Crazy Town
Crazy Town
Escape Routes: Let's Get the F**k out of Crazy Town
Escape Routes! That's the theme of the sixth season of Crazy Town. We're exploring how to escape industrialism, consumerism, globalism, capitalism, and all the other -isms that are causing a polycrisis of environmental and social breakdown. Most of all, Jason, Rob, and Asher are looking to maintain their sense of humor while escaping fatalism and finding meaningful ways to avoid collapse.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
- Wikipedia article on China’s Mango Cult
- France’s Dancing Plague of 1518
- Geoffrey Cohen, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, W. W. Norton, 2022
- Asch line experiment
- Bystander Intervention Tip Sheet
- Summary of Marvin Harris’s work on cultural materialism
- Research that extends Asch’s conformity experiments and highlights the personality trait of openness as a key to resisting the behavior of conforming.
- Big Five Personality Assessment
- Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley
Asher Miller
Hi, I'm Asher Miller.
Rob Dietz
I'm Rob Dietz.
Jason Bradford
And I'm Jason Bradford. Welcome to Crazy Town where the latest Tesla software update installs Alex Jones's voice as the mandatory navigation aid.
Rob Dietz
Always turn right, you frickin pedophile.
Melody Allison
Quick warning, sometimes this podcast uses swear words. Language!
Rob Dietz
Hey guys, I've got a little story to share with you from my high school/college days.
Jason Bradford
Glory days, as Bruce Springsteen would say.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I came home after my freshman year of college to live with the parents back in Atlanta and do some work and stuff. And I had this friend of mine named John, who was a year behind me. So he was just finishing his high school career at the time. And he and I used to pal around all the time. And one day he says, "Hey, do you want to go to a party?" Of course. Who doesn't want to go to a party at that age? So we go over to this apartment complex. And we go into this guy's house - I'm going to call him Wooderson because he's like the character Wooderson from the movie "Dazed and Confused" played by Matthew McConaughey.
Asher Miller
"Alright, alright, alright."
Rob Dietz
Yeah, that was one of his famous lines from there. "Y'all want to take your shirts off?" And so anyway, Wooderson was way beyond high school. He was still hanging out with the high school crowd. That was his whole . . .
Jason Bradford
He was like in his early -
Asher Miller
He was like 43.
Jason Bradford
No, he was more like in his early 20s. Still would always come party with the high school kids.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, and all these inappropriate jokes about getting with, you know, how's the crop of freshmen looking this year? Stuff like that. Really creepy. So anyway, we go over to Wooderson's apartment. This is one of these guys. And for whatever reason, me and John are the first ones over to his house, and we're just talking with him. And these other guys start arriving. And once there's, I don't know, like eight or ten guys, they're like, "Should we do it now?" And I'm like, "Do what now?" And then everybody takes their guns out of their pockets, and out of their holsters, and out of their bags, and lays them out on the table. And it's like, yep, it's time for our gun display party.
Jason Bradford
No way.
Asher Miller
No, what?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, exactly.
Asher Miller
Did John know that this is what the party was about?
Rob Dietz
I don't think so. I was pretty damn uncomfortable. You know, even if you like guns . . .
Asher Miller
It's because you weren't enough of a man to have a gun.
Rob Dietz
I guess not. Yeah. And you know, they're all handguns. I remember the most memorable one was this little 22 with a plastic pink handle. It was like a toy.
Asher Miller
There's a man who's confident in his masculinity.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. I'm kinda like, "I need to get out of here, John. I'm not comfortable. We gotta go." And we decided to escape this party. We went out and the apartment opens into a courtyard.
Jason Bradford
Classic.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. We decided, well, there's some people out here. We don't have to just completely bug out of the party, even though I kind of wanted to. And the next thing I know, this door opens, and this guy walks up and comes right over and starts talking to us. And he's got a belt lashed around his arm and there's a needle hanging out of his veins.
Asher Miller
What is going on? Is this a normal thing down in Atlanta?
Rob Dietz
I don't know. I'm a goodie-goodie. This was not my scene at all. I was like, I don't even know what kind of drugs that was. I just like, I thought I would have some beers with -
Jason Bradford
You're not at Penn anymore.
Rob Dietz
So, the reason I tell you this story of what I'll call the unhinged party is it's kind of a metaphor for what we're doing with Crazy Town and what's happening in the whole world. You know, the idea is, here we are in Crazy Town. We're experiencing these cascading crises, climate change. You've got social breakdown, you've got biodiversity dying off. And everybody's kind of just like hanging out going, well, this is normal. And we're sort of like, what is going on here?
Jason Bradford
A pile of guns on the coffee table is not normal.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, I mean, it would probably be more akin to -
Asher Miller
Potato, po-tah-to.
Jason Bradford
Well, I think . . . Okay, this brings up - Yes. I can think of other instances in history where it's bigger than just a party in Atlanta. Where whole societies practically just go bonkers. Think about it for yourself, but I got a story, okay. Did you know that in 1968 in China there was a mango cult?
Asher Miller
Mango cult? We talked about the cargo cult before but not a mango cult.
Jason Bradford
So basically, it's like this Pakistani foreign minister is visiting China and he gives the dear leader Mao Zedong a gift basket of mangoes. And so Mao takes this basket of mangoes and instead of eating it, he re-gifts it to . . . What was it called? I'm gonna look this up. Oh, the Worker Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team stationed at Singh Gu University. I don't know if I pronounced that right. I'm sorry. But basically, he gifted it to this Worker Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team, which turned it into -
Asher Miller
They turned it into propaganda.
Jason Bradford
Well yeah. They didn't eat the mangoes themselves. They basically started worshipping mangoes like, oh he sacrificed - He wouldn't eat this because he's such a great leader. He cares about the peasants. We won't eat them either. So they preserve them in like wax and formaldehyde. And then they distributed these mangoes around the country, and they got paraded around. And all these products started getting sold, like mango bedsheets, and people went mango crazy. And you could not eat mangoes, but you had to worship them.
Asher Miller
You'd worship them but you couldn't eat them right.
Jason Bradford
No, they were too valuable.
Rob Dietz
This reminds me of those papal visits, you know, where the Pope is in this box, sort of glass box, and they're driving around towns. That's where they're doing with these mangoes?
Jason Bradford
Yes, they were paraded. There was a giant parade in Chinaman Square with a mango float. And this -
Asher Miller
Mangoes are good.
Jason Bradford
This poor guy was a dentist, okay. His name is Dr. . . I don't actually know his name but he apparently, during a parade, made a comment and said, "I don't know what the big deal is. They look like sweet potatoes." And he was shot in the head.
Asher Miller
No!
Rob Dietz
Wow.
Jason Bradford
Yes, he was put on trial.
Asher Miller
What?
Jason Bradford
Yes. For malicious slander. Found guilty, publicly paraded through the town, and then executed with a shot to the head. People went batshit crazy about mangoes in China in 1968. So this is how quickly things can just spin out of control.
Asher Miller
Okay, so let's not just pick on the Chinese.
Jason Bradford
No, no.
Asher Miller
We gotta pick on Carribeans too. So you guys like dancing, right?
Asher Miller
Have you heard about the Dancing Plague of 1518?
Jason Bradford
I love dancing.
Rob Dietz
Oh yeah.
Jason Bradford
Well noy lately, but my wife is a dancer. I want to tell her about it.
Rob Dietz
I hope it was dubstep. That's what we've been doing in my household lately.
Asher Miller
I don't think they're dubstepping in 1518.
Jason Bradford
What was that Irish dancing thing that was hit for a while?
Rob Dietz
The Irish jig?
Asher Miller
No, no, no. River Dance.
Jason Bradford
River Dance, yeah. Is it like that?
Rob Dietz
Tell us this story.
Asher Miller
So, you know, in this French city, Strausberg, there's a woman who's began dancing in the streets just on her own. And she didn't stop for almost a week. But within a month, something like 400 people all over the city were also afflicted with this urge to dance until they dropped. "And dropped they did." I'm quoting here from History.com.
Rob Dietz
It's like the movie "Footloose."
Asher Miller
Exactly. They dropped of strokes, heart attacks and exhaustion. The authorities blamed the trance-like state on quote-unquote, "hot blood," and mandated that the afflicted dance day and night to exercise their demons. They even constructed a stage where they hired dancers and musicians to keep this thing going. And that of course led to other people dancing. So it became this whole frenzy, right It had spread from France to Germany to Holland to Switzerland. Like it became this dancing . . .
Jason Bradford
Dancing plague.
Asher Miller
Yeah, it became like an infectious disease.
Jason Bradford
Wait, wait, wait. So people are starting to like, drop dead from dancing. And instead of saying, "Hey, stop dancing!"
Asher Miller
Double down! You've got to get it out of your system. Keep going.
Rob Dietz
That's right. They had a lot of hot blood, okay?
Asher Miller
They've got to work it out of their system.
Jason Bradford
Oh my god.
Asher Miller
So let's be honest. We've seen crazes in our own lives. Do you guys remember Cabbage Patch Kids?
Rob Dietz
Oh, yeah. Of course.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, I've got a whole storage locker downtown.
Asher Miller
Do you? You're waiting for them to go back in fashion?
Jason Bradford
Right.
Asher Miller
Yeah. My sister who's four years younger than me, she got completely swept up into this. She was desperate to get one of these Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. And we're traveling, I think we were in Europe, when this was going on. So she was dragging, like literally dragging us, to stores in England to see if we can find them.
Jason Bradford
You're on a European vacation and she wants to buy a Cabbage Patch Kid?
Asher Miller
Yeah, so half of our vacation turned out to be looking for a Cabbage Patch Kid doll.
Rob Dietz
Luckily, today, you can just buy NFTs of Cabbage Patch Kids. It's a lot better for the environment. So I mean, these stories are emblematic of the problem we have. We have this problem of conformity, right? You got to ask the question, why is everybody going along with this mess? Whether it's dancing, mangoes, or dropping your gun off at the party to brag, it's pretty nuts. And we've been looking at some ideas around this. So there's a book by a professor named Geoffrey Cohen that's called "Belonging." The subtitle is, "The science of creating connection and bridging divides." And the whole premise of this thing is that that need for belonging is a fundamental part of human nature. So it's almost like we can't help ourselves but try to fit in, because we have such a fear of being ostracized.
Jason Bradford
It kind of gets hijacked and goes overboard.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, it's kind of cool. The part of our brain that lights up when we're going to experience social pain is the same part of the brain that lights up when you're experiencing physical pain.
Jason Bradford
Oh, sure. I mean, people are just as motivated, I think, to alleviate the social pain as they are physical pain, right? Like if you have physical pain, if it's really intense, you're like, Yeah, give me that opioid or whatever. And I think the same thing is true for social pain.
Asher Miller
It's interesting because it's not necessarily a bad thing, this desire to belong, right? In fact, there's -
Rob Dietz
Depends what it is, right?
Asher Miller
There are there are organizations and groups - There's a whole institute at the University of California Berkeley, the Belonging Institute, and others, that are working on belonging. Because we actually have a situation now where people are feeling like they don't belong, right? Disconnected. Technology has had a role to play in that. And so belonging is actually, it's how we evolved. I think it's probably a big part of our success as a species is our ability to work together in social groups. And when we're disconnected from those, we feel the pain that you're just talking about, Jason. But it's not necessarily a bad thing to have that. It's a natural state of ours. So it can be a healthy thing, right? Feeling like you belong - I think you could correlate it to health and people s success in school, or work, or whatever. Not belonging creates, I mean, it leads to suicide, and leads to drug abuse, and leads all kinds of things if people are not belonging. But our desire to belong sometimes could lead us to do things that are irrational, right? Or because we're trying to conform, we are part of some negative force.
Jason Bradford
Remember the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? That's still going in India. You can go apparently, and they're still around,
Asher Miller
Do they have all the Rolls Royces there?
Jason Bradford
I don't know about that. But no, that Netflix series, "Wild, Wild Country," I remember watching that and thinking to myself, you know, a lot of what's appealing about this Rajneesh thing was that it was taking people who were sort of like, kind of anti-consumerism a little bit. They were a little bit on the fringe of society, but intelligent. And instead of saying like, Oh, you're a crazy, hippie, American, it's more like, No, you belong to something bigger. And it's better. This is a great movement, and we can create a whole new society.
Rob Dietz
Gosh, you should have been the leader of that cult. Because the actual leader comes across as an utter whack job.
Jason Bradford
I couldn't figure out what his appeal was because he hardly said anything.
Rob Dietz
He just looked with big eyes and said stuff like, "It's the light leading down from the moon, to the sun, to the star, back to your heart."
Jason Bradford
That's the one thing I couldn't quite figure out. What was his appeal? But I think it had a lot to do with -
Asher Miller
You find that a lot with cults, right? I mean, when you're on the outside, you're like, what is actually the appeal?
Jason Bradford
But I think it was the sense, if you saw what they did, they built this community together. And they were such a tight knit group. And they wanted to help, right? It was very positive. But then they then went off the deep end.
Asher Miller
So I think we can look at cases where people in cults or certain groups of people, they succumb to the appeal of it. They get taken advantage of and abused, or whatever it is. And you can look at those people and say, "Oh, those are people that feel disconnected. They feel like they don't belong." Whatever. I think what we are experiencing is society at large acting in ways that are kind of crazy. And that's actually the norm. And so it's not just these fringe groups that are drawing upon that need. It's like society as a whole that's reinforcing it.
Rob Dietz
No, no. Well this issue of conformity, it's been studied quite a lot. And I love the whole realm of social psychology.
Jason Bradford
Let me tell you about one of these most famous studies, right. It was called the Asch Line Study. I mean, it's so well known, but I'll go over it because you know, not everyone follows this stuff. There was a series of experiments he did. It was, you know, social psychology is what it was. But you see it's psychology in the context of social situations. And Solomon Asch did this in the 1950s. So imagine you're signing up for this experiment, and you're told it's about perception and vision. And you're sitting in a room with other participants, and Professor Asch gives you a reference card with a line segment drawn on it. He then gives you a comparison card with a group of line segments, like ABC. And one of them is the same length as you know, the reference.
Asher Miller
The original one.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. And you're supposed to like then say which matches. And unbeknownst to you every other person in the room is a conspirator with the professor and they do various tests, right? They sometimes they go along, sometimes they don't, sometimes one goes along. But in the situation where all of the conspirators give the wrong answer, it's more likely that you're going to give a wrong answer. Even though in many cases, it's obvious.
Asher Miller
So the correct answer is line B, right? But everyone around the circle is saying it's actually Line A. And Line A is like a quarter of the length, and you're like, what?
Jason Bradford
And you're going last. So you get to hear all these things.
Rob Dietz
I wouldn't pick the wrong line. Of course I would always say what I believe.
Jason Bradford
Well, what was interesting is they manipulate it to the extent where you know, is it an obvious difference? Or is it hard? Or, you know, how many people are in the room with you? They tried all these different scenarios. And so basically, most people at some point - It turns out that 75% of participants in one of the various permutations of this test, because you would get tested a number of times in each session. 75% of the participants went along with the crowd at least once.
Asher Miller
Wow.
Jason Bradford
But on average, for each test it was about a third of the time that someone went along with the crowd. And subjects basically later revealed that they were concerned about facing ridicule. They admitted that they're like, "I feel awkward here," you know.
Rob Dietz
It's just like us in Crazy Town who go to the holiday family party and you start talking about things aren't going so good in the world, and you're facing all the ridicule.
Asher Miller
It's interesting. I mean, I feel kind of reassured when you say on any given test, maybe only a third of the time, do they conform, right? But you're saying if you do multiple tests, 75% of the time they're gonna least conform once, right?
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Asher Miller
It's a reality of the world that we live in, right? Maybe in one area, you're like, "No, that's kind of crazy. I'm not going to do that." But if all of society around you is geared in a way that just reinforces unsustainable, unethical, kind of crazy behavior, it's hard not to.
Jason Bradford
You get tired. You're distracted at least, or you know, you just don't care so much in the situation. So you can see how eventually . . .
Asher Miller
Totally.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, well it's interesting, because Asch, you know, he was onto something by doing these experiments. And I think it's fascinating, but then he kind of carried them forward and did a bunch more stuff, and he came to some generalizable findings. And one of them was that conformity tends to increase when more people are present. So you know, if you've got just one guy putting his gun on the table, you might not put yours out there. But you've got three or four guys, suddenly your gun is on the table. He also found that conformity increases when there's uncertainty. And I think this is a really important one. And what's hypothesized to be going on is that when it's uncertain, you turn to other people for answers. You want somebody to give you some information that this is the way to go.
Jason Bradford
And this was revealed when the difference between the reference and fake lines wasn't as great, you know. That was sort of like, "I'm not sure."
Asher Miller
But you're right. This is important for our purposes because we're going into greater and greater uncertainty.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. And people are actively free of propaganda generating -
Asher Miller
Bad answers.
Jason Bradford
False answers.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, out to the conspiracy theorists. You have somebody like Alex Jones stating with absolute certainty some bunch of dribble, people are like, "Well, I'm uncertain. So this guy must be right."
Asher Miller
It's not all dribble. The thing about harvesting, you know, Adrenochrome on the moon from children, that one's real. Don't throw out everything just because.
Rob Dietz
Well, that's a good point. You've got to have nuggets of truth in order for everyone to believe the rest. So one of the other findings is, and this is an important one too, is that conformity tends to increase when other members of the group belong to a higher social status. So if you're surrounded by people that you think have some high status, watch out. You might conform. And to me, this explains the phenomenon of Donald Trump rising to power and being so popular.
Jason Bradford
And the mango cult.
Rob Dietz
But actually those mangoes had huge status.
Asher Miller
I mean, interesting. You think about that, and you apply the social media lens to this.
Jason Bradford
He kind of looks like a mango.
Asher Miller
You just went down a rabbit hole.
Rob Dietz
You talking about Trump, or?
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Rob Dietz
Mango crossed with corn cob. Hair coming out the sides.
Asher Miller
You're insulting my former and soon to be president.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, anyways sorry. I'm going to stop. President for life.
Asher Miller
No, just thinking about those three things that you just talked about, right? More conformity if there's more people involved. More conformity if there's more uncertainty. And more conformity when there are people with higher status, social status, right. So you combine those elements with things like social media, and you have these influencers out there with a big reach. And you see all these other people kind of going along. And they're talking about things that are complicated. And they're gonna give you simple answers or something like that. It's easy to see why people would just kind of conform with that, right?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, totally. I think you are about to state some kind of mathematical equation or identity. Like conformity with large masses plus conformity with uncertainty plus conformity with high social status equals we're all fucked.
Asher Miller
Equals Crazy Town.
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Asher Miller
So any case, what's the point of all this? Well, this gets us to what we're planning on doing for this season.
Rob Dietz
Conforming.
Asher Miller
Yeah, we're conforming. We're gonna come in, and we're gonna share all the ways that we've been wrong this whole time. God, it's the sixth season of Crazy Town and we've been on a bit of an arc, you know. In the last number of seasons, we've been focusing how we got into Crazy Town, right? Trying to make sense of the world and some of the environmental and social crises we're facing. We talked about hidden drivers behind humanity's predicament. We did talk actually, about cognitive biases and other things have to do with -
Rob Dietz
Yeah, a whole bunch of cool stuff like feedback loops. And, you know, things that you wouldn't really usually think about when you think, why are we in this mess? You're not thinking well, because there are positive feedback loops.
Asher Miller
So we talked about some of those hidden drivers. We talked about watershed moments in history that brought us down this path. Last season, we talked about the Phalse Prophets who were propagating a lot of the wrong ideas, sort of keeping us in Crazy Town, or moving us deeper into Crazy Town. And this season, we want to shift the focus a little bit, right. We want to do something that might be a little hard for us to do. It's a little bit of a challenge for us to do. Which is think about not only just the positive, but like, how do we get out of this? How do we escape Crazy Town? How do we break away from the conformity of the world where we're not just in a place where we either have to conform or feel like we're crazy outliers or outsiders in the system. And how do we help the rest of the world?
Jason Bradford
So like, we're in a straitjacket, and we're in a safe, and they just jumped onto us off of a bridge. And so now we're 40 feet down at the bottom of the river, and we're trying to get out. Is that sort of the situation we're in?
Rob Dietz
I think that works.
Jason Bradford
Alright.
Rob Dietz
And there are guns on the table.
Asher Miller
There are guns in the safe.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Alright.
Rob Dietz
Well, so how we're planning to do this is that each episode, we're going to address one of the isms that's keeping us in Crazy Town. And what do we mean, one of the isms? So relying on on Marvin Harris and his cultural materialism - We'll talk more about that in a second. But we're gonna apply that lens to things like capitalism, like consumerism, like industrialism. And the whole idea will be how do we escape the maw of consumerism?
Asher Miller
Right, so let's just talk about what we mean by cultural materialism. And you know, we've talked about Marvin Harris quite a bit over various seasons of Crazy Town, but I'm just gonna review really quickly. So he laid out these three systems that operate, or three levels of structure. There's infrastructure, structure, and superstructure. And I think because we use these words, like infrastructure we use a lot. And we tend to think of that like, "Oh, that's a bridge." Or, "Oh, that's a road," or whatever it is. He means more by infrastructure, it means more like the physical world, right. So it could be infrastructure is actually how our food is grown, you know. And structures are more things like our political systems, or the way the economy works, or the laws or rules that govern society. And superstructures are more the belief systems -
Jason Bradford
Yeah, the mythologies.
Asher Miller
The world views, the cultural values, those kinds of things.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, the mangoes.
Asher Miller
And it doesn't explain the entire world. But we feel like it's a useful model to look at the systems and looking at some of the isms that we're talking about. And try to understand how they're operating and also how you might change them. And we actually used Marvin Harris's cultural materialism to think about what are some of the isms that we want to get into, right?
Rob Dietz
I gotta say, when I was introduced to this idea of cultural materialism and Marvin Harris, something clicked. Because you used to think, "Okay, I want somebody to think differently." Like, I was kind of an activist in the realm of ecological economics. And you can't have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. So the idea is, I need to go tell people. I have to change their belief system. And then once we do that, we can change the policy.
Jason Bradford
Right. Ideas are gonna drive change.
Rob Dietz
Right. And then once we change the policies, then we'll change the world around us. But what Marvin Harris's idea is -- is that that's kind of reversed. You need to change the infrastructure, and then the policies, and then the beliefs are going to follow. And it was kind of a little bit eye opening. I was just kind of like, "Oh, okay. On one level that doesn't really make - It doesn't follow what I had been thinking before. But on another level, it's kind of makes intuitive sense. Of course I draw the way I see the world based on what's around me and based on the rules that I'm supposed to follow.
Asher Miller
Yeah I mean, we could get into this in a lot more detail. But I had the same experience, which is, when you start realizing that actually our belief systems, maybe even our beliefs in God, you know, come from the physical world around us. When we switch from being hunter gatherers and having an animistic view of the world, where everything around us has a spirit, to agriculture, then looking to the sky and sky gods, you know . . .
Jason Bradford
Well yeah. The monotheism reflected the fact that there were like, emperors, and there were kings, and there was like, this hierarchy of society. And so yeah.
Asher Miller
Which came from our ability to store energy and crops and all that stuff. And that's like a really profound recognition. It also is very daunting because trying to change your infrastructure when the belief systems are not focused that way. . . And I think a lot of our listeners, and people kind of in the environmental space would really, really resonate with this idea. Because, like, here, we are trying to convince people that - We're trying to convince people you got to conserve, right? We've got to reduce. We've got to relocalize. We've got to scale back, you know, the human enterprise in industrialism. And trying to change that infrastructure when the belief system around us is one of growth and progress and . . .
Jason Bradford
Well, to give you an idea of how hard this is, imagine you've got a local Pentecostal church, okay? And you decide you're going to show up one day, and they're in the throes of their dancing and stuff like that. And you walk in, and you say, "Hold on. Hold on people. Let me explain the material conditions that led to your belief in this God. And I want you to just back down a little bit and just rationally understand that this is -" There's just no way. You know? That's what I feel like.
Asher Miller
What's interesting, though, is I think that we can. Because we do have to operate at the place of changing worldviews. You know, we have this podcast at Post Carbon Institute that we produce called "Holding the Fire" where we have conversations with indigenous leaders from around the world. And a lot of what they all talk about - And it's not like they're consulting one another - Is that fundamental value shifting worldview shift. So we do need that to happen, right? But one of the ways that maybe we can do that is by pointing to the infrastructure of other communities and other ways of being. So that gets actual model or representation in the real world. It's not just a theoretical thing. People are living in a different way which gets us to what we want to do in the season of the podcast.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. So this season, we're going to be looking at these different "isms," like industrialism. But we're going to use the Marvin Harris lens a little bit here. So like, industrialism, a lot of that has to do with the infrastructure. The factories and the fuels and all that.
Jason Bradford
Sure. The tractor can just farm way more efficiently from a time perspective. And you get better return on finance than I can do by hand.
Rob Dietz
But then some of the other aspects of Crazy Town that we're going to try to escape, like capitalism, they're more in this realm of structure or rules and policies. And then you've also got other "isms" like individualism that's going to be more in the realm of beliefs and values. Like, you know, it's every man for himself kind of a thing. But we're introducing a new segment this season. We're gonna call it something like the "Marvin Harris Memorial Lens of Doom." And we're going to address the "isms" through this lens. So let's just, for example, looking at consumerism - we'll talk about the infrastructure of consumerism, which is stuff like big box stores, and shopping malls, and the existence of Amazon.com, and ships and shipping containers.
Asher Miller
Right. It's so easy to be consumed. They made it easy for you.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, huge infrastructure for it. But then there are the rules, the structure of it, you know. Like you've got to work a high paying job, Jason, so that you can buy all that stuff off of Amazon that you're trying to acquire.
Asher Miller
Or you can get a credit card and go into debt.
Jason Bradford
And if you don't have money, you can't buy stuff to survive, and you can't survive in this world without being a consumer.
Rob Dietz
And then you get to culture and beliefs around consumerism. Like of course in America: If I can just own that one more thing, then I'll be happy.
Jason Bradford
Well I like DeBeers. All the marketing on, "A Diamond is Forever and two months salary."
Rob Dietz
That is the best. You have to spend two months of your salary to get a diamond ring because it fits anybody. You could be a grocery clerk, you could be a Wall Street Banker.
Asher Miller
It's equality in action. I mean, because, you know, you're treating everyone equally, right? It's not a certain dollar amount. It's, you know, it's two months.
Jason Bradford
It's brilliant.
Rob Dietz
It's great. But remember, this is about escape routes. So we're not going to spend too much time analyzing what's wrong with consumerism or other "isms." We get to move on.
Jason Bradford
And we're gonna do stories of people who have escaped in some way, right? So through all this, like, who is doing something that's escaping this very ism we're covering. And so we might have our own personal stories that might be involved in this. Or we might have stories of others.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, I mean look how I escaped the guns and I got to the heroine guy out in the courtyard.
Asher Miller
What an adventure.
Rob Dietz
What an escape.
Asher Miller
We of course are going to keep our George Costanza "Do the Opposite" segment, right? And we're gonna talk about different visions. Different visions for our infrastructure, a vision for different roles, visions for different beliefs. And then try to weave in some ideas for our listeners of what they could do to actually take action in each of these areas, each of these isms to break from conformity and escape from Crazy Town.
Rob Dietz
Can I just say that I'm really excited that we're taking this on. We'll see. I mean, we're such curmudgeons, can we actually be happy about some of these escape routes?
Asher Miller
We have to escape pessimism -- is what you're saying?
Rob Dietz
Right. Well, it's so much more opportunity for happiness than we had in our last few seasons.
Jason Bradford
This is gonna be a real struggle.
Asher Miller
It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna feel better.
Jason Bradford
I'm reall nervous about this. I don't know how we'll do. Well, something - Yeah, we're going to try to learn about ourselves and hopefully, you know, listeners will as well. Because it's like, what is it about us or people that makes them more or less likely to conform or you know, to go along, to try to escape or not. And something that seems to be a factor is what's called the Big Five personality traits. And the abbreviation is OCEAN, which is great. It's so easy to remember. So OCEAN stands for Openness, Concientiousness -
Rob Dietz
Concientiousness, come on.
Jason Bradford
Sometimes I confabulate or something like that. Conscientiousness.
Rob Dietz
That's a that's a big word too. You got that one out.
Jason Bradford
Extraversion, Agreeableness, or Neuroticism.
Rob Dietz
Okay, so I found an online test where we can score ourselves on these OCEAN traits, the Big Five Personality traits. So let's go take that now and we'll come back, compare results and . . .
Asher Miller
Are we actually gonna share this with our audience?
Rob Dietz
Oh, you know we are.
Jason Bradford
Okay.
Asher Miller
Okay.
Rob Dietz
This is a message to all you Crazy townies out there. Sometimes Jason, Asher, and I wish you could be here in the room with us when we're riffing on ecomodernist nightmares, the end of capitalism, the collapse of civilization, and lines from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Since you can't be here, maybe we could still be in contact in another way. If you've got a comment about the show, or you've want to throw some shade at us, or you've got a question -
Asher Miller
or if you have any suggestions of escape route stuff.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, maybe you've a story of your own you want to share. Go over to Apple podcasts or iTunes and leave us a review and write your comment there. In your comment, include your idea, whatever it is, and we'll think about sharing it in an episode.
Jason Bradford
How's this? I'll be back! Is that any good?
Rob Dietz
Oh my God. That's terrible.
Jason Bradford
You try it, you try it.
Rob Dietz
Get to the chopp-ah!
Rob Dietz
Okay, guys. I am excited to compare results and see how I trounced you in the positive category.
Jason Bradford
Nice.
Asher Miller
They should have tested for competitiveness because you would suck at it.
Jason Bradford
That is one of them. That's under, I think under . . . Which one is it? Agreeableness.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Which one is asshole-ness because we'll see how we do on that one. Okay, so the first one in OCEAN is Openness. Jason, give me the synopsis.
Jason Bradford
Oh you know, they tend to be imaginative and they tend to have a broad range of interests, very curious, eager to try new things, and new experiences.
Rob Dietz
Okay so, on this test, you can score from 0% to 100% in each of these personality traits. So I guess I'm the gameshow host. Jason, what was your Openness score?
Jason Bradford
I was 73%.
Rob Dietz
Asher?
Asher Miller
81%
Rob Dietz
87.5%
Jason Bradford
Oh no!
Rob Dietz
I'm so open.
Asher Miller
It's because you have no opinions. You have no personality of your own.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, you're wishy washy. You just go along to get along.
Rob Dietz
We'll find out what these traits have to do with conformity. We'll see who has egg on their face.
Jason Bradford
Alright.
Rob Dietz
We'll see. Okay, second one is Conscientiousness.
Asher Miller
You pronounced that wrong.
Rob Dietz
Oh sorry. Contri-niches-bishes-nesses.
Jason Bradford
Whatever dude. High levels of thoughtfulness, right? These people want to basically make sure they don't impose on others or upset other people. They plan ahead and think about how their behavior will impact other people.
Rob Dietz
Okay, Asher. What do you got?
Asher Miller
I only got a 56.
Rob Dietz
Okay, yeah. You don't care what anybody else thinks.
Jason Bradford
65
Rob Dietz
You guys are gonna think I'm making this up. 69.
Jason Bradford
I believe you. You're the most conscientious.
Rob Dietz
I was just talking about the number. It's a Beavis and Butthead number.
Asher Miller
Some of the questions I didn't like, I gotta say.
Rob Dietz
So far it's, Dietz: 2, You guys: Nothing. Alright, Extraversion. Extraversion is the E.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, okay. Excitable, sociable, talkative, assertive, outgoing, etc. Gains energy in social situations.
Rob Dietz
Alright, I'll reveal first this time. I got a 46%.
Jason Bradford
Hmm. Okay. Let's go reverse.
Rob Dietz
Okay, what's next? Alright. Go Asher.
Asher Miller
35%
Rob Dietz
35% wow.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Well, I was 73%.
Asher Miller
No surprise. You're the most extroverted among us.
Rob Dietz
When I thought about this test I was like, ah, Jason is gonna crush E - Extraversion. I talked to you about being an extrovert and you said, "Yeah, I'm not really."
Jason Bradford
Well I said I'm so-so, you know. I'm not a full-on, you know.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Okay. The A in OCEAN is Agreeableness. What are the traits there?
Jason Bradford
Well, people are highly agreeable, tend to be very trusting, very kind, altruistic. They tend to be open with their affections, and they tend to be more cooperative and less competitive.
Rob Dietz
Okay, Jason, what do you got?
Jason Bradford
Oh, we're going this way again.
Rob Dietz
What's your number?
Jason Bradford
Okay, I'm a 60%
Rob Dietz
60%. Go Asher.
Asher Miller
I'm exactly the same - 60%
Rob Dietz
Yeah, you disagreeable fucks. I'm 77%.
Asher Miller
I think he took this to try to score high.
Rob Dietz
I was thinking about the test - How can I get the highest score by gaming the test? Okay, the final one is neuroticism. That's the end.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Tend to be characterized by sadness, moodiness, emotional instability. Tend to, you know, be a little more anxious and irritable.
Asher Miller
I'm 103%. No, I'm 71%.
Rob Dietz
Jason?
Jason Bradford
I'm 23%.
Rob Dietz
Wow. I'm splitting you guys. I'm 54%.
Asher Miller
Wow. We're like opposites.
Rob Dietz
Jason is so. . .
Asher Miller
I'm neurotic. Dude, I'm Jewish. Okay, I'm required.
Rob Dietz
My dad's of Jewish descent. So I'm like, kind of half Jewish.
Asher Miller
And you came over on the Mayflower. So there we go. Yeah, explains it.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, it's funny. It's not like I'm carefree but I just don't think I carry it in every moment.
Asher Miller
So if you - Here's where I'm going to feel a little bit better about myself. You know, at the end of this test, they give you this sort of like visual of where you land. And do you guys see this? So it puts me at 71% Empathetic Idealist.
Rob Dietz
Hey, me too. I'm an 82%. I beat you again. Empathetic Idealist. You probably didn't look at this based on the look on your face, Jason.
Asher Miller
And I'm a 60% Analytical Thinker. I'm only a 40% Practical Caretaker.
Jason Bradford
I didn't pay attention.
Rob Dietz
So we're empathetic idealists. You're an asinine jerkface. That's your personality.
Jason Bradford
You know, actually, I do remember that. And I was also an Empathetic Idealist. I remember that because it was only partially shown because they want you to download this and pay.
Asher Miller
They want you to pay the big bucks.
Jason Bradford
So it was a top left quadrant thing.
Rob Dietz
The only thing we know though, is that your score was lower than mine.
Jason Bradford
Well for neuroticism it was lower.
Asher Miller
That's true. You're less neurotic and you're more extroverted. So people like you more.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, I want friends who are not neurotic. Asher, you don't need more neurotic people pumping up your neuroticism.
Asher Miller
No, I really don't.
Rob Dietz
Okay, so this was all fun, but there was a recent study where there's been extensions of good old professor Solomon Asch's experiments, right? And, of course, conformity is an interesting social psychology topic. So people have been taking this and running with it more, and they've been looking at personality traits and conforming. And the trait that's key to overcoming conformity is openness. So if you're highly open - I guess if you could score high there, you're less likely to succumb to the bullshit of picking the wrong line segment lengths. And of course, maybe it helps you get to where you see Crazy Town for what it is. Now, we all scored high in openness. I scored higher, of course!
Asher Miller
I don't have an answer to this, but I bet it's something that can actually be worked on, too.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, you can work on it.
Asher Miller
Yeah, I don't think it's like, "Oh no. Alright, I'm not open."
Rob Dietz
I mean, I think that's one of the points. Like in extraversion, I used to be the shyest, most introverted person around. I would have never even done a podcast like this. But over the course of my life that's been changing from practice, from my viewpoint. We change over time.
Asher Miller
Well, you know, I'm the one who always overcomplicates things, right? And I actually think that we're all in spectrums of this stuff. Like, I wouldn't say call myself a pure introvert. But I do get more drained in social situations than I'm energized by them. But also, I think a lot of people are surprised when I tell them, I'm an introvert. Because in certain situations, I'm very engaged. So I don't think we're all like black and white, one thing or the or the other. And I think also the circumstances we're in. We might be less agreeable. We might be more neurotic, you know. We might be less conscientious or less open when we're in periods of stress in our lives.
Jason Bradford
Well, I think when you take this test, it s going to change your answers totally. So there's going to be some - that'd be interesting to see.
Asher Miller
And I think it's important to recognize that too. Because this is where self care, like doing things like building your own emotional resilience, might actually help you score higher in a sense in these things,
Jason Bradford
I think what's interesting about this study also was that it was testing different hypotheses. Because this is a classic test, and they want to understand, okay, there was variation in humans. And they wanted to figure out unlike the original Asch test, what was it about human personality traits that may lead to conformity or not, or resist conformity. So openness was the only one that did as opposed to things they also tested, like intelligence or self-esteem. So the thought was, if you're intelligent, you're going to just say, like, No, no, I can override any of this. I'm just going to use the data. No, it didn't work. For self-esteem the idea was, you have a lot of confidence in your own ability and perception. And then it wasn't that either. So that's pretty fascinating. The other thing that was really interesting, though, was that -- and this was also part of Asch's original study. Asch also found that having one of the conspirators give the correct answer, while the rest of the conspirators give the incorrect answer, dramatically lowered conformity. So you know we're talking about a third of the time, or 75% of the time you mess up at least once, or you conform at least once. As long as somebody else was with you -
Asher Miller
Just one person?
Jason Bradford
Just one. Yeah. Just 5% to 10% of the participants conform to the rest of the group.
Asher Miller
If they just have one single other ally or person who saw what they saw?
Jason Bradford
Yes.
Rob Dietz
Right. So here we are living in Crazy Town because you two won out. It's okay for me to get out, too. I don't have to conform to it. I mean, seriously. And it says something, I think, to our listeners. Like, you could have some power if you're that one who's saying, "Hey, this isn't right. This isn't the way we should be operating our society." That other person who's kinda been thinking it. I mean, I've had that happen to me before. I remember talking to it was a doctor I was seeing. And they always ask the question, "Hey, what do you do for a living?" And I said, "Well, I work for this think tank, and we believe that there are limits to growth, you can't have infinite economic growth on a finite planet." And she goes, Yeah, I always kind of thought that, but everybody seemed to be just going with the program and I never questioned it. But I gotta look into that." I was like, "Oh."
Jason Bradford
Right.
Asher Miller
And he found out later she quit her job, she bought a homestead, she dropped out. She's a vet just taking care of her cattle. There's two things about that that I think are really profoundly important of these, for me, based on what you just shared, Jason. And that is, for our listeners who probably feel the way that we do, right, that you actually can play a role. You can have an influence if you're able, if you're in a position and courageous enough to sort of be the one to hold up your hand and say, "This is crazy. This shouldn't be this way." Or, "Actually, that's not right." Just your single act may bring other people out and it could tip things. That's one thing. The other thing is finding others and not feeling alone. Because we all need that.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, back to belonging, right?
Asher Miller
Exactly. So, you know, I think we have that with each other. I think we help each other sort of stay sane a little bit. It's part of what led us to want to do the podcast. And hopefully, many of our listeners have that in their own lives or can find that in their lives. Because it's hard to carry that completely on your own.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And I want to turn us to something that is almost like a symptom of us being in this position. Okay, we all scored so high on openness that we're able to not conform to the mainstream, programmed, high energy modernity, infinite economic growth paradigm, myth of progress stuff. We're like, okay, that doesn't work. We need a new way. Well, when you look at the problems out there, and you look at how severe they are, how bad we are on the climate front, how bad we are on the ecosystem breakdown front, the political polarization. There's kind of a logic to saying, "Well, we're fucked. There's nothing that we can do about this. And why do anything? It's probably too late. Eh, forget it." I want to say, and I think what we want to say to listeners is, Yeah, sure, maybe there is some logic there. That's a possibility. But there's really a lot of reason not to succumb to fatalism. Part of it is what you talked about before, Asher. That Holding the Fire podcast that we did with Indigenous people on like, how do you get through these times? It's not by being fatalistic.
Asher Miller
No. And it's also not by just conforming either. I mean, you could say that that's the easy path. But that's the path that's leading us to collective ruin. So it's somehow straddling those two extremes.
Rob Dietz
I found this quote by Howard Zen. You know, Howard Zen is the famous professor who wrote "The People's History of the United States." And yeah this quote, he said, "To be hopeful in bad times, is based on the fact that human history is not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And if we do act in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents. And to live now, as we think human being should live in defiance of all that's bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." I don't know that just really - I came across that quote recently. It struck me. It was like, Yeah, live how you want the world to be, even if you find that it's not that way.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. I find that the happiest I am is when I am doing something. You know, you don't know for sure if anything you do is gonna make that difference, right? You don't know. You're just a small being on this vast universe, on Earth. But you don't know either way. So there's always a level of this uncertainty. And you know, what's nice about having the openness personality trait is that I think you probably are a little bit more comfortable with that uncertainty. You don't have to have a resolution. You could sort of say, like, Okay, I'm trying and the outcomes is to be determined. So taking action, if you don't know it's going to succeed, it almost doesn't matter. You would like it to succeed. You would like it to make a difference. But it's almost like the idea that it's that process itself that you have to be in love with. You have to care about the fact that you are doing something. And you have to enjoy what you're doing because it has given you that positive feedback in the moment.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. So, sometimes I also look at -- try to look at -- it from a mountaintop viewpoint. If I were up there, and I could look back on my life and sort of just say, "Okay, what did I do?" And giving into fatalism and saying, "Oh well, we're all screwed." And, "I'm not doing anything." Like, I think that person on the mountain would be really disappointed. But even though things were going badly, if I were trying and I were putting my best foot forward and maybe trying to lead by example, or you know, whatever. Like you were saying, even finding pleasant fun activities that are still maybe not propping up the system as is -- that guy on the mountain would be, "Yeah. Alright. That guy lived a life. That guy tried." I think that would be pretty cool. The other possible way to do this would be to take action by going out and getting a pink-handled handgun and proving what a big man I am.
Jason Bradford
Which one should I get? You already got the pink handled one. What am I gonna get?
Asher Miller
Hello Kitty?
Jason Bradford
Oh, do they have those?
Asher Miller
I'm sure they do. Go to Amazon, man. They've got everything.
Rob Dietz
Take a personality test. Find out which traits match with which gun.
Asher Miller
Exactly. The gun personality test.
Jason Bradford
Okay, okay.
Melody Allison
That's our show. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, and you want others to consider these issues, then please share Crazy Town with your friends. Hit that share button in your podcast app or just tell them face to face. Maybe you can start some much-needed conversations and do some things together to get us out of Crazy Town. Thanks again for listening and sharing.
Jason Bradford
Hey, Crazy Townies, listen up. You want to make some big bucks and get your community up to speed on the topics we cover in Crazy Town? Well, we have a unique small business opportunity for you. Join the Crazy Town Escape Room Franchise, Inc., and set up an escape room in your community. The only way for your clients to get out is through a deep dive into the perils of overshoot, recognition of the false promise of ecomodernism, a rejection of consumerism, and a dismissal of the notion of human supremacy. Crazy Town Escape Rooms, a black hole for the American dream and a supernova for sustainability.
Asher Miller
And the coolest thing about it is, all you have to do is take a big hole and throw people in it.
