Speaker 1: Hi, I'm doctor Scott and I'm doctor Shiloh.
Speaker 2: And this is La Not So Confidential, the Forensic Psychology
Speaker 2: and True crime podcast.
Speaker 1: In each episode, we explore the intersection of psychology, the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system, and entertainment.
Speaker 2: And today our episode is in the forensic psychtopic of
Speaker 2: when bad things Happen to wealthy people.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome back, Happy April to our listeners. How
Speaker 1: you doing, doctor Scott.
Speaker 2: So far, so good. We are organizing and kind of
Speaker 2: moving into this new schedule that we've been doing since
Speaker 2: the beginning of the year. It's kind of working for us.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've had more time to catch up
Speaker 2: you too, life than I have in a very long time,
Speaker 2: which is kind of a good thing. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff that's been on the back burner that I'm
Speaker 2: getting to finalize, which is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also feel like I'm in this lull at work.
Speaker 1: Usually I have, you know, sort of like presentations or
Speaker 1: trainings that are on my schedule and calendar that I'm
Speaker 1: constantly trying to prep for, and I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in a lull which I'm enjoying, like making
Speaker 1: myself enjoy because usually it's like flying by the seat
Speaker 1: of my pants. But I think this is contributing to it,
Speaker 1: like a little more time baked in for us and
Speaker 1: just our regular lives. But there are moments of I
Speaker 1: should be doing something, What am I forgetting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a lesson for everybody too. As
Speaker 2: I have shared in the last couple of episodes, I
Speaker 2: have transitioned to another position. I'm no longer in the
Speaker 2: co responder slash law enforcement position that I was for
Speaker 2: the past seven and a half years. I've gone into
Speaker 2: something that actually is a little bit more forensically oriented,
Speaker 2: and it's been a fantastic opportunity for me to turn
Speaker 2: on another part of my brain that's been like that's
Speaker 2: been an idle mode for a few years. So that's
Speaker 2: really great. But as I have told doctor Shiloh several times,
Speaker 2: it's been really jarring because I didn't realize the train
Speaker 2: that I was on for the past seven and a
Speaker 2: half years, the train I was on was a high
Speaker 2: speed rail going one hundred and seventy five miles an hour.
Speaker 2: Just because there was always like every morning was walking
Speaker 2: into what crisis do I have to address this morning?
Speaker 2: You know, what are we going to have to jump
Speaker 2: to are we going to have to run to a barricade?
Speaker 2: Are we going to have to go to a hospital?
Speaker 2: You know, our family members blowing up my phone, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, And it just became the norm, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of effects on it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think anybody working in emergency services to any degree has
Speaker 2: that sort of experien So shifting from that over the
Speaker 2: past three months has been like, well, I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: be doing something right now, it's like, oh no, I
Speaker 2: actually already did like a day's work in the first
Speaker 2: three hours of the day because that's the pace I'm
Speaker 2: used to working at. Yeah, and I will say this,
Speaker 2: my sleep has improved immeasurable nice, Like I did not
Speaker 2: realize how much my sleep had been impacted since COVID
Speaker 2: when thing's really ramped up for us. So how about you,
Speaker 2: So instead of.
Speaker 1: The train analogy, if we take your frog one, you
Speaker 1: have plucked yourself out of the boiling pot of water.
Speaker 1: Now you're like in a lukewarm little simmer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I may have like boiled off chuplate legs
Speaker 2: or something. I'm not sure, just dragging myself my little
Speaker 2: frog hands around the office right.
Speaker 1: Now, we actually would like to burn off a couple
Speaker 1: layers of skin if we could do that in a
Speaker 1: healthy way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you and I do anyway.
Speaker 1: Yes, So that's where we're at. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: are slowing down when you can too, but we are
Speaker 1: not slowing down in terms of things that we have
Speaker 1: planned for in person. So we want to remind everyone
Speaker 1: that coming up very soon April eleventh, it's a Friday,
Speaker 1: we are going to have a very casual meetup. Come
Speaker 1: hang with us at Bikeshed in downtown LA. It's in
Speaker 1: the Arts district, very cool space. We did a meetup
Speaker 1: before Crime con UK at their London location and we
Speaker 1: just adore them and they have such an amazing cool
Speaker 1: restaurant and lounge area where they totally welcome LA not
Speaker 1: so confidential. So if you're traveling in from out of town,
Speaker 1: like we said before, reach out to us if you
Speaker 1: need a place to stay, not meaning like we're going
Speaker 1: to put you up ourselves, but like we can point
Speaker 1: you towards a safe area in downtown to stay. Parking
Speaker 1: in the Arts district is a huge pain, so I
Speaker 1: will just say come prepared for that. Maybe have to
Speaker 1: walk a block or so. If you do park yourself
Speaker 1: or Uber's a way to go for sure as well.
Speaker 2: And we'll also post the closest available parking places we
Speaker 2: could do that, yeah there, and or if you wanted
Speaker 2: to park someplace that's more centrally located in downtown LA,
Speaker 2: like this is the secure high end parking structure and
Speaker 2: then Uber from there. I know that sounds a little complex,
Speaker 2: long story short, it's worth that the Bike Shed it
Speaker 2: is a very cool, very cool venue that we love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, all right, should we get to
Speaker 1: our last episode recap, let's do it.
Speaker 2: So. In our last episode, we brought you a live
Speaker 2: streamed conversation with our esteemed editor and creative producer and
Speaker 2: post production sorcerer, Jason Usri. He is the creative genius
Speaker 2: behind Santa Maybe a Criminal, the satire true crime podcast.
Speaker 2: He has launched a new podcast of a very different
Speaker 2: nature called Inconceivable, The Story of Timogen kin Zu, which
Speaker 2: is a real time journey into the seemingly wrong conviction
Speaker 2: of mister Kenzu for the murder of Scott Macklum in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six in Port Huron, Michigan. It's not a satire,
Speaker 2: and like all of his projects, Jason's heart and empathy
Speaker 2: leads the way as he attempts to inch closer to
Speaker 2: justice for both of these men. If you want to
Speaker 2: catch these conversations live, follow us on Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 2: for livestream dates, or check out our link tree, which
Speaker 2: you can find in the show notes.
Speaker 1: All right, so on for our topic today. We find
Speaker 1: this incredibly timely and have had this kind of in
Speaker 1: our back pocket for a couple of months. Here. The
Speaker 1: phrase eat the rich originates from the writings of Jean
Speaker 1: Jacques Rousseau, an eighteenth century French philosopher, and it's often
Speaker 1: attributed to a paraphrase of his idea that quote, when
Speaker 1: the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will
Speaker 1: eat the rich close quote. While there's no direct evidence
Speaker 1: that he wrote these exact words, the sentiment aligns with
Speaker 1: views on economic inequality and the corruption of the aristocracy.
Speaker 1: This idea was a reaction to the extreme wealth disparity
Speaker 1: leading up to the French Revolution, which was like seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine to seventeen ninety nine, where resentment against the
Speaker 1: ruling class fueled radical political movements. So do you hear
Speaker 1: the people sing, doctor Scott? You like that? You like
Speaker 1: that I'm finally the one to put a musical reference
Speaker 1: in our intro.
Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you. I'm just like so moved.
Speaker 2: That's not like in my top five favorite musicals, but
Speaker 2: it is, like the lyrics are really fantastic. I wanted
Speaker 2: to also comment that, like, you know, we're framing a
Speaker 2: lot of today's episode within the context of what is
Speaker 2: going on in our nation's administration right now, which is
Speaker 2: really difficult for a lot of people. When I looked
Speaker 2: at like the little script note that you have here
Speaker 2: that the French Revolution was between seventeen eighty nine and
Speaker 2: seventeen ninety nine, I was like, fucked ten years of
Speaker 2: this shit. Oh my god, sorry for the language, folks.
Speaker 2: This is no holds barred with this stuff.
Speaker 1: Seriously, yes, leaves a Rob. I can't believe it's not
Speaker 1: in your top five. Well I believe that, Actually I do.
Speaker 2: I mean I like it. It's just not like I
Speaker 2: don't come away from it feeling buoyed.
Speaker 1: Hmmm. Interesting. Interesting. Well, when I saw Wicked for the
Speaker 1: first time, I was like, eh, that was okay, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you either get it the first time or you don't.
Speaker 2: But apparently now the movie is bringing over like tons
Speaker 2: of things, which is.
Speaker 1: Cool, totally Well. Since then, eat the Rich has been
Speaker 1: used in various political and cultural context to criticize economic inequality, capitalism,
Speaker 1: and elite privilege. It has resurfaced in modern times as
Speaker 1: a slogan for wealth redistribution, social justice movements, and even
Speaker 1: pop culture references. So let that set the scene for
Speaker 1: our episode today. I'm going to pop in with just
Speaker 1: our trigger as well. We are talking about assassination by
Speaker 1: gun violence. We're talking about man made disasters, which we
Speaker 1: don't talk about very often, but I know that sort
Speaker 1: of freaks people out, and you probably know what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, but you definitely will by the end of
Speaker 1: this episode. So again, just listen with care with some
Speaker 1: of those things coming up today, right.
Speaker 2: So, now would be the perfect time for quote unquote
Speaker 2: eat the Rich media to take off. Prices are skyrocketing,
Speaker 2: and younger generations millennials and Gen Z are working longer
Speaker 2: hours for less pay than their parents. And even though
Speaker 2: they're the most educated generation ever, they're buried in debt
Speaker 2: and still struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the gap
Speaker 2: between the wealthy and everybody else keeps growing. CEO pay
Speaker 2: has shot up by a staggering one thousand, four hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty percent over the last few decades, now averaging
Speaker 2: three hundred and ninety nine times what the typical worker earns,
Speaker 2: without any proof that they're working harder or smarter. In fact,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of proof that's showing that they don't
Speaker 2: work harder and they don't work smarter. America's once thriving
Speaker 2: middle class is rapidly shrinking, while billionaires are multiplying. And
Speaker 2: with all this happening, it's no wonder that so many
Speaker 2: people are frustrated with the ultra rich and questioning how
Speaker 2: this system keeps them on top.
Speaker 1: After World War II, the United States experienced a remarkable
Speaker 1: economic boom that led to the rise of a solid
Speaker 1: and growing middle class following decades of struggles again following
Speaker 1: the world wide depression after the collapse of the stock market.
Speaker 1: This period, often referred to as the Great Compression, saw
Speaker 1: a significant narrowing of income inequality, largely due to progressive
Speaker 1: economic policies and widespread prosperity. But this boom period was
Speaker 1: relatively short lived because in the decades that followed, shifting
Speaker 1: government policies and tax structures then contributed to a widening
Speaker 1: income gap, which led to concerns about the erosion of
Speaker 1: the middle class. But let's stick with some of the
Speaker 1: good stuff that happened. In the aftermath of World War II.
Speaker 1: The US economy expanded rapidly, and several factors contributed to
Speaker 1: this growth. We have the GI Bill, which provided returning
Speaker 1: veterans with benefits such as housing, education, and unemployment assistance.
Speaker 1: This legislation played a significant role in expanding the American
Speaker 1: middle class by enabling millions to purchase homes and pursue
Speaker 1: higher education. But and not just as a side note,
Speaker 1: not all veterans were allowed to access these benefits. Black
Speaker 1: servicemen and women were not included in the full span
Speaker 1: of benefits, acting as federal Jim Crow style impediments. And
Speaker 1: we also have the industrial expansion. The war effort had
Speaker 1: revitalized American industries, leading to increased production and job creation.
Speaker 1: This industrial boom continued into the post war years, providing
Speaker 1: ample employment opportunities for a broad segment of the population.
Speaker 1: Detroit exploded as motor city with multiple auto factories that
Speaker 1: provided solid jobs for returning gis, with these jobs then
Speaker 1: becoming family legacies, and then we have the Southern States
Speaker 1: that boomed with widespread textile and clothing production.
Speaker 2: So after World War Two, the US had some of
Speaker 2: the highest tax rates in history. We call it progressive taxation,
Speaker 2: especially for the wealthiest Americans. But instead of slowing the
Speaker 2: economy down, these taxes absolutely acted as rocket fuel to
Speaker 2: create one of the biggest middle class booms in the
Speaker 2: history of the known world. This structure helped redistribute wealth
Speaker 2: and fund public services that benefited the broader population, or
Speaker 2: what in political terms, is known as the commons. The
Speaker 2: commons is a concept that's been around since the inception
Speaker 2: of this country, and it's really not talked about nearly
Speaker 2: enough as it should. Unfortunately, it gets lumped into other
Speaker 2: terms like socialism instead of the commons. Right after the war,
Speaker 2: the top income tax rate was a staggering ninety four
Speaker 2: percent for the richest Americans. So anyone making over two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand a year, which in today's numbers would be
Speaker 2: about three million a year. That wouldn't sound insane by
Speaker 2: today's standards, but it wasn't a flat tax. People only
Speaker 2: paid that high rate on income above that threshold, so
Speaker 2: it's not like we're taxing of all millionaires and billionaires.
Speaker 2: They are taxed for what they make over that amount,
Speaker 2: and for most of the nineteen fifties, the highest tax
Speaker 2: rate stayed around between ninety one and ninety two percent,
Speaker 2: which meant ultra rich individuals were contributing a massive chunk
Speaker 2: of their income to the government. Now, let me be
Speaker 2: careful and make you understand there were also a lot
Speaker 2: of taxo poles. Then. One of the reasons we have
Speaker 2: theaters and parks and museums across this country is because
Speaker 2: all these wealthy people were like, I got to do something,
Speaker 2: I got to put some money somewhere and so I
Speaker 2: can have a write off. So they created these things.
Speaker 2: So in the middle of the Gilded Age, which we're
Speaker 2: heading back towards, a lot of people were building things
Speaker 2: for posterity. But don't be sucked into the notion that
Speaker 2: they were doing it just for the good of the commons.
Speaker 2: They were doing it for their own Corporate taxation rates.
Speaker 2: Corporations also had high taxes at the time, between forty
Speaker 2: percent and fifty percent on profits, and the estate tax,
Speaker 2: which affects inherited wealth, had a top rate of seventy
Speaker 2: seven percent for massive estates. Capital gains taxes on things
Speaker 2: like stocks were twenty five percent, and payroll taxes for
Speaker 2: Social Security were much lower than they are today. And
Speaker 2: people should not be taxed on their Social Security. But
Speaker 2: that's another soapbox I'm going to leave under my chair
Speaker 2: for today. But within just a few decades, starting in
Speaker 2: the late seventies and earth eighties, policy changes began to
Speaker 2: alter the complete economic landscape.
Speaker 1: So by the early nineteen sixties, President John F. Kennedy
Speaker 1: pushed for tax cuts, lowering the top rate to seventy
Speaker 1: percent in nineteen sixty four. But the real shift came
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties when President Ronald Reagan slashed the
Speaker 1: top rate all the way down to twenty eight percent.
Speaker 1: That's when incoming quality started skyrocketing and the middle class
Speaker 1: began to struggle. So this is now when we kind
Speaker 1: of pivot to looking at the decline of labor unions.
Speaker 1: Policies that specifically targeted labor unions led to a decrease
Speaker 1: in union membership. Unions had historically played a crucial role
Speaker 1: in securing better wages and working conditions for middle class workers.
Speaker 1: And yes, this is a complex issue, as labor unions
Speaker 1: had allowed corruption of a few powerful movers and shakers
Speaker 1: to poison the well as it were. That could be
Speaker 1: a great idea for another episode. But you and I
Speaker 1: have worked in unions and around people who love their
Speaker 1: unions for a very long time. You and I have
Speaker 1: both been union representatives and board members and things.
Speaker 2: That I'm a member of five unions.
Speaker 1: There you go, there you go. And then there was
Speaker 1: the great explosion of globalization and trade policies with free
Speaker 1: trade agreements that led to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 1: This shift disproportionately affected middle class workers and industries like manufacturing,
Speaker 1: and contributed to job loss and wage stagnation. Detroit, the South,
Speaker 1: and the Midwest, all heavily driven by manufacturing jobs, began
Speaker 1: to see a closure of plants and the loss of jobs.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately it did not stop. In the eighties. The
Speaker 2: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of twenty seventeen went even
Speaker 2: further to reduce taxes for corporations and high income individuals.
Speaker 2: Critics argued that such policies exacerbated in communequality and did
Speaker 2: little to benefit the middle class. So then that led
Speaker 2: to what we call middle class stagnation. Because despite overall
Speaker 2: economic growth by numbers, many middle class families did not
Speaker 2: see proportional increases in income. Rising costs of essentials like healthcare, education,
Speaker 2: and housing further strained middle class finances. Another major shift
Speaker 2: was deregulation, which means reducing government rules and restrictions on businesses.
Speaker 2: This was another big focus of the Reagan era and
Speaker 2: beyond here's what happened. Banks and Wall Street were deregulated,
Speaker 2: which led to riskier financial practices. This played a huge
Speaker 2: role in the two thousand and eight financial crisis. Corporations
Speaker 2: became more powerful and many focused on maximizing shareholder profits
Speaker 2: rather than paying fair wages or providing benefits. There's another
Speaker 2: factor of this that we won't go too far into,
Speaker 2: but this started with Nixon. When Nixon, prior to Reagan
Speaker 2: being in office, actually started deconstructing the system of medical
Speaker 2: care in our country. He empowered HMOs and insurance companies
Speaker 2: to become for profit. Prior to that, it wasn't for profit.
Speaker 2: Most people had access to care, so there were certainly
Speaker 2: a lot more functional hospitals, and they worked better than
Speaker 2: they do today. As things have become managed care as they.
Speaker 1: Call it, yes, or as one of my very favorite
Speaker 1: professors called it, mingled care. Yeah, which I think I
Speaker 1: wrote into something I'm going to touch on later. But yeah,
Speaker 1: here we are in America. Feels like we're a bit
Speaker 1: of a crossroads, right and again being in there with us,
Speaker 1: you guys, I know this is like an economics history episode.
Speaker 2: Maybe some people already know. If you don't know it,
Speaker 2: I hope that will spark some interest. But it's also
Speaker 2: necessary to understand how we've generated an entire generation of
Speaker 2: people into wealth that may seem to have like a
Speaker 2: lack of empathy. Right. For decades, Americans have been told
Speaker 2: that the American dream means that anyone can climb the
Speaker 2: economic ladder if they just work hard enough. And true
Speaker 2: for a very narrow slice of the population, and by
Speaker 2: the way, a good portion of them, we're not working
Speaker 2: that hard and don't work that hard. To this day,
Speaker 2: more and more people are realizing that that's not really
Speaker 2: how things work. And there's also a big portion of
Speaker 2: the population that chooses to live in an echo chamber
Speaker 2: that has now convinced them that their lack of movement
Speaker 2: on the latter of success is because others have taken
Speaker 2: that opportunity away from them. Wealth and opportunity aren't as
Speaker 2: accessible as we were led to believe, and inequality is
Speaker 2: getting harder to ignore. So take Donald Trump for example,
Speaker 2: a guy who inherited millions yet still manages to be
Speaker 2: seen by many voters as a regular guy. Meanwhile, most
Speaker 2: of the people who support him will never come close
Speaker 2: to his level of wealth. I mean, not even in
Speaker 2: one hundred lifetimes would they come that close. So it's
Speaker 2: this really strange contradiction, but it speaks to how deeply
Speaker 2: the idea of success and self made wealth is ingrained
Speaker 2: into American culture, even when the the reality of it
Speaker 2: does not match up. So at the same time, there's
Speaker 2: this growing trend of financially stable young people who go
Speaker 2: out of their way to avoid being seen as privileged.
Speaker 2: In a world where privilege comes with social baggage, some
Speaker 2: are very eager to redefine their identities in a way
Speaker 2: that distances them from being labeled as part of the problem.
Speaker 2: An interesting offshoot of this is the world of high fashion.
Speaker 2: More and more, high fashion is moving away from anything
Speaker 2: that denotes what the label is. You can see someone
Speaker 2: wearing a beautiful, beautiful Kashmir coat in New York and
Speaker 2: you can know that it's money from the way it's
Speaker 2: cut and the way the person is walking. But it
Speaker 2: has no labels on it. It's not super fancy, But
Speaker 2: that coat probably costs a minimum of twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That is a trend that is going on right now
Speaker 2: in fashion and is being talked about. But all of this,
Speaker 2: this confusion about class success identity, it shows that we're
Speaker 2: still trying to figure out what economic fairness actually looks
Speaker 2: like in modern America. And I know we're going on
Speaker 2: and on and on about this, but this actually has
Speaker 2: a direct access to mental health, and that's what we're
Speaker 2: going to get to today for sure.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to try to do here is
Speaker 1: sort of look at the concepts and the research that
Speaker 1: take these historical and sociological perspectives, and we want to
Speaker 1: see how it informs the way that people feel when
Speaker 1: tragedy happens to wealthy individuals or perhaps you know, maybe
Speaker 1: entities or groups. As you may have noticed in more
Speaker 1: recent years with the increased social media usage and content creation,
Speaker 1: more insight into how people react, cope, and let their
Speaker 1: views be known on everything is out there right including
Speaker 1: when these high profile incidents happen. And most of this
Speaker 1: content is not the kindest. It's like, where did the
Speaker 1: empathy go? The empathy is erased when you're behind your
Speaker 1: computer or phone.
Speaker 2: And it's also being demonized in a wide spread fashion,
Speaker 2: and especially in the Mani sphere and in the evangelical movement,
Speaker 2: which is really absolutely mind boggling that Christianity would try
Speaker 2: and deconstruct empathy, which is also compassion, and compassion is
Speaker 2: in the Bible multiple times. Crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's not we're not seeing people like pouring
Speaker 1: out their condolences. It's generally jokes or in some cases
Speaker 1: saying out loud what some of us might be shamefully
Speaker 1: feeling or thinking. It of course doesn't mean everyone feels
Speaker 1: this way. It's a spectrum, like always, right, But this
Speaker 1: is the trend that is happening, and especially with some
Speaker 1: of these things we're going to talk about today. So
Speaker 1: I think a really good place to start to understand
Speaker 1: this is by looking at the psychology of in groups
Speaker 1: and out groups. And I want to encourage our listeners
Speaker 1: think of a time when you demonstrated and us versus
Speaker 1: them mentality, let's say, as related to your job. Right.
Speaker 1: I think that's an easy one for everyone to do.
Speaker 1: It can be how is your knowledge different from a
Speaker 1: client or a customer. It can be a social group
Speaker 1: maybe that you became a part of because of your job. Right,
Speaker 1: No one understands what I do like this other person
Speaker 1: who does what I do, whether it's none, other mental
Speaker 1: health professional, somebody in law enforcement, somebody in entertainment, we
Speaker 1: get it. We almost have like a language that we
Speaker 1: don't have to explain the backstory of it, and we
Speaker 1: understand the ins and outs. I ask you to do
Speaker 1: this because it demonstrates how this happens just naturally, right,
Speaker 1: especially in professions that are really closely linked with our identities.
Speaker 1: That's why I pick that one. We all have worked
Speaker 1: at some point or another. The truth is, we feel
Speaker 1: more comfortable in our in groups than in out groups
Speaker 1: people that are different than us do to psychological and
Speaker 1: evolutionary factors that we are not necessarily consciously aware of.
Speaker 1: In groups, groups we identify with based on shared characteristics
Speaker 1: like culture, interests, or background provide a sense of belonging,
Speaker 1: provides a sense of safety and mutual understanding. Evolutionarily, humans
Speaker 1: relied on tight knit groups for survival, fostering trust and
Speaker 1: fostering cooperation for the betterment of the human race to
Speaker 1: live on and all of that. So social identity theory
Speaker 1: explains that we derive self esteem from our social group memberships,
Speaker 1: leading to favoritism towards our in group and potential bias
Speaker 1: against out groups. Again, this is implicit. This is something
Speaker 1: that we know, hence the reason we need to be
Speaker 1: aware of it, So things like discrimination doesn't happen, But
Speaker 1: we're saying this is totally natural and organic and there's
Speaker 1: an evolutionary reason for it. Additionally, cognitive ease plays a role,
Speaker 1: so this is familiarity and shared norms that make interactions
Speaker 1: smoother and hence reducing uncertainty and social anxiety. There is
Speaker 1: an in group bias that also occurs. Here people show
Speaker 1: a pattern of favoring members of one's own in group
Speaker 1: over outgroup members. Innately, this likely stems from a will
Speaker 1: and a need to survive again when we were cavemen
Speaker 1: living in our tribes. It also makes us as human
Speaker 1: beings feel good to have an in group.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Each group nourishes its own pride, its own vanity, and
Speaker 1: boasts itself as superior. And another piece of that is
Speaker 1: that we kind of look at others with contempt if
Speaker 1: they are those outsiders. I think this also is worth
Speaker 1: just really quickly speaking on the concepts of culture. Culture
Speaker 1: and all the little subcultures that we are a part of,
Speaker 1: is is formulated by the way that we think, how
Speaker 1: that we are raised. You know, some of those core
Speaker 1: beliefs that we come to have come from the way
Speaker 1: that we're raised. It's what makes us and in turn,
Speaker 1: it's how that we end up interpreting the world and
Speaker 1: how it makes sense to us. So culture is really
Speaker 1: ingrained deeply within each of us, and yet it's something
Speaker 1: that we don't really see that often. It impacts almost
Speaker 1: all of our decision making, and yet we don't explicitly
Speaker 1: pay attention to it. It's the collection of thoughts, behaviors, interpretations,
Speaker 1: and especially it's the investment of time into who we
Speaker 1: have become. It's how people then start to see us.
Speaker 1: So cultural conditioning also creates separations, It creates barriers and
Speaker 1: could be filled with prejudice. What is preferable to us,
Speaker 1: who we should talk to, and what attracts us is
Speaker 1: culturally conditioned and cultivated. So with all of this, I
Speaker 1: think one little note here about the false consensus effect
Speaker 1: is mentioning. This is a pervasive cognitive bias that causes
Speaker 1: people to quote see their own behavioral choices and judgments
Speaker 1: as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances. And what
Speaker 1: we do is we overestimate how much others agree with us.
Speaker 1: And many factors can influence this, So, for instance, the
Speaker 1: information that is available to us, which is called the
Speaker 1: availability heuristic. It's how we kind of have these little
Speaker 1: mental shortcuts, and then it becomes this really difficult cycle
Speaker 1: to get out of when we're falling into this false
Speaker 1: consensus effect. So just some psychobabble there to kind of
Speaker 1: tie this in, to start to understand what is part
Speaker 1: of our innate, built in biological behavior that keeps us safe.
Speaker 1: And then how do we sort of develop some of
Speaker 1: these thought patterns that are understandable but also we need
Speaker 1: to pay attention to so they don't start to lead
Speaker 1: to discriminatory behaviors.
Speaker 2: Yes, understandable, but can be problematic if we're not sure
Speaker 2: self aware. Right, And to move that forward, what's the
Speaker 2: impact of this on those of us that are struggling
Speaker 2: in the mix. Why do we feel why do we
Speaker 2: act this way? So the really good article by Mark Travers,
Speaker 2: who was writing for Forbes magazine. He drills down into
Speaker 2: why some people who are successful want to downplay their stability,
Speaker 2: and also why we love watching rich people suffer, which
Speaker 2: is a really great name for an article. I have
Speaker 2: to say, it's really good. We're going to give you
Speaker 2: sort of the cliff Notes version. He points out why
Speaker 2: movies like The Menu, Parasite, and Knives Out are wildly successful.
Speaker 2: It's not just those movies. There are great hit TV
Speaker 2: shows that I waited to the last minute to watch,
Speaker 2: like Succession, where the suffering may not be as grongwen
Speaker 2: all as the audience walks away pretty content in the
Speaker 2: misery of characters. I know I'm going to be fully
Speaker 2: authentic and transparent here. I was so relieved that everything
Speaker 2: fell apart for the most part, for the characters in Succession,
Speaker 2: because for the most part they were just all complete narcapaths.
Speaker 1: Interesting. You had the feeling of relief, like not just
Speaker 1: like Glee or like oh yeah, stick it to the man,
Speaker 1: but like relief. That's so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so relief. And I mean, if I'm going
Speaker 2: to try and look at it objectively, I'm going to
Speaker 2: say I feel relief because I guess it gives me
Speaker 2: a sense that maybe there's some justice. But it's also
Speaker 2: writing for TV and maybe you know, like TV writers
Speaker 2: are artists, but then their writers are also showrunners that
Speaker 2: have to make money on a show. So what is
Speaker 2: going to sell? How can you get your message across
Speaker 2: but also still sell a product? So these productions all
Speaker 2: have in common something that makes them even more appealing.
Speaker 2: They show rich people struggling, and let's be honest, a
Speaker 2: lot of us love seeing the wealthy go through hard times.
Speaker 2: I mean, even Shit's Creek one of my favorite all
Speaker 2: time shows, and it's a go to show when I'm
Speaker 2: like having a bad day. Yeah, it starts with the
Speaker 2: premise that the roses all need to be taken down
Speaker 2: a few notches, but it's an absolutely lovely character arc
Speaker 2: that we all get to go, oh, look, they're human
Speaker 2: and they can develop. There's something in there, and we
Speaker 2: should give that sort of possibility for almost everyone. But
Speaker 2: this is also the real world, right.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah exactly, And what you're saying, you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of this start and lead up of what we
Speaker 1: love to consume in terms of media and entertainment. It's
Speaker 1: art imitating life, like it's the epitome of that saying
Speaker 1: in a.
Speaker 2: Way, absolutely, and it's what's fascinating to me because we're
Speaker 2: watching Paradise right now. So Paradise is a post apocalyptic
Speaker 2: or apocalyptic drama, like because there's some things happening concurrently,
Speaker 2: which is really well constructed and for me actually kind
Speaker 2: of hard to watch. There are some things that's so good,
Speaker 2: there's some things that really disturbed me about it. But
Speaker 2: they started planning that show like two and a half
Speaker 2: years ago and shooting it. It's like, wait, you saw
Speaker 2: this kind of coming? Hold wrap because it's so precient,
Speaker 2: you know. But I think that's also what really good
Speaker 2: writing does that sort of looks at what's happening right
Speaker 2: now and projects like, well, if this is happening, then
Speaker 2: the sequal a could be this. And it's not just
Speaker 2: in movies either. Protests, memes, even social media jokes will
Speaker 2: often take aim at billionaires and the ultra rich. And
Speaker 2: there's a reason eat the rich has become a popular
Speaker 2: catchphrase again because it taps into a deeper frustration with
Speaker 2: wealth inequality. But the question is, why do people actually
Speaker 2: enjoy watching the downfall of the rich? Is it? David
Speaker 2: taking down Goliath, you know Traverse reviews some of our peers,
Speaker 2: you know, those in our field of psychology that have
Speaker 2: been doing research on this subject. And he really boils
Speaker 2: it down into a few salient points, very very acutely. First,
Speaker 2: and I'm so glad at this point at the beginning,
Speaker 2: because it is one of my favorite words in the world.
Speaker 2: It has been and like I'm telling on myself, I'm
Speaker 2: telling on how little evolved I am. And that is schadenfreude.
Speaker 2: And schadenfreude is the German word for harm joy, basically
Speaker 2: feeling pleasure at someone else's misfortune, and it's out of
Speaker 2: the context of desiring come up, thence right and come up.
Speaker 2: And since from being from southern culture, believe me, getting
Speaker 2: too big for your breeches was a big part of
Speaker 2: like my upbringing in our family culture. And I think
Speaker 2: it's also it's important for people who actually individually have
Speaker 2: gone through hard times, they have faced hardships, they can
Speaker 2: get a little bit of, you know, a tickle, like saying, okay,
Speaker 2: finally that person is actually having to face real life
Speaker 2: right now, let's I want to be also for with like,
Speaker 2: you know, pleasure at someone else's pain is a bit
Speaker 2: like sadism. This is different though, because, in really my
Speaker 2: clinical opinion, it is the inward and the outward expression
Speaker 2: of a desire for stability and a reflection of some
Speaker 2: healthy parts of righteousness and some unhealthy aspects of self righteousness.
Speaker 2: So there's a thin line there that I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people are not particularly aware of. And while
Speaker 2: I am way familiar with schadenfreude, like I said, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm working on tapping it down. Don't worry, folks, I'm
Speaker 2: really working on it. Travers finds some great research on
Speaker 2: emotional experience that pulls from a journal called New Ideas
Speaker 2: in Psychology, and the writer breaks the concept down into
Speaker 2: three main types, which is kind of amazing because I
Speaker 2: didn't really think that you would be able to further
Speaker 2: boil that down as a concept. But this is interesting.
Speaker 2: So first of all, he says, rivalry schadenfreude. We naturally
Speaker 2: compare ourselves to others, especially those who have more guilty.
Speaker 2: Like I'm pounding a buzzer right now, right when someone
Speaker 2: of higher status stumbles, it can make us feel better
Speaker 2: about our own situation. Number two, aggression schadenfreuda, and this
Speaker 2: comes from an us versus them mindset. When wealthy elites
Speaker 2: them in this equation struggle, it reinforces our sense of
Speaker 2: belonging to the us, the regular people. And what's wild
Speaker 2: is I know some people that have never been regular people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they will never be regular people, but they really do
Speaker 2: see themselves as regular people. I mean, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: people that I know that are from generation after generation
Speaker 2: after generation of ultra wealthy. They've had a rarefied life
Speaker 2: their entire existence. But God love you for that perspective.
Speaker 2: And finally, there's justice schadenfreuda, and this is about fairness.
Speaker 2: If someone who seems undeserving of their wealth or power
Speaker 2: faces consequences, it feels like justice is being served. Like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of new money that's been generated by
Speaker 2: probably the top five percent of influencers in the world.
Speaker 2: And when they act like assholes or jerks, where they
Speaker 2: do things that hurt other people or annoy other people,
Speaker 2: those are the ones that you like, really enjoy the
Speaker 2: come upance up, I believe. In other words, when they're
Speaker 2: rich who often seem untouchable finally face some hardship, it
Speaker 2: feels like there's a balance that is being restored.
Speaker 1: Hence your feeling of relief right exactly. So following shot
Speaker 1: in Freuda, did I say that right? I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you said it twenty times before I had to say it.
Speaker 2: Now watch me be pronouncing it wrong. That's what I've
Speaker 2: always I was always.
Speaker 1: Thought, first, we'll get an email.
Speaker 2: Oh, we'll get more than one email. God knows, we
Speaker 2: got a lot this last week.
Speaker 1: So following shot in Freuda, there's also the issue of
Speaker 1: social comparison, sort of this like at least I'm not
Speaker 1: them mentality. Another reason we enjoy seeing rich people suffer
Speaker 1: is because of the social comparison theory, basically the idea
Speaker 1: that we determine our own worth by comparing ourselves to others.
Speaker 1: So research from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology explains
Speaker 1: that these comparisons go two ways. The first is upward comparisons,
Speaker 1: So when we compare ourselves to people who are better off,
Speaker 1: it can be motivating or it can be depressing, hence
Speaker 1: the massive increase in depression and isolation that emerges from
Speaker 1: hours of scrolling on Instagram and other social media platforms,
Speaker 1: or just existing in a world where the wealth disparity
Speaker 1: is so huge. Right, then there's also downward comparisons so
Speaker 1: this is comparing ourselves to people who are worse off
Speaker 1: makes us feel better about our own situation. I think
Speaker 1: I was even told that growing up as a way
Speaker 1: of coping of like someone always has it worse. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I'll hang on to right now.
Speaker 2: At least I'm not dying in a gutter. Right But
Speaker 2: then again, that's also I think you're talking about something
Speaker 2: that's really important, that it's really to Protestant work ethic
Speaker 2: and a lot of sort of some of the even
Speaker 2: the founders of our country were Deists, although a lot
Speaker 2: of people would like to frame them as Christians, but
Speaker 2: that was a completely different dynamic. But in a lot
Speaker 2: of sort of post Protestant thinking and ideology about wealth
Speaker 2: and poverty is that you are encouraged to minimize or
Speaker 2: negate your own feelings by comparing yourself to other people
Speaker 2: instead of like staying in the moment, rather than compare
Speaker 2: yourself to somebody that's worse off, or feel bad about
Speaker 2: somebody that's doing much better, it's better to you know,
Speaker 2: be in the center, in this mindful present state of
Speaker 2: this is really tough. What can I find that is
Speaker 2: going right? What can I be grateful for and how
Speaker 2: can I keep moving forward?
Speaker 1: There? We do.
Speaker 2: So there's like a mental health perspective.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I'm sure you and I say that to
Speaker 1: people a million times in therapy. Right, It's like focusing
Speaker 1: on what you're grateful for today? But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: social comparison theory kind of plays into this notion of
Speaker 1: when we see a billionaire lose their fortune, it creates
Speaker 1: a weird kind of mixed comparison. They might still be
Speaker 1: richer overall, but for that moment, we feel like we're
Speaker 1: actually in a better position than they are, and watching
Speaker 1: them fall reminds us that money doesn't protect people from
Speaker 1: sometimes just playing bad luck, which in a strange way
Speaker 1: we then end up find kind of comforting.
Speaker 2: Finally, and a clear huge factor in the current narrative,
Speaker 2: we have the anti capitalist zeitgeist, So a lot of
Speaker 2: this mindset isn't just about individual billionaires. It's about frustration
Speaker 2: with the system itself, and the system clearly is broken.
Speaker 2: In a twenty twenty three study on attitudes towards capitalism
Speaker 2: found that in thirty four countries, most people were skeptical
Speaker 2: of capitalism and believe it only benefits the rich. While
Speaker 2: wealth and equality keeps growing, average person feels more and
Speaker 2: more stuck in a system that favors the ultra wealthy.
Speaker 2: And they're not wrong, by the way. So seeing rich
Speaker 2: people suffer, whether in movies, news headlines, or social media jokes,
Speaker 2: it offers an emotional release, you know, like you pointed
Speaker 2: out in me, it was relief, relief release, right. The
Speaker 2: article suggests that this collective frustration plays a huge role
Speaker 2: and why people enjoy watching wealthy struggle. It's not just
Speaker 2: about laughing at billionaires. It's wanting to see fairness in
Speaker 2: a world that often seems very, very unfair.
Speaker 1: So we also wanted to look at you know, we
Speaker 1: need to be fair. Here a bit, what emotional issues
Speaker 1: do wealthy people struggle with? It's our little segment on
Speaker 1: building empathy today. Right, So we have an article from
Speaker 1: the New York Post entitled, oh no, the rich are
Speaker 1: sad New Yorkers couldn't care less. This is just.
Speaker 2: Fullat such a good article title.
Speaker 1: Right right, This is like the Snark title episode, which
Speaker 1: is perfect.
Speaker 2: Are you watching Loki or did you watch the Loki show?
Speaker 1: My hubby watched it, so I saw bits and pieces.
Speaker 2: So Loki now becomes an antihero in the Marvel series
Speaker 2: because of course Hittleston is just like an unbelievably charming
Speaker 2: actor and like, I'm sure they had no idea this
Speaker 2: was going to be so popular, but he basically, by
Speaker 2: virtue of the way the story is written, Loki is
Speaker 2: kind of sucked off into another timeline and he's his
Speaker 2: powers are reduced and he basically has to take a
Speaker 2: desk job and he's interviewing it. So here's a demi
Speaker 2: god or a god. He's a because I'm such a nerd.
Speaker 2: I know he's only half as Guardian and the other
Speaker 2: half is Frost Giant. But that's beside the point.
Speaker 1: That's whatever the fuck that is, I.
Speaker 2: Know, Right, So he's interviewing someone that's going something going
Speaker 2: through something really terrible, and the meme that has gotten
Speaker 2: passed around he's like, oh, that's so terrible. Anyway, Yeah, yep,
Speaker 2: there you go. So I was like, I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: show some empathy for someone who is way far from
Speaker 2: rock bottom. Oh that sounds really awful anyway.
Speaker 1: Anyway, moving on, So this article was written by author
Speaker 1: Catherine dun Levy, and she interviewed therapists of the rich
Speaker 1: who assert that being unburdened by the challenges of finances
Speaker 1: comes with its own set of problems, and New Yorkers,
Speaker 1: as expected, have zero sympathy for any of it. More money,
Speaker 1: more problems, they don't care. So don Levey explores the
Speaker 1: struggles of the ultra wealthy, where therapists confirm that, yes,
Speaker 1: even billionaires feel empty inside.
Speaker 2: So she's not wrong. I mean, we're going to go
Speaker 2: into a little more and more depth of what was found,
Speaker 2: But I do want to provide a couple of points
Speaker 2: of contacts that I think are very important in my
Speaker 2: clinical private practice. I have worked with extremely wealthy individuals,
Speaker 2: people who have I will say this, they are self
Speaker 2: made wealthy people. These are people who have really, really
Speaker 2: struggled to make a lot of money, and they struggle
Speaker 2: with meaning and think. You know, one of the recurring
Speaker 2: things is I worked so hard to get here that
Speaker 2: I left parts of myself behind. How do I pull
Speaker 2: those back? How do I find contentment and happiness in moments?
Speaker 2: And that is really, to me, really fascinating work. So
Speaker 2: I want to I'm saying that to emphasize the importance
Speaker 2: of what she's writing about. But now on the other side,
Speaker 2: I want to give you some context regarding this publication
Speaker 2: because this is of course prime New York Post material.
Speaker 2: The New York Post is it's barely journalism at times.
Speaker 2: I mean, it can do some incredibly interesting investigative stuff. However,
Speaker 2: their spin is always pretty granguinal. It's bloody, it's really fantastic,
Speaker 2: and it wants to grab you by the gut with
Speaker 2: its headlines. And of course, you know comedian John mulaney
Speaker 2: wildly talented but problematic guy. I'm happy that you're on
Speaker 2: top of your challenges. I wish you the best. But
Speaker 2: he pointed out in one of his monologues that The
Speaker 2: Post delivers every story with the same level of urgency,
Speaker 2: whether it's about a murder or a sandwich, and that
Speaker 2: is absolutely true. If you're not familiar with the Post,
Speaker 2: go to the website and look at some of the
Speaker 2: stuff that they write about and the titles that they generate.
Speaker 2: It's very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eye catching, love them. It makes sense, grabs you right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So naturally, this piece, you know, breaks the earth shattering
Speaker 1: news that rich people have problems to But in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: as clinicians, we both know that while money makes things
Speaker 1: a lot easier quality of life, access to freedoms, including time,
Speaker 1: time that allows us to develop quality relationships. Being ultra
Speaker 1: rich creates its own bubble that not only creates emotional
Speaker 1: challenges in the individual's inner experience, but it also distances
Speaker 1: them from connection with the world at large. So Doctor
Speaker 1: Carol Lieberman, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist interviewed for the piece,
Speaker 1: asserted to the Post that wealthy folks often feel lonely, paranoid,
Speaker 1: and purposeless, which often leads them to manufacture drama in
Speaker 1: their own lives. She stated, quote, people think if I
Speaker 1: had all that money, I wouldn't have a care in
Speaker 1: the world. End quote. Turns out she finds that money
Speaker 1: can't fix every problem, though it can buy a Rolex
Speaker 1: to make you feel better for a few hours.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, So are you familiar with rich kids
Speaker 2: of Instagram?
Speaker 1: No? I am not.
Speaker 2: Oh, just these unbelievably like wildly, it's not even influencers.
Speaker 2: It started probably pre COVID. I remember that was the
Speaker 2: first time I saw it. And it may not hopefully
Speaker 2: it's kind of flashed away rapidly as it shot up,
Speaker 2: But it was kids of the uber uber wealthy living
Speaker 2: these like kind of unbelievable fairy tale lives, like you know,
Speaker 2: two months on a yacht, you know, just but making
Speaker 2: jokes about their wealth, like having their arm out with
Speaker 2: like six rolexes each one of them, like you know,
Speaker 2: a seventy five thousand dollars or more rolex one of them,
Speaker 2: going so far as to say, this table is a
Speaker 2: little wobbly, and so he uses his iPad under it
Speaker 2: to level it out, like just sort of conspicuous and
Speaker 2: in your face, that's gross joking. It is like, that's
Speaker 2: that's exactly my reaction is. It's gross. And of course
Speaker 2: they got trolled a great deal and a lot of
Speaker 2: outrageous responses, which only fueled it more. I would say
Speaker 2: it's primarily male posters than it is female posters, but shocking,
Speaker 2: he's still pretty egregious. It is important to see how
Speaker 2: this plays out in legitimate means, though, with both Lieberman
Speaker 2: and don Leavy's research and their experience, it's working with
Speaker 2: these individuals because CNBC previously reported that the one percent
Speaker 2: struggle to maintain authentic relationships because friendships and even marriages
Speaker 2: often revolve about what they can provide. Basically, when you
Speaker 2: have a yacht. You can never be sure if people
Speaker 2: like you for you or for the free boat rides right.
Speaker 2: According to Lieberman, rich people aren't keeping up with the Joneses.
Speaker 2: They're keeping up with the Cardassians, constantly competing with each
Speaker 2: other over status symbols, and that competition it only makes
Speaker 2: them lonelier. The higher the level of competition, the higher
Speaker 2: level of loneliness. So earlier I also mentioned the value
Speaker 2: of free time, and free time is gold to struggling
Speaker 2: individuals who work sixty to eighty hours a week and
Speaker 2: have to try and push through exhaustion to care for families, kids, friends,
Speaker 2: and self. But ironically, too much free time when you
Speaker 2: don't have to work to survive, provides and simple, fruitful
Speaker 2: ground for meaninglessness. So what did the rich do? They
Speaker 2: get into mischief? According to Lieberman, this can mean anything
Speaker 2: from gossip to affairs to straight up white collar crime.
Speaker 2: When your biggest stressor is figuring out whether to vacation
Speaker 2: in Aspen or the Amalfi Coast, you might start making
Speaker 2: bad decisions just to feel something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, doctor Scott, just take a breath, because after
Speaker 1: talking about these problems, you might have a challenge with
Speaker 1: the next.
Speaker 2: Bit I'm going to prepare myself. I'm going to do
Speaker 2: a deep, deep clensing breath. Let it go, let it go,
Speaker 2: let it go, let it go, let it go. There
Speaker 2: you go. All right, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: So, if there's anyone we should feel bad for, Lieberman says,
Speaker 1: it's the kids of the ultra rich.
Speaker 2: Damn it.
Speaker 1: And here you were bringing up rich kids of Instagram.
Speaker 1: So apparently wealthy parents are too busy hoarding money or
Speaker 1: shopping or whatever to raise their own children, so kids
Speaker 1: are left with nannies instead of affection. Wow, this kind
Speaker 1: of like dovetails with our attachment disorder episodes, right, think
Speaker 1: about that. But this in turn leads to an emptiness
Speaker 1: that many try to fill with things like substance use,
Speaker 1: reckless spending, risky behavior, and we see that all the time. Right,
Speaker 1: So Lieberman paints a picture of little ritchie riches with
Speaker 1: unlimited cash but no emotional support, which then makes them
Speaker 1: more likely to spiral. So you know what you're talking
Speaker 1: about of, Like, hey, let me just like make an
Speaker 1: Instagram reel of my wrist with seven rolexes on it?
Speaker 1: What are they doing with their day? They're not even
Speaker 1: the adults that are you know, having to think about
Speaker 1: making money every single day.
Speaker 2: Oh this ties in with our affluenza episode as well, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we could certainly go back to that and
Speaker 1: probably pull some of the psychology from that episode. But
Speaker 1: when we look back at what Lieberman says and other experts,
Speaker 1: the bottom line is they're saying, Okay, money doesn't solve everything.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really hard for people to understand
Speaker 1: because we feel like it would solve so much, right
Speaker 1: if we were to be at the level and the
Speaker 1: status of some of those folks. The experts say that
Speaker 1: having money solves financial problems, yes, but it creates a
Speaker 1: lot of emotional ones. The wealthy struggle with again this
Speaker 1: isolation and paranoia and just finding sometimes a reason to
Speaker 1: get out of bed in the morning, while the rest
Speaker 1: of us are just trying to afford rent and our mortgages.
Speaker 1: So let we're going to just talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what some of their therapists say.
Speaker 2: So therapist Clay Cockrell grew up solidly middle class in
Speaker 2: Kentucky and he found himself the go to therapist for
Speaker 2: a very tight knit and very wealthy circle of referrals
Speaker 2: to his practice, which, for those of you that don't
Speaker 2: know this that can really happen very rapidly when you're
Speaker 2: starting in private practice. Yes, we have to advertise, we
Speaker 2: have to have either websites or we list ourselves on
Speaker 2: psychology today. But what a lot of people don't understand
Speaker 2: is that if you hook into one person that really
Speaker 2: connects with you as a clinician, they will refer a
Speaker 2: lot of people to you, and it can be exploded.
Speaker 2: It can be so much that you have to like
Speaker 2: not take referrals anymore because your practice fills up so quickly.
Speaker 2: So in this instance, this seems to have happened for Cockrel.
Speaker 2: So his very tight, wealthy circle of referrals was literally
Speaker 2: a selection of the one percent. And like Lieberman, he
Speaker 2: insists that wealth comes with real emotional baggage, deep isolation, mistrust,
Speaker 2: and a total lack of purpose. And he can also
Speaker 2: admit that it can be difficult to watch billionaire struggle
Speaker 2: inotionally while the rest of us are worrying about rent.
Speaker 2: And according to Cockrell, being obscenely wealthy comes with a
Speaker 2: paranoia problem. His client's echo Lieberman's early statements that clients
Speaker 2: constantly worry does this person actually like me? Or do
Speaker 2: they just want my money? Am I being manipulated? Who
Speaker 2: can I actually trust?
Speaker 1: This is exactly like the dialogue from the season of
Speaker 1: White Lotus. Do you have to worry that they want
Speaker 1: something for me? Or they actually like my friend? This
Speaker 1: is so funny.
Speaker 2: The creator of White Lotus is actually riffing on this
Speaker 2: in every iteration. I mean, this was seizing one was
Speaker 2: absolutely part of that, and I think is a great
Speaker 2: example of that relief and that schadenfreude. That is what
Speaker 2: Light Lotus is all about, right, yeah, yeah, So having
Speaker 2: these constant questions leads to isolation, and isolation makes it
Speaker 2: hard to form real relationships. You don't have real relationships, authentic,
Speaker 2: fulfilling relationships. That leads to boredom. That is really crippling.
Speaker 2: Cockrell goes on to give the following scenario. Once you've
Speaker 2: made or inherited enough money to never work again, what's left.
Speaker 2: He believes that it leaves many millionaires feeling completely directionlessness
Speaker 2: and searching for their next thrill through reckless behavior, substances,
Speaker 2: or anything that can break the monotony of having too much.
Speaker 2: And despite money being the foundation of their entire lives,
Speaker 2: wealthy people don't like to talk about it. Cockrell says
Speaker 2: that his clients would rather discuss their sex lives or
Speaker 2: drug habits more than their bank accounts. Money is treated
Speaker 2: as taboo, secret and even shameful, and that secrecy that
Speaker 2: only makes everything worse for sure.
Speaker 1: And this is where we really like that he sort
Speaker 1: of takes this la not so confidential approach by using
Speaker 1: media as an example, and in this case, this really
Speaker 1: well produced media example, which he calls the succession effect,
Speaker 1: which we've already talked about succession a little bit, because
Speaker 1: if you've watched it, you've already seen the emotional disaster
Speaker 1: zone that is the roy family. To Cockrell, this dynamic
Speaker 1: is very real. Many billionaires spoil their kids rotten so
Speaker 1: they never have to struggle the way their parents did,
Speaker 1: which sounds nice on the surface, except what happens when
Speaker 1: you face no hardship. You don't develop resilience, When you
Speaker 1: never have to learn about money, you become financially incompetent.
Speaker 1: And when you only grow up around other wealthy kids,
Speaker 1: there's this startling lack of empathy. So there's all of
Speaker 1: these problems that seem to be solved, but all of
Speaker 1: these problems and life lessons and ways to move through
Speaker 1: the world that get created. Children of the uber wealthy
Speaker 1: attend elite schools, socialize with only their own kind, and
Speaker 1: they grow up in a world completely detached from reality.
Speaker 1: By adulthood, often they're really unprepared to manage their wealth,
Speaker 1: much less take on responsibility. And Cockrell has heard countless
Speaker 1: trust from babies say, we never talked about money. I
Speaker 1: don't know how much there is. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what I'm supposed to do with it. And you can
Speaker 1: imagine how that then plays out, especially if that bubble
Speaker 1: gets burst at some point. Right for them, they're completely unequipped.
Speaker 2: I think about a really great example that I was
Speaker 2: referring to before, which is the first season of White Lotus,
Speaker 2: where Alexandra Dotdio, her character to me is so interesting
Speaker 2: and has such a tragic end. No, she doesn't die,
Speaker 2: but she makes a decision that, like, to me, was
Speaker 2: like a complete capitulation to this system. But she's a
Speaker 2: journalist or an up and coming.
Speaker 1: Journalist, and she is on her honeymoon, on.
Speaker 2: Her honeymoon, and she's married to the most annoying, dude,
Speaker 2: bro entitled guy. You just like, go how did you
Speaker 2: end up together? Like? How did you end up together?
Speaker 2: And there's a couple of scenes where she goes to
Speaker 2: Connie Britain and to say, I just admire you so much,
Speaker 2: and Connie Brittin goes, oh, when you wrote that article
Speaker 2: about me about how terrible I am? Well, no, I
Speaker 2: was making this, But so there's this sort of it's like, no, I.
Speaker 1: Was writing for the New York Post. No, it had
Speaker 1: to be fantastic.
Speaker 2: But the idea that like, okay, here you are. Journalism
Speaker 2: is supposed to have this level of ethics and morals
Speaker 2: about what you're doing. You are reporting what is going on,
Speaker 2: and you're being truthful and you're reporting. And so she
Speaker 2: gets pushed back from someone who's part of the elite
Speaker 2: that she has just now married into. And then you
Speaker 2: have this really really fascinating interaction with another great actress,
Speaker 2: Molly Shannon coming in as her mother in law, who's like,
Speaker 2: and she's just so bubbly and energetic and you can't
Speaker 2: help but lover. But everything that's coming out of her
Speaker 2: mouth is completely diminishing what Alexandra is trying to say.
Speaker 2: She's like, why would you want to work? I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you could be on boards, you could be
Speaker 2: on the board of directors for this. You can do
Speaker 2: you know, just like sort of you can come and
Speaker 2: play the role of someone who gives a shit rather
Speaker 2: than actually being someone who gives a shit. But that's
Speaker 2: all that character knows. That's all Molly Shannon knows, and
Speaker 2: she's like, why would you possibly want to do it?
Speaker 2: So again, I have not seen season two or season
Speaker 2: three because I'm still emotionally processing everything that went down.
Speaker 1: Oh man, get on it. I wish I know I
Speaker 1: know about it.
Speaker 2: But there is a really interesting sort of there's a
Speaker 2: not a parable but a saying about this, and it
Speaker 2: goes that basically, the rich inherit fortunes but have no
Speaker 2: clue how to handle them, which led to this saying
Speaker 2: shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves and three generations that's why
Speaker 2: this exists. And what they're saying without financial education, family
Speaker 2: empires crumble. I wasn't familiar with this, so I had
Speaker 2: to look it up and it's defined in the following manner,
Speaker 2: which I thought was great. The first generation works very hard,
Speaker 2: often starting from humble beginnings, so they're in shirt sleeves
Speaker 2: to build wealth. The second generation grows up with the
Speaker 2: financial security and while they may still work, they don't
Speaker 2: have struggles like their parents did. And then the third generation,
Speaker 2: having never experienced hardship or financial discipline, squanders the wealth
Speaker 2: and ends up back where the family started in shirt
Speaker 2: sleeves working just to get by. Now that's not saying
Speaker 2: that like complete family empires fall that it's about that
Speaker 2: individual falling. And you know, I have done clinical work
Speaker 2: with that third generation, with the grandparents going we worked
Speaker 2: our asses off, and this is what we did. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is what the result is. This makes no sense
Speaker 2: to me. You know, it's just like a never ending
Speaker 2: cycle in humanity, I think.
Speaker 1: So let's look at some very recent case studies of
Speaker 1: bad things happening to wealthy people and then the reactions
Speaker 1: of the public after both of these happened. In the
Speaker 1: TikTok Era, which is really its own study and human behavior,
Speaker 1: it's true, Yeah, I mean, its own thing. But dovetails
Speaker 1: really nicely into our topic today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is another trigger warning. This is a
Speaker 2: like we said earlier, this is for anybody with claustrophobia.
Speaker 2: This could be really triggering. But we're going to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about the ocean Gate disaster, so on
Speaker 2: June eighteenth, twenty twenty three, during a deep sea expedition
Speaker 2: to the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 2: a submersible operated by ocean Gate Expeditions lost contact with
Speaker 2: its support vessel approximately one hour and forty five minutes
Speaker 2: into its descent. The titan submersible was a small carbon
Speaker 2: fiber titanium sub designed for deep sea exploration. This was
Speaker 2: essentially a tourist expedition to view the Titanic wreck, located
Speaker 2: twelve thy five hundred feet below sea level. Now that
Speaker 2: paragraph that I just read is a little bit inaccurate,
Speaker 2: because what comes up when you research this in the
Speaker 2: description is that on the surface level, unless you go
Speaker 2: a few pages deeper into a search, is that they
Speaker 2: do describe this small carbon fiber and titanium sub designed
Speaker 2: for deep sea exploration. What happened in the aftermath of
Speaker 2: this horrific event was many experts came forward saying, no,
Speaker 2: it absolutely was not designed to do what it was doing.
Speaker 2: We told the head of this company over and over again,
Speaker 2: and he denied it, denied it, denyed. It hadn't been
Speaker 2: a problem before, so it's not going to be a
Speaker 2: problem in the future, which is problematic thinking. But back
Speaker 2: to the story. Five people were aboard the submersible Stockton Rush,
Speaker 2: the CEO of Ocean Gate. Could you have more of
Speaker 2: a rich person sounding name than Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding,
Speaker 2: a British billionaire and adventurer, Shazada and Suliman Dawood, a
Speaker 2: Pakistani British businessman and his son. And Paul Henri Nargillla,
Speaker 2: a French Titanic expert.
Speaker 1: So, as we mentioned, after launch from the support ship,
Speaker 1: contact was lost after one hour and forty five minutes
Speaker 1: of their descent, and from there, if you'll remember that,
Speaker 1: information got out to media outlets, and it was a
Speaker 1: very long waiting game. I mean I remember as the
Speaker 1: hours went by, experts were sharing the details of perhaps
Speaker 1: what the passengers would be experiencing if they were still
Speaker 1: in the sub still alive. It was just terrific. And
Speaker 1: then hours turned into days and we all knew what
Speaker 1: that meant. You know, there was very little chance that
Speaker 1: there was anyone that survived, although we really had no
Speaker 1: idea what had happened. A large scale search and rescue
Speaker 1: operation was launched by the US and Canadian Coast Guards
Speaker 1: using everything they had aircraft, ships, and deep sea sonar equipment.
Speaker 1: On June twenty second, twenty twenty three, debris from the
Speaker 1: titan was found near the Titanic wreck, affirming that the
Speaker 1: sub had suffered a catastrophic implosion, instantly killing all five passengers.
Speaker 1: Experts believe the pressure hull failed, likely due to material
Speaker 1: fatigue or design flaws, a sub to collapse inward in
Speaker 1: just milliseconds, and honestly, at that point, that was the
Speaker 1: quickest death we really could have hoped for for these
Speaker 1: doomed individuals, because the idea of them running out of
Speaker 1: oxygen over hours was just so so hard to understand
Speaker 1: and honestly to hear when these experts would come on
Speaker 1: and be like, well, they're still alive, they're experiencing this.
Speaker 1: It was awful. Ocean Gate, as you mentioned, faced very
Speaker 1: heavy criticism for ignoring safety warnings from industry experts. The
Speaker 1: company's use of experimental carbon fiber materials was questioned, as
Speaker 1: deep sea subs typically use steel or titanium, and ocean
Speaker 1: Gate ceased operations and the disaster raised concerns over these
Speaker 1: unregulated deep sea tourism trips. To multiple reports, each passenger
Speaker 1: on the ocean Gate Expedition to the Titanic wreck paid
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each to go on
Speaker 1: this expedition. At the time, Doctor Scott like, what kind
Speaker 1: of social media content around this did you consume or
Speaker 1: were you seeing?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly, you know, right when it was happening, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of speculation and didn't really go into
Speaker 2: full bore about the audacity of it. I think that
Speaker 2: had not really kicked in. There was a little bit
Speaker 2: going on, but mainly it was the focus, like you
Speaker 2: were saying, is how could they have survived? Believe me,
Speaker 2: I am no deep sea expert at all in any
Speaker 2: any sense, but even I know about from probably science
Speaker 2: fiction and my husband working on the ABYSS, and okay,
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff like this is like no, like
Speaker 2: the incredible pressures at depths like that, you don't die slowly,
Speaker 2: you are dead. Boom, your che collapses and collapses upon itself,
Speaker 2: like like you are stepping on a soda can and
Speaker 2: just crushing it. That's what happened immediately that, So I
Speaker 2: was like, no, they're dead. There's absolutely no way They're
Speaker 2: sitting there floating in the deep cold of the sea
Speaker 2: with no oxygen. It was like, now this is you.
Speaker 1: Know, I think, yeah that that definitely was kind of
Speaker 1: mainstream media. Definitely in the TikTok realm, people were already like, oh,
Speaker 1: poor billionaires, you know probably you know, not thinking about this.
Speaker 1: This doesn't seem super safe, and they paid what to
Speaker 1: get on there, and it very quickly turned into an
Speaker 1: eat the rich situation. Yeah, and to be very very
Speaker 1: honest here, some people were just straight up hilarious and
Speaker 1: some of the things that they were putting together were
Speaker 1: incredibly creative. It's how it felt in the moment. I
Speaker 1: did have the forethought and the self awareness to be like,
Speaker 1: what am I enjoying right now?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, that I'm right there with you, And I
Speaker 2: think that that's what this entire what we've been leading
Speaker 2: up to the entire episode, is that we can all
Speaker 2: get sucked into it. And now, look, okay, so what
Speaker 2: you and I are talking about is that we got
Speaker 2: sucked into the riffs and there are some brilliantly funny
Speaker 2: people out there. Is there a whiff of cruelty there?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I honestly don't know if that's being
Speaker 2: cruel because I think it was all pretty stupid still
Speaker 2: my take on it today, But that comes from my
Speaker 2: upbringing and my own finances. Why would you spend two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars on this? Like, I just
Speaker 2: like to go, is your life so rarefied that this
Speaker 2: is an experience you're going to do. I feel the
Speaker 2: same way about paying a million dollars to go into space. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I get it, Like that's my personal thing, and
Speaker 2: I think that the reason I'm sharing that is because
Speaker 2: I think that's what drove a lot of this is
Speaker 2: like that observation of like, you people are so detached
Speaker 2: from the reality of what the rest of us are experiencing. Now,
Speaker 2: all of that being said, I felt really bad for the.
Speaker 1: Kid everyone, I think everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that's that's the one that's the biggest one
Speaker 2: for me, is the kid that was probably roped along
Speaker 2: to be in it. Yeah. I mean, just I'm going
Speaker 2: to take a breath, to take a moment to breathe
Speaker 2: and see if there's anything else I want to add
Speaker 2: about that. Yeah, but I will agree with you there
Speaker 2: was some brilliantly funny stuff, and you know, maybe that's
Speaker 2: something that we should really all aspire to, is like Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm having an emotional reaction. I'm not anxious, I'm not angry,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of laughing. Let me sit in the mindfulness
Speaker 2: of this emotion and think about why I'm feeling this way.
Speaker 2: I think that can be helpful in times like this.
Speaker 2: So La Times writer Jessica Gelt, and she's an opinion writer.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that I highlight that because
Speaker 2: she gets a little school Marmie finger wagging in this article.
Speaker 2: That's my opinion. But she asserted that the tragedy unleashed
Speaker 2: social media's worst impulses, with creators mocking the victims, ridiculing
Speaker 2: the video game controller used to steer the sub and
Speaker 2: making crude jokes about their final moments. And while I
Speaker 2: appreciate the direction and the tone of her writing regarding
Speaker 2: the reactions, I think that that article allows a few
Speaker 2: things to get lost, including points like the very badly,
Speaker 2: badly constructed vessel that was controlled by a gamer. Set
Speaker 2: like that is a problem. Why are you making fun
Speaker 2: of these things? Well, they're making fun of these things
Speaker 2: because they shouldn't have happened. And you would think that
Speaker 2: somebody that's charging two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a
Speaker 2: pop would be able to do this now. Something that
Speaker 2: she does that I really appreciate is that she highlights
Speaker 2: the comparison about the world was just being glued to
Speaker 2: updates about the submersible about the Titan, while seven hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty migrants drowned off the coast of Greece just
Speaker 2: days before, with only one hundred and four people surviving.
Speaker 2: Yet that story barely made a ripple in global media.
Speaker 2: That to me, is the point that I think needs
Speaker 2: to be brought out. The stark difference in coverage raises
Speaker 2: serious questions about whose lives are deemed worthy of attention,
Speaker 2: but doesn't look to median conglomerates like her own employer
Speaker 2: and the role that they play in deciding what gets attention.
Speaker 2: But I fully disclose that her piece, like I said,
Speaker 2: is commentary. It's a necessary commentary that points out wealth
Speaker 2: inequality has reached new extremes where the world's three thousand
Speaker 2: billionaires hold more wealth than half the planet, and she
Speaker 2: goes on to use the example that it's no wonder
Speaker 2: that some social media users are openly rooting for orcas
Speaker 2: to attack luxury yachts. She also points out that despite
Speaker 2: the class tensions. One Twitter user made a valid point,
Speaker 2: it's possible to care about both the drowned migrants and
Speaker 2: the missing billionaires. Totally agree, it is possible to do that,
Speaker 2: and maybe the challenge for us and me in these
Speaker 2: moments is maintaining that human decency means acknowledging that all
Speaker 2: suffering exists, not just picking and choosing whose lives matter.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to be authentic and saying that I
Speaker 2: had a reaction to this op ed. I thought it
Speaker 2: was well written. I think that she ends up making
Speaker 2: some really good points, but you know, we should not
Speaker 2: have judgment, but you have to understand the context of
Speaker 2: the comparisons. That's what I'm leading. But she also ends
Speaker 2: her piece with a very sobering question. If a camera
Speaker 2: inside the Titan showed the terror in the passenger's eyes,
Speaker 2: would people still be making jokes? Yes, they would. I
Speaker 2: don't think those people making those jokes of that slice
Speaker 2: would be people that we would be necessarily interested in
Speaker 2: their opinion, because then that truly has gone into sadism
Speaker 2: and like a level of cruelty that is beyond Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well, And of course, another situation in which we
Speaker 1: see some of the same phenomenon play out. In December
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was
Speaker 1: shot outside of a Manhattan hotel. The CEO was on
Speaker 1: his way to an annual investor's meeting for United Healthcare Group.
Speaker 1: This assassination was caught on surveillance footage, and we got
Speaker 1: to see firsthand not only the calculated nature of the
Speaker 1: plan murder, but also the last moments of terror from
Speaker 1: the ambushed victim. So here we do have that reaction
Speaker 1: from the person who's suffering. We then started to get
Speaker 1: more details of the attack and then of the wanted person.
Speaker 1: We learned that the shell casings of the rounds shot
Speaker 1: at the crime scene had messages seemingly related to the
Speaker 1: mangled healthcare system on them. The words denied, delay, depose
Speaker 1: were written upon them and left at the scene. This
Speaker 1: aspect of a possible motive sparked debates about the healthcare
Speaker 1: industry's practices, with many expressing anger over coverage denials and
Speaker 1: profit motives and the like. Something many people can relate to.
Speaker 1: So that's just with that little bit of information, which
Speaker 1: honestly I mean I say little, but it was a
Speaker 1: big deal. I think you and I even talked about
Speaker 1: it on a shrink wrap when it was unfolding. That
Speaker 1: felt very theatrical, right, So people glommed onto that and
Speaker 1: already started making content about those points. Then in this timeline,
Speaker 1: we got some still camera shots of the suspect checking
Speaker 1: into the New York hostel using a fake ID before
Speaker 1: the incident, so even before the suspect was identified, those
Speaker 1: pictures of the suspects smile that they flashed to the
Speaker 1: hostile worker while checking in. Along Now with the act itself,
Speaker 1: I mean, the media and internet just like loved that.
Speaker 1: We're not even, We're not even. Like a couple days
Speaker 1: into this, right, things felt really different how he was
Speaker 1: being seen, not just as a suspect, but as a symbol.
Speaker 1: I mean, for many people, he started to represent something
Speaker 1: bigger than himself, like this avatar of frustration, a figure
Speaker 1: that really resonated with kind of anyone who's ever struggled
Speaker 1: under the weight of medical debt. And people couldn't help
Speaker 1: themselves by saying that he should go free, or they
Speaker 1: hope he gets away, or nobody should turn him in
Speaker 1: with that brilliant smile. And remember, we didn't even know
Speaker 1: if this was a man or a woman at first,
Speaker 1: so there was all you know. I think the unanswered
Speaker 1: questions left a lot of room for people to sort
Speaker 1: of start making up their own lore behind these emotionally
Speaker 1: motivating factors. But eventually Luigi Maggioni was arrested days later
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania carrying a three D printed firearm and a
Speaker 1: manifesto criticizing the US healthcare system. We had our guy
Speaker 1: at this point. The extradition to New York was like
Speaker 1: something out of a movie. This is kind of the
Speaker 1: next big pivotal moment after we learned who he was.
Speaker 1: They had politicians wanting to get in on this purp
Speaker 1: walk moment. They landed the helicopter at the end of
Speaker 1: a peer and had him surrounded by what looked like
Speaker 1: the cast of the Swat television show. Is he kind
Speaker 1: of limped along shackled in his chains in this bright
Speaker 1: orange jumpsuit and everyone else is wearing black. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm ever arrested, like this is the shot that
Speaker 1: I want. Please, if someone would give me this much
Speaker 1: attention about what I had done. This is what the
Speaker 1: script is written. But it just like when we talk
Speaker 1: about the visual nature of the stuff that we consume.
Speaker 1: They were literally just feeding it to us at this point.
Speaker 1: So Maggioni has pleaded not guilty to terror and murder
Speaker 1: charges in New York and he's currently awaiting trial. But
Speaker 1: it's so interesting because this has little bits and pieces
Speaker 1: that I think feel very similar to other cases, feel
Speaker 1: also different, feels like a hybrid between a couple of
Speaker 1: things going on here.
Speaker 2: So social media reactions to Luigi have been pretty divided,
Speaker 2: and some commenters are condemning him as a violent colonel
Speaker 2: and others have not surprisingly praised him as a folk
Speaker 2: hero because there are thousands of people that are expressing
Speaker 2: frustration at the American healthcare industry, and I say industry specifically,
Speaker 2: and they have seen his actions as a form of
Speaker 2: rebellion against high insurance costs and even access to mental
Speaker 2: health care.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So this has led to a really high amount of
Speaker 2: online discussion and then this explosive mean culture surrounding the case.
Speaker 2: It looks like that to many people this was like
Speaker 2: a Robin Hood moment, although a violent version, with Luigi
Speaker 2: stealing the life of a rich man in the name
Speaker 2: of the little guy. So what are some of the
Speaker 2: factors that play into his infamy. Look, Mangioni is particular
Speaker 2: early camera friendly, and I thought about how I was
Speaker 2: going to say that, because I didn't want to, like,
Speaker 2: that's the only commentary I feel saying. He presents really well,
Speaker 2: and he has a strong social media presence prior to
Speaker 2: the event that features many photos of his shirtless torso
Speaker 2: and just an absolutely captivating and winning smile. So he looked.
Speaker 2: It is the whole. It is the entire package, the
Speaker 2: entire package. And he is regarded by many in his
Speaker 2: life as both a thoughtful and gregarious individual, as well
Speaker 2: as having some very non mainstream beliefs about history and culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is like, you know, your good looking,
Speaker 1: sort of regular guy that took on a cause and
Speaker 1: decided to commit a very serious crime because of that cause,
Speaker 1: rather than some of what we've seen in the past
Speaker 1: when we've talked talked about, like honestly, just like the
Speaker 1: Hipperstophelia stuff. You know, this over masculine, criminogenic guy who
Speaker 1: murdered a string of his romantic partners. Like there's some
Speaker 1: of the same things going on, but it's also very different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the cause, I mean, how many people do
Speaker 2: you know? Because I know three people off the top
Speaker 2: of my head that have read from beginning to end
Speaker 2: Ted Kazinski's manifesto and come away saying he has a
Speaker 2: lot of points. He actually has some really good points.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I know several people have commented on that
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: And yet I mean I will say that not to
Speaker 2: like completely parse this, but Kazinski also took out people
Speaker 2: that were that were tertiary to his cause, totally right,
Speaker 2: So I would I lean when I look at him,
Speaker 2: I lean him towards the guy who killed all his girlfriends, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, like more than I do. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you have a cause, you have some good points.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of other ways you could have dispelled
Speaker 2: that energy. I mean, I'm not going to give I'm
Speaker 2: not going to assume that Kazinski had the ability to
Speaker 2: function at that level because he didn't. The guy had serious,
Speaker 2: serious mental issues.
Speaker 1: Well, it falls into the category of what we covered
Speaker 1: a lot of someone with a grievance, right that then
Speaker 1: is trying to write that wrong, whether that is a
Speaker 1: school shooting or a mass casualty event of some other
Speaker 1: sort Oklahoma City bombing. Hence the reason MAGGIONI is facing
Speaker 1: terror charges right right, it wobbles into that category more so.
Speaker 1: And then yes, he is, as you say, camera friendly, right, And.
Speaker 2: All of these factors have fueled this free Luigi sentiment
Speaker 2: in social media videos, but not just online. It's billboards
Speaker 2: and the roadside media calling him a hero, droves of
Speaker 2: supporters rallying outside the courthouse during his appearances. And then,
Speaker 2: like you said, there's this hybristophilia aspect of the story
Speaker 2: because of his good looks. We're going to use that
Speaker 2: term loosely because it feels like more objectification of him
Speaker 2: rather than being attracted to him because he's a criminal.
Speaker 2: But there's a small aspect of the Robin hood trope
Speaker 2: that people are finding very attractive. So endless content is
Speaker 2: being made lusting over this guy, from those old photos
Speaker 2: of him shirtless to recent courtroom appearances of him in
Speaker 2: fashionable sweaters and loafers and really good grooming. Now there
Speaker 2: was also something very interesting. I don't necessarily fully buy
Speaker 2: into this, but let me give people a context. So
Speaker 2: defense attorneys absolutely hand arrange for their clients to have
Speaker 2: access to decent clothing and to improve their grooming, especially
Speaker 2: if it's a high end defender. But I did see
Speaker 2: a very interesting piece. So I don't know if his
Speaker 2: defense attorneys were like, get a good barber in here
Speaker 2: that can style hair to make him even more camera friendly. Right,
Speaker 2: But there was an ex con really good writer who
Speaker 2: wrote an entire piece. His opinion piece was that Luigi
Speaker 2: was being seen as a hero in the jail because
Speaker 2: he came out with the top line prison haircut. Like
Speaker 2: he said, they're treating him like a hero because they
Speaker 2: all get it, and that he's probably being treated this way,
Speaker 2: in this way and this way. But that's hearsay, Like
Speaker 2: it's an interesting take, but there actually is no confirmation
Speaker 2: on who did the grooming of him. I know for
Speaker 2: some people they may think, why are you two focusing
Speaker 2: on his grooming? But that actually is an important part.
Speaker 2: It's like the defense is saying, we're going to go
Speaker 2: all in with this. He is like so camera friendly.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a bad angle no matter how he
Speaker 2: turns his face, even when his face is at rest,
Speaker 2: it's like looking at a statue. Right, We're going to
Speaker 2: play this absolutely because we're going to make him a martyr.
Speaker 2: I think that's totally going on, right.
Speaker 1: Well, and jury consultation and selection and courtroom antics. Is
Speaker 1: all falls under the umbrella of forensic psychology consultation.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, but yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean from the social media like an especially TikTok,
Speaker 1: like the thirst is real with this one. But on
Speaker 1: top of that, I most immediately saw like Etsy creators
Speaker 1: and other creators making free Luigi Merge. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can watch this stuff, but like, I don't want a
Speaker 1: sweatshirt that has his face on it saying free. It's
Speaker 1: just clearly very poor, poor taste. But it seems so
Speaker 1: mainstream with this case, which is just super interesting. Just
Speaker 1: I think another interesting, really side note of this all
Speaker 1: in terms of social media content that came out in
Speaker 1: people's reactions where they were making videos not even mentioning him.
Speaker 1: But right after this this event happened, or families, parents,
Speaker 1: you know, people were getting online talking about their heartbreaking
Speaker 1: stories of horrendous treatment by the managed care system in
Speaker 1: that company. Yeah, and they didn't even have to say
Speaker 1: boo about Luigi, right, it was just here's our family story.
Speaker 1: And those things really went viral, which good, we need
Speaker 1: to hear those sides of it. And they weren't advocating
Speaker 1: one way or another. It was just like here's a
Speaker 1: real story that happened to us.
Speaker 2: And there was also you and I made a commitment
Speaker 2: to really try and be more victim focused as the
Speaker 2: milieu of true crime content creation has moved in that
Speaker 2: direction and when we can we do that. So, Brian Thompson,
Speaker 2: I do want to focus on that, but I do
Speaker 2: also want to be like a little bit objective because
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people in high positions that
Speaker 2: have been interviewed on camera and they're not shying away
Speaker 2: from it. They're saying, well, no, it shouldn't have happened,
Speaker 2: but I understand why. Yeah, right, So there was this
Speaker 2: sort of there is Look, if you have enough money
Speaker 2: to invest in the stock market and part of your
Speaker 2: portfolio represents that company, then Brian is going to be
Speaker 2: your guy, right because he made money by denying care
Speaker 2: for people. Right. That is a really difficult concept, not
Speaker 2: a difficult concept to think anybody listening to this is
Speaker 2: going to understand that concept. But that's a difficult place
Speaker 2: to sit in to understand that this person with a huge,
Speaker 2: winning smile on all of his CEO pictures and LinkedIn
Speaker 2: and everything, you know, he was human as well. He
Speaker 2: was doing the job he thought that he was supposed
Speaker 2: to do because it's about the shareholders and people like
Speaker 2: that in that position. And I'm not justifying it because
Speaker 2: I don't agree with it, but I do understand what
Speaker 2: the challenge there is. The challenge is to divorce, cut off,
Speaker 2: even to the point of being like the show Severance,
Speaker 2: you are severing that part of your identity and not
Speaker 2: taking responsibility for your role in the world. Or maybe
Speaker 2: you see your role in the world as to make
Speaker 2: money for your company rather than to contribute to the commons,
Speaker 2: contribute to the betterment of society. And then there were
Speaker 2: also things that finally came out as like, he wasn't
Speaker 2: this smiling angel in a nice little sweater set and
Speaker 2: winning smile as well, he wasn't like this completely innocent
Speaker 2: guy in other areas of his life. Did that mean
Speaker 2: that he deserved to be shot down in public? No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't, but it does. Nobody needs more profundity to
Speaker 2: this discussion, I.
Speaker 1: Think, sure, yeah, nobody is all just one thing, of
Speaker 1: course exactly. So that brings us to our entertainment section. Here.
Speaker 1: We love a movie or TV show about rich people,
Speaker 1: think reality TV or I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: this Scott. But do you know that every girl's favorite
Speaker 1: airplane movie is crazy rich Asians?
Speaker 2: I did not know that it's a thing.
Speaker 1: But we also love watching what happens when bad things
Speaker 1: happen to them in really like the most wild ways
Speaker 1: that only entertainment can give us.
Speaker 2: So we've covered a lot of tropes and entertainment before
Speaker 2: this one that have aspects, you know, that are essentially
Speaker 2: vilification of their rich and it's often illustrated metaphorically to
Speaker 2: provide fuel and a pathway for an uprising of the
Speaker 2: social classes. So in popular media, there's usually an added
Speaker 2: element of the rich characters undergoing some terrible event, ranging
Speaker 2: from family turmoil or backstabbing to disasters usually death, and
Speaker 2: all is some sort of fate or punishment for being wealthy.
Speaker 1: So, first up, did you watch Saltburn?
Speaker 2: I didn't watch Saltburn, like I still have to see it,
Speaker 2: So I actually had to read the spoilers and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, oh man, okay, Well, sorry, we ruined it
Speaker 1: for you if nobody watched it or hadn't heard of it.
Speaker 1: Saltburn came out in twenty twenty three. It's this psychological
Speaker 1: thriller directed by Emerald Fennel. That's such a beautiful name,
Speaker 1: known for her previous work on promising young women.
Speaker 2: And the film start when I did see that one
Speaker 2: is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I didn't not see it, and then I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that they're a dumb at same person. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: have to go back now. The film stars Bary Cogan
Speaker 1: as Oliver Quick, an outcast student at Oxford University who
Speaker 1: becomes infatuated with his wealthy classmate Felix. And I love
Speaker 1: because the opening scenes are all at Oxford University on
Speaker 1: the campus grounds, and I've been there a couple of times,
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite cities in the whole world,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh, it gave me all these warm,
Speaker 1: fuzzy feelings at the beginning, and then it turns really
Speaker 1: really quickly, but essentially, Felix, the wealthy classmate, invites Oliver
Speaker 1: to spend the summer with him at his family's very
Speaker 1: opulent British estate called Saltburn. Of course it has a name, right,
Speaker 1: So Oliver really ends up becoming entwined in the lives
Speaker 1: of the Canton family. The sister, the elderly, very wealthy father,
Speaker 1: and his younger wife in this complex web of obsession
Speaker 1: and deception, and it has all the good stuff that
Speaker 1: we love to see, with the opulent parties and the
Speaker 1: kids just behaving badly and just not knowing where that's
Speaker 1: going to go. It's interesting because the critics have noted
Speaker 1: the film's thematic parallels to what we've talked about a lot,
Speaker 1: the talented mister Ripley with this exploration of desire and
Speaker 1: identity within elite social circles. So like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're looking for something to watch, you just want to
Speaker 1: be all in, Like visually it's great, and then it's
Speaker 1: also very twisted and you're like, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: am I watching right now? So basically, I mean the
Speaker 1: character Oliver eats this family from the inside out. I
Speaker 1: mean he really carefully crafts his way into their lives
Speaker 1: over this summer break from Oxford and dismantles them, possibly
Speaker 1: you know, killing some of them, or suckers them into
Speaker 1: eventually gaining their wealth playing the very long game years
Speaker 1: down the road. I really love Saltburne. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to expect going into it, and you know, some
Speaker 1: of it was like shocking, and I just I highly,
Speaker 1: highly recommend it with just this very stylish examination of obsession,
Speaker 1: class disparity, sort of the lengths individuals will go to
Speaker 1: to attain acceptance and wealth. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: great contemporary psychological thriller that fits perfectly with what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today.
Speaker 2: So did you root for him for Barry Ian's I.
Speaker 1: Did not, because you the way that it's shot and
Speaker 1: the subtlety to his psychopathy is you know, something that
Speaker 1: makes you like your skin crawl towards.
Speaker 2: The end, but even like, but you do judge the
Speaker 2: rich like they do jug with assholes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you judge the rich and their assholes. But I
Speaker 1: think there's maybe it's also how it was sort of
Speaker 1: crafted to be like what we're talking about, like they
Speaker 1: don't know any better. These are kids that have grown
Speaker 1: up in this and he's finding their weaknesses right, like
Speaker 1: very calculated. So I'd be super interested to hear your tape.
Speaker 2: I'll have to watch it. But here's one that I
Speaker 2: did watch and love the menu. Oh yes, very dark
Speaker 2: comedy thriller directed by Mark Milid, starring Anna Taylor Joy
Speaker 2: I love her, Ray Fines love him, Nicholas Holt. I
Speaker 2: mean just the cast is so great. Also, all of
Speaker 2: the people that have I mean, I don't think there
Speaker 2: are really any minor roles, but like it is a
Speaker 2: casting cavalcade. It's so fantastic, and it seems like one
Speaker 2: of those movies where people were like, I will be
Speaker 2: in this. I don't care if I don't have lines.
Speaker 2: I be in this, right. So the film follows this
Speaker 2: young couple of Margot who is Anya Taylor Joy and
Speaker 2: Nicholas Holt as Tyler, and they go to an exclusive
Speaker 2: island restaurant. By the way, I would never fucking do that. No,
Speaker 2: creepy as hell to me.
Speaker 1: I would never ever do take a boat where there's
Speaker 1: just a restaurant and like the staff lives there, Like.
Speaker 2: What kind of I'm not going to have this? And
Speaker 2: the island restaurant is run by renowned enigmatic chef Julian
Speaker 2: Slowick played by Rafe Fines, And so it's very I mean,
Speaker 2: it's very stylistic. You hate some of the characters immediately
Speaker 2: there's such dude bro assholes, but as the evening unfolds,
Speaker 2: the chef presents this elaborate multi course meal with each
Speaker 2: of the dishes just like meticulously crafted with like layers
Speaker 2: of deeper meaning, which is really funny because look, I've
Speaker 2: been lucky enough to have some very expensive meals in
Speaker 2: my life. It's not a regular basis, but you know,
Speaker 2: I've had some like two big ones in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it is a big deal to the chef, like
Speaker 2: it is there. It is the chef mentality, is the
Speaker 2: creativity and like making the eating experience art, which is
Speaker 2: just not something that I grew up with. That's like
Speaker 2: very alien to me. Right, So, but I'm trying. You know,
Speaker 2: my experiences were really good and it was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I get this, but it becomes very very clear, very
Speaker 2: quickly that this particular menu and this particular meal, the
Speaker 2: dinner is not just about the food. It is very
Speaker 2: meticulously orchestrated psychological and physical ordeal for all of the guests.
Speaker 2: Because all the guests are elite food critics or wealthy patrons,
Speaker 2: celebrities and their entourage. Yeah, and they quickly realize that
Speaker 2: they're trapped in a carefully designed experiences that is just
Speaker 2: getting way out of hand. And to see all of
Speaker 2: them fall apart, I don't even want to get If
Speaker 2: you haven't seen it, guys, you really really have to
Speaker 2: see it because the look of horror and anger on
Speaker 2: people when they like the confusion, like the confusion like
Speaker 2: this one is even in the I'm not getting anything way,
Speaker 2: because this is in the previews. Is like when a
Speaker 2: table gets their order of tortillas and the tortillas have
Speaker 2: printed on them in edible ink or it's burned into it,
Speaker 2: like the financial spreadsheets for all of their financial crimes. Right,
Speaker 2: they're like, right, what the fuck is this? You know,
Speaker 2: like just that sort of trying to put it together.
Speaker 2: And I mean again, it's also the acting is really great.
Speaker 2: But Anya Taylor Joy plays Margo. She wasn't supposed to
Speaker 2: be part of the guest list. She came by accident
Speaker 2: because the person that was in her place wasn't able
Speaker 2: to go. So her being an outsider disrupts the whole
Speaker 2: planned evening and she is a very tough individual and
Speaker 2: she confronts the chef and it becomes this battle of wills.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so over the top crazy and yet
Speaker 2: you go, well, this could happen probably, but like I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not science fiction y. It's just like like knives
Speaker 2: out almost. It's just very very well constructed. So it
Speaker 2: is just really a great example of privilege, entitlement and
Speaker 2: the fine dining industry, which is I enjoy good food,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to. I don't want to breathe
Speaker 2: salmon foam while I'm you know, roll all the time,
Speaker 2: desiccated green being between my fingers, you know, just the
Speaker 2: weird things. Anyway, some very highly recommend it, both of them.
Speaker 1: Both of these are so delicious to watch. That feels appropriate.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've already mentioned White Lotus, and this is
Speaker 1: definitely my obsession weirdly, like both my parents and I
Speaker 1: like watch this and keep up on it and talk
Speaker 1: about it, and it's kind of funny because it's our thing.
Speaker 1: But if you guys haven't watched White Lotus, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're hearing all about it right now. And talk about
Speaker 1: social media. I mean, Parker Posey is having her moment
Speaker 1: right now for sure.
Speaker 2: By the way, as she should. I mean I have
Speaker 2: I'll probably skip season two just to come watch season
Speaker 2: three for her, because this is someone that, like, she
Speaker 2: is wildly talented and has been from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: and it's like she's the Queen of the Indies. But like,
Speaker 2: you just go, how are you not a major stars?
Speaker 2: So brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, best in Show is like has always been
Speaker 1: my favorite. Also, Jennifer, I know, and you can't scale.
Speaker 1: You can't skip season two because it actually does play
Speaker 1: into season three. It's not totally separate, so I would say,
Speaker 1: don't do that, but dude, it's an easy binge, do it.
Speaker 1: So White Lotus it's a dark comedy drama anthology series,
Speaker 1: but there is some overlap there, and it's created by
Speaker 1: Mike White, who we've mentioned, and really he loves to
Speaker 1: play on the satire of privileged wealth social dynamics through
Speaker 1: the lens of luxury vacations, which I'm here for as well,
Speaker 1: because all these shows make you want to do is
Speaker 1: book your next vacation and have such travel envy. But
Speaker 1: in it, each season follows a different group of wealthy
Speaker 1: guests at the White Lotus resort in a different location.
Speaker 1: So season one was Maui, season two was Taromina, Sicily,
Speaker 1: and then season three is in Thailand. And so all
Speaker 1: of these like personal flaws, entitlement, hidden tentions all gradually
Speaker 1: lead to some sort of there's definitely like betrayals and
Speaker 1: scandals happening, but there's some sort of like wacky death
Speaker 1: that happens at the end of all of these. So
Speaker 1: all seasons depict how the rich are incredibly insulated from
Speaker 1: true consequences of life, but also of their own doing right,
Speaker 1: their own flaws, the arrogance, the greed, the moral decay,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this ends up being super self inflicted.
Speaker 1: But White Lotus is great again. I know, probably everybody's
Speaker 1: watching it right now. Anyway, I saw.
Speaker 2: This really interesting discussion about somebody was saying, well, I'm
Speaker 2: definitely not going to go to White Lotus because somebody
Speaker 2: dies all the time, and I and people I before
Speaker 2: I could even make a comment like there are all
Speaker 2: these other people going. Do you know how many people
Speaker 2: die on cruises every year? Do you know people die
Speaker 2: at resorts every like a lot, like way more than
Speaker 2: you would think. Like it makes me think, like, oh,
Speaker 2: what's the one that like the most recent ones? Not there,
Speaker 2: not the reason, but it happened. It's happened like three different
Speaker 2: times at one resort where the bartender is making drinks
Speaker 2: with like ever clear or something, or they're like our moonshines,
Speaker 2: like we don't have any tequila, so we'll just make
Speaker 2: up really sweet margaritas. With whatever I've got in the
Speaker 2: back and they're all dead, like, you know, just family die.
Speaker 2: It's terrible one thing, and then I'll get off the
Speaker 2: Parker posey pony. This is how great of an actor
Speaker 2: she is. There's a remake of Lost in Space that
Speaker 2: is on Netflix and has three seasons. Unfortunately, it's not consistent.
Speaker 2: It's a great idea. She plays the doctor that was
Speaker 2: played by a male. Traditionally that role was male.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and she.
Speaker 2: Plays this She's impersonating a doctor and she is a
Speaker 2: complete psychopath. She is incredibly manipulative, she is unbelo believably brilliant,
Speaker 2: and she is like she's the villain in the fault
Speaker 2: all three seasons. So if anybody like it's pretty good
Speaker 2: science fiction, it's not consistent, but I would I would
Speaker 2: highly recommend watching it just for her performance. She's that great.
Speaker 2: So another one that came out that I think is
Speaker 2: really fascinating, which won the Oscar I was not. I
Speaker 2: don't know if I think that this movie deserves like
Speaker 2: Best Picture. Ye, my husband loved it, and my husband
Speaker 2: is very critical of movies. But Anora and I highly
Speaker 2: recommend watching it because it shows the story of the
Speaker 2: youngest child of Russian oligarchs and how now and this
Speaker 2: actor playing him is I mean, the kid's going to
Speaker 2: be a star, absolute star. But you see this arc
Speaker 2: of people the haves versus the have nots, especially when
Speaker 2: it's in sort of like the criminal world, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: here's somebody that probably his money has come from arms
Speaker 2: dealers or whatever like that, and he has this that
Speaker 2: just is running wild like they can't contain him. So
Speaker 2: kind of circling back to Titan and the Submersible, there
Speaker 2: will be a documentary on Netflix this year. It's going
Speaker 2: to focus on this incident and it's going to examine
Speaker 2: Stockton Rush and his quest to become the next billionaire
Speaker 2: innovator and you know what led to the tragic endeavor.
Speaker 2: And I'm hoping that that will make people who watch
Speaker 2: it kind of really reconsider, like what's the price of ambition.
Speaker 2: I don't think that lesson will be heard by anybody
Speaker 2: that particularly needs to hear it, but.
Speaker 1: Well, it'll be interesting if they touch on some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we touched on, right, like the reactions, the
Speaker 1: you know, lack of empathy and how that all played out.
Speaker 1: I would imagine they kind of have to but we'll
Speaker 1: see maybe not. Maybe it's just more of a piece
Speaker 1: on him and what led to all this. But it
Speaker 1: comes out this year on Netflix and it will be
Speaker 1: titled Titan.
Speaker 2: Well long episode. We told ourselves we were going to
Speaker 2: do this. We were like, oh, let's get but short
Speaker 2: like here, we had so much to talk about. But
Speaker 2: it's I think it's because we are not doing this
Speaker 2: on a regular basis, so we can really expand.
Speaker 1: This is great, very true, very true. Or it was
Speaker 1: the economics history lesson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Bobs, we appreciate it. Please remember it. Tell
Speaker 2: your friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we need to learn from our history a
Speaker 1: little bit more, right, Yes, okay, So we will be
Speaker 1: bringing you a behind the Couch episode next. Please if
Speaker 1: you can join us at Bike Shed on Friday, April eleventh,
Speaker 1: six PMSH. We'll hang out for a few hours and
Speaker 1: just you know, they have great food if you want
Speaker 1: to grab appetizer, dinner, drink, dessert. Yeah, it's all in
Speaker 1: one place, so come say hello. It's been a while
Speaker 1: since we've seen people in person. Other than that, anything else,
Speaker 1: any last thoughts.
Speaker 2: No, we've got a couple more live events that will
Speaker 2: be happening. You know, throughout the spring and the summer,
Speaker 2: and we'll continue to announce those. And again you're going
Speaker 2: to hear this in our outro. But thank you to
Speaker 2: all of our Patreon members. You're awesome. We just really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. Yes, I like still can't believe I'll get
Speaker 2: another email every other day on a new Patreon. I'm like, God,
Speaker 2: thank you, folks. We really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been doing some also some guest interviews lately,
Speaker 1: so just you know, pay attention to our social media.
Speaker 1: We'll always let you know where to catch us talking
Speaker 1: about other things. And we have a page on our
Speaker 1: website titled Spotlights that lists everything in a link to
Speaker 1: everything that we do as far as being on other
Speaker 1: people's podcasts and shows and stuff like that, so you
Speaker 1: can always find it there. All right, everyone, we will
Speaker 1: see you next time on La Not So Confidential. Bye guys, bye, folks,
Speaker 1: call sincerely, thank you for spending some time with us today.
Speaker 1: La Not So Confidential is part of the Cralspace media network.
Speaker 1: Each episode is hosted, produced, and written by doctor Scott
Speaker 1: and doctor Shiloh. Our post production, editing and sweetening magic
Speaker 1: is handled by the multi talented Jason Usri of ear
Speaker 1: Cult Productions.
Speaker 2: Our theme music entitled Cool Vibes Film Noir, is composed
Speaker 2: and performed by the talented Kevin McLoud. He graciously allows
Speaker 2: us to use his music via a Creative Commons attribution license.
Speaker 2: Please check out all of Kevin's amazing work on YouTube.
Speaker 1: All of the resources for each episode can be found
Speaker 1: on our website at La Dash not dash soo dash
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Speaker 2: Once a month, we go live on YouTube on Saturday afternoon,
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