Mexican Batman, Britain’s Downfall, Mr Bean’s Comeback & Jimmy Carr - Rabbit Hole #5 - #1143

0:00 A vigilante. Known as the Batman of Lagos de Moreno. has gone viral after catching alleged motorcycle thieves and duct taking them to lamp posts across Log Lagos de Moreno in Jalisco. At least five suspected thieves have been found restrained to poles over the past ten days, some with their mouths taped and signs labeling them as thieves. Authorities are investigating and say those found tied up are being treated as victims. But at least have added the vigilante to a wanted listener also looking into whether multiple people are behind the incidents. We've got some pictures.

0:32 Look like. It's like a real the the guy's a real life Mexican Batman. That appears to be getting motorcycle thieves and Duct take man people are also calling him Duct Take Man, which is Oh wow. But he's he's really doing it. Oh, that is I mean, that's a yeah, okay, sorry. So you hear duct tape and you think I could get myself out of duct tape. No. That is okay.

0:50 I I noticed he's left the motorcycle with them. That seems There's the evidence. That seems bad'cause someone's gonna cut them free and they're gonna disappear on the motorcycle. There it is. Take that. Okay. That seems that's kind of great.'Cause normally if you see a story about crime in Mexico, you go, Oh, this is gonna be

1:08 This is gonna be eye bleach. This is the this is a very fluffy way to deal with crime in Mexico, it seems. How has he taken down two? I mean Intimidating. They look fourteen.

1:22 And terrified. Yeah. I mean it's yeah, don't steal motorcycles. Th there's a message there. You would be too if you'd been taped to a lamp post. Rise and fall. of civilizations and they rise. Dog tech man brings back law and order. You were talking about uh strong men make good times. They that is the strong man

1:39 That uses duct tech. There was the case about seven months ago in the UK where a guy purposely left his bike, um, I think outside of the H M P. In London. where all the police are based. And put like a apple Yeah. Tag on it.

1:53 And it got lost. He calls up the police and it's like We have the AirTag. I have the address. Nothing we can do.

2:01 There's nothing we can do. All of a sudden, he then takes it to the telegraph, the times. It's becomes this huge story. And then the police go We're looking into it. So even when you have the GPS coordinates, they don't take it seriously. Yeah. It's a good I think it's a crime I could get behind there. The vigilante, it's like It's nice. You don't hear a lot about it these days. What was the last crime you committed, you The last one. I I would say probably

2:23 Um probably some sort of tax avoidance. Uh was the last big one. I I don't like when that whole thing happened. This is years ago now, like twelve, thirteen years ago. When it was all going on, I was like front of the papers and the Prime Minister was David Cameron at the time. He broke off from the G twenty summit to comment on my personal tax affairs. That is a red flag. But it was all going on. I never once mentioned. the millions that I've given to charity because I thought, well at this point Line's not gonna help.

2:48 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's a good thing. Evasion is allowed, but avoidance is not. No, avoidance is allowed. Evasion, there's a big difference. About eighteen months in prison. Right. Yeah. Or if you ask Gary Stevenson, then then there's a big difference. What was the document you watch the new have you watched Gary Stevenson's new documentary? No, go on. What's the documentary? I think he's wonderful. I think he's the best economist. I heard you laughing while you were watching it last night. I think he's the best economist. I think he's the best economist of our times. And when the Soviet Great Britain beguns and you guys are fighting over

3:20 Little bit of bread. I d I don't want to say anything bad about Gary At all. Right. I'm gonna be eating bread. This is the same as being kind to your AI in case an AI overlord. So is this guy a uh uh Marxist economist? No, no, no, he's uh he's a pioneer, he's a genius, Jimmy. Um his idea Uh he wants to bring in a I think is it a two to two percent wealth tax on over ten million per year. Inside of the UK is what the policy uh Gary's proposing.

3:49 That's it. I thought there was more. Well the documentary's called How two per How to Become Filthy Rich. Yes. Right. So what's the thesis? Tax, worth, not work. Yeah, tax, worth, not work, which I actually think's you'd like that from a copy. writing perspective, Mr. Dry. Um

4:04 But his yeah, his whole thesis is uh with rising inequality, if we can bring in a two percent wealth tax to the UK in particular, then that will raise I think about twenty five billion is Gary's thesis. But quite impressively, inside the documentary, they actually keep on a uh actually a smart economist who argues a little bit back with him. And his whole thesis is, Well, actually the GDP will probably go down by about four to five percent because if you're a foreign investor,

4:30 why go why not go to France? Why not go to Sweden? Why not go to United States of America? I was I was talking about this. We were chatting about it earlier, but I think like Britain needs to be more competitive. It's like that thing of like we're competing with other nations. People have the ability to move anywhere they want to move now. And there's a lot of talk about billionaires and millionaires leaving the UK Whatever. Like you just gotta compete. So that idea of going The big thing, the big kinda controversial thing is I think the currency's overvalued. I think if you the the great play you every nation has when you print your own currency, you could devalue it.

5:00 You can devalue the currency and make it very cheap to invest in Great Britain and just have all the money come to you. It's like you are It's like a zero sum game in the world. You want people to come. People want to live there. There's good schools. It's a great place. Wonderful people, wonderful culture. You want more people to come there. So devaluing the the currency has always been seen as a humiliation. But every time the currency's been devalued, there's been eighteen months of incredible growth. But you don't have inflation as the currency gets devalued. Um, you could do. I mean you've got to mitigate against that. But I mean we've got massive inflation anyway, so what are you gonna do? So we'd be weaker than the dollar. That's your That's the car the car mission statement.

5:32 Yeah, it's super weak. Super weak currency that that attracts a lot of people. Well China China have been doing it for twenty years. They've massively devalued their currency artificially in order that people Chinese goods are very cheap in the rest of the world. That's great. So they export a lot of stuff and they do very well as an economy. They've they've brought more people out of poverty the last twenty years than than you could dream of. It's incredible. I guess the idea is then that for British guys Podcast back in London. And not America. You know, I feel like this is living proof almost of of some of the troubles. Yeah. I mean it's it is that thing of like you've just got to be better than other places.

6:06 You know, so w how do we compete? I thought when w when Brexit happened, I thought the next day we would have undercut Ireland. I I carry an Irish passport. I Love being Irish, but I thought we would have undercut Ireland. And Ireland had the the corporation tax of like twelve percent. So that's why all the tech companies are based in Ireland. If you get your um uh whatever bill from Anthropic, it comes from Dublin. If you buy it in the UK, right? So

6:28 But we didn't undercut them. We just went, Oh no, great, let them do that. If if you're prime minister for the day, what are what are some of your not l like less uh maybe less obvious policies that you do, rogue policies that you'd implement? Okay, r okay so d devalue the currency. Okay, it'll be the first thing. Yeah, quite a bit. Specifically how. You you could just talk it down. You honestly you could talk it down in an afternoon. Talk the right people at the Bank of England. It's it it will go it will yeah.

6:53 It will go down. I mean it's gonna happen anyway. But isn't that an optic problem? But if we went if we went yeah But when the when the currency naturally devalues when there's when there's something something bad happens, do you do you go to the IMF and try and bail out the pound or do you just go, great Things are now cheap in the UK come the rest of the world, sales on. It's a bit like ropa dope. Like all eight.

7:12 Just sort of Sitting on the ropes. Sitting on the ropes. Yeah. And then you come out and I'm gonna let him punch me in the face so much that he gets tired. Until our labor's cheaper than China and Vietnam. Yeah. But then invest in infrastructure and you know, you have to you have to have to make it. Yeah, it's a serious idea. But then the other thing that you do is energy. Energy cost is four times higher in the UK than America. And every business has that as a factor, right? So things are very expensive to produce and it's expensive to even run an office in the UK because energy prices are very high. That affects everyone. That's a that's got to be a like twenty, twenty five year problem, right? So you've got to fix that, you've got to be as Um

7:49 technologically advanced as seventies France. Who built fifty six nuclear power plants in ten years? If you do that, you're you're off to the races. I've I've got to say, Mr. Carr, you're you're talking a very educated young man. Well Y you're talking like a man who might be having a bit of a

8:04 prime ministerial run there. Is that is that on the cards. I think yeah. I think now I believe the system in the UK now is seven Prime Ministers in ten years. I think we now take a ticket like at a like at a Um delicate and you just it comes up. So you're rough at some point soon and then you're saying you wouldn't want to be prime minister because it'd be a big commitment. That always used to be the case. Now it's what is it, six months? I'll be gone for six months. It's gonna be a shop shop sign that you turn around. Like, you know, back in five, Prime Minister. All right, given that we're talking about the UK. Yeah. Let's play a game of guess the Victorian slang word. So I'm gonna say different words from Victorian era Britain. And you're gonna try and guess what they mean.

8:40 Okay. Okay. Yeah, lovely. All right. First one. Tickety Boo. Hm. It just means good.

8:47 Something that is in perfect order or a satisfactory condition. That's that's kind of tickety boo. Tickety boo. Muffin walloper. Hm. Sure suddenly. A muffin Walloper. Uh fat.

9:01 I think it's a I think it's a it's a sort of um rather stout gentleman who enjoys muffins. Yeah. An idle person who will sick. We can't just kick on. You've got to tell us what a muffin wobbler is. That's what I'm saying. I'm j I'm I'm literally describing it. Oh I thought you'd move on to the next thing. No, it's an idle person who sits at home eating cakes and gossiping instead of cooking. Muffin walloper.

9:23 So you should be cooking. But instead you're sitting at home eating cakes and gossiping. Next one. Church bell. A church would be my

9:35 Would you might guess that? No, it's like Would it be an ugly person? Like you've been hit by the church bell, like a quasimodo reference? Oh, that's clever, but no. I think it's uh this sounds I think it's a young virgin. Ha ha tres call.

9:53 A male young male virgin. Harry's just gonna answer Young Virgin for all the When do the young virgins come up? Paul Pilkington has that great beer, which was when he's watching University Challenge because he can never guess the answer. Um He just says egg each time because statistically at some point he's gonna be a little bit more than a little bit. Gentlemen, I think we've we've just method to the madness. Right, I'm not sure. to the left of the organ master there's the man who rings the church, a young four year old. Okay, that's actually probably way too clever. A woman who talks so much, her voice is reminiscent of the ringing of a church bell.

10:30 Hm. Okay. Next one. Butter upon bacon. Uh it's uh is it like a hat on a hat? It's too too much of a good thing? Yes. She's doing too much. Yeah.

10:43 Butter on bacon. Put on a bacon, yeah. Uh Mathing. Mathicking. Know what mathing is? It sounds northern.

10:50 Sounds northern. I'm gonna I'm gonna go with You're really good at this. Some some level of incest? Uh It could result in incest. A term for getting wildly rowdy out in the streets. Oh, I mean that's mathicking in Newcastle. Mathicking on the big market in the year. I love the jump from it sounds northern to summon. Uh afternoonified.

11:15 Afternoon. You you're slacking off, you're no longer taking things seriously. Yeah, exhausted. Someone or something that is highly fashionable. Afternoon if I have to assume that that's because you're you only dress up in the afternoon. You're after nunify. Right.

11:31 You wouldn't dress that way in the morning. We're not just woke enough. Uh Chuckaboo. Chuckaboo, a dear friend.

11:39 Dear friend Chuckaboo. Uh Gigg Mug Someone who's always smiling. Uh half rats. The drunk.

11:48 That makes sense. Natal, just half half rats. Uh Evening Weezer's. This should be brought back. Evening Weezer should be brought back. means fake news. Mm-hmm. Evening wheezer.

12:00 Uh, and apparently it's champagne weather means it's pouring or raining. Coffee sisters mean besties. There we go. Well it is interesting like language like to talk about this'cause that's the same language. That's the English language that we still use and those words have gone. You never notice when something disappears'cause it disappears. Kind of becomes forgotten. But the idea that it's the best example of anarchy, the political system of anarchy is the English language. There's no central system for it. No one sits down and goes, That's a word, that's not a word. We're changing the meaning of that. It just organically sort of emergent.

12:32 From the group. It's kinda perfect. I think a lot of solutions are like that. You can't you can't do it from top down. It just has to sort of let it happen. Well do you I mean you spend your entire time Play with the English language. What have you Come to think about sort of how it's developed recently.

12:48 How it's developed. I don't I don't I don't like new words. I mean this is slightly tangential to the question, but if I if I was on a date, for example, and someone was using lots of new vernacular, new words. I would say It's been a great night. You know, that's what I'd say.

13:03 I I think Um Simple words are the best words. Best bet what's the what's the phrase? Um big things are best said in small words. Yeah, it might be like a a mark. of intelligence. Like if you can get across a complex idea to a five year old

13:17 Great. And if if you need incredibly complex language, you're some kind of huckster. You've got an issue with Like lead speak, twenty first century lead speak, and that would be if a lady wants to bag Harry Dry.

13:30 She can't use Too much. Modern slime. I think she came out and started talking tickety boo. That that'd really get you going. Unfortunately I've watched Peep Show. So for any fans of that show, they know that word's a bit of a bit of a turn off. But

13:43 I I think I read once that the French started a revolution with free words, which are quite big words, but what was it? Egalit egalite, liberte, fraternity. You know, and I I I don't think you need much more than that. You don't need much more than that to sell soap. If the French are starting a revolution with with just free words. Compression.

14:03 Um The best the best example of compression. Well, this is like a two word joke. dwarf shortage.

14:12 And I had a three boy card, which was Stationary store moves. He had the six word story. Oh yeah. For sale. Yeah. Children's shoes never worn.

14:23 Oh, Jesus. Yeah, brilliant. How do you think about words, Jimmy, in comedy? Do you think some words are just funny? Or do do you obsess about word choice when you're writing a joke? Yeah, I r I really do. I really think it's it's kind of uh the phrasing, it's more the rhythm of it, but sometimes it's the Um the phrasing like having the right word for the thing and And conjuring up an image. is very important in people's heads. So you've got the kind of the concept that you you kind of oh I know this thing's funny. How do I get that across to someone else? So it's about that language the the

14:51 the purpose of language of like conveying like Uh getting space in their head. getting into their head and m and making them kind of making them draw the cartoon. Didn't you have Step dads.

15:03 Motherfuckers. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Step down. I don't like the term step down, I prefer to say motherfucker. Yeah. Nice just take a moment to sort of step back from it and go, Yeah, that's Yeah. It was right there. It was right there the whole time. I had a thing the other day that I just thought

15:17 How's no one got to this before? We're talking about that Donald Trump came up. I said, Yeah, they try to assassinate him. And and they very nearly did kill him because no one could warn him, because no one wanted to sound stupid. No one wanted to shout, Donald Duck.

15:29 Very good. How did no one see that? Yeah. Sometimes it feels like the joke's there. You're just like Getting getting rid of everything else. I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes the easier that you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf. Right.

15:46 You wanna keep it simple and not mix a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger. Not the D U I of the tiger. That's why I am such a huge fan of AG One. One scoop contains seventy five vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients in a single daily drink, and that's why been taking it every single morning for nearly five years now. And they've taken it a step further with AG One Next Gen backed by four clinical trials, and those trials that were shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by ten sometimes even in people who already eat well. Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a ninety day money back guarantee. So you can buy it and try it every single day for three months. And if you don't like it, they will give you all of your money back. Right now you can get twenty percent off a welcome kit and that ninety day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkage one.com.

16:32 Flash. Automas. It's interesting how you have these You can even explain some of these techniques, yet they still work. So one we discussed is the A B

16:43 A So it'll be it's not about the Uh Days in your life.

16:49 It's the Life in your days. Or Churchill's um yes, alcohol's taken a lot out of me, but I've taken more out of alcohol. Or you have JFK's Don't ask what uh your country can do for you, that's what you can do for your country. And you'll see this

17:02 A B B A pattern. And it still works, even when you know it. Even you know it's coming, it still works. It's one in advertising, like everyone will know it just beans means heightens, but just changing all of the last letters to be a Z. was just the most genius. That's that's another example when you do things in threes.

17:19 So again an another one. You ever heard the uh Winston Churchill speech during World War Two where he talks about this is when he comes in. And he refers to I have nothing to give But blood, sweat, and tears. What's interesting is he didn't say that. He said I have nothing to give but blood, sweat.

17:35 But because we like three, is it just It disappears. And you constantly see this. Whenever anybody actually makes a four way statement. Although you look at the unit, you go, He didn't toil much to it. Big big fellow. Big old boy. What have you got? Do you bring something from? Yeah, I've got some stuff from home. We meant to bring stuff. Yes. I'm so sorry. No, I'm taking anything. Okay. What do you got?

17:56 So We've Do you do you recognize what this is? You're gonna have to lift it. Put it on the table for the classic. Yeah. Yeah, that looks perfect. That's lovely. Thank you.

18:08 To recognize what this is. Yes, it's I would say it's the woods. Some woods. British woods. Yep. But So this Is

18:17 Charles Darwin's thinking path. that he built around his house. So whenever Darwin was stuck on a problem. He would go on a walk around his thinking path. And he would collect.

18:27 You'd have stones. uh like racked up that he would knock off. to kind of figure out how many rounds that he's done. His kids would sometimes fuck with him and like put the stones back on whilst he was walking around. So Darwin used to use this thinking path regularly. Okay. He had ten kids as well. So there's a lot of a lot of kids to Do we know what this is? So say Youssef. You said kidnap chase.

18:49 Arthur. Emes lim cop Oh, it's Christopher Nolan's uh uh Inception. Correct. This is so Christopher Nolan was working on inception for ten years. Um And one of the uh things he did was actually draw the plot down. So you see the five part dream plot. That he visualized here.

19:07 Do you know what this is? Yes, but I'm not gonna say it. Do you guys know what it is? Um it looks like my Uh my diary when I was in school. But you know it's I don't know. Is that JK Rowling's when JK Rowling was stuck on Harry Potter.

19:21 She uh turned it into a spreadsheet. This is the fifth Harry Potter. Like the entire storytelling sequence into a spreadsheet. Is that And how did that work out? Was it hit? Cool.

19:32 Yeah. I think does that say at the top? Yeah, it says I think and then it has a little diagram. Therefore I am? Back to uh Mr Charles Darwin earlier. This is when he opened his red notebook and drew out Kind of his first thoughts around what evolution is. So like the family trees or how it all interconnects. Okay.

19:53 And then Anybody know what this pub is? Jimmy this looks like one of your The eagle and children. It's not the pub in Oxford, is it? Yes, it is. Is it the pub in Oxford? Where all the great myths of the twentieth century were written. Pretty much. So So it's Lord of the Rings, um C S Lewis. Yes.

20:11 It's where J.R. Tolkien and C S Lewis used to meet up. Have a fight. Tolkien would give CS Lewis his draft of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. CS Lewis would give Tolkien his draft of of Narnia or whatever he was working on, they would both read it out loud. And then roast one another over a pint.

20:27 Hey, do you want to know an interesting here's an inter tangential fact to that. So I only find this out recently. So Finnegan's Wake is a book that I've read around a lot. I haven't read Finnegan's Wake, but I read about it a lot. It's kinda the great work of literature. It's uh well, James Joyce, obviously. So I didn't realise that Finnegan's Wake is Star Wars. So Uh, Joseph Campbell. You've heard of Joseph Campbell, The Hero Has a Thousand Faces. Uh The Hero's Journey, all of those kind of great books that informed Star Wars. But basically Star Wars is a sort of dumbed down version of those books.

20:59 Well Before Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero's Journey. His thesis. was on the myths. within James Joyce's Finnegan's wake.

21:08 Okay. So he basically wrote that first and then he he thought, Oh, this is really good, this thesis. I'm gonna make this into a book about the heroes that are in all stories. And so it's kind of James Joyce And then it's Uh, Joseph Campbell.

21:22 And then it's George Lucas. And Jane Joyce is actually the root of this. Yes, it's a distilled version of these things. That's brilliant. I had Alex Petis on the show and he did a breakdown of the Odyssey. But because he can read the original Greek. He's able to get Much

21:36 uh more uh rich explanation of what's going on because sometimes words have multiple different meanings. And he's digging into that. So good. So fantastic. And you see, even in that, there's turns, there's a descent, and I'm asking him at each point, okay, so using You know, Campbell's idea, which was what, like two thousand

21:54 three thousand two and a half thousand years later, or something like that. Uh, at what point on the clock face are we here? And sure enough, even back then, Even e the first book ever written. The first thing ever written down. Before that it was all Sorry, right. Gilgamesh, wasn't it?

22:11 Is the width of Toky Mesh is a bit older? Maybe not to contradict you on your own podcast. But you know, I mean feel free. Uh just to go back to that, isn't it interesting to just hold this up for a second? Um The eagle and child. Pub in Oxford. Where C S Lewis and Tolkien would

22:25 Meet up to roast each other about the fiction. Meanwhile You two nerds at fucking lifetime. Over a smoothie. Over a a honey berry smoothie. English have lost their way. My point of bringing these is I'm working on a a chapter

22:40 Called uh It's a round of thinking, uh we've discussed it before. Essentially the premise is Uh don't think with your head. Think with your uh feet. Your hands or your mouth.

22:50 So A few different premises on that. There's a few I didn't include then, so Dickens. W when he was struggling with insomnia and writer's block. would do what his friends describe as violent walking. He would walk twenty to thirty miles. Uh Travis Kalinek when he was creating Uber

23:05 He had a um A a racing track. Built in the office. They would do walking meetings and be constantly walking around sixty miles a week. Yeah, you can't get a car. There we go. Um and then

23:16 Uh going back to Thinking with your math. Uh if you go to the bottom of uh Mike uh Albert Einstein's theory of relativity in the paper he published about twenty five pages. He credits nobody.

23:28 But he says thank you to one person, which is uh Michael Besso. who was his friend that he would walk around and talk with. And one day as he's talking it out loud, his friend he comes up with this idea. That's why Harry's like, I call him my best so as a result, because you're having those people to talk to, but I wanted to kind of Uh maybe explain like why do I think this is going to be the Einstein. He might be. Joey's out.

23:52 Don't take that. I'll take it better. I'll be better. Um I were to visualize I think that's under discussed.

24:01 Okay. Would you expend that a little more for me? This idea here. Um Which is kind of human step count. Throughout. Your great, great, great N times a hundred.

24:11 Just goes like this, and then suddenly you have Kind of the agricultural revolution here. And it just completely plummets. And then you kinda go down to ten thousand. And I we' we're currently the average is around about five thousand. What's interesting, eighteen thousand for men.

24:25 was the like average step count for hunter gatherers. We estimate about fifteen thousand for women. Interestingly They said, how do you get that data? One way you can look at it is with um Oh what's the um

24:37 The current People that uh reduce technology that forgot. Amish. Amish. So the army, they look at the number of steps the Amish do per day to kind of the Amish life is slightly different to three hundred three hundred thousand B C look at a a few different things in terms of like walking distances. That's one of the uh the

24:54 But you think it might be. The same amount of steps in a lifetime. But they're getting them in early because they die at thirty five. Doesn't that down to the same number of steps overall. Yeah, you've got a certain amount of steps in you and that's it. That's Roger Federer has got this canister fairy. Which was cause he Had a couple of years out, basically it's like he got interviewed I think it was W More than twenty nineteen and he was like I still got stuff in the canister'cause he didn't play

25:18 No, he didn't play in eighteen, I don't think. And it was this idea that a tennis player just has a canister. Which they can even burning out like Nick Curios and just actually he didn't play much, but like more like in the dark. Yeah. And then they're kind of stuck here at the end of the game. Well, I I like that idea of like in relationships thinking about reservoir of goodwill.

25:34 So you build up a reservoir of goodwill early in a relationship in the kind of honeymoon period, and then you can spend it later on. So like how many how many fights could a friendship survive, could a relationship survive? And it's all about how much you've stacked up. So you're stacking up those good memories, those good times, and then you've got that reserve. that you kind of eat into in the relationship. It's quite a nice way to think about it. Cause you can kind of go through hard times with someone and you go, Actually it's all right, because we've done a lot of stuff in the past. Whereas if it's someone you've just met, you go to Fuck this noise. Yes.

26:01 Yeah, it's like paying into a bank account. Yeah. If you haven't deposited much in you can't withdraw much before it goes into the But I don't think people think about friendships in that way, whereas you go, kinda friendships are they're incredibly important. I th I sort of think every argument between a couple is one person saying to another person, You are not enough people. The best relationship advice is invest in your friends. Your partner will be fine. Go out and talk to your friends and then come home and listen. Mm.

26:24 But people don't have that. They think one person's gonna be there every day. I think one of the problems of talking about Friendships like that, is it makes it sound quite transactional. It gives people a little bit of An ick. A hundred percent.

26:35 Yeah, I mean the there's supposed to be something Loyalty is not just if this person can add To my life. Alex had this Line where

26:46 He imagined that one of his friends asked him he'd Broken down his car. He got a flat tire in his car. He was five blocks away. Will you come and help me? And Alex would just ring a roadside assistant to go and see him.

26:57 And it was like well, that means that I can do what I want to do. My friend gets a better quality of service, but what it forgets is that he's not just saying Can you fix my tire? It's will you give me your time? And your support. Alex sort of remains staunch. He's like the the most like utilitarian when it comes to a friend.'Cause so much education is now done by YouTube.

27:18 Right. So if you Learn how to shave. And we've all got Differing abilities. Um but you you learn how to shape you do it with a YouTube tutorial now.

27:27 But you miss the intimacy of going to a father or uh you know, an older friend and going, How do I actually do this thing? And I don't know what's lost there. But like you would think that the aim is To shave. But it isn't it's like a little communal moment. Sean has this wonderful idea and I try and Yeah, we was talking uh last time around what we call like hyper meta, which is this idea that the ancient Greeks or Romans, rather than scroll a newsfeed every day or read a new book or listen to a new audiobook, they would have

27:54 principles that they want to take seriously. So they go back and review them way more. Thus is forgetting everything. And one of mine would be from Sean, which is that idea he talks about Just just delete the scope. So I A lot of people go into the start of a relationship kind of game theory one oh one where it's like I'm at zero.

28:09 Christopher is it zero. And a wait, wait, wait, Chris Chris will do something. But you understand you understand why the sc the scoreboard is there to measure an imbalance and injustice and Delete the school misses. If you get taken advantage of a few sociopaths, you're fake. I don't think you're even going to get taken advantage of. I don't think you need to be a sociopath to take advantage of somebody inside of a relationship. Uh-huh. Like let's say that you can get into a relationship with somebody and like an intimate relationship. This is maybe going to be your new wife for the rest of time. And She keeps on turning her blade, she keeps on disrespecting you. And you're like, No, just give, give, give, give, give. Right but the within reason completely defeats. When I say decisions rather than experiments, and somebody's like, Well I'm gonna shoot up a load of heroin and I'm gonna punch a police officer to the face. Within reason, and I'm talking about people that air one way. So if you air naturally towards the

28:59 I'm gonna wait for this person, then I'm gonna mirror and then I'm gonna mirror I I think I'm with you. I think it's the you can't win an argument with your wife. Everybody loses. Yeah,'cause if you win you lose. Everyone's in a bad mood. So that thing of like going and it you know the relationships are Transactional, right? There is a there's there's like codes of conduct. That you you expect within it. And that's that's kinda that's okay. But then I think if you just get if you enjoy the act of giving, then just just give, give, give. And I do think you end up way m you end up the other person ends up giving way more because you just push it so far. And listen, if you're fifteen nil up. Then yeah, w walk away. But until you get to fifty nil, just keep giving.

29:33 It's way better way to live. I think it's more it's yeah, it's more enjoyable. But there is also there is also no fifty nil. Like I there is no fifty nil. Exactly. Yeah, I I I agree with you as well. I think once you decide, I think you have to make a decision in life. And then once you've once you've made a decision, then you've got to make that decision right. And I think people kind of sort of waste a lot of time in in this space of like I can't decide, I can't decide. And that's when maybe the school board's pinging off, pinging off. But once you've decided, then you're the same like you're the same person. The I I saw Alex Formozy, he's up on the wall there. Um

30:04 on uh we met for the first time this weekend. I was in Las Vegas. And I kinda know him like we've spoken on Zoom and I I know a lot of his work, but I met him for the first time. And it was that that kind of thing that he has this this sort of theory on, like that that thing about his his new theory is about Optionality. And the idea that people are s are getting all the options they can. They want they want optionality on everything. So they they get five degrees and they train and they're ready for everything they're ready for options. But until you cash in those options, it's meaningless. Yeah. I think it's kind of a genius idea of like at some stage you you you go with what you've got. Now or you don't go at all. Do what you can with what you've got where you are. Yeah. Or you just it's like otherwise you're like 40 and waiting for something to happen so so George kind of decided at one point in our in our um interactions that we were friends. Uh I don't know when it happened, but at one point George just decided that we were friends. And then he started he started just I mean.

30:55 I I I would say your I would say if I was to describe you it, I would talk about your generosity. And it feels kinda weird to to speak highly of you'cause I've been I've been abusing you a week. But you're I think you're an incredibly generous guy and I think that like You know, I don't think there's any expectation of of anything which comes with that. You just kinda like I touched down in Austin, Airbnb sorted, you know, I touch down like it's just I I think it's a lovely way to live. And then I do think there is a point where as Chris is like, Yeah, if someone If you f it it's a feeling. As soon as the feeling goes. So that's my that's my point on the w not needing to turn it into the metric. Why is it that we like to hang around with some people and we don't like to hang around with others? It's the there is some form and this would be Alex's argument. And I'm if you're on one end and Alex is on the other, I'm somewhere in the middle.

31:37 Alex's point would be you are tracking a scoreboard, whether you're doing it Mentally or not. And the scoreboard is the vibe of how you feel around somebody. We have friends. that we've stopped hanging out with.

31:48 Because I just don't feel Like This vibe. Is

31:55 the scales don't feel like they're balanced, regardless of whether or not you're keeping count. And I do think that that's true. Da Awful line. Of like

32:05 You're the average of the five people you hang around with. Incredible. Average of the five podcasts you listen to. Yes. Then what ends up happening is you have this You always try to fuck upwards if you follow that approach anyway. Which means that by definition, that why why should those people hang out with you? I think a better rule of thumb is Forget how much money they have, forget what they've achieved.

32:24 I Yeah. Surround yourself with who you feel the most alive with. So I don't care if if someone's a poet that's broken i if I hang out with them and we feel I feel alive. It's way more interesting than some billionaire when you feel dead behind the eyes after hanging out with them.

32:38 A lot of this is probably the best maximum. So I still think that you are the average you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with is fine. It's just what is the metric that you're optimizing for. Cause some people might want to be in a room with people that have got the highest net worth or are the most uh well known and the highest status, whatever, but it can just be and ultimately what it comes back to is if you ask enough why questions. I just want to feel good. I wanna feel good around these people. I don't know. What a friendship's for. And

33:05 I don't think friendships really pay out. Until the bad days. Right. So you you gotta have a really bad day before you know what a friend is. Because on good days it's fine, everything's fine. We can hang out with anyone. It doesn't matter. They're giving, they're taking, it doesn't matter. When you have a bad day, like if you get canceled, which I have been a number of times, like it's a filter.

33:23 It's such a great filter. It's like a gift being canceled because you at the end of it, you end up with fewer friends, but much better ones. And it's the foul weather friends. It's the guys that call on the bad day. Yeah. That's what really matters. And and that's what you're ultimately, I think somewhat at a deeper level were solving for that. We're solving for well if things get bad Who could I actually stay with me in the trenches? Yeah. What's the When it comes to like cancellation or public criticism.

33:46 What's the idea That's kind of non obvious that you only appreciate apart from that once you gone through it that most people wouldn't understand. Uh I think it's uh the

33:56 The impermanence of it is is interesting. And the the idea that you go, Is anyone gonna care about this in a month or a year or you know, and if no one's gonna care in a year. What do you care now? Jose's got this line, he says the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. Mm. And I quite like it.

34:11 Mourinho. Just quoting my first ever Jose Mourinho quote on the point. It's good though, isn't it? It's like it's it is it's that thing where you go, it's it's a real sort of test. It's character versus reputation. Because your reputation is being destroyed. And your character is who you know you are.

34:28 What was the what was the loveliest text or call you had? Like who was there for you? Uh, there was a few. There was uh James Corden would really stand out. So when I got ta it was the tax thing actually, and uh and he was in Broadway He was busy winning a a Tony for his performance in one man, two governors, and he called me every night in his interval of his show. And he just called me and then he call me and I said no I'm fine, fine, fine. And then he called me the next night. 'Cause he knew it wasn't. And then he called me the next. And he just kept on calling.

34:54 That's amazing. Yeah it's a it's a lovely thing. Uh it just and all it teaches you is like I can't do that for him. I could do that for someone else. Yeah. And and when it comes along, that thing of like being the person that calls when something awkward happens or when something terrible happens. phon and saying, I don't know what to say.

35:11 But I thought I'd call just'cause no one remembers what you said. Somewhere along the way, low energy just gets accepted as a part of getting older. Turns out there's a reason for that. As we age, our mitochondria, the parts of our cells that power us, become weaker and make less energy, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Timeline. They've developed This That helps to clear out your damaged mitochondria so your cells can actually renew themselves. Timeline is backed by over a decade of research and has more than fifty patents and is the number one Recommended mitochondrial supplement.

35:41 On the planet. This isn't just theory. In clinical trials, people saw mitochondrial renewal increased by more than forty percent in just sixteen weeks, along with improvements in their overall energy. I've been using it for over two years. Since my doctor recommended it to me way before I partnered with Timeline, and eat your heart out, Martin Shkrely, because they've just dropped the price and it now starts. At$99. Best of all, there is a 30 day money back guarantee, plus free shipping in the US, plus they ship internationally. And right now you can get that$99 price with an additional twenty percent off by going to the link in the description below. Heading to timeline.com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom at checkout. That's Timeline.com slash modern wisdom. A modern wisdom. A check out.

36:21 I I think it's just a lovely thing when people do stuff for you which Th there can be zero ulterior motive. Th there literally can be. I'm trying to think of a good I'll give I can give you one from my life. So this was the moment I became like properly, properly good friends with Youssef. So um

36:37 For the people that within the last six hundred episodes of the show, he only appears once a year, but he was or most of the episodes for the first four hundred with Johnny. And um he had hurt his back. He has a um like Bulging disc. He'd hurt his back in the gym doing flips or

36:52 deadlifting or whatever he was doing at the time. And I was on my way To drive to one of our club nights. And his house was like kind of out of the way, but not a million miles off. So I was like, I'll I'll I'll come over and I'll bring you something'cause I know what it's like, debilitating back pain. He's sort of laid up and he's like, No, no, you don't need to come and see me. Anyway, I managed to get into his house and brought him a loaf of sorine. Some I believe Sure fan.

37:14 And like went and got a hot water bottle for him and like he couldn't move. But he just the classic male denial of medical problems or whatever. And he's twenty five, right? He's made of rubber and magic. He'll bounce back. He'll be fine. But he was just miserable and it it felt like it sucked. And that was a Palpable moment. when our friendship changed from that, even though we were really good friends before, I could just tell that there was something

37:37 That happened. At that moment. when I decided to go around with some maltloaf and pain relievers and a hot water bottle and I was like, All right, man, I gotta go and be in a Night Club. a thousand eighteen year olds. Like I'll I I hope you're all right. And then he message sent me this sex afterwards like being teary and being like, Man, that was just how wonderful. Like what a lovely thing to do. You are right, like especially in a world where everybody is looking out for the transaction where

37:59 Uh effort can be so low effort. Right, like just sending a text. I think the bar has been lowered. for what constitutes becoming a very good friend. Like you got me for my birthday one time, you got me a newspaper from the day that I was born. and a printed off graph of the first episode and the biggest episode with the play count in between it. And I was never, I couldn't even take it, it was left in Mike Thurston's apartment in uh uh Dubai for like two years because I couldn't fly back with it because it was so big. Um, but like stuff like that.

38:28 You know, it's just it's It's really Being yeah, being Better at just aggressively going Give, give, give and figure out the next life. Aggressive friendship. And figure out the next life. BDSM friendship. You're often very good on this kind of stuff, right? You pointed out this I've thought about this a lot, right? There's a lot of books about being a good parent.

38:46 But there's no books about being A good Kid. Right, which is kinda kind of interesting. Like and there's and really it should be a book about being a family. But th there's interesting, there's loads of books. There's you know, kind of the game and stuff about pick up culture. and uh finding women and getting women great. But there's very little about friendship.

39:04 And actually that seems to be the thing that I think friendship is Upstream. Of having a relationship. I think it's not gay to practice on your friends. But that thing of like building friendships and building kind of and that's kind of what's missing from, you know

39:16 Rough and tumble play has been replaced by video games. And it's it it doesn't work in the same way. Like there's something about like that male friendship thing and building that up. over years having your boys, having your guys that you're with, that's really incredibly valuable. And we we don't do enough but Robin Dunbar's got this insight, so he was the guy that came up with the hundred and fifty number. I interviewed him once, he's brilliant. He's fantastic. And uh

39:36 He says that you have your close group of friends, which is five. Of a slot. Five very close friends. But the relationship takes a two.

39:46 That if a relationship takes a two of the slot of five. And that would also mean that if you lose the relationship and you want to keep that same level of connection, you can't just replace your chick. With a new friend, you probably need to replace them with two. Yeah, well it's also that thing of like men tend not to do very well post divorce. Because they outsource their social life to their other half. Right. So then it's the wife and the friends. Yeah, they're entirely isolated afterwards. Which is a yeah, terrible way to be. Mm-hmm.

40:11 Robert Dunbar, we have. Go on, you were gonna say something there. I've lost my train of thought now, but I think You I always think of um I think it's a lot of what we're discussing as well, I wonder if the American audience appreciates it as much as the

40:23 British. Because they're so giving, dude. They're so Americans don't understand just how pro social they are. Like you can be on the side of the lake. I w this happened this happened uh uh the other week when we went to uh the Jasper Mike's house. Um, and I was on the side of the lake. And a boat just went by. We're like, Do you want to come wake surfing?

40:43 Thank you They didn't know me. Like Yeah, sure. Went weights surfing.

40:48 Like that just y you would need in order to get to that level Of Friendliness. That would be a three year project. In the UK. Mm-hmm.

40:57 In order to warrant being invited onto this thing that was partners. I don't know, maybe it's because everyone's a it might be an Austin thing'cause everyone's kind of a social transplant from somewhere else. Or it might be an America thing because everyone's a cultural transplant. You know, sort of. historically from somewhere else, but I don't know. I noticed there's three types of interactions I'd have with strangers. So uh interaction one would be stranger would just not look at me. Um

41:20 Interaction two would be We'd mirror one another's Energy so or you give a knot? And then You'd have

41:27 Somebody who actually says something? I realized a lot of the time I just like mirror, so some m I I've kind of head down. Somebody says hello and I'll say hello back. Somebody gives me a nod, I'll give them a nod back. And if they have their head down, I'll have my head down. Versus Oh, you can just

41:40 Can just do things. You can be the leader. It's you're using the uh proportionate force. of like uh being in a fight. So well if he's got a knife, I can use a knife. But you just always use a gun. I do wonder if uh we try to coin this Welcome to Texas. Try to coin coin this time, which is a British syndrome? And America syndrome's another thing. But British syndrome, I was out for dinner uh the other night with a friend of mine and he's had this employee days. kinda complained about for the last six weeks, like issues he's trying to get him to do.

42:09 When he finally like sits down at dinner, he goes. I've realised He's not low agency. He's just British. Uh Well for that on the

42:21 Uh I think it was you. Yeah, it was. W like British versus America. So you go the the British disease is cynicism. And the American disease is bullshit. Yeah, which is well I mean it's great. There's a great comic, Jeff Green. Do you have no Jeff Green? Great observational comic. He said I prefer America to Britain. I'd rather be told to have a nice day but by someone that doesn't mean it than told to fuck off by someone that does. Jeff Green. Great, great comic. So it's so I have a rule of thumb. I'm going to criticize America as a return, or or compliment Britain. Yeah.

42:49 I was thinking. Do we have we ever had like an Elizabeth Holmes, a Sam Bang Friedman, a Uh I think it's just we' we're just not playing at that level. I think that's the reason why. That you need.

43:05 to pull that up. Th I don't think any British person except maybe Gary Stevenson has enough self belief. To be able to drive that home. You need to have banks to rob them. Yeah. It's a good point. Um

43:18 Just trying to think of it like a great huckster in the UK. Uh for me. A great gap in the market. We should do it. I feel like Andrew's kinda hovering.

43:28 Over that area, but That's the British huckster. Who? Andrew, Prince Andrew. Oh. A O G I'm true.

43:35 Right, actually Mel Batten. Yeah. I I got on a lift in I I was in Austin last year and I started I got I got on lifts and they call them elevators. Or do we call them elevators? W one of us calls an elevator. We call it a lift. Getting in these these elevators or lifts. And I would say um people started asking me what number I was on the elevator. Six, I'd say you know, punching six, and I thought I'll come back to England and I'll

43:58 I'll try this out. So I Two marine road. Probably shouldn't have said that. Um Into the elevator I go, the lift I go, I say, Hey what What what number? Uh what number would you like?

44:10 I say number? So yeah, it some people say number, some people it's it's headphones on and it's a it's a starkly different experience. Um Having said that I also learnt about the Californian lunch.

44:23 Well, I've never been in California, but apparently if you go to California, everyone says they want to have lunch with you. Oh yeah. But they don't actually want to have lunch with you. Right, yeah. I remember a friend of mine saying to me, you know, uh was in Hollywood and they said to be careful, you could die of encouragement. It's just everything's very positive. J how do you is a how do you I feel like there's two different ways in to Like creating stuff. Right. And I feel like there's the volume method, which is like I'm just gonna write a lot of jokes and some of them are gonna be good. And that's sort of

44:56 prints when he was recording music would just make a lot of he'd record a song a day. You know, and then there's like The Leonard Cohen approach if I'm gonna spend five years on hallelujah, I'm gonna write eighty verses. And I wonder in comedy Are you more like I'm just gonna write, right, right and some jokes are gonna

45:12 stick or I'm gonna I'm gonna work on one joke. For a good for a good couple of days. No, I I I find I don't find working on them really helps. It's like they come out pretty much fully formed and then I just it's it's iteration. It's just trying new things and the audience what's gonna work. So the audience the audience is a genius. They tell you what is and what isn't funny and what is and what isn't acceptable. And you just go back to them time and time again. So at the end of the show, I it's still got it on me from last night, you got new jokes. And then you just try the new things and

45:40 That's like how you're running your book, George almost. Yeah. Do you set yourself a number of jugs to to write? Is it like that or not really. I mean there's always like there's always new stuff to try. There's always like a uh I've got a file, it's huge. I'm like, okay, the and uh print off, okay, I'll try ten tonight. And and then the next ten. And then you sort of maybe you tweak them a little bit, but it's not a full kind of rewrite. You might tweak it a little bit if you go, I didn't then really got that at all. And that wasn't clear enough. But it's very rare that you tell some a joke and it doesn't work and you can rescue it with a rewrite. It tends to be just the idea's just not there. And some and if they're immediate, then that's and you're looking for the triple A's. You're looking for the ones that are gonna work every single time, no matter how you deliver them. You're looking for that kind of quality. So the idea of like

46:20 polishing something's kind of a a different some sometimes it's like You change the wording a little bit and it it perfect it. Yeah, I remember Jason Freed uh said this about writing. He said If I wr if I write it down and it just doesn't it's not feeling right, he said, I'm not I I'm not gonna come back to it, I'm not gonna rewrite it, I'm just gonna leave it, start again the next day, and it's like a different route in. Which is funny'cause I have a very different I I I don't particularly work like that. Do you ever hear the um uh Bob Dylan uh Linda Cohen story when they met up?

46:45 They met up for lunch. And they uh he talked about um Hallelujah. Eighty versus four years or whatever. No, it was like he it was Bob Dillon went I think he said he said how long did it take to write um Uh all along the watch hour and Bob Dillon said twenty minutes. And he said, How long did it take you to write hallelujah? And he said, Twelve years.

47:03 Because he was embarrassed that it had been twenty. But it was like It's a long time. Yeah. But what's your process? Do you You sit in it.

47:12 I I like writing. I think that you can't really write, you can only rewrite. So I I guess I'm not writing jokes, you know. But is that but that thing of like you can't write you can only rewrite. Like I think the idea of doing you do masses of stuff. I think the reason most people don't succeed in the arts is'cause they get into it because they like really good stuff. They've got great taste. But then they don't stick around long enough to be able to produce good stuff. Mm-hmm. If I it's like you start bad and then you get you get good over time. If I was gonna give one piece of advice to anyone trying to learn to write, I would say Honestly, I would I would forget quantity and I would think about trying to genuinely write one good sentence or maybe even two and then maybe just a good paragraph. And I feel like the real problem is people can go their whole careers without actually writing anything good. And what you really need to do is you need to understand what it's like to write just one thing really good. Because a a great book is just like it's a lot of great sentences which then form paragraphs and whatnot. And I I remember who was it? Um

48:02 Um Hunter S. Thompson like he rewrote The Great Gatsby. just just to know what it felt like to write a good book. And I do think there's something in there. But hand but by hand, yeah. Just to f get the feeling of extraordinary. I have a collection of uh you've seen the folder of what I like about what I like and I've turned it into an app as well where it's like

48:22 Starts, intro, middles, ends, quotes, reference setups. What was the um Allwells five rules that we would you keep banging on about? I only bang on about them when I read yours. Um I can't remember them. I think number one actually number one I I love, it's never put never actually can we get on the internet. Can we can we look it up? First one is I think the first one is just basically never put something in print which you've seen in print is the idea. So essentially just avoid cliche at all times. And I think i if you wanna if you want to um quickly improve any essay. You I would just you could drop it into Claude or you could just look at yourself and say, Have I have I seen this sentence been written down before? Well I I pulled up you up'cause you said you said yesterday I was editing your writing and you said

49:04 Um, what did you say about church? Something like during his darkest days. During his darkest days is a really great example of this. It's just been said if you go to Google search and you put it in quotation marks, during his darkest days will have been said millions and millions of times, and it's it's the debris of of someone else's thinking. That's what a cliche is. And you you really want to just write original sentences. If you read East of Eden by Steinbeck is the last sort of big book I read. And you drop his sentences into Google. No one said sentences like that. Like the whole book. And I I looked at the chapter you had and that you you drop a couple of things into Google search, direct quotes, and it's just been said before. Yes. It's a very good proxy for like average writing, which Your book's definitely not, but Tolkien Limis maybe. Um What's the uh drop it on the f this were one of the best ones you'd give me the drop it on your fur idea. Okay. So um this is really about going from abstract to to concrete writing.

49:52 So essentially anything abstract. I'm trying to think of an example is yes. So I I uh let's say someone's writing a trying to come up with an app for for fitness and they said, I got an app, the idea is to regain your fitness. You can't you can't really visualize regaining your fitness. And what you want to do is you want to take that and sort of convert it into objects, physical objects, which you can Drop on your foot. So Chris, let's let's see how we go. Um

50:17 Regain fitness. Drill into that. Like what drill into regain. What what do we mean? What could we mean by regain fitness? Give me an object. Uh give me a starting point and an end and an end point for regaining fitness. Uh Not loving your body to loving your body. You could drop a body on your foot? So that would be closer. What you could also drop on your foot would be a couch.

50:38 Oh, so this is yeah. A couch. You know where this is going. And it's huge. That's the Nike thing, right? Yeah, because it it m it makes it real. You know, if you can And and people think in um uh analogies, really. They they can't you know it's like that. If you can't see it, it's not there yet, is r is really good riding advice. So if you can't visualize it, you know, it's it's it's it's not there yet. That's a great kind of I mean that kinda ad copy as well, the w you've kind of got that thing where it just feels like

51:06 That was always gonna be a hit. But it but it wasn't, of course. They could have just called it The app. So Couch to Five K was done by a guy in a guy in New York, I forgot his name, but he was living with his mum at the time. Like it w it was it was sort of this crazy breakout application which had no right to be. And I think then it got bought by the BBC and it's the most downloaded fitness app of all time. And that's like the the the I think ideas are But I I feel like even ideas are somewhat underrated. Like you really just need the conviction to to to to do them. And those two things together. There was a Nike

51:35 advert or an Nike or an advert. I think Nike, uh during The Boston Marathon? It said, um Runners welcome.

51:45 Walkers tolerated. And It w it was great, but it was The the uh difference here was the taste of the direction it was going in. It was so effective and catchy that

51:57 all of the people who walked during the marathon, which is probably most people. Most people are going to walk at some point. Uh and I got into a lift. Fuck me, in LA at the start of the year? And there was a woman wearing hoka.

52:10 Uh mid fifties, something like that, nicely dressed, like fit. Mum women like off to the gym or do whatever. And both of them were talking about how much they dislike Nike. Because and both of them reference that campaign. One of them was wearing hokers, the other was wearing rads or something. And uh they said, Oh yeah, that that campaign was just uh runners welcome, walkers tolerate it, they don't that's so they're so out of touch now in any case. And they had this Everyone has a degree of um

52:36 Distaste for the Top dog. can't wait for that to sort that that that fall to happen. And especially if you play the out of touch, I don't care about the every man game. Like there's two things that are cohesing together there to like really move in the same direction. They've gotten so big they've forgotten their roots. Right. It's like it's a cliche. You're playing into a trope that makes it very easy for somebody to attack you. So yeah. Um I think they put that phone is

53:00 There's a few of those, aren't there, kind of examples in marketing where people have absolutely shout the bed. Like done really badly. Was it uh was it Ratna, the jeweller in in the UK? There's a guy called who gave a speech where he said, Oh, we just sell fucking tat. And it just shut down. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. In a single in a single uh tweet. Keep going. It was like it wasn't a tweet even, it was like pre that it was like an after dinner speech where it just went just fucking shit that we sell. Yeah, but it ca you know, like It it's funny'cause let's say you have Ron Seal, the um the fence painter, and they say what do they say It does exactly what it says on the table. And that's that's uh it's different to just still in tap, but like that's'cause the language of fence painters that's that's how they talk. Whereas jewelers, you know, they probably don't want

53:42 that don't want the word tat to be used as they look at their role. Doesn't this all just come down to Your favorite word of position? A position. Uh The most famous UK example of a jewelry store saying their own product is bad is Gerald Ratner, CEO of Ratner's group, who in nineteen ninety one described his company's products as total crap. This caused a five hundred million pound loss in value and forced a rebranding to Cygnet Group. Another recent instance is complaints. regarding the website Scarlet Jewels, which distinct from genuine scarlet jewellery, has received poor reviews.

54:13 Yeah. Well uh his infamous speech stated that some of his earrings were cheaper than a prawn sandwich, but probably wouldn't last as long. Pretty good, right? You've got one job, mate. That's really you know. That's gone that's gone very badly. Salutary. It's interesting that thing of like industries that are like businesses, industries that disappear overnight. Like nineteen I love the fact nineteen oh one biggest industry in the world was uh whaling. Wailing. Yeah.

54:40 Whaling, catching whales. What's whaling? Catching whales. Ah selling the needed the oil in order to put the lamps, right? To and then the light bulb comes in. I think whaling was the biggest industry in nineteen oh one and it it had fully disappeared by nineteen oh three. Wow. Yeah, like this whole towns and kind of just like shut down. Well fax machines are kinda like that. Fax machines go from everywhere to now just the running the NHS and then Trait's horses in New York, in Manhattan. Horses in New York, yeah. And it's always the technology that's the because they they brought in so many laws to get rid of horses in New York, because the horse manure problem. You know the reason there's steps up to brownstones?

55:15 in New York is because the whole shit was that high. And there's the whole thing of like smelling salts, like people'cause the whole place smelt Horrific. It was just horseshit. And then if the horses died, they had to chop them up, wait for them to atrophy, chop them up in the street, and then cart them off using other horses, who then died on the way. So the whole thing was just it was a an absolute mess. And they kept on bringing in new laws, new laws, new laws to try and get, you know, a tax on horses and other tax on horses. And then Henry Ford comes along and invents the motor car. And people go, Yeah, we don't need horses. What do you think's that now? What do you think five years, fifty years, a hundred years will be like Oh. It's got.

55:49 Well I think It's it's a very interesting question because obviously the AI thing, we can see the jobs it's gonna take, but we can't see the jobs it will create. But I I I wonder without whether I think talk shows would be quite obvious point. I I is there still. No, I mean that that I think you're

56:09 I think you're like the from old media to to new media, I think the the idea that something like Yeah, I love Saturday Night Live, but I can't see it being around in ten years. Like the amount I remember going to see a recording uh last year and just thought, wow, this is incredible. The amount of people to put this show on to make this happen. It was like it was incr it really genuinely like spectacular. And then you just go, Well, I can't imagine this being They can't compete with People just doing funny sketches on their phone.

56:33 Because the the size of the screen seems to be inversely proportionate to the amount of money you can make. Mm. So the movie business might not last. I just think what's funny though is all the sketches on the phone I I can never I can't really recall one. Whereas I think of carrot in the box, like ten cats. Um Sean Locke and I I I I I I you know

56:52 It's it's I I think T V weirdly sticks. Like I I can't remember any of the when I say by um Oh who's the guy that wrote Abundance with um Ez reclein and Derek Thompson. Derek Thompson has a great podcast and he did this episode called he wrote this essay called Everything Is Television. And his argument was everything is television. Television won't disappear because uh TikTok is television. You don't don't think of it in that way because it's streaming. YouTube's the biggest TV channel in the world. Uh it's of course it is. It's it's television. Um Facebook is Televiso isn't social media. People think it's like, but that would be for us to know each other and be sending videos to our family and sharing them with friends. That's kind of the that's the idea. But the act the reality is people watching videos that other people have made that they don't know. That's television.

57:33 It's all a shame because Gavin and Stacey Christmas special was sort of, in my opinion, probably actually the World Cup somewhere right now, but the the last time like the UK Came together for theory on this. Why Christmas TV is such a big deal in the UK. I'm not sure what it's like in the States, but Christmas TV is a big deal, not because it's better than the TV the rest of the year. But because people sit down as a family and want the big watch the big fat quiz and watching it together, it's just nicer to do things in a communal way. Like People used to gather round a fire.

58:01 And then around the radio, and then around the T V. And it was all great. And then we went off to our bedrooms with our friends. So a more a more communal time of year. generally. But your back. in your old childhood bedroom or your old childhood house or whatever, or your with the family's coming over to you and it's a m meaningful, slightly slower pace, sedate moment.

58:22 Yeah. So I think yeah, I i if you could own anything. I mean that has to be why Harry Potter just keeps on getting run back over and over again, right? It's the thing that you watched when you were a kid. This episode is brought to you by the way. Whoop. Most people treat recovery like it's optional, but unlike politicians.

58:39 Data doesn't lie. How you recover is literally going to determine how good your next day is going to be. And Whoop tracks all of it. Sleep. strain, heart rate, recovery. It's like dog the bounty hunter, but instead of criminals, it's tracking down your bad habits. All of this data gets pulled into a dashboard that actually tells you what to do with the information. And now the brand new Whoop five point oh, seven percent smaller, it's got two weeks of battery life, shows you how fast you're actually aging, it comes with hormonal insights for women managing their cycle or pregnancy or men hiding from it. Once you see the patterns, you start making better decisions. It's that simple. Best of all. can join for free, pay nothing for your Whoop 5.0 strap, plus you get your first month for free, and there's a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free

59:20 Try it for free. If you don't like it after twenty nine days, they just give you your money back. Right now you can get the brand new Whoop five point oh and that thirty day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom. That's join.woop dot com. Sush. Modern wisdom. Speaking of technology, a new study claims that an eight minute conversation with chat GPT can reduce belief in conspiracy theories by about twenty percent, and these effects last at least two months. I'm always wary of tiny interventions that purport to have large and long lasting effects, but I don't see anything immediately fishy about this study and the mechanism is plausible.

59:54 I bet most nine eleven truthers have never spoken to a skeptic who both took them seriously. And who knew a lot about nine eleven. And I think this is an underrated and positive aspect of AI. People are worried about the ha hallucinations and AI psychosis, and rightfully so, but keep in mind that many people do not know basic uncontroversial truths about their world. Thirty seven percent of Americans, a plurality, believe that God created humans in their present form within the last ten thousand years. Forty percent don't understand how a control group works, twenty six percent think that the sun goes around the earth. For these people, talking to a chat bot is likely to leave them with a more accurate view of reality. I think it's an interesting point.

1:00:33 Conspiracy theories for me are a symptom. uh a much larger problem. Which is we've lost uh lost sort of trust. in institutions. But I I think that's they kind of they bubble up when you have no no faith in institutions'cause you desperately want to believe in something.

1:00:48 You desperately want to kind of trust someone, but you don't trust the government anymore, and you don't trust the medical profession, and you don't trust um academics anymore. So you kind of you're you're s desperately searching. So these kind of more and more kind of incredible theories come to the fore. I mean, not to say that people do conspire to do things. That's a different thing. I mean like conspiracy theories in their traditional form, like an unfalsifiable Let's say, for example, the coronavirus pandemic happened. Like

1:01:14 It never happened and it happens in twenty twenty six, which are in. I I wonder what the AI bots would be saying about the coronavirus. Oh, that's fascinating. Because people would be arguing. online with other people based on what they're bought. to derive from the fact. As well as you would have the fable model, for example, would it reply because it'd be around biology.

1:01:35 You can't ask any basic questions to Fable right now on biology because you might be thinking you're printing the three D virus. So everyone would be asking Kimmy and you'd be getting like the Chinese models, which would be interesting, the cause and effect, the full size. Who's to say AI didn't create COVID? Who's to say That it wasn't I mean it was It it seems to be now people are saying it was created in a lab. Do you think this technology arrived when we think it arrived? Or do you think it's been around for ten years? I think it's arrived when we when when it arrived. Yeah. Yeah,'cause the transformer technology that you need to do is my good button. My favorite conspiracy theory at the moment? Okay. So

1:02:13 There's a Two terrifying scenarios. One is There's a Manhattan project currently underway in America.

1:02:22 and they're working on a A GI. It's the ne it's the it's the big thing. It's the doomsday weapon, is the AGI, and they're working on it and it's called Solstice. And it's somewhere in America, we don't know where, but that's being worked on. Right? Second terrifying scenario. Then no.

1:02:40 Jimmy, w when do you when do you think of all your ideas? Mm-hmm. I got the days free. But that is that's a that's a it's an interesting kind of thing. Weird thought, right? Which would you rather?

1:02:51 Well I'd rather they were working on it. I think that um it's uh It's Kinda happening right. They're they're putting ever more powerful computers together and people are worried about the wrong thing. I think people are worried about losing their jobs.

1:03:04 But I think if you point AGI. At um The environment it might Be able to solve the problem? Uh net zero?

1:03:13 might get to that much quicker. And if you point it at physics Who knows? You know, physics is real power. in a way that nothing else is. Everything every other science is stamp collecting. Physics really changes the world.

1:03:26 And there's been no, you know, Eric Weinstein and uh sixty Peel was always saying there's nothing's happened for fifty years. string theory's just kinda gone a different way. But if there if there was a a unifying theory of physics, I mean it If that could happen, that'd be extraordinary. And whoever had that would have Some power.

1:03:43 But if you saw it, um So called released fable. And then they put You have the issues with the government and then fables come back. And then you had

1:03:52 This kind of Cockteys, shall we say. What they would say. You've got access to it until Uh

1:04:00 Fifth of July. And then ChatGPT's release their new model. So Claude have now gone well, you now got access to it to twelve of July and they've moved it again. And what you're actually seeing is Because there's so much competition right now, it's so hard for any of them.

1:04:12 to run away or create any form of monopoly. So I think the ultimate being a Manhattan project, it feels way more like there's gonna be. Fifteen or watts. I Get the sense. the the Covid thing.

1:04:27 I I I I certainly don't think the AI would have had that much to do with it. Had Annie Jacobson on the show who wrote Nuclear War. A countdown scenario. And that was a fun episode. Yeah. Well her new one is a minute. Is about uh bioweapons. It's it's about collab and she said The Russians during the eighties when we are not

1:04:48 working on enhancing weapons to make them buy weapons to make them uh more transmittable. They had programmed into The Virus They programmed euphoria.

1:05:02 And That's how pernicious this plague was. It was called a super plague. And they'd programmed euphoria in as one of the side effects because if people felt euphoric They would go out and dance. Right. And then they would become their own super spreaders.

1:05:16 So they'd even put a behavioral modifier into this super plague. Apparently this thing that th this existed but never got out was never used. But Probably sits in some Bank some frozen.

1:05:29 Like virus bank, something like a hot take, right? So in the in the late eighties, there was a thing called mad cow disease. Do you remember this? They thought everyone was going to go crazy that at B S forty or whatever it was called. Yeah. Maybe it happened. The guy that hosts The Apprentice is president now. Maybe we all went mad cow disease. Maybe we all went crazy and just no one noticed because we all went crazy.

1:05:52 I I tell you what, the amount of s phones I've seen in saunas, it wouldn't it wouldn't shock me. You've got the real. That's the real I don't have my phone on me. Describe your phone. I I could I could sell my phone. Uh it's a Quinn F twenty two pro. It's it's um it has applications, but it's too useless to to get addicted to. Great.

1:06:14 Yeah, obviously dumbphone yourself. No genuinely. Like it's um Actually, I I I don't really like talking about it because I I got it, because I I hate these people who get their new phones and it's all stupid phones and they're like they they they make it their thing. So I feel kind of self-conscious talking about it on a show. But my younger brother Jack had this phone and he got the non pro version, which is a bit of a mistake because it's actually just too useless to text on. But I got the pro Quinn F twenty two pro and And I but but I love I love Jack'cause I was on holiday with him and And he didn't mention it once and I was like, Gag, what's this what's this phone? And I feel like the way to get people onto these phones is to not ram it down people's throat. Sometimes you've got let them know because Harry came out for Austin for my birthday, say goodbye to it. I don't hear anything for a few days. I'm like, what's happened to him? And then he finally gets back in touch via WhatsApp on his desktop and he's like, What did you do to your phone again? You throw it in the river? I threw it in the I threw I threw it into the car. I didn't I didn't throw it into the river'cause that would have been

1:07:02 Disrespectful to the fishes. I threw it into the bin by the river. Um and then I switched out. I I I really I i i i i if I come a come across a lot of money, I think it's what I would like try and change in the world. I I just I do feel it really depressing. Like Yeah, y you you walk into a sauna in Austin and it's an epidemic of people with airpods in. I'll take you to a sauna in Austin where there's there's There is someone in a sauna right now listening to this. Why are they shaming me? Look I genuinely look at your life if you are doing that. I feel like you might feel like you got it all worked out. If if you have that one step, you are doing it. You haven't got nothing worse. Uh, how do you feel about people that wear AirPods during massages? Sorry, Chris, how do I feel about people wearing airpods? Full stop.

1:07:48 You're done. Right, but okay. You're also done. It doesn't change the question. I've listened to Audio books, Dreanima Sot, yes. All the time. No, no, no, no.

1:08:01 Diplomatic about it. Even during the happy ending? Oh yeah. My my younger brother works in politics and his his his idea is to understand what real people think and he he does a bloody good job of that. But I said to him, Well, what do real people think? And I'm in a taxi with him. And he's got his damn airpods in. trying to listen to what real people think. I said, Will there's a taxi driver that right, why why don't you ask the taxi driver what real people think? I think it's bunkers. At the same time. You need to stop wearing AirPods during massages. What? I I just It is the perfect Wait, is he massaging That's true. Yeah. It's it's a client service worker dispute. This guy's not even paying attention. Listen to this gibberish as he's passing on. Go on. I I just it is the perfect time To

1:08:49 Be with your thoughts, to do some good thinking. without feeling like you're wasting time, you're falling behind, being in the dark playground, being in a reverse version of it. We talked about that earlier. I think boredom is unappreciated serenity. And allowing yourself to be bored. Like pl like planning it is quite a good idea. Like train travel, it's quite good to be on a train, be bored, be in an airport, be bored. I'm bored enough.

1:09:11 I'm boring up I do a I do enough time along with my own thoughts. When I'm up in massage, I w I want to I would have Napoleon. I didn't realise Napoleon even recorded an audiobook. This is tremendous. Yeah I I slightly disagree. To play s to play devil's out the cut.

1:09:27 Um How do you know you're not in the mass hysteria of T V's gonna give you square eyes? Uh Like calculate should be bound. Luddite syndrome. Yeah, Luddite syndrome. How do you know when you're

1:09:38 Uh going against smoking versus being a blood eight. I don't know what I'm going against smoking. Because like how do you know you're pushing back against something that's another two. I will tell you why we can. I will tell you why, because my my what I'm doing is I'm doing nothing. So you can't it it's not like I'm it's not like I'm smoking cigarettes here. My my idea of where I'm trying to move the needle is just less, less, less, less, less. So if you're smoking, you're doing something. If you're if you're going skiing. You're doing something. What's a what's a different example? If you're if you're say if if you're saying like having energy drinks, that's y you you what's what did Talab say? Subtract. So if you're subtracting, you can't go you can't go wrong if you're subtracting. That's the

1:10:16 I think there's I think there's something to this. I think the that whole anxious generation Jonathan Haight thing of like it's not good for kids and there's this kind of you know, they think it's uh social media is as harmful as cigarettes. For kids. But I think I think what we need to do then is give kids cigarettes. Yes. Yeah, th the idea of like and this kind of a uh joke on the language, but you go actually, it's the the point that he makes in that book is not just ban social media, it's ban social media and let kids play outside. 'Cause th they can't have infinite freedom online and then no freedom in the real world. And really it's the freedom in the real world that we haven't quite everyone's kind of on this idea of like, Oh yeah, we'll

1:10:51 take away the phones from the kids. But actually what else do they get to do? It's interesting that what uh the average person spends six hours a day on screens. We haven't gained six hours. We d days aren't now thirty hours long. So off the time that we had previously, that's had to get squeezed from somewhere. Yeah. Which means that you've lost time doing other things. But certain smart people are getting massages while listening to stuff. So there's certain there's outliers out there that have gained the system. They're geniuses. I'll sing them publicly to my my audio butt but during massage. You've got a worse phone addiction than me, my friend. Oh yes, can you say that I've got I don't disagree. I've got a I've got I'm horrendous with my phone I'm saying that the massage is not the place to have your iPods in.

1:11:28 It is weird now that the technology it was kind of the thing of like I've got the new the new phone, the new thing ten years ago. Now the most opulent thing you could do is say, Oh, we went to a cabin and there was no wifi and we just put away our things. It's the most opulent thing in the world, it's not a good thing. Yeah, what are the What are the the the wealthy well doing now? What are the billionaires doing now? They're trying to live without that social media, without those screens. How is the retreat? Uh it was Intense. Yeah, to do seven days. I mean it'll be the longest time But since I was probably a child, there would have even been a T V in the room.

1:12:01 Right. Uh one of the guys there was an AI uh interface that could help you with Your practice. And what?

1:12:09 That sounds like absolutely defeating the purpose. If if if none of the facilitators were available and you were coming up against some blocks in your practice, there was a chatbot that had was on it was on the laptop and had been sort of imbued with all of the principles of the thing. But the interesting thing, this was Timor who was one of those. They are fucked up so hard there. I didn't go into that. I didn't go into that room. I didn't use that. However Yeah. Am I able to find out the England score by messaging the the the meditation chat box? So he's trying to Every time that I sit down to meditate, I keep being distracted by wondering what the England score was. Would it be possible for me to find out so that I can get back to my practice, please? Um but no fascinating. Northern California, it was Jana practice, J H A N A

1:12:58 Um, it was also OpenAI's global reset week. So a lot of the engineers were off from work. They have two global reset weeks, which is basically enforced holiday for you as as a way to try and sort of front run people not getting burnt out. By saying, Hey, you've got you you can't come into work, essentially. So I go and there's All of the guy b bunch of the guys from Open AI But there's also

1:13:20 All of their main competitors from Anthropic. A bunch of other guys that are in there from Google as well. So there was kind of like low-key silent meditation retreat turf wars going on between people at the forefront of AI development. That was kind of interesting. And yeah, like you you kind of learn school of meditation I was doing, which was Jhana.

1:13:42 Your learning to allow conductivity through Your emotions. That is to allow them to move freely without any uh constriction. So you're uh noticing and releasing mental tension. It's like primarily what you're doing, but that drops down into emotional tension. What you realize when you come back into the world is how much of your life is spent

1:14:01 constricting emotional tension. Because there's times when emotions come up. Well it's it's not appropriate for it. You might feel a little overwhelmed as you're walking through the airport, which everybody did as we went reintegrated back into society. Well, that's not the time for you to

1:14:17 It's like no you You swallow down the overwhelming f wildfires in Europe and the fat guy presenting the football on the t on the screens and you just sort of move past it. Also It's very difficult to hear. what your soul is whispering to you when the world's shouting at the same time. So you start to hear far more fleeting thoughts that come up.

1:14:41 a lot of the thoughts that you wouldn't have been able to pay attention to if you were regularly Even Talking to people. Let alone being on screens. So that was kind of interesting. What was your still whispering to you, Chris? I still whispering to me. Probably fucking spend more time in silence, I think. Like it was quite meta. Um

1:14:58 It's vegetarian. Which meant that almost everybody's digestion was ruined for the first three or four days. Lots of beans, lots of tofu. Trying to do group meditation with forty people in a room while there's farting going on is relatively interesting. Um Some guy I have no idea how, but

1:15:16 entered the retreat single and left the retreat with a girlfriend? So that is the level of game boys got. Gay. Nate. That's the level of gate that none of us could pull it aside of meditation. How did the guy I don't know? I think just straight up frame. Oh yeah, not like you. Your tiny little forearms. Um anyway, he was it it was it was really good. Uh enjoyed it, very intense. the most interesting thing is then coming back and like having the re your

1:15:43 Old patterns. Uh come into conflict with your So the new System, you well view.

1:15:50 It takes a A good bit of time. Yeah, I feel like titrate you're d I couldn't use my phone. I d I just simply cut it was No. I know it felt very icky, very sterile. After just staring at Like trees.

1:16:01 The only thing I was looking at was trees. Basket. Yeah, it a few points by saying this uh It's the most Chris Williamson thing ever that I've been trying to get this man to take a holiday for he's not been on what I call proper holiday for five years. So then he goes and does a John Seven Day silent meditation retreat. But even Gobkins is his own holiday. Um

1:16:19 I think An interesting question I have around the phone stuff. Question. Question. And it's the Great guy on uh Twitter called Chris Lakin. And his whole idea is

1:16:29 That the phone itself might be Chesterton's fence. Joe Chester's and Spencer. Yes. Yeah, so it's this uh idea of If you see a fence. Don't take it don't take it down until you understand why it's there. And he helps a lot of people with a phone addiction. And then

1:16:44 We'll often discover two days later they've got a bacon problem. Or they've got a pull on properly. And actually the phone. was never the problem. The phone was the solution. And if you actually get a little bit deeper.

1:16:54 the phone addiction goes away. And I do wonder how much of the Uh the phone addiction is actually A solution to a much greater problem. I think it might be that the We've uh we spoke about this, um

1:17:05 Mark Fisher talked about this before he died, about the the idea that we've um uh privatized uh mental health problems. We sort of think it's a personal failing for people to be depressed or anxious. And actually I think it's a societal problem.

1:17:19 We're not organizing our society correctly for people to um flourish. I think it's like the phones are kind of a symptom of a much larger problem. within our society that we're quite sort of isolated. We're kinda looking for something to do. We're not in groups, we're not with other people. We'll go back to the thinking of your hands, mouth, feet.

1:17:36 Uh Feet step count must have been down. Hands uh uh uh You almost You're using your hands on your phone, but you're no not using your hands like how most humans used to throughout history. You wasn't

1:17:45 Say what? There's one. Good game. Uh When Winston Churchill. Was going through.

1:17:52 Uh the black don't. The black dog. Yeah. Key woods. Powed up two hundred bricks a day. Putting was actually a terrible bricklayer. The bricklayers had to go in afterwards and do it. Fix it. But Churchill just to keep his mind. At bay.

1:18:05 He would do something with his hands every single day. So When you lose the Lack of feet, hands and mouth. I do think that can be Not necessarily a full explain of uh mental health.

1:18:15 problems but it definitely contributes. What's interesting that thing of like the how much is a hardware problem how much is a software problem. Like how much of like if you meet someone that's if you've got a friend really going through a tough time. It's like what Are they sleeping eight hours? Are they eating well? Are they exercising? Are they walking in nature? Are they seeing their friends? Like you cover that That's sort of simple stuff. But it's very difficult to regulate that stuff when you're feeling terrible. It's like you get into a spiral.

1:18:40 Uh it was a study that came out. It was like a metro analysis of all the causes of um Depression or the biggest treatments that have an impact on it. And the big headline was exercise beans SSRIs. And that was the huge thing that made like global news. But if you actually go into the meta analysis, Exercise is like number five on the list. Yeah, SSSRIs are further down. Number one on the list. It's just an absolute sleeper that nobody talks about.

1:19:05 Dance therapy. It's dance therapy, outperformed exercise. And it's interesting when you have a lot of the benefits of exercise, but you're with people. And you're out of your own head with music. Well also you you haven't got you haven't got headphones on. when you're dancing, whereas if you're exercising you have headphones, it may it makes me think When did we get

1:19:24 Evolved enough. To be depressed. Yeah, I guess that there's there's kind of it's like we're busy Busy fighting Cybertooth tigers. for a while, like too busy. I think it's that thing where we have

1:19:36 I But if you really want to know how privileged you are. How far into the future are you planning? Because I think poor people have no future. And I I mean that literally.

1:19:47 Like peop if if you're living hand to mouth and you're thinking about the next meal, well you're not even thinking about what you're doing tomorrow. You're just trying to get through the day. And then really wealthy people. think on like, Oh, I wanna m my grandkids, I need to make sure they're okay. It's like it's a different time frame.

1:20:00 I think that thing about having Having too much time. We have I my dad I got free brothers and my my d what he was a radio presenter back in the day and he'd he'd um work a night shift in radio and then he'd work a day shift teaching radio. And he just didn't like slept in the car for couple of years. You just didn't have enough time to to get down. You know, when you've got kids to feed, it's

1:20:21 Yeah. That is a hell of a double shift. Radio by night and teaching radio by day. Yeah, my dad's great. He was a he was an electrician. He really wanted to This is kind of a stor a little story about Like the power teacher'cause he was

1:20:34 It wasn't the smartest cookie in the shed and when it was from it was from Hull. And he was he was a disadvantage right there. He was in a um his his his his great grandpa built whole prison. Um and he's in this little classroom and he's he's listened to Noel Edmund's last ever radio show'cause his his big dream was to be a radio star and Um And this teacher, I can't remember can't remember the teacher's name, but like he thought he was gonna be told off.

1:20:56 Uh wearing a cap to cover the you know, the big old headphones you'd used to use and says what dry? What are you doing dry? And he says, Nolan's last radio show, I'm listening to it. And T goes. Carry on dry.

1:21:09 And he went on to he won a Sony Award. He was his career was very up and down, but you know, and it's just an example of like I don't know, I love it when teachers just just acknowledge actually what's important in in in kids um You know, upbringing. Yes, lovely. Sorry. Is your father still with us? Is he still still knocking around? Thinking radio, and I don't think you'd mind me say this now. You you get fired a lot, it's show business. Like you you're in one you're in one show, you're out the next. So um we play articulators, if I you all know articulate. Um the the the the game where you have to describe individuals. And my dad would just c he he infuriates us'cause he'll constantly just say, interviewed him and we'll go, come on, dad. And he goes, Joan oh I think he was trying to describe Joan Armour trading once, and he said he and he he shou he shouts at my mother, Sandrop the pilot, interviewed him in a way. And Mom's just like But I I don't know. It's kind of a great thing now because

1:21:58 Radio was about I was thinking like old school showbiz. Uh like being an actor. or being a presenter, you're waiting for someone to bring you flowers. You're wa you're waiting for someone to come along and give you permission to do the thing that you really want to do. And now with new media, it feels like That permission.

1:22:14 is already is kinda you give it to yourself. You go, Well, no one's stopping me. I could just start a podcast and interview people and do whatever. I mean it's what you did in a bedroom in Middlesbrough. And it's and it's just kind of ex you know, you kinda you give yourself permission as long as you keep doing the thing. Kind of it happens. And Substack has done the same thing for writing that YouTube did for video. And that Apple Podcasts and Spotify did for audio. Same thing.

1:22:38 Yeah, Substack is uh I used to have this. Joke that if aliens looked at Human. Reading and writing.

1:22:47 Data. Well it's it's going up. But then as soon as you zoomed in. It's just subtitles and text messages. Mm everything else is pro like. collapsing. Yeah, they do they do talk about people being kind of um post literate now. Like not

1:23:01 They're not people aren't reading books. Well I had this realization this week, um what we're talking about earlier around the whaling going out from nineteen oh one and then sorry, being the normal one and going out. Have you used Whisperflow much yet? I've been told to It's

1:23:15 But yeah, from a transcription perspective. I'cause I realise they write so much that that muscle And it's so you'll know about anyone, Harry. It's quite a It's an arduous task. Or uh there's only so much writing you can do per day until you're exhaust it. And as a result of writing so much I'd struggle to reply to text messages. Because I'd be using the sick it's like I've try m trained my triceps all day and now someone's asking me to do dips in leg. For fuck's sake.

1:23:39 And with Whisperflow, I'm now suddenly getting so much out there and I was like Oh People didn't stop writing. This is gonna become a bigger and bigger trend. People would be writing. I think both of those two things I'd unfortunately be short. So Americans are more likely to place a gambling bet

1:23:55 Than read a single book. Fewer than half of all adults reported having read a book of any kind in twenty twenty two, only thirty eight percent read a novel or short story, study analyzing two hundred and thirty six thousand responses. The American Time Use Survey found that the proportion of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023. Gambling has become a more common leisure activity than reading a book. with fifty seven percent of Americans placing a bet last year, but only

1:24:26 Less than half. Reporting reading a book of any kind. And this included audio books. They included audio books in that. I wonder is there I I've got okay, my my theory at the moment. Here's my here's my big theory. Friction.

1:24:38 is very good in life. Right, all the best things involve friction. So if you look at a TikTok, it it's very low friction, right? But then you look at a a YouTube video for five minutes, there's a bit more friction. Uh T V show that's half an hour. Okay, it's It's a bit of an effort. A movie.

1:24:53 Lot of friction. You read a book. I mean, come on, this is arduous.

1:25:00 But you get so much more out of the thing, the more friction there is. Like the the TikTok video you can't remember. No one ever says, Oh man, you've got to see my favorite TikTok video from twenty twenty five. It's awesome. But it's just it's nothing. It's gone. And the things that involve friction seem to seem to be better, but in all areas of life. Like the exercise, sports, arts, anything. More friction is better. I also feel like it's just a little bit about the story you tell yourself. So if I was when I personally watched a lot of TikToks, Instagram and whatnot, I would just tell myself that I was a bit of a loser and I walked around thinking that. And then when I when I read a a a full book, you know, I'm like, bloody hell, like I I can do things here and I think you really trans transmit it into the day. Yeah, you you put me on the stone that as a wonderful buck.

1:25:40 It is a wonderful book. Um what's it about? Uh it's about a it's about a guy called William Stoner, who lives on a farm with his parents, and he says He says to his dad, Dad, I want to go to university and learn about farming and his dad doesn't say many words to him, so his dad said, Okay, okay, whatever Pops off to I can't remember which university, Mississippi, maybe. And he um And um he he he starts his farming course and after about a semester he flips into English.

1:26:08 And he starts learning about books for the first time, there's a professor, and then the war starts and then the professor sort of gets th there's that amazing sequence as well, where he doesn't understand. He's like he's reading Shakespeare and he doesn't understand what it means. And he goes to his professor and goes, I don't know what this means. But he's like interested in it in a way that no one else is. He's like so excited by it, like I've got to know what this means. I don't know what it means. Yeah. It's like that's kind of the pivotal bit. It's a it the thing I I'm I'm amazed you read it. The thing I took from it is he he marries essentially marries the wrong woman.

1:26:40 And I think It's it's it's a Yeah. I I do think it's a booker. It's so about so many things, but one thing is about picking the person you marry, to be honest, because this this one woman he marry is really in a sort of sort of there's no there's no grand moment where she where she screws up his life. It's just sort of it's a thousand cuts, it's a thousand paper cuts. And and his life kind of just sort of becomes subservient to be abused by her father. She was abused by the father. Well no that's like it's never explicitly said, but it's kind of implied there's kind of a weird A father commits suicide randomly on on one sort of

1:27:10 Tuesday because there was a bank run. It's like the opening. Uh couple pages of the book where it starts with his death. And he works at this university. And

1:27:21 Nobody really noticed. And it's such a flip of a book because most books you have the giant hero, you have the Joseph Campbell. Whereas this is a man who lives such a mundane life. That that's actually interesting. That you see yourself or you see your potential worst self in them. One of my favorite songs ever. It's like

1:27:38 Low agency in the song. Have you ever heard Pearl Drum? Um it's called Elderly Woman behind a counter in a small town. Long, long song title. And it's just the point of view of this eighty year old woman.

1:27:51 who's never left a hometown, wish she she she did. And the guy who is her teenage sweetheart comes into the shop that she's in. And she recognizes him. And he knows

1:28:03 longer recognizes her. There's this beautiful line of I changed. By not changing at all. Small town predicts my fate.

1:28:10 And every time I listen to that song, it it's actually Way more inspirational than the hero's journey. And Stoner's enough. So how how Stoner ends is the bit I'll always remember from it, is he's on his deathbed. And before I tell you the the four sentence question, which I I like stuff with me. The the author of the book has a really different interpretation to everyone who read the book. It's also kind of weird. The author of the book's like, actually, no, he lived a pretty good life and he taught and he really loved English. But book book ends and s and William Stirner is is he's got his wife behind him and his his one kid who's sort of become an alcoholic. And he says, um he just starts saying this question over and over again. He says, What did you expect?

1:28:45 What did what did you expect? What did you expect? And I think what he's kind of referring to is like Like if you actually If you fast forwarded your life, William, when you were 20, this was always going to happen. You were going to die in like a little small old room with your wife who doesn't love you sitting by you. And and and he wrote one book which he wasn't particularly proud of. And he had a lovely affair, which actually kind of sounds bad, but actually wasn't bad because his his marriage was so screwed up. And he just says, What did you expect? And it was kind of thinking like Yeah, like God, like if you don't change w you know, that that's how I'll die. What did you expect, Harry? But he did I mean, for me, I think he changed massively.

1:29:18 'Cause it was a guy that was toiling the land for the first sixteen years. He was like working the land really hard. And then he made it to a university and he spent the rest of his life reading books. and teaching other people about his passion for books. It p it's beautiful. uh he achieved so much. But it's like you got compared to what? Well compared to the life his parents expected, which was just physical toil and putting food on the table. And he like that was all factored in. And then it's like, what did he accomplish beyond that? Well no, that's enough.

1:29:45 It's enough. And it's it it kinda goes to that Morgan Housell line of uh he talks about like happiness being Uh You can Um experience minus expectation. Yeah. Which is like what did you expect? Well, maybe you expected too much. Yeah.

1:29:58 Well that's the thing, because he's Uh outstripped his parents' expectations of him, but under Performed on his own expectations of himself, maybe. Not in the bedroom. Uh he he found a lovely young young woman who was um well not young, she was actually quite old.

1:30:13 What is it about young women today? Alright. What is it about young women today? I'll be clipped. That's a question. In other news, if you're trying to go from Joey Chestnut to Joey Swole, the RP Strength app is the best place to start. I've been in the gym for twenty years, and it wasn't until the past few years that I had the best training sessions of my life, and RP was a massive part of that. Actual scientists built this thing around one obsession. To beat up the high school bullies.

1:30:40 And provide the most science backed effective path to maximizing muscle gain. It tells you your exercises, how many sets, reps, and weights that you need to do, everything. So all that you have to do is show up and lift. If the RP app could wipe your ass for you. It probably would. And it adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing. For me, following a proper evidence-based plan has made a massive difference. And if you're serious about training, it'll do the same for you too. Right now we can get up to fifty dollars off the RP Hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below or heading to rpstrength.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom. a check out that's rpstrength.com slash modern wisdom. And modern wisdom. A check out.

1:31:18 What's what's your favorite drink you've ever read? The last one that worked. I mean it's it'll literally be the last a lot I try I try not to get attached to them. So it's that thing where you go, Well, I like the thing that worked the other night that worked for the first time. You go, Great, that's that'll do. So you rip em up, rip em up, rip em up. Yeah, it's like the new thing, the new thing, the new thing. And then you're kinda putting a show together.

1:31:37 And that's kind of an exciting phase, but just whatever the latest thing is. the good and the bad of any industry.'Cause The good thing. for you, I guess, that you get to constantly come up with new material. But it's also Like if you're a

1:31:51 No Gallagher and that's a two year stretch. And just those songs. Like the leverage of that exists. Forever. A lot of musicians kinda d uh like they they uh they don't want to end up in Las Vegas.

1:32:01 being a covers band of themselves. Yeah, so it's that thing where you go be careful what you wish for. Like I've constantly got to come up with new stuff. But that's also the fun bit is coming up with the new stuff. Well we was debating this once of If you could imagine

1:32:14 Uh impact and then doing it over time. You've done a incredible job of Like doing it over multiple decades. But a lot of musicians still have

1:32:23 That one album and then they can't repeat it ever again. Whereas some people like Christopher Nolan's probably in my my opinion one of the best who's managed to keep Going. Kanye, by the way, Kanye like is the best like college dropout. It's recent stuff, college dropout, late registration, eight o eight and heartbreak. Yeezus. My beautiful dots to fancy life of Pablo are just completely different outbirth. Yeah. But they're completely different albums. That's very rare. It is it's very interesting, I think. It's a very very interesting that thing of like genius.

1:32:57 People often talk about genius, but they they don't what they're talking about is like um hyper accelerated rationality. Not genius. I think genius is a different thing. Well, w once he has that kind of level of he's got a level of genius where you go he does all the crazy stuff that he does. That's part of it.

1:33:14 That's it's like it's almost like there's a there's a mental health thing going on. It's across the bear to exactly. And it's it's one of the thoughts I've had around LLMs. That you A L can write. Good. And this may change.

1:33:31 But right now it can write good. But he can't write great. And I think there's a little bit of a horseshoe theory. With great writing. What great writing is ki like next door neighbours to terrible writing. You've got to take risks. When you have something that's trained on the averages, it doesn't take risks. Like some of my worst ever pieces. A quietly link to my best ever write to. Yeah, I I I think that thing, like the

1:33:51 Average will be free. In the world of AI, average will be free and the very good will be very expensive. But excellent, we'll be very excited. I I think there's a sort of weird Text just a When you believe in something.

1:34:03 You you no one can see your belief in it, especially if it's words written down on a page. But I think you can feel when someone really believes in something. I think the problem with artificial writing or AI writing is like you don't actually believe it, you just got it kinda from the from the robot. And I think there's just a weird I you can tell when you read something. And you just know that the person really, really, really believes or believes it. I think of a I think of an advert, um, I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he he basically has this idea, I'm gonna suspend a car ab above um above uh the w uh uh the chap who made the car to prove how good the suspension is of the of the I think it was a Volvo.

1:34:39 And they say we can't get that past legal. So he says, Oh, it it's gonna be me then. So anyway, the writer of the ad suspends him spends this big car with wires just above above himself. And it's one of the most famous ads of all time. And it's like that only got across the line because he just really believed in it. And I I think your conviction in an idea It i is more important than the idea in in so many cases. It's often the way with comedy, especially with light edgy jokes. Intent is much more important than content. And people intuit. The intent.

1:35:08 They just know. I think a no McDonald's, like You give his material to someone else and he's gonna bomb. But because Norm had this weird like belief in a bad joke, it would become a good joke.

1:35:19 Yeah. What what could you say that no one else could say? That's his whole career. Like he only he could do that. Just Just a a a properly non fungible human. One of the reasons that AI uses very strange tropes. I told George about George about this the other week.

1:35:35 most writing that AI's trained on, the corpus of writing that it's trained on is not good books. Because most writing is not good. But it's not distinguished between the hundred greatest novels of all time and the millions and millions and millions of pages of anime fan fiction. That it's been trained on. So is there no weighting given? It doesn't give weighting to I don't think so. And even if it did, it would have to be so overly weighted, right? Some fourteen year olds

1:36:04 seventh sequel to the Twilight series or something. Th they just putting out on the the Like Like Tumblr account.

1:36:14 That should not it w it would require some it basically not exist, but it has been trained on it. Anyway, and what they did was they looked at a bunch of short stories that won a bunch of awards recently. There were some very obscure analogies that we used, talking about his stomach swallowing a shout. Which sounds like kind of evocative, but in the Uh

1:36:34 story felt a little bit clunky and it was a bit harsh and it didn't seem to be quite necessary so much. And They Use this AI to trace

1:36:44 where on the internet that piece of writing has been seen before. You know, you were talking about analogy being quite tried, or it it's so this sentence sounds like I've heard it before. It sounds like something you could have and they go and they actually find it and they found so many of the source material pieces were random anime fan fiction websites. So that is All writing of all time. Right. Lots of it.

1:37:07 Is good. Most of it's not. Yeah. And the total world that has uh AIs have been trained on includes this like just endless dross. It's gonna end up also I think Talib said this ends up being trained on itself a lot of the time now.

1:37:22 Correct. It's there's nowhere to go. Yeah. sort of premium on books pre twenty twenty two.

1:37:31 Because you know that they've not been written by AI. Yeah. 'Cause you know that n you know, there's kind of no help given as well. There's no editing, there's no they they did that in the old fashioned way. Oh. It's like losing weight before a Zenbic. Yeah. There's a there's an extra kind of flex on it. Yeah. Yeah, uh it was interesting you were talking about how coping mechanisms After gastric band surgery people uh sometimes commit suicide.

1:37:53 And gastric band surgery is quite dramatic. Sometimes the surgeons make really silly errors like leave utensils inside of people and sew them back up or bits of gauze and but the big reason that people commit suicide after gastric band surgery Is that The reason they were overeating

1:38:11 Was Probably because of an underlying emotional issue. Yeah. That's how they w they were using the food as a as medicine. Bingo. And they still have the underlying issue, but they're no longer able to use the food. Mm yeah.

1:38:22 So crazy. And the same thing with the phone. Right, what is the phone using chests and thirds, maybe being there to distract you from what so you shouldn't get a gastric band? I said it. I guess g I wonder what surely can you chat GPT, Jared, gastric band surgery what's been the impact of GLPs on gastric band surgery. That's the whaling industry. Literally. Yes. Hey, very good. That's gone. Very good. That's gone.

1:38:46 Yeah. Algorithmic. Or is it Like is it like a sort of algorithm in your brain which

1:38:53 insert topic, you know where to go, or is it intuitive? What's the say you're say you're roasting somebody. I mean you don't even know. No, I d I don't even think of it as being quick. It's often that thing of like I'll s I'll feel like I'm sitting on it for Ten seconds before I say it. And the the worst person for this is Lee Mac. Do you know Lee Mac? Yeah, yeah. Lee Mac. They often have to Put a thing into the edit.

1:39:13 And add a pause. Before he says the line. Because he's just like plows through it. He's like it's so quick. It's it's yeah, it's amazing. I had a question. Uh I had a question. It's actually it's it's about position Do you know who the biggest comedian on YouTube is?

1:39:29 And I'll give you a I won't give you a clue. He's actually four times bigger than Every single other comedian. Well it ain't me. Is it uh is it Matt Rive? No. Right.

1:39:40 I'm trying to think about it. You will know him. They drive first? I don't understand the question. No it

1:39:49 I'd I'd go Ron Atkinson. I'd say bang on. No way. Yeah, much big, yeah. Uh I feel like there's So I teach I teach advertising and they're like w within mister Bean is the the silent comic of say twenty first Century and I think um

1:40:06 He hasn't he has the best position. This is like the Charlie Chaplin of his day. So if you want if you want to get stuck in the mind, you want to get an idea stuck in the mind. What do you mean? A position I would say is the space you own. In the customer's mind. Like real estate. So say you've a picture like

1:40:24 um picture like one hundred filing cabinets or hundreds of thousands of filing cabinets in in your head and they've all got labels written on them. So if we were playing this with chocolate bars, like w chocolate bar for when you're hungry. best selling chocolate bar in the world would be Mm.

1:40:38 Snickers. Yeah, for a break would be Kit Kat. Yeah, sure. And then you'd go you take this to comedy Um a good example would be like English family friendly comedian. Bring the whole family sick. Okay. K Kay McIntyre, they own that space. And then you've got like don't take the whole family, don't sit in the front row, especially if you're English.

1:40:59 Right, yeah. Um I was thinking Frankie Boyle. All you've got Read by Guardian Readers. Um

1:41:06 Almost too clever for punchlines. Go on. Stuartley. Stuartley. That kind of w bang on. It's like it's the real estate you own and I I think it's So sorry, for to to take Mr Beast, he is the uh the only like most famous silent comedian and Oh sorry, Mr Bean. Mr Bean is very very different people from You know the Ron Atkinson story about Italy. No. Yeah, so when Rowan was first doing um

1:41:32 Uh, Mr. Bean, he uh he's a big car enthusiast and he likes to take a holiday. So he Basically carved out Italy. On the sales. of Mr. Bean? And so don't sell it in Italy.

1:41:44 And then it's crazy, we can sell it to T V channels all over Italy. No, I don't want to sell it to Italy. And they went, Well, why not? And he went, So I'll go on holiday. So for the first time. That's greatness. And then And then after like ten years there was some offer or something or whatever, and they translated it and they put it on in Italy and it's the biggest show in Italy. Ruined Holidays. Really ruined it. I I wonder how many Americans know what Mr. B he did a movie. Right, Mr Bean Ronacy. I think people do know. I think kids know and it's a it's that silent comedy thing, it light shines through. That must be great for an international audience. Exactly. I think that's because I think that is the point in warning. It's why Charlie Chaplin was so universal,'cause you didn't he he didn't speak. Mm. And then so I think movies started b movies then had sound again.

1:42:28 And Chaplin was at this kind of crossover period of like, I can now talk, but if I talk, I've kind of ruined what I've done for all these years. So I can't remember the film. I think it's called The The something or other. And it ends, and the only words Charlie Chapman ever asked are gibberish. And that's kind of how like his final silent movie ends, and it's just this perfect end to it to a to a film. Um how would you fix uh like how how do you go about fixing your position? What do you mean? Well, i I the I I so there's there's there's two things here. There's like a position is the space you own in the in the customer's mind. So Jimmy's got a pretty like you know, you go to a Jimmy Car gig, you're gonna get roasted, there's gonna be stagdues and now it's a little bit deeper, but you you know what you get. There's like a situation which you you would attend a a a a a a gig for. Um I suppose.

1:43:11 Then there's something called positioning. Which is how you organize the customer's mind. So I think Stuart Lee's a a funny example of this. Like when Stuart Lee, I think he retired from comedy. In nineteen ninety nine. And he had a good career. It was a very good career. He won an award at Hackney Prize or something like this. And then he starts writing uh on on TV shows like Radio Four and whatnot. And he returns to comedy in two thousand and one. And then I I I I saw Stuart Lee um live like four years ago and it was really good.

1:43:37 And Stuart Lee's kind of repositioned the competition in very implicitly, well actually not so implicitly, his set design was was one P um DVDs from like modern English comics. And he did lots of impressions of Russell Howard. And I think basically Lee's repositioning is like Is like very much. Us versus them. So there's three ways to get a space in the mind. You can be first, you can be only, or you can be against. And and Stuart Lee is very much against. So he kind of pops like Michael McIntyre, Peter K, Russell Howard, James Corden in this little box. Uh you picture that being the mind. And then and then that's mainstream, or that's like laugh a minute, and then there's Stuart Lee Who and he and he isn't punch line. He's like, you know, almost too clever for the punchline. Who else does like against? Like who who else has positioned themselves or what else has positioned himself against?

1:44:23 So I think I think Trump's a pretty obvious example of that. But also even like Coca Cola launched in eighteen eighty six. Liquid death. Yeah. Liquid death. I would s yeah, liquid death. Pepsi versus Coke. Yeah,'cause you almost create uh You almost create the you know, the David Foster Wallace line of the fish can't see the water. with like liquid death, you almost didn't even think about plastic water bottles'cause everything was plastic.

1:44:46 And then you suddenly create oh no, here's the water and here's the land, but you're creating something against. that people don't even realise you could be against. Yeah, I I think I w what do I think? Um I think be against is you probably see it more and more these days as the world gets slightly more polarised. I don't know.

1:45:02 I don't know. I d I mean I don't love it in comedy'cause I think it's kinda the narcissism of small differences. We're all doing the same job. Mm-hmm. or try and make people laugh and it seems that there's there's a there's a lovely camaraderie in that. that's that you're kind of missing out on if you're kinda punching against. I mean, does jealousy come a lot in in comedy? I don't think it should, but I think it does occasionally. I think there's that thing where for me comedy has never been about that because it's not like being an actor where you go, look, there's one guy's gonna p be bombed, right? There's one actor that's going to be announced as the new James Bond and none of the others are going to be.

1:45:35 And that's that must be heartbreaking for them. You can do the stand on Monday. It doesn't mean that the other guy can't do the stand on Thursday. You can play the theater. You can you can pack out the O two for five nights, but the then you're still there, someone else can play it the next night. And it's it's also that thing of like the more people that go and see live comedy and enjoy the experience. It's like it's kinda like the early days of rock and roll. You go, Yeah, the more people that go, the more people that want to go. And if they have a great experience and they want to go more. Grow grow the pie. Yeah, you want to grow the pie and you want be and the idea that that you go, well, there's different people that you like more or less But everyone's kinda doing the same it's the same. Intention. Certainly when it comes to content online, I think that the uh Against

1:46:12 For Balance. is actually skewed in against. I think there are more people Producing critiques via content. about four content.

1:46:22 Then there is four content. Like which would be relatively r I mean, you know, but the in some industries there's probably more people writing about football. than there are people playing football. But there's far more people paying attention to the playing of the football than the critique of the football. It spreads so much more uh fast like

1:46:40 Being critical of something is incredibly mimetic. Being for something is actually quite anti mimetic. So James, Adam of James. What was the company that was slandering Element, do you remember it? Um that James is doing the lawsuit against? Fuck. Not tides. Yeah. Uh the AI

1:46:57 health checking app. Yeah, like waves or something. It was completely like the guys butchered all of the studies, all the claims that he was making. But then the apology gets like a few thousand views. Yeah. And it's like the the um disparity between that. We was looking at somebody where there's this essay writer. And you can see this a lot with people that become these professional critics. Where they'll have a peace. The attacks.

1:47:26 A Chris or a tax somebody. I think it was super viral. And then you click on it. And you scroll back and you go, Oh, they've been doing this critique thing for a while. And you go you see when the moment they once did it.

1:47:37 Everything spiked? But if you go back further, it was just in the void. It was always optimistic or slightly creative content that wasn't working. And then this thing started to work. Yeah. Everybody against something is once a hopeless romantic for a person that was for something. Yeah it's like in politics, I I'm really frustrated with political political opinions just constantly being against things. I think i in UK politics right now, like what are you actually for? I think is a really it's an unanswered question. Like you look at all the parties and they they just love to sort of disagree with each other. And they don't love to actually stand on a you know, a table and and have their own opinion. But twenty twelve was the year where most people voted not for the opposition as opposed to for their own party.

1:48:18 That was the year in America where most votes were protest votes. I am not voting for the person I don't like as opposed to I am the person that I do like. Yeah, I I've been creating bots before bots were controversial. And one of the bots I wanted to create on Twitter is whenever you have like a cynic or somebody where it's just quoteweaking having a go Applying everything. It's just this dossier F C thing that then records them.

1:48:41 Oh. You sense that you should be following a different path. A more ambitious one. You felt that you were destined for other things. But you had no idea how to achieve them, and in your misery you began to hate everything around you. And that's some

1:48:55 It it's the perfect cynical line for the say. Oh man. That's heavy. Yeah, I didn't it feels to me like there's a kind of bank account that you're supposed to pay into or withdraw from, and if you find that you're critiquing more than creating, You're kind of in negative equity.

1:49:12 A sort of withdrawing from the system. more than you're putting things into it. This conversation with uh Eric Weinstein about a like a experts only mentality where a lot of people believe oh the only way That

1:49:25 You're allowed to talk on this topic. is if you're somebody that has all of the requisite qualifications and this sort of esteemed history behind you. But The reason the enforcement mechanism of that is people on the internet that are gonna call you out for see, he doesn't actually fully understand what he means by DNA R recombinate. You're like

1:49:44 All right, man, well that that just means that nobody can ever get to play with ideas publicly and everyone begins to be on Tenta hooks. Not worried. About maybe I'm gonna say something that's gonna get me rumbled. Like I I don't know. I it it doesn't Create

1:49:58 The what is it? The the Oxford manner, the ability to play gracefully with ideas. We very much lost the Oxford mana, the ability to say, Oh like I I I see I see what you were trying to get at there. And you look I you've made some Some errors of this side. But I think it's got it's it's interesting. Even if you're wrong about what you talked about, it's it's cool that you're trying to apply something from your industry. To one. That is new or is novel to you. So

1:50:22 Telling us your podcast though, Chris, like why it works. It's'cause it genuinely seems to fill that Space of like It's okay to not have things completely worked out and we're gonna work it out together. I guess what I think a lot of your conversations are. I think that's a good summary, yeah. I how to understand yourself and the world around you has kind of always been And also to

1:50:42 have there's a person in front of me or a bunch of people in front of me, like how do I make them Look as good as possible. I'm gonna try and draw out of them the best version of them as opposed to the opposite. There's far more people on the internet that are good at doing Critique. Mm.

1:50:57 take downs and breakdowns than I am. But I'm pretty good at going, Okay, what where's some As my dad would say, a a streak of piss in a pile of shit sometimes or you know, like silver lining on a how do you do that? Like how do you think silver lining is maybe a nicer expression. I think I think like I think we're workshopping writing today. I think maybe Daddy didn't win that one. Um just look, I I I understand I think I tend to try and give people the benefit of the doubt as best I can. I tend to try and yes and their ideas as opposed to no but their ideas. stress test them in a way as you were talking about intent versus content.

1:51:35 I w What do you mean by that? I'm not saying it because I'm trying to trip you up, I'm trying to be I'm trying to get you to strengthen your own argument. Buy drawing out an area. It feels a little bit sometimes you're having a really good conversation. It feels like running your hand across the top of a membrane and everything's kind of smooth and then you feel a little divot in something and you're like, Ha.

1:51:53 uh the flow of what was being said there just felt a little bit off. Oh, that's because there's a You you made a you said a word that I didn't understand, or there's a premise that I didn't feel was fully fleshed out, or you made this claim and I didn't really understand how it linked back to what we were talking about before. And that's the moment where it kind of breaches the threshold of me just Sitting and nodd nodding along and listening and then we go, Oh Can I Just I what do you mean by that?

1:52:15 Can I ask you, it's quite a hard question, but we had always five rules of writing. What would your five rules of communication be. That's good. Um

1:52:26 Speak precisely whenever possible. Which is not using more or fewer words than are needed. It's never Bad to ask the question why? Then said what do you mean by that?

1:52:41 Why? What do you mean? L those little moments I think allow people to dig deeper. Um I like it when you say you say like it's very uh quite infrequent but you go

1:52:51 Same more. Yeah. Same more. Like just to give someone and you know that they've got more. Yeah, just give them a little a little nickel. It's permission. They're being polite in the podcast and going, I don't want to say too much here, I feel like I'm I'm di monologuing. And you go, No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you that permission is great. Um so that's guess ending. Uh what else should I say? Using silence is probably one of the best tools. So just shutting the fuck up.

1:53:15 And getting the room. Space to breathe. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, actually and oh there we go. It was just a half step off from the next insight that you wanted to give out there and you're not making somebody rush, you know, m you know sort of driving them through it.

1:53:27 Uh Those will be some. Those will be soon I think that Talking.

1:53:32 Is the best example. the the ten thousand hour rule is a load of Nonsense. 'Cause everybody has done ten thousand hours.

1:53:41 Yes. It doesn't seem to Not everybody's a world class conversation, yes. But it again very, very um precise practice. I mean, me and you had this idea a long time ago. One of our prescriptions was if you want to get better at communication, have a fake podcast with a friend where you put your phone down on record once a week for half an hour, phones out of the room. You don't need to publish it. You don't need to put it anywhere. Listen back to it. listen to your verbal ticks and the flow of your conversation and how you talk over each other or how you actually give them a little bit of sp Oh, I quite like the way that if you really, really, really want to do it. But the easiest way to do it is to actually have a project.

1:54:15 Somebody who thinks I want to become funnier. Will take so much longer to become funny than somebody who has to step on stage and have all of the pressure of an audience. Someone that goes, I really want to improve my writing. Yo, yo, you're so good at writing. How do I improve my writing? You go, Are you writing for anything? Are you publishing anything at the moment? No, well you don't have the pressure of Developing a writing skill. Oh you you you um

1:54:36 Done really well with your communication. Are you part of a project that requires you to communicate. With Enough pressure and

1:54:45 scrutiny that means that you need to hone the skill. And if not I think this is like it's Hormosis thing of like going, it's the optionality. People want to get like the action perfection ratio is all wrong. People want to get kinda brilliant at something before they even start. and to have a perfect record. And I love the idea of like just being messy. Just having a messy start, trying something. Like you don't talk about jokes, you just try them. That's the problem though, what we were talking about while you're out of the room.

1:55:09 Uh the experts only idea. That Eric Weinstein has an issue with, and I I think I agree with too, which is if you're not allowed to use the Oxford manner to play gracefully with ideas, you're always going to get sniped at, especially early on. Well that's you know, that's stupid. How can you the the early stages of anybody's work tend to be scrutinized. not with the amount of discount that it should have. And I think it causes people to

1:55:34 They get worried. They're like fuck like what if I and isn't it ironic that a lot of the current uh Expert classes. built off some anti expert at one point that when Against that. How so? Well you go if you go back through most of science

1:55:48 Um a lot of Galileo. going against the Catholic Church, with the expertise at the time was uh Remarkably unpopular. Yeah. Conformity is a coffin and heresy is a cradle. Mm.

1:56:01 Mm. Yeah, it's interesting. I've told you that story about Copernicus, right? About the fact that he had the same insight as uh Galileo a hundred years earlier and sort of squeaked it out on his deathbed. He had this great work, De La Ruchonabus. And uh he was worried about Aya. From the church.

1:56:19 So had the same heliocentric Like learning. It took a full century. To do the next one. And you might say, Well, you know, stupid Copernicus, he should have said it, he should have shouted it from the rooftops, but Galileo was

1:56:30 forced to recant, kept under house house arrest for the rest of his life, like nearly killed Yeah w his treatment justifies the silence of the guy that came a hundred years before him. You familiar with that? Three humiliations. So Copernicus was the first, we're not the center of the universe. Darwin was the second.

1:56:49 We're no different to the animals. And then um Freud. was the third. We're not even in control of our minds. And then the fourth. is AI.

1:57:00 We're no longer the smartest thing. Just kind of I mean. It's not that humiliating. I can live with it. Well well, we when you've created it, I think there's a a degree of all of us feeling like we conscious that's why people have we did it.

1:57:14 We did it, guys. We did it. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's interesting that thing of the um Yeah, that kind of next step. if we get to it, if there's a abundance in the future. Be amazing.

1:57:30 Probably that. We're already here, right? It's already pretty bloody abundant. This is your indomitable optimism coming through. Um I'm uh very optimistic long term. Short term.

1:57:42 There will be problems. I always use the example of my morning routine. So my morning routine.

1:57:50 Everyone's dying to know it's much more than we feel. Sure, sure. Um I know you had your Well with Mike First and the goal. Oh yeah, my four year old quit clip about a four year old's morning routine. Yeah. Um My morning routine is I woke up this morning. On a bat.

1:58:05 I had a Hot shower. And I brush my teeth. Okay. Which sounds

1:58:11 Not that impressive. But uh Uh it's Emperor Augustus. The Emperor of Rome. Slept on a sack of straw.

1:58:18 Um Mary Antoinette. who was the gonna be the future queen of France at the time, but she was wandering around her palace at Versailles. They They used to throw their sewage.

1:58:28 out of windows'cause they didn't have toilets. It landed on a hat. Um Well it's Even like the air conditioning, which they didn't think about. President Garfield, who was the president in the late eighteen hundreds.

1:58:40 When he got shot. Because his body was overheating. They get. five hundred thousand cubes of ice to blow over him'cause they didn't have anything near air conditioning. I think King Louis's mouth rotted.

1:58:52 from the inside as well, because you can brush the teeth. So even when you look at the the David Foster Wallace thing, we're already in We're already in post abundance. It's just gonna potentially keep accelerating more and more. But when people get there, they won't think about it. And we was having this argument the other day. You were trying to talk about how uh we should de accelerate or potentially pause things. And just that Deutschline of Even the United Kingdom is a Uh artificial concept.

1:59:15 When you think about it. Like the hunter gavers wouldn't have been able to live in the United Kingdom. Who would have died on a cold winter night. From Uh

1:59:24 Uh From the c from the cult. Mm-hmm. So we're already living on Mars. Yeah.

1:59:30 Mayor. We're already living on Mars. It's but what I mean is when people talk about terraforming Mars, we've already terraformed the Earth. We're already living in unlivable places. That's the human thing to do. How do you feel about that, Harry? I

1:59:46 I feel like me and George disagree on most things in life. We agree on the most important stuff, but we disagree on everything else. We were talking about death the other day, George is very pro living for a long time and I don't I'm not pro living for that long time. Yeah, we had this whole we had this debate while watching the England game. Or is this the the who's the guy? Brian Johnson that wants to live forever. Yeah, it's if you what's the good edge? Well I think that thing where you got you got problems to solve. And you have um Uh dilemmas. That you just have to live with.

2:00:16 And death is the big one, right? Death is in the in the um the Muslims uh what they call it, the certainty. And I think you have to just make peace with it. Like it's gonna happen at some stage. You don't get to choose when. You just you don't get to uh choose how long your life is. But the but the depth and quality You can have a big effect on. Uh and that's that's why you should spend your time.

2:00:36 May I think that thing about it's It's absolutely inevitable. And the idea that these crazy, whatever, this guy trying to live forever. George wants to lunch the heat death of the universe. Maybe I wanna keep going, maybe. Well There's the live forever or immortal, which is just ridiculous, right? Because at a certain point you have the heat death of the universe. But

2:00:55 Living to one hundred and fifty that much significantly different than living to eighty? I did this uh uh research once with Claude. Where I was looking at if you have everybody able to live. Today. the average age. Then you had everybody ever to live ever the average age when they died. The average age of that room would be fifteen.

2:01:14 So we're all ready. Way past. And I use the example. The example I thought of the other day. Was

2:01:21 My dog this beautiful little burn a doodle called Barclay. Parents Day. It makes me sad. Yeah. Ten years from now, he's probably gonna die.

2:01:30 If I can take a dog's life from twelve to twenty four, is that bad? Sounds like a terrific thing. So what's the problem of going from eighty to one hundred and sixty years old for a human? I agree forever's a completely different concept and that's a very vague language. But Is a hundred and fifty or two hundred a necessarily bad idea,'cause we're already not dying at fifteen. Uh we're all dining with the devil and it just depends how long your spoon is. So like I'm not saying 120, whatnot, but like where does this where where does this end?

2:01:57 I also don't feel like it's our universe to roam for that long, you know? I feel like I feel like uh the old must make way for the new, man. Like there should be a ju there should be a new George Mac sat in that seat. I you got 10 more years of podcasting. And I think bring in the new George Mac, let's get some let's get some new insights. Like there should be a new Jimmy. You should be taken out the back of the shed. Well, there is that thing where you go, people are very scared of death. There's a there's a great Mark Twain said, I I wasn't alive for ten billion years before my birth and it didn't inconvenience me in the least. Kind of go, Yeah, it's just you go back to the same thing. We're in this brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness. And you got four thousand weeks.

2:02:34 What are you gonna do with it? You c you know, I think that thing about it is kind of a it does set the clock. Of going, Okay, what am I gonna do? And I think if you live if you're talking about hundred and sixty years, I think there's a there's a manana to that of kind of going, Well, you don't have to do anything now And actually the the sense of urgency that you have I think's quite it's kind of a rush of blood to the head.

2:02:54 Hundred so right now. I I I I don't even know where to start. Like I think I think um You live to a hundred and I mean hundred and sixty, right? You live to two hundred and sixty. How m that's how many wives you have, sorry. J just just just be let's just get down to the tackle. No, but it's also it's also how many kids like d y you have your kids, they have their kids, and at some point there's a like a deep heartbreak is gonna it's a really deep heartbreak. Go back to the dog argument and talk about why going from twelve to twenty four would be the worst thing for a dog. But you're not trying to extend the dog's life. You're trying to extend your own life. And I do feel like like like what about the lions out here? Are we still gonna be killing the cows? You know? Is there gonna be enough meat to feel these new humans who are just now powering on to five hundred? Well that's kind of interesting when you talk about like you know, we're talking about problems.

2:03:37 Uh in the world. And You talk about uh the environmental crisis that's going on now. Are you aware of like the uh the late sixties there was a uh book written that was about how overpopulation everyone was gonna starve. And it was gonna be kind of a a Mad Max.

2:03:51 Scenario. Is that mount malfusiam, or I got that wrong. Yeah, Malthusian trap. is when you have a growing population without resources that can support. So they they thought that we were going to run out of food. And basically two bits of um technology happened at the same time. So they figured out how to kind of uh GM wheat and grain. And they also found out how to do it with rice as well. And they they increased productivity by like four X in that time and basically we can sustain a huge number of people. Cause they worked out basically there's not enough land to support four billion people. And now we're eight billion and we're fine. It's really interesting, like how problems change. They also thought there was going to be a new ice age.

2:04:27 in the seventies. It's not that long ago in the seventies. And and now it's kind of more more worried about the heat. It's weird how it kind of changes over time. Well hopefully We're sort one step ahead and we solve it. Isn't there a A Roman port.

2:04:40 That's like a hundred miles off the coast from where the The coast used to be. I'm pretty sure that because there was Uh an Ice Age.

2:04:50 Not that long ago. And during the Roman Empire the entire climate was was significantly different. that their ability to invade the UK was facilitated by the fact But here it is. Once a major coastal port and likely the landing area for the Roman invasion of AD forty three is now about two miles inland.

2:05:08 Because the Wantson channel sweeted up. Interesting. Anyway. Romans may. We've gone to the Romans. This is what men are meant to do every two hours. Reference the Romans. I've been thinking about it the whole time that being sure. Simple question.

2:05:23 Who do you want to be the next Prime Minister of England? Assuming there's no like uh they can be. They want to be anyone in the world, you could you could you could ship'em in at a a laf. That's good. Dominic Cummings. He had a go. Yeah to go. And I think the thing with D ask who do I think could get elected. Okay. But the Mike's yeah, I'm gonna you got me talking, right? Mr. Cummings.

2:05:44 Um I think he's really competent. And And not that likable. And I feel like there's a real kind of like what you want in in a leader is really competent.

2:05:56 While also being kinda likable. Okay, what was Keastama? Neither, man. I mean he's gone now, but I don't think anyone's gonna forget Keith Starmer in a hurry.

2:06:09 Lee Quan U. Lee Quan U would be good. League coin new is really interesting,'cause that that kinda Singapore example. There's a guy Roger Bootle. um who's a brilliant economist and a great writer. Um I know him a little bit. And I think if you look at Roger Bootle's kind of assessment of what Britain needs

2:06:27 it's a really good checklist of what like he says there's no silver bullet, there's no big solution that changes everything. And he gives these eight examples from around the world of like where extraordinary things have happened and countries have turned themselves around. So from post war Germany to post war France to South Korea. North Korea, uh, Singapore, all of these different examples of that. How did those economic miracles happen? How did people get from uh relatively poor circumstance to abundance? And it's it's brilliant because it's like it's lots of little things done right. I think he'd be a great guy to have in charge. And

2:07:01 Can he talk? Does it matter he can talk? He's he's uh very likable and his thing is like it's not really about the uh he's a big fan of the um the Singaporean dude. Uh but He's not really about like uh charisma in the leader. It's more about okay, these are the things that you need to do. These are the priorities that a country needs to have. And you need to know what Um

2:07:23 what GDP is for. You need to know what what are you doing this for? Why do you need this to be? What's the what's the purpose of this nation? What's the point of it? And that's he's very good on that stuff. Who do you want? My so we I talked about this yesterday, I genuinely the girl I'm dating I think would be a good pick.

2:07:40 Um keep her busy, right? Bro, bring your fucking chick to work day. I that's who I'd pick right like right here, right now, I'd bet she's American, so I'm not sure how that would go down. Bring your chick to work today. This is this is what's happening. You're gonna Implant your lady. At the top of the country.

2:07:55 Uh what is she doing currently? uh applied fiat. Applied theater. Yep, she's the one for the job. It's gotta be, isn't it? Yeah. Salt. Judge. Yeah, Dominic Cummings. Oh, you in cards. Okay. Who do you want?

2:08:12 He's an old he's an old like Cummings is like that old Labrador, you know, he's beam around the track. Like I I think fresh energy. Jimmy? No. If I if I said

2:08:24 I'd like Mr Carr to lead us into the next century. What would you say? I I'd say that we've We made a mistake. In the early eighties and we shut down all of the asylums. And now the crazy people are just wandering around.

2:08:39 No, I th I I think I I I I don't know if you're familiar with uh recent American history, but game show hosts have become politicians recently and not always with scalar results. Two shaw Give me a

2:08:53 You give it to the England manager. That's not a bad shot. Or you could put Gareth Sand again. Given that he's got the given that he's got the job for it. All right, boys. Give it gigsy to the end of season. Give it gigsy. Let's bring this one home. I appreciate you all. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, it's really fun. Goodbye, my beauty. See ya. Uh.

2:09:14 So

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.