Hello and welcome to sci-fi therapy the podcast where we put our favorite sci-fi shows on the couch, in this first season we're going to take a deep dive into battlestar galactica the version from 2006. If you'd like to follow us along in today's episode we'll be looking at the pilots this is however, our very first episode, and we're excited you're here with us as we kick off this brand new adventure. I'm Mark, a theologian from Germany. And I'm Nalima, a psychotherapist based in London. And the way our episodes work is that Nalima and I will have watched the episodes separately, and then we pick a few things that have struck us as important or that we'd like to talk about. Basically, you'll get an insight in what Nelima and I talk about anyway when we call each other. Before we dive in, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can follow us on this journey. And if you like what you hear, leave us a review to let us know what you think. Yes, please do. And now, dear listeners, since we don't know if you've actually watched Battlestar Galactica in 2006, or if you did, if you remember, we'd like to give you a short summary to prevent you from getting lost when we talk about Cylons, Battlestars, and colonies. And, you know, just let's dive in to see what Battlestar Galactica is all about. So to give you a brief overview of what the world of battlestar galactica really is like you have to imagine that um there is a people a species that are basically humans they look like us uh they walk on two feet they have two hands they look like us they're humans and humans live in a future world, a future world where space travel exists. And they live on 12 colonies or in 12 colonies, which are basically 12 planets, planets named after zodiac signs. So, for example, Gemini, Leo, Sagittarius, and so on. They do live in a sort of democracy, which is very much like a US democracy. So they have a quorum of the 12, so every planet sends representatives into it and they make decisions for all the colonies. They have developed artificial intelligence and this is one of the main and basic points of this whole series and one of the main topics the whole series is all about. Because, of course, they invented artificial intelligence. It's a general AI. So they planted this intelligence into what look like robots but are more like androids, and they used them as workforce. And in consequence, what else? They rebelled. So there has been a war between the humans and the Cylons, which, when the series starts, is 40 years in the past. The war ended in an armistice. And you, Nalima, will talk us through what happened after that. But that's basically it. The war ended. No side really won. But it's the reason that humans are very, very cautious when it comes to artificial intelligence technology. The last thing to mention is that they did invent faster than light technology so on some starships they are capable to do what they call ftl jumps so it's not like in star trek where you just just push a lever and then you go like warp two three five or warp nine or whatever it's like a real jump from one point to the other and then you're basically there, that's it a world in the future humans living in colonies on planets um having fought ai and basically that's the starting point from here. So i'm going to kick off with the episode summary. Um as. Mark mentioned as you mentioned mark um the Cylons declared war on the humans after a 40-year armistice um and before that um the, So during the 40 years, I guess, during the 40 years, every year they would hold a meeting on this, what do you call it? It's not a ship. It's that building out in space, a space station. A space station. Yeah so every year on the space station uh there was a meeting that was set up between the humans and the Cylons and the Cylons just never showed up until 40 years later these two heavy duty metal robots or androids um as you said Mark they accompanied this stunning lady in red with these amazing boots and gorgeous blonde hair and she turns up and. Uh walks slowly over towards this military dude who sat there waiting assuming that again no one would turn up and she asks him are you alive before she plants a big kiss with tongues on this poor army dude um and then the space station blows up along with the silence that were on it the military person and this signals the end of this 40-year armistice um i think we then see nuclear bombs going off across a planet um and we come to learn that the Cylons are taking over and then all of humanity seems to get contained on these two ships um so for me there are sort of two stories kind of happening here one is the military stuff happening on Battlestar Galactica itself so Battlestar Galactica is a hybrid battleship and aircraft carrier and it's being decommissioned in this first um pilot episode um because its technology isn't as advanced as the current technology and so it's like you know why do you need this to still be in play um we see at the beginning of the episode there's a tour that's happening so you can really see that this is a historical ship something that's been around for a long time and it's being celebrated um along with the ship There's also Commander Adama who is retiring. He has an executive officer, Soltai, and they seem to have a good relationship. We also meet Commander Adama's son, Captain Apollo, who is returning to the ship, who's coming to the ship for the decommissioning ceremony. Uh we learn that we see we really get to see and feel commander adama and captain apollo do not have a good relationship they are not your you know loving father and son and we find out the reason for that is because um commander adama's other son who was also a pilot died in action and the son captain apollo holds him responsible um we also meet another um. What do you call it member of the crew starbuck who is feisty she's also a pilot uh she smokes and drinks and she's very cool i really like her a lot um and because of this decommissioning ceremony that's taking place we also meet the secretary of education uh who's attending the ceremony i guess on behalf of the government uh she seems to have been diagnosed with cancer and she seems not only unwell but she's also just found out about the diagnosis herself and i did wonder while watching the episode if like the death of her is almost like a death of the human race um then on the other side you've got on the planet you've got the people so you've got dr gaius baltar who is described as controversial by a journalist who interviews him in this first episode because he's spoken out against the ban on ai um he's also having a relationship with the lady in red who was the lady that kissed the military guy at the beginning of the episode um the lady we find out later she tells gaius that she's actually a cylon and that gaius has been part of the cylon plan for humanity's children to return home. Because he gave her access to the defense mainframe and he's now terrified of being found out for the part he's played in humanity's demise so that's the stuff that's happening on the planet and uh we see in space the cylons are immobilizing the advanced ships so the ships that have come after Battlestar Galactica the Cylons are able to immobilize them out in space and the ships are just completely then harmless um and through one of these battles we also meet Sharon Valeri uh correct me if I'm wrong mark on the pronunciation we meet Sharon Valeri or Boomer and we meet Carl C Agathon or Hilo and they crash land on the planet and they see a mob of people coming their way including Gaius Baltar. And the people are desperate to escape. So they democratically, they offer to do a lottery so that they can take some of the people, mostly children, on the ship. But it was also a really important scene for me because this showed me how well respected Gaius is by the common person or the military people. Because Hilo gives up his seat on the ship for Gaius because he says something like, he's the only mind that can save humanity or something like that. So we then we also find out that the president is dead the government is dead and so the secretary of education gets appointed to be the president and the pilot ends dramatically with us wondering whether the newly appointed president and whether general adama's son has been nuked by the cilons. Thank you i would never dare to correct you especially not if you're right, dear listeners um you've probably already noticed that there's a lot to unpack uh in the pilot and uh this is the reason why lima and i will concentrate on just a few points that we found most important because if we try to talk about everything that is going on this episode would probably never end really so um we'll try to to focus on what we feel is like um the most important or are the most important things in this episode so nilima what do you say care to put this episode on the couch yes very good, All right, then. So, the first thing that we have on our note pad is monotheism versus polytheism. And I think I brought that up, didn't I? Yeah. Okay. So, I mean... The theologian. Yeah, that should be a surprise to nobody. um i'm just to make maybe to go a bit deeper um into this and to describe a bit more uh to you what this is all about um we we get an idea that this is not only um silence and ai versus humans it's also about um one religious system uh versus another religious system so the humans are polytheists and they do believe in in i i think it's the greek uh pantheon isn't it like zeus and and hermes and and yeah isn't it yeah and uh the cylons who are if you will their children so they are younger they came after the humans they are monotheists yeah. And this is, I mean, of course, when you study the history of religion, this is like, okay, I've seen that before. Because it's basically what happens on this, our real world. Like when the Israelites made their exodus from the Egypt slavery, which is, by the way, very probably a real occurrence. This actually happened I mean please don't misunderstand me. Things in the Bible and we're not going to talk about this in detail but things in the Bible did not necessarily happen as they are described in the Bible and they've and the Bible is not meant to be a historic document the Bible is meant to describe what happened and to give people learnings about how to live with god and you know the human nature if you will so um but we can with with some confidence state that some sort of exodus actually happened so at one point in history um an israelite minority lived probably a majority um anyway lived in egypt um as sort of a workforce for the Egyptians in Egypt. And then because of working conditions, they decided to leave the country and found their own country. So, and this is, of course, what you can see here, like, there has been a battle. And the monotheistic Cylons sort of went away, ghosted the humans, and then suddenly came back and the one thing that I had to think about was a theory that I learned about when I was still at university, I don't know the English title. The German is die mosaische Unterscheidung, and it roughly translates to mosaic difference. And it basically describes or states this. If you have a polytheistic religious system, then it is bound to be rather tolerant, because you never know if your God is as real as my God is. So you tend to accept your God, okay? And uh when you are a monotheist then you have to assume that your god and your religion is the only religion that you have and it's the only truth that you have and so everybody has everybody else has to be wrong and fake and needs to be destroyed, so this is basically the reason you have like religious uh violence you know because your god can't exist as the only god next to my only god yeah. I mean how can you say it's an only god if there are other if people are saying there are other gods. Right exactly so um uh this this is what this idea of being right and having the only truth and the only god only comes up when you have a monotheistic religious system. And I don't think we've mentioned it in the summary, but there's a thing that Nelima and I have been talking about time and time again. There is this one scene where you can see that the woman in red, which is very prominent and pops up everywhere in the series, kills a child in its crib. And we don't know why. But it could be just a symbol for, yes, we have to eliminate everything. Like, if you go so far as to think that a child represents hope for the future. Then this is like an act of killing everything, everything about the old religion and everything about the old world, you know, killing every human because they can't exist because, you know, there's only one God and only one religion and the old one has to die. So Yeah i i actually don't know what this means for us or what this means it's just that that this could be uh one explanation for the motivation of the ai which has become a religious by the way i mean this is this is very a bit mind-blowing um that because when you when we talk about ai and and the dangers of artificial intelligence then we usually uh don't think about what happens if they discover god because nobody really really expects this do they. Yeah it's not a thing that's come up in my sort of in the in like when people have talked about their sort of hesitation about ai or if they have reservations it's not oh you know i fear them finding god because also i think there is a at least for me there's the stereotype of you know someone that finds god isn't going to be violent they will be kind they will be generous they'll be compassionate um but then the way that you're describing and i guess you know that like what's going on in the middle east at the moment for example as well yes it's like actually you do have a lot of religious factions who are violent, but it seems quite easy to forget that um and it's why like i found it i find it quite interesting this idea of the Cylons discover one true God and then they feel like they need to ensure that theirs is the only true God that is out there by wiping out anybody that believes otherwise. And since you mentioned it, this is a thing that seems to be engraved into human beings for some reason. Namely, feeling insulted by somebody else because he said something about your God. And I've never really understood this. I mean, I guess it's not really hard to understand. But I've never felt like, okay, why would you feel insulted just because somebody else has a different religious view? Right? And, you know, because if they are really trying to insult your religion, they only insult your God, which means that it's either your God's problem or your God doesn't care because he's God. Like, why would you care about this? One of my former colleagues, when I was a teacher, said, my God is bigger than this. And she went, why would he feel insulted by somebody rambling on about that he doesn't believe in God? Yeah, so what? He's God. Why would he care? You know, almighty and such. But people feel insulted, I guess, instead of their God or for their God. I mean, I still remember, and I tell a lot of people the story about your wedding, Mark. I mean, besides the fact that it was beautiful, you and your wife getting married, all the love. Yeah, that was beautiful. But my favorite bit of the wedding was sitting next to your priest, i think um and i was super atheist at the time and very righteous you know arrogant atheist i was at the time oh were you yeah yeah and i still invited you to. My wedding okay. I know shocking but this man i sort of said to him because he asked you know what religion are you catholic and i was like no I'm an atheist I'm a proud atheist and and he said and we got into a conversation about God and he was so humble and he and you have done this as well Mark of he said yes I have doubts sometimes I have doubts and I was so shocked by that that it kind of crushed my arrogance like destroyed my arrogance because I was like if this man can be humble then I can also be humble There was something about his humility that made me also want to take this on as well and also be a humble person. One of my friends, actually I make or produce another podcast with him called Troja Alert. For those of you who speak German, please chime in. I love the format, not because I'm in it, because I'm really not that often, but sometimes on some episodes I'm in it. And he said, and I hope I'm quoting this correctly. You need... No reason to be humble, I think, but it takes religion to be cruel. I may be gobbling up the quote, but I think I'm getting the sense of it across, you know. Because if you have a conviction that is as deep as religious feelings go, it's it's you know you can be very fundamental about your opinion and what you think is right, but you need something like a very deep unquestioned and this is important unquestioned conviction in order to be really cruel to somebody else you know and what i've often thought is that if you don't reflect on your beliefs then um and and you you can't deal with what you just described doubts you know and and you don't don't uh face them and you don't uh realize that you have doubts, then you are forced into fundamentalism yeah you know if you can't reason anymore or if you can't reason at all because you never you never have then you are forced to be fundamentalist and then, you go on and and basically you have to be brutal because that's the only way to make somebody else shut up yeah yeah. Yeah, because it's something that I speak to my supervisors a lot about is we talk a lot about the doubts that we have in the way we're working because sometimes, you know, you're sitting with someone else's pain and it is difficult to sit in that pain because all you want to do is shake them and be like, be better. It will all be fine everything will be okay but it's not because it's because it's the reason for that it's because their pain is so disturbing to me it's painful to me to see them in pain it's not because they are broken or there's something wrong with them and it's that sort of what you're saying of um uh being able to kind of question that question my theory to question my methods like if I was so arrogant to be like no I am right what I'm doing is right then I would shout at them and I would be like you need to get better this is how you get better here are the steps you need to follow and you have to follow them but because I am curious and I do have doubts I will sort of check in and I will be able to then be have that gentleness to have that compassion to, yeah be a bit more to not be so destructive because that's kind of the aim of it is to not be destructive as a therapist and hopefully as a human um. Very much so and since you mentioned it um i would um i'm i'm i'm very curious to see um how religious feelings throughout the show change or don't change, I have seen or have watched the whole show years and years and years back so I don't remember everything because basically you and I are watching every episode simultaneously. In parallel. So we are remembering or seeing things for the first time in this show but, So I don't really remember what religion does or how religious people change or act in this series. I don't remember all of them. And so I think it will be very interesting in seeing what's going to happen. Because I don't know if you know this thought or quote. That catastrophes make you prey. And I don't even think that this is correct English. But the thing is that you start praying when you are faced with some sort of catastrophe, you know. And so, we'll see how that develops. A lot of people describe religion and prayer as something that they feel is very helpful. You know, it gives them strength. It gives them sort of a thing to hold on to and like a marking for orientation. So, we'll see about that. I'd like to add one last thing that is just something that I noticed. And that is that the humans, after being defeated by this very first and very strong attack on the human colonies, um they they are sort of uh gathering in a small fleet actually it's it's a few fleets but then they just uh meet into one one fleet um um because not every ship can do uh faster than light jumps so all the ships that have the ftl capability uh they form a fleet and they try to flee uh the the, war and try to escape and try to you know basically they become refugees and this is an exodus so um it would be i think rather interesting to see um what people do and how they act because i'm guessing that um what we see for example in the bible where a whole book is uh titled exodus, that what we see there and what they wrote down about the human condition in very special circumstances for example in an exodus we will see again in this in this show about people doing an exodus in space basically. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I think it will. Since this is a very large topic, we could go into very much detail here, but I think we can leave it at that for the moment. And I'm very sure we'll come back to the whole religion thing, you know, a lot of times in the future. All right. So, should we move on to the next bullet point on our list? Sounds good. Okay. That would be AI versus humans. So, any thoughts on that? I do, actually. I have one that's just popped into my head, because I was thinking about Gaius and the lady in red. Oh, right. And so he's technically a human, and she is technically AI. And he does say to her at one point, which I found interesting, because she talks about God, and she's saying that her God has chosen him or something like that, or her God has put her on this mission. And she was saying, does it bother you that I believe in God? And he said something like, I'm just surprised that an attractive intelligent woman like you would believe in god yes. In case you didn't know um beautiful people are atheists for some reason. Absolutely absolutely, um so that for me was like an interesting point and also with them i find it interesting because I do interestingly I find her much more human in a sense than Gaius um although perhaps it's not a very accurate description more of like a she seems very much able to embrace all of her emotions her complexity whereas Gaius seems very afraid of himself and afraid of who he is. It's funny, isn't it? I mean, she's a Cylon, she's basically a robot, and she tries to be human, and he's human, and he tries to ignore his own emotions, doesn't he? Yeah, exactly. It's basically the Data from Star Trek dilemma all over again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but she's actually become human, which is what Data was always striving to be. Right. And she seems to be almost in a way I guess perfect because the way my theory of therapy works is that the in a sense the goal um is to become open to your experience and to be open to feeling whatever it is that you're feeling um not necessarily to act on it because I was also then just thinking about the killing of the baby you know if you feel like killing a baby you wouldn't necessarily kill a baby because that's you know fucked up on so many levels um but you would allow yourself to feel that emotion without judging that you have this feeling to kill a baby, does that make sense absolutely. Well first of all don't kill babies please don't um but it also ties into the question that she asks in the very beginning are. You human, how. Would you answer that. Yeah i think she says are you alive oh. Right right correct yeah yeah yeah yeah but. And that's why the kissing made sense in a way oh in the like how like the how do you test it out that somebody is alive you know just because you're having a conversation with someone like what is what is almost like the essence of humanity so for data for example it was being able to feel your emotions and I wonder if with her it was more, intimacy sex um because she has a lot of sex with gaius a lot. Of what. Looks like very passionate sex with gaius um and i wonder if that's what the aliveness is about is we are alive when we are passionate when we believe in god when we believe in something that is bigger than us beyond us which i guess is like god or love or sex. That that does that make sense absolutely um you are more human and more alive the more you actually live all the aspects of being human, like for example I am dealing with people that are forgetting parts of what it means to be human like parts of their own character or capability you know I think a lot of people don't know how to deal with spirituality anymore, I feel like that, And you see this in every part of our societies, I think, in all human society at this moment. People kind of seem lost. And purposeless, in a way, if that makes sense. Like, they seem to lose the ability to understand their environment. You know, things have gotten very, very, very complicated. I mean, basically, the robot... No, what was it the other day? Oh, yes, I can connect the toothbrush of my wife to my home assistant smart home system. Why? It's just an illustration of how everything that just used to be a switch and that you can understand because it's either on or off, you know, now can have a firmware update. And do you really understand how things like artificial intelligence works? I mean, we all know perplexity or chat GPT, but we don't know really what's happening. And even the people that program it don't really understand it, you know. And the world is becoming more and more complicated. It's really, I mean, on some level you can understand why something that happens in the USA actually affects Europe. Why? I mean, really, why? in order to understand it you really need some sort of university degree so everything around us has become more and more complex and, on the other hand people have become very very detached from all the aspects that they have ask people if they know what joy is, they might answer with something that you would frown upon as a psychotherapist because it's not really reflective joy is just, you know, throwing in some pills and forgetting about the problems of the day. Yeah. Right? And that's not joy, that's running away. Yeah. And in addition to that, are you really aware of the fact that you have a spiritual antenna? You know, that there's a... And by spiritual, I mean something that is bigger than you. I'm not talking about what the form of your spirituality is It may be what it may be But something that transcends you Something that is larger than you And that gives you a sense of purpose for your existence, Or are you simply living your life day after day Not caring about what you will have done at the end of it Because life is short And you, I think, should at least try to give it some sort of sense. And do people actually do that? Or are they caged in, forced into everything that is happening around them and that they can't really control anymore? Right? So, what the woman in red is basically doing, as you just described, is trying to be as human as possible by living all the aspects. Yeah, like even if it's destructive, eventually she is living for something that is bigger than herself. She has found purpose and meaning to her life. This is actually a very important point because being human also means to decide not to do something you know i may have the urge to i don't know grope somebody else's butt, but only because i feel like i i like to do this now doesn't mean this is human or that i am allowed to do that yeah you know and just because i feel just because and we've talked about it um um under religion uh just because i feel insulted in some way doesn't give me the right to shoot somebody else yeah right and uh in a way i i think we could argue that the cylons are a bit like infants because they they are starting to experience everything that it means to be human but they don't have do they have self-restraint you think do they know what's right or wrong. That's a really good question actually yeah because from that first half of the episode i don't feel like they that it's almost like the mission is her sole purpose it's. Irrelevant who. Gets hurt whether babies get killed or people get killed or it's just the mission it's kind of like what you were saying with the monotheism of, you know, I have one God and that is my sole mission is to prove that this one God exists at any cost. And it's like, whereas like, I guess what you're also suggesting is if you are, if you have the capacity to be humble, the capacity to be reflective, to know yourself, then you can also get to a place of, well, maybe I don't need to kill this baby in order to prove my point about my one God being the most powerful. Exactly. Maybe there is another way I can demonstrate the power of my God. And to you know in order to be reflective um you you need to know what something feels like you know like taking your example um you need to know what sex feels like in order to decide when to have it and with whom to have it and with whom to share the feeling you know yeah and so you grow because you learn uh about the right timing and you learn about the right circumstances and you learn about um the fact that intimacy can be very grateful and be very fulfilling but it's also um opening a door into a very vulnerable state because the people that you love are the ones that can hurt you most so you need to you need to learn that about it and this is um i think what what growing up really means and becoming becoming uh more and more mature doesn't it. Yeah which is interesting that you say that because then for me it feels like the lady the cylon she is more mature than gaius because she uh not necessarily because you know monogamy means that you're more mature or anything but he doesn't seem to understand the impact of having sex with someone, like having an open relationship without her consent. Yes. So basically he's cheating. Of course he is. Yes. Yes. And that for me is that sort of that immaturity that you're talking about of not understanding the consequences of your actions. She is in love with him and he knows that she's in love with him. But he doesn't seem to be able to appreciate that or understand that or be able to communicate that he's not in love with her. And he's also not able to understand what's going on within her, like how he hurts her. He does understand the concept of he's being in trouble. Yes. And he knows that she's angry and that she's mad at him, but he's trying to wiggle out of it. But this is only for self-preservation, isn't it? I mean, he just wants to calm her down. Because he wants to live a calm life and he doesn't want the confrontation, but it's not like that he actually feels sorry because he's understand or he has understood that, that he has hurt her. So, yeah, and this is, you know, you need to discover all that it means to be human. And then you need to decide when or what of what it means to be human you use under what circumstances so basically being human is really a lot of work doesn't it isn't it. Yeah but that's i guess that's why though what you were saying at the beginning about like you know you need a degree to be able to work with ai um because these people have like it's almost like they've programmed it they've just started it yes and uh like things like chat gpt is the only thing i'm really familiar with um but that seems to be like learning from the people that are inputting into it right rather than you know someone has a um what do you call it like a roadmap of you know this is what it is to be human yes and has input that yes but instead it's almost like this ai has started from a like a from nothing and is learning things bits and pieces i guess maybe in a way the way that we will with the show we're going to learn bits and pieces of different aspects of human character as we progress through the show exactly and yeah and all. And and this is maybe a rather grim uh outlook But I feel like, and I fear, that as human beings, we are learning this throughout our lives. And this is what we do until we die. So, I don't know if there's like an end state where you can say, okay, I'm a human now. I'm a grown-up. I've learned everything there is to know. I don't think that exists. Because you always learn, because you've started in a certain way. You know, you've been born into a certain country, into a certain culture, into a certain family. And you've made some basic experiences in your childhood and then you go from there and those will always accompany you, won't they? Yeah. Yeah. Which kind of makes me think of what you're saying as well about the old versus new thing. Right. And a conversation I had recently with someone about can people change when they're old? Because we have this idea that when someone is old, it means that they're rigid and they can't change. But then actually you've got plenty of, I'm thinking of like the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, who's like in his late 90s, I think now. Okay. And he's still going. And like when I've heard him speak, he seems, again, like another one of these people who's very humble, which for me sort of signifies he's open to change, open to new ideas. And even like if we go to the episode, I thought General Adama was very open to the young people on his crew. He didn't seem like you know oh you're out of line because you're speaking to me in this way or something whereas his xo seemed much more rigid much more like an old person of like you know how dare you speak to me this way you know you're throwing my your youth in my face is how it sort of felt whereas i think some old people who perhaps have um, That's how I want to be when I'm older, is to continue being as open as I can be and to be excited by the new things rather than being intimidated by them. When you just mentioned General Adama or Commander Adama, when I rewatched the episode, it's really interesting because I came across a short dialogue between him and the then still Secretary of Education, who will become the president of the colonies, and Laura Roslin. And she wanted to implement networked computers on the Battlestar Galactica because the ship is going to be or was going to be a museum you know a war museum thingy and there would be school children and classes and of course it's easier to teach if you have networked computers and his answer was, a lot of good people have died because people wanted to use networked computers, so I will not have networked computers on this ship. And this is a really, I mean, I can understand the sentiment, but it doesn't really make sense, does it? I mean, how does people having died linked to I don't want computers on the ship under now changed circumstances? Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's like this is how stuck in his ways he is. Yes. And I mean, we've all talked to very old people that will tell you, this is not what I fought for in the Second World War. And you go like, yeah, I don't know how these two things are related. And, you know, and this is like, it's like stuck in his head. No networks, period. Right? And he won't budge. And this is, by the way, something I've pondered a bit. Do you think that in order to be a leader, you need to act as if you're right, even though you don't know, or even though you know that you're wrong? Hmm i don't know if it's like necessarily with the leader for me i feel like this is part of my tension about the military is that to me it feels a bit like you have to follow orders even if you don't understand or right um yeah even if you don't understand the reasons or anything behind it yeah so it's that rigidity of well this is what i've been told and again like for me this feels a bit like the monotheism of like this is something that i had growing up when i would ask questions about religion and everyone would say don't ask questions don't ask questions why are you asking questions just believe right as if i could just you know conjure up belief, and the people that i have that have had the most respect for who were religious have been the people that were like have really sat down with me and understood the questions and have tried to come up with answers for me with me and this is kind of something that i try to emulate my therapy of actually i don't have any answers and you don't have any answers but maybe we can come up with something between us exactly. Because it needs to be your way you know your answers it's it's really not um helpful if somebody else gives you their answers because they are their answers. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, right. But, um, I guess what I was getting at is that, um, I've seen the German, um, Chancellor, the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who dear, um, Anglophonic listeners is pronounced Angela Merkel. And, um, sorry, I had to throw that in. Um. And she just had a book published, by the way, about her life, basically. It's an autobiography. And... If you would look for some sort of self-doubt or if you would look for um some sort of maybe i should have done things differently uh you'd be disappointed very much so um she doesn't and she's made a lot of of uh of mistakes really really many mistakes as you do because you're human and i was wondering i was wondering if this is actually something you have to do as a person in power right because if you if you start reflecting publicly i mean probably she's talked to her husband or her best friend or somebody that is very close to her about the mistakes she's made but if you do this publicly um are the costs too high if you do so like um If you imagine, like, the Prime Minister of the UK publicly stating that they made a mistake without anybody else discovering it, you know, without any need because there's some investigation going on. Would that, in the eye of the public, discredit that politician, that Prime Minister? Would he look weak because of that? Because that seems to be the fear that they have. I have to stick by my word because what people more than anything else want from a politician is consistency and they don't care about something like self-reflection. I definitely agree with that because I feel like that's been the issue in the UK because a lot of the complaints, I mean, I'm not a fan of Keir Starmer, but... Um a lot of people have complained but actually the thing i do like about him is this thing that people have complained about him where they have said he's not consistent because he has said something and then he's they've said oh he's gone back on his word but it's not that he's gone back on his word he's reflected on it and thought about and thought actually no what i said was was wrong it wasn't there was maybe it was right at the time but it's not i don't have an example unfortunately but i thought that was amazing that a politician of all people could go ahead and, actually reflect publicly because otherwise now we're like people are sort of complaining. Um like the last government we had and all the problems that we're in at the moment in this country everyone's almost like like no one is admitting it no one is putting their hands up and saying actually yeah we did mess up sorry about that um instead it's like no it was all fine everything was fine and you see it on like sort of tv shows where politicians will accidentally admit that they did something wrong and the journalists will pick them up on it and it's it's funny to watch but it also makes me like feel a bit hopeless feel a bit like is this really what we've come to yes because they they will. Have to stick to what they initially said even though they've. Learned something. New in in the course of the discussion but they. Can't change. Their minds because they will be accused of going back on their word exactly. Yeah i just don't get it i'm just like what is wrong with having leadership who is reflective and And who you also know then that you could go to with evidence and be like, actually, this thing that you've put in place, I don't think this is a good idea. Here are the reasons why. And they might actually budge on it. But remember the pandemic, where everyone was wondering what the right cause of action was? And people just couldn't live with the fact that scientists didn't know, because this was the first time, and they had no clue and no idea. And they were accused of not being consistent and you go like yeah what why how how would they know they've never trained for this they've never seen this on this scale like why would they know anything why we know now that it was probably a bad idea to shut down schools which we have in germany but that is something that you know in hindsight and you know during the pandemic it seemed like a good idea. And everyone else was like, yeah, this seems logical, so let's do that, and let's try it. And, So, this is actually a really huge dilemma because in the end it means that as a politician, you either don't say anything in public that anybody else could use against you. So, you always are very, very, very vague or you say something and you have to stick by it even though you change your mind later on. There's actually dear viewers there's actually a really really uh good video uh youtube video uh called politics unborranged and um it actually is about this very fact that politicians usually don't say anything concrete on on public television uh because somebody will either tell you that you're wrong because they have different figures or they will they will hold it against you like two years later and go on yeah but you know. The year before last year you said the opposite, you know and this is maybe the reason and we see this very very vividly right now this is maybe the reason why Trump is so, popular and why he won this this uh recent election because it doesn't really matter what he's saying, yeah as long he says it with with confidence and he does it yeah and he once stated and this is really still very gruesome for me um i could shoot somebody on wall street and would still be very popular yeah you know and this is only because what people want and this is going back to the point that i made earlier um the world is being so confusing and is so um, so hard to understand that people want somebody who seems to know what they're doing yeah they want a leader they want somebody who says okay we're going that road. We're taking that decision and we're taking that way and um they hate politicians that that do something like, yeah, I don't know, let's try this way. No, no, they want confidence. And that is really hard. We will see this in Commander Adama, I think, at the end of the pilot. Yeah. Won't we? Yeah. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. Talking about the pandemic makes me wonder if it's worth moving to multi-crises. Yes. Yes, indeed. Please do. Please do. This scene was about the idea that almost, what did we call it before? Um crisis for crises fatigue. Yes of. Like um you know with the but then now i'm just wondering is it worth mentioning at this time because actually it might be more relevant next time because then they you get to see them being tired after the. Yeah in 33 yeah um yeah there's an episode uh coming up the very first one after the pilot called 33 um we'll dive into that topic a bit deeper then um but um i think we can we can um already see what happens when when multi-crises occur and this is something that that uh we see right now here on earth in reality and that we also see in in the series um people stick together when facing a an imminent catastrophe like a flood or something or a pandemic but the moment that drags on for a certain period of time two weeks three weeks um people start remembering their own agendas and caring about themselves more than they care about others. Which is what you can see in the last scene that you described in the summary, you know. I mean, there is Helo, who seems to have like an indestructible moral compass, and he gives up his own scene for Gaius Baltar, so that Gaius can go into this, I think it's called a Reptor. So it's a military vehicle, and it can only carry a certain amount of weight. And so one of the pilots Helo gives up his seat so Gaius Balta because Helo figures that Gaius is more intelligent than him so he's more, he has a higher value to the whole of humanity this is this may occur I'm really not a social scientist but I would guess that many many many many people act like the rest of the bunch that also wants to get on the raptor. I don't think you mentioned it in the summary But people are piling up And they need to fire a gun In order to make people stand down And keep the distance to the plane, And are they clinging on to it when they start? Are they just running towards it and grabbing it, I think? Yeah, yeah You know. Because they're desperate yeah even though they might know that um uh that guy is is is actually the right one to have the seat but that's that's actually it i mean you and i would probably try to get on that plane, yeah you know so this is this is really interesting behavior and um i don't know have you ever have you ever wondered what you would do when faced with a decision that comes down to either somebody else lives or I do. Oh, I do. I love these sort of moral dilemma questions. Oh, right. So I have, I have no idea what I would do because I do feel like it's, because I feel like on a good day, I might be able to be like Hilo and be like, actually, I think you're, you're going to be more important to humanity. So I will try and do my best on this planet. Um but then i do also it makes me sort of think of like the tube and when people are like desperate to get on the tube even though there's the next train in like one or two minutes and i have been that person where i've been like no i need to get on this because i'm already late so i need to get i am more important i am saving lives so i need to get on this train which is bullshit because i'm be a few minutes late and it wouldn't you know no one would be yes too devastated um yeah i've. Talked about this with a friend of mine um. Just the. Other day and um he uh described a scene to me uh he had an appointment at the doctor's office and uh he was sitting there waiting for for the doctor to to have time for him and he could hear some discussion the doctor had with another patient who apparently had shown up for his appointment two and a half hours late. And they had trouble explaining to him that his appointment is now gone. He actually said, apparently, yeah, well, eight o'clock is too early for me and I'm not a morning person, so here I am. Wow. And I was wondering, you know, we discussed this, Like, how can he not be aware that this is non-acceptable behavior? Like, why would he even assume that the whole world... Turn and bend their backs just to to please him why would he think that and one you know of course there is always the possibility that people are simply assholes and and selfish and don't care about the needs of others but what about um again the fact that people in general psyches in general can't deal with the fact that they don't have control over their own environment, this is this is something i learned a couple of years ago that the the um the feeling of being able to control something about your life is so essential to yourself that you do everything to achieve it that's actually the reason why um paramedics will give you your own um your iv bag that's the word i was looking for so um imagine you had to hold. Your own bag. Exactly imagine you had a crash a car crash on an on an uh um i don't know the m5 or something and uh you're laying flat on the ground you can't move and the paramedics are taking care of you and they will give you your own iv bag to hold because that gives you the idea and the impression that you have some sort of control because everything else you can't control you know because the paramedics will do stuff solve your leg or something yeah you know yeah and so um you need this feeling You need this feeling that you still are in control, at least a bit, in the situation. And maybe that guy doesn't have any sort of control, so he tries to at least control when he shows up somewhere. And the other thing that I've noticed is that people seem to be very eager to enforce sort of social behavior. Like, imagine somebody, like imagine waiting in a line, okay? And somebody is trying to skip the line and to get in front of it. And, you know, I don't know, maybe in Britain, people will be very polite and just deal with it, you know, and they may be silent. In Germany, people will scream at you in a very high-pitched voice, and it will be very annoying to a degree that you start to think that the people that try to enforce that behavior, that logically correct behavior, you know, objectively correct behavior, that they are as annoying as the guy who tried to skip the road. And it's you know i feel like they didn't do that a couple of years back not not like this you know and this may be because social behavior is the feeling that you and the people with you you and the rest of society share a certain uh set of rules and if people ignore those rules then you feel isolated because you can't be sure that everyone else at least basically things like you and you feel excluded. That is fascinating. Because it also feels a bit like the old versus new as well. Yeah. That was saying like there are some people with, or even again, like the monotheism, polytheism thing as well, of like some people have one way of doing things, another group of people have another way of doing things. Both groups think that they are right. And it's like no one's willing to budge either way. You know, this ship will not have any network computers. And the president's. Like no i think i think there should be. And in the end he turns out to be right because the battle star galactica is the only uh battle star that will survive because they don't have networks so they can't be hacked yeah and and this might be um this might be something to ponder new isn't always bad and old isn't always good, or the other way around. And I think what a good idea would be probably is to respect both ways. You know, you have to go forward, but you always have to be aware of what you had. But being aware, that doesn't mean stick to it. You know, tradition is a good thing. Some of my colleagues said that, tradition is it's like a lamppost, I guess. They're good to light your way home but only drunken people hold on to them. So, the idea is it's nice to know where you're coming from. And it's probably a good idea to keep some of those traditions just because you like them and just because they remember you or remind you of where you're coming from. But it's a really bad idea to stick to them just out of principle. Yeah, because I feel a bit this way, and maybe I'll get like axed for this, but I feel a bit this way. You know, we've had the last month was like the remembrance weekend for the world wars. Right and i think that's a beautiful tradition to have that remembrance to remember the people that died however it almost feels a bit like that like okay we have the ceremony once a year people wear these poppies once a year but actually we have forgotten the principle behind it which was to not have any more world wars there you go and we've got two wars happening at the minute there. You go exactly. And that for me is just a bit like well what are we remembering like what is the point in remembering the people who died because actually we've forgotten the reason that they died. Yeah exactly exactly i think that's a very very very very good point and and this is you know you need to know the reason why you. Know and if you've. Forgotten the reason why just skip the tradition because it's become. Meaningless and. It's also it's also prone to adopting a new meaning and then it's everybody's go you know and. The first one. To arrive like they've they're trying maybe you've noticed that in the UK as well I don't know the far right are trying to give new meaning to old words, In Germany, it's Nazi vocabulary that are trying to make speakable and sayable again, you know. Wow. Yeah. And because people have forgotten what they used to mean, they are repeating those words. And, of course, the far right know what they're saying and everybody else don't. So, you know, and you're giving this whole thing a new meaning. And somebody could go to a war memorial and tell the people that all the people in the First World War died because of all the migrants. And you go like, yeah, of course. No, they didn't. Yeah. You get the idea. Yeah. You know, and I would argue that remembering the Second World War is to never let Nazis run a country again, for example. Yeah. Yeah. but it's like we have them just in different different costumes. Yes well yeah they're interestingly similar though, but you know let's let's not go down that road it's just i i think your point is very very valid i totally agree um you need traditions in order to remember important things that you or we as as a society have learned from the past but we need both we need the tradition and the meaning and if you lack either you probably can't communicate what you've learned so skip it, you know or keep it alive either way just deal with it in a in a very good way but only having half of it uh is opening um pandora's box at this point exactly yeah so yeah there you go all right nelima this seems to be a very good point to end uh the couch part of this episode yeah okay do you want to move on to what we've learned yep okay let's do it. So I've got a super positive lesson that I feel like I've learned from this episode. It is that we are fucked. Ah, right. Yes. Yeah, basically, we're bad. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, the Cylons are here. They seem to have control of everything except for an old and ancient ship. Um and so at the minute i feel like i'm very much sitting in this place of it is just doom and gloom i can't see a way out of this um can't see anything positive coming out of this ah yeah. And you really can't you really can't decide at this point in the story uh if humans are capable of surviving this because of all we've just mentioned you know all the selfishness all the different agendas that people have, all the unreflectiveness, the conflicts. Like, just because the Cylons weren't able to kill the Battlestar Galactica doesn't mean that the old versus new conflict is solved. And there will be new conflicts. I mean, we've seen as much already between civilian governments and military leadership. And yeah and you know it really seems like yeah they've invented AI and they're crushing the humans that's it, yeah basically and we even I mean if you think about what we've said about monotheism and polytheism are the humans really worth it like should they survive or should they just die because they don't deserve to be alive anymore Ooh. That's a very interesting point. What have you learned. Mark? What have you taken from this episode? I feel like being in the very first session with a new client, you know, where you can simply, or sometimes with a very old client, when you've said everything that there is to say and you know everything, you've described it. Sometimes you you know the answer and your client knows the answer they know what to do they just don't have the energy yeah and in the face of um of utter doom you know um i don't know if i've mentioned it before there is um and i feel like i'm quoting the bible too much i'm very sorry dear listeners it's just that it pops up in my head um i don't know if you know the the the book of um of eob no ever heard of it um i i hope it's it's pronounced eob it's uh heob in in in german just with an h in front of it and the story is very simple um god and satan uh make a deal. And satan goes like okay if i smite heob you know and i give him uh illnesses i kill his family i kill everything i burn down his his house and uh uh i i kill all his his flock and sheep and you know his livestock uh he'll stop believing in you god and god god goes no he won't and so they make a bet they really do make a bet and he gets everything you know like the worst of the worst and everybody dies, his wife dies, his children die, his servants die. Everything is really, really, really, really bad. And yeah, the story ends on a good note. Like it has a happy ending, sort of a happy ending. I find it's a very bad ending, but yeah, it doesn't matter. The thing is in the middle of the book, his wife goes, you know, just say you don't believe in God anymore and die peacefully and all he does is pray. And it's a very silent and lonely scene. And when you have a client and they just face something they can't change because everything is impossible, you know, they don't have the energy to change their lives and they just need to wait it out until a better day comes. Everything you can do is shut up and just be there it's what we do when we talk to people that have lost somebody else you know in the face of death, you just shut up, and this is what it feels like right now so we, we need to take notice of the fact that humanity as it is on an edge and looking into the abyss and this this might as well and very very very badly for them so maybe you know just how did you put it um when we talked about this sit in the shit with them oh yeah yeah so yeah it's. A much more vulgar take on um what Brené Brown says she has a brilliant little video about the difference between empathy and sympathy. And sympathy is when you're sort of, you know, someone is in the shit and you're sort of looking at them and sort of saying, oh, yeah, you know, I'm kind of there with you. And empathy is you climb down into the shit with them and you sit with them. And so, that's what you and I are doing here with this episode. That's what we do with our clients. Oh, that is interesting because what we do, and I can't really translate it, so I apologize for this. We have the difference between mitgefühl and mitleit. So, which basically means feeling with somebody else and suffering with somebody else. And the latter you don't do. No. You know, you don't suffer the same pain and you don't try to pretend that you do because you don't. No. And nobody's helped. You can't help anybody with having the same pain and having the same suffering. But what you can do is being empathetic. And that is like understanding a person you're with. And just being at their side and don't leave them. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And on this gloomy note, dear listeners, I think it's a good time to end. Nelima and I hope very much that you've enjoyed listening to this, our very first episode. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. And always remember, the Cylons look like us now. So until next time on sci-fi therapy so say we all so. Say we all.