Episode 166: Total Recall (Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing

[00:00:14] my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Do you have any idea what you've done to me?

[00:00:26] I've done worse.

[00:00:27] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:21] Dave, Meryl Streep doesn't think we should use the term toxic masculinity.

[00:01:26] And David Lynch is going to receive an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

[00:01:31] How are these two facts related?

[00:01:35] They're both things that are on your mind right now.

[00:01:39] I have no idea how those two things are related.

[00:01:41] Is David Lynch been accused of being toxic in any way?

[00:01:45] Not really.

[00:01:46] No?

[00:01:47] I mean, he had...

[00:01:48] It's too weird.

[00:01:49] David Lynch were toxic, we wouldn't even know.

[00:01:51] Because he's so inscrutable.

[00:01:55] You know, women certainly...there's a lot of naked women and abused women, but at the

[00:02:00] same time there's a lot of strong women in his movies.

[00:02:03] So that's not the way they're related.

[00:02:05] I don't think.

[00:02:06] That's not true.

[00:02:07] I have zero idea.

[00:02:09] Maybe did your mom tweet about both of them?

[00:02:12] Your stepmom tweeted about both of them?

[00:02:13] No, Shiba doesn't tweet about David Lynch.

[00:02:17] This is then a question that's just clearly you just want to talk about.

[00:02:21] I have no idea.

[00:02:22] Yeah, I mean, I don't know either.

[00:02:24] I'm asking you.

[00:02:25] Oh yeah, you just wanted me to make something up.

[00:02:28] Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:30] I forgot to yes and you.

[00:02:32] Well, you tried.

[00:02:35] I did try.

[00:02:36] Yeah.

[00:02:37] It would be great if Meryl Streep was going to be in a new David Lynch movie on

[00:02:42] masculinity.

[00:02:43] How about that?

[00:02:44] I'd watch that.

[00:02:45] That would be great.

[00:02:46] I'd watch that more.

[00:02:47] I don't think of her.

[00:02:48] I can't see her in a David Lynch movie.

[00:02:49] That's actually interesting that you would say that, because that seems crazy that she

[00:02:55] would be in a David Lynch.

[00:02:57] So that's a good question.

[00:02:59] Why?

[00:03:00] I get what you're saying and I feel the same way.

[00:03:02] And I'll tell you my initial gut reaction is that she is too much of an actress.

[00:03:08] She has to portray an actual character in a way that David Lynch has.

[00:03:16] I don't want to say caricatured people, but they're people who aren't primarily there because

[00:03:21] of the depth of their character, but rather because they seem to represent some theme.

[00:03:25] Oh, see, I disagree with that.

[00:03:28] I mean, I think they are complex characters, but they're not acting as real people in

[00:03:37] a way.

[00:03:38] They're expressing something complex about human beings in a way that isn't naturalistic.

[00:03:45] And I think she's a very naturalistic actor.

[00:03:47] I mean, like in the same way, I can't see Robert De Niro in a David Lynch movie, but I could

[00:03:54] definitely see someone like Brad Pitt or someone who can play stylized.

[00:04:00] Yeah, it is heavily stylized.

[00:04:03] But I was going to say that that's what I mean by not a real character.

[00:04:06] I mean that they're not representing sort of a person in the way that we...

[00:04:10] Although I have to say, and I haven't watched the latest season of...

[00:04:13] Why should I just blank on the name?

[00:04:15] Twin Peaks.

[00:04:16] Twin Peaks.

[00:04:17] I haven't watched the latest season of the show.

[00:04:20] It's because I'm out of Adderall.

[00:04:23] I haven't watched the latest season of Twin Peaks, but if you were...

[00:04:26] If I were to name all of the strengths, not one of them would be that the characters

[00:04:30] are deep as people.

[00:04:33] Yeah.

[00:04:34] I would say Firewalk with me, you get a deep portrayal of Laura Palmer.

[00:04:40] And Cheryl Lee is so unbelievably good at that.

[00:04:44] But yes, I agree that they're soap opera characters.

[00:04:48] I mean it is a riff on a soap opera.

[00:04:52] It's what if the most horrible thing possible happened in a soap opera.

[00:04:58] Yeah.

[00:04:59] One way of saying it is that Meryl Streep, I can't picture her playing absurdity.

[00:05:04] And David Lynch teeters on absurdity in the good way, in the Kafkaesque absurdity

[00:05:09] And I'm wondering if that's unfair to Meryl Streep.

[00:05:12] Is there really no example of her doing that?

[00:05:15] Yeah, I should say it's not that I don't think that she could kill it.

[00:05:20] It's that it doesn't seem to be the kind of roles that she ever takes.

[00:05:24] Like I do wonder.

[00:05:26] I mean...

[00:05:27] I mean I can't think of anything like that, but I'm sure our listeners might have some

[00:05:33] examples.

[00:05:34] She's done so many movies and she's so unbelievably talented.

[00:05:38] But yeah, the ones I know her from and where she's so brilliant that I've seen, they're

[00:05:43] real people.

[00:05:44] Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:45] Yeah.

[00:05:46] And...

[00:05:47] You know, A Cry in the Dark, you know that movie about the dingo ate my baby?

[00:05:51] No.

[00:05:52] Okay, so this was a movie in the 80s about a 70-day Adventist woman in Australia, 70-day

[00:05:59] Adventist being the religion that I was raised in.

[00:06:01] So I know this very well.

[00:06:02] Whose baby got eaten by a dingo when they were camping in the Outback?

[00:06:06] Meryl Streep portrayed this woman.

[00:06:08] She was wrongfully accused and they said that it was like some satanic ritual that she was

[00:06:12] engaged in because they thought that 70-day Adventists were weird.

[00:06:16] And you guys are weird.

[00:06:17] Yeah, we are, but not in that way.

[00:06:19] We can't even drink let alone kill babies.

[00:06:23] That would be really forbidden.

[00:06:27] That was the first movie that I was allowed to see in movie theaters because it was about

[00:06:31] an Adventist woman.

[00:06:32] My goodness.

[00:06:33] The reason you can't drink is because once you take like a couple of drinks, you start

[00:06:37] killing babies?

[00:06:38] Well, it's always a temptation, right?

[00:06:42] Who among us?

[00:06:43] Not add a few drinks and then fantasize about killing babies.

[00:06:49] One more thought about David Lynch movies.

[00:06:53] Who would be the worst A-list movie star to cast in a David Lynch movie?

[00:06:58] I have a name.

[00:06:59] Who do you think?

[00:07:01] Tom Cruise.

[00:07:02] Tom Cruise.

[00:07:03] That is the answer.

[00:07:05] Can you imagine?

[00:07:06] I don't, I actually not sure I agree.

[00:07:09] Maybe.

[00:07:10] Because, well, the Magnolia role is kind of a Lynchian sort of role and then also the

[00:07:20] Tropic Thunder.

[00:07:21] Yeah, in the Tropic Thunder where he's...

[00:07:23] But that's more like a joke.

[00:07:24] Although that's just crazy.

[00:07:26] And in the Kubrick, the eyes wide shut maybe.

[00:07:29] Although he still comes across as Tom Cruise.

[00:07:31] I think I have the...

[00:07:32] I think here's my answer.

[00:07:35] Tom Hanks.

[00:07:36] I can't see that.

[00:07:39] Because Tom Hanks is just Tom Hanks.

[00:07:41] George Clooney is the same way like it just...

[00:07:46] We should say what we're going to talk about today.

[00:07:48] Today we are going to talk about a great story by Ted Chang and his latest collection

[00:07:55] of stories, Exhalation Called The Truth of Fact and The Truth of Feeling.

[00:07:59] Yeah.

[00:08:00] Yeah.

[00:08:01] And we're excited about the story.

[00:08:04] We hope everybody will actually read it.

[00:08:07] I know that that might be a challenge.

[00:08:10] We're going to put a link to the book and we're going to tweet it out because I don't

[00:08:14] want to say this while we're discussing it, just like highly recommended.

[00:08:16] Yeah.

[00:08:17] I mean, I'm talking to you as if you're not listening to this episode right now.

[00:08:21] But yeah, you can just pause the episode.

[00:08:23] If we've earned your trust at all about what we think you might like, if you

[00:08:28] like this podcast, I would say get this book and you won't be disappointed.

[00:08:33] You sent me back to Meryl Streep for a second.

[00:08:36] So she said there's not much of a story here except that my stepmother, you texted me one

[00:08:43] night, was on the front page of Reddit because she tweeted out that she agrees with Meryl

[00:08:49] Streep.

[00:08:50] But Meryl Streep did say we heard her boys by calling something toxic masculinity and

[00:08:58] also that women can be pretty fucking toxic, she said.

[00:09:02] Right.

[00:09:03] Which I mean, yeah, that's undoubtedly true.

[00:09:06] Like that's that's neither here nor there about.

[00:09:10] Yeah.

[00:09:11] Toxic masculinity.

[00:09:12] Yeah.

[00:09:13] Yeah.

[00:09:14] I know I have some thoughts, but what was your initial reaction to this?

[00:09:16] I mean, I don't really have one.

[00:09:18] I think she's echoing a view that a lot of women have and it may be especially older women

[00:09:26] who think that, I mean, like this comes out like the French older actresses and especially

[00:09:34] given what they went through.

[00:09:37] This is part of life is that men are scumbags and you know, women have their own kind

[00:09:43] of power.

[00:09:44] It sucks sometimes, but you don't want to demonize an anti.

[00:09:49] I really do think this is a very common view and it just there's just no upside in saying

[00:09:54] it unless you're Meryl Streep and you're completely untouchable.

[00:09:58] And so, you know.

[00:10:00] Yeah.

[00:10:01] So I my only real thoughts about it are that there is there has to be better strategy

[00:10:12] in coming up with labels.

[00:10:13] So I definitely think that there are aspects of masculinity in the West of a particular ilk,

[00:10:22] right?

[00:10:23] Like there's a certain kind of culture that is pretty nasty about women and this is

[00:10:28] taught and this is passed on picking a label for something like that is tricky because

[00:10:35] you want to condemn certain actions, but it ends up often alienating the very people

[00:10:41] who you're trying to convince.

[00:10:43] And I sort of feel this way about terms like white privilege as well.

[00:10:50] It's not that I don't actually like in a very visceral way understand that I have privilege.

[00:10:58] It's just that it's epistemically unavailable to average white person how they have privilege.

[00:11:07] And so in using the term white privilege sounds accusatory in a way that you can understand

[00:11:14] why somebody would get defensive about it.

[00:11:17] Where they'd be like, well, what have I done?

[00:11:18] Well, it's not the point isn't what have you done.

[00:11:21] It's that that, you know, I'm trying to show you that my life is different than yours.

[00:11:26] But how, you know, they're not going to know.

[00:11:29] So so while I get the desire to to make the moral point, if you're just talking

[00:11:35] about this is a way to frame a message, it's not a very good way to frame.

[00:11:40] So white privilege is interesting because I actually think for me personally that resonates

[00:11:49] in a way that maybe toxic masculinity hasn't.

[00:11:54] I think it is epistemically accessible like it's epistemically accessible to me.

[00:11:58] And not only is it epistemically accessible, but I think now I don't know.

[00:12:02] There's probably other ways to describe it besides white privilege.

[00:12:06] But there is a there's a way in which my experience, I understand my experience

[00:12:12] a little differently now that I've been alerted to that concept.

[00:12:17] Whereas I don't think toxic masculinity has done the same thing for me.

[00:12:21] I think that you're right, though, that especially for people who grew up

[00:12:28] not privileged in any other way besides being a white person, like if you're

[00:12:37] working class, if you've struck on hard times, if you're, you know,

[00:12:42] the sort of stereotypical Trump voter, then it's extremely alienating

[00:12:47] to be lectured by people who in many ways have more privilege than you do

[00:12:54] in your in their, you know, like especially since a lot of this comes from

[00:13:00] the Northeast and rich private liberal arts colleges and all that.

[00:13:04] Like, yeah, that's alienating and just seems completely unfair, given

[00:13:11] the other ways in which privilege has been distributed against them.

[00:13:18] Right. So so and that's sort of what I mean.

[00:13:21] And to be clear, like I it's it's very salient to me the kind of privilege

[00:13:26] I have being being sort of middle age, white, you know, at least passing.

[00:13:34] And that but that's really because of my life experiences.

[00:13:37] Like I've seen my father who is short and darker and speaks with a heavy

[00:13:40] accent get treated so differently than I would ever get treated.

[00:13:42] So it's epistemically available to me.

[00:13:45] And I think that the point is just that like what I'm not

[00:13:50] I'm not the target audience for that that term in a way like,

[00:13:55] you know, I'm already convinced.

[00:13:56] Right. And so it's like if we were, you know, if we were seriously trying

[00:14:01] to say do a marketing campaign, we're a corporation, we wanted to like spread an idea.

[00:14:06] We, you know, we would pick terms that were less sort of, you know, customer hostile.

[00:14:11] Yeah. And I and I, you know, I tread lightly here because I think

[00:14:16] that we ought to condemn what we condemn.

[00:14:18] It's just that like if you're going to be pragmatic about this or, you know,

[00:14:22] in any way consequentialist about it, then there is there are strategies

[00:14:26] to get people to see what you mean by white privilege without accusing them,

[00:14:31] especially as you say, like the people who have already, you know,

[00:14:35] they have like nine out of 10 knocks on them just because they haven't

[00:14:39] experienced the 10 out of 10. Right.

[00:14:41] It doesn't mean that they're right.

[00:14:43] So toxic masculinity maybe is different because

[00:14:47] it's not clear to me that all men have this culture and and but the ones who do,

[00:14:54] you want to stop it.

[00:14:55] And those are exactly the people who are going to be like, yeah, fuck you, bitches.

[00:14:59] Yeah. You know, like they're

[00:15:01] it's like exactly the wrong the wrong way.

[00:15:04] It's only convincing.

[00:15:05] It's only a word that people who are already convinced about know.

[00:15:08] It doesn't even give you pause to think the way white privilege might

[00:15:11] when you're like, oh, do I have privilege?

[00:15:13] Right. No, no, totally.

[00:15:14] I that's what that's sort of the distinction I was trying to make.

[00:15:17] Like I just don't think that's a helpful term.

[00:15:20] So I'm on Merrill Streep's side.

[00:15:23] Yeah, except for that.

[00:15:24] I don't think that it's a who cares if there are toxic women.

[00:15:28] Like I just don't think that that.

[00:15:30] Yeah, no, I agree.

[00:15:32] The the the idea that the term is unhelpful and that it's not going

[00:15:37] to help to to to label the thing that is like an organizing system

[00:15:44] of values as as toxic.

[00:15:47] Oh, two things speaking of toxic masculinity.

[00:15:50] The I wanted to give a quick shout out to the Jedi Council podcast,

[00:15:57] which recently had Michael Sargent of Tatter fame friend of a friend

[00:16:04] of our podcast.

[00:16:04] Yeah, to talk about three things.

[00:16:07] First, those APA American Psychological Association guidelines on men

[00:16:12] that we talked about in an earlier episode and they they refer to our

[00:16:16] discussion in a couple of places.

[00:16:19] Second, I'm very grateful to Michael for bringing up my book, Why

[00:16:24] Honor Matters, which he read and and put a said some really nice

[00:16:29] things about in the discussion.

[00:16:31] And then they discussed Pulp Fiction.

[00:16:33] Oh, we got damn it.

[00:16:37] Fuck you, Sarge.

[00:16:39] Um, so that's great.

[00:16:42] We'll put a link to that too.

[00:16:43] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:44] And the second thing I wanted to say about toxic masculinity, speaking of

[00:16:48] I've been doing a rewatch of Deadwood in preparation for the Deadwood movie.

[00:16:55] Yeah, which I saw already.

[00:16:57] But yeah, yeah, I have not because I'm trying to rewatch all of it

[00:17:01] now with my daughter.

[00:17:03] I was yeah, I was super impatient.

[00:17:04] But but yeah, I see that.

[00:17:07] But I I've loved this rewatch.

[00:17:10] We've we banged out the first season in a few days.

[00:17:14] And I have three things to say about it.

[00:17:17] Number one, I think my daughter has heard the word cocksucker

[00:17:22] maybe 20 times more than you combined all the other times.

[00:17:27] She'd heard it up till now.

[00:17:29] Why cocksucker?

[00:17:31] Yeah, then there's woos, woos version of that.

[00:17:35] She also learned the meaning of the word

[00:17:38] construct, which I don't think she knew before.

[00:17:41] I've never heard it.

[00:17:42] Well, obviously I have heard it, but it's because I've watched it.

[00:17:46] But I don't I don't think I would even think about what that means.

[00:17:49] Construct. Yeah.

[00:17:51] It's it's like their version of pussy whipped.

[00:17:53] OK, I figured that's it.

[00:17:56] And and then the third thing is I think it's the best.

[00:18:00] I think it's a best show.

[00:18:01] I really do.

[00:18:02] I think it's the best show of all time.

[00:18:04] I I've always sort of suspected it, but now, you know,

[00:18:08] in the third rewatch rewatch or whatever, I'm pretty convinced.

[00:18:12] So I to me, it's it's between the Sopranos and Deadwood.

[00:18:18] And you would think, given early conversations,

[00:18:20] that the wire would be higher.

[00:18:21] I've said this before.

[00:18:22] I don't think that I think that the wire suffers a little bit from.

[00:18:28] It's not timeless in the same way that those other two are that

[00:18:31] because racism is and and it's not it's capitalism or no longer a problem.

[00:18:36] Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:39] And Baltimore doesn't exist as far as I'm

[00:18:42] and Baltimore is doing great.

[00:18:44] So yeah, so dated.

[00:18:49] That.

[00:18:51] That the one thing is that, you know,

[00:18:53] Deadwood had three seasons and didn't get a fair chance to wrap it up.

[00:19:00] After this movie, that had this movie come out

[00:19:06] when Deadwood was wrapping up, I think it would have propelled me

[00:19:09] to think that this is the greatest.

[00:19:12] Yeah. So I might have to reassess, but, you know,

[00:19:14] the Sopranos is just a more complete art.

[00:19:16] And it's it's sort of like these discussions

[00:19:18] that people have about whether Biggie Smalls is the best rapper ever.

[00:19:22] And people often point out that he only had two albums.

[00:19:25] And how can you compare that with somebody like Jay-Z,

[00:19:28] who has like 10, 11, 12 albums?

[00:19:30] Would Biggie have really done a good job, you know, releasing or would he

[00:19:34] have gotten sucked up in Puff Daddy's bullshit

[00:19:36] and made some whack albums in the early aughts?

[00:19:40] Who knows? And, you know, I wish Deadwood had had four or five seasons

[00:19:43] to wrap things up, but but those three seasons.

[00:19:47] Fuck.

[00:19:48] Yeah. So good. Yeah.

[00:19:51] So yeah.

[00:19:52] Yeah. And so I mean, the thing that I mean,

[00:19:56] I've heard the movies good and you seem to like it.

[00:19:59] I don't want to talk about it, though, because no, but we might do a

[00:20:03] Patreon episode on it.

[00:20:04] That would be great. That's a great idea.

[00:20:06] The best thing about it from my point of view already is

[00:20:09] that it's got people talking about Deadwood because it's this

[00:20:12] like kind of like the step cousin or whatever.

[00:20:15] You know, like people don't.

[00:20:16] The redheaded stepchild.

[00:20:18] Yeah, the redheaded stepchild.

[00:20:20] The Fredo, the Eddie Namious.

[00:20:27] But it's yeah, like people talk about all these other shows

[00:20:32] and they and until now they haven't talked about Deadwood.

[00:20:35] And now you see critics being like, oh, yeah, this is like maybe.

[00:20:41] I totally agree.

[00:20:42] And it struck me that, you know, this shouldn't

[00:20:45] but that there are plenty of people online.

[00:20:47] I like I was actually reading some reddit thread

[00:20:49] because I've been spending too much time on Reddit lately.

[00:20:51] And that, you know, people were like, oh, I've never heard of that show.

[00:20:53] I'll check it out.

[00:20:54] And I'm like, what?

[00:20:56] Of course, you know, these are 14, 14 year olds or something.

[00:20:59] You know, of course they haven't.

[00:21:01] They've never had a chance to watch it.

[00:21:02] So I envy people who haven't.

[00:21:04] And I'm glad that it's being talked about again.

[00:21:06] I think it really did suffer because it never wrapped up properly.

[00:21:10] It's so distinctive and unique.

[00:21:12] My daughter hasn't really seen a lot of Westerns.

[00:21:15] It's not a genre of exposure to, but she still just immediately was like,

[00:21:20] Holy because every performance is so good.

[00:21:24] And so we've also recently started watching the Sopranos.

[00:21:29] We did we watch the first two seasons within the last couple of months.

[00:21:33] And so like I feel like that's not recency bias right now for me

[00:21:38] with those two shows and the Sopranos is amazing.

[00:21:41] So this is no knock on the Sopranos.

[00:21:44] But I don't think you care quite as much about so many characters

[00:21:48] in the Sopranos as you do on Deadwood.

[00:21:52] Like everybody has their own kind of like you deeply love them,

[00:21:57] even if you're appalled by some of the things that you do.

[00:22:00] There's just like, I don't know.

[00:22:02] Like it's such beautiful writing and such beautiful and the performances are,

[00:22:08] I think better than any of the shows.

[00:22:10] I mean, I'll say this Ian McShane in Deadwood,

[00:22:17] Sweringen, Al Sweringen, who we had a discussion a bit when Paul was on

[00:22:21] to talk about the greatest villains.

[00:22:23] And we actually took him off of the list because it was so obvious

[00:22:28] that he was so he was one of our just like it's obvious.

[00:22:33] Is likable in a way that Tony Sopranos character can't be?

[00:22:38] I would, I put those two performances though as two of the greatest performances on TV.

[00:22:46] I think they're clearly the two best performances and then it's a fairly,

[00:22:50] I like this fairly big drop off to the third.

[00:22:53] I don't know who that would be, but like I think they're just like,

[00:22:58] it's those two you can fight about it.

[00:23:00] I don't even have a huge opinion.

[00:23:02] I think they're both so remarkable.

[00:23:04] But they're very different.

[00:23:07] You know, Sweringen's acting Ian McShane's acting is so it's a beautiful interpretation

[00:23:17] of the amazing words that he was given.

[00:23:20] Right?

[00:23:20] He is delivering this, you know, as many pointed out, these Shakespearean

[00:23:25] soliloquies in some cases with in a way that if I read the script,

[00:23:31] I would be stilted like I wouldn't know what how the fuck to make that work.

[00:23:36] You know, all of them.

[00:23:37] But they all do that.

[00:23:38] Like that's what they it's incredible.

[00:23:40] One of the best things ever is what's his face?

[00:23:44] The hotel manager.

[00:23:46] Oh, E.B. Farnham.

[00:23:47] E.B. Farnham.

[00:23:48] When he is cleaning up that blood.

[00:23:50] Yeah.

[00:23:51] Oh, it is incredible.

[00:23:53] And this is the guy who was, you know, I'm fucking Larry.

[00:23:56] A new heart show, right?

[00:23:58] Brother Darrell.

[00:23:59] By the way, he looked Darrell and Darrell and he looks exactly the same.

[00:24:03] He totally does.

[00:24:04] He's aged very well in that show.

[00:24:07] He's so good and, you know, he's this grotesque character.

[00:24:11] I think someone even refers to him as a grotesque.

[00:24:15] And but yet, you know, everybody has their beautiful moments of eloquence

[00:24:23] and sort of poignancy on that show.

[00:24:26] And that's what I think is kind of sets it apart.

[00:24:29] I mean, the wire had this too, a lot of lovable characters.

[00:24:32] I don't think all the performances were at the level of Deadwood,

[00:24:36] but they but it had a similar kind of thing where you just loved

[00:24:41] a wide range of characters.

[00:24:43] I mean, the sparrows isn't like that.

[00:24:44] It's very focused on the family.

[00:24:47] And to be honest, AJ's performance is the worst part of that whole.

[00:24:51] Right.

[00:24:51] And then it has some bad performances.

[00:24:54] We just watched season two.

[00:24:57] I like the boyfriend Meadows boyfriend that Columbia.

[00:25:04] That guy.

[00:25:05] He is one of the most hateable people I've ever seen.

[00:25:10] And you feel a little guilty for hating him because he's this biracial kid who's like,

[00:25:15] like and she's fighting her dad.

[00:25:18] I don't I'm like, I don't understand.

[00:25:20] Are we supposed to like him because he is such a fucking cock?

[00:25:22] Like I hate by the end of your kind of like you're totally on Tony's

[00:25:26] side, not the racist part of it.

[00:25:28] But just that is a guy that needs to be hated.

[00:25:34] And I also think it's not like a good performance, even of that.

[00:25:38] Like I know he's not supposed to be likable, but I don't think it's a.

[00:25:42] No, no, I believe that that actor is just on.

[00:25:46] Maybe he's an amazing performer and maybe he's super likable.

[00:25:50] I wouldn't know.

[00:25:51] And I almost don't even want to know.

[00:25:52] Yeah.

[00:25:55] No, so if you haven't seen if you haven't seen this is I envy you and I also envy you.

[00:26:03] If you haven't write and this applies to you too.

[00:26:05] If you haven't read the entire Ted Chang collection of stories because it's great.

[00:26:10] It's really, really good.

[00:26:12] But we will be right back to talk about one of the stories.

[00:26:16] One of the best stories in it called The Truth of Fact and The Truth of Feeling.

[00:27:34] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards.

[00:27:35] This is the predictable time in the podcast where we like to do two things.

[00:27:41] Thank everybody for their support.

[00:27:45] We really, really appreciate every little bit of support that you give us and that includes

[00:27:52] just the communication that we get, the messages, the tweets, the emails,

[00:27:59] the Facebook posts, the Reddit posts.

[00:28:01] It's really, really nice for us to see the community engaging with each other

[00:28:05] and just to see your ideas.

[00:28:07] I actually look forward to just seeing what comes out of the twisted minds of our listeners.

[00:28:15] Yeah, Reddit has been good and not because of us really.

[00:28:19] No, no, that's the nice thing.

[00:28:20] It's a lot of interesting stuff going on on our subreddit that just has really very little

[00:28:25] to do with anything we've done.

[00:28:27] Right.

[00:28:28] People discussing it as a forum for their discussing the ideas that are kind of related

[00:28:31] to what we do.

[00:28:32] So if you do want to engage with us or with other listeners, you can do so by contact us,

[00:28:39] Very Bad Wizards at gmail.com.

[00:28:41] You can tweet to us at Very Bad Wizards or at Tamler, at P's.

[00:28:47] You can be active in our Facebook group.

[00:28:51] There's probably the Facebook group and the Reddit group.

[00:28:54] I don't know how much overlap there is.

[00:28:55] So whatever floats your boat.

[00:28:57] There are good discussions on both.

[00:28:59] You can follow us on Instagram.

[00:29:01] You can rate us on iTunes.

[00:29:02] Give us a review.

[00:29:03] We'll hear about what you think about us by reading those.

[00:29:07] We always get to kick out of those as well.

[00:29:09] And that's another case where our listeners are pretty witty sometimes.

[00:29:13] Yeah, they're pretty funny.

[00:29:14] And very nice.

[00:29:15] Yeah, we appreciate all of that.

[00:29:18] If you would like to support us in more tangible ways,

[00:29:21] you can go to our support page.

[00:29:24] In fact, I think there's always a link if you use a podcast app.

[00:29:28] There's always a link to our support page,

[00:29:29] but you can go to VeryBadWizards.com and you'll see a link to that.

[00:29:35] And there you will see a couple of ways in which you could support us.

[00:29:39] One is by becoming a Patreon supporter,

[00:29:42] which we very, very much appreciate.

[00:29:46] You can go directly there by going to Patreon.com

[00:29:49] slash Very Bad Wizards.

[00:29:51] And you'll be able to get a few extra goodies

[00:29:55] if you do sign up as a sort of thing.

[00:29:58] Thank you.

[00:29:59] In fact, that's what we were just discussing.

[00:30:01] Hopefully we could do a Deadwood once,

[00:30:03] once Tamler watches Deadwood movie.

[00:30:05] We can do something there,

[00:30:06] but there's plenty of bonus material already

[00:30:09] that we've accumulated.

[00:30:10] So if you're a new Patreon supporter,

[00:30:13] make sure you check all that out.

[00:30:15] And don't do the thing where you become a Patreon member

[00:30:18] before you have to pay and then get all our bonus content.

[00:30:23] There are certain listeners that are worried about people doing.

[00:30:28] Actually, I should have given them the idea.

[00:30:31] There's something, yeah.

[00:30:32] There's somebody acting unfairly in the room.

[00:30:36] But thank you.

[00:30:37] Yes. Thank you so much.

[00:30:38] We're very grateful for all that you do.

[00:30:42] And it's awesome.

[00:30:45] So let's talk about this story.

[00:30:52] You put me onto this.

[00:30:54] I just wanted to say really quickly,

[00:30:57] you've read most of the book.

[00:31:00] I've read the whole book.

[00:31:01] You read the whole book and you chose this story.

[00:31:04] I've read only this story,

[00:31:05] but once I read it, I knew why you chose it.

[00:31:08] But this is your find,

[00:31:09] so you're going to give a little overview

[00:31:13] of the themes of the story.

[00:31:15] Yeah, that's good.

[00:31:17] I'm glad you introduced my introduction.

[00:31:19] Your introduction for the story.

[00:31:21] I wanted to make it clear that what I was trying to do

[00:31:24] is give you credit for being the father of the story.

[00:31:26] And then I just rambled on.

[00:31:29] So anyway, it is a story about how technological advances

[00:31:35] can influence the way we understand ourselves,

[00:31:39] the world, and even truth itself.

[00:31:42] It actually, there's a lot of,

[00:31:43] there's some overlap between this story

[00:31:46] and the William James episode that we did.

[00:31:49] Then I don't think either of us were fully satisfied with.

[00:31:52] But there's some overlap in the themes of this story.

[00:31:58] So Ted Cheng, in this story,

[00:31:59] focuses on two new technologies,

[00:32:03] one that doesn't exist yet,

[00:32:05] and one that has existed for a long time.

[00:32:09] So the one that doesn't exist yet is called Remem.

[00:32:12] And it is a device like the one on that Black Mirror episode,

[00:32:17] a brief history of you that can record your experiences.

[00:32:22] But more importantly, like the advance of Remem

[00:32:25] is that it can call them up with quick and easy searches.

[00:32:29] So it's not, it's the people in the story

[00:32:33] already could record their experiences

[00:32:36] through their eyes or something.

[00:32:37] But it was time consuming and sometimes difficult

[00:32:40] to bring them up.

[00:32:42] But now thanks to Remem as the narrator writes,

[00:32:46] finding the exact moment you want is easy

[00:32:49] and life logs that used to be ignored

[00:32:51] are being scrutinized as if they were crime scenes

[00:32:55] thickly strewn with evidence for use in domestic squabbles.

[00:33:00] Right, it's like a Google, it's like a Google technology,

[00:33:02] but you're searching your own videos.

[00:33:03] You're searching your own past.

[00:33:07] And then the old technology

[00:33:09] that is sort of a parallel story here is writing,

[00:33:13] the ability to write down stories, to write down birth records,

[00:33:18] transcripts of trials, chapters and edited volumes, and other things.

[00:33:24] And it's like the lowest form of writing.

[00:33:30] Yeah, and so like I said, it tells two parallel stories

[00:33:33] about what happens when this new technology is introduced.

[00:33:38] The story about Remem is narrated by an unnamed journalist.

[00:33:43] He's never named, as far as I can tell, right?

[00:33:45] Right.

[00:33:45] Who initially wanted to write an article about the new technology

[00:33:49] and describe his misgivings about it.

[00:33:54] So that's one aspect of the story.

[00:33:56] And then the other story about writing technology takes place in 1941

[00:34:03] about a tribe somewhere.

[00:34:05] I don't know if we find out where.

[00:34:07] I mean they name the country but I assume that it's a fictional land.

[00:34:12] So it's a tribe with a long-standing oral tradition that comes under pressure

[00:34:17] when a missionary comes named Mosby and introduces the main character

[00:34:23] of this part of the story, Jijingi, to the art of writing.

[00:34:27] So now there are a couple of spoilers coming.

[00:34:31] And not yet but we will talk about.

[00:34:34] We have to talk about these spoilers.

[00:34:36] This story has, I would say, one big twist

[00:34:40] but it's both like a narrative twist and a thematic twist or a philosophical twist.

[00:34:49] So the narrative twist we'll get to as we talk about the plot

[00:34:55] but it's reflected by this philosophical twist because I think what it does is you think the

[00:35:00] story is leaning one way about the costs and benefits of new technologies before the twist

[00:35:07] but then it seems to lean the other way after the twist.

[00:35:11] And so that's how I describe it.

[00:35:14] So please read the story before you listen to our discussion as we start to analyze it.

[00:35:19] I really think you'll like it but that's just my introduction to the themes.

[00:35:24] What did you think about the story?

[00:35:26] It was great.

[00:35:27] I read it twice.

[00:35:30] I liked it even better the second time.

[00:35:33] It is, I think this is how we pick stories for this podcast.

[00:35:39] It's just really rich with ideas.

[00:35:42] There's a density of ideas here as you already pointed out.

[00:35:49] These two stories that are alternated in the telling are about identity and memory.

[00:35:56] They're about truth.

[00:35:59] They're about relationships.

[00:36:01] Yeah.

[00:36:01] There's just so much obviously about technology and the influence of technology

[00:36:08] about what it means to be human and how technology changes that.

[00:36:14] I really, really enjoyed it.

[00:36:15] I mean he's obviously a great writer but he's also just,

[00:36:19] just you could tell he's just a sharp dude.

[00:36:23] He's very, very intelligent about these ideas.

[00:36:28] He's bringing in a lot of varying ideas from different disciplines.

[00:36:35] This is true of all of them.

[00:36:37] They have kind of a gimmick but it's a very well researched gimmick.

[00:36:41] He writes about stuff that I know a lot about like free will and I think you know a lot about too.

[00:36:48] The movie Arrival, right?

[00:36:49] Did we mention that he wrote the short story based on the movie Arrival which is just

[00:36:53] a heavily influenced by psycho linguistics.

[00:36:57] I think already like three of these stories have been

[00:37:00] optioned for movies.

[00:37:02] Yeah and there's a lot of them that would be including this one but I would say

[00:37:07] there's a couple others that I think like I almost can't believe they're not already movies.

[00:37:12] But he really researches the technologies too in terms of what,

[00:37:17] I don't know if you read in his original volume but he has a story about the Tower of Babel.

[00:37:26] That really gets into what it would be like to build a tower that goes so high that it like

[00:37:33] how long it would take for people to get the bricks up and like so he gets into the like the weeds

[00:37:39] of the technology in a way that a lot of science fiction maybe doesn't.

[00:37:44] I mean the best science fiction does.

[00:37:46] Like the point of that story is just what would it really be like to build us

[00:37:52] a tower into the sky like that could go 50,000 feet high or whatever.

[00:37:59] Like how would you do that as an actual people?

[00:38:03] It's fascinating and I think all of his stories reflect that.

[00:38:07] All right so let's talk about how this story goes.

[00:38:11] Do you want to go through the plot in a detailed way?

[00:38:17] Let me try to give an overview of the journalist story.

[00:38:19] Maybe you give the story.

[00:38:24] So the narrative structure like we said is that there are these two stories.

[00:38:28] One is in the indeterminate future.

[00:38:32] A journalist is trying to research this new technology that allows you to search through

[00:38:37] your life logs.

[00:38:39] He's trying to write an article saying it's going to ruin us.

[00:38:43] He sounds like an older person and not not ruined but he's trying to research

[00:38:49] this story on this new technology for a technology that he has avoided because

[00:38:53] he thinks there are downsides to it.

[00:38:56] And so he talks about those downsides and that's one of the themes of the story which is

[00:39:04] to have verbatim specific knowledge available to you about every detail of your life.

[00:39:10] He thinks is not a great thing.

[00:39:14] But then he tries the technology in order to research the article.

[00:39:21] And in the process of telling us that this is what he's doing, he's talking about,

[00:39:26] he talks about his daughter Nicole who as the story goes, her mother, his wife left them

[00:39:34] at some point during her childhood and this became very difficult.

[00:39:38] He had to be a single father and they went through rough patches in their life

[00:39:43] but things have gotten better over time.

[00:39:46] And so he's sort of patting himself on the back for having made it through these difficult

[00:39:50] times and being a good father and having mended their relationship.

[00:39:53] And he specifically talks about this incident that really broke his heart.

[00:39:57] And when I read it, I was like, oh man, that would be fucking heartbreaking

[00:40:01] as somebody who has been in not a dissimilar position.

[00:40:05] That's right.

[00:40:07] It would just hurt.

[00:40:09] And the story is that at some point in high school, if I recall correctly.

[00:40:14] Yeah, she was a rebellious.

[00:40:16] She was a rebellious.

[00:40:17] She's going through a rebellious phase and they were having a pretty nasty argument that

[00:40:21] as he described started for some trivial reason that who knows he doesn't remember why.

[00:40:26] But it was in that fight that she yelled at him that this is,

[00:40:33] that it was his fault that his mother left.

[00:40:35] You're the reason she left.

[00:40:39] And he has a very, so you're the reason she left.

[00:40:42] You drove her away.

[00:40:43] You can leave too for all I care.

[00:40:45] I sure as hell would be better off without you.

[00:40:48] And then she stormed out.

[00:40:49] And this was a clearly a formative moment in his relationship.

[00:40:53] And as he's telling it, he's saying, I was mad.

[00:40:57] It took me a while but I came to realize that she was in a very bad position.

[00:41:01] She didn't choose this life.

[00:41:03] Like I have more responsibility over this.

[00:41:05] No matter how hard it's been for me, I can't imagine how it's been for her.

[00:41:08] And that was a turning point for him in how he started dealing with his daughter.

[00:41:13] And he was again, over time finally culminating in her college graduation

[00:41:18] as sort of a touchstone.

[00:41:20] He says, by that time we were getting along well.

[00:41:23] Before we get to the twist, can we just talk about that aspect of it?

[00:41:27] So I think his deep misgiving at first about this technology, Rameem,

[00:41:36] is that relationships run into, you have these rough patches.

[00:41:44] And if you can just recall the every detail of what a person said to you and what,

[00:41:50] like that's a terrible thing.

[00:41:52] Sometimes we think we want it.

[00:41:53] Like I get into fights with my wife all the time.

[00:41:57] But we're just remembering what happened like 20 minutes ago completely differently.

[00:42:03] And you sort of wish you had a recording but you don't really want that.

[00:42:07] And that's his point.

[00:42:10] That's his point is that sometimes to get over a fight,

[00:42:14] you just need to kind of forget what happened, form your own version of it.

[00:42:19] And it's just going to fuck up relationships if everyone's in a court case right now.

[00:42:23] Exhibit A of you being a dick.

[00:42:25] Exhibit B of you forgetting something.

[00:42:30] That's just not going to lead to a successful, long, sustainable life together.

[00:42:35] Right. And specifically he points out a couple of mechanisms.

[00:42:40] By the way, I've experienced, I don't know if you have,

[00:42:43] but in arguments with people I'm seeing where we just start pulling up text messages.

[00:42:50] No, you sent this in the text message.

[00:42:52] Yeah, see I fortunately my wife and I got together before that.

[00:42:58] We just yell at each other about like, you know, there's no way to prove who's right and who's wrong.

[00:43:05] So he points out that for one it's a mistake to think that finding the appropriate person to blame

[00:43:11] is what would resolve this conflict.

[00:43:13] Right. So he says, I'm no marriage counselor, but it's pretty clear from what I know

[00:43:17] that that's not really what's going to make things better.

[00:43:20] Right. Like it's not as if when somebody's like you call me an asshole.

[00:43:24] No, I didn't. And then you rewind and you see like they're just going to

[00:43:28] justify why they call you or say that, you know, the context was out of whatever.

[00:43:33] And he points out that up until the remembers the search technology.

[00:43:37] Yeah. And it's pretty cool. It allows you to in a sub vocal way

[00:43:43] that that initiates the search and so you can easily query your life log.

[00:43:48] So that's the technology. And he says, before that, as Tamler said, like these huge life logs

[00:43:55] with all this shit, like the only time people really went to the logs was for matters of justice,

[00:44:01] like criminal justice. Right. Like that's more like photo albums or like videos.

[00:44:05] Yeah. Like that stuff. Right. Right.

[00:44:08] But but he the reason I'm bringing this up is specifically when he says like they were

[00:44:13] largely like used officially to for matters of justice because and that's I think what he's

[00:44:20] what he's saying about relationships. Yeah.

[00:44:22] It's a mistake to think that a relationship is like a court case, like you said, it's not

[00:44:26] a matter of justice. It's a matter of getting getting to some kind of agreement about how we

[00:44:33] should treat each other, not about what you said or what I said. The second thing is,

[00:44:38] and I love this point, which is that is forgiveness possible when you have

[00:44:46] a specific detailed verbatim record of everything that somebody said.

[00:44:49] Yeah.

[00:44:50] And he says that forgiveness seems to him at least to be so dependent on the forgetting part

[00:44:54] from the forgiven forget saying that how can you heal a wound when you can always go back

[00:45:00] and look at the exact moment? Right. Yeah.

[00:45:03] I mean, think of an extreme case. Like suppose there is a case of infidelity,

[00:45:06] right? Like your Tamela, your wife cheats on you and you decide that you love her enough

[00:45:13] and she's regretful and you want to get over it. But you always could look at that moment.

[00:45:21] I mean, this is the plot of brief history of you, the Black Mirror episode.

[00:45:24] Yeah. I forgot that.

[00:45:25] So forgetting seems to play a really critical role in human relationships.

[00:45:29] Yeah. I can't count the number of times she's cheated on me that I've had to forget

[00:45:36] until now.

[00:45:38] And I find the memory even in my life is a wonderful wiping mechanism, right? Like I

[00:45:44] think we've mentioned this plenty of times. Like one of the problems with talking about grad

[00:45:47] school is that like my memory has wiped clean some of the anxiety and misery that I know I

[00:45:55] probably experienced. In my head it's like, you know, cool conversations over coffee with

[00:46:01] Paul Bloom or whatever. I also have trouble remembering because we haven't gotten into a

[00:46:06] big blowout fight you and me like in a long time. Like what were the hosts about again?

[00:46:15] You know, I was actually thinking about like moments probably like a few years ago where I

[00:46:18] probably was looking at texts and like telling you, no, you said this.

[00:46:22] And I remember we had recordings. There was sometimes we get into a fight over the

[00:46:26] recording and it's not like I was eager to look back and be like,

[00:46:30] No.

[00:46:30] It's terrible.

[00:46:31] and like send you like dropbox you. It's like a recording of you being an asshole.

[00:46:36] I mean think about it. I mean I was actually recently in an argument where it got to a

[00:46:41] stupid level like that where the other person was like, I'm going to show you the text

[00:46:46] and I'm like no, that's exactly what won't help resolve this. Like if you show me the text.

[00:46:51] Because then that'll demonstrate that I'm an asshole.

[00:46:54] Yeah. So he makes the point and there's a little illusion to Borges here I think.

[00:47:04] Borges has a story called Funez the Memorias about a man who remembers every single detail

[00:47:10] and Chang points to one case of this where the problem with remembering everything in

[00:47:16] specific detail is that you don't abstract away from those specifics.

[00:47:22] And it's very your brain, your mind is so preoccupied with details that it's hard to

[00:47:29] generalize.

[00:47:30] So I take this to be a separate point. This is something the so yeah this is I would say there's

[00:47:38] two misgivings that he has about this technology and the first is what it'll do to relationships.

[00:47:44] The second is what it will do to just your conception of yourself as a person.

[00:47:50] So he thinks that those two like your identity as a person and then so he gives an example of

[00:47:56] his memory as a child of having these afternoons with his grandmother that were so

[00:48:00] he has these warm memories of spending this time with his grandma and he says,

[00:48:04] what if I had a videotape of it? What if I had a life log of this? And in that life log I saw

[00:48:09] like her having to make an effort to be patient with me or saying being annoyed.

[00:48:16] It's not in his memory. It would sort of ruin maybe what is the deep truth that is that his

[00:48:21] grandmother loved him.

[00:48:23] And that it was a great experience for him. So here's what he says. He says,

[00:48:30] people are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second

[00:48:35] we've lived. They're the narratives we've assembled out of selective moments,

[00:48:40] which is why even when we've experienced the same events as other individuals,

[00:48:44] we never constructed identical narratives. The criteria used for selecting moments were

[00:48:49] different for each of us and a reflection of our personalities. And then he says,

[00:48:53] but I wondered if everyone remembered everything would our differences get shaved away? What

[00:48:57] would happen to our sense of self? It seemed to me that a perfect memory couldn't be a narrative

[00:49:03] any more than an unedited security cam footage could be a feature film. And I think that's

[00:49:08] like a really interesting analogy. It's like that our sense of self comes from the fact

[00:49:14] that we selectively interpret parts of our memory and create parts of our memory and experience

[00:49:21] to form our sense of who we are. And if we just had the cameras running, then we're all just

[00:49:31] atoms bouncing around.

[00:49:32] Yeah, there would be a blooming buzzing confusion that William James thought of that infancy was

[00:49:38] like. This is, I think, a deeply true point. The psychology of memory is if there is one thing

[00:49:46] that people who study memory or try to drive home to people is that your memory just isn't

[00:49:51] like a videotape. People have this sort of lay view that you're recording these detailed events

[00:49:56] and that it's just a problem of recall when you can't remember it. But no, you don't.

[00:50:01] Memory works to guide future action and it highlights the sort of important things.

[00:50:06] And over time, there's plenty of work that memories get distorted. Oftentimes it's because

[00:50:11] for reasonable mechanisms in the environment that are influencing your memory,

[00:50:19] when everybody experiences something like say 9-11, people incorporate into their memory

[00:50:25] a bunch of shit that they heard afterwards from other people. And it makes some sense.

[00:50:31] Your memory is serving to guide your future behavior. So it makes sense to incorporate all

[00:50:36] the environmental information. It can go crazily wrong for that reason, but that's just how it works.

[00:50:45] Now, what if you do have a videotape? Like it kills the narrative and it might kill relationships.

[00:50:53] There's a nice quote here that he says consistent with this and what you just read.

[00:50:57] It seemed to me that continuous video of my entire childhood would be full of facts

[00:51:01] but devoid of feeling simply because cameras couldn't capture the emotional dimension of events.

[00:51:07] Your memory is capturing the emotional dimension. Your emotions are playing a huge

[00:51:10] role in what you remember. And in fact, there's great research showing that even

[00:51:15] emotions that you have after the fact about an event change your memory for the event.

[00:51:21] So as your emotions towards something change over time, so to your memory, your memory matching.

[00:51:29] Which is good because if you go on a vacation that maybe had a lot of stressful bullshit and

[00:51:37] maybe some bickering and fights but then it just kind of turned out okay maybe in the last

[00:51:43] couple of days and it brought you and the people you were with closer together.

[00:51:49] And then your memory just emphasizes the good parts. There is a truth to that and that's like

[00:51:55] this is the title thing, right? Truth of fact and the truth of feeling. There are two kinds of truths.

[00:52:02] My colleague Tom Gilovitch does his research on spending your money on experiences versus on

[00:52:10] material goods. And one of the reasons that he says that we're so much happier when we

[00:52:16] purchase experiences like going on vacation or something is that even when those go bad,

[00:52:22] you can create a fun story from it. That time you had that horrible vacation. And what you're

[00:52:26] doing is you're imposing narrative structure on this and you're dealing with it by imposing

[00:52:30] that narrative structure, right? You are giving meaning and in processing the events in a way

[00:52:40] that just isn't fact after fact after fact. You can't do that with your refrigerator because

[00:52:45] it's just right there. Exactly. It's just a reminder you bought a wack refrigerator, a shitty

[00:52:49] TV. The way that I was thinking about this is the difference between say you're making a documentary

[00:52:56] film, right? Like you might think that the work is in gathering all of the footage but that's

[00:53:02] not most of the work. The work is in fucking somehow making a coherent narrative out of all

[00:53:07] that footage. Like that's from what I understand the deep challenge in doing something.

[00:53:12] This could be an episode on its own what is a documentary in relationship to truth,

[00:53:18] but just the act of editing which is very much like what we do with memory. A lot of it unconsciously

[00:53:27] creates its own kind of truth and a different person could create a different kind of truth

[00:53:33] with that exact same footage. Right. So here is what I think is the he concludes at the end

[00:53:40] of this section before the twist. That narrative that we construct is so critical to our sense of

[00:53:47] self. So he says, I wondered if everyone remembered everything would our differences get shaved away?

[00:53:53] What would happen to our sense of self? It seemed to me that a perfect memory couldn't be a

[00:53:58] narrative anymore than unedited security camp footage could be a feature film. So there's

[00:54:03] the fear of a disjointed self when your memory as we now have it is no longer the primary

[00:54:09] source of information about who you are in your past. Makes sense? Yeah, I mean, I just I did just

[00:54:15] read that passage. I don't know if you remember you did. Yes. And we have this recorded too.

[00:54:23] That is hilarious. And just to emphasize where I think you're going before you get to the twist

[00:54:29] up till this point in the story, you're kind of if you're me especially maybe not you.

[00:54:35] You have a little bit more of the kind of rationalist science, like,

[00:54:40] scientific or whatever side of you. But like, I'm like, yeah, this is totally right. Like,

[00:54:47] this new technology and I was thinking of analogies with like GPS is fucking with our sense

[00:54:52] of direction, you know, like these new technologies are just fucking with us in ways that we

[00:54:58] don't understand and that the sort of forced objectivity of them is a different kind of distortion

[00:55:07] that we're not able to detect now that we have all this new information. And that's where it seems

[00:55:15] like the story is going. Yeah, right. So it's like, you know, and there's work we talked about

[00:55:21] this off sort of offloading your memory, you know, people have trouble remembering shit when

[00:55:25] Google is next to them. Right? You just don't you don't use your faculties in the same way.

[00:55:31] Like what and is this doing something to us? Well, I don't have I don't have to know yet

[00:55:35] what it's doing to me because I until until you take away all of my technology, I just don't

[00:55:40] have to. So yeah, so here's the trick. Here's the twist. So he searches, he's got this all

[00:55:46] installed. One of the one of the virtues of this system is that you can request permission

[00:55:53] to view any footage in a sort of social network, he kind of way that other people have of you. So

[00:55:59] suppose as as the author didn't didn't have this installed in him. And so he's trying to rebuild

[00:56:05] the database. And so he sort of puts out a request, you automatically get permission granted for

[00:56:11] footage of yourself whenever anybody has it. He sees that there's a spike when his daughter

[00:56:17] got this installed. So it captured, you know, from that moment on every interaction he had with

[00:56:23] his daughter. So he's like, you know, all right, I'm going to look at that fight because that was,

[00:56:28] you know, at first he's looking at it like a just other normal stuff. He's like, I'm going to

[00:56:32] trash this new technology, I should at least try it. So I know what I'm talking about,

[00:56:36] unlike us when we trash things without knowing, he's more responsible or at least he portrays

[00:56:43] himself to be exactly. And this is, I think this is a nice, very nice literary way of showing

[00:56:49] this change. You know, he's being really sympathetic to himself in the first part of the story. And

[00:56:55] in a way that seems like a normal story. Yeah, of course. And we feel and we sympathize with him

[00:57:00] too. Last spoiler alert, please read the story because I really like I can't there's something

[00:57:07] about this twist even though it's not that big a deal. Yes, no, I'm not shy Mel on twist,

[00:57:12] but it's so it's an emotional twist. It's and it's so good. So interesting in a way that

[00:57:19] M.J. Schamler often aren't. Finally, he says, it seemed time for me to try rem him on some

[00:57:28] memories that were emotionally frayed. I love the way that he says, all right, I'm going to

[00:57:32] go to some of these fights. My relationship with Nicole, his daughter felt strong enough

[00:57:36] now for me to safely revisit the fights we'd had when she was young. Right. So he's like,

[00:57:41] you know, I fixed this shit. So let me go. I'm big enough to do this. So he sub vocalizes the

[00:57:46] time Nicole yelled at me, you're the reason she left the window pops up and sure enough,

[00:57:52] he lists out the words just as he remembered them. You're the reason she left. You drove her away.

[00:57:58] You can leave two for all I care. I sure as hell would be better off without you.

[00:58:02] The words were just as I remembered them, but it wasn't Nicole saying them. It was me.

[00:58:07] I mean, no. Yeah. That's just so and so at first he thinks it's not

[00:58:18] real like she doctored it, which is, you know, now you're starting to get a sense of who this guy

[00:58:23] is. Like he was sure that that that she doctored it and he was annoyed at her at first. Then he

[00:58:31] figures out through the technology that no, that's actually how it happened. Right. So here's where

[00:58:40] like I need to if you think that this isn't a realistic twist, that something this important

[00:58:46] would not be misremembered, then just read a little bit of the psychology member. Right. So

[00:58:55] there's a nice literature on what's called flash bulb memories where

[00:58:59] the initial thought was that people for highly emotional events, people would have like very,

[00:59:03] very accurate recollection for them. And when people started studying it for sure enough, people,

[00:59:09] you know, they remembered where they were, who they were talking to, all kinds of detailed

[00:59:15] shit. They remember, you know, how emotional they were. It seemed as if that's right.

[00:59:19] Right. People people have a good memory for their emotional, these emotional events until

[00:59:24] people actually did a right, the right kind of study to test for accuracy, much the way that

[00:59:29] that this journalist is doing by looking up his own life. Yeah. Turns out that they're just not

[00:59:34] that accurate. Right. Yeah. And so I, you know, I've had this experience. I used to lecture

[00:59:40] about this stuff and I remember, I don't know if I've told this story before, but

[00:59:44] I had a very vivid memory of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, which is

[00:59:47] one of the studies that was done and where I was and who the teacher was who didn't let us

[00:59:51] watch it on TV. But the other class got it and I was like, he was an asshole or whatever.

[00:59:54] I realized like three years into teaching this that I had completely, I was off by an entire year.

[00:59:59] Yeah. There's a completely different person. Different teacher. Yeah. Yeah. And so this

[01:00:04] shit, this hits me in the gut because I can totally see me rewriting my own memory

[01:00:12] and having just like in those studies, all of the confidence

[01:00:15] that I did or said something and being completely wrong. Yeah. He says,

[01:00:22] I would have testified hand on a stack of Bibles or using any oath required of me

[01:00:28] that it was Nicole who'd accused me of being the reason her mother left us.

[01:00:33] My recollection of that argument was as clear as any memory I had, but that wasn't the only

[01:00:38] reason I found the video hard to believe. It was also my knowledge that whatever my

[01:00:43] faults or imperfections, I was never the kind of father who could say such a thing to his child.

[01:00:50] Yet here was digital video proving that I had been exactly that kind of father and while I wasn't

[01:00:56] that man anymore. So he's still kind of in slightly delusional state here or at least that suggested

[01:01:04] I couldn't deny that I was continuous with him, which is a nice call back to

[01:01:09] him saying that earlier about something that I find that so like this also hit me in a gut level.

[01:01:16] And I have similar experiences to you where there are things I remember that turned out to be

[01:01:21] totally different than and I remember them so clearly and they just didn't happen that way.

[01:01:28] But then also the other things that I don't know about like what do I remember that

[01:01:37] that just I'm that it's a complete invention and that last part that he says I think is so

[01:01:43] interesting and so sad and so kind of deep is I didn't think I could be that kind of person who

[01:01:52] would do that like a man and I like I feel this way too. There's nothing that Eliza could do

[01:01:59] to me that if under those circumstances I could say that to her. And this is what he's talking about

[01:02:08] where your selective memory constructs a narrative and that narrative constitutes who you are yourself.

[01:02:17] Yeah, because you go back to those memories, right? That feeling of continuity is in many ways

[01:02:22] just harkening back to these experiences that you've had like I remember in high school I did

[01:02:27] this I remember in college I did this and but this is such a deeply moral thing like your whole

[01:02:33] moral conception of self is yeah I could never do this this or this. No, I know this haunts me because

[01:02:45] I can sometimes see myself rewriting my role in some shitty things that I've done.

[01:02:52] I can kind of just see it happening like so much so that like a year later I probably know

[01:02:58] that I will be like no, no, that never happened right. Like I'll sort of switch around my timelines

[01:03:03] you know. It totally explains how you've been able to live with yourself for all the

[01:03:09] shit you've done with to me. It's true. You know shout out to by the way my former student

[01:03:14] Chelsea Healyon and another student Eric Helzler we have a paper that we're working on right now

[01:03:18] that they kind of is trying to look at this where when you ask people to remember times that

[01:03:23] they were morally harmed people can generate a shit ton of them. If you ask people to remember

[01:03:28] a time when they harm someone else it's very they come up short right and in a way that just

[01:03:34] can't be true I think because for instance we justify things we use context in our

[01:03:40] explanation of ourselves we you know. So just another just I think just such a great

[01:03:46] detail and why Ted Chang is just such a good writer and he goes into this I think deeper than a lot

[01:03:53] of people who came up with this idea would go into it. You mentioned earlier that he

[01:03:59] the way he had remembered it even though she said that hurtful thing he realized that there

[01:04:07] are ways in which he had been selfish and that he needed to become a better father like

[01:04:15] and so you know at the time where you're hearing that you're like oh you know this isn't self

[01:04:20] aggrandizing this is somebody who kind of changed as a father because it's true it would be

[01:04:26] a little selfish to consider yourself a victim under those circumstances and yes maybe she said

[01:04:32] this hurtful thing but you need to get over that and you need to and then he remembers

[01:04:38] this college graduation as the sort of culmination of him improving himself as a person and as

[01:04:44] a father. Yeah that story that that narrative arc. Yeah and I love that it starts out with him being

[01:04:51] kind of the bad guy but not in any way like reflecting how much of a bad guy he actually was

[01:04:57] and then he has this narrative where he was so successful in reforming himself that their

[01:05:03] relationship at the graduation was really good and then so he has this kind of confrontation

[01:05:09] face to face with his daughter and to his credit he is really up front about like I'm so sorry I

[01:05:17] can't believe this you know and then and so she at first is as you would be if you were her

[01:05:25] just appalled that he remembered it. Yeah she's like what do you remember what?

[01:05:31] I mean that's just like. It's just so insulting. It's so insulting and and then you realize

[01:05:38] she's gone through so much shit because of that and then he says well the graduation where I remember

[01:05:46] us being good you know is that real and she says yes that's real but not because of anything you

[01:05:53] did but because I went to therapy and my therapist convinced me that I shouldn't just stay angry at

[01:06:00] you and I thought that was such a great like not only do you misremember the event but you

[01:06:10] misremember the context or you invent sort of context of everything that's happened after that

[01:06:18] to fit your narrative of you as a improving you know like self-reflective person that's so

[01:06:26] cool and I mean sad you know he's the protagonist of reality right so it's like he

[01:06:33] it's all about it's all about him in this way that she really brings him out of it right she like

[01:06:39] you somehow think this is about you like fuck you yeah like now you said that to me now imagine

[01:06:45] like all the shit that I went through and and she's she doesn't pull punches she's kind of like

[01:06:53] I'm back that kind of didn't like her when I'm hurting that part I agree yeah I mean who knows why

[01:06:58] but yeah yeah a little bit like oh you shouldn't say that he's he is trying to apologize and he says

[01:07:05] that I am trying to apologize and she's like it's all about you it's like well it's about me in

[01:07:10] the sense that I'm trying to apologize like how like how else are you gonna apologize just

[01:07:16] meaningless like I've been over this like you're gonna bring this up now you're harming

[01:07:19] me by bringing this up now like I was over this and you know the fucked up thing is that as you read

[01:07:26] it he actually he's a little bit tailed between his legs he's like no you're right you know I

[01:07:32] I'm really sorry for all this shit that I've done and you know I'm sorry for even hurting you

[01:07:37] by bringing this up and then you're like yeah he's a big guy but then you think he's fucking

[01:07:41] writing the story like that could have gone a completely different way he's become an

[01:07:46] unreliable narrator exactly yeah exactly so somehow in this narrative he comes he comes out of it like

[01:07:53] looking like a good guy so yeah I mean he does yeah and and I end in a way that I still even knowing

[01:08:01] that kind of believe that he is but at the same time like let's just maybe let's just talk about

[01:08:08] this yeah if he really said that like can you be a good guy if you really said that to your

[01:08:16] teenage daughter after her mother abandoned the family like in I mean this is yeah this is where

[01:08:23] I just think like it's as much as I you know it's part of like the research that I do is on

[01:08:30] attributions of character and like that kind of shit I think that it's a mistake to think

[01:08:36] yeah that he is either a good or bad guy right this is just shit we do yeah right and sometimes

[01:08:40] the shit we do we're we are the bad guy in somebody's life yeah you know that's right like people might

[01:08:46] resent us for things that we have no idea that we did and in fact things that we would never

[01:08:50] think and it's not that like no no I'm a good guy well of course I want to believe that I'm

[01:08:54] a good guy but I am a neutral agent I am like a thing that does things and some of those things

[01:09:00] suck and some of them don't and you know I mean you're not denying that people there are

[01:09:06] better people or worse people no no I'm sort of like the hard line situation no no no I

[01:09:13] like I think there's stability and I think there's you know but but our intentionality

[01:09:18] overwhelms our behavior in our own view of who we are and other people's behavior overwhelms their

[01:09:23] intentionality in when we judge other people and I think that if you really reflect on what we

[01:09:29] are we are sort of just you know we're people who undoubtedly are are bad and good and yeah

[01:09:38] what the question of what we do to try to ensure that we're good is a tough one I still wonder

[01:09:44] when it comes to something like that so I agree with you like we're capable of doing

[01:09:50] terrible things we probably have done terrible things maybe but there's something about

[01:09:55] so it's not just that he said it in a fit of anger but then that he remembered it the other way

[01:10:05] that I like I even knowing the research that you're describing even having some

[01:10:12] ability to self-reflect I just don't think I would be capable of doing those two things

[01:10:18] together maybe I could in a bout of anger like if if she pushed me and you know just triggered

[01:10:27] like my rage I could say it but I can't imagine myself remembering it as she said it to me

[01:10:37] like I can't think of any other example in my life where something like that's happened maybe

[01:10:42] that's just because there's not this technology right I mean that's the point

[01:10:46] so a good friend of mine and and his son who sometimes listened to his podcast so apologies

[01:10:53] no no identities revealed have had a long-standing disagreement problem yeah I've had a long-standing

[01:10:59] disagreement about a memory from childhood probably a series of memories where the child vividly remembers

[01:11:07] some very very hurtful things that the father said the father swears he's he was incapable of

[01:11:14] saying those things he thinks this is just you know and and listening to them both it's

[01:11:22] it almost doesn't matter who's right what matters is they get past it but but and this is the

[01:11:30] twist where I think that if if we did have this technology it might get them some way into

[01:11:37] resolving this because yeah right now neither of them is willing to believe otherwise so that's

[01:11:42] what's so interesting about the you know there's the narrative twist but then there's the thematic

[01:11:47] twist where at first you think the way he's describing this technology and of course you

[01:11:52] get it because he's telling the story it it sort of flatters your skepticism about this being a good

[01:12:02] thing for humanity but then you know the way it turns out it actually does I don't know if it

[01:12:11] improves his relationship with his daughter though it might because she also finds that she didn't

[01:12:16] remember things totally clearly and so that softens her attitude a little bit towards him

[01:12:22] and you don't get the sense that their relationship is worse afterwards from her perspective it's

[01:12:30] it's almost surely better from her perspective but not necessarily from his like yeah okay so we

[01:12:38] so we just talk about the other story because when we do I want to pitch something that that is

[01:12:43] just the idea that's growing on me okay that that unifies these two because on the face of it well

[01:12:49] they're both very unified I think and they both have parallel twists I think yeah but

[01:12:55] but but I feel like the emotional tone of the two is different in a way that you might conclude

[01:13:01] two opposite things from the influence of technology right yeah so but so for this one though

[01:13:07] I totally agree for this one it seems like the arc of it is at first you're supposed to and again

[01:13:15] this is not clear cut there's no agenda here but at first he's leaning you towards thinking this is

[01:13:23] something that was destructive for us at a very deep level and at the lat and then at the end of

[01:13:31] the story you think oh maybe this is actually something that would be good for us so that we

[01:13:35] stop being such self-obsessed self-deluded assholes right right the ability to know that you're an

[01:13:42] asshole is what is being bought by this technology yeah and it is a it is something that evades us

[01:13:49] just because of all of the protective mechanisms that we have it's rare that you can be shown

[01:13:56] clear evidence of your ass wholeness yeah especially if you're good at sort of

[01:14:02] constructing yourself not to be you know which you know I feel like I am like I feel like that's

[01:14:07] a skill that I have I absolutely think that too this is this is why about me I've said a few times

[01:14:18] like there's I have to just admit that there are things that I've said that have hurt people

[01:14:23] there are things are done that are bad and because that's the only way I'll be open to

[01:14:30] like improving myself because like you can rest on your laurels by like focusing so much on the good

[01:14:34] things you've done but here's what's so interesting right like that's exactly what the narrator would

[01:14:39] have said before the you know the twist is oh yeah like here's an example of me being a bad guy and

[01:14:48] and then I and then I improved myself and that so in other words you saying that we could still

[01:14:54] be pre-twist saying that it's true two things though one that's getting part of the way there

[01:15:03] right there's a reason we think that he's a good guy because that is more than some people might do

[01:15:08] if he's really doing that but two one of the things that he didn't do was have a conversation with

[01:15:15] his daughter about yeah right and like I don't think I do this very well like I can't even remember

[01:15:19] last time I did it but being really like asking somebody hey like tell me like be honest like

[01:15:26] have I always treated you like you know like tell me sometimes can you imagine going to

[01:15:31] to your wife or to your girlfriend or boyfriend whatever say can you tell me sometimes when I

[01:15:35] did something that really hurt you that like I might not know about like gather that information

[01:15:40] and he's he I think that's part of his problem is that he concluded something with before he

[01:15:46] really talks to his daughter about it but see and part of this is maybe because

[01:15:52] I'm a bit of an open book in things and I have a hard time just not talking about

[01:15:57] bit conflict and bad things in the air but what I think that is and I don't know if

[01:16:03] this is not believable or if this is just a certain type of person but I couldn't have

[01:16:09] had that fight whoever said you know I couldn't have had that fight without talking about it

[01:16:15] for the next six months essentially and trying to figure out why that was said what and so that's

[01:16:23] why I never put that much effort into me with our friends.

[01:16:29] Well I see you more as like like in a booty call kind of toy so maybe maybe you're right

[01:16:37] that I love how our relationship is such that I didn't even blink at that.

[01:16:41] I mean maybe you're right but like what you don't what you're not what you wouldn't be doing in that

[01:16:47] situation is gathering brand new information about something that you may not know that you've done.

[01:16:53] You know just like I just had this memory I was with friends from high school

[01:17:01] and one of my friends from high school said that me and you know this other friend

[01:17:08] played what is sounds like the cruelest joke that I've ever heard on him and some girl that

[01:17:16] really was into him and loved him. I and I had completely erased it like he said I would have

[01:17:23] sworn on a stack of Bibles that I didn't do it and I'd like to maintain in fact that I

[01:17:28] didn't do it but I don't but I think that he wouldn't lie about this so.

[01:17:34] It's terrible it's terrible.

[01:17:35] And I like I couldn't believe it and I would maintain till my day if he hadn't told me that

[01:17:43] and so we should talk about the other story because we has not come up at all and I think

[01:17:48] it's maybe not as gripping but there is a lot of interesting stuff in that too.

[01:17:55] I take the primary point of this story which is detailed and fairly long

[01:18:00] about this hunter gatherer seeming tribe and culture in the 40s is to point out that hey this

[01:18:09] has happened before and the way that it happened is a way that you completely take for granted now.

[01:18:13] So you might think that this is all identity changing but you don't realize that we've gone

[01:18:17] through a pretty steep identity changing technologies already and this is just about

[01:18:23] the emergence of writing as a technology which it's totally true I mean you would almost think

[01:18:31] that it was a innate ability right.

[01:18:34] It's so second nature to process the written form but most humans that have existed

[01:18:43] had zero ability like this just didn't exist.

[01:18:48] So the oral culture do you want to give a quick overview I think I did a bad job

[01:18:51] of I went too long in my over here.

[01:18:53] No I think it was good so about it you know of course you would think that you did.

[01:19:01] I'm being a good person.

[01:19:03] So the idea is that there's this tribal culture this missionary comes and introduces this young

[01:19:10] man I think he's yeah 13 I think when he starts when he's being introduced to this

[01:19:19] and this missionary is trying to tell them the story of Adam and Eve

[01:19:22] and he reads this on this paper and this kid has heard about paper and what it is but he

[01:19:28] doesn't understand it and he says well that's you know that's interesting it's not a you

[01:19:35] didn't tell the story well.

[01:19:37] You're like you know a great story.

[01:19:39] But yeah that's sort of interesting and then he learns how to write and he learns the

[01:19:43] art Jajangi does.

[01:19:45] When clearly his tribe isn't right he's I think the only one.

[01:19:48] But what's interesting about the tribe and it's not like their reactionary against it either

[01:19:54] they are just not interested in it like Jajangi is and they're a little suspicious of some of

[01:20:04] the things that it can do and maybe roughly the way that the narrator is suspicious of it

[01:20:12] but I thought here's one thing that I don't see a parallel of

[01:20:15] when he talks about writing and the way it helps you think yeah there's this cool line where he says

[01:20:24] writing helps me decide what I want to say and then I think Jajangi puts it perfectly where he says

[01:20:33] as he practiced writing Jajangi came to understand what Mosbih had meant writing was not just a

[01:20:39] way to record what someone said it could help you decide what you would say before you said it

[01:20:45] and words were not just the pieces of speaking they were the pieces of thinking when you wrote them

[01:20:51] down you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hand and push them into different arrangements.

[01:20:58] Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn't if you were just talking

[01:21:04] and having seen them you could improve them make them stronger and more elaborate and that

[01:21:09] you know this is something anybody who's written is familiar with at a visceral level that the act

[01:21:18] of writing helps to form what your opinion is and what your thoughts are and what your ideas are

[01:21:25] and when you start writing you don't know where it's going to go in the same way that you do

[01:21:33] after you've written. Absolutely. I will say that this is something that went especially right now

[01:21:41] where I'm in a bit of a lull with writing like there's a corresponding lull and how I'm thinking

[01:21:48] about things because I don't I noticed that. I think Ian Forster said this is gonna sound

[01:21:57] pretentious but I remember this I read this in my 20s I think I don't know I don't know anymore

[01:22:03] what happened and what didn't but how do I know what I think until I see what I write that's the

[01:22:10] idea it's like you start the writing and then it just brings out like your what you think about

[01:22:18] a topic. Yep yep and you know so many times so many times I have to remind students you know

[01:22:24] write start writing the paper. Like you think you're doing all this work organizing your thoughts

[01:22:29] but like until you start writing you don't really know you know you don't really know.

[01:22:34] But also do an outline you know. But so yeah so but but then there's other things that writing

[01:22:42] does that we don't even totally understand how it damages but telling a story. I mean I think

[01:22:48] there's definitely a reason that maybe the two greatest works of literature of all time

[01:22:56] didn't get written down for 400 years like the Iliad and the Odyssey like they were they were

[01:23:02] passed on that story was passed on in an oral tradition and the storytelling aspect of it

[01:23:09] arguably has never been equal story at least but I mean even if it's you can quibble about

[01:23:15] but like the fact that those two works are so paramount in western so much of western literature

[01:23:23] is modeled on it and the fact that for at least 500 years it was never written down

[01:23:29] that's that shows that there's a downside to being able to record. Yeah that the art of

[01:23:36] storytelling gets chipped away at it gets eroded in some way. And you know think about

[01:23:43] what it takes to memorize stories of that length and then you get a sense of what an oral culture is

[01:23:47] so if we didn't say the Djinkees tribe is an oral culture. Not that they all like blow each other.

[01:23:54] Well we don't know that but that's not that's not how it works. And it might be one of those

[01:24:00] cultures where you have to like the 12 year olds have to suck the dicks of elders.

[01:24:05] I think there's a lot of subtext that to that effect. Mosby the missionary you know.

[01:24:11] But memory we just don't have this kind of memory. I mean we just we it's available to us

[01:24:17] if we really practiced it but nobody nobody memorizes 500 pages of some. And the way he

[01:24:23] describes storytelling Jijingi and you know his elder and the way he tells a story it's not

[01:24:29] just with the words but the the feeling that like his tone his body just like the

[01:24:37] the story just exudes from its whole being rather than just being words on it.

[01:24:43] Exactly and hopefully this is just upon reflection it's obvious what the difference is right. I mean

[01:24:49] it's really the difference you know good actors and bad actors.

[01:24:52] Yeah the difference between reading Shakespeare and seeing Shakespeare performed by great actors.

[01:24:58] Right. I love Jijingi when the missionary Mosby is telling him like oh the stories are

[01:25:04] on the paper and he says how can paper tell a story. Yeah and that's totally right.

[01:25:09] Right it's like that doesn't even make sense to him because storytelling is like an essential

[01:25:16] quality of it is that people tell it and the way they tell it. But then now the introduction of

[01:25:23] writing raises a problem because now that he can write down the stories that the elders tell

[01:25:28] he's like well you didn't tell it that way last year. You know he's talking about I did

[01:25:34] and then he gives him like he goes back to the I mean it is this is a cool parallel right he's

[01:25:40] like no I wrote down what you said and it's a fairly big difference. Yeah wasn't it I thought

[01:25:46] this was one of the cases where it wasn't that. It wasn't that different he says oh you're right

[01:25:51] it's the same story but you change the way you tell it right this is the original like

[01:25:56] no it's the same. So here's a really interesting little again just a really thing that sets Ted

[01:26:03] Chang at the apart from other people who might be writing something like this. He says if you told

[01:26:10] it the way you did before you would say that you yangi captured the women and children and

[01:26:15] carried them off as slaves every time. And then the elder looks at him and says that's

[01:26:21] what's important this is what you've learned about writing. And then this other elder says

[01:26:26] it's not your place to judge jjingi. The hair favors one food the hippo favors another

[01:26:33] let each spend his time as he pleases. And so you're getting a kind of I don't know like right

[01:26:41] away you're getting a kind of epistemic relativism that's being accepted but in a nice twist

[01:26:49] it's actually the stupid kid who's given the benefit of the doubt here not the elder that's

[01:26:56] given the benefit of the doubt later the elder will be given the benefit of the doubt in a fairly

[01:27:01] significant and dramatic way but you get the sense that they understand truth in a different

[01:27:07] way and in fact they do like they even have different words for two kinds of truths precise

[01:27:14] and what's right and what's precise what's right and what's precise which is I mean this is just

[01:27:21] I love I love that stuff it's great it's a great distinction and yeah and I mean on the one hand

[01:27:27] it's very clearly true on the other hand it gives them a lot of flexibility and we see that flexibility

[01:27:33] because of you know whatever colonization there's a push to have the Europeans don't

[01:27:40] want to deal with all of these separate tribes as independent government you know as independent units

[01:27:45] and so they want to unify these these tribes how do you unify them well there's a natural way which

[01:27:51] is to look at which tribes share ancestors because the ancestors are right the critical

[01:27:57] critical part of the identity of each of the tribe so they're all of the same people

[01:28:01] but all of the same people have specific different lineages of ancestry

[01:28:08] and so all of the tribes get together and they're trying to decide where Jijingis tribe should go who

[01:28:14] they should unify with and so part of their little groups wants to go with one group one lineage

[01:28:22] and the other Jijingis wants to go with another one and they get into an all out argument about this

[01:28:28] there are two different ancestors they said like should we go with the Jajira clan or with

[01:28:33] the Kwandek clan right and that's what the argument is and the european that mosby says

[01:28:40] hey didn't you know when the europeans first came here didn't they write down all of this stuff

[01:28:46] right and he's like yeah how like let's go like can we go check yeah let's go look so so mosby

[01:28:52] because he needs a european with him uh and and Jijinga go and check it out turns out

[01:28:58] his the wise man the the chief of his tribe who is seems like a really nice guy

[01:29:06] is totally wrong yeah like that he was wrong with the lineage so he's been arguing and they've been

[01:29:11] sort of like casting aspersions on this other tribe they've been saying like they're lying

[01:29:16] about who our lineage is because they want to get something out of this and we are standing firm

[01:29:22] because we know that our ancestor is is a kwandek and so uh so jijing comes back and is like he goes

[01:29:29] back very eager like in russia's family is like i've got a correct i've got to write this wrong i've

[01:29:34] got a you know yeah right yeah so he goes to uh to sabi first he does exactly what the father

[01:29:44] did in the previous story which is there must be something wrong with this record yeah right

[01:29:50] and he's like no no it's not wrong uh well he says well who said this and he says well our

[01:29:57] our you know venerable ancestors said this he says well you're right they were great men

[01:30:03] so they couldn't have said this so the paper said it it's not like they didn't say it

[01:30:12] i think you're reading it wrong or like yeah he's like well and he's like don't you think

[01:30:17] we should listen to our ancestors like absolutely and if they were here i would definitely listen to

[01:30:21] them yeah yeah and they would tell me exactly what i already know so at this is the turning point

[01:30:27] right where the twist is less of a twist in this case it's just that jijinki realizes

[01:30:35] that he's not going to win this and that he probably shouldn't yeah there is a truth to what

[01:30:41] the elder is saying that he doesn't want to disagree with so do you i mean this is interesting

[01:30:50] because i think you could read this a number of ways like how are we supposed to take this

[01:30:53] are we supposed to think the elder is right about this are we supposed to think no this is why

[01:30:59] writing is so important that because this can be the agent of oppression this can be the

[01:31:07] vehicle for doing all sorts of injustice if you can just make up your own history

[01:31:13] like if we can i mean think of what we've done how much we've sugar coated what we've done to

[01:31:19] native americans how much we've are we supposed to think no this is exactly why you need writing

[01:31:25] or are we supposed to see a kind of truth in what the other elder is arguing yeah i i admit that

[01:31:33] i'm tempted by jijinki's side uh and saying well i take that what what he's doing is respecting the

[01:31:45] decisions of the elders because the elders believe it to be the right decision to go with this particular

[01:31:52] group and what they're doing is they're just using the lineage as a justification right but

[01:31:58] they're being wise that the right decision is to go with this group and the way in which they

[01:32:03] can easily convince everybody else this is why is by uh by just appealing to this lineage and maybe

[01:32:09] they've themselves forgotten but uh but that's not the point yeah i think what's going on is that

[01:32:17] he's he's agreeing with he's he's deferring to the wisdom of the elder um and saying you know

[01:32:27] like it doesn't matter it what matters is where he thinks we should go

[01:32:32] and where he thinks we should go i think is is thinking is is not really just about who our

[01:32:37] lineage is it's about all these other things and but he's not going to list all those other things

[01:32:42] right like he might not even be able to so it's a pragmatist view of truth yeah yeah i mean it

[01:32:49] you know that jijinki is secretly thinking oh f*** man we just lied we just lied

[01:32:56] yeah and they have this debate earlier about no it's not a lie if what you're saying is right

[01:33:02] even if it's not precise so like all of this stuff is forced out of the epistemic relativism the

[01:33:08] i'm i'm interested that that's your take i would have predicted that you would have had the opposite

[01:33:14] take that this is you know that this is parallel to what if the father had just said no f*** it

[01:33:22] like i think she said it and i'm denying the evidence that well this is this is what brings me back

[01:33:28] like full circle because one of the things that upon reading this and discussing it just now that i'm

[01:33:34] i'm thinking is that you know that story is written the the journalist in his daughter's story

[01:33:41] is written with her essentially uh because of the fact because of the fact that he was the

[01:33:48] one who said that telling him that he's been the villain the whole time yeah

[01:33:54] there very well might be a truth to him being a good guy that she is ignoring because she's

[01:34:00] relying on the particular fact that he said that in the argument so there might actually be a way

[01:34:07] in which she is focusing on what's precise right and she's wrong about what's right

[01:34:15] yeah maybe she did in fact treat him like s*** well i mean there's i actually that's

[01:34:21] that you say that and i remember writing something down about that like well you're

[01:34:26] something because because i said it you're now trying to claim it as your memory

[01:34:30] exactly uh no there's something that nicole says which makes it seem like

[01:34:38] she's doing her own version of what he's yeah she's self-righteous in the same exact way

[01:34:45] yeah which would totally make sense i mean and because she's using the precision truth

[01:34:51] he acquiesces because that's the truth that he thinks is the truth yeah that's right it's not

[01:34:57] like sabay which by the way is to know in spanish really that's interesting yeah no i i think

[01:35:04] that's right i mean i think like good literature he's not he he's not taking a full side here he's

[01:35:12] showing both sides in a really vivid and interesting way the reason i i kind of thought you might take

[01:35:20] the other version of the moseby story is that there does seem something will like it seemed like

[01:35:28] the scott adams on sam harris podcast like well it doesn't matter like if those are the fact or

[01:35:34] what matters is the emotional truth behind it and what gets done and what i don't know like i kind of

[01:35:41] thought you were you you i i thought you were less postmodern here no no no here is the here

[01:35:48] is my my interpretation of what's going on which is i absolutely think that that can happen

[01:35:53] right with that distortion chen has gone out of his way to give us specific examples of the

[01:36:00] wisdom of saudi right and i think that the reason he's doing that is because he wants to set the

[01:36:07] stage for this guy being fair and honest and good to his people yeah and i think that what might

[01:36:13] really be going on is that either he doesn't realize that his memory changed this because

[01:36:21] he has reasons to believe that this would be the better thing but also there's a complex way in which

[01:36:27] i think his intuition as an elder we now trust not because it's a gut just emotional like i want

[01:36:34] to convince everybody that i'm right but rather there might be 10 different reasons like the

[01:36:40] proximity of this other tribe to our current tribe like our ability to maintain you know

[01:36:45] our natural resources our ability to travel where we need to travel all of those things

[01:36:50] might actually be reasons but they're not from the kind of culture where it's going to list

[01:36:54] a whole bunch of reasons and argue yeah they trust they trust the wisdom yeah right in in fact wisdom

[01:37:01] is sabi like sabiduria is wisdom in spanish i i'm i'm assume there's lat behind it not the

[01:37:08] ted chain is speaking spanish but i think that they trust his wisdom that is the true it's

[01:37:13] not just the truth of feelings it's the truth of a deep wisdom that we're trying with you know

[01:37:20] yeah he's just incapable of saying all of those things and you know sabi is the one who originally

[01:37:26] chided the guy for for attacking uh jijingi it's not your place to judge him so that is a kind

[01:37:34] of wisdom it's a kind of sophistication that he then shows that totally makes sense that he's

[01:37:40] the one to say that and it both it both signals a kind of epistemic relativism but also just a wisdom

[01:37:50] like uh like he knows what's best he's being charitable to to his people i mean you think

[01:37:58] about it like what an expert is sometimes like you you might disagree it's almost like the pig

[01:38:03] newton's thing right where you're like look do you really want me to come in here and tell you

[01:38:09] exactly all of the reasons that i think this just let me fucking say it's big newtons and just

[01:38:14] believe me right because i know better than you and sabi might have like a whole list of things

[01:38:19] that he may have well discussed with the other elders in the argument and he might have just

[01:38:24] thought this is the best way to communicate this um or am i or am i not or like that's the thing

[01:38:30] i think that is interesting about this is i i think at some deep level he doesn't think that

[01:38:36] matters in the same way that my relatives about judy is um they were telling me i needed to live

[01:38:43] as an orthodox person for a year and then mary jen and she converts as orthodox and i'm like

[01:38:49] giving it i was in a new atheist phase of my own and i'm giving all this like evidence and they're

[01:38:55] like yeah whatever that's fine just live this way you know here's one way of thinking it because

[01:39:02] details aren't available in that oral culture in the same way that they are in a written culture

[01:39:09] you know the the little story where jengy tells the storyteller you said it differently this year

[01:39:16] yeah he's like no i didn't he's like yeah you use these words and we're on board with the the

[01:39:22] storyteller there because you're like you know this is a different distinction without a difference

[01:39:27] right this is like you you're you're missing the point and i think jengy was missing the point like

[01:39:32] it doesn't matter that he used the word in different order slightly different words he was saying the

[01:39:36] same thing i think that's what maybe chang wants us to believe about in in an oral culture where

[01:39:43] the details can't be the final answer to everything they matter less or if he wants us to see

[01:39:51] that in this case where the stakes are like that i mean again i think he wants us to see both there's

[01:39:58] no reason to choose yeah so here's yeah so here's one way of looking at these two stories at the end

[01:40:04] of the journalist story his daughter nicole beats him over the head with the precise yeah and wins

[01:40:11] and he's like yeah i'm a bad guy i guess at the end of the jengy story the uh sabay wins the

[01:40:19] argument from the right yeah and jengy acquiesces yeah and he wins the story from the feeling yeah

[01:40:28] and she wins the story from the fact yeah and both cases i think there's a good chance that they've

[01:40:33] both been unjustifiably convinced so i think just to underscore this also very close to the end

[01:40:40] of the story the journalist now in full confessional like beating up yourself mode says

[01:40:49] this doesn't mean that i've changed my mind about the downsides of digital memory there are many

[01:40:56] and people need to be aware of them i just don't think i can argue the case with any sort of

[01:41:01] objectivity anymore i abandoned the article i was planning to write about memory prosthesis

[01:41:07] i handed off the research i'd done to a colleague and she wrote a fine piece about the pros and

[01:41:12] cons of the software a dispassionate article free from all the soul searching and angst that i that

[01:41:19] would have saturated anything i submitted instead i've written this and i think one of the things

[01:41:25] you're supposed to ask yourself is which is a more accurate account of the pros and cons of

[01:41:32] this technology and i think there's no reason to think that the dispassionate article free of

[01:41:39] all the soul searching and angst is necessarily a better way of getting at that truth the truth of

[01:41:47] what this technology will bring to us right is the bread is is it wise or not a spec she can't tell

[01:41:54] you and maybe or or maybe you need both maybe yeah it is the truth of fact comma the truth of

[01:42:01] feeling like like you don't have to choose necessarily sometimes you do but you don't always

[01:42:07] yeah this is why you need art and science yeah i i love the penultimate paragraph for the real

[01:42:17] as for my accounts margaret with nicole i've tried to make it as accurate as i possibly could

[01:42:21] i've been recording everything since i started working on this project and i've consulted

[01:42:24] the recordings repeatedly when writing this but in my choice of which details to include

[01:42:29] and which to omit perhaps i have just constructed another story i think that's so true of the

[01:42:35] filter of the human mind yeah there's no way in which the the facts mean anything until they're

[01:42:41] filtered through the meaning making machine of the of the narrative in this case and then he says

[01:42:46] have i distorted events so so they more closely follow the arc expected of a confessional

[01:42:52] narrative and this is very sad i think he says the only way you can judge is by comparing

[01:42:57] my account with against the recordings themselves and so i'm doing something i never thought i do

[01:43:03] i'm granting public access to my life log such as it is take a look at the video and decide for

[01:43:09] yourself and i think there's something deeply sad about that that he no longer trusts it's like

[01:43:15] his self is disintegrating not in the good way like with meditation but in a bad way where he

[01:43:23] no longer trusts any like like himself to have any character traits that that are accurate

[01:43:29] and so he's putting it out in public putting it out like some people do on social media where

[01:43:34] it's like the public should decide who who i am and what i what i'm about because i can no

[01:43:42] longer trust myself to to know that and you know i think that there is a real way in which

[01:43:50] it's tempting to say that the recording is objective and the narrative isn't and

[01:43:56] obviously there's a clear way in which that's the case he's given us a clear example of

[01:44:01] when that's the case but it's misleading to think that the objective record of behavior says anything

[01:44:12] about people's intentions right about about their motives about you know their feelings

[01:44:18] all of that stuff is still completely obscured or not completely but to the extent that you

[01:44:25] know nobody's you know it's not like a shitty a shitty movie where when people are angry they

[01:44:31] go urrrr yeah i mean we don't know all their other interactions what could have let him to

[01:44:37] say such a hateful thing what could have like there's still so much that we don't know and

[01:44:43] so much that we couldn't know like even if we like got were granted public access to

[01:44:49] to as much there's just a limit to how much we could possibly see this is what so machine

[01:44:55] learning will finally tell us who has good character and who doesn't yeah i think this

[01:44:59] is what's like the ultimate twist of this story is it starts you on one side it seems

[01:45:05] to end on the other side but there's enough yeah doubt i don't know my understanding of the

[01:45:12] story is it's like both things are true here both things are right i think you're right

[01:45:16] i think that's why the title is the title yeah and it takes some wisdom to know which one to

[01:45:22] rely on yeah all right um i want to like take a just a quick step back a little meta a meta set

[01:45:31] because one of the things that that i love and why i've loved this discussion is in discussing

[01:45:37] this in detail i am now at a different place than i was before we started recording yeah right

[01:45:42] which is always the case when we it's always the case it's always the case

[01:45:47] and the other day i was i think getting a little frustrated in seeing some comments i don't remember

[01:45:52] was twitter or reddit of people um disagreeing with a particular interpretation of the the

[01:46:00] ones who walk away from omelas and what i wanted to say is like you know when we're speaking

[01:46:07] for two hours about a short story we're throwing out a whole bunch of potential ideas and playing

[01:46:14] with them you can't take it verbatim and say like oh these guys argued this particular thing and

[01:46:19] they're completely wrong like do you know what i'm talking about like i'm like no we said that

[01:46:24] is like on the way like we're working our way towards what we think about yeah yeah yeah this

[01:46:30] this is the work that that uh is so satisfying the whole point of art is to play with these ideas

[01:46:37] and make us think and even if ted chang didn't think some of the things that we were saying had

[01:46:43] anything to do with his original intention i put money on that he would be like that's the

[01:46:47] points of the story yeah the point is to get you to fucking think about it to raise questions

[01:46:52] like not to give you answers that um i i let me go one extra meta level above you

[01:47:04] maybe when that person on reddit or twitter or whoever it was that is part of a new conversation

[01:47:12] that is working towards like an even deeper or different analysis of it like they don't often

[01:47:20] present it as if it's like that but you know you're right i think that that is in fact one of the

[01:47:26] things we were saying in our little thank you to the to the listeners which is new conversations get

[01:47:32] started yeah and it's maybe i'm arrogant to think that this is just about them wanting to tell me

[01:47:39] i'm wrong and rather it's them wanting to talk about this so many people when they write to

[01:47:43] us they say i yell i'm yelling at my telephone or i'm yelling at my headphones and uh and so

[01:47:48] sometimes maybe you just need to yell on social media but you know yelling and and sometimes we

[01:47:54] change our minds based on that yelling or you know usually when it's not written in a like totally

[01:48:01] dismissive or dickish kind of way but um like you know sometimes that does move us in a different

[01:48:07] direction i think that's happened a lot so anyway this is all part of this theme it is a

[01:48:12] grand story it really is it's such a good story yeah so it's amazing a bit even better after

[01:48:18] after having discussed yeah all right well join us next time on very bad wizards maybe we'll do more

[01:48:27] stories

[01:49:02] anybody can have a break

[01:49:06] you're a very bad man and a very good man just a very bad wizard