So give us some hope here, Michael. Now that we've got a lot of awareness
around the scarcity loop and scarcity brain and all of the different domains and where
it shows up in our everyday lives. You say that we can flip this into an abundance loop. So any
tips that we can take away if we to sense or feel that we're being pulled into one
or nudged into one by some technological forces or big industry or big food or big
tech. Anything that you've seen that helps? Well, I think first figuring out how do you get
out of the loops you don't want to be in. And then just that awareness and then you can take away the
three parts of the loop that I laid out or change them. And I talk about ways to do that in the
book. But in terms of flipping it into something good, that's what's really interesting.
So I think you had asked me this at the start of the interview, and I didn't answer the question,
so I'm going to answer it now is. Okay, why do we find the scarcity loop in the first place? And
that's because it evolved to help us find food when humans were, you know, evolving… ancient
humans. Finding food is a random rewards game. It's just like a slot machine. It sounds crazy,
but I'll explain it so you need food or else to starve. So your opportunity is to not die by
finding food. So you go to value. You go to point A no food. Okay, Play the game again. Point B,
No food. Point C, Oh, Wow! Jackpot! We're going to survive and live on. So that's very exciting.
And then, by the way, you got to find food tomorrow, so we got to repeat that cycle.
So what you tend to find is that a lot of things that you can do in nature or even in cities that
involve searching tend to fall in this loop and people tend to find them really engaging.
And the upside is that as you are doing this sort of game, you're doing a lot of things
that are very good for you. So I'll give you an example of let's say you're really into birding.
It's a great activity. You know, you're going to find a bird at some point and see this bird,
but you don't know what kind. Could be one that you've seen a hundred times,
or it could be that super rare one, right? And then be like, Oh my God, we just saw that
one! And you continue that activity all day. Hunting falls into it like fishing falls into it,
foraging for food falls into it. But even I argue if you are into, say, collecting
records or something and you live in a city and you're like, I want to find this, you know,
this one band I'm looking for original record and you're going to walk to different record
stores all across New York along the way. You're outside, you're moving, you're doing
it with people, and it's just really engaging things that enhancing your life. Whereas falling
into it and a slot machine or falling into it on Instagram or falling into it on some
sports gambling app or whatever it might be, but it's probably not enhancing your
life. It's hurting you in the short term. And also just from a business perspective,
I mean, we've we've just laid out how a lot of businesses are using it to influence behavior
in a way that. Not so good.
Yeah, maybe people would push back on. But if you can think about, like,
how could I provide random rewards and value for people in a way that enhances
their life? That seems like a good question to ask and a question to investigate. And think it
can it can lead to good societal change. And I'll give you a great example of this is
this guy John Hankey in the book. He created an app called Pokémon Go,
which everyone's heard of it because it's been downloaded a billion times. So people will…
people who haven't played it will be like, Oh yeah, that annoying app. But here's the thing.
The reason that he started it is because he had a son who loved playing video games,
but the kid didn't go outside and he didn't exercise much and he didn't hang out with a lot of
other kids because they're all at their own homes playing video games through their headsets.
So he goes, okay, I'm a game designer. He used to work for Google. He created Google Maps and then
founded his own company. He goes, How can I make a game world that mimics video games but sneaks
in all these things that we know humans that make humans healthy. So he creates Pokémon Go,
and when people play Pokémon Go, it is this random search, but along the way you're outside walking,
you're getting sun exposure, all these good things, and you often have to team up with
other human beings and work with them in order to catch certain Pokémon, right?
So as you're playing this game, you're getting all these good things. Now, you know,
some people would argue like, Well, why don't you just walk around outside with your phone? Like,
That's better. It's like, Well, yeah, but we're not talking about a person who's going to go
walk around outside without their phone or with their phone. We're talking about a person who's
going to sit in a basement playing video games or is going to walk out side with their phone.
So looking for opportunities like that I think can be transformative, especially if you put them
at scale because, you know, people might make fun of Pokémon Go, but the people have played it have
walked, I think, to Pluto and back nine times collective amount of steps. And that's like,
you know, whatever the number is, 20 billion steps more than any other video game.
Absolutely! Yeah, no, we're not mad at that at all.