1107: Ballet Date with a Geopolitical Incel Mate | Feedback Friday

This episode is sponsored in part by Vital Proteins. I want to tell you about Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides.
That's a mouthful. It's a daily supplement that supports your hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints all in one in one simple step each day.
Collagen makes up about a third of the protein in our bodies, but as we hit our 30s, it unfortunately starts to decline. That's when you might notice things aren't working quite like they used to.
Your joints, your skin, maybe even your hair. Vital Proteins steps in to help keep those areas supported so you can stay active and keep doing what you love.
Vital Proteins is the number one collagen peptide brand in the U.S., so they know what they're doing.

It's super easy to take. Just add a serving to your coffee, smoothie, even water.

It doesn't even taste like anything, so it blends right in.

The key is consistency. Making it a daily habit is how you see the benefits.

Get 20% off by going to VitalProteins.com and enter promo code Jordan at checkout.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one boat insurer. We've all made mistakes on the water, but there's one mistake you shouldn't make.
Being uninsured. With Progressive Boat Insurance, you can choose coverage for most mistakes you or other boaters could make, helping you float carefree all season long.
Quote today, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Number one rating based on boat market share data from ratefilings.com.
Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.
As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the minute hand to my hour hand on this analog clock of life conundra, keeping us precise while I get us generally in the right ballpark, except during daylight savings time in certain U.S. states only because not all of us observe it for some as yet understood reason, Gabriel Mizrahi.
That was ornate, my friend. Yeah.
I owed you one after last week's sign-offs. Ornate is a good word.
Overengineered. Overengineered, yes, yes.
And apparently it's a Swiss clock, because that was way too complicated. I thought you were going to say cuckoo.
I was going to be down with that either way. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.
Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from money laundering experts and undercover agents to astronauts and Emmy-nominated comed.
This week, we had Amanda Ripley on who survives disasters and why. It's actually pretty damn fascinating how there's certain personality types, certain little habits that people have that allow them to survive better.
And of course, the people around them to survive better in catastrophes, in disasters. Finally, we had Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on DNA.
On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and come up with increasingly elaborate and verbose metaphors for me and Gabe's partnership, whatever you want to call this. That just sounds weird to me.
Collaboration, perhaps? Collaboration works. Yeah, that's a little less ambiguous.
As always, we've got some fun ones and some doozies, and I can't wait to dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a soon-to- graduate senior PhD student in a STEM field in the U.S., and recently my lab recruited a new graduate student.
Imagine an Indian baby-faced Dwight Schrute, always sharply dressed and enveloped in a very thick cloud of cologne. While we didn't work directly together, I enjoyed his enthusiasm when talking shop and enjoyed giving him guidance, especially socially, in part because I could sympathize.
He has a real case of science brain. During one conversation about Boeing, he actually started listing off all the airplane model names he knew, 747, F-16, 787, to me against my will.
He's often hyper-confident, has excellent memory recall, and loves rules, physical safety, consistency, authority, power, and punishment. Okay, I think I have a hunch about how this guy's mind might work.
I'm getting Big Bang Theory vibes. My suspicion is that one of the reasons he likes me so much is that my wife is an Indian citizen like him, while I am a white American.
Over time, he became more comfortable and started opening up about his thoughts on other things, thoughts he was afraid to share with anyone else. It started when he invited me over to his apartment for tea.
His place was immaculate and well-scented, and he made the tea and set out snacks very precisely. Then he started to get into one of his favorite hobbies, geopolitics.
He talks so quickly, with so many overly detailed facts and shocking conclusions, that it can be like a tornado of madness. I started hearing things like, the UN is doing what Hitler could not.
Ukraine is full of a bunch of Nazis.

They're ethnically Russian and need to be reunited with Russia. People of different ethnicities will never be able to successfully live together.
True assimilation is a myth. Democracy is holding India back because its people are emotional and feral.
He showed me an obviously bullshit video of an outdoor Nazi rally that then cut to Alexei Navalny in a group of people outside in the same weather as proof that he was a Nazi. I'd have to brush off violent war videos depicting Ukrainian losses that gave him a nasty grin.
His number one idol, whom he fantasizes about advising, is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin. He also also admires Xi Jinping, Ebrahim Raisi, and Kim Jong-un.
He believes that the people of North Korea are doing great, and that anything to the contrary is Western propaganda. Everything was delivered in an incredibly blunt, matter-of-fact way.
So, wow. Rarely do you meet somebody who enjoys watching people die on video.
By the way, Ricey is the former Iranian president that died in a helicopter crash. Kim Jong-un is quite famous.
Xi Jinping, leader of China. This is like psycho level bootlicker stuff.
Yeah, bootlicker Big Bang Theory. A parade of despots that this guy loves.
Yeah, and it's like one of those, yeah, I'm a contrarian. I'm an independent thinker, but it's no, you're just a moron who falls for really clumsy propaganda.
That's usually designed for domestic consumption in places like North Korea, but you're just swallowing it whole, which is so weird. I would normally tell somebody like this to listen to our episodes with defectors and targets from Russia, Iran, North Korea, or we can tell them what North Korea is actually like ourselves.
Not exactly the people's paradise, but I know that's a fool's errand because people who are really swallowing the tanky Kool-Aid, they just say, oh, you're on the take from the CIA. Everything's propaganda that I disagree with.
And it's crazy because they'll take someone's real life experience who's been to the place that they're talking about, and they'll discard that. And they're like, here's evidence to the contrary.
And it's like a guy with a hoodie whose face is

masked with dramatic music on a video on rumble. And they're like, this is the evidence.
And it's

like, yeah, but I've been there and this isn't true. And they just throw away all sort of credible

sources in favor of something insane. And they like don't understand why other people don't

come to the same conclusions. We do get those emails that were on the take from the CIA from mentally ill people, and it sounds like this guy might be dipping a toe in those waters.
These quotes are only the tip of the iceberg. If I disagreed, that would make him explode, enthusiastically, not angrily.
And I came to the conclusion that he rarely, if ever, got to open up, so I let him go on. My theory is that he's a kind of geopolitical incel.
Oh, that's brilliant. That this was ultimately caused by his social isolation due to his poor social skills.
I thought I could help the situation by being friendly and trying to be a good influence. As I left, he asked for confidentiality, knowing this stuff could professionally ruin him.
This is so interesting. He knows enough to know that these opinions are absolute toxic shite.
They would not land well with other people with functioning frontal lobes. But he doesn't know enough to wonder if maybe that's a reason to reconsider those opinions.
Again, just fascinating. I might be his only friend in person.
Oh, yeah, I think so. Nearly every single weekend he texts me wanting to hang opinions.
Again, just fascinating. I might be his only friend in person.
Oh yeah, I think so. Nearly every single weekend he texts me wanting to hang out.
We're often the only people left in the lab late at night and he'll use the opportunity to casually drop how liberalism or gay people are a secret conspiracy to destroy society. In his mind, liberalism leads to clubs, which lead to women having multiple sexual partners, after which they would never want to start a family.
He was genuinely shocked when I told him people have sex before marriage in this country, even without these clubs. He somehow does not believe that happens in his culture.
It doesn't shock me that he doesn't know about people having sex. That does not surprise me at all.

Doesn't this guy know that families stopped as soon as clubs were invented and music and liberalism took off? There hasn't been a single family since, Gabriel. Everyone knows that.
Yeah. What an argument.
It's all so very incel. Yeah.
If women could have sex with multiple men without being, I don't know, stoned to death, they'll never want to settle down with one man. It's such a weird conclusion because there's evidence to the contrary in every town, in every country, in the free world.
Even I would argue in the not free world. Yes, in the not free world.
Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to come to this conclusion. He's also deeply homophobic, in particular towards gay men, saying things like ask any gay couple couple why they only adopt male children, and disowning a friend for coming out as gay.
He claimed the CIA used capitalism to open secret gay clubs in the Soviet... What is it with this guy in clubs? He's obsessed with the clubs.
He's probably not getting into too many of them and thinks that dastardly things go on in there. Which they do.
He claimed the CIA used capitalism to open secret gay clubs in the Soviet Union during the Cold War in order to weaken them. He thinks clubs are machines used to turn straight people gay.
Once again, nails it, though. It was the secret gay clubs in Moscow, not perestroika or any of the detente or reforming communism into democracy.
Not the crumbling infrastructure or the absolutely bankrupt political philosophy right no no clubs communism capitalism no it was the gay clubs guys it was the gays every documentary you'll see about the fall of the soviet union famously revolves just around the gays there's they pretty much don't even give shrift to the coup or anything like that come on man this is insane this is absolutely oh hold on this calls for something i don't like them putting chemicals in the water turn the friggin frogs gay there you go oh man that was good i heard that in a whole new way just now that was great i pressed him on how specifically this happens he just gave me me a look and said, you know, with a tone.

No, I don't.

I said, they cajole them.

He emphasized with a particular hand gesture.

Oh, what was the hand gesture?

They cajole them.

That's such a great line.

Dude, that's so weird. They're turning the frogs get.
How are they doing that? They cajole them that's such a great line they dude that's so weird they're turning the frogs get how are they doing that they cajoled them yeah that's a lot of frog cajoling my arms are tired all right strap in papa because he's about to kick it up a notch here oh no then he invited me to see the ballet black swan together just him and me. Oh, okay.
I see where this is going. Wow.
We sat neatly dressed and overly fragrant in an audience of exclusively 40 year old women. Afterward, he went out and bought flowers for one of the supporting male dancers saying he's been following his work elsewhere and is a fan.
Oh gosh, this poor guy, both men, but primarily your friend here. He delivered the flowers in person and I honestly don't think he understood, but the interaction was a bit flirty.
Wow. Okay.
So he took you on a date. Then he hit on one of the dancers in front of you.
Not cool, man. Not cool.
Seriously, rude. Rude.
But also, this is so cringe, my God. And he's the only one not in on the joke.
He's also twice, unprovoked, brought up how handsome he thinks one of my brothers is after Facebook stalking me. What I'm getting at is that there's at least a 50% chance that he's gay or bi.
Oh, yeah, I think we got it. Yeah.
We got it at, he put on a ton of awkward apartment and took me to see Black Swan. Thank you for clarifying.
Like I'm down for a good platonic gay friend date anytime. Oh yeah.
Some of my favorite hangs. Same, but when the other person doesn't know they're gay, yeah, that's freaking awkward.
Super awkward. Cause then it's, what are we doing here? Do you know what's happening? Did you just take me to the ballet and then make me watch you hit on one of the dancers with a bunch of Florida bundas in your hand? So uncomfortable.
Oh boy. Okay.
He goes on. Once during tea at his place, he opened up deeply about his past.
He remarked on how he's so ugly. He could never have a partner.
He seems to hold respect for his mother, but every story about her has been very negative.

He said his mother has called him a monkey and ugly due to his darker complexion.

He explicitly stated that white people will always naturally be more beautiful than brown people.

Oh, man, this just gets sadder and sadder.

I'm starting to have compassion from Gabe.

You know what this reminds me of? There's this old study where they ask children which doll was the prettiest. And there were white children and black children.
And they had white dolls and black dolls. And all the children, regardless of their race, largely picked the white doll as the prettiest.
And it's just like this internalized shame of being different or not of the mainstream culture. That's really sad.
That is heartbreaking. And the fact that he got this message from his mother, probably explains everything we've heard so far.
He rationalizes never planning to have a family by saying that this way, he'll never be vulnerable. What if someone takes my child hostage and points a gun to their head? Then I would have to do whatever they say is one quote.
This is one of the reasons that he's good in the lab. It's the only place he gets any self-worth.
In his mind, without a career or power, he's nothing. This poor guy, the way his mind works.
He also reported that he was an excellent student in high school, but was bullied by peers. In one incident, a girl slapped him across the face on a dare in front of the entire class.
He said the other students were laughing at him. What tickles him to no end is that he got the teacher to reprimand the girl to the point of crying.
He says there were many teacher-student beatings at his school in India, and those stories always put a sparkle in his eye. You can see the seeds for his love of authoritarianism and strongmen.
Man, that is so interesting. This is the case with a lot of bootlickers and fans of authoritarianism.
They love the idea that other people that they don't like are going to be in the out group. But the irony here is this guy, he himself has said, oh, brown people, this and I'm this minority and an immigrant.
This guy is a gay immigrant. What makes you think you're going to be in the strongman in group, man? What makes you think that you are like ticking all the boxes of somebody who's on the group? That doesn't really make sense to me.
Yeah. Yeah.
But look, this is kind of my sense all along. His fascination with power and authoritarianism is somehow tied to a need to feel safe.
It doesn't matter how misguided that is. Literally trauma, bro.
This is my read to the little boy inside of this guy is wounded and frightened and he wants someone to protect him, someone to look up to. It's almost comically textbook.
I was about to say this is not subtle at all, but it totally tracks again with people that I've seen who are just passionate bootlickers. They love this kind of stuff.
They don't think the three steps ahead to where they're the ones who are actually getting kicked in the face by Nazis. There's also something tribal about supporting leaders and parties like this, right? There's this mentality of I'm part of this larger thing.
I belong to this community of powerful people. We're in charge.
I think that's probably playing a role here, too. A hundred percent, man.
The love for authoritarianism, this disdain for democracy. It's informed by some real primitive stuff in the human brain.
This guy sounds like he never had any friends. No one's looking out for him.
Not even his mother could love him properly. He's a geopolitical incel, which I love that term.
I'm definitely using that. He has a fantasy of serving as Putin's chief of staff one day, which I have so many thoughts, but continue.
I could go on and on. Feminism is a mental illness.
Cops should have rocket launchers. Rodrigo Duterte is a great leader.
The Reagan and Bush White Houses were a revolving door for pedophiles. Obama is a Kenyan and so on.
He's also a bit upset with me right now because my wife refuses to hang out with him. Not surprised.
Oh, I wonder why. Huh.
How strange. He keeps saying I must have painted him in an unfair light.
No, dude, I want to say I'm just telling her your actual beliefs and that's enough. Yeah.
I've always considered myself open and tolerant of people with views that differ from mine, but this kid is really pushing the line. I genuinely feel bad for him and frustrated about this possible waste of potential.
But his aggressively militant views towards groups of people I respect and work with are problematic. There is, for example, a gay male student in my lab, not to mention that his views are incompatible with Western society.
He told me these things in confidence, but these views are so strong that they may eventually spill over into the real world, especially if he gets any of the power he so deeply craves. I've come to think I likely will never make significant progress on changing these views because his true community is his toxic online echo chamber.
Yeah, this dude's hanging out on 4chan. He's not hanging out in the real world.
Do you have any ideas on how to gracefully handle the situation? Do I just say nothing and move on after I graduate? Do I confide in a neutral third-party professor for advice? Do I warn the gay student in my lab? Should I attempt to stage an intervention with a group of friendly graduate students and save him? Signed, considering a confab about my concerning colleague in the lab. Oh, wow, wow, wow.
Gabe, this might be one of the all-time great character

portraits on Feedback Friday. I had a feeling when I took this one, I was like, this is going to be a banger.
Yeah, man. Like I said, we've had a few, but this guy is up there.
What a complex human being this guy is, man. I have to start where I always start, which is, it's a little hard for me to say this because this guy is objectively problematic in a few concerning ways.
But let's just acknowledge that we are talking about a young man who, based on what you've shared,

is traumatized, vulnerable, scared, confused, weak, confused in a number of ways. He's walking around with a lot of wounds and pressure points.
His brain clearly works very differently from most people's. I'm no doctor, but a lot of what you said does suggest that he's probably on the autism spectrum.
Although I got to be clear, ASD does not account for so much of his personality, but it probably plays a big role in his rigidity, his need for consistency, his struggle with social cues, all of that. And as hard as it is sometimes to love people like this, there's a big part of me that just feels bad for this guy that has a ton of empathy for the things that he's been through.
You just do not end up this way unless you were seriously hurt along the way. And this guy has been hurt.
I'm hearing a lot of trauma in his story. But obviously, my heart goes out to you as well, because you have to work with this character, man.
You're kind of his friend now, whether you want that or not. You guys hit Black Swan together, man.
He's attached to you. I mean, they brushed elbows during Tchaikovsky.
I think you're bonded for life at that point. That is, again, famously how going to the ballet works.
Yeah, so you're in a difficult spot here. This is not an easy person to be in a lot of contact with for obvious reasons.
The other reason I feel for him is he's a good person. You are, you are a good person.
The fact that you saw this guy and you were like, huh, he's weird, but I like his enthusiasm. I think he's smart.
I want to give him guidance. I can sympathize with him.
That says a lot about you. Now that empathy has also gotten you into a bit of a sticky situation and maybe we should come back to that.
But yeah, I just want to acknowledge you for being a solid human being by even considering being this guy's friend. Totally.
Even just tolerating him. And now he's stuck and exposed to some really toxic, tragic stuff.
And it's really hard to know what to do with that. Look, there's so much going on here.
I have a feeling Gabe and I could do a whole episode just about this guy. And man, that would be fun.
But let me try and cut to the chase here as it relates to you. First of all, I think it's important to remember that we do not owe anyone, certainly people who aren't our parents or our close family.
We don't owe them our time. We don't owe them our attention, our love, our support, any of that.
Gabe, this is like the dad from, what's that movie, American Beauty, where he has the Nazi plate and it turns out to be a closet homosexual. This is that guy, except for immigrant Sheldon Cooper version.
Love, support, attention. Those things have to be freely given and meaningfully reciprocated in order to be healthy, in order to be fair.
So if you're feeling obligated to spend time with this guy, if you don't want to, but you're like, oh, I have to, I have to eat perfectly arranged snacks at his house with him and listen to his weird rants about Kim Jong-un and go see Mama Mia 4 with him because I'm in too deep. I want you to know that it is absolutely okay to reevaluate, pull back if you need to, spend less time with this guy, spend no time with this guy, and protect your time and your energy and most of all your sanity.
I'm not saying you need to cut him off or drop him completely. If you don't want to, you're going to have to decide what level of contact feels right to you.
But I am hearing a sense of obligation in your letter. You're obviously not psyched about most of this.
And that's a sign that something needs to shift. And more importantly, that there might be a part of your personality that has been brought out by this guy, specifically this empathy and this kindness that are wonderful, but might sometimes tip over into a sense of duty or unboundary loyalty.
Absolutely, man. And with people like this, those boundaries are crucial.
Boundaries are crucial in every relationship. Boundaries are how we can be close without losing ourselves.
But I'm realizing that they're especially crucial with people who struggle to calibrate how much they demand of people who don't realize how they come across, who can sometimes be a little abrasive and combative and just a lot. And again, it's not entirely his fault because of his wiring and his life experiences.
But then it's on you to protect yourself. And I'm kind of hearing that protecting yourself is a little hard sometimes, which I can totally understand.
But also, you have to draw a line with people if you're not comfortable with the amount of contact or the quality of contact that you're having. It's just a fundamental life skill.
And I feel you because I've also been the guy who makes friends with the guy nobody likes. And then you're like, oh, he talks to me every second of the day now.
I'm attached to this person. How did I get here? How did I make this set of mistakes and how do I undo them? Those are really good questions because it might also be interesting for him to consider what exactly drew him to this guy.
It's fascinating and it's also weirdly touching that he saw some qualities in him that he found, for lack of a better word, attractive or at least interesting. He enjoyed his enthusiasm.
He liked that he could nerd out with him. But also he said that he enjoyed giving him guidance because he could relate.
But then what was he getting out of that? What function did that role in their friendship serve? Yeah, exactly. I think both can be true.
I think it can be true that he genuinely identified with this guy, wanted to help him, enjoyed his company, and that there was something maybe gratifying about being able to steer him to some degree. And there's nothing inherently wrong with finding that fulfilling.
But as he does the post-mortem on this friendship, it might be good for him to notice if there's a part of him that wants to feel needed or useful or essential or something by taking on a person with a personality like this. For sure, or even morally evolved in some way.
Like I'm the kind of person who can fix a case like this. I can tolerate his crazy.
I'm a good person for doing that. Yeah.

And again, I just want to be clear.

I'm not judging him for any of this.

I mean, human relationships, they contain so much information. They bring so much out of us.

I'm just appreciating that this might be one interesting strand of their relationship.

The second thing I want to say is interesting and talented and deserving of love that this

guy is.

And he is, although I'm not sure it's necessarily your job to provide it.

It's also important to remember that he is objectively problematic and a little scary. I'm not saying, look, that this guy's going to like shoot up your lab or attack your gay colleague.
There's no indication of that. Although I think it's important to keep an eye on him because God knows people are capable of doing awful things.
And this guy is not healthy. But even holding some of these views and inflicting them on you, even privately, it's hard to be around.
It's gross. It's offensive.
It's not okay. And I also think it's important to hold people to higher standards and pull back if their values are incompatible with yours.
Gabriel, I hate that I keep doing this, but this reminds me of a neo-Nazi that I met when I was in Serbia. He was obsessed with Jews and how the United States was controlled by the Jews.
And I remember talking with him because we ran into him at a park. Serbia is a place where when you're young, you go to a park and you drink and it's fine.
We ran into him at a park and he knew a bunch of the people that I was with. And I'm listening to his rants and stuff.
And my friend pulled me aside and he's like, you can forget everything that guy says. And I was like, yeah, I know he's a Nazi.
And they're like, yeah, but he's also like, he was like the biggest loser in our school. He has no friends.
He was always bullied. His parents are screwed up.
His childhood was screwed up. He doesn't have a dad.
And it was like, now it all makes sense. And you just pitied the guy, even though he had these really disgusting views.
And it was all just like edgy, bro, to make up for the fact that his life was a total mess. So it's fascinating.
I'm resisting the urge to engage too deeply with this guy's actual beliefs because they're so reckless and unnuanced and frankly, tangential to the real question here, which is how do you deal with problematic people? But I find it fascinating that one of his beliefs is that people of different ethnicities will never be able to successfully live together. Meanwhile, he's inviting this white dude over to his apartment all the time for snacks and tea.
Okay. Right.
What did he say? True assimilation is a myth, right? Which is one of the popular positions of right-leaning people. And honestly, even a lot of moderate people, especially over the last 10 to 15 years with this huge wave of immigration all over the world, this idea that there might be a fundamental incompatibility between certain cultures, at least between people who are interested in assimilating and people who are not.
And you see this a lot throughout history. Once you start to study history, you realize how nonsensical this is.
It's like the Mexicans that come here will never assimilate. But then you talk to somebody or you read something from 100 years ago and it's like the Italians and the Irish, they'll never get along.
And now it's I challenge you to distinguish an Italian from an Irishman in the East Coast. It's impossible unless you know their name or they start talking about it.
There's no difference. Why? Everybody assimilated for crying out loud.
The whole thing that this guy's arguing is impossible. Anyway, I am not interested in further unpacking that idea here.
I'm not trying to get into that debate. What is interesting to me is this guy saying all this and then he's turning around like also gay people are conspiring to destroy society.
Liberalism is destroying women's desire to have a family. Gay men only adopt male children because they want to abuse them, which is obviously incorrect.
Whatever. The CIA is trying to turn people gay.
It's uncomfortable to talk about. But by holding these views, this guy might be the reason that true assimilation, at least for him, is in fact a myth.
Quite. He's right because he himself is the problem.
Right. He's the one holding these rigid, regressive, hateful views that prove his point.
Yeah, it's so bizarre. It's like he's making the argument true by insisting on these beliefs.
And also democracy is holding India back because its people are emotional and they're feral. I have no idea what voters in India in general are like.
I don't know how you can even paint a country that large with such a broad brush, but being emotional, being feral, couldn't he just as easily be talking about himself? Yeah. Meanwhile, he's like, check out this video where a bunch of Ukrainians die.
Oh, Indians, they're so feral. They're so feral.
They're so worked up. Yeah.
What are you talking about? Meanwhile, he's furiously cajoling to war footage of the Ukraine conflict. OK, buddy.
Every view he espouses seems to be an aspect of himself that he's just blind to. Yes, that's the thing that he's blind to or that he's in touch with on some level, but he's disowning, including most interestingly, his sexual orientation, which I just find the most sad about all of this.
So we're back to the earlier question of how much of this guy's politics and his worldview are actually just projections of aspects of himself that he finds shameful, because there's obviously a link between a closeted gay man who thinks that the government is trying to turn everyone gay or between an abused child, essentially, and someone who grows up to admire Vladimir Putin. I'm just sitting over here marveling at how this guy's mind works, what's in his heart.
I know. The years of therapy it would take to unpack everything that he's been through and heal the person hiding inside is insane.
Yeah, it's just wild. What I was trying to get at before is, I think the other big theme of your letter is how to balance empathy with self-protection, and also how to balance tolerance with appropriate judgment.
Because yes, on one level, this guy is kooky and odd and objectively fascinating, but on another level, he hates gay people and he hates democracy and he likes people who are mass murderers. So at a certain point, it's not OK.
That's how I feel. Maybe you feel differently, but I don't think you do.
So the question becomes, how much do you put up with from people? And when do you say, yeah, I'm not the audience for that? Take this crap to your red pill incel discord group or you just quietly pull back. Yeah.
Hates gay people and democracy, but also loves going to the ballet and giving flowers to the ballerino. I just want to point that out.
Yeah. Ballerino.
I never heard that word. Don't get me started, dude.
We can't get into all the detail of all these arguments, but it's literally crazy. I know it's so crazy, but it's like go on a platonic gay mandate with your white American colleague who's married to an Indian woman and then hit on the dancer afterward in Moscow, bro.
See how Putin feels about that. Oh, yeah.
You don't even have to show that you're gay, that you might just get beat up for being the wrong color with Putin's brown shirts hanging around. Unfortunately, try being you in North Korea, man.
See how that works out. Exactly.
Also, there's no ballet in Pyongyang. I can tell you that firsthand.
Oh, it's American propaganda, Gabe, man. You got to stop with that.
They didn't want to show us

the ballet hall because that would... Yeah.
Whatever. Top secret.
Sorry. Not like I've

been there four times and wanted to hang myself after day number three. Super nice there.
Super

fun. We just don't get it in the West, man.
Workers paradise. North Korea is so amazing,

especially if you're special needs and you're gay and you love theater. Okay.
So you have a

choice to make. Keep spending time with him and entertaining his crazy or pull back.
I think you can tell where I stand on this. Life's too short, man.
I think you're leaning towards pulling back yourself. I don't know if there's a perfect way to say this.
I think it's going to ruffle his feathers and possibly hurt him no matter what. But if you feel the need to explicitly communicate your decision to him, maybe you say something like, listen, man, I've really enjoyed our time together.
I look forward to more conversations around the lab. You're a fascinating person.
I'm glad we met. But as I wrap up my program, I'm realizing how disciplined I need to be around my time, and I'm realizing I need to devote most of my time to my dissertation, my work, my wife, myself.
So if we don't hang out as much as we used to, please understand it's because I need to dial in and make sure I'm taking care of the parts of my life that really need me right now. I don't know, something like that.
And yeah, you're sort of lying here by omission because you're not like, and also you freak me out and creep me out and you're totally lacking awareness and you're spooking me. But maybe that's a lie by omission, but I think it's appropriate and it actually might be necessary because you are not dealing with a totally healthy, rational person who's thinking straight.
I don't think this guy could take in the idea. I find your views disturbing and repulsive and you need to seriously reexamine them.
Or I find you interesting, but you scare me and I can't be close with you for that reason. Or I think you're confused and I hope you meet these parts of yourself with more love and curiosity and maybe take some hot bar lessons with Gabriel.
I hope he can get to a place. That'll cure him in like two, three bar classes, I think.
That's right. He'll be like, this gay thing's not at all what I expected.
I hope he can get to a place where he can engage with those ideas. It's one hotter than I thought.
I don't know if I'm into it anymore. I'm sweating even more than I thought I would.
It's almost certainly not going to be from you, him reexamining these ideas. He's too deep in his rabbit hole.
He's too traumatized by his past. He's too limited by his concepts.
It's incredibly tragic. But that doesn't mean this is your problem to solve.
Gabe, am I being too selfish here? No, I don't think so. I fully agree.
I mean, I'm not going to lie. I kind of have a fantasy of our friend here delivering all of this to this guy and just seeing what happens just as an experiment, because who knows? But the odds of success seem very low.
And yeah, I'm with you. His number one job is to protect himself, not to re-educate a Nazi sympathizer.
That's right. Yeah, protect himself, protect his time, his energy, his relationship with his wife.
And that's what puts this over the edge for me, that I just don't know what he's getting out of this friendship. If he were growing in some meaningful ways, if this colleague of his were a brilliant scientist who was pushing him to do great work in the lab, or some of his ideas did hold water and they were making our friend here a better thinker, or if this guy were funny and entertaining and he were kind of like in on the joke of himself to some degree, that might be a different story, but he's not.
He's just out of his tree, dude. I don't know what to say.
Like that seems to be draining our friend here more than nourishing him. And as long as that's the case, I think you got to pull back and prioritize yourself.
Agreed. And yes, you do have the option of saying nothing and just moving on after you graduate.
Maybe that's easier. Yeah.
The old coast till you ghost. There you go.
Is that a thing? Did you make that up? Yeah, I don't know. I just made it up.
I like it. Coast till you ghost.
The strategy of avoidance everywhere. Exactly.
Except I'm not sure if he's necessarily being avoidant by not saying anything directly because he might have some good reasons to keep things on an even keel while they're still working together. True.
Like he doesn't want this guy going postal in the lab or whatever. Yeah.
Dark, but basically. Yeah.
You do need to keep an eye on somebody like this a little bit. You never know.
So actually, yeah, I might confide in this neutral third party professor for advice. That would be very responsible of you.
It could give you some more perspectives here, maybe some resources and avenues to pursue. Like if the university needs to look into this guy or have a chat with him about how to behave in the workplace or just keep an eye on him in general, I'd actually do that ASAP.
I think that's important. Yeah.
As long as it's not like I want to get this guy in trouble, because he did say, please don't tell anybody at the lab about how I feel. But yeah, if this guy is also saying, I hate gay people, I think they should die.
That's something maybe you should flag. You could also talk to the head of your lab about this.
That's part of their job. Just tell them that you're not trying to, like, get them in unnecessary trouble.
You're just concerned and you want them to know what's going on.

And I would ask these people how to handle things with your colleague who's gay, whether it's something you should warn them about or something you just stay out of, something they should talk to them about or something they need to keep an eye on. What you don't want is for this guy to do something.
And then months later, it's like, oh, yeah, he told me all about how he hates gays and he's homophobic and Nazi this belief in that. But I didn't do anything because I just saw, you know, whatever.
He's a weird guy. I feel like whenever we hear about these crazies, remember that shooter of the Pulse nightclub and then his wife was like, oh, yeah, he's a closet homosexual and super homophobic and to express ISIS sympathies.
And you're just like, you didn't say anything to anybody. Like you should be in jail for that.
It's so negative. I know this is tricky.
Part of me wants to say, make this gay colleague in the lab feel safe, give him the information he needs. But then another part of me is wondering, like, does that just create a problem for this guy that he doesn't need to deal with? Because this other guy, the problematic colleague guy, there's a world where he doesn't attack anybody.

And now if this gay colleague knows how this other guy feels,

is he's just going to be on guard all the time

and feel super uncomfortable every time he comes to the lab for no reason.

I know it's so hard to know what to do,

but then if something ever did happen,

again, you want that colleague to know that there was a homophobic person in the lab

and you just didn't say anything because it might be weird.

Cold comfort when he's in a coma from a beating or something.

But also such a weird message to relay. This guy might invite you to the ballet one day.
He might also jump you in the parking lot. Not in a fun way, by the way.
It's like, which one is he? Seriously, the contradictions here. As for staging an intervention with other grad students, I'm leaning toward no for all the reasons we've been talking about.
I just don't know how it's going to be received. I don't know if you're going to get the results you want.
Maybe seeing eight people say this to him instead of one, maybe that would break through and lower his defenses. It might also just cause him to panic and dig his heels in more given his history of abuse.
So there you have it. I hope that gives you some new angles here.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I'm honestly a little dazed by all this.
Such a strange tale. I'm genuinely saddened and worried about this guy going off into the world and trying to build a career and a life and a family.
Oh, no, but he doesn't want that. Oh, because of the whole, someone might hold my child hostage with a gun, which, how often does that happen? How weird is that? It just shows you this guy's level of fear.
So that's one concern off the table, which is a good thing, but please don't reproduce if you have views like this. But I do think he's going to really struggle in life.
He already is, and my hope for him, and I'm just praying over here, is that he somehow ends up in therapy or finds some good counsel one day. This guy has a lot to heal.
A lot. But that's his work to do.
That's his journey. You need to focus on yours.
Sending you, and yes, even him, a big hug and wishing you all the best. Speaking of coming out of the closet, I'm coming out with some great deals on some of the fine products and services that support this show.
We'll be right back. I got to go cajole.
Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps the lights on around here.
Keeps me flush with froggies to cajole. Your support of our sponsors does keep us going.
All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.
Now, back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next? Dear Dark Jordan and Regular Gabe.
Ooh, side note, big fan of this one. New nickname for you, Gabe.
Regular Gabe. Regular Gabe.
Doesn't add much, but somehow also does. I think what she's asking for is for me to hit the gas and go nuts and for you to be the brakes.
Yeah. So she doesn't end up in jail.
Got it. So she goes on.
For the last two years, I've lived next to very inconsiderate neighbors who rent the house that they live in. They have trash all over their yard and it often blows into ours.
Multiple times now we've noticed rats crawl under their porch and probably into their house. There's also been an uptick in coyotes venturing from the woods behind us into our yards.
My neighbors also have a trashy car that's missing its muffler. It's so loud that it rattles my house and you can't hear the scratching of the part of their bumper that drags on the ground when they drive.
For about a week and a half, I called the non-emergency police number every time the car turned on, but the cops said that nothing can be done unless the noise is still going on when they arrive. I recently emailed someone from the county auditor website to try and reach the owners of the house, but crickets.
I'm a tired parent of a three-year-old, and I'm so done being on their schedule. They wake up my daughter, too.
I know in my bones that I can't have a civil conversation with them because I vibrate with anger every time I hear them or talk about this. Plus, they've had years to do the right thing, so I don't really care to chat with them.
Short of a lawsuit, what can I do here? Wait for the rats to get them? Any other suggestions? Signed, going to war with the maniacs next door and giving them what for without causing an uproar because I deplore their ear and eyesore. Earsore.
That's a new one. Just making up words over here now.
I think if you can create an eyesore, you can create an earsore, right? The car is an earsore for sure. Fair enough.
I'll allow it. So yeah, these are awful neighbors.
I am so sorry you're dealing with them. I literally don't understand how people can live like this.
It's got to be some kind of mental illness. But then

like, is everyone in the house suffering from the same illness? Because you don't live in squalor

and sleep with rats and create this much noise if there isn't something that's actually wrong with

you. It's also a safety issue.
It's a health issue. A house like this might need to be condemned at a certain point.
It's just so gross. You watch one episode of Hoarders and you just can imagine what the inside of this person's house looks like.
I don't know, substance abuse issues maybe. So look, this one was a bit outside our and our experts' bailiwick.
And since you asked for Dark Jordan, we did something we've only done once before actually when we took another question from people also dealing with terrible neighbors, the Sushi Sludge Dumpster Restaurant, if y'all remember that. And we posted your letter anonymously, of course, on the subreddit Unethical Life Pro Tips to get some creative ideas about how to handle this.
Yeah. And I have to say that community delivered.
Those people are so hyped. Yeah.
No, I love it. Let's start with the actually solid advice before we get into the somewhat insane Dark Jordan slash dark Reddit stuff.
Good idea. You merely adopted the dark.
I was born in it. So the first piece of advice from a very insightful Redditor, get a copy of the relevant codes that apply here and document all the codes that your neighbors are violating.
That'll give you ammunition and increase the likelihood of different authorities taking action. For example, the garbage situation, that's almost certainly a city code violation.
The rats, they might be a code thing, but I'm not sure. It might depend on the jurisdiction.
Certainly the homeowner would want to know about a rat problem, not sure about the city. The muffler on the car making noise, that might be a noise pollution code violation.
The coyotes, that one might be tough to prove, except that they're probably there because of the garbage or maybe the rats that are eating those. Gross, which is an issue.
What I would do is set up cameras on your property, pointing at their property, capture all this, and then you could even set up a noise decibel meter if you need one, if the cameras don't have that, in view of the camera, so you can capture both the visuals and the noise issue. And that's going to be your main documentation and potential evidence.
This Redditor's second piece of advice, start leveraging whatever city entities you can. This person pointed out that calling the non-emergency number, it's not doing anything because it's not recorded.
Their advice is to call 911 and let them transfer you to a non-emergency number if they like. Those 911 calls, they're always recorded.
That means they'll show up in police metrics. And if you keep calling, your neighbor's house soon becomes a nuisance to the police.
Now, this person also recommended calling 911 whenever you see a coyote in your neighbor's yard. I'm not sure why, but maybe that's a legit complaint or maybe 911 can notify animal control.
Then you've got to follow up on all these calls with written formal complaints to the police. This is where your documentation is really going to start to come in handy because a formal complaint plus video evidence and or detailed notes, that's probably going to make a much bigger impact.
This person also encouraged you to talk to other neighbors, see if they're similarly annoyed. If they are, encourage them to talk to the city about it too, file their own complaints.
Writing formal complaints, it's an investment of your time. I know, not a huge one, but it is a task.
It could very well pay off when the police see that this house is pissing off multiple residents over and over again. Eventually, they will respond.
This person's next idea, address the rat and trash situation with the health department and your local code enforcement. And if you call a department and they direct you to another one, this person recommended asking the first department if they have a formal complaint form to fill out.
If they do, you should fill it out anyway, then go to the second department, fill that form out, rinse and repeat. They said that this is all a very long process, so you have to be patient.
You have to start today. And whenever you talk to somebody, their advice is to always mention when this originally began.
So if they hear that this has been going on for six months, nine months, 18 months, whatever it is, that's way different from, oh, my neighbors have been keeping me awake for almost two weeks. To quote this Redditor, you're doing two things here.
You're being the squeaky wheel and you are creating a paper trail, which to my lawyerly ears is music. That is the basic formula for making progress with stuff like this.
While you do all this, yes, you do also need to find the actual homeowner. You said you tried the county auditor and didn't hear back.
I think you maybe meant county assessor, but it doesn't matter. There are other ways to find the owners.
You can use the county assessor's database of property information. You can search for property tax records on the website.
You can visit the office in person. You can visit the county recorder's office and request records for a specific property.
You might also be able to look up county tax records online. The owners might be listed with the address.
You can use what's called the Multiple Listing Service or MLS. It's basically an online database of properties that are listed for sale.
Apparently, you can search for properties by address or APN number, and you can also search for public records for off-market properties. You can contact a title company, a real estate agent, a real estate attorney.
These people are real good at finding homeowners. They might have special access to databases or just know how to navigate the system better.
Point is, there are options here. Unfortunately, you can't just fill out a form on a government website and then hope for the best.
But go in person, try a few different angles, and you'll find the names. And once you find them, you're going to want to reach out with a plan.
This redditor, the one we've been quoting the most here, their recommendation is to explain the situation, but in a polite way that hopefully creates an ally, which I totally agree with. Resist the urge to yell at the landlord for renting their house to a bunch of zoo animals.
I would just calmly explain to them what's going on and make it feel like it's you and them against their tenants and those neighbors, not you against them and the tenants. Yes, that is really sound advice.
And if the landlord can't or won't help, then that original Redditor's advice is to attend city council meetings and just talk about what's happening. You could write to your mayor.
You could engage other neighbors to do the same. Again, this is a process, but if you guys keep at it, someone somewhere will start paying attention.
And if you're still not getting anywhere, you could take the landlord to court. I don't know if it's worth your time and money, but a letter drafted by an attorney might be enough to get them to take action.
But that's something you should talk about with a lawyer. Also, another Redditor suggested looking into these landlords and making sure that they themselves are following the laws around renting out their home.
Because if they're not on top of the property and they're renting it out to people who are dodgy, you just never know. Maybe they're not obeying the law in other ways.
And if they don't play ball, that could be another way to get them out or force them to change. So those are the straightforward ways of dealing with this.
Now let's talk about some of the more ridiculous, petty, generally dark Reddit ideas that we got. One idea, see if that super loud car is on the up and up.
If it had expired tags, you could report the car for expired tags or other violations. Also, see if you can find out if they owe any money on the car.
It's a piece of crap, so probably not. But look, if you can find that they're not making payments, try to get it repoed.
I think that's a long shot, given that it's just an old piece of junk. But another Redditor who was very clear to say that these next few ideas are meant for entertainment purposes only.
Do not do this. And I second that.
They said you could hypothetically, again, hypothetically, sabotage the loud car. You could put ceiling foam in the exhaust pipe or whatever.
Another idea, and I kind of love this one, if they drive to bars on the weekend, you could follow them in your car, sit in the parking lot until they leave, follow them home, but on the way, call the police and call in a drunk driver with their license plate. Ooh, that's dark.
I've done this before. Yeah, not this exact thing, but yeah.
Bonus points if you break a taillight while they're tying one on inside, so their chances of getting pulled over increase, which is a level of Dark Jordan that even Dark Jordan can't fully endorse. Vandalism.
Can't do it. Getting even pettier here, if you can get to the car without being noticed or picked up by a camera, prep a container of leftover fish or tuna fish in water.
Let it sit unrefrigerated, of course, for a few days until it really stinks. Then pour the water into the grill under their windshield wipers.
You know that that little spot where everything, when they turn on the car, it'll blow into the car. It will never go away.
They'll probably be forced to dump the car finally and get a new one. Cause they don't care that they're inconveniencing anybody else with the loud ass noise, but they're going to care when their car smells like the inside of that sushi restaurant's dumpster from that other question.
And man, that is just a chef's kiss of sabotage, but that is so mean that I cannot in good conscience recommend you do this. So those are some options, dark and regular, like the different kinds of coffee at Starbucks.
I hope they help. And as fun as the dark Jordan, dark Reddit ideas are, I really, again, cannot advise you to pursue those.
Certainly not before trying all of the reasonable, legal ways. You really got to try to resolve this diplomatically and legally before you resort to anything else.
But it's nice to know you have options and it's nice to fantasize about pulling those off.

But on that note, I do want to talk about the other big thing she hasn't tried, apparently, which is just going over there and talking to them. She said that she knows in her bones she can't have a civil conversation with them.
But the reason she doesn't think she can have a civil conversation is that, what did she say, she vibrates with anger every time she hears them or talks about this.

She said they've had years to do the right thing, so I don't really care to chat with them. That's what she said.
But I don't know. I just got to point out that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't have a civil conversation.
I understand that these people are probably mentally ill. They're Neanderthals, but it's actually our friend here's anger that's preventing her from at least trying to go over there and ask them politely to keep it down and clean up their trash.
So it sounds to me like her feelings about them are very intense, very chaotic, and she's not sure she can regulate herself enough to handle this conversation directly. Yeah, it's a good point.
She should at least try to resolve things that way before going through all this work. I know she's already said that she knows that these people are and she can't deal with them.
And that's probably the case. But is there a 1% chance that you go over there and an exhausted woman answers the door and tells you that she's got three special needs kids and an abusive alcoholic husband and she's sorry.
And you're just like, oh, I was going to vandalize your car that you need to get to work because your husband is a good for nothing substance abuser drunk and you have three special needs kids at home and cleaning up your yard is not a thing that you can prioritize. I mean, who knows what's happening over there? And if she does try and they do brush her off, then at least she'll know for sure that all of this other work that we've been talking about is necessary.
Whereas she might spend six months calling the cops every night and filing reports and going to city council meetings when all it would have taken is a five minute conversation at their door. It's funny.
There's this modern thing, especially here in America, where we often appeal to law and authority to address problems where, you know, custom and relationship could do the job. We call the police to complain about noise before we just walk 10 feet next door and politely ask the neighbor like, hey, can you turn the music down? It's a little loud.
Because I think we haven't generally been taught how to have these conversations. As a group of people, I think we're largely pretty avoidant.
And our relationships with our neighbors in this modern world have broken down so much. You know, in other cultures, they're way better about this.
But look, who knows? These neighbors, even if they are out of their minds, maybe they would fix the muffler if they knew that it was driving a tired mother and her three-year-old crazy with the sound. Maybe hearing that directly from her while she's standing in front of them, if she prepped for this conversation and found a way to deliver this calmly and kindly and respectfully and all that, maybe that's all they need to hear in order to change.
But by not even trying to go over there, she's not giving them the information they need to know that they have to change. And so in a weird way, I think that our friend here is inadvertently contributing to this situation that she says she hates so much, at least until she finds out for sure that they are unwilling to change.
No, it's a really good point. They probably don't even realize how much of a problem they are.
So it is on her to at least try before escalating to these other options. And given how hard conflict seems to be for her, or at least this conflict, I actually think this could be a really great opportunity for her to build this muscle because it's such an important one.
Again, I'm sorry this is happening to you, friend. It does suck.
People like this are next level rude, and it's not even rude. It's beyond that.
But I have hope that with the right approach, you'll get the relief you deserve and maybe also grow in a really cool way. So good luck.
You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise.
Use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your stepdad's got your nudes, your neighbors are eavesdropping on your therapy sessions through the wall, or your family's been keeping a history of abuse in the family a secret for decades and you want justice, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up, friday at jordanharbinger.com.
We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. By the way, our newsletter, We Bit Wiser, is a bite-sized gem from us to you every week.
It's a two-minute read on Wednesdays. If you want to keep up with the wisdom from our thousand-plus episodes and apply it to your life, I invite you to come check it out.
It's very practical. It's a great companion to the show.
You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com slash news. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe.
My father was an alcoholic and a cheat. He and my mother got married at 16 as my mom was pregnant with my sister.
Two years later, I came along.

My childhood was okay, but had its problems because of his drinking and cheating and the fighting between my parents. Daddy chill.
Sorry, I've been sitting on that one for like three years. Yeah, for the longest time.
You happy? Did that get out of your system? Yeah. It's like scratching an itch that you could never reach in the middle of your back.
Daddy chill. Daddy chill.
When I grew up and started a family, I worked for my dad. We both traveled a lot.
Mom always said he was a cheat, but I sided with my dad. I was so wrong.
20 years ago, my dad called me from North Carolina and said he couldn't find mom.

I went to his house and broke the door down.

My mom had committed suicide.

Oh my god, I am so sorry, man.

That's so sad.

She couldn't live with him or without him.

He cheated on her and took her for granted, and she finally snapped.

There aren't many ways to see it.

He is responsible for her death.

I've never recovered.

I tried some therapy, but it hasn't stuck.

I got addicted to opiates for 14 years, which ruined my life, bankrupted me, and stretched

my marriage to its limits.

I'm seven years clean, though.

I just celebrated my 35th anniversary and turned 54 this year. After many years of work, my two boys and I have a solid relationship.
That is amazing, man. Congratulations.
These are huge accomplishments, and it's not easy to repair things like this. I'm proud of you.
The issue now is my dad. Six months after my mom passed, he went on a date with a woman younger than me.
The next day, he brought her home, and the day after that, they announced that they were getting married. What? That is so bizarre.

Okay. Okay.
His wife was not involved in my mother's demise, but she walked all over her memory.

She's either ignorant or evil, maybe both.

I supported them all financially for years, as I felt bad for my half-sisters.

I finally declared bankruptcy and stopped, and they found other people to sponge off of. Yuck.
That must have been hard to do. It sounds necessary, so I commend you for that as well.
I cannot stand being with this woman. My boys also will not talk to my father.
He skipped both of their weddings as his wife was not invited. They won't forgive him.
Cutting my father off would be better for me, but then he's still my dad. Yeah, I hear that.
I'm going crazy. He's like a mental tornado, and he constantly sucks you in.
He gets my energy, and that energy my wife deserves. Do you think I should cut my father off for good? Why can't I shake him off? What can I do? Signed, looking for the chops to take a new tack with my pops when I struggle to stop letting my energy drop.
Wow, Jesus, man, what a mess. This is quite a story.
We're not getting every nook and cranny of it. There's so much I'd love to understand, especially about your stepmom and her personality, her intentions, also the specific ways that you feel responsible for so many people.
But I think we're getting the broad strokes. There's obviously something serious going on with your dad.
Decades of reckless behavior, a pattern of poor choices, lots of compromised relationships in this family. So I can understand why you're so angry and why you feel the impulse to cut him off.
It's just a really tough parent to have. And on top of the trauma of losing your mom to suicide, which sounds like it was the result of how your dad treated her, such a tragedy.
I'm just so sorry that you've been through all of this. So look, your story is obviously very complicated, but my take on your question is relatively simple.
Sometimes it's warranted and necessary to formally cut a parent off. If they act so egregiously that you can't have a functional relationship, if they're dangerous to be around physically or emotionally, if they've done something truly horrendous to you or your family, if they're hurtful, manipulative, hateful, if they're using you in some way, if you literally can't have a normal conversation with them, if there's no upside to having a relationship at all, obviously those are situations where you have to evaluate whether you can really have contact with them.
Now, I can't quite tell from your letter whether your dad is actively doing those things to you, but I hear that there's a long history of very painful and chaotic behavior here that has hurt you pretty profoundly and a number of other people, and you're not the only one who's struggling with your father. Your sons are too.
It sounds like at least two of his daughters might be as well, which is helpful information. It tells me that this probably isn't just a you thing, which you clearly already know.
But it also sounds like a lot of the problem now is with your stepmom. How and when she entered the picture, the way she recognized or rather rather didn't recognize, your mom's legacy, the way she might have taken advantage of your financial support until you decided to stop, the fact that she's ignorant, evil, or both, as you said, which, side note, is a really interesting question and another thing I commend you for.
Being able to make room for the possibility that she might not be out-and-out malicious, she might just be severely misattuned and unselfaware. Although I know that might not make things much better.
Point is, these are all very valid reasons to be angry. But I guess the question I have for you is, how much of the pain you're experiencing right now, how much of it has to do with your stepmom, how much of it has to do with your dad, how much of it has to do with the past, which is a story, a very real story, of how your dad treated your mom, how it led to her death, how he then remarried this woman who didn't treat the whole situation with the care and respect that it deserved, and how much of your pain comes from how your dad continues to treat you now.
I think it's important to parse that because it sounds to me like much has happened here over such a long time, that your anger is big and generalized and largely aimed at your father. And I'm not saying it's unjustified.
It sounds like it is justified. But when it comes to cutting a parent off, I think it's important to have a good handle on whether the solution is not having contact with that parent anymore or whether the solution is about doing some other kind of work.
You mean like healing these old wounds? Like healing these wounds, of course. Like locating and enforcing some boundaries with dad that might make a relationship with him possible.
Containing that mental tornado, as he put it, if that's what he wants, of course. Finding some new ways of relating to dad and stepmom that aren't as taxing and hurtful.
There are options here. And look, it might be the case that you need to not talk to your dad for a while.
Sometimes you have to go no contact for a period of time just to hit the reset button, clear the decks, get your bearings and have some space and privacy to work on some of this stuff. So I'm not taking it off the table.
I just think that before you make a huge decision like this, it's important to consider all the options and why this one seems more attractive than the others. Especially if cutting off a parent is a way to avoid or bypass some of these other important processes that we've been talking about, which given what you've shared with us feels like it might potentially be in the mix.
Jordan, we talk so much on the show about stories, our personal stories and how they develop and when to take them seriously and when to reconsider them and when to put them down. And to your point a moment ago, our friend here is living with some really powerful stories, which are rooted in objective facts.
And those are making his relationship with his father and with his stepmother very difficult, which I can totally understand. But I think we have to talk about a few of those stories for a moment and just see how they might be operating.
The biggest one, of course, is about his mother's suicide. He said she couldn't live with his dad or without him.

He cheated on her.

He took her for granted.

She finally snapped.

Right.

What did he say?

There aren't many ways to see it.

He is responsible for her death.

Yeah, that is quite a story.

And look, in a way, it's probably true, right?

He hurt her profoundly.

It sounds like he provoked her in a number of ways over a long period of time.

He made her feel unappreciated.

And her pain, I imagine, must have been so great that taking her own life seemed like the only answer. What strikes me about the story, that he's responsible for her death, besides the fact that it's a very striking narrative, is that it's also very rigid.
Our friend here is very rigid in the way that he holds it. He literally said there are not many ways to see this, and I can appreciate why it might feel to him that there aren't other ways to see that, given the chain of events.
But I also think that there might be another way to look at it, because there always is, right?

And in this case, I think you could also make room for the fact, or at least the possibility, that his mother also made the choice to respond to her circumstances, to her marriage, to the pain that she was in, by killing herself than say, divorcing the dad and building her own life and healing from this marriage or just continuing to bear this pain, but in a new way. Now, look, we can debate whether she really had a choice in that.
Maybe there is a kind of pain that is so great that it doesn't really allow for the kind of agency that I'm getting out here. Like it might've been the case that to her, there was only one way out.
Right. So I am allowing for that possibility, but I also believe that the vast majority of people, even those with serious trauma, have some kind of choice and that they have a responsibility to some degree to take care of themselves when they are very badly hurt.
So there's another story here that he might not recognize, or that might not be fully available to him. And that story is that his mother's personal story, which she felt was the potential of her life, what she believed about herself, what she was capable of, you know, what she deserved, the many possibilities of her life outside of her husband, that story had to be so compromised, so limited, so impoverished that she made an incredibly tragic choice.
So from the outside to an angry son who is watching his father drink and cheat and lie and fight and take his mother for granted, I get why the narrative is he's responsible for her death. And there's no denying that she was the victim of a lot of awful treatment.
But what you're getting at is she was also an equal party in that relationship. Of course, she stuck with him for apparently decades knowing that he was cheating on her.
She knew before our friend here. Yeah, she knew before anybody.
So what I'm inviting him to do, and it's up to him if he wants to do this, it's his story to live with, But I'm inviting him to make room for the fact that his mother did participate in all of this to some degree. And I know that she was 16 years old when they got married.
She was a child. He was a child.
Who knows what resources they had to deal with life and with each other. But in the end, his mom chose on some level to take her own way out.
His father didn't say, you have to go kill yourself now. She said, you've hurt me so profoundly, I have to go kill myself.
And if that's true, even a little bit, I do wonder how that might inform his feelings about his father now, and also this whole question about whether to cut him off completely. Wow.
Yeah, because so much of this impulse to cut him off is feeding on this very painful and monolithic narrative, which is you killed mom. But if he's open to entertaining another story, which might be something like dad contributed to mom's death in a big way.
And mom was also the kind of person who felt that dying was the answer. His whole stance on his father might change a little bit.
Yeah, we'll see. That's for him to find out.
I'm not trying to tell him that all of his anger will go away if he just does this thing or that it should. I'm just inviting him to be curious about the most accurate story and then to see if anything changes.
Yeah, I have a feeling it might. I think what it might do at a minimum is help him find some relief from the intensity of his anger, even just playing with the idea that there were two people in his parents' marriage and that they both bear some responsibility, even if he ultimately decides that dad really was the primary aggressor, just playing with that idea might move him a little bit more into a state of introspection and empathy, maybe even grace.
It might spread the feelings out a little bit more, smooth them out, and make room for just how complicated this whole story actually is. I don't want to speculate too much, but I do wonder whether he might also be mad at his mom, which I know a lot of people who lose loved ones to suicide often feel.
And if some of that anger might be directed at dad because he's the obvious villain here, and fair enough, would opening up this story, making room for some new ones, would that allow him to also get in touch with other legitimate objects of his anger beyond dad and stepmom? And how might that inform his question about whether to cut dad off? Yeah, that is a really good point and such a good question. Yes.
Well, to pick up the baton here, there's another story lurking in the background of his letter that I think we have to touch on, which is his experience in therapy. Yeah, I tried some therapy, but it hasn't stuck, he said.
Yeah, I'm obviously very curious about that as well. I can understand giving therapy a go and not finding good results.
It happens all the time. It's part of the process, finding the right therapist, finding out how to apply what you've learned to your life.
But there's a bit of a monolithic story there, too. Totally.
Yeah, the story is therapy hasn't stuck. But I suspect there's an equally true, if not truer story, which is I haven't really stuck with therapy.
And I know this narrative is not as profound as the one about his parents, but I flag it because it might be holding him back from the one big place that could help him heal these wounds. And be an excellent place to explore the question of what kind of relationship he actually wants to have with his dad and why it's so hard for him to shake him off.
For sure. How they ended up here.
Really everything this decision is bringing up for him right now. I'm really glad you picked up on this.
It sounds like a small story, but it is actually a big one. It's interesting.
I'm just now realizing that what ties the two stories together is this question of like, how much responsibility do we have for ourselves? The narrative that he's holding about his mom points the finger directly at dad. He did this to her.
It wasn't her fault. We all have a good reason to be angry at him.
And this narrative that he's holding about therapy, at least the way that he framed it for us in his letter, it might've just been the way he chose to put it, but in a way it points the finger at therapy, right? You didn't stick. I gave you a try.
I tread lightly now because I do not know our friend here well enough to know whether this is true, but it might be interesting to explore how that theme of personal responsibility played out in this family and how they were all taught to take accountability for their feelings and find ways of working through them because it does sound like dad takes very little responsibility for his impulses for how much he's hurt people. Stepmom seems to take very little responsibility for being respectful and thoughtful about the family that she was very quickly entering and maybe she literally can't do that as he he said, stepsisters took little responsibility for their financial wellbeing.
They relied on our friend. Apparently they're now sponging off of other people and mom might not have taken full responsibility for her pain.
We already talked about that. And now our friend here might not be fully taking responsibility for his healing, for his growth.
Now, whether this quality actually got passed down through this parents or whether it's just an interesting theme that they're all wrestling with in different ways, I think that would be a really important thing for him to look at. Sounds like something you do in therapy.
Is that the place where you have to keep going every week for a while to make progress with this stuff? That's the one. I kid.
That's it. I kid.
You get it. It's just funny.
Okay. We got to wrap this up or we're going to miss our next news cruise, but I just want to point out that what you just touched on, Gabe, I'm also hearing that echo in the last big story of his letter, which is my dad is like a mental tornado.
He constantly sucks you in. He gets my energy and that's energy my wife deserves.
Look, I believe him. That's his experience of his dad.
And it's not just that it's his experience that his dad probably actually is exhausting. But on our way out here, I want to invite you to consider a couple other narratives here too.
Narratives that might be more accurate, that might give you some more agency and control. For example, your dad might in fact constantly suck you in.
It might also be true that you allow your dad to suck you in. It might be true that he gets your energy.
It might also be true that you give him your energy by not having strong boundaries with him or by allowing him to take up mental real estate long after you guys interact. Man, that is a good point.
I even find the story about how his wife deserves his energy interesting because yes, that is true. She does deserve his energy more than his father does.
But is that closing him off from the other story that he himself deserves his own energy, which he is giving away to his father energy that might might take him into therapy or bring him closer with his own family, or if this is what he decides to do, ultimately pull back from his dad. Yeah, 100%, man.
Three stories about three very important parts of his life. So I hope that helps, my friend.
I know we went unusually deep here. Took me by surprise a little bit as well.
We got into some territory that might be a little tender, painful. If you're mad at us for a little bit, I understand that as well.
But I want you to know that all we're doing here is inviting you to get more curious about your own life, your own mind, how playing with different lenses has a way of changing the facts. We're not here to tell you how to feel or which stories are the right stories to believe, or whether your dad is really as bad as you think.
All of this is for you to decide,

and that's an ongoing process.

It's a journey.

It'll probably never end.

But something I've learned, largely from doing this show,

you can't make the right decision,

if there is a right decision,

without investigating the stories around it.

Sometimes we think we need to make a decision about a specific person or situation

in order to be happy or peaceful or whatever,

when really there's some work for us to do first, or at the same time. And I do think that's especially true for you given the profound experiences that you've been through.
So take care of yourself, bud, sending you, your wife, and your future therapist a big hug. And now I'm gonna take full personal responsibility for being a shameless capitalist shill who relies on our amazing sponsors to keep bringing this life advice to you week after week.
We'll be right back. If you liked this episode of Feedback Friday and found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors.
All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. The AI chatbot over at jordanharbinger.com slash AI can also surface codes for you.
If that doesn't work, shoot us an email, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Someone here will dig up that code for you.
Yes, it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday.
All right, time for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lit filler.
My recommendation of the week is Mixbook.

So Mixbook is this really cool publishing platform that basically allows you to create custom photo books, cards, other personalized items, and then prints them for you and sends them to you.

This platform is amazing.

It basically gives you like all the templates and design tools you need.

It makes it super easy to make these beautiful professional looking books and gifts. So you can do a photo book for a family thing.
You could do a greeting card for the holidays. You could do an invitation for a party.
You can do pretty much anything. All you do is upload your photos and then you select from their layouts and designs and effects.
And it just creates this very unique and beautiful product and you do it all online and then they ship it to you and they can ship worldwide. It's an amazing option for anybody who wants to create like a special or customized gift.
My sister is a Jedi level mix book user. She is so good at it.
And she's made these beautiful mix books with photos from our trips that I've taken with her and her husband. And over the last two years, we went to Japan, we went to Portugal together, and she, for

the holidays, created these beautiful mixed books with all of our photos.

And she gave them to me as a holiday gift, which is one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten. And we looked through the books together and it was like we got to go on vacation again.
And she put like all the inside jokes from the trip. She wrote them into the photos and laid them out so beautifully.
And it's really just like a very special thing to give somebody. And it's a great way to preserve an event or a vacation, kind of memorialize it.
And then you have something really beautiful to put on your coffee table and look at every once in a while. So highly recommend the service.
I think you're going to like it. We'll link to Mixbook in the show notes.
I think a lot of people wonder if we're sponsored by these companies. I don't know if we've ever said, usually this is just stuff we like.
I don't think we've ever actually had a sponsor no this is just we're just big fans of these people so when people are like oh i wonder how this works or like what do they get paid for that or do they really like it yeah this stuff is all just legit stuff that we find online that we're like hey this is cool and um i've been trying to get some of these companies to give stuff away by emailing them and being like hey we're going to feature you do you want to do a giveaway and usually they. So that's the reason we have a giveaway, not because they sponsored us.
I don't know if we've talked about this. I just feel the need to say it again.
I don't want it to be like people to think we're secretly making money off of this recommendation so that they're not genuine. Anyway, back to Feedback Friday.
What's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a sophomore in high school and I've poured a large amount of my time into computer-aided design. As a result, I fell into a startup involving a founder on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and an ADHD YouTuber with a substantial following.
I took over the role of product design from an established engineer because I made better results quicker. Also, because of my work ethic and ability, I was able to get an additive manufacturing engineer from one of the biggest names in additive manufacturing on board.
The imposter syndrome is real, but I've gotten over it because I can see the real effects of my work. Wow.
Can we just stop and appreciate how awesome this is? The kid's 15 years old. He's already mastered CAD.
Man, you're getting hired by impressive and successful people. You've replaced a full grown adult with an engineering background.
You're convincing other talented people to come on board. It's phenomenal.
And this is not an accident, man. You're a rock star, and I am very proud of you.
I love that he's able to feel the imposterism and make room for the fact that he's actually delivering real results. That's basically the cure for imposter syndrome.
I love that. So he goes on.
In about two months, the team got the first prototype of our product working and got it sent to the YouTuber to feature on their channel. I asked them when the video would be done and we could move on to another step of the project, and they said the video would take two weeks.
That was four months ago. I've tried to schedule meetings to work on the project and find out what the roadblocks are, but every meeting has fallen through.
Even the additive manufacturing engineer messaged me to tell me that they know I must be frustrated with the founders and that they know how flaky they are. This person promised some support on whatever projects I may work on, but I don't like pulling any favors from my network.
I don't have the resources to take on any other projects, and I really want to light a fire here so we can keep going. How do I get these people focused on this project without looking too pushy or breaking this project apart? Signed, a young buck feeling like a lame duck because my project's in the muck and my boss's duck every attempt to get this thing unstuck.
Great question. So first off, I'm really sorry that these people are dragging their feet, being flaky here, not just flaky, but also avoidant.
They're canceling meetings to talk about this, which is just poor management, bad leadership. It's incredibly frustrating and honestly disrespectful to everybody involved.
I also find it pretty short sight of them to be doing this with you. I know you probably feel like the junior guy on the team.
You're literally a teenager. They're the supposedly successful adults.
But honestly, if some 15-year-old genius joined my company and started creating

products better than any adult and was recruiting other talented people to the team, I would be

counting my lucky stars. I'd be starting every day at work.
Wow, how do I capitalize on this

absolute gift that I've been given here? How do I keep this guy engaged and empowered so he wants

to stick around and we can keep growing together? So the way your bosses are handling all this,

it's not great. That said, I do think it's important to make room for some other explanations

to the scenes. By the way, this Forbes 30 under 30 person, they might be distracted by something more urgent.
They might be dealing with their own frustrations with the YouTuber. They might have some reason for slow rolling the product.
The YouTuber, I don't know what this person's deal is, but you said they have ADHD. They might literally not be able to concentrate or prioritize in a way to get this done, which is not an excuse, in my opinion, especially if there's some kind of thought leader or influencer around ADHD.
They should have some systems in place to work effectively with their brain, but it might explain why this project has become such a mess. Point is, there might be a few different things happening here, and you don't have access to all the information, and the reasons might not have anything to do with you.
I just want to acknowledge that. Right, that's fair.
But then this additive manufacturing engineer did say he knows they're flaky in general. So apparently this is just how they are, which is not a good sign.
True, but whatever's going on, here's how I'd handle this. I'd write a brief email to them, and in this email, I'd basically say, hey guys, as you know, it's been four months since I finished the prototype of the product.
I'm loving working on this project. I sense that you guys were pumped to.
I'm super invested. I think there's huge potential here.
When I finished the prototype, you said the video promoting it would take two weeks. It's been 16 weeks now, and I feel we're losing precious time and energy here.
I understand that there's always going to be delays and roadblocks, and I'm happy to work with them, but I've been trying to talk to you about what's holding us up and how I can help, and all of our meetings keep getting canceled, which has left me confused, disappointed, unsure of our next steps. You fill in whatever words you want there.
Since the live conversation doesn't seem possible right now, I wanted to reach out to figure out where we are and how we can get our baby back on track. I'd love to understand one, what are the specific roadblocks we're facing right now? Two, how can I help you resolve them and work around them? And three, what would it take for all of us to capitalize on this exciting product that we've created? What resources do we need? How much time realistically do we need? How can I pitch in? I'd love answers to those questions, and I'd love to get this project back on track with all my enthusiasm, gratitude, and confidence in us, you know, your name, something like that.
What you're doing with this letter is a few things. One, you're elegantly forcing the meeting that they seem to be refusing to have, which is the main objective.
Two, you're on the record saying, hey, something is not right here. I'm here to help.
I'm giving you a chance to make this right. Yes.
And three, you're doing all of that diplomatically, constructively in the spirit of wanting everybody to succeed. You're not just like complaining or calling them out, which there might be a time for that down the road if this nonsense continues.
But I do think it's really important to go through this stage of just acknowledging the problem and being the person looking for solutions. Yeah, which I think is how you get these people to focus without sounding pushy or breaking the project apart, by the way, by approaching them in that spirit.
And four, you're creating a paper trail in case things don't change. That way you can say, hey, look, I tried to get us back on track three months ago and you still didn't engage, which is also just a mental paper trail for you to know that you really did everything you could to make the team succeed.
Yes, absolutely. Now, if they don't engage with you meaningfully after this email, and if they continue to kick the can down the road, then I think you need to consider whether these people really deserve your talent, your hard work.
I'm not pushing you to that conclusion. I genuinely hope this works out.
And this is just some temporary holdup or some dysfunction that they can work out. But I also think it's really important to pay attention to these signals when they pop up because the reality is people who delay and delay and delay with zero explanation, people who dodge necessary conversations, bosses who don't honor your objectively valuable work, who don't treat you fairly, who don't seem to be taking you entirely seriously, which I'm afraid is what's starting to happen here.
Those are real red flags. I'm not saying your bosses can't get better.
I'm not saying it's all about you. In fact, I'm almost sure it's mostly about them and their flaws.
So this isn't the end of the road. But you're still so young.
You have so much to offer. This is probably your first real grown-up job.
And by the way, congrats on having a front row seat to what a hot mess supposedly successful adults could be. Is it not fascinating? You're learning a lot about how people operate.
So as you evaluate the future of this product, and as you consider whether you want to keep bringing good people in your network into this venture, and as you consider your future with these people and your larger career options, I would encourage you to take these data points very seriously, because unfortunately, a lot of these signals do not bode well, in my view. And unless you guys have some very good chats about why this is happening, and then they put in the work to do things differently, my experience has told me that this is probably only going to get worse.
That's been my experience too. At this point in my life, I have zero patience for people like this.
Either you do what you say you're going to do or you don't. Anything less is a waste of everyone's time, including yours.
Good follow through, open communication. Those aren't just nice to haves.
Those qualities are essential. This isn't just a quirk that you have to deal with.
This is how these people do business. Okay.
And I know I'm going a little Papa Bear here because our boy is 15 or 16 years old, but it is unconscionable to do this with a young person this talented, with anyone, but especially with an asset like him. Yes, I agree completely.
Also, I was biting my tongue during the letter, but Forbes 30 under 30, it's bullshit, actually. It's just paid marketing.
That means that people on that list, they have publicists that they pay on retainer. Those publicists are generally getting their clients on the list.
They pay Forbes to do it. There are a gazillion 30 under 30 lists for every category imaginable.
There's hundreds of them potentially. It's 30 under 30 for music, 30 under 30 for digital influencers.
It's just a moneymaker for Forbes. It's like how real estate people can buy those like top real estate in Broward County, three years running.
They pay for that. Lawyers have it.
It's just a cash grab. So I don't know how much that matters here, but it's something to keep in mind just because this person is on the Forbes 30 under 30.
It just doesn't mean shit. And it certainly doesn't mean that Forbes has done any due diligence on whether they're actually a good entrepreneur or worthy of being included.
Don't buy into the hype too much. That might be one of the lessons you're learning here.
So look, I hope that gives you a way forward here, man. Be productive, be respectful, be positive, and you really can't go wrong.
And if nothing changes, then reevaluate, take notes so you can clock these signals sooner next time and find the right people to collaborate with from now on. I'm super excited for you, man.
Keep up the great work and good luck. Don't forget to check out our episode with Amanda Ripley on how to survive disasters, who survives and how.
If you haven't done that yet, it might just save your life or that of someone else. We also did a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on DNA.
The best things that have happened in my life and business come through my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust. I'm teaching you how to build that circle for yourself in our 6-Minute Networking course, which is free.
It's not gross. It is not schmoozy.
It's on the Thinkific platform over at sixminutenetworking.com. The drills take a few minutes a day.
Dig that well before you get thirsty, folks. Build relationships before you need them.
Start now, man. I wish I knew this stuff two decades ago.
I really do. You can find all of it at sixminutenetworking.com.
It is free, no catch. Show notes and transcripts over at jordanharbinger.com.
Advertisers, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi.
This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlauskas, Jace Sanderson, the amazing producer Jason Sanderson, who can fix anything that's fixable with audio.
And by the way, he also has some limited free time to take on new clients if any of you are interested in hiring a real audio professional. And of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.
Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.
Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love.

If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else

who could use the advice we gave here today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show

so you can live what you learn.

And we'll see you next time.

Ever wonder why seemingly rational individuals

can wholeheartedly embrace the most irrational beliefs?

You're about to hear a preview of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Dan Ariely uncovers the captivating psychology behind these puzzling convictions. I'm a social scientist.
The moment you adopt this misbelieving perspective where you distrust everything and you just look for signals for bad things are happening, you can find them. We can deteriorate quickly into a very undesirable state of beliefs.
It affects people's well-being and optimism. It affects people's willingness to help, to donate money.
We are very much attuned to bad things. So when bad things happen, we really want to understand the mechanism.
And I think this is really the goal of social science, is to take those things we have no intuition about, help us understand them, and give us some better rules for life. If we understand that misbeliefs are bad reactions to a real problem, can we help our friends have better reactions to a bad problem? Where's reality? Where's the truth? We are becoming more politicized, more identity driven, more separatist.
It feels like the things that divide us are becoming larger than the things that unite us. And the moment we have these feelings of intolerance, we are just chasing those people away from our lives.
And one of the best antidotes is resilience.

You know, at the end of the day,

society's strength is in our unity,

in our trust with each other.

Trust is the unobserved lubricant of society.

To hear more about Dan Ariely's own chilling encounters with conspiracy theorists,