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