How To Argue With Someone | Buster Benson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 122

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   ... it's considered like…

   1. BBBuster Benson0:00

      ... it's considered like backfire effect or the boomerang effect where in a particular context, and if the context is a battle or a tug-of-war or, you know, you're leaning back, you know, and, and if someone pulls on their side of the rope, you don't, you don't, you don't like, "Oh, cool, let's go over there."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:14

      (laughs)

   3. BBBuster Benson0:14

      You're like, "No, I'm gonna pull on my side of the rope harder." (laughs) Uh, and that's just the game, right? That's the game you're playing in that context. It's, um, you know, it comes from fight or flight. It comes from our survival instinct to be like, "Hey, if I'm losing, that doesn't mean I surrender, that means I fight harder." Um, and, you know, psychologically, it doesn't make sense, um, in a r- if you just look at it from like, "Oh, you know, why am I not hearing the information and, um, updating my mental model about reality, um, and then instead choosing to fight back?" Because oftentimes, your survival is at stake, at least historically, you know?

   4. CWChris Williamson0:48

      (wind blowing) You ready to go?

   5. BBBuster Benson0:54

      Ready.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:54

      Lovely. Well, what if I'm not ready? Maybe we should have an argument about it. (laughs)

   7. BBBuster Benson0:58

      (laughs) Sure, we can.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:59

      Uh, we, we can indeed, and we're going to today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Buster Benson. Buster, welcome to the show.

   9. BBBuster Benson1:07

      Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:08

       As you might have heard, we've been practicing our arguments ready for you to tune in today, but we are talking about the art of productive disagreement today.

   11. BBBuster Benson1:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:17

       Hmm.

   13. BBBuster Benson1:18

       Yes. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson1:20

       Or are we?

   15. BBBuster Benson1:20

       A nice easy topic.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:21

       Or maybe we talk about something else? Maybe I argue with you and we talk about something else.

   17. BBBuster Benson1:25

       I'm open for whatever you got.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:26

       (laughs)

   19. BBBuster Benson1:26

       You know, I love having a good disagreement. Uh, part of the re- you know, the most interesting part of research for this book was basically approaching disagreements in all parts of my life, and (laughs) you know, I can tell you that that has led to, you know, all kinds of just like weird side effects of its own. So, um, I like going down those rabbit holes and, and seeing where they end up. But yeah, so if you have any like pressing like, like, "Why is this thing so hard to talk about in public?" we can talk about that. Um, but yeah, the, uh, I'm happy to also just like give a quick summary of the book too, if that's helpful.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:57

       Amazing. Yeah. I think I've got, uh, I've had some difficult discussions recently with people, not difficult as in we were at odds, but more, um, why is it difficult for us to have this discussion when it's-

   21. BBBuster Benson2:09

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson2:09

       ... not in as much of a collaborative environment? So, uh, your new book, Why Are We Yelling?, why did you write it and what's it about?

   23. BBBuster Benson2:16

       Yes. Okay. So I wrote it because I really needed to read this book. (laughs) I think there's a lot of people that go out and, you know, write the book that, you know, they, about what they know. Um, my, my career has been in project development, and engineering, and entrepreneurship, and, you know, I was at Amazon, on Twitter, and Slack, and had a couple of my own startups, ran a bar for a while. I just, all kinds of random things. Um, and so I have a pretty personal relationship to arguing and disagreement that I'm, you know, I think everybody has (laughs) um, in their own way. Um, but it has been my job for a long time to facilitate sort of dig- diverse groups of people that have different incentives, different goals, different skill levels, and helping them all come together and get something done. Um, so that's sort of, you know, I've been interested in it for a long time in a professional sense. Um, and, you know, I think part of what had came out of that was, uh, um, an acknowledgement that we're biased. We have blind spots. We don't see everything. We oftentimes fight for being right instead of fighting for, you know, the truth. Um, and we don't really have, you know, as our, in an argument, when our heart rate starts to spike and our blood pressure starts to, you know, go up, our capacity to reason goes down, our capa- our interest in collaboration goes down, all these things. Uh, well, basically it's like here's the time when you need all these skills and we're gonna just remove them all from you, uh, very conveniently and turn you back into like the fight or flight, you know, animal that you, you were billions of years ago or whatever. Um, so my, my goal in writing this book was to take all of the knowledge in the world (laughs) from all the experts, 'cause there are so many books about this, about negotiation, about persuasion, about rationality, about using, um, you know, there's just like, there's a lot of stuff out there, and it's all very good. It's all very... some of it's really dense, and some of, some of it's really useful. But it's really hard to understand how that applies to our regular lives, and how do we use it at the dinner table? How do we use that in a one-on-one? How do we use that when we're fighting with our spouse or our, you know, our partner? How do we use that when we're, you know, just frustrated and angry and we have, we're tired and, you know, when everything seems to be falling apart? All these things that like seem to compromise us and, um, and so I just decided to take a deep dive, immerse myself in all that stuff, and try to synthesize it, 'cause that's what I love to do. I like to synthesize things and make it practical. So, that was the hope.

   24. CWChris Williamson4:37

       I think that that's one of the most interesting things that we can do, especially as we get older and we can draw from multiple different bodies of knowledge, different subject areas. (coughs) Intellectual hero of mine, Naval Ravikant, talks about the fact that he thinks joining these things is one of the greatest pleasures that there is in life. And I have to say-

   25. BBBuster Benson4:54

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CWChris Williamson4:55

       ... that the same is true for me. Interestingly, I spoke to Professor Paul Bloom from the University of-

   27. BBBuster Benson4:59

       Hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson4:59

       ... Yale, um, uh, the other day, and he recently-

   29. BBBuster Benson5:02

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CWChris Williamson5:02

       ... wrote a book called, uh, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   That's a, a very…

   1. BBBuster Benson15:00

      works.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:00

      That's a, a very interesting sample of some huge, quickly growing companies for you to have developed these skills in.

   3. BBBuster Benson15:09

      Yeah, it's definitely a crucible of, (laughs) of like, excitement and torture and, you know, a lot of-

   4. CWChris Williamson15:14

      Baptism of fire and water.

   5. BBBuster Benson15:15

      ... everything between... Exactly. (laughs) Yeah, I was at Amazon in '98, when it was just like books and music, uh, tabs were up and then the video tab was gonna come up soon, and auctions was gonna come up. Um, and that was right outta college. I remember being like, "Wow, this is so... I'm, I feel like I'm in the middle of some, like, weird, weird wild hurricane that's, like, happening." (laughs) Um, yeah, but yeah, I got, I feel really lucky with being in the right place at the right time in a, in a lot of, in a lot of ways, so.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:43

      It really s- it really sounds like you have been. So, you know, the listeners all know, but you won't, uh, I'm a club promoter, so my job, uh, involves me mediating between, uh, the venue owner, which we're not, um, our staff, there's about 500 of them that work for us, 14 of them are the managers, and then there's teams below them, uh, the customers, the police, the council, licensing authority-

   7. BBBuster Benson16:05

      Oh, yeah, yeah. Similar.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:05

      ... uh, marketing, you know, and we, we cross all, all different sectors of the business. So me and my business partner will do accounting, we'll do projections, we'll do the marketing, we'll do the copy, we'll do the HR, we'll do the hiring and firing. We'll do literally everything. So, you know, juggling-

   9. BBBuster Benson16:22

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson16:22

       ... juggling these, these particular skills, um, is something that I enjoy. I like, I like the challenge, which-

   11. BBBuster Benson16:29

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:30

       ... you know, given your track record of companies that you've been at as well, I think that you must have that too.

   13. BBBuster Benson16:35

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson16:35

       Um, so we've had-

   15. BBBuster Benson16:36

       Very similar. Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson16:37

       We've had the, the first, the first three, there was one, uh, I think it was number two that you mentioned about where you were talking to your internal voices.

   17. BBBuster Benson16:44

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson16:45

       Uh, checking yourself on your internal voices.

   19. BBBuster Benson16:46

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:47

       So, there's an Eckhart Tolle quote, um, from The Power of Now, where he talks about conceding the, uh, conceding that your point is wrong in an argument is tantamount to the ego's destruction.

   21. BBBuster Benson16:59

       (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson16:59

       And I often think about that when I'm having a discussion with someone, and the listeners at home will know this as well. You're having a discussion with someone, and you think, "Right, this is irrefutable proof that what you're saying is wrong," and they don't change their mind. They're like, "No, hang on a second. Like, I've just, I've literally, I've given you it. It's there, there's the, there's the thing."

   23. BBBuster Benson17:18

       (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson17:18

       And rather than that, they dig their heels in further, and they double down-

   25. BBBuster Benson17:21

       Right.

   26. CWChris Williamson17:21

       ... on that position.

   27. BBBuster Benson17:22

       Right, right, right. Right.

   28. CWChris Williamson17:22

       Is that the sort of thing that you, that you discovered in that?

   29. BBBuster Benson17:25

       Absolutely. Absolutely. That's, you know, it's considered like backfire effect or the boomerang effect, where, um, you know, we don't... In a particular context, and if the context is a battle or a tug of war or, you know, you're leaning back, like, and if someone pulls on their side of the rope, you don't, you don't, you don't, like, "Oh, cool, let's go over there." You're like, "No, I'm gonna pull on my side of the rope harder."

   30. CWChris Williamson17:46

       (laughs)
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      out in Germany and one of the particular guys that I'm working with at the moment, he was asking about how to be a better conversationalist. He's quite forthcoming. Um, he's got a lot, uh, a lot to say and he's clever and he's quick. Um, but he, he knows that he grates on people. He knows that he can come across a little bit abrasive. And he asked me for some sort of heuristic or rule to use, and I was like, "I want you to ask one question for every statement that you make when you have a conversation with one of the guys in your office." Like, so-

   2. BBBuster Benson30:31

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:31

      And even you can put what you want them to do into your question. So you can say...... "Okay-"

   4. BBBuster Benson30:36

      Yeah, yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:36

      ... "what do you think is a solution to this?" Or, "How would you go about doing this?" Or, "Can you tell me why you think that?" You know, and if you realize that, it- it- not only does it help you to understand their point of view, and if you can ensure that you're letting go of your ego, and that you haven't got your battle mode on, and that you're not pulling too hard, and do the things that we've discussed beforehand-

   6. BBBuster Benson30:57

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:57

      ... and you're- you're prepared to be sort of moved by the tide of the conversation, you can just-

   8. BBBuster Benson31:03

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson31:03

      ... sway from left to right, however it goes, you, again, you two plus two equals five in that conversation.

   10. BBBuster Benson31:10

       Absolutely. Yeah. It's- it's a- it's a skill, and again, I don't think people have been intentionally practicing this or being taught this skill, but the actual skill is not... You- you don't have to go and get your PhD in asking questions. Um, you can actually just put, you know, write down five questions, put it in your pocket, and next time you go out, you know, and talk to someone, just, like, review it really quickly before you go in and be like, "Okay, I'm gonna ask those questions." (laughs) And then ask them (laughs) and then see where it goes. And it's self-reinforcing, because once you start doing that, you realize how enjoyable it is to hear people talk about something that you weren't expecting them to talk about, um, and to hear someone's own words to- to- to describe something, uh... Um, and so I like this one because it is, like, one of the first, most, like, obvious reinforcing loops, where you get instant gratification from a good question.

   11. CWChris Williamson31:56

       Yeah. You really do.

   12. BBBuster Benson31:57

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson31:57

       I think certainly before doing this podcast, I'm an- I'm an only child, and that meant that I had a very, very single-minded, solitary, selfish worldview, uh, which I probably still do.

   14. BBBuster Benson32:07

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson32:08

       And my- my friend- my friends would probably accuse me of still having that. But it's- it's a lot better since doing the podcast because I have a genuine curiosity of what other people say, and I can't- I can no longer turn that off. Um, so someone will get kicked out at the front of one of our club nights, and I'll be stood at the door, and this person will be shouting and screaming about why the door staff have kicked them out, and I'll be asking them, like, "Oh, so, what were- were... Like, tell me about what you do for work." And they're like, "Fuck off, mate."

   16. BBBuster Benson32:27

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson32:27

       "I wanna get back in." Like, "Aah, uh, very interested in your backstory, please." Um-

   18. BBBuster Benson32:32

       Yeah. (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson32:33

       ... but, (coughs) yeah, the- the-

   20. BBBuster Benson32:34

       That'd be a good podcast series right there.

   21. CWChris Williamson32:36

       Oh, God. Standing at the front door... Honestly, if I had one of those body cams on that the police wear, it would be- it'd be savage. We had Halloween last night in Newcastle, and, like, w- there's nothing better than seeing a guy dressed up as a Ghostbuster fight a guy dressed up as a Power Ranger and the door staff trying to split them up.

   22. BBBuster Benson32:52

       (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson32:52

       And me being like, "Excuse me, gentlemen."

   24. BBBuster Benson32:53

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson32:53

       "Can you tell me about where the moral virtue that's starting this, uh, situation has come from, please?

   26. BBBuster Benson32:59

       (laughs)

   27. CWChris Williamson32:59

       "Chris, go back, go back to your- your-"

   28. BBBuster Benson33:00

       You're from different universes. I mean, how are they gonna resolve anything?

   29. CWChris Williamson33:02

       Yeah, I know (laughs) They are from different universes. Really correct.

   30. BBBuster Benson33:06

       (laughs)
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

      of Islam in the West or, uh, the, the, um, laws surrounding abortion or the, the concept of consciousness or whatever it is-

   2. BBBuster Benson45:07

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:07

      ... and then someone makes a funny joke and it's like, "Oh, he won." You're like, (laughs) ...

   4. BBBuster Benson45:13

      (laughs) I know, I mean, that, 'cause it, you're there to be entertained, so ...

   5. CWChris Williamson45:15

      Mm-hmm.

   6. BBBuster Benson45:16

      Um, if that's n- if that's what you're there for, then the laughs will definitely give you the points.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:20

      Yeah.

   8. BBBuster Benson45:20

      I mean, I call them zingers, where-

   9. CWChris Williamson45:21

      Yeah.

   10. BBBuster Benson45:21

       ... there's a whole science, I think, to zingers where, you know, you're not actually talking to that person, you're just trying to make them look foolish. You're mostly talking to your own side about, like, you know, "How can I be the best sort of soldier or the best, you know, um, flag bearer of my side and, like, say things in such a way that just, you know, create, um, bewilderment or confusion on the other side?" Um, or taunt them, or, you know, all these things where it's very social but tied back to warp behavior again, where-

   11. CWChris Williamson45:50

       Mm-hmm.

   12. BBBuster Benson45:50

       ... you know, the, the goal is definitely not to get along. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson45:53

       Yeah. It's a, there's a, Andrew Doyle, uh, and Konstantin Kisin, who are two, uh, comedians, political comedians in the UK, uh, I've spoken to them both recently, saw them at the Edinburgh Fringe, and both of them said the same thing about, I think they call it, um, applaud comedy, which is where the comedian doesn't necessarily say something funny, they just say the thing that the audience agrees with the most, and then they get these big-

   14. BBBuster Benson46:18

       Right, right, right, right, right.

   15. CWChris Williamson46:18

       ... like, "Yes, yes, yes."

   16. BBBuster Benson46:19

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson46:20

       And you're like, "Well this wasn't-"

   18. BBBuster Benson46:21

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson46:21

       "... even funny. It wasn't, it wasn't funny. You just said something that you think-"

   20. BBBuster Benson46:25

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson46:26

       Like, "You can't say that anymore." Like, that's a classic one, you know, like, and it just, oh, well, anyone who thinks that free speech is being attacked is like, "Yeah, ha ha, yeah, of course." (sucks in breath)

   22. BBBuster Benson46:35

       Yeah. Or he was like, "Who here is from New York," you know? It could be anything that's loyalty based about, like, you know, "What does, what does, how can my tribe be, be heard right now?" Um, and that will get the applause, right? So it's-

   23. CWChris Williamson46:46

       Paul, Paul Bloom the other day, when I was talking to him, you may have heard of this particular experiment. So he said that you put people into a room and, uh, you get them all to flip a coin. So, like, 100 people in a room, you get them to flip a coin, roughly 50 are heads, 50 are tails or whatever it might be, um, and then you put them on opposite sides of the room. And you go up to the tails people and you go, "So what do you, what do you think of heads?" And they're like, "Oh, they're a bit sort of stupid, aren't they?"

   24. BBBuster Benson47:08

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson47:08

       "Like, they're just not as clever as us," and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, "You have been selected by the most arbitrary random chance. It li- literally the most arbitrary random chance that you can get, and we're still drawn towards being tribal."

   26. BBBuster Benson47:23

       Yeah. Yeah. There is something emotionally rewarding about being part of a tribe, right? We want to belong. And the way that we b- we re- we s- we build status within a tribe is by, you know, um, being a good member of it, which means, like, sort of protecting the tribe, um, you know, projecting confidence, um, all these s- sort of safety re- increasing traits that, um, s- signal that our tribe is going to be okay. Um, even if we were on two sides of a cliff in the winter and, like, you know, who knows why the bridge broke but we, you know, we were on two different sides. We want our, we want our side to survive the winter. (laughs)

   27. CWChris Williamson47:58

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   28. BBBuster Benson47:59

       Um, and, um, you know, it's, it's, it makes sense if you just think about, you know, how many, you know, generations of our society have benefited from these preferences, um, that's, if we ended up preferring, like, if we're like, "Oh, the other side probably doesn't have blankets, let's go give them our blankets," um, you know, your, your tribe's not going to survive

   29. NANarrator48:20

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson48:21

       Yeah. I suppose as well this probably highlights where the difficulty with subtlety and nuance comes in as well. Because if you're part of X tribe, they want you to f- swallow the ideology wholesale. And any, uh, give that you might not be singing from the same hymn sheet is actually, "Oh, well, maybe b- m- maybe Buster d- maybe does- maybe doesn't belong-"
5. 1:00:00 – 1:01:46

   Right. …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      be listening to hold me to like high level of rigor and blah, blah." There you go.

   2. BBBuster Benson1:00:04

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:04

      Like, you know, just press, press a button, press Go Live button and get one of your friends to join you, and you know, that, that might-

   4. BBBuster Benson1:00:08

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:08

      ... that might, uh, nourish the, the particular, um-

   6. BBBuster Benson1:00:11

      Absolutely.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:11

      ... thing. Um, so-

   8. BBBuster Benson1:00:13

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:00:13

      ... Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement will be linked in the show notes below. And it's @Buster on Twitter. I mean, that's the advantage of being one of the first guys on Twitter, isn't it?

   10. BBBuster Benson1:00:22

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson1:00:22

       When you get to get @Buster.

   12. BBBuster Benson1:00:25

       Yeah, I guess so. Yep, yep, yep. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:27

       I love it.

   14. BBBuster Benson1:00:27

       I had @Instagram too, but then I accidentally canceled the account. Oh, well. But-

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:30

       No way.

   16. BBBuster Benson1:00:32

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson1:00:32

       You had @Instagram?

   18. BBBuster Benson1:00:34

       Yeah, yeah. But, you know-

   19. CWChris Williamson1:00:35

       Oh, that's so

   20. BBBuster Benson1:00:36

       A little sloppy. (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson1:00:37

       It was so ... You could have held, you could have held them to such a ransom for that, or just used it to shamelessly promote your own book.

   22. BBBuster Benson1:00:45

       Exactly, yeah. Well.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:00:47

       (laughs) I love it.

   24. BBBuster Benson1:00:47

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson1:00:48

       Um, if there are, uh, any other places, are you mostly on Twitter? Is that where it's best to find you?

   26. BBBuster Benson1:00:53

       Mostly on Twitter. I, yeah, I have a blog at busterbenson.com. I'm on Medium @Buster as well. Um, so, but Twitter is really the g- the best place to start. Um, and I'm open, you know, any at mentions will, will get replies. So, I just like to talk to people.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:01:06

       Fantastic. Well, as I've said, everything that we've spoken about will be in the show notes below. Of course, Why We're Yelling: The Art of Productive Disagreement is linked. And as always, if you follow that link, you'll be supporting this podcast at no extra expense to yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, go follow Buster online, hassle him. He's got a great handle on there, on Twitter, like, share-

   28. BBBuster Benson1:01:24

       (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson1:01:24

       ... subscribe, you know, all of that good stuff. But for now, thanks very much, Buster. It's been awesome, man.

   30. BBBuster Benson1:01:29

       It's been great. Thank you so much. (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:01:46