Is being a sports fan irrational? Does it lead to more suffering than happiness? David and Tamler discuss a recent study that suggests the answer is "yes." But does the study really capture the benefits of being fans? More generally, does science have the tools to truly measure the costs and benefits of rooting for your favorite teams? Plus, we talk about The Nation apologizing for publishing a poem written in Black English Vernacular, and introduce a dramatic new segment: "Guilty Confessions."
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[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having
[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_00]: an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.
[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and
[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.
[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very upset.
[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I like about being upset?
[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Blame.
[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And right now, that's the mindset that I'm in.
[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know who I'm blaming?
[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: The Queen!
[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_05]: The Queen's in U.S.
[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Anybody can have a great good man.
[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Just a very bad wizard.
[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_08]: Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.
[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_08]: Dave, The Liberal Magazine, The Nation recently published an apology for publishing a poem about homelessness
[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_08]: written in black vernacular by Anders Carlson Wee, a white man.
[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_08]: Are we going to now have to apologize for all of your beats?
[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_09]: I don't make my beats in black English vernacular.
[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_09]: But, so you know this is one of those topics that I think we usually avoid, so I won't get too much into it.
[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_09]: The most offensive thing about it to me was that it was in poor black English vernacular.
[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, so you're the arbiter of what's good black English?
[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_09]: No, I just happened to know.
[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_09]: It does follow some rules.
[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_09]: It was just all over the place.
[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_09]: It was like, you know, like when I do an Indian accent, you know, it like turns into Scottish in the middle of it or whatever, you know.
[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_09]: That's the offensive part is doing it poorly.
[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_09]: I want to hear your Indian turn into Scottish.
[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_09]: No.
[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_08]: I think it's a little...
[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_09]: Sometimes it lapses into Jamaican.
[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_09]: No, because my daughter has already told me that any accent that is a non-white European accent is racist to do.
[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_09]: So, that's what happens when you raise kids in Ipacani.
[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, whereas in my house there's just...
[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_09]: There's just rampant...
[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_08]: My dog's voice that I often do is sometimes like a black woman's voice from like, you know, the Civil War era or something.
[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, on today's episode we're going to talk about a recent paper possibly published in some form that argues that being a sports fan is irrational
[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_08]: because it makes you unhappy.
[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_08]: And it explores the ways in which it's irrational and the evidence that it does make you unhappy, that it reduces utility,
[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_08]: and then also briefly suggests some possible reasons why we do it anyway.
[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_08]: So we're going to talk about the paper.
[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_08]: I have concerns about it to put it mildly.
[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_08]: But I actually think it's investigating like a really interesting questions.
[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_08]: So I also want to see if there's a way of doing that study better, like investigating that question better than I think this paper does.
[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_08]: And that question, whether it's possible is what I'm not sure about.
[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_08]: So we can talk about that.
[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_08]: By the way, just to close on the nation thing, I don't think they should have apologized.
[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_08]: I think that's like you publish the poem, you live with it.
[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_08]: You don't throw your guy the poet under the bus because you got a lot of protests and people like complaining.
[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_09]: I feel the same way, but I also think that it was not a good poem to publish.
[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_09]: So I think that the error was just stick by it, leave it as a matter of public record.
[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_09]: Like pulling it isn't going to do anybody any favors.
[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I suppose it satisfies some people, but I agree that mostly because of the deep tradition of journalism and of that particular paper and like sticking by it.
[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_09]: Like, you know, the lesson here is be willing to defend anything that you publish against any conceivable attack and make that decision before you publish something.
[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_09]: I think that if they had thought about it, maybe they would.
[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't think they even had to defend it.
[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_08]: They just didn't shouldn't have apologized for it.
[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_08]: Take your beating, but don't now throw the the the off the poet, the poet under the poet himself.
[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_09]: Apologize to I think there's there is this problem with me that is only one of the problems with the apology is that the apology seems a bit insincere when it is in response to that outrage.
[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_09]: So it's it's like there is this one part that is well, don't like defend defend your actions, you know, and don't throw the poet under the bus.
[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_09]: But there's this other part that like I'm just less likely to believe the apology because it's not like this was an off the cuff remark that somebody made where like when they realize how it was how it was interpreted by people then they're like, oh shit, I never realize that this is like editors.
[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_09]: These are people who like think presumably think deeply about what they're publishing and and the quick turnaround because some people got angry on Twitter just seems insincere to me.
[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_08]: It seems insincere, I agree.
[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_08]: Even if it was sincere, I think they shouldn't have done it because it's not like the guy lied or there was no fraud.
[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_08]: There was no manipulation.
[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_08]: There was here I am submitting a poem per your whatever your policies are, you can decide to publish it or not.
[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_08]: They decided to publish it.
[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_08]: You got to live with that decision even if you regret it.
[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_08]: You have to regret it.
[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, it's fine to apologize to people privately but you don't publicly disavow something that's not yours at that point to disavow.
[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_09]: And I mean, not that there aren't cases where I think one should apologize.
[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_09]: Like if you ran a story that was so like factually incorrect and you fucked up or something like that.
[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_09]: Like I and I think journalists have worked out this stuff.
[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_09]: Like there are times when you retract something and there are times when you correct something and there are times where you don't pull it from record but you issue another statement or whatever, you know, explaining why you did it.
[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_09]: That's all fine.
[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_09]: But but yeah.
[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it seems as if he.
[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_09]: What do you think by the way about deleting your Twitter history?
[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_09]: Like and this could be a topic for another time but you know that guy that got fired from the Guardians of the Galaxy.
[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_09]: So a lot of people are now deleting their old tweets and I don't think there's anything wrong with deleting your old tweets just in principle, but it seems it seems like a weird thing.
[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_08]: So I after that thing, I tweeted out.
[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_08]: I think everybody should just get like a full amnesty for all tweets pre 2016 arbitrarily chosen year but just anything before that it doesn't matter what you said nobody can give you shit for it.
[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_08]: Nobody can fire you for it.
[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_08]: That's what I think.
[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_08]: Like if I was philosopher king, I would institute that policy.
[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_08]: Given that I'm not philosopher king and that policy clearly is not instituted in there all sorts of people.
[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_08]: Like I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who scours somebody's old tweets just to do this like what what do you think you're accomplishing?
[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_08]: What do you like and this is for both sides.
[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_08]: What do you think you're bringing to light?
[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_08]: What what do you think you're making better?
[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_08]: I just don't understand the mentality of that.
[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_08]: But given that there are these people out there that are doing it, I guess if you'd said some if I had said a bunch of controversial shit, I might go through the trouble of deleting all my tweets.
[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_08]: But I don't I don't remember really saying anything.
[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_09]: Well, they're they're now these like third party apps that you can choose to like go through and delete tweets at whatever time.
[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_09]: Like I I think it's no mystery.
[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_09]: And you know, we've talked about this quite often, including with Molly Crockett, outrageous currency.
[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_09]: And not that it's always wrong to be outraged, but you the value of being the person to find the thing that goes like viral outrage is so clear that there is huge incentive for people to scour everybody's tweets.
[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_09]: Is it so clear what the value is like the value is is that you get props for being the person that you're trying to get.
[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_09]: To like induce all that outrage.
[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_09]: People will follow you now, right?
[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_08]: People I guess but like so but but it's such empty calories.
[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_09]: But but you think so right so so like obviously the people who are like actually getting outraged don't they don't think that they're eating Twinkies.
[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_09]: They think they're eating like a healthy meal.
[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_09]: Like they think that this is justice that this has been brought to light.
[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_09]: So they could be wrong about that.
[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_09]: So the value but the value in in actually discovering that somebody is secretly anti-Semitic say by looking at their tweet from 2009 to some people that means a lot.
[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_09]: And so they are incentivized.
[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_09]: I hate that I use that as a verb there's an incentive for them to actually scour right.
[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_08]: This actually leads into our next exactly our next segment there that that is one way of looking at like in the
[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_08]: incentives and happiness and you know but but I don't know if it's necessary.
[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean you're right there's a let there's a sense in which you're absolutely right they are incentivized because it does give you that little dopamine kick to get 200 retweets even my thing where I said we should give a full amnesty like that got more retweets
[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_08]: and almost anything that I've done recently.
[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm sure I was kind of like yeah but you know like those things don't I don't think you need to be like a particularly reflective person to understand that those things that's not what we should be striving for in our lives is whatever good feeling that you have from getting like retweet.
[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_09]: I'm not I'm not defending it.
[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_09]: I'm simply trying to explain it like I don't think it's a mystery that that's that you know it's like why do people eat Twinkies like you feel fucking good while you're eating it and then you feel like shit and you get fat like of course.
[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_08]: I guess I mean I guess my point like people talk about Twitter as if it's like like the like the sirens you know and that you have to just get off of it because the appeal of of doing all this shit is so great that you can't resist it.
[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know like I feel like that's being overstated now at this point.
[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_08]: Like well feel like shit when you're doing it.
[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_08]: It's like eating like a whole bag of M&M going like that.
[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_09]: It's like being a sports fan when your team.
[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes and we will talk about that in a little bit but first very exciting announcement and a new segment that I foresee this is going to be sweeping the nation.
[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_08]: It is called for now guilty confessions.
[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_08]: I had this inspiration as I was on my returning from my family vacation.
[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_08]: I had just this inspiration that we should do that.
[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_08]: I texted you I don't I think you were just trying to like blow me off so you said sure.
[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah well I said I've never done anything wrong.
[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_09]: Oh yeah I had to like work hard thinking of it.
[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_08]: It seemed dismissive but but I think now you've seen that this is going to launch us into a new stratosphere of popularity.
[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_08]: So the way I imagined it is that each of us will confess something about ourselves to each other and also to our listeners.
[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_08]: And it can be a big confession you know it could be like I killed a motherfucker.
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_08]: Or it can be a small one like but want you know my idea was it has to be one to two sentences.
[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah that's that's the toughest part really.
[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_08]: Especially for us.
[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_09]: I don't think the sentences.
[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_08]: All right so I agreed.
[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_08]: Now I think you should put like music here like some sort of beat.
[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh yeah OK some some some but not in black English vernacular vernacular beat.
[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah yeah my I suspect mine is more serious than yours.
[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_09]: So you know first of all there's no way I'm going to confess to like a real real real shit.
[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_09]: But there is something that I feel guilty about and I felt guilty about for years.
[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_09]: Like when I think when I'm going to sleep like and something pops into my head I feel guilty about it sometimes this.
[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_09]: OK I'm going to try to get it down a couple sentences.
[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_09]: Two friends of mine figured out that a girl was seeing them both without telling them.
[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_09]: And they wanted revenge and this was in college I was young immature.
[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_09]: And they wanted revenge and they wanted to leave her a phone message sort of.
[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_09]: Accusing her and but anonymously and they had me leave the phone message.
[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_09]: And I read this thing that was very mean and she dropped out of school because she was so upset by it.
[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_09]: And never found out that it was me on top of it all she was a sort of friend of mine.
[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_09]: And I've been friends on and off with her ever since and I cannot admit ever to having done that until until now.
[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_09]: Until now which is like luckily I'm going to know my real friends listen to my.
[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow but this wait so let me understand they were pissed off because she was dating both of them in secret.
[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_08]: And neither of them knew that she was dating the other one.
[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_09]: Right and in one night we were all it was a small enough community in my college that just those two guys one of which was my best friend.
[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_09]: Those two guys ended up having like a conversation over drinks in the room like we were all just hanging out and they figured it out and they were like what the hell like they're right.
[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_09]: And I had this like stupid honor based ire for my friend on behalf of my friend and so so they didn't want to their voices to be recognized and they knew that mine wouldn't be in defense of honor
[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_08]: and honor based things leaving anonymous phone messages is not something associate necessarily with it was totally dishonorable but it was out of a sense of honor for my friend.
[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_09]: I agreed this was not an honorable thing to do and this has always led me to a dilemma that that I'll talk about more once you get past your probably not nearly as salacious confession which is when is it.
[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_09]: The best the ethically correct thing to do to apologize at the risk of hurting someone even more because I've always feared that one big reason to admit to do it to hurting somebody is to make your own guilt go away because oftentimes we actually end up like the information could hurt them even more.
[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_08]: Right right so that's a good question so would you know you don't know this person anymore you haven't spoken to her in.
[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_09]: I mean I would I am like one degree away from her so I have spoken to her and we actually like we're still friends for a while and I last but the last time I spoke to her was probably five years ago.
[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah yeah I mean so is it right for you to apologize for which she's probably forgotten about it and this would be even more hurt to find out that it came from you.
[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_09]: Right it would have been a true dilemma say like a year after that because we like yeah actually we're in the same circle of friends.
[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah I don't know like I do think that that's one it's a good guilty confession in that I don't think there's much I don't think the right thing certainly now would be to tell her.
[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_09]: Right and the reason I'm guilty like I was unconditionally like an asshole for doing that right like I and I realized that that later I of course didn't know that it would affect her so deeply and I'm sure she had other shit going on but even if I didn't even if like it would she would have brushed it off like that was just such an asshole like cowardly
[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_09]: fucking thing to do just to try to please my friends you know yeah but I there is an there's another case of whether or not to confess that I could talk about but I want you to get to your well I mean you should save them for the next.
[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_09]: Well it's not but it's not it's not about me it's like a really bad one where somebody did confess to something and fucked some yeah someone else over completely by confessing to it because they implicated somebody.
[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow so yours are yours are you took this more seriously than I mean I like I do my homework.
[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_08]: I feel embarrassed saying my no but here it is I think it's funny when Trump calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas I genuinely think that's funny.
[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_08]: And that is the extremely popular segment guilty confessions cue outro music you better come with some better shit next time man I want to hear about like literal dead bodies was a little bit of like yeah like an ambush kind of.
[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_09]: Oh you go first.
[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah I knew I knew I knew I knew that was going to happen.
[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_08]: All right on that note let's go to our next segment we'll be right back.
[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Stop talking.
[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Tell him how you feel.
[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_03]: You feel.
[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_04]: If no one is not ready.
[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_08]: Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards at this time we like to thank all the people the people who get in touch with us who.
[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_08]: Interact with us in all the various different ways that you interact with us on Twitter Facebook Reddit Instagram.
[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_08]: E-mailing us there's so many really interesting ideas that people send us perspectives that they give us and expressions of either gratitude or criticism all of those things we treasure we value.
[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_08]: And we want to say thank you for that.
[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_08]: You can email us very bad wizards at gmail.com you can tweet us at Tamler at peas at Very Bad Wizards.
[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_08]: You can follow us on Instagram you can like us on Facebook rate us on iTunes give us a review on iTunes that helps people find us.
[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_08]: We're always high in the episode rankings which is pure numbers but never quite as high in like the top podcast and I am talking to some people that's like though that's more of a result of people rating us and writing reviews so please go and do that if you like it even if you don't like it but especially if you do.
[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_08]: You can go to our Reddit subreddit that somebody started there's a lot of a ton of discussions lively discussions going on there and you can support us in more tangible ways.
[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_08]: You can go to our support page click on the Amazon link before purchases especially expensive purchases but all purchases and we will get a small cut of that you can give us a one time donation on PayPal or become part of our Patreon community our beloved Patreon community and give us a small donation each episode.
[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_08]: We really appreciate it we're grateful and that's what keeps us going through 146 episodes.
[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_08]: Crazy.
[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_08]: You can also for me this speaking personally if you liked the book why on our matters you could rate it on Amazon share you know spread the word that you liked it I would really appreciate that.
[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_08]: I am in response to a lot of listeners requests be careful what you wish for I'm going to be the one that narrates the audio book and I'm actually do going about to head out to do that in a couple of days I'm going to fly to Michigan and over two and a half days record the narration so if you're if you hate reading then you know the audio book will be available.
[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_08]: Read by me but then if you've also heard me ever read something on the air I was gonna say is two and a half days for just chapter one because I.
[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_08]: Well that's why I would say by the book you're going to work.
[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_08]: You know also buy it and then because you never know but I want to do my best and hopefully I'll be able to do it justice because I'm the one who suffers if I don't.
[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_09]: I very much look forward to that and also there are some visually impaired people who will finally get a chance to hear the dulcet tones of your voice reading your your wonderful argument.
[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_08]: I know a lot of people wanted the tampon.
[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_09]: But instead you get my I'm going to do my own version and I do my own version or compete I'm just gonna sell it on the black market.
[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_09]: You should do it in black vernacular.
[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_09]: God.
[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_09]: So now on to our main topic.
[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_09]: Tamela I think you sent this to me.
[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_09]: I think I'd seen this on Twitter but you emailed this to me because I think you were outraged and you wanted some credit for that.
[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_08]: It was making its rounds.
[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_08]: I think Laurie Santos was the one that I saw.
[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_09]: So this is it's a paper by I believe two economists and called is football a matter of life and death or is it more important than that.
[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_09]: And it is answering attempting to answer the question about an apparent paradox which is that football in this case soccer they mistakenly called soccer football in this food.
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_09]: Football.
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_09]: Throughout football that is trying to look at how the outcomes of football matches affect happiness and the apparent paradox is that you know oftentimes and perhaps most of the time I think just statistically your favorite team if you're a fan loses
[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_09]: and that actually causes a great deal of hedonic whatever negativity right on happiness.
[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_09]: And so why the question is why do people why do they insist on being such avid sports fans football fans when on average it makes you unhappy.
[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_09]: And so what they did is used a data set that tracks people's happiness through the use of an app.
[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_09]: So this is a data set that I guess was collected a few years ago 2011 2012 that randomly pings you throughout the day experience sampling or momentary ecological assessment that asks you a series of questions about what you're doing.
[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_09]: How you feel in this case the critical question is how happy are you.
[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_09]: There's a sliding scale of unhappy to happy.
[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_09]: And what they did was they matched the respondents answers who happened to be watching or attending a soccer match.
[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_09]: And through geolocation they're able to to know that they're actually at the soccer match and ask them how happy they were before the game during the game after the game.
[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_09]: And how happy they were if their favorite team one or if their favorite team lost.
[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_09]: And importantly I think whether or not that win or that loss was expected or unexpected that was they actually looked at the odds makers numbers they crunched all those numbers and they were able to determine whether it was an expected win or an expected loss.
[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_09]: And calculate what the effect of winning and losing is on your on your happiness.
[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_09]: And they're able to sort of give a quantitative answer to what the effects of this are.
[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_09]: And I don't know if you want to jump right into the results or if you hold on let me let my bird.
[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_08]: It says it would appear from our results that football fans are irrational.
[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_08]: If we aggregate the effects of football match outcomes over the hours after a match we see that the aggregate aggregate outcome is most likely to be overwhelmingly negative.
[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_08]: This is because the negative consequences of losing on happiness are around five times higher than the positive consequences of winning.
[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_08]: So you're much more unhappy when you lose than you are happy when your team wins.
[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_08]: Win your team wins.
[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_09]: And I will say like the paper itself I think does a decent job of saying what the assumptions have to be in a study like this.
[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_09]: One of the important tacit assumptions when people talk about when when economists talk about rationality for instance is they are talking about rationality in terms of self interest.
[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_09]: So their answer to what is rational what is not is anything that increases utility is the rational thing to do in this paper they're very specifically narrow the definition of utility to happiness which again isn't is an assumption that we'll probably talk about.
[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_09]: And they and they look at responses on this one item and that item is let me get the phrasing.
[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_08]: I have a quote that I think is so it says in this paper we take utility well-being and happiness as one in the same concept and use the terms interchangeably throughout the paper.
[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_08]: We assume that when we ask people to rate how happy they are they are giving us a snapshot of their well-being or utility.
[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_08]: The assumption that the big assumption which you're right they lay out and credit to them for doing that they assume that when we ask people that when they ask people to rate through their mappiness app which is what they call it how happy they are at a given moment those people are giving them a good time.
[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_08]: They're giving them a snapshot of their true well-being or happiness.
[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_09]: At that current their current state and so to give you the sense of what people are responding to they're getting their phone randomly pinged throughout the day anywhere between I think two to five times a day and the critical question is a screen that pops up and says do you feel and then it has three items and the first one is.
[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_09]: A scale a sliding scale from left to right that is just labeled happy and the very very left of the scale is not at all and the very very right is extremely so Tamler.
[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_09]: How are you how happy are you feeling right now.
[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_08]: I need more bourbon.
[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_09]: So this is a slider scale but it's a it's a it's a hundred you can code it to 100 I think.
[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_08]: So 58 is where I am right now if you would let me get up and get another burpen then.
[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_09]: Then you would go all the way and then mine would just equivalently slide down that number until you did that line of code until I did the next line.
[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_09]: I would hope cocaine makes you happier than bourbon but maybe I think it's just pick my.
[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_09]: I think critically here and one of the things that they point out is that one of the advantages of this experience sampling method is that you don't have to make cross person comparisons because one of the big concerns sometimes in in in measuring anything like a subjective state but happiness maybe in particular is that we know what does Tamler mean by 58 versus what do I mean by 58.
[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_09]: So the comparisons that they make in their models are to the individual.
[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_09]: So the critical the critical outcome here is if Tamler is a 58 what is that compared to the average happiness that he's feeling throughout other activities.
[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_09]: Right. So all of the results are are for an individual what is the relative impact of this particular activity in this case watching a soccer match on on their own happiness so that way you get around the fact that some like they would be comparing it with how I rate myself when I'm you know watching
[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_08]: twin peaks.
[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_08]: Right. Or or reading Twitter feeds or yeah.
[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_08]: Just scouring through your old tweets trying to find something I can shame you with and get you fired.
[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_08]: You don't have to go that far back.
[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah like so and that's actually a really good and important point that you're making.
[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah because people people use scales differently.
[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_09]: You know people actually might differ in there in there just general right like objectively differ in how happy they are in general and you still want to measure the relative impact but they also might use scales differently like I might I might only use 70 to 100 because like healthy and like right right or just just no purely like so like if you could objectively match our happiness levels.
[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah you when you're feeling the same exact amount of happiness however one might define that you might rate that a 75 and I might rate that a 65 just because we use the scale to that's what I mean is like so it could be that I I don't think I have a right to go below 70 given
[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_08]: that my family is healthy and I'm healthy and like so I'm just really going between 70 and 100 whereas you're going between 20 and 100 based on like oh I'm pissed off that I have to call.
[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_08]: Comcast or something you know right.
[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_08]: So yeah should we give our quick quick reactions.
[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_09]: Well yeah let me just really present the critical critical findings so so they looked at people who were watching the game and people who attended the game.
[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_09]: And what you get is that and these coefficients don't make too much sense but I'll just sort of report the the the general effect is that people before a match are slightly happier than they are usually after their team wins that number goes from 70 to 100.
[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_09]: So something like 1.5 to like 4 again these numbers don't make too much sense there they're sort of these computed computed indices but after a win the number is right around 3.9 after a draw tie it's negative 3.2 and after a loss it's negative 7.8 and this is all after between zero and one hours afterwards and that's when they just watch a game the numbers just get
[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_09]: bigger if they're attending the game.
[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah and so so the overall the gist of the paper is that the magnitude of as Tamler summarized before the magnitude of the unhappy reporting after the game is you know like double that of then the relative contribution of the wind to your happiness.
[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_09]: So you just feel shittier and they look at this anywhere between zero and five hours after game and there's hundreds of thousands of people in this data set so now I just really quickly want to say like what to give a sense of what these numbers mean when I say that it is a negative 7 when your team loses or a negative 8.
[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_09]: Or a positive 3 when your team wins they also have other activities that they have data for in this data set the highest the most happy inducing activity is intimacy or making love and that's at a 12.5 I always wonder in these studies if I got interrupted while I was having sex I don't answer the question so I don't know what their answer.
[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_08]: Sports excuse me honey.
[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_09]: Sports running an exercise or next at a 7.8 the very the most miserable is being sick in bed and that's at a negative 19 and the next most miserable one is carrying or helping for adults at negative 4.4 so worse than then that is seeing your team lose.
[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_08]: By care or help for adults it's like.
[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_09]: I imagine it's wiping the diapers of your elder.
[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah yeah something like that.
[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes that is a special kind of hell.
[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay so I don't know let me just give quick a couple of quick reactions I think number one that this is a really interesting question like is it worth it especially for someone as big a sportsman.
[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_08]: What's fan as I am the question of whether it's actually worth it for me to be a such a big sports fan I think is is an interesting one.
[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_08]: I know my chair Dave Phillips who is a big Arsenal fan so soccer in the Premier League he's British.
[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_08]: He has told me flat out that being an Arsenal fan has a negative impact on his life like he wishes he never got involved in it just he doesn't enjoy it but he can't help it like he feels like there's nothing you can do at this point.
[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_08]: But he regrets it and he if he could somehow go back in time and not become an Arsenal fan he would.
[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_08]: So I think this is true of certain people so that's another thing to say about it.
[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_09]: It's not as if sorry just to add to that it's not as if it is by definition impossible to continue wanting to do something that makes you unhappy right.
[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_09]: So like some people might define that out of they might say well no clearly like it's making you happy in some sense or else you wouldn't do it.
[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_09]: No but like we want to like I want to say that it's not right like an addiction might be this way like I hate that I need caffeine every day but I still am going to do it.
[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_09]: You might actually choose to do something that makes you consistently unhappy.
[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_08]: Why do I keep doing this podcast.
[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah exactly you're addicted to me.
[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_08]: I can't quit.
[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm addicted to you baby.
[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_08]: So and then a further point in favor of this investigation is you know my chair knows that he's being made unhappy.
[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_08]: I think there are times where you're involved in something and it's not you think it's making you happy when in fact it isn't.
[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_08]: An example for me with this was probably the last six seven years that I did fantasy football.
[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_08]: Slowly I realized wait I hate this.
[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_08]: This is actually making me making my Sundays way less fun than they normally would be and just just the frustration and the stress of it and just the pain in the assness of it.
[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_08]: And the way I knew that like it was like finally it dawns on me and then I just quit one year and I just realized right away.
[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh my God it must be like you know somebody I don't know like somebody who's doing in some sort of self destructive spiral all of a sudden stops doing it and it's like incomprehensible to them that they once thought that that was a good idea.
[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_09]: It's like a bad relationship.
[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah exactly.
[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_08]: So all those things I will say are true.
[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_08]: That said I think the data that they give doesn't really get at why being a sports fan might make you happy and that any true sports fan would already know that losing is worse than winning.
[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_08]: The little bits of happiness you get from winning are not as pleasurable as the suffering you go through when your team loses.
[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_08]: That's I think something that we all understand really well and that our sports fandom the reason why we're sports fans has a lot more to do with the sort of social part of being a sports fan.
[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_08]: Just the way in which it engages your activity of the way it keeps you like all my friends from high school and college that I keep in touch with a big way that we have been able to keep in touch.
[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_08]: The reason why we're still talking often involves sports.
[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_08]: I talked to my brother like five times as much as I normally would because we're such both such big sports fans and there's always something new to talk about.
[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_08]: And it's it's it's something that is deeply enmeshed in our social lives and this just by the design of this study just doesn't begin to acknowledge that.
[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_08]: And so doing I think it totally misunderstands why sports is meaningful to people like I don't want to say that you couldn't be a real sports fan and write this paper.
[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_08]: But it does feel like there that the person like doing this kind of analysis doesn't truly live what it is like what being a sports fan is all about.
[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_09]: OK so so as I read this this paper like I became a bit more sympathetic.
[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_09]: I mean in the first place I think the author is actually really careful about saying what they can and can't demonstrate but I don't think they would disagree with you about that.
[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_09]: In fact in there in the discussion section when they talk about like here are reasons why this might not show what what we are saying that it might show right that it is not in fact a demonstration of irrationality and by rationality in a very narrow sense.
[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_09]: It is not actually that that being a sports fan makes you less happy.
[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_09]: There are a number of reasons why their data can't answer a whole variety of possibilities.
[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_09]: And what you're saying is that it is adding to your overall happiness in in ways that aren't accounted for in the paper.
[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_09]: But I think there what you would really want is to see a pre post somebody who wasn't a sports fan become and then becomes a sports fan because as I understand your claim and maybe I'm not maybe it's more subtle than this is that all of those things.
[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_09]: You're getting from sports that you wouldn't be getting if it weren't for sports.
[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_09]: And so you would you so long as you trust that this is an accurate way of assessing happiness and we can talk about that that you would on average think that you would be happier after becoming a sports fan than before right like that this is the value added is in some way accessible.
[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. So I guess I don't again I think that sort of misunderstands what being a sports fan is all about like it's not clear to me that somebody can be like a grown adult not a sports fan and then all of a sudden it's not like taking up a hobby or something like that.
[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_08]: It has to have been sort of a part of your past a part of where you grew up a part of how did you just say that your chair became a national fan.
[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_08]: No no no he grew up a national fan. But I'm sure there was a moment as a child where he could have or you know as a and I don't even actually don't know maybe it was a teenager who knows when it was exactly but I don't know I don't know many cases personally maybe you do if people not being sports fans and becoming a sports fan like you know you can all of a sudden sort of snap into being interested of who's going to win.
[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_08]: You know a lot of people in Houston are now all of a sudden might call themselves big Astros fans because they won the World Series last year they never watched them in their lives before.
[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_09]: But I don't think that that's this is what I mean like they're not really sports fan. Yeah yeah OK well I mean that's that's a fair point it's not quite what I'm saying though like what I want to say that in principle the argument is that all things being equal the sports fan is deriving happiness.
[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_08]: That's what you're saying. So like you ought to be able to say like if if there was a Tamler twin universe that would did not grow up a sports fan right that Tamler would not be as much as you.
[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_08]: You know he wouldn't be able to easily start up a conversation with somebody at a bar so and maybe there are other ways in which yeah but maybe he'd be like a brilliant filmmaker.
[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_08]: Right right it's hard to know. It's very hard to know that but I do think there are the things that I consider good about being a sports fan these don't even try to measure.
[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't think anybody thinks I'm a sports fan because it makes me happy after a game like that's just not how you decide whether you're being or whether it's good for you to be a sports fan.
[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_09]: So so you know you know sort of in the interest of what Tamler you and I talked a little bit about beforehand we didn't want to just pick a paper to trash we wanted to like actually use this to have a discussion about what could be done and what couldn't.
[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_09]: I think there are questions in the in the study of happiness that may be intractable like that that can't actually be measured but I'm but like from what you're saying answer me whether or not this would be a reasonable way to assess what you're doing suppose that you're only a football fan like you.
[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah like it like suppose you're only a Patriots fan would do you think that you are happier during the season.
[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_08]: Right then you are off season. Yeah I mean that's a great question and it's like and I honestly don't know the answer like with the NFL is a great example because it is kind of consuming thing in the fall and like the time that you spend watching those games.
[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_08]: You're not with your family you're not right taking like you're not taking a hike. You're not reading and I do sometimes feel when the season is over a kind of relief.
[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_08]: You know like it just frees up a day of the week for me you know like right and I and I've come to that sort of realization and so definitely started to limit how much I watch.
[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_09]: But it's not because it's not because I think importantly not because of the misery of losses. No right it's just it's just that the fact that it's taking up time.
[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_08]: It's taking up time that I could be doing something else where and I think a study like that could sort of a study like this could at least get at that like this is why I think there is a to the extent that you think and I'm not sure what I don't know what you think about this to the extent that getting pain.
[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_08]: And rating your happiness is a reliable guide in any way to how happy you actually are. If it is then maybe I could have learned you know like my the thing about fantasy football I could have learned that earlier right that than I did you know yeah yeah yeah yeah
[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_09]: I've never taken part in a study that I where I get pinged. I you know like I think there is a there's a face validity to to the you know if you looked at the data and people who got pinged when they were having a good meal didn't report being happier than when they were
[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_09]: like getting an operation or something then I would wonder so I don't think the absolute numbers mean much I do think that that the relative comparison over time with enough observations like I like it's saying something and what that something is I'm not 100% sure right I don't know that it does good at teasing apart
[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_09]: hedonic pleasure versus like overall value or meaning in an activity I'm not I'm not sure what people are answering but but like those questions aside I think it's taking something interesting and and quantifying it here's like so for example if you know if I get a read out that says okay you are on average like for whatever points less happy
[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_08]: when you're watching the four o'clock NFL game then when you're you know out taking your dogs for a hike or something like that and that seems to be consistent and reliable you know you that might start to get you to wonder whether
[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_08]: but but again the question has to be way more specific than being a sports fan in general yeah it has to be like you know is this thing that you do this practice that you do this way in which this is your fandom is manifesting itself is that something
[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_08]: that's making you happy you know like going to even going to a game like I like that they do that sometimes I wonder if going to a game makes you happier than just being able to watch it and talk about it but not having to go through all that
[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_08]: or maybe it's way better to go to a game like I think that about college sports like it's it's often more fun to go to the game than it is to just be a fan of that team right so they have they have actually an interesting finding there that that because they have GPS data they can see
[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_09]: people who went to a game and they can also see how long they they stuck around and the highest bump in happiness is for people who stay at the stadium zero to one hours after the after team one yeah and that is kind of nice I mean there is it captures that social celebration the glow of the glow
[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_09]: that you're actually with other people rather than just by yourself yeah right I'm the authors have a few caveats at the end or at least possible reasons why why they might not actually be showing that that what they think they're showing that it's irrational or that it makes you less happy
[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_09]: and so I want to talk about a few of these what so one of them is the possibility that that people are systematically overestimating the probability that their team will win and so they continue to go to matches because they think this is going to be the time
[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_09]: where maybe so they're they're in so they're chasing the dragon in some sense like they they they are not being irrational in the sense that they really believe that this time their teams another one is that they might be not capturing all of the the positives so they are assessing people after a loss or win before the game and once sometimes during the game but they say well maybe like when
[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_09]: your team scores a goal like that high is so high and they don't have enough refined like precise data to capture enough of this it could be that like you know your team scoring two goals even when they lose three to two during those two goals the your happiness spikes so high that if
[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_09]: if aggregate happiness is a thing maybe in fact they didn't capture that right so maybe maybe they are getting I mean I think that's stupid but yes yeah well it's an interesting question about how this can how happiness should be aggregated like is
[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_08]: is your overall happiness a sum of your experiences in this way or is it or not I think not like I just don't think that I mean that's the big problem which is a separate problem you know and trying to determine like I just don't think happiness ratings
[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_08]: like added up tell you about your well-being in anything close to the way that is sort of being represented here
[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_09]: well so what they might be telling you is just just in a very limited sense your hedonic state at the moment yeah and and you know to be fair there are there are researchers who have looked at like assessment of overall well-being so like just how happy are you with life generally
[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_09]: and and I don't know what the data are about whether or not the I should look at that I should look that up about whether or not your momentary hedonic states aggregate into you know predictive of it
[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_09]: it actually get would get a little complicated because of course if you're overall happy with your life you probably are having more more hedonic reporting but yeah fair enough that's there there the hedonic state in the moment is very different from how happy you are with your life right and you can imagine
[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_09]: that like you can have you can eat cotton candy every fucking day of the week and be happy and then you know but but you're just like but you are just deeply unsatisfied with the way your life is going it's just that if I ping you when you're eating your cotton candy you might actually say
[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_08]: yeah it's great yeah and and that's I think a separate issue that you know so then just what you're not measuring life satisfaction in some broad rich way your yours your man it would still be again like with something like fancy football or like watching
[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_09]: that fell like it would still be interesting to know your hedonics ratings at various times during the day right and I think so there's a number of other things but I wanted to get to the one that I think that that most closely captures what you were saying so this is
[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_09]: there caveat number seven being in a tribe another fact that we do not measure as a positive pleasure belonging to a wider group quote unquote a tribe anthropologist a novelist right about the utility and benefits conferred of being in a human
[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_09]: to be in a human group part of the pleasure of a positive result is sharing it with a large group of other ecstatic fellow fans the additional dimension of this effect is the identification of the individual with a group in the identity this confers
[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_08]: right so they go on well so but I want to finish that because I this one was also like so then they say this belonging also mean that benefits are derived from collectively hating those outside the tribe or those in another tribe we may be able to
[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_08]: investigate such effects if we separately distinguish those close rivals man city man united everton and liverpool newcastle and sundarling arsenal and tottenham psychologist have discussed these effects in the drive pleasure some fans get from the misfortunes of their close rivals
[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean so all of that is true when they saw red sox swept the Yankees last weekend the first thing and this is just common practice I go to our Yankees blocks like Yankees like I want to see like their pain like I want to drink it in
[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_08]: and that is really fun you know but I can't yeah
[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_08]: exactly like you know they say this and also I think the networking effects although that when they seem like is that one seems like they're you know approaching it to clinically this one is
[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_08]: I just don't know though if the way they would go about measuring it is the is the right way so the implication there is
[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_08]: you you would expect if what they're saying is right sports fans who are fans of teams in heated rivalries are going to be
[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_08]: happier than those not and I don't know that that's true you know yeah because it also makes you more miserable
[00:55:13] [SPEAKER_09]: yeah I I don't know like I
[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_09]: I will say this I share your sat your dissatisfaction with the way
[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_09]: almost treatment of these happiness data as obvious measures of what people are interested in and what they're saying when they say they're happy
[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_09]: and I think that this paper actually was way more careful in laying out the possibilities that they're not actually capturing what people mean when they say that they're happy
[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_09]: because I actually think that it is so common and save the psychology research on happiness to completely dismiss most of these possibilities
[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_09]: and one and maybe there's a larger question about just the study of happiness to to to to discuss because like I'll take the classic example of having kids making you less happy
[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_09]: right this is like the standard thing that like social psychologists like to trot out there like oh did you know that you're less happy
[00:56:19] [SPEAKER_09]: and and I think that it is completely completely obvious that they're missing pinging somebody and getting their hedonic state is just the wrong the wrong measure right it's it is capturing something
[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_09]: but it is not capturing any of a host of things that people find valuable now economists at least say like no look we're looking at work like we're calculating hedonic states as a metric of utility which is what the
[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_09]: data is like but we're using into whether or not people are rational that is at least a more careful claim than saying that this one item is actually assessing your overall happiness in life and that's where where I worry a bit much
[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_09]: this at least reads like a paper where they're like this is one first step like given these data now like we have a bunch of additional questions that we might be able to ask and so you might be able to cast the net wider
[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_09]: and actually try to get at the various things that go into this like I actually am curious about whether or not being a sports fan is a great way of getting into a tribe where as you wouldn't have had it before right like maybe maybe this is serving a proxy for that very deep human need of being a tribe and I actually really do think that that one way of mitigating the misery of a loss is by
[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_08]: shitting on the other team right like this or commiserating with like you know again like there's nothing that brings old friends together like commiserating about you know just a brutal loss that's right and we're like constantly like all my friends were we're talking to each other
[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_08]: and then like also other people are calling us and texting us and like you know it's just like this big grief community which sounds silly but like only silly if you're not really a fan the world the world cup to me is like I was actually bummed because the world cup this year
[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_09]: like I very very much relate to the misery of like as somebody who is an Argentine born with Argentine family like the world cup every four years is a way in which I keep in contact with family members.
[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_09]: I look forward to that and friends and my family happened to be on a cruise without without my ability to contact them during the world cup and it sucked.
[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's horrible.
[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_09]: And like and there's a way in which I think you could you could try to tease apart because I think that the rational or like the reasonable person who is doing a study like this and gets pinged like say say you're about to like call your friends and discuss how miserable you are if if I ask you
[00:58:56] [SPEAKER_09]: how how unhappy are you or how happy are you after your team lost.
[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_09]: I think that you would reasonably give the response that you're really fucking unhappy because your team lost the Super Bowl or something and that you wouldn't just as a way of like understanding what this study is asking that you wouldn't figure into this that you're talking to friends
[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_09]: and commiserating because when you're talking to your friends I mean like I'm so fucking upset that like whatever the Celtics lost to the Lakers and you get a ping that says how upset are you you're going to say you're upset but like it's very very hard to be able to assess the fact that you're talking to a friend is actually bringing you some pleasure because
[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_09]: I don't think that it is either immediately obvious that you're supposed to or even introspectively obvious that this is mitigating the misery and in fact later on as you talk for an hour and you talk about like how's your wife doing or how are your children doing
[00:59:54] [SPEAKER_09]: like that that actually might bring additional pleasure that you wouldn't have gotten so it's fucking like it's a heart it's a hard thing to study but I think that with at least these tools.
[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_08]: So we might be able to start this so that's my question like and this is the one I don't know the answer to so are these tools in the end. Are they ultimately like they just need to be perfected improved upon maybe improved upon a lot and then they'll give us a truer more illuminating picture
[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_08]: or are they just doomed from the start because you're trying to measure something too complex with a methodology that just can't capture that is just like a misfit right and so let me put the question this way like I think both of us recently maybe more than in the earlier episodes
[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_08]: we're we both are united by the fear and maybe suspicion that works of art are better at capturing or illuminating many of the questions that our own field is investigating that are than our field is right like that art is doing a better job.
[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_08]: Making us understand moral responsibility than analytic philosophy or psychology.
[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_08]: You know so in this context I don't know something like fever pitch the Nick Hornsby memoir about being a soccer fan is that going to tell you more about the costs and benefits of being a sports fan then any kind of empirical study now of course you don't have it's not necessarily one of the other but.
[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_08]: I sometimes wonder if we just that's the thing that's going to help us understand more than trying to get these precise metrics I don't know that was yeah yeah yeah no I mean I like yeah that resonates with me of course I like there is a way and there's so there's.
[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_09]: There's the worry that that the process of dividing conquer that is that is at the heart of the scientific method and at the heart of it analytic philosophy.
[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_09]: Of narrowing and narrowing and narrowing and systematically tackling a small piece of a question in in in the hopes that you can build it back up and build a bigger picture.
[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_09]: It might be ill suited for certain features of human experience like it it and I think that that that comes across and what we've been saying that that there is a way in which the holistic experience of life satisfaction may not be very well captured by any of the methods that we might use to analyze right like.
[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_09]: Like little chunks of experience with 10 point scales or 100 point scales and might actually be distorting it might be distorting now.
[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_09]: Then I think that there are ways though in which as we get better methods and especially as we get more data that we can make progress into answering some of the questions that aren't that domain like there aren't they aren't like.
[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_09]: How do I get a sense of what the value of a human life is or like the value of participating in this endeavor is like it.
[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_09]: I think that those those might be out of reach.
[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_09]: But what is within reach is is I think some surprising we can get some surprising results out of this and it would take a little more than than a single study but but here's an example of like some something that might actually be.
[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_09]: True and illustrate some some something important about human psychology so for one we could be surprised about what.
[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_09]: How much hedonic value we get so there might be some people who don't realize that they are more miserable after a loss and they are happy after a win.
[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_09]: Now and that from their own reporting they get it they they see like some sort of summary chart at the end of the week and they're like holy shit every time I'm talking to my kid I'm actually happier than when I'm working on a paper or something now.
[01:04:11] [SPEAKER_09]: The value of that I don't know but but I think the real value will come from getting these kind of data over large groups of people over long periods of time and figuring out some questions like what are the effects of suppose that you were like fuck it I still value.
[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_09]: Being a sports fan and Patriots fan like you know I whatever like I'm Laker fan I bleed fucking purple and gold like don't tell me what's what makes me happy or not.
[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_09]: I might truly value that but what if I realize that I am hedonically more miserable over time but importantly that that my hedonic ratings tracks something like my sleep or my weight or my blood pressure and that this is actually like an important thing to do.
[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_09]: To understand about me and we can learn little chunks of things that that how these experiences actually affect the rest of our lives like and I think that's actually becoming a possibility with like people who wear like Fitbit or Apple Watch or something that tracks their their patterns.
[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_09]: In a physical sense there are people who figured out that like the days that they walk more steps they actually sleep more at night.
[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_09]: Like the quality of their sleep and I think you could find some surprising psychological insights from from this as well with a caveat always that like this is measuring what you know only as good as you are at introspectively assessing your hedonic state and whatever you know.
[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. No but it still might as you say like bring to light some surprising facts about yourself facts that you didn't know. I mean like I honestly think that you could have like it would be I would I'd be really interested in like my hedonic ratings Sundays during football season versus not.
[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_08]: Right. You know like I don't know and it wouldn't surprise me if they're significantly lower.
[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_09]: Right. Now what I'm not sure is whether that would convince me to not watch sports. I like the odds for instance of of me being happy at the end of a World Cup season.
[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_09]: I know are so astronomically low right. It's like nothing but pure misery and I might be like well fuck it like that's just what I'm going to do.
[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_09]: Right. Like but again having the data are actually like they might be valuable. Yeah. That's right.
[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_08]: And it doesn't mean oh you're being irrational for watching the World Cup and loving Argentina because and that it's actually making you less happy but it just tells you something like if you sufficiently narrow the question.
[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. Then it is no longer distorting unless you know the measuring tools are bad but like it's no longer distorting and it's and it's usually and this is also a product of the way things like this paper were made.
[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_08]: It's promoted. People were saying like watching sports makes you unhappy. Like it's irrational to be a sports fan. Like that's how this was being passed around on Twitter and various other places.
[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_08]: And you know those are the things where no it's not doing any of those things but maybe but what it is telling you is how you feel right after a game.
[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_09]: So here's a question. There are plenty of experiences that that you might not know would make you happy. So like an example of a real simple example like I was afraid of roller coasters.
[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_09]: You know what like why the hell would I put my life in danger. Like that doesn't make any sense. Like I get motion sick easily. The first time I wrote a roller coaster was just through sheer peer pressure and I was like that was fucking amazing.
[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_09]: I want to do it again. Right. And ever since then I've been an avid roller coaster writer. I just had to get past that.
[01:08:17] [SPEAKER_09]: I'm thinking about how could these could data like this. Like and I'm thinking in some sense of Laurie Paul's argument that there are experiences that are so transformative that you have no idea beforehand what it would feel like.
[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_09]: This isn't exactly about that because because she claims that you're changed by those experiences so the ratings wouldn't be valid. But you can imagine that people came to me and said you know here is how most people who are afraid of roller coasters feel beforehand.
[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_09]: And this is how they feel after they ride a roller coaster and you could see the spike that might serve to to convince me that maybe I should try it. Right. Like and normally we would do this by asking our friends or like hey did you know like but but maybe some data like that could actually lead you to find things that you would be happy about because people like you like a Netflix recommendation algorithm.
[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_09]: Like I never thought like if they could I could suppose they could get so good that I'd be like I would never want to watch that show. But I trust it so much that I watch it in your ride I do feel happier or more satisfied now.
[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know. Yeah no you know this is one that I feel like I already know the answer to but I'm sure there's a lot of other things like this that I don't watching documentaries.
[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_08]: Like I don't think I think when I'm watching one I'm really really happy and fulfilled and and yet like I never feel that way when I'm trying to choose a movie.
[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_08]: People put documentaries on their cues and like never watch them. Yeah. Like that's that's sort of me like I'm that's my guilty confession new new guilty confession segment like it might be helpful for me to just get that even though I already suspect this but just to get the read out of like
[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_08]: how it actually is but then there's probably other things like that that I don't already know the answer to and those things could be really illuminating you just have to sufficiently narrow the question.
[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_09]: Exactly exactly you got to know what they're answering and it's important to know like what to actually do the work of saying like this is what this is answering like there are some really real simple hedonic things where it's an obvious like you know like how much does this hurt right so there's
[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_09]: there's some work on you know people over underestimating how much pain something is going to evolve and like that predicts whether or not they're going to go back to that do that procedure or whatever like in when the scope is that narrowed.
[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_09]: I think you're right the big problem is when and I think a lot of social psychologists do this is the over claiming part in the end and the taking these to be measures of something that they can't be they just simply can't be right.
[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah all right well are you happy are you happier now I am I'm reading I'm in a 72.
[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_09]: I you know doing doing this podcast gives me such pleasure that no app could ever could ever capture this because it's too rich and it's a tonically they'll always be low but that doesn't mean I don't love it.
[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_08]: That's right and yeah no you know study no empirical.
[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_09]: You can't qualify me I though I think that that we could tell if you're racist by just counting the number of tweets in which you said racist things.
[01:11:39] [SPEAKER_08]: I think that's the future if it's fair game if it's after 2016 before that amnesty.
[01:11:47] [SPEAKER_08]: All right join us next time on very bad.