Hello friends, welcome back to another episode
of the C &S Podcast. Our guest today is Brian
Kaplan. He is an economist, a New York Times
bestseller, and a professor of economics at...
george mason university today we will discuss
how unfair regulations made housing prices sky
high why young people are disproportionately
affected by housing what can be done on a personal
level about expensive housing why voters are
so hesitant to deregulate housing the real reasons
why deregulation can fix the housing crisis and
much more if you are enjoying this show and you
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one of you. Thank you for listening to the show,
and enjoy the episode. Brian Kaplan, welcome
to the show. Fantastic to be here, David. We're
here to talk about your new book, Build Baby
Build, which is all about housing regulation.
Why is housing regulation such a big failure?
Hmm. So that's the question of what's causing
it rather than how do we know that it's causing
harm or what do you have in mind? Um, more so
like, well, how do we know it's causing harm?
So break into housing regulation. Okay. So we
can start with, we've seen this very large rise
in housing prices, especially in desirable areas,
much higher than you would expect from inflation.
And then there is the question of why we see
that the regulation is generally very strict.
And then at least that is a plausible. But as
to how we actually should be really confident
here, most of the evidence comes down to this,
saying, look, in a free market, if prices rise
above the physical cost of production, then people
would build more until prices fell back down
to the physical cost of production. Yet if we
go and get a very good measure of, first of all,
the raw value of land without any permission
attached, combined with physical structure costs,
Prices are permanently way above that, and the
regulation is really the only plausible story
about how those prices could be kept that high.
Because otherwise, basically, a building would
be like having a printing press, just a license
to print money. So that's what it really comes
down to. We can just see that land that is pretty
much worthless without a piece of paper allowing
you to build, and those pieces of paper are hard
to get. You get the piece of paper, and suddenly
the land can be worth $100 million. is like that
yeah so it's a it's a bit of artificial scarcity
that's going on here you're not just a bit david
it's an incredible amount of artificial scarcity
there's something it really like the system really
is it's like charging for air we need the air
very badly there's plenty of air for everyone
but the government will not allow you to breathe
without a breathing permit yeah yeah so um there's
so we're talking about housing regulation and
a lot of people think that housing regulation
makes things better So I can regulate my single
family area. It's quieter. There's less crime.
Like I'm able to get through traffic easier.
It's not as populated. What about these benefits
that people think are going on? Why are we going
to like deregulate and lose those things? Right.
So this is really the heart of any thoughtful
approach to this question. First point is obviously
when you let a lot more people bill, then normally
parking and traffic and noise do get worse. So
it's like, all right, so then what's the mistake?
Well, there's two kinds of mistakes. So here
is the one that is really obvious. There is another
much cheaper, much more humane way of handling
these complaints, which is to charge people for
driving during peak times, to charge people for
parking during busy times, and so on. We have
the technology. It's totally possible to do this.
And it's much better to make driving more expensive
than to make housing more expensive. If the traffic
is the problem, raise the price of causing traffic.
Don't go and raise the price of housing, which
is only partly related. And in fact, when you
think about it more, it's like, well, one of
the main responses to high housing prices is
to live further away, which causes more traffic.
It's a crazy system where a lot of what's happening
is people are just exporting the traffic problem,
whereas charging really does solve the problem.
And yet we have this atavistic notion, oh, no,
driving should be free, parking should be free.
Well, that really helps us a lot when we have
something that is free and therefore barely usable.
So that's part of it. Now, the deeper answer.
Deeper answer is that even if we don't go and
have any way of improving the traffic and parking
noise situations, we still have very strong evidence
that on balance, more people lead to a higher
standard of living according to most people.
How do we know this? Because if you live in an
area that is densely populated, you've got all
these problems that you mentioned. Hardly any
government will use. peak load pricing for parking
traffic and so on. But here's the crazy thing.
In areas where they have horrible parking and
driving noise problems, they normally also still
have sky -high property values. Why do people
pay so much money to have such horrible problems?
The answer is there must be massive offsetting
benefits of living near other people, benefits
that are so great that they outweigh all the
problems and a lot more because people pay all
this extra money. And if you think about it a
little bit more, you can realize, oh yeah, of
course. You can get rid of all parking, traffic,
and noise problems by moving to the middle of
nowhere in America. But hardly anybody wants
to do that. Why not? Because you lose all the
good things that come from living around other
people. You lose social opportunities. You lose
job opportunities, shopping opportunities, cultural
opportunities. This is not just my opinion. It
is the opinion of the market that consumers are
willing to pay a large premium to get a package
of all good things humans bring and all bad things
together. That package fused together, people
pay a massive premium for. And what this means
in economic terms is that governments are trying
to stop something that has big positive externalities.
So that's the deep story. So are people just
bad at evaluating these things? Like most people
I talk to will be like, yeah, they won't mention
any of those benefits of I'm living in New York
City. I have more opportunity, more people, more
everything else that comes with that. Are there
people just bad at it? Well, the answer is that
as consumers, they're great. And that's why there's
a big premium that people are paying. So as consumers,
people demonstrate, actions speak louder than
words, that they actually prefer the high -density
package to the low -density package. But as voters,
they are not using that knowledge. Instead, they
are guided by simple -minded slogans of, I don't
want any more traffic. I don't want any more
parking. This is how psychologically normal people
are. Their political thinking is at a level that
makes one almost embarrassed to be part of the
human race, but that's the way politics works.
It brings out the worst in people, the most malevolence,
the folly, the stupidity, the simple -mindedness.
This is what is reflected in politics. If you
go to another country during an election, it's
hard not to think what a bunch of morons these
are. But then, of course, in my country, the
politics are thoughtful, or at least my side
is thoughtful. At least in my own opinion. Like,
aren't they embarrassed to be Hungarians? I was
in Hungary during their election. It's like,
look at these posters. Like, if you're not part
of the culture, then you see it clearly. And
to see that people are operating at their lowest
possible level. So ugly. Just so... checked out
the brains turned off just full emotion just
a vomit a verbiage but in your own country normally
you're attached to a side it's like well at least
my own side isn't bad like they're all terrible
look it is like politically even if i agree with
someone like if i listen to a yimby like you
said like the conclusion's good but the arguments
are usually not very good and i'm like you're
just saying a bunch of false things and i don't
like like just speak strict truth strict truth
only it's like well then we can't win damn it
yeah it's always like you listen to someone else's
argument even within your own country and you're
like god Everyone's opinion sucks, but of course
mine is like amazingly thought out and rational,
right? Okay. So I'm someone, I think that there
are some subcultures like the rationalist community
where it is much easier to have a reasonable
conversation. Economics is another one. We've
got ways of disciplining our thinking and ruling
out some of the worst kinds of arguments, but
in a normal public forum, it's not just anything
goes like anything except reason goes. Yeah.
Yeah. Is there any reason people – or I guess
you would think that people are voting in their
self -interest when it comes to election time.
But in the book, you mentioned that they really
aren't voting in that direction. Why is that
happening? That's right. So my book, The Myth
of the Rational Voter, it's my first book, goes
into this in a lot of detail. Here's the key
thing to understand. If you go shopping and you
buy a bunch of junk that you don't want and you
pay for it, you go to the store and you are worse
off. Yeah. And this is a reason to not do that
in the first place. And if you ever do buy stuff
that it turns out you don't like, don't buy it
again. You are the person that bears the consequences
of bad decisions. You are the person that benefits
from learning from your own folly. Does this
mean that nobody ever makes a bad decision, Marcus?
Of course not. But it does mean that it has basic
functionality. On the other hand, when people
vote, it's not like that. If you vote for really
terrible stuff, what happens? The same thing
that was going to happen anyway, because you're
just one tiny person. What is your incentive
to learn if something passes that you wanted
and it devastates your country? Well, it's not
like there's anything you personally can do.
If you had voted differently, nothing would have
changed. If you vote differently, the future,
nothing will change. Because again, you're just
one person. Everybody in this country who said
that Trump would crash the stock market, there
weren't that many, but everybody said he crashed
the stock market, lived through the same stock
market crash as everybody who said, thought things
would be fine. It really did. This is a case
where, interestingly, of course, you did have
the option of shorting the stock market. And
if you acted on your vision of doom, then you
are now fabulously rich. If you know anyone that
did this, my congratulations to them. On the
other hand, anybody who claims they foresaw it
but was not short in the market, you didn't foresee
anything. You were just being hyper and got lucky.
Yep, yep. And hindsight is 20 -20, of course.
So let's say what you're telling us is true,
that if we build more housing, we can actually
price out roads and parking and make those two
problems go away. What are just people misunderstanding
about this whole housing situation that would
actually convince them? to vote more rationally.
I mean, honestly, the biggest misunderstanding
is denying that building a lot more housing would
bring prices down a lot. There is actual research
just asking people, what do you think would happen
to prices if we build a lot more housing? And
roughly speaking, U .S. public opinion divides
as follows. One -third says if you build a lot
more housing, prices go up. One -third says if
you build a lot more housing, prices go down.
One -third says if you build a lot more housing,
nothing happens to prices. If that's what you
believe, then yeah, why do you want to build
housing? So it's just like the most basic, fundamental,
deep -seated economic illiteracy of just insisting
there's no connection at all between supply and
price. So what can you tell people about that?
It's like, come on, man. If you're running a
lemonade stand and you can't sell your lemonade,
what are you going to do? Cut the price. Why
do you think housing is different? If you build
a massive apartment complex and you can't rent
half your units, what are you going to do? You're
going to cut the price. This is not ideology.
It's common sense. And yet we're at a world where
there is a whole ideology of... being angry at
markets and business and rich people to the point
where you're just willing to deny obvious facts
of supply and price are very closely connected
in an intuitive way. And the ideology is denying
that. That is not ideology to affirm that. It
is ideology to deny that. It's common sense to
affirm it. So I think that's the really big one.
Again, probably the other big one, as I said,
is to accept that the net... Effect of density
is positive not in my eyes in particular. I'm
a suburban person, but in the eyes of consumers
The net package of density the value people attached
to density is very positive Actions speak louder
than words. People could live in the middle of
nowhere. Telework has made that super easy. We've,
for a lot of people, gotten rid of those big
benefits for jobs. But still, hardly anyone wants
to live out in rural areas where your housing
costs will be rock bottom because it messes up
your in -person opportunities so badly that people
would rather pay five times the price to live
around people that will clog the roads and park
up the streets. And that's just fact. It's not
my opinion. Yeah, I mean the millions of people
living in Manhattan and dealing with all of that.
Yeah, it's funny because the classic Woody Allen
New York City resident is like, oh God, this
city is terrible. Oh no. Why do you live there?
Sorry, what was that, David? It's like, why do
you even live there? Oh, well, I couldn't stay
and live over in those other places, all of those
rednecks, Neanderthals. I remember when I was
on the job market at Princeton, a bunch of my
fellow students were like, I couldn't possibly
live in the South. five and four thing there
are animals down there and it's like look you're
not going to be living out in like the toothless
part of West Virginia you're going to be in the
highly cosmopolitan part of the states where
you would never even hear a southern accent so
like why don't you stop looking the mirror and
complimenting your own incredible open -mindedness
and realize that you are a giant bigot. And why
don't you actually go there to a Southern city
and see what it's really like and realize that
you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah.
Yeah. No. And, and cities are just disproportionately
left -leaning anyways. So it's not like they'll
find any of these rednecks in these populated
cities. It's important to remember that the political
separation is nowhere near as strict as stereotypes.
make us imagine so like trump got like over what
like 30 35 of the vote in california yeah and
it's like living in california you think that
there's like no republicans there i mean i'm
from there and it's easy to just think that and
then you realize look it's like people like my
dad and all his buddies like the fact they live
in california despite hating all the politics
of the state It's because they like the weather
and it's where they're from and their friends
are there. And there isn't the strict separation
that you might imagine, in fact. Yeah. It seems
like the housing problem is disproportionately
affecting young people. There's something like
half of Americans that are below 30 are still
living with their parents. Sounds a bit high,
but let's run with it. It might be wrong, but
it's very, very high. proportionally to everywhere
else but scott galloway talks about how these
older people who have houses are building these
regulation modes basically to keep themselves
rich so why would all these people vote against
themselves like the we can't really make a convincing
argument for them so that is a very common misperception
again we got public opinion data in it is not
true that this is an owners versus renters issue
renters generally favor a lot of regulation too
Probably about not even much of a difference,
if any difference. What's going on? And then
why would tenants favor regulation? Because they
think that regulation makes life better and solves
problems. Because they have these crazy views
about, first of all, denying that there's a connection
between supply and price. And second of all,
denying that on balance, the net package of all
the good and bad of density is good, even though
by their own actions, they're trying to get density.
But then how would it be in the self -interest
of current owners to go and deregulate? So for
some, it is not in their interest. And we'll
just be honest about that. But for a lot, it
is. Why? First of all, if you're an owner, but
you want to upgrade, you don't want housing prices
to be sky high. If you're in your starter home,
yes, it's wonderful. There's high regulation
that makes the sale price of your starter home
sky high. But if you want to move to a better
home, then in fact, on balance, you'd be better
off if housing prices were cheap because you're
trying to get more housing. And so you're a net
loser from regulation, even if you're an owner,
if you want to upgrade. A second, if you want
to subdivide or otherwise improve on your property,
then regulation is bad for you because it's preventing
you from making money off of your property. Really,
in terms of self -interest, what you want is
to be the only person in your city that's allowed
to build anything he wants. Right? And then you
sell it and you build a skyscraper. Yeah, yeah.
Next best thing is if only your neighborhood
had no regulation. That would be the next best
thing. Then you sell out to a bunch of developers
and you make a killing. If you could be in the
one neighborhood in San Francisco that was unregulated,
you would make tens of millions of dollars, maybe
like $100 million from one stupid townhouse.
All right. Now, then third point. If you have
kids that you would like to live within 100 miles
of you, you are losing in a very important way
from regulation. It's basically either your kids
are going to live far away from you if the prices
are sky high, or they're going to keep living
in your basement, which means they don't get
married and don't give you grandkids. Alternately,
you could go and get a big home equity loan against
the inflated value of your house and give it
to your kid to let them make the down payment.
Why not just have low prices if that's what it's
going to be? It is not in the interest of anyone
who wants their kids to live close to have a
lot of regulation. Instead, even if your housing
price will fall, but you have this offsetting
gain of your kids living nearby because they
can afford it. And if you are the kind of person
that cares about your kids and wants to see them
and wants to know your grandkids, then it totally
makes sense self -interestedly to be in favor
of a pile of deregulation. Yeah, yeah. But if
any of those three arguments don't apply, then
yeah, then the system benefits you. But we're
down to a pretty small number of people, actually.
Yeah, yeah. Do you see any downstream effects
from this housing problem that is affecting young
people apart from housing prices? So, I mean,
I see almost nothing but downstream effects.
So there's almost no issue this doesn't matter
for. It matters for equality because... renters
are poorer than owners, and also because renters...
Just really cannot lose from deregulation. So
whereas owners at least can, not necessarily,
but they can. So there is some downside for owners
in terms of capital value. So young people tend
to be in that group of people that don't own
homes and have lower incomes. So it's making
inequality worse. It's making social mobility
worse. It's making family formation worse because
people either have to live in the middle of nowhere
or they live in a very small space or they live
in with their parents. All right. So there's
that. And in the book, I go over a lot of other
problems that don't immediately seem to be related
to housing regulation, but actually they are
very tightly related to housing regulation. It
just requires that people just look in a mirror
and just say, yeah, like, most people are just
really wrong about this. I used to be one of
them. I'm not going to be one of them anymore.
I'm going to go against my society. Yeah. Which
is hard for people to do, but it's... It is the
rationalist path. Almost everyone else in human
history has lived in a crazy, screwed up society.
Probably you do too. And a lot of it is just
the courage to be a nonconformist and to go and
say, I'm not going to believe it just because
it's widely believed. I'm going to ask questions.
I'm going to be open to arguments and evidence.
And I think if you read my Build Baby Build and
you're open to arguments and evidence, you will
be highly convinced. Yeah, yeah. I mean, 100%.
It made it pretty clear that there's basically
mostly only benefits for most people. Yes. Yeah.
Which is pretty convincing as long as you're
not in one of those camps where you don't benefit
from housing deregulation. Most of the real opposition
just comes from fanatics, people who just love
the idea of using government to solve problems
and just imagine that they are the voice of God
and if they are the ones saving our society from
horrible things and all the while demonizing
developers of all people, which is like one step
away from thinking that farmers are the root
of all evil. They're not evil. They are supplying
the most essential product for human existence,
food. And real estate developers are supplying
the second most essential product for human survival,
which is shelter. So get off your high horse.
You're the bad guy if you're trying to stop housing
from being built, not the developers. They're
doing the Lord's work. Yep. Yep. It's like complaining
about the price of eggs and blaming the farmers.
Yeah. Yeah. Are people doing that? I don't think
they are, but it would be – Yeah, it's more of
like deflation or something or bird flu. Yeah,
I've not heard much vitriol against farmers.
No, no. So that wouldn't make any sense just
like in this case. Yeah, well, I mean when does
that stop people? True. I was actually surprised
when I was reading your book that this is actually
pretty equal in terms of left and right and what
they believe about housing regulation because
my instinct would be to say – oh, probably most
people on the right or libertarians are anti
-regulation of the housing market and then liberals
are a lot pro -regulation. Well, it's more complicated
than that. So here is the fact. First of all,
a large majority, maybe 90 % of professional
pro -housing activists are left -wing. The YIMBY
movement is very left -wing. All right, so...
First truth. Second truth. Left -wing areas tend
to have much stricter housing regulation than
right -wing areas because those YIMBYs are just
one small part of the left -wing coalition. And
a much bigger and more important part is just
the anti -market, anti -business local activist
group. And they outnumber those YIMBYs, Lord
only knows, five to one, ten to one. So California
has very strict housing regulation and it's a
big part of this general left -wing attitude.
The YIMBYs are left -wing also, and they're against
it, and they're the most vocal and effective
opponents. But still, they are a minority in
that coalition. On the other hand, intellectually,
among right -wing people, there's especially
a feeling of single -family housing is precious,
and we should protect that, and government shouldn't
just allow people to be building multifamily
homes. And yet, in general, red states have way
less housing regulation than blue states. And
as to what's going on, I think a lot of it is
just they got a lot fewer of those bad left -wing
activists, and they also just respect them less.
They don't regard them as the conscience of their
movement. Look, I think that in a place like
California, like the angry people that want to
save a bird nest at the expense of a billion
-dollar building, I think that mainstream Democrats
feel kind of... awe of the activists and feel
like they're the ones that are really living
a righteous life and I'm like a corrupt bargainer.
I'm a sellout. Whereas in a red state, there
is a distaste for those activists. And it is
a healthy distaste, which just, yeah, all of
you tree -hugging, blue -haired, cat ladies.
I don't have a lot of proof for this, but it
just seems very plausible to me that that's what's
going on, is that your typical left -wing anti
-housing activists, if they just go to Texas
and try to get their way, they don't have the
same... guilt that they can prey on for local
governments which are going to be a lot more
republican and they will just have there'll be
a cultural chasm between them such that even
if the left -wing activists are saying something
which if they said it in the right way would
resonate they just refuse to change the way they
talk in order to be effective and thank god for
that yeah they can play the performative empathy
game and then get some support just from people
who feel guilty for some reason Yeah, I mean,
it's like there's this old thing in the 1972
election of I'm going clean for Gene, where basically
you've got Senator, I believe, Eugene McCarthy,
who's a left wing guy. And then there's a bunch
of hippies that like him. And then they say,
OK, but we want you to do to help your candidate
win is get a nice haircut, wear a suit, stop
being a hippie and sell regular people on him.
And they were supposedly at least the slogan
suggests they were able to get some hippies to
go and change their look in order to be more
effective. But at the same time, it doesn't seem
like many left -wing people are willing to go
and change their look just to appeal to normal
Americans like my dad. It's so important to them
to go and keep looking weird and using odd jargon
that the fact that if they would just compromise
on superficial stuff, they could win on fundamentals
isn't important to them. Yeah, yeah. It's a little
bit like your concept that you talked about,
just appeasing. a little bit yeah and then having
an easier time getting what you want if you're
just willing to appease yeah look it's just it's
just reality and like so appeasement is this
terrible name all because of the munich conference
and yet everyone appeases every day when they
live in a society yep Why? Because appeasement
normally works really well. If someone bumps
into you, you could just go and flip out at them
and say, I demand you get on your knees and apologize
to me or I will call the police over this affront.
You could go and live that way and your life
will actually be terrible. Yeah, yeah. Or you
could have a stranger bump into you and you just
say, oh, sorry. Right? That's what I do. It works
wonders for me. And I do know people who are
more confrontational than me. They're making
their own lives worse. They say, oh, I'm playing
a great public good. I'm deterring bad behavior.
And it's like, I don't think you're deterring
bad behavior. You're just randomly terrifying
people and causing conflict. Don't congratulate
yourself too much. Yeah. Yeah. No, that always
reminds me of the quote, would you rather be
right or rather be loved? Basically. So look,
like as a professor, I have chosen to be right
in a bunch of cases over being loved, but that's
something that I circumscribed to my work. And,
you know, like a lot of things, it's not really
about truth or not. It's just about like, can
you go and be nice to people and smile and say,
sure, not a big deal. Right. And it's like, look,
if you say it's not a big deal, that makes it
not a big deal. So just cultivate that attitude.
You don't have to be a liar to be a nice person.
Yeah. Yeah. Is there is there anything that young
people can do in the face of this regulation
problem on an individual or a genetic level to
help themselves? Yeah. Good question. So be more
flexible about where you're willing to live.
That's the main thing you can do. So get rid
of this idea. The only place in the world worth
living is the Bay Area. If that's your idea,
then you're in a lot of trouble. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, if you're agentic, again, basically
shop around and be looking for underlooked trade
-offs. So it's like if I just go 45 minutes away,
then the price falls a lot, but it's actually
not that different in terms of what my day is
like. So there's that. So other things you can
do. If you're like, there are alternative lifestyles
of, you know, nothing extreme, but just like
having a shared house, things like that. Some
people are really uncomfortable with that. I
mean, like I personally, you know, in a way,
like if all of our wives could be on board with
it, I would actually be very happy living in
intentional community with all my friends and
where we could save on housing costs and have
common areas and everything. And really just
comes down to, well, just worried that our wives
wouldn't get along. Like me and my buddies, I
think we're. doing great. And like, we're at
least my very best friends. I feel like we're
so simpatico and like, it's just, you know, it's
brotherhood really. Sisterhood I have found is
just less achieved. So you're like, prove me
wrong kids, but that's what I've seen. So like
the one friend you made in like sixth grade and
then you're just friends with forever. Yes. Yes.
So there's that, but you're like, if you can
find people that are actually on board with a
different kind of housing arrangement, then that
seems reasonable to me. Honestly, I personally
would be totally cool with multi -generational
living with my kids and their spouses. My kids
are great people. I wouldn't want to live with
my parents because they're crazy, but my kids
are reasonable people. Maybe they think the same
thing about you at some point. Look, they're
the ones with bad tempers. Yeah. I've had my
dad explode on me for not exploding when he wants
me to explode. That's a little bit. You wouldn't
care about that, would you? Like, can we just
like, look, you're going to yell at me for not
getting angry. Yeah. So like, yep. Like my kids,
like everybody's got a good, everyone's got a
good temper as long as they were to go and marry
people that also were. on board with that, then
I would feel very comfortable sharing a house
with them and having multi -generational living.
Yeah. My wife wouldn't be. Yeah. That's the issue.
Yeah. So I guess something very agentic is for
the long run, you got to marry someone who's
just totally chill. Yeah. Find someone, find
your guy, like find a chill woman who sees the
good in people. And someone who's not that keen
on getting their way. So someone says it's more
important just to be really liked than to get
your details satisfied. Yeah, yeah. Good advice.
We only have a little bit of time left, but I
wanted to turn the direction a little bit. I
really liked your book, Self -Help is Like a
Vaccine. Oh, good. I think it's a really good,
just filled with a lot of simple ways that you
found out to make your life better. I try. And
this podcast is mainly aimed at young people
who are trying to improve themselves, learn about
the world, and figure out a way to be more agentic
and courageous in the world. Yep, great word.
Agentic. Be agentic. Yeah, it is a great word.
It's both a blessing and a curse to be agentic.
But we have a tradition on the podcast where
we ask the guests to share a little bit of maybe
vulnerability or a way in which they still struggle
with personal development. All right. They share
that thing and then they make a commitment to
be a little bit better at it in some way. So
the big life lesson that I'm always pushing is
just to be friendlier to people. And I'll just
say, like, in my misspent youth, I was the opposite
of this. The number of people I just harangued.
It's like, what your problem is? The number of
times I told my mom, like, this is a quote. When
will you get it through your thick skull, vet?
I talked to people like that when I was young.
And here's the crazy thing. When I was 17, I
read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence
People. And he said, do the opposite of all this.
And I read the book and realized he was right.
And I just said, no, I'm not going to change.
The wheel. And then like six years ago, I read
the book and like, why, Brian? Brian, why didn't
you just listen? Why didn't you just do it? You
know, so. That is something I'll say, look, I
struggle with it, but to me, honestly, at this
point, I've really gamified it. And when I'm
in a social situation, I actually get a lot of
fun out of saying, all right, so what's the right
thing to say? How can I do it? How can I do it?
How can I do it? Right. And like yesterday I
was in a very high stress situation. I was actually
speaking before the most hostile audience of
my entire life. It was DEI hearings at GMU and
there were a bunch of protesters in the room.
I lost sleep over it the night after, actually,
because it was sufficiently traumatic. But the
whole time I was there, like, all right, so how
can I? Look, I know I can't actually do it, but
how would I present myself? How would I talk
if I was trying to win over the angriest protester
in the room? And that did make it more fun to
me. So if you want to say something like, what
do I really struggle with? I guess, like, forgiveness.
I struggle with that. Right. You know, especially
if the person really clearly has no intention
of ever changing. You can't talk to them. They
just keep doing it. And it's like, all right,
well, the person is in my life. I'm like, so
being upset with them isn't going to help anything.
And yet it's just hard to do. I mean, the kind
of thing that I've actually tried is just in
my mind, imagining the conversation that would
make me feel better. So it's just like you just
visualize and imagine the conversation where
the person just says, like, I'm so sorry that
I could have ever treated you that way. What
I did was wrong. And it's just a fantasy in your
head, but I think that that does help. I'm a
big fan, as you would know from the book, of
exposure therapy, of if something's really bothering
you, the solution is to... Start off with low
doses of what's bothering you and just ramp the
dose up until it doesn't bother you anymore.
So usually that's for things like spiders, right?
If you have spider phobia, arachnophobia, but
totally works for like any kind of persistent
obsessive thoughts. It hurts, right? If there's
something that's really bothering you, try to
pushing out of your mind. But yeah, this is like
a major problem in my life that I've had is with
intrusive, unpleasant, obsessive thoughts. And
this exposure therapy has really worked wonders
for me. But it requires a lot of painful work.
It's just like every day, I'm just going to set
up some time to deliberately think about something
that is horribly unpleasant on purpose, right?
And basically, you know, it's worked when you
get bored. during your time no emotion comes
up yeah yeah it's just like what wait what was
i thinking about oh yeah like what about death
or whatever what about getting horrible dementia
and ending up like my mom and like i visualize
this for three minutes now and it's like okay
my mind is wandering because i just don't care
anymore yeah all right that's what you're going
for yeah that's powerful yeah you you've heard
of victor frankl's paradoxical intention it's
a little bit similar to the like don't think
of an elephant uh it's kind of like the thing
that you're afraid of happening basically intend
for it to happen when you're taking the action
so if you're like scared of talking to someone
you intend for it to be awkward on purpose and
then it ends up not being awkward Oh, I see.
So you deliberately try to make it awkward. Like
in your head, you're like, it's going to be awkward.
It's going to be awkward. I'm going to intend
for it to be awkward. And you'll even be like,
hey, I'm really awkward. I'm sorry, but this
might be awkward. And you'll just like go all
in into intending. I mean, like I can believe
that that could work for some people in some
cases. Yeah, yeah. It's for chronic overthinking
and stuff like that. Right. I mean, definitely
a big piece of advice that I give to grad students
when they're. presenting their work is don't
start by apologizing and definitely don't start
by apologizing for being late or for your slides
aren't in order or anything like that. You're
just calling attention to your failure, trying
to impress people, put your best foot forward.
It's the, uh, I'm sorry I'm late versus thank
you for your patience. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Great.
All right. You got wisdom, David, at a young
age. Congratulations. Hey, thank you, man. Um,
yeah, you talked about forgiveness. So my, my
final question would be, What's a small way that
you can maybe get better at that within one or
two weeks or just be intentional about thinking
about it? Yeah, I mean, I think I was just going
to double down on what I said is visualize the
conversation that would make you feel better
in detail. Cool. And then not just once. You
got to do it a bunch of times. Yeah. So just
like, what would that person have to say to make
you cry tears of joy and relief? And then imagine
that. Not just for a second, but just visualize
it like you're watching a movie. Or like if you're
inclined, you could even write it out as a dialogue.
And then the next time, write it again. Don't
just reread it. But each time, write it out and
just say, okay, I'm starting from scratch. What
conversation do I want to happen that would make
me feel better? Yeah, that's great advice, man.
Thank you for your time. Where can people find
you if they're interested in finding your book
or what you do? All right. So all my books, Build
Baby Build and Self -Help is Like a Vaccine and
Over 10 Others are all on Amazon. And then my
website is bkappa .com and my sub stack is BetOnIt.
Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much, man. This has
been great. Thanks a lot. All right. Fantastic
meeting you, David. Hope to meet you this summer
at Kaplicon. I know. It'll be great. Okay.