Julia Shaw || Humanizing Evil

a little disclaimer. This episode is a bit sensitive and we cover so many taboo topics of human nature. I find it absolutely fascinating, but I do suggest that people read a list of the topics that we're going to cover before they listen today's episode, as some of the topics may be upsetting to some people. So without further ado, let's begin the episode today. It's great to have doctor Julia Shaw on the podcast. Doctor Shaw is a psychological scientist.

She is best known for her work in the areas of memory and criminal psychology. In twenty seventeen, doctor Shaw co founded the memory science and artificial intelligence startup called spot Spot helps employees report workplace harassment and discrimination and empowers organizations to build a more inclusive and respectful work environment.

In twenty sixteen, she published her best selling debut book, The Memory Illusion, which has appeared in twenty languages, and in twenty nineteen she published her second international bestseller, called Evil, The Science behind Humanity's Dark Side. So great to chat with you today, doctor Julia Shaw. Wonderful to be here. We're trying all sorts of new things right now, so I hope backups and backups, so I hope that this works. I hope the video comes out. So you know, let's

explore the dark side of human nature today? Why not? Right? Yeah? One of my favorite topics. Yes, it's one of my favorite topics too. I really love how you approach the topic. It's very sensitive, it's very human, and that's something you really don't see a lot in discussions of quote evil. There's this human tendency for us to want to separate the other bad person from ourselves so much. Yet we still get all this enjoyment from watching like horror movie,

well some people not. I guess not everyone does, but some people I love horror movies. Do you like horror movies? I do like horror movies. I was just curious. I don't like war, but I do like psychological horror movies. Yeah, so how do you get interested in this topic? I'm interested in evil, well, criminal psychology more specifically when I was looking so taking it a couple steps back. Actually,

my dad is a paranoid schizophrenic. So since I was little, I realized that some people have a very different reality than others. And this is why I became interested in psychology. And along the way I discovered philosophy and had a real sort of take to the real interest in that as well. And once I sort of dove into the world of psychology, I decided that the most good, in my view, could come from doing or working with groups of people who not only know potentially harmful to themselves,

but also others. And that's where I landed with offenders. And the biggest question for me always was why do good in quotes slash boring people do terrible things? And I think this is something that is deeply, deeply fascinating also about sort of me as an individual, you, as an individual, people who we know have already you know, committed atrocity. How do you get from us to there, and I think evidence clearly suggests that you can, and that it's probably easier than you'd like it to be. Yeah,

for sure. And did you like I'm so wary of asking you too many personal questions, but did you ever through your life see some If I ask anything you don't feel comfortable answer, of course, please let me know. Of course, did you see ay common characteristics by looking at your father that kind of like maybe at first scared you or like, do you like be like, oh

my gosh, got to court in that off from my consciousness. Well, what's fascinating abou schizophrenia is that you build, especially what it's combined with paranoia, is that you see evil or stalkers everywhere, and so you know, it can be a checkout clerk at a grocery store, it can be a family member, it can be someone who's calling you know, those annoying people who call your phone to see you, know, to sell you stuff. They're all in on it, and

that it must be a deeply distressing way to live. Frankly, and in that moment, what you're doing is you're basically making out as if all these people are out to hurt you, and that they're if you will, even evil or part of some conspiracy of which and this is the darkness and piece of it right of which you are the center. That's but still it definitely it shows you how one person can look at anyone basically and see darkness even though other people around them don't see that.

And I think that that sort of reality crafting is really fascinating, and we all do it to some extent, so fascinating. We really do do it. We so easily say, oh, that person is such a narcissist or you know, he says after moser hair, Well, it's usually we say that about We usually say that about our exes. I think, like everyone, what do you say? Everyone has a psychopathic

or narcissistic ex in their heads. So, by the way, for people who are I can't see the video right now, who are listening to the podcast, I've put on a leather jacket today for this chat because I'm trying to look edgy. So I just wanted to people look like, yeah, that's what they do, that's what they Well, I was born in the wrong era, to be honest, I really do feel like I would have been like in Shannanah

that's a reference no one knows about. But there was a character in SHAWNAA called Bowser who was like, he always words leather jack and black hair. He always had a really deep voice. He'd be like, uh, anyway, the inspiration for the Mario Kart browser. Oh, that's very interesting question. I don't uh, I've never contemplated that. Maybe maybe you said a badass Yeah yeah, but I was like, also, did you say also or like also like Bowser or the other Bowser away like all of us. Okay, cool,

moving on from that. So you say, I mean, you point out a lot about human hypocrisy in your book, and it really got me. It really, it really just got me. Yeah, I mean the book blew my mind, you know. I'm like, you're right, Like, was that your intention to like completely turn people's normal assumptions on its head? That was the idea. I like challenging people's ideas about themselves in the world, and that was definitely And I also tried to and evil put things that are less

predictable into it. So there's definitely some thought experiments and some topics that don't seem to feature much in other books on evil or related books, and so that was the point was the sort of like cute aggression, like wanting to hurt your pet like that doesn't feed books on evil typically, but I think it's most fascinating when we see sort of every day experiences and we link them to more catastrophic, you know, harmful behavior, and you

look at what the underpinning sort of commonality is between those things. And that I think is among the most passing when you look at this research, is there are so many commonalities, and the reasons we do harm and the reasons we do what you might call evil are the same reasons that we do basically, you know, all kinds of other things. And so it's such a fundamental

part of being human to act badly. And then the question is just how do we act, How do we reduce the amount that we act badly, and how do we reduce our hypocrisies because we don't even act in line with our own morality, which I always find fascinating. So this is sometimes get accused of being a moral relativist, which I don't think I am, but I definitely see that subjectivity matters because everybody thinks that their morality is the right one, and I think that's a really important

thing to remember at all times. On the other hand, you know, the question becomes like, are you even living up to your own moral standards? And the answers most of us aren't, and so how do we change that? Yeah, that's a very good question. Now, you're not a big fan of calling people evil? No, and I know you're not, and you've made that point clear. How do you reconcile that with the existence of individual differences in certain personality ties?

Would you just say that these are all just dispositions that are on offer through the course of human evolution, and that there's no objective, you know, these are just judgments we put on these behaviors in different contexts. They could be something else like do you have any like boundaries at all in terms of what you're willing to not call evil or call evil? I guess that's what I'm asking. So for me, evil is the term that

we use to other people. Evil is something that we usually don't use to describe ourselves unless we're sort of you know, we use it almost jokingly and very light hearted settings, like oh I'm evil and eating a chocolate cake. You know. One big naughty which is obviously not what we're talking about, just a chocolate a chocolate bar before I talk to evil. But in sort of in reality, we don't really use that term in the way that

it's meant to be used to describe ourselves. We use it, and we don't just use it to describe friends and family either. We might even if they've acted abhorrently. We will say that they know they have done a thing, they have you know, stolen something or killed somebody even, but we won't say that they're evil necessarily or almost ever. So evil is this word that we seem to reserve for people who we want to humanize and who we want to set out as these monsters who potentially can't

be changed, who are maybe born that way. And that's what bothers me is that I don't think that exists. I don't think you're born evil. And so the very word itself, as soon as you're using it, it's cough that it's lazy. What you've done is you've said I'm going to, you know, distill everything that this person has done and thinks and feels into this one word. And it's so different from me that I don't even need to try and understand it. Sure, I definitely get that point.

But there's individual differences in some of these neurological associations with certain behaviors that people tend to label as more evil than others. So can we talk about some of the First of all, let's talk about the neuroscience of evil, you know, tell me, yeah, exactly. Let me tell me. By the way, I was expecting you to have a British accent. Yes, you live in London, right, yeah, I

don't know. I thought you were English for some reason. Well, it's because you lived in London, where I wish I had a British accent. Where are you from. I'm from Canada. Oh Canada, You're You're You're Canadian and Canadian half German. Okay, okay, cool, okay, with that interlude out of the way, because I really did. I was expecting a British accent. Okay. I'm not like disappointed. I'm just saying, yeah, I'm not disappointed, but okay, yeah,

so let's talk about this the neuroscience of evil. And then I thought like we could talk about that basic structure and then link it to the your brain on porn. I thought I thought we could link those two things together. Sure, yeah, sure, I mean in terms of the neuroscience. So in the book, I do a thought experiment, which is where I reconstruct

Hitler's brain. Now, of course that's impossible in terms of reality because he killed himself and we don't have his brain, but you know, if we were to, what would it potentially look like? Like? Are there is there something in his brain that made him the man he became? And basically going through sort of you know, sort of the questions around mental health, mental illness, you know, was he ever diagnosed with the mental mental illness? And not? Really

is the answer? So it's probably nothing related to that. Was it narcissism? Probably a little bit? Was he a psychopath? Probably not. I mean there's all well probably, there's lots of argument, but probably not. It wasn't a psychopath. Don't we need to reassess our definition of psychopaths? Well, psychopath? I mean, we do need to reassess our definition of psychopaths.

That's that's a whole other conversation. I think it's easy to assume that people who do terrible things are psychopaths, but actually when we get history, especially, I think leaders who do seem to be at least partially politically driven and potentially ecocentric, so they're sort of out for themselves.

But that doesn't make these psychopaths. I mean that those are still different things, right, But yeah, so so breaking down to what a Hitler's brain could have looked like, Basically, as far as I could tell, there's nothing specifically about his personality or about him as a person that should make us be able to identify let's say, my brain next to his brain, like you wouldn't. I don't think

you'd be able to tell difference. And I think that's really important to think about in terms of, you know, we sort of assume that there's sort of this E factor somewhere. I read a paper on It's called the E factor, and I couldn't tell if it was tongue in cheek or not. But obviously there's no such thing as an E factor, the evil factor. There's no EG about the dark core of personality. Well, there's a dark tetrads and dark triads, which is also a dramatic way

of describing a cluster of personality traits. But yeah, that's the sort of factor E was past. The truth of the matter is, like probably when we look at the brains of murderers more generally, there do seem to be some differences between psychopathic murderers and just normal murderers in terms of the brain structures. And so you can see some differences in the amygdalas, so where empathy is created

or is among other things created. You can see some differences in the prefrontal cortex or where decision making happens. But these are also offenders who have been caught. So these are psychopaths who are also murderers. So that's a specific category. And so there does seem to be a correlation with brain structures there. But it's not unreliable enough that you could ever just appear into someone's brain and say, ooh, this person's going to become a terrible person. So interesting,

so become a terrible person. But there are things that will make it more likely that you'll have certain behaviors. Sure surely you're not saying there's no connection between the brain and behavior. There is, of course, But I think that the idea that we could either use it to brain scams to filter out people who might be at

risk two after the fact sort of excuse behavior. So this is the idea of sort of putting brain scans into court cases and saying, well, this person was a psychopath they had to kill, which of course also is ridiculous. It's just not that simple a connection between brand and behavior. And so it's in terms of structures, not obviously the brain causes all behavior, but in terms of you know, looking at specific things and predispositions, they don't necessarily result

in bad behavior. So interesting because people try to use the brain to predict intelligence levels, you know, or I mean, it's like anything else people try to use now machine learning algorithms to try to predict you know, how does the brain can we predict creativity, you know, my field or genius? Yeah, it seems like predicting genius is probably as elusive as predicting evil in the brain, predicting good

behavior is elsa's predicting bad behavior. So so being a normal laureate probably also can't generally see if someone's going to apply, even if they are intelligent, that they're going

to apply in ways that we consider good. So, I mean, this isn't to undersell the fact that there are predispositions in the brain that make it more likely you're going to make what society generally considers bad decisions, so having damage to your prefrontal cort because again back to that sort of you are going to make more decisions, and so that might include, you know, letting a fight get out of control and you know, attempting grieves bodily harm

and in the process murdering them. So I mean that's more likely to happen if you're less able to manage your emotions, if you're less able to make good decisions, and that is something that from small on you are you can be predisposed to be so, but it doesn't mean that you're going to engage in necessarily in bad decisions in the way that we would consider evil. So it makes sense so much nuance, It does make sense. I appreciate. I appreciate nuance, I really do. And I

appreciate that the nuance you put into this book. I was thinking about linking this a little bit to what excessive por in viewing seems to do the brain and then the difference correlation and causation. Sure, yeah, could you talk a little bit about that. You have a whole section on pornography, and you really do add the nuance there and I know this is the hot topic, but yeah, let's talk a little about what the what is the

latest research say on whether or not pornography makes you evil? Ah, So the link between pornography pornography was a fascinating thing to research. So when you write a book, or when I write books, at least, I don't like knowing exactly what the outcome of my book is going to be. In other words, so when I was writing, when I started telling people that I was writing a book on evil, people kept asking me write it from the beginning, so

you know, what's what's the take home message? And I went in sort of saying, you know, I want to examine the humanity behind people who do terrible things. I want to try and look for it everywhere, so not be dissuaded just because someone said something terrible. I'm going to just try my best to look for the humanity and look for the reasons why, rather than just saying

this person's a monster, because that's too easy. And so that I knew, but I didn't know what sort of the pathway would be and which research I would end up really like getting stuck into the process and poorn the research on and if I'm fascinating because it's a place where it seems many researchers automatically assume that porn is bad and there's no good reason to assume that.

I think this is a from a long line of sort of assumptions about what healthy sexual behavior means, what heteronormative you know, what we should and shouldn't be into. And this is why I us to talk about fetishes in the book, because I think there's a lot of oh, we'll get there, we'll get there, we'll get we'll get there. So there's a lot of pressures who, you know, live out your sexual life in a very specific way, and so as soon as you deviate from that, it's perceived

to be bad. And so when you look at the research on porn, it basically it's hard to not find articles that say porn is bad, even though I don't think. I mean, that can't be right. Is basically what I ask myself in the book, because basically everybody watches porn, and most most people do not become, you know, sex offenders.

Most people do not go down this dark and nefarious pathway and get more and more desensitized and suddenly requires sort of this incredibly sensational porn or for that matter, you know, actual sex to match the porn. You really think like that that many people? What do you think you're talking like over seventy eighty? What number would you say of people that you encounter in your daily life? Like, I mean, what are you saying? Like? What percentage do

you think it really is? It's really hard to get acurate number for that because a lot of people are really keyj about things like porn, and getting good samples for that is really really hard. And to be honest, I don't actually know what the current numbers are in different press of the world, and I'm sure that they differ wildly. But if I were to guess, I would say, for men's close to eighty percent who Hobbly mother of coneh And then like, what percentageould you say for women? Lower?

So I guess it's closer to twenty or thirty, but still a lot. And obviously sometimes you might watch porn together. So and this this includes manga, This includes you know, animations, This includes all kinds of different things that we might consider sexually arousing. Might include stories as well. I mean, fifty sit a grey was a bestseller. That's definitely a type of porn, just not in the way that we

necessarily think about it. Intuitively. It has so many deep implications to think, I don't know, I don't I can't even articulate. Well, I think that's so many deep implications. But then you think there's that big of a gender imbalance, like I mean, eighty twenty is like, that's dramatic. But I mean the reason that I mean there definitely is

a difference in genders. Again I'm guessing these stories, but the reason is, I mean, frankly, because porn's wait for guys, especially when we're talking about sort of filmed porn, ninety nine percent is from the male point of view. For guys with you story storylines and positions and things that are specifically for the mail gaze and four guys. That being said, well for heterosexual or for gay guys. Oh, I thought you about like the number four some forn

four men? Gotcha? Four? Yeah, I gotcha. There is so good porn emerging for women. Also visual porn. Yeah, there's a really good director who's called er collste It's a female directed whole series of porn, which is exceptional. If you're a woman anyone. Look, it's some porn. I have heard that there's porn for women. Even you have to say, that makes it clear that the default for porn as men.

You're right, You're right. No, well, I think there should be more important that there's enjoyable for as many people as possible. There should not. I definitely agree with that. But look, if you're a woman and you enjoy porn that you think it's more for men, they shouldn't be shamed either, right, and women do watch porn for men, But I think one of the reasons that the gender differences explained is because of the audience that it's made for.

That's not to say that porn doesn't have implications, of course it does. Let's talk about the implications. Yeah, So what research did find is that people who watch a lot of porn, especially violent porn, that that does seem to basically it does desensitize you a bit and you need you do need more of it to get it off. And but again these are very specific samples, and almost

exclusively this research is done on men. So I actually don't think it came across a single study that effectively looked at the sort of down regulation or potential down regulation of sort of sex as a stimulus in women. So whether women need more and more intense porn, that's interesting. So that's an open question, I think. So let's get a grant porn for a woman. It's a great grand idea, great great study idea. But I guess the take on message here I'm curious is well in linking back into evil.

So some people assume that watching porn is evil in and of itself, which I think it can be. Frankly, So depending on you know, how it's source, depending on how it's film, depending on depending on whether people are there voluntarily, you might be contributing to things like sexual slavery, which is something that you know, it's very difficult to regulate on the Internet, and to know where some of

your porn is coming from not impossible. This is where you can do be an ethical consumer, just like in everything else, you can, you know, pick platforms that you know are more likely to wait. So you're okay, labeling certain behaviors is evil, just not the people? Is that is that right? No behavior is also I would not label oh okay, because you just labeled sexual slavery evil. You said something you said, Well, some things that do

contribute to evil, such as sexual harm harm. Okay, so so yeah, so sex sexual slavery is actually one of those topics that for me is the hardest to process but understood under yeah, rightfully. So, I mean there's some topics. I don't know fifty percent of the topics in your book. I had a trouble stomaching, to be honest, But the point, right, it was? It was the point. Yeah, So the finish

up the porn conversation. Basically, if you get stuck into really violent porn, it might meet you slightly more likely to also want that offline, and it can have an impact on your brain. But overall, unless you're binging on this stuff, okay, probably you're going to be fine. And probably the stuff you watch on the internet is not going to correlate to stuff that you want to do offline, and you're almost certainly not going to become a sexual

predator just because you watch things like BDSM online. Oh now that's a whole other topic, right, yeah. I mean you write you have a whole chapter about kink. Do you think that's something that stigmatized in our society? Oh? Totally. I think that the pictures that we have when we think of the king community, when we think of people who are interested in things like BDSM or other kinds

of fetishes. Now this is focusing on fetishes between consenting adults, which is separate from you know, other things or not diferent chapter, that's a different chapter, correct, But I mean just like, I mean, even homosexual activities are still you know, eroticized beyond what hatersexual activities are, so like even just being queer, even just being like two women in let's go back to porn, and a porn film is inherently

going to feel different, feel setishized immediately. Yeah. But so with BDSM, I think the question there's there's lots of people I think wrestle with us themselves a lot, so they a if given that huge amount. So about fifty percent of people in surveys say that they have engaged in at least one BDSM related activity. So it's spanking, our handcuffing, or sort of more specific stuff about sort

of being dominant or submissive. And that's again, this is why I think fifty Shades of Gray took off is because this is a fantasy that a lot of people have and people do engage in this behavior, and so the question then becomes for themselves, I think, why am I interested in this? So this is sort of the joke is sometimes make because you know, can I be a feminist and interested in BDSM? You talk about that

in the book Yeah I do. Yeah, and the juxtaposition between sort of how you feel about yourself and sort of your values and how the whole point and the reason why BDSM is so attractive isn't because you're into violence. It's because people want to hand over control and they don't want to have to think, and that makes it easier to enjoy the moment if you will or enjoy

this sexual activity. So there was this study that you talk about from twenty sixteen on deviant sexual interest in the general population, and you find there is decreasing interest as these different this list you had. Now, I'm not going to go through this list and ask you to rank your numbers. Don't worry about it, but can try to just read some so the audience has an idea. But okay, well, first thing is number one, you're watching

Unsuspecting Stranger Wally Undress. So that one actually more than half right, would find that somewhat arousing. By the way, this is a score from very repulsive to ranging to very arousing. And so it turns out a lot of majority of people might find that Number two, you're touching a material like rubber, PVC or leather, so people find that arousing, like a high proportion of people. Mm hmm, okay, cool. Hey, I look, I'm not judgmental. You're touching or rubbing a

stranger who is not expecting it. That seems wrong now, but you're saying a lot of people, what do you say, isn't that a crime? Fracturism is a crime. But it's the idea still the idea it finds a lot of people find arousing. Well, that's just doesn't that create an quite a conflict? And I mean, are people I find the sexual to mean fascinating? And I had justin Laimoer on the show talking about sexual fantasies and how most people don't actually enact their sexual fantasies or even would

want to. Is the idea that because these things are wrong, like that's why it's it's almost like a paradox of a sense like the second it wasn't wrong anymore, you know, that we wouldn't want to do it I or find it as arousing. I don't know. I'm just being there's definite an element of that again, and it's and so in the book, I explained that the research on this show is that it seems to be about rule breaking, okay,

and out of norms. And what I mean one of the biggest social norms is, you know, don't have sex with people across me at all times. And so the sort of idea of like boundaries and you know, inhibition, we're constantly inhibiting ourselves and in the bedroom that's just not as effective. And so by intentionally thinking in thoughts that can help us break out of that sort of inhibition that stops us from having these these feelings and

experiences otherwise. So these these statements seem to escalate quickly to like like rae, if I may be honest territory Now, okay, so you're being spanked being or whip by soul. That sounds like standard BDSM. That can be very consensual. But the very next one is you're forcing someone into sexual activity. So I guess the less people find that that's the point there, and then you are imagining yourself as someone in the opposite sex. So that's the less people find

that arousing. I'm just going to stop there. I'm not going to read the next one not loud. But okay, people, but isn't that a good teaser for your book though? For people who are curious what the next one is? That I would not read out loud because I don't think I could say it without my face turning bright red. Turn by Julia's excellent book. And it's on page one thirty three. Okay, is that fair? Is that fair? Julia? And then figure out if you're kinky or if you're

just average? Yes? Yes, yes, I mean this gets it escalates. Okay, cool, So this does segue into another taboo topic. Look, I figured like, if I'm going to talk to you, I might as well bring up all these topics in these taboo topics because or else, what's the point of talking to you, right, Like, I mean about your book. You know, we could talk his friends. It's not about that stuff. But anyway, let me just take a bank, Let me just let me just take I'm like sweating, you can

do this, you can do this. Okays are hard to talk about. That's why that's why it's so interesting to do. So that's why it's so hard to do. So, I mean, it's the lion I sometimes us is that, you know, the hardest thing to talk about are often the most important as well. And it doesn't make it any less hard, doesn't make it any less gut wrenching when you read you know, Creates in my book and go, oh, this

makes me really uncomfortable. But it's still I think it's really useful to face these sort of taboos like right on and to look at you know, how do how do we understand them? This is the point of your book, and you make that so clear, and you and in the conclusion you restate that, and I really appreciate it. You said the point of facing these sides head on is also to maybe take a look at ourselves right like kind of shine the mirror on. So I really

appreciate that. But even with everything you just said, it's still not easy for me to then segue into rape fantasies. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, even then it's still like, okay, let's talk about rape fantasies. Okay, Now you're saying that there's a high proportion of women who have rape fantasies, and and then you broke it down into different types. Do you mind talking a little bit

about what that research shows. Yeah, So, as most of the research in this book, I mean, I've sort of taken what I would consider sort of the best of other people's race and put it into a book to try and make a coherent narrative, to try and explain the little piece of human condition. So this isn't my research. It's research I've found, and research on rape fantasies. This is something that I've wondered about a lot. So this plays into porn actually back to that this place into

sort of thisted. Maybe we're going to like discover this is all connected. We're gonna have a new theory of evil, not evil, of humanity, of humanity. Yeah. But so we see you know, rape scenarios and porn for example, and the sort of this idea that it seems to turn a lot of people on to think about forced sex,

and but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. And so I think it's particularly curious that a lot of women seem to have rape fantasies and a most other women don't know that, and so people feel incredibly alone in this fantasy. They feel incredibly confused by the fact that they are turned on by this again picture in their heads of non consensual sex, and so it can be quite an isolating experience and it seems to effect or seems to have happened to a huge proportion of women.

And so the question is why why would woman ever fantasize about being raped? And the answer goes back into the sort of BDSM stuff is almost certainly so when you look at what those fantasies actually look like and who is forcing themselves on whom it's usually I mean, obviously it's a hottie because it's my fantasy, and so

it's a hot person. It's someone who you know turns me on, and who there and who is a huge proportion of rape fantasies are like that, and they culminate and sort of, you know, finally they can express their true passion for each other. And then there's a sort of other piece of it, which is the darker stuff where people you know, fantasize about being abducted or people breaking into their houses and dark it is dark shit,

but it lives in your fantasy entirely. And again this is where probably the reason that we have these, even rape survivors, So even people who have been raped and their fantasies unfortunately do align more with what actual rape looks like. They're less likely to be the cute, romantic kind or cuter. So again still rape a fantasy, however, But but there it gets darker and people still have them.

Is probably because of it's handing over control. It's again the sort of being told what to do, being forced if you will, into pleasure. Now so, but in terms of the percentages of like the theme, so the most likely one is the first one you were kind of saying that is that right? Is there like a general pattern like we're sussing here that like the darkest of the dark leg is not as prominent as more of

the lighter of the dark. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, So I mean that the most common ones are involving people who are not supposed to be with, rather than sort of someone again breaking into your house and kidnapping you. But it does, it does get dark, and some people have a mixture, I mean, people have both. But this in no way means that people want this to happen to them. This is this is really important

piece of this. It's really important. With lots of porn that we watch, we don't ever want it experience that. With these fantasies, we also don't ever want to experience them. They're they're created specifically in our fantasies, and that's where you want to stay. Well, don't Certain women though, want like they can like role play with a with a lover that in a consensual, non consensual way, do you know what I'm saying, Like just like to try to live out those fantasies, but in a way they know

they're ultimately safe. Right, But then and that's the difference of the fantasy often is that the fantasy is nonconsensual, whereas of course you are consenting to role playing and usually you have also you know, removing consent and stopping the situation, and so you know that you're actually safe, and that is of course very very different from actual right or even what happens in these fantasies. Of course,

we're both agreed on that. You were both agree with that. Okay, Okay, I'm trying to like just I'm trying to like connect dots, do you know what I mean? And all because there's so much there's so much to talk about in your book. There's I mean, you bring up so many quarters of human Uh now I'm gonna say evil. I'm not going to say evil. Not naiiness doesn't feel like it captures it either, though. It's like, I don't know what it is. It's harm, human harm. Okay, let's go with harm. Yeah,

let's go with human harm. Okay. So let's transfer now let's segue to pedophiles. Okay. So the reason why I'm connecting these dots is because it seems like you're saying we should have more like to have the thoughts, you know, the fantasies or the urge is not the same thing as being a pedophile. I think you were trying to make a point. You made a point in your book about humanizing pedophiles. Can you tell me more about the key distinction there that you wanted to tell our audience.

So the biggest thing is that we need to humanize everybody, and so that includes everybody. And I think this is where people sometimes go, well butt and they will exclude pedophiles, so they exclude terrorists. That's such a good point, such a good point because I kind of just did that. So no, it's a really good point, okay. And so it's just making sure that we don't forget that, you know,

we're all human beings. And so with in that also taking the same approach again looking at why people do certain things, why do we have certain fantasies, at what point do they become harmful to others or ourselves? And

with so the book I ended up. I didn't go in with the plan to write a whole chapter on pedophiles, but I did because there's such an incredible connection between the public sort of perception of evil and pedophiles, so like it's almost synonymous in most people's minds and sort of I mean, if you look at statistics in the UK, for example, about half of the population wants the death penalty back just for child sex defenders. So I mean,

we really do monsterize this particular group of people. There's like a special place reserved in hell for profiles. Yeah. Yeah, and in prisons they're treated worse than most other I mean, it's like across the board, it's considered sort of the

worst kind of predilection. And in the book, what I wanted to go through and the reason I separated this chapter from the other sex chapter, which is when we were just talking about it talks about fetishes and even talks about zoophiles, so people who are sexually interested in animals, because that's a different fast forwarding LGBT issues I talk about. It's my list, It's on my list too, it's all my listen to. Okay, we'll get But all of those things are sort of related to each other, and then

there's sort of pedophilia, which is related but different. I also didn't want to make the classic mistake of putting into the same chapter on homosexuality anything about pedophilia, because that is already unfortunate linked people's minds, in some people's minds as well anyway. So what I wanted to make as a point, and which is something that I've frankly always found, I've always struggled to understand why people find that someone who's a pedophile that that is the ultimate evil,

because who choose to be that? Frankly, like, I have so much sort of I feel so bad for people who whose primary sexual interest is in a group of people who all of society agrees is completely innocent and off limits, and to have that in your manufactur I mean, that must be an incredibly difficult way to live. I just just a pause on that point a second. I

agree with you. I agree that I have thought thoughts such as that in my life, and and I've had a conversation with my friends, like when I do like gratitude be a positiveology to gratitude exercises. Sometimes I'll just have like, like gratitude exercises like that God, God didn't like make me a serial killer or like but and it sounds almost funny, but it's like, I really do

think like that as well. Like I'm like, I'm so grateful I don't have certain urges because it would make that, like it must be hard being a serial killer who doesn't want to kill, or maybe a psychopath or a psychopath. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't mean. I guess in order to earn the title serial killer, you have to have serially killed no good point. Good point, okay, but maybe bridges or violence that you're suppressing and your management issues.

So yes, I see the point of sort of not having these Well, I s quit while I was ahead with that point. But do you see it, but we're saying we're on the same page. Yes, yes, but it's people get so caught up in the atrocy that is,

you know, child sex beenning. And then this is what I also really wanted to sit out in the book, is that pedophilia and related pelias, So a febophilia, for example, as a primary sexual interest in teenagers, febophilia as a primary sexual interest in between, so eleven to thirteen, and then pedophiles. I mean, the term is specifically used to refer to people who are interested predominantly in the people under the age of puberty, right, so the pre pubescent. Wait,

what's what's like? Isn't there like a thing from fourteen to seventeen fbophiles? So was Jeffrey eppste mean, technically file whatever you just said. But everyone's calling him a pedophile in the news. Is that technically technically incorrect? That's technically incorrect. And I'd say the overwhelming majority of people we call pedophiles aren't they are They're not even necessarily a f epiphile. So this is where it becomes there's even more nuance.

Is that just because people sexually assault children or people under the age of consent in whatever country we live in, because that's also different in different countries. But it doesn't mean that we are predominantly interested in that category of people. And so this is where we need to divorce the idea of a sexual preference or a primary interest from behavior.

So lo most pedophiles. So in polls that researchers have done, they found that about two percent of people, when given complete anonymity, confess that they've had some fantasies or have would be interested in sexual activity with minors. Now, this doesn't surprise me at all. Given the ranking of teenage porn or is considered teenage porn or labeled teenage porn, it's always like the top three. Yeah, I was so surprised. I read your book. You said three percent in England

or something like that. I think it was three percent in England. I was like, what is up with those Brits? Yeah, but Germany had a similar percentage and as far as there's no reason to think it should be different anywhere else. Well, that's so interesting. You think some of it has to do with the sexualization of teens in pornography, You think

that's a big the other way round. I think that the fact that people look for teen teenage porn suggests that a lot of people already have sort of reference necessarily, but they are interested in viewing materials that depicts people who are very young. I wouldn't be a surprised if we had like an evolutionary psychologist on here, you know what I mean, you know what they would say. They'd be like, well, that makes evolutionary sense, yeah, because they

can have babies and so go for it. Yeah, which which I mean so many other issues with but yes, but that being said, I mean, we can intuitively understand the difference between someone who's primarily interested in four year old and someone who's primarily interested in fourteen year olds. Like that seems like an obvious and important distinction, and yet we routinely fail to make it. And you know, the diagnosis and the prognosis for these different kinds of

categories of primary sexual interests are totally different. And you're much higher risk if you're actually pedophile than if you're in a febophile because basically, if you're interested in, or if you have a primary interest in teenagers, you could probably get away with adults who just look young. And so there are ways to manifest their ways to live that out without ever having to go into underage territory.

And so this is the other the final piece of this is but just that most people who have a primary sexual interest in children never live that out. They basically suffer in silence if you want, They don't actually, as far as we know, engage in any sexual harm towards towards miners. And some people who do engage in sexual activity and exploit miners have no primary interest in

young people. They're just easy targets. So this is the other piece, is that sometimes you're just you know, a bad person if you will, or someone who's making very bad sexual decisions and engaging in crimes, and you're targeting vulnerable people, and vulnerable people are disproportionately going to be younger. Wait so there are so you think there are bad people, then you know I was not going to look out slide.

You knew I wasn't going to let that slide. So saying like that, in the UK, for example, there has been some inquiries into child sexual abuse in children's homes.

Australia has had a similar thing, and there's basically there's these records of hundreds of thousands of children being abused in children's homes, and with that, there might be some of people who are abusing these children who are pedophiles, but some of them are also just opportunists, and again they're more likely to be able to exploit these particular

individuals because they have power over them. I just wanted to make sure that we have a real conversation about you know, what is cintophilia, What does that actually mean? Do people actually engage? Who is a child sex offender? How do we and ultimately where we should be going with it is, you know, risk management, because dehumanizing people who have always been there and will always be there. There will always be pedophiles in our societies. We can't

just wish them away. And you know, there are brothers and our dads and our moms and our sisters. Like they're not someone over somewhere, they're real people, and we need to give them a way to live their life in a way that doesn't involve offending. And we're not doing that very well right now, if at all. In other words, we need treatment options and helplines and other ways in which basically where people that seek help if they have inappropriate because if we I'm processing, I'm processing.

So that's why I'm like, my eyes are like I'm

just I like to think deeply about things, especially sensitive topics. Okay, so yeah, so your argument is like, if we have more dare I say, compassion for some of these individuals and we help them, I mean, we're also helping the world because we're I mean, we're lowering that there are better ways, And another way putting that is, there are better ways of lowering the incidences rate, then how we currently treat them, Like, there are other things that we

could do, and perhaps you know, helping them non judgmentally find other outlets would ultimately reduce the incidence rates and help the world. Is this along the lines of the spirit of what you're saying. Yeah, I think right now, we pretend that the people we love and know can't be pedophiles, that benefits are evil monsters hiding away somewhere in a basement, and that they come and predate on

our children. The most I mean, statistically, the most likely person to sexually assault your child is your if you have a brother, a male relative like that is Hans down the most likely person to sexual assault your child, like not strangers in dark corners, and so I think that the biggest thing there is. Yeah, compassion, sure, but also just I think right now we as adults are putting children at risk because we're too scared to talk

about these really important issues. And that's just not good enough. And we're failing and putting a huge amount of people at risk because punishing people after the fact that's not going to cut it. We need to prevent it. You have so much compassion, like you versal compassion. Where did you get that from? Did did you like when you were growing up in like elementary school or whatever? Did you like volunteer for organizations? Like what were you like as a kid rights act? Yeah? I mean you had

your your bursting with this. It's it's a wonderful character trait of yours. I'm saying this in a very positive way. Of course, you meet a lot of people who have the ew factor, as you talk about in the book. Immediately they won't even like talk about this kind of stuff or even entertain that I'll have any compassion for some You somehow overrode that. Was it a process? Is that a fair question? Like? Was it a process? Is

this something you always have had I don't know. So it's what you're expressing is what I call it empathy shaming or curiosity shaming. Even so, like even just the idea that you're thinking about why someone might be doing these bad things also implicates you as like sort of the sort of situation at the family dinner table bringing up you know, I wonder where people become petiphile. Everyone sort of shuts down and goes, what are you seeing? You know that, are you a pedophile? And immediately or

shamed out of it. You're not even allowed to pursue the sort of haught of you know, why someone might end up the way that they We don't think I'm empathy shaming you at all. No, no, no, no, not good, okod I'm not. I'm the opposite. I'm the opposite. Yeah, you know, but I think we need to be very careful. Let's do that. And I think a lot of people do that and we all feel righteous and who we

shame people about? So this is also where I think sometimes sort of being left and being sort of liberal and academic, there's this idea of you know, oh no, no, we don't shame people for thinking, you know, different things, for we don't shame offenders, for example, But who do

we choose to shame instead? I mean, we shame republicans. Potentially, we shame you know, it's okay to ridicule people who think differently than us in political ways or who or who are racists like this is the other thing, like to dehumanize racists like that's it's still dehumanizing people. We need to be very careful not to do that. In terms of where I got it from, I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm an alien visiting the planet because I do just sort of want to want to understand.

I don't know. I take an interest in why people think and do the things they do, and I don't have the sort of I don't know, No, no, I know, I know like we both we have, we both have we share a ravenous curiosity. You actually had a cool phrase. You said something like curiosity shaming as well was another thing,

and I really resonated with that. I really resonated with that, because I this is why I do this podcast is I am so curious about everything and I don't want to like I can only talk about this topic or that, like I'm no, I want to know you know it, doesn't you know? So no, I get it, I do get it. It's just it's just it's rare. It's quite quite frankly, it's rare because people have that ooh factor, as you talk about. So, speaking of the ooh factor,

let's talk about beast reality. Why not? Uh So, I'm going to ask a question that's gonna like as soon as I ask this question, people half of my audience is going to be like, eh so, but I'm going to just do it. What do we know that whether research shows and why some animals are prettier than others because we talk about that in your book what makes an animal pretty? I don't know what makes animal sexy? It even right? Yeah, so, I mean it is. It

is a question. So the research people are pulling their advertising right now. It's always a risk when you hang out with me. Endorsements gone. The animal rights people, no, we're no longer supporting this podcast. Well, I mean, in some ways these people would identify probably as animal rights people because they love love the animals, gromantically love the animals to the point that they consider them their partners. So they certainly don't want harm to come to them

at least in their minds. Now, research on uctiality or zoophilia having a primary sexual interest in animals has not been researched extensively, but there has been a bit of research on it now in terms of how you get into circles like this. Shocked frankly that a ZUFA community has let researchers in, but they have, and I mean even I mean you can find these individuals who are interested in this kind of thing for us online on

message boards communities, but to actually show up. So this is what researchers did, is they actually showed up in this barn basically, and it's always well, I got to go what the animals are. And so what they found was that basically people gave the same reasons as to why animals are sexy as why humans are sexy. And they'll say things like it was her eyes or the way she looked at me, it was you know, the

way that he his personality is what's so attractive. And this is what there does seem to do, this massive overlap between the reasons we fall in love with humans and the reasons that are very small man or but some people say that they fall in love with animals, and what zoo falls generally say is that unlike humans, animals the sort of this feeling at least of unconditional love, or this feeling that they don't have some of the

complications that come along with humans. Now, they also don't have the ability to give consent, which is an important problem. Isn't that important? I was thinking of that when I read your book. Yeah, and there there have been and there still are, I'm sure in the World's Animal Brothels. Yeah, I don't think I got into in the book because there's actually no academic rese Are you serious? Like a

barnyard of serious? But I mean I've had friends come back from Mexico and they'll talk about the donkey shows. I mean, if that sounds oppeelia, then I don't know, or certainly baciality then so am I being Wait? So if I like make fun of that? And am I actually am I like being a bad person? Am I shaming someone's preference? Like it should? Should I really examine my and some morality that I have? Is that? Do you know what I mean? Like? Yeah, is that what

you're saying? You you are? I was kind of like making jokes about dropping the soap in prisons, which is basically making jokes about people getting raped in prisons, which I would not do. I would not make a joke about that. But the idea of a animal brothel, it's like comedy too though, like if you were a comedian, that would not be off limits for the comedian to be honest, like, And the question is, and the reason I find animal brothels fascinating is so there were some

in Europe until recently. They got closed down only a couple of years ago. And the reason they could exist the reason that they weren't considered animal views, which is a fascinating ethical and legal problem. They got rated it well, it wasn't so it wasn't because of a lack of clientele that they closed down. It was because of other issues. But what happened. The reason they could exists at all is because the way that they structured it, mostly allegedly

at least, was that the animals would mount you. So the idea was that you're not raping the animal because the animal is the one who's choosing to engage in sexual activity with you. That makes sense, So you present and then the animal decides whether or not to engage, And so that was the way that they got around this idea of consent and animal abuse. Super sketchy still in terms of legality of consent, but I thought it was an interesting way of trying to get around that.

It's very interesting. I have to say, I'm feeling a little bit of the ooh factor that you talked about in your book. I wanted to be transparent about that. Feeling a little nauseous. You have that a bit pale. You were getting cought and plusted before and now are getting pale. Wow. Conversation for you. Wow, Now do you think you can be Can you study this and talk about so much that you become desensitized to some of

this stuff? Do you do you think that's possible? Like like like talking about like murders and you know, the other topics in the book. You know, there's certainly there're certain Like in reading your book, I felt as though the chapter on sex slavery hit you like there was a different tone to that chapter, if I may be honest, and just my perception of the book, it's like the rest of it, the book sort of had a very non judgmental tone, like a very like you know, what's

so evil about having sex with a turtle? But then but then you know it might be hard with the show, but but they're animals too, just like us. But then I just got to that chapter and it was like I almost felt like there was a line in the tone of your writing. And I'm just wondering, like just speaking you as a human, like, do you feel like some topics. I don't know, I don't really know what I'm saying. I don't really know. I just am saying

an observation of when I read that. When I read that chapter, there was it felt like there was a lot there's a little more judgment about people who sell people into slavery, like like even your like WTF now, Like I felt like if I said WTF about the Donkey set, like you'd be like, Scott, don't shame, don't shame the donkey the Donkey lovers. But but but it almost feels warranted to say WTF about people who sell people in Like I'm WTF about it rightly, So I

feel like it's WTF. But anyway, what do you think about everything I just said? Because I don't really even know what I'm saying, But I just wanted to get your thoughts. I think that, I mean definitely. The section on sexual slavery and slavery in general was one of the hardest for me to write, Like even reading the statistics, I mean, there is a shocking amount of slavery still happening in the world. I shocked, Yeah, I mean it is.

The numbers are astonishing, the amounts of sexual slavery. It's all just like awful, frankly. And so the fact that this happens and the reasons, and I think this is where my empathy does drift, is that the reasons why people do things like sell people into slavery are entirely

profit based. And that's what I think. In some ways it has less of an excuse frankly, like there are other ways to make that it's hard, like if you and of course there's options for all of these kinds of bad behaviors I talked about the book, but having systems that also then over, you know, over huge groups of people have this amount of devastating impact. That's sort of levels of selfishness compounded that are unfortunately facilitated by

the way that our economies are structured. They're facilitated by the values that we're given by, you know, things like capitalism. And so it's not that people you merge out of nowhere and suddenly, you know, want to sell slaves. They come out of a society and you know, they have their brains, and some of them might be psychopathed, some of them mark but I mean it's so they're not isolation. They're not if you want one hundred percent to blame.

But it does feel like they're more to blame perhaps than for some other kinds of activities I talk about the book. Yeah, and it's also harder to thank you for making that point in such a in the way that only doctor Julia Shall could make it. I'm just thinking, like there are other examples in the book where you certainly bring up like the hypocrisies of us in that chapter,

I think that that was missing. So it's almost like, no, these people are legit evil, but you didn't I know you didn't say that, But I'm saying like, at least like in other chapters, for instance, like in the in the in the Beast Reality one, you made a great point, like you've got me thinking, actually, you've really got me thinking about whether or not I want to be a vegetarian. What do you say? What do you say? Chapter you want to be a vegetarian? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm serious. Well,

well not, I don't love them in that way. But but you made some good analytical points, right, So if even though I wanted to throw up, you made me like think like huh, I like, I want to throw up thinking about so like a person having a loving sexual encounter with a donkey, you know, caressing their donkey tail or whatever. And I get sick of that thought. But then I'll be like, oh, that's disgusting. But then I'll go in my freezer and eat a cow. Now

what's worse. I've never thought of that before, because I mean, that's that spot thought, never spontaneous under my head. So you made me go down some pathways of thinking, which I think was your goal in writing that book. But you're right. I mean, you're not wrong. At least. We are hypocrites in a lot of ways. We are, and I mean the reason so in the book I talked

about predictability earlier, and I hate a predictable book. So I hate it when you know exactly where the next topic is to be, exactly where it's going to go and so part of the reason I liked writing this is that I couldn't go so broad, so I could go and link things that seem completely desperate. So link you know, terrorism with you know, keet aggression with you know, indirectly, but still like they're all there and they're also somehow connected.

And yeah, I mean, in terms of the factor in eating animals and hypocrisy, I think we need to be careful on the one hand, because I think calling people hypocrites has especially recently with people like Greta Thumburg Thumburg Thumburg she. I mean, people are using the sort of examples of oh, you know, she sails across the world instead of flying, but then she eats something wrapped on plastic.

What a hypocrite. That's not how it works. I mean, that's weaponizing this idea of hypocrisy as if it's not something that every single human being does, which we do.

The point is that we minimize our hypocrisies and that we can live more in line with our morality, and that you know, ultimately, shaming people for doing things that are obviously good for everybody is entirely out of a I think a realization, even if it's a deep, dark working one that we don't explicitly understand, that that's obviously the right thing to do and we should be doing

that too. I mean, this is how I feel about veganism. Obviously, we should all be vegan for so many reasons, and the fact that we shame vegans is because ultimately we know they're right, and we feel bad that we haven't made that decision, and so we double down and we like, you know, it's part of my culture and I have to and no you don't. And so I think that this is where a lot of people we double down on things and then we just don't change your behaviors.

We should. You're right. I mean I was eating beef today for lunch and reading your book, and I had this moment I never had in my life where I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm eating a cow like I'm eating and a thing that was alive. I felt horrible. I felt like I wanted to apologize to someone. It's just I know your book has really has really

profoundly influenced me, so I want to thank you. There's a point you made about how just the culture an environment can really influence how we normalize some of these things or how we escalate some of these things. You used rape culture as example, So first of all, do you think you think rape culture is a thing? Do you think it's a thing? And how does that contribute

to evil? So a couple of pieces to this. So the first one is that I specifically wrote about rape culture in the chapter on systems, actually in the chapter called Snakes and Suits, which is more about sort of structures and culture and how systems fail and lead to harm. And so I mean that's and that includes things like you know, your psychopathic boss, but it also includes things like,

you know, why did the Volkswagen scandal happen? You know, how do we how do we have the sort of corruption on multiple levels or concealment of information when people know at multiple levels that you know, that company is causing tremendous harm to the world, and so you know, how do you get there? And so within that chapter I think was the best space for it, because actually, rape even it has a little bit to do with sex, but it has a lot more to do with power.

And I mean, this is almost a tired saying at this point, but I think it's true. I mean, if you there are avenues to sexual enjoyment and to release if you will, that have nothing to do with rape. But unfortunately, there is still a huge amount of rape that happens in the world. And so the question is why and why is it predominantly men who do it,

because it's almost exclusively men. Of course there are females who rape, but it is so disproportionately a male thing that it really leads us to it should lead us to wonder why. And I think it's because culture set

meant up to fail. Frankly, so the way that we're raising our boys, the way that we are, I mean, it's starting to change, but I mean this idea sort of much of culture, this idea of you know, concealing our emotions, this idea of you know, not building up your empathy, of not you know, learning how to be

a respectful human being. Basically, I think that that a lot of boys fall through the cracks because they're not learning some of the skills that maybe women are, and so in the end, they also don't have the same decision making ability when they're adults, so they make really bad decisions when it comes to things like sexual encounters and they end up committing crimes and you know, destroying other people's lives and so and it's not to excuse, it's not to say that's people who rape are you

know that they're not at fault, of course they are, but they are also the product of the system, and that system is completely failing them. Yeah, you talk about the districting lads magazines and the way they talk about when and the actual thing that came out of a rapist's mouth, real rapist, and you said that some of these lads and magazines are even worse. Yes, I mean

it was. It was a fun study in terms of showcasing the sort of rape culture and how we perpetuate miss about what it means to sort of court a woman or you know, this ideal. So this really devastating idea that you know, women don't want sex, so you need to sort of coax them into it, course them into it. And this idea that men always want sex.

And so this is also where we get in. We do, we do, but we get into sort of places around the world where it's point where you know, women the reason why women are told to conceal their body parts is you know, because otherwise, you know, the wiles of men will get out of control and they're going to rate you so complete victim blaming this idea that you know, men's desires are just completely out of their control and women's desires need to be pulled out, and this leads

to all kinds of problems. But with the study, what they did is they just took actual quotes from men's magazines and actual quotes from rape is and they asked just really simple study, ask people to guess which is which, and people were no better than chance I guessing whether it was a rapist who said it or a piece of writing it in a ladsmag And I think that's the kind of thing that they actually replicated study more recently and found that people were better, but basically lads

mags had gotten better and we're less likely to perpetuate rape myths, but that there was still a problem. But it just shows that, you know, the statements we make in everyday life that has nothing to do with actual sexual assault can still feed into a culture and believes about what sex means that can facilitate a culture where rape happens. Point taken, so this is the question, you then asked, are those who sectually assault evil? I mean, nobody's evil, So I think no. By this point you

should know your answer to that question. Are they bad? Are they bad? Again? That probably isn't it's just not enough of an explanation that are they what hurtful? Yes? Certainly, they certainly cause great harm and it's definitely something we need to There's so much broken around also convicting and dealing with rape post talk, so even if people come forward, I mean, there's still this idea of people not being believed, which is hugely problematic because you know, it happens all

the time and we need to deal with it. That are both in terms of preventing it and in terms of dealing with it after the fact. And right now we're really quite bad at it. We're failing. Well, what can we do? You argue, better sexual socialization is one key. Yeah, better sexual socialization. I think that you know, teaching boys that emotions are good and that you know, having respect for each other and empathy are good things, that they're

not weaknesses. That I think even to the point where, you know, pushing boys into violent sports and pushing girls into you know, soft you know, doll houses. I think they're already we're seeing these you know, we're already pushing

people in very different directions. And if you're going to do that, you want to at least balance that out with sort of conversations you have home, with books with again and with the exercises to try and make sure that you know, little boys and little girls, that everybody is getting a better, more well rounded socialization. Yeah. And this is with the context of compliance, the psychology compliance.

So we should learn not to be compliant to things that we know in our gut to be wrong, or you know, just because someone tells us, you know, to do something like we're in a fraternity, if we're in a sorority and someone tells us to do something right, whatever. Yeah, and understanding what power means. I think this is another thing is that I think when we see things like sexual harassment scandals and companies and where sort of people go, well, you know, I didn't feel powerful. You know, I'm not

the one with the power. You know, it says the CEO of a company. Just because you don't feel powerful doesn't mean you are, aren't you know what I mean?

So it's I think teaching people at what point you were at what point someone else is more vulnerable than you, and you should put in extra safeguards to make sure that someone is, for example, consenting, and that they're able to remove consent without negative repercussions in other ways like getting fired or like having you know, just other things

that you like a green card. I mean the classic one for me is sort of people who are migrant workers and who come to for example, the United States and they're entirely overliant on their job to even stay in the country. I mean, they have a massive underreporting issue because people can harass and discriminate against them, and basically they've got nothing because if they speak up and

they're retaliated against, they're kicked out of the country. And so people are able to use their power and they might not even know what's happening. Again, not to let them off the hook, but you need to just be much more conscious of all the different contexts and sort of especially workplace environments with those other environments where you have power someone doesn't. Julia, I can tell that this

particular topic is most emotionally resonant with you. It's very interesting to watch, you know, the different topics like that one, I feel like, you know, strikes a particular cord. So let's conclude, let's let's wrap up. And you know, you make the excellent point about how you say, I firmly believe there's no person, no group, no behavior, no thing that is objectively evil. Perhaps evil only really really exists in our fears. But you also talk about there may

be a bright side to the dark side. Can we end it? Can we end on that topic? What are some of the potential bright sides spin on everything? So, I again, like none of these issues are inherently I mean, the consequence of some of these issues can be horrible, but the actual behavior, it's all part of being human ultimately.

So I mean, it's not like having a predisposition to do harm, which all of us have, and some of us have a bit more and some of us have less, but all of us have the ability to hurt other people is part of what makes us human. I mean, it's just like we have the ability to do good.

It's just like we have the ability to do lots of things, and so it's just something that we just need to understand and better I think, And what it seems to be correlated with with devians for example, is that dbans also seems to be correlated with things like

creativity and so being able to think outside the box. Yeah, is is true both for breaking the rules like laws, and breaking the rules in terms of other things, so like you know, painting things that no one's ever painted before, or thinking thoughts or you know, it's academic research coming up with the next no winning Nobel Prize running idea.

I mean, that's thinking outside the box, that's pushing a boundary beyond words to push before, and so that that's those skills are related, and so we shouldn't devalue the fact that we are able to think debiant thoughts that have fantasies, the same thing with rape or murder fantasies,

like whether we're being victimized or we're the perpetrator. The ability to go through these exercises in our brains is a tremendous gift which makes us able to make much better decisions in real life, and it's probably one of the key features that differentiates us from other other kinds of animals and other kinds of creatures who probably don't have that ability. I think that ultimately there is this

beauty and our ability to be bad. But what it comes with is, I think a responsibility that we understand we're able to be bad, and so we also have to understand that every single decision we make, we are the ones in charge of whether we make what we might consider the right decision or the wrong one. Every single time you buy, you know, a sandwich, do you buy the meat one or the vegan one? Every single time? And it's not about all the way through being totally consistent.

It's about recognizing that every decision you make you have potentially positive impact or negative impact, and you know, ideally well picking more positive impact paths. Are you vegan personally? I'm not. I used to call myself a closet vegan, so I'm mostly vegan at home, but I ave sorry, are you vegetarian? I'm not. I just eat a lot of plot based meals, so I'm probably about i'd say,

probably eighty percent vegan. A lot of what kind of meals, pot based, plants, pot based, that'd be fun, But no, I'm not in the country that allows that. This is what I hear, this is what this is not not what I this is what I heard. And then you know, also the positive side of the dark side. You talk about the Zimbardo's notion of the heroic imagination. You talk about how you know we can we can use our dark side for for for to be a hero. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Again breaking out of the norm, right, so doing something that maybe the group isn't willing to or to chooses not to do so jumping, you know, the sort of dramatic cliche example of, you know, jumping into a lake to save a drowning person where most people wouldn't be willing to do that. That is also being devi and it's also breaking out of what most people do in a in a positive way. And it's same with people who work for human rights or who you know, campaign

for for positive change in the world. They're they're going outside out of their way to help other people, and that's what Devians allows us to do well. Julia, Doctor Julia shall I, I have really enjoyed this conversation immensely. It's been really thought provoking. I love how you do walk the talk. I've followed you on Twitter and you argue for all sorts of rights. You argue for prisoner rights right, you argue for lb A, TGQ, t Your list is the longest list I've ever seen of those things.

By the way, in your book it was like fifty alphabets. But you've come out as bisexual and have owned it. You said, fucking visibility in your book is what you said. So look, you really do walk the talk, and I really consider it an honor to talk to you today about topics that no one talks about and in a way that I feel like you're coming from a good place with it. You don't come across to me as a psychopath who enjoys talking about these topics in a

mean spirited do you know what I mean? Like there seems to be an underlying humanitarian mission here. So thank you so much for chatting with me today. Thanks so much for having me, Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com.

That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, please add a reading and review of the podcast on iTunes and subscribe to the Psychology Podcast YouTube channel, as we're really trying to increase our viewership on YouTube. In fact, many of these episodes are in video format on YouTube, so you'll definitely want to check out that channel. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the podcast and Tuday next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior and creativity.