Tough Love and Geopolitics, with Susan Rice

Neil deGrasse Tyson explores geopolitics with Ambassador Susan Rice, PhD, co-host Chuck Nice, neuroscientist Heather Berlin, PhD, and cybersecurity expert Stephen Garcia. (WARNING: strong language, discussions of suicide and mental health, other adult topics.) NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Thanks to this week’s Patrons for supporting us: Paul Weist, Alexandra Uribe Coughlan, Annie C Hickman. Photo Credit: StarTalk.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and I got with me my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck?

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil!

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic?

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, thank you, sir, yes.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I follow you.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I follow you too.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love your face.

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  To the ends of the earth. Whereas you only follow me on Twitter.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth has no-

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  I'm following you to the gates of hell. You're following me like, "Maybe I'll like this, maybe I won't."

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Earth has no ends, it's a continuous surface, in case you hadn't noticed.

• 0:58Chuck Nice?

  See, that's why I follow you.

• 1:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This program, this particular episode, we're gonna talk about the roots of mental toughness as they resided inside former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, Susan Rice. And since we're talking about mental toughness-

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We need, we need our, our-

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  We need a mind expert.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A person who's mental.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Right, we need somebody mental.

• 1:26Heather Berlin?

  I gotta go.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got Heather Brillant, Heather, welcome. You're, you're our go-to mental person.

• 1:32Heather Berlin?

  I'm happy to be the mental person of this group, yes.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and you're one of our featured people on StarTalk All-Stars. It's just great to have you in the StarTalk family.

• 1:41Heather Berlin?

  I'm happy to be here.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As long as we don't, we're not a pain always reaching for you for this, but it's just always good to have you. Just a little bit of background on Susan Rice. Uh, she came out with a book called Tough Love.

• 1:52Chuck Nice?

  Tough Love.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she was National Security Advisor to President Obama, 2013, 2017. UN Ambassador for, so the United States has an ambassador to the UN. As distinct from ambassadors to other countries of the world, right? And she was a Rhodes Scholar. Wow. And so she went to New College at Oxford. And she's authored the memoir Tough Love. My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. Interesting. Yeah, so she's, she's, she's got the pedigree. She's got the attitude. She's got the, you know, she's ready to. She's ready to rock and roll. Shake, shake, shake that up. And so she credits some of what she's accomplished. I would say a lot of what she's accomplished to how she was raised. With Tough Love.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tough Love. So let's check out that first clip.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tough Love. This kind of title, like we say, of our grandparents. So you're not a grandparent yet?

• 2:49Speaker 03

  God, no.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So when you up there naming a book, like with the grand, because grand, it's, that's a previous generation's.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Oh, you're dogging my title now.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little bit.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Come on, man. You know what? Everybody I know knows what Tough Love means.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They do.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Young people know.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even the young people.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Certainly, my young people know.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's different.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  I'm kicking their ass. No, no, no. No. The young people, and all the young people who work with me know what it means, too.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I, last time I saw their upbringing, they get a trophy for participating. There's nothing tough about their life.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Not in my household. That's the point. So to me, it means loving fiercely, but not uncritically. And, you know, when you mess up, the people who love you are supposed to tell you straight up, you know, that your stuff is not together. I think that's the polite term.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there are many families where they're always bolstering each other's efforts, even if it has failed. And you're saying, if someone is failing, you get on there, you tell them how and why.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  With the aim of helping them do better.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do better.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Not just to beat them down.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, right, right. But I'm just contrasting it with

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the fear of telling, being truthful with someone, because you might hurt their feelings.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, we, that was not a familiar concept in my household.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  So, you know, my parents raised me and my brother very much in the vein of tough love. And my, for better or for worse, my own kids have inherited the same.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they, they seem to be doing okay.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  They're doing okay, so far, knock on wood. So, one's a senior in college and one's a junior in high school.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  So, they're, they're so far.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, guys, what do you think of her definition of tough love?

• 4:36Heather Berlin?

  I mean, I think it's a unique definition. And what we normally think of, at least in the field of psychiatry, as tough love is, you know, when somebody is kind of really out of control, or they're, let's say, a drug addict. And it's about...

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean, literally out of control?

• 4:49Heather Berlin?

  Like, out of control.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't control their own lives.

• 4:51Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, and it's about then coming in with harsh enforcements of restrictions. So, you know, it's...

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what she said, that she had?

• 4:59Heather Berlin?

  Well, I mean, she has more, there are different types of parenting. So, there are three different types of parenting. One is authoritative.

• 5:05Chuck Nice?

  Authoritative.

• 5:06Heather Berlin?

  One is authoritarian, and the other is permissive, right? So, she's more, just what I think she's describing is authoritative parenting, which is that you're demanding, you have high expectations, rules.

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Lots of structure.

• 5:19Heather Berlin?

  Lots of structure, but you're also responsive and, like, connected emotionally. Whereas authoritarian is...

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  You do what I say.

• 5:27Heather Berlin?

  That's it. And there's no, you know...

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  Get your ass over here.

• 5:30Heather Berlin?

  Purely punitive.

• 5:31Chuck Nice?

  Who the hell are you talking to like that?

• 5:33Heather Berlin?

  All I said was yes, sir.

• 5:37Heather Berlin?

  So...

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, but, so, so, her way, which is not authori...

• 5:43Heather Berlin?

  Not authoritarian.

• 5:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not dictatorial.

• 5:44Heather Berlin?

  Right, like, like totalitarian.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Authoritative.

• 5:47Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why should we assume that would work for everyone? Wouldn't that just fall flat for some people trying to grow up?

• 5:54Chuck Nice?

  Boom, and see, that's where, when you said, "How do you feel about her?", and I said, I would, but my response was going to be, "It's fraught." And the reason why I think it's fraught is because... Children are individuals who respond differently to different stimuli.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm asking Heather.

• 6:12Heather Berlin?

  Right, right. So there's studies that show, yeah. So basically, it's all about the combination of the personality type of the child with the type parenting. So there's no one right way to parent. And every type of parenting, there's articles that say that it's really good or it's really bad. And really, the key factor is how it interrelates with the personality. And it's the same thing with learning. Like, for example, some people need really restrictive ways to learn, like being tested all the time and having structure, and they work really well in that system. Others don't. And they need a more sort of permissive environment where they can learn on their own.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what's described here is there was one way everybody got raised.

• 6:47Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it either works for you or it doesn't.

• 6:48Heather Berlin?

  Right, and so in some cases, depending, and also there are cultural differences as well. So, you know, depending on the culture.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of them is that some people go, "Mm-hmm."

• 6:57Heather Berlin?

  Right, mm-hmm, exactly, exactly.

• 7:05Heather Berlin?

  For example, for example.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did your culture go?

• 7:11Heather Berlin?

  Not fly in my house, no.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was not one of your cultures.

• 7:14Heather Berlin?

  No. But like, for example, authoritarian or like sort of very, very restrictive parenting works better in Asian cultures because that's part of the culture. They find that that type of parenting, whereas in the US, for example, they get worse results with that kind of parenting because it conflicts with the culture. Yeah, exactly. So you have to be careful when you're imposing other sort of cultural standards that work in one place, here, it might not work.

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  However, you know, sometimes it's when you look at cultural. Now, I will just say this, and people are gonna be maybe...

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll just edit it out.

• 7:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. I was gonna say, I'm gonna say this and it probably won't even be heard. But the more, what is perceived to be permissive in many cultures are the way Caucasian parents, white people, actually let their children do pretty much anything. But I see that there are some benefits to that. Where the child feels emboldened to try things and be more adventurous. So, you know, there's.

• 8:16Heather Berlin?

  So the permissive type of parenting has its own advantages. So it does encourage independence. The idea is that you sort of create an environment where the child can make their own decisions. And that they'll be more prepared for life. But on those kinds of parenting, you get, you get more, people tend to be more impulsive. Yet, at the end of the day, they are better when it comes to sort of making their own decisions. And, and so, you know, every, as I said, every type of parenting has pluses and minuses. Yeah.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when kids are born, there should be some readout on what kind of upbringing they, that, that genetic.

• 8:49Heather Berlin?

  Eventually.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eventually, maybe.

• 8:51Heather Berlin?

  Eventually, yeah.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go, whoop, okay, this one needs, you know.

• 8:54Heather Berlin?

  Exactly.

• 8:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you ever.

• 8:55Chuck Nice?

  We are gonna be beating your ass every day.

• 8:57Heather Berlin?

  Here's a really good one.

• 8:58Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, mister.

• 9:00Heather Berlin?

  Oh, really?

• 9:00Chuck Nice?

  Your backside's in for a real tanning. I'm letting you know.

• 9:05Heather Berlin?

  A really good example, though, is, is, there's this film called Three Identical Strangers with these triplets.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Documentary.

• 9:10Heather Berlin?

  Documentary, and they were separated at birth. And it was an experiment that was, obviously, this should never be done, but they, they did this, where they.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An experiment where none of the parents knew.

• 9:19Heather Berlin?

  None of the parents or the children knew what was happening. So the same exact DNA, but they put them in three different households with different socioeconomic statuses, different types of parenting.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Wait, this is legal?

• 9:31Heather Berlin?

  This was not legal. No, no, no, no, this was not a.

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the kind of stuff her people do.

• 9:35Heather Berlin?

  Did, no, it did. It wasn't me. Not anymore.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't say you, I said your people.

• 9:40Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no, he's like, he's like, look, the, the most physicists will do is give you a nuclear bomb.

• 9:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all, that's all.

• 9:46Chuck Nice?

  Most people do. Where her people, they're doing human experiments.

• 9:53Heather Berlin?

  Exactly.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, Chuck, see?

• 9:56Heather Berlin?

  But it was interesting, and what they kind of.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Low socioeconomic, middle class, and then an upper class.

• 10:00Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, but they also had different types of parenting. And I think it was, like, the lower SES, or, you know, was more permissive.

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's SES?

• 10:08Heather Berlin?

  A socioeconomic status. Um, had the highest one, I think, was very distant, cold, and restrictive. And I believe that, unfortunately, that child ended up committing suicide.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 10:20Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah. And so, basically.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I'll tell you why, here's why. Red Fox said it first.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, go ahead.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Elizabeth.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Elizabeth.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Red Fox said it first. When asked, "How come black people have such a lower suicide rate than white people?" He said, "It's hard to kill yourself jumping out of a basement window."

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 10:41Heather Berlin?

  That is so funny. That is so funny. I am sorry, that is amazing.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was Red Fox, 1969 or something.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  It's so hard to kill yourself jumping out of a basement window. I'm coming to join you, honey, but I'm walking upstairs.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, we gotta keep going. So, so she also credits her ability to tackle difficult situations to playing sports.

• 11:01Heather Berlin?

  Ooh.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's a whole social thing that goes on in sports. It's not just the contest itself, but the interpersonal dimension of it. So let's find out what she says about this.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  I was very much a tomboy growing up, and I was really into sports. And, you know, my idea of fun as a scrappy kid was playing, you know, football with the boys, uh, or basketball on the neighborhood court. But that evolved into, um, playing varsity basketball, as well as varsity tennis, a little bit of softball in high school. And I was a much better tennis player, and I am a much better tennis player than I ever was a basketball player. There's, there are a lot of myths out there about me. The only good one is that I was a really excellent basketball player.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, people want to believe you were good at basketball.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  People have circulated a myth that I was a great basketball player. Not true. Not true.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact?

• 11:57Speaker 03

  In fact, I was a mediocre basketball player and a pretty good tennis player.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool, okay.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  And still played tennis.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what did it do for you, other than that you had energy?

• 12:05Speaker 03

  It taught me, it taught me how to really compete and to lose, but also to win and to want to win and to lead a team. Um, and I spent a lot of time describing the role of, that I had as national security advisor as being akin to playing point guard on a basketball team. Because, uh, one, that was my position. Two, when I was playing in high school and later in graduate school.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the captain usually a point guard?

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Not necessarily.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now that I think about it, okay, just wondering, alright.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  I mean, but on the court, that's in fact often the role that the point guard's playing because they're seeing the whole court, they're calling the plays, they're dishing the ball for the most part to the shooters.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Putting the ball into motion, yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and, uh, you know. Making sure that the stars, who usually those with the great outside shots are the ones, you know, under the basket are putting it in.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get the opportunity.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Now then you get your, you know, your extraordinary point guards who do all of the above. I was not one of those.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 13:07Speaker 03

  So it was really a huge growth experience playing both tennis and basketball.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what I wonder. Are, is the personality type that we see among sort of athletes, is, did that develop by them being athletes? Or was it always there and now it attaches to the fact that they have great athletic performance?

• 13:31Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I think certain types of people are...

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The egg came first.

• 13:36Heather Berlin?

  Did it?

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's been answered.

• 13:39Heather Berlin?

  Thanks, sorry, I got that, okay. I'll just check.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was just laid by a bird that was not a chicken.

• 13:44Heather Berlin?

  Oh, okay, got it, okay.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know that.

• 13:48Heather Berlin?

  Uh huh.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and there's a mutation, and then what comes out of the egg is what you would call a chicken.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who laid the egg was not a chicken, and that's the first chicken.

• 13:55Heather Berlin?

  Right. Got it, got it.

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  So a cow laid an egg.

• 13:57Heather Berlin?

  (laughing) You know, certain people with personality, you're born with the genetic predisposition to have certain types of personality traits, and those might be more attracted to certain types of sports also, you know?

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 14:10Heather Berlin?

  So it could be that you are more into playing with a group and a team, and you know, you like that aspect of it.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I must know what personality attracts to golf.

• 14:18Heather Berlin?

  A really boring one, I don't know, sorry. A tough one. But the mental discipline, though, it takes, like, you know, just to play golf even, or, you know, any sport.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all a mental discipline.

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  Super mentally tough.

• 14:31Heather Berlin?

  Absolutely, and so you need that, so I think you come to it, those at least who excel in sports, come to it with certain genetic predisposition, and then they develop it even further. So I think it's the discipline, it's being able to control your emotions under pressure, high stakes, that's another trait.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's not just control over your body?

• 14:47Heather Berlin?

  No, it's mostly control over your mind, I think.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because baseball, ninety percent of baseball is half mental.

• 14:53Heather Berlin?

  Right. (laughing)

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  Sounds like Yogi Berra.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was entirely Yogi Berra, right.

• 15:01Heather Berlin?

  But yeah, I mean, it's being able to have the discipline to practice, but also to control your emotions under high stress to rebound from losses, right? You know, so if something happens, you lose a point, you get now, you have to be able to get right back on there and not be kind of

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which are good life skills.

• 15:14Heather Berlin?

  All good life skills. So I think, you know, you're attracted to a sport for certain reasons, but then you develop these skills along the way.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so but without sports, you still want to be mentally tough. What would be, what's a pathway if you didn't do sports like Susan did?

• 15:28Heather Berlin?

  What's interesting is that you can actually, when we talk about mental toughness, we're talking about when you're sort of emotionally aroused or have a negative emotion, how you can kind of, in a way, suppress it and keep going on and not let it kind of defeat you. And so we, studies have shown that actually mindfulness and meditation increases parts of the, particularly the left prefrontal cortex, which works to down-regulate the amygdala. And so those people who can sort of, sort of overcome trauma.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The amygdala is part of your brain?

• 15:56Heather Berlin?

  Is part of your brain involved in emotion. Fight or flight. Fight or flight response. And so it's resilience or mental toughness is really about how we can overcome these negative emotions and go on and sort of reframe things in a positive way. And we find that if you have more activation in the left prefrontal cortex, you can do that. One way to do that is through meditation.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  So what if, just as a question, like for developing mental toughness, what if adversity and failure actually, so of course, everybody feels bad and they're angered, right? But what if that is actually fuels better performance?

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you're saying is that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger?

• 16:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Please comment on that.

• 16:36Heather Berlin?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  Suppose that makes you like, you know?

• 16:38Heather Berlin?

  So there's, there's a sort of opti, we all need a little bit of stress that actually helps us increase our performance. And there's the sort of inoculation, a little bit, you know? So it's all about the amount. So a little bit will get you to the sort of we call optimal state of arousal and increase and improve your performance. Too much, however, well, will become detrimental. I mean, yes, like physiologic.

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physiologic stimulation.

• 17:01Heather Berlin?

  Stimulation, exactly. So you need a little cortisol.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Really awkward.

• 17:06Heather Berlin?

  Not be good for, no. But yeah.

• 17:09Chuck Nice?

  You really like this game, buddy.

• 17:11Heather Berlin?

  But we all know this.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got a good example of this, if I may. A track buddy of my father, my father ran track. Uh, he, they were competing against the New York Athletic Club.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All white, all WASP of the day.

• 17:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:23Heather Berlin?

  No Jews? No.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in that club, in the, in his club, Pioneer Club. They picked up everyone who was not admitted to the New York Athletic Club, which were blacks and Jews. So my father ran alongside Jews, apparently not anyone from your family.

• 17:34Heather Berlin?

  No. The Berlins don't play sports.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So right, so, so right, so there's still a racial dimension to this, as there was to so much in society back then. It was deep, deeper than even today.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As much as anyone complains, it was worse.

• 17:47Chuck Nice?

  It only encompassed everything.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything. And so, so the coming around the back stretch, my guy, his name is Johnny Johnson, is ahead of the, the runner from the New York Athletic Club. And on the back stretch for the final straightaway, the guy from the New York Athletic Club, my, Johnny Johnson overhears him yell to his runner, "Catch that nigger."

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 18:07Heather Berlin?

  Oh my gosh.

• 18:08Chuck Nice?

  Which by the way is shocking today, but back then.

• 18:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back then, it was like, yeah, okay, that's, that's just, that's just so that. And so he said, "This is one nigger he ain't gonna catch." And then increased his, his win.

• 18:19Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That gave, that incentivized.

• 18:21Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, motivation, exactly. So, so too little is not good, uh, just enough for it's right. But if he, let's say, got really angered by that to the point where he was so enraged that he kind of, his, his performance could have been injured.

• 18:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it could subtract if you get too fired up.

• 18:34Heather Berlin?

  Too much, too much. So just enough, yeah.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you grew up in a Jewish household?

• 18:39Heather Berlin?

  Yes, I did.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So was sports?

• 18:41Heather Berlin?

  Therefore I did not play sports.

• 18:44Heather Berlin?

  It's just not part of our culture.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's really true that scene in the movie Airplane, where the flight attendant, then stewardess, um, was, had reading material and someone seated there says, "I just need something light." And says, "Well, here's a pamphlet on famous Jewish athletes."

• 19:03Heather Berlin?

  That's exactly, that's exactly.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Sandy Koufax was Jewish, just so you know, very important.

• 19:08Heather Berlin?

  There's exceptions, but you know, in general, yeah, the, the stereotype is, is legit. I was never very good at any sports, yeah.

• 19:15Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn y'all.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  Not, you know what?

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had I known this before this episode, I would let both of your asses out of the street.

• 19:22Chuck Nice?

  Didn't even, I didn't even watch it. God, this is exhausting. What the hell are they doing? What's the point of this? No, I did. I played several sports. And but I didn't like it because I was forced into playing sports because my father was a really accomplished athlete.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another way to say it is you didn't have the mental toughness.

• 19:44Heather Berlin?

  That's right.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  You know what?

• 19:45Heather Berlin?

  That's exactly what I was thinking.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's another way to say that. I've been talking in the last 20 minutes here with our woman Heather, and she's telling us what's going on.

• 19:54Heather Berlin?

  Did you play sport, Neil?

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Heather Berlin?

  Oh, you played everything. Oh, you were like wrestling.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I used to wrestle. I rode. I also danced.

• 20:01Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I played basketball, street ball in the Bronx. And here's the measure of things, just so you know. If it's if it's a five on five choosing sides, how, where in that ranking are you chosen?

• 20:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, see, I was always first.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First, yeah. Okay, no, I was never first, but I was like fifth. So I was like midway in the Bronx. But then I spent a year up in Lexington, Massachusetts. And I went to the playground there and we played ball. And I went to jump to block someone's shot. And I blocked it with my elbow. And I realized I jumped much higher than was necessary to block this person's shot. Because my elbow blocked the ball. So they all thought I was some amazing basketball player when it was average.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  And it turns out you were just black. Funny how that.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sounds like we need to go to commercial. Coming back more with my interview with former national security advisor to Barack Obama, Susan Rice, who's got her new book Tough Love. And we're just unpacking the tough love and how all that came about. And we'll talk more about that when StarTalk returns.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Chuck Nice.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather Berlin. Heather, give me your full title, because when you first came on, I didn't...

• 21:55Heather Berlin?

  I'm a cognitive neuroscientist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, that's why I could not...

• 22:01Heather Berlin?

  No, yes, yeah.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ba-da-bang! There it is.

• 22:06Chuck Nice?

  Drop the mic. Drop the mic, right there.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right there. We're done here.

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  I'm out. See that right there?

• 22:13Heather Berlin?

  I don't have to play a sport.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, my interview with Susan Rice, former national security adviser to the president. We're talking about mental toughness, a running theme in her book, Tough Love. But in there is also just how do you deal with stress? Mental toughness, one thing, just come back from failure, but how about just stress? How about, you know, if you're trying to keep peace in the world, there's no greater source of stress than geopolitics. So, and the Obama administration, like so many, was not short on crises. So, I just asked her, what were your challenges in that role? Let's check it out.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  So, I think the hardest part of the job of national security adviser is the number and the weight of the issues that you're confronting at any given time. I mean, it's almost overwhelming. It feels, I'd describe it as like a slab of concrete lying on your chest, and then they just put more and more bricks on it. And you've still got to breathe. So, for example, in my first six months on the job, this is beginning in July 1st of 2013. The day I got in the office, Egypt blew up and a coup occurred, which we didn't actually term a coup.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was the Arab Spring?

• 23:37Speaker 03

  This was after the Arab Spring. But, yeah. Then Edward Snowden...

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Was in the middle of doing his nasty, releasing, you know, alleged US government secrets. We had the war in Syria evolve into the use of chemical weapons and the challenge over the red line that President Obama drew as to whether or not we deal with the chemical weapons through the use of force. We had, you know, a extraordinary secret negotiation going on that led to the Iran deal. We had secret negotiations going on that led to the opening to Cuba. We just had all these things.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was day one?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  First six months. But day one was Egypt.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  And, and, you know, and that's not even giving you the whole picture of, you know, what we were dealing with, but the crush of those issues and the import of each of them and if, you know, the downside of failure for our security and our interests on any given one of those was quite daunting.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Heather, what kind of people handle stress better than others?

• 24:50Heather Berlin?

  Well, there's actually been some studies which find that there are some genetic differences. So we all have, it's adaptive to have a stress response. So you have, it's, you know, what's called the HPA axis, but you know, that fight or flight response gives you some.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  HPA stands for what?

• 25:05Heather Berlin?

  The hypothalamic adrenal, no, no, pituitary adrenal axis. So basically it's releasing norepinephrine and epinephrine, and then also you have cortisol. So that kind of gets you going when you have to run or fight something. And we all have that and that's adaptive. But then what comes in next is how do you handle it? How do you go back?

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta, before you continue?

• 25:27Heather Berlin?

  Uh huh.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the idea that when you're scared, you pee your pants?

• 25:30Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Is that from birds?

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, because a bird, if you scare a bird, a bird poops and then flies off.

• 25:40Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so they don't want to carry extra weight.

• 25:44Heather Berlin?

  But actually, no, it's the reverse. So when the sympathetic nervous system is aroused, we actually, it restricts, so you become less likely to basically crap your pants.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why does everyone talk about pooping your pants?

• 25:55Heather Berlin?

  That's interesting. I don't know where that actually came from, but physiologically speaking, that's not, it tightens up, it stays in. It's not the time to be doing your business when you gotta run.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, well, I...

• 26:06Heather Berlin?

  But usually it's right.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  However, I gotta tell you the truth. It might help if you were to actually crap your pants, because I don't want to do anything with you once you do that.

• 26:16Heather Berlin?

  Oh, that might be a way to get the animal to run away from you. I see, I see.

• 26:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't like your stank.

• 26:22Heather Berlin?

  But what happens is, okay, so you have this response, everything sort of restricts, and, um, but then the parasympathetic nervous system kind of kicks in, which kind of relaxes everything and calms it down. And that's how people respond or deal with stress. So genetically speaking, some people are more what we call resilient. They can respond to stress and, and kind of calm down their nervous system.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can this be trained?

• 26:43Heather Berlin?

  Um, so with certain techniques, behavioral techniques, we call it, it's a bio-psychosocial kind of phenomena, where there's some biological aspects, there's some things in your environment that can help you, um, but really...

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so I guess let me tighten that question.

• 26:56Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does more exposure to stress make you better at stress the next time, or does it make you worse?

• 27:01Heather Berlin?

  There's a theory that it's called about inoculation. So in small doses, um, so the whole thing, there's this actually a great book called The Coddling of the American Mind, about how, you know, we're protecting our kids so much. Yes, exactly, Jonathan Haidt. Um, and it's safe spaces. Yes, Greg Lukianoff.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:17Heather Berlin?

  Um, and basically, you know, we're creating these safe spaces, we're protecting our kids, we're trying to allow them to have any anxiety, um, but actually, it's good to have it in small amounts, to have a little bit of adversity, adversity.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a reminder, the safe spaces are, you're warned in advance that someone might say something that would trigger you.

• 27:32Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, so you avoid it.

• 27:34Heather Berlin?

  Exactly.

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:35Heather Berlin?

  Which is not really good psychologically speaking. What we want to do, actually, to decrease anxiety is called exposure. The more you expose people, you can train the brain and the body how to respond. And so then when something, let's say, really traumatic happens, you'll be more prepared to handle that.

• 27:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in small doses, it could help you, but in large doses, it could really.

• 27:52Heather Berlin?

  It could hinder you.

• 27:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really mess up.

• 27:54Heather Berlin?

  And we also find that, like, especially during youth and childhood, if you're exposed to high cortisol levels, it actually affects the way the hippocampus, the part of the brain involved in memory develops. But we find that, so people who are traumatized early in life have smaller hippocampi, but in later in life, you can actually try to regrow those neurons. And exercise, aerobic exercise is one thing.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hippocampi is plural of hippocampus?

• 28:15Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:16Heather Berlin?

  The hippocampi is plural, yes. But exercise is.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was a big man on the hippocampus, did I tell you? Oh, my God!

• 28:23Heather Berlin?

  I feel like I've heard that joke before.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That hurt.

• 28:27Heather Berlin?

  Oh, my God.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That hurt my prefrontal cortex.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so I had to ask Susan, how did she cope with the stress? I had to ask her. Let's find out.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  The other challenge was, how do you not just deal with all the crises in your inbox? But how do you also, as I say in the book, put points on the board? Get affirmative things done that we chose to do, that we thought would be beneficial to the United States? So, for example, like negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement. We didn't have to do that, but we chose to do it. That was an affirmative opportunity.

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you want your job to be more than just solving problems. You want to actually be proactive.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And be remembered for doing something progressive or positive.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  So those were the two big challenges. And then in terms of my background and what prepared me. I mean, first of all, I was fortunate to have had a series of jobs in the run-up to becoming National Security Advisor that had given me a real insight into the work and the, you know, the issues and how to navigate. But I also had learned as a child something that I found was really invaluable as National Security Advisor, which is to be able to compartmentalize, you know, the painful, tough, wrenching issues that you got to deal with from, you know, when you come home and try to be a mom or a daughter or a wife or whatever it is, and not let the weight of those issues literally prevent you from sleeping,

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't imagine.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  exercising, functioning.

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my God.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  You know, as a normal human being.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't just a bad day at the office. It was a bad day on planet Earth.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Exactly. And you know, you learned some stuff in that job that you really wish you didn't know.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bad day in the western hemisphere.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Right. So, I actually learned that, as I, as I explained, through enduring my parents' really ugly and violent divorce, and yet still trying to, you know, perform in school and, you know, be a good student, play on my sports teams, and try to maintain my friendships, that, you know, focus on what you have the ability to control, and don't let that which you can't completely control cripple you emotionally or psychologically.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Compartmentalizing. Is there a downside to compartmentalizing? Because I would wonder, my, my most creative thoughts come when things kind of spillage from one thing to another. So, is it possible to over-compartmentalize?

• 30:59Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I mean, first of all, it is an adaptive defense mechanism, because, you know, if things are stressful and overwhelming, but you still have to function in society or at home.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Still gotta eat, find food.

• 31:07Heather Berlin?

  Right, you can kind of suppress, well, one technique is to suppress or repress things to the unconscious, but compartmentalizing is you sort of put it in a different brain state. You only can access it when you're in one state and not the other, which temporarily works. But, we see psychiatric illnesses where, in a sense, they're over-compartmentalizing, that they actually split into these different, it used to be called multiple personality disorder, now it's called, um, identity, what is it called, identity disorder, um, but they, basically, the idea is that you now start forming a whole nother identity that's associated with those traumatic thoughts.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the limiting case of this.

• 31:40Heather Berlin?

  Right, and then you can't access them, you can only access them when you're in one state and not the other, so they become sort of almost so separate that the information flow isn't there anymore, um, and you kind of dissociate, is what we call it.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 31:51Heather Berlin?

  Dissociative identity disorder, that was.

• 31:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 31:53Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what is, what are ways people learn to cope with difficult situations when they have to function in the rest of their lives? Is, is compartmentalizing the only way? Or is there some, oh, so?

• 32:07Heather Berlin?

  So, there are a number of defense mechanisms, and we all kind of tend toward one or the other. Like, for example, people who are highly intelligent, you, you use intellectualization as a defense mechanism, right?

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder who that sounds like.

• 32:18Heather Berlin?

  So, you can kind of, I can't imagine who that might be, but you can kind of over-intellectualize things away.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea who that would be.

• 32:24Heather Berlin?

  But, but that's a more mature defense mechanism, so there's more mature ones and there's more primitive ones.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now tell me about the primitive ones.

• 32:36Heather Berlin?

  Right. The primitive ones are less sophisticated, so they'll be just like where you automatically repress something or relegate it to the unconscious, where it can then come up in other ways, right?

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can percolate.

• 32:47Heather Berlin?

  It can percolate. Psychosomatic.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uninvited.

• 32:50Heather Berlin?

  Uninvited, exactly. So then, you know, these classic cases with like Freud described of these psychosomatic symptoms, all of a sudden you have some weird twitch in your arm or, you know, it comes out in other ways. So I think they're more adaptive types of defense mechanisms, and they're ones that can be more problematic. But they all, taken to the extreme, can become problematic and create psychiatric illness.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 33:11Heather Berlin?

  The idea, I mean, the real goal is to integrate the uncomfortable memories and anxiety-provoking thoughts into your consciousness in a sort of neutral way, where it doesn't disturb your daily function.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we just raised a point.

• 33:21Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have a really uncomfortable memory,

• 33:23Heather Berlin?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  why not suppress it?

• 33:25Heather Berlin?

  Because it will come out as in other ways.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But suppose I suppress it so effectively,

• 33:30Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it'll never come out.

• 33:32Heather Berlin?

  Maybe for years and years and years, and then 10 years later, all of a sudden, you have like some major panic attack because you were triggered by something that was like deep in your unconscious. So the best idea is to reintegrate that memory in a neutral way. That's what therapy does.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it doesn't lurk?

• 33:44Heather Berlin?

  So it doesn't lurk in the background, doing weird things and affecting your behavior outside of your awareness.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you want leaders to be able to...

• 33:52Heather Berlin?

  To be able to...

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To not have something lurk.

• 33:55Heather Berlin?

  That's right.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the long moment.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  Sounds like a good thing.

• 33:58Heather Berlin?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:59Chuck Nice?

  Not to have lurking leaders.

• 34:00Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  God, why does that sound so good?

• 34:03Heather Berlin?

  Like basically a lack of insight.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  When are we gonna not get lurking leaders?

• 34:07Heather Berlin?

  Lack of insight into your own unconscious processes is really not great. So, you know, just being sort of ignorant and blind to them is not a good policy.

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, well, we gotta take a break, but when we come back, we'll get into the anatomy of national security when StarTalk returns.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. In this segment, we're gonna talk about the future of national security, featuring my interview with Susan Rice, former national security advisor to Barack Obama. And since we're talking about security, we're bringing somebody where that's what he does for a living, Stephen Garcia. Welcome. Thank you. Your first time on StarTalk. It is. And you're kinda local to us. Yeah, yeah. So we'll pull you back. Yeah, yeah. We'll totally pull you back. But I'm definitely a fan of the podcast. Excellent. So you're expert on data and cybersecurity, chief information security officer at Consensys. Very cool company name. What is it? Blockchain. Blockchain, excuse me. Yes. Yeah, blockchain software tech company, very nice.

• 35:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Advisory board member for Rutgers University's Big Data Program. So Big Daddy Big Data. That's what he put on his business card.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's go hit the Susan interview, and then we'll come right back to you. Do you have a sense of the direction of the future of security, national security? Is it how many soldiers you have lined up on a battlefield? Or is it how many programmers you have to protect your cyberspace? Or is it how many scientists and engineers you have to innovate? I mean, so the profile of war is evolving.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you see the future, if you had a crystal ball, given your life experience?

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Well, I hate to traffic in crystal balls. But I would say several things. One, the domains in which conflict can occur are evolving. So we think of fighting as being on the ground, or in the air, or on the sea. But it's also increasingly, as we discussed a little bit earlier, in space, undersea, in the cyber domain, and elsewhere that are very hard for the average American to envision. And those domains are already active.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Battle spaces, at least in theory. Those are the physical domains. Then there's the means of combat, potentially. And that's where things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, you know, biotech and CRISPR come in. Because all of these are ways in which the nature of the tools that we have to engage in combat, potentially, can change radically. And then the question becomes such moral issues as ones of agency. Like, do we ever want to have fully autonomous weapons? What happens when an artificial intelligence outsmarts the people who built these weapons?

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Stephen, what kind of security risk do we face today as a country? Cybersecurity risk? And what should we do about it?

• 38:08Speaker 04

  I mean, to start, based on what Susan said, I think we don't want autonomous weapons.

• 38:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  Every major sci-fi movie we've seen has talked about it, right? 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tron, all the Matrix movies, Terminator 1, Terminator 2, Judgment Day. This is known.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  We just kind of can't let that happen.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just want ordinary people giving the command to kill, rather than machines giving the command to kill.

• 38:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's appropriate.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that a lot.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, Chuck wants to drop bombs, I think I got a chance to reason with him versus a machine.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless the machine has a higher level of reasoning than you do.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, in which case we're all done.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why are we laughing?

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the point where the machines say, humans are no longer useful to the survival of this world.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 38:59Heather Berlin?

  I mean, we do tend to make irrational decisions, which can be good and bad, right? But I mean, we have empathy, so that's... But sometimes, we might choose... In terms of numbers, to kill more people because of an emotional decision versus a rational one.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:15Heather Berlin?

  So, I think working with the together with-

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why wouldn't AI also have those same emotional profiles? In principle, if they're like us, except better versions of-

• 39:23Heather Berlin?

  Because they don't actually feel emotion. We can program in an algorithm, but the actual feeling of, say, you know, sadness, or pain, or empathy, I don't think that they will ever have that.

• 39:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do we know that wasn't just programmed into you?

• 39:35Heather Berlin?

  Because I have subjective experience. I think therefore I am. I feel like-

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what should we be doing?

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Well, to her point too, right, we have new theaters of war, right? See, right, your boy Bill Knight, he's on a show called Blind Spot, where they did a whole episode on some hackers taking over a satellite that was weaponized, right? And, you know, back in the Reagan time, when we talked about Star Wars, it felt like sci-fi, and it was out of the realm of possibility, where now, maybe not so much. Most of the world's data travels through-

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, Star Wars, under Reagan, because most people alive today were not yet born when Reagan was president.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Fair enough.

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not referring to the movie series?

• 40:11Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're referring to-

• 40:11Speaker 04

  No, no, please, that's proper sci-fi.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The government program.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  That's proper sci-fi.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The flow of monies to create a fail-safe, foolproof defense system to then render the Soviets weaponry obsolete.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Absolutely. But it doesn't need to just remain defensive, it can be offensive, right? And so, with this new age space race, with satellites going up into space, that's another theater. The undersea water cables getting tapped for information, that could be another big source of national security.

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're gonna be moving away from marching armies to defense of cyberspace?

• 40:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it makes more sense-

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As the future of war?

• 40:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, it makes more sense because the risk to reward ratio is better, right? There's a value on human life versus data, right? So, you can still take over a country with a few keystrokes versus a standing army, makes a little bit more sense on multiple-

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He sounds like he's thought about. Don't he sound like- Okay, what's in your basement, dude?

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's how you would do that. You would just take over.

• 41:12Chuck Nice?

  It also gives lesser powers the opportunity to enter the theater of war. As opposed to our, you know, more commonly known enemies.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It democratizes who can start a war, is that what you're just saying?

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  Right, that's what I'm saying, yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  The playing field does change a little, right? Because you don't need that capital for tanks, planes, whatever.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, as creepy and as weird as it is that we could be cyber attacked, that's just another way to be attacked. So, I'd be, otherwise we'd be spending money on tanks, spend the money on cyber protection. And you don't see any problem with that? Not when he owns a cyber company. You kidding me?

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stupid question.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  The Department of Homeland Security, they do have the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency. And they are responsible for, you know, protecting our federal networks. And there's a few pillars of things that they do protect on a national level. But I think it's important too, to not just think about this in terms of nation-states. We also have to think about this in terms of private companies. Because the internet doesn't discriminate whether I come into you as a private individual to make my way to government, right? So it has to be a partnership, right? Because all governments use third parties anyway, right? So if you're a XYZ random company that has government contracts, you're a potential factor.

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I asked Susan what countries needed to do going forward to change their approach to national security issues. Let's check it out.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So should the future of those meetings that you described with these heads of agency, should they have an ethicist sitting right at the same table? Because you're about to make a decision that affects the health and well-being.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  Right now, we have lawyers. Maybe we should have lawyers and ethicists.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I say lawyers?

• 42:58Speaker 03

  We have national security lawyers. But each of us actually have to be ethicists. Not just have a specialized somebody to police us because we don't think about the consequences of our actions.

• 43:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody should be thinking about it.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not taught in school?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  No, and the other problem is...

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe your mama gave it to you, but people otherwise don't.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Exactly. And the ethics that we may apply to these questions of war and peace are not going to be the same ethics that other countries apply. And how do you therefore have global norms and rules about how to deal with these new technologies?

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They tried that with the Geneva Convention.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  And to a large extent, that worked. But you can... Observe and then police and enforce, you know, those kinds of crimes. It's a lot harder to see how you police and enforce, you know, what you've taught a machine to do. Particularly once it's out of your control. Or a cyber attacker.

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or disinformation.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Or disinformation. Absolutely.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  So it's getting wild out there.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Information's getting weaponized.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. And this is exactly what we've seen with respect to how Russia's trying to corrupt our democracy and pit Americans against each other. Not just through...

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's working.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  They're effective at it. And it will work unless we get hip to it and work together to prevent it. Information is definitely being weaponized by domestic actors and foreign actors. And we need to find new ways to, you know, determine the quality of information and not allow the weapons to be turned against our unity and democracy.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is part of the cost of an open, free society. We have susceptibilities that closed societies don't have.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 44:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's an eternal battle.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Let's hope it's an eternal battle. Because otherwise, we lose.

• 44:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I look at our susceptibilities, there's banking, there's interpersonal, because how people are treating each other, there's elections.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this has a cyber component to it. Because we now interact through our Facebook pages and we see ads or videos. So how do you, how do you balance the free movement of people through society with the security risk that we face walking into it flat-footed? Yeah, well, delicately. Thanks for that answer!

• 45:30Speaker 04

  No, like every tool, it's double edged, right? So, we're an open and free society and we want that, but there are risks to that, right? And so, in particular, attention with our elections. I point to Michael Isikoff has a book called Russian Roulette. I forgot who the author was. But it's a really good breakdown of what happened with us in terms of what Russia did. And what you effectively have here is that, in particular with Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where you had this company that essentially started plotting all these data points for everyone. They, I don't want to call it the equivalent, but they effectively did a genome mapping of all of our preferences and data points.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  And that weaponized the data that you're talking about. This is what happened. So, now they know, hey, Neil is very disposed to wanting to talk about this and talking about that. And, you know, we call them troll farms, where there are these kind of fake accounts that are designed to seem like real people and start inflaming people and getting them into conversations. And then all of a sudden, you have a polarized nation. So you effectively, because, you know, the United States is a titan, right? And so, kind of like the Avengers in that point, right? Like, you don't beat us from the outside, right? You take, who was that movie, Civil War? Where the guy was like, no, no, we're gonna...

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  Bucky! Bucky, I love you! Please, stop trying to hurt us! Okay, I'm sorry, I'm...

• 46:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so Heather, this sounds like something you guys never thought could or would happen. You knew that we would have hot buttons as human beings, but to have that weaponized, put against us, to pit us against each other?

• 47:10Heather Berlin?

  Well, no, I mean, it's psychological warfare. And it's just basically, the brain is an information processing machine. So you can manipulate people by manipulating the information that they are accessing.

• 47:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you knew you could do that one on one, but you know you can do that for an entire society?

• 47:23Heather Berlin?

  Well, now we have the tools to do it, yeah.

• 47:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, we've always had the tools to do it, so let's be clear.

• 47:28Heather Berlin?

  Well, now they're better, though.

• 47:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they're much better and they're more effective. But the truth of the matter is, what happened with, what you said, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and the weaponization of information is something that the... That the military calls psyops. That's exactly what it is. So why, I don't understand why people don't say what things are. That is called psyops. It is forbidden because it is that effective. So, you know.

• 47:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what kind of policy changes do we need to put into play to protect us going forward without completely constraining our freedoms?

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, a little, a lot would work in helping with data protections. European Union is a little stronger, a lot stronger than we are on that. So it would help if our data was treated like the commodity that it is.

• 48:15Chuck Nice?

  What does that entail? I don't know what you mean when you say.

• 48:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Access, access to your personal information.

• 48:20Heather Berlin?

  But not only that, I mean, also like just restrictions on disinformation. I mean, you know, I was talking to an executive Facebook who actually left Facebook because they're not putting restrictions on disinformation in political ads. That's really dangerous. So I think there are places where we can in the sort of private sector, you know, or at least that there be policies in place so that, you know, nonsense isn't getting out there, at least in the political realm, which influences how we vote.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  And the media, they have to be the watchdogs they're supposed to be, not lapdogs, not saying.

• 48:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watchdogs, not lapdogs.

• 48:49Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, I like that.

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the quote of the day.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  No. Because you can't just say, oh, the administration said this and that's it. Like, your job is to question that, right? And so the public trusts the media to give that information. We've seen very recently that has not always been the case.

• 49:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Heather, should we be manipulated without even knowing it?

• 49:10Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 49:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the insidious part of it.

• 49:11Heather Berlin?

  That's the thing. Most of us think we're making decisions of our own free will, but we're really doing things because we're being unconsciously manipulated all the time.

• 49:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's because we're all in a simulation and someone else is programming our behavior.

• 49:20Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 49:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, we gotta end.

• 49:22Heather Berlin?

  On that note.

• 49:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta, we gotta end there. See, we gotta, we gotta do another show around you, okay? We gotta do.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  I appreciate that.

• 49:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we gotta end it there. Heather, thanks for coming.

• 49:34Heather Berlin?

  Thanks for having me.

• 49:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 49:36Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 49:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My man.

• 49:37Chuck Nice?

  Always good.

• 49:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been StarTalk, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, keep looking up.