Hi, everyone, and welcome to another Yaron Debates Europe episodes. Today, we have with us an up-and-coming young public intellectual, a guy I know, and he's very, very interesting, William Costello. So William is a postgraduate student in evolutionary psychology, but he's already contributing in the public dialogue. He's written in aria. He's written in chelette. And he's someone who believes that evolutionary psychology is misunderstood, and that usually when we attack evolutionary psychology, we attack a strawman. So I'm very curious to see also where our two speakers meet on free will and whether whatever are the findings of evolutionary psychology, where they go against free will. And of course, as always on the other side, we've got Yaron Brooke. Yaron is the chairman of the board of the Andron Institute. He's the host of the Yaron Bruxo. And probably most of you already know him. So enough with the introduction. Make sure that you send your questions via super chat. Hopefully the questions have to be somehow relevant to what the speakers say or somehow relevant to the topic. We start with William, then we're going to go to Yaron, and then we're going to have a bit of inter-panel discussion, hopefully with as little intervention by the moderator as possible. Once more, many thanks to the Andron Institute for supporting these events. Check out the social media accounts of Andron Institute Global on Facebook and Twitter where we post short clips from these discussions. And of course, you can find short clips in the Andron Center's UK social media accounts. So enough with the introduction. William, thanks so much for being with us. The floor is yours. Great, thanks for that. So a brief introduction for what I plan to or hope to cover in my first 10 minutes or so, my opening remarks. I'm going to try to address the evolutionary psychology versus learning from culture dichotomy. I want to challenge the notion that they are incompatible. And I would also outline how the capacity for cumulative culture is a uniquely human evolutionary trait, the specific one. I'll challenge the notion that human minds are blank slates. I'll detail how evolutionary psychology accounts for cross-cultural differences. But I'll mainly be focusing particularly on sex differences in mating psychology because that's the fun stuff, right? So basically, to dismiss F-psych or evolutionary psychology, it's a form of mind-body dualism that's closer to superstitious and religious spiritualism than rational reason. In this sense, I can actually better understand the intellectual positions of creationists, religious creationists who deny evolution entirely. At least their position is consistently and coherently confused. And the modern version of the creationist exists more on the left wing, who despite their mantra of follow the science, and they appear to think that evolutionary processes led to the development of all of our biology except the human brain, which doesn't really make sense to me. And so to dismiss evolutionary psychology is to suggest that the brain has nothing to do with thought or your behavior, or that evolution only starts from the neck down. So it just seems a little bit of a confused position to take from the start. So what is evolutionary psychology and how did it come about? Well, in the final sections of origin of species, the great Charles Darwin predicted that one day his principles of evolution would be applied to psychology and human behavior. He said, in the distant future, I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. In the 1970s, the psychological movement of behaviorism focused on the predictive powers of operant conditioning and the proximate causality of the environment. But they neglected the ultimate conditioning of what evolutionary psychologists would call the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness or the EEA. Evolutionary psychology marries Darwinian principles of evolutionary biology with the insights of cognitive psychology to understand that the brain's architecture evolved with specialized problem-solving mechanisms in response to selection pressures in our ancestral environment. These problem-solving mechanisms, they can best be understood like organs of the mind. So we have organs in the body that do different functions. We also have mental organs that drive different behavior and solve different problems. Evolutionary psychology understands the brain as like an organic wet computer with carbon-based neurons instead of silicon chips. And they're specialized in the electrochemical transmission of information that generates behavior or output appropriate to environmental cues or input. So likening it to computer can kind of help you understand it. Evolutionary psychology rejects the notion of human minds as blank slates that require all knowledge to come from outside general learning or culture. The founding members of the field, John Tooby and his wife, Lida Cosmides, they criticized at the time quite heavily what was called the standard social science model which dominated social psychology at the time. And the standard social science model kind of framed human nature as mere primitive instincts that was entirely distinct from culture. And it's here that we find the first fundamental misunderstanding of evolutionary psychology. It's this false notion that if a behavior is evolved, that it means it's not learned or that if a behavior is learned, that it means it's not an evolved behavior. So how are evolution and learning compatible? Well, first thing to understand is that evolution and learning require two different levels of analysis. Learning is a proximate explanation. So how something works or is developed in a more immediate sense in your more proximate sense. And evolution is an ultimate explanation why it was shaped that way by natural selection. So a lot of the confusion about Ebsite comes between mixing these two up. Human brains aren't hardwired with capabilities but we're rather live wired with the ability to learn from environmental cues. And the question is not whether a behavior is caused by instinct or learning but rather which instincts caused the learning. So an interesting example of an evolved learning mechanism is incest avoidance, the phone one. We do not always require to be taught that incest is bad. We just get that intuitive feeling of disgust at the thought of sex with the sibling, right? And the psychologist, Jonathan Haidt illustrates this intuition very effectively with the thought experiment where he asks people if incest would still be considered bad even if it was between two consenting adults who use two forms of contraception. Nobody found out, they were all happy. Invariably people still say this is wrong but they run out of reasons why but it still triggers that disgust. So the rational reason doesn't appear in this case to be sufficient to overcome or evolve disgust mechanism that is activated by the thought of incest. So how is incest avoidance an evolved learning mechanism? Well, a blank slate kind of general learning mind cannot kind of experientially learn that incest avoidance is adaptive because during one lifetime you wouldn't have the time to because you incur the mistake. It requires natural selection running this experiment over thousands of generations to equip our minds with this learning mechanism which uses two environmental cues or environmental inputs. One, co-residents during childhood. If you live with that person during childhood that'll be enough of a cue to learn that the incest avoidance mechanism will come online.  Both of those cues. Humans who receive both of these cues are reliably disgusted at the thought of sex with the sibling. And conversely, interestingly if these environmental cues are not sufficiently received the incest diversion is not produced. So that mechanism is we're evolved to learn it but we don't come automatically with it and take some of the cues from the environment. Just like in our biology we're not born with teeth but they come online at a certain point for everybody that similar thing happens with our psychological mechanisms that develop reliably based on cues. The learning mechanism for language acquisition is another really good example because that shows how evolutionary psychology is compatible with cultural differences. So we evolved for function not for content. Otherwise if we evolved for content everybody would be speaking the same language everywhere. Humans universally learn language. However the content of the language depends on the environmental input received and thus it varies cross-culturally. So a significant point about evolutionary psychology is not it predicts universality at the level of the information processing mechanism not the actual behavior itself. It doesn't necessarily predict universality at the behavioral output itself but at the information processing mechanism. So the next thing I want to talk about is cumulative culture because the two big drivers of human behavior are evolution and culture. So the unique human evolutionary trait is our capacity to learn from cumulative culture to keep piling it on and culture itself can actually be described as a biological phenomenon. It's like a semi-autonomous evolving system of ideas or means as they're known. Human brains generate, circulate and accumulate culture as kind of gene meme hybrids as Daniel Dennett calls them. Human brains co-evolved with culture. So with more culture it causes bigger brains and more complex culture leading to even bigger brains and this is called the ratchet effect. So it ratchets it up. The more complex culture you have the bigger your brain gets and the two kind of co-evolved together. The ability to stockpile knowledge, transmit and improve upon it generationally enables humans to uniquely use our cognitive niche to colonize a range of diverse environments. We're not just restricted to one environment. We can live in the desert, we can live in the snow and that's because of our capacity to build culture cumulatively. Animals today are largely the same as animals 200 years ago in terms of their capabilities whereas humans are unrecognizable and we're about to colonize the cosmos because of our cumulative culture. We literally don't have to reinvent the wheel every time with each generation and that's a massive advantage to us as a species. Today's children probably know more about the universe and the way it works than Plato despite not being any more intelligent than Plato because they benefit from the collective knowledge and a great way of putting it is I might not be as smart as Plato but I have one advantage, I can read his books. So I'm not starting from zero. So humans each generation has an advantage over the other, over the previous one. We have a one to two minutes notice. No problem. So what can evolutionary psychology tell us about sex differences? Well, where the sexes face similar evolutionary challenges they will be similar and where they face different evolutionary challenges they will produce different psychological adaptations leading to different behaviors. An example of a similarity is eating. So men and women typically solve the problem of getting fuel into the body in similar ways. Reproduction is an example of a radical sex difference. So biologically women have the obligatory parental investment of internal fertilization and gestation. The absolute minimum investment for a male is one successful sex act which Nicos reliably informs me can be achieved within two to three minutes. So sexes are potentially more costly act for women than men. As such, one psychological difference is that women are a lot more choosy about who they have sex with. To evolutionists, it would be astounding if the areas where men and women had different physiologies they did not also have psychological adaptations that attended to those differences. So in terms of reproductive success it's more costly for men to miss out on the opportunity to forego sexual opportunities. And this kind of asymmetry between the sexes has led to group differences in male and female sexual psychology. Some of which I'll just go through really quickly before finishing up and we can talk about everything else on my list after Yaren has had a chance. So men tend to desire much greater desire for a variety of sex partners. Men tend to over perceive women's sexual interest in them because it's more costly to miss out on the opportunity.   And significantly, and the final one I'll talk about before handing over is that men are far more sexually jealous than women. This is because they lack paternal certainty. It's called the mama's baby daddy's maybe idea. Women always know that the child coming out of their body is indeed their own child. Whereas men, for most of our evolutionary history could not have been sure that that was definitely theirs. This led to evolved psychological mechanisms for greater sexual jealousy which in turn motivated increased mate guarding behaviors in men to make sure that you have that paternal certainty. So those are some interesting sex differences that come from our evolved psychology. Later, I can maybe talk about how evolutionary psychology actually predicts the cultural variation a priori before ahead of time. So for a field that gets criticized for being called just so stories, it does that a hell of a lot of time. And I can link to a really good article that collects a lot of examples of evolutionary psychology making their predictions like any other science. Thanks, William. So let's hear Yaron's introduction remarks and then we're gonna get back. I already have many questions and I'm sure the audience has as well. Let's go, Yaron. I have to unmute myself first, are we? You think I'd learn after six debates. Let me start by saying, this is not my field. So any mistakes I made on Nikos and Razzi's fault because they twisted my arm into doing this. Okay, so let me start with this. Much of what William started off with, I agree with. There's no question that the structure of our brain evolved that this idea of we evolved for function not for content. Yeah, certainly all of our sense perception evolved. The neuron structures in our brain, the way in which our brain functions in a particular form, in a particular way, all evolved. And there's no question. I agree also with the sum of what he said about sex that the fact that we have physiological differences as men and women do, I think necessitates certain psychological differences. Now, whether we know what those psychological differences are, I'm more skeptical, but there's no question in my mind that this is a proper field of study and something that needs to be examined. My problem is, so in some of the language they talk, they talk about neurocognitive machinery, that sounds kind of cool to me. I mean, it sounds right, right? We have a certain machinery, it's probably not exactly the right image because we don't function quite like a machine, but there's something there, there's certain capacities that the human mind has and there's some capacities that we don't have and those have psychological implications. They have implications about our behavior and about how we integrate ideas, what kind of ideas we ultimately have and therefore they have implications psychologically. The problem I have is that, and this is not just a problem with evolutionary psychology, it's probably a bigger problem with psychology as a field. The problem I have is that I think it is a science and it's infancy and it is a science where much of the tools to make it into a real science and to move forward have been ignored and negated and therefore many of the conclusions and many of the integrations that are being made are false because they are evading and ignoring fundamental attributes of human nature that are not being taken into account. And you see this in the language. We talk about learning something that happens passively. We talk about evolution versus evolutionary psychology versus learning. Oh no, no, they're integrated, they're the same. We talk about cultural influences versus evolutionary influences and the most sophisticated approaches, oh, they feed off of each other, it's not one or the other. True, but there's something missing here. I'm not a product of my culture and my genes. It's not true, the things just affect me and I just respond to them that it's somehow mechanistic in that sense or even that it acts like a computer, I think the computer analogy is not good. Because somebody has to write the software. So if you include the writer of the software in the computer, then maybe it's a better description. That is what we're missing here is, for you well, what we're missing here is the control that I have over my own cognition. Is a control I have over the cultural influences, what cultural influences have over me and what cultural influences don't have over me. Now, what I think is happening with the empirical studies of evolutionary psychology and I'm not an expert in these and again, I'm skeptical about studies only because nothing to do with evolutionary psychology, only because when I look at academic studies and feels that I know something about and I look at how they use statistics and how they design experiments and everything like that, I find them to be pretty weak and pretty flawed and do things with statistics that any statistics, any econometrics teacher would found upon, but yet you can get away with it because journals are not very selective and people. So I'm a little skeptical. And also because of the fact that in the social sciences, replicability is a big problem, right? And so I'm generally suspicious of empirical studies in fields that I know something about. So I extrapolate that to fields I don't know that much about and I think somewhat legitimately. So where was I going with this? So even putting that aside, the whole idea of designing these, oh, this is the point I was gonna make, yes. So what happens, I think, with empirical studies is is they are descriptive in a sense that they're describing how a majority or a significant minority or a large number of people behave in a particular way. But human beings, different human beings engage what I call the human part of them to different extents. So I have a view of the human beings, most human beings out there, devote real cognitive effort in their work and the rest of its time they cruise. They kind of put their minds in a sense in neutral and they just cruise. And if you put your mind in neutral, what happens? You're basically being determined by cultural influences and by the what do you call it, neurocognitive machinery. Some human beings actually engage their mind, they engage their reason, they engage their will, if you will. And they have that capacity engaged throughout their lives and therefore they have the ability to override the machinery or to override the cultural influences. It's true that in the world we live in today that might be a minority of people. I don't know, but it might be a minority of people. I'm more concerned with the human potential and what it means to be human and what human beings could achieve than in just describing the world as it is. If we describe the world as it is, then there are a lot of things that I think are pretty rotten about the world. I want to make the world better. So I want to teach people how to override their existing psychology, their existing inclinations. And that I think, and this is I think why there's so much variation between individuals, which we haven't talked about this. We talk about variations across cultures and we look at averages and we look at groups. But what's really interesting is differences between individuals and why they exist. And I think that has a lot more to do with the level of engagement of one's reason and the level of engagement of one's will than it has to do with anything genetic or anything associated with the culture. One lives in, it's why some individuals leave their culture or reject their culture or do things that I think evolutionary psychology of just looking at averages would never predict and could never predict because they're so different and outside of the thing. Let me just, how much time do I have there, Nikos? Let me just say one of the things that suggests to me that I'm a little suspicious about is that you said that evolutionary psychology deals really with function, not content, right? With your vault function and not content. And yet I hear content all the time, right? Evolution psychology gives us predictions about content all the time. And minute content and very detailed content about how we would behave or how we would respond to X, Y, and Z. So again, that, I kind of understand the function but then when you start getting into the minutiae of content I'm suspicious when you get into averages, I'm suspicious. For example, reproduction risk. Yeah, of course. Women and men fail to face different levels of risk. Why is that coded? Maybe that's just a cognitive decision they come to. Maybe women sit down when they're 16. I'm not saying this is the truth. I'm just saying, why isn't this a possibility? Why isn't it true that women at 16 sit down and say, here's reality. If I get pregnant, this and this would happen. I face much greater risk. I should be selective in who I meet with.  Why not do that? How do we know? We can observe the outcome maybe on averages although I know a lot of women who don't behave that way. I know a lot of women who seek variety much more than I seek variety, for example, on an individual basis. I haven't sought much variety in my life. What does that say about? Maybe I overrode that inclination if it exists. How do we know that it's not a decision that people came to? And it's a rational decision. Therefore, most people came to that decision because it's a decision that makes the most sense versus a genetic make-up. And then finally, I'll just say this, this is my suspicious of the field generally. Science requires, any science requires the one clearly define the terms one is using and have clear definitions for them. I find that when I read cognitive psychology or when I read psychology more broadly, I find lots of confusion. What is an instinct? What is a trait? What is knowledge? Where does knowledge come from? What are ideas? How are they different than knowledge? How are they different than instincts or traits? Inclinations, I could go on and on and on with the different terminologies that relate to the question of what we're born with because it's true that in terms of function we're not tabula rasa, but what does that mean? What are the differentiating terms between that? How do we form concepts? So you talk about a cultural accumulation which is absolutely right. I mean, it's amazing. We know a lot more than Plato even though Plato is a lot smarter than us because of the cultural accumulation. But that has to do with cognition. That has to do with our ability to form concepts and then to communicate concepts. How do we form concepts? Isn't it important? It wouldn't that be crucial to understanding cognition, crucial to both evolutionary psychology and psychology? And yet I don't think there was a theory of cognition in evolutionary psychology and I don't think there's a theory of cognition, a forming concept, of using concepts. In psychology, I mean, I'm suspicious of 90% of the theories of cognition in philosophy. At least they try. But so how does psychology that deals with concepts not have a theory of concept formation? Where do emotions come from? He has another one, right? Which relates to this cognitive confusion, I think that exists. What are our emotions? Where do they come from? Are they consequence of just certain chemicals in our brain, but why are those chemicals there? What triggers them? Why did different people have completely different emotions with responding to exactly the same thing? So I think there's a lot of interesting stuff, right? So I'm not dismissing the field. I just think like most fields in the humanities, it's a confused mess. And I think that about almost every field in humanity, it's not, but here, because it's a young field, the confused mess, I think is more exacerbated because I think generally human knowledge is a confused mess over the last 50 years, influenced by postmodernism, influenced by a lot of different bad philosophies. And as a consequence, new sciences are more susceptible to the confused mess than older sciences. Okay, I think I've gone over my 10 minutes, I'll stop there. Okay, thank you, Yaron. So let me read a couple of super chats. So Jonathan says, in honor of Yaron, Brooke, the hardest working philosopher in soul business. I'm a philosopher, right? Yeah. Okay, I thought the soul business was the crucial part. Yeah. Okay, so there's also super chats related to what you said both of you in your introductions, but I'm gonna let William have two, three minutes, pick what you want from Yaron and you can reply. Then Yaron's also gonna have two, three minutes, pick what he wants from your replies and reply. And then we're gonna go to super chat. I've already sent like four, five questions lined up. So let's see how we go, William. Super, yeah. Thanks for that, Yaron. It's interesting because you mentioned so much there, I was jotting down furiously to try and make sure I remembered it all. But I think that the field isn't as much of a hot mess as you might think. At all the things you mentioned, like how does a psych account for cultural concepts? It does. It has cultural psychology and culture, cultural content is based around our evolved psychology. It's very difficult to create a culture that completely goes against our evolved instincts. An example of that might be the kibbutz in Israel that tried to get rid of kind of parenting in favor of a more communal raising of children. And it was a total disaster. So it's very difficult to escape. The genes kind of hold culture on a leash in that respect. The issue about free will is it's still, in my opinion, more philosophical debate that people can just take a position on because it just depends on what you consider you. Do you consider you just your collection of mechanisms and body parts? Do you consider yourself the parts of the brain that you're conscious of? What about the ones you're not conscious of? The bits you have volition over, it just depends on where each individual says you begins. Evpsych doesn't necessarily imply determinism. Humans have a unique evolved ability to kind of, as you said, overcome our evolved instincts. We do that kind of all the time. An example is might be road rage, correct? You stop yourself dead in your tracks and say, oh, I better not be so aggressive even though my first instinct was. So we have kind of executive function there. I'm interested about which kind of conclusions you find false from Epsych or statistics you're referring to because evolutionary psychology, two of our top journals are routinely in the top 10 in terms of replicability.  You mentioned emotions and individual differences. Evolutionary psychology probably started off by focusing on human universals, but now it has got into catering for individual differences. For example, I'm not that tall of a man. So my personality is less likely to be very aggressive and they've done studies like this that show how individual differences would predict differences based on your evolved psychology. And the final kind of thing I wanted to mention to you is that evolutionary psychology, I wonder if you worry that it's stripped some of the wonder away from the world. And for me, it doesn't do that. So thinking about what the world could be is called like massive theory of mind or thinking about what the world is like and not just necessarily describing it, but what it could be like, that's a human evolved trait as well. And that's kind of magic for me. So don't worry, you feel that Epsych kind of stripped some magic away. But on the other hand, you talk about like a missing link between culture or genes. And it sounds kind of just like you're talking about a soul. And you mentioned that there has to be a writer of the software. Well, there is one, it's evolution and selection pressures in the environment. And it routinely predicts what an organism will develop in response to a selection pressures in the environment on a physical level. And all that evolutionary psychology is, is taking that exact same concept and thinking what selection pressures have we built mental mechanisms to respond to? Thank you, Yaron. So I think evolutionary psychology, just in what you just said in the last few sentences clearly takes a position about free will and it rejects it. And I think it clearly does. If I am a complete product of my genes and cultural pressures, then I have no, there is no me. I am a product of those functions, nothing else. And I reject that. So, and I'm not religious, I'm not a mystic. I reject that. I believe that I have control on both. Now it's true, you know, because, so I think I can control what kind of evolutionary, what kind of cultural pressures I can acknowledge and not acknowledge, choose or not to choose. And I can, and I can change. I can be short and be not aggressive. And then I can choose to learn a key, I don't know, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and change my level of aggression as a consequence. But this is the problem I have with evolutionary psychology as a science. In my view, the most important aspect of psychology, the foundational aspect of psychology, the foundational premise of psychology is free will. The foundational premise of psychology, and by the way, good cognitive psychologists know this. So cognitive psychology, to the extent that it's practiced and it's understood properly, is a study of choices. It's a study of your ability to control your cognition. Now, you know, maybe that's not how it's taught. And then it's not good cognitive psychology. I might be talking about minority of cognitive psychologists. But the essential feature of human beings, the thing that differentiates human beings from other animals, is that evolution has given us something, provided us something that is not provided any other species. And that is the ability to write the software. It has given us function, certain pathways, but huge amounts of control over how we use those functions. Some people, for example, choose not to use them and therefore default to what their genes and what the culture dictates. So I have no problem with, you know, I don't know what magical means. I don't believe in magic and I'm not interested in magic. I do know that there are people who choose to have a particular life and people who choose to have a different life. I know it because I can introspect it about myself. And I know it because I see it in other people. People choose to engage in what makes us human, engage in reason, and the people who choose not to engage in what makes us human, not to engage in reason. And that to me is the starting point. Not, oh yeah, that's philosophy. You guys deal with it in philosophy and free will. We're not that interested in it. This is the key question. If we're not a being of free will, if you can't define the I, as Sam Havis says, there is no I, then there is no psychology. Then yes, you know, it's just a matter of then who cares?  But even when you talk about knowledge and cognition, you talked about it in terms of culture and in terms of groups. Knowledge of cognition has to start with the individual. Knowledge and cognition start with the individual from a little baby forming concepts, coming up with ideas, testing those ideas. It doesn't start with learning. It's learning from the outside. It starts from learning from the inside. And yes, we have the mechanism to do that. That's evolutionarily driven, but that requires ignition and it requires monitoring and that is the role of self and that is the role of free will. So again, you know, the elements here that I find interesting and then, but I think you're missing the fundamental premises, the fundamental foundations of what a science of psychology, nevermind evolution, I said college you would require to actually be predictive about the individual, not about averages, not just about averages. Okay, William, brace for a barrage of questions. Most of them are, as it would be predicted, directed to you. Okay, here's a super sad. So it was stated that humanity is evolving to explore the cosmos. If an astronaut were to land on Mars, would the psychological evolution occur before or after they arrive? So I assume this means we didn't consider that then we have something like a new being where in this new, completely new environment, we would be a tabular asset basically. Okay, should I respond to them one by one? Yes. Okay, so that one about arriving on Mars. Yeah, I mean, theoretically evolution would start playing on his, you know, he'd respond to the selection pressures there, but it would take a very, very long time.  We've created cultural innovations and technological innovations that are way ahead of our evolved mechanisms. It's called our modern skulls house stone age brains. That's the reason why men aren't just queuing up around the corner around sperm banks to get their genes into the next generation. Human males don't do that, but we do have a drive for sex because that's the only mechanism evolution gave us to recreate. It doesn't know about sperm banks.  There's even such a thing called cosmological evolution that shows that universes use evolutionary processes by replicating a difference from each other and inheritance. So it would apply, it would just take a very, very long time like evolution does, but culture is faster.  Yeah, I don't, you can jump in whenever you want, yeah. Yeah, I mean, look at how women have changed over the last 80 years, you know, and because they've suddenly been allowed the freedom and they've been recognized as, when it comes to up here, the equals of men and therefore they now work, they are engaged in intellectual pursuits and intellectual activities that they would just not, right, and to a large extent because they were not allowed to in the past, whether they can today, they are artists 500 years ago, they were not. And this to me just shows that it's not about, and it's not that evolution happened, it's not that women changed, it's not that something had changed in the brains of women over the last 100 years to make them more open to being artists than they were before. It's something political changed, that is they were suddenly allowed to do that. They always had that, it was always part of their capabilities, it was always part of their abilities, it's the men suppressed them and didn't allow them to do it, our conception, our intellectual knowledge, our ability, our intellectual understanding of human beings changed and as a consequence, culture changed. But even there, culture changed because certain individuals came to a certain understanding and fought for the culture to change. This culture doesn't just change by itself, it changes because individuals choose to fight for particular causes and bring about those cultural changes and then we see people freed up as a consequence. So again, I think it's, one can't explain, I don't think what's happened over the last 250 years, one can't explain capitalism or freedom or the enlightenment through evolution. One has to have an explanation that has to do with the role of ideas and free will and choices that human beings have to explain these historical phenomena.  So totally agree with you there. But culture is just exchange and accumulation and innovating of ideas, human brains generate them. So in that sense, you can't get to culture without the evolved human brain. I just want to return to the- So why do cultures go backwards sometimes? Because why do they go against survival? Why do they disappear or get annihilated? Not from external causes, but from their own failures. So evolution doesn't imply just like, oh, straight line progress trajectory, it's always going to get better and better and better. It doesn't necessarily imply that. Can you give me an example of a culture that doesn't, that kind of- Sure, Rome. Rome adopts Christianity and commits suicide. There's plenty of culture, Venice. Venice during the Middle Ages was a thriving place and it adopted certain forms of hierarchy that basically destroyed the freedom that made its progress possible. You see lots of America today. You see lots of cultures in decline and going away and disappearing. But that would be kind of because they're competing against each other and- No, it has nothing to do with competition. It's completely internal.  Human cultures have the capacity to commit suicide, which is not intuitive, let's say, not a word I used to use. From an evolutionary perspective, it requires something that I think psychologists have to start taking into account, which is choices. People make bad choices. Not because a program to make the right choices, because- But evolution doesn't imply that humans only make good choices. Evolution requires inheritance, variation, and competition. So, you know, cultures follow that same process too. And even ideas in capitalism follow that process too. So, it's not like evolution. William, can I ask a question here to clarify something that you said also for the audience? And we already have some more super chats and feel free people to send more. Thank you very much for your super chat.  But knowing you, you're going against many of the tendencies today. So, for example, you are someone who is proud of some of your masculine traits, for example, intellectually you go against the stream. And at the same time, people who grew up in the same environment took a completely different direction. They go completely with whatever is espoused from the culture. They don't question anything. They consider that, you know what I mean. Yeah. So, in the absence of free will, in the absence of individual judgment, how would you explain that you went in one direction and the majority is going to another direction? So, yeah, that brings me back to what I wanted to actually pick up with Yaron Ahn on this idea of choice. So, what I wanted to ask was, could we choose for the world to be entirely different to go against our evolved instincts entirely? And I don't think we could. I think that would break down if we tried. And we've seen some examples of that with things like the kibbutz and stuff like that. Well, it wouldn't work. Yeah. But you could choose to do it. Like the kibbutz is an example of what I'm suggesting. Right? You know, you can go against human nature. I believe human beings have a nature. I'm not rejecting the idea of nature.  So, is it your opinion? Who can choose to go against its nature. Is it your opinion that evolution has led us up to a certain point and now we're off the leash? In a sense, yes. I believe that evolution has created something. I mean, and I don't understand how we did it. I don't pretend to know the signs. Nobody does, right? But something has been created in human beings that separate us from the rest of the animals that separates us from revolutionary pressures at least to the extent that we use the thing that evolution gave us which is the ability to write the software. To the extent that we take the reins, right? That we take control of our lives, we free ourselves from revolutionary pressures. To the extent that we don't, and unfortunately I think a lot of people don't, we are still constrained by those evolutionary pressures. That's interesting because that means then it's probably just the degree to which where we land on that line that me and you might disagree. I might think we're still more subject to evolutionary wiring or nature than you might. Of course, we have the ability to, we're the only ones to understand that evolution happened and that we're subject to its nature and understand why we behave the way we do, which is, and that's what I mean. It's such a unique time in human development. Just a final few things I wanna pick up on you when you said about cognitive psychology if it doesn't deal with choice, it's not psychology.   So this is where I go back to it again.  Yeah, yeah, that's interesting that we just might, it just might be where we fall on that kind of spectrum of, yeah. Yeah, so take that last point you made. So yes, big chunks of our brain do things that are not psychological. That psychology doesn't study like regulating temperature, like regulating noticing. I don't think that's what psychology studies that my neuroscience might study that but not psychology. I think psychology studies, our behavior, our emotion, our cognition, all of those in my view are primarily regulated by our will. So if you take out the primary regulatory agency, right, that, so I think for example, emotions are consequences of conclusions we came to, conclusions that we even came through consciously or unconsciously, right? But there's a difference. Well, what does conscious means? Conscious means in my control, unconscious, I'm out of control. And then there's a whole question of, how does my conscious mind and my unconscious communicate relate to one another? Well, that's partially control. So without dealing directly with the idea of you, of I, of, and of will, I don't think you can be effective in explaining all those behaviors and emotions and thoughts that people have. Because, you know, in psychology, we would say that the mind is what the brain does. And the idea of central agency, you know, it's worth studying what you're kind of, in evolutionary psychology, it's called the kind of the press secretary role. A lot of what our brain does and the true motivations for our behavior is hidden from us. And our brain actually develops a kind of a press secretary as if representing the president, it kind of invents a post hoc story for yourself. And there's amazing studies by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazanaga called the split brain research. Have you heard of this? Where they split, they were treating epilepsy and they split the corpus callosum of their patients and it solved the epilepsy, but it actually made the patient actually act like two complete different people. They were completely conflicted about their central agency.  Sorry, maybe they can, right? Maybe that's what needs to be explained, right? So I don't think it refutes agency. It just says that it's complicated and it's complex and maybe you require the functioning of your entire mind in order to have that agency. That agency is not in one particular place in your mind, but it's maybe accumulation of everything that you do with your mind. So it's, I agree completely. These are from a physiological perspective. I think these are super complicated issues. And this is why from my perspective, psychology and evolutionary psychology, as long as they don't accept that and they don't accept the idea of will and agency, there's still a major weakness in the science. And that's where I'd like to see the science head is to start embracing and bringing in the idea of agency and see where that leads you. Cause I think it'll lead to very different approaches to the empirical data that's coming out of these studies. Okay, gentlemen, let's go back to the questions from the audience. So Fabian asks, is William saying that over millennia, men will or could evolve to congregate around sperm banks? And let me add something. Is there a very rational way, completely relevant of evolution, why sex is fun, whereas going to the bank and giving whatever you give, not so fun, unless they pay you a lot of money or whatever. Yeah, I mean, theoretically over enough time if this evolution would kind of realize, oh, from a gene's eye point of view, you know, it's not about what's good for William, it's more, I'm a vehicle for my genes and then my children will be vehicles for my genes as well. That's why we care more about our children than anyone else's. You know, that alone gives me an idea that evolution is playing on our minds and behavior. Why else would we care about our children rather than just children generally? Yeah, but wait, wait, wait, sorry. Let me push a bit more on this. Irrespective of our children, isn't sex fun for itself? You're with someone you like and the material expression of this is sex. Can't we see it in a non-evolutionary way as a rational choice that I like this person? I want literally to become one with them. Yeah, so humans use sex more pro-socially than other animals, mainly because of concealed ovulation over evolutionary time. We didn't know when.  We do. And the idea behind that is that we didn't know when women are fertile for sure.  So that's useful for humans as well. So, you know, if anything feels good, you can think that it's kind of like meant to drive you towards that behavior. I presume sex feels great for animals too when they do it, but they don't do it. They're different from us. They don't use it in such a pro-social way. It's more... I'm not sure they do feel good when animals have sex. I don't know what the evidence is. And particularly the lower you go, I think this is a sense in which I view evolution. Evolution, I think, made sex pleasurable, right? It created the mechanism by which sex is pleasurable. And then it leaves us alone to make choices about who we have sex with, when we have sex. I mean, we're not... I don't care about my children because... They're completely in the dark about why we make those choices, you know? No, we're not completely in the dark.  It's a rational choices I make. I mean, there are lots of temptations now. Evolutionary theory drives those choices. If you talk together, people cannot hear you. So one at a time, please. Just a really quick point.  But it doesn't. It predicts it on an aggregate, on an averages, but it doesn't predict my sexual choices. Of course, okay. So, but it predicts... So you can aggregate stuff and come up with averages. But what do they mean? I mean, that's typical of a human male. It doesn't mean that every human male does the same thing. Steve Pinker, one of the best evolutionary psychologists of all time, he doesn't want to have kids. So I know it doesn't. It's a bit of a problem. We're not tram-lined to just kind of completely obey our evolutionary nature. But he would absolutely say that a lot of sexual strategies that are in most men are generally typical for men are the product of evolution. I think what's interesting is the more men engage their reason and their free will. And my guess is this could be empirically tested. The less they engage with what are called evolutionary strategies, and the more they make independent choices about the kind of sexual strategies they engage in. That would be interesting. Okay, a follow-up on this one. First of all, Superstar from Christopher, there's a couple of cool things you can learn from evolutionary psychology. So William looks like at least someone from the audience is found value with this. But let me ask you a follow-up question on the gender roles. So one of the most convincing examples of evolutionary psychology is the appeal to women of the bad boy, or if you take it more historically, let's say the warrior. But again, imagine that there is no science of evolutionary psychology. Couldn't you envision a rational way, a non-evolutionary way, why you'd prefer the warrior? The warrior displays excellence, displays courage, displays ability, displays leadership. So what's not to like? Why do we need the evolutionary pressure to like the bad boy or the warrior, rather than say, look, this archetype, there's virtue in this archetype. There is something to admire. There's heroism in this archetype. Therefore, I'm attracted to it. So what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it. And I mean, those archetypes probably are scaffolded and built upon the evolutionary history because those stories kept repeating and repeating and repeating. The most successful man is the one who's brave and aggressive and he has prestige in his community and he overcomes the challenges. He saves the girl from evil. So it would make total sense that the best stories would actually play on our evolutionary instincts in nature. So for example, we have cultural content biases. Something like 92% of the most, the Billboard top 100 songs have reproductive messaging. So they're about sex or love or romance. So, you know, we constantly come back to content that plays on our evolved instincts that appeal to us for that very reason. Certain people have prestige and we copy them even in areas that aren't even their expertise because over evolutionary time, it was probably better to copy the high prestige person. All of that is culturally, cultural psychology is built on our evolved psychological instincts. Okay, Yaron, what will probably be parting words? My parting words are going to be to take individual cognition free will and reason seriously. And I really think this is what is missing for many fields in the world today, but certainly from the field of psychology broadly and evolutionary psychology most specifically. If I think about, you know, maybe this is, my failure in life is that I don't copy people and I seem to do things that are completely different and unique. So it's human choice is at the center of all of this and understanding cognition. And I really don't think without an understanding. And I think here is where Ryan Rand really shines and really presents us with new philosophical content. And I think philosophy is a foundation for science. So I think it's important. New philosophical content to understand things, psychology and other fields. Who work in epistemology, who work on cognition or work in concept formation on what is knowledge and where knowledge comes from. I think is essential for us if we're going to understand human psychology better. So there's a pitch to go read introduction to objective epistemology, which is not an easy book to read, but worthwhile. Well, William has expressed some sympathy for Ryan Rand on Twitter. But anyway, William, tell us a bit where people can find more of your work and what would be, let's say your half a minute things that you want the audience to remember. Well, firstly, I would say, Nikos, I think the attraction to Ryan Rand is more my admiration for your good self. Everyone else I know criticizes Ryan Rand. And I think to myself, how can someone I admire so much like Nikos? There must be something here. So what I would make a trade, a deal with yourself and Yaron, that I'll read some Ryan Rand stuff that you send me. And if you read some of the psych stuff that I send you, I know you do, you always ask for it, Nikos, anyway. And so that could be a good deal. William is my evolutionary psychology source when I want to figure out something. Right, okay. So that was helpful and hopefully the differences were made clear. So thank you very much, Yaron. Thank you very much, William. Thanks to the Ryan Rand Institute. Bye everyone and thanks for being with us. Bye guys.


Everybody forces Sean here ripping 23 24 Donner's basketball hobby five bucks number four random teams. Let's roll the dice and random. Good luck. Oh Yeah, I got it Seven All right names one two three four five six and seven Jeremy H down to Alvin W and the teams now seven times one two three four five six and seven Pacers down to Lakers Jeremy H Pacers Trent H Rockets Thomas M Grizzlies Thomas C Raptors High Made D Wizards Adam E jazz Troy H bucks moose with the Celtics Brian B Hawks Matthew K heat Luke S Sixers Jared D. Nick's Matthew K calves Jesse G mavericks Keith B Hornets Michael T wolves Ching L with the Kings Marvin and Pistons Chang S has the Warriors Richard H Nuggets Anthony P Suns Justin K magic Brian P Thunder Joseph R Spurs Jesse G Blazers Nam cue with the Pelicans Thane Clippers Anthony P Nets Jared D bulls and Alvin W Lakers Here comes the link for the results find those anytime at late in sports cards comm Thank everybody. Yeah, so Doug. I looked at the card. It's um It's not the Mandalorian himself. So that card's probably a few hundred maybe of Pass Vizala. It's probably a few hundred This is not the Mandalorian character himself So I'm around there. Oh another divisional spot just came in sixty go on the first divisional case of the night everybody Just six to go. I'm each only for that now Yeah, you got a dog I don't know I haven't seen a whole lot of that character's cards all past Vizala or whatever whatever the how you pronounce the name I haven't seen a ton of those cards sell so there could benefit.  It's tough to say on that one. Unfortunately. Oh congrats on the super Yeah, I think a lot of people do Higley Yeah, of course, Doug. Yeah, I think a lot of people do Higley, but they are rarer They put him a one-on-one. They're more scarce a little more a little larger card. So again that basis split even in this Everything else ships. That's press-proof Bill Moss Chris Paul for the Warriors out of 99 and purple Yanis Think the Lions are gonna do it this weekend like everything I got I think they got a pretty good chance to Yeah, no, no Grant one-on-one for the Blazers Got a diamond Brandon Miller for the Hornets Vaughn. How we doing? So I'm out of me. I think I got a good chance, dude It's like the line the the spread is like seven. I took the line. I took the Lions. I took the Lions minus seven rubber was That was that was my first bet I made this for this weekend I hope so man. I think they keep it close for sure if no Debo then oh boy Oh, man, Keontae George purple press proof for the jazz One hit in that shoulder it's football dude. He's playing. Oh, he's playing. Oh, he's playing He's playing but he's hurt Shall see yeah, either way either way. I think the Lions at least keep it pretty damn close They're gonna play him like the Packers did maybe But Zemski rated rookie auto number to 75 for the Warriors solid hit for the dubs Andrews is playing too Yeah, Andrews is playing yeah, dude got to 149 Nasred for the wolves freaking huge I would say the same thing out probably that Marvel's Kyrie Yeah, maybe a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, he might not be taking too many handoffs Yeah, like they play is like that. He might take he might catch the passes There's a wambie Wambinyama Bogdanovich number two 49 for the Hawks Purple unleashed press proved well and beat 76ers No injury designation interesting Considering he was considered 50-50 like 48 hours ago. That is interesting The chiefs are more banged up Because they're not gonna have a Thuny either. They're starting guard. I don't you kind of have to be healthy You're gonna be it's gonna be interesting my home's makes up for some of that. Oh, it's except for most Okay is on the press proof Miami wemby on the retro inserts And Keontae George for the jazz gold or just regular press proof Yeah, why aren't you guys the Lions are the hot team Lions are the hot team? I know the Niners have a better roster for the most part They're believing themselves good. They're confident. They're good at a 75 radio rookie Kobe Brown for the for the Clippers And press roof on leash it's well and beat sixers plus. I mean the best defensive player Still playing is it's either Hutchinson or it's or it's a rope one for the rail I feel like those of the two best defensive players still in the end of the end of playoff But the hutch right now is on fire and then rope ones office. You just wrote why he's a beast It's all over the place man. He's in every highlight every like tackle.  They're gonna have some big runs and That's just what they're gonna do, but you can limit it and make Purdy throw on like third long Like that's how you got to do it right there scoot Henderson How you do it it's just a matter of doing it LeBron to one-on-one Lakers against maybe the most Maybe the deepest roster left. I don't know. You'll catch press proof for the nugs Yeah, Ben. Don't break is the one You think so Harrison. Yeah, that's why I bet that one. I was like, yeah, you know, I feel pretty good about that And I did I took Ravens minus three and a half to Took Ravens minus three and a half I don't put any crazy bets on those but I you know I can make I feel decent about the only game I've been wrong about this this postseason was the Or they're like the one that I like that on was the Browns one Well, the browser went. Yeah, I thought so, too But their defense was non-existent nowhere and then Flacco at the turnovers the 199 next mid-junior for the Hornets LeBron on the press for crunch out of the Lakers dude was playing out of his mind for like four games Yeah, that's yeah, that's Flacco. He's looking to one come back clear the year. I think it's awesome He probably got himself another contract to at least be their backup. Yeah Or something like that Flacco Rounds of my least I can I can see that I think it's gonna be like the exact same thing would happen to the Texas Texas played so well against them first half and like We're making all the right plays and you give the you give the Ravens like half time to adjust Then it's like ah man. They they just figure it out. They figure out what you're doing. And then yeah, it'll stay close for longer I think Thompson there Chiefs are better than the Texans, but it's 149 gave Vincent for the Lakers Purple Yolk it's net marbles on the press roof Well, Steve Steve's been playing a lot better recently, so You can definitely hang they can definitely hang plus this my homes, dude Passing my homes Yeah, there's some my homes. There's a way. That's what they say dude. That's that's the same chair There's a passion my homes. There's a way I'll leave 13 seconds Putzemski press through for years And I thought of Mitchell press through for the Cavaliers T painters before we get half time at the Ravens game, dude. Okay. Yeah, Ravens are gonna win.  That place is gonna be lit. Yeah, that place is lit I'm a hockey's Christian Vukcevic Rated rookie autographed in 99 going to the wizards the wizards Davis press proof Josh Green out of 75 going to the Mavericks Brandon Miller press through hardwood masters Bolton Ogden Ansox are being ordered.   I like watching my homes do my home's things because it's just like a quarterback guy, dude Like of the quarterbacks when I can watch him just take over like that's when you're wow like yeah When you see the stuff he does Scott you got to appreciate it, dude Purple Tatum Celtics. I rather appreciate stuff like that than hate it. Yeah I want the Ravens to win I don't want the chiefs to win but like if it ends up happening And it'd be like that How many more Super Bowls you think he can win? Kind of a few Probably a few Jared Jackson jr. Number two one ninety nine for the Grizzlies Chiefs can have to keep drafting well though because they've got some gems in the draft recently They got press proof jimmy bowler for the heat I think it was like my home's or it was uh Trevor Lawrence receivers they led the led the league in drops It could have been the Bucks dude the way the Bucks looked on uh And both their games even the even the winnings the Eagles they dropped a bunch of passes But yeah, I think it I think it was it was Jags or Chiefs had the most wide receiver drops I think in the nfl Or like total drop something like that Purple Tatum Celtics Yeah, that defense is nasty I I disagree with that Harrison with that whole got webbing yama Dude is different Yeah, I think he's totally different. You know, uh number two 149 Dyson Daniels for the pelicans Whatever your team is right now you put them on there.  That's a nice one for the wiz I said this earlier How I feel about it is if you start a franchise right now He's The first player off the board like a fantasy draft and then there's a large gap to number two Whoever you think that is Alan Marjaxon burrow, whoever doesn't matter the large gap That is Thompson rated rookie press room for the pistons that's one pistons Lamello crunch time press room for the hornets the patriots traded The entire like all like offense or defense or even the whole team from homes that we just started from scratch I would I would not be upset That's cute. Oh, he definitely benefited from habiteri But the reason he benefited is because he could hit him 60 yards didn't they win the year after he left got jerry quite head never to nodding on for the nets a press room Mitchell for the calves He's got it like even when he's not putting up numbers like he gives you it Like he has it might not be MVP finalists, whatever. Oh, it's our Thompson night moves pistons rookie Pistons again, ljk cards salute D There we go pistons All the depot. There's an isaib mobly out of 199 for the Cavaliers And press proof sga as soon as lane shows up we get a press group sga. Come on Pats are gonna do it.  It should go a long way Is it uh, is it a bad thing lane or is it kind of like Not the not the biggest deal like what's up? Lane been going through it, man Lane just trade it in and get a uh an f450 Six to go on the full case I put a question mark in there. I don't know why there's not supposed to question mark Six to go on the full case number one phoenix football And there you go, Harrison Yeah, there you go toke Hey, you put uh, you put moose in the order. No moose. You're as moose You have the Celtics But I thought that's what that meant when you put that in the order note Doug, what's the flavor? It's friday Yeah, Lane, that's pretty messed up. Lane, you got to go after people I would I would I would talk to somebody about that because that's not cool Purple sga for the thunder Pucker up Castleton rated rookie auto to 25 going to the lakers and it's fire the cans. What's going on? Oh, lane's gonna fire the cans Yeah, you should Deondre Aiden out of 25 for the blazers And k net marvels press room for the pistons. You all excited for all my neck personals tomorrow So they sold out less than like 12 hours Harrison tell them Harrison No, don't do that either. Yeah, that's true I mean hake's That never goes well either can't wait more rated rookie for the rockets Outside of a few makes Uh lebron press proof for the lakers Okay I'm gonna buy yamaha scooter like uh, anthony said what Asard Thompson or sorry, not anthony robber poise on confidant. Excuse me a blake westerly to 199 for the spurs I love lemon beans. Yeah, 450 is one of the ones that you should get if it's if it's uh Got kawaii press proof for the uh clippers Like one of the only good american models beautiful beautiful truck too, man. Yeah, they're good beautiful truck You can really kind of Doll him up too if you know what i'm saying Asard Thompson out of 25 the pistons are on fire Which makes sense actually it's 20 to 70 sorry 75 the 75 rather 14 to 75 that is sick in grass of detroit's crushing this break A diamond tray young retro series for the hawks That's a good idea too lane But be careful riding a bike on the roads in florida. You know how these drivers be almond thompson Purple almond thompson retro for the rockets Have on yes, we are yes, we are vaughn What's up lamouk lamouk full vinyl today night. Whoa, brian branch rookie gold vinyl.   I'll tell lane the pistons aren't fired exactly Brandon miller.  He's been uh getting better wimby Josh green out of 199 for the mavericks Asard thompson again press proof pistons. Oh good idea lane. I wish I could work from home Actually, I do work from I work from home and I work at the shop Jordan miller rated rookie for the clips on the press proof Tatum press proof Yeah, and that just happened right too that the brand of miller for four straight just happened Scoot scoots get scoots getting better too. He's starting to get the scoring going up He leaves the rookies and assists per game. I think He's getting better Wimby on the insert on the retro Jay shawntate to 149 rockets And the honest Yanis Yeah, that's yeah, shawnt will come by pick up the almanacs We'll get a bring stroke Do shawnt drive the bring stroke Keep the dang on him Got a 50 cow It's like twisted metal or something. Oh, yeah, look at donch. It's press through forward classics redemption The andre jackson jr. He is a buck right andre jackson jr We did just look it up Yep bucks 30 signatures there. There's the playstation thing. Oh suicide squad All right Three to go on the first thing if you're trying to fill up everybody. Let's get divisions Let's get divisions filling up. Here's a one-on-one link as well. Let's get one-on-one going Zion out of uh, one to 49 for the appellacans When be on the insert there purple lebron james press proof hardwood masters lakers As it was whatever it's only like walk-on pistol and launcher, right? All right, it's fine I don't know dad other than those two things I guess some of the like bots are different or something. It's a scutes Jamal Murray out of 199 for the nuggets Press proof tatum. I guess we got to put on channel 50 I'm a hakez purple anthony edwards for the wolves Walker kessler dominators autograph two of 10 for utah second year hit for the jazz there gold 10 mark williams press proof poor zingus to 199 celtics kd press proof for the for the suns Sassler a rookie press proof for the pistons Got joker press proof gold for the uh, we're just regular press room for the nugs sense of awe Hawkins ready rookie press proof for the appellacans Zion press proof for the appellacans Grand theft alvarado out of 25 going to the appellacans as well Retro press room brand of miller for the hornets purple jet howard magic on the press room for sub george Like to stream everybody Please like please subscribe if you have not Join our new rewards program It's just newer and better better for y'all. It's a 1 to 49 a day different for the hawks Unleashed tatum press proof celtics Wenby rated rookie spurs Oh gee i'm gonna be press proof cd sasoko spurs number 275 rated rookie How we doing brennan diamond of dwell and bead on the retro series for the 76ers Yeah, happy friday everybody. Make sure to like the stream. Let's get these phoenix football breaks filling up here purples ion zero g for the appellacans Uh, yeah and pro uni. Yeah, it's oak. So it's just hoops and dawn rush right now pro uni rookies 23 24 And then prism will prism retails come out, but for hobby releases. Um, prism will be the next one. I think I think it'll be the next one Thompson there's a scoot Marcus sassard rated rookie to 149 for the pistons on the laser Dwell and bead So truffle happy friday All up Paul Paul Paul wall. I'm a hakez Great williams the 199 for the mavericks. They are going good purple kd sons They go pretty well Getting some phoenix next Funniest spots still left y'all Oh, there's going to be an h on esb.  I truly don't know deep down what it means And I know it just means a short a short printed. I know that much. I don't know where the origins from brennan Did anyone know someone in stats got on now. Hey monty baits rated rookie press proof for the calves Press proof omen thompson rockets gulabali Fox their keegan murray numbered to 149 sacramento Press proof is ja unleashed grizzlies with the bear behind him, too Let's go truffle pretty good. Yeah, some of the draft products can do pretty well Paul's in either way. Are you ready here? 5k buy-in caliber Michael porter jr. Out of 149 going to the nugs Purple brandon miller for the hornets Tim hardaway jr. Going to the mavericks number 99 of the red laser Sorry thompson and labor on time Last pack The lane pulled a 101 today out of this brandon miller when bin yama Jordan hawkins on the rated rookie red 2.99 going to the pelicans and luke dodge net marvel's diamond numbered cards. We've got grant williams josh green Wesley mobly jaren jackson nick smith Lebron jr. Me grants Jay shon tate nars read keegan murray zion williamson marcus sasser michael forter jr. Dyson daniels a j griffin great gave vincen derek whitehead tim hardaway jr. Jordan hawkins chris paul asar thompson josh green coby brown oh donovitch eighton alvarado sysoko and pool autos we had julian strother next day nuggets vukjevic 2.99 budzemski out of 75 that's castleton to 25 redemption bucks rated rookie senators andre jackson jr and then gold to 10 walker kessler autograph for the jazz We also had a night moves of asar thompson for the pistons Congrats to detroit. Thanks again everybody moving on now to phoenix


YouTube team keep it clean. What's going on the same grave and hit with another video and in this video We are here to talk about the game that we just finished watching between the Steelers and the Bengals and Steelers they won this game 29-14 that and in their case their offense stalled out but The defense was doing enough in order to keep the Bengals out of the end zone and they end up winning the game So really quick before we get into this and this is gonna be really quick Let me introduce myself me I mean graven vids and this is my YouTube channel engraving vids and I'm a Ravens fan and all those poor poor Ravens It's really sad But anyway, even though I'm a Ravens fan on this YouTube channel. We talk about Everybody every single NFL team So if you're fan of Ravens your fans of the Steelers the Bengals even if you're fan of the Browns Make sure you subscribe to the channel leave a like on a video to I see 22 people in here But only one person click the thumbs up button make sure y'all leave a like on a video And subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and turn your notifications on too So you never miss any video when we go live? Yes, King Kofi. That is the best way to describe the Ravens. He put L-O-L-O-L Ravens That's the best way to describe it straight just like that L-O-L Because they cause people to laugh out loud, but anyway And if you want you can follow me on Twitter Instagram and snapchat everything is engraving vids now these Steelers These Steelers, what is that three in a row?  He looks good. I Wouldn't have been mad if he would have came to Baltimore too But there wouldn't be no place for him there But Steelers that was a nice pick up for them and it's proven to be effective for them, too So shout out to them for making that that great decision We're bringing Joe Hayden in because he's been an asset to the team now with with Steelers Maybe I'm bail. I always say it every time I watch a Steelers game every time I see him I love the way he runs. I love the way he runs Love the way he runs. He just he runs his style that he runs is so perfect and it just It's great. It makes sense. He's so patient He runs perfectly in between the tackles and it's like he weighs He's patient patient then he as soon as he finds way wants to go as soon as he finds that hole That's it man. That's it and the thing with bail what he was doing Especially when the Steelers were up they were running the ball and then kind of got involved running the ball too but they were running the ball and They were up so they were just trying to put the game away and they were running the ball And they still couldn't even stop Levy on bail. They still couldn't stop But there was that one run in particular where it might have actually been a pass play I think it was a pass play Where Levy on bail They gave him the ball. I believe it was a pass play dumped it off to him short pass So he oh Steelers defense ranked third in the league. Oh, that's pretty good, man So shout out to them. So he ran to the right and he made like three defenders missed by simply just cutting to the left He didn't do anything especially just cut to the left and the defenders missed and then he gave Who did he stiff on? I think it was Drake Kirk Patrick.  I believe it was Drake Kirk Patrick, but let me on bill just Just smushed him and that was it that was that thing was disgusting But yeah, that that thing got me high but I said, oh man But yeah, let me on bill. That's what they beyond bill does a dude is Yeah, probably best the best back in NFL, man So like I always say the dude got hands like a receiver And of course he can run that his running style is just beautiful man. It's beautiful He's somebody that can hit the home runs He can get you the short yards He can be a power back if you need be if need be um, he's not the fastest, but he can he definitely got a little motor So he can he can do a sting man. Jeez that dude is nice man I miss having a running back that could do all that stuff on the Ravens team I'm jealous. I'm jealous But again, um still is our old JB smooth. Okay, you thinking the same thing. I'm thinking, okay Here we go, but even with still is offense. Like I said, they're offense They didn't have to score many touchdowns What they kick five field goals, I think But They kick field goals and they still got points. They still got points. They still move the ball They still eight o'clock. They still move the ball. They often still did some work And shout out to Ben Rodden's brother. He kept making those bangles jump off sides. He got making them jump off sides but Their offense was still moving it was still moving enough.  They were still moving the ball still scoring And then even the special teams with that fake punt with that perfect pass Maybe we maybe Ravens. Maybe we need to trade for number 20 Maybe we need to trade for whoever number 20 is on Pittsburgh so he can come play quarterback for us And maybe we need to just we need to find some more receivers because obviously the ones we got ain't it But we need to do something But anyway, that's special teams play with that fake punt was perfect I don't know if they audible at the line Because they saw that the gunner which was there is Hey, well, but he wasn't covered I don't know if they audible at the line or that was the design play call, but it was perfect It was it was perfect Do I feel better with the Steelers Jersey? Oh, no, this don't make no difference to me Still a Ravens fan. Yeah, I know that that's old news, man But anyway, I don't think anybody's gonna go after cap Zeke. What's up, Brandon? Yeah, I don't think anybody's gonna go after cap even with him so in the league for collusion I don't think anybody's gonna go after Not cuz he's a bad player because they just they don't want no part of it They don't know part of Robert Golden will be our QB after been retired. So he won't be involved Oh, not dogs not dogs Didn't I feel bad for Andy dawning? No, I had actually thought I had actually thought the um, I appreciate that. Uh, oh Bikini's for looking at me. You see I seen you here before appreciate you man. Thank you. Um, yeah, I saw bingles record Ravens one What do you mean? What does that mean? With the Now I forgot what I was gonna say Completely forgot completely forgot. Oh, that's what it was. Okay. I remember now I had actually picked the bingles to win this game. I thought the bingles was gonna do an upset I thought it's gonna be an upset game.  Hold up We at home and these these bingles We don't feel like going through no upset today We don't feel like going through no upset today. So they definitely switched that up Turned everything on well, they never really turned it off But they turned everything on and the bingles had scored 14 that nice fourth fourth at one play that andy dawg throw That was nice man. Andy dawg was looking really good in the first half of this game. He was looking good. He was looking on point um He was looking on point and especially on that fourth and one that was such a great play called such a great play They executed it perfectly perfectly Um, but then that was it They never did anything after that never did anything after that I think I forgot how many how many second half yards. They said the bingles had it was like I think that's definitely less than 80 They might have it might have said 80 or less. So maybe it was 36. It was it was some bad bad bad number It was a bad number bad number.  It's time to admit engraving that Steelers might have a better defense than Ravens This year so far. Yeah This year so far.  That's no question They bet on offense. They bet on defense Special teams. They've been doing it too There and their record is what they are they five and two See any soccer just said it five and two they five and two. I'm not afraid to admit that Oh, trust me. I'm I'm I'm brutally honest about my team brutally honest about my team Brutally honest if Ravens are bad somewhere or somebody's better than them. I will be quick to point it out. I'll point it out for you The Valgans are definitely better than the Ravens too. I mean Most teams right now better than the Ravens honestly most teams are So, I mean that ain't that ain't nothing man That ain't nothing I ain't afraid to admit that but yeah, man that Ravens just just tough this afc north Um now technically it's not over Technically, it's not over It's not It's not over It's not over But for Ravens or bingles for anybody to compete with the Steelers It's going to be extremely tough extremely tough Bruce said don't hate on the Ravens. They have a lot of problems Who was hating on the Ravens? Who hated on the Ravens? Nobody hated on the Ravens at all Nobody Not at all. I did not once hate on them at all Me saying that a team is better than them. That's better than them. That's not hating That's not hating. I I don't understand how people feel like When you call something out about the team When you call something out about your team or about any team really If you call something out or you speak on a fact about your team That somebody doesn't like but it's true then they'll call it hater I don't understand that with people. I don't get that That doesn't make any sense to me That doesn't make any sense to me like somebody earlier on twitter uh Some reporter tweeted out that uh fleckos numbers Uh Are a lot about are a lot about his income the inconsistency from his receivers Then him actually playing bad and I said what about the other nine seasons too? What about the inconsistency with those? Somebody said I was hating on fleckos It's not People a lot of people these days because people are more sensitive nowadays Fine, whatever is what it is a lot of people more sensitive But I appreciate that king drink. Thank you. But a lot of people get make they get stuff mixed up. They get they get uh Hating mixed up with actual actually telling the truth about something people don't like When you're honest people do not like when you're honest these days and when you're honest people will take it and be like Oh, you're hating. What are you doing hating on the team? What are you doing hating on and hating on the players? What are you doing hating? No, man They're saying if a week still is too, it's all about the run game I You know what lowin I would have said marvin louis would have been done years ago But I don't know how long they're gonna keep them there.  They just won't do it They won't do it. I don't know what it's gonna take They won't do it But here's what it is We got a lot of delusional ravens fans. That is true. That is true That is true. Now the ravens fans that say it's not over. That's fine because it's not It's technically technically not over But for the ravens that that get up the ravens fans when they get upset if I call out flakko I'll call out the offensive. I'll call out anything but anybody would call out anything not just me It's it's like why why are you getting mad? I don't understand and they call it hate. That's not hate. It's honesty Still is better than ravens right now. Even bingles might even be better than ravens right now They might even be better than ravens right now. I don't know what their record is Maybe they do they have the same record as us? Who do they be? bingles beat uh, they beat the browns. They lost to us. They lost to stealers I forgot. I don't even know what their record what their record is um But we'll see me they say yeah, yes the season ain't over yet And nobody saying it's over. It's definitely ain't over. It's only seven games but I mean Oh, Joe flakko put out a quote that said I wouldn't say the offense is completely broken Good timing while we're doing the stealers video. That's funny. Are they two and four? Two and four. Okay. I mean People can turn that around With three and four. So that's that. Well, anyway Appreciate y'all man. Thank you. Thank you all for coming through congrats stealers on beating the bingles And bingles your season not over either This season not over either No bump no bundles are not better than rat birds I mean If you say so Everybody's entitled to their own opinion Oh, Paul was saying he said it's over fire. Ozzy knew some draft Josh Rose Say man, if this offense don't pick it up, then it's definitely over But because if it's going to be up to the defense and the special teams, then it ain't happening It ain't happening. Yes, I will be Lewin. I will be so y'all will see me here in a couple hours After this game. So anyway, appreciate y'all man. Thank you. Thank you all for coming through If you're new here, make sure you subscribe to the youtube channel turn your notifications on so you don't ever miss this video Ever miss a stream y'all can come through man. Appreciate y'all. Thank you Make sure you leave a like on the video too. If you haven't already and on that note We're going man. Congrats to stealers fans, man. Y'all gotta win y'all earned it Where's all my guy static ain't come through. He must be at work or something Shout out to my boy static major too. I see you in the comment section later on. I know you'll be there soon All right, appreciate y'all and I'm going man. I see y'all later tonight though I see y'all later tonight after that pats and falcons game now. I picked real quick. Let me cancel to stop this Really quick. I picked the um I picked the falcons to do the upset but I mean, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens Anyway, appreciate y'all. I see y'all after the game If you want to hit me up on twitter talk about football there Talk about wrestling too because i'll be watching wrestling and football tonight. Um, the twitter snapchat instagram all three Are engraving vids i n g r a v e and v i d s Appreciate y'all and i'm going man. I'm out. Bye


Last heroes that he was maybe overthrowing a little bit in the six. Did you see that? You know I I think for him You know obviously he's gonna be very critical of himself because you know he strives for perfection every time but You know from the outside looking in you could say you got a little unlucky with some of the you know Check swing infield hits. I thought he threw the ball really well Didn't so much get rewarded for for how well he was throwing tonight So you know we we tried to battle battle out of it got out of one jam But you know unfortunately we couldn't couldn't escape the sixth inning without giving up co-runs What made Rodan so effective tonight? You know I think One of the main things was that he was kind of wild You know we we go up there with a game plan kind of you know what we think he's gonna do to us and You know he kind of almost kept us off balance with you know being effectively wild so to say You know got us to expand a little bit out of our zone and you know we just got a we got dialed back in Spent you know me included You know pretty disappointing face on a lefty You know thought I really should have Done a lot better especially in that third at bat You mentioned that seventh inning at back ahead in the count. What's your approach there? What's your thought process? I mean, I'm looking for a fastball to drive you know some in the middle of the plate and you know throws Balling off the plate and I expand a little bit.


Today we get to talk about Ubisoft maybe killing off Mario plus Rabbids and the future of that game massively in doubt as well as the future of Rayman and many other possible IPs that Ubisoft controls. We also get to see the Famitsu sales force switch for all of 2022 and have a little bit of a conversation around that and update on Nintendo Switch online and news about Fire Emblem Engage. But before diving into that news I want to tell you about the sponsor of this video Ewin Racing. You guys know I use Ewin Racing Chairs all the time. The one I'm sitting in right now is an Ewin Racing Chair. The one Eric Sitzen is an identical one to this. I have a completely different style Ewin Racing Chair for when I'm sitting over there editing and I've been using their chairs for around two years. I've been super thrilled with their products.  They got chairs for everyone. They also have desks as well that are really nice looking and affordable. Look you, I think they got a 20% off sale going on right now but if not at checkout you can use code Nintendo Prime for 20% off. We do have a link down in the description. I would appreciate you guys to go click, go check them out, see if there's something that suits your needs in 2023. First off we need to talk about Sparks of Hope and Ubisoft because CEO Ysgimont, he had some very ominous words coming out of the recent financial briefing. We are clearly disappointed by our recent performance. We are facing contrasted market dynamics as the industry continues to shift towards mega brands and everlasting live games in the context of worsening economic conditions affecting consumer spending. Despite excellent ratings and players reception as well as an ambitious marketing plan, we were surprised by Mario Plus Rabbids Sparks of Hope underperformance in the final weeks of 2022 and early January. They also went on to cancel three other games making seven total cancellations in six months and they delayed the upcoming Skull and Bones that was supposed to release in March yet again to early 2023-2024. Makes no sense early 2024 if not this game could get cancelled. It is a new IP and they are clearly seeing a lack of success with such games. Now they are not saying that Sparks of Hope was a total failure and it was a launch failure. They were just talking about sales at the end of December and early January. Probably after that $40 price they put out there, they dropped it off 20 bucks on the price and they were expecting probably a bigger boost in sales during the holiday season than they actually saw. Look Sparks of Hope is an amazing game. It's one of my favorite games on Switch. Also they have Rayman DLC coming later this year and from the sounds of what we're hearing from Ubisoft, Rayman is an Omega IP. So this could be a swan song for Rayman. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with what I'm hearing from Ubisoft, but I also understand that their share prices have hit the lowest ever and they are not doing well. Of course, everything might bounce back once they release the next Assassin's Creed, the next Far Cry, the next Rainbow Six game. Those are some of the mega IPs they control now and they haven't had a new Assassin's Creed here in a couple years. So I can maybe see that when that franchise was a yearly franchise, they were probably doing much better, but we're just going to have to wait and see what Ubisoft does to turn things around. And I hope it ends up being a direction that I can agree with. I mean, after all, Capcom just focuses on their mega franchises and it seems to have worked out really well for them so far. Next up, we have news on Fire Emblem Engage and a huge shout out to fellow content creator Player Essence. He went really in depth on this stuff yesterday. In fact, he's been all on top of Fire Emblem Engage. I really encourage if you want to know every minute detail about this game heading in the launch to go check out his channel as he continues to cover even exclusive updates out of Japan, including the one we're going to talk about today. And the update we're talking about today is about sheltering animals and their importance in the game. So you can shelter animals in this game from all over the world and you could take them to an animal house or let them roam. You can interact with them while roaming and they might even drop food items. Notably, those food items can be used at a diner. And all of that improves your relationships with your teammates. So everything just kind of works together with multiple systems. We're not done, though. There's more systems to this because you can invest in countries through the notice board and then you'll learn new methods for raising your animals and also increasing how many and the types of animals that you can shelter. So this is a very complex system and for all the animal lovers out there, I think this is going to be a lot of fun and it adds a lot more depth because it also ends up impacting your capabilities on the battleground. So this is like this is going to be a really cool system. And I like that they're investing in this. And while there might not be white foods in Fire Emblem Engage, this sort of feels like a nice replacement for it in a different direction. Also, they added the dancer class to the game, which does look really exciting. But if you want more exact details on the dancer class, as well as its importance to the hardest difficulty in Fire Emblem, go ahead and check out Player Essence's video. We'll put a link down in the description directly to that. Next up, we got to talk about the Famitsu sales data for all of 2022. Well, technically, we can mention last week, it sold 250,000 units. OLED sold 150K. That's the sales for last week. Switch dominated the sale charts all the games. That's cool. But I want to talk about the data for all of 2022 they put out there because Famitsu released yearly totals and the Switch sold 4,805,000 units in 2022. This is down from the 5.579 million in 2021 and the 5.957 million in 2020. However, 4.8 million is ahead of what Nintendo did in 2019 at 4,494,000 units or pretty much 4.5 million. Obviously, this suggests that while the Switch is on the tail end of its peak years, it's still in peak years and also right at the end of 2022, it overtook PS5 in the UK to become the number one selling system in the UK in 2022. And yes, it should remain the number one selling system overall for 2022 in the United States after we get the next MPD report as well. So still peaking. It's still in its peak years, but sort of on the backside of those peak years. And Nintendo is the one that's going to care mostly about that because being on the backside of the peak years means now that we're in 2023, this probably will no longer be considered a peak year for Switch, but rather the first, you know, post peak year year for Switch, which means probably sub four million in sales in Japan and sub 20 million sales overall. So Nintendo might care more about that and want to get new hardware out to help reinvigorate the market and keep those sales numbers looking really, really healthy for hardware overall. Of course, Nintendo is the one that cares about that. For those of us that want new hardware, we're mostly talking about frame rates, performance, new possibilities for video games, VR, AR, a whole bunch of stuff like that. Who knows, maybe double screens again. Maybe we get glasses free 3D for some reason, because I don't know. It's a neat tech, but also never one doesn't really like it. I'm just saying there's a lot of different directions. Nintendo could go with future hardware that people would like to see them do. And I do think it's likely in the next 12 months, we probably see something hardware wise from Nintendo. That being said, Nintendo only is going to care about the sales data. And we'll just have to see what their new and current president, Shintaro Furukawa wants to do. But for now, 2022 was definitely a peak year for Switch. And that's really awesome, considering that that was basically year six. That's insane. Heaking in year six still. It's pretty cool. And lastly, we have an update for Nintendo Switch Online. This update's only for Europe at the moment, but highly likely going to be announced soon for the United States because they're adding a new game to the game trial that Switch NSO service offers. Nintendo Switch Online offers game trials regularly, usually to some bigger games to let you try them for free for a weekend or for a week. And then, you know, decide if you want to keep and buy the game at the end of that period. Sometimes you can even beat some of these games in that period, which I think is really cool. But this one's a little bit of a letdown. They're adding Uno on January 19th through the 26th. And you can actually download it right now. You just won't be able to play it until the 19th in Europe or if you have a European account, Switch is region free. What's interesting, though, is that Uno is a really small game. Well, it's fun to play. And I do own that and Monopoly on my Switch. It's still one of those experiences that's been regularly discounted to super cheap prices and is really easy to get. Also, if you just want to play the in real life version of Uno, it's a couple of bucks at your local Walmart or dollar store. If this is one of those games that it feels like should just be added to the service as free to play all the time. They used to do that with things like Tetris 99 and Mario 35 and a couple of other examples out there. And for some reason, they sort of went away from that win more towards the game trials, which I always thought were meant for bigger games. This is such a tiny game to add to the game trial service that it almost feels like they're doing a disservice, almost insulting us for the money we spend on NSO. Now, look, the money you spend on your $20 per year, maybe your $70 per year with the family plan or the expansion pass is well worth it to you. But a lot of us would like to see them do a bit more with stuff like this, a bit more important game trials.  Heck, they could have did a Splatoon 3 game trial during a Splatfest. That would have been a really interesting concept. Let people play Splatoon 3 for free for a weekend. Heck, you already did that already before the game came out. So why not do it again with your game trial pass? Why not do it for games that came out last year like Kirby and the Forgotten Land? Give us a game trial for that for a week. I'm just throwing out there that I think there's a better way to handle the game trials. And I also think that UNO is a bit weak. Now, I'm not expecting them to ever become like Xbox games of gold or the PlayStation Plus service, or they're adding multiple free full games every single month. But it would be nice to see Nintendo maybe start to dabble a bit more into that. And I felt like UNO would have been a great way to start.  Maybe golf story in celebration of sports story coming out. Hand that one out for free on the service. I just feel like there's many ways they could go with this that they're currently not doing. And UNO is just a weak addition. But I don't know, you guys, let me know what you think down in the comments below. It's just one person's opinion on the Internet. Now, that's going to wrap things up for our video today on the 12th of January. I do want to thank everyone from being here. If you really enjoy this stuff, I hope you like and decide to subscribe to the channel. We bring you lots of discussion and rumors and actual news. And hey, a really lively podcast now every single Wednesday. We just did an episode yesterday. If you haven't checked it out, we have player essence on, we have HMK. We have Kat Bergeson, Andres Restart, Mike Odyssey and my best friend, Eric Moore. Next week, we got some bro nation coming on. Oh, yes, really happy to have him come on. Oh, and in two weeks, we have an extra special episode. It's never been better, in my opinion. I think the podcast is really something special, as is everything we do here. We also have some amazing shorts we're dropping now with like cool facts. Like, hey, I kind of knew this one, but everyone doesn't. Did you know Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild are actually just poop? Like, seriously, that's that's exactly what they are. It's not just a joke at the end of the game to get your golden poo. The seeds themselves are poop, so maybe we should have expected that ending. Anyways, guys, lots of cool little facts like that in our shorts. I'll catch you guys in our next video.