You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero podcast. You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero Podcast.

Hello, Paul Bloom.

Hello, Robert Wright.

Famous psychologist.

Good to see you.

It's good to see you, too.

Where are you right now?

You know, it's funny.

I'm in the city of my early adolescence, city by the base, San Francisco, where I went to

six, seventh, and eighth grade.

Are you reliving past glories?

Glory is not the word.

I feel the vibe. I'm, I feel the vibe.

I mean, where I lived, you know, there's always a very strong smell of eucalyptus trees.

And so when you're here, you know it.

It's great.

And plus, San Francisco has a very distinct climate.

When I hear about San Francisco and I hear about the smell, people do not talk about eucalyptus trees these days. The city has received some extremely bad publicity. Well, there is where I am, you see a little bit of the homelessness problem. This isn't the heart of the problem by any means. But yeah, the city's changed in a lot of ways. I mean, it's changed at the other extreme, too.

It's like when I lived here, as I recall, I mean, not that what do you know between the ages of 12 and 14.

But it didn't seem to me like a city that kind of inordinately respected wealth.

I mean, not more than your average community. It was known as this kind of artsy, vague, just very low-key. It was a great place. I loved it. Even though it was a wild time. It was like, you know, the height of flower children. I was literally a flower child. I was 12 years old. I was the only literal flower child in San Francisco.

It's hard to see you as a flower child. I was. The flower part, no, I supported the Vietnam War back then. My father's in the army. We lived on the procedure.

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