Lauren Hug === [00:00:00] The Power of Storytelling in the Digital Age --- [00:00:00] Lauren: media brought us that, right? I think that we lived in a world that was, in recent history, designed around designed around adversaries, because one story was the only story that was allowed to dominate. So you really could debate finer points, because the big story wasn't in question, by the people controlled everything. [00:00:18] I feel like social media unearthed and brought back storytelling. Mm hmm. And different traditions and put them in front of people who would never encounter them otherwise. And think that's where we're seeing this resurgence is that people who never were part of a storytelling tradition are seeing them being uncovered or brought back to life in front of them and going that resonates with me far more deeply than the stories I've been told my whole life. [00:00:45] I want to be part of stories where we help each other and we work together to care for our planet and where we are, we all matter and not just some of us Introducing Lauren: A Journey of Digital Kindness and Empathy --- [00:00:54] External Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: This week I'm joined by Lauren hug or brighter speaker. Uh, they're not, they specced in Colorado [00:01:00] Springs. Lauren grew up with a unique mix of influences, a tech savvy household, a love of theater, vanities, and a conservative religious upbringing. It's sparked in her a deep curiosity about ideas and a passion for rediscovering and sharing the wisdom of the past. Lauren has focused much for work on promoting digital kindness and encouraging healthier ways of interacting online. [00:01:22] While social media often gets a bad rap. Lauren actually C's it's potential for amplifying new voices and stories. Through a writing and speaking and online presence. She inspires people to engage with more empathy, seek out different perspectives and use digital platforms to spread uplifting content. It's a wide ranging discussion. Uh, Lauren opens up about her journey. Of unlearning default mindsets, coping with anxiety and define. Finding herself in her own terms. She shares her optimism about younger generations and our excitement about the creative potential. Made possible by emerging technologies. I think you'll find Lauren's [00:02:00] perspective refreshing and thought-provoking. Now over to Lauren. [00:02:03] Mark: Lauren, welcome to the impossible network podcast. [00:02:05] Lauren: Hi. Glad to be here. [00:02:07] Mark: And where are you [00:02:09] Lauren: I'm in Colorado Springs, Colorado. [00:02:12] Mark: Oh, that sounds delightful. [00:02:15] Lauren: It's very [00:02:16] [00:02:16] Mark: Anyway, shall shall we jump in and start with the big question? [00:02:19] Lauren: Let's do it. Uh Lauren's Personal Evolution: From Tech to Empathy --- [00:02:23] Mark: Lauren, as a human being? [00:02:25] Lauren: you think that's be an easy question to answer, but it's not. I am really, I, it's funny. I thought I had an answer and now I'm like, I'm, I think I'm a thinker. Uh, I like to think about things, read about things, come up with new ways of approaching things and more and more I'm discovering. I like finding old ways, ways that have been obscured or hidden or just diminished over time instead of like finding the new thing, rediscovering the things that have already been done. [00:02:58] And I hesitate when [00:03:00] I answer questions like that because I have never, I am a mother, I have two children, but I usually never start with that and I almost never start with my job either, I've become more and more conscious of how we define ourselves by these very specific roles instead of holistic beings. [00:03:23] So I've [00:03:23] how to answer that. [00:03:25] I [00:03:26] Mark: that is the purpose of the question to get away from us. We sit down and we meet people. We tend to, whether it be in a, a new social setting or networking, like, Hey, What [00:03:36] is it you do? Where do you come from? And we, we don't really get to know who people really are that we're around and connecting with and it's important for us to understand who we are as human beings. [00:03:47] And also it is a hard question to really reflect and sit down and go, who am I? You know? [00:03:54] What [00:03:54] Lauren: the it's not easy to answer. Exploring the Old Ways: A Quest for Wisdom and Connection --- [00:03:57] Mark: So the old ways, why the [00:04:00] old ways? [00:04:01] Lauren: I think because, uh, I grew up in kind of a tech forward home. My dad was an early programmer and it was always about new and better instead of What came before. So like a lack of, I'm not saying I was raised with a lack of understanding, but I always felt like I was in a society that was always new, shiny, better, bigger, faster, instead of saying a lot of these things that we need to learn and understand have been known by people for millennia before us, and that time to like, listen to that wisdom that was passed down through generations that doesn't always show up in technology or doesn't show up in even in our recorded history books, right? [00:04:42] Like that, that shows up. Up in the way that we, teach our children how to do something. We don't even know why we're doing it. We just know that we learned it from our grandmother or something , and it's just the way we do it. So I've been a lot more mindful about all of these different ways of knowing and being. [00:04:58] That have been excluded [00:05:00] from discourse for a long time because they don't meet the standards of proof or the standards of academic review or any of the systems that we've designed that tell us what is worth knowing and tell us how we know things. Uh, but they have excluded all sorts of, of, of learnings and people and. [00:05:19] Traditions, , so rediscovering those, or, or at least trying to find the things that are being obscured by the things we're all used to. [00:05:28] Mark: it's [00:05:28] very interesting. The Impact of the Pandemic on Connection and Discourse --- [00:05:29] Mark: And as you were talking and mentioning your children, I'm sure, and I've heard people talk about this in other interviews, the observation of just the impact of the pandemic on children in terms of the things that we do. have taken for granted, as you say, passed down from our elders to us in terms of our behaviors around our discourse and how do we connect. [00:05:52] And that forced isolation is going to have a, a, a long lasting impact on a generation of children that will might never [00:06:00] discover, ways to naturally have discourse with other people and maybe have a, a negative legacy on, on their lives. So I think it's really interesting to be conscious of the value and the wisdom in maybe the old ways of living and the universal, well, it's universal wisdom that makes us human. [00:06:23] And as we enter a world of AI, how important is it going to be for us to retain the essence of us as humans? And that, that will force us to delve back into. Probably some of the great traditions of different societies that have made us you know, to reproduce, to build connection, community, and that's something I think we'll come out and talk about as well in terms of the work that you're doing. [00:06:50] So I suppose it's a nice way to start. That, that leads to then next question. Navigating Identity, Belief, and Change --- [00:06:55] Mark: If you're so, cognizant of the old ways and the [00:07:00] importance to remember and to celebrate and to pass on that wisdom of the way that we should live and the way that we should connect as human beings, what do you think has led you to be That person, and that thinker that you are. [00:07:15] Lauren: my mom is a teacher. She was a speech English drama teacher. And like I said, my dad was a programmer, so I had this tech plus humanities kind of background at home. I used to have friends come over and they thought it was so funny that we would be debating like History or Shakespeare at the dinner table. [00:07:33] Uh, and I thought that was normal that that's what people normally did. And it, it is for some people, but not for everybody. So I always, I always read, I always went to plays. I my parents were very, they took us to museums. They made sure that we went to cultural centers. And I don't know that I really, like, I liked the reading side of things. [00:07:52] I didn't fully understand art. And. I didn't understand necessarily other forms of human [00:08:00] expression words were always the ones that really resonated with me. And I think that's why I was drawn to things like law or philosophy or, uh, any kind of writing. Right? and as I've gotten older now, I'm like, oh, how do these things get expressed through other forms of human expression? [00:08:15] And where do they overlap? And how do they intersect? And, i, I'm, you know, a beginner and learning about a lot of these things cause it's just not where my strengths were. But I just always, I've loved ideas. I've loved words. When I was eight years old, I think we used to have those scholastic book fairs at our school where you could go buy books. [00:08:33] And the one, the very first book I ever bought with my own money was a thesaurus. [00:08:38] And I still have it somewhere and like, it's dog eared and there's underlining and there's all. And I just, I used to love finding other words for things. I, and I have no idea why that was the thing that I wanted most when I was that age, but so words have always interest me. And then, as I started to understand that words have different meanings, different people. [00:08:54] How do you, how do you communicate then? And if you go too far down certain [00:09:00] routes, you get to where, well, we can't communicate because we're never meaning the same thing. And we're never experiencing the same thing. And I, I sort of dabbled in that, like, area of thought for a little while. And it was like, no, there are ways for us to ensure that we're being understood. [00:09:11] We may not ever have exactly the same understanding, but we can find common ground to understand each other, through so many different ways. I was thinking about this the other night that we went to see the musical come from away. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Have you heard of it? It's based on, the September 11th, when all of the planes had to be diverted from US airspace, they landed 28 or so in Newfoundland. [00:09:39] And it's a story of how these people in in this area. It's very remote area with small, small numbers of people, like their population almost doubled overnight by all these people on planes landing. And it's people with plans from all around the world and, this is before most people had cell phones. [00:09:53] So most people had no idea what had actually happened, why they were being diverted. And some people are stuck on planes for, [00:10:00] like, more than a full day. Just sitting on the ground. And so anyway, there's a scene in the, in the play where there's a. There's a bus load of people that have been diverted from Africa, and they're trying to be respectful that the Newfoundlanders are not saying it right. [00:10:14] So they're dressed up and like their Salvation Army uniforms, but the people from Africa are scared because where they're coming from soldiers are not are not a good Oh and it's dark and they're going on this bus really away. And the way that the musical shows how they communicate is somebody, one of the bus drivers or somebody's trying to be nice and be like, it's fine. [00:10:32] It's fine. You know, and the family. is scared, but they're holding a Bible. And so the, I'm going to cry. I cry every time I see this musical and I can't even talk about the scene without crying, but he, he turns to one verse and he's, he points to like, be not anxious. Right. Do not be afraid basically. [00:10:49] And then, and they say, that's how we started speaking the same language. The Role of Social Media in Shaping Narratives --- [00:10:53] Lauren: I'm there you go. [00:10:54] Mark: That's amazing. Yeah Cool. Incredible. that play then. [00:10:59] Lauren: [00:11:00] It's [00:11:00] Mark: it, is it just a play or a movie as well? [00:11:02] Lauren: It's, it's just just, it's a musical. I don't know if they'll turn it into movie or not, but [00:11:08] Mark: Okay. go on the list and go on the show, go on the show notes. Okay, that's cool Lauren's Approach to Digital Spaces and Kindness --- [00:11:12] Mark: Yeah, so So that upbringing of the, the, the humanities meets tech and your fascination in words. What was that early, how did that sort of worldview develop? I mean, you grew up, you grew up in Texas. [00:11:29] Lauren: hmm. [00:11:30] Mark: Yeah. [00:11:31] Lauren: After I was 12 Southern California until I was 12. Texas after. Yeah. [00:11:36] Mark: yeah. So as you were sort of growing up and, and, you know, your thesaurus at age eight, fascinating fascination for words, how did you view the world and what were your expectations and ambitions back then? [00:11:48] Lauren: When I was, when I was around the same age, when I was eight, the thing I wanted be more than anything in the world was a the first female baseball player. I wanted to play for the angels. [00:11:57] Mark: That's a, that's a bit of a diversion from a love [00:12:00] of words. [00:12:00] Lauren: Well, I also wanted to be an actress, but like, uh, that was, it was sort of secondary. I mean, I had, I was obsessed with softball for a period of years. And, but then once I got older, right, it was more, I wanted to be an actress. That's really, I wanted to go into theater. And was very much encouraged not to do that. [00:12:18] Because you know, the whole. That thing we all get told that it's not practical or that you're never going to be able to make a living in it. I wanted to be an author. That was the other thing. I was going to be a writer, writer, actress. Those were the two things I was most interested in. And both were things that my parents were like, no. [00:12:34] You have to do something real, is, is what their attitude was. And so it was, we've had, we have now, my parents and I have had many conversations about it since then. Because, With me raising my children, I'm very encouraging of their artistic pursuits. My daughter is an artist. And it's so interesting to me to be able to say, my daughter is an artist, right? [00:12:55] I don't say my daughter likes art. She likes artsy things. My daughter is an artist. [00:13:00] In a way that it's still hard for me to say, I am a writer. I have books, I have proof and I still, like, it's a hobby. It's, it's very hard for me to say that it's my real. Job. [00:13:11] Mark: you, but you went, you studied journalism. [00:13:14] Lauren: did. I have a, I have a, well, that was the practical way of being a writer, right? [00:13:18] That's a job. Being a journalist is a job where you write. I can go write the Great American Novel or something. And even then I was practical and was looking at the starting salaries for journalism when I was coming out of college. I'm not sure that they have changed much actually. And was like, no, that's like who lives off. [00:13:37] You can't live off of that. So I ended up in law school Again, and I jokingly say one of my friends sent me a meme or something the other day about like litigate was hilarious It was like litigation is just community theater with consequences and I laughing because it's a joke that all trial lawyers are frustrated actors. [00:13:57] Because you all wanted to be theater people, but you [00:14:00] couldn't pay your bills. [00:14:00] Mark: that litigation is just theatre with consequences, uh, will ring true for Donald Trump? We'll see. [00:14:09] Lauren: mean, a lot of what he does is community theater without consequences so far. [00:14:13] So [00:14:13] Mark: Exactly, saying. I'm just wondering. Ha. When will the consequences part kick in? Uh, yeah. So aside from that diversion so yeah, your parents must be very happy that you ended up sort of with that, uh, grand ambition to be a baseball playing actress ended up as a journalist, uh, cum lawyer. [00:14:34] Lauren: no, actually my dad was very sad that I went to law school. He didn't want, want me to be a lawyer. He was like, Lawyers aren't good people. Why would you want to go to law school? I mean, his real hope was that I would actually do something tech, right? Like he tried so hard to get me to be interested in the tech side of the world. [00:14:51] And now I tease him. I'm like, well, I kind of do tech stuff, dad. I talk about social media and he's like, that's not the same thing. [00:14:57] Mark: I mean, that time of transition [00:15:00] from California to Texas and, uh, and your emerging worldview and your ambitions, were there any other sort of looking back at any other really defining life experiences? [00:15:09] that made you the person you are. [00:15:11] Lauren: mean, the church was the backbone of everything in my life, right? So I, it's a process. It's, I. I've been in therapy for years now, I'm a big believer in therapy. I will do a shout out for that. I think everybody should spend some time in it. But I, as I, I, I started to realize I had a very unusual combination because I had this humanities thing and technology. [00:15:31] So we were embracing new technologies and we were always my family embracing new technologies. Like I had a PC when I was five. I'm not That I was very early adopter. Like, I learned to type before I learned to write by hand. And so we were always embracing the new technologies where that doesn't often go hand in hand with a very. [00:15:48] Fundamentalist type of religious view, and the humanities as well. So museums and plays and theater and all this stuff, like, that doesn't always go hand in hand with a conservative religious worldview, but I had both [00:16:00] so I was growing up with technology and humanities and also. A very conservative, very fundamentalist. [00:16:07] Religious perspective, which was dominant was probably the dominant perspective in my life for a long time. Like, no matter how much I read, no matter how many things I experienced or how many cultural conversations I had, I was still completely rooted in a very, restrictive religious belief system. [00:16:28] And it took a long time to untangle that for me. [00:16:33] Mark: Do you think that when you talk about how you're drawn to the old ways, do you think that is a remnant of the conservative religious upbringing that you had? An appreciation, respect for certain [00:16:48] principles? Yeah. [00:16:50] Lauren: When I talk about old ways, I'm, I'm thinking more about like indigenous or pagan or those types of way, like way ancient, [00:17:00] ancient, That I feel like at least, and I'm again, a beginner, I don't want to talk like I have any knowledge of any of this because it's, it's very removed from my upbringing. It's very removed from my cultural experience myself. [00:17:13] But just tapping the little I've done to scratch the surface, it just seems to have had better insights into, like, our relationships with nature, our relationships with other species, that we sort of. The world I grew up in was very human centric. And, in isolated in so many ways, it didn't, it didn't see connections the way that I feel like traditions I didn't grow up in might, might but since I can't, I can't speak eloquently to any of them because I'm still sort of just trying to figure this stuff out. [00:17:47] Mark: so when you said that, you know, you've gone, been through therapy, was, do you think there was a negative, have a negative impact on your, on you as a human, as you being Lauren, the real you, was it [00:18:00] impacted by that religious upbringing [00:18:02] Lauren: 100%. [00:18:04] Mark: what way? Which [00:18:06] Lauren: there's very defined roles specifically for women. And. [00:18:12] Mark: church? [00:18:13] Lauren: I grew up in what we would have called a Bible church. So non denominational, but very much, uh, steeped in the ideas of if anybody's seen the, uh, documentary shiny, happy people, like the quiver full stuff and the Bill Goddard, I'm not even pronouncing his name, right? [00:18:32] Because it didn't come up, but you can see the principles show up, but this idea that, you know Man, man is the head of the household, the spiritual leader, the in charge of everything, wife goes underneath that, then just children under them, and really nothing above him, except maybe God, but, And the thing that's been really, really interesting is talking to my parents. [00:18:53] That's, that's not the kind of tradition they grew up in. There was a very concerted effort, to, to [00:19:00] inculcate these ideas, to, to put these ideas in through churches. And a lot of people that have grown up with like, more like what you're talking about, traditional religion, didn't have any idea that that was happening, that there was this, social engineering happening. [00:19:14] Uh, and a lot of their kids, my generation ended up with it. And. I think this is fairly accurate. Figured that out when we started raising our own kids and went, no, no, no, we're doing that. And so there's been this sort of reaction of like, this way that we were raised was not. One wasn't, wasn't okay, was not okay. [00:19:34] And so it's been interesting to talk to my parents about, like, they didn't realize how much of it we were getting through youth group and other places. Because youth was so isolated from the rest of the church. [00:19:43] Mark: So if you were, had that sort of social engineering through the church, I'm sure when you were growing up and you were at school and going to university, you saw a very different side of the world. So presumably, couldn't you just leave that, leave that legacy behind, [00:19:56] Lauren: I Wish. [00:19:58] Mark: hence the role of [00:20:00] therapy. Yeah. [00:20:00] Lauren: well, yeah, I mean, I think what a lot of people don't necessarily understand, and it's something about finding the common ground, right? To, to speak to people who, who don't have this experience and don't understand why it's not easy to leave is that part of, part of that whole worldview is that, You're going to be persecuted and you're nobody's going to understand you and it's going to be very hard to be a follower of Christ. [00:20:27] And only only a small subset of people get it. and so it was, it was a very weird thing to be able to. Have this curiosity about the world and to read and learn and do all these things, because I was active on the newspaper. I was active in speech and debate. I did. I went to University of Texas. [00:20:47] These are not these were not conservative spaces and but I, but I. Was always holding on to that, like, you're a different kind of thing. Like, this is all well and good and it's all very interesting, but it isn't the truth. and so I never had the [00:21:00] kind of like, a lot of times we think about conservative or fundamentalist religion. [00:21:03] We think about people that are like screaming outside of abortion clinics, right, or that are standing on street corners, yelling at people. And that was never part of my. My personal upbringing, my parents were never like that. My home was a place where anybody was welcome. So it was weird. It was just like very conflicting perspectives. [00:21:24] And I think that that's ultimately what it enabled me to figure some of the stuff out later on in life is that the more I started to realize that the tradition that I had grown up in was not aligned with the empathy and compassion and love for fellow human beings. That I actually have and believe in it, it became easier to say, I've always been this person. [00:21:44] All this other stuff is the problem. Not, not the part of me that loves other people and wants to understand other people and learn about other people and find new and interesting ways to do things. That's all consistent with my faith. It's this. It's the [00:22:00] execution of it in certain spaces that are, is really problematic and that I don't align with at all. From Personal Challenges to Advocating for Change --- [00:22:05] Mark: So the third big question is, what are you working to achieve, before we all shuffle off this mortal coil? And you, I, and the reason I, I'm intrigued to go from that, point of discussion around the sort of the inner conflict with the impact of the church, that you could have just buried it, live with it, gone to therapy and carried on as a lawyer, a mother. [00:22:30] but you've, you've sort of gone down a slightly different path and are definitely embracing, and living your principles through your writing and through your activism and through your, I suppose, through your consulting as well. So perhaps you could talk about that big question and what is your working to affect or change in the world? [00:22:51] Lauren: So it's a big question. A couple of years down and I was like, what, what do I really want to do? Right. Especially with my background and the things [00:23:00] that I know, and I spent my, my law degree, I concentrated on constitutional law. And then I got a master's of law at university college, London in international human rights, legal theory, and jurisprudence, and comparative. [00:23:12] Comparative constitutional comparative human rights. I forget. was a long time ago comparative something and [00:23:19] Mark: and your dad still said lawyers don't do good. I mean, you're, if you're, you're working one part of law that is actually doing good, human rights, come on. [00:23:26] Lauren: No, he actually didn't want me to go to London. He was like, why do you need another law degree? Scholarship daddy scholarship, and I get to live in London for a year But but when I started to sit down thing, okay our systems are broken, or I mean, depending on how you look at it, our systems are broken, or they're doing exactly what they were designed to do, which was to allow certain people to be able to do whatever they wanted, while other people were not. [00:23:49] Served them, uh, and that as we've had an increasing concept of who belongs and who is allowed to have a voice and who matters the strain on systems that weren't [00:24:00] designed for all sorts of different people is showing up more and more. So, from a systemic perspective, I started thinking, okay, how do I use what I know about systems and policy to make a difference? [00:24:13] And I. I kept coming back to, well, there has to be a mindset shift first, right? Like I can go sit and think tanks or write white papers or go back to academia. But until most of us. Understand it, it's going to be kind of a, an insular conversation amongst people with access and power and, and won't fold in everybody else. [00:24:38] And we've done that in my opinion for long enough that that wasn't the route that I felt particularly. Called to do like, that didn't seem to be my space. Cause I've thought about it at various points. Sometimes when I go back to university, when I get a PhD, and I don't know, like now, there's all sorts of things I could study that didn't exist back when I was in school about things like social media [00:25:00] and social change, uh, stuff like that. [00:25:03] That wasn't even on radar when I was in school, but the more I thought about it, I was like, I already have these tools. Why don't I just use them to tell a different story about who we are and what we can be. In this world, and since we all now have our own media companies in our own hand, every single one of us can reach huge numbers of people. [00:25:23] We don't always reach huge number of people, but we can, what would it look like if we purposefully use these tools that we usually talk about as being bad and terrible and awful to. Show a different world or to show what we want people to know about or to show the kinds of kindness that we want to see in the world. [00:25:40] I mean, it's that will be the change you want to see. But here you can do it on an epic scale because. Anything that any of us put out at any point in time can be amplified to many, many more people. So that's, that was just sort of how I started thinking along these lines. What can I do from where I'm at? [00:25:59] [00:26:00] Right now, right now, without having to learn anything new, without having to build anything new. And I just started using my social platforms for that. And then that turned into. Books and speaking and other things, as I [00:26:14] Mark: What triggered that? What made you so consciously aware of the fact that you could have just ended up in an echo chamber talking to the converted rather than actually taking a step back and looking at it as a, at a system level? Okay. [00:26:31] Lauren: I think just knowing how I changed. I didn't change because of academia. I, as you pointed out, I went to an excellent public high school. I went to an excellent public university. I went to an excellent, postgraduate in London. I was, I was surrounded by brilliant people. I was confronted with all sorts of brilliant ideas, and I rejected pretty much all of them, in favor of what I already [00:27:00] knew. [00:27:00] so it wasn't, it, it isn't that. What changed me was people, like, seeing the impact of my beliefs on actual humans. And seeing that, okay, this sounds okay in some sort of abstract way. I can kind of see how that makes some sense. But when I'm standing in front of a person whom it hurt, it actually very clearly harms. [00:27:26] Now I need to rethink my, my principles. Because if, if the thing that I believe leads to that outcome, not so sure I want to believe that anymore. Even if it makes perfect logical sense. Even if it aligns with all this other stuff. If it is hurting a human being. In a, in a very demonstrable way. I mean, I'm not even getting into like maybe ways, like very clear ways. [00:27:49] It's time to rethink. So I think people change because of. Getting to know other human beings and seeing how we're connected and how [00:28:00] the things that we do and especially the things that we think Impact other people, that the things that we say impact other people. [00:28:07] Mark: Was there a moment when you became abundantly aware of that? I mean, you talk about demonstrable damage to someone. Was there one incident? [00:28:17] Lauren: that there was one I mean, I know once I became pregnant with my first child I'd seen for years statistics on how not belonging to other people impacts LGBTQ individuals, right? Like, but when it, when it was mine, my child, suddenly it hit home in a way that had never hit home before, that. I can read data and I would like to not have a situation where a child that I am bringing into the world does not feel loved, doesn't feel safe, doesn't feel like they belong and or, or their, their friends, right? [00:28:50] Like anybody and then it spirals from there, like, logically. Okay. Wait a minute. If I don't want this for my kid, why would I want this for anybody else's kid? And. Now, I need to change everything. I think [00:29:00] about this, this particular issue. So that's 1 of the, you know, I mean, in America, I don't know if it's controversial other places, controversial issues about a human being existing as themselves that we've turned into a political football. [00:29:13] That is a non political issue, as far as I'm concerned, it, it has nothing to do with politics and shouldn't be used as a political point in any way, but it used to logically make sense to me that this was a thing that we should be legislating about. But the more that, you know, the more I thought about, the more I know people who, like, every time we have a bathroom. [00:29:34] Debate, it affects real human beings and never any of the people that the people are arguing about ever. And so I started to get a lot more clear on like, wait a minute. These things that I thought were important don't impact me at all in no way impact my life, but very much impact the lives of people that I know and people that I care about. [00:29:56] And so I had to start getting more [00:30:00] clear about. If I, if I truly do love people, which I say I do. I have to show up differently in this world and I need to be more, and I need to be more aware of and invested in the safety and health and well being of all of my fellow human beings. Just particular groups that I understand or that I identify with, but everybody. [00:30:21] Mark: It sounds like You went, almost embraced a first principles thick way of thinking about what it means to be a human. [00:30:29] Lauren: You might have to clarify that for me. [00:30:30] Mark: Well, just the way that when you're solving problems in, in engineering or physics and going to first principles, to take things down to their basic sort of fundamental principles of solving a problem or looking at an issue, deconstructing something down into its, the smallest parts possible, and then building from there. by starting to rethink at a first principle level, words like you're using in your, the books you've written around kindness [00:31:00] and grace and things like empathy. What it is to have respect for other humans, regardless of where they come from their upbringing, whatever their perspective, their politics, it feels like that that's what, what the process you went through. [00:31:18] Well, so what was it then that led you to actually sit down and and then just start typing away and creating your, your first, your first book? and why were you so focused on the behavior of people in the digital realm rather than in the physical realm? [00:31:34] Lauren: I can see the, how, how the digital realm amplifies everything, right? It enables us to have more reach than we would have in physical spaces. that's what interested me. And I think what, I thought it was so weird because it was, I always loved social media and I thought it was so odd that it was so negative that people talk about it so negatively all the time and all of the stories you read about it. [00:31:56] You read about how how bad it is you read about the studies that that hurt [00:32:00] people all this and then occasionally you'll read stories about it doing some amazing good, but it won't be focused on social media. It'll be like, oh, these people organized to do this thing. And it's like, well, that was only possible because of social media, but that isn't what the focus of the story is on the. [00:32:14] And so I was like, this is this invisible thing that has dramatically changed our lives. I think for the better. Specifically, my life is so much better because I could access all of these ideas that I couldn't access within my physical circles. That, that changed me, right? So, I mean, I started to change on behalf of other people long before I changed on behalf of myself before I started to see that. [00:32:36] Maybe I needed to be in a different environment and a different space, not just that. I needed to believe different things. So, it was actually, I did a TEDx talk on the power of kindness and digital world. And that was actually the 1st time I put these ideas together I was just, I was thinking about how. [00:32:51] Valuable it had been in my life and why everybody was saying there's something negative about it. Specifically I talk about my first book, [00:33:00] Digital Kindness. I moved from Austin to Colorado Springs. I was planning a move from Austin to Colorado Springs and the house I was going to buy was in the middle of a wildfire and like 346 houses had burned down. [00:33:12] It was huge. I mean, it was a huge fire. And I'd already made connections, this is when Twitter was still fun, [00:33:17] Just to ask questions about things like preschools or, you know, where do you grocery shop or just basic stuff. And when the fire happened, it was amazing how everybody was so connected and responding to each other and built this community digitally that they weren't connected physically yet. I mean, they lived in the same physical geographical space, but they didn't necessarily know each other in real life in physical. [00:33:37] I try to say physical instead of real. and I just watch this community come together in a way that I hadn't really seen it before. And even though the house we were going to buy couldn't buy the whole area was a disaster area and hadn't sold the house in Austin yet. [00:33:52] I just had this sense that this is where I physically wanted to be because of the digital community that I was already part of and I [00:34:00] got here and had coffee within the first 2 days of living here with somebody I talked to who's now a very, very dear friend of mine. And and just saw the connection between the physical and the digital world and how they, they intersect and play together. Uh, so for me, I was like, this is awesome. This is the greatest thing ever. I don't understand why everybody keeps talking about how bad it is. I was watching economic empowerment happen in front of me. [00:34:22] I was watching, you know, people that had limited opportunities in physical world spaces, be able to do all sorts of things in digital world spaces. So all of that sort of combined to be like, My initial thought and the initial TEDx talk, the initial book was well, let's just be nicer. But the only problem in these spaces is that we're not being nice enough. [00:34:39] So can we actually think about how we interact with people digitally? Because people will say it's, it's the anonymity or, you know, there's all these, these reasons why people think people are mean online, in ways that they might not be mean in the physical world. Though I think now we're seeing, well actually, the meanness online spills out into the [00:35:00] physical world. [00:35:00] And we're seeing more meanness in the physical world, uh, than we might've seen previously. So anyway, that was my thought was the reason y'all don't understand how great this is, is cause everybody's being mean to each other. How about we just try being nice and then we'll know it's a really great thing. [00:35:15] Mark: do you think when you say the, it's spilling out into the physical world, do you think that's a result of behavior change, and it's becoming more acceptable to display these types of behaviors in the physical world than it was before because of, so it's a, it is a, it's a causation rather than a correlation thing. [00:35:32] It's, it's because of the behaviors that have been, encouraged. Facilitated whatever by bad actors, polarized media, all these other factors have gone into it when there are forces that are at play, that are outwith our individual control, then it's very easy to say, yes, let's behave better. But it how do you individually, individually can change, but how do you drive collective adoption of these behaviors against [00:36:00] these, negative forces that are creating these externalities that we're seeing, whether it be the anxiety and youth, a generation of young girls that Jonathan Haidt just wrote about in his new book, whether you believe it or not. [00:36:11] I know it's caused some sort of, uh, uh, different differences of opinion, but, clearly. We're, we're seeing the suicide rates up amongst teenagers. We're seeing angry young men emerging. yes, I agree with you. We should all behave, uh, be a lot more respectful, responsible, kind, considerate, thoughtful. [00:36:32] Take time for pause and reflect before shooting off a tweet or whatever it's called now, or an Instagram post. But it, but it is hard to do. And. How do you start to engender that sort of that change scale? [00:36:48] Lauren: I think that it's why it's important for us to use social media spaces to tell. Truths that haven't been told. I, I find Jonathan hate fascinating. He [00:37:00] absolutely hates social media. And I think it's because he's a beneficiary of a world that existed without it. And it's not a game changer for him. [00:37:09] Where it is a massive game. I mean, like it's only a game changer in making the world different, not better for him, whereas I think it's a massive game changer when you look at, uh, people that are. For a long time didn't have voices and didn't have access who now do and who can collectively organize and yes, that's going to disrupt the societies as we've known them. [00:37:29] So, I think 1 yes, we have some bad actors that are incentivizing really bad behavior and are getting away with it and, are normalizing it and that's problematic. And I do think that social media contributes to that, because it's, it's. Transmitting it and amplifying it in places that it might not have otherwise been transmitted or amplified. [00:37:50] At the same time, though, I think that social media has created. Outlets for people that didn't have voices, or who couldn't be heard outside their circles to now be [00:38:00] heard. Far and wide, so I think what we're seeing. Has far more to do with the fact that we, when people say, we don't know how to be civil anymore. [00:38:08] Civil discourse was reserved for people who are basically similarly situated. And for a long time, the people that got to decide what civil discourse were, they might've quibbled on a few things, but they weren't very dramatically situated differently. Now we're having conversations across all sorts of cultures and all sorts of lived experiences, all at the same table or not the same table, but in the same space. [00:38:33] And that's causing a lot of people to be very uncomfortable. With the realities that they thought they knew that aren't quite right. And, I think about the fact that I, I went to one of our top 20 law schools. And I didn't know that the Nazis had studied our race laws to make their race laws. Until I read Caste just a few months ago. [00:38:58] Like, we're [00:39:00] not telling the truth about how, How we constructed our systems and who was allowed to have a say and how dramatically and intentionally. We created systems that kept others out or certain people out. So I think that a lot of the conflict that we're seeing is that the rules of civil discourse were set by people who had a seat at the table and they're demanding people be behave. [00:39:26] When that's not the appropriate response for some people. Given where they are situated and what they are dealing with. And so I struggled with that a lot when I was writing digital grace of like, okay, when do you confront? And when do you grant grace? How do you know when it's a time that you shouldn't be courteous? [00:39:43] Because it's something that is so beyond the bounds of courtesy that to, to behave in a courteous way. Is an acquiescence and I don't, I don't have answers to it, but I sort of came up with a couple of ideas of like, [00:40:00] if you, if you're in a position of power, that's when you're supposed to be exercising courtesy. [00:40:05] If it's not something that is deeply and personally related to anything that you're experiencing, courtesy and grace, right? If you feel safe saying, whatever you think about a topic. That's the time when you should be exercising courtesy and grace. If there's no risk to you to air your opinion, then you need to air on the side of courtesy and grace. [00:40:28] And I think by thinking through those things, like, wait, is this something that I'm actually, am I, am I taking any risk when I say this? Or am I allowed to just say whatever I want because of the space that I occupy in this particular topic? Maybe that's time for me to listen. Then if I can say whatever I want with no consequences, this is a time and a space where I should be listening. [00:40:50] we could list, you know, there's so many things happening. We are at such a transition time right now. There's so much change. And. Uh, different [00:41:00] voices and different stories and different perspectives and different ideas out there now. And the narrative is no longer controlled by a handful of people. [00:41:06] I mean, they still control a lot of it, but not all of it. So it's a difficult, I mean, it's a difficult process to be engaged in. When should I not speak? When should I listen? When should I grant grace? When should I, I don't, like I said, I don't have answers, but I think there are things we should be thinking about. [00:41:21] Mark: There's a lot in there. I mean, I know we both know John Alexander John has so, perfectly captured the essence of the story we've all lived for the last century the consumer story and that, and the, also the story that comes before that, which is the, subject story where we. [00:41:45] humans operate as subjects to dictators, Kings fiefdoms, that dictate what we should do and how we should behave, what we should think and what we should say. And when he talked [00:42:00] and wrote the book Citizens about consumer story, a member of thinking about at the time, the I don't know if you know, the British documentary filmmaker, Adam Curtis [00:42:09] Lauren: I don't think [00:42:10] Mark: don't, you should definitely, you should watch some of his documentaries online. [00:42:14] They're fantastic. So there's one called the century of the self and yeah, he looks at and goes back things like. Russo and Thomas Hobbes Hobbesian philosophy of what the role of society is, and the Russo, the French philosopher's view. I think what Curtis does in The Century of Self gives you a sense of why John's right with the consumer story. [00:42:38] We're all conditioned to think. We have agency. We are individuals to pursue our happiness at the expense of everything else. That is what we are as a role of human beings. And what it does is it's a abrogation of our responsibility as citizens, as part of communities, which actually, if you go back to the old story, which he calls a citizen [00:43:00] story, the oldest story, when we lived together, the old ways and the the ancient times. [00:43:05] We, we survived because we worked as, as, as a unit, as a collective, as a community, as cooperative neighbors. And we've lost that. And I think that When you actually translate that into the discourse, the course discourse that occurs in social media, everyone thinks they've got a voice. Everyone knows we have a media channel. [00:43:29] We have a platform. We have a, a megaphone to express what we think. We have a right to express our feelings, to say what we think because it's been conditioned in us and not to actually take pause and reflection and think about the impact on others. And the fact that it can create conflict as a result of it, it's been conditioned out of us. [00:43:54] And I think we have to recondition ourselves as human beings to think differently. [00:43:59] And I [00:44:00] think the challenge of what you're talking about is I totally agree with it. how do we transfer translate that, the natural way that we are more respectful most of the time in, in the physical space into a digital space with almost a set of digital etiquettes. [00:44:17] Lauren: Yeah, I mean, you're, you're asking the [00:44:18] I was asking myself, right? I'm like, I don't see enough work in this space, so I'm going to, I'm just going to throw some stuff out there and see if it helps people because I facilitate in physical spaces all the time. I try to apply some of those concepts to digital spaces. [00:44:37] I think that you hit on something that's really important too, about how we behave online. We. I think we inherited it as a technology. Not as a human connection. So we think about it the way we think about computers and, phones and, and not, this is me talking to you. It just happens to be over a laptop. [00:44:59] This [00:45:00] is, it's, I mean, it's different somewhat than us sitting in a cafe face to face, but it's not so different from that, that it's an entirely. Different experience than connecting with a human. So I think we allowed it. We think about it as technology instead of as human connection, which is 1 reason we behave differently. [00:45:17] And the other thing that we did with online spaces is we created, it essentially became the comment section for newspapers, And it lends itself to debate. Instead of dialogue. And those are two things that I think are problematic that it's, if you think of it as a technology, you get all up in your head about stuff. [00:45:34] I was, I was having a conversation with somebody recently. Actually, uh, an air force commander of a huge support unit. And she kept using the word human work. This is the human work. This is, I was like, I love that you keep emphasizing. This is human stuff. Like, yes, this is logistics and it's tactical and it's, it's a lot of moving pieces, but ultimately it's humans. [00:45:53] Moving the pieces. And when we think about it as people, suddenly it's not as hard. It's not as hard and we're like, Oh, I'm talking [00:46:00] to a person. So whether we analogize it to a, our living room, we know how we behave in our living room. We know how we behave if we're in a public setting, like a theater. If we think about it like that, it becomes a lot easier to think about how we would like to behave in these spaces and what we would want to put in them. And interact with each other. So I like to get away from the debate concept of, I think one, I think one of the most problematic things we have created over the past few centuries is this absolute pedestalling of debate and argumentation, That's what changes people's minds. [00:46:39] I mean, it just, it doesn't. Uh, and yet it's, it's baked into so many of our systems. We have presidential debates. We have, all sorts of ways of where the goal is to show that you're smarter than, or you have the better idea. Then they're not built around consensus building or around collaborative solution seeking. [00:46:56] They're built around domination and adversarial Concepts. [00:46:59] Mark: It's actually [00:47:00] really funny when you think about when you say that, cause And yeah, I love watching a Good. [00:47:04] debate, but I've never been drawn to being part of a debate, but I was drawn to advertising and I was drawn to advertising, which is the power of persuasion because of the power of humor, because of humor. [00:47:15] and because of wit and because of you realizing that you don't ever change someone's opinion or their behavior through the rational, you do it through the emotional. And the way you You tap into the emotions is through all these different, characteristics that you can actually, how you tell stories. [00:47:36] So debate isn't storytelling, it's logic. And with, uh, with, you go back to Aristotle and you've got logos pathos and, ethos is pathos is what, you know, with advertising, it's so, it's so driven by that. and again, going back to John and the citizen story, we tell stories, we got to start telling stories and maybe that's what the role of how we have to change social [00:48:00] media is making it more of a storytelling. Lauren's Tools for Thoughtful Engagement Online --- [00:48:02] Mark: Platform, and maybe that's why platforms like LinkedIn are better because people do tell stories on there. Embracing Uncertainty in a Complex World --- [00:48:08] Mark: but it definitely feels like you're, you are totally aligned that the debate is, is not, how do we get away from debate and which is about naturally, binary, you know, right, wrong. [00:48:20] There isn't. We live in a ambiguous, fuzzy world of full of ambiguity and uncertainty, and as the, the sooner we embrace this ambi ambiguity of the world and be less certain. I had a guest on there and one of them said, what's the most important thing we have to sort of learn it is to be less certain all the time. [00:48:42] 'cause as soon as you're certain. And I think it was Arnold Michaelis who was an ex Nazi, uh, skinhead guy who was totally transformed. And I think that was his, his, what he said. And I thought, and it really resonated. Because too many people are certain, you know, [00:49:00] on both sides. You know, whether it be in Israel, Palestine, whether it be, uh, issues around what's happening with Russia and Ukraine, that's the world, the reality of the world is it's not simple. [00:49:12] It's not black and white. It's not binary. [00:49:14] And, and social media, and our media, mainstream media, it encourages and facilitates the, exaggeration of these binary views. [00:49:26] Lauren: See, think that the binary views were, uh, in all of our systems already, that they were built around binary views. We built adversarial systems, because, I mean, [00:49:38] Mark: Ah, but that, but that, that's But that's because going back to John's point about the consumer story, because it was about power and it was about control, the same with the subject story, but go way back in time to, as you call the old ways and to the ancients where people lived in different sort of social constructs, maybe it was different and maybe [00:50:00] we just see a different way now that there are. [00:50:02] different social constructs open to us, whether they be cooperative movements, where they be, you know, citizen type, uh, centric flatter societies that are not hierarchical, that they are, more, I don't want, it's difficult because democracy is now such a loaded word. Go back to your whole thing about words being misinterpreted by different people [00:50:25] But yeah, it's, it's Interesting. [00:50:27] Lauren: media brought us that, right? I think that we lived in a world that was, in recent history, designed around designed around adversaries, because one story was the only story that was allowed to dominate. So you really could debate finer points, because the big story wasn't in question, by the people controlled everything. The Transformational Power of Storytelling --- [00:50:46] Lauren: I feel like social media unearthed and brought back storytelling. Mm hmm. And different traditions and put them in front of people who would never encounter them otherwise. And think that's where we're seeing this resurgence is that [00:51:00] people who never were part of a storytelling tradition are seeing them being uncovered or brought back to life in front of them and going that resonates with me far more deeply than the stories I've been told my whole life. [00:51:13] I want to be part of stories where we help each other and we work together to care for our planet and where we are, we all matter and not just some of us matter, because it's a, it's a huge shift from the stories that we've been told and it's why John's work is so important because it is, that's a different story than what most of us were raised in. Gen Z: A New Narrative for Change --- [00:51:32] Lauren: Gen Z is a different story. A different story completely, because they're being raised with more stories in the world. [00:51:39] Mark: hmm. Mm hmm. What do you think will happen I mean, you've got a, this conviction around that we need to change our discourse. more kind, to embrace more grace. Where do you see it with the way, from what you're observing as a mother of two children, what's your sense of where the world will be ten years from now? [00:51:58] Lauren: if [00:52:00] X and above doesn't blow the whole world up before Z and below get a chance to do the things that they're likely to do, I think that Z saves the world and alpha. Does too. I think that they are, I truly think that they are a different stage of evolution of humanity because of their interconnectivity and they're a generation that has never known boundaries. [00:52:24] And statehood, the way that previous generations did, and it doesn't make sense to them, see, and I get frustrated because again, the only stories you ever hear about teens in social media are the negatives, you hear these outlier stories about the people that are struggling and, you know, And I, every time the mental health of youth comes up, I want to point out that they are more aware of what is going on in the world than any previous generation was. [00:52:52] And the story that they are told, if they don't access the more hopeful ones, isn't very hopeful. I [00:53:00] think in a lot of ways, our youth have the most rational reactions. To the current situation that we live in because they see it for what it is and they're not buying into the story that they need to Sell their soul for a few possessions Because that's what gives you meaning in life. [00:53:18] So It's, it's hard because there's very real things that are happening, with youth and at the same time they are creating, they are connecting, they are organizing, they are, and they're doing it on their own terms. Redefining Business and Social Constructs --- [00:53:33] Lauren: There, I had a friend ask after, I think the midterms, she said something like, why does Gen Z hate business? [00:53:39] And I was like, they don't, they don't hate business. They love micro business. They love social impact business. They love artists. They love creators. They don't like corporations. [00:53:48] Mark: Yeah. [00:53:49] Lauren: That's not like, but the fact that you think that business means corporation is an interesting thing to me. So let's talk about that. [00:53:56] And then she started asking, she's like, are they socialist? I'm like, not really, but they're not [00:54:00] capitalist They're like, there's something [00:54:03] Mark: again. Again, binary. Yeah. You're either this or that. [00:54:07] Lauren: And they, they process in such a different way. And I, I learn from mine all the time. I'm like, Oh, they'll be like, mom, kind of, you know, that's outdated. And I'll be like, Oh, thank you for correcting me. Digital Literacy and the Future of Information Consumption --- [00:54:17] Mark: It's funny, I, you're right, we get drawn into our news feeds and news cycles and whatever platform we use and you, you know, whether it be a podcast interview and Jonathan Haidt or someone else and you think, Oh, this is a, this is a cursed generation. Every time I meet someone, whether they be say Gen Z or Gen Alpha, I'm full of hope. [00:54:41] I do. You get, you go, wow, what incredibly insightful, thoughtful, mature. Considerate, not necessarily technod, I don't know if I would agree that they're all technologically literate, but yes, they're connect, they're definitely connected. I, I think, yeah, we, we, we [00:55:00] fall for the, we, we fall into this trap of making huge assumptions on the basis of some small sample size and some data that we're given [00:55:09] Lauren: Well [00:55:09] Mark: the reality. [00:55:10] Lauren: who's getting the research grants to study how Gen Z to change the world. Nobody's funding the research to talk about how different they are in positive ways, because I don't think we can even understand them in the sense that. They, they are growing up in a truly different world with very different understandings with very different mentalities, and priorities. [00:55:32] Like, they're a lot of them are deeply concerned that the planet is in massive danger and they care about it to the point where they're willing to change their behaviors to participate. In, in ways of restoring it. So I, I mean, I always look at where, where the funding's coming from or why somebody would be interested in this question. [00:55:52] They, they think so differently that I don't even know that we know what questions to ask them. Like I get brought in to do, you know, parenting [00:56:00] seminars and like, how do we deal with social media and our kids? Cause I'm one of the only people, people know who talks about this. And, and I'll, I always use the example, like when people like, well, what, you know, when you ask your kid, like, what do you think about social media? [00:56:10] They'll be like, what are you talking about? It. It'd be like asking us what we thought about TV when we were watching our Saturday morning cartoons, like, eh? There's no answer to that world. And so they don't have the same perception that we have about any of this stuff. And every time media literacy or digital media, digital literacy comes up, I've become increasingly convinced what people mean when they say that is they want Gen Z to be literate in the same way X and above are, or millennials and above are. [00:56:39] And that doesn't even make sense in Gen Z's world, in a world where print papers are dying on a daily basis, teaching them how to read a print paper or making them read social media the way they'd read a print paper. Like if you start to think about it, it just doesn't, it actually makes no sense. But it's trying to hold on to something. [00:56:57] I think that the world has so rapidly changed that for [00:57:00] us to understand it, we're trying to make them understand it our way. So I often say, I wish that we had more intergenerational. Communication to have Gen Z VR guides and alpha, to, to talk with them about what's important to them or how they see the world or why this tool, how they use the tools. [00:57:17] If we keep thinking, we know how to help them. We're missing the fact that they can help us. [00:57:22] Mark: yeah. I think it's a, it is a balance to strike. I mean, there is. Clearly, we have some, systemic change that's happening within things like your, your industry journalism and what's happening with what is news and how, you know, how do we, you know, what's the [00:57:39] value of news in today's world? What does it really mean? [00:57:42] Is it just a mechanism for maintaining the status quo, the social order? And, you know, the, the controls, the controllers and the, the controlled. And, you know, so I think there's, you know, a lot issues that we're not going to be able to cover in this podcast, but I, I, I agree [00:58:00] there. I am more hopeful for the future because of the generations that I encounter. I met this. you know, these charity people that are often called charity muggers that stand and try and get you to pay money for, to be part of a charity. Well, there's a lot of them out there here at South by Southwest. But I got talking to one girl called uh, Roz and she's a fascinating young woman, 22 year old, not sure what she wants to do, started out, in a career in, uh, auto in automotive and decided that wasn't for her is now searching for meaning in her life. [00:58:32] And, you know, I was just chatting to her and asking her about, her thoughts on social media and how she consumes information. And she doesn't have a smartphone. She only reads books, doesn't read newspapers, and actively is against any form of social media. But she wants to consume the wisdom of the past in books and information. [00:58:57] And will only consume [00:59:00] information from friends and family that she trusts. But actually sort of rejects, uh, all these mainstream channels. So again, I think we can often fall into the trap of making gross generalizations about the behavior of, of different generations that we were not really a part of. So I think there might be, you know, many sort of. splintering sort of factions within that generation of how they're behaving and how they're, they're deciding to change the world, and reject the, the past generations, regulations and behaviors and. Uh, standards. So I think it, you know, and, and quite right as well. [00:59:39] I mean, every generation has a right to rebel and there needs to be more rebellion within this generation, uh, growing up in the punk generation. For me, I'm going, why aren't there more punks around today that rejecting the norms of culture? Too many people accepting them. You, you wrote something recently. [00:59:56] LinkedIn, where you talked about Clay Shirky's [01:00:00] book. Well, I think he wrote it around 2010, 12, maybe 11. Oh, was it 2008? He it. Yeah. Well, I've, I've yeah. And I've got [01:00:07] the [01:00:07] Lauren: I mean, so it was a long time ago. I [01:00:10] Mark: is here comes everybody. I actually, I got to sign it at South by Southwest. So it would have been around 2009. Yeah. [01:00:17] I've got a copy of it. And that was a time when there was much hope and optimism around the, what the impact of social media would actually do in the world and how the internet was going to bring everyone together. And it was this great utopian vision and not much thought was given to the dystopian side and how it would actually work. [01:00:37] create more discourse and how instead of bringing us closer together, it would lead us to be pulled further apart. You in, I think in that, that post, I'm just going to read it. You, you finished that post writing when we share the When we share the world we want to see, we increase our network's awareness of whatever it is we want them to know and believe to be [01:01:00] possible. We also discover who in our network shares our hopes, and by engaging with them, we increase our connections to other people with similar vision and passion. [01:01:09] Together, we can build a better world. And I think that was a lovely way of capturing the positive potential, of using these technologies for good. AI and the Rediscovery of Human Creativity --- [01:01:21] Mark: Again, it still requires some form of behavior change, but the one thing I think It's interesting that we haven't really touched on yet the rapid acceleration of AI and going back to, I talked about South by Southwest, the one thing that happened here, every session I went to had some aspect of it was all about AI and if there was not, I don't think, I don't think anyone has an answer for what the future is going to be like, everyone's got an opinion, of course, but the one thing that united everyone at South by Southwest was, uh, the, the, Perspective or the point of view that there needs to be some [01:02:00] rediscovering of who we are as human beings. [01:02:02] Individually and collectively, as AI starts to e evolve, to take on so many ro uh, of the tasks, the roles, the purpose of what we do in work and with the, the, the rapid rise of robots it will, uh, accelerate even further. So maybe, maybe with the impact of AI and the imperative to discover our humanity and what you're saying. [01:02:29] this need to, express and what we know is possible and to share it with our networks. Maybe that's what will result in us starting to listen to each other and start to talk to each other again, not talk at, but talk with each other. And I'm just wondering if maybe going back to what you were saying about this generation, maybe that conversation's already started and we're just not hearing it. [01:02:53] Lauren: side of all of this, I don't think is related to the technology itself. I think [01:03:00] it, it's in the ideas of the systems we're living under. They always had the seeds of their own destruction sown into them because they were based on exploitative, competitive, uh, selfish. Ideas, right? And so when I look at AI, and I think I totally agree that we need to discover how, who, who are we, if we don't have to work, right? [01:03:21] I mean, [01:03:21] Mark: Yeah. [01:03:22] Lauren: a very utopian ideal would be that AI would take away any, any job that a human doesn't want to do and doesn't have to do anymore because AI could do it. Right. Then who are you? Do you get to finally create and be who you want to be? I mean, you can get to the same concepts through things like universal basic income or, but for so long our stories had to define humans by their work because that was the story that made everything go. [01:03:49] And so when people worry about the future of work because of things like AI or who do we become or future creativity because of AI, I think that's people that have not stopped to think about Were humans really designed [01:04:00] to do work for corporations, for governments, for, like, is that really our highest and best purpose? [01:04:05] Or is that just where we've been stuck for a while because that's been the dominant structure that we've lived under? I was reading something recently about why it was about Picasso and why if Picasso could paint in the style of the old masters, did he choose to paint Picasso? And. There was discussion of the fact that photography had come on board. [01:04:24] And so realism and painting was no longer a thing that was necessary because a machine could make realistic replicas. But nobody, no machine makes Picasso. And so I think that that's, that's important. I think we're going to see a lot more of that kind of what is human self expression or human cultural collaborative expression that AI can't create. [01:04:46] AI can generate the mediocre, it can troll and it can combine, but it can't spontaneously create. that's what humans do. And just, mm [01:05:00] hmm. [01:05:00] Mark: Exactly. So we could be, I mean, our previous guest, Dave Burr's talked about that, about AI and how it will spark, you know, with how photography, when photography came in, that's when a lot of the painters moved away from realism to expressionism and cubism like Picasso. And the same way. That with what's possible in film now with Sora, when it's finally released and what's possible, with all the different AI creative tools, it will potentially generate the next generation of human creativity. So I think that's where again, there's the division of opinion around that. I went to another talk at South by Southwest by Zachary Levy. An actor who was in the movie a couple of years ago, one of these action movies. And he, he just said, we're, you know, we have to reinvent these building studios outside of Austin to try and reimagine with other what the [01:06:00] future of entertainment and what content and, creation is going to be. [01:06:04] Didn't know what the answer was, but he knew that the AI was coming for their jobs. And we have, he said, the only choice we have is to reimagine or give up, [01:06:12] Lauren: it's for me, I'm mostly optimistic. I think all of this is exciting. I love, I mean, one of the points I really appreciated in Clay Shirky's book is the democratization of creation that for so long and so many fields. You weren't allowed to create if you didn't have money and you didn't have access because it required specialized training at specialized schools with specialized people. The Importance of Intergenerational Communication --- [01:06:33] Lauren: And now everybody can create something. Maybe not at the same skill level as somebody who's mastered the principles of the techniques, but we can try. Like when we started giving crayons to all children, that was a huge, Leap to creativity that didn't used to be something all children had access to. And now we don't even think twice about the fact that crayons are part of childhood development. [01:06:55] And that's going to be true of all sorts of, of creative tools through AI. And [01:07:00] so I'm, I'm, I'm like, I'm excited about stuff like this because I think that one of the biggest drawbacks to the stories we've been living under, as John Alexander points out. is who gets to participate in those stories and, and so many people's ideas have not been at the because they didn't even have the avenues to get there. [01:07:21] And so I don't know how many budding filmmakers there were in the 1930s. who couldn't access film equipment, that we don't have their creations because they weren't able to ever get anywhere where they could make the things that were in their heads. So that's the stuff that I'm like, I can't wait to see what stories have never been told because the people who, the only people who can tell them haven't had the tools to tell them and are starting to get those tools. [01:07:47] Mark: Yeah. I totally agree I'm part of a group here in Austin called the Austin entertainment business, and they did an event the other month about, The risk of AI to everyone's jobs. [01:08:00] And, you know, I spoke to the guy, went on his podcast afterwards, called, the Our Snake Show, and made the argument, actually, I disagree with you. [01:08:07] Robert. I don't think it is going to be the death of the entertainment business. What will happen? Yes, the studios will embrace all the AI tools. They'll use ways to save money, to reduce the cost of production. And they'll still manage the means of distribution. But it will change because there will be a whole new generation of people, as you say, that will have this new democratization and means of production to create. [01:08:30] boundless types of new, new forms of ideas in new formats, in new distribution channels that we've never imagined before. And it will probably lead to an explosion of a re imagining of theater that brings the creative ideas that can be expressed through the use of AI and then brought to a stage in the physical realm in a way that we've never seen before. [01:08:54] And I think it's just really, I think it's fascinating and I think it's really exciting. As to what lies [01:09:00] ahead. [01:09:00] Lauren: I agree with you. [01:09:01] Mark: Yeah, going back to, I think in the questions I mentioned, Rutger Bregman, the, the brilliant Dutch journalist who wrote the book Humankind. where he has a line in the book where he talks about the survival of the friendliest and, what you have talked about are trying to create, modes of behavior. [01:09:20] And I sort of, I suppose protocols to create more friendly, embracing, respectful online behaviours. But, I wonder if what we are going to see is an emergence of people spending more time away from the digital social space in the physical space. And the reason I mention it, recently here, I've encountered a few, people that have started to create these new meetups. [01:09:46] One was called Boardless Walks, which is in people want to get away from feeling disconnected online going out in these walks around the boardwalk at Lady Bird Lake in Austin. And they all [01:10:00] just hang out together and you get paired one on one with someone you don't know and you go for these long walks along the boardwalk, boardwalks, and anything but boring. [01:10:09] And then the other one is a guy who I met at an event here during South by Southwest, who's created a thing called the Bookless Book Clubs, where he brings people together who have all got a love of books, but not to sit and read books, but just to sort of chat and to create discourse. And, and the same with the Austin entertainment business, where people come together and exchange their knowledge, their skills, their ideas in physical spaces. [01:10:32] And I think I think we're all naturally have the, the, the, the gene, the kindness gene, the friendly gene. We all want to be loved and love. And I think what we're seeing is one year, I think what the work you're doing is great because it is making people rethink and reconsider their online behavior. the same time, post COVID, post everything that's happening. And [01:11:00] alongside maybe the discourse that people are seeing online, I think we might see a resurgence of in person where we can start to create more positive discourse storytelling experiences and not debates. That's my optimistic. That's my hope for the [01:11:17] Lauren: I think it's an and, I think that, I think the two are symbiotic in that you need to enter a space. And you're uncertain. The digital world gives you the ability to do that in a, in a, in a safe place, right? Like, you can drop in on a, live streamed meeting that you might not want to go to in person, or you could interact with people from a particular view, or just not even interact. [01:11:40] You can just consume content from people that you might not know how to talk to. In an in person setting and and I've talked to a handful of people over the years that are on the autism spectrum say that it's a lot easier to go meet somebody in person that they've already interacted with online because they already know about that person and they've they don't have to explain to them in [01:12:00] person. [01:12:00] Hey, this is something This is who I am and this is how I do stuff. So I think it, I think it adds to our world instead of subtracts. And I think, I think that's a lot of what I try to talk about is it, so much of the doom and gloom is like that it took away, it ruined, it destroyed, it messed up. And I'm like, no, it gave us options that didn't exist before. [01:12:18] Or if you're, if you're unable to go outside for various reasons, like you're sick or you have certain conditions, you can still connect with people and still have socialization. When, for some reason, for. For other reasons in the physical world, you can't what you couldn't do that before. So now we have both and we can do both. [01:12:35] And I think that that's great because there are going to be some places when I very much want to be. I sort of liken it to this. When I was at UT Austin, I was journalism major, I had a 500 person chemistry class. Perfect. I didn't want to be in chemistry class. I didn't want to talk about chemistry. I didn't want to connect with anybody in chemistry. [01:12:52] I just wanted to go get my credit, move on with my life. Ideal. But I had 12 people in my Spanish phonetics class and smaller [01:13:00] numbers in a lot of my journalism classes where I did want to connect. So I love the fact that we now have the ability to be anonymous or distant when we, when we need to or want to, also the ability to be intimate and really get to know people in physical spaces too. [01:13:15] So I like both of them. So [01:13:17] Mark: No, I do as well. I, I'm just, thinking that, always with actions is a reaction and we've seen things change recently in the actions that have been triggered because of the pandemic will create a reaction. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how things emerge. [01:13:32] Can you tell me about the digital kindness journal and what it is? [01:13:43] Lauren: concise writing where you communicate a point, persuasive writing or, [01:13:47] Mark: embracing brevity. [01:13:48] Lauren: So it was, it was [01:13:49] Mark: can [01:13:50] Lauren: tool. I was trying to get my ideas across, but I also ----developed all these questions for each end of each chapter because I wanted, I wanted people to discuss, right? I feel like so many [01:14:00] things in life. [01:14:00] We need to actually bounce our ideas off of other people and be like, Hey, what do you think about this? So. In my kind of learning and journey, I keep trying to figure out different ways for different brains. And, some people are never going to read something. They don't want my voice in their head. [01:14:17] So, I created the journal as a guided way of answering questions, so that a person can just sort of work their way through. Various things in online spaces so they can formulate their own approach. Cause a lot of my work is not to say, this is what you have to do, or here's how to do it. Or I don't believe in one size fits all. [01:14:36] I [01:14:36] Mark: Just an example of what would, what would you encounter in it? [01:14:40] Lauren: Oh, I have it right here. [01:14:42] Mark: Okay [01:14:43] Lauren: I have to be like, my microphone is too big. So there's like prompts, like here's one that just says, list the friends, creators, content that you follow. And. Rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 of 1 we disagree on everything or 10 we agree on everything. [01:15:00] And what do you notice? So some people are going to notice that they are following a very diverse set of people and other people are going to notice that they only follow The same ideas and they get to decide whether they want to add more or less to their feeds, but just to have this to walk through a series of questions of like, how am I actually using this instead of being reactionary, being more purposeful about, Oh, I didn't realize that every time I'm online, I actually don't feel good. [01:15:26] Like. What's that about? When I got offline today, I felt terrible. Why? So there's, I mean, there's just a series of, I think there's like 50, 50 plus of those types of questions and then there's daily practice, uh, and the daily practice or things like, uh, if I find one, how I felt in digital spaces today. [01:15:47] What I posted today, the positive content I saw and my responses or negative content. I saw my responses, things I learned. Cause that's one, you know, a goal that people can set for themselves in online spaces of what, what do [01:16:00] I not know about? What do I feel kind of uncertain about? Like so many things that I know about now is because I, it crossed my feet at some point. [01:16:08] And I was like, I don't know what that is. Maybe I should spend some more time trying to figure out that's all about. And learning in a very passive way, just by. Intentionally consuming more content about a topic that I didn't know anything about. I mean, I don't know if I mentioned this, but I grew up in a climate denying world, even though I lived in Austin my subculture was very climate change, denying. [01:16:29] And so I've had to learn all of that as an adult. [01:16:33] Mark: Whoa [01:16:33] Lauren: I know. And, uh. And I would, I would say things in normal person conversation and they'd look at me like, what? And then I started to realize, oh, huh, I'm clearly not on the same page as people. So I should at least figure out what I'm saying and whether I actually understand anything I'm talking about, or is this just something I inherited from my surroundings? Exploring Personal Growth and Mental Health --- [01:16:55] Lauren: Right? So that's something that I spent a lot of time learning. A kind thing I did online, other [01:17:00] reflections, times you spent there. So just a way of tracking. Really being purposeful about, okay, this is what I'm doing in these spaces. This is what I'm getting from these spaces. This is what I would like to get from these spaces. [01:17:12] And this is what I would like to put into these spaces. Because one of the questions is like, what experiences of mine might be helpful to somebody else? So to your storytelling point, right? Our stories, the things that we go through, somebody else is going through something similar. And I think about so many things that have been de stigmatized, like, I mean, mental health alone. [01:17:32] This was not people talked about openly. [01:17:35] Mark: I know. If you think about it, even like 15 years ago, [01:17:39] Lauren: And now, to be say that, like, openly say it, and one of the reasons why I do say it in almost every interview I do, every podcast I go on, is because I come from a world where that was not unacceptable. supposed to pray to make everything better. Right? And so I always consider that there's somebody who's watching or listening who needs to hear it and this [01:17:58] Mark: Yeah [01:17:59] Lauren: [01:18:00] So what, and because it doesn't scare me to say it. I mean, there was a time when it would have scared me to openly say it. Now I can, and that means somebody else is going to be able to access that. And who knows if that's going to be the thing that changes. That, that's the day that they make the call that will help, you know, [01:18:15] Mark: It sort of leads on to the question I was going to ask about what challenges have you faced or have had to overcome on your journey? But [01:18:22] I mean, that, that seems. mean, that seems to be obvious one. [01:18:28] Lauren: I you overcome a worldview that tells you how you're supposed to behave, how you're supposed to show up who you're allowed to [01:18:35] Mark: Yeah. [01:18:36] Lauren: what you're allowed to dream of. Like, I think I was, I was reading an affirmation. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. I think I pronounced it correctly. A Nahuatl prayer. [01:18:47] I'm not sure if I said it right. It's an indigenous [01:18:50] I think it's N A H A U T L. I think, I think related to Aztec culture. I'm, I'm, watch, [01:19:00] somebody's gonna be like, absolutely not. She's completely wrong. it's an for sure. And the prayers, it's something like, I, free my children from my expectations so that they can be who they are meant to be or something like that. [01:19:11] Right. And it also says, I forgive my parents. There's this whole thing about ancestors and children, but the one that resonates with me so strongly is that freeing my children to be who they are because I, as much, I mean, I love my parents. We have a great relationship, but there were very clear expectations. [01:19:26] About who and what I was going to be. And some of them I fulfilled and some of them I very much didn't. But there was a lot of having to find myself in that process, because to your point about certainty, when you're stamped with certainty, even when you're uncertain, if it fits you, it's really hard to not be it anymore. [01:19:50] So when you say challenges, one of the biggest challenges for me has been. Being me, which sounds strange to say, but I've had to, it takes, [01:20:00] it takes a lot of work, and, and therapy is a tool and journaling is a tool to, to identify who I actually am, what is actually important to me and how I want to show up in the world. [01:20:13] Because there's this programming that's running in the background. Uh, it's less. [01:20:18] Mark: the, do you think the thing that you said at the beginning when I asked you who you are as a human being, you said, I'm a thinker. I couldn't quite, I didn't quite understand it when you said that, but now it sort of does sort of make sense that. You've almost deprogrammed yourself from the default settings that were conditioned into you to become an independent thinker. [01:20:38] Lauren: It's, [01:20:39] I think that's fair. Cause I was always a good student, right? Like I could learn anything that somebody poured into me. But to be able to think originally and not just synthesize, that took a long time. And so my partner, he's, he's just one of these people that's 100 percent himself. Right? So I'm in awe of him and the way that he navigates the world and the way that he should, like, he doesn't even [01:21:00] think twice about what he's saying or what he's doing or what he's wearing. [01:21:03] I mean, he's also a very kind, like wonderful person. So that characteristic in a not nice person can be But. Like we went somewhere one time and he, he did. So I don't remember what he did, but I was like, so the reason I didn't want to do this, cause this is the dialogue that went on in my head. [01:21:19] And I started explaining like all the second guessing of what this other person would think and like how I needed to behave and how, and he was just like, the worst thing they could do is say no. And it just, it was. It was one of those moments where I was like, Oh, other people don't have that inner dialogue going on in the same way that I do all the time, where I'm thinking through 70 different scenarios or my initial reaction is this, but then I have to remember that that's not the reaction that I want to have. [01:21:45] I actually want to do this thing instead. It's, it's like my therapist at one point, she's like, it's exhausting, but I mean, it, it does enable the strategic type of thought, right? Like, To map certain things out or to ask certain questions or things like that. [01:22:00] [01:21:59] Mark: I also want to mention, I, I'd got this, uh, again, another guest, this guy called Stephen Hecht. Co-Creation: A Path to Understanding and Empathy --- [01:22:06] Mark: I've this book called Nonflict, and it's a conflict resolution thing in four key steps. And, uh, one of the first steps is to be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. And yeah, his, and he's had huge success with this around the world and from everything from prior to the current, uh, conflict in Israel and Palestine with this release and Palestinians. [01:22:34] But what I really liked about one of his things, I went through the program with him. He said, you know, when we get into situations where. Uh, there's potential conflict. We, we either, we flee the conflict. We either fight it. So we get into real sort of conflict. We fold when we get into that situation sometimes, or we, we try and sort of reach some sort of 50 50 where no one's happy. [01:22:59] But the [01:23:00] way that we ultimately usually solve things is when we get into some sort of co creation situation when we can build something together. And I, I really, I really like that. And I think that's where in a way again, we talked about, you said, you know, there's go back to that woman, you you. We talked about from the military debate and, dialogue. [01:23:22] You know, we've got, you get into a situation where we can tell stories with each other. That's one way, but when we actually start to make things with each other, that's when I think the real connection happens. So, you know, that's, I think, another area, I just think, for us all to reflect on is how can we get into a space, a virtual space and not physical space where we can be about co creation, not necessarily physical things, but just co creation of ideas, of concepts, of solving problems. [01:23:54] Problems together, because I think that. [01:23:56] clearly what Stephen's learned from all [01:24:00] these workshops that he's done with people when people come together and they co create, they work together, they step into each other's shoes and they help each other. It unlocks our kindness gene, it unlocks our empathy for each other. [01:24:11] yeah, I just wanted to mention that. [01:24:13] Lauren: love that. [01:24:13] I think we need more [01:24:16] Mark: oh, without question, I'm conscious of time so I want to get some personal questions. Uh, no, it hasn't been personal. Inspirations, Life Hacks, and Future Legacies --- [01:24:24] Mark: Who, who or what other than your, your kids, inspires you? Or what inspires you? [01:24:30] Lauren: Currently I, love Adrienne Marie Brown, everything that she puts out into the world just stops in my tracks. It's from such a different perspective than I come from, but it's really moving to me. And I think that she's managed to carve a space for herself. In a world that would not always be receptive to what she has to say. [01:24:51] So, and she's the first person that came to mind, but I look to those people that seem to be doing themselves. In community. [01:24:58] Regardless of [01:25:00] whether it makes any sense. From a. traditional perspective or a fiscal perspective or whatever, and that it seems to be working, like people are finding it. So that's, I, anybody who's just sort of doing their own different thing and making their mark, but bringing people together doing it, I love that stuff. [01:25:16] Mark: That's cool. I'll, I'll check out Adrian Murray Brown. What principles do you live by? [01:25:21] Lauren: Uh, take care of myself and be kind to others. It's pretty much it. [01:25:28] Mark: easy to follow. How'd you deal with uncertainty and self doubt? [01:25:33] Lauren: That's like a lifelong journey for me. When you mentioned anxiety in the younger generation, like I, it was only a couple of years ago that I realized, Oh, I think I actually have anxiety like that. And I've always had it. Cause I can go back. I have journals from when I was in high school and I will describe this just like pit of fear of nothing, of nothing specific at all, just this dread. [01:25:53] And I don't even think back then. I would have been able to explain it to somebody. I'm not sure that anybody would have been able to help me if I started [01:26:00] explaining it. But a couple of years ago, I had an actual like. Anxiety attack for the 1st time, like a real, like, 1 more was like, I can't ignore this. [01:26:07] And so I had, that's some of why I was in therapy and other reasons, so I've had to learn how to manage it. It's always sort of there. But I try to stay grounded and like, this is the present moment. I'm fine right now. I might not have been fine five minutes ago, and I might not be fine five minutes from now, but I'm okay right now. I'll also just trying to be, to see the optimism and things that, that things will not always be like this, whatever the moment currently is or the challenge currently is. There's a point beyond it. Uh, so it's, I mean, it's an ongoing process for me. [01:26:43] Mark: I think for all of us, a weight to it. don't know if I like the word legacy, but you know, you're, you are working to leave an impact in the world with the work you're doing, what would you like that impact or legacy to be, [01:26:56] Lauren: I, I used to think that I wanted it to be, [01:27:00] uh, that we, people figured out a way to use these online spaces more productively, like a positive human ways. Now, I think I am, I'm a, I'm a transitional. person that my real work will be in helping people see why we should be allowing Gen Z and Gen Alpha to be occupying spaces and leading discussions. [01:27:26] So really Mike passing is probably my [01:27:29] Mark: uh, [01:27:30] Lauren: legacy. [01:27:31] Mark: I like that. Yeah, well, with the elections that are happening in the world at the moment, it's about bloody time we pass that mic on, particularly in this country. [01:27:39] Lauren: Yes. Great. [01:27:40] Mark: Yeah. Okay, well, all power to you to make that happen rather than later. book that you would recommend for other than yours [01:27:49] that people should [01:27:50] Lauren: Yes. I actually, there was two of them that I was thinking about. Recommendations for a Broader Perspective --- [01:27:54] Lauren: One is the dawn of everything. Uh, I it's Graber and Wingro, [01:28:00] and it's a kind of different anthropological, archaeological look at the stories we tell about our history, and they look at the hopeful, collaborative, non, like, the societies we were talking about, sorry, the non hierarchical, more flat, more, egalitarian, for lack of a better word. [01:28:17] I'm using words that only make sense in our world, but, [01:28:19] Mark: yeah [01:28:20] Lauren: they take a look at all of these stories that none of us know because they haven't trickled into mainstream consciousness because they don't fit the narrative of competition and exploitation. And so, I mean, and of course there's reactions to it and people don't all think that it's the greatest scholarship ever, but I don't care because I love the fact it gives a different perspective of who we are as humans and what we, where we, different answers to how we can do this. [01:28:42] As people, and also when you mentioned Hobbes and Rousseau, like, they open the opening chapters are about Hobbesian and Rousseauian concepts of, community and social interactions and critiquing it from an indigenous perspective. It's fascinating. Nothing I learned in school, [01:28:57] Mark: okay [01:28:58] Lauren: and then the other 1 is the web of [01:29:00] meaning. [01:29:00] I can't remember the subtitle is, but it has something to do with science and nature. I can't remember. But anyway, it's all about, again, where our science, we've only told certain stories through science about selfish genes and competition and that the real data that we have from nature is that there's collaboration and, sort of weaving Western, uh, philosophy and ideology with Eastern philosophy and with what we know now from more of our scientific studies to kind of where we might go in the future. [01:29:30] It has its last chapter is very hopeful about like, what does this mean for us as humans? And. How do we take care of our planet and so just telling a different story about all the stories we've always heard, looking at it from a different perspective of, of. Interdependence instead of domination and independence. [01:29:48] he uses the of harmony that, you know, with, with harmony, everything's kind of doing its own thing, but it's all working together like jazz. So just, I, those are the things [01:30:00] that give me hope. [01:30:01] Mark: okay. [01:30:02] It's a good, I don't, I'm not familiar with either, so put them on the list of to read. Any show, documentary, movie that is important for people to watch that [01:30:11] Lauren: The two that I'm sort of obsessed with right now, Better Things, which was an FX series. It's streaming on Hulu and Atlanta, also an FX series streaming on Hulu. They're both, I didn't realize this when I was watching Better Things. At first I was drawn to Better Things because it's about a single mom raising three children, she's also in the entertainment industry. I didn't realize that what it was was a surrealistic examination of things and then Atlanta also is it's more surrealistic examination of the black experience in America. And so there's, they're not at all similar and yet they are in that both of the creators are just making what makes sense to them and it doesn't fit a format. [01:30:49] Like, it's not linear often. It doesn't do like episodic. type things. And yet you see growth, you see change, you see, it's almost like [01:31:00] vignettes in these people's lives. but it can be disconcerting at first because you're like, what am I watching? And then once you get the rhythm of it, they're just, they're both just. [01:31:09] Fascinating. And, uh, especially I haven't finished Atlanta, but better things. It's just really beautiful. It's about found family and made family and how you create spaces of belonging. I mean, it, it doesn't say it's about that, but that's, that's what it is. And how you make people feel seen and heard and valued and loved. [01:31:27] And anyway, I love them both. [01:31:29] Mark: Okay. Uh, those will go in the show notes. What about Lifehack [01:31:33] Lifehack [01:31:34] That you think would be a behavior change that someone could embrace, if any. [01:31:39] Lauren: mine is that I have no idea what I'm doing in most situations, and I'm just going to have to figure it out as I go along, and it's going to be okay. Sometimes, [01:31:49] Mark: Oh, I'm sure your, uh, your kids probably love that philosophy in life as well. [01:31:54] Lauren: sometimes they love it, and other they're like, aren't supposed to be the grown up? Aren't you supposed to have all the answers? [01:31:59] Mark: [01:32:00] yeah, well, if there, if it's about mic passing, you go, no, there you go. You take over. [01:32:05] Lauren: What do you think about [01:32:06] Mark: Okay. I always ask the permission question to, if you're open to me engineering random collisions between like minded guests. So if you are, we'll, we'll do that? [01:32:17] Lauren: That's the coolest thing. I love the name of this podcast and I love what you're doing to do. [01:32:21] Mark: Okay. Well look out once the episode's live for some random collisions. the final question is, uh, throwing it back to you is who do. [01:32:30] I interview next? Ah [01:32:32] Lauren: if you'd heard of him before, but I would interview Jeremy Lent. I think the one that wrote Web of Meaning, I think he's fascinating. And I think I've never met him, but I think you'd have an amazing conversation. He was a I believe like a Silicon Valley. like a startup founder who, [01:32:49] Mark: but you don't know [01:32:50] Lauren: don't know him. [01:32:51] I want you to interview him so that introduce him to me. [01:32:54] Mark: Well, I'll try, I'll try and do that, you have to also connect me. [01:32:57] with someone that you know you I would [01:33:00] be, it would be interesting. [01:33:00] To tell me you can think about it, [01:33:03] Lauren: I'll think about it. I'll give you, I'll definitely give you [01:33:05] Mark: but I'll, but I'll, I'll put Jeremy, Jeremy Lint, [01:33:08] Lauren: L E N T. [01:33:10] Mark: Jeremy Lint. Okay. I'll put Jeremy Lint on my list and, uh, manifest that to happen. [01:33:14] So there you go. [01:33:15] Lauren: Okay. I'll think of one that I can actually connect with. [01:33:18] Mark: Excellent. Right. Concluding Thoughts on Social Change and Personal Impact --- [01:33:20] Mark: Well, Thank you. very much, Lauren for your sharing your thoughts, your, your thinking, which is quite clear as a independent, and yeah, just the work that you're doing. I think it's inspiring and, Definitely, uh, definitely sort of align with your, your conviction that it's time for us to pass on the mic to the younger generation to start coming up with some better ideas and better thinking and better policies and reimagining of society as AI starts to consume us as humans. So, yeah, forward to following what [01:34:00] happens with your story [01:34:01] Lauren: Thank you. so much your time. [01:34:04] Mark: no, well, thank you for your time. [01:34:06] I really appreciate [01:34:07] Okay, that's all for now, folks. Now here's my ask of you. Please follow this podcast on Apple or Spotify or whatever player you use. Also, please subscribe to our new random Collisions newsletter. We really are working to build a global community of action takers, action engines of people that really care about the problems that need solving. [01:34:26] Thank you very much. We'll see you next time.