L.O.G. 148 Crowd Behavior

Well, good morning, Greg. How are you today?

Morning. Good morning, Brian, and almost Merry Christmas, huh?

Yeah, we're getting close. And this one's coming out right away, so it's getting, getting, getting close to the holidays, which is always interesting and exciting. And also, unfortunately, a lot of bad things happen around the holidays, too. Especially, I think, because of this ongoing effects of COVID psychologically and physically on a lot of people. It's a little heavier on people's minds. They've realized and people are obviously, the stress fractures are continuing to show. People are continuing to get upset over it, which is understandable, which is why you have an increase in all kinds of different, you know, car accidents, alcohol-involved incidents, domestic violence, all that stuff over this past year, which, unfortunately, is a side effect of all this that kind of, we, you know, I get it, you get an update in the news every single day on what variant and where it's at and all this other stuff, but we don't focus on the things that we can control. Not accidental.

So, so let me just throw a caveat to that. If you're listening right now, Brian and I completely understand it. 42 million Americans feel the effects of increased anxiety, and even more so during the holidays, and now even more so because of the exacerbations from COVID and the others. My idea, folks, is that increased anxiety works on your psychological emotions. Talk it out, don't act it out. We're here if you want to talk to us, and then your neighbors or anybody else, but don't, don't just sit on it because it ain't going to get easier.

Yeah, and which is why we see, kind of as a good segue into the topic we're discussing today, which is, you know, about kind of crowds and crowd behavior. And we've had several people, you know, kind of reach out and ask us to kind of cover this topic. And we've, we've definitely covered it before in general in several other episodes, including, you know, last summer when there were all the riots all over, you know, kind of talk about how things escalate, how they spin out of control. And go back and listen to those. We did a couple great ones on that, but you know, didn't get too specific into crowd behavior.

So, to kind of start the conversation, I know I always describe it as, and I'm sure you would agree or disagree, you can tell me now, but you know, individually, all most humans can be reasoned with, spoken to, even when angry, upset, even sometimes emotionally disturbed people, even with drugs on board. I mean, you talk about your experience even as a hostage negotiator, you know, you're in high stressful situations, one-on-one. Individually, most people can be reasoned with at some level. Maybe not to the level you want, but you can, you can kind of get some, get them to kind of go along a little bit easier. Once we start to increase the numbers of people, the size, the group, the size of the group from two to four to 10, now 100, whatever that is, you know, I always say like, we kind of, we get dumb real fast, right? We kind of turn off that prefrontal cortex and our critical thinking a little bit because there's safety in numbers in general, right?

So, so maybe we're going to, you know what we'll do, we'll engage in behavior we otherwise typically wouldn't alone, right? There, there's, there's a crowd there. So maybe sometimes we'll need to feel like we need to be part of it, or show off, or or be the leader. Like there's a lot of different dynamics and people study crowd dynamics and crowd behavior and mob action and mob behavior and crowd psychology. There's a lot of study and research behind it. And you know, a lot of it gets into different theoretical concepts of how people think in those situations. And we focus on how people behave in those situations, right? Because, you know, and it's not bashing any of this research into it, it's just that it's, it's descriptive analytics of this is how people maybe think, but you got to remember, too, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance in human beings, right? We, we think and say maybe one thing and then, then we do another thing, right? So, so you can't rely too much on what people's motivations are for doing stuff. So that's why we keep it general, right? And when the larger that crowd gets, really, the dumber we get. We really kind of turn off our brains a little bit and we go along with things, right?

So let's talk about that because that's a great comment. I hate to interject on your preamble, but you just brought up something I think is really important. So folks, Brian and I, and our team, we were training GSG9, the Hungarian Special Forces, the Hellenic Navy SEALs, a whole bunch of this group together. And the sidebar got off on soccer hooligans, and you remember, we were interviewing them on how did soccer hooligans go? And one of the greatest comments that I ever heard is the guy said, "Look, when we become soccer hooligans, a crowd is not us. It's not us individually, it's us, the crowd." And we got onto that tangent. Now you just said it again. So I'll, I'll put it in terms of this: if you think about it as, as the group gets larger, we get dumber. So put it like this, everybody knows of a show like Jeopardy. You know, there's a million of them out there, but, but Jeopardy is kind of like the, you know, the Fleming original to the true effect. And now, who the hell ever it is, if we were to go against the three people on Jeopardy and we were individually and they were allowed to compete against us, okay, they would have a technical and a tactical advantage. Now if we number, we said there's going to be six of them, Brian, right, against us. Okay, wow, I'm going to have to be on my best game. Even with the clicker timing and everything else, they're going to have the advantage. Now, what happens if all of a sudden they give me three or six to bolster my side? Right now we create almost a competition.

So what, what I just showed there in just a model simulation is that let's put yourself in the situation of a crowd on the street, and now all of a sudden an opposing viewpoint, or they, they find a central viewpoint that they're all for, and now you're an individual copper, or you say, "Hey, send me a couple extra," and now the crowd, you know, the [expletive] police cars show up, pardon my language, and you get what I'm trying to say, the tumult forms. What people don't understand is anytime that you have turbidity, I want you to think of this: if you're a copper and you're listening right now, what happens? What's a fatal funnel going in or out of the door for a military or a first responder? What about for a plumber, the water going into a drain? Generally, the water that's setting out here isn't your problem. Okay, as it comes towards that drain, Brian, it becomes much more turbid and violent, right? And it's spinning around and it's unpredictable sometimes, and different things will happen. So, so when odds are one-on-one, you're exactly right. I'm much more likely to be able to talk reason with you, right, and talk you down and, and the de-escalation process as long as both players are starting near the same goal. You see what I'm trying to say?

Right, right. Because you have to...

I don't want anybody thinking, "Look, if a person spun out of control and, and they're putting, you know, heads on spikes and white tires and everything, you can't come in and go, 'Okay, let's talk. Like, you're upset, right?'" You can't do that. Okay? A sociologist somewhere is arguing with this in Portland, "Of course you can!" Yeah, I don't think so, while you're reading your book from the glow of the fire, outside while they're, you know, burning you an effigy. But I, I just want to say that, Brian, you're exactly right in making those distinctions. And I want people to know, a crowd's not a mob, and a mob is not a riot. As much as I say, a crowd is not us, the characterization of a crowd, for example, at a mall, or a crowd like, crowded, the word itself takes on a bad connotation. "Why aren't you going into the movie theater, Brian?" "Oh, it's crowded." "Why aren't you going to go to that, that street vendor?" "Oh, it's too crowded." So, so you see, even in the word, there's, there's the insinuation that this might be a place we don't want to find ourselves close to that drain. You get the correlation I'm trying to make?

Yeah. And, and you know, the other kind of general important thing to, to remember in that is that, you know, those crowd situations when you have a large gathering of people, they have the ability to escalate much, much quicker, right? Because, so like you just said with all those numbers, now we've got a bunch of like-minded individuals. And, you know, let's, so let's, let's use, I know we use the airport as an example for a number of things. And I like that. You know, you're sitting there waiting for your flight, and, you know, you see someone arguing with the gate agent, you know, it's pretty easy to be like, "Man, this, this person's kind of, you know, they're, they're a little bit, they're a little out of line here. They shouldn't be yelling at it." But if, you know, 10 minutes before that, you know, the gate agent came on and said, "Oh, you know what, hey, we're going to be delayed an hour, this is going on," and you've got a connecting flight. Now you're amped up. Then you see the person go up there and start to speak their mind. Well, suddenly you, you're a little bit more on that person's side. Suddenly you feel their pain a little bit more, sometimes literally, you know, you feel that they're upset. So you're, you're a little bit more likely to relate to that, whereas just change the circumstances a little bit...

Exactly. Right. You would have gone, "Ah, this person is kind of an [expletive]."

But now you're going like, "Well, hey, you know, yeah, he's yelling a lot, but I get it, man. I see what he's saying." Suddenly...

So let me throw this at you, the wind blows a little bit and suddenly you're on the other side. So folks, if you're listening, what Brian just did is he did sociological argument number seven B, which he said that the environment dictates the behavior, which is exactly true. And, and he gave you concrete examples of being in that situation and watching it. So now let me take it from a different perspective, Brian. Let me go to seven C, which is context. Context can be everything in a situation like that. So folks, when you walk into any situation, with your family alone, at work, anything else, I would start talking about obstacles, dangers, and opportunities. They're all the same. They're going to manifest themselves in the environment, right? So what Brian is saying is the environment can trigger that. I'm saying that context can trigger that. So put yourself in the food court of that same airport. And two people at a table are having an argument. One, you're likely never to notice it. Okay? Or if you're sitting close enough to notice that, you'll probably grab your food and move away because you, in the greater scheme of maneuver, it doesn't offer you an obstacle to you getting on your flight. It's certainly not going to give you a danger because it's just a verbal argument, argument, so you're not going to have to step in. And as far as an opportunity, unless, you know, one of the players is really good looking and you want to be a leader and slide in and go, "Hey, baby, he's treating you wrong," which, you know, in the environmentals that you discuss, that's not going to happen.

Now let's put it to the gate agent. So we're going to go three, the gate agent. Now you hear the person arguing, "Well, is this going to be an obstacle to me getting on a plane?" If it is, I'm probably going to stand up and tell the guy, "Hey, back off. Take yourself." Right? You get it?

Yeah.

Now is there going to be a danger? Is the guy threatening and doing the behaviors? I'm going to go up and go, "Hey, you need to chill out, bugs. You're, you're starting to scare all of us." And then the opportunity is, is this an opportunity to go up after that guy leaves and go, "Hey, on that first class cabin, do you see how the final humans are?" Okay. Now let's change it to one more place. Let's put it at 35,000 feet, Brian. Trouble's don't get easier 30,000 feet. Now that guy stands up and now he's not only an obstacle to, to, you know, my continued flight because I don't want an emergency landing, he's an obstacle to my safety. You get what I'm trying to say? And I'm not going to do that. He now has elevated to a danger, or she, of course, you know, changed those among me. And what's my opportunity now? My opportunity may be that if I don't step in now, I won't have the chance later. And we'll be landing in Boise, effing Idaho, and I'm not going to make Christmas. You see? So, so I would tell you that that, that, that it's the human behavior that matters and the group dynamic in the human behavior. The threshold lessens, why? Because of those three things. People are, are looking at obstacles to them, not obstacles to the group. They're looking at dangers proposed, you know, by the situation. And then finally, if I don't have an opportunity to, to make this a good thing, it's going to screw up my day and I'm not going to take that.

So, so now let's add like, let's go back to the ground and add like something stupid like weather. Do people react the exact same way in hot weather as they do in cold weather? Now for, for 20 years, I've been going to the tree lighting ceremony in Gunnison, and it's always below zero. Do you get what I'm saying? There's a couple of thousand people out there. What does that bring together? It brings out the best of this. Yeah, you never see somebody go, "Oh, your dog's near my foot! Hey, look, watch out!" You know? That's it. They're like, "Hey, I got an extra pair of gloves. How are you? Hey, we're having hot chocolate." Yeah, you guys drink it right now. Now, now put that, that it's 106 wet bulb, Brian. You hear what I'm trying to say? And the sun's beating down. What happens to every music event, every concert, everything? Now people are wet. "Why are you looking at me?" And they're ready to go. So, so if you take environment and context, do you see what I'm trying to say? And you observe it through those lenses, we're back at that drain. The closer to the drain, the, the more likely you're going to get sucked down and in. And, and so you know, you have to determine when that point is nigh, because if you don't, then you're going to be in the fatal funnel. I'm still trying to make a correlation.

No, no, no, your point is, is, you know, as the dynamics in a crowd change and you can sense that atmospheric shift or, or or a change in what's going on, that is this situation escalating or de-escalating? That's what I mean, it can be volatile, right? It can, it can, it can, you know, start to escalate very rapidly. But all of those things have to build. Like you just said, you gave the perfect example, if you, if you pull the plug on the drain in the bathtub, yeah, first it starts going on, and then, you know, it starts even going in there a little bit slowly. And then what starts to happen? The water starts to spin around and spin around, and then it picks up speed as it's going, as it's going. So that's exactly, sometimes you can't escape that.

Yeah.

Right? So if you pull that plug gets pulled, or that stop gap gets pulled, you hit that critical mass, it breaks the valve, whatever the situation is, right? Then all of a sudden, this goes from people hanging out and partying on a Friday and there's some of my buddies and let's go over here. "Oh, I heard so-and-so is coming!" Yeah, call them out here. Next thing you know, it's, it's 200 people out on the street in downtown Chicago. What are you going to do? And we're pulling bus drivers out and beating them up. Like, and you're going, "Well, wait a minute. What, what happened in here? How did it get from, from point A to point Z? And how did it escalate so quickly?" Yeah. And this is what we're talking about, and it comes down to group and individual behavior. Now, so I made the point and, and you know, you somewhat agree that we get kind of dumb in those in those circumstances. And you can, you forget where you're at. You get people, you get caught up in the moment. You're just there to have fun, but then the next thing you know, there's a fight going on over here. You know what I'm saying? Like those things can start to spiral and get out of control very quickly.

And, and your role as a spectator, are you now a demonstrator?

Oh, yeah.

You know, a participant? Right? You see what I'm trying to say? So that fine line, Brian, that, that, that, that's fine. It's, it's so fine that it's like anger and rage. When a person says, "Okay, well, can you tell me the difference between anger and rage?" Yes. Can you tell me the exact point that it occurs? Man, probably, probably chemically, but I can show you the window where it's most likely to occur. Right?

Yeah, I don't have a tool to measure the specific nanosecond on which it flips from one to the next. But it's, right, it's a gradient. You know, once you hit this point, it's about to hit. Okay, now it clearly has. Like it, it's a spectator and participant, right?

I agree. And this comes down to a lot of study is put into how humans behave during these scenarios. Right, right.

And, you know, there's different observer effect, bystander effect of different, you know, studies, especially sociological studies people have done and psychological ones for crowd psychology. And there's kind of, it, it, it often, I don't think it gets described very clearly, right? And, you know, that goes to the, the, like you, we talked about before, the, the Genovese lady in New York, Kitty Genovese, and, and, you know, how she was brutally murdered and no one did anything to help. Well, that was a story that's not exactly what happened, right? But, but it was people, not for a while.

Yeah.

People looked out their window, yelled at this guy, he took off. And she was, you know, bleeding basically out, you know, underneath, but they couldn't see her. And then the way these, and everyone did the whole, how can, you know, three dozen people hear and see this and, and do nothing? Well, part of that effect is, you know, if what will happen is if there's something happens in a crowd, let's say someone gets hurt, and someone immediately turns and goes to help them, the surrounding people will also do the same thing. Like they will turn around and start helping that individual. If if no one does anything, we sociologically kind of look around at our surroundings. "Wait a minute, what's going on here? Did someone, did you help? What was I supposed to? Or did someone already...?"

So what Brian just described perfectly is how your mirror neurons create social contagion. Yes. So social contagion is simply this: if everybody's doing something, you will. If nobody's doing anything, you won't. And that's literally that simple. And we're trying to convolute it into, you know, force it into this, again, the Plato shape shifter and stuff. It's just that easy. Listen, if I see you pick up and throw a rock and break a window and there's no consequences for it, I'm a rock throwing son of a [expletive]. By the same token, if somebody is screaming and somebody says, "We should help that lady! Let's help!" Everybody around you will help and grab their torches and light them on fire and go and kill Frankenstein. It's just that simple. So, so what's the opposite of social contagion? Well, anonymity. If you're so anonymous from the crowd, you're not going to participate or be a spectator, you're going to be left alone. So when people tell you, "Well, I, I feel an anonymity in a greater crowd," no, they're saying it wrong. What they're saying is the mirror neurons of the crowd are so strong that they'll carry you with the wave, just like we were talking about the drain, right? Or, or they'll repel you, they'll push you out from it. Right? And so how have cops historically answered crowds? By bringing in groups of people with shields and bats dressed all in black from head to toe and throwing smoke and trying to hurt you. Well, I want you to conduct a limited objective experiment by getting weasels or cats or dogs and poking them to the point of frenzy and then trying to get them from a suitcase to another suitcase. It's not going to work, Brian.

Right.

You see what I'm saying? And now what did we just talk about? You exacerbate that with the weather, okay, or with the increased anxiety of, "I don't have a clear exit." Kitty Genovese would be alive today if that same situation occurred in an elevator because we, the context changes because of the environmental change, and we now see that it's incumbent upon us to act or somebody's going to die.

It's a different scenario if there had been one person in that lobby or whatever. So it would have been completely, that everyone who heard it would have helped or done something or, like, yeah, you're, you're exactly right. And that's there's, um, it's kind of what when you talk about that anonymity and getting pushed out and there, you know, that, that can happen. And people kind of, you know, can get either drawn in or pushed away from the crowd.

Yeah.

It's kind of, there's, there's, there's different kind of schools of thought on it. And, and you know, a lot of people say, "Well, you're more likely to do something in a crowd that you otherwise wouldn't do alone as an individual," which is, which is, that's true. That's true. But why?

To a certain point. Right? So, so to use your own point, environmentally, when I go to Vegas, I'm a totally different human being when I see that slot machine. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And folks, I don't drink. Brian can attest to the fact that, that I'm a tea-totaler until I meet Brian, okay? At which point, all bets are off and what is it, the tacos at the street vendor in Mexico City under 2:30 in the morning? Okay. But, but the idea, Brian, is, is that the nature nurture, I'm not going to go deep into it, but depending on certain environmentals, yes, you will be drawn to do what you don't do. And, and Bible, in the Quran and Talmud, call those sins. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Because given a certain situation, all of us, none of us is without sin. So I would say, yeah, but I'm not buying the fact that they, well, for example, have you ever seen the wave at a, at a sporting event?

Yeah.

Okay. Not everybody takes part in the wave. No. So, so there's some people that will be lured into it and playfully have a good time. And there's some people that'll go, "Nah, kind of not me." That's crowd dynamics. You're never sure where that crowd, that's why, remember when we did the crowd modeling at the infantry immersive trainer? Yeah, the simulation industry. And we tried to explain to those guys more recently...

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, but, but what we tried to explain is that there were outliers and there were people that were going to be spectators and then we had people that were going to try to escape. And that was going to create another environmental, an atmospheric shift in the environment. And, and how do we correlate the responsibilities? I remember every time we tried to build a model of that, Brian, a statistical model to, to example that, there's always the "what" factor. There's always the human factor where the person doesn't run or the person stops to take the, the photo. And that changes the behavior. You see what I'm saying? There's so many little molecules.

Yeah, yeah. There's only, there's a, there's a, it's a finite data set, the number of things you're going to potentially do. But, but you do have a lot of options in there. And this is where people get into like free will and what, you know, what you chose to do. But which I always say, we have, we have a lot less, we have a lot less free will than, than we think we do.

Totally.

Uh, we're a little bit more driven by a whole bunch of unconscious things that, that we're not really tuned into. Um, but that gets into what a lot of the study has done on this, and which is why we just take a different approach, right? So all the study's done on how people think, uh, during these different situations, especially crowd situations, and, um, you know, what their motivations are during those. And how that, and that's great for sitting around the fireplace and talking about it. But, but it's not great for establishing intent and, and because a lot of, there's a lot of people that, that do believe, you know, like, you know, people say, "Well, you're going to do stuff, and I got caught up in the crowd and next thing you know, I was walking out with a TV and stealing a watch out of a car dealership on Rush Street," which just happened downtown Chicago. But, right? Um, and, and I, I'm more of the, "No, I, there's certain things you're going to do in a crowd they wouldn't do alone," but, but you, maybe that's just who you are and you now got a chance to do it. So, and, and I also call that we were kind of talking about this, it's like, it's like the, the steroid effect, right? So people go, "Yeah, these, this guy's on steroids and he's got roid rage," and like, that's kind of not really a thing. Um, yes, increasing your testosterone levels will increase your aggression levels, all that. But it just amplifies who you are as a person. Right? Like cocaine, right? Cocaine amplifies who you are as a person. Like if you're an [expletive], you're going to be hurting a big, it's not going to turn you into an [expletive] if you're a nice person. And it goes down to that crowd stuff. Like, no, what was your intent? What were you there for? You saw an opportunity. You, it means it means that across your mind, when, if you're in one of those, those department stores and that 100 people walk in and start stealing stuff, you know, typical reaction, one, you're probably, you should be scared and worried and worried for your safety and trying to get out of there. But if you're not, and you go, "Well, you know what, I might as well just grab these jeans that I had anyway and take off without them because what, you know?" No, you, that's, that's part of who you are. Who you are. That's who you are.

So look, we, if somebody is still messed up and they're thinking about, "Okay, so how come Seattle and Oakland and Portland and the protracted riots for so long?" Think of it, folks, and if you're a copper, write this down, it's the perfect storm of anxiety and emotion coming together with anonymity. What do I mean by that? All of a sudden you had COVID that forced us to wear facemasks. Face masks are so abnormal to us as humans because we don't want to see, we want to see your eyes and your face. That's how we learn to get oxytocin and love things and hate other things. So all of a sudden you had a situation where now these folks were legally in a group carrying a bat, wearing a face mask, right? So it made it easier to fall off that ledge. Okay? So, so what happened, Brian, is the ledge was always there. Okay? So, so your distance to the ledge changed. And, and you know, Nietzsche, "When we look into the abyss, the abyss looks into us." What happened is the, the power of drawing you in could be less because the consequences were less. And I looked at you and I said, "We're here to light a [expletive], pardon me again, a police car on fire." The, the anger makes me get out, my anger's yeah, and we're here to fight with the cops and we're here to do these things. And guess what? We've got, we've now got the context of being allowed to wear facemasks, which gives us a greater degree of anonymity. So Brian, that perfect storm is coming towards that drain, and it's going to be turbulent around there. There's going to be a tremendous amount of draw. And, and physics takes over just as much as psychology. And now you add the physiology of it being hot near a fire, and people are screaming, and there's the smell of chemical aerosol spray in there. Come on, man. I mean, that's it.

Yeah, yeah. You're either on the way to a fight or a Roman orgy. You know, where are you?

Yeah. I, I mean, you see what I'm saying? And, and so don't get swept away in that and then come back and go, "Man, hey, that got out of hand quick." Trying to say, "He killed the guy! He killed the guy! I had a trident." But yeah, the idea there, Brian, is that a copper, like if you're a shift commander, this is the kind of mental calculus you should be playing: "Hey, we've got that movie that's playing tonight and it's that very violent whatever. And, uh, hey, I wonder if we should increase the number of patrols around the theaters." All right? "I wonder if we should..." You, you have to be ready for that. Because if you're not ready for it, what's, like, like weather is an easy thing to predict. "Hey, it's going to be really hot. We're going to have a homicide." Look. Okay. Now, but remember, we have that open air concert in the park. Okay. Yeah, the music, it is, oh, it's symphony. Okay. Now you see that it's going down, right? In my graduated cylinder, "Oh, it's a Juggalos!" "Oh, it's the Insane Clown Posse!" You see what I'm trying to say? I'm not trying to cast aspersions. I'm saying it's not unlike hunting. Hunting has to do with things like, like you don't just go hunt deer any time during the year, or else you wait till the estrous cycle where the pheromones and everything is kicking. And now they have a need to breed. Why? Because animals get stupid. So now you've got animals getting stupid. Then you don't hunt deer on the street in your village, do you? Okay. You go into the woods to where they've established behavior. So if you were a social scientist, could you figure this out? Yeah. But you don't need to be, Brian. You need to be less of a social scientist and more of a human and just apply the lens of human behavior. They're making it too tough for us. I think. Like for example, what's, what's the definition of a crowd? I, I even...

Yeah, there's, there's, yeah, there's a, there's, there's hundreds. Yeah. Because there's, it's, it's like more, and then they break down into like collective behavior, but then the collective behavior could be two people working on a table building it. You know what I mean? Like, that's so crowded.

But a riot's defined, or why it's defined in every language, in every culture, acting in concert. Right? So, so what I'm trying to say is don't try to get that granularity driven where you're trying to explicate every molecular movement of it. Just take a look and go, "What's the trend? What's the way? They're like an undulating current, a wave. Read it that way."

I would say no. And, and, and that's the, that's the kind of the what-if game during it. You know what I mean? Like, you're those, those crowds, so whether that's in the, the airport terminal at the gate and going, "Well, wait a minute. Is this, is this escalating or is this de-escalating? Is the pressure increasing or is it decreasing? What happens to this conversation? What happened to these two people who are already kind of saying comments to each other waiting for the plane? What happens when we lock ourselves in that tomb, because that, that that aluminum tube and that pressure increases? Because guess what, Brian, we start filming.

So, so what do we say? "If you can film it, you can solve it. If you can film it, you can prevent it." Nobody listens to us. But listen, watch that situation that Brian is creating. He's creating a part test training and all of a sudden I start bringing out and I start filming it. Are people going to be on their best behavior during filming? Sometimes exactly the opposite. Sometimes they're going to put that camera away, I swear to God. And that'll be the, the tipping point, Gladwell, that pushes us in a certain direction. I, I'm in complete and violent agreement with your point that I think that what happens is the closer we get to those, those external factors, sociological, psychological, and certainly social or physiological, I think what happens, Brian, is that anxiety level becomes the trigger. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And now, you know, you said we were rehearsing for something completely different this morning and you were talking about, "Hey, let's make it about the issue and about the human." And what you've done is you've reversed the roles. You said, "Here, to make it about the situation, we have to understand the human." And I think that's the best definition. I, I think we have to understand the human actor given this situation and all the pressures on that.

It's the ultimate, you know, um, it's the ultimate example of establishing intent is the best way to go with it. I don't care what the crowd's there for. I don't care what the signs say. I don't care what their t-shirts say. It's, it's what is the crowd doing? Right? Did the crowd show up with with, um, you know, cardboard and Sharpies and a bottle of water in their pocket, or did they show up with a light on a helmet on a ladder?

Exactly.

So, no, I get it. So, I don't care what the message is that they're saying. It's what is their behavior and what is their intent? And then, and then what you can see is what, what if we throw, if a rock gets thrown in this pond right now, where are the ripples going to go? Right? Like you just said, you know, and, and I know it's like, "Well, the police, we have to show up to these things." It's like, "Yeah, I, I get it, but what, what's the outcome? What are we expecting?" All right, if all of a sudden I've got this side that's really angry and it's escalating and I bring, I give them a common enemy. Oh, man, what is, what is that going to do to that crowd? You know what I mean? If I give them a common enemy to all band really well together, fight, it's just going to, it's, of course, it's going to escalate the situation, right?

And just understand, how did you build Al-Qaeda? How did you build Taliban? How did you, com a common enemy? How do we create and foster and foment brotherhood and sisterhood in our classes in person? We create a common enemy. They don't know us. Listen. And then in the first hour, we've got everybody hooked to our training because we've done it that way. And, and I, I would tell you that, that we have to take a look at at the lack of preparation, for example. Right now we're still talking about January 6th and the overthrow of the government. Look, if that was an attempt to overthrow the government, it was the worst one I've ever seen in my entire life. So let's back off of the rhetoric. Yeah. Would you agree? I will ask this, would you agree that there was one place over four hours, let's say that's about the right timeline, one place where they were fighting nose to nose for an inch of space to try to get into the building where another place they gained almost immediate entry and now demonstrated their intent by going, "Now what are we going to do?" Yeah. And then, "I want to take a picture!" So what I'm trying to say there, it's a good, that's a really good example. Yeah, the environment and the, and the amount of pressure and the anxiety. So, so here we were fighting for every inch of terrain because we lost sight of what was going on. And then if the people would have come in that would have been much more violent, there would have been much more damage.

Well, this is, this decision, you brought it up. So, so we might as well talk about it because that's a great example of, of crowd behavior that we mean by this. So let's take the same internet, let's take out anything we know about an investigation or political leanings or, or who voted for who. Because as we did find out, I think half the people there didn't, weren't even registered voters. But, but it goes, which is a, it's a perfect point. Like what is this, what are the, what is the intent here? What's going on here? What were all the contributing factors? This, if you're going to try and tell me that that was some highly organized, were there some elements of people that wanted to organize some? Well, of course there were. Um, were there just a lot of people that showed up and, "Here's the party! And what are we doing?" Yeah, I've got nothing to do today. Like any time I see all of the, any of these things happen, just as many people have said, "I smell a fight brewing and I want to be there to throw that first..."

But, but what you, what you just brought up was the what, what happened? What was the plan? What was their intent once you got inside there? "Oh, man. Wow. Let's go take some photos. I'm on this desk." Uh, "Let's see, a bunch of people have guns." Souvenirs. "Like a bunch of people had guns!" And if it was an overthrow, there would have been a bunch of gunplay. A bunch of people had incentive devices. Some people had what could be classified as explosives. My idea is this isn't a general concentrated effort where everybody was of one thought. What, what happened is that social contagion, the mirror neurons, turned [expletive] into bigger [expletive]. Yeah. Do you know what I'm trying to say? And some people had an agenda. An agenda equals intent. Okay? Yes. And they tried to act that out. And then other people were there because they had an increased level of anxiety around the time of elections, which is not untoward. And yeah, you can look through every culture around elections and guess what, Brian, they were put into this, this, this melting pot of humanity. And some allowed their mirror neurons to get out of control and they started, they're saying, "Hey, this one person and this one message is what it was." Yeah, that turned everybody. Okay, stop. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a bit of a, I would say that's a quantum leap of logic there, as you would say.

Worse, Brian, that's, that's the, uh, "Let them eat cake" defense. That was the only thing that started the French Revolution. That callous remark. Why do we do that? Such junk, being such junk. There are so many contributing factors, you know.

No.

And, and that's what it is. You can watch that and literally watch people trying to figure out [expletive] as they go along. Okay? If you're trying to figure things out as you go along, it's because you don't have a plan. Like, it's, if you're running around like that, I mean, it's literally like, "Oh, wow. This is, this is not, these are not the brightest people in the world. Uh, what are you doing? Uh, what the [expletive] is going on here?"

And there were some very dangerous people in that crowd with various intent, but they were the ones that we need to target. But now let's, let's go to, um, a, a, now compare that. Let's compare that to what happened this summer previously of what a protest then turns into a riot and burning of a city. Were there people in there that were, were just good Americans exercising their First Amendment right? Absolutely there were. Absolutely. But it's losing, that's losing its glimmer, its sheen. And then, and were there some people that said, "No, I want to go smash windows?" Yep. And then there were, were there some people that just showed up and decided to jump in on it because they were bored? Yeah. Like, this is what the, the dynamics are in those groups. And, and they had, the only, at that point, the only collective thought process is, "We're, we're [expletive] rioting now." Like, I mean, that, that, I mean, because there's going to be some guy in there going, "Hey, once they get into that building, I'm going to go steal this because that's what I'm here for," and he's just waiting for someone to smash out that window. You get...

There's so many people.

Listen, Sublime, uh, uh, the group, uh, uh, put it so well when, when she came out, she was getting some Pampers. Okay. Listen, not everybody is even understanding what it's about. They don't know whether it's social anarchy, they don't know whether they care because that, and they're just saying, "You know what would be nice? I, I can't afford the 35 for the Pampers. Yeah, I'm going to get them for free." Folks, if we don't take a look at that from the sociological, psychological, and physiological, we'll miss, and what we're going to miss is we're going to, we're going to be reacting to all the incidents, Reginald Denny getting dragged out of the vehicle and why? Because Reginald Denny was there. Reginald Denny became a totem for the entire thing that was occurring around them. So, so we have to understand this is a game of people. So if we're going to strategize, if we're going to play a game, we don't play a game with the situation, Brian, we play a game with the people. If we put people in a motel and tell them that they're jailers, you get what I'm saying, or prisoners, it's going to, it's going to turn into a prison. A social experiment is always going to have a limited number of outcomes. That's why we have to look at that ahead of time. So to answer your argument today about crowd behavior, you have to look at human behavior and just protract it out. And, and the closer you are to the drain, the larger the amount of turbidity and lure to pull you off that edge where that wouldn't even be in your mind had you been at church that morning or shopping or do you get what I'm trying to say, skating with the family at Jorgensen Park? That's what I'm trying to say. And I think that epitomizes what you're saying as well. I'm just saying that we got to stop being so gosh damn clinical about these things, thinking that there's an architectural modeling a human behavior. And I think you would agree with that. It depends on so many other factors.

Well, you and, and you can use a framework, but once you increase the input in one area, um, that's like a math equation, it's going to change the effects in other areas. It's like doing fractals rather than fractions. You completely agree with it. You can make general, um, assumptions and general, um, predictions. Right? Like, so your point, like, look, very simply, um, are there, is what month of the year is there more likely to be a protest in June or January? It's like, "Well, okay, well, June, because..."

Yep. No, no. So, look at this argument, Brian, that for example, what kind of mesmerizing the Navy pulled to beat Army on Saturday? And, and look at the fallout there. Well, when we take a look at a sporting event, it's back to that soccer hooligans. Look, when the Wings won the Stanley Cup, they're tipping over cars and they're burning stuff up. Listen, you have to understand what characterized that. Okay? You had an event, then you had people around the event, then you had them in a highly emotional state. Then you had the mirror neuron of the first person ripping down the, the goalpost or doing that. You see what I'm trying to say? It's, that's you could describe all that behavior. And you could ask me just if you described that situation happening, okay, people yelling and screaming in the streets, jumping down on cars, flipping them, setting a fire, and then you go and give me all the details and then go, "Brian, um, what was the precipitating event? Was it a team winning the Stanley Cup, or was it a high profile news jury trial?" And I go, "Yep, I'd have no idea."

Well, yeah, yeah, it was like, it's the same thing. I totally agree. So this is why we try to, but this is another argument for why we try to take the, the ideology out of it or, or your po I don't care if the social, religious, cultural, political ideology that clouds our judgment, that clouds the way we handle things, the way we respond to things. Because then you'll have stuff in cities go, "Well, we got to go stop that, uh, protest in the streets, uh, but we can't do that one over there because we're going to get out of that, we're going to stay out of that." It's like, "No, no, no, no, no, get rid of the, be, get rid of the, uh, the ideology behind it. Get rid of the reason why. Get rid of the motivation for it. And what are they doing? What's actually happening? What is the behavior of the crowd? What are the individuals doing in that crowd? You're going to have opportunists that are going to try and just do what they can. You're going to have just straight anarchists who are just, 'Burn it all down, I don't care what the system is, I want to burn it down.' You're going to have people there that are legitimately concerned about whatever issue they're trying to raise. You're going to, I mean, you're just going to have this, this, this so many different types of people in that element and they'll feed on each other."

So what do we want them to be? Why do we have that? So brilliant, what a great remark. Are we feeding the beast, Brian? Yeah. Are we feeding the beast and is it a good diet? Yeah. Is the food going to be fuel or is going to...? So, so that was a great comment. Why do we champion Ahmaud Arbery and the case? Because it was done the right way and had the appropriate outcome. Yes. Why didn't we, even despite the initially someone trying to get rid of it? Right. Justice prevailed on several levels. And so it's a landmark decision. And why do we tell people to back off of Waukesha and not turn it into what it's not? Because it's a person and it's a human that's just a shitty person and it was waiting for a situation like this to happen. Why am I talking like this? Because there's a caper that's going on and I don't want to discuss the finite details of the caper, but imagine a copper, copper is chasing a stolen, and like all people that want to get away, if it's between the copper and you, you will rev your engine and drive at the copper. You get what I'm saying? Whether you're intent to kill him or not, you're going to scare him and, and sometimes the guns come out and the shooting starts.

So this copper with a stolen car full of teenagers, and I don't care if they were all convicted felons, okay? It was a property crime. The copper pulled out his gun and fired eight rounds into the car. Okay? So now the battle has been raging since this happened, Brian, and he was fired, then he was charged for homicide, now he's reinstated and he's given this, you know what? At the end of the day, folks, this is what I want you to do. Bring out your gosh damn yellow pad and I want you to write down on the yellow pad, okay, was justice served? Well, let's back it off that dial a little bit and go back and say, okay, it's a stolen car. All right. Cars get stolen every day. Carjacking is different than a stolen car. And you know what, if somebody's carjacking you, give up the car. You don't need a lot of stuff. It's property. That's why you pay insurance, you'll get your car back.

Part two, okay, the bunch of kids in the car doing stupid reckless behavior, they're not thinking clearly. So they've gone, just like anger goes to rage, they've got what's called the happy head and they just want to go. They don't want to face the consequences, right? So if you don't understand that, you're going to have what happened in L.A. just, I think it's three days ago now, where they're chasing that stolen and they all surround it and the guy's playing bumper car to get out of it with it. Listen, human beings don't want to go to jail, folks. Catch on. Okay? So you're going to have to come up with a better way and tax strips aren't the better way.

So the final thing is the copper felt that he was in danger so he fired eight rounds into the car. He didn't fire to kill the car, and he didn't fire to kill the driver. He fired eight rounds, and to me that's reckless. And when your behavior is reckless and not caring and one of the kids got clipped, he's not dead but he was injured. All that other [expletive], Brian, you don't have the right to drive without a blinker, you don't have the right to speed on an icy road because what you're doing is putting me in danger. And that's not fair. And that's what the entire constitution is about is about our personal freedoms. I listen, I made the, the mistake to steal a car and I made the mistake to have my drunken friends and the teenagers in the car with me. That's not a death sentence, Brian. That's called due process.

Yeah. When we're talking about crowd behavior, it's the same thing. It's easy to get wrapped up in a situation like that. You know, so let's not have a lethal outcome. Right. In, in every one of those situations, it's not, it's not right, it's not fair.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, and it kind of goes into the, the complexity, uh, uh, and simplicity of human behavior sometimes, right? We get, I absolutely agree. There, there's a lot of contributing factors in all of these, uh, um, crowd situations. So I'll just call it, use the general term of a crowd situation, whether that's a, that's a, that's a football game, that's a riot in the streets, that's a, a, you know, church group gathering. Those are all, there's a crowd there. So there's a lot of dynamic. So I think being in those moments of understanding the feeling or mood of it, you know, will determine where, where is this likely headed? Right? If you feel that, even in, in at the gate waiting for your airport and like you're going, "All right, well, if the gate agent comes on one more time and says we're delayed again, like this is going to get, this is going to get rough." You know what I mean? I, I may need to take the hit and go find another airline or another car. You know, there's, there's different situations where, you know, they always build this, never just, "Well, I was just hanging out, next thing I knew," like, no, that's not how any of these situations occur. It's because your orientation was different, you didn't have the context. It's not the situation was wrong, it's you were wrong in that situation, which is why we always bring up the point, you know, you knew or should have known. Right? That this is, that, that's about the responsibility. And, and this is why, you know, I'm not going to get into, "Well, why aren't we holding people accountable that do this stuff?" And that's another, another, well, cities are already seeing the, the effects of of not doing that. And, and, you know, we like and have now realized, I think Minneapolis is back to funding their police department, what it was prior to them defunding them because they realized, "We just, uh, made a catastrophic mistake." And I think us as taxpayers and voters, uh, can't ever forget that those kind of things. And, and that, that's more of a point, but that, that's a sort of a separate issue. Uh, just, just, you know, is same thing like, you are you're at a baseball game with your family and there could be a riot? Like, yes, there, if you haven't considered that possibility...

A traffic accident? Yes. A traffic accident in a small town at an intersection with no injuries could turn into looting and burning that city down and having to call the National Guard. Okay? Happens all the time. Okay? Doesn't happen with a great deal of degree of frequency, but, but the ramping up does. And, and you remember, Brian, a year ago we were helping prepare some people that were going to be sent to another location. And, and so, uh, they were all sitting on their couch, we were sitting on our couch and we're zooming back and forth. "Hey, uh, uh, pay attention to this. Don't go here. Do this." And Shelley brought up a, a picture and it showed a sporting event where people were milling about inside of an arena. And Shelley pointed to a, a ledge on top of one of the, uh, stalls. And she goes, "How quickly could you push me up there and then me pull you up there?" And we're all going, "Where's she going with this one?"

Yeah.

She goes, "Because if this crowd goes crazy, that'll be the only safe place in this arena." So to use the Shelley analogy and to use mine about the drain, where could you get compression injuries that were so bad that you would die? Doorways. Because doorways are meant for one person going in and one coming out or two coming in or a rotary or whatever else. So if you're now in that situation where you're at a theater or you're at a play or you're at a person's home and something happens and you all got to get out that one exit, Brian, people are going to get hurt. So if we think of a situation just merely like that, sticking a hose in a shoebox that's only got one exit, the water is going to continue to fill until it overcomes that situation. So in crowd dynamics from this perspective, if you're going to go someplace for the holidays, look at the exits. Come up with alternative. It's a pace plane. Yeah. It's, it's an architecture. Where is it going to be most dangerous? Right there. Why? Because the people fleeing and the people that are, you know, standing and trying to film and then the demonstrators are all going to congeal. Do you see what I'm trying to say? They're going to coalesce in that one spot. And that's going to be the hot spot, the danger. We got to start thinking like that, Brian. It's not getting easier. Students have to start thinking about that. Uh, uh, we become our own worst enemy because we fail to anticipate danger and opportunity. Boom. There's one right there. You know, that goes right along with your correlation on crowds.

No, and, and, and you know, that's, that's a kind of good point because it is again, with everything going on, we now have the holidays, which is, you know, a stressful time. And so yeah, those, those shopping malls, or, or wherever you're at, you know, people, people are stressed right now, uh, more so than, than other typical holiday seasons, you know, um, at least, you know, last year was still 20, 20, 20 Christmas was still there in COVID. But I think people were kind of a little bit more willing to give each other some room because it was COVID and it was still new. And, hey, it's the holidays. We want to have a normal one. And people are so over everything right now and so stressed, they're like, "F this!" And you know, that, that's how that, you, you're, you're in a store and you're talking to the, uh, sales attendant in the clothing area. And you know what? Her boyfriend walks in and decides this is the place where he's going to, yeah, domestic violence spills over into a shooting or something. I mean, yeah, yeah.

That, that memo about love didn't come to me, it came to your girlfriend or your boyfriend. Yeah. Okay. So now that same exact situation. And, and what about that, Brian? Now being, uh, a shoplifter and now they're wrestling with the shoplifter and the shoplifter pulled out a gun or a knife. Or in the parking lot, that person wants to flee from the scene. Brian, you're talking about a, a volatile mix because when you put a whole bunch of people in a situation, right back to your original point, one-on-one, we can probably resolve it. When these numbers get skewed and we've, how many times have we seen it and walked up and said something to a gate agent at an airline or a some manager at a restaurant or someone working at a busy crowded place that's handling the situation really well? Because they're, we do it all the time, they're communicating effectively, they're safe talking to folks, you know, calming people down and saying, "Hey folks, we understand." I mean, those simple things of just relating to people, uh, you know, "Hey, don't forget to, it's, uh, you know, um, who's sick of Mariah Carey's, you know, Christmas carol?" You know what I mean? Like, you've heard it 37 times in here. Like, all of those things are just what, just releases that pressure veil. I mean, that's what it does. You're much, listen, you're in, Brian folks just said gems, write them down. You're in a situation, you're going out to your car, you got your family, you bump into a guy. Guy says, "Hey [expletive], watch where you're going!" And you can turn around and go, "Hey, don't say [expletive] in front of my family!" And now it's on. Yeah. Well, you can turn around and say, "Hey, I'm sorry, uh, I'll, I'll be more mindful." And you can walk out. De-escalation takes two parts. Okay? You can't be the only one de-escalating. And de-escalation at "bang!" is a horrible place to start. You got to be more mindful of that because sometimes it's what you say or what you don't say that can turn it into something. Even standing there and posturing...

No, that's why I've give, I've given people my spot in line before because I saw them amping up and pissed off, they're standing in line. I was like, "Hey, you know what, man, you're clearly in a hurry here, why don't you go ahead and take my spot?" And then they did. And then 30 seconds went by and they realized how stupid they were acting and apologized to everyone.

I mean, Saturday, Saturday, I'm in line, a guy comes up and I can see him standing there with the one item. There's only two lines going and people are going, "I shop at six in the morning to avoid," yeah, you know, I just happened to be the one person that, that had to get in and there was already somebody like me in the other line. So what happened is I caused a gap and so the female goes, "Next please!" And I looked at him and I waved him ahead. Yeah. And he looks at me and she goes, "Hey, she's waving at you." He was on the wavelength that I'm pissed and I'm holding my single item, so he missed me gesturing him to go forward. I go, "Dude, go ahead." And then he got mad and he waved and I'm like, "You're getting angry over your one item and I'm trying to help you and you've gone so internal, you're missing it." So you know what? I had to check out then. Had I gone on and said, "I'm trying to do a good thing," it would have started turning into a fight. People are so stupid because you take your own perspective in every outing and that's a bias. You have to back off the bias sometimes and take a look and somebody's going, "Listen to me, I'm not taking [expletive] from anybody." It sounds like Shelley, right? You know what I'm saying? And, uh, you know what I'm saying? "We don't take [expletive] from anybody here."

"Shut the [expletive] up, you [expletive] [expletive]!"

Exactly. She gets angry, right? But, but the idea is that she never uses that in public. You know what I'm trying to say? In public, she's a master manipulator. And then she has to put that bile, that vitriol somewhere. And so she gets with us and we laugh about it. But in the moment, you can turn a bumping into each other in a shopping cart thing into a homicide. And Brian, at the end of the day, it's not worth it. And you just had another caper that we were talking just a few days ago, remember the guy, uh, that went outside and killed the person because they were, he thought they sped down the street. How many times have we seen that in, in just the last few years? You see what I'm saying? We can, we can count five or six examples of the same thing happening because people don't understand if you don't let that pressure vent, it doesn't dissipate. It's like time, time is all over everywhere. It's like moisture. You know, moisture, it comes in the rain and then it dehydrates but it turns into a cloud and turns into something else. Your anger has to go somewhere. And, and now with crowds, you've got to understand the larger the crowd, the more likely that person's in the crowd could be a catalyst for change. And it could be positive change, yay, a wave, or it could be negative change, yeah, it can be dangerous. Danger, opportunity.

And, and yeah, so, um, yes, we simplify this stuff for a reason because, um, you know, when you're, when you're trying to put it, I, the theoretical basis for a lot of this stuff, it's not that it's bad, it's just, it's not really going to help much. Um, it's just, it's a, just it's a, it's a, they're all descriptive analytics and it's great like that. "Okay, there are some things to consider about people." I know that's going to help you in the situation using your own, uh, you know, ability naturally, innately as a human to read something, go, "You know what? Maybe we should leave," or, "Maybe we should step in right now," or, "Maybe we should not." That, that's, that's going to be more important than looking at someone going, "Uh, you know what? I wonder what his motivations are for this." Is you're trying to steal something? Look, what is their intent? What is someone who's, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying don't get involved. I'm saying that when you get involved because everyone, yeah.

My plan is always the same thing. If somebody wants to call me out in a public place, I go, "Hey, folks, I'm, I'm becoming really scared because of this guy's aggressive behavior." You know what I'm saying? "Hey, bartender, dial nine and one and hover your finger over that last one because I'm becoming very scared. And, and sir, you're scaring me. Why are you doing that?" Okay. Now all of a sudden, I've got everybody and now it's changing their plan. And they're going, "Oh, you dick!" You know? Because I wanted to just throw a punch and be done with it. Listen, if that person shows up with alcohol on their breath to your Christmas parade, you have a higher likelihood things are going wrong. If they're already rumbling and grumbling and being an angry little gnome, you're going to have even greater problems. Those are predictive analytics, Brian. And I'd much, much rather go with predictive analytics. You know what I'm trying to say? Than a descriptive, uh, uh, analytics. Because with the predictive analytic, if it fits a behavior and there's three or more cues, I'm out of there. I don't care what the event. I don't care if it's my surprise birthday party. I'm going to be out of there. You know who would throw you a surprise party? My proctologist.

Yes. I don't think that's...

Is did he call it a party? Is that he invite more people in the room and call it a party? First guy wasn't a proctologist. I think he was the janitor. He had a lab coat on though. And he had a broom and he didn't have anything on under that lab coat. I should have guessed. Should have known better. Uh, and it was in the alley behind the medical center. So I was on the way. It was near the parking lot. I thought, "This guy seems credible. He seems nice." I'm sorry, it's soft hands. Um, did we make our point today?

I think so. That's not talking about, yeah.

It, it, I, I think we, we made our point.

And the, the takeaways obviously being that like, you know, try to, I always try to strip away any sort of ideology behind it. I try to step, you know, motive and motivation or whatever that is and look for is there opportunity here for someone? Is there danger here? What is this person's intent? Because you're, you're getting in all that stuff, I think clouds our judgment really on how to respond. That's why we have different level, people like, "Well, why did you respond this way to that one and, you know, this way to this one?" "Well, I don't know, because different situations." It clouds the way we, we, we look at them. So I always try to look at, obviously, we always talk about intent on here, but this crowd behavior thing is you got to remember, um, my and I agree with that idea is, is if you see people acting out in a crowd, that's not because they became overwhelmed and you know, that the crowd took over and I wasn't thinking straight. Nope. You got to be who you are. And there are people that do that. So when you see that stuff, you know that's a much more likely reason to call that behavior than merely anonymity or, or, you know, yeah. But a great one, a great one is, is that sporting events because you'll have someone who may be typically more quiet or reserved and, you know, in general, and then you go to their favorite team and they're out there getting super into it and they're yelling. It's like, I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, just they're rooting for their team. But like, that's who they are, man. They really, really are that person that's working at home. I mean, like it's, it's, it's, you, you kind of, you can kind of see that. So, um, it's just another way to to look at it, I guess, focusing on their intent. I don't know any other, I guess, final comments on here, Greg?

No, uh, you can shout out to your proctologist. Yeah, exactly. Uh, it's five years now, Brian. Uh, you can be a spectator without hurting anybody. You could be a demonstrator, a participant without hurting anybody. Uh, what I'm saying is your goal, your intent can still be achieved without violence. Violence is one way to achieve your goal. I would absolutely encourage you to to look at other ways. Yeah. Okay.

Well, kind of, kind of covered a lot, so I think, I think we'll, we'll end it on there. But I, I do appreciate everyone for for tuning in and listening and of course, hit us up with your questions and then we, we answer a lot of listener questions on our Patreon site. It's only a few bucks a month and we put a bunch of our older, like our webinars and stuff on there, so there's a ton of information you should definitely check it out. Um, please, please like and share the episode. Please rate us down there if you, if you can. That, that would be great. Um, and we would appreciate it. Helps kind of get the word out and increases, uh, the listener base. So thank you everyone for tuning in and don't forget that training changes behavior.