Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on kf
Speaker 1: I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: My next guest is an entrepreneur, an investor, and an author.
Speaker 1: His new book is called Homo Am I going to
Speaker 1: say it right? Idiot idiot Idiots again? I'm being an idiot?
Speaker 1: Can you say it for me?
Speaker 2: Chazari?
Speaker 3: Homo idiots like a play on homo sapiens and homoid economicers.
Speaker 3: I think that we are all homo idiots, not homosapiens.
Speaker 1: Let's go with the subtitle Why we Are Stupid and
Speaker 1: What we could do about it? Jasari Petrashik, How did
Speaker 1: I do? Originally from Poland? Now I talk about cognitive
Speaker 1: biases a lot the brains shortcut that we do so
Speaker 1: that that the brain sometimes in trying to save fuel,
Speaker 1: makes wrong decisions. Is this book about why we're stupid
Speaker 1: and what we can do about it? Kind of about
Speaker 1: cognitive biases?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a big part of that, but not the
Speaker 3: only part. So cognitive biases are part of the psychological
Speaker 3: dimension of our stupidity, but there's also biological and sociological
Speaker 3: and institutional So.
Speaker 2: How we biologically stupid?
Speaker 3: Biologically, it's actuel quite complex. It's from how we are
Speaker 3: wired in terms of that amygdala part of our brain
Speaker 3: that prioritizes reactions to whatever is dangerous, moving, flashy, whatever,
Speaker 3: makes cautious but not precise decisions. Prefrontal cortex makes better decisions.
Speaker 3: But we use it sparingly. We use it only when
Speaker 3: we really think. Most of the decisions in our daily
Speaker 3: life we use you know, using amygdala and other things.
Speaker 3: But biology also is about testosterone. You know, testosterone makes
Speaker 3: us subtly more stupid. So here's the question whether the
Speaker 3: men are more stupid than the women?
Speaker 2: Which IQ test you're using can tell you?
Speaker 1: With the WAYS test, there's a greater range Men have
Speaker 1: a greater range of intelligences on those scores.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but but do you know that almost seventy percent
Speaker 3: of men do not wash their hands after using public toilet,
Speaker 3: let me tell you, and only half of that women.
Speaker 2: Oh, I have.
Speaker 1: To tell you, Jasari that when COVID happened and I
Speaker 1: watched men walking out of men's rooms shaking their hands
Speaker 1: and wringing them because they were wet, I was just
Speaker 1: doing the touchdown cheer. Is this what it takes a
Speaker 1: pandemic to get those guys to wash their hands. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you one biological error that we
Speaker 1: often make. So when I talk a lot about the
Speaker 1: science of love and the science of relationships on this show,
Speaker 1: you know, we smell somebody's pheromones who might be a
Speaker 1: good biological match for us, because immune systems give off
Speaker 1: a certain kind of scent, and if somebody has a
Speaker 1: disparate a different immune system, we will find that more
Speaker 1: sexually attractive. But that doesn't mean you can have a
Speaker 1: compatible marriage.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 1: So there's another way that biologically we make mistakes. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned some other ways that we're making mistakes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sociology. So how the society works. So basically, the
Speaker 3: society sadly makes us stupid. And this is an incredible
Speaker 3: thing because the society made us originally very very smart
Speaker 3: and very for example, less violent than we used to
Speaker 3: be and allowed us to specialize, et cetera. So society
Speaker 3: has put us to tremendous point of possession of strength
Speaker 3: and mental strength as well. However, very I would say,
Speaker 3: in the last few hundred years, the society has rather
Speaker 3: a negative impact on our rat is encouraging our agency.
Speaker 3: Why which way, because because of the of the concept conformity.
Speaker 3: So basically, we will do anything to conform with society,
Speaker 3: which means that we make a lot of recipid decisions
Speaker 3: just to conform. So, for example, there was just from
Speaker 3: innocent things such as you know, there was this experiment
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifties when they were asking people to show
Speaker 3: they were showing them three lines and one was obviously shorter,
Speaker 3: one was obviously longer, and one was exactly the same line.
Speaker 2: I know this study, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: Continue, it's amazing, right, and people, you know, normally in
Speaker 3: the control group, ninety nine percent of people pointed out
Speaker 3: correctly which is longer, which is shorter. But then when
Speaker 3: six people before them were telling wrong answer, but they
Speaker 3: very consistently because they were all accompasses of the person
Speaker 3: who designed the study, then like thirty six percent of
Speaker 3: people also gave wrong answer.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, which is one of the reasons in our
Speaker 1: criminal justice system why it's so easy to get somebody
Speaker 1: to admit to a crime they might not and have committed,
Speaker 1: because you have enough cops in the room and they'd
Speaker 1: say there are other witnesses, they're certain to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I did do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's terrible. Informing you of conformed with society is
Speaker 3: is kind of forced upon us. Think about it. In
Speaker 3: the old days, it actually was a matter of survival
Speaker 3: because because if you were different from society, if you
Speaker 3: didn't conform, you'd be left behind, and a single person
Speaker 3: without the tribe, without the group, would die, right like
Speaker 3: in their primitive society. So that's why it's so deeply
Speaker 3: wired in us that we all the time want to
Speaker 3: conform with the society.
Speaker 1: We want to fit in. You know, I have been
Speaker 1: accused of being a bit of a vanguard and a
Speaker 1: maverick and a big mouth and not going along with
Speaker 1: the crowd. And it has to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that I, by my dad was in the navy.
Speaker 2: We moved a lot.
Speaker 1: By the time I graduated high school, I'd gone to
Speaker 1: ten different schools.
Speaker 2: So I always.
Speaker 1: Felt like an out cider and never felt a need
Speaker 1: to conform because I knew it only be there yere anyway.
Speaker 1: And as a result it has sustained me.
Speaker 2: I've gotten a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of trouble, okay, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: my big mouth that goes against the grain. That's a
Speaker 1: truth teller goes, uh uh ah, No, that's not right.
Speaker 1: Why are we following that? But now in today's time,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a society where we have a
Speaker 1: government who's practicing kind of authoritarian ways.
Speaker 2: That's going to make people conform even more, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Basically people think that whatever is legal or blessed
Speaker 3: by society is moral. So we we do not have
Speaker 3: many security wolves and do not have many switches that
Speaker 3: you know, we will do as a society really bad
Speaker 3: things if the society is blessing it. Yes, So if
Speaker 3: the society tells that this, you know, you can shoot
Speaker 3: at people in this way, you can do those atrocious things.
Speaker 3: You can, you can sure you will do it because
Speaker 3: this hia it gives you that permission.
Speaker 1: This is so frightening. We have to go to a break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I want you to talk about
Speaker 1: some practical, actionable strategies so that we can make smarter
Speaker 1: decisions as individuals. My guest is the author of Homo
Speaker 1: idiot idiootesis is you are right? Idiotesis it's idiots idioticus idioticus.
Speaker 2: Homo idiotic is why.
Speaker 1: We are stupid and what we can do about it?
Speaker 1: Jasari pet petrass seek.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I got to learn how to speak Polish. Chazari,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna call you Tazari.
Speaker 3: That's perfect.
Speaker 1: A brilliant entrepreneur, investor, and author. He is actually the
Speaker 1: owner of a leading AI company that predicts human behavior.
Speaker 1: That's where you got all this information. All right, you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that we will follow the crowd because it's
Speaker 1: basic survival. We will make all kinds of biological, intellectual,
Speaker 1: and social mistakes.
Speaker 2: What can we do about it?
Speaker 1: How can we walk to our own drum?
Speaker 3: So there's many many strategies, right, So one of the
Speaker 3: critical important ones is the mindset. So basically the mindset
Speaker 3: is it's what you have cultivated. Right, You didn't follow
Speaker 3: the crowd because you knew that you are different, that
Speaker 3: you travel with your family who is in the navy, right,
Speaker 3: that you had strong values. You you didn't mind if
Speaker 3: somebody called you something that you didn't like. And that's
Speaker 3: the whole point. The mindset is the most important thing.
Speaker 3: So for example, just to give you, since you mentioned
Speaker 3: the navy, the mindset of the navy so stupid. It
Speaker 3: is about also tolerating things we should we should not tolerate.
Speaker 3: Just to give you an example from the Navy. In
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties, both US Navy and Soviet Navy had
Speaker 3: series of tragic accidents. Basically they lost a lot of
Speaker 3: maybe maybe sorry subs and Russians just just went about
Speaker 3: this normally, while American has decided no, you have a
Speaker 3: mindset that you will not tolerate any any small difficulties,
Speaker 3: any small deficiencies, not no bad days in the office, nothing.
Speaker 3: Since that, they have never lost a boat, whereas the
Speaker 3: Russians have lost I think eight or nine state of
Speaker 3: the art nuclear submarines. It's all about the mindset.
Speaker 1: The mindset, the mindset that it's okay to be different,
Speaker 1: But it's.
Speaker 3: Also it's being vigilant and and not tolerating stupidity, not
Speaker 3: being not allowing yourself to you know, to well, I
Speaker 3: will not listen to it, I will or react to
Speaker 3: it without thinking I will, you know, I will not.
Speaker 3: I will not be using my brain much. Well.
Speaker 1: You mentioned also at the beginning of this that you
Speaker 1: know in my case, for as and since I was
Speaker 1: always the outsider, is that I could also tolerate if
Speaker 1: people didn't like me because I knew I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: there that long necessarily. But I think we all have
Speaker 1: to be able to tolerate the feeling of shame every
Speaker 1: once in a while, because they could be wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: and they'll try to shame us into all these kinds
Speaker 1: of behaviors, and we have to be the one to
Speaker 1: go uh uh ah.
Speaker 2: I don't think that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And so as an individual, we could certainly do that,
Speaker 1: all right, What else can we do to make smarter decisions?
Speaker 3: So feeding yourself with different information sources, so basically, you know,
Speaker 3: not reading biased press, just trying to access information from
Speaker 3: both political sides, different journals, just not being in the
Speaker 3: eco jumber. This is this is critical. This is important. Traveling, right,
Speaker 3: meeting people from different cultures is really really helping because
Speaker 3: you can't understand different perspectives. You know, when I went
Speaker 3: to China, when I spoke to the people there, you know,
Speaker 3: I had a very Western and Western focused philosophy. I
Speaker 3: wasn't taught much about the fact that we as Europeans
Speaker 3: went to China in early nineteen hundreds and we quelled
Speaker 3: their rebellion there. We killed thousands of people, we burned
Speaker 3: their glorious palace. Summer palace, et cetera. They still remember it.
Speaker 3: We don't, right.
Speaker 1: And also I do want to say that in a
Speaker 1: collectivist culture, like many Asian cultures, there's far less mental
Speaker 1: illness because sometimes our brain doesn't do well with too
Speaker 1: much freedom. We like literally get confused, and it's very
Speaker 1: secure to know like this is the hopey way, this
Speaker 1: is the way we do it. Okay, I don't have
Speaker 1: to think there.
Speaker 3: You mentioned traves basic things.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, other basic things are such simple things like fitting yourself.
Speaker 3: So basically, bad quality food or insufficient food create visible reduction,
Speaker 3: make you right. So there's those studies that malnutrition can
Speaker 3: cause fifteen percent fifteen points at your reduction.
Speaker 2: But not just.
Speaker 3: Childhood nutrition we're talking about it was a childhood This
Speaker 3: one was childhood nutrition. There was another study down on
Speaker 3: a big group of I think eight graders in US
Speaker 3: where they were feeding groups with different things, and the
Speaker 3: group that was eating mostly fast food had twenty percent
Speaker 3: lower results cognitive results.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: That's a very basic thing. So so whatever you feed yourself,
Speaker 3: you know literally and figuratively, he really impacts your your humanity.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned feeding your brain different information sources. You know,
Speaker 1: I do try to listen to a range of opinions
Speaker 1: with my podcasts and television, et cetera. And I viberately
Speaker 1: make a point sometimes when I'm driving and it's a
Speaker 1: long drive, I'll be like, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give my hour to the other side. Let me
Speaker 1: see how they're doing this story. And I'm always shocked
Speaker 1: that there are a few things they say I agree with,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait a minute, maybe I'm a centralist.
Speaker 3: And that's beautiful because this allows us to have free
Speaker 3: expression and freedom of speech, and that is very important
Speaker 3: so that we can discuss the differences rather than you know,
Speaker 3: shout at each other or one more before we go,
Speaker 3: one more, one more, one more for you to remember,
Speaker 3: for all those people who are thinking about the cognitive
Speaker 3: decline while they are getting older, there is a study
Speaker 3: which shows a twenty one year old study, so they
Speaker 3: were four over people for twenty one years when they
Speaker 3: discovered that partner dancing is off the charts in terms
Speaker 3: of prevention of the dementia. Forget cross puzzles, forget playing chess,
Speaker 3: forget playing golf, Like nothing compares with partner dancing.
Speaker 1: Okay, my jaw just fell on the table because in
Speaker 1: August I got married to a Dominican man who taught
Speaker 1: me to salsa dance. And now we go to all
Speaker 1: the family parties and I'm salsa dancing with my blonde
Speaker 1: hair and blue eyes, and he's working me.
Speaker 3: So you'll be in great physical and mental shame. You
Speaker 3: new were all to days.
Speaker 2: Well ya, little review.
Speaker 1: Feed your brain, different information sources, feed your brain healthy
Speaker 1: vegetables and lean proteins. Travel the world so you can
Speaker 1: learn about different cultures and take up some partner dancing.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, where can people get the book?
Speaker 3: It's available on pre sale from Amazon. Its official launch
Speaker 3: date is twenty second of June, so you can you
Speaker 3: can get it on probably two days later.
Speaker 1: Oh great, you're going to send me a copy because
Speaker 1: I want to read every word of it?
Speaker 3: Yes, I will.
Speaker 1: Homo idiotticus idiot idioticus homoidioticus subtitle Why we are stupid
Speaker 1: and what we can do about it? Jasari, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being with us.
Speaker 2: What a treat.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app