? The default was like you know you. You go out on a date if you like each other you keep it going and then it's supposed to culminate in marriage and kids and like that's sort of the path that everyone sort of implicitly understands. But now it's like you know, just it's the wild West now where you don't know what the other person has in mind and they don't know what you have and it's all of this is sort of um. Given Rise to this this sort of sexual I Just just complete like rampant hookup culture.
03:29:09.98
cactus chu
Oh here's the other thing I noticed is that there are like very positive externalities to this because usually if I fail they're still friends like they become friends. They don't date or like okay here's what I mean by Fail is like the initial spark just isn't there. A lot of the time if they're in a relationship and they break up then usually they just break up.
03:29:13.24
Rob Henderson
Um, and right? yeah. Are.
03:29:47.76
cactus chu
It's the same as normal. They just don't really want to see each other. They have bad feelings about it afterwards. That's just kind of normal right? I think that's kind of inevitable but like if I fail in the sense that they're they're they're not like they don't they're not interested in starting a relationship at all. Usually they're still friends. So maybe that's kind of like this kind of arrangement thing. It's a positive externality. But yeah I think like if you're someone who can who has like a very good judgment. Maybe you also have an understanding of Psychometrics as well and then you basically you are a student at 1 of these universities. You go around or like you're a small team of students you go around you talk to people you really get to know them and and then you like set them up with your with your kind of like combination of intuition and kind of like stars driven metrics like yeah like I would pay like quite a lot of money for this.
03:31:11.94
Rob Henderson
I Mean this is essentially like an algorithm right? like an okcupid algorithm.
03:31:28.14
cactus chu
No, I think it's a lot. It's much harder than that. It's much harder and I guess you can take like their big O scores. They're like Iq. They're basically like a dating app but like a lot more a lot more kind of like psychometrics. Maybe that can be like a tool but I don't think so I think it's a lot more qualitative than that. And I think the qualitative stuff makes a difference like you. I think you actually need to know them in order to set them up. I think that actually improves it a lot.
03:32:03.36
Rob Henderson
Yeah, maybe.
03:32:17.56
Rob Henderson
Um, yeah, that makes sense.
03:32:28.44
cactus chu
But this is just super speculative as Well. Um, but yeah you guys I know a lot of my audience like they want certified ideas like please please do it? Um I would pay for you guys I mean I could think of working on this maybe but like. There are too many.. There are so many other things to do anyway. Anyways, we're almost out of time. So Here's the last question of the show. The question of the show always is what is something that has too much order and needs more chaos or is too much chaos and needs more order.
03:33:28.94
Rob Henderson
This is ah this is a very ah Peterson question here. Um something that has well I mean I think we've been talking a lot about 1 which is the. Dating market I think there's too much chaos and it definitely needs more order. Um, and then yeah I mean something that has too much order and needs more chaos. I mean I don't know, I think I'm just inclined toward order. So it's ah it's difficult for me to to say to find the reverse but but definitely right now I think um. What's happening with young people and dating is just um, it's really tragic honestly like no one is happy with this. You know like I think implicitly, you know, especially ah like the criticism. Oh if you hear guys talking about the dating thing. Whatever it's like somehow anti-feminist or whatever. But like if you look at the polling. Women have said that dating has gotten harder in the last ten years since the rise of dating apps. You know, roughly correlates with that and so women are extremely like many of them are extremely displeased too like no one is happy with the current state of things I mean it's pretty wild that. Ah. You know the whole idea I think and I can't remember who Tara Henley has a really good substack and she recently interviewed someone about this very question here about how it's possible that. You know there was supposed to be this whole sexual liberation thing. Whatever and what happened instead is that we all kind of defaulted into being like this very male. Ah, ah, preference about like short term fleeting like no strings emotionless sex that just sort of leaves you feeling cold. Like even as a male right? Like it's, it's like fun when you're really young and like not really that interested in anything serious but even like a lot of guys too are not really happy with what's happening too. So yeah I think ah whether it's the app you're talking about or or new norms that arise or something. Um, you know somehow. I think more order could be imposed and people would be a lot happier than whatever we have now.
03:37:49.58
cactus chu
All right? Thanks Rob for coming on the show.
03:37:48.72
Rob Henderson
All right? Thanks cactus.