Ring a Republican: Payphones linking San Francisco and Texas aim to bridge US political divides

Two experimental payphones – one placed in San Francisco and the other in Abilene, Texas – are connecting strangers across party lines, allowing callers to speak directly with Democrats and Republicans in two of the US’s most ideologically opposed cities.

The project is the work of Matter Neuroscience, a Boulder, Colorado-based biotech company and is fashioned out of old payphones bought off Facebook. One phone sits outside Black Serum Tattoo parlor in San Francisco’s Mission District – and the other is in downtown Abilene by the bookstore Seven and One Books. Each phone is marked with a sign explaining that callers will be connected to someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“The goal for this project is for people from different places to have a meaningful conversation and enjoy common humanity,” a sign placed on the San Francisco payphone said. “Research shows that the core molecules associated with happiness are the same in all human brains, regardless of political identity.”

The sign continued: “Political disagreements are natural, but hostile discourse often increases our brains’ cortisol levels (stress) and suppresses our happiness. Positive conversations do the opposite, they lower cortisol and boost our feelgood neurotransmitters like dopamine and cannabinoids. In short, more cannabinoids and less cortisol equals more happiness for all.”

Speaking to ABC7 San Francisco, Matter Neuroscience’s co-founder Ben Goldhirsh said the aim was to test whether giving people a simple opportunity to talk to someone with different political views could lead to more understanding.

“I think our thesis is that humans are pretty awesome and – if given the opportunity – will really look to find common ground because biologically that actually gives us a lot more happiness.”

In San Francisco, ABC7 listened to some of the conversations, including one with Berkeley resident Milo Duhamel and someone in Abilene.

“A Cybertruck just drove by. What do you think of those?” Duhamel asked the person on the other line, referring to the electronic vehicle manufactured by Elon Musk’s Tesla that became synonymous with the tech mogul’s role as a business adviser to the second Trump administration.

Recalling their response, Duhamel said the person on the other end of the call did not like self-driving cars, an apparent reference to the full self-driving (supervised) feature in some Cybertrucks. Duhamel added that the conversion was “not really anything political, really, but it was kind of interesting to just see what’s going over there right now”.

Meanwhile, Duhamel’s father, Sai, asked his own Abilene counterpart: “On the phone it says call a Republican. Do you consider yourself a staunch Republican?”

According to Sai, the person in Abilene said that he was not a Republican nor a Democrat but was instead part of the Green party. Sai added that the other person was thinking about switching to the Peace and Freedom party.

Seven and One Books owner Arlene Kasselman told ABC7: “People are excited.

“I think the opportunity to have civil discourse in a time where there’s so much polarization is important for people. I think people want to experience a unifying thing and these conversations can be unifying.”

Matter Neuroscience said the conversations are recorded, and some will be shared online around the end of January.

The Guardian has reached out to Matter Neuroscience for comment.