L.O.G. 236 Pranked or Provoked

L.O.G. 236 Pranked or Provoked

Brian Marren, Greg Williams

All right, good morning, Greg, and hello to everyone listening. Thanks so much for tuning in. We've got a good show for you today, and we've got a good one, too, for our Patreon members. Subscribe on there, too. We're doing another special little Christmas one that I think you'll enjoy.

But today, Greg, I want to talk about some of the things that I see happen a lot on the news, and actually, some of the listeners have reached out about some of these situations where it's like a YouTube or Instagram kind of prankster. They record something and they try to get people's reactions. And they say, "Oh, hey, man, it's just a practical joke."

So, the practical joke game, again, it comes in many forms. It's been around for a really long time. Before you could record it, I'm sure people were doing it outside the cave. "Hey, you dress up, make noise like you're in the bushes, like you're a mountain lion!" You know what I mean? It's been around for quite some time.

But the one that happened recently was in a mall in Virginia, where this kid had a YouTube prank channel. He went up to a guy, was messing with him, saying something stupid. The guy had no idea what was going on. He was trying to back off. It was literally a 30-second interaction. But the person who they tried to prank pulled out a gun, shot the guy. Didn't kill the YouTuber who did it, but he was charged with—I forget what the actual charge was; I'll have the link in the file—but it was a malicious wounding. He was charged with that and then a couple of gun charges. Then he was acquitted of the malicious wounding charge. So, the jury said, "No, this guy, he didn't choose to be part of this prank." He was saying it was self-defense. Now, had the kid died, I'm sure it might have been a little bit different, but he didn't. This comes into everyone's reaction is going to be a little bit different based on the context.

So that's kind of the main story that started this discussion. But there are a ton of other shows that are similar like that. There's the "Impractical Jokers" guys out on the East Coast; they're hilarious. There's whatever the Chris Hansen "Dateline NBC"—there are different versions of this. But actually, you have a great historical one, Greg.

Yeah, yeah. I want to get to that, but let's make sure that we disabuse the idea that Chris Hansen's show is a prank show.

Oh, yeah, sorry. That's hilarious! Oh, God, you would love those together.

Let me clear that up. Throw that in a different bucket there. But meaning, the different forms so I can clarify, of where we're going to surprise someone with something, and we're going to get it on and we're going to record it. That could be the Publishers Clearing House at the Super Bowl showing up, the check, whatever it is. It could be good, it could be bad, it could be a crime, it could be a prank. But this is a common theme that we've seen in other domains where it's, "We're going to capture this, and we're going to put it on TV." So, some go bad, some go normal, some go well. There's this kind of range. This gets to the question of what some of the listeners were asking, "Well, why do some go bad? Why do some go..." That's the sort of central best question, I think, Brian.

So, let's go way back to Ugglu and Muktar, and when one of them put a bucket above the cave entrance. A bucket of water, they opened the door, and there it was, pebbles, because they didn't have a lot of water. But the idea is that that's funny, but sometimes it goes too far.

I'll give one. We were in a defensive perimeter, this is a military-related one. There used to be things called landlines, and you used to run out a phone and put this little DR8 wire to them. Then when you pressed it, either a light would come on, depending on the switch—and the light was subdued so you could only see it flash if you were right next to it, nobody else would be able to see it—or it made a sound. You were working. You had to wind a field phone.

Yeah, exactly, you side-cranked.

So, for those of you that remember that, for those of you that don't, Brian and I just gave a good mental image of it. So, earlier in the day, fearing that I would not be able to eat, and also fearing snakes, I killed a snake, and it was quite a big snake. It was all out of fear, folks. It was not me being Survival Joe. I was completely surprised by it.

So I saved the snake. That night, after BMNT or ENT (Beginning/End Morning/Evening Nautical Twilight, respectively), I wrapped that snake around that field phone, and then I left that position. When the guy relieved me, I went to another position. As a sergeant, you could do those things. And I cranked the hell out of that phone, Brian, until it was going off. Then I heard the scream, and I told everybody what I did, and they thought it was hilarious. So, like nine minutes later, I see this lumbering figure coming through the dark. The guy showed up and beat my ass! I mean, we were in a fight for my life, and he was like, "Were you the one? Did you think that was funny?" And it was so outrageous, and I had never thought there were going to be repercussions, but this time, there were.

That takes me to our Allan Funt. When I was growing up—I don't know how many of our listeners are what age group; it doesn't matter—but Allan Funt was a great guy that had a show called "Candid Camera." Their tagline, Brian, was, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!" And "when you least expected, you're elected!" I can think of the whole song right now, and we just talked about this just a minute ago. But the idea was, Funt would put people in situations that were hilarious. The idea was they were pranks, they were practical jokes that were right up in your face, but they were filmed. Then, when he sensed, "Okay, we're at a point," what he would do is he would come in and go, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!" and lift up the veil and show the hidden camera. The people would immediately relax, and everybody would laugh.

Now, that show was on from 1948 to 2014, in one way, shape, or form, including one of Allan Funt's descendants who did it very recently, less than 10 years ago. Allan Funt was on an international flight, and he's sitting up towards the front of the plane, and the plane's hijacked for real. You remember, during the '70s, there was a lot of hijacking, it was very popular, right? So the people that are his immediate cabin mates, sitting in the seats around them, go, "Hey, we get it, you're Allan Funt. We know who you are. This is hilarious!" Well, what's happening is it's an actual hijacking. The people around him are seeing it and sensing that it's a prank, but it wasn't. That grew into such a great story during that time frame; nobody could believe it. But what was the line there? "Thank God nobody got hurt. Thank God."

Back then, remember, hijacking didn't all end up like—they flew him to Cuba. They hung out, said he tried to run up a big bill or something like that. You get what I'm trying to say. So, it didn't end with Lee Marvin in "Delta Force" with our buddy Chuck Norris and a motorcycle having to free the hostages. Not everything turned into that. Some sadly did, and some overseas resulted in a lot of death all at once.

But what's the idea? The idea is we have to understand where the line is. Because somebody like Chris Hansen—you mentioned Chris Hansen and "Catch a Predator"—Chris Hansen was never attacked, never punched, never choked during his entire run of his series. Now, there were a couple of close calls where people started to talk, but when the cameras came out, they immediately calmed down and went back to their grumbling.

Right. Yeah.

Why that show with such high stakes? And then you mentioned another show, the "Impractical Jokers." The "Impractical Jokers" show, they don't show it, but they're getting attacked all the time. They're getting lawsuits, they're getting cops called. So, what's the difference? You know what, if we were going to say, Brian, "What's the line?" What's the line that they crossed? The line is the amygdala, because aggression is controlled by our amygdala. So if we're looking for a reaction to fear or aggression, we need to go no further. Would it surprise any of our listeners or readers or watchers that the amygdala is one of the earliest, it's at the core? As our brain stem grew out, the amygdala was always in charge of paying attention to our surroundings and measuring likely danger by fear. So fear was an emotional trigger, but it wasn't the only emotional trigger, Brian. We had our vision, and we had our sense of smell, and we had our hearing, and we had motion. Light, motion, and edges—all of those things combined to warn us of something impending. So that became the line, and I think it's still the line today. I think it answers the mail that that's the general way to look at it.

Right. And is, did it create or did it cause or force some sort of amygdala reaction by the person? Because once that happens, right now I get all those catecholamines. Now I'm in this survival mode. I'm not seeing it. I'm not going to see it for what it is until I come out of that. I can't see the joke or the humor in that second, in that moment, and it's real for me, it's real fear. The problem there, too, or what makes that more complex, is that that line is different for every person.

And it's different within the same person, I think you're onto something.

Right, incident dependent.

And outcomes dependent. Yeah, I agree.

It could mean, you know, it's one thing if it could be a similar incident, but you're alone. Or a similar incident, now you're in front of a crowd of people. Or your wife is with you, that's… I mean, and you're stepping out, and there's an element of surprise, right?

Where like, Brian, you remember there were shows, "To Catch a Cheater" or something like that.

"Cheaters." Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the... I think...

I don't know, Brian, now you have high stakes. That's insane to me, because that's how many... Okay, so most murders, most homicides in the United States are by someone you know, and it's typically often related to some sort of domestic dispute, something like this. So, like, I mean, that's like if you had to pick the one thing that's most that could potentially most likely lead to a homicide, it's that. And they made a TV show about catching the cheater in the act. Like, your whole world would be crumbling down at that point.

We call it "poke the bear," because sooner or later, you're going to be fishing in the grizzly stretch of river, and they're going to attack. Brian, "When Animals Attack" is always funny on "Family Guy," but listen, it's not so funny in real life. So why did Brian—again, to our listeners, pay attention to this part—why did Brian throw Chris Hansen in to the mix, and why did we just throw this into the mix? Because their types of pranks are practical jokes. There's a surveillance element, there's timing, "We know something you don't know"—that's the ambush there, right?

So, whether we're talking about in a joking fashion, jokes imply a sense of closeness that you're part of the in-crowd. And that's why people prank. That's why when Ashton Kutcher does it, or whatever that guy's name is—I don't know his real name, "That '70s Show."

Ashton Kutcher. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I don't watch those shows, but I do know of them, and I know he's got a little group. For a good prank or practical joke, what they do is they figure out a fear or vulnerability of somebody in their close group.

Right. Yeah.

And they exploit that. So now you're so worried about that new Jaguar that you bought, and all of a sudden, "Oh, it's been towed, and they sent it to the demolishing place because they thought it was a bomb." And those guys are laughing and howling on a secret microphone, and the other guy's freaking out until they let him off the hook.

No different, Brian, than you and I sitting and watching a zombie film, and we're eating the popcorn, and all of a sudden that anxious moment comes, and the surprise becomes our ambush element. The same chemicals are going. Guess what? Who's at the end of that road? The amygdala again. So here we are talking about the amygdala. Our reaction to aggression is a fail-safe mechanism to get us out of the situation, and our fear literally promotes the chemicals that we need to get our feet moving.

And you kind of brought up another good comparison there, with a movie, or why the shows are so popular, because I'm watching, I'm in on it, right? You're in on it. Even when you're watching a movie, even though you don't know what's going to happen next, you're in on it, and you know that it's a movie. That's why they're so powerful, because you get some of that same reaction, but your prefrontal cortex knows, "This isn't... we're not really in danger. The movie's going to end, the lights are going to come back on," kind of thing.

And I can pause it at any time and walk out of the room. Big change.

So that's the same thing with watching these shows. But the problem is that the subjects in these shows, they don't know that they're in on it, right? They don't know anything about it. So that's part of what makes it so entertaining, and that's what makes it so honest with those reactions, but it also makes it extremely volatile. The volatility of them is what's kind of titillating and engaging for people, and we like to watch that.

But with you, you brought up the point, too, even that the Ashton Kutcher one is a good one, because I think he used his friends a lot of times, or people know, like, other celebrities. So it wasn't like the random on the street.

You know what I mean, relationship.

Yeah, so there's a little bit more control measures in there in a sense. And he probably knew they're going to be okay with it, otherwise he wouldn't have done it. And you don't know that with these random people on the street. So the more you see this stuff where—and it's happening, of course, with social media and YouTube, Instagram, all that stuff—people love doing that stuff and getting them, but you're really, you're sort of asking for it at that point. If something bad happens, you are completely responsible for it.

And so, Brian, go to the original article that you talked about this morning on a quick text, that brought us to where we are now. This guy was in the mall, he's a delivery guy, and he's badgered by a guy where in their title, "Goons" is part of their title. But what they did is they transported themselves from social media ether from social media being on TV or text or anything, so following this guy around in the mall and pestering him and heckling him and getting in front of him until he shot him. And so I think there's an element of in-person spontaneity, psychological and emotional ambush, I think that overwhelms us.

Let's see how the amygdala works. Let me take you back to a little girl when you were a little girl, Brian.

I was so happy back then.

Exactly. You were much happier, Brian. Embrace. So, I've got my shopping cart, and I've got a couple of things to get, and Shelley's in a different part of the store. So I go down into the outside of the store, and I encountered this little girl. It's kind of like, if you think of the twins on a not Amityville, the Stephen King one with the big lodge, the hotel.

Oh, yeah, "The Shining."

"The Shining." And it's around Christmas time. So fear yourself. But this lone little girl at the end of the aisle, and I can see all the way to the other end of the store. And this little girl is dancing and hopscotching and having a great time. She's probably second or third grade, that young. And she's running her hands across cans on one side and the other side. And as I go by the first aisle, I see her mom is taking a left, so her mom is down by the cling peaches pushing the cart. Unbeknownst to the girl, the girl's still dancing and parading and singing to herself.

All of a sudden, she stops. That's her amygdala. And her amygdala is going "Boop!" and sending out a sense message. "Boop! I think I'm too far from Mom. Boop! What could be the danger?" And she pivots and she turns around and sees no mom, and sees Gigantor pushing. She peed herself literally and figuratively and started screaming and running until she found her mom. Why? Because her little amygdala isn't formed on anything other than survival.

So when you were at the wedding, Brian, and you saw that same little girl and you said, "Hi, little girl!" and she went over to whoever female had a long dress and gripped the dress and pulled it around her like curtains, that's because her amygdala wasn't formed for the aggression part, to fight back, to do anything. It was just fear. It was just pure fear.

So those kids at that age, when they're involved, let's say, in a domestic in the living room, and mom and dad are screaming at each other, those form the same cuts, the same axons and dendrites come to form that synapse, Brian, and it's not a good one. Because back then, all they're doing is going, "Oh my God, I'm so scared. I don't know how to get out of this situation."

Especially the psychological toll. Well, especially in that situation, right there, because then those are the people that they're supposed to run to when they're scared, that they're programmed to. And now they can't. So it's like, "Mommy and Daddy are different people, people that I haven't seen very, very often in this manner." And maybe there's alcohol on board, or maybe there's violence that's going on. And think of that little brain: "What do I do now?" Well, there is no, there is nothing, because they can't, they know they're helpless at that age. You don't have, like you said, you don't have the aggression yet. You haven't really learned to—your brain hasn't evolved to the point, your amygdala hasn't evolved to the point where, like, "No, you can fight back." And it's so, it's fear-based. So that, I mean, that's, that's... Well, that's going to fundamentally change the way your brain is wired from that point forward.

But, you know, and that's a great example of the development of the amygdala, how it works, the reactions you get, and then what that does to you or stays with you for the rest of your life. And then, because now you're thrust in this public situation where you don't know what's going on, because that was what was interesting, too, about the mall one is that it was a 30-second interaction. So, 30 seconds from the time this guy's standing there waiting to pick up his food at this food court, standing right there. And then from that time, someone coming up with a camera in your face, saying some stupid line. He probably didn't even hear what the guy was saying really. Or certainly, right? Because once I, if I surprise you, what's your initial reaction? That startle response is initial, and it's there. Your hands come up, you're going, "What's going on?" To protect yourself. That's autonomic. You can't, it takes a second to walk that back and get those catecholamines to kind of flush through your system. So your brain has to realize that.

And this guy kept pushing. He walked backwards, he started walking away, like, "What the heck's going on?" Trying to get some time and distance there, trying to get some space. The kid kept following, kept following, kept putting... and he just threw his gun out and shot him. It happens so quickly, and it just goes to show you how quick those reactions are, and all of those are different for different people.

You compare that to the, I love the Allan Funt "Candid Camera" guy on the hijacking one, because if you can go read his description of what happened, it was amazing, because those people around him recognized him, they went, "Oh, okay, this isn't a hijacking, it's a joke!" But then he said, because of all the other elements in that situation, where, like, the hijackers kind of were wearing suits, the captain came over the radio, and he was super calm. He's like, "There wasn't this fear reaction that spread through the plane like you think there would be." So it was all those contributing factors and why it didn't...

Yeah.

But, you know, it was like he said, it was odd, because here you're literally on a plane being hijacked. There's a guy with a knife to the stewardess's throat, and no one's really giving this fear reaction. And he said it was just odd seeing that.

Yeah, and this is where I'm going with that, too, because that's almost the situation that these people are trying to manufacture because it's—but, but, but in real life, so it's different. And that sort of, that basically just sort of incongruence, right? That the cognitive dissonance there. It's like your brain is trying to figure it out. So it's very easy for it to jump to, "Holy smokes, we need to fight for our life!" Or just be in denial and go, "Wait, what? Hang on, like, is this happening? I'm not sure what to do." Because it's all coming at you fast. And that incongruence, it literally takes your brain to a place where it's like, "I don't know what to do." It's like the Ricky Bobby (from "Talladega Nights"), "I don't know what to do with my hands! I'm just going to put, just going to put 'em right up here by my face."

So that's—let's hit that. Let's hit that from the Allan Funt angle. Why is the tagline, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera?" Because he knew tensions were high, and so he started laughing and smiling, and grabbed the people and immediately showed them the camera to do what? To ease the anxiety and the tension, so he wouldn't get punched in the mouth or people would be angry. And it was, "Smile! I'm telling you, smile!"

Well, that allows them to just mimic the behavior of people around them for the outcome of the situation. Yeah, exactly. And we're not laughing at you, we're laughing with you.

And so, why? Because Allan Funt knew that the amygdala had two switches that were right next to each other. Like, have you ever tried to use the remote for your television, and you wonder what psychotic bastard designed that son of a gun? Because the previous channel, which you use a thousand times a day, is hidden, and it's one of the smallest buttons, right? But then a button that you've never used in your entire life—I'm looking at mine right now—is never used, but it's centrally located and big. Well, remember, those things matter to your brain.

So now, two buttons right next to each other, both are red, both of the same exact size. And one says "fear" and one says "violence." And you're sitting there, and in the back of your mind—we love music, Brian and I, together—but in the back of your mind, we've got The Clash, the 1980s. "Should I go? What am I doing? Which button do I hit?" And both buttons are inextricably linked to the likely outcome.

So why was it different then with Chris Hansen? Because when Chris Hansen came out, he didn't come out and go, "Surprise, motherf***er!" He walked out with a clipboard and a cup of coffee, and he goes, "Hi, I'm Chris Hansen." And he sat down right across from the person, like it was a flipping interview, Brian. What happened is, even though that person was suspicious and they may have wanted to run out that door and everything else, they weren't sure if Hansen was a dad.

Yeah.

They weren't sure if he was a gosh darn cop, right? But think about how they put that together. It's a perfect prank or practical joke: "Hi, I'm a 13-year-old boy, meet me at this house." So it follows in the same vein, but all of a sudden it takes a detour and it's just you and he in the kitchen now.

Right. Well, yeah, and it's different too because the people going there, they know what they're doing is wrong, of course they do. And they're nervous and they're going, "Okay, they're kind of like thinking, 'Okay, I'm busted, but there may be a way out. I may still have an exit strategy. So if I react harsh now, I may not be given that opportunity later. But if I try to go, "Hey, you're mistaken," and talk my way out of it.'"

Right, Brian, if I desensitize the situation a little bit from being so anxious, maybe I can talk my way out of this. And guess what? They talk their way in.

So that's a viable strategy, right? Well, that's the thing, they're going to fall back on that. And it's just exactly what you said with his delivery. He didn't, he doesn't pop out and say, "Sit down, stay right there!" You know what I mean? It's just, "Hi, I'm Chris Hansen from 'Dateline NBC.' I want to talk." And then like the guys with the cameras kind of come out, and he sits down. He's like, "Look, what were you planning on doing?" And immediately engages him in conversation. So now this guy's like, "Okay, he still isn't sure what's happening yet, but he didn't come across threatening and tell me I couldn't leave." In fact, when they go, "Well, I think I'm going to leave," he's like, "Oh, you're free!" Because, you know, they're like, "You're free to leave at any time." Now there's, there's a team waiting for him outside, right outside. You can see it if you look out that window. But he just goes, "Yeah, you can leave at any time." And they're like, "Oh, yeah, you know what I mean?" So, the delivery of how it is is you don't quite get that as strong of a reaction because of the context of the situation and how just how he enters the situation. No different than the "Candid Camera" smile is the first thing, like, 'cause now you hear that and you go, "Smile? Wait, what?" "And you're on Candid Camera!" And it's like, "Oh, and let me show you everything real quick while you're processing it." So it's like, "Okay, I can relax now. I don't have to fight or flight, or do both." You know what I mean?

Exactly.

Let me give you an example of a very tense situation where I was absolutely alone, and it had a very similar outcome. Now, the prank here, the game here, like when you see two dogs playing with each other, two dogs that know each other can get really rough and roughhouse and play, but it mimics—if you don't know it—it mimics the real thing, right? So those emotions are real when you're observing the situation.

So I'm hunting in a place called Daggett, and to the best of my life, I can't remember if that's in Wisconsin or Northern Michigan. I just remember that being one of the signs pulled into the town. Sleepy town. It's still dark outside. I go to a place, and a guy had hand-drawn a beautiful map for me to get to his hunting blind. Big bucks up there. I only had that afternoon, the morning and the afternoon, then I had to be back at school. So I follow his map, I park where he says, I go to do this stuff, and it's still dark. And I fall asleep, the cardinal sin of hunting.

And I wake up and I look around, and there's no deer, there's no sound, there's nothing. It's a beautiful forest. I go, "Okay, I'm going to go walking back to the car." No idea where the car is now, because I'm completely disoriented from the walk in in the dark. There are no signs. Even though I'm trained as a tracker, Brian, I can't find a bent stick, a dirty leaf, a dirty Sanchez (a joke, not literal). Anything. And I'm looking, I'm looking for that nipple, Scrooge.

But as I'm walking around, I make concentric circles, still can't find it. I go, "Okay, there's no problem with this, I've got it." So I say, "I'm going to walk in a straight line." Got my Ranger beads, "I'm going to go left side of this tree, right side of this tree, and I'm going to walk for 15 minutes and see where it takes me." So it's just nothing but deeper forest and more of that stuff. So I go, "Okay." So I walk back 20, right? And I say, "Okay, now I'm going to go 15 this direction, Brian." Inside my mind, I was thinking in a very analytical method to find the vehicle, and ultimately I did. But there was a part of my brain that goes, "You effing idiot! You're going to die out here!"

Yeah.

"Okay, so are you going to wait till the bear comes and gets you? Are you going to shoot yourself here?" All these random, ridiculous thoughts were coming into my mind. Why? Because I had put myself into a survival situation, and the amygdala allowed fear in. The line was crossed. And once I allowed fear in, no matter how hard I was trying to follow my own instincts and my own training, Brian, it got... And then, you know what? Thank God it was daytime. I imagine myself, what if this was in the afternoon and now it's getting darker?

Right, yeah.

Thank God I had my canteen with me. Okay, what if I'm out of water? And so the idea is, those electrochemical neurotransmitters in your brain are constantly measuring the likelihood of what's next. So, in the Chris Hansen, he does a psychological disarming. And when you watch it, it's great. I don't know what kind of person he is, only saw a couple of those episodes. During that point of potential conflict, I do know Allan Funt, I used to watch that show all the time. Art Linkletter did another one where he was talking to kids all the time. You never want to talk to kids or have an animal on a show because they're so unpredictable. But what they did in those circumstances is they knew the likely wave of endorphins that were coming in. They played the game, and they conducted a psychological triage, a rehearsal of potential outcomes.

Now, I don't know about the Impractical Jokers, because every time I see them, I think of this goon article, because when I see them, the guy's yelling, "Now, now, move over here! Now touch his face! Now, and then, now try to give him a kiss!" They're laughing, but they're constantly pushing that envelope. And the envelope is going to open one day, and that's the line, right? We can't walk it back.

And that's the thing, is because it's, you know, the shows want to stay on, they want to keep doing stuff, that that line continues to move. What is now, what, you know, used to be funny or something before, no longer is, right? You've got to keep going now. Engage the audience. Now it's going to keep going.

And I would say that sort of, on the other side, from the participant side, because everyone's just walking around with cell phones now, and different screens and everything, there's just all this stuff competing for our attention. You see it all the time, people staring at it. They're down and in, they're not even realizing what's going on around them. I almost wonder if it's more likely you're going to get an overreaction to these events, or these things will continue to get worse, because now, when you don't have a phone on you, you're sort of forced to take in a little bit more of your environment, no matter what. If you're tuned out, or you could be playing songs in your head, it doesn't matter, but the simple fact that you don't have something competing for your attention, you're going to be a little bit more situationally aware and be able to read the situation better. But if I'm down and in, and then boom, all of a sudden this happens, there's no time for me to literally take in the surroundings and try to figure out and read the situation. There's zero time. It's just flash to the bang.

Exactly, right.

And so, that's kind of my concern with some of this, is that, as that continues, because people are always going to do that, well, now people are so down and in that it's going to be either no reaction or overreaction, right? They're just not going to get it right because they're not paying, they're not what's going on, or that fear is just, that's our go-to. That amygdalic reaction is our go-to for our brain and our body. I don't care who you are, we don't choose it, it chooses us.

Exactly, right.

And so, that's my concern too, with as these go forward, that all of a sudden it's just going to be an immediate reaction from folks like this. I mean, if you look at that, you know, the 30 seconds in the shopping mall, that kid could have died right there for some YouTube likes and that kind of thing. And that's where people are at. If you add in there, just depending on what else is going on in that person's life, you don't know. So, that's kind of like big picture on what I see the issue with this is, too.

You brought up something earlier about with a joke, right? With this sort of practical joke, "We're going to play a prank on it." It's usually someone, like, we all do that with our friends, and they're part of the group, and you're not going to have that reaction because it's your buddies, you know what I'm saying? It's a little bit different, the dynamic is so different. And so we have closeness, we have a relationship with that person. Even the Ashton Kutcher one, he had relationships with all these people, he knew them. But then, because sort of how we interact on social media now, there's like this feeling of, "We're more connected and we're closer, and we know each other because we're now part of this larger community." But that's not a real connection, not a real community.

But that's what I'm saying, and what's changed with this stuff now is that it's like, "Okay, well, now we're part of it, we're all in on it." You're like, "No, no, you're not. You're that's a virtual world that you interact with and it interacts with you, but that is separate and distinct from what happens here, out here in real life." So, it's almost giving you this illusion of connectivity, it's giving you this illusion of community that doesn't exist when you walk out the front door. And if you're living in that sort of world all the time, if you're always online, and you're always engaging, and that's how you do most of your connection and communication, you can have this false sense of connectivity when you walk out your front door. And you have to look at them as separate and distinct, because that virtual world is not the real world in any way, right?

I mean, there's nothing better than when you see some conversation take over on social media and gets blown up, and all of a sudden then what happens is, you find out a week later like, "Well, that's actually not the story that occurred, and that not at all." Now no one takes it back and learns from it, they're just, they're on to the next one. So you're caught up in this world, and now you walk out that front door and it's a very different place. So there's this sort of this illusion of connectivity and closeness to where those things appear or feel like they're okay to happen where it's not.

I mean, you look at this case, just the one in the mall got me, too, because it's like the fundamental beliefs of what our democracy is based on and Classical liberalism, and how we view the world, is, "You should be allowed to do whatever you want, so long as it does not impede the rights of others." That's a general idea. That's like a foundational belief before you even get to what those laws mean. But what you're doing is, you're not allowing this guy to do that, you're impeding on his rights, you're impeding on what they do. That goes against everything that we're trying to do. And I don't think people, obviously they don't realize that pranks, but you, grounds for, like, I'm not... not just my amygdalic reaction, but literally our legal system is based on, our laws are based on, you not being able to do this to me. So, so there's the justification there for an overreaction right off the bat, you know what I mean? So, that's why these things are so volatile, because it really... There's so much getting... The lines are getting crossed, and this is how it plays out, and people are going to die.

Someone's going to go to jail. Exactly, right? Somebody's going to die. And what you're talking about is psychologically a system of false socialization and forced socialization. So, in the mall, I'm forcing socialization on you by getting up in your grill and continuing to mess with you until you bite back. The false socialization is the type of thing that we're seeing in the world.

For example, Ukraine. Everybody got behind that. We knew who the enemies were. And hey, these are people that look like us and live in houses and drive cars like us and eat food that we've eaten before, Brian. Many of them speak flawless English. And I know that there's a person in my community that was born and raised there. So the idea is that all of a sudden now we have this socialization that we accepted and we followed it. But then all of a sudden, Israel-Hamas comes up, and now we're not sure about that. But they're kind of like what we know, and we do know a lot of those folks, but like, is the Palestinian really...? Now, Brian, what we've got is we've got that false bottom to the socialization, because some of those stories seem like they're the real thing, but they took me—we didn't have all of the same types of stories coming out of Ukraine, which were just lie upon lie, lying about this and that. Now there were internally generated false narratives, right? But that's not what we're talking about anymore. Now we're talking about that the line, my amygdala, is not sure where the line is anymore. Okay, am I facing this, or is this just an internal issue? Is this a long way away? You get what I'm trying to say?

Because the previous thing, right? It's not the same. If the Ukraine war had never happened, if it had just been the Hamas attack, I guarantee it would have been a completely different reaction. Completely, completely. But now we're doing this again, it's like, "Well, it's a separate incident." It's like, "No, it's not because of this." It's like, "Well, yeah, but, you know."

And that's another forced socialization they throw. You're spot on, Brian, and we're talking over each other, folks, because we're so excited and amped up because it's true, look at it! So I want to tell you something about the Chinese. I've got a friend, Greg Daniels, by the way, shout out to Tila, thanks for being a listener. Shout out to my niece, thanks for being a listener. Those are great guys when we hear from them, especially over the holidays. But, Brian, Greg Daniels is constantly talking about China and how dangerous China is and this and that. China may be dangerous. When was the last time China was tested militarily?

Exactly.

When was the last time anybody in China fired a shot in anger during a combat? Okay, so kiss my ass, that changes the math. And you pundits that are out there looking and saying, "Well, numbers of numbers and numbers facing numbers." Okay, Israel is a small country, and Israel is a volunteer military with a whole bunch of people that are coming together now to band for. And all of a sudden, in Detroit, where you've got the highest Muslim population and highest number of Arabs outside the Middle East, all live in Dearborn. And I grew up right outside of Dearborn. We never had any problems with the situation for the Gulf War. As a matter of fact, most of my terp translators were from Dearborn, you know that. And so, when we went back for the graduation ceremony and we met with all the Dearborn coppers and talked about the issues, even Brian, even the underwear bomber that tried to burn in Wayne County, to Metro Detroit Metro Airport, all of that other stuff, that didn't shake the resolve of the Arab community there. They were strong, they were smart. And they lived side by side with Israelis. That wasn't a difference. But now, what's the difference, Brian? Now it's the forced socialization. "Now you have your silence is violent, Brian! You have to take a side! You have to make a choice!"

So what you're doing is you're putting me back out in those woods where I've got this fear, and it's not something I can see and hold, Brian, but it's still fear, and it's motivating me to have all these chemical reactions, and I'm not sure what to do. So I'm going to act out somewhere.

Well, that's, you squeeze a water balloon, that darn water balloon is going to be coming out of your fingers one way or the other, you know. When you increase the pressure, it forces a reaction. And so, you, and because we're humans...

That's right.

...it's not going to be a subtle, it's not going to be a nuanced reaction, it's going to be A or B, right? And so you're forcing someone to sort of choose sides with this, which goes right back to all of these things, that these situations that are manufactured with all of these different pranks. Like, you're forcing someone to say, "Am I under attack, or is this all a joke? Is this okay, or is this not okay?" And I don't have, I don't have all the information to go off. I have to go off my emotion-based decisions that all humans do, and what's right in front of me. And if it's fear, if it's a threat, then that's what it is to me, and it gets coded in my brain that way, and that's how it's going to be.

You're exactly right. But we're not talking apples and lawn chairs. The idea of, and this didn't slip into Hamas, this has nothing to do with that situation, but it does. Because Hamas's atrocities at the beginning, during that invasion, Brian, that's ridiculous. You can't do that. That is so unbelievably brutal. But then somebody is going to come up to you with a camera and a microphone and go, "Well, it's no different than an artillery strike on a hospital." Well, wait a minute, what are we doing there? What are we trying to force? So, the idea, I think, has a lot to do with how we should determine what's right or what's wrong. But listen, in that same conversation, don't bring up a DUI accident that kills a kid, right? You see, because what we're doing is we're conflating certain things to go, and that's comedy, Brian, that's the joke. And what I'm going to tell you is that that joke in certain circles, when I'm close to those people, will work, but it's not going to work on a global scale. And so those people think socialization that's forced is going to work, and it's going to have dire consequences.

And I'll give you a low-level dire consequence. You and I both have the same friend that's a drama queen. Unbelievable. No matter what happens, it's going to change the whole day until we flip that script and turn it around, and we have to expend a lot of calories to get that person back in the boat. Okay, so no matter what we do, don't say this or this because the drama queen will show up, and it'll take us hours to pull it back. What do we always do, Brian? We go right for the jugular, the minute that we see him, because we think that stuff's hilarious. That's us forcing socialization, but because it's down and in, and because it's in our tribe, it's okay, and we get away with it over and over again. Try that at a mall when a guy is a delivery guy, and he's just eaten, and he's trying to get out of there, and you're going to get shot. That's the point. The point is that if you change the calculus, you're going to change the result.

Yeah. And if you're not careful upfront, you have to look at human nature and human behavior. When I say human nature, I'm saying what's inside of us, pre-wired. And then human behavior, how we react to those things when we encounter them on the street. And that's why you and I still have an argument over and over and over again with simulation. When you simulate, okay, you can't just say, "Hey, Brian, we're going to simulate this, and it's going to be exactly like a car crash. We're going to simulate this, and it's gonna be..." No, you have to go outside the wire and you have to feel the environment because emotion is part of that. Brian, your ego is part of that. You have such a fragile, fragile ego system as a human that when somebody plays a prank on you, if it was just you and the other person, you'd lean in and tell them, "Hey, that's funny. I hope you got your rocks off, but I swear to Christ if this happens again, I'm going to stab you." Where does that come from? That doesn't come from you thinking about it. That comes from all of these emotions and these chemicals are pushed up in your brain, and now you're forcing me to have either a violent reaction or fear. And what happens when I get too much fear? Fight, flight, freeze, right?

So, those are, and you talk about it so well by using the term "inevitable," those are inevitable, I would use the term "likely" reactions to these pranks. And you have to be careful because I understand what the court did in this, and there's a lesser-known legal battle being fought, there was a weapons charge, it doesn't matter, a charge that stemmed from it. It has to do with the mall and has to do with the local stuff and everything else. Let's pull back from that. Let's go back up to 30,000 feet. What they said is there was sufficient provocation for this guy to shoot another human being. And Brian, it was just words. Never touched him. He didn't slap him, he didn't push him down, he didn't spit in his food. And that's huge. That's huge to me that the courts are still taking a look at that and saying, "Wait a minute, words can hurt." And defiling, besmirching the name of her is still a crime that's punishable by you shooting somebody. It's like the Old West. In the Old West, if you got up in somebody's grill and they shot you, you could say, "Your Honor, you know, boys will be boys." And somebody said, "Yeah, I get that." Okay, that is borderline what we're seeing here. But it's not because of the gun-toter. It's because of a person that said, "I can force socialization on you, and you have to take it." And that's not the world we live in, buddy.

You know, and what we're talking about too is just how we process information. It doesn't matter what that information is. It's the altercation at the mall, it's the news article, it's something you saw on TV or online. It's how we, it's that amygdalic reaction is what we're talking about, and how powerful that is. And how, I think it happens without us realizing it. I mean, it's running in the background, meaning. And people, and that's what people really play on, who have popular, whether it's a news show or whatever. It's, they're playing with that because they know it'll get you, it'll engage people.

So, let me throw you an amygdalic reaction that happened twice to our CEO and the love of my life, Shelley, smartest human I've ever been associated with. So, she's getting old, I'm getting old, we're all old. The other day, she, she still runs everywhere, everything she does, spry youth. Even though she's 60, she never acts like it, and she'll kill me if they find out that I just said that on the air. So she's running up our steps at the front of our house, it's all big wood blocks and cement, and it's a slick day outside, and she slips and skins her knee. She just hits her knee and goes down for a second. You know Shelley, she's going to rub dirt on it and get back up. The first thing out of my mouth is, "Hey, you're okay!" And she looks at me and goes, "How the heck do you know I'm okay? This hurts like the dickens!" And she goes and starts talking to me. My amygdala forced that reaction because my brain instantaneously said, "I love this person, and I want them to be okay." Yes.

Now, let me take you back to California, that time that I was coming back from a trip overseas and outside the wire. And she had cooked for me, and I come in the house, and she slipped and tented her elbow, which is a very painful injury, if anybody knows about that. And I actually covered her face with a dish rag while I was calling emergency, because this was something where we needed a special type of transport. Can't just lift her up. Shoulders dislocated, tented elbow, you know, she's turning purple. And the reason I did that is I dialed 900-911, 912, I was going all over the place. This was the love of my life, and I couldn't see her in that way. So I had to change the way I viewed that, and that happened instantaneously too.

So when you force yourself into a situation where there's an ambush, and in this case, the ambush was unexpected, real life, "Holy smokes!" you get what I'm trying to say, then the toll is so much faster and harder on your system. Why? Because the amygdala is trying to keep you safe, and this is a member of your tribe, and they're in peril. And so you take that. So, when you look at like "Impractical Jokers," if you try to pull a prank when I'm at dinner with my family, Brian, the outcomes could be very violent and horrible for you.

How many times have we seen in a courtroom, Brian, where tensions raised, or out on the steps of the courtroom, where the people keep pushing the microphone in your face? Those nuanced differences in our environment are enough for us to go zero to 60, flash to the bang, and resort to violence because the amygdala is literally controlling violence in our brain. And when I say that, you have to understand what I'm talking about. If you're going to commit violence on somebody else, the amygdala is leading the charge. So if you keep pushing it, Brian, if you keep giving these triggers, sense memories—the smell, the sight, the sound of something that's going to trigger the ancient human in you—then reap the whirlwind. Understand that you're going to do that.

And Brian, I don't want to say what's on our Patreon for today, but Patreon is very closely related to that. And I'll tell you this: Rage has to run its course. Fear has to run its course. And violence is a language. So violence can be used to answer fear. Now, I'm not making that statement, your brain is. Back up and listen to what I just said. Violence can come out of nowhere, Brian, to protect you against impending fear, which thinks that a threshold has been reached that if you don't react violently, you may become injured. And your brain won't do it. Your brain will not sit there and measure. Your brain will go, "I side with Greg, I side with Brian!" It has to, it has to make a choice, and it's an A or B choice. There's no, it's a zero or one. That's why we give awards for a guy jumping on a grenade to save his team, because that doesn't happen. And when you see something like that happen, it's so outlandish to the way your brain is wired. Your brain has wired you first, but then...

And then that's also too, like that's through training, right? You can overcome, you can overcome the natural reaction to want to love. Yeah, okay. And relationship.

I'll give you an example. Go back for a second to forced socialization. You and I travel a lot on an airplane. I see the kid come on the airplane with a hat pulled down, with earphones on, with his eye protection on, looking down at his phone, adjusting the music, never pays attention to what row or aisle or who's around him or anything, and walks by me. I see that kid out of a plane of 176, 170 times. Then I see a mother, and she's carrying one baby, and she's got the other kid in front of her, and she's looking at every person at every aisle and talking to the kids and managing the bag the whole time. Why? Because the stakes are different. The stakes are higher there.

And then the next person comes on, and they've got that terrible backpack with the strings, doesn't even have straps on it, and they're turning to look around, and they're smacking me in the head and smacking the other people in the head. We talk about situational awareness. Situational awareness is born; it starts with the amygdala throwing the rock in the pond to check the things. And when I see that young mother with her kids paying attention to her surrounding environments, I'm immediately transported back to how our fundamental wiring was created, back in the infancy of humans. And thank God for the amygdala.

Yeah, yeah. And so, I'm trying to pull out the lesson here, the "so what" and everything, and I got the sun coming in my face. No, but we see that we... The reason why these are interesting stories to us is because it is because these are just more examples of like, this is how humans are wired. These are primal reactions that you cannot control. And so when these situations occur, like, you can't be surprised. When this one, even when the mall shooting one happened, I was like, "Not surprising at all." And it's going to keep happening, and people are going to keep doing it, and this is why. But, you know, then big picture, this is why many things happen, right? This is, this is how we, so what, what's there? Yeah, we process all information at a very primitive level many of the times.

And, you know, this isn't sitting back, I'm reading a book at night, "You know, this is interesting. Okay, I'm diving into something." I'm talking when it's getting beamed at us, and we're, and it's headlines and it's taglines, and it's meant to rope you in. You're getting an amygdalic reaction. Now, how powerful it is is dependent on a number of factors, and but dependent time, your association with what it is. Like, you know, if it's just something...

But those aren't surprises, Brian, we know that going in. That's what I think is key.

And so, it is, it is how we process information at a very primal level. It's happening no matter what. And so we, like you brought up, when we talk about all the time on The Human Behavior Podcast about humans having sort of a what we call like a "fragile ego system"—how does this affect me, how's this going to make me look? You can be an incredible human being, you still have that going on in your head. It's not something you shut off, it's just part of our survival. And so, when these things occur, it's one, it's not only is it not surprising, but it's a look into, this is how everything works. This isn't just the situ... This is how exactly your world is to your brain. It's different than your prefrontal cortex. Your limbic system is kicking and it's having a very different experience than you sitting in the food court at the shopping mall, enjoying time, the Cinnabon with your friends. Exactly. Like, it's two different worlds are happening within your brain, and you're not even realizing it, you know.

You're not psychologically homeless. You're... sorry, I love you for bringing that up, Brian, because that point is important. Our neurobiology can be geographically homeless, I'll give him that one. Yeah, you can be an unhoused person, but your psychology does have a home at all times.

Listen, if we're going to talk about bringing it in for a landing, for a lesson, remember when you rub the lamp and the genie comes out? The genie's got to look around and figure out what the heck is going on, because when the genie comes out, he comes out and goes, "Hey, what do you need?" He doesn't come out going, "Got it, got it, I get it. The car is out of control, the brake lines were cut." Your amygdala is exactly like that. Your amygdala is constantly sensing, constantly waiting, and all that other stuff. It has to wake you, the genie, and say, "Something's different. Better look around. Something's here." And Brian, if we're not aware that that occurs in that order, that it's your brain that's triggered by the external arousal, and you have to catch up when you come out of the lamp, then you're going to be behind the curve. When you're behind the curve, what do you got? You've got fight or you've got flight or you've got freeze. And all of those can be detrimental to your survival, or your relationship, or your kids' survival, or living through this traffic accident. All of those are immediately dependent upon your amygdala, and we give no thought to it when we go out into the environment. As a matter of fact, we add a bunch of distractions to it, Brian. We add our earbuds, and we add distractions, and we add all these other things to it, and then wonder how we got roped into this gosh-darn practical joke. How did it happen right in front of us, you know?

Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's the idea. You're really, you're kind of rolling the dice there with what can happen. And so, I mean, I, I think that's, that's the kind of big takeaways here, right, is that it's that that line, that amygdala line, is going to be, it's subjective, and it's involved with everything that you're doing in your life encounter. So, I think that's a good takeaway. And like you said, we've got some more fun stuff, Christmas related, related too, for the Patreon subscribers.

Funny how we did that. Funny how we took an exit, and both of these stores are on the same street. Never thought of that.

No, neither did I. And then we robbed the store, and then we spent the money at the liquor store. So, we got back on the freeway. None of what you should do on that note.

Exactly.

We do appreciate everyone for tuning in. We do have more on the Patreon side. We've got more stuff coming up next year, which will be fun. This will be out right after Christmas, so we hope everyone had a great Christmas. And then you get some time off, spend time with the family and all that stuff, and got some good wins. It can be a tough time of year for some people, especially. But yeah, stay in touch with folks. But we appreciate everyone tuning in. Again, like we said, if you enjoy the episode, share it with your friends, check out our Patreon site, and don't forget that training changes behavior.