Coltan Scrivner

Humans, of course, have stories.

We can tell true stories, but we can also create versions of stories that are realistic.

where we can essentially have an unlimited number of ways that you could interact with something dangerous.

And so it's very cheap for us to learn about danger because we can tell it in the form of a story where you really are in no danger when you're learning about it.

And that makes us incredibly morbidly curious compared to other animals.

Yeah, I thought that was just me.

Yeah, that was a study that David Buss did with some colleagues.

I forget how many different countries.

It was like thousands of people, though, men and women.

It was a little more common with men, but it was like 80 to 90 percent of people or something had fantasized about killing someone.

So, of course, you ask the question, well, why haven't they done it?

Because there are consequences to killing someone, of course.

Yeah, and of course, you have other psychological detractors that motivate you not to murder people.

What that study says that's really interesting is that the sort of cognitive machinery is there to plot and plan and be ready to kill someone if you really had to.

I think that's what that thing is showing.

And so I guess we could talk about that fourth dimension now.

Violence is kind of the center of all of this, right?

It's all about

not becoming a victim of violence in whatever fashion, whether that's an accident or a predator or a dangerous person or someone you think is dangerous like a witch or other person.

It's all about not becoming a victim of violence.