Brett Weinstein, speaking about the stress-testing of friendships (on the October 29, 2023 episode of his podcast with guest, Joshua Slouch):

I’ve now been through several of these events in my own life. And I’ve noticed a pattern, which is that in every case, these divisive crises reveal people’s character. And each time I’ve seen the same pattern: there are people you thought you could trust who absolutely disappoint you. And then there are people that you never expected, maybe you didn’t even know them ahead of time, who rise to the challenge and they shine. And you see that somebody, maybe you didn’t know their name, but they turn out to have tremendous strength of character and insight, and they stand up at the right moment and defend you for no reason. Right? No reason other than that it’s the right thing to do. And so each time I have lost friends, and it’s painful. And I have gained people who are much higher quality. And I call this “painful upgrade,” Right? It keeps upgrading your social circle.

And I now have to look back on the world. Before I had been through any of these and realized that I was walking around with trust in people that carried with them the ability to absolutely betray under the worst possible circumstances, and that that’s dangerous. You are far better to know who actually has the strength of character to face these things. And to limit your significant interactions to that pool of people. Right? It is a gift to know who cannot be trusted with your well being. And I don’t like to say that, but I think people need to be alerted to this. Because, you know, people are not labeled. They don’t even know themselves whether they’re capable of this until they’re faced with the situation. It’s the crisis that reveals it. And it’s the silver lining of these terrible chapters that it does tell you who’s really on your team.