L.O.G. 176 Hunting Killer Bigfoot

All right, well, good morning, Greg. This is our first recording post-Greg's 60th birthday celebration, so it's changed everything, by the way, just so you know, which that's great. So, we're back after it. You actually took a couple days off in a row, happy for you forever that you did, because you needed that and deserved it. So, welcome back.

And today, we're going to be talking about things that we've talked about before when it comes to cognitive biases: how we think, how we make decisions, and how that can get corrupted. But I actually wanted to throw it to you to start off, because this kind of idea – which some of it we've talked about before, but not in the manner in which we are today – it came via email. You said, "Hey, I was watching this blah blah." I was like, "Okay, this is a great story to start with." So, I wanted to throw it to you to kind of start where this discussion came from, and then we can jump right into it, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and there's nothing on the face of the planet that we haven't discussed or we can't discuss at length through the lenses of Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis (HBPRA). So, this is an interesting one. Shelly and I — we took two days off for my 60th. We didn't have emails or phones or anything for those 48 hours, which made it amazing. We came back pretty exhausted after our return through the mountains. Brian, you saw some of those great photos; feel free if you want to post one of those. Coming back to the past, we finally got home and we were exhausted, so we put our feet up.

Paging through Ridiculousness on television, there was a series called Alaskan Killer Bigfoot. The greatest thing about that is that, one, we like to look at the Alaskan home sales realty shows, and then Bigfoot, of course. But just like the ghost that killed somebody, I don't remember a Bigfoot killing somebody, so I had to tune in. My interest got the best of me there.

So, Shelly and I are watching, and the very first thing that comes on is that they find this stone obelisk that's off the port, that's in the trees. The people are coming up with these ridiculous conclusions on why this obelisk is here. "It's to ward off evil! It's to warn the people!" And what it is, is it's in line with the harbor, and you can actually see the marks around it where people had put chains and ropes on it before, because they were tying off boats. Do you get what I'm saying?

So, I look at Shelly, and we're laughing about it, and she mentions that, "Hey, that's been used for millennia." So, I have my phone in my hand, because I got 700 messages in the two days I was off, and I just enter a quick search. Sure enough, obelisks go back to Greek ports; it shows the stuff. So, it's been around forever. We smile and laugh about that.

So, the next one comes up, and the next one that they show is scat, which is poop — animal poop — that's on a trail. The very first time they show it, Shelly and I look at each other and say, "That's wolf poop." We've seen it before. When you look at wolf poop, it looks rubbery and waxy, and it's dark and black, and it's extruded through a sphincter, so it's got a characteristic taper. There's hair and different bones and everything from what the animal ate. If you folks have ever seen fox scat, it's a big fox; or if you've seen coyote scat, it's a bigger coyote and much darker, but it's clear what it is, Brian. Immediately what it is.

And so, I go to Google Images, and I bring up "wolf poop," and I show it to Shelly. The picture is virtually identical to the live-action photo that they're showing on TV. And their "experts" who are kneeling and looking at it go, "What could this be? We've never seen anything like this before. Clearly, this is unprecedented!"

So, Shelly laughs and says, "Hey, we're two for two." And the idea is that we brought up the question, "Okay, what's the guy says in the episode, you know, this has got to be some otherworldly scat from some mystic creature, because you can't fake evidence like that." Well, if you're not reading what the real evidence is, Brian... Look, I want to go far afield here to [expletive] everybody off early. You're wearing an Axon body camera, and everybody goes, "Whatever you see on the camera is exactly what happened." No, because you're not getting the full 360. It's not everything that happens, not the feeling, the anxiety that goes with it.

And you know how I can prove that to you? I can prove that to you with the story of the gosh-darn ghost fish. So, we've got this old mine back on the ranch, and the mine had been flooded in by a series of tributaries that come down and feed into the Cebolla River (C-E-B-O-L-L-A) — named from the Spanish that settled the area. There were a lot of wild onions they could eat as they were going along the river. So, in this pond – and the pond is probably as big as the room that I'm in, so probably 40 feet by 60 feet – and then it goes out with a swamp area that's on there, and it's very deep.

So, one day, I take Nico up there. Nico's just a kid. We're going to do some fly fishing, and there's always some big trout that camp out in those deep waters. As we're fishing, Brian, I see a skeleton fish swim by. Not lying, it's the skeleton, the actual bones of the fish, like you would see in a cartoon, or it's a Bonefish Grill, and it's swimming by under the water. So, I look and I go, "Okay, this is great. Somebody's playing a trick on me, and they spent the money." So, I look around, and the fish swims by again.

So, we're fly fishing, and a fish surfaces and swims by. Brian, I was stymied, and I was starting to believe in the ghost fish until I thought about it for a minute. And I said, "Okay, what am I missing?" And I opened up my aperture, and I noticed that every time the ghost fish appeared, there was a fish in front of it that was very much alive.

What happened is somebody that had been fishing up there had used a system with a Carolina rig, or whatever you call it, that had two hooks on it, Brian, and both were baited. So, one fish bit it and ate it, and he survived. The other fish that was being dragged along by the first fish died and decomposed in the water. So, what you couldn't see is the fishing line — the fishing line! — but the one fish was pulling the ghost fish behind him. Brian, it was so real and so realistic that for a minute, you had to take a knee and look and go, "What am I really seeing?"

But just like this gosh-darn series of Alaskan Killer Bigfoot, they said the Bigfoot homicides were what drove the people out. Well, then a very simple search of the Port Chatham Area showed that what drove the people out was that the highway moved. The fish stopped coming into the harbor, and the people had to go look for better-paying jobs. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So, the question is, how would a person cling to an opinion, even though the facts are directly contradictory and disprove their initial faulty hypothesis? Does that make sense? That's where I wanted to throw it on the table today.

Yeah, and that's a great lead-in story to the different types of cognitive factors that affect the way we not only perceive information, but then how we can rapidly establish an opinion for a number of reasons. Mostly, we want to be right, and our brain is lazy. Meaning, we're not even consciously aware that these processes happen; this is completely unconsciously happening, which most of it is tied back to survival. If you're going to use a theory to explain it, it better have something to do with survival, because those are the only ones that typically stand the test of time because they work. You can come up with whatever thing you want to call something, but if it doesn't have to do with your primitive brain, so to speak, then it's usually junk.

Again, we always make the X-Files joke, remember? Mulder was always the one who said, "People want to believe," right? We want to believe this is true, so we will. But you bring up other things: even in the face of contradictory evidence, it's very difficult for us to change our mind. So, there's a whole bunch of different factors behind that, Greg. Let's jump into why that is before we get into some things you could do to counter that.

Now, when I say "counter it," you have to realize you can only do so much. So, when we get into cognitive biases, which there are, like, what now, three million of them? I mean, what's the joke you say? Every graduate student in psychology or neuroscience has to come up with three before they can graduate. Many of them are very similar; they're just a different explanation of the same thing in a different context, and you're like, "Okay."

A lot of it comes down to confirmation bias and fundamental attribution error – the stuff we talk about – because it's such a great way to explain how these things work. When we get into those types of biases, real true cognitive biases, there's not a whole lot you can do about it other than know that it exists, know that it's affecting you, and attempt to counter that in some way with logic and reason, and evaluating and weighing out evidence. But it's really difficult, all right? People who are really good at it in one area completely suck at it in another area of their life. So, it's very hard, so it's important to point that out, I think.

I just coined the term, Brian: the inability to do what you just said properly. We'll call it "Aristotle's Dilemma." No, no. Oh, "Brian and Greg's Aristotle's Dilemma" it should be! I mean, think about it: "The Greg and Brian Effect," which is different than "The Brian and Greg Effect." Those are two different spectrums.

So, let's talk brain science 101 and simplify everything, all right? Your amygdala has been around longer than your Prefrontal Cortex (PFC). Your amygdala hates risk. Changing your mind is hard. People don't like to change their mind. The way that your amygdala looks at the situation is so close to binary, it's funny. What it does is it says, "Stay the course. What you're doing right now – being sedentary, not moving around unless you have to – is a great survival strategy."

Now, your PFC is your thinking brain. That's a "good idea fairy." It's thinking of long-term benefits, long-term consequences, right versus wrong, risk and reward. It's all those wonderful executive functions. And the PFC is willing to risk. That's what makes the kids get out of the nest. That's what makes the son stand up to the father, the daughter tell the mother, "I hate you." Those things are chemical imbalances in the developing brain that force you to go out and face your environment.

Now, most of them are amygdala-based, which means that most of them are just for you to breed, for you to procreate, for you to forage. You get what I'm saying? To hunt, to improve your chances. But what the PFC does is the PFC starts making distinctions. "He or she is pretty; they'll make prettier babies, which will make more money, which will be important in the future." Do you understand the difference there, Brian? One is just literally cut and dried – my safety, my feeding, my fighting when I have to – and the other one is thinking about things and saying, "How will this affect me in the long term?"

So, if we understand that changing our mind is hard, and we understand that we've got two different parts of our brain pulling at us all the time, and one is uniquely and distinctly and deliberately thinking about our safety and security, we understand where dilemmas come from.

And so, I'll give you a quick example: flipping a coin. You flip a coin, it's a 50/50 chance. That's it. There is no other science, other than it's a 50/50 chance. So now, if I flip the coin and I get three heads in a row, a neophyte, a person that doesn't think, typically is going to go, "You're due for a tails!" Would I be able, in a certain room with a certain amount of people, to get them to bet on the outcome? Absolutely! Casinos exist.

So, what did we just name? We just took the difference between your amygdala, which would grab the coin you're flipping and run and use it to buy something, or the PFC, which would say, "Damn, I think that guy's on a streak. I think it's going to come up heads again." And the idea is, it can't come up heads; it's only 50/50. But you're going to get a person, Brian, that tells you, "I'm wrong, and statistics will bear me out!"

So, what are we saying? We're saying there is no [expletive] ghost fish, that the camera doesn't show you everything. Guess what? Alaskan Killer Bigfoot, you're not a murderer, because there were no missing people and no murder. And guess what? People go missing all the time, Brian, all the time! Very few instances are directly related to a Sasquatch. You get where I'm going? So, this goes right to the heart of the issue of people being faced with logic and science and fact, but still would go to great lengths to try to prove that you are wrong.

And you brought up a good point: when you come across conflicting information, it does release – it gives you a sense of anxiety, right? And so that releases different electrochemical neurotransmitters in your body that are no different, almost the same, as fear. So, it's not that, "Oh, you're scared of new information," because people say, "What are you talking about? I'm not scared of it. I'll look at something here." It's like, no, you're not realizing it releases a little bit of anxiety – that's turbidity for your brain – and it doesn't like that because it burns calories and goes, "Oh yeah, I don't know about that," right?

And that causes you then to look at the situation differently. I now have this fear-induced emotion. Anytime you're making decisions out of fear, you're not making good decisions – or, depending on the context, maybe it is the right decision if it's a survival situation. So, meaning, if you get a little bit of that anxiety, anxiety causes that fear without you realizing it. Your brain is going, "I don't want to hear this. This is not good news. I'm going to maybe put in some processes for you to not think about that, not worry about that," and put up sort of a barrier. And that's happening, again, whether we realize it or not.

How much it affects us is going to depend on the person, their exposure, their life experience, and all kinds of different factors. But either way, even if you are very open and willing to consume contradictory information, you still have that running in the back of your head. Maybe I get more anxiety than you do because you've been doing this longer, but it's still affecting you too.

No, no, that's huge. Let's talk about that for a second. Your brain doesn't get anywhere when you second-guess yourself; that's contrary to survival. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? It's contrary to getting through your day. Literally a "should I stay or should I go" moment. And your amygdala is great at those snap decisions that are generally better off for you because they follow a pattern of your life. That's what we built a business around, right? Human behavior pattern recognition, and if we analyze it, we can prove it scientifically.

So, the PFC is willing to do the risk-reward, "Hey, maybe I'll gain a little bit." So, there's that constant struggle with this. I'll give you another "Aristotle's Dilemma" called "motivated reasoning." Scientists come up with motivated reasoning – yet another confirmation bias thing. What does it mean? It means that you tend to cherry-pick the facts that are going to fit your existing belief, right?

Let's talk about how that can spin wildly out of control. You live in a walk-up, and you've got some heavy items that you want to move from your current apartment to this walk-up. So, you enlist the aid of your friends rather than hiring a moving company. Why? Because you've been led to believe that your friends are going to be cheaper, and guess what, they're going to buy a pizza. "Like, I understand that there are 30 right angles and two 30-degree angles, but we'll be able to figure that out on the fly, and we wedge the gosh-darn bed up in there, and we've ruined the upright piano!" People out there listening know exactly what I'm talking about.

But why do we continue with that course and then double down and just say, "Push it harder," or, "Tilt the couch this way," rather than enlist the aid of the experts? Because, Brian, when our wishes and our fears and our dreams and our hopes and our motivations, they work together to fool our brain. That's why you remember the story about the Marine jumping between the buildings, when you hear the story about the person that was able to do these amazing things, right? You've got to put yourselves in the time and the place and the chemical interactions that were going on. It's almost impossible to make that jump. But why did you do it? "Because I think it would help our mission, and therefore, aspirationally, I think I can do it." And guess what, the brain's going, "Ah, [expletive], let's go!" And the idea, Brian, is you can't do that. That's the dilemma that is created between the PFC and the amygdala, and that's what we have to look out for when it comes to facts.

So, if we think that a person has explained it – for example, we've got five idiots standing there, and all of them kneeling down around wolf [expletive], and every single one of them is going, "This is unusual! Look at the way that it reacts! Look at the sun and the angle, and there's no wolf here!" Do you see what I'm saying, Brian? Guess what? Now all of a sudden we have a faux scientific explanation that's much more palatable than me going back home. And guess what, because wolves aren't in New York and Nebraska, we have an easier time believing the horseshit, even if it's patently so.

That's because we kind of get into these belief systems, right? We create them, and they can be completely artificial. I can have an artificial belief system that if it's been working for me, it'll continue to work for me, and we'll stick to that despite any sort of contrary evidence. Again, because we go, "All right, well, this is what works. I want it to work. I know it'll work if I believe it'll work, and I believe this is the right way." And then it's going to. And it's like, "Well, hang on, are we really taking an objective view?" And like I said, some people are really good at countering those thoughts in specific contexts, but it's hard to do that with everything that you do. And because that's a lot of calories to burn.

So, those belief systems are typically about emotion. If I have an emotion-based one, or a belief system, and it makes me feel good, then I'll just look at it, and then now I've got to repeat everything that I said because it's hard to – it creates that sort of turmoil, yeah, turbidity. It's like when we learn – there's an interesting book, it's kind of difficult to read because it's actually so clinical, but I sent you the title a while back. It was called, I think, Hemingway Didn't Say That. And this guy went through all these famous quotes, and he really tracked down in detail with specific references where they came from and how they've been misattributed over time, which sounds super interesting and cool. This is like almost like a technical manual the way the guy writes it; it's so dry. You're like, "Dude, you could just tell a really good story here," but instead he's sticking to it.

But I love that because he'll show you, and from here is where we can document it changed. But the idea is that gives me – when I find out that my favorite hockey player wasn't really the first person to say that, it kind of crushes my world a little bit, Greg. And I don't want to believe that. I really want to believe that Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." But now that's really like a paraphrase from something longer that he said, or...

The beauty of the matter is, is it utile? Can I use it? Okay, "Be the change you want to see in the world" is an incredible quote. Now, non-attribution, I can still use that quote and get through my day. But if I find out that my belief system that it was Gandhi, and I built up this elaborate story around it, you're exactly right. Now that challenges everything. If that can be wrong, what else can be wrong? If that's not...

Yes, that's the difficult part of accepting some of that stuff, because then we think it attacks everything that we know. It's like, "Well, no, it doesn't attack everything that you know; it just attacks this one part that you thought where it came from." But does it – is it still logical? Is it still utile, like you said? Is it still an important thing to say? Well, yeah. That's like when we've used a quote before, someone said, "Well, actually that technically comes from here." It's like, "You missed the [expletive] point." The point was, what is the point? What is the moral of the story, or what's the takeaway? Not, "Did this happen in 1792 or 1798?" That detail is important if in court testimony, but for reasoning and use of the information, it's irrelevant. Does that mean perfect examples? Because...

But that same way of looking at it also kind of gets in the way of how we interpret especially studies or data or anything like that, right?

Yeah, exactly right. So, look, there's an old wives' tale that says that how a female is carrying the baby indicates early on, before any tests are done, whether the baby is a boy or a girl. "She's carrying the baby high, she's carrying the baby low." Do you get what I'm trying to say? "Is it your first birth, or your second?" Sometimes those wives' tales come from fact-based data, right? A midwife has seen hundreds of females give birth, and the lion's share of the "high ones" were a female. I might be getting it wrong, but it doesn't matter. But that's not science-based; that's statistics-based on a person's experience. So, it's a form of experiential, right, but it's more on the tacit knowledge side because that person saw it themselves and passed it on as being a fact.

Now, there's also that, "Listen, if you crave chocolate and gosh-darn Scotch eggs, then you're going to have a baby boy," or whatever. I've only had it like once or twice, but anyway, we all know what I'm talking about. "The bucktooth kid is going to be great at math," or whatever. There's some wives' tale somewhere, and some piece of information lingered long enough that people go, "No, it's true. I heard that."

So, let me tell you how that [expletive] turns into Bigfoot. Here you've got a bunch of Inuit, let's say, children that live in a harsh environment. There's the ocean, and we know we don't go swimming in the ocean, not only because of the temperature, but the ocean will eat you. So, there's a lagoon, and the lagoon is a safer place. It doesn't have sharks, it doesn't have the rip tides. You get what I'm saying, Brian? But that's what happens sometimes because we're in Alaska. Sometimes we have dense fog.

So, I look at my child and I go, "I know how much fun it is swimming in the lagoon. I know how much fun it is swimming with your friends. But let me tell you something: when there's fog around the lagoon, you're going to miss the shore, and you might stand a chance of drowning. So, I don't want you going up there. I certainly don't want you going there alone."

Now, because there are no consequences, Brian, and it's just the parent telling you, the kids are going to get together and they're going to go to that darn lagoon. But now what I say is, "There's a creepy old man that lives up there. When the fog comes, that creepy old man comes out, and I tell you what, you've got to keep your eye because he ate a kid's leg in 1957." Now, what I did, Brian, is I added a level of detail and complexity that was in this story, and now some part of you goes, "Wow, I can believe that. I remember that one-legged kid that I saw at the fair."

The idea is that I make it close enough to be plausible, and it's memorable. What do we talk about in class? Making a sticky memory. So, the story creates the sticky memory, but then people falsely believe it's true. Now, I could tell you about Krampus, I could tell you about – trigger warning, Santa Claus! Do they endure? Right. And because people then use it for good or for evil or for whatever reason, that's the whole serial killer who goes to make-out point to the teenage kids. Exactly! They're trying to stop high school kids from having sex. That's what that story was there for. It's completely junk. It's not – that's the thing.

But then if you actually go to different serial killer examples, it's close enough to a story that is true, and we make that link. But that's not unlike the Hillside Strangler, and they didn't – it's like, "Well, no, no, it's completely different than that." Or what was it, not the Son of Sam, or BTK, or whatever killed the couple who was by the lake? It's like, "Well, yeah, but that's this one – Zodiac." I get them mixed up. But the idea is sound because what happens is, just like the coin flip, there's inescapable science.

But what do scientists say? A good scientist is going to tell you, "If I'm given evidence to the contrary, I'm going to adopt the new evidence as long as it's been vetted and tested and socialized." Because, listen, there was a time we thought the Earth was flat. There was a time we thought the solar system rotated around it. But still, people even thousands of years ago knew that the Earth was round. They're like, "Hey, we're wrong here." And that's our – that's the argument: "People, yeah, but you know, 10,000 or a couple thousand years before everyone realized that to be true, there were people out there saying it. So maybe this person is out here saying something that in a hundred years, trying to look back and go, 'They were right.'"

It's like, well, okay, if I'm going to take an 80-year-old woman and put her on camera and have her tell me a story of 75 years ago when they knelt down and told her there was a boogeyman in the woods, she's going to say it to me with conviction because she's never had her belief system challenged, and it's firmly entrenched in her brain's chemistry and in her emotions. She believes – when you say someone goes, "Well, I know what I saw!" It's like, "Yes, no, you don't." I mean, I know you're not lying, you're not being dishonest; you actually technically saw that because your brain said that's what you wanted to see, and it filled in the missing gaps of the information when what you actually saw was not very clear. And it's just getting into perception, and then those different cognitive biases and perception biases that affect it.

But, you know, you brought up – you started talking about when we have that information or conflicting information. Okay, so even if it's not conflicting, it's how do we interpret data, or how do we interpret information points that we learn? And one good example is, I read it and so do you, a ton of different studies. And I look at different stuff for different things that we're talking about. The good thing a study does is it might highlight some issue or give some insight or go, "Hmm, look at this." Its conclusions may not always be sound yet. If it's lasted over time, great, and it still stands the test of time. I had that argument too with one of my professors one time where I was talking about the Yerkes-Dodson effect and what they found out. And they're like, "Well, don't you want to use something newer?" I was like, "This still holds true today, 100 [expletive] years later! So, why don't we start there? Did they get everything right? Well, no, but they found this part out, so let's use this part that still holds true today."

Because what will happen is how we interpret this sometimes comes out how we want to see it. But even not even if it's our own biases, it's just literally how we look at some data. And there's one that reminded me when you brought up the baby example. It was I think the Freakonomics guys. They did this study, or they looked at all these different polls and different studies that people had done, and questionnaires that they had people fill out. And they talked to new parents who had a new baby, and they would find out, "How much, what did you do to prepare for the baby? Did you read books? Did you do this?" They look into it, and then they look at how that baby develops over time, and where it goes, and the success of it, all these different factors. And what they're trying to show is like, "Okay, do reading baby books make you a better parent? Does that prepare you?" And their argument was, "Well, you don't know, is it the information they're getting from the baby books, or is it because they're the type of person that would want to research the best way to do it and make a plan and go for it?" So, is it even the information that they're reading that's helping, or is it the process, or they're already that type of person? That's one way to just look at it.

Justin Kruger and David Dunning didn't mean to come off as [expletive]. Okay, your two favorite people, our favorite people from Cornell. What they did is they tried to do a very good thing, and they brought up great things that are on the periphery of confirmation bias that didn't need to be additional, right? Number one is that we overinflate our own skills. We think that we're capable of so much more than we are, and we think that our decision in a matter matters as much as a subject matter expert's opinion. And none of those things are true; they're borne out by science.

So, how can I prove that? A restaurant chain tried to compete with McDonald's, who had the Quarter Pounder, Brian. And so they came to the market with a one-third pound cheeseburger. Anybody remember A&W? Anybody remember when that happened? Americans looked at the numbers and thought one-third was less than one-quarter! Three is a smaller number than four, Greg. So that, Brian, is a science denier! Do you understand what I'm trying to say? They didn't ask the local "doper" who can do "dope math," which is also known as the metric system!

What happens is, confirmation bias 101 – which is Dunning-Kruger Effect and so many others – is that you are inclined to believe your own [expletive] even in the face of adversarial information or contrary information. And not only that, but the most important part is you tend to seek out information that confirms your belief, and you get a dump of dopamine every time you find it. So, if the article on television goes, "Mysterious stat..." what do you do? You point at the TV and go, "See? See! That proves it!" No, it's loosely related at best, and it hasn't been researched or socialized. That's the problem with Dunning-Kruger.

Well, the funniest part about the whole [expletive] Dunning-Kruger thing is the people who are using it, they go, "Oh, that guy's clearly got Dunning-Kruger!" And you're like, "No, you [expletive] do!" It's so funny, the irony is just – every time I see a meme about it, sometimes I'm like, "Just stop!" You're back to the point of correcting me that it wasn't Gandhi. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it's confirmation bias.

But either way, it's important to understand too that it's not nefarious when people do that, or they're not stupid, or they're not [expletive]. When you teach me something, Greg, and I really enjoy it, or I think it's cool, and I want to go out and tell everyone, "No, no, it's like this is how you do this!" I always think of working with any younger military, young Marines or young soldiers, whatever. And they're so confident in their abilities, and they're so confident they can do this, and you're like, "Oh my God, you don't even know what you don't know!" But that's a good thing at that point, because you want them to be confident in what they are, and you want them to have that.

It's like the whole, I got taught when I was first in the Marine Corps, "You're not supposed to rest your magazine on the ground when you're firing because it'll induce some sort of stoppage." And you're like, "No, it [expletive] doesn't!" Forty years ago, with those old, shitty Vietnam mags, it was completely different; it could. But not today! Like, that's junk. That's good, but it's stuck around, and someone wanted to, thinking, "I don't want this Marine to have some sort of stoppage in the middle of combat. I better instill this lesson in them," even though the lesson is junk now.

Right. It's not going to be a stable platform to sight in your targets, so don't do it. But listen, we were working with the Marines, and a young E-6 comes up to me right in the middle of my presentation because I was trying to explain to him how you could use Kim's Game (Kim's Game, a memory game based on Rudyard Kipling's Kim) to increase situational awareness back in the infantry. So I'm talking about Rudyard Kipling's Kim. The E-6 stops me and he goes, "What the [expletive] are you talking about? The Marines designed Kim!" And I go, "They did?" And he goes, "Yeah, it's 'Keeping Memory!'" And I go, "What's the 'S' for in Kim's Game?" And it was, "Because Rudyard Kipling's Kim." And he goes, "No, that's 'Keeping Memory,' stupid!" And we laughed and laughed, and Brian, he was willing to go to bat and fight me over it, that it was Marine-invented and wrote it. I thought it stood for "Keeping Memory, Sniper!"

Oh my gosh.

And so, here's a perfect example of cognitive immunization, cognitive sterilization. We have to put to death those things that disagree with our point. So, "Look, I'm big-boned, that's why I'm fat!" Do you understand what I'm trying to say? "Now, listen, I have some intolerance..." Insert whatever. "You know, genetics," and, "It's the genetics of Uncle Buck," where he's talking and he says, "I've been eating a lot of cheese, do you think that's it?" Do you remember Uncle Buck? Maybe it's the hat. He always had something, Brian, that was in the back of his – that was his hat. You know, some people, I've really [expletive] people off sometimes. Sometimes it's the hat; you know, it's just a hat. They don't like the hat, and don't let the facts get in the way of a perfectly good story.

What's happening is that your conviction is so overpowering and compelling that other people around you start believing in your stuff, and longevity takes place. "Yeah, Grandma wouldn't tell me about this if it wasn't true." And that's – that's the firing from the mag example I just gave. That may have been true 40, 50 years ago, but it's not today. And it wasn't when I learned it. And so, those things – again, that's because someone was trying to do the right thing; they were trying to set me up for success, not – it doesn't have to be something negative. But, you know, we often – we like to stick with what we know.

And I know we don't have to get into super a lot of detail there, but one of the domains that we teach is heuristics and understanding how you process information. You know, how even your working memory affects your vision – more so than, or as much as, the light that's in the room – because you start filling things in. Your brain wants to expect – it wants to determine the outcome before it happens. So it'll fill in information, and we go on our own biased, subjective experience in life because every single human being is walking around with their own view of the world and how things are, and I do not see it like another person. You always give the great example of watching the Jason Bourne movies, and everyone sees them as the protagonist, Jason Bourne, who's kicking ass. No one goes, "Hey, see that guy picking up the dishes in the restaurant in the back? Exactly! That's me!" Nobody in a movie on a date has ever had that conversation, right?

So I know what – I always thought it'd be funny to be like a person who's in family photos in different movies. You know how they're like being a scene, there's family photos. I thought it'd be hilarious if you were the person in the family photos. Just a side note.

Oh, that's hilarious, Brian. When I took over as Chief of Police in a mountain town, and I had my desk put in the bullpen rather than in the office – and I used the office for the interview room – everybody goes, "What are you doing? Chief has their own office." And it's like, "No, I'm with you. I'm just another cop." And so, on my desk, I only used two types of photos: photos of other people's wives and children, or the photos that came with the photo case that I bought at Walmart. And people would walk by and go, "Who's that? Your kids?" And I go, "No, that's Jason's wife and kids." "Who's that?" And I go, "I don't know, I bought that frame at Walmart." It was just to be unsettling.

But the Stanford History Education Group did a great study in 2016, and what they demonstrated during a very large and broad study that was socialized, well-vetted, is that middle school, high school, and college kids were terrible at evaluating the quality of online information. That's what they were using to support all of their arguments. So if you have an unstable foundation – go back to the Bible, go back to the Code of Sumer – your house is going to collapse; it cannot stand.

Hey, there was an American politician that used the other example very recently. They did two different groups, and it went down the red and blue political lines. And they had a study of a gun control ban. They gave both parties the exact same study, but guess what? Their political views adversely affected how they interpreted the results. So even if the results showed one thing, their tendency was for them to say, "Yep, but what that really means is," and interpret the data to support their conclusion. Just knowing that, just knowing that, helps you in negotiations, helps you talk to your wife or your kids or your significant other. Just knowing that will make you shut the hell up when you're having one of those arguments about religion or politics.

Well, but do we? No, because it takes a little bit. And you know what, there's a great example, that movie I was talking about, Moneyball, about the Oakland A's and Billy Beane. And then it got adopted by everyone; everyone's doing it. It's a great movie if you want to see it, anyone. But it's – we're talking about baseball, and they just, they took a 100% data approach. Which, anyone who knows anything about baseball, it's math. Like, baseball is math. It's all about percentages and averages and numbers, and the laws of large numbers.

And what you do – that's why people will go and tell you, like, "There's no such thing as a slump when these guys get – oh, they're in a hitting slump!" Like, "No, they're not!" This is over time. Right back to flipping the coin, it's over time. They've been so hot, they've been hitting .800 all season, they have to hit .100 for a while in order for it to average out. It's just – it's just over time that's what's going to occur. You can't take a small snapshot.

But the whole thing was, there's a great scene in that movie, Moneyball, because you've got these old-school guys who've been scouting talent their whole life, and they're building baseball teams off it. They get big, good money to go all over the country and find these players, right? And they're going, "Ah, you know, but this guy doesn't look like a ballplayer." "No, I look at him, he does." And that's – that's what a pro – like, they're using all of these horrible methods to gauge it because it's cognitively close enough to someone they did find that worked out really well, that did go on to an amazing career and was a good time. But they're looking for that mold where you had the other side, there's just some kid going, "Well, here's the numbers of what we need. I need a batter that hits over .275 and can play the outfield. I need that."

And they just took the whole math side of it and looked at, "What are the numbers?" And like, "Wait, you've got all these ragtag, different people. You know, this isn't a big hitter here." It's like, "I don't need one of those; I need one of these." "Well, this guy is like a relief pitcher, but he's not the best." It's like, "I don't need him to do the best. I just need him to hit this many saves over the course of the season, and I know mathematically that means I – that's going to put me over the edge of my closest competitor." So when they stuck with pure numbers, they went, "Holy crap!" That changed the way you looked at players, that changed the way everything, because we had this faulty way, this – I call it "the good old boy way" of doing it. "Oh yeah, he's one of the good old boys!" It's like, "No, no, you have to show me the numbers. Show me today!"

But that's how we are as humans. It's the hair – I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up when you gave that example because you started explaining that to me yesterday. We had a different conversation, and it's so apropos that you brought it to this conversation.

But I'll tell you this: Cops show up because we dial 9-1-1. Cops show up to the most ambiguous environments and have to draw information quickly, and sometimes get gunned down before they put their scouts. Literally, the definition of the term VUCA that they use: Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Ambiguous, always.

Now, we know that there's a gap somewhere because we know that a determined enemy can kill a cop. And what do we do? We mistakenly attribute the "why" instead of looking at the "how." And what I mean by what you just said: I see all the time these people, and I hear them say it, and I see them put it online, that "a determined opponent, this and that and the other." And they say, "Okay, well, you know, you've got this MMA fighter, and you know he's really well trained, but a street fighter would just turn his ass inside out." No, your drunken, shitty, undisciplined, eating crap food, unhealthy [expletive] has to ambush to gain the advantage on that person, right? So if they rabbit-punch you, or when you walk away, stab you in the back, or hit you with a bottle, because there are rules in the other realm.

So the cops are still playing by the rules. Society demands that the Supreme Court rules on constitutionality, lower courts rule on your behavior compared to a standard. And that standard is deliberate, Brian, it's not ambiguous. And then all of a sudden, you get a cop that's going into a situation thinking it's "us versus them," it's "good versus evil," "I can out-think or outrun or outshoot the person." And it doesn't matter because guess what? The other person isn't playing by the same set of rules. No, they're not playing by that dynamic, and that's exactly what we're talking about.

So we have to – if we're going to address how cops are getting killed, we have to address that. We have to address the belief system. Because if your belief system is faulty as the cop going into the situation, and your belief system is faulty as that kid on the street with the "gat in the pocket," listen, Brian, it's inevitable that those two things are going to come together and cause a harmful or fatal event. You get my point, just based on your statistics analysis of baseball games.

Yes, so you know, that's – that's wow. We don't – well, in that, in your example, we're still not – that police officer isn't using the data example. They're using the, "This is – there's..." well, they're using the, "I've been scouting baseball players my whole life, and I picked out some winners" example, because that works most of the time. But it's in a different seven-foot chases, right? "This works every time." That goes back to flipping the coin. That goes back to flipping the coin. Each one is a new set of probability. So when I flip the coin one time, I've got a 50, and I bet heads, I've got a 50/50 chance, right? I do it again, I still got a 50/50 chance. I do it again, even if it doesn't matter how long my number is. That's the point. One is its own set of probability.

So, and I agree that, one, the public doesn't understand that at all in these cases. Yes, the police a little bit, right? Meaning, yeah, that's the online debates right there. That's the "one-third versus Quarter Pounder." That's what you see all the time. But we don't look at that as each set of its own set of circumstances, the own determination, probability-wise, of what it could – what the outcome could be and how you affect that. So that's kind of what we're saying with how to combat that. Because how do I defeat the fact, right? How do I not fall into that same trap? How do I not become the old scout that goes, "You know, hey, I found this guy. He's a ballplayer. Look at him, he's tall, he's got the right build, he's got these real athletic-looking..." He's like, "What the [expletive] is 'athletic-looking'?"

Well, look...

Yeah, exactly. So it's coming on to me, and we do that because it's comfortable, and we fall – we fall into that trap. So, explain, Brian, explain why it's comfortable.

It's comfortable because it releases endorphins. It releases chemicals and electrochemical signals that make your brain feel safe in that environment because I know, more secure. Especially, well, especially if it's a volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous environment, I need an anchor. I need something to cling to to go, "All right, this is a little crazy. I haven't seen this before," or, "You know what, I've seen something close enough, it looks just like this," you know? "That's what I'm going to do." And many of the times, that's probably the correct thing to do. But you can't always weigh it against your past experiences. You have to determine what from that past experience works in this situation, what doesn't work in this situation, and how can I approach this not as a template match, because this goes into, "Hey, when this occurs, you will – you have three choices: you can do A, B, or C." No. Prototypically, how do I reach around in my brain with everything that I've accrued throughout my life and apply the right algorithm right here, specifically and accurately?

A perfect street definition.

I would go one step further, Brian. I would say that you have to be able to pay it forward. So, in other words, the lessons that you learn have to be utile in a variety of situations. Yes, they address this situation, but what did I learn from this situation that I can use in future situations? Like, for example, that not all pursuits end in a wreck and a fatality, but some do. Not all shootouts – "You know, I'm going to shoot the hand that's holding the knife, rather than center mass, even if I train."

What I'm trying to say is, Brian, what you don't want to do is you don't want to muddy the water with extraneous information. But what you want to do is you want to take a look at the situation and the choices you made, and be very critical on what worked and what didn't so I can use it again. Because if not, every skin need is going to be a new learning experience. Right. And so, do that.

So this gets into, "How do I counteract all these things?" And that's through – obviously the training process. But to kind of highlight that, I want to start with – there are some great examples out there. They've done this study in a number of different ways. One of the ways, you'll have like a psychologist will set up a study, and it'll take a bunch of people and find out what their attitude is on a specific topic, right? So let's say that's gun control, let's say that's abortion, let's say that's some emotionally charged button topic. And they'll gauge – they'll say, "Create a survey, however long, one-to-five scale, one-to-seven scale, rate how you feel about this," and so get a baseline for that individual. "All right, here's where we are. So you're very anti-gun, and you want as much gun control measures. Greg, you want to repeal the Second Amendment."

What they'll do is I'll take you, Greg. "Okay, I've got your baseline data, got it. Here's what you need to do: you're going to write me a 500 or 1,000-word essay on why we don't need gun control, why the Second Amendment is the most important amendment, and you have that right." "I want you to go do that." Well, what does that have to do? It forces you to take on a different perspective that's contrary to your belief. So, the point of this was, they give you that assignment, then once you turn in your assignment, Greg, I'm going to retest you. I'm going to see where your beliefs are from that baseline test. And guess what? They always find that measurement changes a little bit. Now, for some more than others, but it changes how strong your conviction is in your belief, because you were forced to take on the opposite side and the opposite role.

And now that's just an example of how this stuff works, because if you've never seen that, you've never taken the other side, it's very difficult to do. But that's what training should be. It's like, "Okay, I'm going to..." I mean, don't we do that to some people? Like, we [expletive] some people off sometimes in a class, but it's okay.

And Brian, it's literally on purpose. Not to [expletive] with them, it's to prove a point. For over 50 years we've been talking about taking someone else's perspective and opinion. It's a still lost concept on something so difficult.

Quick example: A 15-year-old kid's got an illegal gun, driving a stolen car. So we've got a property crime, we've got a weapons offense, and we've got a kid that hasn't established right and wrong, good and evil very well yet, because his brain is still growing. Now all of a sudden the red and blues come on: "Freeze! Don't move!" Do I dump the gun? Do I run with the gun? Do I run and dump the gun? Do I pull the gun to try to scare the people off? Do I hit the gas? All these decisions are going through this untrained brain.

Now what I have to hear from a trained cop that gives me [expletive] because it's my opinion: "Well, the kid shouldn't have been in a [expletive] stolen car! He shouldn't have had the gun in the first place!" I understand your rudimentary point, yes, but the fact of the matter is that the kid was in the car, and it's at night. Those things that people argue or assume – yes, you're not supposed to do that. Yes, that's a little great. We can't go back, "The person drowned. Well, they should have learned how to swim." You get it? But no, your knee-jerk, ridiculous belief perseverance is fighting against logic.

And Dunning-Kruger – don't sue me, I want you to listen to something. We have science and Kruger. I want you to listen to both. We have science deniers, which comes from the camp of science denial, which means that science is sketchy, not everybody understands it, and you're mystifying me because I don't fully understand the thing, and I didn't really read it anyway. I just scanned the headline.

Then we've got the illusion of explanatory depth. People – and you know what they say? They say, "Listen, the more [expletive] I throw out there, and the deeper that conviction is, the sooner or later you'll read it." I can't name the guy because I don't see it, but The Water of Life was on television. "If I send you this drop of water and you rub it on your hands, the next check in your account is going to be $50,000." Steve Martin made that movie about that. And right now some religious fundamentalist is going to say, "[Expletive] you, I'm going to kill you!" No, listen to what's happening. Those are both sides of the confirmation bias coin. We don't need a new description of it. What we need is humans to understand that it happens.

Because if we understand that, right now I'm getting bent out of shape over this thing or this thing or this thing, and we just take a step back and give ourselves a gift of time and distance, it's really not that important. It's really something that we can get past. It's really something that I can go, "You know what, this kid doesn't want to go to jail tonight. He's a little drunk, he's a little high. Mom doesn't know he's out with the neighbor's car." Do you get what I'm trying to say?

But we don't do that. Why? Because confirmation bias is a strange [expletive] that's so tight that wants us to believe our own crap, and it's reinforced every single day that we're awake. And we live today. Why, Brian? Not because the environment was easier today, but because we're the smartest predator on the planet. Holy [expletive], if I hear one more person tell them that they're a warrior and an apex predator and all that other stuff, stop it! You're over-evaluating, and that's not Dunning-Kruger. What that is, is confirmation bias.

Well, all biases are confirming. It's also information that is unsupportable.

A high level of societal douchebaggery. That's what we do. You're exactly right. But guess what we do? We praise those folks, right? And online now you get a following, so that makes you think that you're right. That's the issue.

You do see – I've been with people, Greg, who are subject matter experts, are very well respected in one area. When I see them go wrong, or when I see they get criticism, it's because they try to take that into some other domain where they're not. A perfect example: that guy, he's the Harvard guy, Steven Pinker. He did the whole studies of the Medics, and he's written a ton of incredible stuff. He's the one going, "Hey, look, if you buy all measurement, human life has gotten better, not worse. We're better." He's a brilliant guy, and I think a neuroscientist as well; he does a few things. Very well respected, taught at Harvard, all the stuff has the bona fides. And then he goes, really, some ridiculous, stupid opinion about what should happen in Ukraine, and, "You know, why don't we just move the nukes out of Europe because, you know, in that way Putin will see it as – when he's trying to go – Putin will see that as a win, but we can still defeat them and they'll end this war, blah blah." And everyone was like, "Okay, so you don't know foreign policy 101. You don't understand how nuclear deterrence works." It was just such an ignorant way of looking at it from a very brilliant person, because what they did was they stepped outside and went, "Well, hey, I'm really good here. I'm getting really popular, and everyone likes my opinions. Well, why don't I give one on this one?" It's like, "Well, hang on, man, that was –" We have to be cognizant that that's our default in our primitive brain. And once we accept that, training will change and get better. People will be less anxious and angry over everything, and they'll get better. People will stop scanning headlines or believe – look, the entire idea of naming something "fake news" gives us an out. It gives us an excuse to support what? Confirmation bias. So "fake news" is just like calling it Dunning-Kruger. "Fake news" is confirmation bias. It's written by a person to manipulate your opinion to gain an advantage in a situation. It's that misinformation and disinformation has been around for a long, long, long time.

Well, even if you go back to – that's why I always recommend that book, Writing on the Wall: Social Media—The First 2,000 Years (by Tom Standage). Because the guy goes back, he goes, "Look, you understand, in ancient Rome they would come out and they would put the news on the wall, or whatever the Senate hearing was, whatever they came out with, and they'd post it for everyone to read." Well, not everyone could read back then, so someone had to read it to you. And sometimes that would get changed. But guess what else was popular back then? "Hey, I want to hear what Greg has to say about this." So we write letters, and, "Hey, my buddy Greg, this was his interpretation of it." And that was popular. Well, that's a pundit. That's all the same [expletive] that happens today.

And we put our – why do we say, "Don't kill the messenger," right? Why do we play the telephone game, Brian? Because it proves all of the same conclusive evidence that's been around. And like my dear friend Brian Marren says, "Hey, good things stick around. Good ideas have longevity." What we're trying to say is that if the information – look, you don't have to change your belief system. But if there's contrary information, at least if the information that's contrary to you is based in fact and logic and science, at least open your mind that it exists. Because you cannot tell me that UFOs exist because we haven't proven they haven't. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that you need to step back. You have your brain, so time and distance. So then...

And then that's my other thing, is like, "Well, so what – what the hell am I supposed to do about this?" Because we just talked about all those different things; we talked about are tied to survival. So you're like, "Well, I'm [expletive] wired this way, what am I supposed to do?" And so, it's kind of like what you were just mentioning, I mentioned about the whole study of writing an essay that counters your opinion. You don't have to do all that stuff, but the idea is, rather than trying to weigh out all the evidence on every single issue that people are talking about, just understanding your own belief system and where it comes from. Doing the, "Well, wait, why do I feel this way about this topic? Why is it that this makes me upset? Why does reading this make me upset?" And you can just be introspective to, you know, "Man, I've got these little triggers that I didn't even realize were happening. It has nothing to do with this story or what's going on here; this is internal." And when you can sort of focus on those, you know, because it's like, "Everyone wants change, but no one wants to change," right? So it's, "Who wants change?" Change! And everyone raises their hand. And goes, "Who specifically wants to change themselves?" Well, [expletive] no one wants to do that. So if you can kind of start that process of looking at why you think of your own beliefs that way, that's the way to do it. You know, I love it when we're in class too and we get one of those questions, a really good question from a student or someone that sort of counters what we're saying, because why? It goes, "[Expletive], I have to do a better job of explaining my opinion on that," or, "I have to do a better job of explaining my process on that and why I think it's better than what you brought up." Or, "It gives me insight into what it – it makes it – it only makes us better," right? To go, "Well, what about this?"

So, I was, again, looking at, "How do you change a cognitive process that you have no control over?" Well, step one, you can't. Step two is, you can affect it, though. It's ambitious. I'm ambitious.

You can push it around, yeah. You can't stop a tornado, Brian, but you can get out of its way. Yeah, the tornado is coming, and not just let them get crashed into it.

I'll tell you this, and it's a close spiral. I don't understand blogs, and I don't understand how people are on social media all day long, just sniping at each other. Don't they have [expletive] jobs? I don't get it sometimes, Brian. But I read one, and the person was talking about intellectual acumen. They were talking about arguing with a person and saying, "Just because you're smarter than me doesn't mean your opinions are more important." Well, in a specific context, from opinion-based testimony, it actually does. So you need to take a step back from that for a minute. And then the next person that wrote in was, "Yeah, I heard there was a lot of smart people in the Nazi party!" Okay, great, well-researched argument! Now, Brian, backwards, shut off the computer and went out in the yard because I was like, "If this is what passes for intellectual optimism or skepticism today, I don't want to be a part of it!"

But you get where I'm going. I mean, that's what makes people my age and older afraid, Brian, right? You guys understand that. It's just that way that community...

No, and that's – that's scary to me. When I told you, normally I don't get into this "this generation" and "generation" stuff because most of those conversations are [expletive] horseshit. And guess what? Every generation has said about the new generation, "All these damn kids these days!" Plato wrote about it. Plato wrote about how he was becoming embarrassed to be Greek because of the next generation. So if that were the case, where each successive generation is worse than the last one, we'd be [expletive] dead, we wouldn't be here. So obviously that's not the case.

But when you're talking about things like this and how people deal with it, absolutely. Because you see something in print, and from your life and how things work in typical discussions, when you see a comment – one, you know this, when you read something out loud and write it down, it's much different than what's happened in the conversation, right? When something – it's different what you say over the radio and then when it gets read out loud in court, you're like, "Oh, that doesn't – that doesn't sound very good," right? But so that it's taken out of context sort of, but it's also a different way of looking at things where you would look at it and go, "How the [expletive] can this guy say it?" We're all looking, it's like, "This guy's a clown!"

Right, right. But again, my context has always been in right testimony, but in scientific arenas. And not – not just life experience, but Greg, that's a generational difference too.

Yes, I agree, I agree. And what I'm saying is, from everything that has tainted and touched me, I responded kindly, Brian. But when we talk about being subjective and rationalizing things, do you know what that's – that's confirmation bias. So I don't need somebody else to name "Greg and Brian's Aristotle Dilemma," because that's exactly what it is.

So what I'm saying is that the words that come out of your mouth, now you may have to walk them back an hour from now if you didn't consider things. So I'm not saying homeostasis means we're in neutral, we don't move forward, right? What I'm saying is that we'll move forward better, more efficiently, and efficaciously, if we're informed. And training is a form of taking information and making it operationalizing it, making it relevant, making it useful.

I agree. Take that – take that wonderful... I mean, this is why I talk about that and use some of those examples from some of those great books we've read. It's like, "Okay, this is what that means today, what this author was saying about how communication happened in ancient Rome." That's right. No, look at what we do today. It's not unlike that. So what did they do back then to deal with it? Did they deal with it? Well, what have we learned from that? It's just more examples of it. So I think that that's a good point, and I think I'm going to put onto the listeners as an assignment – I think two things: we need two – all right, we need to define "The Brian and Greg Effect" and "The Greg and Brian Effect."

I feel like – oh, I like that! I like that there are – so we'll put it on them, because we already have a – look at that, shout out to the Distinguished Savage, to Walt down in Texas. If you guys want to check out The Distinguished Savage Podcast, it's awesome. But our buddy Walt started "The Royal Order of Homophili," which are Greg fans. So, three of them!

Yeah, I have three more fans than I have! So, yeah, you're right, you're right. Well, hey, that's including my family too. So, on your Patreon, on our weekly Brian, I sent you that video this morning that our consigliere, Sean – yes, like you said Joe's comments from earlier. So, let's break that down for this on the Patreon, because I'll tell you what, it's frightening. And Joe Reed, if you're listening in the podcast, it's exactly what we were talking about on our emails the last couple of days. So, Brian, it fits hand in glove with what we just talked about: confirmation bias. We walk into a scene, somebody says the person has a gun, and we don't see the gun. We don't anticipate the danger. Why? Because over time, three times in the same night, we get the same call to the same place. There are just problems, folks, and training is going to set you free. Open your brain, open your eyes, but open your brain too. Situational awareness is not enough; it's the critical thinking that goes with being a good and valid human that's more important.

Yeah, perspective is everything, right? Is it perspective or is it bias? Or is it, you know, is it reality or your preferred reality? Simply break it down, right? Because that's the problem. And you know what? Sometimes your preferred reality is wrong, but it's your comfort zone, and you've got to step out of it.

Yeah, I think that's a good spot to sort of bring it in for a landing. So, thanks, everyone, always for tuning in. And remember to reach out: thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com. Of course, we've got the Patreon site as well. It's only a few bucks, and we put all kinds of extra content on there. Like Greg was talking about, some videos or some breakdowns and some lessons, stuff like that that we discuss on here, we can go into some more detail and use some actual videos or photos because it's all video-based on there for those lessons. So you can check that out too. Any final comments, Greg?

Thanks, everybody, for celebrating my birthday with me. Your kind words overwhelm me. Thank you.

All right, well, don't forget, everyone, that training changes behavior.