Dr. David Eagleman

So you can say, for example, there was a woman who was trying to quit smoking and she tried for years to quit smoking.

So what she did is she wrote a $10,000 check and gave it to her friend and said, if you catch me smoking, I want you to donate this check to the KKK, which to her was the most aversive thing that could ever happen with her money.

And that's what prevented her from smoking because the sting of knowing that she gave her money to the KKK was the worst thing that she could imagine.

So there are a million ways to do these Ulysses contracts.

But what they have in common is how do you lash yourself to the mask so you'll keep the good behavior you want?

Yeah, it's a kind of wisdom that we come to understand how we will behave when we're not in our present, you know, sober, rational moment.

We come to understand, for example, people who are trying who are alcoholics and they're trying to break that.

The first thing they're told at Alcoholics Anonymous is clear all the alcohol out of your house because you might think, okay, I'm done.

I'm firmly going to not drink anymore.

So you put the alcohol away up in a high shelf, but on a festive Friday night or a lonely Sunday night or something, you might go up there.

Your future self might do that.

So what you do is you get rid of the temptation.

Same thing with people who are trying to battle drug addictions.

They're told never carry more than $20 of cash in your pocket because it's so

you're gonna run into some guy who's trying to sell you drugs.

And if you got the money, it's burning a hole in your pocket, you buy the drugs.

I don't think we can trust our future selves.

When we're in a moment of reflection, we can think about who we wanna be, it's worth setting into place some walls.

Oh, we're terrible at all this stuff.

I mean, take New Year's resolutions.