Between Order and Chaos
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I am joined with my friend, Joe Jackowski, and this conversation took place after about four hours of conversation, unpacking everything that has happened in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
This conversation was sense-making for myself and Joe. We do our best to try and lay out the land of the current situation, which in turn looking at the extremes of this situation and asking What if and how bad could this get?
I do believe that the broader philosophical discussions about the direction of this country are speaking between order and chaos.
This was our honest attempt at the layout of the reactions on both sides.
This is all about providing a more nuanced viewpoint. I want to see this country go in a better direction. Some things need to change, and they will change. The big question is, how do we go about changing those things?
How we figure this thing out is through discourse with each other.
There will be one other conversation where myself, Joe, and Jordan, will have our first conversation together. And that one I think is even better than this one. So stay tuned for that one. It will be the next episode to be released. But until then, please enjoy this conversation with Joe Jackowski.
Show Notes:
[00:04:34] Emotion is a compass
[00:07:14] Dismissal of Habeas Corpus
[00:12:33] Orderly Aspect
openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/callous)
neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)
Erich misquoted should have been Admiral William McRaven
Check out Admiral William McRaven’s book Make Your Bed
Admiral McRaven Leaves the Audience SPEECHLESS | One of the Best Motivational Speeches
[00:14:50] Territory Mapping
[00:17:19] Risk of too much information
[00:19:46] Finding the middle ground
[00:21:35] Orderliness
[00:22:34] Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)
[00:25:13] Overspecialization
Why T-shaped people? | Medium
[00:27:36] The Funnel of Information
[00:29:31] Hitler and Orderliness taken too Far
Hitler and Hitlerism: Germany Under the Nazis
[00:32:09]Tying back into Habeas Corpus
[00:33:27] Iceland's reaction to COVID-19
How Iceland Beat the Coronavirus
[00:35:59] The left side is a bit tricky
The Psychology of Rioting: The Language of the Unheard
[00:40:03] A case for right-wing to be upset at what happened to George Floyd
[00:45:01] The Left going too far
[00:46:35] Nihilism
[00:49:19] Where is the line on the left and Evergreen
[00:57:57] Coming back together
[00:58:57] What steps can we take now?
[01:03:21] Multivariate problem
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Between Order and Chaos
[00:04:14] Joe Jackowski: Very broad means of specializing making more confined a reality that's even brought that in itself. Right. So it's, it's it, there's something wrong in the environment. our emotions are really good at indicating the general direction of,
[00:04:32] Erich Wenzel: yeah. It's like a compass, right?
[00:04:34] Emotion is a compass
[00:04:34] Joe Jackowski: It's like a compass with a needle that's too wide. Just cause I don't know, West.
[00:04:41] Joe Jackowski: That's when your emotions have to go. If I'm asking, how do I get to Ann Arbor? Where at the University of Michigan, where I'm from, I'm from here near Chicago. And you tell me East, well, that's true. Right. But that's, that's not specific at the moment
[00:04:58] Erich Wenzel: ballpark. True.
[00:05:00] Joe Jackowski: Right. Ballpark. True. So I started moving on 94, a little bit East and I just kept going. I'm like, when do I, or maybe I just hop on. two nineties or tiny, like I know we have to go use it at some point, what do I do now? Right. And that, that your rational mind takes over in creating specificity in achieving that specific singular goal to hitting that, that Mark to, to.
[00:05:25] Confining the trajectory, right? So where we're at now, I think in part, as a culture, as it were an emotive state that we are, that we aren't, we are using words to emote, not to think that what we're doing is here's a general problem and there's going to be a whole bunch of things that are rationally wrong, but they are in some sense intuitively, right?
[00:05:50] There are East, but not here. Let me give you a GPS trajectory and how to get there right now. That's really good in the early stages of something. My concern now is when we flip into these stages where we need to be more specific, if we're at the, where 290 merges onto 94 or 80, right. And I need to start heading East, but you just tell me, go East, go East, go East,
[00:06:25] Erich Wenzel: just keep going. You are still hitting it Eventually.
[00:06:28] Joe Jackowski: that doesn't help me. I need to know what went wrong. Where am I getting off? That 's my exit. Right? So now I think as a culture, we're on the highway. We know the general direction. We need to go. I need to figure out what exit we have. Yeah. Now it's not an emotional issue.
[00:06:49] Now it's a logical rational issue. Now we need to start thinking hard. And we can't just say things that are in line with our emotions, but not aligned with our minds. We need to be in a place where we're being very, very serious about how we think about this. And I'll give you two pieces of context.
[00:07:14] Dismissal of Habeas Corpus
[00:07:14] two pieces of context of emoting without thinking once from the right. And one is from the left. The one on the right. Is that in New York city? I think this is from the right.
[00:07:27] There it was, it directionally feels right. Dismissal of Habeas Corpus in New York City. What is Habeas Corpus? It's a 900 year old legal precedent. Right? So why does it matter to the age? well, one it's pre-america, but if it's lasted that suggests that under a whole bunch of chronological context, under a whole bunch of periods of time, it remained applicable. It remained important. And it was functional across all these times. So long. Something is functional. The more suggested it works. So something that works at the very least for 900 years seriously works. Yeah. And that has been suspended and habeas Corpus is the idea that you can't be held. You can't be arrested and held without a charge.
[00:08:25] They can't just take you indefinitely. Nobody can just go. You're under arrest that one. You're under arrest and you're here until we say you're not. Yeah. Right. That's crazy. And the fact that that has gone legitimately means the police in New York city right now can go to a protestor and go, you haven't broken any laws, but you're under arrest.
[00:08:44] You're here exercising all of your rights. Pick one doesn't matter, pick a right in the officer's mind. If they disagree with you, then they do. Yep. They can arrest you. And you can say, why am I being arrested? Why am I being arrested? They don't have to give you an answer. They can throw you in jail and they can just leave you there for 10 years.
[00:09:06] Erich Wenzel: It's the adult version of, because I say so, or government version,
[00:09:09] Joe Jackowski: right, exactly they can just say, Oh yeah, we're charging you with whatever. Yeah. Or this or that, or we're figuring it out. We're figuring out a year, going by, tell me what, you know, when do I get my, whatever my rights, figure it out, figure it out.
[00:09:28] I saw this in the Marine Corps. I had a staff Sergeant who I was, I was trying to get him to sign some paperwork. He was very much not happy about it wanting to get out. Right. Well, it was, it was an opportunity to get out early. And the reason that that was getting out early, existed was because the Obama administration was downsizing the military in general.
[00:09:49] And so they needed people to voluntarily get out. And so I was like, Well, I don't know. I'll give it a shot. I wasn't even that bought into it, in my mind, it was just like, well, I can put it in the package and then I could decide on it. Whether or not you get approved. Cause if I don't, then it doesn't matter if I do that.You're like, whatever,
[00:10:03] Erich Wenzel: whatever, fine, nothing to lose or win really.
[00:10:05] Joe Jackowski: Right. And so he needed to sign on this piece and he just month after month, put it off. And I had no means of really going out. I mean, I had some, I should have done some things, but, but that's the idea is that I can just go, Oh no, no, no, no.
[00:10:21] All right. Here's some bullshit excuses.
[00:10:23] Erich Wenzel: I lost the paper, excuse.
[00:10:24] Joe Jackowski: Oh, my pen. Isn't on my desk. Yeah. Right. It doesn't matter any stupid thing to push that off. And that's what they can do now in New York city with your freedom. Yeah. With your ability to act as a, is a human being with rights. And in fact, the first amendment.
[00:10:40] Right? Right. All of them. Because the moment that they get rid of habeas Corpus, you could be like, you'd be like, Oh, forget, assembly or association. It's subjective. Now. Now the cop themselves that arrests, you can go, I don't like that. You're hanging out with that person. And then when you say, why are you arresting me?
[00:10:59] I don't have to give you a reason.
[00:11:01] Erich Wenzel: Slippery slope.
[00:11:03] Joe Jackowski: It's it's it it's more than a celebrity. So we're already at the bottom. That's insane. There's no protections when that's gone.
[00:11:11] Erich Wenzel: It's just crazy. That of all places that it happened is New York city.
[00:11:16] Joe Jackowski: Oh, yeah. Like how can I, right. It's a little shocking. I would have thought that would have come from right wing mayors, but generally it's kind of left wing and
[00:11:25] Erich Wenzel: I'm just curious. It was a judge and that I saw the same article you posted from oaf actual, on their on their app. It's on their Instagram page. They have like 10 or so slides of images kind of outlining what was done here, but. When I post this as an actual podcast, I'll share this, the links to these things that we share here, for those who want to understand what's going on.
[00:11:47]you know, we're, we're, I just want to make it clear to people too, is that this isn't about taking sides either. This is just
[00:11:52] Joe Jackowski: kind of looking at the insanity,
[00:11:54] Erich Wenzel: like just what's happening across the board.
[00:11:58]I mean, it goes without saying that we're. All for equality and freedom of people, you know, I feel like that's what this country has been founded on.
[00:12:09] Joe Jackowski: Oh yeah. You
[00:12:09] Erich Wenzel: know, like you have, like, that's like a baseline assumption in this scenario. And then to have
[00:12:15] Joe Jackowski: outright abandonment of fundamental ideals is insane. It
[00:12:22] Erich Wenzel: it's worrisome at the smallest end of that scale. Right.
[00:12:26] Joe Jackowski: Imagine that spreads, but yeah. All right. So that's what I see is right wing. And the reason that I see it is right wing.
[00:12:33] Orderly Aspect
[00:12:33] Erich Wenzel: Cause it's the authoritarian aspect of this.
[00:12:35] Joe Jackowski: It's the orderly aspect. Yeah. Better. Why orderly whatever. Okay. So I'll go to the bottom a little bit, not a total lab, but deep enough. So if you look at personality psychology, there's five dimensions, right? So ocean is the acronym. Openness conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
[00:13:01] Now it differentiates into 10 facets of those five domains. one. So underneath conscientiousness is orderliness, and industriousness. Yeah, we'll put an industriousness off to the side. Orderliness is exactly what it sounds like you're ordered by your cleanli here on time. Things are belong to the right place,
[00:13:32] Erich Wenzel: whatever, when you're in school, how organized is your backpack?Do you have folders? Things like that,
[00:13:36] Joe Jackowski: Everything just has a place in its place. You make your bed, right.
[00:13:43] Erich Wenzel: Do you make your bed ,using the crystal? (Misquoted should have been Admiral William McRaven)
[00:13:45] Joe Jackowski: And that can be. It's associated with industriousness because the industry is something like guilt for a lack of work. If I feel guilty about not working, but you can see that connection there.
[00:13:55] Right. Where it's like, I make my bed, not just because I'm mortally, but because if I am not orderly, I feel guilty. Yeah. Right. So now those things are connected and that's why they fall under conscientiousness. Yeah. Then there's openness and openness differentiates the two things. openness to experience and intellect, openness to experience is exactly what it sounds like.
[00:14:20] Shocker. It's like they name them well. Yeah. Right. And, because naming something well means that the name itself indicates what it is you're getting at instead of just some convoluted BS. Yup. And it's people who want to go out and do new things, try new things. And really at a fundamental level, it's getting new information.
[00:14:43] Ah it's Oh, that's new. That's new, asked me.
[00:14:46] Erich Wenzel: So it's like, almost like an intellectual curiosity.
[00:14:50] Territory Mapping
[00:14:50] Joe Jackowski: So that's why I differentiate. Oh yeah, because of the analytics. There's the physical, there's the experience itself and there's the intellectual. Oh yeah. Intellect is a diff they're both territory. This is so cool.
[00:15:05] I think human beings are really, Territory mapping creatures. They operate on orienting and mapping something like substrate or not substrate. It's more like structure or foundation. their bolt exploratory. Yup. one is exploratory in the world, like a physical exploration, right? You go out and check out the world.
[00:15:29] And the other is intellectual territory. That's being mapped. Right. Let me go find new ideas. Let me go find this. So intellect doesn't mean intelligence. It just means that you're interested in new things. Yeah. Ideas that
[00:15:40] Erich Wenzel: are new ideas, right?
[00:15:41] Joe Jackowski: Yeah. Right. So why am I bringing these two things up? Because openness to experience that is, so if you have high openness to experience and low orderliness, so you're very interested in new experiences.
[00:15:59] But you're not interested in ordering those new experiences. You're more likely to be liberal. Oh, Whoa. Right. So it's from the liberals perspective. Is which, by the way, these are heritable, which means you can be genetic, there's like a 0.4. So you get some of you inherit this from your parents. There's a genetic aspect to it.
[00:16:22] Erich Wenzel: Interesting.
[00:16:23] Joe Jackowski: So that means that it was evolved if it's genetic, it was evolved. Right? So there was an evolved aspect of your personality that was designed to go out and get new information. And that's a liberal go out and get new information, get the borders out of the way so that I can go find new things, get the borders out of the way. So that I can find new things. Oh, Is it not surprising? I don't want to see the box date. Right? They box the box down, they see the box
[00:16:51] Erich Wenzel: and they're annoyed by the box because they don't
[00:16:53] Joe Jackowski: because the box is just an impediment to finding new information. Right. So, get rid of national borders so that new information can flow in and we can grow as a result of these things.
[00:17:06] That's the liberal perspective it's inherited biologically. It's evolutionary, right? Context, but what does that not allow for? What does organizing have then
[00:17:16] Erich Wenzel: you don't have a way to solidify what is useful or not.
[00:17:19] Risk of too much information
[00:17:19] Joe Jackowski: Right? What are the risks? What are the risks to untrammeled information in flux? it could be that bad shit.
[00:17:29] Right? In fact, this is happening right now in our culture. COVID disease. Is something that if we don't have restrictions on travel restrictions on our borders, whatever, then legitimate disease can come into here to completely unregulated yeah, that's it.
[00:17:53] Erich Wenzel: I mean, it's probably the best example we could ever give about like a reason to have closed borders.
[00:17:58] Joe Jackowski:Oh, you want to hear a crazy one from history? You don't want to kill the native Americans.
[00:18:03] Erich Wenzel: The blankets from,
[00:18:05] Joe Jackowski: it wasn't, it wasn't the Spaniards per se. It was that when the Spaniards showed up, the spinners had diseases because they lived in literally shit covered cities in Europe, where they like shit in a bucket and then dumped it in the street.
[00:18:19] Right. This is really unsanitary. So those that, it's funny how we forget those that survive or those well, those that didn't have good immune systems died, right? And there's a survived, had a really good immune system. They were all inoculated against all these diseases, but now all these dudes who are not correlated against seizes brought those same diseases, that they are not going to get carried to a world in which there had not been these natural, natural antibodies.
[00:18:49] Antibodies or, or vaccinations that had occurred. And so 98% of native Americans across both North and South America died as a result. Not of
[00:19:00] Erich Wenzel: it was mostly small smallpox.
[00:19:01] Joe Jackowski: Right, right. A small enough handful of that right. Of disease. Yeah. So if you have an entirely unobstructed influx of information, you die.
[00:19:15] So we need new information coming in, but we also need to obstruct new information coming in. Yeah. And these are actually antithetical positions that are both true. Right? So you have liberals voting on one side. What are conservatives? Why are they high orderliness? Because they care about borders and order and setting up things.
[00:19:39] It's how do we structure our society? How do we prevent the disease? How do we do these things?
[00:19:46] Finding the middle ground
[00:19:46] Erich Wenzel: It's how do they find a place? And the intersection, the way I'm seeing it right now is like the intersection between these things is like the filter mechanism between just enough new information that then can be really solidified into something either useful, or you just throw it away and then keep moving.
[00:20:02] Right? So you need to satisfy both needs. And find the middle ground, right? I'm using this language really on purpose right now.
[00:20:11] Joe Jackowski: It's like, we've forgotten the purpose of that language. We said, Oh wait, we need a middle ground. Well, why right now we're explaining,
[00:20:17] Erich Wenzel: we're trying to explain why what's necessary here.
[00:20:19] and I wasn't expecting to actually explain this at all, but it's, it's so interesting to think about that because it's not even, we're not even talking like just large scale politically. This is how every human works. Like we have to take in new information, but then you need to go and really deeply think critically think and critically feel right to use what Weinstein Eric Weinstein had said earlier in the week.
[00:20:50] Whether or not those things actually make sense. Right. It's like the Bruce Lee quote: take what is useful and discard the rest. what, what works the best. And it's going to be different for everyone too.
[00:21:03] Joe Jackowski: On top of that, at least slightly enough different environments that we have to adapt to different ways.
[00:21:08] Erich Wenzel: Like you have to find what is like your secret sauce that works in your environment no matter where you live and that this should feel intuitively correct to most people. I think. Like when you just sit and think about it, it's like, Oh yeah, I guess, duh. Right? Like for someone to prescribe something to you, the only way they can prescribe a certain set of behaviors to you is that they live in a similar culture to you.
[00:21:35] Orderliness
[00:21:35]Joe Jackowski: So the conservative side is that. It's high in orderliness and low in openness. Right. And that's what predicts conservative behavior. And that's still heritable. Right. So we've evolved that there's a biological precept pre pre, premise from WIC requisite, right? Yeah. Prerequisite, thank you.
[00:21:53] Is from which we pulled. Pull this in this, this way of being, and that we have the order, which is a control for potential dangers. And we have the openness, which is the allowing in of new information, regardless of the dangers.
[00:22:08] Erich Wenzel: And you can even view new information almost like an inoculation, right?
[00:22:12] Cause what's the extreme. And have overly rigid, right? Yeah. Because if you're overly rigid, then you become insular and then your ideas become self perpetuating. It's the idea of, what's the word I'm looking for? Echo chamber, right? You become an echo chamber of yourself because if you have yes. Men around you saying, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. You can never move beyond that point,
[00:22:34] Ghost in the Shell
[00:22:34] Joe Jackowski: dude. Okay. So yes. Okay. So one of the most influential movies on my entire fucking way of thinking. I can, I can almost not overstate it. I can understand it, but I can almost not overstate it was a movie called Ghost in the Shell, which is, I think 1995, which is a Japanese, it was an anime.
[00:22:49] So it was animated, a Japanese film. Now the general association with those types of animation, whatever is this cause nerdy goofy thing. But, I would argue against that. It's not some goofy, bizarre off kilter strange kind of weird goofy entertainment it's one of the most impactful actually in science fiction films it's ever made.
[00:23:16] In fact, the Wachowski brothers at the time cited Ghost In the Shell as one of the inspirations for the Matrix. And in fact, you can see the imagery of Ghost in the shell. reverberate into matrix, but also Westworld, like even more modern, a decade after of
[00:23:38] Erich Wenzel: Altered Carbon has some influence to
[00:23:42] Joe Jackowski: absolutely the idea of a body in which you can import a consciousness, which is prevalent all throughout. altered carbon is all of these factors, both the imagery and the matrix and Westworld and the questions that are in both of those. They're long with this specific question that you're just an ultra carbon, all came from. We're born from Ghost in the shell. It is one of the most impactful pieces of science fiction.
[00:24:13] I think in the last Jesus. I mean since 2001, a space Odyssey. I mean, it came after that, but like, Jesus,
[00:24:22] Erich Wenzel: It's surprising to me that most people don't know it. Maybe it's because it's anime.
[00:24:26] Joe Jackowski: I think that's why but its impact is so huge that people know it and they don't know that they know it. And it's because they've seen it's children.
[00:24:32] Right. They know it by, by a degree of separation. But anyway, so, this film was a huge influence on the way I think. And it noted that. There's a quote in there that I love. There's a character in there. This is, there's a, there's a squad. There's a group of people who are really well-trained specialized people.
[00:24:53] And in fact, they live in this future world, the science fiction world in which their entire bodies have been altered. Everything about their bodies has been altered in order to be more functional, more capable for everyone's job. Basically, they've all been augmented to do this job of hunting down criminals, international NSBE,
[00:25:11] Erich Wenzel: peacekeepers, right? Like super spies
[00:25:13] Overspecialization
[00:25:13] Joe Jackowski: peacekeeper. And. One person amongst them is basically not altered at all. And he turned to their later the major and said and asked, what, what the hell am I doing here? What am I doing here? I am. I am not like a normal person amongst a bunch of super soldiers, but just freaks. Yup. And she turns to him. Matoka Kusanagi is the character's name.
[00:25:39] She turns to him, his, his boss, the major and says overspecialize.
[00:25:45] And you breed in weakness, why brilliant overspecialize and you breed in weakness. Why is that brilliant? Because that's the consequence of too much work. That's the right wing extreme is it? It's all order. And because it's all order, everybody's the same
[00:26:03] Erich Wenzel: and you're not comfortable with dissenting opinions.
[00:26:05] Joe Jackowski: Compounded into one Avenue of thought, one Avenue being.
[00:26:09] Erich Wenzel: So if you know the weakness, you can crack the thing.
[00:26:12] Joe Jackowski: If you know how to fuck with one person, you can destroy the whole system.
[00:26:16] Erich Wenzel: You've got the code and now you can know how to break the whole code. Yep. Right. Do you use computer science terms, dude? That is, that really put it all together for me, because I talked tons about like, that's just how I think though, like, I don't think specializing is inherently bad. you need it right. to use more language, but I'll get there in a second, but I talk about generalization, right? I think we need to start thinking about society as a collection of generalized specialists, where, and the way you can think about this is T-shaped people.
[00:26:50] So you have a broad set of knowledge across many topics, but then you eventually pick one topic that you want to go really deep on because when you have a broader base knowledge, then you can use that to inform the hypothesis you have in your specialized field. Right? Like knowing more about other areas.
[00:27:10] Say like if you're a writer, When, you know more about how the world works and say, you're writing a scifi novel, like you're talking about, it might be a really good idea to go interview engineers at the cutting edge of science within those fields that you're talking about in Saifai, whatever the premise of your book is.
[00:27:29] And get what they're actually working on. Yeah. Because then you can form your opinion.
[00:27:34] Joe Jackowski: It's a cone. Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:36] The Funnel of Information
[00:27:36] Erich Wenzel: It's a funnel. It's a funnel. Yeah. It's a really good,
[00:27:38] Joe Jackowski: that's a really good way of doing it. The way that I tried to write my thesis, I started really broad and I moved all the broadness all the way down to, we got to my study itself. So it was like, it was like theory. It was like, actually the philosophy. And then solely moved into psychological
[00:27:55] Erich Wenzel: theories because it's your bio psycho.
[00:27:58] Joe Jackowski: Oh yeah. I psycho dude,
[00:28:03] Erich Wenzel: bio psych,
[00:28:04] Joe Jackowski: bio, psych cognition and neuroscience. So it's broad enough. So it was, it was philosophical theory for me. And then we moved into psychology and then he moved into meaning within psychology and that we got to the point where it was like, Oh, here's this thing about language.
[00:28:20] Yeah. And here's this really specific thing about veterans and here's how they interplay and bang there's this there's this study. And it was like, Oh, Oh, that makes perfect sense. And I talked to Jordan about this, and Jordan said, when he ran it, he was like, Oh yeah, I can totally follow your logic on this.
[00:28:35] Erich Wenzel: I feel like I've noticed that more writing lately, at least not, not in journalistic writings, per se, but scientific writing where it's like, they're trying to paint the brush around the topic they're talking about. Right. And they can't, you can't assume that people have the requisite knowledge base in these topics.
[00:28:57] So you start where you equalize the footing for everybody so that once you get to your conclusion, everyone has the same baseline to be able to understand what you're positing. Yeah. Whether or not the hypothesis is proven. True is irrelevant. But the point is that you bring people on the journey so that they understood what you had to go in, do your research on it,
[00:29:19] Joe Jackowski: and they needed these things so they can follow while you're at. So why does this apply to habeas Corpus? Yeah. Right. Okay. So
[00:29:28] Erich Wenzel: What a podcast, everybody.
[00:29:31] Hilter and Orderliness taken too Far
[00:29:31] Joe Jackowski: Which is why these things are so habeas Corpus is the dissolution of a 900 year old law in order to impose order on chaos. So I think that the order dimension is actually biologically. Predisposed in conservatives. Yeah, I think that's why we, I mean, despite that, despite the fact that.
[00:29:57]Erich Wenzel: They're like an immune response in a societal level.
[00:30:00] Joe Jackowski Yes, yes, really. Yes.
[00:30:04] Erich Wenzel: We're going to keep pulling on the disease metaphor,
[00:30:06] Joe Jackowski: dude. I mean, okay. Okay. Another tangent. So Hitler, when he was, taking power. What he did. One of the first things that he did was he was like, this is ridiculous.
[00:30:23] Everything's totally chaotic. We're going to clean up the factories, but it's very orderly. Right? It's like just cleaning everything. In fact, they beautified them, put flowers in front of them and all this, but they cleaned it up and they used a thing. It was iconic. So it was, it was like gas that they use to kill them.
[00:30:39] The rats that were in these factories, they're like, okay, we'll clean everything up there. So you see the orderly behavior. And then he went. Maybe we should clean something else up. We'll clean up the psych wards. Oh. So they went to, they went to all the mental hospitals and they took all the people who were
[00:31:00] Erich Wenzel: weren't they less than human
[00:31:01] Joe Jackowski: at that point, they were a disease. He took all the disease to people, anyone one by one, and he gassed them. Right. I don't know if he actually asked him, but he killed him. Right. And then he went. Piece by piece step by step.
[00:31:20] You react, organize the whole society and the concentration camps. Do you know what he used? Zyklon B yeah. Same gas. The only difference didn't have a smell. So people would stop freaking out when they were getting gassed. So in the Hitlerian mind, it's a pure order. Extreme.
[00:31:44] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. It's taking orderliness to like the absolute extreme, like, because what does, what does someone with order?What do they want to clean? Right. Disinfect. Yeah. They want, they, if it was up to them, they'd be wearing three pairs of gloves and
[00:31:55] Joe Jackowski: he bathed like three times a day. Was he a clean freak? Yeah. Total clean freak. Oh my God. Absolute mania. Even more. I think it might've been like five times a day. He would take a shower.
[00:32:06] Erich Wenzel: Huh? That's wild.
[00:32:09]Tying back into Habeas Corpus
[00:32:09] Joe Jackowski: Right? Because it's all part of this. Yeah. Okay. So this leads to an argument about evil, but I can leave. I'll put that aside and we can push on the left side. I'm not saying that the dissolution of habeas Corpus is inherently the same thing as Hitler. No, there's no equate. I'm saying that there's a developmental pathway and you can go 30%.
[00:32:28] You can go 50, 60%, 70% maybe. Right. And. It's totally within reasonable objection or like ways of acting, right. If that's, that's fine. You can totally say that that's the extremes on this right side of the spectrum. You have Hitler desanitizing the world. Right. And then you got his way, right. Maybe even himself.
[00:32:53] Right. Which is what he got. But, Also, you have the middle line, which is just like, we could just get a disease. Maybe we should shut down some,
[00:33:05] Erich Wenzel: the high contact places,
[00:33:06] Joe Jackowski: right. Maybe we should just have shut down high contact places. Maybe we should be wearing masks. Maybe we should not allow travel from the countries where they're epicenters, Italy, China,
[00:33:16] Erich Wenzel: or wherever new outbreaks are coming from
[00:33:18] Joe Jackowski: or something like that, which is perfectly reasonable.
[00:33:21] Right. And even there's probably even lesser degrees of that if you assume it. Yeah. And that's that order.
[00:33:27] Iceland's reaction to COVID-19
[00:33:27] Erich Wenzel: I got to find the article I read, I was reading an article. I think it came out yesterday, but it was how Iceland responded to this thing. And they have almost no cases as of like whenever that piece was released. So I'll find that link to
[00:33:42] Joe Jackowski: They are an Island trust and talk about this, the islands, the effective islands. Cause they're insular because they don't have as many egress points.
[00:33:50] Erich Wenzel: Makes sense, movement of animals, movement of people in
[00:33:53] Joe Jackowski: [00:33:53] South Korea is pretty good in part because they've effectively an Island and imposed Island, because the only thing that they're there is a peninsula. they have the North Korea wall, nobody's going to pass the DMZ. So that may, wow.
[00:34:07] Erich Wenzel: See, I've been trying to wrap my head around it, right. Because like, yes, you can say these countries that do it right in quotes and that's subjective. The part
[00:34:18] Joe Jackowski: In part it's made less subjective by the goal itself.
[00:34:21] Erich Wenzel: Right. And my point is that, like, we can use them as a blueprint to how to behave thematically. If that makes sense. It's like how to behave thematically. Iit's a weird way of putting it. No elaborate. It's like,
[00:34:37] it's like basically you look at what their behaviors did and say, okay. Which ones of these are the ones that are actually influencing the outcome?
[00:34:45] And how do we model our society? Obviously we can't model it because the United States is much, much, right.
[00:34:50] Joe Jackowski: So we look at all these different Island States and we go, Oh man, they're doing it perfectly. Is it their legal structure? That's doing it. Yes. Like we put in the proper controls, it might be the thing that's doing it.
[00:35:02] It's just the fact that they're all islands. Right.
[00:35:04] Right. The scale of that multivariate problem. And this is a problem in science all the time is we'll get washed to get to one of these things later. Is that right? Maybe we will. Yeah. Is that, is that if you don't account for all the variables, then you'll pull conclusions that don't map onto the reality of the situation.
[00:35:22] They'll just be like, Oh, the reason they're doing this is because of contact tracing. But if it's just the fact that they're islands, then you might implement contact tracing and your nation thinking it's going to work perfectly. And then it turns out it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is because you're not an Island because you totally misunderstood the context of the situation. Yeah. Right. So, okay.
[00:35:42] So we've established what the right wing perspective is in danger, on the right side of this tight rope that we're walking in this moment. Now the left wing perspective. I don't know if you want to go public with all this shit. You don't care. It's too late, too late.
[00:35:59] The left side a bit tricky
[00:35:59] So from the left wing perspective, On this, the left side of this tight rope that we're walking is a little bit more complicated.
[00:36:08] Okay. So the other half is from the left and they're D they're, they're arguing amongst themselves at some point, because there's a certain amount there that are not actually aligned with, With the reasonable portion of this.
[00:36:23] Right? So that that's
[00:36:24] Erich Wenzel: the optimal stopping question. It's like, where
[00:36:27] Joe Jackowski: is the, like I said, we know there's an arbitrary line, but
[00:36:30] Erich Wenzel: there's, we don't know what line to draw on the left right now. At least that's how I see it.
[00:36:35] Joe Jackowski: We know where the, we, we know there is a line on the right. Yes. Somewhere between we should have some kind of borders.
[00:36:43] Yes. And. Hitlerian way of thinking, right? So somewhere in that spectrum, there's a fucking line. Where's the line, the left it's emerging as something that will need to be articulated in the coming weeks, really in the coming weeks, because I don't think we reached the point in the conversation until very recently where it was necessary to do so. So we know that. So what's the, what's the moderate version of left thinking. We need new information. That's kind of the standard position.
[00:37:20] Erich Wenzel: I view him like a casual hiker, someone who likes to get out in nature every like on the weekends, but then you still have a stable job.
[00:37:28] Joe Jackowski: You need to go on, you want to check out new things, right. And really it's, you can just be intellectual and intellect. That's another portion of that big five. Trait, right. It's one of the facets. And you could just want to go and explore the intellectual territory. Yeah. We need new ideas because the ones that we have right now haven't brought to us or utopia.Right. So that means we're lacking something. So we need new ideas.
[00:37:55] Erich Wenzel: It's the belief that you can even get a little bit better, right.
[00:37:58] Joe Jackowski: Even a modicum.
[00:37:59] Erich Wenzel: And it's not to say that the system is broken, like completely broken it's to say, okay, Okay, this is working, but what, what if there's something, you know, that might be just a little bit better?
[00:38:10] It's being open to the possibility that there is improvement to be had.
[00:38:16] Joe Jackowski: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So, so right. And that's obviously being manifested in the protestors right now. Yes. Did they going on after George Flynn's death and
[00:38:27] Erich Wenzel: majority they're really peaceful too.
[00:38:29] Joe Jackowski: Oh, absolutely.
[00:38:30] Erich Wenzel: And that's the thing that a lot of people I've been seeing talk about, who've lived through the other riots in the past that this is different. Like, it feels different than. Riots prior because they don't feel the need to be violent.
[00:38:46] Like, yes, there was some looting in the beginning and things like that.But since then, it's definitely calmed down, which I think is interesting.
[00:38:54]Joe Jackowski: So I would say that the majority of people are very reasonable. . Not only, maybe it's a one to one map. I don't know part two of this train of thought would be that the people are reasonable and that they're legitimately pissed off for good reason, and they're protesting and that's all part of the reasonable side of the left. Yeah. And actually you get people on the right to joining into the protest. Yeah. In fact, I've seen people who are probably the most right wing people. I know in my group of Facebook friends, who are joining in and in wow. Anger about the mistreatment, George Floyd.
[00:39:42] Erich Wenzel: Because that would make sense to me because it shows
[00:39:45] Joe Jackowski: the agreement, what a fucking horrible word, right? Murder murder.
[00:39:49] Erich Wenzel: It shows the overstep of the system because the conservative, I believe the conservative viewpoint is acutely aware of what the overstepping of authority can be.
[00:40:03] A case for right wing to be upset at what happened to George Floyd
[00:40:03] Joe Jackowski: I'll take this, this aside.
[00:40:06] I think that. there's a really strong right wing case yes against what has happened. Yes. So I would say that that's two parts. So the criticism coming from that Axiom is, or at least that, premise or whatever is, is that, people on the right who are against these protests should really check themselves because, because.
[00:40:33] So much of what right? Wing thinking is reactionary against overbearing government power. Yes. That the government itself is not a solution. This is a real conservative argument, like a real classical conservative argument that the government. Is not a good solution for a lot of problems. In fact, it creates more problems generally that it solves. Yeah.
[00:41:01] Erich Wenzel: And so it's the Goldilocks of like just enough government to get, to help people be able to organize, but not enough to impede our freedom,
[00:41:10] Joe Jackowski: Enough to stop people from beating the shit out of each other. But it shouldn't be much more than that is really the conservative argument.
[00:41:17] And I saw this in the military because you just see people to get her given government power and they just abused the fuck out of it.
[00:41:24] Erich Wenzel: You wrote about it,
[00:41:25] Joe Jackowski: write about and how people do evil things. Yep. which is available on our website, blah, blah, blah. so. That's taking that as an Axion, the government is not a good solution.
[00:41:37] And then you witness the embodiment of the government in a police officer. Yeah. An arbiter of government force. Some that force on an unarmed uncharged. In fact, at that point, I mean, he had been arrested to some degree, right. Not brought into custody as they are murdered. Yes. And so this is the overstepping, the bounds by government power, right.
[00:42:09] To subjugate its citizens. And if that isn't an argument that can be spoken to the right way. And then I don't know what the fuck is, right. Because that is like, that is exactly what the right wing has been harping on about for the last God knows how many years. They now want this abuse of power and the government's right wing solution.
[00:42:33] This is to get rid of their power. Yeah. Just cut them off at the roots. Get rid of their ability to impose that power at all. Yeah. Okay. So there's the right wing argument, right?
[00:42:47] And the left wing is to note that. We have people in minorities, the marginalized, those that are underprivileged, who could bring us new information that we don't otherwise have.
[00:42:59] Yeah. Being destroyed is a loss of life. Right. Right. The, the biological substrate upon which the culture is provided to us.
[00:43:12] Erich Wenzel: It's interesting. Cause I just made distinguish, I just made a connection because it's it's the, the left cares about. The preservation of life, right? Keeping people from being harmed by external forces, be that whatever you call that, whereas the right is worried about the individual so that the system it's trying to propel the individual so that they can act out what they want to do, as long as it doesn't harm the government or other people.
[00:43:46] Right. So it's like these two systems are symbiotic. They believe in the same thing, but just see different scales of it or like, like windows of it. I don't know,
[00:43:58] Joe Jackowski: like we're looking at the same house you just see. Definitely.
[00:44:01] Erich Wenzel: It's just different angles. And so like, I'm seeing, I'm like, where's the disconnect because they fundamentally agree on the same thing that the person that we fundamentally agree on, the same thing, that the person, what it app that was killed. George Floyd should still be alive and feel like both sides. His arguments. Shouldn't be able to agree with that. But what I think gets convoluted, all of this is the reactions pre post, the inaction of what happened, you know, not charging those officers right away. You know, and that insight is the publicity. That's all the publicity and everything else that convolutes this whole message. And so, anyway, so you go ahead. Absolutely.
[00:44:45] Joe Jackowski: So you have this huge reasonable proportion. Now the question becomes, does a huge reasonable part of left wing thinking on this issue just as there's some huge regional part that exists on right wing issues.
[00:45:01] The Left going too far
[00:45:01] But we know the line in some sense on the right. Yeah. Weighs were seen across the line. Oh yeah. Where does the line of the left during this situation? Because there's gotta be a line. Yeah. So it's hard to think about
[00:45:16] Erich Wenzel: where it's fuzzy in my head.
[00:45:19] Joe Jackowski: Okay. So we'll get there. That's that's the goal. We'll get towards the line. Cause I think I know where it is. So this is a question. It is emerging in the dialog nationally now, right now. And you see a whole bunch of different things emerging. Now, one of the things that are emerging, there's a, there's an article in the Atlantic recently where the author, I can't remember his name, but, we'll post in the thing, but, he noted that riots.
[00:45:53] So I don't think it's necessarily riots that are the issue. But that riots well generally, or the, the language of the unheard are very quickly made a point at which, or through, nihilists and sadists can act with an unusual amount of freedom.
[00:46:16] And if that was what, and I think that really important part here, isn't just that they show up in the search destroying things it's that they have the language provided for them. To justify their position.
[00:46:28] Erich Wenzel: Right? So let's say if they've been saying that the whole time, this is the exact thing they've been talking about since square one.
[00:46:35] Nihilism
[00:46:35] Joe Jackowski: Hypothetically, right. That they care about. Hypothetically, so let's say I'm a nihilist and really what I want is a whole system to come tumbling down. And I'm sick and tired of this shit, and everything is a joke and it's a mess
[00:46:49] Erich Wenzel: and your life is just pain. And suffering.
[00:46:51] Joe Jackowski: Much of the joker character that I'll wear a mask and then light a CPD car on fire.
[00:46:57] I can't believe that role. Cigarettes while they're taking photos. Me and I dance. You're such a nihilist you're so identified with the embodiment of nihilism in the form of the joker that you will wear a mask and do it right. So let's end that character with what's going on there. So I think everything is a giant game and that the reason everything's funny isn't because I'm a jester it's because there is no meaning, nothing matters.
[00:47:29] And all these things that you're doing, all these things you care about are laughable. In my perspective, they're laughable. Life is a joke, right? It's
[00:47:37] Erich Wenzel: all a show.
[00:47:39] Joe Jackowski: t's not that it's not that I just have some great sense of humor. It's that what you're doing, given the absurdity of how it looks in proportion to reality itself makes it a joke.
[00:47:56] It is a joke. And so I made a joker. I, it's not that I am the joker who makes jokes about these things. It is that I laugh because what you're doing is absurd, right? The fact that
[00:48:13] Erich Wenzel: anyone could have sense of meaning or derive a purpose from life or feel
[00:48:17] Joe Jackowski: fulfilled at anything is a joke. It's a joke. It's just, it's gross. Ah, ha ha laugh. So the whole thing is funny.
[00:48:29] Erich Wenzel: Would your, would the line then be just chaos?
[00:48:34]Joe Jackowski: that's the far end right, order left is chaos. Right is just order, order, order smashes down. Everything is within our totalitarian frame of mind and the left wing is everything's a joke.
[00:48:49] Erich Wenzel: Everything's fair game.
[00:48:50] Joe Jackowski: It doesn't matter. Nothing matters that Ivan Karamazov in the, in The Brothers Karamazov said that everything is permitted, right? Everything and he meant it. At least I am a character. Everything is permitted. That's a free thing is permitted to hell of a sign, not murder someone. Why not?
[00:49:09] Erich Wenzel: If there's no morals,
[00:49:11] Joe Jackowski: why not? We're just all animals in this world. So
[00:49:16] Erich Wenzel: what's up, man. So how do we back off the end?
[00:49:19] Where is the line on the left and Evergreen
[00:49:19] Joe Jackowski: Like where, where are the, where's the line?
[00:49:21] Erich Wenzel: Where are the lines that we can operate
[00:49:23] Joe Jackowski: to see the extreme emerge out of the lack? Right? Those are the opportunists, right? These are the people that I think have injected themselves into the rioters. I think of these types. Yeah, the real writers. Now there's a certain amount of writers that I imagine that are the protesters that are particularly angry and they just get swept into the moment,
[00:49:42] Erich Wenzel: which is totally fine. I think that's, we know like,
[00:49:44] Joe Jackowski: I mean, it's not totally fine
[00:49:46] Erich Wenzel: not fine, but it's understandable given the context because of the heightened, emotional stress of being in a crowd.
[00:49:52] Joe Jackowski: you know, now you're caught in the wave,
[00:49:54] Erich Wenzel: right? There's lots of studies on how crowds react.
[00:49:57] Joe Jackowski: Right. And you're all wearing masks and there's a thing.
[00:50:00] Erich Wenzel: That's another, we'll get into that and like different conversation,
[00:50:04]Joe Jackowski: So you have a certain amount of chaos it's spinning. Yeah. Either the left wing side, the question is how do we differentiate the reasonable people? From who are on our side, like who are the people that we care about, who are reasonable, who are with us, who, her amongst us, how do we differentiate from them bring her as a pure chaos for its own sake.The people who giggle at our, higher aspirations or desires or desires for equality and justice
[00:50:40] Erich Wenzel: Or desire to organized to any degree
[00:50:44] Joe Jackowski: who right. Who would think that organization is a joke who would think that equality is laughable, but they went that's the thing, but they would use your language of equality. I'm convinced that their position is okay. That what they're doing is okay. They will say they, these are the people.
[00:51:06] Erich Wenzel: It sounds like a sociopath.
[00:51:08] Joe Jackowski: It is, but it's a sociopathic ideology. So you guess the thing you can run software that runs so poorly that it destroys the hardware itself, right? So you don't just need bad hardware if you have enough use of pathological software. Where's the line at? How do we know the difference between the real pathological nihilists who are chaotic and hell bent from reasonable people, reasonable people who are trying to fight oppression and police brutality in their communities. Here's where I think it is. So some of these nihilists emerged in a case at evergreen state college, which was, in Colorado, a handful of three 16 or something.
[00:51:51] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. 2016
[00:51:53] Joe Jackowski: it's the most progressive of progressive colleges at the time, but a very specific ideology got injected into borne from the milieu.. You have that college. Yeah. And it's a very nihilistic one. I could get into philosophy, but it would take us a jar of it. Very long.
[00:52:14] Erich Wenzel: ItI'll throw us off hard. So we'll put links for people who want to absorb it for sure.
[00:52:19] Joe Jackowski: And there was this. Crazy bizarre or nihilistic, almost religious, quasi religious, like way of thinking language they use is
[00:52:34] Erich Wenzel: it's like, you can just replace it with religious words and it sounds religious. It's weird.
[00:52:39] Joe Jackowski: Right. But, okay. So the whole controversy emerged out of one point and that point was that there was a professor named Brett Weinstein. Who was it? Incredible. You can tell it to a person and his brother and Brett Weinstein is Eric. Well, Eric mindsight excuse me, Eric Weinstein. It was a very well respected a mathematician who works for Peter teal. Yep. And as part of the sort of called intellectual dark web.
[00:53:09] Eric was his brother noted that traditionally, a day of absence where all the minorities at this university would not show up for a day now is a really poignant point because they were saying. Okay. you can't operate without us, and yet you as a society are treating us in a certain way. Yeah. So we're making, we are removing ourselves from this position to show you your reliance on us. Yeah.
[00:53:40] Erich Wenzel: When you provide this culture, right.
[00:53:43]Joe Jackowski: It's positive value. elaboration is that I only, from their perspective, I matter. And I'm elevating myself to the point of mattering and I'm going to show you that I matter, here's how I'm going to leave.
[00:53:58] Now you're going to see it. Yeah. Now it's switched. So at a certain point at that school, they change it from minorities leaving too, that the majority can't come. So it's no longer an issue of saying we're not going to show up now. Okay. And so what I think the line is, is right where you go from, from an elevation of a group to the denigration of another group.
[00:54:40] Erich Wenzel: It's weird because it sounds authoritarian to me, it is that authoritarian which is weird because it's coming from I'm like, how did we switch? Where did the tables get turned?
[00:54:48] Joe Jackowski: Horseshoe idea of politics is that the extremes touch ah, is that you get to a point where it's so much chaos becomes so unbearable that something gets imposed. And in this case, it's racial. Yeah. It's, this is where I think the
[00:55:05] Erich Wenzel: line is group out group. And then the ingroup becomes the outgroup it's at the extreme and the perceived in group
[00:55:14] Joe Jackowski: thing group becomes pure. And I think that what could be happening at this moment in culture. Is that the same type of ideologues that demanded that the outgroup be pushed out be denigrated. Are the same ideologues that are now calling for a certain way of thinking in the movement. And it's no coincidence that Robin DeAngelo's white fragility is number one on Amazon's booklets and read the original paper. She wrote. It's a scary book. And she found it was unfalsifiable.
[00:56:01] She, her logic is so bad. It's unbelievable. She literally said that here's proof of white fragility, which for the uninitiated, thankfully for the uninitiated white fragility is this idea that a white people have. So we're a race, a race based group. So your skin color determines this, are reactionary to talk about race because they don't wanna talk about race. Didn't want to talk about their position at whatever and their benefits and their privilege as a result. She said that one of the ways that he could tell that white privilege is being displayed is that the person that you're talking to leaves is silent or argues.
[00:56:52] Erich Wenzel: So any option,
[00:56:54] Joe Jackowski: Right! The only thing is agreement. Yeah. So if you do anything at all, not only are you incapable of reaching our right. So if I want to argue with her about the merits
[00:57:06] Erich Wenzel: or questions at all, cause she could view questions as an argument,
[00:57:10] Joe Jackowski: right? If I'm yeah. Right. Cause, cause like
[00:57:12] Erich Wenzel: a question could be misconstrued as arguing.
[00:57:15] Joe Jackowski: Right? If it is a matter of how curious you are about in fact that's what a good argument is, right. A good argument. Is that sort of like working
[00:57:24] Erich Wenzel: it out you're just trying to figure out her framework.
[00:57:26] Joe Jackowski: Yeah. So, okay. So that all of that happens as if I had been arguing with her, tell her why she's falling. Maybe she's deeming, obviously wrong about her conclusion. And I tried to argue with her, she goes, ah, Proof of wait for agility, right? Proof of my concept from the beginning,
[00:57:40] Erich Wenzel: which means your bias is showing, right. If you put in plain, in plain English.
[00:57:44] Joe Jackowski: Yeah. Can't falsify it. You can't escape. It's a closed loop. Yeah, she's right. No matter what, from her own mind, that doesn't mean that's reality. It does mean that he's actually right there, but that's the case from her perspective.
[00:57:57] Coming back together
[00:57:57] So I think there's a line between those extremes on the right. It's something like. The moment that you on the right start talking about instilling racial purity.Yes. You're out. Yeah. You're fucking out. Get out
[00:58:15] Erich Wenzel: or start using over excessive force on the civilian population as sanctioned by the government.
[00:58:22] Joe Jackowski: If you're willing to abandon the rights of individuals. Yes. For the sake of some mythical. Collective. Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. If you're on the left and you start saying, not that we should empower those who are marginalized, but said, say we should start denigrating those.
[00:58:45] Erich Wenzel: Like handing over positions to other people who have been marginalized.
[00:58:50] Joe Jackowski: Right. It's the tearing down of something. So the building up of something else. Yes. Get the fuck out. Get out.
[00:58:57] What steps can we take now?
[00:58:57] Erich Wenzel: So what, what is in your head, the next logical step forward?
Like what do we need to be doing right now as an educated population? Maybe the young people of this country because we're, it feels like an untenable situation because the voices of the moderate have felt so unlistened to an unheard of right now because the media is perpetuating these extremist viewpoints. Or just cycling, what is most inflammatory?
So people are riled up into this viewpoint that things are worse than it may actually be.
[00:59:31] Joe Jackowski: It's really hard. It's very, it's a super hard question. And the reason that it's so hard is because the time horizon here is so short. Yeah. It's it's, it's so chaotic to predict a long term becomes impossible. I can only give you a short term answer.
[00:59:49] Erich Wenzel: I mean, it's like a short term, like for the next month or something like, what should people be doing? Like just reading things on deeper ethical grounds or I don't, I'm at a loss besides understanding ethics and human behavior at the extremes when put in impossible situations understanding like Phillips Zimbardo's studies things like that.
[01:00:10] Like understanding when pushed to extremes people will do horrible things.
[01:00:15] Joe Jackowski: Regardless of whether you even need to push and restrain him. He's just thinking of this space. Yeah. Yeah. It's
[01:00:19] Erich Wenzel: cause we're running out of time here and I just want to try and give some thoughts for people to kind of ponder, cause we're definitely gonna be talking about this over probably the weekend for sure. We'll come back and talk more in detail for sure.
[01:00:30] Joe Jackowski: But God, that's a hard question. I would say honestly,
[01:00:34]Erich Wenzel: besides some of the resources we've already said. To kind of just get acclimated to what these look like when played out,
[01:00:42] Joe Jackowski: look at people's solutions. So when you're, when you're, there's a whole bunch of people right now are pretending like they know what to do. if the solutions that they offer really get to the heart of the issue, but there are going to be a bunch of people there already are.
[01:01:02] We're pretending like they're surface level changes are gonna fix the issue. Yeah, for example, I think it was Minneapolis or maybe it was Atlanta and moved a whole bunch of Confederate statues. Yeah. Cool. Maybe that's good. Maybe that's not yeah. Different, totally different debate. Will that fix a police brutality problem?
[01:01:25] Erich Wenzel: No, no, it's a good show of good faith. In my opinion.
[01:01:30] Joe Jackowski: I don't even think it's necessarily that it might be depending on the person, if they're really trying to do something. Right. Yeah. But it could easily just be lip service. Right? Look at the people who are calling for certain solutions, who aren't, if they're solutions denigrate a different group, instead of uplift their group. Don't. Fucking listen to them. Don't do it.
[01:01:57] Erich Wenzel: Because they're trying to make it into the us versus them mentality. And that is not going to the service as it gains more steam,
[01:02:03] Joe Jackowski: because just like that joker character in Chicago, they are using the movement as a battering Ram for their own names. because they don't care about a real solution. They care about the solution for their goals, not your goals. I'm going to use your language. I'm going to hijack your movement to get what I want. And I say here to fix your problems, I'm going to provide this solution.
[01:02:28] Yeah. And this solution has nothing to do with your problems. It has everything to do with the problems.
[01:02:32] Erich Wenzel: It's a stepping stone in their aims,
[01:02:34] Joe Jackowski: right.
[01:02:34] Erich Wenzel: Because it looks good on the surface, but then it can be easily
[01:02:37] Joe Jackowski: right there getting wasted, take your fucking nose and point you in their direction. Like look at it. That sounds great. Look over here. It's like grabbing the snout of a dog and just going you over here. Yeah.
[01:02:50] Erich Wenzel: This is so weird. It's such a strange moment in history. I mean, if we, even, if we just had COVID right now, we're talking about. The impacts of COVID it would've been a deep conversation.
[01:03:01] Joe Jackowski: All, all the strings that emerge out of this are so they go on for so long.
[01:03:09] Erich Wenzel: There's a lot of roots here that we, I mean, it would be a thesis, a order of magnitude to just unpack this thing,
[01:03:17] Joe Jackowski: because it goes back. Yeah, multi volume novels on this entire situation,
[01:03:21] Multivariate problem
[01:03:21] Erich Wenzel: and as an engineer broadly scientist, whenever I look at these problems at like society level things, I go back to this idea that this is just a multivariate problem.
[01:03:31] When you move one variable, the other variable goes up or down or sideways, or it doesn't even move, or it looks like it moves because it moved like it affected another thing over here. And then you get all fucked up.
[01:03:42] Joe Jackowski: You move one thing and everything else changes with it.
[01:03:45] Erich Wenzel: And so it's so hard about all of this, because it's just the simplest solutions that sound great, but they have farther reaching impacts than we can even begin to comprehend. And so we have to be deliberate about what we do
[01:04:01] Joe Jackowski: and if a simple solution isn't aimed at the proper problem. It will cause more problems than it will solve.
[01:04:11] Erich Wenzel: Like, Domino's just
[01:04:13] Joe Jackowski: falling it's like, let me give you this medicine with all these side effects, the treated disease that you don't have and all you're left with is not the solution. It's not the curing of the disease, but the side effects. So had to be real careful with what medicines we are employing.
[01:04:37] Erich Wenzel: I think that's the, probably the most AF note we can leave it on to leave weight behind this conversation, which was granted more seriously than I was expecting to turn but I think these thoughts are worth getting out in the world right now, after we've given the world some time to see what has happened. I think it's a no short order because of COVID. I don't know if we would have had this somewhat incendiary moment, if COVID hadn't been an instigator and all of this.
[01:05:09] Joe Jackowski: I'm not so sure either.
[01:05:11] Erich Wenzel: So without everyone, I hope you are all doing wonderful in your homes. And, take this to heart. And I truly say this as someone who cares about this country, that I want it to be in a better place than it is now or was in the last weeks. and that's where this all comes from.
[01:05:30] It's the loving criticism of a country that if, for not being born here, we wouldn't be doing this for lack of a better term. And you know, the part of the reason we can do this is because we have a country like this. So yeah, well said with that, have a good night, everyone.