You give a cave man of sleeve of oreos, they're going to eat the whole thing. And that makes sense because they're never going to see that again. Right. But today we're just surrounded in food, and we still have a brain that goes like, hey, if you have a chance to overeat or eat food that is more calorie dense, like junk food, like do that. And you see this kind of manifests itself in people's waistlines today. You know, people are obviously, on average, a lot heavier than they were in the past.

You give a cave man of sleeve of oreos, they're going to eat the whole thing. And that makes sense because they're never going to see that again. Right. But today we're just surrounded in food, and we still have a brain that goes like, hey, if you have a chance to overeat or eat food that is more calorie dense, like junk food, like do that. And you see this kind of manifests itself in people's waistlines today. You know, people are obviously, on average, a lot heavier than they were in the past.

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen.

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen.

Or empower us.

Or empower us.

We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Michael Easter, a writer and speaker who focuses on how humans can leverage modern science and evolutionary wisdom to perform better and live healthier lives. Michael's work has been implemented by professional sports teams, elite military units, fortune five hundred companies, and leading universities. Today, Michael and Eric discuss his book, The Scarcity Brain.

We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Michael Easter, a writer and speaker who focuses on how humans can leverage modern science and evolutionary wisdom to perform better and live healthier lives. Michael's work has been implemented by professional sports teams, elite military units, fortune five hundred companies, and leading universities. Today, Michael and Eric discuss his book, The Scarcity Brain.

Hi, Michael, welcome to the show.

Hi, Michael, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, glad to be here.

Thanks for having me, glad to be here.

I am really excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, Scared City Brain. But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

I am really excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, Scared City Brain. But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

I mean, a lot of my work focuses on the general theme that in order to improve your life, you often have to do things that are challenging in the short term to get a long term benefit and reward in your life. And you know, I think the world is increasingly set up that it's harder to feed the good wolf if you will, It's so much easier to feed the bad wolf, right, Like, that's an easy thing to do. But I do think that, you know, we all know that the reward of feeding the good wolf is better for our long term health, well being, mindset, all those things.

I mean, a lot of my work focuses on the general theme that in order to improve your life, you often have to do things that are challenging in the short term to get a long term benefit and reward in your life. And you know, I think the world is increasingly set up that it's harder to feed the good wolf if you will, It's so much easier to feed the bad wolf, right, Like, that's an easy thing to do. But I do think that, you know, we all know that the reward of feeding the good wolf is better for our long term health, well being, mindset, all those things.

So yeah, so I'm going to ask you a question. I've asked a lot of people and gotten generally unsatisfactory answers, but I believe you are going to give me a satisfactory answer.

So yeah, so I'm going to ask you a question. I've asked a lot of people and gotten generally unsatisfactory answers, but I believe you are going to give me a satisfactory answer.

No, no pressure.

No, no pressure.

But it's this. You know, I've exercised for a long time. I'm not a young man. You know, I've got thousands of reps of exercise under my belt. Every single time I've done it, when I'm done, I'm like, that was great, I'm glad I did that, And yet with that much positive reinforcement, I still find it hard to do sometimes. Why is that.

But it's this. You know, I've exercised for a long time. I'm not a young man. You know, I've got thousands of reps of exercise under my belt. Every single time I've done it, when I'm done, I'm like, that was great, I'm glad I did that, And yet with that much positive reinforcement, I still find it hard to do sometimes. Why is that.

Humans evolved to avoid physical activity. We invented exercise basically after the Industrial Revolution. So if you think about the grant sweep of humanity, right, what we needed to survive was always scarce and it was hard to find. So energy was one of those things. Energy in the form of food. So if you were the type of person that wanted to burn energy for the sake of it, that is to say, exercise, you would have died off because there just wasn't enough food to do that. So over time, humans basically evolved to be lazy and avoid any extra activity that wasn't going to getting resources to Like this larger point, right, A stat that I love that highlights this, which I'm sure we'll talk about later the podcast, is that two percent of people take the stairs when there's also an escalator available. So what that tells me and shows me is that we really are wired to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing and avoid extra movement. Right. We just do that unconsciously. So long story short, It's like for two and a half million years of time of generations, avoiding exercise or any extra movement, it kept you alive. And we have all these discomforts. Our body throws at us psychologically physically to keep us away from moving any more than we have to, and exercise is a form of that. So, like if you went into every workout being like I absolutely want to do this every single time, and you just kept going and going like still today, that you'd probably incur some downside's like you want some sort of resistance going into that, or else the human species would not have lived on.

Humans evolved to avoid physical activity. We invented exercise basically after the Industrial Revolution. So if you think about the grant sweep of humanity, right, what we needed to survive was always scarce and it was hard to find. So energy was one of those things. Energy in the form of food. So if you were the type of person that wanted to burn energy for the sake of it, that is to say, exercise, you would have died off because there just wasn't enough food to do that. So over time, humans basically evolved to be lazy and avoid any extra activity that wasn't going to getting resources to Like this larger point, right, A stat that I love that highlights this, which I'm sure we'll talk about later the podcast, is that two percent of people take the stairs when there's also an escalator available. So what that tells me and shows me is that we really are wired to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing and avoid extra movement. Right. We just do that unconsciously. So long story short, It's like for two and a half million years of time of generations, avoiding exercise or any extra movement, it kept you alive. And we have all these discomforts. Our body throws at us psychologically physically to keep us away from moving any more than we have to, and exercise is a form of that. So, like if you went into every workout being like I absolutely want to do this every single time, and you just kept going and going like still today, that you'd probably incur some downside's like you want some sort of resistance going into that, or else the human species would not have lived on.

So is it safe to say that things that take that much energy expenditure don't end up becoming what we would truly consider a habit, meaning it happens automatically every time. Is it really a sense of these things that you really have to summon a lot of energy for there's always going to be some degree of resistance there.

So is it safe to say that things that take that much energy expenditure don't end up becoming what we would truly consider a habit, meaning it happens automatically every time. Is it really a sense of these things that you really have to summon a lot of energy for there's always going to be some degree of resistance there.

Yeah, I think there probably will be some degree of resistance, Yeah, if something is challenging. Exercise is a great example. Healthy eating is harder than unhealthy eating because we're also wired to value and crave foods that are more calorie dense than those that are less calorie dense. Right, kind of back like the exercise thing. For two and a half million years of time, it always made sense to overread if you had the opportunity, Right, you give a cave man of sleeve of oreos, they're going to eat the whole thing, And that makes sense because they're never going to see that again. Right. But today we're just surrounded in food, and we still have a brain that goes like, hey, if you have a chance to overeat or eat food that is more calorie dense, like junk food, like, do that. And you see this kind of manifests itself in people's waistlines today. You know, people are obviously, on average a lot heavier than they were in the past.

Yeah, I think there probably will be some degree of resistance, Yeah, if something is challenging. Exercise is a great example. Healthy eating is harder than unhealthy eating because we're also wired to value and crave foods that are more calorie dense than those that are less calorie dense. Right, kind of back like the exercise thing. For two and a half million years of time, it always made sense to overread if you had the opportunity, Right, you give a cave man of sleeve of oreos, they're going to eat the whole thing, And that makes sense because they're never going to see that again. Right. But today we're just surrounded in food, and we still have a brain that goes like, hey, if you have a chance to overeat or eat food that is more calorie dense, like junk food, like, do that. And you see this kind of manifests itself in people's waistlines today. You know, people are obviously, on average a lot heavier than they were in the past.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Listener, while you were listening to that, what resonated with you? What one thing to feed your good wolf comes to mind? If the thing that came to your mind was more time for stillness, or you've tried meditation before and you really haven't liked it, then I want to give you a quick tip that might make it better for you. And it's simply to stop expecting that you're not going to have thoughts. Nearly everyone has this expectation that they're going to sit down and meditate and they're going to stop having thoughts. And when they stop having thoughts, that means they're doing it well. But no one does that, and so we end up feeling like we're failing all of the time. Every three seconds, failed again, failed again. We develop a relationship with meditation that is aversive. So if you want to stop dreading meditation and actually find it relaxing, check out my free meditation guide at Goodwolf dot me slash calm. In it, I walk you through my process to engage with meditation in a new way, and a lot of people have found it really helpful. That's Goodwolf dot me slash calm. So you mentioned the two percent stat You're wearing a hat that says two percent that orients towards a way of approaching the world that you call being a two percenter, And you say this in your substack about this, You say, you know, we all tend to think of the big things that we do as being important, but you say what we do in all our other moments is the most powerful. The littlest choices make the biggest impact. I mean my favorite phrase is little by little, a little becomes a lot, both positively and negatively. Right, And so talk about other ways besides taking this versus the escalator. What are other sort of small choices that we can make that over time are going to be very beneficial for us.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Listener, while you were listening to that, what resonated with you? What one thing to feed your good wolf comes to mind? If the thing that came to your mind was more time for stillness, or you've tried meditation before and you really haven't liked it, then I want to give you a quick tip that might make it better for you. And it's simply to stop expecting that you're not going to have thoughts. Nearly everyone has this expectation that they're going to sit down and meditate and they're going to stop having thoughts. And when they stop having thoughts, that means they're doing it well. But no one does that, and so we end up feeling like we're failing all of the time. Every three seconds, failed again, failed again. We develop a relationship with meditation that is aversive. So if you want to stop dreading meditation and actually find it relaxing, check out my free meditation guide at Goodwolf dot me slash calm. In it, I walk you through my process to engage with meditation in a new way, and a lot of people have found it really helpful. That's Goodwolf dot me slash calm. So you mentioned the two percent stat You're wearing a hat that says two percent that orients towards a way of approaching the world that you call being a two percenter, And you say this in your substack about this, You say, you know, we all tend to think of the big things that we do as being important, but you say what we do in all our other moments is the most powerful. The littlest choices make the biggest impact. I mean my favorite phrase is little by little, a little becomes a lot, both positively and negatively. Right, And so talk about other ways besides taking this versus the escalator. What are other sort of small choices that we can make that over time are going to be very beneficial for us.

Yeah, that's a great question. So, yeah, the substack is called two percent after that stat which totally changed my thinking about humans and behavior. Ye. I actually have a whole written piece that's called the two percent Manifesto up on the site that'll dive into a ton of this, and the site is twopct dot com. But to answer your question, I think it manifests itself relationship wise. Right, think of how many people text today instead of call because a call is more intimate. Right, you have to be more open. It might take a little bit more time. You don't know what to expect. You can't control all the variables. But there's plenty of research that says the simple act of picking up the phone and calling someone it creates better social bonds, more intimate connections. And when you put that in the context of the fact that we're facing a loneliness crisis, like pick up the phone it'll be totally worth it, not to mention, you'll honestly save time in the long run, especially if you're like asking the person the question. So socially it affects us. I would also say it affects us food wise. So when you look at a lot of the research, most eating decisions today are not actually driven by true physiological hunger. So more than eighty percent of eating is not because of real hunger. It's because it's a certain time at a clock, and we always eat at that time. It's because we're stressed out, like stress eating is a huge thing, and it's because we're bored something like that. Right, So I think that learning to be okay with hunger can teach you something about physiological hunger and how much food you actually need to feel well and perform well. I think it extends to how we spend our time and attention. So when you look at why people pick up their phone, more than ninety percent of pickups things ninety six percent are not because a person got a notification. They're because they felt something internal, usually boredom. We've just become totally boredom resistant today and we just have this easy, effortless escape from it in our phone. But if you can just sit with that boredom, if you can be like the two percent mentality, right, I'm going to choose this short term discomfort to get a long term benefit. There's all this crazy research that shows that boredom is one of the best ways to increase creativity. Some of the best ideas come out of being bored. Not to mention it gives your brain a break from all the screens that we spend our time on. We spend more than thirteen hours a day engage with digital media. This is all new stuff in the grand scheme of time and space. People spend ninety three percent of their time indoors, and it's like, well, why the hell's that. It's like, well, because the outdoors is cold or it's too hot, or it might be raining or it's windy, and it's less predictable than my you know, sanitary box that I live in. And so even something as simple as going outside is one of the best hacks for mental health and can prove mental health. But we just don't do it all that often. So it's like, how can I take this idea, this two percent idea, like being the two percent of people that's going to select that thing that's going to be a little more uncomfortable in the short term, but it's going to give me a long term reward. How can I apply that just across the board, and you can find tons of ways. I've written a lot about this, so and then to answer your call up quest to that, how do these things add up? And I'll give you a really interesting stat So, when you look at how people burn calories across the day, we think of exercises like the big thing that's burning our calories. Right, if you count out the calorie burn from just keeping your body alive, which is called BMR, you find that actually just the everyday movement you do in daily life actually burns significantly more calories than workouts, like two to three times. And so there's research from the Mail Clinic that basically found that people who just move more throughout the day, that's like taking the stairs, that's like parking the farthest spot away every time it's like, oh, I need to go down to get a coffee and the coffee shop is a half mile away, Like I'm just gonna walk, I'm not going to drive or whatever it is, Right, they burn more than eight hundred extra calories across a day. Let's equivalent to like an eight mile run. I mean, how many people just go out for an eight mile run? We don't, right, We go to the gym for like thirty minutes, and we think that like that's going to be enough. And it's like I'm not saying don't go to the gym at all. I am saying go to the gym, but I am also saying, how can you weave in more incidental movement into your day because that's going to have a larger effect on your health span and lifespan and general fitness than just doing your whatever amount of time in the gym and then sitting. It's like we really just kind of have partioned off, like we do this weird thing where we have like this is the healthy part of my day and life and then the rest of it is like sedentary or kind of unhealthy, and or it's like January is my healthy month, and then I fell off the wagon in February whatever it is, right, And so I think we just need to start thinking, like how can I find little wins throughout the day rather than trying to take on these heroics Because heroics don't seem to last.

Yeah, that's a great question. So, yeah, the substack is called two percent after that stat which totally changed my thinking about humans and behavior. Ye. I actually have a whole written piece that's called the two percent Manifesto up on the site that'll dive into a ton of this, and the site is twopct dot com. But to answer your question, I think it manifests itself relationship wise. Right, think of how many people text today instead of call because a call is more intimate. Right, you have to be more open. It might take a little bit more time. You don't know what to expect. You can't control all the variables. But there's plenty of research that says the simple act of picking up the phone and calling someone it creates better social bonds, more intimate connections. And when you put that in the context of the fact that we're facing a loneliness crisis, like pick up the phone it'll be totally worth it, not to mention, you'll honestly save time in the long run, especially if you're like asking the person the question. So socially it affects us. I would also say it affects us food wise. So when you look at a lot of the research, most eating decisions today are not actually driven by true physiological hunger. So more than eighty percent of eating is not because of real hunger. It's because it's a certain time at a clock, and we always eat at that time. It's because we're stressed out, like stress eating is a huge thing, and it's because we're bored something like that. Right, So I think that learning to be okay with hunger can teach you something about physiological hunger and how much food you actually need to feel well and perform well. I think it extends to how we spend our time and attention. So when you look at why people pick up their phone, more than ninety percent of pickups things ninety six percent are not because a person got a notification. They're because they felt something internal, usually boredom. We've just become totally boredom resistant today and we just have this easy, effortless escape from it in our phone. But if you can just sit with that boredom, if you can be like the two percent mentality, right, I'm going to choose this short term discomfort to get a long term benefit. There's all this crazy research that shows that boredom is one of the best ways to increase creativity. Some of the best ideas come out of being bored. Not to mention it gives your brain a break from all the screens that we spend our time on. We spend more than thirteen hours a day engage with digital media. This is all new stuff in the grand scheme of time and space. People spend ninety three percent of their time indoors, and it's like, well, why the hell's that. It's like, well, because the outdoors is cold or it's too hot, or it might be raining or it's windy, and it's less predictable than my you know, sanitary box that I live in. And so even something as simple as going outside is one of the best hacks for mental health and can prove mental health. But we just don't do it all that often. So it's like, how can I take this idea, this two percent idea, like being the two percent of people that's going to select that thing that's going to be a little more uncomfortable in the short term, but it's going to give me a long term reward. How can I apply that just across the board, and you can find tons of ways. I've written a lot about this, so and then to answer your call up quest to that, how do these things add up? And I'll give you a really interesting stat So, when you look at how people burn calories across the day, we think of exercises like the big thing that's burning our calories. Right, if you count out the calorie burn from just keeping your body alive, which is called BMR, you find that actually just the everyday movement you do in daily life actually burns significantly more calories than workouts, like two to three times. And so there's research from the Mail Clinic that basically found that people who just move more throughout the day, that's like taking the stairs, that's like parking the farthest spot away every time it's like, oh, I need to go down to get a coffee and the coffee shop is a half mile away, Like I'm just gonna walk, I'm not going to drive or whatever it is, Right, they burn more than eight hundred extra calories across a day. Let's equivalent to like an eight mile run. I mean, how many people just go out for an eight mile run? We don't, right, We go to the gym for like thirty minutes, and we think that like that's going to be enough. And it's like I'm not saying don't go to the gym at all. I am saying go to the gym, but I am also saying, how can you weave in more incidental movement into your day because that's going to have a larger effect on your health span and lifespan and general fitness than just doing your whatever amount of time in the gym and then sitting. It's like we really just kind of have partioned off, like we do this weird thing where we have like this is the healthy part of my day and life and then the rest of it is like sedentary or kind of unhealthy, and or it's like January is my healthy month, and then I fell off the wagon in February whatever it is, right, And so I think we just need to start thinking, like how can I find little wins throughout the day rather than trying to take on these heroics Because heroics don't seem to last.

Right, Right, Heroics don't last, and heroics aren't available for a lot of people, right. A lot of people don't have ninety minutes a day to say, go exercise, but they do have lots of little five minutes and lots of little on the way to places. It's interesting how much environment plays a role too, because I was in New York City recently and it was cold out and we were outside walking all day every day, and then I get home to and it's cold, and all of a sudden, I'm like, it's a little bit too cold out there, and I suddenly don't want to go out. It's so interesting to me how, like you said, we get into these sort of ways of being that need interrupted. The other thing that you were saying there also is you know, we had an exercise scientist on years ago. I mean it's been probably seven years ago, but I remember it clear as day because she basically said the rule is move as often as you can in any way that you can. I mean, that was it. That was the whole sum of her overall research and everything, was that that's the best way to go. Just move when you can. However you can and ideally in ways you like to.

Right, Right, Heroics don't last, and heroics aren't available for a lot of people, right. A lot of people don't have ninety minutes a day to say, go exercise, but they do have lots of little five minutes and lots of little on the way to places. It's interesting how much environment plays a role too, because I was in New York City recently and it was cold out and we were outside walking all day every day, and then I get home to and it's cold, and all of a sudden, I'm like, it's a little bit too cold out there, and I suddenly don't want to go out. It's so interesting to me how, like you said, we get into these sort of ways of being that need interrupted. The other thing that you were saying there also is you know, we had an exercise scientist on years ago. I mean it's been probably seven years ago, but I remember it clear as day because she basically said the rule is move as often as you can in any way that you can. I mean, that was it. That was the whole sum of her overall research and everything, was that that's the best way to go. Just move when you can. However you can and ideally in ways you like to.

Yeah, totally. In the comfort crisis, I talk a lot about with environments changing. It's just our environments have changed so much, so fast in the grand scheme of time and space. It's like we've really engineered movement out of our days. We've engineered more hyperchloric food into our days. We've engineered connection out of our days. Like we've engineered all the good stuff out of our days and engineered in stuff that isn't necessarily good for us. And I mean, if you just take a look at how much people moved in the past compared to today. Since we're on the topic of exercise, people used to walk at least twenty thousand steps a day and about ten miles a day. Now the average person is taken, you know, anywhere from four thousand to seven thousand steps per day. And the average person in the past used to do what the government classifies as moderate exercise, and they gauge this using accelerometers and all these different things. On Hunter gathers for about three hours and twenty minutes three hours and twenty minutes of exercise a day. Right now, the average person is like thirty minutes three times a week, right, right. I mean, it's just crazy how much less we move. And it's not like you know, I think people sometimes think of these people in the past and be like, man, these are just like these heroic people. It's like, no, you would do the same damn thing. It's just you live in a built environment now, and so you don't do.

Yeah, totally. In the comfort crisis, I talk a lot about with environments changing. It's just our environments have changed so much, so fast in the grand scheme of time and space. It's like we've really engineered movement out of our days. We've engineered more hyperchloric food into our days. We've engineered connection out of our days. Like we've engineered all the good stuff out of our days and engineered in stuff that isn't necessarily good for us. And I mean, if you just take a look at how much people moved in the past compared to today. Since we're on the topic of exercise, people used to walk at least twenty thousand steps a day and about ten miles a day. Now the average person is taken, you know, anywhere from four thousand to seven thousand steps per day. And the average person in the past used to do what the government classifies as moderate exercise, and they gauge this using accelerometers and all these different things. On Hunter gathers for about three hours and twenty minutes three hours and twenty minutes of exercise a day. Right now, the average person is like thirty minutes three times a week, right, right. I mean, it's just crazy how much less we move. And it's not like you know, I think people sometimes think of these people in the past and be like, man, these are just like these heroic people. It's like, no, you would do the same damn thing. It's just you live in a built environment now, and so you don't do.

That, right. Yeah, environment is so hugely important in the choices that we make. All right, let's change direction here and talk about your latest book, Scarcity Brain. Yeah, and you say that you've come across this concept of something called the scarcity loop, and you say it's the serial killer of moderation. Yes, I'm a big believer in moderation, I guess, even though having been an addict, maybe I recognize the importance of moderation. But I just loved that line, the serial killer of moderation. Tell me about the scarcity loop.

That, right. Yeah, environment is so hugely important in the choices that we make. All right, let's change direction here and talk about your latest book, Scarcity Brain. Yeah, and you say that you've come across this concept of something called the scarcity loop, and you say it's the serial killer of moderation. Yes, I'm a big believer in moderation, I guess, even though having been an addict, maybe I recognize the importance of moderation. But I just loved that line, the serial killer of moderation. Tell me about the scarcity loop.

Yeah. I learned about it interestingly enough, because I live in Las Vegas and watching people play slot machines for hours and hours and hours at a time and going why would you keep doing that when everyone knows the house always wins, Like, what the hell is going on? Right? So, because I'm a journalist. When I ask a question like that, I don't just go you know, and then move on, like I actually try and figure out the answer. And so I start talking all these different gaming researchers and people in casino industry and blah blah blah. Long story short, this leads me to this place on the edge of town that is a fully working, brand new cutting edge because you know, but it's used entirely for human behavior research. So it is like a living, working casino laboratory, and it's funded by the casino industry and a lot of big tech companies. I think seventy two different companies are on board providing all sorts of funding to this place. And so this is where I talk to a slot machine designer who explains to me basically how a slot machine works, why it's so good at hooking people, and by the way, they really are. Slot machines make more money than books, movies, and music combined, those three industries combined every single year.

Yeah. I learned about it interestingly enough, because I live in Las Vegas and watching people play slot machines for hours and hours and hours at a time and going why would you keep doing that when everyone knows the house always wins, Like, what the hell is going on? Right? So, because I'm a journalist. When I ask a question like that, I don't just go you know, and then move on, like I actually try and figure out the answer. And so I start talking all these different gaming researchers and people in casino industry and blah blah blah. Long story short, this leads me to this place on the edge of town that is a fully working, brand new cutting edge because you know, but it's used entirely for human behavior research. So it is like a living, working casino laboratory, and it's funded by the casino industry and a lot of big tech companies. I think seventy two different companies are on board providing all sorts of funding to this place. And so this is where I talk to a slot machine designer who explains to me basically how a slot machine works, why it's so good at hooking people, and by the way, they really are. Slot machines make more money than books, movies, and music combined, those three industries combined every single year.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it's amazing, and it's horrifying. So a slot machine works by having these three parts, which is what I call a scarcity loop. It's got opportunity unpredictable rewards and quick repeatability. Think of it as a looping behavior. Okay, so opportunity, you have an opportunity to get something of value. With slot machines it's money, right, unpredictable rewards. You know you'll get that thing of value at some point if you keep doing the behavior, but you don't know when you're going to get the thing of value, and you don't know how valuable it's going to be. So with a slot machine, you play a game and you could lose, you could win some money, you could win a ton of money, right, crazy range of outcomes, and then three quick repeatability. You can just repeat the behavior immediately. There's like zero pause in between repeating the behavior. So with slot machines, people play about nine hundred games an hour. Now, the reason that this is important and why the book starts in the casino lab and learning this is because once you understand this behavior loop, you start to see why people get hooked on all sorts of stuff that seems counterproductive and dumb. All these bad habits we have a lot of them have elements of the scarcity loop. So, for example, this is what makes social media work. Right, It's got those same three parts. You got an opportunity for some social likes, a boost to find something entertaining. You don't know how many likes you're gonna get. You don't know when you're gonna find the real that's gonna make you crack up. And then you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling because of infinite scroll. Right. That's in Instagram, It's in Twitter, it's in TikTok, and name any social media app. The loop is being put in personal finance apps so people will do more trading faster. It explains the rise of sports betting and how that's really just taken off. It was like this combination of legality and then putting it in cell phones and leveraging the loop, the mided tick off. It's what makes dating apps work, right, opportunity to find a mate, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, Oh my god, I just matched with someone being jack pot swipe swipe, swipe, swipespe Right. And so when you start to look at how the world is constructed, like it's even in elements of our food system. I talk to a guy who's a executive for junk food companies, and he talked about how Yeah, we totally use the quick repeatability thing in our food. I mean it just starts to show up everywhere and it is unparallel but pushing people into these quick repeat behaviors that are usually engaging in the short term or at least distracting in the short term, but that can often lead to long term regrets or long term problems. Yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing, and it's horrifying. So a slot machine works by having these three parts, which is what I call a scarcity loop. It's got opportunity unpredictable rewards and quick repeatability. Think of it as a looping behavior. Okay, so opportunity, you have an opportunity to get something of value. With slot machines it's money, right, unpredictable rewards. You know you'll get that thing of value at some point if you keep doing the behavior, but you don't know when you're going to get the thing of value, and you don't know how valuable it's going to be. So with a slot machine, you play a game and you could lose, you could win some money, you could win a ton of money, right, crazy range of outcomes, and then three quick repeatability. You can just repeat the behavior immediately. There's like zero pause in between repeating the behavior. So with slot machines, people play about nine hundred games an hour. Now, the reason that this is important and why the book starts in the casino lab and learning this is because once you understand this behavior loop, you start to see why people get hooked on all sorts of stuff that seems counterproductive and dumb. All these bad habits we have a lot of them have elements of the scarcity loop. So, for example, this is what makes social media work. Right, It's got those same three parts. You got an opportunity for some social likes, a boost to find something entertaining. You don't know how many likes you're gonna get. You don't know when you're gonna find the real that's gonna make you crack up. And then you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling because of infinite scroll. Right. That's in Instagram, It's in Twitter, it's in TikTok, and name any social media app. The loop is being put in personal finance apps so people will do more trading faster. It explains the rise of sports betting and how that's really just taken off. It was like this combination of legality and then putting it in cell phones and leveraging the loop, the mided tick off. It's what makes dating apps work, right, opportunity to find a mate, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, Oh my god, I just matched with someone being jack pot swipe swipe, swipe, swipespe Right. And so when you start to look at how the world is constructed, like it's even in elements of our food system. I talk to a guy who's a executive for junk food companies, and he talked about how Yeah, we totally use the quick repeatability thing in our food. I mean it just starts to show up everywhere and it is unparallel but pushing people into these quick repeat behaviors that are usually engaging in the short term or at least distracting in the short term, but that can often lead to long term regrets or long term problems. Yeah.

You quote one of the people in the snack food industry saying there's three v's in the snacking world, value, variety, in velocity, which is exactly the three things of the scarcity loop. So you're talking about all the modern applications of this scarcity loop, but this is something that is built into us right from evolutionary history. So explain the origins of why we get so lost in it.

You quote one of the people in the snack food industry saying there's three v's in the snacking world, value, variety, in velocity, which is exactly the three things of the scarcity loop. So you're talking about all the modern applications of this scarcity loop, but this is something that is built into us right from evolutionary history. So explain the origins of why we get so lost in it.

Yeah. So it's funny because after I talk to the slot machine designer, like he's showing me how the slot machine works and blah blah blah, and then I asked him, I'm like, why do people find this so captivating? And he just looks at me and he goes, Dude, I don't know. I just make machines that make a lot of money, Like, I don't know why people play him right. So I end up talking to this guy who's a behavioral psychologist at the University of Kentucky. His name is Thomas Entl. He's like eighty something years old. He's been doing research since the late nineteen sixties, and he like knows everything. And he told me it's basically a piece of evolutionary hardware in our brain that helped us find food every day when we were hunter gatherers on the savannah. So I want you to picture us looking for food, right, every single day you had to find food. You either had to find it in the form of gathering you were like walking out looking for trees that have food, or you have to find it from hunting. Right, you have to find an animal that it's on the move. So you go to one place you think is going to have food, doesn't have food. So you go to another place you think it's going to have food. No food there. You go to another place, jackpot place has all kinds of food. So yay, everyone's fat and happy for only a moment, though, because then you got to repeat that behavior, maybe the same day for lunch or dinner, definitely the next day for food again. The next day, right, so like literally our life finding food every single day, we fell into this scarcity loop of finding food and so our sort of attraction to it and these random rewards embedded in it, and this like quickly repeating the behavior. It kept us alive for all of time. And now that architecture simply gets applied to all these different places in our life and is really unparallel at capturing our attention, and it works in every single animal. All wild animals still have to find food scarcely loop style, and so like this guy Thomas and Tal, I mean he can get pigeons to fall into it with like these slot machine games he makes them. I mean, you see it in all animals. It's really fascinating. I think really the key is that it's always been a part of us, but Las Vegas really figured out how it works and how to work it and how to just really optimize it starting in about nineteen eighty, and other industries took notice and they went, why are people playing those slot machines so often all the time now, and why are they making so much money? What the hell is going on there? And they just pulled elements of it.

Yeah. So it's funny because after I talk to the slot machine designer, like he's showing me how the slot machine works and blah blah blah, and then I asked him, I'm like, why do people find this so captivating? And he just looks at me and he goes, Dude, I don't know. I just make machines that make a lot of money, Like, I don't know why people play him right. So I end up talking to this guy who's a behavioral psychologist at the University of Kentucky. His name is Thomas Entl. He's like eighty something years old. He's been doing research since the late nineteen sixties, and he like knows everything. And he told me it's basically a piece of evolutionary hardware in our brain that helped us find food every day when we were hunter gatherers on the savannah. So I want you to picture us looking for food, right, every single day you had to find food. You either had to find it in the form of gathering you were like walking out looking for trees that have food, or you have to find it from hunting. Right, you have to find an animal that it's on the move. So you go to one place you think is going to have food, doesn't have food. So you go to another place you think it's going to have food. No food there. You go to another place, jackpot place has all kinds of food. So yay, everyone's fat and happy for only a moment, though, because then you got to repeat that behavior, maybe the same day for lunch or dinner, definitely the next day for food again. The next day, right, so like literally our life finding food every single day, we fell into this scarcity loop of finding food and so our sort of attraction to it and these random rewards embedded in it, and this like quickly repeating the behavior. It kept us alive for all of time. And now that architecture simply gets applied to all these different places in our life and is really unparallel at capturing our attention, and it works in every single animal. All wild animals still have to find food scarcely loop style, and so like this guy Thomas and Tal, I mean he can get pigeons to fall into it with like these slot machine games he makes them. I mean, you see it in all animals. It's really fascinating. I think really the key is that it's always been a part of us, but Las Vegas really figured out how it works and how to work it and how to just really optimize it starting in about nineteen eighty, and other industries took notice and they went, why are people playing those slot machines so often all the time now, and why are they making so much money? What the hell is going on there? And they just pulled elements of it.

So we've got this scarcity loop that's sort of embedded in US, but has some certain limits on it evolutionarily, right as in like there isn't like crazy amounts of food. Yes, there is repeatability, but you don't repeat it two seconds later, right right. Whereas these modern scarcity loops, we know, for example, that our food is designed to be super satiating and stimulating. We know that we can repeat these things really really fast. And so this scarcity loop, if I understand you, is built into us evolutionarily. But our modern world has figured out how to essentially soup it up.

So we've got this scarcity loop that's sort of embedded in US, but has some certain limits on it evolutionarily, right as in like there isn't like crazy amounts of food. Yes, there is repeatability, but you don't repeat it two seconds later, right right. Whereas these modern scarcity loops, we know, for example, that our food is designed to be super satiating and stimulating. We know that we can repeat these things really really fast. And so this scarcity loop, if I understand you, is built into us evolutionarily. But our modern world has figured out how to essentially soup it up.

Yeah, that's a great word to describe it. A modern world has really figuredigured out the optimal schedule of unpredictable rewards. So about forty five to fifty five percent of the time getting something is optimal in slot machines, for example, But they've also found ways to tweak it. So, for example, slot machines really started taking off when they started being embedded with this thing called a win disguised as a loss. So this is when you say you bet a dollar and you play a slot machine game, And when you play a slot machine game, it's no longer just a single line of symbols that you're trying to line up, Like it's all these different combinations of symbols you can get.

Yeah, that's a great word to describe it. A modern world has really figuredigured out the optimal schedule of unpredictable rewards. So about forty five to fifty five percent of the time getting something is optimal in slot machines, for example, But they've also found ways to tweak it. So, for example, slot machines really started taking off when they started being embedded with this thing called a win disguised as a loss. So this is when you say you bet a dollar and you play a slot machine game, And when you play a slot machine game, it's no longer just a single line of symbols that you're trying to line up, Like it's all these different combinations of symbols you can get.

It could be like I don't even understand them. I see one and I'm like, I don't know what's happening here at all.

It could be like I don't even understand them. I see one and I'm like, I don't know what's happening here at all.

Yeah, they're crazy now. But the long story short is that by doing this, they can do what are called losses disguised as wins, and that basically just means you quote unquote, win less money than you bet. So you might bet, say a dollar, but you quote unquote win fifty cents. But here's the thing. It sounds ridiculous, but when you actually play the game, the machine cues you to show you that something good has happened. You still get the lights, you still see the money go up. And scientists will study this. They'll do fMRI neuroscience stuff and find that people's brain reacts the exact same to a loss, discusses a win as they do a real win, and it compels people to play the game for longer and makes it more entertaining. And you see this, for example in social media. So when you go on to social media, usually there's like this delay, right, you wait to see if you've got an update, like they could tell you immediately. The delay is programmed in to tell you how many, say notifications you got on Twitter or whatever it is, right, and then when you open that up, you're like, well, how many is it going to actually be? Is it one? Is it one million? Did I get two likes? Did I get two million likes? Right, there's this kind of like there's losses disguise of wins. There's real wins. I mean, it's really just like a taking of the casino tactics. Yeah. And then also the speed. A good example from slot machines is that when they removed the handles on them, people could gain faster, and they went from playing four hundred games an hour to nine hundred games an hour. Similar thing happened when social media started using infinite scroll. Screen time just went through the roof and people's sessions lengthened. All these different things happen. So generally, the faster you can get a person to repeat a behavior, the faster they will repeat a behavior. So engineers now know this, and so they go, Okay, how can we get someone to do this quicker? Even a lot of online shopping places, for example, are trying to really push people into one click buying, because what happens when you go kart. Yes, i'd like to check out, here's my address information, here's how i'd like it shipped. By the time you hit the shipping thing, you're like, do I really want a new pair of running shoes? Do I really need this? But if you have one click buying, it's just you have like no time to think about whether this is a good decision or not.

Yeah, they're crazy now. But the long story short is that by doing this, they can do what are called losses disguised as wins, and that basically just means you quote unquote, win less money than you bet. So you might bet, say a dollar, but you quote unquote win fifty cents. But here's the thing. It sounds ridiculous, but when you actually play the game, the machine cues you to show you that something good has happened. You still get the lights, you still see the money go up. And scientists will study this. They'll do fMRI neuroscience stuff and find that people's brain reacts the exact same to a loss, discusses a win as they do a real win, and it compels people to play the game for longer and makes it more entertaining. And you see this, for example in social media. So when you go on to social media, usually there's like this delay, right, you wait to see if you've got an update, like they could tell you immediately. The delay is programmed in to tell you how many, say notifications you got on Twitter or whatever it is, right, and then when you open that up, you're like, well, how many is it going to actually be? Is it one? Is it one million? Did I get two likes? Did I get two million likes? Right, there's this kind of like there's losses disguise of wins. There's real wins. I mean, it's really just like a taking of the casino tactics. Yeah. And then also the speed. A good example from slot machines is that when they removed the handles on them, people could gain faster, and they went from playing four hundred games an hour to nine hundred games an hour. Similar thing happened when social media started using infinite scroll. Screen time just went through the roof and people's sessions lengthened. All these different things happen. So generally, the faster you can get a person to repeat a behavior, the faster they will repeat a behavior. So engineers now know this, and so they go, Okay, how can we get someone to do this quicker? Even a lot of online shopping places, for example, are trying to really push people into one click buying, because what happens when you go kart. Yes, i'd like to check out, here's my address information, here's how i'd like it shipped. By the time you hit the shipping thing, you're like, do I really want a new pair of running shoes? Do I really need this? But if you have one click buying, it's just you have like no time to think about whether this is a good decision or not.

Yeah, it's funny as you're saying that, I was thinking back to when Amazon really sort of got going, and this is early two thousands, and I remember how just the fact that I could buy books that easily, and again there was no one click buying then, right, but I didn't have to go to a bookstore. It nearly ruined me the fact that in three minutes I could have another book on its way to me. Right. But it shows how we sort of keep up in the game because now they think that's too slow. Right In the same way with delivery times, like you know, before i'd be like, oh, we're going to get this thing in like three days. That's amazing. Now it's like it's not here in an hour, right, Like what's the problem totally.

Yeah, it's funny as you're saying that, I was thinking back to when Amazon really sort of got going, and this is early two thousands, and I remember how just the fact that I could buy books that easily, and again there was no one click buying then, right, but I didn't have to go to a bookstore. It nearly ruined me the fact that in three minutes I could have another book on its way to me. Right. But it shows how we sort of keep up in the game because now they think that's too slow. Right In the same way with delivery times, like you know, before i'd be like, oh, we're going to get this thing in like three days. That's amazing. Now it's like it's not here in an hour, right, Like what's the problem totally.

And there's even a lot of sites that are using unpredictable rewards within shopping, so putting like the slot machine features or a spinning wheel for bargains and m hm though, like Tamu is a great example of the casino vacation of shopping. It's all these type of random rewards and bargains and discounts, and I mean those spinning wheels. Some people are like, oh, this stupid. Those increase conversion rates by sevenfold.

And there's even a lot of sites that are using unpredictable rewards within shopping, so putting like the slot machine features or a spinning wheel for bargains and m hm though, like Tamu is a great example of the casino vacation of shopping. It's all these type of random rewards and bargains and discounts, and I mean those spinning wheels. Some people are like, oh, this stupid. Those increase conversion rates by sevenfold.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

If you give someone a spinning wheel and they think they've won like the whatever jackpot bargain, they're seven times more likely to make a purchase. Crazy.

If you give someone a spinning wheel and they think they've won like the whatever jackpot bargain, they're seven times more likely to make a purchase. Crazy.

Yeah, that's a huge number.

Yeah, that's a huge number.

Yeah, all right.

Yeah, all right.

Now let's pause for a quick good Wolf reminder, and this one is on meditation. If while you're meditating your mind wanders, you probably, like most people, treat that as a moment of failure, like, ugh, my mind wandered again. But let's flip that and instead treat that as a moment of celebration because in that moment, your mind actually woke up and you were mindful of the fact that your mind wandered. So it's a win. So if we can flip that right on its head and say, oh, good job, brain. We actually make it more likely that a our brain is going to do it more often because we're training it, and b that we're going to enjoy it more. And specifically, it's about how to make you not dread meditation so much and actually find it relaxing. Check out my free meditation guide at goodwolf dot me slash calm. So I want to get to how we can work against this scarcity loop here shortly, but before we do, I'd like to explore it from a couple different angles, like you do in your book. And the first place I'd like to spend a little bit of time is you say, at the extreme end of scarcity brain lies addiction, and listeners of the show know that I have an addiction in alcoholism history, I was a homeless heroin addict at twenty four. But you have a similar background at least struggles with alcohol. So talk to me about scarcity brain in the context of addiction.

Now let's pause for a quick good Wolf reminder, and this one is on meditation. If while you're meditating your mind wanders, you probably, like most people, treat that as a moment of failure, like, ugh, my mind wandered again. But let's flip that and instead treat that as a moment of celebration because in that moment, your mind actually woke up and you were mindful of the fact that your mind wandered. So it's a win. So if we can flip that right on its head and say, oh, good job, brain. We actually make it more likely that a our brain is going to do it more often because we're training it, and b that we're going to enjoy it more. And specifically, it's about how to make you not dread meditation so much and actually find it relaxing. Check out my free meditation guide at goodwolf dot me slash calm. So I want to get to how we can work against this scarcity loop here shortly, but before we do, I'd like to explore it from a couple different angles, like you do in your book. And the first place I'd like to spend a little bit of time is you say, at the extreme end of scarcity brain lies addiction, and listeners of the show know that I have an addiction in alcoholism history, I was a homeless heroin addict at twenty four. But you have a similar background at least struggles with alcohol. So talk to me about scarcity brain in the context of addiction.

Yeah. Yeah, I've been sober for nine years and my thing was alcohol. And when you think about how most of what we needed to survive in the past was scarce and hard to find, and we now, how have an abundance of all these things were built to crave. I think that addictive substances absolutely fall into kind of what we were just talking about, how everything has been strained and then distilled. So when you think about the past and addictive substances, we would usually use the substances that we now consider addictive and drugs as tools. So I'll give you an example of alcohol. So humans evolved to have sort of a taste for alcohol because it helped us find food. So fruit would fall from trees and it would begin to ferment, right, and it would give us this scent and be like, oh, yeah, we can smell it better because it's fermenting, and then we would go eat it and it would have these low levels of alcohol, right, But we would find food and we would get a ton of sugar from that. By the way, the alcohol even killed some of the germs that would be on the food. And at the same time, though, it's not like this fruit that was rotting was like Jack Daniels, right, It's like a very very low level of alcohol in the fruit. Same thing goes for say, coca leaves, which is what cocaine is made for. Right, So coca leaves have this very very low level of the compound cocaine, and still in countries in the Andes will chew it because it helps with focus, it helps ward off altitude sickness, for example. But it's like you don't really feel anything from it, right, But we've managed to and this is a story with all substances, We've managed to sort of take the psychoactive compound whatever it might be, and really distill it down into its strongest form, and so we can get just the like high from that. Right, it's just this super concentrated high. So it's like this thing that we used to use as a tool for all the time, we now have an ability to have it be this thing that allows us to escape. And you know, I think there's plenty of people obviously that can use alcohol and even drugs to some extent, illegal drugs without repercussion, right, they don't have a problem with it. But I think that you find some people I can I can speak for myself, who use it as a way to just totally escape and deal with their problems. And obviously that you know, comes with some downsides, Like it came with some downsides to me personally, and I can tell you that I've found that addiction definitely falls into the loop as well. So for me, when I would drink, it was like I had an opportunity to improve my life in the short term because nothing would fix my problem, Like the first drink right, doesn't matter what kind of problem I have. If I just have a drink, I'm good to go. Obviously, I could never have one drink right. My favorite drink was always the next one right, right, And then there's unpredictable rewards. I didn't know what the hell was gonna happen. I just know that if I start drinking, I'm gonna have a more interesting night, could be in a good way, could be in a bad way than I would if I was sober, right, and then repeatability. It's like after that, I'm just waiting until I can have the next drink again. And I think you also see it in illegal drugs too, with like even getting the drugs, it's like you don't know where you're gonna get it. You don't know who you're gonna get it from, you don't know how strong it's gonna be, you don't know how much it's gonna cost. You know if you're gonna get in trouble along the way. Like, there's all these unpredictable things about drug use, and you do tend to find that when certain drugs are legalized or at least controlled and put in doses that are predictable, addiction rates do seem to fall.

Yeah. Yeah, I've been sober for nine years and my thing was alcohol. And when you think about how most of what we needed to survive in the past was scarce and hard to find, and we now, how have an abundance of all these things were built to crave. I think that addictive substances absolutely fall into kind of what we were just talking about, how everything has been strained and then distilled. So when you think about the past and addictive substances, we would usually use the substances that we now consider addictive and drugs as tools. So I'll give you an example of alcohol. So humans evolved to have sort of a taste for alcohol because it helped us find food. So fruit would fall from trees and it would begin to ferment, right, and it would give us this scent and be like, oh, yeah, we can smell it better because it's fermenting, and then we would go eat it and it would have these low levels of alcohol, right, But we would find food and we would get a ton of sugar from that. By the way, the alcohol even killed some of the germs that would be on the food. And at the same time, though, it's not like this fruit that was rotting was like Jack Daniels, right, It's like a very very low level of alcohol in the fruit. Same thing goes for say, coca leaves, which is what cocaine is made for. Right, So coca leaves have this very very low level of the compound cocaine, and still in countries in the Andes will chew it because it helps with focus, it helps ward off altitude sickness, for example. But it's like you don't really feel anything from it, right, But we've managed to and this is a story with all substances, We've managed to sort of take the psychoactive compound whatever it might be, and really distill it down into its strongest form, and so we can get just the like high from that. Right, it's just this super concentrated high. So it's like this thing that we used to use as a tool for all the time, we now have an ability to have it be this thing that allows us to escape. And you know, I think there's plenty of people obviously that can use alcohol and even drugs to some extent, illegal drugs without repercussion, right, they don't have a problem with it. But I think that you find some people I can I can speak for myself, who use it as a way to just totally escape and deal with their problems. And obviously that you know, comes with some downsides, Like it came with some downsides to me personally, and I can tell you that I've found that addiction definitely falls into the loop as well. So for me, when I would drink, it was like I had an opportunity to improve my life in the short term because nothing would fix my problem, Like the first drink right, doesn't matter what kind of problem I have. If I just have a drink, I'm good to go. Obviously, I could never have one drink right. My favorite drink was always the next one right, right, And then there's unpredictable rewards. I didn't know what the hell was gonna happen. I just know that if I start drinking, I'm gonna have a more interesting night, could be in a good way, could be in a bad way than I would if I was sober, right, and then repeatability. It's like after that, I'm just waiting until I can have the next drink again. And I think you also see it in illegal drugs too, with like even getting the drugs, it's like you don't know where you're gonna get it. You don't know who you're gonna get it from, you don't know how strong it's gonna be, you don't know how much it's gonna cost. You know if you're gonna get in trouble along the way. Like, there's all these unpredictable things about drug use, and you do tend to find that when certain drugs are legalized or at least controlled and put in doses that are predictable, addiction rates do seem to fall.

Yeah, there's a ton of ways I would love to follow that particular question, because we're seeing interesting things, you know, with marijuana being legalized and Oregon decriminalizing and headed back towards criminalization, and black markets in California for marijuana. There's a lot of interesting things happening in that space. But that's not really where I want to go. What I would love to talk a little bit about is you talk about you know, over the last century, we've sort of ended up with two dominant schools of thought of addiction. Right. The one is sort of the very classic one, meaning you're an alcoholic or an addict because you're a bad person, you're weak, you're of lower moral character, the classics, right, And then the more recent is this idea of it being a disease, and they call it lots of different things, right, but it's there's something in your brain that gets broken as a result of this, and I think the disease model was actually a really good step away from the more failing model, Like it moved us a certain direction, and then there's a direction that I think has been hugely beneficial. And like any model, it has its own limitations to it. Right, you go on to say something that I think is really important about the broken brain idea. Right, Because the broken brain idea, the disease model says you don't have a choice, right in alcoholics, anonymous right, twelve step programs. You know I'm powerless over alcohol, Right, I have no ability. But you say something about the broken brain model. You say that, in essence, the broken brain model is right. Addiction is not a choice. Instead, it's a summation of repeated choices that make a different choice harder to make for environmental, biological, and historical reasons. It's deep learning. And I just loved that idea. I've talked to some of the same people on the show that you've had in your book. But say a little bit more about that.

Yeah, there's a ton of ways I would love to follow that particular question, because we're seeing interesting things, you know, with marijuana being legalized and Oregon decriminalizing and headed back towards criminalization, and black markets in California for marijuana. There's a lot of interesting things happening in that space. But that's not really where I want to go. What I would love to talk a little bit about is you talk about you know, over the last century, we've sort of ended up with two dominant schools of thought of addiction. Right. The one is sort of the very classic one, meaning you're an alcoholic or an addict because you're a bad person, you're weak, you're of lower moral character, the classics, right, And then the more recent is this idea of it being a disease, and they call it lots of different things, right, but it's there's something in your brain that gets broken as a result of this, and I think the disease model was actually a really good step away from the more failing model, Like it moved us a certain direction, and then there's a direction that I think has been hugely beneficial. And like any model, it has its own limitations to it. Right, you go on to say something that I think is really important about the broken brain idea. Right, Because the broken brain idea, the disease model says you don't have a choice, right in alcoholics, anonymous right, twelve step programs. You know I'm powerless over alcohol, Right, I have no ability. But you say something about the broken brain model. You say that, in essence, the broken brain model is right. Addiction is not a choice. Instead, it's a summation of repeated choices that make a different choice harder to make for environmental, biological, and historical reasons. It's deep learning. And I just loved that idea. I've talked to some of the same people on the show that you've had in your book. But say a little bit more about that.

Yeah, I mean, I think the first things versus that I agree with you about the disease model and the intent behind it. Right, it came up in a time where we're throwing all these people in jail because they're bad people, because they are addicted to drugs, and we think that that's going to like solve their problems. It's like no, right, And so I think it's well intentioned. I think that it's downside, though, is that there's plenty of examples where people are able to make choices. So a classic example is the soldiers in Vietnam. There's this huge spike in addiction rates to heroin in Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and so President Nixon he launches this program called Operation Golden Flow. And the deal is pretty simple. It's that if people who are addicted, our soldiers who are addicted to heroin want to come back to the United States and leave war, they have to pass a urine test. So something like fifteen to twenty percent of our soldiers in Vietnam we're addicted to heroin. So you would think, okay, like if people can't make a choice here, and it's one hundred percent of choice, we would have left fifteen to twenty percent of our soldiers in Vietnam, right. Well, what ended up happening was complete opposite. Every single soldier passed the dr in test and when they got home, the relapse rates among the people who were addicted were exceedingly low. They were like five percent, and the five percent who relapse tended to be drug users before the Vietnam War. So what this suggests is that one people have a choice, and that two elements of addiction may also be driven by our environment. Back to the environment, right, And so then it's like, Okay, what was Vietnam like during the war, Well, that sounds like hell. It's like, yeah, if I was in that hell, I might be wanted to do some drugs too to escape. And so I think that you see, addiction rates tend to rise and fall based on people's external and internal conditions. So I really see addiction as a solution for people who are experiencing problems. Unfortunately, using a substance provides a solution in the short term, like I said, with my drinking, right, that'll solve a problem faster than anything. But the problem is that it creates long term issues. Right. So unfortunately, when I drank, it's not like I would go, you know, donate my time to charities and also donate my money and read great books like I did stupid shit that ended up half ruin in my life, right, not tends to be the story for most people. But I do think that knowing that there is an element of choice is helpful for people. It's not like people will say, oh, it's a choice. It's like, well, that really really simplifies it, you know. Yes, it's like in a way, yes, but like that is ninety nine percent right, one hundred percent wrong. It's like feels a choice. No one would make the choice. It's like, why is the person doing the behavior in the first place, And it's usually because it's solving a short term problem. That is this massive problem that's going to have to take all these different means of solving and by the way, it's really going to suck as you solve it in the long term, right, And so it's super complicated. But I do think that that also gives people a little bit of hope. So when you look at this really interesting study out if I think the University of New Mexico, and it basically found that the top reason people relapsed it was a study of alcoholics for about a year, it was because they believed wholeheartedly in the disease model, and they went, well, wait a minute, if I have a disease, and I asked my doctor, how do I cure this thing? And my doctor goes, well, there's no cure for it. Why would I even try? Like it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to relax, right, And so I do think the message that you know, there is a little bit of hope. There's a lot of hope actually, and there's also some personal agency, but also realizing like it's going to be hard, and it's going to take work, and it's going to take asking for help. You're going to have to be like, hey, I need help from people. You know, it's not always going to be easy. But I do think you see a much brighter outlook too. For addiction.

Yeah, I mean, I think the first things versus that I agree with you about the disease model and the intent behind it. Right, it came up in a time where we're throwing all these people in jail because they're bad people, because they are addicted to drugs, and we think that that's going to like solve their problems. It's like no, right, And so I think it's well intentioned. I think that it's downside, though, is that there's plenty of examples where people are able to make choices. So a classic example is the soldiers in Vietnam. There's this huge spike in addiction rates to heroin in Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and so President Nixon he launches this program called Operation Golden Flow. And the deal is pretty simple. It's that if people who are addicted, our soldiers who are addicted to heroin want to come back to the United States and leave war, they have to pass a urine test. So something like fifteen to twenty percent of our soldiers in Vietnam we're addicted to heroin. So you would think, okay, like if people can't make a choice here, and it's one hundred percent of choice, we would have left fifteen to twenty percent of our soldiers in Vietnam, right. Well, what ended up happening was complete opposite. Every single soldier passed the dr in test and when they got home, the relapse rates among the people who were addicted were exceedingly low. They were like five percent, and the five percent who relapse tended to be drug users before the Vietnam War. So what this suggests is that one people have a choice, and that two elements of addiction may also be driven by our environment. Back to the environment, right, And so then it's like, Okay, what was Vietnam like during the war, Well, that sounds like hell. It's like, yeah, if I was in that hell, I might be wanted to do some drugs too to escape. And so I think that you see, addiction rates tend to rise and fall based on people's external and internal conditions. So I really see addiction as a solution for people who are experiencing problems. Unfortunately, using a substance provides a solution in the short term, like I said, with my drinking, right, that'll solve a problem faster than anything. But the problem is that it creates long term issues. Right. So unfortunately, when I drank, it's not like I would go, you know, donate my time to charities and also donate my money and read great books like I did stupid shit that ended up half ruin in my life, right, not tends to be the story for most people. But I do think that knowing that there is an element of choice is helpful for people. It's not like people will say, oh, it's a choice. It's like, well, that really really simplifies it, you know. Yes, it's like in a way, yes, but like that is ninety nine percent right, one hundred percent wrong. It's like feels a choice. No one would make the choice. It's like, why is the person doing the behavior in the first place, And it's usually because it's solving a short term problem. That is this massive problem that's going to have to take all these different means of solving and by the way, it's really going to suck as you solve it in the long term, right, And so it's super complicated. But I do think that that also gives people a little bit of hope. So when you look at this really interesting study out if I think the University of New Mexico, and it basically found that the top reason people relapsed it was a study of alcoholics for about a year, it was because they believed wholeheartedly in the disease model, and they went, well, wait a minute, if I have a disease, and I asked my doctor, how do I cure this thing? And my doctor goes, well, there's no cure for it. Why would I even try? Like it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to relax, right, And so I do think the message that you know, there is a little bit of hope. There's a lot of hope actually, and there's also some personal agency, but also realizing like it's going to be hard, and it's going to take work, and it's going to take asking for help. You're going to have to be like, hey, I need help from people. You know, it's not always going to be easy. But I do think you see a much brighter outlook too. For addiction.

I agree with you. I mean, the great mystery to me is why some people recover and others don't. Right. We can point to things, we can look at people's environments, right, we can look at the social capital that they have. There's lots of explanations, right, But at the end of the day, there does seem to me to be something mysterious about it. Because you'll see some people who have all the trauma in the world, none of the social capital, none of the support, and they get sober. And then you'll see other people who have all the support in the world, all the social capital, their trauma load isn't that high, and they don't. Right, And so there is an element of choice in it. But the question is always how much choice right? And I know in my own life the amount of choice I feel about picking up a drink or doing drugs is completely different than it was fifteen years ago. Right, fifteen years ago, it felt like I had this sliver of choice. It was there, was always there, but it didn't feel like it feels today. And that's why I loved your line about addiction is not a choice. Instead, it's a summation of repeated choices that make a different choice harder to make. For all the reasons we've talked about, environmental, biological, and historical, right, I think that really speaks to it. I mean, that's my understanding to bring a spiritual word into this of karma. Right. Karma to me is simply that a behavior that I do makes it easier to repeat again and again, hence the scarcity loop aspect of this. Right. The more repeatable behavior is, the more I repeat it, the more likely it is I'm going to do the same thing in the future. It starts to cut a groove in the record, so to speak.